10 – Purification of the Soul (Tazkiatu Al-Nafs) – Sh. Daood
Mar 31, 2017 @ Al Falah Islamic Centre
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa ala hakuba to live in on Sunday. Well, certainly more Elena v Hill Karim Ali of masala to attempt to slim, rubbish roughly his Southern way acidity MD, aka Dr. melissani, Africa okoli. My brothers and sisters in Islam SNM or had a comb or a hematoma here or by cattle.
I had a very interesting
last few hours. So sitting down preparing, you know, something very nice.
Going through some slides, and you know, I was going to share the Quebec City experience with you. So I think I mentioned it to you two weeks ago that I was going to Quebec City to visit the masjid where the shooting happened, and to also visit the families of those who, you know, had loved ones that were that were shot and you know, killed.
But after I was done, I came down to my living room and sat down. And my wife asked me, What are you teaching tonight, and I said, I'm going to teach about that. And I'm going to talk about it the experience and show some pictures and stuff like that. And she said, That's too graphic, it's a family halaqa, it's not good to some children, you know, might be a little bit too difficult for them to handle. And so I really don't know what to do now.
So I thought, you know, so kinda, I'll share the experience. But I won't go through too many of the details on purpose, because there are children here. Despite that, Pamela, I have personally shared this with my children, right. So my children, one of them is three, the other one is six. Now, my children don't watch movies, they don't see the graphic, you know, expression of shooting, and killing, and death, and so on from movies and TV shows, and video games, and so on and so forth. They don't get to see that and experience it. So they don't really have this image in their mind. So I don't really want to base my experience with my children and equal it or compare it to the
experience that other people's children might have. Because for every single one of us, the way we raise our children are is different, right? And so some children might have seen certain things in movies and not really experience it in real life, or not actually meet someone who says, You know what, that was real. This really happened, this actually took place. So if anyone here has any issues or objections, let me know right now. If not, I could be a little graphic. You all know me had
any issues? Anyone concerned? No, no one concerned at all. If anyone is raise your hand, just let me know wink, you know, raise your hand something I don't know, indicate to me that you are
the sisters. Okay, there there.
They're right there. So Panama. So what I'll do is, again, I won't go through some of the other stuff, because there are pictures that that were,
you know, from the day after the shooting, and so on, and you actually see, you know, blood and stuff smeared on the walls and the floors and the carpets and so on. I won't show any of that in sha Allah Allah. In fact, I'll just speak about the experience. And I really wanted to share that with us so that we can understand as Muslims how we should not really be scared. And this was something that I noticed happened. And I spoke to many other imams around the GTA
and in different parts of Canada as well, asking some of the Imams Did you notice that there was a number or a drop in the number of Muslims that came to the congregational prayers immediately after the shooting in Quebec City? And many of them? In fact, I think all of them said yes. I can't really remember any of them that said, No, you know, we just noted it was the same It was exactly the same. Every single one of them said yes, it was apparent that there was a drop in numbers or there was a serious concern for our security system to be heightened to be up to date to be, you know, just as powerful if not even more
or better than it than it was already. And so some kind of law that is something that's that's drastic and real.
That took place right here in our own country, within our own Muslim community. We just get my adapter inshallah.
Let's do this.
Okay. Oh, Mashallah romantic.
Okay, so here you see?
Interesting.
