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Salam alaikum wr wb
I wanna start by making a request
in the spirit of the subject that we are dealing with
At the end of my speech some of you might feel
obligated... even out of a sense of what you've been
doing already to applaud
I don't think I'll benefit much from your applaud
even though I appreciate the gesture
but I think I'll appreciate more if you just make du'a
for me & my family
So that would be a favor that you would do for me
and up for all of the noble scholars that are here
that have presented... and if you've benefited from them
then absolutely make du'a for them and also make du'a
for their families
I have very little to add
to what's already been said
in regards to this awesome subject
but I do want to divide my conversation with you into
two parts
The first of them is
something about my personal life
something that has to do with du'a
that I wanna share with you and it's not really
as out of a spirit of boasting or
you know exposing... but really I think it's something
that many of you probably can relate to
and maybe find even encouragement in
and that I wanna share with you
my favorite du'a in the Qur'an
Insha'Allahu ta'ala... and those are the only two things
that I wanna do with you guys today
I was about almost 20 yrs of age and I
"absolutely" "head over heels" fell in love...
I went into a masjid
in Ramadan
And I heard a remarkable scholar explain the Qur'an
I had not read the Qur'an except
in traslation before that day
and I heard him speak about the Qur'an
in the form of almost a conversation
And you know the Qur'an is Allah azzawajal speaking
to us directly
And it felt like that for me for the first time
And he was doing this every night of Ramadan
for about 4 hrs. every night
to go through the entire Qur'an in this fashion
And I attended this entire series with him because
I was hooked completely
I was mesmerized by this Book
I was completely 'overwhelmed' that
I didn't have any clue..no idea..what this Book was
that was always there
and I always thought I have read something from it
or some translation or something
I have an idea what it says
I guess I know what it has to say
But when I heard what it "really" had to say
for the first time
I felt that there's like this person in... there's this
Book that I love so much
and I have no relationship with it
And of course the barriers were many
including the knowledge of it
but of course even the language
I had no idea what the Arabic language was
Not a clue!
The only thing that I could do at that time
you know what it was?
It's to make du'a :)
So I just asked Allah something very simple
I didn't even know how to ask it in Arabic or anything
I didn't know any duas by heart
So I just asked Allah: "O Allah! I love Your Book"
"I just love Your Book"
And I'd love nothing more but to learn it
and to teach it!
Just make it easy for me to learn it
And make it easy for me to teach it
Because I love Your Book
That's all I asked
And I swear to you by Allah!
I am a terrible student of anything
"terrible"
I mean specially languages
I am absolutely horrendous
I was not a good student in college
I used to hate studying
You know if anybody
If I ever had sleep problems
the easiest way for me to catch some sleep was
to open up a text book
10 seconds later...
I'll have 12-13 hours of solid sleep
Because... nothing will knock me out like studying
But this teacher who was presenting the Qur'an
also happened to be teaching an Arabic class
And when I attended his class
Wallahi! it was like knots opening up
I couldn't stop studying
I couldn't put the books down
I couldn't stop thinking about it
I was doing like conjugations in my sleep
Going through grammar in my sleep
I was studying it in the train
I was doing it at work, at school, all the time!
I just became obsessed with it
And wallahi! what people around me found so difficult
Allah made it so easy for me
And I knew something had just happened
Allah has given me a gift in response to my du'a
And wallahi! I tell you... to this day
if I try to study anything else I have a hard time
but when I study Qur'an... I can spend hours & hours
and hours... and it's easy for me
Walhamdulillah! It's a gift of Allah to me
But this is something that
I have personally experienced
in terms of the "power of du'a"
Just the power of du'a
SubhanAllah! I don't mean to say this
as a means of boasting but look
I have... Walhamdulillah! I have taught
Arabic courses all over the country
Maybe...close to now 15 thousand students
SubhanAllah!
And not any of them have benefited anything
except from the gift that Allah has given
And if they're able to continue that
that entire benefit starts from one du'a
As far as I am concerned
SubhanAllah! (Glory be to Allah)
So that was a little bit about my personal story
But what I wanna really share with you is
my favorite du'a in the Qur'an
And I think it's a very relevant du'a for pretty much
all of us here in the audience
And to set the stage for this du'a
I'm sure that some of you have heard me talk about
this du'a before but I personally don't care
I'm gonna repeat it
Because (Qur'an verses)=> remind... reminder has benefit
So I hope to benefit myself & all of you
with this reminder
There's a powerful expression in the Qur'an
It's captured in two words
Those two words are "Qurrata A'ayun"
The "Coolness of the Eyes"
A simple translation will yield=>coolness of the eyes
And it's mentioned in a number of occassions and it's
also found in a Hadith of the messenger s.a.w.
