Self-Revelation and the Battle of the Trench

In the name of Allah, this section is on self-revelation. Self-revelation, there's like a turning point that happens in these next sections. There was, as we saw after the battle of Badr, there was the battle of Uhud, there was the Jews in Medina, the hypocrites in Medina. and all these things, the ifk, the tragedy of Ma'una well, and so on. So a lot of tests had come to the Muslims, and like a culmination of these tests came in the battle of the trench. Khandaq in Arabic means trench. And another name for this battle is Ahzab. Ahzab, which means the confederates or the alliances or coalition. So what the Mushrikeen in Mecca did is gathered, you had from the Jewish tribes that were expelled from Medina, Yisra'el, Banu Nadir, Banu Qaynuqa. Those two tribes were expelled at this point. And there's only one tribe, one Jewish tribe left in Medina, and that's Banu Qurayza. Those two tribes had gone. They went to like Khaybar and they were inciting. the mushrikeen against the Muslims. And then you had other tribes. Anybody who had something, some beef with the Muslims was joining in this battle. There were also other people who were joining the battle just for the war spoils. So some people, they just got into the battle just for economic reasons. So they're also joining in these alliances and confederates against the Prophet ﷺ. 10,000 people came to fight the Prophet ﷺ in Medina. Medina in this battle of Al-Ahzab. Again, remember when we were talking about how the Prophet ﷺ would take some people by surprise? Notice here, in all these battles, the Mushrikeen are the ones who came to the Prophet ﷺ. In all of these things, it was actually defensive in these situations. So it's not the Muslims attacking them from the Hijrah, they were going to kill the Prophet ﷺ. From the Battle of Badr, they brought the army to attack the Prophet ﷺ. In the Battle of Uhud, they brought the army to Medina killed the Prophet ﷺ. In the battle of Al-Ahzab, they brought the army to kill the Prophet ﷺ. All of these battles and then after the battle of Al-Ahzab, that's when the Muslims went offensive. That's when they went offensive. So it is a turning point for the Muslims and the victory in this battle. It happened in the fifth year of Hijrah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it's one of the biggest tests that came to the Muslims where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran وَإِذْ زَغَتِ الْأَبْصَارُ وَبَلَا وَتَلَغَتِ الْقُلُوبُ الْحَنَاجِرَ وَتَظُنُّونَ بِاللَّهِ الظُّنُونَ هُنَالِكَ ابْتُلِيَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَزُلْزِنُوا زِلْزَالًا شَدِيدًا Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, And when the eyes grew wild and the hearts reached to the throats, and you were harboring doubts about Allah, there the believers were tried and shaken with a mighty shake. Obviously, these verses are talking about the munafiq. when they said you had doubts about Allah. So the verses speak about the Munafiqeen in the battle of Al-Ahzab. The Munafiqeen, the hypocrites in Medina, they also turned their back on the Prophet ﷺ. They turned their backs on the Prophet ﷺ and they abandoned him. Again, like that was their normal habit of abandoning the Prophet ﷺ during his time of need. This picture, this is not the trench that you see there. It's not the trench in Medina. But it's giving you a glimpse of a trench. trench and this battle strategy or war strategy. What they would do is in the trench, they would dig this trench and it's very long, right? So you're talking about like say 13 feet across and like very deep. So it's not possible for someone to just go into the trench and just simply walk across it. What would need to happen is there is a strategy to fight against the trench. The Prophet ﷺ, when they decided this time, the Battle of Uhud, they fought outside of Medina. In this battle, The companions of Allah, they did shura and they said we'll fight inside Medina. And that was the Prophet's opinion. The battle of Uhud, this time they implemented it. And so they're fighting from inside of Medina and they're securing Medina. On one side of Medina, you have like trees, palm trees and very... What's the word? There's like rocks that are like impossible to walk over. Right? Rocks, they're like volcanic rock ash area. The rocks are all like, it's like a trillion rocks. And the rocks are very... very like big and boulderish and so on. Even just if you're walking as one person, it's very difficult to walk because there's no firm footing. So it's like impossible for an army to go through that area. It's very difficult. And so that's defended. In the other parts, you have trees. An army can't go through a palm tree forest. And then you have the Jews, Bani Khurayrah, defending another part. And then the Muslims took a stance. It was a very long area. It took them 20 days to build this trench. Now the suggestion... suggestion Of building the trench was the suggestion of Salman al-Farisi. So again, they're in the strategy of war and the Prophet ﷺ is getting shura from them. Salman al-Farisi said, in Persia, this is a strategy that we used to have. That when an army is attacking, we dig these trenches and that gives you a huge boost because now you can defend the trench. In order for a person to cross the trench, they have to put down their weapons. And when they put down their weapons, they can be killed trying to get out of the trench. And they can't jump over it. and so on. So it's a huge defense. Kind of like if you've seen these castles and the castle has this water going around it. You call it a moat. Call it a moat. They put the water around and they put crocodiles in there and it's all dirty water and all of that stuff because it defends the castle. It's like a trench but on top of that there's water inside of it so that a person won't be able to just easily just walk up to the wall and start climbing it or so on. So that's the trench. There's an interesting point here that you need to pay attention to. The Prophet ﷺ, this war strategy was not designed by Muslims. It was designed by kuffar. Kuffar designed this war strategy. Now, the way Muslims would do it, this is how they would react to something like that. They'll say, where is this found in the Quran and Sunnah? That's how a normal Muslim would react. Like you tell someone, this is a time technique, a time management technique. They'll be like, yeah, but where do you find this in the Quran and Sunnah? And then some guy will go, He'll go, وَالْعَصْرُ إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ Right? By the time. So there's just like this foolishness, like confusion. And so here's the end to the confusion, inshallah ta'ala. So you understand. There's knowledge of religion, and there's knowledge of human sciences. Okay? So you have issues of religion, you have issues of human sciences. Human sciences are sciences that all human beings share in equally, Muslim or non-Muslim. I'll give you an example of a human... science that all humans share and equally is like biology. Right? Biology is something that, if there's a human science that all human beings share equally in, then nobody will say, oh, you know, Professor so-and-so from Germany came up with this, and we were like, no, he's Kafir, we won't take what he's saying, and so on and so forth. We wouldn't do that. Someone comes up with a time, is time management, does it belong exclusively to Muslims? The answer is no, it doesn't belong to Muslims. So if someone comes up with a good time management technique, nobody has has to quote it from the Quran and Sunnah. Somebody give me another example of human science? Human science? Some parts of psychology. Some parts of psychology. There is a crisscross. I was going to say something that might not start moving into another realm is like the science of being happy. Then you start coming into like religion and whatnot and they're like, oh, if you meditate and you do stuff like that, that's a different story. But a human science, again, something like chemistry, something like engineering, most of the stuff that you study in university is like a human science. You don't need to quote it from the Quran and stuff. sunnah okay but then there's other stuff that is religious sciences where someone starts telling you ways to for example ways to relax and you know someone teaches that you like yoga for example and they'll say if you focus on this idol then you'll calm down okay now we've gone a little too far right and so on so religious sciences when you're looking for a proof from the quran and sunnah it's actually in religious sciences in religious sciences During this time when they were building the trench, so the Prophet ﷺ accepted the shura of Salman al-Farisi r.a. And they began building this trench. The companions divided into groups, which is another key point. It's not just a group of a few companions digging the whole trench. How long would it take them to do that? It would take them an exceptionally long time. It was kind of like the example of a father once. On his deathbed, he had a big stack of sticks and he told one of his sons, you know, break these sticks. So his son tried breaking it. and he wasn't able to do it. And then the father said, now divide it amongst your brothers. So he divided all the sticks amongst his brothers, and now each one break it. And each one simply would just snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. All the sticks in a few seconds were broken. And that's the power of working in jama'ah. The power of working in jama'ah is you're able to do, you can snap all the sticks in a very short amount of time if you have teamwork and team effort. Problem in a lot of our organizations, they're like one-man shows. One-man show, one guy doing... doing everything. He's working very hard, everybody's making to offer him, and this and that, but he's not doing very much. And the reason is, he hasn't gone to a different level of, in fact, in your organizations, this is the key point, it's not about the work, it's about mobilizing volunteers. How do you manage and keep them motivated and keep them in check? all of this stuff, that's how you move an organization forward. It's not like, what can you do? It's like, how good are you at managing volunteers? And how many volunteers can you manage before your hair starts falling out? There's a statement that I hear in the Muslim communities. often and again and again. I hate this statement. The statement goes like this. You can't trust volunteers. How many people have heard that statement before? You can't trust volunteers. They think that only when money is involved will people become I'm sincere. This is the only thing. And I would say in response, when people say that you can't trust volunteers, I would say in response that, no, you can trust volunteers if you're a true leader. The problem is not the volunteers. The problem is you're just not a leader. You're a punk. That's not how to take care of people. And that's why they won't work for you. Because they're like the Arabs. They love freedom. They only take on courageous leaders. So the Companions of the Alarm, they divided the trench, which went for a very long distance. You're talking about in the kilometers and miles. It went very far. I think someone, you might have the dimensions of the, someone once gave it to me. We don't have it here. The dimensions of the trench. But you're talking about multiple miles that the trench was dug. And they did it in 20 days. They dug the trench in 20 days. During the time that they were digging the trench, it was very cold in Medina. Medina has. very cold winters. Not cold according to like relative to our cold, but you have to realize that these people don't have heaters, they don't have very thick clothing and so on. So the cold is exceptionally cold because of that. So they were in this cold and they're afraid for their lives. There's 10,000 fighters coming in Medina. You're looking at you know the Battle of Uhud, they had 600 fighters and now 10,000 are coming. So it's like 10 to 1 at least. 