Seerah S01 E07 Part A – The Prophetﷺ As A Shepherd

Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah who Allah alayhi wa sahbihi ultramarine I'm rubbish actually sorry, we're silly Emery national aka melissani fo Cali. My dear brothers and sisters in Islam Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. All praises belong to Allah subhanho wa Taala. We praise Him, we seek his assistance, and we seek His guidance, and we seek refuge in Allah subhanho wa Taala from the evils of our souls and the adverse consequences of our deeds, will serve Allah subhanho wa Taala decrees guidance upon the nun can misguide him, and whomsoever Allah subhanho wa Taala decrees misguidance upon the man

can guide him, and peace and salutations be upon the final messenger, Muhammad Ali Abdullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, I bear witness that there is no one worthy of worship besides one Allah, and that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is his final messenger. My dear brothers and sisters. I welcome you all to Episode Seven in our series, a blast from the past Syrah in the 21st century. Today's the 15th of July, and we slowly catching up with the last 10 days of Ramadan. And even more importantly, the last 10 nights of Ramadan. We know that the last 10 nights are the best nights of the year, and the last 10 nights have the best night of all the nights of the the night of

power. Laila to cuddle. Allah subhanho wa Taala said about it lay little cuddly hieromonk Hiraman alopecia have the night of power is better than 1000 months meaning the the the rewards are better than 1000 months better than 1000 months not equal to but better Subhan Allah Subhana Allah indeed the mercy of Allah subhanho wa Taala is vast and his bounties are vast subhanho wa Taala May Allah subhanho wa Taala decree upon us witnessing this night. I mean, I mean, you're behind me. Yesterday, my dear brothers and sisters, we discussed the opening of our beloved prophets chest sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and we discussed the death of his mother salallahu alayhi wasallam and we

discussed the death of Abdullah

and we

got up to the point of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam being eight years old, in the home of his uncle, Abu Talib, a man who shared the same mother and father as his father. sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And we spoke about how about Bali beloved Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and how we will hear a lot about him for he supported Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam for more than 40 years, more than 40 years. So this is the stage that we are at an incident after Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam continued living his life under the care of Abu Talib was the incident of him being a shepherd Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam was a shepherd. And we discussed in

previous episodes how he also was a shepherd as a young boy four years old, according to the correct opinion of the scholars,

being a shepherd, right to sheep, when he was living with haleema, a Saudia when he was living with her, his second foster mother when he was living in the countryside, but when we refer to him being a shepherd now, then we referring to him being a shepherd, when he's much older, when he's much older. Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was a shepherd. And we learned this in many, a hadith. For example, the hadith of Abu hurayrah Ravi Allah who, in Sahih Muslim.

And in this narration, we actually learned that he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, oh, he says, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that there was no prophet, except that he was a shepherd Subhan Allah, there was no prophet, except that he was a shepherd and they said to him, oh prophet of Allah, even you. And he said, Even me, and he went on to say that he used to look after the herd

that belonged to the people of Makkah for a piece of a dinner for a piece of a dinner.

Which means that he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam actually earned a living doing this, right? So he said there was never a prophet except that he was a shepherd. So they said to him, even you are prophet of Allah. And he said, Yes, I used to do it for a portion of ad now, for the people of Mecca. Now, we learn from this, my dear brothers and sisters, many lessons from these lessons are, number one, the importance of training yourself and taking the means of development to become complete in whatever you plan to become, or whatever you plan to do. This continues, right. We said that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam his training began when he was still in the womb of his

mother. And we discussed lessons. Remember, when we spoke about how you and I should pick the right mother for our children, we should marry the right woman. And we should make dua before even getting married for Allah to bless us with the right mother to our children training. Our children's therapy begins way before before we even say in to our cabildo and all these words, that denote as being married or having accepted the female in our kneecap. And we saw how his his tarbiyah and him being nurtured to be a prophet continued, given how he went to the countryside, given him losing his mother and the circumstances around his mother passing away, and then his grandfather passing away,

and so on and so forth. So this training continued, and even him Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam being inspired by Allah subhanho wa Taala, to be a shepherd and take this as a means of earning, he could have done other things, he could have taken care of camels.

