Waseem Hendricks – Jumuah Lecture 220722
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah,
what's a lot of Muslims?
Respected elders, ulama brothers and sisters, I greet you with the
universal greeting of Assalamualaikum,
Alhamdulillah. As many of you know,
I've been most fortunate to undertake this journey of Hajj.
So with that, I returned Alhamdulillah a week ago and to
this warm, beautiful community, and Marana made a suggestion that
we do some sort of feedback and presentation to the community. And
I felt this deep conviction, because while I was on my journey,
I had one of the most amazing experiences behind Allah. And with
that, there was a universal theme that came through on my journey,
and I felt the need, and I felt the compelled to relay this,
because our whole existence is so that,
and this is the reason why we've been created so that we are not
living in isolation, and that we are there to make each other's
journeys easier.
So with this, Inshallah, I went through a thought process, and in
my thought process,
and in my thought process, I thought, what are the various
categories of persons who've performed,
and after this broadly about four. So there's those who've not
made an ear to perform Hijaz yet,
and there are other means, but they've not made the near. Then
there's those in their hearts had made the near, but they haven't
put the NIA into action
by virtue of
registering on a particular system. And then the next category
would be those who have
registered. They've made the NIA, and their hearts are yearning to
go and they are waiting on that call. And then there are those who
perform their hutch, whether it is us as recent as a week ago, two
weeks ago, or whether it is 510, or 1520, years ago. There is that
category of those who perform touch, and yet their hearts bleed
to want to go. Their hearts yearn to want to perform touch again in
short term.
And with that, I thought, why is it that there are so many who have
not yet made the near? Why is it that there are so many who have
made the near and have not yet put their name down on the
accreditation list? And the that was something that was vexing me a
lot. And I thought, you know, let's talk to the brothers who are
in that particular category and who will find themselves in that
space. So when you make the NIA, we have to put our near into
action, and when you put yourself in on a registration list, that
is, when you your actions, you it manifests, you're near manifest in
an action, should something happen to you before you perform your
Hajj. Alhamdulillah, you've made that first step. It costs 100 Rand
to just put your name on the list. And as a colleague of mine
reminded me, perhaps that call to Hajj is not necessarily only the
call to hajj when it happens. Finally, perhaps it's a call just
to make a simple act of putting your name on the list. Maybe that
call hasn't happened, and then we have to examine ourselves. Why is
it? What is stopping me? What is stopping me from putting my name
on the list? What is stopping me from even making them near?
And I thought that I'd address all four persons that I needed to just
mention that. Just remember any it could be a financial situation, it
could be a work situation, but remember anything Allah subhanaw
created us. There are the five pillars of Islam. That is the
purpose. We were created. We were not created it's so easy for us to
drive in a specific type of car, to do the monthly installment, to
live in a specific area, to pay our bonds, but that Allah will ask
us, I did not create you to drive that specific vehicle. I did not
create you to live in that specific area. I created you to
uphold the five pillars of Islam. You.
And you have to ask yourself that if you feel that you want the
buffer or you still saving, just remember that in itself, we have
the illusion of time. We feel we have time, but tomorrow is not
guaranteed. You don't know if you have time. We do are not
guaranteed that we will be here tomorrow. And for that reason, I
felt that we need to explain that when you perform your hajj and you
are at the bait Allah, you see people going abject poverty. I saw
a female on on Arafa who had a on. It was sewn together two pieces of
white cloth. In her mind, it's two pieces of white cloth. I could see
it's two different shades of cloth, two shades of white
stitched with black stitching. They didn't have even the cotton
to match the stitching. But subahan Allah, in Allah, subhana
BAA's eyes, that is the most beautiful Akhi job, because she is
convinced that that is what she needs to do to to have a covering.
And we ask ourselves, subhanAllah, why is it that we feel that we
need to have all these things? Because when we pass on,
there are three things that follow us to the cover,
your family,
your wealth
you were driving a family member is going to drive to get to your
janazah, and then your good deeds, whatever you spent in the path of
Allah.
And when you get to your cover. And those things are there,
two of those things are going to actually be you.
Your family is going to turn their back, and we're going to walk away
from the government with them. They take your wealth again to get
into you that the car that you used to drive, and they're going
to go back to the house that you used to live in.
And then what's left is your good deeds. What's left is if you
uphold the five pillars of Islam. What's left is what you've spent
in the path of Allah, subhanaw taala.
