o you have what the picture they took
didn't you take one of the pictures at
the beginning
that that was at the moment
remember when we were at the macan know
what they said at the beginning
yeah did you take that yeah
alhamdulillah
the uh this is this is an ancient
city that we're in you know the uh
the the before the muslims were here it
was uh
iconium so it had a
pre-islamic history but it was the
capital of the seljuk, one of the great dynasties of the...and great they were great servants of islam, the seljuk empire. And this this was their capital. But now it's honored, now it's honored because it houses the...
no not that it was at roomies at yesterday
the uh it's
it's a city that people from all over
the world visit and they go
to visit the
the scholar and the saint and the poet
gelato dino romi who's actually
jalaluddin
he's originally from afghanistan his uh
his father
was from the the time
people benny time which is one of the
clans of quraysh so on his father's side
he's a bakari
a taimi from abu bakr as-siddiq and then
on his mother's side his
his grandfather was a scholar
was a from a ruling family in central
asia
so
you know we were at the makam yesterday
and and
whenever they would teach the methanawi
they always began with the the a verse
from the methanali
in the first lesson
which is never think that the paths to
god are difficult to pass
never think that the paths to god are
difficult to pass
to work with holiness is never difficult
and that's reiterated by ibrahillah who
says
that if you think that allah can't
change you in one moment then you know
nothing about the power of allah
so
we're here in the city and it's it's a
really
beautiful city it's noted for its piety
in turkey amongst the big cities
it has about a million half people here
but they're noted for their
piety and somebody asked one of the
people that's helping us here who's from
kunya what they do for their nightlife
he said
come in ramadan and we'll show you our
nightlife
that's a good answer
but the you know mawlana is
he was a very notable scholar he was not
an insignificant scholar he was actually
known for
his mastery of the sciences of islam
and he was a exoteric scholar
for a good part of the first part of his
life
his father was a very well-known
islam in central asia and
he was born in 1604
which is around 1207 by the christian
era
but he uh his father got in a lot of
trouble because he was
a he wouldn't be silent about a lot of
the
abuses and innovations of the rulers of
belgium that area and so he would
go around preaching and he actually had
a lot of influence he was very
influential as a
preacher and a scholar and so he was
he was basically persecuted so that he
left
uh balch in 1607 and
he went on a journey his son at that
point was about three years old
so they had to leave with their
and to make hijra from a a place of
persecution
to a freer place what's interesting
though is within a year
was completely destroyed by the mongols
so allah subhanahu wa ta'ala many many
of the scholars died and
it was a terrible time for the muslims
but allah
wanted something else for for
that family and obviously particularly
for jalaluddin
but he went to they went to damascus
they were in different places he
actually met farid
when he was a very young boy because he
was and
then atar gave him his famous
book of poems and he actually said that
he's going to be a great poet he told
his father that he was going to be a
great poet and a master of the path and
and then when he when he came they ended
up in cuna and he was
trained here and i think what a lot of
people
who are from the arab world are maybe
not as familiar with
the the scholastic tradition
of this part of the world but they were
very very serious
students they had a great madrasa system
there were several madrasas in this town
which were colleges not
schools they were colleges what we would
call colleges today religious colleges
but they were religious colleges where
they studied many many
sciences in the west we have
the concept of the trivium which are the
the three language arts in in
the muslim world there were about 30
language arts
that they would master so it was a much
more advanced and sophisticated
uh system when you get into it advanced
islamic tradition by this period 13th
14th 15th century
these people were studying
texts on
one of the sciences that that they were
very very
uh focused on was called which is
a science that teaches you how to
analyze
the meanings of words in context so it's
a contextual analysis of words so that
you can quickly ascertain
what type of
word is being used to remove ambiguity
because one of the
most difficult problems with language is
ambiguity
and they also had
istiara was a very important science so
they have their own tradition
they would teach balara which has
been and
is part of balar but because it's such
an important part which is the science
of metaphors because
much of language ibrahim one of the
great
grammarians and philologists in the
islamic tradition
argued that the vast majority of
language is actually metaphor
that when you begin to analyze language
you will find that what you're dealing
with
is metaphors we're using metaphors all
of the time
