This letter, written to Fat’h Khan of Afghanistan, explains the ta’dîl-i arkân, and says to hold fast to the Sharî’at and to abstain from bid’ats:
Thanks be to Allâhu ta’âlâ! Safety and solace to the good people whom He has chosen and loved! Your blessed letter has arrived here, which informs of your worthy love and sincere attachment towards this faqîr. May Allâhu ta’âlâ place in our hearts the love of the great! What we would first advise our fortunate and dear friends of is to hold fast to the sunnat-i saniyya of Hadrat Muhammad Mustafa ‘alaihissalâtu wassalâm’. In other words, each Muslim’s first duty is to obey the Sharî’at and refrain from the things which the Sharî’at dislikes, from the bid’ats.
If a person uncovers an abandoned, forgotten sunnat, he will get the thawâb of a hundred martyrs. Then, just imagine how much thawâb there is in resuscitating a fard or wâjib. Therefore, one should be careful about the ta’dîl-i-arkân when performing namâz. In other words, at the rukû, at the sajda, at the qawma and at the jalsa, each limb should become motionless and remain so for a while; most of the savants of the Hanafî said that this was wâjib. Imâm-i Abû Yûsuf and Imâm-i Shâfi’î said that it was fard. The majority of Muslims have been neglecting this. A person who reveals this one deed will be given much more thawâb than that which is given to a hundred martyrs who have fought and given their lives in the way of Allah. This same rule applies to all the rules of the Sharî’at. That is, a
person who teaches one of the halâls, harâms, makrûhs, fards, wâjibs and sunnats and has it obeyed will get the same amount of thawâb.
Returning one cent to its owner which has been extorted unjustly, by violence and without any reason from a person, deserves far more thawâb than giving hundreds of dollars as alms.
It has been reported that if a person does the worships done by prophets and yet if he unjustly keeps somebody else’s one cent, he will not enter Paradise unless he returns this one cent. It is also a human right upon a man to pay the mahr to the woman whom he has divorced. [It is said on the two hundred and seventy-sixth page of the fifth volume of Ibni Âbidîn, “It is not permissible to beat somebody else’s child even if the child’s father commands you to do so. The khodja (teacher) may beat his pupil three times with his hand in order to make him study. He is not permitted to beat it with a stick.”]
In short, all our limbs should be embellished with practising the rules of the Sharî’at. Then we should take care of our heart so that the deed should not be overcast with the slumber of oblivion! Without the heart’s aid it will be difficult for the limbs to cling to the Sharî’at. The savants give the fatwâ and say that something should be so or should not be so. But it devolves on men of Allah to place these into the heart. To strive to purify and enlighten the heart causes all the limbs to hold fast to the Sharî’at. He who busies with the heart only and does not cling to the Sharî’at is a mulhid. He has deviated from the right way. If some (extraordinary) things happen from the hearts and souls of such people, this case is called istidrâj. That is, they are gradually lowered to the very depths
of Hell. What signifies the correctitude and goodness of the wonders happening in the heart and soul is all the limbs being embellished with clinging to the Sharî’at. And this is the right way, the way to salvation! May Allâhu ta’âlâ keep us all on the right way! Âmîn.
[It is written in the thirty-second article of Majalla, “Being in need does not remove the fact that the right belongs to somebody else.” A person who is about to die of hunger may eat something belonging to somebody else as much as to prevent him from dying, yet he has to pay back its value or an equal amount. To eat something which belongs to somebody else is a sin graver than drinking wine.]