Maryam Amir – Does Allah listen to my duaa
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AI: Transcript ©
A grandmother told me that her husband passed away 10 years ago,
may Allah have so much mercy on him. And when he passed away, she
started to live alone, and she still had relatives check in, but
she wanted to continue living on her own. But over time, she
realized that living on her own actually made her start feeling
really lonely, and so one day, she just kind of had a breakdown, and
she started making dua, and she said, Oh, Allah. And she just
started praying for Allah to bless her with a friend. You see how
lonely I am. And she just poured her heart out in begging Allah for
a friendship every single day. This grandma used to take a walk
on a cliff that overlook the ocean. So there's like apartments
and homes on this cliff, and below it is the ocean. And she'd take a
walk, and she would always see this apartment building, and this
apartment building has one patio, well, a lot of patios, but one
that had a chair, and she would just look at that chair and
imagine that she was sitting in that chair, just looking out at
the ocean. And she would think, I wish I could just sit in that
chair. And she made this broken dot. And then every single day for
a week, as she usually does, she's taking her walk overlooking the
ocean, thinking about that patio. And then one day in this week, the
week after she made dua, this woman made a beeline towards her,
and just like walked straight to her, and she introduced herself,
and the woman who had made the responded, and they started
talking, and they realize that they are in the same age range and
they have similar interests, and within moments, they have been
talking for two hours. And then the woman says, I know this is
really kind of strange, because we just met, and I've never done this
before, but would you be open to coming over to my house? I live
right over there, and so this grandmother, she's like, I would
never normally say yes, but it just felt right. And so I followed
her to this apartment complex that I look at every single day when
I'm taking this walk. And then they invited her. She invited her
in, and she said, why don't you go sit outside on the patio while I
make us some tea? So she goes, and where do you think she's sitting
on that chair that she's looked at over and over and over passing by,
wishing she could just sit in that chair and drink some tea. Her new
friend is bringing some tea. So now she's sitting in that chair.
She's drinking the tea that the new friend, that she's made draw
for has brought her, and this friendship has now been going on
for seven years. They are best friends. They spend so much time
with each other. She's always at that apartment where she can sit
and drink tea, looking over on the patio, just being calm and feeling
secure in front of the ocean. Her dua was for a friend. That was the
DUA she made, and Allah enter that dua. This woman who she met also
takes a walk every single day, but she had never met her before that
dua.
They were in the same place at the same time, but it wasn't time for
them to meet yet. Allah brought her into her life at the exact
time she needed. But from the perfection of Allah's generosity
and mercy, it wasn't just that he answered her dua. What else did he
answer? The wish of her heart.
She just wanted to sit on that patio. She didn't even pray for
that. And sometimes we belittle things that we want. We think that
it's not big enough to make dua for but we think about it. But
even more so, sometimes when it comes to dua, we don't get an
answer in one week.
The grandmother story came the story of her friendship came true
shortly after she made dua. But what if you've been making dua for
10 years,
what have you been making to and every time you make dua, you feel
like a door is actually closing instead of opening. And every
single time you want to have more hope, you feel like you're being
redirected. And that brings a lot of questions
many of us navigate what those emotions are when it comes to dua,
and I'm sure we've all had moments, or most of us have had
for moments where we're sitting and thinking, Is Allah trying to
give me a message that I shouldn't pursue this? Is Allah trying to
give me a message that maybe this isn't best for me, and then trying
to figure out what that looks like can be hard because, well, what if
I'm just supposed to do it a different way. Am I still supposed
to keep asking for? How long do I keep asking until sometimes we
might even think I'm going to stop? And this is what the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasalam taught us never to do, to never stop
asking, to never stop coping. But sometimes the pain we experience
is so overwhelming.
That it's hard to come to again with hope. And so today, what
we're going to talk about is taking those four letters of pain
and turning them around. I want you to
sit up really, really straight, put your hands up in the air.
Smile really big, huge smile. Look at the person next to you and give
them a smile.
Huge smile. Okay, look at the person on the other side of you.
Give them a huge smile.
Okay, hands down
for like half a second. Do I see a few of you smiling now it seems
like our moods are slightly smileier. Now what I want you to
do is hunch your shoulders over,
put your head down,
frown,
make the face you make when you're crying. Some of
you laugh and cry at the same time. Apparently, but for all the
rest,
okay, come back up
when you were moving around and smiling and talking and like, you
know, smiling at each other, versus when you were physically
down, how did you feel different? Give me a few words
closed. Closed. What else?
What? Tired, Okay, what else,
when you were up, okay,
sense of community. Yes, I'm
just fixing my hijab. Don't call me
sorry.
Can you say a letter confined? Okay? Those emotions that we just
heard, the ones of feeling down and confined and restricted and
just overwhelmed, those types of emotions when you make dua. How do
you usually make dua? Is it like Allah
or with a smile?
Or is it often constricted? Is it often physically down?
Yes, we go to Allah with joy, of course. But a lot of us go to
Allah when we are in so much pain that we physically cannot hold our
bodies up.
And that is one of the most powerful aspects of sujood. You
cannot hold your head up any longer. You need Allah's support.
