Abdul Nasir Jangda – Stories of the Prophets #29
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the best possible behavior for a prophet to make, emphasizing empathy, compassion, and forgiveness. They also discuss the importance of avoiding mistakes and not taking anyone for granted. The speaker describes the three main problems faced when suffer from pain, including weakness, lack of empathy, and desire to be nice and generous. They also discuss the behavior of a prophet who claims to be the servant of Allah and that he was the servant of Allah's followers. The speaker concludes by expressing their desire to become a Muslim and asking the audience to pray for their character.
AI: Summary ©
Shala,
just a couple of quick announcements before,
I get started.
First and foremost,
there were a couple of,
requests,
for duas
of
sister,
Halida, who we had
requested everyone to make dua for.
Her surgical procedure was today, and,
she's recovering. So we made dua that may
Allah
grant her a speedy and full recovery. Amin.
Also,
we received another message,
from a friend
that- whose father is in the ER. He's
very elderly
and,
his condition is quite severe right now.
And, they
shared the father's name so that we could
make dua for him specifically.
We ask Allah
to,
grant his shifa and his mercy and his
benevolence
upon Sayed Sarwar Hussain
Amin. And may Allah
grant him health and strength. Amin. And may
Allah
grant strength to his family
during this difficult time.
Inshallah, continuing
with our series here in the month of
Ramadan,
The stories of the prophets in the Quran
and the practical lessons that we
are extracting from these stories
to live our lives by.
As we're into the last couple of
sessions that we're going to have in this
series,
this month of Ramadan,
Inshallah, we're going to be talking about
our beloved messenger, Muhammad
And one of the most constant themes
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala comes back to
or one of the themes that Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala comes back to repeatedly,
many, many places in the Quran
is actually the character
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
The akhlaq,
the character,
the manners,
the demeanor, the disposition,
the personality,
the prophetic personality, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in Suratulambiya,
Surah number 21
in ayah number 107
tells
says while addressing the prophet
We sent you as a mercy upon all
of humanity.
And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala says
to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam again
in Surah number 68,
Suratul Kalam.
In the very beginning,
in Imam
Masiyuti
mentions that we know the very first revelation
upon the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, Iqra.
The second revelation upon the prophet, sallallahu alaihi
wasalam, was the beginning part of Surah Al
Qalam,
surah number 68.
And what did Allah say in the second
revelation upon the messenger
So that it would serve as a foundation
and a constant theme throughout his mission, throughout
his life. What did Allah say?
Allah swore by the pen of decree
and the destiny
of humanity.
You are not possessed. You are not insane.
You are not crazy as they accuse you
to be.
That Allah has reserved the ultimate reward for
your sacrifices.
Allah said
that indeed you are above.
You are on top of.
You are above
the best character.
And that wording, that phrasing in the Arabic
language is fascinating
because usually you don't use the preposition Allah.
Right? You don't use the preposition of on
top of.
But what Allah is saying here is
think about
the example
of the best character
you have ever seen or experienced or can
imagine?
What would the most beautiful noble manners look
like?
And then think of the peak and the
pinnacle of it.
And wherever
the peak of it is,
that is where the character of the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam starts.
Allah.
You're above it all.
You're better than all of them, everyone.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells the prophet
later in his mission,
this was in the beginning of the mission
where he was going to be in Makkah
and he was going to be living amongst
and preaching to
the enemy
who were trying to murder him, kill him
day night.
Then the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam goes
to Al Madina tul Munawara
where he is the prophet. He is the
imam. He is the leader.
The prophet
never identified himself as such.
But for all intents and purposes,
he was the king.
The people who didn't become Muslim initially,
the Bedouins
of Arabia,
they would actually refer to him because they
weren't Muslim yet they would refer to him
as Malekul Madinah,
the King of Madinah.
When Abu Sufyan, when he fur just became
Muslim.
Literally just became Muslim.
And he was with Al Abbas
radhiallahu anhu, the uncle of the prophet salallahu
alaihi wasalam.
And they were watching the the army of
Fath hamakkah, the conquest of Makkah, marching
10,000 strong
in these battalions
and units.
And when Abu Sufyan is looking at this,
he has just become Muslim,
So he hasn't yet learned this lesson yet.
And he looks at it, and he looks
over
to Al Abbas, his friend, the uncle of
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and he says
that your nephew
has a great kingdom.
Is a great kingdom.
And
the uncle of the prophet corrects him.
This is not
a kingdom.
This is called prophethood.
He is not a king.
He's a prophet.
Kings cannot inspire this.
This is something only prophets can do.
So now that the prophet
is in Al Madina,
what does Allah
say? That indeed for you in the messenger
salallahu alayhi wa sama is the most amazing,
beautiful,
remarkable,
excellent,
noble example.
