The Prerequisite To Victory - Portal Gems #64

Before the external conquest, you have to conquer yourself...

Est. Read time: 4 min
Edition Number: 64
Adapted from: A Clear Victory: Tafsir of Surah Al-Fath
Instructor: Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed

Assalamu Alaykum,

Today’s gem is from Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed’s class, A Clear Victory: Tafsir of Surah Al-Fath. In this gem, Mufti Abdul Rahman shares what has to happen internally before victory becomes externally apparent.

Hope you enjoy!

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We begin in the Name of Allah , the Most Merciful and Compassionate,
We ask that He sends Peace and Blessings upon our noble and beloved
Prophet Muhammad

Bara’ Ibn Azib said: “You think 'Victory' (Fath) refers to the conquest of Makkah. No doubt, it does, but we think the Pledge of Ridwan on the occasion of Hudaibiyah is the real 'Victory' where the Companions were asked by the Prophet ﷺ under an acacia tree to declare on solemn oath that they would stand by him at all costs and would fight under his banner to the bitter end.”

We look at Umar (R) as the conqueror of Palestine - like he's the one that came in got the keys. But Shaykh Abdullah mentioned something very interesting, he said the reality is the conquest already started, it was already over, when Ja’far ibn Abi Talib (R) and Zayd (R) and Abdullah ibn Rawaha (R)’s blood touched the ground in the Battle of Muta - they became shuhada. Their bodies are resting in the battlefields of Muta in Jordan right now. When that happened, that's when Clear Victory started. These people were ready to lay their lives, give up everything, their family, their children, everything that they had for the Prophet ﷺ and they demonstrated that with their lives. Khalas, Allah ﷻ said that's all that was that's required.

Before the external victory and conquest you have to conquer yourself.

We expect victory in our affairs but did you actually give up yourself for the sake of Allah ﷻ?

So the real fath (victory) is Hudaibiya when all the Sahaba they themselves wanted to go to umrah and the Prophet ﷺ was with them. For those that have taken seerah intensive they know the whole story, but I’ll just briefly skim over it now. The Sahaba are going to umrah and then they’re stopped at Hudaibiya. The entire treaty is written in favor of the non-muslims and the Sahaba are sitting there - these Sahaba are warriors, they see what’s happening and they say, “Why are we why are we just submitting to everything why are we just staying quiet? Why are we not getting up and being aggressive?”

Abu Bakr (R) said, “Do you know who you’re speaking to? This is the Prophet ﷺ.”

“Ya Rasululah, but you saw a dream that we were doing umrah”

The Prophet ﷺ responds saying that I saw a dream that we were doing umrah, but I didn’t say it was this year.

The Sahaba are not happy. Imagine what your feeling would be, think about it.

You get you get your visa for umrah, you tell everyone you're going for umrah. You get your bags ready you drive down from Detroit to Chicago. At the airport, everyone meets you and says their goodbyes and dua requests and they leave. You get to the counter and you realize you left your passport at home. Khalas. The flight's going, your whole group is going except you.

You know what the first feeling you would have is, “Man, Allah ﷻ deprived me.” Like maybe there's a sin that I committed - because we understand that its Allah’s acceptance that takes us there, so of course it's deprivation that will prevent us from going there. Unfortunately this has happened to some of our group members in the past and that feeling is very interesting. You try to calm the person down saying its ok, Allah ﷻ knows what He’s doing.

Imagine what the sahaba were going through. Like did we do something wrong?Why are we being deprived? Are we on the right track? The Prophet ﷺ is with us and the help of Allah is not enough that it we can just get a path? Look we're even going to leave our swords here, we just want to see the Ka’ba.

Nope, treaty is signed. We’re not going.

So the real Fath (victory) took place when when the Prophet ﷺ shaved his head and cut his animals, the sahaba followed despite how they may have felt in the moment. When Allah ﷻ saw this, this is when He said this is the real Conquest. You have you have conquered their hearts, now I'll give you the conquest of Makkah - that happens after.

May Allah ﷻ grant us tawfiq to conquer ourselves.

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم، فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرحيم

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