Umar Abd-Allah - On Spiritual Guidance: Commentary on Ibn Ata'illah's Hikam

Umar Faruq Abd-AllahDecember 16, 20180 comments

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Spiritual Development Seerah Dhikr Present Moment Awareness Tasawwuf Humility Quran Self-Knowledge

About this lecture

In this lecture, Shaykh Umar Abd-Allah offers a rich and wide-ranging commentary on three aphorisms from Ibn Ata'illah al-Sakandari's *Hikam*, focusing on the spiritual significance of the breath as a unit of divine destiny, the primacy of self-knowledge over seeking supernatural gifts, and the root causes of both spiritual negligence and moral excellence. Drawing on Quranic verses, Hadith, stories of the awliya', and vivid personal anecdotes, the Shaykh weaves practical guidance on presence, humility, and companionship into a compelling call to wake up to the miraculous reality of every moment.

Umar Faruq Abd-Allah

Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah is an American scholar and theologian regarded as one of the intellectual fathers of indigenous American Muslim thought. Born Wymann-Landgraf into a Protestant family, he embraced Islam in 1970, earned a PhD from the University of Chicago in Arabic and Islamic Studies with a dissertation on Malik's concept of amal, and taught at the University of Michigan, King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah, and elsewhere. As scholar-in-residence of the Nawawi Foundation in Chicago, he authored influential essays including "Islam and the Cultural Imperative" and the acclaimed biography "A Muslim in Victorian America" about Alexander Russell Webb. His work centers on theology, Maliki law, and the formation of an authentic American Muslim culture.

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