Fatima Lette – Living The Quran For Women Lessons From The ProphetS Life #01
AI: Summary ©
The upcoming series of study on the Prophet Muhammad will cover various verses and themes, including his life event. The importance of understanding the Prophet's teachings and finding a role model is emphasized. The importance of praying for one's success and protecting and respecting people and culture is also emphasized. The segment ends with a recap of the importance of the Prophet's relationship with people and their emotions.
AI: Summary ©
It's Seedah through the Quran, and obviously this
class is called Exploring the Quran, so we
want to keep very true to the name
of the class, and we want to be
able to connect with the ayat that Allah
ﷻ has revealed to us.
And over the past couple of weeks, one
of the biggest things that, over the last
couple of actually classes that I should say,
and themes that we've done, one of the
things that we focused on a lot is
being able to find a sense of meaning,
being able to find a sense of peace
in patients through trial and tribulations, and being
able to explore those verses as it pertains
to difficulties and hardship, which is why we
covered Surah Yusuf and the difficulties that Yusuf
ﷺ and Yaqub ﷺ face, alongside also covering
before that the verses as it pertained to
faith.
But now, inshallah, this is going to be,
I can't tell you how long or short
this series is going to be.
It will just end when it ends, okay,
in the sense that I was doing this
little mapping out thing, and then it was
stressful, so I decided we're just going to
take it each week as it goes.
The life of the Prophet ﷺ, it is
a period of, you know, the Prophet ﷺ
passed away in his 60s, so I'm not
going to tell you that it's going to
take 60 sessions, because we're not going to
do a year session, but it may take
a little bit longer.
I don't know.
But what we want to do is we
want to show that connection and show that
way of understanding the life of the Prophet
ﷺ by means of the verses that Allah
ﷻ has sent down.
When you study about the Qur'an, and
a particular science called the Uloom al-Qur
'an, which means the principles and the sciences
of the Qur'an, one of the things
that you see within that particular science is
a study called Asbab al-Nuzul, and this
is the circumstances of revelation.
And what you learn in that is that
there are certain ayat, there are certain verses,
there are certain verses that are revealed as
a response to a situation that has occurred
in the life of the Prophet ﷺ.
And sometimes it's actually revealed before the situation
even occurs, in a way of developing a
mindset, perhaps maybe developing an understanding, or providing
a solution to an issue that's going to
come up.
So, for instance, if we talk about Surah
al-Ahzab, which we're going to go through
an ayah about Surah al-Ahzab today, Surah
al-Ahzab was, many of the ayat within
Surah al-Ahzab were revealed during the time
of the battle of al-Ahzab, right?
And so, what we're learning is that this
Surah is named al-Ahzab, and that you
have a battle that has these things occurring,
and then from there you have a Surah
that has all of these incidences that occurred
in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, and
we have a Surah that is giving a
guideline to the Prophet ﷺ on how to
deal with that particular battle or that particular
situation.
When you look into Surah al-Imran, and
Surah al-Imran is a very long Surah,
it's the second longest Surah in the Qur
'an, but it has a lot of different
pockets of stories that are happening.
So, you have the story of Maryam ﷺ,
you have the story as it pertains to
Isa ﷺ, you have the story of Zakariya,
right?
And all of these things are Christian narratives,
and essentially when you're reading them, like when
we're reading it, maybe we're reading it in
our own native language or English or whatever
the case may be, we're just reading it
as maybe Allah ﷻ is giving us an
understanding of what's happened in the past, but
when you actually go into why are these
verses revealed, what is happening in that time
of the Prophet ﷺ, there is a delegation
of Christians that came from Najran, which is
where a lot of the Christians had settled
down, and they came to talk to the
Prophet ﷺ.
So while they were on their way to
talk to the Prophet ﷺ, Allah ﷻ revealed
these ayat to the Prophet ﷺ, giving him
an exposure into the Christian narrative, right?
So what we're understanding is that the Qur
'an is something that is coupled, it is
attached to the life of the Prophet ﷺ,
and for us to be able to truly
make it in life, if we're able to
make it in our lifetime, and by making
it, it means that we die, and we
die with a clean heart, we die being
able to go to Allah and say, yeah,
Allah, we've tried our best.
There are two things that the Prophet ﷺ
says that he's left us with, and that
is Kitab Allah wa Sunnati, is the book
of Allah and his way, his path and
his sunnah and his life and legacy.
And so with that, I felt, and obviously
my teachers as well felt, that it would
be very important that we also study the
seerah and the life of the Prophet ﷺ
in this way and through these lens, considering
how important it is to have these two
aspects in our life.
I am very excited for this new series,
even though when I was prepping I said
that I thought about this at a time
that my life was not as crazy as
it is now, and so I make bad
decisions when I feel good.
