Omar Suleiman – Are My DuAs For Gaza Changing Anything
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of resilience and faith in achieving peace, trusting Allah with personal du'ams, and not letting anyone touch the reward of one's actions. They stress the need for people to act according to their greater purpose and to not allow themselves to be caught in the current mode of behavior. The importance of regular actions and actions being consistent with reality is emphasized, and the responsibility of individuals to act according to their greater purpose. The speakers also emphasize the importance of teaching others about Islam and sharing experiences to improve their understanding of Islam.
AI: Summary ©
A question that
I was asked a few weeks ago, and
to be honest with you, it bothered me.
And it got me thinking about how to
best answer this question because I know that
a lot of people have been asking this
question.
There is the more mainstream question, which is
our protests,
our encampments,
our efforts don't seem to be working.
The more we do, the worse it seems
to get for them.
And there is a very political way to
analyze that, which is to say, objectively speaking,
if you zoom out,
the colonial project of Israel has never been
in a worse state than it is right
now.
And the prospect of a free Palestine, bi'imillahi
ta'ala, has never been greater
in over 7 decades than it is right
now. If you zoom out politically, I can
give you that analysis. Someone who's not Muslim.
Elon Popp, he has this whole analysis. He's
an Israeli historian. Talks about it. He says,
we're witnessing the death throes of Zionism.
A violent 3 years
or so ahead, but at the end of
the day, it's coming down.
It is coming down
I can give you that political analysis
but there's another question.
What's the point of all the du'a that
I've been making for Vasil? What's the point
of all the du'a I've been making for
Vasil?
Is it yielding anything?
Who am I to make that dua? Is
that dua translating in anything? And that's what
I wanna talk about midna Nahi Ta'ala, and
I want us to actually ponder upon
in light of what we seek to manifest
in these days of
with our father Ibrahim alayhi salam in that
lesson
of complete tawakkul in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
complete trust in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and
what that is meant to yield. So I'm
gonna answer that question, Bibninai Ta'ala. Number 1,
dua is worship.
What dua
Dua is a form of turning back to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
and the more of this ummah that is
turned back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the
better the material prospects
of this ummah on this earth.
The reasons
for goodness descending upon this ummah,
Allah
mentions that he would not punish us while
the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam is amongst
us, and the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam
has passed,
and he would not punish us
while they are in a state of seeking
forgiveness.
The more people from this ummah that are
turned back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
the lessening
of the pain of the ummah becomes imminent.
Goodness
becomes
a greater prospect
for this ummah. So we start with that.
Dua is a representation
of an overall turning back to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. I hope, bi'idnillahi
ta'ala, that everyone in here, or at least
most people in here Because I do think
that most people, most Muslims in the world
would say they've come closer to
Allah in the last 7 months. They've worshiped
Allah more. They've become more sincere, more ardent
in their duas. I hope
that we felt some notion of that, inshaAllah
ta'ala. So that's the first thing, the first
place that I wanna start from.
The more that we turn back to Allah,
the better the state of the ummah becomes.
Number 2.
When the Prophet
says, that when you make dua for your
brother and sister, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala appoints
an angel, and the angel says,
and for you as well.
In order for Palestine to be freed,
it's going to require a certain type of
resilience in each and every single one of
us,
and for us to be able to maintain
the course
globally,
and to not let this moment pass like
moments have passed before.
And so when you are asking Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala to grant them patience,
an angel is asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to grant you patience.
When you're asking Allah to grant them resilience,
an angel is asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to grant you resilience.
And we are all in this together right
now,
like a building.
And so I want you to just think
about it when we're all making du'a to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
that no du'a comes back empty. That there's
something that descends from the heavens, and then
is distributed in proper proportion.
No du'a is empty.
And so, the way that that will translate
into what is necessary for you, for the
overall victory
of this ummah, and what we are facing
in terms of calamity.
Number 3,
and this is where I want us to
really, really hone in
on We have spoken so much
about how much the people of Ghazza have
given us in terms of faith.
What you are witnessing done, in them is
a miracle, nothing short of a miracle.
When you are saying,
Descend upon them tranquility.
Let your peace descend into their hearts.
Guide their actions.
Guide their resistance to the suppression.
Make them firm in every single way.
