May all prayers and blessings be upon Muhammad Mustafâ ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’, who is His Prophet and the most beloved of His born slaves, and who is in every respect the most beautiful and the most exalted of all mankind that ever lived. May prayers and blessings also be upon the highest of people, his Ahl-i Bayt, on his Ashâb ‘ridwanullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaihim ajma’în’ and on those who love them and follow them.
I received my elementary education at Rashâdiya Numûna School in Eyyûb Sultan, in my home town of Istanbul. I acquired religious training and religious knowledge in my home and in elementary school. As I was beginning my education in Hal›c›oğlu Military Junior and Senior High School, the Qur’ân al-kerîm and religious lessons were being removed from schools. None of our teachers taught religious lessons. I regarded my teachers as great, mature, and I wanted to respect them highly. But I was disappointed to see them attacking my sacred beliefs. I vacillated between belief and disbelief. Pondering with my young brain, I scrutinized all the information which I had learned as religious knowledge. I saw that all of it was useful, good, valuable, and I couldn’t sacrifice any of it. I remained between these two influences for six years. My friends, with whom I had been fasting and performing ritual prayers of salât a few years earlier, were deceived by the slanders of the teachers and newspapers, and they gave up worshipping. Left alone, I was all the more confused. I wondered if I were wrong, if I were on a wrong path. In 1929, I was eighteen years old and in the last year of high school. It was the Qadr Night, and we had gone to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I jumped out of my bed, confused. I was alone in my thoughts, in my îmân (belief); I was uneasy; I was utterly exhausted. I went out into the yard. The sky was full of stars. Against the shrine of Hadrat Khâlid ibni Zayd Abû Eyyûb al-Ansârî, the sparkling waves of the Golden Horn sounded as if to tell me: “Don’t worry, you are right.” I sobbed and cried. I entreated my Allah, “Oh my Allah! I believe in Thee, I love Thee and Thine Prophets. I want to learn Islamic knowledge. Protect me from being deceived by the enemies of my religion!” Allah accepted this innocent and sincere supplication of mine. I dreamt of Hadrat ’Abdulhakîm-i Arwâsî, the treasure of karâmats and ma’rifats[1], an ocean of knowledge, and later I met him in a mosque. He welcomed and invited me. While I was in the Faculty of Pharmacology, I attended his lectures in Bâyezid Mosque three times a week. Afterwards, I would go to his home. He pitied me. He taught me sarf, nahw (Arabic grammar), logic and fiqh (commands and prohibitions of Islam). He read to me and and taught me many books. Also, he had me subscribe to the French newspaper Le Matin. He taught me Arabic and Persian. He had me memorize “The Eulogy of Amâli” and The Poems of Khâlid-i Baghdâdî. His company was so sweet, so useful that many a day I stayed with him from morning till midnight. Today, the moments which I live recollecting those days in his company are the happiest moments of my life. Until 1936, while a tutor in the Military Medical School, I both attended the Masters of Science classes of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and at the same time gathered knowledge and ultimate benefits from the preachings and from the company of that Islamic scholar. The dirt of disbelief in my heart was cleared off. I realized that Islam was the one and only source of happiness both in this world andinthe next. I saw that the persons whom I formerly had deemed great were like children when compared to Islamic scholars. I understood that some of the things which they described as knowledge were quite far from knowledge, science, and were nothing but enmity against Islam, full of grossly made-up plans and slanders. After 1936, when I was in charge of Mamak Chemical Laboratory, he told me to learn German and read The Maktûbât of Imâm-i Rabbânî ‘quddisa sirruh’ continuously. At every opportunity I came to Istanbul and picked pearls and corals in that ocean of ma’rifat. After the setting of that sun of knowledge, I was accepted to the private class of his blessed son, the virtuous Sayyid Ahmad Makkî, the Mufti of Scutary and later of Kad›köy. With great mercy and proficiency, he trained me in fiqh, tafsîr (explanation of the Qur’ân), hadîth, ma’qûl (knowledge which can be acquired by means of the intellect, i.e. science), manqûl (religious knowledge), usûl (methods and basic facts), furû’ (a branch of Islamic knowledge), and he graduated me with full authorization on a Sunday, 27th Ramazân 1373 [1953 A.D.].