so they would study that
in order to better understand and
comprehend language
he uh he had a very very popular
madrasahiro college
and he he
had mastered all of these sciences at a
very high level
and he was also
extremely popular and apparently from
the stories because there are some
interesting biographies that were
written very early
that have people that knew him
personally but
he was he was a very very unusual boy as
a child
and this is always
you know one wonders
about these great minds
what they were like when they were
children
the
the talk that ken robinson gave
about the problems of education a few
a few years back and he just mentioned
about
you know we tend not to think of
shakespeare as a child but what was he
like when he was
in grammar school and how would the
english teacher
really dealt with somebody like that
so i think the same is true it's very
interesting there's
some teachers their students
actually surpassed them quite early on
is a good example of somebody who had a
very early age had a massive opening
even though he was actually considered
to be not very bright
in the classroom which is often the case
with
great geniuses is that people think
they're actually stupid
and he had a massive opening
and his teacher actually ended up
putting him in
the chair to start teaching the classes
so that does happen but
he obviously had an extraordinary
experience by meeting a teacher who was
completely
what we would almost call an antinomian
he was a very unusual
wandering itinerant
preacher who had incredible impact and
was usually chased out of places because
he had such a
massive impact he was a charismatic but
when when geraldo dean fell under his
spell he really went had a massive
transformation had incredible spiritual
openings and then from him
poured forth all of this incredible
poetry that's
read all over the world it's been
translated into countless languages
and there's pilgrims that come from
japan that come from
england australia all these different
places
to come visit this place
and i think you'll see we're going to go
inshaallah and visit the
the madrasa where it is the cells are
there
they their halwa was a thousand and one
nights they would do a khalwa
they they had to do um
before they were actually allowed to
study so they
had to go through a period of spiritual
transformation
one of the one of the stipulations was
that they couldn't
speak ill of anybody or if they were
treated badly they could never retaliate
they would just have to accept
everything that was done to
them and
they had a very rigorous discipline i
think people forget how
serious this early community was about
their religion and we tend to
as modern people it's very difficult for
us to imagine
the the type the intensity
of practice and the intensity of
dedication and devotion
that these early peoples had in their
religion
one of the the
one of the andreussian poets he said
we have a good example in uh bishop
hinden and in his sister and kreis and
leila leyland
uh and in may and railan these are these
are
famous love stories of the early arabs
and what he was saying
is is that the reason god puts the romeo
and juliets in the world
is as a proof against anyone that claims
to love
god that the intensity
of erotic love the intensity of
love between two human beings can be so
great that people actually go mad
and they'll do anything for the beloved
and
and so those people are there in the
world as a proof
according to that poet against people
who claim to
love god if you say you love allah
you know the the proof is on the one
making the claim
so if you claim to love allah the proof
is in following the prophets the light
is and that's the proof so
that's the the the proof of your love
and the sahaba had complete tamahi they
were completely
annihilated in the love of the prophet
same to such a degree that
bilal after many years of being in
syria came back to visit medina and some
of the
medaines convinced him to give the adhan
it was very difficult for him but he
decided to
and when he gave the adhan people
heard the adan for the first time from
bilal since the time of the prophet and
they came out their homes just weeping
they were just crying
that that's how present the prophet
ism was in their lives
they said if the prophet's name was
mentioned his face used to change the
color
in his face would change they had
ish you know real love and
so he went through that intense period
and
what he talks about is love and mahaba
which is
i think you'll study with siri hamza in
the
text on ibn ayasha
and the last one is mahaba the
the stations that you adorn yourself
with because in in
traditionally in that path you have
what's called tahlia
and then you have tahlia and then you
have tajliya and the tahlia
is the emptying out it's what the in the
christian tradition they call it kenosis
where you empty out the self
of because the self is is full of itself
you know you talk about people's
you know you say he's full of himself
that's exactly what
what it means he's full of himself
one of the things about darija
lot of people don't think what these
terms mean
you know in darija but one of the things
the egyptians they say and they don't
know what it means but i
