Abu Mihjan Story 2B5987

Question: Return the User: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9aXoVumS_Tk orignal youtube link The next person I want to talk about has an almost identical story to him. Um, but he's someone who subhanallah his conversion to Islam comes so late that it's not clear whether it was at the end of the life of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam or if it was before. And his name is Abu Mihjan Ath-Thaqafi. RadiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu. And as the Ulama mention Ukhtulifa fi ismihi, RadiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu, if his name was Malik ibn Habib or Abdullah ibn Habib, but his his nickname, his kunya is Abu Mihjan, and he is Ath-Thaqafi, RadiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu. If you remember, we did a whole series on people that are Thaqafi, that people that come from that tribe, because obviously this Thaqif intersects with the whole story of Ta'if and the late entrants into Islam. And so, he's one of the people who most of the writers like Ibn Abd al-Barr, Ibn al-Athir, they say that he accepted Islam when Thaqif accepted Islam in the ninth year of Ramadan in Ramadan in the life of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so, he actually is a Sahabi, so dhahu suhba. He's someone that would be considered a companion, but we don't have any stories of his interactions with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam directly because of how late he would have become Muslim. RadiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu. Who is Abu Mihjan? He was one of the people of strength. He was one of the heroes in Jahiliyyah. He was known to be someone who was extremely courageous. He was a horseman, RadiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu. He was a poet, very eloquent, and he was financially of means, so he used to be very generous. So, he checks a lot of boxes, RadiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu, terms of his character. Strong, militarily capable, he's eloquent, he's a poet, he comes from a very powerful tribe of Banu Thaqif. He is very generous, spends his money. But of all of that, the one weakness that he has is also al-khamr, is alcohol. And that's why I chose to actually bring his biography next to Nu'ayman because of the similarities in the story. Uh Ibn Abd al-Barr says uh or narrates that he would never be able to leave it, not the punishment of a punisher or the blame of a blamer would restrain him from that khamr. He could not give up his alcohol. And so, subhanallah, he's someone who is overall strong in every way, but he has this weakness. He's not a weak man by any means. He has many strengths, but he has this glaring weakness. And you know, many of the when they talk about this idea, like how can someone be so strong in battle, but then fall in this regard? And this is a side tangent, but it's actually very important. How is it that someone could be so courageous, so great in so many respects, but somehow they have this glaring weakness when it comes to their own personal battles? Right? Like how can you imagine a person in a battlefield that's willing to die fi sabilillah? Willing to die fi sabilillah, like face the enemy over and over and over again, but they can't get over this. And that's why jihad al-nafs, mujahadat al-nafs is the ultimate battleground, the mujahadah of the self. That a person is able to overcome themselves, because if you are able to overcome yourself, then you will be able to overcome anybody else. And this was the struggle, the battlefield that Abu Mihjan radi allahu ta'ala anhu uh struggled with. Now, despite that struggle, uh can Abu Bakr as-Siddiq radi allahu ta'ala anhu yasta'inu bihi Abu Bakr radi allahu ta'ala anhu used him in battle despite that consistent struggle that he had with alcohol, which shows you by the way that there's still benefit in people even as they're struggling with their personal sins that we don't necessarily disqualify people from the community and say, "Once you're done with this personal sin, then you can come back." No, like Abu Bakr radi allahu ta'ala anhu sees benefit in him. He's an asset to the community overall that is struggling with this personal weakness of his alcohol. So, he's not discarded uh from the community. He can still serve Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but he still has to struggle against himself for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. With that being said, just like with Nuayman, accountability is still there. And so, Umar radi allahu ta'ala anhu, he carried out the hadd, the the flogging of khamr on him seven times. Seven times. And uh one report says even eight times that he was brought to Sayyidna Umar radi allahu ta'ala anhu and he was flogged for the crime of uh of khamr, of drinking wine, seven or eight times. So, just like Nuayman, this is a repeated relapse that he has. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala be pleased with them both. And Umar radi allahu ta'ala anhu nafahu Umar ila jaziratin fil bahr. Umar radi allahu anhu basically exiled him at some point because of the repeated offense of alcohol. And uh ba'atha ma'ahu rajulan, he sent a man to be with him. Faharaba minhu walahiqa bi Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas bil Qadisiyyah. Abu Mihjan ran away, and he caught up with Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas radi allahu ta'ala anhu in Persia as Sa'd radi allahu ta'ala anhu was about to undergo the legendary battle of al-Qadisiyyah. Like the most consequential battle with the Persian Empire is about to happen. And Abu Mihjan was a man of you know, heroic capacity in the battlefield. He knows how to take on the enemy. He He lives for this. Someone who lives for the battlefield. Abu Mihjan lives for the battlefield. So he says to Sa'd that please let me let me fight with you. Let me go out on the battlefield. Right? I don't want to be exiled. Let me go out on the