Yahya Rhodus – Tasting The Sweetness Of Faith –
AI: Summary ©
The Prophet Muhammadal prepays the importance of the Prophetatt legacy, including his deeds and the journey of bridging a gap between real and virtual reality. The interviewer describes the experiences of experiencing blessed moments in gatherings and relationships with Jesus as a result of a desire to meet him, as well as the importance of being in the state of " "time reality" and the need for a complete annihilation of oneself in order to meet God. The interviewer emphasizes the importance of their job and how they can help others, as well as their ability to achieve dreams.
AI: Summary ©
Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, wa salallahu ala Sayyidina
Muhammadin ash-sharaf al-anbiyai wa al-mursaleen,
wa ala alihi al-tayyibin wa al-tahirin
wa al-sahabati al-akramin, wa tabi'inahu
bi-ihsan ila yawm ad-deen, wa alayna
ma'amu fihim bi-rahmatika ya arham al
-raahimin.
One of the most precious gifts from our
Lord subhanahu wa ta'ala of all are
these blessed moments in which we have these
glimpses, we have these brief flashes of light
where we taste the sweetness of the deen,
where we taste the sweetness of what it
means to have faith and believe in Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, and genuinely believe in
our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
1400 plus years later, after his blessed feet
walked on the face of this earth, here
we are talking about him, here we are
rejoicing in him, here we are celebrating his
ongoing and living legacy that will remain until
the end of time.
In fact, the end of time won't come
until Allah takes the spirit of the last
believer who believes in him, sallallahu alayhi wa
alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam.
And there are a lot of things that
are central to this deen, there are many
matters that are foundational to Islam, but nothing
is more central to this deen than the
connection of the ummah of the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam with him, than our connection
to the best of creation sallallahu alayhi wa
alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam.
Of all things central and foundational, this is
the most central and foundational of all.
He is the greatest of all of the
sha'ar of Allah, all of the sacred
symbols of the vision, he is the greatest
sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam.
And when we tune our hearts in to
this blessed Mawlid, which is a celebration, not
only of his birth, but of his life,
and who he is, who he was and
who he will be.
And so we shouldn't just think of the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam that
kana Rasulullah.
When we say la ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah,
then we're saying that there is no god
but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of
Allah.
He not just was the messenger of Allah,
he is a Prophet of Allah and he
is his messenger, he was and he is
and he will be sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And his legacy has a reality in the
past and it has a reality in the
moment and it will have a reality moving
on into the eternal future from the bounty
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And to the degree that we understand that
and come to tune with that reality and
tune our hearts into it, is to the
degree that you and I will open up
the door for ourselves, but in reality it's
from Allah to the endless divine bounty of
our Lord subhanahu wa ta'ala.
As Ustad Amjad so beautifully reminded us in
this blessed recitation of his life story, there
are so many meanings.
We don't want to just pass over them
like that and just have it come in
one and oh this is the same thing
that I'm repeating time and time again.
Yes that we repeat it, but every time
that we repeat it, if we're present we
want to connect to it at a deeper
level.
Look at these blessed lines, wallahi ma dhukiru
habibu lillin muhibb, illa wa adha walihi nashwana.
By Allah never is the beloved mentioned in
the presence of the lover, except that it
becomes passionately overwhelmed with joy.
Aynan muhibbih?
Then it's put in question form.
Aynan muhibbih?
Alladhina alayhimu badhlu nufusi ma'in nafaisi ana.
Where are the lovers who find ease in
sacrificing their souls in every precious thing for
their beloved?
That blessed companion radiallahu ta'ala anhu, as
he is looking at a boiling cauldron that
he's about to be thrown into, and that
one who was about to throw him in
thought that he finally got him to consider
going back on his faith.
And he poses that question to him, was
it, would you wish that Muhammad was in
your place at this moment?
And what was his response as he's staring
death right in the eye?
That no, I wouldn't want the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam to be pricked by a thorn.
Yani, I would rather be thrown into this
boiling cauldron and to die in that very
difficult way than the Sayyidina Muhammad to be
pricked by a thorn.
This was how they were in relation to
him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and that same spirit
has to be at the heart of every
single contribution that we do at the intellectual
level, at the social level, at every single
dimension.
This has to be the heart and spirit
of how we are as human beings if
we're going to bring the legacy of the
great companions of our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
into this time.
