Mohammad Elshinawy – KaB Ibn Malik – Ra Forged By His Mistake
AI: Summary ©
The speaker describes the history of the prophet sallali Alaihi wa Sallam, a member of the Muslim Church who faced extreme heat and poverty during his time in Spain. He describes a pro-castination pill that keeps people from taking up initiatives until they hear that Islam has been abandoned, as well as a situation where a cousin talks to a representative and says he wants to protect them. The speaker emphasizes the importance of honesty and finding the right person to be with, finding the right person in their description, and being truthful.
AI: Summary ©
Brothers and sisters, in the 9th year after
the Hijra, after the migration of our prophet
salallahu alaihi wasalam to Madinah,
shortly before his death salallahu alaihi wasalam, there
took place what is known historically as the
battle of Tabuk.
And that which the Quran titles,
the hour of adversity.
Think of all of the adversities.
This was the moments
of difficulty.
The great superpower of the time, the the
Byzantine Roman Empire was mobilizing all it had
to finish this growing Muslim
population once and for all.
And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam had
a call made out to everyone
that they're all obligated so long as they
can, every able-bodied person is to flock out
of Madinah immediately.
And it was difficult because these are 30,000
people.
A number like that does not exist elsewhere
in any of his battles, salallahu alayhi wa
sallam.
In the middle of an exceptionally hot summer,
extreme heat,
and also the people of Madinah were going
through a difficult season of poverty,
The yield of the crops that year was
not like it usually is.
And so this caused the people to become
divided.
Among the people were those who could not
go out due to their disability,
and some of them were so sincere
that Allah celebrated them until the end of
time by
coining
or capturing
their sincerity in the Quran to be recited
until the day of judgement.
Allah says, there is no blame on you.
You should not be worrying in the least.
Those that came to you, o Muhammad,
so that you can carry them, give them
a camel or a horse,
and you had to say to them, I
do not have anything. I don't have any
more rides.
I don't have anything to carry you on,
any riding mount.
And so they walked away, the verse says,
with their eyes overflowing with tears
that they do not possess that which they
could spend. How? How am I gonna stay
behind in this moment of truth and when
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is himself marching
out and we he may never come back
salallahu alaihi wasalam. How can we They used
cry that they couldn't go.
And there were those also
who
dozens of them
that were flimsy in their faith. Hypocrisy
had crawled up on their souls,
and so they stayed behind in a very
conniving way. One reason or another, they just
allowed the army to proceed,
and they disappeared
in the crowds, and stayed behind in Madinah.
But there were 3 people
that were neither here nor there,
were not excused due to some disability
or lack of resource,
nor were they hypocrites.
The most famous of those 3 was Kab
ibn Malik radiAllahu anhu. This is one of
the leaders of the Madinans who was at
the forefront of welcoming the prophet shalallahu alaihi
wa sallam into Madinah,
and hosting him.
Great personality.
He,
unlike everyone else, had a harvest that was
booming.
It was, like, better than any other year.
And so he said to himself, you know,
the the the army cannot move as fast
as an individual. I'll catch up with them.
Like, I'd take a few days to just
wrap things up here in my business.
And everyday he would say, I'm just gonna
take care of a few more things here,
set things up, and I'll catch up. There's
no way
they're gonna get so far ahead.
And it was
the the procrastination
pill, the pill of tomorrow.
And as they say, tomorrow is the busiest
day of the week. Always. Because we always
push more and more things to tomorrow.
I'm gonna stop putting things off starting tomorrow.
This is the way it works.
This has been shaitan's
most effective snare
hook that he keeps people back with. People
that could have repented, he used up their
time. People that should have taken up certain
initiatives, he took up their time. People that
should have and would have and were intending
to convert to Islam but he got them
to just think it over for a few
more weeks,
and their time in this world was up.
And so Kab ibn Malik got caught
in this snare of shaitan,
putting things off, putting things
off until he heard not just that the
Muslims arrived, but the Romans had a change
of heart and they aborted mission and no
battle took place, and the prophet salallahu alaihi
wasallam is now on his way back to
Madinah.
Can you imagine? You have to appear in
the morning in front of the court.
If you've ever been arraigned, or had a
desk appear in sick it, or have this
be show up to your boss or your
parents or your teacher or whoever it may
be. Right?
The whole night he's thinking, what should I
do? What should I do? And he thought
of the perfect excuse.
He says in the morning the prophet shalallahu
alaihi wa sallam came, and whenever he would
come from travel, he would stop in the
masjid. And he would pray 2 rakas in
the masjid and then go home. But this
time he stayed in the masjid sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, and people came to him, dozens
of them. Each of them giving him an
excuse
and him letting them go.
And my family is telling me, just go
to the messenger of Allah. He is forgiving.
He's so kind. He's so merciful. Give him
any excuse. He'll accept it. He's accepted it
from so many people.
