 As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. As-salallahu ala Sayyidi Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. Subhanaka la ilma lana illa ma alam tana inna ka anta al alim wa ala hakeem wa la hawla wa la quwwati illa billahi la ali al-Azim. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome to another session of Acquainting Ourselves with the Messenger of Allah, As-salallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. This is our ninth session out of ten next week. It's our final session, insha'Allah. And we will end next week, insha'Allah, in the blessed month of Ramadan. So, I want to wish everyone an early Ramadan kareem. May Allah SWT make it a month of immense benefit for us and our families and for all of the Muslims around the world, as well as all of humanity, and insha'Allah, the trials and fibrillations that we're all going through due to the pandemic, insha'Allah, will be lightened upon us by our Lord, Allah SWT. So, we are part one. This is chapter two. This chapter is called, The Prophet's Perfect Qualities of Character. And we're going to start here with section 17, insha'Allah, ta'ala. So, in my translation, by Aisha Buli, this is page 64. Section 17 is called Compassion and Mercy. Of course, this is a very important section. Encompasses or epitomizes the khuluq, the character, or ethics of the Prophet, as I mentioned in the past. We call it the famous Hadith al-Rahma. Al-Rahimuni, al-Rahmahum al-Rahman, al-Rahmum man fil ard, al-Rahmum man fis sama, al-Rahmum man fis sama. So, that the most beneficent, the most compassionate, the most merciful, shows mercy to those who show mercy. Show mercy to those on the earth and the one in heaven in no anthropomorphic sense. We'll show you mercy. And we said that this is the Hadith that children learn at five years old. This is the Hadith that sets the foundation for their education, Islamic education, for this is the Hadith that first acquaints them with the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, because Rahmah is a great virtue that we want to cultivate. So, it begins as for compassion. Qadi iyyad al-Rahimahum Allah, he begins section 17. As for compassion, tenderness, and mercy to all creation, Allah said about him. And here he's quoting again and the translation here says Surah Yunus 128, but this is at Tawbah. This is the very end of Surah At-Tawbah, those two beautiful verses at the very end, Laqadajyaa akum rasoonun min anfusikum. And he quoted these earlier. We've quoted them in the past. He quoted them there for a different reason. But these verses begin, verily there has come unto you, a messenger from among yourselves. And we said, anfusikum is also read as anfasikum, from the most noble among you. And the latter reading is considered a shahad reading. It's not multiply attested, so it's not recited in prayer. It's not considered authentically Quran because it could not be established through multiple channels, but has the strength of a hadith. And then he says, aazizun alehi ma'aneetum. So she translates, grievous to him is what you suffer, or it grieves him that you should perish, that you should suffer. So the hymn here refers to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And then it says, khareesun aleikum, anxious for you, or deeply concerned is he about you. Meel mu'mineen wa r'oof al raheem. Compassionate is he, merciful to the believers. Right? So that's at Toba verse 128, a beautiful ayah describing the character, the mercy of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Then Allah says, he says here, wama arsalnate illa rahmatin il'alameen. We only sent you as a mercy to all the worlds. And we said in previous sessions as well that this is the quintessential prophetological verse in the Qur'an. This is the equivalent of our John 316. Remember we said that whenever a Christian wants to make a convert very quickly, he wants to give him something like, for example, if he's on the the bar train or the subway, something like that, and he wants to make some da'wah to a non-Christian, he'll quote John 316, which is basically a Christian theology or Christology in a nutshell. I would say this is comparable to that. That this is a beautiful summation of the very essence of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, wama arsalnate illa rahmatin. And we said that Allah describes him with a noun saying rahmatin. We did not send you except as a mercy. We did not send you except that you might show mercy. He doesn't use a verb. He describes the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as rahmatin and a noun or a mustar. An ism in Arabic describes the very nature of that thing that that's who he is, that he is essentially mercy. Rahmatin lila'alameen. What is lila'alameen? There's a difference of opinion as to what lila'alameen is. We did not send you as except as a mercy to the worlds. What is the worlds mean? Some of the Mufas-Saleen say the meaning of this is everything other than God. In other words, all of creation, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is created, but he is sent as a mercy to the rest of creation because he's the best of creation. That he's better than, and this is by consensus, he's greater than the Kaaba, he's greater than the Loh, he's better than the Arsh in the Kursi, he is the best of creation, he's better than Jannah. And then the question arises, if he's better than Jannah, then what's his reward? Right? If he's better than Jannah, what's his reward? How can he be rewarded with something that is inferior to him? And of course the answer from the Ulama is, well he will get to Jannah, but he will be in the presence of Allah SWT. He will enjoy the highest type of union with Allah SWT. So his Jannah is Allah SWT. And the Jannah of Jannah is actually the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that Jannah itself is honored by having the Prophet within itself. So another opinion is that al-Alamin means jinn and ins, as they are