The Loss of Loved Ones | Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed | Miftaah Circle

The Loss of Loved Ones

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Before I start, I just want to remind all of us that all of us sitting here for the last few hours, it's a beautiful thing. One of the Salaf used to say:

A person who is in the pursuit of getting Jannah — you're sitting here, you're not going to get anything other than the reward and inshallah the pleasure of Allah and ultimately Jannah. One of the Salaf used to say that a person who is in the pursuit of getting Jannah, then know that Jannah is also looking for you. So if you want to know if you're going to get to Jannah, see how much you're searching for it. May Allah bless all of you sitting here patiently for the last few hours and listening attentively throughout the lectures.

I have about 15 minutes with you all and inshallah we'll go from Maghrib.

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم نحمده ونصلي على رسوله الكريم أما بعد

Allah says in His Noble Book, after seeking refuge from Shaytan:

Two Strengths We All Possess

Brothers and sisters in Islam, every one of us — each and every single one of us — we have two different strengths. We have the strength of ʿamal, the strength of action, and we also have the strength of fikr — and we will translate fikr loosely as mindset, your thought.

These are two strengths each and every one of us have. Allah has given us the strength of ʿamal because we know that actions are the greatest asbab to turn the tide. Of course there are all these different asbab we can use, but the greatest sabab is ʿamal. And we all also have the strength of the mind and the focus, and we also know that the greater the strength of the mind — the more mindful a person is — the more a person gets out of their actions.

For example, take salah. The more mindful we are in salah, the more our salah will give us. Take du'a for example. Imam — there's a distance between me and Allah. He said: da'watun sadiqa min qalbin sadiq — it looks far, but the distance between me and Allah is a truthful word of asking Allah, and this truthful word coming from a truthful heart, meaning an attentive heart.

That's why the Prophet ﷺ said everyone's du'as will be accepted except for the one whose mind and heart is not synchronized with their words —

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3479)

You're not paying attention. So the heart and the mind is what drives the impact of the act. That's why Hasan al-Basri رحمه الله was asked:

Why is it that the people who pray tahajjud are the most beautiful people in the world? Why do they have this divine nur? And he replied:

It's because they emptied their mind and focused at night in their conversation with Allah. So then Allah blessed them with nur from His divine nur.

The First Thing the Prophet ﷺ Changed: The Mindset

When the Prophet ﷺ first started giving da'wah to the world, the first thing he did was he changed the mindset of the Sahaba before he changed their action. Salah came way after, zakat came way after, hajj came way after, fasting came way after. Way before that was the way the Sahaba thought, and everything you've heard today is because of one mindset change in the life of the Sahaba.

My topic today is the tolerance and the perseverance of the Sahaba. What made them so tolerant and so patient throughout the difficulties that they went through? It was two things. Two mindset changes that they went through, because of which they could tolerate the sufferings of this world.

That's why Bilal رضي الله عنه was asked how did you go through the difficulty and the pain of being dragged in the streets of Mecca? He said:

These two feelings were mixed as I was going through this pain. The sweetness of worshiping Allah, knowing Allah is pleased with me, and at the same time going through the pain of difficulty — and the sweetness of the pleasure of Allah prevailed over the pain of suffering, so it was easy to be patient. It's a mindset change.

The First Mindset Change: What You Have Will Perish

What you have, you will lose. What you deposited in the treasures of Allah is what remains.

The Story of Uthman ibn Mad'un رضي الله عنه

Here is Uthman ibn Mad'un رضي الله عنه in front of the Ka'bah as a poet is reciting a poem:

Everything other than Allah is null and void. He said: "Sadaqt." You have spoken the truth. Then the poet says:

And every bounty, pleasure, and happiness will one day come to an end. Uthman says: "Kadhabta." You lied.

Because the bounties of Jannah will never end. As soon as he said this, all the people around him realized he's a Muslim — he has accepted Islam. So they jumped him. He had beautiful eyes, so they went to hurt him where it would hurt the most. Someone took a dagger and put it in his eye. In some narrations, someone punched his eye over and over again and he lost sight from one eye.

This man with beautiful eyes has now lost one eye. His uncle Walid comes up to him and says:

Oh Uthman, your eye was much more precious than what you made it go through. You don't have to do this. You know what he replied with?

