 In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. Al-Habdullilah, our Lord the Merciful. Wa'sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa la Alihi wa sahbihi ajma'im. Subhanaka la ilmala ilmama al-lamtana, innaka antal al-Alim wa l-hakim. Wa zahuma al-limna ma yana fa'una wa nfa'ana bimata al-limuna wa zidna min-fadka al-luna ta'leema. Innaka ala kuli shayin qadir. Wa'sallallahu ala sayyidina Muhammad wa la Alihi wa sahbihi as-salam. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Alhamdulillah, it's an honor and a pleasure to be back here at MCC, Alhamdulillah, when you keep coming back to a place again and again, and every time you come back, you remember a few more of the faces and you may remember a few more names. That feeling of familiarity is a very sweet feeling that Allah has put in the lives of believers when we come together again and again for Allah's sake. Alhamdulillah, thank you guys for coming out on your busy Friday night. Tonight, we want to speak about as an introduction to tomorrow. So tomorrow is going to be our, it's a Seerah intensive, but it's Seerah, probably not in the way that you've ever studied it, at least maybe I don't think so. It's a unique look at the Seerah and I'm going to talk about how we're going to go through that for tomorrow. But today, for now, we need to set the stage for why we need Seerah in the first place. For many people, unfortunately in our religious education, the first thing people want to know about when they learn about Islam is they say, you know, what are the five pillars? Right? Or they'll say, tell me the laws of Islam, what are the rules? And oftentimes, if any of us have converted to Islam here, for example, you know, the first thing you were taught about were your, your, the things that you have to do. And what I noticed was that a lot of us, especially who came to Islam later on, I was, I was 18 and I became Muslim, Alhamdulillah. And one of the things I noticed was that we actually have very little familiarity with the life of our Prophet, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And if we have such little familiarity with the life of the Rasul SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, imagine what the average person outside, what they know about him. In fact, the strange thing is this, I could ask a stranger on the street or even one of my own family members, you know, tell me something about Confucius, Buddha, what are your impressions about them? What are your impressions about Jesus? What are your impressions about, they can have something to say, even if they don't know some details, they'll have something positive to say. When it comes to the Prophet Muhammad, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, the best of creation, the very, very best human being Allah ever created. How is it that we have not taken the Seerah in and lived it in such a way that in society people know something about our Prophet, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam? And what I've often found is that people really actually know next to nothing. They may know that he lived in Saudi Arabia, you know, Mecca, Medina, maybe just that. And so what I realized is for a Deen that says, La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah, there's no God except Allah, and you have to say and believe Muhammadur Rasulullah in order to become Muslim, we really have not focused on Muhammadur Rasulullah. He did a very good job with La ilaha illallah, I think, in Dawah. And so our entire approach to the Seerah, we have to kind of understand and it takes us to where we are right now. We're living in times of great confusion. We're living in times where the most basic facts are being contested about reality, whether it's about morality, what's right and what's wrong, whether it's about sexuality, whether it's about our identities, gender, for example, family structures. Even things are simple. Like I was gone for 16 years and before I left, for example, marijuana was considered a drug, okay, like a drug that's illegal. And something that maybe people did when they were at a certain age and they went astray and then it's not something that was considered respectable, it's something that the law was against it. And now I've come back in society, for example, and I'm seeing that people's attitudes towards drugs in general have changed a lot. And I don't know about you guys here, but in Canada, we go around in the same place where my kids can buy ice cream and buy milk, we've got store selling cannabis. So why is this related to the Seerah? Because when things get confusing, when you don't know where you are anymore, when your morals are like, wait, I'm in my country, in my culture, in my neighborhood, I just don't I'm not recognizing life because it's changing so fast. This is where we realize that Allah swt created life actually to test us. And because life has these confusing things that come up and different scenarios, this is why that guidance was created. Because human beings naturally, our trend, unique from animals is that we create different cultures. We create different cultures, different habits, different ways of life. And so because we have this way of producing systems, we also in our cultures have different ways of behaving and acting. When we have different ways of behaving and acting, some of those things are harmful, some of those things are beneficial. How do you clarify what's right and what's wrong? This is where the first thing we need to understand about Seerah is why we need guidance in the first place. Because when you lose the sight of what's happening, when there's a big chance that in the near future, we may all have all of our relationships through some sort of artificial intelligence. I was just talking to Zeeshan Wa on the way over and we were saying that marriage isn't such a state where we don't even know if people will be more satisfied with a robot companion like an AI companion than a real human being. What do you do when psychedelics are becoming such an escape for people in society that now just to feel good, they would rather take a psychedelic than to just have a coffee with friends. It's getting there. Will we be in control of raising our children? All these questions are coming up, right? What's going to happen when, due to climate change, let's say things become scarce, disasters start to happen, how are we going to process what's going on in the world with the events around us? So the Seerah, what it's there to do is to encapsulate the guidance that Allah wanted us to know. The Quran and the Sunnah is through a context. A lot of people don't realize that, you know, what is the first, what is the greatest source of the Seerah of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, what is the greatest source of it, right, was that? So a lot of people say the Hadith, in fact it's the Quran, in fact it's the Quran. And only by understanding the Seerah of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam could scholars have understood which laws are meant for which, in which way. So I'll give you an example. There are different ayats about the status of alcohol, for example. We have one saying, you know, that it's something that has benefit and sin in it, but the harm in it is worse than the benefit, okay, that's one. We have an instruction, do not come to prayer while you're drunk, implying that there were times when people were getting drunk and Allah wasn't saying anything. Then we have an ayat saying that completely alcohol and gambling and other things like that completely stay away from them. And so how would you know which ayat you would put in which place, like which came first and if it was a gradual prohibition of alcohol, for example, you would need to know the life of the Prophet peace be upon him. You needed to know the Seerah