called in the Qur'an. They're two weighty things, jinn and ins. So think about the four elements, human beings are made of the two elements, water and earth, if you will. And then you have our counterpart, the jinn, wind and fire, right? So they can see us but we can't necessarily see them, but we believe in their existence. And we believe in the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam when he tells us about the jinn. So some modern hermeneuts of the Qur'an that want to sort of read the Qur'an through the lens of modern science, there's a few things you can do with this, but some people take it to extreme measures and say, well the jinn are actually microbes or something like that. We'll leave these weird opinions of some of the modernists today and say sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, as well as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has described the jinn in numerous hadith, and that the jinn not only have sentience, right, like all living things, sentience, the Latin word meaning that they feel things, they can sense certain things, right, so even animals have sentience, they feel pleasure, they feel pain, they have senses, but here al-alameen means the sentient as well as the sapiential beings, sapience, which means wisdom or aqal, right, so here al-alameen according to some of the exegetes means jinn and ins, in other words those created entities that not only have sentience but have sapience, they have intellect and that the revelation, the wahi, any wahi, the revelation from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is always understood through the intellect, the intellect is primary, that's why if somebody receives the Quran and they don't have sound intellect, they're not responsible to believe in the Quran because you need an intellect to understand the Quran, so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam then is the bridge if you will between a basic awareness of God, a basic awareness of the existence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala which many philosophers and theologians argue is something that is innate, something that is natural to the human being, any human being using their intellect, using their mind will come naturally to the conclusion that there is a singular creator to everything. So the Prophet then is a bridge between this basic natural awareness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that every human being possesses and a deep gnosis, a deep sort of intimate knowledge or what we call ma'rifah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the Prophet is a bridge between that because he brings us the revelation that he is the means of the revelation so in this sense the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is رحمة للعالمين because he's giving us the wahi, the kitab of Allah, he's teaching us by example how to have a deep intimate ma'rifah gnosis of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and as we said ma'rifah leads to محبة to unconditional love and when one has unconditional love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then one is saved inshallah ta'ala by the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala even if one has mistakes in عبيدة now we try our best to correct our عبيدة and this is something that is important and we should have downplay but ultimately we may say things we may do certain practices that are actually counter to our tradition out of ignorance and that's why we we ask we make toba to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ask Allah to forgive our shortcomings and ultimately it is our love of Allah and his messenger that will save us there's a famous hadith of a man who who was a sinner and he died but before he died he instructed his two sons by saying that when I die cremate my body and then climb to the highest mountain top you can find and scatter my ashes to the wind and his son said why would we do that and he said I don't want Allah to be able to reconstruct my body on the yom al qiyama so that I won't have to stand judgment now that is an incorrect belief if you believe that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not have the power to reconstruct your body even after it's been incinerated and scattered to the wind then that's kufr that's technically infidelity now that hadith continues that this man on the yom al qiyama he was reassembled by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is al qadr he is omnipotent inna allaha alakuli shay'in qadir Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has power over all things so he reconstructed this man and when he asked and Allah knows best this is for our own edification Allah is not asking a question because he doesn't know something allaha alakuli shay'in alim Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is certainly omniscient but when he asked the man why did you do that why did you instruct your sons to do that he said I was ashamed and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgave the man even though he had this air in his in his aqida so this is something that it's obviously important for us as Muslims to understand theology at a deep level but we have to also understand that by and large the awam you know the masses of people this is not something that's a priority for them we should keep the religion quite simple and islam is is a simple religion not not a religion for simple minded people there's a difference here but islam has a as a basic creed and salvation in islam is not a difficult thing we'll get into that later but the essence of our theology is al ihlas and this is just a few verses long and this is what we should teach people and unless you're going to be you know a discursive theologian or a polemicist or something like that or if you just simply have an interest in studying theology at a deep level which is certainly possible you don't need to get into the debates of the relationship between the vat