Zia Sheikh – Jumuah Battle of Trench 02192016
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AI: Transcript ©
Some people started taking permission from the Prophet
a.s, making excuses that our houses are
exposed.
Allah s.w.t says, The houses are
not exposed, there is no danger to them.
They only wanted to run away.
And the verses continue.
The next 6 or 7 verses, which cover
about almost 2 pages, they talk about the
to and fro that took place between the
believers and the munafiqeen.
And the excuses that they had, the things
that they were presenting to the Prophet a
.s. And then after that, after this huge
discussion that took place between the munafiqeen and
the believers, Allah s.w.t then talks
about the attitude of the believers themselves.
Allah s.w.t says, We hear
this verse all the time.
That in the life of the Prophet a
.s. there is a good example for you.
For who?
Who has hope in Allah on the last
day.
And he remembers Allah s.w.t frequently.
This is the context in which this verse
was revealed.
When there was a lot of difficulty.
When there was hardship.
When people felt that their lives are going
to be destroyed.
At that point, when you stand up and
follow the way of the Prophet a.s.
This is the means of success.
That's the time when, instead of neglecting Islam,
instead of rejecting Islam, instead of denying Islam,
instead of saying that, no I'm not really
a practicing Muslim, I'm just a Muslim by
name.
This is the time when you stand up
and you say, that I have to follow
in the footsteps of the Prophet a.s.
This is the time in which we stand
up and claim proudly to be Muslims.
This is why this verse was revealed in
that particular context.
In a general sense, we say, yes we
should follow the Sunnah of the Prophet a
.s. in our lives.
And this is the general meaning that we
get from this particular verse.
But the context tells us even more than
that.
Why this verse was revealed, when it was
revealed, it tells us that it was at
a time of very difficult hardship.
And a very hard time that the Muslims
were going through.
And the next ayah, it talks about the
attitude of the believers at that difficult time.
When the believers saw these armies around them,
they said, this is what Allah and His
Prophet a.s. have already promised us.
Allah and His Prophet a.s. have promised
us that you will go through hardships.
Do the believers think that they are just
going to say, we have Iman and they
are not going to be tested.
So this was a promise of Allah a
.s. again and again.
That because you are believers, because you are
Muslims, because you have taken up the faith,
you will be challenged.
You will be tested again and again.
So this was the attitude of the believers.
This trial, this tribulation, this test, it is
something that has been promised to us by
Allah a.s. already.
The Prophet a.s. warned us about it
already.
Many hadith talk about people that came to
the Prophet a.s. and said, Ya Rasulallah,
I love you so much.
And the Prophet a.s. said, watch what
you are saying.
He said, Ya Rasulallah, no, I love you
so much.
Then the Prophet a.s. said, then get
ready for trials and tribulations.
Because the person who claims to love me,
trials and tribulations will come to him quicker
than the water that is descending in a
waterfall.
This I am paraphrasing the hadith, not the
exact words.
But this is what the gist of the
hadith is, that the Prophet a.s. said
to the person who said, I love you,
O Prophet of Allah.
So this ayah says that when the believers
saw these armies surrounding them, they said, This
is what Allah and His Prophet have already
promised us.
And Allah and His Prophet, they told the
truth.
And it doesn't make them reject Islam.
It doesn't make them become weak.
It doesn't make them run away from looking
like a Muslim, or acting like a Muslim,
or talking like a Muslim.
Allah says, It increases their Iman.
It increases their submission to Allah s.w
.t. And this is the attitude, my dear
brothers and sisters, that we should have in
this time of difficulty, and in time of
hardship, and we should not question what Allah
s.w.t. has put for us in
terms of testing.
We should accept it as being one of
the things that have been promised, and the
things that we will have to face.
As the Prophet a.s. said, The most
difficult test comes to the Anbiya a.s.
Then the pious people.
Then according to their status with Allah s
.w.t. they are faced with trials and
tribulations.
So if we are facing a test, that
is simply because we are close to Allah
s.w.t. and we should accept that.
A hadith which I mentioned at the beginning,
Thuban r.a, who was a freed slave
of the Prophet a.s. He said that
the Prophet a.s., he warned us.
He said that there will come a time
when nations, they will call to unite against
you.
Just like people call each other to come
and eat from food around a bowl, or
around a tray.
Okay, let's get around, let's unite, and let's
just give Muslims a hard time.
There will come a time when nations will
gather and unite against you, just like a
person who is inviting people, and the people
invite each other to come and eat from
this big tray.
Somebody asked the Prophet a.s., Are we
going to be small in numbers on that
day, O Prophet of Allah?
The Prophet a.s. said, In fact, in
those days you will be a lot in
number.
But you are going to be like the
foam, the foam on the ocean which doesn't
have any kind of strength.
It is pushed from side to side, and
it moves along with the water.
This is how you will be.
Then the Prophet a.s. said, The mahabah,
the awe that the enemies have of Muslims,
that will be removed from the hearts of
your enemies.
And then Allah a.s. will put into
your hearts something which is known as wahn.
The Sahaba said, What is this wahn that
you are talking about, O Prophet of Allah?
The Prophet said, You will start loving the
world much more, and you will start disliking
death.
And this is a natural thing for a
person who is not prepared for his death,
that he is going to be disliking death,
because he is simply not prepared for it.
Then there are many incidents that took place
during Ghazwatul Ahzab, that talk about the attitude
of the believers.
The believers, they got together, they united, and
started working to solve the problem.
