Suhaib Webb – Virtual Khutba Ibn Hajar’s Advice On Living With A Plague
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of not hearing negative messages that lead tobling-up and losing hope in the community, as well as the loss of various members of Islam's community. They emphasize the importance of finding happiness and content with what Allah has promised, being happy with what he has decreed, being mindful of one's health, and being a good doctor and nurse. The speakers also emphasize the importance of forgiveness and preparing for death, and the importance of being mindful of one's health and being a good doctor and nurse. They encourage people to express themselves and to be careful with their religion and health.
AI: Summary ©
We hope we're gonna see you on Sunday
night at
our quotation of Quran. Thank you for coming
last minute and just I'm sure, like,
for so many people the Quran is the
best du'a.
We send peace and blessings upon our beloved
messenger, Muhammad
upon his family, his companions, and those, who
follow them until the end of time.
Brothers and sisters, Assalamu alaikum We
are here for a 3rd, virtual Khutba. Of
course, this is not the ritual or regular
obligatory Khutba that we would be observing if
we were in normal circumstances, but,
we're here to try
and do the best we can as
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says beautifully in the Quran.
Right? Those who say that they believe in
Allah,
and then they stay upright in their commitment
to Allah. And the hadith of Sayyidina Nabi
who the man he he came to him
and he asked the prophet
can you can you tell me about something
like I can ask nobody but you.
Say that I believe in Allah and
then stay stay upright, like stay consistent,
in that in that
belief that claim that you make to have
this belief in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
SubhanAllah. I know that this is a difficult
time for so many people. And I first
of all, just want to say, you know,
we love each and every one of you
for the sake of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And we need to be bearers of good
vibes,
you know, and, and honest, honesty, but at
the same time, honesty with empathy.
That certainly this is a very difficult time,
And it is trying for everyone across the
globe and some for others.
And we know that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam,
as he mentioned is as mentioned in sound
hadith that the prophet,
he
he said that if you were to make
your fellow Muslim
happy, to make a fellow Muslim happy
would
obligate paradise for you.
So we wanna be, especially in this time,
people who carry,
the responsibility
of is
bringing happiness,
insha'Allah
to our community to each and every one
of us. Alhamdulillah.
I just want to talk about a few
things really briefly.
Because of time and so many things happening,
but I really appreciate it's a large number
of people here. Masha Allah. May Allah as
he's gathered us now on Yomu Jumu'ah, one
of the reasons it's called Jumu'ah is this
is Jumu'ah Surah.
This is the minor gathering that reminds us
as we've dressed nice and as we are
happy and as we as we have our
lotion on and our faces are shining,
we hope that in Jum'atul Surah, Allah will
gather us in Jum'atul Kubra.
That as Allah has gathered us together here
in this minor gathering,
we ask Allah to gather us under the
flag of Sayna Muhammad
in the hereafter.
And and this is something that's very important
that we need to avoid
messages of people within the community that continue
to debase us and tell us how bad
we are.
But SubhanAllah,
look, it's not even a fard and more
than here on Facebook live and even on
Zoom, we have almost 2,000 people
right
now listening to this virtual Khutbah.
What does that tell you?
That tells you that there is higher in
the hearts of the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad
salallahu alaihi wa sallam.
As the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
al khairofi umatihatatukumasa.
There will always be good in the community.
Salallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So alhamdulillah,
you know, we should
hear messages of responsibility,
but we should not hear messages that lead
to despair
and losing hope in the barakah of the
Ummah,
Marhuma w Mahfova.
The Prophet
he made du'a for this Ummah that it
will be protected,
and that this du'a will be the recipients
of the mercy of Allah
until the end of time. Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
What I wanted to to say is that
is rooted largely in the fact that we
believe this dunya is only a
temporary means of transportation to the hereafter.
And that's why Allah
says very beautifully,
in the Quran
That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
created death and life.
Ibn Abbas, he said death
is the dunya
and life is the hereafter. So Mashallah we
live
for
the hereafter.
We don't die to live for dunya.
That being said, I just wanted to share
a few thoughts from one of our great
luminaries of the great luminaries of Islam,
and that is Imam Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani,
who died 852 Hijri. He is known as
Kholasator Hufav
wa'amir mumineen Fil Hadith.
