Abdul Rahman Chao – 2024-06-29
AI: Summary ©
The cycle of the Islamic calendar is discussed, including the Battle of Al Qadisiy volume and the Iranian Empire's use of pillows and dresses. The importance of being a servant of Allah is emphasized, as it is not just a recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognizedAI: Transcript ©
In the 15th year of the Hijra of
the Islamic calendar,
during the Caliphate of Umar ibn Al Khattab
radiAllahu an.
Just
a few years ago,
the Muslims were on the back pedal still
trying to defend themselves from the Meccans.
And it's only been 5 years that the
prophet as salam had just passed away.
And the Muslims were already knocking on the
doorsteps of
the Byzantine Empire
and the Persians.
So in the Maraka of Al Qadisiyyah,
the Battle of Al Qadisiyyah,
Amr Al Khattab had sent
1 of the,
1 of the individuals who was promised Jannah
Saad ibn Abu Aqas,
who was promised paradise.
He was a leader of the army.
And when they had reached the Persian Empire
on the outskirts,
the Persian Empire,
the the Sassanias, the Sassanid Persians,
they had amassed an army of 80, 000.
And in some narrations,
over a 100000 troops.
And the commander of that army
was none other than
the Sabad,
the leader
known as Rustum
Farghzad.
And he was of,
he was of nobility and he was the
army commander.
And so he
had situated himself
in the back of the
army center right.
He had a big tent.
He had a high platform.
He was wearing his crown.
And he had pillows and
gold clothing. And he was pretty much decked
out in everything.
And he had this big carpet lining the
way from where he was sitting inside his
tent to the entrance of the tent. I
want you to imagine the scene.
And there were royal guards
flanking the side of this red carpet.
So he sent a message to Sa'd ibn
Rabi Waqqas. He says, send me someone who
has intellect. So I can
parley with, so I can have a conversation
with.
So Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas sends
none other than
Ribiri ibn Amir radiAllahu ta'ala An. A companion
of the prophet who
was very poor.
He didn't care about wearing fancy clothes. He
wore clothes that were
very modest.
In fact, in the eyes of the Persians,
they thought he was
terribly dressed.
He rode a very short horse.
It was a hairy horse.
And when he came in,
he didn't dismount.
He actually came into the tent with his
horse.
And he the horse was trotting over
this fancy carpet that they had laid out.
And so they tried to stop him.
So finally, he gets down
and he ties
his horse to 1 of the cushions on
the ground.
And you know, when the horse came in,
I was walking around. It actually messed up
some of the pillows.
He gets off the horse, the guard say,
give us your weapons.
He says, no you called me here. I
didn't come here because I wanted to. You
requested
me to come here. So I'm going to
come in the way how I come.
Look at the dignity Masha'Allah.
Look at
the honor that he has, the shut off
that he has for himself.
So now he gets up the horse and
he's using his spear and he's getting closer
and closer to Rustum.
And the spearhead
is actually on the bottom instead of on
the top. So as he's walking,
he's inevitably poking holes through all these pillows.
These fancy gold pillows and he doesn't care.
So Rustam said, why are you here?
So Rubaiy ibn Aamer he says.
Verily Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has sent us
So that we can bring people the servants
of Allah
from the worship of the creation
to the worship of Allah.
We were sent to bring people out from
the worship of the creation to the worship
of Allah.
From the constriction,
and the tightness, and the oppression
of the world
to the vastness of Islam.
And from the oppression of other religions
to the justice of Islam.
So Rus'an said
okay give us some time. We will go
back and write to our leaders and we
will think about it.
Prophet Muhammad says how many how how much
time do you need?
1 day? 2 days to think about it?
He says no no no no we need
more time. He says no. We're gonna give
you 3 days. The prophet never gave his
enemies except only 3 days for them to
think about.
So he said okay.
After a while,
Rivaib Al Amr leaves and Nur Rustam says
to his advisors. What do you think about
what he says? Have you seen someone so
eloquent,
so clear in his intellect and the way
how he explained himself?
They started shaming him. They said, you
would abandon
your religion for this dog?
You would abandon everything for this dog here?
You're gonna leave your religion for this?
No.
Look, they said, Look at the way how
he dresses. Look how ugly and simple how
he dresses. Ruston said, No. Don't look at
his clothes.
Lacan,
look at his speech. Look at his character.
Look at the intellect of what Look at
what the stuff that he's talking about. Look
at the context of what he's saying. You
have never seen a person talk like this.
Brothers and sisters, you look at this story.
You cannot help but see that
this dialogue between Ribi'i ibn Amer and Rustum
is nothing less than
the perfect example of what it means for
this companion to demonstrate
the essence of having a strong Muslim identity.
And when I When we talk about the
issue of identity,
I'm not talking about the social norms on
the outside Whereas when someone says, oh, how
are you and what do you do?
That you say, well I'm a computer engineer
or I'm a lawyer or I'm a doctor.
There's nothing wrong with that. But what I'm
talking about is
what do you view yourself inside your heart?
At night, when you are sitting there by
yourself,
how do you view yourself? What is your
identity?
But then sisters, the fundamental
identity
that should that should govern our entire way
of life is that you know
that you are a servant of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. That you are a slave of
Allah before anything else. Before you're an Arab.
Before you are from Pakistan or India.
Before you are from this country or that
country. Before your passport to nationality.
Before your job.
Before what college you graduated from. Your first
identity is I am a servant of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And a Muslim,
Abdulillah.
I am a Muslim and I'm a servant
of Allah.
That should be your first thing that comes
to your mind. Allah tells us in the
Quran,
I have not created the humans and the
jinn except that they worship.
