Adnan Rajeh – Seerah Halaqah #50

AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the aftermath of the Badr battle and the confusion surrounding the Quraysh's name. They emphasize the importance of peace and blessings for the day and the importance of fasting during war. The Prophet Luca's plan was to attack small mountain, but it was too far away for 500 people. The Prophet Luca's plan was to put 50 well-trained archers on the mount, but the only way to fight was to retreat from Uhud. The Prophet Luca's plan was to build a small mountain, but it was too long to fit 200 people.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, walhamdulillahi rabbil alameen,
Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barak ala nabiyyina
Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in
wa ba'd.
That's okay.
I think we're okay.
Tonight, inshallah ta'ala, we continue with the
seerah of the Prophet alayhi wa sallam.
And last week, we had stopped right at
the end of the battle of Badr, or
close to it at least.
And I had taken some time and reflected
on a few aspects of the last few
lessons from the battle itself.
Now, the aftermath of Badr was huge in
Arabia in general.
It was an earthquake that the ripples of
it reached the whole peninsula and beyond.
The story of it, the news of the
loss that Quraysh suffered at the hands of
the Muslims, of the Prophet alayhi wa sallam
and the sahaba, was just very, very surprising.
It was rarely in life, in wars at
least, do the underdogs get such an advantage.
It doesn't happen very often.
And when it does happen, it becomes a
food for chatter, and it's a type of
talk that people enjoy engaging in.
And the Qur'an talks about the day
of Badr, and it calls it yawm al
-furqan.
This is the name of it, yawm al
-taq al-jama'in, is what it's called
in the Qur'an.
Furqan comes from the root of farq, and
farq is difference.
And al-furqan is the thing that made
the difference.
That's how the derivative would be understood in
Arabic.
Al-furqan, the thing that made the difference,
which is why the Qur'an is called
that.
The book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
one of its names, the Qur'an al
-karim, we call it al-furqan as well.
Because it's the one thing that made the
difference in terms of people understanding who they
were and who they needed to be and
what they have to leave in terms of
theologies or practices or values and what they
needed to adopt.
And in terms of events in the life
of the Prophet ﷺ, the Qur'an calls
the day of Badr yawm al-furqan, the
day where the difference was established, it made
the difference.
And the scholars would often say, yawm al
-farraqallahu bihihi bayn al-haqqi wal-baatil, the
day that the difference between haq and baatil
became very clear.
And I don't think it became clear as
in haq and baatil were suspiciously similar beforehand,
no.
But rather, from that moment forward in Arabia,
you had to choose a side.
You had to make a choice of who
is it you're going to be supporting from
now on.
Is it going to be the people of
al-haq or the people of al-baatil?
Because before that, the Prophet ﷺ, and I
find this to be an extremely interesting sociological
approach.
There may be some benefit to reflecting upon
it.
Prior to Badr, the Prophet ﷺ's movement was
not well understood by the rest of the
peninsula.
It was not well known.
It was not well established.
And a lot of people living in Arabia
at the time could have easily, easily, just
said, he's a person who's seeking some fame,
causing trouble, it's a big fitna, I don't
want to get involved.
They could afford to say, I don't want
to get involved.
Because the rumbling that was happening in Mecca
was very low-key.
It was just between the Prophet and Quraysh,
right?
And then he goes to Medina, still just
an immigration.
The tribes have immigrated throughout the history of
Arabia many times.
Tribes in Arabia always move around, it's not
something new.
But once the Prophet ﷺ took an army
and battled another army, and was victorious, you
could not ignore him anymore.
The people living in Arabia, they couldn't ignore
it anymore.
And when you can't ignore something, when something
has that degree of establishment, now he has
a country, and he has an army, and
he has a constitution that was written by
locals, read by locals, and signed by locals,
and they have had a victorious day in
war.
For Arab, wars are known by days.
يوم النخيل, يوم الضيقار, just days, they know
it by days.
They don't even call them, like we call
them wars later on.
We say حرب البسوس, حرب داحس, we call
them names, we give the war a name.
But the Arab didn't.
There's يوم بعث.
Even though the war was a 40-year
war, they just talk about a day.
And something happened that was significant on that
day.
Either a great warrior fell, or a great
warrior was victorious or successful.
Something happened of significance on that day.
And Arab never really cared who won or
who lost, as much as they cared who
stood their ground.
So if you could prove that you stood
your ground, even though you lost the war,
then that's a day that you would continuously
or ongoingly be proud of, even if your
army did not emerge victorious.
If you ran away, even if your army
won, then that would be a day of
embarrassment for you.
Because it's just how they looked at things.
And you'll find this a lot when you
study the history of Arabia, that they cared
about whether they could establish, they could prove
that they were brave that day.
And poets would be the ones who would
kind of carry that along.
It's a very interesting dynamic that they had.
On the day of Badr, not only did
the army of the Prophet ﷺ establish itself
as a well-organized one, not only was
it diverse, meaning it had people from different
backgrounds.
You had people from Quraysh, and you had
people from al-Aws, and you had people
from al-Khazraj, and you had people from
beyond all three who were Muslims and came
and joined, like Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, for
example, and others.
So you had people, even though we don't
know if Abu Dharr was actually amongst the
people of Badr or not, but I'm saying
that within that army, it was quite diverse.
And actually just before, maybe less than four
years or three years before, al-Aws and
al-Khazraj were at each other's necks.
They weren't actually getting along.