And this is again something that we need
to understand, that tawakkul and trust in Allah
a.s. is not simply just washing your
hands of everything and saying, No, Allah a
.s. is going to take care of us.
We have to do our bit, we have
to tie our camels, and then have tawakkul
in Allah a.s. Then have trust in
Allah a.s. Then Allah a.s. will
take care of us.
And this was the same thing that the
Sahaba did.
They didn't just sit there and wait to
be attacked, and said that Allah is going
to protect us.
They thought of a strategy.
And the idea of Salman al-Farisi was
taken, of digging a trench around the area
which was to be attacked, and the Prophet
a.s. himself participated in digging that trench.
The Prophet a.s. came out, and he
saw that the people, the muhajireen and ansar
were digging on a very cold morning.
Anybody who has been to Medina knows that
in the winter time, the mornings and the
night time can be very severely cold.
You need a thick jacket at that time.
So the Prophet a.s. the hadith goes
on to say, They didn't have slaves that
could work with them.
When the Prophet a.s. saw the hardship
and the hunger that they were facing, he
said a couplet of poetry.
And he said, O Allah, indeed the real
life is the life of the hereafter.
So O Allah, forgive the ansar and the
muhajireen.
And the sahaba, they responded back to this
couplet, and they said, We are the ones
that have pledged allegiance to the Prophet a
.s. as long as we live, that we
are going to strive for the sake of
Allah s.w.t. So this was the
attitude of the believers, and the believers united
in that very difficult time.
Hardship, hunger, it said at one point, one
of the sahaba, they came to the Prophet
a.s. and said, Ya Rasulullah, how long
is this going to go on?
And he lifted his shirt up to show
the Prophet a.s. that he is hungry.
And because of the hunger, he has a
stone, a rock, tied to his stomach.
The Prophet a.s., he raised his blessed
shirt, and on his blessed stomach, there were
two stones tied.
He was going through the same hardship.
It was not that the people who are
the haves, and the people at the top,
they continue to eat, and get fat, and
enjoy life, while the subordinates, they are striving
and facing starvation.
No.
The leader, he is facing the same difficulty,
or even worse than his subordinates at that
time.
He is participating with them in that difficulty.
But at the same time, the Prophet a
.s., he showed optimism at this very difficult
time.
And what was that optimism?
It's summed up in a hadith, in which
the sahaba came and said to the Prophet
a.s., this hadith is in Bukhari, narrated
by Jabir a.s., that they came to
him and said, O Prophet a.s., there
is this big rock that we cannot move.
While we are digging the trench, it's huge,
and we cannot move it.
So the Prophet a.s. said, I am
going to get down into the ditch, and
I am going to dig myself.
And he picked up the axe, or the
pickaxe, and he started breaking this rock.
But Allah a.s., he says, this is
a different riwayah, which talks about the same
thing.
He says, When
we were digging this trench, a huge rock
was presented to us, it came to us,
and the pickaxes that we had, it could
not do anything with this rock.
We complained about that to the Prophet a
.s. He came to it, and he took
up this tool, this instrument, this pickaxe, to
start digging himself.
He started with Bismillah, and he hit this
rock.
He said, He said, Sham refers to Syria,
Palestine, Lebanon, all of these areas there, known
as Bilad al-Sham.
Now a person who uses his sense and
logic, he thinks to himself that this man,
he has two stones tied to his stomach,
and all of the people around him are
starving.
The cold is severe.
We think that our lives are going to
end.
And yet, he is giving us dreams of
conquering Sham.
This was the optimism that the Prophet a
.s. gave to the Sahaba, that at this
very difficult time, they should not lose hope.
He says, Then
he hit it another time, and another piece
of the rock broke off.
I have been given the keys of Faris,
the Persian Empire, and I am seeing its
white palaces right in front of me right
now.
Then he hit it a third time.
He hit it with Bismillah.
And the rest of the rock, it broke
off.
I have been given the keys of Yemen.
The keys of Yemen have been given to
me.
I can see the gates of Sana'a
right in front of me right now.
So again, he gave the people optimism.
He remained optimistic.
He showed optimism.
He showed people to remain positive, not to
have a negative attitude, but to look forward
and to do what they could to help
in advancing the cause of Islam in this
world.
So the summary of the story is, my
dear brothers and sisters, and the lessons that
we learn from this Surah, are that in
these very difficult times, we should not become
like the hypocrites in terms of losing hope
and having a negative attitude.
Rather, we should remain positive, and we should
do all that we can to advance the
cause of Islam in this country.
And one of the things that we need
to do is become involved in the larger
society.
Not just become introverts and remain within ourselves,
but become involved in the larger society in
forms of giving dawah, in forms of getting
involved in the electoral process, registering to vote,
voting, and making sure that we have, we
make our voice heard in the outside system.
And unless and until we do that, we
will continue to get the short end of
the stick and continue to be oppressed, and
our voices will never be heard.
So this is the attitude that we should
have in these difficult times.
Not that we should shrink into our shell
or run away and leave the country.
This is not what Islam is about.
Islam is about standing up to your principles
and learning from the Seerah of the Prophet,
this is what we need to learn.
This is not what we need to put
into practice.
I pray that Allah SWT protects us, Allah
SWT gives us leadership that appreciates us and
appreciates the contribution of Islam and Muslims to
this country.
And I pray that Allah SWT gives us
the tawfiq to understand and practice what is
being said and heard.
Alhamdulilah