The Strangers (ghuraba) we need to follow

The ayah’s of the Holy Qur’an contain some specific advices and lead you to some particular characteristics, which Allah gave to the people who followed the prophet in the very beginning of this deen. These were the pieces of advice that prepared these people, that took these people from the “zulumat ellanor”, that took these people from the “jahiliyah ellal Islam”, that took them from “suuh ellal khaer” and that took them from being criminals, thieves, thugs, tyrants to become mohsineen, that is the righteous. Over a period of time, Allah gave them these commandments, these advise and put in there midst the best of human beings so if they wanted to know what Allah meant by this or that, what Allah wanted or commanded, they only had to follow rasoolullah, that is the Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh). And whenever Allah sent or revealed an ayah, they never tried to figure it out on there own.

For example, when Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) asked one day; Muaz ibn jabal was riding on the camel of Prophet (Pbuh ) very close to him and the Prophet (Pbuh) asked him “Ya Muaz, hal tadri haq-u-lahu allal ibaad”? Oh Muad do you know what is the Haq, the right of Allah upon his servants? And Muaz (ra) was very close to Rasulallah and he could have answered this question because he was a man of imaan and a man of taqwa, he was a righteous and pious man; but his answer to Prophet (Pbuh) was “Allah wa rasoolahu alam” “Allah and his messenger know better”. The companions of Prophet (Pbuh) when they were asked such a question, they never thought to them selves that they could answer the question better than the Prophet (Pbuh), so they always returned it back to him to see what he will say. So he told him that the “The haq of Allah upon his Ibaad, is “La tushriku billahi shai aa” that they do not associate partners with Allah, that is with true almighty God”. Then he asked him another question, he said “Ya Muaz, Hal tadri haqul ibaad alalllah? “Oh Muaz, do you know the Haq, the right of servants upon Allah? Muaz again answered “Allah wa rasoolahu alam“ “Allah and his messenger know better”. And then Prophet (Pbuh) let the camel go a little further and he let Muaz think for a while and then he said “Izafaalu Allah la azzibahum“ “If they do this, that is, “La tushriku billahi shai aa”, that they do not associate any partners with Allah, then Allah will not punish them”.

The messenger of Allah said the best of my nation, the cream of my nation whom if you follow, there is no doubt of what they understood, there is no doubt of what they practice, there is no doubt of what they saw and there is no doubt of there commitment; he asked “who are they?” “Qarni, my generation, and summa yalunahum summa yalunahum and then he stopped. In another narration, he said “and after them will come another people, different people upon them will be some doubt they will do things that was not ordered or they would not do things that were ordered“. But about those three generations, the companions of Prophet (Pbuh), the tabayeen. and the at –ba –tabayeen; those men and women who were around Prophet (Pbuh), who supported, who followed, who listened, who obeyed, who  sacrificed for the messenger of Allah, they were the strangers. In a hadith reported by Muslim 2:175-176 and Ibn Maajah 2: 320, Reported by Abu Hurayrah (ra), The Prophet (Pbuh) said “Sa yao’odu li ghariban, Fatuba lighuraba Fatuba lighuraba Fatuba lighuraba” meaning “This religion, this deen, in the begining it came as a stranger (ghuraba), and it will return again as a stranger; so welcome glad tidings to the strangers (ghuraba)”.

Gharib is a person who is away from his hometown, family, relatives and friends. A gharib Muslim is a Muslim who lives in a society in which he has no friends or loved ones to understand him or to support him. He is not recognized or known in the town. He is a stranger (ghuraba). We are the strangers. Initially, Islam was strange in Makkah, the disbelievers did not know of it. The deen was strange, even the language was strange although it was the language of the Arabs but they did not know that even though they were Arabs they had not heard of these words. They knew the word zakat, but they did not know it like how Qu’ran describes it. Or for that matter, the ayahs from surah shams they did not hear anything of that kind. Even Umar bin khattab, who was a very great poet he did not understand what it meant. He asked others, how is Muhammad saying that, where is he getting that from because the language which Allah send to him was strange. This was kalam ullah and not kalam-un nas.