How can you even breathe without his permission? And so going down
into this act of complete submission to Him in Salah, and
then relieving that burden from your shoulders, that moment of
relief is what a sister described to me when she asked me that she
had had a stillbirth, and then after it, she had a miscarriage,
and she asked me, Why do I have to keep going through the same type
of test, the same type of pain. It's not like two different types
of pain. It's the same type of pain, and it was so hard the first
time, and then why did I have to go through it a second time? And
we spoke about what that might mean for her life, and we tried to
work through navigating emotion. But one thing she said, which was
so powerful was that she never felt a sweetness in her connection
to God until she experienced that loss. Now that's not what every
woman is going to say, or every man is going to say if they go
through that type of pain, but for her, she found soulless in coming
back to Allah, because she knew that no one else could understand
everything that she was going through, and that concept, someone
being able to see you no matter what you're going through, someone
being able to hear you no matter what you're going through, that
even if he's not answering the huge in every moment that
sometimes you get that small present from him that you weren't
expecting, and you're like, Oh, he is listening to me, he knows what
I'm going through, that moment, that experience of a relationship,
some of the scholars said that, in and of itself, is greater than the
joy that you're asking for. Because once the DUA is answered,
the desperation sometimes abates. And that desperation of going to
him like this, like I have nowhere to go but you. And then feeling
that sense of upliftment, because you know that you can smile up at
him. Had to go to Allah. That experience, in and of itself, is
worship. So when we're talking about approaching dura with hope
and with love and with pain, what I want to do today is focus on
turning the pain to something that allows us to see that there is
power in the assurance of trusting Allah's insight
of your life narrative. Yes, that's where we're taking paper.
Power. A for assurance. I for insight and for narrative. I saw
someone look like this, and I see it. I see the confusion. I see
that I was really stretchy, but we're going to work it, make it
work. Inshallah, so P Why did mariams mother in the Quran? Are
they him a Salam? Why did she make dua, the famous dua that she asks
Allah,
if Allah if Allah be
ini Muhammad, Aunt alim. So she's calling out to Allah, and she's
dedicating who is in her womb to Allah. Have you heard this Raha
before? Have you heard the story of her making dua that she's
giving her, who is in her womb, to Allah? And then she's shocked. We
know she's shocked because she doesn't have a boy, she has a
girl. Why does she make that dua? It's a special draw that we hear,
and it's pretty, it's a beautiful dua. But why does she make it? Any
ideas? Because she's
hopeless. Why this baby
showed
up? Okay, so you're saying the reason is because she didn't
expect to be pregnant, and so now she's dedicating her pregnancy to
Allah because she doesn't know what else to do. Okay, not quite,
but the concept of, I wouldn't say hopeless, but overwhelmed. Yes,
hold back any ideas on why she's overwhelmed.
Okay, the mother of Maryam, she had been wanting pregnancy. She
had wanted to have a baby. She's making dua to have a baby, and
then all of a sudden she gets pregnant, after years of not being
pregnant,
and she's so excited.
And then what happens? Her husband passes away.
So she went from extreme excitement and joy, and you can
imagine sharing this news with her husband for the first time, and
they're just having this moment together. And then soon after, he
passes away. And so now the mother of Mariam is looking at being a
single mother, which she had not planned on. Is looking at raising
a baby on her own.
Is experiencing pregnancy in a very different way than she had
when she had the joy and the support of knowing that she's
going to go through this experience with her husband. So in
this moment, and this, by the way, you can read in Tesla, lovely you
can read it in kurtoli, there's different narrations about this.
In Ibn Ashur and awazi and Ibn Kathir, they all take different
parts of the story, and they have different narrations of it. Like,
for example, one narration says that the mother of Meriam saw a
bird feeding the baby birds, and so she made a dua in that moment.
But the general idea is that she lost her husband and now she's
making dua. So when she makes dua, what does she say? She dedicates
who's in her womb and what does she end with in naka entes al
alim, the one who's constantly hearing and the one who knows all
things. Okay, that same phrase is the phrase that you Safari has
said after he makes dua for Allah to take him to jail, he asked
Allah rukb Sidney that that take, take, taking him to jail is more
beloved for him than to stay in the presence of someone who
basically raised him and then tried to seduce him.
And so when Allah says, and then we answered him, what does he say?
He uses the name Samir and Alim again, but in a different part of
the Quran, in in Surah Al mujahide, Allah talks about hola
bits Alaba. So this is a woman companion who came to the Prophet
saw them because her husband divorced her in the divorce words
of pre Islamic Arabia. So rulings had not been set yet on how
divorce should happen in a Muslim community at that point. So she
makes dua. Excuse me, she's making dua to Allah. She's asking Allah
for guidance, for clarity, asking Allah for some help. And then
Allah reveals to the Prophet sawman that Allah has heard but a
Sonia, Allahu, Alayah continues. And what does it end with that
Allah is semiah and basil. So now we have Salia and alim, so the all
hearer and all Knower. And then we have Sen, so the one who's all
hearing and the one who sees.
So when we go to Allah, alright, and we go to him from a place of
trying to navigate how we feel, something that we're struggling
with, a painful conversation we've had with a parent or a potential
spouse or a friend or a university or a job or whatever it is, and
then we're going to him. What do we so need or want when we call
someone and we're going through a space of pain, the validation that
they see us, the affirmation that they hear.
