Mufti Menk – How to cope through Hardship – Bandung – Indonesia
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This is one of the most beautiful masjids
that I have been to, masha'Allah.
And the people here are so beautiful as
well.
May Allah beautify our hearts
and may Allah grant us
May Allah ease the suffering that we are
going through in this world as
mankind.
So many people are struggling in so many
different places.
There are people right now who are suffering
that we don't even know how much they
are suffering.
You and I know that in Palestine,
in Gaza,
there are great struggles.
They are being bombarded. They are being killed.
Innocent people, women, children, men,
and it is happening wholesale
every day.
We pray for them. May Allah Almighty make
it easy for them.
May Allah Almighty grant them goodness and victory
and peace and stability. Amen.
Nonetheless, we're talking today
about
the
times of hardship
And I have 20 minutes in which I
want to remind you
of a story that you know.
You know the story.
But I want to raise a few lessons
from the story.
In order for you and I
to be able
to navigate
through our own problems.
We all have problems. I have some problems.
You have problems. Nobody can say, I have
no problem.
But the level of problem is different. Some
people it's more. Some people it's less.
Allah Almighty
tests a believer.
Anything that you are going through, good or
bad, if it brings you close to Allah,
it is a gift of Allah.
And anything you are going through, if it
takes you away from Allah,
It could be
the punishment of Allah.
So whenever you are going through anything, good
or bad,
get closer to Allah. Okay. The question I
have,
who was the most handsome
from among the prophets of Allah?
Can anyone say a name?
I can hear 2 names.
Muhammad
and Yusuf
Right?
As for Muhammad
the companions
said,
His face was as though it's a part
of the moon.
It was shining.
Amazing.
He was created in the most beautiful,
amazing way.
Some of the companions even said
that you have been created in such a
way that it seems
that you were created the way you wanted
to be created. Subhanallah.
Nonetheless,
from the stories of the prophets in the
Quran,
the most handsome was Yusuf
But he had problem after problem after problem
after problem. SubhanAllah.
Allah mentions in the Quran,
Subhanallah.
Allah says, We are narrating to you the
best of stories.
Imagine the most handsome and the story is
the best, but that story is full of
hardship,
full of difficulty. From the beginning, a young
boy, innocent boy, so good looking. When you
see a good looking child, you say, Oh,
mashaAllah. Come here, come here, come here. Right?
Good looking child. And you are so happy
but you don't realize the older brothers of
that child were jealous of the child only
because
the father was showing more care to that
particular child.
When you are old and you have small
siblings younger than you, Your brother, your sister,
younger than you and you are old,
your father will play hey.
Right? With the little one. Hey.
And you say, when I was young my
father did not do that. When you were
young you cannot remember.
You are now big. You want your father
to look at you and say, hey,
do you want your father to do that?
No.
So you don't know.
Just chill. Just relax.
Take it easy.
Don't get jealous.
The brothers were jealous of him,
but he was innocent.
So they go to the father and they
lied to their own father.
Among them they were planning to kill their
own brother.
Look at how shaitan works. My brothers and
sisters,
in hardship
or when you do not have hardship,
don't allow shaitan
to overtake you in a way that he
makes you plan that which is displeasing to
Allah.
Something displeasing to Allah.
You are going through a tough time. You
want to do something bad.
I know some people when they are going
through a difficult time or they want to
marry someone and they cannot marry for some
reason.
What is your destiny?
It's not going to change
beyond a certain degree.
Remember, if Allah wrote that this person is
not going to be married to this one,
then even if you love that person so
much, it's not going to happen.
You are not the first person. It happened
to all of us.
Sometimes you're growing up and say, InshaAllah, one
day I'll marry this person. No way.
It might not happen. SubhanAllah.
But some people go to magician. You know
what is magician?
Black magic. What do they call it in
Bahasa?
What?
You know what? I'm so confused with the
name.
I'm so happy
that I'm confused because I don't want to
go there.
When you go there, you lose your iman.
You know, you think that, okay, please share.
Can you do this?