Okay, so here you'll see a slide in front of us on a line. It's just a picture that I literally took from, I think is the Globe and Mail. I just took this picture just so that we could see the six people and I'll speak about each one of these and shot a lot of data. What happened was when we went to Quebec City, I went with Canada's ACA and Darwin net, I think most of you are familiar with Canada's aka Darwin net. They're the ones that organized Muslim fests the myvoice, magazine, and so on and so forth. various different projects that they do, understanding Islam Academy and so on. So they invited me to go down to Quebec City or to go up to Quebec City, I should say, because it's
more north to visit the families of these brothers. Now, these were the brothers that were shot and killed in the masjid in Quebec City. On that night, which night was it now? January
2009. I think it was right around that the end of January. And so some of these brothers that you see in front of you will start with brother Khalid, right Who is this brother right here in the middle? Top in the middle? I think you could see my mouse moving there, right. So this brother Brother call it
in fact, what I'll do is I'll tell you exactly what happened. Okay, I'll tell you exactly what happened. So the brothers went for a shot, they went to pray and he shot in the mustard just like a shell is coming up right now. Okay, so they went to the mustard to pray sold out to Asia. And as they come into the mustard, they start praying and so on. And as soon as saw that finishes, these two brothers, okay, the two brothers from DNA from Africa, DNA. In fact, they're all technically from different parts of Africa. But you have brother, Ibrahim and brother mama do Okay, brother Ibrahim in Burma brother mama do they were the first two people that left the masjid so they are
finished and they were you know, got their shoes and they went out and as soon as they walked outside of the masjid, the shooter was there and the shooter shot them and killed them right in front of a mustard. Okay, now when that happened, the brothers that were inside the mustard, they heard the noise they heard the commotion happening on the inside story on the outside and they got concerned they didn't really know what it was initially you just started hearing these loud sounds but some of the bullets actually went right through the window. Now when I was there, I
let me see if I have the picture here. I took pictures of no i didn't know i don't have it there. So I took pictures of the the mustard itself and Subhanallah you can see three bullet holes pretty big going right through the front window. Now the windows are really thick almost an inch thick like they're really nice solid windows tempered etc. And so this concerned the brothers are startled the brothers inside who just finished praying saw that now some of the brothers also had finished and they were you know walking away from the monster just like they're you know we would do we leave out the back and the door to exit the mustard is out the back right so not on the side here. But
straight in the back. So they finished from the front row and they started walking towards the back. And as
as the one of the brothers who is still in, in critical condition in the hospital, his name his brother Ayman. He was walking towards the back door of the masjid to leave and the shooter came in. And as soon as the shooter came in, he was face to face with brother Amen. Now the shooter shot brother, amen. This is where it might get a little bit more detailed in terms of graphics, but you won't see anything. shot him and I hit him right in the neck. Okay, he's not dead. He's still in the hospital Alhamdulillah. But he's in very critical condition. He shot him in the neck. The bullet stopped right next to his spine. And obviously when that happened, immediately, brother Ayman fell
down to the ground. Right, he fell right to the ground. And the shooter decided to you know, unload the rest of his bullets in rather a man. So he shot the rest of his rounds in him. So he had seven bullets in him. Now the doctors only took a couple out, he still has I think five bullets left inside his body because it's too dangerous to remove them. They're in very critical, you know, areas too dangerous for them to go in and operate and remove these bullets. So they just left them there where they are. And they just fix the wounds, patched it up and left it when I went to see him Subhana Allah this, you know, there's no picture of him there. But I'll have a picture of him in the
hospital. And this is one that he allowed me to put on Facebook, but I still haven't okay.
I spoke to him, okay, this is him in the hospital. He's in bed. He's paralyzed. He's paralyzed.
He speaks But see, he's only been speaking for two days at the time when I went to see him. He's still in intensive care. He they removed the respirator, right the machine that was helping him to breathe the day before we went to see him and one of the brothers who was taking us
around to see all the families one of the, you know, board members of the masjid. He is actually a doctor in this hospital. Okay, so he, obviously with His permission, you know, brought us in brought me in there as well and managed to see brother, amen Subhan Allah and he was laying there. Now the way he speaks, is with no voice, it's just air. So he can move his mouth, but no sound comes out as he's just moving his mouth and the air, you know is coming out as he's breathing, but you can't hear him. So you have to lip lip read, and then have the last panel it's kind of, you know, blessed me with the opportunity to learn how to speak French and learn how to speak Arabic. And those are the
languages that most of the Muslims there speak French because they live in Quebec City and Arabic because a lot of them came from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, the northern African countries. So these brothers have had a lot a man. As he's nearing the door, the shooter comes in shoots and once in the neck, he falls down and then he shoots the rest of his bullets in him. didn't kill him. Alhamdulillah and the brothers say a lot of good things about brother aim. And they say, you know, he took seven lives of people in his own self, as in this shooter could have killed seven other people with those bullets, but but a man's body Allah subhanaw taala allowed him to absorb these
bullets, right and protect others through that. Now as soon as this happened when the brothers saw that the shooter was out of his bullets, he had no more bullets left in his gun.
Brother is the dean. Going back to that picture where there is a dean, this brother right here who's the known as the butcher, right? He has a butcher shop sells halal meat halaal you know, meat store grocery store, this brother immediately he said, Let's go Let's jump on him. He's done his bullets. So they started running him. And another brother who's now out of the hospital, he just returned home. He was shot in the leg twice. So they started running at him. The shooter shot that brother in the leg and shots brother as the dean and killed him. Okay, so but there is a dean died right at the entrance of the door. Okay, going into the mustard.