He is considered one of the greatest
scholars
of Hadith in the later period. An imam
ibn Hajri, he lived in the 9th century
in Egypt in Misr.
He's buried in the Mount Takhatu Imam Shafi'i,
in the area of Sayna Imam Shafi'i.
And Imam ibn Hajar
was someone who he faced a lot of
difficulties throughout his life. He was born
and he lost his mother and father. SubhanAllah,
he was raised by his sister.
And then he, alhamdulillah, as he, of course,
got married and settled his life as a
great scholar and began to, you know, grow
and learn,
as an Adam.
He had 5 daughters, Masha'Allah.
Can you imagine the blessing in the prophet
said, whoever has 2 daughters,
and those daughters maintain, you know, a commitment
to faith and live a life of purpose.
They will be a means of protecting this
person from hellfire. SubhanAllah.
And SubhanAllah, he began in 18/5
15, excuse me, he was asked by some
of his students because the bubonic plague had
hit Egypt
and it had assailed the society of Egypt
and people were dying in large numbers. Great
scholars like Imam Al Dahabi, you know, he
died of the bubonic plague.
And this is something which isn't new to
our history as I'll talk about in a
second.
So imam Sayna ibn Hajar, he began in
18/13/18/14
to collect a hadith
that talked about,
you know,
plagues and things like we're experiencing now. And
that's something very important. I recently heard someone
say to me, you know, what why doesn't
the religion say anything about this? But it's
not that we should expect the religion to
speak to us. Are we speaking to the
religion?
We shouldn't the religion expect the religion to
show up at our front doors like, you
know, a Papa John's pizza that we
deliver. But that's why Sayidna Umar, when he
saw in his dream that he was taking
milk from a cow, the prophet said, this
is elm.
This is Elum. This is knowledge because you
have to work in those days to get
the milk you have to work. So let
me just give you example.
In the Quran itself, there is a verse
that talks about Masha'Allah,
a plague will
Have you seen those people whom Hadaramot is
qadada whom Allahumot
is Most ulema said this verse is talking
about a plague.
And then if you look at Kut Tabasita,
the 6 books
of Hadith.
Right? It's okay if people wanna comment. It's
okay. Let them comment inshallah. We want we
want people to feel comfortable, right? This is
not like a Jumuah.
So may Allah bless you for that. But
also,
let's give people as Sayyidina Hasan al Basr
said, You
know, let let people express themselves inshallah
and and and let them, you know,
we need to let people have have a
moment of, you know, letting themselves
loose. And we hope Allah will bless each
and every one of you, masha'Allah.
But if you look at the 6 books
of hadith, Qutabasidda,
you find, for example, in Bukhari, the chapter
Mayuth Karof Ta'un, what's mentioned regarding plagues and
things like this. You find in the Sahih
of Imam Muslim a chapter on plagues
and difficulties. You find in the sunan of
Abi Dawud that the the person who dies,
who dies because of a plague dies as
a shahid.
You find in the,
text of Sayna Imam at Tir Midi. So
we're going to all the 6 books of
hadith, the chapter on, qirahat firaru minuta'oon, that
is disliked to flee from a plague. We're
gonna talk about that perhaps in a special
course that we're gonna
unpack for you guys. Imam Malik in Kitab
Jamah in the Muwata, He has a chapter
on plagues
and and viruses and not viruses, but things
like this. These kind of sicknesses. Muntashara.
So in the 6 books of authentic hadith,
you'll find in all of them, except ibn
A'Majah and Nasai. So,
4 of the 6 and the Muwatta, you
find the chapter on plagues
and the etiquettes and eddab of plagues
and the fada'il of plagues. So the point
I'm trying to make is that maybe it's
not
our religion that's not speaking to us. Maybe
we're not engaging
and listening to our religion.
So Imam Ibn Hajri, he begins in 18/13
to collect all of these ahadith.
And then Subhanah in 18/19,
2 of his daughters die.
Zain ul Khattun
and Seyda Aaliyah, his his his daughter. And
suddenly he stops writing.
They died of the bubonic plague. So he
lost his mother and father. I don't know
why he lost his mother and father. That
needs research.
And then in 18 8/19, excuse
after Hijri, he loses his 2 daughters.
So the writing stops.
