Mercy in the Face of Adversity | Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed | Mercy to Mankind 2018

Mercy in the Face of Adversity

Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. We praise Him and we pray for His noble messenger. Allah says in the Holy Book — after I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan, in the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful:

And those who restrain anger and who pardon the people — and Allah loves the doers of good. And Allah says in another place:

Defend with what is best — so if the one between you and him is enmity, he becomes as if he is a close friend.

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

I have been hurt for the sake of Allah as no one has been hurt, and I have been frightened for the sake of Allah as no one has been frightened. (Referenced in Musnad Ahmad and Sunan al-Tirmidhi)

Understanding the Adversity of the Prophet

Before we have a discussion about the mercy of the Prophet and his forgiveness, we need to sort of highlight — the first title of this is adversity. We need to understand what were the adverse situations that the Prophet had to deal with throughout his life, to actually understand and appreciate his forgiveness, to appreciate his mercy.

Born an Orphan

First of all, let's go back when he was a child — let's go back even a little bit before that, when he was still in the womb of his mother. His father, Abdullah, goes on a journey to Syria. On his way back, he falls sick in Madinatul Munawwara, because he had relatives over there. His mother is only 18 years old at that time, and before he was born, his father passes away. His mother is 18. She has no relatives in Mecca. He has no brothers and sisters. He is born as an orphan.

And once he is born as an orphan, in those days children were sent to the Bedouin in the villages so that they could get nourished correctly and have a good upbringing. She did not have any money to pay for someone to take him. So Halima Sa'diyya comes along, and because she had no choice — there were no children left in Mecca — she says to her husband: "It doesn't look nice that we go back to our city without any child in our lap, so let's just take Muhammad and see what happens." She takes Muhammad.

The Death of His Mother at Al-Abwa

He comes back, returns to his mother's lap when he is four and a half, five years old. He stays with his mom for maybe a year, and then one day the mother says to Baraka — Ummi Ayman, the person who served her and took care of her — she says: "I wish to go see the grave of my husband, because I have not seen the grave of my husband." And then they travel on this journey to Madinatul Munawwara.

And on the way back — two women and one child who was six years old, and we know the condition of children who are six years old; small kids, I have a six year old myself — on the way back, they stop at a place called Al-Abwa'. And all of a sudden the mother, who is now 23, 24 years old — Amina — she starts feeling sick, and she cannot move, she cannot speak. And Muhammad, who is a child, is saying: "Ya Umma, Ya Umma." And this is the first time in her life that the mother cannot respond to her child. And he is saying: "Ya Umma, Ya Umma." And there is no reply from the mother. And the mother looks towards Ummi Ayman and she says: "You are his mother after me," because she realizes she cannot move forward.

And at this place, in this rocky plain of Al-Abwa', in the middle of nowhere, Muhammad's mother Amina passes away. And Muhammad jumps on his mother and he says: "Oh my mother, you cannot leave me. I have no brothers, I have no sisters. You have to come with me." Helpless, Ummi Ayman says: "I grab Muhammad and I raise him and I say to Muhammad ﷺ: I am your mother, don't worry."

The Prophet Weeping at His Mother's Grave — Fifty Years Later

Many years later, brothers and sisters in Islam — about 50 years later — the Sahaba and the Prophet were coming to Mecca. On the way to Mecca, they camped at a place, and secretly the Prophet ﷺ left the camp.

Now everything I am mentioning is in three books: Tarikh al-Saghir by Imam Bukhari, Tarikh al-Tabari, and Tarikh al-Khulafa by al-Suyuti, and Sharh al-Hadith by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani.

Nonetheless, they stop over at this place, and the Sahaba see the Prophet ﷺ leaving his camp and going to a place where nobody was. The Sahaba had intense love for the Prophet ﷺ and they did not want anything to happen to him, so they start following him at a distance. So the Prophet is a little bit forward and the Sahaba a little bit behind, and they follow him. And all of a sudden the Prophet sits down. Sahaba sit at a distance. All of a sudden, the Sahaba start to hear the Prophet crying. The Sahaba hear the Prophet crying. They had so much love for him, they started crying.