After 1947, during my teaching career, I strove to pour my knowledge, which was like a drop of water from an ocean, into the souls of the youth, and to instill this knowledge in their fresh brains blooming like buds. From the light of îmân (belief) burning inside me, I wished to throw a spark into the pure heart of each of them. Alhamdulillah! Allah gave me the facilities, and in 1956, it fell to my lot to publish the first volume of Se’âdet-i Ebediyye, which I had prepared after many years of hard work. It was only a few pages, but it was filled with very useful information as is the sweet and healing honey collected from fragrant flowers.
That little book, prepared according to the Hanafî Madhhab, had not been advertised in newspapers or magazines, nor had it notices all over walls. The book had been delivered to the shelves of a small corner bookshop. Noble-souled and faithful youngsters, who would not depart from the luminous and auspicious way of their ancestors, who always yearned to learn their faith, looked for this little book and found it. They rushed on it, and, in a short time, not a single copy was left.
The innocent children of those martyrs and ghâzis (fighters for Islam), who many years ago had won the war of independence by fighting like infuriated lions against the enemies who attacked their motherland, today also, are following their fathers’ path with the same love and faith. And, likewise, they are striving to protect their îmân as well as their independence against every sort of aggression. They run towards right, reality, and truth. They cling to the Qur’ân al-kerîm.
History reveals to us the cruelties and evil ways of kings and dictators who attacked Islam in order to conceal their massacres and perfidy, and who wanted to deceive everyone for the sake of their own comfort and pleasure. Cruel enemy commanders and bigoted armies of the crusaders were always thwarted by Muslim Turkish heroes. Being unable to pass over the chests full of îmân of our ancestors, they fled, leaving their weapons and their dead behind.
History shows again that Islam has been an inspiration for developing more intellectual and more courageous people, who in turn develop superior, more up-to-date, and more scientific means of war and other civilized apparatuses. The irreligious have always been left behind in knowledge, in science, in arms, and in courage. Every Islamic army succeeded when the Ahkâm-i-islâmiyya (commands and prohibitions of Islam) were followed in every respect, whereasa relative decrease in success was witnessed in the soldiers and the commanders of the same army when they deviated from Islam. Establishment, improvement, decline and fall of every Muslim State have always been closely related to their adherence to Islam.
Irreligious dictators bloodstained their hands and dominated lands, and by oppressing people with cruelty and instigation and by employing them like animals, they established heavy industries of war, tremendous factories, made superior weapons and threatened the world. Yet, in the course of history, they all quickly fell and have always been remembered with curses. Their traps, hastily set like a spider’s web, were blown away by a mere slightest power, like the fresh morning breeze. They left behind nothing for humanity. And now, however great and powerful the states which are based on irreligiousness might seem, they will certainly fall; cruelty won’t survive.Such disbelievers are like a match, which will flare up suddenly and set fire to light things such as straw and sawdust. It may burn the hand and probably destroy houses, yet it will soon go out and perish. As for those administrations based on Islam; they are like the radiators of a central heating unit. The radiator does not burn anything. By heating the rooms, it gives comfort to people. Its heat is not excessive or harmful, yet it possesses a source of heat and energy. Likewise, Islam is like a useful source of energy. It nourishes and strengthens individuals, families and societies embracing it.
