In the Darkest Night

In the Darkest Night - Omar Suleiman - AlMaghrib Institute IlmFest 2016

Opening

Usually I hate going last because that's when everyone's already dead and ready to go home. But mashallah, some energy in you. And alhamdulillah I've heard that the conference has been absolutely amazing. So I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that everything that you benefited with today, that you're able to use it to elevate your status in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to better your situation in the akhira. Allahumma ameen. Allah reward all the volunteers, all the mashayikh, all of the attendees, everyone that made this event happen. Ameen.

Personal Reflection at NASA

So I actually, subhanallah, I'll summarize this but it is very much so relevant to the topic. I had a very emotional day, sort of a roller coaster. So I went this morning to NASA. And that's not why I missed the talk. I'll explain to you in a minute why I missed the talk. I went this morning to NASA with my family to kill time because I was waiting on an opportunity to visit somebody. And that time was not yet there and he lives just five minutes away from there. So I had the opportunity to take my family there.

And subhanallah I got there and as I sat in the first theater where they give you the history of launches and things of that sort, and my daughter was sitting in my lap, it struck me that I actually remembered subhanallah sitting in my dad's lap, you know, decades ago, watching the same movie. And I thought to myself:

"Such days [of varying fortune] We give to people by turns..."

Subhanallah how time flies and the days switch. And now I'm the parent and I've got a child in my lap. And it was absolutely humbling to remember that, right.

Visiting My Uncle

And subhanallah I had the opportunity to visit my uncle who lives in Clear Lake as well. Many of you don't know that I have a maternal uncle that lives in Clear Lake who subhanallah has only been given a few weeks or a few months to live. And I remember the days of joy and the days of happiness. And that made me think subhanallah, what an illusion this life is.

The Message of Hope

But I don't want to give you all a message of despair. I don't want to give you all a message of no hope. Because what makes our deen so special is that it makes death, though we all hate it - no one likes death, no one likes thinking about death, no one likes that separation from their families and so on and so forth - but it makes it meaningful. It's not the end. We believe in something after. Not only do we believe in something after, we believe in something of more importance and we believe in something more meaningful than that which comes before it. In fact we see this life as only a preparation for that which comes after.

So it gives us something to look forward to and it gives us something to think about and it gives us something to absorb. And it allows us as we are departing from this world - and I ask Allah for you and I, everyone in this room, a good ending. Because I've seen people with good endings and I can tell you having been around people as they're dying, subhanallah, being around righteous people when they leave this world is absolutely beautiful. You see smiling, you see calmness, you see tranquility. You see it in their eyes that they're already seeing something and you can see that they're already longing for something that's coming next. It's absolutely beautiful to see that because you know that there's something else.

I can see Farhan in the front row. You're around dying people all the time in the ER (حُسْنُ الْخَتْمِ - husn al-khātim) is beautiful. Seeing someone with a good ending is something that's absolutely amazing. It's absolutely beautiful. And the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) taught us to long for that and to ask Allah for it. That Allah makes the best of our deeds the last of them. So I ask Allah that he makes all of us have a beautiful ending. He allows all of us to have a beautiful ending and to be greeted by angels of mercy that will wrap us up in the kafan of al-jannah, of paradise, with the musk of paradise and take us to the iliyin, take us to the highest ranks and register us with Allah (تعالى وسبحانه). Because verily if that time is good, then everything that follows is good.

The Nature of Major Tests

But the nature of my talk and what I'm going to share with you all today actually relates a lot more to what Sheikh Abdul Nasir was just talking about. What Sheikh Abdul Nasir was talking about were ayats and signs in the Qur'an. And the signs that are to make you stop and pause and reflect and reassess everything. Reassess your spiritual state. Reassess your direction. Reassess whether or not your approach to life is fundamentally correct or flawed. It forces you to pause and reflect.