i'm convinced it's from their own
spiritual tradition
if an egyptian wants you to say watch
out he says
khali balak min nafsik
you know isn't that how they say watch
out khali balik min nifsek
but if you actually look at what it
means in arabic it means
empty your mind of your ego
do the of yourself
that's how you watch out if you because
the only thing that gets you in trouble
is your nufs that's the only thing
it's the only thing that gets you in
trouble is your enoughs
and so the the muslims were
very serious about doing work on
themselves
now they're serious about doing work on
everybody but themselves
they don't want to do any work on
themselves because there's nothing wrong
with them it's
it's america that's what's wrong it's
israel that's what's wrong
it's uh bashar that if we could just get
rid of that guy
everything would be perfect it's
everything
but where it all starts that's why and
if you look at our condition
that's the whole basis of it the prophet
saw i saw him
he began by emptying them out
he made them vessels for the truth but
first he had to empty them out
like the famous you know the martial
artists who
wanted to study with the master and he
goes and he and
he meets this master that he's been
trying to get the the opportunity to
teach study with them
and he's he says oh and i studied with
master so-and-so
we did this i did wing chun and then we
studied with him and i did
this system and then i studied with this
i did this and he's
he's telling the master all these people
he studied with and all these things he
learned
and so when the tea came he just kept
pouring the tea
the master and it until the the cup was
just overflowing
and and this this man says well why are
you
the cup's full he said so
he said no you should stop fully filling
it because it's full
so it can't take any more he said no of
course not if it's full it can't take
any more
he said well you're full so i can't it's
the same thing you're full
and and you find this motif in many uh
teaching stories about hassan ashadhari
when he went to meet
ben and here's a man who went from
morocco he was a great scholar studied
in the karween
and then he went to tunis he studied he
went the east and he was looking for a
spiritual master when he got to iraq
one of the people of iraq told him he
said the man you're looking for
is in morocco so he went all the way
from morocco to iraq and the iraqi
man said no you're looking for
so he went back and he went up
the mountain for anybody that's visited
that part it's
it's near tatuan he went up the mountain
to
to where this great sage was living
and he when he first met
him he he came in the close of the ulama
he had all these
beautiful jalabha and
and uh she said
you know did you do hustle he said yes
he said
he said you didn't do so he goes back he
does also again he comes back
he said you know he said yes he said no
you didn't go back
so he goes back and then on the third
time
he he you know got the point he's
obviously doesn't mean
what he what he so he took the clothes
of his servant and he put them on he
gave his servant his clothes
and then he came and he said
now you're ready to come you know you
have to strip away if you
and and this is you know that people
don't want to do this anymore
we're like you know gelato dino rumi
tells a story about the barber
you know they used to do tattoos so you
go to the barber you get your hair cut
you get a tattoo
like now in america right
and so he goes to the barber and he
tells him
i i want a tattoo he said well what do
you want he said i want a lion
you know people see people wonder why
everybody's getting tattoos now tattoos
are
about the ego you know descartes said i
think therefore i
am now they say i ink therefore i am
that that it's a way of letting people
know
i'm i'm different i'm special
i've got this butterfly on my back you
don't have one of those
right and and then they get more and
more
and they can't stop because it's not
working you know you just keep
trying to make it work so he wants a
lion because he wants to feel like a
lion so put a lion on my back
and so the the tattoo artist he says
all right so he starts with his needle
name ah oh
what's that you know he said that that's
that's
the tail he said you know make it a line
without a tail
so he said okay so then he starts again
oh
what what's that he said that's the ear
he said no don't make a line without
ears he said okay and then he starts
again oh what's that
he said that's the main no no make it a
lie without a mane
and then he does it again he says what's
that
it's the stomach he said no i don't want
a stomach on the lion he said listen
even god didn't make a lion like this i
i can't do anything for you
and rumi says why he's telling the story
is that this
is people on the spiritual path he says
they want
they want without any work they don't
want the pain
of sacrifice of working they they want
the finished
product just there for everybody to see
but they don't want to do any of the
work to get there
so historically you know muslims
this i think what we tend to forget
about our religion
is this religion is actually about
getting close to allah that
that's the point of it it's literally to
get close to allah
and not onl