Omar Suleiman – Don’T Belittle Yourself – Winter Conference London
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the loss of the leader of the United States, the use of animals to kill him, and the importance of trusting in Islam. They stress the need for a clear mindset and affirming the Mahdi's presence in history. The speakers also discuss the use of "medicals to change the course of history" and the potential for victory in the rear. They encourage everyone to trust in Allah and use their trust to win.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum, masha'Allah it's wonderful to
be here once again.
I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
bless this gathering, I ask Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala to make it a means by
which each and every single one of you
and all of us enter into Al-Furdaus
Al-A'la, Allahuma Ameen.
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.
Was-salatu was-salamu ala Rasulihi Al-Kareem
wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een.
Dear brothers and sisters, in the story of
Al-Feel, Alam tara kayfa fa'ala rabbuka
bi-ashaab al-Feel.
Where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions to
us the destruction of the army of Abraha,
an arrogant man who was jealous of the
Ka'bah and who wanted to destroy the
Ka'bah so that people would instead come
to the home that he had built in
Yemen and they would take that as the
place of their tawaf.
In that story, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
appointed birds.
And those birds, as we know, were birds
that no one had ever seen before, that
came and that pelted the army of Abraha
protecting the house of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
Even though the house of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala had been marked by all sorts
of idols and depictions that were contrary to
the message of tawheed upon which it was
built.
Can you imagine all of the Arab that
witnessed that miraculous incident and the testimonies were
many, yet still insisting upon kufr, upon disbelief,
after Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent the
Prophet ﷺ with the message of Islam.
Abraha himself, can you imagine?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala spared that zalim,
he spared the oppressor himself, many people don't
know this, and he caused a disease to
overtake that zalim, to overtake the core tyrant.
And that disease ripped up the body of
Abraha piece by piece, limb by limb, every
single morsel of his physical existence in front
of his people until he died a completely
humiliated death.
And such is the state of the zalim,
such is the state of the oppressor.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَيُمْلِي لِلظَّالِمِ حَتَّى إِذَا أَخَذَهُ لَمْ
يُفْلِتُهُ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala delays the
oppressor until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala seizes
him.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not
let him go at that point.
Khubayb ibn Adi radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, one
of the great companions in Hadithatul Raji' a
massacre that took place after Uhud, Khubayb was
taken prisoner in Mecca.
And before he was crucified in the area
of Tan'im, where you go today to
redo your ihram, your intention for ihram, if
you're going to make multiple Umrahs, Khubayb radiyallahu
ta'ala anhu, as he was in captivity,
a hostage, the woman that was in charge
of watching him said that, I saw when
I would enter upon him he had grapes
that were the size of a human head,
miraculously provided to him.
And he said that this is from Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Asim ibn Thabit radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, a
companion of his that was with him, and
that was also attacked and separately killed.
He had a bounty on his head of
a hundred camels.
One of the women of Quraysh wanted his
head specifically to drink wine in his skull.
And as he was about to be killed,
he said, اللهم إني حميت دينك أول النهار
فحمي لي لحم آخرهم Oh Allah, I protected
your religion in the beginning of the affair,
so protect my body at the end of
the affair.
And what he meant by that is that
after he was killed radiyallahu ta'ala anhu,
he did not want that woman to have
the satisfaction of drinking out of his skull.
And indeed Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala provided
a coat of bees that surrounded his body
to where when they tried to approach his
body after they killed him, after they rained
down the arrows upon him and the different
weaponry upon him, they were unable to access
his body.
And they said we'll come back later.
And it was so that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala allowed his body to be carried
into the valley naturally.
And they called him دفين الملائكة or دفين
الله, the one who was buried by Allah
or buried by the angels.
All of these miracles were supernatural things happen.
But then you also have to take a
step back and remember that Khubaib radiyallahu ta
'ala anhu who had that miracle provided to
him also was martyred.
He was still crucified radiyallahu ta'ala anhu.
Asim ibn Thabit radiyallahu ta'ala anhu who
made that special dua was still martyred.
Even though Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala provided
a miracle after the fact.
We know of the miracles of Badr where
Allah azawajal sent the angels in the thousands.
And they saw the impact of those angels
both from the side of the believers as
well as the side of the disbelievers.
And it's important for us to remember that
just as how on a personal level the
angels surround us and they are protecting us
by the permission of Allah.
