Islam: Sunni VS Sufism , A deep dive into the differences and similarities - Modibbo

A lot of people hear “Sufism” and imagine mysticism, secrecy, or something separate from Sunni Islam. We slow that down and get specific: what Sufism looks like when it’s rooted in the Quran, the Sunnah, and the five pillars, and why the “inner dimension” is really about ethics, discipline, and becoming someone your community can trust. If you’ve ever felt boxed in by surface-level religion, or turned off by constant sect talk, this conversation is built to meet you in the middle without watering anything down.

We walk through shahada, prayer, charity, fasting, and hajj, then explore how Sufi practice reads those same pillars with deeper intention. That includes dhikr as steady remembrance, the reality of modern hajj costs and distractions, and the idea of “inner hajj” as cleansing the heart from ego, idols, and empty attachment. We also dig into language: what “Muslim” can mean as “one of peace,” how Arabic precision matters, and why some teachings are written in coded forms that require real study, not guesswork.

From there we map the Hadith of Jibril as a clean framework for growth: Islam, Iman, and Ihsan (excellence, God consciousness). We talk about avoiding fanaticism, building experiential knowledge, and why scholarship like Quran exegesis, hadith study, and Arabic grammar can protect your spirituality from becoming performative or sloppy. If this sparked something for you, subscribe, share it with a friend who cares about faith and self-mastery, and leave a review with the biggest idea you’re taking with you.

Transcript

Welcome, Names, And Intent

SPEAKER_00 0:12

All right, what's going on, everybody out there? It's Ron Brown. The people's fitness professional on the check-in this evening. AKA Soul Brother number one report for duty. Um, we got uh Sheikh Ma Madibo Lau Jalo. Is that how you pronounce it?

SPEAKER_03 0:34

I ain't close enough here. Uh Modibo from the Modibo.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

All right, and uh the rest of the name. Oh, spot on. Yeah. Oh spot on. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yeah. You know, sometimes I butcher people's names. I meet so many different people every single day, and it's like, you know, from Europeans to different nationalities, you know what I mean? So it's like, oh, Indians. Uh the Indian name sometimes against me every time.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

We we still know we can uh we can come up with some names, right? So we gotta stay on our toes.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Indeed, indeed. Uh PO, I haven't seen the God in a minute. Where you been at, God? Where you been? God, what's up with you, G. Hey G, you gotta check me out on uh also on uh Facebook because I'm putting some stuff up there about the five percent nature. Some of the gods get mad at me and all that. So check me out up there, man. I'm just asking simple questions, you know. But you know, anyway. Uh let's go into

Framing Sunni And Sufi Unity

SPEAKER_00 1:40

it today. Uh, we have uh we're talking about Islam. It's Tufi Suni versus Tufi Ism. Now I just put the verses there because you know, um, he said it's out the way. Yeah, that's it, right? Yeah. Uh but uh I put the verses there because uh, you know, people attract to the verses a lot. So, but you know, on this platform, we never really deal with division. So, you know, you know we're gonna you know pull it all together and show more of the similarities than the differences. So I have the brother out here, uh brother on the screen this evening. Thank you for coming out. How are you feeling, brother?

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Uh alhamdulillah. Oh, praise due to Allah and thankful for the opportunity and the platform. And and yeah, some of the some of the questions you you pose online, they they may seem like kind of short and simple to you. But when you go back and read some of the comments, you can tell I thought for broken they are because they're they're promoting like some deep dialogues. And that would Allah say in the Quran, I made you with the tribes and nations so that you get to know each other and you're opening up opportunities for folks to get to know each other, whether they believe what the other person knows or not.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Indeed, indeed. And you know, uh, you know, when when uh these platforms give you like such a short, you know, character, you know, like if you do like a huge post, you only have a certain amount of characters. I can't explain exactly what I mean. So I have to kind of like throw it out there, and some people are like it and some people won't, you know. But you know, I from what I learned from the the five percent nation is um you know uh how you see it. Like when we talk about today's math, what's today's mathematics? When we talk about today's mathematics, it's not how it's uh uh how you were given it just by your your enlightenment, it's basically how you see today's mathematics. You know what I'm saying? So it's it's all about free thinking, free thought. And um, you know, I don't I never get caught up into um um being too religious and and and robotic, you know. Uh um if I'm wrong with something, I'm wrong. You know, that's that's that's what other people or other human beings are around for to correct me if I'm wrong. So I'm not afraid to be wrong, you know, and I'm really not trying to be right. You get what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 4:13

When you look at it, like no matter what we uh base these things off of, when we go back to the basis of the religions themselves, whether we in an esoteric order or not, that's one thing all religions got in common is a belief in some kind of creator, and the and the one thing all those beliefs also have in common is none of them can be proven true. None of them will want to address that, but like, you know, it's just you know kind of something solidly understood by Ms. Like Yelink. I'm talking about that. Like, you know, how you corner Christians with the Trinity, and to them it makes sense. But when you when you bring it up rationally and logically, you know, they they kind of go into a does not compute, you know, so it's kind of safe to stay away from that kind of dialogue with them. That same type of uh verbal engagement exists with every single school of thought, it don't matter which one it is, right? So like all are correct and all are false at the same time, you know, it's just safer to kind of meet in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Right, indeed, indeed. And I'm learning uh to meet in the middle, however, with all of these schools of thought, the only way schools of thought or religion, whatever you want to call it, um uh with all these different schools of thought, the best way to meet in the middle is to know all of them. At least the basics. At least the basics.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

That's one thing I like about Sufism and what it allowed for me to do. Because when I was um like coming out of Christianity, coming right into Islam, the bar I was orthodox, see me, like to the point where like I was alienating myself from my Christian side of the family. I was so Muslim, yeah. And then I was able to look back and see that and be like, wait a minute, I gotta be missing something, man. Like, it gotta be something here. And um, a brother named Dawoo from the NOI had introduced me to uh Sufism for the first time, talking about these beautiful poems, these Sufis write. And I'm like, bro, we in a mosque. And you're talking about something that everybody else thinks is heretical. You're talking about. And he's like, nah, it's essentially just ethics and morals and character refinement, but it's delivered in like these beautiful, deep poems. And that was what got me in uh interested, is hearing somebody talk about Islam in a way I never heard not one Imam mention it like deep and spiritual the way, like how you was saying, today's mathematics is how you view today's mathematics. Like I can look at the same Quran verse and see how it applies to me today, instead of like idolizing the character from 1400 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Indeed, indeed. So now let's let's take a deep dive into the differences and similarity the similarity similarities.