Never do they hear a mention of Tahir,
one of the names of our Prophet, the
Chosen One, except by it they are revived
and the rust upon their hearts vanishes.
This same word in Ta'ash is the
word that you would use if you were
extremely thirsty and then all of a sudden
you were given a nice, cold, delicious drink
that just completely quenched your thirst.
And that's how you feel physically.
Imagine spiritually this is what we're being called
to.
This is if we come into gatherings like
this and we open up our hearts, we
will experience these blessed moments that are far
from the vast majority of our lives which
are in heedlessness and all of us are
in that same boat where we seem distant
from the realities of Islam where we still
have this huge gap between what it is
that we believe and what it is that
we do and what it is that we
know and how it is that we practice.
This is about bridging that gap, about having
moments that are precious and weighty in the
scales because of their quality.
And naturally if you have this connection with
the Messenger of Allah, there are real implications
that this is one of the greatest things
of all that will uproot from our hearts
the love of this world.
Because when you love Him in order to
truly meet Him and be with Him, there
is one thing that has to happen.
Your spirit has to leave your physical body
and you have to transition from this world
into the next world.
Their souls have become aroused yearning for the
encounter, longing and asking their Lord for His
good pleasure.
حَالِ الْمُحْبِينَ كَذَا This is the state of
the lovers.
فَاسْمَعْ إِلَىٰ سِرَى الْمُشَفْعِ وَرْهِ فِي الْآذَانَ So
listen closely to the life story of the
one whose intercession is accepted.
There is a reason why this is Chapter
1.
This is supposed to prepare us for Chapter
2 and then the poem that is recited
in between Chapters 2 and 3 and Chapter
3 and then the poem that is recited
between Chapter 3 and 4 and then the
standing in which we stand to honor His
blessed legacy ﷺ.
And we turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala asking all of these very great things
that we can ask for.
And as more than one person mentioned, the
بَرَكَةَ of the جَمَعَةَ, the blessing of collectively,
young and old alike, who knows there could
be a person in this gathering that no
one knows it's a means for all of
us to be accepted.
Maybe there's someone saying ameen to a daad
from the بَرَكَةَ of that ameen, Allahumma istajib,
asking Allah to answer, all of our prayers
are accepted and that we attain what it
is that we are seeking.
And what we really should be seeking are
lofty affairs.
And all of those lofty affairs in one
way or another are tied to the best
of creation ﷺ.
And for this reason that when Imam al
-Haddad r.a was asked on different occasions,
what was that hajjah, what was that need
that he was asking for in his famous
poem, fad kafani ilmu rabbi, hajatin fin nafsi
yara ya rab, faqdiha ya khaira qadi.
I have a need within my soul, O
Lord, so I'm asking you to take care
of it, O best of those who take
care of all of my needs.
What was that need?
On one occasion he said he wanted to
attain the rida of Allah, the perfect contentment
of Allah.
On another occasion he said that he wanted
to meet with the best of creation and
awakened state.
On another occasion that he mentioned that he
wanted to have that complete annihilation in the
way of his teachers.
And the reality is all three of these
are in reality the same one.
Because if you take from the true inheritors
of the Prophet ﷺ and you annihilate yourself
in their way, you think how they think,
that you look how they look, you walk
how they walk, you learn how they learn,
you do how they do, you help how
they helped in all their different affairs, in
every verb that could be used to describe
them, you try to have a portion of
that very verb in terms of your actions,
when that happens that will take you to
the Messenger of Allah.
And that when you encounter the best of
creation ﷺ, that will prepare you for the
meeting with Allah and the gaze upon his
noble countenance and his eternal perfect contentment.
And in fact that they say when we
come to the Haud and the basin of
the Prophet ﷺ, one of the main ways
that the believers prepare for the gaze upon
the noble countenance of the Lord of the
Heavens and the Earth is their seeing Sayyidina
Muhammad ﷺ.
And that encounter is something that happens, that
is forever changed in the believer by virtue
of that encounter.
And once it takes place now the believer
is ready to enter into Paradise and to
be able to receive.
Referring to it as some technological metaphor of
a download or something of that sort is
cheapening the reality of that experience.
It's something that transcends that in many ways
and beyond our ability to fully understand how
every single atom of our existence is changed.
And this is why is that some people
could refer to the Rasul ﷺ as their
Khalil, as some of them.
Oh Sani Khalili, my intimate friend that advised
me, but it wasn't in reverse because the
word Khalil is the one that has so
much love for someone is that every cell
of their existence, every single cell of their
existence is in love with that particular individual.