So the Prophet ﷺ established the presence of
a well-trained, functional army, and he established
the bravery of the people who stood by
him, because that's what they were interested in.
The Arabs were interested in, who does he
have?
A bunch of missionaries, like a bunch of
mercenaries, forgive me, people who just were there
for the money, like they're paid to do
this, so when it gets really, really difficult,
they'll run away.
Based on what are they?
No, he was able to establish that.
He went with a smaller army, and they
stood their ground longer.
And Quraysh, technically that day, many of them
ran.
There was a lot of chaos in there.
So it was a big day.
It was a big day in the history
of the peninsula.
Meaning, outside of understanding your deen, in the
documentation of the Qur'an, obviously, for Arabs,
historically in their norms, the day of Badr
was an important day, because something happened that
day that had never happened before, where Quraysh,
in all of its glory, was beaten.
It was beaten outside of Mecca.
Usually Quraysh stays and defends the Kaaba, but
it went on a conquest, and when it
goes on a conquest, it never loses.
So it went on a conquest, and it
lost, and it lost to a very small
group of people, a small group of people,
new, newly established.
Some of the people on the other side
they were fighting were from their own, like
Quraysh.
This became the water cooler rumors.
This is what people talked about.
They talked about this.
And the understanding of what occurred that day,
and the stories of what occurred that day,
it grew, and it spread far and wide.
And people started to ask, who is this
new person?
Who are these people who challenged Quraysh with
a third of their numbers, and emerged victorious?
And what is this mix that they have?
Again, if you study the Arabian history, you'll
find that qabā'il fight each other, like
tribes will fight other tribes.
Even if the two tribes are cousin tribes,
like Aus al-Khazraj, or Bakr al-Taghlib,
or other examples, they still are tribes.
You don't find pieces of tribes coming up
and gathering together.
Meaning, the concept of war within the peninsula
was not understood outside of the tribal system.
Could you argue that maybe there was once
or twice where the Arab came together to
fight a foreign enemy?
Maybe.
But even then, it was still tribal.
Still, tribes would take on certain parts of
the army and function.
The Prophet ﷺ didn't do that.
He melted this group.
On the day of Badr, you didn't have
the 314 divided based on tribe.
On the day of Badr, you didn't have
the Aus on the right, and the Khazraj
on the left, and the Quraysh on the
middle.
None of that.
It was actually not divided like that at
all.
People stood all amongst each other.
It was as they do for prayer.
For salah, for example.
We don't start our salah, all right, Palestinians
at the far left, and then the Egyptians
beside them, and the Syrians beside them, and
then they move on, the Pakistanis.
No, we don't do that.
It's just whoever's in the masjid, whoever comes
first, they stand together.
This is our understanding of our deen, because
we don't see it that way.
We don't accept that type of segregation in
our shara.
So Badr, for Arab, was something that they
had not seen before.
This type of warfare was not something that
they had witnessed and didn't understand.
And he was victorious.
You see, that's the piece that the Qur
'an is pointing out.
He won that day.
Had he lost that day, then this whole
thing would have been different.
A bunch of rebels, they went, they caused
some trouble, Quraysh went and took care of
them, and it's over now.
So you could afford not to even read
about the story.
You could easily, back then, you could afford
not to need to know anything about Muhammad
ﷺ, him or his message or whatever happened
there.
But because he won that day, now you're
forced.
Now there is a force to be reckoned
with.
There's a force that exists in Arabia.
It's new.
They have a story.
They have a problem.
You need to know something about them.
And you know something about them.
At that point, you are forced to make
a decision.
Are you for what it is that they're
calling for?
Or are you against it?
Which is why it's called Yawm al-Furqan.
It was the earthquake that shook all of
Arabia.
The ripple of it, basically knocked down every
home within the whole region.
And Quraysh was not unaware of that.
Quraysh knew that this was the biggest catastrophe
that has ever befalled them in their history.
Mind you, Quraysh has been in many wars
to defend the Kaaba and to defend themselves.
Many, many wars.
The Prophet Ali himself, in his own life
as a young person, participated in at least
one of them.
So it's not like they don't know what
they're doing.
But the issue here is different.
They were challenged by a new group, a
group that is very diverse, a group that
is fundamentally, theologically, ideologically refusing their status quo.
See, tribes didn't have that.
Two tribes would fight, but there's nothing fundamentally
different.
They're all tribes.
They all worship the same couple of Aslam.
They all have the same mentality.
It's more, you killed one of mine, so
I'm going to erase your tribe off the
face of the earth if I can.
It's just an issue of revenge or avenging
someone.
But this was different.
This was very different.
What the Prophet Ali was bringing was not
that, not to avenge anybody.
This is the right to believe something different.
Your freedom of speech, your freedom of belief.
Someone who was saying, I'm being oppressed, I'm
not being given my right to speak my
mind and to believe what I want.
And I'm challenging your way of life.
I'm challenging what you have believed to be
the status quo and the norm and the
right way to live for many, many, many,
many centuries.
And I'm challenging it and saying that you're
wrong and you need to change.
That's big news.
You're forced to listen to that.
And because he won, he forced everyone's hand
to listen.
So people had to choose on his side
or against him.
And of course, the story began from that
point.
It was called Yawm al-Furqan, the great
day.
A great day in the history of Islam.
He knew that, he stood there before this
battle and he made dua.
And he would say, Ya Rabb, if this
group of men fall today, then this is
the end of the story.
You'll never be worshipped on earth the way
you deserve to be worshipped.