Right? He could have done other things he could have traded, and he did become a trader eventually, but Allah inspiring him to take on this task of being a shepherd was a sign of how important it is for training to continue until you are ready to assume the role that you intend to assume. Or

go full out in the profession that you have chosen to make part and parcel of your life. This is the lesson we learn from this and as I said, Allah could have inspired him to be a trader could have inspired him to be

someone who takes care of camels and other animals, but he was inspired to be a shepherd and take care of sheep and we will come across the benefits of taking care of sheep specifically. So this was clearly part of his training. sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Now, as this was his training, we see this was the training of the MBR Allah He was salat wa salam before him, he bore testimony to this sallallahu alayhi wasallam, that there was no prophet except that this was a task given to him. We know this from the life of Musa alayhis salam very clearly. For example, now

Prophethood was given two prophets in the majority of the cases when they reach the age of 40, when they reach the age of 40, Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was very young, still

going through these various training camps, if we can call it or training processes, because prophecy came to him at 40. And I was called as Rahmatullah hear him say, Allah gave prophecy to his prophets at the age of 40. Because when you attained the age of 40, you have achieved attained the most complete form of mental maturity and physical maturity, which means after 40

it's down here, no offense to our fathers and mothers above 40. And for the young ones who are smiling one day you become 40 as well. So don't smile too. Don't make your smiles too wide. And it's not all lost. Because after 40 Yes, energies and strength might start becoming weaker Shea and foshay. Slowly but surely, but wisdom becomes greater Shea and foshay. Slowly but surely. So for the young ones who are smiling. Wisdom out does power and ability, wisdom out does it wisdom out does it and that's why you probably seen a Facebook post from you or a Twitter post from me before, which said, if we could join the wisdom of the elders, to the vibrant, bubbly energies of the youth, we

would move mountains as an old man, we would move mountains and as an owner, but unfortunately they you think they know more than the adults? And that's a problem. And that's a problem. So 40 is is your peak? 40 is your, your peak? And Allah subhanahu Allah gave

his prophets prophesy when they attained the age of 40. In most cases, in most cases, no sooner Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was being trained and part of his training process was that

He was inspired to look after sheep. Now,

looking after she brings about in you qualities that are different than the qualities acquired when you look after other animals, horses, donkeys, Mallanna, you all camels. Right? Looking after she brings about different qualities, why because of the nature of sheep. It gives you the call, it allows you to develop this compassion. It allows you to develop gentleness, speed allows you to develop patience. It allows you to develop what females say a lot nowadays, you know, our husbands, they need to be more sensitive sensitivity sensor tivity. Right. It he said, I'm not, I'm not experienced, I haven't looked after sheep. But I hear from those who have. And it's interesting

when, you know, this is how you have vibrant discussions with different people. When you when you good with history. I'm not saying I'm good with history, male ly increased by knowledge and increase our knowledge. But one of the benefits I've seen from reading the seer of Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam have managed to have much more fruitful year if I can use that term, or more fruitful discussions with a plethora of different people, even those who farm and those who

herd cattle and those who are shepherds, and so on and so forth. Right? Because you always you're going to ask them questions based on what you've learned from the sea, right? You want to see you right? You want to gauge, you want to gauge how is it now in the 21st century, we have people what's Yeah, how many people go to a shepherd and say, what's the most important thing you've learned from being with sheep? Who asks that nowadays? Right? That would be an interesting question, you probably scratch his head enough to think, because he himself probably doesn't know what he's learned, right? With his time with sheep, right? So it allows us to have deeper discussions with people learning the

Sierra and not just the Sierra history in general. And we discussed in our first episode, how Islam is big on you and I having a good founding with history, Islamic history, World History, it's very important that you do, it's very important that you do many of us were so shocked at what we see in the world today. But if we started World War One, you wouldn't be shocked. You would say, You know what? It is what it is. This is insane. This is mankind. This is what it is. We so naive nowadays, because of our lack of historical founding. We don't read history books, we don't listen to lectures on history, we find them boring, boring. Why? Because you and I have no interest really, in life. We

just want to be average. We just want to be average. You know, they say there's three types of people. There's one person

who makes things happen. How many of us make things happen to make things happen? You need to love reading history.

You need to protect yourself from apathy.

And then we have the second person, he is the person who watches things happen. Still some goodness in him at least he is following, keeping up watching things happening. And then you have the third person who's the third person, the one who says a what happened.

Right? He's He's always asking what happened? I don't know. I'm not following what are you guys talking about? I'm behind here. Right? Who do you want to be? We must be the first person. We must be the first person especially since we had such a robust prophet. sallallahu alayhi wasallam someone so substantial, so deep. Everything he did, had 1000 words to it. Everything he said had 1000 words to it. 1000 lessons to it. That's what I mean. Right? Look, we just learned about his birth, it takes us one hour, so cannot be so substantial. He was sallallahu alayhi wa sallam lacking the accuracy lie on the moon, but most of mankind do not know. So the people who spend time with

sheep they say sheep.