Sunnah, Sufism, And Daily Dhikr

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Uh you say this it says the Sunnah in Sufism.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Uh, and uh just uh uh linguistics, uh the Sunnah is what a Sunni practices. So uh when you see the word Sunni, that kind of describes the person who practices the Sunnah. And then when you see that word sunnah, it's essentially like the ways and traditions, the the prophetic examples of the prophet, peace be upon him, and all those that came before him that we you know try to embody in our life, like you were just saying with today's mathematics. How do we bring these prophetic examples forward to today? You know, that's that's the the Sunnah. And Sufism is I don't know, man. A lot of people mistake it for something like mystical, outer spacey, and like super, super spiritual. But in order for a person to even get to understand what Sufism is, they kind of already have to have a base within Islam. It's almost like over here in the West, you get some of them people that's like, oh, Mason's worship the devil, and then they go knock on the door and they realize it ain't nothing like that at all. It's the exact same thing with Sufism. Like some of the stuff you hear some Muslims say about Sufism, it's almost just as crazy. Yeah. But I got a couple of examples from like um Quran, some saying from the prophet, and some Imams and Shaykhs that kind of they're talking about Islam and Sufism at the same time. They're using Islam as the basis to talk about Islam and Sufism at the same time. So we're able to see both perspectives and we're able to see what they're being based off of. So hopefully by the end, you know, people will be able to look over and be like, I wonder why that guy is always fiddling with them prayer deeds. I don't ever see nobody do that all the time. And then they realize that in Sufism there's this practice called zikr or mantra. So there's always a real short prayer going on in the subconscious. Every time I move deed, that's a real short prayer. And like today, it's Alhamdulillah. I'll praise the dude's Allah. You know, I'll praise the due to Allah for the breath to be able to even say it. I'll praise the due to Allah for the ability to be able to think it and then realize why I'm saying it. I'll praise due to Allah for the platform, I'll praise due to Allah for the brotherhood, I'll praise due to Allah for it, you know. It doesn't matter how it's used, you know, like today's mathematics again. How we all bring it all together is how it, how I bring it forward to today. So um, like before getting into it, like for those that might not know, like, of course, the basics of Islam.

Five Pillars Basics And Misconceptions

SPEAKER_03 9:36

My first fake used to always say to people who would first come into Sufism that uh before you try to get too deep into it, realize that in order to master Sufism, you have to be a master of the basics. So if if you can't recite Al-Fatih, the first verse of the chapter of the Quran correctly, all the magical mantras and stuff might not do you any good because you're you're pronouncing words wrong. And if you mistake um a q for a k, like with the word talb and qalb, q-a-l-b means heart. But k a-l-b means dog. So you might be thinking you're praying to Allah for him to cleanse and purify your heart, but you're pronouncing the word ta'alab, but that's supposed to be beginning with a K or Q, K instead. So literally, the word is asking Allah to purify and cleanse your dog because the person doesn't know you know something basic. So of course is then bearing witness testifying there's no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Ms. Allah is, of course, like prayer. Muslims pray five times a day. Certain schools are thought more or less, but you know, that could be another podcast. The zakah is your charity. Every order, fraternal order organization, and we're gonna have some sort of uh charity given back to the community, whether it's women, children, orphans, or what have you. Me and my dad cut her at the Middle Georgia Children's Home every other Sunday. You know, that's our charity to give back to us. Uh song uh is uh fasting. And if any of us read how to eat to live, volume one or volume two, we we learned about songs about fasting and and then and like we were billing on earlier, a lot of the things in these orders are really they're really Sufi. They're really Sufism, they're really Sufi and thoughts, but they're applied through like standard theology because it's safer that way. And of course, the Hajj is something I think we should clarify because a lot of people think you you just have to do it.

Hajj Costs And The Inner Hajj

SPEAKER_03 11:45

As soon as you take your shahada, you make a new trip to Mecca, something you have to do in your lifetime. And that's that's not true because we miss out the last part of that sentence in the hadith where it says, if you have the ability to do so. So, like if I'm flat broken, you know what I'm saying, struggling to make it day by day, but my prayer is perfect. Everything else in my Islam is on point. But over here in the West, this shit ain't easy. So I brother can't afford seven to eleven thousand dollars for a hard trip package. Yeah, that's that's a lot. So if I have the ability to do so, then God knows my heart. I got the ability to make the hard. If I don't, then also God knows my heart, you know I ain't gonna never make it over there. So for me, also I'm not supposed to trip on the fact that I can't make it over there. Do I want to? No.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

You said no. No, no, man. Why not?

