A Letter from Fawzia
Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim
My beloved sisters and brothers on the Path,
When I look back over the many years that Allāh has allowed me to walk this Path, one thing become clearer to me with every passing year:
What we receive from a teacher is not ultimately meant to remain with us. It is meant to pass through us.
We receive a light so that we may carry it into the world.
We receive knowledge so that it may become wisdom, we receive love so that it may become mercy, we receive a path so that our lives may become a means of service.
This is how I understand what I received from my beloved teacher, Sidi Muhammad al-Jamal al-Rifa’i, may Allāh envelop him in His Mercy and Light.
He did not teach us merely a collection of practices or words. He opened for many of us a door toward something deeper:
toward the heart,
toward remembrance,
toward surrender,
toward peace,
toward justice and love and ultimately toward Allah.
He taught us that the spiritual path is not a journey toward becoming important. It is a journey toward becoming more truthful.
More humble before Allah, more gentle with His creation and more responsible for the state of our hearts.
He reminded us that the real fruit of dhikr is not only what happens when the tongue remembers Allah, but what happens when remembrance enters our character.
That prayer does not end when we leave the prayer rug, that love of Allah must become adab with His creation and that knowledge which does not soften the heart can become a veil and that surrender is not weakness or resignation, but the quiet placing of ourselves into the wisdom of the One who knows what we cannot know.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest gifts a teacher can leave behind:
not a monument to himself, but hearts that have learned to turn toward Allah.
We receive knowledge so that it may become wisdom, we receive love so that it may become mercy, we receive a path so that our lives may become a means of service.
This is how I understand what I received from my beloved teacher, Sidi Muhammad al-Jamal al-Rifa’i, may Allāh envelop him in His Mercy and Light.
He did not teach us merely a collection of practices or words. He opened for many of us a door toward something deeper:
toward the heart,
toward remembrance,
toward surrender,
toward peace,
toward justice and love and ultimately toward Allah.
He taught us that the spiritual path is not a journey toward becoming important. It is a journey toward becoming more truthful.
More humble before Allah, more gentle with His creation and more responsible for the state of our hearts.
He reminded us that the real fruit of dhikr is not only what happens when the tongue remembers Allah, but what happens when remembrance enters our character.
That prayer does not end when we leave the prayer rug, that love of Allah must become adab with His creation and that knowledge which does not soften the heart can become a veil and that surrender is not weakness or resignation, but the quiet placing of ourselves into the wisdom of the One who knows what we cannot know.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest gifts a teacher can leave behind:
not a monument to himself, but hearts that have learned to turn toward Allah.
This is the legacy I wish to honor.
A living legacy of love, peace, surrender, trust, knowledge remembrance and service.
A legacy that points beyond the teacher to the Beloved, beyond the form to the Essence, beyond ourselves to Allah.
And I believe this legacy belongs to all of us, not because we all understand everything in the same way, not because we have had identical experiences, not because we belong to the same branch, hold the same position, or see every matter through the same eyes.
But because beneath all these differences, we are seekers of the One.
Allah says:
وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا ۚ
“And hold fast, all together, to the rope of Allah, and do not be divided.”
These words are especially precious in times when hearts are being tested.
They remind us that there is something greater than our individual understanding, greater than our preferences, greater than our positions and even greater than our pain.
We are asked to return to the rope of Allah.
To return to the Qurʾān, to return to the example of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (sas) and to return to the heart.
Our beloved Prophet (sas) showed us what it means for spiritual knowledge to become human character.
He was not only a man of prayer, but a man of mercy, a bearer of revelation and a bearer of wisdom.
He was not only strong in truth, but gentle in the way he carried truth.
He was not only concerned with what people believed, but with the dignity of the human being standing before him.
He (sas) showed us that the path to Allah can never be separated from the way we meet His creation.
And this prophetic inheritance is not something that belongs only to the past. It remains alive whenever a human being carries it faithfully into the world. Whenever knowledge becomes humility, whenever strength becomes protection rather than domination.
Whenever disagreement does not become hatred, whenever we choose forgiveness over humiliation, whenever we listen before judging.
Whenever we serve without asking what we will receive in return and whenever a wounded heart is met with mercy rather than rejection.
And perhaps it is precisely in difficult times that we are given the opportunity to discover whether what we have received has truly entered our hearts.
It is easy to speak about unity when everything is harmonious.
It is much more difficult to protect unity when there are differences, disappointments, misunderstandings and pain.
The Qurʾān does not ask us to become identical, it asks us to remember the One. Unity does not mean that we see everything in exactly the same way.
Unity means that beneath our differences, we remember where we come from, whom we seek and before whom we will all one day stand.
Our paths may take different forms, our understandings may differ, our experiences may not be the same, but Allah is One.
The essential work of the seeker remains beautifully simple:
to purify the heart, to awaken love, to cultivate adab, to deepen knowledge, to remember Allah, to serve His creation and to become a place through which His mercy can reach the world.
This is what I believe we share and this is the ground upon which I wish to stand.
