Mustafa Umar – Islamic History 101 Lecture#11 Life of the Prophet
AI: Summary ©
The loss of the prophet's visit to Ta'if, the persecution of his uncle, and the difficulty of knowing all the variables in someone's life and their impact on their reputation are important topics for learning and giving out the message of Islam. The importance of accepting Islam as a means of political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political political
AI: Summary ©
Alright.
Alright. Let's begin
So today,
we're in week 6. So first of all,
congratulations.
You've made it
past half of the class.
This is,
this is a blessing in and of itself.
We should be having a party.
There are a few people enjoying their drinks
in the back. It's like their own personal
party. That's fine. Can you keep drinking? Yeah.
It's not a problem.
We made it this far. It's it's really
a blessing and,
it's something very good if if we're keeping
up. This week, we're gonna be covering the
year of sadness,
the visit to Ta'if,
the calling the tribes of Arabia to Islam,
the pledges, the 2 pledges which take place
at Aqaba,
and how that leads into the migration
of Madinah.
So let's begin with the year of sadness.
So remember where we left off. We left
off where did we leave off? Who can
tell me?
For a
spiritual piece of candy. Yes. Okay.
The boycott and sanctions. The boycott and sanctions.
So the boycott and sanctions lasted how many
years?
3 years. 3 years. And it ended. Right?
So we left off where the boycott and
sanctions
had ended.
Now that it's finished
in the 10th year, so which year did
the boycott and sanctions begin?
4th year,
6th year. 7th
year. 7th year. 7th year. Right? 7th year
lasted 3 years, now we're in the 10th
year.
Ah?
Is it 10th year Ah?
No. 10th year after Hijra? No. 10th year
after Hijra? No. 10th year after Hijra. The
10th year 10 years before Hijra. After revelation.
Not before Hijra, not after Hijra.
10th year after revelation. Okay? So now we're
in the 10th year
and you have the band has just finished.
Now remember who was part of that, who
was participating in that band? Who had supported
the prophet salaw alaihi wa sallam during that
band? His uncle as well as the tribe,
as well as the clan. Right? So Abu
Talib
was also
part of that band and obviously being an
old man it's not likely or it's it's
it's it's likely that he's experienced a a
great deal of difficulty
while he was out there, while his people
were starving. He's probably stressed out.
Sometimes there was no food. Very very difficult
situation. So it's not likely or it's not
surprising that he became very ill right after
the boycott or probably a little bit before
the boycott as well. So once the boycott
has ended
the Abu Talib is ill and he's very
sick and his illness is getting worse and
worse and worse and he's becoming chronic. So
he's
nearing his deathbed.
So within a few months, he had this
chronic illness and his situation was deteriorating
more and more every single day, and he
was confined to his bed. So he could
not go up, he could not get up,
he could not visit with other people. People
had to come and visit him. So the
prophet
had the idea
that this
is an opportunity.
I've already talked to my uncle about Islam.
He's been supporting me, but he's not wanting
to accept Islam.
This is gonna be my last opportunity.
My last chance to reach out to my
uncle who loves me and I love him
to explain to him the message of Islam
and to get him to accept Islam. So
what did the prophet
say? He went to him at that time
and he said my dear uncle
at least just at minimum just say
even if you're not 100%
ready you know to follow Islam, just at
least declare and say that there is no
God besides Allah so that I can bear
testimony for you in front of Allah.
So the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam his
mentality is what? Even if he says it,
even if his faith is like 5050,
he's kind of like on the borderline or
something at least he says it, he has
some feeling towards it I can at least,
you know,
hope and pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Oh Allah give him paradise because at least
he kind of came to Islam, if not
100%,
you know, willingly.
So what was the response?
Before
Abu Talib could even
answer.
Right? Before he he just proposed a question
just at least say this
before he could even give a response
there were 2 other very influential men present
in the room because Abu Talib is a
very important person. Right? So 2 other very
influential people but they don't like Islam. So
what was their response? They said, oh Abu
Talib,
would you abandon the religion
of your father and your forefathers?
Is that what you're gonna do? Because remember,
if you accept
what
your nephew is telling you right now,
what does it mean? It means that everyone
will know that you've abandoned the religion of
your forefathers.
Right? Meaning your your your your parents and
your grandparents not all the way back but
your parents and your grandparents and some of
our recent ancestors. You've abandoned their religion. Now
think what's going to happen to you if
you do that.
If you accept that what's going to happen?
That means that all the things that you've
done in Arabia, in Mecca,
your status, your position, your leadership of of
the tribe of the the clan and all
of that, it's all gonna be forgotten.
Know what everyone is gonna remember you now
as the one who abandoned
his his tribe, the one who abandoned his
religion.
All of think what people will think after
your when after you die.
This is a major choice that people get
to make and we see this people still
think the same way all the time. They
say what are people going to say when
you're gone? Why don't you go ahead and
do this? Why don't you go ahead and
do this? What do you think people will
say? And people are so interested
in what other people will think about them
even after they're dead.
And this afflicts
even time some Muslims
that they believe in akhirah, but they're so
concerned what will people say after my death.
I don't want them to say this. I
don't want them to say this. Not realizing
that what difference does it make what people
say about you? What difference does it make
what status you have in their eyes? Once
you're dead, you're dead. You're going to be
concerned with yourself only. So Abu Talib is
faced with this decision
and he starts weighing the pros and cons.
The pro is he's not against Islam completely
but then the con is people are gonna
say number 1 you were on your deathbed.
You could have accepted Islam
when your nephew first presented it to you.
For 10 years you didn't accept Islam and
you knew about it. You were supporting Islam
you didn't accept it. So they'll say you
know what, look they're gonna come up with
some propaganda. Look at this coward. He got
really scared when he was on his deathbed
and he decided to accept Islam at at
that point in time. He couldn't have done
it earlier. So one is reputation is gonna
be messed up in that way. Number 2,
it's gonna be messed up in the sense
that all the rest of the clan has
not accepted Islam.
So at this moment, Islam is still in
the minority. They say you're gonna abandon your
position to go into this, you know, minority
religion over here. So he's gonna lose his
honor, he's gonna lose his respect in in
his own clan as well as in the
tribe.
So he's debating this.
And,
he has to come to a, he has
to come to a solution.
So what what happened? So basically what happened
was he rejected
it. He rejected Islam and he said I'm
not going to say it. I'm not going
to say it and he said he remained
quiet which means that he's not going to
accept Islam. Now the prophet was very very
grieved and Abu Talib passed away. And he
passed away in this state
where where he had not accepted Islam. In
fact, he had been offered clearly the message
to say it and he refused. He had
said no because of his honor.
Because of his honor and because of the
love
of his
clan, the love of his tribe, and what
they're gonna say about him. That's why a
lot of people get confused. You see how
can a man who loved his nephew so
much, he loved the prophet
so much,
How could he not have entered into Islam?
Well part of the love for his nephew
had to do with most of the love
for his nephew had to do with the
fact that he was family.
And the love for his clan and his
clan's respect had to do with the fact
that they were family.
You see, so the priority became love of
family
not love of Allah or love for the
truth. There's a difference between the 2.
So what did what did the prophet said?
The prophet said he was very very grieved
at this point in time. He had really
really hoped that Abu Talib would have been
guided to Islam but it was not to
be. So he made a statement and he
said I will keep on asking Allah to
forgive you until I'm forbidden to do so.
Not thinking that he was gonna be forbidden.
Meaning that I will keep on asking Allah
to forgive you. This is after he's dead,
after he's passed away. Now he's passed away.
I'm gonna keep on asking. He told him
I'm gonna keep on asking Allah. When he
passed away he wanted to start,
you know, making dua for him asking, you
know, supplicating for him, oh Allah forgive him
even though he didn't accept Islam because he
was such a good person. Right? You know
how we always talk about what if someone
is a good person but they don't accept
Islam?