That when Allah azawajal commands them to step
aside they step aside.
And for the believer that is for our
benefit that Allah allows harm to come towards
us when Allah azawajal decrees it.
It's not that he's incapable of the miracle
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
It's that in his divine wisdom he intends
something else for us subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And the sahaba understood that with their aqeedah.
They understood that in their creed that if
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala withheld some sort
of a miracle or some sort of supernatural
support that so long as they were not
withholding their taqwa that all of that would
be khair for them.
All of that would be for their own
good.
And they did not doubt Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala as a result.
All of these manifestations they speak to an
ayah وَمَا يَعْلَمُ جُنُودُ رَبِّكَ إِلَّا هُوَ No
one knows the soldiers of your Lord except
for him.
The first meaning of this ayah is the
junood of Allah, the army of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, the soldiers of Allah are
the angels.
And you don't know the number of the
angels or the amount of angels.
That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sends to
support the believers when he decrees it.
The imam al-awza'i rahimahullah ta'ala,
he narrates an athar that Musa alayhi as
-salam asked Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Oh
Allah who is with you in the heavens?
And he said mala'ikati, my angels.
And Musa alayhi as-salam said, and how
many angels are there?
And Allah azawajal said 19 groups.
And how much in every slipped?
How much in every caravan of angels?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said adadat turab,
the amount of particles of sand on the
earth.
It's how many angels exist amongst the soldiers,
the armies of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
in the heavens.
But beyond that as the ulama say, in
some manifestations, the army of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala could be the birds.
Sometimes the soldiers of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala can be some sort of being.
The bees in the case of Asim al
-Muthabit radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, the ant in
the story of Sulaiman alayhi as-salam.
Sometimes the army of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, the soldiers of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala are numerous and beyond.
And we look towards that and here is
what we fail to read into that ayah.
Why is it that when you hear, وَمَا
يَعْلَمُ جُنُودُ رَبِّكَ إِلَّا هُوَ that no one
knows the soldiers of Allah except for Him,
that your mind goes to, I wonder what
it's going to be and who it's going
to be, and you don't step back and
consider maybe for a moment, what if I'm
that unknown soldier of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
And to be clear, I'm not promoting violence,
not telling anyone to do anything crazy because
I know how Islamophobes will cut things out
of context.
I'm saying that agent for good, that agent
for change, that's not some supernatural or miraculous
existence, it's just you, a abd of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, who perhaps doesn't have
a major platform, who perhaps isn't someone famous,
who perhaps doesn't have a whole bunch of
money, who perhaps doesn't have a whole bunch
of influence.
But it may be that through you Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala works a major change
in this world because of your sincerity, because
you wait not for Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala to send you a miracle, but prepare
for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make
you a miracle, to make you a reason
by which something happens in the world, by
which a change happens in your community, by
which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brings about
something major in this ummah.
Why do we always read these ayahs and
think, I wonder where the miracle is going
to come from, I wonder where that bird
is going to come from, I wonder where
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to
send something that's going to blow everyone's mind
and we don't ask ourselves, what if I
could be that miracle?
What if I could be that unknown agent
for change?
You know, subhanAllah, there's a story about a
man who wanted to show his tawakkul upon
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, his trust in
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So he read the hadith of the Prophet
ﷺ that if you were to trust in
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, haqqa tawakkuli, the
way you should trust him, that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala would care for you like
the birds.
They leave out in the morning with their
stomachs empty, they come back with their stomachs
full.
Allah would provide for you the way that
he provides for the birds.
So he said, okay, I'm going to have
tawakkul in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So he said, I'm going to go sleep
in the masjid and I'm going to have
tawakkul in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to
provide for me somehow.
I'm not going to say anything, I'm just
going to go sleep in the masjid.
And he did, he went and he slept
in the masjid and then as he's sleeping
in the masjid, he's starting to get hungry,
a few days go on, nothing's coming to
him.
So he's starting to get upset and angry.
Then he notices a bird outside and that
bird has a clipped wing.
And so he says, I'm going to watch
this bird because I wonder how this bird
is sustained.
So lo and behold, some time goes on
and then he sees another bird fly and
bring some food for that bird and provide
for it and then the bird flies away.
He says, ah, this is the sign from
Allah that I must continue.
So I'm going to continue on.
