Shaban, Month of the Blessed Messenger, May He Be Showered in Peace

In the All Embracing Name of Allah Who is Overflowing with Love and Compassion

Blessings to each of you in this magnificent month of Shaban.

Shaban is the month of the beloved Muhammad, may he be showered in sublime peace and beauty.

May we dive deep into his reality.

May we learn to love the one called Muhammad on earth, Mahmud on the Day of Truth, and Ahmed in Paradise.

May our heart be touched by the one called Al Amin ‘the trustworthy’ by his people, before he was revealed as the prophet of the All Merciful.

May we take refuge with the one who ran down from the Mountain of Hira trembling in awe from having seen the great Angel of revelation and was covered by his noble wife Hadija under her mantel.

May we honor the human being who at the age of forty received the blessed news that he was a messenger of Allah in the ancient line of Messengers and Prophets - the 124,000 noble beings sent by Allah to humanity to call the human heart back into its Source. Ya Rasulallah, peace be upon you and upon all the Prophets and Messengers!

May we be grateful to the noble Siddiq who confirmed the truth of all the sacred traditions and holy books so that we are able to see the unity and the vastness of the sacred Tradition of the One.

May we weep with the tender-hearted one who was rejected by his people because he called them to Allah and he brought them Allah’s instructions to turn in prayer and be grateful, to free the slave and honor the woman, and treat the orphan with kindness and share some of their wealth with those in need. And yet he continued praying for them.

May we come close to the one who is the friend, guide and mercy to all peoples and creatures.

May we emulate the one who embodied such beautiful qualities that he was called the ‘jewel of creation.’

May we learn the beauty of humbleness from the one who honored the poor and could be led away from conversations with people by a child taking his hand.

May we learn mystic conjugality from the one who prayed salat in the bed as his beloved wife Aisha lay by his side.

May we keep company with the one who prayed in the watches of the night for his Lord’s pleasure upon his community, and who by day sought again and again the forgiveness of the All Forgiving.

May we be in awe of the one who was called by his Beloved to ascend thru the seven heavens where he received countless teachings and prayers for humanity, and then traversed the 70,000 veils of light, in each of which a divine secret was revealed. Called ever more intensely by Love he was brought into complete nearness, the station of ‘nearer than near and nearer than that,’ where he witnessed the astonishing Essence of Allah and was embraced into the Essence.

May we receive transmission from the one who received the 90,000 mystic words from his Beloved – “some for faithful, some for saints, some only for Rasul,”- during that moment beyond space and time.

May we love the beloved of Allah, who loves humanity and all beings so intensely that in the station of Two Bow Lengths or Nearer, when he could have received any divine bounty he desired, he asked for the salvation of humanity, his community.

May we ask intercession from the one who declared, "On the Day of Awakening I shall intercede for my community until Allah calls to me saying, 'Are you content, O Muhammad?' and I will answer, 'O my Lord and Cherisher, I am content.'"

May we love the one who opened the floodgates of love in all the hearts. Ya Habibullah!

May we praise the one who is overflowing with praise and who has taught us how to praise with the most beautiful forms and words of praise. Ya Ahmad, Mahmud, Muhammad, may you be showered in the most sublime peace and praise eternally, enshrined in the secret heart of humanity

May we rejoice with the one who has brought us the beauty and ecstasy of the circles of zikrullah, the gardens of Paradise, where Allah is praising Allah.

May we be eternally grateful to the one who brought us the magnificent Koran and the essence of Koran in the holy sentence ‘La ilahe ilallah Muhammad rasulallah.’

May we honor the one who brought us from his journey through Paradise the blessed salat, the prayer of ascension for the faithful.

May we take the hand of the one who is the living truth and who brings us to the Truth, the one whose handhold does not release. “Allah’s Hand is over their hand”

May we be bonded to the one who unveiled the all encompassing Mercy of the Most Merciful of the Merciful.

May we follow the one whose path is safe thru the seven levels of the soul and into the bewildering heights of the spirit. Ya Rashid, O perfect guide!

May we learn knowledge with the one who was commanded to always seek knowledge – “Rabbi zidni ilmen” - and whose mystic gnosis manifests as the magnificent ocean of Sufism.

May we learn mystic knowledge from the one who informed us that we are all asleep and dreaming until we die, at which moment we will awaken…the one who instructed us to “die before you die,” so that you will truly be alive while on this earth.

May we honor the one in the waking vision of Shaykh Nur who asked him, “’Beloved guide, are you too a dream, telling me that Hell and Paradise are dreams?’ The most excellent of guides responds instantly and with great power: ‘I am the dream key to the dream lock of the dream door that opens into the treasure of Divine Love, which alone is not a dream.’”

May we send showers of peace and blessings upon the one to whom Allah declared: “O beloved Muhammad, to those who send you greetings of peace, I offer My Peace. To those who call down My Blessing upon you, I send down the same blessing.”

May we gaze into the one who is the perfect mirror of Allah and see therein our own divine beauty.

May we understand that his light and the light of all the Prophets and the light of humanity is one light.Ya Shamsi Duha!

May we find him in our heart.

The secret of Muhammad, peace be upon him, is found in his wives, in his family, in his closest companions, in his community in Medina, in the people of the bench who left everything of the world to be near to him, in the mothers, in the orphans, in those who came to seek his counsel, in those who listened to him and followed his guidance, in those who fought by his side, in his riding mounts, in the animals of the community to whom he brought mercy, in the date groves in which he prayed, in the rain that fell upon his blessed head, in all those he prayed for in the past and in the future, even in his enemies.
Muhammad is the community of life and the community of life is Muhammad.

Heart in heart in the community of life
Fariha