Omar Suleiman – Daily Isha Khatirah 09-08-2015

Omar Suleiman
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Representatives from various Muslim countries share their experiences with the acceptance of disabled individuals in public events. They discuss the importance of gratitude and embracing blessings in one's life. They also touch on the challenges of finding a way to be fully disabled and how one can overcome them through a unique gift from their community.

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			Hi I'm Phil I'm gonna calculate something how to handle human handling normal anime and more Salatu
Salam on Allah so you can carry mine early, he also can be a drain. So I thought I'd share with you
all a and a reflection from the ISNA convention this past weekend in Chicago
		
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			Subhanallah, every time we go to these conventions, you kind of get insight into the state of the
Matthew on what's going on and, and the inclinations of people. So I had two sessions. At the same
time, it was interesting, actually three sessions at the same time on Saturday. And I had to run
between these three sessions within one hour. So I was kind of popping in giving a lecture than
popping in giving a lecture than popping and giving a lecture. And subhanAllah, within the same
block, there was a session, which was an MSA session directed to the Muslim Student Association, or
that crowd, you know, the college student crowd, about,
		
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			you know, basically having a positive spin on life and understanding things in a positive way and
coming to terms with the puppet of Allah, the decree of Allah. And you know, the basic understanding
of Allah's decree,
		
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			and this concept of essence, or crochet, and Oh, Hi, Ron, welcome that it may be that you hate
something, and it's better for you. And it may be that you love something, and it's bad for you. And
Allah subhanaw taala is the one who decrees and Allah decrees everything in his wisdom, and His
mercy. And, you know, obviously, when you're talking to a group of people, you know, between the
ages of 15 and 25, typically, the problems in life that people are facing at that point, are issues
with, you know, not getting into the school that they wanted to issues with, with, with drugs,
issues with not marrying the person that they wanted to relationship troubles as a whole issues with
		
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			their career, not taking the direction that they wanted their career to take, you know, it's really
in that time period Subhanallah, that you're gonna have a lot of uncertainty and what happens, you
know, can can potentially affect the rest of your life and so on, so forth. So it's so it's
essential to have a good solid grounding in belief and faith and in Kedah, at that age, and a lot of
times in our cultures, in fact, we encourage religiosity at a late age. This is actually something
that's very much so embedded in our cultures.
		
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			You know, subhanAllah and I know this is a very sensitive issue, but I was just talking to a family
at ISNA. And they were, they had their daughter and they were trying to convince their daughter to
do her wedding in a certain way.
		
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			They're religious now, mashallah, you know, they're, they're older, not too old, but they're older,
they're in their 50s. And, you know, mashallah, they've moved on in life, and they're going to
Islamic conferences and going to the masjid and they're trying to encourage their daughter to do an
Islamic wedding, or something that's permissible, right, or that falls somewhat within the realms of
permissibility. And her answer was, well, you know, I see you guys's wedding pictures, and there
wasn't a very Islamic way.
		
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			So why is it that you expect me to do that? Well, we changed we may tell, but hamdulillah she said,
Well, maybe one day I'll make Toba to Inshallah, right. But the idea is, hey, when you were my age,
you were doing the exact same thing. So in our cultures, in many ways, sometimes it's embedded in
our cultures that religiosity kicks in later on, you know, fool around, we fooled around, just don't
fool around too bad. And once you get married and settle down, it'll be okay. Right, then you can
start really thinking about, you know, putting your kids in school and being a good Muslim and so
on, so forth. But unfortunately, if you don't have a firm grounding and faith at that point in your
		
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			life, where there's a lot of uncertainty, that things can get out of hand very quickly, and it can
very much so be the loss of EMA. Now Subhanallah I went from that session, which was again, mainly
about istikhara and, and this concept of being pleased with the decree of Allah and establishing a
firm foundation and faith you know, at that age, not waiting for later on and so on, so forth. And I
went from that to a session on enabling Muslims with disabilities. And
		