I was gonna say that Allah subhanho wa Taala made his prophets be with sheep when they were young. So they were even better with human beings when they were older. Right? Because sheep.

They become scared.

They have enemies. The biggest enemy of a sheep is a wolf. Right? Right. And every ship has its unique quality. Every ship has its unique quality, some have a tendency of straying away from the flock. You want Shepherd, whole flock of sheep. You can't just say hello as you did one more time. That's it. No, you're responsible to the person who owns them. So you have to whether you like it or not take care of that one.

That has tendencies of running away.

You have sheep that have a tendency of remaining with the flock, you have sheep that are timid, you have sheep that are more daring.

Right?

different qualities does not remind you of mankind. We also have similar qualities. Right you have the Lone Ranger

and then you have the people's person the introvert the extrovert right? You have the one who that he perceives things the one who thinks things over you have so you have people who Mashallah you know, if you if you tell them he has unlimited amount of money, unlimited amount of time plan your holiday, his way of planning, you just rocking up at the airport and see what's the next flight available and, and he goes on a journey. But then you have another person who No, he doesn't do that. He needs to sit down for a week plan everything to the tee, the visas weigh in, who's going to feed my cat who's going to lock the door who's going to check if the you know if the electrical

appliances are switched on. He makes sure when he lands there, the the taxes prepared the hotels, ready confirmation, double confirmation, airlines confirmed everything to the tee, where he's going to change his money, what rate is going to pay?

He's a planner. Now imagine, in your group, you have this guy, no candidate should rock up at the airport first flight, I'll just see what's on the options, you know, to see what's there. unlimited money, unlimited time, who cares? See what's the end goal. And then you put him with this guy who needs to plan everything. Somebody is going to fly off a bridge, one of the two, right because when this guy's planning, this guy is going to be scratching his head. And when this guy keeps on saying let's go and he nags this guy is gonna get upset and lose his head. People have different mentalities. Everybody's different. And that's why even in your work in your organization's in your

team, understand personality types. And if you can't get a job being a shepherd,

that's the moral of the story, the best training you can undergo, where perhaps I'm gonna write this to a few companies, you know, they say they hire trainers, pay them 1000s of dollars a day to come train easy, just buy a few sheep and tell your people go and look after them for a week, inshallah, they will learn the best way to train, you train through practice, right? It's tray, it's it's leadership training in practice, not theory.

So sheep have specific qualities, and it grows in you specific behavioral patterns, specific emotions, right? And these emotions are needed when you deal with people, when you deal with people.

You and I, as human beings, for example, are interdependent beings. And one of the things that they say about sheep is they love to stick together. They leverage off each other's strengths. Right?

And they know that unity is in numbers. Right? Right. And this is like human beings. Now, don't get me wrong before somebody says, Are you calling a sheep? No, I'm not calling you sheep. I'm not calling you sheep is this young man's laughing? I'm not calling you sheep. I'm saying I want you to feel I want you to feel the great wisdom here. When Allah subhanho wa Taala inspires a prophet to look after sheep. I came across an interesting study

by a professor

from the University of Wyoming, right, he has the study about his experiences with sheep. And he has some interesting writing from the things he says. He says that you cannot make sheep do something contrary to the nature

Subhana Allah,

from the nature of sheep is they are true to their nature. They cannot do something contrary to the nature. Some people are smiling because now you think sheep are better than human beings, right? Because some human beings do things contrary to nature, law, Mr. Add to the nature to how they've been created. And let's say Allah subhanho wa Taala. Sometimes when he describes the plight of people, Allah subhanho wa Taala says Allah He can kill an arm when Allah talks about the heedless people, the heatless people when Allah says Allah

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eco Philo, Allah subhanho wa Taala says we have created many from mankind and jinn can for the Hellfire, why? They have hearts, that spirit that physically beat but the hearts are spiritually dead.

They have ears that physically here but the ears are filled or spiritually dead. They don't hear guidance and they have eyes that physically see but their eyes are spiritually dead. They don't see guidance.

And they are like cattle. They are like cattle. Allah says burn him over no name the worse than cattle. Hola como hoffy loon, they are heatless Why? Because Allah gave them intellectuality and a brain and they behaving like cattle. So they must be worse, because cattle do not have intellectuality and this gift that has been given to mankind, they are from the heatless ones, they behave as if they don't know yet they know. May Allah protect us from heedlessness, right? So

he says this professor that you cannot make him do anything contrary to nature, he also to their nature, he says as well. That shapes most manifest instinct is to flock

which is a trait of you have of us. Right in science. instinct is to be together because Allah has has has created us this way. Allah has made us interdependent beings. Allah subhanho wa Taala says in his book, is it they who have shared the mercy of your Lord.

