Adnan Rajeh – There is God
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the ongoing massacre in their country, which they believe is causing people to become desperate for freedom and removal of oppression. They argue that the Israeli government is causing chaos and causing harm, and that belief in "tshe" and personal touch are important for finding out what's happening in the future. The conflict between the people and environment is a loss of faith, and the " recognize" and "anything that happens" is a loss of faith.
AI: Summary ©
Before the topic becomes redundant and boring, and
before I become too emotional to talk about
this issue, I want to share with you
still a few observations and points of reflection
from what occurred over the last few weeks
in Sham.
And honestly, one of the biggest hindrances to
doing so is the ongoing massacre that is
occurring upon the people in Gaza.
In the midst of all of it, in
the midst of what's happening in Damascus and
the countries around it where people are rejoicing,
I don't think I've seen in a long
time the amount of happiness on the faces
of Muslims, not just from a specific region,
but from all regions.
I don't think I've received so many congratulations,
even on the day of Eid, not as
many times within the last few weeks.
And it tells you that the people are
thirsty for any form of freedom or justice
or removal of oppression anywhere in the world.
This is becoming a human ambition now.
We thought at some point as human beings
that we'd achieved a certain degree of freedom,
and that the age of slavery has been
removed, and we're finding out that really not
much has changed aside from just labels and
methods of enslaving people and oppressing them and
methods that tyrants have figured out to continue
to hold the will of the people down
and to silence the voices.
And we're still 400 days plus, and the
people of Gaza are still pulling their young
ones, their children from under the rubble of
their own homes, while the world finds things
for us to be distracted by, something to
talk about so that we don't focus as
much attention on the topic altogether.
And I'm sorry, I can't with a clear
conscience allow for that to happen, at least
on a personal level.
And for you as Muslims sitting here, I
don't think it's appropriate for us to be
distracted by any form of joy or victory
or a day of goodness while people are
still being murdered.
And forgive me if I, and I've shared
this over the last few weeks and it's
a feeling that I just have to kind
of put out there for people, that over
the last year and a half I have
to admit there has been a shift, there
has been a true shift in the degree
of caution that I feel people have when
they talk about things.
A year and a bit ago, a year
and a few months ago, when we talked
about certain topics I would spend a lot
of time thinking about the wording.
I would take time to think about the
wording because we lived in a country and
I wanted to make sure that I was
being respectful and I was being tolerant and
that I was in one way or the
other not putting forward anything that would take
away our unity as a society and as
a community.
But after 14 months, 14 months of any
blunt complacency of the country that I am
a part of and the government that we
voted in, as people are being killed on
a daily basis, on a daily basis, there
was no rest throughout the entirety of these
14 months, I feel less inclined to do
that.
I feel like, well, you know, we have
to start speaking our minds because I think
it was that political caution, it was the
fact that we were choosing our words carefully,
thinking about others as Muslims were commanded to
do that.
So I did that, I still do it
obviously when I speak about anything, but I
feel like we have to, our voices have
to be a little bit higher and we
have to make a little bit more noise
and we have to point out when there
is a clear hypocrisy it has to be
pointed out.
And what the Israeli government is doing to
the people of Gaza is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable.
It's an act of brutality, of systematic racism,
it's a genocidal attempt on a group of
people who are indigenous to the land while
the imperial forces of the world sit there
and watch.
That is the reality, that is the truth.
There is no truth but this.
And it has become painfully clear.
And those who would get offended for what
I'm saying right now, don't feel offended anymore.
Because you can only run the hypocrisy for
so long before you feel like, I don't
know, I mean, they have been killed for
the last 14 months straight and we haven't
really said anything about it and we're allowing
it to happen and to a certain degree
we have defended it and enabled it and
we have to start pushing, we have to
start pushing.
And I'm saying this now because of the
topic that I'm going to share with you
over the next maybe 10-15 minutes because
the timing is very short at this point.
I heard something from a friend of mine
and then I read a post that a
very intelligent Iraqi doctor wrote it and put
it online and the post was very similar
to what I had experienced, something that he
had heard from someone.