What we're going through. The support of knowing that they even
if they don't fully understand, and even if they don't fully
agree, but they know what we're going through, they are witness to
it, so that, well, you know, I'm not. She had an issue happen with
her husband, and sometimes when there's no third person in an
argument between spouses, knowing that Allah doesn't just hear, but
he witnesses. He's a witness that he saw, that he sees what you're
going through,
and then the mother of medham and Yusuf think about their
circumstances. They're so different, but Allah talks about.
He's the one who hears and the one who constantly is aware, not just
that he hears the jaw that you make out of desperation, but that
he's the one who intimately knows what you've gone through, why
you've gone through it, what your thoughts are about it, everything
you're thinking about yourself in the moment as you try to navigate
it. All of that, Allah affirms
that you are not alone when Musa was given the gift of speaking
with Allah, and Allah is telling him who he is, and he's giving him
the task of going to fear on who is basically his adopted father.
What does he say? What does Musa say? What is his response? Is it
Allahu Akbar, I've been waiting for this moment my entire life.
What does he say to Allah?
He says he is
excited. No,
frustrated
to say, No,
thrilled.
Give me another word,
no, but close,
scared. He's scared. Allah Himself is telling Musa that he is given a
task,
and Moussa response is not to say, Oh, now that I have Allah on my
side. There's no fear. Of course, he knows that on a spiritual
level. We all know that on a spiritual level, but a prophet of
Allah is talking to Allah and saying he's scared.
So that's fear that sometimes we feel when we don't know. It
doesn't mean we have a lack of Salah Ko. It doesn't mean we have
a lack of trust in Allah. And often times, that's the message we
hear, that if you don't trust in Allah, you're going to have
anxiety, too stressed, you know, too blessed to be stressed if you
make the kid. What's that's that phrase?
It's a it's a stress about if you make it's a stress. It's a phrase,
but if you make the kid, you'll never have sadness. But the
prophets of Allah may make it. And of course, they were sad when we
when we give those messages, it causes us sometimes to feel like
there's something wrong with our Imaan, if we feel this way, but
the prophets themselves went through this pain. And so when
Musa is being given a task by Allah, and he's being told by
Allah what to do, and his response is to say that he's scared, and
he's making dua to Allah. What is he asking for? He's not asking for
Allah not to give him the task,
because in the time of Musa, Abe has said he there's different
scholars mentioned different reasons why this happened, or what
it could have been, but there's a general idea that he had a speech
impediment, or that he had a speech disability, that it was
difficult for people to understand him at times, and yet, Allah gave
this man the task of speaking
so A recognition in our book, a recognition from Allah that you
may not feel like you are best for this responsibility. You may not
feel like you are the most talented or the most equipped or
the one who should do this. But Musa Abe has an did not say, I
can't look he asked for help. He asked for for the strength from
Allah, with the help of his brother, he went back to
community, and that is that concept that we just practiced,
that sometimes when we are so inflicted, afflicted with our own
pain, and we feel so isolated from people, especially because a lot
of times when it comes To family issues, a lot of communities speak
on taboos that you can't talk about what's happening, that you
have to keep silent. What is the community going to think? Who is
going to assume? What? What do you think? They're going to say? And
all of that then becomes the silent struggle that one person
goes to and holds everything on their shoulders, versus when we,
of course, doing it with responsibility, with dignity,
asking for support in ways that are respectful, asking for advice
from a therapist. That's one thing, of course. But look at what
Musa alaihi salam does he ask for the support of his brother? And
when we're talking about our community, our community building
that space?
Is of knowing that Allah sees you and he hears you, and also he has
created people in this world. The point of our Ummah, part of the
point of our Ummah is to be there as allies for one another, to help
us process these emotions that he uses you to answer the dua of you,
that He will use you literally, without you knowing it to answer
your DUA. And this happened to me when I was in Hajj. It's kind of
lot in our Hajj group, um, you know, Hajj has different tests.
And Sheik also, like he just went for Hajj, may Allah bless him. And
all of the all over the world, I mean, um, every person has a
different test. Some people have the test of having no food. Some
people have to test, no shelter, lots of different tests. My test,
in fact, was May Allah blessed people and my husband, but they
were the most judgmental people in my life. And the people that I
went with, there were a few wonderful, wonderful sisters,
amazing woman, and one of them didn't really know anything about
Islam. She had just decided, like, the week before? Well, not exactly
the week, but shortly before that, she really wanted to start
learning about Allah and making a connection. Someone in her family
invited her for hedge because she was going and she was like, why
not? So now we have with us, not just people who've been preparing
for hedge for months and years and saving up their whole lives. We
have someone who doesn't know that much but wants to learn, and as
she's with us, and she's asking questions from the guide, the
guide is responding with, if you didn't know, then why did you come
for hedge?
If you are here, then why didn't you be here? What's the point of
you being here in the first place, if you're not even going to study?
And the more that she heard statements like this, and the more
that people were treating them in this way,
the more the sadness of being in hedge
overwhelms the joy of being there.
