Reminders
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What If You Were Never Born? | Daily Reminders
Reflecting on the description of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ as the “son of the two sacrificed ones” and the perfection of Allah’s planning regarding our existence as individuals.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. InshaAllah I'll give everyone a minute to log in. Alright everyone, Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Again I want to wish Eid Mubarak to everyone. I pray that Allah azawajal accept your deeds that you put forth in the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah, that you had a blessed Eid with your family. May Allah accept your worship, your work for his sake and everything else, and forgive your sins and your shortcomings. Allahumma ameen. So inshaAllah ta'ala we're going to get back to the daily reminders. Next week inshaAllah ta'ala we'll start with the firsts on Tuesdays. So our nightly reminders will be on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday inshaAllah ta'ala. And then Tuesday we will continue with the series of the firsts. And that will be again next week inshaAllah ta'ala. For the rest of this month I'll still continue on talking about some of the lessons from Surah Ibrahim, primarily inshaAllah ta'ala, that will be the backdrop as we go through Dhul Hijjah for the next few weeks inshaAllah ta'ala. But I wanted to sort of depart from that and share a reflection on a narration that is not authentic to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. It's often in the books of tafsir, but it's not authentically expressed by him salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. But it certainly holds true that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam is addressed as Ibn Thabihain, the son of the two sacrificed ones. And what that refers to is the Prophet Muhammad salAllahu alayhi wa sallam being the descendant of Ismail alayhi wa sallam,
who of course was to be sacrificed but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made a way out for Ibrahim alayhi wa sallam and Ismail alayhi wa sallam. And then the father of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, Abdullah, the son of Abdul Muttalib, who was to be sacrificed due to an oath, but Abdul Muttalib found a way out of doing so, of sacrificing Abdullah after he had been deemed to be sacrificed, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made a way out for him and the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam of course was born. And so there's something very powerful about the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam being Ibn Thabihain, the son of the two that were deemed for sacrifice or deemed for slaughter. And I wanted to actually reflect a bit on our own selves. This gift of existence and the improbability of our existence, you know, in terms of all of the factors that took place in order for us to exist. It's very humbling when you think about how, you know, perfect everything had to be for you to be born. What that means is that if you look through the lives of your parents, there are so many junctures in which you might not have been born. Maybe they wouldn't have met had one of your parents went to a different place, or something else would have happened, or, you know, someone else would have been married, or whatever it may be. There are so many things that could have happened where your parents would have never met in the first place. And then you don't know at what point your parents decided to have children. And you don't know, you know, at what point as you were being born, as you were coming into existence throughout the pregnancy, you know, if there were times in which your birth became high risk, the pregnancy was high risk. All of the perfect things that had to happen just for you to be born.
There are so many things that could have gone wrong during the pregnancy, during the labor, that you would not have existed, that I would not have existed had that thing happened, right? And subhanAllah, you don't know if in the final moments before you were born, if the doctor shouted out, we're about to lose him, we're about to lose her. And then there you are. And there's so many times as you were a child that, you know, as you were wobbling around, you know, you could have hit your head and it could have been fatal. You could have choked on something. There are so many things that could have happened to where you would not be in the place that you are in right now. And one of the ways that we express gratitude to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is we don't take our existence for granted. We don't take our existence for granted. And so, you know, when we wake up in the morning, what are we taught to say? Alhamdulillah alladhi ahyaana ba'damaa matana. Right? All praises be to Him who gave us life after death and to Him is the ultimate return. So there's an acknowledgement that even when I went to sleep at night, there was no guarantee that I was going to wake up. And we know that every night is a minor death. And so every morning is a minor coming to life, is a way of you coming to life once again. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala teaches us through the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam to praise him and to thank him for every day that we come into existence, that we come into life once again, as it's another opportunity to do that, which is pleasing to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to work deeds of gratitude for that existence. And so subhanAllah as you're reflecting on that statement, Ibn Thabihain for the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam, the son of the two deemed for sacrifice. If you go back and you think about how completely vulnerable you are and dependent upon Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you are for everything, including the moment that you came into existence, your very existence.
And we don't act with this entitled sense with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because had Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not made all of those things happen for us to come into existence, and we just talked about the parents. What if your grandparents never met? What if there was a break if you were going down the chart of ancestry? If there was a break, you know, due to some war or something that happened that would have caused your great grandparents never to meet? You know, how many things happened that put your parents in the same place that allowed for them to come together, that allowed for you to be born? How many things that were improbable happened for you to come into existence? And so the first part of that is saying Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. And that's, you know, that's why you find so many mentions in the Quran where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will take us through the process of our birth. Right, the process of our birth. I know there are all of these articles and videos about the embryology of the Quran or the way that the process of birth is described so perfectly. But it's there not just to admire or not to admire the embryology part of it, but really to be grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he took you from phase to phase, and he is still in control of you from phase to phase in regards to your existence. And so you say Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given me life. Alhamdulillah, Allah has given me health. Alhamdulillah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given me guidance. Alhamdulillah, I thank him and praise him for giving me a sense of purpose, for making clear to me what my purpose is. Alhamdulillah, every morning I wake up, Alhamdulillah, because I am not in control of even tarafata'een. I'm not even in control of the blink of an eye. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in control of all of these different things that have to take place. Every process that takes place for me to exist at this very second, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in control of that. So Alhamdulillah. So the first thing is gratitude.
The second thing is a sense of purpose. What role do you play? What were you meant to do? Finding your value to the world around you is essential to feeling that sense of gratitude. And that's i'malu ala dawood ash-shukra. Working acts of gratitude are working acts in accordance with rightful guidance and purpose. And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put you here for a reason. You were meant to serve a purpose. You have something to offer. You have something to bring forth of contribution bi'ithnillahi ta'ala. In some way that is beneficial to the people and that leaves behind those seeds that plant great things that will take place after you, even if they are not attributed to you by other people, but always attributed to you by the one who created you and by the one who creates all plants and who creates all circumstances, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so the first thing once again is to find that sense of gratitude. Alhamdulillah. And to really think about that every morning when you wake up. And just as every night as you're going to sleep, you acknowledge that it is in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in his name Amutu wa Ahya that I die and that I'm given life. You read Surah Al-Mulk where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about creating a person after death, after non-existence. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bringing you from nothing to something and to something very meaningful. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah for every day. Now, how do I work in accordance with that purpose? I was meant to be, right? I was meant to be and that's something that has a lot of value. I was meant to be. Now, what am I meant to do? I was meant to be. Now, what am I meant to do? And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in control of my being and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala expects the best of my doing in accordance with that gratitude and that acknowledgement of existence that could not have happened
without him subhanahu wa ta'ala facilitating so much that I could have never facilitated. And of course, you know, finally, as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes the improbable happen for you to come into existence, you do not understand all of the workings that are taking place in your life and around you for the sake of something greater that you might not be able to see. So Alhamdulillah for our existence. We thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for every day He gives to us. And we thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for guidance that He has given to us so we can understand our purpose for being here. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for firmness and steadfastness to be able to work in accordance with that purpose and that guidance that He's given to us. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran. Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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