Ali Hammuda – The Gift of Pain – Australia tour – Sydney
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
If we speak about pain, it is a
topic that comes up almost in every conversation,
even with those whom you meet for the
very first time, even in the room.
We were sat with upstairs with some of
the brothers.
If you get to know any human being
in the life of this world long enough,
and I mean maybe 90 seconds plus, the
topic of pain at some level or another,
individually or collectively, socially, economically, mentally, internally,
spiritually, financially, the topic of pain will almost
always emerge.
Allah Almighty, He said, O man, Allah said,
you are toiling towards your Lord, a great
toil that will continue till the day you
meet Him, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says.
Pain is rarely something that we would consider
as a blessing.
I don't think there is a person in
this venue who would not wish that they
could lead a life never needing to take
an aspirin or a paracetamol or a painkiller
of some sort.
Most people, if they had half a chance,
they would opt for the choice of never
needing to experience the sensation of pain.
Dr. Paul Brand, however, he has a completely
new take on the topic.
He is a British surgeon and the author
of a book called, take note of it,
The Gift of Pain.
And he argues a very counterintuitive point, saying
that whilst pain is something that most people
wish that they could live without, it is
something in reality that you can simply never
do without.
I came across his book when I was
at Swansea University in Wales.
My wife and myself, Um Ubaida, who is
here somewhere, we went up to the university
for her to do her viva on a
great topic around Palestine that she had authored,
a 1935 revolt.
Mashallah, she did her viva and she, alhamdulillah,
passed it first class with distinction without any
corrections her supervisors.
Mashallah, may Allah accept from her and allow
her to be of use to the ummah.
There, when she was doing her viva and
going through her references, I was going through
this book here, The Gift of Pain.
And Dr. Paul Brand, he speaks about his
experiences with the disease called leprosy.
This is what he specializes in.
Dealing mostly with children in India and the
United States of America, and his phenomenal, heartbreaking
at times, stories that he encountered in his
professional career.
He speaks of stories of people who began
to experience deterioration in their eyesight till they
lost their vision completely.
And when Dr. Paul Brand came to investigate
what happened, they discovered that it's because this
person was washing his face every morning with
scorching hot water.
But because he was numb to the sensation
of pain, he didn't realize that he was
contributing to his own undoing till he lost
his vision.
One of the most amazing stories that he
came across was a young boy in India
who approached Dr. Brand and his team, and
he said that I have a symptom.
My skin is disappearing.
It's as if something is gnawing at me,
and I'm even now beginning to lose my
fingertips.
And this case fascinated Dr. Paul Brand and
his team.
And they decided to put this boy under
24-hour investigation to get to the bottom
of this case.
They monitored him all throughout the day and
the night, and they were horrified to discover
that when the sun set, he had drawn
his curtains, switched off his lights, and made
his way to his bed, a rat would
creep into his room and would actually make
a meal of his body.
The issue was that this young boy suffered
from leprosy.
And one of the symptoms of leprosy is
the numbing of the sensation of pain.
So he didn't realize what was happening to
him, that he had become a meal for
this rodent.
So Dr. Paul Brand, he invites us to
think, and he says in his book, imagine
a situation where your hand is burning without
you realizing.
He said, imagine a situation where your finger
is severed without you noticing because of the
lack of the pain-based warning system that
notifies you that something is wrong.
And after mentioning the story that I shared
with you, Dr. Paul Brand, he concludes and
he says, pain, therefore, is one of God
Almighty's greatest gifts to humanity.
You have not created any of this in
vain.
What makes pain such a juncture in the
life of many of us as Muslims and
non-Muslims, by the way, are the three
stages that pain goes through and the way
that people respond to those stages.
Pain goes through three stages and you will
recognize them.
Any pain that you experience, you experience phase
number one, which is called the indicator.
It's the signal that something is amiss, something
hurts.
That could be the pang of an injury,
the twisting of an ankle, the puncturing via
a needle.