All of a sudden the crying turned to sobbing, and his body was shaking. And only one person by the name of Umar — who was a person who could control his emotions and sentiments — he gets up and he goes to the Prophet from the back and he hugs him tight. And he says: "Ya Rasulullah, it's okay. You don't have to cry." Imagine the friendship and the relationship — that a man like Umar could get up, hug the Prophet, and calm him down like his best friend. And he calms him down. And Umar says himself: "I could feel the Prophet relaxing in my arms."

And then he says: "After that, we could not ask what happened and we started walking away." And I said to him: "Ya Rasulullah, why were you crying so much?" And he said: "Oh Umar, this is the same place my mother passed away many years ago. And I was sitting at her grave. I asked Allah permission: 'Can I visit the grave of my mother?' And He granted me permission. So I came here and I was thinking about my mother, and I was crying because I wish I had a mother to take care of me throughout my life."

And then he said: "Oh Umar, I swear by the One who controls my life — if I was praying Isha Salat and I said Allahu Akbar and I started Surah al-Fatiha, and my mother opened the screen and she said 'Ya Muhammad' — I would have said 'Labbayk Ya Ummah' and gone to her service."

The Loss of His Grandfather, Uncle, and Wife

This is how he grew up. Then at 8 years old, the grandfather who took care of the Prophet with so much love and compassion, he passes away. Somebody asked the Prophet: "Ya Rasulullah, do you remember your grandfather? Because you were a child and everybody talked so highly of him." And you know what he said? He says: "I remember one thing about my grandfather, and that was when I was walking behind his funeral, crying, because he was leaving me."

And then many years later, his uncle who took care of him passes away. The same year, his wife Khadija passes away.

Six Children Buried with His Own Hands

I was once in Philadelphia and somebody asked me to come visit their family. I go to the apartment. I sit down. As I sit down, this one 7–8 year old child sits in my lap right when I sit down. And he sits in my lap. I could hear a lady — a mother — crying behind the curtain. And the father sitting on my left saying to the mother: "Please don't cry, it's going to be okay." And then as the discussion starts, the mother says to me: "Sheikh, there is a disease that these children have. There are 53 kids that have this disease. When extra lipids come into your brain — this disease has afflicted 53 kids in the world and there is no cure to this disease. They all die. And among those 53 people in the world, three of them are my children. And two of them already passed away. And the third one is in your lap."

Now how — I was sitting there speechless. What kind of words can a person come up with to comfort this lady? But wallahi al-azim, the Prophet ﷺ was a person who was battle-tested, who went through every adverse situation a man could think of — that nothing could compare to the situation that he went through.

So that is why the Prophet ﷺ says:

I have been put through difficulties, hardships, and adversities that nobody in the entire world could come near. (Referenced in Musnad Ahmad and Sunan al-Tirmidhi)

So when she said that, the only thing that came to my mind was: imagine the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ had to bury — he had seven children, and six of them passed away while he was living, and he buried six of them with his own hands. Six.

The Story of Zaynab, Daughter of the Prophet

And today I'll highlight one of them — who was the eldest daughter, Zaynab. When the Prophet ﷺ — at the Battle of Badr, when there were prisoners, one of them was the husband of Zaynab — Abu al-'As ibn al-Rabi' — who at that point was not Muslim. So Abu al-'As ibn al-Rabi' was told to give some ransom so he could be freed and go back to his wife. Abu al-'As ibn al-Rabi' then tells his wife Zaynab: "Could you please send something?"