He is the best role model of all
time.
And at the end of the life of
the prophet salallahu alaihi salam,
what does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
There came to you a messenger and he
was from amongst you. He was a human
being like the rest of you.
He cried, and he laughed. He bled, and
he wept.
He experienced
all the conditions
of being a human being that you do.
He celebrated the birth of his children,
and then he mourned their deaths.
He went through it
all. And so he's from amongst you. He
knows what you're going through.
But when you suffer,
he feels the pain of it.
The prophet
was the epitome
of empathy.
When you suffer, he feels it.
He wants what's best for you.
And he is extremely merciful
and compassionate
with the believers.
Allah
commanded the prophet
That lower, if we translate literally, means lower
the wing of humility,
which is an expression in the Arabic language,
which means be extremely merciful and accommodating.
Be compassionate and kind.
Be understanding
for those that follow you amongst the believers
because it's a very common problem. It's a
very common phenomenon. First of all, when it
comes to I can speak for myself,
I have poor manners to begin with.
No matter what the situation is, may Allah
forgive me.
And then
if somebody has a little bit more understanding,
then when they're trying to win somebody over,
when someone is a skeptic, when someone is
negative, when someone's on the wrong side of
it,
then you kind of realize, okay, I should
be nice. I should be kind. I should
be generous. I should be humble
so as to try to win that person
over.
But then there's a third level of character.
The third level of character is, well, if
he's with me now,
if he's with me, he's already pledged his
loyalty. He's already signed up. He's already enrolled.
He's already sitting in the class.
Now I just take him for granted.
Now I take him for granted.
And that's that's the next problem that we
suffer from.
And Allah is telling the prophet never
ever take your own people for granted,
but love them and cherish them. Be kind
to them.
And
Allah
mentions about the prophet
in the Quran.
It was only and solely through the mercy
of Allah that you were so kind and
accommodating
with them.
Had you been mean
and hardhearted,
They would have abandoned you at the first
sight at the first sign of trouble.
At the first sign of difficulty,
they would have left you high and dry.
You have to be forgiving.
You have to pray for them.
And even though they just messed up,
you have
to call them back into the inner circle.
You have to so somebody makes a mistake,
you have to forgive it. Not take it
personally. Let it go.
You make dua for him in the middle
of the night, which is you and Allah.
And number 3, the next day,
when that person's kind of embarrassed, kinda shy,
shying away,
you reached out to that person and you
say, hey. How are you doing? Come here.
I wanted to talk to you about something.
You bring him back in to the fold.
And this was the character of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And Allah subhanahu and and
in a hadith, our mother
tells us,
Quran. The
character of the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam was
the Quran. He was a living, breathing, walking,
talking Quran.
He was the
Quran personified,
implemented, lived,
practically.
The prophet, salallahu alaihi, sallam, on numerous occasion,
he was teaching us about his own character
so that we would take note.
We would learn the lesson. He said,
I was not sent
to doom people,
to damn people.
I was sent as a mercy for people.
I am a mercy for people. I was
sent to guide people to their salvation.
And
I'll share
2 stories from the life of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam
to demonstrate both things.
Number 1, our character
with those
who might not be from our community,
And then how do you treat the people
that are from your community?
Because it's both elements.
How do we interact with,
for us,
the majority of people
who are not Muslim,
they don't know the Quran. They don't know
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam. They don't
believe in what we believe in. But how
do we how do we interact with them?
And then how do we interact within our
own community?
Alright?
So how do we interact with other people?
This narration is found in the book of
Abdullah bin Salam
was a Jewish rabbi who accepted Islam when
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam came to Madinah.
And he says that when Allah wanted to
guide
a man
by the name of Zayd bin Surana,
this is what occurred.
Zayd bin Surahna said that I had been
studying
the the prophecies about the prophet at the
end of times.
And I had confirmed all the signs
of this prophet of the end of times
upon Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
But there were some things that I had
read that I had yet to confirm because
I had to experience them. I couldn't observe
them from a distance. I would have to
experience them personally. And they
were
Okay. Number 1, his
forbearance,
his dignity
is greater
than
his
the word he literally uses is his forbearance
is greater than his ignorance.
But what that practically means is his dignity
supersedes
any
kind of
motivation
to seek vengeance.
Okay? His dignity
rises above the prophet of the end of
times. His dignity will rise above his desire
to seek vengeance.
And the more ignorant you become with him,
the more dignified he becomes in response.
That's the 2 things.
So he always chooses dignity
over vengeance.
And if you start being super ignorant with
him,
he'll just be even more and more dignified
with you.
