The Dangers of Nearsightedness | Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed | Pearls of Faith Conference 2022

The Dangers of Nearsightedness

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ. نَحْمَدُهُ وَنُصَلِّي عَلَىٰ رَسُولِهِ الْكَرِيمِ. أَمَّا بَعْدُ.

Allah azza wa jalla says in His mighty Book — after أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ:

And He azza wa jalla says in another place:

The Disease of Myopia

Is there any physicians sitting here? Doctors? You can raise your hand. It's not Sheikh Abdullah going to ask you for donations.

If you are a physician, you're going to know this terminology I'm going to mention. It's called myopia. And this is an illness that about 40% of the world suffers from. And by 2050, 5 billion people in the world are going to have this. What is myopia? It is a disease or an illness because of which you have to wear glasses. You can only see what's in front of you, but you can't see what's too far. So you're nearsighted, but you're not farsighted.

Now, it is true that many people suffer from this. They wear glasses, they wear contacts. But what's more prevalent than this disease is the spiritual disease of myopia — which is we are very nearsighted, but we lose track of what's farsighted. We have the iPad's picture too zoomed in, so the entire picture gets distorted. It's too zoomed in. You know when you go on Google Maps, you can zoom in, zoom in, zoom in, until you see only your house. And then you zoom out, then you see your community, then you see your city, then you see your country, then you see the entire globe.

Deen came to this world to change these lenses. And some of us have to go through difficult times to understand what it actually means.

A Personal Loss — And a Lesson in the Lens of Faith

On October 5th, a few years ago, I was sitting in our institute in Warren. And my mother kept calling me — one time, twice, three times, she kept calling me. Finally, I was teaching, I picked up the phone, and she had an intuition. She said, "Where is Abdur Rahim? He's not picking up his call." And I said to her, "It's 12:30, he must be on his way to Munir to teach Hifz because he teaches the Alim program here. So he must be on his way to teach Hifz."

My mom said, "But I know my son — every time I call, he picks up, and he's not picking up. So find out where he is." Being the son I was, I thought — because they say parents are very overdramatic, we know that — so just in that situation, I said, "No, it's okay, he should be fine." I kept doing what I was doing.

Until Mufti al-Wahhab, who's not here, he calls me. He says, "Where is Abdur Rahim? He's not picking up his call." I said, "He must be in Munir teaching — he doesn't teach with his phone on." So I get out around 2 o'clock, and I get a call from someone from the office. And from the background of the phone call, I could just hear someone screaming and yelling and crying. And the one in the office says, "Mufti sahib, you have to come to the office right away."

So I run to the office. I see my brother, Mufti al-Wahhab, on the ground — breaking things, screaming. I said, "Is everything okay?" And he says, "Our brother passed away." He was 22 years old. I said, "No, that's not possible. No way it's possible. I was just with him a few hours ago." He said, "No, he passed away." And he's just crying and screaming.

So I just walk out of the room. I found out where he got into an accident — it was at 25 miles an hour. I said, "There's no way it could be a fatal accident." I went and I started praying salah. As I was praying, my other brother, Sheikh Abdul Aziz — he's the one that's becoming a doctor — he walks in half an hour later.

He walks in, and as I'm praying salah — when people go through difficulty, there are different du'as that you can recite. The one that we know is:

Now, this du'a, you recite when you lose a job, when something bad happens — it's general. But there is one du'a that's specific for a loss of a loved one. When you lose someone, you recite that du'a. That du'a cannot be recited anywhere else.

So I was praying, and Sheikh Abdul Aziz walks in, he hugs my brother Abdul Wahhab, and he starts to recite this du'a as I was praying. And he says:

Verily, what Allah has taken belongs to Him, and what He has left behind also belongs to Him.

I collapsed. I woke up somewhere else. But that was a message — to look at things differently.

The Lens of the Companions — Seeing with Faith

Abu Dharr Al-Ghifari

Someone asked Abu Dharr Al-Ghifari, may Allah be pleased with him, "Why is it that all your children pass away? Every time you have a child, the child passes away." You know what he said?

The lens was correct. He said, "All praises to Allah — the One who takes them from me in this very temporary world, and preserves them for me in the everlasting world. الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ, I'm okay."

