Mohammad Elshinawy – The Heroics Of Backing Down
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of having goodwill towards others and not giving people too much information to avoid causing harm. They also touch on the negative consequences of understands of the Prophet's name and the need for community support. The segment then touches on the rise of independence, the loss of the Prophet, and the use of the military in the umGeneration, including the reciting of the Qur Qur and the reciting of the Qauq Qur. The speaker emphasizes the importance of practicing actions and not letting anyone know they need to act. They also discuss the crisis of the previous year and the need for everyone to adopt the change.
AI: Summary ©
Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud Was Robbed While He
Wasn't Paying Attention Brothers and sisters, it's reported
that Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه,
the great companion, was one time robbed while
he wasn't paying attention.
And so the people instinctively made du'a,
supplicated against the thief.
And then they told Ibn Mas'ud, make
du'a against him.
And so he lifted his hands and he
said, O Allah, if he was driven to
stealing by need, then bless it for him.
I relinquish it, it's his property now.
And if he was driven by his waqaha,
by his shamelessness, then make it the last
sin he commits.
Guide him and allow him to repent.
And this is just one of the embodiments
that existed among so many of the sahaba
that they drew from living around the Prophet
ﷺ and his magnanimous spirit, and about which
he said, الدين النصيحة.
This deen ultimately boils down to nasiha.
Meaning if you miss out on nasiha, you've
lost the plot on what this deen is
so much about.
They said, whom is this nasiha due to,
O messenger of Allah?
He said, to Allah, to his book, to
his messenger.
But then he said, for the purposes of
this khutbah, لِأَئِمَّةِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ وَعَامَّتِهِمْ To the leaders
of the Muslims, and every last one of
them, their common folk.
So what is nasiha?
People think nasiha is advice, it's not.
It's the place where sincere advice comes from.
It's really about having goodwill at heart towards
others.
Sincerity and goodwill, well-wishing for others.
And subhanallah, when he spoke about it in
terms of interpersonal relations, not just sincerity to
Allah, to the book, to the messenger, but
with people, he didn't just say in all
Muslims or all people.
He said to the leaders of the Muslims,
why?
Because they tend to be in the limelight.
So they tend to be more criticized, unfairly
than anyone else.
They got a crosshair on their back, because
they stand taller than everyone else.
And so people tend in general to have
less goodwill, less charitable perspectives on their words
and their behavior, right?
But then he also said every last Muslim.
But before he said every last Muslim, he
singled out the leader especially, because the leader
is not perceived with goodwill.
In other words, check their first to see
if you've truly internalized nasiha.
You know, it all starts within, having goodwill
towards everybody.
It's hard.
You know, most of the fights and the
strained relationships you have with people, it's probably
because you're not willing to get into a
fight with yourself, because that's the hardest fight,
to wage war on yourself, to restrain your
self-centered ego, right?
To tame your assumptions that you jump to
sometimes, your conclusions, to tame your desire for
your own selfish interests.
This is normal.
But how do you tame it, so it
doesn't become ugly, doesn't become monstrous?
It needs to be tamed.
I want others to be right.
I want the leader to be better.
I want this person I'm in a debate
with to be correct.
Not just me always being correct.
I want them to be good.
I want them to be right.
I want to be able to accept that
maybe they are right.
Maybe they're not as bad as I think.
You think of the infinite applications of this
too.
Kids suffer for a lifetime.
Why?
A lot of times, because their parents are
incapable of stopping their childish bickering.
They have to have the last word in
the conversation.
And the kids grow up watching this, and
they suffer for a lifetime with emotional insecurity
and otherwise.
Because of this, communities and ummah can suffer
for generations.
Why?
Because not enough of them are able to
fit at the same table, to collaborate for
the greater good.
There is no community without leadership for instance.
Right?
Which one of us is going to be
the leader?
Right?
There is no community without direction.
Whose opinion is going to inform our direction?
Too many obese egos to fit at one
table.
