Mirza Yawar Baig – Lessons from the Anbiya – I love the Messenger #61
AI: Summary ©
The story of the Persian Empire and its split with the western Roman Empire is discussed, with Heraclius leading the Persian Empire and ultimately destroyed the city of Stestiphon. Heraclius claimed that the Eastern Roman Empire would not break the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire, but the interviewers were not allowed to say much. The story also touches on false claims made by Heraclius to the Islamist movement and the importance of following rules and waking up to the truth.
AI: Summary ©
Khaled bin Wadi Radialanu brought the army back
to Wadena
with only 12 casualties.
Just 12.
Just being in a battle with
the most powerful army in the world
of the time with odds which were unbelievable.
3000 on one side, 200,000
on the other side. And to be able
to come out of that
with just 12 casualties,
and, of course, obviously, having
left their mark on the enemy,
is something
incredible. It's something which shows
the help of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
which was with the Sahaba of Rasulullah
We come to another very interesting stage in
the,
work of in in the seerah, the,
a different form of Dawa
that Rasoolullah and Sanib did.
To understand this again, it's very important to,
to have to have a to be clear
about history.
And,
that,
history of the time was,
that there were 2 major
empires, world
of of world empires in that service. They
didn't close the whole world, but they they
ruled,
you know, most of, the world of that
part.
One was the,
the Roman Empire or the Byzantine Empire, which
was the Eastern Roman Empire,
and, the other one was,
the Persian Empire.
Both of these were
almost, by that time, almost
over a 1000 years old. And, so they
had the Persian empire's Persians were also actually
longer than that, maybe more like 2000 years
old.
And, so they had all of that, the
accumulated,
prestige
and power and wealth of
those
millennia, literally,
century after century of,
rule and power and authority, and those kings
came with that kind of
with that arrogance,
of being kings.
To these people, Nasruh alaihsan Salam sent
letters,
and he just he's sending us one person
with a with one letter to one of
these kings. He's not sending detachments of army
and this and that, the other. There was
no way that that the Arabs, the Muslims
could have competed with either of these armies,
you know,
in in a head to head battle anyway.
So Rasool appointed
Yahya bin,
Saliza Al Kalbi.
Yahya bin Kalbi,
Yahya Al Kalbi,
Odheelan,
to to take his letter
to,
Heraclius,
who was the,
Byzantine emperor, the emperor of the Eastern Roman
Empire,
which is called the Byzantium Empire.
This was the name
they used to refer to themselves,
the Byzantines.
The Muslims used to call them Rome,
or Romans.
The capital of, the empire was, in Istanbul
in cons what what in those days, what
was called Constantinople.
Istanbul is a
name which came
much later, almost a 1000 years later
when Constantinople
was conquered by
the,
by the Ottomans by by Mehmed the first,
of the Ottoman Empire.
The Roman Empire was split into
the 2 into 2, the Western Roman Empire
with, its capital in Rome and the Eastern
Roman Empire
with its capital in,
Constantinople.
There were major theological differences between the Eastern
Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church was
the patriarch of Jerusalem,
while that of
the Roman Catholic church,
was the pope.
Heraclius was a military commander
from,
now what is present day Tunis, which is
which in those days was Carthage,
who rose from the ranks to become the
emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in 610
AD.
The Roman Empire was going through a difficult
time and was and was being pounded by
the Persians, and they were losing to them
in battle after battle.
In 6 13 AD,
Damascus fell,
and then in 614,
Jerusalem fell. And the Persians
carried away the,
what the Christians call the true cross.
This was a wooden cross that,
the Christians believe that Jesus was Saracenab was
crucified
that that relic is not an authentic relic.
But we are looking at it from how
the Christians see it.
Heraclius was a very strong leader. He was
a good military commander, but his army was
losing to the Persians. In 6 21,
Heraclius
himself
led a campaign against the Persians
and took over one city after another and
retrieved what was taken from them, including the
true cross.
There's a very interesting series on,
called Empire,
which is by, which is a podcast by
William
Dalrymple
and,
on on BBC.
It's called Empire.
And, Anita Arand,
she is the BBC correspondent. Anita Anand and,
William Danube.