And he would make dua to the point
where the burda that's on his shoulders would
fall off and Abu Bakr would come and
say, Take it easy, O Prophet of Allah.
Your Lord will deliver for you that which
He promised you.
But the Prophet did not know if that
day things were going to work out or
not.
You and I know the day.
It's easy, the story.
We've heard the story.
But he wasn't.
He was very, very obviously concerned that what
if this doesn't work out?
What if I had not prepared appropriately?
What if I did make the wrong move
here?
There's always that questioning of your decisions when
the stakes are that high.
The stakes were very high on the day
of Badr, which is why the people of
Badr, those who stood there, were forever beloved
and respected and trusted by the Prophet and
by the Muslims until the day they passed
away.
And they had a certain status amongst their
peers and amongst us as well.
So that happened in Ramadan of the second
year of hijrah.
Now, I don't usually talk about the fact
that it was in Ramadan because I talk
about it in Ramadan and I usually share
a little bit within Ramadan regarding Ramadan.
But it happened in Ramadan and keep that
in mind.
On the 17th of Ramadan, this occurred.
It was their first Ramadan.
You say, well, what about the first year
of Ramadan?
No, it wasn't really Ramadan yet.
The first year of his hijrah, peace and
blessings be upon him, Ramadan was not prescribed
as a faridah yet.
So the concept of Siyam has always existed
historically even amongst the Prophet, peace and blessings
be upon him, teachings.
But the concept of the month being mandatory
and Taraweeh and all that other beautiful stuff
that come with it was made mandatory the
second year of hijrah.
So the sahaba were being told, okay, this
is a part of your faridah.
This is Bani al-Islam and one of
them is Sawm Ramadan.
And you start teaching what Ramadan is.
This is the month that we're going to
fast from first day to the last day
and then there's Eid after it and you
fast from dawn to sunrise, to sunset and
you're going to have the salah at night
and itikaf and all those other beautiful things.
It's the night, it's the month of the
Quran within it, Layatul Qadr, the night that
the Quran was revealed to the Prophet peace
and blessings be upon him on Inghar Hira.
That night is being basically solidified as a
very significant night until this day.
So all of this is happening and the
sahaba are very happy about it which explains
to you why they didn't want to go
to begin with.
Remember I told you they didn't want to
go.
Technically a lot of them were like وَإِنَّ
فَرِيقٌ مِّنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ لَكَارِهُونَ Many of the believers
they didn't want to go on this battle.
Why do we go?
Amongst the reasons wasn't just that they were
doing well, it was Ramadan and they were
just learning to fast and it was really
nice.
Ramadan is a beautiful time even if you
worry about it a little because of the
fasting piece.
But once you get used to the first
three days of fasting you're fine afterwards and
then you just enjoy the spirituality of it.
You enjoy the beauty of the time itself
and what it carries within it and the
closeness to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
the sense of community and there's a lot
of things in it.
So they were enjoying it.
The first 15 days had gone by and
the Prophet Ali said no, we have to
go and claim our rights.
So they didn't want to.
But they went and they went fasting and
the majority of them stayed fasting.
Scholars say the reason that they did is
because the ahkam regarding rukhsah in fasting had
not been established yet.
Meaning today if you get in your car
and you drive beyond the 80 kilometers for
example then you can break your fast in
Ramadan.
Technically you're not allowed to do that.
You make up for it after Ramadan but
you have the rukhsah if you're traveling or
if you're sick.
When you're going to war it's the same
thing.
War is similar to travel or sickness or
illness it's the same thing.
So you could break your fast but the
majority of them didn't because at that point
the rukhsah was not yet described.
It was not there yet as a hukum
shar'i so it was still the first
year and most of them were fasting when
they fought this battle.
So there's a lot for them in this
experience that they had that day.
Within the verses we'll talk about this in
Uhud I'll leave it to Uhud.
So this happened at the end of the
second year or the ninth month of the
second year of hijrah.
The battle of Uhud is going to happen
in Shawwal of the third year of hijrah.
So exactly a year and a month later.
Almost exactly a year and a month later
the Uhud would happen.
As I explained to you before there's a
lot that happens obviously between these battles.
I don't always have the perfect historic record
of exactly what happened in the eleventh month
of the second year in the twelfth month
in the first I don't always have that.
And if you do go to the books
of Surah you may find some of them
that will talk about certain events but there's
lack of evidence of the timing for it.
So the way I do it is I'll
tell you Badr and Uhud the aftermath of
Uhud and Khandaq and then I'll talk to
you a lot about social events that were
happening in the midst of all of these
years just to make it a little bit
easier.
But between the second and third year of
Hijrah a lot of what was occurring was
establishing the rituals of our deen.
Surah Al-Baqarah and parts of Surah Al
-Nisa and parts of Surah Al-Ma'idah
and parts of all of Surah Al-Anfal
for example all of Surah Al-Anfal was
being revealed to the Prophet and these Surahs
are the Surahs in the Quran that established
what the rituals would look like.
Like they start to establish appropriately the Jama
'ah of Salah all five prayers with their
timings and the Sunnahs that exist before them
and the Sunnah of Jumu'ah and establishing
obviously Ramadan and establishing the amount that needs
to be paid for Zakah so these things
started to be established within this period.
So as the Prophet is building up his
followers in Medina between Badr after Badr for
the year after Badr so he's educating people
and people are attending and they're learning and
the rituals are being established and those who
are accepting Islam now they have to start
from zero from scratch they have to learn
the values of the Deen and the belief
system of the Deen so a lot of
that's what was happening for a lot of
this period.
