Omar Suleiman – The Prophets The Messiah And The Promised Land Ep. 3 Al-Aqsa Series
AI: Summary ©
The region of Jerusalem is a place where shari'ah, the holy temple, is occurring. Isaiah A.s.'s actions were pursued by his uncle's uncle and he was given the opportunity to be a princess. The holy temple is a place of sh possibilities and the holy temple is a place of sh possibilities.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
A'udhu billahi minash shaitanir rajeem.
Bismillahir rahmanir raheem.
Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen.
Wa salatu was salamu ala rasooli al kareem
wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een.
Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen.
I want to welcome you all back to
the third session of this series on Al
-Aqsa.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
liberate it and to make us amongst those
who liberate it and are amongst those who
are chosen to pray within its blessed sanctuary.
Allahumma ameen.
SubhanAllah, I was reflecting just as I was
preparing for this lesson that who would have
known that in the last session when we
spoke about the blessings of As-Sham as
a whole and what's included in As-Sham
that we would be seeing unfold in front
of us what is unfolding right now.
And so we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala to bless all of the people of
As-Sham.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
shower His mercy upon them.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
dissolve all of those that wish them harm.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to guide towards victory all of those who
wish them well.
Allahumma ameen.
Tonight's session is going to be a bit
longer.
We'll see how much we can get through
inshaAllah ta'ala.
But it's an incredibly important session because we're
going to be speaking about the Prophets and
the Promised Lands.
And what I want us to do is
not walk away from tonight with a dry
history lesson as to how all of these
Prophets dwelled within this land.
But instead to take the qualities that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala emphasizes of those who
were deserving of the Promised Lands from the
followers of the Prophets.
May Allah send His peace and blessings upon
them all.
And before I go through the chronological order
and how Jerusalem comes to be through the
lives of the Prophets of Allah, I want
you to just reflect for a moment.
Who is Israel in the Quran?
Who is Israel?
Ya'qub alayhi as-salam.
And subhanAllah just think about how remarkable it
is that the story of Bani Israel, the
children of Israel, literally starts off with the
throwing of an innocent child into a well
where he will presumably die of starvation or
be picked up by someone else after which
he ends up in the land of Egypt
only to become elevated to a king and
to absorb authority of that land.
Think about the irony of that, that this
is the first story of Bani Israel in
the truest sense, is the casting of their
brother into a well and trying to rid
themselves of a brother whom they partly hated
because he was from another mother.
And then I want you to think about
this chronology of these three surahs in the
Quran.
In Surat al-Isra, Allah takes the Prophet
sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam from the desert of
Mecca to Jerusalem after the perseverance of the
Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam and a small
group of righteous companions.
Allah takes our Messenger sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam
from the desert of Mecca to Jerusalem.
And that is in part a reward and
a relief for a righteous group of people
that persevered under the most difficult of circumstances.
The next surah is what?
Surat al-Kahf.
And in Surat al-Kahf, Musa alayhi sallAllahu
alayhi wa sallam is wandering in the desert
outside of Jerusalem because of the sins of
his people.
And so you have a Prophet being brought
from a desert to Jerusalem.
You have a Prophet in the next surah
being barred from Jerusalem because of the quality
of his people.
And then in Surah Maryam, Zakariya alayhi sallAllahu
alayhi wa sallam is making dua in Al
-Aqsa that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bring
forth a righteous generation.
And then Maryam alayhi sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam
comes bringing her blessed child, baby Isa alayhi
sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam to the courtyard of
Al-Aqsa.
And that blessed baby gives the glad tidings
in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa of a
blessed Prophet to come, Muhammad sallAllahu alayhi wa
sallam.
Just think about how remarkable those three surahs
tie in and how the story of Jerusalem
is being told to you through the stories
of those Prophets.
Now I'm gonna break this down inshaAllah ta
'ala, and I don't want you to focus
too much on the dates, the times, the
exact years.
For those of you that are note-takers,
and I know that Shaykh Abu Hurayra just
gave you a lesson on note-taking, but
mashaAllah I still see everyone's doing mental note
-taking.
So I don't know if it's just that
there's something going on here or that you're
just enjoying the blessed weather today.
But I don't want you to focus on
the numbers, I don't want you to focus
on the years.
InshaAllah ta'ala my plan is to write
this all out in a book bi-idhnillahi
ta'ala, within a year bi-idhnillahi ta
'ala.
And I'm saying that to give myself the
motivation to finish it on time inshaAllah ta
'ala.
But I want you to focus on the
way that this cycle of victory and viciousness
has continued from the earliest moments of traceable
history.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, إِنَّ
اللَّهَ اصْطَفَ آدَمَ وَنُوحًا وَآلَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَآلَ عِمْرَانَ
عَلَى الْعَالَمِينَ That verily Allah chose Adam and
Nuh and the family of Ibrahim and the
family of Imran upon all of the worlds.
And all four of them have a centrality
in Jerusalem.
And so we started off with Adam Alayhi
Salaam and his son Shief Alayhi Salaam establishing
the beginnings of what would be Al-Aqsa
forty years after Al-Masjid Al-Haram in
Mecca.
The Ark of Noah lands right at the
coast of Asham, Nuh Alayhi Salaam.
And then Ali Ibrahim and Ali Imran are
centered between Jerusalem and of course in the
case of Ismail Alayhi Salaam and Hajar Alayhi
Salaam, Mecca.
But primarily in Jerusalem.
And so you recap the very beginning and
subhanAllah what's incredible is that when you look
at the history of that land, the earliest
recorded civilization to inhabit Asham are the Natufians.
And the Natufians, and we're talking about ten,
fifteen thousand years as you go back, the
Natufians were recorded to be a civilization upon
Tawheed, upon monotheism.
Or everything about them indicates that they were
a monotheistic people.
So even the earliest recorded civilization in Asham,
in the Levant, is one of Tawheed, one
of monotheism.
And so it starts with Adam Alayhi Salaam.
And then after that, around the third millennium
BC, before Christ, not before COVID.
I know there's BC before COVID and AC
which is after COVID.
Before Christ, BC.
These blessed lands experience a flourishing civilization that
leads to this massive construction.
And the first that we can record are
the Canaanites.
Canaan, the Canaanites.
And the Canaanites established the land of Canaan.
They are Arab by ethnicity.
And so if you're going by history, the
first recorded inhabitants of the land are indeed
Arabs.
But of course, we go by faith, not
by nationality or blood.
But if you want to use that as
your metric of claim to the land, it's
a Canaanite civilization.
They spoke the most ancient form of Arabic
language.
They're actually the ones who named the most
ancient cities of Palestine.
Akka is named by them.
Haifa is named by them.
Yaffa is named by them.
And some even record Gaza as being named
by the Canaanites in some capacity.
And so they're the first civilization there to
name the cities and to establish themselves.
Around 2,000 years BC, you have where
the story gets specific.
And that is with Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam.
And Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam is fleeing from a
Babylonian tyrant named Nimrud.
Nimrud establishes the city of Babylon.
And subhanAllah, the first to destroy the city
of Jerusalem, to destroy Al-Aqsa will be
the Babylonians.
And Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam is fleeing from Nimrud,
this arrogant tyrant who believes he has control
of the heavens and the earth.
And subhanAllah, if you think about the aura
of invincibility of a tyrant, especially those that
the war criminals of today display and boast
about proudly, look at the language and the
rhetoric and attitude of Nimrud in the Qur
'an.
When he says, انا احيوا اميت, I give
life and I give death.
Watch this.
He brings an innocent man and he kills
him.
He brings another man and he spares him.
He says, see, I give life and I
give death.
The arrogant tyrant who Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam flees
from and ends up in Jerusalem.
Now subhanAllah, what's really interesting is that do
we have anything in the Qur'an about
the da'wah of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam to
Palestine, to the people of Jerusalem?
Do we?
You can guess, by the way.
Just give me some interaction.
And if you say yes, you need to
justify it.
Bring the evidence.
We actually don't.
We don't have any recorded history of the
da'wah of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam to the
people of that land.
The implication is that either they were not
hostile to the ways of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam,
or that they accepted the ways of Ibrahim
Alayhi Salaam, or that there was some sort
of alignments.
But there certainly isn't a hostility towards Ibrahim
Alayhi Salaam.
We see it in Iraq.
We see it with the Babylonians.
We see it in Egypt, obviously.
Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam is fleeing Egypt.
But we don't see that in Palestine.
And Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam settles in the land
of Palestine.
And by the way, subhanAllah, look how Allah
blessed this man Alayhi Salaam.
SubhanAllah, I'm just leaving the haram, and we're
talking about the makings of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam.
