Abdul Nasir Jangda – Reflections on Gaza
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I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed
Satan.
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most
Merciful.
O you who have believed!
Seek help through patience and prayer.
And do not say to those who are
killed in the cause of Allah, that they
should die.
Nay, they are alive, but
you perceive it not.
And We will surely try
with a thing of fear and
distress, and a loss of
wealth and persons and fruits.
And give good tidings to the patient We
belong to Allah, and to Him we shall
return.
Those will have blessings from their Lord and
mercy.
And those are the
ones Allah has spoken the truth about.
in the aftermath of the Battle of Uhud.
And we all have some idea about what
occurred exactly in the Battle of Uhud and
how tragic it personally was for the Prophet
ﷺ.
But just to be able to kind of
revisit that, and to be able to understand
and appreciate the gravity of that.
The Prophet ﷺ on that day, he suffered
the loss of many of his nearest and
dearest companions.
These were people that the Prophet ﷺ had
invested 15 years into.
They were the product of 15 years of
effort and struggle and du'as and struggling
by the Prophet ﷺ.
And amongst them obviously were also very near
and dear family members of the Prophet ﷺ.
Hamza ﷺ who was not only killed, but
then his body was mutilated.
And when the Prophet ﷺ saw the body
of Hamza ﷺ, it struck him so severely
that the Sahaba ﷺ say that we saw
the Prophet ﷺ have like a visceral physical
reaction to seeing the body of Hamza ﷺ.
And Hamza ﷺ was one of the younger
amongst his siblings.
And one of the older amongst his siblings,
amongst the children of Abdul Muttalib, Hamza was
one of the more younger ones.
He was only two years older than the
Prophet ﷺ.
So they grew up like brothers.
And one of the more older children of
Abdul Muttalib was actually the mother of Az
-Zubayr ibn al-Awam ﷺ.
His name was Safiya, Ummah Rasul Allah ﷺ,
Safiya ﷺ.
And because Hamza was one of the younger
children of Abdul Muttalib, he was basically practically
raised by Safiya.
She was like a mother to him.
And the Prophet ﷺ told Zubayr ﷺ, do
not let your mother come and see her
Hamza in this condition.
And when she heard the news, as the
Prophet ﷺ expected, she prepared a kafan, a
shroud, and she started walking her way towards
the battlefield of Uhud.
And Zubayr ﷺ stopped her and said, no,
no, no, you should not go.
And she said, I've heard what they did
to my brother.
I've heard the news.
And so I've brought something to cover his
body with and move out of my way.
And he tried to keep stopping her.
And she shoved him aside and she said,
get out of my way.
And as she started to walk by him,
then he finally resorted to his last effort.
And he said, the Prophet ﷺ has asked
you not to go.
And when she heard that, she stopped right
where she was.
She immediately just froze.
She turned around and she handed the sheets
to him.
And she said that, go and take care
of my brother.
And eventually the Prophet ﷺ, when Zubayr told
him about the interaction that he had had
with his mother, the Prophet ﷺ then did
permit her to be able to come after
they had kind of covered his body.
And she came and she said, Asbir wa
ahtasib, I am patient and Allah will reward
me for this tragic loss of mine.
And in the aftermath of all of this,
all of this heartache and all of this
devastation, Allah revealed these verses upon the Prophet
ﷺ.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اِسْتَعِينُوا بِالصَّبْرِ وَالصَّلَاةِ That
all you who believe, seek the help of
Allah ﷻ through patience and prayer.
And I was talking about this just yesterday
in another gathering, that a lot of times
when we talk about sabr, patience, we actually
shortchange the meaning of sabr by simply translating
it as patience.
Sabr also has the meaning of somebody really
digging their heels into the ground.
Because a lot of times patience has this
meaning that we just lie down and then
take everything lying down.
But in actuality, the word sabr in the
Arabic language, and that's how it's used in
the Qur'an, it also contains the meaning
of somebody digging their heels into the ground
and standing firm and not relenting and resisting
and continuing to resist and refusing to budge,
refusing to move.
And so when Allah is saying, seek the
help and the aid and the assistance of
Allah through sabr, Allah is saying that stay
on course.
Part of how you will attract the help
and the mercy of Allah is by staying
the course, by staying firm, was salah, and
then continuing to pray to Allah ﷻ.
