10 Jamadil Ula 1435 – 11 March 2014

The dreams, the Fitnah and the signs of the approaching hour

Ignorance, intellectual calcification and moral bankruptcy have diverted the Muslim mind and heart from the Qur'aan and the Sunnah. Dreams appear to have a greater  hold on the minds of Muslims of this era than the Warnings and Admonition of the Qur'aan and Ahaadith. But the superficial concern which Muslims are displaying  for the dreams about Dajjaal, etc. seen by some persons, evaporates within a few minutes of hearing about the dreams. These dreams being circulated  widely  are temporary features of topical importance. Beyond  some interest and  conversation, the dreams prove ineffectual for achieving moral reformation which is the asset lost to the Ummah of this age.

If the current  spiral of  fitan (plural of  Fitnah – mischief, evil, anarchy) engulfing the nations of the world in general, and the Ummah in particular,  cannot  arouse Muslims from their villainous slumber and jolt them out  of their indulgence in immorality and transgression, no amount of dreams of the Buzrugs will avail. Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) warning the Ummah, said that when Amr Bil Ma'roof Nahyi Anil Munkar (Commanding virtue and prohibiting vice) is abandoned, then Allah Ta'ala will appoint over us such  brutal tyrants who will show no mercy to our little ones and no respect to our elders. The brutality and humiliation  - the direct consequences of our misdeeds and rebellion – will hem in, disfigure and mutilate all members of the Ummah, be they infants, children, adults, men, women, the pious and the impious. No one will be spared when the Divine Axe falls on the Ummah. In this regard, the Qur'aan Majeed states:  "Beware of such a Fitnah (Divine Punishment) which will not only overtake the transgressors among you."  At such a time of universal Athaab, Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said that your Buzrugs will supplicate (make Dua), but their Duas will go unheeded.

It should be well understood that when the Athaab of Allah Ta'ala overtakes a community, then Duas and Thikr, whilst drowning will not avail. Duas at that time will not avert the Athaab. The Divine Chastisement will run its ordained course. Even the pious Buzrugs and the Ulama will be overtaken by the disastrous punishment of Allah Ta'ala, which assumes a variety of forms such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes,  fire,  pestilence, volcano eruptions, drought, famine, internecine warefare (Muslims killing Muslims), and the imposition of kuffaar to  unleash brutality and genocide. All of these effects are being observed  daily in our times. But no one heeds these palpable  Signs of Qiyaamah and their immediate consequences which are being enacted  in real life and which we observe and experience  whilst we are fully awake. The Buzrugs are silent on  the issues  of the state of awakefulness. Their  focus is more on dreams. When the Warnings of the Qur'aan and Ahaadith which are materializing daily around us are inadequate to  shake us and make us alert, what will the dreams achieve? 

The Qur'aan and the Ahaadith tell us considerably more than the vague illusions of dreams. When the Fitan mentioned in the Ahaadith and which are unfolding in rapid succession are unable to  arouse us from our slumber and unable to create  in us the necessary fear, awareness and concern for our moral reformation and for submission to Allah's Command and for the adoption of the Sunnah, what hope is there for dreams to create in the Muslim Ummah a stirring which could revolutionize the thinking, Imaan, and morality of Muslims? 

The horrendous atrocities in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Palestine, Kashmir, and elsewhere,  the earthquakes and floods occurring with increasing frequency, the collapse of buildings killing hundreds, and other disasters have not succeeded in opening the eyes of this Ummah. What hope is there for dreams to achieve the objective which the numerous other disasters fail to achieve? The Muslim Ummah is not suffering merely from spiritual lethargy. On the contrary, Muslims are spiritually dead and morally rotten to the core. These are the issues which the Buzrugs are supposed to tackle. These are the issues to emphasize, not the dreams. If  the dreams  are true, the Buzrugs who are disseminating it should wake up and execute the Command of Amr Bil Ma'roof Nahyi Anil Munkar.  Minus this vital requisite, it is meaningless to  advise people to recite litanies of athkaar and dua, etc. The Ummah is rotten. It stinks of  sin and immorality. The application of perfume to a filthy stinking body is ignorance. The body should first be thoroughly washed and purified. Thereafter will follow new garments and perfume. 

