Hosai Mojaddidi – True Love Celebrating the Beloved of God (Rabi alAwwal Women’s Mawlid)
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Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh I wanted to talk in
sha Allah today about a topic that hopefully we all know about more
all very that we all are interested in. I mean I think this
event as the title of the slides that you'll see it's on the
celebrating the Beloved of Allah subhanaw taala of the prophesy so
I'm of course, but this topic that I wanted to talk about
specifically is on love because this is really ultimately a
gathering of love. Right we're coming here to celebrate the month
the birth month of the prophesy said I'm we're coming here as a
testimony of our love for Him as well as for our community for one
another. So I think this topic of love is something that we should
explore together so Bismillah so what is love? anybody? Anybody
want to shout out some answers? This word that we throw around a
lot that we hear a lot? And I know there's a lot of people who have
opinions about it but what is it?
Yes
respect mashallah, that's beautiful. Anyone else? What does
love mean to you? Yes. Care devotion beautiful. I love these
terms worth you're worthy. Oh mercy, I'm sorry. Merci. Merci
Masha Allah what else? Yes.
Attachment very nice. MashAllah beautiful. Yes.
deep reverence. Beautiful answers. I hope everybody's paying
attention. These are beautiful. Yes.
Affection, yes. under law, all of them I think are correct answers.
Yes. Surrendering. Mashallah, surrendering. Amazing. Yes.
Obedience. Wow, have you looked at my slides?
Because you're gonna see stuff that Mashallah. So if you look up
the word love, the dictionary definition actually has divided
into both a noun and a verb, which I think is important, because you
know, some as some of your answers, some of the ways that we
define love, reflect our emotions, right? There are things that we
feel, but then there's other things that are more actionable.
So here are the ones that I just pulled from the internet. But an
intense feeling of effect of deep affection, right, which was said,
a great interest and pleasure in something that's how many people
use this term love, right. And then actionable love is where you
feel a deep affection for someone and and express it right and then,
or just to have to enjoy something very much. So there's, this is
different ways that we experience love. As I said, many people
throughout the course of history have, of course, given their
interpretations of this word, word, or this concept. One, I
thought that was really interesting were the Greeks, the
ancient Greeks, they actually divided love into eight different
types of love. So I thought it was good to explore this a little bit,
because of course, in the course of our lives, we're going to
experience different forms of love. In fact, just recently, with
some of my students, I was going over the beautiful Hadith that
Allah supplied, that is mercy is divided, which is a form of love
right is divided into 100 parts one part, which is in this earthly
realm, right? We install it as a beautiful Hadith should know this
hadith, but I was going over it with my students and explaining to
them that that one
part of Allah's love, right, this one part that he's distributed in
this world, is responsible for the source of I should say, every form
of love that we experience. So all the different love that you have
for your family members, your friends, your community members,
every person who you feel an attachment to a strong
bond to is far is sourced from this one part of mercy that almost
five has distributed in the world. And then where are the remaining
99? Who knows?
Where are they?
with Allah? subhanaw taala? And where when are we going to
experience or see that? Yes.
On the Day of Judgment, in the hereafter. In Jana, and Shaw, all
of these are correct, right, the remaining 99 parts are last part
that it has reserved for the believers on the Day of Judgment.
So this should give us immense hope and of course, should
increase our love for Allah privated because of all of the
love that we experienced in this earthly earthly realm, not just
between human beings, by the way, even between animals amounts to
only one part and 99 are remaining for us in shallow where it counted
amongst the believers. Wow. Right. Just sit with that for a moment.
Wow. But you know, here are different experiences of love that
we may have felt before right? And you can look at the terms and then
they show the sources of them. So I thought it was interesting
because again, we sometimes have very shallow understanding of
these terms.
We hear a lot will say I love you without really thinking about the
depth of what we're saying. Or maybe maybe we do feel deeply, but
we don't know how to express it. So it's good to understand the
potentiality of, of, you know, the feelings that we have, but also to
try to figure out what is the purest form of it, because there's
so many forms. But what is ultimately the purest form of
love, right? And that's really, I think, the question at the heart
of what we, we as believers should, should hope to answer or
get at least an answer to at some point in our lives. What is that?
And can we feel that? Can we experience a true pure,
unadulterated love? Because there's so many different
experiences of love? Now, you may have seen this picture before, but
I love this picture is one of my favorite pictures to use in my
slides, because it's conveys so much there's so much power in this
picture. What is this? What are these?
