Maryam Amir – Stay strong in hardship
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AI: Transcript ©
That he's done, may Allah bless him and bless all of the people of
Raza and all of this ummah. Ameen Mansur Shuman is the one who
shared that he's a Canadian citizen who was living in Raza,
and he decided to stay in Raza so that he can share to the world
what's happening in English. And this young man started spending
time with Mansur, and the work that he was doing with this group,
they were giving out charity and working to help the people. And
one day they were fasting, and as they're fasting, this young man
says, I'm going to go look for Iftar for us. So he goes to look
for Iftar, and that night, he didn't come back. And it's
happened, sometimes they have to hide. They can't come back
immediately. But when he didn't come back, the next day, they went
to look for him,
and what they found was this young man's body was in the street,
and they found he had been shot by a sniper.
They checked to see if they can go. They went quickly to to see
him,
and they said he said that his body smelled like the scent was
like musk. It was emanating from his body.
They said that his face had like scars before, but it was
completely clear, and it was just shining and so bright.
And they said that they were not able to take his body to to bury
it. It's not safe, because anything could happen for their
own safety. And so what they did is they got something to cover it,
and they covered him. And when they did that and they walked
away, this huge bird came and suddenly sat right there.
And Mansur said he's never seen a bird like this before. He thought
maybe it was a large Turkey, but it was pure white. And they've
never seen white turkeys flying around in randomly. And then it
opened its feathers. And when it opened its feathers, it was
actually a peacock, and what it was doing was covering the body
and not letting anyone come near it.
Allah's para inshallah chose this person to be a martyr, amongst the
greatest types of martyrs, but the life that he had lived for some
time before that moment, no one may have pointed at him and said,
This is the most righteous person amongst us. This is Ahlul Quran.
This is the person who's living the most exemplary lifestyle only
Allah knew what his ending was going to be. And how many of us in
Ramadan, how many of us to our own selves, are looking at ourselves
and judging ourselves for who we are right now, but only Allah
knows where our end is going to be and the witnessing that he does
for us in Ramadan and at all times. But think about how Allah
witnesses us in this month, he witnesses what we do and the way
that we worship,
and he's chosen us to witness this month.
And in a set of verses in Surah Al Hajj, Allah talks about who he's
chosen. He begins by saying, this is towards the end of Sura al
Hajj. He begins by saying that Allah has picked, and he talks
about picking from amongst the angels and the messengers, that
he's chosen some people and angels. And then at the end, Allah
says in Allah has semi um baslier, that Allah is the All Hearing and
the all seeing, the All Hearing and the all seeing. And I want us
to remember the fact that Allah is all hearing and all seeing for a
minute, because later in this set of verses, Allah starts mentioning
Ibrahim. Allah mentions Ibrahim alaihi salam, and we know the
trials that Prophet Abraham went through. He went through the test
with his father and so many more. But imagine that his own father
not only said, I don't believe you, but cast him into a fire,
that level of disownment, that level of
of isolation. And yet, Ibrahim is described in the Quran as what an
ummah on his own. He is an ummah on his own that even when noone
else believed him, that he stood firm in this belief. And right now
for us, there are times where we do feel very lonely in that
belief,
but there are stories of our past, so many in our history, in Islamic
history, of individuals who stood firm on that belief, and the
change didn't come right in their era, but they were part of
planting the seeds of the change to come. So when we look at when
the Crusaders went in to Jerusalem and they began to kill child,
women, man, they killed everyone. They killed Christians that they
disagreed with. They could kill Jews. They killed Muslims, a small
group of Muslims in.
That time, risked their lives to get what they believe was the copy
of the Mustafa Garth man, really Allah. So they were able to get
it. And then they left Jerusalem and they sought refuge. They
walked to Damascus,
and they entered the grand message of Damascus. And there was a
scholar who was teaching. The scholar who was teaching there,
his name was Zainul islam al harawi. He was teaching, and all
of a sudden he hears all these people making noise because a
group of refugees have just walked in. They are tattered. They are
*. They've come all the way from Jerusalem after witnessing a
genocide, and they come and they explain what's happened.
So this scholar, he went to Baghdad, and he tried to get an
appointment to see the Khalifa, who would not give him this time
of day. He kept, they kept. He was being told by the people who run
the palace, he's too busy. He doesn't have time to see you. So
what did he do? He went on Yom jumara, knowing that the Khalifa
was going to be there at a special masjid, where he has a special
place where he can sit and watch what's happening in the chutba. He
has a special place as the leader. So this scholar goes into the
front of the masjid, this huge Masjid in Ramadan, where everyone
is sitting and listening. And he walks up to the front, and he
takes some food, and he starts to eat in the front of the Masjid.