Then what happened? So Pamela, the shooter, you know, started to shoot at the rest of the people and I won't show those pictures because they're very, you know, * and graphic. But one of the things that I want to share with you is, you know, the experience for meeting the families, right, the experience for meeting these family members. So I went to Brother as a Dean's house. Okay, I met with his, with his son, his daughter, his wife, his brother in law, sister in law, nice and so on. They were they were all there they, you know, got together to meet us and welcome us. And so panela it was really interesting. I actually never knew but my dad knows this brother. And it wasn't until
I was leaving Quebec City. I was in the airport. My flight was delayed about five hours. And I called my parents to speak to them from Quebec City. And my father was telling he says, Did you go to Brother Dean's place? Did you see his family? Is everyone okay? I said, Yeah. Why are you asking me about him? He says I know him because my dad's close friend is a brother in Montreal who supplies meat like wholesale supply of halal meat. He goes, his operation is basically he goes to the farms. He sacrifices a bunch of animals, for whoever all the meat stores that need and then he transports them. And where there is Dean used to come to Montreal and pick up his meat and drive back to Quebec
City every couple of weeks. And so my dad used to meet him regularly. Right? said I've met him like three four times very recently Subhan Allah. Now there is a dean if you look behind him. There's a picture of the Kaaba, right you see the capital behind him. That was taken about two weeks before he was shot and killed. He finally saved enough money to take his family, his wife and children for ombre. And they went for ombre. And he was so happy. He was so excited. You know, he was telling the brothers when he came back, I'm so relieved. Finally, I got to take my family for Ramadan. And he didn't live much longer after that. That's brother as a dean.
Brother, Khalid's. Okay, this brother Brother Follett.
He sort of had a Loza, you know, university professor, his wife and him were, you know, colleagues, they taught in the same department at the University of Laval. They were not only husband and wife, but they were colleagues and co workers at the university they used to teach together. And this brother Subhanallah when I was lecturing in Quebec City, so I did a lecture in French, you can go on YouTube and see it. I did a lecture in French and you know, we recorded it there, right where they set up the table and my chair, immediately underneath me the carpet is, you know, green. Right underneath me, you can see still the stain of the blood, like a big puddle of blood. He was a
brother who died right there. And that's where I'm sitting now they cleaned it and disinfected it. Obviously, they painted the walls a little hamdulillah. So you can't see you know, whatever damage was to the walls. They repaired that but the carpet itself is too expensive to change. So they just had it disinfected and cleaned as best as possible.
But it still was stained. And so right where I'm sitting, the brothers are telling me you know, right here this that spot right where I was, is where he died some kind of law. right in the front of the mustard you'll see in the pictures next to the hub where you know where the where the mmm is standing just next to it is that stain of blood on the carpet and that's where he passed away he was shot and killed there. And also Pamela, this brother, you know, came to Canada and worked really hard was teaching at the university was a professor and leaves behind his family. But we'll give you more examples. These two brothers now, Ibrahim,
Ibrahim and brother mama do these two brothers, we went to see their families as well. What's really interesting about these two brothers is that their children are extremely young. In fact, I have a picture of brother mama who has children, okay, and I'll show you that inshallah. And I was telling the brothers and sisters there in Quebec City, I said, you know, they will probably never ever remember their children, their father. That's how young they're these children's Pamela. Right. They'll probably never ever remember their father. And you see how they're sitting with me. We came in, and I just smiled at them. And they came in, they sat on my lap, and they started to play with
me as though nothing happened. Now, it's really interesting because many of us would never think that we would ever be in a situation like that. We would never assume that our children are not going to grow up without us. Like we always think we're going to be there and will be there forever for our children. But Allah subhanho wa Taala teaches us that lesson that we may not be there forever. And his children are so young brother, Mama, whose children look there's they're super young. In fact, they took my my glasses, and they distorted them and warped them. And they're only a couple of weeks old, but I really didn't care because these are children who lost a father, why do
it? Why should I care about my sunglasses? Right? So some of these children, they will probably never remember their father growing up and only know him from pictures and articles and news and things that they see online, Wikipedia, etc. Okay, so that's brother number two, and brother Ibrahim as well. Very nice, very humble brothers, you know, Subhanallah I met brother Ibrahim's mom. She had come and she was staying with them. Very old panel. I think I have a picture of them as well. You know, really, really old. And she's saying it's just not fair. It's just not right. Like my son. You know, he didn't really do anything. Sorry. Asked me in the airport terminal. He didn't really do
anything to harm anybody else. Why would someone want to harm him? Right? And so somehow I was very interesting to hear that story. Now, the other two brothers.
Oh, go to this brother and this brother. You know, his children teach us a very beautiful lesson. I'll leave him for last. This brother here.
Brother, Abubakar, right brother, Abu Bakar. He's the first family that we went to go visit like his family, his wife and his son and daughter, the very first family that we went to visit.
And one lesson that we learned from every single one of the wives of these brothers, and I'll share it with regards to her because she was the first one we went to visit and she was the first one to say it. She said one thing that I request from every single Muslim out there that you go and visit convey this message to them. She says tell them never ever to forget.