It may be
that what you are witnessing being generated in
them,
in them, is also partly due to the
du'as that people are making for them as
well.
Because you know what? Many of them will
say
that we did not know,
that we would have the capacity to stand
this long against this oppressor in this way,
but Allah is descending upon us something.
They will tell you about that miraculous descent.
It may be that your dua for them
is having that impact on them.
Then someone says,
but I'm not just making dua for Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to give them patience. I'm
making dua for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
give them victory. And here's a concept that
I want you to understand in the sharia
very well.
In regards to our personal duas, the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam said, Allah will continue
to answer the dua of a person so
long
as they don't say,
I made dua and Allah did not answer
me. At that point, Allah suffers it. You
just killed your du'a.
If you say, I made du'a and the
answer did not come from a place of
impatience,
the dua is killed. Before you said that,
the dua was yielding blessings that you cannot
capture. Just as you can't understand hardship, you
can't understand relief.
The dua was yielding something for you,
but you cut it off when you said,
I made dua and nothing happens.
Then indeed nothing will happen for you from
that dua anymore.
Likewise, when it comes to our communal dua
and our dua for our ummah,
when we make dua for the ummah, when
you make dua for people,
and you say, I made du'a, I made
du'a, and nothing happens,
at that point your du'a has become worthless.
So don't question Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's timing
for yourself, don't question Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's
timing for your ummah, and pay attention to
something deeply profound.
Sabat and sakinah,
firmness and tranquility.
The tranquility in the hearts, the firmness of
the hearts, the firmness of the feet.
Those are things that Allah
gifts
under all circumstances.
Meaning, those are things that are immediate and
that are needed at all times.
But the one that Allah delays
is al Masr, is victory.
As sabr with sabat are not delayed.
Patience and firmness are not delayed.
Victory and masr is delayed in accordance with
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's overall scheme.
How do we know?
Because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions to us
in the Quran
that they say what? Mata
Nasrunullah.
When is the help of Allah coming?
When is the victory of Allah coming? Not
when is the patience going to come upon
us, not when is the firmness going to
be bestowed upon us, not when is the
reward going to be given to us, when
is the victory of Allah
And that's where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
indeed, the victory of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is kareeb, ala innan nasullahi
kareeb. The victory from Allah is close.
What do I want you to understand from
this?
What you're making du'a for them for
is having an impact
in ways that perhaps we can't understand,
in making these people the miraculous people that
they are.
But the miraculous
victory will come on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's
time, and it may be due to the
du'a that you make,
That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
makes it happen in a way that you
perceive it, in a way that you see
it.
But just like when you make dua for
yourself,
let me tell you all the people that
have made dua for these people on the
day of judgment.
When they see the reward, when see
the reward that Allah has in store for
them on the day of judgment,
From their du'a first, from their patience first,
from what they've gone through first, and from
all the du'as of the people of the
world that have been collected for them,
they would not want to touch this dunya
of Virgen.
Your duas are having an impact now,
and they may be the reason
by which the Nasr
comes as well. The
the means by which that Nasr, by which
that victory comes as well.
You don't know when,
but you do know that it's happening.
And so what I'm asking of you is
just like you trust Allah with your personal
du'ams,
trust Allah with your ummah du'ams as well.
Don't let up.
How long did the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
make dua in Makkah?
We've been at this for 7 months.
Prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam was boycotted for
years.
Allah aza wa Jal loves no one more
than he loves the Messenger salallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
And as he's watching Khadija radiAllahu ta'ala anha
starve to death. Sound familiar?
His uncle Abu Talib breathed his last.
You don't think the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam was making du'a to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala for Allah to bring about that change.
Allah brought about that change.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave the Prophet
his Musl and his Fatiha,
his victory and his opening
on his time Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And here's
something that I always comfort myself with.
Can you imagine
meeting Khadija Radhi Allah Ta'ala Anha in Jannah?
And Khadija
is saying, I wish we didn't have to
go through all of that. I wish that
we could have done this. I wish I
could have gone gone through this instead. I
wish I could have done this instead. I
absolutely not. Do you think Khadija radiAllahu ta'ala
anhu would trade
with the place of Jannah, with the mosque
of Jannah that she now would breathe in
her home, that is directly tied to her
struggles? Do you think she would trade one
breath there for an extra breath here? One
meal in Jannah for a meal here during
that boycott? Absolutely not.