And we have to ask ourselves, why is it that we are held back from
that? It's because we get comfort in our worldliness. And that is
what the journey is about. That is what the journey of God just
taught me, and that I had to learn, despite knowing the theory
and knowing the theoretical feeling, it's only when you're on
the grounds that you actually can experience and feel that when you
are absolutely stripped of all your possessions. And I, I want to
remind us, because what's important is that when we perform
our Hajj,
that you do it with your kin, and when you go on that journey, I
have a message to each of those persons that that we that
categories we fall in, because there is the person who is
yearning to go and waiting to go on the list. To you, I have a
message that this work to be done before you go.
There's work to be done before you go. Don't a switch doesn't flick
when you arrive in in the core comes. It's not a mechanical
there's a growth process that you need to go through when you arrive
at the beitulah, when you arrive on Hajj, there's a process, and
you find yourself in training for years. You didn't realize that
you've been training for years. You didn't realize that that one
lecture you heard actually impacts your Hajj. You don't realize that
one chat you had when someone came to greet you. You don't realize
that one walk that you had, that one operation that you had. All of
this was part of ALLAH SubhanA Allah's master plan to get you to
that Allah Subhana Allah is in control of this entire journey.
Your journey may have begun. You don't even know if your journey
has begun, but you will only know if your journey has begun if you
start working toward that journey actively, you have to be mindful
of every action and say, This action is for over this action
that I'm doing is for the ahira. This action you're not trying to
build up a list of of good deeds so that you can enter into Jonah,
do it with your keen, with conviction, just to be good. And
we, and the one of the ways that we do this,
Alhamdulillah, is
Islam is absolutely beautiful in its simplicity.
One of the things that they teach us
on Hajj and whenever we arrived,
the first Yara place in Madina was at the garden, we the
sahabi met the Ashab met on the day of the Nabi, Muhammad,
sallAllahu, sallam's passing. Manabi had just the Janaza taken
place, and there was a state of disarray, and at that garden,
that's where we met, because now they had to choose who's going to
be.
The new Amir. And
at that garden we had Nolan musavadat, who gave us a simple
reminder. He says, which,
how do you achieve a Hajj, mAh ball and a hajma blue? And he gave
us one liner, an
accepted Hajj is where Salam
and food is fed.
And at that particular reminder, I mean, I need to explain what the
simplicity of this and why the beauty of misalam is fair spread
and food is free. It sounds so simple, but what it does is when
you make Salaam and what the Tara is to encourage. And I'm going to
just relay something from
fatal Bari, which is a commentary
on Bukhari and in the JAG say radial Allah says, Ask the Prophet
what makes the hajjma Guru. And Prophet replied, providing food to
the people and spreading the greetings of Salam
with that also,
there's another Hadith by Abu mama, and this is from sunnah Abu
Dawud five, 195,
where the Prophet sallallahu sallam, said, Verily, the best
people to Allah are those who are first to greet with Peace.
And the reason I met, I'm mentioning this is that you need
to strip yourself off your ego when you are first to greet and
when you are there, intermingling with people, you meet the stranger
coming into the Masjid. It takes that first step. It means I am
nothing. And you go, as one of our others reminded us sitting here,
said, when you go you are nothing, think that you are nothing. And
why? Most wise words, Uncle Ibrahim, most wise words. Because
what it does is, when you are there, you are absolutely
receptive to anything and everything that comes your way. So
mahanuma, and then with that, there's also the feeding of
people, as my friend reminds me, you will never get poor from
spending in the path of Allah. You never get poor from feeding
somebody. From feeding it costs money. It doesn't cost nothing,
but it costs money. But guess what? Subhanallah, you'll get
more. The more you feed, the more you get. And why is this? Because
you start appreciating the condition of others.
We became very mindful of this, and we would go into the one camp,
and we would start greeting strangers. There's a language
barrier, but you are first to make salaam,
and you would move, and you'd go through the various camps, people
from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, there's a huge language barrier,
but Subhanallah, there's the universal brotherhood.
One incident when you on me and you want to run away quickly to
don't take a shower at your camp in azizia, at your apartment, we
couldn't get out because they were soldiers blocking the way, but
Subhanallah and the Iranian brother took his arm upon me, and
he made as if we were part of the Iranian camp, and we found a
breach in the in the barrier, and that is how we got through. And
they in. That is the bond of brotherhood. We are all brothers.