This kind of helps clarify,
you know, our answer to that common question
today. So
he was about to start supplicating
and then the verses were revealed. The first
verse that was revealed, it is not befitting
for the prophet and the believers
to ask forgiveness
for the idolaters
even if they are related to them.
It's not befitting, meaning it's not correct. So
this is a way where Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is forbidding
the prophet but in a very nice and
gentle way. Meaning it's not befitting, it's not
correct, it's not right for
the believers and for the prophet in particular
to be praying for people who passed away.
If you prayed for them before they died
that they enter into Islam that's fine.
But even if their family
you cannot go ahead and pray for them.
Why?
Because if you
have a special status and your prayer gets
accepted
just because they're your family,
it's not fair because they had their own
choice in this life and they chose something
else. It would not be fair to somebody
else who did not have the same kind
of opportunity or did not have the same
kind of family. And then other another verse
was revealed.
Says you meaning the prophet, you cannot guide
everyone you love to the truth. It is
Allah
who guides whoever he will. He knows best
those who will follow guidance.
That's the interesting thing. Meaning Allah knows best
who's gonna actually follow the guidance and who's
gonna accept. So the prophet is being told
you can't guide everyone you want. It's not
about who you want. It's not about who's
close to you. It's about what Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala decides because he knows what's in
people's hearts. He knows who is gonna believe
and who is not going to believe. So
therefore,
we learn a great lesson
that if the prophet
was not able to guide whomever he wanted
to, how can we think that this family
member of ours is not going and practicing
Islam? Or this family member of ours does
not want to accept Islam? Or this really
my best best friend, I've known him for
20 years and we've been together for such
a long time.
Why why, you know, why can't he accept
Islam? There are other people I just met
them for a week and they've come into
Islam and this other person he won't come
into Islam. What's wrong? You can't guide whom
you will. You can your job is to
deliver the message. And when they don't respond,
you leave it up to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. You did your job and you move
on and you continue because Allah is going
to decide. So the revelation made it very
clear that whoever,
you know, Allah does not approve of this
thing and you know, the decisions that people
make they're part of the test in life.
It's part of their test in life and
they're gonna go they're gonna have to make
those decisions themselves. Okay? Any questions?
Yes. So how do we
what is the criteria
for somebody having to be held accountable
when
they've heard the message of Islam or they
haven't heard the message of Islam
or they worship idols or they didn't worship
idols. For example, someone who's a Jew or
somebody who's,
perhaps a Christian but a like a more
of a monotheist, you know, Unitarian Christian or
something like that.
The scholars explain this based upon several verses
in the Quran and they say that whoever
has received the message,
right, they're going to be held responsible
for having believed
in the Quran, having believed in the prophet,
having believed in Allah and all of that.
They're gonna be responsible.
When do they receive the message or to
what extent can we say that the message
has been delivered to them or they've actually
had?
Not necessarily delivered, but they've had a proper
opportunity
to be able to have access to research
Islam to look into it and to understand
what it is. Who's going to determine that?
Allah.
There's no criteria that we could possibly set
for the people in America or the people
in Japan or the people in India. There's
no clear cut criteria that we can set.
What we can do is we can look
around and say okay there are people who
have entered into Islam
who lived in the most rural
part
of the United States that we could possibly
imagine. Rural parts of the UK where no
Muslims were living around. So how did you
come to this, realization about Islam? Well, I
was searching on the Internet and I wanted
to learn more and therefore I went and
researched. Or some people say, I went to
the library, I started reading some books about
Islam, I saw these ones were really biased
against Islam, I went and got some other
ones in the same library and that led
me to Islam.
So meaning that we can kind of get
a gauge of
the fact that people do have access in
most parts of the world to at least
figure out what is Islam.
What other barriers have been put in their
way whether they did not have access to
technology, whether they didn't have access to the
Internet, whether they weren't fluent with computers and
all of that, we can never determine. So
our job is to set certain general guidelines
that we know based upon the Quran, which
says that Allah will not punish a people
until he sent a messenger.
So if the message have has been delivered
to them, Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, is gonna
hold them accountable. Can we pick 1 person
in particular and say the message has been
delivered to you, but it's not been delivered
to you? It's impossible to do that because
we can never know all the variables in
somebody's life. In fact, a person themselves would
not be able to judge. Even they themselves
can't judge, let alone we. So what we
judge is basically we say if the message
has reached you, then you're gonna be held
accountable. Has it reached you or has it
reached this city or has it reached this
population?
That's something in today's world we'll never be
able to tell. Only Allah knows. So that's
the criteria basically. That's the criteria. As for
believing and non believing,
whether or not they worship Allah or they
worship not There's a little bit theological difference
which we'll cover in the in the class
on theology Insha'Allah.
Now Abu Talib is gone.
Obviously, there's gonna be some repercussions. But beef
right after Abu Talib passes away, only a
few months later, Khadija
his beloved wife also passes away.
So remember
Khadija was like one of the first people
to believe. Right? In fact after she passed
away he remarked about how much he used
to miss her company after she had passed
away. Even later on years that years went
by, he used to remember her and used
to say,
she believed in me when people disbelieved in
me. Right? This is a this is a
huge thing. Right? What's the most what's the
most difficult thing in the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam's life is that he's
going and conveying the message of Islam. Remember
what he was told. In order to assist
him in conveying the message of Islam, what
what does he have to do? He has
to start praying
a large portion of the night because of
the difficulty of conveying the message. Right? It's
not gonna be easy. What was he doing?
He was wrapped up in his garments until
he was told that you have to get
up and you have to go and spread
the message. So people were not believing in
him. So she believed in me when nobody
else was believing in me. That's a huge
thing. That had a big effect on him.
And then he said she accepted me as
truthful
when people called me a liar. Even himself
he was confused into what what's going on
and she believed in him at that time.
This is a very deep,
connection that they have with each other. She
even aided me with her own wealth. So
even she used to give her own wealth
to go and help him and help the
message,
continue to be spread. So this is something
that he used to remember her all the
time.
So very very difficult situation for him. He
lost his uncle and he lost now his
wife. So
But the good thing was,
she was given the glad tidings of paradise
just before she died.
So in fact, there's a statement, a hadith
of the prophet where he said that you
know what? She you know, Allah revealed to
her that she's gonna be one of the
people of paradise and he even conveyed it
to her because he he knew that her
time was coming. So
she was one of the people of paradise
because she was one of the believers. Now
let's the consequences.
There are
outward consequences
and there are inward consequences
of this time. He lost his uncle
and he lost his wife and this year
is known as the year of sadness
because of the difficulties that he's facing. Some
scholars say it was known as the year
of sadness because of the difficulties that he
faced
in his
message of Islam trying to be delivered. The
the more obstacles that were put in his
way became the year of sadness.
So it's actually a combination of both. It's
a combination it's a combination of all these
things. So he lost his uncle. Now what
does his uncle do? Outward consequences if you
lose the protection of your uncle who loved
you so much and he had influence and
he was protecting you and he was making
sure nobody messes with you. Now what's gonna
happen when you've lost him? You're gonna there's
gonna be a lot of difficulties coming his
way. Politically,
this is a very very bad situation for
the Muslims in Makkah right now because the
uncle was the one who was keeping them
in check, keeping them everyone else in control,
keeping them at guard.
And inwardly,
right, he's lost his comfort.
Right? When he used to deal with the
difficulties,
where would he find comfort? He would find
comfort in his family. He would find comfort
with his wife.
Now he's lost that source of comfort as
well. So now he's gonna encounter more difficulties
and he doesn't have that sense of comfort
even coming from his wife. Very, very difficult
situation
that the prophet is gonna be
encountering at this time.
So now
more persecution begins.
