Omar Suleiman – Experiences From Hajj 2024
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Some of the suffering of the Ummah of
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala have mercy on
all of the shuhada and hajj. May Allah
allow us to be joined with them in
the shuhada of Gaza, Allahum Amin.
SubhanAllah, this was
the first time that I got to go
back to Hajj in 5 years. And I
know for some of you, it sounds like,
what are you complaining about? What are you
whining about? And truly it was a wake
up call. I think these last few years,
for myself in particular,
I wanna start from that frame that,
you know, Allah had blessed me to go
to Hajj on an annual basis for a
very long time as a guide.
And so it was almost something I took
for granted
for an entire decade,
that every year, I'll get to take people
to Hajj
and I'll have that opportunity to go.
And I recognize that that is a luxury
that belongs to 0.0001%,
and I'm grateful to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
for all of those years that I had.
And then COVID hit and obviously,
you know, kinda itching for that opportunity to
go back. And since then, in this new
system, looking for
this moment,
to go back.
The last time
I did hajj was in the wake of
the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand, and we
had some of the families of the shahada
from Christchurch there. And it was an extremely
special
Hajj where it reigned in Arafah. And anyone
who went to Hajj in 2019 spoke about
sort of the beauty and the power of
it
and the mercy of Allah
descending.
This year,
subhanAllah, the whole theme sort of in the
background was Gaza
and Rafah and reminding people
that you are the delegation, as
the prophet mentioned, you are the waft, the
delegation of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
as you come here for Hajj, meaning you
are delegates from the ummah.
And there's so much riding on your dua,
so much riding on your presence in this
blessed place,
and so much that is happening in the
background.
And, subhanAllah,
as
we're going through it,
I think many of you have been reading
about the heat
and how hot it was.
And there's something, subhanAllah, to be said about
hearing about what a 125
degrees feels like
and then being in the middle of it.
And I can tell you that
as young people that were doing Hajj, relatively
young, because you have to keep in mind
that the majority of the ummah
that comes for Hajj are very old people,
young
people relative
to the the rest doing Hajj
with all the amenities of, you know, the
tents and the AC in the tents and
the hotels and
somewhat of a level of reliability uncertainty.
It was hard for us,
very hard for us.
And I would look at people that are
in their eighties, sometimes even in their nineties,
getting through this, and I'm thinking it's a
miracle from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that people
are able to power through this in this
weather. Truly, like it's an ayah from Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala
because there are days in Hajj that you're
walking
15 to 20 miles. You know, when you're
talking about the monastic of Hajj, especially if
you do everything between 9th 10th,
if you do tawaf and ifalda and sa'ih
on 10th day,
there are days that you actually will walk,
like, 20 miles. Right? And that's something that's
very significant
for anybody. Imagine the elders as they're going
through this process.
But you can't stop but thinking about the
idea of Yamur Qiyamah
and that idea of the shade of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So there was a theme
that I kept on thinking about.
How precious is your shade?
How much would you pay to be shaded
on that day? Like, a working AC
and shade
on that day
and something to nourish you
is more precious than everything in the entire
world. That's all you're thinking about is, how
do I get some shade from the sun
and how do I get some some coolness?
And you think about Yom Al Qiyamah, the
day of judgment,
when the sun is right above us.
I think that's a concept that we can't
grasp because it truly is otherworldly.
The sun is right above you.
And I kept on reflecting on this hadith
of the Prophet where he said the shade
of the believer is what? What's your shade
on the day of judgment?
What's your shade?
The shade of the believer is his sadaqa,
it's his charity.
That's the premium that you pay
for that day.
Right? So there are the 7 that are
shaded by Allah
on that day,
the 7 categories of people. May Allah include
us in that category,
And then there is the shade of the
believer, which is his sadaqa. It's literally you
know, you think about what you pay to
go to Hajj
and the tents that you get and the
accommodations and stuff like that, your premium,
right, the sadaqa that you put forward is
your shade on the day of judgment. The
shade of the believer, the prophet said, on
the day of judgment is the extent of
your sadaqa.
And think about how much you're gonna want
that shade on the day of judgment.
And here you are now, and, you know,
just like you have people that saved their
entire lives to go to Hajj,
you save your entire life by giving for
the sake of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for
the true gathering, which is the gathering on
the day of gathering, in the place of
gathering,
on a day when there is no shade
except for the shade that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala provides.
And it's significant
because you can be investing in that right
now. So thinking about that sadaqah, thinking about
the categories of righteousness,
nowadays, things are very superficial.
What made you an American
passport holder or someone that has the ability,
the luxury to be included in this group
of people that get to be here?
What made you belong to a country where
even if you pay the highest VIP price,
because you belong to this country that's not
a western country, you're gonna be this distance
away from the Jamarats.
Right? You're gonna be this far away.
On the day of judgment, the categories are
the just ruler,
are those who loved each other for the
sake of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, Are those
young people who grew up in in in
the worship of Allah
Are those people who feared Allah in difficult
situations? Are those people who shed tears in
private when no one was watching them? Are
those people who gave charity
with their right hand in such a way
that their left hand did not even know?
They're the VIPs on that day.
And
the swaths of poor people
that are kinda left out,
because I think the reality that that kinda
dawns upon you when you're there is that
the majority of people in Mina actually don't
have tents.