The brothers and the people that were in the masjid when the shooting happened but did not get injured. And I was like, wow. Remember those that were there that did not get injured? She said Yeah. Tell those that you meet tell people remember in your day, when you speak to them. Tell them to remember the brothers and sisters and the children because there were children in the basement of the masjid downstairs. Right there actually classrooms they were there downstairs, a few of them, because you know, they have classrooms down there and so on. So they went down. And Subhanallah she says tell the people to remember in their dorm, the brothers and sisters that were there in the
masjid, but witnessed everything and did not get injured because they are traumatized. Like from what they saw. It was very difficult when I was lecturing them in the masjid. You know, I just like this I'm sitting down speaking and there were about double the amount of people that were here at least in the masjid. And you would think that these people are scared now to come to the masjid that you know they they feel something else might happen or no I can't go back to that place because that was a place where my friend or my father or my uncle or my brother or my best friend you know was shot and killed. Listen Han Allah Allah subhana wa tada says, what a taco Lima, Yokota Lu
feasability La Jolla mewat. But while Aki Lata Sharon, Allah subhanho wa Taala says do not say the main yoke tell those who were killed in the way of Allah subhanho wa Taala These are people in the mustard. They were sitting in the muscle they just finished praying solidary Sha, Allah says do not say about them that they are dead. But yeah
Really, they're still alive, how they're alive. We leave this with a loss of Hannah who had to had, but we know that they themselves as people who die in the way of a loss of Hannah, who were to Anna, especially being inside a place, you know, so sacred is the mustard of Allah subhana wa tada immediately after praying saw that delivery Sha, Allah subhana wa with Hannah says, Those who were killed in in, you know, in certain ways in the way of a loss of Hannah Diana, they are still alive. Don't say about them that they're dead. So we say that they're dead in our English languages. And you know, when we're talking, they were shot and killed, for example,
they are with a loss of Hana with Hana in a special position.
Now, this brother's wife, she was the very first one who broke the ice for us, like she brought tears to our eyes. And she was like, you know, you don't know how hard it is for some of these families. She says we lost our breadwinner, we lost the person that would bring food to the table of our homes,
who would earn money to pay the rent to buy things for children, for the children who would come home after a long day of working and just spend some time with the family. And we lost that person. And this brothers from Panama brother, Abu Bakar.
His best friend was with us. And he says, When I came to this city, when I came to Quebec City, it was Abu Bakar that took me out to find a job, he took me to find an apartment, he took me to buy my groceries, he took me to, you know, buy the furniture that I needed. And he was known in our community as the person that would get everyone settled. Any new Muslim that came to the community, he would reach out to them immediately and ask them what do you need? Can I take you and put in, you know, around, how can I help you and assist you and he was the person that would always put himself forward. And he was known in the community. When we went to the mustard, every single one of the
brothers, we would ask them about this person and that person they would say about him about Abu Bakar that he was the person that would make sure everyone in the community was okay. Like he was the Amir of the community. Subhana Allah, how would you look at them? You know, as Muslims, we tend to judge people, like you would look at them and say, Oh, the only religious one is the one standing in front of the camera. But no, not at all. These were all brothers that were known for praying in the front row of the mustard on a regular basis. They were known for being in the mustard in the front row on a regular basis. Subhan Allah, the last brother here that will mention and then there's
a few others that we went to visit in the hospital, two brothers that went to see in the hospital. One of them I spoke about already. This brother some handle adult caring, very, very interesting story.
And this is for the children.
And the parents.
Were there I did carry him. He his wife, when we went to see her and the family. She didn't cry. Her eyes began to tear at one point in time, but she didn't cry.
And she was the only one that really showed I mean, they were all very strong. Don't get me wrong. In fact, none of the y's showed that they were, you know, really disturbed. They had gotten past it. They accepted that this was from a loss of Hannah hula to Hana. But one thing that brother abducted him, his wife shared with us a few things that she shared with us was, you know, touching it touched the hearts. She says on that day, at around lunchtime. Their three daughters were at home, okay, earlier in the day. And the father, he took his phone, right, takes his phone and he shows the three daughters. One of the daughters is nine. The other one is five or six. And the younger one she's
almost two years old.
