Omar Suleiman – The Firsts – Abu Sufyan Ibn Al-Harith
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AI: Transcript ©
How's the sound? Can everybody hear me?
Alhamdulillah,
SubhanAllah. Tonight,
we are going to be talking about someone
who the title gives away quite a bit,
but it probably confuses
some of you. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's
brother.
Now, if I was to tell you
or to put you in Madinah,
just a year before the death of the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
and you see this man
from the batch of those that embrace Islam
late, who of course are known as Atulaka.
As a group, they're the least praiseworthy
of the companions of the Prophet
as a group because of the lateness of
their Islam.
But he looks like the Prophet He
puts his head down. He walks to the
masjid.
He enters before everybody else. He leaves after
everyone else. His eyes are constantly flowing with
tears.
And then you ask the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam, Who is that?
And he says, That's my brother.
It would shock many of you,
and it even shocked Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha.
And so we're gonna come back to that
narration, Insha'Allah Ta'ala,
to the end. But let's go to the
beginning
and in fact, go to the father of
this man.
And this man is Abu Sufyan ibn al
Harith
but not that Abu Sufyan. So I have
to keep on like reminding you all because
even
the narrators of the books mixed up the
2 Abu Sufyan frequently.
Right? The Abu Sufyan that is the most
famous enemy of the Prophet who we spoke
about last week, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and
Abu Sufyan ibn Harith. And multiple times you'll
find discussions in the books
of which Abu Sufyan they're talking about because
it seems to apply more to Abu Sufyan
ibn Harrif, this person who we're speaking about
today, but the other Abu Sufyan is so
much more famous. So let's talk about Abu
Sufyan ibn al Harith, inshallah ta'ala, and actually
start with
his
father. His name is Abu Sufyan ibn al
Harith ibn Abdul Muttalib.
So this is
as close as it gets to the Prophet
immediately from the name, you know that this
is Ibnu Ami Rasulullah
the paternal first cousin of the Prophet Sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
So he's from Banu Hashim, and he's the
Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam's first cousin.
His father, Al Harith ibn Abdul Muttalib
is the oldest
son of Abdul Muttalib.
Okay? Obviously, the Prophet is Muhammad, n Abdullah,
n Abdul Muttalib.
Right?
So between Abdullah,
the father of the
Prophet and Harith is a great distance because
Al Harith is the oldest son of Abdul
Muttalib.
And in fact, Abdul Muttalib's
Kunya was Abul Harith, the father of Al
Harith. And some of the historians say
that for a long time, Al Harith was
actually his only son.
And I wanna take you back to an
image
that some of the books of Sira
will give you
to sort of start off the story, and
it'll come full circle in the end of
the life of Abu Sufyan ibn al Harith.
I want you to imagine
that day that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
caused Abdul Muttalib to see a dream that
would lead him to a Zamzam.
And I want you to imagine the sight
of Abdul Muttalib digging up the well of
Zamzam, and the only child he has with
him is the son of his Alharif, who's
digging away alongside him and throwing the dirt
to the side
as they're discovering this miracle of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala in the center of Makkah that
we still benefit from today. That's the father,
al Harit ibn Abdul Muttalib.
Let that sin stick with you
until the very end of the life of
the man that we're going to be discussing
today. His father alongside
his grandfather, who's also the grandfather of the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, digging away and
finding this precious gem
of Zamzam.
He has this son, al Harith ibn Abdul
Mutaleb has this son
whose actual name is Al Mughira.
Al Mughira, Nuharith, ibn Abdul Muttalib.
Just like Abu Sufyan ibn Harb.
Does anyone remember, by the way, last week
what Abu Sufyan ibn Harb's name was?
Sahar,
he was he was the rock.
I would have expected some of you guys
to remember that at least.
Sahr ibn Harib.
Abu Sufyan ibn Harith
is Mughira, al Mughira, ibn al Harif technically,
and Abu Sufyan is the nickname
of this man.
So who is he and
how does he become so close to the
Prophet SAW, and then so distant
to where we don't even hear about him
most of the time when we speak about
him. And even those that were closest to
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam in Madinah had
never even heard of this man who was
such
a crucial part of his childhood.
As Abu Sufyanam al Harif, radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu,
and Mughira Al Harif
is said to be born in the same
year or around the same year as the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So first and foremost,
he's his paternal
cousin
and of course, in that society,
Ibnu'am is as close as a brother. Right?
They say that alam, the paternal uncle is
like your father.
Right? And so the son of your paternal
uncle is like your brother. If Nu'am is
as close as you get in that society
beyond your actual blood brother. So you start
with that. He's his actual
first cousin, paternal first cousin from Banu Hashim,
from his own family.
Secondly,
on top of that, he was nursed at
the same time as the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam by the most famous woman who nursed
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. What was her
name?
You can trust your knowledge. It's okay. Some
of you murmured it and you were afraid.
Who is the most famous wet nurse of
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam?
Halima Sadia Radiallahu Ta'ala Anha. Halima
nurses the Prophet SAW Alaihi Wasallam,
and at the same time will nurse
the first cousin of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam,
Abu Sufyanam al Harith alongside.
Hence, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and Abu
Sufyanam al Harith are also brothers.
Right? They're brothers through that nursing. So first
cousin,
his brother.
On top of that,
he marries
the sister
of Ali ibn Abi Talib
Jamana
Bint Abu Talib.
