Mustafa Khattab – Yes We Cant A Story Of Two Frogs
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
And I bear witness that Muhammad salallahu alaihi
wa sallam is the seal of the prophets
and the final messenger to all of humanity.
Whoever Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala guides, there is
none to misguide. And whoever Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala leaves astray, there is none to guide
alight.
I
witnessed that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is our
only Lord and Creator and Provider, and Muhammad
SAW Salam is the seal of the prophets.
Only 2
weeks are left for the month of Ramadan.
We ask Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, to make
it easy for us, bi'ud alayhi wa ta'ala.
This kubah is relevant to the the month
of Ramadan.
So by just listening to the first 15
minutes of the Khuba, you feel like it
has nothing to do with the month, but
it really does. And I explained at the
end, InshaAllah.
Today, I know it is a good Friday.
All our Fridays, all our Jumas are good
Alhamdulillahi Ta'ala. So we're grateful to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala for this.
And as I can see,
more than half of our audience today are
youth, and by this I mean 75
and below.
So I will try to make the book
relevant to them, and I'll be using, stories
made the lay to Allah. So to make
it informative and entertaining at the same time,
so they don't run away.
I'm gonna begin with,
a short story
of 2 frogs. It's a famous story,
and the title for this whole fight is
Yes, We Can't.
Right? So the story goes something like this,
they say that, there were 2 frogs. 1
of them was small, the other one was
big. I grew up on a farm, and
we had a lot of frogs back then.
So basically, these 2 frogs were hopping around
in the farm looking for food. Eventually, they
sneaked into a little house,
and they started jumping around, and eventually, they
landed into a pot of milk.
So now, Mushkilakabir,
big problem.
After 2 10, 15 minutes of swimming and
paddling in the milk,
the big one gave up,
and told the small one, we're wasting our
time. Just save your time and energy. We're
dying anyway. We're doomed. Stop swimming and paddling,
and die in peace.
So the small one said, no, I have
to keep trying. I'm not gonna give up.
We need to keep swimming and paddling.
The big one started to make fun of
the small one. No one is coming to
save us, we're doomed, we will die, just
stop swimming and paddling.
The small one persisted and said, no, I
have to keep swimming and paddling in the
milk. So eventually, the big one drowned
while making fun of the small one.
The small one didn't give up, it kept
paddling and swimming in the milk. 1 hour
passed by, 2 hour passed by, and eventually
the milk turned into butter, and then the
small one was able to jump out of
the milk.
So now,
in my village many years ago, I saw
my mom,
you know, stirring the milk for a long
time with the movement, and after some time
you get sour cream, and after some time
you get butter, and eventually,
you can get cheese,
with the stirring. So the moral of the
story, don't give up. Don't let anybody make
you feel like you're you're nobody.
Never give up. And it's our Islamic history
is filled with, stories that talk about, you
know, some of the Sahaba who never gave
up.
And also in the Quran, there are stories
and so on and so forth, because I
understand some of your our kids who go
to
school, maybe they will speak their mind and
say, well, one day I want to become
a doctor. I want to become,
the next Prime Minister of Canada or I
want to become an imam. Right?
And people make fun of you and say,
well, first of all, your math sucks.
Your science is in the basement. What does
this have to do with being an imam
and
or a politician? Right? They don't know nothing,
and still they become imams, and they become
politicians and so on and so forth.
You have to believe in yourself, or nobody
else will. Right? So never give up, and
this is the point of the Khutba today.
If you look at the story of David
and Goliath, Dawud alaihis salam,
wa jalud.
So Dawud was a young man, and Goliath
was a big man, like Hercules with big
muscles and, you know, he was a hero.
And they fought, and eventually,
nobody could have believed that a young man
like Dawud, alayhis salam, could beat Goliath.
And eventually Dawud, alayhis salam, beat him and
he became the king. Right? Also the story
of Noah's Ark and the Titanic. Right? You
read in the Quran in Surahood,
the people of Nuh, alayhis salam were making
fun of him,
and they said first of all,
who would build an ark in the or
a ship in the desert? You lost your
mind.
Aqisakum Amrzgilei,
right? They said.
And they said number 2, look at the
people who are working with you. They're all
beginners.
They never built a boat before.
Even if there is a flood as you
claim,
your ship
that is built off planks of wood and
nails and this is what Allah calls it
in Surah, Tamar.
Just,
you know, planks of wood and nails.
This would never survive the flood. And eventually,
the flood came, the ship survived,
because even if it was built by beginners,
and the tectonic which was built by the
biggest professionals of the time, sank.
You never know. So you have to trust
in Allah
and work hard and in your ability to
do things. If you look at the story
of
Alhamdulillah kifafar al Bukabiyas Habifil, who would believe
that an army of strong mighty men with
elephants
would be crushed by little birds and stones?