It's it's called Empire.
And in this, podcast, there is a detailed
episode, I think more than one episode, about
the Persian empire in which all of this
is mentioned. Heraclius is mentioned and the,
how these
awards went from one
direction to the other, how the how the
fortunes of the 2 empires
changed,
and I would recommend listening to that. It's
very, very interesting.
Henochius,
eventually entered Persia itself and defeated the Persians
in their own country.
He took over. He
invested in in
the city of,
Stestiphon, which was the
capital, and he actually put out the fire
in their fire temple. There was a lot
of students. He put out the fire in
their fire temple.
Now in Surat Arun,
Allah prophet
prophesied this in the first ayat of
Rome will be successful, will be,
will will win.
And,
he he even gave the
period of time and he said in in
in 2 to 9 years. That was the
the period given. That's what happened. In 6:30,
so that's in 6:21,
he started this campaign. And in 6:30, he
was successful and he was he conquered.
Henacles marched into Jerusalem barefoot,
as a pious Christian pilgrim
with
the with the true cross on his back
to fulfill his goal.
And he restored the great cross to its
place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
which is
one of the 2 most sacred shrines,
of Christians which are in Jerusalem.
He was given a
a tremendous welcome with carpets and flowers and
so on and and was received with great
honor.
It was at this time that when he
was at the height of his power and
glory
that he received the letter from Rasulullah.
Heraclius listened to the dua of Rasulullah,
but in the end, he rejected it.
Adonus Marathai reversed
the victories of the Romans, and he lost
city after city, Egypt and Syria and Palestine
and Jordan and Lebanon. And in the end,
in the time of Muhammad al Fatih,
the Eastern Roman Empire ceased to exist when
Constantinople
fell to the Muslims.
The data
of,
of this,
of of Rasool of Salaam,
was taken, as I said, by Yahya Al
Khalbe,
Ogellano,
who was a very handsome man. He was
very,
he
was very manly and very good looking.
When Jibreel Salam would come to
in the human form, he would come in
the form of Yahya al Kalbi.
Heraclius read the letter and said, turn Syria
upside down
and bring me some people
from the people of this man.
So it's
word was sent out and people
Romans were searching for the Arabs, and they
found a house of air and his companions
in Gaza.
They were there trading,
and they brought him to Heracles.
Heracles ordered the men of Aviso,
to stand behind him.
He told Abu Sufyan to come forward. He
told his men to stand behind him. And
he said if he lies, I'm going to
ask him a question. If he lies, make
a sign to me.
Abu Zafar said, I have never met a
man
more astute and more clever and more intelligent
than this man, which is the emperor Herakles.
I knew my men would not betray me
before him, but I was a man of
honor and dignity, and I didn't want to
lie before them.
Also, I feared that they will tell they
will tell others, and I would be known
as a liar. So he's saying that he
didn't he didn't,
think that his men would, you know, actually
make a sign and so on to Heraclius,
but they would know he's lying.
And,
this would,
he didn't want to lie because he said
I was an I'm an honorable man. Also,
I don't want that to spread. People will
say I was gonna lie. This would the
the news would then travel somewhere.
So Helakkil has asked him a series of
questions. It's quite amazing, these questions.
He asked him, who is Mohammed sallallahu alaihi
wasallam?
He did not say, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Abu
Abu Suttian said, who was Sayyidul Khazab?
He said he is a magician, and he's
a liar.
Heraclius said, I'm not interested in listening to
you cursing.
I want you to tell me about him.
So Herakkles was very clear. He was not,
he's not going to stand for, you know,
Abu Suki and saying whatever he
wanted to say.
So he said, I'm not interested in,
listening to your cursing.
I want you to tell me about him.
Then he said, what sort of family lineage
does he have among you?
I was a guy and said his ancestry
is a distinguished ancestry because he was to
which Abusikar himself belonged.
Heraclius said, asked him, was any of his
forefathers a king? Abusikar said no because the
Arab never had any kings.
Heraclius says, has anyone among you come with
a similar claim before him?
Abu Sufyan said no.
