Early Islamic Mission and Opposition

...sahbihi ajma'een wa man saara'a la nahjihi ila yawm al-deen. My brothers and sisters in Islam, assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Brothers and sisters around the world, Assalamu Alaikum on Facebook Live. Brothers and sisters, welcome back after the short break. And inshaAllah we've got about four more classes to do before Ramadan. We'll decide on whether we'll conduct them in Ramadan or not. JazakAllah khairah hu jamil. We left off in our last talk about the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, where the Prophet ﷺ had now been advised or commanded by Allah ﷻ to go out and tell the people, his family and his own tribe, about... out the new message. All he had to do was tell them that there is only one God worthy of worship, Allah, and to abandon the rest of the idols. He said it with one word, La Ilaha Illallah. There is no deity, no... being worthy of worship except Allah. And what this statement meant, automatically the Arabs understood it because they were Arabs. This meant that they had to forego their entire belief that they had before which their ancestors had left them a point. That was uncalled for, unfounded. How can a people leave their forefather's religion, the whole Arab community? In fact, all the Arabs of the entire peninsula. Their whole survival was based on their forefathers, which had been changed and idol worshipping had been introduced. The first among them to ridicule him was his own uncle, Abu Lahab, who said to him, He swore at him, Curse you. Why did you call us to this? And the Prophet ﷺ used to say to them, it's just one word. And he used to say, among others, Abu Lahab and others used to say to him, if you ask us to say a hundred other words, we will say them. But this word? Never. So the leaders of Quraysh, the different chiefs, They became irritated with this message and they started to become scared. Right? Because the Prophet ﷺ started to have some influence. Yes, in the first three years of his prophethood, it was a secret call. And he chose a place called Dar al-Arqam. A house by al-Arqam. A man named al-Arqam. And he used to call to Islam secretly in there. Whoever embraced, they used to secretly come to this place. And nobody else knew this hiding place except the Messenger ﷺ and anyone who embraced Islam. They were so careful not to tell anyone. and to tell you what happened is that Abu Talib his uncle was approached by his own people as their chief, Banu Hashim, who is the family of the Prophet ﷺ. They had to take care of him. After pressure, we said last time that Abu Talib was pressured into telling his nephew to stop this call. And he started to become scared that his own chief, his own tribe is going to leave him. And they're going to harm the Prophet ﷺ himself. Now if your family harms you, what's left? So they said to him, we will give you one of our sons and you give us Muhammad ﷺ, your nephew. They called him his son metaphorically, in exchange. So they offered one of the most noblest of sons, Ibn al-Walid. And Abu Talib stood up saying, what a ridiculous trade. You want to give me your noble son so I can nourish him and look after him, fatten him. And you take my son to kill him? And one of their chief men, named Jubair ibn Mut'im, he was the eldest of the Quraysh who everybody respected, and his word meant law, basically. He said to Abu Talib, this is accepted, this is a good trade. And that made it even more difficult for Abu Talib. This man is actually a nice man, Jubair ibn Mut'im, he's a really good man, but in this instance, he did a bad thing. And Abu Talib had to now, he was pressured now, the most enormous pressure, this has never happened in the Arab world for hundreds of years. And he said, You guys have plotted for this. You've come to, as a plan, listen to me, Abu Talib is there, the Prophet's uncle, by God, I don't know if he said, by the gods, the names of their own gods, I will never abandon my nephew. I'm going to keep protecting him, even if my entire clan leaves me, and all of you go against me. Here I am. Do what you want with me. You can kill me, torture me, exile me. I will not leave you. When they saw his determination, they gave up. And they backed away. They're not going to kill Abu Talib, of course. But this made the Quraysh people very angry. Abu Jahl, who was known as Abu al-Hakamah. Abu'l-Hakam means the man of wisdom. The Prophet ﷺ called him Abu Jahal. And the Muslims nicknamed him that. The man of ignorance. Till today they call him Abu Jahal. You see, he was a bully. And he had this strong, you know, desire for his own clan. And he was from Banu Makhzum. And they want to always compete with Banu Hashim, the Prophet's family. For hundreds of years they're competing. He can't step down. Too much arrogance. So he started to influence the rest of the leaders. We're going to have to stop this man. Before it gets too bad. The other leaders of Quraysh. They came to him and said. Listen. The guy is not harming anyone. He's just calling his own family. The guy's worshipping in secret. I don't know where he's hiding. A few people have followed him. Most of them slaves and poor people who don't have a position. Yes, Abu Bakr and Uthman and Saad ibn Abi Waqas and the likes of them. Big men, wealthy men. Abdur Rahman ibn Alf. Yeah, they embrace me. There's only a few of them. Look, we're still big in number. Let him worship in secret. Don't worry about it. So that's three years this is happening, but they're keeping an eye. And Abu Jahl, he's burning on the inside, he's thinking something's gonna happen. Meanwhile, the Prophet ﷺ is receiving verses of the Qur'an. And these verses of the Qur'an are having a profound effect on anyone who hears them. Among the first of them is, Surah Ash-Sha'ab. When the baby daughter that was buried alive shall be questioned on the day of judgment for what crime was she killed? These were practices of the Arabs at that time. And the Qur'an was coming down to stop this oppression. Lifting the status of women and girls up and children, uniting people actually together on truth, not on jahiliyyah. Jahiliyyah is the state of the Arabs before Islam. There was no law, it was a lawless place. If you're strong and you have a strong back, you're the master. So people were influenced by this Quran. And news got to the leaders of Quraysh, the enemies, about this poetry that they thought. They thought it was poetry. They called it poetry. So they thought, wow, the guy has grabbed Muhammad ﷺ. The most challenging, competing thing that we're going to have to address, and that is language. Listen brothers and sisters, you might not think that the Qur'an is a big deal, if you don't know about it, that it came down and did all this effect on these people. It's just a book of words, isn't it? Reciters. No. You see, when Allah sends a prophet, each messenger that goes to their people, He brings with Him a miracle, a challenge, that His people consider the ultimate thing for them. For example, in the time of Musa, for the Egyptians, because they lived among the Egyptians, Pharaoh and the children of Israel were the slaves, the biggest thing that everybody respected and thought was the biggest power was sorcery. So Allah brought Musa alayhi salam with what? Miracles that are stronger than their sorcery. In the time of Jesus, Isa alayhi salam, Jesus Christ, son of Mary alayhi salam, his people used to take pride in medicine and healing. Allah gave Isa alayhi salam exactly that, the miracle of, by the will of Allah, to heal the leper and the blind and so on. When it came time for Muhammad ﷺ, what's the greatest thing? Language and literacy. And it was the Qur'an. They used to hang their poetry on the Ka'bah, the best of poetry. And they used to have annual competitions with the rest of the Arabs of the entire deserts of Arabia. And the one who had the best poet, that part of the world became the prestigious part. The prestigious. And to this point it was Mecca. The greatest of their poets was a great chief. And among the elders, who was a very important figure, his name was Al-Walid ibn al-Mughira. He is the father of Khalid ibn al-Walid. The famous Khalid. Al-Walid will later on embrace his Islam. And his brother Abaq. When these words are being recited, Abu Lahab, who is the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, and Abu Jahl teamed up. Why did Abu Lahab team up with Abu Jahl? And Abu Jahl liked that? Because Abu Lahab is the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ. If Abu Jahl... had spoke out, some people might say, well, you just got it in for him because you're from that tribe and you just don't like his tribe. So he took his own uncle from his own tribe and that became more convincing. They used to go and stand at the borders of Mecca whenever people would come in, let's say from Yemen or from other places and tribes, because they don't know what's really going on. When they come in, they start hearing the news. And the first thing they wanted to do was deter them, stop them from even meeting with the Prophet ﷺ because they thought if they met with him, what would they hear first? His Qur'an. And they were getting hypnotized by the Qur'an and they were really getting affected. So Abu Laha Ibn Abu Jahl used to stand at the borders, and Abu Jahl would say, Hey look, welcome to our place. You're welcome to do any trade with us. You're a nobleman, you're our guest. But there is this man who's really crazy. He just came out recently, and he's gone mad. He's telling people stuff, sorcery and things that are making him go crazy. So stay away from him. It's probably a jinn that's possessed him, or something like that. And then Abu Laha would come in and say, And I'm his uncle. I'm just here to warn you. Because we care about you. I'm his uncle. He's my nephew. And then he would believe him even more. One time, a doctor came in. Doctors in those days had different medicine to today. Not as advanced as today, but he was considered a doctor. He came in one time from one of the Arab tribes, and they told him the same thing. Right? So what did he do? He entered and he went. He didn't listen. He thought to himself, I'm knowledgeable, I'm educated, I'm... And a doctor means that he could read. Not many people could read at that time, or write. 90% of them couldn't read or write. So he came in and went to the Prophet ﷺ himself, said, I'm not going to listen to you guys, I know how to read and write. And he listened to the Prophet ﷺ's reciting of the Qur'an. When he listened to it... He said, these words cannot be from a human being. And after a little while he embraced Islam, subhanAllah. So they couldn't deter everyone away. So, a few days and months went past. Abu Talib is now protecting the Prophet ﷺ. He's being protected by his uncle, no one can harm him. And they started talking about Abu Jahl had in his mind killing the Prophet ﷺ one day. He just wants to kill him. But nobody would buy his words. However, in a few years time, that's what everyone was about to do. Just to kill the prophets of the life of man. For the next 7, 8, 9 years, that's all they wanted to do. 10 years. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. My brothers and sisters in Islam, Then after three years, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, فَاصْدَعْ بِمَا تُؤْمَرْ وَأَعْرَضْ عَنِ الْجَاهِرِ Get out and start to call to the public and stay away from the ignorant ones. Ignore them. You continue telling the truth and don't let the people stop you. So the Prophet ﷺ was now at the duty of calling the entire of Quraysh to Islam. One of the people who entered from our side was Abu Dharr al-Ghifari. Have you ever heard of him? Abu Dharr al-Ghifari was from another tribe called Ban al-Ghifar. They were among the strongest... of tribes in war. Nobody could beat them. And they also had a route where people would go for trade outside of Mecca. They controlled that route. And anyone who passes there, they had to pay them a tax. Otherwise they'll go return it. And if they don't like you, you can't pass. And that was strategic for the people of Mecca because then when they go out... They can't trade if these people stop there. So they had to be friends with them and allies. Abu Dhar was one of the leaders of Bani Ghaffar. He heard about the Prophet's call. And he sent his brother to find out. So his brother goes in. He hears a few words from the Prophet. He comes back to Abu Dhar and tells him. And he said, no, no, no. I'm not happy with that. Abu Dhar was the type that was so pedantic. And he had to hear it with his own ears. So he went to Makkah. And started looking for the Prophet. this time when the Prophet ﷺ came out in public calling people, the whole of Mecca now summoned their energy to hide him. And they said, anyone who you see looking for Muhammad or trying to talk to Muhammad, imprison him. And we're going to call upon their families, each tribe is responsible for their own. And they took that covenant upon each other. So everybody was not allowed to say anything. Abu Dharr walks in, he doesn't know what the story is. And then he comes around the car and starts asking people, Have you seen Muhammad? Have you seen Muhammad? There's this man called Muhammad, he calls himself a prophet. And then a group of people come up to him and they say, What are you doing? He goes, I'm asking for Muhammad. He goes, What do you want from him? He goes, I heard he's got this new message, I just want to listen to him. So they said, what for? He said, I just want to hear his religion. They warned him, and he started boasting, because I thought he was a strong man. They started to beat him up. When they beat him up, he found out that he's not really allowed to talk. So he goes, I started hiding in a little area near the Kaaba. If I come out, they're probably going to kill me. He goes, as I was sitting there, I ran out of food and I ran out of water. And I noticed zam-zam there. So I started to drink from zam-zam. He goes, I stayed for almost a month. And I noticed that I started carrying fat on me. I started gaining weight from zam-zam water itself. And that's the hadith al-Sahih from the Prophet ﷺ that he said, Zam-zam is both quenching of thirst and nourishing of food. One day, two women in the middle of the day, because not many people come out in the Zohar, they had some purpose to go around the Kaaba. And remember those two statues, Isaf and Nadia? The two people who the story says that they committed adultery in front of the Kaaba and Allah turned them into stones. So they were rotating and you can see the statues. And as they were rotating, Abu Dharr was sitting there in the darkness and he said to them, Amen. they looked at him and said, what do you want? What's wrong? He said, do you know this man named Muhammad? Have you heard of him? And then they said to him, don't worry about him, he's a crazy man, your religion is better than your religion, stay away from him, we heard he's like this and he's like that. So then he sat down, he didn't like what they said. And then he said to them, he heard them calling upon Isaaf and Nabila, the two idols. Then he goes to them, Why do you worship those idols? They're nothing. And they said, how dare you talk about our idols? And he said, these idols, all they did was they did this and they did that. And he started saying rude words about them. You know, he started describing their act of zina. Too embarrassed to say it. To the point where these women became so afraid of him, they became so angry that they screamed. Yay! What was he saying about our God? People started to hear the news. What happened? Two men walked towards her. And who were they? Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and Abu Bakr. And they ran up and they go, what's wrong, what's wrong? They said, come come, there's this man over here swearing at our idols and saying rude words. What better than Muhammad and Abu Bakr? They said, don't worry, we'll take care of him, we'll take care of him. Where's this man? We'll show him. The women ran away, and they came up to him and said, where are you from? He said, I'm Abu Dharram, I'm from this person. Now, the Prophet ﷺ didn't tell them who he was. So then he walked away, and Abu Bakr said to him, listen, you follow our footsteps. Okay, and when I tie my shoelace, when I, you know, go down as if I'm... You know, doing up my shoe, it means there's people watching, you've got to stay back. Follow us. So he followed them like that until they reached Darul Alam. And there the Prophet ﷺ taught him about Islam just for about a few minutes. What was it? La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah, a few verses of the Qur'an. They say that he only memorized about... about 17 to 20 verses. And that's it. Abu Dharr embraced Islam on the spot, and he said, Ya Rasulullah, what do you want me to do? He said, go and call your own people. And so he left. With only these few verses, my brothers and sisters, and with only La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah, it was enough for him to begin da'wah. You don't have to be a scholar. Whatever you know and you are firm with, talk about it, inshallah, as much as you can with wisdom. He went back to his tribe, and the story will continue, we'll come back to him later, after about when the Prophet ﷺ went to Medina, you know, maybe 17 years later, he came back with the entire tribe of Banu Ghaffar, had embraced Islam. By the way, when they beat him up, the reason they stopped beating him up, is because he said, I am one of the chiefs of Banu Ghaffar, Allah, He will not let you pass. And they just left him alone. I just wanted to tell you why they didn't kill him. So this is one of the stories that I wanted to bring to you. Abu Jahl, in the meantime, is burning. So one day, he said to his chieftains, he said, this man is irritating me too much. They said, what do you want to do about it? He's being protected. He said, tomorrow I'm going to go wait for him as he is praying in front of the Kaaba. By the way, he didn't pray the way we pray now, that came later. But he was doing bow and prostration according to Musa and Isa and Ibrahim. So he said, when he goes there and he's in sujood, I'm going to stab him with a dagger. I'll kill him myself. Abu Jahl said that. And don't tell anyone. So the next day they were all watching. He goes towards the Prophet ﷺ as he's in sujood. This is within the first five years of his prophethood, okay? Just putting in the picture. Early. As he is approaching with his dagger, Subhanallah, they saw him moving his hands around as if something's in his way. And he moved away, running away. They said to him, what happened? He said, didn't you see? In front of me there was a blazing fire. And I could see behind the wings. Wallahi, I was going to burn to death. He said, you've gone now? He said, he's done magic on me. And subhanAllah, Rasulullah ﷺ said in the Sahih Hadith, he said, the angels came down to protect me, and they had fire with them. The wings he could see were the angels. He said, وَاللَّذِي نَفْسِ بِيَدِ بَيَ اللَّهِ If he had taken one more step, the angels were going to rip him into pieces. And it is this, which Allah sent down the verse of the Qur'an, in Surah Iqra. Al-Alaq, where Allah says, Allah says, The verses of the Quran, Allah has said, have you heard of the one who tries to prevent the worshipper of Allah from praying? How about if this worshipper was on the truth, should he not think? And then Allah says, by God, if he doesn't desist from what he is doing, we shall bring our angels on the day of judgment to take him by his forelock, a lying, sinful forelock. Because people think from their heads. And drag him into the fire, with our angels that will torture him. My brothers and sisters, this is the reason why this ayah came down. And anybody who prevents someone from prayer, Whether you joke around them to make them laugh in their salah, or you try to deter them, or you try to raise your voice above them, obviously it's not like Abu Jahl, but it is a characteristic of what Abu Jahl was doing. We do not prevent people from their salah. Then Abu Jahl became frustrated even more and more. So what happened? The news of the Qur'an started to become widespread. And the Quraysh people, they tried to silence him from reading the Qur'an. The people outside of Arabia, they were hearing about this Qur'an that is hypnotizing people. So they got together one day, the chieftains of Quraysh, and they said, what are we going to do? They said, we've got to make up some word. Convince the people to stay away. So they said, let's say that it is poetry. They said, you know, it's not really poetry, but we can use it. Then the next one said, let's say it's sorcery. They said, you know, it's probably the best thing. We'll say it's sorcery. In the meantime, people are kind of staying away by using those words. However, what happened? Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, one of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, was a shepherd, a slave, remember him? He was brave. Short, skinny, but brave. He said, Ya Rasulullah, will you give me permission to go to the Ka'bah tomorrow and I can recite Qur'an to them? The Prophet ﷺ and the companions said to him, Ya Abdullah, it's not going to be good for you. They'll hurt you, they'll harm you. You've got no one to protect you. Let someone else go. He said, Wallahi, I will only go if only you give me permission. Rasulullah ﷺ said, I'll give you permission, but I warn you not to go. The next day he went. And he stood in front of the Kaaba and started to recite Surah Ar-Rahman. Ar-Rahman, Allama al-Quran, Khalaq al-Insan, Allama nul-Ban, Ash-Shamsu wal-Qamharu bi-Husban. He's saying it out loud. He's a short, skinny person who was a shepherd of Mecca, a slave. Everybody's looking at him. Abu Jahl is going around, Wadid al-Mujid is going around, Hotba is going around. You've got all these big, you know, chiefs who are going around. And all the people stopped. They started to pay attention to these words. They thought these words are amazing. So what happened? about Abu Jahl and the others, they instigated. They said, go, stop him. And so the children and the other people who had this zealous pride, they went and started to belt him up. He's got no one to protect him. They beat him up until he went unconscious and you couldn't tell his right, his front face from the left, from the back. The Muslims flew him and they dragged him away unconscious. When he came back conscious in Dar al-Arkham, The Prophet ﷺ and companions said, didn't we tell you, Ya Abdullah, not to do this? When he woke up, he looks at him like this, you can imagine, right? He's got a black eye, he's looking at them with a black scar on his eyes. And one of his eyes was a little bit injured. He said, you know what, Ya Rasulullah, Alhamdulillah, Allah gave me another eye. You know, I lost one, this one's a bit injured, but I've got another one to see with. Wallahi, I'm gonna go again tomorrow if you give me permission and I will say it again. Prophet said, no stop, you got no protection. And so the hostility started to grow against the followers of the Prophet. Among them was Bilal ibn Rabah, and we all know the story, I'm not going to go through the whole story. However, he was dragged by his master Umayyah ibn Khalaf, and he went into the deserts, put a huge boulder over his chest. in the heart of the desert. He used to take him, put him on the floor, put a huge boulder over him, and leave him. All the way, from the middle of the day, till Asr, or until sunset. 