From Darkness to Light: Ja'far's Speech to Najashi

Opening

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ. وَصَلَاةُ وَسَلَامُ عَلَى أَشْرَفِ الْأَنْبِيَاءِ وَالْمُرْسَلِينَ. سَيِّدِنَا وَنَبِيِّنَا وَمَوْلَانَا مُحَمَّدٍ. وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ. وَمَنْ تَبِعَهُمْ بِإِحْسَانٍ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ. أَمَّا بَعْدُ.

The Hijrah to Abyssinia

Before the Muslims made hijrah to Medina, if we are familiar with the seerah, we know that there was a hijrah — before the hijrah to Medina — which was the hijrah of some of the sahaba, رِضْوَانُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهِمْ أَجْمَعِينَ, to Habsha.

Now when a good chunk of the Muslims at the time escaped the persecution at the hands of the Quraysh, and went to Habsha — went to Abyssinia, around the area of modern-day Ethiopia — they were followed by two of the Quraysh, two of the Quraysh pagans, non-Muslims at the time. And they complained to Najashi, who was the king of Habsha, their ruler, and said that these people are fundamentally rebels. They're rebels, they're evil people, they have come to your land to take refuge. We just want permission — we want you to return them back to us so we can deal with them.

They're people that have left the deen of their forefathers, and they have caused division within our society. And Najashi, being a Christian leader, he wasn't someone that was hasty to make decisions. He wanted to act with justice.

And so he wanted to hear the story of the Muslims — their side of the story. He summoned all the Muslims, and the spokesperson for the Muslims was Sayyidina Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, رَضِيَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى عَنْهُ, the brother of Ali, رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ. And so when he was questioned by Najashi — what is this new religion that you have entered? It's not paganism, it's not the idolatry of the Quraysh, nor is it the Christianity that we practice, or Judaism. It seems to be just something completely new.

Sayyidina Ja'far's Description of Jahiliyyah

And so Sayyidina Ja'far, رَضِيَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى عَنْهُ, he explained the essence of Islam, and the fundamental societal change that Islam advocated for — how Islam took them from the dhulmat of jahiliyyah, the darkness of jahiliyyah, to the nur of Islam.

He starts off saying, in the presence of the king:

(The address of Sayyidina Ja'far ibn Abi Talib to Najashi, as recorded in Sirah Ibn Hisham and Musnad Ahmad)

Sayyidina Ja'far is telling the king: "Indeed we were a people of jahiliyyah." Now jahiliyyah comes from jahl, which means ignorance. Jahiliyyah refers to the time period before Islam — it was a period of ignorance.

1. Worshipping Idols

Then he goes on saying how were we ignorant: نَعْبُدُ الْأَصْنَامَ — "We used to worship idols." This is the epitome of ignorance from our perspective — to worship something that you create with your own hands. Not worshiping the Creator Himself, but carving idols out of rocks and then worshiping them, thinking that there can be images of God.

2. Eating Carrion

Then he said: وَنَأْكُلُ الْمَيْتَةَ — "We were people that used to eat carrion," meaning flesh that was just found on the side of the road, without necessarily even slaughtering it. If we found an animal that was dead, we'd go ahead and eat it. Meaning we were people that fundamentally did not care about the quality of food that we were putting within our stomachs — whether it's halal or haram, whether it's pure or impure, whether it's tayyib or najis.

3. Committing Obscenities

Then he said: وَنَأْتِي الْفَوَاحِشَ — "And we used to approach obscenities, profanities. We used to practice profane and obscene acts" — like adultery and these types of things. Things that are fundamentally bad for society.

As we see nowadays, when we get a society in which adultery, in which zina has proliferated, the whole fabric of society — which is family — crumbles. And then you get households in which one of the parents is absent. A lot of times it's the father that is absent, the mother is not able to do justice — she also has to work. You raise a child that doesn't get the discipline of the father, a lot of times doesn't even get the love of the mother, and he goes on not becoming a successful citizen or a successful member of society.

4. Cutting Family Ties

He says: وَنَقْطَعُ الْأَرْحَامَ — "That we used to sever our kin." One of the aspects of Islam that is so fundamental is صِلَةُ الْأَرْحَامِ. When the Prophet ﷺ came to Medina for the first time, in his very first public lecture, he said:

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 3251; Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2485)

"Spread peace — spread salam. Feed the poor. And join the ties of kin — maintain your family ties. And while others are sleeping, pray at night, and you will enter Jannah in peace."

It is not good for family members of the same blood to start dividing — causing division amongst one another for no reason. There was so much infighting within the Quraysh that just over small infractions — there was a very famous incident called Harb al-Basus, in which two tribes were at war with one another for the better part of 40 years. How did the war even start? It was something very arbitrary. Someone else's camel stepped on the other person's property and broke an egg. One tribe member got revenge — he killed someone. And after that, the cycle of violence never ended for 40 years. This was the type of infighting found within the Arabs.

