Moutasem al-Hameedy – What can we learn from the story of prophet Yusuf
AI: Summary ©
The importance of the Bible and its power to address issues and provide solutions is highlighted. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding the Bible and its lessons for personal and family life. The speaker also discusses the benefits of the Quran and its use to enhance one's life and put them on the straight path. The importance of trusting Allah is emphasized, and the temptation of protecting others is discussed. The importance of cooperation and respecting one's principles is emphasized, along with the discussion of upcoming events and tickets.AI: Transcript ©
All praise is due to Allah. We praise
him. We seek his aid, and we ask
for his forgiveness.
We seek refuge in Allah from the evils
of ourselves and the evil consequences of our
actions.
Whomsoever
Allah guides none can lead astray
and whomsoever
Allah leaves to go astray none can guide.
I testify that there is none worthy of
worship and devotion but the Almighty Allah alone.
And I testify that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi was
wasalam is his servant
and his messenger.
All you who believe, fear Allah as he
should be feared and die not except
in surrender and submission to your lord.
Oh, mankind,
be dutiful to your lord who created you
from a single person, and from him he
created his wife and from them both he
created many men and women.
And fear Allah through whom you demand your
mutual rights
and observe the rights of your kin surely
Allah is ever
and all watcher over you. O you who
believe keep your duty to Allah.
Fear him and speak the truth. He will
direct you to righteous deeds and will forgive
your sins.
And whoever
obeys Allah and his messenger has indeed attained
a great achievement.
The best words are the divine words of
Allah,
and the best guidance is that of prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And the worst things in the religion are
the newly invented matters. For all the newly
invented matters in religion
are heretical innovation and Bid'ah and every Bid'ah
is misguidance.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
narrates
to prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and
to the Muslims
till the day of judgment in the Quran,
the stories of previous nations.
And these stories are not
in the Quran for entertainment.
They contain
profound lessons
that relate
to all of the conditions
and the times that humans go through, that
believers go through.
One of the main reasons Allah revealed these
stories to Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is to enable him
to handle the challenges of his time.
Although the times of the prophets before were
different,
the challenges were somehow different.
There were similarities
but there were great differences yet the lessons
are universal.
And this is why the Quran will remain
a source of guidance.
And when we Muslims read the Quran
and we see the disparity between our times
and what the Quran describes, we have to
blame ourselves for our inability
to read the Quran and understand
it.
For our inability to
ponder the Quran
and take lessons from it. The Quran is
not to blame, it's the perfect word of
Allah.
And as it was sent to prophet Muhammad
salallahu alaihi salallam and the challenges of his
time, it was also sent to us and
to the challenge and to address the challenges
of our times.
So we should take responsibility
for that inability to translate the Quran,
to find the solutions of our times
in the Quran.
If we approach the Quran with a secular
mindset, we won't be able to understand it.
We would think
that it relates to previous times but it
does not address the challenges of modern times
and that is an echo of what previous
of what the disbelievers in the past said
to prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. They said,
They said these are the stories and the
myths of the people of the past.
And a lot of us display this attitude
today. So when we look for solutions
at at our personal level, in our personal
life, in our family life, or at the
level of the Ummah in general and at
the global level,
we tend to trust
the contributions of humans today. We look for
we look up to them
for the solution
not realizing
that the Quran that most of us read,
if we read, we read for barakah and
blessings.
And we have reduced it into a ritual.
Something we just take some spiritual blessings from.
But we assume unfortunately
because
we have been contaminated.
We assume that the Quran does not hold
the solution.
And the right prescription
and the right diagnosis
of what we are going through. The Quran
is powerful for those who are able to
understand it. And that's why Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala says,
Indeed in their stories, the stories that are
mentioned in the Quran, there are lessons.
There are practical lessons. The Ibra is a
lesson that you can transfer into your life
and implement and utilize.
There are lessons, profound lessons for the people
of what?
The people of sound hearts.
The people of sound hearts
not the people of intelligence.
Although when you become a person of sound
heart, you become intelligent automatically.
And you could be intelligent in matters of
the of the world today
but because you're functioning on an operating system
that is corrupt
Like the modern ideologies of today.
The way people think. The mindset. The most
dominant mindset in the world today.
Even if you are the most intelligent, you
are deceived
and you are delusional.
When you develop a worldview
that is designed by people who don't believe
in Allah.
And you've been educated.
You've been indoctrinated
from a young age
into this kind of thinking and this kind
of worldview,
then you approach the Quran with that mindset
you won't be able to penetrate the wisdom
that is in the Quran.
