Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Aqidah Tahawiyyah Part 4 Tawhid Center MI 08202016
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We continue.
So we continue the, point number 26.
There is 2 kind of vocabulary words,
2 tech technical vocabulary words for
that I that I want to talk about.
One we mentioned from before was tofir.
Means having divine
concordance
that
you want to do something good. You have
a positive intention,
and Allah wants that to happen for you.
So you could wake up in the morning
and say, I want to go to the
masjid and pray
in the congregation.
Okay?
If you have tofic, will take you to
the masjid whether on your legs
or whether in car,
whether on a bike,
whether
running,
walking, crawling, however it is, he'll get you
there somehow or another
through miraculous means,
right, through the transporter on Star Trek. Whatever
it is, if he wants you to be
there, he'll get you there.
And if he doesn't want you to be
there, you will
you know, your car will get hit by
another car. You won't make it. It won't
happen.
You'll fall asleep again. This will happen. That
will happen.
Tawfir is one of the best things that
you can make du'a for.
It's the greatest gift Allah ever gave anyone.
To sit and make intentions is free. All
of us can make intention that we become
the greatest of Allah's and
that we build, you know, whatever expansion for
Tawhid Center and that we all learn and
every other science and we memorize
all the, you know, Hadith of the Quran,
say
say, all of us. We can make the
intention and make the dua for it, and
Allah will reward us for the intention. Intention
is free. It doesn't cost anything, and it
there's reward for all of these things.
But the one for whom it happens
is only the one who Allah gives.
So one should constantly ask Allah for a
tafik.
The tawfiq of Allah is purely from his
father. He gives it to whoever he wills.
It's his grace. There's nothing you
do to earn it.
The opposite of is
a term called
or.
And
means what?
Means
to allow somebody to
harm themselves.
So for example, what is? Imagine 2 people.
Right? They're walking with one another. So friend
a and friend b, they're walking together with
one another,
and there's, like, uncovered manhole
in the sidewalk.
And friend
a knows that friend b is walking toward
it and has a feeling that they're not
they're not, aware that it's there. And just
keeps walking and lets it
go away.
So it's not like pushed them in.
They weren't the cause or the occasion for
them to fall in.
But what is it? It's. Right?
He he just he allowed his friend to
harm himself without intervening even though he could
have easily intervened in that process.
The of Allah
is what? Is that a person sins and
keeps sinning, keeps sinning. Allah doesn't do anything
to stop that person, doesn't do anything to
remind that person.
Just allows that person to become more and
more of a degenerate till they spirit spiritually
destroy themselves. Even if they look very beautiful
physically from the outside and their life looks
very beautiful, but he just allows that person
to destroy themselves and he doesn't stop them.
Alright. This happens. There are many people who
you'll see in the masjids for prayer.
What's your story?
Wow. I was partying and this and that,
and I had an awesome job at the
bank and
drove this type of car and
other things that we can't talk about in
the masjid. And all this stuff was going
great for me. And then I got into
a car accident where I got cancer. I
this and that. Oh, sorry, man. No. Don't
say sorry. It was the best thing that
ever happened to me because if it wasn't
for that, I wouldn't have deen.
This is what a lot of protecting a
person from following the path that that that
they'll destroy themselves
in.
And then there's some cats, he just says
keep going and they die like that.
That's the of Allah ta'ala. It's not that
he's doing it. You're the one doing it,
but he he didn't he didn't stop you.
He let you he let you destroy yourself.
Yes. He had to click.
In Arabic or in English?
So is the opposite of tofirq.
Is when you wanna do something good and
Allah to Allah wants you to do something,
wants you to be able to do that
good thing.
Is when you wanna do something bad and
Allah allows you to do that bad thing.
So we should always
seek refuge in Allah to Allah from his.
So we come back to this point. What
does what does imam
say here? He says that Allah guides whoever
he wishes, and he protects them from the
following the path of error.
And he keeps them in a good state
out of his grace, and he allows to
go astray whoever he wills.
And he he he does. He just lets
that person
lets that person just keep doing their their
their bad without intervening in their favor.
And
he, he punishes and tries whoever he wills
out of his justice
out of his justice. And we said it's
his justice why
at the most primary of levels, if you
wish if you wish to destroy and trash
every single human being and every single, part
of his creation, that was his anyway.
Even if you go one level higher than
that, there's no person who
there's no person who is,
completely free of,
of a fault.
So hadith of the prophet
that nobody will enter Jannah except for by
Allah
rahma.
Even you, you Rasoolah, even me.
Now we say that the
are free of sin.
But even then,
right, what are the what are because it's
mentioned the the the them of the prophet
is mentioned in the
book of
Allah. Right?
Right? What is the vambe of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam? It's not a stuff
for Allah. It's not vambe like when it
that in the same meaning as what it
applies to us.
It's stuff that's not really even like I
mean, it's something that you would say that's
not even that's what is that? Like, you
know, doing doing
less
like nawafil rather than more when you have
the opportunity to do more.
There's a hadith, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, you know, he used to read he
used to read sunnah prayers after.
You know that?
So my god. What is that? That doesn't
make any sense at all. Not one of
the 4 emafs
said that this is a sunnah, and it's
not like in any of the 5th books.
Go read the Hadid of the Prophet. He
used to read 2 rakkais
after.
Four rakas
after. And the Sahaba
saw him doing this, and they started doing
it.
And, and then he he's like, no. Don't
do it. This is just this is special
for me. Why? Because one time there was
a a wafid.
There's a delegation of people who came to
meet the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Right? That's the the work of Allah ta'ala.
That's the work of deen. What are you
accepting
people and
preaching them the path of guidance, opening the
doors of Hidayah for them. So because this
wafad came, I was unable to pray the
the sunnahs before
Asr.
And because of that,
anything the prophet
would do as a practice, he would just
do it. That's it. It would be a
sunnah for us. For him, it was like
as if it became far for him. Everything
he did was consistency,
which is a great sign of what the
what the and the virtue of consistency is.
He would do with consistency.
So because he missed them, he made them
up right after
the. And because he did that, he would
be consistent in that as well. He says,
now I'm I'm I'm in this consistency thing.
I can't I gotta do this, but this
is not for you. This is just for
me. This is a just for me. Why?
