Suzy Ismail – Family First – Family First – Strengthening The Bonds
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AI: Transcript ©
Assalamu alaikum, everyone.
So as we heard
from the previous speakers,
the Surah
of Prophet Yusuf alaihis salaam, the story of
the Prophet Yusuf
alaihis salaam
is a story of moral fortitude.
It's a story of leadership and humility.
But it is also a story of family,
a story of siblings,
and a story of justice.
And what we see in the journey of
Yousaf alaihissalam
are central figures within the family dynamic
that impacted him, impacted his journey, his life
and where
he alaihissalam
found himself.
Each and every one of us
here knows what it's like to have a
sibling.
Whether it is a biological sibling,
a cousin that is like a sibling,
or brothers and sisters around us who are
meant to be like siblings.
Each of us knows
that within that
love of sibling, within that relationship of being
siblings,
there is that
which can be very sweet,
A connection.
A relationship where it's the 2 of you
or the 3 of you, the 4 of
you, the 12 of you building
connections based on shared experiences,
based on being in close proximity to one
another, based on sharing parentage.
And those close experiences can draw one nearer
to their siblings.
But we also know
that in those same experiences, we can find
a rift.
We can find that which is known as
sibling rivalry.
We can find injustices
occurring
between siblings.
The very people that you may think
are meant to be the closest to you,
the very people that Allah
places in your path,
as a blessing,
as a mercy can also be the greatest
test that you experience in this dunya.
And this was the journey of Yusuf
And we see at the start of the
Surah
that Yusuf
speaks to his beloved father. And as Ustaid
Mejid mentioned, that connection with his father, that
love, that excitement that Yusuf alaihis salaam goes
to his father telling him of the dream
that he had,
knowing
that his father is one that he can
trust, that his father will explain to him
what it is that he experienced.
And yet it is his father and his
insight and his wisdom,
Ya'qub who
recognizes and realizes
that there may be jealousy erupting among the
siblings.
That the brothers of Yusuf alaihis salaam, despite
being brothers,
despite being raised in the same home,
that they may turn upon him because of
these glad tidings,
because of the srisala from Allah Azzawajal
giving
note of what will come to Yousef alaihis
salam.
And so he warns his beloved son. He
warns his beloved son and asks him not
to share
this vision even with his own brothers.
And it's hard.
It's hard when you have a sibling,
a brother, a sister,
an uncle, an aunt, a cousin, someone that
you love dearly, someone that is a part
of your family, that you feel is a
part of you, it is hard
to think that that person may not want
tayr for you, that that person may not
want what's best for you.
And yet, shaytan is shawtir.
Shaytan
knows how to seek that evil into our
hearts
and cause
even the softest of hearts to harden towards
one another.
Siblings who played together as children.
Siblings who shared meals together.
Siblings who grew up together,
turning against one another.
And this is this is a story as
old as time itself.
The very first murder that occurred in this
dunya
was between siblings,
between the sons of Adam alayhis salam.
Adam the first prophet, the first human created
on earth,
raised his children in a way to love
Allah,
raised his children understanding and knowing, La ilaha
illallah.
And yet, this
did not stop his son from killing his
own brother from a place of jealousy,
from a place of wanting that which his
brother had, that which was decreed for his
brother.
And Yousif would
experience the same in terms of this jealousy,
in terms of this fire that burned inside
the hearts of his brothers,
that would cause them to wish upon him
harm.
And his father knew.
His father knew that this could be the
case.
And yet, despite his misgivings, despite his fear,
Yaqub alayhis salaam trusting fully in Allah having
that strength of tawakkul,
sends Yusuf alayhis salam with his brothers.
And his brothers commit the deed
of trying to harm Yusuf leaving him in
the well,
Yahubah
with that heaviness of heart
remained patient,
knowing that Allah is Most Just,
knowing that Allah
would provide him with relief and would allow
him again
at some point, to reconnect with his beloved
Yousef alaihis salaam.
And this is not the only case
of sibling rivalry,
of jealousy, of harm within a family that
causes brokenness, that tears people apart.
This is not the only case that we
see in the Quran.
This is not the only case in the
sunnah of Rasul sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
We see Abu Lahab
who was the half brother of Abdullah the
father of the Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
and hence the half uncle of the Rasul
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Abu Lahab as the half brother of the
father of Muhammad Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam
also had hikd, had hatred in his heart,
also had jealousy in his heart,
also had this
maligning
nature about him.
And it was Abu Lahab
who caused so much harm to befall the
Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Family members,
the people that we often believe are the
ones that are meant to have our backs.
Family members, the ones that we look towards
and we say, yes, this person will never
leave me.