The Quran would seem as though it is
irrelevant to our times.
And there is no way out for our
Ummah these days.
In the past, today and in the future
there is no escape. There is no prosperity
for our ummah except in the Quran.
And you would hear that often among the
Muslims people would say let's get to the
practical solutions
of how we can handle our problems.
People say just read the Quran or study
Islam. Okay we'll do that but let's get
real about our problems.
That's a mindset of defeat.
The ummah will never get stronger with this
kind of thinking because that's the kind of
thinking that is engineered.
That is designed in the first place
to keep our ummah inferior.
And that's the problem with this type of
ignorance.
When we have swallowed all this contamination, it
feels as though you know
but you actually don't. But it feels so.
People would feel intelligent.
People think they are more intelligent and insightful
than others. They think when you talk about
the Quran, oh you Suwad, so attached to
the glorious past of Islam.
Oh you think somehow magically reading the Quran
will change the world.
Yeah. That's because you're approaching the Quran with
the same mindset that the disbelievers approach it.
And we don't even realize it.
The Quran is transformative.
The knowledge that Allah sent us is transformative
and it was not only sent to the
time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
it was sent
to all of the times to solve their
problems,
to enhance their life,
put them on the straight path. And today
we'll take a very simple and quick example
from prophet Yusuf alaihis salam. We will try
to learn some lessons from him.
And Allah says about
the story of prophet Yusuf alaihis salam
That we narrate to you the best of
stories.
The best of stories because of the amount
of lessons that that you will find in
this surah.
So prophet Yusuf alaihis salam, he sees a
dream as he was a child.
He's the child of a prophet, prophet Yaqub
alaihis salam
whose one of his names is Israeel.
So Bani Israel are the children of Yaqub.
The descendants and the progeny of Prophet Yaqub
alaihis salam.
So Yusuf alaihis salam, a child sees a
dream
that the sun and the moon and 11
planets are prostrating before him in his direction.
So he deraced the dream to his father
who was a prophet, who had knowledge
bestowed upon him from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
He understood what that means.
He
said,
Thus your Lord favors you. That's the interpretation
of the dream.
He favors you.
With what? With revelation, with knowledge. He teaches
you how to interpret dreams and how to
interpret interpret something else.
Here, your alimukamintaweel
ahadith to teach you the truth and the
reality of things and that's about revelation. You
become a prophet.
But at the time Bali Israel Yaqub alaihis
salam and his children
were not in any official position. And Yaqub
alaihis salam could read from the dream
that the moon the sun and the moon
and the 11 planets would prostrate
to Yusuf alaihis salam, not only would he
become a prophet
but he would also become what? A king,
an official,
A person with authority. Political authority.
He was a prophet and he knew the
interpretation of the dream. But you look at
at the family it's a simple family going
about its own business.
And prophets they didn't have to go about
teaching people and education pea educating people. They
didn't come with a mission like the messengers,
like a Rusl.
The prophets came to come to come to
confirm a message that came before them. And
they would teach the people around them but
they would not go about
giving their life over to a mission to
spread the message.
So it was a family
that kept to its own its own affairs.
They didn't have political power.
So how a child like this is gonna
possess power?
Especially that at the time where they were
in Palestine
there was no
government or there was no state that was
powerful.
Very unlikely
almost impossible there are no means.
It's unimaginable
yet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says and
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has power and might
over everything. When Allah wants something, he makes
it happen. So the impossible can become possible
with Allah
So many people look at our state today
and they say it's impossible,
it's possible
but if you connect to Allah,
If you truly trust Allah.
If you take your life and your mission
in this life seriously,
the impossible
becomes possible.
This is not upon us. What's upon us
is to do what we can.
But the real change comes from Allah.
And then this innocent child among his siblings,
his brothers
feel he feels safe,
But the first betrayal
comes from his brothers.
His blood brothers who share the same father,
coming from the same father, they are the
ones who stabbed him in the back.
And it wasn't a minor issue.
It wasn't they just ganged upon him and
bullied him.
They tried to kill him,
murder him. They were envious,
they were jealous and they chose
that shaitan who was the first one to
be jealous of Adam alaihis salam. And then
he inspired one of the children of Adam
to have envy and jealousy towards his brother
thus he killed him.
And that's the poison that poisons the ummah.
How many of us are jealous?
Sometimes people are jealous of their own brothers
and sisters, their siblings.
People are jealous of their spouse.
People are jealous of their friends.
People are jealous of everyone who's been given
a blessing by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Mind
your own business.
