Zia Sheikh – Ramadan 2015 Khatira Day 23
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The transcript describes a rumored incident where a woman was found by a Sahabi and later found by a man named Mistah. The segment discusses the importance of forgiveness and privacy in avoiding negative consequences. The speakers emphasize the need for respect for privacy, privacy guidelines, and the Bible, while also discussing the importance of following laws and learning from guidance. They stress the need for respect between elders and parents, and stress the importance of addressing elders in a manner that is worthy of their status.
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Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu Today inshallah I'm going to
be talking about a few verses in Surah
An-Nur.
I want you to imagine if you were
helping out a person, financially providing for them.
They have no means of living.
They have no income.
So you're providing for them, giving them money
and so on.
And then that same person turns around and
says bad things about you, your family, your
children.
How would you feel?
Most of us would probably say that I
am not going to support this person anymore.
That on the one hand, as they say
in English, he's biting the hand that's feeding
him.
I'm feeding him, I'm providing for him, I'm
giving to him.
Without my assistance, he would not have anything.
And then on top of that, he turns
around and says bad things about me behind
my back.
So there was an incident that took place
which was known as Qissatul Ifk.
And you've probably heard of this before in
lectures that I've given in previous years.
This was the story of the slander against
Aisha, when the hypocrites spread rumors about her
when she got stuck in the desert and
she came back.
She was found by a Sahabi and she
came back and she was put safely home.
The hypocrites started spreading rumors about her and
saying that something went on between the two.
And as we know the whole story, after
a few days Allah SWT revealed verses cleaning
up and clearing up that misinformation that had
been spread and condemning those people that had
spread those false rumors.
Unfortunately what happens when people start spreading false
rumors is that even good people get caught
up in it.
And one of those people that got caught
up in these rumors was in spreading the
rumors and saying the things was a person
named Mistah.
He was actually from the participants in Badr.
And these, the people, the participants in Badr,
they have a status actually that nobody can
touch and nobody can achieve.
But unfortunately, like I said, he got caught
up in the rumor mongering and spreading the
news.
He didn't start it, but he still talked
about it.
And because Abu Bakr Siddiq was related to
him and remember Abu Bakr is the father
of Aisha.
Obviously somebody is saying bad about your daughter
and staining her honor in public.
How would you feel about it?
He became very upset.
Abu Bakr Siddiq had been financially supporting him
since he migrated from Mecca to Medina.
And he swore by Allah that he's not
going to support him anymore.
He took an oath and he said that
this person who I've been supporting, giving and
taking care of, he is saying things about
my daughter behind my back.
I'm never going to provide for him again.
I'm never going to give him again.
Now just imagine, you know, if we were
in that situation, we have every right to
have that kind of reaction to this kind
of behavior that is done against us.
We have the right to choose who we
want to give to and who we don't
want to give to.
But look how Allah SWT addressed Abu Bakr
Siddiq when he took this oath.
And this actually tells us about what Islam
teaches about being forgiving and overlooking people's mistakes.
And when a person does that, when a
person overlooks and forgives, what will be the
reaction of Allah SWT to that?
Allah SWT says in Surah An-Nur, Those
people who have fadl, remember I mentioned earlier
in the month that fadl, Allah SWT has
used it again and again to denote wealth.
Fadl, blessing.
So those people that have fadl, that have
wealth, they should not take oaths that they're
not going to give to the masakeen and
the muhajireen, those people that migrated in the
path of Allah SWT.
They should be forgiving and overlooking.
Do you not wish that Allah SWT would
be forgiving to you?
Now this is something that many people fall
into the trap of thinking okay, if somebody
does wrong to me, it is in my
hands now.
And it is actually in my hands to
forgive that person or to not forgive the
person and take my revenge on the Day
of Judgment.
And many people become very stubborn.
Say, no, I'm not going to forgive you.
It's me and you on the Day of
Judgment in front of Allah SWT.
But Allah SWT is saying here, You forgive.
Allah SWT is going to forgive you.
Whether he's not merciful, Allah SWT will not
be merciful upon him.
So, Do you not love that Allah SWT
would be forgiving to you?
Allah SWT is truly ghafoor raheem.
He's forgiving and merciful.
