Maryam Amir – This Ummah Needs You
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AI: Transcript ©
I was only in Medina for two nights. So for two and a half
hours of the first night, I went from one guard to the other, from
one part of the message to another, from one person to
another, asking, is there any way I can get in? And every single
person said, Ask someone else or no. And after two and a half
hours, I said, Ya Allah, there was a sister who told me she meant to
offer me, anyhow, to get into the Lola. But I don't, I don't know
you have more wisdom, and as long as you're not upset with me, Ya
Allah. And I know that there are 1000s of people that cannot get
into the Lola right now because of the system that's been put so this
time, instead of internalizing at it as I've done something, I
acknowledge there are policies that maybe don't facilitate for
everyone to be able to access it. But I was, of course, Ya Allah. Ya
Allah, you see you see us, and you would never allow the Prophet
saliva, would never allow for no person who wants to visit him to
not be able to go pray under allah and be so close, especially as
long as you don't get the same ability. Of course, you can say
Salah from anywhere all Muslim, but it's not exactly the same of
the experience when you're physically there. But I said,
Hamzah, May Allah bring bring better for everyone. And the next
day, it was after salatul Fajr. I wanted to go visit sheikhapa
najali. He's a mohavend scholar, and he was in the Dena at the same
time he was going to give a lecture, and I wanted to listen to
the lecture. So I go into another hotel where he was staying and to
give the lecture. And I asked the Organizer, where is the lecture?
The organizer never responded. This hotel is so massive I don't
know where to go. So I see a group of women standing speaking in
English, and I stop, and I say, Excuse me, are you a part of a
guru press? And they say, No, with another group. I'm like, Okay,
thank you. I walk a little bit, and there's a sister who sees me,
and she's like, Wait, are you Miriam? I said, Yes. She said, I
have Aya. I'm like, Allahu, Akbar, which, by the way, of Aya is the
woman, but either side is up. Mashallah. It's been streamed over
five and a half million times all over the world. Please download it
for free. It is a an act that has women for Adam siders with all
different backgrounds, types of recitations, masha Allah, Tabatha
Allah and Masha Allah. We're so blessed by Imam Abdullah dib, the
most amazing for abula, shortest Senate in the world. His Masha
Allah son is here. We're so blessed having Ahmed here. Masha
Allah, He is such a gift to us, and he has endorsed it to bakala
so you can deliver great on Google. Her abut. Back to the
story. She's talking to me about ayah. And as we're talking this is
a group of women with one brother who's with them. And the brother
comes up and he says to me, he looks at me. He doesn't look at
the other sister. He points to me. He says, Are you coming with us to
the Rolla?
I'm like, Oh, I'm no, brother, I'm not part of your group. I just,
I'm just talking to a sister. He's like, you'll have to come with us
to the roll up. I said, I'm not. I don't. I'm not part of this group.
I don't have, like, a permit to get, to get in. And then he's
like, heal a cup. It's
kind of a lot. We stand in line for three hours to get into the
roll up, and as you're about to get in, I'm like, hello, a club. I
can't believe it. I'm about to get into the robot.
The guard stops me. The person before me and me, you are not
allowed to get in. The permit is only for the people in the front,
not for the rest of the people that are with your group. I'm
like, hello, Allah, but I was the only person who spoke Arabic in
this group, and the guard only spoke Arabic, which is such
injustice. Because I learned Arabic. I'm not a native Arabic
speaker, and if I hadn't had access to the language, this
entire group of women wouldn't have been able to fight their
court, their position. I spoke and everything. Explained the
situation. They had us lay on the side, and finally, they allowed us
to go. And these sisters told me that they wouldn't have been able
to get in if I hadn't been there to be able to fight for their
right to get in, and to explain the situation for us all to go in.
And why I want to share that story with you is actually because the
sister who told me that she may die out for me, I don't remember
who she is. I am not one of those people who forget no one knows.
I'm not one of those people who forget to make sure I want me. If
someone tells me, I may drop you in the world, I would remember you
for the rest of my life, but not her I do for the life of me. So if
you're in there, may I won't bless you. If it was you who's your
seat, may Allah bless you. I have no idea what it was, and the
reason I want to open with that is because this religion has
community embedded in its worship. You may not know who is praying
for you, but Allah swt has ordered all of us to pray for each other
all the time when we are making Salah and we are sending Salam
upon the believers. That is you, every single one of us may not
know who each other are, and you may be in this room and feel like
one, you don't know anyone maybe. But two, maybe you do, and you
still feel lonely. And three, maybe because of the genocide,
that's how.