And yet Allah, as the wajal, will often
use people,
use people in our lives, place people in
our lives to test our attachments.
And it is sometimes the one that we
place
the most trust in.
When we place our trust in a human
being, it is a trust that is misplaced.
And so when we place the most trust
in a sibling, when we place our hopes,
our expectations
in a family member, we are limiting
ourselves in that our trust, our hope, our
connections, our expectations
are meant to be reserved
for our connection with Allah.
And this is why we are so often
disappointed.
This does not mean
that we treat our family members
in ways in which we are suspicious,
that we treat our family members in ways
in which we put harm upon them
because this is not
what happened in the case of Yusuf alaihis
salam.
We see that even when the opportunity arose,
after Yusuf alaihis salam experienced trial after trial
after trial, when the opportunity arose in which
he opportunity arose in which he could have
harmed his siblings, he could have harmed his
brothers, he could have sought revenge
and put them in jail and punish them
in his position
as the minister of finance.
He did not.
He did not and he chose to forgive
them. He did not live his life with
bitterness
because he knew that the justice of Allah
was true.
He knew that Allah was protecting him from
that which could have been worse for him
through these trials and tribulations.
And every time
Allah
places in our path a person who is
a test for us, whether it be a
family member, a friend, a community member, a
spouse, a child,
whenever Allah
places that person as a test in our
lives, he also places
in our lives the one who is a
relief,
the one who is a blessing,
the one who alleviates
our pain and our fear.
And we see this over and over again
in the story of Yusuf alaihis salaam.
Despite being thrown in the well and being
left for dead, we know that Allah
sent to him the salvation.
In what form?
In the form
of what we would assume to be enslavement.
And yet when he was lifted up from
the well and when he was sold through
this process of enslavement,
we know Al Aziz
was kind.
Al Aziz was gentle towards him. Al Aziz
cared for him. Al Aziz raised him and
taught him all he knew.
And yet again, despite having, just as in
his home,
Yusuf
had the blessing of his father and the
test of his brothers.
In the home of Al Aziz, he had
the blessing of Al Aziz and the test
of the wife of Al Aziz, Zulaikha.
And that was a difficult test
which he faced with the wife of Al
Aziz.
And yet again, despite
the difficulty and the test that he has
faced in,
he recognizes that Allah is protecting him from
that which could be worse.
And he chooses that imprisonment
because he views being in prison as being
better for him than being in that pathway
of fitna.
And in that prison, we see that he
engages
with those who speak to him of their
dreams and Yusuf
through the gift that Allah
bestows upon him is able
to tell them what these dreams mean.
And when they leave the prison,
he asks to be remembered to their king
and yet human beings are forgetful.
We know that the insan,
at the root of it is nisyan,
that we forget.
And so the man that he asked to
remember him to the king, he forgets.
And for years years, Yusuf alaihis salam remains
imprisoned.
And yet again, this prison is a blessing
to him because Allah
is preparing for him that which is better.
And we see the journey of Yusuf
Despite the brothers who tried
to hold him down to ruin his pathway,
We see that at every step Allah
provided that which was better.
And so when we suffer in our relationships,
when we struggle maybe with our own siblings,
when we struggle maybe with our own parents,
when we struggle with our children, when we
struggle in the dynamics of family, which is
so often imperfect,
when we struggle in those moments
and we recognize the brokenness,
we also have to look for that which
is not broken.
We also have to see that which Allah
has blessed us with, whether in the form
of a person,
in the form of rizqah that is given
to us in a way
to soothe and to heal and to uplift
us despite our difficulty.
And each and every one of us has
this.
Despite Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam struggling at the
hands of Abu Lahab, struggling at the hands
of Abu Jahal, struggling at the hands of
Quraysh, Allah
replaced Rasul
those people who did not wish him well,
replaced them with the sahaba,
replace them with righteous spouses,
replace them with those who would uplift Rasool
And the Quran is filled
with these narrations that guide us to better
understand the role of family, the impact of
family, and in particular, our siblings.
And we see that there are siblings mentioned
in the Quran
that are truly
those who uplift and those who stand beside
1.
The prophet Musa alaihis salam
in Surat Taha, we are reminded that after
he turns to Allah,
reciting the dua of Musa, the dua that
today we recite
before we face any challenge.
When Musa alayhis salam
recites the dua asking Allah to grant him
ease in the difficult task ahead of him
of speaking to Firaun,
after reciting this dua he asks Allah
to grant him
a wazir, to grant him someone that will
be with him
and he requests that this person
be his brother Harun.