And whatever the reason, sometimes it's tribal, ethnic,
sometimes it's generational, the standoff between the youth
and the elders.
Sometimes it's political.
Sometimes it's just personal.
You get 20 people at a table, and
you have 21 opinions.
How are we ever going to move forward?
Until someone or enough of us are able
to employ what the sahaba employed.
The heroics of backing down.
The honorability, the honor of backing down.
This is what makes nations.
And without it, this is what breaks families
and individuals.
Wallahi, the sahaba were exceptional in this.
Having goodwill, having humility, taming the ego, backing
down.
You know when the Prophet ﷺ died, of
course Arabia was about to fall apart.
Before he was buried, the senior sahaba heard
that the Medinans, Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj,
were picking a leader from among them.
And they had to stop them.
Because Arabia, if they would accept a leader,
it would only be from Mecca.
This is of the wisdoms why Allah sent
the Prophet in Mecca, ﷺ, to give more
people a chance to be guided, to accept,
to fold under his leadership.
So the next morning they rush over to
what was known as Saqifat Bani Sa'idah,
the council of Bani Sa'idah.
And they tell him, you can't do this.
Umar said, I spent the whole night putting
my words together, because this could have been
a bloodbath.
This could have been a civil war, before
the Prophet was buried, ﷺ.
Who's it gonna be?
He said, before I spoke, Abu Bakr shut
me down.
And he spoke spontaneously, more eloquently than all
my preparation.
And he said, we will be the leaders,
and you will be the wuzara, you will
be the supporters, the advisors.
You are the...
And so they said, no, absolutely not.
And so Umar radiallahu anhu, is trying to
sort of loosen up the deadlock.
Abu Bakr is telling them, he was being
assertive.
And he said to them, pick a man
from Quraysh.
Don't do it.
Don't ruin this.
You were the first people to support.
The Prophet ﷺ, don't be the first people
to burn it down.
To burn this ummah down.
You have Umar, you have Abu Ubaidah, pick
one of these two men from Mecca.
And then Umar jumps up and says, we
will never put ahead of us, someone who
the Prophet ﷺ put, other than the one
who the Prophet put ahead of us in
the prayers.
And he grabs Abu Bakr's hand, and he
gives him a pledge of allegiance.
Some, Usaid ibn Hudair from the Madinah says,
it's about the prayer, it's about religious, not
sort of tribal.
Fine, okay.
And he pledges allegiance as well.
And some couldn't get themselves to do it
right away.
Like Sa'd ibn Ubaidah, the head of Al
-Khazraj.
But he didn't burn it down.
He bowed out quietly, until the day he
died.
He was quiet about it.
He felt a certain way, but he understood,
this is just my perspective.
We will not take the whole community on
a ride because I feel hurt.
You know what else brothers and sisters, in
Surah Al-Bukhari and elsewhere, the son-in
-law of the Prophet ﷺ, the cousin of
the Prophet ﷺ, Ali ibn Abi Talib was
offended by how this happened.
Because he was busy washing the Prophet ﷺ,
preparing him for burial.
He doesn't know that it was about to
be a disaster, and so Abu Bakr ibn
Ubaidah had to sort of offset it in
any way.
They were reacting.
And so he didn't want to be the
leader, of course not.
But you could have at least consulted me.
I'm a nobody, like I'm not even involved
in the discussion.
And he remained in his home for six
months, not mixing with the people, because it's
embarrassing.
People are saying stuff.
Umar رضي الله عنه, he says about this
whole incident, he said, كَانَتْ سَقِيفَةُ بَنِي سَاعِدَ
فَلْتَ What happened on that day was a
fluke.
This doesn't mean a conspiracy, we all know
the virtue of Umar.
He means it was not supposed to end
like this.
The tension was in the air.
It was about to become a disaster.
People were going to slit each other's throats
if this went the wrong way.
It was a fluke.
وَقَانَ اللَّهُ شَرَّهَا That Allah protected us from
its worst outcome, its worst potential outcome.
