Asim Khan – Prophetic Reflections
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the life of the prophet sallua Alaihi wa Sallam, including his pre prophethood, his second stage, and his importance in learning from his grandfather's leadership and leaveners. The importance of patience, discipline, and showering one's own family is emphasized, as it is crucial for success in difficult situations. The speaker also discusses the history of Islam, including the fall of the prophet sallali Alaihi wa Sallam and the first migration of Muslims to Makkah, and the importance of accepting Islam and not letting anyone do it. The speaker also asks for questions and offers prizes.
AI: Summary ©
Lovely to be back with you all after,
it seems like, a few years now. May
Allah forgive me.
But we have a wonderful opportunity to share
some time speaking about our beloved
Muhammad and Abdullah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam.
And what I wanted to do, because I
know you have
a whole weekend dedicated to Sira,
is to try to summarize
the entire life
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
In a way that by the end of
it,
you can see all the major things that
happened to him in his life in the
order that they happened,
and also leave with an understanding and appreciation
of his struggle,
his mission,
and
all the ups and downs
that he
experienced along the way.
And I would like to begin with the
verse of the Quran.
A verse I'm sure many of you have
heard before, and it's repeated in the Quran
as well.
Allah says,
in the messenger of Allah
you have the
perfect example
for those
who hope in Allah,
and the hereafter,
and who remember Allah a lot.
May Allah make us from those people.
And this verse
is actually telling us that we are obliged
by Allah
to learn about the life of the prophet
We are obliged to.
And the wording that Allah used, he didn't
say, Muslims, you must learn about his life.
He said, he is the perfect example.
And the rest we should be able to
understand
that if he is the perfect example, then
he is the one we should learn about
because if we don't know about him, how
can we follow him?
And the wording is woe in Arabic.
Translates
as great example, beautiful example.
It has so much meaning because the word
in Arabic means the object of imitation.
It's the thing that somebody looks up to
with love and respect, but also says to
themselves, I would like to be like that.
Now today,
who do people like to be like?
Sports stars,
celebrities,
influencers,
they like them
and they want to be like them.
And in this verse, Allah the Almighty is
saying, you know, the one person you should
want to be like and imitate and copy
is Muhammad And his is
Hasina,
meaning it is beautiful.
It is the best.
And so, if you believe that he is
the best example,
then why is it that today many Muslims
have very little knowledge about the life of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam? Why is it
that we cannot name
his closest and dearest family members? The names
of his children, the name of his best
friends.
How come we do not
know the major battles that he experienced in
his life? How come we do not know
the age in which he became a prophet?
The age in which he died, how long
he struggled in his mission? Why don't we
know these things readily
like we know the names of every member
of the favorite football team that we support.
Why is there a disconnect there?
Surely we don't love football stars
the amount that we love the prophet right?
But if that is the case, then how
come we know more about those people than
we do about this man?
So in that vein, I thought it would
be a good idea to share with
you a summary of the whole life of
the prophet so
you can kinda capture it in your mind,
and then you can build on that. When
you now hear this happened to him, you
can be like, oh, that happened at this
time in his life where this was going
on.
And inshallah, that will deepen your love
and respect for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So the way we can break down his
life is in 3 stages. The first is
pre prophethood.
The second is
in prophethood in 2 stages.
The first stage is the buckan era,
and the last stage is the Medina era.
Now if you go to pre prophethood,
that is from the time he was born
up until
the year that he becomes a prophet. And
what year is that in his life?
How old was he?
40 years old. So 40 years old, that
is the first
stage in his life. 1 from birth to
40.
Then the second stage is the Makkan era
where he struggled as a prophet in
Makkal Mookarama,
and that lasted for how many years?
How many years?
13 years.
So this information that you should know like
that.
13 years he struggled in Makkal Mukarama,
before he was forced to leave and he
migrated to the Madin al Munawara,
where he spent the rest of his life
until he passed away. And how many years
did the Madinan era last for?
About 10 years.
Yes, 10 years. So he becomes a prophet
at the age of 40 and he passes
away at the age of
63.
Yes, 63.
So his mission
as a prophet lasted for 23 years.
23 years. Before we get to that, let
us go back in time
and think about what life was like when
he was born and as a child.
So the prophet was born in the year
5/70.
And they marked that year
because of a miraculous event that took place,
and they called it the year of the.
And the reason being is because
some people came to attack the Kaaba,
and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, through divine intervention,
he saved Makkah from attack by sending
birds that pelted those armies
and kept them protected.
Many people think that that incident
was there to protect the people of the
Quraysh who lived in Makkah, but in reality
it wasn't.
It was to protect an unborn child
who was going to be born that year.
And you wanna guess who's that child was?
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Had the armies attacked and were successful, most
probably
his mother, Amina, would have been killed, in
which case the prophet would never have been
born. Allah had decreed that he would be
born
and so protected
Also Allah protected
the Kaaba, the house,
the place of worship was built Ibrahim alaihis
salam.
And so in that year he was born.
However, Allah decreed that he would have a
very difficult childhood. His father passes away before
he's even born. The prophet
never got to see his father.
He was an
orphan.
And for 6 years,
his mother,
looked after him.
You imagine what it's like growing up
as as being as not having a father.
Many people
in our community
grow up without with just one parent. We
know the difficulties.
But in those days in Arabia,
it was worse because an orphan usually was
subject to abuse,
subject
to discrimination
because that's the way people treated
orphans at that time.
