Intellectual Seerah #15 – The Battle of Uhud #2
Date:
Channel: Mohammed Hijab
Series: Mohammed Hijab - Intellectual Seerah
File Size: 58.14MB
Related
- Tim Humble – The Ill Effects of Sin
- Mohammad Elshinawy – A Super Tool for the Quran-Centric Revival of the Ummah
- Ibrahim Hindy – The Story of A Verse #13 – Investigate
- Mohamad Baajour – Finding Pleasure in Salat #27 Allah will be very pleased when you do this
- Abdul Nasir Jangda – Stories of the Prophets #28 Dedication
- Hatem al-Haj – Fiqh of Worship #54 – Pillars and Mandatory Actions of Hajj and Umrah
- Said Rageah – The Three That Went To The Cave
AI Generated Summary ©
The importance of the Sira of the prophet Muhammad Sallaihi and the battle of the " thick of the thickness" of the battle is emphasized, along with the use of distraction techniques for public speaking and finding relevant context for public speaking. The stress response is emphasized, along with the use of distraction techniques for public speaking and finding relevant context for public speaking. The importance of quick quitting football is emphasized, along with the use of distraction techniques for public speaking and finding relevant context for public speaking. The experience of a woman being approached by a police officer and hesitant to give out her phone number is also discussed. The speaker describes a situation where a woman talks to a police officer about a serial killer, but she refuses to give out her phone number and refuses to answer any further questions.AI Generated Transcript ©
How are you guys doing? And welcome to
the 14th
session out of 20. So there's gonna be
6 left
of the intellectual
seer. And we are continuing from where we
left off with Uhud with some very important
lessons. In fact, some of the most important
lessons in the entire Sira of the prophet
Muhammad Sallaihi Salam.
And where we left off was we were
talking about the battle itself, the thick of
the thickness of the battle of the thick
of it. And
in particular, we stopped at a place where
we're talking about
some of the fighting that,
taken place.
Let's actually do a quick
recap.
What are some of the things we said
in the beginning of how the battle started?
Who
left? There were 300 people who left. Who
who left? Who defected?
What was going on? What do what do
you have to say about this?
So is Abdullah ibn Ubay. Mhmm.
He
was,
one of the guys who obviously
retreated
from the prophet's side, and we discussed how
even from a psychological perspective this could have
affected
the Muslims
psychologically. Imagine you're going to battle and a
third or a quarter of the army, I
believe, I think it was a third,
retreated and went back to
Medina.
So
if you're standing there trying to face the
enemy,
you're psychologically,
potentially
in a
weakened, more vulnerable situation. So that was one
of the things we cited.
Yes. Excellent summary there. I was gonna ask
another question, which is, in the beginning of
the battle, who would you say had the
upper hand?
The Meccans.
The Meccans?
Essentially,
the The Muslims or the Oh, no. Not
the not Muslims. Yeah. Who in the beginning
of the battle? In the beginning of the
battle.
Oh, in the beginning of the battle.
Oh, during the battle, there was a Muslim.
Sorry. They had the upper hand. They were
fighting and they were and they were winning,
but from on paper it seemed like obviously
the advantage was on their side. So what
what what was the key mistake that took
place there? It was the
archers on the hill who obviously
moved from their position and
left an opening for,
Khalid bin Waleed who
ended up being one of the greatest
companions of of the prophet
once he converted. So, yeah, he he was
able to,
attack and that's when
the advantage was on the non Muslim side.
Tell us a little bit more about that,
Shamir.
When that happened, what what would you say?
How would you caesarize that? Yeah. So,
the archers, the reason for them there
is,
because the Muslims were still outnumbered.
If need be,
then the archers would be able to strike
them without getting damaged.
And what happened is
the Muslims were winning the battle and they
saw the beauty which was left which is,
things like armor and gold and silver, something
like that. And then,
and then they saw that and they thought
that
they would be missing out in
that beauty. But
the prophet told them before, do not move
from the position,
even if the enemy has been defeated
or something along those lines.
But then they moved anyway, and then,
their Khawid bin Walid was able to,
get around the back of them and then
attack the Muslims from the back.
And that's that's how they got to use
it. And they were in full retreat, in
fact,
the at that time. But as they were
in full retreat, Khaled Nourid spotted this weakness
and
exploited this weakness, which shows you that,
you know, it's it just takes one mistake,
especially with people at that caliber on that
level. Just takes 1 and this is the
same in sports.
You know, you can have a very strong
team.
Okay. We see at the highest level of
premiership football and stuff like
that, they're attacking and then all it takes
is one defender to one defender to make
a mistake. Forget about the rest of the
defenders.
One defender to make a mistake, and the
entire
team has been penetrated and the goal is
scored. It's a counter attack strategy. Napoleon
Napoleon once said,
I'm the man who lost the battle at
5 o'clock and won it back at 7.
So, you know, the ebb and flow of
battle, it's it's very it's always in flux.
Mhmm.
Which is which shows you the importance. I
mean, the the key characteristics of Halim Walid
which we'll probably talk about one day
in more detail when we do like some
Sahabis,
you know,
and stuff like that,
is that he's quick witted.
And by the way, if you wanna see
a a characteristic
in most of sports
sportsman's,
you know,
psyche or arsenal capabilities
which make them at the highest level is
that quick quittedness. It's ability to act without
hesitation.
It's the it's the ability to make a
move
without flinching, without without thinking too much.
It's just real He knew when to act.
He he know when an opportunity, what an
opportunity looks like and you know how to
exploit that opportunity.
People at the highest level do that. It's
not just sports people. It's a chess chess
masters, especially speed chess.
As soon as they see it, they move.
So it shows you that if your IQ
is too slow
in certain context, your IQ is,
irrelevant or it's not. It's ineffectual.
Like, if you're if you're a clever person
but you're slow and clever, it's not the
same as being clever and fast,
if that makes sense. And was
both clever and and fast.
So Ayas came in the Quran,
exposing some of the, belief systems of the,
which
we can read here actually because I got
the the the ASR.
Well, Allah says
So for example, in this particular ayah,
Allah is saying that one of the reasons
this whole thing took place
was that Allah
can test the hypocrites. And he said to
them, come and fight in the way of
Allah or at least defend yourselves. And they
said, had we known fighting will take place,
we would certainly have followed you.