But alhamdulillah I made it through my prep,
so we're still excited, right?
So the Qur'an was revealed over 23
years, and it was revealed over the entire
prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and as
I mentioned before, it has ayaat that include
the stories of his life, or explanations during
the time of his life, and it has
ayaat that are inclusive of things that have
happened outside of the life of the Prophet
ﷺ.
Some ayaats in the Qur'an have a
circumstance, they have a situation that has occurred,
and that is why it was revealed, and
some ayaat do not, they're just informative.
And so, excuse me, Allah ﷻ just reveals
them, and there is no situation necessarily or
question that has been asked, and that is
why it's revealed, rather God just reveals it
as an informative type of situation.
Now any science that you study, and Sida
is a science, it's important to know the
definitions within that science.
And I know that's a very different setup
than how we normally have, so don't worry
guys, just really stick with me, okay, don't
leave me, just stick with me, right?
We're gonna have a good time.
But in order for us to do justice
to the life of the Prophet ﷺ, it's
important for us to go through certain definitions,
and because this is a Qur'an class,
I'm going to go through those definitions through
the Qur'an.
So the first word, and really the only
word that we're gonna be defining today is
Sida.
When you look at it from a linguistic
standpoint, Sida means a path, it means a
way, and it means a path where someone
walks and someone else takes that path after.
So it is essentially like to trace something,
for somebody to have left a legacy and
then for someone else to come and trace
that path.
The other word, or the other way that
we would define Sida is sometimes we define
it in a very figurative manner, and figurative
meaning in the way that it's applied to
this particular science, and this is the science
of studying the life of the Prophet ﷺ.
And Sida is a person's life, and it's
a path that they have been on, and
it's a life that they lived in whichever
direction they're living that life.
So whichever way that they have taken that
way.
In Surah Taha, Allah ﷻ gives us a
very beautiful conversation that he has with Musa
ﷺ, and he says, وَأَنَا احْتَرُتُكَ فَاسْتَمِعْ لِمَا
يُوْهَا So, I've chosen you, O Moses.
So listen very carefully to what has been
revealed.
إِنَّنِي أَنَا اللَّهُ Indeed, I am Allah.
لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا أَنَا There is no god,
there is no deity worthy of worship except
for me.
فَاعْبُدْنِي So, since that's the case, worship me.
And how?
وَأَكِيمُ الصَّلَاةَ لِذِكْرِي By establishing prayer for my
remembrance.
إِنَّ السَّاعَةَ آتِيَةٌ Know that the hour is
very near.
أَكَادُ أُخْفِيهَا I've almost completely concealed it.
لِتُجْزَا كُلُّ نَفْسٍ بِمَا تَسَعَ So that every
soul can bear and they can know what
they put forward.
فَلَا يَسُدَّنَّكَ عَنْهَا مَنْ لَا يُؤْمِنُ بِهَا وَاتَّبَعَ
هَوَاهُ فَتَرُدَى And don't let people who do
not believe in it, meaning believe in the
mission, وَاتَّبَعَ هَوَاهُ And they follow their own
desires.
Push you away from the path because only
you will perish.
And then he turns to Musa alayhis salaam
and he has a direct discourse with him.
And a direct discourse means, if I were
to just sit here and talk at you
guys and then get up and leave after
40 minutes, that would not be a conversation.
That would be a lecture.
But a direct discourse means you ask questions
and someone responds.
It is a dialogue.
Right?
So Allah swt says, وَكَذَّمَ اللَّهُ مُوسَىٰ تَكْرِيمًا
That Allah had direct discourse with Musa alayhis
salaam.
This is what he's explaining here.
So Allah swt then turned to Musa alayhis
salaam and he says, وَمَا تِذِكَ بِيَمِينِكَ يَا
مُوسَىٰ What is in your right hand, O
Moses?
قَالَ هِيَ أَصَايَةَ Musa alayhis salaam responded and
he said, It is myself.
أَتَوَكَّوْ عَلَيْهَا That I lean upon it.
وَأَحُشُ بِيْهَا عَلَىٰ غَنَمِي And I use it
to herd my sheep and like bring leaves
down from it.
وَلِيَّ فِيهَا مَعَارِبُ أُخْرَى And I have a
bunch of other uses that I do with
it.
Allah swt then told him, قَالَ أَلْقِهَا يَا
مُوسَىٰ Throw it down, O Moses.
فَأَلْقَاهَا فَإِذَا هِيَةٌ تَسَىٰ When he threw it
down, it became a swift moving snake.
Then Allah swt turned to Moses and he
said, خُتْهَا Pick it up.
وَلَا تَخَفْ And don't be scared.
Now I know you guys forgot while we
were covering this because this is the word
that's coming up next.
He then says, سَنُعِيدُهَا We shall return it.