The mercy, the favors, and the blessings of Allâhu ta’âlâ are so great that they are actually unlimited. Having mercy overHis born slaves, He revealed through an angel to His Prophets the good deeds to be done and the evil deeds to be avoided. He revealed also the holy books conveying His commandments to them so that they could live on the earth brotherly, happily and in comfort and thereby attain eternal happiness, and the endless blessings of the Hereafter. Only the Qur’ân al-kerîm has remained intact, but all the other books were changed by malevolent people. The more you observe the fards (commandments) and harâms (prohibitions), that is, the principles (ahkâm) in the Qur’ân alkerîm, the happier and the more comfortable a life will you be able to lead, no matter whether you are an atheist, a Believer, aware or unaware of it. This is similar to the fact that a good medicine enables everybody to get rid of his pain and problem, if it is used. That is why those who are non-Muslims, or even atheists, and some nations that are the enemies of Islam are successful in many of their businesses, and lead a very happy and comfortable life by working in conformity with the laws in the Qur’ân al-kerîm. On the other hand, many people who claim to be Muslims, and who do their acts of worship as a mere formality, are living in misery and discomfort because they do not follow the divine rules and the high morality written in the Qur’ân al-kerîm. To attain eternal happiness in the Hereafter by following the Qur’ân al-kerîm, it is necessaryfirstto believe in it, and then to follow it consciously and intentionally.
Those who are against Islam because of ignorance learned from the bloody, dismal experiences they had had for centuries that unless the îmân of the Muslim people was demolished, it would be impossible to demolish them. They attempted to misrepresent Islam as hostile towards knowledge, science and bravery, while, in fact, it is the protector of such things, encouraging every kind of progress and improvement. They aimed at depriving the young generations of knowledge and faith, thus shooting them on the moral front. They spent millions for this purpose. Some ignorant people, whose weapons of knowledge and belief had been rusted and who had been seized by their ambitions and sensuousdesires, were easily destroyed by these attacks of the enemies. A section of them took shelter behind their posts and professions, pretended to be Muslims, disguised themselves as scientific men, authorities and religious scholars, and even, protectors of Muslims, while continuing to steal the belief of innocent youngsters. They misrepresented evils as talents, and irreligiousness as a virtue, a current fashion. Those who had faith, îmân, were called fanatics, bigots, fuddy-duddies. Religious knowledge and the valuable books of Islam were said to be reactionary, retrogressive and bigoted. By imputing the immorality and dishonourableness, which they themselves had, to Muslims and to great men of Islam, they strove to slander those noble people and sow discord between children and their fathers. In the meantime, they spoke ill of our history, attempted to blacken its shining and honourable pages, to blemish the accurate writings, to change the events and proofs of it and sever the youth from faith and belief in order to annihilate Islam and Muslims. In order to untie the sacred bonds which placed into young hearts the love of our ancestors, whose fame and honour had spread throughout the world owing to their knowledge, science, beautiful morals, virtue and bravery, and to leave the youth deprived of and alien to the maturity and greatness of their ancestors, they attacked hearts, souls and consciences. Thus there came into being a new Muslim generation too befuddled to realize that as Islam became weaker and as we got further away from the path of Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’, not only were our morals corrupted, but we also gradually lost our superiority in making every kind of means, and in understanding contemporary knowledge, which the present century requires. We could no longer maintain the accomplishments of our ancestors in military defence, in science and arts; instead, we changed for the worse. Thus, these masked disbelievers tried, on the one hand, to cause us to lagbehind in knowledge and science, and, on the other hand, they said, “Islam caused us to lag behind. In order to cope up with Western industries, we have to abolish this black curtain and get rid of the oriental religion, which consists in laws of the desert.” Thereby, they demolished our material and spiritual values, and dealtour country the fatal blow which the enemies outside had been wishing but failed to do for centuries.