They were at that day closer to disbelieved
in faith,
Saying with their mouths that which is not
in their hearts, and Allah has full knowledge
of what they conceal.
And it continues. I mean, this this whole
section, so it's Al Amran, by the way.
There's a whole section
which you can read maybe from the for
the sake of argument, say, verse 150 onwards.
And we'll go through some of them and
some of even, even
have seen of this. A whole section talking
about the psychology
of the
and the wisdoms of what this, why Allah
had made this happen, why he allowed this
to happen.
For example, here, this is very interesting.
You know, if the the ones who said
to their brother brethren, if they had really
followed us, they wouldn't have been killed.
That go ahead
and avert death from yourselves. And we spoke
at some detail about the fact that death
can get come to you from any way
you want. We saw COVID.
COVID was killing people.
You know? You can have some kind of,
disease. You can have cancer. You can have
anything.
So, effectively, Allah is saying that you're not
in control of this process of life and
death that you think you're so in control
of.
And then you have famous verses here, you
know,
and so on. That, you know, do not
think that the ones who have been killed
in the sake of Allah, that they are
dead. That that they are alive with Allah,
that Allah is providing for them and so
on.
Let me see if there's anything else in
in this sequence.
We will come to some of the verses
here actually because I've I've put it on
the slides.
But the prophet Muhammad salaam,
just going back to the battle itself,
what he done was that he mobilized his
army, and he arranged them into 2 rows
to prepare them for a fight. So he
selected 50 skillful archers, and we've he basically
score formed a squad and made them under
the command of Abdul ibn Jabir,
ibn,
Naman,
Al Ansari.
He issued his orders to them
to stay
where they were. We just mentioned this, right,
on the mountain top and so on. And
later on they went against that
against that particular thing.
Now there are some standout figures that
were very impressive and heroic
on the day of Allahuht
of Allahuht.
And one of them was Abu Dujana.
And he was,
known, he's usually used as an example of
somebody, you know, he The way his demeanor
was, of an arrogant demeanor.
And the prophet said that this kind of
demeanor, this kind of Mishia, this kind of
the way he was walking around
is not be like It's not beloved to
Allah. It's in fact hated to Allah.
Except in this context.
You know? But let's stick with this for
a second because someone will say, okay, then,
you know, we can use this to me
and say, it's very difficult to decide what
context that is.
So, for example, we had this conversation before
I went on with David Wood,
and I and because of who he was,
I had a conversation. I said, look, the
way I want to
to go ahead with him is I wanna
be quite arrogant with him, if you like.
There there needs to be a flare, needs
to be kind of like a brazen. A
lot of the
at the time when I was making
that judgment said, yes, you can because and
they used
that was a journalist. Because I was a
journalist. It's like, for example, same thing. It's
a kind of, you know, you go against
the enemy. And if you have confidence,
confidence
is very contagious.
Confidence is extremely contagious.
Someone can say something false in confidence,
but because of their confidence, they can make
it look true.
So especially if you're going against I mean,
Islam is a confident religion. I remember reading
Ayan Hirsi Ali's book, you know, when I
was attacking or going for her because that's
another person I had to have the same
kind
of behavior with.
And
and she said something interesting. I mean, she
doesn't usually say something. She make a a
1000 mistakes in her books and I was
laughing half the time and rolling my eyes
the other half. But she said something which
I found interesting which is that
she said, Allah is a fiery god. This
is a sentence in her book. I'll I'll
I can remember it.
And I thought, what an interesting way of
putting it. What a fiery god meaning
that the the confidence she realizes, recognizes that
the confidence that comes from the Quran
is in fact, is a permeating confidence. It's
a fiery confidence.
If you think If you had to What
is the style of the Quran?
Is it is it a especially when it's
speaking about issues to do with salvation and
it's it's a very it's an extremely it's
the most confident religious book on the earth.
In the same surah,
surah Al Imran, you have this thing which
people would look at and raise their eyebrow,
but really they'll be a bit scared about
it as well. If they're coming from different
traditions,
which is that,
you know,
You know? Let let us call our sons
and
and and, children and so on,
whenever.
And we
do this.
And we will do
the one who's the land of Allah, the
the the the the
curse of God will be on the one
who's lie on the liar.
Now that's a very, very confident thing for
a religious person to
to do.
Because if you believe in god Now, think
about it. You'd have to be an atheist.
If you truly believe in god
and you believe in the curse of god,
if you believe in those two things and
and you're lying about your religion,
to go out to the Christians and to
the Jews and say, look, I'm so sure
about my religion. I'm willing to ruin my
entire life by invoking the curse of God
on me. That's an extremely confident thing to
do. So Abu Dohjana, in this context,
he manifested that confidence.
And in fact, it wouldn't be arrogance in
this situation. It would be arrogance in other
situations.
In this situation is confidence, which shows you
something interesting,
that what is seen to be arrogant in
some contexts is actually confidence in others.
It's not arrogance in in
in some context.
So if there is acceptable and unacceptable ones,
well, how you behave in some context is
is unacceptable in other context. For example,
Allah
says that you should be
that you should be very humble with believers.
Allah says in Quran, for example, that you
should lower your wing to those who follow
you from the believers.
And so there are many verses like that.
And if you manifest arrogance in this context,
then it's not it's not correct. But Abu
Dujana here, because of what this was,
very dangerous fight.
And a fight, by the way, where the
prophet himself, as we see, was succumb to
injury,
which is extremely
powerful.
Because if you consider that the prophet will
succumb to injury himself,
the the the arrow some some way I
say the arrow came into his his mouth
and broke his tooth,
and then they had to remove it. And
he was fighting himself.
And what I find so powerful,
so powerful,
there's somewhere here.
That and the prophet,
he is calling you from behind, because at
this time when these archers left,
people went into fight or flight.
It's true. Some of them ran away. Some
of them retreated. They went for the they
went for the land. It's true.
Some of the companions, they they fled.
I will explain the psychology of that in
a second, but some of them, they fled.
Because now you got Khalid and Walid, you
got all of these people, they're coming back,
and there was only a few people now
that were there.
Now this
incident, if you think about it, honestly,
is a proof for the prophethood of prophet
Muhammadu alaihis salam. I'll explain why.
If you consider how he behaved
Now it's already unusual. We have to accept.
