Abdurraheem Green – The Belly of the Whale
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AI: Transcript ©
Assalamu
alaikum, brothers and sisters.
Today, we're gonna be talking about
the belly of the whale.
Yes. It's that stage in the hero's journey
where
there's no turning back.
One's crossed the threshold
and one encounters
something
that is so
deep, so shocking, so profound,
so immersive,
so transformative
that even if
you were to return
at this stage,
you wouldn't be the same.
What you see, you can't unsee. What you
experience
can't be undone. It's gonna change you in
some way, shape, or form.
And although
the next stage of the hero's journey
is which we will talk about in coming
weeks, is
about tests and
adventures and help along the way and various
other things.
This stage this stage of the journey is
all really ultimately about the transformation.
So, really, you can you can split you
can split the, you know, this, I the
hero's journey into into 3 parts,
3 general broad parts, and and one is
departure, which we talked about. We've talked about
that already.
So we talked about the, you know, the
normal world, the ordinary life that everybody lives,
the call to adventure,
the meeting of the mentor, and cross crossing
the threshold. And this is really so the
next stage is initiation. The next stage is
when you move into that realm, that different
it's almost like a different it is, in
reality, a different world.
And the whole point of all of these
experiences
ultimately,
although we tell them in stories and those
stories are real stories,
I'm sure some of these stories and these
myths are real things that actually happened.
Of course, we completely believe,
the stories of the Quran that they're real
things that actually happen.
But even in mythology,
there are things that may or may not
have happened. It doesn't matter. It's actually not
that important. What is really important is that
they all have something in common,
and that is the change that we human
beings are going through,
the trials and difficulties
that we go through in life
and what it does to us, how it
changes us, how it hopefully,
it should make us better,
improve us,
make us stronger,
make us more empathetic,
make us more compassionate,
make us more caring,
and make us yeah. I mean, that's it,
really. It's it's all about that transformation. So,
ultimately,
what we're talking about here so I
this entering the belly of the whale
is in a sense about
a deep transformation.
What you could call annihilation.
It's what in Buddhism is called nirvana.
And nirvana
doesn't mean enlightenment,
as some people think. It actually means annihilation.
And what it really is about is the
annihilation of the ego.
It is when
this
this the I
the belief
or the obsession
with yourself
ends,
and you realize ultimately
that yourself is not really worth that much,
that you are
really part of something much bigger, something much
more important,
that you are perhaps just a small cog
in the whole process,
of what makes everything work in this world.
So, yeah, this is what it's about ultimately.
So obviously the most famous story, the belly
of the whale, that we know about is,
you know, is about Eunice, or
we in English, it's called Jonah, Jonah and
the whale, Yunus alaihis salaam.
And, actually,
subhanallah, his story is exactly,
parallels in this particular case, that part of
the monomyth.
This universal experience that we find across cultures.
So what is happening? Well, let let's go
through a little bit the story of Eunice
and let's see how.
Maybe we can reflect upon that and see
what that has to do with our own
particular,
you know, journey in life or journeys. Because
as we said before, it's not necessarily just
one journey. It's not just necessarily
one experience.
We could be going through many different journeys,
in respect to different things, and we could
be at different stages all at the same
time, actually.
But this is for simplicity. We just break
it down into these tangible stories
that helps us to make sense of what
is happening to to us in our lives.
And sometimes it it just really helps us
to be able to say, okay. Well, I'm
going through this. And then when we see
and we know and we hear about other
humans who have gone through the same thing,
that's why we find it so fascinating.
That's why we find
these stories endlessly
fascinating because they are inspiration. They inspire us
and they move us and they motivate us
and they give us courage
and they help us to understand that if
these people went through all of that, we
can go through that
as well. So this is the reality of
the human experience. So Yunus alaihis salam, as
we know, he's a messenger of Allah. He
is, he's, you know, he's a Nabi. He's
a Rasul, actually,
and he's sent to the people of Nineveh.
Now that is a city, an ancient city
that goes back to Assyrian times.
At one time, it was one of the
largest cities in the world.
And, actually, this city existed in different forms
up until
the, you know, the the late middle ages
until it sort of fell into complete decline.
And, until a present day, it's just ruins.
The only final thing, actually,
the only remaining thing,
of that city
until recently
was a shrine
that was supposed to be
maybe the graveyard or the grave or some
shrine of Yunus alaihis salam.
And that itself was destroyed by ISIL or
ISIS
very recently,
as as maybe we know, and they also
destroyed some of the walls and so on
and so forth and
ransacked some of the,
archaeological
artifacts and so on and so forth. But,
anyway, that's the city that he was sent
to.
