Sohbat by Mawlana Sheikh Nazim, Lefke, 24. December 2003

A home without an entrance is useless. Water is the cause of life, and cleanliness. There is no cleanliness without water.

This refers to our physical being. Our souls, however, need another kind of water, sacred water running from Heaven to the hearts of chosen servants. Those were chosen by the Lord of Heavens. From that sacred water, sacred streams of wisdom were granted, directly from Heaven. But coming down this way it wouldn't be useful and too much would get wasted.

Therefore Divine Wisdom makes one source to come down and spread this in the hearts of people. Not every home needs an electric center; no need to install that power station in every home and city. When something is wrong in the main center it affects the generator. One power station from Heaven is spreading Heavenly Wisdom: this sacred stream is what your spiritual being is in need of, and is what keeps it alive. It doesn't come under the material heaviness of your personality. Those taps belong to power centers appointed for this area.

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Our physical being needs water for living and cleaning. Even more so our souls need "water" to provide them with power, and to enable them to reach their heavenly homeland in the spiritual world. If you want an airplane to fly from continent to continent you must fill it with petrol, to prevent it from falling down. In order to return to our Heavenly Homeland we, too, need, as it were, sacred water. Since we are going back there don't waste your spiritual power here by being occupied with your physical desires that cut you off from reaching the Heavens.

We are here to collect power every day for the cleanliness of our souls. Being surrounded by the dirt of our physical desires, we must save our efforts to return to the spiritual homeland. That is our real mission, and all prophets came to clean mankind from the dirt of their physical desires. Shaytan came to prevent people from this by filling them with dirt, and all satanic groups and teachings have this aim.

This struggle, namely between Satan and human beings, has been going on since Sayyidina Adam , and as the children of Adam have been getting more numerous, satanic groups have also been increasing. Satan trains his armies to fight against our souls: our real being. This struggle has been going on from beginning till today, la yazal.

They say that the first man existed thousands of years ago, and that we have reached the top point of civilization, with the top point of technology. Satan came to Pharaoh without knocking, so Pharaoh asked about the one entering without a key, and he sent his soldiers after him. Satan said, "I'm the one who is not in need of this." Therefore I often ask you if you know places without Satan? Or if you think that the Holy Kaaba, the House of our Lord, is without shaytan? or Medina, or the Al-Aqsa mosque? or the sacred land of Palestine? Therefore Satan could say, "I can get anywhere without keys, to palaces, emperors, magnificent palaces, sultans, pashas, without any legitimation. I've got carte blanche. Oh Pharaoh, how can you say you're lord of these foolish Egyptians", or "I've got more than 124.000 wizards, and with their help I'm in command".

As we said in the beginning: Mankind needs a cleaning for their physical and spiritual being, as their minds are connected with their souls. Dirty Antichrist brings dirty ideas which dirty the souls of mankind. Our souls need this "operation", this soul cleaning. Our souls need that water from sacred streams, which, by secret ways, comes to the servants of the Lord of Heavens. People of the 21st century, however, think they don't need this cleaning; they think that physical cleanliness is enough.

Every day something comes to help with cleaning our souls. but every day, also, something comes and puts more darkness on the hearts of people.

"The Perfume of Paradise – Sheikh Nazim's Little Book of Marriage"

Sheikh Hassan advises anyone who wants to get married to read this book. That's what he says in the foreword:

Now available: "The Perfume of Paradise"

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The Herberge currently has more than ten brothers and sisters from Syria, Morocco, Turkey, Italy, Argentina and other countries, who not only find a safe place to stay with mosque connection and food, but also voluntary support in office visits, job and apartment searches.

While talking to the host and spiritual leader in the center's restaurant, Mr. Esser was able to admire the elaborate Arabic calligraphy and ornaments that were hand-crafted by a Syrian guest. They testify that integration does not have to mean giving up cultural identity and tradition. Musically too, our new neighbors have enriched us - their songs tell us beyond the words of passionate love for the Prophet and deep yearning for home.

Music connects people and creates bridges, and it speaks to our hearts. This explains the popularity of the annual Sufi Soul Festival, which will be held for the 19th time this summer on the green space behind the Osmanische Herberge. On the occasion of the mayor's visit, organizational issues relating to the festival were discussed as well. Further there was mentioning of the long-term school project, where students of Kall Elementary School visit the Osmanische Herberge as part of an annual interreligious event to learn more about Islam.

The meeting was an interesting encounter between a secular and a spiritual leader. Mr. Esser also showed his human side when talking about the heavy burden that his office imposed on him. Sighing, he mentioned that you can often see a light burning in the town hall when you drive past it in the evening at eight, and that this is usually his room. During the final tour the obligations of our honored Sheikh Hassan got mentioned, whose phone never stops, because brothers and sisters from all over the world call for advice on spiritual, health and professional issues, or just because they had a bad dream. Sheikh Hassan added with a smile that his light also is still burning at eight in the evening (and as we all often know after midnight).