He declares,
do the majority of his followers belong to
the aristocracy or are they poor people?
Right? So do the majority or do do
most of his followers belong to the aristocracy?
Are they wealthy people and so on, or
are they poor people? A wussiganders said majority
of them are poor people.
Heraclius says, are they on the increase or
decrease?
Said they're on the
increase. Heraclius
asked him, does any one of them turn
away from his religion after accepting it? I
was gonna say no.
And like I said, have you ever known
him to lie,
before he started to make this claim?
Right?
Our son said no. Because as we know,
Musa rasool was not only
truthful, but he was truthful to the extent
that the people gave him. And the same
people, they all agree on the other. They
gave him the name
of Assadu Kholami,
the truthful and the
trustworthy.
Then Heraclius asked him, is he given to
treasury?
And was the guy said, no.
We, however, have an,
armistice agreement with him, and this is after
Soleil Divya,
but we don't know what he will do
in this period.
I was gonna say that was the,
only
negative thing that I was able to speak.
I was able to sneak in.
Then Heraclius asked him, have you ever fought
him? I was a fan said yes.
Heraclius asked him, how did the how did
the fighting go? Abu Sufyan said sometimes he
will, sometimes he will.
Heraclius asked him, what sort of commandments does
he give you?
Abu Zubay has said he tells us to
worship Allah alone without ascribing divinity
to anyone else.
He tells us not to follow our fathers,
meaning their previous religion.
He commands us to pray, to be truthful
and jest,
and to be kind to our fellow human
beings.
Then arrived then Heraclius
gave his assessment of the whole thing of
what he was hearing.
Henrikhous said,
you said he enjoys
distinguished ancestry.
This is the case with all prophets and
messengers.
You said nobody made such a claim among
you before him.
So I can't say
that he is imitating anyone.
You also denied that any of his forefathers
was a king, so he's not the claimant
of a kingdom.
You also said that he was not known
to tell a lie before he came out
with this message.
Well, I know
that he would not start by lying
about Allah.
If he never lied before, then he's not
going to start
telling lies about Allah.
Then he said, you stated that the poor
are his followers.
This is the case with all messengers of
from Allah.
The fact that his followers are on the
increase is always associated with true faith until
it is complete.
You have also mentioned that no one turns
away from his religion after having embraced it.
This is a characteristic
of true faith when its light shines in
people's hearts.
You also denied that he was treacherous, and
no messenger of Allah was a treacherous person.
You also told me that he calls upon
you to believe in the oneness of Allah,
to pray, to be truthful, and chaste.
If what you have told me is true,
then he will have
supremacy
right where
I stand.
I knew his time was due,
but I did not think that he would
belong to your people.
Had it been in my power, I would
have certainly taken the trouble to meet him
and wash his feet.
It's quite amazing
testimony
of truthfulness,
of,
you know, of
integrity,
of
of intelligence, of being able to recognize
the truth when
when it is shown to you,
quite amazing.
It's a pity that,
after saying and doing all of this,
Herakkir still did not
accept
Islam.
Allah
said that you cannot
guide those who wish, but Allah I can
guide whoever he wishes. And,
Subhanallah, this is,
it's quite sad that a man who had
the intelligence and who had the ability to
recognize the truth when he saw
it still did not
accept it and did not enter into Islam.
This letter that Rasool
sent
to Heraclius,
through Yahya al Kabi or Delano.
It said, in the name of Allah,
the merciful, the beneficent.
From Mohammed,
the
messenger of Allah,
to Heraclius,
the great one of the Romans.
Peace be on those who follow the right
guidance.
I call you
to believe in Islam.
Accept Islam
and you will be safe
and Allah will give you double the reward.
If you decline,
you will bear
the responsibility
of
the farmers, meaning your people. You will bear
the responsibility
of their disbelief.
Let me,
repeat that. It's a beautiful,
beautiful message.
He says, peace be upon
those who follow
right guidance.
I call you to believe in Islam.
Accept Islam, and you will be safe.
And
will give you
double the reward.
If you decline,
you will bear the responsibility
for your people's disbelief.
