So, when we talk about the second group of companions, and I can already tell you this will be the most popular section of the firsts, who do you think we're talking about? Anybody know? What are two topics that you can always talk about with Muslims and it's super popular? Jinn and marriage. And if at some point in my life I want to hit a home run with a lecture and break YouTube, I'll do a lecture about marrying jinn and then I'll be done. Right? Jinn and marriage. Those are two things that Muslims never get sick of talking about, never get sick of hearing about. Right? But of course we can't just talk about jinn all the time. Okay? And we can't talk about marriage all the time. We have to move on. But Alhamdulillah, we have here something from the Qur'an that is so deeply instructive about the fruits of Ta'if to the Prophet ﷺ, that it's important for us to heed, especially when it comes to effects of your work that you completely can't see. And right now we see what's happening with our brothers and sisters in Gaza, we see the difficulty, and we see what seems to be you know, an ineffectiveness of what we're doing. And how is it that we can help and it doesn't seem like it's changing things. Well, look at what Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala sends to the Prophet ﷺ. Allah Azawajal says in the end of Surah Al-Ahqaf, فَلَمَّا قُضِيَ وَلُّوا إِلَىٰ قَوْمِهِمْ مُنْدِرِينَ And remember when we sent to you a group of jinn so that they might listen to the Qur'an. And when they listen to you
reciting it, right, they stacked up upon each other. As Sufiyan al-Thawri rahim Allah says in Tafsir, he said they stacked upon each other like rose, as if they were wool. This group of jinn listening to the Prophet ﷺ, reading his Qur'an as he's on his way back from Ta'if. And they said, shh, shh, shh, listen to that. And then when the Prophet ﷺ finished his recitation, they went back to their people, مُنْدِرِينَ, calling their people back to Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala. Alright, so let's cover a little bit of basic Aqidah here. Alright, that can be a little, can seem a little bit complex. When it comes to the jinn, are there good jinn and bad jinn, or just shayateen? There are good jinn, right, there are believers from the jinn. When you read Surat al-Rahman, right, فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانَ Which of the favors of your Lord, right, will you too, right, human beings and jinn, deny? And the Prophet ﷺ mentioned that there were some believing jinn, so different species that we cannot see, they see us, we don't see them, that they say رَبَّنَا لَا نُكَذِّبَ Our Lord, we do not deny, we do not deny, right. So there are good jinn, and there are bad jinn. Are there prophets amongst the jinn, anbiya, rusul? There's a difference of opinion amongst the scholars. If there were prophets from the jinn, the majority of them say no, they have warners, and they use as the proof of the ayah, this ayah from Surat al-Ahqaf, وَلَوْ إِلَى قَوْمِهِمْ مُنذِرِينَ They went back to their people, calling them, warning them, so they can be warners,
they can be du'at, but they can't be jinn, I mean they can't be actual prophets and messengers, so some of them said that, and some of them, like Imam Hassan al-Basri, رحمه الله, and others, a small group of scholars said, they could have, they could have had prophets specific to them, specific to them, not to human beings, okay. Whereas the consensus is as follows, number one, there are no jinn, prophets, and messengers that were ever sent to human beings, that's number one, okay. Why? Because, وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ رَسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِي We only sent prophets and messengers in the language of their people, so it wouldn't make sense for us to be taught by a jinn, right, if anything, that was the objection of Quraysh, send an angel, right, we have human beings that were sent to us to teach us, that's number one. Number two, every human being that was sent as a prophet was also sent to the jinn, meaning the jinn were accountable to the message of the prophets that were sent to human beings as well. Multiple proofs for that, it's so self-evident, it doesn't need any delving into, and it would take away from the lecture as a whole, right. But they see us, they hear us, they know the language, they understand, they have accountability to the messengers that were sent to the human beings as well, just as much as we have accountability to them. Number three, no matter what, there is no prophet after the Prophet ﷺ, period. He is the seal of prophethood, and to believe otherwise is disbelief, that's the aqeedah of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah, that's our creed, right, there is no prophet or messenger after the Prophet ﷺ, he is the seal of the prophets. So, all that to be said, why is this important? Because this group of jinn are literally
the firsts of the jinn. The good jinn are not of the same category. There are Muslim jinn that embraced Islam quicker than others. They have their own versions and iterations of the righteous amongst them that called their tribes, qabā'il al-jinn, that called them to Islam, and had varied responses. And so, who are the firsts of the jinn? They would be this delegation of jinn that actually showed up in Ta'if, right, after Ta'if to embrace the message of the Prophet ﷺ, that were sent by Allah ﷻ to the messenger of Allah ﷺ, and who heeded the call from Allah ﷻ, and through the messenger of Allah ﷺ. They have da'is amongst them, they have firsts amongst them, they have their own fiqh, right, so the Prophet ﷺ was instructed to teach them some of their own unique elements of fiqh, of jurisprudence, because obviously they are bodily and physically manifested completely different from us. But there are jinn who are Christian, there are jinn who are Jews, and there are jinn who are complete polytheists before the Prophet ﷺ is instructed with his call. So what just happened here? And why is it so significant to Ta'if? And why did Allah ﷻ tell the Prophet ﷺ about this at that moment, right? Because Surah al-Ahqaf comes down, it's Makki Qur'an, it reinforces the Prophet ﷺ. Why tell the Prophet ﷺ about this group of companions, right, that you can't see, that you don't deal with, but they embraced your call, they embraced your message, and it's significant. Ibn Abbas ﷺ, he narrates that before the Prophet ﷺ made it back to Mecca, it was coming from Ta'if,