10 to 1 at least that they're gonna be fighting. and these are like multiple tribes have come together to fight the Prophet ﷺ. So they're cold, they're fearing for their lives, and there's a drought happening in Medina. A famine, sorry. So people don't have food. So they're digging this trench and they don't have food, and they're cold and they're fearing for their lives. When the Prophet ﷺ, when they're digging the trench, the Prophet ﷺ, they would say like these lines of poetry, where they say, لَا عَيْشَ إِلَّا عِيْشُ الْآخِرَةِ The Prophet ﷺ would say to them, لَا عَيْشَ إِلَّا عِيْشُ الْآخِرَةِ There is no life except the life of the hereafter. فَانْصُرِ الْأَنصَارَ وَالْمُهَاجِرَةِ So grand victory to the Ansar and the Muhajireen. And the Ansar and the Muhajireen, they would respond when the Prophet ﷺ would say that, they would respond by saying, نَحْنُ الَّذِينَ بَايَعُوا مُحَمَّدًا عَلَى الْإِسْلَامِ مَا بَقِينَا أَبَدًا That we're the ones who pledge allegiance to Muhammad upon Islam so long as we live. So, the Prophet ﷺ, when they would come across a rock, they're digging the trench and they come across a really heavy rock, they would call upon the strongest person amongst them. Who is the strongest person amongst them? Who is the strongest person? Yes? Yes? Ali? Yes? Yes? Yes? Yes? Yes, from the sisters? What's that? Okay, it was the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He was the strongest. He was the strongest. So they're like, Ya Rasulullah, we can't break this rock. Can you come and help us? So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, can you put the PowerPoint up? He took the... spade, a spade is like a shovel, right? It's like a shovel and it's like pointy. So the hadith, Al-Bara'a says, on the day of Al-Khandaq, the trench, there stood a rock too immune for our shelves. to break up. We therefore went to see the messenger of Allah ﷺ for advice. He took the spade and struck the rock, uttering, بِسْمِ اللَّهِ اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ أُوتِيْتُمَ فَاتِيحَ الشَّامِ He said, in the name of Allah, Allah is great. The keys of Al-Sham are mine. I swear by Allah, I can see its palaces right now. So when you see a spark of, what does it say? Okay, a fire. It's not in this narration, but a spark or a fire. That's when you hit a rock. If you hit a rock, a spark will come from that, right? If you hit it with metal. So the Prophet ﷺ, when he hit the rock, this huge spark came from it. And the Prophet ﷺ said, I've been given the keys to a sham. And the sham was under the Byzantine power. Under Byzantine power. He said, by Allah, I can see its palaces right now. And then he hit it a second time. He said, Allah Akbar, I've been given the keys to Persia. I swear by Allah, I can see it. and see now the White Palace. of Medain. And then he hit the rock a third time, and he said, Allahu Akbar, I've been given the keys of Al-Yaman. I swear by Allah, I can see the gates of Sana'at while I'm in my place. So now, these places, these locations, implications, Syria is Muslim. Persia is Muslim. Yemen is Muslim. They're all Muslim countries. At the time that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said this, they weren't Muslim countries, correct? You understand that, right? Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam prophesied that these places would become Muslim. And we know that they became Muslim. Now, the munafiqeen, when they heard this, what the Prophet ﷺ had said, you know, remember when I was talking about earlier yesterday when I said, when you tell someone you have these big dreams, what do they say to you? They say, be realistic, right? And they put you down. I'm not saying they're munafiqeen, but they'll put you down. When the Prophet ﷺ, when this happened, they responded by saying, مَا وَعَدَنَا اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُمْ وَمَسُولُهُ إِلَّا غُرُورًا That Allah and His Messenger promised us nothing except delusions. This is their response to the Prophet ﷺ saying that they're about to be attacked, they could possibly all be killed, and this is the end of Islam, and he's saying that Persia and Yemen and the Sham are going to belong to the Muslims, and that the palaces are going to be for the Muslims. Which is what happened. It's a test from Allah ﷻ. The Prophet ﷺ, in their hunger, they would wrap rocks, around their stomach and the Prophet said in the battle of al-khanda when they would see the Prophet he had two rocks wrapped around his stomach so the Prophet is even like suffering and sacrificing double what the companions are sacrificing and then the Prophet is not sitting at his home while the companions are digging the trench he's with them digging the trench with them side by side with them he's saying laa'isha illa aisha al-akhirah and they're saying And so these are the men working and the leaders, you have examples of the leaders, visionary, managing the companions and working alongside the companions. So Jabir, this is known as Walimat Jabir. Jabir, he saw the Prophet ﷺ with the two rocks around his stomach and then he went home to his wife to see if they had any food to feed the Prophet ﷺ. So he went home to... his wife and he said, you know, do we have any food? And she said, they only have like a little sheep, very small, and she said that, you know, it's enough to feed the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam one meal and maybe two or three of his companions. So he doesn't have enough food for everybody. You're talking about the companions are in the hundreds. They're in the hundreds who are digging the trench and they only have enough food for two or three people. So Jabir radiallahu anhu went to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and whispered to him, Ya Rasulullah, we have food for you at our house. And maybe two or three of your companions. You can invite two or three people. So you can imagine what would happen. Like the Prophet ﷺ is going to go sneak out and eat with two companions and the whole army doesn't have food. The Prophet ﷺ announced to everybody in the army, there's food at Jabir's house. Everybody's invited. So, now Jabir's really scared. The whole army's coming for dinner. They have food. have enough food for three people, basically. For three people. So he went home. Now imagine, you know, we have wives here, and they, imagine if your husband did that to you. He comes back from mother prayer or something like that, and he said, everybody in the message is coming for dinner. Start cooking. What would she say? What do you think? What would a normal sister say? No, no, she would say... order pizza. That's what she would say. Basically, she would drop her spoon and, you know, like, wash her hands and, like, I'll see you later so that they have enough room and stuff like that. Here's the phone. I'll see you later. So Jabir radiallahu anhu, his wife, and for those who prepared the part about the role of women in the seerah, you'll see how strong they were. I gave you the example of Khadijah radiallahu anhu and how the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would go up to the cave. What woman just lets her husband go up into a cave and spend time on his own? They would nag him and all of this stuff, come back, where do you think you're going? And so Khadijah radiallahu anhu supported the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Now you have Jabir radiallahu anhu who comes home to his wife, says the whole army is coming home for dinner. dinner. And he's very scared. They don't have enough food for the whole army, even not enough space for the army. She said, She says to him, did you invite them or did the Messenger of Allah invite them? And he said, the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he invited them. And then she said to him, then don't worry. Then don't worry. So the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, came into the house. They brought the food, and the Prophet ﷺ prayed for the food and prayed for barakah in the food. The companions, all these soldiers came in, small group, small group, small group, until everyone in the whole army ate from the home of Jabir. That's why I said it's known as Walima Jabir. The Walima of Jabir, that dinner invitation of Jabir, the entire army ate from that food. And in the end, the Prophet ﷺ gave the food back. to them and said, this is for your family and share with your neighbors. After everybody had eaten. And that's from the barakah of the Prophet. And so this battle, once the mushrikeen had arrived in Medina and they came across this trench. They had never experienced a trench like this before. This was something unique and new and hadn't been done. And now they didn't know how to react to the trench. They can't cross it and they don't know what to do. So they held Medina under siege. The Muslims are on the other side of the trench, defending it, and the Mushrikeen are on this side. Actually, the way to fight the trench, because later when the Muslims conquered Persia, they faced this trench multiple times in the areas that they fought. The way to fight the trench, even though the Mushrikeen didn't know this at that time, but the way to fight it is to find the weakest link. So you have a trench. You find the spot where the Muslims or whoever was lazy. You find the lazy ones. The ones who said, oh, you know what? This trench is like 20 miles long. Nobody's going to think about this area. So they get a scout that scouts the whole trench. They find the weakest link of the trench. And the way the trench is defended is by separating out your army. And each person is here, here, here, right? What the other side does, once you find the weakest link, you take like 500 fighters. And you amaze them. Ambush that area, the area of the weakest link. Because on the other side, there's only going to be like two, three fighters. It's going to be dispersed. There's not going to be too many of them. Plus, this is the weakest link. Plus, you've got 500 fighters. So those fighters, basically, the 500, they're blocking the people from crossing. And then they just basically, and once they start defending and they kill those few fighters, then people start coming and shoveling in as much as they can to fill up that part of the trench. And they cross as many people from that area. and then they attack from that side. The story of the weakest link. So that's how to fight the trench. The fights were with arrows. So it was going back and forth with arrows. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, we've mentioned a lot about Sa'd. Sa'd, in the Battle of Al-Khandaq, was hit by one of these straight arrows. He was hit by one of these straight arrows and he actually died shaheed from that arrow hit. He eventually died from it. He didn't die immediately. from it, but he was taken to the masjid, masjid Nabawi, and he was being nursed there during this time, during the battle. We said about the munafiqeen turning their backs, and then you had also, Ben-Hurayza broke their treaty with the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Remember the treaty I showed you, that they said that they would defend the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, they're one body, and they would defend from any foreign attacks? The Jews went to Ben-Hurayza and said, now's your chance to break your treaty with the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Now's your chance, you're not going to get a better chance. like this, and they decided to break their treaty. And so you know that later when the Prophet ﷺ, they were executed for that, for breaking the treaty. Some of the Jews of Ben Uchreda brought proof to the Prophet ﷺ that they did not break the treaty, and they did not agree with the treaty being broken, and the Prophet ﷺ spared their lives for that. And so it was because of the breaking of the treaty. And plus, the Muslim, the women and the children, they're inside the city, and the Muslims are defending. them but then the Jews were thinking of attacking them from that side and so there's a story of Safiyyah she was the mother of Az-Zubayr mother of Az-Zubayr they sent a scout, one of the Jews they were sending a scout to see if they've left any men amongst the women there's stories about Hassan ibn Thabit I've heard from our teachers that perhaps those stories aren't correct because it paints Hassan as not being courageous which isn't true true. He was obviously the poet and so on and so forth. Basically, Sophia went and she hammered that scout and she killed him. And then she stripped him of his war spoils, took his head. and gave it back to them. And then they said in response, they said that there's definitely many men, that they've left many men amongst those people. That was Safiyyah radiallahu ta'ala anha. In the battle as well, Amr ibn Abdul Wud was one of the fighters that crossed the trench and challenged the Muslim fighters. Ali r.a was the one who stood up to fight him. And in that battle between Amr ibn Abdul Wud and Amr ibn Abdul Wud, and Ali r.a. Amr ibn Abdul Wud was much senior and much more experienced in battle than Ali r.a. When Ali came, Amr told him I don't want to kill you because you're related to me and so on. And Ali r.a. said to him basically don't worry because I'll be the one who kills you. And so they fought and in the end Ali r.a. killed Amr ibn Abdul Wud. During the battle Allah s.w.t. protects during the battle because of the intensity of the fight on one of the days and the siege, they were held to the point where they missed Asr prayer. They missed Asr prayer between like Dhuhar and Asr. They missed Asr prayer. The Prophet ﷺ said, مَلَأَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ بُيُوتَهُمْ وَقُبُورَهُمْ نَارًا كَمَا شَغَلُونَ عَلَى الصَّلَاةِ الْوُسْتَى حَتَّى غَابَتِ الشَّمْسِ The Prophet ﷺ got so angry that they missed the prayer. The Prophet ﷺ said, May their graves and their homes be filled with fire because of them. them distracting us until we missed the Asr prayer, until the sun went down. And so even during the battles, the Muslim used to pray in Jama'at. They used to pray in congregation. And there was, it's well known, you'd have two lines of army, for example. One line of the army is praying behind the prophets of Allah, and the other army is defending, the other line is defending. And then, so if it's like two rakahs, for example, or four rakahs, one of the groups would pray two rakahs, and the other would pray the other two rakahs with the prophet. If, for example, let's say the qibla is this way and the opposing army is coming from that way, one side is defending and the second line of the Muslims is praying behind the Prophet ﷺ. After they've prayed like one raka'ah, for example, or let's say they're praying four raka'ahs, they pray two raka'ahs with the Prophet ﷺ and then he'll wait in his jalsa. They complete their prayer, right? They complete their prayer and then switch positions with those fighters. Those fighters come in. They switch lines. Those fighters come in and they finish off the prayer with the Prophet ﷺ. And then they're all back into the fight. So even during the battle, if there was a time when you wouldn't have to pray in congregation, be in such a situation yet, they still prayed in congregation. The dua of the Prophet ﷺ in the battle of Al-Ahzab, اللهم منزل الكتاب سريع الحساب اهزم الاحزاب اللهم اهزمهم وزلزلهم The Prophet ﷺ said, O Allah, the one who revealed the book, the one who is swift in reckoning, conquer the confederates. Or the confederates. اللهم اهزمهم وزلزلهم O Allah, defeat these confederates and shake the earth from underneath them. When you're saying your takbir of Eid, or actually when you're on, like if you're doing Umrah, and you're in Safa Marwah, you're like, Allah, Akbar Allah, Akbar Allah, Akbar Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Wahda. When you say Wahda, What you're saying in the praise of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is Allah won. He fulfilled his promise to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And he granted victory to his slave. And he granted like honor and nobility to his army, to his soldiers. And he alone subhanahu wa ta'ala defeated the confederates, defeated these alliances and coalitions. In Surah Al-Ahzab, verse 9, Surah Al-Ahzab, so there's a surah about this battle where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اذْكُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ O you who believe, remember Allah's favor and blessing upon you. اِذْ جَاءَتْكُمْ جُنُودًا When these soldiers came to you, فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ مِرِيحًا وَجُنُودًا لَمْ تَرَوْهَا And we sent upon them a wind and an army that you didn't know. And in this battle as well, I mentioned that the Prophet ﷺ, part of the army of the Confederates was coming just for the war spoils. They had no issue with the Prophet ﷺ. They were just there that when they would win, they would share in the war spoils. And the Prophet ﷺ wanted to give them a portion of the dates of Medina so that they would desist from fighting the Muslims. And the Aus and Khazraj, they said, You know, is it revelation or is it, you know, just the shura and just war strategy? The Prophet ﷺ said, said, you know, it's just the ...or strategy, and they said in response, Ya Rasulullah, they've never in Jahiliyyah been able to eat from our dates except that they paid for it or they got it as a gift. I mean, they came and they were our guests or something like that. They said, never after Islam would we give it to them like willingly like... that. You know, instead of the dates, we will give them swords. And the Prophet ﷺ, you know, accepted this from them. Then later on, he sent someone to see if the treaty was still valid with the Jews, and that companion came back and he told the Prophet ﷺ, that the treaty has been broken. They've broken the treaty. So you see from every direction and then the siege was happening. During the siege, obviously it was a time of winter, so it was very cold and the winds were blowing very heavily. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said that He sent the winds upon them. Now if you have an army of 10,000 people, how do you feed 10,000 people? How do you feed 10,000 people? That means like when the Prophet ﷺ would send a scout to see how many animals are they slaughtering? And you can tell how big an army is by how much food they're exhausting. So it's a logistical issue. It's a logistical issue. You can have a big army, but how do you take care of that many soldiers? And the siege is going on. The longer the siege happens, the more disunity starts to come and boil up in their army. And this is what was happening amongst the Mushrikeen army. They're like, how long are we going to take? We need to go home. What are we waiting for here? And so on. And there is this disunity. So the Prophet ﷺ said, asked for someone from the companions to go cross the trench and go and get news. What was happening? What were they discussing? And so on. And so the companions, they're human beings and nobody raised their hand. You're crossing the trench and you're going into and sitting amongst an army that are there to kill you. So the Prophet ﷺ said, Hudaifah, stand up and go. So Hudaifah, after the Prophet ﷺ called his name out, he's like, there's no other choice. choice, you stood up, to bake. I'm here. So Hudayfa radiallahu anhu, the Prophet ﷺ made dua for him. And it was a super cold night. It was extremely, extremely cold. And the winds were blowing so heavily and it's extremely cold. And he said that as soon as I had crossed, as soon as I stood up and started walking, he said, it was like this warm breeze came on me. And Hudayfa radiallahu anhu, in the darkness, crossed into the trench and went into the enemy camps and sat amongst them. Hudayfa radiallahu anhu, the Prophet ﷺ told him, do not provoke them. Just bring the news back, but don't provoke them against me. And so Hudhayfah radiallahu anhu sat, there's like a campfire, and they were discussing amongst themselves, and the person who was leading it was Abu Sufyan. Abu Sufyan is leading and he's the chief of Mecca at this point. And Hudhayfah radiallahu anhu, he has a bow and arrow with him. And he's like, he can kill him right now. But then he he remembered what the Prophet ﷺ said, and he put his arrow back. Even though he could have killed them, he didn't. And actually Abu Sufyan later became Muslim as well. But he didn't kill him. And so he sat there. So Abu Sufyan is about to speak, and then he said, everybody should check who's sitting beside them. Okay, so now what do you do? Everybody should check who's sitting beside them. So Hudayfah radiallahu anhu, he immediately grabbed the person to his right, and he said, who are you? And the guy said, I'm so-and-so. He grabbed the person on his left, and he said, who are you? are you? The guy said, I'm so-and-so. He's like, alright, alright. And so you see that the Muslims are very intelligent. They're very intelligent. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless all of you with intelligence, inshallah. And so he followed the news and he realized that there was so much disunity amongst these different tribes and that this coalition is breaking apart. And some of them said, you know, we're going home, that's it, we've been here long enough. And Hudhaifa brought... this good news back to the Prophet ﷺ. He came back, brought the news that, you know, they're disunifying, and they're going to break up. And Hudayfah radiallahu anhu fell asleep. He was like completely exhausted. Obviously his nerves and all of that. At a high adrenaline level, he comes back, and he fell asleep. And by the time he woke up in the morning, the sun had come up bright, and the Prophet ﷺ, you know, they woke him up. The confederates had left. They had all left. And by morning time, time they had all gone and abandoned their siege of Medina and went home. Now... The Jews of Banu Qurayza have been abandoned. Banu Qurayza broke their treaty. They live in Medina, and they broke their treaty with the Prophet ﷺ. All the confederates left, and they left Banu Qurayza stuck there in Medina. In the morning, the famous hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, this is like afternoon, the Prophet ﷺ said, لَا يُصَلِّيَنَّ أَحَدُكُمُ الْعَصْرَ إِلَّا فِي بَنِي قُرَيْضَ The Prophet ﷺ He gave a command, he said, no one should pray Asr except in Bani Quraidah. Now the background of it is like, put your armor on, put your... the whole army is going to Bani Quraidah and they have to be there before Maghrib time. Between, you know, you have Dhuhr, Dhuhr time has come, the Prophet ﷺ is saying, don't pray Asr except in that location. So the whole army is mobilized in that direction for Bani Quraidah, for breaking the treaty with the Prophet ﷺ. So the famous incident happened, that on the way to Banu Qurayza, on the way to Banu Qurayza, Maghrib time came in. Some of the companions stopped on the way and prayed Asr on the way to Banu Qurayza. And some of them continued onwards even though the sun had set and it was Maghrib time. They went to Banu Qurayza because the Prophet ﷺ said, literally, don't pray Asr until you're in Banu Qurayza. So they didn't pray Asr even though Maghrib time came in. So there's a difference of opinion amongst the companions. The reason I say it's very popular is because the Prophet ﷺ Prophet ﷺ was told after that some of them had prayed on the way, they understood the same commandment of the Prophet ﷺ in two different ways. Some of them prayed on the way and some of them prayed after Maghrib at Banu Qurayza. They took the literal and other companions took the meaning of what the Prophet ﷺ is saying. And the Prophet ﷺ didn't say that one of the groups was wrong, right? He didn't say this group is right and this group is wrong and neither did the companions, رضي الله عنهم. Some of them who prayed on the way, they understood the meaning of the word. prayed on the way, didn't say, no, you guys are wrong, you're going, that's wrong, that's not what he meant. They didn't do that. Some of them understood it this way and they went. Some of them understood it this way. Alhamdulillah, when there's that possibility of a difference of opinion, then it could be mercy for the ummah, right? That some people understand something naturally this way and some people understand it naturally that way. So they went to Banu Qurayza. One of the Jews of Banu Qurayza, they asked Abu Lubaba, Abu Lubaba, what do you think? think the Prophet's going to do to us? Abu al-Baba, he just naturally, he said, like, it just, it was like second nature. Everybody knows what's going to happen to them. He just went like this. He put his hand on his neck, and then they went, like, you know, their eyes went wide. They went into their castle and their areas, and they closed the walls. Abu al-Baba, basically what Abu al-Baba did, right now, their defenses were down. And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, would take them like that. But because of what he did, what he told them, they've now put up all defenses. And now what will the Muslims have to do? They will have to fight and many of the Muslims might be killed in that. Abu Lubaba went to the masjid. and imprisoned himself. He told his wife, tie me up. And he imprisoned himself in the masjid. Actually, it was just like two weeks ago. I was sitting in Masjid Nabawi, Masjid Nabawi in the Rawdah. And one of the pillars of the masjid, it actually says on the pillar that this is the pillar that Abu Lubaba tied himself to. Abu Lubaba radiallahu anhu tied himself to there and he would not allow anybody to untie him except the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Because Because doing an action like that had caused a lot of harm to the Muslims. It had the potential to cause a lot of harm. And so the Prophet ﷺ came. And then Banu Qurayza, they surrendered after some siege. Then they said, you know what, we're surrendering. And at this point, you had Aus and Khazraj, right? Last time, like when you're talking about Banu Nadir, one of the Munafiqeen came and said, O Messenger of Allah, treat our allies good. So the Prophet ﷺ let them go. Now the other side, you have like the Khazraj. Khazraj, the other tribe, is saying, Ya Rasulullah, treat our allies good, Banu Qurayza. Now, it's a different issue. Now, Banu Nadir tried killing the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, but Banu Qurayza broke a treaty in the worst time, the most difficult of time, and they're going to be punished for it. And now a group of the, you know, from the Ansar is saying, you know, treat them good. So, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said to them, Would it please you if Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is the one who who decides them. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is their chief. You have Aus and Khazraj. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is one of their chiefs. Would it please you if he's the one who decides? And they said yes. They got very happy and they said yes, we'll let Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. So the Prophet ﷺ said, go to the masjid and bring Sa'd here. So Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is being nursed in the masjid. They brought him and they carried him like on a camel and brought him to the Prophet ﷺ. So when they were bringing him, they told him, they're telling him like, Ahsan ibn Mu'adh. they're like treat our allies good treat our allies good and this is their chief said this statement he said he said the time has come for Saad that no criticizer His criticism will stop him in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Like he doesn't care about anybody criticizing him. He's going to say what he has to say. And then when they heard him say this, they were like, Bani Qurayza is dead. And he went there, and all the companions, they're waiting there, Ansar, Muhajireen, Aws, Khazars, they're all there waiting for Sa'd. And when Sa'd r.a. came in, came into the area, the Prophet s.a.w. stood up and he said, Qumu ila Sayyidikum. He said, stand up for your master Stand up for your Sayyid So you imagine all the combat The entire army stands up for Sa'd ibn Mu'adh And then the Prophet said He said, give the ruling And Sa'd went He said, will these people agree with my hukum? And they said yes Will these people agree with my hukum? They said yes He's like Ansar, Aus, Khazraj And with the people in this direction He pointed in the direction of the Prophet Sa'd ibn Mu'adh agreed with him with my hukum? He said, yes. And the Prophet ﷺ said, yes. And then Sa'ar radiallahu anhu gave the hukum and he said that in conclusion, bottom line, is that they're all to be executed, all their men. And the Prophet ﷺ said, Allahu Akbar, laqad hakamta bi hukmillahi wa rasulihi. He said, Allahu Akbar, you've given the ruling of Allah and His Messenger. And as I said, Banu Qurayza, those who were executed amongst them were the people who broke the treaty. There were people who came The people who hadn't reached puberty were not executed. People who had not broken the treaty were not executed. The women were not executed. Specifically, the men who had broken the treaty, they were executed. After the battle of Al-Ahzab, the Prophet ﷺ said, أَلْآنَ نَغْزُوهُمْ وَلَا يَغْزُونَ He said, we now will attack them and they will not attack us after this. And so it was a critical turning point in the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ that the battles after this... We're offensive. Allah Ta'ala Alam. There's a very interesting point about one of the commentators of the seerah. If you look at the life of Isa Alayhi Salaam, Prophet Jesus, and then you look at the life and the prophethood of Prophet Musa Alayhi Salaam. Prophet Musa Alayhi Salaam, it was very military based. Right? Where he has Bani Israel, Fir'aun and his henchmen are coming and Bani Israel has to enter Jerusalem. There's battles taking place and so on. and so forth, right? And then you have Isa ibn Maryam, which it was like a message of mercy and so on. But yet Isa ibn Maryam, they attempted to execute him. And there was no fighting physically. It was just like mercy, brotherhood and all that type of message. Now you take these two prophethoods, both of them combined in the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? So you get both sides. Usually when someone wants to say something about the seerah, they'll take one part. and they won't mention the other part. Or someone else wants to say, Oh no, the seerah has nothing to do with military and politics and so on. Look at this statement of the Prophet ﷺ. And they'll take the other side. The thing is that they have to take both. And you can't hide one side or the other. It combines both Prophet Isa ibn Maryam and Prophet Musa ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ. Combine both of them. Wallahu ta'ala a'lam.