It's already unusual, especially in light of contemporary
events
for a leader of an army
to engage in the fighting himself. It's very
unusual.
Not just engage in the fighting, but engage
in the fighting to the extent where he'll
be injured.
And he is the only time where the
prophet killed somebody.
Will come to it is away in the
caliph. And it will see we'll see it
in this particular battle.
So he was
inflicting harm and harm was being inflicted upon
him.
But the saying
the prophet is calling you from behind
you. So in other words, you've run so
far.
You are running,
you're going up the hill. You're literally running
up the hill. You are even looking back.
So when you're running up the hill
and you won't even look at because you
know when you're in panic
and shock,
you run, you don't even wanna look behind.
They're running. Allah Allah is now he's exposing.
He's reprimanding. He is. He's reprimanding these particular
companions
that you
fled
and you ran up that mountain.
And the prophet was calling you from behind
you, which means what?
The prophet was still there.
Now if you consider the fact, we've already
said it's unusual for someone to fight
in the situation like that. But there's another
element here, which is this.
How is it that a man like Muhammad
who has not been known
to be a military,
to have military experience. Like, we've just read
his Meccan, Sierra. He wasn't known to be
this, like, military fighter fighting the tribes. He
wasn't known for that.
He didn't have great experience on the field.
He he wasn't he wasn't exposed to that.
How could it be that a man who
wasn't exposed to that repeated level of military
engagement
could have such courage
that he would be one of the only
people,
not only on the field, but calling the
others to come back on the field.
Where do you get that from?
Because
we're gonna come to this.
If you look at the science of fight
or flight, the fight or flight science,
we're gonna come to this.
There's something in the body called the fight
or flight response.
Now, we've already spoken about the autonomic nervous
system.
I will come to it in a in
a second. But
the fight or flight response is almost it's
as close to involuntary
that you're gonna get.
It's as close to that as you're gonna
get. It's an instinctive reaction.
The fact that he re saw a salam
reacted in a way which was measured,
where you would expect from him a flight
response
without having military experience
is psychological
testimony
of his
veracity as a true prophet.
Because it doesn't matter what you're claiming or
what kind of gain you're trying to.
You are now isolated.
You have a high and real chance of
being killed.
And yet, not only are you on the
field
with and sad, they were famously there with
him, helping him. There were 2 people.
You are on the field, but you are
calling the others to be on the field
as well.
This is,
too much of an expectation of a novice
military fighter. Because someone who's only had one
military expedition, it would be called a novice.
A novice military general. That's why he would
be called.
So how could he be acting like this
as a novice?
This is,
and I'm gonna it's interesting because I was
reading Ross Rogers.
I'm gonna read some of the stuff he
says. He's he has some interesting analysis on
this actually. As a general
in America,
orientalist and non Muslim account.
And he he put he he actually summarized
some of the differences
between how Abu Sufyan was thinking, how Muhammad
was thinking, and why
in a way he was indicating why Mohammed
Hassan was more effective.
Yeah.
But it shows you there's a lots of
points here, leadership.
This is one of the greatest evidences
of
pinnacle leadership by the prophet Muhammad
You cannot not respect the prophet after that.
Now now his followers are gonna see that
he done that. He was the bravest among
them.
Forever, they have to they have to respect
him.
And I was speaking to Hassan Rashid before
about Tipo Sultan,
and he was saying the same thing about
Tipo Sultan. Tipu Sultan, if you don't know
who he is, was effectively
a Maesuri Indian
Muslim,
you know, fighter. And he was what? The
first real resistance fighter in India against British
colonial rule.
Real first resistance, organized resistance.
And he died on the field. And he
would always fight himself,
and he would pride himself on that.
And and his followers, and you'll see this
with the followers of Muhammad as well, they
were so attached to him by loyalty
to a level where everybody else could not
expect.
And because they saw how he attached to
you was to the cause, they were attached
to him and the cause.
So if you can't
do what you're telling everyone else to do,
then don't expect people to do it as
well.
That's why, interestingly in the in the Iraq
war,
George Galloway, when he was attacking the politicians
at the time, one of his key lines
was, why don't you put the tin hat
on and get into the fight yourself? And
this was It resonated quite heavily actually with
the British public.
Because why are you telling people to fight
and you're at home?
It's it's it's a disgusting and despicable cow
it's actually cowardly, in my opinion.
That is the if you if the opportunity
is there for you to fight,
and you are not fighting, but you're telling
other people to fight on your behalf, that
is actually a cowardly stance,
like Ben Shapiro and others.
Yeah. But it's it's It's true. He can
go and fight for the Israeli army. A
lot of them can fight for the Israel.
They're they're citizens of Israel,
but they don't do it, but and they're
telling other people to do it.
So,
We've spoken about the arches mistakes.
Okay. So this is some of the and
maybe you can read this in your own
time
of what
says, but it's not that big. So maybe
we can read it actually.
What one interesting thing,
you know, there is an a in the
in Surat Al Imran as well, which it
said
And now
that we will put terror in the hearts
of people.
And the prophet Muhammad, he
said in a hadith, he
says,
And the first thing he said, he said,
I've been given fire some things. How many?
Five things
that the prophets before me were not
given. And one of the thing he said,
no to be robbed. I was made I
was given victory by
terror.
Terror.
People became
fearful of him. People were scared of the
prophet.
If someone doesn't respect your consequences at all,
if there's no level of someone respecting your
consequences, especially enemies,
then there's no way you're gonna attain victory.
Just remember, that's a golden principle.
Wherever you go, if you have no consequences,
you have no power.
If you have no consequences, you have no
power. Especially with enemies. No one cares about
how merciful you are or
compassion, all these kinds of things. If you
have no consequences, people mess you around.
And so the prophet,
one of the things is people did
fear him, actually. His enemies feared him.
And interestingly,
you know, this this
This
here. In common Arabic,
means failure,
but that's not what this word means
in this verse
because
what this verse means,
means lost courage.
According to,
as you can see.
Said
means lost courage, which which brings us to
a question. How do you lose courage?
And by the way, losing courage is not
the same as becoming a coward.
Because courage or shaja is
It's an additional
it's an additional attribute.
Whereas,
or having
being a coward
is a.
It's something you you it's a deprecation of
some sorts.
Losing courage means you are at a certain
level and some of you
so the question is, how do you, lose
it? And we're gonna move on to this.
