Patience Isn't Weakness: Strategic Avoidance of Enemies

Alhamdulillah.

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Continuing in chapter number 73. verses number 10 through 14. Verses number 10 through verses number verse number 14.

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For.

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Cathil. Yeah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says to the prophet sallall.aii wasam after commanding him with standing for salah at night. He dictated to him the amount of prayer the type of prayer the recitation of the Quran with a heavy focus on that etc. the etiquets of reciting the Quran, the wisdom behind some of these rulings. He said to the prophet sallall.aii Wasam with respect to his antagonist because if a person has an enemy, an antagonist, they are going to be prone to wanting to become obsessed with their enemy. They are going to feel constantly like every moment that they spend not focusing on their enemy is a moment their enemy is going to get the best of them. Right here Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is telling him at night when your enemies are asleep stand in prayer recite the Quran contemplate its meanings. He teaches him the etiquets of recitation. He teaches him the wisdom of choosing that time. A person may say, "Well, what about my enemies? What about my enemies? What shall I do with them? I'm here praying and they're out there plotting and planning and preparing." Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, He says, "Be patient with what they say and boycott their company." boycott their company in the best of ways. Abandon them in the best of ways. So this tells us something very important and that lesson is that patience is not to be confused with inaction. There's a big difference between patience and inaction. in action. A person just throws up his hands and is not waiting for any opportune moment. Person just allows life to happen to him. However, patience is a calculated a calculated act. An act when a person deliberately can do something but chooses to refrain from doing so in order to in order to either take in more information about the issue. Wait for an opportunity. Wait for the proper time or moment or occasion etc. Patience is not in action. Patience is action. And sometimes patience is all that we have. But most of the time patience is the best that we have. Notice this here. Sometimes patience is all that we have. We have nothing else we can do about a situation. However, most of the time patience is the best thing that we can exhibit. in most situations. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam taught his companions along these lines. He said, he says a lesson and most of what he says are the lessons that were taught to him by Allah in the Quran. He said calcula being patient and calculating and being very deliberate in the Arabic language is that a person take his time in making decisions, take his time in doing things, take his time in coming to conclusions. He says is good in all things except the acts of the hereafter. Except the acts of the hereafter meaning doing what Allah has clearly obligated fulfilling a command. You don't have to calculate anything. You don't have to consider anything. You don't have to take your time with those things because we know for a fact that those things are good and wherever we can do them, we take what we can get our hands on. However, in all other things, he says, I want to ask the brothers here, , do you guys have any sayings this, , idioms or, , as they say , proverbs in your culture, your respective cultures this, right? take your time or don't rush or look at that. It even rhymes. Huh. Hang on. Hang on. I got to I got to translate these. I'm translating for you now. All right. It says that.

[Arabic recitation]

Brings always brings regret with it. However, in taking a person's time, a person will usually be spared and right, every every delay actually brings with it something positive. And and I hear that one a lot. This is getting closer to my home now, which is that patience is the key to to relief. The key to the relief of a a crisis. Another one that I grew up with was You guys heard that before? Alhamd she used to tell me this all the time as a young man growing up you know ready to come out of my skin to do all kind to do everything right rushing into everything a bull in a china cabinet she used to tell me that haste comes from aan you know what's interesting about that that's actually a narration an actual wording of the narration is that patience and taking a person's time being calculated is from Allah and haste is from a shaan. This is in all affairs except for the affairs of the hereafter. All right. the reason I ask this is because especially those of us who come from Muslim countries, right? Grow up as the 10th or 15th generation of Muslims wherever we come from. Many things that we practice in our religion eventually work their way and become part of our culture to the point that even our it shapes our idioms, it shapes our proverbs, it shapes our sayings, it shapes the way that we see the world. And one of those is that a person not be rushing in making decisions, in doing things and saying things, right? The wisdom that Allah imparts upon the prophet sallall.aii wasallam here is he says be patient in what they say. They're saying things saying he's crazy saying he's a liar. They're saying he's being taught these things. He's being fed these things. He's being used by people that are not from here with malicious intentions and he's too naive to see that he's being used. Right? These are the things that he's that they're saying about our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And they're saying it at night, they're saying it in the day, they're whispering, right? And a person has the drive or has the the impulse to go out there and defend himself, right? To go out there and, you know, maybe if I just say the right thing at the right time in the right way and maybe if I just pour my heart out enough, I can change these people with my words. It's not how the world works. And that's not part of the plan. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells him what to do with his time and then so that that question comes up. I'm in here praying they're out there doing god knows what. I need to get ahead of this thing. No. Don't think that when you're praying that you're wasting time or you're allowing your enemies to get the upper hand. That's not what's happening. Because patience is not in action. While they operate mainly on emotion and impulse, you operate on revelation and control. That's not inaction. That is action. That is the best of actions. And that should be your default action in any situation. Your default in any situation is pump the brakes. Let us see what's going on here before we make any decisions. Right? And this is the behavior of those who have learned wisdom. They're able to control those emotions. For instance, anger. We all get angry. All of us. And the thing about anger is when you're angry, it affects your logic, but you don't know that it's affecting your logic. The things you say to yourself, it sounds really co correct and it sounds convincing and logical, but even you would disagree with yourself when you're angry. Therefore, what do we do when these emotions present themselves? anger, despair, pain, depression. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam prohibited that a judge make a judgment while he is very angry. That he make a judgment while he is very happy. We're speaking about a Muslim judge, not someone who's trying to reinvent the wheel. We're speaking about a a man who has spent the better part of a century studying the words of Allah and his messenger. The judgments of Allah and his messenger. Even he is not to make a judgment while he is angry. That the prophet sallall.ai am a judge is not to come to a conclusion while he is angry. And so when a person finds himself overwhelmed with a particular emotion, those emotions that come and overwhelm us, they're a monster that comes around to be fed. You can't feed it when it comes. It tells you, "If you just feed me, I'll leave you alone." It won't. It won't. If you let that monster out of the cage, imagine with me you're sitting in a room full of cages. These cages have the most terrible, ravenous monsters in them. One monster is anger. The other monster is desire. The other monster is joy. The other monster is elation. The other monster is depression. The other monster is overwhelming sadness. Right? When you walk into the room, they all beg you and sweet talk you to just let me out for a few minutes. Just let me stretch my legs a little bit. So, let me come out and just stretch my legs. I promise I won't hurt you. I promise. Right. If you open that cage and if you let it come out, it will not go back in that cage until it has destroyed everything it can get its hands on. And which of those monsters is the most deadly? It is the monster of anger, the monster of the tongue. Those are the the monsters that will strain constantly to get out of their cages. And if you allow it out of its cage, it will run rampant and cause you grief. Therefore, a person is to exhibit restraint. But there is a difference between restraint and arrogance. There is a difference between restraint and a person not speaking when they need to, not doing what they need to do when it is time to do it. Right? for example, let's say you harm another person and you say, "Well, you know, patience is good in all things. Let me be patient before I make things right." Have them in aan. This is from We heard that the prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam said right set in the books straight and balancing what you're owed and what you owe. This is something that is an immediate thing. It is part of the acts of the hereafter. And so in this verse the prophet sallallah.aii Wasallam is being given words of reinforcement from Allah that don't worry that while you're here in your home or in the night awake praying and in the daytime having to take your portion of sleep that somehow your enemies are going to get the upper hand on you. No, rather do not for a moment think that patience and inaction are the same thing. This is a situation where patience is called for when you exhibit your patience, he says, and abandon them, boycott them in the best of ways. You know what's interesting about this word here, right? He's telling him to boycott them. Who is that? Abu Jah and Abu and Khalif and leave them. Leave their gathering. Don't even go there. Stay away from their gatherings when they're all together that, a pack of ravenous wolves. Leave them alone. And he tells him, This means that boycotting someone, abandoning someone, this is actually a tool, isn't it? It's not actually a tool. It's a weapon. It's a weapon. Is a weapon and an instrument of war. It's used to inflict pain on other people. Where is he commanded to direct this weapon? To the enemies of Allah. Not to the Muslim. Not to the Muslim. You know what's interesting about this is that Muslims will boycott each other and they think that if this person is out of sight and out of mind, I don't have to deal with them. How silly. How silly of you to think that there is any amount of distance that you can travel away from someone to not meet them in the court of Allah on the day of judgment. ish. Allah says that when he resurrects them on the day of judgment, it will be like they the dunya was only a few hours of a day and they will all pick up exactly where they left off in the court of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. that guy that you held a grudge against your brother, your Muslim brother, and even worse if he's Muslim and your real physical brother, that's even worse, right? That you spent 30, 40, 50 years not talking to them. Don't think that that person went away. They didn't go away. Even if they die, even if they're dead and in the ground, they didn't go away. As soon as you're both resurrected, you will pick up exactly where you left off and now you have to deal with it. Al is a weapon. And if a person uses that weapon against his Muslim brother, that is a major sin. We all know the narration. Right? It is not permissible for a Muslim to boycott, abandon his brother for more than three days. Now, what's interesting is another narration that is maybe a little less familiar to us. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam said, Sephacade. Have we heard this narration before? A Muslim who boycots his brother for a year or more is of the same level of sinfulness as if he spilled his blood, as if he killed him. You will come on the day of judgment having to answer for the murder of your brother. What kind of murder? The the metaphorical the the the the proverbial murder of him, right? What is the point of keeping his body alive when you have plunged your sharpest dagger into his heart? And so this is a weapon. It is nothing else. Don't conflate it with being anything else. It is a weapon. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam says, "Whoever carries arms, takes up weapons against us, he is not one of us.

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Alhamdulillah.