Mustafa Umar – Islamic History 101 Lecture#10 Life of the Prophet
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AI: Transcript ©
Alright.
So now
imagine the scenario. Muslims are being tortured, Muslims
were being persecuted,
Muslims were being made fun of,
Muslims were being
followed
and almost
extradited from the place where they were seeking
refuge.
But now that's the first sign of relief
for them. The first sign of relief was
that they get to stay in Abyssinia, and
there were many, many Muslims in Abyssinia at
this point in time.
Another form of relief comes
in
the 6th
year. So now we're 1 year later. So
in the 6th year, what do we find?
We find that
an incident occurs
which is going to have a very important
change,
not only in one individual
but in the situation of Islam
around Makkah.
So
one day,
Abu Jahl and Abu Jahl is
the nickname for a person who is a
very
bad enemy of Islam.
And Abu Jahl comes,
and he insults the Prophet
really, really badly. And he says some really,
really nasty words against him. We don't even
know exactly what the words are because people
did not want to preserve what he actually
said. But imagine it was really, really bad.
So while he's insulting him,
the prophet whenever he got insulted, he was
not doing anything. Right? He was just sitting
there, by the way. So he just took
it at this point in time. He was
not fighting back. At the way by the
way, you know, one interesting point is that,
someone brought up a good point is that
why is the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
telling other people to be patient when he's
not physically being tortured himself?
K. It's a it's a good question. And
the and the answer to that is that
the amount of test that the the type
of test that the prophet himself is going
through with the revelation of the Quran,
with the
difficulties that he has to deal with, with
the message that he has, and the test
that he's gonna go through in terms of
other physical,
things.
They it does not mean that other people
were being tested more than the prophet actually.
In fact, the prophets were tested more than
anybody else among their communities.
So we're going to find throughout that he's
actually being tested more. And there's a difference
between physical torture and psychological torture.
Psychological difficulties. When your own followers and your
own family or when your own people
are going through those kind of difficulties,
sometimes it can actually be more difficult on
that person without someone else being able to
realize that. So the tests that he went
through were just as much as the test
that anybody else went through, throughout the message
of Islam.
So
Abu Jal insults the Prophet
really really badly and some I mean he's
being insulted on a regular basis but this
time it's really bad. So somebody hears it.
It's one girl. She hears it
and she goes and while she's walking out,
she sees the Prophet's uncle Hamza
who's one of the Prophet's uncle.
She sees him and she goes and she
says I'm gonna I I have to tell
him what happened against his nephew. So she
tells him, said, this is what Abu Jahl
just said.
Now Hamza is coming back from a hunting
trip, and Hamza
is a hunter.
He's a strong man. He has he's very
feared in Makkah because he's has a very,
you know, he has a high status,
and he's a he's a very very strong
man. He hunts lions.
Okay. It's not a
not a child sport, right, to be hunting
lions, right, in the desert. So it's not
an easy thing. So he goes
and he hears this and he's enraged. He's
really he's not a Muslim by the way.
He's really, really upset
because this is his nephew being insulted. So
he walks up to Abu Jahl, and he
heard what he had said against the prophet.
And he walked up, and he has a
bow. And there's different types of bow, like
bow and arrow. Right? So there's a bow
and then there's a long bow. So he
has a long bow and he grabs that
bow and he knocks him on top of
the head with the bow and he actually,
you know,
splits, like, you know, his skin. So he
cuts him with his bow and he gets
up. He says, come on. Hit me back.
Hit me back if you dare. So basically,
Hamza gets really upset, and Abu Jahl knew.
He said, you're gonna you're gonna insult my
my nephew
while I'm not around you. What what you
know, what do you think you're doing? How
dare you do something like this to my
family? So now Abu Jal is on the
floor. Abu Jal is bleeding. He gets up.
The thing is, Abu Jal could have fought
back
because he had his crew. He had his
he had his little gang right there. He
could have fought back, but even he realized
that at this point in time, he overstepped
his bounds. There are
people still have their balance. He says, you
know, I insulted he told the guys, you
know, calm down. Calm down. I insulted him
really bad.
