Yasir Khan – Weekly Seerah Session
AI: Summary ©
The importance of being a student of knowledge is emphasized, along with the need to build a strong group of believers and not allow anyone to say their deeds. The speaker emphasizes the importance of focusing on small groups and creating a strong community. The history of Islam is discussed, including the title of the prophet sallali alaihi wa sallam and the use of "row." The importance of not luring false accusations and not allowing anyone to block one's success is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
It's the blessing of Allah
giving us a chance to become the students
of knowledge.
You know, sometimes we think that,
you know, these halakats are very small,
but one thing it does is it puts
us in a category which is very special.
And that category is a category of being
a student of knowledge.
In the hereafter,
student of knowledge and the will
only have one daraja between them.
And it comes in the hadith of the
prophet
that whoever takes the path
of knowledge, Allah
makes the path towards Jannah easy for him.
So, you know, sometimes we may think that,
you know, I already know this or this
that, but, you know, sometimes
these small halakats that we have don't take
it for granted,
rather try to
take part and claim yourself as a student
of knowledge. You know, one of the great
scholars
from India, Molana Omar Palan Burisab,
you know, till his death, when you would
look at his passport,
occupation, he would have
under occupation, it was always
student of knowledge.
Because he says when I read the,
the virtues of the student of knowledge,
I can't accept to take any other title
than that.
So all of us, so far as we're
in the journey of learning something whether it's
daily or weekly,
Allah
will give us the reward because as we
know,
that deeds are according to their intentions.
Now, going to our sira halaqa or sira
session,
last week we spoke about how the prophet
began his dawah,
And we spoke about the different stages of
dawah. We talked about the first stage lasting
for 3 years, after that 10 years, then
after that madinah starts,
the 3rd stage lasts till Hudaybiyah, and then
the 4th stage lasts till the death of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So we
spoke about the different stages of dawah, and
then we started to speak about the first
specific stage. That the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
started to call people,
but he called people very much privately. He
did not call anybody,
you know, go out there and make it
public or anything like that. And we, basically
learned that for that was mercy for us
because, you know, the prophet
didn't just come to give dawah,
he also came to teach dawah. So we
discussed that, you know, the prophet
could have went, could have given dawah, and
Allah would have protected him. But then it
would have been incumbent upon you and I
that in any situation we are in, we
have to give public dawah, and it sometimes
it's not possible. We know in a lot
of Muslim countries, you're not even able to
speak what you're supposed to say. The imams
are giving, you say you go up and
you're allowed to read this and nothing else.
Right? Similarly,
you're not allowed to express your deen, and
this is the condition now for the past
1400 years. Different conditions have come on people
and subhanallah,
we see that the seerah of the prophet
teaches
us how to do and what to do
in different situations.
So that was the first 3 years in
which the dawah was going very very
small level. Now sometimes
we try to give dawah
and we're giving at a very small level
or whatever, but we are very hasty to
see results.
We wanna see something. Where's where's you know,
why isn't anybody accepting? You know, Sheikh Ramdan
Buti writes in Pipu Sira, he says that
for the first 3 years,
you cannot say that more than 40 people
accepted Islam.
For the 1st 3 years, the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam is giving, giving, giving, but
very few people are accepting Islam.
But there's hikmah of Allah
in this. And I we we already spoke
about 1 of the hikmah, one of the
wisdom is for us to basically have ease
and have a way of giving dawah in
times of hardship.
The second thing
that is there and
basically
very few people accepting Islam
is that the prophet
is able to focus on very small group
of people
and focus on their iman,
focus on their faith to such a level
that these are the people who became the
carriers of Islam.
You know in the Hajjatul Bida, in the
last Hajj of the prophet
there were over 10,000 people.
But when we go back and we start
talking about the luminaries, we start talking about
the people
who Islam stood on their shoulders,
the people that we remember, the people that
we know the names of are mostly from
this group of 40 people.
These were the people even though it was
small, sometimes we just have this concept of,
you know, growing too quick.
Right? And it's it happens to all of
us. Why aren't we growing? Why you know,
we started the madrasah
and, you know, last year we were in
Arlington and this year, alhamdulillah, Allah gave us
a place in Irving. And sometimes people tell
come to us and, you know, they start
to compare us to, like, ICI or Epic
or something. Why aren't you guys getting a
big place? Why aren't you getting getting this,
getting that? And I'm just like, you know,
let's focus on what we have. We have
the students. Our greatest asset, our greatest time,
our greatest everything is to focus on these
students.
