Mirza Yawar Baig – Stopping the Dhikr of Allah
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The importance of gathered gatherings, protecting against evil, learning swimming and playing tennis, and the use of Insan is discussed in Islam. The speaker emphasizes the need for answers to questions related to Islam, including the importance of avoiding the one thing that happened and choosing the opposite. The speaker also discusses the importance of reducing the number of people in society and the reward of being in a society with a history of one's behavior and beneficial or harmful.
AI: Summary ©
As-salāmu alaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh.
As-salātu wa s-salāmu ala sharafil anbiyāhi
wal mursaleen.
Muhammad Rasūlullāh ﷺ, taslīman kathīran kathīrakum.
My brothers and sisters, Abu Ghulayr, r.a,
reported in a hadith which we have all
heard many times, that Rasūlullāh ﷺ said, Verily,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has caravans of
angels who have no work but to follow
gatherings of remembrance, gatherings of dhikr of Allah.
When they find such gatherings in which there
is remembrance, they sit with them and some
of them surround the others with their wings
until the space between them and the heavens
is covered.
When they disperse, they ascend to the heavens.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asks them,
although he knows better than them, from where
have you come?
They say, we came from your slaves on
the earth who are glorifying you, declaring your
greatness and oneness, praising you and asking from
you.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, what do
they ask from me?
The Malaika say, they ask for your Jannah,
for your paradise.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, have they
seen my Jannah?
They say, no.
Allah says, what if they were to see
my Jannah?
They say, they seek your protection.
Allah says, from what do they seek my
protection?
They say, from your fire, hellfire, our Lord,
our Rabb.
Allah says, have they seen my hellfire?
They say, no.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, what if
they were to see my hellfire?
They say, they ask for your forgiveness.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, I will
pardon them, give them what they request and
grant them protection.
They say, our Rabb, there is one among
them, a simple slave who happened to pass
by and sit there along with them.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, I will
also grant him pardon, for whoever sits with
these people will not suffer misery.
And this is in Bukhari, Sayyid Bukhari and
Sayyid Muslim, Mutafakhun alaih.
May Allah have mercy on us and may
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us the
tawfiq to do what benefits us and to
save us from what does not benefit us.
And grant us to do what pleases Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala and save us from
what does not please Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
My brothers and sisters, think about this.
If you want to learn swimming, what do
you need?
You need a place to swim.
You need a swimming pool, you need a
lake, you need a river, you need a
body of water.
If you want to learn to play cricket,
what do you need?
You need a cricket field.
You want to learn tennis, you need a
tennis court, right?
You want to learn golf, you need a
golf course or at least minimum you need
nets for practice and then of course you
need a course.
You want to become a doctor, you need
a hospital.
You can be, to be anything, to prepare
yourself for anything, you need a place.
Where do you go if you want to
learn to become a human being, an insan?
Insaniyat in Arabic and Urdu is not a
term which is biological.
Insan does not mean the mammal who walks
on his hind legs.
Insan is somebody with a character, somebody with
the qualities which bring him close to Allah.
Now, where do you go to become an
insan?
This is what Rasulullah S.A.W. did
with Masjid-e-Nabiye-e-Sharif.
People like to talk about the, they say
the Jamia Muhammadiyah, they say the sofa was
a university, but my submission is that there
was no such thing as Jamia Muhammadiyah, there
was no sofa was not a university and
Rasulullah S.A.W. was not teaching a
curriculum with a syllabus for a certain period
of time.
He did not do any dastarbandi, he did
not qualify people and call them alims or
something, you know.
The people who came to Rasulullah S.A
.W. and who benefited the most from him
were the people who spent time in his
sohbah, in his company.
And they didn't just spend time in his
company by just being bodily present and their
minds somewhere else, they were there consciously, they
were there with great shaukh, with great love,
they were there with great desire to learn
and to imbibe from him every little thing
which seemed, we say little only because maybe
it takes a short duration of time or
maybe it seems very, as a matter of
habit, adatan, but in terms of significance, in
terms of the fact that this is the
action of the Nabi Ali S.A.W.
it has huge significance.
