Yousuf Raza – Ramadan Conversations Ep 20 Forgive them… consult them… Trust Allah Surah AaliImran 159
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Okay, bismillah, bismillah alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu
ala rasoolillah wa ala alihi wa ashabihi ajma
'in.
Qalat tabaraka wa ta'ala fikabihil kareem, ba
'ad an aqool, a'udhu billahi min al
shaytan al rajeem, bismillah al rahman al raheem.
Fabima rahmatin min Allahi linta lahum walaw kunta
fadhan ghaleedha alqalbi lam faddu min hawlik.
Fa'fu anhum wa istaghfir lahum wa shabir
hum fil amr.
Fa'itha a'azamta fatawakkal ala Allah.
Inna Allaha yuhibbul mutawakkeleen.
In yansurkum Allah fala ghaliba lakum.
Wa in yakhzulkum faman dha allathee yansurkum min
ba'dih.
Wa ala Allahi falyatawakkalil mu'minoon.
SadaqAllahul Azeem.
Rabbi shrahli sadri wa yassir li amri.
Wahlu luktam al-lisani.
Yafqahu qawli.
Allahumma anfa'na bima allamtana.
Wa allimna ma yanfa'una.
Wa zidna ilma.
Allahumma arina haqiqata al-ashya'i kama he.
Allahumma arina al-haqqa haqqa.
Wa rizukna ittiba'a.
Wa arina al-baatila baatila.
Wa rizukna istinaba.
Ameen.
Ya Rabb al-alameen.
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Episode 20, people.
So we're almost nearing the end of our
Ramadan conversations, as we are nearing the end
of Ramadan as well.
The last Ashram begins today for a good
number of us.
It'll be beginning tomorrow, perhaps, for a whole
lot of you.
So buckle up.
Get things going.
Things get a little, you know, lukewarm, sort
of.
We start slacking right around the middle of
Ramadan.
And then comes the last Ashram.
The first Ashram is, you know, we're all
pumped up, motivated, have all these plans.
The middle 10 days, or actually even a
little before that, we start making sure that
those plans don't work.
And they start backfiring or not getting fulfilled
or whatever.
And then comes the last Ashram with all
of that.
It holds, and we buckle up again and
try to make up for however we screwed
up in the last two weeks or maybe
the last three weeks.
And we make the most of it.
I sort of have to begin with a
longer introduction, a longer tilawah, if you will.
The recitation is protracted.
One, because I'm waiting for you guys to
come in.
Number two, I have to transition from a
therapy session straight here.
And, you know, to take off one cap,
put on another, or literally take off one
shirt and put on another, I have to
sort of adjust.
And it gives me time to get into
it.
And here we are.
Where we stand in this little journey that
we're taking across the seerah of Rasulullah ﷺ
with selected ayat in which Allah is commenting
on or speaking to Rasulullah ﷺ.
We've reached the Battle of Uhud.
So after the Battle of Badr, Rasulullah ﷺ
and the Sahaba, of course, now the dynamics
have completely flipped.
Before the Battle of Badr, the reputation that
Rasulullah ﷺ and Sahaba had, let's say in
the far-flung tribes of the Arabian Peninsula,
is something of this rebel group who have
gathered around this sort of crazy person.
And they have these grandiose ideas about who
he is and about what they want to
do in Arabia or in the world.
But after Badr, when the superpower of Arabia,
which were the Quraysh themselves, the custodians of
religion, the custodians of the political center, Arabia
is not exactly a kingdom, but for all
practical purposes, the Quraysh have a position of,
and the Qur'an refers to Mecca as
the Ummul Qura as well.
For the Arabs, it is capital city.
It is the capital city, not because it
has a central government in anything, at least
not officially, but because it has Kaaba, because
the Quraysh have this racial superiority, the Arabs
are in awe of them.
They are subservient to them in a way.
Even the most, the highway robbers, caravan raiders,
they would not raid the caravans of the
Quraysh for the position that they have.
For one thing, each tribe within Arabia has
their idol placed in the Kaaba.
And because the Quraysh have the hegemony over
the Kaaba, they can do with that idol
whatever they want to.
So you attack the caravan of the Quraysh,
they pick your idol up and they throw
it out of the Kaaba, what are you
going to do?
So they have to give that respect, they
have to give that honor to the people
of Quraysh and that protection.