And
before they started crying, I heard one of them say, I really
wish I had some bass and Robbins ice cream. This is not a plug for
bass and Robbins just what they specifically wanted in a desert of
the mini camps of Saudi Arabia. And
then shortly after that, there was an incident. And I was like, the
last straw, and then they both just burst out crying. And they
were just standing and crying and crying. And I looked at that, and
I was like, I have to find Baba ice cream.
I don't have to find bastards ice cream.
My husband and I went through the entire team of the area of the
mini camp that we could find for an hour. We walked around. There
were like two stalls that were selling, like chicken and other
food. And we're like, do you have ice cream? And the man who was
serving with me, who just looked at me, he's like, No.
So after that, I realized something.
I did not even make God.
I had not even stopped to make jot I'm in hedge wearing
it didn't even occur to me to make jot for it.
So then after this, man is like, No, we don't have
screen. I thought, Oh, I didn't even make dua. So I just stand
there and start making dua,
and then I give up, because I know where else we're gonna go. Maybe
almost had a double facilitator.
Away. I go back into our group, like the hedge camps that we went
the hedge area that we went to, there was like this huge kind of
like area of like you enter the area just for their group. So I
walk in and I see someone standing here, and what do you think
they're eating?
Baskin Robbins ice cream.
And I just a lava club, a la Hua club. I went up to them, and I was
like, Do you have some information about how I can find pastor
Robin's ice cream? And she was like, Oh yeah, they're giving that
out. And then she told me, and it's like, the super high package
that we were not part of. So we went to that room where they were
fat. They Masha, Allah, Michelle, they had a beautiful set up with
like, AC and these couches, and they were serving ice cream to
everyone. And so I walked in, and I went to the person who was
handing out the ice cream, and I told him, Look, I am not part of
this package. Can I pay for the ice cream? And in his response, he
wasn't like, oh yeah, of course. He wasn't even like, Oh, I'll give
it to you for free. He said, I'll give it to you if you give me some
cough drops,
which is funny, right? And you'd think he probably wants cough
drops because it's a hedge. Your throat is shot. You're sick.
Everyone's sick, and hedge, do you randomly carry cough drops? You
Brother, yeah, you don't. Do you? Kathy, sorry. Your wife does. Who
is she? Where you you carry cough drops. Okay, does anyone else
randomly carry cough drops? Raise your hand if you randomly carry
cough drops. Literally, just us two. We have a bond that is
unbreakable. Mashallah, we'll talk about the brand after. So we're
not ready.
Okay,
most people don't randomly have cough drops. But.
Allah knows that I go nowhere without cough drops. I always have
cough drops. Rakola Specifically, I'm sorry,
I always have cough drops.
And this man, who knows how many hours he's working, and he's
serving in the heat, and he's tired, he's exhausted. He is
serving. He is serving. And Allah knew what he needed.
So when I go to him, out of all the dads who very few of Carrie
* drops, and he says, How can you keep her cough drops? I have
the cough drops to give to him. And he looked very surprised.
And then he gave me the best and Robin's ice cream, tax. And then I
went my husband and I went to the sisters who were still crying
that whole entire time, they had still sat and cried. They were
standing in front because there was nowhere to
sit. And when I gave them the ice cream, they just looked up,
and then they just started crying more. They said, Where did you do
this?
And I told them, Allah, Allah, bless you. They were like we
should have prayed for a billion dollars.
You don't know what Allah is saving for you, and you don't know
how he's going to use the heavens and the earth to come together to
answer you whether it's a cough drop or Baskin Robbins ice cream.
But what I can also tell you is that in both of their lives, the
women who got the ice cream, they also made some major duas. In
Touch, huge dog. Some of those dua were answered, but some were not
to them that they could see.
They still could not see the answer.
But knowing that Allah heard them, saw them, knew what they were
going through, and gave them the gift of knowing that he is there
that allowed them to feel more hope, that maybe he doesn't plan
to answer the big in this moment, because he's saving it in a
different way.
So that first part of pain, the key is recognizing the power of
dua, that you can never lose with dua, and that even if he's not
answering you in a huge way in this moment, that he's seeing what
you're going through, just like the righteous people of the past,
and that He is with you even when you're afraid, and he listens even
when you've gone through tremendous loss, and that
sometimes the answer in this moment is just something that
gives you a little bit of hope. And then we're going to look at A.
A is assurance. Allah tells us the jibe. He says, Make dua to me, I
will respond to you. In another verse, he says that famous verse,
waila said, believe when my servant asks me of you, I am
close. Would you? Buchada, I answer the one who calls when they
call. So now you have two verses amongst so many where Allah is not
just telling you that he Well, in one he's saying he listens when
they call, but another, he's commanding you to make dua. What
do you notice is missing from the ayah that commands you to make
dua? What is missing and is not missing? Of course, Allah's mental
I never misses. But as a person, when you're reading something
about Doha, what is there something that you feel is like,
there's no condition there. There's no condition. I don't know
if I'm being clear, what is, what is a condition that's not fair, if
it's what,
okay, if you need something, what else? Yeah,
if you're deserving Diana, if you are deserving, the verse doesn't
say, command
you to make dua. If you're righteous, command you to make dua
after you've read the Quran. Command you to make dua when you
never commit sins. There's no command associated with someone
who is worthy of making dua. It's a command for all of us to make
dua, and a promise that when they make dua, he will answer. And
Sheik rilda, who was a scholar of Quran, who used to pray behind
when I was studying in Egypt, there was a very specific way that
he would make dua, and he is the one who's seeing his example is
what taught me how to make dua in a way that
that makes you feel like you have no control, that there's nowhere
to take refuge except with Allah, that you completely turn your
affairs over to Allah SubhanaHu, is what he would do, and this is
part of the etiquette of duha Number one, he would praise Allah,
just praising him, Allah, thank you for all that you blessed me
with. Allah. You are Rahim. The name is of Allah. And then he
would send Salah on the Prophet, salallahu alayhi
wa sallam, Allah, SWT.