And for our Prophet ﷺ that was only
possible in his blessed heart because Allah protected
him for the Lord of the Heavens and
the Earth.
Our Prophet like the Sayyidina Ibrahim but even
beyond he was not only the Khalil of
Allah but he was also the Habib of
Allah ﷺ.
So it's meanings like this that we come
together to tap into and to benefit from.
And when we understand that nothing is more
central to this deen than our connection to
our Prophet ﷺ then we know that we
have to set out and live our life
in a way that day in and day
out.
We are learning more and more about his
sunnah.
We're learning more and more about his life.
We're learning more and more about his characteristics.
We're learning more and more about his special
qualities ﷺ.
And then the hope is, and this is
why Imam al-Tirmidhi in the very end
of his blessed book on Shamayl mentions the
chapter on seeing the Prophet ﷺ is that
after we spend time doing that by way
of learning and by way of putting that
knowledge into practice, the hope is we'll be
gifted one of the greatest bisharat of all,
one of the greatest glad tidings which is
the indication that insha'Allah if someone is
blessed to see the Rasul they will be
people of paradise and they'll be reunited with
him ﷺ in the next world.
And when one of our teachers was asked,
how can we see the Prophet ﷺ?
These are people that don't have to really
think twice about it.
They respond very quickly because this is the
life that they live.
They are constantly living this life of a
real connection to the Rasul ﷺ.
He said simply, this
translates, increase in longing for him, longing for
him.
If you don't know what that means just
imagine Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq that how
he was yearning for the Prophet ﷺ in
the corner of his home after the Prophet
passed, sitting with his arms wrapped around his
knees and they heard him say, Oh how
I long for the Messenger of Allah.
And he would just keep repeating this, Oh
how I long for the Messenger of Allah.
This is a very powerful word.
It's the same word that you use to
ignite something.
So ignite the fire of love and your
increase in powerful love for him ﷺ.
And then carry literally his concern.
Live his concern.
Know what our Prophet ﷺ was concerned about.
And he was primarily concerned about human beings.
He was concerned about their welfare first and
foremost in this world.
Even people who were not of his faith.
But he was most importantly concerned about their
eternal hereafter.
Live his concern.
That strive to have every day of your
life you're doing something that is helping fulfill
the Prophetic mission as someone who is representing
him, as someone who is following him ﷺ.
Or that if you can't be as we
know this nature of this world, if you
can't be someone who is learning or you
can't be someone who is knowledgeable or you
can't be someone who is remembering or doing
something drawing near to Allah ﷻ, at least
love those and support those who are.
Be involved in some way and then qif
'a rababi bi'adab.
Literally stand at his door with adab, with
manners.
Understand deeply that there are many veils between
us in this encounter with the Messenger and
this life.
But if we learn how to have adab,
we become refined.
And when we, the first stage of adab
is to have correct belief.
The second stage of adab is to rid
your life of the haram and to fulfill
the commandments Allah ﷻ has given us.
The next stage of adab is to try
your best to leave what Allah ﷻ dislikes.
That is stuff that is makruh.
And to start doing as much as you
can about things that are recommended.
And then increase in adab by understanding what
is permissible and limiting yourself to what you
actually really need from that with a strong
intention.
And then dive into the ocean of internal
etiquette.
And one of the most important internal etiquettes
of all is recognizing the standing of Sayyidina
Muhammad with the Lord of the heavens and
the earth and how beloved he is to
him.
Read the book of Allah ﷻ.
Read that what Allah ﷻ says about our
Prophet and what our Prophet says about his
own self, not because he's boasting so that
you and I can have the doors of
the Divine Mercy opened up to us.
And then, inshallah ta'ala, with these meanings
of standing at his doorstep, as our teacher,
wa sataraahu, three times, you will see him.
You will see him.
You will see him.
May Allah ﷻ honor our eyes to see
the best of creation ﷺ.
May the young and old among us have
the veils removed, fi khayrun lutf al-akhir,
between them and the best of creation ﷺ.
May our homes be places where if he
would come that he would be happy.
May our hearts be places that when if
he would be split open he would be
happy.
May what it is that we do that
bring happiness to him ﷺ and if we
do this, may Allah ta'ala then bless
us to be with him, not only in
this world but most importantly in the hereafter
and the highest levels of paradise.
Ya arham marahimin wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.