And so they have this strength, this political
strength, this religious strength.
When Badr happens, and these crazy people who
left their home following this person who's claiming
to be a prophet and changing the world
and whatnot, they've won, they defeated the Quraysh.
Abu Jahl has fallen, Abu al-Hakam has
fallen.
So many of the great leaders of Quraysh
have fallen.
In front of who?
In front of nobodies.
People who didn't have much of a reputation,
nobody knew them, nobody knew them.
Runaways, rebels, at best caravan raiders for the
time between after migration and before Badr.
Who are these people?
Those Aus and Khazraj?
Those people who knocked themselves * and killed
each other off and were practically almost finished?
Them?
They're the people who knocked down the Quraysh?
With 313 men?
How does that even work?
There's got to be something about him.
There's got to be some truth to what
he's saying.
The dynamic has flipped.
The Quraysh are, the mushrikeen of Mecca, the
Quraysh, they are furious.
They don't know what hit them.
They have never suffered this much humiliation in
their history like ever.
No one has done this to them.
So this change in dynamic, Badr is a
game changer in so many different ways.
The confidence that the sahaba would have, that
the Aus and Khazraj would now have, that
the muhajirun would now have, these people who
were suffering, tortured, helpless, had to literally run
for their lives.
They just got the better of their persecutors.
The promises, now they're finding fulfillment in the
most emphatic way.
So Rasulullah ﷺ and sahaba have a very
different position now.
Very, very different position.
It is in this context that the Quraysh,
still overwhelmed by their fury, come back for
revenge.
Uhud is revenge for Quraysh.
They want to get the better of Rasulullah
ﷺ.
Before going in, there is a strategy.
Now of course, who's the leader?
Rasulullah ﷺ is the leader.
The sahaba radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, as passionate
as they are, they're being led by Rasulullah.
Rasulullah ﷺ will go to the nth degree,
even here, even now, even after Badr has
happened.
313 defeated a thousand.
313 barely armed defeated a thousand.
That is big.
That kind of confidence gets to you.
That kind of confidence makes you glow.
It makes you walk a certain way.
It says bring on a thousand more, we'll
take them with our bare hands.
Rasulullah ﷺ says, of course not.
We're going to prepare.
Of course, the odds are still against them.
1,000 versus 3,000.
This time they're better armed.
Because remember the first time for Badr, they
were not going for a battle.
They were going for a caravan, for Rabbu
Sufyan's caravan.
They weren't going to fight an army.
They just got an option to fight an
army, like why not?
And there was a very intense consultation that
took place before the Battle of Badr as
well.
Anyways, in this instant, for Rasulullah ﷺ to
have this consultation with the Sahaba, okay, where
do we fight?
They're making sure all ends are covered.
No end is left loose.
Every base needs to be occupied.
They're having a consultation.
Do we defend from within or do we
go out and meet them?
Now, of course, those who particularly weren't a
part of Badr, but they had heard about
it, of course.
They're like, let's meet them outside.
Who can get us?
We got this.
Rasulullah ﷺ's own opinion is, no, we should
wait here.
We should from close to the city attack
or defend Medina rather than going out to
Uhud.
But the passion of especially those companions who
had not participated in the previous previous encounter,
it prevailed.
Rasulullah ﷺ respected it and said, okay, let's
go.
Going against his own opinion, he's the leader.
He knows better.
He's the prophet.
But he says, no, your opinion, you want
to do this, let's do this.
Let's make...
They even felt a little, maybe we shouldn't
have done that.
Maybe we went against what he wanted to
do.
And when Rasulullah ﷺ is all ready, he's
put his armor on and they're ready to
go out.
They're like, we can reconsider.
You thought differently.
Let's...
No, no, no.
Decision has been made.
Now we're doing this.
No second thoughts.
No second thoughts.
Indecision in this state.
Now, not happening.
Not happening.
A decision is better or worse.
Sure, of course.
But then what you do after having made
the decision is far more important in determining
better or worse.
You can make a very wrong choice, quote
unquote, right by your attitude and what you
do afterwards.
Anyways, Rasulullah ﷺ is preparing.
He gives a specific instruction to a group
of archers posted in a particular position to
defend one flank of the Muslim army.