You can imagine everyone's response. They are yelling.
They're shouting. They're saying, What are you doing? It's Ramadan.
How can you eat?
And what does he say? He says, this is your reaction for me
eating in Ramadan, what is your reaction to the slaughter of your
brothers and sisters in Jerusalem? And he was one person in the very
beginning of when the Crusaders entered, it was another 88 years
until Salah Haddin came and opened Jerusalem with peace and
liberation for all religions. But what happened in that time period
is where we are right now.
We have already seen the beginning,
but we are all individually, this scholar, we are the ones who are
choosing whether or not we're going to use our voices and our
actions and our dua in the middle of the night. Because do you know
what Salah Haddin said? He said that the dua of the people who are
not here physically with us because they couldn't come,
because they were elderly, because they were sick, they had an
excuse. They couldn't come that that dua, their dua, was what
allowed to lahadin success. Our dua may not feel sometimes like
we're seeing the difference, and I know especially in what's
happening in Raza and Sudan and the Congo and so many parts of
this ummah sometimes with the DUA we make, and we keep seeing it,
and we keep feeling like, when, what, how, but that doesn't mean
that the angels aren't recording it, and it doesn't mean that Allah
isn't taking it and creating changes that we may not witness
fully, but that Allah has promised we are in the in between time
period. And what we see in the set of verses that Allah describes is
what we can do when he has chosen us to be witnesses as part of this
ummah. So in the verse before the mention of Ibrahim and after the
mention of the prophets being chosen, Allah says, Yeah, you had
ladina amenu. So who are they? Oh, you who believe? Who are they us?
What does Allah say? He tell he tells us, yeah, you had ladina
Amen. What's judu? Where Abudu, so is very similar to another verse
in the Quran. Does anyone happen to know off the top of their head.
Does it come to anyone? Yay? Was judu Robb wafalu, Allah. Does any
anything sound familiar to another verse? It was part of this week's
recitation. If anyone was reciting Quran this week, it's in Sura Ali
I'm Ron, where Allah says that he chooses Maryam. So he tells Mary
Malay, Islam, the angels tell her that she's been chosen from
amongst women, from amongst all women, from alamin ya Maria
mokunuti, the robbiki was Judy, what Carey, make sajda and make
rukur. So the same advice, the same command that Allah is telling
Mariam. Alaihi, Salam is what who is being told us. It's the same
command that we are being told now Mariam looking at how Ibrahim was
an ummah on his own. Meriam had a life of hardship and worship
combined. She was born into hardship.
She was born into worship, and when she's given birth, what's her
famous statement? You tell me? What is a famous statement that
she says,
Yes,
exactly. I wish I was gone. I wish I had died. I wish I had never
existed. Now, Miriam could have also said in her dua, a million
times, Ya Allah, thank you for choosing me to worship you. She
could have said a million times, Ya Allah, thank you for blessing
me with being the first woman to worship and meshul Aksa in in
BETOs, she could have said anything of praise and thanks. But
did Miriam recording of those words, stay in the Quran, they did
not. What did Allah choose to stay in the Quran? That phrase, ya lay
tiny Mitu kapalaha, I wish I had died before this. We know why she
said that. Because of the physical pain of giving birth, the
emotional pain of giving birth. But also, what are people going to
think about piety when she is the paragon of piety in this
circumstance? But look at what Allah chose to do for Maryam. He
didn't choose that. Maryam would give the baby to Angel Jibreel and
then take that baby out to the people. If a baby in infancy, who
was just born, spoke and said, My mother's name is Virgin Mary, and
she's, this is a miracle. I'm a miraculous person. Do you think
people would believe an infant child who says, yeah, for real,
that's all right, for sure. You'd have heard a one day old baby. You
wouldn't be like, I don't believe you. No, I think, I think we both.
You wouldn't
all other people would, but she
if a small baby, infant was speaking and said, Believe me, I'm
a messenger of God, this is a miracle. I was literally just
born. I think people would say that's a miracle from God, except
her bash, she has a faith. She doesn't need miracles. She
believes in Allah without miracles about but most other people would
probably need to have a miracle. And if Angel Gibreel came out, or
zakiriya alayhi salam came out with Prophet Jesus,
it would have been enough for people. Yeah, Allah wanted her to
come out. Allah chose her to come out despite the fact that she had
just gone through so much, and she is the one who stood in front of
her people, alone with her baby, and her baby spoke on her behalf.
And many times, when we think about what, especially in Ramadan,
already, many of us feel like we haven't done enough. How many of
you are behind in your Quran goals? Raise your hands
like half the room and the other half. Masha Allah, Tabata kala.