Prophet Muhammad, who was well known to his people he was known as Al-Ameen , Saddiq-ul- masdooq, they knew he was Muhammed ibn Abdullah and they knew he was al amen and they knew he was truthful. But when Allah sent him as a Prophet (Pbuh) and messenger and commissioned him with this Quran and ordered them to follow him and to listen to this word and to give up the idols and to obey Allah and worship Allah, they thought he was telling some thing strange and he said to them by there names, Oh Quraish! You know me if I told you that there was a army behind this mountain coming here to destroy you, would you believe me? They said yes we will believe you. Then he said “I am the messenger of Allah and you have the obligation to obey me”! Their response was that he is saying some thing strange. And so the Prophet (Pbuh) who was respected, who was trusted, who was loved, who was known by his people, even his uncles; that day he became a stranger (ghuraba). So those people who followed his message after him one by one, they were also well known whether they were slaves or free, whether they were rich or poor, whether they were black or white, whether they were Arab or non Arab, they were known, every one knew them. But one by one, when they choose to follow the Prophet (Pbuh), they too became strangers (ghuraba).

No one was more respected in Makah than Abubakr siddique. Every one knew him. But he too became a stranger. When Omar ibn khattab, the patriot among the arabs, the patriot among the Quraish, the man who was willing to kill Prophet (Pbuh) just because of his feeling of khaomiyah, he was willing to kill. But on that day, when he went to kill Prophet (Pbuh) he too became a stranger that very day. And we go on to the strangers, these are the people whom, we Muslims, the strangers today, we have to connect our selves to those strangers (ghuraba), We have to connect our children to those strangers, because it is these strangers that established this deen, they are the ones who forged their path for this deen, they are the ones who made sacrifice for this deen, they are the ones who Allah is speaking about when he says in the Quran in Surah Bayinath “These are the people “razialllahu anhum Wa razu’an”. We Muslims because we are reading the news paper, because we are educated, because we are living in the west, because we are Arabs or Pakistani or Somali or Sudanai or Moroccan or Indian, because we Muslims have our own roots, we have our own families, our own love, because we watch the television and cinema and we go to schools and our neighbors and we live in the west and we live in Australia and UK and USA and India; we develop a love, a following, a support for another group of people and they are not the strangers, they are the strangers to the deen they are not the strangers of the deen.

The Messenger of Allah said there are three characteristic who so ever has them, has tasted halawatul imaan. The first is that a person loves Allah and his Messenger more than anybody else. So Allah mentions to us after a special incident that took place. He says in Surah  Mujadilah 58: 22 “You will not find a people who believe in Allah and the Last Day having affection for those who oppose Allah and His Messenger, even if they were their fathers or their sons or their brothers or their kindred.”. So what is the asbabun nusul of this ayah. One day son of Abu bakar siddique RA, he came to his father after he became a Muslim and he said him “O father, I saw you at the battle field and I could have killed you but because of my love and respect for you, I could not do it”. And Abu Bakar siddique, he said to his son, “O my son, wallahi I never saw you, but if I had seen you, I would have killed you very easily for Allah because at that time you are among the kufar.” After this incident, Allah mentions this ayah for the love that Abu Bakar showed for Allah. This is the difference.

Today many Muslims here, you have relatives who are selling haram, doing haram, who live in your house and don’t pray and you don’t care, you say assalamalaikum how are you brother and you smile with them and drink coffee with them and smoke with them and listen to music and play dominos with them and you pass by them and greet as you greet any body else; But you don’t give them any Nasiha or advice. This is because you don’t have any love in your heart for Allah and his messenger. As the prophet mentioned the first Quality of imaan is to love Allah and his messenger more than anyone else. And so if we  love Allah and his messenger and if some one lives in our house and doesn’t pray and the are  Muslims; Every single day we will argue with them, we will talk to them, we will be at times even very rough with them, if they are our sons we will grab him as the Prophet (Pbuh) mentions in a hadith that if your son reaches the age of 7,  make him pray and when he reaches age of ten and if  he is lazy you beat him up a little bit, because that amount of admonishment will get fear of his father so if he develops fear of his father, maybe by the time he reaches the age of 14, 15, or 16; he will surely develop a fear of Allah. But if he has no fear of Allah when he is ten and he doesn’t fear his father, chances are that when he is big enough 13 .14 or 16,if his father grabs him he will fight with him because now he doesn’t fear or respect his father.