5. The Powerful Consuming the Weak

Then he says: وَيَأْكُلُ الْقَوِيُّ مِنَّا الضَّعِيفَ — "And we were a people where the powerful among us would consume the weak." Meaning they would completely violate them and take away their rights. We were a society of people that lived by the slogan: might makes right. If someone is strong, then they can have what they want.

Islam's Transformative Light

This is Sayyidina Ja'far, رَضِيَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى عَنْهُ, explaining the state that the Quraysh were in before Islam. And then the Prophet ﷺ came and removed them from this ignorance, from this dhulmat, through the teachings and the light of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.

Into the worship of Allah alone. Into the eating and consumption of food that is pure — it is tayyib, it is halal, it is lawful, it is permissible — that has been slaughtered in the name of Allah. If you're going to take away a life by slaughtering an animal, then do it with the permission of Allah.

He also taught them to maintain their family ties — upholding the rights of one's parents is very, very important. Something that is stressed throughout the Qur'an. Right when Allah explains to us how we should worship Him alone, He also explains that we should be good to our parents:

"And your Lord has passed the verdict upon you that you must worship Him alone" — this is the most important thing: tawheed. And right after tawheed, what is mentioned? وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا — "And that you should be good to one's parents."

Islam also advocated for stopping all this fahisha — all these obscenities, all these profane acts in society. Be chaste. Restrain yourself. Not every single desire that you have is meant to be immediately fulfilled. If we are youth and we are struggling and we have these desires, it is not something that we need to necessarily act upon right away. Be patient for some time and look for a halal outlet for that. And that is what Islam has taught. And through that, society becomes stabilized.

The Elevation of the Arabs Through Islam

It is through these values that Islam taught the Quraysh that they became elevated. They became elevated so much so that before Islam, they were just looked at as people on the margins. The real civilizations were the civilization of the Romans and the civilization of the Persians. Everyone else in that area was to the side. The Arabs at that time were irrelevant.

But through the miracle of Islam, Allah elevated these nomadic tribes, these nomadic Arabs, into a people of civilization — a people of truth, of dignity, of honor — that eventually went and defeated the Romans, defeated the Persians, and established the Khilafah: a society in which Allah's rule was established and justice was enacted.

The message of Islam elevated the Arab people and everyone that accepted it — in terms of their material means, in terms of intellectual advancement. How many advancements did the Islamic civilization make in philosophy, theology, science, medicine, mathematics? But also, and most importantly, Islam elevated them spiritually. It took them from a lifestyle of ignorance — a lifestyle in which one does not even recognize his own Lord and how to have a relationship with Him — into a people that know the Kalima, that know there is only one God that deserves our worship.

People that are constantly returning back to the remembrance of Allah. If they engage in the dunya, it's for a couple of hours, and then they go back to the masjid to pray their salah — reconnecting themselves to their Creator five times a day, every single day. People who care about those that are unfortunate among us, who don't have the same means, and so they dedicate a whole portion of their wealth for their sake. Every year they give zakat, every week they're giving some form of charity, some form of sadaqa. Ideally, whenever one receives a salary, one dedicates a portion of that to the sake of the poor, to the sake of sadaqa, for the sake of the deen.

The Fitna of the Dajjal

But now we have to understand that that was the time of the Prophet ﷺ and the time of the Sahaba. They were the best of people. And ever since then, times have been good, but we have also been declining — declining fundamentally in the spiritual nature. And it is only something that will get worse until it culminates into the absolute darkest thing you could think of: the darkness and the fitna of Dajjal.

The Prophet ﷺ has informed us in a hadith:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 18, Hadith 2946)

"There is no matter more grave, more significant, more dangerous — from the creation of Adam ﷺ until the occurrence of the Hour — than the fitna of Dajjal."

And we can already see the preludes to that fitna. Dajjal's message is fundamentally one of materialism: don't worry about the hereafter; don't worry about what you can't see; just focus on the dunya; focus on what makes you happy; what you find pleasure in; focus on money — and everything that goes along with that. That is what you should orient your life around. It is a message of hedonism, of just chasing your desires.

Nowadays, subhanAllah, before there was always a recognition that this was a negative tendency — that you should practice self-restraint, that you shouldn't indulge in every single desire that you have. But nowadays, if we look at society, it's the complete opposite message. The message is that we should indulge in whatever we feel is our desire. We should chase our dream even if it's at the expense of other people. If you have certain goals in life, certain desires that you want to be fulfilled — don't care. You don't need to care about whether it's lawful or unlawful, whether your parents think it's good for you or not. And if your religion is telling you not to indulge, then your religion is toxic. If your parents are telling you not to indulge, then your parents are toxic. This is the mindset that is being taught and propagated. And it's implicitly what everyone is picking up from the media.

