Mirza Yawar Baig – Sahaba The Gold Standard Session 08
AI: Summary ©
The title of Islam is discussed, including the use of "naqis" and the potential for confusion. The speakers also discuss the importance of showing evidence of one's belief in the Bible and the need for patience and understanding in difficult situations. The shaping of Islam in real time is emphasized, with a focus on establishing a principle in Islam beyond the deen of Allah and the deen of Islam.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen,
wa salatu wa salamu ala sharafi al-anbiyai
wal-mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasulullahi sallallahu alaihi wa ala
alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, tasliman kathiran kathiran.
Fama ba'du.
My brothers and sisters, I want to pick
up from where we finished last session, which
is the issue, the six qualities that the
Sahaba, Ridwanullahi alaihi majmain, that I want to
pick up from their lives.
There were people with multiple qualities, I am
just picking up six, which I think are
probably the most important and this is my
naqis assessment.
And I am picking them more, not because
I think they are more or less important,
but because these were present in the lives
of all of them.
There were people, there were individuals with other
qualities, which were specific to them, very special
to them and their fadail, but these six
were common to all of the Sahaba, Ridwanullahi
alaihi majmain.
So, they could be called as qualities that
describe the culture of the Sahaba as the
blessed companions of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Quick list to enumerate, Iman and Yaqeen, Knowledge
and Action, Brotherhood of Faith, Handling of Ikhtilaf,
of Differences of Opinion, Willingness to Invest in
Islam, and the sixth one is Dawah, which
is to convey the message of Islam to
the rest of the world.
We briefly mentioned Iman and Yaqeen last week,
so I just want to touch on that
and start and go back there and start
from there.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned these two
words, Iman and Yaqeen, in the Quran, right
in the beginning, in the first ayat of
Suratul Baqarah, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
said, الذين يؤمنون بالغيب ويقيمون الصلاة ومما رزقناهم
ينفقون and then He said, والذين يؤمنون بما
أنزل إليك وما أنزل من قبلك وبالآخرة هم
يوقنون Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, jalla
jalaluhu, in the ayat number three and four
of Suratul Baqarah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
said, He mentioned the sahaba, He mentioned the
believers, and He said, jalla jalaluhu, they are
those who believe in al-ghaib, in the
unperceivable, I do not use the word unseen
because there are many ways of perception and
something, if something cannot be seen, but if
it can be perceived in any other way,
it cannot be called ghaib, for example, the
air we breathe, we cannot see it, it
is not in the ghaib, it is in
the alam ash-shahada, because we can perceive
it, we can see it, we can feel
it, you can even hear it when the
wind is blowing and so on, in many
different ways, so it is not part of
al-ghaib.
So, al-ghaib is something which is completely
unperceivable by any means whatsoever and will remain
unperceivable, it is not something which can be
discovered at some point in time, for example,
the conditions in the grave, for example, what
happens on the day of judgement, for example,
what happens when we are gathered before Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, what happens as we
cross the Sirat, the actual situation of Jannah
and Jahannam, may Allah protect us from Jahannam,
all of these and more are things which
are in the ghaib, they are unperceivable, we
only know about them to the extent that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose to inform
us.
What Allah did not inform us, we do
not know, we don't speculate, we don't imagine
and so on and so forth.
So, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, these
are the people who believe in al-ghaib,
the hereafter, and they establish as-salah and
they spend out of what we have provided
for them, and they are those who believe
in the Quran and the Sunnah, which has
been sent down to you, O Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and in that which were
sent down, the books which were sent down
before you, that these books are or were
from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and they
believe with certainty in the hereafter.
A couple of disclaimers here, which is that,
the believers are those who believe that the
books of Allah jalla jalaluhu, which were sent
before the Quran was revealed, and we know
about a few of them, we know about
the Zaboor, which does not exist anymore, which
was sent to Dawood a.s., we know
about the Suhuf Ibrahim, the books of Ibrahim
a.s., which were sent to him, which
also do not exist.