سَنُعِيدُهَا سِيرَةَ هَالْأُولَى We shall return it back
into its original form.
It will go back to the path in
which it came from.
Which means that this staff, when you threw
it down, it transformed and it became a
snake.
When you go down to pick it up,
it's going to transform back and become a
staff.
So سِيرَة means for something to walk the
same path.
It means for it to be back in
the same way.
It means for it to have like this
trace.
It's a path that someone once walked, right?
And it's a life that someone has lived.
So when we say that we're studying the
سِيرَة of the Prophet ﷺ, it's not just
reading narrations about him.
No, it's not that.
We're walking in the footsteps of the Prophet.
We want to know who he was.
We want to know how he was.
We want to know what type of husband
was he?
What type of father?
What type of son?
What type of uncle?
What type of nephew?
We want to know what type of prophet
was he?
Why?
Because that is an important part of our
life.
We spend a lot of time engaged in
other people's lives.
We spend an unhealthy amount of time engaged
in other people's lives.
We know what kind of car they drive.
We know what kind of house they have.
We know what they had for dinner last
Thursday.
We know what their kids are doing at
any given hour of the day.
And we end up creating these unrealistic understandings
of what it means to have a role
model that is not really, does not really
actually fit your lifestyle that you should believe
in.
And when we think about it, a lot
of times the question that comes up is,
how can I relate to the Prophet if
he lives in such a long time ago?
When really, what have we done or what
effort have we put forward to try to
relate to him?
What effort have we put forward in trying
to get to know him?
How do you relate to some random Amanda
from down the street and you don't know
her?
Because you put effort in her life.
You've been looking at her page.
You've been looking at what she does for
her job.
You don't have the same life as her.
You don't have the same job.
You don't have nothing.
Like her.
But for some reason, that's your girl and
you're locked in.
But when it comes to the Prophet, it's
too far.
It's unattainable.
It's not reachable.
When really our understanding is that Allah SWT
tells us that the Prophet is not just
a random human that we should have reverence
for, that we should love and we should
care for.
The Prophet, Allah SWT tells us the Prophet
is our role model.
And so this is one of the reasons
why we have to study Sirah.
Allah SWT tells us in the Qur'an
in Surah Al-Ahzab, which is the Surah
I told you guys was revealed about a
battle.
Allah SWT tells us, لَقَدَ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي
رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُصْوَةٌ هَسْنَةٌ لَقَدَ means most definitely
without a doubt.
قَدَ already has an understanding of emphasis.
The Lamb being there gives another level of
emphasis.
So Allah SWT is telling us most definitely,
without a doubt, this is a factual statement.
Kana is a very interesting word because they
call Kana actually a sister.
She has a lot of words that kind
of connect to her, right?
There's a lot of, Kana does a lot
of interesting things in the sentence structure.
But it brings this understanding of something being
eternal, right?
So when you add Kana and then you
add like a present tense verb next to
it, it brings this person used to do
this, meaning continuity.
Does that make sense?
So when Allah SWT says, لَقَدَ كَانَ لَكُمْ
that most definitely without a doubt, there was,
is, and will always be for you.
لَكُمْ means for you.
It is attached to you.
This is what God has given to you.
It is a gift for you.
Okay, then he says, فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ in
the messenger of Allah, you will find.
Now what's interesting is that it's not quantified
with a bunch of things.
It's just Uswatun Hasna.
But when you see Fi, it has an
understanding of if you were to immerse yourself
into the life of the Prophet ﷺ and
you were to put your foot in his
shoes and you were to live his life
through event by event, then you would find
Uswatun Hasna, a perfect role model.
Then you have to put in the effort.
You cannot say that this person is not
a role model for me without having put
in the effort of getting to know who
they are.
The Prophet ﷺ has suffered immense levels of
difficulty throughout his lifetime.
And when we think about the hardships or
the difficulties that we face and things that
seem impossible to overcome and we're looking for
just a little bit of inspiration.
We're looking for just a little bit of
someone to tell us like, it's going to
be okay, you got this.
Or maybe even their story to inspire us.
We look in all the wrong places.
But when you look at the life of
the Prophet ﷺ and the difficulty on difficulty
on difficulty on difficulty that he's faced and
different examples that Allah ﷻ gives us through
his lifetime for us to take from.
What we understand is Uswatun Hasna is actually
like him being a perfect pattern.
That's what it means.
It's like a pattern.
Something that you can weave and like learn
after.
It's like, you know, when you do those
painting classes and someone's teaching you it's actually
better than that.
It's someone actually painting it for you to
be honest, right?
That's what Uswatun Hasna means.
And so Allah ﷻ telling us here that
if you engage truly engage in the life
of the Prophet ﷺ and you truly live
that life event by event then you not
only find a role model but you find
footsteps to walk in.
