5 Strange Beginnings

Strange Beginnings - Sheikh Abdelrahman Murphy | #YMC2K19

Opening

"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

"Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings."

"All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds."

Introduction and Gatherings of Remembrance

I want to first and foremost congratulate everybody in being in attendance of a gathering that is for no other purpose besides the remembrance of Allah subhana wa ta'ala and we learned through the hadith that simply being in a gathering like this and I'll be honest with you when I was your age which I feel so old saying that I'm 31 years old now and I say when I was your age everyone rolls their eyes but I'm really old I enjoy gardening and I also get excited when groceries go on sale so I think that means you're like really really old but when I was your age I wouldn't really be interested in attending gatherings like this for the same reasons that a lot of us wouldn't be for whatever reason earlier on in our life and I remember hearing a very powerful hadith one time when my parents forced me to go to an Islamic conference just like this in Chicago the conference was called Maya I don't know if you guys remember it's called Maya the Maya conference and I remember hearing Imam Siraj Wahaj may Allah ta'ala preserve him and bless him and he said something very beautiful about gatherings like this he said that there are some gatherings in the world in which every person who's in that gathering is reaping the benefit and getting the reward of being there even if they didn't want to be there so obviously there are the people who wanted to be there they get rewarded obviously but the people who didn't want to get didn't want to be there as we hear from the hadith literature they will even be asked about that oh Allah shall we give them a similar reward shall we forgive their sins as well that the person who was like just sleeping in the back or the person who was forced to come with their friends or only came for the free food or whatever reason should we also are their sins going to be forgiven as well and Allah says that everybody in that gathering regardless of what they were doing in that gathering they leave that gathering with their sins forgiven so say alhamdulillah so whatever reason you walked in the door with that's irrelevant because you're here now and you're engaging in the remembrance of Allah you're engaging in the dhikr of Allah and as a result of that you're going to walk out of those doors right those those curtains you're going to walk out completely free from the mistakes that you've made intentionally or unintentionally ameen ya rabbal alameen so congratulations for that.

The Reality of Being Strange

Now this topic is one that's really really important especially given the time that we live in I don't think it's a stretch to say that at any point in your life you're going to be made to feel strange no matter how much you might fit in in certain circles the reality is that you will always at some point or another be made to feel on the

outside I remember when I was in school when their substitute teacher or on the first day of class when they would take roll call my name is Abdurrahman and that is not a very easy name to pronounce and so what the teacher would do is they would go through the list of students and when they got to the name because they would do Murphy Abdurrahman so it's halfway through when they said Murphy and then she would pause so she'd be like Mason Alex and you see here and then you'd have like McCarthy Kevin here and then be Murphy a and I would be like here and I've always for as long as I can remember have always been feeling like I was on the outside and then my parents put me in Islamic school which I got expelled from but that's another story for another time don't get expelled see everyone's like see they tell their parents like it's fine one day I'm going to be giving lectures no no no this was completely haphazard right so I went to Islamic school and I remember being like oh you know what I'm going to fit in perfect and then I got there and they said Abdurrahman what Abdurrahman who Murphy right unable to pronounce and my dad's right there like wow this is really embarrassing and rude right can you please watch it but I remember this feeling of always at some point or another whether it was because of my name whether it was because of my religion whether it's because of the things that I would or would not do I remember in college walking by frat row where people would you know party and have a good time on Friday night and all of us would be walking towards the gym to play basketball and then afterwards go to get some halal pizza that there were always these moments these glaring moments in my mind in my heart that reminded me about how growing up I was always a little bit different.

Understanding Difficulty Through Wisdom

And sometimes when you're in the midst of something it's very difficult for you to appreciate what it's doing for you when you're in a difficult moment in your life it's very challenging for anybody no matter what age but especially a young person because young people your strength is that you are very passionate about the here and now that you want to change things instantly you cannot you know you don't want to deal with seeing injustice or problems you want to remedy them right away and that's a very beautiful passion but what that does sometimes on the scale of talent is it puts you on the side of passion so much that sometimes young people when we're young we lose that bit of wisdom on the other side and so when we're going through a difficulty we become so passionate about the challenge trying to fix it or respond to it or repel it that we don't take time to go on the other side of the scale and kind of zoom out of our life a little bit and ask ourselves what is this doing for me what has this done for me what kind of person am I becoming.

The Story of Prophet Musa

One of my favorite verses in the Quran is where Allah is talking to Musa Kaleemullah the one who spoke to Allah Prophet Musa I named my son after him SubhanAllah and he describes to him all the difficulty that he went through he tells him that you know you were you were supposed to be killed and you went through this difficult time where you had to escape as a fugitive and then you had to you know you got lost in the desert and you were a wayfarer he details to him his entire life Allah tells him that we were with you when you went through every moment of difficulty and sometimes when we're going through tough times people say to us what

Allah is with you don't worry Allah is with you la tahzan inna Allah ma'ana but sometimes we almost feel like you know what like what I do but now like I know but you know kind of like dot dot dot I need something more like when is Allah going to fix this that's what one of the companions asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when he was being tortured he went to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he said ya Rasulullah when is the help of Allah going to come so it's very normal sometimes to be going through difficulty and to be saying to yourself like when is this gonna end like where's the rest gonna be the relaxation and then he tells Musa something beautiful at the end of his summary of his life all the challenges he went through he says:

Ayah

"And I have prepared you for Myself." (Quran 20:41)

That everything you've been through everything you've been through because remember this was before Musa was given the given the responsibility of delivering the message to Fir'aun this was before all of that وَاصْطَنَعْتُكَ لِنَفْسِي I've been preparing you for myself that the job that you have to undertake now as a messenger of Allah you would not have been able to do it successfully and effectively had you not gone through the difficulty in your life had you not gone through those moments.

The Prophet Muhammad's Life of Trials

The Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam his life was filled with so much pain you look at the early days of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam his life he was born having never met his father his mother passed away at a very early age he had to live with his grandfather and then his uncle and his uncle Abu Talib was not somebody that had a lot of wealth and so times were very difficult.

Personal Story - Finding Strength in Difficulty

I remember one of my high school teachers told me this when my father got laid off my dad got laid off when I was in my freshman year of high school he used to work at a really big company really secure job right nothing secure except for Allah really secure job and we used to just kind of like take that for granted then one day he comes home and the whole mood has changed in the home and no one knows why except for my mother and she sits down and she tells us because it's obviously comes from his honor and his pride to provide for his family and she tells us that hey you know what like maybe don't ask your dad for so many things Abdurrahman stop asking for Cheetos so much I was like why as I'm eating Cheetos she's like maybe just hold back a little bit be patient with your father don't ask her so much it's it's tough and then eventually she told us what that his job is letting him go he's not gonna have an income anymore we have to wait until he finds a new job all of these difficulties subhanallah and then that subhanallah was like the last moment that my dad ever had what we considered to be like that same kind of stability within his work he became a consultant he tried this he tried that and then he retired alhamdulillah and he came home one day and he told me Abdurrahman what do you like to eat and I said peanut butter and jelly why you know it's super quickly that's how you know someone loves food and I said why and he goes because that's what we're gonna get you for lunch from now on there's not

gonna be any choices anymore and I'm saying that as if I should get sympathy but peanut butter and jelly is like the sandwich of kings so it's amazing right and even then you look at some of the people around the world and what they have to eat for lunch or if they have anything to eat for lunch and instantly you can't feel sorry for yourself anymore.

Finding Companionship in Trials

But the reason why I'm telling you all this about my life is because in that moment it was very easy for me to look to the sky and say oh Allah why why me why are so many people who don't believe in you why are so many people who don't believe in you why are they prosperous why do they get wealth and success and happiness and money and all this why and ya Allah we worship you and we're being tested it's easy for a person to go that route but then you look at the life of your beloved Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and you see that every single time you've been tested you're in good company every single time Allah removed something from your life in order to increase you you became a companion so to speak of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and there's a beautiful hadith that talks about this.

The Hadith of Gharaba (The Strangers)

And so being someone who is in the midst of difficulty whether it's social or emotional or spiritual being one of these strangers as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam called them is something to take pride in and not to become upset with it's some it's something to be happy about why because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said and we'll we'll quote the hadith now that the the session was named after and maybe the entire youth conference was named after that Abu Huraira radiallahu anhu was one of the close companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who he himself was kind of a stranger he lived in the masjid of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he was not a man of much means but because of his sacrifice he's able to teach us a lot about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he gave up his own aspirations for business entrepreneurship whatever kind of aspirations he may have had for this world he sacrificed them why so he could study with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he tells us in this hadith that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said:

Hadith

(Sahih Muslim Hadith 145)

"Islam began as something strange and it will return to being strange as it began, so give glad tidings to the strangers."

The Meaning of Being Gharib

Now the reason why I'm saying the word gharib and not strange is because we think of strange as being negative but there's a beautiful translation of this word gharib that I never want you to forget are you ready yes or no you ready yes or no this translation is one of the most beautiful things that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that Islam began as something gharib and it will also return to being something that is gharib so

he said good news and congratulations to those people who are strangers those people who have this sense of gharibness now what is gharib mean there's a scholar beautifully he said to be gharib is to not be home he said it's when a person leaves their homeland and they move to a different place.

Understanding Home and Displacement

Anyone here ever moved you ever moved before I moved from Chicago the fourth holiest city in the world Mecca Medina Jerusalem Chicago right I know a lot of you here think it's Hyderabad you're wrong it's Chicago right which is also Hyderabad plot twist okay I somehow a lot you really I really underestimated how powerful it is to have a place that you identify in your heart as a place that you call home and this is especially why when we think of the refugee crises across the world it shouldn't just be something that we quickly scroll through to the next house of highlights video or the next cat video or whatever but we should stop and think to ourselves that these people these children these men and women that we're seeing that we're calling refugee what does that mean it means that their home their maskan their place of tranquility it was stolen away from them and I never understood the value of this word maskan of your home the place that you live which the Arabs called the place of tranquility until I had to leave Chicago.

The Prophet's Love for Mecca

And I remember subhanallah the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam one hadith very powerful when he was leaving Mecca and it was confirmed final like khalas it was done he's moving from Mecca and he's gonna move to Medina what does he do he turns around and he faces the city of Mecca and he has tears in his eyes he's crying because this is his hometown and he speaks to the city and he said if I were not commanded to leave you I would have never left you if Allah did not tell me if I was not instructed that I had to move then I would have never left you this is what it feels like to be home till this day when I fly to Chicago and I'm landing I feel this lump in my throat in my chest why because of this emotional attachment to home.

This World Is Not Our Home

So this hadith the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is saying that when you exist on this earth in this dunya as your belief gets higher as your Iman gets stronger you're gonna feel a little bit further away from home you're not gonna feel like this is your home and I don't want you to go home you know after this weekend and tell your parents you're like I'm never home right I'm not this isn't like a like a deep Twitter moment like we're never home quote me right oh my god 10 favorites Wow look how popular I know this is a really serious moment that part of the reason why difficulty and pain and suffering exists even in our degrees to the lesser degrees that we might go through or if they're pretty serious then they're serious is to remind us that we are not home this is not our final destination it's not where the beautiful soul that lies within us came from and it is not the final home of where that soul will be.