Ammar Alshukry – Al Aqsa In The End of the Days
AI: Summary ©
The holy land of Baytul Maqdis is a full-time holy zone with many prophets and notable people. The church of the Holy Sepulcher is a structure with a 450,000 square meter complex, including a whole section, and is occupied by various ages. The church is a beautiful structure where the culture of the region is found, and people share photos of the church's structure. The importance of praying at the holy land and not just at the holy zone is emphasized, as it is a full-time holy zone. The church is also a place where the culture of the region is found, with people sharing photos of the church's structure and its success. The importance of remembering the holy grail for the upcoming year is emphasized, and the shambles and shambles are discussed.
AI: Summary ©
It's better? Over. Give me a nice intro.
An intro? Yeah.
Live from Clear Lake Islamic Center. It's Saturday
night.
So,
the session is gonna be a brief session
on Al Quds.
Some of the virtues of Al Quds.
Obviously,
it is a city.
It is a masjid that is holy to
us.
And something to pay attention to is that,
you know, there's
a push
amongst our generation,
meaning the time that we live in
where these concepts that were really considered to
be musalama, these were things that were considered
to be known of the deen. They were
part and parcel of the religion
have become issues of controversy, things that were
completely uncontroversial.
Like Al Masid Al Aqsa belongs to the
Muslims. It's part of our theology.
It is the 3rd holiest city in the
Muslim world. You'll find people even amongst the
Muslim world talking heads, speaking on TV, and
things like that saying, oh, the al Masjid
Al Aqsa
is not in Jerusalem. It's somewhere else.
Or
al Masjid Al Aqsa is not a major
issue for the Muslim world.
My local masjid
is more important than Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
Things that you wouldn't imagine a believer saying
and yet
these
silent thoughts
are being spoken out loud. And so it's
important
that on nights like this that we remind
each other, that we talk about in Masjid
Al Aqsa and that we understand a little
bit better
the importance that this place has.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he says
So right from the beginning in Surah Al
Islam, the first verse Allah
said,
Subhan,
exalted is the one who took his slave
on a night's journey from Al Masjid Al
Haram
to Al Masjid Al Aqsa, the one that
we blessed its surroundings.
Allah
selected this masjid, Allah
blessed this masjid, and Allah
says,
Allah says Allah is the one who creates
whatever He wishes and He chooses.
So a verse says, why at Masjid Al
Aqsa?
Why Jerusalem? You say because Allah chose.
Why Ramadan?
Because Allah chose. What makes Ramadan different or
more unique than other months? Allah chooses what
he wishes.
Allah selects which prophet he wishes from amongst
the people. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala selects times
and makes them special. The 10 days of
the Ijja are special. The month of Ramadan
is special. Laylatul Qadr is special. Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is the one who creates, and
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who
chooses. Allah chooses. And so Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala chose Mecca, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
chose Madinah, and Allah chose Al Masjid Al
Aqsa. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose Al Quds.
Now what does Quds mean? Quds has a
number of meanings. Number 1, it means
sanctified.
So it is the sanctified city, and it
is the sanctified Masjid.
The angels in Surat Al Baqarah, when Allah
says,
what did the angels say? Finish the verse
for me.
They said, are you gonna create on this
earth those who are going to spill blood
and make mischief while we while we praise
you and we
They use the same word, we sanctify you.
And so Al Masjid Al Aqsa
means
the place or al Quds is the sanctified
city. It is the sanctifying, it is the
holy city.
So it is sanctified,
it is Baytul Maqdis, and it is Al
Baytul Muqaddas.
Muqaddas
means it is sanctified.
Maqaddas
means it is sanctifying.
So it purifies those who go there and
worship there, and it is purified in and
of itself. It is the holy land. But
Quds also has another meaning and it's very,
very beautiful and it's very profound, and that
is And
so Allah
being al Qudus means he is the one
who is the owner of blessings.
Baytul Maqdis or Ardal Muqaddesa means not just
the holy land, but it is the blessed
land.
How is it blessed?
How is al Quds blessed? How is asham
blessed? Because Allah
says, he doesn't say,
he says,
He says the city or the the masjid
that we have blessed its surroundings,
And the surroundings is that entire region. And
you heard the 4 countries
that are now considered to be the Levant
or Isham, and that is Jordan, and Lebanon,
and Syria and
Palestine. That entire region is blessed. It's blessed
how?
