Mohammad Elshinawy – Jumuah 06-09-2024
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I bear witness
that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
Come to Prayer.
Come to Prayer.
Allah is the Greatest.
Allah is the
Greatest.
All praise is due to Allah.
We praise Him, ask His help and seek
His forgiveness.
We seek refuge in Allah from the evil
of our souls and from the evil of
our deeds.
Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him.
Whomsoever He misguides, none can guide him.
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is
His Servant and Messenger.
O you who believe!
Fear Allah and say the truth.
Your deeds will be righteous and your sins
will be forgiven.
Whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has won
a great triumph.
O you people!
Fear your Lord, Who created you from a
single soul, and from her created her wife,
and spread among them many men and women.
O you who believe!
Fear Allah and ask His help and seek
His forgiveness.
Verily, Allah watches over you.
And We have instructed those who were given
the Scripture before you, that you should fear
Allah.
And after welcoming my brothers and sisters to
the house of Allah, over the last 11
months, brothers and sisters, it would be difficult
to imagine that any one of us has
not resisted the thought of, why is this
taking so long?
Ever since the events in Gaza have begun,
almost everyone thought it would be like the
5 or 4 previous wars on the people
of Gaza.
These massacres that take place over and over
again.
We never thought it would take this long.
For better or for worse.
And so people have reacted in a whole
bunch of different ways.
But I want to present you with a
question.
A challenge.
What if it needs to take this long?
Because Allah knows this is the only way
for us to stay awake, to stay connected,
to stay committed, to stay invested, to finally
liberate Palestine.
May Allah allow us to see it in
our lifetime.
May Allah allow us to see it in
our lifetime.
But how do we sustain?
Where do you find stamina from?
Because if we're also being very honest, we're
losing steam.
A lot of us at least.
The vast majority of us.
Why are we losing steam?
We have to turn to our faith and
remember that the help of Allah Azza wa
Jal is almost near.
And that He ﷺ said, يَضْحَكُ رَبُّنَا مِنْ
قُنُوطِ عِبَادِهِ مَعَ قُرْبِ غِيَرِ That our Lord
laughs in a manner befitting His Majesty from
those who lose stamina, those who lose steam.
Though His change that He's about to affect
for the better is so close, the hadith
says.
And they said, Ya Rasulallah, our Lord laughs?
He said, yes.
They said, لَن نَعْدِمَ مِنْ رَبٍّ يَضْحَكُ خَيْرًا
Then we will never miss out on a
good outcome from a Lord who laughs.
And you know, the verse in the Qur
'an that ends with أَلَا إِنَّ نَصْرَ اللَّهِ
قَرِيبٌ The help of Allah is near.
What does this mean?
It's important to revisit this for a second.
It will give you stamina.
Because it cannot mean that it's coming any
minute.
Coming any minute.
What you get, what you want, any minute.
Instant gratification.
That's not this world.
That's the next world.
But you have to go through a test
world to get to that world.
In fact, that's exactly how the ayah begins.
It says, أَمْ حَسِبَتُمْ أَن تَدْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةِ Do
you think you'll just stroll into Jannah?
وَلَمَّا يَأْتِكُمْ Before their first comes to you.
مَثَلُوا الَّذِينَ خَلَوْا مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ The likes of
those who came before you.
مَسَّتْهُمُ الْبَأْسَاءُ وَالضَّرَّاءُ وَزُلْزِلُوا They were afflicted with
suffering and they were afflicted with poverty and
they were stricken with so much until they
were shaken to their core.
حَتَّ يَقُولَ الرَّسُولُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَعَهُ Until the
messenger and those that believed with him started
saying, meaning to themselves, meaning resisting the thought
that we were talking about earlier.
Saying to themselves, مَتَى نَصْرُ اللَّهِ When is
the help of Allah coming?
That's when Allah said, أَلَا إِنَّ نَصْرَ اللَّهِ
قَرِيبٌ Certainly the help of Allah is near,
meaning it's not on your clock.
Never doubt.
Never let the doubt seep in.