He marries the sister of Ali,
so the daughter of Abu Talib
as well, bringing him even closer to the
Prophet because we know the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam's closeness to Abu Talib and
Abu Talib will become like a father figure
to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And so he marries into the family of
Abu Talib, bringing him a step closer to
the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
So first cousin,
his brother through nursing, he marries Jumana
bint Abi Talib,
and they would have a son named Jafar,
by the way, not the same as Jafar
ibn Abi Talib, the famous Ja'far
And on top of that,
he looked
stunningly like the Prophet
So his actual physical Shaba' of the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
was absolutely
striking. And SubhanAllah, you find that those that
were described as having the greatest shaba, the
greatest physical appearance of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam, first and foremost, Ibrahim alaihi wasallam.
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and Ibrahim Alaihi Salam
resembled each other
almost exactly to the point that when the
Prophet even saw him, the Messenger of Allah
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was struck by his appearance
on the night of Al Asra wal Marabs.
So the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
resembles
his grandfather.
The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam resembles or rather
who resembles the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam amongst
the companions? Jafar ibn Abi Talib
Jafar
looks so much like the Messenger of Allah
And then you have Uthnar ibn Affam
who also had a great resemblance of the
Prophet
even though he wasn't from his direct family.
And in Madinah, you had Mus'ab ibn Umayr
who resembled the Messenger of Allah and of
course, as one of the wisdoms and one
of the reasons why the mushrikeen
fought that they had killed the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam in the Battle of Uhud because
they killed Mus'ab
or they saw Mus'ab fall. And so those
that saw Mus'ab fall, fought that for a
moment, they saw the Prophet
fall. And then finally,
the Messenger of Allah SAW Allahu Alaihi Wasallam's
own grandson,
Al
Hassan Ibn Ali
resembled the Prophet SAW Allahu Alaihi Wasallam the
most. Add to that list this 6th name
of al Sufyan al Haraf, the brother
of the same age
that resembled the prophet the most. So much
so that they said that when he was
in a sham,
when he went to greater Syria, and it
could be on the same journey that the
prophet
went because the Prophet went with Abu Talib,
that when they would see Abu Sufyan ibn
al Harith, they would immediately say that this
is his cousin, this is his brother because
he looks exactly like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam. So imagine now,
first cousin. I'm gonna emphasize these for a
reason.
First cousin, brother,
married into the family of the person who
is like the father to the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
Looks exactly like the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. Add to that now, him and the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam were connected at
the hip growing up.
They were closest friends.
They loved one another.
They used to gift one another.
They attended each other's weddings. Like, I mean,
you go through and you just think about
the Messenger of Allah sallaihi wa sallam and
his quality of silatulrahim
of upholding the ties of kinship, and you
imagine how he must have treated this man
and what their relationship is like. They used
to bring gifts to one another from their
journeys.
So all of the things that are expected
between blood brothers,
you find it between the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam and this man Abu Sufyan ad
Din Harif.
On top of that, he's known for his
eloquence. And the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam, of course, was beautifully eloquent.
And Abu Sufyan al Harif
was extremely eloquent.
He's also known for his manners.
I mean, people rub off on each other.
So he has excellent manners. Of course, no
one to the extent of the Messenger of
Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, even in Jahiliyah, but
he has excellent manners.
To go on,
he's someone who used to author poetry,
where he would speak about the beauty of
tribes and the beauty of lofty personalities.
So he was a shahad. He was a
poet.
And his poetry
was extolling the Arabs, speaking about the best
qualities of the tribes of the Arabs, and
speaking about the best qualities of some of
the noble people in Mecca at that time.
So you have a picture in your mind
about what their lives are like in Mecca,
and you're probably thinking to yourself, how come
I never heard of this man? And you're
not alone.
Because as soon as the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam receives the message of
he was expecting that of the first people
to embrace him and support him would be
this man.
He was expecting Alaihi Salatu Wasallam that his
brother whom he showed nothing but goodness, nothing
but the best of character,
would be the first person to recognize in
him, Alaihi Salatu Wasallam,
what others were recognizing of him, alayhi salatu
wasalam. He was expecting that he'd have his
support,
and it deeply devastates the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam
that when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam calls
Banu Hashim Abu Sufyanid, then Harith turns his
back on him and all of that love
becomes hatred.
He completely flips on the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
And by the way,
you know, when you think about that initial
conversation of the Prophet and Warak ibn Nawfal,
when Warakah says, your people will run you
out, and the Prophet
doesn't you know, he's like, my people will
run me out. He's talking about Ahl Mecca
as a whole, the people of Mecca as
a whole. The people he least expects it
from, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, are the people that
are closest to him, his own family. Right?
Like no way Banu Hashim
would run me out. Banu Hashim would reject
me. My uncles, my cousins, my aunts, they'd
reject me. Remember, Abu Lahab
was so close to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's 2
daughters are engaged to his 2 sons. They
share a wall like they are deeply embedded
together in this family of Benuhasim.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is expecting
Abu Lahab to help him. He's expecting Abu
Lahab to say, I've got you. You know,
we've got too many connections at this point
to where even if Abu Lahab would have
been skeptical of the message of the Prophet
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, you are my nephew, of
course. You're my neighbor, my nephew, in laws.
I mean it doesn't get tighter than that.
But Abu Lahab of course rejects the Prophet
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam in the most bitter way.
And that causes deep pain to the Messenger
of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to hear that
from his uncle Abu Lahab after all that
he invested
into that relationship.
This is another man who has another dynamic
with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that devastates
the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And
I'm telling you from right now, you're going
to see the pain of the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam in his not speaking about him
and in his not wanting to look at
him later on in life.
That's the human part of the Messenger SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam,
which is still part of the blessing of
having his example because even in his pain,
alayhi salatu wa sallam, he doesn't wrong people,
but he does feel pain. So Abu Sufyan
ibn al Harith
doesn't really understand, subhanAllah,
the amount of hatred that's consuming his own
soul
and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam cannot fathom
why his brother, why this person who's so
close to him suddenly flips on him the
way that he does. And subhanAllah, the scholars
mentioned that, you know, there are multiple things
that if you kinda read into the language
of Abu al Mustafa Anam al Harid, because
he authors many poems against the Prophet
But there is envy.
