Dr. Rai Singh has brought two special guests to meet Maharaj in the Dubai kothi: Syed Rais Shah Warsi, head priest of Dewa Sharif, and his son, Mohammed Shariq Rafiq Warsi, an engineer working in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Dewa Sharif is the beautiful tomb near Lucknow of the great Sufi saint, Syed Waris Ali Shah, who died in 1905. He was much admired by people of all religions who came for his blessings. He reportedly spoke, ate, and slept very little.

Maharaj speaks to them for a long time about the spirituality of Islam. For instance, he says:

Mohammed was oomi (illiterate). Qur’an Sharif was the voice of angels from heaven, not the voice of a man.

                If one is born into a Muslim family, one is called a Muslim. But ‘Muslim’ really means doing truth, surrendering to Allah, and seeing Light everywhere. If one doesn’t do worship and just acts according to his own plans, he is not a Muslim.

                There is no pressure in Islam. Mullahs have caused the hatreds we have today. To be a religious leader one needs God’s grace, but they run religion by their own methods.

                Almost half of Jaap Sahib is from Qur’an Sharif. Guru Nanak said to believe all the scriptures. They did not teach hatred. Speak truth, and know well that a person who foments hatreds is not a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Sikh.

                Syed Rais Shah Warsi agrees with Maharaj, who then tells many wonderful stories about the Chishti Sufi saints who brought Islam to India, and some of whom lived right near here in Mehrauli. Maharaj asks the son if there is a book in the Medina library of the questions and answers of Guru Nanak when he visited there. Having taken hukam, Maharaj is sure the book exists, and shows from his vision that it is about 1 ½ inches thick. He is very keen to find that book, for “Guru Nanak met very enlightened pirs at that time.” Maharaj recounts his going to Ajmer in Rajasthan to lay a green cloth on the tomb of Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti  (who came to Ajmer from Persia in 1192): “The Voice said that wherever the pure dervish was, that place would always be blessed with Nur (divine Light) from above coming to the earth.”

                Maharaj also tells the story of how a powerful Muslim pir appeared to him in vision in Shiv Sadan and told him to build his tomb there. This was done according to the pir’s exact specifications, and now, by Pir Sahib’s mercy, that area yields the best crops of the whole farm.

After much story-telling and mutual appreciation of the Sufi saints, the audience ends about 10:30 p.m. Syed Rais Shah Warsi signs my diary in Arabic and also in English: “Love is God, and God is Love.” The son Rafiq, who sat very close to Maharaj throughout the audience, says he has been so touched by him. His plane was cancelled two days ago and then they “just happened” to meet Rai Singh at U.P. Bhawan in Delhi. He could feel Maharaj pulling him. When he comes and goes as he works on the huge engineering projects to accommodate millions of people for hajj in Saudi Arabia, he says he will always come to Gobind Sadan because he has found his home.