# Why Do I Have to Carry Their Burden? |  Why Me?

**Author:** Dr. Omar Suleiman
**Series:** Why Me
**Published:** 2024-03-18
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/pXx8Bk1C-VU
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/why-me/why-do-i-have-to-carry-their-burden-why-me
**Topics:** Afterlife, Faith

## Description
Whether you’re burdened by providing for your family, caring for your loved ones, or carrying the emotional wounds of others, Allah promises great reward in carrying the burdens of others and maintaining ties of kinship. And if you turn away from all of that, Allah promises loss, not just of reward...

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Why do I have to deal with this? It's not my fault. I didn't choose this family or its problems. I didn't even choose to be born. If you've had these thoughts, you probably feel like there is something unfair happening in your

**[0:18]** life because you're carrying the burden of someone else. Whether you're burdened by providing for your family, taking care of your loved ones, or dealing with the emotional wounds of others,

**[0:34]** Allah promises great reward in carrying the burdens of others and maintaining the ties of kinship. And if you turn away from all of that, Allah doesn't just promise that you'll lose out on a major reward. You may also end up losing yourself.

**[0:51]** Why Am I Responsible for Someone Else?

**[1:13]** It's true, we didn't ask to be put in these families because Allah was the one who chose your family for you. Every single family has its own unique traits and burdens. The question is whether you're willing to take on the burden of others with a smile or with resentment.

**[1:29]** The Prophet (ﷺ) said, Whoever relieves a Muslim of a burden from the burdens of this world, Allah will relieve him of a burden from the burdens of the Day of Judgment. And whoever helps ease a difficulty in this life, Allah will grant him ease from a difficulty in

**[1:46]** this life and in the Hereafter. And whoever covers the faults of a Muslim, Allah will cover his faults for him in this life and in the Hereafter. And Allah is engaged in helping His servant so long as his servant is engaged in helping his brother.

**[2:01]** SubhanAllah, how often we think someone is draining us and they're actually the source of any present good that we have in our lives. They may be expiating some previous sins that we committed or through them Allah is opening future doors for us.

**[2:25]** But sometimes the pressure gets to you and you feel like your life isn't turning out the way you expected because of the burdens you choose to relieve from others. But the Prophet (ﷺ) said two things. He swore (ﷺ) that charity never decreases wealth. And he also said,

**[2:53]** Whoever wishes for their sustenance to increase and their years on this earth to increase should take care of their family ties. This is the perfection of Allah's decree. You didn't just spend money but you also spent time. And just as you spent your years and

**[3:08]** resources in service of your family, Allah increases your sustenance and your lifespan through them. It could be a parent you're caring for or a sibling that counts on you or the expectations of others upon you that seem like such a heavy burden.

**[3:25]** But that burden may actually be your greatest blessing. The Prophet (ﷺ) gives us this really interesting interaction. He says that when Musa (عليه السلام) met our father Adam (عليه السلام), he said to him,

**[3:44]** O Adam, you are our father but you let us down and you caused us to be expelled from Paradise because of your sin. So Adam (عليه السلام) says to him, And He wrote the Torah for you with His own hand.

**[4:00]** Are you blaming me for something which Allah decreed for me 40 years before He even created me? The Prophet (ﷺ) said three times, Adam won the argument against Musa. So wait, we believe in original sin? No, we don't believe in original sin.

**[4:19]** But we do believe in original decree because none of us have to be purified of the sin of Adam (عليه السلام). But we are all a perfect continuation of a story. Adam (عليه السلام) was saying to Musa (عليه السلام), Look, I committed my sin, but our decree of being here on earth was going to happen regardless.

**[4:37]** Allah meant for you to be on earth and my sin was simply the vehicle by which you were going to get here. And look what Musa (عليه السلام) gets out of this all. His name is mentioned more times in the Quran than any other human being. In fact, more times than the years he lived on earth.

**[4:54]** 136 mentions from Allah in the Quran. A legendary story and rank with Allah that would not have been possible without the slip of Adam to this earth and the hardship imposed upon him through Fir'awn and Bani Israel. And it's not all one way. SubhanAllah, how Allah

**[5:12]** also sent Musa (عليه السلام) and Al-Khidr to fix the wall of a people who didn't seem deserving at all. Why? Because Allah said, They had a righteous father that passed away. So Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) was relieving something on his behalf

**[5:28]** in the future. But we were also preceded by good deeds that relieved us before we were even born. When it comes to our families and the inherited burden we supposedly have, or the siblings that we feel like we always have to do more for, realize that someone else also

**[5:44]** carried your burden for you in the past and you were unable to repay them. And it may be that through you carrying someone else's burden today, Allah is going to send you someone to carry yours tomorrow. So whether it's people's faults before you got here, or the people who seem to burden

**[6:02]** you now, or the burdens you voluntarily take upon yourself to help others, they're all part of your story and the build-up to something else. When the people of Ta'if stoned the Prophet (ﷺ), he didn't even see them throwing the stones at him because he was too focused on Allah and

**[6:19]** wondering what Allah wanted to bring out of him by decreeing the cruelty of these strangers after his own family in Makkah failed him.

**[6:35]** But sometimes we only see the stones, the insults, the hurdles that Shaytan amplifies.

**[6:55]** And we allow Shaytan to take us down to where he really wants us. Low like him, distant from Allah, blaming His decree and everyone and everything else for our problems,

**[7:13]** and far from the mercy of Allah. We start telling ourselves that we spent all this time serving others, and now it's time for me to serve myself. But not our higher soul, the desires of our lower

**[7:29]** selves. And in reality, you lose yourself. Don't be like those who forgot Allah, so they forgot their own selves. What's the connection between serving others without resentment, and wasting

**[7:45]** away yourself without any form of repentance? Allah says, O you who have exceeded the limits against yourselves, do not despair in the mercy of Allah. You've wasted yourself away instead of putting it to the service of Allah and those whom He

**[8:06]** ordered you to be there for. And you've done a disservice to others and your own soul by depriving yourself of spiritual oxygen and letting it loose to indulge in all of its lowest vices.

**[8:26]** And SubhanAllah, have you ever seen someone turn away from Allah and then become a better son, or a better daughter, or a better sibling, or a better friend? It's all interconnected. When you burden yourself with sin, you have no capacity to carry anyone else's burden and seek the reward for

**[8:41]** it. It's in those moments that Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) might just send you a lifeline in the form of a friend or a family member who tells you what you don't want to hear, but is willing to

**[8:58]** help carry your burden this time. And all of that is a sign that Allah is willing to forgive you, so long as you turn back to Him. But otherwise, when a person decides to choose the path away from Allah,

**[9:18]** then they'll be met with a deep loneliness and isolation where everyone is trying to save them, except themselves. And no one can carry the burden of your sins for you.

**[9:36]** Hurt people hurt people, is what they say. But that doesn't have to be the case. Umar (رضي الله عنه) could have been trapped by the trauma of his father and justified all of his bad traits. And by the way, he wasn't alcoholic before Islam.

**[9:51]** But when he found a greater purpose, he said, O Allah, I'm weak, so strengthen me. I'm harsh, so make me gentle. I'm stingy, so make me generous. He turned all of his personal weaknesses into strengths and then became known as the vanguard

**[10:09]** of the oppressed and the weak. Start thinking of every person with all of their problems placed in your life as something meant to grow you, not to become your excuse to fail or your permanent block. Every circumstance that seems to have been brought upon you through no fault of your own

**[10:27]** is just a means by which Allah brings you to a place in Paradise that you also couldn't have earned on your own. La tarfa'anna ila ghayrihi hajatan huwa muriduha alayk Fa kayfa yarfa'u ghayruhu ma kana huwa lahu wadi'an

**[10:44]** Man na yastati'u an yarfa'a hajatan an nafsihi Fa kayfa yastati'u an yakuna laha an ghayrihi rafi'an Appeal to no one but Him to relieve you of a pressing need that He Himself brought upon you.

**[10:59]** For how can someone else remove what He has imposed upon you? And how can he who is unable to free himself of a pressing need, free anyone else of one? For some people, it takes time for them to come back to Allah.

**[11:15]** They can be engrossed in an environment of darkness and not be able to see the light for miles. But for others, it can just take a moment that shakes them out of apathy and awakens their faith once again. Because perhaps through a previous deed or du'a or for some other reason,

**[11:33]** Allah chose for you to have another chance that someone else wishes they could have.

## Other Episodes in "Why Me"
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- [When Life Comes Full Circle | Why Me?](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/why-me/when-life-comes-full-circle-why-me.md)
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- [How Can I Accept That I'm Dying? | Why Me?](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/why-me/how-can-i-accept-that-im-dying-why-me.md)
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- [Trailer: Why Me? | A Ramadan Series on Understanding Qadar](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/why-me/trailer-why-me-a-ramadan-series-on-understanding-qadar.md)