Because in this sibling relationship, in this dynamic,
Musa alaihis salam knew that Harun,
who would also become a prophet,
was the one that would have his back,
was the one that would stand beside him
despite being raised in a home where his
adoptive father, Firaun,
was the greatest test that he could face.
And yet he was blessed.
He was blessed with Assia whose kind heart
kept him as a child, as an adopted
child in the home.
And he was blessed with Harun, his brother.
And we see examples
of brothers and sisters who do uplift.
And again, Musa alaihis salam, it was his
own sister
who was the one who suggested
that his mother be the wet nurse in
the home of Firaoun.
And so it was his sister
who was the one who was able to
be the mediator or the one that brought
the mother of Musa
back to her son.
Allah
gives us these examples in the Quran.
He gives us these examples to remind us
not just as stories, not just something that
we should memorize
and move on in our lives. The Quran
is meant to be our guide.
Our guide in terms of our connection with
Allah but also our guide in terms of
our connection with others.
And one of the first things that we
want to keep in mind in terms of
our relationships with others, including our own family
members is understanding the importance of zud.
The importance of detaching,
not in a way that we ever cause
harm, not in a way where we cut
ties because as much as we are commanded
to practice zuhd, we are also commanded to
maintain siliturrahem,
the thread
or the thread connection of the womb.
And we are commanded to maintain this thread
because these relationships are important.
Even when
there is difficulty,
even when, like Youssef alaihis salaam, harm
is wrought by those who we think are
closest to us.
This idea
of toxic relationships and cancel culture.
We need to understand
how Allah
guides us towards this zuhd, this detachment,
but also maintaining
the silatul Rahim.
And it means that never
do we utter a word of harm
towards those that Allah has
blessed us, again as both a blessing and
a test. Never do we cut ties with
them,
but we also recognize and understand the importance
of protection.
Just as Yusuf alaihis salam hesitated
to send Binyamin,
the youngest child, the one who was the
full biological
brother of Yusuf,
He hesitated to send Binyamin with the older
brothers back to Egypt.
And he hesitated because of what had happened
to Yousif
alaihis salam.
And so we protect ourselves but we don't
cut ties. We recognize and understand that our
siblings, our family members, may truly be the
greatest of blessings
like the sister of Musa alaihis salam, Harun,
the brother of Musa alaihis salam. But we
also know that our family members can be
our greatest test at times.
And we see this consistently.
And it is from the mercy of Allah
that we are blessed with both. We are
blessed with seeing the connection and the closeness
that our siblings can provide to us, but
we are also
blessed in other ways and recognizing that the
tests exist.
If you have ever struggled
in a relationship in your family,
maybe you have struggled in your relationship with
your brother or with your sister,
maybe you have struggled in your relationship with
your parents, maybe you have struggled in your
relationship with your cousins or your aunts or
your uncles, know that you are not alone.
Know that Allah
gives us these revelations in the Quran
because He knows.
He knows our pain, just as He knew
the pain of the father of Yusuf alaihis
salam, just as he understood the pain of
Yaqub alaihis salam
as he turned to Allah and said that
his shaquah, his complaint, was only for Allah.
But just as we said that the story
of Yusuf is a story of moral fortitude,
a story of leadership and humility,
a story of
family and particularly siblings, we also know that
it is a story of justice.
And the justice that Allah
promises us is a justice in this dunya
and in akhirah.
It is a justice that Allah can only
give and Allah can only foresee.
For Allah is Al Hakam Al A'adl,
He is the most just of all judges.
And just as we see that Yusuf
experienced
justice in his lifetime,
despite the trials and the tribulations,
despite the years of imprisonment,
the years of enslavement,
Yusuf
lived to see that justice. Yaqub
experienced that justice, and that justice was not
one of revenge, it was not one of
bitterness, it was not one of hatred, it
was a justice that was rooted in that
love for Allah.
And so as we see our siblings slaughtered
in gazza,
as we see our brothers and sisters who
may not be biologically
related to us but are brothers and sisters
in Islam,
as we see our siblings massacred,
we must know that Allah's justice will come.
And it may take years of imprisonment,
it may take years of difficulty, years of
trials, years of false accusation,
years of enslavement,
but Allah is Al Hakam Al Adl.
And just as Yousef alaihis salam
journeyed through the most difficult
of circumstances
with his own siblings and his own family,
and in the end,
Allah's justice was served,
we too know
that in every corner of the world,
whether it is in Sudan, whether it is
in Gaza, whether it is in anywhere that
we are seeing
injustice occur, we know that Allah's justice will
be delivered.
And we pray that Allah's justice is delivered
in our lifetime,
but we remain confident and we strengthen our
tawakkul
knowing that that justice will come whether in
our lifetime or not.