Mohammad Elshinawy – If We Were Refugees
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AI: Transcript ©
How Allah Has Subjected Everything For You Brothers
and sisters, Allah Azzawajal says, أَلَمْ تَرَوْا أَنَّ
اللَّهَ سَخَّرَ لَكُمْ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي
الْأَرْضِ Have you not seen how Allah has
subjected for you, meaning placed at your disposal,
made the world livable, subjected for you everything
above you and everything beneath you.
This universe was created conducive to life.
But then He says, وَأَسْبَغَ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعَمَهُ ظَاهِرَةً
وَبَاطِنًا And then for each and every one
of you specifically, aside from the world that
we come and go from, you specifically, He
has lavished you with His favors inwardly and
outwardly, within you and around you, His favors,
His نِعَم.
The word for favors is نِعَم, and it's
relevant here.
Can a person ever be grateful for the
نِعَم of Allah عز و جل سبحانه وتعالى?
Absolutely not.
Not grateful enough.
The Qur'an points to this reality from
many different directions.
Of them is that when Allah was praising
the unique status of Ibrahim عليه السلام, Allah
said, إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ كَانَ أُمَّةً قَانِتًا لِلَّهِ Ibrahim
was an ummah.
Of what that means is a leading example.
An example to be followed after, قَانِتًا لِلَّهِ
in his devotion to Allah.
The next ayah says what?
Why was he a leading example for humanity?
He says, شَاكِرًا لِأَنْعُمِهِ Because he was grateful
to the an'um of God, of Allah.
But he didn't say ni'ma, he said an
'um.
And there's a difference.
In Arabic, there is a ni'ma, there is
a blessing.
And there is an'um, which means several
blessings, plural.
Then there are ni'ma, which is the big
plural, which means many blessings.
So Allah lavishes us all with more blessings
than we can count.
And Ibrahim ﷺ was unique because he was
able to show due gratitude for some of
the blessings, not for all of them.
How can anyone show gratitude for all of
them when a humanity cannot even count them?
As the other ayah says, وَإِن تَعُدُّوا نِعْمَةَ
اللَّهِ لَا تُحْصُوهَا And if you were to
try to count the favors of Allah ﷻ,
you would not be able to come across
them all.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَغَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ Certainly Allah is most
forgiving, most merciful, most forgiving that He doesn't
hold you to that standard, doesn't hold you
to that duty, that moral duty, you get
a reduction in it.
To simply recognize that you can't.
He's forgiving, He's merciful, and the context is
our inability to count let alone thank the
blessing.
In fact, this is why some of the
scholars took from this ayah, the reason why
we are taught in the sunnah, in the
prophetic lifestyle of our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, that
when we exit the bathroom, after leaving yourself
in the bathroom, every Muslim must know that
they're supposed to say, غُفْرَانَكْ غُفْرَانَكْ غُفْرَانَكْ O
Allah, your forgiveness, your forgiveness, your forgiveness.
Why are you seeking Allah's forgiveness upon exiting
the bathroom?
Of the reasons to be brought to mind
is that your ability to remove that poison
were it to remain in your body.
Those toxins, were they to stay in there,
they would kill you.
Your ability to leave them behind.
How could you ever thank Allah for that
one alone?
So you walk out saying, forgive me O
Allah, meaning for my inability to thank you
for the magnitude of this blessing.
How could we ever even break even, let
alone win the greatest prize?
And this is also why, maybe one final
ayah to quote in this regard, because the
Qur'an does address it from so many
different angles.
This one concept, this reality about the inability
to show thanks properly to Allah, that the
people that do get the grand prize, the
people of Jannah, they say what in Jannah?
وَقَالُوا الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي أَذْهَبَ عَنَّ الْحَزَنِ And
they say finally in the eternal abode of
bliss, in paradise, they say all praise be
to Allah, and all thanks be to Allah
who did away with our sadness, the sadness
we all experience in this world.
Then they say, إِنَّ رَبَّنَا لَغَفُورٌ شَكُورٌ Our
Lord is most forgiving, most thankful, most forgiving,
most appreciative, most forgiving, most grateful.
He is forgiving because you will never break
even to actually deserve it.
But those who recognize they don't deserve it,
and try to do what they can, Allah
will forgive and appreciate their attempt to appreciate.
Allah will thank you for trying to thank
Him, for recognizing you can't thank Him.
It was reported that Dawud عليه السلام once
said to Allah عز و جل in a
dua, O Allah, how can I ever thank
You when even this thanks of mine is
another blessing from You?
Who inspired me to say thank You?
