Lessons from Hatim Al Asamm – 1

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions, and many, many more. And then, my brothers and sisters, one of the great scholars of this religion was a man by the name of Hatim al-Assam, may Allah have mercy on him. Hatim al-Assam, may Allah have mercy on him, was a student of Shaghiq al-Balqhi, may Allah have mercy on him. He was a contemporary of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal and Bishr al-Hafi and others. And he was a great scholar. The reason he was called Assam, which means deaf, his name was Hatim, he was called Hatim al-Assam, Hatim the deaf. The reason he was called Assam was, see the akhlaq of people. See the akhlaq of people. He was a great scholar. So one day, this elderly lady comes to him with some soil. And as she sat down in front of him, she passed wind. So she got very embarrassed, obviously. But what happened, happened. So she started to speak to him and she was saying, yes, share something. And he looked straight at her as if he can't hear anything. She said, sheikh, salam alaikum. Sheikh, salam alaikum. Ah, what did you say? So he pretended to be deaf. So she felt, alhamdulillah, this man is deaf. He did not hear what, the sound I made. Imagine, see the beautiful akhlaq, right? He doesn't want this lady to feel embarrassed. This is taba'i. I mean, sometimes if you sit down, if, you know, wind comes out, what are you going to do? You don't do it deliberately. But it's embarrassing. So to prevent her from feeling embarrassed, he pretended to be deaf. And not only at that time, he pretended and continued to pretend to be deaf until that lady passed away. Ajeeb. So Hathim al-Aswami, he is a wonderful story, inshallah. We'll talk in detail. One of the stories of him, which I, inshallah, will do a whole series of lectures on it, is this question that he came to his, he spent almost 25 or 30 years with his sheikh, Sheikhi al-Balki Rahatul Ali. 25 or 30 years. And then he went away, wherever he went away, to Iraq and something. And then when he came back after a long time, he came to meet his sheikh. And his sheikh asked him, What did you learn from me? What did you learn from me? And he told him, I learned seven things from you. So the sheikh said, you wasted your life because 30 years you spent from me, you learned only seven things. And then he told him those seven things. It's a fantastic story. I won't go into it now. Inshallah, I will do it in due course. But amazing story. So Hathim al-Aswami, there are some beautiful hikayats. There are eight of these. What we call timeless lessons. Lessons which have, there's no time boundary on this. Inshallah, we'll talk about the first one today. He says, I have found that everybody loves somebody. Everyone loves someone. Your wife, children, property, friends, this, this. We love you, name, fame, money, whatever. Everyone loves something. But I know that as soon as this person is laid in the grave, the loved ones leave him. The loved ones part company with him. Consequently, he says, I have cultivated love for good deeds. Consequently, I have cultivated love for good deeds, so that when I die and pass into the grave, my loved ones will also accompany me into the grave, and I will not be alone. And this is the meaning of the Hadith of Rasulullah , where he said that when a man dies, what happens? All his aaman come to a close. Everything leaves him. Except three. And what are those three? One is, what are the Saleh? A child who is pious, who makes dua for him. And number two is Sadaqah Jariyah. Something which he has done, ongoing charity, which continues to benefit him. And third is Ilm-e-Nafiah. Any Ilm, any knowledge that he had, which was beneficial, which he passed on to other people. In another Hadith, the Prophet said, when a man dies, there are things which leave him in the house itself. And there are some who go up to the grave. And then there are some who go into the grave. So he says his wealth and his name and his fame and everything else leaves him as soon as his eyes shut. In the house itself or wherever he dies. And then his relatives and friends will go with him to the graveyard, to the cemetery. And then they put him inside and leave. What goes with him? Is his aaman. Now think about this. There is a wonderful story concerning Isa . And this is from the stories of the Bani Israel. The Isra'iliyat. And our Aqidah about the Isra'iliyat is that we neither deny them nor do we confirm them. And we accept them as a story, as a teaching story, as long as the story is within the boundaries of the Sharia. So if there is something in the story which is against the Sharia, then we don't reject it. But if it is within the Sharia, we accept the story as a teaching story, not as a Hadith or as a Sallam. So this story is mentioned by a man called, Layith bin