It will ruin you and ruin everything you're
working on.
Right?
It will jeopardize your hereafter and you will
not be a service to yourself or anyone
around you in the dunya either.
So it cannot mean near, meaning it's gonna
happen in an instant.
No.
It means Allah can bring it in an
instant.
It means that Allah has already ordained that
at a particular instant, the qadr has already
passed, the pages have dried, the ink is
set, that there is a moment He has
already set when it will happen.
And it also means that for those who
believe in Him, He will help them through
it.
Bringing us back to the theme of stamina,
the theme of going on.
Because you know, let us talk about ourselves
here.
Many of us cannot watch the images anymore.
Okay?
You can't.
And I think everyone you know has probably
slowed down in the building of awareness and
the shares and just the following altogether.
I want to tell you, because it is
good for you to know this, it's okay.
It's actually very normal.
It's actually very normal to find yourself unable
to put up with all of this trauma
day in and day out.
In fact, the Prophet ﷺ, even though it
was his brother, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib
was considered his brother.
Okay?
And he was the one that was hearing
the news of him being killed live.
It was being live streamed to him ﷺ.
You know the authentic hadith of Anas ﷺ
that when the battle of Mu'tah took place,
when the Muslims were facing what they faced
in Jordan, 600 miles away, against the Byzantine
Roman Empire, the Prophet ﷺ is standing on
the minbar, on the pulpit, telling them, Zayd,
his adopted son, has fallen.
And Ja'far took the flag.
And Ja'far has fallen.
And Abdullah ibn Rawaha has taken the flag.
He's saying this while the tears are flowing
down his cheeks.
Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And Abdullah ibn Rawaha took it and he
was taken down.
And then one of the swords of Allah
grabbed it, Khalid ibn Walid.
And Allah will allow for victory at his
hands.
Allah supported the army through him.
He saw it live.
Yet he was the one that went to
Ja'far's family and he said to them,
or said to the people about them first,
اصنعوا لآل جعفر طعاما فقد أتاهما يشغلهم Prepare
some food and bring it over to the
family of Ja'far because there has come
to them what has preoccupied them.
They're emotionally paralyzed.
They have a right.
They have a right to grieve.
He validated their grief.
He gave them room to recover.
And then three days later, he visits them
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he says to
them, I don't want you to cry over
أخي, my brother, after today.
Meaning, let's try.
We're not gonna be able to move past
it, but let's try to start moving with
it.
We're not gonna forget it all together, but
we're gonna move, right?
And he brought his son, the son of
Ja'far, Abdullah ibn Ja'far, he brought
him over and he himself shaved his head.
Meaning, we're not gonna sit here and act
like we're angry at God.
No, we're gonna move on.
Life has to go on.
There are things that must be done.
And so he gave them room to grieve.
And so I want to tell you as
well, don't be too hard on yourself.
The fact that you could not watch these
images anymore.
Some people are like the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam, right?
They have it in them in the middle
of the trauma to be supporting everybody else.
And you know from the people of Gaza,
people like this.
His son is the one massacred and he's
telling everyone, Allah has honored him, don't cry
over my son, right?
Some people are just like that.
Late last year, an imam from New York
City messaged me, very good friend of mine.
He said to me, Muhammad, I have promised
myself not to cry in front of the
community.
But when I'm home, when I'm alone, I'm
not okay.
That is already impressive.
It's already impressive that you have enough certainty
and enough serenity, your sakinah with Allah azza
wa jal, that you can actually control yourself
to a time where you're okay venting, right?
Taking care of everybody else and then you
go, you pour your tears out to Allah
azza wa jal, or you speak to one
of your friends in private.
This is incredible.
This resembles what the prophets showed us is
possible.
When Yaqub a.s. says, إِنَّمَا أَشْكُ بَثِّ
وَحُزْنِ إِلَى اللَّهِ I don't complain of my
bath.
You know what bath is?
You know satellite broadcasting, it's called bath mubashir,
broadcast, right?
So they say that bath is like when
the emotions overload and they have to go
somewhere.
If I have to speak, I speak to
Allah, right?