Of course, at the time,
they were very rebellious against Allah. They were
disobedient to Allah, and he was inviting them
and calling them to Islam.
And, unfortunately,
they did not listen to they did not
respond to his call. And Yunus was really,
like, the he was really angry, and he
was upset. And, basically,
he he left. He left in anger. He
left because he was really upset. They were
not listening to him.
And he left before Allah gave him the
go ahead. He left before,
Allah gave him permission. And I I guess
maybe he was just really angry. He'd really
just given up the idea that these people
weren't ever gonna listen to him. Allah knows
best. It doesn't matter
the exact details.
The point is that he left before Allah
gave him the go ahead and gave him
permission. He went on a boat. His idea
was to get as far away as possible.
And when they were on the sea, there
was a storm,
and the sailors being naturally, you know, a
superstitious
lot, they they well, actually, they considered that
there was someone on that ship who had
done a terrible some terrible, terrible deed. So
what they did is just they decided to
draw lots so that this would determine who
that person was, and the lot fell on,
on on Yunus alaihis salaam.
So either Yunus threw himself,
out of the ship, and as far as
I know, this happened three times. He drew
the lot.
So they considered this. This was it. He
is definitely the guy. This is not coincidence
anymore. So I think he threw himself off
the boat in the storm, and he was
swallowed by a whale. That is this is
always swallowed by a fish or a whale.
Allah knows what it is.
I was reading some interesting discussions about what
sort of a creature it may have been.
Apparently, the the only really likely candidate is
a blue whale whale, which actually could swallow
a human. And, apparently, the blue whale has
3 stomachs,
like a cow. I think a cow has
7 stomachs, but it has various stomachs. And
but, you know, anyway, norm a human being
couldn't normally survive in the whale of a
stomach, but then nor could a human being
survive in a fire, and Allah caused
Ibrahim
to survive the massive fire that he was
thrown into.
The point being, anyway, this is a type
of,
you know, this is something that Allah
sent,
by way of a trial and by way
of a test. As we know, Yunus,
when he found himself in this situation,
he and that Allah said he would have
left him there because, you know, he would
have left him there, but the Eunice was
making dua
and he was making tawba, and he's making
this beautiful dua that he was making,
seeking forgiveness from Allah, making tawba to Allah.
And so after 3 days that the the
whales
threw
threw Yunus out onto the shore,
and then Allah
caused the,
you know,
like a plant to grow over him and
a goat to appear to give him milk.
And,
and he got better, returned to his people,
and
his his people reformed and his people changed.
So
it's it's a
beautiful story,
in many ways, has so many benefits for
us, but, the you know, which we're not
gonna go into today, but the main point
being is that
it's the the the
it's the transformation.
It's what happens
to Yunus alaihis salaam
in the belly of the whale. And what
happens to him ultimately
is this it is that annihilation. It is
that complete self annihilation,
that realization then, this is the main point,
that there is no resource, there is no
refuge that is from Allah,
that there is nothing except complete
and total
submission and surrender
to the will of Allah And one is
not accusing,
you know, Eunice here of some major sin,
but we have to remember that what Allah
expects from his messengers is not what he
expects from you and me.
In the same way, we could say that,
you know, we we expect higher standards from
certain human beings. We don't expect everybody to
behave in the same way.
And we would look, for example, as the
transgression of a politician, for example, in office
who abuses their power,
you know, not not to be on the
same level as a dustman or, I don't
know, an an illiterate peasant. I mean, what
one expects higher standards
from a doctor, for example.
We don't expect,
doctors to betray their trusts and to inflict
harm knowingly
upon their patients.
We expect certain standards. And so, therefore, the
standards that is expected of the prophets is
very, very great.
And that's something that may be, for us,
totally,
understandable that Allah
would not even,
you know, even, subhanAllah, consider it something. But
for the for the prophets, the standard or
the level that Allah expects from them is
much higher.
So so the point being here is that
remember, Yunus has left
giving dua to his people without Allah giving
him permission.
And so it's in this and so this
is the now he is in the belly
of the whale. The belly of the whale
is this
it it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to
be the belly of a whale. It could
be anything. It is a place where your
soul turds
totally immersed
in that environment
that their the transformation
is inevitable.
So for Eunice in this situation,
it is his realization
that he is totally trapped. There is no
way out for him. There is no
resource. There is nothing for him except to
totally
do what
Allah,
you know, wants,
what Allah loves, what Allah expects.
There's no other path
for him to take.