After the letter
was read, Abu Sufyan said, when he said
what he said and he finished reading the
letter,
there was pandemonium in the court. The noise
became
so loud,
and
we were driven out.
I said to my people, this, Ibn Arabo
Qabsa,
this is the name they gave to his,
this affair has gone to the point
where he where he even scares the kings
of the pale skins.
Thereafter, I was convinced that he would prevail,
and thereafter,
Allah
drew me into Islam.
And this is for Sufjan's
father-in-law whose
statement.
Imagine here the the mercy of Allah,
how Allah
guides
those who
who truly have Islam in their
who truly seek guidance. You know, this
is a from an Islamic era, other guides
we want.
And that depends on what's
true in the heart of the person, and
Allah knows what was in his heart.
Tried to tell his patriarchs that they should
accept Islam, but they got very angry.
Obviously, their people don't like to lose
their position of authority.
So he told them that he was only
testing them in faith. He was afraid for
his kingdom.
He loved his kingdom and position too much.
Abu Sufyan said that sweat was falling
from the forehead of
when the letter was being read to him.
He knew what the truth was, but did
not have the courage to accept it.
He told someone, if I could read Muhammad's,
I would have done so. But she feared
for his kingdom
and his position and his wealth and did
not accept Islam.
If you just think about this one incident,
this is our problem today.
The issue of Herakias
is our problem today.
We recognize the truth.
We know it is the truth.
We have no doubt that this is the
truth,
but we will not follow
it. Hamdulillah, we were born into Islam.
Most of us were born Muslims.
Those who are not born Muslims came into
Islam in one way or the other,
but we never
but ask ourselves, I need to ask myself,
do I follow Islam completely and totally as
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala ordered me to follow?
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said, yeah, you will
let me a manu.
And totally and completely and do not follow
the footsteps of Shaitan. Truly,
he is your worst enemy.
Now
this is the problem with
the vast majority of Muslims on the face
of the earth today.
We follow Islam selectively.
A selective obedience is disobedience because, obviously,
by definition,
if there are, for example, 3 commandments, 3
rules, 3 orders, 3 things that Allah has
told me to do, and I choose to
do 2 of them and I leave out
1, then while
I'm obeying those 2, I'm also consciously disobeying
the third one.
Now this is not acceptable
as far as Allah
is concerned because he said enter into Islam
fully and totally and completely.
The reason we need to enter totally and
completely is because Islam came for our benefit.
And like anything else,
only complete
following of a prescription, only complete following of
a
system
will result
in benefit from that system.
Take anything you like.
Right? Take anything you like, whether it's a
diet, whether it's a a course of medicine
to, cure a particular ailment or disease,
whether it is
working out in the gym to increase your
physical strength,
right, whether it's a course, an academic
course in
a school or college,
will you get a degree to do part
part of the course? And so what did
you say after all, I attended so many
classes? No.
You have to complete the whole course.
Only then will you be permitted to sit
for the exam, and if you pass the
exam, you get a degree.
Nobody gives you a degree for sit for
for listening to, you know,
10% or 20% or even 90% of the
lectures. Nobody will give you a degree.
You will still have that
bit that you did not do
pending.
And until you complete that, you will never
get a degree.
The same thing for everything else.
If you are if you are sick and
the doctors prescribe for you certain course of
treatment, then you do only have the treatment.
Or if the treatment consists
of some medicine, then it also consists of
a certain diet, eat this and don't eat
that, and you do all of that, the
opposite of that.
Do all of that, the opposite of that,
then you will not get cured.
The disease will get worse.
Same thing with, you know, you go to
the gym,
and the coach tells you you are you
are in the gym, they tell you do
this these exercises these exercises.
So many reps of this, so many reps
of that. So much time on on the,
treadmill or whatnot, and you don't do all
of that. You do only a part of
that. You will not get results. I mean,
this is a I'm sorry. I you know,
it's like,
talking to infants, but this is the reality.
This is our reality.
We want to take bits and pieces of
Islam,
which suit us,
and we follow those,
and we leave out the
rest.
Allah prescribed
5 4
salah. Along with the 4 salah are the
sunnah makada.
Now we have people who will
not pray the 5.