And at the age of 6, the prophet
was taken on a trip to a place
called Yathrib,
which is the former name
of the city Madinah.
And his mother took him there because she
had family there.
She had family there, and the person went
there as a child, 6 years old, he
got to see some of his relatives, he
got to see this city for the first
time, not knowing
that in many years time he would come
back to this place
as a prophet of Allah, and as a
leader of the people. He didn't know that
at the time.
And on the way back from that journey,
Allah decreed that his mother would pass away,
in a place called Abu'a.
And that again was a traumatic incident where
he had to see the death of his
own mother at the age of 6. Now
he has no father or mother.
And one hadith in Sahih Muslim, in many
years later the person would return to Abu'a,
and he would always get off his camel,
and he would go to the grave of
his mother, and he would make dua.
This is before Allah the Almighty
had told him that we cannot make dua
for those who have died upon other than
Islam. And in one narration,
after making dua,
his companions saw him crying
and they said, You Rasool Allah, what makes
you cry?
And he said, just now I made dua
to grant
to my mother, and he declined.
And I pray that these tears that I
shed now
will be of some use to her in
the hereafter.
So he's a grown man now,
and he's still living with the trauma of
losing his mother.
So at the age of 6, he's now
got no father, no mother. Who looks after
him? His
grandfather.
Allah decreed that the prophet will be born
into the most prestigious
tribe in the whole of Mecca,
and that was Banu Hashim. And so his
grandfather, al Muhtaliib, was not an ordinary person,
he was actually the chief
and the leader of the people of
Quraish.
And so his grandfather looked after him.
In those early years, he's now 7, 8
years old, the person would often like to
sit with his grandfather,
who used to be sitting in the shade
of the Kaaba, dealing with the affairs of
the people. So you can imagine a leader,
like a king.
And people would come, present their need, sometimes
they would come and present an argument to
dispute,
and
would would try to judge between people,
would try to settle the issues,
dispense justice in whichever form that was existing
at
that time. And the prophet as a young
boy would sit and observe his grandfather. And
Abdul Muttalib loved the prophet
more than any of his other grandchildren. In
one narration,
used to have like
a special mat that they used to put
out. It was the equivalent of a throne
for a king in Arabia.
And no one was allowed to sit on
that mat
except Abdul Muttalib.
But he made an exception for one person,
and that was Muhammad
And
I want you to pause here and I
want you to think.
All these things that happened to him, like
his grandfather taking care of him, and him
being a leader of the Quraysh, and the
Prophet observing him,
Was that just a coincidence or was that
something Allah had planned? Of course, it was
something Allah had planned.
In fact, Allah had planned
that he would learn from his grandfather
leadership skills.
He'll see his grandfather in the position of
a leader and learn from him,
not knowing that one day the prophet himself
would become a leader.
All part of Allah's plan. But after 2
years,
his grandfather passes away.
How old is the person now?
Who's following?
He's 8 years old now.
Yes. His mother passed away at 6.
2 years, Abdul Muttalib
takes after him, and then even his grandfather
passed away. And I imagine his his father's
passed away, his mother passed away, and now
his grandfather passes away.
He's being brought up by different people.
Now it will come to his uncle,
Abu Talib,
who would become like his father figure, and
he would look after him until he would
become an adult.
After some time, Abu Talib fell into
financial difficulties
and himself had many children.
One of them was
the cousin of the prophet as salam, a
young a young boy.
And so the prophet as salam
had to look for a job
to support his uncle Abu Talib. And his
first job was what?
As a
shepherd.
As a teenager working as a shepherd, I
want you to imagine what type of job
is this. It's not an easy job,
working in the sweltering heat of the desert,
looking after sheep,
making sure they don't get eaten by a
wolf,
long hours,
pay is very little.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had decreed that he
would work as a shepherd. In fact, the
prophet would say,
many of the prophets
used to work as shepherds.
And again you're thinking why did Allah decree
for him to do this job, out of
all the jobs?
Well think about this, when you are working
as a shepherd,
there's many skills you need to have. One
of them is patience,
right?
Looking after a herd of sheep, patience.
Also,
you need to have vigilance
to be able to spot dangers
in the desert, and the wolf coming to
devour some of your sheep.
Another skill.
More skills.
As a shepherd,
you would need to have what? Not just
patience,
but you need to have discipline.
You don't give up easily.
You have strong determination.
Every single day, hard work at the crack
of dawn until
dusk.
All of this, Allah was teaching the person
why one day he will need it.
He will need it later on, he doesn't
know that.
Then the person become becomes
a little bit older,
and he changes his job, and he becomes
a merchant, a trader, a businessman.
And he starts to travel to faraway places
like Sham,
seeing the world, seeing other communities like the
Christian community of the Byzantine Empire.
He's learning about things.
Now he's the age to get married.
Some say he's 25 years old. And it
so happened he's working for a wealthy woman,
trading on her behalf,
and the proposal comes.
And in one narration, subhanAllah,
when the person was told that there is
a woman, wealthy,
of a good social status, wanting to get
married to you, his first reaction was who
would want to marry me? I'm just an
orphan, subhanallah.
So humble. Humbled by his beginnings.
When he was told it was
his uncle
said this is a good match.
And when they got married,
everyone in Mecca celebrated. They were like the
power couple. Everyone would admire them.
