Syed Omair – Portrait of the Prophet #5
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Today,
we actually have
a truncated class or shorter class because we
have a special iftar
program happening with the interfaith community.
So we'll end in about,
30 minutes. We'll end at 6:45.
A few just notes that I wanted to
mention
from last time when we had been speaking
about
the foods, the condiments that the prophet
liked to enjoy
along with, the staple food that they ate.
So we read
in chapter 27
that Rasul sorry. In chapter 26, we read
that Rasul
like to eat
certain foods that he named like hais
and, so we just wanna give some read
the comments on those in this book, the
footnotes.
So
first, let's go to Hadith
182,
which is right here,
in which it said that,
the prophet
once woke up,
fasting. He had received a gift, but he
had woken up as a in a state
of fasting.
And the gift that they had received was
some,
and I didn't get to define that last
time. So just define what that is today
reading from the footnotes in this, book that
we're reading from.
So,
it mentions is
made of dates with clarified butter and milk
curdling.
And it sometimes
replaced
it sometimes used to replace the cheese,
that we talked about before.
So, basically, it's
dates in butter. I don't think in in
a sense, it kinda like a halwa, kinda
think of it that way, with milk curdling.
So something that they would use almost as
a garnish, as a dip,
along with the bread that they're eating.
And then we
previously
had speak last week, we spoke about the
type of spices that they had put in
there,
in in, oil or vinegar, and they used
to dip their bread in that as well.
And
as mentioned here,
are chilies that primarily came from India. Remember
that Mecca and Medina were on a trade
route as a very famous ancient trade route
that took,
spices from certain parts of the world and
incense and,
frankincense
from and south. And they've Mecca was a
converging point for a lot of these trade
routes. They would have gotten materials from all
over the world. Right? So
would have been these spices that came,
from India at that time.
And it specifically mentioned that they are,
a spice mixture of coriander,
ginger, and cumin.
Could have been an early, you know, style
of, masala or or garam masala that they
would have had in that time to,
use in their food.
We mentioned,
which
was,
something that the prophet
served at the wedding banquet, the that he
had for
say the Sofia or the.
We serve dry dates
and.
And, it's mentioned here is,
a porridge
made from wheat or barley,
and it was something that was common at
that time that they served it,
at. So it's basically a sweet type of
porridge. Also, think of it as a kinda
like a. They used to serve specifically
not specifically, but commonly, it was served at
the.
Was something we had talked about previously, the
picture I showed of,
this dish,
is that that meat stew with the bread
at the bottom,
absorbed all the the the sauce and the
and the liquid from the meat.
And then the last thing that I wanted
to mention,
was the cheese, which is. I had been
pronouncing it correctly.
Cheese.
It specifically mentions that cheese is made from
milk curdling
and is prepared
by drying it over a fire.
As you can remember, the hadith that we
described was when the prophet
after he ate
when the mentioned that he didn't make afterwards.
That's because there was a time in Islam
where
they would make wudu after eating anything that
had been prepared over an open fire.
Those are just some clarifications,
that I want to make on
last lesson. But today,
As I said, we have a bit of
a truncated,
class today because of the event happening.
But we'll start with chapter 28.
And this is the statements
of Rasulullah made at meals, what he used
to say,
when eating,
beginning to eat or after he ate.
After
the. And when he came,
he left his camel
wander until it stopped in front of the
house of Abu Ayub. That's where he stayed.
So Abu Ayub, at the time when he
tells us,
we were with the prophet
one day and some food was presented.
I had never seen any food with more
blessings
when we began eating,
when we began eating it, and fewer blessings
when we finished eating it.
At the beginning, this food was had a
lot of blessing. What he means is there's
plenty of food to go around.
And by the end, there was almost nothing
left.
We asked, oh, messenger of Allah
how can this be?
How is it? It was so blessed at
the beginning, and now it feels like it
was all gone.
He replied,
we mentioned Allah's name when we began to
eat. Everyone, when they began eating, they said.
And then someone sat to partake of the
food,
but he failed to mention Allah's name.
So Shaitan ate with him.
The blessing of saying
before eating, and the person joined who did
not
mention Allah, remember Allah with that meal, and
so the shaitan joined in the meal. So
the blessing of saying is what we get
from this. It's sunnah, of course, we know.