Tell me some of the ways that it's
blessed.
The prophets came here. Excellent. The amount of
prophets that came there. One prophet after another,
prophet after another. So many of these names
that you heard, they were
either from a sham or they migrated to
a
sham. Ibrahim migrates to a sham. Musa migrates
to a sham.
You have all of these great prophets that
are from a shaam Dawood and Suleyman and
Yusuf and Yaqub and I mean, so many.
And the ones we don't know are way
more than the ones that we know.
What else?
Yes?
So it's out of quarantine. It's people. Okay.
What about its people?
Is it just the flex? I'm from Lebanon.
What about its people? What about the people
of Asha?
Okay. What else?
Notable.
The notable people? Look at the amount of
scholars that have come out of of of
asham. A lot of these names that you
heard of,
ibn,
Hajar ala'askalani.
Where's 'askalan?
Gaza.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says,
khairoo rebatikum,
the best of your rebat is the rebat
of Askalan.
That's gazah.
Although he lived his entire life from Egypt,
in Egypt, he's from Asquran.
Imam al Noawi is from Asham. Ibn Taymiyyah
is from Ashar.
Imam, Ibn al Qayyim, of course, is from
Asham.
Anytime you hear Al Maqdisi, Abdul Ghani al
Maqdisi, Imal Qudam al Maqdisi. Al Maqdisi is
where?
Jerusalem.
A lot of these heavyweight scholars
that we quote every single day were from
Hashem, the amount of scholars that come from
Hashem.
It's blessed in its fruits. It's blessed in
the amount of revelation that came down in
Asham.
It's blessed in the amount of martyrs
that come out of a sham. The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that it is
until the day of judgment. You know,
means that it is constantly going to be
a place of conflict. And how can it
not when 3 of the world's greatest religions
all lay claim for it until the day
of judgment. Whether it's the crusades or whether
it's present day or whether it's the future,
at the end,
All of that is taking place in a
shamb. And so the amount of martyrs that
come are selected, are chosen by Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala from that region.
I would not be surprised
if a significant portion of on the day
of judgment, the Umma Shuhada are all from
a shum. Like a a healthy percentage.
Even if it's 5 or 10% or 15%,
it's still a very healthy percentage.
And Allah
knows best, but that's also selection from Allah
And so Allah
says, Now
Baytul Maqdis, as you saw in the map,
by Kabir,
it's different than Al Masjid Al Haram.
Al Masjid Al Haram is the actual masjid.
When you go to the haram, you pray
in the masjid. You go inside the masjid
and you're trying to that's where you pray.
That's where you get rewarded. Masjid and Nabawi,
same thing. You go inside the masjid. Masjid
and Nabawi, you don't even pray in the
courtyard if you can avoid it unless it's
spilling out. You go into the masjid to
pray. However, at Masjid Al Apsa,
it is the entire complex.
It's the entire complex. It's a
144,000,
square meters.
So when you see the complex and you
see these,
you know, emails or WhatsApp messages and things
like that, where they point to the Dome
of the Rock and they say this is
not Al Masjid Al Aqsa, they point to
in Masjid Al Qibili and they say this
is in Masjid Al Aqsa. In reality, the
144,000
square meter complex, the entire place is in
Masjid Al Aqsa.
So when you zoom in on the entire
complex,
I want you to know that everything that
is within that boundary,
all of that is in Masjid Al Aqsa,
and that's very, very important. And this is
not just because of the occupation, this was
always held that all of that is in
Masjid Al Aqsa, but it became even more
important during the occupation.
Why? It's because
they really, really, really want
any part of the masjids.
And so if the masjid is deemed or
any part of it is deemed, oh, this
is not a masjid al Aqsa, they'll say
great. So let's let's have that. You're saying
it's not a masjid al Aqsa. Right?
And that's why it's very interesting when you
actually gone there,
I noticed
and, alhamdulillah, we've taken a number of trips
there and we ask Allah that our next
trip be with Palestine free.
So you go there and you learn new
fiqh, the fiqh of occupation because certain things
just didn't make sense, and you learn very
quickly to just kinda humble yourself and just
ask questions, and you'll learn things. Like, for
example, you have in Masjid Al Kibili, which
is this, you know, let's say this is
in Masjid Al Qibili.
The amount of people will be praying in
the rows will be 2 or 3 rows.
123. Now any masjid in the world you
go to, if you don't fill up this
place, you don't go and pray somewhere else.