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			as many many of you may know, I founded an organization called moisten Muslims understanding and
helping with special education needs, which is to make the Muslim community more accessible to
people with disabilities to change our perception hamdulillah Isn't it this year, there were there
was a special checkout line of bracelets, quiet rooms, sign language interpreters and things
inshallah which I hope we'll be able to bring to our community as well inshallah Tada to, to help
people that have disabilities. And one of the speakers in that session I literally walked in and she
was the speaker before me she was being introduced. She's a 20 year old
		
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			Lebanese Muslim girl by the name of Salah Sarah went blind at the age of seven years old. Now
Subhanallah you know, it's, it's it's one thing obviously when, when your blindness you know, when
you're born with certain conditions and things of that sort, but this is a girl that was able to see
for the first seven years of her life and she was
		
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			declared completely blind, legally blind at the age of seven years old. Now she was telling her
story And subhanAllah she was she's 20 years old now or 2021 years old. She's a Harvard graduate
Michelle lots about a color. She wears full hijab and proper hijab and carries herself with a
certain dignity which is very impressive mashallah mean just Subhanallah a beautiful person to be
walking around Subhanallah with that type of dignity and Heba and just gratitude, a big smile on her
face. She's walking with her her stick and Subhanallah I was I was captured by her presence before
she even started speaking when they started to introduce her I said luck, but what her her biography
		
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			was very long. I mean, how she was able, you know, anyone to accomplish all that she's accomplished
by the age of 25 would be pretty impressive for her to accomplish that by the age of 20 years old.
With a disability like blindness was was incredible. When I introduced myself to her when I you
know, she said, Oh, mashallah, she Hamada, you're much taller than I thought.
		
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			I'm sitting there thinking to myself, like
		
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			how did she know that? So when I started talking to her, I said, I'm just curious, you know, Masha,
Allah, how did you know that? She said, because your voice came from
		
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			a certain level
		
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			Subhanallah so she detected it right away, you know, so she didn't, I was like, Wow, that's amazing.
It said, so now I can give her like, she said, You're so much taller than I thought because the
voice was coming from a different area. So she started speaking, Masha, Allah, may Allah bless her,
she starts speaking. And she gives a talk, which brought every single person in the room to absolute
tears, including me, and including everyone that was on the panel. I mean, it was a completely
silence room, I mean, SubhanAllah. And she basically, she starts off her speech, and she says, I
want everyone to close your eyes.
		
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			And she took us through the thoughts of a blind person as they wake up in the morning. It's very
powerful. You know, subhanAllah, if you think about it, if you woke up, but you can't see. And, you
know, you hear sounds, and you don't know if you're awake, or if you're still dreaming, and you're
hearing the clamoring and you have to get yourself to this room, and you have to find a way to get
dressed. And, you know, you hear the friendliness and some people's voice and you hear the annoyance
in some people's voice, she went through the date of a blind person and a few minutes with their
eyes closed Subhanallah
		
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			which was,
		
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			I can't even explain that, you know, subhanAllah it's, it's actually for a few minutes it shakes you
to the core. And the reason why the Prophet slicin I'm frequently mentioned, Allah mentions netmeds
and Basa, the blessing of sight many times in the Quran as the prophets lie so many times in the
Sunnah. And so Surah goes on to talk and she says, You know, when I was first declared blind, I
didn't know what was happening. I didn't understand what was going on. I was told just make sure I
was told this I was told that and she said she went, you know, spiritually, initially, she went to a
very dark place. But then she grew out of it. And she realized that Allah was blessing her with so
		
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			much more than what he took from her. She said that because of the blindness she was her all of her
other senses were enhanced. memorization of the Quran. Easy. Right? Inevitable hottie Rahim, Allah,
the hikma that the reader might say that imaginable hottie was blind, for the first few years of his
life was that all of his other senses were enhanced. So his memory was incredible. Right? Like we
mentioned the voice of you know how she could tell the voice imaginable. Hottie had supersenses
basically. And he was cured of his blindness. So he was able to see eventually as well, so he still
had the senses and he had his eyesight as well. So she talks about how Allah Subhana Allah has
		
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			blessed her with so many other senses and how her memorization became easy how her distractions from
Allah subhanaw taala became reduced, how she doesn't see the she hears all these lectures from, from
people about, you know, lowering the gaze and so on, so forth, and the Haram things that they see on
the computer, and she's saying, and Hamdulillah I never see any of that. So a lot protected me from
that. And she just goes through like 10 blessings of being blind.
		
