Farhan Abdul Azeez – Unshakeable Faith From The Holy Land
AI: Summary ©
The importance of Islam is discussed, including its depth of pride and faith, its social media landscape, and its potential for sharing experiences. A woman shares her experiences of not eating food for one week and eventually finding rice, bringing it with them, and the horrors of a recent attack on a family. The speaker emphasizes the importance of living experiences and experiences being shared among people in different regions. The conversation also touches on the loss of loved ones and the promise of Allah.
AI: Summary ©
I seek refuge in Allah from the evil
of our souls and from the evil of
our deeds.
Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him.
Whomsoever He misguides, none can guide him.
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of worship except Allah, and I bear witness
that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.
Peace be upon him and his family and
his companions.
O you who have believed, fear Allah as
He should be feared, and do not die
except as Muslims.
O you who have believed, fear your Lord,
Who created you from a single soul and
from it He created her husband.
And He spread among them many men and
women.
And fear Allah, about whom you ask, and
about the wombs.
Verily, Allah is ever watching over you.
O you who have believed, fear Allah and
say the righteous word.
He will amend for you your deeds and
forgive you your sins.
And whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has
certainly attained a great triumph.
As for what follows, the truth of the
hadith is the Book of Allah, and the
best guide is the guide of Muhammad, peace
and blessings be upon him.
And the worst of things are its innovations,
and every innovation is an innovation, and every
innovation is a misguidance, and every misguidance is
in the Fire.
When Hajar, peace be upon her, was left
in the desert, in a place where there
is no people, no food, no company, no
shelter, no water.
And Ibrahim, peace be upon him, begins walking
away.
She asks him, what are you doing?
And until she asks him, did Allah command
you to leave me here?
And he said, yes.
She immediately responded by saying, If that's the
case, if this is the will of Allah,
if this is the irada of Allah, then
Allah will not abandon us.
When Musa, peace be upon him, was driven
to the edge of the Red Sea, and
behind him is an army as far as
the eye can see, with one goal, and
that is to massacre every single last one
of them.
They showed their brutality by massacring babies upon
babies upon babies.
Then what difference would it be to now
kill the adults?
And all the people of Musa are seeing
the army, seeing the sea in front of
them, seeing the army behind them, knowing they
have nowhere to go, and saying, We are
going to be overtaken, Musa, peace be upon
him, with full confidence in Allah, peace be
upon him, despite seeing what he sees of
reality of defeat, despite Hajar, peace be upon
him, seeing the reality, living the reality, of
no food and no shelter and no water
and no company, nobody's around them in the
middle of a desert, despite seeing that, despite
living that, despite experiencing that, they both have
a very similar response.
Musa, peace be upon him, says, And indeed
Allah is with me, He will guide me
the way.
And it's amazing because you read these stories
in the Qur'an, and you hear these
stories from the seerah, and you hear these
things of manifest defeat.
Yet the iman of the people doesn't change.
The faith in Allah doesn't change.
And we see shades of that in Gaza.
We see shades of that in Bilad al
-Sham.
I was talking to a 19-year-old
young man.
His name is Abdul Rahim.
He was laid out on a hospital bed.
His brother had pushed the bed outside the
hospital to give him some fresh air.
The hospital is overrun with patients.
Every other foot there's a patient or a
family member of a patient.
And so to give him some air, he
pushed him outside of the hospital.
He's right outside the main entrance.
And I'm walking by, so I start talking
to him.
He tells me his story.
He and his brother were walking, and Israeli
soldiers opened fire upon them.
And he was struck nine times.
Four times in his right leg, three in
his left leg, two in his pelvis.
His right leg had already been amputated.
His left leg is awaiting amputation.
And he's laying in bed, skin and bones,
malnourished, with limited if any pain medication.
And he's telling me the story of what
happened.
And at 19 years old, about to become
a double amputee.
And at the end of this whole story
of what he tells me, his final words
were, مِنَ اللَّهِ مَا أَحْلَهَا This is from
Allah.
And what a sweet decree of Allah it
is.
This is the decree of Allah.
I sat before a 32-year-old widow,
who just six months before me sitting in
front of her, hearing her story, and hearing
a reminder from her actually, not a story,
but she was actually giving a reminder.
Just six months prior, she was just married.
In her own words, I got married very
late, in her own words, 32 years old.
