Safi Khan – Soul Food Dealing Tragedy
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses a healing session that will be a learning experience for the community, where they will give them the chance to speak to one another and process their own thoughts. They emphasize the importance of processing emotions and acknowledging that it is difficult to understand what it is that they want to learn. The speakers also emphasize the need for everyone to grieve differently and offer takeaways from past experiences. They stress the importance of honoring the legacy of a deceased person and taking the last breath of their life. They encourage people to focus on small things and not rush to things.
AI: Summary ©
Alrighty.
We're gonna go ahead and, get started.
Everybody.
How's everyone doing?
We,
so,
tonight's,
session
is going to be a little bit different
than the regular Thursday night. So the regular
Thursday night's obviously,
we go through our series that we're going
through.
The current one we're going through is Surat
Al Hujurat. Right? The the the series is
called cultivating characters, so we're taking away blessings
and wisdoms from the Surah, trying to improve
our character in preparation for the month of
Ramadan.
And,
just giving everybody a little context behind
why we're switching it up tonight. So,
you know, last Friday,
after soul food, literally, right, the day after
soul food,
we received news
of
a tragic
incident in which one of our beloved beloved
community members,
brother Abdul Hadi,
who
was actually like a he was a frequent
flyer here at Roots.
He used to constantly be at, you know,
the Monday night session with the.
He used to, you know, come to Sheikh
Mikael's Wednesday halakaz. He used to come here
to soul food on Thursdays once in a
while, and he was just a very big
supporter
of the work that this campus was trying
to do. And,
he,
in Allah's infinite wisdom, was called back to
his creator on Friday.
And,
you know,
after the initial kind of news came out,
everybody was trying to kind of process what
happened. Right? Because
things that happen in such
a quick and
almost surprisingly
shocking way,
it takes a little bit of a toll
on the community, and we don't really understand
how to
handle and process,
certain pieces of news like that. And so,
you know, I was sitting with, with with
with Sheykh Al Dhanasar just a couple of
days ago, literally in the Root's office, and
I was talking to him. I said, Sheikh,
you know, what what can we do? And
I know that I know Astav definitely mentioned
it on Monday. I don't know. Sheikh Mikhail.
I was talking to Sheikh Mikhail a couple
of days ago, and he said that he
was gonna mention,
you know, a little bit about it on
Wednesday after his halak or during his halakkah
last night. But I said, you know,
I really do think that
moments like this in our community
deserve very, very specific
attention,
because if it's not handled within the community,
where is it handled? Right? Everyone's kind of
left to their own devices
when they're at home.
And, masha'Allah, a person who was so beloved
to everyone that he met and everyone that
encountered his personality,
like, Habi,
it it hit home for a lot of
people. Right? There was literally, you know, a
a a member of the roots volunteer team
who when they heard the news on Friday,
literally, they said, oh, I I gotta run
and and and go to the Masjid. I
gotta go to ICC where the families are
gathering and people are kind of, you know,
just offering their condolences. And so
it it it hit home for everybody.
And so me and Shaikh were sitting in
the office a few days ago, and we
said, you know what? Let's host a session.
And, of course, we'll put it under the
banner of soul food.
It's on Thursday night, but we'll open it
up to everybody.
Specifically, obviously, the demographic here is a little
bit younger,
but we wanted to give everyone a chance
to heal. So this is almost like Sheikh
and and I discussed. It's almost like a
healing session.
And I wanted Sheikh Mikael to be a
part of it, and so inshallah, Sheikh's on
his way. He's finishing teaching a class upstairs
right now.
But I wanted today's session to be a
little bit different. It's not gonna be lecture
style.
It's not gonna be, you know, where one
of our teachers obviously, you know, share a
lesson for the entire audience
and the the audience takes away notes and
wisdoms and reflections.
This is gonna be literally a healing session,
giving the
community a chance
to talk to one another,
process their own thoughts,
kind of think about what happened,
and just come to terms
with whatever
Allah has willed no matter how difficult it
actually is to comprehend. Right? And so
we're gonna go through some really, really good,
you know, thought provoking
prompts and questions that I'm gonna share up
on the screen behind me
And we're going to give the community a
chance to speak to one another because sometimes,
you know, in moments like this, Shaytan
maximizes
on people's
loneliness.
Shaytan sometimes
strikes in a moment moment of opportunity where
people may not be in, you know, conversation
with other people, and so they're at their
weakest. And so Shaitan strikes at the the
the most opportune time. And, you know, as
a community and something that Roots has tried
to cultivate over the last, like, 8 to
10 years is
that this is your home. Right?
Always on Monday nights, he says, welcome home.
