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SubhanAllah, may Allah bless him. He said this wonderful thing about Allah SWT being Al-Hadi and this is absolutely true.
And so I will want to tell you three stories of how Allah SWT gives Hidayah. Allah gives Hidayah without any help from us. Allah does not need our help.
First story is here in ISWM. One day I am sitting after Sahad al-Asr in the Masjid. There is almost nobody there, just one person.
One little kid comes. He must be about maybe, I was like two connected to one. One day I am sitting there. Two kids come. One is probably about 13 and the second one must be about 11 or 12.
So he comes and this is one, the older one. He says, who is the Sheikh? So I said, I am the Sheikh. He catches the other one, brings him here. He said, give him Shahada.
I said, what? He said, you are a nutty or something. What do you give Shahada? He said, no, he wants to become Muslim. I said, who is he? He is my friend.
I said, who are you? So he tells me some name. I said, where did you come from? He said, Springfield. Springfield. How did you come? On my bicycle.
I said, you both rode on… No, no, no. I brought him on my bicycle. This kid rides with the other kid on his bicycle from Springfield to West Springfield. And he says, give him Shahada.
So I said, who am I to stop with? If Allah says this, well, well.
Later on my friends told me that kid is 12 years old. How can he give Shahada? He says, I don’t care. As far as I am concerned, he brought him here. He said, Allah has sent him my gift.
Another time, one comes from West Springfield High School, which is just up the road from us. He came and he said, I want to become Muslim. He must be around 14.
What is your name? He said, Devin. But the way he said, I am sitting in the masjid, somebody says Devin, I hear Devil.
So I said, Devil has come to become Muslim. He said, this is pretty good. So I said, what? He said, Devin. So, okay.
So I said, why do you want to become Muslim? He said, no, I like Islam. I said, what do you mean, like Islam? Sort of, you know, orange flavor or something. What do you mean, Islam?
He knew a lot. I said, how do you know all this? Oh, my friends are there and I have been talking to the friends and so on and so on.
So, he became Muslim. Somewhere he gets a Palestinian scarf. And next thing I know, I see him and I am thinking like this is some malak which has descended.
He is wearing complete white and he has got this Palestinian scarf and so on. The only thing missing is a topia kufi.
So I said, he looks beautiful. So I said to him, what can I give you? He said, can I have your cap? So I said, here, take it.
Has he? What is our effort in this? Third story. I started my career in 1979, Guyana in South America.
And at the age of 21, I was the de facto mayor of a mining town on the bank of the river Babies in the Amazonian rainforest.
So when 21 year old kids come and tell me that they did this or that, I said, you know, it takes a lot to impress me, believe me.
Because at your age, I was running a mining town. So I don’t think you are anywhere going to impress me with what basketball you played or something. Who cares?
So, I had a manager there called Nick Adams, James Nicholas Adams. Nick Adams was absolutely the most beautiful human being on the face of the earth.
Absolutely wonderful human being. And he was, I mean, he was so particular about me following Islam and so on that, I mean, this not eating Zabiyal, not modern or new, you know,
Kiri kumnai brein, which most people think it is. I have never unknowingly eaten anything which is not Zabiyal.
So I, what he used to do among things, he would call me one day, he would say, please come and there would be a whole crate of chickens.
You know, 50 or none of you would say 20 chickens. He would say, Zabiyal for all of them and we’ll clean them and you put them in the freezer for when you come to eat with us, we cook this chicken for you.
So to that extent, very, very West Indian, West Indian African man, wonderful human being. And my constant thing in my heart was, Allah give him Islam, Allah give him Islam.
Now, I never presented Islam to him when I was in Ghana. I was too busy working and hunting and fishing. Every weekend I used to go hunting and fishing. So that never happened and we left.
Now, this was 1979 to 1983. Then in 19, must have been 2000, not 90, but 2010 or something, I knew Nick had moved to New York.
So I contacted him and so on. I said, come in to meet you. I go there and I meet him. He is a doorman in one of the buildings in Brooklyn.
Now this man was my boss in Ghana. So I was the assistant administrative manager. So I was de facto mayor of the town, which means what was he, right?
Very big powerful position and with all the, you know, the hoo-ha that goes with it. And he is a doorman in this building. I almost wept.
Anyway, I hope I didn’t show that in my face. So I met him and I said, Nick, how are you? He said, oh, I am fantastic.
So I said, what are you talking about man? I mean, I know you, I have seen you for the last 20 years, 25 years from there to here and you are saying you are fantastic.
I didn’t say all this to him. This is in my heart. I am asking myself, we are talking about people making sugar. Look at this man, sugar.