We know about the Injil, about the Torah,
the book that was sent to Musa a
.s., and we know about the Injil, which
is the book that was sent to Isa
a.s., both the Torah and the Injil
exist, but not in their original form, they
have been changed.
So, here we are saying that we believe
in the book as it was revealed.
So, we do not believe in whatever it
has become, it has been made, we don't
believe in the changes, we do not combine
the word of Allah with the word of
any human being, no matter how learned or
no matter how eminent that human being may
have been or may have been considered to
have been, we believe that what is divine
is divine and what is not divine is
not divine and we do not combine the
two.
So, therefore, in this case, you will see
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned these
two words.
In the first ayat, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala said, يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْغَيْبِ These are the people
who have Imaan in Al Ghayb, Imaan in
the Hereafter, Imaan in the Unperceivable, Al Ghayb.
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said,
وَبِالْآخِرَةِ هُمْ يُؤِقِنُونَ And He said that they
have Yaqeen in the Hereafter, in the Akhirah.
Now, in the first case, Allah used the
word Imaan.
And in the second case, Allah used the
word Yaqeen.
So, this shows us that these are two
different concepts.
I submit to you that Imaan and Yaqeen
are two different concepts.
But are obviously related.
And one comes out of the other.
Imaan is to hold a belief about something.
To believe that this thing, whatever it is
we believe in, is true.
Yaqeen is to understand how that thing relates
to you and affects you.
I think I gave a lot of examples
of that in the last session.
Imaan is the foundation.
If you don't have Imaan, there cannot be
any Yaqeen.
Because Yaqeen comes from Imaan.
Yaqeen arises from Imaan.
Yaqeen is the culmination of Imaan.
Imaan is the beginning.
Yaqeen is the proof that we have Imaan.
Imaan is to look at the sky which
is showing signs of rain and believing that
it will rain.
Yaqeen is that you take an umbrella with
you when you go out.
That happens because you understand how the thing
that you have Imaan in is likely to
affect you.
So, I have Imaan that it will rain
and I don't want to get wet, so
I am taking an umbrella when I go
out.
When you have Imaan in the Akhira, it
means that you believe in it that it
will come to be one day.
When you have Yaqeen in it, it means
that you understand how that day, how the
Akhira, how the hereafter will affect you and
me.
And so, you and me, we take steps
to protect ourselves from its negative consequences.
We have Imaan in Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala jalla jalaluhu and His Messenger ﷺ and
in the Akhira, Alhamdulillah.
But the question is, do we have Yaqeen?
Do we have Yaqeen?
What in our lives is proof, is evidence
that we have Yaqeen?
The proof of Yaqeen is action, it's Amal.
If our lives don't show signs that we
are taking action to prepare ourselves for the
Akhira, then it means that we don't have
Yaqeen in it, though we may have Imaan.
But it is Yaqeen that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala mentioned as the characteristic of the
Muttaqeen, as the characteristic of the person of
Taqwa.
Remember, all the promises in the Quran are
for the Muttaqoon, people of Taqwa.
Not merely the Muslimoon, people who have just
entered Islam.
No, promise is for the Muttaqeen.
The Sahaba had Yaqeen in a way that
we cannot, that perhaps we cannot even imagine.
For them the Akhira was as real as
the dunya or more.
Sayyidina Ali bin Abi Talib r.a. used
to say, that if the Jannah and the
Jahannam were brought in front of me and
I was looking at them directly, there would
not be any change in the level of
my Imaan.
Meaning, I already believe in them with that
level of certainty that it cannot be increased.
May Allah grant us Imaan like this.
And that's the reason why we have, we
see so many examples of the Sahaba giving
preference to the Akhira over the dunya in
every way, in every action.
And they didn't stop, they didn't say, okay,
I've done this one, I'm good for that,
I need not do anything more, no.
Now this is what we need to develop
in ourselves.
Interestingly, when they invested in the Akhira, Allah
subhana wa ta'ala gave them the dunya
anyway.
But they got it as a gift, not
at the cost of their Akhira.
They did not pay for the dunya with
their Akhira.
They got it as a gift.
Now that is the secret of success.
