Your Body Goes But Your Heart Stays Home
Truthfulness and Sincerity in Commitment: The Prophet's Battle Preparation
Summary
This lecture discusses an authentic hadith collected by both Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim about one of the Israelite prophets (identified by scholars as Yahya) preparing his people for battle. The prophet establishes strict criteria for participation, excluding those with undisclosed worldly commitments: newly married men awaiting consummation, those engaged in incomplete building projects, and those with livestock during breeding season. The core message emphasizes truthfulness and sincerity—the requirement that one's heart, intentions, and external actions must be aligned. The prophet wanted only fully committed warriors whose hearts were already on the battlefield, not those whose bodies came while their hearts remained at home. This hadith illustrates the principle that true soldiers of faith must be completely devoted, unlike those who merely give their bodies while their true interests lie elsewhere.
Note: This transcript was generated using YouTube's automatic captioning, with AI-assisted cleanup for readability. It may contain inaccuracies due to background noise, audio quality, or limitations of the transcription software — particularly during Arabic recitation. Listener discretion is advised; please refer to the original video for precise wording.
This narration here, this narration has many aspects of it which bolster and work towards The point of this chapter and the chapter theme, the theme of the chapter is truthfulness, sincerity, tress. What is inside matches what is outside. What is said matches what is believed. This here, this narration has many themes to it and it has many points and many lessons in it. However, many aspects of it point to this theme and that is the effect of truthfulness and trness which is why mentions it. This narration is an authentic narration. Actually, it's of the highest levels of authenticity. It's collected by both Bkari and Muslim and it is about one of the prophets of Benny is after MS and Harunat. most of the scholars who explain this narration identify this prophet as Yah. Yun is the person who is mentioned in the Quran that Benu is came to when they requested a king be appointed so that they could go for jihad in Bakar and in the story of and Jalut. And so this narration here speaks about one of these battles of or this prophet of ben is that our prophet sallall.aii wasallam tells us of the prophet sallall.aii Wasallam says that one of the prophets went was preparing his people to take them to battle to lead them into battle. And he said to his people, "No man amongst you who has married a woman who has not consummated his marriage with her yet and is still in anticipation of consummating his marriage with her. If that is your description, then you are not to accompany us in this battle." He says, "And no man amongst you who has built any buildings or structures and has not completed the roof on said structures and seeing these building ventures to their ends and they are still in the process of doing that. None, none of you who is of such description is to accompany us. Nor anyone who has livestock. And you know, there's a season for livestock. A season when the animals are in heat and it's a mating season. And then there is a season when these newborns start to be born. That's a very exciting season for people who you know are are in that business. And it's a very big thing. I don't know if if anyone here has been exposed to that, but when I was a child, we had, you know, people in our family had livestock and so forth. that when it was coming close to the time when the livestock was going to be born, we would go and sleep actually in the pen with the the you know the cows or the sheep or whatever it is that we're waiting on to be there at a moment's notice. Our very beduin form of being on call for the birthing of these animals. It's a very important thing. if you're not there, things could happen. You could lose a lot of money. It could be the difference between a fruitful season and not so fruitful. And so the point is is that he says that any of you who has married a woman and has is still anticipating consummation, any of you who is in the midst of building and has not completed and finished those ventures, any of you who has livestock and is waiting for the delivery of this these these newborns. What is he saying? Anyone who is going to go with me to battle and his heart is going to be back here back home while he just gives me his body. Don't bother coming. We only want men who are as the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam described our prophet sallall.aii wasallam. He described them as the platoon of death. those men who are going anticipating martyrdom and are going to be very disappointed if they have to come back home. Those are the men that we want with us. We don't want people that are going to come with us, take up our resources, clutter our midst, and break up our gatherings with their cowardice, and their hearts and their true intentions and tress is back home. Their body is just with us as if they're doing us a favor. If that is the if that is the case, please stay back. Not one person who is in that situation is to come with me. Right? And we're always seeing this as the portrayal of the good soldiers, you know, the the the you know, the soldier has a little picture of Mary Sue and this is my gal, you know, and I'm I'm going back home and and we're going to go eat cheeseburgers together. This is not a soldier. A soldier who accompanies prophets. They are as Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala said.
[Silence]
So these men who accompanied the prophets into battle, they are the best of men. They are the men who are going to paradise. They see themselves on the on the stoop of the gates of paradise. And if they can't get in this time to paradise, they are going to be very disappointed. Their heart is already ahead of us on the battlefield. many of us probably have heard would send in his letters on occasion to his enemies before he would arrive with the mighty with the mighty armies of Islam that I'm coming to you with men who love death as much as you all love life. Those are the kinds of men that are to accompany me in this battle. And so this is in order to thin out the fodder to thin out what we call the cannon fodder. We don't need them in our midst in this battlefield. And this is not just the situation with this prophet and messenger. the companions in the battles of as well made similar requests to their generals. We will discuss that tomorrow inshallah subhanahu wa'ta'ala. This is a lengthy narration. We want to take our time with it. So it'll probably take a day or two to complete a day or two more subala and.