Ustadh
By Yahya Ibrahim | 2026-01-12T20:55:02.410515+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Beauty - Ustadh Yahya Ibrahim
Opening
السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
(خطبة الحاجة Opening Khutba
"O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except as Muslims [in submission to Him]."
"O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed Allah is ever, over you, an Observer."
"O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice. He will [then] amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great attainment."
أَمَّا بَعْد
Introduction
Always and forever we begin with the praise of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We send our prayers of peace upon the Nabi al-Kareem Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallim. I always begin by admonishing myself and you and reminding myself and you of taqwa Allah - and that's an inner awakening, it's something that occurs in our heart and the hope is that it manifests itself in our words, deeds and conduct. And I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes that which is in our heart better than what we seek to display publicly to others. Allahumma ameen.
Today alhamdulillah we join together in celebration of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallim. And you know when we mention the name Rasool Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallim, it's a religious obligation upon us to send our prayers of peace upon him. And therefore I pray inshallah that you are inspired to be from those who are quite articulate in saying:
Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa ala aali Muhammad
when you hear his name, when you hear his mention or when his description is made known to you inshallah - which is the basis of my discussion with you today.
(صلى الله عليه وسلم) The Beauty of the Prophet Muhammad
The ulama from very early on, whenever they would come to speak about our Rasool sallallahu alayhi wa sallim, they would usually begin with things like saying:
ما أجمل محمداً - How beautiful was Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
And today I'm not going to limit my scope and my discussion with you with regards to his physical features and his beauty - which are astounding - and inshallah we will talk about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in that regard. But I want to talk to you about the beauty of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in a variety of circumstances. I want to show you his beauty at a moment of anger, and I want to show you his beauty in love, and I want to talk about his beauty in compassion, and I want to talk about his beauty in worship sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And if we were to sit here literally - and I understand alhamdulillah that you at the School of Oriental and African Studies alhamdulillah have been blessed with a vast array of opportunities to look at Islam, Islamism, politics, history, Muhammadism - you've been given an opportunity to study things from a variety of perspectives. And today I want to speak alhamdulillah to a vastly majority crowd of Muslims about the man who we give his name to our children, the man whose children's names adorn our children's names, the man who we sacrifice really kith, kin, wealth on behalf of him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Two weeks ago I was visiting him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in Madina al-Munawwara, and I remember sitting in the shade of his masjid sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And see, when you sit near the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, your tahiyyat feels different. You know when you're doing your salah and here you are in London and the hustle and bustle and the busyness, and you catch your salah in that little room with the green carpet back there, and you say:
Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa ala aali Muhammad kama sallayta ala Ibrahim
And it's kind of hurried because you got class, you got to catch a bus, and there's going to be traffic, and I didn't have lunch - and you kind of miss out on his beauty. But there's a beauty and a symmetry - like if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was to walk in upon you, before he entered you would sense him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Like you would feel his presence.
Physical Beauty of the Prophet
He's the man sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who the angels encircled, and the sahaba - you know, when they describe the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, if they were to talk about his physical beauty - some of those who have known him their whole life, even before Islam, such as people like Amr ibn al-As radiallahu anhu. For years before he came to Islam he knew the Prophet before the Prophet received revelation, and for many years he resisted faith. But when you were to speak to Amr ibn al-As many years
later and the tabi'een - you know, people who had never met the Prophet - they would say: "You saw Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam?" He would say yes. And they would say: "Sifu lana - what did he look like?"
And he would say: "I don't know. If I was to try to describe to you his detail I would fail, because I couldn't look him directly in the eye and keep his gaze. Like I would look at him but his majesty, his awe - you know, the inspiration that I would feel with him - his hayba sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would compel me to turn away."
You know, there's this wonderful statement of Aisha radiallahu anha where she says: "You know, I dropped a needle, and back then their homes weren't like this - there wasn't, you know, diffuse lighting and so on. She says: I was sewing, I dropped the needle and I was looking for it, and when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam turned his face to look for it, the nur of his face showed it to me sallallahu alayhi wa sallam."