You find this is the blueprint of how
to deal with X, Y and Z situation.
The second reason why it's very important for
us to learn the Seed of the Prophet
ﷺ is because it humanizes the Prophet ﷺ.
Allah ﷻ says in Surah al-Kahf Qul
He tells the Prophet ﷺ say Innama ana
basharun that indeed I am a human being.
Why?
Because when we think about prophets and we
think about righteous people for some reason our
mind automatically goes to okay, they're angels.
They're angels.
They're unattainable.
They're not in the same realm as us.
And Allah ﷻ is literally telling the Prophet
ﷺ that he should say to the people
that I am just a human being.
Mithlukum just like each and every single one
of you.
And what does that mean?
It means the Prophet ﷺ went to the
marketplace as God tells us.
It means the Prophet ﷺ had a family.
It means the Prophet ﷺ there are narrations
that he's gotten upset before.
There's narrations of his sadness.
There's narrations of his difficulty.
There's narrations of his happiness.
There's narrations that he enjoyed laughter and he
liked to joke around.
Like these are all very human-like qualities
and they're things that we can relate to.
But what makes him so special yuha'iway
that revelation has come to him.
That is what makes him different.
But the first thing that he says is
that he is a human being.
Allah ﷻ tells us he's giving us this
understanding over and over in the Qur'an
so that we don't feel so far away
from the Prophet ﷺ so that we can
have that close connection with him.
The third reason that is important for us
to learn the seerah is because it provides
us an understanding of who the Prophet ﷺ
is to us.
And this is going to have a couple
of ayat because there were so many it
was hard for me to choose so I
just choose a lot of them.
The first ayah is essentially it is essentially
just the general understanding of the Prophet ﷺ
you would say job description, right?
It is what he is meant to do
for us.
Allah ﷻ says in Surah A'raf you
see this word again means say and this
is what Allah ﷻ is commanding the Prophet
ﷺ to do.
O people, he's telling the Prophet ﷺ say
to the people O people that indeed I'm
a messenger of Allah.
I've been sent to you all, everyone.
And that explanation is from the one who
the kingdom and the control and the responsibility
of the heavens and earth is in his
hands.
Meaning I've been sent by Allah the one
who has brought you into existence.
The one who is giving you everything that
you need.
The one who has nourished you.
The one who's taking care of you.
And then he says there's no God there's
no deity worthy of worship except for him.
Allah brings life and he gives death.
الَّذِي يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَكَلِمَاتِهِ وَاتَّبِعُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَحْتَدُونَ
So there's no God worthy of worship except
for Allah.
He causes life, he brings life and he
gives death.
So believe in Allah and his messenger and
it's not just any messenger but the messenger
that was unlettered.
The Prophet ﷺ did not have the ability
to read and write.
And when we as Westerners and some of
you guys know my little rant about literacy
as Westerners when we think about someone who
cannot read and write we automatically summon up
to being illiterate.
And illiterate means someone who's uneducated or does
not have the ability of education.
They do not have the ability to gain
knowledge.
We would never consider the Prophet ﷺ to
have been illiterate because literacy is not defined
by pages in a book.
It cannot be defined by writing.
Literacy is defined by Allah ﷻ giving us
human beings the ability of growth.
You ever wondered why the angels were so
fascinated by Adam ﷺ?
They were not fascinated by Adam ﷺ because
he was a human being.
They are fascinated by Adam ﷺ because Allah
ﷻ said to them that I've taught him
the names of all things.
And so when Adam ﷺ was given life
when Allah ﷻ blew the ruh into Adam
and he's looking at the angels and the
angels have existed for centuries longer than him
in the same place and he's pointing to
trees and telling them that is a tree
and he's pointing to the angels and telling
them this is your name and he's pointing
to like fruits and telling them this is
the type of fruit that this is.
They have existed for centuries and have not
been able to identify those things.
And now this new creation that if you
read some Isra'iliyat which are unreliable narrations
but we read them, okay?
Not for fun.
We read them for understanding, right?
But if you read some of the Isra
'iliyat they talk about the angels walking past
Adam ﷺ before a ruh is blown into
him is this hollow shell of clay and
they're thinking to themselves like what is this
new creation?
What is it that God has brought to
this earth?
And when they do ask Allah they don't
question.
They ask.
Questioning is derogatory.
It's to think that someone doesn't know what
they're doing and the angels did not think
that Allah did not know what he was
doing.
They ask questions.
And when they ask Allah questions Allah ﷻ
responded to them by saying that I've taught
Adam the names of all things and I
know that which you do not know.
And when Adam ﷺ showed them this incredible
ability of being able to be literate they
were mind blown.
It was something that they had never seen
before even though they were created for centuries
prior to Adam.
And so Allah ﷻ gives us human beings.