He says, and then as soon as I
showed up in front of him,
all of that disappeared. There's no way I'm
gonna lie to the prophet
I can't.
He says, and so I sat in front
of him and he smiled at me, tabasumal
muqdab,
the smile of an angry person.
And he said to me,
where were you?
He knows that the prophet
knew that he stayed behind.
And he knows that the Muslims were talking
about it over there.
Like he's the narrator of this entire account
I'm sharing with you here in Hudba. And
he says, when the prophet was
there, he was saying, where's Kabir ibn Malik?
And some of them said he's a hypocrite
like the other hypocrites.
He was kept back by his vanity, by
his luxuries. He was rich. He was popular.
He was a poet. He's very eloquent.
He's caught up in himself.
Thinks he can get away with anything. Thinks
his money can get him out of any
problem. Right?
And Mu'adh ibn Jabal defended me. Gab al
Malik is saying, that means there's a conversation
and it's being reported back to him. So
he's walking up to the
prophet fully aware of the conversation,
and he tells him what kept you.
And so Kab ibn Malik says to him
the following.
He says to him,
yes, I did have an animal. Didn't you
buy an animal? He said, yes, I did
have a riding animal. That wasn't it. Transport
was there.
He said to him, oh messenger of Allah,
I swear by Allah,
If I was sitting in front of any
other human being on the planet
other than you,
I know that I can escape
their anger at me with some sort of
excuse.
I've been a person that has been gifted
with articulation, eloquence. I can talk my way
out of anything with anyone.
He said, but I fear
that if I am to tell you something
that is not true,
so that you will be pleased with me
for a moment,
Allah will cause you soon enough to become
angry at me.
And so I know that if I am
to tell you the truth right now
and you hold it against me,
I am hopeful that long term
I can land the forgiveness of Allah because
of that.
I swear I had no excuse.
I swear I was never healthier, he said,
or wealthier
than the day I stayed behind when you
went off into battle,
than the day I deserted you.
I had no excuse.
And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said
to the sahaba,
the companions around,
See this one?
He's being honest.
Meaning he knew sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that
the others were lying. And he let them
go.
Dealt with them sort of in a, you
know, superficial way. I don't mean that in
a disrespectful manner, but
And then he said to him,
go away until Allah passes a verdict about
you.
He walks out from the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam's gathering,
his family blesses him. What is the matter
with you? Why do you gotta be mister,
you know, goody 2 shoes? Why do you
gotta be mister honest? Why couldn't you just
say anything and get yourself a dua from
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam? He would
have prayed for you like he did with
everybody else.
He says, and they kept criticizing me.
To the point that I was on the
verge of going back
and belying myself, retracting my statement.
And then, subhanallah, and Allah wants to guide
someone. And then I said, who else
did he say that to? You're honest. Go
away till Allah passes a verdict.
They said he added
and
He said those are 2 righteous men. They
attended the earliest battle of Badr.
And I am hopeful that Allah will forgive
them, so I'm I'm gonna stay right here.
I'm gonna stay in this good company even
if dozens have gotten a pass.
And he was right. And he was rightly
guided in that intuition. The prophet
was tougher on them because Allah wanted to
purify them because they were honest. Moment of
weakness, but they were honest.
But the test had to come. The purification,
he had to be forged by the mistake.
And an announcement goes out
that no one is to speak to these
3 people under any circumstance
nor interact with them whatsoever.
He says, I would enter the masjid,
say, assalamu alaikum to the prophet
and look at him and stare at his
lips. Is he are his lips even moving?
He wouldn't say anything. I'd enter to pray,
and I can feel him looking at me
out of the corner of his eye like
he's getting excited.
And as soon as the prayer is over,
I turn.
He doesn't give me a moment's attention.
And this was not a day or a
week. This was 3, 4, 5 weeks plus.
40 days
in social isolation
in prison in the middle of the city,
if you will.
He says, I went to the house of
my cousin and the person I loved the
most out of anybody after the prophet salam,
he said. And I'm calling out for him
to come out of his house. Someone give
me the time of day. Like I'm dying
here.
He wouldn't answer me. I climb over his
wall and I get into his property.
And I tell him, salaam alaikum.
And
wallahi didn't return my salaam. And I said
to him, don't you know that I love
Allah and his messenger?
He didn't answer me.
I repeated it a second time.
Nothing. I repeated it a 3rd time. Like,
are you crazy? Like, do you doubt that?
Like, what's wrong with you? And don't you
know that I love Allah and his messenger?
And then Abu Qata'ada, my cousin, said to
me,
Allahu Alem. Allah knows best.
He says, so I broke down.
You know he broke down
because
he's wondering now. Like it's not It's because
wait, maybe I am. Maybe I don't love
Allah and his messenger.
Maybe I suffer and may Allah protect us
all. Maybe I suffer from what they call
main character syndrome. You know main character syndrome?
