2011-10-19 Seerah pt.12 - Private da'wah vs. declaration of Prophethood - Yasir Qadhi

last week we had discussed um the beginnings of the prophetic da and some of the early converts we went into a long detailed tangent of and rasol which inallah was beneficial and useful and we decided and we clarified the meaning of and rasool and we said that our Prophet was both a Nabi and a rasool now one point that we mentioned in passing last week and now we're going to continue inshallah with this week is that this da was a uh a lot of people call it a secret dawa but this is not a good word to use the better word to use it was a private dawa what is the difference between secret and private secret means nobody knew about it private means you kept it to yourself but people it was an Open Secret our Prophet did not do Secret da his da when he started preaching Islam rumors spread that he was preaching a new theology the people heard about it and this is proven in the story of who was in Yemen we said we said his story last week that he came from Yemen because rumors had reached him that a new Prophet or a new message was being preached and he's in Yemen and when he goes all the way to Mecca the prophet says don't AC Islam now it's too early and this shows that at this time the prophet was not preaching to anybody outside of Mecca because he went in stages initially the the preaching is only to the people in Mecca so much so that when comes the prophet says not now later go back to your country when you hear that I have become Victorious then come back to me now this is very important because it shows that even in this stage the prophet s's da was known but he didn't make it public it was Private what does it mean private he went to his friends he went to Those whom he trusted he did not go stand up in public and say oh qur I am a prophet of Allah and because he didn't go public there could be no public opposition how can you oppose him he's not doing anything public and therefore for three years some Reports say four but the prop correct opinion is for three years the first three years of The Da the prophet did not preach to the m es he didn't preach to the pilgrims he didn't preach to the visitors of mecah he didn't preach even to his own relatives whom he thought would not accept Islam so Abu laab for example was not approached Abu lahab was not approached his distant relatives Abu jahal and others were not approached cuz he has a feeling that these people will mock him and ridicule him not now so for 3 years the dawa is private Abu hears Abu jahal hears but what can can they do because he's not doing anything to them he's not interfering with the tradeit of mecah he's not standing in front of the Kaa saying anything so they don't do anything to him and therefore in these three years the da of the Prophet did not face any public opposition and in this of course is the whole point in wisdom why for 3 years was the dawa private many reasons first and for foremost because this private dawa did not result in any confrontation between the Muslims and the qur no torture no ridicule nothing why because there's no threat because things are under cover if somebody converts to Islam he's not making a public announcement he's simply minding his own business and not getting involved with his Society at a religious level and therefore for these first three years there's no ridicule no torture NOAB nothing for these three years the Muslims are being taught their religion without any persecution they need to know their faith they're concentrating on the teachings of Islam they're not worried about the torture the politics in fact this is what prepared them to face the torture later on this is what gave them the spiritual boost they needed to be prepared for what was happening later on and this also shows that in some circumstances it is permissible to give dawa in private if the political climate is one of fear if the political climate is one of tension then you don't have to go public about your dawa now what is the difference between private and secret we are not secretive but you don't have to stand in front of everybody and Proclaim uh The Message of Islam for an example uh in communist Russia in the '90s in the ' 80s in the 70s right in uh places in China there's still religious persecution alhamdulillah in America we don't have this but in Many Lands if you Proclaim you are something other than the official Faith you will be persecuted right and there are many cases in the 20s and 30s especially when communism took over that they would literally kill people for claiming to be Muslim our religion does not demand that we do this stay private then keep a lowkey you don't have to cause interference just mind your own business give your own da if somebody comes now you cannot hide the truth he wants to know what is Islam he's a potential convert you cannot hide the truth you preach to them what is Islam but you don't have to go public if there is a fear of persecution also notice we already said this last week notice that every single convert in this state becomes a leader becomes a mover and Shaker unlike some of the later converts we don't even know the names of most of the sahab by the way right the sahaba are more than 100,000 more than 100,000 of those we only have the names of around 5,000 that's it so the bulk of the sah we don't even know their names why because they just performed a with the prophet they went with in onewa and that's it so their names are not recorded the names of those that are recorded are few and of those the bulk of them we only have one or two incidents it is really only a handful 20 30 40 100 or so that we have life stories about right and each and every one of these most of them were the early converts or of the ansar the early ansar and this shows that every single person who converted at this early stage their Iman was so powerful that they went on to play a significant role in early Islam also notice that in the first three years apart from the six or seven that I mentioned last week Abu Bakr andas Zu ABD apart from those few the bulk of the converts were actually from the lower class there were a few that were from the elite and I mentioned their names Abu Bakr and you can even say Z because he was adopted by the Propet so his lineage even though it was not quashi he was considered of the elite because he was adopted quote unquote ZB Muhammad they called him but these were six or seven the bulk of the sahabah personified byar Y and Y and and ABD and of course bil andd all of these of the sahab were of the lower class and this is the general rule it is so much of a general rule that hercus the emperor of Rome the first first time the prophet wrote him a letter he wanted to find out what is this religion so he quizzed Abu sufyan 10 questions which I went over I think uh in the past and which I'll go over it again one of those questions who are his converts are they the rich and Powerful or are they the weak and the downtrodden and Abu sufyan said well the bulk of his converts are the weak and the lower class and hercus explained and he said this is the sign of a true true faith that the first people who accept it are the weak and the lower class because it doesn't appeal to the rich it doesn't appeal to the oligarchs it doesn't appeal to the elite cuz they're going to have to give up their privileges they're going to have to give up their status whereas the poor this is a message that they accept and understand because they know it is the truth and also because when you're rich and Powerful you have more to lose when you change status quo right when you're rich and Powerful you want things to remain as they are whereas when you're weak and you're disenfranchised then it is easier to see the truth you don't have that much to lose and of course Allah mentions this in the Quran uh that even the earliest prophets the people of hood they said we only find your followers to be the beduins or the people who take care of the sheep this is the your followers and Allah subhana wa T mentions even the people of M the Jews of bani is they were person persecuted in Egypt and they were the lower class of Egypt but in the beginning they're the lower class and in the end they always end up to be the victors as Allah says that the people who were persecuted the B is in this case eventually they became the leaders and they inherited the land even though they were the ones who were persecuted before so in this early stage of Da what was the wisd once again no persecution make IM strong