That's what makes us different.
He gives us the ability of knowledge and
growth.
And the Prophet ﷺ was the most knowledgeable.
He was an incredibly smart human being.
He was an incredibly aware person that people
would go to the Prophet ﷺ and ask
him questions that didn't even have to pertain
with only religion.
They were asking him about business.
They were asking him about different things because
he was that smart even though he could
not read and write.
And so Allah ﷻ uses the word ummi
here in the Qur'an as he refers
to the Prophet ﷺ not in a derogatory
manner but in a way of honor.
That he is the Prophet.
He's a Prophet of Allah that was unlettered.
الَّذِي يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَكَلِمَاتِهِ وَاتَّبِعُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَحْتَدُونَ
And he said and follow him so that
you may be rightly guided.
So what we know what we know first
and foremost is that the Prophet ﷺ we're
learning about his life because he's our Prophet.
He's our Prophet.
He is not just a random human.
He is someone that Allah ﷻ has given
us the responsibility of getting to know.
Another ayah that Allah ﷻ puts in the
Qur'an that is so beautiful is that
Allah ﷻ says وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً مِنْ
عَالَمِينَ And we did not send you O
Muhammad except as a mercy to all of
humanity.
And what is so beautiful about this ayah
is that you find the Prophet ﷺ in
his lifetime being very very concerned not just
about people but about animals about nature just
in how he carried himself.
Sustainability is the new honestly okay it is
the new consumerism right let's all be very
honest okay they got you again right but
it's a new trend everybody wants to be
sustainable everybody thinks it's something new it's not
new guys we're not we're never inventing anything
let's be honest right it's not new this
is who the Prophet ﷺ was he talks
about the responsibility that a person has with
what they put into their body you should
have one third of water one third for
air one third for food can you imagine
can you imagine and now everybody's like portion
control it's like yeah well we've been through
that okay thank you so much for your
advice and telling me what I already know
I love it right but this is all
the Prophet ﷺ was doing before because he
was concerned with us which brings us to
the next ayah where Allah ﷻ says لَقَدَ
جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ and this is one
of my favorite ayahs because it shows so
much of the humanity of the Prophet ﷺ
but also shows the weight of responsibility that
he had and Allah ﷻ says you see
that word again لَقَدَ and when he's talking
about the Prophet's ﷺ character he brings this
emphasis that most definitely without a shadow of
a doubt a messenger has come to you
all مِنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ he has not come to
you all from outer space he did not
come to you all from a different species
he has come to you all from amongst
you he is from amongst you عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ
مَعَنِتُمْ it is very difficult for him what
you face the difficulty that you face the
hardship that comes to you it is very
grievous upon him عَزِيزٌ is so interesting because
grieving when you grieve grief doesn't have an
end grief is one of those things that
is like this it gets better and then
something reminds you it gets better and something
reminds you you find good times in the
grief that's what it is and when Allah
ﷻ says it's grievous upon him what he's
saying is that though you make it through
your day-to-day and everything is fairly
okay the Prophet ﷺ is not concerned with
just your good times he's also concerned when
the days are not day and great when
the when the life is lifing he's concerned
can you imagine someone is like always thinking
about you and they've never met you they're
thinking about you and they're concerned about what
type of day you're having they're concerned if
you've prayed today they're concerned if you have
a good relationship between you and God they're
concerned if you've lost hope they're concerned if
your difficulty is too too hard or too
heavy to bear but they've never met you
they've never laid eyes on you and Allah
ﷻ preserves this in the Quran for us
to know this about the Prophet ﷺ so
he says عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا أَنِكْتُمْ but then
the second description he gives of him is
even more beautiful حَرِيس means someone who almost
will put themselves in a bad situation to
help you fix your situation you know like
someone needs to go to work but you
or your car broke down so they say
actually you can take my car and it's
like well how are you going to get
to work it's like well I'll figure it
out but now they're late to work and
they might lose their job does that make
sense so حَرِيسٌ has an understanding of someone
being so down to help you that they
don't mind putting themselves in the worst situation
to get you out of yours so Allah
ﷻ says حَرِيسٌ عَلَيْكُمْ he's ever so concerned
over you in every aspect of what you
do and who you are he is concerned
about it he will give up everything for
you بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَءُوفٌ رَهِيمٌ and to the believers
he's especially ever so loving and so merciful
that when we follow in the footsteps of
the Prophet ﷺ and we do what he
has done we pray like we've seen him
pray we practice how we see him practice
we glorify God how we see him glorify
Allah and we don't have to be perfect
at it we just make that effort the
reality of it is that we unlock a
special type of mercy from God and that
is Allah ﷻ being a Rahim it is
a mercy that only believers are afforded on
the day of judgment when we talk about
the Prophet ﷺ we talk about intercession it
gets like weird people have these weird things
like oh this person's a saint they're gonna
tell God to let me go to Jannah
like you might as well hang that up
hang it up okay so intercession is like
a weird conversation especially amongst Muslims and foreigners
like it's just a weird conversation when you
talk about the intercession of the Prophet ﷺ
that is different why?
