Angels Unveiled: A Sufi Perspective
DESCRIPTION:
Angels take any form they wish in the physical world. As crystal water takes the form of the cup in which it is poured, angels can take the form of any creation which they visit. They do not retain their full original form of light when they are sent to human beings: "Say: If there were in the earth angels walking secure, We had sent down for them from heaven an angel [without change] as messenger" (17:95). Angels can come as birds, as human beings, or as a form of light like a rainbow adorning the sky. They have a mind and a heart, but no will and no desire other than to serve and obey God. They are never too proud to obey Him. Angels worship day and night without fatigue. They do not need to sleep, as their eyes never tire. They know no heedlessness. Their attention never wavers. Their food is glorification of God, their drink is to sanctify and to magnify Him. Their intimacy is in calling their Lord through hymning and singing His praise. Their enjoyment is to serve Him. They are devoid of any and all physiological restraints. They suffer no mood-changes. Angels inhabit Paradise and the seven heavens. They worship more than human beings because they came before them and they have greater and more powerful faculties than they. They are more pious than human beings because they are innocent and unable to fall into mistakes or wrongdoings. They never ask forgiveness for themselves but always for human beings. This shows us how much they care for us and to what extent God created them to look after us. God made them our guardians because a guardian is more perfect than the one he guards. Angels are more knowledgeable than human beings. The teacher, again, is better than the student. Their knowledge is of two kinds: intellectual and traditional. "Intellectual" means here: "of the essence of reality" or "of the heart." "Traditional" means: "revealed and translated down from above."
DETAILS:
ISBN: 9781567445145
AUTHOR: Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani
BINDING: Paperback
PAGES: 262
DIMENSIONS: 22 CM x 14 CM
PUBLISHER: Kitab Bhavan (New Delhi, India)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani is a scholar and a Sufi shaykh from the Middle East. He graduated from the American University of Beirut in Chemistry. From there he went to Belgium, to continue his Medical Degree in Louvain. Then he received his Islamic Law Degree from Damascus. From his childhood, he accompanied Grandshaykh `Abdullah ad-Daghestani and Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil, the masters of the Most Distinguished Naqshbandi Order in this time, on travels throughout the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East.
His arduous spiritual training of 40 years at the hands of his grandshaykh and his shaykh, has endowed him with the sublime qualities of wisdom, intellect, and compassion.
In 1991 he moved to America and there established the foundation of the Naqshbandiyya-Nazimiyya Sufi Order of America.
Since that time, he has opened 23 Sufi centers in Canada and the United States. He has lectured in many universities, including Oxford, SOAS, Yale, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Rutgers, Howard, McGill, Concordia, Dawson College, as well as in many spiritual and religious centers throughout North America, Europe, the Far East and the Middle East.
In his outreach mission to transmit the message of love, peace, and acceptance that comprises Traditional Islam, Shaykh Kabbani has met with countless heads-of-state, diplomats, politicians, scholars, intellectuals, religious figures and common folk around the world. His students number in the hundreds of thousands. He has successfully established programs to counter radicalism and promote tolerance and peace in a number of conflict-ridden areas of the world.
