Wounds That Aren't Meant To Heal

Opening

We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

A Small Story to Begin

Dear brothers and sisters, before I start with the story, I'm going to give you a disclaimer that it's not that serious. What I'm going to share with you to begin this khutbah — to frame it — is actually something very minor that happened. But you'll understand, insha'Allah ta'ala, why I choose to start with this in a minute.

A few months ago, I was riding my bike and I had my daughter — my youngest daughter — behind me on the bike. We weren't in the United States, and so she wasn't wearing a helmet — and she should wear a helmet — and she was in that basket, a little cubby behind me. As we were riding, subhanAllah, the bike fell, or I fell with the bike. And it fell in a way that — Allah is so merciful — her head was right between two trees in front of a concrete wall, and alhamdulillah — and I don't mean completely unscratched. In that process, I got a little scar on my ankle.

SubhanAllah, the reason why I start with this is because obviously when these types of things happen to us, our minds as parents go to all of that — what could have been. And the reason why I tell you it's not that serious is because we have people in here that have been through traumatic car accidents and things of that sort. Alhamdulillah, I mean, it's nothing like that.

But I start with this because my khutbah today was actually inspired by the doctor — the doctor that was treating the scar on my ankle. He told me, he said, "Alhamdulillah, this is going to heal just fine, so long as it's not infected. But it's probably going to be a little bit discolored for the rest of your life." Perhaps as a sign of the mercy of Allah, I said, "JazakAllah khair — that's what I needed to hear."

Owais Al-Qarni: The Best of the Tabi'een

Why do I start with that? The Prophet ﷺ told us about a very special man by the name of Owais Al-Qarni رضي الله تعالى عنه — وَهُوَ خَيْرُ التَّابِعِينَ — and he is the best of the tabi'een. This khutbah does not give me enough time to be able to do a full biography. Perhaps, bi idhni'llahi ta'ala, in the near future, a full biography of this man.

But of the ways that the Prophet ﷺ described him, he said — alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam — in the authentic hadith of Sahih Muslim:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 44, Hadith 225)

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Owais ibn Aamir will come to you from the delegations of Yemen. He is from the larger tribe of Murad, and then specifically a sub-tribe of Qarn." He describes him and says: "He used to have leprosy and he was cured from that leprosy except for a coin's worth on his body." And the second description is what he is most famous for — he said: "He has a mother and he is dutiful to his mother — he has a mother and he treats his mother with great kindness and obedience." The Prophet ﷺ said: "If he were to take an oath upon Allah, Allah would honor that oath. So if you are able to ask him to seek forgiveness for you, then do so."

And of course the longer story includes Umar رضي الله تعالى عنه finding Owais Al-Qarni رضي الله تعالى عنه and asking him to ask Allah to forgive him. The direct and primary point is that the virtue of honoring the mother is of the greatest virtues and can cause a person to ascend in rank — above those that pray all night and above those that fast long into the days.

The Coin's Worth That Remained

But I want to focus just on that first part that often gets overlooked — where the Prophet ﷺ says:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 44, Hadith 225)

When the Prophet ﷺ said he had leprosy and Allah cured him of that leprosy — except for a coin's worth. Imam al-Nawawi rahimahu'llah ta'ala and others described that when Owais made du'a to Allah to cure him, he asked Allah to actually leave a spot — to let him have a little bit on his body لِيَتَذَكَّرَ بِهَا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ — so he could remember the blessing of Allah upon him.

And that is a very powerful concept if you think about it.

The Scar on the Chest of the Prophet ﷺ

I want us to think about the Prophet ﷺ first and foremost. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was a child, Allah sent Jibreel alayhi salam to perform a surgery on him — and that was to remove his heart as a child and to remove from his heart anything that would not be befitting of the mission that he had ahead of him alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam.

And there was makhit — literally a stitching — on the chest of the Prophet ﷺ, as Anas ibn Malik رضي الله عنه says, for the rest of his life. Imagine — for 35 years — looking at your chest and not knowing why that surgery happened, or what that surgery was actually all about. But as a reminder of something that Allah wanted to leave for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

Later on — 60 years later — the Prophet ﷺ meets an old woman named Shayma' bint al-Harith رضي الله تعالى عنها. And Shayma' tells the Prophet ﷺ that "I'm your sister." He says, "What do you mean you're my sister?" And she reminds him that she was his foster sister — and shows the Prophet ﷺ bite-marks from when he was a child, when he was a baby ﷺ, playing with his sister.

