Brothers: The Weakest Link: Part 2 - The Solution By Saad Omar
Published by Saad Omar February 9th, 2007 in IslamA practical follow-up article to the popular Brothers: The Weakest Link article posted a couple of days ago. Mashallah brother Saad speaks the truth. May we all become honorable vicegerents of Our Lord - and for that to be our prime motivating force for all that we do in this dunya!
(And for the record, Brother Saad Omar is now officially the senior blog correspondent for HAhmed.com.)
Brothers: The Weakest Link (Part 2) - The Solution
Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem
I was asked to write a follow up article outlining a few practical solutions to the issues that I brought up in the previous article, “Brothers: the Weakest Link.”
The most expected course of action would be for me to list a couple relevant verses of Quran and sayings of the Prophet (S) on the subject but I have come to realize that many of us have become somewhat de-sensitized to the true potency of these sources of knowledge. In the Quran we are told that the true believer is one who feels a tremor in their heart when the verses of Allah 
are recited and feel an increase in their faith. We are also told that the mountain would shatter if the Quran has been revealed upon it. So naturally, our hearts must be in a very hardened state if the words of Allah and his Messenger really don’t leave a deep impression on our inner states.
With that, there is a Hadith of the Prophet (S) that I will mention because when I read it, it hit me deep and really has made a world of a difference on my perspective as a brother and the manner in which I define myself.
I will relate the meaning here and the Prophet’s (S) exact words, he (S) said that if we desire to please people at the expense of pleasing Allah , Allah will be displeased with us and he will cause the very people were trying to please to be displeased with us. On the other hand, if we desire to please Allah even if it is at the expense of pleasing people, Allah will be pleased with us and he will cause those very people to be pleased with us.
I want you to take a minute and read that again, because this saying of the Prophet (S) really can have a transformative effect if for once we don’t just read it over like it’s a bumper sticker but rather imagine that the Prophet (S) is saying this directly to us. We are told by our scholars that when we read a Hadith it is like the Prophet (S) is sitting with us saying it and that is why if someone is relating a Hadith and you are talking at the same time, its literally as if you are interrupting the Prophet (S) when he is speaking because He (S) IS speaking.
When I read that Hadith, I realized that the problem that many of us brothers have (and sisters also I’m sure) has to do with internalizing the message of these words. It’s a matter of our paradigm of self worth. We have two very separate planes of relationships in life: the horizontal and the vertical. Our horizontal relationships relate to our relations with other people, the material world, society and its values, etc. The vertical relationship is our direct relationship with our creator and the heavenly realm. (Please do not get on the tangent that I am implicitly saying that Allah is in the heaven and not “everywhere,” this is not the point of this article and I am not claiming that here)
Most of us, consciously or without thinking twice have become socialized into deriving our self worth from the horizontal plane. We look to people (possibly the other gender), the corporate world, the media and its definitions of success, etc. for our definitions of self worth. If our boss or professor validates our work, we naturally feel that we have done a good job and if he or she bashes our finished product, we look at our work in scorn and contempt.
I used the word “naturally” above but is this really the natural state of human beings? Deep down inside in our most natural state (fitra), we know that Allah is our Lord and at least theoretically we all would admit that He is the controller of all things. That means that everything someone breathes a deep gust of air into their lungs, Allah is giving those two organs the permission to fill with air and when they exhale, Allah is giving permission for the lungs to release their burden in the form of carbon dioxide. It means that every sizzling celebrity or hotshot Wall Street broker is completely dependant on Allah in every second in their life, whether they recognize it or not. With that perspective, if we are “good with the Lord,” we are good with the one who possesses the source of honor, wealth, popularity, respect, and happiness that we so persistently look for in his slaves who have really no power except their exercising of person free will.
So to bring this back to the topic at hand, as brothers we have to realize that most of our problems stem from incorrectly identifying the source of our validation. The Prophet (S) clearly said that the people will only like us if we are looking to please Allah . I will bring up the example of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali like I did in Part 1 of this article. Both of these men made a conscious decision to please Allah even if it was at the expense of pleasing people and both of these men did not only gain the pleasure of their Lord (insh’Allah ) but are celebrated in America with the very types of people that may have scorned them 40 years ago.
