Maryam Amir – Honoring the Legacy of Shaykh Muhammad AlShareef
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Quickly share that link. Inshallah, there's probably
someone in your life who needs to hear the message that we're going
to share today. Alright, we're going to start. So it's been the
off matter theme. Assalamu alaikum. Everyone. Welcome to this
exclusive discovery you webinar. I am going to give my space. Give
myself space if I get emotional. It is the first official webinar
that we're having without Sheik Mohammed Bin And Alhamdulillah,
we're so blessed that we get to move forward and we get to
continue to do this work. So thank you for being here.
Thank you for being with all of us and continuing his legacy.
Sorry.
Thank you for moving forward with us the only way that we knew how
at Discovery, which was through dua
through what Shayna Hammon taught us, and how he modeled and with
his life.
And so
when in these past couple of weeks as a team, as we've been grieving
and thinking about, how do we be there for our students? How do we,
Inshallah, continue the work at Discovery, but really start it in
a way and move forward in a way that allows you guys
to not lower your standards, to not feel like things have, you
know, been stalled for you because, you know, our mentor, our
teacher, is not there. How do you continue to channel dua the way
that Sheik Mohammed, mashallah, may Allah have mercy on him,
showed us, and that was, you know, what we need to do, visionary
again. We need to do visionary legacy, which was based on the
program he did in January for the last two, three years,
which was about not just building gods for the coming months and
days or weeks, but for a decade. And so we're going to talk about
it in the context of life. Inshallah, the rest of your life,
whoever knows how many days that is that Allah has allowed us? How
do we craft it in a way that Inshallah, we don't live with
regrets, and how do we craft it in a way? Inshallah, how do we
approach our life through that lens of hope and dua? And so as a
team, we knew that we wanted to move forward, firstly, Inshallah,
by doing visionary legacy, inviting so many of you. We had
hundreds and 1000s of emails of people saying, I never got to take
Visionnaire. I'd heard about this program. I knew Sheik Mohammed
talked about that, and so we wanted to give an opportunity for
these new students who are also grieving to come forward with us
and inshallah go through this experience. So those of you that
are, you know eagerly waiting, I know, like I said, we've gotten
so, so many messages, Alhamdulillah. And so I'm putting
the link, and I'm going to be talking about it today. Inshallah,
this is the program. It is a it's going to be a live, shared
experience. So it is going to be Shaykh Muhammad's ma live
recordings that he did on this decade edition. It's going to be
guided by myself. We're going to have mentors, and TAs also give
you additional support, peer support, and it's going to be
about designing your life. And so the topic of today was very much
intentionally crafted to speak to the context and reality that all
of us are feeling right now after Sheik Mohammed's passing. And that
is, how do you live with no regrets? And you know,
subhanAllah, if there's anything we learned from the life of Shaykh
Muhammad, his his life and his death, was that he did not waste a
moment. And you know, Alhamdulillah, you guys got to see
his his role as a teacher, Alhamdulillah, his, you know, as a
sheik, building the vowel work that he did the organizations
discover you Alma, and moving forward. But we also got to see
behind the scenes Marshall, how he was as a father, and, as you know,
Alhamdulillah husband, and really being so intentional about how he
moved forward, how he thought about his days. And you guys who
took vision are previously heard about that as well, about his
health, his journey. You know, he was just constantly thinking
about, how do I raise that bar? How do I raise that bar? And so,
Inshallah, this is the opportunity that we're going to sit with today
in this next hour. And there was no one better I could think of
that I know I wanted to bring in. And the team Alhamdulillah, which
is Sheikha Mariam Amir. She's no stranger to discovery life. She's
Alhamdulillah. During Sheik Mohammed time, she was with us.
And one thing I'm going to you know I when I first reached out to
Sheik Mariam Amir about things at Discovery, and when I used to
bring her on for things, one of the things her and I would talk
about, and I would love like sharing with her, is I'm like
Sheik Mohammed empowers the women around him to step forward like he
he wasn't just like, Okay, we, you know, we need to have fill our
quota and have this many women or this many males. It was making
sure, Alhamdulillah, that we always gave an opportunity and we
had women part of that conversation. And you guys, know,
there's not a lot of organizations, or even, you know,
courses out there that have that quality female representation. And
so she's someone who's been with us at Discovery, Alhamdulillah.
And so for this topic, I couldn't think of someone better, but her,
she is so familiar with the work we do, mashallah, just as
passionate as we are, Alhamdulillah, about serving you
guys. And really, this topic of, how do you move forward and have a
life with no regret?
Yes, how do you meet Allah inshallah on the Day of Judgment,
with a smile and having left behind, you know, leaving a legacy
that inshallah is going to be bigger than you. And so that's
what we're going to speak about to in the next hour. And I want to
give for those of you that are not familiar, which I'm sure is like,
probably not even the case here, but with that and Maria Amir, so I
want to give her proper bio. So give me a second here. I'm going
to quickly give you a snippet of if you don't follow her on social
media, definitely encourage you to she has a master's in education
from UCLA. She holds a second bachelor's degree martial Islamic
studies through al Ansar University. She memorized the
Quran and has researched a variety of religious sciences. She has the
godia app, which is phenomenal. Alhamdulillah. I hope you guys are
benefiting from it. Her. She's also living that path of leaving
her legacy and contribution. She's so passionate about connecting
women to the Quran. Alhamdulillah, honestly, I think men and women
and putting the love of the Quran for for individuals there.
Alhamdulillah, and she's been interviewed by various news
organizations. She's so active in her Dawa. She's also mashallah, a
mother, not just, you know, a speaker and a teacher. She has so
much to offer, and we're so blessed that she's here with us
today to help us channel our grief and move forward and Inshallah,
honor Alhamdulillah our grief in the best way we know how right?
And that is what we're going to move forward with today. So I'm
going to be here in the background in the chat as she's speaking
inshallah. I will answer any questions you guys have about
vision or legacy. But with that, I want to bring Maryam on saleiko,
walika, salam, the library. Cat, racia, how are you? Mariam.