Prophet
encouraged many people, and there's several ahadith on
this
to he would say
specifically mention the name of Allah, eat with
your right, and eat the food that's closest
to you. Don't reach, you know, all the
way across the table, for example.
Right. Next hadith, number 189 from Sayida Aisha
she said, the messenger of Allah
said, when one of you eats and forgets
to mention Allah's name over his food,
let him say in the name of Allah
in its beginning and in its end. So
let's say you started eating, but you forgot
to say, what do you do? You can
still say,
sorry. Miss
Or if you add the preposition,
Either of those would be fine.
At the beginning and at the end.
That's what the phrase means. You don't have
to you're not saying at the beginning and
the end. You forgot to say it at
the beginning, so now you're saying it.
Or
and it's beginning and it's end.
So that's in case anyone forgets.
This is something, of course, I've noticed this
just now,
becoming having become a parent myself
that, I find a lot of our kids
especially forget these things now or maybe they're
not taught these things. It's something I remember
growing up,
growing up here in Chicago, especially. I was
like, you have to. So say. And I
mean, random people would even tell you say
but
I don't know. This feels like to me
something that's been forgotten.
So that's something we can revive.
At least number 190 from Ottawa.
He said,
went to the messenger of Allah
who had some food with him. He said
to him, come close, dear son. Mention Allah's
name. Eat with your right hand and eat
from what is nearest to you. That's the
hadith that he mentioned.
Say the name of Allah.
Eat with the right.
Eat that which is close to you. That's
the sunnah way of eating. So, again, not
inconveniencing people
by reaching over them for food or, you
know, bothering the people around you or across
the table. Eat what's near to you. And
there's actually because of this, there's actually a
sunnah way,
and you still see this in some parts
of the world, of serving food. There's actually
a way to serve food so that no
one has to reach across. You still see
this in in certain gatherings that they make
sure that whatever
they're going to serve, everyone has the same
portion of it. So no one has to
reach across.
Right? And if there's anything in the middle
that it would be something that's easily reachable
and maybe something you pour like a sauce
or something, but they never have it. So,
you know, you have to reach across for
a dish that otherwise you wouldn't have. You
see this actually very commonly in the Middle
East when I lived there, that they would
serve the exact same portion to everyone.
And literally to the to the point where
it looked to the exact same way.
The dishes were almost completely symmetrical
so that no one would feel like, well,
I have to reach across for something. Right?
This is little things that we keep in
mind.
Hadith number 191 from Abu
He said, when the messenger of Allah
would finish his meal, he would say,
all praise is due to Allah who has
fed us and provided us drink
and made us Muslims.
And the Arabic of that is
Muslimin or
Muslimin. Please be to Allah the one who
has fed us.
Who gave us to drink. Muslimen
and who has made us Muslims. This is
the dua for when you finish your meal.
Praise be to Allah who fed us, who
gave us drink, made us Muslims.
Next from
Abu
Muhammad He says,
when a spread of food would be removed
from his from his blessed presence, meaning,
he would
say, all praise is due to Allah,
an abundant pure and blessed praise. A praise
that can neither be forsaken
nor dispensed with our Lord. This is another,
du'a that a person can make.
And that du'a in Arabic is
That's another it's a longer du'a other person
can make when
food is finally finished. And that is
Either duwah. As long as there's some or
some
form of remembrance of Allah
that happens as a thanks for that meal.
Simplest way of person to just say.
Just just, praising Allah
for that meal.
This number 193 comes to us
from She said,
once as the prophet
was eating along with 6 of his companions,
a Bedouin man joined them and finished the
meal in 2 bites.
The messenger of Allah
said he then said,
if only he had mentioned Allah's name, it
would have been enough for all of you.
So now that we see there's a tangible,
repercussion
right, to not mentioning the name of Allah
based on this hadith. And hadith number 194
from
who he says, the messenger of Allah
said,
Allah is pleased with a servant who, when
he eats,
praises Allah for it, and when he drinks,
praises Allah for it. This is the very
basis or the very, summary
of this entire chapter. Right? When you eat,
when you drink something,
afterwards,
praise Allah.