because when we when we read the narrations
there are different people there are groups groups
of people each nation will be resurrected with
their Prophet but everybody would be in the
same plane on the day of judgment meaning
it's a very flat land and everyone will
be there and you will have that there
are groups of believers that will go to
Prophet ﷺ after Prophet ﷺ after Prophet ﷺ
and they will be begging these Prophets to
intercede on their behalf so they will go
to Adam ﷺ and they will say Adam
you're the first man okay you're the first
Prophet you're the first human being and we
just need you to tell Allah that we're
trying and Adam ﷺ is going to tell
us because we're going to be those people
and Adam ﷺ is going to tell us
that I really wish I could help you
but I too have things to answer to
Allah for and then we'll go to Musa
ﷺ and Musa ﷺ will say well this
is a very good request but I accidentally
killed a man and I have to answer
to Allah for that and then we'll go
to Isa ﷺ and Isa ﷺ will say
listen I want intercession too but I have
to answer to Allah because there are people
who deified me they made me God and
now I have to go and I have
to tell God that I didn't tell those
people to do that and we'll go to
Prophet after Prophet after Prophet until we get
to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and when we
get to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ he will
say okay let me see what I can
do and he will go and he will
prostrate before Allah and when he goes into
sajda Allah ﷻ will see that this is
why Allah ﷻ calls him Habib his love
his beloved he will see that and Allah
ﷻ will say what did my beloved come
for today raise your head and when the
Prophet ﷺ raises his head he says I've
come to intercede on behalf of the ummah
I've come to intercede on behalf of the
people who believed in you Ya Allah and
Allah ﷻ will tell him to say go
down the list and he will go down
the list and there will be people but
Allah ﷻ will say yes you may intercede
on their behalf and there will be people
Allah ﷻ will say no you cannot intercede
on their behalf an intercession is not strange
it's like a character witness it's for someone
to come and say this person tried and
they put in that effort imagine at a
time where mothers are not concerned about their
children where people are drenched in their own
sweat when every person wants to actually get
their lick back like people are going and
they're like pay me pay up this is
what people are concerned about the Prophet ﷺ
is spending his moments in sajdah before Allah
not for himself but for you and I
because when Allah ﷻ says that حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْهِ
مَا أَنِتُمْ that's so grievous and difficult for
him what you endure حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُمْ and he's
ever so troubled by your difficulty your hardship
that is truly who the Prophet ﷺ was
to us when the Prophet ﷺ is standing
in salah and he's praying and he's making
dua and his feet are literally making imprints
in the sand okay we think praying for
Taraweeh is hard and we have these soft
carpets imported from Turkey and all this crazy
stuff right I went to a masjid they
spent 20 minutes telling me about their carpet
I was like I am not here for
your carpet I'm so sorry okay but we
think that's hard and then we move when
we see our footprints there and we're like
oh man I did that today but imagine
the Prophet ﷺ standing in sand have you
have you kneeled in sand before have you
stood in sand before he's standing in sand
his footprints are imprinted in that sand he's
making dua and he's crying and the companions
are coming to him and they're saying Ya
Rasulullah who are you making dua for he
says my brothers and sisters and the companions
are happy because for them we're your brothers
and sisters and the Prophet ﷺ says no
not for you guys though he did make
dua for them but he says no this
is not for you guys my brothers and
sisters are those who believed in me even
though they didn't see me that is you
and I that the Prophet ﷺ is praying
for so when we say that is important
this third aspect that is important for us
to learn the Sida it's important for us
to learn the Sida because it it gives
us an understanding of who the Prophet ﷺ
is to you and I he is someone
who prayed for us more than we pray
for our own self he is someone who
cares about our own well-being more than
we care about our own self he is
someone who cares about our relationship between us
and Allah more than we care about that
relationship our own self Allah ﷻ says in
Surah Al-Bayyinah لَمْ يَكُنَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِنْ
أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ وَالْمُشْرِكِينَ مُنْفَكِّينَ حَتَّى تَعْتِيَهُ الْبَيِّينَ
that those who disbelieve amongst the people of
the scripture the people of the book and
those who are who commit shirk they will
not be a part of disbelief until like
they will not be held accountable for disbelief
until the clear proof comes to them so
when clarity comes to them that's when they'll
be held accountable but what's interesting is that
Allah ﷻ then follows it up with saying
رَسُولٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ because the scholars then have
a question what does Bayyinah what is Bayyinah
referring to and Ibn Jawzi says that Al
-Bayyinah in this ayah is referring to the
Prophet ﷺ why?