And then some more time goes on and
he's getting so hungry that eventually he relinquishes
the hunger tawakkul strike.
He says, this isn't working out for me.
And he goes to a shaykh and he's
so upset.
He says, you know, I thought that I
can manifest this hadith of the Prophet shallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, tawakkultu ala Allah, I have
trust in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so
I was waiting for Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala to send me something.
But it didn't happen.
And the shaykh told him, he said to
him, how come when you saw that image
or you saw that incident of the bird
with the clipped wing and the bird that
came and provided for it, you assume the
role of the bird with the clipped wing
instead of the bird that provided for the
bird with the clipped wing.
Why did you assume the vulnerable position automatically?
Why didn't you instead see that perhaps Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala was guiding you because
you have the capability to provide for someone
else to go and to be a provider
knowing that the ultimate provider is no one
but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Why did you put yourself in that situation?
And the reality is, is that while that
sounds ridiculous to so many of us, many
of us sit back and we say, why
aren't they doing anything?
Why isn't this person doing more?
Why isn't my community doing this?
And you have so much commentary about the
failures of everyone else that you're not unlocking
the own potential of your success.
Because everybody else is flawed and everyone else
has problems.
And yes, when you take the example of
this genocide in particular, this genocide in Gaza,
may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give victory
to our brothers and sisters in Gaza over
these evil Zionists.
Allahumma ameen.
No matter what field you are in, no
matter what area you are in, there's somewhere
for you to find a way to contribute.
If you're in medicine, you have a way
to contribute.
If you're in business, you have a way
to contribute.
You look at your supply and you look
at your demand.
If you are an engineer, you have a
way to contribute.
If you're in humanitarian work, you have a
way to contribute.
Whatever field you are studying or you work
in or you have an expertise, you have
a way to contribute and sincerity will unlock
creativity.
You'll find your way.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will guide
you to do something productive.
But you have to actually want to do
something productive.
I tell you what, even if the only
thing you have is time and you don't
have an expertise, instead of doom scrolling on
social media, you have the ability with your
time to do something beneficial for your brothers
and sisters.
Why do we always assume the position of
the bird that needs another bird to show
up and give it its food?
What happened to the mindset of tie your
camel and put your trust in Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala?
How are we tying our camels and then
putting our trust in Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala?
It is not from the mindset of a
Muslim to always wait for a miracle.
It's of the mindset of a Muslim to
try to be the miracle by the pleasure
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The angels did not show up in Badr
and everyone else took a step back and
said, well, if Allah is sending all these
thousands of angels, I don't need to do
anything.
In fact, you have the narration of Sa
'ad Abdurrahman ibn Auf, where he says there
were two young men, two Mu'ads, tapped
him on the shoulder and said, ya'am,
uncle, which one of those men is Abu
Jahl?
I'm thinking to myself like, what are you
going to do with Abu Jahl?
The Firaun of this ummah.
What are you going to do with Abu
Jahl?
And then the other young boy says, our
mom told us not to come home until
we kill Abu Jahl.
And you think like, what are these two
young men going to do?
And then subhanAllah, when the battle of Badr
happens, they both come across Abu Jahl like
this.
And each one of them strikes him from
a direction and then he falls to the
ground and Abdullah ibn Mas'ud radhiAllahu ta
'ala climbs on top of him and ends
him.
The sahaba didn't say, alhamdulillah, the mala'ika
showed up.
The Prophet ﷺ said, hadha Jibreel, Jibreel alayhis
salaam is coming to us and he has
his horse and he has with him the
appearance and the tools of war.
They didn't say in that case we're good
because they understood that Allah's help comes when
we help ourselves.
That miracles arise when we put forth our
best efforts.
You don't wait for the miracle, you put
forth the efforts.
And Allah subhanAllah ta'ala brings about miracles
in the capacity of those sincere efforts.
liyatma'inna qalbik so that your heart can
be at ease.
You see Allah azawajal did not need the
angels to defeat the mushrikun in Badr.
Allah subhanAllah ta'ala did that to put
faith and tranquility in the hearts of the
believers because they knew that the angels were
on their side.
They saw the effect of those angels.
You don't wait for the angels.
You be the best version of a Muslim,
of a human being that you can be.
And Allah subhanAllah ta'ala sends help in
miraculous ways whether you see or perceive or
not.