Now we do have evidence that the Prophet
got married to Saudah bin Zam'ah during
this period.
So the Prophet mind you up to this
moment was single or a widower because Khadijah
passed away in the 10th year of B
'itha right after Hisar al-Shi'ab right
after the boycott of the clan of Bani
Hashim so once it finished she passed away
so he spent the rest of the 10th
year all of 11th year 12th year and
13th year of B'itha in Mecca without
a wife and then he went to Medina
and spent the first year and the second
year also without a wife but after Badr
we have evidence that he got married to
Saudah bin Zam'ah Saudah was an 85
year old lady she was the first widow
within Islam regarding war her husband had fallen
before Badr this is the majority opinion that
he wasn't amongst the people of Badr but
before Badr he had fallen in one of
the Saraya one of the conquests that he
would send with his Sahaba and to honor
her so all the marriages of the Prophet
after Khadija were godly commands were divine commands
of Allah his wife as in his wife
as a man someone Muhammad the man choosing
a wife it was Khadija hands down from
the beginning till the end the day he
died he spoke of her it was Khadija
who he loved and Khadija who he remembered
the marriages that occurred after were marriages that
had purposes had purposes not only for the
region or just for the Deen but also
for the ladies themselves because after Hijrah the
wife of the Prophet had a name she
was called after that point Ummul Mu'mineen the
mother of believers this gave her religious immunity
and it gave her political immunity and this
would be a big deal after he passed
away for Aisha and Hafsa and Umm Salama
and Juwayri the Ummahat of Mu'mineen that outlived
him would have a lot of impact on
how the region would look and the role
of ladies within Islam after he moved on
so these marriages after Khadija were all commands
by Allah to take this wife and take
that wife and the first lady he would
marry is a lady who is obviously way
beyond her years of caring about being married
or not being married Sauda bin Zama at
the ripe age of 85 years old now
when they talk about Uhud they say it
was for revenge is what you find in
some of the books and to me it's
an understatement for sure to say the least
Uhud was much more than just revenge Uhud
was the acknowledgement from Quraish that the Quraish
established something that was getting too strong their
reputation was what they were worried about the
most they had lost a lot of ground
since Badr every month that went by after
Badr they lost more and more ground and
the prophet in his new city his new
country that was established was gaining more and
more popularity people were more interested in this
people were actually making their way to Medina
to visit just to see what is it
that he established there is it true that
the Quraish are living in the homes of
the people of Aus is it true that
they are living in the same homes is
it true that there is a different system
that is governing this because they couldn't believe
it it was something they had not seen
before people who didn't care about faith they
lived that way but they wanted to see
what was this new establishment they would come
back telling stories this is different everyone seems
to be living there you have this new
faith they are all living in the same
area everyone is being treated it was something
of great interest for people he was becoming
more popular the numbers were ramping up slowly
but surely his army was getting stronger not
in numbers but in faith Quraysh was losing
faith so they had to try something so
they kept on provoking the Muslims until they
pushed their way they gave themselves a reasoning
they accused Muslims of harming a caravan something
that had nothing propaganda none of it occurred
there was no reason for the prophet to
hide his intentions they would move out of
Mecca with 3,000 warriors they tripled their
army from the day of Badr they had
to save face they could not afford to
allow the story of Badr to be the
last thing people remember about the clash between
the two forces they needed to go if
you set a siege around the castle if
they have a lot of provision on the
inside the army on the outside gets very
ill and gets very tired and they lose
their strength and they lose their and the
ladies and their children would help us from
the rooftops this was a part of the
plan we We would have our warriors on
the ground, we would hold our city, and
then the ladies would help us from the
rooftops with archery and with rocks and whatever
they could help us with.
But the problem was that the majority of
his congregation, it's a beautiful thing actually, were
younger people, were people in their 20s.
And most of them did not attend Badr,
most of them weren't there for the day
of Badr.
And it gnawed at them, it bothered them
heavily that they weren't there for the day
of Badr because they lost out on this
critical, crucial, monumental moment.
If not for the sake of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, but just for the sake
of fame.
Even if just for a young person sometimes
you want to be there when it matters.
And all of Arabia is talking about Yawm
Badr, the day of Badr, what happened, and
you weren't there.
And you were with him, you just weren't
there that morning, the day that he decided
that we're going to get the caravan, you
just were away or you just didn't attend
or whatever happened then.
So a lot of the younger people were
very disappointed that they were not there that
day, they didn't like it.
So they said, Ya Rasulullah, we go and
fight them like we did on the day
of Badr.
Because the young blood is always a little
bit more passionate, they're a little bit more
enthusiastic, a little bit more gutsy, they want
to go out.
All of the older sahabah were like, no,
no, we stay in Medina.
Not because of his vision, at all.
Just based on simple wisdom, just a little
bit of experience.
Their wars, it's all the same.
You don't go out and they'll open, especially
if you're outnumbered.
They're coming to us with 3,000 people,
we're 1,000 at best, we're 1,000
at best.
We're going to go, we're outnumbered, again, 3
to 1.
Why repeat the same scenario of Badr again?
We got, not lucky, but we got Tawfiq
from Allah, Subhanallah, on the day of Badr.
What if this, no, we shouldn't, we shouldn't
just go out, we stay in Medina, we're
more likely to be able to push them
back and defeat them if we stay in
our city and utilize the fact that we
know our city, that it's well protected, and
that we have the ladies to help us
so the numbers go up, so it's a
better idea, there's more wisdom in it.