He, from Banu Hashim and Khateja, from a
noble lineage and a wise woman,
they were seen as
a beacon of joy in
And everyone
by that time respected
and loved the prophet They would call him
the honest man,
trustworthy.
People go away, they would give their belongings
to the prophet,
look after them.
So he's respected, he's loved,
he has a position
in society.
Again, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is paving the way for his prophecy.
Because he has a social status,
because he has nobility, people will listen to
him. He's not just an anybody, he's somebody
of great nobility amongst us.
Paving the way.
So after he gets married, he has many
children.
In total, he has 6 children.
He has actually 3 sons at that time
as well.
Unfortunately,
all of his children would pass away except
for one of his daughters,
and that was who?
Fatima
And I want you to think about that.
A parent
suffering the loss of their own child, having
to bury their child is one of the
most traumatic things anyone could go through. We
ask Allah's protection from that. But the person
had to go through that multiple times, child
after child,
but he enjoyed it.
He became
somebody who was
developing
patience and perseverance
until Allah decreed that the age of 40,
he would now become a prophet.
And his wife Aisha
said,
before he became a prophet, there were strange
things that started to happen to him. He
would walk and he would hear
a sound of a greeting that he thought
was coming from a rock or a tree.
And she said he started to love to
be alone.
Seclusion became beloved to him. And at that
time, he would ask his wife Khadija to
pack him some food and supplies. He would
climb up a mountain
and enter inside a cave known as the,
which I'm sure many of you have seen
and been up.
And they would spend as much time as
his supplies would allow
for He
was worshiping in that state,
meditating in that state. What was happening to
him?
He was going through a change.
And the thing that was changing inside of
him was this yearning
to want
guidance.
When he looked at his people at the
age of 40, he saw
idol worship,
paganism,
superstition,
killing of daughters.
He saw injustice, but he didn't know how
to change that. He didn't know what the
right way was to live your life, but
he knew it wasn't this.
He knew it wasn't worshiping idols.
As Allah says in surah,
we found you
which can be translated as
wanting guidance.
Lost, meaning you're seeking guidance.
Then we guided you.
This is about the point where the person
is made into a messenger of Allah. In
that cave, Jibril visited him. We all know
the story. He told him to read, he
said,
I'm not of those who can read, and
he squeezed him 3 times. So hard.
He said.
To this point that I thought I was
going to pass out.
And some of the scholars of seerah, they
say, one of the wisdoms behind jibreel alaihis
salam squeezing the person so hard,
like making it so difficult,
was in order to show him
that what is coming in your life is
gonna be very difficult.
And you're gonna need to be prepared,
and it's gonna be tough, and you're going
to need to be
strong and resilient.
When he becomes a prophet, and Dibreel reveals
to him the first five verses,
Initially the person did not know what that
meant.
He came home, we know the story,
cover me up, cover me up. He said
to
his,
I'm scared for myself. I don't know what's
happened to me. He thought like a jinn
had possessed him. He thought he had gone
mad. What is what is this angel coming
to me and telling me I'm a prophet?
What are these words? What is what is
his command to read? And then she took
him to her cousin, Warakah, who explained that
was the same angel that visited Musa alaihis
salam. You become a prophet.
And then he said,
I pray that Allah gives me life so
I can be by your side when your
people turn against you.
And he said, they will turn against me?
He could not imagine
these people of Mecca who loved him who
called him as Sadiq Al Amin, who trusted
him, would turn against him.
But for sure, 13 years later,
they were trying to kill him, and he
had to run for his life and move
to Madinah al Munawwara.
And so now we move into the second
stage,
which is the Maqan era.
In the beginning,
the prophet alaihis salatu waslam, he did not
preach publicly.
For 3 years in fact,
he continued to call people individually
that he knew and trusted.
And even after 3 years, though there were
a number of Muslims that had embraced Islam
and joined the mission of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
he still would tell people, we are not
going to go public yet. In fact, there's
an interesting story of Ibn Mus'ud.
Ibn Mus'ud
came from a very,
like a lowly tribe, wasn't a person of
prestige or nobility.
He became a Muslim,
and he came to the prophet he said,
should we not now
preach openly?
Allow me to go out there and preach
openly.
And the prophet said, do you not know
how many we are?
Meaning we have so few people amongst us.
It's not the right time. And some scholars
say there were only 80 Muslims at that
stage.
Ibn Mas'ud
one day was sitting next to the Kaaba
and there was a time of the day
where people used to come and sit down,
relax, and chill out.
So there was a moment when he saw
some of the noble people from the quray
sitting down,
and he said to himself,
you know what, it would be a good
idea if someone were to recite Quran to
these people.
So he went to some of his friends
and he said to them, what do you
think about this idea if I stood up
at the Kaaba and recited some Quran to
people? They said,
don't do that.
Do not do Especially you. You don't have
a family to back you up, you should
not do this.
And miss Oud didn't listen to them.
When he saw the opportunity come around again,
he stood up and he started to recite
from Surah Al Rahman.
As a reciting, commotion begins. People start looking.
What's this guy talking about?
At that stage, people knew about
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. They knew about
his new message, but they
accommodated him because he was being private. He
wasn't, like, you know, from their perspective, putting
it in their faces.
But they knew that this man is now
taking his message public and they didn't like
that. They surrounded him and then a mob
gathered
and they closed in on him and they
started to beat him up. They
battered him up in fact
to the point that he was bloodied.