Masha Allah, how many of you have already had conversations with
yourselves like, I'm wasting Ramadan, I'm not doing as much as
I could be. I wish I was focusing more. No, all a legit all of our
hands are up, except the righteous people, tabot Allah. So all of us
already know those feelings when we're sitting and we're like, does
this mean I'm a hypocrite? Does this mean Allah is mad at me? Does
this mean I'm disappointing? Allah? Look at the people in rasa.
Look at the people in Sudan. Look at the people in all these places,
this ummah. They don't have respite in Ramadan, and I do, and
I'm not even using those blessings. And so we start self
talking, and that's so important for us to recognize, because when
we have self talk, who is the one talking to us?
Self talk? Who's talking to us ourselves, not Allah. Allah is not
talking to you when you're saying you are terrible as a worshiper in
Ramadan, that's you talking to you. And when we cast what we
think, Allah sees us as unto him. It affects our worship of Him,
because we then worship and think I'm praying, but does he even want
me to pray to him? I'm making dua, but I'm not worthy of his answer.
And yet, I want us to look at how Allah makes wafay, Allah, Allah so
vast do good so that you may be successful. Is so vast. Why?
Because Allah knows that every single one of our circumstances
are going to be different. It is necessarily going to be different.
And do you know who might have understood this so well? Birth man
Radi Allahu anhu, because better
happened in Ramadan. The Battle of Badr happened in Ramadan.
And all of these companions are going with the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, and they're going to fight, and there with the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and Earth man who was a
Senior Companion of the Prophet sallallah sallam, he is not going
with them. And why isn't he able to go?
Because his wife, the daughter of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, was sick, so he stayed behind to care.
For his wife.
He was never of the people of bedr because he stayed back to care for
the daughter of the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasalam,
and I want us to imagine if we were in those shoes. On one hand,
it's an honor, it's a care. It's a special experience to be able to
take care of your spouse, especially when they're so sick.
But on another the Prophet saw them, and the Companions, your
best friends, are in battle, the first real battle of Islam, and
you're not there.
How would that make us feel on an emotional level? Asmaa Radi Allahu
anhu, though he was not physically there, is counted as if he
received the reward of going.
And this is how merciful Allah is to us, that for all of us who
can't do it all in Ramadan, because we have other things
happening, whether it's your work or school or kids, or you're
taking care of someone who's sick, or you're sick, or you just don't
know how best to use your time, or you're just trying to make it
through fasting, or you're so emotionally overwhelmed by
whatever is happening, or you've had trauma in the past and it
doesn't it's not gone. Whatever it is is affecting the way that
you're able to focus and the amount you're able to do. Look at
how you would be if you could be, you would if you could. And Allah
knows. So he rewards you as if you did. Allah knows that you would if
you were in Mecca in front of the Kaaba, the type of dua you would
be making. But we're not there. We're here. And just like Earthman
radi, Allahu anhu, there's a reason why you are here and why
Allah chose you to be in this moment of your life, in this part
of your life, in this Ramadan, when
the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam came back from bedr,
bedr, did they win? Yes. Would that have been a time of joy and
happiness and celebration. But what did he come back to?
His daughter had passed away, rodi Allahu, anha. While he was gone,
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, so he went off to battle and hamda that
they were victorious. And he comes back, sallallahu alaihi wasallam
not to his daughter, but to her grave.
And he goes
to his daughter's grave to make dua.
And I want us to recognize that every single one of us in Ramadan,
as Badr was in Ramadan, as this loss was in Ramadan, are going to
go through emotional hardship, and that person whom you've lost or
you're afraid of losing, when that reality happens,
this is something that binds all of us with the people of Raza and
our Ummah, who has suffered for centuries, or anyone who's passed
that they are in a realm with Allah, that only Allah knows their
reality. But we have, we have promises that Allah takes care of
those who are with him. And there was a scholar. His name was
Suleiman ibn Mansur, and he said that one time he had a dream, and
in this dream, he saw his father, and his father was a scholar. And
a scholar is someone who, in at least, this scholar was teaching
and learning and studying. So this is someone who's dedicated their
lives to teaching Islam, and he sees his father in a dream, and
his father is in paradise. And so he asks him, what is it that
helped you get into Jannah? And his father doesn't say teaching
1000s of students or giving so many khutbas. His Father says that
he got into Paradise because once a week, he would walk to the
outskirts of the city, and he would sit with a group of women
who were illiterate and who were elderly, and he would teach them
Suratul tatiha.