allow the Brotherhood to form each and every one of these converts becomes a role model and many other blessings along with that as we already already mentioned it seems there's no authentic narration but it seems that at this early stage Salah and W were legislated and this is something that even logically makes sense that from the very beginning there was Salah and there was Wo jiel came down and he taught the prophet how to do woo and he taught him how to pray and at this stage prayer was voluntary not obligatory and it was made obligatory in is and that's why when Allah told him to pray he didn't need to be taught how to pray cuz he already knew how to pray when Allah told him you have to pray five times a day he didn't need to be taught at that stage but at that stage he became legislated also at in this early stage prayer was only two there were no three or four all of the prayers were two and this is what says in in so to summarize before we move on and this is an interesting summary uh that you should memorize or write down the stages of Daw of the Prophet the stages of Daw the stages of dawa are five the stages of Daw are five and each of these stages is a legitimate stage for any Muslim Community in the world depending on their circumstance however we are we choose which stage to be the first stage is the private dawa the private dawa means you don't have to confront the public let the public status quo remain you're too weak or the political climate is too difficult private da means you don't have to become a martyr in our religion it's a very pragmatic religion it's a very realistic religion you don't have to go kill yourself if you're not going to gain anything if the community is going to kill you persecute you just be a Muslim in your private life private da the prophet did it for three years the second stage the second stage of dawa public da with no military Commandments it's just preaching with the tongue and this was the bulk of the prophet's life 10 or 11 years of mecah preaching with the tongue and no military confrontation and even if they kill you you can't do anything back because now is you're not capable of doing anything you just have to bear in patience and these are the Commandments of patience in the Quran the Commandment of if they do something turn away leave the J don't engage with them you just give your da and this was 10 years of DAW and of these 10 the last six or seven were extremely difficult to the extent of multiple assassination attempts as we're going to talk about inshallah today and next few weeks inshallah tala the first 3 four years were difficult but then they became even more and more difficult and this led to the immigration to ABIA this led to T this led to the year of Sorrow this led to the boycott all of this in we will discuss throughout all of these 10 years no physical confrontation even if they kill one of yours there's nothing you can do you don't kill back one of theirs and this is the peaceful dawa through the tongue that's the second stage the third stage da with the tongue along with physical fighting to one group only or to a particular group and this happened for the first 6 years after the Hijra that the Muslims fought only the qur of Makkah they did not fight any other tribe because the other tribes had nothing to do with them and so the Muslims had military battles only with the qur or if anybody allied with the quray and attack them then of course the Muslims had to attack back right so this is the third stage of Da open dawa along with military confrontation to a specific enemy the fourth stage of Da was open da to all with unlike when they were in meca they couldn't do anything but the the fourth stage you attack if only you need to in defense whereas in the mechan stage you didn't even attack because meaning you didn't have any type of attack against them retaliatory attack if somebody kills one of yours there's nothing you can do back because you are persecuted the fourth stage you have political power but you don't utilize it for military uh accomplishments for military Endeavors unless you do so for defense and this happened in the Medina stage after the Treaty of hudia until the conquest of mecah what was the Treaty of H remember the condition one of the conditions was no fighting and the prophet said okay no fighting so there was no fighting even though he had the power and he had the Army and he had the resources but the political climate dictated no fighting and that was what was best so they said fine no fighting and we'll talk about that when we get there that was one of the biggest victories of Islam no fighting and Allah revealed we've given you the biggest Victory and Omar didn't understand we'll got to that lat he said how is this a victory we have lost how is this a victory and Allah told him this is a victory and they saw with their own eyes and we're going to come to that later on and the fifth and final stage was was open da along with physical confrontation to anybody who opposes Islam and this was the stage that the prophet passed away upon that he was sending out not only delegations but armies he was sending uh he was sending us i z right to uh the Romans he was sending all these armies and the sahaba continued along the fifth stage and that is why they conquered Persia and they conquered most of the Roman Empire they took over Damascus and Syria and and festine and Egypt and North Africa and the umad continue this and they conquered usbekistan and Tajikistan and Afghanistan and they conquered what is now Pakistan and parts of India and they went all the way to China and then finally in the mid stage of the Abbasid they decided to go back to the fourth stage and that is open da to all and stop the fighting stop the fighting unless there's a need to and for the bulk of the um when we had a we no longer have one for the bulk of the um the um was upon basically the forth state which is open to all and we only fight if there's a need to and this clearly shows that military conquest is not a part of Islam it is a possible part that the um utilized when it wanted to and when it needed to the main thing is to preach the message and you utilize what is the best way possible and historically speaking our um has utilized all of these ways and therefore in our times there's no question that military this is not any time we can do anything especially as minorities in Many Lands this is the time we talk about public da without any confrontation where we preach our message and those groups that are violent those groups that are talking about these things we say no this is not the way of our religion our Prophet showed us the clear way and his methodology is the best methodology and his is the best so these are the five stages of Da that the prophet underwent and every Community throughout the world its leaders can see which of these five is best for that Community which of these five is the best for that community and each of these is a legitimate means of our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam so we now move on to the second stage of those five stages of dawa and that is open preaching without any conflict open without any military of course there's conflict there's going to be persecution but without any public conflict from from the prophet sides open preaching without any command for Warfare this open preaching it took place 3 years after came down and Allah revealed a number of verses to command him to preach publicly two of them are the most important two of them were the ones that the prophet realized this means I need to go public the first of these is verse 94ah verse 94 where Allah says means to publicly Proclaim it means to come forth and be clear don't hide anymore don't be private go forth brazenly and Proclaim what we have commanded you to and turn away from the ignorant people ignore what they're going to do to you so the prophet understood this as a command to go public and then a verse came which was even more explicit and this is the commonly verse the verse that is commonly associated with the public da that is verse 214 verse 214 where Allah says and warn your close relatives warn your close family and here of course it applies not only to his uncles and aunts it applies to the qur because that is his his the qur all of the people of meca are his tribe warn your fellow tribesman basically right and doesn't just mean family it means your K and kin and that basically means the tribe so when this verse came down the prophet realized that he needed to go public now looking