And so when we focus on the students,
the buildings will come and go, everything will
come and go, but the main thing is
to work on the people and this is
what we see in the seerah. The prophet
didn't focus on place, didn't focus on this
or that. What he focused was on these
40 or less men and their iman became
so strong
that these were the people they became
the strongest
believers.
Nothing shook their iman.
And the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam was able
to build their iman continuously recite in Quran.
And these people, they almost became like a
family.
They became so close
that they were just together the whole entire
time and they became like that one body.
The hadith of the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam that if one part of the the
body hurts, the whole body hurts. This is
how this group of people became. They used
to just go to Dar Darul arkam and
just sit over there and just, you know,
be a small little group learning and talking
about Allah and that's it. And so we
see that is happening. The 1st 3 years,
that's all that's happening.
After this, the next stage comes.
This next stage lasts for 10 years.
This next stage lasts till the prophet
goes to Makkah. And this is a very
painful stage. This is such a painful stage
because
this is when the Muslims are going through
tortures and tortures and tortures.
This starts with
the ayah
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran
when he commands the prophet of Allahu alayhi
wa sallam
to now go and openly preach.
Go and openly
claim what you have been ordered to and
stay away from the bushrikeen.
And another ayah, some scholars say it started
with
is
go and warn your close people. But both
of them work together because the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam, he started to warn his
close people, his family, and from there he
slowly started to grow. And how does he
invite people? SubhanAllah.
One is, you know, you just go and
say, hey, guys,
just start accepting and this thing and that
thing. But one is, subhanAllah, in a very
nice and beautiful manner. What does the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam do? When he is
given this command, the first thing he does
is he slaughters
a goat
or lamb and tells all his family members
to come. Small I mean, this is Banu
Hashim. Just specifically, now Quraish Quraish is everybody
in Makkah was basically Quraish.
But within them, there are tribes. There's the
Banu Magzul, there's Banu Abidar, there is the
there's the Banu Hashim. The Banu Hashim is
the tribe of the prophet suballahu alaihi wa
sallam, about 40 adults there. The prophet suballahu
alaihi wa sallam invites them to his house.
And at this point, the pro Ali radiallahu
alaihi wasallam,
both of them
prepare the meal themselves
and call everybody and say, come over here,
eat, so that this way he can speak
to them. He didn't say anything about speaking
to them because then he's like, maybe the
people won't come. He just said, come and
eat. When he was about to start speaking,
Abu Lahab felt something. So Abu Lahab gets
up abruptly and just leaves.
And, of course, him being one of the
leaders of the tribe,
the people start to say, like, oh, he's
leaving so, you know, I guess let's all
leave. So they left. Nothing happened. The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam invites them again.
The next day he prepares a meal again
and again.
Now some scholars say it happened twice. Some
scholars say it happened more than twice. It
happened 3 times in which the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam is inviting. And then when
he realized that he might say something, at
that point, he's like, oh, people,
I have come to you with something
that will give you the best of this
world and the best of the hereafter.
But at this point, Abu Lahab gets up
and he's like, what are you talking about?
You want us to leave the ways of
our forefathers?
We're not gonna leave the ways of our
forefathers. We got things to do. Stop wasting
our time. And he left. Again, it ruins
the whole mood and everything. Of course, the
prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam is very hurt.
At this, some narration say that, adir of
the allahu anhu, when the prophet
said, who will believe in me? Who will
believe in me? The only person to say
was a little kid, Alir radhiallahu anhu, who
said, a prophet of Allah, I will believe
in you. Right? So at this point,
again, nothing much happened. Then after this, the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam goes to the
Mount Safa. You know, when we go for
Umrah or Hajj, you see Safa and Marwa.
Safa and Marwa today is basically flat. Right?
It's not much to see, but at that
time, it's a pretty big mountain. The prophet
goes up there, and he starts to call
the people and that was the norm of
the time. You wanted to make an announcement?
Sorry. There was no news channels. Right? There's
no radio stations. There's no mic. So the
only thing you could do is go up
to an elevated place, and Mount Safa was
that place. They would go up there, and
the prophet
called everybody. Everybody is going. And he starts
to ask a few questions. Oh, people, what
do you know about me? Like, well, you
are one of the best. You're from a
noble lineage, and you're this and great and
all. He's like, do you guys think I
ever, do you guys think I'm a liar?