Not only did Allah give him Ismail through
Hajar, and then Ishaq, and then after Ishaq,
Ya'qub, and he's getting to see a
flourishing civilization.
He had many more children.
In fact, we know that he married again
after Sarah, and he had at least six
children Alayhi Salaam, who are buried alongside him
in Al-Khalil.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us
to have that place once again, and protect
the sacred land of the regular incursions there
in Al-Khalil.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed Ibrahim
Alayhi Salaam to settle there, and to expand
himself within that land.
Now there's this curious case if you're reading
biblical narration.
And of course, our approach to the Isra
'iliyat as Muslims is we don't affirm them
with certainty, nor do we deny them with
certainty.
We take what aligns and can fill in
some gaps as enrichment.
And if something contradicts, then we immediately understand
that this is something that was innovated or
added later on.
But there's an interesting figure named Malki Zadik.
In Arabic, if there are any Arab Christian
converts, I actually met one very recently.
Malki Zadik, a righteous king, would literally be
the name of this figure, who supposedly is
in that land prior to Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam.
Now biblically, he starts to get assigned almost
godlike powers, like a divine figure that exists
in that land, and that helps Ibrahim Alayhi
Salaam, or helps solidify the Abrahamic way that
is there.
And I'm not going to get too far
into this, but for those of you, subhanAllah,
who want to read about this, Sheikh Safar
Al-Hawali wrote a very powerful article called,
سَبَبُ إِفْتِرَاضِ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ شَخْسِيَةَ مَلْكِ صَادِقٍ So,
the reason by which this figure was propped
up in Judeo-Christian thought.
And one of the things that he mentions
is that this gives a supposed divine connection
to the land prior to Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam.
And that we don't have any indication of
this figure in Islam.
He may or may not have existed.
Certainly, there seems to be some alignment, but
the idea of a transcendent human being, someone
that has godlike features, a high priest from
the heavens, doesn't add up to anything that
would align with the aqidah of Islam.
Generally speaking though, there is tawheed in the
land.
Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam refines it in the most
beautiful of ways.
He's not facing hostility in the lands of
Palestine.
Lut Alayhi Salaam is of course facing hostility
in the outskirts of Palestine where the modern
-day Dead Sea is, somewhere around that area.
Where the people of Lut Alayhi Salaam, the
nephew of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam has proceeded in
his da'wah.
Why is this significant to start off with?
Because whoever then has the greatest claim to
Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam, has the greatest claim to
all that is truly Ibrahimi, everything that is
Abrahamic.
And the Qur'an emphasizes who has the
greatest claim to Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam.
And Allah Azzawajal makes it a point to
constantly emphasize, الَّذِينَ التَّبَعُوا Those who follow him
have the greatest claim to him.
Those who follow his ways, those who follow
him in creed and character, those who embody
his way as individuals, as institutions, have the
greatest right to Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam.
He is not someone who is claimed by
lineage.
He's someone who had a spiritual lineage.
And that's how he is claimed.
After Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam, you have Ya'qub
Alayhi Salaam.
Approximately 1800 years BC, before Christ.
Some of the scholars of tafsir mentioned that
he is the one who names it Baitul
Maqdis.
Names the area Baitul Maqdis.
And Allah Azzawajal knows best.
But he certainly continues upon the way of
his father and of his grandfather.
And if you look at Surah Al-Baqarah
where Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions the
changing of the qiblah, mentions the turning of
the page of the covenant, it is the
only story of prophets where you have prophets
that are emphasizing to their children ما تعبدون
من بعدي?
What are you going to worship after me?
The transfer of the covenant of tawheed from
generation to generation.
It's actually the only prophet whose death is
spoken about in the Quran in this way.
His last words in this case is Ibrahim
Alayhi Salaam to his children, Ya'qub Alayhi
Salaam to his children.
To emphasize the importance of staying upon Islam,
of staying upon faith, the oneness of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And so Ya'qub Alayhi Salaam imparts the
spiritual importance and maintains the way of his
grandfather and the forefather of faith, Ibrahim Alayhi
Salaam.
Now historically speaking, once you get into Ya
'qub and then Yusuf, one of the things
that is happening in the background is that
these were the years that were considered to
be the golden years of the Levant in
the Bronze Age.
The golden years of Asham in the Bronze
Age.
And so essentially the Canaanites are persevering in
that land.
They're prospering in that land.
And you have a similar ruling structure that
eventually spreads between Egypt and Palestine.
And historians term this as the rule of
the Hyksos.
The rule of the Hyksos.
And that's actually why they mention the ease
of travel at that time period between Egypt
and Palestine.
Because generally speaking, the Hyksos who are the
Easterners, who are spreading through the land, expanding
between the land of Asham and Egypt, are
allowing for the ease of travel between the
two places.
And that is why it is easy for
Ya'qub Alayhi Salaam's children to travel between
both places.
And for commerce to exist between those two
places.
1700 BC approximately, Yusuf Alayhi Salaam rises to
prominence in Egypt.
And the family migrates from Palestine to Egypt.
And this sets the stage for the eventual
return of Bani Israel to the land of
Palestine.
And this is where you now come to.
About 1250 BC, enter Musa Alayhi Salaam.
Musa Alayhi Salaam grows up amongst his people,
Bani Israel in Egypt.
But now the rule has transitioned to a
pharaonic rule.
Not to get into a tangent, subhanAllah, but
one of the most powerful proofs of the
Qur'an is that the Qur'an accurately
does not call the pre-pharaoh rule a
pharaon.
Whereas the Bible makes this mistake.
And historians will point to this in Ijaz,
the historical accuracy of the Qur'an.
So a pharaonic rule rises in Egypt.
Bani Israel has moved now to Egypt.
And they are slaves in the land of
Egypt.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives them
victory over their pharaoh.
And they are right at the gates of
Jerusalem.
And this is where Musa Alayhi Salaam says,
يَا قَوْمُ اذْكُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ جَعَلَ
فِيكُمْ أَنبِيَاءٌ وَجَعَلَكُمْ مُلُوكًا O my people, remember
the favor of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
when He placed amongst you prophethood and kingship.
And the scholars mentioned that Musa Alayhi Salaam
was speaking about the future, speaking about the
potential amongst you, that He has not just
promised you nubuwwah, that He has taken you
from being slaves and taken you to a
place of kingship.
That you should not remain enslaved mentally to
Fir'aun and his power and his tyranny.
You have in you what Allah Azawajal has
placed in your determination, nubuwwah and mulk, prophethood
and kingdom.
يَا قَوْمُ اذْكُرُوا الْأَرْضَ الْمُقَدَّسَةَ الَّتِي كَتَبَ اللَّهُ
لَكُمْ O my people, enter into the holy
land that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
written for you.
And unfortunately, their minds were too small, their
hearts were too weak.
They had not escaped the spiritual shackles of
Fir'aun even though Musa Alayhi Salaam let
them out of the physical * of Fir
'aun.
And so they said, يَا مُوسَىٰ إِنَّ فِيهَا
قَوْمٌ جَبَّارِينَ There are powerful people that are
there and we will not enter it, حَتَّى
يَخْرُجُوا مِنْهَا until they leave that land.
How many people were with Musa Alayhi Salaam
to give you a visual?
He had about 600,000 people with him.
All of them were unwilling to enter into
Jerusalem with the exception for two of them
that said that they would stand by Musa
Alayhi Salaam.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just showed these
people the power of destruction of Fir'aun
by drowning Fir'aun and his army in
the seas.
He parted the seas to save them from
a far more brutal regime, from something far
more vicious.
But their faith had already gone back both
in terms of their tawheed, in terms of
their monotheism, constructing the golden calf, as well
as failing to believe in the power of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And so they refused.
And you can imagine how frustrating this was
to Musa Alayhi Salaam.
What do I have to do for you?
The seas were parted for you, an army
was drowned in front of your eyes, and
now you're saying, اِنَّ فِيهَا قَوْنْ جَبَّارِينَ Who
is more jabbar, as far as tyrants are
concerned, than Fir'aun?
But Allah spared you.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala saved you.
And so in this case, for 40 years
now, they have to wander in the deserts.
And this is what Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala mentions, when Musa Alayhi Salaam says, لَا
أَمْلِكُ إِلَى نَفْسِي وَأَخِي I cannot control anyone
but me and my brother.
It is me and my brother, and then
the fatah, the young man that is with
him.
I have no control over these people.
فَفْرُقْ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَ الْقَوْمِ الْفَاسِقِينَ Separate me from
an evil people.
By the way, in that is a ishara
once again, a sign once again.
You don't claim Moses on the basis of
lineage.
