How the Prophet ﷺ Overcame Challenges | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed | Miftaah Circle

The Default State of Life

One of the most natural phenomenons of life and one of the most natural realities of life — in a default state of life for every single human being — is that life will come with different challenges, life will come with hardships, life will come with its lows and its highs. This is not unique to an individual, not unique to a specific community. This is the default state of life.

Imam Ghazali says that the default state of life — the default state of life for the majority of the people — is some form of grief, some form of loss, some form of hardship. And the default is not happiness. The default was never comfort and ease. That was always the concession, that was always a gift. And when a person is able to internalize that the moments of ease and the moments of happiness and the moments of comfort are gifts, their ability to be grateful to Allah is magnified, because they do not consider that to be a default. But rather they realize that the default was and always will be: O human being, you will go through one difficulty, and the moment it comes to an end and you believe and you think that now it's all done and there will be comfort and ease, there will be a second difficulty — until you finally come and see me.

A man came to Abdullah ibn Mubarak and he said: when will there finally be ease, when will there finally be comfort? A mother who has lost a child will continuously ask: when will I finally be able to see my son again? A child who has lost a parent will always ask: when will I be united with my parents again? Like how the sahabas, when they lost the Prophet of Allah, their constant remarks and sentiments were echoed by saying: when will we be united with the Prophet again? This is the nature of life. And when he was asked this question, he said: the first step that you take into Jannah will be the moment that you finally find comfort, the moment you finally find ease and a sense of serenity. Because life comes with difficulties and life will continue coming with challenges.

The Prophet ﷺ — A Life of Difficulty

So the question becomes: if these challenges are to come upon us and continue to befall upon us, how are we supposed to persevere? How are we able to stand up to the rubble that is above us, the turbulent waves crashing against us? How are we able to fight through this thing that we call life? And we turn towards nobody else better than our qudwa, our role model, our habib ﷺ, who says: I have been made to struggle, I have been made to go through more difficulty, pain and agony — more so than anybody else, more challenges than anybody else.

If we were to unveil and uncover the life of our Prophet ﷺ and aim to see whether or not he was a happy person who lived a happy life — in an objective way — we would all come back with the answer saying: he didn't live a happy life, neither was he an extremely happy person. Yes, he was always smiling, but let it not be such that we are deceived that that smile was definitive to his happiness. Rather it was a source of joy for others. How could a person be happy if he lost six of his seven children in his own lifetime? How could he be happy if his life began with difficulty — without a father — and at the age of five he loses his mother?

How could a person truly be happy? And therefore nowhere in the Quran does Allah highlight the objective of life to be happiness. The objective of life is to be content. And do not be content with the pleasures of this life, for the pleasures of the life do not last. And there is no sadness that lasts, and there is no joy, and there is no misery for you, and there is no luxury — if you have a contented heart, then you and the owner of the world are equal.

So Imam Shahid rahimullah says: no sadness, neither happiness, will ever remain forever. And if you have a contented heart, if we become people who are content, then us and the kings of the world are equal.

Where Does True Strength Come From?

How did he persevere? They tell us, when we go through challenges, that the most important component in the face of difficulty and hardships and loss is emotional support — mental support — that people are there for us, that we can put our head on their shoulders, and we can speak to them and they will console us and they will show us love, which will allow our hearts to be filled and our hearts to be mended once again.

But what if I was to ask you about an individual who saw nothing but trauma his entire life and had no emotional support? Emotional support comes from a mother whose soft touch and tender voice is able to create a sense of comfort for a child — but how about that Prophet whose mother was never there? Emotional support and mental fortitude comes from a father whose wisdom and guidance is able to allow a person to walk through the mountains and know that there will still be a way out through it — but what about a person who had no father? Comfort comes from a spouse — but how about Khadijah? How about a Prophet who lost his Khadijah? Where does his comfort come from? Where does his perseverance come from?

When we look at the people of Gaza and we're seeing children, families, mothers, fathers, and everyone becoming shaheed, and we think to ourselves: how is it possible for this man wearing a turban, wearing a thawb, holding his daughter in his arms, and he is saying "this is my soul and this is my soul's soul," and he is content with the Qadr of Allah? How is it possible — we've all seen this video of this father wrapping his daughter — where does he get his strength from? Where do those people who have lost their families gain strength? Because we know for a fact that it's not from you and I, it's not from the people of the world.

And the reason why we search for strength from the people of this world is because we've lost sight of where true strength actually comes from, where true strength is actually confined. Their perseverance, their strength, their mental fortitude is confined in their relationship with Allah — where Allah becomes their source of strength.