Because the Nabi salallahu alayhi wa sama was
so beholden to Allah
that he he understood, you know, he understood
that that the right of Allah is complete
and absolute over a person.
And that even something small
like not praying the 2 rakas that is
not even far beyond you to pray anyway.
Right? But when you look at the Haqq
of Allah Ta'ala, how complete and total it
is.
That even if you were to be engaged
in worship, enraptured in worship for your entire
every instant of your being, which is what
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was,
even then you're coming up short.
When you're beholden to that, it completely
gives you a different
it gives you a different, like, perspective on
on life and it gives you a different
perspective on on how how you're gonna practice
your deen.
So the Nabi
the things he used to the things he
the things he used to stress about regarding
the Haqq of Allah ta'ala. There are things
that for us we would consider that these
things are not. Forget about being sins. These
things are like actually really good deeds,
but they weren't good enough for him. He
would feel he had that and that that
feeling that it's not good enough for Allah
Ta'ala.
And that's that's I think the the the
the the idea
that
that that all of us need to have.
That it's not good enough for Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala whatever we do.
And, that that he can allow us to
go down a path,
you know, that's not, you know, that that's
like that. And so we should always be
humbled in front of
in front of him
and be thankful to him for whatever we
have and,
not think of it as as as being
enough because it's by definition by definition,
never able to be enough.
So that's his justice is that we owe
him everything that we have. And even if
we gave that to him,
even that's a favor.
And then if we've already given everything we
have, then how can we pay that favor
back?
It's it's not it's not gonna happen. Right?
It's not gonna happen.
Always a person feels in debt to Allah
In all of Allah's creation,
they they they are moving between these 2
between these 2
between these two boundaries. One side is the
fable of Allah Ta'ala, the grace of Allah
Ta'ala,
which is given to the people who are
on the path of righteousness.
And the other side is what? The justice
of Allah Ta'ala,
which is meted out to the people who?
It's meted out to the people who,
who aren't given from his faful.
Anyone who's punished by Allah, it's by his
justice.
And that's, I think, the point that that
that I was trying to make with giving
this illustration regarding the life of the prophet
is that that even if a person were
to try as much as they can, they'll
if they were to be
accounted
or they would be take to take be
taken to account by Allah
according to his justice, it would always come
up short.
That's why no one should ever
clamor for what they deserve.
Allah protect us all from ever getting what
we deserve.
No one say I deserve this, I deserve
that.
The only thing anyone deserves is the hellfire.
No one should ever clamor for getting what
they deserve.
This is the Allah ta'ala's favel. This is
grace that he gives everybody from his favel.
This is not something we earned. It's just
the way Allah ta'ala is, and we are
beneficiary of that.
No one should ever clamor for getting what
they deserve.
That's why this is one of the reasons
that that the sunnah of the prophet
is that you give everybody their haqq, and
your own haqq, you never demand it from
anyone.
You you only ask from Allah Ta'ala. You
never demand your haqq from anyone. Why? Because
the mindset,
the understanding is that if you demand your
haqq from someone else, and then they demand
their haqq from you, and then Allah demands
his haqq from us,
where it's not gonna be good. It's not
a not gonna be a good scenario. And
there are many hadith in which it says
that it's the Haq of the slave over
Allah that he give them for this or
that or whatever. Right? That's all that's all
metaphorically speaking. That's not absolutely speaking. The reason
it's a Haqq is because Allah says, okay.
If you do this, then I'll I'll reward
you in such and such a way. But
that's not because it has to be that
way to be just. It's a favor of
says, okay. You know? Like, someone someone says
someone open you know, you have a friend
who owns like a
whatever, who owns a restaurant. So, oh, you
know, come over every Tuesday and you can
have an ice cream on the house.
That's not something you earned or you paid
for. That's, you know, you can see you
know, it's not it's it's a
right you have only in a metaphorical sense,
not in a not in a literal sense.
It's a it's a gift that Allah give.
And that's why we should also be careful
not to be too harsh in prosecuting
and taking our hakuk from other people.
Comes in the hadith of the prophet that,
you know, people who are easy when collecting
debts,
especially especially on people. One thing is someone
owes you money and they have it or
they spend it on stupid things and whatever.
And that's a sin, by the way. If
you have the money and you can repay
someone and you spend it on someone else
or something else or you just don't pay
it back, that's a that's a sin. Oftentimes,
we we
are really harsh on people who are owed
who who are owed debts. Sometimes the people
who owe debts, they themselves also, they they
do they do bad things. That's a sin.
But sometimes people are in a difficult position,
you know. They borrowed money, and they're just
not in a position to pay it back.
So being easy with people like that, this
is, in and of of itself, a deed
that will enter,
people into Jannah.
Why? Because Allah,
he sees that you're
lenient with other people in
collecting your your rights and collecting your.
Right? And so that you showed grace, you
showed to somebody else.
So
is more worthy of of showing fadl than
people like you and me.
So a person that's like a a whole,
you know, point of view that should
color how how we deal with other people.
I remember I was once invited to an
interfaith panel
with a rabbi and with a with a
a a a a, you know, whatever, a
Catholic priest.
And it was about
justice in your
in your tradition.
And everyone's like, yeah. Justice. And that's the
bible says justice and justice and justice and
the other thing and the other thing. I
said, we say justice is a bare minimum
standard.
If you don't if if you have to
preach to people that they should be just
with one another, they're like animals. Like, they
don't they don't have any humanity in the
first place.
Alright?
There's a continuum.
The bare the floor of, like, conduct is
justice. This is not an ideal that we
hold ourselves up to.
That if you wanna be,
like, savage and brutal with one another, then
you'll be just with one another.
Right? Justice is and we know even that
if we prosecute it to its logical end,
it's not gonna work out for us. But
as a temporary, like, I'm really upset. Like,
I'm real you know, I don't like this
guy. That's how you'll do. This is one
reason. I don't know.
Is like, you know,
colors like a lot of things you do
in life. It's one reason I don't like
splitting splitting checks at the restaurant.
Like, if someone go we go eat somewhere
at the restaurant and they split checks, it's
like a way of, like, saying, like, I
hate you. It's like that we have no
with one another. Like, I from you, you
have from me. I do my thing. You
do your thing. Just get lost. You know?