You fill up this place. This masjid has
2, 3 rows or 4 rows, and and
that's completely different than what you experienced in
Mecca and Medina because in Mecca and Medina,
the masjid is packed. Here, you're coming to
a masjid Al Aqsa, and it's empty. It's
very saddening because
most people aren't given permits to be able
to pray there. And so you have some
locals from Al Quds who are allowed to
pray there and even them, many of them
are advanced in age. And then you have
people who are foreigners. They're coming and they're
praying there. Long story short,
Al Masjid,
the Dome of the Rock,
Masjid As Sakhra
is maybe,
I wanna say like a a 2 minute
walk away,
and that has its own jama'ah.
They have their own congregation for luhr and
asr and magrib And you'd think to yourselves,
why wouldn't you
close that masjid and come move your congregation
to pray here? Right?
Now who's the genius who can figure out
why they do that?
Yes, Malik. To keep the claim. To keep
the claim, 100%.
We need every aspect of this masjid to
be occupied,
the entire complex.
So, no, you can't have this,
we pray here too.
No, you can't have that. No, no, we
need that too. We pray that too. They're
trying to keep it occupied. And so, actually,
when you go to a Masjid Al Aqsa,
because of that idea of we need the
Masjid to be occupied all the time, you
will find people doing things there that you
would never see happening in a Masjid Al
Haram or Masjid Al Nabawi.
People are coming and they're having their weddings
in front of the Masjid, and they're doing
a photo shoot in front of the Dome
of the Rock. Have you ever seen a
wedding photo shoot in front of the Dome
of the Rock? You might have seen it
on Instagram.
What allows for a bride to come in
her white dress coming and standing in front
of the Dome of the Rock? Could you
imagine a bride in a white dress going
into a misty din Nabawi and trying to
take a photo in front of That would
never ever happen. A family coming and having
a picnic.
Intramural
sports
of local university students coming and racing
on the side of
the,
you know, one of the grassy areas of
Al Masjid Al Aqsa. Why do they allow
for all of this varied activity to happen?
Because they want the masjid to be occupied.
The Mufti of
Al Quds, he signed off on that, he
encouraged people, he said, guys come. If you
wanna play a soccer game, come play it
at a masjid al Aqsa. If you wanna
have a family picnic, come have it at
masjid al Aqsa. You wanna do sports, come
do whatever you guys wanna do, come and
do it at the Masjid, keep the Masjid
occupied.
The point here
is that
all of that complex
is considered to be Al Masjid Al Aqsa.
Now,
you have
what's called a Masjid Al Qibili, the Qibla.
It is the structure that is most south
because remember, Jerusalem is north of of Mecca,
and so the kibla is actually south. So
the kibali masjid is the southern,
masjid.
And then behind it is the Dome of
the Rock, and the Dome of the Rock
was built by the Khalifa Abdul Malik ibn
Murwan.
The rock was always there and it's actually
a mountain. And so when you're walking up,
you're the highest point of the structure of
the complex is where the dome of the
rock is. Otherwise, you're walking steps up and
you're walking steps down. Is this Am I
You guys able to visualize this? Okay.
So the dome of the rock was built
by the Khalifa Abdul Malik ibn Marwan
and people
mention that the cause of why he did
it are a number of reasons.
If you want to give him a a
more,
you wanna give him basically like a a
better excuse
for why he built the Dome of the
Rock structure?
It is because he looked around and he
saw that
Jerusalem was a city of incredible extravagance.
You heard about
how Abu Ubaid ibn Jalrah commented on the
dress of Umar al Khattab. These were people
who loved finery. They loved extravagance.
And so their churches, until today, if you
go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
you see incredible,
gold,
all sorts of of wealth being
being
being used in the structure of these places.
And so if you have these churches that
are so grandiose
and so much wealth is used to build
them, And then you have a little miskeen
masjid alqibili.
Abdul Malik is like, no.
I want
the Muslims' masjid
to be as charming,
as beautiful,
as
as
as much of a landmark in the city
than any church. And so he built this
beautiful structure, the Dome of the Rock. And
until today,
whether
every anybody, when they think of the image
of Jerusalem,
the trademark image is the Dome of the
Rock. It's not the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher. It's the Dome of the Rock. That
being said, that's one angle.
Another one is
painting Abdul Melek ibn Wadh as more of
like a a shrewd politician.