at uh the source books of s it appears that he did this in two stages the first stage he went public to the Banu Hashim only that is his immediate tribe remember and this is something go back to lineage and or remember I've said this many times the people of meca were all One Tribe the qur and within the qur there were at least six or seven major tribes of them are the Banu Hashim of them are the Banu mum of them the B ABD and all of these different subtribes right and the Banu all of these different subtribes are of course related by great great grandfather three or four or five generations none of them go back more than that right four five generations back all of them come to the same lineage so all of them know each other's n and lineage they've memorized it they know each other exactly how each one is related so the prophet sallam first invited his immediate tribe and that is the the the sons of Hashim and ABD mana and this is of course his immediate uncles and aunts his immediate uh uh Buu of of the the Banu Hashim we call it and he invited them it said to his own house and he told alali who was at that time a young boy he told him to prepare a little bit of food and uh broth some soup and a little bit of of of food and they didn't have that much they only had one leg of lamb but he invited over 40 of their adults over 40 of the adults came and the prophet was the first to eat and he blessed it and the the the reporter or the the narrator says that even though the food was in one plate all four of them ate to their fill as if they ate the entire plate themselves this is one of the first Miracles that is happening and they drank from this soup that was in one cup as if this was their only cup and they all drank from it to their fill and Abu lahab sensed that something was going to happen so Abu laab was scared that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would make public what was now private so before they finished eating he stood up and he gave an excuse and he said he needs to go back and he will basically adjourn the meeting or not even a meeting he has to go home and of course Abu laab is one of the seniors he's one of the elders and he is an immediate Uncle so when he leaves it kind of destroys the uh aura that was being created that something is going to happen now and so when he gave an excuse a number of others gave an excuse and they left the prophet understood that this was a tactic of Abu few days later he did the same thing he told Ali to make another meal he cooked it and he invited them again this time before they could finish he stood up and he began preaching and he began by praising Allah subhah wa tala and giving what we call and this was never heard of by the arrows before it was something that our Prophet Allah inspired him to do and then he said oh oh my fellow tribesmen I do not know of any Arab before me who is coming to his people with a message that is better than what I am coming to you with I'm coming to you with something that will give you your dean and your D this world and the I'm coming to you as a messenger from Allah subhah wa ta'ala that if you leave your idolatry and you turn to him then Allah will give you all the good of this world and give you the Jenna in the next and he went on preaching and preaching and this was the first time that the message of Islam publicly or openly reached many of their ears before this time Abu laab is hearing rumors but he's never heard his nephew preach before this time other people have heard that their their nephew or the prophet is preaching but they have not been approached directly so this was the first time that this message was uh reaching them and Abu lahab became irritated at this and he said to the prophet sallallah or he said to the people around the prophet he did not even address the prophet he said to the people around the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that this seems to be an unworthy message we have our ways and the ways of our forefathers and who does this young man think he is to come and oppose the ways of our forefathers and he was the only one who was harsh the rest of his uncles and aunts took the message not that seriously they had heard about it and Ali it is said in in one of the uh Source books Ali stood up and said oh messenger of Allah I will help you and he was the youngest of all of them and this is not surprising if this is true uh and and and there's no surprise in Ali being this Brave so at this point the people his immediate relatives did not accept nor did they reject because again this is a private Gathering it's in the his The House of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the only one who publicly expressed some irritation was Abu lahab few days later or a few weeks later again we don't have an exact chronology but soon after this this is when the prophet went public to the whole city now he went public to the whole city of meca and this report is reported in bukari and it is mentioned here is the famous story that all of you know that the prophet wasam climbed the mountain of Safa now the mountain of Safa is the closest mountain to the Kaa as you know right and it was in fact much taller than it is right now right now you can say it's probably gone down onethird of what it used to be when people go up and down every time somebody goes up and down some minuscule amount gets eroded away this is just basic geology basic uh knowledge you know so if you go up and down up and down the mountain is going to get eroded away and so over the course of the last 14 centuries Safa has gone down much more than it used to be so for a person in Makkah to climb to the top of Safa this was their equivalent of I have message to tell you nobody climbed to the top of saf unless there's an announcement to make and this is well known so the prophet climbed on the mountain of Safa and he began calling the people now you have to realize Makkah was a probably had a thousand people in it that's it small little village and one voice crying from the top of the mountain of Safa is enough to tell the people something is going on so when the prophet is calling oh oh oh B has this is something this is basically a town hall meeting as we would say in Old America maybe like that right everybody has to come no this is not something that is done except for a major event so people stop doing what they're doing and they come and they listen because this is how you get the news across and they waited for everybody to assemble and then the prophet gave that famous speech that all of us know and he said if I were to inform you or he he gave them the basic question what do you know from me how do you trust me and they said we know nothing but good from you you are our son and the son of our brother you are our nephew and the son of our one that we know have you heard any Lie from me we have heard nothing but good you are Al am and then he said if I were to tell you that there's an army attacking cuz again he's standing on one side of Mecca and he can see what they cannot see so he says hypothetically if I were to tell you I can see an army would you believe me meaning would you take action right now am I that trustworthy that if I were to tell you that I see an army right now would you take action and become panicked and and and and go and prepare yourselves and this is something that otherwise you would require you would go verify you would you would go and check but do you trust me that much that without any verification just with my word you will listen to me that there's an army and they said yes we never heard you ever say a lie we never heard you say a lie and so here is when the prophet said then know therefore know therefore that I am a Warner sent by Allah to proclaim the coming of a severe punishment on the day of judgment unless you turn to him and leave your idolatry save yourself from the fire of hell I will not be able to help you save yourself from the fire of hell and he began with the furthest tribe that was related to him and he worked his way inward closer and closer until he got to the Banu hasim and then he began mentioning his uncles by name oh hamd sa ABD and in one version Oh saf the aunt of the Prophet Sall alai and then he concluded with the person who was the most dear and the most beloved to him and he said and every time he mentioned a name the same phrase is said you need to save yourself from the fire of I cannot help you at all this is my message to you you need to change your Lifestyles and you need to think about the Hereafter because