Being Proactive: Education and Role Models

And obviously, we have to do something about it. We have to shield ourselves from this and take the antidote from this poison. Even before we take the antidote, we have to make sure we're not being poisoned in the first place. How do we do that? Not by being reactive, but by being proactive. We have to care about the education of ourselves and our children.

How do we do that? By giving them proper role models to look up to. If we look and reflect over the Qur'an, we'll see that it is replete — it is filled — with stories. Stories of the anbiya, عَلَيْهِمُ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ. Stories of the people before us. How the evil people met their demise. How the good people — Allah's nasr, His help — eventually came to them. This is a constant theme throughout the Qur'an.

So we should ask ourselves — we should reflect: why is this the case? Why is Allah telling us so many different stories, and repeating those stories? What is really the point? We have to understand that this is Allah's way of teaching us. That's how people learn. Especially children — how do they learn? Through stories.

You can try teaching your child why they should have taqwa, why they should have tawakkul, why they should have sabr, why they shouldn't indulge in their desires, why they should obey their parents — strictly giving them: these are the rules, this is the shariah, this is what you have to follow. But they might not understand it. They might not get it.

But if you tell them the stories of the Prophets — how they practiced all these things — then it will resonate. Yusuf, عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ, despite being thrown in a well by his own family, by his own kin, maintained patience. He exercised patience. He was reliant upon Allah. He knew that the help of Allah would eventually come. And it wouldn't necessarily be direct — he didn't go from the bottom of the well directly to becoming someone wealthy and affluent with status in society. After the well, he goes into a household. He's falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. Then he spends some years in jail. And then finally, he's taken out of jail and appointed as a high minister, as the treasurer in Egyptian society.

Telling the story of how Musa, عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ, and his people — the Bani Israel — were being bullied by the Egyptians, by the Qibti. But Musa was always reliant upon Allah. He trusted Allah to the extent that when they're running away from the army of Pharaoh and they approach the sea — the ocean in front of them, the army of Pharaoh behind them — his people are crying out saying they've been caught, there is nothing they can do. And Musa, even in that moment, says: "No. It can never be the case that our Lord has forsaken us. He will guide us out of this situation."

We tell our children these stories so they understand what is truly relevant. Yes, it is good to earn a living. It is good to provide for one's family. It is good to secure the means for your future. But the most important thing is securing the akhira — and sometimes that's going to involve sacrificing your own comfort for the interests and goals of the ummah. That is the level we have to be thinking at.

The Ummah's Trials and the Promise of Allah's Help

The Muslim ummah — it is no secret — is undergoing great, great difficulties. We see what the people of Palestine are going through. And we have to ask ourselves: how can I contribute to the change? We know the change is going to happen. We have conviction that Allah will establish justice on the earth. He will right the wrongs. The evildoers will be punished. The patient ones will be rewarded. The question is: what is our role in this whole process? What is our role in the story?

We have to worry more than just about securing our material means, about whether or not we live a comfortable life. Think beyond that. Think of how we can contribute to the ummah. And that first and foremost is going to start with educating our children on Islam — educating them about the deen, about the Sunnah, about the hadith, about tazkiyah, purifying their souls. And then and only then can we hope as an ummah to elevate and fix the wrongs that are currently occurring.

Just like the anbiya, عَلَيْهِمُ السَّلَامُ — they were tested and pushed. Look at this very powerful ayah of the Qur'an:

"Do you think that you will enter Jannah? Yet the situations and conditions of the people of the past have not yet befallen you. They were afflicted with great calamity and difficulty. And they were shaken" — زُلْزِلُوا, like an earthquake, they were shaken — "until the Prophet and the believers surrounding him were looking to the heavens asking: مَتَى نَصْرُ اللَّهِ — 'When will the help of Allah come?' Allah responds: أَلَا إِنَّ نَصْرَ اللَّهِ قَرِيبٌ — 'Indeed, Allah's help is near.'"

And this is something we must all keep in mind: أَلَا إِنَّ نَصْرَ اللَّهِ قَرِيبٌ. The situation and conditions of the ummah will be fixed. The nasr is qarib. We just have to do whatever we can to play our part in that.

We ask Allah to give us the tawfiq to act upon what has been said. To forgive us for our many shortcomings and sins, and to enshroud us in His mercy.

وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَا أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

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This week's programs: a deep dive into Surah 'Abasa, uncovering its timeless wisdom during our Tuesday tafseer. Additionally, join the new Thursday program series on Imam Tirmidhi's Al-Shama'il al-Muhammadiyyah, after Maghrib salah for brothers and sisters. Lastly, join us for Team Fajr on Saturday — a new series on the lives of the Companions.

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Please make du'a for Sister Marika Begum, who has been admitted to the ICU. Please make du'a for her shifa. Dr. Sayed Ahmed is also critically ill and in the ICU. Please make du'a for his shifa. And please make du'a for all of the oppressed in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Myanmar, and the rest of the Muslim ummah. May Allah alleviate their suffering.