The eye that can see is envying the eye that can't see, because the eye that can't see was given for Allah. Literally it's envying. A mother would take honor not in the son that is alive but the son that is shaheed. The one who she gave for the sake of Allah. A mother would say: "I am the mother of the shaheed. I am the father of the shaheed." Because that son, that brother, that sibling was given for the sake of Allah.

The Story of Urwa ibn Zubayr رحمه الله

Urwa ibn Zubayr رحمه الله went to Iraq on a royal trip. He took his son with him. While he was there, his son passed away in an accident. While he was there, his foot became injured and the disease spread and his foot had to be cut off. He returns back to Madinah al-Munawwarah and the people of Madinah have come out to receive him. When they see him, his son is not with him and one of his limbs has been cut off. So they look at him with eyes of grief. He looks at them and he makes this du'a:

He says: "Oh Allah, I had four sons — You took one and You left three with me. I had four stretched-out limbs — my two arms and two legs — You took one and You kept three with me. Then he said: Oh Allah, what You have taken is what You have preserved. What I have is not preserved."

Children Waiting at the Gates of Jannah

When the Prophet ﷺ saw a man with his son — he would come to the masjid with his son all the time — he said: "Atuhibbuh?" You love him? A few days later he saw that the son was no longer with him. He found out that he had passed away. He looked at him and said: "Don't you wish that on the Day of Judgment, when you go to any door of Jannah, your son will be waiting there to receive you? Don't you wish for that?" He says: "Bala ya Rasulallah," of course, O Prophet of Allah.

Then someone asks:

Is this reward only for that man, or is this for all of us as well — if one of our children passed away, will they be waiting for us in Jannah? He said: "This is going to be for all of you." Everybody looked at it differently now, because the mindset was for the Akhirah. It was not for this world.

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه and the Loss of His Brother

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه lost his brother and started crying. Someone asked him why he was crying. He said:

He was my blood brother. He was also my companion with the Prophet of Allah ﷺ. Those of us who have lost siblings understand the pain of losing a sibling. I lost my youngest brother a few years — three years ago — in a car accident. His name was Abd al-Rahim رحمه الله, 22 years old. It's very difficult for the family to go through this, and this Companion is crying because he lost his own blood brother and companion with the Prophet of Allah ﷺ.

Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه and His Brother Zayd

I shared a story in Calgary of Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه looking for his blood brother in the Battle of Yamama. His blood brother's name was Zayd, and only one incident is narrated about him. This is for all of us sitting here today — we don't have to be a mufti, we don't have to be a scholar, we don't have to be a speaker to make an impact. Umar ibn al-Khattab's name is known all over the world, but his brother — only one narration is narrated about him, but he also left an impact in his brother's life and for the rest of the world to come after him. You don't have to be the popular person or the speaker, but you can make an impact in your own way.

Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه looks for his brother, finds his brother among the shuhada, picks his brother's head up and puts it in his lap. He cries — even though he was this giant, strong man — but seeing his brother passing away, he cries. He washes his face from the blood and the sweat and the dirt, and then he says to his brother:

Oh my brother, you beat me twice. You beat me to Islam and you beat me to martyrdom. That was their competition — their competition was: who can get to Jannah first?

Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal was asked:

When will a person finally taste the enjoyment of comfort? He said:

The first step he takes into Jannah. Until then he just has to grind through life and understand the mindset of the Sahaba, where Allah shifted them — that don't worry, you didn't lose anything. You gained.

The Upper Hand and the Lower Hand

That's why the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 1427; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1033)

The upper hand is better than the lower hand. We know that the upper hand is the giving hand and the lower hand is the receiving hand. But the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ was to give with the lower hand — so the receiver is taking with the upper hand. Why? Because he also understood:

The first beneficiary of your goodness is you yourself. So in the gesture of his giving, he was telling the ummah: the one who's taking is better than the one who's giving, because the one who's taking is depositing it for me in the treasure of Allah. What is remaining here is not remaining. What remains is what Allah has.