You are always dependent upon Allah subhanAllah ta
'ala, upon the supernatural for the otherwise natural
to transpire in a way that's most pleasing
to you.
Was it not our messenger salAllahu alayhi wa
sallam who crafted the path of the hijrah
and then found himself in a cave salAllahu
alayhi wa sallam with Abu Bakr as-Siddiq
radiyAllahu ta'ala anhu.
And did he say to Abu Bakr, la
tahzan, don't worry.
I saw this spider web outside or I
saw the bird's nest and that's going to
make them think that nothing's gonna happen.
Or did he say, la tahzan, innaAllaha ma
'ana.
Don't worry, Allah is with us.
Whatever tools Allah subhanAllah ta'ala decides to
use in the process, alhamdulillah because intansurAllaha yansurukum.
If you support the cause of Allah subhanAllah
ta'ala, Allah will support you in His
ways.
Don't worry about His ways, worry about yours.
Don't worry about how He's going to do
it.
Worry about what you're going to do to
deserve Him doing it for you.
And we have a sickness sometimes in ourselves
where we're waiting and waiting and waiting and
waiting.
I'm gonna go into something a little bit
controversial.
It's late at night, so if I'm a
little controversial, may Allah forgive me.
Let it go, please.
The Prophet ﷺ said in the authentic hadith,
la tadhabu al-dunya hatta yamlik al-arab
rajulun min ahli bayti.
The dunya will not cease to exist until
a man from my family will rule the
Arabs.
He said ﷺ, he would have my name,
Muhammad ibn Abdullah, famously known as who?
Al-Mahdi, right?
The Mahdi, the guided one.
A reviver that Allah ﷻ would send from
the offspring of the Prophet ﷺ that would
lead the Muslims until the descent of Isa
ﷺ for a few years.
And should we see that time, may Allah
ﷻ place us in his ranks.
Allahumma ameen.
But here's the thing, I believe in it
because there's tawatur, there's enough narrations about the
coming of the Mahdi to where it's affirmed
in the sunnah.
I believe in it because anything the Prophet
ﷺ said, I affirm it.
Anything that's authentically narrated, whether I can point
where it is or not, the Prophet ﷺ
said it's happening, it's happening.
But you tell me, where in the psyche
of the Muslims with all the turmoil that
our ummah has faced, did you find the
scholars writing about maybe the Mahdi will come
now or the Mahdi is going to come
and we're all going to be okay.
Where in the psyche of the Muslims was
this emphasis or this obsession of a savior
that would take them out of their despair?
I'm gonna call it Mahdi syndrome.
Where a person justifies their passiveness by saying,
well, Allah is gonna send a savior.
And even if it's not the Mahdi, it
could be Salah ad-Din complex too.
We're waiting for the next Salah ad-Din
al-Ayubi to take us out of the
darkness, to take us out of the depths
of our despair.
In fact, within the corpus of Ahlus Sunnah
wal Jama'ah, the words al-Mahdi al
-Muntadhir, the awaited Mahdi are actually not used.
It's not in the Sunni school to call
him the awaited Mahdi because the concept of
awaited is not actually there.
It's not a savior.
He's a sign of the day of judgment
that will arise as a muslih, as a
righteous one, as a reviver.
And we pray that if we are alive
at that time, Allah SWT put us in
his ranks.
Allahumma ameen.
But, we're not sitting around waiting for a
savior.
You're not waiting for a figure that's going
to revive the ummah.
You see yourself as part of a group
of revivers bi-idhnillahi ta'ala.
And the Mahdi is a continuation of Mahdiyeen,
Mahdis throughout Islamic history.
The Prophets of Islam called them al-Khulafa,
al-Rashideen, al-Mahdiyeen, the guided righteous Khulafa.
Abu Bakr was a Mahdi, Umar was a
Mahdi, Uthman was a Mahdi, Ali was a
Mahdi, Al-Hassan was a Mahdi.
They were all guided in their actions, saviors
in their own right.
But the idea of an awaited figure that
justifies us sitting back and accepting our situation,
it's not in the psyche of who we
are, that's not in the ethos of who
we are, that's not what this ummah is
made of.
When Allah SWT says, وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ
سُبُلَنَا Those who strive in our way, we
will guide them, we will grant them guidance
to our paths.
