Khalid Latif – Selfcontrol and Forgiveness
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AI: Transcript ©
In the name of Allah, the gracious, the
merciful,
all praise is due to Allah, the Lord
of the universe, the master of the day
of judgement.
I bear witness and testimony to the oneness
of Allah,
to his magnificence, his omnipotence, his might, his
glory.
To his being the creator and sustainer of
all things,
the giver of life,
the guider of hearts,
the master of the day of judgment.
And I bear witness to the fact that
Muhammad ibn Abdulla
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
is his servant and final messenger.
May the peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him and upon all those who choose
to tread in his path until the last
day.
It is said that during the time of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
the prophet comes upon a woman who has
recently lost her husband.
That this woman, she has lost her husband
and she is so distraught, she is so
overcome with anguish that when the beloved of
Allah alaihis salam finds her in this state
and seeks to console her, she lashes out
at him and says, you do not know
what I am going through.
And the prophet
hearing these words from this woman's voice, he
does not seek to engage her further in
conversation.
But he steps away knowing that this is
not a moment in which she will listen
to what he is saying.
And so when he is left, another companion
now says to this woman that, Do you
know who this was that you spoke to
in this manner? This was the messenger of
Allah.
And when the woman, she sees what she
has done, when she gains her senses again,
she now goes and seeks permission to speak
to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
She seeks to apologize for her outburst at
that moment of anguish. She seeks to seek
his forgiveness
for what she had said to him. And
when the Prophet
sees her come and ask for this forgiveness,
he says to her that true patience comes
at the first sign of calamity.
That at that moment when you were so
stricken with grief and anxiety, when your emotions
have overtaken you to such an extent that
all you want to do is let out
a burst of anger,
at that point you will get to see
how truly patient you are.
And on a daily basis, on a regular
basis, you and I find ourselves in situations
where we are truly tested from this standpoint
And we are not passing these tests.
Did someone speaks to us in a manner
in which we do not approve of? Someone
looks at us in a way in which
we wonder why they have glared at us
in this manner. We see someone acting or
dressing or speaking in a way that we
believe is not the way that someone should
look, dress, speak or act. We let our
emotions overtake us and we do not understand
the repercussions
of those emotional outbursts.
Heart upon heart, we have left in a
way where people do not want to engage
us or speak or interact with us. All
we are doing is pushing people further and
further away because we do not know how
to be in control of ourselves.
Rather, we let ourselves control us.
And we see that this is not the
way that the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam recommended
to his companions to be.
That he taught them and he
understand that the most assuredly from amongst your
physical self, your emotional self and your spiritual
self, you saw an interaction that needed to
be one where there was harmony, not separation.
And if any of these parts of your
identity were things that were going astray,
most assuredly the others would feel the ill
effect of it.
Then in the hadith of Prophet
he tells us that the strong believer is
not he who can wrestle 1 to the
ground, but the strong believer is he who
can control himself
at that moment of emotion, at that moment
of anguish, at that moment of anger.
But when we are tested in that way,
how do we respond?
During the time of the prophet
it is said that the Muslimeen, they had
lined up in their ranks to take on
the opposition, the mushrikeen.
That they were lined up now in battle
and as they were standing face to face,
the mushrikeen,
they sent forth one of their best soldiers,
a man by the name of Amr ibn
Abdouwoud.
That this man, Abdouwoud, it is said that
in that region he was somebody who had
a reputation
of never being beaten in combat.
That not only was this man never defeated
or beaten but no one had even brought
him down to his knees. He was truly
a massive man, a giant of a man.
And now he stands in front of the
Muslim army and he begins to taunt and
mock them.
That where are the men amongst you who
say that when they fall in this battle,
paradise will be given to them?
Where are those men who say that if
they follow this religion,
they will be given Jannah?
And And Ali ibn Abi Talib, he hears
these words and he goes to the Prophet
alaihis salaam saying, You Rasool Allah, let me
go and take this man on in battle.
And the Prophet Alaihi Wasallam says, Ali, this
is Abu Dawood, you cannot beat him, step
back.
And the second time now, the taunts come
forward, a third time now coming from this
man, Abu Wood's mouth that where is that
man, Mohammed, who claims to be a prophet?
Where is that man who claims to be
a messenger
radiAllahu anhu goes to the prophet
seeking to go and take this man and
the Prophet
It is said he sees something in the
face of Ali.