And so I'm starting with the most minimal manifestation of scars and the most minimal manifestation of marks for a reason — that throughout our lives, we accumulate these small physical scars, these small physical reminders. And they remind us of the mercy of Allah upon us in some way. They remind us of a time of trauma. They remind us of a time of triumph. They remind us of something that happened to us. They remind us of something that happened to someone else.

And I want to say from the very beginning — I am not in any way minimizing here or comparing these types of scars — these little marks from when we were children and maybe we fell off of something — to people that have actual disabilities, or people that suffered a severe disfigurement that affected their daily lives. Because those two things are not the same. I'm starting with this to make a point that Allah leaves these things on us first and foremost to remind us of something. And every single person has something like that.

In fact, we all have that belly button — which reminds us that once upon a time, Allah nourished us through our mothers through that single umbilical cord. That is a wound that Allah left on you, so that you could remember the mercy of Allah upon you. And of course for our mothers, the marks that are left upon them — may Allah reward our parents and have mercy upon them and forgive them as they raised us and as we often forget their favors upon us. Allahumma ameen.

At the bare minimum, there's something that's left on her from carrying you. And sometimes of course many of those who even go through the surgeries — the C-sections — an actual scar, a reminder of that moment from Allah where He brought them through something, and a reminder to the child of what they had to go through to bring you into this world.

The Companions and Their Visible Scars

Go a little bit more severe — our brothers and sisters that have had surgeries, that have had operations, that have had severe moments in their lives where Allah reminded them that he or she was at His mercy — and there's something left over, even if it's only detectable to you or to someone who's paying attention and looking very closely.

Go a little bit further, and you think about the community of the Prophet ﷺ. And in the community of the Prophet ﷺ, if you were to walk around, you would see people who were missing arms, who were missing legs — and all of that was fi sabil Allah.

I want you to think about meeting Khabbab رضي الله تعالى عنه — and how Khabbab, even in the most powerful days of Islam, would never be able to forget his most difficult days in Islam. Because he had no skin on his back. Not everyone was seeing the back of Khabbab رضي الله تعالى عنه on a daily basis — perhaps it was just Khabbab and his immediate family. But Khabbab رضي الله تعالى عنه could look, and he could see what was on his back.

If you could think about all of the marks on the bodies of those people closest to the Prophet ﷺ — you think there was nothing left on Sayyidina Ali رضي الله تعالى عنه when he fought the boogeyman of Quraysh? No marks that were on his body? Every single part of his body was marked — fi sabil Allah.

Nusaybah — Umm 'Amarah رضي الله عنها — she had 12 wounds from the Battle of Uhud. She was walking around and her arm was almost completely severed — fi sabil Allah.

Abu Ubaydah رضي الله تعالى عنه — who had missing teeth and a lisp. Why? Because he pulled the helmet of the Prophet ﷺ out of his face on the day of Uhud when it was driven into his face — and he used his mouth رضي الله عنه to pull that out of the face of the Prophet ﷺ. And so this commander — who is representing this great ummah — is going around the world and he has an awkward lisp. Why? And missing teeth. Why? He remembers. He could look back, and he could remember those days with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. And the list goes on and on and on.

Talhah رضي الله عنه had over 70 wounds from that day. His kids could actually remember putting their fingers into the depth of those wounds from Uhud. They didn't live Uhud, but they saw something on him.

Wounds That Humble, Not Just Hurt

Why am I giving this particular overview? These are the visible scars that have healed — that are seemingly insignificant to the very prominent wounds that we either incurred during an accident, or during some sort of health struggle, or during something fi sabil Allah.

And that is of course the minority — all of this is for Allah to keep you humble. You see, not all wounds are meant to heal. But they're all meant to humble and to remind you of the mercy of Allah upon you — so that every time you look at it, you remember that Allah has a story behind that scar, that Allah has something behind that wound to remind you for the rest of your life of where you came from and where you're trying to go.

And the invisible wounds, of course, are even harder to deal with. Because the invisible wounds are the ones that you only tend to see in yourself, or someone who's deeply paying attention to you. It's harder to see those than even a tiny scar from the most sophisticated procedure that barely leaves a mark on your body — those emotional wounds.

The Prophet ﷺ: Wounds That Built the World's Greatest Mercy

But subhanAllah — you look at the Prophet ﷺ — Rahmatan lil-'Alameen, a mercy to the world. The Prophet ﷺ went through so much — and this is the month of seerah conferences and all sorts of remembrances of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He went through so much alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam that would have made any human being bitter. But instead, not only did they make him better — they made him the best ﷺ.