This is like. SubhanAllah. But if Allah
wants something to happen,
it would
happen. This is Qadarullah
Now one of the most amazing stories,
and I personally love this story so much,
and I can relate to this story.
This is a story of Abdullah ibn Abbas,
and the story is mentioned in the books
of Tafasir and also in the books of
Hadid and so on and so forth. So
after life, Nabbas was a young man
7 years old, around this, age
and there were Hadith that talk about his
interaction with the Prophet
So he was a young man
Hadith, you know
the Hadith.
And the Prophet
saw a potential in him,
and he made dua for him. He said
You Allah bless him with knowledge and hikmah,
with wisdom. Ilma and Hikmah.
So when the Prophet
passed away,
Abulay ibn Abbas asked a man from Medina,
who was a bit a bit older, and
he said, Ammu, let's go and collect the
knowledge of Muhammad
Learn from the Sahaba, so in the future
we can share this knowledge with the rest
of the Sahaba in the generations to come.
And the
will need someone like you? They will need
your knowledge, a little boy like you?
So he made fun of him, and he
didn't go with him. But Abula ibn Abbas,
he never gave up. He went from one
house to another. He visited the salawah in
their homes to learn from them the Hadith
and what the prophet
said in tafsir about certain ayat in the
Quran.
And now, subhanAllah, all the books of Hadith
and tafsir, they are filled
with the sayings of Abdullah ibn Abbas. You
read the Tabari, ibnikathir Qutubi, the first thing
they say, Qalib Nabaz Qalib Nabaz Qalib Nabaz.
So after 10, 15 years, all the Sahaba
came to learn from Abdullah ibn Abbas. 100
and thousands of them came to learn from
him.
Umar would
ask him he made him a consultant, Mustashar,
to ask him about so many things. He
would even include him with the people of
Badr
to sit with them, to honor him, although
he was he was still young, like, and
the people of Bethel, they were all senior
citizens, but he also included them because of
his knowledge and Hikma.
Eventually, this man who made fun of him,
who refused to seek knowledge with him, and
he said,
Abdullah ibn Abbas was right, I was wrong.
He was more intelligent than me. And Abdullah
ibn Abbas, as I said, he never gave
up. He said he would visit people in
their homes. Some days were sunny, some days
were windy and dusty, and he would sit
in front of someone's house waiting for them
to come out and ask them until he
was covered with dust. But he never gave
up, and eventually, he paid back, and he
became one of the biggest scholars of Islam.
You read the Surah Mujadila.
I have 21 and 20 and 21 where
Allah
says,
So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Surah Mujadilah Ayah
20 and 21.
He said, those who challenge Allah will be
put to shame.
Allah has decreed
long ago
that I and my prophets
will succeed.
Alright. So this is Mishnah Surah Mujal. They
say the reason why these these 2 ayaq
were revealed
when the Sahaba beat the people of Mecca
in Badr and other occasions.
So they said,
now we have big expectations that one day
they will beat the Roman Empire and the
Persian Empire,
and the Monafiqun
started to make fun of them.
Aqizar Koromujgaleh?
Who are you? Do you think Rome and
Persia
will be like the miskin people you fought
in your backyard, in better than Northern what
is that? You lost your mind?
We're not talking about a few 100 miskin
people you fought for Makkah. We're talking about
100 of 1000 of the most sophisticated soldiers
of all time, Persia and Rome.
And, subhanAllah,
in less than its intrigue,
Muslims didn't only beat Rome and Persia, they
went all the way to China, they went
all the way to Turkey, they went all
the way to Spain, Al Andalus, and they
went to most of North Africa. The top
half of Africa belong to the Muslim Ummah.
Right? Because someone tried to put them down,
make fun of them,
and they didn't know that Allah was on
their side.
And that's all that matters at the end
of the day. If you work hard, you
put your trust in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
If Allah is on your side,
it doesn't matter who's against you. But if
Allah is against you, it doesn't matter he
who is standing behind you. So this is
something we need to keep in mind.
A few
modern stories to highlight this concept,
this guy,
about 45 years ago, he was in the
US. He was probably 7, 8 years old.
His teacher, she was racist, basically. He's African
American.
And the teacher asked the students in the
school, in the classroom,
what would you like to be?
So she asked the students 1 by 1.
So the first few white students, they stood
up. I wanna be, you know,
doctor. I want to be here. She clapped,
and she put a star on his forehead.
The second one, I want to be an
engineer. I want to be here. I want
to be here. And another star. Then came
his turn,
and she said, Okay, what would you like
to be? And this guy, he stuttered when
he was young. He couldn't speak smoothly, he
stuttered, right? What would you like to be?
