Royal Chivalry (Al Futtuwa)

In the West, we have vague notions of chivalry of being something to do with the 'knights of old', King Arthur or even just Walter Raleigh and his lampooned 'cloak over the puddle' image. (Can our current leaders be seen as chivalric? Prince Charles maybe...). We also have the strange notion that the so called 'age of chivalry' occured around the 13th century when the evil force of 'the crusades' swept abroad. True the word itself comes from, we're told, the French chevalier, meaning horseman or knight. But the sacred code of conduct exists far beyond European recent history.

Chivalry (futtuwa) and courtesy (adab) are actually essential parts of the Sufi path. Sufism's inward aspect consists of traveling the Path and the traversing its stations to attain the level of subsistence-through-God (baqa). Its outward aspect consists of the tradition of chivalry which constitutes the development of the attributes of perfect humans.

In the pre-Islamic Middle East tradition of chivalry, chevaliers had consideration for others; self-sacrifice; devotion; the helping of the unfortunate and unprotected; kindness towards all created beings, keeping one's word and self-effacement. They were comitted to a particular code of etiquette and conventions.

The chivaliers were absorbed into Islam on it's arrival and it's spiritual focus on divine love.

The very essence of the nature of the Prophet Muhammad is chivalric which is why sufis and chevaliers became one.

It is the sufis that are the real chevaliers, or spiritual warriors, continually battling the armies of materialism with the swords of love and light and truth from the armory of the true Paradise they have discovered.

 The perfect example of this level of control and chivalry is demonstrated by the conduct of Hadrat Ali ibn Abu Talib ( RA ) a companion of the Prophet ( SAW) who once , in the midst of battle was about to slay his opponent. As he raised his sword to strike, his enemy spat in his face.Hadrat Ali immediately dropped his sword & refused to kill his opponent, "what is wrong with you, why do you not strike ?" the man asked "because before you spat at me I was fighting you for the sake of Allah Almighty" Ali ( RA ) replied, "but after you spat I was fighting you because I was angry - and as a muslim I can only fight for Allah , never for my own Nafs."Upon hearing this, Ali's ( RA) opponent recongnized the nobility & truth of his words and immediately accepted Islam.

(Hazrat Shah Bahauddin Naqshband)

Spiritual chivalry means to restrain yourself from causing trouble while giving freely.
— Junyad

Spiritual chivalry means that native and foreigner are the same to you.
— Muhammad ibn Ali al-Tirmidihi

 "Alaa inna awliya-ullahi laa khawfan 'alayhim wa laa hum yahzanoon"

"Nay they are the Friends of God, no fear shall come upon them neither shall they grieve."
(Yunus, 62)

The todays master of islamic royal chivalry is his Highness Mawlana Sheik Nazim Adil al Haqqani. Here followed by a few informations about his holy life, to give us a vague understanding of his rang in the devine presence.

His Seclusions

Shaykh Nazim's first seclusion by the order of Shaykh 'Abdullah Daghestani was in the year 1955, in Sueileh, Jordan. There he spent six months in seclusion. There he attracted thousands and thousands of disciples, so that Sueileh and it surrounding villages, Ramta and 'Amman were full of the disciples of the shaykh. Scholars, officials and so many people were attracted to his light and his personality.

When he had only two children, one daughter and one son, he was called by our Grandhaykh Shaykh Abdullah ad-Daghestani, to meet him. He told him, "I have received an order from the Prophet (s) for you to make seclusion in the mosque of 'Abdul Qadir Jilani in Baghdad. You go there and make seclusion for six months."

After difficult circumstances of leaving his family and travelling to Baghdad, Shaykh Nazim arrived at the mosque of Sayiddina Abdul Qadir Jilani. Of his seclusion there he relates:

"I only emerged from my room for the five prayers. Other than that I spent my whole time in that room. I was able to reach such a state that I was reciting the whole Qur'an in nine hours. In addition to that I was reciting 124,000 times the dhikr 'laa ilaha ill-Allah' and 124,000 prayers on the Prophet (s) (salawat) and I was reading the entire Dalail al-Khayrat [book of devotions]. Added to that I was regularly reciting 313,000 'Allah Allah' every day, in addition to all the prayers that were assigned to me. Vision after vision was appearing to me every day. They used to take me from one state to another and give me a state of complete Annihilation in the Divine Presence."

Many times Shaykh Nazim was ordered to go into seclusion which varied in length from 40 days to one year. He did many seclusions in the city of the Prophet (s).

"No one ever had the privilege of making seclusion with his shaykh. I had the privilege of making a seclusion in the same room with my shaykh in Madinah al-Munawwara. It was in an ancient room near the Prophet's Holy Mosque. It had one door and one window. As soon as I entered the room with my shaykh, he blocked the window by boarding it up. He gave me authorization to leave the room only for the five daily prayers in the Holy Mosque of the Prophet (s).

From His Sayings

One time he was speaking about the state of Unique Oneness (wahdaniyya):

"It means the impossibility of the existence of multiplicity, and it is of three categories:

1. The unique Oneness of the Essence. This means that His Essence is not compounded or combined from two or more parts, and there is nothing which resembles His Divine Essence.
2. The Unique Oneness of His Attributes. This means that God Exalted and Glorious, does not possess two kinds of Attributes which represent the same thing. For example, He does not have two Wills nor two Intentions. He is One in every attribute.
3. The Unique Oneness of His Actions. It means that He is the Creator by His Own Wish and His Own Will of everything that appears in this universe. All creations are either a substance or a description or an action. Thus all His Actions are created by Him for His servants."

"If the love is true, then the lover must keep respect to the Beloved and ethics in manners with Him."

"God the Most High, has made His intimacy with His servants when they see His saints."

"The highest Certainty of Truth is when the shaykh glorifies the Divine Presence in your eye and diminufies everything other than God."

"There are three big snakes that harm human beings:

• to be fed up with the people around you;
• to be accustomed to something you cannot leave;
• to be controlled by your ego;"

"To achieve in the worldly life is humiliation, and to achieve for the next life is honor. I am so amazed at those who prefer humiliation to honor."

"If God, Exalted and Glorious, revealed the Essence of His Divine Love, everyone on earth would die from that love."

"We must always think about four matters: pondering on God's verses in the Holy Qur'an and his signs, which cause love to evolve in us; thinking about His Promise to reward us, and that will generate and bring forth in us yearning; thinking about His Warning us of punishment which will generate in us shyness of God, and make that feeling evolve in us;"

"God said, 'Whoever will be patient with Us will reach Us.'"

"If fear of God is grounded in the heart, the tongue will never speak what is of no purpose."

"Tasawwuf is the purity in progressing to God, the Exalted and Glorious' Divine Presence, and its essence is to leave this materialistic life."

"One time Junayd saw Iblis (satan) in a vision, and he was naked. He told him 'O Accursed one, are you not shy of people to appear naked?' He said, 'O Junayd, why should I be shy of people that are not shy from themselves.'"

"When you meet a darwish, a faqir, a seeker in the way of God , begin with him with sincerity and loyalty and with lenience. Don't begin with him with knowledge. Because knowledge might make him wild at the beginning, but leniency might bring him quickly to you."

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