Allâhü ta’âlâ has given all people numerous benefits and blessings. As the greatest, the best of these, He has sent Prophets and Messengers and has shown the way to eternal happiness, declaring in Sûra Ibrâhîm, âyat 7 (which purports): “If you appreciate the value of My gifts and if you use them as I command, I will increase them. If you don’t appreciate them, if you abhor them, I will take them back and torture you vehemently.” The reason why Islam has been in such a deplorable state for a century – especially recently, it has gone quite far away, leaving the world covered with the darkness of disbelief and apostasy – is solely because of Muslims’ not appreciating the blessings of Islam and turning away from them.
As Allâhu ta’âlâ employs those whom He loves as tools for auspicious deeds, so He employs at evil places those who bear hostility towards Him. Those who cause loss of Islamic blessings are of two groups:
In the first group are disbelievers who divulge their disbelief and hostility. They strive to demolish Islam by using all their armed forces, their means of propaganda, and political tricks. Muslims know them and struggle to be superior to them.
The second group of disbelievers pass themselves as Muslims, pretend to be Muslims, introduce themselves as religious men and try to turn Islam into a shape conformable to their opinions, pleasures and sensuous desires. They want to make up a new religion under the name of Islam. They try to prove their words correct through tricks and lies, and deceive Muslims with their fluent expressions. Although most Muslims recognize these enemies from some of their statements and activities intended to destroy Islam, because they are very well organized, some of their sayings have become current and widespread among Muslims. The Islamic faith has been gradually degenerating and turning into the shape planned by these disbelievers.
Also, some others say, “In order that we may survive in the present century, we should westernize ourselves altogether.” This statement has two connotations. Firstly, it means learning and adopting what the Europeans have invented in science, art, in the mediums of improvement and progress, and to strive to utilize them, as Islam commands. I explained in some parts of my books with documents that this is fard kifâya to learn. As a matter of fact, a hadîth of Rasûl-i akram (the Prophet) states: “Hikmat (i.e. science and art) is the lost property of the Muslim. Let him take it wherever he finds it!” Yet, this does not mean to follow the Europeans; it means to find and acquire knowledge and science even from them and striveto be superior to them. The second type of westernization involves abandoning the righteous and sacred ways of our ancestors; accepting all the traditions, customs, immoralities, and obscenities of the West; and also accepting their irreligiousness and idolatry, and thus converting mosques into churches or museums of ancient art, which is the most dismal stupidity of all. Calling Islam an “oriental religion,” a “backward religion” and the Qur’ân “laws of the desert” while at the same time referring to idolatry and the mixing of music with worship as a “western, modern, and civilized religion” is in fact an act of abandoning Islam, turning to Christianity, and worshipping with musical instruments.
The enemies of Islam should know very well that the noble blood circulating in the veins of these people will not be westernized in this sense, neither today nor in the days which they look forward to. And our people will not become communists or let the sacred beliefs of their ancestors be trodden underfoot.
Another force trying to demolish Islam is those books and magazines which appear to be written for the purpose of spreading Islam and silencing the enemies of the religion. But when these religiously ignorant people, who know nothing about îmân and Islam and who have not comprehended the reality, the inner spirit, the delicacy of tasawwuf, become authorities in worldly affairs, they pass themselves as religious scholars and
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write religious books in order to propagate the things which they mistake as Islam, or solely to earn money out of it. It is seen with utter grief in these books of theirs that they cannot understand the words of great men of religion, and that, as a result, they write most of the delicate information erroneously. They introduce some lâ-madhhabî people and religion reformers, who have recently appeared in some countries, as Islamic scholars. Their books are translated and presented to youngsters as a source of religious knowledge. But, in actual fact, these books are destructive and divisive because they have beenwritten by people who are ignorant and have heretical ideas. They ignorantly and foolishly slander our brothers in order to prevent the publication and distribution of our books, which teach and elucidate how harmful, corrupt, and disgraceful they are. Also, we prevent them from making money, and from exploiting millions of people. We hear that some hypocrites who sell the religion for worldly benefits claim that we have been practising tarîqat, which is an ugly slander against us. They try to make us guilty before the laws so that our books will be banned officially. However, nothing has been written about the tarîqat in any of my books. Yes, there is information about the tarîqat in my books, but these are translations from the books of some scholars of tasawwuf, who lived in previous centuries. Or, rather, we too are trying to read and understand them. I have never had any relations with a tarîqat or a shaikh.