Very interesting.
If we go to
the fleeing we've already spoken to. Now, we
go to
slide 24.
Because
we've already spoken about this, but I think
it's important to speak about this in a
little bit of scientific detail.
Because a lot of the humiliations of human
being come from this.
And it's it's impossible
or it's Yeah.
It's it's important for us to know. Right?
Theoretically,
how this works. So it doesn't affect us
practically. We live in London. I mean, many
people watching this live all over the world
and there's different things
that they're going to face of this kind
of
of this kind of nature. So let's take
a look at
how can you lose courage.
So let's look at the scientific,
data on this.
This is from Harvard
Health. Okay?
First of all,
let's guess I'm going to read this.
Alright. So slide 24, you're gonna read this,
brother? Sounding the alarm. Yeah. Yep.
The stress response begins in the brain.
See illustration.
When someone confronts an oncoming car or other
danger, the eyes or ears or both send
the information
into the amygdala, an area of the brain
that contributes to the emotional processing.
The amygdala interprets the images and sounds.
When it perceives danger, it instantly sends a
distress signal to the hypothalamus.
When someone experiences a stressful event, the amygdala,
an area of the brain that contributes to
emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the
hypothalamus.
This area of the brain functions like a
command center, communicating with the rest of the
body through the nervous system so that the
person has the energy to fight or flee.
Keep going.
The hypothalamus is a bit like a command
center. This area of the brain communicates with
the rest of the body through the autonomic
nervous system, which controls such involuntary
body functions
such as breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, and the
dilation or constriction
of key blood vessels and small airways in
the lungs called bronchioles.
The autonomic nervous system has two components,
This is the sympathetic nervous system and the
parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system functions
like a gas
like a gas pedal in a car. It
triggers a fight or flight response, providing the
body with a burst of energy so that
it can respond to perceived dangers.
The parasympathetic
nervous system acts like a brake. It promotes
the rest and digest response that calms the
body down after the danger has passed.
Okay then.
After the amygdala sends a distress signal, the
hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending
signals through the autonomic nerves to the
adrenal glands.
These glands respond by pumping the hormone
epinephrine
epinephrine
also known as adrenaline, into the bloodstream.
As epinephrine
circulates through the body, it brings on a
number of physiological changes. The heart beats faster
than normal, pushing blood to the muscles, heart,
and other vital organs.
Pulse rate and blood pressure goes up. The
person undergoing these changes also starts to breathe
more rapidly.
Small airways in the lungs open wide. This
way, the lungs can take in as much
oxygen as possible with each breath. Extra oxygen
is sent to the brain increasing alertness.
Sight, hearing, and other senses become sharper.
Meanwhile, epinephrine
epinephrine
triggers the release of blood sugar, glucose and
fats from temporary storage sites in the body.
These nutrients flood into the bloodstream,
supplying energy to all parts of the body.
Okay. So there's a few things now. In
terms of
so just break this down. Right? Let me
break this down. I'll tell you why I'm
mentioning this.
So the fleeing of the Sahaba, the companions,
that's what we're talking about. This would be
more fit into what you would call,
the flight response, not the fight response. And
even for courageous people, anyone can be susceptible
to the the flight response.
And and the point for us as a
lesson
is, actually
we need to be able to moderate this
flight response because it can happen to anyone.
If it could happen to the companions, it
can happen to absolutely anybody.
So how,
to do so? 1st, you need to understand
the mechanisms of that scientifically. I think it's
We're living in an age where that's an
advantage for us. We can understand the mechanisms
of it.
So what we've just read is the following,
is that it's saying
we as a human being have something called
the autonomic nervous system, the ANC.
And the ANC is divided into 2
separate things. One called the sympathetic nervous system
and one called the parasympathetic
nervous system. Now, the way to remember this
is that the sympathetic
the parasympathetic
nervous system
is for rest and digest,
resting and digesting. So if you wanna eat
food and that kinda thing, when your stomach
is digesting food or when you're sleeping, your
parasympathetic
nervous system, that is what is activated at
that particular time.
When you are in a state of shock,
for example, if I see us if a
a snake comes on it, I don't care
who you are. And in fact, if this
doesn't happen to you, there's something wrong with
you.
You know, if there's a snake that comes
on, you know it's a venomous snake, and
it comes trying to kill you, and there's
no reaction whatsoever. You're just like that.
Then there's then there's something
something wrong here, or maybe there's something right.
And I'll tell you I'll explain what I
mean by something
right. But if there's a snake, unless you've
had experience with snakes, and you know how
to control the snake,
you won't know how to deal with the
snake. What happens when the sympathetic nervous system
is active
is as it was mentioned, your pupils start
to dilate. Number one thing, your eyes, the
pupils,
start to get bigger. If you if there
was a magnifying glass on it, you'll see
that. Number 2, what will happen is that
your your arms start your hands start to
get sweaty.
So you start your respiratory system comes out
back.
Your heart rate goes up
immediately. Your heart rate goes
up because of the perceived threat.
So you start acting instinctively. And what it
was saying is that in the brain,
there are 2 or 3 different parts, which
I mentioned in the literature. One of them
is the amygdala.
Now, the amygdala itself
is the place
where instinct happens,
where where it's responsible for the instinctive reactions
of human being.
Then you have 2 other places, which many
different,
kind of scientists and others would mention.
One of them is the prefrontal cortex,
and the other one is the hippocampus.
The hippocampus is responsible for many different things.
Of them is special navigation and these kinds
of things. And by the way, interestingly about
the hippocampus,
the hippocampus has a kind of neuroplasticity,
so it can actually grow.
And there's been studies that have been shown
that even if you
learn certain things about directions and stuff like
that, like the McGuire study, 2000, that your
hippocampus can actually grow. The gray matter in
it can grow.
Now, what is interesting is that I was
looking into this, and people with PTSD and
anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety disorders and depression,
People with these kinds of disorders,
they are, in fact,
they have a
oh, they a hyperactive
amygdala.
And the hypoactive,
you see,
a hypoactive,
hippocampus,
a hypoactive
prefrontal cortex.
Hypoactive means it's smaller. It's not working as
much as it should be. Hyperactive, it means
it's bigger. It's acting as overworking, you see.
So when you've got PTSD because your the
the the remnants of that shock, that whatever
shock you felt,
you see, the remnants of that shock are
still there. So your mind is still in
overdrive.
