In Search of Khidr’s Footprint in Akhir al-Zaman

There are many who will read this brief essay while weeping that for so long they have lived as sheep without a shepherd; they weep while still searching for their Khidr, because their hearts have penetrated the reality of the world today, and they feel lonely and lost in an alien, godless and decadent world of barren dust, devoid of Nūr (or light). This book describes that world as a rotting banana-skin tossed into a garbage-bin. They long for a way out of a tiresome barren life devoid of peace, and happiness. They long for raindrops from heaven that will quench the thirst in their restless hearts—a thirst for Nūr, or light, and for truth, justice and inner peace. This book is written to advise those who have searched in vain for a Khidr, that they must turn around, and retrace their steps in life, while searching for that ‘rock’ on which sit the supreme scholars and guides of the world in Ākhir alZamān. They will find such scholars at Majma’ul Bahrain—where the two oceans meet, i.e., the ocean of knowledge which is externally-acquired, and the ocean of knowledge which is internally-received. The most learned is he whose scholarship integrates these two oceans of knowledge into a harmonious whole. They must be careful to avoid those who, with 9/11 chains around their necks, sit on shifting sand; and are too scared to proclaim the truth in the face of an oppressor. Such a scholar, or guide, can never be a Khidr.