So now what’s happened to the Muslim community? They are living with there fathers and they are selling alcohol and drugs and there fathers are accepting that money because they cannot say nothing because they also lost there imaan. So Allah he warned us he said “Fear Allah and look what you sent forward for yourselves or tomorrow, that your sons that your daughters, you sent them and they come back and they forgot about Allah and you forgot about Allah, you did not forget his name, they did not forgot his name, they know Allah, they will say Allah and you will say Allah but you forgot the ahkam of Allah and they forgot the ahkam of Allah and because they forgot the ahkam of Allah, Allah caused them to forget there own legacy, there own identity, there own deen and so they become trash. You know and you see the trash all over the city, Muslim trash, Muslim Trash, they are Muslims, still there is the flame of Islam in them but they are sleeping, eating in the trash and they are bringing the trash back home, you know who they are and if some of them are here today, Alhamdulillah better for you to be here than any where else. The Prophet (Pbuh) said to one of his companion Abu zar “Ittakilla haisu ma kuntum, watbi asaiyyiah bil hasanah, tamhuha, wa khaliqeennas bi khulukhin hasanin”. “If you do a bad deed, then follow it with a good one that will wipe it out.” In case of doing haram or doing kabaer you have to make Taw bah, in case of saghaeer you have to do some good action like sadqa or fasting.

Dear Brothers and sisters, these strangers (ghuraba) are Abubakar siddique, Umar bin khattab, osman bin affwan, Ali bin abu talib, musab bin omer, Salaman alfarsi. Abu dhar gheefari, Bilal ibn rabba, Abdulllah ibn omar, sad ibn abiwaqas, Suhaib bin abiwaqas, Muad ibn jabal these are the names we should teach our children, they should be the heroes of our children not Micheal Jackson not Micheal Jordan, not the foot ball players or the basket ball players or the musicians which they are listening to every day or bollywood and Hollywood actors and actresses. Al Meaghdad  ibn omer, Said ibn amaar, Hamza ibn mutalib Abdullah ibn Masood, Hudaifa ibn jamal, Ammar ibn yassir, Obaida ibn asamad.

Subhanallah, if you and I took the time to read about just fifty of the companions of the Prophet (SAWS) the tabayeen ,at-batabayeen, just read about them and we learned just one or two line about each of them and we shut the television off for two or three hours a day and in place of that we just play a tape of them every day. We give to our children best food and we give them some money and we put it on the table put the money or food or nice gift on the table and tell them, after you have finished listening to this take that money and that gift and I have some more gifts which I will give you. Do that with them everyday for ninety days, that money you spent on them, the good food that you give them and the gift you give them; is an investment because now they will listen for ninety days, your children masahallah will have  a reference in mind. But if you did not make that investment, I will guarantee you something, some one else has given them some gifts and some one else has offered them good food and some one else will offer them lot of money for some other heroes. (You can read about 70 such heroes on this website here: http://peacepropagation.com/category/biographies)

We have to make the investment in the strangers (ghuraba). Osman bin masood  , Zaid bin haris ,Jaffar bin abi talib look at these people, tell your sons about Osama ibn zaid the sixteen year old boy whom the Prophet (Pbuh) said “There is none better than him except his father, so he appointed him as the ammer of a group, when Abu bakar siddique was living , Omar was living , Osman was living , Ali ibn abu talib was living and other companions of Prophet (Pbuh) were living, they were three times his age; but the Prophet (Pbuh) took that young boy and made him the commander of the army because he thought there was no one fit for job except his father ,and who was his father, Zaid bin haris, who had memorized the Quran directly from the Prophet (Pbuh). We need to tell them who Jaffar ibn abutalib was, the commander of the first muhajjirun,  those who went to habash, the prophet  hand picked him and sent them, those people to be their commander, to be their Amir and it was jaffar who spoke to the najashi, touched his heart and later on it was Jaffar who convinced him to become a Muslim, the king of a country and we know that he  became a muslim because when the prophet came to know that he died, he stood and he made salat ul janaza for him.