And so but that of course, for most
of us that
this transformation can happen in many things. It
doesn't necessarily
have to be a spiritual
transformation. I was reading when I was reading
about this subject, for example,
one of the one of the people writing
about it was talking about The Beatles
and how they spent I don't I can't
remember, you know, 2 years
playing in these caverns, you know, in Hamburg,
and it was, like, hours and hours, 8,
9, 10 hours.
Every night they were playing and, you know,
it it it was this totally
immersive,
nonstop
type of experience and it transformed them. Similarly,
the way that people who want to learn
a language,
they go and they live
in the land where people speak that that
language and totally immerse themselves in that culture.
It could be anything. Anything that you want
to do
that you are so totally immersed and so
totally focused
in that realm that
it's gonna change you. It can't help accept
accept change you.
And part of it is that almost losing
yourself, the annihilation, that the fact that you
lose yourself
in the depth and the
density
of that activity in which
you know you're taking place.
I think in a sense we can see
in the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam
this also happens but in perhaps a very
different way
and the transformation that is happening to Rasool
Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is a little
bit different.
And that is the time when
after the prophet
got the first revelations,
then there was a break.
And, you know, the scholars differ about how
long this break in the revelation was, but
you you have to now imagine you have
to think about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, the first revelation that he gets in
the cave of Hira. And maybe one could
think of the cave
itself,
as the equivalent in the monomyth of the
belly the belly of the whale, that place
of transformation.
But but,
maybe not. In this in the life of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, I don't think
so. I think it comes later
when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam actually
when the revelation doesn't come to him anymore.
And, you know, in a sense, he begins
to sort of doubt himself. He begins to,
in a sense, doubt that experience
even according to,
some
some,
books of Sira and some scholars, the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, you know, he even
contemplates he even had a thought of killing
himself because he was so,
upset and frustrated and so that you know,
you you have to imagine
that, subhanAllah,
you see Jibril
filling the horizon.
You get this revelation, this, subhanAllah, that is
unlike
anything. The words are so powerful, and we
know that how the Quran, the power of
the Quran
transformed the Arabs when they used to hear
it. They would be
dumbstruck. They would people would become muslims just
listening to the quran.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is
receiving this revelation, this weight. He's experiencing all
of these things and then nothing nothing's happening.
And this, in a sense, is the same.
This
in a very very deep spiritual psychological way,
this in a sense is it was the
is the equivalent of the belly of the
whale because now the prophet
here has crossed the threshold.
He's gone into this
this whole different world. It's the same world.
Right? But spiritually and psychologically,
it's different. You understand? That's the main point.
And he this is the stage of initiation
where the prophet is
now really being initiated by Allah
into what it means to be a prophet.
The responsibility
of being a messenger. The responsibility of being
a Rasool
and all that comes with it. And so
this but Allah is doing this as the
scholars explained
to create this yearning in the heart of
the prophet
This yearning
for this
connection with Allah. This yearning to receive
the revelation.
And it's that yearning in the prophet
that is the transformation. That is the
ultra the the really, the the deep transformation
in a sense that that may be one
of the most difficult things the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is going through. Although
he he did mention, you know, for example,
when his journey to Ta'if,
similarly
as and this will be another example. It's
just another example that how in your journey
of
life there are not only maybe one of
these moments, there can be several of these
moments.
And I suppose that when the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, he goes to Ta'iv to give
dawah to the people there, this is another
similar moment.
But but I think
if I'm looking for one
thing in the life of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam
that really reflects this stage
of, you know, this the journey of the
true hero. And as we said before, before,
it's the greatest hero, the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam really. And it doesn't need to be
there. Not every
journey of every hero is gonna go through
every single one of these stages anyway. It's
not, you know,
it's not the case, but but I think
we find the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam really
and you know amazingly this is what is
so one of the things that is so
powerful
about the light of the prophet
is that it brings together
so many elements of what we human beings
consider to be
admirable
and best and noble
in human being.
And we find that in the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. It's truly why, you know, his
sallallahu alaihi wasallam his life is is truly
remarkable and an inspiration and a motivation for
all of us.
So this is, you know, this is the
belly of the whale. The point being here
again is that 2 things are happening. Number
1 is the annihilation of your ego.
It is this place where you are
feeling totally helpless in a way. You are
totally
immersed,
in the experience of what is going on.
It is
the first step that is transformational,
and
there's no going back. Once you've entered the
belly of the whale, once you've gone into
that
place, it doesn't matter what happens to you
afterwards in the sense that you'll never be
the same.
You can't unsee what you've seen. You can't
unexperience
what you've experienced.
However hard you try, however hard you try,
it's always there.