And they're told by Rasulullah ﷺ that even
if you see vultures eating from our dead
bodies, you are not to leave this post.
You stay here.
Understood.
Message received.
Rasulullah ﷺ and Sahaba engage.
Uhud happens.
This is a repeat of Badr.
The Quraish do not know what hits them.
They're stricken with fear.
They're losing.
They're retreating.
Practically, Uhud is won.
Rasulullah ﷺ and the Sahaba are getting forward,
moving on to take their positions to take
what they've left behind.
The archers in their particular position, they see,
okay, victory is nigh.
We've done it.
We've won.
And they want to proceed as well.
They want to go ahead and take those,
take whatever has been left behind.
Their leader, the one that was appointed by,
the one who was appointed by Rasulullah ﷺ
as the leader of that particular contingent, he
says, no.
Rasulullah ﷺ told us very explicitly that we're
not supposed to leave this position.
There is a dissension.
A group says, no, that was in the
case there was a defeat.
Now we've won.
The condition is different.
So that hukum or that command of Rasulullah
ﷺ does not apply.
Now this conflict is this difference is in
what Rasulullah ﷺ said.
Did he say A or did he say
B?
What do we go for?
And you can go either way.
But when the leader of that particular contingent
is saying A, this is what he meant.
And this is what we're going to do.
That has to be respected.
So the tanaza'tum fil amr, the disagreement in
the command was a command as it was
interpreted by the leader.
That's what became the problem.
In any case, they leave their positions.
Khalid bin Walid is Khalid bin Walid.
Muslim or not, he is a commander par
excellence.
One of the greatest that the world has
ever seen.
He sees the opening.
He takes his cavalry and he attacks.
Situation flips.
The victory is turned to defeat.
A number of sahaba, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum,
are martyred, including Hamza, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum,
including Mus'ab bin Umair, radhiAllahu ta'ala
anhum, including Julaibib, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum.
So many sahaba of so much importance, so
close to Rasulullah ﷺ's heart.
You start from Hamza and you go to
Julaibib, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, and you see
how Rasulullah ﷺ's love encompasses all.
It encompasses all of them.
Julaibib, radhiAllahu ta'ala anhum, was an unknown
sahabi.
Hunchback, not very good looking.
Parental origin unknown.
Nobody knew his father.
Nobody knew his mother.
And for Arabs, that's as low as you
can possibly get.
You don't know your lineage.
You don't even know your lineage through your
mother.
Who the * are you?
That meant nothing.
So when the martyrs were being accounted for,
everyone was accounted for except Julaibib.
Rasulullah ﷺ asked each tribe, are your people
accounted for?
Do you know?
They said, yes.
Each of them repeated, yes.
We have our people.
We've numbered them.
We've counted them.
We know who they are.
No one's missing.
Except Julaibib was missing and nobody noticed because
he didn't belong to any tribe.
Rasulullah ﷺ noticed.
He knew.
And he owned him at that point.
And he said about him what he said
about Hussain رضي الله عنه his own grandson.
He said, Julaibib is from me and I
am from Julaibib.
Unknown Sahabi.
No lineage, no wealth, no position, no authority.
Not good looking at all.
He had nothing of what accords people social
status.
Rasulullah ﷺ still saw in his humanity, in
his humility, in his Islam, in everything that
others saw as lackings.
Rasulullah ﷺ saw as beauty and he embraced
him even in death, even when he was
martyred.
So this is the heart of Rasulullah ﷺ
and this heart is broken after Uhud because
he has lost people that he loves dearly.
Hamza رضي الله عنه was Rasulullah ﷺ's uncle,
cousin.
Uncle from his dad's side, cousin from his
mother's side.
And he was his brother from nursing.
Rasulullah ﷺ was nursed by three women.
One of them also nursed Hamza رضي الله
عنه.
They were around the same age.
They were the same age.
So they were childhood buddies, uncle and nephew,
brothers.
His support was you can say the Badr
in the Meccan period.
A game changer for Rasulullah ﷺ and the
Sahaba in Mecca.
Hamza accepted Islam.
Uhud meant the martyrdom of Hamza.
So you can imagine the pain.
The situation that had flipped.
The reputation that the Muslims, the believers had
developed after Badr that was equalized.
Like okay, these people are human.
They lose too.
They die.
All of that human stuff and as important
as that was, that's of the benefits that
come from the loss, it was devastating.