You never lied. You saw that. You are
mean. You're the truthful. You're the trustworthy.
Never you you've done anything like that.
So then he's like, if I was to
tell you that there's an enemy behind this
mountain, will you guys believe me?
And he's there like, yes. We've never heard
you lie, so of course we're gonna believe
you. And at this point, he's like, well,
I warn you of the day of judgment.
And I tell you to prepare for that
day and accept in the oneness of Allah
before it's too late. And then he starts
to call each tribe by name.
He starts from the big, you know, tribe
from the Quraysh and starts coming down down
to the point where he starts, and
to he goes to, and to he's bint
bint Muhammad,
including his own daughter, that today if you
don't accept,
I cannot do anything for you in the
hereafter.
I cannot do anything for you in the
hereafter. So this is what the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam did and subhanAllah.
At this point, Abu Lahab goes and picks
up a
a handful of sand,
and basically that's just a notion that you
are what you're telling us is not even
worth this and just throws it at him.
He tells them
Destruction be to you the whole day you
collected us for this, you gathered us for
this,
and upon this Allah
revealed the Surah.
May Allah subhan like, the what is it
destruction be to the hands of Abu Lahab?
Abu Lahab was doing this. Why? Because he
thought that he thought that he had wealth.
He thought that he had something. So because
of that, he should get the kingdom. He
should get this. He should get that. That
arrogance in him could not allow him to
believe in this.
And so subhanAllah,
of course with this, the prophet salallahu alayhi
wasalam couldn't continue.
Right? And this is very painful. But subhanAllah,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala teaches us through these
and there's hikmah in every single thing that
we do. We didn't know that 1400 years
later or 1200 or 1000 years later,
some academics are going to come and start
to point at the seerah of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and start to say
that, oh, there's this fault in it. Actually,
this whole Islam thing, this was just a
nationalistic
movement. This was just the Quraysh trying to
gain power, so they created this nationalistic movement.
If it was nationalistic movement, do you think
that Abu Lahab would do this to it?
Then don't you think the whole entire tribe
would have been supporting him especially his own
family
and because they wanted this position and they
wanted this honor and they wanted all of
this? So to debunk
the ideas that were going to come 10
centuries later, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has planned.
And, you know, sometimes it hurts. I'm pretty
sure this hurt the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam. But because of this, it makes the
people who makes the claims
that Islam was a nationalistic movement and the
Quraysh just wanted to get, you know, all
of this, it makes them look like fools.
It makes them look like complete fools. So
that part is done. The next thing we
realize in over here is that when it
comes to the dawah,
why is it that Allah
orders him
go and, you know, warn your close people.
What does that what does this process tell
us? What does this process tell us? A
lot of people will start off
that the process tells us that dawah starts
with with who? Dawah starts with your family.
Save yourself and your family, but you see
subhanallah, what is this
say?
Yourself first.
And then after that so a lot of
people when they will give a lecture, they'll
give any type of lecture, they'll be like,
guys, we have to start with the first,
some people are like, okay, guys, we need
to worry about the world. It's great. Then
after that, some people are like, guys, we
need to worry about, you know, our families.
Okay. Great. But the one key aspect that
most people forget
is that the first stage of dawah is
to start with yourself.
And that's what the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam started with. When he was going to
Harihira,
when he was pondering, when he was reflecting,
when he was meditating,
and then when Jibreel alaihi salaam comes to
him
and going back and forth until he gets
the complete affirmation and confirmation
that, yes, he is a prophet.
Once that is done,
then the dawah starts to where he goes
to Khadija he goes to Ali
and then the
and then the Quraysh in general.
So we have to keep this in mind.
The third thing, and we will end with
this, is that you see,
the prophet
was telling them to believe
and what was their rebuttal.
You want us to leave the ways of
our forefathers?
You want us to leave the ways of
our forefathers? That was their main thing that
they did not. Basically,
their religion was their tradition.
They did not want to leave it because
it became their tradition, it became part of
their life, and it was hard for them
to leave it.
But you know sometimes
when you really think,
for a lot of us, that's what Islam
has become today.
We inherited it from our forefathers,
and we're just doing things because it's just
part of the tradition, it's part of who
I am, a culture, whatever it may be.