Alhamdulillah, how are you doing?
I told Mariam you guys before she came on today, and I was like,
it's going to be really hard to not want to hug you. I know we
messaging, obviously since she's passing, and Maureen has really
been there for me. So just go ahead and thank you so much for
being here for us.
We're so excited. Thank you so much for starting us off. Rosia,
the way that you shared emotion is, I think, emotion that we are
all feeling, SubhanAllah. SubhanAllah. Thank you, sha Allah,
will be able to grieve and and find hope in moving forward, not
in moving forward, but But continuing his legacy, Rahima
Allah, in all that we do in our lives. Inshallah, I'm
going to hand it over to
similar Rahman Rahim alhamdulillahi wa sallam.
I had heard so many people talk about the most blessed bounty of
paradise being being able to see the face of Allah, Subhanahu wa.
I've heard so many lectures about people saying, like scholars
saying, seeing the face of Allah is the absolute most, you know,
incredible blessing of paradise. And when I was in college, I would
hear this, but I have to say, at that time, I never felt like it
was something I was seeking. Yes, I wanted to go to paradise.
Theoretically, of course, I want to go to Paradise, of course. But
at that time, I had never felt this longing to see the face of
Allah subhanahu wa and I wondered if there was something wrong with
me, because I'd never sought it out.
And then I was driving one day to campus, and I was listening to a
lecture by Sheik Mohammed, Sharif Rahim Allah. And
when I was listening to this lecture, he talked about the last
person to exit hellfire, to be taken out of hellfire and to be
placed into paradise. And it's a conversation between this
individual and Allah Himself, subhanhu wa taala. And this person
sees a tree, and they see the shade of the tree, and they ask
Allah to be placed in that tree and under that tree, to be under
the shade, to drink, to feel comfort and relief after being
taken out of *. And Sheik Hammad gives this lecture, and the
way that he is narrating this narration is so descriptive that
Allah is like, well, if I if he gives him this thing, this man is
going to ask for something else. And this man says, No, he's not
going to ask for anything else, just this one thing. So Allah
gives it to him, and then another tree is shown to him, and it's
more beautiful than that previous tree. And so he asked to go to
that tree, and then he goes to that tree, and then another tree
is shown. And again, he asked Allah. And Allah, over and over,
this man asked, and this Allah is like, is is this going to be? Are
you going to ask for something more? Are you going to ask for
something more until Allah tells him about,
what if you're given the whole world? Well, mithlah, given the
entire world, do you the response of this man is, Are you making fun
of me, and You are the Lord of All the Worlds? Are you making fun of
me and You are the Lord of All the Worlds? That conversation the way
that Sheik Mohammed narrated, which is so much better than the
way I just attempted.
It Subhan Allah, the way that this man is speaking to Allah, and the
way that Allah is joking around with this man is speaking with,
with this love and this and this, this, this intimacy with this man,
it just brought me to such a moment of emotion and to so many
tears that I'm that moment. I remember calling out to Allah
while I was driving to school, and I said, Oh, Allah, I want to be
this person. And then I amended that, and I said, I don't want to
be the last person to exit *. Don't let any of us go to * at
all. I mean, let us go into paradise immediately. But I want
this I want this conversation with you. I want to be able to see you
and have this conversation. That was the very first time in my life
that I wanted to see the face of Allah, and it was because of the
way that Sheik Mohammed, may Allah have so much mercy on him. Shared
this, the beautiful telling of this hadith
when I was
with a friend of mine. She's a Shekhar. Her name is shekha Ali
ADA. She's a graduate from Al Azhar. We had studied in Egypt
together. We were sitting in a cafe. We were talking and having a
conversation about the community and the things that our community
is struggling with, and what the work that we need to be doing.
When we sat and had that conversation, she suddenly got a
phone call from her mom, and so she answered the call. And I took
a moment to look at my phone, because we had been talking for
quite some time. And I just said, I'll just check my messages. And I
looked down and I saw that there was a picture of Sheik Mohammed,
and this was the announcement of his passing Rahim Allah. And I
just stared at it and it I couldn't process what it was
saying. I I just kept saying the hallowela, illa, Billa, kuwata in
LA Bilal. And I just kept saying that over and over until Alia,
shekhalia was done with her call, and she came to me,
and the sobs that I felt was like someone, you know, many of us,
hundreds and 1000s of us, have been sobbing since the passing of
Shaykh and Rahima hula, when we when we heard about his passing,
it felt like someone so Beloved to us that we couldn't imagine that
this was real. I thought about the time of the companions royalty,
that when they heard of the passing of the Prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, it was such a shock to the Ummah, it
was such a shock to the Companions, that they denied that
it could be possible. Ahmad Ali Allahu Anhu denied that it could
be possible. Of course, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam is on a level that none of us can compare to. There's no
comparison to the beloved SallAllahu, alaihi wasallam. But I
think many of our reactions on this ummah were reactions of
people who were so touched by Sheik, Mohammed Al Sharif Rahim
Allah, that we were shocked that we could not process that we
denied that it could be true, and then we sat with it and we wept
because someone who hundreds and 1000s of people could testify on
behalf of, who could testify how much they benefited from, who
could testify, how much they impacted his life, and yet, the
majority of us have never met him in person. Who is this person?
What kind of life did he lead, and what kind of legacy Did he leave
behind? For so many of us to be able to attribute our connection,
our initial returning to Allah, subhanho wa taala, from the work
that he did and the legacy that he left, and today Inshallah, what
we're going to do are, is we're going to take four points
inshallah from his life. These are reflections that I've been having
in this past week and a half. Rahe mahola on things that there's too
many to count on, the ways that we've all benefited from, but four
things that Inshallah, in my personal life, inshallah that I
hope that I can live based on what I've learned from him, Rahima
Allah, the first is being vulnerable with Allah. Being
vulnerable with Allah. Sheik Mohammed, Rahima Allah, many of us
watched a few years ago the live lecture that he gave from Mecca,
where he talked about Hajj, and he talked about the many experiences
that he had in Hajj that were life or death, in which he saw so many
instances which would put your body in a fight or flight mode.
