Yasir Khan – Weekly Seerah Session
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Right?
Inshallah, we'll continue the seerah of the prophet
in Madinan phase, and it's actually one of
the most important thing because when you look
at our Islam,
all of the basic components that we know
and that we practice,
and some of it has even just become
custom to us, it was all established in
this phase, in the very beginning phase of
Madinan life, which is the first two years
of Madinan life. We have discussed in the
past how the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
established a brotherhood, established a constitution,
established treaties, all of that.
Whenever you study
Islamic books, especially books of,
you will realize that the authors will divide
the books into different chapters. For example, there's
the chapter of Ibadat,
how you do different acts of Ibadat.
There'll be a chapter of.
How do you do different?
And then there's usually or, uh-uh,
you know,
all of that, and that tells us how
to deal with everything. And today, I just
want to point out some of those things,
how it's getting established
in the first two years,
of Madinan life. So when the prophet
when he goes to
Madinah,
the first thing we spoke about establishing the
brotherhood, constitution, treaties, all that. And now after
almost a year or so worth of time,
we see that different acts of
are coming into play.
As we know that fasting wasn't always an
obligation,
but after the first Ramadan passes by in
Madinah,
there was the first Ramadan in Madinah, there
was no such thing as fasting the month
of Ramadan. But the second Ramadan, it was
actually obligated.
We know that before, when they went to
Madinah,
what was actually mandatory for Muslims
was actually the fast of Ashura,
the 10th of so people used to fast
on that day, and then from there slowly,
you know, it became where it was the
full month of fasting.
Also, zakat wasn't
there before,
but in this Ramadan, zakatul fitr is introduced,
and people have to start to give about
10 to $15 in today's calculation,
and they have to start to give to
the poor. And about a few months later,
maybe about 3, 4 months later,
then the regular zakat of 2.5%,
that was obligated as well.
Similarly, we know that salah that we pray
today, just the way we pray Maghrib to
be 3 rakats and Isha to be 4
rakats, It wasn't always like this. In Makkan
phase, it was different. It was used to
be 2 rakats,
and now in Madinan phase,
salah is also starting to take a form
and all of that. So you see, in
order for a community to grow, all these
three things have to grow simultaneously.
They have to grow at the same time.
You have to grow in your spirituality,
in your
You have to grow in your
and you have to also grow
in your
and your
dealings with people and all of that as
well. So we see that all these three
things, the prophet
is working on individually
and growing each of them,
and once you're able to establish that,
then you can establish power.
Then we will see how the prophet
starts to do different actions that will establish
power in Madinah and establish power
for an Islamic government.
So this was the
is a means of spirituality.
Zakkai is a means of spirituality.
Fasting is a means of spirituality.
All of these things are getting formed as
a means of
spirituality.
Then when it comes to
this is also very important. As we know,
the economic situation was mainly controlled by the
Jews of the time. They used to be
there. They used to be taking care of
all the money and the, you know, all
the
business and everything like that. One time the
prophet
he goes to the market, and he sees
that they're doing business a specific way, and
he came back, and he drew the lines,
and he said, you know what? The way
they're doing it, that's not our way. Right?
We have to do it differently. This is
the boundary in which we're going to do
our business, and the way we're gonna do
it is we're going to do it based
on
we're gonna do it based on trust.
We're gonna do it based on, you know,
doing developing
morals and ethics.
That for example, the prophet
started to say that, you know, the person
the blessed is the person on the day
of judgement who is
a truthful and a trustworthy
businessman.
A person who lies and cheats, he's not
one of us. And so as he starts
to give these instructions,
it starts to develop a sense of morality
and ethics within business. So it's not like
go and cheat whoever you want, go and
oppress whoever you want, because there were a
lot of tactics of oppression. And one of
those tactics that exist till today
is usury, is interest.
Right? And, actually, if you look at even
Christianity,
usury is not allowed. It's forbidden.
