Abdul Nasir Jangda – Stories of the Prophets #17 Taking Responsibility
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the Prophet's actions and lessons, including his journey to Mecca and leaving the ship. The Prophet's actions led to a conclusion that he wasn't time to leave yet and should not be part of the situation. The speaker emphasizes the importance of taking ownership of one's own choices and avoiding mistakes. Additionally, the speaker discusses the importance of not acknowledging the length of time someone was in the situation and taking responsibility to avoid mistakes.
AI: Summary ©
Continuing
with our series here in the month of
Ramadan
where we are discussing the stories of the
prophets in the Quran.
Today, insha Allahum'ilaha,
we are going to be talking about the
story of the Prophet Yunus alayhis salaam.
And the lesson and the moral that we'll
be extracting from the story
of prophet Yunus alaihis salam in the Quran
is the lesson
of
taking responsibility.
Taking ownership
of one's own choices.
And
and then kind of talking about, well, now
what is the recourse
for the choices that I have made? But
the primary theme is taking responsibility.
To 1st and foremost understand once again the
background and the concept,
the background or the story rather of the
Prophet Yunus alaihis salaam. There's an authentic narration
in Sihi Bukhari
in which the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam salam
tells
us about the full name
of the prophet Yunus alaihi salam and that
is Yunus ibnumatah.
Yunus ibnumatah.
And the hadith
also tells us that the prophet Yunus alayhis
salam
was from
the ancient
city of Nainoa,
which is referred to in the old testament
as Nineveh.
And the story of the prophet Yunus alaihis
salam,
and one of the very interesting reasons or
interesting parallels, I should rather say, reflections that
we can draw from the story of prophet
Yunus alaihis salam
is that there are some very interesting parallels
to Yunus alaihis salam situation
and the situation of Rasul alaihis
salam. 1st and foremost,
Nineveh,
Nainoa,
was
a very prominent city
in its region and at that time,
similar to the city of Mecca.
Secondly,
the people,
the tribe,
the town,
the people of Yunus alaihi salam,
it was a very large prominent powerful tribe.
Just like the Quraysh were for the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Yunus alaihi wasallam
came from
the most prominent family of leadership
from amongst his tribe and people,
just like the prophet salallahu alaihi salam.
And as the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam invoked
the name of his grandfather
where he said, Anab no Abdul Muttalib.
I am the grandson
of Abdul
Muttalib.
So there are these very interesting parallels.
And then the very
the most fascinating parallel
is how things played out.
Yunus
preached and preached and preached to his people
for years years years,
almost a decade,
until finally,
it reached such a point where it became
a stalemate.
And the people were not budging.
And, obviously,
the prophet,
a prophet of god,
doesn't have the luxury of budging. He has
a mission.
Rasulullah
alaihi wasallam
spent 13 years in Mecca,
preaching and teaching the message.
And this is something people don't understand and
realize.
The day the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam made
the Hijra from Mecca to Madinah, There were
more Muslims in Madinah waiting for him than
there were in Makkah leaving it.
The 13 years
of
the Makan period,
it
there were very few numbers.
It was a couple of 100 Muslims. That's
it.
They were remarkable people, but I'm just saying
in the grand scheme of things as opposed
to the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sama hasn't
even arrived in Madina yet and there's already
500 Muslims in Madina.
So think about that. And so that's another
parallel between the situation of Yunus alaihi salam
and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And this is where
the lesson of Yunus alaihi salam comes in.
Yunus alayhis salam
sat back.
He assessed the situation.
He looked at the last decade,
what exactly had occurred and transpired,
analyzed and assessed
the situation,
and then concluded
a very logical
conclusion.
And that was
that at this point,
those who were to believe, they've believed.
And those who have not believed yet, now
they have kind of dug their heels in
so deeply
that it's become very personal.
And these people are not going to budge
unless and until
something very
remarkable or miraculous occurs. But, otherwise, these people
are not about to budge.
And he arrived at that conclusion, and therefore,
he said,
now it's time
to depart.
Now it's time to go.
Enough
has been invested here.
And Yunus alaihis salam
came to this conclusion
and he packed his bags and he departed.
When he departed,
Allah
said
that it was not time for you to
leave yet.
It was not time for you to leave
yet.
I had not
explicitly
instructed you to leave yet.
So you were not supposed to go yet.
And as a result of that,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
once again give us a role model in
this regard. How do I go about
in taking responsibility,
taking ownership,
owning
my choices.
Allah
arranged something
miraculous,
remarkable.
Yunus alaihis salam boards a ship.
He's leaving.
And as
he's traveling on the ship,
out of just nowhere,
they get just this
horrible storm, like a hurricane,
just shows up out of nowhere
and just completely
grips this boat.
And these people
are nervous and panicking. And even the way
that storm, that hurricane came out of nowhere,
it seemed
like there was some kind of
divine intervention here.
Everything, of course, has divine intervention, but you
understand that this seemed like this was a
sign of something.
So they said
someone
on the ship has brought about the wrath
or the anger of Allah.
And then
they
identified Yunus, alayhis salam, as the last person
that had boarded the ship.
And they basically said we have to
get you off this ship.
Otherwise, we won't survive.
So they give him,
you know, like a plank or something like
that to be able to float.
And they basically toss him overboard.
They toss him like a life vest or
whatever they had.
And they're just like,
whatever Allah does with you,
but we're not
going down with you.
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us
that at that point in time, Allah sent
Allah calls him. Allah sent 1 of his
creation,
a whale, Allah refers to it as.