This is like getting upgraded to first class
when you buy an economy ticket, right?
But remember, nobody gets, nobody who does not
have a ticket gets upgraded to first class.
Upgraded automatically means that you already have a
ticket in that area.
Now my question here is that Alhamdulillah, when
we say we have Iman, if we bring
it to the level of Yaqeen, then we
invest with Allah subhana wa ta'ala, then
we will get the reward that Allah subhana
wa ta'ala promised.
Because the promises of Allah subhana wa ta
'ala are all true.
I know we all believe these things, but
the question here is do we believe in
it enough to be able to show this
to Allah subhana wa ta'ala as evidence.
So in this context I want to mention
and remind myself and you about the story
of two of the Sahaba.
Two of the Saabiqoon wa la Baroon.
Two of the ones who, even among the
ones who were the first.
These two were in the first ranks of
those who were first.
Sumayya bin Khayyat radhiAllahu anha and her husband
Yasir ibn Amir radhiAllahu anhu.
Sumayya bin Khayyat radhiAllahu anha, she passed away
in 615 CE, is known in Islamic history
as the first person to be martyred, the
first person who gave her life, for having
accepted Islam in pre-Hijra Mecca.
Sumayya bin Khayyat radhiAllahu anha was Ethiopian and
she was the wife of Yasir bin Amir
and the mother of Ammar ibn Yasir.
Both well-known early entrants into Islam.
The earliest reference to this incident is found
in the biography of Ibn Hisham, which is
called Siratu Rasulullah ﷺ, the
biography or the way of Muhammad ﷺ.
Sumayya bin Khayyat radhiAllahu anha was a slave
of Abu Hudayfa ibn al-Mughira, who later
gave her in marriage to Yasir bin Amir.
Yasir bin Amir al-Ansi, he died also
in the same year, because, you know, they
were murdered one after the other, 615.
Yusuf is known as the second person in
history to be martyred for having accepted Islam.
He belonged to a Yemeni tribe called the
Madhij.
He and his two brothers visited Mecca in
565 to look for their maternal relatives.
Instead of returning to Yemen, Yasir radhiAllahu anhu
settled in Mecca under the patronage of Abu
Hudayfa ibn al-Mughira, who gave him in
marriage his slave, Sumayya bin Khayyat radhiAllahu anha,
who bore from him, from her, they had
three sons, who raised Ammar and Abdullah.
Ammar bin Yasir radhiAllahu anhu was later freed
by Abu Hudayfa ibn al-Mughira.
Yasir, Sumayya and Ammar radhiAllahu anhum were among
the first converts to Islam and all converted
to Islam between 610 and 613.
Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam received the first
revelation in 610.
By 615, five years after Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam's declaration of prophethood, persecution of the
followers of Islam rapidly increased and intensified.
It was the poor and the helpless always
who were the first victims.
Bilal bin Rabah radhiAllahu anhu and others like
him, especially the slaves, were subjected to torture
and local leaders proclaimed a ban of trade
with the Muslims, prohibiting the people of Mecca
from providing food and medicine and so on
to members of the new movement.
These were followed, that means these bans and
so on, were followed by the murder of
Sumayya radhiAllahu anha and Yasir radhiAllahu anhu by
Abu Jahl.
The Maghzoom clan used to, they would take
out Ammar ibn Yasir with his father and
mother in the heat of the day and
tie them up to posts and leave them
to burn in the desert in the heat
of Mecca.
Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam would pass by
them and he would say, patience O family
of Yasir, patience O family of Yasir, your
meeting place will be Jannah.
Now at that time one day Abu Jahl
came and demanded that Sumayya radhiAllahu anha give
up her religion.
And when she refused in a rage, he
took a spear and he murdered her, he
stabbed her.
He then went to her husband.
Now imagine, this is happening in front of
their eyes and the level of helplessness you
can think about this and say what kind
of thing it must have been.
Here was a man, Abu Jahl was not
there with her whole army, Abu Jahl was
there alone.
But the situation of Mecca was so pathetic
and so horrible and so bad that the
Muslims were so poor and so oppressed and
so weak that they could do nothing.