He takes his phone and he shows them this two minute video, two or three minutes. And it's a video of a little boy who's 12 years old. Anyone here 12 years old. Who hears 12 year 12 stand up. Let's just see how old you are. Yeah, both of you stand up. So that's 12 years old. Right? You could sit down these two boys, right? They're roughly around 12 years old. He's showing his daughters a video of a 12 year old boy in France. Okay, so the videos in French. And the boy is saying
good advice. He's telling people, he says, You know what, I have health conditions, I'm going to have open heart surgery, and he was in the hospital going into an operation. He's like, I'm gonna have open heart surgery. And I have to have transplant of certain vital organs. And this is my health condition. But I want to tell people to be brave. And I want to tell people to have an outlook in life, to think of their life as something that's a blessing from Allah Subhana, WA, COVID, to Hana, that you're going to live a long time, and you're going to achieve a lot of things. And you'll be able to do this and you'll be able to do that and you'll be able to grow old and so on
and so forth. And this is a very short video, but he's telling people that and when the video ends, brother, I'm just kidding him. He points to the phone right to the video and he tells his three daughters he says you see this boy, I want you girls
Be brave just like this boy.
He says to his daughters, I want you girls to be brave just like this boy.
And that night, only about seven, eight hours later, where their adult care team goes to the masjid and is shot there in the masjid and dies and doesn't return home.
And when his wife finds out, she's crying, she's sad. She doesn't know how she's going to tell her children.
And she, you know, gets her children together and you know, tries to figure out how to tell them and she tells them you know what, there was a there was an incident at the masjid. And someone came in, and Baba has gone.
Like, what do you mean Baba is gone. Baba was shot, and he was killed, and he died. Baba is not coming home anymore.
And the mother is crying like she's crying uncontrollably. You can imagine her husband. Like she just saw him minutes ago. And now he went to the muster. Then he's done. He's done. He's gone. He died.
And she's telling the children you know what the nine year old daughter says to her mom, she says, Mom, you remember the video that Baba showed us today? The video about that boy, the 12 year old boy. Baba told us to be brave. So mom, be brave. Because Baba told us that he wants us to be brave, just like that boy. So we need to be brave. And you need to be brave to mama. So don't be sad. Ally's gone to a good place. Allies okay, don't worry. He He's gonna go to agenda.
Now the next day. So Pamela, she says, You know what her other daughter tells her. Her other daughter tells her you remember, Baba used to talk about paradise. And she's telling us this story. She says my husband, Kenny, this brother right here. She says he used to teach my daughters, our daughters about Jenna and Jana. And he always used to say you need to be really good. Because when you're good, you go to gender, you're gonna go to Paradise, you're gonna get all these nice things and good things and you know, so many nice things are gonna happen to you. And then he she says he also needs to tell them about Johanna and how in john them you get punished if you do the bad things
that Allah doesn't like, you'll go to jahannam so make sure that you never do any bad things because you don't want to go to jahannam and the next day Subhan Allah, they get up and obviously the day was chaotic, like she had to go to the hospital. She had to identify the body of her husband. You know, someone is looking after the children. It was really difficult for them. They were very disturbed. So Pamela, you can imagine like everything just turns upside down the whole country the whole world knew about this incident.
And she says her other daughter who's five, almost six years old. She says mama you know dad used to tell us Baba used to tell us about Jenna and Johanna.
And Baba used to always say that good people go to Jenna. And Baba was a good person. So Allah wouldn't punish him. Allah would put him in Jenna Don't be sad, don't Don't cry. Everything's gonna be okay because Baba went agenda and she said you know, she said to her fault and to her mom, she said Baba is so happy, because a lot put him in paradise. And Paradise is a place where I love what's good people. And Baba, now he's with his mama and Baba, with their grandparents, right? She says now he's okay. He's happy because he finally gets to see his parents. Now we know the life of the butterfly. Right? But these are this is a little child. She's five years old. Right? She's five
years old. She's saying this to her mom. Don't worry, everything's gonna be okay. And she told her mom, Mama. No, we have to be really good people. So that when we die and we go back to Allah, Allah puts us in genda, too. And then we get to see Baba again. It's Panama.
When she was saying that the mother she's not crying. We were crying. We just, you know. So Pamela, it was so difficult to hear a mother say these things that her children are telling her to be brave, and her children are telling her Don't cry.
It's okay, everything's gonna be fine. We just need to be good and allows God to put us in paradise. And when you think of it, Allah subhanho wa Taala teaches us you know about gender and about our parents. In the Quran. Allah says, Well, that's Aquila, Houma.
And we know how hard it's going to be dealing with our parents for the youth here. We know right? Parents, they're tough on us, right? They want to give us things that we want but they don't give it to us when we want it. We have to grow up and get it right. This is a panel that is very difficult and for those of for those of us that are older
we know very well that dealing with our parents is not something that's easy Allah Subhana wits and and knows that it's hard for us. But what are the three categories in Surah? Two, right, Allah subhanho wa Taala talks about Jenna talks about jahannam then talks about the people of Jenna and then says about the people of gender, that they will be welcomed by angels. And just before he says that Allah subhana wa tada says, they will be returned to those who they loved from
amongst their parents, from amongst their siblings, sorry, from amongst their parents from amongst their spouses, and amongst their children Subhan Allah.
