Suhaib Webb – The Power of Pain and Illness
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AI: Transcript ©
What's up? What's going on?
We're
back together again, growing together, and I know
the last few hiccups have been, like, really
earth shattering, masha'Allah.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in the Quran,
after 'Auzu billahi minashaitanal
regime,
Allah SWT says that he gives wisdom to
who he wants,
and whoever has been given wisdom has been
given an infinite good.
In describing our beloved Messenger Muhammad Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam
Allah says, yuzekkihim
wayu alimuhumulkitaba
wal hikma.
That the prophet's job is to purify the
internal and
book. So knowledge and wisdom are 2 very
different things, subhanAllah.
That takes us now to the text we've
been reading together here at Swiss, for those
of you who haven't enrolled
in all of our classes for $10 a
month as we build something incredible.
Atsuheebweb.com/swiss.
We move now to a really important
hicom, the 10th hicom,
that touches on
some very, very powerful concepts that can rock
us. So
let's kind of frame where we are. The
hiccup starts by framing actions and deeds.
Like don't get too caught up in the
good you do. Don't get defeated by the
evil that you do.
In my podcast with brother Ryan Harris, he
told me as an NFL player, one of
the things he knew
is that
what was important for him that people usually
don't notice when they watch a game is
how people deal with failure.
And that tells you if you've defeated your
opponent or not. So how do we deal
with also failure and slip ups,
in in the deeds that we do?
And then we talked about
emergent religiosity,
and being too impulsive, or too negligent. And
then we talked about our emotions,
and our feelings, and our personal kind of,
drives that may not necessarily, you know, be
the best for us.
We talked about
anxiety, depression, and sadness.
We talked about
responsibilities,
and the signs of
putting faith first, if you will.
And then we talked after that,
about, you know,
the power of dua
that's unanswered.
And then when things don't go our way
that we think are are promised to us,
and how we appreciate that could be a
test from God.
The next thing that we wanna talk about
is health.
You know the prophet said,
You know that
something that most people fail to take advantage
of, one of them is their free time.
We know that time is so important, look
at the last part of the Quran, the
last 30th part of the Quran. It actually
starts backwards. Like when we think about our
lives in the dunya,
in this temporary world, we think about our
birth until where we are today. Least I
can say for myself.
The 30th part of the Quran starts backwards.
It starts with the day of resurrection.
It goes from that to our times in
the grave.
It goes to heaven and *, our times
in the grave, and so on and so
forth. Then it goes to Al Alak, when
we're created,
and then it goes before that,
right, before creation.
And then at the end of the 30th
part of the Quran, walaser,
it swears by time. As if to say
like time encapsulates your success and all those
things.
So sometimes health is a challenge because health
keeps us from bad health,
from worshiping in the way that we intended.
And that may cause us to lose hope
and trust in Allah.
Or we may see people around us
who are sick,
and we're moved by that, our dear ones,
and they're no longer able to worship
or serve in the way that they wanted
to, we may begin to question trusting in
God. Remember the first 25 hikam
are about trusting in Allah.
So Imam Ibn Utta'a Allah says,
open like Sultan Fatiha,
a wijhatan,
excuse me, minata'arruf.
When Allah has opened for you
a
a a place where you can get to
know him.
A situation,
Wijha is hard to translate in English.
Wijha like a vantage point,
but here it means like when Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala has given you the opportunity
to know him, Falatubari
Maaha
Don't, like, don't let that bother you
if
the good you did is suddenly reduced.
What he means here is if Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala has allowed you to be tested
through your wealth, through your health, through some
kind of loss, but here specifically health
by illness.
Do not
despair if your deeds are not like they
used to be when you were when you
were healthy.
Fa'imna hoo ma fataha laq illa wahuwayuridu
anya ta'arwatha
ilaik. He said the only reason that Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has allowed you to experience
this is so that you can increase your
relationship with him.
Alamtalem
don't you know? Alna ta'arrufa
Aren't you aware, like,
this is
this opportunity
to know him
is
his, like, his will for you.
His will for you
could also be mean, like, a blessing. What
what he wanted to happen
for you, like trust that.
What, and
that you, you just simply,
you present these to him as like an
offering.
Wa'ayna ma'tuhudihi
And
and like where
how do you compare, like, what you've given
to God in comparison to what God has
decreed for you?
I'm gonna break this down because I know
it's it's not easy to translate, but it's
really beautiful.
SubhanAllah.
