Morad Awad – My Life, My Problems
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To her.
We start by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and sending our peace and blessings
upon our noble and beloved prophet Muhammad alaihis
salatu wa salam.
And I remind myself and yourselves on this
blessed day of Yomul Jumu'ah
to fear Allah as Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
reminded us to fear him when he said,
All you who believe,
fear Allah the way he should be feared
and do not die except in the state
of Islam. We ask Allah to die in
the state.
Brothers and sisters, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
created Adam,
He dwelled in Jannah
for as long as Allah decreed for him
to dwell in.
And the first problem he encountered in Jannah
was the problem
of
Iblis whispering to him to eat from that
tree,
in which he promised eternal life in Jannah.
Adam alaihis
salam then forgot
and disobeyed
and followed
the Iblis
and the whispers of shaitaan.
And because of this,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
sent him and his progeny which is all
of us
to this dunya
which is defined
by what
he went through in jannah, which
is a test,
a trial,
a problem.
Brothers and sisters, this dunya that we live
in
is designed
to be that
of a problematic one.
And not one where someone can attain fun,
and happiness,
and joy.
We
may
have times of joy, times of happiness,
times of pleasure. But
the overall
the overall look,
the overall design of this dunya, and how
it was made and structured for us to
live in it,
is to be that of trials and tribulations
and problems.
And that's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
he said in the Quran,
Allah's
speaking to mankind in this verse, in Surat
Al Inshakkah.
He said that indeed you are laboring towards
your lord in exertion
and inevitably
you will get to him.
Laboring
You're laboring towards your Lord in exertion.
We're going through problem after problem,
issue after issue that we need to overcome.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
also
said,
We created
mankind
from a mixture
of sperm
of sperm substances.
Why? So that we can test them.
It's as if
the Ibtillah,
these tests, these issues, these problems, they begin
even before
we are born.
And before we come into this dunya, because
this is what this dunya
is all about.
Regardless
of age,
regardless of gender,
regardless of ethnicity,
every single one of us goes through problems
on the daily basis.
It could be
a job that we lost, a school that
we applied for, didn't get into, a class
or a course that we failed and we
can't seem to pass,
that we failed and we can't seem to
pass.
It could be an employee who we couldn't
manage or a manager that we need to
learn how to put up with.
It could be a marriage
that is just not working and we're trying
but it's not working the way we want
it to work.
It could be a debt that we're trying
so hard to get rid of but it
doesn't seem to be finishing. A debt that's
haunting us day and night.
It could be dealing with our kids, or
dealing with our parents,
or dealing with our neighbors. It could be
anything.
But we're surrounded
with these problems.
And that is what this life is all
about.
And just
as many
as there are problems,
there are solutions.
As the prophet alaihis salatu was salam said
in authentic hadith,
Allah did not
send down a sickness or a disease except
that he sent down a cure for it.
But I'm not here today to tell you
how to get rid
of all the problems,
or how to run away, or how to
avoid.
But I'm here to tell you
that you don't need to face them alone.
I'm here to tell you that you can
avoid them.
You cannot avoid them.
But you don't need to face them all
by yourself in this
world. And that's why I want to share
a few pointers inshallah. When it comes
to dealing
or facing problems in our life, there are
3 things
that we need to keep in mind.
And I'll go through them quickly as time
is always of the essence.
The first brothers and sisters is to trust
in Allah
And I know as common as that sounds,
and as taboo is that, oh, just trust
in Allah. Everyone says trust in Allah. But
what does it mean to trust in Allah?
That is what I want to elaborate on
in this point.
Trust in Allah and remember
what Yaqub alaihis salam told his children.
After they plotted, then they schemed, then they
kill they attempted to kill their own brother.
And years turned after their plotting.
When they found out that this treasure
of Egypt was their brother Yusuf,
No other than him.
What did they go to their father? They
said to their father,
we were mistaken and we did wrong.
What did he tell them?
He said,
Go back to Yusuf and do not ever
despair from Allah's mercy.
Indeed,
despairing from Allah's mercy is an act of
only those who disbelieve in Allah.
Which means that the ones who believe in
Allah never fall into despair and always trust
in His plan.
Another point is to know that Allah
uniquely
prescribed
these tests and these problems
for us to go through in our life
the same way a doctor prescribes medicine to
a sick based on the sickness and based
on the data that they have.