And the horrific oppression that's happening in Sudan and Congo and
in all parts of this world, we witnessed it. We are witnesses.
And then we witness this, and we feel sometimes we're unable to
actually make an impact. Of course, we're doing everything we
can, but is our dry enough?
Salahuddin, he didn't sprout out of like a plant and just show up.
Salahuddin had generations of people that worked towards
liberation of Jerusalem before he entered the scene and when he
liberated Jerusalem. Do you know what he said? He said that it's
not just the people who were with him, physically, who are going on
the expedition, who helped liberate Jerusalem. It was the
people praying for the arrow to hit their mark, because those
people couldn't be a part of the of the group. And as they were
praying for the group to be successful, their prayers are as
important as the people who are physically with them. Your dua for
your brothers and sisters actually changes the scope of what this
ummah looks like. And there's an example of this
and a scholar's narration of his life. His name was Ali abubak. He
was a student in the 10th century. I believe in Mecca, or maybe it's
just, I don't know the exact country. Don't call me on that,
but many centuries ago, and he was in Mecca, and do you think that he
would have thought that he's going to write his life and one day in
America, people are going to be speaking about him because of this
specific incident,
this scholar was selling so that he could make money, so that he
could sustain himself as a student of knowledge and SubhanAllah. He
lost his job, and he had to sell all his books just to be able to
have enough money to eat. He was barely eating anything. And as he
was barely eating anything, he's enough. He goes to in front of the
cabin. He makes dua. He says, oh, Allah, you see my situation. He's
very hungry. He doesn't have any means to be able to have
provision, and he's praying for provision. And as he finishes that
dua, he sees a pouch that's on the floor. So he sees the pouches on
the floor. It's a red couch, and inside of it. He opens it, and he
finds jewels. He finds like a necklace, like this beautiful
jewel necklace. He takes it to his home, and he sits with it, and he
says, I have to find the person who's lost this he he's in a very
difficult state, and he's impoverished at this moment, but
he's not going to use it. He knows Allah is watching him, so he goes
and he hears near the area that he had found it. Now that he's gone
back sometime later, he sees a group of people talking about it,
and there's a man describing what he's lost. So he says to this man,
come and see because I might have what you're talking about. And he
asks for the vivid description. The description is correct. This
is an elderly man, and the elderly man says, Thank you for giving it
back to me. I want to give you 500 Dirham. 500 is Allah of Duna.
And he sat with himself. Ali Abu sat with himself for a moment, and
he thought to himself, why would I take this money from this elderly
man? I haven't done anything to earn it. All I did was not steal
it. I haven't done anything to earn this amount of money, and so
he insists that he doesn't take the money, and he gives the jewels
back, and they say goodbye. Much later,
this judge gets a position. He was a student at the time. Now he's
going to be a judge, and he gets a position in Spain. This is when
Spain was still Muslim rule. So he gets a position in Portugal, in
Cordova, and he's going to leave out of the port of Jeb. He's in
the ship and going towards Spain, and all of a sudden there's a huge
storm. The storm towers the ship he is hanging onto like a piece of
wood, and he finds himself waking up on an island. He's been
unconscious for days, and he's been taken care of by a group of
people, and they tell him, you're in Yemen. So as he spends time
recovering in Yemen,
he slowly becomes part of the community, familiar with the
community, until he tells them, okay, I need to leave now. I've
been here for such a long time. And they tell him, no, no, no, we
would like to offer you the position of imanship, because the
Imam had passed away the year before, and they won't have an
Imam, and they love their Imam, and they feel that he has very
similar qualities of integrity, so they want to invite him to be the
Imam. So now he is invited to be the Imam, he accepts it, and after
some time of being there, finally one of the men come to him and say
that the daughter of the imam who had passed away was entrusted like
he was supposed to be, her her supporter, like her guardian, and
the Imam wanted this man, this daughter, to marry someone who's
righteous, and so with the permission and acceptance of the
daughter, he's offering a proposal to the.
New Email. So Ali Abubakar accepts this proposal. He goes to meet the
daughter, and he When did he make sure he sees something around her
neck when you think it is,
all of those rumors, all of your right. Majala, the Jules, yes.