And Zaynab, the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ, takes her necklace off — the same necklace that her dear mother Khadija gave her — and gives it to a person to give to the Prophet ﷺ. When the necklace is presented to the Prophet ﷺ, he sees the necklace. The Sahaba say: right when he saw this necklace, he started to weep, and he remembered the days of Khadija. And he said: "This necklace reminds me of Khadija." And then he asked the Sahaba: "If you give me permission, I could send Abu al-'As back to his wife, and I could also give this necklace back to my daughter." And the Sahaba said: "No problem." And then he said to that person: "When you go back to Mecca, please send my daughter to me, because I miss her. I want her to be with me." And he said: "No problem, I'll do that."

And the Prophet ﷺ gave him a beautiful description — he said: what a great man he was. He spoke and he spoke the truth. He promised and he fulfilled his promise. So he goes back to Mecca and he tells his wife: "Go to the Prophet, your father, because I made a promise with him." They get ready to leave. She sits on her camel. At this point she is six months pregnant. And he sends one of the servants with her. The Prophet ﷺ from Medina sends Zayd and one of the Sahaba to come meet them at the middle point, so he could take them from there.

Right when she leaves Mecca, one man by the name of Habbar ibn al-Aswad says: "How could the daughter of the Prophet leave Mecca untouched, unharmed?" So he goes and he strikes Zaynab while she was on the camel, and she falls off the camel, and she immediately has a miscarriage. This is the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ. And the child in the womb was the grandchild of the Prophet ﷺ.

She turns back around because she could not travel anymore. She goes back to Mecca. She gets better, she recovers, and then she is sent to Madinatul Munawwara. In that same wound, brothers and sisters in Islam — in the 8th year of Hijri — the Prophet ﷺ would see her every single day and cry, because she never recovered from that wound. And she passed away as a shaheed, as a martyr, from this wound. And in Baqi' she was buried.

And the Sahaba say that we did not have the courage to go into her grave, because the Prophet was standing — just picture this for a moment, brothers and sisters — the Prophet was standing in the grave, and he was putting the dust and the stones properly, and nobody was helping him. And the Sahaba said: "We could not come down into the grave." And he just sat there, and he was crying. And we were behind him. And then when he turned around, he was smiling and he had this radiance on his face.

So somebody asked him: "Ya Rasulullah, you were crying so much when you put her in the grave, and you came up smiling?" And he said: "When I was burying my baby Zaynab, I was thinking — I was looking at the walls of the grave and thinking how dark these walls will be, there is going to be no light in this grave, no one to take care of her. And I was thinking about this. And Allah sent Jibreel to me and he said to me: this grave will be opened up for your daughter and she will be given Jannatul Firdaws. When I was told this, I started to smile. And then I came up."

The Prophet Forgives the Murderer of His Daughter

In Mecca, when the Prophet ﷺ had entered, a man comes to the masjid and he was veiled. He comes inside the masjid and the Prophet says: "Take your veil off." He takes his veil off, and the Prophet says to him: "Are you Habbar?" And he says: "Fight my daughter — the murder of my daughter." And he says: "What brought you here?" He says: "We heard that you are a man who forgives, you are a man who takes the high road, you are a man that is generous with his soul. I have come to you to ask you to forgive me."

The Sahaba took their swords out: "Ya Rasulullah, just give us permission to kill this person." And the Prophet says: "Leave him alone." He grabs his hand and he says: "I have not been sent down to take revenge from anybody, but I have been sent as a mercy." He forgives the murderer of his daughter and the murderer of his grandchild, and he accepts Islam.

Hamza and Wahshi

Brothers and sisters in Islam, then you look a little bit before that. The same person who took care of the Prophet all his life — Hamza — he gets martyred and mutilated in the Battle of Uhud. Many years later, the killer of his uncle walks to the doors. And the Prophet says: "Are you Wahshi? The one who killed my uncle?"

There were 70 to 72 martyrs in Uhud. The Prophet's uncle's body was set apart. One by one the shaheed would come and the Prophet would pray janaza. The body would be taken. Nobody touched the body of his uncle. 70 to 72 times the Prophet performed janaza on his uncle — his body stayed there.