Subhanallah,
there's another Hadith, a man was the prophet saw him,
which act in Islam is the best he replied to give food and to greet
everyone, whether you know them or you do not know them.
Now I just want to remind you my The talk is called Hajj, the
greatest gift you can give yourself. And there's a reason why
I called it that, and I'm taking you through a journey so that we
can get to the point of why it is that hajj is the greatest debt you
can give yourself. So while we were performing our Hajj,
I we found that we had to find persons that we needed to feed,
and you saw Alhamdulillah in the basement of the clock tower, we
found that the two three eateries would give you as a remarkably
reduced rate for food, knowing that you're going to sleep and you
would feed. And it was a small group, and I know from South
Africa there was a delegation of same funds, and Alhamdulillah, we
were engaging, and that engagement really made us closer to Allah
subhanahu wa.
So giving charity spread spend in Allah's past, because in
alternating it states that it's your acts of charity that keeps
away calamity. Subhanallah and Allah feeds a person who is
hungry, his sins will be forgiven. And everybody's hugging us, they
say you like a newborn baby. Subhanallah, let me hug you. You
know we we are asked that we make dua for him. But yet, there are
these daily acts that you can do and perform that can actually wipe
away your sins. They are at can perform that can wipe away your
sins. Do these things because.
My message to those who have performed Hajj already is that you
can experience Hajj every day, the Hajj that you yearn to experience.
You experience it every day by performing those two simple acts,
making salaam of strangers, making salams be the first to make salaam
feed the poor. Feed the poor yourself. Do not just do the EFT?
Try to engage, try to go into those places, because that stops
you of your ego. That is a healing power. Because we find ourselves
in a very at the moment, in a very tumultuous state. We need to go
and see a therapist. We need to go and speak. But these acts are
designed. It's so simplistic and Hajj, you it's an accelerated
process where you have to strip of yourself. You know that I was
listening to a talk by Alan Watts, and he speaks of the Buddhist
monks and
SubhanAllah. He says
these are all universal truths. And he says that there are monks
believe there are two parts to free yourself of desire. The one
is to go through a lack of suffering, and the other would be
to meditate on it. But even meditating on it is a desire in
itself, to be free of desire. But if you do these acts of salons, it
strips your ego by feeding people. There is a it's a different form
of meditation and starts working in your life. And the reason nati
Maulana understands that clock seems to run faster when one
stands, so now it's five plus one. So with that, I need to move on.
But Inshallah, what I wanted to say is that when we get to Hajj,
we start performing those acts Mashallah. And with that, Hajj is
a, is a is a act of worship that involves movement. It's movement
around the Kaaba. It's movement from Medina to Maka mak to azizia.
Azizia to Mina. Mina, you go to Arafat and Abu, and then you start
talking. Now these places of it sounds very abstract when I before
I went to Hajj. Now can immediately visualize so those
places. So for those Inshallah, we are busy preparing a slideshow to
make that more tangible. And Inshallah, hopefully a fellow
buchaj will join us on Thursday Inshallah, we will have a short
slideshow, give you Maghrib, any shy to go through that process.
But what I wanted to add is that, Alhamdulillah, when we are when
you are on Hajj, and you find yourself in Iran,
you find that now you no longer have those creature comforts. When
you hear Makai service, I put petrol in the tank. I have my
credit card in the event that something happens. But when you're
on Hush, when you're on Arafat, you get it God means nothing. Your
call back home means nothing. The clothes you have back at azizia
means absolutely nothing. And you're stripped of what you have.
And what I then found, which was very profound. What I found was
that they were brothers, and you could see that they now felt, and
they felt compelled to tell you, you know, they had this business,
you know, they felt compelled to weave into the conversation the
profession or or or the need to have. And the reason that that
sometimes happens, it shows that we are weak, that we ourselves
seek validation all the time. And then what we do is we remind each
other of Islam, and we remind each other of that, the purpose that we
are here, and that's the humanness, and that's why we are
in Arafat. We are all because we are all one. Now, how do we free
ourselves of feeling that? Because even myself, I felt you don't. You
are moving from point A to point B. You have completely you
relinquish your face to Allah, to Allah, and there I am feeling
vulnerable, and we are feeling vulnerable, but every step of the
way, because you are now vulnerable, we're reminding each
other and don't worry, brother, everything's going to go fine. I
got ill two days before Arafat. I completely surrendered myself to
Allah, and this is it. Because our we were preparing ourselves to go
on hajj, there was this thought that somebody who came to visit me
reminded me, remember, you will perform the hajj, and ALLAH
SubhanA Taala wants you to perform. And I had this idea of
wanting to do the walking Hajj training for this and so on. Allah
subhanahu taala, I wanted to be in hikmaa, of everybody going to
assist. That changed. But once I accepted that Allah had this as a
plan. This made the journey easier, Alhamdulillah. And there
were many tests that happened on halafa, one of them being that my
sandals decided to just completely as hiking sandals. I had a lot of
confidence in them. They decided to be in on me, and the stitching
came loose and everything and.