Essentials, yes, she's wearing st Jules, and when she's wearing
those same jewels, he says, Where did you get that? And the man
says, Oh, those were the jewels from Iron Man who gifted them to
the daughter. And these jewels have a very interesting story. He
had lost them in Mecca, and a very righteous man found them, and for
so many years this this father has been praying for this daughter to
meet this man. They were planning to go to Mecca to search for him.
He never got a chance before he passed away. But I'm so glad that
Allah, Allah has blessed you with having similar qualities of
integrity to marry this woman, who the daughter whose father was
praying for her to marry a man of these qualities. And then he says,
Allahu, Akbar, I am that man.
This father's dial. For how many years after meeting this man was
the reason why this ship
didn't make it, and this man was able to go to Yemen instead of and
Lucia, and that was how his cousin played out the Alhamdulillah. Only
was he able to fulfill the role of imanship, but he was able to marry
who was destined for him because of an action that was righteous in
Mecca, and because of the Barkha of the dua of that father.
Sometimes when we look at our realities and we feel like they
may not be supported, maybe you feel sometimes that you turn away
with your tears. I want you to know that Allah says in the Quran,
Allah talks about the people who they they're young people, and
they go because they want to go on a military expedition with the
Prophet sallallahu sallam, and they can't go because they don't
have enough provision. They just it's not because they they're not
healthy. It's not because they don't have the time. They just
don't have enough money to be able to have the amount that they need
to go on a long journey. So they turn away and their eyes filled
with tears. And I want you to know that the Quran reports everything
for a reason. The Quran could have reported them prior to dry saying,
Oh Lord, please give me permission. That's not what the
Quran records. The Quran records their tears. So when you are
turning away and you are filled with sadness, or your eyes are
filled with tears because of what's happening in Masada, or
because of what's happening anywhere or because of your own
life. Allah is Witness to that. And we see from the stories of the
righteous that when you plant those seeds of righteousness,
Allah doesn't just bring them back for you. They Allah brings them
back for community. Allah created community with that man. And of
course, you created community with the family that came from that
man. But the point is he was put in a specific place for a specific
reason. He was quite literally dragged there. And you may be too.
And what's incredible to me also is that Islam is not just about
the moment right now. It's about a continuation, a relationship that
lasts in the hereafter. So there are people who pass away. This is
narrated in Ibn Kathir, but then authenticates this narration,
where, when someone passes away, they are met by a group of people.
They're met by people who Allah has had mercy on it. These are
people who Allah is rewarding.
And these people see this person, and they say they're just like
welcoming them. They're giving them to them. They're welcoming
them to this life that's after here and before, the the real, the
eternal, the in between, the bones of
and so what do they say? They ask this person, they say, how is that
person that's still alive? Does that person get married? Does she
get married? Does she get married? It's interesting because I
specifically mentioned in a huggy, did he get married? Did she get
married? Just so cute that they want to know. And then what do
they say?
They say about someone who he says, Oh, that person already
passed away. That person passed away before me, like you didn't
have him. He was about that person already.
And that is when they realize that person who's passed away before,
the one that they are questioning, that person is no longer in the
rajma of Allah, which means that they've gone somewhere else.
They've gone to punishment. And so they discuss that, and they are
shown the deeds of the person that is now with them, the one who's
just passed away, the ones that are coming, sometimes they're
coming in crowds as they've passed away, and they're seeing their
deeds, and they are making dua that Allah blesses them because of
the good deeds that they have done. They are making dua for the
person who dies, who has now joined them, and now they are
praying for this person together in a group.
Prayed for Allah to continue to bless them with goodness, because
they tried in a difficult time. They use this word, these just
have some difficulty. Let's let him rest. Let's let her rest.
When we look at people in the Hereafter, can you do anything
without Allah's permission? No, we have to be well here we do. But in
the Hereafter, we are able to do what Allah allows us to do, which
means that Allah allows us to bring news from people here, news
from people that might miss you, use from people that you love, to
go into the hereafter, to share that news and give them comfort.