Sometimes as grown men, many of us are acting like that 15 year old in high school that is trying to be accepted by the “popular kids,” except now we are college students or young professionals trying desperately to sell out to some perception of what we should be. Its like we are fighting one another to get on the boat to the shining shores of mediocrity when if we were to jump off that dull vessel and learned to swim on our own, we would find a land of honor and respect that is derived from the Divine King. Many times we use the excuse that we are not selling out for selfish reasons but because we have to start a family and we want to respect our future wive’s family by being financially stable. This is really only an excuse. I agree, it is important for us to be financially stable but as brothers we need to stop using marriage as the strings that move us around like puppets with no agency. To be honest, I would rather spend my whole life alone and single that change my values because I think that a girl or her parents are looking for that. Marriage is not obligatory, being true to oneself is. (That is not to say that you cannot do both)
There is much more I would like to add on this topic and this paradigm shift from the horizontal to the vertical but I will conclude this article now and maybe write a part 3 to finish my thoughts. As brothers, we will find everything we are looking for if we stop going to the leaves and twigs and go to the root or source of all things honourable. This means that we need to cling to the gate of our Lord and not to the doorstep of a girl that we are in love with. We don’t “sell ourselves to fall in love.” Furthermore, we don’t sell our souls to a major corporation that we fundamentally do not agree with because we feel that job security is the #1 priority in our lives at this point. Our #1 priority is not contingent on any “phase in our life” as it is constant. Our one and only priority is pleasing Allah and this is the same from birth to death. Now, if we can best do that by working for a major corporation, then that is one thing, but I many of us look to our sides for validation and not the skies.
In the last article, I spoke about being the princes that our future wives could stand in awe of, this will only happen when we stand in awe of our Lord and work for him.
I wrote a song a year ago and it begins with a redefinition of love
Love is not where two people lie
Love is when the heart and the mind unite
Love is in the desert where the majnoon cries
Love is when you’re loyal, to your future wife
When you don’t know her name and don’t know her life
We must stand as men of principals and the main point that I am adding in this article is that we must stand in the shade of our Lord and work for his satisfaction.
I will end with a few examples of this paradigm shift in the time of the Prophet (S).
1. The Prophet (S) after Taif when he (S) apologies to Allah for his own weakness and then says, “If you are not angry with me, I do not care what these people do to me”. In other words, the Prophet (S) was aligning himself with the vertical plane and recognizing that his self worth came from Allah and not the people.
2. When Khalid bin Waleed sees fear in the eyes of some of the Muslims as the enemies host has filled the horizon. He rides in front of the Muslim lines and raises his voice and says, “I can see fear in some of you, SAY La Hawla wa la quwata Ila Billah (there is not power or strength except with Allah .” Once again, this is a true man recognizing the true sense of power.
3. Lastly, when Khalid bin Waleed (R) is passing away he is on his bed crying and his son comes to him and says, “oh father, are you afraid of death?” Khalid tells his son to lift his shirt and says, to him, “how many wounds do you see on the front of my chest,” his son replies that there are no less than 70 arrow, sword, and spear wounds. He then says, “now look at my back,” and his son says that there is not a single wound. This means that Khalid never turned in battle and always fought facing the enemy. Khalid then says, “do I look like someone that feared dying?” “No I am afraid that I will not be rewarded by Allah amongst the martyrs and I spent my whole life in battle.”
So for Khalid, his life only had value and was worthy crying for as it related to the vertical plane of God and the heavenly realm.
Our goal is to move towards this higher realization that as brothers, the current pop currents, media driven trends, career validations, or even girls cannot give us any value. Our honor and respect comes from the Lord of all these things that are in comparison non-existant. Lets put our lives in the non-transient and then we will receive an eternal respect and sense of honor.
