Yahya Rhodus – The Benchmark For Greatness
AI: Summary ©
The importance of finding contentment and cure in the spiritual light of the Prophet's teachings is emphasized, along with setting up a daily prayer and creating intentions for future success. The speaker also discusses their struggles with a specific heart disease and their desire to have a manners with Sayyidna Muhammad sallam, which is a source of pride and loyalty. They emphasize the importance of praying upon Sayyidna Muhammad's and setting up a daily prayer.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah.
So we have one more poem from one
of the young sisters.
This is by the other daughter, one of
the other daughters of Sayyidina Abd al-Fattah,
last week that he wasn't here when he
recited that hudas, but this is by Yusra
Ba'alawi.
Ya Noor al-Aalim, Ya Noor Qulubina, Never
have I witnessed your lovely essence, Yet I
long to bask in your graceful presence.
1446 years after all the blood, sweat, and
tears, The twelfth of Rabi al-Awwad blossomed
bright, Allah's best mercy, His guiding light, He
was honest, humble, and so kind, Full of
light, a soul refined, May peace and blessings
be upon Him, We rejoice in His guidance
that fills us within.
MashaAllah, Rasul Allah, Sayyidina Muhammad, wa alayhi salam.
What a blessing, let's just take a moment
to really show gratitude to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, to be from those who have
received the light of Sayyidina Muhammad, the light
of his teachings, the light of his sunnah,
the light of what it is that he
bequeathed to the generation of the companions, who
then were conduits for this light in every
subsequent generation till this day and age, such
that that light is still shining bright from
the bounty of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And what a blessing to be associated and
to be affiliated in the very very least
way to Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ.
All of the great people who came before
us, if they're really considered to be great,
know that once that he was sent ﷺ,
that he is the absolute unconditional benchmark for
greatness.
There is no greatness except that it is
in relation to him ﷺ.
The people came before us who really knew
this reality and that they spoke about this
in prose, just as they spoke about this
in poetry form.
And one of the great poets who is
fairly recent, who lived within roughly a hundred
years of the time that we are now
living, the great Shaykh Yusuf bin Ismail al
-Nabhani, that he said that encapsulating in verse
that a portion of this meaning, I am
a servant of the master of all of
the prophets.
And my love that I have for him,
that love is ancient.
I am a servant of his servant.
And a servant of his servant's servant's servant,
without any end.
What does he mean by that?
The very least affiliation to him ﷺ, this
is the greatest honor for me of all.
And he said in another poem when he
was speaking about the blessed sandals of Rasulullah
ﷺ, is that to be under those blessed
sandals, were the stars to be able to
speak themselves.
And the great constellations that we see in
the sky, is that they would say with
very eloquent words that I wish that I
could have been under those blessed sandals of
our Prophet ﷺ.
And everything in the seven heavens would say
essentially the same thing, not just the stars,
everything that is in the seven heavens.
And the crowns of kings would be envious.
Because normally the crown is placed upon the
top of the head, but we only to
realize what is in the blessed sandals of
our Prophet ﷺ, we wish that we could
have been underneath.
These vi'audis indicate to us something very
important, is that the foundation of this deen
is one of mahabbah, it's one of love,
it's one of ta'alluk, it's one of
connection.
And it's one where we experience the beauty
of that love and the beauty of that
connection.
If we listen very carefully to this beautiful
poem that was just recited to us by
our dear brother Sayyidi Muhammad Sadiq, may Allah
bless him, preserve him and continue to put
him in the service of the Messenger ﷺ
and inspire him with words that move people's
hearts, that he said to us a very
deep meaning.
Any tribulation that we have, it can be
replaced by our connection to the Prophet ﷺ.
If we didn't have a father, he can
take the place of that.
If we didn't have a mother, he could
take the place of that.
Anything that we seem to have lost, he
can take the place of that ﷺ.
Anything that we seem that we could be
afflicted with, that he can be a means
for us to find that contentment and a
cure in that.
And this is part of the heart of
the meanings of the first poem they recited
after chapter two, how he ﷺ is shifa,
everything about him is healing, that his very
presence was healing, his words are healing, his
spiritual light is a healing, his teachings are
healing, everything in his sunnah is a healing.
But as the great Qadi Iyad said, is
that you have to read the subtitle of
his great book as shifa, it is by
recognizing the great rights that the best of
creation ﷺ has over us that we'll realize
that reality, how everything that is associated with
him in reality is shifa, it is considered
to be a healing.
And this is one of the many intentions
that we can make when we send salawat
upon the blessed Prophet ﷺ.
Make whatever intention that it is that you
need to make for all of the different
things that you are going through.
Now the very best intention of all that
we can make is to pray upon Rasulullah
ﷺ, send salawat upon him because he deserves
that we send salawat upon him because we've
been commanded to do so.
This is the very best intention.
And closely related to that is what Sidi
Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh says, is that
we pray upon him ﷺ out of love
and out of esteem for him.
And we do so because we've been commanded
to do so and he deserves that we
pray upon him ﷺ.
And the more that we focus upon that
tension in reality, everything else will be given
to us from the reality of what Allah
ﷻ told us upon the tongue of his
Prophet ﷺ with those inspired words, because if
we completely devote ourselves to salawat upon him,
our sins will be forgiven.
And all of our hamum, all of our
worries, all of our problems, our anxiety, our
troubles, all of the different ways that you
can translate this word in grief and keep
listing the world's all of this will be
taken care of from the blessing of sending
salawat upon Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ.