What is the first,
step,
of persecution that begins?
First of all, Abu Lahab
who is the prophet's uncle. Right? Now he
has the green light
to go and start doing so many other
bad things. So he has the green light
to go and start harming, you know, his
his nephew even more. So the first thing
he does is he orders his 2 sons
to divorce
their wives because both of their wives were
the daughters of the prophet salaam alaihi wa
sallam.
So now this is like a social censure.
This is like a a slap in the
face. And in fact, they didn't want to.
Right? They were they were happily married even
though, you know, at this point in time,
they were not necessarily believers. He ordered them.
So you need to divorce both of them.
It's finished. This is a command on you.
So he pressured them and he forced them
to,
divorce. Okay. That's what at least he tried
to do. Right? And some accounts say that
he was he was able to succeed in
one, not able to succeed in the second
one.
Then what happened? His wife,
even Abu Lab's wife
started participating in the persecution.
So she used to have her special way.
She used to take thorns
and she used to put them in the
way where in the way that the prophet
would be walking. So she knew he's gonna
walk down this path, he was gonna walk
down this alley. So she put some thorns
and she, you know, put some leaves and
stuff together in that area where he's gonna
walk. So while he's walking, if he's walking
even if he's walking with sandals or something,
if it's such a thorny area like imagine
like vines with a bunch of thorns in
them and you have to cross over them
and you're in sandals,
you know, barefoot without socks on, you're gonna
get cut. You're gonna get cut. So this
is what she used to do, made his
life very, very difficult. That's why she's also
mentioned in the Quran as being one of
the people who's gonna be punished because of
what she used to do. So now the
persecution just stepping up is getting worse and
worse. So one day,
Abu Jahl was sitting with some of his
friends not too far from the Kaaba and
he saw the prophet was praying over there
in front of the Kaaba. So he told
him he said,
I dare you I dare one of you
guys to go and get the guts of
a camel
and throw it on Muhammad when he goes
into prostration. So that means Abu Jal has
been watching him. He knows everyone knows how
they pray. So they know that they're gonna
go into prostration they're gonna go down on
the floor. Is I dare one of you.
I he wouldn't do it himself, but he's
putting a dare. Like, you know, some people
they're among their friends. I dare you to
jump off this bridge or something like that.
Right? They may not do it themselves. They
say I dare you. What? Are you scared?
I dare you to go
and take the guts of a camel, I
mean this is disgusting,
and throw it on top of him while
he's in prostration.
Thinking that, you know, no one's really gonna
take the challenge. Well there was one guy,
his name was,
Akbar ibn Abi Mu'aid.
Really despicable guy. He goes and he says
that he takes I'll take the challenge on.
He goes and fetches the intestines and like
the filth of this this camel
and he came
back in time where the prophet was down
in prostration. He brought the thing and he
emptied the entire contents on top of him.
Now just imagine intestines and guts and disgusting.
On the prophet while he's sitting in prostration,
blood and, you know, all of this, you
know, in in the insides of an animal
on top of him. What did the prophet
do?
He stayed in prostration.
He stayed in prostration. And what's happening over
there? Obviously, he know he understands what's going
on. Someone just did something to him. Abu
Jahl and his friends over there, they're bursting
in laughter. They're just getting a kick out
of it. If they had a phone, they'd
be taking a picture of this, you know,
and tweeting it. This is this is the
this is the way they're amusing themselves. And
he's sitting there and the prophet
is in prostration.
Imagine this scenario. Imagine this situation.
Such a difficult situation.
So he's waiting. He's waiting. He's waiting.
So what ends up happening? Fatima, his daughter,
she comes
finally after a little while and she sees
what's happening and she cleans off, you know
all the junk off of her father and
everything and you know maybe got him a
towel or whatever it is wiped you know
all the junk away.
And at this point in time when the
prophet got up this was one of the
one of the few and first and only
times
that he actually prayed against these people.
Before he was asking Allah, oh Allah forgive
them, oh Allah forgive them. This time because
it was so bad they had crossed their
limits in terms of in insulting, you know,
insults and, persecution.
He raised his voice and he prayed and
he wanted to intimidate them with his prayer
as well. Because these are people who in
reality they knew something special about this man.
So he wanted them to be intimidated as
well. And he said, oh, Allah destroy Abu
Jahal,
destroy Akbar, and destroy everyone like them.
He mentioned them by name. The ones who
were there by name who were laughing, he
mentioned each and every single one of them
by name. And they all got really scared
and they should have got scared because all
of them died later on, in in we'll
talk about that later. All of them died
later on.
That's one incident.
Another incident came
where a man
saw the prophet, it was Akba again actually.
He saw the prophet praying at the Kaaba
and he grabbed the sheet and he took
it around his neck and he started choking
him. They caught the prophet off guard and
he started choking him. Now who came? What
what was he gonna do? Abu Bakr was
there. Abu Bakr is best friend. He came
and he grabbed the guy by the shoulders
and he pulled him off. That's how difficult
it was. That's how you know ready this
guy was to choke the prophet. He grabbed
him by the shoulders and he pulled him
off and he said, would you kill a
man? Right? Would you kill a man just
for worshiping Allah? Just for saying that my
lord is Allah? Would you kill him for
that? This is a public statement. Abu Bakr
is saying it out of emotion.
He's saying it out of the love for
the prophet. He's saying it because this situation
is happening, but people are also listening.
So it's a beautiful statement.
Right? It's also conveying the message of Islam
to the people around him saying you're persecuting
him just for one thing because
he believes in Allah and he doesn't worship
any other idols.
He could have came and he started he
could have started cursing the guy. He could
have started talking about your mom is like
this and you're this. This is what a
lot of people do today. Right? When they
get excited or something happens for the sake
of it for, you know, for the sake
of Islam to go and
defend, they defend in such a horrible way.
Right? I've seen, SubhanAllah, I've seen Muslims on
on Twitter. SubhanAllah, I I have to share
this story. I saw a sister on Twitter.
Right? Someone was making fun of her for,
you know, being Muslim and you know, wearing
hijab or something like that. And somehow this
sister on on on Twitter, she started responding
with such foul language and say, you know,
how dare you make fun of my this
beep hijab and everything. I'm so proud to
be a Muslim and I wear it proudly
and just started cursing this person. I'm like,
how can you do that? How can you
be so proud of Islam and then you're
cursing to defend it? It just doesn't make
sense. SubhanAllah.
I guess some people they just need a
reminder.
So this is the way for Abu Bakr
radiAllahu an, may Allah be pleased with him.
This is the way that he responded.
More things happened. It became open season. Basically,
it was open season on the prophet. His
uncle is gone. His wife is not there
to comfort him. Very difficult time for him.
So now the clan protection is gone. People
just started doing all sorts of things. So
people would take trash and they would dump
it in front of his house. Okay. Now
when Just think about trash by the way.
Okay. We're not talking about
modern day trash like you know a milk
carton. There's a milk carton in front of
your thing. There's an egg carton, an empty
egg carton in front. The trash at that
time
was like disgusting things, like leftover
food or you know, intestine, you know, meat,
you know, cutting off the, they used to
eat a lot of the fat but like
the bones and all of that stuff. Imagine
all that stuff. Every day you walk outside
your house, there's all this junk just completely
piled in front. You have to somehow get
it out out in front of your garden.
Can you imagine if if your neighbor today
just took one bag of trash every day
and just threw it on your threw it
on the front and and open it up
and empty it on the front. Imagine how
bad it would be. Now imagine that but
worse because it wasn't like paper and plastic
products and all of that. It was just
the the the junk, absolute junk that was
there. You know, the the the I don't
know chickens in the back whatever their droppings
or whatever you know garbage they happen to
have at that time.
So very very difficult situation. 1 man
came
and he
very childishly, he took some dirt and he
threw it on the head of the prophet.