You pay one time. Your friend pays one
time. You're still splitting the check, like, statistically
speaking, but at least you maintain the
guys that, like, you know, you have some
love for each other. Justice is like the
bare minimum. It's like the floor of how
how we conduct ourselves with one another. If
you cannot be just with one another, you're
like an animal. Like, you're you're you're worse
than an animal. You're a a a clothed
and walking,
talking jackal and hyena.
Justice is the bare minimum that any rational
thinking person,
should conduct themselves with, which is very why
it's very sad that people don't have that
that much decency in them anymore.
What is the the the ideal? Right? The
the continuum is that you start on the
floor with justice and in in
the the the the superior path is what?
That you give people rights their rights with
perfection in a good way, in the best
way possible,
which is one step above justice that you'd
not only do you give people their rights,
not only do you pay the debt of,
you know, the person you borrowed money from,
But you also write them a thank you
note afterward.
Right? From time to time, you remind them
that when I needed money, you gave to
me.
Thank you so much.
When you go and make Hajj and Umrah
and, like, etikaf and on the day of
Eid and in your tahajjud. Do you remember
that person in your duas even though years
have passed? But, you know, you remember them,
make du'a for them. Why? Because they did
something good for you.
When the times turn and that person is
in need, you give you let loan them
money, you give them money. You say, here,
forget about just take it because I remember
when I needed it. You you're good to
me. Have even more back from me.
That's that's the continuum. And then after that,
that you should give your give to your
relatives. That you should give from
give from,
you should give with grace.
Because
who here raise your hand if all your
relatives are wonderful.
Go ahead.
I may have, like, a coupon for, like,
psychiatric help because I think these are the
most traumatized out of everybody in the in
the hall.
Everybody's relatives are crazy, man.
Right? But you give to them anyway. And
it's not like being a relative is something
they did for you. It's just a it's
just a coincidence.
But just give to them anyway.
Right? Which is what is that you pay
in a good way. Right? It's a step
above justice and then itad just just give
to just give for the sake of giving.
This is the ideal. This is the ideal
that's that's there in Islam.
It's not justice. It's that we transcend that
we transcend justice. And in transcending justice, we
don't say that we're being unjust.
Rather, justice, we've taken care of it and
we've moved on to to to kind of
a higher and higher level
of conduct and and and and way of
being. Because if people don't forgive one another
and everyone takes justice from everybody,
it's going to make everything
stop on the earth.
This is Sahaba
look at look at look at Islamic history.
Right?
There is a story about
Hatada
who
was a hero of the Ansar. He was
a very powerful warrior
from the Ansar.
So he visited Sayidina Muawiyah in Damascus
during his caliphate.
And Sayidina Muawiyah
when he
welcomed him, he says he said to me
complained to him. He said, why is it
that until now,
none of the Ansar ever came to visit
me in Damascus?
Until now, none of the Ansar ever came
to visit me in Damascus. You're the first
one. None of you. You all of you.
You guys all, like, are you boycotting me?
What's the deal? None of you came to
ever visit me.
And he said that, he said he he
says to him he says, we don't have
any camels.
He said, what happened to your camels? He
Said, they're all tired out. What are they
tired from? He said, first, they were chasing
your father, then chasing you.
Meaning what? Abu Sufyan opposed the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam sudsan were the ones that
they were the ones fielding,
you know,
fielding the swords and the swords in battle.
Right?
So I said we had to we had
to straighten out your father first and then
of course he becomes Muslim like later on
but during the like near the end of
the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. And then afterward, then chasing you, meaning
the the the the civil conflict between Sinai
and Sinai
The Ansar, like, all of them to a
man, they all sided with Sinai.
Right?
So he says he says our camels are
tired. We don't we don't travel much anymore
because because we had to go through all
of that. And so Sayedan Waawiya,
he says he says to me, so I'll
tell you one more thing as well. He
said, I heard the messenger of Allah
say a time will come that the the
the the command and the affair of this
ummah will go to a people who are
not worthy of
it. What is he trying to say?
Right? So it will go to a people
that there's someone else that's more worthy, you
know, that that's present, but the less worthy
will will will will take the command of
of the affairs of state.
And so, Sayidina
who was a very wise leader and a
very good leader, politically, he was very astute,
and the ummah benefited greatly from his his
rule. People should not make a mistake about
this.
The Ummah benefited very greatly from his rule.
And one one way you can,
see this and it's for Hikma from both
sides, really, but, one way you can see
this is that,
after Saiedn Ali was
assassinated, both sides, they make up with each
other really quickly and the strife more or
less ends.
And they come into the service. Even the
strife itself was very strange. Aqeelibnu Abi Talib,
who's the full brother of Said N Ali
He's a general in the army of Muawiyah.
And,
Ziyad bin Abi Sufyan is half brother of
Muawiyah. He's a general in the army of
and afterward, all of them, they they they,
they reconcile with one another very completely and
very quickly.
But,
you know, coming back to the point, he
said that I heard I'll tell you another
thing that I heard the messenger of Allah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam say, that this affair
will go in the hands of people who
are not worthy of
it. Because Sayidina Muawiyah even though he's a
he's a Sahabi and we, you know, we
say
after his name and he's a person that,
you know, we'll get to this later in
the book that that that all the Sahaba
are people who deserve our respect. And to
disrespect them
is is a is a very,
severe deficiency in a person's iman, and it
it easily slips into kufr.
Within a within its minimal parameters to disrespect
the Sahaba is a severe deficiency of iman.
And it very quickly slips into kufr.
But,
you know, that being said, when we say
that there are people more worthy than him
to rule, we say that there are sahaba
who have a higher rank than him. Right?
The Quran itself,
it recognizes that the rank of the people
who
were Muslims and made hijrah and fought with
the prophet
before the fact, they have a higher
station than the ones who who were there
after. So many of these people are still
alive at this point.
So he says I heard the messenger of
Allah
imagine
saying, this is this is a this is
a person who went into battle with the
prophet
for so many years.
He's addressing Hussain Muawiyah who accepted Islam very
late in the life of the prophet
So he said that I heard the messenger
of Allah
say that the this affair is going to
one day come into the hands of people
who don't deserve it.