Who guided me to say alhamdulillah?
It was You.
So I'm saying alhamdulillah about something, but even
my saying of alhamdulillah, even my heartfelt gratitude,
You put that there.
So how can I ever get over?
How can I ever turn the corner?
How can I ever begin to fulfill?
And so Allah عز و جل revealed to
him, O Dawud, you recognizing that is thanking
me.
This is how you thank Allah, by recognizing
you cannot.
Brothers and sisters, you know, I spent three
days this week in refugee camps all over
Jordan, the country Jordan.
And the short and long of it is
that words cannot describe it.
Until you experience it yourself, you cannot begin
to grasp what life would be like if
Allah had destined that we be refugees ourselves.
If I were to tell you that I
met a young boy from Gaza who lost
his father and was living with his sisters
in this refugee camp with his mother.
And then his mother suffers heart failure, and
as she's dying in the hospital, her sister,
his aunt, brings him over, and she dies,
the mother dies, and she brings him over
to their apartment, and the apartment, a makeshift
mud house, collapses on top of them.
This is like their day to day, this
is their month to month.
If I told you I met a father
who has been living in the desert for
10 years since the war started in Syria.
And when we visited his tent, the ceiling
of his wishes, you know what his greatest
ambition in life is?
It is a chain to tie up his
son.
Because his son suffers from special needs, he
has a mental handicap, and he keeps running
out in the middle of the night, and
getting attacked by dogs.
We're asking, what can we provide for you?
How can we help you?
What is your most pressing need?
I want a chain.
He didn't say bring me to America, he
didn't say like get me a stipend for
food, I just want to be able to
tie my son down.
I met a 16 year old girl that
said to us in the middle of her
classroom, a classroom of students from kindergarten to
12th grade if you will, that half of
which don't have shoes, don't have clothes, don't
have regular meals, don't shower, hardly have access
to anything of the dunya or the deen.
And as she was explaining to us how
her mother puts everyone to sleep, and tells
them she ate and she had never eaten,
and then sneaks around to pick up our
leftovers, she catches herself and says, but don't
get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm special,
everyone here is like this, maybe the only
difference I have, is that I don't have
someone to say baba to.
I don't have a dad to cry on
his shoulder.
What's the greatest thing we can do for
you?
She took us to her house, which is
several sheets, bed sheets, stowed together with twigs,
not even thread, to show us what their
toilet looks like.
A hole in the ground, surrounded by a
bit of fabric that is stuck together with
sticks.
She says, we wish we could just conceal
ourselves when we're using the bathroom.
If I have to use the bathroom at
1 AM, my mother has to come out
with me to hold the fabrics around me,
just so I can use this hole in
the ground.
Just a toilet, that's my biggest dream in
life.
I just want a toilet, with four walls,
that's it, nothing more.
And we stopped by a fourth tent of
a mother who walked there from Syria when
the war started.
She said, this kid next to me, she
had an 11 year old boy with her,
he was 20 days old when I walked
those two days, fleeing the war.
My husband had left on his motorcycle to
pick up some bread for us, and he
never came back.
They told us he died, but Allah has
not said that to me yet, I don't
know for sure.
And they left.
This boy is 11 years old now, in
the desert.
He has grown those 11 years.
These are children that if you were to
bring them to a shower, and this has
actually happened, the spout of the shower, the
shower head, they think it's a phone.
They have not seen the world as you
know it.
And next to her was her 16 year
old daughter, who picks tomatoes from 5 AM
to 6 PM, three days a week, to
make the equivalent of 4 US dollars.
So that for the two other days of
the week, she can spend two of them
to take herself and her sister to school.
So that she can become a doctor one
day.
So that she can somehow break the cycle
her mother has been in.
Living in the merciless heat.
And she told us, if you could do
one thing for me, I always wanted a
tarp.
A tarp to cover just the ceiling of
this tent.
Like forget the scorpions on the ground, forget
the snakes, just at least, let's just get
some cover above.
Because the winter is coming.
أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله العظيم لي ولكم
الحمد لله وحده والصلاة والسلام على من لا
نبي بعد أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله
وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمداً عبده
ونبيه ورسوله Brothers and sisters, I shared some
of these scenes with you.
Of course because I feel a sense of
responsibility to do so, having been taken there
by a relief organization.
But also to bring closer what I already
told you can never be brought fully to
you without you experiencing some of it.
We always ask Allah عز و جل to
spare us.
But you need to know that your test
is harder than theirs.