Abi Sulaim. And he was a follower of some of the students of Ibn Abbas RadhiAllahu Anhu. And so we tell the story only as a story. So it's not a Hadith. Now, the story is that Isa one day was travelling. And with him was, a man came to him as he was leaving. And he came to him and said, Can I accompany you? Can I come with you? I want to be your student. I want to learn from you. He said, Okay. So the man now is walking with Isa . Now they had three loaves of bread. So when they got hungry, they sat down. Isa ate one loaf of bread. This man ate another loaf of bread. Then Isa got up too, drink some water, wash his hands. When he came back, the third loaf of bread also was gone. So Isa said, Where is the third loaf of bread? The man said, I don't know. He said, I don't know. So Isa said, Okay. Then they continued. And as they went for a certain distance, they saw a deer. They saw a female deer and two fawns, two babies. Isa called one of the fawns. The baby came. Isa slaughtered it. They cooked it. They ate some part of it. And then Isa said, Come with us. We will eat. And then Isa said, Come with us. Isa Ginia began to think. Come with us. Now Cano said, Come with us. We have found we found a bird's nest and a bird's nest, which has a beauty and beauty. So he took a piece of the lamee and he put it up. And that's what Isa said. Come with us this day. God is soft. Do not mess with us this day, let Jesus be at thegliophilus. Do not torment us in our should. It is the verb of humility. Don't slander. Allah swt said something to Cano that Heaven sent him and Alla here is précédently. It is profound for him to know the truth about the revelation of Jesus and the revelation of Jesus, you shouldなんです God and think about him. And you'll say, Then Isa started eating a bowl of bread and the itchy. Where is that third loaf of bread? Or where is the man who ate the third loaf of bread? He said, I don't know. Then they continued. They walked for some more time. They came to a river. The river was in flood. Isa took this man's hand and they walked across the water to the other side. When they reached the other side, Isa said to the man, In the name of Allah, in the name of the one who showed you this miracle, where is the third loaf of bread? The man said, I don't know. Then they went some more distance. They came to a place which was like a desert, a lot of sand and so on. So Isa collected some sand. He made a mound of sand. And by the name of Allah, he said, become gold. It became gold. Isa separated that into three piles. He said to the man, One pile is mine. One pile is yours. The third pile belongs to the man who ate the third loaf of bread. Where is that man? He said, I am the man. Of course, Isa knows this. But you know, the point is greed. Now once he sees the gold, he wants two piles. So Isa said, I am saying, take everything. I am not interested in it. Now we part company. I don't want to have my company anymore. And he walked away. So now this fellow is sitting there with three big piles of gold in front of him. Now as he is sitting there and deciding what to do, two robbers turn up. And these robbers see him. They said, here are three piles of gold. This man, let's kill him and take the gold. The man said, look. He was a good negotiator. The man said, look. Why do you need to kill me? There are three piles of gold. There are two of you. So you take, each of you take one pile. I take one pile. All of us can be happy. They said, okay, makes sense. So each of them took their pile of gold. Now they are walking together, traveling somewhere. They get hungry. So they sit under a tree. And this gold is there in front of them. And they say, one of us should go and get some food for all of us. So they draw lots. And this man's turn. So he goes to the market to bring food for them. So when he goes to the market, this guy, his mind, you know the kind of person he must be, right? So when he goes there, he decides, he says, this is a good opportunity. I'm going to get the food. I poisoned the food. I bring it to them, feed them. They will both die. I will get all the gold. So he goes, he takes the food. He brings the food. He poisons the food. And as he's bringing the food, these two, they say, when he comes, kill him. And we can get the gold. Right? So when he comes, they kill him. He's gone. They eat the food. They die. Because the food is also poisoned. Right? And a little while later, Isa is returning and with him are some people and he sees the three piles of gold and the three dead bodies. And he says to them, this is dunya. He says, this is the world. Be warned. Take heed. This is the world. So I remind myself and you, let us focus on what goes with us. Let us focus on our goal with what goes with us. Right? Increase that. Let the maximum go with us. The more that goes with us, alhamdulillah,