Ramadan The Month Of Relief Episode 5 | The Conquest of Mecca

Ramadan: The Month of Relief — Episode 5 | The Conquest of Mecca

Speaker: Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

Dear brothers and sisters, welcome back to the fifth episode of our short series — Ramadan, the Month of Relief and Ramadan, the Month of Peace and Victory for the Muslims. In this episode we will be speaking about an event that took place eight years after the hijrah of the Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims of Mecca.

Thirteen Years of Persecution in Mecca

For many years — for thirteen years in Mecca — Muslims were persecuted, Muslims were tormented and humiliated in the streets and the cities of Mecca. Due to this, Allah ordered them to go to Medina, and in Medina they were being harassed by the Mushrikun of Mecca, by the Munafiqun of Medina, and also other tribes surrounding Medina. Eight years after living in the blessed city of Medina, the Prophet ﷺ finally decided to go back to his homeland city.

The year before, he went to Hudaybiyyah and was sent back without entering into Mecca. Then, the next year — eight years after hijrah — the Prophet ﷺ came back to Mecca with 10,000 of his fellow companions to this blessed city of Mecca that his great grandfather Ibrahim عَلَيْهِ السَّلَام had built. He came back longing and yearning for the streets of Mecca, coming to the Ka'bah and performing tawaf of the Ka'bah, and after eight years, finally the Prophet ﷺ entered into Mecca.

A Day of Mercy, Not a Day of Revenge

As he entered into Mecca, dear brothers and sisters — obviously this is not a history lesson so we don't have much time to go into the fine details of the actual entrance and the conquest of Mecca — but what we can derive from this small lesson in this small episode is this: when the Prophet of Allah ﷺ entered into Mecca with his companions, dominant and strong and mighty and overpowering all of those that were in Mecca, he told his companions:

"Today is a day of mercy. Today is a day of forgiveness. Today is a day that we will show the entire world that even though Muslims have the upper hand, even though the Muslims have the dominance over others, we will show mercy."

And he re-echoed the words of Yusuf عَلَيْهِ السَّلَام, when he said to his brothers after the truth was revealed:

"He said: No blame will there be upon you today. Allah will forgive you; and He is the most merciful of the merciful."

The Prophet ﷺ said these words — "Don't worry, you will be forgiven" — and this is the lesson for us. Our hearts sometimes become so hard and our hearts sometimes become so rough towards people that whatever it is that they did to us, even in the month of Ramadan, we somehow are unable to pluck the simple courage to forgive people.

The Four Who Cannot Be Forgiven in Ramadan

The Prophet of Allah ﷺ said: a person who cannot forgive others cannot be forgiven. And there are four people in the month of Ramadan who cannot be forgiven:

• Number one — a person who is indulged in major sins.
• Number two — a person who is disobedient to his parents.
• Number three — a person who has cut the ties of kinship.
• Number four — a person who carries in his heart hatred and malice for people during the month of Ramadan.

The Greatest Conqueror's Greatest Lesson

The Prophet ﷺ entered into the city that had kicked him out, that had killed his Sahabah, that had tormented his family — but when he walked into that city, he told everyone: you are forgiven. This conqueror — the greatest conqueror the world has ever seen — teaches the world the lesson that he could enter a city without taking a single person's life.

He forgave all the enemies of Islam, including Abu Sufyan, including Ikrimah — the son of Abu Jahl — including Safwan ibn Umayyah — the son of Umayyah ibn Khalaf — including Wahshi, the man who had murdered his uncle, including Habbar ibn al-Aswad, the man who had killed his daughter. He forgave them all.

And this, for us, is relief.

Forgiveness as Relief

Relief — not only because we had the victory of the conquest of Mecca — but a relief because we should also learn how to forgive people in the month of Ramadan. The month of Ramadan is a relief for us because we are able to forgive people. Forgiving people is removing the burden off our shoulders.

Do we not want Allah to forgive us? If we want Allah to forgive us, then forgiveness for us is written in the forgiveness of others. We learn how to open up our hearts for people, and Allah will surely find a way — in a manner — to forgive all of our sins, major or minor, committed in our lives. And in the month of Ramadan is the epitome of that — that we forgive people, we bring relief to our hearts, not by hoarding enemies and hoarding hatred, but by letting it go. And by letting it go, we will find peace within our own hearts.

We find this in many places in the hadith and in the Quran. May Allah make us amongst those in the last 13–14 nights of the month of Ramadan — as we are crying and tears are streaming down our cheeks asking for forgiveness — that we have also forgiven other people in our lives. And if we have not, then let us make it a point in our days and nights that we work on ourselves to forgive others, because that is a shortcut to finding forgiveness from Allah.