So we're even we're even I I deserve
that because of what I said. So Abu
Jal even realized he he had stepped his
overstepped
his own bounds.
And then Hamza said and he said, hit
me back. And he says, are you gonna
mess with me
because I believe in the same thing that
he believes in? So if you wanna mess
with somebody, you wanna insult somebody, you wanna
do something to somebody, do it to me
because I'm Muslim.
Now this is the interesting thing.
Was Hamza
really a Muslim at this point or was
he just making this statement
out of, you know, family pride? Or just
saying that, You know what? You mess with
my family, you mess with me. I'm with
them as well.
So the reality is it's unknown.
It's unknown
whether or not,
Hamza was doing this out of tribal pride
or whether he you know, how he accepted
Islam. But
later on, he became a true Muslim very
shortly very very shortly afterwards. He became a
full complete Muslim, and you can tell that
someone is a true Muslim
by the way that they're acting, and they're
giving up their life for the sake of
Islam and everything. Now when Hamza entered into
Islam,
this was a major source of strength for
Islam, and it's a very important thing to
understand. This was a major major strength of
Islam in Makkah because now you have it's
like today.
Celebrity comes into Islam and all the Muslims
say, Alhamdulillah.
Finally, you know, we got a good one,
an important one, you know.
Now everything's gonna be fine. You know? Yusuf
Islam, Mushkat Stevens became Muslim. Yes. Muhammad Ali.
Yes. We got a few. We got a
few the old time. We're waiting for, like,
1 1 or 2 more of those. Right?
Because it makes a difference in your society.
It makes a big difference when they come
into Islam. So Hamza was one of those
guys and he comes into Islam and it
affects the entire, you know, atmosphere, the entire
landscape of Islam within Makkah. So this was
a very big very big thing. Now, one
of the important things to understand is
this is the way, this is one of
the ways Allah
brings relief after difficulty.
See He can bring really the people are
being tortured, the Muslims are being tortured. Muslims
are going through difficulties. They're being made fun
of. And now Hamza comes into Islam. This
this is great. This is amazing for the
Muslims. So this was one big sign of
relief for them. Okay? A second sign of
relief came
where
the prophet he saw that hamza came in
and he realized how Islam had changed in
Makkah a little bit because of hamza. So
the prophet makes a dua.
He makes a supplication and he says, O
Allah, strengthen
Islam
with whichever one of the two people is
more beloved to you. Either Abu Jahl or
Umar ibn Al Khattab.
Now let's take a look at these two
people.
Both of these guys these these are two
powerful people in Makkah. Abu Jal is the
one who's insulting him. Abu Jal is the
one who is persecuting the Muslims. He stabbed
and he killed Soma'i. I mean, he's doing
a lot of bad things,
but he has status.
The prophet is asking Allah, Ola, give us
some relief by giving us one of these
guys. Now if let's look at the profile
and the characteristics of these 2 guys.
They're both lost causes. Right? When you look
at them, they're like these guys are not
gonna become Muslim.
One of them
was
very crafty.
Abu Jahl,
the the special thing about him, he's a
politician.
Very crafty, very deceitful,
very he has a lot of guises and
all of that. He's very clever with his
words and everything. He can rile people up
and all of that. The other one, Umar,
what's special about him? He's extremely strong.
Right? He's a strong man, not just physically.
He has a strong personality.
He has a strong pull in Makkah. He's
young. People are looking up to him because
of the status that he has. So this
is a a person who has a very
big status as well. So now the prophet
is making dua. We'll give us one of
these 2.
Now if you look at the characteristics,
it kind of shows you I mean, of
course, they choose themselves.
Right? It's it's a freedom of choice that
they're gonna make at the same time but
the one which Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala decided
that that's gonna be the person of course
from his own choosing is not gonna be
the one who's crafty and tricky and all
of that but the one who's strong and
that's gonna be Umar. So let's look at
Umar.