And somebody came and said that's enough.
Idris Rood went back to his friends who
he initially said and asked should I do
what I'm gonna do and they said no.
And he said look, this is what happened
to me.
And they said, well what did we tell
you? We told you don't do this.
He said, today,
the quaysh are more lowly in my eyes
than ever before.
I'm prepared to do this all over again.
I'm prepared to do this all over again.
Such was the sacrifice of the companions.
But the time wasn't right, the prophet wasalam
was waiting until Allah ordered him, now you
should take your call public.
And this again teaches us about wisdom.
Why 3 years private?
Well because in the beginning, it's a very
sensitive volatile situation. You don't wanna be bringing
about heat for no reason.
Speak to the people you trust the most.
Bring them in. Make an inner circle. Make
a team.
Then collectively you can take the message forward.
That's what happened in 3 years. The person
managed to galvanize
a small
band of followers
that were loyal to him.
And then Allah commanded him, now go out
then publicly
announce the call. And we know the story.
This began where the prophet,
he climbed on top of Mount Safa,
and he started to call out to all
the families, all the tribes of the Quraysh,
come out. I have a message. I have
a message. And when they gathered,
he said to them,
if I were to tell you that behind
this mountain is an army ready to attack
you, would you not believe me?
They said yes, of course. He said I
inform you of a worse danger than this,
and that is
destruction is coming
if you do not change your ways and
worship Allah alone.
When he said that,
his own uncle Abu Lahab
said those infamous words.
Muhammad.
May you perish, oh Muhammad.
He insulted him.
And because he was a chief himself,
when he started to shut down the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam, everybody else joined in
as well, and they all turned around and
left him up there, all by himself.
The prophet
realized then this is not going to be
easy.
Then many years came openly preaching.
Some people converted, many turned against him. Now
people became enemies,
and they tried to think about ways to
put him down.
They would try to just They would try
to,
they would try to label him. They count
with different labels. They said, he's crazy, he's
a madman.
Others said, no, no, he's not crazy, he's
a magician.
Others said, he's not a magician, he's a
fortune teller.
Why did they do this?
Because they couldn't really explain
the words that he was saying.
These words, this revelation that he recites,
these are beautiful words, eloquent words. Who is
teaching him these things?
They tried to explain it away. It cannot
be the word of Allah, it must be
something else. It is magic.
He's a soothsayer.
And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
found increasing levels of hatred, and his followers
were bearing the brunt of that. Now torture
began.
And it got to a point where the
prophet
said we need to take action,
and he instructed some of his followers to
make hijrah.
And the first migration happened to where?
Abyssinia.
That is the first migration, a small band
went and then a larger band went, and
they,
the prophet told him, there there will be
a king who is just, a Christian man,
Najashi.
And there some of the Muslims migrated and
they lived.
But the Quraysh, they weren't happy about that.
They wanted to try and undermine them and
bring them back so they could punish them.
There's an interesting story of who
is the cousin of the prophet the brother
of Ali.
He was the leader of the Muslims
in Abyssinia.
When the quaysh came,
they start to insinuate things. They said to
the do you know these people?
They say that Jesus Christ is not the
son of god.
Don't you find that outrageous and you're giving
them a home?
Najashi,
he called the Muslims into his court. He
called the Quraish
2 men, one of them
and he said, these people tell me
that you do not believe in alisa alaihis
salam.
What do you say about this? And I
want you to imagine how sensitive the situation
is. If
comes forward and says, Yeah, we don't believe
he's a son of God like you do,
The consequence could be, Okay, well, this is
outrageous and blasphemous.
Take your people, go back to Mecca. And
then you know what's going to happen to
them there, right?
On the other side, he could, somebody may
say,
dilute things a little bit.
Be, evasive.
Make it out as though they do believe
the same as the Christians,
and then you'll be trouble with Allah.
What does jafar do?
Jafar
he says,
we believe in a'is alaihis salam.
We believe that he was born a miraculous
birth.
We believe that he was able to cure
the leper,
give sight to the blind,
raise the dead
by the permission of Allah,
and then he started to recite Surat Maryam.
And as he reciting Surat Maryam,
it became so emotional for
that he began to cry and he said,
stop.
There was a a
a twig on the ground. He picked it
up, and he had 2 branches. He said
the difference between me
and these people is the difference between these
two branches on this twig. I will never
give up these people.
Go back to
the go back to Mecca.
Wisdom.
Wisdom, they were taught by who?
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So after the first migration, the remaining Muslims
are in Makkah, things become
increasing different. Year after year, year after, there
was a boycott. The Quraysh got so fed
up.
And here it's interesting because many of the
Quraysh, the leaders like Abu Jahl and others,
they wanted to kill the prophet as salam.
They wanted to get rid of him, but
they couldn't.
One of the reasons was because of his
uncle Abu Talib. Remember him?
Like a father figure, his guardian, but also
a chief of Banu Hashim.
And so an attack on a member of
Banu Hashim was like an attack on Banu
Hashim themselves
and many of them are not muslims And
one of them is Abu Talib, who is
not a Muslim.
And so because of Abu Talib standing in
the middle, they couldn't
get rid of the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam. They couldn't do what they really wanted
to do. But what happened in the 10th
year of his mission?
The 10th year is known as the year
of sadness,
because tragedy struck.
Three things happened.