Ibn Mas'ud's Mindset on Death

So Abdullah ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه was crying over his brother, and someone asked him why. He says he was my blood brother and my companion with the Prophet of Allah ﷺ. Then he said — and this shows the mindset change:

That he dies before me and I can get the reward of sabr is more beloved to me than me dying before him and him getting the reward of sabr.

Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz رحمه الله and His Son Abd al-Malik

Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz رحمه الله — his friend, his brother Suhail passes away. His close student Muzahim passes away in the span of a few days. And someone tells him: "Your son Abd al-Malik is on his deathbed." He goes to his son's side, whom he loved so much, and he says:

How are you feeling, oh my son? Take a step back for a second — sit and picture yourself. And may Allah give all of us 'afiyah, but we have witnessed many times in our life where a father or mother is grabbing the hands of their sick child who is in the fourth stage of cancer, about to leave this world any minute. It's a very tough place to be, and this is the conversation he's having with his own son. He says: "How do you feel, oh my son?" And he says:

I feel like I am about to die. And then the father says to him:

Oh my son, let me tell you something — that you could be in my scale of good deeds, meaning I could be patient after losing you, I would prefer that more than you being patient after losing me, because I want the reward of sabr. Look at their mindset — it was completely different. And the son replied to his father: "Oh my father, what you love more is what I love as well." And these were his last words, and he passed away.

The Second Mindset: Longing to Be with the Prophet ﷺ

Brothers and sisters in Islam, the first way the Sahaba persevered was the mindset that what they have is not actually theirs — what they deposited in the bank of Allah and the treasure of Allah is theirs — so they were willing to give it up more and more. And the second thing I'll conclude with: it was the fact that throughout their life, after they left the Prophet ﷺ, they just wanted to be with him again. That's all. That's all they wanted.

None of us sitting here ever saw the Prophet of Allah ﷺ. None of us spent time with him. When Al-Qa'qa' al-Awsi رحمه الله was walking with his friend, he asked his friend: "Tell me something that will motivate me to get to Jannah. Just tell me something. We've heard so many things today — tell me something that will motivate me to get to Jannah." And his friend said to him three words:

In Jannah you will find the Prophet of Allah ﷺ. Fiha Rasulullah. We weren't even lucky enough to be the spider who protected the Prophet of Allah ﷺ. We weren't even lucky enough to be the cloud that gave him shade, the tree that he leaned on. We weren't even lucky enough to be the sand under his feet. If we ever want to be with him, then we have to get to Jannah — and that's what motivated the Sahaba.

When the uncle of Anas ibn Malik was stabbed — as soon as he was stabbed and his soul was leaving his body — why do you think he said:

When Ali ibn Abi Talib رضي الله عنه was waking people up for Fajr salah and his assassin came and stabbed him — the moment he was stabbed he said: "Fuztu wa Rabb al-Ka'bah." Wallahi, I have become successful. It's because at that moment they knew that they would be with the Prophet of Allah ﷺ. They knew that becoming shaheed doesn't mean you die — it means you're alive forever with Allah, with the siddiqin, the anbiya', the shuhada', and the salihin. And that's our goal.

A Standard to Live By

I conclude with this. Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه says:

Every act that you would not wish to die doing — stop asking if it's halal or haram. Stop asking if this is permissible or impermissible. Live your life with this standard: every act that you do not want to see yourself dying while doing — leave it.

My older brother was flying back from a city and there was crazy turbulence and the plane just fell thousands of feet all of a sudden and he was sure he was going to die. So at this point he starts doing dhikr, but the person next to him can't stop saying swear words — he's saying every swear word in the world. My brother said: "Wallahi, I never imagined dying listening to swear words. I never imagined myself dying with someone saying this and going crazy." So my brother said: "Brother, can you calm down?" The guy said: "Are we going to be okay?" He says: "I'm not sure, but just stop swearing. Just stop swearing, because I've never seen myself dying like this."

Do you wish to see yourself dying watching Netflix at three o'clock in the morning? Do you wish to see yourself dying while listening to music driving a car? Do you wish to see yourself dying while you have disobeyed your parents? Umar ibn al-Khattab is saying: all those acts that you don't wish to see yourself dying with — another narration is of Abu Hazm, who says: then leave those acts today, because you never know when you're going to die.

Assalamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.