Send Salawat on the Prophet, peace be upon him. So that can be said
in so many different ways. And if you don't know how to send
Salawat, you can just say peace be upon prophet. Muhammad, whatever
you do to send Salawat, every time you send it, Allah sent on to
Allah raises you 10 rights. You are forgiven for 10 sins. And the
Prophet, peace be upon him. SallAllahu, alayhi wa sallam
receives your Salam. And Angel jabriel sends Salam to you.
Angel Gabriel, the one who revealed the Quran to the prophets
in the salam, the one who went from one prophet to the next, the
one who stuffed sand in the mouth of Fira album so that he couldn't
say that shahada for all of the oppression he committed claiming
he was God. Angel Jibreel, I think Salam gives Salam to
you, Allah,
and then he would start making dua
like he needed a lifeline.
A lot of us, when we make dua, we say rabanatino, and we don't quite
even know what we said, we just memorize some dua that we've heard
which are beautiful and that's wonderful. You know, joazm, the
Quran and Prophet saw them important, of course, the best.
But when you call out from your heartbreaking
and there's so much emotion or lack of emotion, because you've
gotten to the point that you don't feel emotion anymore, when you're
going to him with that. How do you think
that goes up to Allah and wrestles with other How do you think that
jahab goes up to the one who hears you the way that he would make dua
was by saying, oh, Allah, if you turn us away, who is going to
answer us, if you turn us away, who is going to accept us? Don't
turn us away. Don't turn us away. Don't turn us away. And he would
make jaw of Allah. You are the one who sees the situation of every
single one of us. Here.
You are the one who sees what every single one of us are going
through. If you do not answer us. Who is going to answer us? And
then he would say that ayah that I just mentioned, you say in your
book and your your word is the truth,
you say in your book and your word is the truth, make dua to me, and
I will respond to you. So here we are making dua, here we are making
dua, here we are making dua.
And he would cry in every single day. He would make like someone
who was so desperate, like if he didn't, if Allah didn't answer
him, he wouldn't have the air to breathe. This is desperation being
in the middle of the ocean and there's nowhere out except let No,
I mean Allah. There's nowhere to turn from Allah except to Allah.
And that year is the first year in my life that Allah honored me was
going to mashallah, and it was so sudden and such a shock. And the
DUA he would make every single night was, Oh Allah, let us pray
in mashall upsa before we die. And all I could think of was, the only
reason Allah has honored me with coming here is because I stood
behind this righteous man, and I said, Ani, just being in the
vicinity of that dua is an assurance of the DUA being
accepted.
Different ways to have this certainty that Allah will answer
you is just knowing that it's not about you. Some of us hate
ourselves at times because we miss who we used to be. There might
have been a time in my life. There have been times in my life, not my
there definitely have been times in my life, and maybe in yours,
where you prayed harder, or you read more Quran, or you felt
something in Ramadan, or you had a connection that you don't feel
like you have anymore.
And sometimes you look back to that version of yourself, and you
wish you could experience that again, and you miss being that
person.
And sometimes you think I'm not worthy of God anymore.
I've done too much. I'm doing too much.
And we trust ourselves over trusting Allah.
We believe that our deeds are the door to him answering.
But Ibn Al Taw Ilah mentions that if you put hope in your deeds
instead of it Allah's mercy, then when you are not doing those good
deeds, you despair of His mercy, which means you've never really
hoped for His mercy.
You have hope in your deeds. And all of us are going to fall short.
There are going to be times in our lives that even if we're
committing every good action, and ever that's possible, we might be
arrogant while we're doing it, there are times that we are not
going to feel like we are 100% there in our relationship with
Him, and that's probably most of us all the time, or many of us a
lot of times.
So one knowing who Allah is that it's not about me, it's not about
what I'm not doing. It's about who I'm.
Trusting that Allah is as a kid, he is the generous, whether or not
I am generous, of course, when I'm generous, it increases his
generosity, of course. But does that mean you're not worthy of his
generosity, and I want to especially say when that comes to
having religious trauma, because many of us are trying to navigate
our relationship with Allah, not like the young girl who grew up in
a supportive religious family. You would like Allah's love is the
most amazing thing in your life, and then you went to Islamic
school and learned every Surah, and then you never had time to
sin, because you were so happy being so righteous and had such a
supportive family. Masha Allah, so much support for mental health,
everything. Masha Allah, Masha Allah. And this person grows up in
the masjid, and they prayed at the Masha Allah. But what about, what
about, what about that person's fear, who didn't have that
support, and who maybe was going through a lot, and they couldn't
tell anyone, and didn't feel like they could share that with anyone,
and now, as an adult, they're trying to navigate trauma, and
they're trying to navigate continuing a relationship with
Islam when Islam was used to to to be wielded as a punishment. Now
they're trying to navigate what it looks like to be Muslim and
choosing to be Muslim, and they're not praying as much as the other
person, and they're not worshiping as much as the other person.