And indeed Allah is with those people who
stand strong and stand firm, who are resilient,
especially felt in this context always, that the
better translation of sabirin and sabr is resilience.
And the sabirin here in these verses is
actually describing people that are extremely resilient.
وَلَا تَقُولُوا لِمَن يُقْتَلُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَمْوَاتٍ
And Allah ﷻ says that do not say
about the people who were killed in the
way of Allah that they are just simply
dead.
بَلْ أَحْيَاءٌ Rather they are alive.
And the hadith of Sahih Bukhari, in the
tafsir of these ayat, the Prophet ﷺ tells
us that the souls of the martyrs are
placed within these beautiful green birds in the
highest levels of paradise under the shade of
the throne and the arsh of Allah, and
they fly around in paradise wherever they'd like,
whatever they'd want to do, and they continue
to just live this life of enjoyment and
bliss and happiness awaiting the day of judgment
when everyone will be resurrected and then their
souls will be restored to their earthly bodies.
And when their souls will be returned back
to their earthly bodies, they've been alive and
living and enjoying paradise this entire time.
When their souls are restored, Allah ﷻ will
grant the martyrs a very particular distinction.
And at first when you hear it, it's
a bit jarring, but it ultimately, it is
the ultimate badge of honor.
And the distinction that Allah ﷻ will grant
them is when they are resurrected on the
day of judgment, their wounds will be with
them.
The wounds that they suffered in the way
of Allah ﷻ, they will show those wounds.
Their wounds will be open, they'll be fresh,
the blood will be coming out of those
wounds.
And it sounds a bit jarring, it sounds
almost like a, you know, kind of a
disservice.
Why are they gonna be like, you know,
showing those wounds that were inflicted upon them?
But it will be the ultimate badge of
honor.
And of course, Allah ﷻ knows everything, but
Allah will ask them in front of all
of the creation, all of humanity, اَمَامَ الْخَلَائِقِ
كُلِّهَا Allah will ask them in front of
all of the human beings, مِنَ أَوَّلِهِمِ الْآخِرِهِمِ
that what happened to you?
What is this?
And they'll respond by saying, يا رب, o
Allah, I suffered this in your way.
This was done to me because of what
I believed.
And Allah ﷻ will then announce in front
of all of the creation that you made
this sacrifice.
And in exchange of that, you will have
paradise.
And they'll be granted entry into Jannatul Firdaus,
the highest stages of paradise, in front of
all of humanity, before even the reckoning begins,
and before anyone else has any opportunity of
anything.
They'll be entered into paradise ahead of everyone
else.
And that's why Allah says, وَلَكِن لَّا تَشْعُرُونَ
That in this world, and the way that
this world works, and how limited the minds
of people are in this world, when people
are killed, when people's lives are taken unjustly,
that a lot of times, people perceive them
to be the ones who lost in this
situation.
The world perceives them plainly, but the world
perceives them to be the losers.
And that's why Allah is saying, وَلَكِن لَّا
تَشْعُرُونَ You just don't realize.
You have your math all wrong.
But these are the people that have attained
the ultimate status and the ultimate distinction and
honor.
And that's how we reflect on the people
that were taken.
Now going forward, Allah ﷻ says, the lesson
that you have to take from them, and
actually before I even go forward, I wanted
to mention just a couple of things.
There are remarkable things.
There's this beautiful book that's written on the
history of Al-Madinah al-Munawarah that actually
the author talks about that when he was
a child, there were these terrible storms and
floods in that region of Madinah.
And it led to some of the bodies
of the martyrs in Uhud becoming uncovered.
All the ground was washed away.
And he talks about his eyewitness account that
when they saw the bodies of the shuhada
of Uhud, they were so fresh as the
day that they were buried.
That that was their honor and distinction granted
to them by Allah.
Now going forward Allah says, وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِّنَ
الْخَوْفِ A lot of times, and of course,
we oppose the injustice.
And we pray against the oppressors and we
pray for the oppressed.
And we don't want this to happen.
But Allah is also telling us that this
is also the law and the rule that
Allah has set down in this dunya.
وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِّنَ الْخَوْفِ We will test you
with this fear, والجوع, starvation, hunger.
وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنفُسِ وَالْثَمَرَاتِ And a decrease
in wealth and in life and then in
fruits.
And I explained this before as well that
Imam Shafi'i r.a he actually explains
that Allah has already talked about that He
will decrease your property.
So the crops are already included within that.
Allah already said that you will suffer starvation.
The loss of crops is already addressed there.
This ثَمَرَاتِ is actually referenced in an authentic
narration at Tirmidhi in which the Prophet ﷺ
tells us that when the soul of a
child is taken, that when the angel of
death goes before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
Allah asks the angel of death and of
course the hadith says that Allah knows everything.
But Allah asks the angel of death, أَخَذْتَ
ثَمْرَةَ قَلْبِهِ You took away the fruit of
the heart of My servant.
ثَمْرَةُ الْقَلْبِ لِيَنَ الْوَلَدَ ثَمْرَةُ الْقَلْبِ The child
is the fruit of the heart of the
parents.
It's an expression in the Arabic language like
we say the apple of one's eye.
The most precious thing in the world is
a child.
And Allah says to the angel of death,
You took away the most precious thing in
the world to My servant, his child.
He says, Yes, Ya Rabb, it was Your
will.
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala announces
that let them know that because of this
sacrifice, they will all be reunited in Jannah.
They'll all be reunited in paradise.
وَبَشِّرُ الصَّابِرِينَ And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says that the good news is for those
that are resilient in the face of all
of this difficulty and adversity.
أَلَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتُمْ مُصِيبًا That when they are
afflicted with a terrible calamity, قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ
وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَجِعُونَ They say to Allah, Do
we belong to Him?
Are we all returning?
أُولَئِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ صَلَوَاتًا مِّن رَبِّهِمْ وَرَحْمَةً Those are
the people, Allah showers His special blessings upon
them and His mercy upon them.
وَأُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْمُخْتَدُونَ And those are the people
that are rightly guided.
I wanted to emphasize three things here tonight.
Number one, by sharing these particular verses, I
wanted to remind myself, renew my perspective, that
the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands
of our brothers and sisters whose lives have
been taken, who have been killed, who have
been murdered in Gaza and beyond, that they
are shuhada, that they are martyrs.
And this is what Allah tells us about
the status and the level and the distinction
of the martyrs and it's a very important
reminder that we all need to have.
That we understand their status with Allah and
we are able to find at least some
modicum of comfort in the fact that they
are honored and distinguished with Allah ﷻ.
And they have attained the highest status that
any member of this ummah can ever achieve
and that is the status of the shuhada,
the martyrs.
The second thing I wanted to emphasize was
that while we remind ourselves of this, we
also don't sit there and then kind of
wallow in just sadness and misery and pain.
But those that are left behind have a
responsibility upon us.
When the daughter of Hamza رضي الله تعالى
عنه was still in Mecca and they wanted
to bring her back to Medina, Ali ibn
Abi Talib, Jafar ibn Abi Talib, Zayd ibn
Haritha, they were all debating and arguing with
each other about who would have the honor
of taking care of the daughter of Hamza
رضي الله تعالى عنه.
They understood their job and their responsibility to
those that are left behind.
That we have a job to do.
We are their family.
When the Prophet ﷺ was coming back from
the Battle of Uhud, having buried his uncle
who had been mutilated horrifically, the Prophet ﷺ
sees a boy, Al-Bashir.
He sees him and he's crying because his
father has died, has been killed, was a
martyr in Uhud.
And he sees him crying and the Prophet
ﷺ stops his animal and he lifts him
up and picks him up and puts him
on the animal with him.
And then he holds him and hugs him
and shushes him until he stops crying, calms
him.
And then he says to him, أما ترضى
أن أكون أنا أباك وعائشة أمك Don't worry,
you're not alone.
I'll be your father, Aisha will be your
mother.
Then he ordered all the Sahaba رضي الله
تعالى عنهم and some of the other boys
that were standing there waiting for their fathers
and brothers to come back but they were
all buried in Uhud.
The Prophet ﷺ ordered those Sahaba that pick
up these children and comfort them and take
care of them.
They are our responsibility.
There's that sense of family that we can't
just use the lip service that we are
a family, we're an ummah.