And they make dua for you, they make dua for us
to know that when we are searching for community, there is an entire
community in the hereafter. Of dua
allows us to recognize that our purpose is not just in this
moment, and it's not just for us. It's for the people who've passed
away, too, and the fact that that's so continuous. Have you
ever prayed for someone who's passed away centuries ago? Maybe
not specific person. Maybe you've said something like rolled the old
one had. Have you ever done that? Have you ever said, well, the low
end, yes, that's you. Maybe God for them centuries ago. You've
never met them, but you're praying for them. There's a continuous
relationship in our community when we pray for people in a continuous
way. So when we are looking at examples of those who have passed
away, and then they come in the dreams of some people, and they
are saying that I'm in a higher level of Paradise because you've
been making devour me. When we see that people have passed away, and
you see them in gardens of Jannah. And they say this is because of
the job the people who are praying for me, they come as gifts of
light in my grave. That is a community that can extend far
beyond this room. So when you feel lonely or when you feel like you
don't know what your purpose is, remember, this religion has
embedded within it purpose, purpose for you, so that even when
you don't know where to go, Allah is blessing you with people that
are praying for you, and not just people, not just people who else
the angels. And I love the content of the angels so much because I do
not feel like we talk about their role in our lives enough so we
sometimes don't know how we are not alone, really, because the
angels are ordered to pray for us at all times, there are angels
that have different roles. They have different responsibilities,
and one of them is simply to make dua of the believers night and
day, 24/7,
so when you are sitting here and there are angels praying for you,
when you are committing sin, there are angels praying for you when
you are thinking, I'm not worthy because I haven't done enough,
there are angels praying for you and the idea that you're not
worthy because you haven't done enough,
that idea is actually based, okay, hold on. Hold on. Have you ever
had that thought that Allah is not going to enter your DUA because
you haven't done as much as you used to do, or as much as you
should be doing this? Ramadan, is almost halfway over. Have you ever
felt like this? Ramadan, I've already wasted so much time. I
haven't been doing the most. I'm not doing the most this, Therefore
Allah may not be answering me the way that he would if I was doing
so much more. Have you ever had that thought? Yes, only Imam
Ahmed, no one else.
If you have had that thought, I want you to know that you don't
have the Mercy of Allah in your mind. And the reason is because,
if you are so focused on your own deeds, you focus more on your
deeds than the Mercy of Allah. And even al Qaeda mentions this, that
when somebody is making dua and they are thinking, Allah answered
me, I haven't I haven't even prayed today, Allah answered me. I
committed this many sins while I was fasting. Allah going to answer
me because of all these reasons, I haven't focused I'm not where I
should be in my Quran, whatever the reason.
So your hope in Allah's Mercy is not about Allah's mercy. Your hope
is in yourself. So when you're sitting there and you're thinking
about yourself not being good enough, and therefore Allah is not
going to answer you, because your deeds are not matching your
expectation of what you think he wants you to do, which, yes, I
mean, yes, we should all do. But Allah's Mercy is so much greater
than that, and having hope in His mercy that you are worthy of it,
even if you're not, that he will give it to you, even if you're not
worthy of it is an affirmation of who Allah is, not who you are.
It's an affirmation of the way Allah calls us to turn to Allah,
for Allah, not for us,
for Allah, because he is the generous, not because we are the
generous. That's what I bet whether or not you're generous
Allah.
Is the generous because that is something Allah is.
Right now, when we are wondering where our role may be,
I want us to recognize that we are coming in an in between time
period
where Palestine was free, and it's under occupation. But during the
time of the crusade, it was under occupation for 88 years,
and when salafidin came to liberate it, nuradin came before
him. And before nuradin, Imari Deen, and before him, there were
other individuals who worked towards it, and one of them was
nivel Mulk and nival Muk was someone who created a curriculum
within the school system to raise a generation of people to
understand the importance of ups to Go back to why upsodh is part
of our religion, because when the Crusaders came into Jerusalem and
they butchered the Jews and any Christians that they disagreed
with, and all of the Muslims, there was a small group of Muslims
who fled, and they took the musk of Rathman. They risk their lives
to get the most half and they fled to go to Syria. They walked into
Damascus, they found a scholar. His name was Zain. He was teaching
at the time. He sees a group of refugees entering, and they are
tattered and they are *, and they come to him and explain that
Palestine Jerusalem has been sacked. So many people have been
murdered, and when that happened,
zeal is sad. A scholar left his teaching. He went straight to the
dead, and he could give the news to the Khalif, and the Khalif
would not take the time to listen to him. So what he did instead,
was in Ramadan. He went to the biggest masjid, where he knew that
the Khalif was going to be giving a lecture. Excuse me, listening to
the lecture,
and he went to the front of the Masjid. When he went to the front
of the masjid, he started eating in the middle of Ramadan, and
everyone stood up and was like, What are you doing? It's really
funny, actually, because he was technically a traveler, so
himself, it was not called in the first place, but no one else knew
that. And for him, he made a statement. The statement he made
was, you are up in arms over me eating in Ramadan. What about the
slaughter of your brothers and sisters.
