Omar Suleiman – Is Revenge Worth It It Hurts You More Than You Think
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We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala and bearing witness that none has the
right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except
for him And we bear witness that Muhammad
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is his final messenger
We ask Allah to send his peace and
blessings upon him the prophets and messengers that
came before him His family and companions that
served alongside him and those that follow in
his blessed path until the day of judgment
We ask Allah to make us amongst them.
Allahumma ameen Dear brothers and sisters, Alqam ibn
Wael radiyallahu ta'ala anhu narrates an extremely
interesting incident with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam And I remember the very first time
that I read or actually heard someone speaking
about this incident I thought to myself this
can't be authentic until I actually went and
found its authenticity so he says From his
father that he was sitting with the messenger
of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam anahu kana
qa'dan inda rasoolillahi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam idh
ja'a rajulun yaqoodu akhara binisa'a He
said at that point another man came to
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam while he
was sitting and he had another man tied
up So two men come to the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam one of them holding
the other and he's got him tied up
And he says ya rasoolallah qatala hatha akhi
This man killed my brother so the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam looked at the man
that was tied up and he said to
him aqataltahu did you really kill him and
Before the other man could answer the one
who had him tied up who was full
of anger over what had happened to his
brother He said ya rasoolallah if he doesn't
admit to it, then I have all the
evidence that he did it Anyway, so if
he says no, he's in trouble.
And if he says yes, he's in trouble
The evidence is very clear So the man
says now I'm qataltu.
Yes, I Killed him qataltu.
So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said
kayfa qataltahu.
Tell me what happened So he said kuntu
ana wa huwa nahtatibu min shajaratin fa sabbani
fa aghdabani fa darabtu bil faasi ala qarnihi
He said so he said to the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that we were chopping
wood together Fa sabbani so he insulted me
and we got into a heated argument and
in the middle of that argument I hit
him with my faas.
I hit him with my axe and I
killed him So it was a heated argument
that took place Apparently they were co-workers
or they worked together maybe even relatives but
in the middle of that argument I ended
up killing him So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam said to him Hal laka min
maal?
Do you have any money or any wealth?
That you can avail yourself of today that
perhaps you can offer something to the family
Because of what you have done.
Qala ya rasool Allah I have no money
illa faasi wa kisaai.
I have absolutely no wealth except for my
axe and the clothes that are on my
back So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
said to him A tu raa qawmaka yashtaroonak?
Do you think that your people your family
would come forth or your tribe would come
forth and They would offer something on your
behalf Qala ana ahwanu ala qawmi min dhalik.
He said I don't mean that much to
my people So I have nothing to give
I have nothing to offer It was a
bad argument and the man is resigned to
death.
He knows that execution Coming his way because
at the end of the day though He
didn't intend to kill the man it happened
and he doesn't feel like he has any
way to get himself out of the situation
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself Gathers
and you go to another narration that explains
us a little bit longer the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam himself Wants to intercede on
behalf of the man With wealth and with
prompting the man who has the right to
kill him because of him killing his brother
so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam looks
towards the man whose brother was killed and
he says forgive him or who pardon him
and the man refuses The Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam said who's out of Shaka that
you know Take your rope, but that will
pay you will give you something but let
it go forgive him.
Pardon him so ABBA and the man refused
again and The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
said in that case is hub fuck tolu
For in Nakam, it's Lugo In that case
go ahead Carry out the death penalty essentially
But know that you are no better than
him in Nakam.
It's Lugo.
You're just like him and So the man
took him and he walked away from the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam So someone goes
and runs behind him and says to him
Didn't you hear that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam said to you who for in
Nakam if That kill him, but if you
do so you're just like him don't you
see what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
is trying to tell you and the man
as He's being prompted in that regard and
realizing that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
is telling him something deeper He lets him
go and he starts to walk the rest
of the way Dragging the rope and the
people see him walking in silence through the
city with his rope dragging on the ground
SubhanAllah this narration So deep and I remember
the very first time I heard it.