And so the question is
the question is,
how do we put ourselves in a position
where we don't
panic as much? Because there's 2 or 3
different kinds of panic here, and they're quite
interestingly connected.
There's generalized panic. People are sometimes nowadays, we're
living in an age of anxiety. People are
anxious for no reason.
People are when I say for no reason,
no extraneous variable is causing this particular thing,
yet the people are still anxious.
And so there's all kinds of, you see,
emotional regulation
techniques that people are talking about nowadays.
Emotional regulation techniques, deep breathing, mindfulness,
distraction techniques,
different types of techniques.
Sleep, getting sleep in order, for example, very
important.
Different things you might have heard of,
in general.
So there are different types of technique,
but for me, looking at the different things,
yes, distraction can be helpful sometimes. There's no
doubt. Like, for example, if you've lost a
parent, if you've lost somebody in love, if
you have grief,
distraction can be one of the most effective
ways
of getting on with your day, for example.
Like we're fasting right now, distraction can be
quite good in terms of we're distracting ourselves
from the pain
of fasting. In a way, this is a
distraction technique. But what is When the sympathetic
nervous system, yes,
when that's
when that's overdriving,
the the only real way
that I've seen that really works is exposure
therapy.
Hence, going back to the point I was
making about the prophet Muhammad.
I find it shocking
that he was able to act in that
way
being
a, on paper, novice military,
general at that time. Because he only had
one real expedition, which is better. Real big
one. He's all Sarai, lots of Sarai, but
real one big one.
The fact that he was calling them behind,
that he was staying in his place, that
he was engaging in,
that is very surprising.
Because the question is, why didn't his amygdala
amygdala go out of control?
Why is his prefrontal cortex and his hippocampus
so well developed
that it's able to
act in this way, calculate effectively calculate
the pros and cons of acting in a
certain behavior.
Did is there any record of him having
any kind of dispute
or argument
or physical altercation
pre, you know, pre revelation?
Dispute and argument? What how do you explain?
Has he, you know, I mean, as as,
has he ever had a disagreement, a physical
disagreement with somebody? Oh, a physical one? Yeah.
I mean, there's is there any record? Anything
about that? Did he get into a fight
before?
Before?
Yeah. Before do we have anything about that
in the Surat of Mecca Mecca? The only
thing known, Roqana when he but he didn't.
He engaged in a fight. No. I mean
Before before before Wahi. Prophethood? Mhmm. Yes. Because
we don't have that much about the before
the prophethood.
Yeah. So that makes it more remarkable.
Yeah. Yep. See. Yeah. Yeah. It makes him
more because he didn't have that kind of
experience. Do you see do you see what
I'm saying here? I I from all the
seros I've ever listened to, no one's ever
mentioned this point and I I I know
why.
The reason why no, honestly, because
let let me put it this way.
You only know about this when you get
engaged in this kind of thing. Now,
Yani, let me explain
something.
Let's say you bring a boxer,
you know, a a boxer,
someone who does boxing,
Anthony Joshua, like, you know, Tyson Fury or
someone like that.
If you turn to do a boxing fight
tomorrow, he probably has 0 nerves.
If he's against a formidable opponent,
he'll probably have some nerves because he could
lose. But if it's against an amateur or
something, he'll have no nerves because he's been
there so many times. He's done it so
many times before.
It's like public speaking. Right? Many of you
guys now have been your public speakers in
your own little right because all hamdulillah like,
you know, you you've started doing the public
speaking. Right?
The first time you do it, you start
thinking a 100 times. I remember doing public
speaking a long time ago, and I thought
so many times No. Now it's like going
into my bedroom and speaking to my wife.
It's even less than that. It's even
It's nothing.
It's because it's You've done it so many
times. You know what you
know what to expect.
Do you know what I mean? The predict
The unpredictability
factor
reduces
the amygdala,
slows down the prefrontal cortex basically takes control,
if you wanna put it in scientific terms.
Yes?
If you get a boxer,
he'll be very confident.
You put him in a kickboxing match,
immediately, he'll feel shocked.
Because when he gets kicked in the leg,
and this is something that well known in
the martial arts world.
The moment he gets kicked in the leg
or that tape goes into his stomach or
that is because it's a different kind of
pain. He doesn't know what he's doing with
the what's happening
here. He doesn't know what the hell is
going on, and these experiments have already been
done.
So what I'm saying is that the moment
you're confronted with a new kind of pain,
a new kind of unpredictability,
the moment your amygdala starts to flare up
again.
It's the same thing with we mentioned Anthony
Joshua.
That I saw a video of him going
up the mountain.
Anthony Joshua, for those who don't know, he's
like the
previous heavyweight champion of the world in boxing.
And he was going up this kind of
mountain rock climbing, and he found it very
scary.
Now, if you haven't done rock climbing before,
you'll find it very scary. Now, you peep
you see what's a fad is that people
going into cold plunge.
They get cold bath
and they go inside it. When I went
to Norway, I decided, you know what? Forget
all these people.
I took it off, I jumped in the
cold, and it was minus 10 anyway.
I said, I'm gonna do this thing.
And I came out, yes, I did feel
a bit more renewed, but I think they're
to be honest, they're going too far with
these things. It's become like a religion for
these guys.
So it's and I the probably the reason
why they're doing this cold plunge stuff is
because they don't have the excitement in their
life. So they have to just put themselves
in the cold or do something,
unusual, extraordinary.
Because there's no war anymore, so they have
to do this.
But but the point I'm making is it's
not always transferable.
You can be a great public speaker. If
you bring the greatest public speaker in the
world, put him in a boxing match, his
anxiety is gonna go all up the roof,
off the roof of the charts. He said,
Abdul is gonna go because it's it's a
different kind of thing. He's not used to
it.
Now if you bring someone who's great at
cold plunge, bring him into this other context.
He's been able to control his amygdala in
this context, but he's not been able to
control it in that context.
So for us,
we need to find the contexts
which are most closely
related
to physical confrontation.
And I know this is becoming like, I've
mentioned this to you a few times.
But the reason why it's very, very important.
The prophet said to us in Hadith.
He said
that whoever dies and he doesn't have something
in his heart to engage in jihad, then
he dies
with one of the,
characteristics of
the.