It was devastating and that devastation was felt.
So when all that had happened had happened,
after avenging their defeat in Badr, the Quraysh
retreat, Rasulullah ﷺ is now left to deal
with, okay, what just happened?
What just happened?
And of course, it came to light that
the archers disobeyed a direct command of their
leader.
The flank was left open and Khalid bin
Walid attacked and victory was turned to defeat.
Allah's commentary shows us what Rasulullah ﷺ did
at that point.
فَبِمَا رَحْمَةٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ It is because of
the mercy of Allah.
This is ayah number 159 of Surah Al
-Imran.
لِنْتَ لَهُمْ You were lenient with them.
لِنْتَ لَهُمْ lenient sounds the same.
You were lenient with them.
وَلَوْ كُنْتَ فَضًّا غَلِيظَ الْقَلْبِ Had you been
rude and fierce-hearted, had you been strict
and stern and rigid with them.
لَنْ فَضُّوا مِنْ حَوْلِك They would have dispersed
from around you.
You would have broken them.
At that point, they're also shaken.
They're also devastated.
For Rasulullah ﷺ to keep it together, to
hold himself from lashing out, from punishing them,
something that they would deserve.
لَنْ فَضُّوا مِنْ حَوْلِك They would have dispersed
from around you.
He was lenient.
He forgave them.
He let it go.
He let it go.
We know what their mistake has cost the
believers, what their mistake has cost Islam.
But what Allah is teaching, Rasulullah ﷺ and
the Sahaba and us, that even devastating mistakes,
even mistakes that result in death of people,
that hurt the cause, there is life in
them.
How you respond to them makes all the
difference.
There is life that can be drawn out
even out of all of the debts that
have taken place.
There is victories to be earned in the
aftermath of the defeat.
There is no denying that it was a
defeat.
But there is victories that are hidden, that
have to be dug out in the aftermath.
You can't change the defeat.
You cannot go back and undo what has
happened.
But you can capitalize even on a defeat.
There is more than a silver lining.
You get through the dark clouds, there is
a full-fledged sun in there, shining bright.
It's just you have to have that attitude.
And Rasulullah ﷺ expresses that attitude.
What does that mean practically?
He forgives.
فَعْفُوا عَنْهُمْ So forgive them.
Rasulullah ﷺ lets that catastrophic mistake, lets it
go.
وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لَهُمْ Don't just forgive them, forgive them.
Ask Allah to forgive them.
So in your du'a, they're part of
it.
When you're making du'a to Allah, you're
making du'a for something that you genuinely
care for.
Or at least you want to develop that
care for it.
And so you pray for them.
In your private relationship with Allah, they're a
part of it.
وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لَهُمْ Ask Allah to forgive them.
وَشَغِرْهُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ And practically, make sure that
they are still included in your mashfarah.
You take their opinion seriously.
You cannot judge them, a definitive absolute judgment
that says you people, disobedient, disrespectful, greedy, for
the war booty.
How dare you?
You're never going to be included in any
mashfarah ever again.
No, none of that takes place.
Although if it did, it would have made
sense.
But Rasulullah ﷺ chose to trust their capacity
to learn from their mistakes.
And as a result, they were able to
relearn from their mistakes.
Rasulullah sees this in us.
Allah sees this in us.
We have a way back.
There has to be a way back.
He sees that we can change, then we
will change.
But if a follower, a child, a student,
if he is made to feel that he
or she cannot change, and that's when definitive
judgments are hurled against them, passed out on
them.
They feel that they're not trusted.
They don't have the capacity to repair.
And it is the most essential human quality,
self-repair, tauba, learning from your mistakes.
When your teacher, your parent, your elder, your
leader, your mentor does not see that capacity
in you, does not trust that you have
it, you lose that trust in yourself.
You lose that trust in yourself.
You start definitively judging your own self.
I am a loser.
I am pathetic.
I am messed up beyond repair.
And that self-fulfilling prophecy, it goes on
to define us.
Everything that we do is then based on
that.
I did bad.
Well, that's because I'm a bad person who
can't change.
And in the face of parents, teachers, elders,
mentors, leaders, making these mistakes, we have in
our tradition, we have in our spirituality, we
have in these narrations, in these incidents, in
these ayat, a recourse to fix those self
-beliefs, those incorrect self-beliefs, those pathological self
-beliefs.