He was alone, one man and he with
complete impurity was able to murder two people
for no reason whatsoever except that they said
la ilaha illallah.
So, here he was and then not only
did nobody stop him, but then he also
paid no price.
I mean, Abu Jahl walked free from that
whole incident.
There was no court case on him, nobody
came and arrested him, nobody would ask him
a question because this was the situation of
Mecca.
This is how slaves were at that time
where they were probably at the same level,
maybe even less than the cattle or sheep
that the people owned.
They could just take a sheep and slaughter
it and nobody would ask any question.
It's understandable.
It's your sheep, you can slaughter your sheep
if you want.
And the same thing was applied to human
beings who were owned as slaves.
That's why slavery is haraam in Islam.
It's not permitted in Islam.
And that's a different discussion.
We will go to that someday.
But the point here is that Abu Jahl
demanded from Sumayya Udail Anwar that she should
recant, she should leave Islam.
She refused.
So, he took a spear and he stabbed
her and he murdered her.
Now, Yasir Radiyal Anwar, Yasir bin Amr, Udail
Anwar is seeing this happening in front of
his eyes.
So, he went to, and he was helpless,
I mean, he was tied up to this
pole, he couldn't even defend his wife and
Abu Jahl went and demanded that he should
give up his religion.
So, maybe he thought that Yasir Udail Anwar
would be frightened by what he saw had
happened just in front of his eyes.
But Abu Jahl didn't understand.
And to this day, people do not understand.
The Muslims who live only to meet Allah.
Right?
They lived only to meet Allah.
So, when you are saying, I will kill
you, then you are only opening the door
for me to meet Allah.
What's the difficulty with that?
That's what the Sahaba were.
This is how the Sahaba of Rasulullah s
.a.w. were.
They lived only to meet Allah.
So, when Abu Jahl demanded from Yasir bin
Amr Udail Anwar that he should leave Islam,
he said he refused.
He refused.
So, Abu Jahl, now imagine the level of
hatred, the level of, you know, how shaitan
takes people to such levels.
Abu Jahl didn't just stop him.
He got four horses and he got, now
by, obviously, obviously, by that he has helpers
because all of this stuff he couldn't have
done it on his own.
So, there are people who are helping him
to do all this.
And obviously, I am sure there must have
been a crowd of people watching.
But nobody to raise a voice or raise
a hand to stop this gross injustice, this
terrible thing that is happening in front of
their eyes.
We see evidence of this happening to this
day and we will look, if you look
at history, you will see evidence of this
throughout history.
Where people have been persecuted because they said
la ilaha illallah and the world watched in
silence.
Doesn't matter because this life is a temporary
period that will end no matter what, no
matter how so-called good it is or
no matter how so-called bad it is,
it will end.
والآقبة للمتقين and the hereafter is for the
people of taqwa.
And as-sāmiḥūna l-awwalūna mina l-muttaqīn,
Sumayya ibn Khayyat and Yāsir ibn Amr radhiAllahu
anhumā.
They are the best of the best.
So Abu Jahl got him, they threw him
on the ground, they tied a horse each
to each of his limbs, hands and feet,
spread eagle like that and they drove the
horses.
So his limbs are ripped out of his
body.
He is still alive.
Now the torso without the arms and the
legs.
Imagine the joints, they are ripped out.
And he died saying ashhadu an la ilaha
illallah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah.
These two shahada happened in 615.
Brothers and sisters, think about this.
The first shaheed in Islam is a black
African woman.
Alhamdulillah.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is watching this
happening in real time.
Rasulullah s.a.w. knows it is happening
or he knew after it had happened.
I don't know exactly the exact timing of
that.
But whatever be the case, the point is
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose to
let it happen.
Rasulullah s.a.w. could not stop it.
Because the purpose is more than saving a
life of one individual there.
The purpose is to establish this principle in
Islam beyond doubt.
That only and only the word of Allah,
that only and only the deen of Allah
is supreme.
Nothing supersedes that, not even my life and
your life.