Right? You and I are kind of brothers.
We're doing things together
this whole our whole lives, married at the
same time, having children at the same time.
There there is a dynamic here and that
dynamic is inevitably ruptured by this. Right? Now
you're a prophet. Right? So if you think
about sort of the tribal mindset, the tribes
didn't wanna give a leg up to Benu
Hashim
because that means that our tribes will never
be able to match a tribe with a
prophet.
So you're my brother.
We are equals in society in a way.
And then now you're a prophet of Allah,
so it's a lot of envy. It's definitely
a disruption. It's envy. There's something that's consuming
his soul of that, but there's also
this level of you mess things up in
Mecca
that you'll start to hear in the language
of Abu Sufyan. Like why did you bring
this to us? Everything was good. You had
everything right. You were the most praised man
in your society.
You're married to Khadija
You just solved one of the greatest disputes
in the history of our people in Mecca
with the rebuilding of the cabin, the placing
of the stone. Everyone loves you. Our family
is doing well. Why are you visiting this
pain upon our family? Why are you messing
things up? And that's a mindset that you
can think about, like this is really inconvenient,
and I hate you for messing up our
setup.
Like, we were in khair, we were doing
well, Banu Hashim was doing well, Mecca was
well. And then you came with this religion
and it complicated
everything. So his hatred of the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam was not just one where
it was being forced. It was a genuine
hatred that he had of the Messenger of
Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. Genuinely a brother who
turns his back on the messenger of Allah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is grieving.
Is grieving.
Why? Because the same man who he grew
up with, subhanAllah,
would not miss a single battle against the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
and was actually the main poet against the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So this is where
the books kind of get mixed up.
When you read about the poetry of Abu
Sufyan
against the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam in Mecca,
it's actually talking about this Abu Sufyan,
not the famous Abu Sufyan,
Ibn Harb. This Abu Sufyan ibn Harith
who did not spare a moment, subhanAllah, as
the scholars say, he used his tongue and
he used his sword against the Prophet
for 20 years
and did not spare the Messenger of Allah
SAW, did not spare him the pain
that would come to him. And then and
if you kinda read the Messenger of Allah
how he deals with these relatives of his,
the Prophet doesn't talk about them. Right? So,
you know, I did
subhanAllah Khutba in the old masjid.
I think it might have been the last
Khutba,
where I talked about the brother of Khadija
who
they called Shaitan Quresh
Nafal, who would hurt the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam so much, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
did not wanna come face to face with
him in battle. Imagine, he loves Khadija so
much and her brother is trying to kill
him in Badr. So the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam avoids these people,
and he doesn't spend so much time, like
he's not giving these long lectures in Madinah
about these people that personally harmed him. And
some of the scholars say that of the
wisdom of that as well is that
there are people that were after the Prophet
sallAllahu alaihi wasallam personally,
sallallahu alaihi wasallam was more proportionately, right, towards
those that were trying to kill the message
of Islam. You had those that were close
to the prophet sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam and
that really
wanted to strike him.
But there's no doubt that this Abu Sufyan
ibn Harith was not as damaging to the
cause of Islam as Abu Sufyanim Al Harbin
Abu Jahalim. Amr bin Al As at the
time, Al Khadim Walid.
But he's a personal,
you know, brother
turned enemy of the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam, and that devastates the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam.
It'll also give you a little bit more
context.
If you remember,
Hassan ibnuthabit
When the Prophet
would tell Hassan al Nuthabit Uhudul Mushrikeen
banajibreelamaaq
Respond to the disbelievers because Jibril is with
you.
There are literally pages and pages of poetry
between Hassan and Abu Sufyan,
this Abu Sufyan, the brother of the Prophet
where they're sending messages back and forth at
each other and people are parroting their poetry
at each other. Imagine that, subhanAllah.
And here's the context that I want you
to think about.
Remember,
Hassan ibn Thabit's specialty in poetry
was basically
shredding you apart,
shredding apart your tribe. I mean, he talked
about your parents. He talked about your tribe.
He talked about your appearance. He talked. He
had very mean poetry about people. Right? And
it was justified in certain contexts.
I remember when Hassan
said, I've got this, and he wanted to
respond
to the mushrikeen, the prophet
said, but how will you spare me?
Why?
You can actually find it in an explicit
narration
because if he starts going after the family
of Abu Sufyan ibn Harith, who's he going
after?
He's going after the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
inevitably.
He's gonna talk about Banu Hashim, he's gonna
talk about Abdul Muttalib, he's gonna talk
about you talk about his appearance, he looks
like the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
You can't attack this man without attacking the
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam in the style of
hastar al ruthabut
So that's
why when the Prophet brought up the concerns
to him, hasad al Ruthabit said, the very
famous words that, You Rasulullah, don't worry, I
will extract you.
The way that you extract a hair from
the yeast, like I'll I'll get you out
of there
when I when I respond to them. So
Hassan is like, I'm a master poet. I
know what I'm doing. And so he would
attack everything about around
Sufyan ibn Hadith and Abu Sufyan himself,
but
be sure to spare all of the aspects
that would also imply
an insult to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And that's the mastery of the poetry of
Hassan
So just to give you some more perspective
because if you were to just read the
reaction of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam to
Abu Sufyan later on in life, you're like,
Wow, like, isn't that a little harsh?
He is the main guy
that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam is saying,
respond on behalf. Right? Respond on behalf of
the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, O
Hassan. So Hassan's having a reply to him,
the brother of the messenger of Allah SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam, who is authoring poetry about, you
know, upon poetry upon poetry
with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. So what
changes?