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Oh my god, no. Um it it it costs too much for one. Like seven to eleven thousand dollars for a package to like, you know, your flights, your hotel, guides, and like the clothes and everything. It's all kind of like a um uh right kind of cloaked in like pageantry and whatnot. And everything costs something. Some parts of it, and you know, I don't want to ruin it for others, but some parts of it that people really like to get to, the circumambulation around the copper. So many people show up to that point with things, like on that person, and when they get ready to leave, they don't have that stuff no more. If you know what I'm saying. So somebody going off in there real quick, they've mastered the art of going inside of the Iran and pickpocketing people while they're going around the heart. So, you know, it's it's oh wow, it's too much. You know, when you when you when you really get there and and experience some things that most people would think would never happen on the on the pilgrimage. You know, the cost, the people literally fighting over each other to go try to get up to this black stone and kiss it when that's not a requirement of the the right at all. Like all you really gotta do is point at it when you walk by. So you're a little prayer and keep on walking, but people fight to get to it. Like I feel to me, being kind of spiritual based first, seeing all that would kind of ruin the whole energy of the place for me. Let somebody bump into me, and then I realized I want to take a selfie, and I go in my pocket and I realize my phone gone. And the guy that bumped into me was the one that went in there and got my phone. You know, or it's just my first time going, and I want to get up close enough to that black stone to see if I can because it and four or five Muslims is fighting each other to try to get to it first. I'm like, you know, I don't even want to go do that now. You know, so kind of looking at it from that perspective, like I just I would really rather not go. Um second, like, and I can skip forward, that fifth one, haj is really the most important to a Sufi because the Hajj is really uh right here. Like first place I was made at is the exact same place where the Hajj is, is right there in the heart. Like I'm supposed to go in here and cleanse and purify this thing out so that Allah can dwell in here, you know, Allah in person. We don't say it like that in in Sufism, but that's really the exact same teaching. So when I clean that out, I'm going around it, I'm purifying it. Any idols, anything that's not yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Well, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. We talk, we're going into more science with this already.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Yeah, and I mean, even some of that is is uh is is based in I won't say based in Sufism, but more of science and Sufism are essentially one and the same, except with uh with Sufism, it can be a little bit more spiritual, like we're saying it can almost come off as mystic. So there's really still more science, there's really still Islamic Masonry, is still there's really still Islam. It's you know, it's just a different level of Basha'i teaching.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Right. So now you said in the heart, you said Hajj, right? The first pillar, right? Or no no no shahada. That's the first pillar.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

First one, yeah. The number five, the Hajj, is the pilgrimage where you would be going to Mecca.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Right. And then you said in the heart is Hajj.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Yeah, that's the the the inner Hajj. The Sufi would explain the Hajj is you circumambulating around your heart, like Muhammad would uh in the in the story where it was going around the Kaaba and uh knocking over all the pagan idols, cleansing the eye, the Kaaba of all idols. So the heart is uh that same, is is has a similar illusion, circumambulating around the heart and explains in it about all idols, anything that my ego could be attached to that don't benefit me, any carnal passions and desires, any empty materialism, you know, any any devilishment from the ego that was a vitalise or all of that has to be purified so that Allah can dwell in there. Now my actions are godly, you know, like we god bodied in the West.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

That's still synchronism.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Indeed. Now in Moorish science, um, I forgot the exact if uh I'm maybe paraphrasing, no, or maybe I got it right in exact. But in uh uh Quran questions for Moorish children, it says uh uh uh you basically you can't see a law uh uh where where's the nearest place you can meet him is in the heart.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Exact same thing, exact same teaching.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Yeah, that's almost like you know, Taoism is almost the same. It has the essence of the truth as a mystic, like uh in the beginning of the Tao K-Chain. It's just kind of him describing what the Tao is, but in him describing what the Tao is, he's literally just describing the word Tao. Like we just agree to call this thing that we know is there, but we can't see or describe. We just agree to call it the Tao, and we leave it right there. And we won't go no further and trip on it. Like somebody else can call the Tao God, they can that's okay. We just we just know what's the Tao over there again. Also, a similar essential teaching, but that from a um a more inner perspective, the way you can see it uh from a deeper level than kind of just staying, like we were saying earlier, religious, you know, kind of at the surface of things, like black words on white paper is literally how I was supposed to be. But if that's the case, I feel like these teachings wouldn't be so damn hermetically sealed if we were supposed to understand them literally, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Right. So you said they were cometically sealed or uh hermetically sealed. Hermetically

Hermetic Teachings And Personal Transformation

SPEAKER_00 18:40

sealed, okay. Yeah, so they were so hermetically sealed. Now, uh, why do you think they would just like the Bible's teachings, I would say is the same thing, right? All of the teachings the same thing, they're sealed for what reason do you think?

SPEAKER_03 18:58

I want to um oversimplify it, but like me living in the deep south here. If all the the Christians in my area were to find out that their uh concept of God is like the furthest thing, away from truth as possible, and that that whole entire thing existed within them as a potentiality, it would be too much for them to digest. Way too much for them to digest. The thing that they base their whole entire life on is just not that at all. At the level that they understand it, like it's meant to be looked into deeper. And when you you do that, you realize you're going deeper within self. Like, kind of how Islam is transformational. Like, you know, I'm not ashamed to talk about my past like 15, 20 years ago, man, bro. I was an alcoholic, man. But if it wasn't for me bumping into two people from the nation of Islam and done realizing, like, bro, I need a little help. Let me come out here and raise them all up. And and they they they kept bumping into me. They kept bumping into me until they finally got me in and introduced me not only to the NOI, but to the Orthodox mosque. And when I went through the process of, I'll say becoming a Muslim, because the Shahada Shahada is just, you know, you saying it, but you can still turn around and go to Winnie's and get a dog on double bacon cheese. After you take it in, nobody'll know. But the the process of not eating cork anymore, the process of not drinking anymore, not hanging out with the wrong people, not going out and partying or staying out late, you know, not hanging out with my car club and the street racing like I used to do back in the day. A lot of the things that didn't benefit me, all that stuff had to fall off. But then I realized I had a lot more free time to do stuff I actually do like, and then these things are beneficial. That process changed me because who I used to be, I do dead. You know, so the alchemy caused that guy not to exist anymore to give rise to the one that's here today.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Right. Now, to go through because you have a uh a thing, uh um PowerPoint presentation here, or slide presentation, uh pillars. So you start off with shahada, that's the first. All right, and then the second is how do you pronounce that? Salah? Salah?