He had a conflict
and a challenge to the Khalifa
from one of the great companions, Abdullah ibn
Zubair. And Abdullah ibn Zubair's stronghold was in
Mecca.
And Abdullah ibn Zubair has a great advantage.
That advantage is is that Mecca is where
everybody's gonna come once a year for Hajj.
And so he would be able to recruit
people
when they come for Umrah and when they
come for Hajj. And Abdul Malik ibn Moran
does not have that power. He doesn't have
anything that will drive people to Hashem.
In fact, people from Hashem are going to
Mecca and they're getting recruited by Abdul, by
Abdul Ab Nazeir. That's a political problem. And
so what did he do? He built the
Dome of the Rock so that he could
divert people as well to,
to, Hashem.
So that was his political calculus.
In any case, the Dome of the Rock
is built by Abdul Malik ibn Murwan, and
it's a beautiful structure that stands until today.
Now,
what are some of the virtues of?
What are some of the virtues
of?
Number 1, we said that it's blessed. Number
2,
it is a place that has been visited
by the prophets and has been visited by
the companions.
Makes the journey there.
Makes the journey there. Salman al Farisi makes
the journey there. Abu Adar makes the journey
there. Saeed ibn Zaid makes the journey there.
You have Amrib bin al-'Az makes the journey
there. You have Ubad ibn Masamit and Shaddadim,
you also are actually buried there. And when
you go and you visit the Masjids,
right outside there's the Rahma,
grave
cemetery, right outside the Masjid. And you go
and you visit and you see the two
graves of these two companions,
Shaddad ibn Os and Abu Ubaid ibn Osamat.
Now, also, it was the first qiblah of
the Muslims, as you know. What was actually
the qiblah?
When you're in Makkah
I mean, when you're here, you just face
Makkah. But when you're in Makkah, you face
the Kaaba, right? So no matter which side
of the Kaaba you're on, you might be
praying north or south or east or west.
What was actually the in Jerusalem that the
prophet
was praying towards for 13 years, 15 years
actually, 13 years in Mecca, and then another
year and a half in Medina. What was
actually the qiblah? When you're in Jerusalem,
what was actually the qiblah itself? Does anybody
know?
What was the qiblah that Bani prayed
to? Depending on what side they were on.
It's actually the rock.
So the rock is the top of the
mountain, and it's the highest part. And so
depending on where they were, they would pray
towards the rock. That was their qibla.
And it was said that that rock was
because it's the highest part of the mountain,
that is where the was
of Dawood.
And later on that was where the was
of Zakaria alayhis salaam.
So when comes
to
he finds
that the rock had become turned into a
garbage dump because the Christians had already expelled
the Jews
and they are you know, to add insult
to injury, this is what your was and
we've turned it into a we've turned it
into
a a garbage dump. And so Umar
commands for it to be cleans,
and then he asks
his companions,
where should we build the masjid? Where should
we build a Masjid Al Qibil?
And so Kaab ibn Khbar, Kaab al Lahbar
he was, Kaab al Lahbar was a Jewish
rabbi who accepted Islam, and he's a Tabir.
Kaab says to Umar, he says to him,
Ameerul mumineen,
build it behind the rock. Let's build the
Masjid behind the rock, we'll just do it
over there.
Now again, this is Masjid Qibili, the Qibla
is that way.
The rock is behind,
it's this way. So Ka'ab is saying let's
build the Masjid behind the rock.
And what that would mean is that the
Muslims
are praying towards Mecca, but the rock is
still in front of them.
And so, Umar Radiallahu
says
toqab,
he says, You still have some Jewishness in
you.
He says to him, You still have some
Jewishness in you. He says, Umar says, No,
we're gonna build it in front of the
rock.
Umar
sees the fiqh of Umar, he's like, no,
no, Hamas, it's changed now. That's not our
anymore.
Us praying towards the rock now is like
us, you know, still celebrating Saturday. Allah has
replaced our Saturday with Friday,
it's done.
Old
I was gonna
say,
new deen who this. Right? Just completely replacing
the completely replacing the Everything changes now.
No attachment
to what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had previously
ordained because Allah has replaced us with something
that's
better. But, again, the idea of breaking.
It's Mubarak in
the land.
