Ali Ataie – The Prophet Is More Dear to Me Than I Am to Myself
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
he says in the Quran,
He says some of the meanings may suggest
that
the prophet
is
more dear or closer
or takes
precedence for the believers even over their own
selves.
That we love the prophet
more than anything else
that's in the creation of Allah
He said
in a rigorously authenticated hadith and after taking
an
oath after taking
oath
to Allah
by the one who holds my soul in
his hand.
None of you truly believe until I am
more beloved
to him than his father
or his parents, his children, and all of
humanity.
He said.
He said the prophet
was more beloved to us than anything
even more so than cold water.
And this metaphor is
cold water obviously is a metaphor for life
because for the desert Arab, water meant life.
This is a way of saying that he
was more dear to us than life itself.
When you hear these statements of a Sahaba,
they're just very the
kind of love that they had for him
and how they demonstrated their love. Abu Bakr
Sadeep
He said, I prefer he said,
I prefer that Abu Khohayfa become Muslim over
Abu Talib.
Who is Abu Talib? Is the uncle of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam was raised by him.
You cannot guide all those whom you love,
Allah tells him. Right?
But say now Abu Bakr, who is Abu
Khohefa, his own father, He says to the
prophet
that I would prefer Abu Talib, your uncle,
to to become Muslim
over my own father. Why?
Because the happiness of the prophet, salallahu alaihi
salam, is the happiness of Abu Bakr.
If he's happy, he's happy. When the prophet,
salallahu alaihi salam, would laugh, they would start
laughing.
When the prophet
would weep, they would start weeping
because they were so close to him.
When the Quraish captured one of the, the
Sahaba named Khubayi and
they took him out to kill him,
and they basically
put him on a stake. They crucified him.
And they were making fun of him.
And they said to him they were, you
know, deriding him and making of him, and
they were saying to him, don't you wish
Mohammed was here
being killed and you were at home resting
with your family?
And he said, I don't wish that a
thorn prick the finger of the messenger. So
the.
And Abu Sufyan ibn Khab, who was there
obviously, was non Muslim at the time.
He made an amazing statement.
I've never seen anyone love anyone
like the companions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. Love the prophet
And if also what I heard, another example,
a female companion named
She stood in front of the horse
of a mushrik who had a sword in
his hand, who is going to attack the
prophet
His name is Ibn Kamiyah
and he was she was standing in front
of his horse. This is a woman who
came to the battlefield
to give water to the Mujahedeen.
And then the prophet,
we know the story,
became under siege.
So she picked up the sword and began
to defend him, and she was struck to
the ground by Ibn Khamea, and she had
fractured her shoulder, her clavicle. And her son,
Zay, came running towards her saying,
my mother, my mother. And he said to
her she said to him, she said, get
away from me and protect the prophets.
That was a priority for her. Was a
safeness and the well-being of the prophets.
These are just some of the manifestations
of the of the Muhaba
that the Sahaba
had for the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And
Allah
says in the Quran.
If you say if you love Allah and
call is interesting
because call is known as a
imperative
or present active imperative according to English
grammar.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is telling the Prophet
directly, kul. And when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
speaks to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam directly,
this shows the tawheem and the tashrif
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. This
shows his exalted station.
And this happens over and over again in
the Quran. And it really demonstrates a loving
relationship
between the 2. When Allah
says, for example,
that Allah and his messenger. It is more
befitting that you please him, Allah
at the end of the this clause. He
uses a 3rd person
singular,
pronoun even though Allah and his messenger are
2. And the reason is because according to
Imam,
may Allah have been pleased with him, is
that Allah
is demonstrating
that obedience to the Messenger of Allah is
obedience
to Allah
and vice versa. It shows a very, very
close personal relationship.
As our mother Aisha said to the prophet,
she said, your lord hastens
to fulfill your wishes.
As Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the
Quran, soon will thy lord give you that
which will please thee.
On one occasion, the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa
sallam, he casted a glance towards the heavens.
He just looked towards the heavens.
But he had something in his heart, and
obviously Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he knows the
hearts. He knows what's in the sudur, in
the kulu
of the human being.