of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam because there are some verses which talk about peace. There were some verses that talk about protection of people and there are some verses that talk about defending yourself. And some verses that talk about being tough and rough with those who oppress you. But is it supposed to be, are Muslims always supposed to be on this setting of a fight mode always on? You need to know the Seerah in order to understand that, that there are contexts for the verses of the Qur'an that came down. You have a question sweetheart? Yeah, what's the question? Okay. Insha'Allah. So I couldn't hear you. Okay, maybe. Okay. Thank you so much. So, Alhamdulillah, where was I? So we need to understand that to understand the Qur'an itself and the hadith, you need to know the Seerah because it puts everything in place. As Dr. Omar I believe said, the hadiths are like you're looking at Polaroid photographs like they're snapshots because if you just take one of my statements during the day, let's say I said like, I'm not hungry. It was a lunchtime. I already am not hungry. Is that going to apply in the evening time after this program? No, I'm going to be hungry. So the thing is that's something that was a snapshot what the Prophet ﷺ said at this time. And the Sahaba knew. There are some times where people after the Sahaba would try to implement a hadith and then one of the Sahabi who knows when that hadith was said, they said, no. Aisha'Allah said, no, no, no, that's, you guys are getting it wrong. That was said in this historic event for this historic reason. You just took it out of context and therefore you're practicing your sharia incorrectly and she would correct people and say, look, I'm the wife. I know exactly when my husband said these things. So this is where Seerah is is there to guide us. But it's also not just about the rules. It's not just about that. See, so Aisha'Allah, she said something. She said, had had the Quran come down telling the Arabs not to drink alcohol, they would have said, we're never going to make you can't give alcohol. And had it come down and said, stop committing Zina. They said, we can't stop committing Zina. But she says the Quran came down talking about Jannah, Jihannam, talking about Allah firstly, talking about these eternal realities. And so the Arabs first believed in that. And then when the laws came down, they were able to accept them. Right. But I would even argue that Aisha'Allah, when she mentioned that statement, there's also a background, which is that the Prophet had a certain character that came even before all of those things so that people knew who he was. And so when he said something, they believed him. Because if someone who is not respectable in your eyes brings you a piece of truth, you will not believe it. You won't believe it. And yet the Prophet, for 40 years, they grew up with him. They knew him. And he wasn't a leader. He wasn't an orator. In fact, he was not considered exemplary in the sense of any particular skill or particular talent. But he was known for his trustworthiness. It's like if you could have any one quality to prepare a prophet for their mission, would it be a speaking manner? Would it be great strength? Would it be strategy, skills? Allah made him trustworthy. And so they knew his entire life before he became a prophet. And therefore, when he came with his message, they at least couldn't say that you're not a good person. And that actually gave him a lot of credibility when calling people to Islam. And this is why one thing we have to look at with Seerah that we often don't get, if you just want to learn about Islam through rules, is that you're not realizing how much of the personality of the Prophet has shaped Islam. We are a dean that without the personality of our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, if you took that away from Islam, that's what happens when people get a bad impression of Islam because of some type of maybe some very rude or closed-minded, misogynistic, violent, extreme, radical, whatever bad impressions people have about Islam. I'll bet you it's because the character of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was extracted and the husk of what was left over, people called that Islam, right? And so this is why the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told him, he said, he said, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam what did Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam say? He says, Tabimah rahmatin min Allahi lin talahum, Allah says, and it was only by the mercy of Allah, by Allah's own mercy that you were soft towards them, that you were lenient towards them. Walaukun tafavan halidal qalbilam fadbumin hawlik And Allah says to the Prophet, and if you had been rough, harsh, and hard-hearted, they would have scattered from around you. They would have left you. Who the sahaba? Faafu anhum wasdaghfir lahum wa shawirhum fil anamru And so forgive them. Like whatever wrongs your own companions are doing, just let it go. And ask Allah's forgiveness for them and include them in the decision-making that you have. Consult them, even though you're a prophet and they know much less than you. Include them. And so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's character became one of the most important things that you can really only get if you understand the seerah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. This is why, but it all goes back to Koran. This is what I'm saying. You can't separate it. And this is why I shout. Somebody came to ask, tell me what was the character of the Prophet peace be upon him like? Because remember, she outlived him by many years. She outlived him by about 40-something years, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So, and this is one of the wisdoms of why she was married so young to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam because she would outlive and transmit the deen. And she's one of the most prolific narrators of hadith. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, she, so somebody asked, what was the character of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam like? And she said, because it's interesting because you can ask what the laws and rules and teachings of a person are. But if you wanna know how they really were, who are you gonna ask? You're gonna ask their spouse. And so he was very intelligent that he went to go ask the one person who knew him best. Our wives or our husbands, you know, our spouses are the people who know us after our parents. Maybe, you know, it's arguable, but spouses probably know you best. And if your spouse can speak well about you, honestly, when it's like just honest, candid talk, then if they're a good person, if their spouse can say they're a good person, I would trust that person is actually a really good person. But the reality is a lot of spouses, when you get them alone, I know a counselor, so I can tell you, you know, they have some good things, but some negative things as well. But here, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's family life is an open book. None of anyone who's married here, no one's marriage is an open book, not even to our own children, right? And yet the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's life is not only one open book through one wife, but through multiple marriages that he had, the wisdom for what? For us to know what he was like as a real human being and to prove to the world that one person can make something up, maybe. Maybe your wife, just out of honor and pride, can say, yeah, he's okay, but you know, he's really good. But many, many people cannot lie like that, who know you very, very closely. So she asked, he asked, what was the character of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam like? And he said, she said, don't you read the Quran? He goes, yeah, of course I read the Quran. She said, his character was the Quran, simple. Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says in the Quran, Inna ka la'ala khuluqin azeem, that you are on an exalted standard of character. You're on a very exalted standard of character. In fact, those words, the fact that your Lord, your Creator has praised you with something and said you are an exalted standard of character and no one else has praised like that. It's a Shahada from Allah about how the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was. But Allah also made all of creation say the same thing. And that's how you know that this is something that is true. Now, so Aisha said that, that, you know, his character was the Quran and the narrator of the Hadith, whose name was Saeed Ibn Hishamin Aamir, he said, at that point, I just thought I should just get up and never ask anyone anything again. Why? Because he's like, if that, if she just spelled it out for me, his character was the Quran. So I read the Quran, I understand his character, I don't need to ask anybody anything. He said, I was about to not ask anyone any religious thing again. Why? Because the Seerah and the Akhlaq of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, what he's saying is this, I feel like that's enough for my Islam. I feel like that is enough for my Islam. And this is why when it goes back to learning about Islam, if I had to, if someone had to learn any one thing about the Dean, I would say learn about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam first. Learn about that first. It's even more than proving there's one God to be honest with you. Because knowing there's one God is actually something that can be known through the fitrah. You can innately also know, but when you see the life of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, it helps you realize there's only one God. If you really understand that, why? Because when you look at his life, you realize he was the best human being. When you look at the fact that he's the best human being, you realize that he's truthful. When you realize he's truthful, you'll take the Qur'an as truth. So really it's about proving that. Whereas I've seen many times where people are convinced they're monotheists and it's like, okay, great. Are you ready to take shahada? And you'll say, okay, say this. La ilaha illallah, okay. Shadoom, la ilaha illallah. And I say, okay, Ashadu anna and I bear witness that Muhammad, let's say stop. I've heard, I've seen this, stop. I'm not confident yet about that last part. The first part, I got convinced maybe either through, maybe you already knew it inside or maybe you got convinced, but that last part is what holds back people. And this is the last part that we are trying to emphasize. So the other thing to realize, what does sira even mean as our introduction to sira? Is it a little bottle of water, something like that? What is the word sira even mean? Please thank you. It means it's comes from sara yasiru, right? Sayir is a journey, but what it really means is to traverse or to walk somewhere, sara yasiru. So sira, what it really means literally is the way he walked. How did he walk? And that's why in Arabic, even up to today, what do we call a resume or a CV in Arabic? What do we call it? Sira thatiya, a sira thatiya, your personal sira. So your resume that you submit is your own sira. It's my own biography, right? Because you're supposed to list what you did. I studied here, I worked here, here are my interests, you know? And so this is where the word sira, really what you need to know is not just events to sara yasiru, thank you. So sira, the other thing is this, a sira is not just about rattling off events. There had been siras like that, where it's just like on this day, the prophecy that was born on this day this, this battle, then this battle, then this battle, then this marriage, and people are left uninspired by that in many ways. A lot of people feel like simply recounting dates does not tell you that much. I can tell you for example, like my father was born in this year, in this place, then he did this, then he did this, then he did this. Okay, what does it tell you about how he was? What does it tell you about how he dealt with situations? So our approach to sira has to become something more than simply a historical chronological timeline, because even if you didn't remember the dates, that's not even important. That's not even important. If you got mixed up, what was Bader first or Uhud first, or the Trench first, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you know how the prophecy lived his life, even if you don't remember exactly the details of how it's put together. And so this, one thing that we also kind of need to be convinced about is people, when they take an exemplar, we take the prophecy as an example because he's a perfect example. He has every single thing that you could want. And one of the scholars that wrote about this that I wanted to share was Sheikh Said Suleiman Anadoui. And he wrote in his lectures, he had a series of eight lectures in which he talked about out of all the people that you can follow. You know, people follow other people, whether we admit it or not. People follow other people. Let me ask you just in general, who are people that are followed in our time? Who are exemplars in our time? Whether good or bad, who are people following? Name some. Or Bron James. So people look at him and they wanna be a basketball player like him. Okay, what else, who else? What, for life direction, personalities, outlooks. Who else are people following? What we don't realize is that actually everybody in society is actually the product of numerous different personalities that are having an effect on them, right? Who else, give me an example. Tony, Tony Robinson. Okay, mashallah. Anyway, there's so many. There are so many. And it can become controversial, right? The point I'm trying to say is people follow from politicians, okay? You guys have a lot of politicians people follow and they're famous, as you said, like singers, actors, martial artists, right? So you have people who are in roles of influence, but when you look at who people historically used to follow, what are my historical exemplars? Who are the historical exemplars of humanity? Give me examples. Yeah, usually people of knowledge, yeah. People of knowledge or piety or great heroics, give me examples. What was that? Zanzu, okay, art of war. Yeah, yeah. Who else do they follow? Philosophers, like who? Imam Ghazali, okay. Okay, who else? Entanglani on a global level. Yeah, yeah. Aristotle, Socrates. Amir of the Qadir, Amir of the Qadir. Okay, who else? Yes, in the back. Jesus, perhaps one of the greatest people taken as a model or an exemplar is Jesus. An-i-salaam, Isa. Who else? Saddin, okay. Yeah, in many ways, yeah. But you see, Saddin, Imam Ghazali, they're kind of subsumed in the Islamic example of the Prophet's life. Who else? Outside of the Islamic example. So, for example, Buddha. Okay, Ghouta Buddha. Buddha, if you look at it, at some point up to perhaps maybe a quarter of the planet, roughly, is following a civilization that's influenced by him or Confucius, for example. You had Moses, a-i-salaam, you had that. Look at all, look at India, right? You have examples of Krishna, Ram, you know, their deities who are, they consider historical figures. So, these are all examples that people take. But how do you know which one is the right one to follow? This is where this scholar, Masha'Allah, he said that there are four criteria to look at. Because every one of those leaders had a distinguishing quality. But they only had one of those qualities, right? They only had one. So, like, for example, could you follow Buddha in family life? You couldn't follow Buddha in family life. You