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Salah means of prayer. Of prayer, yeah, prayer. And you know that that can be looked at from that orthodox perspective of you're praying five times a day. But bro, you getting into the gym and getting in the zone where nothing else out there in the world matters, and you is in tune with your higher self. That right there is a form of prayer. Is it orthodox? No. Does it get you in that same state? Yeah, yeah, it's not higher, you know. So to a two and sleepy, I would look at it like that the same way, but we're still being it's still based off of the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

All right. Now we're going to the swarm. Psalm, uh, that's Arabic. Oh no, no, that's that would be number four. Four. So Zika, the Zikka uh is number three.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

And that's uh Zika, your uh charity, like good works, good deeds, uh helping women, children, orphans, things of that nature. It's not specific. Like the Zikai is kind of all encompassing with that type of work, you doing something from yourself for somebody else without asking for anything in return. Especially if you know the person can't do anything for you anyway. You still do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

And then uh next one is uh what I mentioned before, so there's your fasting, or there's uh uh how to eat to live, volume one, volume two. The same thing. Not necessarily not eating, but how to eat, what to eat, not just not eating, and you know, thinking it's fasting is good, yes. Not eating is a good thing, it's a good part of it, but fasting also regulates what you eat, when you eat, how often you eat, when you do, how much you eat, all of which you can find and how to keep the live volume one and volume two. That's a fact.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

All right, and then last is the Hajj. Last was Hajj because you went over that pretty much. So these are the five pillars of Islam, and what what's the differences when it comes to the five pillars in Sunni and Sufism? Does it apply the same way?

SPEAKER_03 23:30

The same way, except for all of them look at a little bit deeper, it's a little bit different, like with the Shahada. This I bear witness there's no God but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Everybody says Allah for what? But now you're a Muslim. And that's essentially the only time a person actually takes shahada. They can repeat it again, but you've already done it, you've borne witness to it, you do it once. But to a Sufi, that's something that is a constant, it's a constant thing. Like that remembrance and that bearing witness has to be seen in everything. Like if I know that Allah exists in this potentiality within me in my heart, I also have to see that same thing in every other person in creation, even ones who don't act like it, you know. They might have to clean it up yet. But that potentiality is still within there. And also everything else in creation, whether it's that book that just flew into my window, it's a little spark in there that made it live, you know. Can I see it like I can see this one? Pretty sure it came from the same, you know. We can't describe it, but you know, we also can't deny it. Seeing that same essence in the trees outside is something that caused that big ass tree to pop up from a seed that was this big. Can I see what made it do that? No. But can I deny it? No. And that uh that deeper type of bearing witness is how Sufi would look at uh the Shahai. Same concept, right? But it's just taken to, like we say, the degree where at every awakening moment the person is looking at everything around them, either appreciative of or like a message somebody that's just not acting like it. I just know on the inside, like we're over there acting like a nigga. He just don't even know that he's a law. So not let it bother you.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Now, this goes to my next question. I'm glad you said that. So he's over there acting like a nigga, he don't know he's a law. All right, so along with it. Now let's let's go into that. So uh uh according to the uh to our lessons, okay, there's no mystery guard, right? You know, so when when I look at it and I say, you know, who brought the trees about and who brought all you know all these things about, um you may say Allah. So what is Allah?

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Simply, um it means the God, like literally, Al means the, and Illa means God or deity. So without you know putting anything spooky on it, just this literally means the God or deity. And I'll say to to bring it from Islam to Sufism, the Hay just explained that Allah has 99 attributes or names, and he sends Muhammad to correct our character and our adab. So how does he how does he do that? Allah has to send him with the lesser degree of those exact same 99 attributes. They can't be held as high as they are with the one who created them as essences, but the one being sent with them can possess a lesser degree of them to come to us lost down here in the wilderness. Well, what else is that essence coming down with but Allah? What else is that essence but but Allah? All right. O Sufi said that the first thing that Allah created was the praiseworthy light from Himself. But that praiseworthy light is still Himself. We call that praiseworthy light. So Nord Muhammad, because Muhammad means one who is praiseworthy, and that light was used to create everything else.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Okay, okay. All right, so um when you say creator, okay, what makes it what makes you a law different from what you say the creator?

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Hmm. I see what you're getting at. Those are those same names and attributes are latent potentialities within within me. So let's just say I wake up tomorrow and I start off having a bad day, but if somebody got to have a worse day to me, if I do uh something nicer, generous to them, those are um Raouf and Karim. Those are two names or attributes of Allah that I can literally embody. Like literally, physically in the flesh. So kind of, you know, saying it without saying it, you know, if Allah, the the creator, you know, the indescribable, describable, sends this prophet and messenger down with ways to give those same uh attributes to us. If we embody those same attributes, if Allah is also within our heart, then we're embodying the lesser degree of those same attributes. Everything else in creation was created from Allah Himself, then what else is everything else in creation other than Allah again over there? I used to tell myself that when I worked at Geico, like on the angry customer will get on the line, I would just say, La ilaha illallah. There's no God but Allah. But to a Sufi, he would take that deeper, and that would mean something to the degree of there's no existence for this divine reality. This person on the other side of this phone in this divine reality does not know that. He has no idea that existence is the divine reality. The worst thing ever is non-existence, not being, non-existent. Would we ever know it if we didn't? Nah, but just the thought of it is terrifying. It could be that is is in existence, is is here.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Uh that was that was that was heavy right there. We gotta rewind, we gotta reswind that again, brother. All right, so okay, divine reality. Can you explain what the divine reality is?

SPEAKER_03 29:34

The the divine reality is essentially creation. It's uh but it's creation to to a degree beyond how we see it here on earth. That divine reality is the the edge of the universe that's still being created, you know. The the divine reality is the fact that the universe we say is endless, but then in that same breath, scientists will tell us that uh the universe is expanding. Right. How often something like that be described over than divine? So you mean telling me endlessness is getting bigger? And there's been a way to verify how big endlessness has been getting since endlessness has come into existence. Should have blown the mind of a religious-minded person, but to somebody that looks at life a little bit different, a little bit deeper. But sometimes it kind of keeps me at awe. Like if I'm having a bad day, sometimes I'll just sit back and think about shit like that. Like, I ain't got it at bad yeah. There might be a planet somewhere, somewhere else where shits upside down, or you know, what have it and is it? But the universe is endless. Can I verify that there is or isn't a planet over here with whatever random people on it I just thought about? No. But can I deny it? No. And that that frame of thought uh you get from like studying some of the, I guess, teachers like Shaykhs, uh, Imam, or uh some of the hadith, like this one here, that kind of explains how somebody would come from understanding Islam, kind of how we were explaining those five pillars, to then looking at those same five pillars a little bit deeper with uh a different degree of knowledge.