And it was in teaching Suratul Fatiha, just teaching al Fatiha,
that it was that, that was why he was promised paradise, that action
may seem simple, but mashallah, of course, I'm sure his years of
scholarship supported his his journey into jannah inshallah.
But the point is that taking care of people is one of the ways that
Allah promises that we will be inshallah of
we pray of the people of Jannah,
and we see this in Ibn Abbas rodi Allahu anhu, that one time someone
came to him while he was making it in the masjid of the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasalam, and they asked him for he, they, he
saw they Ibn Abbas rodiloan, who saw that this man was very sad,
just like very sad, very down. So he was like, are you okay? And the
man responded and said that, you know he has this and this with
someone else. He has a debt to him, and he wants he's just very
overwhelmed by it. So Ibn Abbas says, Do you want me to go talk to
him for you? And the man is like, of course, but you're like, aren't
you an IT calf? And Ibn Abbas looks towards the grave of the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and his eyes filled with.
Hears. And then he explains that the one who is in that grave, his
the one who was so close to him, sallallahu alayhi wasallam taught
that helping someone in need, helping someone is better than
your caf that it leaves trenches, trenches between you and hellfire,
that it's a means of you entering paradise just for helping someone
I take after the mission of the Prophet salaim is an enormous
reward. And yet this companion, one of the scholars of the
companions, left just to be someone who helps another person.
What a phone do good so that you may be successful. Success. Good.
It's very broad. Allah doesn't say read seven juz Quran every single
day in Ramadan. Allah leaves it so open, because your reality is not
yours, and your reality is not yours, and your reality isn't
yours, and my Esther, my Esther, margarita's Reality is not the
reality of anyone else. And so when Allah says, Do good so that
you will be successful, he's talking to you, and what you know
is your reality of how you can be successful, of course, with rukur
and sujood. So do the good while you're worshiping. Hold on to the
rope of Allah in that worship. And then in the next part. When we're
talking about this set of verses, Allah mentions. He says,
Who would you tabako That he has chosen you now this ver, this
verse, chosen you. How there's something inside of each and every
single one of you that Allah sees that Allah knows that you have
that you don't even know you have. Sometimes when we're sitting and
we're thinking about like, how many things we need to improve on,
Allah already knows where you're going to be, and so he's chosen
you for a quality that you have, that you may not even know what it
is, but he's chosen you to be a part of this ummah for that
quality that you have. But why? So the Akuna was Sulu Shahid and
Alaikum, so that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will
be a witness to you,
what akuhada That you will be witnesses to mankind, to
humankind, to people. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam took
that responsibility of being a witness very seriously, as we
know. The Prophet saw them would weep out of his concern for us.
And the Prophet saw them would stand at night just reciting one
ayah over and over and over into
if you, if you, if you punish them, they are your they are Your
servants. What Intel for in the until azizul Hakim, and if you
forgive them, you are the mighty and you are the wise. Allah to ADA
has chosen the Prophet Islam to be witnesses for us, and that we are
going to be the witnesses amongst people. This concept of witnessing
is tied to someone who is a Shaheed Allah is a shahid. He is
the witness. And a person who is killed in his in his way is a
shahid. So our life is between two things, of the witnessing of being
born and the witnessing of going back to him when we die, and
everything in between is what in my tididahi, that my prayer, that
my sacrifice, that my life, my death, and everything is to you,
oh, Allah, Spano wa taala. But that concept of how we know how to
live is one that Allah tells us in the very end part of this, this
set of verses where Allah tells us where Hold on. Hold on to Allah.
There's another verse in Surah, Ali Imran, which is where, at
tassimubi, what Biha hold on to the rope of Allah. But here Allah
says, what
hold on to Allah. And the scholars say this part is talking about the
Quran. Hold on to the Quran, because in the Quran we know
that's how we know how we're going to live and how we should live.
But I think what's difficult for us with the Quran, sometimes as an
ummah, is we focus often on finishing it as quickly as we can,
especially in Ramadan, which we should as often as we can, of
course, and we're taught that we get so many rewards for reciting
the Quran, so we focus on the reward, but sometimes we don't
understand what we're saying, and so we don't actually change, of
course, if you understand hamilah. But most of this ummah doesn't
speak Arabic,
so reading a translation is so important when we are people who
are not native Arabic speakers. And I remember, before I learned
Arabic, I would try to read the Arabic, and it was so slow and I
didn't understand any of it. And my mom may Allah, bless her. One
day, she just walked past my room and she was like, why don't you
read it in English so that you can understand it? My mom and my dad
really found Islam by.