O Muslims! Khalid ibn walid, Ghaiyse ibn saad ibn  obaida .omaer ibn wahab. Abuzhaar ibn darda, talaha ibn obaidullah ,tell them about abu zhaar al ghefari that man Muhammad PBUH) said “Abu zar will walk alone and Abu zaar will die alone and Abu zaar will be raised on the day of judgment  alone not because he did something wrong but because Allah distinguished him that way”. Abu zaar, who was the worst of criminals, who used to lay down traps in different places to rob people,who was known and his people were known; but yet when Abuzar became a Muslim, he was the person, the  prophet said  “The believers are like mines of gold and silver, the best of them in the Jahiliyah will become the best of them in the day of Islam if they believe, if they believe and look at abu zaar when he became a Muslim. He said “ya rasullah I will go today to the haram and I will tell them la iiiaha illal lah Muhammad rasullah”. The prophet said “don’t say that they will beat you”. He said “I don’t care and I will do it and Abu zaar went to the haram and he faced them and he told them by their names, “I am Abu zaar and I say la illah ha illlal lah Muhammad rasulllah and asked who doesn’t like it?” and they jumped on him and beat him till they knocked him down and when he got his conscious he stood again and declared shada and they beat him up and knocked him down and he continued to do that until the prophet commanded Abu zaar to leave Makah because he knew they will kill him and abu zaar left and next time he came back, he came back with his entire tribe, all of them saying la illlaha illallah Muhammad rasulllah. This was abu zaar.

On the other hands look at us Muslims, we are Muslims for 20 yrs or 50 yrs old and we have not given a single shahada in the place where we live, we did not give one, because we say my family is Muslim, my father is Muslim, my grand father is Muslim, my great great grand father is a Muslim, Mashallah, but you don’t say it to the kafir who you work with and you don’t say it to the kafir you go to school with and you don’t say it to the non Muslim who enters your store with which you do business, you don’t say it to your neighbor who is a Non Muslim what Abu zaar said that is “la  illlaha illallah Muhammad rasulllah”, you don’t share the treasure of Islam with anyone.

The prophet said “There are three things who so ever has them, has tasted the sweetness of faith. First is that person loves Allah and his messenger more than all else. Second is that he/she loves a person only for the sake of Allah, he/she loves a person not because he is my country man, not because he is my family, not because I know him very well not because we hang together, not because we watch T.V together, not because we do business together, no we love a person because what? For the sake of Allah and you hate a person for, the sake of Allah. And third, you hate going back to kufur as you hate being driven in to a fire.

So when a Muslim thinks of the act of kufr (Read What is Kufr), because here it doesn’t mean to become a kafir but it means to do an act of kufr, so when the act of kufur, when you think of it, you think the fire is next to you and some one is pushing you in to it then, you know you have imaan. But if the idea of fawahish comes in to your mind and nothing comes inside of it you don’t have imaan. If you lied to earn money, the prophet never lied to earn money. If you steal from a kafir simply because he is a kafir any ways, then you don’t have Imaan. Because the prophet never stole from the kafir because if it was legitimate to steal from the kafir, he would have taken the money that he was holding for the Quraish, it was the money which the people of Quraish had given the prophet money,  trust and even they were hating him and his message, even though they were fighting him against his message, even though they were killing and torturing his followers and even though they had plotted to come to his house and kill him, not one time did they come to him and say, give me back my money. He was holding the money for them and the reason why he left Ali ibn Abi Talib in his bed, when they came they saw that Ali(R.A) could give them the money which he was holding, which belong to them. So if it was lawful for rasullah to take some money from the kafirs because they were kafirs, that was a good time to take, it but he did not because he was al ameen.