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud

Someone came to Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, as he was crying over the loss of his brother 'Uqbah. He said, "Why are you crying? You're a Sahabi, you shouldn't be crying." He said, "Why should I not cry?"

"He was my brother — my blood brother. And he was also, not just my blood brother, but we were shoulder-to-shoulder companions with the Prophet ﷺ. So we have two bonds. One is when you're a blood brother. Then the other is when you're also doing the same thing — you're a scholar, you're working for the same cause — it becomes even more concrete at that point."

Then he says:

The lens was correct. They could see perfectly. They had a clear picture. He said, "I would rather have him pass away before me so I can seek the reward of sabr, than me passing away before him and him getting the reward of sabr."

'Urwah ibn Mas'ud

Someone asked 'Urwah ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, when one of his legs was amputated and one of his children passed away on the same day his leg was amputated. Look at what he said:

Myopia — remember that word. Nearsighted, farsighted. He said, "Oh Allah, I had four children. You took one, you left three. And I had four limbs — these two arms and two legs. One is gone. Oh Allah, I swear by Allah, that which You have taken from me is actually what is preserved."

Now what I have left behind — what I gave, I have. What I spent, I had. What I kept, I lost.

The Hadith of the Slaughtered Meat

When the Prophet ﷺ walked in, he asked, "How much of the meat is left?" Someone said:

"Everything is gone. The only thing that's left is the shoulder." The Prophet ﷺ said:

"Everything remains — except for that which you left behind." That's what's not left. What you kept behind — that's done. You don't get anything from that.

'Uthman ibn Maz'un

'Uthman ibn Maz'un, may Allah be pleased with him, who was a great Sahabi — he was the first Muhajir who was buried in Baqi'. Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, says: "I saw the Prophet ﷺ crying when he was burying him."

He was sitting in front of the Ka'bah, and there was a poet by the name of Labid. And I'm just driving the same point home over and over again — it's about zooming out. It's about not being nearsighted, and being farsighted. Look at the world differently. And this is a lesson that we had to learn the hard way.

Labid was saying a poem:

"Everything other than Allah is null and void." So 'Uthman said, صَدَقْتَ — "He spoke the truth." Then Labid says:

"Every bounty will one day come to an end." Even though it's true, it's not true in the context of the lens of faith. So 'Uthman ibn Maz'un said:

"You lie — verily the bounties of Jannah never end." So when they heard him say that, they realized he had accepted Islam. So they jumped him. And they kept on beating him. And someone then stabbed him with a dagger through his eye. And he had beautiful eyes. So his uncle says to him:

"Your eye did not deserve this. Why did you put your eye through this difficulty? Your eye did not deserve it." He looks at his uncle and says:

"Wallahi, the eye that can see wishes it was the eye that can't see" — knowing how valuable the eye that can't see is in the eyes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

'Amr ibn Tufayl ibn 'Amr Al-Dawsi

The son of Tufayl ibn 'Amr — Tufayl ibn 'Amr was martyred in the Battle of Yamamah. His son was next to him. He was paralyzed in the Battle of Yamamah, and then he was martyred in the Battle of Yarmuk. His arm had been cut off and there was an open wound.

He was sitting at the table spread to eat food. And Umar ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, walks in. He was sitting right there — so the man moves away because of the open wound with blood coming out. Umar ibn Al-Khattab was a very smart person. He sees him, and he says to him:

"Wallahi, I'm not going to eat from this plate until you eat from it with me." Today we are disgusted by someone sitting in front of us with bad eating habits — but over here the blood is coming out. So he says, "Come here." And then he says:

"Wallahi, there is not a single person sitting here whose portion of their body is already in Jannah — except you. Your portion is already in Jannah. That is valuable to me."

The Story of Hussain and Shimr — A Pashto Poem

You're sitting there — like Hussain, may Allah have mercy on him, is looking at Shimr. And he says, this is a great poem. He says in Pashto:

He says, "Oh Shimr — the one who is about to kill him — I am doing sajda. Now to the world, it looks like I am about to lose, and you're about to slaughter me." And he's saying: "Go ahead and kill me. Let me be rescued from this place so I can finally meet my family, and I can finally meet my grandfather, the Prophet ﷺ."