I mean this is like a childish kindergarten
behavior. Right? Like you go when you you
throw dirt in somebody else's hair or something
like that. So one guy did this and
when Fatima, she saw, you know, her father
like this, she started crying.
Because for her, she's a young girl still.
She started crying and she said this she
couldn't take this anymore. She said, you know,
why are people doing this to you? So
what did he respond? He responded and he
said, don't worry my daughter.
Allah will protect your father.
Don't worry about it. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will protect me. Don't be sad. Don't be
upset. So he's putting her at ease. It's
a very difficult situation on his own family.
Right? Another man or different people used to
come and while he's praying at the Kaaba,
they used to interrupt him.
They used to interrupt him and they start
shouting things. So imagine you're in the middle,
you're reciting Quran and they start shouting words
in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This this oh,
your god commands you to do this. Oh,
this this is. Imagine how difficult the situation
would be. Very difficult. Right? This became very
common. It became very, very common for them
to do things like this.
This response this response by the prophet to
his daughter Fatima was that don't worry, Allah
will protect your father.
Right? This is very interesting
because if you look at an average person,
right, look at any political activist for example.
When they're being persecuted,
right?
They're being persecuted maybe by the government, they're
being persecuted by some of their enemies, they're
being persecuted by whoever.
If people go and talk to them, what
do they say? They say look it's about
the movement it's about the movement. If I
die doesn't matter.
Right? I may die I may die tomorrow.
I may die in a few days or
something like that. Right? They don't know whether
they're gonna survive. The prophet salam
he knew
that he was going to make it. He
knew that there was a time where he
needs to finish
the message of the Quran being revealed to
him and being conveyed to other people. There's
a very different mentality. Now it doesn't mean
that he didn't take precaution.
He knew what was happening. He knew that
difficulty would face him. But at the same
time, he knew that
he was not just gonna all of a
sudden die and the message would just suddenly
stop like that. So it's very important to
understand,
the difference between that and the difference between
someone who thinks, well, you know, I may
die at any time or any point in
time.
So the mission is going to succeed and
he was known. He he knew that the
mission was going to succeed of Islam. When
it was going to succeed?
That's unknown.
Nobody could know that at that point in
time. Okay. So let's talk about one more
incident. Even Abu Bakr. Okay. Abu Bakr was
a pretty respected man. We talked about fact
that he was
a What were some of his characteristics?
Geneologist.
Geneologist?
Very good in genealogy?
Wealthy.
Philanthropist.
Philanthropist
and?
Businessman. Businessman. Okay. So he was quite well
known. He was a good man and everything.
Even at this point in time, Abu Bakr
wanted to migrate. A lot of people had
migrated to Abyssinia. Abu Bakr is not leaving
the side of the prophet. Right? But now
even Abu Bakr at this point in time,
that shows you how bad things were. He
said, you know what? It's time for me
to leave. Got permission from the prophet and
he's okay. Pack these bags, he's leaving Makkah.
While he was leaving Makkah, he was already
he already left Makkah. While he was on
the way out, he actually found somebody else
who knew him. And that person who knew
him said where are you going Abu Bakr?
Say well you know we're being persecuted so
bad I need to leave I need to
go somewhere else I can't take it. He
said
a man like you should not be kicked
out.
A man with your reputation and your status
should not be kicked out of Makkah. He
said come let's go back to Makkah I'll
give you my full tribal protection.
Because there was a system back then. The
system of tribal protection basically means that if
you're an influential person you let them know,
you let everyone know publicly
I am granting, you know, protection or asylum
or whatever you want to call it to
this person.
And if anyone messes with this guy they
mess with you now because you've given them
that protection. So this is like a a
pact. It's like
a clan type of pact that you have.
So
basically
it was clear the situation was so difficult
even a personal Abu Bakr wanted to leave
but he came back anyways because he had
protection. But not every Muslim could get protection
like this. Not everyone was gonna be, you
know, not everyone's gonna put stick their neck
out just so that 1 or 2 people
could get protection from the Muslims. So the
mush the mission was going to succeed but
at this point in time, Makkah seemed like
a lost cause.
There is no there is no major response
in Makkah. So now if Makkah seems like
a lost cause what do you do? Do
you sit there and you keep on going
no we're never gonna leave Makkah, we're gonna
only focus on Islam and Makkah. No. It's
time to look for another place
not just to not just to talk about
Islam,
but to make a base
from
which the mission of Islam or the message
of Islam can continue to be spread. So
this was not just about going to some
random place or something. The prophet was looking
for a base where he could relocate over
there and he can continue spreading the message
of Islam from that place.
Any questions?
Oh, when he made dua? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So
remember we talked about Bilal when he was
saying ahad ahad one one? It's like
attacking the people back making them more upset.
The prophet by making this dua out loud
against Abu Jal and, Utbah and all of
these people,
Akba and all of these people, they were,
it's it's also a form of getting them
back at the same time. There were many
there were many many times. Many times this
was a common common occurrence.
So it's a it's a good point you
mentioned, good connection you made. Alright. So visit
to Taif. So now in the 10th year,
about 10 years after spreading the message of
Islam in Makkah. Right. That's 10 years. 3
years secretly,
7 years openly. Right. So the prophet finally
traveled to a nearby town called Ataif.
K. Ataif is
50 miles to the east
of Makkah.
Okay. So it's it's away from the coast
but it's a very fertile
land and it was like the vacation,
spot for all the rich people, you know,
in in in Mecca and like other parts
of Arabia. Very very nice place,
good cool weather because Makkah is burning hot
it's a valley. Taif is nice and breezy
and it's it's a very nice,
place to be. So he went there and
he visited the leaders from the tribe of
Taqif
which is the tribe who controls that area.
And what did they do? They
insulted him.
They rejected him. I mean they could have
just said no we're not interested in Islam.
They insulted him. They rejected him. They made
fun of him and they started saying some
other things that just made things even more
difficult. So what did he do?
He actually,
you know, went with his son
Zayd,
his adopted son Zayd to Ta'if at this
point in time. After the leaders rejected him,
he stayed in Ta'if for a few days
and he started calling people to Islam and
started talking to other people, are you interested
in Islam? This is the, you know, this
is the Quran, this is my message, this
is what, you know, this is the message
that I have from Allah. So he's telling
them but no no one's really responding. The
people are really not interested,
very tribal. If the leaders didn't accept then
they're not willing to accept as well. So
after a while
the leaders of Takif
not very long the leaders of Takif said
you know what this guy is gonna go
and start calling other people we're not interested
in him We don't want him to stay
in our city. So they went and they
gathered a bunch of people together.
And what did they do? They had them
chase the prophet and they had them chase
Zayd out of the city. Now how did
they do that? They told everyone, you know,
the people who they hired, whatever. They've hired
some thugs.
They hired some kids as well, you know,
or just, you know, encourage them. And they
all took stones and they started throwing them.
So they started they started throwing stones at
them and yelling at them and screaming at
them. Now imagine the prophet and zed, they're
running.
So now they start throwing the stones at
their legs. So they're targeting their legs so
that they run even faster or so that
they get hit. So the prophet being hit
in the legs, zayd is being hit in
the legs, zayd gets hit in the head
with 1 of the rocks as well. Not
a big rock, but he gets hit hit
in the head with the rock and he's
injured as well. So now, they're finally chased
outside of the city,
they stop to rest for a little while.
They've they've they've escaped the danger. Their legs
are bleeding. And in fact, it said their
legs were completely just drenching with blood, their
their shoes were filling up with blood at
this point in time. Now the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam remarked later on, he said
that
was the worst day of my life.
Can you imagine the worst day? We're going
to see other times. We're going to see
other
we're going to see other,
you know, battles that he you know has
to fight in and difficulties that he goes
through in life. So that was the absolute
worst day he ever experienced in his life.