Umar was a heavy drinker.
Okay. So here's the incident of how he
kind of started coming to Islam one day.
This is a person who used to go
and compete with other people. He used to
compete with his friends in drinking bouts and
see who can get more drunk.
So he would usually go out to the
pub, you know, the bar.
I spent I spent too much time in
the UK. Alright. So he would go to
Yeah. There's too many of them there. Right.
So he would go to,
you know, bars and, you know, drink and
all of that, and he would get, you
know so one night, he decided, you know
what? Let's you know, he was getting bored
and everything sitting in the house. He said,
let's go and, you know, let's go drinking.
So he goes and he tries to find
some of his friends.
Can't find them. No cell phone to call
them. No text messaging. Nothing like that. So
they're not home. Where did they go? We
don't know where they are. He's trying to
find somebody else. Nothing to do. So he
can't just drink by myself. You know, I
need somebody else to drink with. Okay. If
you can't party and you can't
drink, might as well do the only other
thing that we do in Makkah. Might as
well go and pray.
So he goes to the Kaaba
and he says, worshiping idols, it's it's another
form of, what they do. Right? So he
goes to the Kaaba and he says, let's
just go visit the Kaaba and hang out
at the Kaaba. So he goes to the
Kaaba and what does he see there? He
sees the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is
there and he's reciting Quran and he's praying.
So the so Umar goes and he kind
of like sneaks around and he's list starts
listening to the Quran. And when he starts
listening to the Quran, something in his heart
kind of,
you know, changed. There's a there's a little
bit more detailed story, but he's and we
won't get into it. He heard the Quran.
Something in his heart began to change. So
he started thinking, these are amazing verses.
This is something that's just profound.
So it changed and his heart opened up
a little bit.
But see, sometimes
when people get a little bit interested in
Islam or they see, You know what?
That makes so much sense.
But it lasts for a few days and
then it goes away. And then they're kind
of, oh, yeah. You know, that was a
feeling that day. And you know, maybe if
I get inspired again, I'll go ahead and
do something. So that feeling kind of
drifted away. He was kind of getting there
but it kind of went away. So what
happened afterwards?
Afterwards,
some incident later on
made him really angry. This this happened before.
Right? Some incident made him really really angry
and upset.
And one day he was so enraged and
he was so upset, he decided
independently
that I'm gonna go and I'm gonna kill
the prophet.
I'm gonna go and get rid of Islam.
He hated Islam before this anyways.
That one time he heard the Quran, he's
like, you know, that's pretty nice. That's really
amazing. But then he kind of, oh, okay.
That's gonna back to hating Muslims again. They
let's get back to our senses again. So
he decides, I'm gonna go and kill the
prophet. Now when Umar makes up his mind
to do something, he's a guy who is
very difficult to stop him because he's a,
you know, reckless kind of tough guy. So
what does he do? He decides, you know,
he's he puts on his sword and he's
walking through, and he's just walking out really
angry and really upset.
And while he's walking through, one of the
Muslims who's a secret Muslim sees him. Say,
Omar, you know, what's wrong with you, man?
You know, you look all messed up. What's
going on? He said, I'm going to put
I'm gonna I'm gonna finish this once and
for all. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna
kill the Prophet. I'm gonna kill Muhammad and
I'm gonna get rid of him once and
for all. So now imagine
you have
this Muslim
who's in secret
seeing that Umar is gonna go and try
and kill the Prophet. Now he has to
stop him. He has to do something to
prevent the prophet for to prevent Umar from
reaching him to maybe cause the prophet some
harm. So what does he do?
He's thinking.
If I, you know how can I stop
Umar? If I tell him that, you know
what? No. You shouldn't do it. He's gonna
kill me.
And if I don't do anything, then he's
gonna go and he's gonna get to the
prophet. So what do I do? So immediately,
the first thing he thinks of, he says,
you know, why don't you take care of
your own family first?