I thought to myself Well, you know that
man has the right to do what he's
going to do and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam was sent to establish justice But
there's something deeper here That the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam while he was sent to
establish the right to justice the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam Also was seeking to bring
about the best spiritual potential of those that
he was sent to He wasn't condemning the
man if he did what he was going
to do But he was telling the man
that if you go forth and do this
You're going to be just like him and
there are so much that cannot translate through
a text What did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam see of regret perhaps in the
man that committed the murder What did the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam see of a
rage that would consume that person in the
future?
There's so much that can come through the
text Which is why the scholars say only
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had the
right to say to that person Do it
But you are just like him that a
qadi cannot say a judge cannot say to
a person That you'll be just like him
because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam clearly
was reading a situation and only the Messenger
of Allah Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has that
right?
However, the lesson that we can still take
from it is deeply profound Why do I
start with this story last week?
We talked about the famous conversation between Abu
Sufyan and Omar al-Khattab after the Battle
of Uhud and There's so much to take
from that conversation Qatlana fil-jannah wa qatlakum
fil-nar Our dead are in paradise your
dead are in hellfire until the end of
it a very famous Conversation that we've reflected
on quite a bit after Gaza But subhanAllah,
there's something else That I want to extract
from that hadith that relates to us in
a deeply personal way Which is that if
you were from the mushrikeen all you had
was a day for a day Yom and
Beom all you had was worldly victory and
worldly defeat because there was absolutely nothing else
To encourage you to act in a different
way as far as outside or hereafter Conceptions
were concerned you don't believe in anything deeper.
You don't believe in a hereafter You don't
believe in divine justice And so what this
means as the scholars say if you were
to be in Mecca after the Battle of
Badr Put aside the context that indeed they
were wrong and they brought better upon themselves
as the people of Mecca as the Quraish
in Mecca that they deserve to be fought
because of all the fighting that they had
done But see it just as a worldly
loss from their perspective They don't have the
ability to comfort each other and say our
dead are shuhada By Ibn Allahi ta'ala,
our dead are now with Allah and with
the angels and they're roaming through the heavens
They don't have any conception of you know
Nasbir when a testable be patient then we'll
seek the reward in the hereafter.
They have absolutely nothing They have the full
bitterness of the defeat in this dunya without
any idea of the sweetness of a hereafter
It's gone and that's a miserable existence They
can't comfort themselves with anything and so they
were literally boiling in their anger with revenge
as The only driver that they had and
they said to each other and there are
multiple Conversations that you can find between Abu
Sufyan and Safwan Abu Umayyah and others that
life has no sweetness anymore They had absolutely
no way to move past better except for
seeing blood in their hands Because they had
nothing else to drive them The Muslims on
the other hand Recovered from a hood again
take away right from wrong just the idea
of seeing your loved ones killed in battle
They had something to comfort themselves with after
a hood.
They knew that their dead were in paradise
They believed in a concept of shahada.
They believed in a concept of a higher
reward they knew that Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala
would not let those moments of bitterness go
in waste and That's why they were different
You see if you think about what drove
Abu Sufyan of a day for a day
and then the mutilation of the bodies in
Uhud just to feel extra It's not enough
for us to kill because some of ours
were killed But we have to cut off
noses and cut out the stomachs and chew
the livers and and dump wine on their
bodies We have to go extra to really
ensure that we won we won when the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam came back in
Fath Makkah and Had all of these people
at his mercy You didn't see them like
going and branding Some of the disbelievers who
carried out the the worst atrocities around them.
You didn't see them respond in kind Because
they were fighting for Allah.
They were forgiving for Allah They were driven
by revelation not by revenge There was something
else that was moving them and it was
deeper than anything that those people could have
understood in the moment And that's the beauty
of what we have That justice had to
be served Bilal radiallahu ta'ala anhu who
was once dragged in the streets in Mecca
Had to be standing on top of the
Kaaba saying allahu akbar allahu akbar that indeed
What was wrong had to be put in
its rightful place but the driver Was entirely
different and subhanAllah to take this back to
the people of Gaza.