And he said,
I want to be on TV.
She started to make fun of him, she
called him in front of the class, and
she said, You're an idiot.
Did your has your dad ever been on
TV? He said, no no no no. Your
mom no no no no. Anyone in your
family? No no no. She said, if no
one from your family has ever been on
TV, no one from your neighborhood has ever
been on TV,
and you can't even talk,
How dare you think this way? Right?
So eventually, this guy,
he became one of the most famous TV
personalities of all time, and he said on
an interview on YouTube
that every year voila. He said, every year
I make sure I send send an expensive
LCD screen to my teacher, she's still alive,
so she can watch me on TV. The
Steve Harvey show. One of the biggest and
famous famous of all time. He never gave
up. He didn't quit his dreams because of
what his teacher said about him.
Some other
modern stories,
you probably heard of,
Walt Disney.
He's one of the most famous cartoon makers
of all time. He was fired
from his first job because he said he
was not creative enough.
They didn't like him.
And you hear a story like Mohammed Salah,
he tried to join some soccer clubs, local
soccer clubs, Mesquite clubs in Egypt, and they
said,
he is nothing, he is nobody, he is
not creative, he has no skills, and he
doesn't deserve to wear our shirt. This week,
you see him on the cover of the
Time Magazine
as one of the top players of the
world. Right? So they tried to put him
down, but Allah
gave him the skill. And he is a
good human being. I'm not talking only about
him as a good player, but he is
a good man. He does a lot of
charity work. He's building,
Azharat Institutes, and he's built talent to help
people and give sadaqa, you know. So he
is paying back for the, the blessings that
Allah
gave him.
This is also another story of Rachel Beckwith,
an American,
girl.
So basically, back in 2011, she was 9
years old,
and she told her family, I want you
to buy me, you know, gifts, like cake
and dresses and all that stuff.
Just collect all the money that you wanted
to give me, and we will send this
money to Africa to provide clean water to,
you know, a town or something in Africa.
Before she could achieve her dream, she died
in a car accident in 2011, and she
was only 9 years old.
Her mom and her sister were in the
car. They escaped,
with minor injuries, but she died in the,
in the car accident.
And the word got out, and people heard
about her story. And instead of sending $300
to Africa, that was all the money she
was getting in 2011,
people raised around close to $1,500,000,
and the money was sent to Africa to
build wells in many villages in Africa. And
she is just 1 girl, one little girl
with a dream,
but this is what I call the power
of 1. When Muhammad
started, he was 1 man, and the whole
world was against him. Now he has a,
you know, a followership of 1,700,000,000
people in this world.
You think of Sidhir Omar al Muhta, you
think of Muhammad al Fatiha and the great
personalities
and so on and so forth. One man,
the whole world is against him, and, eventually,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will give them support
through followers and so on and so forth.
Now why am I telling you this, story?
It's because he has something to do with
Ramadan.
About 2 months ago, I made an announcement
in Jum'ah, and I said I have good
news, and the good news is Ramadan will
be coming in 2 months. And some people
I can see the faces. You guys, you
don't see each other because you the the
only thing you see is hair, a bunch
of hair in front of you, unless someone
is bald or something. So, basically, half of
the jamaat, they freaked out. They said, oh
my goodness.
Then after a month, they said, 1 month
left, then they freaked out again.
We're not gonna go to this question again
because this guy gives us bad news all
the time. Right? But the point is, this
is an amazing time to get close to
Allah This should be good news. No one
should freak out.
And shaitan will play with your hand. As
we say in Urdu, shaitan
the common hand. Shaitan is very smart. He
will play games with you. You will die
17 hours of fasting.
22 raka. You follow the 22
raka or
36 rakaas. Oh my goodness. We will die.
And you have to go to work in
the morning. You have to get the kids
ready for school. You can't do this. Shaitan
makes it seem like impossible for you.
And the best response for these tactics, shaitan
tactics, how many Ramadan's have you fasted anyway?
In my case, I have done, like, 30
so far, and nothing happened.
All the hardship,
all the sleepless nights, and all the waking
up in in the morning. I don't remember
anything.
Right? I forgot everything. Surah Nukal Hamdulillah. It's
behind me.
The hardship, the challenges are behind me, but
the reward, inshaAllah, is ahead of us in
Jannah, inshaAllah.
So this is the aptitude you should have
when you receive the month of Ramadan. We
can do it. InshaAllah, we'll be successful. We'll
get the reward, and we'll be looking up
to the next Ramadan, inshaAllah.
They freak out again. So alhamdulillah. We ask
Allah
to give us the best in this life
and the best in the life to come.