Anybody know?
Good. So you've seen this fixture before. A lot of people are
surprised to learn these are actually all different forms of
water. So they're not different liquids, right? If you've looked
at it, on first glance, you might think, okay, they're different
drinks here. There's juice here, there's, you know, tea here
coffee, but it's actually water. And as you can tell, there's, I
mean, to think that, you know, some of this is water is pretty, I
think revolting, right? We would not want to drink every cup here,
we would want to drink only the purest cup, because that's what
water means to us. Right? So in the same way, when we think of
love, we should want to remove and filter through all the things that
we attach our hearts to, that are not deserving, right? Because
there's a lot of things that people become attached to even
people, right people become attached to other people, people
become attached to material things. And all that does is take
away and distract you from the highest form of love what we
should really attach our hearts to, of course, which is Allah
subhanaw taala. And so we need to look no further than to look at
what does Allah subhanaw taala think of love right? What how does
he define love? What does he tell us about love? What is this word?
According to him? Since he is the source of love? We don't even know
I mean, if he if you really think about it, how do we even know what
love is? It's because it's part of his attribute, right? He's unwell
dude. So without, you know, we the only way that we even feel this
emotion is through him. Therefore, we should look to him to at least
try to understand how does he want us to love right and this is where
you will see in chapter three verse 31 to 32 this is the answer
call in conservatorship Boone Allah for tibia only your double
Comala yr ferula calm the Nova calm. Wala whova For Rahim, Allah
to Allah Rasool for interval Lofa in Allahu Allah usuable caffeine.
Say, If you love God, follow me. And God will love you and forgive
you for your sins. And God is forgiving, merciful, and say, obey
God and obey the messenger. If they turn away, then truly God
does not love the disbelievers. This is it this is the formula
this is the highest form of love. And in this verse is everything we
need to know about how we should love and what type of love we
should be preoccupied with. Because you know, worldly love
will come and go and I'm sure many people in this room have
experienced heartbreak before because of worldly love. But when
you love Allah subhanaw taala your heart will never be broken. In
fact, the opposite will happen. When you put your efforts into
loving Allah and His Messenger, your heart will become stronger
and more fortified and nothing can break it no one can break it, you
can receive the most devastating news ever, but because your heart
is entrenched and drowning in the love of Allah, and the prophesy
Saddam you will stay afloat. So this is really the the purest, the
highest form. And this is the way that we can navigate this dunya
without the love of Allah subhanaw taala people drown. Dunya is a
place of tribulation of pain. And it's because people either have
insufficient deficient or absent love in their heart for Allah,
that they can't see that they have a difficult time here. But when we
can really focus on developing this inculcating this, and
learning how to get rid of all those other attachments, that's
when you start to see the strength that comes and this ability to
just endure and short long. So I wanted to share one of the most
powerful stories of love that we're describing, as I'm
describing this amazing love or one of the great stories from the
Sierra that I think really conveys. This is the story of one
of the companions of the prophesy, so named Julie VB. If you don't
know the story, I really hope that you'll read into it more but I'm
going to share it with you here. Today B was one of the companions
who took who became Muslim with the unsought of Medina and he his
name actually conveys a lot about him. His name means literally
Get the small grown or even deform, that's the way that it
was, you know, he was named. And why because he was actually quite
small in stature, very frail, very thin. And some of the descriptions
say that he was very unattractive as well, he actually looked, you
know, just not not very appealing. And because of that he was
ostracized, he was teased a lot. He was also an orphan. So he had
no lineage, no support, no family backing. And this was, you know, a
time and a place where that those things mattered. If you had at
least family and lineage, you could be protected. So he had
nothing. He had no money, no wealth, no features no no traits
about him, that anybody deemed worthy, except for, of course, the
best of creation sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. In fact, he was, and
this was, you know, prior to Islam, but he was bullied so often
that he actually was ostracized from the men of Medina. And he
would take refuge and comfort with the women because they were
actually compassionate towards him. That's how he was mistreated
so poorly. So the, when he accepted Islam, the prophet sly
said, um, of course saw in him qualities that were beautiful,
because he didn't look to the outward, right, this is the
difference between having the proper you know, sight, because we
can see, for example, right, we see things but if you don't have,
you know, the discernment to know what's truly a value and what's
not, then you're not going to see things according to their true
value. So the brothels I sort of saw people not for their outward
appearance, he didn't judge people based on the way that they were
dressed, or their, you know, status or their names. He looked
at character and he looked at, he could penetrate between, you know,
from all of that and see into the, to their soul. And so he saw Julie
Biba as being very special, and someone of immense worth, to the
point that he actually went to a very prominent family of Medina,
who had a daughter who she's not known, we don't know her name. But
this woman, this young girl was very sought after she a lot of the
Sahaba were, she had many suitors. And so the family was a wealthy
