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"When will life go back to normal?" | Daily Reminders
How do we stay patient with no end in sight?
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wasalamu ala rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala We begin with the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful. We ask him to send his peace and blessings upon all of his messengers and prophets. Adam, Moses, Noah, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, peace be upon them all. And we ask Allah to join us with the prophets, the truthful ones, the martyrs, the believers, in the highest level of Jannah, the highest level of paradise, Allahumma ameen. So this is an idea that I had just to start something nightly, to just share a reflection on some of the emotions that we might be feeling now from a spiritual perspective. So if you're looking for the psychological, if you're looking for that angle of mental health and our emotional well-being, which is a very important angle and a very important aspect, then I suggest you look at what Sister Sara Sultan and Sister Najwa Awad have done at Yaqeen Institute in terms of the trauma series as well as the webinar we had the other day, and some of the other content that we're going to be publishing in that regard. But there are things that are spiritually constant in terms of what we seek in these moments and what we look for. And I want to give you this scenario, and those of you that have little kids will be able to relate to this very easily. If you're driving in the car and your kid goes, how much longer, how much longer, how much longer? You're sitting in traffic and how much longer, how much longer, how much longer? When are we going to get there? When are we going to reach the destination? If you've ever been in traffic again, and you've got your GPS on and the ETA keeps on changing, and you're getting late to a meeting and you feel completely overwhelmed by the inability to do anything to change your circumstances, except for be stuck, right? You're stuck in the middle of it all. You don't know what to tell the person that's waiting for you on the other end.
And you just sit in that moment, and you get more and more agitated as you keep on looking at the ETA, the estimated time of arrival changing, and getting later and later and later and later. This need to know when. When is this going to end? When do we get back to normal? When is this era going to end? When is life over? When is the day of judgment? All of these different things, right? So some of us right now are overwhelmed by this great sense of fitna, of tribulation, right? And there's this apocalyptic aura that suddenly it's all going to end. And we see the images that come out from Mecca and Medina and different parts of the world and everything feeling pretty overwhelming. And it's like, okay, well, when is the end of the world? So that's the emotion that I want to speak to right now. When? And if you look in the Quran, you'll find that there are many instances of people that needed to know when. Even the prophets themselves, right? In the midst of their moments of tribulation and trial. That things would get so difficult for some of the prophets and the messengers. And Allah gives this example until the Rasul, until the messenger and those that are with the Rasul, those that are with the messenger say, When is the help of Allah coming? When is it going to come? Allah also talks about this idea of people that are insisting on knowing when the day of judgment is. Okay, so they ask, When is the day of judgment? Right? If you're telling the truth. And the prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, he says that even Jibreel alayhi wasalam, Gabriel himself does not know when the day of judgment is. Right? So this need to know when the day of judgment is coming. And the prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, always turned this into a productive feeling. Right?
An understanding that was beyond that nagging feeling of knowing when, when, when, when. So when someone asked the prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, when is the hour? When is the day of judgment? And the prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, said, listen, he pointed to that young child. And he said that this young child, by the time this child lives to see gray hair, If you, you know, if you were to see that, or by the time this child has gray hair, you're going to pass away. You would have already met your day of judgment. Meaning whether or not the world ends is completely beyond you. Right? I mean, it's beyond the prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, even he doesn't know. But your world might end tonight. Okay? Your world might end any moment. So by the time this child has gray hair, your day of judgment would have come already anyway. So think productively about what to do with that feeling of when. And you find stories of great patience where, you know, Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, rahimahullah ta'ala, when he was in prison during his trial, And his son asked him, matarraaha, when is the end of this? When is relief? Matarraaha, when is relief? And he said, bi awli khutwatin naqtooha fil jannah, with the first step that we take into paradise. Meaning, you know, if you're asking me, do I know when this prison sentence is going to end? I don't know. If you're asking me, do I know when I'm going to get to come back to my family? I don't know. But what I do know is that true raaha, true relief is going to be when we first set foot in paradise. And so I want to speak to this element just for a moment here of when. You know, right now you're seeing the CDC gives the regulation of eight weeks and then, oh, well, it might be a year. It might be six months. And, you know, we're starting to go through all of these different timelines in our heads. And it can cause us great stress and great anxiety because we're starting to think Ramadan. And then we're thinking, OK, well, you know, the school year. And then what about next school year?
OK, if I have Hajj plans or if I had summer plans, if I was going to go here or go there, what happens to this? What happens to that? And what I want us to do, inshallah, is to pull back for a moment and to appreciate that sabr, patience is not about the wait. Patience is about how you wait. Patience is about the adab, the manner of with which you wait. OK, you wait for the relief to come from Allah. You wait for the help to come from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And there is great wisdom in Allah always withholding the when, even from the prophets themselves, not just in regards to the Day of Judgment, but in regards to relief, in regards to their missions. So, for example, when it came to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam, when he was on his way to Mecca with the companions to do Umrah and they signed the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, and they were so excited about this idea that they would finally get to return to Mecca after having spent all of that time away from the Kaaba, after having spent all of that time away from Mecca. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, فَتَحْنَا لَكَ فَتْحًا عَظِيمًا That we have opened for you a great opening. Allah promised them that they would enter into the Haram, enter into the sanctuary with full belief in safety and security, shaving their heads and performing their obligation, performing the Ihram. But Allah did not tell them when. Allah did not tell the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam when. Allah did not tell the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam when his mission would be fulfilled. Allah did not tell Ayyub alaihi wasalam, the Prophet Job peace be upon him, when his trial was going to end. Allah did not tell Yusuf alaihi wasalam how long he was going to spend in prison, because that is at the heart of what true patience is, what a beautiful patience is. Allah did not tell Jacob alaihi wasalam when he would get his son back. But what Allah did do is He made a promise. He made them a promise. Right?
