A Challenge : The Mountain Pass

Bismillah. As I was driving to school today, I put in Sheikh's Muhammads Eman Rush CD : The Mountian Pass and was listening to his khutbah. There were so many points, Mashallah that he brought up and I would like to share some with yall.

Excerpts from the Khutbah:
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In Surah Balad, Allah teaches us about the mountain pass that must be climbed in our lives. And this way of climbing that I've just described is very close to how Allah wants us to overcome this mountain pass - hard and strong! But wait ... what mountain pass?

Allah explains it: [(The mountain pass) is the freeing of a slave / Or feeding on a day of severe hunger / An orphan of near relationship / Or a needy person (grasping the dirt) in misery / And then being among those who believed and advised one another to Sabr (patience) and advised one another to Rahmah (compassion) / Those are the companions of the right] Surah Balad 90/11-18

...When a husband beats his wife, mercilessly, does she run to the Muslims or does she run to the Kuffar?

Dear brothers and sisters, caring about our society is not meant to be a public relations stunt. It is from the CORE of our Deen, a core message that is repeated all throughout the Qur'an. And it is the way and example of our Prophet - sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam - an example which he left for us to emulate.

Consider the following verses:

In surah Haaqah, Allah couples the disbelief of the Kaafir with the fact that he does not encourage the feeding of the poor: [Indeed, he did not used to believe in Allah, the Most Great / Nor did he encourage the feeding of the poor.] verses 33,34

In Surah Mudaththir, we are given an interview with the wretched of hellfire. Listen to the reason they arrived there: [They said, "We were not of those who prayed / Nor did we used to feed the poor."] verses 44,45

In Surah Fajr, Allah describes the ungrateful arrogant:[Nay, you do not honor the orphan / And you do not encourage one another to feed the poor.]verses 17,18.

Our respected father, Shaykh Ja'far Shaykh Idrees, was once commenting on these verses. He mentioned that these verses were all revealed in Makkah and then he asked, "How many Muslims were in Makkah at that time? Only handfuls of them. These verses were not directed to Muslims taking care of Muslims exclusively. They were directed to Muslims taking responsibility for the entire society!"

"Allah will never disgrace you. You unite your relatives and you bear the burden of the weak (of our society). You help the poor and the needy, you are honorable to all guests and you bear harm in the path of truthfulness."

This was his character, sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam, before and after becoming a Messenger of Allah.

What have we sincerely done as a collective community for these Americans? I'm not speaking of workshop lectures here and there. What have we done to help them and to show them - in action, not in empty words - the mercy that Islam teaches us?

Rasul Allah - sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam - would go out to the corners of the city and visit the elderly 'aunties'. Someone may ask, 'why did he not delegate Sahaabah to go on his behalf? Surely he was much too busy to set aside time for these visits.'

The answer is that these visits to the elderly and weak were much more valuable then dozens of conferences and lectures. They meant much more then pamphlets and booklets. This mercy allowed knowledge of Allah to enter hearts that would not have found it in khutbahs.

How far have we strayed from this Sunnah of Al-Mustafa - sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam?

In the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, it is narrated that a man came to Allah's Messenger and complained of a heavy heart. Allah's Messenger - sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam - said to him, "Wipe the head of the orphan and feed the poor."

Feed the hungry so that Allah will feed us on a day when we will be in most need of His mercy - subhaanahu wa ta'ala.

Today I am going to make a bold proposal to those who are involved in Da'wah. It is a proposal that we remodel our Dawah efforts to sincerely - for the sake of Allah - help the society that we live in. Let us help the hungry, help the homeless, help the downtrodden, help the illiterate, help the abused, and help the scared ... help each and everyone that we can.

If we truly adopt this Da'wah mission, a mission which Islam requires of us, I pray to Allah - ta'ala - that we will have much more success in bringing Islam to the American people then ever before.

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Now you read this. Here's the challenge I pose to YOU. I guess for the Houston folks first. What can we do as a community to take on what Allah has asked us to do, what the Prophet - sal Allahu wa alayhi wasallam - did? I dont know if there are programs out there that help the needy if there are, Alhumdullilah, but if not let us do our best to fix that problem. If there are let us be the ones who are helping out making it better, Inshallah. If not let us start something that this city needs. Is there anyone who would like to take this challenge on? I know everyone is busy with school, work and family, but let us take a little of the time we have to implement this Sunnah. If I said anything wrong or offended anyone, please do forgive me. I will be waiting to hear from yall now .

MashAllah it was a benificial lecture...

JazakAllahukhairan akhi for sharing your notes.

[RimzaAW]

AsSallamu Alaykum wa RahmatuAllahi wa Barakatuhu,

Houston Sadaqah (name being changed soon Insha-Allah), is an organization which does several of the things that were mentioned above. In order to get involved, please e-mail houstonsadaqah (at) gmail (dot) com

A distribution is set up for the first week of June, and there are other projects later on in the summer, Insha-Allah.

WaAlaykum AsSallam

[Fouzia Usman/Quest]

Jazakum Allah Khair for sharing this excellent notes. May Allah reward you for that and also for starting this beneficial thread. Ameen.
I am not part of Houston, but still I would like to suggest something.

I hope everybody has heard about Ummah Clinic in LA which was started by UCLA medical muslim students. Alhamdulilah! It has grown so much now.

I always used to wonder why we dont have such clinics thru out USA. MashaAllah! This country is blessed by many many many muslim doctors anywhere you go. Everybody knows that till this moment a major issue in this country is health care availability .

If all our muslim doctors come together and spend just few hours/few $$$ ,they can not only help muslim community but also non muslim community.

Is there any dawah better than this ? (Watch this excellent youtube link how Ummah Clinic is represented in the parliament by a non muslim)

Well you might think, "Oh I am neither a doctor nor a med student, so I cant do much on this". True. But if you make it as a project and create a nice plan and meet any doctors in the masjid and ask them if they wanted to help out and to start with just few hours of free consultation once in a week in the masjid, it will be an excellent start insha Allah.

This is just a thought of mine. Pls add more inputs insha Allah.