Before I tell you how it's used in the sacred text
I want to tell you how the ancient Arabs used to
use this figure of speech
this expression
It's really a figure of speech
So we can't really understand it literally
It means something more
In the Arab idiom, there were two expressions
without getting too technical with you guys
There's the "eyes becoming cool"
and the "eyes becoming warm"
That's the first thing I would like you to know
The Arabs had two figures of speech
The eyes becoming cool & the eyes becoming warm
When somebody is shedding tears of sorrow
They're suffering the worst kind of fate
They're in deep depression & sadness
and calamity
Then when you would look at them
the Arab would say at least that
his eyes have become warm
One of the worst curses you can curse upon someone
in the Arabic language in ancient Arabic
"may Allah make his eyes warm" means...
may he suffer the worst kinds of sorrows in his life
The exact opposite is what?
The eyes becoming cool
For your sorrows... for your sadness... for your pains
to be removed completely
and for you to feel peace and tranquility
and joy like nothing else
And I'll give you a simple example of
coolness & warmth of the eyes
before I continue
Imagine you're at the airport.. right
And there are two pairs
There's a pair of a mother & a son and
another mother & another son
But this mother is saying farewell to her son
he's flying off somewhere
And the other mother is greeting her son
who flew-in from somewhere
And both of the mothers are crying
But one of them... her eyes are cool
And the other mother's... the eyes are warm
One is shedding tears of joy as she sees her son
after many years
She is crying too... but these are eyes becoming cool
But the other is letting go of her son
These are what?
The eyes becoming warm
You understand the difference
Right?
A few pieces of context before I go further
The poet in Arabia says
that the eyes of my tribe will remain warm
And he's actually an assassin also
Ya! poets are assassins...
It's kind of an Arab thing I guess but
So he's waiting on a sand dune
waiting to kill the tribe leader
that has offended his tribe
And he makes poetry in the meantime
I guess he gotta lot of time
So he says: "my tribe's eyes will remain warm...
untill my dagger isn't warm with his blood
In other words, when I kill this guy
then my tribe's eyes will become cool
The rage, the frustration, the humiliation they feel
will only disappear upon this guy's death
That's what I'm here to do
to cool the eyes of my tribe
You understand?
So it's a means of relieving frustration and anger
and ill-feelings
That's how the... in which context it's used
But then there's a final context that I wanna share
with you in Arabic literature
where this expression is found
It's very beautiful actually
The Arabs used to travel in the desert
and there is sandstorm
And in a sandstorm the Arab used to wrap
his face up
Because obviously your face is being pounded
with sand
Now the camel on which he is riding
Allah created the camel in a magnificent fashion
The eyelids of the camel actually trap sand
and drop them
It doesn't even have to blink
It's got a screen in front of his eyes that captures
sand and drops it
We don't have that... you know
that "screen system" in our eyes
But the camel does
But now the rider
he can't afford to cover his eyes... can he?
Because if he covers his eyes... what's the problem?
he doesn't know where he's going
So he has to keep his eyes exposed
and so finally he finds a cave
he finds some refuge
and he says interestingly: "my eyes have finally
become [what]... cool"
In other words, in literature we find the precedent
of the "eyes becoming cool" equated with --
finding refuge from a storm
finding refuge from a storm
Now I have set the stage for you for
what this expression stands for
but I still haven't told you my favorite du'a
Though I recited it in the beginning
This is at the conclusion of the 25th surah of the Qur'an
Allah azzawajal says [translation]:
HE tells us to say
"Those who say --
'Our Master, our Lord,
gift us, grant us,
[you know in Qur'an we find *atinaa*]
give us, to give a grand gift
gift us, an unexpected gift
a beautiful gift
This is a gift you are asking ALLAH to give you
This prepositional phrase is brought earlier
especially for us
We are asking for a special favor to ALLAH
And what is this favor that we are asking Allah azzawajal?