And because of that, he had to take some time away from Hajj just
to process the emotion. And then he came back to Mecca. He came
back to Mecca, and he talked about the gratitude that he felt for
every single part, touching the marble of Mecca, the pillars of
Mecca, feeling the gratitude for being there and the gifts of being
in Mecca, in.
And for me, when I was watching him speak about this, I thought
about how so many of us struggle with ourselves as in our in our
Muslim identities. And it's not because we don't identify as
Muslim. We We love Islam, we identify as Muslim, but we feel
like we struggle with our relationship, on how we see
ourselves in connection to Allah, subhanho wa taala,
because we don't always rush to make tahajjud all night, or we
don't know how to process trauma that we've experienced when it
comes to religious, religious spaces. Sheik, Mohammed, Rahima,
Allah. What he taught us is that someone who is so incredibly
righteous, whose entire life is dedicated to Allah, is still
human, and still with that humanity, it's even more powerful,
because when righteous people have real moments. All of us who are
not at their level can understand that we can go through experiences
which will be difficult, but they will only bring us closer to
Allah. They will only turn us back to Allah, even more so than what
was before. And when we think about the lives of the prophets,
alayhim salam, many times, when we think about the prophets, may
Allah be pleased with them. We think, May Allah send send his
salaam upon all of them. We think about the most righteous who've
ever lived. And yet think about how every single one of them had
so much pain, how Yaqub alaihi salam is often the first one that
we think of when we think about pain for years and years and
years, the betrayal of his own sons, harming his other son,
and the pain of that loss for 40 years of weeping, We think about
how Ayub alayhi salam, how he lost his children and he was afflicted
with physical pain for so many years. We think about LUT alayhi
salam and how his own wife did not support him. No Alehissalaam, and
How's his own son rejected him in the last moment of his, of his
seeing his son passing, he's saying, just just jump into this.
Just jump in. Come to the boat. He's not even asking anything of
him, just come. And his son says that his This mountain is going to
save him.
And then the Moge comes, the flood comes, and it's pan Allah no Hala
Islam witnesses this
when we go through pain in our in our own lives, when we go through
trauma in our own lives, sometimes we attribute that to the fact that
we don't have enough Amen, that we're not good enough believers.
And yet Subhan Allah, look Sheik Mohammed rahimahola, what he
taught us in his life is be vulnerable with Allah's because he
listens and he is not as we think we are. Allah is not how we think
we are. He is as we think he is. So when we think about ourselves
as struggling because we don't have enough faith. We think about
ourselves as we're not good enough because of our sins. We think
about ourselves as we're not able to do this action because there's
something wrong with us that's about us.
It doesn't mean that's how Allah subhanho wa Taala sees us. And
Sheik Mohammed really emphasized that in his life, and he
emphasized that in this action, that when we struggle, it's us.
It's not Allah seeing us as someone who's not worthy. It's not
Allah seeing us as someone who is not beloved to him. In fact, the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that the Mujahid is
the one who, despite the fact that they struggle with the with with
the obedience of Allah, they still do it anyway. You still do it
anyway. That is a Mujahid. You are a spiritual warrior. When you
struggle with an act of worship and you do it still. It doesn't
mean you're not a good enough believer. It doesn't make you a
hypocrite. You're a spiritual warrior, and that is something
that Sheik Mohammed rahimala emphasized, that when we see
ourselves ish in our relationship with Allah, it doesn't mean that
we are not worthy of Him. Think of His greatness. Don't think of our
weakness. Know that he is Al Kareem the generous, even when we
are not.
And Subhan Allah, Bilal radi, Allahu anhu, when Bilal roll the
Allahu Anhu a.
Said the Adhan after the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam passed
away,
he couldn't continue rolled the Allahu anhu,
Ibn San mentions in elktaba God, and there's discrepancy on the
narrations relating to these incidences. But be that rule, the
Allahu Anhu went to Abu Bakr RadiAllahu an and he asked him to
take leave from Medina to go to Shem and to be involved with with
being a Mujahid there, he focused on a different act of worship for
a very long time, because Bilal RadiAllahu, Anhu to say the Adhan
after the death of the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam, it
was so painful for Bilal RadiAllahu, Anhu
a shadu anna Muhammad Abu to have lived and to have witnessed the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to have given the Adhan in
every single moment of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's
life, at the time of the Adhan. And of course, there were Abdullah
Prophet saw them, but Bilal RadiAllahu, Anhu came back and did
give the Adhan. He came back ro the Allahu, anhu, and that's the
point that when we go through times of hardship and we go
through times of pain and we go through times of trial, we be
vulnerable with Allah. We talk to him about our pain and our and our
confusion and our and our numbness and our worry for ourself, but we
come back, we take that vulnerability and we turn it into
what we pour into our hands, and we ask Allah to let us come back
to him, and we know that even when we do not feel that we are worthy
of coming back, that he, Subhan wa taala, is generous anyway, and
that he will listen to us and and help us to, Inshallah, come back,
to feel that we can come back to him, suban Hua taala, and I also
want to apologize. I know that I'm tripping on my words, but Subhan
Allah, I can't express to you the difficulty of being the person to
be honored with giving this talk. So please forgive me. I don't, I
don't as Razia, beautifully expressed, I think it's very
difficult to be in this space after Sheik Mohammed Rahim Allah
has passed, and it's something that I think is panel is such a
testament to his legacy, which Inshallah, we're going to talk
about specifically. But the second thing that we're going to address
when we after we talk about being vulnerable with Allah, is that
sometimes that vulnerability, it comes from a place of regret.
Sometimes it comes because we regret. And the second thing that
we are taking from Sheik Mohammed's life Rahim Allah is
that regret spurs us to action.