And when I heard it from my friend
or from the person who said it, I
didn't really think about it, I didn't reflect
upon it appropriately.
But when I saw him put it there,
I took some time and reflected and thought
about this phrase that this person said.
And I started to kind of put together
some, connect some dots.
What he said was, and this was during
a conversation where there was a lot of
people involved.
So it almost got faded out by the
number of people who were talking about, of
course, what's happening in Syria.
He's a Syrian, obviously, like myself, and we're
talking about what's happening back home because we
have a million questions and very few answers
and it's very difficult to know what's coming
in the future and we don't know what's
coming for us.
But inshallah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will
grant us true salvation and to all the
ummah of Muhammad a.s. And then the
road to Jerusalem goes through Damascus and through
Cairo and we've known that as Muslims since
the beginning of time and we continue to
know that.
And if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
it in his decree within our lifetimes to
see something change in those regions, then we
have to be working towards that now.
And he said something.
He said when it happened, when he finally
fled, when the big red breaking news was
on and it said that he left the
country, their tyrant had left.
When he said to himself and to his
friend, he said the following phrase in Arabic,
in the Syrian accent.
He said, That's what he said.
He said, it turned out there is a
God.
Now this person is a practicing Muslim, mind
you.
And I obviously would never use his name.
He's a practicing Muslim and I know he
has faith.
But in a spontaneous moment of vulnerability, he
expressed something that existed deep down inside his
soul.
That when I reflected on a little bit,
I read the post and listened to the
person talk about it a little bit more
because he had heard it as well.
And he tried to break it down.
It really dawned on me a little bit.
It dawned on a number of things.
And I don't know how many of them
I can share with you.
But I will at least share with you
one of them.
A Muslim builds his faith on the constant
aspects of the universe.
So when you build your iman in Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, your acceptance, your acknowledgement
of la ilaha illallah, which is not a
faith.
You're never told in Islam to believe something
from the English perspective of the meaning of
the word.
In English, belief means there's something that has
no evidence at all.
But you accept it anyways.
That is not what iman is.
That's not what iman is at all.
Hasha lillah that he asked you to do
something like that.
Something as foolish as that.
To believe in something that you have absolutely
no evidence whatsoever.
What are you talking about?
That is no usage of the word in
English.
I'm not bashing the language.
I'm just saying that that's the usage of
this word when we use it.
So when we translated iman to belief, we
ran into a cultural discrepancy.
We ran into a cultural discrepancy for people
who speak the language.
Muslim who speak the language, who understand what
the word believe means in English, and then
are told iman is belief.
So they translate that into their deen, and
they find this has, and then we go
down this route where we are, where you're
asked to believe in Allah, as in accept
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with no evidence.
And what are you talking about?
All of the evidence is pointing towards the
oneness of the creator.
The evidence that exists within the universe.
The evidence that exists within life.
The evidence that exists within history.
All of that, all of those arrows point
towards la ilaha illallah.
And that's how you actually arrive at the
certainty of your faith.
But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows, that
there's a little speck inside the heart of
Ibn Adam, where if he does not feel
or experience something that's a little bit personal,
there will always be a little bit of
a, there'll be a step.
There'll just be a step between him and
full certainty.
That's just the nature of the human race.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes sure
that for every person, there is something.
Like when I talk to you, when you
talk to me about your iman, if you
just tell me about a dua that you
made one day and got accepted, I'm worried
about you.
Because that's not how you build your iman.
But that dua that you made got accepted
is important.
It's the personal touch on top of all
of it.
It's the personal touch that you require as
a human being to experience.
But you have to build it on the
constants of existence.
But there's always that need for the personal
touch.
And for the Syrian people at least, and
maybe those who understand what happened, the 14
-year struggle or the 54-year struggle, had
left them at a point where that personal
touch was a little bit vulnerable.
A little bit vulnerable.
And when it finally happened, it was the
moment, it was yawmin ayyamin, one of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala's days, where it brought
back that which was lost.
We know that from the Qur'an.
I'm going to explain something to you from
the Qur'an.
That is important to this.