We have to connect it to our overall
purpose. If you're not connecting your prayer to
your overall purpose, your prayer is going to
be worthless because you don't yet know your
purpose.
At the heart of Ibrahim alaihis salaam and
Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasalam is that they knew
that Allah does not create without purpose and
Allah does not command without purpose, even if
I can't understand the purpose at all. And
so as we're in the hija, Ibrahim alayhis
salaam has no idea
why am I sacrificing my son? Why am
I leaving Hajjab and Isma'ina alaihis salaam and
the blistering him? Why am I being commanded
to do this? Why am I being commanded
to do that? But you know what? He
doesn't even ask the question.
The only question he's asking is,
am I being commanded to do this?
Because if I am being commanded to do
this, then there's a wise purpose beyond my
comprehension,
and I know my purpose is to please
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And Allah
as we know with our mother Hajar alayhi
salaam
Allah does not lose his people. In the
face of these brutal cowards, Zionists, tyrants
that claim to be God's chosen people,
If the people of Gaza are not the
chosen people of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I
don't know what the chosen people of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala look like.
We know who they are,
and we see who they are. So do
not despair in your du'a for yourself
or for your ummah, for your brothers and
sisters in Palestine, for your brothers and sisters
in Gaza, for your brothers and sisters in
Sudan, for your brothers and sisters in Yemen,
for your brothers and sisters in Syria, for
your brothers and sisters all around the world,
do not despair in your dua. You're on
Allah's time because you are
in purpose
in your worship Allah of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala give victory
to our brothers and sisters in ghazdan al
Falasteen. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
pour upon them patience, pour upon them tranquility.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make their feet
firm. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept their
dead as martyrs. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
cure
their sick ones, their wounded ones. May Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala give them the best of
this life and the best of the hereafter
and protect them from the punishment of the
fire. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow
them to overcome
the tyranny that they are undergoing. May Allah
make them a key for the victory of
the Ummah of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam over
transgressing people all around. And may Allah
grant them and us a free prayer
in a free Masjid Al Aqsa
with absolutely
no sanctions, no restrictions. May Allah
allow them to have the best of all
that they had hoped for, and may Allah
protect them from the worst of what they
fear. And may Allah grant us the resilience
to continue the sincerity and the steadfastness to
continue alongside
them and accept them and us and the
companionship of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
with the prophets, with the siddiqeen, with the
shuhada, with the saliheen.
You said, how
do we avoid
being numb to the atrocities of us us.
7
months. And how do we keep this
front, center of our conversation
online? Otherwise,
yes, when
when it started, a lot of people were
now I was looking at what's going on.
It's
people are seeing the processes. How can the
Ummah not forget
and stay focused
on the people of Islam?
So there are matters of the mind and
there are matters of the heart.
Psychologically speaking, if you're exposed to
something
more frequently than naturally,
you either will shut off
or you'll normalize,
either as a defense mechanism or as a
comfort mechanism. But there's a psychological component
and then there is a spiritual component.
Psychologically,
I always tell people the the
this is not natural
for us to be witnessing, and it's even
more unnatural for them to be living it.
It's not natural.
You know, and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, the what I liken it to is
when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said
that,
if I didn't fear
that she wouldn't
bury your dead. I
would let you hear what is happening in
the graves.
But it would psychologically just torment you to
where you would shut off altogether. You wouldn't
be able to handle
hearing the punishment of the grave. Even though
it's good for you to know that there
is punishment in the grave,
that exposure psychologically
would shut you down. It's just it's going
to cause you despair.
Shut down, despair,
and something along those lines. So,
I think that there's something to be said
about not just consuming constantly
what's happening, but also channeling it in prayer
and in action.
You know, people say take a break. What's
unnatural
from an Islamic perspective, what's spiritually detrimental
is when you're scrolling and you go from,
you know, headless baby to funny video to
your latest influencer's trend to whatever the algorithm
is feeding you of absolute garbage and nonsense,
and you're normalizing that scrolling.
That's detrimental.
But to see something and then to internalize
it and to put the phone away and
to make du'a.