And reflection is a broad term. Reflection is an umbrella because there are a lot of different types of reflection. And some reflections are deeper than others and more meaningful than others. And what I'm going to address is the other side of that. When it's not an ayah of the Qur'an, a verse of the Qur'an, but it's something that happens to you in life. It's a major shake up that suddenly hits you in life. And subhanAllah it is so inevitable that everyone that thought they would have escaped it got hit with it at some points. That test, that trial that's so different from every other trial and test in life.

You've been hit with pain. You've had major major tragedies in life and you were able to power through those and you were able to say alhamdulillah. And you thought because you succeeded with that test that any other test that comes to you in life, you're going to react the same way. You developed a sense of confidence. And you see other people go through crisis - and when I say crisis, I don't mean crisis in regards to the scalability of the tragedy. I mean crisis in the way that they're responding to it. Crisis in the utter confusion that they're left in after they've been hit with that major tragedy. And you go alhamdulillah, that didn't happen to me. I went through a similar tragedy and I didn't go through that.

And maybe Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will test you in a different way. Maybe you were well fortified for the nature of the tragedy that that person was going through. So maybe you just really know how to deal with the loss of relatives, though it's a very difficult test to deal with. But maybe you were really prepared for that and you've seen other people lose their relatives. So when you lost your relatives, you were well fortified. But you never expected a test of another nature to shake you up in the way that it shakes you up.

The Story of Aisha on the Day of Uhud

What am I talking about? Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala anha, she was with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam on the day of Uhud. She, Fatima radiAllahu anha who was pregnant with Al-Hassan radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, her first child, Umm Sulaym, the mother of Anas ibn Malik may Allah be pleased with them both, and a few other of the women of the Ansar were holding their buckets of water and they had their bandages and they had their medical gear to nurse the victims of Uhud.

They were only a few women because they had a sense of invincibility as a community. Because if we won Badr the way that we won Badr and only lost a handful of people, then surely we will handle Uhud the same way. If Allah gave us victory in Badr where we were less armed, where we were less equipped than we are now in Uhud, surely Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to make this easy and we're going to win this. And the amount of casualties that we're going to suffer are not going to be that many. So it's only a handful of women. Aisha radiAllahu anha was one of them.

And then the Muslims start falling. People start getting slaughtered and massacred. Some of them so badly that they cannot be recognized except by their fingertips, like the uncle of Anas ibn Malik. And suddenly there is chaos and tragedy. And Aisha radiAllahu anha says: We lifted our abayas. The anklets of the women showed because they lifted their abayas because they were running to the battlefield trying to nurse all of these people that are falling dead, trying to nurse all of these people that are critically wounded.

Some women did it a little differently. Umm Ammar radiAllahu anha stood in front of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, picked up a sword and started defending the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. But suddenly this was a tragedy that was not expected by anybody. The believers had a sense of

invincibility. What's happening here? The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam is dead! That's what's being shouted out:

Muhammad salAllahu alayhi wa sallam himself has been killed! The people are screaming. They try to run in different directions but they're surrounded by both sides. Everything has changed. The nature of this battle has changed.

The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam did not die. But he was very close. He was struck in various ways. In his shoulder, in his face. The blood was running down his face. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam fell into a ditch and literally had a man driving his helmet into his head. Both of his front teeth knocked out salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And he had to be carried because he couldn't even walk after the beating that he endured in the battle of Uhud.

And Aisha salAllahu alayhi wa sallam saw that. She saw the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam that day. She saw the hopelessness in the faces of so many people when they lost their dead. She saw Hamna bint Jahsh running to the battlefield over the mutilated body of Mus'ab ibn Umayr, her husband. They saw Safiya, the sister of Hamza salAllahu alayhi wa sallam running to the battlefield. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam told Aisha salAllahu alayhi wa sallam: Go stop her, don't let her see Hamza. Don't let her see her brother.

And she's insisting and trying to go forth and see the mutilated body of Hamza salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said: Don't let her come, don't let her see it. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam cried on the day of Uhud in a way that the companions never heard him cry. When he saw the body of Hamza salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, that was his uncle, that was his brother. He was the same age as him. He was so close to the Messenger salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. He was so beloved to him. And he was a pillar in this community. One of the first strong men, if not the first strong man to embrace this faith. And now he's lying dead and mutilated. That hurt. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam cried a lot.