He says, what do you mean take care
of my own family? He says, don't you
know your sister
has accepted Islam?
So Umar immediately imagine this guy is like
running like this with his sword, walking like
this, really upset. Immediately he turns the other
way, and he's going straight to his sister's
house. You know, he's gonna kill her. Right?
He's gonna take care of her. So his
sister Fatima and her husband as well had
become Muslim. K. One of the earliest Muslims
as well, Saeed bin Zayed.
So he goes and there's a long story
about what happened. So to summarize it, when
he's going up to their house, he hears
verses being recited.
And they as soon as they hear Omar
coming and you can hear Omar coming from,
you know,
from a distance. Right? So they heard Omar
coming.
They hid the Quranic verses.
When he when he walked in, he said,
what what was that thing that you guys
were reciting? I said, you know, nothing. You
didn't hear anything. You must be hearing voices
in your head or something like that. He
said, no. I heard that you've become Muslim.
And then he jumped on the husband and
he started, you know, beating up the husband.
So when he started beating up the husband,
his wife, you know, his sister, Umar's sister,
the has the wife of of this guy,
she goes to help her husband. And Umar
goes in a fit of rage, and he
punches her as well. Slaps her across the
face or punches her across the face. And
now she's on the floor, and she's bleeding.
Now he sees his sister bleeding, number 1.
Number 2, she gets up while she's bleeding,
and she says, so what if we're Muslim?
You could do whatever you want to us.
We don't care. Yes. We're Muslims. So what?
So now he's now something has changed. Right?
This is really important to understand.
It's that when people have such a hatred
in their hearts,
sometimes it takes
a certain incident
which is very emotional for them or very,
you know, it hits them really hard for
them to kind of come to their senses.
And that's where Umar kind of started coming
to his senses at that moment. He said,
you know what?
I heard the Quran. It was so nice.
I'm beating up my own sister because they
respected their family. I'm beating up my own
sister. She's bleeding.
And what what what is this for? So
he calmed down at that moment. He says,
you know, tell me what you are reading.
Show me show me what it was that
you are reading. And and then so the
story about how he had to purify himself
and everything. Anyways, he got the verses of
the Quran. He saw them. He read them,
and
he said this is amazing.
This is really this is really amazing. This
is kind of like what I was hearing
the other night. So he's interested now. He
says, I wanna meet the Prophet. Not to
kill him. I wanna meet the Prophet because
I wanna declare my own Islam.
Now they could tell that this person's attitude
had changed. He's not playing around.
So they could tell something had changed in
Omar. So they said, okay. Fine. This is
where he is. We can go ahead and
we can tell you. You can go ahead
and meet him. So Omar goes, and he
meets the prophet
and he accepts his Islam.
So Omar now is Muslim. Right. And there's
a story a little bit more details how
he accepted Islam. Now that Omar came into
Islam,
something else changed.
That the Muslims, while they were being persecuted,
they stopped praying at the Kaaba. They were
not allowed to pray in public.
Now that Umar is in Islam and Hamza
is in Islam,
that's when the Muslims can start praying in
public as well. Because you have a very
powerful figure. And that powerful figure made everyone
else around him,
you know, take Islam seriously.
Whereas before, they were not taking it seriously.
They were not taking it as something like
this is something that some some rich people
do it and some poor people do it
and but no one who has really power
or clout could do something about it. This
shows you the importance
that different people in different important positions can
play in the message of Islam or in
the mission of Islam.
Any questions on this? The act of
murder?
The active murder. Yeah. It's not that murder
was rare, but murder was
something that you wouldn't wanna do. Because if
you murder somebody,
it it's it's like this.
It's like
in gangland,
right, is murder more rare?
In a way, you could say yes. In
a way, you could say no. In a
way, it's yes because if you kill one
of those gang members, the whole gang you
is gonna fight you now.
That's why in in one sense, people would
be dying, but generally, the people who are
less connected end up dying and it's okay.