50 degrees, Allahu Akbar. And he couldn't move, because the boulder's on him, he couldn't move. Every day he'd come back to him and say, say our gods are better, and he would not leave. He'd say many different words every single day. And the torture increased on Bilal, until one day, Bilal, he's saying all these different words, right, that hurt them. And the more he saw that these words are hurting them, the more he would repeat those words. Until one day he accidentally said a very simple word, Ahad. Now Bilal is not an Arab, and he doesn't know how to speak Arabic. He's a slave, he's illiterate. So he just said a very... Very simple, easy word, Ahad. Such a simple word that cannot be turned into anything else but one meaning. Which means, only one true God. You can't have any other meaning to it. And it's the most easiest, simplest word made out of three letters. It's the actual root of the word Wahab. Ahad. You can't get any slower than that. And they thought, my God, this man who doesn't know Arabic has used the most simplest of words that is the most irritating and harshest upon us. So they got very angry. And after his torture, people used to ask him, they say, why did you choose the word Ahad? I mean, out of all words, it's just a very simple three-letter word. And he said, do you know why? Bilal used to tell the companions, do you know why? I used to say lots of words, and whenever I found a word that irritated them more, I would say it more, until I found this word, and I found it angered them the most, so I kept saying it over and over and over and over. Bilal ibn Allahu Anhu was ready to die, but every other companion gave in. He would not say a single word. Why? Because every other companion was defending or protecting themselves. As for Bilal , he had a different mission. He was liberating the slaves. from their masters owning their faith and their soul. And he was giving a new meaning to the people who were slaves and a new meaning to masters that they are not better than their slaves. He was on a big mission, not just for himself. Therefore, Bilal ad-Din Lahan did not give in. Ammar ibn Yasir and the others did give in because they were protecting themselves. Until came the point where Abu Bakr, who purchased Bilal, he had this habit of purchasing the slaves and setting them free, and he said to his master Umayyah, how much do you want for him? Now Umayyah is, he can't back down because his slaves humiliated him. Slaves were the most expensive thing. But this slave was ruining Umayyah. And he said, give me 10 dinars for him. He just threw any number, any figure. And he thought that a woman was going to bargain him down. So he said, it's yours. And the way he looked at him in surprise, he said, 10 dinars, just like that? Ha ha ha ha, you think that you won the trade? I would have asked for him one dinar if you bargained him. And Abu Bakr replied, Ha ha ha, I would have given you a hundred if you asked. That's the value that Muslims put for their brothers and sisters. Yes, yes, this is our value brothers and sisters. So my brothers and sisters in Islam, that's Bilal al-Dilawani. And as a result, the Prophet ﷺ took this slave. Liberated him and made him one day go on top of the Kaaba to deliver the Adhan. On top. Which shows us that we don't worship the Kaaba. If we worshiped it, why would someone stand on top of it? Isn't that correct? And he was given the honor of the Adhan till the end of time. Do you know the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ? He said, if you were out in the middle of a field with nobody around you, just animals and trees, and it's time for salah, then you can call the alarm call. For wallahi, every living thing around you, kullu raqbin wa yabis, raqbin wa yabis in Arabic means anything living other than humans and animals. Trees, rocks, sand, insects, creatures, they bear witness for you on the Day of Judgment. On the Day of Judgment, the people who used to make adhan all the time, they have the longest necks on the Day of Judgment. And longest necks is a metaphor, it doesn't mean they look like giraffes. Longest necks is a metaphor of highness and importance. Everybody recognizes them, they've got a special position. So that's Bilal al-Aman. Other than that was Suhaib al-Rumi. Suhaib the Roman. He's not actually Roman, but he was a captive among the Roman Byzantines. He was originally from Iraq. But because he was sold to the Arabs of Mecca from the Romans, they called him Suhaib al-Rumi. And he was the slave of that chief that I told you about, the elder, Jubair ibn Mutaym, the good man. Right? And he treated him well for Suhaib, gave him lots of wealth. And he said to him, you can share my business. Any profit you make, you can take half of it. And when I die, he inherits it. Suhaib inherited his master's, who was a mushrik, his master. He inherited his wealth. And when the migration happened later on, when they went to Medina, Suhaib was going there. And they sent 10 men on him. They said, where are you going? We won't let you go. And he said, what do you want from me? They go, we'll fight you. And he said, you know that I'm one of the best. ...Archers and the best, one of the best sword fighters, you know that. He was actually a warrior. And they said, well we'll stop you. He said, okay you can try and stop me, but let me tell you something. I've got ten arrows in my pouch and there's ten of you. Each one of you will be wounded... with an arrow from my path before any of you can get me. Let's go. Bring it on. So they all looked at him and thought, it's not worth killing. Then they said, well, you've got the wealth of Quraysh. Your master gave you the wealth. Give it back to us. He said, is that it? They go, yeah. He goes, go and find it. It's buried in such a place you can take it all. They go, also your horse, because the horse is made out of mud. He goes, take my horse as well. And he was the only companion who reached the Prophet to Medina crawling. Because he was so exhausted, he almost died on the way, but he reached the Prophet ﷺ in Quba, crawling. And when he reached him, the Prophet ﷺ said to Suhaib, immediately he smiled and said, Suhaib al-Rumi, لقد ربحت البيع Your trade was profitable. And he said to the Rasulullah, Wallahi no one would know this unless he is a messenger of God. Jibreel al-Islam told him, there's no way of him finding his hell. There are many stories about this. One of them I really want to say is Khabab ibn al-Arat. Khabab, I'm introducing these characters because they're so important in this seerah. Khabab ibn al-Arat was the one who was tortured the most. No other companion was tortured as much as Khabar. Like Bilal of the Aum was tortured a lot, but it lasted a few days. But Khabar was always being tortured, man. Never stopped. And I'll tell you one incident. His master was a woman. His master was a woman. I forgot her name now. But she was so irritated by him that he used to work as a blacksmith. He used to melt iron and prepare swords for the people. So what she used to do to him was, she used to put him there, take his shirt off, and get the sword, while it's heated, red, and burn his back with it. Every day. And he'd scream. People would pass by and see him scream, but they can't help him. Why? Because that's how Arabs survived. They had to have a clan. You had to belong to one of the tribes. He didn't belong. And he was a slave. The master can do anything to their slave. They can kill him as well. Every day she would torture him like that, burning his back. Like it was so bad that when Umar ibn Khattab became the Khalifa, he said, I heard you used to get tortured the most. How bad was it? And one day he took off his shirt and showed Umar later, later. And Umar was so, he became pale, he said, I've never seen anybody injured that much. He literally had holes in his back. And this master of his, She tortured him so much with the fire that subhanAllah, Allah tortured her. One day, she woke up with a kind of disease in her body, like rabies. And she used to scratch so hard all over her skin and her head, and she couldn't get rid of it. It stayed for nights. She couldn't bear it. They gave her all types of medicines until one day... They thought the only way to cure her is to use that medicine called Kain. I don't know what it's called in English, but it's burning, ironing and burning the skin from infections. So they started burning her the way she used to burn her slave. And subhanAllah, she died from that burning. And then she ended up in health by Allah. So Allah SWT didn't leave them alone of course. But from here, my brothers and sisters, the bullying against the Prophet ﷺ began to increase. And against these people and the Muslims. It came to a point where the Prophet ﷺ saw and he couldn't bear seeing them going through this torture. So he said to them, the people who embraced Islam, I give you permission to go to Abyssinia. This happened in about the fifth year of the Prophethood. He said, go to Abyssinia, there is the negest there, the king of Ethiopia, of Abyssinia, Al-Habasha. He is, this is what he said he is. He said, they have a ruler who does not tolerate injustice, and their people are good people. He's a Christian king in a Christian land. Listen very carefully, but note here. Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam didn't comment on their religion. He didn't comment on their law, which is Christianity. He commented on two things that are the most important part of living in a place. And that is justice and good treatment. And this is evidence that scholars use that you can live in non-Muslim countries so long as they give you the freedom to worship in your religion and you have justice. This is what a civilization is based on. And the Prophet ﷺ did not tell them, don't follow their law. He acknowledged their law even though it wasn't the law of Islam. Yet, they followed the law, they abided by the law of Ethiopia. So long as they had the freedom to worship Allah, according to their faith, and they received justice. He didn't tell them overthrow, take over the government. He didn't even say to them, give them Dala. That was later on. He's a man of justice, and they have good treatment. That was enough. It means they listen and they give and take. And only about 12 to 15 of them migrated that time. Two women and a few men, but only from Quraysh, none of the slaves. The slaves weren't allowed to go. Now in this little incident, there's something amazing that happened to me. One of the women, and SubhanAllah I forgot her name as well, one of the women of Quraysh, she was packing her bags. And who came along? Umar, radiyallahu anhu. Muhammad at that time was one of the most harshest and torturous people on his own people, whoever embraced Islam. He used to torture them big time in public. Very harsh, very tough. Never showed leniency or mercy. He sees this Muslim woman packing her bags, and he says to her, Ila Amin. Where are you going? And this woman, she was quite irritated from his question because she had to leave her home. You know, leaving Mecca is not a holiday like what we have today. When they leave, you have no one, nothing. You can die, that's it. No one's going to be around for you, especially if they have no protection. To migrate is a big deal. It's basically suicide for them in those days. So she was so irritated packing, so she didn't even bother looking at it. She knew it was Omar's voice, and she just said without thinking, said, well yeah, because of you people. Can't you leave us alone, you treacherous animals? Now someone saying that to Omar at that time, he'd get his sword out, and it doesn't care, woman, man, child, just kill them on the spot. And all of their family, if he wishes. But instead, Umar for the first time showed leniency. 50 of prophethood. And she said, I saw him calm down and look at me with sorrow. He said, Therefore you're farewelling us? She said, yes. And he said, May peace be with you. Go. No one was allowed to leave. And she left him. He left her. She packed her bags and goes, and then meets up with her brother. He was waiting for her at a hill. He said, I'll wait for you there. When she gets to him, she has a smile on her face and says, you know who I am? Omar. He said, what did he do to you? She said, well, why are you letting me go? And he was leaning out. And she gets kind of a facial expression, which her brother understood from her, that, Oh, you think you'll become a Muslim? She said, Yeah. And he said to her, Have you gone crazy? I swear by Allah, if you told me his donkey became a Muslim, I'd believe you, but not him. That's what the battle was. And look, SubhanAllah, I'm not going to let Khattab become. That was the first sign of him wanting to embrace Islam. Now in the meantime, before Umar becomes a Muslim, Abu Jahl lifts the stakes up a little bit. He meets up with the leaders and he says, Listen, what do we have to do to break this man? We can't kill him. We can't harm him. So then the leaders said, The only way is to stop him from this Qur'an. We have to break this Qur'an. We have to disprove him. We have to make people see that this Qur'an is bad. It's wrong. It's nothing new. So who did they go to? They went to the famous poet and leader, Al-Waleed ibn Mughir. Al-Waleed ibn Mughir is the father of Khalid ibn Waleed. He was the main leader of Banu Mahzum. Abu Jahl was his vice, was his vice-chairman. So if Al-Waleed dies, Abu Jahl takes over. And they were very close friends. So Abu Jahl comes up to Al-Waleed and says to him, Hey, can't you do anything about this? You're the best spoken person among us. You're the greatest poet of Mecca. You know, he's the one that won all the competitions among all the Arabs outside of Mecca. Can't you do something about it? He said, let me give it a try. I'll go and listen to him, his Quran, and I'll find the flaws myself. And I'll come back and tell you what we'll do. Alwadud Mughira goes to the Prophet's house and he sits down with him and starts to talk. Who starts to talk? Alwadud. Who starts listening? The Prophet. And that's the etiquette of a Muslim. And Adab, you listen. Even if a person says nonsense, let them say everything. Because if you want people to listen to you, You have to expect that you have to listen to them. Isn't that right? You can't expect that you want to give dawah and they can't. You can't listen to them too. So Al-Uthman al-Ghira spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke. Look what he has done. Look what has happened. On and on and on and on. The Prophet ﷺ did not cut him off once. Then Al-Walid went silent. He had nothing else to say. The Prophet ﷺ said to him, Are you done? He goes, yes. I've got nothing else to say. Wallahi, the Prophet did not say a word except he began to recite from the Quran. He began to recite from the Quran to Al-Waleed ibn al-Mughira from Surah Al-Waqira. When he finished the entire Surah, Al-Waleed bin Mughirah's face was flabbergasted. He got up silently, hypnotized, and walked out of his house hypnotized in shock. Abu Jahl and the rest of the leaders, they were watching. They saw him come out and they said to each other, Wallahi, Al-Waleed bin Mughirah has come out with a different face than the face he went in. He's done magic on you. So they sent Abu Jahl. He went to his house and sat with them. He said, You know, we felt that you were harmed by his sorcery. So a group of us, we gathered some money and food for you to give you, to help you out. This will help you get over your depression. Now he's expecting what the reader's going to say. He's going to say, what? I'm among the most wealthiest, and I'm the best poet. I will never be tricked by his words, and I don't need your money. And that's exactly what he said. He fired him up, got his emotions going. When you get your emotions going, this goes locked. Can't think with your head anymore. And then Abu Jahl goes, well then, tell us what happened. Why are you flabbergasted by his words? He goes to him. I can't describe it. He said, describe what he said. And then a couple of other men came in, and he said his famous words. I will describe the Qur'an to you. إِنَّ لِقَوْلِهِ لَحَلَىٰ His words have a sweetness to it. وَإِنَّ عَلَيْهِ لَطَلَىٰ And upon his words, upon those sweetness, is heights. It goes so far in eloquence which no one can reach. وَإِنَّ عَلَيْهِ لَطَلَاوَةً وَإِنَّ أَعْلَاهُ لَمُثْمِرٌ Whether you looked at it from the end, one end, it is the most fruitful. وَإِنَّ أَسْفَلَهُ لَمُغْدِقٌ And if you looked at it from the lowest end, It is something that makes you quench. وَإِنَّهُ لَيَعْلُ وَلَا يُعْلَىٰ عَلَيْهِ Wallahi, it is the most best of speech that I've ever heard, and I don't think any speech can be higher than it. And a human cannot speak like this. This is the ultimate poet of all of Arabia. You can't get any better. And this is what he's saying. He hated to say it, but he has to say it. He said the truth. And Abu Jahl looks at him and says, You did not satisfy our quench. That's not going to work. Then he said, that's the truth. He said, are you better than your forefathers? He said, no. He said, then don't you dare give up. You have to find a way out of this. If you say this to all the people of Arabia, what's going to happen? It's the end for us. Al-Walid says his speech is not of man. None of us is going to compete with you. That's it. It's God. The Quran is from God. So Al-Walid looks at him and says, what should I say? They said to him, say it's sorcery. He said, it's not sorcery. I know sorcery. If I tell people it's sorcery and they listen to it, they're going to know it's not sorcery. They said, say it's the words of soothsayers. He said, it's not the word of soothsayers. He said, say it's poetry. He said, it's not poetry. I'm the poet. If I say it's poetry and better than my poetry, what are you saying about me? It's not poetry. How dare you say that? They said, you better make up something because we're going to wait for you. So he goes, give me a few days. Al-Walid goes back to his house, and these next three or four nights were the most depressive, treacherous nights for Al-Walid al-Muviq. He locked his door, isolated himself from everybody, and no one could talk to him or see him. No one, not even his family, not his wife, not his children, for three to four nights alone, figuring out what he's going to say. In the meantime, Allah revealed a verse in the Qur'an describing exactly what He was doing in those nights. Hajj Sakeem, if I can feel well. Dakhil. Dakhil. Okay, give me four minutes to the Iqamah. Can we use them? JazakAllah. I only need two minutes, inshaAllah. Three minutes and a half. Al-Walid trapped himself inside, doesn't want anyone to hear. In the meantime, Allah sent down verses exposing exactly what he was doing step by step. And I'll recite them soon. Then Al-Walid came out with an answer. They all met in Dar al-Arqa. Abu Jahl says, what did you come up with? He said, I think the best thing for us to say that can convince the majority of people is to say... It is a type of sorcery, but not like the sorcery that any of you have ever heard. إِنَّهُ لَقَوْلٌ يُؤْثَرُ It is a type of sorcery which the Prophet has brought from outside of Makkah, from people, a person who you have never heard before. A type of sorcery. They said, alright, we can work with that, let's go ahead. And that's exactly what they did. Allah sent down the verse in Surah Al-Muddathir. When Al-Walid did that, he was almost about to become Muslim, then he did that, and then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala became angry at him, and he said to the Prophet ﷺ, ذَرْنِي وَمَنْ خَلَقْتُ وَحِيدًا Move away. Move away. And let me deal with this man who I created by himself as a baby. وَجَعَلْتُ لَهُ مَالًا مَمْدُودًا And then I gave him so much wealth. وَبَنِينَ شُهُودًا And children who you can see full of might. ثُمَّ يَطْمَعُ الْأَزِيدِ And he still wants more from me? كَلَّا No. إِنَّهُ كَانَ لِآيَاتِنَا عَنِيدًا He was too arrogant and stubborn to our verses to admit they are the truth. إِنَّهُ كَانَ لِآيَتِنَا عَمِيدًا إِنَّهُ You know what he did during those nights? إِنَّهُ فَكَّرَ وَقَدَّر He thought and analyzed. فَقُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّر Damn him, the way he analyzed and thought. ثُمَّ كُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّر Allah said that again. Damn him, the way he thought and analyzed. Then he stopped and looked up. Then he started walking up and down, up and down, in anger and in irritation. Exactly what he did, he used to walk up and place up and down. ثُمَّ أَدْبَرَ الْاُسْتِكْبُرُ Then he turned away from the truth and he was filled with haughtiness and pride. فَقَالَ And then he said, إِنْ هَذَا إِلَّا سِحْرٌ إِلَّا قَوْلٌ يُؤْثَرُ This is nothing but words that were taken from faraway people not known to you. إِنْ هَذَا إِلَّا قَوْلٌ بَشَرٌ This is just words of man. So, Aslihi Saqar. Allah says immediately, I'm going to imprison him in the depth of hellfire. Saqar is the fifth level of hellfire. Immediately, Allah stops and says, I'm going to put him in hellfire. Wa ma adraaka ma saqar. I'm not going to tell you what saqar is. La tubqi wa la dardar. Anything that goes in a walnut will perish. It doesn't leave anything out except it burns it. La wahadun min bashar. It burns humans. It has 19 angels that make sure that it continuously burns and destroys. That was the state of al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, and he remained the enemy of the Prophet ﷺ until he was killed, until he died and entered Al-Fayyad. His son, Khalid ibn al-Walid, later on becomes Muslim, and he reads these verses while he is sweating. and almost going unconscious. He knew that the verses had come down about his father, describing him in detail. Brothers and sisters in Islam, we'll stop here now, and next week in Shaloh, we'll continue with what happens next. the Muslims in Abyssinia, what happens to them and more of the stuff that starts to boil up in Mecca very interesting may Allah SWT reward you for listening and learning and please don't forget us in your dua and peace be upon

Brothers and sisters, welcome back after the short break. And inshaAllah we've got about four more classes to do before Ramadan. We'll decide on whether we'll conduct them in Ramadan or not. JazakAllah khairah hu jamil.

We left off in our last talk about the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, where the Prophet ﷺ had now been advised or commanded by Allah ﷻ to go out and tell the people, his family and his own tribe, about... out the new message. All he had to do was tell them that there is only one God worthy of worship, Allah, and to abandon the rest of the idols.

He said it with one word, La Ilaha Illallah. There is no deity, no... being worthy of worship except Allah.

And what this statement meant, automatically the Arabs understood it because they were Arabs. This meant that they had to forego their entire belief that they had before which their ancestors had left them a point. That was uncalled for, unfounded.

How can a people leave their forefather's religion, the whole Arab community? In fact, all the Arabs of the entire peninsula. Their whole survival was based on their forefathers, which had been changed and idol worshipping had been introduced. The first among them to ridicule him was his own uncle, Abu Lahab, who said to him, He swore at him, Curse you.

Why did you call us to this? And the Prophet ﷺ used to say to them, it's just one word. And he used to say, among others, Abu Lahab and others used to say to him, if you ask us to say a hundred other words, we will say them. But this word?

Never. So the leaders of Quraysh, the different chiefs, They became irritated with this message and they started to become scared. Right? Because the Prophet ﷺ started to have some influence. Yes, in the first three years of his prophethood, it was a secret call.

And he chose a place called Dar al-Arqam. A house by al-Arqam. A man named al-Arqam.

And he used to call to Islam secretly in there. Whoever embraced, they used to secretly come to this place. And nobody else knew this hiding place except the Messenger ﷺ and anyone who embraced Islam. They were so careful not to tell anyone. and to tell you what happened is that Abu Talib his uncle was approached by his own people as their chief, Banu Hashim, who is the family of the Prophet ﷺ.

They had to take care of him. After pressure, we said last time that Abu Talib was pressured into telling his nephew to stop this call. And he started to become scared that his own chief, his own tribe is going to leave him.

And they're going to harm the Prophet ﷺ himself. Now if your family harms you, what's left? So they said to him, we will give you one of our sons and you give us Muhammad ﷺ, your nephew.

They called him his son metaphorically, in exchange. So they offered one of the most noblest of sons, Ibn al-Walid. And Abu Talib stood up saying, what a ridiculous trade.

You want to give me your noble son so I can nourish him and look after him, fatten him. And you take my son to kill him? And one of their chief men, named Jubair ibn Mut'im, he was the eldest of the Quraysh who everybody respected, and his word meant law, basically. He said to Abu Talib, this is accepted, this is a good trade. And that made it even more difficult for Abu Talib.

This man is actually a nice man, Jubair ibn Mut'im, he's a really good man, but in this instance, he did a bad thing. And Abu Talib had to now, he was pressured now, the most enormous pressure, this has never happened in the Arab world for hundreds of years. And he said, You guys have plotted for this. You've come to, as a plan, listen to me, Abu Talib is there, the Prophet's uncle, by God, I don't know if he said, by the gods, the names of their own gods, I will never abandon my nephew. I'm going to keep protecting him, even if my entire clan leaves me, and all of you go against me.

Here I am. Do what you want with me. You can kill me, torture me, exile me.

I will not leave you. When they saw his determination, they gave up. And they backed away. They're not going to kill Abu Talib, of course.

But this made the Quraysh people very angry. Abu Jahl, who was known as Abu al-Hakamah. Abu'l-Hakam means the man of wisdom. The Prophet ﷺ called him Abu Jahal. And the Muslims nicknamed him that.

The man of ignorance. Till today they call him Abu Jahal. You see, he was a bully.

And he had this strong, you know, desire for his own clan. And he was from Banu Makhzum. And they want to always compete with Banu Hashim, the Prophet's family. For hundreds of years they're competing. He can't step down.

Too much arrogance. So he started to influence the rest of the leaders. We're going to have to stop this man.

Before it gets too bad. The other leaders of Quraysh. They came to him and said. Listen.

The guy is not harming anyone. He's just calling his own family. The guy's worshipping in secret.

I don't know where he's hiding. A few people have followed him. Most of them slaves and poor people who don't have a position.

Yes, Abu Bakr and Uthman and Saad ibn Abi Waqas and the likes of them. Big men, wealthy men. Abdur Rahman ibn Alf.

Yeah, they embrace me. There's only a few of them. Look, we're still big in number. Let him worship in secret. Don't worry about it.

So that's three years this is happening, but they're keeping an eye. And Abu Jahl, he's burning on the inside, he's thinking something's gonna happen. Meanwhile, the Prophet ﷺ is receiving verses of the Qur'an. And these verses of the Qur'an are having a profound effect on anyone who hears them. Among the first of them is, Surah Ash-Sha'ab.

When the baby daughter that was buried alive shall be questioned on the day of judgment for what crime was she killed? These were practices of the Arabs at that time. And the Qur'an was coming down to stop this oppression. Lifting the status of women and girls up and children, uniting people actually together on truth, not on jahiliyyah.

Jahiliyyah is the state of the Arabs before Islam. There was no law, it was a lawless place. If you're strong and you have a strong back, you're the master.

So people were influenced by this Quran. And news got to the leaders of Quraysh, the enemies, about this poetry that they thought. They thought it was poetry. They called it poetry.

So they thought, wow, the guy has grabbed Muhammad ﷺ. The most challenging, competing thing that we're going to have to address, and that is language. Listen brothers and sisters, you might not think that the Qur'an is a big deal, if you don't know about it, that it came down and did all this effect on these people. It's just a book of words, isn't it?

Reciters. No. You see, when Allah sends a prophet, each messenger that goes to their people, He brings with Him a miracle, a challenge, that His people consider the ultimate thing for them.

For example, in the time of Musa, for the Egyptians, because they lived among the Egyptians, Pharaoh and the children of Israel were the slaves, the biggest thing that everybody respected and thought was the biggest power was sorcery. So Allah brought Musa alayhi salam with what? Miracles that are stronger than their sorcery. In the time of Jesus, Isa alayhi salam, Jesus Christ, son of Mary alayhi salam, his people used to take pride in medicine and healing.

Allah gave Isa alayhi salam exactly that, the miracle of, by the will of Allah, to heal the leper and the blind and so on. When it came time for Muhammad ﷺ, what's the greatest thing? Language and literacy. And it was the Qur'an.

They used to hang their poetry on the Ka'bah, the best of poetry. And they used to have annual competitions with the rest of the Arabs of the entire deserts of Arabia. And the one who had the best poet, that part of the world became the prestigious part. The prestigious. And to this point it was Mecca.

The greatest of their poets was a great chief. And among the elders, who was a very important figure, his name was Al-Walid ibn al-Mughira. He is the father of Khalid ibn al-Walid.

The famous Khalid. Al-Walid will later on embrace his Islam. And his brother Abaq. When these words are being recited, Abu Lahab, who is the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, and Abu Jahl teamed up.

Why did Abu Lahab team up with Abu Jahl? And Abu Jahl liked that? Because Abu Lahab is the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ. If Abu Jahl...

had spoke out, some people might say, well, you just got it in for him because you're from that tribe and you just don't like his tribe. So he took his own uncle from his own tribe and that became more convincing. They used to go and stand at the borders of Mecca whenever people would come in, let's say from Yemen or from other places and tribes, because they don't know what's really going on.

When they come in, they start hearing the news. And the first thing they wanted to do was deter them, stop them from even meeting with the Prophet ﷺ because they thought if they met with him, what would they hear first? His Qur'an.

And they were getting hypnotized by the Qur'an and they were really getting affected. So Abu Laha Ibn Abu Jahl used to stand at the borders, and Abu Jahl would say, Hey look, welcome to our place. You're welcome to do any trade with us. You're a nobleman, you're our guest. But there is this man who's really crazy.

He just came out recently, and he's gone mad. He's telling people stuff, sorcery and things that are making him go crazy. So stay away from him.

It's probably a jinn that's possessed him, or something like that. And then Abu Laha would come in and say, And I'm his uncle. I'm just here to warn you. Because we care about you. I'm his uncle.

He's my nephew. And then he would believe him even more. One time, a doctor came in. Doctors in those days had different medicine to today. Not as advanced as today, but he was considered a doctor.

He came in one time from one of the Arab tribes, and they told him the same thing. Right? So what did he do? He entered and he went.

He didn't listen. He thought to himself, I'm knowledgeable, I'm educated, I'm... And a doctor means that he could read.

Not many people could read at that time, or write. 90% of them couldn't read or write. So he came in and went to the Prophet ﷺ himself, said, I'm not going to listen to you guys, I know how to read and write. And he listened to the Prophet ﷺ's reciting of the Qur'an. When he listened to it...

He said, these words cannot be from a human being. And after a little while he embraced Islam, subhanAllah. So they couldn't deter everyone away.

So, a few days and months went past. Abu Talib is now protecting the Prophet ﷺ. He's being protected by his uncle, no one can harm him. And they started talking about Abu Jahl had in his mind killing the Prophet ﷺ one day. He just wants to kill him.

But nobody would buy his words. However, in a few years time, that's what everyone was about to do. Just to kill the prophets of the life of man. For the next 7, 8, 9 years, that's all they wanted to do.

10 years. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. My brothers and sisters in Islam, Then after three years, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, فَاصْدَعْ بِمَا تُؤْمَرْ وَأَعْرَضْ عَنِ الْجَاهِرِ Get out and start to call to the public and stay away from the ignorant ones.

Ignore them. You continue telling the truth and don't let the people stop you. So the Prophet ﷺ was now at the duty of calling the entire of Quraysh to Islam.

One of the people who entered from our side was Abu Dharr al-Ghifari. Have you ever heard of him? Abu Dharr al-Ghifari was from another tribe called Ban al-Ghifar.

They were among the strongest... of tribes in war. Nobody could beat them. And they also had a route where people would go for trade outside of Mecca.

They controlled that route. And anyone who passes there, they had to pay them a tax. Otherwise they'll go return it. And if they don't like you, you can't pass. And that was strategic for the people of Mecca because then when they go out...

They can't trade if these people stop there. So they had to be friends with them and allies. Abu Dhar was one of the leaders of Bani Ghaffar.

He heard about the Prophet's call. And he sent his brother to find out. So his brother goes in. He hears a few words from the Prophet. He comes back to Abu Dhar and tells him.

And he said, no, no, no. I'm not happy with that. Abu Dhar was the type that was so pedantic. And he had to hear it with his own ears. So he went to Makkah.

And started looking for the Prophet. this time when the Prophet ﷺ came out in public calling people, the whole of Mecca now summoned their energy to hide him. And they said, anyone who you see looking for Muhammad or trying to talk to Muhammad, imprison him. And we're going to call upon their families, each tribe is responsible for their own. And they took that covenant upon each other.

So everybody was not allowed to say anything. Abu Dharr walks in, he doesn't know what the story is. And then he comes around the car and starts asking people, Have you seen Muhammad?

Have you seen Muhammad? There's this man called Muhammad, he calls himself a prophet. And then a group of people come up to him and they say, What are you doing? He goes, I'm asking for Muhammad.

He goes, What do you want from him? He goes, I heard he's got this new message, I just want to listen to him. So they said, what for?

He said, I just want to hear his religion. They warned him, and he started boasting, because I thought he was a strong man. They started to beat him up.

When they beat him up, he found out that he's not really allowed to talk. So he goes, I started hiding in a little area near the Kaaba. If I come out, they're probably going to kill me. He goes, as I was sitting there, I ran out of food and I ran out of water.

And I noticed zam-zam there. So I started to drink from zam-zam. He goes, I stayed for almost a month.

And I noticed that I started carrying fat on me. I started gaining weight from zam-zam water itself. And that's the hadith al-Sahih from the Prophet ﷺ that he said, Zam-zam is both quenching of thirst and nourishing of food.

One day, two women in the middle of the day, because not many people come out in the Zohar, they had some purpose to go around the Kaaba. And remember those two statues, Isaf and Nadia? The two people who the story says that they committed adultery in front of the Kaaba and Allah turned them into stones.

So they were rotating and you can see the statues. And as they were rotating, Abu Dharr was sitting there in the darkness and he said to them, Amen. they looked at him and said, what do you want? What's wrong? He said, do you know this man named Muhammad?

Have you heard of him? And then they said to him, don't worry about him, he's a crazy man, your religion is better than your religion, stay away from him, we heard he's like this and he's like that. So then he sat down, he didn't like what they said.

And then he said to them, he heard them calling upon Isaaf and Nabila, the two idols. Then he goes to them, Why do you worship those idols? They're nothing.

And they said, how dare you talk about our idols? And he said, these idols, all they did was they did this and they did that. And he started saying rude words about them. You know, he started describing their act of zina. Too embarrassed to say it.

To the point where these women became so afraid of him, they became so angry that they screamed. Yay! What was he saying about our God? People started to hear the news. What happened?

Two men walked towards her. And who were they? Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and Abu Bakr. And they ran up and they go, what's wrong, what's wrong?

They said, come come, there's this man over here swearing at our idols and saying rude words. What better than Muhammad and Abu Bakr? They said, don't worry, we'll take care of him, we'll take care of him.

Where's this man? We'll show him. The women ran away, and they came up to him and said, where are you from? He said, I'm Abu Dharram, I'm from this person.

Now, the Prophet ﷺ didn't tell them who he was. So then he walked away, and Abu Bakr said to him, listen, you follow our footsteps. Okay, and when I tie my shoelace, when I, you know, go down as if I'm... You know, doing up my shoe, it means there's people watching, you've got to stay back.

Follow us. So he followed them like that until they reached Darul Alam. And there the Prophet ﷺ taught him about Islam just for about a few minutes. What was it?

La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah, a few verses of the Qur'an. They say that he only memorized about... about 17 to 20 verses.

And that's it. Abu Dharr embraced Islam on the spot, and he said, Ya Rasulullah, what do you want me to do? He said, go and call your own people. And so he left.

With only these few verses, my brothers and sisters, and with only La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah, it was enough for him to begin da'wah. You don't have to be a scholar. Whatever you know and you are firm with, talk about it, inshallah, as much as you can with wisdom.

He went back to his tribe, and the story will continue, we'll come back to him later, after about when the Prophet ﷺ went to Medina, you know, maybe 17 years later, he came back with the entire tribe of Banu Ghaffar, had embraced Islam. By the way, when they beat him up, the reason they stopped beating him up, is because he said, I am one of the chiefs of Banu Ghaffar, Allah, He will not let you pass. And they just left him alone. I just wanted to tell you why they didn't kill him. So this is one of the stories that I wanted to bring to you.

Abu Jahl, in the meantime, is burning. So one day, he said to his chieftains, he said, this man is irritating me too much. They said, what do you want to do about it? He's being protected.

He said, tomorrow I'm going to go wait for him as he is praying in front of the Kaaba. By the way, he didn't pray the way we pray now, that came later. But he was doing bow and prostration according to Musa and Isa and Ibrahim. So he said, when he goes there and he's in sujood, I'm going to stab him with a dagger. I'll kill him myself.

Abu Jahl said that. And don't tell anyone. So the next day they were all watching. He goes towards the Prophet ﷺ as he's in sujood. This is within the first five years of his prophethood, okay?

Just putting in the picture. Early. As he is approaching with his dagger, Subhanallah, they saw him moving his hands around as if something's in his way.

And he moved away, running away. They said to him, what happened? He said, didn't you see?

In front of me there was a blazing fire. And I could see behind the wings. Wallahi, I was going to burn to death.

He said, you've gone now? He said, he's done magic on me. And subhanAllah, Rasulullah ﷺ said in the Sahih Hadith, he said, the angels came down to protect me, and they had fire with them. The wings he could see were the angels. He said, وَاللَّذِي نَفْسِ بِيَدِ بَيَ اللَّهِ If he had taken one more step, the angels were going to rip him into pieces.

And it is this, which Allah sent down the verse of the Qur'an, in Surah Iqra. Al-Alaq, where Allah says, Allah says, The verses of the Quran, Allah has said, have you heard of the one who tries to prevent the worshipper of Allah from praying? How about if this worshipper was on the truth, should he not think?

And then Allah says, by God, if he doesn't desist from what he is doing, we shall bring our angels on the day of judgment to take him by his forelock, a lying, sinful forelock. Because people think from their heads. And drag him into the fire, with our angels that will torture him.

My brothers and sisters, this is the reason why this ayah came down. And anybody who prevents someone from prayer, Whether you joke around them to make them laugh in their salah, or you try to deter them, or you try to raise your voice above them, obviously it's not like Abu Jahl, but it is a characteristic of what Abu Jahl was doing. We do not prevent people from their salah. Then Abu Jahl became frustrated even more and more.

So what happened? The news of the Qur'an started to become widespread. And the Quraysh people, they tried to silence him from reading the Qur'an. The people outside of Arabia, they were hearing about this Qur'an that is hypnotizing people.

So they got together one day, the chieftains of Quraysh, and they said, what are we going to do? They said, we've got to make up some word. Convince the people to stay away.

So they said, let's say that it is poetry. They said, you know, it's not really poetry, but we can use it. Then the next one said, let's say it's sorcery.

They said, you know, it's probably the best thing. We'll say it's sorcery. In the meantime, people are kind of staying away by using those words. However, what happened?

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, one of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, was a shepherd, a slave, remember him? He was brave. Short, skinny, but brave. He said, Ya Rasulullah, will you give me permission to go to the Ka'bah tomorrow and I can recite Qur'an to them?

The Prophet ﷺ and the companions said to him, Ya Abdullah, it's not going to be good for you. They'll hurt you, they'll harm you. You've got no one to protect you.

Let someone else go. He said, Wallahi, I will only go if only you give me permission. Rasulullah ﷺ said, I'll give you permission, but I warn you not to go.

The next day he went. And he stood in front of the Kaaba and started to recite Surah Ar-Rahman. Ar-Rahman, Allama al-Quran, Khalaq al-Insan, Allama nul-Ban, Ash-Shamsu wal-Qamharu bi-Husban.

He's saying it out loud. He's a short, skinny person who was a shepherd of Mecca, a slave. Everybody's looking at him. Abu Jahl is going around, Wadid al-Mujid is going around, Hotba is going around.

You've got all these big, you know, chiefs who are going around. And all the people stopped. They started to pay attention to these words. They thought these words are amazing. So what happened?

about Abu Jahl and the others, they instigated. They said, go, stop him. And so the children and the other people who had this zealous pride, they went and started to belt him up. He's got no one to protect him. They beat him up until he went unconscious and you couldn't tell his right, his front face from the left, from the back.

The Muslims flew him and they dragged him away unconscious. When he came back conscious in Dar al-Arkham, The Prophet ﷺ and companions said, didn't we tell you, Ya Abdullah, not to do this? When he woke up, he looks at him like this, you can imagine, right?

He's got a black eye, he's looking at them with a black scar on his eyes. And one of his eyes was a little bit injured. He said, you know what, Ya Rasulullah, Alhamdulillah, Allah gave me another eye.

You know, I lost one, this one's a bit injured, but I've got another one to see with. Wallahi, I'm gonna go again tomorrow if you give me permission and I will say it again. Prophet said, no stop, you got no protection.

And so the hostility started to grow against the followers of the Prophet. Among them was Bilal ibn Rabah, and we all know the story, I'm not going to go through the whole story. However, he was dragged by his master Umayyah ibn Khalaf, and he went into the deserts, put a huge boulder over his chest. in the heart of the desert. He used to take him, put him on the floor, put a huge boulder over him, and leave him.

All the way, from the middle of the day, till Asr, or until sunset. 50 degrees, Allahu Akbar. And he couldn't move, because the boulder's on him, he couldn't move.

Every day he'd come back to him and say, say our gods are better, and he would not leave. He'd say many different words every single day. And the torture increased on Bilal, until one day, Bilal, he's saying all these different words, right, that hurt them.

And the more he saw that these words are hurting them, the more he would repeat those words. Until one day he accidentally said a very simple word, Ahad. Now Bilal is not an Arab, and he doesn't know how to speak Arabic. He's a slave, he's illiterate.

So he just said a very... Very simple, easy word, Ahad. Such a simple word that cannot be turned into anything else but one meaning.

Which means, only one true God. You can't have any other meaning to it. And it's the most easiest, simplest word made out of three letters. It's the actual root of the word Wahab. Ahad.

You can't get any slower than that. And they thought, my God, this man who doesn't know Arabic has used the most simplest of words that is the most irritating and harshest upon us. So they got very angry. And after his torture, people used to ask him, they say, why did you choose the word Ahad?

I mean, out of all words, it's just a very simple three-letter word. And he said, do you know why? Bilal used to tell the companions, do you know why?

I used to say lots of words, and whenever I found a word that irritated them more, I would say it more, until I found this word, and I found it angered them the most, so I kept saying it over and over and over and over. Bilal ibn Allahu Anhu was ready to die, but every other companion gave in. He would not say a single word. Why? Because every other companion was defending or protecting themselves.

As for Bilal , he had a different mission. He was liberating the slaves. from their masters owning their faith and their soul. And he was giving a new meaning to the people who were slaves and a new meaning to masters that they are not better than their slaves.

He was on a big mission, not just for himself. Therefore, Bilal ad-Din Lahan did not give in. Ammar ibn Yasir and the others did give in because they were protecting themselves.

Until came the point where Abu Bakr, who purchased Bilal, he had this habit of purchasing the slaves and setting them free, and he said to his master Umayyah, how much do you want for him? Now Umayyah is, he can't back down because his slaves humiliated him. Slaves were the most expensive thing.

But this slave was ruining Umayyah. And he said, give me 10 dinars for him. He just threw any number, any figure.

And he thought that a woman was going to bargain him down. So he said, it's yours. And the way he looked at him in surprise, he said, 10 dinars, just like that? Ha ha ha ha, you think that you won the trade?

I would have asked for him one dinar if you bargained him. And Abu Bakr replied, Ha ha ha, I would have given you a hundred if you asked. That's the value that Muslims put for their brothers and sisters.

Yes, yes, this is our value brothers and sisters. So my brothers and sisters in Islam, that's Bilal al-Dilawani. And as a result, the Prophet ﷺ took this slave.

Liberated him and made him one day go on top of the Kaaba to deliver the Adhan. On top. Which shows us that we don't worship the Kaaba. If we worshiped it, why would someone stand on top of it? Isn't that correct?

And he was given the honor of the Adhan till the end of time. Do you know the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ? He said, if you were out in the middle of a field with nobody around you, just animals and trees, and it's time for salah, then you can call the alarm call. For wallahi, every living thing around you, kullu raqbin wa yabis, raqbin wa yabis in Arabic means anything living other than humans and animals. Trees, rocks, sand, insects, creatures, they bear witness for you on the Day of Judgment.

On the Day of Judgment, the people who used to make adhan all the time, they have the longest necks on the Day of Judgment. And longest necks is a metaphor, it doesn't mean they look like giraffes. Longest necks is a metaphor of highness and importance.

Everybody recognizes them, they've got a special position. So that's Bilal al-Aman. Other than that was Suhaib al-Rumi.

Suhaib the Roman. He's not actually Roman, but he was a captive among the Roman Byzantines. He was originally from Iraq. But because he was sold to the Arabs of Mecca from the Romans, they called him Suhaib al-Rumi. And he was the slave of that chief that I told you about, the elder, Jubair ibn Mutaym, the good man.

Right? And he treated him well for Suhaib, gave him lots of wealth. And he said to him, you can share my business.

Any profit you make, you can take half of it. And when I die, he inherits it. Suhaib inherited his master's, who was a mushrik, his master. He inherited his wealth. And when the migration happened later on, when they went to Medina, Suhaib was going there.

And they sent 10 men on him. They said, where are you going? We won't let you go.

And he said, what do you want from me? They go, we'll fight you. And he said, you know that I'm one of the best. ...Archers and the best, one of the best sword fighters, you know that.

He was actually a warrior. And they said, well we'll stop you. He said, okay you can try and stop me, but let me tell you something. I've got ten arrows in my pouch and there's ten of you.

Each one of you will be wounded... with an arrow from my path before any of you can get me. Let's go. Bring it on. So they all looked at him and thought, it's not worth killing.

Then they said, well, you've got the wealth of Quraysh. Your master gave you the wealth. Give it back to us. He said, is that it? They go, yeah.

He goes, go and find it. It's buried in such a place you can take it all. They go, also your horse, because the horse is made out of mud. He goes, take my horse as well.

And he was the only companion who reached the Prophet to Medina crawling. Because he was so exhausted, he almost died on the way, but he reached the Prophet ﷺ in Quba, crawling. And when he reached him, the Prophet ﷺ said to Suhaib, immediately he smiled and said, Suhaib al-Rumi, لقد ربحت البيع Your trade was profitable. And he said to the Rasulullah, Wallahi no one would know this unless he is a messenger of God. Jibreel al-Islam told him, there's no way of him finding his hell.

There are many stories about this. One of them I really want to say is Khabab ibn al-Arat. Khabab, I'm introducing these characters because they're so important in this seerah.

Khabab ibn al-Arat was the one who was tortured the most. No other companion was tortured as much as Khabar. Like Bilal of the Aum was tortured a lot, but it lasted a few days.

But Khabar was always being tortured, man. Never stopped. And I'll tell you one incident.

His master was a woman. His master was a woman. I forgot her name now.

But she was so irritated by him that he used to work as a blacksmith. He used to melt iron and prepare swords for the people. So what she used to do to him was, she used to put him there, take his shirt off, and get the sword, while it's heated, red, and burn his back with it.

Every day. And he'd scream. People would pass by and see him scream, but they can't help him. Why?

Because that's how Arabs survived. They had to have a clan. You had to belong to one of the tribes.

He didn't belong. And he was a slave. The master can do anything to their slave. They can kill him as well.

Every day she would torture him like that, burning his back. Like it was so bad that when Umar ibn Khattab became the Khalifa, he said, I heard you used to get tortured the most. How bad was it? And one day he took off his shirt and showed Umar later, later. And Umar was so, he became pale, he said, I've never seen anybody injured that much.

He literally had holes in his back. And this master of his, She tortured him so much with the fire that subhanAllah, Allah tortured her. One day, she woke up with a kind of disease in her body, like rabies. And she used to scratch so hard all over her skin and her head, and she couldn't get rid of it.

It stayed for nights. She couldn't bear it. They gave her all types of medicines until one day...

They thought the only way to cure her is to use that medicine called Kain. I don't know what it's called in English, but it's burning, ironing and burning the skin from infections. So they started burning her the way she used to burn her slave.

And subhanAllah, she died from that burning. And then she ended up in health by Allah. So Allah SWT didn't leave them alone of course. But from here, my brothers and sisters, the bullying against the Prophet ﷺ began to increase.

And against these people and the Muslims. It came to a point where the Prophet ﷺ saw and he couldn't bear seeing them going through this torture. So he said to them, the people who embraced Islam, I give you permission to go to Abyssinia. This happened in about the fifth year of the Prophethood. He said, go to Abyssinia, there is the negest there, the king of Ethiopia, of Abyssinia, Al-Habasha.

He is, this is what he said he is. He said, they have a ruler who does not tolerate injustice, and their people are good people. He's a Christian king in a Christian land.

Listen very carefully, but note here. Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam didn't comment on their religion. He didn't comment on their law, which is Christianity. He commented on two things that are the most important part of living in a place. And that is justice and good treatment.

And this is evidence that scholars use that you can live in non-Muslim countries so long as they give you the freedom to worship in your religion and you have justice. This is what a civilization is based on. And the Prophet ﷺ did not tell them, don't follow their law.

He acknowledged their law even though it wasn't the law of Islam. Yet, they followed the law, they abided by the law of Ethiopia. So long as they had the freedom to worship Allah, according to their faith, and they received justice. He didn't tell them overthrow, take over the government. He didn't even say to them, give them Dala.

That was later on. He's a man of justice, and they have good treatment. That was enough.

It means they listen and they give and take. And only about 12 to 15 of them migrated that time. Two women and a few men, but only from Quraysh, none of the slaves.

The slaves weren't allowed to go. Now in this little incident, there's something amazing that happened to me. One of the women, and SubhanAllah I forgot her name as well, one of the women of Quraysh, she was packing her bags.

And who came along? Umar, radiyallahu anhu. Muhammad at that time was one of the most harshest and torturous people on his own people, whoever embraced Islam.

He used to torture them big time in public. Very harsh, very tough. Never showed leniency or mercy. He sees this Muslim woman packing her bags, and he says to her, Ila Amin.

Where are you going? And this woman, she was quite irritated from his question because she had to leave her home. You know, leaving Mecca is not a holiday like what we have today. When they leave, you have no one, nothing.

You can die, that's it. No one's going to be around for you, especially if they have no protection. To migrate is a big deal. It's basically suicide for them in those days.

So she was so irritated packing, so she didn't even bother looking at it. She knew it was Omar's voice, and she just said without thinking, said, well yeah, because of you people. Can't you leave us alone, you treacherous animals?

Now someone saying that to Omar at that time, he'd get his sword out, and it doesn't care, woman, man, child, just kill them on the spot. And all of their family, if he wishes. But instead, Umar for the first time showed leniency. 50 of prophethood.

And she said, I saw him calm down and look at me with sorrow. He said, Therefore you're farewelling us? She said, yes.

And he said, May peace be with you. Go. No one was allowed to leave. And she left him. He left her.

She packed her bags and goes, and then meets up with her brother. He was waiting for her at a hill. He said, I'll wait for you there.

When she gets to him, she has a smile on her face and says, you know who I am? Omar. He said, what did he do to you?

She said, well, why are you letting me go? And he was leaning out. And she gets kind of a facial expression, which her brother understood from her, that, Oh, you think you'll become a Muslim? She said, Yeah.

And he said to her, Have you gone crazy? I swear by Allah, if you told me his donkey became a Muslim, I'd believe you, but not him. That's what the battle was. And look, SubhanAllah, I'm not going to let Khattab become. That was the first sign of him wanting to embrace Islam.

Now in the meantime, before Umar becomes a Muslim, Abu Jahl lifts the stakes up a little bit. He meets up with the leaders and he says, Listen, what do we have to do to break this man? We can't kill him.

We can't harm him. So then the leaders said, The only way is to stop him from this Qur'an. We have to break this Qur'an.

We have to disprove him. We have to make people see that this Qur'an is bad. It's wrong. It's nothing new.

So who did they go to? They went to the famous poet and leader, Al-Waleed ibn Mughir. Al-Waleed ibn Mughir is the father of Khalid ibn Waleed. He was the main leader of Banu Mahzum. Abu Jahl was his vice, was his vice-chairman.

So if Al-Waleed dies, Abu Jahl takes over. And they were very close friends. So Abu Jahl comes up to Al-Waleed and says to him, Hey, can't you do anything about this?

You're the best spoken person among us. You're the greatest poet of Mecca. You know, he's the one that won all the competitions among all the Arabs outside of Mecca.

Can't you do something about it? He said, let me give it a try. I'll go and listen to him, his Quran, and I'll find the flaws myself. And I'll come back and tell you what we'll do. Alwadud Mughira goes to the Prophet's house and he sits down with him and starts to talk.

Who starts to talk? Alwadud. Who starts listening? The Prophet. And that's the etiquette of a Muslim.

And Adab, you listen. Even if a person says nonsense, let them say everything. Because if you want people to listen to you, You have to expect that you have to listen to them.

Isn't that right? You can't expect that you want to give dawah and they can't. You can't listen to them too. So Al-Uthman al-Ghira spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke.

Look what he has done. Look what has happened. On and on and on and on.

The Prophet ﷺ did not cut him off once. Then Al-Walid went silent. He had nothing else to say.

The Prophet ﷺ said to him, Are you done? He goes, yes. I've got nothing else to say. Wallahi, the Prophet did not say a word except he began to recite from the Quran.

He began to recite from the Quran to Al-Waleed ibn al-Mughira from Surah Al-Waqira. When he finished the entire Surah, Al-Waleed bin Mughirah's face was flabbergasted. He got up silently, hypnotized, and walked out of his house hypnotized in shock. Abu Jahl and the rest of the leaders, they were watching.

They saw him come out and they said to each other, Wallahi, Al-Waleed bin Mughirah has come out with a different face than the face he went in. He's done magic on you. So they sent Abu Jahl.

He went to his house and sat with them. He said, You know, we felt that you were harmed by his sorcery. So a group of us, we gathered some money and food for you to give you, to help you out.

This will help you get over your depression. Now he's expecting what the reader's going to say. He's going to say, what?

I'm among the most wealthiest, and I'm the best poet. I will never be tricked by his words, and I don't need your money. And that's exactly what he said.

He fired him up, got his emotions going. When you get your emotions going, this goes locked. Can't think with your head anymore. And then Abu Jahl goes, well then, tell us what happened.

Why are you flabbergasted by his words? He goes to him. I can't describe it.

He said, describe what he said. And then a couple of other men came in, and he said his famous words. I will describe the Qur'an to you.

إِنَّ لِقَوْلِهِ لَحَلَىٰ His words have a sweetness to it. وَإِنَّ عَلَيْهِ لَطَلَىٰ And upon his words, upon those sweetness, is heights. It goes so far in eloquence which no one can reach. وَإِنَّ عَلَيْهِ لَطَلَاوَةً وَإِنَّ أَعْلَاهُ لَمُثْمِرٌ Whether you looked at it from the end, one end, it is the most fruitful. وَإِنَّ أَسْفَلَهُ لَمُغْدِقٌ And if you looked at it from the lowest end, It is something that makes you quench.

وَإِنَّهُ لَيَعْلُ وَلَا يُعْلَىٰ عَلَيْهِ Wallahi, it is the most best of speech that I've ever heard, and I don't think any speech can be higher than it. And a human cannot speak like this. This is the ultimate poet of all of Arabia.

You can't get any better. And this is what he's saying. He hated to say it, but he has to say it. He said the truth.

And Abu Jahl looks at him and says, You did not satisfy our quench. That's not going to work. Then he said, that's the truth. He said, are you better than your forefathers? He said, no.

He said, then don't you dare give up. You have to find a way out of this. If you say this to all the people of Arabia, what's going to happen?

It's the end for us. Al-Walid says his speech is not of man. None of us is going to compete with you.

That's it. It's God. The Quran is from God.

So Al-Walid looks at him and says, what should I say? They said to him, say it's sorcery. He said, it's not sorcery. I know sorcery. If I tell people it's sorcery and they listen to it, they're going to know it's not sorcery.

They said, say it's the words of soothsayers. He said, it's not the word of soothsayers. He said, say it's poetry. He said, it's not poetry. I'm the poet.

If I say it's poetry and better than my poetry, what are you saying about me? It's not poetry. How dare you say that?

They said, you better make up something because we're going to wait for you. So he goes, give me a few days. Al-Walid goes back to his house, and these next three or four nights were the most depressive, treacherous nights for Al-Walid al-Muviq. He locked his door, isolated himself from everybody, and no one could talk to him or see him. No one, not even his family, not his wife, not his children, for three to four nights alone, figuring out what he's going to say.

In the meantime, Allah revealed a verse in the Qur'an describing exactly what He was doing in those nights. Hajj Sakeem, if I can feel well. Dakhil. Dakhil.

Okay, give me four minutes to the Iqamah. Can we use them? JazakAllah. I only need two minutes, inshaAllah.

Three minutes and a half. Al-Walid trapped himself inside, doesn't want anyone to hear. In the meantime, Allah sent down verses exposing exactly what he was doing step by step. And I'll recite them soon.

Then Al-Walid came out with an answer. They all met in Dar al-Arqa. Abu Jahl says, what did you come up with?

He said, I think the best thing for us to say that can convince the majority of people is to say... It is a type of sorcery, but not like the sorcery that any of you have ever heard. إِنَّهُ لَقَوْلٌ يُؤْثَرُ It is a type of sorcery which the Prophet has brought from outside of Makkah, from people, a person who you have never heard before.

A type of sorcery. They said, alright, we can work with that, let's go ahead. And that's exactly what they did.

Allah sent down the verse in Surah Al-Muddathir. When Al-Walid did that, he was almost about to become Muslim, then he did that, and then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala became angry at him, and he said to the Prophet ﷺ, ذَرْنِي وَمَنْ خَلَقْتُ وَحِيدًا Move away. Move away.

And let me deal with this man who I created by himself as a baby. وَجَعَلْتُ لَهُ مَالًا مَمْدُودًا And then I gave him so much wealth. وَبَنِينَ شُهُودًا And children who you can see full of might.

ثُمَّ يَطْمَعُ الْأَزِيدِ And he still wants more from me? كَلَّا No. إِنَّهُ كَانَ لِآيَاتِنَا عَنِيدًا He was too arrogant and stubborn to our verses to admit they are the truth. إِنَّهُ كَانَ لِآيَتِنَا عَمِيدًا إِنَّهُ You know what he did during those nights?

إِنَّهُ فَكَّرَ وَقَدَّر He thought and analyzed. فَقُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّر Damn him, the way he analyzed and thought. ثُمَّ كُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّر Allah said that again. Damn him, the way he thought and analyzed. Then he stopped and looked up.

Then he started walking up and down, up and down, in anger and in irritation. Exactly what he did, he used to walk up and place up and down. ثُمَّ أَدْبَرَ الْاُسْتِكْبُرُ Then he turned away from the truth and he was filled with haughtiness and pride. فَقَالَ And then he said, إِنْ هَذَا إِلَّا سِحْرٌ إِلَّا قَوْلٌ يُؤْثَرُ This is nothing but words that were taken from faraway people not known to you.

إِنْ هَذَا إِلَّا قَوْلٌ بَشَرٌ This is just words of man. So, Aslihi Saqar. Allah says immediately, I'm going to imprison him in the depth of hellfire.

Saqar is the fifth level of hellfire. Immediately, Allah stops and says, I'm going to put him in hellfire. Wa ma adraaka ma saqar.

I'm not going to tell you what saqar is. La tubqi wa la dardar. Anything that goes in a walnut will perish. It doesn't leave anything out except it burns it. La wahadun min bashar.

It burns humans. It has 19 angels that make sure that it continuously burns and destroys. That was the state of al-Walid ibn al-Mughira, and he remained the enemy of the Prophet ﷺ until he was killed, until he died and entered Al-Fayyad.

His son, Khalid ibn al-Walid, later on becomes Muslim, and he reads these verses while he is sweating. and almost going unconscious. He knew that the verses had come down about his father, describing him in detail. Brothers and sisters in Islam, we'll stop here now, and next week in Shaloh, we'll continue with what happens next. the Muslims in Abyssinia, what happens to them and more of the stuff that starts to boil up in Mecca very interesting may Allah SWT reward you for listening and learning and please don't forget us in your dua and peace be upon

Transcript for:Early Islamic Mission and Opposition

Transcript for:
Early Islamic Mission and Opposition