So we, therefore we see this in the
life of Rasulullah S.A.W. that people,
these are the people who learnt and became
rijal, Allah S.W.T. called them ar
-rijal, who were, who changed the world and
that they learnt in the masjid.
Now take this hadith which I mentioned to
you and may Allah S.W.T. make
it that these are hadiths which we hear
so many times and we read, may Allah
grant that they do not become a witness
against us.
In this hadith, two things, one is the
action of Rasulullah S.A.W. to gather,
to listen to the mention of Allah S
.W.T, His Rasul, His Deen, bajlis of
dhikr and by dhikr is not meant only
repeating the names of Allah S.W.T
or something, but anything which comes in the
description of remembering of Allah, which could be
recitation of Quran, it could be khatira, waaz,
khutba, you know speech, lecture, whatever, which reminds
us of Allah S.W.T, reminds us
of His Rasul S.A.W. which reminds
us of the akhirah.
So, not only did Allah S.W.T
in this hadith, not only is Allah S
.W.T praising those people who are engaged
in the dhikr of Allah S.W.T,
who are sitting in that majlis, but even
a person who was passing by, meaning that
this person was not a, had not been
invited to that majlis of dhikr, he just
happened to pass by, but that person stopped
there, he sat there, he didn't pass away,
he didn't just stop for a second, couple
of minutes and decide that it was not
for him and he moved on, no, he
stayed there.
That person is also included in those who
were blessed by this majlis of dhikr, or
blessed in this majlis of dhikr.
Now think about this, that today we have
reached a stage, subhanAllah, sometimes when I think
about these things, I say well, you know
there are some questions that if you want
to ask for answers to those questions, there
is no direct answer, because people didn't ask
those questions, people didn't do those things.
So, if you say well, you know what
will happen, for example, if somebody stops a
dhikr of Allah, if somebody wants to reduce
the amount of time that is being spent
in the dhikr of Allah, then there is
no answer because there were not people like
that.
Apart from, of course, in the time of
the Prophet, apart from the initial stages of
that also, the Quraish of Mecca were open
enemies of Islam.
But other than that, there was nobody there
who stopped the dhikr of Allah, or who
said to the Prophet, you know, this majlis
that you are having or this gathering that
you are having is too long, right, shorten
it.
We don't have time to sit here for
this long.
And not only do we not have time
to sit here for this long, we are
so arrogant that we don't even just politely
move away, we want the majlis itself to
stop.
They didn't do these things.
So if somebody says what is, you know,
what should we do if you have that
situation, all I can say is that take
this hadith of the Prophet and imagine the
opposite.
Because this is the basharah, this is the
good news that is promised to the one
who indulges in the dhikr of Allah, and
who encourages the dhikr of Allah, and who
supports the dhikr of Allah, and who comes
and stops for a little while, and stays,
when he sees the dhikr of Allah, he
says Alhamdulillah, he stays there.
Imagine the opposite.
If one thing is true, the opposite is
also true.
By inference.
So what will happen to the one who
stops the dhikr of Allah?
Today, think about this.
We are, there is literally nobody who is
happy with the way the world is, with
the way society is.
I can say this probably as a blanket
statement.
Not Muslim, not non-Muslim, not anybody.
Everybody is unhappy with the way society is.
The fact that people seem to have no
ethics and morals, people are completely, you know,
oriented only and only towards materialistic things, there
is no compassion, there is no kindness, and
so on and so forth.
People are sick and tired of society, but
my question is society doesn't happen by itself.
This society happened because of what we did.
We created a society like this.
Now how do we change that?
We change that by spending, not by spending
more time in that society, but by spending
less time in that society and more time
in the presence of the malaika, the presence
of the angels in the houses of Allah
engaged in the dhikr of Allah.
Right?
That is what we need to do.