That's all he did salaam alaihi salaam. He
looked towards the heavens that he had to
show this this tashwikh in his heart. He
had a desire or longing in his heart.
And his desire
was for the tabla to be changed back
to Mecca.
That's what he wanted to happen. He didn't
vocalize it. He just looked towards the heavens
and he had this desire in his heart.
Right?
It's very very interesting. Allah
He says,
He says, indeed,
Indeed, we have seen you turn your face
towards the heavens.
Right? The prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam, he wanted
the qibla to be changed back to the
original qibla. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
That the first house of worship ever dedicated
to the worship of the one true God,
Allah
was in which is Mecca.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, indeed we
see and he uses a plural. This
is indeed we have seen you turn your
face towards the heavens. Indeed, we
and this is an amazing verb here. We
need to study grammar. There's so much emphasis
in this verb.
Right? We have lamb of toki, noon of
toki, noon.
We have kaful kitab.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. In other words, he's
emphasizing it twice and talking about himself, referring
to himself in the plural form,
in the royal plural, because Allah
is honoring the person that he's addressing,
the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam.
Verily, verily, we will turn you to a
qiblah that will please you.
Why? Because the prophet salallahu alayhi salam, he
cast a glance.
Fisama.
He looked towards the heavens and he had
this choke in his heart sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
He had this desire, this longing for the
tibla to be changed, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He changes it. So this demonstrates
the
loving,
personal, intimate relationship between
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. And then he says,
And then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he changes
the person
from second person singular to the to the
plural. It's called.
Right? Sudden change. This is a rhetorical device
if you study rhetoric.
And people who don't really understand Arabic, like
these, you know, the the classical
quote, unquote classical European orientalists
who basically have the equivalent of a bachelor's
degree in Arabic. They haven't studied these things
in-depth.
They'll say this is a inconsistency in the
Quran. There's a change of tense suddenly. They
don't understand the nuance. What's the purpose behind
the change of tense? The Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, he says, what what and then here,
would you
your face singular to your faces.
What is the significance of that? The significance
is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala now is not
only speaking to the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi
wasalam, but he's talking to the ummah of
the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam.
Right? He's referring to the ummah. He's speaking
directly to the ummah. He's speaking to us.
So this demonstrates also not only is Allah
very close to his Habib, son of Allah,
but also we are very close
to to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because when
Allah addresses him, he addresses us at the
same time. We have to understand that. It's
very beautiful. It's a beautiful nuance in the
Quran. Is there some people who say that
the job of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is simply to deliver the news, and that's
it. He's a delivery man. He brings the
letters or the mail, and then he goes,
and you have no contact with him. You
don't see him anymore. You don't desire to
see him. He just brings the news.
Imam al Sufi, he mentions an interesting store
story of Sayyidina Bilal, When
Sayyidina Bilal, when the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam
had passed away, Sayyidina Bilal couldn't even stay
in the city of Medina. He couldn't even
stay there
because everything reminded him of the prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam. This type of love.
Right? So he had to leave the city
of Medina because everything was by association
connected to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So
he went to Damascus, and he stayed at
Damascus,
for over a year. And then he had
a dream of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And the Prophet
said to him, Oh, Bilal, what is this
aversion?
What is this, distance
that you have? Isn't it about time that
you come visited me?
So saying the Bala comes into the city
of Medina, and as soon as he comes
into the city, he starts weeping because everything
reminds him of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Everything reminds him of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
So then he comes into the city,
and he goes into the masjid, and he
visits the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in his
masjid. And Abu Bakr as Siddiq sees him.
And he says, why don't you give us
an Avan
like he used to do? And he said,
no, I can't do it.
I can't do it. I physically can't do
it. I'm not able to do it.
And then say, Omar sees him and says,
give us an adhan. He says, I can't
do it. And then Hassan and Hussain, who
looked like the prophet, sallallahu alaihi sallam. The
early must say that Imam Hassan
from the head up, he resembled the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasalam because the prophet is his
grandfather. And from the neck down, Imam Hussain
resembled the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam. And he
hadn't seen these children in over a year,
and children grow very quickly. In a few
months, they change.