When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in
Surah Al-Baqarah, I'm hasid, let's do Surah
Yusuf first.
Because I recited this verse last week and
never got around to explain it because I
ran out of time.
حَتَّ إِذَا اسْتَيْئَسَ الرُّسُولُ If you read this
word, if you read this ayah, that you
have to, like, if you have read this
ayah before and you don't feel, you weren't
taken back from it for a moment, then
you didn't understand it.
اليأس is loss of hope.
Like قنوط is loss of hope.
يأس is loss of hope of something good
happening.
قنوط is loss of hope of something bad
going away.
They're the same meaning, just different usages in
the Arabic language.
So, at the end of Surah Yusuf, when
he uses this phrase, حَتَّ إِذَا اسْتَيْئَسَ الرُّسُولُ
Not يأسَ الرُّسُولُ Just when the moment came
where the prophets, the messengers themselves, almost lost
hope.
They didn't lose hope, but they came close.
اسْتَيْئَسُ It means they were just a few
steps away.
Because the struggle was so long.
Because the amount of oppression and blood and
sorrow and agony and pain went on for
so long, that they came close to a
moment where they almost lost hope.
The ayah actually increases that.
وَوَنُّوا أَنَّهُمْ قَدْ كُذِبُوا And they started to
wonder.
Is it all a hoax?
Have I been lied to?
Is this all made up?
كُذِبُوا That they have been fooled.
At that moment when they were pushed to
their absolute limits.
To their absolute limits.
They're still holding on to their iman, by
the way.
They had not lost it.
The ayah is very clear.
They did not lose their iman.
But they were...
They could see in the horizon a little
bit of...
There's a possibility of losing that hope, of
feeling abandoned.
جَاءَهُمْ نَصْرُنَا The mercy of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala came to them.
فَنُجِّيَ مَن نَشَى And then whoever Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala decreed to be saved was
saved.
وَلَا يُرَدُ بَأْسُنَا عَنِ الْقَوْمِ الْمُجْرِمِينَ And our
punishment cannot be held back from those who
are criminals.
Take again the verse in Surah Al-Baqarah
that talks about this in a little bit
more depth.
أَمْ حَسِبَتُمْ And this is an important verse
for all of us.
أَمْ حَسِبَتُمْ أَن تَدْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةِ Or did you
think that it's possible for you to enter
Jannah?
وَلَمَّا يَأْتِكُمْ مَثَرُ الَّذِينَ خَلَوْا مِن قَبْلِكُمْ And
you have not yet received the example or
the similar test of those who came before
you.
And of course it's a rhetorical question to
say, No, you can't.
You can't imagine that you're going to make
it there and you have not gone yet
through what the people who came before you
went through.
What did they go through?
مَسَّتْهُمُ الْبَأْسَاءُ وَالضَّرَّاءُ وَزُلْزِلُوا They were struck by
difficulties, بَأْسَاء and hardships, ضَرَّاء وَزُلْزِلُوا And a
زُلْزَل is an earthquake.
It wasn't a literal earthquake.
It was a figurative earthquake.
See, here's the point.
For many of us, or at least for
the Syrian people, the struggle was not just
to remove tyranny.
The struggle was to protect Iman.
Was to protect their Iman.
I cannot tell you how many people lost
their faith in the Arabic Spring period from
2011 to 2018.
I can't even begin to tell you.
And this is not only statistically proven by
the different organizations that care for this, but
this is something that I personally dealt with.
I witnessed the people that I knew in
my life lose their faith and lose their
attachment.
The struggle of صِرَع is actually for holding
on to your Iman.
What's the point of getting anything in this
world and losing your Iman?
And if you do hold on to your
Iman, and you lose everything else, then you're
fine.
Because at least يوم القيامة you have a
case to make, and you will be avenged,
and you will be granted justice.
It's the struggle of holding on to your
Iman, that's the real struggle.
Whether you are fighting up against corruption, or
injustice, or oppression, or tyranny, or poverty, or
disease, it doesn't matter.
What you're fighting for is to hold on
to your Iman.
Because you know from the Qur'an that
you will be tested to your limits.