Islam, Iman, Ihsan And God Consciousness

SPEAKER_03 31:28

So, like I say, Islam is the first degree, and Sleepism is the third, for us to understand it over here. And that comes from this hadith of Jibril or the angel Gabriel, when he came to Muhammad and the companions when they were in the desert. He sat in front of the Prophet with his knees touching him. So this is how close this person got to him, and he asked him three questions. A little bit part, but this being, the angel Jabril, came up and approached everybody. Uh very white clothes and black hair, and there was no signs of traveling on him. And the prophet and the companions didn't recognize him. He sat in front of the prophet, rested his knees by his knees, put his hands on his thigh paws, and this man said, Oh Muhammad, tell me about Islam. He said, There's no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger, that's your shahada, to uh give charity. That's the zakat, to fast in the month of Ramadan. There's your uh Psalm and to perform pilgrimage to the house that there's a way possible. And that's the pilgrimage or going to the Kaaba for the circumambulation. So this man said, You spoke truthfully. So he asked them again to tell me about Iman or faith. The prophet said, Faith or Iman is to believe in Allah, his angels, his books, his messengers, the last day, and the divine decree. So we see Islam has five uh pillars, and faith or Iman has six articles within it. The man said, You spoke in truthfully, so now tell me about Isan or uh excellence or what some will call uh God consciousness. The prophet said, Issan or excellence or God consciousness, like we say over here, God body, is to worship Allah as if you see him. And if you do not see him, you have to know that he surely sees you. Now that that worship, like we were saying earlier, it can be your legit prayer, that worship can be your charity, that worship can be your work and service to the community, that worship can be you in the gym, that worship can be me in the library getting every damn Islamic book they got. You know, whatever it is that keeps the person in that state of mind where he is fully aware and conscious of Allah and whatever degree he is thinking or functioning at that moment and applying it in real life. And if that's mysticism, then I'm a mystic. You know. And essentially that that is that that that's that's it right there. That's essentially three different degrees of Islamic knowledge, all given in a way that it can be understood by somebody from uh an orthodox perspective, but it's also three aggressive uh levels of knowledge because when you get to this level of Isan excellence or God consciousness where you you know you're able to see things a lot deeper than the average Muslim. For that average Muslim that might be real gung-ho and you know, strict and surface level, sometimes it's just best to let them stay there. Especially if you're at a perspective to where you can see things a bit deeper. And you know, sometimes there there are people out here that need to be told if you don't wake up tomorrow and do good deeds, Allah ain't gonna bless you. If you wake up tomorrow and keep acting like that, Elba's gonna get you. Because otherwise, people wouldn't get up and do a damn good deed, you know, if they weren't told that. So being able to see it from a deeper perspective like that at this sign or God consciousness, I would still be portraying myself as a Muslim around this Muslim I'm talking to. Because obviously I'd probably be in the mosque while I'm having this dialogue, but I'd be speaking to him in a way that I can say it safely inside the mosque, you know, to let him know, like, nah, for us a couple of additional degrees of knowledge you kind of come into. Because if you stay right there, you're gonna become a fanatic. And nobody will listen to you. If you stay right there.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Now, what do you say before we continue on you know, the differences of souf and similarities? Uh, one of the brothers, I forgot his name, he's from Philly. Uh we're about the same complexion. He might be a little lighter. Uh a real deep brother. Totally, I can't believe I'm forgetting his name right now. But he was saying that everybody's a Muslim. Now, yeah. How do you see that?

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Uh by definition, right? Not by like how the religious term would describe it. Right. Somebody who submits their will to the will of Allah, because as soon as you say Allah to a Christian or a Buddhist or whoever, like, you lost them. So God, higher self, the most high, whatever the person may want to call it, everybody to a degree listens to their higher self, whether they know it or not. Right. Sometimes they don't pay attention.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah. So to a higher self or to their higher self?

SPEAKER_03 36:40

A or or the, you know. I know, I know a sister that practices uh Hinduism and Buddhism uh so much to the degree to where uh her views and concepts on spirituality, uh, she kind of has to have uh a form to say a deity. So some of the things I may speak of like formlessness, uh kind of an alien concept to it. But those same two concepts of God essentially are giving me and her both the same damn teachings, you know, just different levels of understanding. She needs to see it depicted as a being, whether she believes it literally existed that way or not, you know, as long as it makes her a better Buddhist Him to be what have you. Cool. Doesn't work like that for me.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Okay, so Muslim means to submit to the will of Allah, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Uh from the Orthodox perspective, yeah. But then literally, uh Mu, the prefix means one who is the next word. And that next word is seleam or uh salam, which means peace. So literally, Muslim doesn't mean one who submits to the will of Allah. Submitting to the will of Allah is something the Muslim does, but that's not uh what the word itself means. It literally means one of peace. Almost like the Bible says, blessed be the peacemakers, those will be the ones who inherit the earth. Or the Quran says, when we make it to heaven, peace, that's gonna be our greeting to each other, and we greet each other with peace right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

So to that degree, linguistically, yeah, to the degree everybody is.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Okay, so you're saying uh etymologically, yeah, etymologically. Okay. Mu and salon.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

One of people the same throughout Arabic altogether. Like I can't be al-Kareen, because that's attributed solely to Allah. But if I'm one who's generous, and when somebody might call me Mu Karim, like one who is generous. Same, same concept, but it's a descriptive term. Person can't be a Muslim if they're not, at least of peace, trying to live peaceful, excluding peace, or doing something from their religion system, school of thought, to I don't want to be dogmatic, but just to say to spread the essence of whatever the teaching is that the school of thought comes the person comes from. Not many religions, you know, teach people to go out and kill and you know forcefully convert like some are doing nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