Inshallah, both are so beloved to Allah. And I hope I didn't, hope I
didn't say the first one in any tone. I mean, that's what we all
aim to give our children. We pray we can give our children. We all
want to have that for ourselves. May Allah bless our with so much
healing that we're excited about Islam and we're always in the
amazing people, because Allah blesses the being that I hope they
didn't come off anything other than that. I'm just saying that's
not most people. It's not the realities of most people, and when
we have this idea that a person who has had that reality and a
person who's had the opposite are being tested or judged in the same
way, we ourselves don't look at ourselves in a relationship of
Allah with as much hope as we could, because Allah belongs To
Allah promises that when you go to him and you make dua to Him, He
will answer. This assurance is from Him. There are different ways
that dua can be answered. And if Allah going to answer shaytan,
when he asks
to have so much time to confuse people and lead them astray, do
you not think that you are more worthy of dua? He promises to dua,
to answer dua, and there are different ways. One, that he will
give it to you as you're asking. Two, that he will give it to you
at a better time and maybe at a better rate. Three, that he saves
it for the hereafter. And I know it's hard for me, certainly, and
maybe most of us, but sometimes we want to see our dry answer here
and at the hereafter. But in the year after is really where we wish
that all of our dog would be answered at that time, and that's
forever,
and he could also avert some evil from you. And there are times
where maybe you were about to get into a car accident, and all of a
sudden you didn't see the car, and if suddenly it swerves, you ever
feel that probably many of us have gone through that, and
Subhanallah, I've gone through times where I think this has to be
because of the DUA that I made, like five years ago, and Allah is
answering it by protecting you from some evil right now, one
time, I was running late, and it wasn't it was like something would
happen. Someone held me up. It was just things out of my control, and
I felt so frustrated because I was so late, and they were all things
I had no control over. And then finally, as I'm late, I'm walking
to get to my car, and you know what happens right in front of me?
A literal tree branch fell off a tree,
and we had had a huge storm the day before, and a whole branch of
a tree fell right in front of me. And I thought, had I been standing
right there? I don't know if I'd be alive. It was not a small twig,
it was an entire branch of a huge tree. And I thought Subhanallah
Allah was delaying me and delaying me and delaying me. And in my
head, I'm frustrated, and I want to move forward and more things
happening like this, but maybe he's protecting you by answering a
dua for something that you don't even know is going to happen
because of a dua you made not realizing that the answer was
going to come in a form of protection.
There is no time where you lose with dua. The companions will be
Aloha. They would make dua for everything. When the Prophet saw
them, taught them about the generosity of Allah, they were
like, we're going to make even more God. They were they have the
assurance that he's going to answer. Have the assurance that,
no matter what, he will respond. And then that takes us to insight.
So how do we know that Allah is going to reply? How do you know
that Allah is going to answer? You? Tell
me. Share with me. How do you know Allah will respond
yes, because he says, So, okay,
so sometimes do you feel like it's not that I don't trust Allah? I
said I don't trust myself. Do you ever feel that way I
can trust that Allah will answer me.
Me, but maybe I'm not doing enough for the answer to come. Obviously,
we have to take action to help make the dog come to existence,
right?
But when we get to know who he is, we can build a relationship with
Him in a way where we know why certain things happen in certain
ways, even if we don't fully understand the wisdom. And let me
give you an example of what that means. Do you know who a real
thieve is? A roti is the one who watches. He is the one who
watches. Now, often, when you hear that Allah is watching, what
framework is that in?
You're doing something bad, that
you're doing something wrong.
But Imam Al vazali mentions the Al rabib is the one who watches what
he cares for. Where is your phone right now?
In your phone, in your purse, in your pocket, with you. Does anyone
not have their phone with you? Literally anybody. Raise your hand
if you don't have your phone with
you. Everyone has their phone with them. Why?
Cuz you care about your phone. You know where it is at almost all
times you are watchful over your phone. That's not doesn't need to.
That's a that doesn't need to be a bad thing. It doesn't mean you're
waiting for your phone to make mess up. You need your phone. You
appreciate your phone. You get messages to your phone. Now,
obviously the example with Allah swt is so much greater. But the
point is, as you care for something or someone, and you're
watchful because you care for that. Allah is watchful of us
because of his care for us.
Allah sees
when I was in Egypt,
a bunch of us went out to dinner. You know she was she's in San
Diego, she Ali Ada, she's in the IE, I'm sure you've heard of
livenam. Allah settled in. Allah, Michelle got amazing women. So
many of us went out to dinner together. We were sitting there at
the same time, and after we finished dinner, we had extra
money left over, and we were like, we had got, like, the Guinea's. So
we're like, what are we going to do with this pool of money? Where?
What will we do? And someone suggested we go out to dessert.
And then someone else was like, No, there's a young boy. It's like
a teenager. And he used to sleep outside of the grocery store, and
he had a little puppy with him. He always had a small puppy with him.