But see Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was not
gonna just leave him like that. Allah was
not just gonna leave him in that sit
after losing his uncle, losing his wife, all
of these difficulties he's facing.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent an angel.
And the angel appeared to the prophet
and he told him, I can destroy this
entire city if you want. I can take
the 2 hills and we can just put
them together. We can destroy this entire city
if you want. But the messenger of Allah
salallahu alaihi wa sallam, what did he say?
He said no.
He said no. I hope that Allah might
make their descendants
worship only him.
Meaning that if these people are going to
accept
maybe the next generation is going to accept.
And it's very interesting because
you know the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
first of all he was not interested in
personal revenge.
Right? He doesn't care about what someone has
done to him.
He's only focusing on what? Focusing on the
message. Right? Maybe if these guys don't wanna
accept, the next group will accept. It's not
about me. It's not about who, you know,
fights with me or causes me a problem
or something like that. That's a major lesson.
Somebody comes and makes fun of you for
being Muslim. Somebody comes and, you know, calls
you, you know, terrorist this or this and
that. Instead of getting mad for the sake
of yourself,
you should think subhanallah, this person is misguided.
How can we misguide? How can we guide
these people? How can we open up their
minds to the message of Islam? How can
we get rid of the propaganda that they've
received on all the, you know, mainstream, you
know, news and you know whatever movies they're
watching and all of that. That should be
the primary, you know, thing that we should
be focusing on. That should be what we
should really be focusing on. So
it was enough
comfort for the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
that Allah had sent an angel to ask
him and that was sufficient for him. Why?
It means that Allah was caring for him.
Allah was the fact that
Allah had sent something
to give him an opportunity of comfort that
was more than enough comfort. People didn't need
to be destroyed. People didn't need to be
killed. And the interesting thing is that these
people, the people of Ta'if, there came a
time after the prophet passed away where so
many of the cities
had had been kind of half heartedly towards
Islam and many of the people who had
recently accepted Islam, they went back and they
they abandoned Islam or they refused to pay
zakat and other stuff happened. It's called the
time
of apostasy
in the period of Abu Bakr being Khalifa.
One of the few places
that maintained their Islam
was Taif
was Taif.
And another interesting thing for the people,
who are from the Indian subcontinent,
the person who actually conquered, who helped open
and spread the message of Islam in India
happened to be from 5. So if the
prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam you know, actually
accepted this
who knows what who who knows what might
have happened you know? But, it's interesting. So,
the prophet as salam said this is the
worst day of his life. Now here's the
issue, it's not over yet. Now the issue
is the prophet as salam failed in five.
He's gonna go back to Makkah and he's
gonna think of some new strategy.
But now that he left Makkah, the people
of Taif already informed him the the Makkans
that you know your guy came over here
and we kicked him out too. We don't
want to have anything to do with him
and we're sick you know, we hate him
and we insulted him. And now the Makkhans
and the Quraysh and the people of Taifs
Taqif, they're, like, kind of together. Like, yeah.
You you hate the prophet? We hate the
prophet. We kicked him out. Now that he
left Makkah and he doesn't have the protection,
it gave a sign to the people in
Makkah, the the leaders and politicians in Makkah
that look, when you leave,
you can't just walk back in like this.
You're about to leave our city. You're about
to go and go to another city, so
you're not welcome here anymore. You can't just
come back like that. And the prophet he
knew that. He knew the perception.
So he needed to get
tribal protection
before he even reenters the city of Mecca.
So he goes and before he even gets
to inside the city he sends a message
to some people. He goes and he approaches
1 person, says can you grant me tribal
protection?
One guy politely declines, sorry
I can't do it. I have too many
other things to do and everything.
Ask another
guy, can you grant me tribal protection? Another
guy responds, no. I'm sorry. I can't do
it. That's the 3rd guy. Can you do
it? No. I'm sorry. I have too many
things to deal with and everything. He asked
another guy. I think it was 3 or
4 something like that. He asked another guy
and finally a man by the name Mutaim
ibn
Adi, he responds
and he says I will give you the
tribal protection.
He says you come with, you know, Zayd
and everyone, you come with your family members.
And he went back to his family and
he said everyone
get your get your armor on.
Suit up for battle because that's the way
that they used to declare. This was not
a a low profile man, right? This is
a high profile man. You have to make
it very clear that when I've given him
protection it means I've given him protection. So
they all all his family armed himself, the
clan armed themselves, they had the swords and
everything, they had the swords and everything ready,
and they went to the Kaaba and they
announced
we are granting
the we're granting Muhammad this guy was not
a Muslim.
We're granting Muhammad tribal protection.
So don't mess with him. He's allowed we
have allowed him to re enter into Makkah.
Which shows you what shows you a number
of things. It shows you that there are
people
who are willing to help the message of
Islam. There there are people who are willing
to help Muslims even though they may not
be Muslim at that point in time.
Very interesting. Right? Very interesting. So
that's one thing. Right? The prophet
never forgot
this gesture of the man.
He never forgot this gesture.
And in fact later on, we'll talk about
maybe the battle of Badr. Later on he
remembered and he said that I never forgot
what that man said. He said, if that
man asked for prisoners of war back, this
is later on, he said, if it was
a man like him, I would have returned
him back. But these other guys who are
asking, these are not honorable people so they
have nothing to do with me. So he
remembered
that type of,
you know,
generosity and that type of incident throughout his
life. What does it remind you of? Something
else that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
remembered throughout his life when he participated with
non Muslims.
The pact of excellence. Right? The pact of
excellence. He remembered it throughout his life. Okay.
So now,
he reentered Makkah,
and he remember that favor. Now somebody came
to the prophet
and he was encouraged to get remarried. They
saw this was you know some people came
said they saw he's alone now. He has
no wife.
Difficult situation for him. They said you know
what?
You should get remarried.
Khadija is gone. You need to move on.
You need someone to comfort you. You have
a family to take care of as well.
You're a prophet. You're obviously working beyond overtime.
You need someone to help take care of
your family. So he finally agreed to the
idea. Initially, he was hesitant, but he agreed
to the idea and he said, okay. He's
gonna get married, and he married a woman
named Sauda. K. Sauda bin Zama'a, and she
was one of the earliest converts to Islam.
So this is not like someone who just
came into Islam. This is not someone who
he came and, like, kind of handpicked or
something like that. This is someone who was
one of the earliest people who had accepted
Islam.
She had migrated to Abyssinia,
which was in what year?
5th year. So several years ago. She's one
of the very early converts. Right? Because if
Islam became public
in which year?
3
years. After 3 years.
So in the 4th year, technically. Right? Or
end of the 3rd year, beginning of the
4th year. So she had accepted Islam very,
very early technically. Right? She had migrated to
Abyssinia with her husband. We meaning she was
a true believer. You don't just leave Mecca
if you're not a true you left your
city if you're not a true believer.
Her husband died while they were in Abyssinia
and she migrated back. And the prophet is
choosing her. Let's take a look at some
of her characteristics. Number 1,
she's a widow.
Number 2,
she's older than the prophet.
Okay? If he was interested
only like we kind of talked about this
before, if he was only interested in good
looks
and he's only interested in like a young
person because he's a womanizer or something, Would
he be choosing someone who who was married
already? Would he be choosing someone who's older
than him? And she was known for being
a heavy woman as well.
And I we we I kind of mentioned
I think in one of the classes that
heaviness, a little bit heaviness was not considered
a bad thing. But if they're describing her
as being heavy,
it's heavier than heavy in in in our
in our context. You understand?
So she was a pretty heavy woman,
but he married her anyways. Okay? Because she
had a very nice personality. She had a
good personality. She could take care of the
kids. She could take care of the family.