You know, you would feel him before you saw him. You would smell him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam before you saw him. The people in Medina, when they wanted to find out where the Prophet was, all they had to do was smell the roses sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Literally, when he would walk through a pathway, the blessed scent of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would linger and perfume through the air to such a degree that a person who came minutes later - many minutes later - would say: "The Prophet just walked this way," and you could navigate from one point to the next until you caught up to him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
If he was to walk in through that door, he wouldn't be tall that you would say "wow he's tall," and he wouldn't be short that you would wonder - you know, he's not of average height. His hair was dark, his irises were dark, the white of his eyes were fleshy white - they weren't blood shot, they were clear. And if you saw him from a distance, it's almost as if you would say "wow, his eyelashes have mascara" or what's called kohl. Look at those eyelashes sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. His nose was full but not hawkish, and his eyebrows were full and not joined sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
When he walked, his shoulders - he stood proud and tall. He never hunched over and he never slouched. And if he walked, people had to run to catch him because he was a man of purpose - like he knew where he was going and where he was coming from. He wasn't a person who was distracted "which way should I go?" His walk, his pace was that of someone having to kind of jog to stay at pace with him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
His sweat was finer than musk. Umm Ayman, Umm Salim, Umm Sulaym - you know, when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam stayed in their place for a little bit and he was sleeping on a leather blanket and it was a hot day, so some of his sweat had pooled a little bit in it, and she took a vessel, she threw out the perfume she had and she took his sweat sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Anas ibn Malik, who served the Prophet from a very young age - 6, 7, 8 years old - he was the guy that would walk around with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He was a young kid. His mother had put him in the service of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He was always around the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and that's why he was one of the great fuqaha of our Ummah - he knew so many things about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Anas ibn Malik, he would say: "I've never in my life felt anything softer than his hand nor more fragrant than his sweat sallallahu alayhi wa sallam."
When he looked at you, he would not break his gaze until you did, and it did not matter whether you were rich or poor. And the one who had access to him was not on account of their social status in life - it was simply on account of them wanting his presence in their life. And therefore you hear of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that he would accept to break a meal with a person who had nothing more than a date to offer sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
He would never turn anyone away, and he would say sallallahu alayhi wa sallam - you know, the sahaba that he described, and they say: "ما سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول لا في إلا لا إله إلا الله" - Not once did I ever hear the Prophet say "no" (لَا) except in لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ. It was always yes sallallahu alayhi wa sallam - and even if it was at an inconvenience to what others would perceive in him.
You know, there was this occasion - you see it in Bukhari - where a man comes and he pulls at the Prophet's garment sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he says: "يا رسول الله - I want this thing you're wearing. This thing - I don't want another one, the one you're wearing right now in front of me." And the sahaba were so embarrassed by the action of this Bedouin man who just come to faith - you know, he was a rough kind of person - and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam goes into one of the sahaba's homes - Abu Ayyub's - and borrows something to wear and gives that man that shawl. And the sahaba, they gather around this man, they say: "Don't you know that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam..." - and it was at a time of poverty before the battle of Khaybar - this is, you know, it was a time where Aisha describes (رضي الله عنها) there was no fire that was lit in his home for two weeks to cook anything. There was no need - they survived on the two dark things: dates and water. You see, water wasn't like this water - was from a well mud. That's what they lived on sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And the man took the only shirt off his back.
And the sahaba surround this man, they say: "You know, couldn't you just ask for something else? Like you've come to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in such an inconvenient time." And that man said to them: "I don't care. I want to be buried wearing this." Like he took it for no other reason that he loved the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam so much that he wanted to have something that he could be entombed with - that on the day of resurrection the Prophet would recognize and say: "Hey, that's my shirt sallallahu alayhi wa sallam."
You know, the people who would see the kings - you know, there were Arabs who would travel all over the world and they would sit with, you know, like the Emperor, or they would sit with the Khosrow in Persia or Al-Akhbat in Egypt, and they would be amazed at how the kings were treated by their servants. And in the treaty of Al-Hudaibiya, one of the main ambassadors of Quraysh, he went to negotiate with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he came back to Quraysh and he said: "Whatever you do with this man, I recommend that you do it quickly, because the sahaba that he has around him treat him in a way that no king I have ever seen or been in his presence is treated. When he speaks, they listen. When he makes his wudu, they fight over who will take the drops that fall off his arm sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. If he stands, they stand with him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam."