It is true that I myself saw a real Islamic scholar. I had the honour of learning the essence of Islam and the highest Islamic knowledge from him. He was like an ocean of Islamic, scientific and historical knowledge. Seeing his great moral character, which originated from Islam, I had enormous respect for him. I never heard this noble person say anything to imply that he had anything to do with being a shaikh or murîd. He was constantly warning us that some practitioners of the tarîqats, whose names had been being heard of before and after the closing of dervish convents, were not following Islam or the knowledge of tasawwuf, and that they were dangerous. Today, books of tasawwuf are being written in many languages throughout the world. Under the guise of sufism, it is a crime to derive personal benefits from the false and bad practices that are not tasawwuf. It is not a crime to write tasawwuf books, or to praise the knowledge of tasawwuf. The scholars of tasawwuf rejected the leaders of this type of tarîqat and informed people that they were thieves of religion and that they were ruining Islam itself. I, myself, say in my books and lectures, “A Muslim should not violate the law. It is harâm to cause fitna.” Would a person advocating this do anything against the law? It is understood, then, that those jealous people, who are my slanderers, mistook me as a munâfiq (hypocrite) like themselves. They are absolutely wrong. I do not use the word “munâfiq” here to mean kâfir, but rather I mean those who are two-faced and whose interiors are not the same as their exteriors. Also, it is written in the book Hadîqa, in the section on the âfats (harms) incurred by way of speech that the type of nifâq (speech), which is done by talking or with the tongue, is not kufr (disbelief), yet it is harâm. These poor people butter the bread of the enemies of Islam on purpose or inadvertently and cause more harm to Islam than do their oppressors. The unsuspecting Muslims who read their books and booklets, or magazines, especially the innocent youngsters thirsty to learn the sacred faith of their noble and brave ancestors, deem them religious scholars and embrace their aberrant, wrong writings, supposing them to be embodiments of faith and belief. The ignorant people who exploit our holy religion as a tool to earn money, position, rank and fame, in short, who try to gain worldly advantages, are called Ulamâ-i sû’, that is, yobaz (seditious), ill-natured scholars. These ill-natured people and those pseudo-scientists, that is, zindîqs who pose as scholastic scientists, misrepresent true scientific knowledge with their own treacherous ideas. Thus, they try to demolish and pull down Islam. These people hurt this nation a great deal. They instigated enmity between brothers. They caused civil wars. The Islamic religion commands us to be united, to love and help one another, to obey the government and the laws (not to cause fitna, i.e., anarchy), to take care of and protect even the rights of disbelievers, and not to hurt anybody. Our ancestors sacrificed their worldly comforts and advantages, and in order to protect the faith and belief of their descendants, they wrote valuable books and left them as a legacy to us. We should learn our holy faith by reading the sincere and virtuous books written by the blessed hands of our famed and honourable ancestors, whose beautiful morals, justice, diligence, and whose records in art, science, and bravery are written about in shining letters in the world’s history. Moreover, they shed their blood for our faith, lest the enemy hands might touch it, and they left all these valuable writings in their original purity as an inheritance to us. We have to be very careful not to be deceived and not to let our sacred îmân be seized by reading the poisonous propaganda of irreligiousness veiled in sequinned words written by enemy pens! Let me also inform you that hadîh-i-sherîfs and explanations of Islamic scholars ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaihim ajma’în’ strongly prohibit the interference of men of religion in matters of politics. Ahl-as sunnat scholars observed this prohibition very carefully. Muslims don’t exploit Islam as a tool for politics. Therefore, I have never entered politics. I haven’t defended any type of political state in any of my writings. It has reached my ears that there have been people who, disliking this behavior of mine, try to prevent people from reading and learning my books by calling them corrupt, and who then are bewildered and unable to answer when they are questioned about what parts of the books are corrupt. I make a dua (pray) for those who slander me so that they may wake up from their stupor and attain true guidance.