And so for us, that promise is not how many weeks it's going to be. It's not how many months it's going to be. That promise is that whatever we do in the midst of all of this is going to be rewarded and compensated accordingly. That promise is that eventual relief comes to everyone. Whether that relief is worldly or whether that relief is in the hereafter, which is the time of ultimate relief for the believer, but that relief is coming. That Raha will be there. But the test is not knowing when. Right? So just like you've got the child that's impatient, that's saying, when are we going to get there? When are you going to give me this? When are you going to give me that? That's how we become with Allah sometimes. When are you going to end this? When is this going to be over? When are we going to get back to normalcy? Well, I tell you what, you know, subhanAllah, if you think about your moment right now, and that's actually the point of shifting lens and perspective. I want you to think about what you have right now and to say Alhamdulillah for what you have right now. You know, you might be quarantined, but in the midst of being quarantined, you have family. Or in the midst of being quarantined, you have health. You have something that you might not have in eight weeks or 12 weeks or six months when this is all lifted. But you still have something that is special and that makes this moment worth it. And so it's important for us to not get so stuck in the when. And when you're reading the news constantly, and it's like it's going to be this many weeks and experts predict it's going to be this long and experts predict this is going to happen and experts predict this is going to happen. The only expert who I care about when it comes to this is Allah. Right? God knows when it's all going to end. He knows when we're all going to return back to normalcy, whatever that looks like. And Allah knows if we're even going to live to see the end of this. But what we do know is that we have a lot to do. We have a lot to stay productive with. And that patience, a beautiful patience is in the manner of waiting, not in the wait itself.
So beautiful patience is to just focus on the moment. Seize the moment. Do what you can in the moment. Stop asking when. Stop being obsessed with when. Stop considering the possibilities of when. Just know that at the end of it, there is ease. Right? With hardship comes ease. Allah did not tell the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam how many years it would take. With hardship comes ease. I fully believe that there is ease at the end of this. That ease might be in this life and in the hereafter, but it will certainly be in the hereafter. It will certainly be in the hereafter. And my certainty is in that. And my certainty is that Allah, God will not let this moment go without me finding something beneficial to occupy myself with inshaAllah ta'ala. So that I can enjoy the moment and I can focus and do good and not be so obsessed with when. So stop asking when. Don't get too obsessed with when. Don't get paralyzed by all the news of how many months are there. We're thinking about when is this going to end? Is it going to end before Ramadan or how much longer in Ramadan? Or are we going to have the last week of Ramadan? Who told you that you're going to live to see Ramadan in the first place? So focus on the moment. Focus on connecting to Allah now instead of waiting to Ramadan. You shouldn't have been waiting for Ramadan in the first place. Who told you that's going to happen in the first place? So just like the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam answered that man when he said, when is the day of judgment? And he told him, look, you know, by the time that kid has gray hair, you would have met your day of judgment anyway. And just like Allah answered the Prophet when the Prophets would ask Allah, when is relief coming? That it is coming, right, but not giving a timeline. Likewise, let's not get too caught up in the timeline and instead let's make the most of the moment inshaAllah ta'ala. So that's my reflection for tonight. Again, I'll try to do this every night inshaAllah, just for a few minutes.
Making dua for you all. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala cure you all from your illnesses. May Allah allow you to get through these hard moments with ease and with an added layer of faith and an added layer of perspective. May Allah allow this to be a time that we get closer to Him and get closer to the people that are important to us in our lives that maybe we haven't been paying attention to. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to redevelop our relationship with the Qur'an. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to think about those that were so vulnerable before this all happened that maybe we've neglected, but perhaps now we develop some sort of an empathy for. So may Allah enable us to do good for them and to do good for them, but ultimately for His sake always. And may Allah grant us the best ending, Husnul Khitam, and allow us to pass this test with flying colors and allow us to have beautiful patience throughout all of this. Allahumma ameen. As I said, tomorrow inshaAllah I'll be doing the virtual khutbah. It's not an actual khutbah. It's just a Friday, just in the place of the Friday khutbah until we can get back to our masjids. May Allah make that soon. So 1 o'clock Central Time, 2 o'clock Eastern, 2 p.m. Eastern. I'll do that every single week inshaAllah, and I'll try to do this every night. Please follow Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. There's going to be great content continuously coming out from our entire team. And I'm trying to see if there are any questions that I can take. So let's see what questions pop up. I'll see if I can take a couple of questions inshaAllah. JazakumAllahu khayran. Thank you. Allah is with you as you expect. Anaa AAindadhanna AAabdibi. I am what my servant expects of me. Absolutely. So we'll talk about that another time inshaAllah.
Alright, I see a lot of beautiful du'as, and I appreciate your du'as and your gratitude. JazakumAllahu khayran. Ameen to all of these du'as. And I'll see you all tomorrow inshaAllah at 2 p.m. Eastern as well as at 9 p.m. Eastern for a nightly reminder. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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