February 23, 2012

An example of Brotherhood

Assalamualaykum wa rahmatullaahi wb my dear brothers & sisters in Islaam, I haven’t posted anything for a while. Partly because I didn’t have anything worth sharing with you, however; tonight I’m going to share with you something very important from the Medinan period of the life of our beloved prophet (sallalahu’alahywassalam).

I actually had attended an Al Kauthar course titled ‘The Victorious One’ on the Medina period of the prophet’s life ( peace be upon him) from January 29 to January 30 this year. It was really an enlightening experience indeed Al hamdulillah. Being able to learn the leadership qualities of our beloved prophet & his da’waah techniques have really benefitted me a great deal. I ask Allaah to bless myself & my brothers & sisters in it so that we can implement what we’ve learned from the course, amin.

It is always of benefit to test yourself on what you learn. Hence, any al Kauthar course you take, they assign you an exam after a few weeks of the course. So I just got assigned to take the exam recently via email. Hence I was preparing for the exam through listening to the audio lectures given by Sheikh Alaa elSayeed.

We get thousands of lessons throughout the life of the prophet (s.a.w). But alas how many of us really try & implement a single of those lessons? Worse yet, how many of us really know what lessons are hidden in the bio of the prophet?

As I listen to the lectures & at the same time read the notes I see a mountain filled with morals & wisdoms subhan Allaah. And I know it is an obligation for a Muslim to pass on the knowledge, even if it be a single verse as taught by our beloved prophet (s.a.w). Hence, I just wish I could share with you every bit of knowledge I learned in one go; if only it was possible!

However, I can in sha Allah promise you that I’ll try my best to convey the message as much as I can in this article. In addition, I’ll be coming up with more articles on this topic if required in sha Allah.

I now start seeking help from Allah(s.a.w) & I ask Him to accept it, amin.

Brotherhood


Brotherhood is something lost in our society; the last person you care about today is your brother. To make it worse, now you see brother killing his own brother into getting his property subhan Allaah! We definitely are living in a terrible time.

Whereas, look at the seerah & see how the Ansari men treated their Muhajirun brothers. The brotherhood established between these pairs was not idle talk. For example, Sa’ad bin Ar-Rabi’, an Ansaar, said to his fellow brother ‘Abdur Rahman ibn Awf, “ I’m the richest man among the Ansar. I am glad to share my property half and half with you. I have two wives, I am ready to divorce one & after the expiry of her iddah, you may marry her.”

But Abdur Rahman bin Awf was not prepared to accept anything; neither property nor home. So he blessed his brother & said: “Kindly direct me to the market so that I may make my fortune with my own hands,” And he did prosper & got married very shortly by his own labor.

Allahu Akbar! See how selfless these men were? An Ansar man could sacrifice everything for his paired Muhajir brother for the sake of Allaah & vice versa.

We get to learn several things from this hadith Al hamdulillaah. Firstly, we see how eager Sa’ad was to sacrifice his property & home for his brother, he even went to the extent of divorcing his wife so that ibn Awf could marry her after the completion of iddah.

And what does ibn Awf reply? Does he say ‘oh my brother, you are so nice & all.’? Or does he go to the other extreme of rebuking him by saying ‘how dare you insult me’? No wallahi! We are talking about the people of ithar (selflessness), people that lived with the prophet (s.a.w) & were graduates of the prophet’s mosque.

So what does he do? He blesses his brother with the best of manners & says ‘Barak’Allahu feeka ya akhi’(May Allaah bless you, my brother). And he asks Sa’ad to guide him to the marketplace so that he can make a fortune from his own hand.

Thus, we learn that it is in no way, shape or form acceptable to be a parasite, regardless how willing your brother is to provide for you.

And here the rubbish that we are, we stay at our brother’s place for hours after hours without even considering that he has his family to spend time with. On top of all that, we often are guilty of harming our brothers with our tongue.

It is reported in Sahih Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 10:

Narrated Abu Musa:
Some people asked Allah's Apostle (s.a.w), "Whose Islam is the best? i.e. (Who is a very good Muslim)?" He replied, "One who avoids harming the Muslims with his tongue and hands."