So I said, Nick, I mean, yeah, good, but he said, you know, I have a job. He said, I am now 75. He said, I am in a lobby, which is heated and in the winter and it is cooled in the summer.
So I don’t have to go on the street. All I have to do is sit here and press a button, door open, door closes. I am very grateful for this.
Now in this building was an old lady who used to live on the top one of the flats alone. She had a son, son lived somewhere else and this lady was by herself.
So every once in a while, and Nick told me this story, every once in a while this lady would phone down and she said, Nick, I am here. She said, Nick, do you mind?
There was a McDonald’s across the street. I said, I am here. She said, Nick, I am here. I said, I am here. She said, Nick, I am here.
She said, Nick, do you mind? There was a McDonald’s across the street. I said, do you mind getting me something from McDonald’s?
So Nick would go and he would bring something from McDonald’s and take it to our flat.
Now his other colleagues, the other doorman there, they objected. They said, you are setting a needless precedent.
She has no business telling you, you are not her servant. You are the doorman. You don’t have to go there. You don’t have to listen to her.
Tell her to go fly a kite. You know, she wants to go to McDonald’s and let her order, let her do.
Nick tells me, why must I do all this? I mean this is a poor old woman. She needs some help. I help her. What is everybody’s problem?
They say, why do you go in the cold? He says, I go in the cold. I am not asking you to go in the cold, right?
So what is your problem? I want to go in the cold. I go in the cold.
This lady died. Two or three days later, funeral over, her son comes.
And he says, Mr. Adams, my mother has left a will and in the will she says that if you want to live in her flat, you and your wife can live in her flat until you die, for the rest of your life, rent free.
And I came only to request you, her furniture is all there in the flat. If you want me to remove all that, I can remove it. But then I have to take it to store it somewhere.
So, with your permission, if you don’t mind using it, please use it. Nick tells me, we ran out of our home lease the previous week and we had to find a house.
I was like, you know, free in Brooklyn. One of the very fancy buildings, flat on top, rent free for the rest of your life.
He said, I am so grateful to God. Two or three years pass, Nick gets cancer. A terminal.
I am in India. I phoned him from India. I said, Nick, how are you? Oh, I am fantastic. He is fantastic. Alhamdulillah, I am very, very happy.
He didn’t say Alhamdulillah. He said, I am very grateful to God. He says, the man has got terminal cancer. I said, Nick, are you in pain?
Yeah, but you know, they give me medicines and so on. So, I speak to the Catholic. The Catholic says he is in tremendous pain.
And they give him the medicines. He is kind of sedated. When he comes to, he is in pain. He doesn’t say one word about that.
So, Dr. Ali Hazarajee was going to New York. Many of you know him. A lot of you know him.
So, I called Ali and I said, please go and meet Nick Adams and present this laundry. Because the man is like, he is, you know, he is a very nice man.
So, Dr. Ali went to his house. And Dr. Ali described this whole thing to me.
He said Nick was on his bed. He was completely bedded. He couldn’t, you know, get up or sit or anything. He was on bed.
So, he was on the bed. Ali was sitting here. Nick’s wife, Kathleen, was sitting there.
And their sister in law, Nick’s, Kathleen’s sister, Desiree, was on her computer in the room in one corner.
So, her computer was facing the wall. She was facing the wall. So, Ali said, I went and I sat with them and I presented Islam to them.
And everything I say, Nick says, yes, that’s right. I said, do you believe that? Yes, I believe that.
Do you think, you know, Jesus is son of God? He says, no. He is a prophet of God? Yes.
And there is no one worthy of worship except Allah, except the one who created us? Yes.
So, everything, yes, yes, yes, yes, Nick and Kathleen. So, Ali said, well, you know, then you are Muslim. I mean, you accept all of these things.
So, then he said, Ali said, are you willing to take the Shahadah? Will you repeat after me? He said, yes.
And Ali gave him the Shahadah. He and his wife both accepted Islam.
Ali says, Desiree was facing the wall throughout this whole thing.
So, Ali says, well, you know, Alhamdulillah, you both are, you are both Muslim. You both accepted Islam, Alhamdulillah.
But Desiree, I am not sure if she heard this conversation. Desiree spins around.
She says, do you want me to repeat everything you told us? You told them?
So, Ali said, well, you know, I believe you. So, he said, are you willing to accept Islam? She said, yes.
He said, say Shahadwalai, three of them, same place. I was at that time, I was in India, I was teaching a course in GE.
My wife, who knows me very well, she, she phones me at the lunchtime and she says to me, I have got something to say to you,
but go find a place where you are alone and sit down. I said, what is this?
