Angels In Their Presence | Season 2
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What do you have to do to have angels come and greet you? Six years after hijrah, Imran ibn Husain (r) accepted Islam and became a Companion of the Prophet ﷺ.
In love with his faith and deeply attached to Allah, he maintained dhikr, or the consistent remembrance of God, to such an extent that he was gifted with the regular presence—and salaam—of the malaa’ikah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Imran Ibn Hussain radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was a young man when he embraced Islam. And he came later on in the life of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, but he would rise to be this person who was known as Shabih al-Malaika, a person who resembles the angels, not necessarily in his appearance or even in his character, but specifically in his worship. And he gives this example of how that worship of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la manifested his household in the first place. By talking about how the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam actually gave da'wah to his father. He said that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam came to my father and he said to him, Ya Hussain, Oh Hussain, how many gods do you worship? So he said seven total, Sittan fil arad wa wahidan fil sama'a, six of them on this earth and one of them in the heavens. So he says, basically, I've got these idols and then I've got this one God that I deem supreme that I can't see. So the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, which one of them do you put your greatest hopes and fears in? Which one of those gods do you give the greatest consideration to? So he said, the one that's in the heavens. That's the one that I have the greatest reverence for. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said to him, then why don't you worship the one that's in the heavens and leave the ones that are on the earth? And SubhanAllah, that made sense to him. And he became a muwahid, he became a Muslim, a monotheist and a Muslim. So Imran comes into Islam around the time of Khaibar. So we're talking about about six years after the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam had come to Medina and immediately falls in love with this religion and dedicates himself to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and dedicates himself to this idea of worship of one God. And it became to the point that he gains this reputation amongst the companions of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam as being a zahid, as being an ascetic and being a scholar who's only interested in two things.
He's interested in knowledge and he's interested in worship. So it's ilm and ibadah. That's all that you knew Imran Ibn Hussain radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu for. And that's the way that the companions viewed him. Now, when Umar radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu would become the khalifa, he would actually appoint him to a government position. He'd sent him to Basra and the people of Basra loved him. They said that no one has ever come to us from the companions of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. That's better than this man. But Imran asked Umar radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu to be excused and to basically just teach the people. But at the same time, he didn't want to hold office. We also know of him that he avoided all fitna. He hated all types of division and disunity in the Muslim ummah. He said, I will never use this tongue against another Muslim or throw an arrow against another Muslim. So when the people come to him and ask him to do this or do that, Imran radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu would shut his door and exert himself in ibadah, exert himself in worship. Now, one of the things that we also see from him, though, is that despite him being a great worshiper and a great ascetic, that didn't mean that he used to come out looking like a person who was in rags and a person who had abandoned this world physically. In fact, there's a narration that Imran radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu had come out to the people and he was wearing this really nice robe. The robe had a special type of stitching and embroidery. It had special buttons on it. And when they asked him about it, he said, it's because I heard the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam say that when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blesses a person with ni'mah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves and yara'athara ni'matihi ala abdihi. To see the effect of that blessing on his servant. So detachment from this world is not that you wear raggedy clothes. It's not that you inflict poverty on yourself. It's that you attach yourself only to Allah. And in the case of Imran radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, who lived with the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, an attachment to the messenger of Allah salAllahu alaihi wa sallam.
And he, in fact, is one of the narrators of the hadith where the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam said, the best of my ummah is my generation. And then those that come after them and then those that come after them. And subhanAllah, because he was so young when he embraced Islam, he lived long after the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And he never stopped longing for him, especially when he remembered ibadah, worship with the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. One of his students, a great tabi'i, al-Mutarraf ibn Abdullah radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, he said that one time he and I prayed behind Ali ibn Abi Talib radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. And after the prayer, Imran grabbed my hand and he said, this reminded me of the prayer of the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. This took me back to that time of praying with the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. Now, of course, everyone around the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam was in a certain state. And if Imran distinguished himself radiAllahu anhu, even amongst the companions when around the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, then how was he at all other times? And you might recall a very famous narration of Hamdara radiAllahu anhu going to Abu Bakr and then Abu Bakr and Hamdara may Allah be pleased with them, going to the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam and complaining that maybe they were hypocrites. Why? Because they couldn't maintain that same level of dhikr, that same level of remembrance of Allah, that same state of mind and state of heart when they were with the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam and then with their families after they left the presence of the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam. And what did the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam say to them? He said, listen, first of all, sa'atan wa sa'a. It's you know, you have to have a time for this and a time for that. As long as you're not sinful when you're away from the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, it's understandable that you're not going to be able to maintain the same state of heart and mind in the absence of the Messenger salAllahu alaihi wa sallam that you had when you're sitting in his halaqas, when you're with the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam.
And the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam said to them that if you were to maintain the same state in my absence that you do in my presence, the angels would shake your hands in the streets. How does this apply to Imran radiAllahu anhu? Imran actually aspired to be in that state. Imran actually aspired to be in the same way that he was with the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam, even when the Prophet salAllahu alaihi wa sallam had already passed away. And some time passed where Imran radiAllahu anhu became ill for an extended period of time. And he took inspiration from the story of Ayub alaihi salam, the prolonged sickness and worship and patience. And then one day his student al-Mutarrif visits him and he sees him very sad. So he says to him, what's wrong? He says that something was happening with me and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala took that blessing away from me. He said, what is it? He said that for an extended period of time, the angels started to come to me. That I would come to my house and they would greet me at my door and then they would even come to me when I would lay in bed and they would greet me at the head side of my bed. So the angels, sulli ma'alaiya, they were giving salam to me and I was giving salam to them as well. And this was happening from every direction. SubhanAllah, what a blessing from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to only happen to this one companion where the angels are saying salam to him. And he's saying salam to them as well. He said, but it stopped after I did al-qayy, which is a medical procedure that the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam generally dislike. So he said, when I did al-qayy, the angels stopped coming to me. So he was very sad about that. Mutarrif said, I told him that inshallah, they'll come back to you. And subhanAllah, sometime after that, Imran radiyaAllahu ta'ala Anhu was in joy. And he said to al-Mutarrif ibn Abdullah, he said, alhamdulillah, they came back to me. But don't tell anyone of this until after I die. I don't want anyone to know of this blessing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given to me until after I pass away.
And subhanAllah, it stayed that way until he passed away radiyaAllahu ta'ala Anhu. And there's something very special about this that the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam was not just giving a random example. If you are in a state of dhikr, you are in the presence of angels, whether that's in a gathering or whether that is as an individual. And when this person Imran radiyaAllahu ta'ala Anhu is able to maintain that consistent remembrance of Allah, then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed him with the consistent presence of the angels. And for us, the more we remember Allah, the more the angels are going to be present with us.
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