Transcription
[Applause]
This is the first time that we feel like we’re back in the masjid after the last two years. Alhamdulillah, masha'allah, the masjid is full. Our bilals are here. The quest is very difficult today, Ismail on form as usual. Alhamdulillah, it’s wonderful to feel this experience.
I open and make dua, inshallah, that we have this. I know the akova teams are pulling the air out, trying to figure out what to do with the crowd. Alhamdulillah, I hope we maintain this throughout the month. May we not naturally social distance by the time we get to the 15th of the month.
You know, alhamdulillah, Allah has chosen us and favored us. You know how the hajjis feel when they get their names on that list; they’re going for Makkah. Allah chose me, Allah chose you, and me to be here for the month of Ramadan. Every single night, Allah sets people free from Jahannam who were otherwise destined for Jahannam.
It could be my name, your name on that list of exonerated people every night in the month of Ramadan. Every moment in the month of Ramadan, people are securing their place for eternity in Jannah. That is what is being offered to us this month.
In the context of our lives, we don’t know how many Ramadans we have left. Allah, one Ramadan, in fact, one day in Ramadan, if we know we stand with iman, it doesn’t mean 10 raka’s, 20 raka’s. Even one rak'ah with iman, Allah can forgive all your sins.
Tonight, you could stand up with the hajjut five minutes before Fajr, five minutes before Suhoor, and just stand with a tear in your eye, and Allah can forgive all your sins. That’s what’s available. Grant us this to be the best Ramadan. May Allah accept all our good deeds, every half that we recite.
And we will not forget that there are people that are missing. As we know, alhamdulillah, for those of you who are new here, we will obviously be continuing our Ramadan program. Inshallah, towards the middle of the month, we’ll have an extended Qiyam around 10 o'clock or so. We’ll give more information about that.
If you’d like to be part of the soup kitchen, every day we’re feeding people, helping people to break their fast. So if you would like to contribute as well, please speak to the taliban at the back.
Our series, inshallah, is for those who would like to sit, and for those who would like to go home, no problem. It is going to be streamed on YouTube and sent via WhatsApp. Inshallah, this year we’re going to speak about the mercy to the worlds, the mercy to all of creation, the seerah of the biography of the final prophet, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Last year, we did Nabi Musa. The year before that, we discussed the story of Nabi Yusuf. So what better than to speak about the greatest man that walked on the face of the earth, the most beloved to Allah, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam?
Allah says to us and says to all of humanity, the Muslim, the non-Muslim, to every creature: We have not sent you except as the greatest mercy. The greatest rahmah that Allah has given to creation was the sending of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the sending down through him the Quran, the Quran until eternity.
He is, as we said, the leader of all the ambiya and the leader of every nation. He is the most beloved creature to Allah, and it is through him, by his intercession, inshallah, that we hope Allah admits all of us into Jannah.
Why is it important to speak about the Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam? Not only for his virtue and his illness, we get to know the Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam, but just loving the Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam could be your ticket to Jannah.
Allah tells in the hadith that Bedouins would come to the Nabi and ask him questions. Many times, the Bedouins would ask silly questions. They would come to Rasulullah with big questions.
What question? “I had a camel that went missing. Do you know what it is? Can you ask Allah about it?” The Sahaba were always skeptical of a Bedouin asking a question. So this guy comes, and they think, “Okay, this guy looks like he’s a bit intelligent; he’s going to ask a smart question.”
And he comes, “Tell me, when is Qiyamah?” The Sahaba are like, “Oh, another silly question. Every time we hear people asking this.” Instead of telling the man, “I don’t know,” or “No one knows,” the Prophet asks him a question in return.
The man, the Bedouin, asks this question: “What have you prepared for Qiyamah? Are you ready for Qiyamah?” I saw the man now; he’s put on the spot. He says, “Ya Rasulullah, I have not prepared much salah. I don’t have a lot of salah, a lot of tahajjud, a lot of fasting. I don’t have much charity. I don’t have many good deeds. But what I can say is that I love Allah and I love the Rasul. I love you.”
That’s what I know for sure. I don’t know the level of my deeds; none of us know that. But I know deep down I love you. And so the Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam said to him, “You will be in Jannah with the one whom you love.”
If you really love me, you’ll be with me in Jannah. And the man said, “Well, we knew this was the best question I heard in my life.” Because, like the Sahaba, again, like all of us, they felt we don’t know the level of our iman. But what we do know is we love this man, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So if, inshallah, at the end of the 30 days of Ramadan, or 29 days, we have a deeper love for the Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam, that alone could be our entry into Jannah.
Tonight, inshallah, we’re going to give a brief history from the beginning of time, from Nabi Adam until the advent of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. We know in the ayat recited today, when Allah, the first story of the Quran, when Allah said to the angels, “I’m going to create human beings on the earth,” and they said, “Allah, people are going to shed blood and cause mischief. Why are you going to do this?”
And Allah said, “I know of them which you don’t know.” Then Allah bestowed upon Nabi Adam a very high position and put him on the earth with the purpose of why we are here.