For real. So, okay, we can go to the next slide. I don't mean to take you off courses, but I just wanted to, you know, put that out there, clear, clear, clear some stuff up. Don't worry, man.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

Um Islam being experiential knowledge and prophecy. I know we kind of hit it to prophecy earlier and following their prophetic traditions, with Muhammad being the seal of prophets that came before, or the the essence of all the teachings of the previous prophets, all compressed into one, being a Muslim, one of peace who we're just describing. It's the first degree, right? So Allah says in Surah Al-Mukminun, which is actually number two, is one with Iman is a mukmin. So he says, certainly the believers, now you've gone from being a Muslim to a mukman, because now you are one of faith and belief. Certainly the believers will have succeeded, progressed, or moved onward, meaning they didn't stay at that same level of thought. Islam is revealed in stages or degrees. So what the first one being Islam, the second one being Iman, that had those six articles that we mentioned. That also lets us know that just being stuck at a level of faith and belief and never getting any experiential knowledge isn't really the best place to stay at either. We should always strive for the third. You know, we can look at it like we say it's God body to God consciousness here in the West. But even with me and with some, this is how I think you can kind of tell whether a person is really a Sufi or not. Because they're never gonna run around telling everybody, I have attained XYZ station or degree, I have attained God consciousness, I've attained Sign. That's literally the process. It's a process of attaining. It's a lifelong process. You never really fully gain full experiential knowledge of God because it's just too much to attain in one lifetime. So in the second verse of the Quran, Allah says, and and do good. So this leads us into ifsan, those who do good, good deeds and actions, those uh of of excellence, those of God consciousness, because indeed Allah loves those doers of good. Allah loves those of excellence, Allah loves those who are God conscious, or that same concept. Mu, one who possesses the next word, sign, or that third, that third degree and that third level of knowledge. Now Allah loves the doers of good, a mu sin. Sounds familiar, don't it? Indeed. Yeah. Or just drop the H and then turn that U into an A and the I into an O. We got the exact same teaching, just this one has a little Islamic flavor on it. You know, the one we're used to over here has a little Western seasoning, but same exact concept and same type of teaching, same uh degree system. That's kind of why I keep going, you know, with the one, two, three. So the full context of this is Allah telling us from those two verses, they don't stay at this degree of knowledge because there's an additional degree of knowledge for you to attain. Don't don't don't get comfortable there neither, because there's another degree of knowledge for you to attain. Uh, Bislam doesn't promote complacency in any degree, shape, or form at all. And that's kind of getting us from Islam to Sufism.

Outer Law And Inner Refinement

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Uh what's the quote from my sheikh, uh, Sheikh Alpadu Bamba? And sorry for the long-winded one, but he illustrates uh both of them kind of side by side. He says, um, and he's he's quoting two other uh teachers in this particular quote, also. So um he's saying, according to the masters, the religious knowledge is divided into two sorts, what we call exoteric knowledge, or kind of how we were just describing Islam, like religious knowledge and esoteric knowledge or Sufism. Same school of thought a little bit deeper with the teaching and explanation. The exoteric one for religious knowledge, Islam is in charge of improving man's actions, your Muslim do's and don'ts. So some things you will see Muslims do. Some things you will not see Muslims do, right? But the esoteric one, the spiritual one or Sufism deals with the spiritual mood, it's all the inner tradition. The first one is known as fiqh or Islamic law, while the second one is known as Tasuwuf or Sufism or what's gonna call uh mysticism. Now, what's the important part? Because Sheikh Ahmed Obama says before even trying to get to Sufism, um, any type of character refinement from that degree of being taught, it behooves to any believer, one with Iman, second degree, it behooves to any believer to first comply with the rules of fit at Islam, first degree, before practicing Sufism. Third. So whosoever disregards the legal rules of worship, meaning somebody who looks into Islam and then turns around and tries to practice or understand Islam or Sufism shall perish in this world by the sentence of the doctors of the law. Don't take that literally. It doesn't mean a person is literally gonna die. But whatever they think they know about Islam and Sufism is just not that. That's their that's their death, that's their ignorance about the thing. Any that neglects the mystical or the inner aspects of the religion, the character refinement of Pastor Wuff or Sufism shall perish in the next world by the will of the majestic Lord. And again, not literally let's say, like I believe my concept of heaven is the street, uh the way it was described in Christianity. And I never look at existence from a deeper perspective. So when I finally drop my body and go on to the next life, and it don't look shit like I was taught when I was dying here, you know, whether I can remember it or not. You know, it would have been better if I would have at least tried to look at life a little bit deeper, so that by the time this existence is over, whatever comes next won't be anything shocking or strange. I didn't box myself in here. So it's considered compulsory for any servant to combine the combined respects for the established rules of worship, sikh or Islam, with the concerns for the mystical aspects of Tasawuf, uh character, finement, spirituality, or whatever they call it, so as to obtain reward. So whoever confines or uh whoever conforms to the apparent modes of worship while giving no credit to the inside is assuredly a thorough rascal. I always think that's funny. This is a poem behind you. So he's calling people who ignore one or the other and never have a proper understanding of both a rascal in either degree, because both are missing something. As for those who does quite the reverse and focuses on the mysticism and get so deep to where they become a fanatic and they forget all about the standard rules of worship. This person, like we were saying earlier, becomes a heretic or fanatic. So he's kind of giving us an example of what Islam is and Synchronism is, best way to combine both of them and why you shouldn't focus solely on one or the other. If you stay uh religious-minded, then there's certain things that are literally in the Quran plain as day that we won't be able to see from a deeper perspective. It'll only be, you know, this one way of understanding it. I'll never be able to take this knowledge anywhere other than right here in this book on paper. Never be able to take it off the paper and make it live within me.