It's a spiritual lineage, a righteousness.
He said, separate me from these people.
I am no longer of them.
They are no longer of me.
I want nothing to do with these people.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala answered by
making it مُحَرَّمَةٌ عَلِيمٌ أَرْبَعِينَ سَنَةٌ Forbidden for
40 years.
And this is what's known as سُنَّةُ الْإِسْتِبْدَاد
The sunnah of replacing a people that are
unworthy with a people that are worthy.
اللهم استعملنا ولا تستبدلنا Oh Allah, use us,
do not replace us.
Because what we see happening in Jerusalem right
now, we know what Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala has written in the future.
But the question we have to ask ourselves,
and I want you to keep asking yourself
as you go through the qualities, are we
worthy of this land?
Are we worthy of this victory from Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala?
And the scholars of tafsir mentioned that all
of the people of Musa a.s. were
elderly at this point.
The youngest one amongst them was 20.
And the reason why Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala gave it 40 years is that this
would be enough of a time for a
purge to happen, for a new generation to
grow amongst them that may be worthy of
what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has written
for them.
So for 40 years, they are in the
deserts.
No one knows who they are.
They have no contact with the outside world.
And that's why the ayat in Surah Al
-Baqarah come, لا يقتل بعضهم بعضا.
Not to kill amongst yourselves.
The rules of how they should behave with
each other as they reside now in the
deserts.
And Musa a.s. as we mentioned earlier,
is himself prevented from that victory, or from
seeing that entrance, that mighty entrance in the
land, not because of any wickedness on his
part, but only a physical barrier between him
and Jerusalem.
فسأل الله أن يدنيه من الأرض المقدسة رمية
بحجر.
So he asked Allah to digest the stones
thrown away from Jerusalem.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allowed him
that.
And he is buried تحت الكثير الأحمر under
a red dune very close to the gates
of Jerusalem.
Now this is where the story starts to
heat up.
1200 B.C. In Surah Al-Kahf, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions the story of
Musa a.s. and Al-Khadr a.s.
Just want you to start to tie stories
together.
When did the story of Musa and Al
-Khadr happen?
It happened during that time of Exodus.
During that time of wandering in the desert.
Which makes it that much more profound because
the story of Musa and Al-Khadr is
a story of Qadr.
Why do good things happen to bad people,
and bad things happen to good people?
And the workings of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, of His ajab, of His divine decree.
And the greatest thing on the concern of
Musa a.s. as far as the things
that are happening is the forbiddance of even
the righteous from entering into Jerusalem because of
the actions of the wicked.
But Allah has a divine scheme.
Allah mentions in Surah Al-Kahf, the fatah
of Musa a.s. The young man that
was with Musa a.s. Who was that
young man?
Have I already lost you all?
What time is it?
I'm gonna try to test how long I
can go with you all.
Once I see you wear out all together,
I'm gonna cut the lesson.
We'll continue next week inshaAllah.
Who is the fatah with Musa a.s.?
Who's the young man with him?
Yusha ibn Nun, the Prophet Joshua a.s.
SubhanAllah, just like how when the Prophet shalallahu
alaihi wa sallam stood on Safa, it was
the young Ali radiyallahu ta'ala anhu that
said, Ya Rasulullah, I will support you even
if everyone else turns their backs on you.
Yusha ibn Nun was a believing young man.
The young man who looked around and said,
What's wrong with you people?
Of course we'll support a Nabi of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And Allah azza wa jal rewarded him by
including him amongst the anbiya.
And so he was inducted into the legion
of prophets with Musa and Harun.
And now Yusha ibn Nun, the righteous fatah.
And this is where the lessons start to
pour in.
What stopped the people of Musa a.s.
from entering into Jerusalem was their lack of
faith.
And that lack of faith translated into cowardice.
They had no courage because of da'af
al-yaqeen, because of the weakness of their
certainty.
So cowardice had overcome them.
And that is the most severe form of
hypocrisy in that regard.
Allah tells you to go forth, and you
don't believe in the power of Allah, and
that's why you don't go forth.
That's the worst type of holding back.
See, different people hold back for different reasons.
But to hold back from a place of
disbelief is the worst form of holding back.
That I don't believe that Allah gives victory.
And if you don't believe that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala gives, يَعِزُّ مَن يَشَاءُ وَيَذِلُّ
مَن يَشَاءُ That Allah azza wa jal gives
honor to whom He wants and He debases
whom He wants.
Then that's the worst form of holding back.
That's the people of Musa alayhi as-salam.
Let's go to what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wasallam told us about, Yusha ibn Nun alayhi
as-salam.
And this is in Sahih al-Bukhari.
Abu Hurairah radiyallahu ta'ala anhu narrates that
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, غَزَى نَبِيٌ
مِنَ الْأَنبِيَاءِ فَقَالَ لِقَوْمِهِ That a prophet from
amongst his prophets went forth in battle, and
he said to his people, pause here, Ibn
Hajar rahimullah narrates that this is if you
piece the Prophet's stories together, this is Yusha
ibn Nun.
That Nabiyun al-Anbiya here is Yusha ibn
Nun entering into Jerusalem.
Now leading the children, the worthy children in
that sunnah of istibdad that have been switched
out towards Jerusalem.
But look at what he says to his
people.
This was the announcement of Yusha to the
people.
He said to them, لَا يَتْبَعْنِي رَجُلٌ مَلَكَ
بُضْعَ امْرَأَةٍ وَهُوَ يُرِيدُ أَن يَبْنِيَ بِهَا وَلَمَّا
يَبْنِي بِهَا He said, let not someone who
has just gotten married and wishes to consummate
his marriage but has not yet done so,
follow me.
Why?
It starts to make sense when you follow
the rest of the hadith.
He said, and do not وَلَا أَحَدٌ بَنَى
بُيُوتًا وَلَمْ يَرْفَعْ سُقُوفَهَا and not let anyone
follow me who is building a house but
has not yet put the roof on his
house.
وَلَا رَجُلٌ اشْتَرَى غَنَمًا او خَلِفَاتٍ وَهُوَ يَنْطَذِرُ
وِلَادَهَا He said, and let not anyone follow
me who has bought a sheep or some
pregnant she-camels and he is expecting them
to produce young.
Very interesting.
He said, if you're one of these people,
stay back.
Why?
Because the second type of ضعف اليقين, of
certainty here, is someone who's too attached to
this world.
Nothing that was mentioned here is inherently haram.
But I want people who go forth and
aren't being held back by still being tied
to this world.
I want people that have overcome the distraction
of this world.
See, there are people that believe in Allah
SWT, believe in His power, but they're distracted
by the allure of this world.
And Yusha ibn Nun is saying that if
you're still stuck in the middle of these
things, then I can't have you with me.
I need people that are singularly focused on
the pleasure of Allah SWT right now.
Incredible, subhanAllah.
And so he went forth, the Prophet ﷺ,
فَغَزَ فَدَنَا مِنَ الْقَرْيَةِ that he came close.
And then as he approached the time, he
approached it at صلاة العصر أو قريبا من
ذلك or close to صلاة العصر.
He approached this town, and it's presumably Jerusalem,
at the time of عصر.
And just as he looked up at the
sun as it was setting, قَالَ لِلشَّمْسِ إِنَّكِ
مَأْمُورًا وَأَنَا مَأْمُورًا You, O sun, are commanded
by Allah, and I too am commanded by
Allah.
اللهم حبسها علينا فحبست حتى فتح الله علينا
O Allah, hold it back.
Hold back the sun.
And so Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى held back
the sun until Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى granted
him victory on his hands.
And he is the man that the Prophet
صلى الله عليه وسلم mentioned that the sun
has never stopped for a man besides يوشى
عبد النون as he was to conquer بيت
المقدس.
Allah held it back for six days until
he completed the mission.
By the way, subhanAllah, I always wonder, and
this is of the mysteries that Allah عز
و جل leaves in the Qur'an, perhaps
so that you don't become obsessed with the
details.
After Musa found Al-Khadr, what happened to
Yusha?
What happened to the Fata?
And it's in the same spirit of that
they will say خمسة, they will say there
are five or six or seven.
These details belong to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى,
but certainly what Musa عليه السلام gained of
an understanding of the قدر of Allah سُبْحَانَهُ
وَ تَعَالَى and divine nature would have been
transplanted back into the Fata of Yusha عبدالنون
عليه السلام who understands Allah commands, Allah decrees,
we go forth.
And so the qualities are not just to
believe in the power of Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ
تَعَالَى and to develop توكل, to develop the
trust in Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى, but also
the quality of not being distracted by the
allure of this world as you pursue the
eternity of Jannah.