Okay, my parent may not have, for whatever
reason, my teacher may not have, my leader
may not have, my spouse may not have,
but Rasulullah ﷺ did.
I identify with the people I offered who
made the mistake.
I trace myself straight to them.
He forgave them, he would have forgiven me.
He did forgive me.
He did stand up in prayer for me
as well.
وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لَهُمْ When Rasulullah ﷺ is asking forgiveness
for them, for them does not just include
the people who disobeyed at Uhud.
It included every one of us.
He did ask for forgiveness for us.
And here we are.
So if Rasulullah ﷺ trusts me, if Allah
trusts me, then there is something in me
that is worthy of forgiveness.
I should start by forgiving myself.
And then living up to that trust and
actually beginning that process of change.
This is what we call the psychological hygiene
that religion and spirituality offer.
That these very fixed self-perceptions, beliefs that
we have about ourselves, negative, maladaptive, devastating, catastrophic
in and of themselves, how these spiritual relationships,
provided we reflect and contemplate on them and
nurture them, develop them, they are able to
help us rectify.
So it's not just me telling myself, it
is me knowing that Rasulullah ﷺ did that.
Allah does that and they do it for
me too.
I'm getting an affirmation from outside of myself.
This is not circular.
This is not self affirmations.
Morning, noon and night I tell myself I
can do it, I can do it.
I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
No, no, no.
This I am good, I have the potential
to be good.
And how do I know that?
I know that because I heard these ayats.
Allah gave me this message.
He made me hear this.
I can be confident that Rasulullah ﷺ would
have forgiven me.
He would have sought forgiveness for me.
وَشَغِرُهُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ And he would have taken
my opinion seriously.
Consult them in their decisions.
فَإِذَا عَزَمْتَ فَتَوَكَّلَ بَاللَّهِ But once you have
made a decision, then tawakkul on Allah.
Second thoughts, shoulda, coulda, woulda, shoulda.
If that, why not that, I don't know,
this was a bad mistake, we're not the
best fit for it.
You've made a decision.
To assume that a decision is inherently, entirely,
and absolutely good, or it is inherently, entirely,
and absolutely bad, what that precludes, what that
excludes from the conversation is my own role
after having made the decision to make it
right.
To make it the best decision.
What I have to do, what I have
to practically do, in terms of my attitude,
what I have to hold, that's tawakkul.
That's the trust.
That if Rasulullah ﷺ listened to their opinion,
came out, he wanted to stay in Medina.
This happened, catastrophe.
Allah still says, no, what you did was
right.
You made a decision, you stuck to it,
keep on doing that.
After this catastrophe, don't start second-guessing yourself
and become indecisive.
Fa tawakkul Allah.
Have this tawakkul upon Allah.
That if Allah can draw so much life
out of death, out of apparently horrible consequences
of the decision that you took.
He draws for you so many good lessons
that eventually the years showed to be true.
Why?
Because Rasulullah ﷺ and Sahaba believed in them
as Allah taught those lessons from the defeat.
That's the tawakkul upon Allah.
That's what you trust.
Marriage ends in a divorce.
Oh my God!
That was a bad decision.
Wrong decision.
I shouldn't have done that.
But what about the lessons that you drew?
What about that capacity of bringing out life
from death?
Good from bad.
Khair from sharr.
That's what makes you human.
That's what makes you a muwahid, a believer
in tawheed.
Because that is what Allah does.
He brings life from the dead.
That is what Rasulullah ﷺ continued to do.
That is the greatest lesson of Uhud.
Inna Allaha yuhibbul mutawakkeleen Allah loves the people
of tawakkul.
There is so much in tawakkul.
There is so much in tawakkul, so much
more than a passive, pathological, self-denying, self
-effacing, blind trust in God.
That's not tawakkul.
Tawakkul is proactive.
Tawakkul is dialogical.
It is in sustained effort and dua.
It is in perseverance.
It is in azzam, in being decisive, in
standing by your choices and putting in the
effort to make the best out of them.
It is in learning from your mistakes.
It is in drawing life lessons out of
your mistakes.
It is in improving and repairing.
It's a whole package.
Wa akhiru da'wana anil hamdu lillahi rabbil
alamin.