Makhul on His Deathbed

Someone came to Makhul as he was leaving this world, and he was sick. They made du'a for him and said, "Oh Allah, give him shifa, give him this." And he says, "No":

"That I get reunited — that I finally meet the One who I can definitely hope for His mercy — is better for me than I stay with people who I can never be saved from their evil. I can finally meet Allah — the One who is going to be merciful to me, the One who is going to give me everything. It is better for me than I stay over here."

What Truly Belongs to Us

Brothers and sisters in Islam, it is not how we see things nearsighted. It's how we see things — how they look in the reality of the Qur'an and Hadith. This conference should change that view of ours. It's not:

Richness is not about how much you have. Deen teaches us that from the beginning. True richness is the richness of the soul.

There are two words that come for condition — one is حال (hal), the other is بال (bal). When Yusuf, peace be upon him, asked about the women who cut their hands, he never asked:

"What is the condition of those women who cut their hands?" But he asked:

Because حال — you say كيف حالك — hal is "how are you doing externally?" And bal is internal. What are their feelings now? يُصْلِحُ بَالَهُمْ — أَصْلَحَ بَالَهُمْ. So when we correct this internal lens that we have, then the pain will be temporary, but the gain will be everlasting. A temporary pain for an everlasting gain is completely worth it.

And as we were sitting and standing next to my brother's grave, I was compelled to recollect the statement of Masruq, may Allah have mercy on him, who says:

"There is not a better house in the world for a believer than the innermost portion of their grave." So you're looking at this grave and you're saying, "This is just dirt, and there's nothing on top of it." But the lens of faith makes you look beyond that. He says:

"He is comforted from the difficulties of this world, and now he is saved from the punishment of Allah."

One day I was filling up gas. In my car, my youngest brother Sheikh Abdur Rahim — I never filled up gas when he was next to me. He used to always fill up my gas, since he was 10 years old. So one day my father calls, and I pick up. I was filling up gas, it was very cold, and my hands were freezing. My dad says, "What are you doing?" And he was crying, because he had lost his son. And I said to him, "Abujee, let me tell you one thing — your son will never have to face this cold in his life again. He will never have to fill up gas again. Your son is in a better place now."

And my father said something to me. He says, "Abdul Rahman, understand — everything we have in this world, now looking at it with the lens of faith." And I conclude with this. Everything you and I have — if you look at it with this lens — it doesn't even belong to us. So if Allah takes:

That which Allah took — it belonged to Him. You just had to put those lenses on. It never belonged to you in the first place.

So if you take that lens and put it on, and you realize that every single thing you have doesn't belong to you — then giving Allah a few hours becomes easier. Giving Allah a few dollars becomes easier, because it doesn't belong to you in the first place.

Imagine — pretend this was $100. And Mu'an Nabil says, "Abdul Rahman, I'm giving you $100 as an amanah." An amanah for you to keep this $100. Five months later, Mu'an Nabil comes and says, "Abdul Rahman, give me those $100 back." And I say to him, "No, they're not yours, they're mine." And Mu'an Nabil says, "That was an amanah — I left it with you, and I can take it back whenever I want." And I say, "No, it's mine." So Mu'an Nabil puts on this huge conference — Pearls of Faith — to convince me to give him something back. And then he realizes I'm not going to give him the whole $100 back, so he settles for $50. He says, "Okay, just give me $50 back." Then I say, "No, no, not $50 — I'll give you $20." But since Mu'an Nabil already had a feeling I'm not going to give him anything back, he's okay with taking $20 back now.

This is exactly how we are doing transactions with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. How bad it looks in this way:

Iqbal's Vision — Bringing Gardens Out of Fire

Iqbal says — and he says that Allah will give a person who searches a new life. Then he says in Urdu:

"Allah says: I am here, waiting to give you. There is no one who is asking. No one who is seeking. Who should I guide on the path? There is no one on the path." Then he says:

"If that faith — the lens is corrected again — and that iman of Ibrahim, peace be upon him, is brought again, then again, in this era, gardens and trees can come out of the flames of fire."

Let us be those who put the right lens on so we can bring that garden out of the blazing battle that is all around us.

JazakAllah khair. وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