And so, it is said, he takes his
own turban from his head and puts it
on top of the head of Ali radiAllahu
ta'ala An, gives him his sword and he
sends him out to fight this man, Abu
Dawood.
And Abu Dawood, it is said that he
knows Ali because he is a friend of
Ali's father.
And Ali when he approaches him now, he
says to him, You Abu Dawood, I am
of the understanding that if somebody gives to
you 2 proposals,
you will accept one of them.
And He says, Yes, this is what it
is.
And so He says that, I will give
you the option that you leave me and
my people alone. Leave us alone and let
us worship as the way that we would
want to be worshiping.
And he says that I cannot do this.
And then Ali says, Then the second proposal
I give to you is that you fight
with me now.
And Abu Dawood says, Yeah, ibn Nahi, O
son of my brother, I have no desire
to fight you.
And Ali ibn Abi Talib
he says, But I have a desire to
fight with you.
And they begin to fight now this giant
of a man striking at Ali radiAllahu anhu
with everything that he has
and to his astonishment with every blow this
man Ali who was less of him in
his physical stature, he is able to move
here and there without any kind of pain
coming to him.
And now in the midst of it, it
is said that Ali Radiallahu An, he throws
his shield and his sword to the ground,
and he propels himself forward with his feet,
kicking up the wood in the chest. And
he brings this man who has never been
brought down to the ground, onto the ground,
and he straddles himself over him.
Standing over Abu Dawood now, Ali has his
sword unsheathed against the throat of this giant.
And he says to him again that leave
us alone and you will have your life.
And Abu Dawood, he's now thinking to himself
that if I was to leave this person
alone, if I was to give in,
everyone would know that I had been beaten
in this battle, his reputation was at
stake. But if I was not to give
in, if I was not to submit, then
I will still be known as somebody with
this reputation.
So as Ali is now standing over him
with his sword against his neck, it is
said this man, Abu Dawood gathers all of
the spit that is in his mouth.
And as he is now there with his
neck under the knife of Ali, he takes
all of this spit and he spits in
the face of Ali
and he waits now for that fatal blow
to be delivered.
And to his surprise, Ali ibn Abi Talib
stands up and walks away.
And Abu Dawood says, where is it that
you are going?
And Ali says that if I was to
take your life right now, it would be
out of my own anger. It would be
me seeking my own vengeance and not for
the sake of Allah
A strong believer is not he who can
wrestle 1 to the ground, but a strong
believer is he who can control himself at
a moment of emotion.
Here Ali radhiallahu ta'ala an is epitomizing this
hadith from us and we have to ask
ourselves
if we can follow suit.
On a daily basis we find ourselves in
a situation
where opportunity
arises for us to exert mercy or to
exert something else.
People they will wrong us but we see
the beloved of Allah
he was not a man who sought justice
for himself, but he sought to act justly
with the people who were around him.
This was a man who epitomized for us
an understanding of rahma something that we have
forgotten. His very sending to this world was
somebody who was a mercy for the entire
of humanity.
But when somebody challenges us or we perceive
that they have wronged us, We cut them
off in ways that we should not be
cutting them off.
You spoke to me in a manner that
I did not think was befitting of the
likes of me. I will not speak to
you ever
again. You looked at me in a way
that you should not ever dare to look
at me. Who are you to think of
me in this way? What are we actually
thinking of ourselves?
The mission of the Prophet
was to bring hearts together, not to push
people away.
Even those of Mecca who sought to push
him out of the society,
those who beat his companions,
abused them, boycotted them, even killed them. The
beloved of Allah alaihi salam would make du'a
for them regularly.
That, Oh Allah, send your Magfirah upon my
people because indeed they do not understand.
When was the last time we stood and
sought forgiveness on behalf of those who had
wronged us?
And how often do we seek retribution
saying that you owe me something for the
way that you dared to treat me?
That the merciful one is merciful to those
who are merciful. Be merciful on the earth.
The one who is in the heavens will
be merciful to you.
This is the first hadith that we are
taught in pretty much any majlis, the hadith
of Rahmah.
And it leaves us behind
because we seek to push people down, we
seek to see them in a way where
we elevate ourselves by denigrating those who are
around us. You do not pray in the
way that I was taught to pray. You
do not practice in the way that I
was taught to practice. You do not fit
to my standards of what a Muslim is
meant to be like. Who are you to
qualify whether someone's Islam is good or not?