What does that mean? Is that is that
just lip service, or do we really mean
that? And if we mean welcome home,
then we truly have to
make this a home for people. And in
a home, you have tough conversations.
In a home, you have conversations that are
not sometimes easy to always have. And so
we wanted to kind of set the table,
if you will, and and and allow our
community, our family
to come together tonight on Thursday night and
discuss,
the reality of handling tragedy,
of maneuvering through challenging trials and loss in
our lives. And so,
I'm going to what I'm gonna do is
and when sheikh gets here, we're gonna share
some thoughts,
with one another, with you guys inshallah. But
until then, I wanted to inshallah, get the
community
speaking to one another
about
this idea of grief, the idea of loss.
What does it mean? So the first question
on the screen that you guys see in
front of you is,
how would you define grief? Right? Some of
these terminologies, we just kind of, like, know
them. Quote, unquote, we know them because it's
an emotion. Like, how would you define anger?
I don't know, but I feel it. Right?
How do you define happiness? I'm not really
sure, but I feel happy sometimes. So when
it comes to grief, how do you define
the concept of grief,
and what is the importance of allowing time
for grieving? Right? Because in Islam, we don't
really just believe that something tragic happens and
you close the books and you just continue
on. And I'll share a couple of incidents
actually through our tradition where that's just absolutely
not true. There are moments that are authentic
in which people in our religion, the prophet
namely,
had moments where he took time to grieve
over the passing of people in his own
life. And so it's a healthy process to
actually partake in is the process of grieving.
And so what I'm gonna do inshallah is
now I'm gonna give everybody
about 3 minutes. It's 727. I'm gonna give
everybody 3 minutes to kind of talk to
some people around you. Right?
Discuss what you think grief is,
and why is it important to allow yourself
to grieve in certain situations where it's necessary.
Right? So I want you guys to inshallah
talk. I'm gonna give you guys 3 minutes,
and then we're gonna get some reflections and
thoughts inshallah from you guys and share with
the larger,
attendee group that's here tonight. So go ahead
and talk, and we'll break in about 3
minutes.
Alright.
Let's get some thoughts here, from everybody.
We'll get about we'll get about 4 or
5 people or 3 or 4 people to
share, inshallah, what their reflections and their thoughts
are in terms of what they think or
what they have
kind of defined grief as and why they
think it's important or why you think it's
important for us to go through that process
of grieving? Anybody wanna share?
What's What's your definition of grief, and why
do you think it's important? Instead of just
glossing over it or almost pretending like it
didn't happen, what's the wisdom of
allowing yourself to go through that process? Yes.
Ayan, go ahead.
Yeah. Very beautiful. He said that his definition
of Greek was basically the,
the loss of something that you're attached to.
Right?
And the importance of allowing yourself to go
through that process is to make sure that
you're not a person who bottles up all
of the the the emotions that they have.
Right?
Which can cause, like, an adverse effect,
if not taken care of. Right? Very, very
good. Okay.
Anybody else wanna share
what their thought of grief is or their
their definition of grief is and why is
it important to go through that process as
a person? Yes.
Yeah.
Very good. Very, very good. Right? So the
sister mentioned something very beautiful. She said that
you can't really define grief with one emotional
definition. Right? That there's happiness involved,
sadness involved, anger involved, sometimes guilt possibly involved.
Right? And so there's a lot of different
things that kinda make grief what it is.
And,
so she's saying, like, unless you've actually kind
of almost gone through it, it's really hard
for you to really understand what it is
unless you've actually experienced it. Right? Very good.
Very, very good. Anybody else wanna share what
their definition of grief is, or what's the
importance of processing it?
The next question is gonna be really heavy.
That's why I'm kind of, like, allowing everyone
to ease through it Anybody else wanna take
a shot at, you know, what their thought
of grief is in and of itself?
Okay.
The first thing I wanted to share, and
I'm gonna share this even more when sheikh
gets here as well, is that one of
the things that we understand is that Allah
does not punish a person for going through
grief.
1st and foremost, I think we need to
take a cultural
stance or, like, a change of what we
culturally define
as what sadness and grief is. Right? In
fact, there's a hadith of the prophet
where specifically the prophet he says,
He says that Allah does not punish
because of the tears of the eyes or
the sadness within the heart. Right?