And six months after her marriage, her husband
was martyred in this war, and she's now
a widow.
She doesn't know where her next meal is
coming from.
She's living out of a tent, her home
has been destroyed.
And yet every single day, she comes to
the hospital, the morgue at the hospital, volunteering
to wash the bodies of our sisters, who
die or are killed, or prepare their bodies
for burial.
And the faith that's coming out from the
words she says, it's absolutely incredible.
And one of the things she says is,
Alhamdulillah, Allah chose my husband for this honor
of being killed a shaheed, because then it's
my ticket to paradise.
This is someone who doesn't know where her
food is coming from, her next meal is
coming from.
This is someone who's living now in a
scenario where three children this week alone have
frozen to death with the winter now upon
the people of Gaza.
A three-week-old child froze to death.
She's living this.
And she says, I have no doubt and
no hesitation at all in the promise of
Allah.
But yet you see destruction.
Joe Biden, back in March, he said, Rafah
is a red line.
He said, Rafah is a red line, you
cannot attach.
Remember all the social media hashtags, all eyes
on Rafah, all eyes on Rafah.
And when we as medical teams go into
Gaza, we enter through Rafah.
And so we saw Rafah.
I've gone four times now, I've seen Rafah
in February, I've seen it in March, I've
seen it in July, and I've seen it
in November.
And when I've seen posts, Joe Biden saying
Rafah is a red line, and you see
it now when I went in July, when
I went in November, it's a completely different
place.
It's completely destroyed.
The buildings are all destroyed.
She's living there in Rafah.
And yet she says, I have no doubt.
Why don't I have any doubt?
Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, إِنَّ
اللَّهَ يُدَافِعُ عَنِ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا۟ Because Allah says
in the Quran, Allah will defend the believers.
So I believe.
I have belief.
Just last night, Sheikh Omar and some others
posted on their accounts, on social media, a
man who's literally in the ambulance or in
the ambulance that takes the body to be
buried, because they take them in ambulances oftentimes.
He's holding his child, wrapped in the kafan.
His dead child, he's holding his child, and
he's saying, الحمد لله, الحمد لله.
Allah doesn't allow someone to become arrogant in
the land, except that He brings them down,
but He lets them raise up in the
land first, just like Fir'aun alayhi la
'anatullah.
Fir'aun when he said, أَنَا رَبُّكُمْ الْأَعْلَىٰ
I am your Lord, the Most High.
He first became arrogant in the land, and
Allah brought him down.
And he said, نَأْنِيَهُ Your time is coming,
your day is promised.
How does somebody say that when he's holding
his dead child in his arms?
You hear these stories, we see these stories,
and that's the question I ask.
Where does this come from?
What's in the water in Gaza to make
the people so strong?
And there's a few things that I would
find the answer from, from young, from old,
from men, from women, from widows, from mothers,
from fathers, from children.
They all say the same thing.
Where does this Iman come from?
Number one, clearly there's a depth of belief.
Because there's one thing, okay, maybe we practice,
maybe we can fast, you know, multiple days
in the month or the year, maybe we
can pray Qiyam al-Layl, maybe we can
do Khatmah of Qur'an, but there's a
difference when there's a depth of Iman.
When there's a depth of the understanding of
the religion of Allah versus practice.
Practice, of course, helps lead to that.
But there's a depth that Allah has given
the people of Gaza, a depth of Iman,
that holds them firm in these kinds of
situations.
This is what they say.
They say, Allah only decrees good for a
believer.
So no matter what we're going through, we
know that in the end there's something good
even if we don't see it with our
own eyes.
They say that we know, it is our
belief, our Iman in Allah, that Allah is
more merciful to us than our own mothers.
And so no matter what we're going through,
we understand that there is something of mercy.
When Hazar a.s. sees herself left alone
in a desert, she understands that there's something
of mercy even if she can't see it.
And soon she did.
When the water comes, the tribe of Jurhum
comes, and her son builds the Ka'bah
with her husband Ibrahim a.s. And one
of the things they say again and again
is their attachment to the book of Allah.
Where does this Iman come from?
Where does this faith come from?
It's their belief in the words of Allah.
They said from a young age, our children
are brought up in the masjid.
And it wasn't like this by the way
20 years ago.
There's been a big change in Gaza.
But our children are brought up in the
masjid.
We're brought up in the masjid.