And he mentions this writing in other works
like I'm I'm I was writing something on
the fada the the the fawaid of a
ta'un,
the virtues of a plague. Look at the
Muslims, subhanAllah, how the psyche of the Muslim
is even to see the silver lining in
a plague, man.
Like one brother, this is very strange, but
it's so powerful, he contacted me and he
said, Masha'Allah,
since this plague started, I haven't drank alcohol,
because Allah separated me from my sin.
And I said, You Allah, I never thought
about it this way. Like, we're only thinking
about, like, what we lost as far as,
like, what's good, you know? But did we
think that perhaps also this is an opportunity
That Allah has also separated us from sin.
So he said, make du'a for me that
the evil that Allah has separated me from
in this time, I will maintain it, Insha'Allah,
when this this moves on. Like, man, this
is someone who drinks.
Like, this is not the Muslim who's, like,
you know, the most righteous, pious guy. I
I know him. He's a friend of mine.
But
the ability to see good in the storm,
As the Arab poet says, don't be sad
by the big clouds and the rain because
the only thing they hide is the beaming
sun.
Right? Don't get upset with the storm because
the storm only masks
a bright sun. That's the attitude of a
Muslim.
A chaplain reached out to me from a
local hospital,
and she asked me a question that shows
you how amazing our community is. Allahu Akbar.
And we are amazing because
Allah is amazing and the prophet is amazing.
Allahu Akbar.
And she said to me, do Muslims fake
it? I said, fake what? She said,
they accept
death
with such ease.
They accept bad news
with such complacency.
And I said to her, that's because of
Allah.
Because Allah is the ending.
So Sayyidina Imam Ibn Hajar Asqalani
He mentions after 8/19 this book he was
writing called Badlul Maroon
The the struggle of those who are helped
in finding
the silver linings and the blessings
in plagues.
Like, subhanAllah, that's
that's the name of the book, man.
And suddenly,
it stops being written
at the moment that his 2 daughters die.
Samrat Ulema,
look how people have good suspicions of people,
They said perhaps he stopped writing it because
he did not want to make this
an episode of personal therapy,
therefore, maybe
affecting his Ikhlas.
Like he wrote the book for Allah,
not for personal therapy. So he stopped until
he overcame his sadness
at losing his 2 daughters, which is very
normal,
until he could be centered and make it
for Allah. You Allah.
What a person.
Then in 833,
he loses his oldest daughter,
SubhanAllah.
His oldest daughter, Fatima.
He loses his so imagine this is a
great scholar, a great imam,
one of the great adif of Allah, and
subhanAllah,
almost
what 13, 14 years later, he loses another
daughter to the bubonic plague.
And it's then
that he begins to finish the work, and
he publishes this work. Inshallah, I plan to
do a weekend workshop with you guys on
this entire book.
Insha'Allah because it's
you can feel his heart in the book,
man.
You know, you can feel
ibn Hajar
that his
his pain is in the book. SubhanAllah.
But there is a section, I think, that's
very important. I'm just going to mention it
in brevity
Because I have a class of some 13
to 15 year olds that are waiting on
me. Allahu Akbar. Can you imagine,
in our 13 to 15 year old class,
we had more than a 1000 kids.
And they're so amazing memorizing the Quran,
you know,
being focused, asking how they can help their
parents.
You know, they're not they're not caught up,
man.
So the first thing is that Imam Ibn
Hajar, he mentioned some of the virtues of
going through something like this.
And he said the first is that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala wakes us up.
That we are that we are resuscitating.
The second is that we have a greater
focus on good.
Like Masha'Allah, I see all those love comments
for each other. Allah bless you,
make us almohibin fillah.
That the second is that Allah,
in these moments, we attain a higher focus.
The third is that this is an opportunity
to forgive and ask for forgiveness.
To forgive and ask for forgiveness.
And the 4th he said is to prepare
for death.
In his text,
he has a very, very beautiful
statement.
A chapter, excuse me, where he mentions what
are the etiquettes
of people? Right? What are the etiquettes of
people
who
are going through something like this?
And he mentioned specifically
the people who are sick.
So he has a chapter Masha'Allah
dedicated to people because I worry sometimes in
these discussions, we speak only to the people
who are not sick, right?