See, the physical beauty of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam exceeded that of Yusuf. You know, we know in the Qur'an that Prophet Yusuf was so beautiful that, you know, when that mistress tried to seduce him and the people in her city mocked him - as Allah narrates in the 12th chapter in Surah Yusuf in the Qur'an - that she, you know, she gathered all these royal women and put them in one room and she gave each of them a sikin, and she said to Prophet Yusuf: "Come on in." And the Prophet describes Yusuf by saying that he was given half of beauty - like half of the beauty that we estimate in mankind he embodied it in that one person, that great Prophet of Allah. And when he walked in, it's like saying takbir - you know, it's like so handsome they held him in such high esteem and they cut open their hand by mistake. They're cutting fruit but they were so mesmerized they didn't know what they were doing. "This man can't be a human being, he's angelic in his beauty and quality."
And yet we know that the Prophet's beauty exceeded Yusuf's, but it was cloaked with that honor that turned away the sight of friends like Amr ibn al-Ghass - that awe, that mystique of the messenger Muhammad.
The Prophet's Character and Conduct
The physical beauty of the Prophet is one dimension, and you know there's books like Shama'il - there was a brother who had the book of Shama'il with him here, and it's something that I have a course coming in a couple of days in Queen Mary about al-Mustafa, who is the Prophet. It's a two day program where we talk about the Prophet, but more importantly my aim is to extract from his life, life lessons that we can kind of like mirror who he was into who we are. And that's really the aim of this concept of sunnah - it's not what you wear and it's not mashallah, bismillah, subhanallah - that kind of thing. Rather it's an embodiment, a modality of conduct, it's a pre-thought of how you will live your life in trying to measure it as best as you can to the best of creation, Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
The physical beauty of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is unending, and if you were to look to a full moon at its splendor or compare it to his face, you would love his face more. You know, those enchanting pictures of landscapes - it doesn't matter what inspires you - nothing would be greater than him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And I'll end this section where I talk about his physical features by the request of one of the sisters - one of the sahabiyat at his time. When the Prophet's masjid was kind of small and he used to lean on a tree when he would give the jumu'ah - it was a small place, and that was just how he was: don't cut down the tree, build the mosque around it. And the Prophetsallallahu alayhi wa sallam literally was a tree hugger - like literally.
So one lady came and said: "The masjid is so full, and when the men are there in the front of us" - it's the same thing that sisters talk about today - "we don't have access and we're sitting at the back, Ya Rasulullah, and all the men are in front of us and I can't see you." And seeing the Prophet - Imam Ibn Hajar, he explained this hadith by saying that looking at the Prophet was ibadah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. "I can't see you. If I ask one of my helpers, if one of my workers, to build you a pulpit for you to stand on it, so when you're talking I can see you, would you use it?" He said: "Yes sallallahu alayhi wa sallam."
And that's where the blessed minbar of the Prophet came from. So she built it, and on that weekend the minbar is put in the back there, and he stands on it sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And that little date palm tree that was growing in his masjid began to weep audibly - like it literally cried. And when the Prophet heard it and the sahaba heard it, the Prophet came down from his minbar, hugged the tree, patted it, and whispered to it sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
His beauty resonated, was felt, was absorbed, was relished. It was something that everyone who ever met him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam could not deny.
But the beauty that lasts with us today extends beyond the physical. And therefore when we talk about the beauty of the Prophetsallallahu alayhi wa sallam, it's wonderful that we dwell on the shama'il, but it's more wonderful that we begin to analyze the beauty of his character and the beauty of his conduct and what he represented. And more importantly, what glimpses of it can I have?