He fought the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam in
every battle.
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam never came face to
face with him in battle.
He never
talked to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam in
any of these incidents. Like they never actually
had a face to face conversation from the
time that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
announces his prophethood and
Abu Sufyan
becomes an enemy to the Messenger of Allah
SAW Alaihi Wasallam, their relationship is completely fractured.
So you're talking about, you know, 40 years,
4 decades together, literally from birth until that
moment, to 2 decades of not speaking to
each other,
and one brother who's constantly aggressing against, you
know, showing aggression towards the other brother.
So what's the change here and when do
you start to see the switch in this
story? And the turn in this Abu Sufyan,
ibn al Harith,
the brother of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
the cousin of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Well, first of all,
you go to the siblings.
So
all of his brothers and his sister embraced
Islam
before Fatiha Makkah,
before the conquest of Makkah.
So he's gonna be the only one that's
gonna wait all the way until the end.
And subhanAllah, his oldest brother Nofal
Nofal, fought the Prophet
in Badr,
was freed as a captive and then became
Muslim and went back to the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam as a Muslim.
And some of the scholars say that he's
the oldest convert in the Sira.
Like he was so old when he embraced
Islam that it was like
he was literally at the brink of death.
He embraced Islam and that was it. That's
the oldest brother
of
Abu Sufyan ibn al Harith. Then you find
that he has another brother named Rabi'ah. He
embraces Islam as well, sometime between that gap
of Uhud and Fati Makkah.
He has another brother named Abdi Shams.
Abdi Shams,
which of course is a Haram name, who
comes to the Prophet
sometime around Hudaybiyah, and he embraces Islam. The
Prophet changes his name too, Abdullah.
So you have Nofal, Rabia,
and now Abdullah, and finally his sister Arwa,
bint Al Harith embraces Islam. So he's the
last one out.
The last one who hasn't embraced Islam from
all of his siblings.
On the other side, the children
of Abu Talib
are all embracing Islam.
Right? So you have Talib, Aqeel, obviously, Jafar,
Ali,
Umhani,
Jumana, and Rayta. The children of Abu Talib
all are embracing Islam, including his own wife
who's leaning in that direction. She has no
enmity to the Prophet She knows the goodness
of the Messenger of Allah
She can't even understand the enmity of her
husband to the Prophet
She doesn't get it.
This is a very unique relationship between these
two men,
between the Messenger of Allah sallaihi wa sallam
and him. So his own wife, it's, you
know,
it's it's unclear when she embraced Islam, but
she clearly had no say in the affair.
If she did so privately, jumana bintabitalib,
or if it was something that, you know,
was communicated to the Messenger of Allah sallaihi
wa sallam, but clearly, she doesn't understand why
her husband is holding out and fighting the
Prophet so long.
So now the story comes from Abu Sufyan
himself.
He says that it's
the time of Fatiha Makkah, and basically, the
last holdouts in Makkah know
it's over.
So Abu Sufyan,
he's saying that I realize as the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam arrives,
in Al Jura'fah,
which, subhanAllah, is
it's actually the valley where Allah promised the
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam he'd return to Mecca.
That's actually the valley right outside of Mecca
where Allah promised the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
that he'll come back to Mecca. He realizes
when the Prophet
And he says
that, you know, I'm kind of looking around
at the situation,
and I said,
Who am I going to accompany?
And, you know, who am I going to
be with? I feel trapped.
So he said,
so I went to my wife, and I
went to my son, Jafar. So my wife,
Jumana,
and my son, Jafar.
And,
I I told to them or I said
to them that, look, I don't know
what's gonna happen at this point,
and I don't know what I'm supposed to
do. So Jumana responds to him
and says,
So you know, his wife even says to
him like, wake up.
The Arabs and the non Arabs, the whole
world is embracing this man, Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam. And you're the one insisting
on his enmity,
and you are you should have been the
1st person to support the Prophet, sallAllahu alaihi
wa sallam. Like his own wife is
saying to him, what's wrong with you? Why
are you even waiting till now? Like, even
the way that you're approaching this whole situation
is embarrassing. So he's saying that his own
wife starts to shame him and say,
what happened to you
and why did you wait until now?
And basically, he said that that I was
just covered in shame. Like his
wife is saying to him,
isn't it time for you? Like, why did
you wait until this moment? Why did you
put us in this situation
to where now 20 years later,
you're of this last batch of people to
embrace Islam, even after people have embraced the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam far and wide
from the world. Right? You've got tens of
thousands of people now Muslim, and here you
are, his own brother. You should have been
the first person to do so.
So he said that I was extremely embarrassed,
ashamed, and he said, I didn't know how
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was gonna receive
me. Like, I don't even know how to
approach this conversation. SubhanAllah, it's very painful,
when when he even talks about his own
his own situation here. Like, how do I
even approach the Prophet
after having done all of this harm to
him and after who we were? So he
said, so I said to my servant,
you know, let's go ahead to the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and let's
let's meet him at his tent.
So he says to him that, you know,
look, I'm gonna have you go out front
and I'm gonna wrap my face because I
don't know if the Prophet is gonna kill
me or not.
I don't know if the Prophet is gonna
kill me or not. I don't know if
the Prophet is gonna kill me or someone
else is just gonna see me and kill
me. Like, there's a lot of bad blood
here. I've done a lot of harm
to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And it's not like, you know, he's one
of the leaders of Quraysh and someone that
no, it's like, look, this is just a
really bad personal situation too for what he
did to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, what
he did to the Muslims.
So he said, so I went to the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
and I kind of had my face wrapped.
