2015-01-02 - Friday Prayer - Recognizing The Messenger

The Birth of the Prophet and the Signs of His Mercy

He is your spring. That spring to the worlds — when he was born, as the texts teach us, his mother saw a light emanating from her which radiated and illuminated for her as far as Sham and the palaces of Sham. A karama, a meaning from Allah, that when she gave birth to the baby Muhammad, she saw a light coming from her which illuminated for her, and she saw as far as Sham — the palaces and the fortresses of Sham.

Sham nowadays is Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine — all of those. At a time when the Arabs of Mecca were very, very weak, very divided, and very often times mushrik. That is a symbol that his spring will spread all over, as far as Sham, and even into the power of Sham, into the palaces of Sham.

When he was born, it is said he was born sajid — fell on the floor in prostration — and raised his eyes to the heavens. From earth, his aspirations, his goals, his life would be one that is heavenly. On earth, looking at the heavens when he was born. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar — as a child he was already aiming to the highest and foremost dimensions of Allah's creation.

And that was to be a man from earth who will raise us, and raise our aspirations, and raise our hearts and pursuits towards the heavens.

Halima Al-Sa'diyya and the Blessings of His Arrival

That is the symbol of gift, the symbol of rahmah — that when his mother took him to be breastfed, as was the habit of the Arabs at that time, to take their children to the countryside to be breastfed by women from the countryside. Organic milk, organic life — meaning the life of women who live in nature, who live frugally, who live innocently, who live a life of cleanliness. Cleanliness in the sense of virtues, of customs, and also to, insha'Allah ta'ala, absorb the Arabic language from the wildest of environments — meaning the raw Arabic language. If they did that at that time, what would we say about ourselves now and our Arabic as Arabs.

So as she took him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam — she was a very poor woman. When she took him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam — actually when he was in Mecca — that is when his milk mother Halima al-Sa'diyya travelled all the way to Mecca to find a child to nurse, for they were poor and that was a way of making a livelihood for them. When she left her desert dwellings, as she herself narrated, her she-camel that her husband rode was dry and empty — no milk. The she-donkey on which she rode was so weak that her friends travelling with her were complaining that she was hardly keeping up because the donkey would barely move, very weak. She also had a child of her own to breastfeed, but her breast was dry, and she went in the hope of finding a child whose parents were willing, so that she could nurse for a year or two — that would be a means of simple livelihood for her and her family.

So they went, and after they arrived to Mecca — as many of you know the beautiful stories — they were looking for rich people, but this one was an orphan. No woman would take him to breastfeed him. And finally Halima al-Sa'diyya did not find any child. All her friends did find a child to nurse, but she didn't find any. Finally she told her husband, and her husband told her, "You know, we should go back to that orphan. Maybe Allah will bless us through that child. You never know." She said, "Well, he's an orphan — what would he help us with? He doesn't have a father. There's nothing to expect in terms of livelihood." But he said, "Go on, go on." So they went and they finally took the baby Muhammad — whose destiny was to be breastfed by that woman, no other.

She finally takes him, and she began to tell us: once she had that baby, spring upon spring started to be experienced in her life. Goodness after goodness, grace after grace, bounty after bounty, merciful love after merciful love. She said: as soon as we returned and I held him to my chest, my chest was filled with milk. He drank, and his brother in milk — that is her own son — drank to the full of their stomachs. The she-camel on which my husband rode was filled with milk. We drank from that milk and he drank and there was still leftover, and I felt strong after that and had plenty of milk inside of me. The donkey that she was riding suddenly was so energetic and so healthy and so fast that now her friends were complaining that she was too fast for them.

Allahu Akbar. The first spring. When they arrived to their dwellings — the nomadic desert dwellings outside of Mecca, far outside — that year was a year of drought and there was nothing of her sheep and her cattle that would be of benefit to them. But when the baby Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam arrived, suddenly pasture was so rich and her sheep and goats would go out dry and hungry and come back filled with milk and satiated. To the extent that the nomads who lived as neighbors to them — far from her confines, in the far reaches of the countryside — would tell their shepherds to take their sheep and goats where Halima is grazing her sheep.