So he says, I was looking for an
opportunity
on how
I could experience this. So he says one
day and he says, so I've been kinda
snooping around, creeping around, eavesdropping on the prophet,
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Zaid, this man, this Jewish rabbi,
Jewish scholar, he says. And he says, one
day, the prophet
came out of his home, and Ali ibn
Abi Talib,
the the cousin of the prophet his son-in-law,
and one of the first people to accept
Islam, the closest people to the prophet He
said he was waiting for him. And so
the prophet is talking to Ali
and he says,
He says that
there is a town
of so and so, like a small village,
a tribe that has accepted a song,
and
they
have their they they are suffering from a
drought.
We've gotten news. There's a small Bedouin tribe
and they've become Muslim,
but they're suffering from a drought.
And so they need relief. They need help.
And so we were trying to arrange to
send them some food.
But I thought I would come and talk
to you, Rasoolah.
And
he says the prophet
said, okay. Go and inquire from so and
so and so and so. Look in the
collection, look in the baytulma, look for ins
sadaqa. What do we have? And he comes
back and he says,
we have nothing left.
We barely have enough to eat. There's nothing
left.
And Zaid said I was listening,
I was eavesdropping
and I saw my opportunity.
So I just kinda
conveniently strolled into the conversation.
I couldn't help but overhear.
Right?
And he said,
And he said that
I kinda came in and I said, well,
I can help you out
and I can help you acquire dates from
so and so, from so and so's garden.
And you can pay me back,
you know, and he said I gave, like,
some very generous timeline.
You got
3 months to pay me back.
The payment will be due, like we use
right now as an example. The payment will
be due on June 1st.
Generous timeline.
Okay.
There's a narration that says the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam never took a loan for
himself. He would only take loans to help
other people.
So anyways,
he says, okay.
And that's it. They were able to acquire
the dates, send it for those starving hungry
people, new Muslims. They had just accepted Islam,
and everything seemed fine and dandy. And the
prophet
had 2 plus months to arrange for this
payment.
He says, I waited
a little while, you know, maybe,
before the the debt expired, before the due
date. I waited till a few dates a
few days before
the due date.
I came, like, let's say, a week early.
And he says, I walk up to the
prophet and I specifically timed it when he
would be surrounded
by the maximum number of people.
Because I wanted to test this theory.
His dignity
is greater than his
motivation
to get even with somebody.
And the more ignorant
I would be, the more dignified he would
become.
So I came
when he was surrounded by a bunch of
people
and I walked up to him. I didn't
say hi, I didn't say hello.
I came and I grabbed him like this.
I came and I grabbed him like this
from the front of his shirt
by basically looking for a fight.
And I made this
face at him
like a mean angry face.
And I said,
Muhammad Hakim
and screamed.
I said, Muhammad,
you're not gonna fulfill your debt to me?
You're not gonna fulfill my right? I started
to scream.
And he says that,
And then I brought his dad and his
granddad into the conversation.
Right? Like, making it super personal.
I didn't know your
your dad, your grandfather,
that they were, like, cheats.
They don't pay people back.
And and then he went on and on.
And Zaid says, as I was watching this,
he says, I was aware of my surroundings,
so I didn't wanna die.
I want to become Muslim.
There's a difference.
Right?
So he says, from the corner of my
eye, I spotted
He says,
Umrah eyes rolled back into his head.
I could just see the whites of his
eyes.
Looked like a demon possessed.
Right?
And he says,
and
then started to stare at me with the
whites of his eyes.
Right? Looking into my soul.
Right?
And
he said to me, you, I do allah,
oh, enemy of God.
You talk like this to the prophet,
you behave this way with the prophet, salallahu
alaihi wasalam. He says, I'm going to end
you here and now.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was calm.
He said, I'm holding him by the front
of his shirt.
Like, imagine.
So he's just grabbing you like this.
And he said, the prophet didn't even flinch
the whole time. He's just sitting there, smile
on his face.
Not a worry in the world.
And he said he looked over at Umar
Radhi Allahu Ta'alaamu Calmly
and he said to him,
he said,
Omar, you're not helping.
You're not helping.
Said Habibi, what you should've done was you
should've told him to calm down,
and then you should've
suggested to me that,
I think we should pay him back.
That's what you should've done, but you came
here. You're like,
oh, is that a fire? Here's some kerosene.
Right?
Don't do that.
That's not the right thing to do.
And then the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
told the man, Zaid.
He said that
back off, relax,
take it easy.
Absolutely.
He said, just next time, just come and
talk to me.
That's all you have to do. We'll pay
you
back. He told the Umar, now this is
your job.
You go, take him to Earthman,
and request Earthman to pay him back on
my behalf.
And after you get done with that, then
you go and do something nice for him.