If you look even very deeply into Christianity,
I've talked about this to some Christian professors
as well. Christianity
forbids
usury, but it was with time and stuff
that slowly, slowly, they basically allowed it and
legitimized
it because of their own interest, but it
wasn't something that was okay. Similarly, there were
other actions
that used to happen. For example, people used
to come and buy all the supplies
and keep it, and then when nobody else
has it, raise up the prices. Right? Somebody
used to go because remember, the mar it
used to happen in the marketplace,
So it used to be caravans coming. So
before even it comes to the marketplace,
let's go outside and buy everything from them
over there. So by the time it comes
to the marketplace, I'm gonna be the one
to have all of this. So we're going
to be the ones basically selling. So when
the prophet
saw all the things that we talk about
today in the world, monopoly isn't okay, and
oligopoly is okay, and all of these different
things, all of these, the prophet
went to analyze, and he came back and
he said, look, Islamic way of dealing is
different.
Islamic way of dealing, it's different. And so
we need to focus on these things.
So that's how established. And we saw also
the prophet
is talking about how to deal with each
other. Right? Prophet says,
he says,
that live with each other,
deal with live with each other like brothers.
But when it comes to dealing, deal with
each other like you guys are strangers. You're
taking a, a a loan from someone, write
it down. And a lot of times what
happens is
even in our communities here, some people come
to us to say, okay. Let's have some
type of or
mediation and all that stuff. And usually it
goes back to this person has a beard
and he had a business idea, and he
came and I entrusted him with a $100,000,
and now he's not showing me how much
he's making and this thing and that thing,
and so I need to, you know,
you know, I need to do something about
it. Right?
Okay.
Islam doesn't tell you that, okay, if a
person has a beard, go invest a $100,000.
Islam tells you that if you're going to
invest or you're gonna give somebody a loan,
write it down.
Right? Islam tells you that if you're going
to be dealing with someone, deal with somebody
like he's a stranger. Right? Don't say that,
oh my god, today we're gonna have a
dawat in my house and we're gonna eat
too, and we're gonna be all happy and
everything. Because in the beginning everybody is all
happy and it's all golden glitter, but once
it goes back to the actual hissab, we
start cutting each other's throats off because we're
like, oh, it's not supposed to be like
this. He's taking more profits. He's giving me
less profit. This is how it's supposed to
be. That's how it's supposed to be. Right?
So we need to really learn from this
as well.
We also see the prophet
is really encouraging the Sahaba to help each
other out, but at the same time, we
see this
of the Sahaba as well. So we see
the hadith of Abdul Rahman of Naouf. He
goes to his, you know, his brother or
he goes to basically his, you know, of
the brother of Al Sar, not a blood
brother, somebody the prophet
assigned as his brother. And he tells them
and he's like, here, take half of my
wealth. Take half of everything. He's like, no.
Just show me where the market is. He
goes to the market, starts to invest, starts
to work hard, all of that, and he
becomes one of the richest men. Right? So
we see that there's this thing of helping
each other, but at the same time there's
this
that are not just gonna free load. So
you're kind of seeing the structure being built.
There's an effort on Ibadat.
There's an effort in fixing the Muhamalat.
There's an effort on fixing the and
the whole culture is changing now.
Now when this is getting established,
when the
and the and the when all of these
things are established,
then you can expect the help of Allah
So at this point now, the prophet
is now of course, he's confident of the
help of Allah
He is now gonna see how can he
defend
Islam, because the Quraysh
are continuously
trying to eradicate Islam. They're trying to get
rid of Islam, and they're gonna they're sending
and they're talking to people and they're, you
know, planning different different things. So the prophet
is now looking at multiple things. Number 1,
that the Quraysh
took all the wealth of the Muslims
in Makkah.
They don't have the they didn't let anything
of the Muslims. Now the Quraysh is using
that wealth along with their own wealth to
get richer.
And how do they get richer? The only
way of getting richer was to invest. And
the is investment was
which means that in summertime they would go
to Syria, in wintertime they would go to
Yemen. But in order to go to Syria
they had to pass by Madinah.
So this was their way of getting richer
and richer, and getting richer with the money
of the Sahaba.
And then when they get richer, they're emboldened
to take that money and invested against
who? Invest it against the Muslims and finishing
off Islam. So, of course, a plan has
to be drafted to see what to do.
And also,
the image has to change from that, oh,
it's just a small little group of Muslim.