I'm not going to benefit you and then with FAA he added one phrase that he didn't add for anybody else and that was I save yourself from fire hell I cannot save you you on the day of judgment except that from this world I will give you all that I have if you I'm your father you ask me anything that I have it is yours but in the Hereafter I cannot save you from Allah's punishment so when he finished this message and it was it was an inspiring it was a emotional message it was very emotional he's telling his people uh that they need to save themselves change their Lifestyles this is when the infamous incident happened where Abu laab stood up and he took up some stand sand and he threw it and this is meant to show uh vulgarity to show what is this it's worth not even worth my sand it's not even worth this this sand that I'm throwing and this is a sign of arrogance to throw sand at somebody and he stood up and he threw it in the direction of the prophet and he said that means may you be cursed oh Muhammad and I Allah ref from simply saying this but this I'm narrating what ABAB said that may you be cursed is this why you called us here you wanted us to leave our whatever we were doing and you called us here in order to do this and this is when of course Allah revealed in the Quran and that is of the Surah that deserves its own time and place ABAB was the one the first the first person to publicly oppose the message and to publicly ridicule the message was AB and he went a degree more than what he did a few days ago and this he's trying to show his quote unquote bravery and manhood that in in private in his In The House of the prophet he was not that rude he was not that vulgar but now in public he needs to put on this false sense of Courage this false sense of bravado if you like this is his own nephew and so he needs to show how much he's opposed to it and it was because of this arrogance that Allah subhana wa taala responded back in that that kind and this is of course the Sunnah of Allah subhah wa taala that never has a messenger been sent except that he had to face a struggle against his own people most of mankind most of mankind do not want to change their Lifestyles it's difficult to give up what you're used to it's difficult to lead a religious life and therefore even the prophet themselves when they come their own families and their own peoples reject them and this has been the Sunnah of Allah from the very beginning of time of the benefits we gain here is that every single person needs to be responsible first and foremost for his immediate family and then for Society at large because Allah revealed before he revealed verses that proclaim the message to all of mankind and we'll get to those verses in a while if initially the prophet is told preach to your relatives so much so that when a y comes to him he tells him not now go back later on not now because the message the message is not for now the message for you is for later on so the responsibility of the for immediate family is much more than for anyone else and therefore the prophet first called Banu Hashim and then he made the public call to and then a few years later he made the public call to all of humanity from this point onwards the prophet wasam started preaching everywhere in public venues in front of the Kaa when the H came when visitors came to Mecca the prophet would be waiting for them outside of Mecca and when the visitors came or when the huaj came he would speak to them in the marketplaces of mina this is when the prophet da became public and of course this is when the public opposition began as well how did they oppose the message by many ways and inshallah today will summarize eight or nine of these ways that they oppose the message uh and realize that what I'm mentioning today is not necessarily chronological I'm simply summarizing how did uh these uh quis and me and people of Mecca oppose the prophet sallallahu alaih wasam in his da what did they do to try to prevent him number one the first thing that they did is they tried to appeal to the highest authority of meca and that is Abu Talib now you have to realize how did the people of mecah live in terms of political laws there was no one ruler out of all of meca they didn't have a king they were too arrogant to appoint one person right and by the way one of the signs of a civilized society is to have one ruler this is one of the signs of a truly civilized society right that they have one person person in charge you need to have somebody in the top and when you don't have that civilized societ you have a little bit of chaos then you don't have one ruler the people of mecah did not have one ruler that was too much for them what did they what they did have was and that was a group of senior people none of whom was actually in charge but they had a say in the matter who were the people in this Darwa who are the people in this uh circle of let's say we cannot call it Senators cuz there's no president but but you get my point there's a group of people who are the main leaders they are the representatives of each of the tribes so each of the sub tribes has a ruler the Banu Hashim has a ruler the Banu makum has a ruler the Banu ABD or the Banu they have a ruler each of the subtribes has call it a chief but it's not the chief of the qur it's the chief of that one tribe and the Affairs of that one tribe will be in accordance with what the chieftain says so the the chief of or the leader of the Banu Hashim was of course Abu Talib the leader of the Banu Hashim was Abu Talib and it was of the ways of the Arabs that the leader of the tribe is never deposed he's never gotten rid of he's never uh uh disobeyed he's given the utmost respect and then one of his children after him takes over that leadership and that's why when ABD mutalib died then Abu Talib took char because he was the most respected of the sons of ABD MB and so Abu Talib took on this leadership so when the prophet started preaching the first thing they do they appeal to Abu Talib and they went to him gently and they said oh Abu Talib this is your nephew cursing our Idols preaching a message that is different than our forefathers surely you cannot let this happen and Abu Talib tried to basically stall them and he did not want a confrontation and we don't know exactly what he says the says that he said to them he gave them some gentle words and he had them go their way perhaps he promised them perhaps he did something but he didn't take a stand either for or against he simply sidetracked hoping that the matter would go away well it didn't go away few weeks later they come to Abu Talib again and as more and more people are converting as more and more of the H go back bearing the news that there's a man in Mecca preaching a new message they realize that action has to be taken and so they increase the pressure on Abu Talib the first thing that they do is they try to threaten him they try to bribe him they try to Kajol him they say to him we cannot take this anymore your nephew is insulting our forefathers now Subhan Allah this is the way of everybody who opposes Islam look at the Modern islamophobes they take a small thing and they make it so big as if if the world is going to collapse right look at their fear of the shitiz of America how ridiculous W the prophet did not curse their forefathers it's his own forefathers right but what is he saying so they take one plus one and they make 20 out of it he's preaching and he's saying idolatry is not a good way it's foolish now they of course say well if it's foolish this means our forefathers were foolish and if they're foolish this means you're cursing them and if you're cursing them this means this and so they make this statement which is true and they make it into such a big deal and they come back exaggerated 20 times and they say your nephew is doing this and he's doing that and he's cursing our Idols the prophet never cursed their Idols Allah says in the Quran do not curse their false Idols there's a verse in the Quran and yet they accused him of cursing their Idols right again this is how this is what happens when you're full of hatred doesn't matter what you do they'll take one plus one they'll make 20 out of it okay so they go back to Abu Talib and they say your nephew is cursing our Idols he's ridiculing our forefathers again he didn't ridicule the forefathers but he is saying idolatry is foolish take it or leave it what your forefathers were I'm not I'm saying idolatry is foolish right and again they take it and they take it 10 different steps and so they