Abu Bakr Zoud – Honoring Parents After Their Death
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AI: Transcript ©
All praise and thanks belongs to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala and may the peace and
blessing of Allah be upon his servant and
final messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Respected brothers and sisters in Islam, firstly may
Allah azza wa jal reward our dear sheikhah
Umm Jamaluddin for her inspiring words, a very
important reminder.
May Allah azza wa jal reward my dear
father as well for his advice, for his
words.
My mother is also with us here in
the crowd.
I ask Allah azza wa jal to grant
her reward and to grant both my parents
a long life upon goodness and piety.
May Allah azza wa jal reward you all
for your attendance and accept all your righteous
deeds and your actions.
What I wanted to share with you or
what I wanted to address is a matter
that continues to be raised by the hujjaj,
both the brothers and the sisters, every single
time we arrive to Makkah.
So from the frequently asked questions, that at
least for what I hear, is something related
to the parents.
Many, as soon as they get there, they
see Al-Kaaba, they remember their parents.
Those that are alive and those that have
passed away.
And they begin to ask, am I allowed
to perform a umrah on behalf of my
deceased parents?
Is it permissible for me to perform a
hajj on behalf of my parents?
Can I do tawaf on behalf of my
parents?
And these questions are frequent and they're always
asked.
And I find that there is some ignorance
concerning this matter and this is what I
want to address.
I want to address something that is personal
to each and every single one of us.
Very relevant to each and every single one
of us.
And that is that the vast majority of
people think, they think, they believe, that goodness
to the parents or righteousness and piety or
dutifulness towards the parents is limited to when
they're alive.
So as they're alive, I serve them, I
look after them, I take them around.
And then once they die, many believe that
the door of goodness to parents has closed.
It comes to an end the day they
die.
And this is completely incorrect.
In fact, and in all reality, goodness and
dutifulness to parents actually begins a new chapter
after their death.
This is a completely different and new type
of righteousness and goodness towards them.
And that is for two reasons.
Number one, because it is the most sincere
form of dutifulness towards them.
In that moment when you remember them after
their death, no one hears your words except
Allah Azza wa Jal.
And no one knows of the good that
you do for them except Allah Azza wa
Jal.
See during their life, your goodness towards your
parents could be tainted by showing off ostentation.
You might be doing the good towards your
parents in this life, maybe so that you
can hear a good word from them or
to please them and you forgot about Allah
Azza wa Jal.
But after their death, the goodness and the
dutifulness towards them is the most sincere goodness
you will ever offer.
Because they don't hear you and they don't
see what you're doing.
Only Allah hears your words and only Allah
sees what you're doing.
And the second reason for why this is
a new chapter of dutifulness and goodness towards
them is because after their death, this is
the moment in which they are in desperate
need of your goodness way more than when
they were alive.
When the parents were alive, your goodness towards
them is to fulfill worldly matters.
But after they pass away, your goodness towards
them, they are in such desperate need of
it.
The mother that is in the grave, in
the tightness, in the gloominess, in the darkness
of the grave, no one knows her situation
except Allah Azza wa Jal.
And the father that is in the grave,
in its tightness, in its gloominess, no one
knows what he is going through except Allah
Azza wa Jal.
And the dua that a child makes for
his parents goes a long way, granting them
relief and mercy while in their grave.
How many mothers in their grave Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala bestowed his mercy upon her,
widened her grave, illuminated her grave because of
her righteous son that remembered her in a
dua of his.
And how many graves there are fathers inside
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would grant
him immense relief, widen his grave, illuminate his
grave, get rid of that loneliness, his feeling,
because of the dua and the goodness of
his children as they remember him while he
is in his grave.
And so my brothers and sisters in Islam,
for those that had parents that were alive
and now have passed to the afterlife, when
you sit on the table and you eat,
you remember your mother.
You remember your mother that used to prepare
the food, used to feed you, used to
look after you.
You remember that mother that used to sit
by the side of your bed for hours
and hours of the night as she treated
you for a fever and for a cold
that you experienced that night.
So when you eat this food and you
remember her goodness towards you, that should inspire
you and motivate you to go and look
for an orphan, look for a poor person,
look for someone that is in need and
feed them on her behalf so that Allah
may reward you for your goodness and he
also may reward her for that sadaqa you
give on her behalf.
Never forget the goodness of a mother, never
forget the sacrifice of a mother and the
father as well after he passes away.
You take moments out of the day and
the night to remember his goodness towards you.
The father that spent long hours of the
day working, perhaps also long hours of the
night working to earn some money at the
end of that day so that he can
purchase your food with it, so he can
keep you sheltered in a house, so that
he purchased for you clothes that you can
wear, you tear, you don't care about and
there was great and immense sacrifice behind this.
You remember your father and you remember how
people observe you in the community.
That's because your father left you a good
reputation.
He left you a good reputation after his
death.
Wallahi for the majority of us, we respect
one another because of what our parents left
of good reputation for us in this worldly
life.
So when you remember him in goodness that
is supposed to inspire you, motivate you to
give a sadaqa on his behalf, to remember
him in your dua and I finally conclude
with a matter that our scholars taught us
and brought to our attention and that is
that in surah Luqman, Allah azza wa jall
said, اَنِشْكُرْ لِي وَلِوَالِدَيْكَ Show gratitude to me
and show gratitude to your parents.
See how important this is.
Allah tied them both together.
Show me gratitude and show your parents gratitude.
The scholars, rahimahumullah, they taught us of a
way of how to achieve this.
They said if a person was to pray
his five daily prayers and then he followed
up his salat perhaps at the end of
the salat in his sujood and made a
dua to his parents said, رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِي
وَلِوَالِدَيْكَ رَبِّ ارْحَمْهُمَا كَمَا رَبَّ يَانِي صَغِيرَ Then
indeed such a person has shown gratitude to
Allah and has also shown gratitude to his
parents.
He showed gratitude to Allah by praying and
he showed gratitude to his parents by remembering
them in his dua and of course the
very best thing you can ever do for
your parents after their death is no doubt
better.
I tell you something better than umrah on
their behalf, something better than al-hajj, something
better than a million dollar sadaqah on their
behalf, something better than feeding the entire world's
population, the better is a dua for them.
لأن النبي ﷺ said if the son of
Adam dies there are only three ways in
how he continues to be rewarded and he
mentioned the last one saying a righteous child
that makes dua for them.
He did not say a righteous child that
gives a sadaqah on their behalf or a
righteous child that performs hajj on their behalf
even though that is great and that is
good and continue to do that, but nothing
would be better than one dua you make
for them after their death.
We ask Allah to bestow his mercy upon
the parents of ours that have moved along
to the afterlife.
We ask Allah to grant us goodness and
to preserve our parents that are still alive
and to grant them a long life upon
piety and goodness and obedience and we ask
Allah to gather us all in a better
gathering than this and that is the paradise.
Jazakumullahu khayra wa sallallahu wa sallam wa baraka
ala nabiyyina muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi
ajma'in.
Jazakumullahu khayra sheikh for that very heartfelt reminder
and to all of our speakers so far