And then, Sayidina Mu'awiyah asked him then what
did he say? What should you do at
that time? He said that he said that
to be patient.
And so say, the Muawiyah says to him,
so then be patient.
And that's the hikma. I mean, if the
Sahaba or the who are like,
I built I you know, we're the ones
who did this. We're the ones who built
Islam. It would have been true. If Qatar,
if you said it. Were you at Badr?
No. Were you at Uhud? No. Did you,
you know, were you part of the army
of the fatar? Were you hiding in your
father's
house hoping for mercy and then afterward became
Muslim?
He could have said all of that and
then rallied a bunch of troops and keep
the civil war going, keep the fighting going.
And, you know,
the Muslim world would have been like it
is nowadays.
Cruel and heartless, they have no mercy for
one another. Each one of them thinks they're
right and willing to do all sorts of
crazy atrocities in order to in order just
to to fulfill their claim. They could have
done that if if but they didn't because
that was the instruction the prophet
gave to them that if everyone is like
this with everybody, it will completely destroy the
entire world. It will completely destroy
and that. You know, I was the 1st
committee member. I was this this is the
same micro drama. It's happening in in it's
not just one place or another. It's happening
everywhere.
The same micro drama, this the same type
of mindset.
No.
We recognize that that is the floor. If
you behave any worse than that, then you're
like you're like, inhuman.
That's the floor of conduct. If you're having
a bad day and you, like, feel the
need to act out a little bit or
whatever, that's how low you can go is
to that point. But that's not something to
aspire to to look up to because we
recognize
between each other if it's gonna mess things
up, between us and a lot, we're our
ship is totally gonna be sunk if we
if we if we behave like that.
So everybody, their existence is
somehow moving back and forth between the two
boundaries of Allah Ta'ala's grace and Allah Ta'ala's
justice.
Allah
is exalted over having an,
an
opposite or over having any rival.
Allah ta'ala's shaitan is not the rival of
Allah.
Shaitan is
equally a slave of Allah Ta'ala
as all other slaves of Allah Ta'ala are.
Obviously, he doesn't manifest it in a way
that gains Allah Ta'ala's
love. He manifested in a way that gains
Allah Ta'ala's anger.
But when we say he's equally a slave
as all the other slaves are, we say
in the sense that he's equally powerless in
front of Allah ta'ala as
others are. It's not that he's a we
don't believe in a mannequin and or dualistic
worldview that there's a great struggle between good
and evil.
The struggle between good and evil that manifests
itself on the earth is a drama
that, is unfolding in front of our eyes.
And it's, again, it's it depends on your
frame of reference. From our frame of reference,
yes, that seems what's like, what's going on.
From a universal frame of reference,
there's no there's no I mean, there's it's
nothing. Evil is nothing.
And this is one reason actually
was very good to keep things in perspective.
When the Muslims had to retreat from the
battle battlefield on the day of Uhud.
And so the Nabi
and his companions, they retreat up the mountain,
after after the kind of melee.
Saidna, Saidna Abu Sufyan, who was at that
time, not Saidna Abu Sufyan, but he was
just Abu Sufyan,
before he had accepted Islam. He shouts out
to the prophet
that our vengeance has been complete the day
of Uhud in exchange for the day of
Badr.
The prophet was like, uh-uh.
So he says to say
something back to him,
which is another which is another good lesson
for us.
Was soft and he was kind and merciful
to people, but he was not a pushover.
He he had for the deen. You know
what I mean?
He had for the deen. For those of
you don't don't know what is,
is the feeling that a person feels
when someone or something close to him or
precious to him or beloved to him is
threatened or insulted.
So, for example, if I were to be
if I were to say, there's an old
lady getting robbed in in in the hallway,
obviously, everyone would be upset and they'd go
and try to stop it or whatever.
If I were to say, your grandma is
being robbed in the hallway, the difference in
the reaction you would have, that's what is.
Someone's like, no. I'm a just person. I
would react exactly the same.
That's right. That's not that's not a good
thing.
It means a, like, proportion of your humanity
is gone. Right? So the Nabi
had for the for for the deen.
So he's like, no. He's he points to
say something
back to him. So say say say, what
did Abu Sufyan say? He said that that
that that we're even. Right? The day of
for the day of Badr. Right? Our dead
for your your your dead.
We're even now.
And,
who says, our dead are in Jannah. Your
dead are in the hellfire. How are we
even?
Right? It's important to it's important to, remember
that Allah doesn't have any rival, any equal.
The there's no struggle between good and evil.
Good people are getting Allah's favel,
and evil is being, you know, buried in
the hellfire.
That's not that's not like any equal
or any equality there. That's that makes that
the the the difference couldn't be more stark.
It just depends on the the frame of
reference which you're observing. Yes.
Allah whether it be
in a person's own person
or whether it be
intellectually or whether it be on the battlefield.
Right?
All of these things are tests for us
to see how much we're going to give
to
Allah Right? But it's not it doesn't mean
that, like,
there's, like, actually a fight going on.
The fight is something Allah is allowing to
happen in order to
let people go through this experience.
1 person of earning Allah's wrath
by opposing the haqq and one person of
earning Allah's pleasure by sacrificing for the sake
of Allah or like going through difficulty for
the sake of Allah. Otherwise, it's you're not
no one's gonna fight jihad on the day
of judgment.
You know what I mean? Because that day,
the the the people understand how the deck
is stacked,
and all of the people,
however, pious or impious they were in the
dunya. Right? Even Fir'awn will have the level
of of a of a of a Wali
of Allah because you'll see, like, the angels
are all there. You know, the jig is
up. There's no point in even pretending like
this is a competition anymore.
But Allah allows certain things to happen in
a certain small controlled environment. Right? And this
duniya like a controlled experiment, but that doesn't
mean that's what's going on in the world
around. It's just like a little bubble of
creation.
When Allah makes
a
makes a judgment, there's nobody who can,
cancel that judgment.
And when Allah
gives a decree, there's no appeal. There's no
appeals court that you can go to afterward.