The stuff that gets bottled up, I only
give it to Allah azza wa jal.
I don't need to speak to anyone else.
That's very beautiful.
And some people are like that, here and
there.
But other people, they should not be too
tough on themselves.
Don't live with this, they call it survivor's
guilt, whatever you're gonna call it, right?
Imposter syndrome, that I'm not a good person
because I'm not following every single day.
No, no, no.
You are a believer and you are a
person that Allah loves because you feel the
pain.
You have compassion in your heart.
In fact, the Prophet ﷺ said, خَابَ عَبْدٌ
وَخَسِرٌ مَنْ لَمْ يَجْعَلِ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى فِي قَلْبِهِ
رَحْمَةً لِلْبَشَرِ The servant is lost, the servant
is doomed.
If Allah does not portion for him some
compassion for all of humanity in his heart,
then you are disqualified for Allah's mercy.
There's no mercy in your heart.
And so, take it easy on yourselves so
that you can rejuvenate.
You need to breathe, it's fine, to get
back to work.
We're not distracted from it, right?
We're recovering for it.
For the sake of, I'm not doing anyone
a favor by burning out.
I'm not doing anyone a favor by numbing.
You force yourself to become numb with overexposure,
brothers and sisters.
This is the genius of our deen.
This is why he said, give them room,
let them let it out.
And then we sort of get involved in
proceeding with our lives.
You know they even say, and I'm not
going to speak too much to this, that
the way Allah created your body, your heart
and your mind know you're in trouble and
they find a balance.
They force you into a balance.
It's a survival mechanism.
Like when you're cold, the brain tells you
you're cold, start shivering, right?
So you heat up.
When you're hot, the brain says to the
body, you're hot, open up the pores, let
some sweat out so you can cool down.
It's going to bring you to a balance.
Likewise, when you see these images, your brain,
your heart knows it's not a movie.
It knows.
This is real.
They are massacring our children in front of
us.
This is not easy.
And so you will do one of two
things.
You will either become numb to it, right?
You will become numb to it, or you
will stop yourself from becoming numb to it
by stepping away for the sake of the
cause.
Not for the sake of forgetting the cause
and being self-centered, just going on with
my little life.
أقول قولي هذا واستغفر 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 The second factor, though time will
not allow me to elaborate much, brothers and
sisters, that I want you to keep in
mind because we're just getting started, right?
I want you to keep in mind is
one of the things that eats away at
your determination.
There's actually so many studies, you can see
this in students in school, you can see
this with anyone and everything.
One of the things that eats away at
your stamina, eats away at your determination is
the sense of being incompetent, right?
العجز, I can't do anything.
So why do I want to keep involving
myself in a dead end?
If I can't help, then I don't want
to know, I don't want to be involved.
This is just natural, right?
You don't like to feel like you're a
failure.
So if the threshold is too high, if
there's no success there, why?
Consciously or not, this is the way we
operate.
And so I want to tell you, do
not let shaitan use that against you.
You know, even like, I felt the Muslim
community was becoming depressed.
And so I did my own little experiment
and I found that people that are in
marketing know it far better.
When you keep sharing these images, to build
awareness, of course the intention is correct, of
the atrocities and the genocide, people stop engaging
them.
And then you put a success story there,
like the boycotts are working, or this university
has divested.
It goes everywhere.
Which shows you the people are thirsty for
a sense of competence.
Oh, we can do something.
And I'm telling you, wallahi, you are doing
things.
You just zoom out a little bit.
Wallahi, you are doing things.
The worst thing that can happen in this
moment is for you to think there is
no point.
And that is why we need to continue
to circulate among ourselves.
Not just validating it's okay to grieve, it's
okay to take a breather and come right
back.
But also this notion of there are success
stories.
You know, of course the people of Gaza
are the ultimate success story.
Yes or no?
Ultimate success story.
As one of the mashayikh said, they are
being murdered by devils and received by angels.
May Allah accept our martyrs.
And honor their ranks.
But even look at their resilience.