So let's make an intention to write down
the various intentions that we want to make.
If you're going through something difficult in your
life, that write it down.
I'm going to send salawat on that intention.
If you're going through some type of health
issue, write that down.
If you feel tired all of the time,
write that down.
Any condition that you have, anything that you
are going through, anything also that it is
that you want to attain, is it if
you suffer from a weak memory, you want
to memorize better, that if you want to
receive blessing in your time, make that intention
as well.
That if you want to get an opening
in sacred knowledge, write that down as well.
Is it if you want your heart to
become pure, write that down.
Well, if you know that you're struggling with
a particular vice, a particular disease of the
heart that you are aware of, that you
want to overcome, whether it is hasid, or
kibar, or ijab, or riya, whether it's envy,
or arrogance, or vanity, or that ostentation, make
the intention to send salawat.
List your intentions that, Ya Rab, these are
the things that I know that are my
hajat, these are my needs.
And in addition to the most important foundational
intentions, I'm going to make these blessed intentions
when sending salawat upon the best of creation,
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and you will find
is that the doors then start to open
in any month and in any time, but
especially in times like these.
In this blessed month of Rabiul Awwal, we
always dedicate ourselves to the teachings of our
Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, but we especially
dedicate ourselves to the teachings of our Prophet,
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in this month, to
the remembrance of him in this month.
And unfortunately this year is that for certain
reasons we weren't able to put on the
daily mawlids for the community like we have,
but we all need to make tawbah because
this is from our sins, this is from
our shortcomings.
May Allah forgive us, may Allah ta'ala
forgive me first and foremost, and may this
never happen again.
We had a custom of celebrating this every
single day.
Sometimes there were multiple mawlids every single day.
We're going to get back to that next
year, and if any of us die from
now until next year, please revive this.
And if any of us die the year
after, please those that come later, revive it
after them until Yawm al-Qiyamah, as long
as this space is available for people to
celebrate and to show their joy in Sayyidina
Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
This is not going to happen again, bi
'idhnillahi ta'ala, but it's from our shortcomings
and our sins that we fell short this
year, but inshallah ta'ala that we hope
and we're going to at least make an
intention that's not going to happen again.
We're going to that at least one a
day, if not multiple times, we will figure
out the growing community and the numbers and
all of that and the food and the
logistics and all of that, not to scare
the programs team.
We'll figure it out one way or another,
even if we have to do that work
ourselves.
The point is, is that it's not possible
for us to fall back on something that
is foundational.
This is a month where we especially show
this joy, we especially that delight and have
happiness in our hearts, believing as some people
have heard the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
say in the dream world, is that man
fariha bina farihna bih.
One of the great ways that we know
that our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is
happy with us, is that we are happy
with him.
One of the ways that we know his
heart has inclined towards us, is that our
heart inclines towards his sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And once we realize the meaning of that,
when the heart of Sayyidina Muhammad inclines towards
someone, it's not like the heart of someone
else.
When the hanan, when the tahannun, the compassion
and the mercy of the heart of the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that moves in
the direction of someone in a metaphorical way,
because when we're talking about something internally, it's
not attributed to outward movement.
This is the source of the greatest good.
And in fact, it is a source of
that experience that is paradisiacal in nature, which
is the greatest experience that someone could have
here in this world in relation to their
encounter with the best of creation, sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam.
But the more that these attachments develop, the
more that we have clarity about who Sayyidina
Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is, the more
that these meanings come to life in our
hearts, and we nurture them and water them,
the more then that we will have an
opportunity to see him and be with him,
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and the scholars laid
out for us the way to do this.
And in terms of how to attain that,
they're fairly simple.
We know what they are.
We dedicate ourselves to studying his sacred law
and to put it into practice.
And in addition to that, we have ta'din.
We honor his sunnah.
Every single aspect of his sunnah is great.
Every one of them, from the ones that
seem to me small to the ones that
we know are great.
And then we have a concern for his
ummah and do our best to spread the
good that we know he taught us and
left behind for us to his ummah.
And then that our hearts become attached to
him and love him.
And then you could add just yet another
one, which is to have adab and to
have manners with his family and to also
especially be in their service.
If we do these various things, time won't
pass except that the veils will be lifted
between us and Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam.
And if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
comes to love you, do we realize what
that means?
If Rasulullah loves you, that means that all
of the prophets and messengers love you.
That means that all of the companions from
Sayyidina Abu Bakr to the last companion, and
there was likely well over 124,000 companions,
that if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
loves you, all of his family from Sayyidina
Ali and Sayyidina Fatima and Sayyidina Hasan and
Hussain until the end of time, they will
all love you.
All of the awliya of his ummah will
also love you.
If the best of creation and all of
the inhabitants of heaven, all of the angels
will love you.
And if he loves you, most importantly of
all, it is a sign that the Lord
of the heavens and the earth loves you.
Because when he is content with you, it
is a sign that the Lord of the
heavens and the earth is content with.
May Allah Ta'ala bless us to be
able to live in a way and to
die in a way that we attain the
love of our Prophet and that we become
beloved to him.
And of course that we love him, but
it's more important that he loves us and
that we also attain his contentment that ultimately
leads to the contentment of our Lord subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us
tawfeeq and may these gatherings nurture the hearts
and to be a means for these meanings
to that penetrate to the depths of our
being.