I remember when dr Farhan when he came
back from Gaza One of the things that
he mentioned subhanAllah that surprised him and I
asked him what surprised you and a lot
of doctors and I know mashallah.
We have many of them here May Allah
bless you all and reward you allahumma ameen
many of them if you ask them what
surprised them They'll give you a similar answer
and he said That the people of Gaza
are remarkably not bitter like they don't talk
that much about revenge as Much as they
are directing their pain to Allah subhanahu wa'ta
'ala and their ihtisab And they're seeking the
reward from Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala and seeking
That greater victory with Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala
that doesn't mean that in any way The
genocide and atrocity around them or upon them
should be excused That doesn't mean in any
way that the evil that we see that's
being inflicted on them is indeed evil That
doesn't mean in any way that we shouldn't
stop fighting against that evil on their behalf
That doesn't lessen the betrayal of the Arab
and Muslim leaders around them that they complain
about But their posture Their hearts are Directed
towards taking this tragedy and lessening the tragedy
of the hereafter They're more driven by that
than anything else as people at the spiritual
level with what they are encountering and That's
this perfect balance That while we fight for
justice we seek the pleasure of Allah subhanahu
wa'ta'ala and at no point Do we
allow ourselves to be relegated?
To exclusively a worldly plane now bring it
back to our individual affairs There are lowly
goals There are lowly motives and subhanAllah.
There's a narration about Ali radhiyaAllahu ta'ala
anhu I couldn't find a source for it
So just take it for its wisdom that
many of us have heard that Sayyidina Ali
radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu one time he was
in the battlefield and he Overcame a man
and as he got that man down the
man spit on him and Ali radhiyaAllahu ta
'ala anhu leaves him and says That I
was going to kill you for the sake
of Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala, but once you
spit on me It became about something else
The ego takes over right we become overpowered
by something else.
The motivation is not the same when we
come to our own personal relationships and And
vuln that can happen in the capacity of
a relationship and it is very Very normal
that two people can claim to be mazlum
can both claim to be oppressed while they're
both oppressors in their own, right?
This is very normal Because we interpret the
world through our experiences and when we don't
have revelation to guide us Then we end
up creating that world or reinforcing that world
over and over and over again and One
of the things subhanAllah that one of my
teachers had told me years ago And I
mentioned to him a situation of vuln and
he said the first advice that I would
give to you is Don't do anything that
would take you from being a mazlum to
a zalim Don't do anything that would take
you from being a wronged person to a
wronging person Don't do anything that would take
you out of the category with Allah subhanahu
wa'ta'ala of being oppressed to being an
oppressor And I'm thinking to myself How is
that even possible and it is possible because
you could start off in a situation Indeed
being one who was mazlum one who was
wrong But then the course of action that
you decide to take as a result of
that Driven by revenge could put you in
the category of being a zalim and you
know where this is most true And I
want to strike directly at it without any
sugarcoating divorce talaq in our community Yes in
the beginning you often see That one party
has wronged another party more There is a
zalim and a mazlum and it's let's say
75% 25% in the beginning Or
it's 60-40, but there's some sort of
clear assignment of wrongdoing When someone is analyzing
the situation from a little bit of a
distance and says yeah this person took it
a little bit too far you if I
was to assign blame blame is usually on
both sides, but Usually there's there's a 70
-30 there or a 60-40 or something
there Where either to the man or the
woman you can see that the blame goes
a little bit more on one side But
then the course of action that's taken afterwards
Renders the mazlum or the mazluma the zalim
or the zalima the one who was wrong
male or female the wronging party why because
in the capacity of Seeking justice you become
unjust sometimes you take it too far and
So it could be that indeed you were
wronged and no one disputes that But then
what you did over the next three months
No justification for that and you can't keep
milking that I was wronged initially card because
this doesn't work with Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala
that someone wronged me first Therefore I can
keep this bliss going and going and going
and going and there is no sanctity anymore
to that other human being to That other
person it doesn't work that way in Islam
Allah azawajal establishes the rights if rights were
taken rights should be given back as much
as they possibly can but sometimes you go
too far and You think it's gonna heal
you and it doesn't heal you and if
you take more than what Allah subhanahu wa'ta
'ala has given you In the capacity of
justice on the Day of Judgment.