But we are not thinking
for a minute to actually recognize
what does Islam mean to me.
What is Islam in my life?
You know, what what one of the most
noble
is what?
Is to do umrah. Right? People will spend
1,000 of dollars, take breaks, do all of
that to go and do tawa tawaaf around
the Kaaba. Right?
Let me tell you something, you know who
else used to do tawaaf around the Kaaba?
Abu Jahl.
So today the question we say is what
was the difference between Abu Jahal's tawaf and
your tawaf?
Those people used to pray as well. What
is the difference between your salah and their
salah?
That is the question we have to ask
ourselves. For them it was hard because, okay,
it's just a tradition, it's a family thing,
it's just who we are, our forefathers, this
that, so we're doing it. But today, Alhamdulillah,
it's good.
We are Muslims.
We have said
but trust me, we need to do a
lot more than this.
And we need to make sure that Islam
now starts to mean something to me. Islam
is beyond
just me saying that, okay, I'm Muslim.
And for that we need to sit down
every single
day and reflect
about my connection with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Do what the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam
did in the very beginning,
which was the responsibility to yourself. There's 3
responsibilities that all of us have. 1 is
the responsibility
towards myself, 1 is the responsibility towards my
family and 1 is the responsibility for everybody
else.
The responsibility for yourself is something that needs
to happen
as soon as possible
on a daily basis.
The prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
even after getting nabua, even after getting wahi,
even after being proclaimed as a prophet,
he used to take time every single day
and talk to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Develop
a relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Beg
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala at a time when
you're not distracted, at a time when nothing
is going on. And so when you do
focus on yourself,
this will automatically
bring it to where you can actually give
dawah to your family. And I'm not gonna
say that it's gonna make it easy,
but it's gonna do something.
And then after that, you'll be able to
give dawah to everybody else. But, you know,
in terms of giving dawah to your family,
trust me, that's one of the hardest things.
We see that not just with the prophet
but with majority of the the
the the hardest time that they receive is
from the closest people to them. And so
we are going to receive that. But this
is the test
And this is what we realize,
that this patience,
this endurance,
and this forbearance,
this is exactly what is going to give
birth.
This is what's going to give birth. Now
the rest of the session of these 10
years, we are going to now see the
true sacrifices of the Sahaba.
We are going to see what it took
them
to establish Islam.
And we're going to see that how they're
working,
but in reality, they're seeing no results.
For 10 years, they're doing all of that.
But then once we go to Madinah, we
will start seeing the foods. The fruits the
seeds are what? The seeds are patience.
The seeds are forbearance. The seed are endurance,
and we start to see the fruits of
all of that. And so inshallah as we
go through these, we should start to compare
our sacrifices.
Our sacrifices for this deen. And again, we
never ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to put
us in difficulties.
We always ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for
for
ease.
But when difficulty comes for the sake of
deen,
we must do it. And the biggest difficulty
today, one of the scholars from South Africa,
he would say, if you wanna be the
wali of Allah today,
you need to do 2 things.
Stay away from haram,
fulfill your fara'id.
This is the country we this is the
era. This is the era of technology. This
is what we live in today.
So this is our sacrifice.
Our sacrifice
is to leave this.
Our sacrifice
is to focus more on our inner development
and focus more on ourselves
rather than just being busy busy busy busy.
This is the type of thing that we
have created.
Had how many people?
Maximum 1,000 people.
Despite that, the prophet
would leave that and go all the way
to
to focus on himself.
Leave everything because of all of these distractions
to focus on himself.
And so over here,
we are amongst 1,000 and 1,000 of people
there
and then 1,000 and 1,000 to go over
here. SubhanAllah.
Some people actually watch these shows that are
actually full lifetime of somebody else.
You have one life's lifespan.
In this life span, you want to master
the life span of 10, 20 other people.
Watch this person's life and this person's life
and this person's life and, subhanallah, this is
this has become life now. This has become
how people make money. Create a channel, look
at my life, look at what I do.
And so while this flood, while these waves
are going this way, our struggle and our
sacrifices, what, that we block all of these
things and we focus on ourselves.
And this will allow us to develop ourselves
strong enough that our dawah will have impact
on other people. May Allah
allow us to understand the deen, allow us
to understand the seerah and everything that the
prophet
has done.