Abdur Raheem Green – The Amazing Story Of My Dads Shahadah

Alhamdulillah namitha who want to stay in one istockphoto when our the villa Himanshu Rudy and fusina women say a tiara Melina yet the healer who fell mo della when my youth little fella hodja la shadow en la in La, La La. Why the Who? luxury killer? Well, I shall do another Mohammedan Abdo what a solo well that

we begin by praising Allah.

We praise Him we seek His help and we ask for his forgiveness.

And we take refuge with ALLAH, from the evil of ourselves, and from the evil consequences of our evil actions. Whoever Allah guides, no one can misguide. But whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray, no one can guide them I testify that Allah alone is worthy of worship, and that Mohammed sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is a servant and Messenger. My dear brothers, and my dear sisters in Islam, may Allah shower His mercy and His forgiveness upon you. salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,

that, may his face be rubbed in the dust, meaning May he be humiliated, the one who,

when one of his parents, or both of his parents reach old age, and he doesn't enter Paradise by serving them.

In another instant, a young man came to the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam enthusiastic to join

the fight the battle that was about to ensue.

And he said to the Prophet, he said that I left my mother crying.

And the Prophet said to him, go back.

And don't come back until you leave her laughing. In another instance, similarly, another young man came, wanting to participate in the struggle with the Prophet and his companions against those gathered enemies and forces who are trying to wipe out

the Muslims.

And he there he was ready to defend his Deen

and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said to this young man, do you have a mother? He said, Yes. He said, Go back and serve her.

That is better for you.

So my dear brothers and sisters,

reflecting upon these

noble sayings of our blessed prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, I decided to stay here to spend some time with my mother, after the recent death of my father, now

the death of my father is something

that I would like to share with you. And the remarkable story of how and hamdulillah

just 10 days before he died, Allah Subhana Allah blessed him to make the Shahada, the testimony of faith on his lips. In fact, not only once that happened 10 days before he died, but three or four days before he died, I spent half an hour with my father in the hospital,

half an hour going over with him again and again and again. the testimony of faith, there is no God there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah. And that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is His Messenger.

And

there is a really great lesson

in my father, and

his Shahada for all of us because

calling the world back to Allah, of course, is all about dour. It's all about calling those people who are not yet Muslim to Islam.

But our duty brothers and sisters, as we do emphasize is not to convert anyone. In fact, Allah did not ask us to make people Muslim. Allah told us to pass on the message. Bill Hekmati? Well, Maui that Hill has center where Joe didn't home bility here so with wisdom, and a beautiful exhortation of good admonition, and to debate and argue and discuss with them in the best and the ways that are best. And so that's our duty. We are givers. We are the ones who bring warning of a terrible punishment.

hellfire.

And indeed not only is the punishment consigned to the next life, there is, in reality, a punishment and humiliation in this life as well, for those who reject a law, and our duty is to warn people about that reality. But our duty is also to bring the good news but Shirin, the good news, the good news, my brothers and sisters of the beauty of Islam, the peace, the tranquility, the happiness, the joy that Islam brings to the heart. And of course, the delight and the beauty of Paradise that is waiting for those who follow Allah's guidance, and accept His ways.

So our duty is to convey the message to pass the message, to explain to the people in the best way that we can, guidance is in the hands of Allah subhanaw taala. Allah is the one who guides, he guides whom He wills, and he knows best who is worthy of guidance. I'll be honest with you, brothers and sisters. I really never thought that my father would take Shahada. I mean, for me, my father was

a fantastic man, I have to say he, as a father, he was amazing.

Anyone who met him, he was a real outstanding personality. And no one could describe him as a bad person, or a particularly saintly person. He was what he was.

But in many ways, throughout the years, the 23 plus years that I've been Muslim, and throughout those years, I have done many, many things, to invite my father to Islam. So how Allah when I first started practicing Islam, of course, I talked to him, I wrote him letters, I wrote him long letters, I gave him books to read,

some handle or whatever I could do. And when I'd exhausted the realms of possibilities in terms of giving him materials, and talking to him, I just decided that I should

restrict myself to giving the best example that I possibly could, of how Islam should be how Islam should be lived, of how Islam teaches me to respect him as a parent.

And

I always really,

sometimes I have to say, I thought that my father was really to be honest, someone who I thought was very closed minded to the possibilities of Islam.

Actually, quite frankly, brothers and sisters, sometimes when I read the verses of the Quran describing the people, the disbelievers, I felt as if those verses were sometimes describing my father and his attitude. So brothers and sisters, I didn't have much hope that he was going to become Muslim.

Now, my father had been very ill for a couple of years. And there are quite a few times when me and my mum

really thought that he wasn't going to make it.

And as it happened

a few weeks ago,

when I came from England,

I arrived in the hospital and went to see my dad, and

I really looked at him and I thought, you know what, it really looks as if he could die tonight. I mean, he really was in, he was looking really rough.

And I really thought to myself, you know, what, if I don't say something,

I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna forgive myself. I know that I've tried. I've given him dour. I've given him books to read. I've tried everything, but I have to make this one last effort. And I had spent a long time thinking about what I could say, how I could say it. What was the right way to approach him? He was already very ill. So I didn't want to distress him. I didn't want to make him more upset. And of course, to be honest, I was also afraid that he might say, No, he might reject my invitation, reject my offer.

And then I was even worried that if he did,

say the Shahada, and he did enter into Islam,

then what if you got better and he came home and recovered and became even maybe more arrogant against Islam that that was even more scary. So

It's really brothers and sisters a very, very difficult thing. Anybody who is a convert to Islam, who has parents who are not yet Muslim they can they can relate exactly to this dilemma to this difficulty that I was going through. And this is all compounded even more by the fact that my father was not well.