The Quran is taught to us not like
words you recite, but the messages within the
Quran are ingrained in our lives.
So when Allah says, فَاسْبِرْ إِنَّ وَعْدَ اللَّهِ
حَقٌّ Be patient, the promise of Allah is
true.
وَلَا يَسْتَخِفَنَّكَ الَّذِينَ لَا يُوقِنُونَ And don't let
those who don't have certainty in Allah cause
you to falter.
We believe that.
We believe the promise of Allah is true.
When Allah says, لَا يَغُرَّنَّكَ تَقَلُّبُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا
فِي الْبِلَادِ Don't let those who go about
the land in power and might, destroying here
and killing there, go by that.
مَتَاعٌ قَلِيلٌ They have a very short time.
They say, we believe that.
There's a depth of iman.
An understanding of the words of Allah penetrates
the heart.
And just to give you an example, let's
say your husband comes to you, your son
comes to you and says, I want to
go to Gaza, I can go.
You just had a newborn child.
Maybe you just had celebrating whatever it is.
Maybe you get diagnosed with something and you
need their support.
But then your son says, I want to
go to Gaza.
What would be their response?
Newly married, newly mothered.
Would you say, yes, go ahead?
Or would there be hesitation?
We know when Allah says in the Quran,
don't be like those who disbelieve, who say
to those who go on the path of
Allah, if you only stayed with us, مَا
مَاتُوا وَمَا قُتِلُوا لِيَجْعَلْ لَهُ حِسْرَةً فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ
They would say, if you went out, you
wouldn't have been harmed or wouldn't have been
killed or died.
Do we believe when Allah says that nobody
will die, إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ كِتَابًا مُؤَجَّلًا At
the written time, when it's your time to
come, it will be your time to come.
Do we believe that?
We read the verses of the Quran, but
when it comes time to implement these concepts
that may be more challenging to us, take
us out of our comfort zone.
But there's a depth of iman in Gaza.
So their attachment to the Quran is not
just a superficial attachment, but it's penetrated their
hearts.
And the other thing I would say, where
does this iman come from?
Is their lived experiences.
Despite what we see, what's apparent of destruction
and death and the like, there are shared
lived experiences amongst the people of Gaza that
give them iman.
Of course, first and foremost, Allah affirms the
hearts.
But there was a sister, Umm Osama, who's
telling us this story.
She said, for one week, we hadn't eaten
food.
One week, no food in northern Gaza.
And we know northern Gaza, it's a far
different situation than the rest of Gaza.
The people in southern Gaza, make dua for
the people of northern Gaza, to give you
an idea.
She's from northern Gaza, and she said, we
hadn't eaten food for one week, and then
we finally came across, we were given some
rice.
And so she prepared, she cooked the rice.
She has her family, her father has dementia,
he's an elder man, she has children.
And right when, as soon as the rice
was completed, cooking and prepared, that's all, it's
just rice, no lentils, no beans, just rice.
They got word that the soldiers are coming,
and they must immediately leave the area.
So she told her youngest son, get the
rice and bring it with you.
She told her oldest son, you take care
of my father, the one who has dementia.
And she gathered the rest of the children,
they gathered what they could, what they could
carry on their backs, and they began walking
out with about 100 to 150 other people.
And they began fleeing the area.
Now you have to understand, she hasn't eaten
for one week, nor has her family, but
neither have many others.
And so people see the tray of rice,
people smell the rice, and they start coming
to them one by one as they're walking
away, as they're fleeing the area.
And they say, my daughter hasn't eaten in
two days, can I have some food?
And so the mom says, okay, allow, give
them.
So he opens, he uncovers it, they take
some rice, a handful, whatever it is.
Somebody else comes, I haven't eaten.
Somebody else comes, I haven't eaten.
Somebody else comes.
And so people keep coming, they see food
and nobody's eaten.
And subhanAllah, look at the generosity of a
mother whose children haven't eaten for one week,
and yet she gives.
And then she says, we got to wherever
we went, and we settled down in that
area, wherever it was.
And when they settled their family, and they're
now going to eat for the first time
in one week, rice, she opens up the
tray, and she said it was as if
nothing was diminished from the tray.
They haven't given away any rice.
These are lived experiences.
These are things that they've experienced, and people
see this, 150 people there.