unknown 47:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

If I just look back deeper, you know, if I'm God-bodied, if I got a messenger that teaches me how to live that way, then that's the esoteric side. Again, like I said earlier, if that's spooky, if that's mysticism, then yeah, I'm a spooky mystic then. It's easy to be a jerk out here in the world. We can see it playing as day. You know, but I think the world would be a hell of a lot better if every day a person woke up and tried their best not to be. No matter what system that they come from. Now to get from Islam to uh Sufism, Sheikh Albuhamba says like the kind of uh bullet point everything briefly said, that the the best knowledge is indisputably that which treats the theology of Allah and his unity or Tawheed side by side again. So he's still saying standard theology and also the science of Tawheed or oneness. That oneness doesn't leave any room for separation. Like we were saying earlier, doesn't leave any room for any type of distinction other than the fact that we got two different types of Muslims here. I guess for people that might look at it from the outside looking in, but between me and you, we're just two Muslims. The only degree of differentiation between a Muslim and another Muslim is by the degree of piety, uh consciousness. That's the only degree of determining whether a person is a better Muslim than I am or not. This person by his life, his doings, and his acts and closer to Allah than me. Dang, he's doing a hell of a lot more community service than I am. I need to step it up, you know. So being able to marry those two is the best way. Afterwards, it kind of comes a level of study I think some don't get into, which I think is kind of um, you know, it can kind of limit uh growth moving forward. It mentions the exegesis of the Quran, that means like not just reading it, you know, studying it, whether you can read Arabic or not, or whether you get one of the uh the Malana Muhammad Ali translation with the real long footnotes at the bottom, so you can really get in and study, so you don't just listen to what somebody tells you about the book. You get into it so now you can explain it. The science of the prophetic traditions or the hadith, like what did the prophet do? Like what did the ones before him do? Like, how can I verify this teaching? How can I bring this teaching forward to today? Is there anybody that can give this information to me? I need to go study up under this person. Uh after those disciplines, he mentions Islamic law for a fifth, which is just the understanding of like your practical applications of jurisprudence based on the Quran, Sunnah, and Hadith. So he's essentially saying there's even within Islam, there's still a lot for a person to study. Theology, how he exegesis of the Quran, like how to read it and how to explain it uh without veering away from what the language says, the science of the prophetic tradition, you know, how to embody the prophets today without saying or doing anything too heretical, you know, around folks who believe too much and how to make all those things applicable and pragmatic. And my favorite portion, of course, because you know, I'm a fanatic for translating straight off to Bama's writings, he mentions literary sciences also, because they they serve as the chief tool for those disciplines, such as grammar, parody, rhetoric, Arabic, and the like. And I highlight one of his poems just for a reason, because this will show how some Sufi teachings really are.

Decoding Sufi Poetry And Arabic Ciphers

SPEAKER_03 51:39

If somebody were to look at this entire poem, these are just the first two lines, there's 86 lines in this poem, and it looks just like an Arabic prayer. It it's right, it rhymes, it sings songgy, it comes off like an Arabic prayer. So if anybody who didn't know anybody looked at it, they'd be like, oh Lord, some Sufis go again on their long prayers and recite and all they do all the extra stuff, but it's it's literally teaching um Supreme Alphabet in Arabic. And you you have to decipher the cipher in order to understand how he's teaching the supreme alphabet in Arabic.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

And I didn't uh I left out the last portion intentionally, but I like to so so so so so so supreme alphabet to the five percent nation is Allah, be a born, see, so that's supreme alphabet to us. Now, supreme alphabet meaning just you mean the alphabet.

SPEAKER_03 52:39

Same con well uh concept, yeah, of the letters themselves having a uh a meaning or a term applied to them. Oh yeah, or in this case, uh the letters themselves, when you spell the letter out, it um it exists as a word, and that word has meaning. So each individual letter has a word when spelled out now has that hidden meaning within it. So the science of it kind of works similar. That's not kind of why I say it like that. So the science is similar, but that's not what they call it. It's just you know, science is similar. Okay. But it says, um tafu a rahu l rai wa bae waha. I know that sounds like gibberish, but essentially what he said word for word is the letter shim, because in Arabic there's a letter that makes the shh sound. That letter got three dots on it. And the letter K, if you spell it out in Arabic, it's calf. The letter R in Arabic, if you spell it out, it's ra is for the ra letter R again, and that R is attached to a Ba, which is a letter B. And whatever that is, is also the A, which is another B again, and also the R, which is uh the letter R again. And a decipher that all he's all he's literally saying is my thanks and praise are for my Lord who is the most generous one. Because to decipher decipher, the shem, calf, and the ra spells shukar in Arabic, and shukar means thanks for gratitude. So that's she knew my thanks and gratitude is literally all that first bowl line says. Lir means is for whatever he's about to explain. Ra and ba, although those are all words, it's just a little bit too much to get into, but ra and ba, when you put them together, spells rab, and rab means lord, savior, your higher self, master, what have you. And it's Lord, Savior, higher self. There's also the ba and the ra, which is al-Bar, which is the source of all goodness or the source of all kindness. So see how we we just had to literally read this thing two or three times to decipher it from Arabic into English and then figure out which words are letters and put those letters in order to spell out what word that they're ciphered up uh to just to kind of hide, and then put that word back in the same place in the sentence to make it make sense. Now imagine how many like real secretive teachings are written this exact same way. Like some of the stuff I literally can't even talk about on camera. Stuff is written in ways like this, to where some of the mysteries that we've been holding on to for ages are written and coded in such a way where if the person hasn't studied theology or how the Quran is written, hasn't studied any of the prophetic traditions, he won't be able to see hints of them in the writing. If he hadn't studied, you know, grammar, prose, rhetoric and the like, he won't be able to figure out how to take letters and words and figure out which is which to then put everything in order again and all to make anything that he gets from the Sufi order actually make any sense. Because I've seen someone put this same prayer out all 86 lines and say all you have to do is keep this spiritual prayer that has these kind of powers and you know it'll it'll protect you from this and yada yada yada. And and they don't realize that it's a a teaching. Like if you if you decipher it, he's literally teaching you the science of how to substitute uh letters for their word form, and vice versa, give you a science on how to do the exact same thing if you apply it in your in your language.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

Got you. Now, if who learns this, um is it like uh uh uh people on another level of Sufism?