Allah knows
the issues
of our heart. Allah knows the sicknesses that
lie within. Allah knows
what will get us to jannah
and what will not.
And so long as we are in the
state of iman and belief in Allah, and
that we are connected to Him and trusting
in Him, then whatever problem comes our way
was only made and tailored for us and
no one other other than us.
So
we shouldn't
feel
like this test should be afflicted to someone
else or that it wrongly was prescribed to
us because the one who prescribed it to
us is none other than the most merciful.
When
he said
a famous statement.
He said, Wallahi, if
I were given the option
for my mother and my father to judge
me on the day of judgement, And Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, I would always choose Allah
because He is more merciful to me than
my own mother and father.
That is the type
of
relationship we need to have with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Not the relationship
that is
you know that that accuses of Allah, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala
and blames Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for things
that we are going through. But no.
Wallahi,
everything that we go through, good and bad,
trials, tribulations, good times, times of happiness and
ease,
or times
of the opposite of that.
They're all prescribed by the most merciful and
given to us by the most merciful.
The Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam in a
in a famous instance,
something that shook the hearts of the Sahaba.
After one of the battles,
the people
were in chaos. They were looking around and
you know, everyone is trying to get settled
in. And there was a woman
for hours
and then days
was looking for her infant child,
but she couldn't find him.
She's crying.
She's weeping.
She's dreading the thought
of her losing
her only child.
An infant
who cannot
fend for himself,
or feed himself,
or ask, or explain to everyone their grievances.
An infant.
And the sahabah and the messenger salallahu alaihi
wa siam understood
what was going through this woman's mind. But
when they saw this woman finally find her
child,
the messenger salallahu alaihi wa sallam and the
sahabah were standing, and they were looking at
that woman, and they saw the moment.
This woman found this child.
And they she grabbed this child, and she
stuck it with passion
to her chest, and she was weeping, and
her tears were dropping on the forehead of
this baby.
And you can only imagine
how many emotions were going through the heart.
The hearts of everyone looking at this.
And the Prophet
saw this as an opportunity
to
teach the sahaba
and teach the ummah who will read this
story until today.
How
much love and mercy Allah has for his
servants.
The Rasul sallallahu alaihi wa sallam saw the
shakken
and about to tear up. They said, You
Rasul Then the messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
told them, do you think that this woman,
if she were told to throw her child
in a fire right now, would she do
so?
They looked at the messenger, so I said,
what kind of question is this?
He said, love. Of course not You Rasulullah.
He said,
Allah
is more merciful
on the day of judgment
to his servants
as this woman is to her baby.
Allah is more merciful
to His servants on the day of judgement
than this one, this woman is to her
baby. Allah
So let us trust in who? In the
one who is most merciful.
The second inshallah
is to remember that indeed
with hardship comes ease. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
said,
ibn Abbas
he said
he said,
I was so happy that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala didn't say
But Allah said,
But Abba said, We're so fortunate.
We should be so joyous
to know that Allah said with hardship comes
ease and not after hardship comes ease.
We don't need to wait until this hardship
is finished for us to expect ease, but
accompanied with every hardship is ease.
So that when a mumin is afflicted with
any hardship, when they're going through any trial,
when they're experiencing any problem in life regardless
of what it is,
know that
accompanied and packaged
within this problem
is something that you would have never attained
without this problem.
You would have never got to a status
in the akhirah. You would have never got
to the status in the dunya. You would
have never met this person
or traveled to this place or seen this
thing or learned this wisdom
or attained a certain amount of knowledge if
you weren't to have gone through this problem.
So rest assured that with every hardship
comes an ease, but it is upon us
as believers to look for the ease
that comes with it. And to recognize it
and thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
for it.
When a woman
delivers her baby,
no one tells this woman
as she is pushing and going through perhaps
the most
difficult
times of her life,
trying to get this baby out of her
body. But guess what?
No one is there telling her,
No. It's okay.
Suck it back in. You don't need to
go through this.
It's fine. No. Everyone says, Push through it.
Go ahead Bismillah.
It's worthwhile.
It's worth everything you're exerting for it.
And likewise for a believer,
the patience that they are going through, the
perseverance that they are going through is worth
every single ounce of it.
Because the ease that is going to come
with it, the reward that is going to
come with going through this problem
is
It can only come
with being patient with this problem.