couldn't, right? You could you follow, let's see, you couldn't follow Confucius in Art of War, that type of stuff, in military context, you couldn't do that. Isalaisalaam. Yeah, no, exactly, no family life as well. You couldn't really follow, follow that example. So you have these people who are really, really good in some things. And then in other things, you just don't have anything, they just nothing to get from them. So what are you gonna do in that gap? You're either gonna find someone else or you're gonna make it up as you go along. And this is exactly what we're coming to right now. That in every other civilization, the reason why no civilization has been able to maintain its moral values is because as times change, they looked to their exemplar and they said, okay, great, like we have a good example of charity or peacefulness or meditation or wisdom, but can you tell us about business? Nothing there. Okay, we're gonna make it up on our own. Or can you tell us about how to live married life? Oh, never got married, okay, fine. How do you live in society? Oh, you went out to meditate under a tree, you never lived in society. So immediately at that point, they had to say, well, we'll fill in that, according to what? Our mind, our desires. And this is why they're left going in all these different directions. And this is why, Alhamdulillah, the Muslims are still on a path that is something that people can identify with from all the generations previous. Now, the other thing is this, interestingly, when we look at all the profits that were sent to humanity, some say that there was one narration, but it's not strongly authenticated, that there were up to 124,000 profits. 124,000. Now, we know that all profits are perfect people, right? They're sinless as a profit. So any one of those profits could have had a great life story to guide other people. In fact, they did. In their own times, those profits were the exemplars for their own people. But now, when we look at after all those profits, how many of them do we really know about? A handful. The Quran mentions 25 profits. The Bible mentions many, but how many details do we have about their lives? And so what you realize, even if it's, let's say Musa al-Isra, so we know a little bit about his life story, even in the Quran, from Fira'un and Fira'un, Bani Israel, he crosses the sea and then he goes into what is now Palestine, into the holy land and he has his experience with Bani Israel and so on and so forth. But other than a narrative that you can, you know, a few lines, you really don't have any idea of what was his relationship like with Allah? How did he pray? Right? You don't know that. What did he teach you about when tough times happen? Can you look into his words and get any solace from that? You really can't. When you look at Isra al-Isra, who was, you know, one of the greatest known human beings in the world, if not the most known human being. al-Isra, he is born of a virgin and we know there's a miracle that he does when he's a small child, where he takes a piece of clay and blows into it and it becomes a bird by the will of Allah. And then he literally, we don't have any record from that time when he was young, up until the time, until he was about 30 years old. What did he do as a young man? We don't know. Where did he go? We don't know. What did he study? We don't know. All we know is that he comes back on the scene. I'm talking about even in the Gospels, he comes back on the scene preaching and he comes back and he visits these coastal areas and the fishermen who are the early, you know, the early apostles, they give up all of their belongings and join him in his Dawa, okay? And he gains a following there until the last few years of his life are what is known about him. But even within that, there's discrepancy about what exactly happened and there's no clear understanding. They're just trying to put it together. We're not even sure if his words that we know, which of his words are where his words, which of them were put in there by the Gospel authors. The Gospel authors themselves, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, none of them met Jesus, Al-Hisa. Where did they get their narrative from? We don't even know that. So absolutely no chain of connection back. So now there are some things as well that we're not even sure. Like we know that there's guidance in this but we don't know where to take it from, right? So even me, before I became a Muslim, you know, I was born as a Hindu and I kind of looking for guidance, I found myself not being able to relate to a mythological example of certain figures. And then when you go to Jesus, you can fall in love with Jesus, right? Al-Hisa. But then you realize it just kind of, there's that all roundedness is not there. And then there's the historical questions, the historicity. And then you realize, as this our Sheikh tells us in this book that I'm just summarizing as an introduction to Seerah, that you notice that out of all the prophets that none of their Seerah has survived in great detail. In fact, none of their words have even survived in great detail. And maybe that is for a divine wisdom. Maybe there's a real reason why Allah made the Seerahs of all the previous prophets basically fade away so that we just know enough about them to recognize that they were prophets and some of the other religions still have a little bit to hold on to. Just enough to recognize that the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was in fact on the same path as them. But the only Seerah that we really have preserved from A to Z is the Seerah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. In fact, did you guys even know this? We don't even know for sure 100% about the location of the grave of any other prophet beside the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. We don't know. I mean, yes, we know Khalil in Palestine, we know Hebron in Palestine, is where they say that's where Hebron is buried. And we as Muslims accept it. But as the Ula Ibn Hajar mentioned, as a foreshore, 100%, that's where it is we don't actually know. But we know exactly where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was born, we know where he went, we know where he passed away, exactly where. We can still go to visit him today. So Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we know where the masjid is. So there's a historic aspect. So he mentions that there are four aspects to Seerah or I should say four aspects, not to Seerah, but to any exemplar. That if you can fulfill these four aspects, then you deserve to be taken as a total example. But if you can not fulfill these four aspects, then it's questionable whether you are a perfect example or not because you don't have all the requirements. The first thing they mention is that the historicity, tariqiya, the person who you follow has to be historically accurate. They have to be real. First of all, they have to be real. They have to have existed. And that's one thing that we don't realize that some of the exemplars of people, we're not even sure if they existed. Buddha, even though it has had a great impact on humanity, we don't really actually have an independent verification that he existed. When you look at one of the things that I grew up with, I grew up in the temple. And I grew up learning about many, many nice teachings of Hinduism, very peaceful, very spiritual teachings. But aside from the polytheism, of course, that was the problematic aspect. But even in the stories that they have and the tales, I remember the priest saying to me, we said, are these real stories? And he said, I have my doubts. He said, I have my doubts. Right there, I was like, how can, if you have a doubt, then why are we following this? Because people, when they know something isn't real, it could be the best story in the world. But you will not follow it. And