And before, as we saw, mention the name
of Allah.
At the beginning
and at the end,
And this applies for both foods
and for drinks. Anything that we consume,
we know all that is a gift from
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And moving on to hadith number 29, the
drinking vessel of Rasulullah Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
This number 1, 95 from
He said that Anas Min Malik who
took out for us a thick wooden drinking
vessel lined with iron.
He said, oh,
this is the drinking vessel
of the messenger of Allah
I I actually forgot to include the picture
of this, but I'm gonna include it later.
We actually have one of those drinking vessels
preserved.
It's also in.
I'll include it later on when we get
to the manner in which he drink.
And hadith number 196 from Anas,
he said, verily I had given the messenger
of all his drinks with this drinking vessel.
Whether it was water, whether it was naveed,
whether it was honey, or whether it was
milk.
Rasulullah
drink all of it from the same vessel.
Right?
Naveed, by the way, I think it'll come
later, but we'll just mention here. Naveed is
a type of juice that they used to
make with water,
and they would soak dates
in the water or soak the water with
dates, whatever. They used to put it overnight
and let some of the the flavoring from
the dates come out into the water. Now
you do this only for a number of
days actually because after a certain number of
days, it actually becomes
alcoholic. So you still keep it only for
2 to 3 days and then toss it
out.
Well, this is actually marshmallow. It's a very
delicious drink. I've tried it once. It's very
flavorful.
But again, you can't keep it for too
long. Alright. Hadith number 30.
The description of the fruits
that
like to eat.
Hadith number 197 from Abdullah ibn Chafar,
who he said, the messenger of Allah
would eat cucumber with fresh dates. And a
and a lot of this, for those who
have maybe studied a little bit of the
prophetic medicine,
We actually see Rasool
Balancing different types of foods. Foods that are
considered in prophetic medicine warming
and foods that are considered cooling.
We have a balance here, actually. So cucumbers
are a cooling food. Dates are a warming
food. And so even in the way that
he ate, he
balanced it out, not making it excessively
go towards one side medicinally or towards another
side that we find a balance.
And in the same vein for in the
next hadith from Aisha,
she said, the messenger of Allah
would eat watermelon with fresh dates. Same concept.
As the cucumber with fresh dates, also watermelon
with fresh dates. Generally, whenever you eat something
extremely,
like dates extremely sugary or sweet, you can
balance it out with the cooling food, like
fresh fruit.
Number 197 from.
He said, I saw the messenger of Allah
combine
yellow lemon with fresh dates. You can see
a lot of these things are being eaten
with
dates. Right?
And we saw previously also that sometimes he
would eat the barley bread with the dates
as well.
And hadith number 200 from Aisha,
she said, the messenger,
the messenger
of ate watermelon with fresh dates, same as
the previous hadith.
201 from Abu Hurairah,
He said, when people would see the new
fruits of the harvest,
they would bring them to the messenger of
Allah
And when the messenger of Allah
would take the fruit, he would supplicate. He
would make dua.
Oh, Allah, bless our fruit. Bless our Madinah.
Bless our and bless our mood.
Oh, Allah, verily, Ibrahim alayhis salam is your
servant and your intimate friend, Khalil,
and your prophet.
And I am your servant and your prophet.
He supplicated to you for Mecca, and I
supplicated to you for Medina
with the likes of which he supplicated to
you regarding Mecca
and the likes of thereof along with it.
Then he would call for the youngest child
he saw
and give them some of that fruit.
So here we see this is the case
with any fruits. Most commonly, this would have
been done with dates because that's primarily what
they grew,
in in the
the oasis of, Madinah.
But we also see here,
2 more interesting notes that's mentioned here, the
and the. Right? So the was the standard
unit of measurement
in that area, and the is basically one
handful. A single handful of something is called.
It's mentioned that Rasulullah
would make his entire wudu with a single
mud.
Right? Just one mud of water.
And then 4 muds,
4 of these makes a.
That's then the next unit of measurement.
And, the 4 is what he used to
make his with.
Four handfuls of water.
You can actually there's some, if you go
to, you can find they actually sell containers
of the wood,
which are based on what they would have
used in the past as actual units of
measurement.