They're just doing their
and, you know, that we just need to
finish them off. Now the prophet
wants to establish
that Islam has gone to a level of
government.
Islam has gone to a level of a
system,
and that you're not just going to mess
around.
And so at this point, the prophet
wants to send the message to Quraysh, don't
mess around with us, and at the same
time, he wants to establish
a few things and that is, okay, if
we are able to get our wealth back
from the we need to get it back.
And so the of course, they're gonna be
going in the summertime
all the way to Syria
for investing their wealth. And so one time
they're doing that,
and the
prophet is like,
hey. Let's go out, and let's intercept.
Let's take our wealth back. They didn't go
with the intention of fighting or anything. Let's
go do that. So they went out for
an expedition called
When they go for
they try to intercept the caravan,
but unfortunately, the caravan has already passed by
and the Muslims were not able to do
anything at that point. So, that happens,
really, they weren't able
able to,
do much over there. Then after some time,
again and but the thing is one thing
we we should keep in mind is every
time these things happen, it's not like they
just happen in vain. Nothing really got out
of it. The
prophet whenever he would go, he would establish
ties with tribes.
So the few, you know, and the few
that he goes after that, he would go
and he would establish ties with different tribes
and tell them that, hey, listen. We're gonna
have alliance between each other, that you guys
are not gonna support
our enemy.
You guys are gonna side with us, and
if there's anybody trying to attack us, you
guys will let us know. So this is
one very important thing we have it almost
every single country has it now. It's called
intelligence. Everybody has an intelligence, you know, agency.
America has CIA, and Pakistan has ISI, and
Israel has Mossad, and all of these people
have it. And this is basically to go
and seek out information
about another country trying to plan an attack
or about another country doing that. So the
prophet
at this stage, he would send small small
expeditions, groups, to see if anybody's planning to
attack, see if anybody is planning to get
someone. Right? And so everybody is trying to
do that. The prophet
is trying to do that to make sure
that nobody's, you know, trying to attack. And
in the meantime, what he's doing is going
and he's establishing
ties.
He's establishing relationship with different tribes. He's establishing
relationship
to strengthen Islam from the core. And so
that is what's happening. And as we explained
last time as well, that when you open
up the books of Hadith, you will always
have a book or a chapter called, right,
and basically
means,
is the plural or
is the plural or the singular of it.
Is an expedition that the prophet
sent out, and he did not participate in
it himself.
And
is the plural
of and
is an expedition in which the prophet
participated
in him in it himself. And so that's
why the first one is called
because the prophet
was there himself.
And scholars have a little bit of difference
in exactly how many gazwas there were, and
how many the prophet
participated
himself, but they say the number was about
19.
And we know some of the major ones,
for example, Ghazwatul Badr, Ghazwatul Uho, Ghazwatul Khanda,
all of these are the ones that the
prophet himself
participated.
Other than that, the Saraiyah were many many.
Right? And the first one, the first
that was sent in which the first person
to
throw an arrow in the path of Allah
was
and he used to take great pride in
that, that, you know, I was the first
one to, you know, throw an arrow in
the path of Allah The
first few, the first few, nothing really happened.
It used to be just for the sake
of showing that, hey. Listen.
I got some and, you know, it's actually
the same thing happening today. For example, why
is it that US has their navy in
the Sea of Taiwan?
Why is it that the US has their
bases in Qatar and Turkey and all over
there? Right? It's kind of showing that, hey,
listen. We're here in this territory. We're establishing
our presence over here. Don't mess with us.
We have our people. We are You know,
it's kind of sending a message.
And so this same thing was happening at
that time too that the prophet
will go. And it worked because
a lot of the tribes would see that,
wow. This new power that's coming in Islam,
they actually have power. It's not just random
people getting together and say, okay. Let's just
worship Allah and the Masjid. But there are
actually people who are serious, and they're not
going to take just what they used to
do in Madinah. They used to slap this
side. They used to be like, here's another
side. It's not gonna be like this anymore.
It's not gonna be like you torture them.
And we see a hikmai in this as
well that, subhanAllah, you look, for 13 to
15 years, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
does not
order them. In fact, for 13, 14 years,
he doesn't even give them permission
to fight.
