Bismillahi rahmani raheem, assalamu alaikum.

I often say in my writing Rasul Allah (saws) said intending what i heard from Him (saws), Understand this is not binding on anyone and you should take it as general advice you can or don’t need to act on, this is the way of our scholars regarding such matters.

Insha Allah for those not familiar with how a person can see the prophet (saws) regularly, I will insha Allah explain it in the context of Islam’s history.

Being a Naqshbandi shaykh naturally you read the biographies of the shuyukh in the silsila, when you do you will find that Rasul Allah (saws) is very active in their life because they are Awliyah and he is responsible for raising their souls like a father would raise a son. If it is not Rasul Allah (saws) doing this you will see it is Sayyidinah Khidr (as) who is responsible for all the Awliyah on earth, He is their Imam, if is not sayyidinah Khidr (as) Allah will send one of ahl al ghayb, one of the awliayh that have passed away to do this Job.

You can read their biographies here:

http://naqshbandi.org/golden-chain/the-chain/

Just be warned when they talk about excessive dhikr they are counting the hasanat of the dhikr, not the actual number, so don;t attempt this yourself you can get hurt.

So how does this occur for a person? the first thing you have to understand is that this hadith is literal:

Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (saws) said, “He who sees me in his dream will see me in his wakefulness for Satan does not appear in my form (to a person who is awake).” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim).

The grading of this hadith is agreed upon, it is the highest grading a hadith can achieve and is equal to the Quran in authority, only ahadith that appear in both the Sahih of Bukhari and Muslim receive this grading and it means it is beyond doubt that Rasul Allah (saws) said it.

This is how it starts of for a wali, he first sees Rasul Allah (saws) in his dreams then as he progresses upon the path, when he reaches its end meaning he is able to see what is in ghayb with ease, the soul of Rasul Allah (saws) will visit him whilst awake so He can see his (saws) soul.

This is how it was for me, I first saw Him (saws) 20 years ago in a dram where He (saws) placed knowledge/light in my heart, then for the next 15 or so years Allah put me on a path/tariqah that would draw me closer to Him. During that time I rarely saw Rasul Allah (saws) or anyone for that matter, it was adab and Ihsan that I worked on, that is the naqshbandi way, when my heart received the final opening, it was Rasul Allah (saws) who came and removed the final veil between my heart and the Arsh of Allah, at that time I saw Him (saws) whilst I was awake as clearly as any person, there was another prophet (saws) with Him (as) who remained veiled and two Angels.

Each person’s life is different for me I grew up facing fitnah and it was the fitnah that i faced and lived through that raised me closer to Allah, each time I was attacked Allah raised my rank with Him, until I reached the Arsh.

I am saying this because if you read the lives of the Awliyah like Imam Dabbagh (as) you will see they had access to Rasul Allah (saws) like you would have access to a person living next door to you. That is not the case with myself because they lived in a time where the atmosphere of earth was still pure free from sin and fitnah, today we rule the entire world but the lives people lead of zinah, zulm, sihr and drunkenness, there is not a place on earth that is not filled with it.

It is like a barzakh between us and ghayb, between our ability to see spiritual matters with ease, this is what the Mala’ikah taught me is affecting things, so whilst I see Rasul Allah (saws) regularly now that I am at the end of matters, it is not as what Imam Dabbagh (as) and the earlier generations would have experienced.

I am an Imam like Imam Dabbagh (as), Rasul Allah (saws) likened me to Him (as) and through those 15 years that I hardly experienced anything Allah sent Him to guide me, along with other Awliayh, because of our similarities.

If you read “Pure Gold From the Words of Sayyidi Abd Al Aziz Al Dabbagh ” and you know my work well enough you will see similarities in how we answer subjects.

Here is a section from introduction to that book by Imam Lamati His main student who became the faqih of his country, when He first met the wali He tested Him to see if He was genuine;

Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem;

Concerning the Hadiths we questioned him about.

One of them was the Hadith transmitted by al-Tirmidhi from Abd Allah b. Amr b. al-As who reported:

‘The Prophet of God-God’s blessings and peace be upon him came forth to us and he had two books in his hands. He said about the one in his right hand: “This is a book from the Lord of the worlds. It contains the names of the inhabitants of Paradise, with the names of their fathers and their tribes. No one will be added to them, nor will anyone ever be subtracted from them.'”

Then he said the same thing about the book in his left hand concerning the inhabitants of Hell-fire.

At the end of the Hadith he said: ‘He spoke with a gesture of his hand and hurled the two books away. Then he said: “Your Lord has finished with His bondsmen. One group is in Paradise, the other group is in Hell-fire.'”

[As we will see from the Imams tafsir the prophet Muhammad (saws) was teaching the companions through metaphor. The fact the Prophet said Allah has finished with his bondsmen regarding the list of who will go to Hell or Heaven, means the list is predicated on the prophet’s existence in this world and His work. In other words, Allah decided on the finality of the list only in the time of the prophet Muhammad (saws) because His prophethood decided who of mans future generations will accept His (saws) light and who won’t because it now appeared in the world. Think in terms of chemistry and physiology, whose body and nafs will allow the light of Islam in so it changes them and who will reject it, this is fate at the spiritual level. Allah did not allow His knowledge of the future to interfere with mans freewill, this is the gift of creation, it is our last chance to change our fate because Allah based fate on the reactions and systems of the universe as we make our choices in life. The Pen wrote down the future of all things, but the finality of who will go to hell and heaven based on knowing/reading the future based on the reactions of the universe which the Pen did, was not allowed to be finalised until the light of the prophet Muhammad (saws) was in this world to affect it and see the outcome].