So he said that, I told my servant
when we got close to the the encampment,
let's leave the the camel and let's just
walk on foot,
because that way, right, it's it's not going
to be it's not gonna cause commotion when
I come in. So I don't wanna cause
any commotion as I'm entering into the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And it's it represents sort of a spirit
of humility, right, that I'm not coming to
fight the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Right? I'm coming to apologize to him. I'm
coming to embrace
Islam.
So he said that I reached
to the area
of the tent of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
So he said that I went up to
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
I uncovered
my face,
and SubhanAllah,
he said,
aawadhaanni biwajihi.
SubhanAllah. He said, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
looked at me and he turned away,
Couldn't look at
me. He said, I went again and I
looked at the prophet, salAllahu alaihi wa sallam,
and he turned away.
He wouldn't he wouldn't make eye contact with
me.
Here it is. He didn't kill
him. He didn't harm him.
But here you are 20 years later.
Like now, now you're waking up to it,
like what's wrong with you now? And the
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam is so hurt by
him, so he says, he kept on turning
his face away from me.
So he said that when the Prophet
did that, like I tried to look at
him a few times, I tried to make
facial,
I tried to get, you know, eye contact
with the Prophet SAWS-eleven, I tried to get
my face to his face, and he keeps
on turning away from me. He said that
at that point, I thought to myself, you
know,
That, you know, I would remember the Prophet
SAW, his
the way he loves his family and the
honor of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam to
his family
and his
mercy and I thought to myself, surely,
like, I knew that at some point, like,
it was gonna dawn upon the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam that he would be in so
much joy that
Clearly, there's no aggression. There's forgiveness, but
not now.
Right? 20 years later and clearly there is
an opportunism here. Right? And we said this,
subhanAllah, that this is a complicated batch of
converts.
Even Abu Sufyan have been held. Very complicated
convert.
Right? Because it's coming to the very end,
but this is my brother. All that pain
you caused me.
So he said that, you know,
when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam kinda turned
away from me and he didn't want to
look at me, right, he didn't want to
make eye contact with me,
he said that the Muslims noticed and and
the way the Prophet sallAllahu alaihi wasallam turned
away from me was very different.
So the Muslims started to get angry as
well and annoyed by my presence.
What are you doing here?
Like, we we know who you are. You
know, we know what you did to the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So he said, so then Abu Bakr
basically came up to me, and he told
me to get lost.
Umar I looked at Umar
pleading for, you know, some level of sympathy,
he said, Omar was harsher to me than
Abu Bakr said, Leave.
Get out of here. Right? Like again, you're
gonna be from the Turulaka. We're not gonna
kill you. You're gonna be forgiven. But all
this that you did, all this damage that
you did, leave the gathering.
And then he said, then one of the
young Ansar,
you know, and the Ansar are these youth
that love the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. I
mean, he he went off on me. So
he said, this young Ansari man who I
didn't even know stood up and he started
to say everything that he could possibly
say in the book, and he said, You,
oh
enemy of Allah, you are the one who
hurt the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
You are the one who carried your enmity
to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam from every
end of the earth.
And so he said that, I went back
to my uncle, Al Abba SallAllahu Ta'ala Anhu
after that. I was like, Wow. Like,
that was the not the worst case scenario
because the worst case scenario was death.
But he knows that he got what he
deserved. Right? He gave this enmity to the
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
and the companions loved the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam more than they loved themselves and they
saw the deep pain of the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam, which shows you, SubhanAllah, again, Fatih
Makkah, there are a lot of dynamics. Right?
Remember the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam excused Bilal
and Ammar for how they felt about Abu
Sufyan ibn Haruf.
Right? Here,
there is a level of just human pain
here. That look, it hurts to look at
you at this point after everything that you
did. You're gonna be forgiven, but
this is this is too much. You've done
a lot to the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam.
So he goes to Abbas,
the uncle of the Prophet
and the uncle, his own uncle, right? Abbas
ibn Abdul Muttalib.
And Abbas is a young uncle
who is closer to being a brother to
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and to Abu
Sufiyanam al Mahath.
And he tells Al Abbas what happens, and
Abbas comes to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
and
he pleads with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
on behalf of him
and on behalf of,
another man named Abdullah Abu Abu Umayyah.
Abdullah Abu Umayyah
is
is the son of the paternal aunt of
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
He is the one who was standing with
Abu Jahl, and he was egging on Abu
Talib to die upon Kufr. Remember, Abu Jahl
was telling,
Abu Talib, are you on the religion of
Muhammad?
So next to Abu Jahl was this man,
another cousin of the Prophet named Abdullah ibn
Abi Umayyah.
So both of them kind of went to
Abbas
because, you know, his mother is Atika bint
Abdul Muttalib.
So he's a cousin, and
here you have Abu Sufyan who's also a
cousin. He said, Look, can you talk talk
to the Prophet like this is
we want to apologize
for everything that we have done to him.
So
Al Abbas comes to the Prophet saying, You
Rasulullah,
ibn 'Ammik,
wabnuammatika,
your cousin, your paternal cousin
being,
you know, Abu Sufyan
and also Abdullah
ibn Abi Umayyah,
wasi ruka.
And you know, this is your family. And
the Prophet
is saying,
Look,
they'll be forgiven,
but I'm not really interested at this point,
right, and just pretending like none of that
happened. There has to be some level here
of acknowledgement.
And he
says,
he said, as for my cousin Abu Sufyan,
this was the man that attacked my honor
and as for my other cousin, Abdullah Abu
Abu
who will He's the one who said to
me in Mecca what he said. When the
Prophet was crying over
the body of Abu Talib at the time
of death, Abdullah ibn Abi Umayyah mocked him.