The only thing that Allah
is judging a person for is whether that
that emotion allows them in their actions to
do things that will harm them or other
people. Right? So the emotion itself is not
something that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
judges or punishes off of a person. And
so it's important to understand that, you know,
culturally, I know we all grew up in
different cultures, but there's almost like a similarity
across a lot of cultures that we've all
experienced where a person who's going through that
period for a long time,
that person's almost like, hey. When are you
gonna get over it? Right? Are you ever
gonna get over it? I mean, this was
actually noted in so many different Suras in
the Quran, namely in Surah Yusuf when the
father of Yusuf alaihi salaam, Yaqub was missing
his child, Yusuf, for decade after decade after
decade,
and his other sons would almost guilt trip
him and ask, oh my father, you're never
ever gonna forget about Yousef. And this is
something that's really interesting because does a person
who is missing somebody or if they've lost
somebody, do they really ever technically, quote, unquote,
get over it?
Right? You always think about them. You always
think about them. Just the other day, me
and Ostadh Fatima,
we were, we were sitting or sorry. Me
and Usadabedla, we were sitting, and we were
discussing
a person that he knew very well who
had not lost 1 child, but 2 children
in infancy,
like 18, 15 months old.
How does a person handle that? How does
a person does that person even at age
70 ever get over it? I don't know.
And so it's important to understand that as
a Muslim,
your goal is to never say, oh, just
get over it.
I mean, what if Allah
had the same
kind of feeling or that same sense of
rigidness and harshness towards us as sometimes we
have towards other people? Just get over it.
Think about a mistake that you ever made
in your life. It's something that haunts you
every single day, and Allah just tells you
just get over it.
And like she said, there's so many emotions
involved that it's not as simple as just
turning a new leaf and saying, alright. Cool.
I'm just gonna start fresh. I mean, it's
always a part of your mind. And so
there's an importance to this. There's a grieving
period to this. The prophet
when he lost his wife Khadija radiallahu ta'ala
Anha
and he lost his uncle Abu Talib who
never accepted Islam,
that year
in his life was called the Amal Husn,
the year of sorrow. And when you take
a step back and look at that picture,
you think to yourself, well, did the prophet
call it Amal Husain? Who called it Amal
Husain?
Who called it the year of sorrow?
Everyone that was
around
him because they saw his behavior.
What happened to him? His wife passed. His
uncle passed. It's not a year of sorrow
for a person who didn't know Khadija or
Abu Talib. It was a year of sorrow
for him, sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So it was noted that he was visibly
upset
so much so that year was characterized as
the year of sadness for him.
So when you think about that, the prophet
did not shy away from showing his emotions.
I mean, that's never been a thing in
our religion to ever shy away from showing
your emotions,
obviously, in a healthy manner. Not in a
manner that causes harm to yourself or people
around you, but showing emotions is a part
of who you are. The prophet used to
often attribute tears. People used to ask him
whenever he cried. People ask,
What is this?
Think about a person I mean, physically, think
about a person who's cry who who who's
sad, who's grief stricken, but they may not
have the ability to cry.
Think about the pressure
that is building up, the emotions that are
building up in that person.
So releasing tears
is almost a mercy from Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that you get to witness that. How
many of us have cried, and it's almost
like a a a weight, at least not
permanently,
but temporarily has been lifted off of our
chest, off of our shoulders. Right?
So now this next question, this is gonna
be a heavy hitter. And that's why I
actually purposely put, if you would like
to. If you would like to share a
reflection
from a tough loss that you faced in
your own life
and how it impacted you.
By the way, no takleef. Like, no burden
upon anybody. You don't have to share if
it's too personal. But I would like for
everyone to at least share with the person
next to them a little bit about something
that was difficult that they maneuver through. Whether
it was a loss of a person in
their life, whether it was a loss of
a certain situation in their life, whatever it
was, a reflection from a tough loss that
you face in your life and how that
loss impacted you. All the reflections, all the
experiences that came along with that loss, share
that with the person
around you or the people around you, and
we'll get some people who would like to
share, they can share with the greater group
after we break off into individual groups. Just
wanna go ahead and start talking to each
other, and then we'll reconvene in a second.
Alright.
Wanted to give everyone a chance to,
a chance to share because I know this
one's gonna be a little bit,
a little bit more,
involved. So wanted to give really, really good
adequate time for everyone to be able to
share this particular prompt with each other.
So,
who wants to start us off? This is
not easy.
So, again, what I want everyone to do,
actually, really quickly, just take a deep breath.
Everyone take a deep breath. Take a deep
breath.
Yeah. And and and this is gonna help,
Because, again, sometimes when we feel the pressure
of, you know, like, a 100 plus people
watching you, listening to you,
it sometimes gets to you. But when you
take a deep breath and you release, you
allow that kind of anxiety to at least
kind of subside for a little bit of
time so that you can at least kind
of, you know as prophet Musa Alaihi Salam,
right, this is one of favorite
duas that she always says.