With the encouragement of those who read my book Se’âdet-i Ebediyye, which consisted of sixty pages and thirty chapters, I prepared the second volume in three hundred pages, and I had it printed in 1957. These two volumes aroused so much interest and attraction among the innocent youngsters towards Islam that I experienced a shower of questions. To answer these various questions by translating from current books and by adding seventy new chapters to the original thirty chapters of the first volume, the second edition was formed and printed in four hundred pages. Later by the blessing of Allâhu ta’âlâ, and with exhausting labour, the accomplishment of the third volume was granted by Allah, and it was printed in 1379 [1960 A.D.].
Though I was not authorized, only as a reward for my admiration of the dumbfounding superiority of Islamic scholars, for the love and respect which I had had towards them, and as a reward for the prayers which I had sent with the utmost suffering in my heart so that these innocent people, these noble youngsters might escape the traps set by religion brokers and attain worldly happiness and the happiness pertaining to the next world, these three books, which were formed with the guidance of Allâhu ta’âlâ, were put together and printed as a single book in 1963. This book was named Tâm ilm-i hâl. As new questions were asked, new additions were made in every new edition of mybook. In this book there is no knowledge, no idea which belongs to this faqîr, myself. Besides translating and gathering, nothing else fell to my lot. I am so grateful to see that those who read this book enjoy it and benefit from it, because it comprises writings of great and blessed people, and that they escape the deceptions of the separatists and the lâmadhhabîs, (i.e. who do not belong to any of the four rightlyguided Madhhabs,) who have been attacking and slandering my books. Thus, I am pleased to think I shall benefit from the accepted prayers of the pure-spirited, noble-blooded, and blessed youngsters, and I deem this book and these prayers my one and only stock on the Day of Rising.
The information of Fiqh in my book Se’âdet-i Ebediyye, that is, Tam ‹lmihâl (a perfect book of Ilm-i hâl),[1] has been written according to the Hanafî Madhhab and was translated from the book Radd-ul-Muhtâr by Muhammad Âmin ibn ’Âbidîn, which was published in Egypt by the Bulag printing house in 1272/1856 in five volumes, and the page numbers in my book refer to that edition. The book Radd-ul-muhtâr, the most dependable reference book among the Fiqh books in the Hanafî Madhhab, was translated into Turkish by dear Ahmad Davudoğlu and published in thirteen volumes by the Shamil Bookstore between the years 1982-1986. There are no translations of âyat-i kerîmas but only their explanations. When a mujtahid explained concisely what he understood from an âyat, this explanation is called a meâl. When an âyat is said word for word in any foreign language, it is called a translation. Âyat-i kerîmas cannot be translated into concise and proper forms. Islamic scholars tried to explain Âyat-i kerîmas by using long tafsîrs, not by translating. In my book, I have mostly used explanations from Tafsîr-i Husaynî. I have placed the sequence of the numbers of the âyat-i kerîmas as they appear in the mushaf by Khattât Hâf›z ’Uthmân ‘rahmatullâhi ’alaih’.
He who reads this book will accurately learn the faith of his ancestors; he will not be taken in by the slanders of the enemies of Islam; he will be safe against the superstitions of the ignorant and against the material and spiritual exploitation of those who poison the names of great men of tasawwuf. Muslimswill be united on the right path and will become beloved brothers of one another.