When Allah
has given you
a window into knowing him through
in here like illness or loss.
Falatubari
Maaha il Qalaamaluk.
Don't don't get upset
if
your deeds
like
are reduced.
The only reason that he allowed that that
to happen is so he can make himself
manifest to you in your life. Usually, when
it's
through loss, through failure,
people either are gonna get defeated, or they're
gonna realize that this is an opportunity to
grow and learn.
And they're going to see, like, oh, wow.
I'm not completely capable.
So what can I do
to improve my capability?
And if I can't do that, then I
am completely in the state of submission
to the authority above me. So you see
something happening here.
Aren't you aren't you aware that
god's
will is for you to know him through
this experience?
What,
you know, you just you just give
deeds as the gift, as the offering to
God because he's commanded you to.
And how do you compare what you've given
him
to what he's willed for you?
Alright, this is beautiful,
and let's go through it. Sheikh Shar Nabi
says,
We know that one of the names of
God is Al Fattah,
the opener. So like, when you find yourself
constricted, when you find life working against you,
Open things for me.
When Allah has given you the opportunity to
know him.
Walgharihima.
So in general,
and although I mentioned health, it's a little
bit wider than that, any type of loss.
He mentions el emrod because we wanna talk
about that because that that's what impacts most
people. But any type of loss. Recently, I
was talking to a friend who his uncle
was a millionaire, and then just
like, boom it was gone.
You'ezumayasha
or Yazilumayasha.
Right? Allah Yarteemayasha.
Allah gives and he takes from who he
wants. He raises and he lowers who he
wants.
So,
the point is that
these different trials and losses are meant for
us to find instability in the losses,
and stability in the Lord of everything.
Because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, our relationship with
him is what has to be stable. We
tend to invert it.
So we tend to base our relationship with
God
strictly on the measurements of the world. This
goes back to what I talked about in
the last few hikam, whereas if I'm obeying
Allah, and I am with God, everything else
is salt on the food, man.
Man. Those who say Allah is our lord,
and then they stay down. Staying down is
the crux
of understanding
the logic of the world we live in.
Between the will of God, the command of
God, and our choices.
So the Sheikh he says very beautifully,
You know, and and the opportunity to know
God here is specifically meaning like through illness,
through trials and tests and through loss. Feinna
Sababun,
And because these are opportunities,
these are a cause by which we can
know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's
attributes. So like if I'm sick I turn
to him for healing, if I'm
needing,
you know to be enriched financially Allah is
a razaq.
If I'm looking for any any name of
Allah,
the challenge of the names of God and
the attributes of God, and we have a
class on this in the future called the
aims of the names,
Is to be able to find intersectionality
between his names and our lives.
And that's marifa, the ability to contextualize that.
So he's saying this is an opportunity for
us to know,
for example, Allah's kindness,
his authority, and power, and other things. And
then he says, and the one who's being
addressed here is the person who's woke. And
you know, I I gave it almota yapiv.
I gave on my podcast, you can find
the series on being woke, when woke was
like that term, and I talked about how
Imam al Harari,
in his Munazal Asa'irim, like in in Ibn
Qayyim and his madad is a Sarikim, which
is like an abridgment of it. They mentioned
that the first
stop in the spiritual path is being awake.
Right?
Someone who's and this is not just being
awake, this is like deliberately woke, like I'm
invested.
So it's not the world that's causing me
to wake up. No. I am in a
state of deliberate,
alertness.
Wal Mutayakev
is the one who's being addressed here as
someone that like they they they are alert
to God's
names and attributes, and they see those things
in their lives.
Not someone that has doubt in Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. And the Sheikh, he continues in
this part of this hicom is extremely relevant
to us today. One of the things that
we struggle with, at least in the west,
is the idea of ministry to Muslims. Like
we We're good at being
we're good at being scholars of Aqidah. We're
good at being,
you know, enforcers of certain things, but we're
not very good at chaplaincy.
So we see, even in the call out
culture, right. Muslims are destroyed. For me,
that's not the sign of a complete community.
A a complete community is not one that
simply holds people to be responsible,
but a complete prophetic community is one that
also offers them redemption.
We're not modeling that well for people. So
we're seeing people destroyed. Their lives are done.
And and the Muslim community has just cast
them out.
That's not prophetic, man.
That's not a prophetic community. That that's something
else. That's a community that's working for something
else, and that worries me. That doesn't mean
that we
minimize
the mistakes people have made. We should hold
people accountable,
but there's accountability with redemption.