We also know from the Messenger of Allah
سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى that none of those who
worshipped the Baqarah, who worshipped the calf, were
amongst those who Allah عز و جل allowed
to enter Jerusalem with Yusha عبدالنون.
That this was a different generation, a smaller
generation of righteous people, the children of some
of those who disobeyed, which shows you the
possibility of redemption in the children of those
who disobeyed.
But Allah عز و جل granted them victory,
and as Imam At-Tabari رحمه الله and
others narrate that Yusha عبدالنون died at the
age of 127 after defeating seven tribes, and
he's believed to be buried in Asalt in
Al-Urdun today, in Jordan today.
Story should be over now, right?
But it's always the same cycle.
Allah grants the righteous generation victory, and then
they disobey Allah again.
Allah sends them Hizqil, Ilyas, Ruzayr, prophet after
prophet after prophet to remind them to come
back to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى, but wickedness
overcomes them again, and in their prosperity, they
develop spiritual poverty, and they move away from
Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى.
Then Allah sends Samuel, the Prophet Samuel عليه
السلام.
And Samuel is asked by Bani Israel who
have now been run out once again, despised
once again, diminished once again, send us a
king that we can fight behind and reclaim
our glory.
And Allah sends Talut, Talut عليه السلام.
Talut comes forth, chosen by Samuel because of
his righteousness, and the same people reject him
because he's not from the elite tribes, nor
is he elite in wealth.
Does it sound familiar?
Think about Quraysh when they saw the Prophet
صلى الله عليه وسلم, or Bani Qurayza, and
Qaynuqa, and Nadhir, and Madinah when they saw
the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, like him?
Now the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was
from the most noble of lineage, but why
not us?
And he's not rich.
He doesn't have the glory of a king,
the embellishments of a king.
He's different.
Talut was poor, and he was from the
descendants of Binyamin عليه السلام.
SubhanAllah, the irony of how it just travels.
Yusuf and Binyamin from a different mother, and
so they were put to the side.
He's from Binyamin.
But Allah عز و جل describes him as
بَسْطَطً فِي الْعِلْمِ وَالْجِسْمِ that Allah gave him
tremendous knowledge and tremendous strength.
And if you want victory, you follow a
man of faith, a man of knowledge, a
man of strength that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has
chosen.
And Allah عز و جل even gave an
ayah, just as He gave an ayah to
the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.
Ayah to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.
And that ayah was al-Tabut.
The Tabut was a casket of sorts that
had some of the belongings of Musa عليه
السلام and Harun عليه السلام.
And they used to keep them for barakah,
for blessing.
And the enemies who had now spread through
the land under Jalut, Goliath, the Philistines who
by the way have nothing to do with
Palestine and the Arabs.
But Goliath spreads corruption through the land, implores
a very pharaonic way of dealing with Bani
Israel.
يُذَبِّحُونَ أَبْنَاءَكُمْ وَيَسْتَحِيُونَ نِسَاءَكُمْ Once again killing
children, wreaking corruption, beating them back into their
corners.
Allah سبحانه وتعالى restores the Tabut back to
Talut in a divine fashion.
And so the angels bring the Tabut from
the seizure of Jalut to Talut.
From Goliath to Saul to Talut.
And that is a sign of Allah سبحانه
وتعالى's blessing.
And it's a sign that Allah will send
the Malaika, will send the angels to give
you victory.
Allah عز و جل will propel you to
victory so long as you remain upon that
way.
Talut goes forward.
Some of the narrations of Tafsir mention about
30,000 men.
The army of Jalut, of Goliath, is anywhere
from a quarter million to a half a
million.
Significantly larger army and mighty in strength, huge
in size, fully equipped with all of the
military equipment that was necessary at the time.
And Talut goes forth with divine providence.
And it was here that Allah عز و
جل sends another test.
The test of sincerity.
And sincerity shows in attrition.
Think about this.
Like go back to Musa عليه السلام's people
who were not worthy.
And then Yusha عليه السلام saying like, I
can't have you if you're still being pulled.
And now the greatest test of sincerity and
courage and yaqeen and certainty is attrition.
Which is what?
That after a long journey, striving in the
desert, they arrive at the Jordan River.
And Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى mentions that Talut
says to them, إِنَّ اللَّهَ مُبْتَرِيكُمْ بِنَهَمٍ Allah
is testing you with this river.
Do not drink from this river.
That's the test.
The test of attrition.
What made the Sahaba so special in battle
was that they always had that extra push
of iman that the other side could not
understand.
That always allowed them to propel forward at
the very end.
That attrition, that resilience that Allah describes, that
the Prophet ﷺ describes, the people of Gaza
today, Al-Ta'if Al-Mansurah today, the
saved group today.
That they push to the end.
And so you're thirsty.
And the lesson is don't drink from the
water because that's the order.
Why?
Don't ask why.
Follow the rules, follow the commands.
And unfortunately, شَرِبُوا مِنْهُ إِلَّا قَلِيلَ مِنْهُمْ Almost
all of them drank from the river.
And so how many graduated from that test
of anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000
men?
How many of them graduated?
Anyone know?
Alhamdulillah, you're either learning or you're asleep then.
It's actually a hadith which shows you, subhanAllah,
the divine transfer here.
Al-Bara'a radiAllahu ta'ala says, حَدَّثَنِي
أَصْحَابُ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمٍ مِنْ مَنْ
شَهِدَ بَدْرٍ That the companions of the Prophet
ﷺ who witnessed Badr said to me, أَنَّهُمْ
كَانُوا عِدَّةَ أَصْحَابِ طَالُوتِ أَلَّذِينَ جَازُوا مَعَهُ النَّهَرِ
That they were the same number as the
army of Talut that passed the test of
the river.
And that is, of course, in this case,
بِضْعَةَ عَشْرَ وَثَلَاثَ مِئَة That 310 and some,
and we know that the people of Badr
were 313 approximately.
The sahaba in Badr, the best of this
ummah were the people of Badr.
And they were 313.
And the sahaba are saying that we are
the same number as the best that were
purified.
That got to march forth towards Jerusalem.
I read that hadith and it blew my
mind.
It really did, subhanAllah, when you think about
it.
Like how the divine promise keeps on coming
back over and over and over again.
Talut with Badr, 313 sincere people than 30
,000 men whose hearts cannot be trusted.
Because that's where victory comes.
And remember when Jibril a.s. says, what
do you say about Ashabu Badr, Ahl Badr,
the people of Badr amongst you, the companions
of the Prophet ﷺ said, they're the best
of us.
And Jibril a.s. said, and they're the
best of the angels.
And here 313 men were the only men
that were worthy from the army of Talut.
And he continues, and he says, مَا جَاوَزَ
مَعَهُ النَّهْرَ إِلَّا مُؤْمِنُ That no one passed
the river with Talut except for a true
believer.
And no one stood with the Prophet ﷺ
in Badr except for a true believer.
There were no hypocrites amongst the people of
Badr.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave them a
decisive victory and of the most righteous of
those that followed.
You know there's a scene in Badr before
the battle, the two Mu'ads tapping on
the shoulder of the senior companions, Sa'd ibn
Abi Waqas, Abd al-Rahman ibn Auf, and
they're saying, which one of those Abu Jahl?
We're ready to go fight him.
Come on man, these are the people that
were with little kids that show up on
the day of Badr and say, we're ready?
And that begged their parents to go out
and to be alongside the Prophet ﷺ?
A young man arises from the army of
Talut.
And he's a young man from Bethlehem, from
Bethlehem.
And he has righteous parents.
Who is this young man?
Dawud ﷺ.
The father of Dawud ﷺ permits the rest
of the kids to go, but he doesn't
want Dawud to go.
Dawud insists on going forth and joining the
army of Talut.
He joins the army of Talut.
And he is the one who rises to
the occasion.
He is the one whom Allah ﷻ grants
victory over Jalut, over Goliath.
And as he defeats the army of Goliath,
Allah ﷻ allows Dawud ﷺ to capture Jerusalem
and to make it the capital of his
kingdom and a hub of ibadah, of worship
and spirituality and true connection with Allah ﷻ.
Dawud ﷺ who exemplifies just rule, who exemplifies
al-'adl, who exemplifies not being deceived by who
your parents are or what tribe you come
from.
Dawud ﷺ who encompasses all of the desired
qualities of man yet is not held back
by the usual desires of man.
And I want you to think about this.
If you took the way the Prophet ﷺ
praised Dawud ﷺ and his qualities, subhanAllah, that
could be an entire book in and of
itself.
That could be a risalah in and of
itself.