People are getting tortured,
people are getting killed, people are getting kicked
out, people are getting imprisoned. All of these
are happening, and there's no order to fight.
The order of fighting
comes in a gradual step.
First, it was, okay, it's just in the
1st Madin,
there's no nothing.
Then after the 2nd year or so, okay,
just permission is given.
Then after that, okay, now it's
allow now you have to fight against Quraysh
and Quraysh only.
Right? And then after that, the next level
is that, okay, now you guys have to
fight all the tribes around that stands against
Islam or stands against, you know, your mission.
And so that was these were all the
different steps that were taken. So we see
that all the different, you know, and
everything in Islam came through a gradual level.
But the most important thing to understand
is that sometimes we focus on one aspect
of our community more than the other. And
I think the most important thing is for
us to kind of work on everything holistically,
which means to work on our
to work on
our to work on our
and work on all of these. Work on
how we worship Allah, what's our connection with
Allah, what's the status of
our Then work on how our is. Unfortunately,
our
isn't great.
We see so many people, like, they would
want to invest with anyone but Muslims.
I tell you, all of you guys right
now, would you buy a car from a
Muslim person?
I wouldn't. I got cheated a few times.
Right?
And it's unfortunate that it it happens within
the Muslim community.
A person will be, like, has a beard
or goes to Hajj and goes to Umrah
and all of that, and then the simple
thing of just saying the truth is hard
for them. And this is one of the
reasons sometimes we're like, oh my god. We
want to go and get Gaza. We want
to go and get Palestine.
We cannot even control
our,
you know, our temptation of $1,000.
And we want to go and conquer the
world?
We cannot even come to the masjid
and,
you know, control
our temptation of sleeping for another hour and
come for Fajr salah, and we want to
go and become the superpower of the world.
Right? So the most important thing for us
is to start to look at the and
see what the prophet
worked on. So we're looking for those days
of Badr.
We're looking for those days of, you know,
how Allah
helped in all those battles, but we're not
looking at the days that came before it.
We're not looking at the at the sacrifice
at the all of that. We're not looking
at the efforts that went into dawah. We're
not looking at the efforts that went into
establishing
iman to a level where
is being done,
is being done,
You know, your character as well, you're dealing
with other people as well. And so this
is one of the most important thing that
we learn in the
that let's not be partial Muslims.
Allah
says in the Quran,
Enter into Islam in its entirety.
Let's not enter into
one person who's just attached to a masjid
and come from for 5 times salah, but
then when you ask him about what's his
or what's his, you know, his character, it's
not there. Another person is like,
You know, just work on your heart but
then he doesn't come to the masjid.
All of these are partial levels of in
Islam, and that's one of the reasons why
we don't really see the nusrah.
We need to see
how to enter into Islam in its entirety,
and entirety means to start from the level
of iman which was 10, 13 years of
effort in Makkah.
Nothing else.
Right? Effort on iman,
then effort on then effort
on all of these things you do this,
then you will see the help of Allah
So by no means am I saying to
leave advocacy for Palestine, to leave it for
No. But what I'm trying to say is
let's become holistic Muslims. Let's look at the
Let's learn from the
that this is what's needed. Unfortunately, we're giving
our deen a very different picture.
Now forget about
unfortunate situation is,
look,
maybe the past 10 years, our deen has
come to a level where it's like, okay,
the people who are involved in the masjid,
their character may be bad or this thing
or that. Now there's a new trend,
and the new trend that is coming is
that it's not even about masjid and salah.
It's not even about characters.
Islam has become event based.
Well, there's a great event and you could
buy tickets for it and you could go
and have a celebrity speak to you, you'll
have all the Muslims.
But when you have it for Fajr Salah
or you have a regular, you know,
like, you know, an obligation of Islam that
you have to do, we're going to be
very far away from it. So it's a
new trend that's getting developed. This is a
new one. Right? Up to now, like, if
you realize this probably have never happened in
your childhood that Islam was event based,
that Islam was okay, go to this event
and go to that event and feel good
about yourself over here and feel good about
yourself over there.
I mean, it's unfortunate that we will see
some event will have 20,000
people in there.