They can be Mahdiyeen, just like they can
be Musliheen, they can be revivers.
You don't have to be the reviver, the
mujaddid of the century to be a mujaddid
in your own right.
You could be a mujaddid in your community.
Allah SWT has given each and every single
one of us access to do things that
are of great meaning in the midst of
the critical moments in our ummah.
And even if history books don't record us
amongst the reasons for these changes, amongst the
reasons for these impacts, Allah SWT says, سَنَكْتُبُ
مَا قَدَّمُوا وَأَثَارُوا Allah will write down everything
that we put forth and the effect that
you have.
Because, وَمَا يَعْلَمُوا جُنُودَ رَبِّكَ إِلَّا هُوَ No
one knows the army of your Lord except
for Him.
And sometimes, those unknown soldiers in history that
perhaps we don't know were the reasons for
some of the greatest turning points.
I wonder who the person with Salahuddin al
-Ayubi RA, I wonder who that person was
that changed the course of history.
I wonder who the doctor of Salahuddin was,
the nurse of Salahuddin in a moment where
he was perhaps extremely desperate and he was
about to die 10-15 years before that
cured him, that treated him by the permission
of Allah SWT, the ultimate healer.
I wonder who that person was.
I wonder who the loyal soldiers of Salahuddin
were.
I wonder who the trustworthy journalists at the
time of Salahuddin were, the message carriers of
Salahuddin were.
It's never just a man, it's always a
movement.
And in the case of the Prophet ﷺ,
he too had a movement around him ﷺ.
He had a blessed family عليه السلام أهل
البيت.
He had blessed sahaba around him ﷺ.
And he has a blessed ummah that he
is proud of.
May Allah Azawajal make us amongst those that
he's proud of, Allahumma ameen.
And the people that would make him most
proud, no doubt, are Ahl al-Ghaza.
Imagine how many of them the Prophet ﷺ
rushes to meet as they transition into that
realm of the barzakh amongst the shuhada.
To be greeted by Allah Azawajal and greeted
by the anbiya and the righteous ones that
preceded them.
We too have the ability to be amongst
these people so long as we put our
trust in Allah SWT and let that trust
be activated in working for the sake of
Allah SWT.
Dear brothers and sisters, you know a lot
of times SubhanAllah feels like we sit down
in a room, the door is locked and
Allah SWT has given us the keys to
open that door.
But we sit there and we wait for
Allah Azawajal to send us someone through the
roof that's going to open that door for
us.
I wanna leave you with this thought.
The people that will be in the ranks
of a person like al-Mahdi and then
eventually in the ranks of Sayyidina Isa ﷺ,
Isa ibn Maryam ﷺ when he descends upon
al-Masjid al-Amawi which we are seeing
today in Damascus.
May Allah SWT see forth the full victory
of the people of Syria and may Allah
Azawajal allow that victory to transition to Palestine
and to Lebanon and to the people of
Ash-Sham as a whole.
Allahumma ameen.
The people that will join those ranks are
not people that we're waiting around on social
media to say, all right, now it's time.
They're people that are already inclined towards the
khair that Allah SWT would bless to be
in those ranks anyway when it happens.
They're people that would've already been toiling for
the sake of Allah SWT that Allah Azawajal
would then honor to be considered amongst blessed
ranks in this dunya just as He would
consider them to be amongst blessed ranks in
the hereafter.
But ask yourself right now, are you fully
opening the doors that Allah SWT has given
you with the keys that are in your
hands?
And are you making yourself worthy of that
help from Allah SWT such that Allah SWT
would count you amongst Ansarullah, amongst the helpers
of Allah's cause in this world.
May Allah Azawajal make each and every single
one of us worthy.
May Allah SWT allow us to be torchbearers
of good, not passive but active towards khair.
كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ
وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ You are the
best ummah because you enjoin good, you forbid
evil, and you believe in Allah.
May Allah make us a people who enjoin
good and forbid evil and believe in Allah
SWT along the way.
May Allah SWT make us amongst those who
have certainty in His plan.
And may Allah make us part of His
plan for the ummah, part of His plan
for humanity, bearers of khair, bearers of good.
And may Allah SWT forgive us for our
shortcomings and remove from us the sins that
weigh us down and the little thinking that
stops us from achieving great purposes.
Allahumma ameen.
BarakAllahu feekum, dear brothers and sisters.
Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.