say we cannot bear this anymore you either stop him from preaching yourself or you hand him over to us and we do as we please one of the two we give you two options you either stop him yourself or you hand him over to us and Abu Talib had never been confronted by his people in this manner now realize that every leader W every leader is outwardly powerful inwardly very weak because every leader is dependent upon the people that follow him for that leadership and that is why every leader has to appease his own his own followers you cannot be a leader without appeasing your followers you cannot be even if you're a tyrant even if you're a tyrant you need to have a core group whom you appease and who execute your tyrannical policies even if you're a mass murderer as a leader you need to have a core you can trust and that core you give them everything that they want and you'll Overlook any crime that they do or else you cannot be a leader it is only Allah who is truly Alik everybody else is not really a true king because they are not powerful they're dependent on the people around them they need to have viers they need to have ministers they need to have Army so when your own people oppose you completely you are you don't have any power and Abu Talib had never been opposed in this manner that every single member of the tribe is coming and saying you have one of two options you stop him or else if you don't have the guts give him over to us what do you mean give him over to us once again you need to understand the way of the Arabs they could not harm one of their own tribes men unless the chief of the tribe allows this this is the law of the Arabs and if they were to disobey it they would face shame and ridicule never before had a tribe killed one of its own members with impunity this is you have to understand the gang mentality if you're on our side you're on our blood then that's it doesn't matter what you do if you commit a crime we will deal with you internally we're going to deal how do we deal with you the chief or the the the leader has to decide so as long as Abu Talib did not hand over the prophet wasallam they couldn't do anything they couldn't touch a hair on his head because it would cause them shame cuz they went against their own tribal laws so they go to Abu Talib and they demand one of two things never had Abu Talib been confronted with such hostility from his own Banu Hashim and so this is when he went to the prophet the famous story all of you know it and he called his nephew the prophet wasallam and he said to him oh my nephew my people have come to me and they have said such and such so be merciful to you and be merciful to me emotional blackmail here right be merciful to you and be have some mercy on me I'm an old man now have some mercy on me and do not Place me in a situation that I cannot bear you're making me do something I cannot have it this is emotional blackmail at its best because he's not threatening the prophet wasam he is saying look at me I'm an old man my own people are doing this to me have some mercy on me how much do you expect me to bear and this is one of the most difficult and traumatic Encounters of the life of the Prophet wasam Abu Talib loved the prophet more than he loved his own children and it was the son of his own full brother abdah and he dealt with him more than how a father could deal with his own son and the prophet also had that same type of love that he would have for his own father and this was his full uncle and here's Abu Talib begging and pleading with him that have some mercy on an old man how much do you expect me to Bear now stop what else do you want me to do and here is when the prophet self became overwhelmed with emotion and he said that famous statement that oh my uncle W if they were to give me the sun in my right hand and the Moon in my left hand W I could not give up this message until I succeed in what I'm doing or I die a death in this path preaching what I am preaching and in another version which is probably more authentic than this one he said to his uncle do you see the son oh my uncle and his uncle said yes so he said wall I have no more power to stop preaching than you do to light your stick from the sun he has a stick in his hand right to light your stick with this sun you cannot do that similarly I cannot do this as well what is the symbolism here of the phrase here the meaning here there's there's a dual meaning here the first is that the light that I have the light of Islam it is brighter than the light of the Sun and Moon I cannot extinguish it if they were to give me all of this light I have a light that is Brighter Than This Light I cannot Eclipse it nothing can eclipse this light and and then of course there's a symbolism here even if they were to give me something that is beyond this world forget money forget wealth forget Fame even if they were to give me something Beyond this world the Sun and the Moon I could not give up what I am doing until I meet my death or I succeed in my message and when Abu Tali saw this persistence he saw in the eyes of the Prophet that passion that sincerity he said to him do what you will my nephew I will never come to you again to stop what you're doing and he lived up to his word no matter what the qur did no matter what they did he never once came back to reprimand his nephew why did you do this why did I have to do that even when he had to go and sacrifice his own livelihood and live a life of misery and poverty in the boycott as we're going to come to next week when he couldn't even live in Mecca he was the only non-muslim who actually went and lived with the Muslims in the boycott of the sh of the of the valley as we'll talk about without even living a normal life because he told his nephew a promise he said I'm never going to approach you again about stopping you do as you please you have my protection even this did not satisfy the qur when they heard of this that he tried and he failed they then came to him again a complete delegation of the qur and not just the Banu Hashim first had been only the Banu Hashim now the whole qur are coming to him as a representative of the quray against the Banu Hashim and this is the stepping stone because the next step is going to be the boycott we'll come to that inshallah next week or the two weeks from now but for now they come to him and they say to him okay look we heard you tried we understand he's your nephew we have a proposition to make we have chosen the most noble of all of the people of Mecca the most noble young man and this is the son of we're going to come to him in a while he's one of the leaders of one of the other tribes of the qur just like Abu Talib is one of the leaders Al is is one of the leaders of the B okay so it is his peer Al is the peer he's the same level as Abu Talib here is the son of Al and one son for one son will hand over Al to you and he will become yours we'll give him your basically adopt him okay he will become your son and in return you hand over your son or your nephew to us and we do as we please at this the Abu Talib became extremely angry and he said what an evil bargain or what a what a foolish Transaction what a what what an evil bargain that you're saying you want me to take care of one of your own so that I fatten him with my food while you take my son and you kill him what a foolish bargain is this I take care of yours and you will go and kill mine at this and again is at this point in time is the eldest person alive in qur and he is considered to be as close to a ruler as possible and our Prophet has many Hadith about ju he never converted his son uh uh sorry I'm saying so stood up and he said to Abu Talib he said oh Abu Talib I think that your people have done as much as they humanly can you need to accept one of these offers now and this was now basically the whole of mecah United against Abu Talib single-handedly this is the senior most person who is the most reserved he was the one by the way backtrack he was the one who prevented Bloodshed when the Kaa was being rebuilt and he was the one who suggested the first man to come in he's going to be the one who decides the black stone this is that person right he was the one who again so many stories about him this is that senior most person he has the most sense he's the least hostile to anybody right for him to take sides this is a big deal and he says to Abu Talib that oh Abu Talib your people have done as much as is reasonably expected what more do you expect them to do they've given you all of these options what more do you expect