Reading the English translation of the Quran. And that moment for me
when I read it, I was like Allahu Akbar every day when I try to read
this in Arabic, Inshallah, I get the reward for it. But I didn't
realize ALLAH is talking to me. I didn't realize he's telling me
what's happening in my day, and I'm coming back and the Quran is
talking to me. So when we look at one, the Quran, what is our
interaction with understanding what we're reading? And two,
oftentimes we approach the Quran, especially in Ramadan, as a space
where we're supposed to be very emotional every time we read it.
Have every any of you ever been standing next to someone in Salah
here and they're like, bawling their eyes out, yeah. And you're
like, Masha, Allah for them and Allah for me.
You don't really like, feel the same way. And you know why they're
crying at all, but you wish you had that type of connection. You
wish that you felt the verses the same way. It's sweet to be able to
taste those tears. But you know what Abu Bakr all the Aloha anhu,
when a group of people from Yemen came to him, when he was the emir,
they started to weep when they heard the Quran. And do you know
what he said to them? He said, we used to be like this.
We used to be like this. That's Abu Bakr al the Allahu anhu,
seeing people who are weeping and thinking that used to be us. Omar
radi, Allahu anhu, one time in Surah Maryam, there's an ayah that
talks about making sajda and weeping. So he made sajda, and he
said, Where are the tears? Where are the tears?
Sophia radi, one time, a group of people were reciting the Quran
again, a verse of sajda and crying. They made the sajda, and
she said, where are your tears? Where are the tears? These are the
companions of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Now we
could imagine that the Companions would be weeping every time they
heard the Quran. But do you know that one time a companion was
speaking to a tabri, who is someone that comes after the
generation of the companions and the that tabera, he said, I wish
that I was one of you. I wish I would have been with you. I wish I
could have been a companion of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa said
them, what do you think that his reaction was? Do you think he
would have said, I wish you were there too? SubhanAllah?
His reaction was, don't say that.
You don't know if you would have believed cuz you don't know the
type of test we had to go through. You don't know the way that we
were tested. And right now, I think many of us can understand
that we don't know what our belief would be if we were tested in the
way that we see the tests that are happening.
And yet, the Companions, they lived the verses, but they didn't
just live them because they recited them. People of the Quran
are not just people who recite the Quran. People of the Quran are
people like that young man that we mentioned in the beginning, who
their life was. Allah knows, but maybe, maybe, do you think it's
possible, and maybe you've done it too, where all day long, someone
could be saying, Allah about you, but at night, you're lying down in
your bed and you're thinking, I want to do better.
Allah only knows the whispers that we have in our own hearts.
And when we go back to the Quran and realizing that this is a book
of a lifetime that every single ayah has commentaries written on
it, because every single verse is that applicable to each of us in
every different reality we live when we choose to walk with the
Quran one of my teachers, he doesn't say, work for the sake of
Allah. He says, work with Allah. Work with Allah. Live with Allah.
Don't live for Allah. Yes, live for Allah, but live with Allah.
Living with the Quran, walking with the Quran is knowing that
when the Quran says in Allah, those who say, My Lord, is Allah,
kummastakamu, and they're firm on that
tetanus that the angels, they come down to greet them. Do not be
afraid, and do not be sad. And glad tidings for Paradise, which
you've been promised. And when Abu Bakr Al dilaho Ano asked some
people, what's this verse mean? Part? What does that mean that
you're affirming that faith? They said, people who don't commit
sins, people who don't commit sins, they're affirming that
faith. They don't commit sins. He said, No, you've given it a
meeting. It doesn't have it means people who are certain that
there's a hereafter.
And the Quran itself talks about when you struggle with that
certainty, there are times that any of us sit and wonder, is it
really going to happen? Is there really a hereafter? Is it really
going to happen? And the Quran addresses when Ibrahim alaihi
salam himself a prophet of Allah. Now, when he asked, show me how
you raised the dead, he's not asking because he doesn't believe.
He wants to keep his heart firm. And if that is Ibrahim alaihi
salam, then what about us? I.
We are people who the Quran describes as a nation that's been
chosen for his sake, not simply because you were born into a
nation, but because of the good we're supposed to do in
recognizing who Allah is, in living with Allah. So holding on
to the rope of Allah looks like holding on to the Quran, holding
on to the example of the prophets that came before, and knowing that
every single time you feel like you have messed up, and there's no
coming back from it, do exactly what the people who have already
made it did, and that is, they held onto this hope that Allah's
Mercy is greater than their sins, and if you are holding on so
desperately to your deeds. As Ibn Al FAW mentions that you think
Allah is only going to answer you when you do good. You are doing so
much good, you're doing so much good, that's when Allah is going
to answer you. It means that you are holding on more to your deeds
than the Mercy of Allah.