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When the War Ends: For Gaza and For You | Khutbah by Dr Omar Suleiman
We've witnessed calls for a ceasefire before, only to be met with broken promises. While we hope the war is over, in moments like these, we’re reminded that true victory begins not with celebration, but with remembrance. Dhikr before shukr, this was the way of the Prophet ﷺ, who taught us to turn to remembrance after relief, anchoring our gratitude in worship rather than emotion.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
We begin by praising Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshiped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad (ﷺ) is His final messenger. We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon him,
the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them, Allahumma Ameen.
Dear brothers and sisters, oftentimes when we talk about the concept of ease and hardship, we speak about it in duality. Inna ma'al usri yusra. You have a period of hardship and then you have a period of ease.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has created us in very complicated ways and in a world in which there is some duality, but there are elements of
sadness and happiness, of victory and defeat, of hardship and ease in every single day that we have in our lives. So in the sense of duality and days coming and days going, tilka al-ayyam
nudawiluha bayna an-nas. Allah Azza wa Jal mentions that the days rotate. One day you are victorious, one day you are defeated in the physical sense, of course. For the Muslims,
that on a communal level, do not feel sad, do not feel defeated. You are the elevated one so long as you retain your belief, what brought you to the battlefield in the first place. That's on a communal level. And on an individual level,
how wonderful is the affair of the believer. Everything is good for the believer because at the end of the day he responds with shukr. He responds with gratitude
when something good happens to him, and he responds with patience when something bad happens to him. And so both at the communal level as well as the individual level,
despite the fact that days come and go and there is victory and there is defeat and there is hardship and ease, it's always good for the believer. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has assured the believer that nothing will go to waste.
But then in our daily lives, things are complicated. For one, you might be having a really good day and then something happens right at the end of the day. And if you were to mark that day, is this a day of hardship or a day of ease?
It's tough. Things might be going really good at work, the best they've ever been, but they're really tough at home, or vice versa. It's complicated. It's not a clean usr and a clear yusr, a clean hardship and a clean ease.
There are elements within your day where Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tests different functions of you to see how you're going to respond to what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave you in that very moment.
Also, Allah Azza wa Jal has put on this earth people that are ahl al-bala. Ahl al-bala. You have ahl al-'afiyah and ahl al-bala.
People that generally live a very easy life and people that generally live a very difficult life. And subhanAllah, every single person, while they have a share of bala and 'afiyah,
they have a share of some ease and some hardship, some test and some being spared. It's not hard for us to think about. Like, what comes to mind when we think, who are ahl al-bala?
Who are the people of bala? The first image that would come to the mind of probably every single person in here is Gaza. Is there any doubt in our minds that they have been tested more than most people?
They're ahl al-bala. And ahl al-'afiyah, no matter what we are going through, for the most part, most people—I don't want to minimize anyone's hardship, and truly there are some people that are tested in ways that only Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala knows,
but we just don't see those tests—most people that live in privilege, that live on this side of the world, that live in safety, walhamdulillah, ahl al-'afiyah. They live a general life of ahl al-'afiyah. Now,
there's also this sense of a pause in hardship. And what do I mean by that? Do you remember how we mocked the very first time Israel announced that they were
accepting a brief pause in the fighting back in January? When at that time Sut al-Gaza, Anas al-Sharif, rahimahullah, the voice of Gaza, took off his helmet and announced the end of the war, the ceasefire in Gaza.
We saw the people walking, but the Zionists kept saying a brief pause. It's a brief pause. They had no intention to actually go to a full ceasefire. And
I think all of us know the types of people that we are dealing with right now, that this is an entity that is full of enmity and that will continue to aggress and transgress against our brothers and sisters. And
the only thing that will hold it back is power that is blessed by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the All-Powerful, the collective action. Wa a'iddu lahum ma istata'tum min quwwah. Collective action of strength. And
everyone has a role to play in that strength of holding this criminal accountable with the blessing and the grace and the power of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
But why am I bringing this up? In our own lives, if you're from ahl al-bala, if you're one of those people who Allah Azza wa Jal tests frequently, you know when you get a break that it's a brief pause.