O Muslims! We must be willing and courageous to be strangers (ghuraba), being a stranger will result in change. People will change, simply because you start to practice, you begin to pronounce, you begin to establish your self around them as a Muslim. If you work for some Non Muslim and your name is Abdul rab; you tell him your name is Robbie. You open a store, your name is Haaris and you say my name is harry because you want to have a good relationship with them and you feel that being Muslim, you cannot have good relation with them, hence you hide your identity. Then one day you wake up, and you tell them, No! My name is not harry, my name is haaris so in fact my whole name is Muhammad haaris therefore don’t call me harry any more! They would say “No! we will call you harry we don’t care otherwise, we go to another store.” so you say “go to another store, I don’t care”. This happens because you woke up and you want to respect Allah,  you want to respect Muhammad, you want to respect this deen so there will be change in the attitude. If you work with a non Muslim and because you really don’t want to disturb them and you don’t want to create any problems with them, you don’t pray Zuhur, you don’t pray Asar,  you don’t pray Jummah. And when you do this, they will say “Abdullah is a moderate Muslim, I don’t know why the rest of the Muslims are not like Abdullah, the others are extreme, they grow their beard long, they wear these cloths and they got to go on Friday and they got to be praying on the job, these are extremist; but Abdullah he is a good guy he doesn’t do all that, he is a moderate Muslim; that’s why we like him”.

Now when one day Allah gives Abdullah Hidayah, He wakes up. And when at 12:30 every body goes for lunch, they say “come abdullah, join us for lunch”, he would reply “No I am going up stairs for prayer”. They say “what’s wrong with you abdullah!” Friday comes and abdullah leaves at 11:00 am, they say “were are you going?”. He replies “I am going for jummah”. And he says Allah said “ya ayuhal lazeena amanu noori as salatu alal jummah fasal zikarullah” and he translates the meaning to them. He further says “if you want to fire me, Fire me if you want me, I will do night shift, I will do mid-night shift, I will work on holidays, I will work Saturdays, I will work Sundays, I will work double shifts, any time; But jummah is Allah’s time, See you!”.

A couple of months later he grows a full beard, and they start telling “O abdullah, what’s happened to you, you are looking like Osama bin laden, you are looking like these Qaeda guys, what’s gone in to you, you have become extremist!”. Abdullah replies “I did not become extremist, I haven’t joined any group like that, this is the sunnah of prophet if you don’t like it I don’t care”. May be they will respect Abdullah even more going forward. Until he does that, he doesn’t realize that he is thinking that may be if he just goes around with them they will like it. No! they will not be satisfied with you abdullahs, muhammads or any other Muslims, until you leave this deen. And even when you leave this deen, they will still not be satisfied with you and they will say “I know you changed your religion but you are still a Muslim”. They will still not respect you. So the only respect we should look for is the respect of Allah. You will lose some money, you will lose some association, you will lose some people and even some family members will start telling you “why are you dressing like that, why are you getting up early in the morning disturbing us?”. And when we ask our own Muslims to bring themselves on the path of Allah, they say “it is not your business”. And this is what we have become. We have become big people, we have money, we got big name, we got big money, we got big house, we got big family, we also got big kebriya and we don’t have to come to the masjid, you see, we can just stay home. The only thing we have not become is a Muslim.

We must be willing and courageous to be strangers because those who are at the masjid at fajr and those who pray and leave there houses for isha at night to get the benefit of the 27 ajar, they are strangers too. We must be willing to be strangers and when we become a stranger, it will affect our livelihood because people misunderstand you and it will some times make you doubt you’re self. Why am I losing my friends? how come my wife wants a divorce, she is telling me I have become an extremist.