Brothers and sisters Never underestimate the power of law. Because it was then when I was almost a loss, I didn't know. I couldn't rely upon my own intellect, my own strength, it was something I just needed the help from Allah subhanaw taala. And I just asked a lot, please, Allah Find me a way to find something to say to my father. And so

as he was laying there,

I said to him, Dad, I've got something really important to tell you.

Are you listening? Now my dad really couldn't speak very much. And he just nodded his head. And I said,

there's something I have to say, if I don't say it, I'm going to regret it.

And then I told him that on the Day of Judgment, a man will come in front of Allah.

And this man will have scrolls of evil deeds, as far as the eye can see in each direction.

And Allah will say to him, you have something that outweighs all of that. And the man will say, What is that, my Lord?

And Allah will say to him, you have this piece of paper here. And on it is written a statement that you made. There is no god except Allah. And Muhammad is His Messenger.

I said, so that this is the key to paradise.

This is the success in the life to come.

What do you think?

And he nodded his head.

I said, Does that mean you want to say those words? And my dad said yes.

Together. He said with me the words,

there is no god except Allah. Muhammad is His Messenger, a shadow and La ilaha illAllah. Wa, shadow.

Now,

the truth is brothers and sisters, I had to leave at that time, because the hospital has quite strict

visiting times. And

I was very confused. I was very confused. I should have been really happy and elated. And I was in one way. But in another way, I was really confused, because I was almost expecting him to take the Shahada. And then that will be his, you know, last breath.

But some handler, he, you know, I left and I was thinking, you know, what if he gets better, and he comes home, and he doesn't follow up with Islam, and so as it happened?

Well, that's it, I just left it at that I didn't really tell anybody

about it. I just sort of kept it to myself, I was really happy. He said the Shahada, he seemed to be genuinely seemed to be sincere. But you know, I visited him the next day, and he didn't remember. And that's how he was, he would not really remember anything from one day to the next, or even really, from one minute to the next.

But some Hannah law, that was not the end of it, because

three, four days before he died,

I was leaving Portugal to go back to England.

For the new Muslim retreat that I era holds, Muslim now, we hold a retreat for the new Muslims.

And I was going there to

give talks and lectures in that retreat. So I really had to get back to UK. And the last night I visited him. My father was very distressed, and he would sometimes lie there just going saying, Help Help me Help. I said, Dad, what do you want me to do? You know, there's not much I can do this. There's the medicines here, the antibiotics that doctors have done everything they can or do you want me to do? He said, I don't know. I don't know. He said, give me something to do. I'm saying it. I'm saying it. He couldn't really speak it was actually very, very difficult to understand what my father said. But you know, I could make out what he was saying, to give me something to do. I said,

like, what what what do you want he said something easy, give me something easy to do. Some handle our brothers and sisters when when he said that? I remember the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam where the Prophet said there was something that is light on the tongue and heavy on the scales and it was as if he was asking me to give

him something like that. So I said that, If I was you, I would just keep on repeating over and over. There is no god except Allah. Muhammad is His Messenger. And he said, Yes, that's what I wanted to do. And we spent half an hour,

half an hour, going over and over.

There is no god except Allah. And Muhammad is His Messenger. At one time, he even said, Stop, stop, I want to do it myself, I want to remember it, I want to remember it. So hamdulillah. And the next day I left for UK that I heard that my father had passed away.

Right now brothers and sisters, I'd like us all to reflect deeply upon the lessons from the story of my father. And for me, the lesson that I have learned and that I would like to pass on to you is really about patience and perseverance. Many times brothers and sisters and even

what we teach and I era in our one day Tao training courses, is often very much based upon the idea that we have a conversation with someone and we try to get them to take Shahada right there on the spot. And of course, that's, that's fantastic if we can do that. But sometimes the process is a long process. Sometimes it takes years and years, sometimes you're facing someone who seems to be sometimes the very epitome of copper, the very description of a disbeliever that you come across in the Quran, yet Subhana, Allah, Allah can change the hearts. And often our job, brothers and sisters is to plant the seeds. And it may seem right now to many of you, that you live in a hostile

environment, that you're surrounded by people by society, that have a very negative perception of Islam. And it's seems so hard to get the message of Islam across to them. But brothers and sisters, you need to have patience, you need to persevere. You need to realize and understand that honestly, if Allah can guide my father to Islam, and he can die, with the testimony of faith on his lips, it's possible for anybody to become Muslim, we should always have hope.

We should always have that hope and that care and that concern for our fellow human beings, that they are guided to this beautiful, beautiful religion of Islam. And that's what AI era is here to help you do. To help you give down to help you talk to people, engage with people communicate to them, pass on this message of Islam, that is at the baseline, the bottom line, that is our duty, that's our obligation, that's the minimum that we should try to do. My brothers and sisters, remember, Prophet no alayhis salaam for 950 years. He called his people to Islam. And most certainly Allah swore by time while also in insane lfu hustle in the Latina ama know what amilo saly hertie or

tawassul, Bill hockey Ottawa so the sobra that vary by time all of mankind is in a state of loss, except those who believe and do righteous deeds, and help each other they joined together what tawassul been hooked. They join together in the teaching of truth, and they support each other in patience. That's the recipe for true success brothers and sisters. And I ask Allah that He gives me and that he gives all of you and all of us success in this dunya and success in Africa. Salaam Alaikum. warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Mohammed

Rasulullah.

There is no God.

Mohammed is His Messenger.