| To the One Who Falls Into Imprisonment : Messages of Advice |
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| Islam - Jihad | |||
| Written by Administrator | |||
| Saturday, 15 August 2009 23:42 | |||
To the One Who Falls Into Imprisonment : Messages of AdviceTo the One Who Falls Into Imprisonment : Messages of Advice Writen by: Abū Usāmah Al-Hazīn May Allāh preserve him All praise is due to Allāh, Lord of the Worlds, and may the Blessings and Peace be upon the most noble of Messengers, Sayyidunā Muhammad, صلى الله عليه و سلم, and upon his family and companions in entirety. To proceed: Allāh Ta’ālā said: مَا أَصَابَ مِن مُّصِيبَةٍ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ وَمَن يُؤْمِن بِاللَّهِ يَهْدِ قَلْبَهُ وَاللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ And He Said: مَا أَصَابَ مِن مُّصِيبَةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَلَا فِي أَنفُسِكُمْ إِلَّا فِي كِتَابٍ مِّن قَبْلِ أَن نَّبْرَأَهَا إِنَّ ذَلِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ يَسِيرٌ And He Said: وَمَا أَصَابَكُم مِّن مُّصِيبَةٍ فَبِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِيكُمْ وَيَعْفُو عَن كَثِيرٍ And He Said, الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُم مُّصِيبَةٌ قَالُواْ إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ I had entered into one of the houses of Allāh and in my possession was the third volume of the book Zād Al-Ma’ād, and in the beginning of the book there were the words of Ibn Al-Qayyim, may Allāh have Mercy upon him, on tribulations. And at that hour, I stopped to think about the path of Jihād and the hardship it contains, so here are some things I wrote about the issue of imprisonment, which is considered one of the severest tribulations for the Mujāhid: Introduction: Know, my beloved brother, that the path of Jihād is not paved with roses, rather it is a path that is paved with severed limbs and blood, and it is full of fear and danger. And from the dangers of this path is that a person might become imprisoned at the hands of the enemies of Allāh, and this is enough of a hardship. There passed through my head some of the dangers, and I liked to put them down in writing on this page, perhaps Allāh will benefit [others] by it. The First Message: Indeed Allāh, Subhānahu Wa Ta’ālā, did not Decree for a slave anything except what is good, so it is upon the believer to have patience with the Judgment of Allāh and His Decree, and that if good times befall him, he thanks [Allāh], and if hardship befalls him, he is patient. The Second Message: Know that the prison cell, which can be more or less a meter by a meter in length and width from the inside, and in which you are afflicted with fear and fatigue and pain, know that it is not equal to anything from the darkness of the grave and the [fear and pain] of the questioning by the two Angels. The Third Message: Patience is the key to relief, and the path to victory and establishment in the Dunyā, and the path to happiness in the Ākhirah. Allāh Ta’ālā Said: وَجَعَلْنَا مِنْهُمْ أَئِمَّةً يَهْدُونَ بِأَمْرِنَا لَمَّا صَبَرُوا وَكَانُوا بِآيَاتِنَا يُوقِنُونَ And remember that after hardship Allāh will bring ease. The Fourth Message: Know that you will not gain establishment (i.e. authority and power) until you are tested. Ash-Shāfi’ī, may Allāh have Mercy upon him, was asked, “Which is better for a man, that he is granted authority or that he is tested?” He said, “He will not gain authority unless he is tested, and Allāh tested the Messengers of Strong Will (Nūh, Ibrāhīm, Mūsā, ‘Īsā, and Muhammad, عليهم السلام), so when they were patient, He established them. So let no one think that he will under any circumstances be free of suffering. But rather, the people of suffering vary in their intellects. Those with the most intellect sell a great, continuous pain for an easy, temporary pain, and the most wretched of them are those who sell the easy, temporary pain for the great, continuous pain.” [6] The Fifth Message: Make this message a rule for you in your life. Ibn Al-Qayyim says, “The soul is committed to the love of this world. Allāh Ta’ālā Said: كَلاَّ بَلْ تُحِبُّونَ العَاجِلَةَ وَتَذَرُونَ الآخِرَةَ And He Said: إِنَّ هَؤُلاءِ يُحِبُّونَ العَاجِلَةَ وَيَذَرُونَ وَرَاءَهُمْ يَوْماً ثَقِيلا And this afflicts everyone, for the human is urban by nature, and he must live with people. And people have desires and conceptions. So they will ask him to agree with them about them, so if he does not agree with them, they will harm him and torture him. And if he agrees with them, harm and torture will befall him, sometimes from them, and sometimes from others. Like one who has religion and piety who settles among oppressive, immoral people, they will not be capable [of carrying out] their evil and their oppression except with