Right? So, Usman, go ahead and start us
off.
Yep.
Subhanallah. Subhanallah. You know, one of the,
beautiful reflection, right, that he shared that, you
know,
even noting
I mean, as difficult as it may seem
and, you know, there's almost like stages and
phases to this. Right? I mean, we're only
barely 1 week removed from the tragic loss
of brother Abdul Hadi. Right?
6 days removed. But as time continues to
go on, you almost start to discover layer
after layer after layer of of why things
may have happened. Right? When you give yourself
time. Okay? And, I mean, you even think
about, for example, like Gaza. Right? Starting I
mean, obviously, 75, 80 years back, but to
more recent history, obviously, the incidents of October
7th and forward,
it it was shocking. And then the recent
stuff that's happening in Rafa. Right? Shocking. I
mean, there's stories of children being
abused and harmed in the most gruesome manner
whatsoever.
So,
like, the one of y'all mentioned the idea
of time allowing you to almost, like, not
heal, but to almost discover.
Right?
Why
certain things may have taken place. And like
you said,
you know, on the day of Jumah,
we were all shocked to hear the news.
But then a few
days later, you realize, wow,
our last memory with him was Jumah.
How many people can claim that? Right? Like,
we were in Jum'ah prayer with this brother,
and that was the way that Allah wanted
me to leave him.
And and that is something that
you can't really put a price tag on.
That that's something that's extremely unique and very,
very special and blessed. And so
Masha'allah, he mentioned as well that it brought
a lot of people together. Right? It brought
a lot of people together who may you
know, when you have that one mutual friend,
everyone's friends because of that person.
And if that person is no longer there
anymore, now you're just kind of like, alright.
We hang out because of him.
We spend time together because of him or
because of her. Right? Very, very beautiful.
Alright. I wanna get another person to share
who wants to share. Go ahead.
Yeah. Yep.
Well,
SubhanAllah. SubhanAllah. I mean,
yeah. You know,
that is probably
some advice that
is probably really heavy for a lot of
us. Right? That when you have no one
else to rely on after a tough loss
like that because, you know and it's one
of the one of the things, and she
mentioned it so wisely. She said that after
all this time, there's only going to be
one who still remains. Right?
And it always seems to be the case.
Right? I mean, Suhana, when you think about
it,
after there's gonna be janazats. Right? There's gonna
be funerals. There's going to be Azzas. There's
going to be moments of reflection like this
and, you know, lectures and and and and
reminders and gatherings like this.
But after it's all said and done,
you know, life does continue on for so
many people, but
sometimes life does not move on for certain
people just like that easily. And so when
everybody else is kind of, you know, continued
on with their lives and they kind of
go through what they're doing,
having that foundation
of knowing that Allah will always be with
you is one of those
moments of peace and tranquility that you cannot
replace with anything else in your life.
At 11:55
PM at night when, like, perhaps friends may
be asleep. Right? You're missing somebody. I mean,
think about even from last week.
Friends may be asleep, but everybody but we're
thinking about him. We're thinking about Abdul Hadi.
We're thinking about who he was and what
impact he had on us. There's nobody else
to really talk to,
and I turned to Allah and I step
onto my prayer rug, and I just start
praying to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
You Allah, thank you so much for allowing
me to experience a person like this.
You Allah, it was always in your wisdom
and your plan that you knew that you're
going to call him up to you
earlier than maybe you would have called us
up.
But, Yeah Allah, I turn to you now
because there's no one else to turn to
right now. So very, very powerful
reflection that she had. Very good. Yes, please.
No. Please go ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No. Please take your time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was yeah.
For
sharing that it's not easy, and may Allah
heal,
the hearts of anyone who's lost people in
Palestine in Gaza. May Allah
and the occupation in Palestine.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala allow the people
of Palestine
to be victorious in all endeavors inshallah and
be the beaming lights in the hereafter that
we inshallah find.
Beautiful.
SubhanAllah. That's,
Yeah. There is nothing that I can say
to even kind of back whatever she said
up. I mean, this is literally, you're hearing
from a person who has gone through
just loss after a loss after a loss
in a span of time that just doesn't
make sense to go through those losses,
and to be able to sit and reflect.
And one of the great takeaways
that she comes away with is that
it's Allah
who will always be there for you even
when nobody else is, whenever you're at a
loss of any sort of hope or any
sort of, you know, positive you know, there's
no there's no positive outlook in a current
situation that you're looking at. Allah is the
one that will give you a positive outlook
or will Allah will give you some sort
of sukoon in a time of grief that
you're facing. SubhanAllah. May Allah reward you for
your bravery.