Number 1, the person lost his uncle Abu
Talib,
which meant that the Quraysh
had no one stopping them anymore. They could
do exactly what they wanted to do. No
one was there to stop them. But that
wasn't the saddest thing for the person. The
saddest thing for the person was what? That
Abu Talib died
as
a.
And we know it killed the person because
Allah the almighty said in the Quran, revelation,
You cannot guide who you love.
We guide whoever we wish.
I know you love him, and I know
you were desperate for him to become a
Muslim,
but guidance is in the hand of Allah.
So then Abu Tali passes away, and now
there's trouble, big time.
On top of that, his wife Khateja.
His beloved wife, the mother of his children,
his first and strongest companion, she passes away
as well,
When she passes away, he loses an important
figure in his life,
his rock, his companion.
He has to look after his children by
himself.
Subhanallah.
And thirdly,
as a consequence of the first two, the
prophet thought of a drastic
action to take. What can I do now?
My followers are gonna be killed.
He goes to Taif, a neighboring city, in
search of support.
There he's turned away,
ridiculed.
And we know the story.
They got the people in the street to
pelt him with stones until
blood trickled down his legs and made his
feet
stick to his sandals because of the blood.
And that year was the most difficult year
of his entire life.
Tragedy after tragedy.
But subhanAllah had a way to lift his
spirit.
Allah had a way
to make him feel
as though he was on top of the
world.
Because in the 11th year, what happened?
The miraculous night journey.
When the person was at his lowest,
Allah took him to the highest.
He was taken on a journey from
to Jerusalem,
Baytul Maqdis.
And
there, given the honor to lead all of
the prophets in
Allah was showing him, you are a small
person.
You are the leader of not just these
people, you are the leader of you are
the leader of all of the messengers.
And then Allah raised him up
to the heavens.
Allah says,
to the lote tree of the furthest most
distance. A place that jibreel alaihis salam said,
I cannot go past this place.
I don't have access to beyond this place.
And yet the prophet was told, go ahead.
And there Allah
spoke to the prophet
and revealed to him
the 5 daily prayers which came as 50
and reduced to 5.
Honor,
on top of honor.
Revitalizing
his spirits, recharging the prophet shalom,
And then what happened is the prophet
he kept thinking, what is the next move?
I need to reach out beyond
Makkah. And so at the time of Hajj
where people would come to perform the jahili
version of Hajj because they still used to
follow,
the remnants of Ibrahim alaihi salam's tradition, but
they add to it. One of them was
they would do a hajj.
So people would come from all over Arabia,
and the person would go to the sites
of
Hajj and speak to the people, give them
dawah. And it was there that he spoke
to some people from a faraway city known
as
until some people listened to him. And what
was happening in Yathrib at the time is
that there was almost like a civil war.
There were 2 tribes,
Aus and Khazarij,
constantly at war with one another looking for
a leader,
wanting a leader to bring peace and stability
to their city.
And when they met the prophet
they thought this is the man.
This is the man. They went back and
they told their people, and then
the next Hajj,
many of them come. 80 in fact. And
they haven't just come to see him, they've
come to give him a pledge of allegiance,
The first year and then the second time,
and then they said now you must come
with us.
Your home is no longer here. Come with
us to live amongst us, be our leader.
Accepting they accepted Islam and they invited him.
The prophet waited for Allah to give him
the sign that he can now migrate. Before
that he told his followers, migrate, migrate.
They left Makkah, they went to Madinah.
And then Allah subhanahu told the person, now
it is your turn.
One of the last to leave Mecca, and
he left with his best friend who is
Abu Bakr as Siddiq.
It is amazing how close they were. From
the age of 15,
the prophetess of Abu Bakr were best friends.
So he started
as his best friend,
then
becomes one of his first companions,
and
then will have the joy of having his
daughter
marry the prophet so he becomes his
father-in-law as well.
Best friend,
companion,
father-in-law, Allahu Akbar.
He was the only one who got to
go on the hijrah with the prophet salam.
And his daughter Aisha, who was young at
the time, she says, I remember
the afternoon that the person came to our
home knocking at a strange time, and my
father realized something is about to happen.
And the prophet he came inside and he
said, who is home?
Security check.
He said, it is just my daughter Aisha.
He sat down and he said,
would you like to accompany me?
And Abu Bakr said,
to accompany
on the journey? Me? And
said, I never knew a man could cry
out of joy until I saw my father
crying when the person said, come with me
to Madinah.
They went on that journey, a difficult journey
leaving on the cover of the night when
the assassins had come to kill the prophet
to
start the next stage, the final stage,
the Madinan era.
Now the prophet
arrives at Madinah,
and the first thing he does
is he gives a speech,
and he says amazing simple words.
Spread peace.
Give
to everyone.
Feed poor people.
Pray at night,
and enjoy your time in paradise. Allahu akbar.
What do you say? Spread the salam,
feed the poor,
pray at night,
and enjoy your time in paradise. Allahu Akbar.
He was establishing
the bonds of faith in the new community.
He said my followers who come from Mecca,
I will make them brothers to my followers
that are here in Madinah. You are my
ansar.
They are the be
brothers to one another.
People started sharing their homes with one another.
People started sharing their businesses with one another.
And the Muslim community
was now established
no longer a minority
suffering discrimination but an independent community.
And the prophet for the first time becomes
a leader.
Not everyone in Medina was happy though.