So this is this is very important. It's
a very, very important stage. And, of course,
it may not be so dramatic
for everybody,
and, again, it's not necessarily
a literal
physical
experience. The key
to all of this is understanding that these
experiences
are
spiritual, and they are mental. And, of course,
of course, they can be physical as well.
Of course, they can be. So, brothers and
sisters, I wonder in your
life, in your journey, have you experienced something
like that? Have you experienced a I mean,
I can think if I think about myself,
possibly, you know, what was my moment
that I could, you know,
look
look at
as being similar
to that?
I I don't know.
The only thing that I can think of
I mean, there there are some things that
I can think of.
There there's one experience I had probably which
I'm not, you know, I I don't really
talk about it, but I had a very,
very,
very deep, very shocking, very
scary,
sort of spiritual experience that shook me up
really, really badly.
And and,
yeah, similarly, that a feeling of just
totally being unable to escape
Allah
But certainly in terms of I guess, maybe
this may come later on in the journey
of the you know, in in the hero's
journey. And we're all on the hero's journey,
by the way. I'm not saying I'm a
hero, but we're all on that journey. We
should all be anyway. Right? Because we all
hopefully
want to be heroic in some way. Truly
heroic, really, in the sense that we are
people of compassion
who are compelled
to transform ourselves and make ourselves better and
to transform the lives of others and make
their lives better. That's what it's all about,
brothers and sisters. Please, this is what it
is really about. Remember, it's not about the
ego. It's almost exactly the opposite.
It is about learning to be more selfless,
learning to be more compassionate,
learning
to care and give and sacrifice for the
sake of your fellow human beings.
I think for me, one of the, you
know, the really massive transformative moments for me
and something that really sticks out in my
mind until today
was when I was making,
when I was making
when I was making Hajj, when I made
Hajj for the first time, the first time
I went to Mecca.
And in a way, I suppose, it's almost
very different because I instead of going to
a place of darkness like the belly of
the whale or the cave, it's often
a very scary,
you know, the in the monomyth, it's often
a very scary, traumatic
place.
But for me, it was almost exactly the
opposite.
But
hear me out. Hear me out. And this
was to show how
you you have to think about this and
how different everybody's
experiences
could be. Right?
So for me, when I made Hajj,
I remember when I first got to Mecca,
when I got to Masjid Al Haram, when
I went to into the Masjid,
And I was walking through the Masjid going
towards the Kaaba.
And I remember it was at night, so
the Kaaba was all lit up with floodlights.
And, honestly, it looked totally surreal. It just
seemed as if the Kaaba
was on a movie screen. It didn't look
real to me. It looked really surreal. It
just looked like almost like it was a
picture there.
And I feel I didn't feel really connected
to it.
So but what happened, it was this moment
when I
stepped down from being in the masjid into,
the that wide open space that is around
the Kaaba.
And, of course, there were all those thousands
and thousands of people making tawaf. Right? So
this is it. It's me stepping into this
massive
whirlpool
of, you know, this throng
of humanity.
Now so hear me out.
Why would this be, you know, an equivalent?
Why would this be so? Because this for
me was very challenging. You have to understand.
Right?
As someone who's coming from the Western, you
have to think therefore
of very much a person who is imbibed
with the ideas of individuality, of individual
heroism,
very you know, these very individualistic
ideas and very, I suppose,
self centered ideas
about yourself
almost being the center of everything.
And, really, that's in a sense that is
something that permeates
western culture very, very strongly.
And and so and then the idea of
individuality,
the idea of exclusivity,
you know, that something that's also
very often,
how can I say, imbibed in the ideas
of particularly white people is this idea of
superiority,
civilizational,
social,
maybe even mental superiority,
feeling somehow better than people because, you know,
maybe you're European, you're you're British or whatever?
So all of these things. So you have
to remember, this is my baggage that I'm
carrying.
And so I am stepping down into this
throng of people.
Now why is this transform transformative? Because it's
that moment
when I am
dressed in these two garments.
Right, this cloth,
these 2 pieces of cloth,
I don't have any exceptional clothing. I don't
there's nothing exceptional about what I'm wearing. Nothing
exceptional about a book because we're all dressed
the same way.
And then
you are in I just
stepped into this throng of human beings,
and everyone was making.
And it was at that moment that there
was this realization. That's where that's where there
was this annihilation for me.
This annihilation
of my ego,
you know, in the sense that I realized
that who was I? I wasn't really anything.
I it was this this realization
of how actually insignificant
I was
and that
amongst all of these people, all of them
there, all of them worshiping Allah, all of
them who had made this great journey, this
grace great sacrifice to come on hajj, to
come to the house of our lost ones.