and all these things, the ifk, the tragedy of Ma'una well, and so on. So a lot of tests had come to the Muslims, and like a culmination of these tests came in the battle of the trench. Khandaq in Arabic means trench.

And another name for this battle is Ahzab. Ahzab, which means the confederates or the alliances or coalition. So what the Mushrikeen in Mecca did is gathered, you had from the Jewish tribes that were expelled from Medina, Yisra'el, Banu Nadir, Banu Qaynuqa.

Those two tribes were expelled at this point. And there's only one tribe, one Jewish tribe left in Medina, and that's Banu Qurayza. Those two tribes had gone.

They went to like Khaybar and they were inciting. the mushrikeen against the Muslims. And then you had other tribes.

Anybody who had something, some beef with the Muslims was joining in this battle. There were also other people who were joining the battle just for the war spoils. So some people, they just got into the battle just for economic reasons. So they're also joining in these alliances and confederates against the Prophet ﷺ.

10,000 people came to fight the Prophet ﷺ in Medina. Medina in this battle of Al-Ahzab. Again, remember when we were talking about how the Prophet ﷺ would take some people by surprise? Notice here, in all these battles, the Mushrikeen are the ones who came to the Prophet ﷺ.

In all of these things, it was actually defensive in these situations. So it's not the Muslims attacking them from the Hijrah, they were going to kill the Prophet ﷺ. From the Battle of Badr, they brought the army to attack the Prophet ﷺ.

In the Battle of Uhud, they brought the army to Medina killed the Prophet ﷺ. In the battle of Al-Ahzab, they brought the army to kill the Prophet ﷺ. All of these battles and then after the battle of Al-Ahzab, that's when the Muslims went offensive.

That's when they went offensive. So it is a turning point for the Muslims and the victory in this battle. It happened in the fifth year of Hijrah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it's one of the biggest tests that came to the Muslims where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran وَإِذْ زَغَتِ الْأَبْصَارُ وَبَلَا وَتَلَغَتِ الْقُلُوبُ الْحَنَاجِرَ وَتَظُنُّونَ بِاللَّهِ الظُّنُونَ هُنَالِكَ ابْتُلِيَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَزُلْزِنُوا زِلْزَالًا شَدِيدًا Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, And when the eyes grew wild and the hearts reached to the throats, and you were harboring doubts about Allah, there the believers were tried and shaken with a mighty shake. Obviously, these verses are talking about the munafiq.

when they said you had doubts about Allah. So the verses speak about the Munafiqeen in the battle of Al-Ahzab. The Munafiqeen, the hypocrites in Medina, they also turned their back on the Prophet ﷺ.

They turned their backs on the Prophet ﷺ and they abandoned him. Again, like that was their normal habit of abandoning the Prophet ﷺ during his time of need. This picture, this is not the trench that you see there.

It's not the trench in Medina. But it's giving you a glimpse of a trench. trench and this battle strategy or war strategy. What they would do is in the trench, they would dig this trench and it's very long, right? So you're talking about like say 13 feet across and like very deep.

So it's not possible for someone to just go into the trench and just simply walk across it. What would need to happen is there is a strategy to fight against the trench. The Prophet ﷺ, when they decided this time, the Battle of Uhud, they fought outside of Medina.

In this battle, The companions of Allah, they did shura and they said we'll fight inside Medina. And that was the Prophet's opinion. The battle of Uhud, this time they implemented it. And so they're fighting from inside of Medina and they're securing Medina. On one side of Medina, you have like trees, palm trees and very...

What's the word? There's like rocks that are like impossible to walk over. Right? Rocks, they're like volcanic rock ash area.

The rocks are all like, it's like a trillion rocks. And the rocks are very... very like big and boulderish and so on. Even just if you're walking as one person, it's very difficult to walk because there's no firm footing.

So it's like impossible for an army to go through that area. It's very difficult. And so that's defended. In the other parts, you have trees. An army can't go through a palm tree forest.

And then you have the Jews, Bani Khurayrah, defending another part. And then the Muslims took a stance. It was a very long area. It took them 20 days to build this trench. Now the suggestion...

suggestion Of building the trench was the suggestion of Salman al-Farisi. So again, they're in the strategy of war and the Prophet ﷺ is getting shura from them. Salman al-Farisi said, in Persia, this is a strategy that we used to have. That when an army is attacking, we dig these trenches and that gives you a huge boost because now you can defend the trench.

In order for a person to cross the trench, they have to put down their weapons. And when they put down their weapons, they can be killed trying to get out of the trench. And they can't jump over it. and so on.

So it's a huge defense. Kind of like if you've seen these castles and the castle has this water going around it. You call it a moat.

Call it a moat. They put the water around and they put crocodiles in there and it's all dirty water and all of that stuff because it defends the castle. It's like a trench but on top of that there's water inside of it so that a person won't be able to just easily just walk up to the wall and start climbing it or so on.

So that's the trench. There's an interesting point here that you need to pay attention to. The Prophet ﷺ, this war strategy was not designed by Muslims.

It was designed by kuffar. Kuffar designed this war strategy. Now, the way Muslims would do it, this is how they would react to something like that. They'll say, where is this found in the Quran and Sunnah? That's how a normal Muslim would react.

Like you tell someone, this is a time technique, a time management technique. They'll be like, yeah, but where do you find this in the Quran and Sunnah? And then some guy will go, He'll go, وَالْعَصْرُ إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ Right? By the time. So there's just like this foolishness, like confusion.

And so here's the end to the confusion, inshallah ta'ala. So you understand. There's knowledge of religion, and there's knowledge of human sciences. Okay? So you have issues of religion, you have issues of human sciences.

Human sciences are sciences that all human beings share in equally, Muslim or non-Muslim. I'll give you an example of a human... science that all humans share and equally is like biology. Right? Biology is something that, if there's a human science that all human beings share equally in, then nobody will say, oh, you know, Professor so-and-so from Germany came up with this, and we were like, no, he's Kafir, we won't take what he's saying, and so on and so forth.

We wouldn't do that. Someone comes up with a time, is time management, does it belong exclusively to Muslims? The answer is no, it doesn't belong to Muslims.

So if someone comes up with a good time management technique, nobody has has to quote it from the Quran and Sunnah. Somebody give me another example of human science? Human science? Some parts of psychology. Some parts of psychology.

There is a crisscross. I was going to say something that might not start moving into another realm is like the science of being happy. Then you start coming into like religion and whatnot and they're like, oh, if you meditate and you do stuff like that, that's a different story.

But a human science, again, something like chemistry, something like engineering, most of the stuff that you study in university is like a human science. You don't need to quote it from the Quran and stuff. sunnah okay but then there's other stuff that is religious sciences where someone starts telling you ways to for example ways to relax and you know someone teaches that you like yoga for example and they'll say if you focus on this idol then you'll calm down okay now we've gone a little too far right and so on so religious sciences when you're looking for a proof from the quran and sunnah it's actually in religious sciences in religious sciences During this time when they were building the trench, so the Prophet ﷺ accepted the shura of Salman al-Farisi r.a. And they began building this trench. The companions divided into groups, which is another key point.

It's not just a group of a few companions digging the whole trench. How long would it take them to do that? It would take them an exceptionally long time.

It was kind of like the example of a father once. On his deathbed, he had a big stack of sticks and he told one of his sons, you know, break these sticks. So his son tried breaking it. and he wasn't able to do it.

And then the father said, now divide it amongst your brothers. So he divided all the sticks amongst his brothers, and now each one break it. And each one simply would just snap, snap, snap, snap, snap.

All the sticks in a few seconds were broken. And that's the power of working in jama'ah. The power of working in jama'ah is you're able to do, you can snap all the sticks in a very short amount of time if you have teamwork and team effort.

Problem in a lot of our organizations, they're like one-man shows. One-man show, one guy doing... doing everything. He's working very hard, everybody's making to offer him, and this and that, but he's not doing very much.

And the reason is, he hasn't gone to a different level of, in fact, in your organizations, this is the key point, it's not about the work, it's about mobilizing volunteers. How do you manage and keep them motivated and keep them in check? all of this stuff, that's how you move an organization forward. It's not like, what can you do? It's like, how good are you at managing volunteers?

And how many volunteers can you manage before your hair starts falling out? There's a statement that I hear in the Muslim communities. often and again and again. I hate this statement. The statement goes like this.

You can't trust volunteers. How many people have heard that statement before? You can't trust volunteers.

They think that only when money is involved will people become I'm sincere. This is the only thing. And I would say in response, when people say that you can't trust volunteers, I would say in response that, no, you can trust volunteers if you're a true leader.

The problem is not the volunteers. The problem is you're just not a leader. You're a punk. That's not how to take care of people. And that's why they won't work for you.

Because they're like the Arabs. They love freedom. They only take on courageous leaders.

So the Companions of the Alarm, they divided the trench, which went for a very long distance. You're talking about in the kilometers and miles. It went very far.

I think someone, you might have the dimensions of the, someone once gave it to me. We don't have it here. The dimensions of the trench. But you're talking about multiple miles that the trench was dug.