I went to Doha a couple of months
ago, and I sat in front of her
brother, and I said, here there's a compound
that was used to house, you know, FIFA
attendees and whatnot.
Now it's being used to house people who
left from Gaza, medical evacuations.
And so I sat maybe with 10 brothers
after Salatul Isha, and the musalla they have
on the compound.
All of them have lost family, lost their
homes, 4 of the 10 are amputees.
And I'm just, they want me to say
some words, I said, I'm not saying anything,
I want to hear your stories.
And so one brother who's sitting across from
me, his arm is amputated.
He says, my whole family has been killed.
He wasn't married, he's a young man in
early 20s.
His parents and his siblings were all killed
in a strike, and he said, not just
killed, there was nothing left of their bodies.
There was nothing left.
The strike was so intense that nothing was
left of the bodies themselves.
And then I mentioned, where does the strength
come from in their attachment to the Qur
'an?
He's a hafidh of Qur'an.
Their brother sitting next to me, his children
were killed, and his whole family, his wife
was killed, his children were killed.
He was a hafidh, his wife was a
hafidh, his parents were both hafidh, and his
in-laws were both hafidh.
They thought he was, he was under the
rubble for three days unconscious.
When they pulled him out, they thought he
was dead.
They literally had him wrapped in a kafan
with his child next to him, wrapped in
her kafan, his baby daughter.
And he shows me the video, he doesn't
just tell me, he shows me the video
when he, subhanallah, they're getting ready to bury
him, to pray upon him, then bury him.
And he wakes up from his coma, while
he's wrapped in his own death shroud, still
alive.
And then he turns, and he sees his
daughter next to him, dead, and he begins
mourning her.
But hafidh, hafidh, parents, then he says, the
brother across from me, he's a hafidh of
Qur'an, he says, my whole family was
eviscerated, nothing's left from them.
And he's amputated his arm, and I didn't
ask if that happened in the same blast
or somewhere else, but he was injured, and
now he's in Doha.
But then look what he says, he says,
subhanallah, you know when Uthman al-Anhu, when
he was martyred and killed, they said that
his blood, it spilled upon the verse, فَسَيَكْفِيكَهُمُ
اللَّهُ That Allah will suffice you against them.
As Uthman al-Anhu was killed, his blood
spilled upon this verse.
And this young man, he says, my mus
'haf that I memorized the Qur'an with
was also completely burned and eviscerated.
Except from the whole mus'haf, except for
half of one page, half of one page,
it's all that was left from my mus
'haf.
And he said it was as if Allah
was talking to me directly.
If there was one section of the Qur
'an that would give you comfort and relief,
after your whole family has been killed, what
would it be?
He said literally as if Allah was talking
to me directly.
It was the verses in the bottom of
Al-Imran where Allah SWT He says, وَلَا
تَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ قُتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَمْوَاتَ بَلْ
أَحْيَاءٌ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ يُرْزَقُونَ فَرِيحِينَ بِمَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ
مِنْ فَضْلِهِ And don't consider those who have
been killed in the path of Allah as
being dead, rather they are alive with their
Lord being given provision, celebrating, happy and rejoicing
with what Allah SWT has given them from
His bounty.
So that's all that was left.
I mean how do you have doubts?
How can you have doubt when this is
what you experience?
This is what the people...
and there's so many stories but it's already
my time is up.
But what's sad, what's interesting is that we
have become to doubt.
We're not living what they're living.
We're not living off animal food for three
months nor having one bathroom for every 1
,000 people in a refugee camp, nor living
in a tent where there's no shelter from
the cold or wind.
Yet we're beginning to doubt.
Where is the help of Allah?
Where is the promise of Allah?
But the people who aren't doubting are the
people who are living it.
So we have to learn the lesson.
فَاصْبِرْ إِنَّ وَعَدَ اللَّهِ حَقُّ وَلَا يَسْتَخِفَنَّكَ الَّذِينَ
لَا يُوقِنُونَ Be patience.
The promise of Allah is true.
And don't let those who have no certainty
in the promise of Allah cause you to
falter.
وَأَقُولُوا قَوْلِي هَذَا وَاسْتَغْفِرُوا لَكُمْ وَاسْتَغْفِرُوا لَكُمْ فُرُّوا
رَحِيمًا بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب
العالمين والصلاة والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته وصحبه
أجمعين I'll just end by briefly telling you.