So now they look they're 2 beautiful young
men that look like the prophet,
And they say, please give us an adhan
and say, He decides to make the adhan
and he begins doing the adhan.
And when he begins doing it, the people
in Medina, they say this is the south
of Bilal.
Bilal is here.
So they come into the streets of Medina.
And Imam Suki Suki says that even women
that had not left their homes in years
years, old women that stay in the house,
they started to come out of their house.
Because people started saying,
the prophet has been resurrected.
That's why Bilal is giving the Adhan.
So he come into the Masjid to listen
to the Adan, but say the Bilal could
not even finish the Adan.
He couldn't even get to the end of
the Adan because as soon as he as
soon as he said, I shadow and
Mohammed, his legs gave out and he fell
on the ground
because he couldn't even say the name of
his beloved.
And he told them, I told you I
can't do this.
This is how in love they were
with the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wa Salam and the prophet says in the
hadith what did to
You can translate that wood is love. I
I would have loved
to have seen my brethren.
And the Sahaba said, aren't we your brethren?
He said, no. You're you're my companions.
Right? You're the Sahaba.
So who are the brethren? Those who come
after me who haven't seen me,
but they're willing to sacrifice their wealth and
their families just to look at me one
time.
He's talking about the Ummah. The prophet salallahu
alayhi wasalam has very close personal relationship
with the Ummah. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
here says,
which demonstrates again the close relationship with Allah
and his habib. In is
called This
is a conditional particle.
Right? It's called an if clause. In English
grammar, you have a protasis and you have
an apodosis. If and then clause. If you
do this, then I'll do that.
If you love Allah for Tabiruni,
then you have to follow me. Fir'il Amar
again. Right? This is the Jo'ah
of the shirk.
If you love Allah, follow me. Follow the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
In other words,
your
obedience, your to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam is commensurate, is equal with the love
that Allah has for you. You wanna know
if Allah loves you? How closely do you
follow the prophets of Allahu alaihi wasallam? This
is how we can tell. How closely closely
are we
aligned
with his character, his manifestations in the inward
and the outward.
And then he says, your
Right? Your and this is this is majezom.
This is called.
This is something that is is Joseph in
English grammar. You call this the mood of
this verb justive,
and the effect of this on the sentence
is that it's a purpose clause.
The way you would translate this is in
order or so that.
So it begins by saying, say, if you
love Allah, follow me so that Allah might
love you.
So that Allah in order that Allah might
love you and in order that he forgives
you your sins.
Allah is for for Rahim.
Right? So the gift the love of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is is is something that
we have to earn.
We earn it. It's not cheap. There are
people who walk around saying, I'm beloved by
God.
Right? But what do they what do they
have to show for? How do you know
Allah loves you? I know he'd better love
me. They wanna dictate things to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. The mercy of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, he gives to everyone.
And that's the prerogative of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
To kafir and mukman alike, he gives his
mercy. And mercy is akin to love, But
Mahaba is a higher station.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will give his Mahaba
to a
not to everybody. It has to be earned.
Right? Specialized. You have to earn it.
The the love of Allah
And it depends on
our of the sunnah and of the example
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi Wa
Salam.
So Imam Arazi and Imam Sayyuti in their
respective tafasir,
they say that this verse was actually revealed
because the mushrikeen some of the mushrikeen came
to the Prophet
and he said,
we love Allah.
Right? And they said about the idols,
That we only worship these idols so that
they might bring us closer to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Right? That's
that's Allah quotes them in Surah Al Zumr.
But ibn Abbas, he says something interesting here.
He says this verse was revealed because of
Bani Israel
in Medina. They're a group of Bani Israel,
a group of the Jews in Medina. They
came to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
and they say, we love Allah.
We are the sons of God.
Right? And we are the beloved of God.
And then this verse was revealed. And this
is interesting because we're they're quoting from the
Psalms. Psalm 826.
It says, all of you are sons of
God. And we have to remember something here.
In
the previous dispensations,
a lot of these words that
the Quran condemns, a lot of these sort
of beliefs that the Quran condemns,
Back then have different meanings.