Allah says we have spread amongst them, the different abilities that they have, and their sustenance and we've raised some of them higher in ranks than others. Why? So that they can oppress one another? No, Allah say easily attack either baboon. Bhavan to Hurriya. Allah says, we've done this so they can assist one another.

They can assist one another. So we have natural tendency tendencies to be together, we have to leverage off each other's strengths. One person cannot fly his plane, drive his car, make his bread, plant his rice, cook his meals, and so on. You can't. You have a pilot who does that. And then you have the scholar who the pilot refers to any needs a fatwa, and the scholary first the pilot when he needs to travel, and so on and so forth. We leverage off each other's our unique greatness comes from the fact that we live we live off each other's strengths, we leverage we leverage of each other's strengths, right? We have an instinct to be together, this is similar to human beings, what

the sheep have a natural tendency of doing this tendency is with human beings. He says, the propensity of sheep is to follow other sheep, not the shepherd.

I was reading this and I was thinking Subhanallah honestly, he says, the propensity of sheep is to follow other sheep, not the shepherd.

And he says, sheep are very conservative. They like familiar environments, and they not privy to change. they resist change. Ring a bell, ring, a bell brothers and sisters. Look at you and me today. Look at human beings. Look first look at the kurush when Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam went with the message. Did they follow the shepherd? Or did they follow the sheep?

They follow the people.

They said that this is what we found our forefathers doing.

Right? We found our forefathers doing this. They didn't listen to the shepherd. They will following the flock the flock is doing this and Subhanallah when the Qureshi accepted Islam when maca came into the control of the believers, were our eternal, Hulu Luffy de la jolla. What happened to them? They started following the flock as well. The Quran she accepted Islam they all started accepting Islam.

Allahu Akbar, Allah when I hit this house Subhana Allah Allah, how perfect is the wisdom of Allah subhanho wa Taala This is what it should make us exalt Allah subhanho wa Taala and glorify him even more that supernova Allah only you can inspire a human being to work with sheep. How perfect was that? That inspiration? Right? This is what they what he says from his time with sheep. He says the sheep are not privy to change. How many of us are like that?

Especially the adults, the younger generation is changing, you know, new phones, you computers, you devices, but some of the elders that Nakia from back in the day No, no, this is what we want to use. See, but you know, there's WhatsApp and this and that we can keep in touch. You know, this, this phone, this is what I'm comfortable with.

I haven't, that's good, right? Because then it saves you spending a lot of money.

You don't have to keep on updating, right, not privy to change, right. And even in society in general. Look how we are with change, right? today. There's a lot of discussion about the schooling system and how we need to be better and how it

does have negative effects and there's other alternatives being suggested, but look how people are still bent. On now the school system is good. That's what we know, we're not privy to change, don't come with something different. Our parents went to school, we went to school, this is how it should be, we're not privy to change, somebody comes with something new into society, or if something new even from a business perspective, when a new product is introduced in society, how much money does the company have to spend educating the people about it, to convince them to accept it or not? So, a lot of times, if you go to an investor with a with, with with with a product, right, the investor is

going to take into consideration

the fact that this product will not fly unless we spend millions and millions educating the people about its benefits, convincing them that it's better than what you had, right? Which means society by default is not privy to change this is similar to sheep, we Allah subhanho wa Taala

grant us the understanding

and grow us. I mean, I mean, I mean, so brothers and sisters, these are

the similarities between the qualities that sheep have and human beings have. And Allah subhanho wa Taala inspired his prophets to

interact with sheep growing up part of the training process. So when they went up, they were sensitive to the different types of people, the people who chose to, to kick him out of his town, the people who chose to usurp the property of the pea, we know Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was always good. He prayed Salah, they threw dirt and the incense into stains and blood of animals on him. But he was good with them. They were people who stoned him out of the city dive. His shoes were filled with his bloods sallallahu alayhi wasallam and when Allah gave him the chance to destroy them, he was good to them as well. Such levels of forbearance such levels of selflessness,

such levels of patience, such levels of forgiveness, such levels to withstand harm and difficulty. Allah, he didn't just come overnight. It came through experience through being an orphan before he was born, being an orphan again when he was six, being sent into the countryside when he was two, losing his grandfather when he was eight, and so on, and so forth. sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with Allah subhanho wa Taala makers, those who revive his son. I mean, at the back, there's a big poster would say, the sooner the better, the sooner the better. Well, Allah He helped and this is the truth. The sooner the better. Your lawmakers revivals of the tsunami. I mean,