It could even be the heartbreak after the
breakdown of a relationship or the fear of
failure or failure itself.
There is an indicator, the throbbing pain, something
is wrong, pay attention.
Phase number two, after the signal, after the
indicator, is now the message.
This here is about the way in which
the brain interprets the pain.
Now you begin to think, right, where is
this pain coming from?
So that you can put a hold to
a hemorrhage, for example, if that is the
issue or to cut a person from your
life if he or she is the issue.
The message, where is the source of the
pain?
Once you've dealt with this phase, you now
move to the most crucial of the three
phases, take a guess, the response.
This is the most crucial of the three
stages, the most critical.
Why?
Because people when experiencing pain, they will often
take one of two paths.
You will recognize yourself in one of these
two avenues.
You will take either a path A to
deal with this pain, which is this downward
cycle of self-loathing and hating and shouting
and whining and wailing and complaining and doubting
until the pain becomes something far more severe
than what it was to begin with.
That's pathway number one as a response.
Pathway number two as a response.
This is the pathway of success.
That's when you realize that I'm in a
situation of pain.
There is something perhaps that I have lost.
Let me use this as an opportunity to
draw closer to Allah to choose a more
wholesome and healthy Islamic lifestyle options.
Let this be an opportunity for growth.
That is a pathway of success.
See, brothers and sisters, one of the greatest
things about pain and this ni'mah that Allah
Almighty has imbued within us is that it
is the only situation in life that forces
you to make changes.
Think about it.
When life is gliding smoothly, everything is okay
in terms of finances, health, relationships.
Is there a reason to make change?
Is there a reason to upgrade your game
whether it is with Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala or with the people?
There's no need.
So without pain, we stagnate, we stop, we
usually become complacent and this is followed by
what?
Deterioration, Islamically and otherwise.
Pain therefore is the only life circumstance that
compels you to look for other options that
you have never previously explored.
Only pain can do that.
Ni'mah from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Think about it.
In your own life, how many people do
you know who following the pain of bankruptcy
or theft or loss of money, they were
forced to venture into new avenues in life
to discover new found wealth.
What took them to that money?
It was the pain of losing it.
How many people do you know in your
life who found a new craft, a new
trade, a new skill because of the pain
of an awkward conversation with an employer on
one afternoon who said, I'm afraid Mr. So
-and-so, Mrs. So-and-so, we no
longer need your services.
Because of the pain of that conversation, other
doors opened up and you venture to discover
a brand new skill.
That loss therefore became the happiest day of
your life.
How many people do you know in your
life?
This person could be you who discovered fitness,
who discovered vitality, who discovered somewhat healthy eating.
Because of the pain of an awkward diagnosis
from the doctor who the GP one day
said, I'm afraid you have an issue.
And because of that painful conversation, you discovered
a new lifestyle for yourself.
And how many people do you know who
because of the pain of losing children with
respect to their iman and their trust, they
discovered new ways of mentorship, new ways of
parenting, built a brand new relationship with their
children.
Because of what?
Not because of a book that they read,
but because of the pain of a difficult
circumstance with their children that elevated their relationship
with them.
And how many people do you know, and
this will resonate with you as Muslim Australians
who are here, who are benefiting from an
event that is connected somehow to our brother
Ali Banat rahimahullah.
How many people do you know whom because
of a tragedy in life, whether it was
a divorce, whether it was a loss of
children, or whether it was the loss of
their own life, that they moved from something
mundane, something average into something profound.
Because of that pain that they experienced, they
elevated from a Muslim to a mu'min and
a muhsin, a person who yesterday was simply
tumbling through life, taking opportunities as they come
to now becoming a game changer, a mover
and shaker in the religion with a strong
Islamic vision defined by it affecting now millions.
And what was the motto of our brother
Ali?
Who knows it?
God has gifted me with cancer, he said.
God has gifted me, we put brackets with
the pain of cancer.