You will be pushed to your limits to
see will you continue to hold on, or
will you lose hope, or will you let
go, or will there be a moment where
you just, where it all crumbles and collapses.
And for a lot of the people, that's
what the feeling was.
The feeling was that so much had been
lost to so many people.
The children that washed up on the shores
of the Mediterranean.
The children.
In 2015, a little kid called Alan, from
the part of Syria that I've never been
to, he was from a different faith altogether.
He washed up on the shores of Greece.
He was wearing the exact same clothing that
my son was wearing that day.
The same age.
He was the same age of my son
that day.
Exact same age.
He was wearing a red shirt and blue
shirt.
Exactly what my son was running around wearing.
The amount of pain to see a child
drown in the sea, and be washed up,
and that's it.
There's no record of this person.
It's like they never existed.
The hundreds of thousands who perished in intelligent
facilities, murdered, and killed, and thrown, and maybe
disposed of altogether, and burnt with ashes so
that they would never be found again.
The lack of closure that the mothers, and
the fathers, and the loved ones.
The question becomes, why is this all happening?
You see, go to Surah Al-Kahf.
When Musa asked Khadr, What are you doing?
Why are you drilling a hole in this?
Why did you just kill a child?
What is this?
What is it?
Khadr says at the end, He tells him,
The explanation of all this will come.
The ta'weel, the string, the thread that
will pull it all together, will come.
You just have to be perseverant.
You have to wait.
You have to be, you have to hold
on.
So the verse in Surah Al-Baqarah, And
they were shook to their core.
It wasn't a literal earthquake.
It was a figurative one.
Their faiths were being shook.
To what degree, ya Allah?
To what degree did you shake their faiths?
حَتَّى يَقُولَ الرَّسُولُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَعَهُمْ مَتَى نَصْرُ
اللَّهِ Until the Prophet himself, and those who
believed with him, not the munafiqeen, the people
who believed in him, الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَتَى نَصْرُ
اللَّهِ When will Allah's victory come?
That's how far they were pushed.
The ayah is saying, You think you're going
to Jannah before you're pushed that far.
أَلَا إِنَّ نَصْرَ اللَّهِ The answer is, Allah's
Nasr is very near.
Whenever He wants it, it will happen.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, in
a few days, He'll get rid of all
of it.
In a few days, He'll rid you of
everything.
Don't worry about it.
It's not difficult for Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la.
It never was.
It never will be.
The question is, Are you able to hold
on?
Are you able to hold on to the
end?
Or will you lose hope?
Or will you fall into qunoot and yes?
That is the question.
أَقُولُ قَوْلِ هَذَا وَاسْتَغْفِرُوا اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ
يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ يَا فَوْزَ الْمُسْتَغْفِرِينَ استَغْفِرُوا اللَّهُ الحمد
لله وحده وصلى الله وسلم وبارك على من
لا نبي بعده وعلى آله وصحبه ومن اتبع
نهجه ووفى عهده أخواني وأخواتي من العبري والعبات
التي نأخذها مما جرى في بلاد الشام وفي