battlefield. Umar wrote to Sa'd to to restrain him. To restrain him because of everything that he was doing cuz he kept on returning to that sin over and over again. So Sa'd despite him saying that he really wants to go out and fight in the battle of al-Qadisiyyah, Sa'd instead he basically chained him. He locked him up and he said I'll deal with you later. Right? Right now we have an important battle to deal with. And flogged you multiple times for the alcohol. For now, I will leave you in this way restrained. And later on, I'll deal with you in that case. And so as he was as he was in these chains he was chanting these lines of poetry. He said what, you know, grief. What sorrow is it that the horses are driven by their spears while I am here in this pathetic state bound in my my Right? Like what a terrible state to be in. And he cried because he realized that the sin that he had committed was keeping him from a deep moment with the companions of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and perhaps it also dawned upon him that my wasting away personally is hurting my community. Like, they could benefit from me. They need me right now. I could be there with them, but because I keep on drinking my alcohol over and over and over again, this sin is keeping me from being able to be the person that I want to be. So, what does he do? He pleads to the wife of Sa'd radi Allahu ta'ala anhu and he says, you know, let me go. And he says, and I promise that if Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala allows me to return from this battlefield not killed fi sabilihi in his path, that I will come back to you and I will put myself in these chains and no one will need to know. Let me go. This is my tawbah. Right? To go and to fight for the sake of Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala. And he said, "And if I am killed, then you're rid of me anyway." Like, if I die a martyr, then you're rid of me anyway. And if I don't die, then I'll come back and I'll put myself in the chains and you won't be in trouble. Because at the end of the day, Sa'd radi Allahu anhu is going to come home and he's going to find me in the chains. Subhanallah, she believed him. She could tell that he was sincere. And he's not a man that's trying to escape accountability. He's actually a man who's asking permission to go and to fight for the sake of Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala, and perhaps be redeemed, and then return back to accountability for the sin that he now realizes is getting in the way of him realizing his own potential. So, he's asking for the chains to be removed just long enough for him to go and to participate in the battle of Qadisiyyah. So, he takes uh one of the horses of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, radi allahu ta'ala anhu, that was known as al-Balqa. al-Balqa And he wraps his face, uh, radi allahu ta'ala anhu, and [clears throat] he shows up right at the moment that Qadisiyyah starts. And he takes his spear, and he's fighting so bravely, right and left, just cutting through the enemy. And then at the end, when people were looking for the the man whose face was wrapped, the masked man that was on the Balqa, that was going throughout the opposing enemy, he disappeared. Now, some of the Sahaba, what do you think they said? What do you think they thought? Malak. They said he must have been an angel. Innahu malak. Cuz this man appears out of nowhere, and we have witnessed this in the Battle of Badr. Right? This man appears out of nowhere, and he does what he does, and suddenly he disappears. He must be an angel. He must be malak. Sa'd, radi allahu ta'ala anhu, he kind of recognizes, number one, his horse. Number two, the fighting style of Abu Mihjan is really pronounced. Right? Like he has an identity. And if you're a war commander, you can kind of tell these different types of things. But he also can't reconcile it because he knows that Abu Mihjan is chained, and was left behind. So he comes home, and Abu Mihjan is in his chains. He went back to the wife of Sa'd, radi allahu ta'ala anhu wa anha, and he said, "Put me back in these chains." Stayed in his chains. And when Sa'd, radi allahu ta'ala anhu, comes back, the wife of Sa'd tells him what happened. Sa'd, radi allahu ta'ala anhu, is so moved, so emotional, that he goes to Abu Mihjan, and he releases him. And he says, "By Allah, after today, I will never strike a man again through whom Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala granted the Muslims what he granted them on his hands." Like, you're free. I'm not going to strike you again. And Abu Mihjan, he responds and he says that I used to drink it قد كنت أشربها if you قاموا علي الحد وأتطهر منها He says that I used to drink it and then the hadd would be carried out on me and I would be purified from the sin because the hadd carries it purifies you from the sin. The punishment purifies me from the sin. And he says, "But now لا والله لا أشربها أبدا this time, I swear by Allah that I will never drink it again." And one of the narrations in Abdul Razzaq, by the way, Musannaf Abdul Razzaq, he says something very interesting. He says that I only used to continue to drink it because I was too proud to say that Abu Mihjan left off something because someone hit him. Shows you the deception of Shaitan. Like, I'm not going to give this up because someone hit me. It's like someone says that I'm not going to start doing what Allah Azza Wa Jalla commanded me to do because other people told me to do it. I'm going to do it when I want to do it. That's a trick of Shaitan. I'm not going to leave off the sin because somebody else told me to leave it off. I'm going to leave it off because I want to leave it off. So, it's a trick of Shaitan. But Abu Mihjan, Radhi Allahu Ta'ala Anhu, he says, "I will never return to it again >> [clears throat] >> whether you flog me or not." And Subhan Allah, he never returned to that sin ever again. And his heart was conquered and he resumed fi sabilillah and he is