That the idea of being a son of
God in the old testament did not mean
that you were the literal son of God.
It meant that you were a slave of
God.
You are a servant raised to honor. It
was totally figurative.
However, this idea was corrupted by the Christians
because the Christian said that Isa Alai Salam
is not the figurative son of God. He
is the literal son of God, and this
is what they say in their creeds. And
obviously, this is complete kufur.
They say in their creeds, for example, in
the Nicene Creed, then the Nicene Constantino Pollatian
Creed. In the Greek, it says,
which means that he's mauloud
lays a mahluk.
He's begotten of God. He's not created by
God. That is cool for it. There's no
doubt about it. Right? But in the old
testament, the Jews, they don't believe that God
has children literally. If someone's called this as
a son of God or a daughter of
God, they say that's a figurative meaning. Although
this is not used in the Quran because
this concept was
corrupted by the time of the revelation
of the Quran.
But anyway, this verse in the Psalms,
this is predicated
upon
the Bani Israel's obedience to a prophet.
That you can't be beloved of God unless
you believe in the prophet who is there.
In other words, Bani Israel at the time
of Isa Alaihi Salam, they can't reject Isa
Alaihi Salam and say,
We are the sons of God. We are
the beloved of God. And they reject the
messenger of God. Likewise,
when the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam comes to
them, and he's preaching to them, he's making
dawah to them, and he's he's showing them
clear signs
of his Nabuah. And they said, no. We
were the sons of God. That's like a
king sending an ambassador
to a country, and the people that country,
they insult the ambassador. That's tantamount to insulting
the king. That's what that means. Or they
kill the ambassador. That's a declaration of war
against the king.
Right?
So God sends messengers, it is watch upon
us to believe in those messengers.
Abdullah ibn Ubay when this verse was revealed
Abdullah ibn Ubay
is
he's the head of the hypocrites in Medina.
He said, Muhammad is commanding us
to love him as the Christians love.
He wants to become a Muslim Jesus.
Right? This is what he was saying.
It's very interesting because a lot of these
western scholars that make the same claim.
Right? That he the prophet say he wasalam,
he wants
to sort of rival
Musa Alaihi wasallam and Isa Alaihi wasallam and
things like that.
You know, he's saying, Muhammad commanded us. But
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, we know from
the Quran, he does not speak from his
own hawai.
Right? And this is what the Quran says.
So somebody might say, well that's circular reasoning.
We'll study the life of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
Study his life. Even study it from the
perspective of non Muslims who are objective. There
are many objective non Muslims who have written
vast corpuses of Sira literature.
And they say there's never an instance whatsoever
in his life where he showed insincerity,
where he wanted something else, an ulterior motive.
He could have had those types of things.
In Mecca, when they offered him
to make him the king, gold and silver
in marriages, all of these types of things.
He rejected all of that. And he said
he goes to Medina, it's not much better.
Yeah. He's the head of state. He can
defend the city now, but they're constantly trying
to attack him. He literally has to dig
a ditch around the city.
They have to dig a ditch around the
city to keep people from invading Medina.
Right?
And all they wanted from him is,
you know, let us worship our gods. One
day of the year, you can worship we
worship Allah the other days. This is not
Tawhid.
This is not Tawhid.
Right? So he's a principled person even the
sincere non Muslims and there's many many of
them. They admit to this. He's he's principled.
Right?
So Allah says,
He never speaks
from his.
So this is interesting as well, is you
know, that ibn Ubay said this, that he's
commanding
he he wants to command us to love
him like the Christians love.
We have to ask ourselves then what did
the Christians do with
because, you know, there's a hadith of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that's mentioned in the
where
he
said,
He says, don't, you know, flatter me like
the Christians did with Isa Alaihi Salam. I
am a servant, so say the messenger of
God and his servant. Right? And some Muslims
actually use this hadith
to discourage Muslims from doing,
permissible activities
Even if this is all you're doing, if
all of your adkar is
Every time you make dhikr, you're sending blessings
of peace upon the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
That's a good action. How do we know
it's a good action? Get their sound hadith.
