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From my father, my brother, and sister, alhamdulillah, we have today people who are interested in da’wah, and we want to learn how to do da’wah, da’wah al-Islam. We want to learn how to present Islam to people.
The best way to learn and the best source of that learning is the blessed life of Rasulullah ﷺ. So let us reflect on that. How did the Nabi عليه السلام invite people to Islam? Did he have debates with them? Did he argue with them? Did he have conferences? Did he have meetings? Did he give big bans? Or what did he do?
And when we look at the Sira, we see that what he did was just be helpful and just be kind to people. And that is why when he came to Madinah, the first thing he said to the people was, spread the salam, afsush salam. And then he said, feed the people who are in need. And then he said, stand in the night in salah when people are sleeping and Allah ﷻ will make the path to Jannah easy for you. So all the things that he’s saying are to do with the people. Spread salam, say, greet everybody, feed the people who need food. And then he said, stand in the night before Allah ﷻ when people are sleeping. And Allah will make your path easy for you. So this is how he will make the path easy to Jannah.
Think about what our mother, Khadija tul-Kubra, رضي الله عنها said to Rasulullah ﷺ when he first saw Jibai’ulayhi s-Salam and he came down from the mountain, from the, to, came home. And he said, zambilunee, zambilunee. He said, cover me up, cover me up. He was shivering. He was not sure what he had seen. And he said, I am afraid that I might be destroyed. And I don’t know what I saw.
And what did she say to him? Did she say to him that you make so many wazifas and you make so much of zikr and you make so many naafil and so on? She said to him, do not fear because you are kind to neighbors. You always give people their rights. You are good. You are hospitable. You are good to your guests. You maintain the ties of family relationship. And Allah will not cause any harm to come to you. Again, if you see, all that she is saying about him, عليه السلام has to do with his akhlaq, has to do with his treatment of people.
And today I ask myself and I ask you to ask yourself, how do we treat people who are in our purview of preference? How do we treat them? Do we treat them with kindness? Do you give them their rights? Do you treat them with respect? Do you treat them with respect, especially those who are dependent on us, especially those who do not have power, people in positions of service, people who are weak, who are poor? How do we treat them? People who work for us, for example. How do we treat them? Do you treat them with respect? Do you address them respectfully? Do your children address them respectfully? Or do we treat them as literally like as servants and slaves? Now, this is the question. This is the key thing which you have to understand, because Islam spread by the winning of hearts, Islam did not spread by the sword.
The simplest thing is, whenever people tell me this thing of Islam spread by the sword, I tell people, I ask them, which football or soccer club do you support? And they will tell me, you know, Arsenal or something. So I said, if you are the supporter of that club, and if I want to convert you and say, you have to support this other club, will you do it? They said, not on your life, never, won’t happen. I said, you won’t even change the club you support. Do you think you are going to change the God you worship? I mean, just think about that. What kind of nonsense is that? I mean, the belief religion is a matter of belief. It’s not a matter of, of, uh, outward rituals. Somebody can, maybe somebody can put a gun to your head and make you put your head on the ground, but they cannot change what’s in your heart unless you want to change.
So people came to Islam because of the fact that they literally fell in love with Muhammad and the people who carried this forward. Again, if you look at them, the famous story of Abdullah bin Mubarak, which I always mentioned is his neighbor. They, somebody came and told him that your neighbor and the neighbor was a Jewish guy. He said, your neighbor is selling his house and, uh, he has marked the price twice the market value. So people come there and they look at the house and so on. They said, this is fine. But you know, this house is like, you’re pricing it twice the market value. He says, do you know who my neighbor is? Who’s your neighbor? Abdullah bin Mubarak. So he said the price of the house and the fact that you are going to be Abdullah bin Mubarak’s neighbor is what the price of the house. Right? This is a Jewish guy.
So Abdullah goes to him. He said, why are you selling the house? He said, because I need money. He said, I’ll give you the money. You stay here. I, you are a nice man. I want you to, I want you to remain here as my neighbor. I’ll give you the money. You pay me back when you, when you can pay me back. Obviously it is interest. We, uh, and you know, now the point is, this is the kind of that we, uh, that we, uh, are supposed to have as Muslims.
Abdullah bin Mubarak, he was, he went for Hajj. Um, and he says that after Hajj finished, uh, and everything is over, he said, I was one day making tawaf of the Kaaba and, uh, finished all that. And then he said, I was tired. So I just sat there and I dozed off, fell asleep. And he said, in my sleep, I saw two, uh, men, but I knew that these were Malaika. These were angels. Uh, they were talking to each other and one of them said, this time, this year, Allah has not accepted the Hajj of anyone who came for Hajj. So Abdullah bin Mubarak says, I was absolutely. And, you know, I’m very worried because I went for Hajj and I am one of the people whose Hajj is not accepted. Then the other one says, but because of one man, Allah ﷻ forgave everyone and accepted everybody’s Hajj. So this man, the other angel, he says, who’s, who’s this man? He says, this man is a cobbler. Yeah. Shoemaker is a cobbler and he lives in Damascus in such and such a place.