Regret spurs us to action. Sheik Mohammed in that same lecture
talking about hajj, he mentions that one time he saw an older man
who was Sundays, and he was looking around, and it looked like
he was very confused, and no one was helping him. And when Sheik
Mohammed is speaking about this, he pauses, he tears up, and it's
very obvious that you can tell the impact that this moment had on him
in his regret. And when you hear the story, the end of the story is
simply that he didn't help this man. It's not that like this man
Allah, may Allah protect him and bless his family. It's not like we
hear in the story that something happened to this man and Sheik
Hama did nothing about it. No, it's just this man looked confused
in some days, and Sheik Muhammad felt regretful that he didn't do
anything about it. That level of connection with Allah, that you
feel so accountable for not doing something when there's nothing
necessarily, actually that you could have intervened in. He he
could have gone and said, How can I help you, uncle? But it's not
like he had to stop something from happening. Pan Allah, that level
of accountability. How many of us even have that level of
accountability because of our connection with Allah, that we
invest in other people around us, because we notice that something
is wrong, even when there's nothing that we tangibly see is
wrong.
Subhanallah Sheik Mohammed mentions that that moment for him,
in that moment he decided that he will never see someone who needs
help and Hajj and he's not going to help them, that he will never
see a woman and like a grandmother pushing a wheelchair that she's
supposed to be sitting on, except that he is going to say to she
should sit and he's going to push her. That change happened because
of a moment of regret, not that change, that that intentionality,
that intentionality, took place because of a moment of regret.
And I want to share with you a very personal moment of regret
that I have. I had the very humongous honor of giving lectures
in mesh Al and Ramadan 2019, and.
In Ramadan, we're all pregnant. And so many times, you know, you
put your shoes in one place, the bathrooms, and Mr. Aksa are in the
way back of the compound. And so many times people might not have
their shoes and they are just walking to use the restroom. And I
had just gone into the restrooms. They, the ones that I saw had the
holes on the beloved style on the floor. And it was not a clean
experience. It was not at all. It was very filthy. As I was leaving,
may Allah bless, may Allah protect. Michelle Aksa, may Allah,
you know, Harold mashallah, and be with the people of huzzah and be
with the people of Philistine. Yoruba, lahama, Amin.
When I I mean, there's hundreds of 1000s of people, like, literally,
the day, the the night of the panel, the 27th night of Ramadan,
there were, there were over half a million people praying in
Mashallah. So, I mean, understandably, there's so many
people going there, it's very hard to to maintain it in that time. So
this this woman comes up to me, and she is a grandmother. She's
definitely like grandmother age, and she sees me wearing shoes. I
had just come out of the bath the bathroom area. She sees me wearing
shoes, and she asks me, I don't have my shoes.
Can I borrow your shoes so that I could go to the restroom?
And I'm so embarrassed to tell the story. I
was supposed to give a lecture at midnight. This was 1155
and I had two thoughts that ran through my head. One, if I give
her my shoes, I'm going to be late for the lecture. And two,
I don't know what's going to happen to the cleanliness of my
shoes, because the bathrooms were so dirty. They were melody, style,
I just imagine what could happen to the shoes. And in those 10
seconds of hesitation, I literally was like, I'm sorry. What sorry?
Could you repeat the question? I was trying to stall because I
didn't know how to respond. Another woman stepped up and she
immediately said, Oh, Hala, you can use my shoes
and Wallahi. And I never say Wallahi, Wallahi, the amount that
I was jealous of this sister who she just immediately stepped up
and she said, you can use my shoes. I can't imagine what kind
of secret she has with Allah. What kind of secret do you have with
Allah that your your thoughts are not about being late and about
your shoes? It's about I am there. I am going to help this
grandmother. She is a grandmother of my ummah in an occupation who's
going through so much, so much oppression,
I wish that I had thought to give her my shoes. I could have fixed
my problem of concern. I could have given her my shoes. I could
have had no shoes for an hour, gone to give a lecture, and then I
could have bought sandals. Why didn't I think of that?
And so I ask Allah to make me like Sheik Mohammed, a Sharif to help
me so that in the future, I never say no to the to the grandmother
who asks me for my shoes. How do you live a life where where you
are not thinking about yourself when someone asks for something,
how do you make the intention that when you have made a decision in
the past that you regret, that you are going to move forward and you
are never going to make that same mistake again? And of course, we
will. We will absolutely make the same mistake again, because we're
human, but still, we can use the pain of our regret of the past to
change what we do in the future. And I want to share with you
another personal story that I was walking out, and this one,
Alhamdulillah, I'm grateful for that. I pray I made the right
decision, and I want to share it with you, because for many of us,
it might have been a hard decision to make. I walked out of a grocery
store and there was a man from the unhoused community. He was lying
down. He had all his stuff around him. Please excuse me for just a
second.
Thank you. He was lying down. He had all his stuff around him. And
I had just walked out of the grocery store, and I thought, I
can ask this, this man, I have time, Alhamdulillah, that I have
the privileges of the resources to be able to ask this man, what can
I get for you from the store? As I walked up to him, I saw that his
eyes were closed, and I had five seconds of Is he sleeping or his
eyes closed for a moment? You know when you just sit back for a
moment. In those five seconds, he opened his eyes and he saw me
looking at him, and I can imagine that if you're from the unhomed
community and you don't have a place to live, and you're living
on the street that people often gawk at you, I can imagine, and
maybe you've done this, maybe you've stared at someone and their
cart or their backpack or whatever they have around them.
And you've just thought about it, and maybe you've done so out of
pity, maybe you've done so out of sympathy. Maybe they don't want
pity, maybe they Pamela, maybe they don't appreciate people
staring. But this man opened his eyes, and I was right there, and
the first thing he did was he cussed me out. He started saying
every cuss word as loud as possible, screaming at me. And I
also have to tell you something, Alhamdulillah, I have a second
degree black belt in Taekwondo. This was in broad daylight. There
were lots of people around. I was not afraid for my safety. Of
course, if you're afraid for your safety, that's a totally different
discussion. But this man was lying down, cussing me out. And I felt
like it came from the place of hurt, that he was hurt, that I was
gawking at him. And I said, Sir, I had a moment that I thought I was
like, should I walk away? And then I thought, No, I'm going to
explain to him, because I don't want the rest of his day for him
to be thinking about how people just stare. And so I told him,
Sir, I am so sorry. I was not trying to stare at you while you
were sleeping. I was wondering if you were asleep, and if you were
not, can I ask you if I can get something for you from inside the
store.