There were the Jewish tribes, 3 of them.
They weren't that happy that this man, Muhammad
salallahu alaihi wa sallam, who's claiming to be
a prophet, had arrived.
But they accepted it in the beginning.
Then there were other people.
In particular one man
who was very jealous of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
because he felt that the person had taken
his spot. Does anyone know who this man
is?
Yes?
Abdullah ibn Ubay.
Before the person came,
Abdullah
ibn
Ubay
had been promised to be made the king
of Yathrib.
He had been trying to be a diplomat
for many years, score favor with the and
and
build for himself that position of leadership. And
he was almost there,
but the decree of Allah came and the
prophet arrived
on the scene and the people saw the
truth and they said, no, he's the leader.
And what happened is that Abdul Al Nubei,
he thought he was smart. He thought, you
know what? Instead of
resisting him openly, I will become a hypocrite
and secretly work to his demise,
try to get rid of him somehow.
So they were now different enemies. You have
the Quraysian Makkah.
You have some of the Jewish tribes in
Medina.
And then you have the who
are a cancer from within.
All these new struggles that the person would
have to face.
He he spent time establishing the community. He
built the masjid. He made the brotherhood ties.
And in the 2nd year,
the prophet, he said, decided that we need
to have some military engagements with our enemies
in the Quraysh
who've been
who've been hounding us, who've been stealing from
us, who've been taking our belongings. People that
left from Makkah, their homes were ransacked, all
their belongings were taken, and they were being
sold off. The prophet said, now we should
attack their caravans because their caravans come from
Makkah past Madinah, which was the new name
of the city now, and going to Sham.
And they attempted many,
many
military,
encounters with the Quraysh, but they were not
successful until
they decide to meet them at a place
known as Badr, where there are some wells.
And they went out as a small band
of 313
followers
just to ambush some of the caravans that
were supposedly carrying
the belongings of the Muslims.
And Abu Sufyan,
who was leading the Quran found out, and
what happened is that it transpired into an
out full out war
where the prophet's
313
soldiers, companions had to go to war with
the Quraysh who were numbering a 1,000 because
they called for reinforcements.
And that
is,
the day of distinction.
Where even though they were outnumbered, Allah
supported the prophet
and gave him a decisive
victory.
And after that,
there were many years where there was
open warfare with the Quraish.
After Badr, the Quraish had sworn to go
to war with the Muslims.
And so after Badr, the victory came, there
were many battles that happened afterwards.
The next one was Uhud in the 3rd
Hijri year which was not a victory for
the Muslims. And then after that, in the
5th Hijri year, there was the battle of
the trenches where the Quraish
thought that, you know what, we can do
better than we did in Uhud. We will
annihilate them. They gathered loads of alliances, and
they came with an army of 10,000 to
try to wipe out the Muslims. But the
Muslims had a plan to defend themselves, and
Allah supported them, and the Quraish left
in misery.
And then something happened.
In the 6th Israel year, something known as
a Treaty of Hudaybiyyah took place, which was
a blessing in disguise. The person went for.
And by the way, any arab in the
peninsula could go to Mecca and perform their
umra. And so the person said to me,
he decided we will go for umra, he
saw a dream,
and we will see what the Quraysh do.
If they allow us, we will do our
If not, then we will we will see.
We are not going for war, we're going
for
The person took his companions,
and there, the quaysh were thrown into a
dilemma.
We are the custodians of the kaaba. We
should technically
allow them to come and do umra. But
if we do, people will say, Muhammad has
won.
People will say, Muhammad has outsmarted us. So
they were in a dilemma. Do we reject
them?
And people will say, look, they have
insulted
the position that they have been given as
a custodian to the Kaaba,
or do they go with the other option
and people would say, oh, Muhammad is 1.
What did they do? They rejected the prophet
as salam.
But however the prophet in that
encounter,
he came up with an idea.
Let us have a treaty.
A treaty of peace
for a specified amount of time.
And the Quraysh, they thought this is in
our favor. So they signed up to a
treaty of peace, no more war.
And the Muslims actually thought
that it was in the favor of the
as well, and they started to doubt whether
that was the right decision.
But after the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, what happened
is that even the Muslims couldn't perform umrah,
they could the next year, But the peace
that
came about because the treaty meant that they
were openly
allowed to give dawah freely
and then
mass conversion started to happen. In fact,
some of the historians, they say more people
became Muslim after the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah
than they had become Muslim from the beginning
of the mission all the way up until
the 6th year of when
the treaty took place. That many people became
Muslims.
And that was from the wisdom of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. It was the
right time to have a treaty.
Then the treaty was broken.
In the 8th Hijri year,
the Quraysh broke the treaty
and the consequence was what?
Now it is time to take our army.
That is no longer a few 100 or
a few 1000, which is 10,000
strong.
To go to Makkah
and take back what is rightfully Allah's.
And so the conquest of Makkah took place
in the 8th Hijri year. The person takes
an army of 10,000
not intending to kill or harm anyone.
And when he arrives on the borders of
Mecca,
many people inside say to themselves, now the
time has come to accept Islam.
Many leaders became Muslim.
Abu al-'Aas was one of the leaders who
tried his best to be an enemy to
the Muslim. All these years, even he became
a Muslim as well.
And the person entered
and he liberated the Kaaba from the idols,
and he said,
As he's pulling down the idols, he quotes
the verse of the Quran, truth has come,
falsehood had vanished.