Ibn Hajir says: ‘The Hadith’s chain of transmission is good.’ But someone found it to be of doubtful authenticity. In his opinion it associates divine omnipotence with what’s inconceivable, by putting all the names of the inhabitants of Paradise in a book which the Prophet could hold in his hand-God’s blessings and peace be upon him! And the same is true for the names of the inhabitants of Hell-fire. (this is the weakest kind of hadith criticism based on your logic of what is possible and not possible, when it is the only thing you can find wrong with the hadith, this criticism is negated by the fact Allah put His words and infinite knowledge in a book called the Quran).

Here’s the text of his question. Indeed, he asked al-Dabbagh a number of questions, one of which was: ‘Oh Sayyidi, it’s a tenet of the scholars of speculative theology (kalam) that divine omnipotence is associated with things that are possible, not with the inconceivable. Yet the following has come down in a hadith from the Chosen One:

(126) “One day he came forth to his Companions with two books in his hands and said: ‘In this one book are the names of the inhabitants of Paradise, with the names of their fathers and the names of their tribes and their families, and in the other book are the names of the inhabitants of Hell-fire along with their fathers, their tribes and their families. ‘”

And this despite the small size of the two books! What we have here is citing the small for the large without diminishing the large or magnifying the small. For, really, what register could contain the names of [all] these people? This is the strongest proof of the rational impossibility of inserting what’s spacious into what’s narrow-if one wishes to do this while keeping unchanged the smallness of the one object and the largeness of the other. But the person reporting this, as mentioned at the beginning of the question, is the infallible one [Muhammad] who “doesn’t speak on the basis of arbitrary whims” (53/3).’

AI-Dabbagh replied-God be pleased with him: ‘What the theologians and the people of the Sunna and the Community say God be pleased with them-is sound doctrine. It isn’t possible for there to be something in the behavior of the Friends of God and in the evidentiary miracles of the apostles (mujizat al-risala) which is inconceivable to the human mind. Of course, both contain things which the mind falls short of grasping. But if the mind is given right guidance concerning the intended meaning, it accepts it and submits to it. Now the writing referred to in these two books is writing accessible to sight (nanar), not writing of the pen.

Thus, if someone with deeper (spiritual) vision (basira), especially the chief of the first and the last, our lord and master Muhammad-God’s blessings and peace be upon him-turns his attention to something in order to see it, his deeper vision penetrates the veils between himself and the object of his sight so that the light of both [i.e. that of the object and of his sight] reaches him and he grasps it. If the image of the seen object occurs in his deeper vision and we suppose this vision to be perfect, its effect (hukm) then transfers to the eyes and the eyes also come to possess the power it possesses (this is the truth behind the hadith “He who sees me in his dream will see me in his wakefulness”). The eyes then see the image depicted on whatever stands before them. If what they encounter is a wall, they see the image on the wall and if what they see is his hand, they see the image on his hand. If what they see is paper, they see the image on paper.

In the same way one can understand the hadith: “Paradise and Hell-fire were portrayed for me on the surface of this wall.”

That was because the Prophet-God’s blessings and peace be upon him-concentrated on them with his deeper vision while he was performing the prayer of the eclipse (salat al khusuf). This penetrated to his eyes, and what they had in front of them was the surface of the wall. He then saw the image of both things-God’s blessings and peace be upon him!

This is also how the hadith about (127) the two books is to be understood. The Prophet-God’s blessings and peace be upon him-concentrated on Paradise with his inner vision and its image occurred to his eyes. What they had in front of them was the book that was in his right hand. He began-blessings and peace be upon him-to look at the image of Paradise and its inhabitants in that body which was in his right hand, and then he said: “This is a book from the Lord of the worlds. It contains the names of the inhabitants of Paradise, with the names of their fathers and their tribes.”

If there’s a difficulty in understanding the hadith: “Paradise and Hell-fire were portrayed for me”, then this hadith as well contains a difficulty. If there’s no difficulty in it, then this one contains no difficulty either. The difficulty arises from taking the writing to be writing produced by a pen. If it were here a question of writing with a pen, the end of the hadith would present a contradiction, for it says:

“…he hurled them both away”, ie. the two books-meaning he cast them and threw them away! But how would the Prophet-God’s blessings and peace be upon him-throwaway a book that came from the Lord of the worlds and contained the names of His elect and His apostles (rusul) and the best of His creation, since the Prophet-God’s blessings and peace be upon him-more than anyone in creation was given to glorifying God and His apostles and His angels. The image which occurred in the body was called writing because of its resemblance to writing in so far as it indicates something exterior, since writing can also be applied on the exterior.

Indeed, the word kitaba (writing) is derived from gathering (al-jam) and whatever is gathered together (majmu) is also said to be recorded (maktub). Thus squadrons of war are called kata’ib because of their being gathered in groups (takattub) and assembled (ijtima). And the singular is katiba, i.e. recorded (maktuba) and assembled (majmu’a) and included in other squadrons (kata’ib).

The writing (kitaba) in question is ascribed to the Lord of the worlds because the light that causes the occurrence of the image, which is here expressed by the book, is beyond what the bondsman can bear and not something he can acquire. It’s a Lordly assistance and a light from God the Sublime. What has emerged from this is that the meaning of “writing” (kitaba) is the image that occurs in the sight (nazar) and nothing else. That it occurs in the sight isn’t difficult to understand, as is the case with all visible things in the sight. The pupil of the eye, despite its smallness, has huge images depicted in it (128) such as the image of the sky-and the pupil is even smaller than a lentil. Thus the Hadith belongs to the category of things that are possible, and the same is true of all the evidentiary miracles and supernatural events. But God knows best!’

Shaykh Rami Al Rifai.