Can you believe that? Have you ever thought
of this? There's hadith
of the prophet, where he's saying that if
you've never considered
engaging in physical confrontation for the sake of
Allah, that you have something of nifaq inside
of you. You have something of hypocrisy inside
of you.
But then if you're not preparing
for as the Quran says, if they really
wanted to, they would have done some preparation
for it.
How do you know that the world won't
change in the next 30, 40 years? That
every single one of us in this room
and every one of us watching this thing
will have to defend someone or something in
a physical capacity.
And if that is the case, if the
if the geopolitics of the world changes to
that extent, which it could, because no one
knows with geopolitics,
then why do you wanna be put at
disadvantage where you never where you'll get overwhelmed
immediately?
So what I'm saying is that there are
context which you can you you should and
we should really invest in as an. It's
very if we want victory, there's no other
path to victory.
Let me just be clear about this.
You you want victory as an Yeah. If
you want victory as an there's no other
path to victory but the path
of resistance.
Now I'm not saying we should do anything
illegal.
But what I'm saying is we need to
get ourselves ready, mentally, spiritually, and physically. We
do.
And so that's why we had this discussion
with the scientific discussion because I wanna show
you how this thing works
operation and how you can change it. But
you know this very last thing where it's
asleep.
I actually came across a study, very interesting,
the role of sleep and cognitive,
in regulating,
in, sorry, in cognition and emotion by Matthew
Walker. Yeah. This
number 28.
And
the very interestingly,
so sleep can actually affect your your mental
state, especially with anxiety.
Allah says in this in this very Surah
about sleep.
Very interesting.
It says that Allah,
he sent down a slumber upon you,
which which made you
which covered you effectively. It covered all of
these people. And I saw this and Hadith.
A lot of the fighters on in a
hut. A lot of the fighters were literally
the they're having microsleep in in there.
Now you
if you, Yani, if you understood,
if you read this, study, which you don't
have time to do,
having a short nap before a fight
is actually a very,
very advantageous thing, because it just calms everything
down. Your whole system, your nervous system is
calm calm down. It it gives you more
sharpness, more attentiveness, more effectiveness, more cognitive ability.
It soothes your sympathetic nervous system. The fact
that this is mentioned to Aya is is
is astounding, actually. It's shocking.
Khabib Namagamedov, he
interestingly, he said, every time I have a
fight, he said this interview,
MMA fight. He goes, I have a nap
before I have a fight. I go to
the place and I have a nap.
Improves the performance
because it relaxes you.
It it relaxes you. So the the point
I'm making to you is
it's so interesting that I was mentioned in
the air. So this all the stuff we
just made, taming emotions, how to do so.
All the things that I mentioned in this
slide, I've already mentioned to you, which is
slide number 29.
And this idea of one thing I haven't
mentioned is talking yourself down. Because how like,
for example, bring that back to snake example.
Yeah?
If you had to work
in a zoo dealing with snakes, the first
time you're dealing with the snake is gonna
be very panic panic
orientated.
However, the second time,
okay, the guy is there. He's telling you,
don't worry about it. This snake is It
might be venomous, but if you hold it
in a certain way, he won't attack you.
Whatever, he's giving you certain things, he might
be if you move quickly, he might he'd
be more prone to attack you.
Okay. So you now, you're now, your prefrontal
cortex is working with the snake example.
If there's a lion, there's less you can
do.
And that's why the Quran says,
even the Quran says about the prophet, that
there are certain things you'd run away from,
even though we've never seen him run away
from anything. What am I referring to?
If you saw them in there, you'd have
run.
Allah says, if you saw these people, these
people in the cave like that,
you would have run. And the Quran says,
for example,
that it's not talking about the prophet here,
but it's talking about generally people running away
from a lion. So this is natural. There
are some things which you are meant to
run away from. I saw a big rat
outside of Saluya.
I jumped on a car.
Actually, do you know, like,
the rat was not the it ran next
to me. I said, what's this rat that's
coming to fight me? I jumped on side.
Do you know, like Tom and Jerry? You
know, the black woman that she would come
out of the thing. I became like that.
The rat was massive
here in London.
I jumped.
Right.
You know, but there was a time when
I was walking with my family
and I saw a rat and I didn't
flinch.
I didn't move. I said, is that the
rat? Yeah. I'm sending. And in my mind,
I was I was going wild. But when
I was by myself, I jumped in the
car.
But when you change the stakes, things can
things can happen.
If you saw the the most cowardly thing
I've ever seen in my life.
Actually, probably the most thing I've ever seen
in my whole life
was a video. I'm not sure if you
guys have seen it. It's it's a man
with his daughter.
And a dog came to buy his daughter
and the guy ran away and left his
daughter to be devoured by the dog.
I've never seen anything like this. The most
cowardly thing and the dog was a young
girl. She was screaming for her dad.
He ran
you know, it's a absolute
I would kill myself up there. That. Suffer
a lot. I would I
would consider
if it was giants, I would consider committing
suicide.
That is one of the worst. I could
not how can you live with yourself after
that?
He's already dead.
He's dead already, man. He's he's a young
young baby, daughter, like, maybe 3, 4 year
old. And the dog was devouring her, and
he was just it wasn't just like, you
know, it was a moment reaction. He left
it. He left it happen,
and he was just watching it.
We can't.
That's
that's
very bad.
And that's why these kinds of we need
to be very careful because this could happen
to any of us. Not that. That one,
I don't think will happen to any of
us. That one. That that one is too
much.
But, Yanny, anything could happen where it's
and by the way, the fight or flight
response could save your life one day. Yanny,
don't be a hero. I'm I'm not trying
to advocate being a hero because someone can
bring out a knife and then, Yani, run
away.
That's fine. You're meant to run away. There's
there's no shame.
Someone brings out a knife and you don't
have a knife, run away from him. There's
no shame. But if he brings that out
on your wife
and you're her protector,
then you don't run away. You let her
run away. You fend him off or something.
At least
do a few things.
Do you know what I mean? Like, give
her time to run away, Gany. Do you
know what I mean?
So every situation must be assessed,
but it's putting your prefrontal cortex or
back in control.
And it's very interesting as we talk about
that,
cowardice is one disease, but another disease is,
doing real.
And this guy, I came across this guy
called Cosman.