And they did it in 20 days. They dug the trench in 20 days. During the time that they were digging the trench, it was very cold in Medina.

Medina has. very cold winters. Not cold according to like relative to our cold, but you have to realize that these people don't have heaters, they don't have very thick clothing and so on.

So the cold is exceptionally cold because of that. So they were in this cold and they're afraid for their lives. There's 10,000 fighters coming in Medina. You're looking at you know the Battle of Uhud, they had 600 fighters and now 10,000 are coming.

So it's like 10 to 1 at least. 10 to 1 at least that they're gonna be fighting. and these are like multiple tribes have come together to fight the Prophet ﷺ. So they're cold, they're fearing for their lives, and there's a drought happening in Medina. A famine, sorry.

So people don't have food. So they're digging this trench and they don't have food, and they're cold and they're fearing for their lives. When the Prophet ﷺ, when they're digging the trench, the Prophet ﷺ, they would say like these lines of poetry, where they say, لَا عَيْشَ إِلَّا عِيْشُ الْآخِرَةِ The Prophet ﷺ would say to them, لَا عَيْشَ إِلَّا عِيْشُ الْآخِرَةِ There is no life except the life of the hereafter. فَانْصُرِ الْأَنصَارَ وَالْمُهَاجِرَةِ So grand victory to the Ansar and the Muhajireen. And the Ansar and the Muhajireen, they would respond when the Prophet ﷺ would say that, they would respond by saying, نَحْنُ الَّذِينَ بَايَعُوا مُحَمَّدًا عَلَى الْإِسْلَامِ مَا بَقِينَا أَبَدًا That we're the ones who pledge allegiance to Muhammad upon Islam so long as we live.

So, the Prophet ﷺ, when they would come across a rock, they're digging the trench and they come across a really heavy rock, they would call upon the strongest person amongst them. Who is the strongest person amongst them? Who is the strongest person? Yes? Yes?

Ali? Yes? Yes? Yes? Yes?

Yes, from the sisters? What's that? Okay, it was the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

He was the strongest. He was the strongest. So they're like, Ya Rasulullah, we can't break this rock. Can you come and help us?

So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, can you put the PowerPoint up? He took the... spade, a spade is like a shovel, right?

It's like a shovel and it's like pointy. So the hadith, Al-Bara'a says, on the day of Al-Khandaq, the trench, there stood a rock too immune for our shelves. to break up. We therefore went to see the messenger of Allah ﷺ for advice. He took the spade and struck the rock, uttering, بِسْمِ اللَّهِ اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ أُوتِيْتُمَ فَاتِيحَ الشَّامِ He said, in the name of Allah, Allah is great.

The keys of Al-Sham are mine. I swear by Allah, I can see its palaces right now. So when you see a spark of, what does it say?

Okay, a fire. It's not in this narration, but a spark or a fire. That's when you hit a rock. If you hit a rock, a spark will come from that, right? If you hit it with metal.

So the Prophet ﷺ, when he hit the rock, this huge spark came from it. And the Prophet ﷺ said, I've been given the keys to a sham. And the sham was under the Byzantine power. Under Byzantine power. He said, by Allah, I can see its palaces right now.

And then he hit it a second time. He said, Allah Akbar, I've been given the keys to Persia. I swear by Allah, I can see it. and see now the White Palace.

of Medain. And then he hit the rock a third time, and he said, Allahu Akbar, I've been given the keys of Al-Yaman. I swear by Allah, I can see the gates of Sana'at while I'm in my place. So now, these places, these locations, implications, Syria is Muslim. Persia is Muslim.

Yemen is Muslim. They're all Muslim countries. At the time that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said this, they weren't Muslim countries, correct? You understand that, right?

Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam prophesied that these places would become Muslim. And we know that they became Muslim. Now, the munafiqeen, when they heard this, what the Prophet ﷺ had said, you know, remember when I was talking about earlier yesterday when I said, when you tell someone you have these big dreams, what do they say to you? They say, be realistic, right?

And they put you down. I'm not saying they're munafiqeen, but they'll put you down. When the Prophet ﷺ, when this happened, they responded by saying, مَا وَعَدَنَا اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُمْ وَمَسُولُهُ إِلَّا غُرُورًا That Allah and His Messenger promised us nothing except delusions. This is their response to the Prophet ﷺ saying that they're about to be attacked, they could possibly all be killed, and this is the end of Islam, and he's saying that Persia and Yemen and the Sham are going to belong to the Muslims, and that the palaces are going to be for the Muslims.

Which is what happened. It's a test from Allah ﷻ. The Prophet ﷺ, in their hunger, they would wrap rocks, around their stomach and the Prophet said in the battle of al-khanda when they would see the Prophet he had two rocks wrapped around his stomach so the Prophet is even like suffering and sacrificing double what the companions are sacrificing and then the Prophet is not sitting at his home while the companions are digging the trench he's with them digging the trench with them side by side with them he's saying laa'isha illa aisha al-akhirah and they're saying And so these are the men working and the leaders, you have examples of the leaders, visionary, managing the companions and working alongside the companions. So Jabir, this is known as Walimat Jabir.

Jabir, he saw the Prophet ﷺ with the two rocks around his stomach and then he went home to his wife to see if they had any food to feed the Prophet ﷺ. So he went home to... his wife and he said, you know, do we have any food?

And she said, they only have like a little sheep, very small, and she said that, you know, it's enough to feed the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam one meal and maybe two or three of his companions. So he doesn't have enough food for everybody. You're talking about the companions are in the hundreds. They're in the hundreds who are digging the trench and they only have enough food for two or three people. So Jabir radiallahu anhu went to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and whispered to him, Ya Rasulullah, we have food for you at our house.

And maybe two or three of your companions. You can invite two or three people. So you can imagine what would happen. Like the Prophet ﷺ is going to go sneak out and eat with two companions and the whole army doesn't have food.

The Prophet ﷺ announced to everybody in the army, there's food at Jabir's house. Everybody's invited. So, now Jabir's really scared. The whole army's coming for dinner. They have food.

have enough food for three people, basically. For three people. So he went home. Now imagine, you know, we have wives here, and they, imagine if your husband did that to you.

He comes back from mother prayer or something like that, and he said, everybody in the message is coming for dinner. Start cooking. What would she say? What do you think? What would a normal sister say?

No, no, she would say... order pizza. That's what she would say.

Basically, she would drop her spoon and, you know, like, wash her hands and, like, I'll see you later so that they have enough room and stuff like that. Here's the phone. I'll see you later. So Jabir radiallahu anhu, his wife, and for those who prepared the part about the role of women in the seerah, you'll see how strong they were. I gave you the example of Khadijah radiallahu anhu and how the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would go up to the cave.

What woman just lets her husband go up into a cave and spend time on his own? They would nag him and all of this stuff, come back, where do you think you're going? And so Khadijah radiallahu anhu supported the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

Now you have Jabir radiallahu anhu who comes home to his wife, says the whole army is coming home for dinner. dinner. And he's very scared.

They don't have enough food for the whole army, even not enough space for the army. She said, She says to him, did you invite them or did the Messenger of Allah invite them? And he said, the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he invited them.

And then she said to him, then don't worry. Then don't worry. So the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, came into the house.

They brought the food, and the Prophet ﷺ prayed for the food and prayed for barakah in the food. The companions, all these soldiers came in, small group, small group, small group, until everyone in the whole army ate from the home of Jabir. That's why I said it's known as Walima Jabir.

The Walima of Jabir, that dinner invitation of Jabir, the entire army ate from that food. And in the end, the Prophet ﷺ gave the food back. to them and said, this is for your family and share with your neighbors. After everybody had eaten. And that's from the barakah of the Prophet.

And so this battle, once the mushrikeen had arrived in Medina and they came across this trench. They had never experienced a trench like this before. This was something unique and new and hadn't been done.

And now they didn't know how to react to the trench. They can't cross it and they don't know what to do. So they held Medina under siege.

The Muslims are on the other side of the trench, defending it, and the Mushrikeen are on this side. Actually, the way to fight the trench, because later when the Muslims conquered Persia, they faced this trench multiple times in the areas that they fought. The way to fight the trench, even though the Mushrikeen didn't know this at that time, but the way to fight it is to find the weakest link. So you have a trench. You find the spot where the Muslims or whoever was lazy.

You find the lazy ones. The ones who said, oh, you know what? This trench is like 20 miles long.

Nobody's going to think about this area. So they get a scout that scouts the whole trench. They find the weakest link of the trench.

And the way the trench is defended is by separating out your army. And each person is here, here, here, right? What the other side does, once you find the weakest link, you take like 500 fighters. And you amaze them.

Ambush that area, the area of the weakest link. Because on the other side, there's only going to be like two, three fighters. It's going to be dispersed.

There's not going to be too many of them. Plus, this is the weakest link. Plus, you've got 500 fighters. So those fighters, basically, the 500, they're blocking the people from crossing.