But the shabab outnumbered the elderly, they outnumbered
them by a lot.
He put it for a vote, alayhi salatu
wasalam, and he was outnumbered by quite a
bit.
So the Prophet, alayhi salatu wasalam, said, alright,
then, as agreed, we will go out for
the battle.
So he goes home, alayhi salatu wasalam, and
he starts dressing himself for war.
War is a horrible thing.
We don't celebrate it.
We don't celebrate war.
None of the stories that I'm telling you
are designed to celebrate the concept of war,
ever.
War is a horrible thing.
And if you don't think war is horrible,
it's because you have not witnessed it.
If you were to witness war for a
day, then you'll understand how horrible it is.
It's a time of fear.
It's a time of pain.
It's a time where countries suffer, where the
weak suffer the most.
It's a very difficult thing to undergo.
So we don't celebrate that.
What we celebrate in these stories is the
bravery of the people whom we look up
to.
The bravery of our role models, of the
Prophet, alayhi salatu wasalam, and the sahabah who
were with him.
That even though they had to do this,
they didn't want to, but they had to
do it.
They did it with bravery.
Even though war is the worst thing possible,
when they needed to do it, when they
were forced to do it, they went and
they did it.
The Qur'an talks about this.
Take a look.
Have you not seen the example of the
people?
He's speaking about the sahabah here.
Subhanahu wa ta'ala in Surah An-Nisa.
When they were told, hold your hands, you're
not allowed to initiate war or cause any
physical...
This is in Mecca.
In Mecca you're not allowed to carry a...
Don't carry a sword.
Hold your hand back.
But rather focus on your relationship with Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala and aiding the poor
and taking care of people.
When the war or combat or battle was
made mandatory that you have to fight back,
a group of them, a small group, the
munafiqeen, they start saying, why did you make
this...
They start fearing people more than they fear
Allah.
They would say, why did you make this
mandatory upon us?
Could you not have just postponed this?
Maybe just protect us yourself instead of making
us fight.
Surah An
-Nisa,
قُلْ مَتَاعُ الدُّنْيَا قَلِيلٌۭ He walks away with
the decision made, but a bunch of people
stay back, not satisfied.
Why are we going out?
Well, you were outnumbered in the vote.
Yeah, but the majority of those who voted
to go out are a bunch of teenagers
and 20-year-olds.
What do they know?
They know nothing.
Why are they even voting?
Why don't they just listen to the people
who know?
So this became an argument piece, people getting
upset.
And then one of the Sahaba, who the
Prophet ﷺ told the vision to, let it
go.
He said, by the way, guys, just so
you know, the guys who were so enthusiastic
to go fight outside, he saw a vision,
ﷺ, that he was supposed to stay in
Medina, and you guys voted against this.
So now the younger people are like, what?
We didn't know that.
So they go running to his house, ﷺ,
and they knock on his door.
He opens his door, he's half-dressed for
his gear.
He has his upper gear on.
And he opens the door and there's like
200 young men standing out the door.
What do you want?
ﷺ.
ﷺ.
ﷺ.
Have we coerced you to do something you
didn't want to do?
Are we out of line?
This is their adab.
ﷺ.
Out of adab.
Did we say something we shouldn't have said?
Did we make a decision, did we force
you to make a decision that you didn't
want to make?
We didn't know.
ﷺ.
ﷺ.
If it pleases you to stay in Madinah,
we stay in Madinah as you want.
فَقَالَ عَلَيْهِ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ مَا كَانَ لِنَبِيٍّ إِذَا
لَبَسَ لَأْمَةَهُ لَأْمَةَ الْحَرْبِ أَن يَضَعَهَا حَتَّى يُقَاتِلَ
أَوْ حَتَّى يَفْصِلَ اللَّهُ بَيْنَهُ وَبَيْنَ عَدُوِّهِ No,
no.
It's unacceptable.
I've worn my gear.
There's no excuse for a prophet to wear
his gear with the intention of going to
fight for the sake of Allah, and then
he decides not to in the middle of
it or he changes his mind.
We agreed.
We're ready.
I'm going.
There's a lesson in this piece that we're
going to take some time and talk about
at the end of the Battle of Uhud
that is worthy of contemplation, especially these days,
for sure.
But I'm going to give you a sneak
peek of it now just so you can
think about it.
The outcome of this war is not going
to be in the favor of the Muslims.
It's not.
And some people are going to use that
as an argument to say, well, you know,
you put it to a vote and you
involved the youth and you shouldn't have.
That was their argument to him.
The Qur'an would come, would be revealed
to him after Uhud, and it would state
clearly, وَشَاوِرْهُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ And we're going to
read these verses in depth.
And continue to consult with them as you
move forward.
Taking away the idea or the possibility that
consulting with his congregation was ever optional.
It was never optional.
This is what he was going to always
do.
Even though the outcome was negative.
He was not permitted to say, well, I
asked you once.
It failed.
Take a back seat, please, from now on.
And this is in war.
This is in war.
Not in some program that you wanted to
start in a tertiary masjid in some city
that no one has heard of.
No, this is in war.
That war that was going to affect the
future of Islam as a whole.
And people were still, no, no, you asked
them their opinion, they gave it.
It doesn't matter whether it worked or it
didn't.
You're going to do this again.
The idea of, no, no, we have to
put them aside because they're younger or they
know less or they're not.