To exert yourself in du'a,
to channel that into an action
immediately, to like sit with it for a
bit
rather than scroll from it. Sit with it,
don't scroll from it. That's what I'd say,
Sit with it don't scroll from it.
Put it aside,
think about what you just saw.
Pray, make dua'at to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Exert yourself.
It's extremely important.
Now
the hardening of the heart is different from
the numbing of the brain.
There's those are not the same thing, and
we do conflate those things.
Right?
1 of my one of my Shaykh who
who was imprisoned,
he told me, he said, I don't know
how to cry anymore. So I just witnessed
so much pain, torture,
you know, in those prisons
that we had to force ourselves to kinda
stop crying.
And it's like it's I can it's not
out of a a lack
of pain. It's not out of a a
lack. It's not out of a hardness of
the heart.
It was a coping mechanism
for them. Right?
He didn't lessen in his ibadah. He didn't
lessen his dedication. We're just saying, look. We
we were kind of beaten into it. Like,
it's we
we we got to that place. So
what we're going through is nothing.
And, honestly, that's why, like, when you I
don't want you to make du'a for my
comfort. I want you to make du'a for
their comfort, honestly. Like, who are we? What
are we suffering? At the end of the
day, we jump on planes. We,
you know, we we sleep with a roof
over our heads. We eat to sustain ourselves.
One day of what we are living
is not like a minute of what they
are living. So it's about the action that
it that that you channel.
It's not about your feelings always being the
same. It's about your actions being consistent. It's
like in Tawba, when they say,
That a person who's afraid of Allah is
not someone who cries and then wipes their
tears. It's someone who leaves that which caused
them to cry in the first place. So
it's about the action. So the action has
to be consistent even when the feeling when
the feeling starts to somehow
fluctuate.
That's what's required from us. And of course,
when it comes to the heart, there are
things that soften the heart,
actions that soften the heart, living
with the Quran,
encountering people in your own communities
that live in devastating circumstances. I don't think
people understand or appreciate
that the refugees from these countries that are
amongst us live without saying reality, and to
encounter them and to serve them and to
be in their presence is to be as
intimate with that cause as anything else, even
if you're not there in the place that
it happened in the first place where it
originated. So when the prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam,
told Abu Rehbihilahu alaihi
wasalam,
A person came to the prophet, salallahu alaihi
wa sallam, complained about the hardness of the
heart, and he told him to caress the
head of an orphan.
There's something that happens to your heart when
you
when you when you live in that reality.
And so
the equivalent
to scrolling,
you know, back in those days was ignoring
what was outside of your home while thinking
about the bigger picture and ignoring the person
right next to you.
Right? That's scrolling. Scrolling was walking past the
orphan in Madani society. That was the equivalent
of scrolling. And the prophet is saying, don't
scroll.
Stop.
Spend some time there. So we have to
break out of that complacency, like, are you
serving the poor here? Are you spending time
with those that are in devastation here? Are
you volunteering
in doing those things and connecting yourself? Because
that puts the heart in an overall condition
to where it's able to connect
for the long haul, inshaAllah, to what you
then know and can connect to an immediate
experience,
you know, in in the hazib.
To me, harm has
since Sheikh Mohammed's,
advised,
you know, as you do the consciousness.
Can you just shed some light on how
important it is for us to get an
active of the situation?
Hardly softened.
People are interest interested
in the message of
Islam. What should we do? To be complacent,
waiting, or should we take advantage of the
situation?
Exactly. This is what I say, like, the
people of Gaza are in a different state
than we are in.
Khalid Nabhan,
the man that many of you saw, the
soul of my soul, and you've been witnessing
preserve and protect them. I mean, he actually
called into Iqna,
or he was called into Ikna. He was
in his tent in Rafa. He didn't even
have lights on.
And,
Sheikh Yasir was interviewing him in Ikna.
They asked him, what advice do you have
here for Muslims in America? You know what
he said?
He said, keep spreading
Like,
he didn't, like, teach them about the greatness
of the religion.
His answer, his instinct was, yes, use the
moment. Teach people about Islam. Teach them about
what we have. Spread the deen. Spread the
deen.
Right? Of course, there's an element of keep
raising our cause. He didn't even say that,
by the way. But of course, Khalil Gaza
would say, don't stop talking about our cause.
Keep it alive. But they see Islam as
their cause too.