'Grant us from our spouses, and [not just our children]
[which is 'Aulad]
future generations of us'
In other words, you are not even asking for your
immediate children
But your lineage from you know
for future generations to come
'grant us from all of them -- coolness of eyes'
make our eyes cool by means of our spouses
and by means of our children
And I say this is my favorite du'a for a reason
One, I am married and I do have children
and a spouse
But two... all of us... all of us
have to appreciate the power of this du'a
Because of the crisis of the world today
The world's fundamental institution of family
is under attack
Most of the people here, even Muslims
are not immune from this problem
In many of our homes, the storm that I
said when you find coolness of the eyes
you find refuge from the storm
This storm is not "outside" the house
The storm is "inside" the house!
And you have to get away from home to get away
from the yelling, and the screaming,
and the name-calling, and the insults,
and the depression,
and the sadness,
and the friction between husband and wife,
and parent and children.
Our homes are broken
Brother is not talking to brother
Parents are not talking to children
How many of all the Shuyukh I can bet you..
I can... I can... almost guarantee you
All of the speakers that have come to this conference
Some mother... some father...
some husband... some wife...
has come upto them and said:
'I have got this problem'
'I can't talk to my kid'
'he yells at me'
'we can't talk'
'he's doing these things that...
I don't know how to stop'
'my husband'... 'my wife'...
SubhanAllah!
This is a crisis inside the home
And what better du'a to ask
The exact opposite you know
the family has become a place of sorrow,
of depression, of sadness, of anger, of rage,
People feel like they wanna escape it
and here ALLAH tells us to ask so perfectly!
So eloquently!
That the home should become the place of refuge
It's like the outside world is a storm
And you suffer on the outside and your refuge...
your safehaven... is those doors in your home
It's your spouse... it's your children
When you see them
your worries disappear
But for most of us when you see them
your worries begin!
It's the exact opposite
But I want to give you a further appreciation of
just this remarkable beautiful phrase
and how it's used in the Qur'an
Just I wanna explain this feeling to you
that Allah wants us to have
with our families
There's some more elaboration of those feelings
You know some of the most
The strongest emotions that exist in
that exist in human existence
The strongest emotions that I can think of
is the emotion a mother feels for her child
It is the strongest bond
Many of you in the audience are married
And when you are first married you are
obsessed with the husband
you are obsessed with the wife
'you are so awesome!'
'no you are awesome!'
'how perfect Allah makes the pairs'
'I can't believe you are my husband'
You are like all weird in the beginning
yeah!
People look at you funny
you know... the guy has got a goofy smile on his face
all the time you know
And the husband's name is mentioned
and she gets shy
Ten years go by
the husband's name is mentioned
[uhhh]
right... but anyway
before that happens
when you have your first child
The husbands will realize this
You are talking to your wife about something
the baby is in the other room
You know the husband doesn't
even have the ears for this one
the baby just does a little [ehhh]
That's it... that's all it does
And guess what happens to the mother
That conversation is over
He was in the middle of telling her how his day went
and it was a really important meeting
and... what.. where did you go! what happened!
spider-sense goes berserk
and you go in the other room
and you pick up the child
Nothing comes between [who?]
Mother and child
Nothing!
nothing comes between them
It is the strongest bond
Now I am talking to the mothers in the audience
for a second
Can you imagine
the state of Musa's (a.s.) mother's heart?
She puts her baby in the water
You can't even leave your child outside in the hall
You start calling your husband
'where is he?' 'where is he?' 'have you seen him'
'where is he at?'
You can't stop
You are 30 min late picking your child up from school
What happens to you, you know
I know, because I have been late picking up
my kids from school before
So I know what my wife goes through
You didn't make it to the airport in time
Right...
You haven't seen your kids
You know even mothers in the home
when they can't see the child --
'where did you go?' 'Abdul Karim' 'Abdul Karim'
'Where are you?'
'I am in the bathroom mom relax!'
'I'm here'
But there's this desperation
Can you imagine her feelings
she's putting her child in what is
apparently certain death
Because what's behind is even more graphic
So she's in this desperate situation
Does she know what happened to the child?
She doesn't
Can you imagine not knowing
what's happening to your child?
After they are... you know
that they are in a dangerous situation
Can you even imagine this?
SubhanAllah!