It's the place of the masala of Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Salam. Allah
sent to Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Salam to a
Masjid As Sala. It's where the prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Salam led a 124,000
prophets in prayer. It's the dawah of Musa,
Musa alaihi wasalam. He wandered with Bani Israel
in the desert for 40 years, and then
when death was approaching him, he asked Allah
that he could at least come as close
as a stone's throw away from Jerusalem
so that he could pass away as close
to Jerusalem as possible.
And that was because, as I know you
mentioned, that Musa alaihi salaam asked Allah to
be as close as possible to Jerusalem
because of its virtue and the virtue of
the prophets who are all buried there. And
also it's I mean, there's a lot that
could be said, but
the last thing that I'll mention is that
it is one of the 3 messiah that
the prophet
told us that you're allowed to religiously travel
for. We're not allowed to travel because of
believing in the religious virtue of praying in
any Masjid except for 3, and Masjid Al
Haram and Masjid Al Aqsa and the Masjid
of the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
There's a lot of a hadith that are
weak with regards to the virtue of Al
Masid Al Aqsa,
but something that's really interesting is that the
reason why many authors wrote about the virtues
of a sham, like, he
wrote a book called Tariq Dimashq.
Ibn Taymiyyah also wrote a book on the
virtues of a sham, and the reason why
they did that, ibn Taymiyyah says, the reason
why we did it is to encourage the
people of a sham to stand fast with
the invasion of the Mongols.
That when the Mongols came to a sham,
these scholars,
they wrote these books to remind the people
of a Sham, this land is blessed, this
land is virtuous, this land is the land
of rebat,
stand fast.
And so it's really important
that even in our times, that we also
remind each other that this land
is blessed. This land is important.
This land is a land of rebat, and
it's important that we don't give it up
and that we encourage those who are there
to have patience with the great reward that
Allah
has promised them.
Also, the re the I forgot to mention
that the salah is multiplied.
It is multiplied
in
famously,
it's a 100,000,
it's a 1,000, in An Masjid Al Aqsa,
it's 250. That's the most
authentic narration
that it is 250. And the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said,
He said that it is an excellent musallahu,
because Abu Dharr asked the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, and he said, We were mentioning a
masjid Al Aqsa to the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, and in fact we were asking him,
which Masjid is Afdal, at Masjid in Nabi
or in Masjid Al Aqsa?
The Sahaba are sitting there in Madinah, and
they're debating,
they're reviewing, and they come and they ask
the Prophet which Masjid is better, al Masjidun
Nabi or al Masjidul Aqsa? You know what
that shows you? That shows you that al
Masjid al Aqsa was already
so big in the eyes of the companions.
It was something that was so significant, they
viewed it and what's really amazing,
at least to me always,
is that with all of these virtues and
all of these ahadith that talk about in
Masjid Al Aqsa, Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is
talking about a place that the companions
that wasn't even Muslim yet.
It was not even Muslim.
And yet Rasoolullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is talking
about this place like it is part and
parcel of the Muslim world and that it
is one of
the central arteries
of the Muslim world until the day of
judgment.
He's talking about a sham like he loves
this place.
That until the day of judgment, he says
that it is it is a bastion for
the believers, and it's not even Muslim at
the time. Right? That's incredible prophecy.
And the Sahaba radiAllahu because of how much
they've heard of Masjid Al Aqsa, they're asking
the prophet, they're like, actually which one is
better? Al Masjid Al Nabawi, the one that
you built with your own hands and that
we're all here at, or is it Al
Masjid Al Aqsa? And the Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam says,
salatun
fee masjidhi afdhan min arbaasalatfi
Salatfi. Salat in my Masjid is better than
4 salas there,
and what an excellent musalah it is. And
then he says, and there will come a
time, this is a beautiful idea. He says,
there will come a time when a man
has what is equal to the rope that
you tied down your horse with.
Just that little surface area, however much of
space that takes, that little rope he says
of land
through which they're able to see Al Masdul
Aqsa is better for them than the world
and everything in it.
For a person to have like one single
square foot of land in Jerusalem
through which they're able to see Al Masdid
Al Aqsa will be more beloved to them
than the world and everything in it.
And we saw that,
when we went to Al Quds,
every time we went to Al Quds, we
saw this hadith
manifested. Did we not?
We saw people
who are offered 1,000,000 of dollars to sell
their cafes like Abu Khadija.
$30,000,000 he's offered
and a and a visa to go anywhere.
He's got a little cafe. He doesn't even
he doesn't even have a permit to sell
lunch, to sell dinner. He sells breakfast items
and that's it. He's not allowed to sell
anything else. And he's buried in debt, and
he's buried in in taxes, and he's buried
in in
fines
and he's like, no. I'm not selling.