And then they just basically, and once they start defending and they kill those few fighters, then people start coming and shoveling in as much as they can to fill up that part of the trench. And they cross as many people from that area. and then they attack from that side. The story of the weakest link. So that's how to fight the trench.

The fights were with arrows. So it was going back and forth with arrows. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, we've mentioned a lot about Sa'd.

Sa'd, in the Battle of Al-Khandaq, was hit by one of these straight arrows. He was hit by one of these straight arrows and he actually died shaheed from that arrow hit. He eventually died from it. He didn't die immediately. from it, but he was taken to the masjid, masjid Nabawi, and he was being nursed there during this time, during the battle.

We said about the munafiqeen turning their backs, and then you had also, Ben-Hurayza broke their treaty with the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Remember the treaty I showed you, that they said that they would defend the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, they're one body, and they would defend from any foreign attacks? The Jews went to Ben-Hurayza and said, now's your chance to break your treaty with the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

Now's your chance, you're not going to get a better chance. like this, and they decided to break their treaty. And so you know that later when the Prophet ﷺ, they were executed for that, for breaking the treaty. Some of the Jews of Ben Uchreda brought proof to the Prophet ﷺ that they did not break the treaty, and they did not agree with the treaty being broken, and the Prophet ﷺ spared their lives for that.

And so it was because of the breaking of the treaty. And plus, the Muslim, the women and the children, they're inside the city, and the Muslims are defending. them but then the Jews were thinking of attacking them from that side and so there's a story of Safiyyah she was the mother of Az-Zubayr mother of Az-Zubayr they sent a scout, one of the Jews they were sending a scout to see if they've left any men amongst the women there's stories about Hassan ibn Thabit I've heard from our teachers that perhaps those stories aren't correct because it paints Hassan as not being courageous which isn't true true.

He was obviously the poet and so on and so forth. Basically, Sophia went and she hammered that scout and she killed him. And then she stripped him of his war spoils, took his head. and gave it back to them.

And then they said in response, they said that there's definitely many men, that they've left many men amongst those people. That was Safiyyah radiallahu ta'ala anha. In the battle as well, Amr ibn Abdul Wud was one of the fighters that crossed the trench and challenged the Muslim fighters.

Ali r.a was the one who stood up to fight him. And in that battle between Amr ibn Abdul Wud and Amr ibn Abdul Wud, and Ali r.a. Amr ibn Abdul Wud was much senior and much more experienced in battle than Ali r.a.

When Ali came, Amr told him I don't want to kill you because you're related to me and so on. And Ali r.a. said to him basically don't worry because I'll be the one who kills you.

And so they fought and in the end Ali r.a. killed Amr ibn Abdul Wud. During the battle Allah s.w.t. protects during the battle because of the intensity of the fight on one of the days and the siege, they were held to the point where they missed Asr prayer. They missed Asr prayer between like Dhuhar and Asr. They missed Asr prayer.

The Prophet ﷺ said, مَلَأَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ بُيُوتَهُمْ وَقُبُورَهُمْ نَارًا كَمَا شَغَلُونَ عَلَى الصَّلَاةِ الْوُسْتَى حَتَّى غَابَتِ الشَّمْسِ The Prophet ﷺ got so angry that they missed the prayer. The Prophet ﷺ said, May their graves and their homes be filled with fire because of them. them distracting us until we missed the Asr prayer, until the sun went down.

And so even during the battles, the Muslim used to pray in Jama'at. They used to pray in congregation. And there was, it's well known, you'd have two lines of army, for example. One line of the army is praying behind the prophets of Allah, and the other army is defending, the other line is defending.

And then, so if it's like two rakahs, for example, or four rakahs, one of the groups would pray two rakahs, and the other would pray the other two rakahs with the prophet. If, for example, let's say the qibla is this way and the opposing army is coming from that way, one side is defending and the second line of the Muslims is praying behind the Prophet ﷺ. After they've prayed like one raka'ah, for example, or let's say they're praying four raka'ahs, they pray two raka'ahs with the Prophet ﷺ and then he'll wait in his jalsa.

They complete their prayer, right? They complete their prayer and then switch positions with those fighters. Those fighters come in.

They switch lines. Those fighters come in and they finish off the prayer with the Prophet ﷺ. And then they're all back into the fight. So even during the battle, if there was a time when you wouldn't have to pray in congregation, be in such a situation yet, they still prayed in congregation. The dua of the Prophet ﷺ in the battle of Al-Ahzab, اللهم منزل الكتاب سريع الحساب اهزم الاحزاب اللهم اهزمهم وزلزلهم The Prophet ﷺ said, O Allah, the one who revealed the book, the one who is swift in reckoning, conquer the confederates.

Or the confederates. اللهم اهزمهم وزلزلهم O Allah, defeat these confederates and shake the earth from underneath them. When you're saying your takbir of Eid, or actually when you're on, like if you're doing Umrah, and you're in Safa Marwah, you're like, Allah, Akbar Allah, Akbar Allah, Akbar Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Wahda. When you say Wahda, What you're saying in the praise of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is Allah won.

He fulfilled his promise to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And he granted victory to his slave. And he granted like honor and nobility to his army, to his soldiers. And he alone subhanahu wa ta'ala defeated the confederates, defeated these alliances and coalitions. In Surah Al-Ahzab, verse 9, Surah Al-Ahzab, so there's a surah about this battle where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اذْكُرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ O you who believe, remember Allah's favor and blessing upon you.

اِذْ جَاءَتْكُمْ جُنُودًا When these soldiers came to you, فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ مِرِيحًا وَجُنُودًا لَمْ تَرَوْهَا And we sent upon them a wind and an army that you didn't know. And in this battle as well, I mentioned that the Prophet ﷺ, part of the army of the Confederates was coming just for the war spoils. They had no issue with the Prophet ﷺ. They were just there that when they would win, they would share in the war spoils.

And the Prophet ﷺ wanted to give them a portion of the dates of Medina so that they would desist from fighting the Muslims. And the Aus and Khazraj, they said, You know, is it revelation or is it, you know, just the shura and just war strategy? The Prophet ﷺ said, said, you know, it's just the ...or strategy, and they said in response, Ya Rasulullah, they've never in Jahiliyyah been able to eat from our dates except that they paid for it or they got it as a gift.

I mean, they came and they were our guests or something like that. They said, never after Islam would we give it to them like willingly like... that.

You know, instead of the dates, we will give them swords. And the Prophet ﷺ, you know, accepted this from them. Then later on, he sent someone to see if the treaty was still valid with the Jews, and that companion came back and he told the Prophet ﷺ, that the treaty has been broken.

They've broken the treaty. So you see from every direction and then the siege was happening. During the siege, obviously it was a time of winter, so it was very cold and the winds were blowing very heavily. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said that He sent the winds upon them.

Now if you have an army of 10,000 people, how do you feed 10,000 people? How do you feed 10,000 people? That means like when the Prophet ﷺ would send a scout to see how many animals are they slaughtering? And you can tell how big an army is by how much food they're exhausting. So it's a logistical issue.

It's a logistical issue. You can have a big army, but how do you take care of that many soldiers? And the siege is going on.

The longer the siege happens, the more disunity starts to come and boil up in their army. And this is what was happening amongst the Mushrikeen army. They're like, how long are we going to take?

We need to go home. What are we waiting for here? And so on. And there is this disunity. So the Prophet ﷺ said, asked for someone from the companions to go cross the trench and go and get news.

What was happening? What were they discussing? And so on. And so the companions, they're human beings and nobody raised their hand. You're crossing the trench and you're going into and sitting amongst an army that are there to kill you.

So the Prophet ﷺ said, Hudaifah, stand up and go. So Hudaifah, after the Prophet ﷺ called his name out, he's like, there's no other choice. choice, you stood up, to bake. I'm here.

So Hudayfa radiallahu anhu, the Prophet ﷺ made dua for him. And it was a super cold night. It was extremely, extremely cold.

And the winds were blowing so heavily and it's extremely cold. And he said that as soon as I had crossed, as soon as I stood up and started walking, he said, it was like this warm breeze came on me. And Hudayfa radiallahu anhu, in the darkness, crossed into the trench and went into the enemy camps and sat amongst them. Hudayfa radiallahu anhu, the Prophet ﷺ told him, do not provoke them.

Just bring the news back, but don't provoke them against me. And so Hudhayfah radiallahu anhu sat, there's like a campfire, and they were discussing amongst themselves, and the person who was leading it was Abu Sufyan. Abu Sufyan is leading and he's the chief of Mecca at this point.

And Hudhayfah radiallahu anhu, he has a bow and arrow with him. And he's like, he can kill him right now. But then he he remembered what the Prophet ﷺ said, and he put his arrow back.

Even though he could have killed them, he didn't. And actually Abu Sufyan later became Muslim as well. But he didn't kill him. And so he sat there. So Abu Sufyan is about to speak, and then he said, everybody should check who's sitting beside them.