That was the beginning of the umma starting to wake up to why
Palestine, why Jerusalem, why upsal needed to be liberated. But
do you notice how many decades it took until that time?
In that time period, there were so many people, Noureddine himself,
right before Salahuddin Inara Deen, who fought, physically
fought. They gave everything ismat Deen. She was the wife of Nora
Deen, and then later she became the wife of Salahuddin. She would
give them advice on military strategy, baltimorelandia.
She was a scholar who was their Mufti. Along with her husband,
they were the Mufti and the musiya of Salahuddin and Nordin. But how
many decades of prayer did it take until Salahuddin was able to
emerge? That's one the dua of us is not unheard. We are seeping. We
are reaping. We are reaping seeds. We are making the seeds right now
with the dua that we are making that we may not see the fruit, but
Inshallah, but we are making the joy, and it's being counted, just
like the tears are being witnessed by Allah. And second,
there was someone that nuradin commissioned to make a pulpit. Oh,
he was a wood
a carpenter. He commissioned him to make a pulpit to take into
upsell. And nuradin didn't know if they're going to get into upsal.
They were nowhere close to upsal. But he commissioned him because he
said that Inshallah, we will go into upsal, and when we do, we're
going to put this pulpit there, this carpenter. We don't know his
name. He's not a famous name that everyone just said, talks about.
But he had a role. It was doing his job, his specific job, the job
he already does, but it was with the intention that he's doing it
for the liberation of this ummah. Him making that pulpit came in
with Salah Adim. He wasn't there to witness it, but Salah hadeem
Put that pulpit there. And for centuries, people witnessed that
pulpit over and over and over. How much reward did this man get? And
no redeem get having it from.
Every time someone stood on it and gave a khutba, and the believers
made dua, and they need to offer the liberation of every single
person, no matter their religion. They pray because our religion is
justice. Allah listens to the oppressed, even if they're not a
Muslim, if they call out to him, he listens to that Subhan wa
taala. So how many people stood on that pulpit and made drive to
Allah and the believers, the Muslims who were praying, said
Amin, and they could not have found what would come in the
future, just like we could not have found what we are witnessing
of the genocide. But have we not woken up in a different way, and
so are we not like in that between time, in that in between time, the
prayers that we are making for this Allah, they are not being
unheard, and they are not being unseen. You are not alone. We are
not alone. We are praying for one another, even though we don't know
each other's names, because Allah ordered us to do so. In our salah,
every single day, there are people who are praying for us behind our
backs, and we not may not even know what the angels say that
mean. And for you, Allah has ordered angels to pray for us, for
this ummah. And when Inshallah, we meet our loved ones in the
hereafter. When Inshallah, we are blessed with meeting the people in
the barzaq, they are going to be praying for us too. And finally,
this is probably my favorite narration of all times, saraidan
and Jubeir, really aloha and who
he narrates in a tattoo of an ayah of those who will be entered into
paradise with their loved ones. And he goes, and there's a person
in paradise. And when they're in paradise, they're looking around.
They don't see their their loved ones, they don't see their dad,
they don't see their grandpa, they don't see loved ones. And so they
say, where are my loved ones? And it said to them, Oh, you, you did
the deeds, you did the work, you did the action. But your your
loved ones? They didn't, they didn't do that same work.
So this person responds, and they say, oh, Allah.
I worked for myself, but I also worked for them. I also worked for
them. And so then it is said, Bring those loved ones up to this
level of Jannah, because Allah doesn't want this person in Jannah
to be sad.
And every single time you are worried about someone you love,
including yourself,
make magnify your intention that what you're doing is not just for
you, it's for every single person that you love. It's for people
you've never met but you pray for. It's for the people of Alessia who
they really their job. They don't need ours. But of course, we
should still like draw. Obviously.
We are not alone. Hekta until even in Jannah, if you don't, if you
didn't reach that level by your work, you reach that level by
someone else loving you and praying that you enter with them.
So creating community. Remember, looks like the people around you.
What I'd like you to do inshallah as we end is just take a moment
and give you so cheesy, because I don't have an ending. Just say,
send that to the person on your right and on your left. And I draw
for me. I mean, I told you a leg. Okay, let yourself into a leg. So
like you.