It's that you believe that like nobody has
an excuse but me, and everyone's crime is
huge but mine. And like I am the
main character. I am the hero. The story
will always work out well for me. Everyone
in the world is basically my sidekick or
a villain. That's main character syndrome as they
call it. Right? He says, so I broke
down. Like he started doubting himself
for 40 days, brothers and sisters.
And then on the 40th day, the prophet
alaihis salatu wa sallam sends a message to
the 3 of them,
To their homes
that their wives are to leave them.
They said, should we divorce them? He said,
not yet. But
So he sent her to her parents' house.
And then in those days,
the king of the Ghassanids, a Christian kingdom
in the north of Arabia
gets whiff of this and sends him
like a royal messenger, a royal emissary
with a message, a job offer.
And he says to him,
I have heard that your companion does not
appreciate you. Muhammad alaihi wa sallam doesn't know
who you are.
So join our ranks
so that you will be the first
of your people to join the winning team,
and so that he will know what it
means to underestimate someone of your caliber.
He looks at the letter and he says,
This is a part of the test.
In my moment of weakness, the perfect job
contract.
He says, and I throw it in the
fire, little cooking suit fire he has in
his house. I incinerate it before I change
my mind.
He says, and then on the 50th day,
I'm sitting on top of my roof
after the morning prayer
in the state that Allah described in the
Quran.
There are many verses about the battle of
Tabuk in this episode of today's khutba.
One of them is speaking about the 3
that stayed behind.
Until the earth there was no room for
them left on earth. That's how they felt.
This wide earth
was as tight as a needle hole at
this point.
And their souls
tightened on them. Like I can't even live
with myself anymore. In that moment, I was
sitting in that state on top of my
roof
suffocating,
crying and suffocating 50 days straight.
He says, and I hear someone calling out.
Great news.
He said, I fell into sujood.
And I thanked Allah azza wa jal. I
knew what happened. I knew Allah had finally
accepted
my repentance, had finally.
Because the verse says, you know, until their
their souls even became too tight for them
and they realized there is no
way to escape Allah except by running to
him, and so he opened the door. Now
they've realized this, he opened the door. In
that state of brokenness, he opened the door.
In the dead end, there's no dead ends
with Allah.
And he opened the door and accepted the
I realized it. Before I even heard the
verse, I realized it.
And I ran to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
And he said to me,
Oka Abim Malik,
congratulations
for the best day of your life
since your mother gave birth to you. You
think about that brothers and sisters.
What do we consider the best day of
our life? The day I made it big.
Whatever big means. So 15 year old versus
a 45 year old and anything in between,
right? What does it mean?
The child And that's a beautiful day, right?
The marriage, the graduation, the promotion. What is
it? The best day of your life is
the day that you earn the forgiveness of
Allah because we are transient beings passing through
this world.
And at the end of that moment called
our lives, we either have the forgiveness of
Allah or we have nothing.
Or else we will wish we were not
born.
Congratulations
to the greatest day ever
since your mother ever gave first gave birth
to you.
Brothers and sisters, decades later,
Kab ibn Malik
says in his old age,
after life and his strength and even his
vision had departed him,
He said, and since that day,
I have known what saved me. I was
a millimeter away from destruction. I was about
to lie.
But it was my truthfulness.
And me sort of siding with those 2
other guys who made that hard decision of
the bitter truth at whatever cost, momentarily it's
gonna hurt,
he said, and I've never lied since that
day.
Be honest with yourself, brothers and sisters.
Be honest with everyone you speak to. As
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, honesty leads
to righteousness, and righteousness leads to paradise. And
dishonesty
leads to evil, and evil leads to the
fire.
You know when you do evil
and you mask it, you cloak it,
that makes you more and more comfortable with
it till it becomes who you are.
It becomes who you are. You become defined
by it because you've become so comfortable with
it because you were able to hide it
so long until you got comfortable with it.
This is why dishonesty is the
the veneer, the cloak, the curtain with which
behind which we get comfortable with ugliness.
And that is why, and I close here,
in the aat
about
and the battle of Tabuk, in those set
of ayaat I've been referring you to the
whole,
Allah said,
Oh, you have believed.
Fear Allah
and be with the truthful.
That is the super fix.
If you make a mistake, admit it.
Don't justify it.
Don't shame yourself publicly. This is not the
idea. But be honest with yourself and be
honest with others,
and you'll see where honesty will lead you
the way in the same way that it
led Gabriem Malik.
Be with those who are truthful meaning surround
yourself with them and be with them meaning
be in their description. Be among them in
that description. May Allah make us of the
honest and forgive our sins and protect us
from putting things off procrastination.
May Allah
guide our hearts to his pleasure always
and continue to make the beloved companions of
our prophet
that spark and inspiration
that moves us safely closer to him and
his pleasure.