And on the other hand
I want to give you 2 women scenarios
On the other hand... and I'll promise I'll try to finish
within five minutes
There's another women who is in a storm
In the same story
She's married to a really bad guy
What's his name?
Oh yeah, Fir'awn (Pharaoh)
And you know some times women are in a
difficult domestic situation
And usually in a society like ours
you can call the domestic hotline
you can call the cops if there's abuse
Now we don't know if there's physical abuse
but the Qur'an certainly indicates
psychological abuse
So much so, that she has to ask for rescue, right
She's in this terrible marriage
and she can't even call the cops
Why not?
Because he (fir'awn) owns the cops
She can't complain to the government
Because he is the government
She has got nowhere to turn
So the only place she can turn to is who?
Allah!
She is in the middle of this storm
and she can't find a refuge
But when this baby washes up
you know what she says?
Now think about this...
She picks up the child and she says...
'he will be the coolness of my eyes for me'
'he will be my refuge from the storm'
'he will be my only source of joy because...
I am in the middle of sadness'
She's with this child...
this childless women...
is with this child now and...
all of a sudden all her problems disappear
That's her first reaction to this child
SubhanAllah!
And on a separate note she said...
I won't discuss with you
She separated herself from fir'awn even in that
'he will be the coolness of my eye for me
and even for you'
Even to fir'awn
But she didn't say 'for us'
'coz she doesn't even associate herself with him
SubhanAllah!
radhiAllahu anha (may Allah be pleased with her)
Now, one more thing...
One last thing...
Just about this coolness of the eyes
And why this du'a is so beautiful,
and powerful, and eloquent.
You know when a mother has lost her child
which in this case she has
And she is re-united with her child
can you imagine the feeling of a mother
whose child was lost
and then she was re-united with it
Can you imagine the tears of happiness?
Can you imagine that emotion?
Now understand how ALLAH describes that emotion
ALLAH tells his favor to Musa a.s.
HE says...
[translation] So WE returned you to your mother
so her eyes could become cool
so her eyes...
ALLAH is describing the most amazing joy!
The most amazing relief!
The most indescribable feeling!
in the heart of a mother
And what expression does HE use?
'The coolness of the eyes'
to depict that powerfully
And so we ask ALLAH
'Give us from our spouses, and our children...
coolness of eyes'
Thats what we ask ALLAH
When somebody said I wanna get married
Go further, not just get married
'I wanna get married to a spouse that will...
cool my eyes.'
'That I will be the coolness of their eyes
and they will be the coolness of mine.'
And ALLAH azzawajal took the du'a further
and then we understand
why talk about future generations
And I'll conclude with this:
'And make us leaders over those who are
cautious, conscious, fearful, pious, righteous
those who are fearful before ALLAH
And you know what makes you realize
It makes you realize your relationships
right now are not just about you
You are setting a precedent in your family
for generations to come
So when you are not acting
as good husbands, and good wives
and good parents, and good children
what are your future generations gonna be doing
and who is gonna be answerable
for that negative trend that was started by you
Who is gonna be answerable for that?
So it's an intelligent du'a that we should find
coolness of the eyes not only in our immediate family
but the future generations should be people
that are righteous too
Because when we are raised on Judgement Day
we are imam (leader) over the entire family
whether they were messed up or not
So we better ask for the kinds of people
if they are underneath us (in lineage)
not those who are dragging us down
on Judgement Day
But those who are elevating us
And we beg ALLAH that HE give all of us
those kinds of families
So the biggest favor that you can do to me
and the scholars here
because none of us are immune from this
This du'a is something you and I
Everyone... every Muslim
And this is even something that
non-muslims need today
They have no peace in their families
So I beg all of you sincerely
that we all make this sincere du'a to ALLAH
-yes I know the time is up-
-0 minutes... aah 0 minutes really nice-
Rabbana Hablana min azwaajina wadhurriy-yatina,
qurrata 'ayioni wa-jalna lil-muttaqeena Imaama
I sincerely pray that ALLAH azzawajal gives all of us
and makes from our spouses, and our children
those that are the coolness of our eyes
and that HE makes us an imam, a leader over those
that are pious & righteous
May ALLAH forgive all of our shortcomings
accept all of our du'a, and make the means
of our forgiveness easy upon us.
This is at the end of Suratul Furqan (25:74)
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Make Du'a for me too brothers & sisters!