them to do so it's not sorry was a his father is so became a Muslim in the Battle of bad will read his story this is this is the the the the senior one and by the way uh the prophet said about him M the father this one the prophet said about him in the Battle of bad that M had died after the hij by a little while so he never saw the Battle of bad he said when the prophet saw all of the prisoners of 72 prisoners with their hands bound and they're wondering what's going to happen are they going to be executed are they going to be ransomed they don't know what's going to happen the prophet said one of the highest Praises he ever said for any Pagan and he said it for he said if were alive right now and he said to me one word about these 72 prisoners that he wanted them back I would have freed them all for his sake that is praise that is praise for M why did the prophet praise him so much we'll talk about this incident doesn't seem that nice cuz he's sing against him right but this was maybe the worst thing mam ever did later on for the next 10 years or the next six years we'll see M doing a lot of positive for the Muslims a lot of positives and because of those positives the prophet praised him and this shows us very clearly that not all cafir are the same there are some cfers that are very good they have genuine hearts and they help Islam and the prophet praised them and took advantage of that and there are others who are evil to the core and the prophet curse them and despise them you don't treat all non-muslims the same and this is very narrow-minded that some of us have that some of us think that our religion preaches this no our religion does not preach that we hate all kufar our religion does not preach that all kufar are filthy and dirty no some of them are very Noble and some of them are very ignoble some of them are very righteous and good in their affairs with us even if they have kufur in their private lives and they worship other than their characters are good in their M with us in their standing up let's say for human rights for civil rights right in our times you have many non-muslims who bend over backwards when they see Muslims being discriminated against and they do more for the community than many Muslims do these are theis of our time and we should help them and praise them like the prophet praised in this case however this is in the beginning of Islam he seems to take a stand that is not that praiseworthy later on he'll redeem himself partially he never accepted Islam so says to Abu Talib like I said that oh Abu Talib your people have done as much as is reasonable to be expected in this situation take one of these options and now come on move on either give him over to us or stop him or take this young lad what else do you want them to do and this was literally you can say Abu Talib versus all of the people of Mecca and it is a very precarious situation because you don't know what's going to happen now the next stage will basically be one of two things and that is that they most likely what would have happened if Allah had not will otherwise they would have told Abu Talib you are no longer the leader of the Banu Hashim and this would have been the first time in the history of the Arabs that a tribal leader had been replaced while he's still alive and healthy and mentally capable never before had they this is a couet right basically in our vernacular this is a cou d' you get rid of the ruler and replace him this is unheard of in the arrows because how can you have a coup against your own uncle or your own grandfather this is what a tribal leader is it's not some stranger this is your blood relative your senior most blood relative it's unheard of in their tribal system and so Abu Talib takes on a bravery that is wah unbelievable to confront every one of his tribesmen in the whole of qur and he says to to to M directly oh this is a plot that you have hatched to stand up at this time and to publicly take sides you had this plan from before he sees through the plot basically right this is a staged event you have a script that you have and you're playing the script now and then he says and he threatens them do as you please I am not going to budge from my position and this is what you call genuine bravery because Abu Talib had no support whatsoever not one one person to physically stand up and fight with him it was literally his honor and Prestige versus the whole of qures and he literally put it at their hands cuz he told them I can't do anything do what you please I'm not going to budge you want to kill me along with him fine I'm not going to budge and he also wrote some poetry and by the way a point of uh a note here for the uh lovers of poetry the AR classical poetry you all know that there are famous poets in this time the and all of this is of this era the seven most famous Arabic poems were of the era of the Quran being revealed and Allah revealed the Quran uh in a language that was far more powerful than the seven hanging poems they're called Abu Talib was one of the most famous poets of the qur and his poetry is absolutely phenomenal and IB ha and many others comment and they say that in fact Abu talib's poetry is more profound and More Beautiful than the seven poems that were hung in the and if you read his poetry which is recorded in many books in is and in the you find it is a very powerful with message and at this occasion he composed a series of poems chastising his own relatives and accusing them of being traitors to their own way of life that you are not respecting the sanctity of your own relatives and Allah willed that the qur back down even though he had no power on his side not one man to stand up but it was that sense of dignity and that sense of sincerity that I am not going to budge and be inhumane that you kill your own relative and my nephew I am not going to let you do this and the strength of his convictions won the day by the blessings of Allah that's all it was because nothing nothing else would have saved him he didn't have anything else and in this one incident we open up a window to see the wisdom of the whole phenomenon of Abu Talib what do I mean by the phenomenon of Abu Talib the prophet did not love anybody more than he loved Abu Talib this is his father and mother in one he didn't have a father and mother growing up this is his grandfather's son this is everybody to him and yet Abu Talib did not convert to Islam and when the prophet wasallam begged and pleaded with him even on his deathbed when he's about to die the prophet is 53 years old imagine my dear brothers and sisters the prophet had this figure in his life till he was 53 years old many of us we don't have our parents at a young age he had this Uncle if you like a father figure till he's 53 and his his uncle is there with him what a relationship he has and now he's on his deathbed and he's about to die and he comes and he begs with him I beg you say onea and I will be able to argue in front of Allah to save you just say onea and I'll be able to argue in front of Allah to save you and Abu Talib was about to say it because in his heart actually Abu Talib knew that this religion is true he had seen too many signs he'd seen too many miracles and most importantly he knew who his nephew was and he knew his nephew couldn't tell a lie but there was one thing that was more precious to him than his nephew and that was his father and that was the lineage The Prestige you are the son of Abdul mutalib you are the inheritor of the legacy of Abdul that Prestige of n of lineage which was everything for the Arabs right for the Arabs that was everything the quray at that time the the Arab tribes everything was who your father was and he happened to be the son of the most famous Arab of the previous generation and we already said that a person's Legacy Pinnacles around 40 50 years after his death right we said this many weeks ago that the Legends grow after a person's death just like in our times JFK for example is actually more admired than when he was when he died during his presidency JFK had a lot of negatives about him and a lot of things and now MLK as well Martin Luther King when he was alive scandals this and that now look at his legacy it's human nature you kind of aize the people of the past so ABD mutalib reaches his Pinnacle of Legacy right and now this is Abu Talib the son of this giant mythical giant this is his son and so one thing is more precious to him than the TRU truth and that is his lineage and he's just about to say the and Abu jahal is standing there the people of the qu