If we are a prince in the court of the Divine, believe me, we will definitely be a prince in the eyes of our wives.
-Saad Omar
15 Responses to “Brothers: The Weakest Link: Part 2 - The Solution By Saad Omar”
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Pingback on Feb 9th, 2007 at 5:35 am
As-salamu ‘alaykum wa’rahmatullahi wa’barakatuhu,
Jazak’Allah
khair.
You mentioned a hadith regarding how when we please Allah
, Allah 
makes the people be pleased with us. This reminded me of another beautiful hadith explaining it:
Abu Huraira reported that Allah
’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: When Allah 
loves a servant, He calls Gabriel and says: Verily, I love so and so; you should also love him, and then Gabriel begins to love him. Then he makes an announcement in the heaven saying: Allah 
loves so and so and you also love him, and then the inhabitants of the Heaven (the Angels) also begin to love him and then there is conferred honour upon him in the earth; and when Allah 
is angry with any servant He calls Gabriel and says: I am angry with such and such and you also become angry with him, and then Gabriel also becomes angry and then makes an announcement amongst the inhabitants of heaven: Verily Allah 
is angry with so-and so, so you also become angry with him, and thus they also become angry with him. Then he becomes the object of wrath on the earth also.
(Muslim 32/637332, also related by Bukhari and Tirmidhi)
Fee Amaanillah Ameen
Asalamu Alaikum,
Mashallah this article was much better. The story about Khalid bin Waleed (R) on his death bed was really touching.
Jazakallah Khair Saad. Mashallah it’s a great message.
assalamu alaikum,
I am the same “someone” that wrote this comment in the part 1 of this article:
“yeah I agree with Salwa… we have many many flaws and the Prophet (PBUH) said that the people of hell will mostly be women beacuse since we have no work we have a lot of time on our hands to talk behid other people’s backs and cause fights.
Plus, we are a mans weakness- unfortunately”
I was referring to this hadith. Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) said:
I saw Paradise (or Paradise was shown to me), and I stretched my hand to pluck a bunch (of grapes), and had I plucked it, you would have eaten of it as long as this world exists. Then I saw the (Hell) Fire, and I have never before, seen such a horrible sight as that, and I saw that the majority of its dwellers were women.” The people asked, “O Allah
’s Apostle! What is the reason for that?” He replied, “Because of their ungratefulness.” It was said. “Do they disbelieve in Allah 
(are they ungrateful to Allah 
)?” He replied, “They are not thankful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favours done to them. Even if you do good to one of them all your life, when she seems some harshness from you, she will say, “I have never seen any good from you.’ ”
This hadeeth is indeed TRUE and can be found in:
Saheeh Al-Bukhari: 29, 304, 1052, 1462, 3241, 5197, 5198, 6449, 6546 (FatH Al-Bari’s numbering system)
Saheeh Muslim: 80, 885, 907, 2737, 2738 (Abd Al-BaQi’s numbering system)
Sunan Al-Tarmithi: 635, 2602, 2603, 2613 (AHmad Shakir’s numbering system)
.. and there’s much much more but I’m not going to put them cuz the list can get long.
To “egyptchick7” you said: “A few anti-Islamic websites bring up this false “hadis” to make their argument against Mohammed (PBUH)”. Anti-Islamic people also said that Islam is unjust because women have to wear hijab and men do not, which of course completely does NOT make sense. Just because the Prophet said that most of the people in hell are women, it does not mean we are doomed to it, he is not condemning us. Allah
showed the Prophet (PBUH) Heaven and hell, and the fact of the matter is that the majority of the people in hell are women. This is not an opinion, this is just a plain fact just like if you went to an event and did a head count and realized there were more sisters than there are brothers. You might want to read this website about the hadith:
http://thetruereligion.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=265
This is IMPORTANT- it’s to everyone who questions the authenticity of the hadith:
It is NOT up to us to question the authenticity of this hadith. This hadith is true. And I already said where it can be found. Scholars agreed the Saheeh Al-Bukhari and Saheeh Muslim are the two best books after the Quran. Just because we don’t like what the hadith is saying that doesn’t mean we question it. Islam is about submission. We submit to it- end of story. So every sister should do something about it so she won’t be one of those people in hell instead of wasting time questioning it. The hadith is TRUE, whether anyone likes it or not.