So first, pay him back what I owe
him, and then I'll I'll owe.
And
then you go do something nice to him,
and Umar
face is like
right?
The face every teenager makes. Right?
All the time.
So, Umrah Radhiyala was like, me do something
nice for him. Why? He's the one disrespecting
you.
He's the one assaulting you, putting hands on
you,
And the prophet explains. He goes, why? Because
you threatened him.
He was dealing with me. You might not
like it, but that was between me and
him. Who told you to come in here
and be like, I will sever your head?
Who said who told you to do that?
So he goes, you do something nice for
him to make up for it now.
Go.
Now.
And walks out with the man,
and when they get outside,
then Zayd bin Surna,
he says,
stop stop here.
Was like, this guy's pushing his luck. Right?
He's still alive. Right?
And so he says, stop. He says, do
you know who I am?
Was probably thinking, yeah. Dead man. Right? No.
But he says, do
you know who I am? And he goes,
no. I don't. Who are you?
And he says,
My name is Zayd bin Surah. And
is genuinely surprised. Why? Zayd bin Surna was
this
was this mythological
kind of, like, person
was a who had become kind of like
a myth, a Madinan myth
ever since the Muslims came to Medina. Why?
They used to talk about the the the,
the Jews of Medina would talk about a
man who was a scholar of their scripture
who had gone into seclusion like a decade
ago.
He had gone into seclusion and he had
never interacted with anyone since then. He had
somebody that would run all of his errands
and this and that, but he had not
interfaced with another human being in decades.
But they had heard about it.
He said,
you're the Jewish scholar, Zayd bin Sarna. He
goes, yeah. That's me.
And he says that I apologize for what
I just did,
the whole interaction.
But he said, I did that interaction because
I've been studying the scripture. And I found
in the scripture that at the end of
times, Allah would send a messenger, and that
messenger would have certain characteristics
and signs.
And the last of his characteristics
and signs that I had not yet confirmed
on Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
was that when you behave
ignorantly with him, instead of responding back with
ignorance,
he will always respond back with forbearance and
dignity. And the more ignorant you become, the
more dignified he becomes.
And I had to experience it for myself,
and I have now experienced it. Please take
me back to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
because I would like to become Muslim.
Farajah Umar was aidellah Rasulullah
They came back Faqal Azayd and Zayd sat
in front of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
and he said
I bear witness that there's no one worthy
of worship except for Allah. I bear witness
that you indeed are the servant and the
messenger of Allah.
That was the character
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
with those
who are outside of the community. And by
the way, this man Zayd bin Surahna, how
did he die?
He died
in the path of Allah,
while traveling with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
in the battle of Tabuk.
On the way to Tabuk, he passed away
on the journey. He is a shahid,
a shahid.
And how did the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
treat people within the community? I apologize. I've
gone way too long today.
But how did the prophet treat people within
the community?
Hadith al Bukhari tells us,
I was walking with the prophet and the
prophet was wearing a shawl like like a
shawl.
And the shawl was a very particular kind
of shawl where it has, like,
stitching and, like, design
along the border.
Okay?
And so that makes the edge of it
very kinda like thick and coarse.
A Bedouin man, Muslim,
who wanted some financial help, financial assistance.
He caught up, he came up behind the
Prophet
And he yank, grabbed, and yanked the shawl
of the prophet to get his attention.
And he like
like he like yanked the prophet back.
And Anna says
And I saw
the burn mark, like a red burn mark
on the neck of the prophet
from how harshly
this man had yanked the shawl.
When the prophet turned then when he got
our attention obviously,
he said,
And he says, tell somebody
to give some sadaqah to me. I need
sadaqah.
It's possible that the man maybe was in
such a state of desperation.
Who knows? Maybe he had hungry children at
all.
And it was, you know, imagine a parent
when they see their child hungry, It would
drive you to the point of insanity.
So he could have been just
not thinking straight.
Says, please tell someone
to give us some sadaqa to help us
out.
Anas
says, think about what this man has just
done. Yank the neck of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, put a burn mark on
his neck, ripped his shawl off,
and he said, and when the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam turned around to look at the
man, Anas says, what did I see?
The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam smiled at the man.
He smiled at
it because he understood the man is in
desperate need.
He smiled at
him.
And then he asked someone, please
go help this
person.
And that was the character of the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
So this is what Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala
talks to us about in the Quran.
We pray and we ask, may Allah Subhanahu
wa ta'ala grant us
prophetic character. May Allah
allow us to follow in the footsteps of
the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. May Allah
grant us the beautiful character, the noble manners,
the remarkable disposition
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And
may Allah
grant us that kind of dignity and may
we may we always respond
to ignorance with dignity.