And this Cosman, I mean, this name, I
only got it from Noah. He's not mentioned
the Hadith. The Hadith is Muhari. And the
Hadith is the guy that was fighting very
fiercely and ferociously.
And then he was and then the prophet
said, he's in hellfire.
And the people were very disturbed by that.
So how is he in the hellfire when
he was fighting so for ferociously? Long story
short, he was a.
There was this thing I found for Abdul
Jawzi, which said that there was a whole
story of him going back to the women
in his town, and they were emasculating him.
I don't find this way anywhere.
This is just Imjazi saying that.
This, story of Osman.
As for
why he
I know he says it clearly. He just
says that he's, we just wanna move.
Some people were there fighting, pretending to be
a good fighter, but you are on the
other side the whole time. You are.
You're one of the the the defectors and
hypocrites.
And this is such a a beautiful story.
Yeah?
This bastard, sorry to say.
He was
he was
he was there, and he said to the
prophet Muhammad, if you remember the one who
put the intestines
on the prophet, and he he said, I'm
gonna kill you.
And he was feeding his horse, and he
said, I'm got this horse is the one
that's gonna be used to kill you as
well.
And the prophet said, I'm gonna kill you.
And
as soon as the prophet said, I I
saw Obey, already he's declared he wants to
kill him. He obey has declared that he
wants to kill the prophet.
As soon as he saw obey,
he says, say no more. He grabbed that
javelin,
a spear, sorry, was, and he killed him.
He killed him. And he was by the
way, for those who say the prophet was
interested, he's a bloodthirsty person killing everyone. This
is the only person he's ever killed.
There's no other record of someone who's he's
engaged in sword fighting and stuff,
but he's the only one he's ever actually
killed, confirmed.
And it's so so interesting. The prophet said
to you, I will kill you, and he
killed him. That's a prediction,
which shows you once again
how how, delicate and how sophisticated the predictions
of the prophet are.
If it was if this was just a
story, I mean, this by itself, because we
saw how it was making a blood boil
of Khalaf,
what he was doing in Mecca to Muhammad
if this is the only thing that could
be established from the,
this would be sufficient. This is a great
thing that happened. Yes. There were martyrs, 17
martyrs that died from our side,
and there was there was strategic,
like, we went backwards strategically in one aspect.
However, this by itself is a great victory.
And there were 70 shuhar there from the
Muslims,
and we know this famous story of Hamza.
We know that. But by the way, the
the this famous story of Hamza that he
was killed and he was mutilated then she
ate his thing. I didn't see this is
not
this is not authentic.
And I'm surprised that how many Sierra people
don't mention the fact that it's not authentic.
And it should they should mention in my
opinion there. Because that's we're talking about the
body of 1 of the,
you know, of of the prophet
uncle.
So why should the believe that he his
body was
eaten eaten
up? No. We shouldn't believe in that. That's
that's a disrespect to the body of the,
of the uncle
To even narrate something like that when it's
not even authentic.
But what I found interesting is
the story of Washi. We all know the
story of Washi. And the prophet forgave Washi
despite he doing that when he became Muslim.
He killed his own uncle, but he forgave
him, which shows you the magnanimous nature of
the prophet Muhammad SAW.
And there is a,
I was thinking it's very interesting because why
she used the javelin and the way he
used it. If you look at the story
of how he killed Hamza, he used it
when he actually did it when he was
looking away. He didn't do it face to
face. He knew.
And
he wants to fight him.
Even though the the javelins inside of him,
he
did shows you the level of bravery that
this man had. He wants to fight someone.
The javelin is inside you, but he still
fight. Ahi, unbelievable man. Unbelievable.
Shocking.
But then, obviously, he bled to death.
But the the point is is that I
was I was looking at because I was
thinking,
we usually associate East Africans
with long distance running as stereotypical as it
may sound.
But I came across this particular guy
who's referred to as mister YouTube.
Very
I don't know if you come across this
story.
He's a he's a Kenyan
gold medalist in the Beijing games,
and he's a javelin. The guy's built like
a tank,
and he's he threw it an Achi. Do
you know how because they don't have the
facilities for
it in Kenya.
So
he learned how to follow Javelin on YouTube.
He went on YouTube before he saw if
you watch his video, it's actually fascinating.
Because I was thinking
to to to to kill Hamza, he must
have had that strength.
But then the Kenyans are not known for
that that I was shocked to find. The
Kenyans were actually known for. Imagine if they
had facilities, like in European facilities,
how many gold medalists we've get? This guy,
mister YouTube,
going to YouTube.
If you see the video, he's he's learning
how to throw the jab literally on YouTube.
And he became the most
formidable javelin
thrower in the world.
I don't know what his actual name is.
Mister YouTube.
So many of the people died at that
time. Hamza died very famous story. Wasam Al
Amir.
Honorable death, but we can't go into details
about that. Hamdulillah,
very interesting, you know, he had the new
wife,
and the way he puts it here in
the
in,
the selved nectar, he said, from his wife's
lap to a from his wife's lap to
a sword fight.
Yeah. And he was just having intercourse with
his wife, new wife, good times.
And then he has to
fight
straight
away.
But, you know, it shows you that he
wasn't gonna say no to her.
Is it time for the Sahabi?
Is this the same Sheikh?
It must be. No. Because this,
a very famous Hadith,
he he said, look. Some when I'm with
my family and stuff, I'm always having good
time.
I feel bit of a hypocrite
because I come here and I'm very serious
in the masjid. But when I'm with my
family, I'm very
you know what I mean? So the prophet
said to
him spend 1 hour doing this, having fun
and good time, and 1 hour being serious.
It's a philosophy of life.
And one that he'd lived and died by
actually.
No. It's true. And he was shahid.
And he was called the,
the one who was washed by because he
was washed by the angels.
Because, you know, after for those who don't
know, Muslim non Muslims are watching this, I'm
sure.
When we have intercourse in in the religion
of Islam, you have to have a whole
bath, have showers, stuff like that.
It's
like Obviously, if you ejaculate by other means,
you have to do the same thing.
But but the point is is that So
because he didn't have the time to go
in to the shower,
so the angels done it on his behalf
in a metaphysical manner.
Muhammad, did did,
in our culture we still say if somebody's
like a savage or a barbarian, we call
him washi.
Oh, really? Yeah. They say
Is it the same in Arabic as well?
Well, you call
Right?