You know that something else will follow it soon. And subhanAllah, in all of our lives, you get out of one difficulty and then eventually another one's going to come
until ar-rahah. The ultimate relief is when we enter into Jannah. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala allow us to enter into Jannah, Allahumma ameen. And so what's been weighing on my mind and what's been weighing on my heart to just briefly touch for a moment,
you know, this idea of how should we feel right now about our brothers and sisters in Gaza when we know what's coming next? We know that it's not the end. And wallahi, just to see them—
I'll tell you my sentiment, and I'm sure many of you would agree and some of you may not— just to see them laugh and smile and walk the streets in joy, even if we know that there is still deception that is playing in the background,
even if we know that you have an enemy that continues to aggress and transgress, just to see them, wallahi, those same tears of sadness become tears of happiness with them. Like, we feel their pain, we feel their joy.
We follow the pace and the tune. Our hearts follow the pace and the tune of al-Ghazza. And so alhamdulillah, they feel relief right now. We feel relief right now, while also being cautious just as they are cautious.
Do you think any of those people for a moment trust that this is the end? Of course not. They're not silly. Of course not. But at the same time, there's a moment of respite, a moment to breathe.
Alhamdulillah. May Allah Azza wa Jal give them relief and victory in this life and the next, Allahumma ameen. So I want to come to this term
where Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala speaks in the Quran to people that are removed from one trial in anticipation of another trial. And when the genocide first started,
many of us were pulling from lessons of Uhud to deal with the scope of shuhada and how we should feel in an Uhud-like reality. And then as the siege tightens, we thought about Shi'b Abi Talib, the valley of
Abu Talib, where the boycott of Banu Hashim and Banu al-Muttalib took place and starvation took place in the seerah. And it took place and continues to take place against our brothers and sisters. And then maybe we had some thoughts of Khandaq when you see them under siege from all different directions.
And so I asked myself, what are the ayat that Allah Azza wa Jal speaks to in a post-Khandaq reality? Because truthfully speaking, after Khandaq there were still tests that were on the way that Allah Azza wa Jal had in store for our beloved messenger
(ﷺ). It wasn't the end. But it was an opening for that moment. Something gave in that moment, but it wasn't the end. Stuff still happens after Khandaq. They come back from Banu Mustaliq,
amazing victory, but then hadith al-ifk, the slander of our mother Aisha (رضي الله عنها), is right around the corner to test the believers on the inside of Medina. So even when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala speaks about victory, Allah Azza wa Jal
cushions that victory and how He wants you to act in your moment of relief. The point is, there is a sunnah of relief just like there's a sunnah of victory. There's a sunnah of hardship.
There's a sunnah, there's an attitude to have in these moments of relief at the communal level and at the personal level. And it starts with what? Remember.
Remember your memory. Sometimes, by the way, the easiest way to understand something is to look at al-mukhalifah, to look at the opposite of it. You know how we have mocked now the so-called "never again"?
"Never again" has become the biggest mockery in the world in the last two years. What do you mean, "never again"? "Never again, we'll never let this happen again." What are you talking about? All of the firepower, 20 times Hiroshima on Gaza,
everything, a genocide playing on your screens, and you have the nerve to say "never again"? "Never again" for who? What are you remembering? And what are you projecting into the future? Right? So a failure to properly
remember a hardship of the past so that we prevent that hardship in the present and in the future. So that's the hypocrisy of the opposite side. But what about us? How do we remind ourselves
when Allah Azza wa Jal gives us a break? What's the sunnah of how to act in relief? And so I found the verse that Allah Azza wa Jal—that the mufassirun say was
probably the first verse that came down after Surat al-Ahzab, after after the moment of the Khandaq. Ya ayyuha alladhina amanu udhkuru ni'matAllahi 'alaykum idh ja'atkum junud. We'll stop there for a moment. "O you who believe,
remember the blessing of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala when the army came upon you." Notice, Allah Azza wa Jal says, "Remember the blessing." What is the blessing?
Someone might say, "This didn't feel like a blessing. We were starving. We were in the ditch. We were in the trench. The fear that we felt knowing that we had a genocidal army on the other side." The Prophet (ﷺ)
went so long without eating that his stomach was protruding, tying stones to his stomach (ﷺ). There was khiyanah on the inside, treachery on the inside, where the women and the children were attacked on the inside of Medina.
So what is the ni'mah? Your very survival and how Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave you what you needed to survive, and more importantly, allowed you to retain
your faith in the process of all of that. That is the ni'mah. That's the blessing. Udhkuru ni'matAllahi 'alaykum idh ja'atkum junud. Remember when they came upon you, when the army descended upon you. And I want to break this ayah down piece by piece.