And that whale came and swallowed up Yunus
alayhis salaam.
And
he was in the belly of the beast,
in the belly of the whale.
Now he's in there
And by the will of Allah
he's still alive,
but he's inside the belly of the beast.
And there, he's in there for some time.
Allah knows best. The Quran does not explicitly
comment on how long he was in there
or not. There are different comments
that some of the commentators of the Quran,
Al Hasil Basri says 40 nights.
Some Mufassirun mentioned 3 nights. Ultimately, Allah knows
best. But the point is he's in the
belly of the beast and he recognizes where
he's at.
And now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
that Yunus alaihis salam,
he has in that moment,
he gives him the opportunity to be able
to reflect
on what he
did, where he got Allah says,
That it wasn't just that he did the
math
and then he left the people. Allah
says, Yunus alayhi salam, you know, when you
kind of have like a bit of a
quiet moment by yourself,
You realize certain things in that moment.
You were so
agitated before
and because you were moving around, you started
to craft a particular narrative. You started telling
yourself a particular story and you worked yourself
up.
And at at that point, you're basically just
kind of,
you know, buying your own stock.
You're drinking your own Kool Aid.
You're feeding into that narrative
and feeding off of it.
But then when you get kind of separated
from it and you sit down for a
little while and hopefully it's kind of a
little bit later in the day so that
you're physically tired
because that's where the nuffs,
the animal, the beast lives.
So you're physically worn down a little bit.
But that you're not thinking so,
like hormonally
and it's quiet
and maybe it's you just made wudu and
prayed
so you got a little bit of in.
There's a hadith of the prophet
that says that even wudu. Wudu is a
blessed act.
It extinguishes
the flames of, like, arrogance and agitation,
qipon,
just like water extinguishes fire.
And
you're kinda sitting there, and at that moment,
you start to kinda come down a little
bit off of it and you realize, okay,
it's not exactly like maybe I was selling
myself.
And then it becomes a totally different situation.
So,
he's sitting there,
and it allows him the moment and he
realizes
it's not like I was telling myself. I
didn't just do the math and leave.
I was angry.
I was I was irate
that these people had not believed,
that they had wasted my time.
They had made a joke and a mockery
of me.
He remembered in that moment that he was
irritated with them.
There's no room for that.
And he immediately recognizes,
oh, I shouldn't have done that.
That's on me.
And he owns it and he takes responsibility
for it.
And then he says,
He called out. He cried out in the
darkness. The layers upon layers upon layers of
darkness.
The Tafsir mentions
that it was 3 layers of darkness.
It was nighttime in the ocean and in
the belly of the beast.
And he cries out to Allah.
There is no one worthy of worship except
for you, oh Allah.
I am submitted to no one other than
you, oh Allah.
That's a very interesting thing to say at
a moment where you're taking ownership, where you're
taking responsibility
for your action. Right? We would assume you
would say something like, astaghfirullah.
I'm sorry.
I made I messed up.
My bad.
Forgive me. Pardon
me. No.
Why? Because that's the true reset.
Because for because what that person is saying,
we we don't attribute this to the prophets
of God. I'll talk about myself. When I'm
saying that, when I'm realizing the error of
my ways and I'm taking ownership and I'm
taking responsibility
And I say What I'm saying is, you
Allah,
I fell into the trap.
For a little while,
I was following my nafs.
I was worshiping myself.
I submitted to my anger.
I devoted myself to my ego.
And so this is the true reset
where you break the idols,
not the literal physical idols. The prophet on
the
the farewell pilgrimage, the prophet
declared on that day, you will not worship
idols like physical idols.
You won't pray to, like, a physical idol.
That's not gonna happen to you.
Shaitan can do that to you.
But
what he will do is he will make
you slip
by worshiping the idols
you don't realize, you don't recognize.
The smaller idols, the subtle idols,
the non physical idols, the intangible idols.
That's your ego.
That's your arrogance. That's your pride.
That's your anger.
That's your that's your desire for vengeance.
How dare you?
So Oh Allah,
I messed up.
Oh Allah. I messed up.
I reset myself
and I submit myself only and solely to
you You Allah.
Allah. Because you are perfect
and I am flawed.
You are perfect and I am flawed.
I messed up.
You have to own it.
That's the part.
You got to own it. It's It's
a confession.
I messed
up.
I sinned.
I oppressed
my own soul.
And when he said that,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says we insert his prayer.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in
surah number 68, surahul Qalam.
Aye number 48 Allah is telling the prophet
Be firm on the command of your Lord.
And learn a lesson from the example of
your brother, the prophet Yunus
He was ultimately
saved
and blessed
by the blood of his Lord, that realization,
that repentance.
Allah chose him, selected him and made him
from the righteous. And Allah tells us,
Allah says, we answered his prayer and we
saved him from
the dark place that he was in.
And we all find ourselves in dark places
from time to time. But Allah says we
saved him from that dark place. The Quran
says
that
the whale
came up
near the shore and it spit him out
and he landed onto the beach.
And he went back to his townspeople
and when he went back to his town
and he walked in
when the narrations mentions the books of Tafsir
mentioned, he heard the sound of people praying.
While he was gone, they all accepted Islam.
They all became Muslim.
And
Allah says
This is how we will always help and
save and rescue
the believers
as long as they follow this example
of the prophet Yunus alaihis salam. That when
I mess up,
when I make a mistake,
when I make the wrong choice,
I have to own it and I have
to take responsibility.
May Allah grant us the ability to practice
everything that we've said and heard.