With that, the only other pair of sandals I could wear was my wife's
flip flops, spare paint pink with a nice diamond in the corner.
And there was walking from arifa to mus dalifa With these flip
flops. I even felt at the Jama rad, but we I accepted it, and I
made a joke out of it. I even said, it looks like I'm on a
freedom March, building this
Pride March, you know, but we have to then accept because the shaitan
is there too. He knows he's going to get humiliated, and all these
things will happen. Because when you felt that, you humiliating the
shaytan, and in that moment, you imagine all the things, all the
weaknesses that we have. And I imagine what is part of my laughs,
and I started doubting it, and I thought of those things, and you
said, Be the whole when you say it, so that when you are faced
with those very same challenges back here, it's a physical
manifestation. Subhanallah, how beautiful is that, you know? And
when we arrived on mustalipha Subhanallah, there was no water, I
had this vision of wanting to complete musalia until ishraq, the
way the nanomohan was so beautifully made Dubai, even for
the oppressors, until ishraq. And I said, I want to emulate that.
But that was not to be, because I wasn't well, because my moment
arrived in Arafat, because in Arafat, you want your emotions to
match the occasion. And that was my whole dream, please, Allah,
save me for Arafa. Let it happen. Because the Mawlana who made the
DUA even said, Ya, Allah, even if we can't cry, let us make our
faces as if we are crying. And I didn't want to be one of those
persons. I wanted that emotional catharsis. And then under a tree,
garbage around us, Alhamdulillah, it doesn't matter, you are there
in the most viable occasion. And with that, Alhamdulillah, the
moment happened, if you have that. And we make dua, I make dua for
every one of you, everybody who hasn't been on Hajj, whose heart
desires. And we said, Ya Allah, please let those, all those who
are yearning to have children, all those who do not have work, we
made a collective to our and with that came another catharsis and
another emotional outburst. You thought you cried out. You cry out
a little bit more. And I want to close off
with just a simple thought, because when you put them Hajj,
each step of the way, you are at full thus behind the tallahas
mercy. I wanted to get into Jana Baki Madina,
and I saw and I arrived, the tahajjud Alam goes, and you think
you early, the tahajjudarang goes. You see these 25 rows of people in
front of you? And I know I need to get to Door number 37 because
that's where the cartel is going to come pass after the
Renaissance. And you run with that cartel, otherwise you don't get
into genital Baki. And when I stood there, I just went peace,
and I said, husband, Allah, Allah, subhana. Allah, sufficient for me,
is the dispenser of 50s, but my, my, my yearning was to be there.
So
in that moment,
a person in front of me decides to shift the way he sits, and a small
gap opens, and I'm moving
to
that gap 24 hours. To those you are sufficient for me. And this is
not me working towards wanting to do anything, but just to be in the
most tranquil place I find on this earth, which is
the graveyard in Madina. And I say that in another gap opens, and
then never get by the time the Fajr dam goes, I'm right in front
by door number 57
so that was my, one of my miracles that happened, Alhamdulillah. And
these are the type of things that happen. And those who've been on
Hajj know that miracles happen before you leave, while you're on
Hajj, and even after, when you come back, and I want everyone to
experience that, and that's why we're trying to encourage those
who've not yet been to please put your name down. This is why you've
been created, and those who are going do the legwork now, because
I tell you what happens when you do the legwork. Now, when you are
there and you're on Hajj, the more work you do here, and it's simple
as physical aspect, the more the more receptive you are to getting
various messages. Your messages don't just come from a Bayan. It
can be the brother next to you. It can be somebody, another huja, who
comes to visit you, that Gujarat comes to visit you, and he tells
you something like the brother who sat in my lounge chair and told me
you will have the Hajj over Subhana Taala have will lead to
have, when I was lying there, all wrapped up with Vicks and mint
lemon, I was lying there pumped full of antibiotics that thought.