So it's not taking advantage of the situation.
It's not exploiting the situation.
It is literally,
contextualizing
the situation for a people that otherwise can't
understand it,
as a means of saving them as well.
And that will be to the hasana
of Ahlazah. Like people in Gaza are going
to meet people that took Shahadah
because of them on the day of judgment,
and they didn't even speak the same language.
I mentioned there was a sister. I saw
a video of her. Stay. Don't go close.
And someone someone had showed me, a video
of it.
It's a Al Jazeera reporter. So I was
in Qatar and he was showing me this
video. It's not released to the public. It's
a young sister who had actually gone blind
because of the airstrikes in 2021.
She's probably, I wanna say, about 12 years
old.
And, the interviewer asks her
man, this this was hella something else. The
interviewer asks her,
what do you wanna be when you grow
up?
I saw the video, and I couldn't I
mean, I could not believe what I was
watching. She said,
I want to learn English
and go do dawah to people that live
in the west
so that they can understand Islam.
And I'm sitting there thinking, like, we speak
English.
That young girl who doesn't who can't even
see wants to come to America to do
dawah. She wants to learn English
so she can come do dawah in the
West.
That's why I say these are the people
of Allah
If these aren't people of Allah, I don't
know what people of Allah look like. But,
like, I feel so small when I see
these people.
I feel so small.
Like, when when it's like they're the ones
that are living, and we're the ones that
are dead. Like, I just want it to
shrink
when I watch that video. And that's how
I feel sometimes when I talk to these
people. I just feel small,
like, truly just like like a like a
bug.
These are mountains, subhanallah. These are people of
Allah
They're teaching you something. We speak English.
If they have the himna of down over
there, why don't we have the himna of
Dawah over here?
So this is
to their benefit,
and it's because they understand their purpose. You
can't again, you can't divorce prayer fund purpose.
They know why they're here.
We have to know why we're here. If
we don't know why we're here, how can
we know why they're there?
If we don't contextualize what's happening to us
in accordance with our greater purpose, how can
we possibly contextualize what's happening to them in
accordance with their greater purpose? We don't get
it. So when they say,
they mean it. It's a victory or a
martyrdom, and both of them are victory. They
mean it. I don't shy away from like,
I I
I don't think and this is sort of
like like lean into it. Stop being so
insecure.
The concept of shahada is absolutely beautiful.
I don't need to worry about you thinking
like I'm some bloodthirsty person. I mean,
clearly, the bloodthirsty people are the people that
are justifying a genocide right now, funding it,
protecting it,
rationalizing it. I don't see myself as
as being like
a a death merchant
for for believing that there's something greater after
death. That's hope.
That's beautiful.
That you could do everything in the world
to these people, but you can't touch their
afterlife, and they're okay with that. So, and
for them, Nasr.
Allah
connects Nasr to
You see people entering into the religion in
promise. That's part of Nasr.
Victory is inherently connected to
that. Right? Not material victory,
but it is Dawah as well. And so,
you can say one chapter of their nasa
has already been revealed in the people that
have embraced Islam at their behalf.
That's one part of nasa that we are
witnessing and realizing
right now, and may Allah complete their Nasr.
And
I promise him I'm going to ask him
2 questions
and then go to not ask any more
questions.
And that is because
he has flown in from Portland,
and he has multiple programs small.
And the message that he is giving what
I'm giving us with is that we're responsible
for that one.
We have coworkers.
We have families. We have friends.
We have neighbors.
We are
a a small population
of Muslims in this country,
And we carry with the. And all of
this are.
Have contextualized the whole situation.
Everyone is concerned. People are talking
about Muslims.
So it is our obligation
that these halls
should be filled with congress.
People accepting Islam, that I wish I'd be
asking more questions. Sheikh and
everyone knows
how many people
legally are converted to Islam in Texas.
Correct, Shaykh? Yeah. Unbelievable.
And the story go on and on. We
ask the to make his people who increase
the
of the day of judgement
by converting people to Islam, inviting him towards
Islam. He died within the hands of the
law. But how can you work with the
gold murderer
for 10 years
on the basis of data and I want
to
If he's not talking to you,
I'm annoying you for 10 years because these
people don't understand,
then I hope that relationship doesn't see you
from the beginning.