He started to cry. He told me, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am
so so sorry. And he just kept saying sorry over and over and
over. And I said, No, don't worry. No problem, brother, it's not a
problem. What can I get you from the store? And he was like,
anything, just anything, anything, anything. When I came back, all he
said was, I am so, so so sorry. When I was walking away, he called
out screaming, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He just kept apologizing,
no matter how many times I said, don't worry about it's not a
problem. And I thought, subhanAllah, I am so grateful that
in the moment when he started cussing me out, of course, I also
felt safe Alhamdulillah that I had a split decision to make. Should I
just walk away, or should I clarify? And that clarification
impacted my life. Literally, it's been years since that incident,
but I kept thinking I could have been again the woman who didn't
give my shoes. But Alhamdulillah that I made a different decision,
and all of us are going to be in those experiences where we can
choose to make a different decision. Are we going to make a
different decision like Sheik Muhammad Rahim Allah, very
intentionally decided to do
and Sheik Mohammed Rahim Allah also shared one other story about
a man who, when he was in hedge the previous year, he had been the
worst *. He had complained constantly made it difficult for
people, just constantly complaining. And then the next
year, he went back to hedge with the intention that he was going to
fix his hedge from the previous year. He was going to be the best
* that he could be. And Sheik Mohammed, Rahima Allah,
sorry,
so hard to say. Rahima Allah,
he was sitting with the hedge group. When
he was sitting with the hedge group, the organizers of the hedge
they were telling him about this man, and they were talking to him
about how this man
had been the worst * the year before, and now he had come back,
and he had just asked them, How am I this year? And they told him,
You are the model *. You are the model *. You are like the
model pilgrim Mashallah. You're doing everything so amazing.
And so he had gone to do the jamarat, and this panel he passed
away, doing the jamarat. And Sheik Mohammed talks about that the next
when he the next day, when they were making the farewell toaf that
they Sheik Muhammad and millions of people preyed upon this man
because they were doing the Janez in front of the Kaaba this man
passed away. Excuse me, it was preyed upon.
He had made a hedge he regretted. And so instead, what he did is
choose to change the next hedge he made, and Allah honored him. Allah
honored him in a way that very few people are honored in this world.
Subhan Allah
and Sheik Muhammad also mentioned this incredible Ayah for all of
us, Arham rejim, some is honestly
means
so much.
Me personally. It's about the Companions who didn't go with the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasalam when they were supposed to go on a
on a military excursion.
And then it says at the end, the Allah turned to them so they could
turn to him many times. We fear that our our are asking for
forgiveness will not be accepted. Can you please make the for one
second say Allah,
apologies. There's a lot happening emotionally. Um, so the
the Allah says thumb, metapalahili, a Tubu, many times
we are afraid that Allah is not accepting our repentance.
How do we know that he's accepted a repentance that we made five
years ago, five months ago, five days ago. Sometimes we are so
stuck we cannot forgive ourselves. We think, how is Allah going to
forgive us? I can't forgive myself for what I did. I can't stop
thinking about what I did. I can't stop regretting what I did.
Allah. Spano to Allah,
has put in your heart already the desire to ask for his forgiveness.
Why? Because he has already turned to you in forgiveness. He has
already turned to you in forgiveness, which is why you feel
the need to turn back to him in forgiveness.
Some meta Bala, himlia, Tubu,
if you want to ask for forgiveness, it's because he wants
you to ask for forgiveness.
So stop hating yourself for a mistake that you made in the past.
Don't let shaleton paralyze you so much from what you did in the past
that you don't know how to move forward in the future.
You're so stuck thinking about what you've done that you're not
focusing on all the good you could do.
And Sheik Mohammed's life was that example, focusing on the good that
you can keep doing. For someone to pass away at 47 Rahima Allah so
young,
and yet his work just keeps giving. That is the sign of
someone who came, who all of us, even the Prophet sallallahu,
alayhi wasallam, constantly ask for forgiveness. All of us need to
ask for forgiveness. And Allah turns to us before we even do. And
I also want to clarify, if you've never felt the need, if you're
wondering, I've never felt, ever felt the need to ask for
forgiveness. That thought in and of itself is a sign
that thought in and of itself can bring you to say, oh, Allah, let
me feel that I want to ask for forgiveness. And that comes from
his panel with
that point three
that we learned from shayham Ahmed Rahim, Allah out of millions,
is leave the results with Allah.
Do the action
and leave the results with Allah subhanahu wa
when raziah asked me about doing this webinar. It was about a week
after Sheik Mohammed Rahima hula passed away.
I was stunned,
obviously, as you can see, I was crying. I heard her message, and I
just was stunned.
One week after someone's or the founding organ, the founding
person of an organization, has passed away, and the work is
continuing. The work just keeps on going.
I have to I'm grateful to have established clariah. Clariah is
the woman Quran reciters app. It's free.
A lot of work, and especially because it's free, there's
completely a reliance on volunteers, which Inshallah,
that's going to change. It's going to become a nonprofit inshallah.
But the point is that I was thinking so much when I got that
call that whole week, I was thinking about how his work is
continuing, how many of us, myself included, have established
something or done something, and if we were to leave it would
collapse.
Sheik Mohammed didn't make things about himself. He didn't do it for
his name. He didn't do it for Sheik, Hamada, Sharif, Rahim,
Allah, and it's why do we know that? And we all have times where
maybe we have to, like, think about, you know, our our
intentions and why we're doing things, but we see it in the
result the Allah subhanahu wa taala. He continued.
His work. Moments after he passed away, Rahima Allah, people are
making to offer him reading Quran and thinking of him doing
continuing to share his lectures, continuing discover you.