The fact that everyone in that room was
able to restrain their ego, was able to
perform the heroics of backing down, it was
not supposed to end like this.
And that's just one example, brothers and sisters.
There are so many.
You know, when the reciters among the sahaba
were killed off, massacred, martyred, in large numbers
at Yamama, the battle of Yamama after the
prophet's death, they ran to Abu Bakr as
-Siddiq and said, hurry up, document this Qur
'an.
So he picked the best of the best
of them to document the Qur'an.
And eventually, after he passes away, and Umar
passes away, and Uthman is leading the ummah
now, Uthman standardizes it, sends it to all
the provinces, and tells people, listen, we don't
want discrepancy.
Some people have their own personal copies of
the Qur'an.
Maybe they have some commentary in the margins.
Maybe it's a different kind of script.
People that are non-Arab are now becoming
Muslim far and wide.
Leave this to be the standard copy just
to tighten the room.
And so one of the greatest sahaba, Abdullah
ibn Mas'ud, didn't want to back down
initially.
He didn't want to.
He had his own manuscript with many surahs
in it.
Of course it has sentimental value.
He learned them directly from the Prophet ﷺ.
He had certain surahs in the standard copy
now that he thought were du'a, were
not necessarily surahs.
He knew of them.
It's not like missing surahs or anything.
And initially he didn't want to.
But he did back down.
And it's amazing to think about.
Ibn Mas'ud, if we were Ibn Mas
'ud, we could have probably said, do you
know who I am?
There are 70 surahs of the Qur'an
that I took directly from the Prophet's mouth.
He said that in a different context.
Nobody can claim that but me.
It's true.
He could say, the Prophet ﷺ said about
me, if you want to hear the Qur
'an fresh, fluid, the way it came down
from Jibreel, hear it from Ibn Mas'ud.
He could have cited all this stuff.
He could have cited the ayah where Allah
ﷻ said, وَإِن تُطِعَ أَكْثَرَ مَن فِي الْأَرْضِ
يُضِلُّكَ عَن سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ If you follow the
majority of people on earth, they will misguide
you from the path of Allah.
He didn't do any of that.
He stopped.
Right?
Restrained himself.
Said, wait a minute.
What is the likelihood here?
That they're all wrong and I'm right.
Yes?
And he conceded.
No one took his Qur'an away from
him.
Right?
There's no discrepancy on the content.
Right?
That's why even people who memorize the Qur
'an and get certified their ijazah, it goes
through Ibn Mas'ud ﷺ.
May Allah be pleased with him.
But it didn't have to end like that.
Think of also Khalid ibn Walid.
Khalid ibn Walid, they took from him his
leadership of the army when he was an
undefeated warrior living legend.
That's probably not easy.
People are saying stuff, how come you got
demoted and someone else got on top of
you and you never lost and against all
odds.
And Umar made a decision, a wise decision.
But it probably was not.
But Khalid accepted to be a leader one
day and to be a follower the next
day.
You know, another beautiful example.
Notice how many there are.
The heroics of backing down among the sahaba
and what made them so special and exceptional
in this regard.
Abu Dharr al-Ghifari used to believe, may
Allah be pleased with him, that it was
haram to save money.
You know why?
Because early on when the Muslims were still
getting on their feet, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala revealed in the Qur'an, يَسْأَلُونَكَ مَاذَا
يُنفِقُونَ قُلِ الْعَفُّ They ask you, how much
should we spend?
Say to them, whatever remains.
Meaning what you need, use it.
The rest, share it.
Al-afu, whatever is extra.
Later on, zakah was institutionalized.
And that rule is overturned.
Yes?
This is a living religion.
The day the Prophet died, verses were still
in a sense coming down.
Right?
Not everyone got every memo instantly.
Yes?
And not everyone understood the ayah, the later
ayah in the same way.
So he believed until the day he died,
you're not allowed to save money.
And that is the kenz, the hoarding that
is prohibited in the Qur'an and condemned
there.
