Someone asked about the identity of several individuals. In one case, the person requesting this information wanted to know the name of an individual who is spiritually abusing individuals, and in another case, the person seeking information wanted to know if a certain shaykh and silsilah were authentic.

The primary focus of this web site is to offer support and assistance to individuals who are seeking to recover from the trauma of having been spiritually abused by self-deceived individuals claiming to be authentic spiritual guides but who are not. With respect to the issue of the identity of the alleged shaykh who has betrayed my trust and the trust of various other individuals, knowing that person's name or the name of his so-called tariqa would not be of much value to anyone, and this is so for a variety of reasons.

Among these reasons are the following. The person goes by many names and, consequently, being on the lookout for one, or even several, names, would not be very helpful - and toward the end of my affiliation with this spiritually abusive individual, he was encouraging all of the people close to him to change their names to English sounding names, and those names often change according to circumstances.

The man lies about his name, identity, place of birth, physical location, and background. He induces those with him to lie as well because he is teaching them that as long as the ultimate cause is a good one, it is OK to lie since this serves the 'good' - and the 'good' is defined as whatever the alleged shaykh believes to be the case.

Many people on the Internet are being lured in through an ever-changing set of Internet groups, chat-rooms, personae, web sites, and businesses. If people were given only one name, that name would not help them avoid the quicksand which lies in wait for them through the other multiple-identities.

This changling aspect with the names, identities and bio-data appears to be a relatively new development. The person running things in this group is both evil and extremely clever, and anyone who is not trusted as 'one of them' is given very little in the way of useful biographical information and, in fact, people who are on the 'outside' of things only come to know about such things when there is a momentary lapse in various security measures which they use to conceal their activities.

Once one has been 'converted' to their mind- and heart-set (which comes after one has been induced into an altered state of consciousness that renders people highly vulnerable to all manner of exploitation and manipulation), then, and only then, does information begin to flow a little more freely with respect to what is going on in the group - but even here, there are circles within circles, and each level has its own security codes, so to speak, for gaining access to information - and not even the closest, most 'trusted' accomplices in this affair are made privy to the many secrets which the ring leader carries with him and through which he directs operations. Indeed, the stories he tells people - even supposedly close mureeds - as to why things are being done in a certain way rarely have anything to do with the actual motivations for why things are being done.

There is another reason for not divulging a name in conjunction with this individual, and this reason has to do with human nature. When people are given a name and that name is not the same as the one associated with some alleged teacher with whom they are spiritually affiliated, there is a tendency for people to breathe a sigh of relief and say words to the effect of: 'it's not my teacher. I'm safe from spiritual abuse,' when this is not necessarily the case.

Many years ago, Alan Watts came up with the phrase "genuine fake". This refers to someone who believes she or he is 'spiritually enlightened' in some sense of this term, and for self-serving purposes, deems herself or himself a guide or teacher.

Such individuals are very sincere about what they do, but they are, in effect, delusional. They spend their lives going about enlisting other people in that delusion.

There are a lot of people who are posing as teachers and spiritual guides, but who are, in truth, 'genuine fakes'. These counterfeit shaykhs have gathered about them many, many followers.

There is a Sufi teaching which runs along the following lines. There are four kinds of people.

There are those who know and know that they know. These are the Prophets and awliya of God, and we should seek to follow such individuals as best our individual spiritual capacity permits.

There are those who know but don't know that they know. These people are asleep and should be woken (through a genuine spiritual guide).

There are those who don't know and know they don't know. These people can learn, so, they should be taught (again, by genuine spiritual guides).

Finally, there are those who don't know and don't know that they don't know. These people are the ignorant and should be avoided at all costs.

Spiritual ignorance is not a function of the technical information with which one may have facility. There are people who have memorized the Qur'an who remain spiritually illiterate and ignoranct. There are people who spout reams of poetry from: Rumi, Hafiz, Farid-ud-din 'Attar, and many others, but who have hearts which are in darkness. There are individuals who can discourse for hours about the differences and similarities of the doctrines of 'oneness of Being' and 'oneness of witnessing' of, respectively, Hazrat Ibn al-'Arabi and Hazrat Ahmad Sirhindi (may Allah be pleased with them both), and still have no insight into their own spiritual condition or the condition of others.

Spiritual ignorance is a function of the condition of one's nafs, heart, sirr, ruh, kafi, and aqfah. If these inner faculties have not been brought on line and properly calibrated through the assistance of an authentic spiritual guide (which takes place through the agency of nisbath), then, irrespective of whatever words may come out of someone's mouth, and irrespective of how eloquent, moving, or even true those words may be, the person who utters them does so through the veils of spiritual ignorance and can be of no real help to seekers after the essential Self.

The disease of spiritual ignorance is far more prevalent than many people suspect. There are even some people who come to this web site who suppose, spiritually speaking, that they know what is what, when, in fact, they do not, and, they are, unfortunately, in denial about this reality.

There are some people who come to this web site who do not believe they, personally, are victims of, or have been victims of, spiritual abuse because, for instance, they have never been financially or sexually exploited, while they ignore the fact that they are affiliated with a so-called spiritual guide who is either an outright fraud or a 'genuine fake' and, consequently, have not been given legitimate authority to teach anyone. As bad as sexual exploitation is when perpetrated by, among others, alleged spiritual guides, the real spiritual abuse is for someone to be induced into believing that one is affiliated with someone who can assist one to bring on line and calibrate all one's interior spiritual faculties when, in truth, this is not the case.

There are millions of people in North America alone who presume they are affiliated with a legitimate, authentic shaykh, but they are not. Quite a few of these so-called shaykhs are well-known and have published materials which are circulating all about.