Alright. Insha'Allah. Let's continue on. Anybody else wanna
share Insha'Allah? I know this is heavy, but,
I think it's important Insha'Allah. Go ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah. Allah. I mean I mean, Allah make
it easy, SubhanAllah. Yeah. Sammy, you had something
you wanted to share. Go ahead.
Shock. Yeah.
Yeah. Allah.
Yeah.
You
Allah.
You Allah. Sheikh, we're kind of going through
some of the stories from the community about
how they personally dealt with tragedy in their
life and how they maneuver through it, how
they handled it. And we kind of discussed
how our deen puts so much emphasis on
allowing ourselves to grieve in a way that
obviously Allah
has made natural for us. And so,
wanted to kinda get your thoughts on this
as well. You know? Just from I know
you I I was telling the community here
that, you know, you shared some thoughts last
night after your class. I know Estes shared
some thoughts on Monday as well. I mean,
we were all kind of just kind of
just contemplating what had happened this past week,
and so I wanted to kinda ask you.
I mean, this is kind of like the
college young demographic community.
How did you kind of, like, process everything?
Is there any sort of wisdom? I mean,
time obviously is the best kind of
teller of, you know, discovering wisdom after wisdom
from trials and tribulations, but I wanted to
ask you I'm not that old, Habibi. I
ain't that old, yo. Yeah. I ain't that
old, yo. No. Yeah. Last night, we had
a beautiful session. His father came. His sister
was there too. Had these brother father and
sister were there.
First thing first.
I love what you said. What's your name?
Sammy? Yes, Sammy. Sammy.
You know, he said the phrase man up.
Right?
And
last night, if you were at Halukah, I
spoke about this clearly
that,
the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him,
was
a, was was was was a man of
men.
Courageous,
powerful, strong, everything, man.
But he cried.
And he was actually in a society
in which it was Abe. Right? It was
weird. Men don't do that, which we're back
there again almost. Right?
And,
and what I said last night is the
reason why we're doing this whole footsteps Mhmm.
In his footsteps, partially partially,
is so that
we
we we become closer to him again and
his model. Right?
Regarding this issue of grieving,
first thing I think we need to all
understand is we all grieve in different ways.
When the prophet, sallallahu alaihi sallam, passed away,
how did Umar react?
Anger. Denial. Denial.
How did Abu Bakr reacted? Very calm, collected.
Uthman
passed out.
Ali couldn't speak. He couldn't speak.
He could he just literally couldn't speak.
Right? So first and foremost, we all are
gonna respond differently.
I was in shock. I I I was
in denial.
I was getting the message from multiple people.
I was like, nah. I think
nah. I just kept saying, nah. Like, wrong
person. And,
I was in I was in I was
in Cleveland
and I got the message and I was
just like,
nah, yo. You got the wrong dude.
And, I just couldn't process.
So, yeah, I think we all look don't
another the reason I say we all grieve
differently is because some people
feel bad. Oh, I can't cry. I'm it's
okay. That's fine. Yep. Right? There's no need
to always
cry to be grieved. Right? But we do
have to allow ourselves, those who feel that
pain,
to not feel,
shunned or any type of stigma around
emoting and allowing emotion to be shown. Shik,
we talk about this sometimes even together. We
talk about that. Obviously, the the the eyes
cry, but the heart cries as well. Right?
Yeah. That's the Hadith. Right? And then
so this is beautiful. So this is something
we need to learn. There's the expression of
emotion,
and then there's emotion
guiding you and leading you, which we we
don't like. Yeah. So, for example, the hadith
that we were just talking about,
the prophet,
son Ibrahim,
was dying. Right? And he was only about,
like, 16 months. He was very young,
And the prophet, peace and blessings be upon
him, we just did this hadith yesterday.
He was holding him.
And as he's holding him and he's breathing
his last breath,
the prophet begins to cry. And Abdul Rahman
bin Auf, who's very close to him,
he said,
you too? Like, you?
What is this, You Rasulullah? And he said,
this is mercy.
And then he said, the eyes cry.
You know? But but you know what I
wanted to focus on, bro? Mhmm. I think
Hadi left a legacy for us, bro. Mhmm.
And that's all I'm gonna keep talking about
when it comes to Hadiyo. Yeah.
Hadiy, man,
bro. For young people,
he left a legacy for us to emulate,
bro. Yeah.
And
literally in the halukkah last Wednesday,
I was like, yo, we don't know if
any of us are gonna be here next
Wednesday.
And whenever we hear that, all of us,
we're all like, yeah, brother. Yeah. We think
it's like lip service almost to a certain
degree. Yeah. Like, I know a lot of
us, we're I stuck the law. We believe
in a law. We believe in death, but
we never really internalize it.