But we have to have that real concern
and do whatever is in our capacity to
continue to speak against the oppression, push back
against the oppression, donate, contribute and whatever other
means there is to help and aid and
assist.
But we have to stay committed.
It's our job, it's our responsibility.
It's not just something that we look at,
Oh, these doctors, they mashallah, they went to
Gaza very nice and we clap for them
and it's good that they did that.
But it's our collective responsibility to constantly concern
ourselves with what we can do.
When the Prophet ﷺ had barely completed burying
Hamza radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, the Prophet ﷺ
across the field, he saw Jabir bin Abdullah
radiyallahu ta'ala anhu.
His father had been killed in Uhud.
Shaheed.
And he saw Jabir and Jabir was crying.
He's barely 18, 19 years old.
He's a young man, he had seven little
sisters.
His father was like his best friend.
He was his oldest child.
So they were very close.
And he saw him crying, he saw him
destroyed, devastated.
His whole life, his whole world had been
turned upside down.
And the Prophet ﷺ put his own pain
on hold and he walked across the battlefield
and he went there and he just went
and he just hugged Jabir.
And Jabir cried on the shoulder of the
Prophet ﷺ, cried and cried and cried.
And the Prophet ﷺ just held him and
let him cry his heart out.
And then he told him, he said, why
do you worry?
He said, you know your father's soul, from
the moment your father fell in the battlefield,
Allah sent angels from the heavens to cover
your father's body with their wings so even
the sunlight would not hit his body.
Do you know your father's soul when it
was presented before Allah?
Allah asked your father's soul that if I
give you another opportunity, what would you do?
And he said, I would give my life
for you again.
If I give you another opportunity, what would
you do?
I would give my life for you again.
If I give you another opportunity, what would
you do?
I would give my life for you again.
And he said that a hundred times over.
Fast forward even a few years later, one
time the Prophet ﷺ was sitting, he had
received a gift from Yemen.
And it was this cloak and it had
a very nice border, very beautiful cloak.
And the Prophet ﷺ was wearing it when
he gave the khutbah, Jumu'ah.
And after Jumu'ah, some of the young
men of the Sahaba, they came up and
they started, they used to be so friendly
with the Prophet ﷺ.
They came up and they started touching it
and they started saying, wow, this is really
nice.
And they were touching it and checking it
out.
And the Prophet ﷺ saw Jabir in the
corner.
And he could tell that he was sad,
he was probably missing his dad.
And the Prophet ﷺ immediately said, he goes,
you think this is nice?
And they said, yeah.
And he said it kind of loud, do
you think this is nice?
And they said, yeah.
He said, you know what's nicer?
They said, what?
He said the handkerchief of Jabir's father in
Jannah is better than this cloak.
It's constantly comforting.
It's our job.
When they were on their way back to
Medina and Jabir was sad and his head
is hung and he's riding his camel.
The Prophet ﷺ knows he has a lot
of responsibility.
How is he gonna take care of this
whole family by himself?
He's a young man, he's barely a man,
he's a kid.
He's a teenager.
The Prophet ﷺ said, mashallah, your camel is
very good.
He said, يَا لَهَا يَا رَسُولُ اللهِ You
can have it.
He said, no, no, I didn't say that.
He said, it's very good.
How much would you sell it to me
for?
He goes, it's yours.
He said, no, no, don't do that.
Then he asked another Sahabi, how much does
this camel sell for?
He said, 2,000 dirham.
The Prophet ﷺ said, I'll buy it from
you for 4,000 dirham.
He said, it's yours, O Messenger of Allah.
He said, 4,000 dirham.
So what are you gonna do?
You don't argue with the Prophet ﷺ.
He said, سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا Like, what are you
gonna do?
So when they got back to Medina, the
Prophet ﷺ said, okay, bring the camel.
So when he brought him, the Prophet ﷺ
gave him the 4,000 dirham and said,
just leave the camel outside.
And a little while later, the Prophet ﷺ
called one of the Sahaba, and he said,
you see the camel that's outside?
He said, go drop it off at Jabir's
house and tell him that it's a gift
from me.
Because it was his job.
Because he understood that.
When the news came from Mu'tada Ja'far
bin Abi Talib, who was like a little
brother to the Prophet ﷺ.