SPEAKER_03 57:04

I would say yes and no. Um the the it will take the person's intention to get there. Uh I honestly think the only reason I can understand this is because my first shake, we had two Arabic classes. There were two eight-week Arabic classes. And after those Arabic classes, uh, we kind of fell off and uh the teaching kind of went in a different direction, a little bit more spiritual oriented. But I was, you know, fully involved in and knee deep in trying to figure out the Arabic language a bit more so I could understand this black man's writings that don't exist in English. So while everybody else was studying spiritual teachings, I stayed in the Arabic. You know, I had to get the grammar, I had to get the gender uh roles, the syntax and all of that to be able to bring some of his writings out of Arabic into English because otherwise they still be sitting in Arabic across seas, and nobody would know what any of them means in English.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Uh oh, yeah, call me.

SPEAKER_03 58:06

Um yeah, I saw that one. I was gonna get to it.

SPEAKER_00 58:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh I forgot to I'm I'm I'm I I wanted you to keep building. Uh uh brother Aben said, peace to Ben. What's up, Abin? I don't know if you're still on the chat. Peace to you, brother. Good to see you, man. Been with us from the from the beginning,

Is Allah Feminine? Language Nuance

SPEAKER_00 58:26

man. Um uh he said, is the word Allah feminine? Brother Polite was the first person I heard, I heard day that, but I've heard it a few times. First person I heard day that, or I guess it's not that day. Yeah, probably say that.

SPEAKER_03 58:48

I've um I heard it too, but and um I look a little bit deeper and to figure out like, well, then why is this person saying this? If I look at the the character itself, I lie as a whole and break it down to its individual letters. The very last letter is a feminine character, true enough. The soft silent H at the end of Allah technically is a the feminine character.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Uh, and then we have um Almighty Divine Seven Allah, peace God. Yeah, I know uh yeah, we all know Polite is the scam artist.

SPEAKER_03 59:29

Uh I wasn't gonna try not to go there, but yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, Polite can't read Arabic, by the way. So uh there's a lot about the the remainder of the word or its title out loud that he just might not have been able to explain, although they're just saying the word itself is feminine. The last letter itself linguistically is feminine, but the the name aloud itself is not.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Okay, okay. All right. Now uh before we close, I want to let uh if whatever else you want to you know address, you can now. Uh we're gonna speak on this again. This is uh, you know, we're gonna do this today, and of course, we have another one Tuesday with the brother Salman S. Sheikh in the building. Uh so this is uh the first part, and then we have a second part Tuesday. So if uh before we close, is there anything else that you want to add? And uh before we before we close.

Book Plug, Senegal Blueprint, Closing

SPEAKER_03 1:00:28

Uh yeah, with um the comparisons between Islam and Sufism, uh shameless plug, but the the lifted veils was one of the first books that I wrote, and it consists of uh 15 different poems by Sheikh Afmanu Bamba. Wait, hold on one second.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

Let me put you on the screen. Hold on one second, brother.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

Uh yeah, yeah. The lifted veils. It's uh 15 poems by Sheikh Afmanu Bamba. And from these 15, we have some, you know, the spiritual teachings, ethical and moral teachings, some praise, poetry, so you kind of get a wide array of the types of things that he wrote. Every single poem that he wrote is painstakingly translated and transliterated line by line and word by word. So for those that might be on the cusp of you know, Islam to Sufism or Islam and Sufism, this particular book will give you the Arabic. This particular book will give you the transliteration and translation of some of these poems by Sheikh Afid Bamba, like the one I was quoting from in the PowerPoint, so that you can see bits of Islam within the Sufi teachings. You can see Sufism and bits of the Islamic teachings that you make it from the mosque. And from this, which is my sole intention to show people the similarities and the unity between what we know is Islam in the West and what is known as Sufism, even by those that might not think that Sufism is an important thing to look into. I say that leaving Sufism out of the equation is like saying I'm a human, but I don't have a heart. If it wasn't for the inner dimensions, there wouldn't be uh outer dimension. Um I'm glad you're bringing this up in the in the chat too, because I think sometimes a lot of people do miss out on uh on these teachings, but yeah, the age at the end of Allah is indeed feminine, the the a or the aleph at the beginning is kind of uh transcendental, so that carries throughout the whole entire name or title, so it kind of gets people to kind of get away from that. Allah is the feminine uh word concept. Arabic got those two different types of letters, and there's a reason you rarely hear Arabic keepers elaborate on it because that knowledge allows you to get deeper into the language, deeper into the syntax to where you can look at the Quran now. You'll know the language, you'll be able to dive deep into the knowledge. You won't have to worry about relying on what that Arab Imam at the Mash down the street says it all. So if I can leave anybody that may be a Muslim that isn't Hindu sleep is a wicked anything, before you go to sleep or not, just type in Sheikh Alhamba in your Google search window and look at some of the things that he was able to do with Sufi understanding based off of Islam in regards to how he was able to set up and establish a self-sufficient autonomous society within Senegal while also fighting against French colonialism at the exact same time, so much to the degree to where they won that fight. That exact same concept, that exact same blueprint we can use over here.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

Indeed, man, man. That was peace right there, brother. We will have you back on Tuesday. More build on Sufism, SUNY versus Sufism Tuesday. Thank you for coming out, brother. We really appreciate it. Everybody in the chat. We got gods in the chat. We got Moors in the chat. We got we've got uh uh uh uh ancient free ancient. Why the hell do I always butcher that? Ancient Moors Ancient Free Moors right. Oh my god, you ain't the only one, but it gets me too. Yo, we got a lot of we got a good mixture of people on this chat, man. I love it, I love it, I love it. Ancient free Moorish right. Yo, Cyrus, you know I always mess that up, bro. Pardon me, bro. We got ancient free Moorish right in the building. We got the five percenters in the building, we got the Moors in the building. Oh man, I think we got uh we got some Muslims in the building too. Yep, I think, I think, man, this was great, man. I'll see y'all again Tuesday, Tuesday at 7 p.m. Uh, be there and be on your square. I'll see y'all. Thank you for coming in on the chat. I really appreciate it. And we are out of here.