I wanted to clarify what I said earlier but I did not get a chance to.
First of all, I am a sister… so of course I was not bashing them- I’m saying we’re just as bad as brothers and maybe even worse (which is why I used the hadith)
Second, Br. Saad Omar said to my comment: “no where in the hadith does it say anything about staying at home, in fact, many of the women in the Prophet’s time were very active”.
I read over what I said and I did not mean to make it seem that the reason is backbiting and because we’re at home and whatever. Therefore, I apologize for making it seem that way- that was my opinion I did not see the second part of the hadith that explained why there will be more women in hell until I researched it. Also, I know as a sister that sisters do backbite and talk about people more than the brothers do because we usually have more time to do so- this is my personal opinion, Allahu a3lam.
Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) also said “I am not leaving behind any fitnah (trial, temptation) more harmful to men than women.”
Read this website:
http://www.islam-qa.com/index.php?ref=3234&ln=eng&txt=فتنة النساء
Br.Saad Omar- I mostly agree with your article. I especially love the line about wearing the cloak of Musa (AS) over the heart of the Pharoah… and I love the fact that you are opening the brothers eyes to this issue. Jazak Allah
Khair
Lastly, I would like to apologize for this being so long and for not explaining myself properly. I was going to reply earlier but I didn’t get the chance to do so.
assalamu alaikum
The article was good for superficial brothers to become real and start to please Allah
SWT and not society around them. However, I feel that there is still so much immaturity among Muslim young men. Alot of them do not possess hikmah,
maybe that’s what we should be teaching our youth, hikmah in their dealings in life with adults and children.
Mashallah, reading that got me a bit
May Allah
bless you all
that’s such a beautiful article mashAllah but ” being the princes that our future wives could stand in awe of ” ….
.
why do men always use this word i dont like it at all, I mean if Im gonna stand in awe of my husband, then why would I marry him in the first place? one should only stand in awe of Allah
awe - is related to awesome (the expression of awe).
People can be awesome. But of course The Most Awesome - is only Allah
(swt).
Its like calling some1 great. Obviously, there is no greatness but The Greatness of Allah
(swt) - but that doesnt mean we cant call people great people.
Moreover, this relates to why the Divine Names of Allah
(swt) are all defined with Al- in front of them, Al-Akbar, Al-Kareem, Al-Haseeb, etc. These very characteristics are defined by God. Greatness is defined by Allah 
(swt) and all other greatness comes from the source of all that is Great - The Greatest, Al-Akbar. Theres nothing wrong with naming ppl by his divine attributes (naming them Akbar, Kareem, Haseeb, etc.) as long as you dont put the definite The (Al-) before it. That is blasphemous and wrong (unless of course u put an ‘Abd [Slave of] before it).
In fact we should all inspire to take on all of the positive divine qualities of Allah
(swt).
As long as u have the right context theres nothing wrong with a wife being in awe of one’s husband. In fact, I hope to be in awe of my future wife i’A.
But of course, I do bear witness, that there is none worthy of awe, except The Most Awesome.
(lol, I dont believe Awesome is one of the divine attributes, but i hope you get what my point is)
I’d like to respond to “Someone”. I’m not sure why this topic is on this page, but I just thought it was disturbing that the premises of your “nasiha” and that of the article on thetruereligion.org hints that women produce more fitna b/c of their specific uncontrolled nature. I thought it was sad how the fact that there will be more women than men near the end of time, that there will be less morality and more heedlessness in mankind; was left out of your statement entirely and mentioned in passing on the article on truereligion.org. There is no reason why this notion is not further elaborated except that it would detract from the agenda to demean the morality of women - to remind them of their “unusual” weakness.