I said, this is like a control freak. I mean, you want me to sit down? She said, no, no, no, you just do it.
So, I said, okay. I found an empty room. I went and sat down. She said, Nick Adams has accepted Islam.
Well, I screamed. And I wept. I said, yes, I am going to sit down.
And I wept. I said, Allah, you are the one. My wife said, that is why I wanted to go in one room, because if I told you there,
you would do all this in front of all these people and you know, it would create a problem.
Third story and I will end with this. This was 1997 or 98.
I was going, me, Dr. Ali and there was another friend of ours here called Azhar Sheikh.
Three of us were going to a Islamic conference in San Francisco, in LA.
We boarded the flight from Bradley. It was a Friday and all of us were, I will dress the same way I normally dress with the turban and the mishla.
And we were sitting, actually we were sitting in Bradley airport. This woman comes to me and she says, excuse me, are you a Sultan?
I said, not yet. I am trying. There should be no country around. What to do?
You find a country, tell me. I am happy to do it. So then we boarded the flight.
This was an airline called Northwest Airline. It does not exist anymore. Delta bought it over.
So Northwest had the hub in Detroit. So we were flying from Bradley to Detroit and then Detroit to LA. Very, very long flight.
So we landed in Detroit and there we had to change planes.
Now when we changed planes, there was a white lady in the window seat, there was me in the middle seat and there was Ali next to me and Azhar Sheikh on the other side of the aisle.
So I said, for God’s sake, I am stuck, first one in the middle seat. I have got this little bone on my, I want to open it.
Anyway, so I sat there and it was Friday, so I opened, those days there was no phones and stuff. So I had a small musaf.
So I opened my Quran and I am reading Shukrat al-Kaf. So this lady looks over, excuse me, I said, yes.
What is that? I said, this is the Quran. No, what language? I said Arabic.
So she says, oh, then you can read something for me. So I said, what?
So she goes into her handbag, she pulls out a locket and on this locket, one side is written, Alhamdulillah, on the other side is written, MashaAllah.
So she showed me, she said, what is this? So I read it to her, I said, this is what it means.
I said, are you Muslim? She said, no, I am Catholic. I said, okay. She said, how did you get this?
She said, this is something my grandmother gave me, she had an Iranian friend and her Iranian friend gave her this, her grandmother.
This is the middle age lady, she must be in her 40s.
So I said, okay, so end of conversation. I go back into my, Musaf, she says, excuse me, I said, yes. Can you read aloud?
So I said, for God’s sake, you are flying over, in Namad, you are flying over the Grand Canyon, 35,000 feet in the air in America,
the plane is full of white people, you want me to read the Quran aloud?
I said, you are out of your mind or what? I didn’t tell her all this. I said, anyway, Alhamdulillah, whatever happens happens.
So I am now reading Suratul Kahf aloud. And she is listening, getting some funny looks, but anyway.
I finished Suratul Kahf and I shut the book. He said, finish? I said, yes.
No, but there is more. I said, yeah, another 50 minutes, I said, okay.
Because we are in the middle of the world. So then I thought, okay, this is the end of the story.
Then she said, now, Dr. Ali, give her Dawah. I said, you give her Dawah.
I said, you dig me in my rim, I said, you give her Dawah, you give her Dawah. I did not give anybody any Dawah.
I am sitting quietly here. I said, I am not giving anybody any Dawah. I am sitting quietly here.
Then she says, so what are you? I said, why do I start? She said, no, no, what religion?
So I said, Islam, Muslim. What does that mean? So I am thinking, I said, Allah, this is you.
Whatever you are telling this woman to say, she is saying. I have to reply, that’s it.
I have done nothing, right? I didn’t give her any Dawah. I said, I am not giving anybody any Dawah.
So I explained the whole thing to her.
Tawheed, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, no one worthy of worship except Allah.
Then Muhammad s.a.w. is his last and final messenger.
That we believe in all the messengers and messengers.
We believe in Jesus, Isa a.s. and his mother, but not a mother of God and son of God.
We believe in them as human beings and very pious and venerated.
The whole nine yards, the day of resurrection and all of this.
Malaika, kitab, books and everything else.
So for everything she says, yes, that is right.
I said, you are a Catholic, I am telling you Jesus is not son of God, you are saying it is right.
She says, yes. I said, what kind of Catholic is that?
So she said, no, I mean the whole thing.
I said, I am not a Catholic, I am telling you Jesus is not son of God, you are saying it is right.
So she said, what kind of Catholic is that?
So she said, I said, no, I mean the whole thing.
He said, yes, Dandos is this character.
I said, okay, now it is over or I am done. Keep quiet.