But there are a number of Muslims
reaching out to us who are saying that
they have this virus, they're asking us to
make dua for them. We have a number
of
in New York City,
who I'm from now,
who have lost family members.
We ask Allah to accept them as Shuhada.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to forgive
them and raise them and to bring,
you know,
security to their family. Our our friend, our
brother Sheikh Fayaz at the NYU, his mother-in-law,
just this week,
passed away, Rahimahullah.
So the sheikh, he mentions a number of
eadeb.
And before we do that, I think there's
3 things he says you should think about
when engaging this thing.
Number 1 is a dua.
Number 1 is
du'a.
It's to be in a state of dhikr
and du'a.
Number 2
is to have
at your ready the the ability, and I'm
thinking now in Arabic, so forgive me,
to to utilize all of the medical resources
you have around you.
To utilize all of the medical resources that
you have around.
Number 3 is not to use Qadr as
an excuse,
you know,
but to constantly struggle for what's right. As
Sayyidina Umar said, we leave the Qada to
the Qada.
The last part of this brief hudba, Insha'Allah,
is I just want to touch on a
few etiquettes and I'm going to expound on
these in the future. You You have to
forgive me, it's just a lot going on.
SubhanAllah.
And make Dua for us and anyone interested
in helping out, you can email me at
swsuheibweb.com.
Like literally, we have 3 or 4 people
trying to run
really all of the services that we have
provided for you.
Absolutely. Absolutely. It applies to mental
illness.
So he says, here are the the the
the
the And he said, you know, these are
things
that if you are ill,
whether in a plague or otherwise, you should
think about these etiquettes.
Or if you're sick
and, you know, in any sickness, and I
I can expand that. I can say I
may not be physically sick, but we all
have some
some sickness in our hearts.
So he says,
The first thing he said is you should
make du'a to Allah
for afeah,
which means health inwardly and outwardly and cognitively.
And and we know that the Sayna Rasool
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said,
The prophet SAWSAA wasalam said that Allah was
never asked by anything which he loves more
than someone asking for Afiyya.
Someone asking
for, you know, health mentally, spiritually,
and physically.
The third the second edeb, he said,
The second is you should find happiness
and content with whatever Allah has decreed. It's
so hard, SubhanAllah, and we should help each
other.
That's why you have some of the salaf
at the time of their death. They would
ask their family members, mention Allah's mercy,
mention Allah's
blessings upon me. So that that now as
as I'm facing death, I find patience and
happiness with Allah.
You know, Sayyidina Musa Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
said to him, in Narubai,
you
know, my happiness
My happiness with you is with your happiness
in me.
And sometimes the reason that we're not able
to be happy is we
dunya, we'll never be happy with Allah.
But if I live for the hereafter and
the promise of Allah,
then I'm pleased with whatever happens. That's why,
subhanAllah, there were some Sahaba,
There were some Sahaba who
they were faced with fitna.
They were faced with hardship and they said,
Oh, plague, take my life. Because they felt
that the fitna they were facing in this
world
may threaten the hereafter, and they would rather
die and live for the hereafter.
Shaddum in Alqatil.
So the second is to be pleased with
the Qada of Allah and the reba of
Allah.
And we should always, Chicago kid, assume
we are happy with Allah and Allah is
happy with us.
As Allah says,
I am with you as you think I
am with you.
As Al Muhasib
as Al, Imam Al Muhasibih, he said,
If you wanna know where you stand with
God, ask yourself where God stands with you.
But we should not fall into despair. The
prophet said, la yamutun naha, none of you
should die except, and this is the third
etiquette he mentions, you assume good of Allah.
You assume higher of Allah.
So may Allah strengthen us. It's not easy.
That's why Jahid, the great poet, he said,
if you doubt Allah's plan for you,
then think about Musa,
who went to get fire and came back
with the fire of prophethood.
He went for fire,
but came back with the fire of prophethood.
So the world we should not restrict the
world to our limited
physical
measurements,
but we should have
a good suspicion with Allah. And that's the
third etiquette
he mentions.
And he says, atarrifi
husniuvan
billah.
And we should encourage people
to have this good assumption of Allah because
pain and suffering and sickness and health,
this is just part of the Uber trip
to the hereafter.
This is not all there is.
This is just this moment.