Why? Because the people that love us and that we love, are the people that are most valuable to us. And even though it's hard for us to deal with them, like we all have issues with our parents, right? We all have issues with our children, we all have issues with our spouse, husband and wife argue like all the time is somehow to law hopefully not right. But regularly we see some people constantly fighting. And for others, it's once in a while, but when they argue some kind of law, they they at times say things like I don't even know why I'm married you. Right. That's how it is. For some people. I know I counsel people all the time. Right? People say some of the worst things to each
other.
But at the same time, Allah subhanaw taala teaches us that the people who make us most frustrated, the people that are so difficult to get along with in this life are the people that are worthy to be in genda with us,
like our wife, our husband, our children, our parents are the people that are worthy of being in genda with us. So yeah, it's gonna be hard to do we think that we're going to just earn genda it's going to be super easy to go to Paradise. No. M has symptom until the whole agenda tavola Maja Tikka Masala Latina Holloman publikum, Allah Subhana, Allah says, You think you're just gonna get into agenda, it's just gonna be that easy. And you haven't even been tested like the people of the past have been tested. Now some kind of luck getting into Gemini getting into paradise is not going to be easy. It's a difficult test. And for these brothers and those sisters and family members and
children, it's a test that they're going through. But one thing that I learned about that community in Quebec City is that they are so close knit, and so united, that the children have of their abdelkarim, right, the three daughters, the two older daughters, the younger ones, she doesn't really speak much. The two older daughters, the five year old and the nine year old, you know what they were saying on the day that the mustard reopened.
They were saying Mama, hurry up, we're going to be late for class, we need to go back to the mustard. Baba was never late taking us to class. We don't want to be late. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, right. That's what they were saying to their mom. Now when you think of it, where were they going? They were going right back to the place where their father was killed. He was shot but they were saying no mama Hurry up, we need to go. We need to get rid of we have to be at class. We need to get there. And somehow that teaches us how brave our children are and how a loss of hand with Anna tested a community to teach us how strong we need to be and how strong our children need to be
and how important it is to teach our children about a loss of hanway data that when anything difficult happens to them and Allah Subhana Allah teaches us that in Surah Yunus right verses number 62 and 63 he says Anna in
a more ma Hina
de him Wada.
Allah subhanho wa Taala says Anna in Olia en la, those people who are like connected to Allah, friends of Allah very, very, you know, linked to Allah subhana wa Tada. He says Allah in Olia en la, la hopeful Nana him they don't have fear. They're not scared. These people are not scared. Now hopefully him well.
And they're not people who get sad, who just you know, become really sad and depressed all the time. Now, I will tell you Subhana Allah.
The next morning, Sunday morning before we flew out, we went to meet the survivors. They call them the survivors, right? That's what like, you know, in the media and so on, calls them the people that were in the masjid that helped those that were shot but they themselves did not get shot.
Went to meet them, all 39 of them. And Subhanallah these brothers Mashallah.
One of them was telling me you know, a few of them had said some really interesting stories, but one of them he says you know, Deadwood
every single time I go to the masjid now
and they still go to the mustard. That's what's really interesting. He says every single time I go to the masjid and I reached to the door handle to open the door, just like we reached to the door handle outside the masjid to open the door. He says every single time I put my hand out to hold on to the handle to open the door.
In front of me, my brain shows me a picture of the shooter right in front of me.
He says every single time I reach out to open the door, I see the shooter in front of me
and I walk past him to go pray to Allah subhana wa tada says every single time I go to the masjid Now, every single time I open the door, I see the shooter right in front of me. It's real for them. It's real. But these people love hope.
finale him whatever
they are Subhana Allah, so linked with Allah subhanho wa Taala that they themselves don't feel that fear, they still go to the mustard because they know that their protection is with a loss of Hannah Montana. And what does Allah say in the next verse? Who are these people? Who are the people who don't feel that sadness? Who are the people who don't get scared? A loss of Hannah with an SS? a Latina, man, what can
those who believe alladhina amanu all of us what can we attack on and throughout their lives? They were people who are conscious of Allah subhanho wa Taala had, who had taqwa connection with Allah subhanho wa Taala. When hardship comes to them, they don't fail. It hurts them. Yes, they fall down, no doubt, but they get back up. They don't they don't fall down and get hurt and stay down. They get back up. Some hannula these brothers got back up. One of the brothers that we went to see the other brother I mentioned brother, amen to you, the one who's in critical condition. There's another one who's still in the hospital. Imagine for two months now they're in the hospital. I can still
remember the feeling. I put my hands on brother, amen. Brother I showed you in the hospital bed. I put my hands on him. I gave him sent him I rubbed his head, you know, was talking to him. He was so happy. He had this big smile on his face. I'm telling you the truth. He was crying. I took a tissue and I was wiping his tears away. But he had this huge smile on his face. And he was saying the Shahada and he was saying you know Allah subhanho wa Taala is gonna make everything fine. Everything's gonna be good. And he says don't don't forget me in your dua. And he himself was also saying Don't forget those that were there that night.