Allah knows what he's doing with his creation.
He knows when he gives a person wealth,
when he gives them beauty, when he gives
him power.
Allah knows what he's doing.
So don't think you know
better because when you are envious you think
you know better than Allah that's the philosophy
behind envy and jealousy. You think you know
better than Allah
that's what jealousy is that's what envy is
this is why it is an act of
defiance against Allah.
It's a serious illness
and no one is free from it.
No one is free when the moment you
think you don't have jealousy and envy that's
the moment you are sure that your heart
is saturated with it.
It's not a matter whether you have envy
or not. It's whether you are aware of
it and working against it. Not allowing it
to take the better of you. That's the
challenge.
That's the challenge.
And the scholars say
there is nobody
there is no physical body meaning there's no
human being who is void of jealousy and
envy. Everyone has it.
But it's how
hard and sincerely you work against it to
undo it and not allow it
to poison your heart and thus you hurt
others and harm them.
So his brothers conspired against him. And they
decided, you know, to be generous with him,
to be graceful with him. We're not gonna
kill him. We're just gonna throw him, leave
him in the well. He'll be picked up
and we will get rid of him forever.
So he's taken into slavery. He's sold into
Egypt into slavery as a slave.
Yet nowhere,
nowhere in the whole story of Yusuf alaihis
salam you find him bringing up or complaining
about his brothers.
He did not develop a victim mindset
and this is something Muslims have started to
develop and take from a lot of the
common ideologies today.
A lot of the social movements today, they
promote victimhood.
They depict it as heroism.
When a person with morality cannot
adopt the identity of a victim.
Yes. We stand for justice.
And we fight for justice
morally,
but we don't cry around all the time
about how others wronged you because there will
always be those who wrong you.
Because it disempowers you,
it takes away the help of Allah,
it makes you focus on what happens to
you rather than what you can do to
change the situation.
So Youssud Alaihi Wasallam nowhere in his story
he goes to prison,
he's set up
by the wife of Al Aziz
then he becomes even an official but nowhere
he complains about his brothers. Oh it's all
because of them.
It's a calamity and it happened. Live with
it
and move on and start doing some positive
change.
Don't keep
talking about it, whining about it, telling everyone
you meet about it.
And it's wanted for us and for the
Muslim Ummah to adopt this mentality.
Why?
Because it weakens
us. It seems as though we are standing
for justice
but it weakens us in our hearts.
We start begging the persecutor the oppressor
to stop their oppression.
You don't beg as a believer.
You don't put your head down as a
believer for other than Allah.
So then Yusuf alaihis salam is taken into
the house of Al Aziz and then he
goes through this temptation. Had he developed a
victim mindset? You know what's the problem? One
of the main problems with the victim mindset
is that you start to justify anything. I
was wronged.
I was betrayed.
They did this and that to me. I
have the right to you become resentful And
when you are resentful, you justify
all all moral violations.
See, I was wronged, and I can wrong
other people.
What can I do? I'm traumatized
so now I'm in front of a temptation.
A powerful woman. A beautiful woman. A resourceful
woman.
And I have the perfect setup
to commit a sin
that is very attractive to every young man.
And many times it takes over the people
and they have no choice about it,
right?
He doesn't say, Oh I was betrayed by
my brothers. I was deprived of the love
of my mother.
I've been sold into slavery. What can I
do? I'm helpless. And then you get into
all of this evil but he didn't do
that. What did he say?
He said he said
He had a moral standard clear.
He said,
I seek Allah's protection from this evil.
Yes. It sounds
beautiful and and tempting,
but you know what? It's immoral.
And you can never get something good from
immorality.
Even if it's if it tastes sweet.
The destruction
that comes upon you after that is multifold.
It's not worth it. It's not worth it
worth it, and that's a a word for
our youth.
The temptation that you'll find
in the opposite gender.
The temptation that you'll find in drugs.
The temptation that you find in smoking. The
temptation you find in video games. The temptation
you find in all of the entertainment, and
all of the attractions,
and the traps that you have around you.
Wallahi, it's not worth it. It looks beautiful
at the beginning but the moment you're stuck
in it,
many times your life is ruined for good.
It's not worth it don't fall for the
temptation.
The reason Allah gave us halal and haram
is to protect us as well.
There is wisdom in that that we can't
see.
And then Yusuf alaihis salam is set up
and sent to the prison
unjustly,
unfair.
He's in the prison.
And the moment he meets
the other prisoners,
he doesn't talk about his brothers.