Look at their defiance in the face of
the whole world superpowers stacked up against them.
Look at their resilience.
What do you mean someone restored someone's blown
off jaw?
Perhaps you've seen the images using the wire,
that tiny flimsy metal wire from a COVID
face mask.
She pulled out the wire and she reinstalled
his jaw that had fallen off.
And it healed.
What do you mean you don't have tools
and you made some makeshift homemade machine to
get fresh water we can drink out of
the salt water?
Incredible.
What do you mean you're charging your phone
to give the world a little bit more
coverage of exactly what's happening inside using the
battery pack of a dynamite that didn't explode?
And they charge their phone with it.
And they've of course inspired the rest of
the world.
They've inspired all of us.
And that inspiration has been a success that
we're beginning to see.
Brothers and sisters, whether you boycott Starbucks or
not, the CEO was fired because of your
boycotts.
McDonald's was in a denial.
No, it's not because of the boycott.
They lost 7 billion dollars to date.
And they admit that one of the largest
reasons was because of the Muslim boycott, they
said.
Right?
Samsung has pulled out its operation from Tel
Aviv.
Samsung next.
Intel has halted a 15 billion dollar project
there.
American Airlines has shut down all flights till
April.
These university encampments that were spreading like wildfire.
The universities that are divesting from arms deals
and otherwise.
Or research that works to that.
Or corporations that indirectly contribute to it.
Everywhere you go.
And all of you as well.
You know like in the middle of a
war when the prime minister of the Zionist
state is making phone calls like a madman.
I need to talk to the owner of
Facebook.
I need to talk to the owner of
Instagram.
I need to talk to the owner of
TikTok.
I need to stop this.
I need to stop that.
You know why brothers and sisters?
100 years ago, a union was established called
the World Union of Jewish Students.
Right?
Connected to the World Zionist Organization.
The first president of that union of Jewish
students globally which was a Zionist project, was
Albert Einstein.
They knew that the path forward was the
universities.
Right?
And it crumbled.
Right in front of them in less than
a year.
They've lost all grip.
The social media algorithms were fighting you, brothers
and sisters.
It was so hard to get engagement.
That means you were putting in 10 times
the amount of work to build awareness and
people are starting to see it.
Despite the shadow banning, despite the fighting, right?
People are getting cracked.
People are getting fired left and right.
And people are getting reinstated left and right.
Look at these lawyers, look at these students,
look at these doctors.
I lost track of the names.
I wish we could compile them because we
need this to know, oh, it's working.
كيف تصبر على ما لم تحط به خبرة؟
Allah Azzawajal says, How can you put up,
how can you have perseverance when something you
can't grasp?
So I need you to grasp that you're
okay for needing a breather.
And I need you to grasp, brothers and
sisters, that it is working.
Don't stipulate results to get involved.
You don't know how all the dots are
going to connect.
Allah will connect them.
Stay invested, stay involved, do your part.
Be honored that Allah has chosen you to
revive this cause and it's revived.
And as much as I would like to
end with an ayah or a hadith, I
cannot help but recall the very first prime
minister of Israel.
It is reported about him that he famously
said, The elders will die and the youth
will forget.
And we have not forgotten.
And we will not forget.
And the memory is as alive as ever.
How we raise our children.
How we discipline ourselves upon Allah's great deen.
How we mobilize because we are not outnumbered.
We are out organized.
How we put our petty, secondary differences aside.
How we move forward will determine how much
Allah honors us.
And He has already shown us some of
the fruit.
Perhaps because He knows we need to see
that.
Perhaps He knows our weakness.
So may Allah strengthen us out of weakness.
And may Allah unite us out of division.
And may Allah Azza wa Jal use us
for His great cause and not replace us.
Deem us worthy to be His servants.
Worthy of His pleasure.
Worthy to serve, play a role in the
liberation of Al-Nasr al-Aqsa in Palestine.
Allahumma ameen.
And may Allah heal our wounds in every
corner of the world.
May Allah return this ummah to the Quran
He sent for it.
And may He honor the world with the
Quran He sent in it.
Thank you.