People who are really well connected, if you
kill one of them, you just you just
got yourself into a battle. You're in you're
in a war. Turf war, basically. So it's
a problem.
Right? Any other questions?
Yeah. Amarin Amarin. So
Yeah. Yeah. His name was Amr. Yeah. His
name was Amr. Yeah. Yeah. So Abu Jal
was his nickname. Abu Jal means father of
ignorance.
Alright. So that's that's the nickname that they
gave him because he was so hostile against
Islam.
Okay.
Alright.
Let's continue. Political tactics. So now
the Quraysh need to come up with a
new strategy.
So if you try
making fun, it doesn't work. You try torture,
persecution, it doesn't work.
You try,
you know, to convince your, I don't know,
foreign allies, and that doesn't work. Right? Ridicule
doesn't work. Persecution doesn't work. You need a
new strategy.
So now a new strategy comes into play
from the Quraysh.
So one day
so so now they come to the prophet
and they say, you know what?
Let's make a bargain.
Right? Where was the bargain
in year 4?
No bargain. Right? Year 5, no bargain.
Year 6, the beginning, no bargaining. Right? Bargaining
only comes
when you have some power as well. Now
that hamza is there, umrah is there, more
Muslims are more people are coming into Islam.
Muslims have established themselves in Abyssinia.
Now
bargaining actually is an opportunity, meaning no one's
gonna bargain with you. No one's gonna try
to negotiate with you when you're in a
position of weakness.
And if you think that they're going to,
then you're then you're the fool. Right? You're
the fool. It's only gonna happen when you
have something to offer or you have some
counter,
you know, some counter pressure that you can
apply. So now they come and they ask
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. They say,
okay.
We'll try to make a compromise here. We
don't like Islam. You don't like our idol
worship. Okay. That's very clear.
Let's do this.
One day, we worship Allah
and one day, we worship the idols. Right?
If that doesn't work, we can do 1
month, 1 month. If you wanna do, we
can do 1 year 1 year. You know,
we're we're open. We're very flexible people. We're
willing to work with you. Right? So you
work with us and let you tell us
what we should do. Now now this now
this is important. So the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
what is his response?
No response comes.
He does not respond out of his own,
you know,
his own strategy now. Now he waits for
the revelation from the Quran. And at this
point, the revelation comes from from in the
Quran.
Say, oh, disbelievers,
I do not worship what you worship.
You do not worship what I worship. I
will never worship what you worship. You will
never worship what I worship.
You have your religion, and I have mine.
Very important to see the context
of this verse because sometimes people, they say
this last part, lakumdi nukum waliadin.
Oh, you know, we can we can be
fine.
Your religion, my religion, everything's fine. That's not
the context in which it's being revealed.
This is a context where they're trying to
compromise
and they're saying,
no. This is not gonna happen. A compromise
cannot take place.
Why?
Why not? Because we're talking about the essence
of deen, the essence of the religion. There
is no compromise
in the essence of the religion.
There can be compromise, and you're going to
see compromises being made in all other things,
in all other aspects.
But no compromise can be in the as
absolute
fundamental aspect of Islam. And that's very important
to strengthen people's Iban at this point in
time, to strengthen their faith. So bargaining didn't
work. And they tried some other bargaining tactics
as well. None of that worked. So now
what do they do? If bargaining doesn't work
it's a very interesting progression.
K? If bargaining doesn't work, right, negotiations
don't work, what do you do?
You start putting pressure
on other people who you can get to
put pressure on them. So now they go
to Abu Talib
and his uncle, Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's
uncle, who is protecting him all this time
because he has clout in Makkah. So they're
starting putting pressure on Abu Talib, and they're
saying, you need to stop your nephew from
this message of Islam.
If you don't want to stop him yourself,
that's fine. If you don't even want to
you don't even want to talk to him,
that's fine. Just give us the green light.
We can just go and take him out.
We can just go ahead and kill him.
But the thing is, this is a tribal
society.
