The Final Destination | Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed

The Final Destination

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 Abdul 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's Abdul 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.

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 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 walks in half an hour later — he's the one that's becoming a doctor. 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 is general. But there is one du'a that is specific for the 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.

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 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 be to Allah — the One who takes them from me in this very temporary world, and preserves them for me in the everlasting world.