this is why the only answer to not being believable or historic is atheism. It's like on the other side, right? Either you tell yourself, okay, it's a myth and I'll buy it, but otherwise, the only other choice you have is to reject it, right? So this is one thing, it has to be historical. And we know from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that his Seerah is completely preserved. In fact, SubhanAllah, the preserving of the Seerah was so important to the Muslims, it started the recording of all history for Muslims. So we started recording history as a civilization because of Seerah. And as you guys know, history is a huge field, in the Islamic canon. In fact, why do we even have the Islam system because of the Hadith? And that's how our sister mentioned, we get so much of our information from that. And is it something that we Muslims invented? No, it's something the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself told us to do. He said, let those who are present convey to those who are not present, right? He said, because how often is it that the one who hears it second hand understands it better than the one who heard it in the first place? And so you had many Sahabi who heard things from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, but they were not actually scholars because they had heard that one teaching. But they passed it to someone who was collecting all these different teachings and they gathered it into a body of knowledge that we call the Seerah or the sacred law, right? For example, then you have the Imams that came from that. You have Imam Bukhari as well who came from that. So the Imams of Fiqh, the Imams of Hadith, So when you look at that preservation and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam encouraged, he said, He did not make a priesthood as a condition to be able to convey Islamic teaching. He said, convey from me, tell people something I said even if it's just one verse. And so he created an open system of sharing knowledge and information. Now when that started to proliferate, just think about this. During the last Hajj of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, you know how many people they say attended the last Hajj? How many? They say about 100,000 people. Roughly, there's no way of counting. 100,000 people observed the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam making his final and one and only Hajj. And at that Hajj he said to pass on what I am doing, right? And on top of that, then those Sahabi, we know about 10,000 of them by name. There are many, many Sahabi. How many women? How many children? How many elderly people? And they never narrated, so we don't know their names. But we know about 10,000 of them. And then from those 10,000, we know exactly who they passed it to. And we know the Tabi'in. We know who they passed it to. We know who they passed it to. In fact, anything that we talk about in Seerah, if you really wanted to ask, where did you get that from? It takes research, but we could go back to where you got it from. And this is one thing about the historicity of the Seerah where that should be a condition. If you're going to follow somebody, let's take out mythological fictitious or quasi-mythological figures. And so that's the first thing that we look at when we look at whether you should follow someone or not. Are they historical or are they not historical? And when you look at the sciences of the Seerah, not only is it coming from Quran, Hadith and Seerah, but then we have specific genres just for the miracles of the Prophet SAW. We have something called the Mojizat. We have something called the Khasais, which are a collection of all the qualities of the Prophet SAW that only he had. There's a whole genre of books about that. There are books about the Shamail of the Prophet SAW. So you have his life story, but then you also have, okay, not from a chronological perspective, just what was his personality like? What did he just, what did he wear? What did he like to sleep on? How did he clean his teeth? And we have entire genres. And you can fill a bookshelf just about a very, very specific aspect. What color did he like to wear? We've recorded that. What kind of bottoms did he wear? What kind of top? What kind of shoes? How did he take a bath? All of these things, what foods did he like? So it's to such an extent that we had the Sahaba who for the first time in history are observing a human being at every single moment of his life that it's possible, every single moment. Then the second thing is the kamal, the kamal. So the perfection. The exemplar has to be perfect. If you're not a perfect exemplar in what you do. So for example, you mentioned Lebron James, right? If he was a so-so basketball player would anybody take him as an example? No. No. Same thing with let's say a politician who people are really, really enamored with. If he wasn't at the height of popularity where he had some perfection in a quality that he had, people would not follow. And so the person who you follow has to have that quality of perfection. And this is why, so Padala, when we mentioned that people outwardly know somebody very well but inwardly they could be involved in all kinds of scandals. And we see this as well. Somebody who outwardly is doing great, right? But inwardly their life is in shambles. And this is why with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam not only was he being publicly observed but he was being privately observed as well. In fact, there are details about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's life that if they were said about us we would be very embarrassed. We would be embarrassed. Wouldn't you be embarrassed if somebody knew the secrets between you and your wife about certain personal things? You'd be very embarrassed. And yet the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was a complete open book. And the reason for that why don't we say, oh, let's keep the marriages private? No. It's because he wanted, Allah wanted for us to see that publicly and privately he was the same person. And publicly and privately he was completely sinless and he had no faults. So now when you look at perfection as the second thing, by the way, it's not just in those people who followed him. So you might say, okay, well obviously his companions and he used to call his companions his followers' companions, friends. He wasn't that kind of leader. So that's an example of a perfection of leadership. But somebody could say, well, of course your friends are going to say good things about you. What about your enemies? Let's look at what his enemies used to say about him. Right? That's how you know a person. Let's ask their enemies what they say. SubhanAllah, 40 years he spent among his people and he was called Al-Ami, the trustworthy one. When they wanted to settle disputes, they came to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. When he came with his message, they said all kinds of things about him. They said, you're ruining our society. You're a sorcerer. You're a magician. You're a poet. You're lying in what you said in the Quran. But they never said, they never said that his personality is bad. He's a corrupt individual. They could never ever taint him because of that. Right? And yet the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, his greatest enemy throughout his life was Abu Sufyan. Okay? In terms of through the course of his mission was Abu Sufyan. Abu Sufyan, while he was fighting the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, do you guys know, and many of us know this, that the son of Abu Sufyan, he was a Muslim. He joined, he joined the enemy of his father. And who else from his family was with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? Anyone know? Well, his daughter, Um Habiba, she became a Muslim. And she was married