Visionnaire inshallah is going to continue leaving a legacy with
Visionnaire. You can sign up for the next program. This isn't about
Sheik Mohammed. Rahim Allah, this is about the work. Investing in
this work
instead of investing in the outcome, is what Sheik Mohammed
taught, and I want to share with you on Tiktok. Tiktok, for those
of you who don't use it, they show you videos that they think you're
going to like.
After the passing of Sheik Mohammed, Rahim Allah, I suddenly
saw a video from Sheik Mohammed.
I've been on Tiktok for two years, and I have never seen a video of
Sheik Mohammed. I didn't even know that he had a Tiktok account. I go
to his account and Subhan Allah, he had a few 1000 followers. His
latest video had maybe all around, I don't know, maybe around 10,000
views.
All of a sudden, I'm seeing Sheik Mohammed Rahim Allah on Tiktok,
and within days, hundreds and 1000s of people are watching his
last video.
He
made a video about the dua of seeing yourself in the mirror, and
he taught us how to make this dua in this video. And Subhan Allah,
the last video that he made on Tiktok, the one that has hundreds
and 1000s of views, is him making a DUA, teaching us how to say
that. Dua, how many people are now learning that dua from that video?
How many people are going to teach their children? Inshallah, this
dua, how many children are going to teach their children this dua,
how many great, great, great, great great grandchildren are
going to know this dua because of one person who learned it from a
video from Sheik Mohammed,
whose pan Allah passed away before he even saw the results.
When you do something for the sake of Allah's panawata,
Allah increases your work not by one time or two times or three
times, just right now in the span of a week, to at least 2020, times
the amount.
How much is the investment worth putting in so that Allah will
magnify what you do, even if you don't see it.
There was a man who was in the civilians of the time of
Salahuddin. He was a civilian in the time of Salahuddin and
Salahuddin Rahima Allah. He was trying to get into a besieged
city. Now we know the narrations of the Crusaders. We know the
narratives of the Crusaders.
The Crusaders themselves talk about burning babies, barbecuing
babies. They talk about cannibalism. It is disgusting.
Salah Haddin was working for the justice, of course, of Muslims,
but also of Jews and Christians. He was working for justice, for
the sake of Allah and the Crusaders. Had a city that was
besieged with these huge wooden just structures, and they had
doused it in vinegar so no fire could light it a flame.
And there was a man, just a random man, who was a civilian who, after
months of them trying to get rid of the to open the break the siege
of this city, this random man comes up to
a military leader in salahuddin's army, Bahauddin, and he says to
him that he is actually a woodworker, but he likes to try
chemistry. He does different things with chemistry for his own
purposes. He just likes to try things. And he said he has an idea
of how they could actually break the siege using a mix of chemicals
that he had come up with this mix of chemicals is what allowed for
the siege to be broken, for the people of the city to be saved by
Salahuddin.
We don't know This man's name.
We have nothing more about this man,
but he's preserved with Allah's Panama to Allah, His reward is
Allah, the people who were protected in that city, and their
offspring, all of their, their their this panel is so much good.
Goes back to a man whose name we don't know,
who doesn't really have much about his life except this one, this one
action that he took he saw a moment where he could take a
skill, something that he's passionate about, and he could use
it to help an entire city. Many of us, when we look at someone like
Sheik Mohammed, we think we have to establish a foundation. We need
to write 10 books. We need to give 700 lectures for us to be able to
be honored in our life and our death the way that he was, Rahima
Allah. But not all of us are going to be Shaykh Muhammad as Sharif
Rahima hollah, and not all, not all of us are asked to be Allah.
Allah is so merciful that there is a story of Salman ibn Mansur, who
saw his father, who was a scholar, in a dream, and his father had
passed away, and he came to his son, and he told him about being
entered into paradise. And he told his son why he was entered to
paradise. Why? What was the reason?
Because one time he was giving a lecture. And there was a man who
was passing by who sat down, and when he sat down for the very
first time in his life, this man cried a tear out of the hashiya,
out of the reverence, out of the awe of Allah's Panama to Allah
just that one moment of being touched so much
a man who hadn't been touched before feeling that moment of
being touched because of that, Allah forgave all the people in
the gathering, and this was the action, not the hundreds of
lectures that She gave, not, which, of course, still means so
much. But this was the action that this Sheik mentioned was what was
what
entered him into a higher level of paradise. Another dream that
another child of a scholar who passed away had was of his father,
and his father told him that he had been entered into Paradise,
and he told him the action was that this Sheik used to go out to
the outskirts of the city and teach a group of elderly,
illiterate women how to recite Suratul Fatiha.
We can imagine that that process maybe took a month, maybe a year
teaching a group of women who are elderly, who didn't know how to
recite social Fatiha, who were illiterate, how to recite social
Fatiha. But that was the action that Allah honored so much that it
would it allowed him to be in a higher rank of paradise. And these
are dreams. We don't take thick rulings from them. We just take
inspiration from them that Subhanallah many of us may think,
Well, I don't I don't have much that I can contribute. Maybe you
are a 20 year old, a 30 year old, a 40 year old, a 50 year old, 60
year old, 70 year old. Maybe you're looking back at your life
with regret, and you're thinking, there's so much more I could have
done and I should have done, but you as a grandmother, helping your
grandchildren feel loved and supported and cared for, and them
sharing that love and feeling like whole, healed individuals, and
being able to share that healed love with their children, that as
you being a parent and teaching your child literally Anything,
subhanAllah, Allahu, Akbar being kind to others. That is sadaqa
jariya.
You being someone who plants a tree that birds eat from 300 years
later. That is constant. Sadaqa jariya. You donating to a well
being established that people continue to drink from 100 years
later. Those are all sadaqajarias that any of us can be involved in.
You put in the effort Allah's panamata allows you to see the
reward. He is the one who allows you to see well, he's the one who
allows you to see the reward in the Hereafter, whether or not you
can see it now, is not the goal.