because afterwards Allah ﷻ says رَسُولٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ
is a messenger who comes from who was
sent from Allah يَتْلُو صُحُفَ الْمُتَحَرَةِ and he
recited onto you all the very clear and
purified scripture فِيهَا قُتْمٌ قَيِّيمًا and you find
that there's books that are ever so established
the scripture that is established that is who
the Prophet ﷺ is he's the vessel in
which the Qur'an was revealed from or
through he is a messenger for us who
was sent by Allah and he is sent
from amongst us so he's human which means
that we have things that we can relate
to and he is ever so caring and
so loving the fourth thing that Allah ﷻ
that we understand from the Prophet ﷺ is
actually through a narration from Aisha رضي الله
عنها it wouldn't be my class if I
did not mention her so Aisha رضي الله
عنها was approached by some تابعين which were
people who came after the companions and they
said قُلْنَا لِعَائِشَةِ we said to Aisha رضي
الله عنها يا أم المؤمنين oh mother of
the believers كيف كان خلق رسول الله ﷺ
how was the character the personality of the
Prophet ﷺ قالت she then responded and she
said كان خلق رسول الله that the character
personality and who the Prophet ﷺ was القرآن
was the Qur'an that he was a
walking talking Qur'an and then he said
فقرأت she then began to respond to recite
قَدْ أَفْلَحَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ oh however so successful is
the believer الَّذِينَ هُمْ فِى صَلَاتِهِمْ خَاشِيُونَ who
is the believer the believer is the one
who has this level of focus and reverence
when it comes to their salah وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ
عَنِ اللَّغْوِ مُؤْرِدُونَ and when they come across
something that is not good frivolous talk people
talking about other people people talking about things
that doesn't bring them any type of benefit
they turn away from it وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ لِزَقَاتِ
فَعِنُونَ and they're the ones when it comes
to the charity that Allah has obligated them
to give they not only give it but
they're on top of it like they give
it as if this is their personality وَالَّذِينَ
هُمْ لِفُرُوجِهِمْ هَافِضُونَ and they're the ones who
when it comes to their chastity they protect
it إِلَّا عَلَىٰ أَزْوَاجِهِمْ أَوْ مَعَ مَلَكَةِ أَيْمَانُهُمْ
فَإِنَّهُمْ غَيْرُ مَلُومِينَ and they only give themselves
to people who Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la has allowed by means of relationships
that are considered to be permissible and they
do not cross those boundaries فَمَنِ ابْتَغَىٰ وَرَاءَ
ذَلِكَ and whoever tries to go around these
different boundaries that God has set ذَلِكَ فَأُولَئِكَ
هُمُ الْعَادُونَ then know that they have transgressed
وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ and the believers are those who
لِأَمَانَاتِهِمْ when it comes to their promises that
they've put together وَأَهْدِهِمْ and their contrasts they've
gotten to رَعُون they're on top of it
they're shepherding it كُلُّكُمْ رَعِن وَكُلُّكُمْ مَسْئُولٌ عَلَىٰ
رَعِيَتِهِ every single one of you is a
shepherd and every single one of you will
be asked about that which you have responsibility
over and so when it comes to the
promises that they make they make sure that
they take it as a true responsibility وَالَّذِينَ
هُمْ عَلَىٰ صَلَوَاتِهِمْ يُحَافِضُنَ and they're the ones
that when it comes to their prayer they
make sure that they protect and they preserve
it this is what Aisha رضي الله عنها
recited when she wanted to explain who the
Prophet ﷺ was that he was a successful
believer but you notice how these verses are
revealed to us which means that every single
one of us in this room has the
opportunity to be a successful believer every single
one of us has the opportunity to be
able to actually accomplish that which we're meant
to accomplish in this world and that is
worshiping Allah now the last portion of today
that I want to really focus on is
the importance of knowing the seerah and again
first class a little bit different than what
we're used to but I felt that it
would not do the class justice had I
not bring the narrations of different scholars and
different companions of the past and what they
have to say about the seerah you have
a narration that says that we
used to spend time
learning the life of the Prophet ﷺ just
like we will spend time learning the seerahs
of the Qur'an and I think it's
so important to understand that because how do
we want the Qur'an to be transformative
in our life if we don't understand the
context in which it's revealed it doesn't work
that way I cannot expect to have a
close relationship with the Qur'an and expect
to have this emotional deep connection with the
verses of Allah not knowing them now the
beauty of the Qur'an the mercy of
God is that there can be people who
can listen to the Qur'an not understand
a single word from it and still be
transformed by it because that is of God's
mercy that is out of Allah's compassion but
now that Allah has put the incentive there
he's made it a melody that sounds beautiful
he's allowed for it to be easy for
us to be able to read and understand
right because even though Arabic may not be
an easy subject but there's a plethora of
translations that you can understand the Qur'an
from so Allah ﷻ has facilitated for us
to have understanding of his book Allah ﷻ
has done his part for us we have
to then say that God has given us