And there's so many things to share.
But when I was at Shifa Hospital in
Ramadan, this past Ramadan, after they had, the
soldiers, Israeli soldiers had withdrew from the siege
upon the hospital for 15 days.
As they're doing right now to Kaman Adwan,
a pediatric hospital in northern Gaza.
They set it on fire last night.
They did the same to Shifa.
And this is what they told Hussam Abu
Safiya, the director of Kaman Adwan, that we
will do to you what we did to
Shifa Hospital, which is burn the hospital, burn
patients alive, capture the medical workers, kill them
and torture them.
And so I stood at Shifa and I'm
standing on the stairs going up to the
administrative building.
Around me literally the smoke from the fire
that they had set to the buildings was
still coming up from that building.
When I walked into the building, the smell
of the smoke, you would start coughing.
And the other thing that you could smell
in the air is the smell of bodies.
Rotting bodies that have been buried but superficially
in the ground.
The smell of the bodies is still in
the air.
So there is a smell of smoke and
a smell of, not a pleasant smell.
And as we're standing there, a woman comes.
And she starts crying out, where is my
husband?
Where is my husband?
Because there's no, whoever was there and they're
gone now, we don't know if they're dead,
they're alive, they're captured, we have no idea.
This is a common plight of the people
of Gaza.
They don't know where their loved ones are,
whether they're alive or dead or captured or
in prison sitting in some torture cell.
We have no idea.
But then she starts saying, I can smell
my husband.
I can smell my husband.
What can you smell?
There's a smoke around.
The smell of smoke and the smell of
bodies.
What does your husband smell like?
Like, is there a certain perfume he would
wear?
How can you smell that?
I can smell my husband.
And then she looks about two meters in
front of where she's standing.
She runs forward and she picks up a
shirt.
It's a sand and rubble.
The grounds outside Shifa Hospital is a sand
and rubble and that's it.
And then she picks up a shirt from
the ground and she says, this is the
shirt of my husband.
Where is my husband?
This is his shirt.
And you think of the story of Yusuf
Alayhi Salaam.
When he gave his shirt, his shirt came
up throughout the story.
In the beginning of the story when he's
thrown in the well, left to die, maybe
he died from injuries or starvation or whatever
or taken and become a prisoner or that's
what happened.
His shirt was used as an excuse in
front of his father of a wolf ate
him.
But then you fast forward decades later to
the end of the story of Yusuf Alayhi
Salaam and the shirt comes up again when
his family leaves Egypt.
What does his father say?
إني لأجد ريح يوسف I can smell the
smell of Yusuf Alayhi Salaam.
And what happened decades later?
He was reunited with his father.
He became the leader of Egypt.
And just like this woman found the smell
the shirt of her husband.
Who knows what will happen decades later?
But what we and I have to learn
is لا يغرر أنك تقلب الذين كفروا في
البلاد Don't be deceived.
The promise of Allah is true.
And so we shouldn't question the wisdom of
Allah.
But we need to question is our iman
in the wisdom of Allah.
Look at the people of Gaza.
They don't question the wisdom of Allah.
They're content with the decree of Allah.
Of course, we have to do everything.
It doesn't mean we submit to this oppression.
No, humiliation, no.
But we understand that there's a higher power
who's controlling everything.
دبّروا الأمر Allah is fully in command and
control.
And when that day comes, just like the
day came from Syria, الحمد لله And we
see people rejoicing in the streets.
People who said, We never in our wildest
dreams imagined seeing this in our lifetime.
Inshallah, it will come also for Palestine.
All of Bilad al-Sham.
May Allah make us amongst those the reasons
for victory, not the reasons for defeat.
May Allah give us strength of iman and
yaqeen to understand that everything happens by the
will of Allah.
And may Allah give us a depth of
understanding with the Quran, a depth of understanding,
a depth of iman, so that we aren't
shaken by the trials of this world.
May Allah give the people of Gaza victory.
May Allah free them from their oppressors.
May Allah make this winter and this cold
weather warmth and peace upon the people of
Gaza.
May Allah feed them from their hunger and
clothe them from their nakedness and give them
drink from their thirst.
May Allah destroy their oppressors.
Give us the comfort of our hearts and
souls to see the oppressors fall and destroyed
in our lifetime.
اللهم آمين اللهم آمين و أقيم الصلاة