Where Allah becomes the eyes that they see with, the ears that they hear with, the hands that they touch with — meaning in every move of their life, in every sigh of difficulty, there is a comfort that is given to them by Allah.

The Prophet's ﷺ Consistent Smile

How was this man able to stand so tall where he had the burden of the world on his shoulders, where his responsibility was to bring the kalima all across the world? When we go through difficulty, it's difficult enough for us to smile at our own spouses, our own family members — forget smile at the community members in the masjid. It's difficult enough for us to shake the hands of our own siblings — forget hug a stranger. And when they say to us: why the long face, why the frown? And we say: you don't know what I'm going through. Well, we know what the Prophet went through.

Jarir ibn Abdullah says: I never interacted or engaged with the Prophet of Allah except that he was smiling at me — not because he was happy, but because he wished to make me happy. His relationships were not always incentivized for him to be the beneficiary of that relationship. Whereas in a capitalistic world, even our handshakes are incentivized for us to be a beneficiary.

When we ask ourselves: when was the last time I cultivated, invested in a relationship where I had absolutely no benefit — whereas the person in front of me was a beneficiary, not me? Why is it such that it's so easy for me to go to someone's wedding, but so difficult for me to stand in someone's janazah? Why is it such that it's so easy for me to visit someone when they have a bridal shower or a baby shower, but when they're sick in the hospital we find it difficult? Because we always wish to be a beneficiary — we want to be shown happiness, to experience joy — whereas in those moments we have to lend our psychological reserve to those people. We have to become people who have enough psychological reserve that people can connect with us and benefit not only from our wealth, but from our presence.

Allah's Intervention in the Prophet's ﷺ Darkest Moments

How was he able to succeed? Because Allah's intervention was always there. When the Prophet of Allah was given nubuwwah, and the people of Mecca started to use slurs and the chants that they used against him, and the Prophet of Allah struggled with it — because he is only a human — where Allah says:

"We know that what they say to you — it hurts you, it bothers you." Just because someone says alhamdulillah doesn't mean their heart is not torn into pieces. We would be people in the greatest, ultimate delusion if we thought that a mother or a father who lost their child in Gaza, and we see their video and they say alhamdulillah — we're like: OK, they're good. They're not good. If anyone here has lost a loved one, who has experienced a hardship — we don't say alhamdulillah simply because we're happy. We say it because there's nothing else to say. There's nothing else that our tongue is allowed to utter.

We can cry. The Prophet of Allah, when he lost Ibrahim, and 'Abdurrahman ibn 'Awf saw him tearing where his tears had drenched his beard, and he looked at him and said: wa anta ya Rasool Allah — you cry, you cry like this? And the Prophet of Allah looked at him and said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 1303)

"Yes, I will cry." Do not allow anyone to tell you that crying is oxymoronic to belief. Rather it is definitive of your belief in Allah. Where Ibrahim alayhi salam cried till his eyesight went away. He said: I cry, my heart is broken. However — wala naqulu illa bima yarda bihi rabbuna — our perseverance isn't found in our emotions, it's found in our responses, it's found in our actions.

Ibn al-Qayyim rahimullah says: believers are not found to be believers because of who they are, they're not found to be believers because of their situations — they're found to be believers because of how they react to those situations. When they're given something good, they thank Allah. When they're given a difficulty, they praise Allah. Alhamdulillah is gratitude and it's also praise. They say alhamdulillah, and we see their video and we caress our egos to sleep and keep thinking to ourselves: at least they're OK. They're not OK. That smile is not a sign of being OK. That alhamdulillah is a plea to Allah saying: ya Allah, if you are happy, then that's all that matters.

Where the poet says: ya Allah, if you are pleased, that's all that really matters for us.

Surah ad-Duha: Allah's Consolation

So in this moment where he has been given nubuwwah, and people are challenging him, and they're saying words like "your Lord has left you" — in that moment of darkness and loneliness, like the people of Gaza, Allah intervenes. When the world turns their backs towards us, the intervention of Allah is always present, it's always there for us, it's always dominant in our life. Where Allah intervenes and says:

"I swear by the beauty of the light that comes in the morning, in the darkness of the sky." And Imam al-Qurtubi rahimullah narrates that wadduha — I take an oath by the beauty of your face, the light on your face — that is such that if the Prophet his entire life sat on a chair and said nothing, showed no miracles, performed and gave no instructions, the simple presence of him would be enough for people to know that he's a Prophet. Ma wadda'aka rabbuka — your Lord hasn't left you, he will never forsake you.