We have people who will pray the 5,
but they won't pray the one time. You
have people who will
deliberately
leave a salah and make it Hada
for whatever worldly reason. There's no worldly reason
that
justifies
leaving a salah. None at all.
But we do that.
I have a meeting. I have this. I
have that. I'm going to the mall and
whatnot. Right?
One
person I know tells me, you know, I
I make it challah because,
I don't have at that time, and,
if I make, then my makeup
gets, spoilt.
You're going before the one who gave you
that face in the first place.
So we take the salah, salah. We have
those who pray the 5 salah on time,
but they will not play the salah kada.
What does it tell us?
Similarly for everything else.
We have men who will not grow their
beards, who shave their beards. We have women
who will not do the hijab.
Right? When they see an imam, they see
a a a a a a a a
a a a
a sheikh,
then they sort of gracefully
drape a dupatta on their heads and just
put a cloth like this on their heads.
Why?
Why you would do that? Because the hijab
is for Allah. It's not for the for
whoever is coming before you.
You're obeying the.
So if you want to resum your
then, you know
really, I mean, just think about this. This
is our our problem,
and this is what we see in in
in in Herakles. He he he,
knew what the truth was. He understood it,
but he didn't follow it because he was
following his
own desires.
He is the king. He is ruling. He's
got his kingdom. He's got power and authority,
glory, whatnot, whatnot.
And in the end, what happens?
In the end, the day will come and
be with me to Allah.
Yesterday, I
got news of the death of 2
of my dear friends. The mother of one
of my very good friends, and she also
was a good friend,
and also my uncle.
2 people
who died who I knew died on the
same day.
Before I moved to America in 2019,
2 other uncles of mine
died on the same day, the same house,
and I did the for both of them.
I would have just had these
wake up calls, these reminders come to us
every single day.
Which one of us has not attended a
janadah? Which one of us
doesn't did does not know anyone who died?
Do this. Take your children to to the
denazas. Take them to
participate in a bosal
washing the body.
It's a very salutary experience. It's an amazing
experience, a learning experience experience for anyone who
has an intelligence and who has a heart.
Don't deprive your children. Don't deprive yourself of
that.
So, really, we have to
understand and wake
up. The purpose of of all these zero
lectures, the purpose of all
religious study is not just to give you
a bunch of stories to tell people no.
It is for ourselves to think and reflect
and so on and think about it and
think,
This is what
there's nothing that I am doing today which
is new.
My obedience is not new. My disobedience is
not new.
There are people before me who have done
both,
and
we know the result of both. We know
the result of obedience, and we know the
result of disobedience.
Why would we still do something
where we know that the result is negative?
What if we do if we continue with
that,
what does that say about our intelligence? What
does that say about our faith? What does
that say about our belief in meeting Allah
Subhanahu Wahebada? What our our own belief in
the answer?
I remind myself when you
when we listen to these lectures, listen with
that consciousness.
To say that this lecture is about me.
It's not Arrakis. It's
It's me. It's not it's not how much
you owe. It's what you owe.
It's not how much. It's our attitude towards
that.
So whether you want a little bit or
you want more,
the attitude towards that, do we give that
precedence
over the obedience of Allah
There's nothing wrong in being a king, but
if you are a king who disobeys Allah,
that is what is wrong.
Allah means be a king. The king who
is obedient to Allah That to Allah's master.
That will automatically make you the most beautiful,
the most powerful, the most
popular king in the world. Because if you
are obedient to Allah,
then your kingship and your authority
will focus only towards
doing good.
Helping your people, being good to your people,
being good to other people around you, being
good in in all the different,
you know, places and for that you are
in and so on and so forth.
Standing for justice, standing for compassion,
standing
standing against injustice,
which will make you a very popular thing.
And the same thing
applies to everyone and everyone.
You will not be a king for this
in your home, in your society, in your
community, in your country.
Try to be the best human being that
you can be. Try to be the most
beneficial. The said
the best of people is the one who
is the most beneficial to people.
Allah said we have sent you for the
benefit of people.
So let us recognize the truth,
let us believe the truth, and let us
follow the truth completely,
not piecemeal.