There’s a series I’m doing, “Islam from Scratch.” I would like all of you to, if you have an opportunity, to listen to it on YouTube. What makes us so special? What makes us better than the angels? Because we can understand and appreciate Allah like no other creature.
We can love Allah out of our choice. Every day in Ramadan, you’re going to make a choice not to eat, not to drink. That is out of iman. Every time we commit a sin, we will go back to Allah. We will return all the time back to Allah.
And so we have a very, very high position because we can reach a relationship with Allah that not even the angels can reach. That is why Allah said, “I’ve placed you on this earth to worship me alone.”
Then Allah sent Nabi upon Nabi. Every nation, Allah said to every ummah, to every tribe, “I sent them a Nabi to say that they should worship Allah. I did not send to any nation before a Nabi except so that they may teach their people that there is none worthy of worship but Allah. Don’t worship a grave, a shrine, a stone, a stick, the sun, the moon. Worship the creator of the heavens and the earth, Me alone.”
But subhanallah, Shaytan is very smart. With time, this message, which is the message of all the ambiya, became lost and forgotten. People began worshiping idols and all kinds of things, and they began falling into all kinds of sin.
Allah then revived the message of Islam with the advent of Ibrahim after destroying many nations. They’re repeating it over and over again. Allah reestablished monotheism. Alhamdulillah, through him and through his lineage, Allah would send ambiya upon ambiya.
The Bani Israel, the descendants of Ibrahim, were gifted that every time they would have a Nabi, one dies, and a new one would take over. They got Nabi Musa, Nabi Dawood, and Sulaiman. They got Nabi upon Nabi.
This blessed people, this chosen people, unfortunately, broke the covenant with Allah. They broke the promise with Allah. Allah then sent them the last Nabi of Bani Israel, the Messiah that they asked for, the special one who would rule the world.
They wanted this Messiah, so Allah sent them Isa, the son of Maryam. Instead of following his message, one group of them, the majority of them, rejected him and tried to crucify him. Subhanallah.
The others who followed him, over time, lost the message that he had taught and, in fact, made him the opposite of what he preached. They said that he is the son of Allah, but he is eternally with Allah.
So after Nabi Isa left this dunya, 600 years of darkness would prevail on the earth, where Islam, the word of La ilaha illallah, you would not find anywhere on the face of the earth. Not in a church, not in a masjid, not in a synagogue. It did not exist anymore; it was almost extinct.
You couldn’t find a single person worshipping Allah. There’s a narration that said at this point, between Nabi Isa and Nabi Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, there was nothing of worth for Allah to even look at on this dunya.
It’s amazing that Harvard did a study and said the sixth century, 536 to be exact, that year 536 was the worst moment in human history. You know, during COVID, people asked, “What was the worst time to be alive?” They said this period of time, just before the coming of Nabi Muhammad, was the lowest humanity has ever been.
No, us. Harvard University’s study should be enough for us. But here we have confirmation that never in the history of mankind were we at a worse position than the moment just before the advent of Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
So in this darkness, in this age of complete, there’s no Islam anymore, an age of Shaytan, civilization is backwards, poverty, war, everything that is wrong, Allah would choose from a land, the middle of the desert, where there was not even any type of learning or civilization.
A city that very few people really knew about. Allah would choose a distant descendant of Nabi Ibrahim, a cousin of the Bani Israel. From them would come the final messenger, a man without any power, without any army, without any formal learning.
From that position, at the end of the world, he would change all of mankind. Until today, in the year 2022, at the tip of Africa, we are making salah as he made salah. We are fasting because through his command of fasting, he would change the world.
Allah sends him, prior to his birth, signs to the world that something big is about to happen. Things started to happen that were abnormal. Strange things began to occur.
Of the first creatures that were aware that something big is on the horizon were the jinn. The jinn felt something new. The jinn had free reign to roam through the samawat, and they say then in Surah Jin, the jinn said, “We used to travel through the heavens, but now we find the heavens filled with new kinds of malaika, very stern gods, guardians, shadidan. They are stern, and if we try to get to a certain level, they pelting us with flames.”
So the heavens became secured. Something is going to happen; something is about to be revealed. Also, in Makkah, as we know, that was born in a city, Makkah, in the middle of Arabia, a desert valley town.
When Ibrahim, many centuries ago, had built the Kaaba, there was the well of Zamzam. But because of the kuffar and the disbelief of the Arabs, Allah had taken the Zamzam well away from them for hundreds of years. Zamzam had been lost.
Then the grandfather of Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam, as a young man, Abdul Muttalib, had a dream: “Dig next to the Kaaba.” He digs next to the Kaaba, and the people of Makkah say to him, “Why are you digging?” He said, “I’m looking for the well of Zamzam.”
They laughed at him when they said, “Zamzam has been gone for hundreds of years. We’ve all been looking for it. There’s no way it can be found here, Zamzam, in the middle of town.”
He keeps digging at that spot, and alhamdulillah, the Zamzam was rediscovered. This is another big sign that something big is about to occur.