So Abdullah bin Mubarak says, I, I woke up and I decided that I’m going to go and see who is this guy. I mean, this guy for, because of him, uh, Allah ﷻ accepted the Hajj of everyone. And otherwise this year, Allah ﷻ would have trashed everybody’s Hajj. So he said, he went on my, imagine he’s in Makkah, he’s seeing this dream in the Haram and then he goes to Syria. He goes to Damascus and he goes in this dream, you know, the, the address. Was given. So he went and he searched and he found this guy. This guy was a cobbler. So Abdullah bin Mubarak knocked on his door. He was a cobbler, poor man. He opened the door and, uh, he, Abdullah bin Mubarak introduced himself. He was a famous, uh, Abdullah bin Mubarak was a, you know, great alim, famous. So the man knew him. Um, so Abdullah bin Mubarak said, I have come here because I saw this dream and in this dream, uh, you know, I, uh, this is what Allah ﷻ said. So I want to congratulate you first for your Hajj, may Allah Ta’ala accept your Hajj, may Allah accept your duas and so on.
This man started weeping. Abdullah bin Mubarak said, why are you crying? He said, because I did not do Hajj. I was planning to go for Hajj. I couldn’t go. Now this, you know, obviously the mystery deepens. So Abdullah bin Mubarak said, you did not even go for Hajj. He said, no, I didn’t go for Hajj. Then he says, what, then this dream, what was this dream? The man said, I don’t know what the dream was, but I’ll tell you my story. He said, my story is that I saved up money for 30 years to be able to go for Hajj because I had this desire to go for Hajj. I have a poor man, I have a shoe maker. Uh, so I saved up money for 30 years to go for Hajj. And then he said, now, when I was ready to go, uh, in those days, you know, they used to go and meet the neighbors and meet their family and so on. Uh, ask them for their Dua because they would go for the Hajj, uh, journey was a six month journey. Uh, they would go before Ramadan, they would spend Ramadan. They would spend the two, you know, months after that, and then they would make Hajj and they come back. So it was a long thing. So they used to, uh, you know, seek forgiveness and so on and ask for Dua.
So he said, I was going around and I, the whole day passed in the evening. He said, I came to my neighbor’s house and, uh, I knocked on the door and I could smell. This, the aroma of roasted meat, roasting meat is a lovely aroma of roasting meat. So he said, I, the neighbor opened the door and, uh, I told him I’m going for Hajj and he gave me Dua and so on and so on. And this man says, this cobbler says that the neighbor was about to shut the door. So he said, I found this very strange because in our culture, if somebody comes home at mealtime, you ask him to stay. And this neighbor of mine, I’m his neighbor. He knows me. He’s not asking me to stay. So he said, I felt bad also. And I felt, you know, this is, uh, Oh, what’s the reason? So he said, I told the, I told him, I said, you know, I thought you were going to invite me this beautiful smell of meat. And, uh, you’re not inviting me.
He said, the man started crying. He said, why are you crying? He said, because I am not inviting you because this meat is halal for me, but it is haram for you.
So now the cobbler says, this is crazy because. Both of us are Muslim. How can the same meat be halal for him and haram for me? So he asked, he said, I asked him, I said, what are you talking about? We are both Muslim. How can the meat be halal for you and haram for me? He said, because we have been my, me and my family, we have been starving for the last four days. So today I went out to try to see if I can find some food. He said there was a dead donkey, which was on a garbage pile. So he said, I cut off a leg of that donkey. I brought that home. And that is what is being cooked. And obviously it’s a donkey. It’s haram for you. Uh, it’s a dead donkey. You know, there’s no, nothing. In any case, the donkey is haram. So it is haram for you. It’s halal for me because we have been starving for four days. So for us, it is halal because you know, otherwise we die. But for you, it’s haram.
This man says, the cobbler says, I went home. I took all the money that I had saved for Hajj. I brought it and I gave it to this man and I did not cook for Hajj.
Now this is akhlaq. And the result of that is Allah ﷻ accepts the Hajj of all the people who did Hajj because of a man who did not even do Hajj. Because he was concerned about his neighbor and he helped his neighbor.
So I remind myself and you that Islam is not only about, it’s definitely not about arguing about Deen. It is not about making all kinds of fitrah and needlessness. You know, confusion. It’s not about just praying and so on. Obviously, we have to pray and we must pray. But it’s even more about how we treat each other, how we are with each other, how we are with our neighbors, whether they are Muslim or not, how we are with society, how we live in a way which shows the beauty of Islam in everything that we say and we do. If you are not doing this, believe me, my brothers and sisters, all this salah and wajih, all these huzifahs and majlis of zikr and this and this bayan and that bayan, all of this, Subhanallah, is not only useless, but this will become a hujjat against us on the day of judgment when we meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala. Because if we really and truly claim to love Allah and His Messenger Muhammad ﷺ, then how come we live in a way where people look at us and they hate us instead of loving us? We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala to give us the akhlaq of Rasulullah ﷺ and we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala to keep us in His care and His protection.
Wa Salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh. Al Fatiha. Al Fatiha.