Inside the Islamic Center of Chicago (ICC) one night during a retreat, I sat with Husain and a few other brothers from California. He was telling us about fanaa or self annihilation.
After Husain formally took me as his student for my tarbiyaa or "spiritual rectification" under the auspices of the main shaykh, Zulfiqar, he had me visit Chicago about once or twice per year. There was itikaf (seclusion in the masjid during the last 10 days of Ramadan) and the meetup for all the students in his distance Islamic studies program called “Sacred Learning.”
I looked forward to these gatherings for a few reasons. I would get to see and maybe spend some time with Husain, the man I believed brought me closer to Allah. I would get to socialize with other students of his. It felt like I was with a parallel set of relatives. At these gatherings, I felt a spiritual high. It was different than the feeling I got when visiting Mecca and Medina. Being around other people who were crazy in their love for Allah the way Qais was crazy in his love for Layla produced a special sensation.
At this particular retreat, Husain said that the goal of our efforts was fanaa fee Allah meaning “annihilation of the self in Allah.” All this talk of annihilating the self in Allah excited me because I studied the Virginia Woolf essay “The Death of the Moth” in college and the teacher said it was a Sufi reference. I wasn’t sure if the other brothers had as deep an understanding as I did, but I didn’t say anything. Husain continued his explanation. To get to fanaa fee Allah, he said, we have to first reach fanaa fee ar-Rasool meaning “annihilation of the self in the Messenger.” To get to fanaa fee ar-Rasool, he said, we had to reach fanaa fee ash-shaykh meaning “annihilation of the self in the shaykh.”
Everything then made sense to me. Why were Husain’s students fighting over leftover bits of food on his plate? They were annihilating themselves in the shaykh to reach fanaa fee ar-rasool to reach fanaa fee Allah. Why were they sitting behind him anytime he was in the masjid or outside? Why were they jumping to present his shoes to him when he left the masjid? All the strange behaviors of his senior students no longer seemed strange; instead, they were noble, pious, transcendent.
I had changed. I imagined the companions (r.a.) of the Prophet(s) at the battle of Badr with physical ropes connecting from their hearts into the sky. How could people connected to Allah be defeated?
I would eventually buy the same shoes as Husain, brown slip-on Merrells. I started wearing the same Pakistani long white shirt with the single button at the collar. If he advised me to do or not do anything, I took it as law written in stone.
During one of the flights from Chicago to California, a man wearing bright colorful clothes sat to my right. We introduced ourselves to each other and after some small talk while still looking into my eyes, he said, “My father was a clown in a circus.” I suppressed my laughter.