I'm not selling.
He's got a little little store
but it's more beloved to him than the
world and everything in it. $30,000,000?
No, I'm not interested.
We meet
a gentleman
who
literally has a practice
in the United States that's worth like
$30,000,000
or more.
And he was telling us
that he instead moved from the US
and was living in a 1 bedroom apartment
in Jerusalem.
He didn't have a permit to live in
Jerusalem. His wife had a permit to live
in Jerusalem.
And so she would bring him to Al
Quds
in the trunk of her car.
This guy would be living in mansions in
the US.
But that one square foot
through which you're able to see Al Masjid
Al Aqsa is more beloved to them. That
one bedroom apartment
is better than villas in the United States.
I'd rather be
brought
to and fro
in the trunk of my wife's car.
But I get to see Al Masjid Al
Aqsa.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's prophecy is true.
The Fadl of Salaf in, Masjid Al Afsa,
I guess there's a beautiful hadith Rasulullah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam tells us in the hadith is
in Ibn Majah. He says that when Suleyman
completed building in Masjid Al Aqsa, and Suleyman
was not the first person to build in
Masjid Al Aqsa, Abu Dharr Radiallahu Alaihi Wasallam
who asked the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam which
Masjid was built first? He said a masjid
al Haram. He said what masjid was built
after that? He said, and masjid al Aqsa.
He said, what's the difference between them? He
said 40 years.
And so Allah knows best. There's difference of
opinion who was the first builder of a
Masjid Al Haram and who was the first
builder of a Masjid Al Aqsa. Was it
the angels? And Allah
knows best it was Adam that Adam built
both of them, and between them was the
period of 40 years. And Ibrahim simply
rebuilt
the Kaaba and Suleyman rebuilt and Masjid Al
Aqsa. But the prophet
tells us that when Suleyman rebuilt and Masjid
Al Aqsa,
when he completed, he asked Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala for 3 things.
First thing, he said was,
judgment on earth that was harmonious with Allah's
judgment on in the heavens.
That Suleyman's judgment be razor sharp, that it
be correct. His judgment on earth be
incongruence with Allah's judgment in the heavens. Number
2 is
He asked Allah
for a kingdom, the life that which nobody
would ever have after him. And number 3,
he said that
nobody comes to Al Masdid Al Aqsa intending
to pray in it except that they leave
with their sins being forgiven.
And then Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasalam said, as
for the first two he was given and
I hope that he was given the third.
I hope that he was given the third.
Now near the end of times, the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he was asked by
Ibn Hawa'ra.
Salallahu alaihi wasallam said, there will come a
time when there will be soldiers
in Iraq, there will be soldiers in Assham,
and there will be soldiers in Yemen.
So, Ibn Hawala said, You Rasoolullah choose for
me, which one should I be a part
of? Should I be a part of the
army in Iraq, the army of Yemen or
the army of a sham? And the prophet
said He said go to Hashem because it
is the chosen place from Allah
in which
Allah gathers the chosen one from his servants.
But he says, if you refuse,
then go to your Yemen. Go to Yemenikum
and eat from its ponds. Eat from its
not ponds, eat from its pools. Eat from
the pools drink, not drink, eat, but drink.
Drink from the pools of Yemen because Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has entrusted to me, Hashem
and its people. Allah will take care of
Hashem and its people. So the prophet
is encouraging people to go to a sham
to be part of that. That being said,
there's an important concept with regards to the
the the end of days.
And that is a person does not try
to
impose their reality
on the actual texts.
So I don't look at the map right
now and say, okay, I see that there
are soldiers in Ashham, and I definitely see
that there are soldiers in Yemen. So this
must be that there are soldiers in Al
Arak right now that we're looking for. You
don't try to create these scenarios.
These are events that are going to happen,
yes, but they're not initiated. And anytime people
try to initiate these types of events, it
ends up having disastrous consequences.
Like, one day, inshallah, we'll ask Sheikh or
Sheikh Hamad or any one of them to
tell the story of Juhieman.
This was a person who tried to claim
him he was the Mahdi, and you can
look up the story on YouTube. In 1979,
and they tried to take over the Kaaba.
And they tried to to they tried to
they tried to create these events. And, obviously,
he wasn't the Mahdi and it ended up
being a a complete massacre and disaster.