family. And she was quite stunningly beautiful, and the
prophesy centum imagine, here's a man who everybody looks at as
being worthless as a nothing. And the prophesy. Saddam chose to be
his representative, his advocate to this family, and he went up to
the father of this family, and he said, I'm asking for your
daughter's hand in marriage. And so he of course, was so overjoyed
because the he thought it was the process of asking for himself and
who better than the best of creation to hand his daughter over
to so he was like, he was so happy. And the prophets I said,
I'm told him I'm actually not asking on my behalf. And as soon
as he asked him, then who you know, assuming that it must be
another companion like aboubaker say novel bucket or say no Ahmad
or one of the other great companions? And he was told it was
July VB.
He was shocked but he didn't want to have bad other but the prophets
I said, I'm so he said, I need to ask her mother. Let me consult
with her. And he immediately went to her and he conveyed this
proposal had come and she had the same initial reaction, the
prophesy centum was asking for our daughter how amazing and he had to
tell her no, no, he's not asking for himself. He's asking for
someone else who, Julie VB and she began to scream hysterically. She
was like absolutely not. No way no way and all the blah she made some
very egregious statements that were
what she said was was inappropriate, swearing by Allah
that she would never ever ever marry her daughter to truly be
because he was seen as so low and beneath her. Now, I want you to
imagine the scene unfolding you know, she's screaming, and her
daughter this beautiful girl who everybody is eyeing and vying for,
she hears her mother screaming comes and says what's going on?
And they tell her that the Brazos Adam has asked for your hand for
Julie B. And this girl Masha Allah again, we don't know her name.
Subhan Allah what a demonstration of love for the prophesy Saddam
and trust in the prophesies that I'm this is true love. She
immediately turned to her parents who were like, there's no way
we're marrying you to him, don't worry. And she said, How could you
go against the prophesies?
He would never wish anything wrong for me. He would never want
anything but my fate for me. I will accept this proposal.
Shocked, right. Everybody's I mean, this is like a huge shock to
to everyone that hears this girl everybody's vying for and she's
gonna marry Julie beep but why did she do it? By
because she had that love for the prophesies that um, she didn't
question him she didn't question that he really wanted her fed even
if the, you know, the, the optics didn't look like something that
was good or favorable to other people she knew in her heart of
hearts that because it came from the prophesy Saddam it was worthy
Subhanallah they were married, and they lived peacefully together
until July be was one of the companions in a battle again, it's
not mentioned which one but he was martyred. Now this is where
Subhanallah we see the story. I mean, just again, trying to
imagine this scene unfolding because here's a man orphaned, and
we've described how people perceived him, but to the prophesy
centum. Clearly he was of great importance to the point that
during the battle, or after the battle, the prophesy ism turned to
his companions asking each one of them, if they have found anyone
missing, you know, from their family, from their people from
their tribe, did you find anyone missing? Is anyone missing amongst
you? And they would they said so and so and so and so he again
asked, is there anyone missing amongst you? And they said, So and
so here then again, is asking them like, you know, again, eagerly
trying to locate someone right of importance to him. And now he
reveals it. And he says, after they've repeatedly said, No, there
isn't anybody, he says, What, but I am missing Julie beam. In other
words, you know, he's important to me, you may have found all these
other people who are your family members, your people, but I'm
missing someone very special to me, that's who this man, his rank
was with the Prophet. So I said, um, and so the Companions began to
search for him. And they found that he had been martyred. There
were seven bodies laying around him, and the process of them came
heartbroken to see that he had been murdered. But of course, you
know, he conveyed that what had happened, he said that he had been
murdered these that he had killed the seven, and then one of them
must have finally killed him. And then he said, and he said this
beautifully, two to three times, it's reported in the Hadith, he
said, had a mini while an admin who had a mini or an admin who,
repeating this so that every single person there, saw what the
prophet is, and was conveying that you all all of you, at some point,
thought of this man is nothing, but he is from me, and I am from
him, right? We are the same, in other words were the same. And he
made sure to repeat it through two to three times. And then because
he was so small and so frail, do they be busy as a person, the
problem was that I picked him up by his own arms, he didn't need
anybody else. And if you've ever been around a funeral procession
or anything like that, you know, it's not actually very, it's not
easy to pick up someone. But that's how small he was that he
was able to lift him. And he placed him in the ground, he dug
his grave, He buried him himself. And, and that was, you know, the
story that I think, to me anyway, I'm one of many that conveys
really love in so many different ways, so many forms of love,
right? Because, again, if you look at this beautiful girl, sister, we
don't know again, her name, who is demonstrating to all of us that
when you truly love and understand who the prophesy system is, then
you don't question his guidance for you. And we live in an age
where a lot of people, you know, think, think, think that their own
interpretation of something or, you know, they quiet, they start
to question things, and they don't sit, sit and think, Wait a second,
who am I ultimately questioning, right, because the process of him
first and foremost, didn't convey anything from his own self.