And then when Wahshi comes, he says: "You are the one who killed my uncle." He says to Wahshi: "Look at you — you're thin, you're skinny, you have no power. Tell me how you killed my uncle." And Wahshi starts to cry: "Do you really want me to tell you?" And he says: "Tell me how you killed my uncle, tell me how you killed my uncle." And he explains it. And the Prophet is crying. "I love you, I forgive you. But don't come in front of me, because when you come in front of me I'll remember my uncle, and every time I remember my uncle it will hurt my feelings."

The Forgiveness of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal

One person from this ummah by the name of Ahmad ibn Hanbal was pelted and whipped. A great scholar, a great saint. And I'll highlight the quality of rahma and forgiveness and adversity.

He was whipped to a point where a person came to al-Mu'tasim and said to him: "You know what, I have a track record — whoever I whip 10 times, before my 10th lash, he dies." So al-Mu'tasim said: "Listen, you whip him, and if he dies, good. But if he remains alive, I'll free him." And at that time Ahmad ibn Hanbal was past his 60s. He whips him 10 times. He doesn't die. And then he's sent back to his house.

One of his students comes to visit Ahmad ibn Hanbal rahimahullah at his house. He sees Ahmad ibn Hanbal rahimahullah on the floor, grabbing a pillow in pain. He says: "How are you, Imam? How are you feeling, oh Imam?" And Ahmad ibn Hanbal says: "You know, those whips and those marks on my back were not a big deal. But the pain that I'm feeling because of this open wound on my lower back is 10 times more than the pain I felt when I got whipped, and I cannot move."

And that student says: "Oh Imam, just give me a few moments. Let me go find out what's the best way of remedy." So he goes back into the prison, and — the long story short — he finds out that this is an open wound, and the person in prison told him: "This will infect his heart and he will die within three days if it's not treated." He said: "How should you treat this?" He said: "You have to burn the wound."

So he comes back to the house and he says to the Imam: "Oh Imam, I know how to treat this wound, but it's going to be very painful." He says: "Okay, I need this wound to be treated." He says: "I have to burn this wound." He says: "No problem."

So Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal gets two pillows. He grabs onto one and he puts his knees onto one, and he bends over like this on the ground. And he says:

And he's just praising Allah, praising Allah. And finally — there was no anesthesia in those days where you could be put to sleep and have this operation in your sleep, no such thing — so he takes his metal and he burns the wound of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and he's going through pain.

And the student says: all throughout this process, this surgical procedure, he's making a du'a. And the entire time he's repeating the same exact du'a. After the whole procedure is finished, and they covered him up and he got some rest, I asked him afterwards: "Imam, you could have made du'a for anything. You could have made 15 different du'as. You made one du'a and you repeated it over and over and over again. Why did you make that du'a?"

Brothers and sisters in Islam, you know what du'a he was making? His du'a while he was going through that procedure was:

Oh Allah, forgive al-Mu'tasim. The same person who put him through all those difficulties. "Oh Allah, forgive him. Forgive him, forgive him." And the entire time he's going through this procedure, he's just saying: "Allahumma ighfir lil-Mu'tasim, Allahumma ighfir lil-Mu'tasim."

And the student is beyond himself. He says: "Why did you make du'a for him? You should have just left him." And Ahmad ibn Hanbal — he says what a beautiful statement he makes — he says: "Wallahi al-azim, I don't want that on the Day of Judgment somebody else gets punished because of me. So I forgave him. I don't want nobody to get punished on the Day of Judgment because of me. So I forgave him."

His son comes to him, and every person would come to Ahmad ibn Hanbal and ask him for forgiveness: "I forgive you, I forgive you." His son Salih asks him: "Oh my father, how about those people who died before asking you for forgiveness?" And he said: "I forgave all of them."