And many of them obviously sacrificed way way
more
way more than I had, more than I
could even imagine some of them. I I
I know that.
And then what was I amongst all of
those people? What did it mean to be
white or to be British or to have
a British passport or any other of the
number of things that we think are so
important. I just realized it it was that
moment I realized it was all nothing. It
just didn't mean anything.
The only thing that was really important
was
my heart.
Was my heart pure?
Did I really love Allah? Did Allah love
me?
Was I really worshiping and
in awe and in reverence of Allah
That, I realized,
was the only thing that's really important. Nothing
else matters.
Nothing else matters.
That was it for me.
And,
yeah, Hajj
was a challenge. There's no doubt. It was
challenging.
And,
it wasn't some
I mean, I I definitely didn't have the
hardest time. I saw people
sleeping on bits of cardboard by the
side of the road,
and
some things. I'd never wanted to forget
those things.
And I didn't I didn't wanna forget them
because I thought I always wanna remember
how much people
sacrifice for their love of Allah
and their just their desire
to fulfill this pillar of Islam even though
maybe they didn't even have to.
Maybe they didn't have to. They just wanted
to
because you can't imagine that some of these
people actually
had enough money. They must've they saved
everything they had maybe
just to be able to make this journey.
For me, I made it because I happen
to have the money, and
I had to as far as I was
concerned. You know? If I had the money,
I had to make it.
So, yeah, Hajj for me
was, in a sense, definitely
that part of that moment.
And, yeah, no turning back from that.
No unseeing
what you've seen.
No
no way to disentangle
yourself from that. Not that you'd want to.
Maybe some people would want to.
Unfortunately,
they do. People backslide and
go so far, and they backslide so far
that
it's almost like they they hide and lie
to themselves. But you can't. And and that's
the point, brothers and sisters. That's the point
about this journey.
Of course, you can fail.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be heroic.
If everyone made it, we wouldn't look at
it as something amazing, and we wouldn't be
fascinated by these stories
because we're not fascinated by what's common. We're
not fascinated by what's normal.
We're fascinated by what is extraordinary.
We're fascinated by what is
different. We're fascinated by people who have gone
beyond what the rest of us can do,
have pushed themselves,
who have,
yeah, they've pushed themselves, and they've reached a
different plane. They've reached a different level. They've
reached a different stage.
And but we can all do it in
some way, shape, or form. Believe me.
Almost everybody
can do something
that some people
will look at and consider.
That's amazing.
That's what it's about, brothers and sisters.
Be the hero of your own journey. Be
a true hero. Of course, in in the
light of Islam,
that's what we want to understand,
what this journey is really about.
And we'll be exploring more of it in
weeks to come inshallah.
But yes,
that's the belly of the whale, brothers and
sisters. So until next week,
maybe you can share with me on some
of the comments about your experiences. Do you
think you've gone into the the belly of
the whale? Have you
immersed yourselves
in something
so
completely
that it's changed you and transformed you.
It could be many things. It doesn't need
to necessarily be a religious,
thing or
spiritual thing. It could be a physical thing.
It could be you you became really good
at some skill
through,
I don't know, 5 years of nonstop working
at it? How do these guys who are
entrepreneurs I guess, again, like, it's not that
we
are
so fascinated
by entrepreneurs
because they're rich.
You know, that's not that's really not. Like,
why why do people find Elon Musk, for
example, so fascinating? Is it because he's the
richest man in the world? I don't think
so because there's plenty of people who are
rich.
Are we fascinated by the Sultan of Brunei
or, you know,
you know, Mohammed bin Salman
or any of these people who
basically inherited their wealth? Is there anything fascinating
really about them? Not really. Yeah.
Maybe for some unsavory reasons or,
you know, but
not really because we know they just
got it passed on from them, you know,
their parents.
Like, you know, wow. Yeah.
Big deal.
But someone who,
really worked and worked and, you know, like,
legendarily,
Elon Musk slept. You know? He says he
slept in the factory, and he he just
he didn't even go to bed. He just
slept on the couch in the factory. He
was working so hard nonstop.
It's that type of thing. That's what fascinates
us.
That's what gets us.
When a person pushes themselves
so far and so hard,
and then they come out on the other
side,
and they're changed and they're transformed, and they
do something to change and transform our world.
But it it doesn't need to be
something so huge and big. Maybe you've just
done that in your local community, in your
family.
Maybe
something
that you've done for yourself
that no one knows about. Just you and
Allah and the angels writing your deeds.
That's what's important at the end of the
day. Until next time, brothers and sisters. Thank
you for joining me. May Allah bless
you. May Allah keep you safe.
And, may Allah help you on your journey.