In His Love... {Eternal Ishq #2}

Of Tableegh Jamaath and Belonging to it

       In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

'Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon our beloved Prophet and Master Muhammad (s.a.s), all his blessed descendants and noble companions.'

- Aameen.

Dedicated to Elyyssian Jazak Allaahu khair for being kind enough to ask :)

Of Tableegh Jamaath and Belonging to it

"Shall we go to the movies?" Syed, the stylish young man asked to Siraj, his friend and colleague at work.

"I'll take you to a much better place," Siraj replied smiling.

Siraj then took Syed to a nearby Masjid and said, "Look, as long as you remain here, you're safe; your mind healthy and you will be peaceful, whereas in the theatre you would spend money, waste your health, commit mistakes, skip your prayers and finally lose peace of mind."

Thus, for the worldly Syed, the path towards Deen was first showed by his friend Sirajudeen --true to his name, he was indeed a Lamp of the Deen.

All this occurred a long long time ago when my father had gone and joined in his first job at New Delhi, barely in his twenties. Young, far from home and lodging with roommates who freely indulged in drinks and drugs, yet Allaah SWT protected my father, though he was indeed stylish and rarely prayed until his friend from work took him to a Masjid and gradually the way was opened to him.

Being a Tamilian, Sirajudeen (may Allaah SWT grant him Maghfirah and highest of Paradise) on the pretext of wanting my father to translate the Urdu lectures into English so that he could understand, took my father to the Banglewali Masjid, which is the Markaz Nizamuddeen --the global centre of Tableegh Jamaath every Thursday night. While scribbling the English translations on a sheet of paper, my father did not realise how his heart was being healed and guided towards Allaah SWT's path, Alhamdulillaahi Rabbil Alameen. He met so many great magnetic peronalities who had given their whole lives in the path of Allaah and who inspired showing people what it means to be following the way of Nabi Sallal-laahu-alayhi wasallam, so that when  changes gradually came into Abbu's whole life, they were refreshing and beautiful.

All this and more my father has penned in a work called Tableegh (Noble Da'wah) - A Guide to Happiness and Peace which is available here in his account SyedNawaz for those interested in knowing more about his experiences. But why am I mentioning all this? Because with the news focused upon the Tableegh people for the past days, most of you seemed concerned regarding all of that and now question whether my characters in IYL are okay or not, following such a group, or whether I, abdurRahman is okay or not following such a strange group of people who call others in 40 days and what not.

I have said before in this work IHL, that Tableegh Jamaath is not a jamaath or group. Rather it's a movement, which saw a gradual evolution starting from 1920-27... It was Moulana Ilyas Saheb (Rahimahullaah) who observed that people were too engrossed in their worldly activities and had forgotten the objective for which they had been sent to this world. He realized that they had to free some time from their worldly engagements, to sit and ponder about Allah Ta'ala and their purpose for being sent to this world. Therefore, he started calling people to the Masjid, and reminded them about Allah Ta'ala and His greatness.

Initially, like in every good work –he too faced opposition. People rebuked him, they discouraged him and used to say that they had no time for all of this; but as time went by, they realized the truth behind it and the need for it, and started joining him in calling others towards Allah Ta'ala.