We never truly are, like, yo, I might
not be here.
And the and the reason I say that
is, like,
the the prophet peace and blessings be upon
him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
He said
that death is enough to wake you up.
It's enough to get that alone. You don't
need a lecture. Death is the lecture.
So his legacy, yo,
his legacy to me revolves around and I
I I again, I'm not gonna sit here
and claim to know him, like, his sister
is here, suffered alive, fella shaped speaking.
But from what I know about this this
young this young man,
he was committed to good company.
He was always around good people
Or good people around him, something. He was
a magnet to good people or he was
attracted to good people,
but he was always around good people. Okay?
And number 2,
again, I'm not gonna sit here and claim
to know him the most. Many of you
probably know him way more than me. He
was always in good gatherings. And I know
they sound like the same, but they're
not. See, this is a good gathering. You
come, you sit here, you vibe, it's amazing,
whatever.
But for him, this the the the heads
in this gathering
were his peeps outside too.
Mhmm.
So he rolled up to Jumma on Jumma
with his crew. They all prayed.
Yo, guys. He died on a Jumma after
praying Jumma. Yeah. We just talked about that.
Yeah.
Incredible. Goals, man.
Jummah after playing Jummah?
Bro. Jummah. Good. So to me,
we need to celebrate that. We need to
take
young man, but, he taught us a lot.
Young man,
but,
he taught us a lot. You
know,
just to kinda back up what Shaikh was
saying,
this idea and we don't have too much
time before Salat al Esharai comes in, but
I wanted to kinda give the last portion
of our conversation today to literally reflect over
what sheikh was talking about. My bad. The
way no. No. You're good. The way that
you honor the legacy of a person
who Allah
reclaimed.
And there are so many different ways our
religion gives us ways of honoring people who
have passed away. Right? That when a person
passed away, Imam Khazali talks about this all
the time that death is not the end
of a person's life. It's the journey that
a person takes towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
It's actually merely another portion of your life.
That beautiful that video shake that came out
about, you know,
the girl who lost her leg. We talked
about this at Soul Food, like, a month
and a half ago or so. The girl
who lost her leg in Gaza and, you
know, and and and Khaled. Right? The the
older uncle who is now is like the
the sheikh of Palestine now, And he went
over to her, and she was crying because
she lost her leg, but he said, why
are you crying? You know, your leg just
beats you to Jannah. Right? I mean, the
the the the the heaviness of that statement.
Right? I mean, now when we kinda put
it together and think about people who passed
away in our lives and families are here
and friends are here and, you know, people
who have lost many people in their lives
possibly,
how do we honor their legacy after they're
gone? There's so many different ways. I mean,
the prophet used to give gifts, you know,
that he received to the friends of Khadija
bin Khawalid, his his his late wife. Right?
I mean, that's literally a sunnah. When a
when you have a family member pass away,
you take a gift and you give it
to their friends Yeah. Because their friends remind
you of them. So I wanted to actually
get some thoughts inshallah, Shaykh. You know? Yeah.
From just experience and also just from, you
know, studying and and and and knowing about
this,
the pleasure we have of being a part
of this, what are some takeaways of that
that you've kind of seen? You know? Like,
what have you So so,
you hit a you hit them, but we
need to slow and say them again so
everyone can get them. Number 1, the last
one you said, is honoring the friends Mhmm.
Of the deceased.
So yesterday, there were a few people that
came up to me
and I never saw him before, but they're
like, I'm Hadi's best friend. And I'm like,
yo, you're my best friend now.
Right? And I just hug him. Like, yo.
You're my man now. He's like, y'all he's
like, he used to bring us to the
halukkah. He used to pull us through the
whatever whatever. He was the guy. He was
the guy. That's what I'm trying to say.
He was the guy. Yeah. That's what I'm
trying to say. Yo.
Listen.
Death is real. Mhmm. Death is real. And
the one thing Gaza taught us is it's
real. We're struggling to, like, piece this together,
and here we are. It hits so close
to home. Death is real.
So number 1, I think honoring you said
honoring the friends. Mhmm.
I think taking the lessons from the life.
I think we need to
do too, though. Yes. Like, some some tangibles.
Absolutely. Build something in his name. Donate to
something in his name Absolutely. Like, do that.
But, again, like, I I'm not trying to
sound like a broken record,
but, like, there's a deeper lesson we learned
from his
short but meaningful life. Mhmm.
And if all of us, all of us
in this room say, you know what?
This passing is going to be the catalyst
for me.
Then he's the sadaqa jariyah.