The Quranic Verse on Forgiveness and Reconciliation

And then he mentions this beautiful hadith — and I will conclude with this. He says: "Why did you forgive all of them?" He says: "It comes in the Quran." And he heard from someone — who heard from Hasan al-Basri — quoting a hadith from the Prophet. He says: on the Day of Judgment every person will be on his knees, kneeling in front of Allah, and Allah will be giving them a book of deeds. He says: everybody on that day will be on their knees — except for that person who is the 'afuww, the one who forgives and reconciles. Meaning Allah owes him back a reward.

The reward — Allah owes him now. So on the Day of Judgment, everybody will be on their knees. An announcement will be made: "Only those stand up that have some reward that is owed to them by Allah." Somebody will ask: "Who are those people that Allah owes a reward to?" And the response will be: "The one who forgave and reconciled. The one who forgave and reconciled."

A Call to Forgiveness in Our Communities

Brothers and sisters in Islam, today in our communities — as Allama Iqbal says — he says: "This heart of ours is like a mirror. And every mirror is only valuable when it's not broken. But the heart that you have is a mirror that's valuable when it's broken by the One who made the mirror — it was Allah."

He says: keep on moving forward in life. People will put you through difficulties, people will hurt your feelings. But the adversity that the Prophet ﷺ went through — and he forgave — could never be compared to the adversity that we will face in our lives.

Today a mother-in-law says something negative to her daughter-in-law — the daughter-in-law never forgets it for the rest of her life. Today a daughter-in-law says something negative to her mother-in-law — the mother-in-law cannot forget it for the rest of her life. 20 years go by and the in-laws don't — why? Because "Oh, she did this to me." And the families are being divided and there's no love. Only if we had —

Abu Dujana on His Deathbed

Abu Dujana radiyallahu anhu was on his deathbed and his face was brimming like the full moon. Somebody asks him: "Why are you so happy and joyful today? Which amal of yours do you have so much confidence in — that because of this amal, Allah will forgive your sins and give you Jannah?"

And Abu Dujana — he was a person who participated in every single conquest with the Prophet ﷺ, he was a great Sahabi — he could have easily said: "You know what, I'm going to present Badr. I'm going to present Uhud. I'm going to present Khandaq. I'm going to present Bay'at al-Ridwan." But you know what he said? He said: the biggest, the most confidence I have in any act of mine is the very fact that this tongue has never hurt anybody's feelings, and if anybody hurt my feelings I never carried a grudge in my heart — I forgave them immediately.

The Conviction to Forgive

Brothers and sisters in Islam, if we could leave this gathering with this conviction, with this intention and firmness — that from today onwards, if somebody hurts me, I will forgive them. Not because they deserve my forgiveness, but because I deserve to forgive them. And because the very fact — the very fact — that the world today needs people like the Prophet ﷺ who forgave even though the person was the murderer of his daughter, the murderer of his uncle, the murderer of his potential grandchild — he forgave them in every single condition. We forgive for the sake of Allah.

Every single time we hear a speech like this, somebody comes to the Sheikh and says: "MashaAllah, the speech was great — about forgiveness. But Sheikh, trust me, that guy was crazy. He did something really bad to me." Or: "My mother-in-law — you don't understand my mother-in-law, she's too much. You don't understand my situation."

Is there any situation — is there any situation — that could come near the situation of the Prophet ﷺ? So we forgive for the sake of Allah.

Allah make us among those who understand this message. And don't think that I'm an exception to this rule. We understand the mercy of the Prophet ﷺ in all adversities — in every single situation of his, that he just gave it up. He says: just swallow up everything that you have. All the difficulties. Because trust me, there is joy in life with difficulties as well.

Allah make us among those who forgive for the sake of Allah. Understand the mercy of the Prophet ﷺ in every situation he was in. Allah make us among those who make our families like the families of the Prophet ﷺ.

وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَا أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

JazakAllah Khair.