his agreement with them, or his silence towards them. So if he agrees with them or is silent towards them, he is safe from their evil in the beginning, then they will overpower him with humiliation and harm, multiples of what he feared in the beginning if he opposes them or renounces them. And if he is unharmed by them, then he must be humiliated and tortured at the hands of someone else. The Sixth Message: If you stay steadfast upon the truth and remain patient during trials, the pain will disappear, and the fatigue will go, and there will remain for you the reward In Shā’ Allāh. Ibn Al-Qayyim says, “And because there is no escape from the pain in full, Allāh Subhānahu comforts whoever chooses the easy, temporary pain over the great, continuous pain with His Statement: مَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَاءَ اللهِ فَإِنَّ أَجَلَ اللهِ لَآتٍ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ So He made an ending for the period of suffering, and this ending must come, and it is the Day of His meeting, where the slave will then savor the greatest delight over the pain he endured for His Sake and for His pleasure, and his delight and happiness and jubilation will be in accordance with the suffering he endured for Allāh. And He affirmed this consolation and diversion with the hope of His meeting, so that the slave would carry his longing for the meeting with his Lord and Protector over bearing the hardship of the brief pain. Rather, perhaps the longing for His meeting prevents [the slave] from witnessing the pain or feeling it [12].
The Seventh Message: Remember that this is the path of the Prophets and Messengers, and they were exposed to the trials related to us in the Qur’ān. So whoever wants to traverse their path will be exposed to trials. And ponder over these Āyāt. Allāh Ta’ālā said: Ibn Al-Qayyim says in explaining these Āyāt, “So let the slave ponder over the context of these verses, and what they contain of signs and treasures of wisdom. So if the Messengers were sent to the people, [the people] were upon two ways, either that one of them says, ‘We believe,’ or that he does not say that and instead continues upon evil deeds and disbelief. So whoever said, ‘We believe,’ his Lord tested him and put him through trial and Fitnah. And Fitnah is trial and examination so that the truthful person is distinguished from the liar. And whoever does not say “We believe,” then he should not think that he outstrips Allāh and that he gets ahead of Him or slips by Him, for indeed the end of the periods [of time] is in His Hand, and how can a person flee from Him with his sin if the stages come to an end in His Hand? So whoever believed in the Messengers and obeyed them, they oppose him and take him as enemies and harm him, so he is tested with what pains him. And if he does not believe in them and does not obey them, he is punished in the Dunyā and the Ākhirah, and there occurs to him what would cause him to suffer, and this pain is greater and more continuous than the pain of the followers of the Messengers. So there must occur pain to every person who believes or desires faith, but pain occurs to the believer in the beginning, then the final success is for him in the Dunyā and the Ākhirah, and the one who turns away from belief will experience delight in the beginning then will go on to the eternal suffering.” [15] The Eighth Message: You have concluded the transaction with Allāh Subhānahu Wa Ta’ālā. Ash-Shaykh Al-Imām ‘Umar Abdir-Rahmān, may Allāh free him, says, “You have sold your souls to Allāh Ta’ālā and you have become pleased with Jannah as a price for it, and He Subhānahu is the One who decides in what way He wants to deposit the merchandise that He bought, and there is nothing for you to do except submit and be satisfied, because by selling it, it leaves your ownership. So if He wishes, He will test you with imprisonment, and if He wills, He will bestow martyrdom on you. And it is not for you to place conditions and say ‘We want martyrdom and we do not want imprisonment’” End quote. The Ninth Message: Do not make the tribulation (Fitnah) of mankind like the punishment of Allāh. Ibn Al-Qayyim says, “Then He informs [us] of the state of the one who enters into Faith without any insight, and that if he is tested for the sake of Allāh, he makes the Fitnah of the people to him like the punishment of Allāh, and [the Fitnah] is their injuring him, and their harming him with what is hated, and the suffering that the Messengers and their followers after them must endure from those who oppose them. He allows this [Fitnah] to cause him to flee from them and abandon the reason that brought him this (i.e. his faith), and [he equates their punishment with] the punishment of Allāh that the believers flee from by way of their