Reminders
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In that Moment, What Do You Say? | Daily Reminders
Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed reflects on a moment that befalls us all when we are left speechless and are unsure how to deal with pain and goes through 3 ways to help us gain relief from these difficult times.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Nihmduhu nasalli ala rasoolihi al-kareem. Amma ba'd. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. I'm sure many of us have experienced sitting next to our phones, getting a phone call from a person we talk to on a regular basis, or a text message. This time the phone call is quite different. The message is quite different. That person who we usually share laughter with is crying with us now. The message reads, my father has passed away, my son has passed away, my relative has passed away. In these moments it leaves you speechless. You don't know what to say. What to say? Nothing in this world can prepare you for that. You could be the wisest person in the world, the greatest scholar, even then you are hard-pressed to find the words to lighten the burden. I was faced with a similar situation just this last week when my maternal grandmother passed away. When I was driving to my mother's house to pay my condolences, to be with her. It's not an easy conversation to have when someone is suffering, someone is going through a tragedy in their life. You can never be in their shoes. But I found throughout my life, with myself, all the different difficulties we go through in our lives, I found three steps that really help ease the burden. The first step is knowing that you're not alone. Knowing that you're not alone during crisis, while you're suffering, is a very, very powerful thing. To know that there was other people or someone else in the world that is going through the same struggles as you are, or that someone went through those struggles and defeated those struggles, and those struggles did not defeat them, it gives us this added motivation. The struggle that you're going through right now if your father passed away or your mother passed away, know that that same struggle, our Habib Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam went through.
He was born and he never got to see his father because his father passed away before he was born. And when he was only six years old, his mother passed away in the middle of Abu'a. All alone, he was only six years old at that time. Many, many years later, when he was traveling with the Sahaba, and in the middle of his journey, he stopped. And he went to a distant place, sat down, started to cry so much that all the Sahaba started to weep. And then he came back and Umar Ruhani said, Ya Rasulullah, your crying has made us cry. What has made you cry so much? And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, أَفْزَعَكُمْ بُكَائِي He said, did I frighten you with my crying? Imagine how much he cried that he made the Sahaba cry and they had no idea why he was crying. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, The grave site that you saw me sitting at, that was the grave of my mother. He lived with that pain all his life. He lived with it. It was in his heart. Whatever little memories he had of his mother, he lived with. And if your child passed away, know that you're not alone. There are people who are going through the same struggle. There are people before us who are much better than us that went through this struggle. How did they defeat it? What did they do? Right? You're in elite company when you're in the company of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, where his children passed away. So once I was in Philadelphia, after the khutbah, someone came to me and said, Sheikh, my aunt wants to see you. So later on that day, we visited his aunt. The husband was there too. We walked into the apartment. First time in my life this happened was a seven, eight year old child. He came running and he sat in my lap. Usually children don't do that. And he just sat in my lap. So that was already strange. And I started patting his head. The husband was sitting next to me on the left-hand side. There was a veil, and behind the veil, I could just hear a woman crying. Crying so loud.
And so the husband was telling her, stop crying and speak, whatever questions you have. And she couldn't come up with the words. Then she started saying, Sheikh, there's a very rare type of disease of extra lipid storage in the brain. And this rare type of lipid storage disease, there's only 52 people in the world that have been diagnosed with this disease right now. And for the ones who know, this type of disease, there's no hope for life. The child dies when they're still in their childhood, right, at a young age. So when I was sitting there, I didn't know what to say to her. She was asking me, what else can I do? She's saying, I miss my children so much. And now I can't even have any more children. I'm at an age where I can't have children. This is the last one I have. So at that time, a thought came to my mind. And I just said to her, Aunty, the Prophet ﷺ was a father who buried six of his children while he was living. Only one was still alive when he passed away. When Abu Dharghi Farid A'nu was asked, none of your children end up living a long life. They pass away when they're young. Doesn't that bother you? Don't you miss them? And he says, Alhamdulillahilladhi yakhuduhum fee daaril fanaa, wa yadakhiruhum fee daaril baqaa. All praises to Allah who takes them from this world that is bound to finish, bound to end. No one can live here forever. But he's preserving them for me and we will reunite in a world, in Jannah, where we will live forever. So this should give us relief. This will help us. This is the first step towards getting relief, is to know that you're not alone. The second step is to anticipate and expect the reward Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has written for you in this time.
That you lost a family member. What is the reward? What is Allah going to give you for this? How Umm Salimah says that whoever is faced with this calamity of a loss of a loved one, and at that time that person says, Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon, Allah ma'jurni fee musibati, wa aqibni khayrun minha, illa fa'alallahu dhalik. Just recite this dua. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon, O Allah give me better than this, and reward me for the difficulty that I'm going through. Allah will replace that with something better. Allah will reward you for that. When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala takes our child from us at a young age, Allah asks the angels, and He says, what did my servant say when I took a piece of his heart from him? And someone that he or she really loves, what did he say? What was his reaction? What was her reaction? And the angels say, ilahana hamidaka wastarja'a, O Allah, he or she praised you, even though they were going through difficulty and they were suffering, but they praised you. And they said, inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon, Allah tells the angels, fashhidoo annee banaytulahu baytan fil jannah, wasammaytuhu baytul hamd. Be witness that I have built for this person a house in jannah, a palace in jannah, and I have named this palace baytul hamd. That palace is waiting for us. That palace anticipates this reward. This reward is there for us. And a person came to Abdullah bin Sudan, who after his brother passed away, his name was Utbah, and he was crying, he says, ma'ab kaka, what makes you cry? He says, kala akhi, he was my brother, wasahibi ma'a Rasool Allah salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he was my buddy, he was a companion with me with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Not just my brother, but we were together, shoulder to shoulder, companions with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
But, however, ma yasuruni ana moota qablahu, but it wouldn't make me happy if I died before him. La'ayya moota fa ihtasibuhu, ahabi layya min an amoot fa ihtasibunayn. Subhanallah. He says, that he died before me, and I expect the reward from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that I know the reward that Allah has given me for the patience I'm showing in this condition, and I prefer this more than I would die first and he would expect the reward, because I know the reward Allah has stored for me. Subhanallah. See, so the second step towards relief is knowing that Allah has stored an enormous amount of reward for the ones who are patient in these conditions, and Allah has stored that for us, and He will give it to us, and we should not be too concerned, and we should expect this reward. The third and final step is to know and believe that our loved ones are in a much better place than this world. They're in a much better place. Nuzulam min ghafooril raheem. Nuzulam min ghafooril raheem. They're in the hospitality of Allah, the most generous. Fadkhuli ila rabbiki raadhiya tam mardiya, fadkhuli fi ibadhi wadkhuli jannati. You know, when we're sending our children out of state or out of the country for education or for med school, whatever it is, we look at which state, which school there is where our family members are there or our friends are there, so then we're more comfortable sending our loved ones to that state or city where we have acquaintances and friends. We're more comfortable with that, and we send them there. Allah is taking care of our loved one. They have gone to the realm of akhira where Allah is the host and our loved one is the guest.
And you know, one thing that really, it gets me moving every time I think about this. You see, a prisoner who is in prison for say 10, 15 years, imagine the joy on this person's face the day he or she is released from prison. You cannot capture this emotion in words. I cannot capture it on camera. How happy this person will be finally he is released. الدنيا سجن المؤمن وجنة الكافر This dunya, whether we like it or not, believe it or not, it's the saying of the Prophet ﷺ, this dunya is a prison for a believer. So imagine our loved one's reaction when they're finally out and they're in jannah inshaAllah, when they leave. They're happy, they're in a much better place. Once, the mother of Harithah radiyaAllahu ta'ala comes to the Prophet ﷺ, and she has the same concern. She's worried about her son, but look at how she reacted when the Prophet ﷺ gave the answer to her. She says, O Prophet of Allah, my son passed away. He's shaheed. How is he? Where is he? Is he okay? Is he in jannah? And she's crying. And how did the Prophet ﷺ comfort her? إِنَّهَا جَنَّةٌ فِي جِنَانٍ وَإِنَّهُ لَفِي الْفِرْدَوْسِ الْأَعْلَىٰ Another hadith, وَيْهَكَ أَوَهَابِلْتِ Another hadith, she says this, she says, there are many jannas in jannah, and your son has reached جنة الفردوس. فَرَجَعَتْ وَضَحِكَتْ وَقَالَتْ بَخِن بَخِن يَا حَارِثَ She turned around, she smiled, and she says, Haritha, congratulations. Congratulations. You are so fortunate. The fact that she knew that her son is in a much better place brought her comfort. So this is the third step of gaining comfort in this time of distress when our loved ones have gone.
And finally, we make du'a for everybody who have lost loved ones that Allah SWT gives them. جَنَّةٌ فِي الْفِرْدَوْسِ الْأَعْلَىٰ Makes their qabr, a garden of paradise, and gives their family and loved ones sabr jameel. JazakAllahu khair. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu.
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