It's you putting in the work and allowing Allah to allow the fruits
to come out. And finally, the last point is designing our life on
dua,
designing our life on DUA
and our death. Sheik Mohammed's whole
life was talking about designing your life by DUA
and he taught us about designing our death by Dana. I don't mean
that we are going to ask for Allah to take us in a particular way,
and that's what's going to happen. What I mean is that we live our
life in a way that we want our death to be and worship of Him and
praise of him, and we work towards that. In our dua,
Almar rodilo anhu asked to be a martyr in Medina. And people were
like, how are you going to be a martyr in Medina? No battles
happen in Medina. And yet, he was stabbed while leading Salah in
Mawi, and he died a martyr. Rodi Allahu, anhu, you design your life
and your death by constantly asking Allah for the best death.
You ask him, Oh Allah, take me in the best way. Oh Allah, bless me
with the best death. And subhanAllah, I just want to share
something that Allah, Allah, Shaykh, Muhammad, Rahima, Allah,
he talked about in a lecture where he says, living your life with no
regrets. He has a lecture on this topic, and he mentions a person
who gathers their grandchildren and they tell them about the one
regret that they had in this life, what is the one regret that they
would have had in this life? And that one regret would be not
spending more time in the masjid, not going.
The Masjid more, not praying in the masjid. More and Subhan Allah,
when I listened to that, and I thought Sheik Mohammed, Rahima
Allah, the best of us. Allah Tala honored him with being in the
masjid
in salatul Maghrib at the time. Sub Allah, how many of us could
just hope to be in the masjid praying and the masjid praying
for that to be our final act
is nothing more than a testament of Allah's love for someone that
can be nothing more than a testament of Allah's choosing
someone Inshallah, not only in this life, we know Allah chose
shahamed. In this life, we can see that. But also in the Hereafter,
when Allah loves someone, he calls out to the people of the heavens.
And that love that spreads between the people of the heavens and
jabila alayhi salam spreads to the people on earth. All of our love
for him is a testament of how much Allah loved him in sha, Allah, and
Inshallah, it's a sign of him being in the highest paradise. We
beg Allah for that for him and for us. So we design our life by dua,
and we design our death by asking for the best khatima, by asking
for the best ending constantly from Allah. And I know that many
of us fear what passing away might look like, what it might mean,
what it might be. But I want to end by sharing with you a story of
my my mom's friend. My mom told me that she had a friend, and her
friend had a little sister who was passing away in the hospital, and
her family was gathered around her, and as she was lying there,
she told her mom and dad, she said, Who are these beautiful
people who just came into my room holding this beautiful white
dress. It's the most beautiful white dress that I've ever seen.
And her parents looked around and said, There's no one here.
And then she passed away,
losing your loved one losing a child, there's nothing that can
that can compare to that amount of pain. May Allah make it easy on
everybody Arab and protect everybody Arab, I mean, but to
know that someone in this moment is Inshallah, seeing angels,
Inshallah, bringing the most beautiful shroud that is such a
comfort. Allah tells us,
in Allah who saw Mr. Kamu, Tata, nazaloo, alayhi, Mala ike to
Allah, tahazanu or abushiro Adun,
that those who stand firm in this belief Allah
that and they're passing away. What happens? The angels come down
to them, and they say, Do Not Fear and Do not grieve. And glad
tidings, glad tidings for Paradise, which you have been
promised.
It's very natural for us to be afraid, but Allah gives us the
comfort that, as the angels were assigned to be protectors in this
life for you, while you're alive, that they are assigned to give you
glad news, good tidings in your death. And that is such a comfort
for any of us who are afraid and any of us who've lost loved ones
to know
that Subhan Allah, just the asking of one angel for the forgiveness
of the believers,
as Imam Al beloi mentioned, is enough for all of the believers on
Earth. So imagine having angels come to you and give you the glad
tidings May Allah, bless us with being of the people who are given
the greatest tidings in this life and the next. And Inshallah, we're
going to take, I know that we are done with time. So Inshallah,
we're going to take just two minutes to make dua. Inshallah, as
we end, if you can face the qibla, it's the sunnah to face the Qibla
when making dua, it's the sunnah to raise your hands when making
dua, but none of them are required if you're not able to so we're
going to make a dua Inshallah, quickly, Allahumma, like
Alhamdulillah, go Allah, you are deserving of the most praise. Ya
rab Allah. AJ, send your peace and blessings upon our beloved
SallAllahu, alayhi wa sallam, Allah, have mercy on us. Shari for
him. Allah, Oh Allah, bless him with being entered into the
highest paradise. Bilayer hisab. Allah, bless him with being in the
lines of the prophets and the martyrs. Was Siddiqi in Ya Rabbi
la Alamin, Oh Allah, honor us with being able to continue his legacy
and honor us as you honored him. Ya Rabbi alamin in our work for
your sake. Ya rab O Allah, enter him into the highest paradise.
Bilayer, he said, and make his grave a garden of paradise. Ya,
Rabbi Lamin Allama, make Shama Ahmed's grave a garden of
paradise. Yorub Allah, honor his family. Allah, honor his family.
Allah, honor.
Sheik Mohammed's family. Oh, honor his wife, honor his children,
honor his parents. Allah, enter all of them into the highest
paradise without his up together. Yo Aloha, bless him with dreams
where Sheik Mohammed comes and gives them glad tidings. Ya rab
balabi Aloha, Maya Ra, let them not feel like they are departed
from him. Let them feel so close to him. Ya rab balabi Aloha. Maya
Ra, continue. The work that he did with success. Ya Rabin, a bless
everyone who misses him, everyone who knew him and never met him. Oh
Allah, every single person. Ya rabbina, please honor them. Ya
Rabbi Alamin, with being able to continue his legacy, honor us with
continuing his legacy. One sur Ikhwan and nafikuli. Me Kenya,
Allah, help this ummah everywhere, and every single person who's a
part of this live, and every single person that they love, Oh
Allah, we ask You, ya Rabbi for sualan Wahida, we ask you for just
one, one request, Allah, we came in this moment, Yara to you. We
came together to remember a righteous servant of yours.