And when he commands or says that an
affair is to take place, there's nobody who
is going to be able to afterward,
overwhelm that
overwhelm that command. It doesn't it doesn't work
that way. There's no appeals court with Allah
So, again,
everything in that you have to understand the
frame of reference it's in. This the frame
of reference is this is what?
Is is a universal frame of reference that
Allah before he, you know, created the heavens
and the earth
and his timeless wisdom,
Whatever he decided was gonna happen is gonna
happen.
Now somebody asked about,
you know, what about the hadith of the
prophet
that nothing repels fate?
Nothing repels fate,
other than dua.
So there's an article that I wrote. You
can find it on my blog,
hmchaudhrychaudhry.
You can go find it at hmchaudhry.blog
spot.com. And, you can Google search it. It's
I think it's called can can supplications,
can can supplication change one's fate? Can making
make changes? Can supplication
change one's fate? And the hadith of it's
hadith of the prophet
that nothing changes.
The other of Allah except for dua.
And then the last part of the the
the hadith is what? And that even the
dua is part of fate, that you're fated
to make that dua.
So the idea is that the fate is
fixed from Allah to Allah's perspective because he
doesn't change. He knew everything from before it
was going to happen.
So even this alteration
is an alteration from our point of view.
And this is something that's very important to
understand.
Even though there is some benefit in trying
to understand how things happen from a macro
scale, from a universal scale, universal point of
view,
you have to prosecute your affairs,
you know, from your own point of view.
So from your own point of view, you
have complete free will and you're doing whatever
you're doing. You just understand behind the scenes,
this is like what it what you feel
like yourself, but what's actually happening from the
backside
is something different.
Now,
you know,
he he said there's a statement of his,
there's a statement of his that,
that,
the Rijal, the the true men,
or something or something like that. That he
said that, a man is not the one
who submits and gives up to fate.
Rather,
a a a real man is the one
who stands up and repels a bad fate
with a good one.
Meaning what? Get up and do do what
you need to do. Take care of your
business. Don't give up hope. You know? Don't
give in. Keep struggling on until the last
second. All sorts of things can turn around.
Right? All sorts of things can turn around.
My good friend Ali,
who is in mulaqa,
Seattle,
who's
maybe slept in today.
He'll tell you that his Seahawks,
what did they do?
They were beating the patriots by, god, like,
14 points or something like that.
I the game was over. I went to
I by the way, I don't like watching
sports. I'm not cool
Sheikh that's gonna tweet about, like, this team
or, like, whatever the whatever the Chicago Blackhawks
got a touchdown and the Bulls, you know,
hit a home run. I don't care about
any of that stuff. It's just so you're
gonna what do you if you like the
ball so much in the first place, were
you gonna throw it or kick it and
then run after it? It doesn't I'm sorry.
It's, like, it's just a game. It's really
not that big of a deal to me.
If you watch it, as long as it's
not haram,
who am I to judge and stuff? But,
like, from my own perspective, I just don't
see the point of any of it. That's
just me. Right? So I can't be cool
chef and, like, whatever. Maybe I won't get
invited to speak at a conference because I
I can't talk about sports very well. But
I went to someone's house because he said
I'm barbecuing ribs.
I'm like, barbecue ribs. That sounds wonderful. So
they're watching the Seahawks game and I'm eating
ribs.
And so, it was snowing real hard that
day,
in Chicago. I imagine it probably was snowing
hard that day over here too. It's like,
what? This is like, what? A year and
a half ago, 2 years ago?
Man, they were up by, like, 14 points.
I thought,
okay, ribs. And, like, I'm from Seattle too.
So I guess there's an occasion of happiness
that our team won. People back home will
probably be psyched out about it. Great. Wonderful.
Man, the 5 minutes it took to drive
home. The match, there's like like 5 minutes
left. By the time I get home, I
see on my Twitter, like, all, like, my
friends from Seattle are
lamenting as if, like, you know, their mother
died. Like,
how did you blow it?
Everything get don't ever give up. Don't ever
give up hope. If you're down, don't ever
give up hope. And if you're ahead, don't
ever, like, feel like you're you're you're safe.
Okay? Why? Because a real man is not
the one who gives up,
to fate. Rather, a real man is the
one who repels a bad fate with a
good one.
But also in your mind, you you you
have to know even that that's from Allah
The reason we do the former is because
that's how we function.
We're not Allah
Right? That's how the master does his job.
The slave does his job.
Right? I'm forgetting the the bait in Punjabi.
I'm forgetting the actual wording.
Mia Mohammed Baksh. Right?
Mali Bhanu.
I I forget what it is. But the
the the meaning of it is what? That
the gardener's job is to water the plants
and fill the buckets and keep watering the
plants bucket after bucket, but or water the
garden.
And the master's job is to harvest,
the master's job is to harvest the fruit.
Whether he wishes to harvest it or whether
he lets it rot on the tree, that's
the master's
job. So your job, you keep doing what
you do, Allah will keep doing what he
does. It's useful for you to understand
somewhat of, you know, somewhat of how his
interaction will be with his creation. It's useful
for you and I to understand that. But
that's not our job. That's his job. Our
job is to keep doing, to keep doing
what we what we do and to keep
struggling and keep, you know, keep the keep
the keep the struggle, going,
until by Allah's father, we we we attain
his his and his
his pleasure with us, inshallah, and by his
father.
All of these things, we believe in all
of them, and we have we have certainty
that all of it comes from him.
And we believe that Sayidna Muhammad
is Allah Ta'ala's chosen slave
and his
select and elect prophet
and his messenger with whom he's pleased.
So at this occasion, I I wanted to
mention something
that may at first become counterintuitive
or may at first be counterintuitive
to some people.
That's just a deficiency in the way we're
taught Islam over here for some reason or
another.
And,
you know, we can remove whatever doubts or
shabuhat that people have.
And that is that
the entire
the entire deen
pivots around what?
Muhammad
And if someone were to tell you, okay,
I'm gonna erase your memory of all things
except for 1. And, obviously, you'd say, okay.
I'm gonna pick.
No. No. No. You can't pick. Those are
2 different things. You have to pick one
of them. Which one would you pick?
Pick Muhammad.
Why?
Because whoever follows the prophet
the is part and parcel of it.
Whereas there are many people who say
and many of them, Allah will not accept
it from them.