And I want you for the rest of my discussion to take note of this hadith where the Prophetsallallahu alayhi wa sallam says that a believer is a reflected image of another believer. And the greatest believer, the greatest one who believed in God, is Muhammadsallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And I want to mirror him, because unless I can look at him and see myself, and unless he can look into me and see me, and unless you and I ask ourselves: "If the Prophet walked into my life today, would he recognize me? Like am I one of his? Am I him?" - and unless you feel confident that the words you use and the prayer you perform and the acts you seek have some semblance in his life and in his tradition, you should worry. And it's important to worry, and it's not about feeling guilty - it's about wanting to do better in life. And therefore men and women both find a mirrored reflection in his modality and traditions.
The Beauty of His Worship
I want to talk to you about his beauty in worship, because the essence of your faith is worship:
"And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me"
You were only created so that you can extend to God service in whatever capacity. And you as a student here with the right niyyah and with the right intention and doing it for God is service to God - to honor your family, to educate your mind, to inshallah in future earn halal rizq that turns you away from that which is haram, that gives you authority over those who may not know the truth so that you can lead them to it. All of that is ibadah. And all of that is you sitting there in a chair and lecture board saying "when is this 45 minute talk going to end?" - of course not my talk right alhamdulillah - but it's ibadah.
And ibadah of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) was wondrous. You know, I'm not going to talk to you about him standing at night because you'll say "well that's a command of Allah to him - it was a command, it's different to you and I, he was commanded." But I want you to see why. See that same moment after he first received revelation - the next set of verses that would come were very symbolic. Two kinds that depict the same moment:
(يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُدَّثِّرُ - Ya ayyuhal muddathir) and (يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُزَّمِّلُ - ya ayyuhal muzzammil)
What does Allah say in ya ayyuhal muddathir? "Oh one who is enveloped with cloaks" - what's the first command?
(قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلاً - "Oh you who are enveloped in your cloaks, oh you who are terrified by this mission I've just given you - stand up by night and pray half the night. أَوْ زِدْ عَلَيْهِ - maybe more, maybe less.")
And then Allah takes the same snapshot, the same moment, and says: (يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُزَّمِّلُ قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ - "Oh one who is covered up in cloaks, get up and call people to the truth.")
That's symmetry. The Prophet's success by day in calling people to the truth was guaranteed by the anchor of righteous belief and conduct of praying by night. And sometimes we look to ourselves and we say: "Man, I'm struggling in life. I'm struggling with work, I'm struggling with my studies. God, my parents are always on my back, my sister keeps taking this from me" - and we see like our day life is chaotic and hectic. And the reason, simply for no other reason, is that our night life is hollow - it's empty and there's nothing there.
But see, it wasn't like that the Prophet was taught from the very moment: "You want to be successful? (قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ - you must ensure it قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلا قَلِيلاً)"
And there's that beauty of worship. Do you know what the greatest thing that the Prophet did in worship? What it was? It was just the simple dhikr that you and I are taught to make - like his tongue was wet with the dhikrullah. The verses that the brother recited which talk about the Prophet - they include that as a subtlety in it:
,Remember Allah plentifully"
abundantly, and for that it will be God who will send his salah upon you (لِيُخْرِجَكُمْ مِنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَى النُّورِ) and that will take you out of the darkness which is an illusion of the difficulties you face in the day time in life."
See, the duality of the Qur'an is that the darkness is in the day time and the light - you earn it in the night. The nur in your life is night. And when you look at the Prophet's life, he was so abundant in his prayer that Aisha - you know, the hadith is in Bukhari - his house was so small sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that when he would stand up in prayer - and he would teach us that we pray our extra supererogatory prayers not in the masjid although he [was] three, four paces from the mosque - he would pray his night prayer in his home even though it was an inconvenience for his wife. The house was so small that when Aisha was laying down and the Prophet wanted to fall into sujood, he would have to tap her foot to let her know: "Move your foot into your chest so I can prostrate."
Every night, you know, every time he's praying he's waking her up. If she isn't able to pray with him, she draws in her feet. He would say: "Why is the Prophet inconveniencing his wife every few minutes, waking her up out of a good sleep? You know, why doesn't he just let her sleep sallallahu alayhi wa sallam?"
The answer is, you know, it's to teach us that tradition - that there's, you know, for us worship is the essence of who you and I are.
Three Simple Connections to the Prophet's Worship
And I want to give you just a simple insight into three things that if we do them will connect us directly to the habit of the Prophet Muhammadsallallahu alayhi wa sallam - that beauty of his life where the sahaba would say to him: "Ya Rasulullah, why do you stand so long in prayer that your feet have become swollen?" He would say: "Shouldn't I be thankful for everything I have? Like why shouldn't I be thankful? I know God has forgiven me - it's not about forgiveness, it's not about Jannah, it's more about love - the love of the one who I stand before each and every day and each and every moment."
First: Recognize Allah's blessings - that's ibadah. I want you to consider what you have - like this bottle mashallah, jazakum Allah khair, thank you for watering me. This is my rizq. What I've taken from it anyway is mine. Do you know what that means? None of you, no one in this city, no one in this world could have tasted what I tasted of that water. A hundred million years ago this water could have been an iceberg in the arctic shelf that broke off and melted and became salt water that was trans-evaporated and rained down in Brazil and traveled ten million years ago in underground aquifers, only to be bottled in England and to be bottled purchased by someone other than myself, carried here by someone other than myself, delivered here for no other person than any other day than any other time than Yahya Ibrahim is going to have it. It's mine.
See, that's rizq. That's the meaning - that whatever has been given to you no one can take it, and whatever wasn't written for you - that other bottle over there - it's not mine, it's someone else's. And there could be someone who bought this for themselves but it ended up with me. See, that was the teaching of Rasulullah, and that's why you say Bismillah.
So when I tell you connect and be thankful to Allah for what you have - therefore when you come and you say Bismillah, I acknowledge that this came to me only because of Allah:
"Who brought this rain down to you? Who collected it for you? Who carried it to you? Who enriched it for you? Who brought it towards you?" It is Allah.
And that's the first level of worship - it's called recognition, (مشاهدة) - that Allah is involved in every drop of water that I take. And at the end of my drink what do you say? (الْحَمْدُ للهِ) - "Thank you Allah for what I have." It's a totality of worship - so connect to Allah through the Prophet'ssunnah of worship in those little mundane things.
Second, I ask you to do more in terms of the extra things he taught us. It is without a doubt in my mind (الحمد لله) that I believe I'm with people who pray their five daily prayers. It's without a doubt (الحمد لله) those of you who are committed to our deen that you're fulfilling your salah. But now I'm asking you to do that just a little bit more. What I'm saying to you that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said - and I want you to think about it - the Prophet after burying a Sahabi, one of the Sahabi was just buried and he and the other companions stood around his grave - and see, we don't understand normally this hadith until we actually think about it a little bit - and the Prophet pointed to the grave and he said: "For this man, if you were to ask him - if he was to be brought back to life after what he now knows, after what he now has seen, after the reality has been made plain - if you were to ask this man would you prefer to be given the world and all that's in it or two rak'ah, what would you choose?"
That man who now knows the truth will say: "I just want two rak'ah." You know, you hear that hadith where the Prophet said: "Two rak'ah are better than the world and all that's in it" - that's what it means. That the moment you cross that threshold, there is nothing more that you would want. If you were to be offered the universe but it would come to an end with death again and you're going to stand before God, if you were to have nothing except to do two sincere prostrations and be accepted by Allah, you would choose that and live your life in poverty.
Hadith Reference: Sahih Muslim
So I want you to do that a little bit more. I want you to pray the two rak'ah before Fajr. I want you that the Prophet - he told us that worship - the best of it is what is simplest and consistent.
When you hear the sunnah of the Prophet like Imam Bukhari's book - it's an awesome book, thousands of hadith - do you know what the last hadith in it is? The last hadith in it is a summary of the whole book.
Imam Bukhari simply says the very last hadith - as with Muslim, as with Imam Al-Nawawi, as with Riyad Al-Saliheen - all the Imams of hadith have made this as a subtle implicit tradition. The very last hadith they record is what? Kalimatan - if you just say these two words, they're very easy to recite on your tongue, anyone can memorize it, but they are enormously heavy on the scales on the day of judgment:
Hadith Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari Hadith 7563, Sahih Muslim Hadith 2694
If you can master that, you're successful in life. If you can recite Ayatul Kursi - the Prophet says in the hadith of Abu Dawood, it's sahih - the one who recites Ayatul Kursi after every prayer is in Jannah. The only reason you're not yet there is because you're not dead yet - like (دخلت جنة خلاص) - but you haven't entered yet because you're still breathing.
Hadith Reference: Sunan Abu Dawood (authentic)
The Prophet (وسلم عليه الله صلى) - he narrates that the Prophet (وسلم عليه الله صلى) said: "The one who recites Ayatul Kursi at night (حُفِظَ وَجَارُهُ) - he and his home is protected and his neighbor." So there's John sitting there watching the football game - he's watching the football game and the only reason he doesn't get robbed is because you're next door and you read Ayatul Kursi. It's amazing simplicity.
The Prophet (وسلم عليه الله صلى) says: "The one who says (سُبْحَانَ اللهِ وَبِحَمْدِهِ) a hundred times, his sins are forgiven even if they were to cover the oceans."
Hadith Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim
So do that little bit more. And the reason I say that is the Prophet said: (إذَا أَمَرْتُكُم بِشَيْءٍ) - "If I invite you to do something good, do as much of it as you can." It's an invitation for you to do as much as you can.
Third thing with regards to the Prophet (وسلم عليه الله صلی) and his beauty in worship - and it's something that I invite myself and you to - is to assist others in it. Don't ever be a deterrent for other people. And do you know how many times people talk about da'wah but very few talk about unda'wah like that sour face that you give someone and it pushes them away from the masjid.
I was giving a talk back home in Perth at my university Western Australia, and the talk was titled "A Muslim's Guide to Recovering from Tragedy" - like how do you recover from pain, heartbreak, an illness in the family, a bad relationship, whatever. And there was a sister - she emailed me that same night, 11 o'clock at night I got home and there was an email there - and she said: "If I didn't need to be there for this talk because the topic was so relevant to what I was going through in life, I would have walked out. As I was walking in - although I'm not visibly Muslim, meaning I don't wear hijab - I just asked some of the girls, some of the other Muslim sisters who do, who are visibly Muslim, which lecture hall is it? And they kind of looked at me like who are you and why are you even going? You barely look Muslim." Like
they gave her that kind of brush over the shoulder, you know, that idiocy that you see at times within our community where someone doesn't look religious so you assume that you're better than them for some reason.
So she said: "If I didn't need to I would have just turned and left, but I wanted to be there and I'm glad I stayed." And that repulsive behavior that we at times display is completely the antithesis of the Prophet Muhammad - completely different, everything is different to who he was.
When you ask the sahaba, they say no one smiled at anyone more than the Prophet - like he was just so welcoming. Peace and blessings be upon him. So be a person who leads people to good. They asked the Prophet: "Who is the best of people?" He said: "The one who gives people the most benefit."
The Beauty of His Love
Now I am conscious of time, and as I said I could talk to you and others can talk to you for weeks about the Prophet, but I want to talk to you just one more section - and I am conscious of your time - about the beauty of his love.
You know, sometimes we misread the sunnah. You know how sometimes you read - I was once standing waiting for the maghrib prayer, it was in Toronto, I picked up one of the first translations and I was waiting for the iqama to be called so I was reading it, and I read the English of a hadith - it was just random - and the hadith it said: "The Prophet used to love curry."
I thought: "Curry? Maybe it's a typo or something. Curry? That hot spicy Asian fusion of leaves and turmeric? Really?" Let me read the Arabic to this hadith, and it says: "The Prophet used to love the stew that the meat was cooked in." Now if you are a translator in Southeast Asia, that stew is that delicious hot spicy curry. And I could almost see this new Muslim who's: "Man it's so spicy but the Prophet loved it so I gotta have some curry, what can I do?" Right?
There's so much in this sunnah, and it's not because that person meant any harm, but it's just human fallibility - that's just all it is. And don't think it's just limited to non-era - you find lots of that kind of stuff whether in translations of the Qur'an or other things. But you guys inshallah I pray you find your expertise in that.
When you read certain hadith, there's this one hadith - all of you know it. Any of you not hear that the Prophet and Aisha had a race? Everyone knows - the Prophet and Aisha, they had a race in the desert. Everyone heard this or not? Who hasn't? Let's correct it because it's kind of not correct anyway.
Basically what happened was - it's just a mistranslation. It's taken the whole romanticism out of his life. Basically, whenever the Prophet went there was need for war and they went out on an expedition, the Prophet would take with him one of his wives or more. And on this occasion it was Aisha. And after so
many weeks away from Medina and so many weeks amongst all these sahaba men, the Prophet just wants to chill out with his wife Aisha. That's really the crux of the hadith.
So he says to the army, his sahaba: "Hey, why don't you guys start marching? We'll catch up to you." So basically, if I was to translate the hadith, it wouldn't be "the Prophet and Aisha had a race" - it would be "the Prophet and Aisha, they walked hand in hand romantically in the sand dunes of Arabia as the sun was setting and the wind was swirling." That's really what he wanted - it was an act of love.
There's another hadith with Aisha where all of us know about tayammum - like if you don't have water for wudu you can make tayammum. You strike the ground, brush it off, wipe your face - whether it's hadith akbar or asghar, we all know that it's in the Qur'an. But we don't know the story behind it. Sometimes we're taught just the fiqh but we don't know the beauty of the sunnah behind it.
The Prophet and Aisha, once again, they were on a journey and Aisha had gone to the bathroom meaning she went far away into the desert - and while there she had a (عُقْد - uqd) - she had a necklace and it was made of black string and black volcanic stones, shiny stones. And it's dark, it's maghrib now. And because it was in the hot months, the sahaba they used to rest by day and travel by night. So right as soon as they did their maghrib and isha prayer - they combined it - they would put everything together and head out.
Now Aisha, she had gone out to use the desert and that (عقد - uqd) fell off. So she came back and now they're in enemy territory. The Prophet - they've done their prayer, they don't have enough water for the next day, they can't camp anymore so they need to get, travel by night to the next place of water so that they can guarantee their survival. And in enemy territory it's even more earnest for them.
Aisha comes and whispers to the Prophet: "I lost my necklace."
Now if my wife was waiting at Sydney airport and she says: "Oh I lost my watch," I'd be like: "Get on the plane woman, I'll get you another watch. It's just a watch, don't worry about the watch. We're not going to miss the plane because I'm going to go searching for your watch." That's just logic for me - may Allah help us.
But not the Prophet. The Prophet orders Abu Bakr: "Tell the men to unpack camp and put it back up. We're going to spend the night because we're looking for a necklace."
Now Abu Bakr is whose father? Aisha. He goes after her, man. He goes: "For a necklace?" And there you have the Prophet orders the Sahaba to go out in the dark to search for a black thread necklace with black beads. Could you imagine Umar looking for a necklace in the desert? Who's going to find that?
So the Sahaba got angry with Aisha, which means Abu Bakr saw this, so Abu Bakr got angry with Aisha. And Aisha says: "The Prophet was resting with me and his head was against my chest, and Abu Bakr was whispering in my ear, and Aisha says: I did not answer because I didn't want to disturb the Prophet."
When Fajr approached, they came to the Prophet and said: "Ya Rasulullah, if we use the water for wudu we will die. There's not enough water to take us and our animals to the next well" - and the verses of tayammum had not yet arrived. And the Prophet said: "Inshallah there will be a solution. Something will happen."
And Aisha at that moment says: "I felt depression like the whole world collapsed on me." And at that moment Allah revealed: "If you were in a state of janabah or you broke in your wudu, use the earth to make tayammum."
All those sahaba and Abu Bakr and everyone who was so upset with Aisha, when these verses of ease and rahma came, they said: "Aisha is the greatest, and Abu Bakr's family is always giving and generous, and look at the blessing that has arrived."
But what's the point of this hadith? The point of this hadith is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam inconvenienced the many for the one who was near, the one he loved sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. That's beauty. And it teaches us subtle things inshallah - when you're married, if you aren't already - that you find in your heart that ability to always choose your wife, always choose your husband, always choose your children, always choose your father and mother before the distant from you. That was Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. That was beauty.
And you know, Aisha and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam - their love story wasn't just something that was, it was amazing. Shakespeare had nothing on them. Like Aisha, she used to have code language with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. They used to have their own language - like own kind of, you know, husband-wifey kind of stuff.
Aisha, she says to him - it's not "how much do you love me?" - she says: "Describe how much you love me." That's some romance stuff, man. How do you do that?
So the Prophet describes it very aptly. He says: "I love you with the strength and the description like a knot that is tied. Whenever others pull it from opposite sides, it just gets tighter."
See, when you hear that, how can a wife not be like: "Damn, he loves me. I love him too." That's it.
So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he says that, every time the Prophet would be in his masjid and Aisha, she'd just put her head out from the door or something - no one else knows this - and she'd just put her head out and say: "Ya Rasulullah, how's that knot today?" And the Prophet would smile at her and say: "It's as strong as the first day I tied it sallallahu alayhi wa sallam."
And that translated into an effect on his personal life, his family life, his sahaba. So Ali, the cousin of the Prophet, his son-in-law, married Fatima Zahra - this is a famous story. Ali, he came home one day unknown to Fatima. He came early from work, and his wife Fatima, she was standing brushing her teeth. Back then she used that twig, so she's brushing her teeth. She doesn't see him behind her.
Now if I come home and my wife's in the bathroom, it's not going to make me spell poetry - like "oh look at the beauty of the foam in your teeth." You're not going to do that, right?
So Ali comes home and his wife's brushing her teeth and he spouts some poetry, man. He says: "Oh twig of an Eric tree, how can I see you in this embrace? If you were a man I would have killed you. If you were a man I would have killed you."
Now she'd be like: "Really?" You know, it's love, man. And the Prophet was very expressive. That beauty of love is something that at times is missing from our description of the Prophet. People outside, they don't know this stuff. Like when they hear about our Prophet, they only hear these at times vulgar things, inaccuracies that are blemishes. And the Prophet is nur of beauty - his light of beauty just outshines the fraudulence of the fraudsters.
And I want you to see his beauty extended not just physically, not just in words, not just in worship. And if we could literally sit here and talk about his beauty in anger and in compassion and in conquest and in warfare, it's unending.
Conclusion
My aim is to inspire you that you kind of take a journey with him. And whether you do that by reading more or listening to others talk about him more, or just by simply sitting and mentioning him more - I began by telling you when you're in Medina and you're close to him it feels different. But the reality is, and ironically, sometimes you need the mention of the Prophet at a distance from him to appreciate him more.
If all that you do is just that you increase your salawat and your durood upon the Prophet, you will have succeeded. And I conclude with the hadith of Ubay ibn Ka'b - the sahih hadith in Abu Dawood. He had a need. He was going to ask Allah for something, and he said to the Prophet: "I have a need. I'm going to ask Allah, but of course I'm going to share that need by asking Allah to bless you and send peace upon you. And I'm going to make half of my dua for myself and half sending salam upon you."
And the Prophet said: "If you do that it's good, and if you were to increase upon me it's more."
So he said: "I'm going to make two thirds salat upon you and a third in asking for myself."
And the Prophet said: "If you do that it's good, but if you increase it's more."
And Ubay said: "I'm going to make all of my request not for myself and say 'oh Allah give me this and this' - I'm not going to even ask any of that. I'm just going to ask Allah to bless and send His blessings and peace upon you, oh Messenger of Allah."
And at that the Prophet said: "If you were to do that, Allah would give you what you have not asked for, and all your needs would be met, and all the harm that was arriving would be deterred."
(Sunan Abu Dawood Hadith 1528 (Authentic))
Closing
I thank the MSA or the Islamic Society, and I pray that Allah سبحانه وتعالى gives you success and taking time to join me. I know it's a busy time in the year. May Allah تعالی accept from you and I.