And he says, give it down.
I told her the whole thing, what now?
Then she says, so how can I become Muslim?
Wallahi, Allah is witness.
I did not do anything. She is asking me the question.
Technically I should have asked, do you want to become Muslim?
How can I become Muslim?
So I said, okay, repeat after me.
I said, wallahi ilaha illallah.
And I am thinking myself, 35,000 feet in the Arab, in America.
This is, I said wallahi, you are closer to Allah.
He said, I said wallahi ilaha illallah.
I said wallahi Muhammad Rasoolullah.
I bear witness that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah.
And I bear witness that Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasallam is the last and final messenger of Allah.
And then I just to make it more paka, I said,
and I bear witness that Jesus is not son of God.
That Jesus is only.
I said, I have to make sure that it is not Pahla Shahada.
But I said, this is just, I made sure you.
You know.
Did you make that clear?
Yeah, yeah.
If I made that clear, I would not be sitting here.
Anyway, so you see.
Can you, now, this is not, the story is not over, now listen to the story.
This whole thing finished.
She said, can you write this down and give me, so I wrote it down.
In Arabic, then in, you know, transliteration in English and then the English translation.
I wrote all that down, she gave it to her.
She said, when we reach LA, my husband will be there and you must present this whole thing to him.
I said, ah, what?
This is the.
I said, find me a spot in the graveyard after that.
I feel.
So, anyhow, this will.
So, I thought story is over.
Then she says, you know what?
This meeting, you and me, this is not accidental.
So, I said, yeah, you are from Southern California.
I mean, this kind of talk I am going to get.
You know, not accidental.
This is the universe which has.
So, she saw the look of it.
She said, no, no, no, I am serious.
I said, what do you mean?
She goes into her handbag.
She pulls out a plane ticket.
You know, those days we used to have the paper tickets, right?
She pulls out a plane ticket for Delta Airlines.
We are flying northwest.
She tells me, I came to Detroit on a business conference which finished yesterday.
See, how Allah works.
I came to Detroit on a business conference which finished yesterday.
Something told me not to go back with my friends.
And so, I cancelled my Delta ticket.
Here is the ticket.
And I bought a ticket on Northwest.
She said, I do not even like Northwest.
I do not fly Northwest.
Right?
And she said, then, so all my friends went.
She says, Detroit is a dead town.
There is nothing to do in Detroit.
I am sitting in the hotel.
I am paying for one extra night in the hotel because my car is not working.
I am not going to go to the hotel.
I am going to the hotel.
I am going to the hotel.
I am going to the hotel.
I am going to the hotel.
I have paid the company until the conference finished after the company is out of the way.
I am paying an extra night to just sit in the hotel.
I have got nowhere to go.
I have got no friends to meet.
I have got nothing to do.
I am just sitting in the hotel waiting for the flight tomorrow morning.
I am asking myself, am I insane?
What has gone wrong with me?
I am spending more money on a new air ticket which I did not need.
I already had an air ticket.
And Delta was…
The funny, she tried to postpone the Delta ticket.
Next day, there is no seat on Delta.
She had to buy a new ticket and the only ticket which was there was on Northwest.
So, she paid for an additional hotel room.
She paid for the additional ticket.
And she said, I am sitting here.
That is why I am telling you this is not an accident.
It blew my mind.
It blew my mind.
I said, SubhanAllah, this story if somebody had told me, I would ask them what I was smoking.
Looks like some nice stuff.
Give me something as well.
What went like this happened to me?
This happened to me.
This happened to me.
This is how Allah, Subhanahu wa ta’ala, guides who He wants to guide.
And Allah shows you that I don’t need you.
Alhamdulillah, Allah, Subhanahu wa ta’ala, made me the one to give her Shahada and may
that be good for her and me.
But the point I am making is that every step in this entire story is only and only the
guidance from Allah, Subhanahu wa ta’ala, without any assistance from Allah.
Without any assistance, now, Alhamdulillah, or any interference or any input from us
as human beings.
Zero input.
And Allah is witness.
I ask Allah, Subhanahu wa ta’ala, may Allah, Subhanahu wa ta’ala, guide all of us.
May Allah fill our hearts with His Noor and Khashiyah with His awe and glory and majesty.
May Allah, Subhanahu wa ta’ala, remove all forms of darkness and all forms of negativity
from our hearts and fill our hearts and lives with positivity and make us guides for ourselves
and guides for everyone who comes into contact with us.
And may Allah use us in a way that pleases Him so that we become valuable with Him.
Wasallallahu ala Nabil Karim wa ala Alihi wassabi ajmaim.
Bi rahmatul kareem.
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