So,
they got married. Now one day, this is
we won't go into the details of our
life, but one little incident to kind of
give you the type of relationship that they
used to have. One day they were praying
the prophet was praying. Remember he used to
pray most of the night. He's still continuing
this process. So one day he's praying in
the night time and his wife, you know,
newly married wife, oh, I'm married to the
prophet. It's so nice. And then, you know,
people get very excited. I'm gonna do the
same thing just like the prophet, you know.
So she goes and she joins him in
the prayer.
And his prayer is so long, so she's
standing there standing there, and he's just she's
waiting and he's just reciting and reciting. Then
he goes into
he goes into bowing,
and he just stays there, and he's just
stuck there. And she's a little bit heavy,
it's difficult for her, she's older. So she
thought that her nose is gonna start bleeding.
So she started holding her nose even so
that the blood doesn't drip out. And then
she she probably broke the prayer or something.
She couldn't couldn't keep up with it. Later
on, she went and told the prophet. Said,
You know what? You
bowed for such a long time. I thought
my nose was going to start bleeding. I
had to hold my nose. So, they started
they had a laugh about it, you know.
It was something that It just shows you
the kind of relationship that they had. They
had a very lovely relationship as well. So,
now he's married and he has someone to
as well take care of the household.
Questions?
I don't I don't think we know the
exact age that she was. All we know
is that he she was older than him.
How old she I mean, well, the prophet
is how old now at this point in
time?
What year are we in? 15. What year
are we in? 10th year. 10th year. So
how old is he? K. And if we
go with the calculation that Khadija was 40
when they got married, how old will Khadija
be?
65.
65.
It'd be quite old. So we don't know
exactly what her age was whether she was
older or younger, how much older, how much
younger. We don't know. K.
Alright. So calling the tribes of Arabia.
So now the prophet salam is in
Makkah.
He's back in Makkah, he has protection. Now
his job is to what? Is to call
the people to Islam because it's it's not
working.
But before
every year he was calling people to Islam
throughout Makkah
as well as during the pilgrimage season. Right?
Now what's gonna change?
He's still gonna keep calling people during the
pilgrimage season but now the difference is it's
not just about someone coming and saying oh
okay I'm willing to accept Islam. Say okay.
Masha'Allah we'll talk to you later. Remember he
some people came accepted Islam, Abuza
accepted Islam, say we will call you later.
Go back to your place. We'll we'll let
you know what to do next.
Now he's gonna be conveying the message of
Islam
with another intention that once you've accepted Islam,
does your region
is your region willing to open up to
Islam such that we could find a homeland,
a base for Islam?
So a different the mission is changing now.
The mission is not just about giving the
message of Islam, it's about finding and transferring
out of Makkah to find another place.
So pilgrimage season, the prophet had been calling
them for several years. How many years had
he had he been calling people during the
pilgrimage season?
We're in 11th year now, by the way.
So now we're going to 11th. How many
years they've been calling approximately?
8.
8? Yeah. Close. 3 years was secret. 3
years was secret. So about 7 years. Right?
About 7 or 8 years you can say.
Now depending on, you know, how you calculate
the year started or ended or whatever it
is. So he'd been So a lot of
people had been hearing about Islam here and
there coming for pilgrimage and everything. Now things
change. It's this opportunity to give the message
of Islam to people
as well as call them
as a tribe completely and say, now are
you interested in giving me some kind of,
protection or homeland or we can move over
there or whatever it is. The problem is
most people have heard about Islam but Abu
Lahab all these years he used to go,
you know, behind the prophet especially this time,
he would follow the prophet
while he's walking and, you know, imagine everyone's
camped out during the pilgrimage time, during Hajj
time. All the tribe tribes camped out here,
camped out here, camped on the outskirts of
Makkah over here. The prophet would go and
walk around and go and meet with each
and every single one. While he's going and
walking and meeting, Abu Lahab is behind him
saying this guy is a liar. Don't listen
to him. Whatever he's saying, he's crazy. He's
this. He's that. Now imagine,
what's the first thing people are gonna say?
Who is that guy
right if it's just some crazy guy people
say okay some some lunatic some nut job
no problem
when they hear oh that's his uncle
oh his uncle is saying that
Something is going on. Right? So this is
really really bad coming from his uncle. If
it was somebody else, it wouldn't have been
as bad. But because it's from his uncle,
it's really bad situation. Right? So
this is what his uncle was doing. You
know, insulting remarks, making fun of the prophet,
giving off propaganda, the Quraysh are giving out
propaganda.
Now finally at this point in time,
he accompanied
Abu Bakr to,
Abu Bakr accompanied him to visit 1 of
the tribes, the tribe of Zuhal. So Abu
Bakr went to the tribe. Now just look
at how No. Those How many of you
read by the way before coming?
Not too bad. Numbers are going down. It's
very important that we read before coming as
well. So I can I don't, you know,
have I can summarize this for you rather
than giving you the details? So Abu Bakr,
accompanied the prophet to this tribe. Abu Bakr
walked up to the tribe.
Now why would Abu Bakr radiAllahu alaihi wa?
Why would the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
send him first to go and talk to
the tribe?
Genealogist, he can build rapport. Genealogist.
Build rapport. Exactly. Right? He knows who's who
and he's walking around he's telling them that's
a tribe from there and that's their lineage.
That's the tribe from there that's their lineage.
So studying
the tribe before you even approach them.
Very important because you can't take the message
of Islam
and walk up to everyone
and give the exact same message in exactly
the same way. That's not conducive to them
accepting Islam. It can't be a line that
you memorize and everyone gets up, you know,
in the masjid and says the exact same
line. That's not correct. That's not right. You
can't walk. We're not trying to point anyone.
You're smiling. Right? So
you walk up to a doctor and you
give him one line.
You walk up to a guy who's, you
know, a guy who works, with cars. You
give him the exact same line. Doesn't work
that way. You have to modify your approach,
you have to say something different.
So Abu Bakr walked up to this tribe
whatever he knew about them he said, have
you guys heard about the prophet?
They've heard about the prophet probably. Have you
heard about the prophet?
He's right here. You get a chance to
meet him. Right? This is great introductions, you
know. You heard about him. Right? He's right
here. If you want, you can talk to
him. You can ask him questions. This is
great. Rather than the prophet walking up and
saying this is who I am. It's a
beautiful way to introduce. Right? Give them some,
you know, enthusiasm and like, you know, make
him understand who this guy is. So the
prophet responded
and he started saying, he says, look let
me tell you about Islam. So he's you
know, they asked him, oh brother of Quresh.
We know about you. What are you teaching?
So he responded he said I teach that
Allah is 1
and that I am the messenger of Allah.
So now what is he what has he
done so far? He's delivered the bare fundamental
part of Islam.
He didn't go around and say you know
what? We're a group of people and we're
being persecuted.
And you know we're being you know it's
so unfair
and you know it's look what they're doing
to us and they threw sand in my
you know in my hair and they did
this and he could have done that but
he didn't do that. First, he delivered the
message of Islam. He could have done it
in the end or in the beginning. He
decided in this case, let me give you
the one sentence.
This is what we have. Then he says,
he recited the verses. He started reciting some
verses from the Quran. He said, let me
let me let you listen to the Quran.
He couldn't remember how everyone chooses different verses.
So the verses that he chose, he said,
say,
come I will tell you what your Lord
has really forbidden to you.
Do not ascribe anything as a partner to
him.
Be good to your parents. Do not kill
your children in fear of poverty. We will
provide for you and for them.
Remember the reason why people would kill their
children in poverty? Because they were afraid of,
kill their children because they were afraid of
poverty, right? When they were young. So they
said, we will provide for you and for
them. Stay well away from committing obscenities,
whether openly or in secret. Do not take
the life that Allah has made sacred except
by right. Meaning, don't murder people. This is
what he commands you to do, perhaps you
will use your reason.