When Adam ﷺ saw his children, before we
were even here, and he saw light coming
from this young man, he said, who is
that?
How much nur he has.
And Adam ﷺ even gave him decades of
his own life.
So this young man needs to live more.
60 years is not enough for him.
Give him 40 of my life, let him
live a hundred years.
Because Dawud ﷺ is a man of salah.
The Prophet ﷺ mentioned khayr al-qiyam.
The best of qiyam is the qiyam of
Dawud ﷺ.
You know that concept of the last third
of the night?
Dawud ﷺ used to pray in the last
third of the night.
The best of qiyam, the best of fasting
is the fasting of Dawud ﷺ.
How much did Dawud ﷺ used to fast?
How much did he used to fast?
Every other day.
Imagine the state of the heart of a
person who fasts every other day.
By the way, the first person I ever
met in my life who actually does qiyam
Dawud is someone who is a convert to
Islam.
Who regularly has done it.
A sister that converted to Islam has been
upon it for years.
May Allah عز و جل preserve her and
keep her steadfast upon it.
Blew my mind.
Imagine the state of the heart of a
person that fasts every other day.
So his qiyam, his siyam, his shukr, اعمالو
آل داوود شكرا His gratitude that Allah praises
in the Qur'an.
He was worthy because of that.
And here is something very important too.
That if you open a version of the
Bible today and you read about King David,
he's not that person.
He's a person who's deceitful at times.
He's a person who sends out his general
to go out and die in battle because
he finds the wife of that general desirable
as he catches her bathing so that he
can steal her from him.
He is denigrated with the worst of qualities.
Look at the way that he's praised by
the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.
Look at the qualities that have been assigned
to him.
And yes, we believe wholeheartedly that these are
not the original scriptures and texts about Dawud
عليه السلام that these were assigned to him,
that these were placed on him.
Because if you can make a person of
that lowliness of quality still capable of that
highness of victory, then our lowly qualities should
not stop us from victory.
They're not disqualifying qualities anymore.
And that is a significant departure that we
have with the narrative around Dawud عليه السلام
and other prophets as well.
So he's the opposite of that.
So Dawud عليه السلام, again, exemplifies the qualities
that were necessary to be granted that gift
praised by the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.
He ruled for about 30 decades, and then
Suleyman عليه السلام rises, and Suleyman عليه السلام
becomes king.
This is around now 933 B.C. to
972 B.C. And this is the culmination
of the political power and the kingdom of
Bani Isra'il.
He builds masajid.
And when we say masajid, we mean places
of worship all over the earth.
Ibn Abbas صلى الله عليه وسلم mentions over
40 of them.
And he particularly invests in Al-Aqsa, in
a place of worship in the holy land,
knowing the blessing and virtue of that land.
And he makes dua at that time as
we said, that no one will come to
this masjid.
وَأَلَّا يَأْتِيَ هَٰذَا الْمَسْجِدَ أَحَدٌ نَا يُرِيدُ إِلَّا
صَلَاةَ فِيهِ إِلَّا خَرَجَ مِن ذُنُوبِهِ كَيَوْمِ وَلَدَةُ
أُمُّهُ That no one will come to this
place only to pray except that they will
leave this place, like the day that their
mother gave birth to them.
After Sulaiman عليه السلام, we now come to
the year 587 B.C. And this is
a name that I don't expect any of
you to remember, Nabakut Nazar.
You all remembered it?
But this is who many of the Mufasireen
mentioned, in the Qur'an, وَمَنْ أَظْلَمُ مِمَّنْ
مَنْعَ مَسَاجِدَ اللَّهِ وَيُذْكَرَ فِيهَا اسْمُهُ وَسَعَىٰ فِي
خَرَابِهَا The first person we know to destroy,
to have to actually destroy the remnants of
worship in Al-Aqsa.
And so this is the first destruction by
the Babylonians.
And the Babylonians would ransack much of the
lands around the Sham until they specifically honed
in on Palestine.
They besieged Quds twice, one time in 597
B.C., another time in 589 B.C.
And then finally, in 586 B.C., he
raids and kicks out the entire population, and
destroys all of the remnants of Bani Israel
in that population.
He depopulates it almost entirely.
So anything of Sulaiman A.S., anything of
Bani Israel at that time, is expelled.
Now here's the thing, even in Jewish tradition,
this is attributed to the deterioration of faith
and manners and character of Bani Israel.
That wickedness bears defeat.
Righteousness bears victory.
Wickedness bears defeat.
And so now, Jerusalem is under the rule
of the Babylonians.
It's at this time, to show you the
movement of the world, we're about a thousand
years before the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that
you start to see the first appearance of
what would become Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Qurayza and
Banu Nadhir in the area of Al-Madinah
Al-Munawwarah, in the area of Yathrib.
Anticipating where the direction of light will come.
So it's actually at this point when the
Babylonians expel and depopulate Jerusalem from Bani Israel,
that some of them start to make their
way and head to that land.
The year 537, Cyrus, the Persian king, conquers
Babylon.
And he allows for the Jews to return
to Jerusalem.
And they begin to rebuild in the area
of Al-Aqsa, to rebuild the temple.
So this is 537 BC.
516, Darius the Great completes the temple.
And so under Persian rule, the second temple
is complete.
The second temple is complete.
And this is going to last up until
we now have Alexander the Great in the
year 332 approximately BC conquering Jerusalem.
So you go from Babylonian to Persian to
Greek.
And when the Greeks enter, then in this
case, the region is influenced by all sorts
of Hellenistic practices, all sorts of Greek culture.
And so the temple is there, 352, as
it was rebuilt.
The temple is there and it's going to
stand, but you start to see Greek influence
coming under Alexander the Great.
164 BC, the Hasmonean dynasty establishes rule.
I'm gonna fast forward to Isa a.s.,
coming to Jesus peace be upon him.
63 BC, Pompey the Great takes Jerusalem.
And he's a Roman general.
So the Romans, who had established now dominance
around Hashem, around Syria, in the year 64,
are able to conquer Jerusalem.
63 BC.
47 BC, Julius Caesar conquers Alexandria and then
defeats Pompey in 45 BC.
And then under Julius Caesar, Judaism is officially
recognized as a legal religion.
Under Roman rule.
And so they start to practice an allowance
of Judaism to exist under Roman rule, but
of course with Roman conditions.
Julius Caesar is murdered in the year 43
BC.
We're getting closer to Isa a.s. The
Roman civil war starts.
Herod the Great is designated as the king
of the Jews by the Roman sentence.
And so the Roman Empire installs Herod the
Great, who is technically from Bani Israel, to
rule under the provisions of the Romans.
So it's Judea as a client kingdom.
Not a fully independent kingdom, but a kingdom
that exists under a kingdom.
And so everyone knows that while Herod is
the throne in Jerusalem, that the power behind
the throne is the Roman occupation.
And Herod the Great will crush any type
of opposition.
He was a brutal ruler.
He didn't allow any type of revolution, any
type of revolt.
And so people feared the iron fist of
Herod.
But during that time, what he did to
the area of Jerusalem was he turned it
into a tourist destination.
I'll let your imagination make parallels to the
times as they come.
He turned it into a tourist destination.
He established a bazaar in the area of
the holy place.
Roman artifacts, Roman influence starts to show up
even in the area of the temple.
And so while architecturally, Jerusalem never looks more
beautiful.
The spirit is completely gone.
And this is now where you have what
the Romans practice, which was called syncretism, where
they accepted religious beliefs and philosophical teachings as
long as they were tempered by the greater
Roman political power and the greater Roman doctrine.
So what's happening to Bani Israel?
You guys have 15 more minutes left in
you?
The weather is nice.
The righteous amongst Bani Israel are a shrinking
breed, shrinking group.
Bani Israel though, many of them are still
sick of the political humiliation of the Romans.
They can't stand living under the grip of
the Roman Empire.
So they don't want victory for Allah.
They want victory for political dominance.
We want to overthrow the Roman system for
political dominance.
And so the weight now is on for
Al-Masih.
And Al-Masih, the Messiah is Al-Masih
Ibn Dawud.
I always chuckle when I see Ibn Dawud
like in the Haramain.
The weight is for Al-Masih, the son
of David.
Meaning someone from the lineage of Dawud Alayhi
Salaam.
And the word Messiah means anointed, chosen.
And if you look at the early Jewish
teachings, you'll find that they believed in Al
-Masih in the same way that we think
of a mujaddid, that every 100 years Allah
sends a reviver.
That uplifts them out of their political humiliation.
That revives their state of affairs.
That brings them back to a position of
power.
And so here in this case, Orthodox Jews,
till today by the way, they hold it
as one of the 13 principles of faith.
