Ramadan 2024 #14 How to Deal with Hardships

The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said this, Umma

is one body. When one body is affected,

the other body reacts with fever and sleepless

nights, and it's part and parcel of iman

for us to feel pain.

My dearest brothers and sisters in Islam, may

Allah bless you all and bless our month.

And may he accept what has passed and

bless what remains. Ameen.

Ramadan is

always a special month. And I welcome you

all to our Ramadan

series for this Ramadan 14/45.

We did call it Ramadan Nights, and then

I traveled to another part of the world

and the night became day. So, Alhamdulillah,

it is Ramadan days as it currently goes.

Brothers and sisters in Islam,

as we experience this Ramadan, perhaps we are

experiencing

it at the most difficult

time in our lives. Perhaps this Ramadan has

come,

during the most difficult year

of our lives. Well, at least in my

life, I don't recall

a harder year that the Ummah, Muhammad, sallallahu

alaihi wasallam, has gone through, at least in

my lifetime.

You know,

if we just reel back,

the weeks months,

we had,

not so long ago, the Turkish earthquake. And

that brought all sorts of worry and concern

and,

you know,

no doubt opportunity

as well in terms of being there for

the ummah, to the ummah, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi

wasallam. And then we had,

the Libyan floods and then the Moroccan

earthquake, or perhaps it was the Moroccan earthquake

and then the Libyan floods. It was really

back to back. And then the debacle in

Sudan, and Allah make everything easy there. That's

still going on. And as this is going

on,

in the front of our minds and not

the back of our minds, we have the

plight of of our brothers and sisters in

Kashmir. I mean, even though,

you know, their reality isn't being broadcasted to

our phones and our screens. Honestly, they are

going through a great trial. May Allah make

things easy for them. Ameen.

And we have the Rohingya, subhanallah, still displaced

in their numbers,

in Bangladesh and other lands. Subhanallah. Subhanallah.

Subhanallah. And then we have the political strife

in Pakistan,

and then Gaza happens. Subhanallah. So it's been

one thing after the other. And, you know,

we obviously need to live upon having this

ummah mindset.

This,

mindset whereby we are,

we are not individuals, but we are part

of a collective.

And as the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said,

this Umma is one body. When one body

is affected, the other body reacts with fever

and sleepless nights. And,

it's it's it's it's part and parcel of

iman for us to feel pain. So it

has been a painful year. But the purpose

of this video is not to paint gloom

and doom because this ummah is an ummah

of resilience.

It is an ummah,

that lasts.

It is an ummah that is sustained.

It is an ummah that will rise above

and not be risen over. This is an

ummah

that knows

that a seedling

has to penetrate

the darkness

and hardness

of the soil patiently

with perseverance

until it finally breaches

the

surface of the soil before it, alhamdulillah,

tastes the warmth of, the sun and the

coolness of the air. And it will sprout

and grow into a tree that will last

more than a century.

SubhanAllah.

This is the reality of this Ummah. And

accordingly, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam likened the

people

of Iman to the date palm. Masha'Allah Tabarakallah.

This firm

standing

structure. We must call it a structure.

Structure. Amidst the desert, subhanAllah,

living through desert storms,

living through

dry spells that last months, subhanAllah,

But it stands tall. It stands

strong. It gives

shade. And

in the hottest time of the year, it

produces,

dates, subhanAllah,

dates filled with nutrition and the necessary sugars

to sustain life. This is the description that

the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam

likened with the people of Imaan too. This

is the parallel he ran between the believers

and the dead palm. So this is who

we are, my dear brother and sister in

Islam. And as such, we are in a

month that we call kareem, we call

generous. And this ummah is indeed a generous

ummah. It is generous in all aspects because

this is an ummah that doesn't see the

o of obstacle. It is the ummah that

sees the o of opportunity

amidst every obstacle. It is the ummah that

sees the opportunity

to build jannah when an obstacle presents itself,

and an opportunity to build Jannah in a

way like never before. Because when things are

normal, we build Jannah in a particular way.

But when push comes to shove and we

stand up and be counted,

we build Jannah

as well, albeit in a different way. This

is the reality of the Ummah Muhammad

My brothers and sisters in Islam, the month

of Ramadan is kareem and generous. And it

is a month that comes to remind us

that we shouldn't be in a sabbatical. The

month of Ramadan is in a month in

which we go to sleep. SubhanAllah. And we

limit our activities because we feel that we

are away from food and drink and our

sleep patterns have been affected. Rather, this is

a month that,

is not just business as usual, but, subhanAllah,

even more business

than usual. And that is the business with

Allah

and the akhirah. The Battle of Badr was

fought during the month of Ramadan. And the

opening of Makkah, it is said to have

been during the month of Ramadan. We don't

see, subhanAllah,

messages from the sahaba that can Ramadan be

postponed

or can, the opening of Makkah

be postponed because it is Ramadan.

Ramadan comes and calibrates us end to end.

It's an end to end calibration. SubhanAllah.

It's come to tell us that, oh, Muhammad,

Ramadan is not a month to be in

a sabbatical, and your life is not one

that allows you to be in a sabbatical.

Islam needs you. The Muslims need you. And

we are all collectively part of the solution.

And I want to tie this message to

that earlier

presentation we gave on that verse in Surat

Atoba, in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in

effect teaches us that there is no retirement

age in Islam. This is the reminder for

this episode and the message for today. May

Allah

forgive our past and bless and inspire our

futures and make us a people that are

counted, a people that rise and are never

sake of Allah. Until next time.

sake of Allah. Until next time.