And I could still remember the feeling on my fingers of putting my hand on his head and holding his his hand the skin, you know, the skin of a person who was in the hospital for a long time. It feels like
sticky. Right? It feels very interesting. SubhanAllah right. I don't even know how to explain it. I could still feel that feeling. And I don't think I will ever ever forget that feeling of someone who Subhana Allah stood strong like an Iron Man like Khalid Eman will lead with literally you could see all over him. So Pamela, he's got, you know, problems. He has stitches left, right and center wounds bullet holes inside of him.
But a loss of Hannah Horta had allowed him to be someone that absorbed those bullets. And may Allah Subhana Allah grant them a long life upon a man, the other brother,
brother Saeed, who we went to see some hands on law.
You know, brothers aids, Mashallah.
He is still in the hospital. In sha Allah, we hope that he's going to be released very soon.
He also was shot quite a few times. And he survived. And he was there. The day about three or four days before we went to see him he was released from the there's a ward that deals with burns. With burns. Now he wasn't burnt in the mustard. But because of his body going through so much treatment, and the reaction to certain medications that he was taken, that he was given in the hospital and he was taking his body started to burn like the skin on his body started to burn, like, fire had touched him, but no fire was around, right. So he started getting all these bumps and stuff all over his skin. They put them in this, this word that dealt with burns and trauma and so on.
And he was released and hamdulillah we went to see him he was in, you know, still in intensive care trauma unit. But Alhamdulillah he was doing much better. And he was sitting up in his bed and we managed to speak to him. And his brother Subhana. Allah was so simple.
He was someone who would lead a lot of drama.
He came to Canada about eight years ago, and he was a professor back in his country. When he came to Canada. He had a real difficult time, very hard time finding a job. Okay, he was a professor in geology, if I'm not mistaken.
And so he started to drive a taxi for all these years. He's driving a taxi. Now think of it.
Someone whose husband is a taxi driver, but he's not driving his taxi for two months. Where does the family get money from?
Where's their income? The income comes in when he gets in his taxi and drives for two months. He can't drive, where's the money coming from? And so Subhanallah when we went and we met them, one of the things that we did know, Canada's a cat and Darwin that they managed to raise online $402,000 402,000
dollars from approximately 6000 people that donated and 70% 7070 70% of the people who donated were not Muslim
$402,000. And the lawyers have had a law that they dealt with to try and figure out how to disburse how to give this money out to those family members to the six, as well as to the two families, the two families of the brothers that are still in the hospital, they decided to give each one of them for just over $42,000
each. So we meet the other side in the hospital. And his wife came in, we were there and his wife, she was out and she came in, she went to get the children, I think from you know, maybe they had class at the mustard or something. And she brought them to the hospital.
And we were saying to her, you know, we've divided up the money in a certain way with the lawyers, they decided that this was this would be the best way to divide the money.
And so we have category one, which gets 42,000. And then we have category two, which gets just over 10,000 or $11,000. Those are the people that were injured, but are still able to go back to work and so on.
And so she was confused. She says, so how much are we gonna get?
And when we said well, he you know, brother said he's still very injured. He's in critical condition still in the hospital. So he gets $42,000 they start they broke down. They broke down crying, they just couldn't imagine. They couldn't imagine how Muslims and people from from Toronto, from the rest of Canada from Mississauga, Oakville, etc, would put together an online campaign to raise 400 over $400,000 to go and give to them. And she you know, she was extremely like surprised how is this even possible.
But the husband himself, brother said, he cried for the next 25 minutes, for 25 minutes. And he kept saying you have no idea how difficult has been for my family, we can pay rent.