You need the green light from the tribal,
you know, from the clan, you know, from
that family leader before you take out one
of the kids or take out one of
his nephews or something like that. So he
says just let us kill him or you
put a stop to it. So Abu Talib
goes to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
and he talks to him. And he says,
you know what, my nephew,
You know I'm always there for you. You
know I've always been protecting you. I have
raised you as a child.
But, you know, I'm an old man.
Don't make my life more difficult than it
has to be. Just go easy on me.
Very nice way. He's saying, just just take
it easy on me.
Can you just, you know, can you tone
it down a little bit? Can you just
kind of, you know, negotiate or is there
something you can do so that they stop
getting upset at you? So the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam responds, he says, you know
my uncle, no matter what, no basically, you
can read the detail of the conversation in
your book. Basically, the summary is no matter
what happens,
I cannot give up this message because it's
directly from Allah. Meaning, no matter what they
bribe me with, no matter what they try
to pay me off, no matter what they
do, I cannot give up this message
because it's true and it's coming from Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So the prophet
started crying
while he's saying this. He started crying and
he started leaving.
Abu Talib, he sees his nephew crying,
and as soon as he's walking out the
door, he thought that he lost his uncle's
support. His uncle stops him and he says,
look.
He says, wait.
Says, you do whatever you have to do.
I will continue to protect you.
This was
done out of what?
Out of Abu Talib's love for Islam?
No. Out of Abu Talib's love
for his nephew.
Out of Abu Talib's love for his nephew
and his love for his family.
His love. No. But, yes, the thing is
okay. It's a it's an interesting point you
brought up. So the question that he's bringing
up is that if the prophet was being
bribed
with, like, wealth and women and all of
these things, and he's being bribed only in
the time where Islam is actually increasing and
getting a little bit better,
then that doesn't make the argument that, you
know, it doesn't it's not as strong in
showing his sincerity because it's already moving forward.
Right. That's actually not the case. Just because
the Muslims
can start praying
at the Kaaba
doesn't mean that they control the Kaaba.
Just because they can start praying at the
Kaaba doesn't mean that now they've taken over.
Umar and Hamza are not at the level
of the tribal chieftain leaders. So if you
would look at this point if you look
at, for example, Islam
is
it's not making a headway in terms of
convincing all the people of Mecca.
It's basically just able to remove the persecution
that the Muslims were facing.
See, the actual amount of believers at this
point are not very large at all. When
you look at how many Muslims migrated to
Madinah,
it's not a very large number at all.
So the majority of Muqans are still there.
He's still in the minority. So the argument
still applies.
They're completely in the minority. They're still in
the weaker position. Just because they're getting some
relief that's why the the chapter was titled
Some Relief.
It didn't say victory.
Right? It's it's not even close to victory.
Right? So it's still very, very far, Very,
very far. So the argument still stands, actually.
Still a very good argument. People
of Abyssinia are still there. They're chilling out
over there.
They're enjoying themselves.
Some of them returned back. Some of them,
but quite a few stayed there at this
point in time.
There was a report that one person
ended up leaving Islam,
and,
he was married to
I forgot who he was married to. But
he was married to a person and then
the prophet married that woman anyways later on.
But,
there was there's a report that one person
left Islam.
Alright. And why did he leave Islam? That
means his faith, like the thing is, if
you actually analyze the entire thing and you
see the faith of his wife, it's very
likely that he only accepted Islam because of
his wife.
That's why. So a lot of Christian missionaries
like to throw that one out there and
they say, see? Look. Muslims who are leaving
Islam for Christianity, actually
his wife completely stayed and actually married the
prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam. Everyone else in
Abyssinia stayed there. No one else left Islam.
This is just the one guy who kind
of got out there. It's very likely that
he was just doing it for his wife.
And this happens. Sometimes people get married. You
know, sometimes people become Muslim
for, you know, their wife or for their
husband.