Allahu, from us are people who are the foremost in worship. And from
us, most of us, we are the ones who struggle Allah. From us are
those who are so vulnerable and from us, ya rabbina, are those who
have hope in you and those who struggle with their worship of
you. And that's most of us. Ya rab So, Oh Allah, we do not Ya
Rabbana, lose our hope in you. And we come to you asking just one
request, just one Yoruba, just one. Enter us, Yara, and every
single person that we love, and Sheik Mohammed as Sharif, and
every single person that he loved into the highest paradise.
Thank you all
so much for joining us. May Allah. Bless all of you. Thank you. It
was such an honor to be here Salaam Alaikum, Mariam and
JazakAllah for doing the DUA.
Because I know a lot of us again, and hamdana, it's that opportunity
channeling our grief to all of you that are here. I hope. Inshallah,
I know mashallah, so many of you sharing notes and gems from Sister
mariams session. And you know, obviously so many beautiful points
touched. And I think one of them that I really want to highlight,
which is obviously talking about the vision or legacy, is waking
up, right? Like waking up from this state of intoxication, asking
ourselves, like, am I going to let another day, another month,
another year, another decade passed by and stay in that same
place? Right? Like, what would, what are the regrets I would hold
on to if, right now nothing changed, and so that's my
invitation to you. That is our invitation to you from discovery.
U is take this opportunity. Take Alhamdulillah, the beautiful
reminder of Shaykh Muhammad's passing the way that he lived his
life. Take that beautiful reminder, Inshallah, and channel
it in assessing where it is that maybe I'm not channeling the power
of God, where am I not having high hope in what Allah panta can do in
my life? And so today, Inshallah, we have registration open for
Visionnaire legacy. I'm just putting it into the chat. And
also, you know, Inshallah, I know a lot of you been asking, Can I
get access to, you know, more lectures from Sheik Mohammed. So
Alhamdulillah, he had done one that was called Mastering your
emotions. And so we're going to be adding that as a bonus for the
visionary legacy students inshallah when you join in the
next few days. So you'll have an opportunity to get that as an
additional bonus. And if you're wondering, how do you do visionary
without Sheik Mohammed? So it's not without him. The sessions are
by Sheik Mohammed. It's the sessions he did this past year
Subhanallah, and it's five sessions. It's going to be over
five days. Each session is about two hours, and it's going to be a
guided experience. So I'll be on with you just like this. We'll be
having breakout rooms. We're going to go through and watch the
session together. We're going to have our Facebook group. As usual,
we're going to have TAs Alhamdulillah, we're going to have
peer to peer support groups to help craft your duas. And again,
it's going to be about challenging, right, challenging
yourself waking up from the intoxication that is Bania. You
know, one of the things shemadi I'm sharing Marshall, so many like
stories of Sheik Hamid, different webinars and talks he did. There
was one that I always have held on to. It was actually quite a few
years back. He had, I don't even remember, actually, if it was a
webinar or if it was just a conversation he had mentioned, and
he has shown that, you know, there will come a time where we will
like, long for will long for being able to just do two more nakas
Aslam, like that, will be the most precious thing to us on this
earth. And he was talking about it again in the context of taking
action, in the context of, don't be little small acts, small hopes
and dreams that you have.
That, because one day you along to do just that, and that always,
like, I don't know, it just always hit me so hard because I was like,
wow. Like, we we belittle so many things. We're like, okay, just,
you know, like, it's that, so now prayer, it's, you know, it's this
or that. And he's a kind of like, you know, one of the things that
he taught me and modeled, I believe, in his life, was
constantly taking advantage of those small opportunities and
building them up to be the big dream gods, right? Just as
Marshall, he designed, and we get to benefit, continue to benefit
from. So I encourage you that if you're in a place in your life
right now where you feel like, I don't know, you know, is this for
me? Or, you know, maybe I am living my life in a way I'm happy,
but like, if there's any question that you are not raising your
standards, then I invite you to join. And if you've never
experienced Visionnaire, I definitely invite you to join
those who already have this is an opportunity. And you guys get your
special promo code for the students who've already taken it
before. You'll be emailed that this is your special opportunity.
Inshallah, and someone just mentioned. You know, I wish
someone could sponsor me. Number one, make thought, make the
intention. And secondly, email us inshallah. Don't hold back just
because, you know, you think right now you can afford it. So email us
inshallah and support. And you know, with that, I invite you to
join, take advantage of the bonus that is there, and let you know
we're going to keep moving forward. I am not going to hold
back. Our team is coming full force, Alhamdulillah, because we
believe it is our job to continue Inshallah, to call two people to
dua, to craft their life with dua And Alhamdulillah, that is the,
you know, best way that inshallah we carry this other kajana that
Shaykh Muhammad taught us and connected us with. So if you're a
student here who's taken it before, I encourage you go invite
someone else who's never taken Visionnaire, you know people in
your community, and that will be really powerful. Inshallah, no, it
is not just for women. It is open for everyone, just as just as
visionary always has been open for everyone. Each session, like I
said, is two hours. We start Inshallah, August, 18, 20th, 21st
and then 27th 28th will be at 12pm Eastern. Inshallah, you'll have
lifetime access again to the recordings the Facebook group
community, and we'll have special bonuses in there as well. I have
put the LinkedIn link there. You're also going to be emailed
the link, so don't worry, Inshallah, and you'll get that
opportunity to join. If you have any questions, respond back to any
of the discovery emails or support at Discovery life.com Inshallah,
just go ahead, everyone, please, you know, keep Shaykh Mohammed and
obviously his family in your DUA at this time as well. And please
make offer Shaykh amariam may last had to reward her and bless her,
because it was not an easy task to, you know, obviously, do the
first webinar after Sheikh's passing. So really, you know,
honor to speak on behalf of the team that it meant so much to all
of us that she could come on board, just like to all of you for
continuing to be with us. Support us. Give us your love. You know we
truly love you guys, and we want to continue to see you. Inshallah,
raise your standards so just.