Can you do this for me? Wallahi, if
there is anything
superstitious
involved in that, you are playing with your
faith and your connection with Allah.
There was a man recently
on Facebook.
He suffered because of someone who did magic
on him.
So what did he do?
He wanted to pay back.
He wanted to what?
Pay back.
So he said on Facebook, I am a
magician
and anyone wants to do magic,
this is my whatsapp number.
Send me Listen, listen. This is a true
story. You can check it. If you know
Arabic, you can see It's in Arabic.
It's on Facebook.
He says he's a magician.
If you want to do magic, this is
my whatsapp number.
Send me your photo,
the photo of the person you want to
do the magic
and
hold a paper
next to your face, your name, their name
and what you want to do to them
and I will do it.
You won't believe he got 100 of people
who did that. 100 of people send him
their photo, the photo of the one they
want, the magic with the names
and what they want to do. You know
what he did? He published everything on Facebook
to disgrace everyone. Most of them. Oh, mashaAllah.
Hijab.
Big mashaAllah.
Songkok, salaab, mashaAllah. Everything happening. They look like
good Muslim, but they are all asking for
haram.
Wallahi, that is a disaster. When I saw
it, I said,
May Allah save us.
Just because you want to get something that
you don't have
or you are jealous of someone, you want
to block something that Allah gave them. You
lose your iman?
How?
Don't do that.
It is
haram Whoever does magic has done shirk. That's
what the hadith says. And whoever goes to
a fortune teller, a soothsayer,
one of these people who claim that they
know the future,
anyone who goes to them and
believes what they have to say,
they have disbelieved
in what
Muhammad
brought.
So don't go there. The brothers of Yusuf
alaihi wasallam were jealous of him. They wanted
to kill him. But the older brother said,
no, just throw him away.
Throw him away? Who do you think he
is? He is a human.
He is your brother.
He's good looking. On top of that, when
you see a cute baby that does not
belong to you, what do you say? Can
I adopt this child? Am I right?
You see cute babies. They say, can I
not adopt this child? Especially if they are
struggling or refugee or something. Often,
when you go choosing, for example, someone, some
orphans to try and look after them, people
look at what they look like. Imagine,
in Islam whether you look like whatever,
you're an orphan, you're an orphan.
You can be white or black or yellow
or whatever, even green. No problem.
If that is the color Allah gave you,
alhamdulillah, I'm happy.
So, they said, throw him. What happened to
the young boy?
Wallahi, these people they lied to the father.
They said, O our father.
Send him with us tomorrow.
We will play, we will have fun, we
will have a good time and we will
protect him. We will bring him back.
The father says,
I fear. What do I fear?
I fear that perhaps
he will be harmed. Maybe
a wolf might come and eat him. The
father said this. Anyway,
because of time I'm going to cut the
story because you know the story, right?
What I want to say is in hardship,
those who were patient
and they bore sabr Allah gave them
so much at the end. And those who
were not
bearing patience, they had no sabr. They did
haram.
Allah destroyed them at the end, dropped them
underneath, below.
So the first one, the brothers.
They were jealous,
they did not want their brother to go
up above them. What happened?
Because of their plan,
because of their plan,
Allah raised
Yusuf alaihis salam
above them.
If they did not take Yusuf and throw
him in the well,
he was not going to be above them.
You follow?
If they did not take Yusuf alaihis salam
and they did not throw him in the
well,
then the people who picked him up were
not going to pick him up. If they
did not pick him up, they were not
going to sell him in the market.
If they did not sell him in the
market,
the Aziz of Mosul was not going to
buy him.
If he did not buy him, the incident
with the wife of the Aziz was not
going to happen. And if the incident did
not happen, he was not going to be
jailed. And if he was not jailed, he
was not going to meet those 2 guys
in the jail who had some dreams that
he interpreted.
And if he did not meet those 2
guys and did not interpret the dreams, he
was not going to be called out the
day that the King had a dream. And
if he was not called out the day
that the King had a dream, he was
not going to be interpreting the dreams. And
if he did not interpret those dreams, the
king was not going to appoint him in
charge of the granary. And if he was
not appointed in charge of the granary,
then his brothers would have not come begging
for food from him. But Allah wanted in
10 moves
to raise this man above all of those
who planned to bring him down.