Perhaps the biggest event the year Nabi sallallahu alaihi wasallam was born was the event of the elephant. The event of the elephant we have in Surah Al-Fil, the story of the people of the elephant.
What is this all about? Yemen was a Christian country at that time, and there was a huge cathedral built in Yemen. The ruler of Yemen wanted the people of Arabia to become Christians.
So he said to the people, “Leave this Kaaba that you come to make hajj with now.” Their hajj was with idols, so it wasn’t hajj to Allah, but they still went to Makkah; they still believed that it was sacred.
So he said to them, “Leave Makkah and make hajj in Yemen, and I will give you all the, you know, it will be a very nice hajj.” He built this massive cathedral.
One of the desert Arabs, to show what he thought of this cathedral, entered the cathedral and defecated all over it. He rubbed his feces all over the cathedral. Now, we don’t do those kinds of things, subhanallah.
This infuriated Abraha, the ruler of Yemen. He became crazy angry. So he said, “The only way to teach these Bedouins a lesson is I’m going to destroy the Kaaba.”
He rallied his army and moved the army towards Makkah. At the head of the army was an elephant. This elephant was going to demolish the Kaaba.
When he comes outside Makkah, by now, the grandfather of sallallahu alaihi wasallam is an old man. Because he discovered the well of Zamzam as a young man, he is now like the leader, the overall chief, Abdul Muttalib.
So Abraha, before he enters the city, meets Abdul Muttalib. The one leader meets the other leader. Abraha says to the grandfather, “I’m not here to kill your people. Tell them to evacuate. Let me come destroy the Kaaba, and no one will get hurt.”
Abdul Muttalib said, “Our people are going to leave the city for three days, so we’re not going to fight you. I just have one question for you.”
“What’s your question?” “You took some of my camels. Can I please get my camels back?”
The man says, “I’m coming. I thought you were a man of nobility. I’m coming to destroy your Kaaba, to destroy your religion, and you care about your camels? Surely you know you people are as backwards as I thought.”
Abdul Muttalib says, “No, no, no. I am the ruler, the master of those camels. I’m not the master of that house. That house, the Kaaba, has its own master. So I need to look after my camels. But as for that Kaaba, it has a master who will look after it.”
And so the people of Makkah lived. As we know the story, the army proceeded, and before it could enter the Haram, the elephant sat down. It refused to move.
They prodded and pushed and hit the elephant; it would not move. When the army would turn in any other direction, the elephant would get up and move. Eventually, they could not understand what was going on.
They began hurting the elephant, and then, subhanallah, in the distance, they saw Tehran, flocks and flocks of birds coming towards them, each of the birds carrying three pebbles in each talon, a stone, and in the beak, a stone.
It started to pelt the army of Abraha. What’s amazing is this is not only, as we said, from the Quran. The Abdul Muttalib and the people of Makkah at the time when Abraha was alive saw this event.
They said you could see that when a stone would strike one of the army of Abraha, it would immediately fester, and it would cause their skin to rot, and they would die.
Allah says, “Oh people, did you not see how I dealt with the army of the elephant? How I completely outmaneuvered the scheme, and I sent against them flocks of birds who pelted them with stones of baked clay?”
When the birds were done with them, they were like a field that had been cut down, like a lawn that had been mowed, had been chewed up and spat out. That is what was left of Abraha and his army.
Abraha, Allah, he had the worst of it. He was hit with one of these stones, and Allah allowed him to live a little bit for a week or so, slowly dying. He was taken back to Yemen, and then he basically rotted to death.
When you see something like this happening, you know something big is on the horizon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would make these things, these preludes to the coming of Rahmatullah, that the mercy of the world is about to be born.
Inshallah, tomorrow we will discuss the birth and the childhood of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
This evening, we’ll start the quiz, maybe tomorrow on Monday, but I have a prize to give out. I don’t have a question; I didn’t prepare a question. So instead, I’m going to give a prize to anyone who’s going to ask the first question from the men. Make it a good question, please.
And for the sisters, anyone who has a good question, you’ll get a prize. I don’t know what’s inside here; that’s why it can be something special in any way.
Where’s the question from the men? The sisters? Ladies first? No questions? Very shy? No questions at all? Any questions? Ramadan-related, Islamic question, please? No?
Alright, let me ask them a question. What is the biggest animal mentioned in the Quran?
Okay, is it a whale? Swallow? What, in which context is a whale mentioned in the Quran? Ah, now, Yunus was swallowed by a whale. So yes, the biggest animal mentioned in the Quran is a whale.
Inshallah, is your prize. The sisters, a question? Or should I ask a question? What is the more difficult one? What is the only Sahabi mentioned by name in the Quran?
The only Sahabi mentioned by name in the Quran is... Sisters, going once, going twice. Anyone here? The men know the answer? Are you a professional, Adnan?
Okay, also professional, alhamdulillah. The only name... Alright, none will give to Zayd. Rather, is it because your name is in the Quran? Inshallah, you’ll get the prize as well.
Inshallah, we continue tomorrow. Forget you.