Falsehood was bound to vanish.
He must have been so
happy.
After all those years of struggling,
after all the bloodshed,
after all the tragedy,
Allah finally gave him that victory.
Makkah has fallen to the hands of the
Muslims.
The Kaaba no longer has,
and people are coming into Islam in droves.
A huge transformation.
8th hijri
year, conquest of Mecca.
Thereafter, the pro as a Muslim starts to
look beyond Mecca. He starts to write letters
to the leaders of other empires, the Persian
Empire,
the Byzantine Empire.
In Egypt, the King of Egypt
inviting them to Islam. Now people from far
away are hearing about Islam.
And so in the subsequent years, people would
come from distant lands to give out of
the prophet as salam, to accept Islam, and
to say we are with you.
Now he's coming to the end of his
mission.
How many years did I say he was
in Madinah?
10 years.
8th hijri year,
conquest.
Then comes
his first and final hajj.
By that time,
so many people have become Muslim that some
of the scholars say during his hajj, there
was over
120,000
muslims.
Imagine when
said I want to recite Quran from the
Kaaba. How many Muslims were there?
Eighty.
And now there's a 120,000.
Look how Allah gave victory, but not straight
away.
After years of struggle.
It was shortly after that hajj
that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam started to
see indications
that he was going to pass away.
There's a story where his daughter, Fatima,
who
said,
I never seen a person who walks and
talks like the person as much as Fatima.
She said, whenever Fatima would enter the room,
the person would sit up or stand up.
He would hug his daughter,
and he would tell her to sit in
the same place that he was sat. SubhanAllah.
The love and the respect.
Aisha says I remember
that he pulled her close and he whispered
something in her ears, she began to cry.
And then after little while, he pulled her
in again and he whispered again,
and she started to smile through her tears.
I didn't know what it was. I didn't
want to inquire
until many years after the person who had
passed away, I asked Fatima, what was that
that the person whispered to you?
She said, the first time he said to
me,
every year Jibreel alaihi salam comes to me
once in Ramadan to revise the Quran. This
year he came twice,
and I see that as a sign that
my end is near.
So I started to cry.
Then he pulled me twice
and he whispered in my ear, why do
you cry? You are going to be the
first of my family to be with me
in Jannah Allahu Akbar.
It was only 6 months after the person
passed away that Fatima
also passed away.
A beautiful
in You know, a beautiful anecdote
showing how the prophet was not just so
close to his daughter, but he knew
how to be a father.
He was the ideal father, the ideal best
friend, the ideal leader.
And so the person towards the end of
his life, he starts to receive revelation.
For example, he receive
We all know the surah, isn't it?
And when the support and the help of
Allah comes and you see the people entering
Islam in droves,
Glorify
your master
and seek his forgiveness.
He is the one who accepts.
Said, Umar he asked me to join a
group of senior companions.
And those senior companions, they looked at me
and they thought,
why is he joining us for? He's a
young guy. We are the senior companions.
Knew that.
And he asked all the companions,
what do you think about
And they all said sim similar things. This
surah is talking about the conquest of Mecca,
how Allah gave the person victory and to
have.
Then he asked ibn Abbas who was only
a teenager at the time, what do you
think about this surah?
He said, I believe that this surah is
indicating
the death of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
And Umar said, that is what I think
is wrong.
Towards the end of his life, the person
became sick.
So sick
that he couldn't come out of his bed
to come inside the masjid
even though his house was connected to the
masjid. In one narration, he would ask 2
companions to enter his room
and he would put his arms over their
shoulders
and they would take him inside the masjid
because that is how much he wanted to
pray with his companions.
One narration his feet would drag against the
ground because he was taller than most people.
That is how much salah was beloved to
him.
And then when he became even more sick,
when he couldn't do that,
he would tell Abu Bakr to lead them
in salah.
And the house of the prophet was connected
to the masjid, he had a window looking
into the masjid.
And when he would
hear them praying
he would go to the window,
push back the curtain, and he would see
his companions praying.
And he would he knew that.
These people have received my message.
Now they are worshiping Allah, and I'm not
even with them, subhanAllah.
The illness got worse,
and we know that the person, his final
moments
happened in the lap of his then wife
Once a companion asked the person, who do
you love the most? He said,
The companion
said, no, no, I meant from the men.
The prossam said, oh, her father,
Abu Bakr.
The companion then thought to himself, I don't
wanna ask for a third time in case
it's not me either.
Do you know who that companion was?
Ahmed al Ma'as. When did he become Muslim?
I mentioned it.
Yeah.
Just when the con Basically when
That says the end of the road now.
Conquers of Mecca is about to happen in
the 8th Hijri year.
So he is gonna spend just 2 years
with the prophet as his companion. And in
that short time, he thought that he had
become the most beloved to the prophet sallam.
Imagine that.
What gave him the idea?
The way the person dealt with people.
The softness.
The attention he would give every person when
he would talk to them. Make them feel
as though this man loves me.
SubhanAllah.
So in the end, the person asked his
other wives,
I would like to spend
my final days
with Ayesha
They all agreed, and it was his wife
who nursed him in those final moments.
He had his fever that was so bad
that she
would dip a bandanna
cloth
in a pail of water and then tie
it around his head, tight
to try and reduce the pain.
And then
Jibreel alaihi salam visited him
and gave him the option,
stay
or be with Allah,
and
Aisha heard him say,
In the company
of the most high.