By the grace of Allah, and through the trust and blessing of my beloved teacher, Sidi Muhammad al-Jamal al-Rifāʿī, I was entrusted with the responsibility and title of Murshida. I receive this not as a rank above anyone, not as something to defend, not as a possession, but as an amānah.
And an amānah is not something we own.
It is something we carry carefully on behalf of the One who entrusted it to us.
If Allah has entrusted me with accompanying people on the Path, then I understand my responsibility very simply:
not to gather people around myself, but to help them turn toward Allah. For this reason, I cannot take sides in a way that deepens separation among us. This is not because I do not care, it is precisely because I care.
Allāh knows every heart more completely than we ever can.
He knows every wound, every intention, every misunderstanding, every act of sincerity and every hidden pain.
Our task is not to become judges of one another, our task is to become servants of Allah.
This does not mean that we deny differences, it does not mean that we pretend that everything is well when it is not.
Peace does not require the absence of boundaries, sometimes a boundary is itself an act of mercy.
It protects what is sacred, it prevents the heart from becoming entangled in hostility and it creates the space in which respect can survive.
For me, peace does not mean remaining silent in the face of what is harmful.
It means speaking with dignity, it means refusing humiliation, it means protecting what has been entrusted to us without turning protection into aggression.
And it means leaving the final judgment to Allah.
I cannot promise that I have every answer.
I cannot promise that I will understand every event correctly.
I cannot promise that I will never make a mistake.
But I can promise the intention with which I wish to continue to teach:
to listen, to serve, to accompany, to learn, to speak with honesty, to act with adab and to keep turning toward Allah.
And if there is anything of benefit in what I have received, then it is not mine. It belongs to the One who gives, it belongs to the prophetic inheritance.
It belongs to the light that passed through our teachers and through all those before them who carried this trust with sincerity.
I pray that whatever Allāh has allowed me to learn may become useful to those who seek Him.
That whatever wisdom has been placed in my heart may be shared without pride, that whatever experience I have gathered may become a shelter rather than a weapon.
Because the deeper we travel toward Allah, the less there is to defend and the more there is to serve.
The Qurʾān tells us:
ٱدْعُ إِلَىٰ سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِٱلْحِكْمَةِ وَٱلْمَوْعِظَةِ ٱلْحَسَنَةِ ۖ
“Invite to the way of your Sustainer with wisdom and beautiful counsel.” (16:125)
This is how I understand guidance.
My beloved sisters and brothers, perhaps what is being asked of us in this moment is:
Can we remain brothers and sisters while we disagree?
Can we preserve dignity when we are hurt?
Can we remember mercy when we feel misunderstood?
Can we remember that no human being is the destination?
The destination is always Allah.
Our teachers are doors, our paths are vessels, our practices are means, our knowledge is a trust. And the heart is the place where all of this must finally become real.
Let us therefore not allow what has happened among us to become greater than what brought us together in the first place.
We were brought together by love of Allāh.
By love of His Messenger (sas), by the desire to remember, by the longing to know, by the hope of purification, by the wish to serve.
Let us return there, let us return to the place where the heart is wider than the argument. Where mercy is greater than the wound, where adab is greater than the need to be right, where dignity does not require another person to be humiliated, where difference does not have to become separation.
And where our love for our teacher becomes most faithful when it leads us, as he taught us, beyond ourselves and back to Allah.
May Allah protect the legacy we received from Sidi Muhammad al-Jamal al-Rifāʿī. May Allah preserve what was beautiful and true in what he gave us.
May He forgive our shortcomings in carrying it.
May He soften the hearts that have become wounded.
May He reconcile what can be reconciled.
May He give us wisdom where we are confused, patience where we are tested, courage where we must speak and humility where we must remain silent.
May He allow us to differ without hatred, to speak without wounding, to protect without attacking and to serve without seeking recognition.
And may He make this community once again a place where a seeker can enter and feel: Here, I am not being asked to choose a side, here, I am being invited to remember Allah.
I will not abandon the responsibility simply because the road has become difficult.
My loyalty is first to Allah, my guidance is the Qurʾān, my model is our beloved Prophet Muhammad (sas), my responsibility is to serve.
And my prayer is that whatever I do may bring hearts closer to Allah rather than closer to myself.
If there is anything of truth in what I offer, may Allah make it beneficial. If there is anything mistaken in me, may Allah correct it.
If there is anything beautiful, may Allah allow it to flow through me without allowing me to claim it as my own.
For we are all faqīr, poor before Him.
We all stand in need, we all live by His mercy and we all return to Him.
May Allah protect the hearts of all who sincerely seek Him.
with love and respect for each one of you,
I remain, your sister on the Path, with humility, with love and with hope in Allah. Lā ilāha illā llāh – There is no reality but the One.
Allāhumma ṣalli ʿalā Sayyidinā Muḥammadin wa ʿalā ālihi wa aṣḥābihi wa sallim.
May everything we have received from those who taught us become, through our lives, a source of peace for those who come after us.