By Miss Sumaira Rafaqat Kahloon Advocate
(Secretary General, Minhaj-ul-Quran Women League)

While describing the exalted station of the Beloved Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace be upon him) Allah Most High reveals in the Holy Quran:

“Indeed Allah conferred a great favour on the believers that He raised among them (the most eminent) Messenger from among themselves who recites to them His Revelations, purifies them and educates them on the Book and Wisdom though, before that, they were in manifest error.”

(al-Quran,3:164)

Allah loves humankind the most. He said, ‘Truly Allah is Most Gracious to the people, but most of them are not thankful.’ (10: 60) It is we who fail to perceive or correctly evaluate His blessings and favours and consequently lose sight of the Truth. The Prophets and the Messengers of Allah have been toiling to provide the people with the true perception of the Truth. In so doing, they would recite to them the Divine Revelations, purify their hearts of love and lust for the worldly pursuits, impart them education on the revelations of Allah, and make them learn the moral, spiritual and higher values of life. They would also kindle in them the light of divine wisdom that would illumine the path they would tread and attain to the pleasure of Allah Most Exalted. That is how they take the humankind out of darkness into the light of guidance. Those who embrace faith thank Him and others stray and deviate.

We are the luckiest people on earth because Allah bestowed upon us His supreme favour that He sent His Most Beloved Messenger to distribute among us the blessings and bounties of love and faith, peace and dignity and deliverance and salvation. We submit our humble gratitude before the divine presence of our Supreme Creator that he brought us to life in the world among the Umma of His Most Beloved Messenger (blessings and peace be upon him).

Normally we talk of days of the Holy Prophet as we talk of the Caliphate periods of various Caliphs. However, it denotes only the visible physical span of time the Beloved Messenger of Allah stayed among the Umma and performed his divine role as described in the Holy Quran. In truth, life is not merely our physical stay on earth. Allah Most High has endowed us with a spiritual being as well, which survives death. Doing good strengthens, while doing evil weakens it. This is our faith that the Beloved Messenger of Allah has gone just physically away from us but he is among us and his blessings and favours continue. He is alive and his benevolence open-ended, everlasting. Shaykh-ul-Islam dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri is a living example of the Messenger’s special favour to his Umma.

Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri was studying in grade eight when he accompanied his parents to perform Hajj and visit Medina. But this was not an ordinary event as appears to be. Those who have firm faith in spiritualism can easily understand how spiritual uplift takes place through affinities, affiliations and nearness to pious souls. Similarly, this visitation of Medina had divine connotations as the saintly father of “Tahir” was obeying a spiritual command from the “Mercy for all the worlds”, the Most venerable Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace be upon him): “Bring Tahir over to me.”

In 1963, he was taken to the mausoleum of the Beloved Messenger of Allah. The Holy Prophet showered his blessings on him. He had not only sent for “Tahir”, but also confirmed the fulfillment of the purpose he had been called for. “Muhammad Tahir was given a vat full of milk, commanded to distribute it among the people.” True dreams are a part of one’s spiritual life and this dream was translated into reality very soon.

Later in 1966, the lucky recipient of the guidance of Sayyidina Ghauth-ul-Azam, he pledged allegiance at the hand of Sayyidina Shaykh Tahir Ala-ud-Din Al-Gilani al-Qadri, the head of the Qadriyyah chain, and stepped towards his spiritual development through the countless attentions and blessings of his mentor.

Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, the ambassador of peace and a gift of God, is a living evidence of the fact that the Beloved Messenger of Allah showers his blessings upon Umma by way of keeping his ardent lovers among us who receive the bounty of spiritual light from him and spread it among the fellow human beings everywhere on earth. Let us not talk of dreams and the interpretation of dreams. Let us talk of their translation into reality. Let us not talk of the dreams his saintly father dreamt about his son ‘Tahir’. Let us not talk even of the reality that Tahir was born to him and that who named him Tahir. But talk only of the facts how he was educated, what people imparted him worldly and spiritual education from whom he received authorities (asanid) and permissions (ijazat) for the transmission of knowledge of Hadith, Tafsir, Fiqh, Tasawwuf and other classical sciences. Who all are they? Are they not great pillars of the Muslim world, widely acknowledged as the fountains of Islamic knowledge linked back to the classical scholars and great Imams of Hadith of the past up to the Holy Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him)? Yes, Just visit the website www.minhaj.org and have a look at the Shaykh-ul-Islam Profile. There you will find all the related details. He has more than 150 chains of authority including an unprecedented chain of authority as well.

That is of the heritage that has reached him and he has received. But we also need to have a look at what he has passed on to humankind. Top of all, he has dedicated every breath of his life to serve the cause of peace and Din of Islam on the surface of the earth. He has not spent, so far, even a moment of his life for any worldly business. Nor is he doing any such earning. He has authored a thousand books; over 350 have been published while many others are in production pipeline. His lectures, sermons, addresses, interviews and talks, preserved on electronic media, is a huge reservoir of Islamic teachings on the most modern issues of our age.

But what is much more important is the fire of love he has lit in our hearts for the Beloved messenger of Allah. Blessing us with the gnosis of true identification of Islam, he has unfolded to the Muslim Umma, in particular, and other communities inhabiting the earth, in general, that love for the Beloved Messenger of Allah is the key to inner peace, outer peace and the world peace. Allah loves His Beloved Messenger and sends His blessings and salutations on him; His angels too join him in sending greetings. And Allah has ordained the Muslims to join Him in doing so. This is bound to generate the phenomenon of inner peace, susceptible to grow into peace in society and will ultimately encompass the entire globe. He is busy spreading this message of love and peace all over the world, not only on earth but also in the sky. He recites to humankind the revelations of the Quran day and night. He preaches the cause of Tasawwuf around the globe for the purification of our hearts. He is educating us on the teachings of the Holy Book, and, simultaneously, he is engaged in imparting to us wisdom how to go about among various communities and societies inhabiting all the continents of earth. That is manifest through various forums like Interfaith Dialogue, Conflict Resolution Councils, Minhaj Youth League and Minhaj Women League, etc. forums are timelessly engaged in achieving their targets of achieving the goal of love, peace and harmony under the dynamic leadership of Shaykh-ul-Islam.

He has provided us with the light of the Quran and Sunna. His great teaching that is sufficient for our emancipation here in the world and in the hereafter revolves around one pivotal point: Seerat-ur-Rasul (blessings and peace be upon him). If we learn Seera, practice it with firm resolve and believe in love and dignity of humankind, we will survive and dominate. If we do not love our Beloved Prophet and fail to recognize the exalted station of our Beloved Messenger, we are bound to perish and disappear from the surface of the earth. Love the Messenger of Allah, love mankind and there you are blessed with all the favours of Almighty Allah. That is why Shaykh-ul-Islam has written unprecedented fourteen volumes on Seerat-ur-Rasul (blessings and peace be upon him). We hear him in Toronto, Vancouver, Newjersy, Oslo, Glasgow, Birmingham, London, Istanbul and many other cultural centers of the world talking only about one thing: peace, peace and peace. And top of everything is the epitome of peace, the greatest promoter of peace for mankind, the Beloved Messenger of Allah. We, therefore, need to love the Messenger of Allah and follow the illumining conduct of his life, his Seera. Shaykh-ul-Islam has given us fourteen volumes on it to read and 5000 lectures to hear. Who can deny it that Shaykh-ul-Islam is the Beloved Messenger’s special favour to Umma, no more a mere dream of his late saintly father but a tangible reality that you can feel and perceive. Long live our Quaid, our Sayyidi, Murshadi; long live Shaykh-ul-Islam. We bow our heads before the divine presence of Allah and His Beloved Messenger for blessing us with this great favour in the time of great disruption and strife.