Came into my head, but that is the Tawfiq that you only get through
continuous, continuous conscientiousness of Allah
subhanahu wa, you learn to make dua with hushu. That is complete
conviction. That is something I have to learn, because we all make
radar.
We just but you have to say it with hushu Only when you
concentrate. And with hushu, then you walk, and your device becomes
simple. You walk on Arafat Ya Allah, I'm in the queue. There's
five to three. That be a clean 120.
Years later, we still have 2 million stories. What happens, you
know, when you in the bathroom, you say, Yahoo, oh, there's a walk
mashallah, then next please, Allah, do not let my Ibram fall
onto the floor. It's simple to us, but yet, when we hear looking for
parking and with the wife, we can now walk. You said. You say, Ya
Allah, let me find a parking bay. You tell your wife, look that way.
You tell your children, look that way. Look for a parking but all
you do is turn me and say, Ya Allah, please let me find talking,
because the miracles don't only happen in Makkah. The Miracles
don't only happen in those. Miracles happen here as well, and
it is for us to seek that. And in closing, I just want to mention,
why do I call Hajj the greatest gift you can give yourself?
It is because when you are in Iran, and when you do not have
that validation, your in your validation sits in material goods
or what you have back home or in your family, and I've got so many
children, and this is what I have. It's not the same as when you have
an internal source of validation. That internal source of validation
is the greatest gift. And how do you give yourself that validation?
Not because I've performed Hajj, it's because you can now make
salams to anybody you can feed, and you feed and buy that Allah
opens you up, and your reception of information that comes to you,
the hidaya that comes to you, you become more receptive, because
there are so many times that we listen to us we don't know the
meaning. Now that I'm coming back, I'm trying to research, because we
become receptive to somebody giving you hidaya That is a child
that can talk to you and but that only opens up if you take those
steps, through physical action, through the silence, through
feeling so universally, all of those who have performed Hajj, you
can perform Hajj every day, and we know that currently in the state,
nobody's going to be giving each other validation. People are
willing to teach other down and critique. What better gift you can
give yourself than to give yourself your own acceptance, your
own validation that comes from Allah, subhana, taala, that's the
best validation you can have. No one can still be of that
validation, because when you find yourself back in iqram Again,
guess what? You are at absolute peace with what you have and who
you have, and when you come here, when you come here, and you and
you have all this creature comforts, do not lose that sense
of validation. Do not seek because it's very elusive. And that is my
message, get that internal form of validation split the salons. Feed
the hungry. That will not be less and work that inshaAllah, you
will, Abu
Mubarak
said to Allah, he's so beautifully the you know, the journey of Hajj
for those who feed the I think tears roll down our eyes for those
who haven't. I think the yearning is much more we want to get there
because such a journey explained in such a manner, masha Allah,
what a beautiful way of explaining the journey. And on top of that,
he didn't speak about his hajj, he spoke about the greatest journey.
So we still need to hear the journey of hajisha Allah, and we
hope that our chairman is going to stand for a while now, it's
not going to sit down too much, but mashaAllah beseech May Allah,
subhanho wa taala, Quran, Allah and
mashaAllah for this advice that has been given today. May,
Inshallah, to Allah have an effect on us, and may we, inshaAllah take
these steps that has been given to us by our honorable chairman,
mashallah, that we should put it in practice, those whose names are
not that we get linked to the registration do it now. That is
the message. You know, those who, who give gave up hope because of
wealth, and then that is not, that is not one of the requirements.
The requirements is just to link ourselves to Allah subhanahu wa
Subhana wa taala. So welcome to our children for the beautiful
message. I'm really, truly honored in a to have been here today to
listen to the music, and I'm sure that all of us going to tell you.
It. Allah grabs every day,
every day. Allah has given us many opportunities, but at least for
another day. Otherwise,
just
one announcement is we still need to offer those people who are in
difficulty. MashaAllah for Jaja here, they have 40 days. As our
elders used to say, don't forget those people who are lost, who
needs to find their way home. The families are in Destiny. They
crying to Allah to bring their families back. Please don't forget
them. Inshallah, for those who came back, make sure to Allah will
increase us to bring the others back. Allah, bless us all.
Inshallah,