So we were like, Let's walk there, and let's give the money to this
young teenage boy.
And so we walked, right? We're like Americans studying in Egypt.
It was a 20 minute walk till we got there, and we could not find
this young young man anywhere. He was not there. But you know who
was there, his puppy. And he was trying with his paws to open a
water bottle.
He just kept trying with his paws to open the water bottle, and he
couldn't open it, and we had a huge water bottle with us, and we
poured it out, and this puppy was just drinking and drinking and
drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking and
drinking and drinking until
finally it stopped drinking, and it ran that idea that Allah's
penalty is so watchful of a small puppy that he will take a group of
Foreigners, he will allow us to have extra money put in one one of
us will have a spot. Let's go give money to this young man. Not be
able to find that young man, but be there to quench the thirst of a
little puppy.
If that is how Allah is so gentle and watchful over his creation,
then what about you
looking at Allah with this insight of who he is allows us to look at
him with hope, because he says I am as my servant thinks I am. And
there was a time in my life when I would make dua, and I would make
this draw from the depth of my heart, and then I would say to
myself, in my heart quietly, but I know he's not going to answer me
because he wants to test me with giving me the opposite of what I
want. Have you ever had that thought? You know he's not going
to answer you because you also know he knows how badly you want
it, and therefore you don't deserve it. You need to be tested
with it because he knows your attachment to it. Why do we think
like that? We really all need them honestly.
Whatever framework that has taught us that Allah knows our deepest
secrets and deepest burning desires and deepest pain and he's
going to test us specifically with that is very different from
acknowledging that he knows what we're going through and whatever
happens in our lives, not the abuse of other people. This is
very this is a very important point to clarify. Sometimes people
say when they've gone through severe trauma, to help them feel
better, someone will say, Allah knows why you have to go through
that. He.
You to learn something from it. And I've heard from people who've
been victims and survivors of different sorts of trauma, and
their responses, Allah wanted me to, I'm
not going to explicit, explicit things because of the age range,
and we're not. We didn't say we're going to discuss this topic. But
the point is, Allah is not out to get you, and there is a difference
between someone who has free will and the way that they use that
free will and the way that Allah answers your devil. So if someone,
for example, says, Why is there so much you know? Why are so much
murder in the world people, you know, murdering other people, just
terrifying, I love, protect all of us. But then they say, Why didn't
God stop it.
We are placing responsibility on Allah, instead of placing
responsibility on the person, the aggressor, the abuser, the
oppressor, that person has free will, and they are using their God
given free will to harm other people. That is not an act of
Allah's justice, certainly not
a sign of Allah answering dua or not answering dua. This is
oppression. Now this is different than dua. When you go to him and
you're asking, why is that distinction important? Because one
of the reasons some of us struggle with trusting who he is is because
we have put our trust in people who have hurt us before, and we
then cast that lack of of comfort and safety unto who we believe
ALLAH is. And so instead of coming to him with hope and with
certainty, we sometimes come to him feeling skeptical. He's going
to test me with exactly the opposite of what I want. He is not
going to give me what I'm asking for because he knows how badly I
want it, and therefore I don't deserve it. That framework
sometimes comes from our own pain. But that doesn't mean that Allah
isn't most aware of what we're going through. And sometimes,
sometimes he does close the door over and over and over. And there
was a door that I was making for literally 10 years, 10 years of
the same job all the time. Have you ever made a draw all the time?
I'm sure some of you have those 10 year jobs that you've been making
for 10 years. I would make it a normal dog. I would make it in
such I would make it when it would rain. I would make it in every
single passable opportunity, making this job and over and over,
the doors would close. I think the solution is coming close. I go in
hoping that in this direction is the answer. Close. Every single
time I'm going from one place to the next, I feel like the last
minute times closing the door, and I wonder why. And after 10 years,
I remember the moment the I was answered.
I went straight into sensha,
and it was Thank you, Allah, for answering the jaw after 10 years.
Thank you Allah, for answering the jaw Yes, but in my heart, the
reason I made sensha of gratitude to him, was actually because it
was that moment where I realized all of those doors that had closed
for me
were intentional to put me on a path where the only way that this
drive could be answered in the best way, in a better way than I
could have thought, to make, at a better time than I could have
hoped for, was right here. It had to take 10 years because I had to
be pushed away from what I thought was the answer to be put on the
road that would take me to where the answer actually was. So
sometimes he does close those doors for us, and sometimes, after
many years, but there's a wisdom in it that we can if sometimes we
can look back and say, Now I understand. It allows us to see
the insight as to why Allah chooses certain paths for our
lives.
And finally, let's talk about narrative.
Knowing that Allah knows our full narrative, instead of just this
moment in our life, can allow us to have that certainty and the
power of dual
the mother of Musa alaihi salam, the mother of Moses, she has a
baby boy
in a time where the Pharaoh is massacring baby boys.
She could have said, Why did Allah give me a boy? If she had a girl,
she wouldn't need to worry. She could have said, Why did Allah
give me a boy?