He doesn't talk about the wife of Al
Aziz.
He doesn't talk about the other women who
set him up so he was
falsely put in prison. He doesn't talk about
that. What does he talk to them about?
Allah.
Allah.
He tells them about Allah and about the
worship of Allah.
That's how we deal with life
and that's how Prophet Muhammad SAW Alaihi Wasallam
learned from these lessons.
And this is how he dealt with his
reality
and with the challenges he had to deal
with.
Prophet
Yusuf Alaihi Salam
comes out of prison
with a gift from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
You know, when you adhere
to the guidance of Allah,
Allah will bring you a way out unexpectedly.
So it's not necessarily about your effort but
you have to be sincere
and you have to do what you can.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will bring a
way out for you. Allah will provide for
you from ways you never expect. Because no
matter how
we think that we have mastered reality and
we understand the world, what we know is
a small fraction of reality.
Everything is in the hands of Allah.
So Allah turns him from being in prison
now he's taken as the main assistant and
the main minister
by the King of Egypt. The most powerful,
probably the most powerful nation on earth at
the time, the most resourceful
nation
on earth. And it was disbelievers.
They did not worship Allah.
They were not upon the truth.
Yet Yusuf alaihis salam in that context, in
that situation being educated
by and enlightened by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
he knew how to understand the situation.
And this is why Muslims,
Muslims
depending on the situation and there is fiqh
behind this.
There are principles behind behind this, consistent principles
behind this. In certain situations,
yes,
you can be with the disbelievers and work
with them, cooperate with them towards what's good.
But there are moments that you can't do
that as well.
How? Scholars know.
If you have not studied Islam thoroughly and
properly you can't understand this. You can't make
a decision about this. You can't say, Oh
Yusuf alaihis salam he worked for another Muslim
government so everyone can just do this. No.
There were certain conditions met as well, but
you are not aware of them.
And in Islam, Islam has a system that
provides for all of the details.
So that any kind of cooperation like this
does not compromise on your principles.
Does not bring about more harm than good.
You can't judge it by the surface.
And then Yusuf alaihis salam being in power
he does not abuse it. He's not resentful.
He uses that power to save lives,
to say save people from the imminent famine,
and he is just and fair to everyone.
And that's why Allah
gives him power.
And eventually, Allah brings his brothers to him.
To him, and they are in need of
him, and he has authority over them.
And even then, he does not abuse them
or bully them.
And eventually, the whole problem is solved,
and his dream becomes true.
And his parents are brought along with his
siblings to Egypt.
And he is sort of the prime minister
of Egypt, probably the most powerful after the
king
in that land.
Yet he doesn't abuse that power.
Even when he talks to his father,
when his father joins him, when he talks
to his father about what happened he said,
Allah blessed me after shaitan
has brought that problem between me and my
brothers.
He didn't say my brothers abused me. He
didn't hold it against them
because he's a free man.
Because when your heart is with Allah you
are free.
You are free from resentment.
You are free from guilt. You are free
from that kind of pathetic and pathological
evil.
We are always blaming others.
You're able to connect things to Allah
and act on wherever Allah puts you. You
act morally and you act with dignity and
you proactively approach the situation.
So that's just a simple example where we
can benefit. A lot of our problems, you
know, we're still doing the same things over
and over again for the last 200 years,
and we expecting different results.
And we don't wanna learn.
Calamity hits, we wake up, we wanna fix
it overnight.
And then it goes down we go back
to sleep.
And the perpetrators go back to what? Planning.
Then a greater problem happens then we wake
up and we want to solve it overnight.
We're not taking Allah seriously.
We're not taking life seriously.
We're so busy
just
getting attached to this dudiya and getting as
much as we can from it.
And we just a tiny bit different from
non Muslims in our approach to life when
we wonder what's going on. We ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to guide us and to
enlighten our hearts.
Allahu
Akkibal.
Allahu
Akibala.
So
Brothers,
we'll pray in the hallways to clear it
as quickly as possible.
Please clear
the
bank
with
Also, today, we have,
Masjid Oba from Ajax. They're here today. They
have a property they're trying to buy for
2 acres. So
be as generous as possible.
We also have Ras Muhalb Muhli
and Samhart Conference.
So the tickets are outside and the fires
are outside also.
So grab and make sure you get them,
inshallah, back at your ticket and get your
flyers too.
Yes. Also inshallah, this Saturday and Sunday with
doctor Abu Amar, we will have this, halakh
after Fajr inshallah.
Saturday and Sunday inshallah.
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