Heart Soul – Episode 13

Welcome to heart and soul with me, Lauren booth, your place to reflect who was the Prophet Muhammad peace upon him? What were his habits? What were his mannerisms? Joining me today to get some beautiful answers to these wonderful questions is Chef Omar Suleiman Sharif Omar's journey of seeking knowledge started in 2000 in the United Arab Emirates, where he studied at the feet of prestigious scholars such as chef Tarik Eben Raja Sheikh Omar has a bachelor's degree in Islamic Studies, a master's degree in Islamic Finance, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Islamic Studies. He previously served as an Imam in New Orleans for six years, and has since dedicated himself to

full time teaching chef Assalamu alaykum.

People today have a very distorted idea of who the Prophet peace be upon him was or no idea. That's the majority of humanity that is their condition. And then you have a group of around the fifth of humanity who are in love with him, and who just hearing his name, Muhammad Sallallahu, alayhi wasallam we can wait. Why is there this massive division? And how can we overcome it with what information do we have to to unite these two visions correctly? Well, I think that, you know, interestingly enough, when you look at the history of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in terms of how he's been viewed through the lens of various scholars, the Prophet, peace be upon him

was always viewed in the most admirable fashion. In fact,

if you could attack his message in history, no one dare to really attack his character, even his enemies in his time, could not really find any flaw in his character. And they readily admitted. And one thing I tell people all the time is that those that are attacking the character of the Prophet peace be upon him today are not, you know, scholars, or historians, or anything by any means. They're not academics, the people that attack him, are, you know, islamophobes, that tend to not have much of an education that tend to not know much about him. And they're playing to the ignorance of people about who he is. And so this is actually a very unique form of Islamophobia that we're

facing today, historically speaking,

you know, of attacking his character. I think when you look at him some a lot, and some of them, you find that his character was

beautiful, it was impressive, there was no way to study his life, to accuse him of fabrication or to accuse him or at least to accuse him of fabrication for the sake of war of the game.

He was humble he, as he became more authoritative, and the religion and the political side. So as his religion grew, he only became poor, he only became more humble, his clothes only became more shabby. Nothing changed about him. And this is the beauty of the Prophet peace be upon him is that many people change with their circumstances. One of our great scholars email me politically, he said that the Prophet peace be upon him was tested with all forms of circumstances in this world. And he demonstrated an amazing consistency of humility and modesty, and a precious smile. And, and, and, you know, modest circumstances. So when he was in poverty, you know, he demonstrated grace when he

was wealthy before Islam,

with his wife, Cadiz, that'll be a lot on how he demonstrated the utmost grace and gratitude. When he was in Mecca persecuted he demonstrated Graceland. He was in Medina and he was in power. He was the same human being so you don't find in any of the narrations of the Prophet peace be upon him.

You know that when he was in Mecca, he was this way. But then once he got to Medina, he became like this. It's even from his wives. There's absolutely no change in his personality, despite having Yes, let's sorry. Let's talk about those early days when he was married for the first

Time to hire Dejah may only be pleased with her, a wealthy, important export magnate we'd call her now, in the whole region, her name would have been known and how wealth was well known and her management skills would have been known. And he was a really a humble merchant at the time. What was it that that drew this wealthy ladies I, to, to someone fairly humble? Right? Well, this is precisely when when you look at the Prophet peace be upon him.

He managed, so so he was an orphan. I mean, he was an orphan, he was poor. As Pamela. It's amazing because he faced literally just death at every point in his life. So he's born into a world without a father, his mom dies at six, his grandfather takes him his grandfather dies, when his mind his uncle takes him in. He has really never known a stable household. He was, you know, someone and in that society, orphans were treated quite harshly.

He's taken in by his uncle, elbow pilots. And he wants to help a father with his with it, his business is also very poor, in quite a bit of poverty. And he ends up being a shepherd of sheep on the outskirts of Mecca for a few years. Then he ends up taking a job as a broker, right, where he's sort of matching merchants and managing the goods of merchants and things of that sort. And he demonstrates such dignity in such modesty and that he's able to ascend the ranks by his character, not by any other means not by his wealth, not by authority, but by his character, he's able to really draw the attention of everyone in the society, which is quite powerful and profound that

without any of the circumstances of a highly tribalistic society, that's where there are clear demarcations of socio economic loss. The Prophet peace be upon him is able to ascend those ranks solely by his character it is give us

give us an example. Absolutely. So his truthfulness is trustworthiness.