غيرها من بلاد الأرض ونحن نراقب مأساة الفلسطينيين
تستمر على مرأة من العالم ومسمع وسكوت دولي
وصمت عربي وإسلامي شيء مخزن ومؤسف حقيقة مع
أن أهل الشام فرحون بإزالة الظلم والطغيان إلا
أننا كأمة ما زلنا بعيدين عن مآربنا وعن
طموحاتنا وعن آمالنا كمجموعة بشرية توجد على هذه
الأرض ومما أريد أن أشير إليه لكم حتى
تتأملوه وتتفكروا فيه القضية أننا كبشر بحاجة إلى
أن يكون في قلوبنا معنى الأمل يجب أن
يكون في القلب الأمل بالله سبحانه وتعالى أمل
منضبط بالعمل مأمور به إذا ما عملت وأن
الإنسان إذا لم يجد أملا في الله وشك
في الله وشك في قدرة الله وأجاز لنفسه
أن يشك في قدرة مولاه سبحانه وتعالى دخل
في الكفر والضلال من حيث لا يدري اعلم
أننا جميعا كبشر سنختبر وأننا سنختبر كما اختبر
الأنبياء من قبلنا وأن هذه الاختبارات وأن هذه
الابتلاءات ستدفع بنا إلى مشارف الهاوية وأنك ستكون
في موضع تكاد فيه أن تفقد الأمل تكاد
فيه أن تيأس تكاد فيه أن تسأل هل
هناك نصر ولكن غايتك وواجبك أنك تتمسك بهذا
الإيمان إلى أن تلقى الله الله سبحانه وتعالى
يختبرك ليراك تتمسك ولا تفقد تتمسك بهذا أم
تفقد السؤال بسيط في الدنيا يا أخوان إذا
فقدت الإيمان ما الذي كسبته من هذه الحياة
وإذا حافظت على إيمانك إلى أن تلقى الله
ما الذي فقدته في هذه الحياة القضية بسيطة
لكن هي جوهر هذا الصراع جوهر الصراع البشري
هو صراع الحفاظ على الإيمان بالله لأن الإيمان
بالله سبحانه وتعالى فيه معنى الأمل إذا فقدت
الإيمان بالله فقدت الأمل وإذا فقدت الأمل ذهبت
القضية وزال الأمر كله وما زلنا في هذه
المشكلة وما زلنا نصارع هذه المصيبة إلى يومنا
هذا يقول صاحبي طلع فيه الله شوف راح
الظالم لا إله إلا الله لا إله إلا
أنت سبحانك إنا كنا من الظالمين طبعا لكن
هذا هو ديدن ابن آدم إن مسه الشر
فيؤوس قنوط يمسه الشربس مرة في حياته فيأس
ويقنط لماذا هذا طبع ابن آدم إلا إذا
عرف ربه وإلا إذا استمسك بدينه وتمسك بكتاب
الله وسنة نبيه صلى الله عليه وصحبه وسلم
ما أريد أن أنتهي هذه الخطبة به هو
فهم ما يعنيه كلمة أمل إذا تنظر القرآن
لا تجده فقط استخدامه في هذه الفرصة إنه
مدهش وأعتقد أن السبب هو أنه عندما نستخدم
الكلمة وليس لدينا مواقع صحيحة تتحول إلى فكرة
أملية تتحول إلى مخدرات ناركوتية التي تأخذها بشكل
شخصي لكي تنمي نفسك ولكنك لا تتحرك حقا
بجهودك بعد الأن وهذا لماذا القرآن تتحدث عن
المعاقب تتحدث عن خسارة الأمل وَلَا يَيْأَسُ مِنْ
رَوْحِ اللَّهِ إِلَّا الْقَوْمُ الْكَافِرُونَ وَمَنْ يَقَنَطُ مِنْ
رَحْمَةِ رَبِّهِ إِلَّا الضَّالُّونَ مرة أخرى في القرآن
لا أحد سوف يخسر الأمل في رحمة الله
إلا أولئك الذين يؤمنون ولا يمكنك أن تخسر
الأمل في رحمة الله بمساعدة المعاقب من خلال
رحمته إلا أنك مخطئ إلا أنك مخطئ أنت
شخص من على الجانب الأخر أنت شخص من
على الجانب الأخر نحن مطلوبون كمسلمين لدينا آمل
حتى يكون هناك واحدة من الأشياء حتى يكون
هناك واحدة من الأشياء وهذه الأشياء تضع في
حاولتك تضع في عملك حيث أنك تفعل شيئا
لها حتى إذا كنت أنت الوحيد على الأرض
ومجموعة طاقتك وحاولتك صغيرة جدا وما تطلبه هو
أسلحة ومساعدة إذا كنت تعمل بجميع قوتك تجاه
ذلك الهدف فأنت لست ملتزم لتكون لديك آمل
أنت مطلوب لتكون لديك آمل أنت لست مسموح
لتسير حولك بدونها يجب أن تكون لديك يجب
أن تكون لديك آمل إمام أحمد تخبرنا أنه
عندما كان الشيخ عليه الصلاة والسلام في يوم
الخندق كان يقف ويخطط الأمور مع القائدين من
العربي وبراء بن عازم يخبرنا أمرنا رسول الله
صلى الله عليه وسلم بحفر الخندق فمررنا بصخرة
لم تأخذ فيها المعاول فَشَكَوْنَاهَا إِلَىٰ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ
As we were digging this trench, we came
to a boulder that no matter how much
we hit it with our axes or whatever
tools we had, we could not seem to
put a dent in it, and we went
and took it to the Prophet.