to a man, a Muslim man, and they made the first migration to Abyssinia, to Ethiopia. And when they went to Ethiopia, a lot of people don't realize that her husband, actually, he must have gotten mixed up in the society over there, and he left Islam, became a Christian. We don't know what temptations were there that misguided him. Maybe, maybe perhaps he did not want to live under the the difficulty of being oppressed by the Quraish, and he, he abandoned her. And she was abandoned by herself, with a child. This is, this is the daughter of your greatest enemy. And when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam came to know of this, okay, he sent a proposal for her. But they're miles and miles apart. So that proposal was sent through Najashi, as they say in our texts. Najashi, who is the king of Abyssinia. And when Najashi, he, Najashi himself, acted as the officiant of the marriage from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was not there to give his own new wife gifts, those gifts were given by Najashi to Um Habiba. Now, Um Habiba, Subhanallah, the news of this, and then obviously she went back to, she came back to Arabia, and she lived with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. When news reached back to Abu Sufyan, now imagine, the man you are trying to fight, the religion that you are trying to extinguish, extinguish. And your daughter has joined these people, but a father will always still be a father, and you still care about your child. So if you know that your daughter has been abandoned by her husband, out on another continent, you're still scared for her. You're still like, you want the best for her. And the Arabs had this, this saying, that when you have camels, and you have a female camel, and a male camel from another flock would come to try to mate with this female that's in heat. What they would do to try to break up that, because they didn't want this camel to mate with their camel, they would hit the camel in the nose, really hard. Because camels are big animals, right? So they would hit the camel in the nose very hard, and the camel would get hurt and go away. That's how they would take the stallion away from their female, the she camel. And then sometimes when you had a really good camel, like it's a really good quality camel, you want it to breed with your she camel. They would have a saying that this stallion, you can't hit its nose. It's a good stallion. I want that stallion to breed with all of my she camels. When Abu Sufyan heard that your daughter who's been abandoned on another continent, and has been left alone with a child, has been proposed to and married by your greatest enemy, the Prophet Muhammad SAW, He said, He said that is a stallion whose nose you cannot hit. Think about that. The one you're trying to kill, you're like, at least my daughter's with a good man. A man that you cannot turn away. I have a problem with you, but our problem is based on principle. And this is the thing, if your greatest enemies can say that about you. When they say Abu Sufyan narrated after he became a Muslim, towards the end of his life he became a Muslim. And when he narrated, he was sorry. Before he became a Muslim, he was brought in by the Roman authorities. And he was questioned by the Roman authorities. I guess probably a kind of like a border. You know, by the authorities. Who is this Muhammad? Who is this person who's claiming to be a prophet in your Arabian lands? Give us the news. And so we have this conversation now recorded in our Hadith books about how he answered the questions. And he never said anything about the Prophet that would imply that he was not a perfect person. A good person. He's just saying, look, he's opposing our beliefs. We don't agree with him. All the questions that he answered. In fact, he answered so truthfully that it is said that even the Roman authority was convinced about the truth of the Prophet ﷺ. So going on. So we have this idea of perfection, right? And because when you have the quality of perfection, then you don't need to look outside. Because what ends up happening is, even if a person is perfect in one area, but they're not perfect in other areas, you begin to lose trust in them. If you have a scholar, like a teacher, even among human beings, and they know a lot of Islamic knowledge, but their home life is not really good, you start, your confidence in that person starts to shake a little bit. If you have a politician that you know, but they're charged for like, you know, some crime or embezzlement or something like that, it doesn't put you, feel that confidence, right? The third quality is shumuliyah. That the perfect example has to be historically accurate and true has to be perfect. The best example, you have to be the best. And the third thing is, you have to be comprehensive. Because LeBron James is only known for his basketball. Marshall, he's a very good basketball player. But if I asked him about raising children, I don't know if he can advise that for me, right? There may be another politician who may understand economics very well or international politics very well. But if you ask him about marriage life, he wouldn't be able to answer it, right? So there may be people who have expertise and perfection in one area. But do they have perfection in all the areas of human life? And let's face it, people are very, very diverse. So we humans have so many different roles that we play, right? So many different roles that we play. Is there any one example that can tell us how to behave in every single role? Think about it. Is there anyone you know in history that you can look at in every single walk of life and get an example from them? Anybody think of any ideas? Anybody? Probably not. Think about it, really think about it, okay? So we know the prophet is the prophet. What are the roles does he have? What other roles does he have? What do you guys think? What other roles does the prophet play? Statesman, okay? What else? Military leader, okay? A judge, eh? A merchant, okay? So fine, you may have some leaders who were business people before, but what are they also military? Did they have that? Did they also have, what are they also judges? And they understand law. What else? A father, a husband, okay? What else? Well, he was an orphan at one point. He understood that life. He was poor at one point. He was poor at one point. He said, he said no one, and we'll talk about this more tomorrow, he said no one's gone through more horror and fear in the path of Allah the mean. He said there was a time when the only thing I had to eat was that which could be hidden in the armpit of Bilal. Okay? Bilal, I don't know who's the freed slave. Can you imagine the best of creation and all he had to eat sometimes was what someone could hide under their armpit? This is our beloved Rasul, so I saw that, right? And nobody was allowed to trade with the Manu Hashan in Mecca. They were boycotted. Anybody who would bring them food, they were under threat of being tortured. And yet he lived through this. So when he talked about poverty, he's not coming with a silver spoon in his mouth. He knows what it's like. He understands what it's like. When we talk about homelessness, when we talk about refugee, when we talk about anything of the such, he understands what that's like. Oppression, he understands what that's like. And he also understands what it's like to have money. Because there was times when he had wealth and he gave it away. There were times as a trader when he knew how to negotiate with people. A trader is not all charitable. You have to be true to a business person, right? If you want to get a business person really annoyed, like a religious business person, just threaten their business with money. They can be very religious, but the minute you start touching the business thing, my money, my money. Now, in order for the Prophet Sallallahu Alaikum, to have made a very good return on the business he did for Khadija, he must have been a good businessman. It's not just honesty. You have to have accurate. And this is why, when he speaks about the market, when he speaks about pricing, when he speaks about how the buyer and the seller, what rights they have, he's speaking from a sense of knowledge. And there are many other rules. We'll talk about them tomorrow, inshallah, more. And then the other thing is this. Even if he didn't go through that himself, there are some things he did not go through. Okay? But he had an interaction with somebody that tells you how to deal with that. Give me an example of something he didn't go through himself, but there's an interaction or a question, answer, or something like that. What's an example? What's the biggest example? The most obvious example? Divorce. He divorced. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaikum, there are divorces that he went through. People don't know this. Yeah. He had marriages, but he also had divorces. But, okay, let's look at the kind of, you know, let's just go on a tangent because you ask. Because people go, divorce? Yeah, you know why? Because the woman who was married to him was, um, was married out of her, not from her free will. Her tribe wanted to be related to the Prophet, so they quickly, without consulting her, married her to the Prophet. Now, she didn't know who the Prophet Sallallahu Alaikum was. So when she came inside and she's like, who is this? Right? The minute he knew, he felt, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaikum felt that this lady does not want to be here, he immediately said, go, you're free. He would never force a woman to be with him. That's an example of divorce. Where even in the little known divorces, he has an amazing example. You're not going to keep a woman who just wants to be with you, right? You're not going to have anybody, a mistreat anybody. But what else, even above divorce, is somebody could say, he wasn't a woman, how would he know what it's like? Okay, we can say that. But what would he like to women? He understood women very, very well. His whole sira, the Sunnah tell you that he knew women so well because he knew how to treat his daughter. He knew how to treat his wife. He knew how to treat motherly figures. He knew how to treat his sister. When his milk sister, Sheema, he hadn't seen her in 50 years. Imagine you don't see someone for 50 years. There's no photographs, nothing. And a lady comes to him when he's in his 60s. And the Sahaba come and they say, there's a lady who's trying to come see you. She says she's your sister. But they all know that he doesn't have any sisters. And he's like, alright, let her come in. And she comes and she's like, I'm your milk sister. Through this and this. When you were with Halima Sadia, that's Halima Sadia's daughter. When you were breastfed by my mother in the desert. And he's like, okay. And she says, and what did she say? He said, and so he recalls. And she said, when you were young, you, you were playing and you bit me on my shoulder or my arm. And when she checked that, she still had the Mubarak marks of the Prophet SAW's mouth on her. And so he knew this is you. And so what did he do? He took off his cape immediately, took off his cape and he put it on the ground. He said, sit down. He wouldn't let his sister sit down on the dirt. He put his own shirt and said, sit down. And then he brought her gifts and he gave her, he made her so happy. He said, if you want, you can live with me. Or if you want, I'll give you gifts and you go back to your people. She said, let me go back to my people. But that's how he dealt with her. When you see, we'll talk about his marriages. We'll talk about how he was with children. We'll talk about how he was with children. When he used to hear, when he used to be praying and he heard a baby crying in one of the houses. Because remember, the houses are huts, very, very close. And so he can hear a baby. So he has enough emotional intelligence to understand that there is a lady who's praying behind me and she probably left her child quickly to come pray with him. Now the entire time that she's praying with me, she's going to be thinking about her child. Or maybe the child's right there and she's going to be thinking, oh my gosh, my kid is, you know, in a beautiful way. But he never found that, he never, he never found that to be offensive or annoying. Instead what he did was he wrapped up the prayer quicker so she could get that to her child. Allahu Akbar. So the Prophet's time understood. What else? What other area did he himself not experience but his interactions showed you? What else? Slavery. Slavery. A lot of people say you don't know what it's like to be a slave. Okay? The Prophet's time was never a slave. Who was a slave to Allah's partner? But this is the point that he brought. That he was subhanAllah. Is there any other religion that anyone brought which called for an end and to end for the freeing of slaves? Is there any other religion? Is there any other religion that gave slaves rights that made them equal to each other, to free people? Is there any other religion where in order to cement that, we'll talk more about the details in tomorrow. But that's a very good point. What about addictions? The alcoholic was brought to the Prophet's and the alcoholic was given a punishment for the fact that he was drunk in public. But after the punishment was given to him, the Sahaba started to bad mouth. And the Prophet's said, don't say that about him because he loves Allah and his Rasulullah. So he knew as well the heart of an addict could be in a very good place. Their iman, their faith could be strong but they're just struggling with something. So nobody can say, you don't know what it's like to be addicted to something. He knew because he knew what people go through. And so this is one thing that he was beautiful about him was we're going to talk about this more tomorrow where he just was all-encompassing and in every single thing that he did, he was perfect. How have you, what about that? You could have somebody who knows a lot of things but they're perfect in one and bad in others but in every single example he showed perfection in that example even in something he's not trained in. So for example in cultivation, in cultivation he once walked by a group of companions and they were cross-pollinating date pollen trees and he said, you know what? Why do you have to do that? If you just leave them they'll grow fine. Right? But why do you have to do that? And so they said, okay, and they didn't cross-pollinate the trees and the next year the crop did not yield and so they said, they said, we listen to what you said and they said, and we heard what you said and we did not cross-pollinate the trees and the crop did not yield and he said, we say, you people know better about the affairs of your dunya. Telling us what? He knew the Prophet ﷺ was the most knowledgeable of all human beings. There's no doubt about that but the Prophet ﷺ is teaching even in that aspect that there are some things that religion can will teach you. There are other things in the dunya that you have to use your mind to know. You have to use your mind to know. There were times where the Prophet ﷺ gave a certain advice, a strategy in battle and the Sahaba said, O Rasool Allah, is this your own strategy? Or is this a command from Allah? He said, no, it's my own strategy. They said, okay, then I have to tell you, we have to tell you a different type of strategy and he accepted. Why to show them that you include people, even people who are below you in rank, you listen to them, you take their suggestions. So this is where the Prophet ﷺ had a comprehensive thing and the fourth thing is that it has to be practicable, realistic. If your exam, exemplar