Walking the Path With the Prophet Ahead
Learning from the Prophet's Death: Finding Strength in His Example
Summary
Sh. Ali Mashhour delivers a reflective lecture on the death of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and its profound spiritual lessons for Muslims. He emphasizes the importance of reading Islamic narrations with contemplation and depth rather than superficial scanning, contrasting the timeless nature of Quranic revelation with human literature. Sh. Ali Mashhour uses the companions' experience at the Prophet's deathbed—their fear, uncertainty, and loss of their living guide—as a teaching moment about facing life's hardships. He references a hadith from Sunan Ibn Majah where the Prophet instructs believers to draw strength from remembering his tribulations, noting that the Prophet endured every type of human suffering: loss of children, poverty, hunger, exile, illness, and fear.
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.
Give me this thing here. Let me try something. That's good. Let's give it a shot. Does this look fabulous? Okay, well, we're We aim to please. Help them up. Yes, yes. Very old man.
[Silence]
And my bad, yesterday morning, we mentioned the narration with the author here, which is one of the narrations regarding the death of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And of course, we mentioned this narration in the vein of fiqh and trying to learn from it exactly what of it applies to us in this particular context. However, these narrations sometimes we learn them, we read them, but because of the nature of literacy in our time, there's different types of reading, right? There's reading that is more like scanning. There's reading that is more like skimming. There's reading that is studious and and purely intellectual. There's reading which is deep, and then there's reading which is reflective and a reading of ponderance and a reading of cont- contemplation, right? And all of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam's narrations deserve that level of reading. And the beauty of revelation and why it is so different than anything else on Earth. And this is something that I think we all feel and it's not just because we're Muslim or just because we expect but if you notice that the majority of or all of the words of human beings, no matter how poetic, no matter how profound, no matter how deep and insightful, even the words of the greatest of the scholars of Islam, even the words of the companions themselves, they have a limit to them where you learn what's in them, you've derived what they have to give, and you can't really take them beyond that. And once you reach that threshold, the novelty starts to wear off, right? And you want to move on to something else. Except for the Quran. The scholars describe it and the companions describe it before as that it does not lose its novelty or its edge, no matter how much you read it or recite it. As a matter of fact, it gains in novelty the more you read it and recite it. We We read a narration this. I mean, can we really imagine the weight of Here is the messenger of Allah, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. No prophet, no messenger will ever come again. Revelation, the revelation between the heavens and the earth is going to cease with the death of this man. And hundreds of thousands of souls at the same time, simultaneously, they are hanging in the balance here. Could you imagine the weight or responsibility that the companions felt that this man is dying and now we have to somehow carry on this legacy. How can we possibly carry this on even if there's a million of us? How? How can we be certain that we're going to make the right choices? How can we be certain we're going to steer this ship straight and true? The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is in the throes of death. And you're watching someone that whatever issue would occur, whatever problem you would have, you would go to him. You would ask him. You would consult him. A living, breathing piece of revelation, right? And whenever you feel whenever the companions felt beat down or or or low or depressed, they would sit with him or sometimes only merely see his face and that fire would reignite, right? That fire would would grow back brighter than ever. Even in combat, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who's no slouch in combat. He's known as Layth al-Hurub wa Faris Quraysh, right? He says that when we would be in battle and we could not penetrate the enemies ranks, we would open our ranks for the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam to come forward. And he would penetrate and we would walk behind him in the battle, right? This is what we do today with tanks. That's how tanks are used in modern warfare. You make the tank go forward, you hide behind it. This is how infantry works. And so, we see that this great man, the greatest human being that's ever walked the earth, he's now lying there. He's he is fainting. He's waking up and he's saying, "Did the people pray?" "No, they're waiting for you." "Bring me a.
[Arabic recitation]
Water to bathe and he would bathe himself and then he would lose consciousness again and then he would wake up. He would say, "Did the people pray?" "No, they're waiting for you. We just had this conversation." "Bring me a basin of water." And until finally he realizes that he cannot get up, he cannot go pray and he sends for Abu Bakr al-Siddiq to lead the salah. What a terrifying time to be a terrifying time to be alive, a terrifying time to be to bear witness, right? But these are also very important things for us to learn. Because in Sunan ibn Majah the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam, he essentially tells us, "Don't worry about me. Draw strength from my legacy." He says, He says, "Whoever has a tragedy, a crisis, a difficulty that he or she is facing, remember your great tragedy with me." Meaning the loss of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam. What could be more tragic? Another explanation or interpretation of this narration is.
[Silence]
For you to think of that guy.
[Arabic recitation]
Whoever is afflicted with a hardship, then he is to remember my hardship. Meaning, there's nothing that any of us is going to have happen to him. Nothing. Except that the prophet Sallalahu Alayhi Wasallam has endured a portion of that exact problem. death of a loved one, death of a child. Our prophet Sallalahu Alayhi Wasallam had seven deaths of his children in his lifetime. Seven. He buried seven children. Sallalahu Alayhi Wasallam. And the eighth he was told would be the first of his companions to die after him. Fatima Radiyallahu Anha, the youngest and his most beloved. Death of a spouse. poverty. he had times when the companions came to him when they were digging the trench and they were so hungry that they showed him that they were tying stones to their stomach. I don't think any of us has really ever been that hungry to where you are so hungry that your belly expands with gases and it it is painful. You have to physically press on it in order to numb the pain to an extent. They have rocks tied to their stomachs and he lifts his garments and he's got two rocks tied to his stomach. Sallalahu Alayhi Wasallam. He didn't tell anybody about it. He didn't want to show them because if he showed them, they would strain themselves to try to find a solution for that. Right? exiled. He was exiled from his own land. Lonely, he was pushed out of his own homeland for no other reason other than delivering Allah's message, right? Etc. etc. Illness, poverty, fear. Imagine how afraid he was in the streets of Mecca. So afraid that many of the greatest companions were afraid to ever recite the Quran even slightly aloud in their own house for fear that someone from the mushrikin would hear them and you know, physically either murder them or hurt them or hurt their family, etc. This is how much fear they had. As a matter of fact, one companion, he said, "Allah sent down the verse, "Walana baluwannakum bishai'in min al-khawf." We are going to test you all with a with a portion of fear." And some of the younger companions, they thought to themselves, you know, what what could possibly How bad could it be? He said, "Before we knew it, we were too afraid to pray alone behind locked doors. That's how scared we were in Mecca, right? There's nothing you or I are going to endure that is going to be equivalent, let alone beyond that. And that is a huge huge relief for us because no matter what happens, no matter where we find ourselves along the path, when we look up, we can find the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam on the path right right in front of us, a step ahead. No matter how dark things get or how lonely or how difficult, we just have to look up and there he is, right there in front of us, walking in front of it. He can't walk for us. We don't have the son of God that's going to come and be crucified and take our sins. No, no, no. We have to walk the path. No one's going to walk it for you. However, he'll walk right ahead of you, right there. Ahead of you. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will take your hand and guide you down that path. And so, this is why the scholars traditionally, and we'll end with this, they have traditionally specified books just about the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam's death. An-Nasa'i, for instance, he wrote a treatise only compiling narrations regarding his death and things that happened before, things that happened after, things that happened during. Why? Not just so we can tug on heartstrings and sit around and cry about it. But this is incredibly important information for us to have in order to walk this path cuz this path is not an easy path. When you're young, you look at the path, you think, "Oh, you know, I could do this. What's the worst that could happen?" Trust me, it's going to get bad. It's going to get dark. It's going to get lonely. Your your faith will be tested and you will be taken not to the breaking point. Almost almost going to break you. You're not going to get broken cuz Allah's not trying to break you. But almost and you're going to wish you were broken. But he's given you everything that you need in order to get through that journey. Everything. And not only that, but he sent a messenger to do it all before you do it, so that you and I both have that you know, that we we both have that role model for us. And so, it's very important for us to you know, when we read these in in a book setting, we're trying to learn from them, but it's also very important for us to take these things on your own and really contemplate. When you read about the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam being in Ghar Thawr, running from the mushrikeen, you need to force yourself to be there with him. Look around, feel how he felt when Musa alayhi salaam was told throw your staff down. Now, take that monstrous snake, reach out and grab it. You need to be there with Musa when he takes it, right? If you read the Quran this, nothing can stop you. It is only Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala. Sky's the limit. As a matter of fact, what sky? Our Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wasallam didn't even have a sky that could contain him. Right? The skies themselves opened up and he went to just under and before the throne of Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala.
[Silence]
[Arabic recitation]
Allah I mean Well I know I can mean I don't know I mean.