What does it benefit you?
that you took yourself out of a category
from being mazlum to being valid to beat
from being wrong to be in wronging and
That extra property that you took chokes you
on the Day of Judgment Those extra sins
that you committed in the capacity the extra
The extra of the tongue the extra of
the hand the extra of the harm that
was done after the divorce Sinks your Mizan
on the Day of Judgment and causes you
to be bankrupt on the Day of Judgment.
What did you actually benefit?
Didn't heal you here.
Nor did it heal you there.
It seemed like it would be sweet.
It wasn't sweet Because one of the greatest
lies that Shaitaan has ever sold is that
revenge is sweet.
It's not sweet Again, that doesn't mean don't
pursue your haqouq That doesn't mean relinquish all
of your rights.
That doesn't mean that we have to do
better as communities in terms of establishing weights
of justice But at the end of the
day The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam warned us
from becoming so caught up in this that
we no longer see the ability to seek
Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala's mercy and to seek
Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala's Pardon and to seek
Allah's forgiveness and just like Ihsan in a
marriage Ihsan in a marriage is giving more
than what you demand There's Ihsan in divorce
as well.
Tasrihun bi Ihsan as Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala
mentions to separate in excellence as well Ihsan
exists in every single domain of our lives
even the ugliest scenarios in our lives But
it takes you to step back and to
say what do I actually want and subhanAllah
because we're out of time I don't have
time to go into the details of what
Allah azawajal has at the end of surah
shura But Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala says وَلِمَنْ
صَبْرَ وَغَفْرَ إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ لَمِنْ عَزْمِ الْأُمُورِ For
the one who is patient and forgives then
verily that is of the Affairs that requires
the greatest determination you have to be really
determined Really driven for the pleasure of Allah
subhanahu wa'ta'ala to still be able to
show mercy and forgiveness and patience when you
were the initial Wrong party.
However, the verses before that Allah azawajal is
Distinguishing what does that was a yet and
say yet to miss Luha That an evil
is repaid with an evil just like it
that there are consequences that we do establish
justice in our deen But then it comes
to you as a person to say what
do I really want?
I end with the Hadith of the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasallam because of that time and
the words of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
Are comprehensive and they give us so much
to reflect upon Hudaifah Ibn al-Yaman radiyallahu
ta'ala anhu narrates that the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wasallam said لا تكونوا امعا Do not
be people without a will of your own
and this word امعا Means you go with
the flow and it has different meanings and
different connotations and different usages But here the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam say don't be that
person who has no will of their own
Who says اِنْ اَحْسَنَ الْنَاسُ اَحْسَنَّ وَإِنْ ظَلَمُوا
ظَلَمْنَا If people treat us well with ihsan
we will treat them with ihsan and if
they oppress us We will oppress them وَلَكِنْ
وَطِّنُوا اَنْفُسَكُمْ اِنْ اَحْسَنَ الْنَاسُ اَنْ تُحْسِنُوا وَإِنْ
اَسَاءُوا فَلَا تَظْلِمُوا The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
said instead Relegate yourself train yourself to where
if the people show you excellence show them
greater excellence Show them excellence in return and
if they wronged you the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wasallam said Don't wrong them back Don't become
an oppressor yourself Dear brothers and sisters.
The message is clear.
Don't become what you hate as Muslims this
has a political connotation That all of the
volume that's done against us politically does not
allow us to become people of one ourselves
because why they are not our teachers Benjamin
Netanyahu is not our teacher These people are
not our teachers on a personal level Because
all of us are going to have moments
where we are stung or we feel like
we're stung and some of those Relationships are
going to be more consequential than others Be
driven by Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala and what
you seek from him May Allah subhanahu wa'ta
'ala make us a people of higher Aspirations
and higher manners and who seek higher rewards
even in the most devastating Situations in our
lives allahumma ameen
Allahumma
ameen