The third
is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is Al Hakim. One of his names
is the most wise.
Brothers and sisters, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
He wrote our lives.
He decreed everything for us.
He
wrote what will happen to us.
Whether it be times of ease or times
of hardship and calamities.
He wrote it for us from beginning to
end. And
There is no
wisdom over the wisdom of Allah.
There is no wisdom over the wisdom of
Allah.
And this is something that every believer needs
to understand,
and it can only
the litmus test of understanding this wisdom is
in the mind.
To see how
we see a certain thing when it happens
to us.
Brothers and sisters, if
I were to give every single one of
you a paper and a pen,
And to write down
from right now in your life until the
day you die, everything you want to happen
to.
It will not be
as wise,
as kind,
as merciful, as loving, as compassionate
as the decree that Allah wrote for you.
It can never be. And this is something
we have to believe in as believers.
And knowing this
will make us live this life
standing upright and standing straight,
and
tackling every problem and every calamity
with the power of Allah
The power of iman that He gave us
and guidance that
he instilled in us without us asking for
it.
Sometimes when a calamity hits, we're always making
dua for things.
You Allah change this.
You Allah remove this. You Allah instill this
or put that or bring this or send
away that.
We're making dua
for things outside of us to change.
But perhaps,
the only reason this is happening
to us
is because there's something that we still didn't
change in ourselves.
That's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in
the Quran,
Allah will not change a bounty that he
bestowed upon his servants until
something inside them changes.
So rather than making dua
for things outside of ourselves to change, we
should be making dua
for us to change so that we
will be the reason for everything around us
to change.
Perhaps things around us change because our nafs
is plummeting. Our nafs, our hearts are not
in the right place.
Perhaps this problem, this calamity is befalling us.
This trial we're going through is there
only because Allah wants us to explore something
inside of us, change something inside of us,
Connect with Him in a way that we
never connected with Him before.
So rather than thinking of outside, let's think
of inside.
And the moment we start thinking of inside,
that's when we experience growth. And when we
experience growth, we start to appreciate the wisdom
of Allah. And when we appreciate the wisdom
of Allah,
then
we will live with this trust.
We will live with this with
this togetherness
with Allah
We ask Allah to bless us with this
togetherness. We ask Allah
to make us from those who trust in
Him, who are patient
with His decrees to us. We ask Allah
to make us from those
who perceive His wisdom as wisdom,
and surrender themselves to Him.
After
mentioning
how to tackle problems and perceive them, and
and and
and learn how to live with them in
the light of our iman
and our
life with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and our
togetherness with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
There's a few advices I would like to
give
regarding this insha Allah
before ending,
the hutwa.
The first advice I'd like to give my
brothers and sisters is to
face
these problems head on,
and not try to run away from them
or get away from them because
we're not learning from them if we don't
face them head on.
Whether
it
is in our marriage
that isn't seem that doesn't seem like it's
working out, or our kids who just don't
listen to us, or our parents who just
don't understand us, or our neighbor who just,
dreads us or fears us, or our teacher
who seems to have a grudge on us
for some reason or the other, or a
a person
who bullies us, or whatever it can be.
Whatever it is,
face this problem head on and do not
let the problem
define us.
Allowing the problem to define us is a
huge issue.
That's when
that's when we surrender to shaitan.
That's when we say You Allah,
I failed and I will never understand your
wisdom in this.
That's when
we're it's as if we're accusing Allah's decree
to us
of not being fair or just.
But no.
We should never
do this. And we should never let this
problem define define us, but be sure that
Allah will create a way for us out
of it. And a way for us to
overcome it.
Another issue
another advice
another advice
is to not ignore the problem.
If there is an issue,
then we shouldn't
ignore it and overlook it, and distract ourselves.
And you Allah, there are so many distractions
in our time and day. We could sit
down, there's a problem,
but it doesn't seem like we're addressing the
problem ever. We're always addressing the symptoms.
The problem
is our
our bad manners.
The problem
is our
bad time management. The problem
is our relationship
and how much we're committing to it. The
problem
is our lack of planning,
lack of communication, whatever it is. So many
problems that are the actual core issue in
us.
But rather than actually addressing this problem, developing
ourselves, attacking it head on, what do we
do? We pacify ourselves sometimes.
