The ‘ulamâ’ should not think that they are gone too big. It is also compulsory for the ‘ulamâ’ to wipe out their souls. It is necessary for the ‘ulamâ’ in the madâris and those engaged in Tablîgh to rectify their souls by remaining in the company of the Ahlullâh and thereby gain sincerity in their deeds. The purification of the soul is one of the objectives of prophet-hood. The acceptance of deeds is dependent on the purification of the soul.

On one hand, you have Tablîgh, and other the other hand you have the madrasah. Deeds and actions come into existence through the madrasah and through Tablîgh. But the acceptance of deeds comes through the khânqâh from where sincerity is developed, where pride and conceit are operated upon.

If you have a heart hospital in a city and all the heart specialists leave and go away, where will the heart patients go to? There is something else to this: a heart operation is not done on the sidewalk, it is not done on the fields, it is not done by carrying your sleeping gear on your head and going out. It is written on the outside walls of the places at which heart operations are done that you should not sound the horn of your vehicle. Thus, the heart operation will be done in the hospital rooms. In like manner, the operation for the rectification of the soul will have to be done inside the rooms of the khânqâh. This cannot be done even on the pulpits of the masâjid because you also get people who have no desire and quest [for reformation], and who have no affinity with this. The consequence of their opposition is that the themes of reformation and purification do not enter the heart of the mentor (and he is unable to speak on these topics).

If there are thousands of sincere people who are sitting with yearning, and there is just one person who is forced to sit there and is therefore sitting with hatred and dislike, or is compelled to sit there because of some worldly reason, then even if the lecturer is Messenger of Allah Ta’ala, his blessing and benefit will cease.

Some people say that when you have to go in Tablîgh you have to strive and endure many difficulties, while these ‘ulamâ’ in the madâris are sitting in the coolness of fans and teaching Bukhârî. However, if the masses spend their entire lives in going for “forty days”, it will always remain below the ten years that the ‘ulamâ’ spent in their studies. It takes a person ten years to become an ‘âlim. Spend ten consecutive years and then you will come to know how difficult these ten years are. And if the person becomes a hâfizof the Qur’ân, then another three years are added to this. In this way, the poor person spent thirteen years as a student. However, there is just one shortcoming. I am going to tell you about that shortcoming as well. I will tell you about my own fraternity even though they are my own and these are my own as well. In other words, the people of Tablîgh, the people of the madâris and the people of the khânqâh all belong to our fraternity. I will not be ashamed to speak the truth nor be afraid to proclaim it even if the maulwîs are displeased with me.

I am saying that the word ‘âlim means “a person who knows Allah Ta’alaand who practises on his knowledge, there is fear of Allah Ta’alain his heart, and his soul has been purified”. In other words, he has been purified of evil characteristics and base qualities. If not, he may have acquired the perfume of knowledge in these thirteen years, but he did not clean the bottle of his heart. If you have to purchase pure ‘ûd (Indian aloes) perfume at a cost of 10 000 rupees for twelve grams, what type of bottle will you take it in? Will you take it in a bottle which is soiled with the excreta of dogs and cats? In like manner, if you acquire the perfume of the Qur’ân and Hadîth in these thirteen years, it is also compulsory for you to purify the bottle of your heart. If the heart is not purified, this knowledge is sold for money, fame, honour, wealth, and other trivial things. When there is no purification, the pain of love is also absent from the heart. There is no enjoyment and effect in the talks which a person delivers.

Therefore, despite the greatness of ‘ulamâ’, I am also talking about the shortcomings which are found in some of them. If they wash and purify this bottle of their hearts, the fragrance of their perfume will spread far and wide. Mâ shâ’ Allâh, they possess the perfume of the Qur’ân and Hadîth, all that they have to do is clean the bottle of their heart.

When the ‘ulamâ’ attach themselves to the Ahlullâh and mashâ’ikh and submit themselves to a pious personality for the sake of purification, and he sees that this ‘âlim has some pride in his heart, he makes him strive to remove that pride from his heart so that the perception of his knowledge may leave his heart, the intoxication with his knowledge may leave him, and so that he does not scorn and look down on the masses. Consequently, all our elders and senior ‘ulamâ’ served the pious elders and purified their souls. It is for this reason that they are well known throughout the world, and the perfume of their knowledge spread throughout the world.