incentive what do we do now with that
incentive we should capitalize on it that means
we jump on this and we say how
can we understand more of the Qur'an
while we understand more of the Qur'an
by understanding the life of the Prophet ﷺ
you have another narration that says كَانَ أَبِي
يُعَلِّمُنَا أَلْمَغَاصِ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ that my father
used to spend time teaching us about the
life of the Prophet ﷺ وَيَقُولُ and he
would say يَا بَنِيَّ هَذِهِ مَآثِرُ آبَائِكُمْ فَلَا
تُدَيِّئُوا ذِكْرَهُا that this is the pathway this
is the secret of your forefathers and don't
let it fade away don't let this be
something that becomes like fables if you let
this just become stories they don't become things
to actually practice on and act upon and
in this last narration you have a narration
from Imam al-Ghazali and he said that
the Prophet ﷺ's life is something that is
for every single person it's not just for
Muslims it is something that every single human
being should study the Prophet ﷺ is the
most documented human in history in accordance to
western academics he is the most documented human
being in history there are more books written
about his leadership than any other person and
can you imagine people who do not have
your belief remember فَلَا يَسُدَّنَّكَ أَنْهَا مَنْ لَا
يُؤْمِنُ بِهَا وَتَبَعَ هَوَاهُ people who don't believe
in what you believe in people who follow
their desires are benefiting more from your Prophet
ﷺ than you are that is the reality
of it so when we read these stories
as we're going to go next week inshallah
we're going to start with pre-Islamic Arabia
understanding what that looked like but as we
keep going through the life of the Prophet
ﷺ I want us all to make it
all of us communally make an intention that
we're not just learning the life of the
Prophet ﷺ through the Quran to just know
more stories or know more facts about the
life of the Prophet ﷺ but we're learning
it so that we can embody who the
Prophet ﷺ was so that we can walk
in his footsteps so that we can be
blessed with his intercession by the permission of
Allah so we can drink from his blessed
hands on the day of judgment so that
we too are people that can stand before
Allah and say yeah Allah we actually tried
we put an effort to be the best
people that we could we tried our best
to teach our children to be those good
upright human beings and we try to put
as much effort into preserving your deen as
possible that is who we want to be
because at the end of the day when
we ask ourselves where do our priorities lie
who are your role models who are the
people that you look up to that is
who you end up becoming like it is
the pure reality of it we always talk
about teenagers and how they need people to
look up to and they need role models
and this and that and like put them
in this program and that is important 100
% but what about you and I who
are we looking up to who are we
making our role model who are we allowing
to be able to actually control what our
mindset should be like and some of us
in this room may say we don't have
role models and that's not true because if
you look at your algorithm it's going to
tell you exactly who you think you are
if you look at your algorithm it's going
to tell you exactly who your role model
is that is what it's going to tell
you and then you will go back and
you examine that and you ask yourself is
this the person I want to become is
this the human being that I want to
be and sometimes when we put ourselves in
that situation we have a lot of like
you know ways of convincing ourselves otherwise but
ask yourself is that who you would want
your child to become to grow up and
be like the people that you've made your
role model the people that you spend your
time watching the things that you spend your
time investing in if your child acted just
like that influencer just like that person would
you be happy with them would you want
them to go to Allah that way and
I'm going to tell you right now 9
.9 times out of 10 the answer is
going to be no that is not what
you want so why would you want that
for yourself so the objective the goal inshallah
of this class is to connect these two
gems the Quran and the seerah for us
to really be able to strap ourselves up
actually by our bootstraps and really be able
to endure and push through life but push
through it with the prophet as our role
model so I pray that Allah allows us
to benefit from everything that we heard here
today I pray that Allah SWT forgives us
all of our shortcomings that Allah SWT allows
us to be people who engage in the
study of the life of the prophet SAW
I pray that Allah SWT allows us to
walk in the footsteps of the prophet SAW
that Allah SWT allows us to gather in
the gathering much better than this there are
brothers and sisters who are suffering around the
world that Allah SWT brings them peace that
Allah SWT brings them comfort that Allah SWT
allows them to be able to be free
from the oppression that they're facing I pray
that Allah SWT allows us to be people
who are part of the right side of
history that do good in this world that
have clean hearts that we live by the
actions of our deen and that we live
by the good actions that Allah SWT wants
us and has given us the ability to
do Subhanakallahumma bihamnika nashadu ala ilaha ila anta
nastaghfiruka wanatubu ilayk jazakalluk khairan Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi
wabarakatuh