And everyone you become an inspiration for, teach,
learn, whatever whatever. Oh, wow. Now he's getting
the reward for that just because his life
embodied something so profound.
So I think we need to do some.
There's a launch there's a go for it.
Yeah. Yeah. Launch good. Yep. We need to
support so that there's some tangible things that
we're doing on his behalf.
We need to take this moment and let
don't let it just pass. Of course, for
the family, it's it it takes time.
But for others who are a little further
away,
we need to relish in this moment for
a bit.
And I'm a say something because I don't
see a lot of faces that I see
at my haloka, so I'm a say something.
One of the reasons we don't do Tawbah
I'm not changing the subject. This is the
subject. One of the reasons Tawbah is to
turn back to Allah. Right? One of the
reasons we don't do Tawba
is because we think we have a long
life ahead. Yep. So how can I do
Tawba today when I got, like, 20 more
years of
of fitna, man? Yep. But Imam Ghazadi says,
no.
You don't know if you're promised tomorrow, so
do toba tonight.
If tomorrow comes, I'll deal with tomorrow.
I'll do toba tomorrow.
But right now,
you have a sin that you're struggling with.
Think in your head, I don't know if
I got tomorrow in Dutoba tonight.
Now now listen. If you get tomorrow,
we'll deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes.
But to do good for one more day
and to refrain from evil, you just got
one more day to do it.
You feel me? Yo. Hold up. That's deep,
yo. Yo.
It's soul food, yo. We go deep, yo.
No. I only have one more day to
do righteousness.
In your mind, if I say, yo, we
gotta start praying to 100, yo. You like,
man, I got 40 more years to 100,
yo.
That ain't no joke. I'm only, like,
20. Yeah. You
just got one more day of to hudg
it.
You got one more day to avoid that
sin.
And so we use we need to use
his passing
as an inspiration.
Don't let it be in vain. Take inspiration
from this young man.
Be in good company. That was his recipe.
Be in good company. Be in good company.
Be in good company. I'm sorry to be
a bit upset. There was a sister actually
who before you got here, Sheikh, she was
actually talking a little bit about how she
had lost 10 family members in Gaza.
And she and she literally said
that there was nowhere else to turn besides
Allah during that time. I mean, who's gonna
help you at this time? Right? I mean,
you you put your faith in, like, the
American government, Joe Biden. I mean, like, that
doesn't come through for you. You put your
faith in other things, doesn't come through for
you. And then when you finally, she was
mentioning, she goes, when you face Allah at
the end of the night and you cry,
your heart is weeping, your eyes are tearing
up,
that is when you realize
this was the reason why I may have
gone through this. Love Haqibah. And, you know,
and you're talking about the takeaways of what
to do in terms of his legacy.
I mean, SubhanAllah, think about if everyone here
and then last night at your halakah and
even Monday night at Ustad's halakah.
Imagine if a 1,000 plus people
from hearing about how, like, just contagious of
a personality Hadi was and everybody who's lost
a person in here, you know, whatever who
they were,
imagine
one more salah was prayed because of that
legacy. Mhmm. One more week of Jomal was
attended because of that legacy. Mhmm. One more
Ramadan was, like, fully dedicated because of that
legacy. And so, you know, subhanallah, you guys,
you know, I I feel that's so powerful.
Yeah. Right? Yeah. I wanna add to this,
yo. Please. Yeah.
So check this, and I know we don't
have a lot of time.
I need y'all to be with me on
this one, yo.
I shared this last night, but I gotta
share it again, And I needed to make
it personal for us because this gathering is
smaller.
There was a group of companions of the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. They were sitting
around, and they were talking about a person
who passed away.
And they were speaking good about him.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam passed by. He
heard
them and he said, wajabat.
Wajabat in Arabic means like it's it's become
compulsory.
Right? It's set. It's set.
Someone else had passed away
and they mentioned him. They weren't backbiting, but
they were mentioning that it wasn't the same.
These two lives weren't the same.
And the prophet, salallahu alaihi, said, heard it
and he's like, wajibat.
The Sahaba were like, you Rasulullah, this is
weird. We've never heard you say this before.
What are you saying?
And he
said, listen closely.
Y'all,
you are god's witnesses.
You righteous people are god's witnesses.
When you said he was a righteous person,
your witness
made Jannah wajib on this person. Like, Jannah
was compulsory. They had Jannah. It was theirs.
And when you witness to this person who
wasn't
wasn't there, he wasn't on it. He was
harming us. He was doing wrong.
Then something else became necessary for that person.
Here's my question to you, yo,
and I need you to look inside
in this moment.
How do you wanna be remembered?