Muhammad is
not only
a condition for the validity of the iman
of a Muslim.
It is a condition of the validity of
iman of every person from the time of
Sayidna Adam until yomukriyama.
There's not one Nabi
who came except for he gave his followers
the glad tidings of the coming of the
prophet
and ordered them that if you should live
to see his
see this prophet come, that you should,
accept him and follow him. And they didn't
know when the Nabi salallahu alaihi wa sallam
would come. Some what was going to come.
So they themselves made intention that should we
see this Nabi that we'll follow him. Sayidina
Musa alaihi wasalam, it comes to that sayidina
Musa alaihi wasalam was shown the prophet salallahu
alaihi wasalam and his ummah and he asked
Allah to Allah, can I be part of
it? Allah said, no. Your work is different.
And he rendered a great service
to Allah
in guiding Ban Bu Israil. But Allah didn't
didn't give him that that that request.
But Nabi
just like every Nabi warned
his people of about the Dajjal,
and every Nabi gave glad tidings to his
people about the coming of the Nabi
And it was a a matter of hope,
and it was a matter of of happiness
for all of them. Right? I mean, think
about it. Imagine,
there are
they only had 2 followers, 3 followers, 1
follower. Some of them had no followers whatsoever.
There are people that literally the their didn't
accept the deen, and they massacred their,
their their the few people who did, and
they kicked out the few people who did.
They killed their own and
the adab of Allah came on them. So
the whole thing came to nothing.
Alright? It's a very bleak
outlook,
but still the people of Iman always they
have the hope that the Nabi
one day will come. And through the immense
barakah that Allah channel through him,
because the immense barakah that Allah will channel
through him, batil and Kufr will never have
the upper hand again in this world.
And look at this. This is exactly what's
happening in this in the world right now.
Every people of every single deen have given
their deen up, they're saying, yeah, what's wrong
with these Muslims? How come they're not doing
it?
How come they're not giving their deen up?
How come they're not, like, secular? How come
they're don't stop praying? How come they keep,
you know, even though partying, get drunk, and
smoke weed with us and everything? Still, for
some reason, they cling on to their deen.
Right? These people these
dark and swarthy people from these filthy, trash
whole countries filled with flies
and violence and god knows what, you know,
what redeeming thing could they have that their
hearts are so attached to this deen that
they'll never give it up even if we
entice them with every enticement
and every enticing and induce them with every
inducement. They're still not giving it up. What's
wrong with these people?
Alright?
Right? If everyone in the
room, right,
obviously, there's a barrier.
If everyone in this room was, like, had
no clothing on,
right,
People would feel one way. If you're the
only one in the room with no clothing
on, you'd feel a different way.
This is what
is. They wish that you they they wish
the prophet
was as heedless and as careless and as
misguided as they were
so that they wouldn't feel bad about them
being misguided. Rather they hated him
They should have loved him. The the mushrikeen
of of his people should have loved him
because he brought guidance through him. They could
have accepted it. But what did they what
was their mindset? They hated him because him
being guided made them more acutely aware of
their
own misguidance.
And so this is this is something that
the Nabi
is Not just a sharda of the iman
of us.
It's a sharda of iman of anyone who
wants to enter Jannah. There's nobody who will
enter Jannah except for they will have believed
in the Nabuah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
He said, how is that?
Even if you look in the if you
look in the,
in the
revelations of the people who came before us,
the mention of the Nabi
is very clear. It's very clear in Isaiah,
Right? That he he that he will be
from the unlettered people
and and and,
he he will,
what is
say
Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al Asr
literally quotes Isaiah in in,
in Arabic.
Right?
That you are my slave, and I name
you the one who who,
places his trust on me.
And you will he you will not he
will not be taken back,
and
he will be the one who is most
concerned for the for
the, like, the the
the the unleaded of people, meaning the one
that nobody else cares about.
And,
he will not be, and he he he
will be sent to a people and he
won't be taken back until they say that
there's no god except for Allah.
And,
and through him, eyes that were blind will
be opened and ears that were closed will
be, here again and hearts that were encrusted
will will,
become alive again. Right? This is not a
description of Sayedna Isa alaihis salam at all.
Because his own didn't believe in him, did
they?
The did not accept him.
There are some of them that accepted him.
In general,
most of the yahoo didn't accept him.
In fact, if you wanna take the lineage
of
okay, there are more of them are Muslims
than are Jews right now.
Way more of them are Muslims than are
Christians. More of them are Muslims now than
are even Jews.
The lineage of Banu Israel, their descendants,
more of them you know, every every land
every land of the Muslims, Jews converted in
large numbers
to to Islam.
If you go to, like, for example, Morocco
to this day, you know, like, last name
someone has been Hamid, been this, been that.
Right?
Been Badis, been usually, those people are actually
they're they're the descendants of Jewish converts
to
Islam.
More of them, right, mostly they talk about
like this
land is our right.
Right? This land is our right.
Even if the land was your right by
by by virtue of dissent, there are more
of
that are people of Islam than
are,
people who follow Judaism. That's something that's like
it's it's not even close actually.
Almost none of them become Christians.
Many of them become Muslims. Almost none of
them become Christians.
Say, okay. Well, what about the Romans? Right?
Judea was
under, the Roman Empire.
Even the Romans don't become Christians for another
300 years, 325
years, the Council of Nicaea and things like
that. Right? Constantine is the the one on
his deathbed. He converts to Christianity.
And, through him, you know,
the empire basically, the Roman Empire ushers into
an age of Christianity, which is only interrupted
in, you know, by very short
spurts. And,
basically, until it's crumbling, it becomes then a
Christian empire.
That happens 325
years, 300 more than 300 years after,
Sayna,
Isa alaihis salam's
Wafats from this world, his being taken up
from this world.
It definitely doesn't happen during his lifetime.
It does happen during the lifetime of the
prophet however.
So,
there is no there is no,
Nabi that came except for he told his
people about the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
And there's no person who will enter Jannah
except for he will enter Jannah because of
the belief in the Nabi
And so that's why we say,
in some sense, even though the sha'an of
Allah ta'ala, it it encompasses
and overwhelms all things.
