last friday up to monday, the naqshbandi haqqani murids of sydney and melbourne flocked together in the melbourne zawiya [map].
it was a great, long weekend with (almost) non-stop zikr parties, in various forms: the ultimate khatm khwajagan, hadrah, whirling, and so on, including fixing the zawiyah gate. the sydneysiders started coming on friday. there were some reading sessions. the first one was the biography imam bahauddin naqshband as written in as-safi’s “beads of dew from the source of life”. the second was the biography of imam ja’far as-saddiq as written in shaykh hisham’s “the naqshbandi sufi way: history and guidebook of the saints in the golden chain”. if my memory serves me correctly, that was followed by the biography of shaykh sharafuddin ad-daghestani from the same book. we had khatm khwajagan everyday (except monday, when most sydneysiders had flown back home). saturday evening was extraordinarily crowded, as many usual melbourne frequenters also came. on sunday, we had a barbie. my wife cooked some food for the first three days. and of course, everyday was filled with zikr, zikr, and zikr.
i felt rest in my heart throughout the activities. i didn’t actually want to occassionally leave the zawiya, but it wasn’t realistic to do so. even the atmosphere gave me such an extraordinary comfort that i kept attracted to it. in the past, when i still involved myself with some other islamic sects, sometimes i also joined get-togethers. but it was different. with fellow spiritual sunni muslims, i feel love, not politicised religion (you can guess which sect this is) nor finding faults in other people (you almost likely know which sect it is). and that was exactly what i felt. i saw noone at all with dark or gloomy aura. here, it was just working together fighting the ego and seeking the pleasure of god and his messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), asking blessings from god through his messenger through the saints, and particularly through our master, the king of saints.
support us, o, our truthful master…