surrounding him and the prophet is begging him to say the and Abu jahal sees his mouth open he gets scared because if you convert we're in trouble now and so he says to Abu Talib are you going to leave the religion of your father the father are you he didn't even say really paganism no the religion of your father the way of your father and that caused his mouth to close and that's when the Malik came and took his R and he did not say the K but our Prophet was so emotionally moved this is his uncle and his father figure he said I will ask Allah to forgive you even if I don't have permission because realize for the prophets all the prophets you need permission to take a step why did Allah subhana T do what he did to uh uh eunus why did Allah do to what he did to eunus because yunas left his people without permission unus left his people without permission and you cannot do anything as a prophet without permission from Allah you need permission because you are a prophet you're representing the message of Allah the sh of Allah and so the prophet would not do anything unless Allah told him to do it in this case his emotions were so powerful he said said I will ask Allah to forgive you unless Allah stops me I'm not going to ask permission I'm going to ask Allah to forgive you and he continued to ask forgiveness until Allah revealed multiple verses in the Quran of them isah it is not befitting for the prophet and the Believers to seek forgiveness for pagans even if they're close relatives you shouldn't do do that and of them is you are not able to guide Those whom you love but Allah guides Those whom he pleases now this is what I meant by the phenomenon of Abu Talib why why why this is and this is the most beloved person to him the one whom he loves like no one else so much so that many years later in the conquest of mecah when Abu Bakr comes to the prophet Sall wasallam with his own father Abu kahaa being carried by the people and his beard is completely white and Abu kahaa is a pagan and an enemy of Islam and when the meca is conquered finally for the first time abua accepts Islam as an old man of 80 years old and Abu kahaa holds on to the hand of the prophet and says abak begins to cry and he says what I would give even my father's hand if I could see the hand of Abu Talib in your hand to accept Islam he would even give up his own father's Islam because he wanted the Islam of Abu Talib this is the father figure of alaih wasallam what I would give even my father's hand I would give it up if I could see the hand of Abu Talib in your hand he knew how much he loved Abu Talib he knew it and so he said even this I would give upol Allah how I wanted to see abuali hand in your hand this is how much he loved him and yet Allah did not why what is the wisdom here we see the wisdom we see the wisdom because the one person who could have physically protected protected him had to remain a pagan he had to remain a pagan because if he converted what would have happened what would have happened immediately he would have lost the leadership he would have lost the status he would have lost the protection he could have offered and so Allah knows best Allah knows better even thanam you don't know and I know you needed Abu Talib you needed him to do what happened to you and so Abu Talib remained who he remained because that was his one claim to fame that was his one claim to power you are the son of ABD mutalib how can we oppose you and because of that power the prophet could preach as he preached it was only after the death of Abu Talib when Abu took charge that the prophet had to leave mekah and go to Medina he couldn't he was going to be killed it was only after that and he had to be who he had to be Abu Talib I mean he could not convert and also of course there is also the wisdom here that is clearly that Allah mentions in the Quran clearly the wisdom of nobody can dictate to Allah what Allah wants to do not even and in this is a clear indication that our Prophet even if he's the greatest human being he is not God he is not a Demi God he is not the son of a God he is a human being he does not control control the lives of other people including his own Uncle you cannot guide somebody just because you wanted Allah only Allah guides somebody whom he wants to guide even as he said in his first to his own daughter Fatima I cannot protect you from the fire of hell it's not mine to do so and this clearly shows there are many Muslim groups out there that have taken this love of to to an extreme level and they make him out to be literally a God or a demigod and in his own lifetime we see he couldn't protect his own Uncle because Allah had a higher wisdom than him and notice as well with this insh we will conclude for this week notice as well the example of four uncles of the Prophet each one of whom occupies such a different level lineage means nothing in Islam it is your own actions four uncles all of them children of ABD all of them direct uncles ofam and all of them have places different from one another the highest of them Hamza no one of the sh occupies a higher level than him Hamza the of the sh and then there is Abbas who is one of the great Muslims but he cannot be compared to Hamza or even of the 10 Elite he is a Muslim and he converted later on and he was not of that level of the 10 Elite and he was of the righteous and this is abbd the father of Abdullah Abbas so these two are Muslims the one at the height of the ranks the other alhamdulillah at a good level but not at that level as some of the higher and then you have two who did not convert to Islam you had Abu Talib and you had Abu laab as for Abu Talib then he is the highest person ever amongst the non-muslims in the history of our religion no one occupies a rank higher than even though he's still not a Muslim and asked the prophet islim asked the prophet your uncle he benefited you so much weren't you able to benefit him back listen to this Hadith his own brother is saying that my brother helped you so much couldn't you help him a little bit back and the prophet said yes I did I did because of my Dua for him that Allah allowed me to make one Dua for him Abu Talib has been removed to one of the outlying perimeters of the fire of hell and were it not for my Dua he would be in the pits and the depth of the fire of Hell in another version we read that Abu Talib has the least punishment out of all of the people of jahannam no one in Janam is being punished lesser than Abu Talib no one and this shows us the benefits that the prophet did manage by the permission of Allah to bring about for what he has done the least person being punished but he didn't get to Jenna because he's an idol worshipper and Allah will not forgive the sin of shik and this is the highest of the cfers ever and then you have the opposite extreme and that is Abu for whom Allah revealed a Surah that we recite in the Quran that curses him till the J of judgment the the one person who is cursed by name in the Quran we already mentioned Zade is blessed in the Quran mentioned by name Abu Bakr is indirectly referenced the one enemy of Islam who is mentioned by name there is no other name amongst those enemies of Islam of that time there are indirect references yes indirect many references to to people without name but the one reference by name to the enemy of Islam is the Uncle of the Prophet we recite the Surah till the day of judgment invoking the curse of Allah upon him for what he had done these are four brothers and every one of them occupies such a different level even though they're all sons of the same father and they're all uncles of the greatest human being who ever walked the face of this Earth all of this to show us my dear brothers and sisters your fathers and your children will not help you on the day of judgment it is what you have done it is what I have done it is what each and every one of us have done in this world and that was the basic message the first message the first that our Prophet gave in public and that is you need to save yourselves nobody is going to help you you need to live righteous lives I cannot help you nobody can help you against the punishment of Allah subhah wa taala inshallah we will continue with next week we have six minutes in for questions yes I I have one off topic question for you um weeks back I think you give a presentation atam and Shar and he just could tell us a little bit about uh that experience one or two tough question that you got and responsible if we can all benefit from that it's topic you know it's not directly relevant to the