If the Buzrugs  and Ulama are genuine in their concern for the safety of the Ummah and for Allah's Athaab to be diverted,  they should highlight to their respective communities the fisq, fujoor, bid'ah and shirk in which  Muslims are wallowing.  Reciting duas without  attending to the disease of flagrant  transgression against Allah Ta'ala, will serve no benefit. Casting a veil of silence over the  flagrant  haraam perpetrations  of the Ummah and advising Muslims to make dua, is ludicrous and ineffective. Muslims should be educated and informed of their wrongs and sins. Many Muslims indulge in  sin  because  of the misguidance of the Ulama-e-Soo'. The Buzrugs and Ulama are more concerned with their little entrenched  empires – their superficial 'khaanqas' and their  madaaris which have become moral and spiritual skeletons. The satanic diplomacy of silence of the Buzrugs and Ulama in the face of flagrant fisq and fujoor  of not only the lay people, but of the Ulama  and Buzrugs as well, has ruined the Ummah.  Dreams will not extricate the Ummah from the morally  rotten and degenerate abyss in which the Ummah is sliding. 

The Buzrugs who are so diligently  disseminating the dreams should, in their bayaans, tell the people of the evil of the pornography with which they are destroying their eyes, heart and Imaan viewing the filth on their computer and cell phone screens. Tell them of the filth of their haraam televisions. Tell them of their total abandonment of Hijaab. Tell them of the haraam media such as facebook, etc. Tell them of their indulgence in riba, gambling and  liquor. Tell them of the malice and enmity they harbour for brother Muslims. Tell then of the haraam and mushtabah they are devouring. Tell them of the music they so much relish. Even the Musaajid are contaminated with cell phone music. But the Buzrugs believe that silence is the right diplomacy. They believe that  the circumstances dictate abandonment of Amr Bil Ma'roof Nahy Anil Munkar. These are all shaitaani deceptions. Shaitaan has succeeded in making the buzrugs and the ulama his camp followers. 

Draw the attention of Muslims to their flagrant acts of fisq, fujoor and bid'ah, and with the  Ahaadith of Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) and the threats of Athaab in the Qur'aan warn them of  the impending disasters which are overhanging us like intensely  dark clouds. There is no need for dreams to  understand that the  terrible storm of Divine Chastisement has already commenced.  The Knock-out blow is not in the too distant future. All of this in mentioned in the Ahaadith.  Tidings in dreams – if these are true and not fabrications – benefit only the Muttaqeen. It does not  serve as a warning to the flagrant fussaaq, fujjaar and to the Ulama-e-Soo' and the  impostor buzrugs  who do not have the haziest idea of the meaning of Tasawwuf, hence they  attempt to survive with  their rituals of bid'ah. 

Warnings are heeded by only those who are genuinely pious.  They are not in need of dreams to jolt them, for they are always  awake and alert.  They are always in the state of Inaabat ilal laah. They turn to Allah Ta'ala with repentance, greater reformation of the nafs and A'maal-e-Saalihah. Of what benefit  are duas for  people who refuse to abandon their evil televisions, evil  computer and cell phone pornography? Such people  have no idea of the meaning of Taubah and Istighfaar. Reciting  some Istighfaar formulae whilst continuing  the indulgence in fisq and fujoor, television and cell phone, carrion and riba, zina and gambling, bid'ah and kufr, etc.,  will not avail. Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) himself has informed us that the Dua of  even the Buzrugs will not be heeded by Allah Ta'ala when the ultimate decree of  Allah's Athaab arrives. The Qur'aan Majeed says:

    "For every Ummah there is a term (an appointed time). When their appointed time arrives, it will not be not be  advanced  nor delayed by a moment." 

This  absolutely rebellious and treacherous Ummah of today comes  within the scope of the Qur'aanic aayat:

   "When We (i.e. Allah Ta'ala) intend to destroy (the people) of a city, We command its affluent ones (i.e. they are given respite and free run). Then they perpetrate their fisq (flagrant acts of immorality) in the city. Then the  Decree (of Punishment) becomes confirmed for  (the people) of the city.  Then We utterly destroy and deracinate it." (i.e.  the entire community is utterly uprooted and destroyed). 