Ni'mah from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He recognized everything that we are saying today.
The poet Abdul Rahman al-Ashmawi, he said,
فَلَرُّبَّمَا كَانَ الدُّخُولُ إِلَىٰنْ عُلَىٰ وَالْمَجْدِ مِنْ بَوَّابَةِ
الْأَحْزَانِ He said, sometimes your entrance into the
doorways of success and glory is through a
frame called pain and misery.
With this framing of pain that I have
now shared with you, with this brand new
perspective that I have offered you, several truths
become very clear and blatant.
I want you to take note of two
of them.
Truth number one, the fact that you are
experiencing pain is not a sign that Allah
Almighty hates you.
مَا وَدَّعَكَ رَبُّكَ وَمَا قَلَىٰ Allah said, Allah
has not forsaken you nor does He hate
you.
With all of what you have just heard,
we understand the fact that you are experiencing
a pain physically or financially or through your
children or the ummah's pain in Gaza, Palestine
or elsewhere.
This is not a sure sign that Allah
Almighty has forsaken us or that He hates
us and therefore He is punishing us.
That would run contrary to everything that we
have just learned and understood about pain from
a secular perspective, let alone an Islamic perspective.
I tell you where the issue is and
why we may doubt Allah when we are
hurt.
We may doubt Him when we see those
scenes of savagery and other pain that you
may experiencing.
We may doubt Allah Almighty because we measure
Allah Almighty's love to us on the basis
of how we express love to people.
That's where the problem occurs because it's not
an accurate comparison.
When you love someone, what do you do?
What do we do?
What do I do?
You shower them with gifts and comfort.
You mollycoddle them, we say in Wales.
You want to carry them on your back.
You want to spare them of any pain.
That's what we do when we love someone
and therefore we make short-term choices to
give them comfort that may affect them on
the long run.
So you see your child who is sleeping.
It's not a young child anymore.
This child may be now 11, 12, 13.
Time for salah, fajr salah.
You say, leave him.
Leave her.
They're tired.
Let them get some rest.
You got a long day ahead of them.
A short-term decision that may affect them
on the long run.
So when you and I express love as
humans who are characterized by weakness, deficiency, ignorance,
haste, rashness, we give short-term comfort that
may cost them their akhira.
On the contrary, however, when Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala expresses love to somebody whom he
loves, he does the opposite more often than
not.
He may give them a short-term challenge,
a short-term pain in order to qualify
them for a long-term joy.
That is how Allah Almighty treats His awliya,
His saints.
An immediate circumstance that may hurt them to
give them ranks and opportunities that they may
never have ventured out for without that pain.
And there is a hadith that really manifests
what I just shared with you.
And those of you who have perhaps lost
children will be able to relate with this
hadith.
Our Prophet ﷺ, he said, إِنَّ الْعَبْدَ إِذَا
سَبَقَتْ لَهُ مِنَ اللَّهِ مَنْزِلَةٌ لَمْ يَبْلُغْهَا بِعَمَلِهِ
إِبْتَلَاهُ اللَّهُ فِي جَسَدِهِ أَوْ فِي مَالِهِ أَوْ
فِي وَلَدِهِ ثُمَّ صَبَّرَهُ عَلَىٰ ذَلِكِ حَتَّىٰ يُبَلِّغَهُ
الْمَنْزِلَةَ الَّتِي سَبَقَتْ لَهُ مِنَ اللَّهِ تَعَالَىٰ Listen
carefully.
He said when Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala wants
to give a person a place in Jannah,
in Paradise that he's not qualified for.
When Allah wants to give you a place
in Jannah that your good deeds will never
take you there.
Allah helps this person arrive to that station
by testing him or her in their body
or in their wealth or in their children.
Then Allah Almighty inspires them to be patient
and therefore Allah qualifies them for this high
place in Jannah that their good deeds would
never have taken them.
So this is truth number one.