of Allah the essence of Allah and his sifat and his attributes and and the calam of Allah uncreated or created really this these topics don't enter into don't enter into the discourse of the vast vast majority of human beings and the early ma as early ma we should know and as professors we should know that we should know that sometimes that we delve into these things they could cause actually more confusion amongst the people now we should stick to broad-based principles Qulhu Allahu ahad say God is one Allahu samad lam yeled wa lam yulad God is independent he did not be yet nor was he be gotten meaning he's not somehow caused by something he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't make an effect that's equal to him there's nothing comparable unto Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so as we said the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam then is that bridge between the basic knowledge of God awareness of God that is innate with within all human beings just from the intellect the mind and a deep ma'rifah intimate knowledge leading to mahabah leading to unconditional love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that's nurun ala nur or the community imam al razi and others when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says nurun ala nur in ayatul nur chapter 24 verse 35 i believe the meaning of this is naqal and aqal like revelation and intellect working together he continues your qadi ayat he says part of his excellence is that Allah gave him two of his own names so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam two of his own names saying and the ulema specify here many of the mufassereen they say this part of the ayah is is khas it's it's for the believers because that's what it says but before that the prophet's concern it grieves him that you should perish deeply concerned is about you this is more universal this is a amma this is for all of humanity this is all for jinn for all of jinn and ins but then bin mu'minina r'uf al raheem this is for the believers this is a special type of concern merciful and compassionate is he to the believers and these are two names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah is al r'uf he's al raheem and notice with Allah there's definite articles he is the most compassionate he is the most merciful the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam however is a reflection of these divine names at a human level right so we should all try to emulate as it were Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in his divine qualities doesn't make us divine it makes us pious believers right this is a hadith there's weakness in the hadith but the ulema quoted adorn yourselves with the qualities of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and we mentioned this before in the past as well many many ulema including imam al suryuti and ibn ajiba and imam al ghazali they've written commentaries on the asma of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the the glorious majestic names the majestic and beautiful names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they said that with all of these names there's a there's a there's a human element that we can there's not necessarily not a human element there's a there's a understanding of these names that we could appropriate into our lives at a human level right so if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is ar-Rahman and he is ar-Rahim you know the infinitely merciful the infinitely loving and compassionate we can also be people of compassion mercy and love in a limited human sense in that in that way mirroring Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it is related that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said none of you should come to me with anything about my companions for I do not want to go out to you except with a clear heart so the hadith is in abut al-wud and atid midi that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he wanted us to formulate that sorry he wanted him he wanted to formulate his own opinions about people right that he didn't like this what's known as qila wa qala he said she said what we would call sort of gossip or hearsay the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam did not want to hear things about people without going out and meeting them first and formulating his own his own ideas about the person part of his compassion qadi iyad continues part of his compassion towards his community was that he made things easy for them he disliked doing things he disliked doing certain things out of the fear that they would become obligatory for them he said if i had not been compassionate to my community i would have commanded them to use the seawak right the tooth stick the toothbrush if you will every time they did will do hadith is in bukhari and muslim so what he's saying here is that the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam would sometimes leave certain practices on occasion because he knew that if he that if he was unwaveringly consistent with those practices then future jurists muslim jurists the jurists the fuqaha would have considered them as far as obligatory so he wasn't totally consistent in those practices and this is from the mercy of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam so one of the things is the the use of the seawak with it or the tooth stick that he would use it quite often but not always another thing ramadan that's that's mentioned here by qadi iyad ramadan prayers the tarawih sometimes he would do those prayers perform those prayers in his house and sometimes in the masjid that he didn't fast every single day his dislike of entering the kaba itself during the pilgrimage lest it become obligatory and become a hardship for the umma that he would shorten the prayer qadi iyad mentions if he heard a child crying and that's a practice that he would do to make things easier for us aisha said