The Dead Branches Are Falling

BismillahirRahmanirRahim

It’s not even Kerbala for us yet, already people are dropping. Imagine if it was Kerbala. It’s still the good times. You are not required to leave your houses, and you have a choice. Those people there in Kerbala, they had a choice. Let’s talk about the 73 who were martyred, leave all the betrayers. They had a choice. They had a choice to say ‘this is your fight, all the men to go, women to stay behind with the kids.’ They had a choice, the men, to say ‘this is our fight, women to stay.’ They had a choice. But they didn’t take that choice.

What did they choose? They choose to be with their leader, knowing by tomorrow, everything is going to be finished. They accept. They did not accept on that night. They accepted it days, weeks, months before, when Hz Huseyin made a decision to go. They accept that it was their fate when Prophet (AS) went through that experience in a vision where Hz Jibril is saying ‘this is what is going to happen. They accept it, and they went through. Do you understand? Because it happened a long time ago. It is shown. They accept it. What is making them to accept? What is making us not to accept? What is making them to accept and to say ‘this is a matter of honor, I made a promise, this is not only blood, but the spirit,’ because there are those ones who are not related by blood to Hz Huseyin too, but they were with him. What is making them to do it? What is making us not to do it? What is making so many hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, with their loud voices, to say ‘we accept you, we love you, we sacrifice,’ what is making them to move away, to betray? What is making those ones who stayed with them until the last night, until the last minute, and then decide that ‘no, this is not a fight worth fighting for.’ And they went to join Yazid, and Yazid said ‘kill every one of them. If they betrayed Huseyin, they will betray me.’ So those ones, they lost dunya and they lost Ahiret too.

Think, because these things they don’t just appear like that. These things have always been inside. Both faith and kufur are inside of us. How you are giving water to it is how it’s going to grow. How you are going to control is how it’s going to be suppressed. Those who left, what is making them to leave? Sheykh Effendi said, because they came and they supported Huseyin too for different reasons. Because they say ‘Huseyin is going win, then we are going to be governors, we are going to be people with power, with authority. Oh, for Islam,’ they will also say that. Then check yourself, what are you here for? To get what you want? ‘Oh, for Islam.’ Or are we here to understand what is our kufur and how it’s connected to everything we are doing, thinking it’s for Islam, then to cut it? If you are not being careful with that, it will grow. By the time you take a look, it’s already overtaken everything. You cannot cut it off. They will cut if off for you.

Those ones who with Hz Huseyin, Hz Huseyin helped them their whole lives. They betrayed. What made the wife of Hz Hasan to betray him, to poison him? What is making our brothers to betray this way? That if power were in their hands, and if they are supported by the Yazidis of today, they will come and they will destroy us? Yes, don’t forget, us and our wives and our children too, to say ‘these are all evil ones.’ They did that during Sheykh Effendi’s time, calling us the zikr of sheytan, that for years they are saying Sheykh Effendi is completely evil and the people who are follow him are evil. They tried to do that to us. Either from those who left us or those who are outside, those who are jealous like this or like that, or those who are confused. They’re still doing that, calling us that. A little bit here and there. Alhamdulillah, we are following the Hakkanis, but it also comes at a price from inside. We don’t do that first, we will become that. We will be with them. You hear the whisperings of betrayal, whisperings of disloyalty, your sheytan and your ego is going to whisper to you. If you are not going to understand that and take care of it, it will overtake you and you will become one of the most ungrateful ones, to begin with. Yes, you will not be well. Then that time, be careful.

It’s okay, lately Sheykh Effendi is shaking this tree and telling us to trim, and the dead branches they are falling. Don’t be dead. Be alive. This is key, what are you alive for? You are in Tarikat, you are in this Jamaat, what are you alive for? What is making your heart to become alive? If it’s not about this way or this Sheykh and this Jamaat is reaching towards, if it’s you, separate from this, alive for that, check yourself again. Because that kind of a faith is not going to save you. That kind of attachment is not, it’s very weak. That kind of an attachment, it will drop us just like that when the situation calls for some sacrifice to be made. Right now, there’s no sacrifice. You will come to me, maybe, you will say ‘oh, I want to do this, but my wife says no.’ We say, oh, okay, go ahead. ‘You know, my children, you know, my this, you know, my that.’ I will understand, I will say ‘yes, I understand. You must go.’ That’s what Hz Huseyin said to them. But if we’re following in the footsteps of the Ehli Bayt, we should not betray our bloodline. They don’t take any excuses. No reason, no excuse. They say ‘we made a promise, and we follow right up to the end.’

InsyaAllah, Allah make us to become alive to those ones who is going to remind us of this, who is going to make us to become more awake and aware of this, who is going to make us to take action for this. Beware from people who are going to make you to become more asleep and drugged in the way of Tarikat. May Allah forgive me, raise the station of Sahibulsaif, insyaAllah, Al Fatiha.

Sheykh Lokman Efendi Hz
Khalifah of SahibulSaif Shaykh Abdulkerim el Kibrisi (qs),
Osmanli Dergah, New York
10 Muharram 1443
18 August 2021