There is this case of a sister, she doesn’t cover herself she wears lipstick on the street, she wears perfume and she walks with the men and her husband likes her that way. And one day she wakes up and she wears niqab, she put her full cloths on, no more lipstick, no more perfume, she is not talking to the men, she is not working any more because she understands that she needs to keep her hayah, to keep her self she stays at home and her husband tells her “what happened to you”? she says “yesterday I read an ayah from the Quran, I read a hadith from the prophet and it made me cry to think about my religion and I am not doing it  no more”. So he says “Then I don’t want you, you have become an extreme!” so now she has become a stranger! Alhamdulilah if he leaves her, we ask Allah to give her another stranger to give her some one else who is also a stranger because strangers belong with strangers. It will challenge your Imaan will challenge your commitment, the issue of deen it distinguishes father to son, it distinguishes mother to daughter, the deen came to distinguish individuals from family, to separate families from the tribes and to separate tribes from the nation on the basis of what? Deen.  The prophet said “alaeku  wadeen wa sunnatu khulfa wa rasheeden wa mehdaen wadu ilahim bin nawajir”, hold on to them your teeth not front teeth but back teeth. Belief, commitment, sacrifice, knowledge, obedience fear of Allah, consistency, courage, steadfastness, loyalty,  respect, love for each other, brotherhood, discipline, patience, support and cooperation! These are the characteristics of strangers (ghuraba).

If we listen to the ayahs whom Allah gave to them (strangers), all of these ayahs were calling them to these characteristics. Imaan, sacrifice, knowledge ,obedience, love for each other, the prophet said “the strangers have love for each other”. So Allah says in one of the hadith us qudassi that those who love each other for my sake this day I will give them shade, the day there will be no shade except my shade. Oh Muslims brothers and sisters you and I we should want to be strangers, we want to be a part of the return, the strangers and we should realize that no matter what the non Muslims do , no matter what they do to blow out and extinguish the light of Allah by blowing with there mouths meaning there television, there cinema, there news paper,there books, there radio, whatever they do against Islam, the lies, the misconception what ever they do to wipe out Islam; they will never wipe Islam because Allah will perfect his light and he will perfect it through the strangers.

We pray that Allah make you and I strangers , we pray that Allah give our sons and daughters love for the strangers (ghuraba). We ask Allah that our sons and daughters who have taken of there cloths and go out in the jahiliyah world, who are selling drugs,  who are in the clubs, who have went astray, we pray Allah that they will come back to become strangers. When the Muslims in Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chechnya, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and when the Muslims where ever they are, when they come out for prayers in the masjid as strangers then Allah will give them back there earth, there kuwa back to them,  because Islam then will be back. You should not ask for the reward of the strangers if you are not acting like the strangers and as long as the kufaar whom you associate at your jobs, in your neighborhood as soon as they like you, it should alert you as to why they like you. If the like you because you follow Islam properly, then well and good. If not, then there are things to change in yourself.

O Muslims! One of the most powerful thing that Allah gave strangers that made us Muslims one of the most powerful thing Allah gave to the strangers was and is the issue of Dawah (illal lah). You and I have the power in our mouth, we have the power in our chest, we have the power in our mind, we have more power more than any other bomb in this entire world. Yes the kufaar, they have neutron bomb, they have the hydrogen bomb, they have the atom bomb, they got this bomb and that bomb and they will blow every thing on this earth  but Allah did not give them the bomb that will allow the heart to explode but Allah gave us that bomb to us. It is the D bomb, the dawah bomb, it is the bomb that will not explode any buildings, it is the bomb that brakes no bones, it’s the bomb that doesn’t harm any one, rather it is the bomb that penetrates minds and hearts and causes people to explode inside and become strangers. You and I carry the bomb with us every day but we are talking about another bomb, we are reacting to the other bomb because we are fearing some one else beside the Allah. Allah has told us that the Izaath is for him Maan yata shahu wa uzilu manta yashaoo it belongs to Allah.

O Muslims make dua, ask Allah, come back to the deen and your respect will come to you, come back to the deen and all your power will come back to you, ask Allah and he will answer you. Teach your children about the strangers and you yourself learn about them!

– by Imran Ali (President – PPC)