And now they're becoming Muslims. So it's like,
okay,
they can become Muslim, but this is
like, what do they expect here? What type
of reception are they expecting after all of
this pain? SubhanAllah, by the way, side note,
'Abdulla Abu Ubayyah
repented and would end up dying shahid in
the Battle of Ta'af.
SubhanAllah. So he actually dies a martyr even
though he was alongside Abu Jahl prompting the
kufr, trying to get Abu Ta'af to say
words of kufr at the time of his
death. Here you have Abu Sufyan, and Abu
Sufyan is still just like, I don't know
what to do.
So anyway,
al Abbas tells Abu Sufyan what happened. Abu
Sufyan says to him,
listen, can you intercede
further?
Can you talk to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam on my behalf? Can you make things
right with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam?
And he says to him, Who
are you going to leave me to? And
he says, Who is that? Al Abbas says,
Listen, it is what it is. I'm not
gonna say to the Prophet any more than
what's been said. But he said, what I
know of the Prophet
is that, look, let the time heal. It's
going to be okay as time goes on.
At this point,
he says
that, I went to Ali
Ali is his brother-in-law and his cousin. Remember,
this is a Hashami affair now.
Faqalali miflidarikh. And he said to me, you
know, very similar things that look it's
it is what it is,
and just give it time. The Prophet SAW
Allahu Alaihi Wasallam will forgive you, but don't
expect this like reception
after all that you did to the Messenger
of Allah without some level of
an acknowledgment.
Right? There has to be something here
after all of this.
As time goes on,
he says to Ali,
or he goes back to Abbas and he
says to him, Listen, if you can't soften
the heart of the Prophet towards me,
then at
least ask the Prophet or
restrain that man from denouncing me, like, see
if the Prophet
can make the companions calm down with me
as well, because the companions saw the way
the Prophet responded to him, and now they
all want a piece of him. Right? They
all kind of want to say something to
him. So the Prophet
gave that to
him, and the uncle of the Prophet SAWS-eleven,
Abu Bakr, anhu, ensured that, look, no one's
gonna harm you. This isn't about anyone harming
you or getting revenge on you.
But time has to go on and there
has to be a level
of acknowledgement here, and there's going to be
some moments of forgiveness here. This is all
moving very quickly.
So he says, then the next day came.
So he says that the women of
Quraysh entered upon the Prophet seeking forgiveness and
amongst them was my wife and the Prophet
forgave them all. No problem whatsoever.
And he says, so I was hoping to
catch a sight of the Prophet
and to see if there was going to
be a little bit of a softening. So
basically, the way that he describes it, every
time I was in the presence of the
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, he softened a little
bit.
But he said that the pain was still
there,
like, it wasn't the same. He wasn't giving
me
that full,
that full look, that full,
you know, that full love that I was
expecting from him. So he says, describing his
own pain, he said, so at that point,
he said that I said to myself
that if it continues this way, I'm just
gonna take my son, Ja'far.
And I'm going to disappear from the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
and I'm going
to,
I'm just gonna go out in the desert
until I die of hunger and thirst.
Like, I'm just I'm gonna get out of
his face. I'm gonna remove myself from the
situation out of all the pain that I
caused to the Messenger of Allah, Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, if things don't change.
So then he says, finally, in the conversation
with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when the
women had said to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam, asked his forgiveness, and the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam forgave them,
said, I came to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam and
I
apologized to the Prophet
and I said, Ashadu Allah illa Allah wa
shadu anna Muhammad
So that was the first time the Prophet
actually heard the Shahadah from his mouth, right?
Like it was it's a little bit different
now. The Prophet listens to him
and he says,
There's no blame on me, O Messenger of
Allah.
Prophet said, la tathribayaa Abu Sufyan. There's no
blame on you, O Abu Sufyan.
And the Prophet
told 'Arab Abu Nabi Talib
that, Go teach your cousin wudu and salah
and basically catch him up to speed on
his Islam. Go take care of your cousin.
So he said,
but I still didn't see the smile of
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And he said,
I wanted so bad for the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam to smile at me. He still
didn't smile at me. Now there is a
direct conversation.
You're forgiven.
Ali, go take care of him. But the
pain is clearly still there. Right?
So then he said, the day of the
Fatiha came,
and he said that I went close to
the Prophet
along with his family on the day of
Fatiha Mecca, the day of the conquest itself,
And he said that every time,
like
his sight towards me started to soften up
Salaizeam. Like you started to see that
the heart was was reopening back up to
me and some of those that childhood was
coming back and all that they had together,
it was getting
softer. But he says,
he said,
I was just hoping for the moment that
he'd smile at me. Like I was waiting
for the smile of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam, and I still didn't get it. And
I knew, SubhanAllah, again that I was grateful
just to be forgiven and to be in
the company of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
but I knew that it was going to
take time.
So he says
that after Fatiuh Makkah,
I came to the Prophet
and I said some poetry to him. SubhanAllah,
all those years his poetry was against the
Messenger of Allah
And he said,
He said that, By my life, I remember
when I carried that banner
to give victory to the army of Allat
over
the army of
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And he says,
He said that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala or
I could not guide myself until someone other
than me guided me
and took care of me
to the same person
who I used to drive out with all
of my might.
And the Prophet said
to me,
Indeed, You drove me out with all of
Your might.
Like, SubhanAllah, You used all of that against
me.
So the poem kind of fell flat, but
okay, you're forgiven. I get it. It's over.
Right? Let it go. You're a Muslim now.
You're one of the Sahaba,
but it's not like the old days yet.
Then, subhanAllah, what happens,
her name comes.
And he said, I wanted to prove to
the Messenger of Allah
that I'm with him now, that I'm back.