So the lesson we learn from this is,
and again we talked about the issue of
politics that take place within families and how
people become mad at each other and upset
at each other over the smallest of reasons,
for petty reasons.
And that stretches out for years and years.
From a personal level, from an individual level,
how should our reaction be?
From our end, we should be forgiving.
From our end, we should be merciful.
From our end, we should not hold any
grudges.
And this whole issue of holding grudges, it
is something that, you know, we need to
get it out of our system.
There's a very famous hadith about a Sahabi.
He walked into the masjid one day.
The Prophet SAW had said that the next
person who's going to walk into the masjid,
he's going to be a dweller of paradise.
Then a certain Sahabi came in, who was
not known for his, you know, worship or
any kind of special thing that he used
to do.
So, one of the Sahabis, I believe it
was Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, he started following
him and asking him, let me spend some
time with you.
And he spent time with him for two,
three days and he didn't see anything special
that he was doing out of the ordinary.
So, he then approached him and he said
that the Prophet SAW said this about you,
that you are a dweller of paradise, but
I didn't see you doing anything special.
He said, well, I don't know anything that
I do anything special either.
Okay, so I really don't know what the
reason is that the Prophet SAW would say
that.
So, as he was walking away, he called
him back and he said, there is one
thing that I do every single night before
going to sleep and that is that I
forgive every single person that has ever done
wrong to me before going to sleep.
Maybe that's the reason that the Prophet SAW
said that about me.
So, again, if a person does that, he
really will have this contentment, he'll be able
to sleep well at night, he will not
have hatred in his heart for somebody, he
will not lose sleep about wrong that has
been done against him and this is again
a quality that we learn from this ayah
that we should try to implement.
The second ayah that I want to talk
about is the ayah which is related to
privacy within a household or in other people's
households, the issue of respecting people's privacy.
And this is again something that in some
cultures, it's kind of overlooked and it's not
really implemented in people's lives and that is
that you respect the four walls of a
person's household, don't enter into the house without
permission.
Back home, what happens is, people, they just
barge into the houses, they just come into
the houses, the gates open, and usually the
gates and the doors are left open, so
people just walk in and the women of
the household, they're not dressed appropriately, they're not
covered, and they start running around looking for
their scarves.
So the very first thing that should be
done is that permission needs to be taken
before coming in and nowadays, permission is done
in the form of knocking on the door.
In those days, As-salamu alaykum was said
before entering and if people said or didn't
respond or said go away, come back later
on, then the rule was that you had
to come back.
So a woman actually came to the Prophet
and complained and said, Ya Rasulullah, I'm living
and this is actually something that took place
within one household.
Okay, so privacy within one household is also
something that needs to be respected, especially when
you have, for example, a newly married couple,
you have a new wedded couple, a young
son or a young daughter that you just
married off and that family has now moved
into the house or one part of the
house, their privacy needs to be respected, their
room should be regarded as being out of
bounds and permission needs to be asked before
you enter into the house.
So this woman complained that, you know, we
live, I live in a certain part of
the house and the other family members just
continue to barge in and come in and
out without taking permission and I feel really
uncomfortable and awkward because sometimes I'm not dressed
appropriately and they just come in.
The same thing applies to, for example, if
you're a landlord of a house, just because
you own the house, it doesn't give you
the right to come into the house without
permission, especially if the people are still living
inside, it is completely inappropriate.
So Allah SWT revealed verses, that, O
people of Iman, do not enter anybody's houses
until you've taken permission and you have given
Salaam to the dwellers.
So the means of taking permission in those
days was, outside you say, As-Salaamu Alaikum,
As-Salaamu Alaikum, As-Salaamu Alaikum, if there's
no response, then you go away.
This was the ruling.
And related to this also is the rule
of looking inside a person's house, looking inside
a person's house, looking through the window and
this is basically tantamount, this is the same
thing as entering.
If you looked from outside into the window,
you basically entered the house.
There's no difference between a person entering or
not entering the house.
It's mentioned in a Hadith that a person
who is looking inside somebody's window or something
and the person threw a stone to make
him go away and the person becomes blinded,
the owner of the house is not responsible
for it.
Why?
Because he put his eye into the property
which he had no right to look into.
So if he got blinded by the stone
that was hit by the owner of the
house, that owner is not responsible.