class um insh we'll just do two minutes of this then try to get back to the class uh last week uh the uh Mah the brothers at FedEx invited me to give a presentation to the workers there the the people there where everything runs on time I heard mallah at FedEx uh and it was called basically uh you know what is the Sharia is it something to be scared of or something to be worried about and I gave a short presentation there and alhamdulillah there was a good turnout there and there were some very uh tough and very specific questions and that's fine I always welcome such tough questions it's better that they ask me than they ask somebody else um so uh you wanted to know one of the tough questions um well there was one lady there who definitely had done some research she it's clear or she had been misinformed or whatnot right so when I said for example that yes there are elements of the Shar so obviously the question is always about cutting off of the hands and the stoning of the adulter this and that all these questions of the Shar about you know this is a part of the Shar you all know me that I am not a progressive I don't think we should get away with this I am not somebody who wants to reform Islam inside out uh I believe in our tradition and I am a firm follower of the Shar as it was revealed to the prophet at the same time I'm pragmatic and realistic and I try to be a part of the modern world and so when I said for example that yes our sh did have these laws and this is how it was for many centuries that the thief's hand would be cut off and this would happen but we as American Muslims we're not asking for this to be implemented as the law of the land and it is true I'm not asking for the Constitution to be changed and the Shar to be instituted we understand that we're a minority we understand that we have to obey the laws of the land we're not asking for a revolution at all we said that said this very clearly so she had done her research or she had been told this so she goes how can you believe in the Shar and not want to cause a revolution and bring about a change in the laws if you're faithful to your religion because the the what they have been told right what islamophobes tell them is that every Muslim desires to overthrow the law and to Institute uh the Shar right or else they're Hypocrites to their religion so she's basically getting this from her sources then she's throwing it back at me how can you believe in the Shar and not want to cause a revolution how can I trust you basically in this regard uh and this is a very Frank question it's a very and I'm happy she asked it I welcome any difficult question insh and so I said to her because we have precedent in our religion our religion allows for this our religion allows for this our religion clearly allows that we live as a minority peacefully in a land without causing any harm to the majority not wanting to overthrow the majority and the status quo and the example of this is the Muslims of abisinia which we're going to come to in two weeks from now inallah tal the Muslims of ABIA provide a role model framework for us as Muslims in America and I have to be very Frank here brothers and sisters there are many Islamic movements in the Eastern World whose goal is to establish right I am not talking about them at all in the Eastern world I will talk about them in the west and I will say any movement that has as its goal to establish a should not be doing so in the Western World this is naive this is political suicide and this is UN Islamic even you cannot live as a minority in a majority land and your goal is to overthrow the majority this is foolish you are deluding yourself neither does our religion allow us to be double faced we have to be very clear here our religion does not allow us that's why I don't like the word secret da I don't like it the da was Private not secret we are not allowed to in the Masjid preach quietly guys we're going to want to Revolution and then public we say oh guys we're peaceful citizen no our message is the same what we say in public we say in the mjid what we say in the mjid we say in public if we believe otherwise we should leave somewhere else and not live here this is my message to every Muslim if you genuinely believe that you're not allowed to be Allah Abiding Citizen then don't be a la Abiding Citizen go somewhere else but don't be treacherous and don't live a double face because that's going to cause harm to you and to us so I told the lady that we have a precedence in our religion I'm not criticizing the where it exists I'm not criticizing uh the cutting off of the hand you know islamically I seek Allah's Refuge as a verse in the Quran what do you want me to say to that from any Muslim saying this is J is backward Allah says in the Quran that when you catch the thief then you cut off his hand how can I criticize that you know anywhere in the world but I am saying you asking me this question is irrelevant because I'm not asking for it to be implemented here I'm not asking for it to be implemented in America we have the precedents in our religion of Muslims immigrating to abisinia thousands hundreds of them not thousands hundreds of them and their condition to the negas and the negest condition to them was basically what we are and that is you let us be Muslims and will be a part of your society and be peaceful citizens right you don't interfere in our religion we're not going to interfere you know in the in in in overthrowing the the the the laws of the land the Muslims of ABIA did not plot and plan to overthrow the Nashi the Muslims were not planning to take over Nashi right even when Nashi died and the next ruler came they live they lived their lives until finally the prophet called them back to Medina in the seventh year of the hij and this provides a working role model for us it's not exactly the same there are differences but overall there's a working role model and that is that we're allowed to live as minorities in a non-muslim land and we respect the laws of the land and they in return should give us the freedom to be Muslims if they don't give us the freedom to be Muslims then we go and find somewhere else to live we don't have the right to be treacherous this is not a part of our religion we're never allowed to be treacherous never is never allowed in Islam and that is to promise somebody something and say yes I promise to be a law abiding citizen and then you go and you bomb and you plot no if you don't want to do if you don't promise them go do go somewhere else in the world I'm saying right don't and you want to curse and preach against the country go and do it somewhere else but don't be a part of the society and give your land and your oath and your and your uh you know visa and your passport and then in your heart and in your speech you are a traitor that's not our religion that's not our religion and so I said we have precedence in this regard and when I I told you this you couldn't respond to that but I mean alhamdulillah I mean I firmly believe we do not have a problem islamically to be a part of this country yes there are issues we're angry about and we resolve them in a legitimate Manner and that's my da is always about this inshallah going through the happy me the middle insh t one question about the topic so that we get to the topic yes is it true that ABAB is given two drops of water every month day because he Fe on the location of the question is is it true that Abu laab receives two drops of water every Monday because he freed two slaves when the prophet was born there is a Hadith inani that mentions this and it is in an authentic Hadith and therefore uh even Abu laab uh received something which is minuscule but it is still nonetheless symbolic and that is that he gets two drops of water two drops of water uh for having shown happiness at the birth of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam where does this narration come from uh I can look it up for you but it's in but I can look it for you exactly and give it to but it is in with this in we need to we need to conclude for in you can sorry don't worry yes don't worry

Channel: Memphis Islamic Center (MIC)

Views: 183,095

Keywords: Prophet Muhammad, Shaykh Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, Abu Ammar, Islam, Muslim, Memphis Islamic Center, MIC, Quran, Koran, Sirah, biography of muhammad, Prophet Mohammed Mohammad, life of Muhammad, Mekka Macca, Medina Madina, Misconceptions islam

Id: 3jhWEIITj5I

Length: 77min 19sec (4639 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 29 2012