Right? I'm his I'm his brother, and I'm
back to him. And you can kinda hear
in his words, he's embarrassed about himself, and
he's he's also realizing, subhanAllah, the forgiveness of
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and the fact
that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam did not
exact any revenge on him.
So he said on the day of Hunayn,
he said when everything was falling apart and
people were fleeing and it got chaotic, because
remember, the Battle of Hunayn, there were a
bunch of traps. So the army of the
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam got hit from all
different directions and it basically got divided into
multiple groups and only a few people around
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam on that day.
Right?
One of them, some of the narrations, Abu
Sufyan ibn Haruf, and here now, Abu Sufyan
ibn Haruf.
And so when Hunayn happens, he says that,
I saw it being chaotic and I wanted
to show the Prophet
that I was serious this time, that I
was going to have his back the way
that I should have had his back
when he first announced his Islam, when he
first announced his prophethood.
So he said
that in the middle of the battle,
when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
was
on his animal and the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam was, you know,
swinging his sword
and he said the Prophet was like a
towering mountain, like the Prophet did not flee
from the battlefield.
And he said, Al Abba
was holding the reins of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam mule and standing to his side.
He said, I went to the other side
of the animal of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
And I held the other side of the
reins, and I started to fight on behalf
of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in the
middle of this battle, because remember they're all
covered up,
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says to Al
Abbas,
who is this man?
Who is this man that's like sticking to
it and who's fighting and who's
who's on the side of the Prophet
And then Abba says,
Abu Sufyan,
your brother Abu Sufyan.
And that's when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
finally
says, like
basically, Alhamdulillah,
you know, Welcome to my brother. May Allah
bless
my brother.
And he said, Go forth and Allah is
with you. And Abu Sufyan says that, I
fought alongside the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and
we fought all the way through the Battle
of Hunayn, and that's where there's an embrace.
Finally, an embrace between the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam and Abu Sufyan ibn Harith at that
moment.
And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says these
words to him that were extremely,
precious to him.
He said to him that, Arju anyakoona khala
fen min Hamza.
I hope now that he's a replacement for
me
for Hamzah, radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu because there was
no person Hamzah, radiAllahu Anhu, was the closest
relative to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and
he was killed in Uhud.
And Hamzah
when
he he was also the foster brother of
the Prophet When he died, it was extremely
painful to the Prophet So when the Prophet
is embracing his brother, like finally he has
him back and it's actually him, he said,
I hope that Allah
gifted me him in place of Hamza
for the pain that was caused to me
from the death of Hamza
And the Prophet
says
about him or you know,
He loved Abu Sufyan.
The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, you know, mentioned
to him or guaranteed him, Al Jannah.
So that Abba said, Have you forgiven him,
You Rasool Allah? I said, I've forgiven him
and I ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to
grant him Al Jannah.
Then you start to see the next chapter
of the story.
So what's it like bringing this man back
who is deeply
sorrowful for the pain that he caused the
Prophet
and introducing him to a Madani society
of strangers that took on the Prophet
in the midst of his great pain.
The Prophet said, Abu Sufyanib al Harif,
sayyidu fityanih aljannah. The Prophet praised him, but
he didn't praise him because of who he
was before all that. You see, when you're
talking about
a lot of those that embraced Islam
in this
episode of Fatiha Mecca,
many of them were very average in their
practice of faith, like they weren't distinguished by
their practice of faith. Amongst them, by the
way, was Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, who we
talked about last week. Like you don't find
narrations of Abu Sufyan bin Harb
in Quran and in tahajjud and in salah
and
you know dedicating himself to the Masjid. You
got these tales,
not these tales, you've got these stories of
him now on the battlefield. Right? That's where
Abu Sufyan was, Ibn Harb.
But this man
takes a different type of turn.
He wants to make up for all that
time
that he was an enemy to the Prophet
and what should have been
in the 1st place. So he comes back
to Madinah,
and the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam now has
completely opened up to him once again.
Because they saw the pain of the Prophet,
now the Sahaba
are honoring him because they see the way
the Prophet, is honoring him and treating him
like his brother once again. The Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam assigns him a pension of a
100
wasks from Khaybar annually and a narration of
30
shares
from it for Jumana,
radiAllahu Anhu, who would outlive him. So he
comes back into Medina and he's being integrated,
reintegrate into the society of Madinah
as the brother of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam, as a deep companion of the Prophet
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, as someone beloved to the
Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, who is
brought to live near the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam,
and what's gonna happen to his life?
Abu Sufyan Al Harif, at that point,
becomes
basically
a person who lives in the masjid
for the rest of his life.
SubhanAllah,
a person who
falls in love with the Quran, so he
becomes distinguished by the Quran,
starts to recite the Quran
day night, and he basically doesn't talk to
anybody.
Kind of becomes a hermit, comes to Madinah,
and imagines, SubhanAllah, suddenly you've got a man
that looks like the Prophet who's walking to
the Masjid,
and the narrations
say
that,
That he would stay in the Masjid, then
he would pray even in the hot summer
all the way until the latest time, and
then he would stay in the Masjid from
Dhuhr al Asr, and he would pray and
he would pray, and he'd recite the Quran,
and his eyes welling with tears, and he
doesn't talk to anybody.
It's kind of comes in
and he was the first person in the
Masjid, the last person to leave it. And
that's where the narration of Aisha
comes. Aisha, the wife of the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam, who's not familiar with all that
history,
Right? She was too young. She wasn't around
when all that was happening. She sees suddenly
this brother of the Prophet
who's coming head down to the Masjid constantly
reciting the Quran,
constantly repenting to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and
Aisha
is kind of astonished by him. And the
Prophet
says, Do you know who that is, O
Aisha?