Right? Same thing. So this this happens. Even
there were people in Madinah,
some people migrated to Madinah
only because there was someone there to get
married to, and they were being fought. Like
one guy, his name was Muhajir Qais. He
wanted to marry a girl named Qais, and
she said, you know what? If you migrate,
then I'll marry you. Otherwise, I'm not gonna
marry you. So he's like, okay. I'll migrate.
So he's doing a great deed in Islam,
but he only did it for for her,
basically. So this this is this is probably
the you know? I mean, we don't know
his real intention, but that's most likely what
what evidence leads to. Okay. Any other questions?
Okay. So boycott and sanctions. Now
if
if bargaining doesn't work
and pressure doesn't work, you need to come
up with a new strategy.
So a new strategy comes. We're gonna boycott
the entire clan of Hashim.
Now all the other clans come together and
say, we're gonna boycott the entire clan of
Hashim.
What does a boycott entail?
This is like sanctions against the country. Right?
Before you want to like, when you're trying
to, like, mess with a country, first you
start with propaganda against them. Right? Then you
start with, you know, infiltrating some of their,
you know, people with intelligence and all of
that. And what then you wanna weaken them
even more, you start a boycott.
Use sanctions. Right? So you start so sanctions
start against the,
clan of Hashim, and the sanctions mean that
no one is allowed to marry
anyone from the clan of Hashem or trade
with them.
No business, no marriage. These are the most
important things. And this is a marriage is
a big thing as well in, tribal culture.
So no one's allowed to even marry within
the tribe of Hashem. This is a big
thing. So
this how did this pass, by the way?
Does it mean that all the people in
Mecca just decided that, you know what, we're
gonna go ahead and we agreed to this
boycott and everything's gonna be fine? No. That's
not the way it works. The way it
work works is that the people who have
the loudest voices
and the people who can spread the most
fear and the people who have the most
pull, they're the ones who are gonna go
ahead and influence and pressure other people to
go ahead and sign this sign this contract
or this this this boycott against the clan
of Hashim. But it doesn't mean that they
didn't have any allies. Their allies was the
clan of Muttalib. Muttalib were very close to
them. So the Muttalib clan joined the Hashim
out of solidarity
even though they're not Muslim. Now keep in
mind, the the clan of Hashim has not
all accepted Islam.
Okay? They've not all accepted Islam.
But at the same time,
they're willing to go ahead and support
the Muslims because they're family members.
Abu Talib is the leader over here, and
he's gonna go ahead. So Muttalib joins them
and says, we're in solidarity with you. If
they're gonna boycott you, they're gonna boycott us.
This is a very noble thing we're talking
about, and these are not Muslims.
So non Muslims are teaming up with other
non Muslims
for the sake of Muslims
because of tribal reasons. So what did they
do? Abu Talib got his stuff and he
moved. He relocated his house to a mountain
pass, which is inside a little bit outside
Makkah.
Because they can, you know, gather together and
they can support one another. Because now we're
talking about
no marriage, no trade. Very very difficult. So
now what would happen? What would happen is
that they had problem. They had food shortage
as well. Famine was taking place. So now
that there's a famine meaning there's a shortage
of food.
What they would do then is that if
food is coming from outside, what would the
Quraysh do? The Quraysh would go and intercept
the trade caravans and the food caravans
before they could arrive in Makkah so that
there's absolutely nothing left and they would pay
higher price so that they bought everything and
there's nothing left for Hashim. So they're they're
really really, you know,
undergoing like like, they're really putting the pressure
on really hard.
So many of the Muslims during this time
and many of the other people as well,
particularly the Muslims had it even the the
worst because they got, you know, some of
them some of the people who are with
them are that are boycotted from Hashim and
from Mu'taleib
are not supporting the Muslims. So they
have to go with what their clan has
decided, but they're not happy with, you know,
being persecuted on on account of Muslims.
So they're upset. So they're I mean, you
can't blame them as well, but they're upset.
So they're the Muslims are in the worst
situation right now. Because many of them, sometimes
they would have to go days without food.
Some of them, later on, for example, one
of the companions,
he had a mark. He had like a
bruise in the back of his tongue. And
when somebody saw that later on in life,
he said, what is that bruise that you
have?