A Muslim is a person who is an honest and serious-minded. A true Muslim always performs the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ. It would be a sin if we did not obey even one of the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ. A Muslim tries to pay the rights
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[1] That valuable masterpiece has been translated into English and published in six separate fascicles entitled Endless Bliss. The current book is the first one of the six fascicles.
a human has on him, and also his debts to the state. He never resists the laws of his state. It would be a crime to violate the laws of one’s state. A Muslim commits neither sins nor crimes. He loves his country, his nation, and his flag. He does favours to everybody. He gives good advice to those who act wrongly. Such Muslims are loved both by Allâhu ta’âlâ and by His born slaves. They lead a happy and peaceful life.
The ninety-forth edition of all three volumes of the Turkish version of Se’âdet-i Ebediyye and the fourteenth edition of the English version of its major sections in five fascicles has now been printed.[1] There are ninety-eight chapters in the first volume, seventy-three chapters in the second volume and seventy in the third volume. Of these two hundred and forty-one (241) chapters, one hundred and eight [108] chapters have been compiled from Maktûbât, Vol. II and III by Imâm-i Rabbânî mujaddid-i alf-i thânî, Ahmad-i Fârûqî, a great Islamic savant, a source of knowledge intasawwuf and spiritual pleasures, a real spiritual heir of Muhammad ‘’alaihis’-salâm’, and one hundred and thirty-three [133] chapters from the books of authorized Islamic scholars. I translated the complete first volume of Maktûbât into Turkish and published it under the name Mektûbât Tercemesi. I heard Assayyid ’Abdulhakîm-i Arwâsî, an ocean of Islamic knowledge and an expert of ma’rifats of tasawwuf, say many times, “The highest of the Islamic books after the Holy Qur’ân and the books of hadîth is the book Maktûbât by Imâm-i Rabbânî.” and “No other book as valuable as the Maktûbât by Imâm-› Rabbânî has been written in the Islamic world.” In one of his letters he says (Hilmi, I am very pleased with your letter. I made shukr for your health. To read and understand at least some of (Maktûbât) is the most beneficial thing for your religion and for worldly affairs. It is a great kindness and it is ihsân-i ilâhi [divine favor]. I made shukr to know that Hilmi has reached that treasure). I have added, to the end of the (Turkish) book, 1020 names of people whose names appear in the book.
This is a book of knowledge. Islamic knowledge has its own terminology like other branches of science. The meanings of those technical words have been explained in the book when needed.
You will have learned them after you have read the book completely. The knowledge in this book cannot be understood by an ignorant person who does not strive to learn these words. In that case, he has no right to claim that “this book is incomprehensible,” because it is his own fault. “An ignorant person does not like what he cannot comprehend,” as a saying goes. A rose is appreciated by nightingales only. A jeweler can recognize pure gold. A chemist can discover what minerals are in a stone. We should try to comprehend well the meaning of each of its sentences, repeat each chapter, and fix its outline into memory. We should teach it to our children, to our acquaintances. We should study and improve in this way. Our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ stated: “He who has remained in the same state for two days, (that is, he who has not improved,) has made a mistake; he is suffering a loss.” It is seen that the Islemic religion rejects not only retrogression but also stagnation. It always commands us to make progress, to improve. All the thawâb that will be gained as a reward for the preparation and publication of this book and all the benedictions that will be pronounced by Muslims who will read this book I donate as a gift to the blessed soul of Sayyid ’Abdulhakîm Arwâsî. I know it as a source of happiness for myself to be a slave of his accompanying him on the Day of Judgment. The books published by Hakîkat Kitâbevi (in Istanbul, Turkey,) have been being broadcast worldover through the website belonging to the bookstore. (The website: www.hakikatkitabevi.com)
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[1] As of the January of 2009 (Muharram of Hijrî 1430), the sixth fascicle, the last fascicle of Endless Bliss, the English version, was accomplished. May our hamd be to Allâhu ta’âlâ, who has so magnanimously honoured and blessed us with that greatest fortune.
Source: Endless Bliss (Se’âdet-i Ebediyye) by Hüseyn Hilmi Işık, Nineteenth Edition, Hakikat Kitabevi, 20014