If you want to measure the success of the project by the visible result, then you can draw a positive conclusion: All planned work, namely insulation of the roof and replacement of all skylights, were done timely and with German thoroughness.

Or, if you measure it with the satisfaction of the volunteer planners, helpers and supporters, it looks even better. The atmosphere in the team was just perfect and despite all the hard work there was enough time to relax. The beautiful nature of northern Hessen invited you to long walks under magnificent, wintry-blue sky, after which you could warm yourself up in the cozy living rooms of the main house and enjoy the good company. The best food was provided by the host Ahmadullah and the wives and sisters, without whose delicious meals - prepared with love - certainly no beam would have been raised, and no nail set.

However, if one applies spiritual success as a measure of the success of the work, then all of our evaluation criteria fail. But according to the words of our Master Sheikh Nazim, the service in a Dergah is associated with immeasurable blessings, and the Prophet says in a confirmed tradition:

”Whoever builds a mosque for the sake of Allah, Allah will build for him likewise in Paradise." (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim)

Just as the rays of the sun reach the earth, so do heavenly blessings flare up briefly even in this world. At the end of the work week, our honored Sheikh Hassan visited the Rasenmühle on Sunday and hosted a Maulid with Abu Nur and Ustad Daud Khan (to video). While listening to the beautiful praises of our Prophet , those present were able to forget space and time and open their hearts to receive waves of light, love and beauty.

As soon as next wek we will be proceeding with the second stage, inshallah. Among other things its planned to do the insulation and lining of the ceiling of the lower room as well as the wiring and electrical installations. Any support is welcome, be it in the form of labor, provision of resources or donations.

Not only the refurbishment of the barn needs to be be financed, but even more the planned purchase of the Raenmühle. Information on this matter can be found at our donations page.

Of course this positive resonance is mainly due to the presence of our beloved Sheikh Hassan, who came night by night to lead the night prayer and dhikr, to give sohbat and to answer the personal requests of our guests with good advise and humour until late after midnight, despite his advanced years. Every night the hearts of the visitors got illuminated by the loving kindness of our host. Recordings of the Sohbats can be found at our video page.

Good mood was provided also by Ustadh Ali Keeler, who not only brought near to us in his famed Quran school the beauty of the noble Quran, but also of the Arabic und Andalusian music for the sake of Prophet , accompanied by Abu Nour, Muslim und Abdul Razzaq. Recordings of the concerts will be published here within the coming days.

Music also played an important part at the well attended psychology seminary with Sheikh Abdul Hamid Staepke. Based on the teachings of Imam Ghazalis we learned not only in words but specially in practical exercises, that Allah didn't create us for grieve but for joy.

This might be confirmed by the participants of the Clown workshop of Dr. Omar Obst, who got encouraged to rediscover their inner Clown and present it in a playful way.

Hard work brings its own reward (or fi'l haraka baraka, as the Arab says). That's why the sport activities where in high demand, specially with the youths. The Sunna of the Prophet got exercised at Brasilian Jiu-Jitsu with Yunis Aways and at traditional archery with Ibrahim.

A bit more quiet was the popular calligraphy course with Sajida - here the attendees were allowed to experience the healing, relaxing effects of drawing in focussed contemplation, while the visitors of the Hu meditation with sister Rabia could find access to this deep relaxation by singing and breathing exercises. Many thanks also to Maria, who managed to get the kids enthusiastic about learning the Arabic alphabet, despite of the concurrence of iPhone & co.

No Wintercamp is complete without snow and ice. After the blessings of the Juma brought us a strong snowfall within the first days of the camp, there was only left to us artificial ice towards its end. The excursion to the ice rink at the lake of Zülpich provided a lot of fun for kids as well as adults, with the backdrop of a serene, sunset light scenery.

We say Alhamdulillah for the present of the community, for the blessings of this gathering and of Sheikh Hassan and Mawlana.

There our guests had the opportunity to listen to a lecture of Sheikh Hassan Dyck, in which he explained the principles of Islam and Sufism, the relation between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and spirituality in general. Fitting the occasion we were reminded, that faith means to open up, not to close down; it should connect us, not disconnect. And since Islam is a deeply practical religion it got practised immediately with a communal remembrance of God (Dhikrullah - Remembrance of the 99 Names of Allah).

Then our honoured guests had the chance to raise questions, and after some brief hesitation they were engaged in a lively conversation, which led to Sheikh Hassan explaining, why Christians and Jews are not unbelievers for Muslim people, but in the contrary enjoy special protection, and why music as expression of love of Allah Almighty is not haram but encouraged.

If you like have a look at our video recording of the whole event:
Sheikh Hassan - Wege zu den Himmeln und Sufi Meditation

And so we hope, that this day of encounter was a enrichment for all visitors and that they share our perception: that we happened to came a bit closer as brothers and sisters, as witnesses of the One-God-Believe, as humans.