he rested in a place called An-Nahlah, and this place is a small area between Ta'if and Mecca that has, you know, some trees to take shade from, and it has some water as well. So it was common for people that were coming from Ta'if, because remember it's about 70 miles, it's a long trip back, you know, back then without modern transportation. They would rest there, so they would take their water there, and they would, you know, take shade under the trees. Now generally speaking, the jinn tend to inhabit those types of places, right, that are abandoned most of the time, right, but then there's some of these means that exist over there. And the Prophet ﷺ was reciting the Qur'an, and he was reading ﷺ either in his Qiyam, so it was night prayer. Night prayer here can mean his Isha, his Qiyam, or his Fajr. The point is, it was one of the prayers where the Prophet ﷺ was reciting out loud. Preceding that moment, when Allah ﷻ revealed the Qur'an to the Prophet ﷺ, there are things that started to happen in the heavens that made life more difficult for the shayateen, the expulsion of the shayateen, the expulsion of the devils, as they tried to gather the news of what takes place outside of this realm. And so they, the jinn, understood that something significant had just happened to the world, right. And there are a group of jinn, subhanAllah, just like there are a group of human beings, like Salman al-Farisi ﷺ, like Suhayb al-Rumi, that are looking around to figure out what's happening, either as sincere seekers or to interrupt that message even, right, to stop it, and to solve the problem so that they can continue their devious ways. The point is, is that it's
creating a search, where some people are stagnant and settled in their place, others are searching. And what's really, subhanAllah, profound here, is that Ibn Abbas ﷺ and Ibn Sa'ad, you'll notice in their narrations, they mentioned that these were jinn from An-Nusaybin. And An-Nusaybin was the center of Nestorian Christianity in the fifth century. It's one of the places that Salman al-Farisi ﷺ went to in his pursuits, because there was some reverence for the book, the actual message of the Torah and the Injil in those places. So it was a place of scholarship, religious scholarship of al-Kitab, of the Torah and the Injil, right. And so the Nestorians there, which was a bright offshoot of Christianity, which more than likely is what Salman al-Farisi ﷺ was encountering as he was going to these places, sort of studying outlawed Christianity at the time, right, that wasn't tarnished yet, to the extent that the others were tarnished by the Trinity. Those jinn are from this area, subhanAllah. So the same place that Salman ﷺ once settled, looking for Tawheed, looking for monotheism, a group of jinn come to the Prophet ﷺ in this place where he is reciting in An-Nakhla. Now as he's reciting in An-Nakhla ﷺ in this place, the traditions about how the interaction between the Prophet ﷺ and the jinn took place, has to be taken as a collective. So for example, here Allah ﷻ says,
O our people, that they went back to their people and they said, O our people, we have heard the book that has been recited, or a book that has been recited after Musa ﷺ, and it confirms that which has come before, and it guides to the truth, and it guides to a straight way, and they called their people, that O our people, come back to, or believe in this book, accept the invitation, and come back to Allah ﷻ, and Allah ﷻ will forgive your sins, and He will protect you from a punishment, which shows you, by the way, that they are also accountable to punishment. And whoever does not call or respond to the call of Allah ﷻ, then they will have absolutely no power in the earth to protect themselves, nor protector, nor guardian to save them from Allah ﷻ, and such people are in manifest error, they are far away from Allah ﷻ. The suggestion here, some of the Mufassireen mentioned, is that these jinn did not immediately approach the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, meaning a conversation between the Prophet ﷺ and them did not necessarily take place here. They went back to their people, and called them to Allah ﷻ, and then Allah ﷻ appointed a time by which the Prophet ﷺ spoke to them directly. Okay, and there are multiple interactions that have been narrated, of delegations from them, that Allah ﷻ allowed to speak to the Prophet ﷺ, and for the Prophet ﷺ to teach