This was always a symbol about Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam: to bring sustenance to the worlds, to bring plentifulness where there is less, to bring richness where there is destitution, to bring happiness where there is misery, to bring peace where there is hardship and insecurity and conflict.

He was sent, as Allah says to us, as a merciful love, as a rahmah, to the worlds — in plural. Worlds in plural: the animals, the birds, the plants, the jinn, the humans, the quarks, the electrons, the protons, the cells — for all of those in Allah's creative willing have meaning, have purpose. But we do not often understand their purpose, and their language, and their communication, and their conditions.

Animals Recognized His Mercy

It is related to us through very strong chains of narration that sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, this rahmah to the worlds, was so rahmah that even animals recognized that with their own nature and would complain to him. Animals — beasts — would complain to him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, about the mistreatment they received from their human masters.

Many of you are familiar with the example — one of many — of a camel who was so rebellious and so terrible and so harsh and so dangerous that his owner was so afraid he would not even enter the confines where the camel was. They closed the gate, and a report reached Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. This was when he was in Medina. He went, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he said, "Open the gate for me." They said, "No, ya Rasulullah, we are afraid for you. This one is like possessed by rabies — it would kill you." He said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, "Open the gates. Open the gates."

They opened the gates and he approached the camel, and the camel came to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and knelt in front of him. This is a hadith sahih. The camel knelt in front of him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he approached him. And he said then, "Who is the owner of this camel?" The owner came and he said, "This camel complained to me of your mistreatment of him. Please treat him well."

In another incident, the camel who knelt to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and lowered his head — Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said: "Everything in space and time, in every instance, knows that I am Rasulullah, except the wicked and the stubborn amongst human beings and jinn."

The Mother Bird

Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam — he was on an expedition once with his companions in the outdoors, and suddenly some of the companions climbed a tree where there was a nest in which there were fledglings or eggs, and they took them. He passed by, and suddenly the mother bird came flying, flying madly around Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Some accounts say that happened when they returned and he was in the masjid.

And then Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam read the language of the mother, and he said to them, "Who terrorized this mother bird by snatching from her her fledglings?" And those who had done this said, "We did, ya Rasulullah." He said, "Return to her her fledglings or her eggs. Do not terrorize the mother bird."

The mother bird came running to the most beautiful, loving expression of Divine rahmah on earth, and came to him to complain. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

The Resonance of Divine Mercy

His heart must have been so filled with Divine rahmah that his heart and the rahmah in his heart resonated — resonated with Divine rahmah. If you know the term resonance, if you are an electrical engineer or a physicist, you know that at resonance, energies are maximized. When two frequencies come together of multiple integers of one another, the energy is maximized. And since the energy is maximized, the signal is very strong.

So it is like this: that mother bird recognized the rahmah of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam by the resonance in his heart of the rahmah of Allah — and that could be read by birds in their own way and in their own language. That signal was so strong that the source was that man. Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. This loving mercy to the worlds. This spring — and the first of spring — to the worlds. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

Even the Inanimate Recognized Him

The Pebbles in His Hands

Even pebbles — inanimate, at least the way we human beings perceive them — pebbles, hasa, when they were in the palms of his hands, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, what did they do? The companions who were present heard the pebbles in dhikr and in tasbeeh of Allah. Because do pebbles perform tasbeeh of Allah? Do they? Yes. Every Muslim knows that. That is knowledge given to us by Allah. When He said:

"There is not a thing that is not in tasbeeh of Allah, yet you do not comprehend the way they do that." The point is not only that they were in dhikr, but the point — and the miracle — is that the companions heard it. Allah allowed that to be heard. And here again is an example of resonance.