If the choice is between our life and
the deen of Allah, then the deen of
Allah will be supreme.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned this tendency
in the enemies of Islam to kill a
person only because he or she is a
Muslim.
In the story of Musa a.s., Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala said, وقال رجل مؤمن
من آل فرعون يكتبوا إيمانه أتقولون رجلا أن
يقول ربي الله وقد جاءكم بالبينات من ربكم
وإن يكون كاذبا فعليه كذبه وإن يكون صادقا
يصبكم بعد الذي يعدكم إن الله لا يهدي
من هو مصرف كذب Allah said, and a
believing man of Firaun's family, Aal Firaun, this
term is used for family, it is also
used for people, so a believing man from
the people of Firaun, he may have been
from the family or not, but from the
people of Firaun, who hid his faith at
that time when they announced and they declared
a bounty on Musa a.s., he said,
would you kill a man because he says,
ربي الله, that my Rabb is Allah, and
this man has come to you with clear
signs, evidence from your Rabb, and if he
is a liar upon him, it will be
the sin of his life, but if he
is telling the truth, then some of that
calamity, which means if you kill him, wherewith
he threatens you, will befall on you.
Verily, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not
guide the one who is a musrif and
kazzab, a transgressor and a liar.
The first victims of pagan aggression were those
Muslims who had no tribal affiliation in Mecca.
Yasar r.a and his wife Sumayya r
.a and their son Ammar r.a, they
had no tribal affiliation in Mecca, they were
foreigners in Mecca, they were from Yemen, and
Sumayya r.a was from Abyssinia, and they
had no one to protect them, they were
not members of any tribe, and so on.
So they were, you know, it was free,
open season on them.
Now those Muslims who were killed in the
battles of Badr and Uhud, had an army
to defend and support them.
They were fighting in the army.
But Yasar r.a and his wife had
no one to defend them.
They did not bear arms and they were
the most defenseless of all the martyrs of
Islam.
By sacrificing their lives, by investing their lives
in the future of Islam, they highlighted the
truth of Islam.
And they built strength into its structure.
They made the tradition of sacrifice and martyrdom
an integral part of the ethos of Islam.
The thing that people forget
in their
haste is that in Islam we do not
consider this world and the life of this
world to be the be-all and end
-all of our existence.
In Islam, the life of this world is
only a piece.
It is a short duration in the entire
continuum of life of our existence.
Our life began, our existence began, in the
ilm of Allah, in the knowledge of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala when he decided to
create us.
And from there we lived, we stayed there.
This is beyond time, so there is no
question of putting any number of years to
that.
So we were in the ilm of Allah
as long as Allah wished.
And then Allah sent us into the aalamul
arwah, the world of the souls.
And we stayed there for as long as
Allah wished.
And then from there we were sent into
the wombs of our mothers.
Our mothers bore us, they are not our
creators.
And then we came out into this world
and we are now living in this world.
And by looking at somebody and counting that
person's number of years, you cannot say, so
-and-so has lived most of his life,
so-and-so has just started his life.
We don't know.
Because we don't know the ending.
A person who may be five years old
may be at the end of their life.
A person who is 95 years old may
still have many years left.
Allah knows best.
And that is why the sensible thing, the
wise thing is to consider every day to
be our last.
And to live our lives in a way
as if this day and this action and
this word and this decision is my last
decision.
What do I want that to be?
Do I want that to be a decision
and action of obedience or do I want
that to be an action of disobedience?
Mahmood Shafir Ahmadullah Ali said, our life is
an instant.
He is talking about the whole life.
He said, our life is an instant.
Let it be an instant of obedience.
That's the choice we have.
We do not have a choice of what
happens in our lives.
We have a choice of our response to
that.
Do we respond to that with obedience or
do we respond to that with disobedience?
I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
help us to understand the lives of the
Sahaba Ridwanullahi wa Jumain who Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala created as an example, a generation,
as an example to the whole of mankind.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to keep us on the path that they
walked on because that is the path of
success.
That is the path of guidance.
That is the path which insha'Allah, biznillahi
ta'ala, leads to Jannah.