So, this part of the hicom
hits on something I feel that is anemic
in the Muslim community in America, and that's
ministry.
So he says,
Falatubari
maaha in Qalaamaluk.
So if you're impacted by
sickness,
loss,
illness,
a loss of wealth,
existential issues, and we can also say like,
you know,
this happened to a lot of people. Falat
Tubari
ma'aha, and qalaamaluk.
Then don't don't get down if that happens
to you.
Listen to the Hadith of of the prophet
that speaks to this. Think about people that
we know and love, who are sick and
ill, can no longer worship
in the way that they did when they
were healthy.
Prophet said in Allah
kiaraman kati biynaramunamatafaroon
mentioned in Surat al Fitr.
You know, write down
the the good that this person who's now
sick,
write down for them now in their sickness
the good that they used to do when
they were healthy. It's also an encouragement for
those of us who are still somewhat young
or younger or really young and healthy to
get busy, man.
Don't say, like, I'm gonna wait till I
get older
to do things. And I'll do it now
so that it becomes a pattern. So when
we become older and our physical ability is
compromised, our intellectual ability is compromised.
Su'il kibr,
the prophet,
you know,
du'aaf protection from.
That that will be like written for us.
So people with Alzheimer's, dementia,
you we see them, we feel upset and
sad, but let's remember that the good they
did before, they're getting the reward for it
now, masha'Allah.
Somebody that's bedridden, we can say to them,
you know, the wijha ta'arof, this opportunity to
know God,
is not something that should get you down,
because you are being compensated for the good
that you did,
because why? All this falls on the famous
hadith, in the malammaru biliyat.
Actions are by the intentions. Because if that
person was healthy, we know they would do
it.
SubhanAllah.
So he says,
Muhammad. This hadith is related by Imam Mohammed
and Muhammed.
The point here,
how do we know God through this? He
said, this is Mu'ri du hoo, this is
what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wanted for you.
And if you compare that to the actions
that you would normally have done,
the fact that God is compensating you as
though you did these actions perfectly
means that the reward is going to be
greater while you're sick
than the deeds that you and I presented
while we were healthy, or we had what
we needed to perform those deeds, because we'll
be deficient.
So what he's saying, and this is dope,
is that this is an opportunity to know
Allah
because
your rewards now are greater
and his blessings are greater
because it's automatically
understood that you did these deeds perfectly.
And that wouldn't happen while we were healthy.
So like why I'm healthy if I pray
Fajr, my mind might be somewhere, you know,
I'm I'm I'm you know, like
doing what I normally do. My mind is
not focused. Right?
But if I was somehow incapacitated
and I had regularly played Fajr,
but I was still, you know, alive, but
just not able to function like I normally
did,
I'll be rewarded for that Fajr as though
it was perfect.
So what he's saying is,
like how do you compare that
blessing in the sense of that illness when
that's going, when that's
happening to when you were healthy and there
were deficiencies in your deeds. And this is
what he means by
hetun
minata'arruf.
Like this is one component of getting to
know the mercy,
love,
and kindness of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So, when we're talking with people who are
ill, we're talking with people that may have
lost things that they're not able, because of
that loss they're not able to perform
the way that they used to. We should
remind them of this man. That Allah is
rewarding you as though you did those things
when you were healthy, alhamdulillah,
and when you had the ability and now
because Allah is so kind, and merciful, and
loving to the believers,
you are getting
the full recompense for the deeds.
That's what Sheikh Shar Nabi says
You know, and like this is, this is
the opportunity
now for
for you to cash in because this is
a greater blessing
than having to try to fulfill the requirements
of worship when you were healthy.
Masha'Allah.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala bless us, bless
us and help us again one more time.
This hikm says,
You know, if the opportunity arises
for you to learn about God through loss,
through a test, this is what's understood.
Don't don't get down.
If you're not able to maintain the good
that you used to do.
The only reason that this happened is Allah
wanted you to have the opportunity to know
him.
And that is what God has commanded of
us, and this is what God wills for
us, is the opportunity to learn about him
because knowing Allah is what helps center us
in life.
And and
and and and the deeds that you do,
those are simply things that you present because
you've been commanded.
Like, you know, you've been commanded
to do those things.
They're a sign of your guidance and your
gift, if you will, to your creator.
How
do you compare what you've done
to what God has willed for you. SubhanAllah,
we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to bless
us and bless you.