And so Allah raised him so high
above all of those who planned to bring
him down. What I want to tell you,
when someone plans to bring you down,
Those who have taqwa
and sabr
Allah will never ever waste the reward of
those who do good. Someone plans your downfall.
Don't worry. Sabr taqwa. They plan another thing
sabr taqwa. They plan a third thing sabr
taqwa.
When you have sabr and taqwa,
Allah will raise you high and high and
high and high in His eyes a little
bit of time. How many years did it
take
to get from the well
to the day when you met your brothers?
How many years?
There are several narrations.
Some say,
more than 40 years.
More than 40 years. You and I, if
I suffer today,
I suffer tomorrow,
I suffer next week, I have a problem
at work. I have a problem at home.
I have a problem
on the street. I have a problem somewhere
else. They will say,
someone did magic on me. Let me go
to the
whatever you call them.
Or whatever it is, right?
Let me go. And they will start saying,
come here. Come here.
Come here. Then they will do something and
say, ah yes.
I think your sister-in-law
is jealous of you, right? I think your
mother-in-law
is doing something to you. I think someone
in your family,
in your broad family,
someone is doing some. Wallahi,
they are telling lies.
Why? Every family has some small problems here
and there.
My family has small problems here and there,
maybe.
Some are slightly bigger, some are smaller depending
on the family.
If you have a big family, you have
to have difference, right?
So if I tell you, brother,
you have headache. Yes. Someone in your family
is doing something.
Why break my family, man? I have a
headache. 1 panado paracetamol. I'm okay. Alhamdulillah.
Khalas
Khalas.
Don't blame people.
You have a problem. It does not mean
someone did something. Sometimes you need to go
to the doctor. Sometimes there is something inside
that is wrong. Sometimes you are not connected
to Allah.
Allah will never let the people who do
good. Allah will never let their reward be
wasted. So please understand. Look at Yusuf, alayhis
salam,
1 after the other. Everything was going wrong,
right?
Wrong.
But at the end,
you know what his brothers told him?
That's the best question in that whole story.
In the whole story, the best question is,
are you maybe perhaps you are Yousuf?
Imagine, he's sitting here. I know what you
did to me.
I know. Are you Yusuf? What did he
say?
I'm Yusuf. This is my brother. Allah has
favored us.
Allah has what?
Favored us. What favor? You went through one
problem, another problem, a third problem, a 4th
problem, a 5th problem. So many problems one
after the other. When you came out of
all those problems, you forgot everything. It's okay.
Why? I'm with Allah.
Allah raised me above you.
Look at how he's looking at the positive
thing. He said, Allah favored me when He
removed
about coming out in your life, in my
life. When you have a problem, don't talk
about the problem. Talk about how you came
out of it. Look at the favors of
Allah.
Allah will give you when you thank Him.
Allah will give you when you count the
favors. I want to tell you something.
How many problems do you have in your
life?
One minute. Count.
How many problems do you have in your
life? Can you count? So someone might say,
I have a problem at school.
I have a problem at home.
I have a problem
maybe with my health. I have a problem,
I don't have hair. Some people for that
is a big problem, right?
It's okay. I also don't have hair. No
problem.
Someone said, I'm not yet married. I want
to look for spouse. Someone said, I have
a problem. I'm divorced. How many problems? How
many?
5 or 10?
Who has more than 10 problems? Put up
your hand. More than 10 big problems? Put
up your hand.
Okay, few, maybe 12 for some of them.
But most of us, less than 10 major
problem.
That is the problems. What about the favors
of Allah? How many do you have?
I have my eyes, my ears, my nose,
my tongue, my teeth, my lips, my cheeks,
my hair, my forehead,
my eyebrows, whatever else, my fingers, my toes,
my kidneys, my lungs, my heart. My heart
is pumping
136,000
times a day without a battery.
I have
my liver is functioning, my kidneys,
everything is moving. I'm walking my bones,
my legs, my hands and I'm
subhanallah.