And she's asking. She's desperate, and Allah reveals to her to put
the baby in a basket in the river. And for any of us,
where would where would you think that if Allah tells a woman, put
your baby in a basket and Allah will protect the baby if that baby
shows up at the Palace of the firam. Do you not think that maybe
one of us might think, why is Allah giving her the opposite of
what she's asking for? Is that, not literally, potentially, the
opposite of what she's praying for, he is taken to the palace?
But because he's taken to the palace and because Asia are they
has said, then adopts him, and she raises him in the house of this
tyrant. And the fact that Musa couldn't drink milk from anyone
except from his sister, saying, why don't I show you someone that
could be his milk. Mother,
Allah, brought the baby, Musa alaihi salam, back to his mom with
the protection of the state and with the payment of the state, she
doesn't have to worry about finances. She has the protection
of her baby with her without needing to hide, without needing
to run if there's nowhere to go,
and Allah put him in the place he needed to be for the freedom of
then it was brought you. And the message that he had to give.
Allah placed him in that place specifically, not just so that he
could return to his mother as one benefit, but also because of the
responsibility of the message that he had, he had to be raised in
that palace so that he could be the one to to not only see
benevolent and give the message, but until today, to be someone who
has impacted, literally, global history.
We could not have seen when he was delivered to the palace that that
was his future.
Many of us could have said, well, why? Why would that be the way
that Allah answers the door?
Well, Allah knows much more than the blip of any of our lives.
Isn't that so crazy, if a life is so short? Do you ever think about
that like it's just so short,
in comparison to Subhanallah having centuries upon centuries
upon centuries. We don't know how our impact right now is going to
affect generations to come, and it might probably mean that most of
us are not going to be someone who you know we're not. None of us are
even taking yet. None of us are star,
may Allah be pleased with all of them inshaAllah, we make a
positive impact, and then that's our time. But what if, because of
the DUA that you are making, Allah is impacting the life of someone
else, and you don't even realize it's your dura that's impacting
their life? My friend,
two ramadans ago, she was telling me she didn't feel anything in
Ramadan, you know how desperately you want to feel a connection
Ramadan, how much you're willing to sacrifice to just feel Ramadan?
Call Ramadan. She didn't feel anything.
And then she goes to the masjid, and when she hit the message, she
sees a sister sitting next to her first a lot, and the sister looks
very down, just like, very quiet, very down. And
my friend is an actual therapist, and so she's like, are you okay?
And the sister says, I haven't saw anything in this room of one. And
my friend says, me either.
And then my friend decides that she is going to make dua for the
sister she just met to feel the sweetness of Ramadan.
She starts making that dua,
and then she prays. And for the first time, Ramadan, she begins to
feel that sweetness. She begins to cry the sweet tears. She begins to
feel that connection. And the sister next to her is so visibly
impacted,
she made dua for someone else, and it impacted her life, but it also
impacted the sister she made herself. When you make dua for
someone else, the angels say Amin. So one this idea that when we make
dua, we don't know the impact on our own lives, but we also don't
know the impact on others. I made a job all of high school for my
friend. She really wanted something. I made so much job for
her. I don't even remember making this a draw for myself at that
time.
And then that thing happened to me,
and I was like, Oh no, I can never tell her this. She still doesn't
know opportunity.
And I,
I was like, Hello, is this because it makes so much for her? Like,
when you make dua that Allah will answer your job, because angels
say Amin. The Companions, when they wanted something for
themselves, they would make dua for each other and ask for that
thing because they knew that an angel would say Amin. And ina
lovely mentions that the Amin of one angel is enough for the entire
ummah. So imagine constant angel saying, Have mean to your DUA. So
Subhanallah, this da in that moment when it happened for me, I
was like, no, what is this? But Subhanallah, that moment led to
something else that I could have never imagined. And it was that
moment led to a different dua that I didn't think I should make
opening for me, and something else happened for her that was even
better than what I was praying for. But the point is, when you
make dua, you don't know whose life you are impacting, and you
don't know what your impact is supposed to be in this life. So
when those door.
Close, there is a reason that sometimes we may not be able to
understand or comprehend. And I also want to clarify that there is
a certain type of sadness when it comes to the loss of someone, no
matter how much you think of
them. There are people that we love, that we pray they will be
cured, that we pray they will have a long life, that we just pray
that Allah will answer our God and protect them, and they pass away.
And that is so painful,
and it's so difficult, and it's a place that I've been in multiple
times, and I know, I'm sure that many of you have been here too,
and in that moment,
one
knowing that you're making good offer them is something you have
control over. We can't control the time when we are going to turn
back over we turn to Him. But
sometimes when something is so big and out of our control. The one
thing that we feel like we have control through is coming back to
him through dog, that we are doing something. Sometimes it feels like
we're so helpless. We can't do anything. We are doing something.
And every single time we make dog,
we said he promises to answer. But also we don't know how it's
illuminating for them that once they pass that, Inshallah, it will
be a light in their grave. And one of my friends, her mother,
grandmother, passed away. They had a dream after making so much to
offer her for like, after like a month, she had one of the cousins
had a dream about her, and she said, Thank you for making all of
this dua for me, because my grave is so filled with light,
we don't know how that dua is a light. So even if we miss them,
even if we wish we could be with them, dua is a conversation that
allows us to be connected with the wonder with so going back to him,
even when we feel a complete loss
knowing that that God is not just for us, but also for them.