And especially where we are today, mercy has
to be our motivation.
If we do not seek to understand one
another and we seek to be offended by
every action that is taken from within the
community,
how will we expect people from outside of
it to understand anything about us?
If we don't talk to each other, why
would anybody else talk to us?
And mercy has to be that motivation.
Compassion has to be that motivation.
Not a sense of restitution,
not that I want retribution on my behalf,
not vengeance in any capacity, but motivated by
compassion with an air of foresight that gives
me an understanding
that if I want Allahu Zujah's mercy in
my life, when I go and stand in
front of him on that day, I need
to start acting with a sense of mercy
in this world.
The legacy of the prophet alaihis salaam was
someone who was such that when he was
challenged in the most fortuitous of situations,
he still consistently
displayed mercy.
Never did he cause pain to anyone purposely.
Never did he bring hardship on anyone.
Even from the time the beloved of Allah
alaihi salaam is born into this world, he
poses no pain to anyone.
His mother Amina says that when I gave
birth to this child, a light came from
me that went as far as Hashem.
And it was such a light pregnancy. It
was such a light birth. This was something
who when any other woman goes through those
pains, it is an action that is such
an hardship that it can be called nothing
but labor. And still at that time the
prophet alayhi wasalam is causing pain to no
one.
This is a man when he stands at
the battle of Uhud and his blessed face
is pierced and blood is dripping from it.
He seeks to jump to the ground and
catch that blood in his hand. And when
he is asked, why did you do this?
He says that those people, the ones who
would hurt him would not be able to
handle what would happen to them if this
blood hits that dirt.
This is a man when he goes to
the city of Thayath thinking the people will
welcome him rather than being met by any
embraces.
The people insult him in ways that we
can't even imagine.
In some of the narrations and some of
the hadith, it is said that what the
prophet was
wearing on his feet actually becomes stuck to
the soles because of the amount of blood
that is coming out from his feet. And
the thing just hardens around the bottom of
his foot.
And he goes to the outskirts of the
city now and finds rest under a tree.
And as he is sitting there, an angel
presents himself to him saying that, You Muhammad,
I am the angel of the mountains that
surround this city. If you command me to
do so, I will crush these people.
And the prophet doesn't say, yes go and
carry vengeance out on my behalf.
Yes go and carry retribution out on my
behalf.
But this is a man who is
a mercy to all of the worlds
and he says no let them be perhaps
the generations that come after they will understand.
This is a man who when a small
kitten falls asleep on the sleeve of his
arm rather than disturbing its slumber he cuts
the sleeve off of his shirt.
And where is our sense of mercy, our
sense of compassion,
where has it gone?
How many people have you cut off from
your life because you perceived that they have
wronged you in some way?
That you dare to act like this in
front of me?
You dare to present yourself like this in
front of me?
What are the actions that we are presenting
to our rub?
Who we will stand in front of one
day, and we will say, you rabbi by
your mercy give me entrance into your Jannah.
And at that time when he says to
us that my servant came to you seeking
you to be forgiving and merciful,
but you sought something else,
why should I be merciful to you now?
What will we say?
You seek to speak to me, but when
they sought to speak to you, you would
not speak to them, why should I respond
to you?
Where will be our sense of justice then
when we are standing in front of the
most just?
Where will be our sense of belonging, our
sense of ownership when all we have truly
is the way that we have treated others?
Will it be something that we want to
stand in front of Allah
with?
Or will it be something that we will
be embarrassed by and we will say You
Rabbi give us your magfirah and cover this
for us.
It is something that we have to think
about while we have the time to do
so.
In this community there is a woman who
is greatly respected by the name of Luisa,
and right now as we are praying our
Jummah prayers or we are about to, she
is going under she is about to undertake
a surgery that will be a great surgery
and she is in need of our Dua.
So as we pray this Jum'ah prayer, please
remember her in your dua that Allah Azzawajal
makes this a means of purification
in this world and makes it a means
of elevation in the next and that he
grants her great strength and health after the
surgery is completed and gives her the best
in this world and the best in the
next inshallah. Amen. May Allah
guide us and protect us. May He bless
us with knowledge that benefits us. May He
bless us with the tawfiq to understand and
implement that knowledge into our daily lives, and
may he guide and bless us all.