You gotta Don't go nowhere. Stick with it.
I know you wanna re I know your
mind wants to flee from this moment.
Don't let it.
Sit there.
How
do
you
want to be
remembered?
Next.
What will you do tomorrow to start building
that legacy for yourself?
You don't have to be famous to be
remembered.
All they get is a little side thing
on CNN that they pass and don't know
one see it. The biggest people, CNN, side,
such as died. Anyways, scroll.
Being remembered does not mean you did something
big that was Facebook, Instagram,
Snap, whatever
worthy.
Being remembered is the small things you did.
How do you want to be remembered?
Man, she was always helping out when I
called her.
Man, whenever I needed help and I called
him, he always had time for me.
Man,
whenever we asked for donations,
she was the first one to give every
time.
Man, every time they messaged me, they told
me, oh, don't forget about halakah today.
Man,
she always stopped me from haram.
That was my girl.
How do you want to be remembered?
That's what
we need to learn in this moment.
How do you wanna be remembered?
That's it.
That's it.
Now,
decide that,
and just slowly start working towards that.
Just every day, a little bit.
Every day, a little bit.
Man, every day, let me tell you how
small it could be.
Every day, my man used to read Kulhu
Allahu Ahad
after Maghrib.
That's it.
But every day,
every day,
they used to do this zikr that he
told me he used to do a little
zikr, like, SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah.
He used to say it a 100 times,
but he did it every day. It was
it took, like, 2 minutes.
But I asked him what he was doing.
He was like, I do this. I have
to.
How do you want to be remembered? That's
all I wanna ask you.
You don't gotta build a you don't gotta
be Elon Musk. You don't gotta build you
don't gotta change the world.
You gotta change
your. You don't gotta change the world. You
gotta change your.
That's Hadi's legacy to me.
This is gonna be this is and and,
again, like Shaykh mentioned, and
this is gonna be a process. It's gonna
be time. There's gonna be a lot of
different, you know, reflections over the next week,
months, years.
Give yourself time. Don't rush into things. The
prophet never used to rush. He actually used
to praise
him, forbearance. Right? Don't be hasty. Right? Let
time take its place and do its thing
inshallah. But try, like sheikh mentioned, to think
about it. Right? Well,
think about the things that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala has given you and think and talk
about it. And and I'll I'll end with
this inshallah and I'll let
at the at the at the end to
kind of wrap us up. But, you know,
one of the greatest ways my mother who
lost both of her parents, one of the
things that she has taught me is you
never stop talking about them.
You know, anybody who's lost people in their
lives, they'll tell you the best thing that
they can do now is just smile and
remember those days and those nights. Alhamdulillah.
Remember that one time? Yeah. Remember that one
time? Remember that one time when when they
did this? Remember that one time when she
said that to me and it just cracks
a smile in your face and you may
have realized you never smiled for the past
few weeks.
And subhanAllah, what an amazing way to tell
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on the day of
judgement. Yeah, Allah, this beautiful soul that you
gave me to experience in my life made
me smile long after they passed away, you
Allah. You know, something beautiful inshallah shaykh. I
wanted to either end with the with the
little dua and then we'll let you all
break for Isha. Alright. Let's all raise our
hands to make a
dua.
You Allah, we ask you to accept our
gathering here tonight, you Allah. You Allah, we
ask you to accept this gathering and make
it a means for our change, you
You Allah, we ask you to have mercy
on our brother, Hadi, you Allah. Amen. We
ask you to forgive his sins and elevate
his status.
You Allah, we ask you to give us
the ability to emulate the good that he
did, You
Allah, we ask you to give us the
ability to keep the good that he was
doing in our lives and make it a
legacy for him, You Allah. You Allah, his
family, You Allah. We ask you to it
easy for them, You Allah. You Allah, they
have lost their beloved brother. They have lost
their beloved son in an unexpected
instant You Allah. We ask you You Allah
make it easy for them You Allah. You
Allah please make it easy for them You
Allah.
Give them sabr in this moment, You rhamurrahimi.
Right. You Allah, we ask you to make
all of these gatherings the gatherings that we
learn more about you and get closer to,
you Allah. You Allah, we ask you never
deprive us of this special company we are
sitting in right now, you Allah. In the
same way you have gathered us here, we
ask you to gather us with these righteous
people in Jannah, Yeah.
Everybody. Thank you so much for being here,
inshallah. We're not gonna delay any further. We're
gonna go walk over to the prayer hall
for Isha, inshallah.
And, we'll see y'all
next Thursday and also next Wednesday,
We're gonna go all right through the week,
Insha'Allah. We'll see you all then.
Okay?