Okay, so now what do you do? Everybody should check who's sitting beside them. So Hudayfah radiallahu anhu, he immediately grabbed the person to his right, and he said, who are you?

And the guy said, I'm so-and-so. He grabbed the person on his left, and he said, who are you? are you?

The guy said, I'm so-and-so. He's like, alright, alright. And so you see that the Muslims are very intelligent. They're very intelligent. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless all of you with intelligence, inshallah.

And so he followed the news and he realized that there was so much disunity amongst these different tribes and that this coalition is breaking apart. And some of them said, you know, we're going home, that's it, we've been here long enough. And Hudhaifa brought...

this good news back to the Prophet ﷺ. He came back, brought the news that, you know, they're disunifying, and they're going to break up. And Hudayfah radiallahu anhu fell asleep.

He was like completely exhausted. Obviously his nerves and all of that. At a high adrenaline level, he comes back, and he fell asleep.

And by the time he woke up in the morning, the sun had come up bright, and the Prophet ﷺ, you know, they woke him up. The confederates had left. They had all left.

And by morning time, time they had all gone and abandoned their siege of Medina and went home. Now... The Jews of Banu Qurayza have been abandoned. Banu Qurayza broke their treaty.

They live in Medina, and they broke their treaty with the Prophet ﷺ. All the confederates left, and they left Banu Qurayza stuck there in Medina. In the morning, the famous hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, this is like afternoon, the Prophet ﷺ said, لَا يُصَلِّيَنَّ أَحَدُكُمُ الْعَصْرَ إِلَّا فِي بَنِي قُرَيْضَ The Prophet ﷺ He gave a command, he said, no one should pray Asr except in Bani Quraidah.

Now the background of it is like, put your armor on, put your... the whole army is going to Bani Quraidah and they have to be there before Maghrib time. Between, you know, you have Dhuhr, Dhuhr time has come, the Prophet ﷺ is saying, don't pray Asr except in that location. So the whole army is mobilized in that direction for Bani Quraidah, for breaking the treaty with the Prophet ﷺ.

So the famous incident happened, that on the way to Banu Qurayza, on the way to Banu Qurayza, Maghrib time came in. Some of the companions stopped on the way and prayed Asr on the way to Banu Qurayza. And some of them continued onwards even though the sun had set and it was Maghrib time.

They went to Banu Qurayza because the Prophet ﷺ said, literally, don't pray Asr until you're in Banu Qurayza. So they didn't pray Asr even though Maghrib time came in. So there's a difference of opinion amongst the companions. The reason I say it's very popular is because the Prophet ﷺ Prophet ﷺ was told after that some of them had prayed on the way, they understood the same commandment of the Prophet ﷺ in two different ways.

Some of them prayed on the way and some of them prayed after Maghrib at Banu Qurayza. They took the literal and other companions took the meaning of what the Prophet ﷺ is saying. And the Prophet ﷺ didn't say that one of the groups was wrong, right? He didn't say this group is right and this group is wrong and neither did the companions, رضي الله عنهم. Some of them who prayed on the way, they understood the meaning of the word.

prayed on the way, didn't say, no, you guys are wrong, you're going, that's wrong, that's not what he meant. They didn't do that. Some of them understood it this way and they went. Some of them understood it this way.

Alhamdulillah, when there's that possibility of a difference of opinion, then it could be mercy for the ummah, right? That some people understand something naturally this way and some people understand it naturally that way. So they went to Banu Qurayza. One of the Jews of Banu Qurayza, they asked Abu Lubaba, Abu Lubaba, what do you think?

think the Prophet's going to do to us? Abu al-Baba, he just naturally, he said, like, it just, it was like second nature. Everybody knows what's going to happen to them.

He just went like this. He put his hand on his neck, and then they went, like, you know, their eyes went wide. They went into their castle and their areas, and they closed the walls.

Abu al-Baba, basically what Abu al-Baba did, right now, their defenses were down. And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, would take them like that. But because of what he did, what he told them, they've now put up all defenses. And now what will the Muslims have to do? They will have to fight and many of the Muslims might be killed in that.

Abu Lubaba went to the masjid. and imprisoned himself. He told his wife, tie me up.

And he imprisoned himself in the masjid. Actually, it was just like two weeks ago. I was sitting in Masjid Nabawi, Masjid Nabawi in the Rawdah.

And one of the pillars of the masjid, it actually says on the pillar that this is the pillar that Abu Lubaba tied himself to. Abu Lubaba radiallahu anhu tied himself to there and he would not allow anybody to untie him except the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Because Because doing an action like that had caused a lot of harm to the Muslims. It had the potential to cause a lot of harm. And so the Prophet ﷺ came.

And then Banu Qurayza, they surrendered after some siege. Then they said, you know what, we're surrendering. And at this point, you had Aus and Khazraj, right?

Last time, like when you're talking about Banu Nadir, one of the Munafiqeen came and said, O Messenger of Allah, treat our allies good. So the Prophet ﷺ let them go. Now the other side, you have like the Khazraj.

Khazraj, the other tribe, is saying, Ya Rasulullah, treat our allies good, Banu Qurayza. Now, it's a different issue. Now, Banu Nadir tried killing the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, but Banu Qurayza broke a treaty in the worst time, the most difficult of time, and they're going to be punished for it.

And now a group of the, you know, from the Ansar is saying, you know, treat them good. So, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said to them, Would it please you if Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is the one who who decides them. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is their chief.

You have Aus and Khazraj. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is one of their chiefs. Would it please you if he's the one who decides?

And they said yes. They got very happy and they said yes, we'll let Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. So the Prophet ﷺ said, go to the masjid and bring Sa'd here.

So Sa'd ibn Mu'adh is being nursed in the masjid. They brought him and they carried him like on a camel and brought him to the Prophet ﷺ. So when they were bringing him, they told him, they're telling him like, Ahsan ibn Mu'adh. they're like treat our allies good treat our allies good and this is their chief said this statement he said he said the time has come for Saad that no criticizer His criticism will stop him in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Like he doesn't care about anybody criticizing him.

He's going to say what he has to say. And then when they heard him say this, they were like, Bani Qurayza is dead. And he went there, and all the companions, they're waiting there, Ansar, Muhajireen, Aws, Khazars, they're all there waiting for Sa'd. And when Sa'd r.a. came in, came into the area, the Prophet s.a.w. stood up and he said, Qumu ila Sayyidikum.

He said, stand up for your master Stand up for your Sayyid So you imagine all the combat The entire army stands up for Sa'd ibn Mu'adh And then the Prophet said He said, give the ruling And Sa'd went He said, will these people agree with my hukum? And they said yes Will these people agree with my hukum? They said yes He's like Ansar, Aus, Khazraj And with the people in this direction He pointed in the direction of the Prophet Sa'd ibn Mu'adh agreed with him with my hukum? He said, yes.

And the Prophet ﷺ said, yes. And then Sa'ar radiallahu anhu gave the hukum and he said that in conclusion, bottom line, is that they're all to be executed, all their men. And the Prophet ﷺ said, Allahu Akbar, laqad hakamta bi hukmillahi wa rasulihi. He said, Allahu Akbar, you've given the ruling of Allah and His Messenger.

And as I said, Banu Qurayza, those who were executed amongst them were the people who broke the treaty. There were people who came The people who hadn't reached puberty were not executed. People who had not broken the treaty were not executed. The women were not executed.

Specifically, the men who had broken the treaty, they were executed. After the battle of Al-Ahzab, the Prophet ﷺ said, أَلْآنَ نَغْزُوهُمْ وَلَا يَغْزُونَ He said, we now will attack them and they will not attack us after this. And so it was a critical turning point in the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ that the battles after this...

We're offensive. Allah Ta'ala Alam. There's a very interesting point about one of the commentators of the seerah.

If you look at the life of Isa Alayhi Salaam, Prophet Jesus, and then you look at the life and the prophethood of Prophet Musa Alayhi Salaam. Prophet Musa Alayhi Salaam, it was very military based. Right?

Where he has Bani Israel, Fir'aun and his henchmen are coming and Bani Israel has to enter Jerusalem. There's battles taking place and so on. and so forth, right?

And then you have Isa ibn Maryam, which it was like a message of mercy and so on. But yet Isa ibn Maryam, they attempted to execute him. And there was no fighting physically.

It was just like mercy, brotherhood and all that type of message. Now you take these two prophethoods, both of them combined in the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? So you get both sides.

Usually when someone wants to say something about the seerah, they'll take one part. and they won't mention the other part. Or someone else wants to say, Oh no, the seerah has nothing to do with military and politics and so on.

Look at this statement of the Prophet ﷺ. And they'll take the other side. The thing is that they have to take both. And you can't hide one side or the other.

It combines both Prophet Isa ibn Maryam and Prophet Musa ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ. Combine both of them. Wallahu ta'ala a'lam.

Transcript for:Self-Revelation and the Battle of the Trench

Transcript for:
Self-Revelation and the Battle of the Trench