Oh, that's during the boycott time.
One time I was so hungry. There was
no food. There was nothing to eat. And
I had gone for so long without food.
I just needed something, like some kind of
meat or something. We were eating leaves. I
just needed a piece of meat or something,
so I saw a piece of leather. And
I took the piece of leather, and I
cooked it,
and I tried to swallow it.
And you don't try to swallow a piece
of leather. They said, that's where that mark
came from. And I had that mark from
that time. That's how difficult it was for
them. Right? So they're going without food, and
this lasts for 3 years.
Very, very long and difficult time. 3 years,
some people
would smuggle food in
into the place where they're living, and they
would get some food. Meaning, these are not
Muslims.
These are like,
humanitarians.
Right? These are these are like activists who
are going and saying undercover,
we're gonna get some food snuck in there
because they felt bad for them as well.
So they it doesn't mean, like,
everyone
here is really all bad and everyone here
is, like, really all good. There was they're
living among non Muslims here. There are some
good non Muslims here who are helping them
smuggle some food in, but they can't do
anything about the boycott. What happens
to make a long story short, what happens
after there's been a long people are really
getting tired of this. This is not fair.
This is unjust what is happening to these
people. So 5 men or one guy gets
together. One guy comes together and says, you
know what? He was talking to another man.
These are all non Muslims. And they said,
this is really bad what's happening. You know,
we need to put this to an end.
We didn't agree to this. And he said,
but we're only 2 people.
2 people can't handle it. He said, what
if we had a 3rd person? So, okay.
Fine. You get a 3rd person. So they
went and they got a 3rd person. And
he said, what do you think? We need
to stop this. So we're only 3.
We need some more people. So, okay. You
get a 4th. So he said, okay. We
got a 4th. We got the 4th guy,
and the 4th guy says, we're only 4.
We need 5. So, okay. We're gonna get
1 more. So they go in and get
1 more. Now they got 5 people. So
what do they do? They go and they
make, like, this little advocacy group. In the
UK, they call it a pressure group. In
America, what do they call it?
A lobby. Right? So they make this lobby,
and they make up this plan, and they
start putting pressure, and they start talking to
people. This is unfair. Why are we doing
this to the clan? They have a history.
Do you know who their grand ancestors are?
And they're from our family. And people start
getting the message. And now they come and
they start going in front of the Kaaba,
in front of everyone saying, you know what?
We didn't agree to this contract. You forced
us and you pressured us. And the other
guy gets up and he says, that's right.
I agree too. I I never signed this
contract. Somebody over there gets up. It's the
guy. It was planned. The other guy gets
up over there. He gets up and Abu
Jahl tries to stand up and he's he
realized Abu Jahl is smart.
He's very clever. He knew exactly the man.
That guy happened to speak right when that
guy's speaking. This was planned.
But the thing is, they spoke loud and
they spoke before he could say anything, and
he was already quiet. They went inside the
Kaaba and they tore up the document and
it was canceled. Everyone once people get riled
up, that's it. There's nothing there's they're already
in that direction and there's nothing that's gonna
stop them. So they were able to actually
cancel this document. And, of course, it's from
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So they were able
to cancel this document, and the boycott
ended. So what do you find so far?
You find the tactics that are being used,
you find the progression of the message of
Islam, and you find difficulty and then you
find some ease, and then you find difficulty
and then you find some ease. And that's
the way
life is. That's the way that's part of
the plan of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. There's
something that we need to understand, something that
we need to learn from,
and we need to, you know, learn how
we can cope with these things in our
lives. So we discussed these things. Any questions
on the things we've covered today?
Okay. InshaAllah. So ask me questions later. The
movement has already started and the noise has
already gone. So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
allow us to practice these things.
Please make sure
how many of you are keeping up with
your tests by the way?
Pretty good.
So keep up with them, inshallah.
And,
if any questions, please send them to me,
inshallah.