Reformed Jews actually don't believe in a Messiah
at all.
So similar to, I guess, Qur'aniyun, those
that say we only believe in the Qur
'an.
If it's not in the Qur'an, it's
not real.
Reformed Jews will point to the fact that
the Messiah or this concept of a Messiah
that has this type of specification is not
explicit enough.
Or the messianic concept is not explicitly mentioned
in the Torah, in the first five books.
Therefore, they don't accept it.
Who is this person?
A great military leader, a king that other
leaders will look to for guidance, that will
bring people back to the worship of one
God.
A person that will descend from Dawud a
.s. Weapons of war will be destroyed.
By the way, I'm quoting straight from the
Bible as it exists today.
These are all traits of the Messiah, al
-Masih ibn Dawud.
And they were so desperate for a Masih
to bring them out of political humiliation and
restore the temple and give them the promised
land without any type of religious consideration that
they even assigned the Persian king Cyrus as
a Messiah.
They called him a Masih too.
Even though he's absolutely not within the corpus
of what would fit the category.
And if you read the Psalm 137, verse
8 and 9, O Babylon, you will be
destroyed.
Happy is the one who pays you back
for what you have done to us.
Blessed is the one who grabs your babies
and smashes them against the stone.
There's a vindictive nature of overthrow, of getting
back to a place of victory.
Before Isa a.s. al-Masih, Isa a
.s. al-Masih ibn Maryam, you have two
famous claimants to being the Messiah, to bring
Bani Israel back to their place of power.
First you have Judas Maccabeus, who's about 160
B.C. But he's mentioned because he's very
successful before he's killed.
He purifies the temple of Jerusalem.
He is someone who frees Bani Israel from
foreign *.
He ushers in a temporary period of dominance.
And that is actually when Hanukkah is celebrated
every year.
Referring to his victory to free them from
foreign dominance.
And then you have Simon of Peria, who
to me, subhanAllah, is really a fascinating figure.
There was a National Geographic documentary called The
First Jesus.
And it's about Simon of Peria, because he's
right at the same time of Isa a
.s. In fact, he's believed to have launched
his revolt the same time that Jesus was
born.
The same year that Isa a.s. was
born.
And he was a slave of Herod the
Great.
But he rebelled, and he managed to burn
down multiple palaces.
He burnt down the palace in Jericho.
He managed to outsmart Herod in many ways,
and conquer much of his palaces, much of
his territory.
And many of Bani Israel believed that he
was the one.
This is our Messiah.
This is Al-Masih ibn Dawud, Simon.
But then he was caught and he was
beheaded.
And so now we're waiting, we're waiting, we're
waiting.
And we come to the family of Imran.
Bani Israel at this point had largely become
corrupted.
There was corruption amongst them, cheating, wickedness.
And that's compounded by the humiliation, the degradation
of their political situation that seems to justify
the evil amongst themselves.
We are treated this way, and so we
treat each other this way also.
And amongst them you have the shining family
of Ali Imran who Allah has chosen.
Imran, a leader, an imam.
And then Zakariya alayhi salam.
And Allah takes us to those moments in
Al-Masjid al-Aqsa.
And how does this work?
The wife of Imran gets pregnant.
She asks Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
bear children.
She gets pregnant.
إِنِّي وَضَعْتُ لَكَ مَا فِي بَطْنِ مُحَرَّرًا I
have dedicated what is in my tummy.
I have dedicated what is in my stomach.
Freed for the worship of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Freed from all responsibilities.
The hope was that this was the Prophet.
That this was going to be one that
would revive the ways of Bani Israel.
Bring them back to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
This is all happening around Jerusalem now.
And she gives birth and of course, it
is Maryam alayhi salam, a girl.
رَبِّ إِنِّي وَضَعْتُهَا أُنْثَ I gave birth to
a girl.
وَلَيْسَ الذَّكَرُ كَالْأُنْثَ وَإِنِّي سَمَّيْتُهَا مَرْيَم A girl
is not like a boy, but I have
named her Maryam.
By the way, how many of you are
named Maryam in the crowd?
Do we have Maryams?
This is strange.
I don't think I've ever been in a
Muslim gathering this large and not seen a
single Maryam.
Alhamdulillah.
I'm going to assume that there are many
other shy Maryams.
I promise I wasn't going to make you
stand up or do any fundraising.
But when she says, I have named her
Maryam, there is something there that shows that
there is an insistence that this is a
special child.
There is a protest being registered behind that
name.
The name Maryam, if translated, means Amatullah, the
female servant of Allah.
أَمَةُ رَبِّي The female slave of my Lord,
if you trace its roots.
And I'm not going to get too far
into that right now.
Why is that so profound?
Because Aisha radiallahu anha mentions that Bani Israel
had prohibited their women from worshipping in the
masjid.
And so when she intended a boy that
she would dedicate to the masjid, and it
was a girl, وَإِنِّي سَمَّيْتُهَا مَرْيَمًۭ I will
fulfill my promise, my intention with this child.
The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, لَا
تَمْنَعُوا إِمَاءَ اللَّهِ Do not prohibit the Amatullahs,
the female servants of Allah from the houses
of Allah, from masajid of Allah.
And subhanAllah, that spirit is encompassed here.
Zakariya a.s. builds for her a mihrab,
كَفَّلَهَا زَكَرِيَّ The husband of her aunt takes
her, builds a mihrab for her in the
masjid.
And Zakariya was a najjar, was a carpenter
as the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said
in the hadith in Bukhari.
She worships in her own mihrab, in her
own place.
And mihrab means, يُحَارِبُ نَفْسَ A place of
harb, a place where you wage war against
your soul, against yourself.
Exerting herself in ibadah in a corner in
masjid al-Aqsa, away from the political affairs,
or from even the religious circles of Bani
Israel, as she stays in her place, growing
up in the worship of Allah.
Zakariya a.s. is looking around and wondering
where is the continuation of the promise of
Bani Israel, of the promise of goodness and
faith amongst our people in this land.
And then Zakariya a.s. كُلَّ مَا دَخَلَ
عَلَيْهَا زَكَرِيَا الْمِحْرَابُ وَجَدَ عِنْدَهَا رِزْقَةً Zakariya starts
seeing fruits and vegetables out of season popping
up always in the mihrab of Maryam a
.s. أَنَّ لَكِ هَذَا Where is this going?
Where is this coming from?
هُوَ مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَرُزُقُ مَن
يَشَىٰء بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ This is from Allah.
Allah provides what He wills to whom He
wills, when He wills.
هُنَٰلِكَ دَعَى زَكَرِيَا رَبَّهِ Zakariya takes to the
corner of Masjid al-Aqsa and imagine that
man making dua, a 90-year-old man.
قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّي وَهْنَ الْعَظْمُ مِنِّي وَاجْتَعَلَ الرَّأْسُ
شَيْبًا وَلَمْ أَكُن بِدُعَاءِكَ رَبِّ شَقِيًا Ya Allah!
Oh my Lord!
My hair is bursting with gray.
My bones have withered on the inside.
But I've never given up in my dua
on You because You've never let me down
in my dua.
وَإِنِّي خِفْتُ الْمَوَالِيَ مِنْ وَرَائِي وَكَانَتْ امْرَأَتِي عَقِرًا
I'm looking around, I don't see anybody.
I don't see the transition.
I don't see the succession of righteousness.
Forget about the political corruption.
What about the religious corruption?
What's gonna happen to us?
فَهَبَلِي And my wife is barren.
So give me a child.
يَرِثُنِي وَيَرِثُ مِنْ آلِيَعْقُوبِ وَجْعَلْهُ رَبِّ رَضِيًا Who
will inherit me and inherit from the family
of Ya'qub a.s. Isra'il a
.s. Everything of good that came, all the
knowledge, all the wisdom.
Let it be in this child.
And let him be pleasing to you.
Allah a.s. grants him Yahya a.s.
Yahya a.s. is born.
And Maryam a.s. little did she know
that suddenly she would be pregnant too.
And she goes to مَكَانًا قَصِيًّا A hidden
place to deliver.
Now subhanAllah, Maryam a.s. would leave Al
-Aqsa only at the time as Ibn Abbas
a.s. mentions, where she would not be
in the masjid during that time of the
month, but she would still remember Allah a
.s. مَكَانًا شَرْقِيًّا Towards the east because she
would go towards the sun outside and she
would remember Allah and still be in a
state of dhikr.
Jibreel a.s. pops up, gives her the
news of Isa a.s. She hides out
in Bethlehem about 9 miles out in Bethlehem,
where Dawud a.s. once came.
And she waits for what will happen to
her.