So Allah Azza wa Jal says, "Fa arsalna 'alayhim riha." First and foremost, "We set upon them a strong wind." The wind was visible, that there were other conditions
to where we didn't have to fight alone in the trench. And you can let your tadabbur go in all sorts of places with that. SubhanAllah, I was thinking about this part.
Think about all the external conditions that happen, the storm that comes, the wind that comes. Now, in the case of the believers in the seerah, it's a very obvious wind
that comes upon them and that makes it very difficult for them to maintain the siege on the Prophet (ﷺ) and his companions. And it's something that the sahaba can see and they can thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for. But then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says
He also sent soldiers that you never saw. You saw the wind. You saw some of the conditions that were created
to protect you in that moment and to get you through that moment, but some of this stuff you never actually saw happening. There were soldiers that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala sent that you did not see.
But Allah saw what you were doing the whole time. SubhanAllah. You could not see all of the conditions that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala was creating in the moment of your most difficult trial,
but Allah Azza wa Jal saw everything that you were doing, the deeds that you put forth, because the outcomes were never in your hand. The outcome was always in the hand of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
But notice, once again, Allah Azza wa Jal says, "Remember." And there's something very profound that the scholars mentioned in this regard: the word udhkur instead of ushkur,
"remember" instead of "thank." And Imam al-Razi explains this, and I'll paraphrase him, that dhikr, dhikr, to remember, is
asl ash-shukr. It's actually at the root of shukr. It's at the root of gratitude. What does that mean? Let's give a human comparison to this. You meet someone after 20 years and they remind you of a favor that you did to them.
That's gratitude. Like, that's a person who has a long memory for the favors that were done for them. "Hey, thank you. I remember, you know, that phone call that you gave me," something that seemed so small and insignificant. Lakinnaka dhakarta
fashakarta. You remembered, therefore you expressed gratitude. There's a parallel in the sense of sinfulness. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "An-nadamu tawbah.
An-nadamu tawbah. To regret is actual repentance." Meaning, before you utter istighfar, before you say astaghfirullah, the heart of that istighfar is that you felt real regret for the sin that you committed.
Likewise, before you say alhamdulillah, before you thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the heart of that alhamdulillah is remembering the blessings that Allah Azza wa Jal bestowed upon you, thinking about them.
And that's why you can contrast the community of Muhammad (ﷺ) with the community of Bani Israel. "Ya Bani Isra'il, udhkuru ni'matiya allati an'amtu 'alaykum."
"Remember what I did for you, O Bani Israel. You have such short memory. You were saved from Fir'awn. Idh najjaynakum min ali Fir'awn. You were saved from Fir'awn, this brutal tyrant, and then you went and became tyrants right away."
Short memory in remembering the blessings that you had. Now, of course, there are exceptions to that rule. There were prophets and righteous ones from Bani Israel.
But the collective stance was one of forgetting what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala had done to them.
And so there is a "remember who you were, remember how you felt, remember what Allah Azza wa Jal brought you through before you start celebrating." Remember Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Remember what Allah Azza wa Jal had for you on a communal level, and then on an individual level as well. When Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala speaks to our beloved messenger (ﷺ),
"Wa ad-duha, wa al-layli idha saja, ma wadda'aka rabbuka wa ma qala." And you all know the surah, right? Allah Azza wa Jal swears by the daybreak. "Your Lord never forsakes you. He never abandons you," right? "He was with you the entire time.
Wa la al-akhiratu khayrun laka min al-ula. And what comes after is better for you than what comes before. Wa la sawfa yu'tika rabbuka fa tarda. And Allah is going to keep on giving you until you are pleased."
And as the mufassirun mention of this, that this is the Prophet (ﷺ) interceding on behalf of the ummah on the Day of Judgment, the very last moments where he intercedes on behalf of the last major sinner of this ummah
so that he can, by the permission of Allah Azza wa Jal, enter that person into Jannah. Wa la sawfa yu'tika rabbuka fa tarda. "You'll be pleased, ya Rasulullah. Sanuridika bi ummatik. We will please you with your ummah."
So you've got this huge spectrum. But where does Allah Azza wa Jal take the Prophet (ﷺ) to to make the points? "Alam yajidka yatiman fa awa? Wa wajadaka dallan fa hada?