If the Buzrugs who are disseminating the dreams about Dajjaal,  have genuine concern and affection for the Ummah,  they should set in motion  programs of genuine Amr Bil Ma'roof Nahyi Anil Munkar , and not confine themselves to 'big night' talks of the virtues of these auspicious nights. If the people  are made aware of the Signs of Qiyaamah as explained by Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam), they will not  be  unduly concerned with ineffectual dreams which may be true or fabricated.  Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) has explained in detail the  dangers of Dajjaal and the signs which will be a prelude to his appearance.  If Rasulullah's predictions, warnings and the Signs of Qiyaamah he has indicated  and  which are currently transpiring do not  arouse us from the inertia of corruption in which we are fossilized, there is no hope that the dreams of some Buzrugs will benefit us in any way. 

We have been frequently hearing since the past  few decades  of 'revelations' of Imaam Mahdi (alayhis salaam) having already been born,  and attributed to Buzruigs of the time. Then, not so long ago, some Ulama declared with the greatest conviction that Imaam Mahdi would be appearing in 2001, then 2003.  The honourable Ulama have  fallen silent  since their  predictions based on dreams and conjecture did not not materialize. 

Whatever the Shariah has left  ambiguous and  hidden should be retained as such. It is contumacious to  over reach and to dabble in issues on which  the Qur'aan and Ahaadith are silent. Bid'ah generates when  Deeni issues are  wrongly manipulated. Consider the advice of one Buzrug who said on the basis of the recent Dajjaal-dreams that  people should recite Surah Kahaf daily. This advice is  overstepping the limits of the Shariah because Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam)  had advised  that this Surah be recited every Friday, not daily.  Whoever wishes to recite  this Surah or two or ten Surahs  daily, is free to do so. But, when a Buzrug   propagates an act under guise of it being ibaadat for public consumption, he sows the seeds of Bid'ah. Instead of innovating a practice, the Buzrug should draw attention to the vice  the community flagrantly practises, and warn them of the dire consequences of their misdeeds. Of  what benefit is it for a man  who flagrantly indulgrs in fisq and fujoor, television and cell phone pornography, zina of the eyes, heart and body, etc. to recite Surah Kahaf daily?  The Buzrug should  rather remind people of  the evil they flagrantly perpetrate, and explain to them the importance of the Sunnah. 

Among the Signs of the Approaching Hour which will be the prelude to the appearance if Dajjaal, Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said that:

• Amaanat (trust) in all fields will be abused and misappropriated
• The husband will obey his wife (in fulfilling all her haraam desires)
• Knowledge of the Deen will be pursued  for worldly objectives
• Children will be insolently disobedient to their mother
• A man will draw his friend close to himself and distance himself from his father
• Voices will become loud in the Musaajid
• The Musaajid will be beautifully adorned structures, but devoid of Deeni guidance
• Nothing will remain of the Qur'aan, but its written text
• A nation will appoint as its leader the one who is most corrupt
• Bid'ah will be regarded to be Sunnah
• Music will be  excessively prevalent (Today we hear music even in the Musjid when  cell phones ring)
• The genuine  people of piety will disappear and only  'rubbish' will remain
• The worst of the people will be their Ulama
• Knowledge of the Deen will disappear and jahl (ignorance) will take its place. Juhala will seek 'fatwas' from Juhala (Morons).  They will be astray and lead others astray.
• Paying Zakaat will seem like paying a fine.

 When these vices transpire, Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said: "Then be prepared for red winds (this could mean hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, etc.), earthquakes, people being swallowed by the earth, disfigurement of people, and showers of stones from the heaven." 

All of these vices are transpiring  right in front of our eyes, and the incidence of earthquakes, floods, etc., is incremental. Yet, no one takes notice – and so will it remain until the universal Athaab overtakes those who dwell in ghaflat.  These are the issues which the Buzrugs and Ulama should  disseminate and emphasize. Dreams are  by the way and serve as reminders for only  those  of strong Imaan.