Everything that he taught us, everything that he taught us to
do, or told us not to do is directly revealed to him from
Allah subhanho data. So this is something that we can always learn
from her example, that as soon as she came to understand that
something was from the prophesy centum, that was enough for her.
So now all of us have to ask ourselves this question, when I
read something, when I read a hadith, or when I read a ruling,
that applies to me, maybe as a woman, or just in general, my
role, you know, in this faith, do I question? You know, where it
comes from? Do I sit and have this internal debate thinking? Is it
really good for me? Or am I truly a lover of the prophesies? Am I
truly a believer that what when if he said something, it is hot, it
is true, and he completed his mission? Right? This is one of the
qualities of the prophets is they don't lie and they complete their
mission. Everything that the prophesy Saddam was taught to
convey to us has been conveyed. The deen is perfect. So there's
nobody that's going to come. And suddenly they're going to have
these realizations that, you know, haven't been worked out before. We
have to have the humility to know this. So this is how we
demonstrate true love. If love is on the tongue, but it's not in the
heart, then there's something missing, right? And that's where,
again, we need to question how can we truly love and also how can we
be beloved right
And this is it, the love of Allah Subhana Allah prophesy, Saddam is
initiated in the heart, this is where it comes, it starts here, we
should truly feel immense love for our Creator, who gave us
existence, who gave us all of the blessings that we have. And then,
of course, our beloved, Prophesy centum for conveying the truth to
us, we could have been drowning in darkness, just like so many
people, but here we are, we have a handler, the gift of Islam,
because he fulfilled his mission. So it should initiate in the
heart, and then we express it on the tongue, we say Alhamdulillah
we shook Rila and we mean it, we literally mean it and hamdulillah
Nia method Islam, these are words that should like surge through us,
like Alhamdulillah Thank you, God, thank you Allah for making me
Muslim, I could have been anything, thank you, and really
feel it. And then it comes out through the limbs through action,
it comes out in what sincere submission, gratitude and
obedience. And so this was a beautiful little excerpt that was
in the study of Quran on the Tafseer of this verse that I
thought was really worth mentioning. It says that the Quran
mentions God's love for human beings much more often than their
love for God, that right away should make us all feel really
small, right that we, that Allah is so worthy of our love. But
Subhanallah we don't show that we don't reflect as much as we
should. And then it goes on to say in Islamic spirituality, it is
more important to be considered beloved, than a lover of God. As
reflected in one of the names of the prophets. I said, I'm heavy,
but law, whose primary meaning is the beloved of God, though it can
also mean the lover of God, the Sufi say that we cannot be the
beloved of God without loving Him, and we cannot love him, unless he
loves us. So this is how, again, obedience to Allah subhanaw taala
is how we earn the love of Allah SubhanAllah. And then it's like a
beautiful, you know, a cycle that just continues, but it starts with
our obedience. And so quickly, again, I might might be overtime,
I apologize. But the obstacles to our obedience is what we also need
to examine. Because if we're not being obedient, if we're in any
way, having shuck doubt, or something, sometimes, you know,
people fall into ruts. And that's normal spiritually, you're not
always going to be, you know, in inclining, you're going to have
those moments of stagnation, that's normal as long as we don't
regress or go down. But we should always assess what's going on. And
so the four obstacles is ignorance. So if you feel like
you're in a rut, you need to learn. And this is where
Alhamdulillah organizations like that have a foundation, and other
wonderful initiatives, where especially that are in supportive
women, learning from other women, we need to support but seek out
knowledge Don't be the type of person that just is like, well, I
don't feel as motivated as I did last year or last month or in
Ramadan, what's going on? Do something about it take action, so
learn. The next is weakness. And this is where if you have
questions about certain things, ask questions, it's a very
important thing to convey. Because sometimes, again, people feel shy,
but remember what the prophets have said about the the women of
Medina, he praised them and said that they did not let their
shyness prevent them from asking questions. So if you have shock,
or doubt about something and you want certainty, ask questions.