It's it's a pejorative term. Yeah. So if
somebody's really savage or Is a we see
we see
Yeah.
Well, because what what would you say? It's
not from what it's not from this washi,
is it? It's not from the same as
it's just from the from the idea
of a beast. No. It it would have
been from this person.
No. I mean, well, the the word in
Arabic itself means beast. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's
what the connotation that we use in. Yeah.
But this was pre him. Oh, okay.
Yeah. For example,
for example, in the Quran, it says when
the beast come together.
So this individual, was his actual given name
Washi or is it you know? It's interesting.
Was that his given name? No. Yeah. It's
a very good question. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah.
He's a slave. Mhmm. And he was I
mean, he's he was doing this to free
himself, to be honest, Yani. He wants to
he wants freedom.
So he killed Hamza.
They didn't engage with the battle. The only
thing he did just He just sit in
the bush. Yeah.
Wait.
That and that's wrong.
Yeah. And if you're not if you're not
interested in
your freedom shouldn't be prioritized of someone's life.
If you're not if you if you don't
believe in the cause of these people,
your freedom is not more important in someone's
life.
If if you had a slave, so to
say because some people will say, well, I
understand where the wax is coming from.
Well,
he was a slave. He was doing an
act of resistance.
It's not it's not an act of resistance,
but and and what what they call it
there?
The,
Finkelstein was mentioning this as well, the what's
that what's that famous
famous, revolt.
You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. When
the when the slaves are routed. Yeah. That
that that revolt. And he said, we're gonna
kill every white man. Yeah. That's wrong.
That kind of thing is wrong. You're you're
free. You you're the the fact that you're
in prison under these conditions is a wrong,
but it doesn't mean you gotta kill somebody
now so you can get out of those
conditions.
That means you're no worse than your slave
master, frankly, because your slave master put you
in this position. Yeah? And you're killing someone
to get out of that position. This person's
got nothing to do with it.
Do you know what I mean? So it
shouldn't be like this.
There was I know the what's the revolt
called?
I forgot the I forgot the I forgot
the guy's name. Nat Turner. Oh, you're not
Turner. Nat Turner. Nat Turner. Said. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So just it's it's like the Nat
Turner. The the I don't like that. Frankly,
I don't even like that, example because I
don't agree with that. So and it will
kill all the whites. Yeah. Annie, who who
what gives you the right and the license
to to kill the whites?
No. No one has,
that. Sorry to say. What are you talking
about?
It's horrible.
To be honest with
you. Okay. Now, there are some things we
can mention about and,
but we'll mention that in the next, session
because we don't wanna,
spend too much time. What I do wanna
say is I I I mentioned
Ross Rogers, quite an interesting thing. We we
briefly
mentioned him a bit better, but I mentioned
him again here.
In fact,
does someone want to read it? Let me
read it. It's fine. No problem.
So this is him commenting on Uhud. He
says,
many years after Muhammad's era,
following the massive campaigns of, to defeat Napoleon
in the early 1800, a German staff owner
named Carl von Clausewitz
penned
the draft of his now famous on war.
If one were to ask reasonably educated military
theorists or Western military officer about what they
remember about Clausewitz,
They would typically quote his famous dictum,
that war is simply a continuation of political
intercourse with the addition of other means.
However, if one were to sum up Clausewitz's
thinking in a single sentence,
it would be found in his opening chapter.
War is thus an act to force,
to compel our enemy to do our will.
The statement
is so simple
as to be earth shattering,
yet is a concept largely neglected by many
observers throughout history.
This principle is echoed
either explicitly or implicitly
by the great writers on war. Sun Tzu,
writing around 500 BC,
tells us that victory is the main object
in
war. If this is long delayed, weapons are
blunted and morale depressed.
It is also implied by the likes
of Antoine Henry
de Giamminy,
and was explicitly articulated by Mao
c tongue.
The key theories of war understood that most
the most fundamental
aspects of war was to force an enemy
to do one's will in contrast.
So now he's connecting this to Abu Sufyan
and Mohammed Sasa.
Abu Sufyan saw war as a game, a
contest in which sides tray each side trades
triumphs back and forth in the ebb and
tides of martial sport.
In essence, he saw no end with Muhammad.
In contrast to prophet, the prophet's
view of war was dramatically different. On countless
occasions, he indicated that the final ultimate
triumph would belong to Islam.
For Abu Sofian, there was no such thing
as victory. For Muhammad, there was no substitute
for victory.
Very interesting.
And the reason he was commenting on, you
know, if she the end of Uhud,
or how people see the end of it,
is where Abu Sufyan is calling out. Is
Muhammad there? Is Abu Bakr there? Is there?
And then the prophet says, don't say anything.
He says, be quiet. Leave them. Leave them
to it. And then he started to attack
Allah's rights, and then the prophet said, respond
to him,
which there's lessons in that in itself.
But then, Abu Sufyan famously said, one for
1. So you've you've beaten us one time,
we've beat you one time now.
Now, this one for one thing
is
what he's commenting on because it shows you
the mentality of Abu Sufyan.
The mentality of Abu Sufyan is that this
is just a game we're playing some kind
of
we're we're we're playing for it's like sports.
You won today, you maybe I won tomorrow,
you win after tomorrow. Whereas, Mohammed was not
like that. Mohammed
was all about
we're gonna win, and it's gonna be an
ultimate victory. So this idea of an ultimate
victory
and it does go back to this idea
of a the the infinite player versus the
finite player in game theory as well. It's
connected.
Because the infinite player thinks that I'm continuing
until I reach
whatever. The finite player just wants in and
out,
which is one one of the reasons why
Israel will never win,
actually.
Because
Israel is a finite player in game theory.
So all they wanna do is they wanna
they don't they wanna finish their mission and
and and live their lives. That's what they
want. Live the European life.
Whereas the infinite player, who is in this
case,
let's say, Hamas, or whoever whatever resistance group
decides to emerge other than Hamas.
Whatever group, I should say, decides to move
other than Hamas.
Any violent group
is that that we are not this is
life and death for us. And it will
always in game 3, the infinite player always
wins because they have their whole life is
that. Whereas the finite player wants to finish
early.
And with that, we will conclude.
And, hopefully, you have benefited this session.
We'll see you next session. We'll talk about
some of the things that happened before, Uhud
Al Hazab.
Al Hazab.