Now, you don't take to the commander of
the army a boulder.
That's ridiculous.
You take it, you don't do that.
There's a thousand, you don't do it.
But the reason that they did it is
because it was a moment of loss of
morale for them.
It was a low moment for the Sahaba.
They were very scared.
Ten thousand people were marching towards Medina.
They were doing something absolutely insane.
They were digging a five-kilometer trench, a
five-kilometer hole that they were going to
sit on the other side of and hope
that the enemy can't make it across.
It was an insane idea that they were
engaging, and it was tiring for 15 days.
They didn't sleep.
There was no food to eat.
They were just digging into land that wasn't
helpful, land that was not kind.
The land was not kind to dig in.
It was very difficult.
So their morale had dropped, and they were
tired.
Not physically, yes, they were fatigued, but the
tiredness was morally.
It was a moral tiredness.
They felt beaten on the inside.
And they came to the Prophet ﷺ complaining
about a boulder.
There's a thousand of them.
A boulder.
Ya Shaykh, get a couple of hundred and
get it out.
But he didn't do that ﷺ.
He recognized in them, he saw it.
He saw their morale.
He saw their pain.
He saw their fear.
He saw the struggle.
So he didn't complain at all.
He went, he said, show it to me.
So they took him, they showed him the
boulder.
It was not that big.
It wasn't a big deal.
It's just that's how they felt.
So he said, Pour some water on it.
So they did.
And he said, give me an axe, or
whatever tool they used.
So he said, in the name of Allah.
And he took a swing, and he hit
it.
And a spark went into the sky.
Because when you hit rock with metal, it
causes a spark.
So a spark went into the sky.
Allah is the greatest.
And he says, Sham will be conquered one
day.
So people looked at each other, and they
were laughing.
Giggling.
Sham.
يقول فتحة الشام وأحدنا يخشى أن يقضي حاجته
He's saying, Sham is going to be conquered,
and I'm too scared to go and do
my business.
Like, I've been holding it in all day,
because I'm scared to go do my business.
I'm terrified of the enemy.
We're talking about Sham.
And then a third, قال فذهب ثلث الحجر
And a third of the rock crumbled.
And then he said, And he put up
his axe again, and he hit it again.
And a spark went flying into the sky.
الله أكبر فتحة فارس The Persian empire has
fallen.
Has been conquered.
And then he did it a third time.
Bismillah.
Axe goes up.
He hits it.
A spark goes flying.
The last third of the boulder crumbles.
الله أكبر فتحة اليمن You're going to conquer
Persia.
And conquer Damascus.
And conquer Yemen one day.
Now I don't know if the Prophet ﷺ
at that moment had the information that that
was going to happen at a certain time.
I don't know.
It could be for sure.
Allah taught him things.
I don't know if maybe he did that
at that moment because he understood the equation.
Because he understood the equation.
The equation was that if people are working
hard towards their goal and there's hope.
There's hope if they're working hard towards their
goal.
And it happened.
It took a few decades to happen.
He wasn't around for it, ﷺ.
But the people who were there witnessed the
falling of the Persian Empire.
The falling of the Roman Empire.
The falling of Yemen.
They saw it.
They were there.
They learned from him ﷺ that we carry
with us today.
You are the hope.
Especially the younger people in this room.
You are the hope.
Whether you like it or not.
You don't want to be the hope.
You probably don't agree to it.
But whether you like it or not against
your will you are the hope.
And you dictate what type of hope is
going to be and what it's going to
look like by the way you behave and
how you carry yourself.
I'm going to end with that.