is impossible to follow, then you will not take them as an exemplar. Okay? But the Prophet ﷺ always told people, he said, alaykum bi madhut alaykum. Do only what you can handle. And so the Prophet ﷺ example is one that was practical for everyone. How much time do we have? So this is basically what we want to talk about. But when it comes to why we follow the Seer of the Prophet ﷺ, it fulfills those four conditions and no one else does. If you hold this, if you hold everyone up to these four conditions, that is it historically accurate and preserved and real? Is it perfect? Is this exemplar a perfect example? And not only that, do they span enough areas of life for all of humanity to be able to take an example? And for all time to come, can we keep getting examples from this? And the Seerah keeps giving us again and again and again. And finally, the fourth thing, fine, is that person's example practical? Or did they worship in such a way that nobody else could follow them? Did they tell you to do something that no one else could do? Isal-e-Salaam asked his followers to sell all their belongings and then follow him. That was a condition to be with Isal-e-Salaam. You have to sell everything. Which of us here, if someone said to you, if you want to join Islam, or if you want to join this exemplar, you have to give up all of your possessions? Possibly you'd say that. In fact, what people did was he brought people who were very wealthy close into Islam and they by their own selves gave up all of their wealth out of charity. That was the example that he led. So, Alhamdulillah, what we're going to do tomorrow in our intensive is we are going to look at now that we know why and we are convinced why the Seerah is the number one and only example for us. We're going to look at the Prophet's Salam in three different aspects. Many times when you think about Seerah, let me ask you guys, when does the Seerah begin and when does it end? When do you all think the Seerah begins and when does the Seerah end? I'm sorry? The day you were born. Okay, and when does it end? Okay, it doesn't end. Start before the Prophet's Salam by how much? In the times of pre-Islamic Arabia. Okay, so the Seerah should start with pre-Islamic Arabia and any other opinions on that? Some people will say it starts back from the previous Prophet, Isa, alaihissalam. Some people will say even all the way back from the beginning. Right? Yes, sister. Okay, so the lineage of the Prophet's Salam, that's one place to start as well. Some people could say starting at his birth as well. Some people start Seerah at his birth. Some people start Seerah even right when he got revelation. When does it end? Continues. But how does his life example continue with the Salam? But is that his own life example? Yeah, but if we're talking about, when we talk about Seerah, we mean his biography. Yeah, that's a very good point because that's similar, right? When we talk about his life biography, when does it end? Yes. At his death. And that's where most people will end. And some people say the time of the next Khulafa Rashid. But what about this idea? So is the Prophet's Salam still, is he just a historical figure or is he active in our lives today? Is there any role that he plays in our lives today? Is there any, is there anything like that today? Yeah? Yes, anyone? Anyone? The Prophet's coming through? Okay. Advice and guidance? Okay. What else? A sunnah? So what we don't realize is if we treat the Prophet's Salam like a historical figure. See, when we look at Seerah we have to remember something. The Prophet's Salam had a past worldly life. But he's not like other people where they lived and they died and they're just in the books case closed and you study him like a historical figure. And this is part of the problem today. We study the life of the Prophet's Salam like a figure from history. But when you, especially with our youth in the coming generations, in the coming generations, if we teach it like that, then you put him on par with any other historical figure. And that's why they have this. Oh, who's the most historical figure? Jesus. And you have Confucius and you have, you know, Alexander the Great and the Prophet Muhammad's Salam. But he's not just a historical figure because people also have a hard time relating to somebody who they think lived a long time ago and there's no connection between them. Right? But when we realize that the Prophet's Salam he's still, we're still interacting with him today. We're still interacting with him today. And I'm not talking about some weird spiritual type of like, oh, where's this guy gonna go with this? Like, uh, no, I'm talking about Quran and Hadith. Quran and Hadith. What's the, what's the one most simple, obvious way to know this? From authentic Hadith. Salah? Give me an example. How he's still connected with us today. To Shahad. Okay? To Shahad. But how's he connected to us? So we're connected to him in that way. But is he connected to us? Ah, why? Because what happens? When you say Salam to Prophet, something comes back. So there is an exchange that's happening. It's a dynamic relationship. It's not just like cut off and historic. But this is not taught to us. And I'm talking about all the things like from Ahlu Sunnah, Quran Sunnah, right? And so this is what we're going to explore in the second session tomorrow. Okay? We're going to talk about in the first session, the things that the Prophet did but not in a chronological fashion. We're going to speak about it in terms of what he did. But I'm going to allow you all to lead how we get there. The second thing is we're going to talk about, so past is the first session. The second session is going to be in the present. And what do you think the third session is going to be? The future. Because if we realize the role that the Prophet ﷺ plays in our future, like my future and your future, we would realize that our relationship with him will never, ever end. In fact, it never ended. It's happening now. And it will always be until the day of judgment and even beyond forever. But we do not study this as part of our Sina. And this is why the Sina song which Hamdullah I wrote, it encompasses these three aspects of the Prophet ﷺ. So tomorrow's workshop, inshallah, we'll speak about the past, present, and future. JazakAllah al-Khalil. This is supposed to be a light introduction. And are there any questions before we close? Any questions, comments? The schedule for tomorrow is that we begin at 10 a.m. And then we have a session for about an hour or so. And we'll take questions as well. And then we'll take a 15-minute break. And then have a the session on the past and the present of the Prophet ﷺ. Then we'll have a lunch break. Lunch and thorn. And then we'll go for the last session, the future. Which, if you ask me, if you show up for anything, show up for the last one. Because that's the one that really makes you realize who the Prophet ﷺ is. The reality of the Prophet ﷺ will come on the Day of Judgment. Because, you know why? Because people who knew him and people who rejected him and didn't know him will see who he was. And that's why understanding who he was and what his life was about, you need to know what he's going to do tomorrow. We haven't seen nothing yet, as they say, right? Any other questions? Oh, the glimpse? It's, um, put it this way. He's going to do something for every single human being that no one else will ever do for them. Every human being. Whether you believed him or not, whether you met him or not, before your time, before his time, after his time, he will, he will do something for every single person. I'll do that. And they will appreciate that. Any other questions? Comments? No? Okay, yes. Okay, you can ask afterwards, yeah. We'll talk afterwards. Okay. Jizakullah khayr and see you all tomorrow. I'm Jizakullah and I'll see you all tomorrow.