Perseverance Means Increasing Submission

And then they started saying things again, and Allah intervened once again by saying:

And here we quickly extract a point that is important for us to recognize: perseverance isn't simply understanding that we're going through difficulty. Perseverance is being able to continue that which we were doing prior to that difficulty, and adding more submission within our life.

Where Allah praises the perseverance of the sahabas by saying:

That when they were in the jaws of difficulty, when they were pushed against the wall — when Musa alayhi salam was in front of the sea and Fir'aun was behind him — their level of faith increased in Allah, and they would say things like:

"Indeed Allah is with me right now." When they were in the cave, and the people were on top of them to an extent that if they were to look beneath them they would see Abu Bakr, and the Prophet says:

In that moment, perseverance also means to continue adding more submission to our life. Therefore wherever we see Allah consoling the Prophet in his moments of loss, we also see an instruction of adding more deeds in his life — a commandment that you must increase in your submission, you must increase in your sacrifice, you must increase in your prayer.

He is the one going through difficulty and Allah is saying:

The Prophet of Allah — when an orphan comes to you, do not ever turn him away. Let people benefit from your blessings. He is the one going through difficulty, and Allah is saying: O the one who shrouds himself —

Increase in your worship of the night, increase in your devotion of the night. He is the one who lost his son Qasim, and Abu Lahab is jeering and cheering on his loss, walking through the streets of Mecca saying "inna Muhammadan qad ibatara" — that Muhammad ﷺ will not have a legacy, neither will he have a lineage. Because their assumption, as are the assumptions of the people of this world, is that legacy is built upon children, legacy is built upon businesses, legacies are built upon that which we build for this world. That's what they assumed. But the deen of Allah taught us the mentality that legacies are built upon what we build for the akhira, what we take for the akhira.

The Mentality of the Akhira — The Battle of the Trench

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2834; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1805)

With the Prophet of Allah in the middle of the Battle of the Trench, where the discomfort and the difficulty of the Muslims has reached the epitome — where sahabas have tied rocks to their bellies and they're struggling, just holding themselves as they're digging this trench — and they're actually saying things that reveal they truly feel they won't receive any help. In such dark moments, the Prophet of Allah looks at them, calls upon them and says: "O my companions, do we not know — there is no life of this world if it does not create benefit for the akhira, if it does not create a source of relief in the akhira."

Where the Prophet of Allah created a mentality of:

That whosoever lives with the akhira in front of them — that their movements and their decisions of life are primarily identified and decided by what benefits their akhira, not what benefits their dunya — when a person lives with this mentality, the definition of victory changes and the definition of loss changes.

The world will see the people becoming shaheed as a loss, and Allah identifies that to be a victory for them:

It's not a victory for us — the verdict is still out there for us — but it's a victory for them, because the mentality was always directed towards the akhira.

Surah al-Kawthar: A Gift Born from Grief

As he loses his child and the people start saying things like he has no legacy — because they believe that legacy was built from this dunya — the Prophet of Allah in those moments of pure grief, heartbroken, Allah intervenes. We just read the surah like it's an easy surah, but someone lost a child for us to receive it. Someone lost their son for us to be given the gift of Surah al-Kawthar. Someone went through a lot of difficulty for us to be given Surah ad-Duha.

We've already given you the kawthar. And in that moment of difficulty, once again Allah prescribes: increase in his submission. Perseverance is not saying that I'm okay. Perseverance is saying: stand up and pray, give charity.

The Day of Ta'if — The Prophet's ﷺ Hardest Day

And I'll end with the last story — one of the Prophet's most difficult moments. When Aisha asks the Prophet of Allah: what was the most difficult day of your life? And he responded by saying: in Mecca it was the day of Ta'if, and in Medina it was the day that I lost my uncle Hamza.

In the journey of Ta'if — where we have heard multiple times — this honorable man comes as a messenger and he is disrespected, humiliated in every way, shape and form, and he is physically tortured, where his feet and the shoes that he is wearing are stuck to each other because they are clogged with blood. And as he leaves the city, kicked out, he reaches the garden of 'Addas. And in that moment of difficulty, he recognized that perseverance isn't simply saying that I'm going through a hardship. Perseverance is saying: I must continue the mission Allah gave me.

And in that moment where he was literally humiliated like nobody else, he asks this youngster who is bringing him grapes: "Where are you from?" And 'Addas says: "I'm from Nineveh." And the Prophet of Allah says: "Oh — that's the city that my brother is from, Yunus ibn Matta. You're from the same city." And now because he is persevering, he's not going to say to him: OK cool, you can go now, thank you for the grapes. Because perseverance is: now I continue my mission.