You know, it's absolutely amazing. And that's what what actually drew Khadija to him was, first and foremost is, how trustworthy he was. And we know that he has, it's, the harder you know, the more that we progress, as people, the harder it is to find trustworthy people, isn't it and so, finding someone trustworthy, is very difficult. And actually the Prophet peace be part of himself. He alluded to that he said that he said, people are like, are like camels. Out of 100 of them, you can rarely find one that you can really depend on. So he is actually that dependable human being sallallahu wasallam. And so, even what we find in Mecca, even when they were persecuting him, they

still the same people that were persecuting him did not find anyone more trustworthy than him to watch their belongings. So while we're persecuting him, they still leave their precious belongings with them. And he obliged to the point that when he ran away from them, they had a bounty on his head, as he was escaping Mecca. And he left his he left dining, his son in law, or his cousin would become the son in law, he left them behind the law, the law had to go and return all of those people's possessions to them. And it took them three days to go find everyone

that was that had left their belongings with him, even if they were persecuting him. So his trustworthiness was and that's why his nickname was a father. I mean, the truthful one, and the trustworthy one was something that was well known throughout society. And when he came to prophecy, when the prophecy bit began to weigh upon him and be given to him and dynamic fashions, the people turned on him and give us some examples, please chef of the way that the Prophet peace be upon him would react to taunting and mockery because this, this is a time you know that the psychologists talk about your resting personality, and you're under stress personality. Now, it's easy to be nice.

Hey, he's such a nice guy. She's such a nice lady. And then something happens at work and they for throwing things. Okay, so what is the what is their profits under stress, default position, you know, one of the great rabbis who would accept Islam, there were a few of them that accepted Islam, the two chief rabbis of Medina actually, one of them was Abdullah bin Salaam, and the other one was a man by the name of his agent in China. And both of them spoke of these prophecies of the Prophet peace be upon them within the Torah, and later the sign and particularly what he said was that what was written about the coming Prophet was that

yes, before hilma, who jacala that his forbearance is greater than his anger, and the more anger you show towards him, the more beauty he would show towards you and that was true.

To be the Prophet peace be upon him that the more aggressive people became with him, the more his humility and his modesty shines. Now

I have to stop you there because I really want to hear that story. Let me see how much of it I can get corrected Sharla the Prophet peace be upon him was walking with Amara de la Han Han, and a rabbi approached him and shook the profit by his clothing and accused him of not paying a debt Can you complete that for us or correct that for us inshallah? Yeah, so they did decide to, you know, came to the Prophet peace be upon him in Medina. So realize the Prophet peace be upon him is in charge. He's an authority in Medina.

And he came up to the Prophet could have easily harmed them, he came up to him and he shook him, as he said, and he said that, you know, he that the Prophet peace be upon them owe them a debt and that he didn't pay it on time. Now, the prophet peace be upon them purposely used to do business with non Muslims and loan and trade and so on so forth as a means of building that trust and building that camaraderie. So even up until his death, actually he would he would go into business transactions with particularly the Jewish population of Medina, whatever it was to encourage that, you know, that that humanity and that and that camaraderie, so when they Messiah walked up to him and started to

insulted and this family, and in fact that that had not been Do

you know, for another week, the prophet peace be upon him, you know, could have really, you know, come down on him very hard. Alma was with the Prophet peace be upon him the poptop May Allah be pleased with him, when he was so angry with the way that they attacked the Prophet peace be upon him that he stood up and he asked the Prophet peace be upon them for permission to to basically kill him for what he had done. And the Prophet peace be upon him, told him to sit down and the Prophet peace be upon him actually told him, he said that this isn't what we wanted from you, although this isn't how you should have dealt with the situation. He said, so take him to take him to, to the Treasury

and give him 20 pounds of dates

for the harm that you caused him, and then give him the 20 that's owed to him.

For you responding the way that you did you need to pay him and you also give them back what's due to him? So almost walking with Him, and they didn't assign him tells him Do you know who I am? And almost says, I don't know who you are, and I don't care who he was. And he told them that they did this. And then he said,

You know, we've heard your name, or you're a scholar of the Jews, you're the Rabbi of the Jews, why would you act like in such a foolish manner. So he told them that there were signs of prophethood in him, that were apparent to me. But there was one that I had to test for myself. And that was that his forbearance exceeds his anger, and the more anger you show towards him, the more his forbearance shines, the more forbearance he responds to you. And so they didn't sign it actually accepted Islam. And he gave half of his wealth for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala. And he embraced the Prophet peace be upon him and his message. And so that was the character of the Prophet peace be upon him,

the more you assaulted him, the more you attacked him, the more beauty you would see from him. And what I always tell people is that you know, what islamophobes tried to do. And we actually had a big Fallout a few years ago with Pope Benedict where he read a medieval text right, which which suggested that the Prophet peace be upon him, became violent when he became an authority. So when he was