Wa wajadaka 'a'ilan fa aghna?" Allah Azza wa Jal took the Prophet (ﷺ) back to his infancy. "Remember this blessing? And remember that blessing? And remember that blessing? Remember when you were alone?
Remember when you were an orphan? Remember when you were poor? Remember when you were searching?" So He started off with, "Look, you will be given in the ultimate sense everything that you want, ya Rasulullah."
And the Prophet (ﷺ) does not want the material things that the kings of this world want. He wants our salvation as his gift (ﷺ). "You'll get that.
But let me remind you what I already gave you." Right? So Allah Azza wa Jal yudhakkiruhu (ﷺ), is reminding the Prophet (ﷺ)
of all that He did for him. So make sure you treat people the way that you were treated. But at the end, "Wa amma bi ni'mati rabbika fa haddith."
Speak of the mercy and the blessing of your Lord. And Imam al-Qurtubi, rahimahullah ta'ala, he comments on this. And he says, "Ay unshur ma an'amallahu 'alayka bi ash-shukri wa ath-thana'
wa at-tahadduthi bi ni'matillah wa al-i'tirafu biha shukr." He said, "Meaning, make sure that you cite all the times that Allah Azza wa Jal bestowed His blessings upon you, not in a way of boasting and ego,
not like the person who is arrogant and who treats people badly." By the way, subhanAllah, how can you tell the difference between someone that's saying this from a place of boasting or saying it from a place of humility? Surat al-Fajr, Allah Azza wa Jal mentions,
"Fa amma al-insanu idha ma ibtalahu rabbuhu fa akramahu wa na''amahu fa yaqulu rabbi akraman." That verily that man, when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tests him by giving him wealth and status, he says, "Rabbi akraman, my Lord gave me."
Tayyib, that can sound like— that can sound like humility. MashaAllah, he's acknowledging Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But what does Allah Azza wa Jal also say about that person? "Kalla, bal la tukrimu al-yatim
wa la tahaddu 'ala ta'am al-miskin." "You don't honor the orphan. You don't treat the poor right." So clearly, when you say that, "Look what God did for me, and I remember these blessings,"
you're saying it from a place of trying to claim divine favor, not from a place of trying to be a blessing to someone else. Whereas this person, right, "Fa amma al-yatima fa la taqhar, wa amma as-sa'ila fa la tanhar."
This person sees orphans and sees poor people and sees people that are going through stuff that he knows way out of his league, right,
[silence]
how you behave here, how you're now treating the world around you because you acknowledge the blessing of the Creator upon you. That's the difference that's being found. You remember as an individual
all of those moments. And so as an ummah, dear brothers and sisters, there's a community sense of remembrance that for every moment that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala brings us good,
say alhamdulillah. You know how long our memory is? You fast the day of Ashura shukran, right, out of gratitude to Allah for saving Musa (عليه السلام).
You remember the days that Allah Azza wa Jal blessed the Prophet (ﷺ) and brought him out of his most difficult moments. You say alhamdulillah. You praise Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
"Wa li tukmilu al-'iddata wa li tukabbiru Allaha 'ala ma hadakum wa la'allakum tashkurun." You always are thanking Allah. You have a long memory of history. Your ummah's history in the greatest sense goes way back.
You thank Allah Azza wa Jal for the times He gave His people victory, His ummah victory, His prophets victory, right, and you remember
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave you so much to thank Him for. And so that's why I always tell people, subhanAllah, in these last two years, how many people have come up and said, "I'm having a faith crisis. Why?" Because of Gaza.
I say, "The people of Gaza are not having a faith crisis. The people of Gaza are not feeling sorry for themselves." That doesn't mean that we should not feel sorry for ourselves for failing them
or we should fetishize their struggle and pretend like they aren't struggling and going through hardship and starvation and pain and slaughter and all of these horrible things. No, that's not minimizing any of that.
