Salaam and Greetings of Peace:
It is related that two religious fundamentalists once came to visit our late Master, Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh (may Allah bless his exalted soul and raise his rank to those of His nearest beloveds.) They had bristly whiskers and Master invited them to stay for lunch. One of them sought to provoke the Master by asking how he could become a Sufi
Dr. Nurbakhsh said, “Cut off your beard.”
“But,” protested the man, “what about him?” pointing to Mr. Niktab, the Sheikh of Sheikhs, who had a long white beard.
“Ah!” The Master said, “But his is not a beard of religion. His is a beard of love.”
Grow a beard made of love, O darvish
and claim the name of lover,
or do not pretend to the circle of the Friend.
Ya Haqq!
Note: With gratitude and special thanks to Terry Graham for the original telling of this true story on the Nimatullahi Sufi Order website.
Alhamdulillah :-)
Beautiful story
Beautiful, masha’Allah.
It’s sad that there are so many pretenders of Love.
A lovely story and lesson for those of us who strive to conduct our lives authentically, whether on the Sufi path or other guiding principle.
Salaams dear brother Irving,
Hearing you tell me this story in person a couple of weeks ago really moved me. I wrote it down and have been reflecting on it.
When I look around at our community, many of the issues really do boil down to what type of beard one wears.
Subhan’Allah, our teachers have a way of illustrating the essence of an issue so vividly and beautifully.
Thanks for posting this!
Warmly,
Baraka
Salams Baba Darvish,
May we all grow such a beard! Salams and love to you and yours…
For sure it’s a good learning. Alhamdulillah that you share , thanks for it.
May Allah help us to remove our false ego,pride, negative thoughts, anger all that things forever.
Salaam Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Thank you all for the kind comments :) Indeed, our late Master had a sly sense of humor, using it often to expose our nafs to ourselves. Alhamdulillah, that such a Sufi Master lived in our time, and that so many had the blessing to learn from him.
Ya Haqq!
My nafs really likes to search for good muslim blogs.
Thanks to your website, I found a really funny one about beards (-;
http://snagabeardedmozlem.wordpress.com/
Mashallah! What a beautiful lesson. In the movie “khuda ke liye” (in the name of God) the religious master says something similar. He says that the beard is not the beginning of religion but the peak of love for the Prophet (pbuh). I liked it and like the lesson of Dr. Nurbakhsh (may Allah bless his soul) even better.
Thank you for teaching us love, brother Irving.
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Mashallah, what a beautiful lesson.