The fact that you are experiencing a pain
or we as an ummah are experiencing immense
turmoil is certainly not a sign that Allah
Almighty hates us.
Rather it's the opposite.
It's the sign that Allah is nurturing us,
caring us, propelling us, supporting us, aiding us,
forging us in ways that we cannot imagine.
And here I remember the analogy of the
struggling butterfly.
Maybe you've come across it.
The analogy of the struggling butterfly suggests that
it is of course one day a caterpillar
that cocoons itself in a shell or a
nest of some sort.
And then when the time is right, the
struggle begins to emerge from that cocoon as
a butterfly and to fly away.
The issue is that if you were to
look at that butterfly trying to leave the
cocoon, you would feel mercy towards it.
Why?
Because it is a process that requires immense
pain.
Sometimes it could be hours with that butterfly
trying to break out of that sticky and
tight cocoon.
So you may be tempted to bring out
a small razor blade and make a small
incision and allow that butterfly an early exit.
To spare it from the pain and the
struggle.
If you do that, then you would have
condemned the butterfly to a life on the
ground and it will never be able to
fly again.
Why?
Because they've come to realize that that struggle
of the butterfly to emerge from the cocoon,
it is absolutely necessary for the full development
of its wings.
That struggle triggers a chemical response that aids
the expansion of the wings of the butterfly.
As it moves, as it pushes, as it
shoves, those chemicals are being pushed to the
four corners of the wing.
So that when it emerges, they are as
large as they need to be and it
can fly.
So if you were to come and to
prematurely assist that butterfly to emerge without the
struggle and to give it an early exit
from the pain, guess what happens?
It is released from the temporary pain, it
will struggle for the rest of its life.
So this is truth number one I want
you to take note of.
The fact that you are experiencing a pain
is not a sign that Allah Almighty despises
you or hates you or that He has
abandoned you.
And what you may have mischaracterized and misinterpreted
as abandonment from Allah is in fact perhaps
the greatest thing that has ever happened to
you for your development as an individual or
as a family or as an ummah.
That's truth number one.
Truth number two, with this framing of pain,
we come to realize that we have actually
as Muslims an answer to the so-called
problem of evil.
People ask questions, how come we are experiencing
what we are going through?
Where is God Almighty?
Has He forsaken us?
They call it the problem of evil that
has confused many people and has caused droves
of religious people to leave their religion.
It no longer needs to be a so
-called problem.
With this framing of pain and with this
understanding, we now see it as the opportunity
of pain, the growth of pain, the blessings
of pain.
We have just come to realize with this
framing that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la may take something away from you in
order to give something back.
Allah Almighty may withhold in order to shower
you with something else.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la may
break your heart in order to mend it
stronger than it was before.
He may impoverish you in order to enrich
you.
He may deprive you in order to give
you.
He may give you an illness in order
to cure you.
In fact, He may give you death in
order to give you life.
And it is also true that Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la may close a
particular door in your life.
And that is not out of spite, but
that is to encourage you to move a
little bit further down the corridor of life
and to see other doors on either side
of the corridor that you were previously unwilling
to explore and see what else is available
in the land of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la.
These are two aspects of framing I want
you to understand.
Number one, we said the fact that you
are going through pain is most certain.
You understand that Allah Almighty hates you to
the opposite.
He is forging you, developing you.
Number two, we no longer call it the
problem of evil.
We call it the opportunity of pain for
growth and revival.
With all of this said, it now becomes
very possible to elevate your response to pain
when it comes your way.
Rather than being a person who just shows
patience.
Don't get me wrong, that's a noble response.
And not just to be a person who
shows Rida, contentment with the pain.
And that is an even more of a
noble response.
You can elevate it beyond that and to
reach a position of shukr, gratitude.
Where you actually thank Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la for the pain that comes
your way.
How is this possible?
How can it be that I go through
a pain and person A may leave the
religion of Islam because of it And person
B, as we see in Gaza, is only
more entrenched in their imam because of the
same pain.