faith. So the believers, due to the perfection of their insight, fled from the pain of Allāh’s torment towards Faith, and they endured the temporary pain that comes with it which will pass soon. [But] this other one, due to the weakness of his insight, fled from the pain of the punishment of the enemies of the Messengers towards agreeing with the enemies and following them. So he fled from the pain of their punishment towards the pain of Allāh’s punishment, and he made the pain of the people’s Fitnah at the status of the pain of Allāh’s torment, and he flees from it. And he harms himself with tremendous detriment if he seeks refuge from the scorching heat with the Fire, and if he fled from the pain of one hour to the eternal pain. And if Allāh gives victory to his soldiers and his Awliyā’ he will say, ‘I was with you!’ but Allāh is knowledgeable of the hypocrisy concealed in his chest.” [16] The Tenth Message: لِيَمِيزَ اللّهُ الْخَبِيثَ مِنَ الطَّيِّبِ وَيَجْعَلَ الْخَبِيثَ بَعْضَهُ عَلَىَ بَعْضٍ فَيَرْكُمَهُ جَمِيعاً فَيَجْعَلَهُ فِي جَهَنَّمَ أُوْلَـئِكَ هُمُ الْخَاسِرُونَ Ibn Al-Qayyim says, “Allāh Subhānahu’s Wisdom necessitated that He test the souls and put them through hardship, so with the test, the good souls are made apparent from the bad, and those who are deserving of His Alliance and His Blessings [are made apparent from] those who are not deserving. And the souls that are fit are put to the test, and are purified with a [cleansing] test. Just as gold does not get purified and is not refined from its adulterants except through a test (that ensures only pure gold is present), the soul is naturally ignorant and oppressive, and because of the ignorance and oppression scum formed in the soul that needs to be expelled by molding and refinement, so [either] it is expelled in this abode, otherwise [it is expelled] in the bellows of Jahannam. So when the slave is cleansed and is purified, then he is given permission to enter Jannah.” The Eleventh Message: The soul must be prepared for this trial and hardship which befalls to the slave, and [this preparation] is by plentiful remembrance of Allāh Subhānahu Wa Ta’ālā, and plentiful righteous actions. Allāh Ta’ālā Said: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ إِذَا لَقِيتُمْ فِئَةً فَاثْبُتُواْ وَاذْكُرُواْ اللّهَ كَثِيراً لَّعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلَحُونَ The Twelfth Message: A grave warning from Allāh Subhānahu Wa Ta’ālā: وَإِن تَتَوَلَّوْا يَسْتَبْدِلْ قَوْماً غَيْرَكُمْ ثُمَّ لَا يَكُونُوا أَمْثَالَكُمْ So beware that, should you enter prison, that you say in the beginning of the matter, “If only I had not traversed the path of Jihād! If only I had not done this or that!” For by Allāh, this is the Shaytān who desires to have control over you, and this is the soul that is inclined towards evil. Rather it may be entering into prison causes you to increase in the remembrance of Allāh and to establish the prayer [more]… And here there comes an important matter, and it is how much of the Book of Allāh you have memorized – so take care of this matter well in the times of ease so that it benefits you in times of hardship. The Thirteenth Message: Remember, سَيَجْعَلُ اللَّهُ بَعْدَ عُسْرٍ يُسْراً And you do not know my brother, لَعَلَّ اللَّهَ يُحْدِثُ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ أَمْراً So perhaps one night or one afternoon you will leave the prison and be with your brothers in the Afghan mountains or the forests of Chechnya or the cities of Iraq. And remember what happened to Shaykh Abū Yahyā Al-Lībī and those with him from the brothers… Allāh delivered them from the prison – and it was from the largest of America’s bases – so they fled from it and Allāh made them a thorn in the throats of the disbelievers. [22] And you have consolation in the release of the imprisoned [brothers] in Cuba, how Allāh bestowed His favors upon them and caused them to be released from the prison. Lastly: Always remember His Ta’ālā’s Statement : إِنَّ الأرْضَ لِلَّهِ يُورِثُهَا مَنْ يَشَاءُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ Sayyid Qutb says, “The procession of the Da’wāh to Allāh, [is] age-old, it journeys through the mountain paths of time, continuing upon the difficult and perpetual path. Straight in its steps, feet steadfast, its path is attacked by criminals of every sort, [both] the followers of those who are astray and the leaders fight it. Harm may afflict the Du’āt (callers), and blood is spilled, and limbs are torn, but the procession continues on its path, not twisting or turning or retreating or changing course. And the Victory, no longer how long time persists, is for the believers.” [24] Written by: Abū Usāmah Al-Hazīn 17-4-2008 The Green Fort (Al-Hesbah Forum) —-
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