Intellectually speaking,
the the
if you hold fast to him, then all
the rest of the deen will come with
that. Whereas if you hold fast to
and you're separated from Muhammad,
it's not going to be accepted. It's not
that it's not true. It is true that
there's no god except for Allah, but Allah
won't accept it from you. So if he
doesn't accept it, what's the point?
Now, this is another reason that it's important
to study is
that when we say that there's no god
except for Allah and Muhammad is his messenger,
has to do with how you conceive of
things.
Even this, you have to conceive of it
properly.
There's some people say, well, whoever says
we accept them as a Muslim. Strictly speaking,
this is not true.
Take the nation of Islam for example.
They have written in their temples everywhere, there's
no god no god but Allah and Muhammad
is a messenger.
And by Allah, they mean a rug merchant
from the east.
And by Muhammad, they mean some dude from
Chicago.
What you conceive of is is the important
part. That's one of the reasons we have
to
read the the because when we think of
Allah, we have to be thinking of the
actual Allah, not an imaginary one that we
made up for ourselves.
When we think of the prophet
we need to know who the actual
prophet
was. Not like an imaginary one that we
make up.
And that's that's obviously a very superlative example
but there's a lot of imagination people put
into certain things. Like, you know, a lot
of people are like, well, if the prophet
was here, he would have done this and
he would have done how do you know?
Well,
that's the impression I get because I heard
a speech one time.
Read his hadith.
Read his, read his Sira
Read the book of Allah Ta'ala.
Don't imagine things on your own.
When you make a claim, use,
use objective evidence.
Right? If the prophet
was here, he would have done this. Why
do you say that? Because don't you remember
the hadith of this or the the the
incident of that in the sierra, etcetera?
Use objective evidence. Don't use you know, this
is not like,
you know, I'm not Obi Wan Kenobi that
puts a blinder in front of you and
says, you know, use your feelings, Luke. It
it doesn't
as good in the movies, it doesn't that's
not that's not a objective methodology, however, to
understand the world around you.
Is the final prophet and he's the seal
of the prophets. Both of these things are
two different things. The word with
on the
ta means the seal of the prophets.
Katim with a kasra on the ta means
the final prophet.
Both of these rewires are
and the rewire of Asim or of Hafsa
and Asim and the of,
it's
Some of the people of Ba'til
have said
that this verse is not a proof of
the
Nabi being a final prophet. Why? Because in
the riwa of haf's which is ra'ejhin which
is popular
popularly recited amongst the most of the Muslims
in the world.
The word katham is there which means seal.
What does seal mean? Seal in Arabic linguistically
means something that's raised above other things. Why?
Because in the old days when people would
write a letter, they would then take wax
and drip the the liquid wax on it,
and then they'd stick their ring into the
wax. So that wax seal, it was raised
up above the the the level of the
rest of the the paper.
Right? So you say, oh, the here only
means
raised
which is linguistically,
it does carry that possibility.
That the word khatam is just
a a raised maqam over the other maqams.
It doesn't mean he's the the final prophet.
It just means he's a prophet above other
prophets. So other prophets could come, but they're
just going to be within his Sharia. That's
how we interpret this to mean.
The we give to that is what? Is
that the Quran is transmitted
through at least 7 transmissions.
And one of them is what?
And is unambiguously
means the final prophet.
Listen to this very carefully.
Any group any group which claims that there's
a nabi after the nabi
that group of people
even if their beards are,
you know,
long enough
that they can
braid them in a knot,
even if their hijabs are the most hijab
out, covered
up, face covered, hands gloves,
reading tahajjud every night and
whatever and all of these things which these
type of people never are, by the way.
This is one thing, one of the one
of the hallmarks that you'll
never find you'll you'll never find someone who's
not from the Ahlus Sunnah as a Hafid
of Quran ever.
You won't find you won't Go go find
There are people you go say Go ask
the people from the different groups. Do you
have a father of Quran?
They may say, yes. Go go ask to
meet the Hafiz and read from this place.
They can't do it. You'll you'll never find
the Hafiz of Quran. Their entire countries in
this world, there's no Haifa of Quran. They
don't read salat al ta'awi anyways. Someone's, how
do they do that? They don't even read
ta'awi anyway. Right? This is one of the
signs of
is that people of they run away from
like death.
They run away from
like it's a death. Right?
Any any sort of, like,
other than the bare minimum,
they're not really into that. That's really not
their thing. Okay? That's that's that's the thing
of the. I'm not pointing to myself. I'm
pointing to the tradition that that that this
this book represents. Right?
But
even if they're the most pious out people
in the world, they're they're not Muslims.
And there are levels of takfir, by the
way.
Okay? There and we'll talk about takfir as
a as a as a as a concept.
There's some details about it that we'll get
to in the book. But there are levels
of takfir. Takfir meaning that to say a
person who claims that they're a Muslim is
not a Muslim.
The person who believes in a nabi after
the nabi
whatever weird roundabout things they say that oh,
he's But he's lower Maqam than the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam and he comes within Ishaq.
Anyone who believes, anyone who sees why,
after the prophet
that person is a kafir. Not only is
that person a kafir, whoever says that person
is not a kafir, that person is also
a
kafir.
Why? Because it involves
denying a necessarily known part of the deen.
Now we live in a really weird emperor's
new clothes type of, like, age
where this thing which every child of the
Muslims,
illiterate child of the Muslims knows,
but then we're also still willing to discuss
it.
It's not a matter that's up for discussion.
The prophet
by the explicit and unambiguous
of the Quran
is the last of the prophets, and that's
it. That's it's a job done.
You know? And what does it mean? So
there are groups like that. Right? The Qadiani
group, Ahmed, they call themselves the Ahmadiyya.
We don't give them that name because Ahmed
is one of the names of our Nabi
sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
One time,
asked,
Shaji asked Mirza who claimed Nabuah,
what's your proof of your prophethood?
He said
he says my name is in,
my name is in the Quran.
Right?
He says he says, yeah. My name is
in the Quran too. My name is Ata'ullah.
My name is in the Quran too, and
I say you're not you're not my Nabi.
I said this is not approved for anything.
This is ridiculous. Right? This is called a.