And because we live in the west where
this word being a slave of Allah. The
word slave is has a has a historical
context to it. We are afraid of identifying
as I'm a slave of Allah. Servant of
Allah. I'm not talking about you go out
into the street and say, who are you?
I'm a slave of Allah. I'm talking about
how you view yourself.
But this title of
you are a servant of Allah, a slave
of Allah. This is a title of honor
that Allah has given us.
Allah calls his prophets and messengers
servants and slaves.
Glory be to the 1 who,
in which his servant traveled through the night
and went up to talk to Muhammad alaihi
wa sallam. How did he describe him? As
his slave.
Allah describes
Dawud alaihis salatu wa sallam. What did he
describe me as? He described him as a
servant of Allah. As a slave of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And so brothers and sisters,
when we say we are a servant of
Allah.
It's not
this philosophical idea that's too hard to understand.
It's simply a mindset.
That everything that you do is governed by
what does the Quran tell me to do?
What does the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
teach me to do?
So when you go to China for example.
When you tell people in China,
I am a Muslim.
They most people don't know what that means.
But you have to tell them oh I'm
a hui
which is the Chinese word for Muslim.
Ahui Muslim. Then they're like, ah. The people
who don't eat pork.
And if you think about that, is that
what Islam teaches us? That our identity is
based on what we eat and what we
don't eat?
No. And if you look in the West,
at best when you say, oh I'm a
Muslim.
What do the people outside think?
Ah, the women wear hijab and you fast
during Ramadan. That's the nice version. And then,
you have the nasty version what goes on
right now. Right? The violent people. The so
and so. The people who oppress others. Right?
They tell our story for us.
But brothers and sisters,
when you are
a Muslim.
What it means
is that
there is no Muslim mode on when you're
in the Masjid. Muslim mode off at work.
Muslim mode on when you're around other Muslims.
Muslim mode off when you're out clubbing.
No,
you should be Muslim mode on
all the time.
Alhamdulillah wa sallam al Rasoolah wa sallam alaalahu
sahibhi ijmaain Nabad. Don't
get me wrong brothers and sisters.
We are not saying
that the Muslim identity
is only limited to this.
We are saying that this is the bedrock
of your identity.
So while the people on the outside think
that the identity of a Muslim woman is
the hijab.
We say to them, if the hijab is
worn
but there is no concept of why I'm
wearing it for the sake of Allah
then we have a problem.
When we have a person who is practicing
certain rituals of Islam that identifies them as
Muslim,
But they're not really understanding that why do
I do this? Why do I pray 5
times a day? Why do I get up
for fajr? Why do I fast Ramadan?
Then when something bad happens to them, they
end up quitting all of these things about,
what they used to practice in Islam. Why?
Because that concept of I am a servant
of Allah, and I obey his commandments. And
I stay away from all the things that
he has committed, commanded me to stay away
from.
Out the door because they have a crisis
of faith.
A companion by the name of Salman al
Farisi.
He was once I was once having conversation
with
some of the pagan,
Meccans. And they said
your companion even
teaches you how to use the bathroom?
And he said, yes. Muhammad taught us
even how to use the bathroom.
And there's no shame in that. We are
living in a time, brothers and sisters, that
when you talk about that your identity
is Yani, as a Muslim or you are
religious to some religion.
The atheists and the liberals, they always are
projecting
onto religious people.
Ah, they think they're better than everyone else.
Ah, these are the nut cases. These are
the religious people who are enlightened.
So which leads us brothers and sisters
to why is it important
that you understand that the fundamental identity
of your existence is to worship Allah?
It's like what the Rebbe ibn Aamer says.
That you are liberated from the constriction of
this dunya
to the freedom and vastness of the dunya
and the Akhra.
So when they say to you, but you
are of this nationality. Why are you Muslim?
I'm not bound by these
rules. But you're an American. Why are you
wearing hijab? I'm not bound by these rules.
So you're not going to submit to the
constriction
and the beliefs that other people impose onto
you.
That's what it means to be free.
And so the non Muslims, they will always
be trying
to misguide us and lead us into other
temptations.
Because they know, when you, as a Muslim,
know your worth and value is that you
are not going to bow down to someone
else, and what they say who you are,
you can't be controlled.
So when you look at the people of
Gaza right now,
They are demonstrating for us what it means
that they know that there's no 1, but
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So when people are saying, when el Arab?
When Hakam el Arab? Where are the Muslim
rulers? No.
We do not depend on them. When you're
a Muslim, you know that your job and
your boss they are the means to your
risk and your sustenance.
So, when you lose your job
and your identity is not Oh, my entire
identity is because I'm an engineer. Because when
you get laid off. We as a Muslim
we know Allah is in charge. Allah is
going to provide. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
will continue to give not the company.
That's the benefit of having that strong belief
of knowing that you are the servant of
the law. So that when other people say
to you, you need to conform.
You need to assimilate.
You know that the only thing you need
to assimilate to is to assimilate to what
the Quran says. To assimilate to what the
Hadith of the prophet says.
And therefore brothers and sisters,
when you think about this conversation between Rustam
and Rebbe ibn Amer.
Think about the verse in the Quran where
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes the religion as
a dye. As a color dye. Allah says
in Quran, Subghatullah.
What does Subghatullah mean? Sabratullah is originally from
the word, a dye that used to color
your clothes.
But why does Allah describe his religion in
Islam as a dye?
Because when you take clothes and you dye
it,
you put it into indigo or whatever color
it is. You expect the color to stay.
Because when you wash the clothes and it
bleeds out constantly, and it ruins other clothes.
You're like, well I don't like the quality
of this.
So Islam is a religion
where the effects of your deen are shown
on this.
It doesn't just simply fade away. It's a
process where the more you practice the stronger
that die. That religion of Islam
is a part of who you are.
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