And we believe, inshaAllah, when our relatives are
dying of illnesses like this, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam has said this pain and
suffering they experience
is a way for every sin of theirs
to be removed.
So then they meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and all their sins are forgiven. So Rahmatam
min Allah.
SubhanAllah
And the last Insha'Allah because of time.
And I'm gonna actually make a special set
of
recordings for this for our health care providers,
like our brother Saqib
in New York City.
1 of our uncles,
Basharat Ali, he died. SubhanAllah,
his daughter reached out to me, his blessed
family.
He was one of the first people to
serve,
to serve people that had this virus.
And then then he himself,
as an elderly man,
had this virus and he passed away. Mawlaiq
said to Ma'az al Shaheed,
you know what the prophet
said to you who are out there
as health care providers?
You are truly the the heroes of the
the world today.
He said nobody
seeks to heal, like as a doctor or
a nurse. Right?
Someone who's ill,
except as long and this hadith al Sahid.
As long as they stand
and serve those people,
they are under the rahma of Allah,
a special mercy.
And when they and when they sit, you
know, like when they they stop. Right?
The Malaika envelop them in
rama. Another narration said that as long as
they are in the service of the sick,
they are in the highest level of Jannah.
So the last thing that the Imam,
he mentions Rahim Ohola,
is that we should and of course, we
are not professionally trained, but some of us
we can serve people in our homes.
We can serve
some of the sick maybe in our houses,
right, who don't have this illness.
But
we should all be sending special messages
to Muslim healthcare providers in our community that
they are our heroes,
that we are making to offer them, and
that we promise to take care of their
families. If anything, God forbid, happens to them,
there should be
funds created to support these people's family if
God forbid anything happens to them.
The prophet said whoever arms a soldier to
fight is the soldier. So we can also
say, whoever
helps a medical provider,
they are as though they are also a
medical provider, masha'Allah, to the people.
So the 4th etiquette that Sayna'i Imam Ibn
Hajar he mentions
is the virtues, and there is at least
14 hadith,
the virtues of being a nurse.
And in fiqh, you know, in the Mariki
Madhab,
the excuses for not being clean are given
to nurses and doctors,
because the the important role they play. Did
you know that nurses and doctors are allowed
to join prayers
in fiqh
because of the important role they play Allahu
Akbar.
So it's also important for us to stay
home
and abide by what these medical professionals are
asking us. So as we finish Insha'Allah, and
I love all of you and I ask
Allah to bless you and Masha'Allah,
It's it's it's
a blessing that we are together,
and I ask every one of you to
make dua
because Insha'Allah someone here in this group,
their dua
will be accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
we hope Insha'Allah.
So the first etiquette that he mentioned, Alhamdulillah,
was to ask Allah for Afiyyah.
The second etiquette that he talked about
is to be patient with the Quddah of
Allah and be pleased with Allah.
The third is that to have a good
suspicion and assumption of Allah. And the 4th
is the virtues
of being on the front lines.
Allahu Akbar. What a deen, man. And then
I mentioned that out of the 6 books
of hadith,
4 of them actually have entire chapters and
this includes the Mu'ata,
which is the 7th book, that talk about
these things.
So we shouldn't ask
what our religion has done for us. We
should ask what we have done for our
religion. InshaAllah, tonight we will continue with our
Quran reading at 10 o'clock InshaAllah, Surat An
Am Eastern Time, and then we'll make community
dua. We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Be
Asma'ihee kulliha
wussi fatila'ula. We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
by all His names and attributes
to bless every single one of you. We
ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to protect our
families and give us Alafi'ah.
We ask Allah to protect our brothers and
sisters in Gaza,
and our brothers and sisters in Kashmir, and
or Rohingya, the forgotten people.
Those people who, Allahu Akbar, I saw a
few people from New York, they were actually
organizing to send face masks, even though they're
in New York, send face masks to Palestine.
Ask Allah to protect the poor. We ask
Allah to protect those people who've lost their
jobs. People who have been financially impacted by
this very difficult virus. We ask Allah to
bless all of the frontline workers
who are out there really struggling,
you know, and tired and exhausted and underserved.
We ask Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la to bless
us Insha'aAllah with Afiyyah. We ask Allah Subhana
Wa Ta'la to increase us Insha'aAllah.
I mean, inshallah, we'll post