This is not like a a really an
intellectual
argument, but it's there's there's the
which shows you're right and how you're right,
and then there's the which
just shows that you're wrong and this is
how you're wrong. But at any rate,
They call themselves the, Ahmadiyya, but we say
that they we call them their we
attribute them to the village in in in
East Punjab where their,
Surun Abi came from. Qadianis. These are Qadianis.
These people are not Muslims. I'm not saying
that you have the right to go kill
them in the street or whatever.
Fine. They're citizens of this country as well.
They have their rights under the constitution.
We don't take take away their their their
rights, you know, because we're not, I mean,
we're not that's not what we're even advocating
right now. Okay?
But that doesn't take away from a very
simple and basic point which I'm trying to
make is that they're not Muslims.
And, they're very they're very loud and advocating
that they are Muslims and they represent true
Islam and whatever.
And they often actively
seek out people from the Muslim community
to share the stage with them
and to give them a platform,
in the name of fighting Islamophobia.
And that's great. You wanna fight Islamophobia, that's
fine. You just don't you don't represent Islam
because you're not a Muslim. You represent whatever
you are. Why are you trying to represent
our deen? You represent whatever you are.
Pakistan is an interesting country. It's a country
that unfortunately is riddled with sectarian strife.
Interestingly enough, one of the few times that
the people from different sectarian groups, Shia, Sunni,
Salafi, Sufi,
Modernist, all these different groups ever came together
and signed the same document. It's to sign
the takfir of these people.
For some reason or another in America, I
go to conferences,
I go to I go to, political
rallies. We have kind of political groups that
advocate on on behalf of Muslims.
There are some people who don't have this
common sense and they make alliances with these
people as Muslims.
You can make alliances with them for some
political end as long as it's clear. We're
a different deen, you're a different deen. You
don't speak on behalf of Islam. But for
some reason, you know, these people are allowed
to come in and speak on behalf of
Islam in many forums and venues. This is
completely totally unacceptable.
And
to imply
either explicitly
or or, or or implicitly to even imply
that that such people are Muslims,
itself is is kufr and a person should
be very careful that they not do something
for political expediency in this world and jeopardize
their salvation on the
The of the
was far more precious than the
the the the the state, the government that
he left behind.
The integrity of the the the
the
the of the prophet
is far more precious than than than than
than political
considerations.
Musailema who was a man of Banu Hanifa,
he claimed prophethood during the end of the
life of the sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And he wrote a letter to the messenger
of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam saying from
Musailema,
the messenger of Allah, to Muhammad, the messenger
of Allah,
says that half of the earth belongs to
me and half of the earth belongs to
you.
Meaning what? You stay in your side, I'll
stay in my side. You know, this is
my franchise, that's your franchise. You do your
thing with the Quraysh and I'll do my
thing with Banu Hanifa. Let's have like a
whatever, like,
a a non compete clause,
and, you know, just make things easy on
ourselves.
And the prophet
became very angry.
What did he say? He said, oh, no.
Let's be nice. No. He no.
He became extremely angry. This is this is
one of the last things that happened before
his his passing away. He became extremely angry
and the anger was seen in his face.
And he said he said he said that,
well, if it wasn't for the fact that
it's considered an act of treachery to kill,
messengers.
He said to the 2 messengers that brought
that message, if it wasn't considered an act
of treachery to kill messengers,
I would have surely had you killed just
for carrying this message.
How seriously did the sahaba radiallahu anhu take
this?
It's mentioned in the Sharfman al Athar,
which is one of, Imam Tawawi's other books.
It's narrated that the Sahaba radiAllahu ta'ala anhum,
they actually met these 2 messengers at a
different time in a different place many years
later.
And one of them says to the other,
aren't these the 2 who carried the message
from Musa'ilama to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam?
And the other one says, yeah. I recognize
them from that day. So didn't the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, surely, if you
weren't carrying the if you weren't if it
wasn't treachery to kill messengers,
I would have killed you just had you
killed just for carrying this message.
He said, yeah. So are they carrying a
message now? No. They killed him.
It's very serious.
I'm not telling you to kill anybody. I'm
just saying, our context is different in that
sense. Right? And the politically, it's very different
context that we're in right now.
But I'm talking about the khatmulnuubuah
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. If
that's how seriously the sahabah radhiallahu alaihi wa
sallam took it, to compromise the khatmulnuubuah of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is an
ultimate treachery with with the the risala of
the nabi salallahu alaihi wasalaam.
Don't be chummy with people like that
And and and allow them some space that
they can pretend that they're Muslims
and then expect to have the shafa'ah of
the prophet
on the day of judgment and expect to
drink from his house
It doesn't work that way.
And this is one very important thing.
Always we have to remind ourselves whatever we
do, how is this gonna turn out in
the akhirah.
And people are like, Sheikh, be practical.
There is so much Islamophobia
and we need all the allies we can
get and these people have a lot of
access to media, which is true.
These people have a lot of ties in
government, which is true. They probably you know,
while all of us were becoming doctors,
they were probably, you know, have a lot
more people who are involved in public life
life and things like public affairs and in,
you know, in government and whatever. It may
be true. I don't know. I mean,
it may be true. All of this may
be true for this,
you know, for the sake of argument, even
if all of it is true.
Right? What's practical? You wanna talk about practical?
Practical is if you don't have the shatha
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, you're
gonna go to go to the hellfire.
What's practical now?
We don't we don't we don't give this
type of nonsense the time of day. I
mean, it's very important. It's it's very it's
very important. This is happening in our community
right right now.
It's very important. We don't give any of
this stuff at the time of day. Yes?
So because this point right now is about
the finality, the prophethood of the prophet, we're
gonna talk about that. If we have time,
we shall ask that in the question and
answers. It's a bit off the topic.
Right? The the point is just this is
that that anyway,
whether by
explicit mention or by insinuation
to say that anyone who,
doesn't believe in the finality of the naboo
of the prophet is
a Muslim,
is itself kufr
is itself
So the Nabi
is the
and the and the and the and
the the leader of the people who fear
Allah ta'ala.
And he's the leader of all the messengers,
and he is the beloved one of the
lord of the world.
And every claim to prophethood
after him
is a, is a deviation after guidance
and is
vanity.
It has no reality whatsoever
has no reality whatsoever. And that's, an explicit
mention of what we what we just spoke
about.