أَشْبَهْتَ خَلْقِي وَخُلُقِي He said, you're just like
me.
You look like me.
You walk like me.
You talk like me.
Ja'far was so beloved to the Prophet
ﷺ.
His cousin, he was like a little baby
brother to him.
And when Ja'far was shaheed in Ghazwa
Mu'tah, and the Prophet ﷺ heard that his
wife is very distraught, Asmaa bint Abi Umais.
The Prophet ﷺ went over to their home.
And he sat down.
And he said that, he told her, he
said that, you know, Ja'far is in
paradise.
Allah gave him, because she had heard the
news that they had butchered him in the
battlefield, the enemy.
And the Prophet ﷺ said that, Allah gave
Ja'far wings.
And he's flying around in paradise.
That's why I call him Ja'far al
-Tayyar.
And she said, O Messenger of Allah, I
have no doubt about that.
That's not why I'm sad.
I'm sad because of these boys.
She had two, three little boys.
She said they lost their father.
Who's gonna look after them?
The Prophet ﷺ said, I will.
Then he called them over and he put
them in his lap.
And they were little boys.
So their hair was all over the place.
And so the Prophet ﷺ said, you got
something?
And she said, yeah.
And he fixed their hair.
Sitting there.
Can you imagine this picture?
The Prophet ﷺ sitting there, combing and brushing
their hair.
Fixing them up.
He fixed them up.
And he said, look how beautiful they look.
Look how beautiful they are.
It's our job.
It's our job.
And so that's the second point I wanted
to make that we have to remain committed.
We have to stay the course, the resilience.
And the third thing that I wanted to
mention and emphasize and we'll put this into
practice and act on this here.
And that is, the third thing is that
we continue to make du'a.
So we have the correct perspective.
We remain hopeful.
We continue to put in the work.
And then we continue to make du'a.
And so inshallah, we'll end and conclude with
a du'a.
And I'll offer a short du'a.
And inshallah, just, you know, start sending salawat
on the Prophet ﷺ.
Be in the right state of mind and
in the right frame of mind.
And that we ask Allah ﷻ for the
acceptance of our du'as and our prayers
here tonight.
As-salāmu
ʿalaykum
wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh.
O Allah!
Have mercy upon the Ummah of the Prophet
ﷺ.
O Allah!
Aid and help the Ummah of the Prophet
ﷺ.
O Allah!
All of our brothers and sisters, all the
innocent people who have been lost, who have
been killed, who have been murdered.
O Allah!
Count them amongst the shuhada.
Grant them the highest levels in Jannat al
-Firdaws al-'A'la.
Place them in the company of the Prophet
ﷺ and the nabiyeen, the siddiqeen, the shuhada,
the salihin.
O Allah!
Those that remain behind, O Allah!
Grant them strength and thabat.
Grant them conviction and strength in the face
of such brutality and adversity.
O Allah!
Give them the resilience and the strength they
need to continue.
O Allah!
Defeat the oppressors and remove them from the
oppressed.
O Allah!
Remove the oppressors and deal with them swiftly
and justly.
O Allah!
Forgive us for our shortcomings.
Forgive us for our negligence.
O Allah!
Forgive us for our laziness.
O Allah!
Forgive us for not fulfilling our responsibility.
O Allah!
Allow us to be a part of the
means of bringing relief and victory to our
brothers and sisters.
O Allah!
Grant them victory, grant them dignity, grant them
honor, grant them peace, grant them tranquility.
Ya Rabb al-'Alamin.
Subhana rabbika rabb al-'izzati amma yasifoon, wa salamun
ala al-mursaleen, walhamdulillahi rabbil'alamin.
Insha'Allah, please everyone, take your time, as
much time as you would like.
But insha'Allah, on your way out, there's
some chai that is being sold in the
foyer, in the lobby area, and all the
proceeds are a part of our fundraising campaign
for Gaza.
Alhamdulillah, the seminary students, the Bloom children, the
entire community here at Qalam has been working
very diligently about raising funds and awareness about
what's going on in Gaza.
So insha'Allah, the chai that's being sold
is also contributing to that.
So please, insha'Allah, partake of that and
participate in that.
Jazakumullahu khairan.
Barakallahu feekum.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.