And Allah mentions to the Prophet ﷺ that those inexplicable wounds that he was suffering as a child — you don't think he would have asked alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam, before revelation came to him: "Why was I born without a father? Why did my mother die in front of me when I was six? Why did I lose my grandfather? Why this, why that?" You don't think that those thoughts wouldn't have gone through his head as a child ﷺ? Because it didn't make sense yet — why is all of this happening to me?

It didn't make him bitter. It didn't make him jaded. Those emotional wounds were part of what inspired the empathy of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ — to be there for other people in ways that, perhaps had he not suffered those things alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam and carried those wounds, he would not have been able to.

Now by the way — keep in mind the Prophet ﷺ, of the excellence of his character — it wasn't like him alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam to recount the details. I even mentioned — subhanAllah — when we went through the lecture on Halimah al-Sa'diyyah رضي الله عنها and Aminah bint Wahb — when the Prophet ﷺ went to her grave, his mother's grave — and it wasn't that far from Madinah — most of the Sahabah had never even heard the Prophet ﷺ talk about losing his mother at six. Because he was so busy alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam giving to others — that he was nurturing those emotional wounds alayhi al-salatu wa al-salam in his own ways.

You don't think the Prophet ﷺ — who cried in front of his companions standing in front of his mother's grave for the first time that they saw him — you don't think the Prophet ﷺ ever cried about his mother in qiyam? You don't think that those emotional wounds that inspired him to be a mercy to the world didn't also inspire the intensity of his connecting to the Most Merciful and his ibadah? Of course it did. It was part of his makeup ﷺ.

And sometimes we're so quick to want to stitch it up, remove it — and Allah puts it there for us for a reason. If you look at your body and you kind of scan through — and you remember — sometimes you have marks, subhanAllah, your parents remember that you don't even remember. And you almost gave your parents maybe a heart attack because of that wound: "I remember you fell off of a counter — what were you doing there, I don't know — where you knocked this on top of yourself, or you did this and I had to take you to the hospital." And they cry and they cry and they cry. But you don't remember any of it. Perhaps it's a mark of mercy to them as well.

But Allah knows that every single one of those marks — visible and invisible — is there for a reason. And the fundamental reason is that you go back and you look at them and you say alhamdulillah. Because your personal pain can be a source of other people's strength. The pain that you suffer in this dunya is always an opportunity for healing in the akhirah.

Alhamdulillah. You look at it — ya Allah, You know what other people see and what only you see. But let me use what other people see and what only you see — to please You at the end of the day. To channel that back towards You.

The Wounds of Gaza and Our Ummah

Now with all of that being said — with the point of these wounds, and the point of these marks and these scars that sometimes leave a mark even if they don't fully heal — subhanAllah, let's keep in mind here that when it comes to the people of Gaza, for the rest of our lives we will be surrounded by people who will remind us of the horror of the atrocities that were committed against them — in this war on children — where you have more amputees than any other armed conflict, people that are intentionally being maimed. They will forever serve as a reminder to the rest of us.

It's not like the Prophet ﷺ seeing the bite marks on Shayma' رضي الله تعالى عنها. It's us seeing what has been done to our brothers and sisters. They will forever serve as a reminder of this crime against humanity — and of the crime of negligence as well. May Allah forgive us for our shortcomings. Allahumma ameen.

And it's not just true for the people of Gaza — certainly not just true for the people of Gaza. It's true for many peoples.

But dear brothers and sisters — we look to ourselves and the wounds that we have, and how to take those wounds and not let them make us bitter, but make us better. And we look to the wounds of others — some that are very visible to us. And the emotional wounds of the people of Gaza are far more, subhanAllah, than the arms and the legs that have been taken from them. We also need to use that to channel something out of ourselves — to first and foremost remember Allah through those scars, remember Allah through those wounds.

May Allah protect us, and may Allah protect us from our heedlessness and our arrogance. May Allah allow us to process everything that happens to us and everything that happens to other than us in a way that we can use it to seek His pleasure. May Allah heal the people of Gaza and give them victory. Heal the people of Sudan and give them prosperity and ease. Heal the people of the Congo. Heal the people of Yemen. May Allah give victory to the mustad'afeen all over the world — the weak ones and the oppressed ones and the harmed ones all over the world. And may Allah hold back the hands of those oppressors that continue to maim our brothers and sisters. And may Allah destroy the oppressors wherever they are. Allahumma ameen.

Closing Du'a

فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوهُ عَلَى نِعَمِهِ يَزِدْكُمْ وَلَذِكْرُ اللَّهِ أَكْبَرُ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ

And establish the prayer.