Right? When he said to the prophet
how much of my daily,
adkar should I spend on blessings,
benedictions upon you? A quarter of it, the
prophet said that's good but more. Half of
it, that's good but more is better.
3 quarters of it, that's good but more
is better. All of it, he said that's
good. This is from the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Inalahu wa malaikatahuu saloona Ananabe.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He sends blessings
of peace upon the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And this is mentioned in the Quran. In
the Quran, in its Ma'an, in its meanings
is pre eternal.
It's pre eternal. This is the articulation of
pre eternal meanings.
So when we talk about the uncreated aspect
without getting too technical, we have to study
theology.
What I'm trying to say is Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, before he even created the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
was sending blessings of peace upon the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Because what's in the Quran
is an articulation of pre eternal pre eternal
meanings.
And then this
Right? This is an imperfect tense. Right?
What does imperfect mean? That the action has
not been completed and will never be completed.
In other words, Allah
before he created the prophet
is sending blessings of peace upon him. And
into
the future We'll always be sending blessings of
peace upon the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So
if Allah is doing this, just ignoring the
angels for now. If Allah is doing this,
how can we possibly
over praise the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam? Even
if we go into a room for 24
hour, nobody should do this obviously. Go for
24 hours a day and not eat and
not drink and not sleep, and you're just
doing
You cannot even scratch the surface
of what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is doing
with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So what
is condemned is what the Christian said about
Isa Alaihi
Salam that have no warrant.
Right? What did they say? That he's Ibn
Ulloa. He's the son of God. He is
Allah. This is the orthodox position of Christians.
Orthodoxy.
Right? Like the equivalent of what's what what
we call for example,
Their
their
their dominant opinion,
Christian orthodoxy, is that Isa Alaihi Salam is
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. This is what's condemned,
or he died for your sins. No.
This is what's condemned. What is the Quran
condemned?
Right? Giving him divine attributes.
These types of things. No one is doing
this with the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam. If
they're doing it, they're gravely mistaken.
Right? But we love the prophet salallahu alaihi
wasalam. And the youth especially should not be
discouraged
by their parents
to,
manifest,
these these devotional practices
when it comes to the prophet.
Right?
Teach your children to love him,
This is the key to the love of
Allah
This is very, very important.
So the prophet,
we recognize who he is, that he's a
means by which Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
gave us life in both worlds.
Right? Gave us
a good life to live here in the
dunya because the teachings of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, they make human life sacrosanct.
There's many examples of this. Of course, we've
all heard the the hadith, very famous hadith.
It's related through multiple chains of transmission of
the Bedouin who came into the masjid and
urinated.
Right? It's a great lesson
of. Right? Of we
take from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He came to the masjid. We know the
story. He relieved himself.
The people got up to address him. They're
going to attack him.
Right? He said,
leave him. And some of the the
the narrations, they end at that point. Meaning
the prophet
came to him and said, you know, brother,
this is a must do to keep it
clean, and that's where it ends. But there's
an interesting
conclusion to the story
in, in
Ahmed.
When they left the masjid, because the Bedouin
went, he washed himself and he came and
he prayed with the Muslim, became Muslim.
So at the end of the prayer, when
they're walking outside, the bedouin turns around and
addresses all of the Sahaba of the prophet
and he says,
And he said, oh Allah, have mercy on
me and on Muhammad and nobody else.
Because he's referring to the Sahaba that scared
him, you know, because he's
relieving himself, and a group of men stand
up and start moving towards him. He was
scared.
So the prophet, he laughed at that. He
thought that was funny. Right? Then he said
that. And he said,
You have you have constricted something that's vast.
What is
vast? The rahma, the mercy of Allah
Right? This is just one example
of the prophet
And of course,
he's the means by which we have eternal
life. He's a means. He's a subab.
All worship, everything is for the sake of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There's no doubt about
that.
Right? The prophet is a means by which
we have eternal life because Allah
has given him
the on the day of judgment. He is
He is the one who intercedes and he
is the one whose intercession
is accepted. May Allah
give us a to understand.