On the other hand, today, we have situations
where people want to reduce the number of
minutes or the duration that somebody spends in
the masjid, and you say, no, no, no,
people have to go.
Go and do what?
Think about this.
In any situation, any person with any intelligence
will choose that which is beneficial or that
which is not beneficial.
That which is beneficial over that which is
harmful.
That which has more benefit over that which
has less benefit.
Yes?
And this is a sign of intelligence.
If you are choosing the opposite, then it's
a sign that you do not have intelligence.
So which has, as a Muslim, which has
more benefit?
The dhikr of Allah or whatever else you
are going away towards.
You are leaving the majlis of the dhikr
of Allah and you are going to do
something.
That thing which you are going to do,
does it have more value?
Right?
Unless you are going for some emergency.
For example, there was an incident in the
Sira of this Sahabi who would come and
pray Salatul Fajr and then he would rush
off.
He would not stay for the Prophet used
to sit after Salatul Fajr and sometimes he
would talk for a while.
He would ask people if they had seen
any dreams and so on.
And he would interpret those dreams.
This Sahabi did not stay for that.
He would, as soon as Salat finished, he
would go away.
Somebody commented on this and he said, why
do you rush off?
He said, between my wife and me we
have only one piece of long cloth in
which we can pray.
So I come here, I pray and I
rush home to give the cloth to my
wife so that she can pray.
Right?
Now, there is an emergency situation there and
they prayed Salatul Fajr immediately as soon as
the time started.
She could not pray Fajr before he came
to the Masjid.
He was in the Masjid before that.
And so he was doing that to help
his wife.
So my point is unless there is an
emergency, if a person is leaving a Majlis
of Zikr and going somewhere else, then the
first question I would ask that person or
the first question I would ask myself if
I was doing that is whatever I am
going towards, what is the reward of that?
The reward of being in the Majlis of
Zikr is that Allah SWT promised to forgive
me.
Allah SWT promised to give me Jannah.
Allah SWT promised to save me from the
Hellfire.
Now whatever I am going to do leaving
this Majlis, do I have a promise of
the forgiveness of Allah for doing that?
Do I have a promise of Jannah for
doing that?
Do I have a promise of freedom from
the fire for doing that?
Now I mean this is a dumb question
but you know sometimes you have to ask
dumb people dumb questions.
If the answer is no and the answer
obviously has to be no, then ask yourself
why are you leaving the Majlis?
Why are you leaving the Majlis of Zikr
and going somewhere else when obviously you consider
yourself to be intelligent but you are leaving
something which has the maximum possible benefit which
is the Rida of Allah SWT and going
towards something which either is Mubah it has
no value because there is no benefit, no
harm or it has negative value, it is
a sin.
Why are you doing that?
The problem is today we have stopped asking
these questions.
Instead of that we pressurize the people who
are doing the Majlis of Zikr to curtail
and to stop their Majlis, make it short
stop it, don't do it or do it
just to show two minutes, five minutes.
Remember on the Day of Judgement, if you
are among those if you leave the Majlis
and go away for whatever it is, then
that is certainly not commendable, it is not
something to praise but at least it is
not as bad as those who are, who
try to force others to stop, who try
to force others to make it short so
that they can go off and do whatever
the * they want to do.
That is really an Amal of Firawniyat as
far as I am concerned.
It is an Amal of using force to
stop the Zikr of Allah.
It is so evil it is so evil.
So brothers and sisters, please wake up before
you are woken up.
Wake up before you are woken up because
the time will come when we will stand
before Allah and Allah will ask us how
is it that you forced somebody else to
stop my Zikr?
How is it that you forced somebody else
to shorten my Zikr?
If you are among those who are doing
this job, believe me that day will come.
So get prepared.
Get prepared for your answer.
What will you ask?
What will you answer Allah?
How will you answer Allah?
May Allah save us from ourselves and save
us from Shaitan and save us from being
among those who will prevent themselves from getting
the Rida of Allah.