Don't stand in your own own way. And not to say that anyone is an
expert on everything. But Inshallah, we'll be able to get
the answers to you through all of the wonderful teachers that we
have access to, but ask, and then long hopes, if you are stuck,
thinking about, or if you are, if you have what we call total, I'm
aware it's a disease of the heart, you keep putting things off,
right, procrastination, this is a disease of the heart, you have to
stop. Nobody is promised anything we're not promised tonight, let
alone tomorrow, let alone the next day, or the day after. So get be a
person of action and be a person who really understands that life
is temporal and also unpredictable. And that you can't
do that if you're going to run away from death. You cannot be
realistic about life and have proper goals and really organize
your time well. If you don't reflect on death enough, it's the
way to actually get your heart in the right order. Because again,
dunya is a place of distraction, death is the is the way to wake
up. It's like a splash splash of cold water. When you're you know,
in a songbird state. That's how you're gonna wake up is remember,
death can come and sees you or your loved ones at any minute. Are
you prepared? If you're not What are you doing? And then the last
thing to look at as well is if your risk is not healthy, if you
are consuming anything that's haram and this doesn't, I mean,
most of us in shallow are following the dietary rules. But
what about the income that we're taking in? What are we actually
mindful of that? Are we giving our suck? Are we giving our as a cat
are we distributing our wealth as we should to purify it, if we're
not doing these things, and likely we're going to not be able to be
on task be on top of our prayers be on top of our other things?
These are all hindrances. These are all obstacles. So this is how
we again, check ourselves through obedience in terms of figuring out
what's going on and then the four paths to actually making sure that
we're doing things as we should so
Salah we can't say this enough. Prayers, prayers, prayers is the
very first thing that we're going to be called on on the Day of
Judgment. The very the most important thing that we do. If
you're not praying, you're five days but you're going to Moeller,
then you're singing the sheets, wake up, you get that's a problem.
There's a disconnect there. You've got to be praying your five days,
five prayers, and then Quran. Again, Quran is the greatest vicar
the greatest thing that we can be occupying ourselves with outside
of our prayers. It's the book of Allah Subhanallah there's no
greater speech there's nothing more valuable to listen to to read
to engage with. You can have a books library full of books, but
if you don't engage with the Quran, again, there's a
disconnect. And if you don't know how to read the Quran, this is a
problem. Seek ask email. Can I get a teacher and I'm not sure I get
sisters all the time asking I need to get my just yesterday while I
was at an event and a sister who is the mother working very eager
to learn Quran because she sees this as a priority that she's
neglected. This is a kind of discipline we need so reading the
book was founded beautifully with joy and devotion, seeking
forgiveness and guidance da we have to continuously make dua
always asking for ourselves forgiveness for our sins as well
as those we love and in the absence of others we shouldn't you
know just you don't have to share your dogs make them private and
thicket being in the remembrance of Allah soprano doing silhouette
often and contemplating this is how we get our self back on the
path of obedience and again when we come in celebrations like this
we're celebrating the the life of the beloved so why so I'm the
point of this is to bond our hearts but also to check ourselves
to check our claims that we make because it's very easy to claim
that you love the prophesy Saddam but if it's not showing in your
actions, again there's a disconnect. So this is where
inshallah we can again hold ourselves accountable and truly
present with with real love and insha Allah have the prophesies
and be pleased with us in this life and and in the next inshallah
radical Oh Vikram Saramonic what I'm delighted to get to