A beautiful verse to quote. Right? Giving them
some good morals,
good good things that, you know, they know
these these are problems that we find in
our society. And saying, perhaps you might use
your reason if you reflect upon this. Getting
them to think a little bit. Very, very
well chosen,
verses that he came here. Right?
So these people,
the leaders of
the leaders of the tribe they were present
at this time and they got very impressed
with this message. So they're they're listening and
it's working and they're thinking this is this
is really nice.
So now they decide to talk amongst themselves.
So they start talking and they start, you
know, conversing and say what do you think
about this message and everything?
And then they got a little bit scared.
They like the message but they said, well,
well, let's not be so hasty. We need
time to think and everything. So they went
back to the prophet they said, we cannot
take a hasty decision
to abandon our ancestral religion. But we can't
just abandon everything that we believe just immediately
by hearing this. We need we need time
to think about it. That's number 1. The
number one issue is they're not saying we
will they're not like Quraysh. They're not saying
we will never believe and we will never
abandon the religion of our forefathers. They're saying
we can't just do it overnight. We can't
just do it like that quickly.
We need time.
Very reasonable.
Number 2,
they said besides we have an alliance with
Kisra.
Kisra or the Khosroes, he was the leader
of Iran. The emperor of Persia
was known as Kisra.
So he says we have an alliance with
him and we've pledged that we will not
ally with anyone else. See that's the way,
major empires work. Super powers what they do
is they say you make an alliance with
us
but you don't make an alliance with anyone
else. If you do your alliance with us
is gone and you're our enemy. And that's
how the divide and conquer things. If you
make an agreement or a contract for trade
or whatever you only trade with us. You
don't trade with anybody else. So they have
a contract, they have an agreement
with Persia
says
we you know we will not mess with
you we'll leave you alone. We'll even
support you sometimes
we'll supply you with some weapons that you
need in your little tribal conflicts or whatever
but the condition is you're not allowed to
make any treaty with anybody else otherwise it's
broken. You're our enemy.
So
what did the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
respond? This is very very interesting response, very
deep response.
These are people who are asking we need
time to think.
Right?
Fair. They're saying look we've made a treaty
with Persia. We're not allowed to make an
alliance with you. The prophet said he could
have simply said okay fine.
Don't make an alliance with us. Just welcome
us as like refugees or something like that.
Maintain your, you know, subservience with Persia or
whatever, and everything's gonna be fine.
No. The prophet said, Allah will help his
religion
and we we don't need this. Right? Meaning,
you can still follow the message of Islam.
We're looking for
a base.
A base for Islam cannot be a place
which is subservient to another superpower
because you got
what's gonna happen? If if that city is
attacked,
right? By anyone else they say we're willing
to support you. But if Persia attacks that
city,
we're with the Persians.
It needs 100%
dedication.
This Islam now in this phase, it needs
100% commitment. It's not about, you know, I
can do it, you know, on Saturday when
I have a few hours free, but I
can't do it the rest of the week
or something like that. This needs 100% commitment.
So
this tribe, he didn't he didn't, there was
no no major response with this tribe. What
happened to them later? We don't know exact
the exact details.
Another tribe comes. The prophet met the tribe
of Amr and he explained the message of
Islam to them. Now there was one guy
seemed to be very interested.
This is just really good, really excited. His
name was Firas. So the prophet is watching
this guy. Guy is really excited, you know,
this is great. This is Islam. This is
great. So imagine the prophet is very happy.
This guy is responding.
And then this guy opens his mouth
and he says, if we support you and
you are victorious over your opponents,
are we gonna be in power after you?
So the prophet realized what he's saying. The
prophet responded,
everything is in the hands of Allah.
That's that's a that's a pretty good response.
Right? He's not saying no.
You will not get to be the leader
no matter what. The leadership will be from
us and you only are there to help
because you're a servant of Allah. No. He
didn't. Allah can decide what he wants. That
guy was looking only for power. So what
did he say? You expect us to put
our lives in danger against all the Arabs
because all the Arabs are gonna be against
them. And then you're gonna give authority to
someone else afterwards?
No. Thank you. We're not interested.
This guy was only interested in the power
aspect. He was thinking this is a great
movement.
We can utilize this movement to gain power.
And that's what you find with some people
who are interested in
not the truth but they're interested in some
other gain they can get out of it.
Can this help me solve my problem
in my family? Okay, I'll go ahead and
consider Islam. Can this help me
you know, can this help my people
overcome
economic,
difficulties that they're in? Okay. Then I'll consider
this message. That's not what the root of
Islam is about. There are other benefits
but it's not about these other side things.
And that's becoming a very common problem today
where we
sometimes
advertise
Islam
as being
something where this is gonna solve this problem,
it's gonna solve this problem.
That's not a problem in the way you're
conveying the message of Islam. But if the
other person gets the point and the only
thing they're focusing on it's gonna solve this
this, it's gonna help me help me help
me in this way, but they actually don't
care about the truth aspect of it. This
became a major problem with the nation of
Islam in America.
Is that they were looking for a way
to get out of their bondage. They were
looking for a way to get out of
their inferiority complex.
That was one of the reason why they're
turning to Islam not as a truth aspect.
Although some of them may have been, but
generally this is one of the big criticisms
of this movement,
which is not obvious not a fully Islamic
movement. But, it's it's just something to keep
your mind open to that. So
they were not interested.
Okay?
Now in that year, what happened? In the
11th year and this is important because this
is precisely dated. A few men from the
tribe of Khazraj came
and they accepted Islam. Now where is the
tribe of Khazraj? They're come they come from
a city known as Yathrib.
Okay. And if you don't know Yathrib yet,
Yathrib later on becomes the city of Madinah.
So the tribe people from the tribe of
Khazraj they come and accept Islam. How many?
Not not too many of them, but they're
from place called Yathrib.
Yathrib is a place that is plagued with
civil war.
It's been having civil war for a lot
of time, people are in fighting. The 2
tribes of Us and Khazars are fighting each
other all the time.
Most of their leaders have been killed off
at this point in time, 11th year, most
of their leaders died in a recent battle.
A recent battle took place almost all the
leaders had been killed off. Right? I mean,
you can tell how bad it is. If
all the leaders have been dying, this is
very very violent
bloodshed that's taking place. If you notice the
battle of Boaz, many people were killed. So
they were wiped out. So they were looking
for a solution as well.
Right? So always something kind of motivates people
to open their mind a little bit. So
they're looking for a solution. What can we
do? Right? We have all the leaders out.
Our we're in we're in we're in chaos.
We need to do something about this situation.
So this could have been one of the
reasons
why they initially
were interested in the message of Islam.
Another reason why they were mess interested
is because there were a lot of Jews
living
in and around the city of Yasser.
And the Jews were looked at at that
point in time as being,
we kind of talked about it before. They
were looked at as being people who are
people of culture because most of them were
quite literate. They could read the Hebrew scripture.
They had a book with them where the
Arabs didn't have anything. So they were kind
of looked as high. They were good businessmen.
They were very intelligent people. So people did
the Arabs did kind of have a little
bit respect for them. And the Jews used
to come
and they used to threaten
the Arabs, the oath and kazrs both and
say you know what? Just wait. We're expecting
a prophet. When our when that prophet comes,
he's we're gonna come, we're gonna get with
him and our book say that we're gonna
take over.
Right? Our book say that with the prophet,
the prophet is gonna take over. The part
that they missed was the prophet is gonna
take over. Not necessarily us with the prophet
is gonna take over. So they assume that
the prophet is gonna come and he's gonna
just he's gonna be victorious. That's what their
books are telling them. So they used to
threaten them sometimes when they used to, you
know, get in a fight or something like
that. Oh, you know, you think they say,
you know, you Jews, you guys are just
living out there. Leave us alone. We can
wipe you out right now. The Jews were
not that well armed. Right? They were armed.