How come?
How do I allow my pain to elevate
in terms of response so that I say,
Thank you, O Allah Almighty.
Not only am I patient, I am grateful
for what you have chosen for me.
How do we do that?
Two ingredients, they are captured in a hadith.
Our messenger ﷺ said, listen carefully.
He said, If Allah
Almighty allows a person's child to pass away.
Allah says to the angels, Have you claimed
the soul of the child of my servant?
And Allah, of course, knows the answer.
And the angels, they say, yes, O Allah.
Allah will ask the angels a second question.
Have you just claimed the apple of his
heart?
Have you just claimed the delight of his
eye?
And Allah Almighty knows the answer.
And the angels, they say, yes, O Allah,
we did.
Then Allah Almighty will ask the angels, and
He knows the answer.
How did he or she respond to that
tragedy?
What did they say?
The angels, they say, take note of the
two ingredients.
I hinted at earlier.
They say what?
They said, O Allah, he said, And number
two, he or she said, To Allah Almighty
we belong, to Him we shall return.
So Allah Almighty will say to the angels,
Build a palace for my servant in Jannah
and call it the palace of praise.
So the question, we go back to it.
How was this person able to manage this
excruciating pain of losing your child?
Two mechanisms.
We heard it in the Hadith.
The first is what?
Let me hear it.
The first is, Gratitude to Allah, praise of
Allah.
And what is number two?
Finding a greater meaning behind that tragedy, which
was encapsulated in his statement of, We belong
to Allah and to Him we shall return.
There's a bigger reason behind the death of
my son.
I am the property of Allah and all
of us.
He takes what he wants and he leaves
what he wants.
Hamd of Allah Almighty and finding meaning behind
your tragedy are the two key ingredients to
enable you and I to show phenomenal levels
of resilience in the face of any pain
that comes your way.
Hamd of Allah and finding meaning behind it.
And I remember the words of Frankl, Victor
Frankl, his name is.
He has a memoir titled, The Search for
Happiness or This Man's Search for Meaning, Man's
Search for Meaning.
And he was a Jew who was persecuted
by the Nazis and he gives his experience
about the concentration camps.
And he said something phenomenal that applies to
us more than anyone else.
He said, Those Jews amongst us who were
not defined by greater meaning in their lives,
they were the quickest to pass away.
They were the quickest to die.
It's as if their bodies were unable to
put up their defenses because there was nothing
big to live for.
And so they passed away in the face
of any hardship that came their way.
He said, To the contrary, those of us
who had meaning in their life, they were
able to survive what others were unable to
endure.
And he gives example of what he means
by meaning.
He said, Some people, that meaning was a
child that they wanted to be reunited with
in a distant land somewhere.
For some people, that meaning was a wife,
a spouse they were looking to meet and
be reunited with some point in the future.
That gave them a hope.
And for some people, and I quote, It
was some sort of creative and unfinished work
that they wanted to attend to.
That gave them a hope because they were
defined by meaning.
And he would quote the words of Nidja
who says, He who has a why can
endure almost anyhow.
He who has a why, meaning, can endure
almost anyhow, meaning any pain.
So now, I share with you quickly one
final story before I conclude the first segment.
We rewind to the story of Ja'far
ibn Abi Talib, the brother of Ali ibn
Abi Talib.
In the battle of Mu'tah, the standard is
given to Zayd ibn Haritha, the beloved of
the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, to lead
the Muslim army of 3,000 men against
an army of 200,000 Romans.
It seemed to be an impossible situation.
Zayd ibn Haritha radiallahu anhu was slain.
And so the standard, the barrier, or I
mean to say the flag, it fell onto
the ground.
And so Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, he
picked it up.
And he was surrounded by the Romans and
they severed his left arm.
And so he quickly caught it with his
right arm to keep it up in the
sky because if the flag falls, the morale
of the Muslims will plummet.
And so they severed his right arm and
now with his two bloodied stumps, he manages
to press the pole of the flag onto
his wounded chest.