No, no, this is Islamically unacceptable.
Not only should masjid and should the ummah
empower the younger generation to make decisions and
to come up with plans and to try
things.
But they have to be okay when they
do that and fail to allow them to
try again.
And again.
And again.
Because it's normal that if you try something
and you do something that's a little bit
innovative, you have a little bit of creativity,
then you're going to fail a couple of
times.
Who said that it's a one strike deal
and you're out?
I'm going to give you one shot at
getting this done.
If it doesn't work, then you're out.
Who said this?
Who came up with this silly rule?
If on the day, if in war.
Because I would accept an exception for war,
by the way.
Like my mind would be okay with that.
My mind would be okay with saying, well,
consult with the youth and let them make
decisions.
But not in war.
Because war is, you know, it's life and
death.
No, I would be okay with that.
I personally would say that.
That makes sense to me.
The Qur'an, no.
Even in war.
Even in war, you're going to consult and
you're going to go by the majority.
And if they make a mistake, then that's
how it is.
And you try again.
And to me, that's an indication of the
mentality that we are obligated to carry as
Muslims within our deen.
That as you rise, as you move through
life and you rise up the rankings as
a person, going into your 40s and your
50s and your 60s, you have more.
It's your obligation, not an option.
You don't deserve applause for this.
It's your obligation to empower the people who
are coming after you.
And to advise them.
And to let them fail.
And to help them learn and let them
try again.
This is so rare that when it happens,
we're so impressed by the person who does
it.
It's not optional.
It never was.
It never was.
This is the least that you can do.
If Rasulullah ﷺ said this.
Before war.
You're more wise than him ﷺ.
Your wisdom is better than his vision.
His ru'ya at night when he saw
that he had to stay in Medina.
He saw it.
He's a prophet.
He's not a guy.
Just some person.
He's Rasulullah who saw a vision, a ru
'ya.
Not some weird dream.
He saw a vision that he should stay
in Medina.
But the majority, the youth want to get
out.
We go out.
We go out.
Because how else do you empower them?
How else do you make sure that they
matter?
And their voices matter?
And their feelings matter?
And their opinion matters?
That's how.
I am not more wise than him ﷺ.
I don't have more authority than him.
I have no reason.
If he allowed for this, then who am
I?
Who am I to dare hold that back
from people who are coming up?
Who am I to judge them when it
doesn't work out?
Who am I to threaten to hold it
off as if it's something that I own?
It's my decision.
It's not my decision.
It never was.
It's not optional.
Masajid that function through this old hierarchy, this
just...
I don't know how to put this in
a way that's not going to come off.
Islam institutions that function that way are doomed.
They're going to fail.
They're going to fail.
Because if you get...
What was it about the Prophet ﷺ and
his movement that was most interesting?
It was the number of the youth that
existed.
You know that the number is high just
from the vote of the day of Uhud.
You just know that they outnumbered people by
far.
They had status.
They had positions.
They had...
Because the tribal system doesn't allow for that.
The tribal system is based on seniority.
That's pretty much it.
That's why people of young age, who did
not have the good fortune of their elders
dying early, where they could come in and
take a position, were forced to do something
different.
They had to get out of politics.
When you study Arabic history, you find that
these princes were wasting their lives drinking and
partying.
The reason being is that there's nothing else
to do.
The grandfathered-in hierarchy of people was not
going to allow anyone to penetrate into this
group unless there was going to be a
pet, unless they were going to behave as
pets to the older people and listen to
the old geezers, whatever they had to say.
So that's why the majority of Arabian princes,
even in modern-day media and in Hollywood,
they are depicted as people who are just
living lavish lifestyles, eating and drinking and playing
and wasting their lives.
Why?
Even though they're very capable, it's because of
this.
It's because of this very toxic mindset in
running things, where you're not senior.
Sit aside.
Be quiet.
If you want to get involved, then you
have to become someone's pet.
And this is a very important piece of
understanding how he did things, and it wasn't
like that.
In war, he listened to them.
I would have been okay if he didn't
listen to them in war.
I would have been okay him establishing all
of this outside of war and making war
the one exception because lives are going to
fall.
No.
He was going to do it in war,
and for this to stand as an example
that you will continue to point out till
the day of judgment, that you cannot miss
it.
You can't miss it.
More than that.
I'm going to go one step more than
that, because that may not be enough for
you.
Abdullah bin Ubaid bin Salul got so upset.
He is the leader of Al-Khazraj.
And this poor gentleman, well, I shouldn't say
poor, but I feel a certain, when I
think about it, you have to understand his
story.
Abdullah bin Ubaid bin Salul is the worst
of the munafiqeen, and he is going to
be punished on the day of judgment for
that which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees
fit for him.
But this gentleman, right before the Prophet ﷺ
came to Medina, was being prepared to rule
the city.
To rule the city, based on a lot
of stories and a lot of things that
happened beforehand.
So he was already very disgruntled with the
presence of the Muslims, and he was really
not committed to the idea, but he couldn't
afford to break off.
He couldn't.
He signed the constitution.
He was technically a Muslim, but he looked
for any opportunity to divide this group that
he was a part of, hoping that this
group would fall to pieces at some point.
So when the Prophet ﷺ took a vote,
and didn't just come and ask him and
the elders, he got very offended.
He got very offended.
قَالَ يَتْبَعُ يَسْمَعُ الْغِلْمَانَ وَيَتْبَعُ الْغِلْمَانَ وَيَتْرُكُنِ He
listens to these kids and he leaves me.