Less someone suppose that the foregoing comments are so much sour grapes - or the remarks of resentment from an embittered individual who has been spiritually abused and wishes for everyone else to join him in misery, or the sentiments of an individual who is envious of the spiritual happiness which others may enjoy - think again. If someone should suppose that I am doing the devil's work by seeking to cast doubt into people's lives in order to induce them to believe that there are no authentic spiritual teachers, then, think again, as well.

Despite my experiences, I do believe in the reality of the mystical way. Despite my experiences, I do believe there are some authentic spiritual guides left in the world - there just aren't as many of these individuals left as people suppose.

Many individuals want to believe we live in the best of times - that we are the most advanced, aware, knowledgeable people who have ever stepped foot on the face of the Earth. Many people want to believe human kind is continuing to evolve spiritually, and are excited about what wonders this evolutionary unfoldment will disclose in the future.

In truth, spiritually speaking, we live in the worst of times, and if we just look about us, we can bear witness to this reality every single day of our lives, within almost every facet of our lives, in every corner of the world. The world is the way it is, because we are the way we are.

We are not evolving as a species. We are devolving.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon us) has told us this would occur. This is why he said to his Companions that if they left out even one-tenth of what is prescribed, they would not inherit paradise, but there will come a time when if the people of that time are able to do even one-tenth of what is prescribed, they will inherit paradise.

The Hadith concerning the Latter Days are about the spiritual dissolution of human kind, not its advancement. The spiritual trend is -- with the exception of the times when Prophets and special awliya of Allah are present -- always downward, and this has been so since Adam (peace be upon him) and Eve (may Allah be pleased with her) first set foot on this planet and level of Being. The last saint, the saint of the children, the descendent of the Prophet Seth (peace be upon him), the one who will call people to Islam and the Path all his life and, yet, no one will come, serves as testimony concerning the foregoing claims. The fact that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has indicated that after Isa (peace be upon him) does battle with the Dajjal and slays the latter and lives for a certain number of years during which there will be peace on Earth and, then, passes away, that this will be followed by a steady, precipitous slide into spiritual darkness when human beings become worse than the beasts, and this also serves to support what has been said above.

Many people are caught up in well-ordered delusions. The fact that a person believes in the truth of such delusions or is convinced those delusions are true, does not make them so.

As far as passing judgment on the individual named or the tariqa which has been identified in your posting, this is not the business of this group. We are not now, nor have we have been, a clearinghouse for identifying authentic and inauthentic shaykhs.

Someone has said that if one wishes to find out about the character of an individual, then, go on a trip with them. I went on a ten-twelve year trip with someone who claimed to be an authentic shaykh but was, and is, not what he claimed (claims) to be, and only by taking this trip was I able to discover the real nature of this individual.

Most people who are affiliated with an alleged shaykh, have never gone on a trip with that individual - not even for a few days, let alone years. One cannot gauge the spiritual mettle of a person from long-distance or by reading their books or listening to their discourses ... one must get up close and personal, and this takes time.

For some individuals, the amount of time necessary to arrive at a conclusion about the spiritual authenticity of a given, alleged shaykh is less than for others. However, anyone who maintains that he or she can take a few rules of thumb and accurately evaluate someone's spiritual condition, or anyone who claims to be able to meet someone and know, right away, whether that individual is authentic or not, is living in a delusional state.

There is no substitute for direct, long-term exposure to an individual. One needs to see someone engaged in life across a wide variety of circumstances to be able to have some sense of what that person may be about and whether that person is who they claim to be as far as the title of shaykh is concerned.

Sometimes people do not make the effort to, first, go on a trip of sorts with a person in order to try to better judge the spiritual authenticity of that individual. There are all kinds of logistical and practical problems associated with making such efforts, and, as a result, people want to take short-cuts to the truth.

Sometimes, we get lucky, by the Grace of Allah, and despite taking such risky short-cuts, we find, or are found by, an authentic shaykh. Sometimes, we are not so lucky, but as God has wished and for reasons known only to Divinity, then due to the short-cuts we take, we end up with someone who betrays us spiritually. Sometimes God wishes for us to go through difficulty because this is the anvil of life on which we are hammered in order to be shaped into useful instruments for Divine purposes. Sometimes mis-guidance is the fate we choose for ourselves, and only Allah knows what the significance is of the events in our lives.

Human beings are quite adept at jumping to all kinds of conclusions about why this or that happens, but rarely are these conclusions rooted in any kind of deep understanding about the way Divinity moves through Being or why - as was once said by a seeker after truth 'You, God, know our ways, but we do not know Yours.' Whether we wish life to be this way or not, things of a difficult, painful, problematic nature continue to happen, for this is the purpose of life - a testing ground through which we are tried with evil and good in order for our spiritual capacity to be given an opportunity to unfold on the wings of Destiny.

Choice is, at least, a two-edged sword. And, unfortunately, we do not always learn the lessons that are necessary to properly wield this sword to cut through to the truth of things.

I can't tell you how to wield your sword to cut through to the truth about either the individual you mention, or the silsilah you cite. Every individual has the responsibility of doing this for himself or herself, and on the Day of Judgment, Allah will inform us about where human kind differed in such matters, as well about who was right and who was wrong. This is why spiritual legends such as Hazrat 'Umar ibn Khattab looked at a leaf and longed to be relieved of the responsibility of being human - for, the Fate which awaits us is shaped by the choices we make. Choice is both a tremendous opportunity, and a terrible burden, with many, many ramifications - both known and unknown.