The Question to the Prophet

And Aisha salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, she remembers nursing the wounds of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and the despair in the city of Medina losing all the people that they did. Why do I give you this lengthy introduction? Because Aisha salAllahu alayhi wa sallam asked the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam: Was Uhud the worst day of your life? Because she saw that and she could not imagine a day more horrendous than the day of Uhud. She could not imagine a bloodier day, a day of more hopelessness and helplessness than the day of Uhud. Ya Rasulullah, was that the worst day of your life?

And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said no. It was actually the last day of Ta'if. It was actually the last day of those two weeks of calling the people of Ta'if to Islam and being rejected in the way that he was rejected salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And being run out, pelted with stones. And finding himself salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in a lonely place under a tree where no one else is with him and only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees him and hears him. In a lonely place where he could not complain to anybody other than Allah. Where he did not have emotional support. Where no one cared that he was crying the way that he was crying. Where no one cared that he was wounded. That was the worst day of my life.

Why Ta'if Was Worse

Why? Did the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam bleed more on the day of Ta'if than he did on Uhud? No. He bled more in Uhud. In Ta'if he was pelted with stones and words. In Uhud he was struck with swords salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and literally almost killed. But Ta'if was worse. And Aisha radiAllahu anha didn't see the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in Ta'if, she was too young. She wasn't married to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam at the time. She didn't know what that day was like. She didn't know what that time period was like. But she saw him in Uhud and just assumed that tragedy must have been the worst because that shook the community and it took away the sense of invincibility that this community had. But Ta'if was worse.

Why? Why was Ta'if worse? Not because of the pain. Not because of the wounds. But because the nature of the test of Ta'if was different. This was that trial that hits you so hard that it forces you to reassess and reanalyze everything that has happened up until that point. It makes you look back at life all the way up until that point and say, where am I going? What am I doing? Is it worth it? Is it the right thing? That's the breaking point in a person's life. That's the point where the pressure has been building all this time.

He was forced salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in the boycott, in the era of the boycott, to hear the kids crying at night because they were too hungry and they were too thirsty and their parents had nothing to feed them. Nothing to give them. He had to hear those cries every night salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And Abu Jahl would stop him and say: You're doing that to your people. Your message is causing those children to cry. That's pressure. That hurts.

He had to get in the grave salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and receive the body of Khadija radiAllahu ta'ala anha and bury her. Knowing that what caused her death or what spurred it was the boycott that happened as a result of his message. Within the same three days, he had to bury his uncle Abu Talib. He had to see it all go down the drain salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in a matter of ten years. After life was beautiful and fine and Khadija was smiling and Abu Talib was smiling and we were a happy family and we had nothing in our lives that would cause us any distress. Suddenly he's lost them all and the pressure is building.

wish for Allah to destroy them. He had the angels sent by Allah offering to him to destroy them. He could have salallahu alayhi wasalam said: This is enough. I've had enough. And really broke. But he didn't.

And subhanallah on that day, the man that came to him to serve him grapes, Addas. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said Bismillah before he ate those grapes. And Addas said: People in this land don't say Bismillah. Where did you get that from? He says: Where are you from? He says: Nineveh in Iraq. He said: Oh, from the land of (أَخِي الصَّالِح النّبيِّ الصَّالِح) - my righteous brother, the righteous Prophet Yunus ibn Matta, Jonah, Yunus alayhi wasalam. That's where you're from? He says: How do you know? And he says: He's a Nabi, I'm a Nabi. And the Anbiya are brothers in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And how amazing I'm turning back to you, ya Allah. And I'm amongst those who submit. That's one means of that point in life where it's like reassess, reanalyze, and it turns out to be the right way. But let's talk about this test as it comes to you. The nature of that test. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمthe very first Prophet that he was informed about in the Qur'an was who? Anybody know? The first Prophet that came in the Qur'an mentioned to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was Yunus.

The Breaking Point and Recovery

Allah mentions to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم : That be patient with the command of your Lord. Don't be like Yunus عليه السلام. When he was swallowed. Don't wait until that moment. Don't find yourself in that situation that Yunus عليه السلام found himself in to call upon Allah جل جلاله.

And now he's lying dead and mutilated. That hurt. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam cried a lot. And Aisha salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, she remembers nursing the wounds of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and the despair in the city of Medina losing all the people that they did.

Why do I give you this lengthy introduction? Because Aisha salAllahu alayhi wa sallam asked the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam: Was Uhud the worst day of your life? Because she saw that and she could not imagine a day more horrendous than the day of Uhud. She could not imagine a bloodier day, a day of more hopelessness and helplessness than the day of Uhud. Ya Rasulullah, was that the worst day of your life? And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said no. It was actually the last day of Ta'if. It was actually the last day of those two weeks of calling the people of Ta'if to Islam and being rejected in the way that he was rejected salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And being run out, pelted with stones. And finding himself salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in a lonely place under a tree where no one else is with him and only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees him and hears him. In a lonely place where he could not complain to anybody other than Allah. Where he did not have emotional support. Where no one cared that he was crying the way that he was crying. Where no one cared that he was wounded. That was the worst day of my life. Why? Did the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam bleed more on the day of Ta'if than he did on Uhud? No. He bled more in Uhud. In Ta'if he was pelted with stones and words. In Uhud he was struck with swords salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And literally almost killed. But Ta'if was worse. And Aisha radiAllahu anha didn't

see the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in Ta'if, she was too young. She wasn't married to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam at the time. She didn't know what that day was like. She didn't know what that time period was like. But she saw him in Uhud and just assumed that tragedy must have been the worst because that shook the community and it took away the sense of invincibility that this community had. But Ta'if was worse. Why? Why was Ta'if worse? Not because of the pain. Not because of the wounds. But because the nature of the test of Ta'if was different. This was that trial that hits you so hard that it forces you to reassess and reanalyze everything that has happened up until that point. It makes you look back at life all the way up until that point and say, where am I going? What am I doing? Is it worth it? Is it the right thing? That's the breaking point in a person's life. That's the point where the pressure has been building all this time.

He was forced salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in the boycott, in the era of the boycott, to hear the kids crying at night because they were too hungry and they were too thirsty and their parents had nothing to feed them. Nothing to give them. He had to hear those cries every night salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And Abu Jahl would stop him and say: You're doing that to your people. Your message is causing those children to cry. That's pressure. That hurts. He had to get in the grave salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and receive the body of Khadija radiAllahu ta'ala anha and bury her. Knowing that what caused her death or what spurred it was the boycott that happened as a result of his message. Within the same three days, he had to bury his uncle Abu Talib. He had to see it all go down the drain salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in a matter of ten years. After life was beautiful and fine and Khadija was smiling and Abu Talib was smiling and we were a happy family and we had nothing in our lives that would cause us any distress. Suddenly he's lost them all and the pressure is building. But the breaking point didn't hit him yet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. Because the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam throughout all of that still knew it's worth it. If I've got to sacrifice this and that, family has to go, reputation has to go, we're going to be persecuted this way. He still had that resolve salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. He still knew it was worth it. And he still had hope and determination that things were about to turn around. That where I'm at right now - and you can imagine if you're the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam standing in the empty grave of Khadija radiAllahu anha receiving her body - that it can't get worse than this. I can't be treated any worse than the people of Mecca have treated me. It can only get better from here. He still had hope salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. There was still a sense of resolve.

But Ta'if was the breaking point. Because Ta'if seemed to be the decisive closed door. That it is not getting better after this. It doesn't matter who you go to with this message. Each and every single time the intensity of the rejection is only going to increase. And now the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam is sitting under a tree in Sayl al-Kabir, right around the area of Ta'if, and looking up and wondering: Ya Allah. Ya Allah. What is it? What now? What is this a manifestation of? Is this your anger with me Ya Allah? What's going to come next? If I've been rejected by the people of Mecca and I've been rejected by the people of Ta'if and I've lost my family members in the process, what is possibly going to change now? What comes next? And is this a manifestation of your anger?

That moment that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam faced is a decisive moment. It's a turning point in his life salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And all of us have that moment in our lives. Granted at a far less degree of intensity than what the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam faced. But everybody gets hit with a moment like that in life. A test like that in life. Where it's not about the intensity of the pain. It's the confusion and the wondering. What comes next? And what have I done up until this point? Where you start looking to your past and you start looking to your future. And seemingly everything suddenly is subject to questioning. The constants in your life that you've had up until that point. Your marriage, your family life, your career. Whatever stability you had in your life at that point, suddenly your foundation has shaken. And you're wondering, what now? What comes next?

For some people, it's the death of a family member that they really love. Someone that they can count on through thick and thin. For some people, it's I've been a successful businessman my entire life and suddenly, suddenly my career is in jeopardy. And I'm having to worry about paying the bills. For some people, it's I've had a wonderful marriage my entire life. Our entire lives we used to sit and tell each other that nothing would ever happen. And we used to look to other couples falling apart and say, that will never be us. But now, you're questioning that as well. And then worse than all of that is when your faith, your foundation of faith is now subject to questioning. And you're going, is it all real? I mean, I know I love this deen and I know I felt great when I was at the seminar and at the conference and at the class and the masjid. And I know Ramadan was special and stuff. But is it real or is it not real?

That type of test is the decisive test. It is the crisis that almost every individual and human being will face in their lives. And at that moment, it's a matter of the word that you will say and literally how you will react that will determine التولي or التخلي - whether you will come into the guardianship of Allah SWT or whether you will be left to face the rest of the tests that come after that in ways that you have no help. It's a really, really scary moment.

Conclusion

For some people, it's the midlife crisis.

A person reaches their strength. They reach their peak at the age of 33. Then they reach the age of 40. They could look back and they could say: What have I done until now? They could look back and they could reassess their level of religiosity. And in this case, what Allah mentions to us : The person who reacted positively and said, oh Allah I recognize this blessing. I recognize the great burden that my parents incurred because of me and what they've done for me. I recognize that I'm at a very decisive point in my life. Oh Allah, broaden my chest. Expand my horizon. Allow me to really recognize it from now on and thank my parents for the blessing of Islam upon us. And it's a rededication that from now on for the rest of

my life, ya Allah I'm going to only do things that are pleasing to you.

And oh my God, I have kids. I need to worry about too. Oh Allah, make them righteous. Don't let them have to go through the trials that I went through. Don't let them have to go through the confusion and questioning that I went through. Oh Allah, correct them. I'm turning back to you, ya Allah. I've done a lot. And I'm amongst those who submit.

That's one means of that point in life where it's like: Okay, reassess, reanalyze, and it turns out to be the right way. But let's talk about this test as it comes to you. The nature of that test. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمthe very first Prophet that he was informed about in the Qur'an was who? Anybody know? The first Prophet that came in the Qur'an mentioned to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was Yunus. Allah جلاله mentions to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم: That be patient with the command of your Lord. Don't be like صاحب الْحُوتِ. When he was swallowed. Don't wait until that moment. Don't find yourself in that situation that Yunus عليه السلام found himself in to call upon Allah جل جلاله

And ask Allah جل جلاله for help.

Had the mercy of Allah not come to him and the forgiveness of the Lord not come to him at that point where he was at, then he would have laid in disgrace. Bare, humiliated for the rest of his existence. It's amazing Allah جل جلاله says in the other surah, says جل جلاله Allah:

He would have left him in the stomach of that whale until the day of judgment. He would have stayed there forever. Not just in the physical sense but in the spiritual sense. As one who broke at that decisive moment. When that point came to him and abandoned everything that he had up until that point. He would have been in a miserable situation. Yunus عليه السلام would have been doomed. Literally until the day of judgment. He would have went down as that prophet. The prophet that turned away. And the prophet that died in disgrace. He would have went down that way. But

Allah chose him and made him from the righteous.

What does that mean? Yunus عليه السلام faced his breaking point. He had that moment where you know what? I give up on you people. It's that moment where you're reanalyzing everything. You're reassessing. There's no good in you people. There's no hope in you people. The punishment of Allah is coming upon you. I'm done. And he turned away from those people

He was angry with his people. He's steaming. He was happy to hear of their destruction or to know that they were going to be destroyed. But the problem was not that.

Allah جل جلاله said: And he thought that we wouldn't punish him for turning away. Then his people سبحان الله threw him off of that ship. Ibn al-Qayyim رحمه الله تعالى said that Yunus عليه السلام abandoned the da'wah to the people that would save them from drowning in their kufr, drowning in their disbelief. And so in like manner, the people on that ship abandoned him and allowed him to drown in his physical death. They knew when they threw him overboard he's going to die. They didn't care because they were trying to save themselves. It came back to him in like manner. And Allah جل جلاله sends a whale to

swallow him. And he's in the stomach of that whale. And Subhan Allah, as much as you talk about this, seriously if you have to close your eyes and imagine you've just been thrown overboard. You're drowning. And you know as you're drowning that it's about to be over. It's a very very harsh way to go. Because you know that your breath, your oxygen is getting less and less. You're unable to hold your breath. You're drowning and suddenly you're swallowed by a whale. It's a dark night. Ibn Mas'ud says: Imagine the scene,

the darkness of the night, in the darkness of the ocean, in the darkness of the stomach of that whale. I mean where am I right now? And where did I land myself in? And you talk about a time to reassess and reevaluate. Literally in the stomach of a whale. And the acids are eating away at you. And Subhan Allah at that moment, seriously يونس عليه السلام,at that moment I mean that is a moment to really despair. That's a moment to give up. That's a moment to say it's absolutely impossible. Anything good is going to come out of this. And Subhan Allah he calls upon Allah SWT. And it's amazing. He says: Ya Allah I'm calling you from a place I don't think anyone has ever called you from before. Subhan Allah I seriously doubt that anyone has ever been in the situation that I'm in right now. I'm calling you from a place I don't think anyone has called you from before. In the stomach of a whale. In the bottom of the ocean. In the darkness of the night. He can't see anything. He can't see anything. He's just getting hits and he's disintegrating from the acid and so on and so forth. And he calls upon Allah SWT: I'm not even going to have the audacity to ask you to get me out of the stomach of this whale. I'm just calling upon you Ya Allah لا إله إلا أنت There is no God but you. سُبْحَانَكَ . How perfect are you. How perfect are you. I am the one with the imperfections. I am the one who wronged himself. This was not you O Allah. I'm not bitter. It was a moment of realization. And what a moment to have that realization. I have no complaints to you Ya Allah. I know that I deserve what just came to me. I know that I deserve to be in this desperate situation. لَّا إِلهَ إِلَّا

I'm not going to plead my case with you and tell you about how terrible my people are and what they did to me. Because the circumstances are irrelevant to Allah SWT. It's not about the circumstances. It's about Allah taking a covenant with you and you taking a covenant with Allah. And you abandoning that covenant. And Allah told you He would test you. Allah told you He would send you moments like that. Allah told you He would send you moments that would really really burn. It's not about how much it burned or what it felt like or how terrible the circumstances were. Allah already told you that was going to happen. And you took a covenant with Allah that you would obey Him and you would worship Him and you would turn to Him no matter how severe those circumstances got. You thought it was all good. You thought based on your previous tests and your previous trials you'd be able to weather any storm. But this storm is different. Yunus A.S. has no complaints. He does not plead his case. He doesn't say Ya Allah these people are unlike any people I know. Nuh A.S. had sabr for 950 years. My people are different from the people of Nuh A.S. He didn't do any of that. La ilaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu minal dhalimeen. Ya Allah I messed up. I've got nothing to blame you for. Subhanak. I'm not bitter with you. I'm not saying Ya Allah could you have not given me that severe of a test? Because if you would have made it a little bit