Abdurrahman ibn A'uf رضي الله عنه, the
great companion of the Prophet ﷺ, he said,
ابتلينا مع رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم
بالضرائب الصبرنا We were tested when we were
alongside the Prophet ﷺ with so much suffering
and we were patient.
وابتلينا بعده بالسراء فلم نصبر And we were
tested after him with ease, with some comfort,
relatively speaking, some comfort, and we were not
able to be patient.
You see, it's not exactly like, you know,
patience for hard times and gratitude for good
times.
Gratitude requires patience.
To be patient upon gratitude is so hard.
So you need to have a plan for
it.
You need to have a project for it.
They say, الحمد لله more than us.
That 16-year-old girl says, I never
go to sleep at night without saying رضيت
بالله ربا I'm content with Allah as my
Lord.
وبالإسلام دينا With submitting to Him as my
way of life.
وبمحمد النبي And with Muhammad as my Prophet
ﷺ And so how do we do this,
brothers and sisters?
Yes, yes.
A person can reach the station of those
patient through difficulties using their gratitude or by
way of their gratitude in comfort, in blessings.
This is true.
Sulayman ﷺ, Ayub ﷺ, both of them are
described the same way in the Qur'an.
نعم العبد What an excellent servant إِنَّهُ أَوَّاب
He's always turning back to us.
Those two.
But there are far more believers in this
category.
Patient through difficulty than those who are grateful
in their blessings.
Number one, for how to do that, make
sure you never disconnect yourself from those beneath
you in this world.
Allah ﷻ told us, وَاصْبِرْ نَفْسَك Hold yourself
patiently, put up with being around, right?
Those who are calling upon their Lord by
night and by day.
This is often the poor sector of society.
And the Prophet ﷺ said, if you want
your heart to soften, not to rust and
corrode and die, he said, why caress the
head of the orphan?
Visit the graveyard.
Have some compassion with the needy and feed
them from your food.
Share a meal with them.
You know sometimes, brothers and sisters, it is
local, it's right under our nose.
There are people in vulnerable sectors of society
here that have food insecurity.
And otherwise, you are the greatest beneficiary of
making sure you never get locked out of
that.
Subjecting yourself to the bursts of mercy from
Allah that only exist there.
Let it start there at least, start locally.
You know why?
Because to be honest, all of us, all
of us, once the video disappears, that person
disappears.
Right or wrong?
Secondly, you need to have time where you
just unplug and ask yourself, why am I
here?
Why was I born into this family?
I could have been born randomly, in any
random family.
Why do I feel like I'm inherently better
or I'm supposed to always have food available
for me?
You know I was reflecting on the past
few days, I was thinking of the hadith
of the Prophet ﷺ, الحمد لله الذي أطعمني
هذا ورزقنيه من غير حول مني ولا قوة.
All praise be to Allah.
You say this after you eat.
And he promised your sins would be forgiven.
All praise be to Allah who gave me
this food of mine and provided me with
it.
It's mine, it's halal for me, I didn't
have to steal it.
I didn't have to worry about it.
I didn't have to go a day without
it.
All praise be to Allah who provided me
with this and fed it to me.
I don't have an illness and I don't
have non-access.
من غير حول مني ولا قوة.
Without any might on my behalf, without any
agency over this, it's not me, it's not
me.
Allah diversified the test for a wisdom He
ultimately knows.
And the last thing I will say, brothers
and sisters, act gratefully.
Be conscientious in your behavior.
Sometimes we look at people and say, those
devils, how can they do this to people?
How can they be so heartless?
But being wasteful in how you consume, in
what you buy, in what you throw out,
just because it happens to be leftovers.
Dare I say for us to be negligent
in how we prepare meals till they rot
and we say, oh, it was leftovers and
it rotted.
That is devilish behavior.
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said, إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ
كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينَ The wasters are the brethren.
They look like them in behavior meaning.
They are the brethren of the devils.
وَإِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ كَانَ لِرَبِّهِ كَفُورًا And the devil
was ever ungrateful to his Lord Subhanahu wa
Ta'ala.
So may Allah write us among the grateful.
May Allah Azawajal help us never take His
blessings for granted.
May Allah help us upon the greater test
He has given us.
The test of patience upon gratitude.
Allahumma ameen.
May Allah use us to alleviate suffering all
over the world.
May Allah Azawajal never allow us to live
just for ourselves.
May Allah Azawajal make that the intention behind
our actions by night and by day.
May it be the reason why we build
community.
The reason why we build family.
The reason why we have children.
Allahumma ameen.
وصلى الله وسلم وبارك على نبينا محمد وعلى
آله وصحبه أجمعين