Then the Muslims become very very wealthy, very
fast after the Prophet's death.
And he starts seeing people saving money.
And now he speaks out against it.
Now in society, not among the companions, there
are now agitators.
Saying, yeah.
You heard what Abu Dhara said?
These people are materialistic.
Uthman, the khalifa, Muawiyah, the governor of Hisham.
These people are power hungry, they're money hungry,
they're nepotistic, they're putting their families in places,
they're tyrants.
So they complained to Uthman, and Uthman tells
Abu Dhara, please come, come back to Medina.
So Abu Dhara walks into Medina, walks in
on Uthman, and he says to him, you
think I'm one of them, don't you?
Must have hurt, right?
I know why you called me.
You think I'm one of the rebels spreading
rumors about the leadership in the ummah.
You think I'm one of them.
Wallahi, I'm not one of them.
But you guys are not behaving the way
we used to act in the Prophet's lifetime.
So he says to him, can you stay
by my side?
Just stay here.
Be my advisor here in Medina.
He said, I can't do it.
You know why he couldn't do it?
Because he believed that even Uthman had no
right to save money.
He was saving money too.
Tidbits, but I can't do it.
He said, please just excuse me.
And he walks away.
He could have said, the Prophet said, Islam
began as a stranger, glad tidings to the
strangers, right?
He could have said, the greatest jihad is
a word of truth spoken to power, spoken
to a tyrant, right?
He didn't do that.
He said, can I just go?
Because if I see it, I'm gonna have
to say it.
You can imagine how difficult it was for
him to pack up his horse.
And for sure he must have been thinking
of the Prophet's hadith from years ago, Abu
Dharr walks alone and will die alone and
will be resurrected on the day of judgment
alone.
And he goes with his wife and dies
in the wilderness.
I did my job.
Every time I saw it, I said it.
Let things fall where they may.
That's what made the ummah, right?
That degree of humility.
That could have been a disaster.
In fact, those who didn't do this were
the beginning of the greatest disasters that happened
in the ummah's history.
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 محمدًا عبده
ونبيه ورسوله When Uthman رضي الله عنه enough
momentum was mobilized against him and he was
assassinated, brothers and sisters, an army came from
Asham, from the west.
And in it were some of the great
companions.
And even our mother Aisha رضي الله عنها
caught up with the army.
This army was not coming to fight Ali
بن أبي طالب was not coming to fight
the believers, right?
In Medina or later on in Al-Qub.
No.
It was coming to get the killers of
Uthman.
None of these were companions, right?
But after Ali's army stops this incoming army
and says, put it down.
I can't, not right now.
I need to sort of establish power and
then I'll go after them.
They accept.
And they go to sleep that night and
the agitators emerge again.
The rebels.
See, not everyone is as protective as you,
right?
The rebels come out and they attack.
They provoke in the middle of the night.
So everyone's waking up.
We were betrayed by the other side.
It engulfs in flames.
By the morning, by the time the dust
settles, some of the greatest companions of the
Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم were killed.
And I used to always wonder how could
this happen in the best community?
But perhaps of the greatest wisdoms of why
Allah let it happen is to show us
that even that can be walked back from.
Even that can be reconciled.
Even that doesn't have to break a community.
Can you imagine Ali رضي الله عنه taking
our mother Aisha رضي الله عنها and having
his personal guards escort her safely all the
way back to Medina.
He sees through the agitation.
He sees through the rebels.
He realizes it's a dirty game and that
they weren't part of it.
Immediately he was able to see that.
And then he walks out among the dead.
And he sees Talha رضي الله عنه, the
senior companion, and his son Muhammad killed on
the ground.
And he picks him up and he carries
him close.
And he wipes the blood and the dust
off his face.
And he says to him, عزيز علي أنا
أراك مجندلاً أبا محمد How difficult it is
for me O Talha to see you like
this.
We were in Badr together.
We were in Uhud together.
We were everywhere together.
Somehow an army that I was leading included
people that started a problem that got you
killed.