I was the leader on the day of
Bu'ath.
I was the commander who was victorious on
a very famous day amongst the days of
Arabian wars.
So he got so upset that he commanded
the 300 people who listened to him to
not join the army.
So the army that was 1,000 people
going to fight 3,000 went from 1
,000 to 700 overnight because of this decision.
Now at that point, I would have been
okay with I'm totally okay now with the
Prophet ﷺ.
All right, we stay in Medina.
We'll continue to listen to the shabab.
It will completely empower you, but maybe it's
not for this day specifically.
No.
No, kept on going.
There was a consequence to this decision.
The consequence of actually putting it to a
void and involving people had a consequence that
was detrimental.
He lost a third almost of his army.
A third of his army.
An army that was already outnumbered 1 to
3 was now going to be outnumbered 1
to 4.
This is what was going to happen on
the day of Bu'ath.
And of course, Abdullah ibn Salul that day,
up to that time, every time the Prophet
ﷺ gave a khutbah jum'ah, I'll explain
to you the dynamic here.
Before he...
You know how the imam says, As-salamu
alaykum, sits down.
So when the Prophet ﷺ would say, As
-salamu alaykum, and then sit down for a
moment, he would stand up, he would turn
to the congregation, and he would say, Ya
ayyuha al-nas, hatha rasulullah, isma'uhu wa
tabi'uhu.
He would stand up and say, Oh people,
this is the Prophet of God.
Listen to him and follow him.
He gave himself a little bit of a
status where he could speak.
The Prophet ﷺ allowed for it.
He had no problem.
He never told him to sit down.
He was allowed.
He was never told later on, took aside,
maybe stop doing this.
No.
For over two years, two full years, and
the third year, half of the third year,
this happened every jum'ah.
Imagine being in the masjid of the Prophet
ﷺ during the beginning of the third year
of hijrah, and you're attending the khutbah, and
some guy stands up before the khutbah and
starts telling you that you should listen to
the Prophet ﷺ.
Very weird.
But the Prophet ﷺ understood.
He felt for this guy.
He felt for the loss that he went
through.
He understood that the Prophet ﷺ was very
sensitive, a very sensitive soul.
He knew the difficulty of what Abdullah ibn
Ubayy ibn Salul was dealing with.
The difficulty of accepting that he was no
longer going to be the alpha, that he
was no longer going to be the king.
He was not going to rule anymore.
That's hard to swallow, especially when you're that
close.
You're that close to becoming a king.
A king.
He was going to be a king.
In Arabic, there are different ranks.
You only use the word king if you
are ruling more than just your tribe.
If you're just your tribe, you're not called
a king.
In Arabic, you had kings.
Himyar, Wakinda, Al-Ghassasia, you had kings because
they ruled more than just their own tribes.
He was going to become a king because
he was going to rule Khazraj and Aus.
It was not just his tribe that was
pulled from under him.
The Prophet ﷺ let things, he let a
lot go.
But the day he took back the 300,
after Uhud, after Uhud, once the Prophet ﷺ
got on the minbar for the first Jumu
'ah, he stood up.
The Prophet ﷺ told him, sit down.
Sit down.
No.
You don't get to do this anymore.
You don't get to pull back 300 fighters
before the night of the battle and then
stand up and do this.
Not anymore.
So he sat down.
He didn't allow it for Ali.
Ali was not a pushover.
He was very wise.
And he was very merciful.
But he had to draw lines.
He couldn't allow for this man to continue
to speak the way he did after what
he did.
After doing that, after deciding the night before
the battle that he was going to withhold
a third of his army, the Prophet ﷺ's
army.
That was a big deal.
Some of the people who were held back
were not necessarily bad people.
Some of the people who stayed back later
on became very good Muslims.
But the day that they were told by
their leader, see, it was very confusing for
a lot of these new Muslims.
Who do they listen to?
Because they're used to a certain way of
things running.
This is the leader of our tribe.
For as long as I remembered, he's been
the leader of our tribe.
And he's my second uncle or my third
grandfather or my stepdad or whatever.
He's related to me.
So it's hard for me to say no
to him.
So even though I love Muhammad ﷺ, sometimes
he can get confused.
So some of those 300 that stayed back
were actually not bad people.
They just didn't know what else to do
when they were told this by their leader
and they stayed back.
Of course, they would later on make up
for it in other battles.
But this was a big deal.
So Abdullah ibn Ubaid bin Salul just tilted
an already unbalanced battle.
He made it less balanced.
One to three is already pretty bad.
Now it's one to four.
And it's out in the open.
And there's a little bit of turmoil amongst
the Sahaba.
Even the guys who said, let's go out
are now like, should we have not done
this?
Should we have said we should stay home?
The Prophet ﷺ would go and establish the
place.
Depending on where the Mushrikeen were headed, the
Prophet ﷺ would choose an area for this
battle to occur.
A little bit outside of Madinah.
Today it's not outside of Madinah.
It's in Madinah.
But Madinah today is much bigger than it
was during the time of the Prophet ﷺ.
So Uhud at that time technically was outside
of Madinah, just so you understand how it
works.
So he would go, ﷺ.
He would meet the Mushrikeen.
Beside Jabal Uhud.
The reason he would choose Jabal Uhud, because
similarly to the day of Badr, he had
an idea, ﷺ, that if he can force
the opposite army to fight him in a
narrow area, then the advantage of their numbers
becomes less applicable.