I think the book may actually have
the
exact amount of it. So it says
is, yeah, 2,
roughly 2 liters, 2.03
liters,
and a is roughly half a liter, 0.51
liters. It's about that much.
K. Hadith number 31,
And we have to end fairly soon here
because of the iftar.
The description
of the drinks of Rasulullah
Hadith number 204 from Aisha.
She said, the most beloved of drinks to
the messenger of Allah
were those that were sweet
and cool.
Cool here, I just wanna make a distinction,
doesn't mean refrigerated.
Cool just means cool.
Naturally, a lot of the well water in
that area would come
up cooler obviously than than water that had
been left around.
I've actually heard some of those scholars mentioned
that extremely,
extremely cold water is actually unhealthy,
and it does a number on their throat.
So
don't take this to mean
that. Although there are some scholars that said
that they liked chilled water because when they
drink it, it reminds them of the mercy
of Allah. So
different ways to look at it.
Date number 205 from.
He
said,
and I went along with the messenger of
Allah
as he went to see Maimuna.
Maimouna is, of course, one of the wives
of the messenger
of brother
and she's actually the aunt of and
related to each other. She brought us a
full a vessel full of milk.
The messenger of Allah
drank from it.
And I was on his right side, ibn
Abbas is speaking, and Khalid was on his
left side. He said to me, meaning
said to me,
the drink is yours.
But if you want, you can give preference
to Khalid.
I said, I am not about to give
up your leftovers
for anyone else.
Messenger of Allah
said that the one who Allah gives food
should say,
oh, Allah bless us in it and give
us to eat from what is better than
it. And the one to whom Allah gives
a drink of milk should say, oh, Allah
bless us in it and increase us in
it. And then he said then,
he meaning,
said that the messenger of Allah
said,
there's nothing that takes the place of food
and drink besides milk.
So a number of things in this hadith
first. You can see that he
was drinking with people on either side of
him. The sunnah when eating anything and you
wanna share it with someone is, of course,
to start with
the right.
But notice how Rasulullah
asked him, but if you want, I can
give it to Khaled first too.
And so the default sunnah is to start
on the right side. But if for whatever
reason you want to give it to someone
on the left, maybe it's your child, maybe
it's someone else, you can also
start that way too.
And then
the 2 duas that are mentioned here are
very interesting. 1st,
Rasulullah
said, whenever Allah gives someone food,
the person should say, oh, Allah bless us
in it and give us to eat what
is better.
So in the food, you should ask for
food that is better than this food.
But specifically with milk,
we're not asked for something better than milk.
Rasulullah says some said, bless us in the
milk and then give us more of milk.
Milk is a very interesting thing. We know
in the also,
Rasulullah was offered
wine and milk.
Right?
He was offered that by Jibreel alaihi salami,
and he chose milk.
There's a connection to milk, something to do
with the fitra, something to do with knowledge
that Rasulullah
was aware of. And so that's
particularly special drink in the sunnah. And Rasulullah
would drink quite a lot of it. Now
one thing to note here is many people
have pointed out, this actually is not a
reference to
cow milk.
Right? The milk that they would have been
eating at the drinking at the time was
goat milk or camel milk.
Rather than cow. They probably didn't have cows
in that region.
And the final point here that nothing can
replace food and drink
like milk can. And, of course, we know
this actually,
literally, from raising our kids. Right? Kids can
survive for years off of just milk alone
and nothing else.
Number
206.
So now we're in the next chapter. I'm
sorry. The manner of drinking of Rasulullah
how he used to drink.
From
he
said, the prophet
drink
water whilst
standing.
There's certain things actually to stand
and most other things to sit. Is one
of those things where it's to stand up
and drink it.
Number 207 from Abdullah
Ahmed. He said, I saw the messenger
drink while standing
and drink whilst sitting.
The general ruling in is that you should
drink while sitting.
They said there are certain things that you
can drink while standing. Is one of them,
and there's another thing we'll mention
shortly. Number 209
from Nazal Ibn Sabrata or or
He said,
a clay jug of water was brought to
say, Na Ali
while he was in the courtyard in Kufa
where he had moved the capital.
He took a handful of water from it
and washed his hands.
