Bismillahi wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulullah wa ‘ala jami’il ambiyai wal-mursalin wa ‘ala ahlihi wa sahabihi ajmain, amin.

We send our Hamd to Allahu ta'ala for this invaluable opportunity given to us to be with our brothers once again. It is one great blessing to gather for theDeen in order to ruminate on the hindrances on our path to eternal salvation and it is another special blessing to travel for the sake of one’s Deen and one’s Akhirah.In this age of blind material pursuits and empty calculations and in this difficult time when the most trivial worldly excuse is making believers to throw away the greatest spiritual ambitions, it is a boon making it here. I want to formally welcome you and all and I want also to congratulate you for throwing all distractions ofDunya behind you in order to be here. May Allah ta'ala correct and accept our intentions. May He accept your sacrifices as investment towards the Akhirah and may this effort lead you to greater sacrifices in the cause of Islam until you end in Allah taala eternal pleasure through the rank of Qur’an al-Majid and through the rank of those who have sacrificed their wealth and persons in the cause of al-Qur’an,amin.May endless prayers of goodness be on the best of creation and the noblest of servants, the mercy on creation, Rasulullah Muhammad alahi 's-salam, on his ahl and hisashab and on the great sages and saints who inherited his lights and his luminous sunnah,amin.My dear brothers, we are here for a real business, and this business is turning our life round and becoming worthy of Allahu ta'ala’s love. This forum is for digging into our faults, failure and foibles in order to seek inter rectification that would make our world a better and more peaceful place to live and our Akhirah also a place of eternal bliss. True Islamic workshops are not for discussing the delusions of the age: international politics, economic imperative, usury fuelled banking capitalism and industrial-military complex. These are issues affecting Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Without a proper grasp of Islam and its reality, without an in-depth understanding of what spiritual and moral heights our ancestors in the Deen attained and a sincere resolve to pursue the course they followed we will remain mere passengers in the ever fluttering space craft called earth no matter how much theories we possess and ready to dispense with.We have no also come together to browse through the exalted Qur’an al-Majid and the blessed Ahadith ash-Sharif in the manner of modern men of freedom of thinking and of legislation. Rather, we are here for a thorough examination of our inward deficiencies and outward inadequacies seeking rectification in the practical laboratory of Islam: the lives and teachings of the exalted sages who are the inheritors and preservers of our beloved Sunnah. This is the only way to true reformation, this is the path of the spiritual renewers of the past and this is the path chosen by the Darus-Salam.In the days ahead, we shall examine together what elevated and preserved the honours and glories of the Muslims of the past. We shall attempt a deep insight into the honours they received from Allahu ta'ala through their cautiousness in gathering things of Dunya while also using all they have gathered to pursue the cause of Islam, through their total rejection of both harmful and harmless but excessive entertainments, through their absolute commitment to upholding the sunnah come rain or sun, in pleasure and constraints, in the privacy of their lives and in the public, through their sincere fear of failure in fulfilling the rights of Allahu ta'ala, the rights of self, the rights of other men, animals and the entire creation, through resolute and selfless commitment to Islamic and secular knowledge while jealously guiding the sacred teachings of Islam from the slightest harm and through unequalled courage at speaking and even staking their lives for Islam when the honours of theDeen are being slighted while also doing their best never to trample on the rights and lives of all those who remained with the border of decency and decorum. It is evil to seek war for find pleasure in violence. In Islam physical confrontation is always the last resort. We should never abandon the ways of our great ancestors in the face of real and perceived provocations. It is oursunnah to take the higher ground of forgiveness and kindness so that the enemies that is far becomes a friend so near.The goal of a true Muslim is the attainment of total slavery to Allahu ta'ala and escaping completely the deceptions of thenafs, shaytan and Dunya. In this slavery is true freedom, true life.“Our fulfilment”, says a respected scholar, “does not lie in our liberation, rather it lies in the conquest of our soul and its base desires. That conquest only occurs through our enslavement to Allahu ta'ala … … We must all realise that we will never achieve any meaningful change in our situation (individually and collectively) relying on our own meagre resources. The great sage, al-Imam ibn ‘Ata Allah al-Iskandari rahmatullah alaihi has said, ‘Nothing you seek through your Lord will ever be difficult; and nothing you seek through yourself will ever be easy’. If we are not living for our Lord, relying on His guidance and help and trusting in His wisdom, we will (surely) find it difficult to negotiate our way through this world.”It is the fervent hope of organisers of this workshop that it kick-starts a process of reformation in us thus getting closer to Allahu ta'ala everyday through constant Adhkar andTilawatul Qur’an and constant contact with writings and brothers who are committed to the revival of the pristine and absolutely traditional (Sunni) Islam and living the reality of same.As we journey back to Allahu ta'ala and the eternal life we should seriously desire to throw ourselves into this great and unique Deen altogether. Our ambition should be what the exalted Guide of the Age, HadratShaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad an-Naqshbandi (DamatBarakatuhu) brilliantly presented as the summary of the entire Qur’an al-Majid:Please your Lord through obedience, please the exalted Prophet by following his noble examples and earn the pleasure of the entire creation by serving them.O our Allah, Ya Karim! Let our tomorrow be better than today, make the path of sunnah andtaqwa easy for us and at the end of our lives let us depart this wretched world absolved in Your love and remembrance. May prayers of salam be on all Prophets, on the last and noblest of them Habibullah Muhammad Mustafa alahi 's-salam, and on all who believe and adapt themselves to him, amin.
-Faqir Abdul qadir An Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi {DamatBarakatuhu}