But the people of Gaza are saying alhamdulillah. They're remembering the blessings of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It's one of the 'aja'ib, one of the strange things that you see, that they'll cite even when they tell you about their conditions,
"Walakin alhamdulillah. But then alhamdulillah, Allah gave us this and that. See, if it wasn't for me—" They find the silver lining in everything. "If I didn't go here, this wouldn't have happened. If this didn't happen, this wouldn't have happened." Like, when I'm watching someone speak—
and it is one of the strange things that I've seen in this life, truly strange in the most positive and beautiful sense— when I'm watching a man with one leg and one arm
say that, "Alhamdulillah, I survived the airstrike because I went right to the corner of the house at that moment to get something. Alhamdulillah." And I'm looking at him saying, "Ya Allah, he's thanking Allah for the blessing of having went to a corner
so that when the airstrike hit, he didn't completely lose his life. He just lost two limbs." That's remembering the blessing and extolling the blessing
and then acting with that blessing. And Imam al-Qurtubi, rahimahullah ta'ala, mentions, "Qala tikraru dhikr an-ni'mah,"
that to frequently remember the blessing that you have "tajdeedun laha," is a means by which you revive it constantly in your life. In a much longer paragraph and a much poetic way that he said,
to remember the blessing is a way of ensuring that it continues, reviving it for the future, ensuring that Allah Azza wa Jal's gate of mercy and rida and pleasure continues to descend upon you.
"Allah Azza wa Jal radiya 'an al-mu'minin." He was pleased with the believers when they were in Badr and in their most victorious moments. And He was pleased with them in Khandaq in their lowest moments because at the end of the day,
they retained their belief and they remembered Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And when you remember the blessing of Allah Azza wa Jal, then He remembers you. Fa radiyallahu 'an ahl al-Ghazza. May Allah be pleased with the people of Gaza for the struggle that they endured on behalf of this ummah.
And may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala forgive us for our shortcomings in regards to them. And may Allah Azza wa Jal follow their farah, follow their joy with joy. And may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala grant them and us the ultimate joy of al-Firdaws al-A'la with our beloved Prophet (ﷺ),
Allahumma ameen. Aqulu qawli hadha wa astaghfirullaha li wa lakum wa li sa'ir al-muslimin. Fastaghfiruhu innahu huwa al-Ghafur ar-Rahim.
Alhamdulillah. As-salatu wa as-salamu 'ala Rasulillah wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man walah. Allahumma ighfir li al-mu'minin wa al-mu'minat wa al-muslimin wa al-muslimat, al-ahya'i minhum wa al-amwat. Innaka sami'un qaribun mujibu ad-da'wat. Allahumma ighfir lana wa arhamna
wa 'afu 'anna wa la tu'adhibna. Rabbana zalamna anfusana wa il lam taghfir lana wa tarhamna lanakoonanna min al-khasirin. Allahumma innaka 'afuwwun karimun tuhibbu al-'afwa fa'fu 'anna. Allahumma ighfir li walidayna.
Rabbana hablana min azwajina wa dhurriyatina qurrata a'yun wa ij'alna li al-muttaqina imama. Allahumma ansur ikhwanana al-mustadh'afina fi Filastin wa fi as-Sudan wa fi al-Yaman wa fi kulli makan.
Allahumma 'alayka bi a'da'ika a'da' ad-din. Allahumma arina fi adh-dhalimina 'aja'iba qudratik. Allahumma ahlik adh-dhalimina bi adh-dhalimin wa akhrijna wa ikhwanana min baynihim salimin. 'Ibadallah, innallaha ya'muru bi al-'adli wa al-ihsan wa ita'i dhi al-qurba wa yanha 'an al-fahsha'i wa al-munkari wa al-baghyi.
Ya'idhukum la'allakum tadhakkarun. Fa udhkuru Allaha yadhkurkum wa ushkuruhu 'ala ni'amihi yazidkum. Wa la dhikrullahi akbar wallahu ya'lamu ma tasna'un. Wa aqim as-salat.

































































































































































































































































