amongst those Radhi Allahu Ta'ala Anhu who the Ulama say he died in one of the Futuhat. Whether some of them say Azerbaijan and um, of them say in other places, but the point is is that uh, whether it was in Azerbaijan or it was in, uh, Jurjan, one of the conquests that he continued in his ways fi sabilillah having broken off the shackles of that sin of returning to, uh, the alcohol. And he used to have a, um, he used to have a poem that he would say. He said, "Raitul khamra salihatan wa fiha khisalun tuhlikul rajula al halima." He said that I used to see khamr, alcohol, as pleasant, yet within it there are traits that can destroy the most patient and forbearing man, someone that is halim. "Fala wallahi Fala wallahi ashrabuha hayati, I will never again in my life drink it. Wala ashfi biha abadan saqima." And I will never use it to treat someone who is sick again. It's a disease. It's a disease. It's a disease. And so he became one of those, uh, success stories of someone that left off the, uh, the the the sin, this major sin of alcohol, and his legacy does not become a person who's drunk. His legacy becomes what the best identity was of him, someone who was mujahid fi sabilillah and sincere in that. Radiyallahu ta'ala anhu. Now, I want to conclude and bring this these two stories to something that's very relevant to our lifetimes, inshallah ta'ala, then I'll end here bidhnillah ta'ala because we won't have time to take on another biography uh, given what we have tonight. But there are two things that you'll notice here in curing someone from a sin that is addictive. And I want to be clear here that none of this means that you don't seek the specific means to cure that specific addiction, whatever that addiction may be. That that's one of the ways that you're sincere fi sabilillah. If there are ways that are particular to getting rid of this particular addiction or a sin that you keep on relapsing into, then take those means. Those means are a means to bidhnillah the light of Allah and of Allah's pleasure. Along with toba and along with whatever it may be, seek help and do what you have to do to to get out of that addiction. But there are two very specific interjections that you have here in the story of Nuayman and then the story of Abu Mihjan radiya'llahu ta'ala anhu. In the case of Nuayman it's the belief that Allah's love is bigger than your sin. Allah's love is bigger than your sin. So don't think that your sin is too big to be forgiven. Don't think that your sin has disqualified you forever. Don't despair in the mercy of Allah and even in the idea that Allah can still love you. This is actually one of the beautiful things about Al-Wadud. You know, sometimes we forgive people but we can't love them again. Right? We say, "I forgive you but I'll never be able to love you again." Right? Like it's it's just too much. Allah when he says "La taqnatoo min rahmatillah." Al-Afuw, Al-Ghafur, Al-Wadud. Allah invites you back into a relationship of love where you could still be a wali of Allah after having committed a major sin. May Allah protect us all and may Allah make us amongst those people. So in the case of Nuayman the belief that Allah's love is bigger than your sin. In the case of Abu Mihjan radiya'llahu ta'ala anhu the belief that your purpose is bigger than your sin. Now what's the difference between those two things? You know, you look at someone after the the the genocide in Gaza who maybe woke up to the world as a young person said "What am I doing? What am I doing with my life? What am I wasting away in? What purpose do I have to serve in this world? Right? Like here I am spoiling myself getting mad about all types of silly things becoming saddened over things that really don't deserve a person to become sad over. My joy, my happiness, my sadness, my days are tied to things that are so superficial in their nature. And people are being slaughtered in Gaza. I need to do something. I need to wake up to this world. I need to realize I have a purpose here. Allah has put me here for a purpose beyond just spending extravagantly on myself with sin. I have talent that I need to unlock. I have I have a way that I can serve. And ultimately sin is when you serve yourself to an end even if that end transgresses the boundaries of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But it's very self-serving. Sin is very selfish in its nature, right? Like you don't care who you hurt, even yourself. No, I'm going to move away from that. I have an ummah that's depending on me. I have a community that's depending on me. I have a reason that Allah put me on this earth in this time to do something great. And my sins are getting in the way of unlocking that greatness. This is a realization that a person should have as they come into serious episodes of the ummah. And so what woke Abu Mihjan up was what am I doing with myself? I'm here drinking alcohol and people are fighting one of the most consequential battles in the history of Islam. And here I am. What a loser I am right now. I should be there. Right? Doing something great. And so let the greatness of your purpose and your calling put aside these sins that serve such small parts of us and are so small in their thinking and the desires that they fulfill. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us the people that connects to his love, that connect to his greatness. May Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala forgive us for our shortcomings. May Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala be pleased with the companions of the Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam. May Allah Azza Wa Jalla join us with the messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, his beloved family, his companions with whom he is pleased, and may Allah Azza Wa Jalla make us amongst them. Allahumma Amin. Barakallahu Feekum. Wa Sallallahu Allahumma Salli Wa Barik Ala Nabiyyina Muhammad Wa Ala Alihi Wa Sahbihi Ajma'een. Wa Assalamu Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh.