today's is dedicated really to just one maybe two ayat of and most of this I'll be talking to you about an incident a story that is behind the revelation of I've spoken about this story on a couple of occasions but the more I visit this story and revisit the story I realize there are things that I've missed speaking about and I think they're extremely relevant and important for myself and for the umah so I decided to to revisit the story and share some insights with you regarding it this Surah is revealed to the prophet Salli wasallam in Madina so it's he's already transferred from Makkah to Madina and it's been a few years now that they're in the city of Madina and a few battles between the Muslims and the quray have taken place one of those battles is the Battle of uh and in uh Muslims suffered some very heavy losses because of those losses some other Arab tribes near Medina they thought this a good opportunity the Muslims are injured right now if we attack them right now we can make easy money so they were not enemies of Islam they were just capitalists they were just just hoping that they can rob cuz that's how they made good money back then they robbed each other you know a lot of them just pillaged each other so one such tribe B they figure it's a good time to attack Medina but the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam had very good intelligence in the region and he found out before they were even going to attack that they're preparing their arms to to Rob and raid the city of Medina because they think the Muslims are weak as a result of so the prophet s wasam preempts their strike prepares a group goes go along with them and heads out towards B it's actually not much of a battle and very quickly over a hundred of their soldiers have been taken prisoner of war and you know the battle's B basically over with minimal casualties and when these this among the people that were captured was actually the daughter of the tribe leader of bani so and she accepted Islam when she accepted Islam wasam marries her and then he gives her a marriage gift and the marriage gift is those 100 prisoners of War are returning they go back home on the other side you have people crying because they've lost combatants and you know their women wives you know uh uh daughters sisters crying and lamenting over their lost family members the caretakers of the home and they come walking back in like how did you get back well we're a wedding present and you know and when that happened the entire tribe became Muslim everybody took shahada so this was one of the easy and what very profound victories of Islam one one that really boosted the morale of the Muslims and especially something that the Muslims needed given the circumstances of and how demoralizing was this was a real boost to the morale and the you know positive attitude of the Muslims anyway on the way back from it from this good experience on the way back a strange incident occurs and that's what this story is about this Surah is about on this way back there was a well and there were people lined up to get water at the well and among the in that line there the Muslim Army and the Muslim Army is made up of people that are from Makkah the muhajirun the migrants and the Muslim Army is also made up of people from Medina the ansar you should know if you don't know the Arabic terms muhajirun are people who migrated for Allah's sake so they left everything behind and came in their loyalty to the prophet Salli wasallam so when we call someone a muhaj it's actually a very Noble term it actually means they sacrificed everything to be with the prophet they left their home they left their property they left their businesses they even left their families in some cases and just came because of Muhammad Al wasallam so anyway some of the people there are mun other people there are ANS ansar are basically the people of Medina who aided Who provided not small but huge amounts of Aid you see m in Arabic is someone who helps but AAS in Arabic is someone who helps a great deal a huge amount of help the ansar were people who offered unimaginable kinds of help to these mun that come from Makkah they provide them home they provide them they're not well off themselves but they share their homes with them they share their livelihood with them they share you know like literally every part of their life with them and put themselves at an inconvenience nowadays you and I live in three-bedroom four bedroom five bedroom homes and a guest comes over and you can't use that extra office room anymore and that agitates you back then their homes are one room that's all they are and if you want to make a separate bedroom draw a curtain there you go separate bedroom and that and they're not coming over for an hour or two these are living with each other now families living with each other like this this is not a small thing to do what the an did Allah even says they give others preference over themselves even if they're starving even if there's starvation afflicting them like not just if they're hungry if they're starving you know but anyway so these are the M they're in line at this well and it just so happens that one of the one of the mun one of the people of Makkah his name is Jah it's an interesting name Jah and he's the he's the servant of Omar he's in line and he gets into a little argument with another member of K this other sinan fellow and this J fellow they start arguing with each other fighting with each other and jaah basically kicks him and kicks him hard and when this happens the Ansari meaning the the person from Medina the sahabi who got kicked from Medina got very upset and he said you you from Makkah you get to do this to me you can't do this to me and so he cried out he said and another narration says meaning Anis people of Medina come look at what this guy did to me and he then the other guy J says wait you're going to gang up against me I got my gang too so he goes and all the mun in the camp they gather behind him and what was originally an argument a misunderstanding between two people turned into two groups and ready to just fight each other cuz they're all stressed out and you know and where did this come from from where did all of this this mess come from before we go on with the story when you say ill then your nationality becomes secondary your ethnicity becomes secondary your language becomes secondary what connects you to another person now is stronger than any of those things what connects you to another person now is ill it's thicker than blood that's what connects you and the sahabah understood this it's not like they didn't understand this but you have to know that our bond with each other of Islam is not the only Bond human beings have human beings also have Tribal bonds tribal affiliations we also have National affiliations we also have ethnic affiliations language affiliations it's okay if you're from Bangladesh or Pakistan or Egypt or whatever another Bangladeshi walks in and you guys start talking to each other in bang that's okay cuz you connect at a level of language that's natural there are if you go to New York City there are people there are entire neighborhoods that are entirely in Mandarin like even the store signs are in Chinese Mandarin there are other St other neighborhoods that are entirely Greek other neighborhoods that are entirely Arab others that are entirely not just Arab just yemeni just yemeni there are others that are just entirely Punjabi others that are entirely Bangladeshi that's that happens naturally people want to move closer to and they gravitate towards people that are more familiar with them that is a part of being a human being Allah actually made us that way he made you into Nations and tribes so you get to know one another that's part of our our Human Experience but what I want you to focus on is when they called each group at that moment it actually wasn't about ethnicity it wasn't it wasn't even people of makah people of they didn't use those words they use the words M and these words have nothing to do with ethnicity they have nothing to do with nationality they don't even have anything to do with regen they actually have to do with contribution that's what have to do with the contribution of the m is that they migrated the contribution of the an is that they aided so they used words what I'm trying to get at is they used words that in and of themselves are very beautiful words these are words that Allah uses in the Quran to describe the greatness of these people these are not small words these are far more dignified words than any ethnicity so on the one hand there's a fight breaking out but on the other hand there's a think of beauty here too embedded that the before they see themselves as people of Makkah they see themselves as mun and before they see themselves as people of Medina they see themselves as an but something is in there that says you can't treat me this way you came from outside and we help you and you're going to kick me like that wait a second and then that this this some tribalism is in there somewhere and it comes out so this report comes to wasallam and he says leave it leave it mtin this is atina word now m is a little tough to translate a literal translation that like they translate it as a disgusting smell a disgusting smell wasam says the words they used have a disgusting smell that's why leave it it has it you know like when something smells bad you walk away from it and you leave it so that that's the imagery of the the saying of the prophet the words that have been used here are too disgusting they smell too nasty get away from them don't indulge in them Don't Go Near them don't bring them up again that's what he's saying now what words did they they they use any dirty words did they use any bad language they use beautiful words I told you they use M and so why would wasallam take the words that are actually in the Quran these words are in the Quran and they're not used in a bad way they're used in the most beautiful of ways you know these are people Allah Praises in Quran and yet call Allah's messenger calls them you know smelly disgusting words that you should get away from we're learning something very powerful about our Dean it's not just about using the right words it's the intentions behind those words you can say the best words but when those words are being used to cause a division when they're being used to bring up stir up a gang mentality when they're being used to stir up we are this way and you are that way and separate the ranks of Muslims then even the best words can become filthy even words that are in Quran can become filthy language isn't just about words language is about what attitudes are behind those words just to make that simple to understand there's different ways of saying alhamdulillah somebody says they have a problem how's it going how how are things alhamdulillah how are things I have a lot of problems alhamdulillah I guess you still said alhamdulillah but you said it in a in a smelly way that's not that's not how you praise Allah the same thing with Salam when you say Salam to somebody there's a way to say Salam when you say Salam to somebody there's no argument left there's no qual left you basically said you I'm at peace with you and I hope that you have everything in your life is peaceful and I pray Allah descends his peace on you too but we're good we got nothing that's that's when you sayam alayum but when somebody that's not peaceful that's filthy it's a beautiful word being used in a filthy way in a in a disgusting way and that's what the prophet is highlighting but that's not the entire story this piece of it what I wanted you to understand is that we today have Muslims that make different contributions you're sitting in you're listening to in B campus B is a name it's a label there are other educational institutes there's Zuna there's Al there's you know there's mishkat University there are you know there are universities around the world teaching Muslims in some capacity or the other they are da organizations they're relief organizations and in America for example we have a lot of four-letter organizations is three-letter organization like you know Mass etc etc we have all these organizations and you know some people sometimes say why do we have so many different organizations the Muslim should be united we should all just be one even in the Quran did Allah separate and distinguish the mun with a label and the an with the label yeah he did based on the contribution they made isn't it every one of these organizations every one of these efforts has a unique contribution to make perhaps even in a unique Community we're blessed to live in a city where there are tons and tons of mass so what if they're not under one organizational Banner so what so what is some people came together and started praying inside of a storefront and then they raised enough money to build a mashid that's the story of lots of Masid but these Masid are not in competition with each other these are all and if you're a volunteer at one of them you are you're a part of one of them then you're part of something good this is not division but the moment the moment you start using these words these beautiful words these organizational names which basically represent a contribution to our Dean an effort that's being made to serve our Dean when you start using these names to distinguish yourself from another organization and talk about how much better you are or how in competition you are then these very Islamic organizational names become filthy words if M and can become filthy words if they can become smelly words then what's to say of of any other label any other school of thought any other madasa any other Masid we have to think very clearly about what the prophet is saying but then when he said this there's another narration here somebody came to and said but you know he kicked him he kicked him and what was the prophet's response to he kicked him you know what he said he said no Pro don't worry about it no big deal no big deal how is it not a big deal he kicked him is teaching us something very powerful sometimes Muslims have arguments among each other and sometimes things get ugly and when they get angry ugly your temper flares and you want revenge you want Justice for what happened somebody has to pay and when you're calling for justice and making your voice heard and you're raising your voice and you're Gathering people around you reminding them of what one Muslim has done against another Muslim you are creating division in the name of Justice and you need to learn the Sunnah of the Prophet wasam when he says you need to let this go and make this not a big deal because when you blow this out of proportion the price will not just be paid you're not just Seeking Justice you're causing a lot of problems in your pursuit of Justice You're making way too much noise for something that can be handled much better much more quietly in a much more civil way in a much less provocative way look it was two people arguing with each other at a well something they something bad happened fine but it's to two people but in a split second it's the entire group of the M it's the entire group of the ANS how quickly something small became something big one can just man I lost my temper sorry I had a long day I had a headache I don't know what got into me I apologize I shouldn't have kicked you done finished you don't have to make a bigger deal out of it but there are those who would love to make a bigger deal out of it there are those who capitalize they hope that something small happens a spark happens and they can turn it into a forest fire there are people who PA for that opportunity and you have to want that that is a reality that will always exist there will be people that will find the differences there are people that are so sick in their minds they'll say they'll listen to this shikh that shikh that shikh this Imam that Imam and then they'll know that they have a difference of opinion on some issue and they'll purposely go you know by the way you know what they say about this issue they have a difference with you and then they'll EXA they because they want to see they want to see they they they find it entertaining they don't watch sports when people are boxing each other they rather Islamic groups Scholars imams speakers they argue with each other they debate with each other this is their sport this is their entertainment it's sick that's sick when this fight broke out the prophet Salli wasallam basically gave the advice to diffuse the situation but there was another person on the other side the head of the who's obviously he's not doesn't we the label of MAF he's among the Muslims he saw an opportunity he called all all the people of Medina that he could into his Camp his Camp was further away from the prophet's Camp calls them sits them down look at what You' did to yourself these people of Makkah these immigrants came they take our jobs they take our money they take our homes we provide them everything and look at how they treat us this is what you get see all they wanted was your money all they wanted was your welfare I tell you we are so dignified these people are Beggars they cuz you know when when somebody's a beggar they're humiliated when somebody gives they're the dignified one these people have no respect we're the ones that have respect and they can treat us this way you know what they remind me of he gives a speech and he says they remind me of the old Arab saying when you give your dog until the dog gets fat and it bites you he called the mun dogs in his speech in his Camp he did this and he's doing this to capitalize to build and build the emot and a sentiment of the against the m and he swears he says you know the second we go back guys the moment we go back to Madina we the most dignified should get rid of these humiliated people watch stop spending on them he he says he SARS to God he says if you just stop giving these people charity watch them disappear and they'll live on welfare somewhere else you know don't spend on all these people around the messenger watch them disappear they'll just disappear watch they they're only here for your money and then they treat you like this so he's giving this poisonous speech see on the one hand the prophet is saying Let It Go end it it's a disgusting filthy word don't exaggerate it and on the other hand this guy is pulling you know putting fuel into the fire he wants to make the fire bigger and bigger what he didn't know is there's a young boy sitting there Z 10 11 years old he s in the audience listening to this entire poisonous speech he runs over and tells his uncle what what Abdullah said his uncle goes into the camp of the Prophet wasallam where Omar is sitting there too and he says this is what abdah is saying who narrated it this 11-year-old Zade that's who narrated it now what is the prophet supposed to say well we can't trust a child child could make anything up how can we rely on no no questioning Z said it no questioning as a matter of fact Omar sitting next to him said I know I know a guy Amar I want you to give me permission I'll getar he'll walk into their Camp slowly walk up to who's giving this speech and slit his throat just give the word I got this I know just the guy for the job says no that's not what we're going to do you know because the people will say Muhammad kills his people before I go any further why would Omar say kill him isn't that barbaric like Sher gets you to kill people these understand what's happening here they're a military they went out as a as a military and when inside a military when they're actively on the battlefield someone within the ranks of the army tries to create Discord between the army that is that is considered an act of Espionage and an Act of high treason punishable by death because you're putting the entire Army at risk this is military protocol in every military in the world from history until now this is considered high treason so when Omar says kill him he's not saying some Islamic rule of killing him he's saying that's how we deal with treason in the military butam says no we won't do that we won't even do that even though they're well within their rights if there was any other military that this happened in nobody would even say anything nobody would say of course that's what you do but he doesn't they call i instead call him let him explain himself cuz he doesn't know that the prophet will hear it but he heard it so now abdah and his they've come they come inside the camp the boy Z is outside the camp he has no idea what went on inside he just told his uncle remember his uncle went in and talked to the prophet wasallam the boy didn't go in so Z you know abdah B goes inside starts swearing at the top of his lungs W I swear to God who made this lie against me I believe you're the messenger of Allah why would I say something like that about you why would I say something like like that about our brothers I have given so much for Islam I came to the battlefield didn't I how can you question me like this you know you're whose word are you taking over mine what have I not proven myself and he starts giving the prophet a lecture at the top of his lungs andam says you can go he doesn't want to hear any more nonsense he says you can he doesn't argue with him we're learning something else there are going to be people who cause trouble and when you question them they get very loud they get very loud and when they get very loud what's the sun of the Prophet wasallam it's okay you can go thank you some people are not worth talking to they're just not worth talking to that's that's the Sunnah let him go when he lets him go Zam is outside he sees this this uh he sees this man leave and he says oh wait he's not in any trouble I told on him and he's still not in any trouble so he says a sadness took over me that never hit me before I was sad that day like I was never before in my life so he says the prophet T thought that the guy who was yelling and screaming was telling the truth and the prophet didn't believe me cuz I'm just a kid he didn't believe me that's not the cas case the case is actually the prophet believed him right away Sall alhi wasallam but he doesn't know that because he's on the outside so he says I went back to my tent and I just lied down crying this boy just lied down and he's crying the prophet has no idea what this boy is feeling we learn about that later then Allah revealed I told you this is about in basically in 11 Allah quoted are quoting Z word for word Z came and told the prophet sallam or told his uncle who told the prophet they said words of this is what he said when we go back to Medina the dignified Ones Will expel the humiliated ones that's what he said Quran comes and says subh word for word the narration of Zade is now part of Quran he said they they said also don't spend on the people around the prophet until they disappear ay comes [Music] down you [Music] know when the Surah is revealed to the prophet he calls for Zade who was crying by himself he calls Zade sits him down puts his hand on his knees and says Allah proved that you're telling the truth and he recited the entire Surah to Z the 11-year-old boy before anybody else heard the Surah Z heard the Surah this Surah it's like it has so many purposes this Surah but one of its core purposes was to you know care for the sentiments of this child this this this this kid who spoke Subhan Allah there are there are lessons after lessons after lessons inside of the Surah and inside of this profound incident just these 11 ay but what I wanted to highlight to you as I close is this this this this entire story what binds it together is one theme the softness of the heart Believers are supposed to be brothers we know that already but it's very easy to destroy Brotherhood very easy it takes very little and sometimes it doesn't even take bad words it takes good words said in a bad way this thing that Allah has given us the love that he put between our hearts is very delicate it has to be handled with a lot of care especially those that are serving in any capacity towards the de if you're volunteering working at an Islamic organization you're affiliated with a school or another a Masjid or another then you have to be extra sensitive not to become a gang that speaks in any condescending way about anybody else extra careful about that and that softness then if you understand that then you will understand the next layer of sensitivity and that's towards children that even children when they we don't dismiss them we don't think of them as a nuisance they are a blessing of like can you imagine nowadays when somebody's giving a lecture their children in the audience we keep requesting please can you keep the kids quiet can you keep them in a separate can you can you put some kind of barbed wire around them or something or can we have some kind of soundproof bulletproof oxygen proof room where we can you know keep these kids or if there's a kid in the audience even the the speaker the the the scholar the sh they're not concerned they're concerned if the adults understand they're only concerned if the kid doesn't make noise that's all they're concerned about and this entire event it hinges on the contribution of this boy's Aid on this boy don't dismiss the contribution of our children the the value of our children don't underestimate bringing them to the Masid and listening to theba next to you when you bring your kids sit with them sit with them don't have them go on their wander off on their own sit with them teach them the ad of sitting in the Masid listening when you go to a Dar take your kids with you it's okay they'll be bored one one or two times but some of this stuff will stick in their head and 15 years later it'll save their life you don't know what will stick and what won't stick may Allah make us soft towards one another and clean in our intentions towards one another may Allah not make us of those who forget that the real contribution of our to our Dean is with sincerity cl to Allah [Music]