Then he rinsed his mouth, cleared his nose,
and wiped his face, arms, and head, and
washed his feet. This This is from the
footnote actually where he washed his feet. Then
he drank the remaining water
whilst
standing
and said, this is the purification of the
one who has not voided his ritual purity.
This is how I saw the messenger of
Allah
do it.
So generally speaking,
general of
making
is that it should actually be done sitting.
Right? And the should be done standing.
However, it's not, you know, as if it's
a hard and fast rule. We see here
actually from the practice of some of the
Sahaba.
They made
or in this case, he actually mentions he's
renewing his. He already has,
but he's doing what's called tajidid of the
wudu, renewing it, which is a sunnah to
do for every prayer regardless of whether you
have wudu already or you don't have wudu.
It's sunnah to renew your wudu with every
single salah.
And notice that when he's renewing his wudu
here, said, now Ali is doing it actually
whilst standing.
Right? And he's taking the jug of water.
And after he's finished performing the wudu
and while standing,
he drinks the remaining water from the jug.
So this is the second of those types
of,
drinks that you can drink whilst standing. So
zamzam was the first. The second is the
remaining water left over from the wudu. You
you,
can drink while standing.
With
also the some of the it's mentioned
that and
that you make whenever you drink
specifically,
there's a lot of that are made along
with it, and a person should make any
that they wish whenever they drink they're drinking.
Got a few minutes we'll finish in this
chapter.
Hadith number 210 from.
He
said, when the prophet
would drink from a vessel,
he would breathe into it 3 times. This
is what we say, drinking 3 gulps. Don't
just drink all at once.
He would say,
this is more enjoyable
and more quenching.
And the number 211 from ibn Abbas
He said, when the prophet
would drink, he would pause to breathe twice.
So they're saying the same thing. They're just
wording it in different ways. But he would
pause to drink sorry. Pause to breathe
twice, meaning he would drink in 3,
gulps, 3 three parts.
And the last hadith we'll look at today,
actually, we have a picture with this from.
I'm sorry. My throat's a little dry today.
The messenger
of came to see me.
He drank from the mouthpiece
of a suspended leather water skin.
It's called a kirba.
And he he did that whilst standing.
This is the third thing you can drink
while standing is drinking from the water skin.
I later stood up and cut off the
mouthpiece of the water skin. And so she
kept that as a as a token
of love or sullen system. She kept the
end of that water skin just for her.
The water skin is
you can see here's a picture of it.
It's basically the
internal parts of an animal. Right?
For larger animals like
a camel or something like that, it could
actually be one of their organs. It can
be like the the stomach or something like
that. But this can also be basically the
the skin of an animal. Right? The leather
of it's turned into leather. And you can
see they tie the ends off where the
limbs of the animal would have been.
And this is how for thousands of years,
they used to carry water right through the
desert. It's great because it's natural.
There's there's no leakages or nothing. It's completely
waterproof.
And we actually see this not just in
Arabia. They used to use this in in
Rome and many of the ancient civilizations. This
is how they would transport water. And what
they do in Arabia I don't have a
picture of it here, but
in,
some rural parts, you'll actually see this even
to this day. That in these rural masajid
out in the desert,
outside of the Masjid or or near the
entrance, you'll actually hang this
on or near a door or something like
that.
And, you know, they'll put a bowl or
something nearby.
And any person who's passing by, you can
basically take the the plug off of the
end of it and pour some water. And
they used to do this
even within their homes, and that's what the
hadith is narrating. That she had this within
her home. It was just suspended on the
wall so that anyone passing by, they could
come and they could pour some water from
the water skin and drink it.
And so, yeah, this and then she
she just cut the end of it and
kept it because that's where he drank from.
Alright.
So, yeah, we'll stop here at number 33
because it's 645. And so we have a
program today.
We will be continuing into the last 10
days, and I'm hoping actually in the last
10 days to finish. So we may do
a little bit slightly longer sessions,
because we we're only about
halfway through the actual number of a hadith.
And the law, we're taking our time. But
we'll,
continue inshallah next week, within the final days
of Ramadan.
We ask Allah for forgiveness. We ask Allah
to accept all of our efforts this Ramadan.
We ask Allah to bring us closeness to
the prophet
and allow us to see him in our
dreams
during this month of Ramadan.