the message of Islam. And that's where you see what is known as Laylatul Jinn, Laylatul Jinn, the Night of the Jinn. So if you go to Mecca now, you'll find Masjidul Jinn, right? The Valley of Jinn, right? And this is an area that exists right outside, subhanAllah, the beauty and the irony of it, right outside of Hujoon, where Khadijah ﷺ is buried, and Abu Talib is buried in Jannatul Mu'alla, Mu'alla Cemetery. And as the scholars mentioned, that the jinn also tend to frequent the cemeteries, the graveyards, right? So imagine, subhanAllah, near where Khadijah ﷺ is buried, a conversation will take place between the Prophet ﷺ, and a delegation from the jinn that have come to believe in Allah ﷻ. Again, whether they are, it's an immediate conversation that transpires after Ta'if, or there's some time, and then they come back to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, that is undetermined, right? We don't actually know for certainty what this is about. But the Night of the Jinn, when you hear Laylatul Jinn, it's talking about this night, and it begins by Alqamah asking Abdullah ibn Mas'ud ﷺ in the famous hadith, were you there on the Night of the Jinn? Were you there when the jinn came to speak to the Prophet ﷺ and to embrace this message? And Ibn Mas'ud ﷺ proceeds to say, not only was I there, he goes on to recall the entire incident, that he was basically the closest one to the Prophet ﷺ when all of that was happening. And he mentions, in summary, that the Prophet ﷺ had essentially disappeared from us, we couldn't find him anywhere, right? The Prophet ﷺ
had gone, and we could not find him anywhere, and this panicked search amongst the companions with the Prophet ﷺ starts to take place, where they're looking for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ everywhere. And then it gets worse because after Fajr, right, and the time goes on, the Prophet ﷺ eventually shows up, and they come to the Prophet ﷺ, and that's the area where Masjid al-Jinn is, and they ask the Prophet ﷺ what happened, and the Prophet ﷺ here mentions that a group of jinn had come to me to ask me about al-Islam, to ask me about this message. A group of jinn had come to me to ask me about this message, and this is, subhanAllah, where Allah ﷻ says, صَرَفْنَا إِلَيْكَ We have sent to you نَفَرٌ مِنَ الْجِنِّ When you read it in the Qur'an, that we send these groups to you, and the Prophet ﷺ was coming from the direction of Hira, and he basically recited to this group of jinn the Qur'an. Now Abdullah ibn Mas'ud r.a. mentioned that they saw the effects of the jinn in that place, and in one narration where Ibn Mas'ud r.a. mentions going with the Prophet ﷺ to meet a group from the jinn, he mentions seeing a manifestation, a physical manifestation of the jinn as the Prophet ﷺ was teaching them the Book of Allah and giving them the rulings, and in one narration he mentions that he saw a group of them later on in Kufa in Iraq that resembled that group, like that same group of jinn that had met the Prophet ﷺ and that the Prophet ﷺ had given da'wah to. The point is, is that these jinn then basically formed
the basis for a group of jinn that would do da'wah to jinn around the world, that would take the message of the Prophet ﷺ and do da'wah to jinn around the world. SubhanAllah, so much wisdom to be gleaned from this. Number one, Surah Al-Ahqaf. In Surah Al-Ahqaf, Allah ﷻ gives to the Prophet ﷺ, it's literally named after the Ahqaf, which are the hills, right, where Hud ﷺ is calling out to his people and giving them a final warning and they're not listening to him. So Surah Al-Ahqaf, you have these Prophets that are giving their people a final warning and they reject their people, they reject Hud, they reject Salih, and as a result of that they are completely destroyed. Allah ﷻ sends upon them utter destruction. But the stories of Hud and Salih became lessons for the Ummah of Muhammad ﷺ. The effects of their da'wah remained in Mecca and remained in the surrounding areas, right, to where these neighbouring cities could then be lessons to heed for the presence in Mecca. So don't think that your da'wah was worthless because look, even after you pass away it may be that another group of people will heed the lessons. Until today, we heed the lessons of what happens to those groups of people. So there is a time element that is there, that you don't know when you're doing da'wah if another group of people will come after you and benefit from your da'wah far after you're gone, even if the people immediately in front of you will be destroyed. Number two, where Allah ﷻ told the future, قُلْ أَرَأَيْتُمْ إِن كَانَ مَعِنْدِ اللَّهِ وَكَفَرْتُمْ بِهِ وَشَهِدَ شَهِدُ مِن بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ عَلَى مِثْرِهِ فَآمَنَ وَاسْتَكْبَرْتُمْ Do you see, O people of Mecca, if this is from Allah ﷻ and you have disbelieved
and a witness from Bani Israel has bore witness to this message of the Prophet ﷺ, he believed and you disbelieved, right? And this was a prophecy of the Islam to come of the chief rabbi of Medina, Abdullah ibn Salam رضي الله تعالى عنه. That look, you're rejecting this message today, tomorrow Abdullah ibn Salam رضي الله تعالى عنه, a rabbi will come from Medina, the chief rabbi of a neighboring city and you claim to be inferior to the people of the book in understanding the people of the book. In fact, subhanAllah, by the way, you know what they told Adas? They told Adas, stick to your Christianity and leave this man, stick to your Nasraniyya, we're okay with your Christianity, stick to your Christianity and leave this man. They didn't mind as well the Jews of Medina and the Judaism of Medina. In fact, they felt an inferiority towards the people of the book, right? And Allah is saying a rabbi, the chief rabbi will embrace Islam and you will disbelieve in it, right? So what then is that a testimony to or what does that say about your state? فَآمَنَ وَاسْتَكْبَرْتُمْ He will believe and you will show pride. Of the wisdoms of that, by the way, is that some of the scholars say subhanAllah is a Bushra, glad tidings of Medina again being the place that will embrace the Prophet ﷺ after all of that. And so when it comes to the jinn, even if the human beings in front of you have rejected your message, even if the only thing you saw was people punching you, throwing things at you, spitting at you, cursing you, there's another group that Allah ﷻ brought that heard your message and that heeded your message. How many jinn embraced Islam? This is where the books of tafsir go all over the place. Allah knows best.
