Omar Suleiman – Reflecting on an amazing Hajj 2024
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The speaker discusses the "offers of the umeki where young people will be informed about shades and shades of darkness, and how it can be difficult to get around in difficult weather. They stress the importance of shade and comfort for people in difficult situations, and discuss the "byproduct" of the umGeneration, which is the beating heart of the umGeneration. The speaker also talks about people from Apes who lost everything and are now living in a small town, and asks Allah to accept all of his du'as for his brother and sisters.
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Some of the suffering of the Ummah of
Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, may Allah subhana
wa ta'ala have mercy on all of
the shuhada and hajj, may Allah subhana wa
ta'ala allow us to be joined with
them and the shuhada of Gaza, Allahumma ameen.
Subhanallah, this was the first time that I
got to go back to hajj in five
years, 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 want
to start from that frame that Allah azza
wa jal 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 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 .0001%,
and I'm grateful to Allah subhana wa ta
'ala for all of those years that I
had.
And then COVID hit, and obviously, you know,
kind of 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 rained
in Arafa, and anyone who went to hajj
in 2019 spoke about sort of the beauty
and the power of it, and the mercy
of Allah subhana wa ta'ala 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 ﷺ mentioned, you are the waft,
the delegation of Allah subhana 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 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 rest
doing hajj, with all the amenities of, you
know, the tents, and the AC, and the
tents, and the hotels, and you know, 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 80s, sometimes even in their 90s, getting
through this, and I'm thinking it's a miracle
from Allah subhana wa ta'ala that people
are able to power through this in this
weather, truly, like it's an ayah from Allah
subhana 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
manasik of hajj, especially if you do everything
between the 9th and the 10th, if you
do tawaf al ifadah and sa'ih on
the 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 yawm al qiyamah, and that idea
of the shade of Allah subhana wa ta
'ala, so there is 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, it'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 yawm 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 salallahu alayhi wasalam, 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 sadaqah, it's his charity, that's the
premium that you pay for that day, right,
so there are the seven that are shaded
by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on that
day, the seven categories of people, may Allah
azawajal include us in that category, Allahumma ameen,
and then there is the shade of the
believer which is his sadaqah, 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 sadaqah that you put
forward is your shade on the day of
judgment, the shade of the believer, the prophet
salallahu alayhi wasalam said on the day of
judgment is the extent of your sadaqah, and
think about how much you're going to want
that shade on the day of judgment, and
here you are now, and you know just
like you have people that save 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 going to
be this distance away from the jamarat, right,
you're going to 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 the worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, are those people who feared Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala 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
kind of left out, because I think the
reality that that kind of dawns upon you
when you're there is that the majority of
people in minnah actually don't have tents, they're
kind of just out there, those swaths of
poor people will be at the front of
the gates of jannah as the prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam mentioned on the day of
judgment that the first people to enter into
jannah are the fuqara and the mustaba'afin,
the weak and the downtrodden of this ummah,
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 ghazah, think of the people of ghazah,
think of the people of ghazah, our tents
in minnah, I'm talking about if you took
the worst tents in minnah, any of you
have been to hajj, the worst tents in
minnah would be the best tents in ghazah
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
airstrikes, 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
ya Allah, this is ni'mah, this is ni'mah,
this in and of itself is a blessing,
and it's the perspective that counts, subhanAllah you
could take two people from 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 there saying alhamdulillah, it was amazing,
we got through it, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala made a way out, you can take
two 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
subhanAllah, there's one hajji 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 the water, and like most of
these people have no idea what that stuff
is, like if you just took one ni'mah,
and you thank 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
blessed, 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, and
this journey that we have with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, and with that being said,
the ummah, you know I can tell you
that the beating heart of this ummah is
still Gaza, 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
Gaza, and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala to accept it, Allahumma ameen.
There were many people actually from Palestine that
were in hajj this year, brother Wael al
-Dahdouh from Gaza was actually in hajj this
year, alhamdulillah, I mean that 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 would
you know, I would just think to myself,
like imagine if someone walked up to him
and started complaining about the accommodations in hajj,
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 subhanahu wa ta'ala, and here
you are complaining that your bus is two
hours late, did you have 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, is someone who's in a good state
with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, so we
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept,
we ask Allah to accept all the du
'as that people made for themselves, and all
the du'as that they made for the
ummah, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to accept all 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
Yasser's hajj, mashaAllah, who first, I was so
happy for him, like truly, truly, truly, from
the depths of my heart, it was surreal
seeing Sheikh Yasser in hajj, alhamdulillah rabbil alameen,
you know, I know he longed for it
for two decades, alhamdulillah rabbil alameen, so we
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept
his hajj, and all the hijjaj 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 three
holy places, may He gather us for an
accepted salah, and may He gather us on
the day of judgment with our Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam, Allahumma ameen, wa barakallahu fikum,
wasalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
I will have some kind of a class
on Tuesday between Maghrib and Isha inshaAllah, I'm
not sure if we're going to be restarting
the first, or we'll do another lecture, so
but Tuesday night inshaAllah I'll have class between
Maghrib and Isha inshaAllah, most likely restarting the
first with the night.