They were well defended and everything, but they
weren't that many. So their armies weren't huge.
So the Arabs were threatening them. Sometimes they
would get in fights as well. They threatened
them. Sometimes when the Jews threatened them back,
they responded and say, wait till the prophet
comes. We got we'll take you guys out.
You guys are you guys are gonna be
gone. So now these people remember what the
Jews were saying and said the prophet that
they're talking about it seems to be this
guy. So let's beat them to him. Right?
And let's accept him first.
Very I mean good mentality. They are smart
people. Right?
Clever people.
So
they decided that,
they're gonna go ahead and accept Islam.
So a few people accepted Islam and they
went back to their city at this point
in time. Okay?
So, so Sheikh Pedia, right? The the thing
you do
is Sheikhipedia.
Right? You go
wherever that's written,
you click on the footnote, and you go
to the source.
Okay? When you go to the source,
you go to the actual source of that
book. You Google it, you go to Sheikh
Google. You have 1 from one Sheikh to
the other Sheikh. Alright? So so you go
to you go to Sheikh Google and you
type in that book which gave you the
reference. K? And then you look at the
author of that book. Okay?
And 99%
chance, the author of that book is an
orientalist.
And we talked about orientalist the first day
you were here. Right? We talked about orientalist
and how they try to find motives
for people
which are not clearly defined motives. Right? So
if somebody like for example, we talked about
hamza.
How he entered into Islam. We said firstly,
it was probably he was just trying to
defend his nephew as a tribal thing. But
later on, the fact that the guy is
fighting for Islam, the fact that the guy
is praying, the fact that the guy gave
his life for Islam later
on indicates what?
Indicates that he's sincere. There's no hypocrisy involved.
So the same thing with these people. Initially,
there may have been something that kind of
pushed them and said let's let's consider this.
Afterwards, you can tell by their actions
whether they're sincere people or they're not sincere
people. Right? That what's what what makes the
difference and that's the problem with some of
these a lot of these sources is that
they'll only pick
the parts of history that they wanna focus
on and they'll make this long term conclusion.
This guy, you know, probably was abused by
his family and he probably married this woman
and he probably and then nothing indicates that.
It's just one piece of information. Whereas you
look at the rest of their life and
you can tell what they're really about. But
these people, if you look at what's gonna
happen now after they've accepted Islam, you can
tell whether whether there was hypocrisy there or
whether there was sincerity.
Things push people to Islam differently. Someone gets
into a car accident and says, you know
what? I wanna, you know, think about the
meaning of life that brings him in. Someone
has alcohol problems
and you know what? Islam forbids us from
alcohol. If I become Muslim, maybe I can
stop this problem of mine. That doesn't mean
that they can never become a true Muslim
anymore. That's just something that kind of open
the door, show them the path of Islam.
From there they build their sincerity along the
way.
That's the way it works.
So now the pledges of Aqaba. So the
following year k. So we were just in
which year?
11. Okay. So the following year, 12th year,
what happens? The men from Yathrib, they return
with a delegation of 12 people going back
to Makkah
to meet with the prophet salaam.
So the prophet salaam, he met them secretly
at night time because he knew that there's
a danger. Right? If they find out that
this is not just 1 or 2 people
accepting Islam. This is a whole group of
people and they're coming back at this point
in time. So they're here.
He meets with them secretly
at nighttime outside of Makkah at a place
called Aqaba.
K? So this place, Aqaba, they're meeting there.
Now the prophet said
he makes a pledge of loyalty.
Up until this point in time, in order
to accept Islam, what did you need to
do? Just simply say I, you know, I
believe in Allah. I don't worship any other
idols and I believe in you, oh prophet.
And I believe in the Quran and all
of that. Right?
Now things have changed. Now it's not just
about accepting
that Allah is 1 and taking the Shahadah.
Right?
Now he takes a pledge from them and
the pledge says, you will not ascribe any
partners to Allah. You will not steal, you
will not commit adultery, you will not kill
your children, you will not slander others and
you will not disobey me in any good
thing that I order you to do.
Of course the prophet is only gonna order
them to do good but it's a very
nice way of phrasing it so that they
don't think like you know too much authority
because they're people who enjoy some of their
freedom.
So he's focusing on what? Why did the
prophet choose these specific things? Because he knew
these were major problems in the society and
these were some of the biggest biggest sins
that were there. So he wanted to start
them off and say look, Islam is not
just about saying I believe in okay that's
it.
This is something a pledge that he took.
This is a pact. And Arabs were very
true to their pledge. They were not people
who just kinda make promises and they just
you know, don't follow through with them. They
follow through with them. So they took this
pledge of loyalty
and each and every single one of them,
they stretched their hands and they took a
pledge and they took a pact with the
prophet
that we will follow through on these things.
This is not something that's taken lightly.
So what does that mean?
It means that
Islam
is not just about
verbal confession although that's the bare that's the
minimum that's still required Islamically.
But in actuality it's about verbal confession you
know, confession and verbal you know acceptance
followed by not just the main beliefs
followed by major actions that you say I'm
going to stay away from. And the majority
of these are what?
They're prohibitions.
Right? Before being told what to do and
pray and this and this and this, major
prohibitions come. You need to stop
doing these these these these things
because that's gonna affect the way your Islam
becomes later on. Right? So very very interesting
and very important. So now what did he
do? Before they returned home, he didn't just
leave them like that. Before they returned home,
the prophet
chose Musaab ibn Umayr
to go to Yathrib so that he could
teach them
their religion, he could teach them Islam even
more and he could call other people to
Islam.
What does this tell you? It tells you
that when somebody when somebody accepts Islam.
Right?
Do you just go and say okay you
know what? See you next month inshallah. You
know brother we'll we'll see you later. No.
They need a teacher.
They need someone to follow-up with them. They
need someone to teach them what Islam is
about and they need to be in good
company as well at the same time. This
is extremely important. And one of the problems
that we're facing as a community in
every community
is that someone accepts Islam
and then there's no follow-up. You get a
takbir allahu akbar mashallah everything is great. And
then can anyone, you know, meet up with
these new Muslims? Can somebody follow-up?
No. You know, maybe in 3 weeks, maybe
next month, something like that. We're facing this
difficulty. Right? We we don't have this system
where we're able to follow-up. So this is
something that the prophet
he made it very clear. You're not just
gonna be left alone and you go back.
So that what's what what's what what could
be one of the fears? Fears you go
back and now people are gonna say, what
did you do? This and that. Go propaganda
on them. So, oh, well, that's a it's
a good argument he made. How do we
respond to that? You just accepted Islam yesterday.
How do you how do you know? Who
do you go to? You can't, you know,
send a text message to the prophet of
Islam. So you need a teacher, right, to
go and come with you. Mus'aab was a
person who accepted Islam for a very long
time. He accepted Islam very early. He was
a person who had actually migrated to Abyssinia,
as well. So he'd been there for a
long time.
The prophet sent him. Now, we will talk
about him. Alright? So the question now is,
the prophet think about
how important this was.
The prophet was looking for
a base.
He's looking for a home for Islam because
they need to leave Makkah and this is
a mission critical
stage. Right? This is the most important mission
that somebody can be given. He could have
chosen
Abu Bakr.
Didn't choose him. Could have chosen Amar. No.
Could have chosen Osman? No. He could have
chosen Ali. Ali is young as well. No.
They could have chosen Zaid,
his son. No.
He chose Musaib ibn Amer. Why would he
choose a person like Musaib of all people?
There's a reason why he chose him. There
were certain characteristics
that he saw in this person
that's gonna make this person be the right
man for the task.
And InshaAllah, we're gonna talk about him after
the break. InshaAllah ta'ala. Assalamu alaikum.