People of maturity do not allow their emotions to dictate their responses. People of maturity allow the values that they hold to dictate their responses. They don't come home and their response is sporadic because of how their day went. Their response is consistent because the ethics that they live by — so you can guess how they will respond, like they could guess that the Prophet would walk into the room smiling. They knew it, because his responses were always consistent.

"That's the city of my brother." And 'Addas says to him: "How do you know him?" "They were both prophets." And he says: "OK, if you're a prophet, what do you teach?" And the Prophet of Allah forgot about all of his difficulty and went ahead and gave that one person da'wah. He called that one person to Allah. He forgot about the rest of them — that one person. Because my mission must continue. Perseverance is to continue. And he became a Muslim.

The Gift of Al-Mi'raj — The Greatest Consolation

And in that moment of difficulty — the hardest day of the Prophet's life — Allah once again intervened. And how did He intervene? In the most difficult moment, He gave him the greatest gift. And that was Allah saying to the Prophet: the people of the world don't want to speak to you, but I want to speak to you. And He called him for al-mi'raj — just days after Ta'if. The Prophet was called for al-mi'raj to console the Prophet of Allah.

The same intervention is there for us today. The same intervention of Allah's love, His comfort, that presence of Allah's intervention — is omnipresent, ever consistent, everlasting. And when he goes for al-mi'raj, Allah once again continues His same sunnah — which is to console the person and to ask him to continue doing what he is doing. In al-mi'raj he wasn't just consoled — he was given the greatest gift of Salat. That from today onwards, whenever you're going through difficulty, this is your gift.

And that's exactly how the Prophet lived his life — whenever difficult moments came to his life, he would always refer back to Salat. Wherever difficulty increased, intervention increased. And where intervention increased, submission increased. We cannot say that we persevere without increasing our submission. We cannot say that we have patience without increasing our level of submission to Allah.

This is the constant variable that we see in all of the Prophet's difficulties, in all of the sahabas' difficulties — that they would allow themselves to persevere through Allah's intervention, and by doing so their level of submission increased.

Speak to Allah — The Healing of a Broken Heart

Where we see the people of the world struggling today — and every single person sitting here is going through some level of pain, some level of absence, some challenge, some hardship — rather than looking for a shoulder to cry upon and relying upon that, Allah gave us a sajda. After Ta'if, the Prophet didn't speak to people — he spoke to Allah:

"O Allah, I complain only to You, I speak only to You."

Ibn al-Qayyim rahimullah says: one of the greatest healers of a broken heart is the concept of munajat billah — the ability to speak to Allah openly, the ability to speak to Allah at night. Not just du'a — just speak to Allah.

So where we see ourselves struggling, we refer back to this same process — where Allah will intervene. And when we see people struggling and we see that they are persevering, we know that Allah is intervening over there as well. Allah's intervention is there for those who are struggling more than anybody else — like the people in Gaza. And we live with this mentality, and difficulties become far easier, challenges become far easier, when we know that there are challenges that only live in this world, and we know that the akhira will bear none of that — but rather it will give us nothing but ease and comfort.

Longing for Jannah and the Prophet ﷺ

Qaqa al-Awsi rahimullah once came to his friend while he was walking, and he said to him: dullani 'ala shay'in aw akhbirni bi shay'in nashtaqu bihi ila al-jannah — tell me something that will increase my longing for Jannah. And he looked at his friend and said: that's very easy. He said three words: feeha Rasoolullah — in Jannah is the Prophet of Allah. In Jannah are the sahabas.

When Bilal radhiyallahu 'anhu was on his deathbed, and the people around him and his wife started to say wahuzana — what a day of grief, what a day of sorrow — as we are saying to the people who are becoming shaheed — her husband, as he would gain his consciousness, would look at her and say: la taquliha kadha — don't say that. Rather say: wa faraha wa taraba, ghadan alqa Muhammadan wa hisba — what a day of joy, what a day of delight! Tomorrow I will meet the Prophet and his companions.

We wish to be raised with them. And the best way to be able to earn that level is to live a life that pleases them. We were not fortunate enough to be the sand that he walked upon, we were not fortunate enough to be the camel that he rode upon, we were not fortunate enough to be the date palm tree that he spoke next to, we were not fortunate enough to be the sahabas that saw him. But if we live a life that is obedient to Allah, embodying the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, we will be fortunate enough to drink from his hands on the Day of Judgement from the hawd al-kawthar.

May Allah make us amongst those people that recognize — and identify — that strength doesn't also come from Allah; strength only comes from Allah. Ameen.