Isa is born.
And she came to the courtyard of Al
-Aqsa.
Imagine the scene.
Imam al-Qurtubi a.s. gives you a
deep visual.
Maryam comes after missing for so long, holding
her child.
And she wasn't allowed to speak.
Because Allah a.s. prohibited her from speaking.
Holding her child.
And the rabbis of Bani Israel come out
to her.
And they start to point fingers at her
and mock her.
And she sits in the courtyard of Al
-Aqsa holding her child.
They gathered around her.
And the baby is breastfeeding from her.
And she's there sitting on the ground as
they start to insult her and demean her
and to mock her.
And in that place, when they say, how
could you do this?
She points to the baby.
And the baby leaves the breast of his
mother and starts to speak.
By the way, this wasn't a baby that
just said, Baba, Mama, no.
The baby gives a khutbah.
I mean, subhanAllah, how profound.
This was spoken in the courtyard of Al
-Aqsa.
And he gives the glad tidings of a
Prophet a.s. to come after him.
That speech that Isa a.s. gave is
implanted on the Dome of the Rock today.
It's written in the calligraphy of the Dome
of the Rock today.
That he gave in the courtyard of Al
-Aqsa.
Maryam a.s. This is where you start
to read in history and it becomes a
little bit cloudy.
The massacre of the innocents perhaps, where Herod
sees a dream that he interprets as an
overthrow of his kingdom.
And it's believed that Maryam flees to Egypt
because of the massacre of the innocents.
And then comes back from Mosul eventually to
Palestine.
Once again, an Egypt and Palestine connection.
Now what's happening in the da'wah of
Bani Israel and around the Holy Land, and
the Promised Messiah, and everything that's to come?
The first one to lead is Yahya a
.s. Isa a.s. follows the da'wah
of Yahya a.s. And Yahya a.s.
Allah a.s. gave him wisdom and authority
at a young age.
He was a perfect young man.
An incredible scholar.
They had never seen a scholar of the
Torah like Yahya a.s. And he had
no love for this dunya.
He was uncompromisable because of his integrity and
his attachment to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He was full of haya, so he couldn't
be tempted.
Full of modesty, he couldn't be tempted.
He didn't care for the wealth of this
world.
He had no cruelty in him, so he
showed love to his parents, and he used
to share his food even with the animals
because of the incredible mercy that Allah put
in Yahya a.s. And Isa a.s.
follows in the da'wah of Yahya a
.s. initially, who was older than him.
And Ibn Abbas a.s. narrates that they
had a conversation with each other.
And Isa said to Yahya, make du'a
for me.
And Yahya said to Isa, you make du
'a for me.
You're better than me.
Fa qala Isa, bal anta al-afdal.
Rather, you are better.
Because Allah made du'a for you.
Da'a Allahu lak, wa da'autu li
nafsi.
Allah made du'a for you, and I
made du'a for myself.
What did he mean by that?
When Yahya was born, wa salamun alayhi, yawm
ulida, wa yawma yumutu, wa yawma yub'athu
hayya.
Allah a.s. said, peace be unto him,
the day he was born, the day that
he shall die, and the day he will
be raised up.
Isa a.s. said about himself from the
cradle, wa salamu alayya, yawm ulittu, wa yawma
amutu, wa yawma yub'athu hayya.
Peace be unto me.
So Isa said, you're better than me.
In reality, Isa is better than Yahya.
But Yahya made du'a for Isa, and
this is where Ibn Abbas a.s. mentions
that the Christians took this as a place
of the baptism, which is the area of
Ghor in Jordan today.
But what does it say about Yahya?
Yahya is a man who avoided the area
of Al-Aqsa.
He avoided the temple as it was known.
He was known as the preacher in the
wilderness.
And he openly condemned Bani Israel for their
corrupt practices, and so he gained prominence for
his ability to grasp the scripture, but he
wasn't liked or favored by the actual religious
class of Bani Israel, because he was calling
them out on their corruption.
And so he preaches from the wilderness.
And the Prophet ﷺ now gives us another
visual from the inside of Masjid Al-Aqsa.
Hadith Al-Bukhari from Al-Harith Al-Ash
'ari.
Qala sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, inna Allaha amara
Yahya ibn Zakariya bi khamsi kalimat.
That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded Yahya
to speak five commandments.
So he was to command them, wa ya'mur
Bani Israel, and he was to command Bani
Israel and ya'malu biha, for them to act
upon it as well.
Wa innahu kada an yuqti'a biha.
But he was hesitant just seeing the viciousness
of Bani Israel, and how corrupt they had
become.
So Yahya was becoming hesitant.
So Isa ﷺ said, inna Allaha amara ka
bi khamsi kalimat.
Allah ﷻ commanded you with five things to
speak and to command Bani Israel with.
And if you don't do it, I will.
If you are hesitant to speak to them,
Isa ﷺ is the man who flips tables
in the temple, in Al-Aqsa.
I will do it.
Yahya ﷺ said, akhsha insabaqtani biha, an yukhsafa
bi awu'adhdham.
That I am afraid that if you do
it, the earth will swallow me, awu'adhdham,
or I will be punished as a result
of that.
So I can't do that.
Fajama'an nasa fil bayt al-maqdis.
So he gathered the people in Bayt al
-Maqdis.
Faqala ﷺ famtala al-masjidu wa qa'du ala
ash-shurafi.
That the masjid filled up.
Imagine the scene of Al-Aqsa.
The masjid filled.
People sat even on their window sills.
They sat on their balconies.
They wanted to hear what Yahya ﷺ was
going to say.
Isa ﷺ standing next to Yahya ﷺ, and
he stands up and he says, innallaha amara
li bi khamsi kalimat.
Allah عز و جل commanded me with five
things that I must do.
And He commanded you with these five things
that you must do.
And the hadith is long, but it mentions
as salah, as siyam, as sadaqa, as dhikr.
And it mentions to strive in the way
of Allah ﷻ.
So it's similar to the five pillars of
Islam.
Ibn al-Qayyim ﷺ mentions that the closer
that the shari'ah got to the shari
'ah of Muhammad ﷺ, the closer it was
in its final manifestation.
And so the five kalimat, the five commandments
of Yahya are similar to the five commandments
of Muhammad ﷺ.
I'm gonna go to the end here inshaAllah
ta'ala.
Yahya was given at some point the bishara,
the glad tidings, that his brother Isa ﷺ
was not just another prophet, but he was
a rasool, he was a messenger that was
to have a new revelation, and he was
al-Masih.
He was the awaited messiah.
So Yahya identifies Isa as al-Masih.
Now the dynamics change politically as well.
A few days after he identifies him, Yahya
ﷺ is murdered.
And he's murdered because of his integrity.
You see, Herod had three children, and they
divided the empire of the land of Palestine
amongst themselves.
One of them was Antipas.
And Antipas wanted to marry his niece, the
wife of Philip.
Her name was Salome.
Her name was Salome.
So he wanted to marry his niece Salome,
and he needed a fatwa.
Because it was against the law, it was
against the scripture.
And if Yahya says it's okay, the people
trust Yahya, which shows you subhanAllah, that if
a person maintains integrity, even if they don't
have the power of the throne, Allah ﷻ
will grant them Isa, will grant them honor,
and the people will listen to their opinion
instead of the opinion of those who have
the power of the throne behind them.
So they needed to convince Yahya to say
that this was allowed in the Torah, that
there was an exception that allowed this.
So they sent Salome to tempt Yahya ﷺ,
and it didn't work.
Sayyidin wa-Hasura, Yahya ﷺ had no interest
whatsoever.
He said, this is * and it is
haram.
So when she couldn't seduce Yahya, she was
so offended that she seduced Antipas, and said,
bring me his head for what he has
done.
I presented myself.
She was a beautiful woman.
There's a reason why her * was being
pursued by her creepy uncle.
Right?
It's not working.
And she was offended that she couldn't get
Yahya ﷺ to budge.
So now she wanted revenge.
Bring me his head.
And so Yahya ﷺ was beheaded.
By the way, subhanAllah, that is one of
the wisdoms of Allah naming him Yahya.
Because a shaheed never dies.
وَلَا تَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ قُتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَمْوَاتٍ
بَلْ أَحْيَاءٌ Don't say of those who were
killed in the way of Allah that they
are dead, rather they are alive.
Yahya means a person who forever lives.
Yahya.
So Allah Azawajal was giving the glad tidings
of shahada before he was even born.
But Yahya ﷺ was beheaded.
Isa ﷺ was sitting in a masjid al
-Aqsa at the age of 30.