Of his beautiful spiritual person — because these pebbles, perhaps metaphorically, or perhaps in a direct sense by Allah's will, they sensed a very strong burst of energy coming from Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's hands. Because he was the dhakir of Allah — always in dhikr, the most beautiful dhakir of Allah. The dhikr was not from his tongue only; the dhikr was from the deepest recesses of his soul, of his inner heart. So powerful a source, so powerful a dhikr, that it resonated with the dhikr of the angels, and the dhikr of everything in space and time. And that resonance produced again a very strong signal that even pebbles could read. And then in the palms of his hands they were elated, happy in their own natural dhikr environment — so everybody heard that. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Allah, Allah — rahmatun lil-'alamin, merciful love to the worlds.

The Weeping of the Tree Trunk

Even an inanimate object like an old tree trunk — a trunk of a palm tree, an old palm tree that used to be a column in the masjid, before we had of course cement and all those things. One of the columns in the masjid was the column that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to stand next to, to deliver his khutbah. There was no mihrab, no minbar at that time, so he used to approach always that column and lay his noble, prophetic, sublime hand against it and deliver the khutbah.

And then a good woman — a good companion, a rich woman, jazahallahu khayran wa radiyallahu ta'ala 'anha — suggested to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that, as she was rich and had plenty of means, she would make something for him to deliver his khutbah from — a minbar. He said, "If you will." She ordered that, she did that, she made that. And finally the minbar was completed and brought to the masjid.

And the first khutbah that he would deliver, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, on that minbar — he stood on that minbar, three steps. And then when he stood on that minbar — and the text, this is a sahih text also in accordance with serious textual criticism — something phenomenal happened. The companions who were near heard deep lamentations of grief from within the tree trunk that was the column standing. Like screaming and weeping. It was — they said — as if it were about to split apart from within, out of those lamentations of pain and grief. Allah, Allah.

Because he, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, did not lay anymore his hand against that inanimate dead tree trunk. The tree trunk missed him so much, so much — that it was such a resonance, such a resonance of true feelings with the truest, most beautiful, most rahim, kind and gentle and compassionate and merciful and loving — that it was made by Allah to be heard in a language that human beings could hear.

You know, we have languages of bees and we have processors that can tell you what the bees are saying. The language of the tree trunk was communicated by Allah to the companions in a language and in a sign they could hear and understand and feel.

And then Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam walked down and held the tree trunk, caressed the tree trunk — and the tree trunk quieted down, like a child quieted down, her screaming weeping young infant. Rahmatun lil-'alamin. Even a tree trunk recognized his beauty, his rahma.

Do I Recognize His Beauty?

The question is: do I recognize his beauty? Do I have a heart that is so sensitive, so fine-tuned, that it can detect that inner spiritual beauty and that inner spiritual language — and then I miss him. And I love him in that hubb, that love that cannot be quenched except by connecting with him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

This one was born and was born into the world. As the poet said:

"Guidance was born, and all created things glow in celebration. And the mouth of time itself is filled with smiles, joyous smiles and beautiful praises." That Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was born — time is happy, time rejoices. The mouth of time is all smiles and joyous laughter and beautiful praises of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and beautiful praises of Allah for this most special of gifts to the worlds.

Du'a

All of the means expressed by ourselves to have love for him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, is to send plenty, plenty, plenty of salah upon him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and to implore Allah to instill in our qulub — in our hearts, despite us — to instill in our qulub the deepest of mahabbah for him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and to lovingly follow in his footsteps, and to lovingly obey what he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam instructs, and that we be — by the grace of Allah — of those who ultimately would rejoice forever in his companionship.

May Allah grant rahma to those who have passed away — of all Muslims and of those in this community here or abroad.

Straightening the Rows

Please make sure our lines are straight, and gaps are filled, and that if we allow our lines to be crooked, that is an avenue to our hearts to be crooked. As Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said:

"Do not differ (in your rows), lest your hearts differ." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 717; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 432)

Announcement — Southlake Community Masjid

Salam alaykum brothers and sisters. The main part of the announcements are over. There is only one announcement we just wanted to make. My name is Farhan Farooqi. I represent the Southlake community. I am here to first of all thank you all. We were in the process of establishing a masjid in Southlake about 7 months ago. Alhamdulillah, from this particular masjid — and I am so thankful to everybody — we raised over $20,000. As a whole we raised about $850,000. The community gave in some more.