In the company of the most high, and
the word he used,
in Arabic means a friend.
In Arabic there are many words for friend.
Is a friend.
Is
a friend.
Is a friend.
Is someone who is sincere,
he's honest with you. You have a friendship
with someone because they are honest with you.
Is someone
very close to you.
Is someone who you lean on in times
of need.
What did he say about Allah? He thought
of Allah as his rafiq,
the one who he leans on in times
of need.
Even in his death, he was teaching us
about
Allah
Those were the last words of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam. At the age of 63,
his soul left this worldly abode,
and now he is in the life of
the barzakh.
And even though he has passed away,
he told us that every time we say
he receives
our salah and our salaam. That
is the life of the prophet
In summary,
and now I'm thinking,
this is almost like a timeline, right? Kind
of have it laid out in your mind
as a timeline. What happened first, what happened
second,
the major events.
The next step now, my brothers and sisters,
is for you to add the flesh
to the skeleton that I have drawn out
for you. For you to go out there
and read
and study the seed of the prophet,
and when you learn something, put it in
its right place
and become inspired
by the teachings and the life of the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. There is no
story
more worthy of our attention
than the story of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
With
that, we say,
Oh, okay.
We will do a short quiz,
and,
we have some prizes to give here.
We have some books,
The simple seerah. Just a show of hands,
who has this book already?
A few people?
Okay. So if you win it, then you
give it to somebody else, yeah?
Right. So some questions.
Start with easy questions for the children.
Under
5. Any under fives here?
1 under 5, only 1?
Okay, we do under 10.
Bro, you're not under 5.
Come on. Your bed is longer than mine.
Dave, this is for under tens.
How old put the hand on. Put your
hand on.
How old
was the prophet
when he became a messenger of Allah?
No shouting. Yes.
What is it?
40. He said it's 14.
Is he 14?
He
didn't get the memo. This is for under
tens.
They This brother here,
because you shouted I can't go to you.
40 years old, Asant. Correct answer. Very good.
Now, next question. This is slightly harder.
How old
was the prophet
when he became friends with?
Yes.
So close.
So close. If you were a narrator of
hadith, it would not be accepted.
Yeah. Yes.
17.
He was closer than you.
Yes.
15 years old
is the correct answer. Say.
Very good.
Okay.
Slightly harder question. Who can tell me what
the three stages
in the life of the prophet were? Open
question to anyone.
What are the 3 Yes.
We've got 2.
It's very close.
If somebody can give me a better answer,
we'll have to go to them though.
What were the three stages
in the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam?
Yes.
Pre prophethood,
and then?
Medina stage after the prophethood? Pre prophethood?
Pre prophethood?
Makkan stage?
Medina stage.
Correct answer.
Harder questions now.
What harder question can I ask?
Okay.
Why did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
Oh, what is one of the wisdoms why
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
took the person on the night journey
in the 11th year?
What is one of the wisdoms
why Allah subhanahu sent the person on the
night journey in the 11th year? We're very
impressed if anyone knows this.
Yes, Black Shabal Kameez.
Is it Thoke? Sorry. Sorry. I couldn't see
beyond here.
Go on. 10th year was a year of
sorrow. Go on.
Yes.
So
to uplift him because of what happened in
the previous year. I sent very
good. Even harder question now.
You had your hand up. I already said
the answer.
Okay. Go on. Carry on.
Yes. What about it?
Uh-huh.
Jameel.
Jameel. Yes. The brother said perhaps the night
journey can be looked at as a manifestation
of the verse
after hardship comes ease. 10th year was a
very hard year. 11th year, the night journey.
Jameel.
To raise him up his level?
Yes. Very good.
Okay. A hard question.
What was the verse that Allah
revealed to the person after his uncle
passed away?
Yes?
Wrong uncle.
Wrong uncle.
It's disclosed, but it's a wrong uncle.
Yes. Yes. Blue jacket.
Louder, louder.
Which Surah?
Surah?
Mhmm. Accent.
Say Allah.
Says you cannot guide who you love, Allah
guides who he wishes.
Last question.
Last question. Last question.
Easy one or hard one?
Easy. He said the brother said hard over
there.
Okay. One easy one for the children and
a hard one, okay? The easy one is
this,
how many years
did the prophet struggle in Mecca as a
prophet?
Yes.
13 years, correct answer.
Hard question.
Hard question.
What
did say to
Najashi to change his mind?
Questioned him and said, what do you say
about
Jesus Christ?
What did
say to make him change his mind?
Yes. Yes. Yes. The brother with the green.
Yes.
Loudly loudly.
You breathe the
birth,
heal the leper,
raise the dead by the punishment of Allah,
and recite a surah?
Very good.
Very good,
They will end it there. I've honestly can't
think of any more questions.
We have 4 books here.
And,
the first four people that answered come forward
to take the prize.
The first four people.
This brother, yes?
Well, I don't remember you answering anything, so.
I have to be just, sorry.
This brother here? Did you, do you, I
think you, yeah, you come forward. Yes.
He did. Sorry. Sorry. Miss come.
And,
there was one other.
One other.
And you, yes, miss Mullah, you come as
well. Which one do you want? Take your
pick inshallah. This is part 1, this is
part 2.
These are the children of the masjid.
What's the program now?
Q and A or finish?
Finish, inshallah.