As Mujahid ﷺ says, Jibril ﷺ fills al
-Aqsa with his light as Isa ﷺ sits
in al-Aqsa saddened over what just happened
to the one who preceded him in prophethood,
his righteous brother Yahya ﷺ.
And Jibril ﷺ says to him, اِنَّ اللَّهَ
يَأْمُرُكَ Allah Azawajal commands you بِإِبْلَاغِ الرِّسَالَ for
you to now go out and to deliver
the message.
And he delivered to him the Injil.
وَقَالَ الْمَسِيحُ يَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلُ أُعْبُدُ اللَّهَ رَبِّي
وَرَبَّكُمْ That Isa ﷺ stood up and he
said, O Bani Israel, worship your Lord, my
Lord and your Lord.
And he was given the Injil.
The Prophet ﷺ said that this took place
on the 18th night of Ramadan.
The Injil was revealed on the 18th night
of Ramadan.
So what happens?
The Masih is here.
The Prophet is here.
Now we have someone, right?
Yahya identified him.
We know who he is.
The problem is, is that their hearts were
not ready to accept him for who he
was.
Ibn Hazm said that Bani Israel was the
most wicked at its end.
They once killed 40 Anbiya in one hour.
And so if you look at the end
of Bani Israel, it became the habit to
go from takthib to qatil, from denying a
prophet to killing a prophet.
So they killed Isaiah, they killed Jeremiah.
They sawed Zakariya ﷺ into two.
And they beheaded Yahya ﷺ.
And so it became their habit to pursue
their prophets and to actually kill them now.
Not just to deny them but to murder
them.
Isa ﷺ comes and he's not liked.
You have some classes that exist from Bani
Israel.
You have those that are known as the
seducers.
And they are the temple folks.
They're attached to the temple.
They are the tax collectors.
They confiscate the money of the people.
They're of the most elite of classes.
And the irony of them is they don't
even believe in the akhira.
They don't even believe in the hereafter.
But they believe the temple is for them.
These are the people that Isa ﷺ flipped
the tables on for their hypocrisy using the
remnants of a place that was built by
Suleiman ﷺ who had the kingdom of the
world and was untainted by it.
To steal from the people and to abuse
the people.
Then you have the Pharisees who were supposed
to be the continuation of Bani Israel.
Strict to the law.
They believe in following the command.
But Isa ﷺ sees corruption in that class
as well.
Silent in the face of transgression.
He sees hypocrisy.
He sees harshness.
Now by the way, Bani Israel always has
wicked and righteous ones.
Always.
They have the most wicked of the wicked
and they have the most righteous of the
righteous.
They are, the righteous amongst them, the largest
group in Jannah after the Ummah of Muhammad
ﷺ.
And so we don't class the whole of
Bani Israel as being written off.
But this class now is a wicked one.
And so Isa is throwing the tables in
the temple.
Isa is saying to the hypocrites who preach
the law, يَا عُلَمَاءَ السُّوءِ جَعَلْتُمُ الْجُنْيَا فَوْقَ
رُوُوسِكُمْ وَالْآخِرَةَ تَحْتَ أَقْدَامِكُمْ قَوْلُكُمْ شِفَاءٌ وَعَمَلُكُمْ
دَاءٌ Evil corrupt scholars.
You have put the life of this world
above your heads and you have put the
hereafter under your feet.
You speak words of medicine but your actions
are disease.
So they hate him too.
So is he a zealot?
Which were the Bani Israel members that were
actively rebelling against the Roman Empire and taking
up arms against them.
Isa doesn't fit anybody's category.
He criticizes Bani Israel and he criticizes the
Roman occupation.
He hates the occupation, he hates the state
of Bani Israel.
So he's becoming wildly unpopular with everybody, except
for the righteous, which is a small group
of Hawariun.
And because of that, they turn on him,
because they wanted a Messiah for power, not
piety.
And so they plot to get him killed
by the Romans.
The Romans and their clients, kingdom of Bani
Israel, seek to kill him.
And Allah would not give them that last
drop of blood.
Subhanallah.
One of my teachers, he commented on this
and it was very profound.
You know when they talk about the last
laugh.
Bani Israel who became so accustomed to putting
the blade to the necks of the prophets.
Allah would not let them put the blade
to the last prophets.
And it's similar to when Ya'juj and
Ma'juj, when they've killed so many on
earth, they will throw an arrow up to
the sky to say, قَتَلْنَا مَنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ
We killed those on the earth, let's kill
the one in the heavens too.
And Allah would drop some blood on them
when they throw their arrows to the heaven
just to mock them.
But they didn't kill Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
And in the case of Bani Israel, the
way they didn't kill Isa alayhi salam, ظَرَّ
فَعَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَيْهِ Rather Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala raised Isa alayhi salam to him.
And the Masih will come back.
And the promised land remains.
الْأَرْضُ لِلَّهِ يُرِثُهَا مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ For
those who are deserving.
I'll just give you a quick rundown.
70 years after Christ, Titus destroys the second
temple.
The Roman forces destroy the second temple and
they exile the Jewish population.
They loot the treasures once again of the
temple.
And subhanAllah, مَنْ عَادَ لِي وَلِيَّ فَقَدْ أَذَنْتُهُ
بِالْحَرْبِ Whoever harms a wali of mine, then
I wage war on them.
I mean, so those that harmed their prophets,
look what happened to them.
Salome who demanded the head of Yahya alayhi
salam was swallowed in the earth.
She was one of those who Allah did
khasaf of.
And the fortunes turned once again.
The year 130, the city of Iria is
rebuilt, a Roman city.
But it forbids a Jewish and a Christian
presence.
That same area becomes a place where you
now have a temple to Jupiter and Venus.
Similar to how idols were brought into the
Kaaba.
A holy place becomes a place of shirk,
a place of outright paganism and worshipping the
Roman gods.
The year 251, the Roman emperor Odysseus kills
Alexander.
This is the time of Ashab al-Kahf
by the way.
When Ashab al-Kahf went into hiding, this
is believed to be the time around 251.
315, Constantine turns it into a Christian city.
But Christianity and the conception of Constantine.
So Roman Christianity is brought back.
And there's widespread confusion now because the practice
of Musa a.s., the true followers of
Moses, the practice of the true followers of
Jesus p.b.u.h is lost.
And there's this new twisted manifestation of worship
that takes place here.
Constantine puts a ban on those who were
Jews because Constantine separates a new religion here,
right?
From those who followed Moses but not Jesus.
And he puts a ban on Jews but
he allows once a year for them to
wail at the wall.
And so you start to see that.
Afterwards, the mother of Constantine destroys some of
the pagan temples that are built in that
area.
The year 610, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam receives revelation.
And that was the same year that there
was a revolt against Raqel.
And I'll just take you to this last
scene, and you can go home and think
about it.
And I promise you tonight will be the
longest session we have of all these 10
sessions.
So I apologize.
It takes a long time to cover all
the Prophets of Allah, right?
In this regard.
But now that you've thought about who are
the people that are worthy.
I want you to imagine the year 638
in Jerusalem when Omar ibn al-Khattab radiAllahu
ta'ala anhu enters into the city.
If you're a true follower of Christ, a
true follower of Moses, and you're looking at
the demeanor, the righteousness, the piety of Omar
radiAllahu ta'ala anhu entering in.
Abu Ubaidah al-Jarrah radiAllahu ta'ala anhu
on one side.
Al-Abbas, Walid al-Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, the father of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam, riding his camels.
So noble they thought that he was the
Khalifa.
Because of the haybah, the awe.
When you looked at these people entering, did
you have any doubt that these are the
people that Allah wrote it for?
Those are the qualities.
A man so humble that he comes in
with his slave, a slave on the camel.
While his clothes are covered in dirt.
Because they took turns, the servants and the
Khalifa.
And Omar radiAllahu ta'ala anhu refused to
ride as he entered into the city.
And as he enters in with righteousness.
نحن قوم عزنا الله بالإسلام.
وإن ابتغينا العزة لغيره أذلنا الله.
We are a people that Allah gave victory
and honor to through Islam.
And if we seek it through anything else,
Allah humiliates us.
That's the story of Jerusalem.
And there is no place where it was
more fitting for Omar radiAllahu anhu to say
those words.
The ditching of materialism, the ditching of greed,
the ditching of oppression was necessary to seek
the true honor from Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
And to be made worthy of victory.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us
to be worthy.
May Allah allow us to be spiritual descendants
of all of these noble prophets and noble
people that were once worthy.
And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow
us to be spiritual descendants of the greatest
of all.
خير خلق الله محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم
And to write us amongst the worthy.
اللهم آمين.
جزاكم الله خيرا.
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته.