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com/category/sunnah-2/ Posted in CII talks, Essentials of Deen, Love, Sunnah, Taqwa, Tasawwuf Essentials, Tazkya Talks, Zuhad with tags Celebrating Rabbi-ul-awwal, Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed, sunnah, zuhad on February 22, 2011 by Islamic Spirituality Download Lecture mp3 [33:21] [37:180-182]

Sunnah of Nabi-e-karim

Many Muslims remember RasoolAllah more in this month of Rabbi-ul-awwal. The reality is that every single day of our live is a day for us to remember Mustafa ; is a day for us to celebrate and commemorate and give thanks to Allah for Blessing us with him. From the moment we have had iman and till the moment we live as his ummati; every single moment we should celebrate that identity and reflect how we can become a better ummati. Allah has used such a beautiful word in the Quran-e-karim to define the Prophet . We would think that sayingnabi was enough but so that people understand what is the concept of nabbuwat; Allah used the word: It is very important to understand this because many Muslims today have become distant from the Prophet s Sunnah; distance from Hadith Part of the reason is because they dont view the Prophet to be an . They have developed their own understanding of Prophethood; of nabuwwat which is different from the Quranic definition of the word . So, this word means that Prophet is an ideal; a model; an example that everybody should emulate and imitate that is called !Imitate is a word used to follow

zahir. Emulate means to pattern yourself after anyone. So, we have to follow both the zahir and the batin of Sayyidina RasoolAllah saw; that would mean to follow his . That would mean that when celebrating his birth, we should actually pause and think that should we reflect on the tragedy that is our life for the real tragedy is that we as his ummatis have failed to follow the of our nabi . We as his followers have failed to follow the life and the role model of our nabi-e-karim - and thats what demands reflection, and thats what demands our focus. This is the great legacy that the Sahaba-e-karam ra had left us that they were the greatest followers of Nabi-e-karim . They were the living embodiments of his teachings. And we have to make ourselves as much a living embodiment of his teachings as the Sahaba-e-karaam were. Many people have a misunderstanding about the Sunnah which is that they think that the Sunnah of the Prophet is something that is extra, all they have to do is follow the Quran follow the faraidh, wajibaat i.e the mandatory and obliogatory acts of worship but they dont need to follow the sunnah of RasoolAllahi or they feel that the Sunnah is something for the Ullema and the Awliya. I would suggest that ever since this ummah began thinking along those lines that following the sunnah is not for every member of the ummah; whereas following fhe sunnah is for some special group called The Ullema and Awliya ever since then this ummah has become downtrodden and oppressed and an outcast from the world because we have left the Sunnah of the Prophet . Ever since the ummah left that: families are broken, the hearts of the wives are broken; the hearts of the parents are broken; the hearts of the children are broken; the hearts of the teachers are broken; the hearts of the students are broken. Every failure can be traced back to the sunnah of RasoolAllah because Allah has placed every blessing every benefit in following the Sunnah. So, just because every single blessing and benefit lies in following the sunnah, every single failure in life can be connected and traced somehow to the failure in following the sunnah. There is no failure that a Muslim can have on earth [not a failure that is part of the Will of Allah ] but there is no failure that a muslim earns unless it is by leaving some aspect of the sunnah of nabi-e-karim . Nowadays, people are always focusing and talking about their success that how they can succeed, prosper, excel..etc, but they have forgotten that for a Muslim the key to all of these things lies in following the Sunnah of Prophet . We should know that even the small Sunnahs, even the minute, mundane and trivial Sunnahs [which are not words that can be used to described the Sunnah, but this is how people refer to them] even these Sunnahs have oceans of Qurb towards Allah ; oceans of ilm & marifah within them, oceans of mehboobiat of Allah

 - and thats why this is a time to revive the Sunnah of Nabi-e-karim . And, this is what Nabi-e-karim predicted that: The Deen of Islam will enter this world as a stranger and it will leave this world as a stranger And, one of the aspects of the Deen of Islam that has become a stranger is the Sunnah. RasoolAllah mentions in another hadith that: A person who revives even a single Sunnah, will be raised as 70 martyrs on the Day of Judgment In Canada, recently there was a conference happening on reviving the Islamic Spirit and everybody had their own definition of what was meant by the Islamic Spirit and it is tragedic that we think that we can intellectually or philosophically identify what the Spirit of Islam is when Allah in the Quran-e-karim has revealed for us clearly what that spirit is and the Spirit of Islam is the Sunnah of RasoolAllah . And so, what we really need is reviving the Sunnah concept or the Sunnah outlook whether that is the Sunnah of Marriage; or it is the Sunnah of interpersonal relations; or the Sunnah of Ibadah; or the Sunnah tawakkul; or the Sunnah love for Allah ; or even the Sunnah of knowing people well that RasoolAllah knew the Sahaba-e-karam ra very well and specially those from whom he took special khidmat-e-deen from he assigned them tasks that were best suited to them. He knew that Ubai ibn-e-kaab ra was best suited for qiraat & tillawat; that Abu huraira ra was best suited to be among the ashaab-e-suffah; that Muad ibn-e-jabal ra was best suited to be sent to yemen as a faqih so this is another aspect of the Sunnah: Teacher-Student relationship so to revive the Sunnah of teacher student relationship that was there between RasoolAllah and the Sahaba-e-karaam radiallahu taala anhum ajmaeen. We have seen this is many young Muslims, even young pious Muslims, even young Muslims who are Ullema who are budding Ullema, students of knowledge or graduates of knowledge, graduates of dar-ul-ulooms and Madressas, - because they didnt have this Sunnah Student-Teacher relationship with somebody to be their Mentor or their Guide they are not able to do khidmat of the Deen, sometimes they are not not even able to stay on Deen. So, its not just about the Sunnah learning but its also about the Sunnah living, a Sunnah Lifestyle - living the Sunnah Life of Rasool Allah and reviving his mission; his fiqr - his worry was not that people would celebrate his birthday, his mission was not that people would recite poetry on him; his worry was that people give up their nafs, wishes, desires and passions to live a life that is like his and a life according to his teachings that was what he was worried about.

We have to bring that same concern in our heart; in the heart of all of the believers of this Ummah; in the hearts of all the families across the world. Really, this is the time that we should be reflect on the life and teachings of RasoolAllah . Even on this program, many times, we have talks on the Sunnah love of Prophet , the beauty of the Prophet , how the Prophet was the beloved of Allah , how he was the greatest creation made by Allah all of these things are not just there for us to listen to and enjoy, but they are meant to change our heart. To believe that Allah made him with the most beauty, that He made him His beloved, that He made loving and remembering him part of our Deen, that He has made sending salawat on him part of our Deen the reason Allah did that, so that we would be connected to Prophet , so that we would be emotionally, spiritually motivated to connect ourselves to him, to connect ourselves to his Sunnah. This is the transition that they fail to make. They love talking about Prophet , they love reciting poetry about Prophet , they cry in response to that poetry but when they leave that gathering and go back to their life they dont have the motivation to change their lifestyle, so I would say that any poetry, any gathering in which that motivation to become like Prophet is not instilled in a person, that poetry and gathering is absolutely a waste, is completely wasteful and fruitless. So, what we need to do is to organize gatherings in which people learn about Prophet s life, his beauty, his beloved-ness, and loving him and remembering him all of that topics that push a person to live according to his Sunnah. This is, sometimes, one of the most lacking things in our ummah and it is unfortunate that even many gatherings that are outwardly claimed to have been organized around the love and remembrance of Prophet , they dont impart that feeling inside a persons heart. One of the, perhaps greatest, needs of this age is the Sunnah of Marriage. One of the areas in which Muslims are extremely misguided and they are extremely astray is how to marry one another, and once they are married how to be with one another as husband and wife, how to treat one another, etc all of these things the Muslims are so misguided on and one major reason is because they have left the Sunnah teachings of the Prophet in these matters. This is what I wanted to talk about today i.e. the importance of following the Sunnah teachings of Prophet such that making it ones mission in life to live according to the Sunnah. This has to be practical, realist, pragmatic approach to following the Sunnah; as opposed to just theoretical, spiritual, emotional approach. That practicality entails that a person has to really research, read hadith books, listen to Ullema and identify

actual distinct and discreet Sunnahs that they are not doing in their life and to one by one; step by step, add those Sunnahs to their life whether it is Sunnah dua or the Sunnah way of dressing, whether it is the Sunnah way of eating, whether it is the Sunnah way of talking, whether it is the Sunnah way of walking or whether it is any of the adaab, ikhlaq that Nabi-e-karim had towards others or it is any of the kaifiat; the spiritual states that he had towards Allah one has to practically go and identify them one by one and make a practical program, keep some instructions, keep a tutor and learn how to mold ones self according to that Sunnah of Nabi-e-karim . I will just mention one of these attributes for tonight, called: Zuhad. Zuhad means: To be a person who is not in love with this world a person whose emotional attachments and passions are all based on the aakhirah; are based on Allah ; are based on the relationship with Allah ; are based on their Deen; are based on their Ibadah and therefore because all of their emotions and passions are taken up and occupied by that, they dont have emotion and passion for the material things in this world. So, maybe they will have emotions and passion for their spouse, family, friends and teachers but they wont have any emotions and passions for any of the material things of this world be that car, or homes, or clothing etc. Then, even when they have these things they are not emotionally attached to them. This Sunnah was practiced by the Sahaba so tremendously in their life that even after the Prophet passed away, when the Sahabae-karaam went on to build a vast Islamic Empire, and a lot of treasures of this world fell at their feet they were entirely disinterested in material pursuits. Then, after the time of Sahaba-e-karam ra, that began to decline and this decline happened rapidly. And the Muslims of this world are only and only oppressed because they dont have zuhad. If they didnt have this love for the dunya, if they werent attached their wealth, money, cars etc and instead had zuhad and used that money for the sake of Deen then the Muslims would not be behind in this world. We have fallen into a big trap of the love of this world, this is precisely what RasoolAllah said: hubbu-dunya raasa kulli khateaa - that the love of this world is the source of every single error, every single sin. We should think about it; try to trace back and check our actions, that how are they related to love for this world what was the dunya that I was loving in my heart when I do that sin maybe it was the love for physical beauty, maybe it was the love for fame, maybe it was the love for praise, there is something that is there. So, we should try to find where this love lies in our heart and try to remove it and replace it with the Sunnah attribute of Zuhad: of being in the world but not of this world, making functional use of this world, but having no emotional attachment to the world. And I think this Sunnah must really be implemented by all the Muslims specially those living a comfortable lives in an affluent Society [ like in UK, Canada, Bahrain, South Africa etc] they really need to analyze themselves and track how much love for the world has peeped into their heart and to

practically remove that love and live a Sunnah, nabawi life of Zuhad or of being disengaged or detached of the world. May Allah enable each and every one of us to follow the Sunnah of Nabi-e-karim , may He enable us to practically follow its teachings because only then we can spiritually benefit and emotionally feel the beauty of those teachings. Theres no way a person can generally be on a high of the love for Prophet , when they do not follow the practical aspects of the Sunnah. May Allah Accept this intention from us in this month. Download Lecture mp3 [These are just some highlights derived from the beautiful tazkya talk by Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed db on 17-02-2011]