under persecution, he was kind and gentle. But then once he had the power, then suddenly he unleashed His wrath, which could not be further from the truth, historically speaking. So when he was in Mecca, what we find is that usually when a when a minority becomes frustrated and persecuted, that's when they respond. They respond with violence, right. in Makkah, his followers wanted to respond with violence. This is well documented, they want it to attack. And in fact, one of the people from Medina came to the Prophet peace be upon the neck when he was living in persecution. And I would argue most Muslims don't know this. They came to visit him and it was during the days of

pilgrimage. So the mccanns were unarmed and 500. People from Medina secretly met the Prophet peace be upon him to take the pledge with him. And they told the prophets lie Selim. This was during the pilgrimage. They said, If you want, we could, we can ambush the Mexicans now, and we can take them all out. I mean, we're 500 men, and we can take them out because they're not suspecting right now. They're not armed. And we can do this now. And this we're talking before the hits or even before the migration. And the prophets. I said, I'm responded and he says now or may not be valid and honored to be laughable. He said, we have not been commanded to act in such a way. Rather, I was commanded

to act with forgiveness with a spirit of forgiveness. So that's when he's in Mecca. in Medina, never

Never an aggressor towards the innocent. He frequently shows more mercy to the captives of war and so on so forth. And then when he conquers Mecca reconquer as much after being persecuted run out of it he demonstrates one of the greatest acts tolerance that's been known to the history of man a perfect time to take a break we'll be back after this

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storm is coming soon Don't you know the storm is coming soon to to know the storm is coming soon if you don't want to get wet you better get in sad storm is coming soon. Go to no storm it's coming soon. To know the storm it's coming soon. If you don't want to get wet We better get it right.

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better wake up. Wake up. Wake up soon.

Welcome back. You're listening to heart and soul on Qf radio with me Lauren booth. sharing his gems of knowledge with us today is Chef Omar Suleiman. Before the break we were about to hear about one of the greatest acts of benevolence in history. Please chef introduce us to the act. So when the Prophet peace be upon him returned to Mecca. And many of the scholars of the Bible actually say that this is actually what's predicted was prophesied in the Bible. of of approximate returning to parent which is Mecca.

With 10,000 saints, he enters into Mecca with 10,000 companions. And Prophet peace be upon him is entering into Mecca after having lost

pretty much all of his family to persecution and to battle and to the pain that was inflicted upon him by the people of Mexico at random out. The expectation is that, you know, he's going to who's going to take his revenge is justified revenge on the people of Mexico that have attacked Medina over and over and over again, after running them out of Mexico. And in fact, the prophet peace be upon him, as he surrounds Mecca.

After the Meccans broke a treaty with the people of Medina, one of the companions, he says that today is the day of Mohammed, which means today is the day of slaughter. And the Prophet peace be upon him says, No, today is the day of model hammer, which means today is the day of mercy. And he actually took the banner from that companion and gave it to a son, and just for making that statement that today is going to be a day of slaughter. And he reaches out to the people of Mecca. And it's amazing what his uncle

tells them that, you know, I was just young, who was persecuted you many, many, many times, you know about Sophia, and was one of the people that that rallied against the Prophet peace be upon him for two decades. He says that, you know, he's a proud man. He said that he's a leader of his people. And he said that, you know, and you know, the discussion is not about whether or not he should kill him, because that's not an option. He says that, you know, maybe you should recognize his leadership amongst the people. So the Prophet peace be upon him comes into Mecca.

And he has his nose touching the back of his riding beast to show humility. And he starts to call out that whoever enters the house is safe.

And whoever shuts his door is safe. And whoever puts down their arms is safe. And everyone is safe, so long as they don't attack. And he says the same words of the Prophet use of the Prophet Joseph, it is set up with his brothers, lots of three body coming down. There is no blame upon you today. You are completely forgiven, May Allah forgive you and maybe forgive us. And the Prophet peace be upon him does not take revenge on the people have MK and he doesn't even force them to convert to Islam. Many people, many people accepted Islam seeing this after the Netherlands, many, many, many people, but he did not force them. And he did not make that a condition upon them. And so if there's

anyone that wants to say that the Prophet peace be upon him is bloodthirsty, or make that argument, he could have come back to Mecca as a triumphant, justified, justified warrior and taking vengeance on all the people that have inflicted that arm and run them out of his home and inflicted harm on his family and truly caused the deaths of most of his family members. It could have really taken that redundant. Instead, he chose the Netherlands and chose to leave an example for all of us. But this is the character of Islam that this is who we are. You know, we are not a people that respond to injustice with injustice, but we respond with mercy and justice. And so that's, that's his

example. And that's his legacy amongst us. Chef, thank you very, very much for those enlightening examples of the beauty of the personality of our Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. I will on this day grant us wisdom and awareness keep us away from foolishness and pretension. Grant us a share in every blessing you send. The producer for this series is a have a chef you've been listening to heart and soul until tomorrow Assalamu alaikum