We find our we find it easier to
just
open our phone
and watch something. Open a TV. Flip, you
know, find something Flip, you know, find something
to watch.
Right? Go out
to a place. Travel some place where we
could disconnect,
and forget,
and ignore our issues, but that's not the
way out brothers and sisters.
The only way
the problem will change
and we will learn from it
and grow with it is if we attack
it head on and not ignore it.
After the battle of Uhud,
the Messenger and
the Sahaba came back
after facing
a grave calamity of Allah. It was huge
huge issues in the battle of Uhud. Many
of the greatest sahaba
were killed and murdered
in that battle.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not
reveal an ayah reprimanding them. But Allah revealed
an ayah. He said,
Do not
be weak or feel weak, and do not
be sad because you are above them if
you are true believers.
Allah
is
strengthening.
The sahaba is telling them, Look, you lost
this battle.
There was a problem,
you did disobey
but you're still above them.
Don't be weak because of this. Don't let
this trial break you. Don't let this problem
define you. You disobeyed the messenger
once, he told you to do something you
didn't, you lost a battle when you thought
Allah's angels were with you and they were.
But don't let this battle define who you
are. You still have
a world to spread this religion to.
You still have
everything ahead of you. Don't let this problem
define you.
You are above them.
So I will tell this to every single
person, every single one of us here, and
every single one that's listening.
This problem that you're going through, this calamity
that befell you
should not
hold you down
or set you back,
but know that you are still above it.
And you are still better.
And you will, insha Allah, grow because
this calamity struck you while you are a
believer in Allah.
While you are upon
And if it were to strike you in
any other way, when you didn't know who
Allah is, when you didn't know who the
messenger is, when you didn't know the reward
of patience,
then you would have been in a much
worse situation. But it
happened to you whilst knowing who Allah is.
And that only happened because Allah wants to
show you that you're above it and you
can you can persevere beyond it, insha Allah
ta'ala.
I'm
watching the news watching the news in the
past couple of days.
We see a lot of calamities, hurricanes, and
wildfires
especially the ones in Hawaii. May Allah alleviate
those situations.
A mean, You Rabbi Al Amin.
Lot of people lost their lives. A lot
of
forests,
were burned. Single
small fire,
gone.
A big portion of this island, Maui,
is gone. SubhanAllah.
But there's one thing that drew me to
reflect upon.
You know what that is?
It reminded me of a hadith,
where the Messenger
although this hadith is odd and not a
lot of people hear it. He said,
He said, the example of a believer
is like that example of a palm tree.
When you look at
every other tree that was burned,
even after a hurricane, you look at all
the trees.
The palm trees are the ones standing up
high.
The trunk is burned but they're still standing
out amongst all the trees.
They don't bend. They don't fall over. As
a matter of fact, the palm tree
is a tree that you could almost fully
bend it and it'll whip right back to
place.
Its head would be on the ground.
It can completely bend. And it's the only
tree in the world that can do that.
And it'll whip right back into place.
And there's something deep about this analogy that
the Messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam gave us.
And that is
that unlike any other tree in this world,
the tree that resembles the believer is that
palm tree because
nothing would let us fall down permanently, we
always whip back up.
We always stand back up. We always
find a way to lift ourselves.
And even when everything is burned and tarnished
around us, guess what?
We still stand out up high
unlike the rest of the trees.
We ask Allah
to strengthen our iman.
We ask Allah to
connect our hearts to the Quran,
and to do the halal and to avoid
the haram. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to forgive us and have mercy on us.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to guide
our hearts to Him, and to guide us
away from shaitaanur Rajeem. We ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to bless us with and through
iman. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to aid and assist our brothers and sisters
who are going through hardships around the world.
If you can fill the rows in the
back,
in the back of the main musullah,
There are still gaps to the right and
to the left.
If you're by the door in the middle,
then you could move to the right and
to the left, Insha Allah. So that people
can enter from the back.
Assalamu
alaikumratullah.
We want to make a dua
for, the wife of our dear,
doctor Raziuddin who is one of the board
members.
Here his wife is in, critical condition but
alhamdulillah she is improving.
So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
give her a complete and hasty shifa.
Another
reminder, inshallah.
We have the the
is doing the intensive.
If,
it's in the newsletter, in epic. If you
did not register inshallah, it's going to be
a 4 day