You know, we are selling things. We don't know what to do. My wife is confused. We don't know how we didn't know how to move forward is extremely hard for them. And he says just you know, he was so thankful just Camillo Hainan, extremely, extremely thankful. He says this really, really helps us. He says, I really hope that very soon, inshallah I'll be able to leave, and then I have to go through rehab, and inshallah, maybe within a year, after that year, I should be able to go back to work. So this should be good. This will help us in Charlottesville survive for another year, and then you know, inshallah, I'll be able to go back to work and resume and things will be good for us
in sha
Allah Subhana Allah, they were so touched that Muslims would go out of their way to raise money. And I started to think to myself, why wouldn't we,
as Muslims, why would we not go out of our way to help others? Of course we should. But the amount of overhead costs that these families had was unbelievable. Like taking taxis back and forth. Paying parking at the hospital, we all know how expensive it is to pay for parking at a hospital. Like they could not even paid parking, the wife would take the bus to go to the hospital because you know, Subhanallah it's cheaper to do that than to pay for parking to go there. And still be a single mom at home as in, you know, our husbands in the hospital, look after the children, take them to classes and pick them up and make their food and so on and so forth. SubhanAllah you know, it's such a
beautiful thing our Deen has taught us to make sure that we look after our Muslim brothers and sisters. Here's a picture you know, just in conclusion of those that were in the masjid. Subhana Allah, they survived but they were the ones that spent the next few days wide awake, going to the hospital going to the morgue, you know, identifying bodies finding those that were last panelist, some people they could not even they didn't even know where where, you know, their their loved ones where they couldn't reach them. Cell phones were lost and dropped on the floor and so on. There was it was chaotic, some kind of law. And so see, these are the brothers that were there some kind of
law.
No, this is at a community center. The Masjid itself.
This I'll show you a picture. This is also one of the brothers he
he's a barber but he's very traumatized. He can't go back to work. He has his own barber shop. We went to see him he was the brother who ran at the shooter with brother as a dean. So brother izzadeen was shot and killed. And this brother ran at him to try and tackle him and he was shot in the leg a few times and you could see in his toe, what they did was they inserted a pin to keep his foot straight because the bones are completely shattered in there. So they removed
The nail and they inserted a pin through his foot to keep his foot straight. And Subhanallah he's just recently, you know, a few days he was released from the hospital just before we went to see him he's at home. He's very traumatized when he thinks of the moment he just breaks down. He breaks down it's very difficult for him to go back to work. He said he can't right now. He might even sell his his barber shop, because every single person in the community so Pamela would go to him his barber shop was just across the street from from from the mustard. And he would you know, cut the hair of so many brothers and every time he sees them, he just breaks down you know, it's very difficult for
him.
pictures inside the mustard. I'll show you in sha Allah. I have a few here. If I can access this
I had it open. I think it's here Google. Yeah. So I don't want to show too many pictures because some of them are a little bit graphic.
Just give me a second inshallah. And you can
always Google this. I have some on my phone, but I didn't. When my wife told me not to I Here we go. So this is like
Hold on.
Okay, so how big is that? I don't know how big that is.
did the same thing. muscular.
Okay, so this is like inside the masjid. I didn't really want to show this because of the children.
Wait, we didn't go
Hey, you can go to Google inshallah and check out any pictures that you want to see there
on Google.
Let me try and get back to it. This is also you know, the pillar where another brother was shot. Here you have the front of the masjid
and just trying to find
Forgive me
so in the front of the mustard, this is the entrance area in the front of the masjid I don't see the picture here right now.
But right in the front here, very similar to this. There's there's like a spot that went in for the job type of thing. The member and so all the brothers that were in the front row they literally all started running into that that room so they all tried to cram into that room and the shooter basically you know, made it very easy for him to panela he just had to shoot in one area and then one of the brothers I believe he was the the brother that was leading Sala because they don't actually have a fixed mmm at that Masjid. So one of the brothers that was leading Sala who they consider that Mmm, he came out of that room and he ran to the door that goes downstairs. So right in
the front of the mustard like here, right over there. There's a door that goes down to the basement to get all the children and whoever was in there into one room and lock the door to make sure the shooter doesn't come. So he was injured and but he still ran to try and get downstairs hamdulillah he made it through the door and downstairs to secure that areas of Panama. So it was a very, you know, difficult time for them. very disturbing. Subhan Allah, we ask Allah subhanho wa Taala to make it easy for our Muslim brothers and sisters. They In fact, invited me to come tonight. right now as we speak. They have a you know, a dinner for the very first time all the families of those that were
you know, that lost their husbands as well as the survivors and so on. They're getting together. You can open the lights and chama just there, open the lights. And so they're getting they actually have a dinner tonight. They invited me and my family down but I said I need to come here for the Holocaust. So I didn't want to miss our halaqa here tonight. But they're they're having their very first dinner together as a community after the incident and sharing some moments with each other and support and so on.
10 – Purification of the Soul (Tazkiatu Al-Nafs) – Sh. Daood
Mar 31, 2017 @ Al Falah Islamic Centre