They're kinda just out there.
Those swaths of poor people will be at
the front of the gates of Jannah, as
the prophet
mentioned on the day of judgment, that the
first people to enter into Jannah are the
fuqara and the most double afeen,
the weak and the downtrodden of this Umrah.
So there's a different dimension as you're sort
of thinking about
everything that's happening in that type of heat
and what that represents in these days.
And then I'll share with you, subhanAllah,
just that idea of Ghazah. You know, it
was very common
this year to, again, just call people's attention
when you're in the difficulty
that you're in. Think of the people of
Gaza. Think of the people of Gaza. Think
of the people of Gaza.
Our
tents
in Mina I'm talking about if you took
the worst tents in Mina. Any of you
have been to Hajj? The worst tense in
Mina
would be the best tents in Gaza right
now, would be the best tents for the
Syrian refugees right now. And you could take
any refugee camp in the world, and if
you were able to implement that structure
in any part of the world where you
have a plethora of refugee camps, we're not
even talking about the drones above you, the
air strikes, the constant moving around,
the scarcity of food and drink, none of
that. But that tent structure
would be the luxury of a refugee camp
in the world today.
And you kind of reflect on that and
you say, You, Allah,
this is nirama.
This is nirama.
This in and of itself is a blessing.
And it's the perspective that counts.
SubhanAllah, you could take 2 people from Hajj,
and
one who had the most luxurious accommodations in
Hajj and someone who had the worst accommodation
of Hajj, and ask them, how was your
Hajj?
And you could find someone who had the
most difficult circumstances, they would say, alhamdulillah,
it was amazing. We got through it. Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala made a way out. You
can take 2 people in the same tent,
same package, same circumstances,
and ask them about their conditions, and they'll
have opposite answers.
Why?
Because it goes back to this,
and this goes back to this.
Your eyes, your heart, your eyes, your heart.
If you are grateful,
I will increase you.
I can tell you somehow, there's one *
that was with me.
And he said, you know, how crazy is
it that so many of these people don't
even know what electrolyte drinks are?
You know, us Americans, you know, we got
our fancy liquid IV and electrolyte and hydration
drinks. We got our whole regimens and powders
that we're putting in in the water.
And, like, most of these people have no
idea what that stuff is.
Like, if you just took one nirmah and
you thanked Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for it,
then that in and of itself is enough
to completely reframe your perspective of life.
And just like you can take for granted
the many blessings that are there in Hajj,
you can do that in life as well.
The small things, the small things, the small
things in this journey that we have with
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And And with that
being
said, the ummah,
you know, I can tell you that the
beating heart of this ummah is still raza.
The beating heart of this ummah is Palestine.
You know, when you look around and you
see the people crying,
and you know how many people are making
dua for Palestine, how many people are making
dua for Ghazal? We ask Allah Subhana Wa
Ta'la to accept it. I mean,
there were many people actually from Palestine that
were in Hajj this year. Brother Wa'l adhdur
from Gaza was actually in Hajj this year
with hamdulillahrubba. I mean, but there's tight protocols
around him,
while he was there. But you can imagine,
you know,
someone like that who's lost everything, who actually
came from Gaza,
and who's now walking
in Hajj.
And I was, you know, I was just
thinking to myself, like, imagine if someone walked
up to him and started complaining about the
accommodations in Hetch.
Can you imagine? Like, that conversation?
How's Hajj? Oh, man. The buses are never
on time. The hotel rooms are not ready.
You know, this is happening and this is
happening. Like, can you imagine what he would
say back to you? Like, I lost everybody
in my family in Gaza.
We moved from place to place under bombs
and bullets.
We never complained about Allah
And here you are complaining that your bus
is 2 hours late, that you had to
walk a little bit extra. That's the reality.
That's who we are. Right? When we become
accustomed, we become entitled. And when we become
entitled, we become subjected to our nafs, to
our ego.
And that becomes our God whether we pay
attention or we don't.
But a person who says, Alhamdulillah,
everything Allah provided for me is blessed.
As someone who's in a good state with
Allah
So we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to
accept. We ask Allah to accept all the
duas that people made for themselves and all
of the du'as that they made for the
ummah. We ask Allah to accept all of
the du'a for
our brothers and sisters in Palestine and all
of our du'as here,
for the community here in VRIC.
We ask Allah to accept Sheikh Yasir's Hajj
first I was so happy for him, like,
truly, truly, truly from the depths of my
heart.
It was it was it was surreal seeing
Sheikh Yasir and Hajj, hamdullil nirbrah mean. You
know, I know he longed for it for
2 decades, what hamdullil nirbrah means, so we
asked Allah Subha Nahuwa Ta'ala to accept his
Hajj.
And all of the Hujjaj who came and
the intentions of those who wanted to go
to Hajj but weren't able to go to
Hajj. May Allah accept their Hajj as well.
And may Allah gather us in that blessed
place
and in all
of the 3 holy places, may he gather
us for an accepted salah. And may he
gather us on the day of judgment with
our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
No?
I will have some kind of a class
on Tuesday between Maghrib and Ishaa InshaAllah. I'm
not sure if we're gonna be restarting the
first or we'll do another lecture. So but
Tuesday night, InshaAllah, I'll have class between
Maghrib and Isha, inshallah.
Most likely restarting the first in the nighttime.