Allah says only to look at what you
have in your body.
It's enough. You will not be able to
count that ever to go out. MashaAllah. We
have a country. We have air. We have
beautiful
electricity. We have water in the tap, we
have Soma Allah says, you cannot count.
My colleague read this verse before me, right?
Doctor. Muhammad, he read the verse. If you
are to count the favors of Allah, you
will never be able to. But if you
want to count the difficulties,
you can count them.
Look at Allah. You want to count how
hard it is? You can count. Count how
good it is? You cannot count the goodness.
Too much. Too many things. So concentrate on
this.
May Allah make it easy. Then I want
to tell you,
Yusuf alaihis salam,
he did not hold
grudge against his brothers.
He knew what they did.
What did he tell them?
Why I want to tell you this is
because
we need to learn to forgive people.
We need to learn to forgive people.
Me
going up and closer to Allah is not
connected to you going down.
I don't need you to go down for
me to go up. We can all go
up together. No problem.
If I want to go to Jannah, do
I need to say, Oh Allah, give me
Jannah. Don't give them Jannah. Should I say
that? Jannah is very very big. Very big.
We have a problem. Nowadays you have different
groups of Muslims.
Each one says we are going to
Jannah and the other one is going
to Jahanam.
Right?
Muslims.
So
I was talking to one guy. He said
everyone is going to Jannah. I said, well,
your Jannah is going to be empty. 1
person, 2 people, khalas.
You will be shocked. Jannah is so big.
You will be there. I will be there.
Those guys will be there. We will all
be there. May Allah give us all
jannah.
Say, Ameen.
Ameen.
Ameen.
So,
Yusuf alaihis salam tells his brothers,
No retribution
against you. I am not going to do
anything
against you. No revenge.
It's okay. Today you are forgiven. Allah will
forgive you. He is the most forgiving, the
most merciful. Allahu Akbar.
That solved the problem. If you want to
hold it in your heart, you will become
bitter.
Your back becomes
problematic.
You are sick because you have too much
hate in your heart. Learn to forgive people.
It's okay. Forgive, forgive, forgive. In my life,
I forgive everyone. Khalas.
Me, I forgive everyone. You know, if you
go online, any Ustaz,
anyone in the whole world,
there are people who are supporting and people
who are
against.
Sometimes the people against, they don't know you.
They don't know who you are, what you
stand for. Nothing. They just read something.
No problem. Habibi,
I will go to jannah with you. Let's
go. Let's go. Don't worry. In the dunya
you fight me. Nah, no problem. But in
the akhirah, come let's go to jannah. InshaAllah
we will go together. Right?
Have a good heart.
Have a good heart. I don't care. Maybe
you have a misunderstanding, but if I say,
Astaghfirullah,
that one. Look what he said. Look what
he did. My life will change for bad.
I'm wasting my time.
The last example I want to give you,
When Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasallam was entering Makkah,
at the time of the victory of Makkah.
Quresh.
You know what they did? They killed the
Muslims. They stole the land. They stole the
property. They troubled them for so many years.
When the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam
looked at them, he asked them, what do
you think I'm going to do to you
today?
He was powerful. He had a 100,000
plus with him.
As Muslimi,
what do you think? He said, What do
you think I'm going to do to you
today? They were all quiet. They know what
they did.
He says,
You can go. All of you are free.
I will tell you exactly what the prophet
Joseph Yusuf
told his brothers.
Go for indeed you are all
free today.
No retribution. It's okay. Forgiven and let's go.
We need to move forward. May Allah Almighty
strengthen us. May He allow us to learn
lesson. In hardship,
become closer to Allah. In hardship,
read the stories of the prophets. In hardship,
read other stories where it
shows you and inspires you
to bear patience
and to go forth. And the last thing
is that in hardship always believe.
Indeed with hardship there is ease and with
the same hardship there is another ease. So
with every hardship
there are two points of ease and beyond.
Allah
causes
the sun to rise
after the dark
night. So when you are in darkness,
bear patience,
the sun
will rise.