Whether it's 70 or 700 or a thousand of them came back to the Prophet ﷺ, it is all entirely irrelevant. The point is, is that the da'wah of the jinn started from the moment after Ta'af when the Prophet ﷺ faced rejection at the hands of the people of Ta'af. And that's where the firsts literally of the jinn, who are, like what's their parallel to our Abu Bakr and Umar and Uthman and Ali, we'll never know. And we don't need to know. But just to know from a da'wah perspective, that it is Allah ﷻ that will guide and that will send people in the darkest moments, seemingly the darkest moments that will embrace your message and you don't know what effect you're having. You don't know what seed you are planting. And that's why, by the way, the next several sections we're going to cover, the next three sections are going to be about the children. The Prophet ﷺ did not realize that the seeds were being planted at the moment, but those seeds came to bear fruit later on, even in the midst of that painful rejection from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The last thing that I'll say from this, this moment of Ta'af, is that, you know, Ibn Hajar ﷺ mentions something very powerful in the aftermath of Ta'af as well. The Prophet ﷺ was taken on, as we know, the journey of al-Isra' ul-Mi'raj after Ta'af. So he actually met Musa ﷺ, right? He actually is meeting Isa ﷺ. He's actually seeing prophets and interacting with prophets. But after Ta'af, you know, there's this interesting point that Isa ﷺ becomes a companion of the Prophet ﷺ. Why does Isa become a Sahabi? Right, if you think about it. Because Isa ﷺ never died, he met the Prophet ﷺ, and there was tastiq, there's affirmation of the prophethood of the Prophet ﷺ, while he is still alive. And so you talk about companions along the way.
Allah ﷻ was placing in the path of the Prophet ﷺ the perfect people, the perfect instances. And the ground was made fertile for literally a decade later, where we'll start to see, insha'Allah ta'ala, some of these same people now embrace Islam. After the Prophet ﷺ left, they're seemingly completely despised and humiliated. The Prophet ﷺ took the maximum ajr, the maximum reward, because the greater the hardship, the greater the reward, right? Inna ma'a al-isra yusra, with hardship comes ease. After the beating of Ta'af, the Prophet ﷺ was welcomed through the heavens. Marhaban bin Nabiya Salih, marhaban bin Nabiya Salih. Welcome to the noble Prophet as he goes from heaven to heaven. After the rejection of the elites of the people, in the tribal sense, he was given the most elite of humankind in the heavens to greet him, and the Anbiya of Allah, the Prophets of Allah, and then the angels greeting the Prophet ﷺ. And after the rejection of the human beings, Allah ﷻ sent him the first delegation of the jinn to embrace Islam. And so all of this, subhanAllah, is something to ponder upon, especially in these moments where I don't see anyone, I might not see anyone benefiting from what I just did. I was at work, I did my best, I got fired from my principles, no one took my side, no one did anything. I went to a restaurant, someone looked at me in a certain way, we had an interaction, I moved on for the rest of my life, and you don't know what you planted in that person's heart, you don't know if that person then went home and read about Islam, and years later becomes Muslim. How many stories do we see of someone that becomes Muslim because of a Muslim that they knew years ago, and there is no direct connection between their shahadahs. And so Allah ﷻ makes these ways out for us, and inshaAllah, in the next few sections, we're going to cover the children, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala, and some of those interactions now unfolding,
which is particularly, I think, the most beautiful part of it, because that's who the Prophet ﷺ had hope in.