And now they surround him a third time
and they slay Ja'far and his blessed
soul returns to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He who has a why can endure almost
anyhow.
So in conclusion, we ask the question, what
are the whys of the Muslim?
Let us establish this.
What are the whys of a Muslim that
has given us the phenomenal patience that we
see there in Palestine and elsewhere?
I believe it is captured by one ayah
of the Quran, though others can be cited,
where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He said,
Allah Almighty has purchased the lives and the
wealth of the believers and in return, He
has promised them Jannah.
That is the why of a Muslim in
life, which makes us different to all others.
Our ultimate why, our definition as believers, is
a happiness in the life of this world
and contentment.
Comfort in our graves when we pass away,
an honorable resurrection on Yawm al-Qiyamah, nearness
to Allah Almighty in Jannah.
These are our whys.
And because we have the greatest why in
existence, it follows that we should also have
the greatest how or the greatest resilience to
any of the hows of life.
And what I share with you is not
just theory.
It's not just abstract and conceptual.
You've seen it there from beneath the rubble
in Gaza.
Men and women, average people, children, even from
beneath the rubble saying, Alhamdulillah, inna lillahi wa
inna ilayhi raji'oon.
O Allah Almighty, take from our blood until
you are pleased.
That's what happens when you have this strong
why you are able to endure every how.
So brothers and sisters, in conclusion, I say
the following.
Pain is not necessarily a concept that you
have to look at as though it was
an enemy that you need to suppress and
to always remove from your life and to
eliminate and conquer.
It is true that whilst we as Muslims,
we are taught to not invite pain, not
call upon pain, not to celebrate pain.
But when pain comes our way, we know
how to frame it.
We know how to understand it.
We know how to manage it.
And most importantly, we know how to invest
in it so that it becomes a cause
of our growth, not our deterioration.
So my brother, my sister, don't try to
evade unnecessary pain in life.
Don't necessarily try to avoid unnecessary pain in
life, some pain in life.
It will be necessary.
We are not saying put yourself in harm's
way, nor to invite pain.
But some things in life for your worldly
success or your religious success will require an
element of pain.
That's not something you need to conquer or
silence.
But you see, every time you hit the
snooze button to get a few more hours
sleep, you have chosen to mask your pain.
The pain of an early rise that you
know is one of the keys to success.
And you have chosen sleep over the early
rise.
And therefore, this pain will catch up with
you later on in life when you realize
that you're just a partial human being.
You're not the person you could have been.
When you, my young brother, perhaps my young
sister even, when you choose to indulge in
excessive gaming or endless browsing through social media
with no purpose, you are choosing to evade
the pain of hard work, responsibility, and planning.
You are masking it through these means.
But that pain will catch up with you
one day.
You've just covered it.
It will return more intensely than it was
yesterday.
And you will be in regret when you
realize you're only half the person that you
could have been.
When you, my brother, my sister, you bury
the pain of leading an active Islamic lifestyle,
a lifestyle of a visionary Muslim and Muslimah,
and choosing a life of proactive and intentional
planning for your religion so that within 20
years you tell me exactly what you intend
to have left behind as your dowry for
Jannah.
When you choose to ignore that conversation, you're
simply burying the pain of confronting yourself in
the mirror.
But it will come back sooner or later
with vengeance.
And its screams and its pangs will be
louder than ever before.
Therefore, pain is not something you need to
conquer.
But if and when it comes your way,
you know exactly how to manage it.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Islam, as Dr.
Paul Brand, he said, and we quoted this
in the beginning, that pain is in fact
one of the greatest gifts of God Almighty
to humanity.
Because without pain, there is no awareness.
Without awareness, there is no change.
And without change, there can be no happiness.
We ask Allah to give us happiness in
the life of this world, and happiness in
our graves, and happiness in the Akhirah.
وصل الله على نبينا محمد والحمد لله رب
العالمين