Like they can't cash in on the advantage
of numbers anymore.
If 50 is standing in front of 100,
but the hallway can only take 25, then
really the hundreds doesn't have that advantage anymore.
If the people who are standing, the 25
up front are good, then they can basically
steamroll the 100 because they lost the ability
to flank.
Really, most people here play some form of
video games.
So you know, flanking is a big thing
when you're fighting.
It's very helpful.
Because if the guy can't see you, they
can't really do anything about it.
In Arab, ﷺ, that's how they did their
wars.
And flanking was what you used if you
had a number advantage.
If you were way more, then you tried
to surround your enemy.
So if you're a couple of thousands and
they're a couple of hundreds, it's very easy.
So now they have to fight in every
direction.
So their numbers become less and you dilute
them, so it's easier.
So the Prophet ﷺ's idea was that he
was going to force them into a very
small area to fight.
And I think I have a picture of
it.
Okay, so you can see up there.
So the Prophet ﷺ positioned his army between
the mountain of...
Oh, here's a big mountain.
And a smaller mountain that today is called
Jabal al Rumah because of the archers that
were on it.
Rumah is the plural of archers, so the
mountain of archers.
But at that time, it didn't have a
name.
It was just a mountain that was high
enough.
It was around 23 kilometers to go around.
So 23 kilometers on horseback takes a bit
of time.
It's not something you're going to get through
a couple of minutes.
So if the Prophet ﷺ had the first
Muslim on the right side standing at the
beginning of Uhud and the last person on
the left side standing right at the amount
of archers, so the only way that he...
And that's not enough for 700 people.
That distance can only fit maybe 200 people
at tops or 250.
So now the army of the Mushrikeen have
to come in 250 at a time instead
of all 3,000 coming in.
So the only way for them to cash
in on their advantage and to benefit is
to flank.
They can't flank from Uhud.
Uhud's way too big.
It'll take forever.
It'll be the next day before they can
make it around.
The only way is to flank from around
this small mountain, this small mount.
So his plan, ﷺ, was to put 50
well-trained archers on that mount.
Their only job was to...
You see where that blue...
Is to make sure whoever tries to go
in the blue area there, to take them
out.
To basically end the advantage because unless it
was going to be cavalry, then it's not
going to work because it took too long
to go around.
The way that the Mushrikeen or the Quraysh
would benefit is if they went around and
went up the mountain and then came down
upon the Muslims on the side.
To go around from the whole thing takes
too long.
I don't think this...
When you look at the pictures, you don't
always have great pictures.
I don't have a better picture.
It's not fully accurate because they didn't go
around.
That's not what happened on the day of
Uhud.
They ended up going over the mountain.
They came to the side and went over
the mountain.
Going around the mountain takes too long.
So that was his plan.
He had agreed amongst themselves that this was
going to be the case.
So he put on the mountain 50 people.
The leader is a...
A Sahabi by the name of Abdullah ibn
Jubair.
And he was responsible for running the plan.
And the plan was very clear.
The Prophet ﷺ very clearly stated the following.
He said, إذا رأيتمونا انتصرنا أو رأيتمونا متنا
وأكلنا الدود فلا ينزلن أحد منكم حتى آمرة
Whether you see us victorious celebrating our victory
or you see us all dead and we're
being eaten by worms, don't move from this
mountain unless I personally tell you so.
So if I die, you die on the
mountain.
This is the command.
This is the commander of the army.
If I die, then you're going to die
on this mountain.
You're not going to move from this mountain
because you won't move until I tell you
to move.
Clear?
Everyone's clear.
Abdullah ibn Jubair, he takes this message.
He makes sure it's absolutely clear.
He prepares the 50 archers a lot.
50 archers, well-trained archers.
The Arabian bow is similar to the English
bow, not like the French one.
French bows are smaller.
So you get more frequency.
They don't go as far, but you get
more frequency.
You're able to throw more.
The English bows are a bit bigger.
The Arabian bow is maybe half a size
bigger than the English bow.
I once went to a friend of my
father's who had memorabilia of this sort, and
he showed me an Arabian bow.
I was maybe 13 at the time, and
I could not even move it.
You're supposed to be able to hold the
bow and then pull it back, right?
I couldn't move it at all.
I know I'm a little bit of a
wimp, but not to the point where I
couldn't move it at all.
I couldn't actually do anything with it.
It was so difficult, and the old brother
who owned it, he took it, and he
pulled it back a little bit.
He wasn't able to pull the whole thing
back.
So imagining what this actually looks...
So if you get the right person who
knows what they're doing, and he took me,
and there's a Bedouin man who uses these
Arabian bows, and I watched him.
I actually put the arrow in.
The arrow, forgive me, is quite...
It's around a meter long, and he pulls
it back, and when he lets it go,
it has force.
You're talking about something that will penetrate a
wall very easily.
This will go right through a horse, no
problem.
So these bows and these arrows are very,
very powerful.
So having 50 well-trained archers on that
mountain was actually an important piece, and they
were properly shielded from the archers of the
enemy, and this was the game plan.
This was the battle layout for the Battle
of Uhud.
We'll end with that, inshallah.
We'll continue next week.
SubhanAllah wa bihamdik.
Shalom.
La ilaha illa anta astaghfirullah wa atubu ilayk.
Wassalamu'alaikum wa barak ala nabiyyina Muhammadin wa
ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in.
Jazakumullah khair.
Are you leading, inshallah?
We just need the batteries.
The batteries are all dead.