But then,
if you were to do a survey in
that event that, okay, guys, who prayed Fajr
Salah today in the masjid?
Who prayed Fajr salah here in the the
all the people in the event? And the
parents are starting to feel happy about it.
You know, sometimes you go to some of
the parents and you start to speak to
them about, you know, making sure that they
take care of their children's,
you know, Islam and all of that, they're
like, no, no, we're doing so much. Every
year, we spend $20,000
to go to this state and participate in
this conference.
It's a 3 day conference. We book the
hotels, we book the tickets, we book this
and we do that, And they get the
feeling that, okay. That's it. That's enough for
Islam.
And I'm telling you, I was listening to
one of the professors from Zaitunah.
He was saying
that
for every 100 people,
every 100 Muslims,
24 of them, according to survey, 24 of
them are becoming atheists.
24 of them.
These are the statistics that are seen. So
sometimes when a guy comes over here
and we are
taking a shahada of someone,
like
and everybody's hugging and everybody's doing all of
that,
but they don't realize how many people are
leaving out.
How many people are leaving? I tell you,
I met somebody last week
who said that his great grandfather, his grandfather,
everybody including himself, they were all Muslim, but
he's not a Muslim anymore.
Right? So this is a reality that we
need to face and the only way we're
going to come back on track is to
kinda go back to the of the prophet
and realize that Islam is not event based.
Islam is not a partial entrance into something.
We need to look at how can we
work on iman. We need to work on
how can we work on.
We need to look at how can we
work on our how can we work on
all of these things together.
And then we can call ourself an Islamic
community,
a Muslim community, and we could call ourself
a jama'a and
and then we can ask Allah
to have your help with us.
Then we can say, you Allah, have your
help with us. Right now, you cannot call
this a jama'ah. One person is taking care
of 1 part of theen, the other person
is taking care of another part of theen.
I mean, I work with different communities. I
see and
it's unfortunate but sometimes, you know, with different
communities, you have to work in a different
way. Like, if I go to some communities,
I could only talk really about akhlaq.
Because if I talk about about that,
I mean, they will come to you and
they'll be like, what are you
a shaykh, you just need to focus on
akhlaq.
You need to focus
on good goodwill for everyone. Last week, I
gave a in one of the masjids. One
brother came to me. I was talking about
the forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And
he's like, Sheikh, Allah says he's just. How
is it just that a person who just
says I'm a Muslim
Right?
You are making a very big mistake or
standing on the podium. You're saying the name
of Allah and his Rasool, and you're only
saying that only Muslims are going to Jannah.
Right? You need to go and correct yourself.
And he was going back and forth and
back and forth, and I'm like, you gonna
listen? He's like, no. You need to listen
to me. So I was like, okay. You
already know your stuff, sir. What am I
gonna say?
Right? But this is the situation of the
Muslims.
The and their simple reason is that
we have become selective
in our deen.
We have become selective in our deen. And
the seerah, especially the 1st 2 years that
we discovered,
it's a proof
that deen is not selective.
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is just going to
Madinah.
In the 1st 2 years when you move
to some place, you're just getting you're just
getting established, you're just getting ready.
Look at how much the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam has done in the 1st 2
years. From establishing a masjid,
from establishing brotherhood,
from creating treaties with non Muslims,
from establishing
morals and ethics, from establishing
from establishing,
in developing character,
from establishing
military awareness,
from sending a message to his enemies, from
all of these in 2 less than 2
years, we're about in 15th 16th month of
Madira, he's establishing all of this. If this
is not a proof
of
of holistic
deen, then I don't know what it is.
But one person will go and he will
look at, oh my god, the prophet used
to help Aisha radiAllahu anha in the house.
So deen is to go help your wife
in the house.
And another person will look at it that
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam used to
do a tikaf in the month of Ramadan.
So deen is to stay in the masjid
and do a tikaf.
Right? And so we look at these small
small glimpses from different place and we say
this is deen.
And that's why we you know, I ask
everybody to study You don't wanna listen to
me? Great. Go listen to someone else. Go
pick up a book. Read it. Understand that
our deen is far more than just the
very basic understanding that we have of just
simple simple things. So may Allah
allow us to understand and allow us to
implement