the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was never given a choice between two things but that he chose the easier of the two right and this goes back to the hadith we quoted the beautiful hadith we quoted a couple of weeks ago yassiru alatu assiru wa bashiru alatu nasiru and we looked at some of the rhetorical structure the parallel structure of this hadith and some other hadith as well and how they're they're incredibly composed beautifully and exquisitely composed in their syntax and their rhetorical power so this hadith the translation is something like make things easy for people and don't make them difficult and give people glad tidings and don't scare people right don't use a scare tactic give people glad tidings it doesn't mean you know not to tell people the truth and you know there's there's certainly things that we should be concerned about the punishment in the grave and the yom al qiyama right the the adab al qabur and the hesab on the yom al qiyama and and the fear of jihannam and things like that that's true but generally we should be giving people glad tidings because ultimately the the knowledge of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is a means of salvation for people and salvation for for our understanding of salvation is that is that it never ends Allah says in the Quran about the denizens of paradise about jannah that they will eternally abide or perpetually probably a better translation perpetually abide therein because nothing is nothing is intrinsically eternal nothing has al qidim at thati except Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but he gives jannah which is a created thing the quality of perpetuity or immortality so he will also give that quality inshallah ta'ala to our souls in jannah so that we will continue in perpetuity to live in jannah by the permission and will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so he was easygoing right Sahelul khuluq as his as his companions have described him easygoing disposition ibn masrood said the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was careful when he admonished us fearing he would tire us and the hadith is muslim and bukhari according to the translator here admonish means to teach or to advise or to warn right that he did not want to overwhelm his students the sahaba and this is a mark of a great teacher a great teacher is very patient a great teacher um will knows how to build upon uh um previous lessons um doesn't get to the conclusion of things or to the answer of questions even if there if there are students in the class that are asking questions uh that are not related completely to the topic or um if you know that the professor is or teacher is speaking about very basic things introductory things and there's a student who wants to know advanced things then the teacher knows not to answer the questions at that time doesn't mean that the teacher doesn't know the answer it just means that it's not beneficial at that particular time to reveal the answer and this is again part of the wisdom of being a teacher so the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he was very careful about about um tiring out sir the sahaba um when he was admonishing or teaching them he would give them things and dosages if you will so you can digest them think about things and then he'd give them more because really in art form teaching is is not an easy thing and it must be done very carefully all right and the greek word obviously for teaching a child is pedagogy pice meaning child and ago in greek meaning to lead so you're leading a child right um so it's it's a very very delicate process especially if they're children because those are things that children don't forget that you're setting a strong foundation he says here aisha radi allah was writing an unruly camel which was recalcitrant and and she started to hit it repeatedly and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said you must have compassion the hadith is in bay haqi all right so here he's talking about a camel an animal right rahmatil al alameen so he is a mercy to um to all the world including the animal kingdom that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said another hadith that don't take the backs of your riding beasts whatever they are horses or camels don't take them as being pulpits in other words don't just sit on your animal and start you know pontificating and giving these long sermons because that's that tires out the animal that's that's um that's that's putting undue stress on the animal so here he's talking about animal rights he centered the sahaba ones because they burnt an anthill he centered the sahaba ones because they took eggs from a mother bird and the mother bird started flapping its wings and he said return these eggs uh to the mother bird so he did not approve of of animal abuse this doesn't mean that we should all be vegans and you know really interesting some um some modern people how they prioritize certain things i mean you know it seems like the intention is in the right place but then you think about the contradictions of some of their positions you have people that go into you know restaurants and and and start yelling at people because they're eating eggs and saying you know this is a this is a huge this is a a life and you're you're eating something that's alive and it had a name but some of these people are also completely pro-abortion uh even in the third trimester i mean it is very strange you know save the chicken save the whale save the trees but kill the babies because my body by choice right i have bodily autonomy so this is uh it's very interesting and it's really a worship of the nuffs right they kind of control themselves they they act irresponsibly they do things they fornicate and then they get pregnant and then they want to justify it to themselves um that uh this is this is a moral thing i'm doing because it's my body and i can do whatever i want with it but they know deep down inside that uh there's certainly the the conscience right uh is is is bothering them and you can you can and this is something that you can uh see with with their testimonials and some of them are not bothered and you can you wonder about their humanity anyway um so the prophet says asha here you must have compassion that's the end of section uh 18 sorry 17 was brought to the prophet and sorry this this this section is called integrity probity and contracts and maintaining ties of kinship and in my lights of the chapter of the sections before um uh the end of class next week and i said once uh when a gift was brought to the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he said take it to the house of such and such a woman she was a friend of khadija uh she uh she loved khadija in ayah she said i was never jealous of any woman the way i was jealous of khadija when i heard him mention her if he sacrifices sheep he would send it to her friends her sister hale hala bintu khalid asked for permission to enter and he was happy to see her a woman came to him and he received her with kindness and asked after her very considerably when she left he said she used to come to us when khadija was with us maintaining ties is a part of belief and the hadith isn't uh mukhari so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam's first wife khadija passed away um radiallahu alayhi sallam she was his first disciple she passed away in the meccan period and asha was saying that that even as late as the medinan period the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam would maintain uh ties with uh relatives of khadija as well as friends of khadija he would continue to honor them um and show them uh kindness the prophet used to carry umama his granddaughter by zaynah on his shoulders when he prostrated he would put her down when he stood up he picked her up so this also reminds me the famous story where the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was standing on the pulpit and he was giving a khutba and juma and his very young grandson imam al-hursayn following his grandfather's voice wandered into the masjid and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam descended the minbar and picked up his grandson and hugged him and went and then re-ascended the the pulpit and finished his khutba while holding imam al-hursayn radiallahu alayhi sallam in his arms um this is a testament to the merciful and tender nature of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam um with uh with his you know not only his wives his companions not only with animals but also with uh with children and as we spoke about in the past the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he continued to show good character to even his enemies that were trying to attack him and this is what was so astounding to abu soofya and ibn al-harb who um just before the conquest of mecca became muslim and uh he was just absolutely smitten that the the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam uh continued to speak to him with respect um and and then he said to him you know may my parents be your ransom you you still speak to me with respect after all these years or i've uh try or i've tried to you know kill you and and um and led you know these military campaigns against you and have killed many of your uh companions in battle but the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam did not give up even on his worst of enemies he continued to show them good character and there's a lesson in there for us again this is a difficult thing to do but he is our ideal and we should try to strive for this type of perfection so the excuse of well that's the prophet and i just can't do that he's just so great he's still a human being i mean the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he still got angry he he became depressed at times and you know when he met wahshi the man who killed his beloved uncle hamsa uh he the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he just he he he became very very angry and he said may i never see your face uh again i mean that's that's a human being right um and then eventually um he welcomed wahshi and and um and uh he he showed him kindness and mercy as well so using this excuse of well that's the prophet and he's perfect and he's immaculate and who am i am nothing uh the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is also a human being and many of his um any of his um reactions to certain situations are are are very similar to what any human being do uh initially um but uh if we see how he uh treats situations um eventually uh and his wisdom behind dealing with certain problems in the society even within his own household uh that's certainly something that we can emulate and at a certain level and strive towards this perfection you're never going to hit perfection we're not going to reach the holok of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam but that's not the point we strive towards it it's like an old football coach named bill walsh um who was the coach of the san francisco 49ers in the 1980s when the 49ers were a dynasty and um he used to tell his quarterback uh joe montana he would say to him when you throw the ball to a receiver aim 12 inches right in front of the numbers and anything other than that is imperfect and you've missed the target now 12 inches and from the numbers can you imagine that on a 40-yard pass because that was perfection you aim towards perfection um and you're obviously going to come short but you'll you might come close to it um so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is is our perfect role model and we should try our best to emulate his character and not make excuses and we fall short we fall short and make toba but we keep trying now we said abu qatada said a delegation from the negus that's the king of apesinian najashi arrived and the prophet got up to serve them his companion said let us do it for you and he said they were generous and honored my companions so i will do the same for them alabay haqi so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was himself serving the people right that he was doing that himself in the hadith of khadija she told him may Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam may Allah bless and grant him peace so khadija says to the prophet rejoice by Allah Allah will never bring you grief you maintain connections with kinsfolk you bear all and you give help to those who are in need you're hospitable to the guests you help people to get what does there do um and uh this was after the the um the context of this statement of khadija is after the descent of the initial wahi later to qadr in mecca the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam this is something else that's astonishing about the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam again showing his humanity that he didn't know initially what had happened to him he's nabil ummi he doesn't have this formal education in religion he's not familiar with ahlil kitab and their beliefs necessarily uh he's an unlettered prophet and he has this experience in this cave um and he is very very sincere um and thinking that maybe something bad has happened to him maybe he's been possessed by a jinn or something uh like that this is a very honest reaction and this is something that's um pointed out uh for example this book by leslie hazelton it's a very good book she wrote not muslim as far as i know she wrote on the psychology of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam saying that this reaction shows the great sincerity of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam that a a charlatan of some sort would not have this type of initial reaction if someone's trying to pull the wool over your eyes and claim to be a prophet when they're not um they they would come down the mountain with their chest out in the air and proclaiming that he that you know i am a prophet and and you must obey me and but the prophet's reaction was one of distress so he went to his wife khadija to the kubra radi allah ta'ala anha his wife and it was khadija who reassured him that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would not humiliate you uh by this type of demonic possession or mental illness or something that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uh knows certainly knows that you maintain ties of kinship you're good to the orphans uh that you're good to the guests that you provide things to people who need things but here's the thing also is that she's no expert in matters of religion so what do they do they go to an alam and this is the proper method all right allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says ask the people of ad-dhikr ask the people of ad-dhikr here probably means revelation revelation in general nor the quran in particular of course the quran is a revelation but ask the people of revelation if you don't know right so she's not an alima but waraqa bin nol fell her cousin this christ christian scribe he was an alim so they go to waraqa and the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam recounts what had happened in the cave and waraqa he says this is his judgment about as to what happened to the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam and indeed the great namus the great nomos nomos is the greek word for sharia or sacred law the great law has come to you others say nomos or namus is that others say that namus here is actually the arabic of pinuma which means the great spirit has come to you the spirit of inspiration just as it came to musa alaihi sallam right and of course we have the famous prophecy of a Deuteronomy 1818 that a prophet will come from the brethren of the israelites who will be similar to musa alaihi sallam Deuteronomy 18 verse 18 that sounds like a valid part of the Torah we cannot confirm nor deny but certainly there is a prophecy in the Torah that sounds like it finds its fulfillment with the prophets of allah so that's the end of section 18 now section 19 is called his humility in spite of his high position in exalted rank he was extremely humble and not in the least proud says qadi ar-yad there is proof enough of that and the fact that he was given a choice between being a king prophet and a slave prophet and he chose to be a slave prophet right the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam lived in a state of self-imposed poverty right he could have been a king prophet like dawood alaihi sallam suleyman alaihi sallam huge palaces servants right but he chose to be a slave prophet because the majority of his people all of his people were living most of his people were not were not affluent people and he was a man of the people sallallahu alaihi sallam so he lived among his people he was a man amongst men when he did that israfil said to him allah has been generous to you because of your humility to him you are the master of the children of adam on the day of rising and the first for whom the earth will open up on the day of rising and the first to intercede abu nu'ayn so the famous hadith the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam man towada alilla rafa'ahullahu wa man takabara wada'ahullahu remember this hadith uh it's beautiful hadith uh that is has incredibly incredible ethical uh import that whoever humbles themselves before god towada before god rafa'ahullahu allah will raise whoever humbles themselves before god allah sallallahu alaihi sallam will raise the rank woman takabara and whoever takabara right this form five verb the meaning patterns of form five uh is is to consider it's considerative whoever considers oneself um to be to be kabir to be great to be high and mighty wada'ahullahu allah will debase and humiliate and we find uh an echo of this statement as well in the new testament gospels and the synoptic tradition uh that whoever is whoever is is low will be made high whoever is uh high will be made low this type of thing have mercy have have beauty where allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will raise their rank but if you deem yourself big and high and mighty uh then allah subhanahu wala allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will debase and humiliate you and we see that with people like uh nimrood very interestingly uh nimrod which according to the urlama was the first man ever to claim to be allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the first one whoever made a claim to deity was this king of babalon at the time of ibrahim alayhi sallam and according to the exeggents uh allah sent his servant a mosquito or a nap or something that flew up his nose and bit him and the pain was so intense that nimrod would have his servants come into the room and beat him over the head with their shoes as a way of sort of dulling the pain you know going into sort of a a days and then the pain one day was so intense that he ordered his servants to beat him harder and harder to the beat him to death this is the end of the man who claimed to be god right allah sent a tiny servant if you look at the world today is one of our teacher said recently in an amazing talk that um the king of the world today is this corona virus this thing that you can't even see a servant of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala everything is in everything is is in in service and a servant subservient to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that is just um you know it's it's put us all on time out as it were uh we have to think deeply about these things the state of the human um the state of the human mind the state of the human heart when it comes to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala what's happening in the world um what's happening with with religion with faith um um i mean something like this should should should uh provoke deep contemplation within ourselves as to why these things are happening and how we can approve improve ourselves and that's you know the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was very very deeply reflective person and the urnama and the awliya and the sahabah were very deeply reflective and they were also very um self-centering um that they were constantly trying to work on their faults they they were not people that were satisfied with themselves and they would turn the finger inwards and if something would happen in their lives a trial or tribulation some sort um they they would take it as a a a a means by which they can make toba and and improve their character and improve their relationship with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and come back into the good graces of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala of course when things like this happen to a prophet it's never a type of punishment the prophets are not punished because they can't perform conscious sin it's always a way of raising their rank but even with believers it could also be a means of raising our rank now it could initially be a type of punishment right but then we recognize that and we try to rectify our behavior and by doing that making toba and making that rectification it'll be a means inshallah by which allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will raise our ranks as well and that's why the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said the affair of the mu'min is always good it's always good even if there's some sort of disaster or trial or tribulation we understand why things like that happen we live in the dunya but we try to learn from those things and these types of things should provoke a type of toba and return you know toba tabba means to turn to reorient ourselves towards allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to the end of the day everything is good for us he said sallallahu alayhi sallam i am a slave i eat as a slave eats may sit as a slave sits all right and um there's a story mentioned that he was sitting on his knees one time and he was eating something and a jewish were in pass by him and she started to mock him and say look at your prophet he he eats like a slave i mean this is how he's sitting on the ground eating something and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he said alas to be abd am i not a slave right am i not a slave of course he's a slave of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he's a servant of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he is um he is a a servant that has this beautiful toadour this beautiful humility with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he's not doing these things out of ostentation and that's another thing we should check our intentions we do certain things you know that um why are we doing things is it is it simply is it simply for the pleasure of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or are there other things that are operating within us so we have to really take ourselves to a task and and be honest with ourselves very difficult for us to be honest with ourselves there's a a saying of ibn atailah a very beautiful saying that i'll mention here it's not mentioned here by qadi iyad but ibn atailah he said an act of sin that leads to humility right toadour and brokenness in qisar like brokenness what catholics would call contrition it's a beautiful word contrition to be contrite it's one of the um the prerequisites of of toba of repentance and catholicism is to feel a sense of brokenness the word contrition means to be broken a sin an act of sin that leads to humility and brokenness before god is better than a good act that leads to arrogance is better than a good act that leads to kibir to arrogance and there was actually a debate amongst the urlama as to which state is better if you believe this or not which which state is better uh the state of a person who never sinned or the state of someone who did sin but made toba right now ultimately they said the former because that's the um that's the uh the the way of the prophets that they don't sin consciously but the fact that there was the debate on this issue it's quite telling that that um that human being sinned by nature and the urlama say here kulu bani adham is needs a nuance meaning there that it's not including the the prophets all of the children of adam are sinners and the best of sinners um uh uh are are those who make toba towaboon those who reorient themselves back towards allah subhanahu wa ta'ala one of my teachers said there are two kinds of people uh in the world the one who enters a room and says salaam alaykum to the people in the room and when they don't answer him he thinks to himself what's wrong with these people that they're not answering my salam that's one type of human being another type of human being is the person who enters into a room and says salaam alaykum and the people don't answer him and that he thinks to himself what is wrong with me that these people are not answering my salam what did i do did i wrong them what did i break the quorum of some sort uh did i show bad adab of some sort right two kinds of people the prophet used to write a donkey and would have someone ride behind him on it he would visit the very poor and sit with the poor again these very difficult things to do you know we we read these things in books and we think well i am how many times have i sat with the poor and um we should strive to do these things he answered the invitation of the slave and sat among his companions mixing with them he would sit down among whichever part of the company he came to so that you know if you walked into a room and the prophet was there you wouldn't even know which one was the prophet you know it's not like the one sitting on the throne or the pulpit or the you know the the the fancy green cushion or something like that he was just he was amongst the people he's amongst the man he was a man among the man as i said in a hadith written by the prophet said do not lavish praise on me as the christians lavish praise on the son of mariam alayhim as-salam so this hadith is in bukhari it's mentioned by imam atir midi in the shema'il i believe as well that uh don't you know the translation says lavish praise on me but really flatter me in terms in which isa alayhi salam uh kama in terms of or similar just as isa alayhi salam uh was flattered or given titles that he did not merit or that breached the um parameters of acceptable theology because there really is no way of overpraising the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam right praising the prophet had is limitless the poet said for in the for in the for the lord sallallahu alayhi salam there really is no end to the uh to the virtue the virtues of the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam but don't make him into more than a man right and this is what the so what did the christians do we have to ask this question when we read this hadith you know what did the christians do with isa alayhi salam some of our brethren they say well you're celebrating the birth day the molad of the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam this is what the christians are doing and what is that is that what he's talking about celebrating a birthday and um i mean that uh i think that's a pretty weak argument um the point here is not to make him more than what he is right the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam you know when he entered medina and he realized that or he was told that the jews were fasting on yomi ashura he says we should fast too you know um and a day before or after right um so um you know this this this certainly doesn't mean you know that you know oh you know he's he's imitating what the jews are doing and i mean this is the prophet himself giving the command to the muslims we have a greater claim on musa alayhi salam he said right uh the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam is by consensus greater than isa alayhi salam surah mariam is basically a molad it's a narrative of the birth of isa alayhi salam allah is praising the birth of isa alayhi salam how much more should we praise the birth of the best of creation sallallahu alayhi salam if musa alayhi salam's exodus from egypt is is commemorated by the jews how much more should we commemorate the hijrah of the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam or the command of the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam so that's not what he's talking about here he's talking about giving the prophet a rank or a station of some sort that that is outside the bounds of acceptable theology so what did the christians do with isa alayhi salam that made him into the literal son of god and what does that mean that means that they said that isa alayhi salam his essence that the essence of isa alayhi salam is divine that isa alayhi salam when he was a human being is really what's known as a hypostatic union of two persons the human jesus of nazareth but also the logo so the son of god who has an eternal who has an intrinsic pre-eternality so they're ascribing to isa alayhi salam a divine quality so don't do that with the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam don't say the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam has an inherent divine quality that he's all hearing he's all seeing he's all powerful this type of thing this is what the christians did with isa alayhi salam and this is what we're told to avoid we're not giving any divine qualities to the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam everything that he has is from Allah swt who is the ontological source of everything period so this is a good place to stop inshallah ta'ala we are in section the middle of section 19 inshallah next week we'll finish inshallah i think there's 24 sections in this chapter if i'm not mistaken 25 sections it'll be a bit difficult but maybe we can manage it so we'll see you next time inshallah ta'ala o barakat