So this is a very important principle of
respecting people's privacy, not looking into their house,
not looking through the keyhole, not looking through
the window, not looking through the window of
the door to see if somebody is inside.
All of these things are not permissible in
Sharia.
The third thing I want to talk about
again is something that we, I think maybe
I touched upon earlier, the issue of respecting
the Quran and the Sunnah and observing the
Quran and the Sunnah for all of our
rulings whether we like it or not.
And this is again, it's very common in
this society to look at the rulings of
Sharia.
If they are favorable for us, then we
would go to the Imam and have the
ruling done by the Sharia.
And if they're unfavorable for us, then we
would go to the American court system and
have our ruling decided that way.
And this happens a lot in divorce cases.
So Allah SWT says that this is not
what it's supposed to be.
The Quran and the Sunnah is what you're
supposed to observe and the Munafiqeen have been
described as وَإِذَا دُعُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ لِيَحْكُمَ
بَيْنَهُمْ إِذَا فَرِيقٌ مِّنْهُمْ وَعِظُونَ وَإِن يَكُن لَّهُمُ
الْحَقُّ يَأْتُوا إِلَيْهِ مُذْعِنِينَ That when they are
called to Allah and His Prophet so that
he can decide between them, then there's a
group of them that they turn away.
They turn their backs and they go away.
Why?
Because they don't want the ruling according to
Islam because it's against them.
And if they have a right, meaning if
through that Islamic ruling, through going to the
Prophet ﷺ, they can get a right, then
they will come to him.
They will come to him rushing and they
will basically get the ruling.
Why?
Because now it's in their favor.
So this is not what Islam is about.
Whether the ruling is in your favor or
not, we have to go with the ruling
of the Quran and the Sunnah.
And just a few hours later Allah ﷻ
says about the Mu'mineen, إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا
دُعُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَهُمْ أَن يَقُولُوا
سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ The believers are
the ones that when they are called to
Allah and His Prophet so that he can
judge between them, they say سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا We
listen and we obeyed وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ These
people are going to be successful.
These are the kind of people that are
going to get the success of this world
and the hereafter.
And finally towards the end of the Surah
Allah ﷻ talks about the importance of addressing
the elders with respect.
And specifically the Sahaba used to sometimes call
the Prophet ﷺ in ways that they called
each other.
أَيْ مُحَمَّد Just imagine that they are sitting
أَيْ مُحَمَّد How are you doing?
In a very not disrespectful but a way
that they were talking with maybe their friends
or their colleagues or people that are on
the same level as them.
So Allah ﷻ revealed the verse which is
a guidance for us until the Day of
Judgment.
How should we be addressing our elders?
Allah ﷻ says لَا تَجْعَلُوا دُعَاءَ الرَّسُولِ بَيْنَكُمْ
كَدُعَاءِ بَعْضِكُمْ بَعْضًا That do not make your
calling of the Prophet just like your calling
of each other.
And this is again very important for us
to understand the younger people that are sitting
here.
How to address your parents?
How to address your grandparents?
How to address the elders of the community?
There has to be a level of respect.
Dignify them because of their age, because of
their knowledge, because of who they are.
Unfortunately even in this society, in American society
we have sometimes kids call their fathers by
their first name.
Okay.
This which is the ultimate disrespect in Islam
that you call your father by the name
and you don't say father, dad or whatever.
Wording which indicates that he has a different
level, a higher level than you and calling
him as if he is your friend.
And I think some people kind of like
it that way that I'm so close to
my son that he treats me as a
friend.
Yes, friendship is okay in its place and
you have to be friendly with your kids.
But there has to be some kind of
differentiation that takes place between the son's status
or the daughter's status and the father and
the mother's status.
There has to be that respect there.
Once that respect is gone, then obviously the
next step is disobedience, not listening and then
the parents are wondering what's going on.
You know, why isn't he listening to me?
Why doesn't he do what I say?
Why doesn't she do what I say?
Well, because you didn't maintain that level of
respect in the first place and now that
same boy or girl is now disrespecting you.
So, again we learn from this towards the
end of Surah An-Nur, the importance of
respecting our elders and addressing them in such
a way that it is worthy of their
status.
I pray that Allah subhana wa ta'ala
gives us sufiq to understand and practice what
has been said in her.