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			And then she says, and I never asked Allah to cure me from my blindness, I just asked Allah to give
me whatever will bring me closer to him.
		
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			And I thought to myself, subhanAllah here I am coming from a room, a session where I'm trying to
tell young, privileged people who live in very nice homes and have very nice cars and very
privileged, you know, upbringings and had great health and great senses, and so on, so forth. Be
patient with the content of Allah subhanaw taala. It's okay, you'll get through your MCAT it's okay,
you'll marry someone else. And I go literally in in two minutes. I'm sitting in a session and a
sister who has who's suffering and I have a hard time calling her blind because the last Pantai says
that the eyesight doesn't go blind and that contentment Kuruvilla tiff has to do the hearts go blind
		
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			spiritual disabilities disability, not physical disability. Subhanallah she's not blind so I have a
hard time calling her blind but this woman, young lady who doesn't have physical eyesight is
standing up there and saying, I'm just not
		
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			Not only am I pleased, I can even give you the blessings of being blind.
		
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			So Subhanallah I just thought I'd share that with you all because leaving that I felt truly ashamed
of myself. And you know, I think that obviously
		
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			it's this is the thicket of sugarcoat the reminder to be grateful is the one reminder that never
gets old. The reminder that we have to ourselves to be grateful, you should never get sick of seeing
someone less privileged than you in some way. And using that as a means of bringing you to Allah
subhanaw taala and gratefulness to Allah subhanaw taala because the shaytaan says, What? What do you
do? Shocking.
		
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			I will disconnect your servants from gratitude. I've shaved lon makes a person ungrateful and unable
to recognize the blessings of Allah subhanaw taala upon them, they feel absolutely no inclination to
the worship of Allah subhanaw taala they don't feel that push anymore because they're ungrateful
people. And what usually drives us back to Allah subhanaw taala is gratitude. So if you don't have
gratitude, you don't have that. You'll you know, if anything, a lot of times the blessings that
Allah gave to us are the reasons why we're distracted from him, right? The amount of money, the
amount of health, the amount of time the amount of entertainment that Allah gave to you, which are
		
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			all blessings from Allah subhanaw taala are the very reasons why you're distracted from Allah
subhanaw taala. But this this girl's
		
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			at the age of 20 years old, has such a beautiful heart, a bright heart, I would argue Subhanallah
that she sees more than all of us see. And I was I was just completely ashamed of myself. Because
here I was, and I'll be honest with you, I was complaining to I was really mad at the organizers of
the convention. I was like, You guys triple booked me in one hour. How did this happen? Right? And
I'm sitting there complaining about how tired I am. And I'm, I get to a session and I'm like sitting
on the chair and I'm like about to pass out and I'm sweating. And I've got like my seventh cup of
coffee in front of me. And I'm complaining and I'm like Subhanallah you know, this is I'm
		
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			complaining and look at this, look at this sister. So that's something that you know, which shook
her if a person has the lens of gratitude and everything is good in life, and they're able to focus
on what's important. And so we ask Allah subhanaw taala to grant us the lens of gratitude, in times
of ease and to grant us the lens of patients in times of hardship and to always make us a monkey to
always allow us to be in between the state of gratitude and patience, in a way that drives us to
worship him. subhanho wa Taala and we ask Allah Subhana Allah to Allah, not to allow our hearts to
be blinded from the truth or to allow them to be deaf, from his Quran and from the words of His
		
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			Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and we ask Allah subhanaw taala to join us with the righteous
and those who have suffered in this world we ask Allah subhanaw taala not to allow our ease in this
world to translate into hardship in the hereafter and to allow our hardship in this world to
translate into ease in the hereafter. Allama Amin questions
		
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			hamdulillah Zach unlocker Hispanic long shadow Allah Allah Allah and stuff we look forward to with
eco Santa Monica long time