She says, No, I don't.
And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam introduces
him and says, That's Abu Sifyyan al Bilharf,
ibn Ammi, that's my cousin.
And he's the first person. He's telling Aisha,
he's always the first person to enter the
Masjid
and he's always the last person to leave
the Masjid
and his eyes never leave his sandals.
That's how the Prophet
explains this person to Aisha.
That's my brother of Usafi'an Al Halif. Khalas,
that's it.
He
had a long life
of hurting the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and
now he just wants to make up for
it, and he's immersed in his Ibadah.
If you saw him walking around Madinah,
he's always looking down. He's walking in the
Masjid. He's praying. He's reading Quran. He's leaving
the Masjid. And this man who had this
large personality and was a poet against the
Muslims
to himself completely.
And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
loved him,
treated him with respect and honor, And of
course, the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
did not live long after,
that, you know,
that time
when he would come back from Fatiha Mecca.
And when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
passed away,
I mean, you can imagine now the pain
of Abu Sufyanar al Harith knowing that he
missed out on
that bulk of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam's
life in Islam. And he never had that
chance to really support the Prophet
beyond the battle of
Hunayn. And you can find some of
the most beautiful poetry,
you know, from Abu Sufyan for the Prophet
at the time of
his death,
he says,
It's just a beautiful
saying that, you know, I spent my entire
night in grief, weeping over the greatest disaster,
the greatest tragedy that ever hit the face
of the earth. The death
of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and the
saddest night in history is the night that
it was announced
that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
had passed away.
So the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
dies
and
all you have is this man now who's
coming to the Masjid, coming out of the
Masjid,
maintaining this Ibadah
throughout the time of Abu Bakr as Siddiq
he maintains this lifestyle
and then during the khilafa of Umar al
Khattab he goes out to Hajj. And when
he goes out to Hajj, the barber, as
he was shaving his head,
he struck what was like a cyst in
the head of Abu Sufyan al Haraf.
So you know the blade hit it and
it caused him an infection.
So he basically gets sick from Hajj
during the beginning of the khilaf of Umar
and he comes back to Madinah, and eventually
the sickness from the infection of his haircut
in Mina
is what's going to cause his death. And
that's why they actually would refer
to him as a shahid, the very unique
case of shahada.
But here's one of the most unique stories
that you'll find from the companions of the
Prophet
When Abu Sufyan
felt like he was about to die,
people saw him doing something very interesting.
He basically went to the batir, the graveyard
next to the grave of the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam where the companions are buried,
and he dug his own grave.
So he's the companion who dug his own
grave.
He dug his own grave, and he was
still healthy enough to where it looked like
he had a chance at recovery.
But he went to the Baqir, and he
dug his own grave,
and people were surprised,
like, what is it, right? What are you
doing?
And he said,
So, O Allah, I don't wanna live after
the death
of the Prophet and my brother any longer.
Let me follow
in their ranks. Let me join the Prophet
and my brother. His brother Nofal had just
passed away shortly before that. So basically now
he's saying, at this point now, I just
want to be with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
Right? And he went and he fashioned his
graves. How imagine walking into the Baqir and
seeing a Sahabi
digging his own grave and saying, I'm gonna
be buried here.
3 days later,
he's laying in his home,
and his family comes around him,
and his family is weeping.
And he says to them,
So don't cry over me because he said,
I swear by Allah that I have not
sinned from the day that I became a
Muslim.
So you don't have to worry about me.
I'm okay, Alhamdulillah,
because I did not commit any wrong since
the day that I accepted Islam. And SubhanAllah,
indeed he died in Al Madinah
and was buried. And if you go to
the area,
of the family of the Prophet SAW, it's
actually the closest area of the Baqir to
the Prophet
SAW,
you'll find
the grave of Abu Sufyan ibn Harith is
within that section
of the closest relatives to the Messenger of
Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And Omar Khattab
was the one who led his Salatul Janazah
And I can tell that a lot of
you are like,
how come we never heard of this man?
And what do we make of the response
of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to him
and his ending? SubhanAllah,
I want you to actually appreciate for a
moment
that when you look at the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam
and you look at the mercy that was
in his heart and you look at the
way that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam dealt
with the different people in his own life,
that when you hear Allah
telling you that if you are harmed, then
know that those who came before you were
harmed, and we know how much it hurts
you
to hear them say about you what they
say, know that you will not be hurt
in the way that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam was hurt by Abu Sufyan al Hadith.
So that's one thing. Number 2, the fact
that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam still forgave
him. Number 3, that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi
Wasallam still,
Actually,
witnessed for him and guaranteed for him Aljannah
after all of that that he did to
the Prophet
Number 4,
the way that the man, subhanAllah,
dedicates his life
to the Masjid of the Prophet
to the Quran
in those last days and then dies in
that state of repentance.
It shows you, SubhanAllah, that there's the tragedy
of sibling rivalry that exists from Cain and
Abel to Yusuf and his brothers, and now
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
and a very close brother of his. And
it shows you that if it takes you
time to forgive someone, subhanAllah, after hurt, that
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam also felt deep
hurt and deep pain
from his own brother.
But it also shows you the great reward
of that at the end of the day.
And this is, subhanAllah, a man,
Abu Sufyanam al Haraf radiAllahu ta'ala An, who
had a good ending and who died
in the way that he should have started
in that mission alongside the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam. We ask Allah
to be pleased with him and to be
pleased with the companions
and to send his peace and blessings upon
our Messenger of Allah
and his family and his companions, Allahumma Ameen.
InshaAllah Ta'ala, next week, we're going to talk
about Hakim Nuhizam, radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, another one
of those people that was close to the
Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam before Islam, but held
out and embraced Islam
at the very end.