Immediately he saw it.
And there are so many...
You know the last two examples I'll give
you brothers and sisters.
The son of Ali رضي الله عنه al
-Hassan ibn Ali is able when he becomes
the khalifa to give up the khilafa, the
leadership of this ummah.
To give it up to the leaders of
Ash-Sham, Muawiyah may Allah be pleased with
them all.
To mend the rift that the followers were
suffering from.
And restart the momentum of this ummah and
its expansions.
But it all requires lots of heroics.
Al-Hassan, it was not easy for him
to become what the Prophet ﷺ said he
would one day become.
Perhaps this grandson of mine will mend between
the rifts of the Muslims.
Will move them forward from a deadlock.
Backing down is a heroic act, brothers and
sisters.
And more often than not, we need to
practice it.
We need to adopt it.
Many times we think we know we need
to act in a certain way.
But the great pause, let alone in this
age, the great pause is so important.
The final example I said I would share,
in Sayh al-Bukhari, some of these rebels
or sympathizers of the rebels, before they killed
Uthman, they came to Abdullah ibn Umar ibn
al-Khattab in the Kaaba.
And he said to him, I ask you
by the sanctity of this house, Uthman, did
he flee the battleground at Uhud or not?
He said, yes he did.
And was he absent from the battle of
Badr or not?
He said, yes he was.
And did he skip, was he not present
in the bay'ah, the pledge to fight
to the death if we had to, at
al-Ridwan, the tree of al-Ridwan?
He said, yes he did.
So the man said, Allahu Akbar!
Young foolish man, thinks he knows everything he
needs to know, right?
You know like those bumper stickers that say
everything I need to know about Islam, I
learned on 9-11.
What else is there?
I got all the facts, right?
So he said, Allahu Akbar!
Ibn Umar said to him, Now come here.
Let me tell you what you don't know.
Your half-truths, right?
Let me tell you what you don't know.
As for the battle of Badr, the Prophet's
daughter was sick.
And so he stayed by her side.
And this is why the Prophet ﷺ said,
Uthman is to be awarded the reward with
Allah and the spoils just like anyone else
that attended Badr.
It's the Prophet's orders.
The Prophet's daughter he was taking care of.
As for fleeing at Uhud, you made me
testify he wasn't.
I testify that Allah has forgiven him and
it's in the Qur'an.
Like you swear you know a historical fact.
You don't even know what's in God's book.
Allah said He forgave them all.
And as for bay'at al-Ridwan, the
pledge of allegiance, you know during the treaty
of al-Hudaybiyyah, they went to Mecca, they
wouldn't let them in.
It was a standoff.
And they pledged allegiance at a tree called
the tree of al-Ridwan, the tree of
pleasure, where Allah declared that He is pleased
with all 1400 of them.
He said to him, do you know why
Uthman wasn't there?
If there was anyone more honorable than Uthman,
he said to him, he would have been
in Mecca.
The reason we gave that pledge is because
Uthman didn't come back from Mecca.
We thought he could have been killed.
And so we said we're gonna fight till
every last man is done.
That was the whole purpose of the bay
'at, it was for him, right?
And he said, that is why we were
standing there.
And the Prophet stuck out his right hand
by that tree and slapped it with his
left hand and said, this is Uthman pledging
allegiance just like every one of you.
This is on behalf of him.
May Allah be pleased with them all.
Now get out of here.
Ibn Umar said to him, now get out
of here.
The khutbah time is over.
But that is our job, to tell our
egos to get out of here, right?
To pause, to verify, to listen, to want
others to be right.
To ask yourself if you would even have
room for that.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guide us
with the guidance of the Qur'an and
allow us to embody the sunnah of the
greatest man, alayhis salatu was salam.
May Allah azza wa jal forgive our sins
and cure our sick and have mercy on
our deceased and bring dignity and honor to
this ummah through the unity that we take
part in.
Allahumma ameen.
Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Mubarak on our Prophet Muhammad.