So,
the last thing that, I'll I'll mention is
the famous hadith of the prophet
Well, two things. Number 1, Rasulullah
says
He said if the people of Hashem become
corrupt, then there is no goodness in you.
So the people of Hashem are actually a
metric for the righteousness of the ummah. Now
does that mean that in every time and
place that the people of Hashem are going
to be perfect and the most righteous and
all that type of stuff? No. That's not
what it means.
But it does mean that over the period
of the ummah,
1400 years, that the people of Asham are
always going to be
like over the entire duration, they're always going
to be of the best of this umma.
And if you look at the events of
this ummah, whether we're talking about the amount
of scholars that came after a sham or
whether you look at the
disasters that were stopped in Hashem.
The crusaders were stopped in Hashem.
The mongols were stopped in Hashem. Sayfadin Qutuz
in the battle of Anjarut. That was in
Palestine.
That is where
the the
the ravaging of the mongols of the entire
ummah, it came to stop at Anjadut in
Palestine.
Right? So that's where
you have these moments.
But also,
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
says, that there will never stop
being a group from my ummah.
They will be apparent upon the truth.
They will not be harmed by those who
forsake them,
nor those who betray them,
or those who go against them. They will
be apparent upon the truth.
And they said, they are in, and he
said, they are in Beitul Maqdis wa'aknaf Beitul
Maqdis. They are in Jerusalem
and in the surrounding areas of Jerusalem. So
there will always be a community from the
believers
in that region that are apparent upon the
truth. If the whole world forsakes them, that
won't change them.
If the whole world goes against them, that
won't change them. They'll be apparent upon that
truth. And so it's really important for the
ummah
that we look and we see who are
these people,
what is their
belief like,
what is their worship like, What is their,
I have a beautiful friend of mine
who recently went on a medical trip
to
Gaza.
And when he came back,
he said,
you know,
he said the people in Gaza were telling
him, he said, because he went to Medina
right after, and he went to Mecca to
do Umrah.
And they told him, they said, Oh, you're
going to Mecca? They said to him, they
said, You know, Mecca is the land of
Ibadah.
And they said,
and Uzza is the land of Shahada.
So he said, you know,
Mecca is the place of worship and
Asham or Palestine is the place of shahada.
But he said to us, he said, you
know, even though there's a lot of shahada
there, he said there's a lot of Ibadah
there too. And he started describing to us
the Ibadah of the people that he saw.
A man whose legs are amputated
being brought into the, you know, and he's,
praying.
You know, his tongue is is continues to
be moist with
the People are waking up in the freezing
cold. And I remember going to Palestine a
couple of years ago in March,
and what I remember
is how
cold it was. I could not purchase enough
layers of clothes
for the
cold. And even the cold has there. It
was incredible.
And yet you're seeing now we're in March
or in April now. I mean, they just
went through those incredible,
you know, temperatures there.
And he's telling us, like, this man wakes
up every morning,
and they're trying to find water. They're making
wudu with whatever water is available. And every
morning nonstop, he's waking up the youth in
these camps
nonstop.
Right? So
in any case, the prophet what is their
like? You learned. What is their like? What
is their attachment to the dunya like? What
is their belief in Allah
look like? Their tawakkul in Allah
look like?
You learn from that.
What is their
their
their,
their,
forgiveness of the Ummah like? You know, I
heard this from Gaza a couple of days
ago.
It was a heartbreaking, you know, the dua
that they're making in
And one of them, and I'll end with
this, but what the one of the things
that the guy was saying, he was saying,
You know that verse from Surat,
what Surat is that?
Al Hashar. Okay. Yeah. It's in Surat Al
Hashar. So he's saying, oh Allah, do not
make in our hearts
animosity, hatred towards the believers.
And generally this is being said about, you
know, the people of the past
but I can't imagine
or I can imagine very easily how disappointed
the people of Gaza are in the entire
Muslim world.
Right? And I could
imagine that disappointment turning into hatred.
Like,
look at look at 1,600,000,000
people, and they can't stop us from being
slaughtered like cattle.
Don't make us have any rancor in our
hearts
for those who have believed.
Right? So what is their forgiveness look like?
What is their imam look like? All of
that is something to be studied. May Allah
allow us to see
free and unoccupied
and all of
May Allah unite our hearts and unite our
words and and make us of those who
support,
bringing relief to our brothers and sisters and
not make us of those who forsake them.