The hadith you quoted, sounds most proper in its literal text. It’s yet another sign of the love from our beloved Prophet (pbuh) that he would report a general vision and predicate it with reasons. However, you’re commentary on it sounds as if you’re on an agenda to demean the morality of women.
I am also a woman, but I, along with my brothers, were raised by my family, my school teachers, and my community to know that back-biting, ingratitude and speaking ill of others is wrong - no matter how much time we have on our hands. I was also thought by my religion that we all, men and women, get 70 excuses, and we’re all equal in the eyes of God.
assalamu alaikum “S.Siddiqi”,
Since you were wondering “why this topic is on this page”… It’s on this page because “I wanted to clarify what I said earlier but I did not get a chance to” as I said earlier. Obviously if I put it on the same page as I put my very first comment on the part 1 of the article… no one would read it because there were several posts after it- I doubt anyone would scroll down that post to check new comments.
I don’t know where you get your thoughts from… maybe you didn’t read my comment properly… you said:
“The hadith you quoted, sounds most proper in its literal text. It’s yet another sign of the love from our beloved Prophet (pbuh) that he would report a general vision and predicate it with reasons. However, you’re commentary on it sounds as if you’re on an agenda to demean the morality of women”
I don’t understand why I would be on a mission to “demean women” when I’m one them. So you know what- I’m not even gonna bother explaining myself- I think I already made myself clear.
You said: “I am also a woman, but I, along with my brothers, were raised by my family, my school teachers, and my community to know that back-biting, ingratitude and speaking ill of others is wrong - no matter how much time we have on our hands. I was also thought by my religion that we all, men and women, get 70 excuses, and we’re all equal in the eyes of God.”
I said earlier: “I know as a sister that sisters do backbite and talk about people more than the brothers do because we usually have more time to do so- this is my PERSONAL OPINION, Allahu a3lam”
This is my opinion… My comment earlier contains facts and opinions… if you went back and read it you’d be able to tell the difference between the two. It’s an opinion … I don’t believe you have the authority to judge it because it is based on what I have seen in my life and the experiences I’ve been through.
I do not see a point in repeating or explaining myself… I made myself very clear earlier
assalamu alaikum
assalamu alaikum
the sister writing under the name “someone” mashallah articulated her point well, i personally may take scholarly opinions that disagree with her and sana also has the write to articulate her points, obviously.
i do believe (and this is just nasiha), when people start writing one page comments of a polemic natures (argumentative), it detracts from the main issues at hand and isolates other people from expressive their views and contributing to the discussion. i don’t think comments should be a podium for long polemic arguments but this is just my opinion, and Allah
knows best.
-saad
Going back to the article itself…
“Most of us, consciously or without thinking twice have become socialized into deriving our self worth from the horizontal plane. We look to people (possibly the other gender), the corporate world, the media and its definitions of success, etc. for our definitions of self worth.”
Its not uncommon to hear sisters also say and feel that it will be their husbands who will ‘complete’ them and make them ‘whole’ etc…I can see what they mean by this but what are we (men and women) before we get married then?Why should we look to others (like the opp gender as you stated) to make us feel worthy of something?
Shaykh Abdallah Adhami once said that when some young brothers are asked what they are doing with their lives, what plans do they have, they reply “I’m waiting to get married”. Shaykh Abdallah said “this isn’t a plan, you will get married when it is time for you to get married but in the meantime do something with your lives, benefit yourselves and others around you.” -This applies to sisters just as much.
Many of us (and myself included) expect so much from our spouse; we want them to teach us, be strong, help us, bring us closer to Allah
but what are we offering them? What do we have to offer them that would make them “stand in awe” in front of us?
In order for us to be able to offer anything to anyone else, we need to work on our vertical relationship because without that line, we have nothing.
leave it to women to talk about themselves even in an article written about men by men.
ha!
(oh by the way, I am woman also, just thought that our gender should be given credit for sarcasm jackass comments, you know what I am sayin?)
Saad-
i am really glad you posted the solution! this is a very important subject. keep up the good work!
salam