Grounded

Last week we began our journey into Surat Al-Muddathir, and there is something striking about reading it directly after Surat Al-Muzzammil. The two surahs sit beside each other in the Mushaf, and they sit beside each other in meaning. If Al-Muzzammil is about spiritual development, Al-Muddathir is about community development. If Al-Muzzammil is the inward work, Al-Muddathir is the outward call. They complete each other.

Both surahs open with the Prophet ﷺ being addressed by a state, not a name — the wrapped one, the cloaked one. The reason is human and tender. When the Prophet ﷺ first received revelation, he was terrified by his encounter with Jibreel. He rushed home to Khadijah and said, Zammiluni, zammiluni — cover me, cover me. Blanket me. Allah addresses him in that moment of vulnerability, and from that vulnerability calls him to a mission.

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Qum — but this time, to warn

Both surahs contain the command Qum — stand up. In Al-Muzzammil it is Qumi al-layla illa qalila — stand up at night except for a little. Stand up to pray. Stand up to recite the Qur’an. Stand up to do the inward, spiritual work that prepares the heart.

In Al-Muddathir it is something else:

يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُدَّثِّرُ ۝ قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ

O you who are wrapped up, stand up and warn.

Stand up — and warn whom? Your people. Your community. It is not enough that a Muslim is good only to himself, that he believes in Allah and prays and that is it. He sees evil and closes his eyes, keeps quiet. That is not the prophetic mission. The night prayer of Al-Muzzammil exists so that you have the strength to stand up in Al-Muddathir and speak.

You cannot pour out into your community what you have not first received in the quiet of the night.

Five commands for the messenger

After Qum fa-andhir, Allah gives five short, weighty commands. Each is a piece of equipment for anyone carrying the prophetic mission.

1. And your Lord — glorify Him

وَرَبَّكَ فَكَبِّرْ

In Arabic, the verb usually comes before the noun. The natural order would be Fa-kabbir Rabbak. But Allah inverts it: Wa Rabbaka fa-kabbir. Putting your Lord before the verb is not a stylistic accident — it restricts the action. Glorify only Him. Make great none other than Him.

This is a message of tawhid. The prophetic mission begins with La ilaha illa Allah. The Prophet ﷺ was speaking to a community of pagans — there were more than 360 idols around the Ka’ba, one for every day of the year — and the first warning he was told to deliver was this: there is no god but Allah. Glorify only Him.

This week we worked through fifteen short ayat from Surat al-Muddaththir. Their brevity is a gift — perfect terrain for drilling fluency without getting lost in long breath patterns.

A few rules surfaced again and again. Heavy Ra after a fatḥah or ḍammah, produced by raising the back of the tongue, never by pouting the lips. Throat letters given their proper place — the kha in khalaqtu, the hamzah in yu’thar. Idghām with ghunnah in mā lam mamdūdā, but iẓhār with no ghunnah at all in in hādhā. Qalqalah on the dāl of adbara, hams on the kāf of wastakbar — a bounce versus a small release of air.

The reminder I keep returning to: ten minutes a day beats one hour once a week. Consistency beats intensity.

See you on Thursday for Tafsīr Thursday, in shā Allāh.

There’s a moment in Hajj most people only think about as a logistical headache — the stoning of the Jamarāt. Crowded, hot, exhausting. You queue up, you throw, you move on.

But behind that act is one of the most instructive scenes in our religion. And it happens to a father and a son, thousands of years before any of us were born.

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Ibrāhīm ﷺ waited decades for a child. He was an old man — the only worshipper of Allāh in his world. Just him, his wife, and his cousin Lūṭ. That was the entire ummah.

He made duʿāʾ. Allāh gave him a son.

And then, as soon as Ismāʿīl reached the age the Qurʾān describes as **بَلَغَ مَعَهُ السَّعْيَ** — old enough to walk with him, work with him, hike with him, that beautiful pre-teenage age where the father is still the hero — Allāh told Ibrāhīm in a dream to slaughter him.

I want you to sit with that for a second.

Not as a young man tested with his own life. As a father, tested with his only son. Allāh wasn’t asking him for everything. Allāh was asking him for the *one thing* most dear to him.

This is the test that meets you in fatherhood. The test of whether Allāh comes before everything — including the people you love most.

Both of them passed. Both submitted. The son said:

> يَا أَبَتِ افْعَلْ مَا تُؤْمَرُ ۖ سَتَجِدُنِي إِن شَاءَ اللَّهُ مِنَ الصَّابِرِينَ

>

> *O my dear father, do as you have been commanded. You will find me, in shāʾ Allāh, among the patient ones.*

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Now here is the part I want you to focus on.

On the way to the slaughter, Iblīs came. And what he whispered wasn’t crude. It was clever. He listed every sacrifice Ibrāhīm had already made: *You were thrown into the fire. You were exiled. You migrated. You circumcised at an old age. Hasn’t Allāh asked enough of you? And now your only son?*

Ibrāhīm ﷺ didn’t argue. He didn’t debate. He didn’t even just make duʿāʾ for protection.

He bent down. He picked up seven pebbles. And he threw them.

*Allāhu Akbar. Allāhu Akbar. Allāhu Akbar.*

Then he moved.

Iblīs came again, at a second spot. Seven more pebbles. *Allāhu Akbar.* He moved again.

Iblīs came a third time. Seven pebbles. *Allāhu Akbar.* And Iblīs left, and didn’t come back.

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Every Hajj, two to three million Muslims re-enact this. We throw stones at three pillars. We say *Allāhu Akbar.* We move on.

But I think most of us don’t realise what we’re commemorating. We’re not just throwing rocks at a symbol of evil. We’re rehearsing a *method*.

**Ibrāhīm didn’t only make duʿāʾ. He picked up stones.**

This is something I think about a lot. We have a tendency, when something is hard, to make duʿāʾ and then sit down. As if duʿāʾ alone is the entire toolkit. As if Allāh wants nothing more from us than our words.

But Allāh gave us hands. He gave us bodies. He gave us pebbles. He wants to see what skin we have in the game. Not just our tongues — our *physicality.* He wants to see us bend down, pick something up, and throw it.

Make duʿāʾ. *And then act.*

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The second thing Ibrāhīm did was even more underrated.

**He moved.**

He didn’t stay at the same spot and keep throwing. He moved to a new location. And then another.

This is huge. Because the lesson is: your environment shapes you. You cannot defeat the whisper of Iblīs while standing in the same place that lets him whisper.

We have a principle in Islam — *al-jārū qabla al-dār.* The neighbour before the house. Look at your neighbourhood before you look at the property. The Prophet ﷺ said a person is on the religion of their closest friend. The one you spend the most time with — that’s who you become.

So when we ask Allāh to protect us from a sin, from a bad habit, from a toxic relationship, from a destructive workplace — and then we go right back into the same room, with the same people, in the same scroll, on the same screen — we are standing where Ibrāhīm refused to stand.

Move. Move your body. Move your house. Move your friendship circle. Move your phone out of the bedroom. If you keep falling asleep when you open the muṣḥaf, don’t read in bed — find a chair, find a desk, have a cup of coffee.

Don’t try to outlast Iblīs from his own territory. Pick up the pebbles, throw, and walk somewhere else.

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Here’s what gives me hope.

Ibrāhīm ﷺ moved *three times.* And then Iblīs left. He didn’t come back.

That’s the promise embedded in this story. If you keep throwing and you keep moving, eventually the whisper gives up and goes looking for someone else. The struggle isn’t infinite. It just feels infinite when you stand still.

And the ending of Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl’s story is the ending of every story where someone gives Allāh everything: nobody died. Allāh replaced the sacrifice with a great one. The son lived. The father was honoured. The act was immortalised in our worship until the end of time.

When you put Allāh first — really first, not in a sentimental way but in a *here are my hands, here are my pebbles, here is the room I’m walking out of* kind of way — you don’t lose. Barakah flows through everything you touch.

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So this Dhū al-Ḥijjah, even if you’re not at the Jamarāt this year, take the lesson home with you.

What is your Iblīs whispering at you right now? What’s the pebble you need to pick up? And — this is the harder one — *what is the spot you need to move from?*

Throw. Then move. Throw. Then move.

He gives up before you do.

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*With duʿāʾ for those making Hajj this year, and for those still building toward it.*

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

This term, Term 2 of 2026, Grounded begins its study of Surah Al-Muddathir. Last term covered Surah Al-Muzzammil, and these two surahs reflect each other in meaning. Before opening the ayat itself, this first session steps back to map the landscape — where Al-Muddathir sits in the early revelation to the Prophet ﷺ, and what each surah was teaching him in sequence.

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The Cave and the Cry for Guidance

At around 35 years old, the Prophet ﷺ began withdrawing from his community into spiritual seclusion. He would travel about five kilometres from Makkah to the cave of Hira, following a pattern set long before him by Ibrahim عليه السلام and his family.

The Makkah he was withdrawing from was a city in moral disrepair. He could see the disease, but could not yet see the cure. So he would isolate himself, reflect, and pray for a way out — not just for himself, but for his people.

When he was 40 years old, the answer came.

The First Revelation: Iqra — Read

The first revelation was the opening five ayat of Surah Al-’Alaq, beginning with the command:

اقْرَأْ — Read.

Pause on what is happening here. The Prophet ﷺ was unlettered. He was sent to a community that was overwhelmingly illiterate — some scholars say you could count on the fingers of both hands the number of people in Makkah at that time who could read and write. And the very first word Allah revealed to this man, in this place, was a command to read.

This was revolutionary in human history.

Before this moment, reading was largely the reserved privilege of the scholarly and the clergy — priests and religious authorities who needed access to scripture. A normal person, even a king, often did not need to read; they had scribes for that. Reading was an elite, ceremonial activity.

Iqra democratised reading. It pulled it out of the temple and the palace and placed it in the hands of every believer. Allah did not first command the Prophet ﷺ to pray, to fast, or to perform Hajj. The first command — to him, and by extension to the Muslim community — was to read.

Muslims have to be readers. This is the first command.

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The Second Revelation: Al-Qalam — The Pen

After this first encounter, the Prophet ﷺ was terrified. He thought he was losing his mind, that he was seeing things, that he had been touched by jinn. He went home and Khadijah رضي الله عنها calmed him down.

Then came Surah Al-Qalam:

ن ۚ وَالْقَلَمِ وَمَا يَسْطُرُونَ

Nun. By the pen and what they write.

The nun is one of the disjointed letters whose meaning only Allah knows. But the rest of the ayah is clear: an oath by the pen and what it writes. The reference is to the pen of the Lawh al-Mahfudh — but the message to humanity is the elevation of writing.

There is a difference of opinion among the scholars about which surah was the second revelation — Al-Qalam, Al-Muzzammil, or Al-Muddathir. The position taken here is that it is Al-Qalam, for two reasons.

First, Surah Al-Qalam contains the ayah:

مَا أَنتَ بِنِعْمَةِ رَبِّكَ بِمَجْنُونٍ

You, by the favour of your Lord, are not mad.

The Prophet ﷺ had just walked away from the cave terrified that he was going crazy. Before any further mission could be loaded onto him, Allah needed to settle his heart: you are not mad. This is real. This is the answer to what you have been asking for.

Second, the message of the pen and what is written sits naturally next to Iqra. First read. Then write. Allah is establishing the foundations of a literate ummah before He establishes anything else.

A Civilisation Built on the Pen

This focus on reading and writing wasn’t just a private spiritual instruction to one man — it shaped a civilisation.

A clear example is the Battle of Talas in 751 CE. When the Muslims defeated the Tang Chinese army, among the prisoners were craftsmen who knew the secret of papermaking. Until that point, paper was a closely guarded Chinese technology. Through those captives, papermaking entered the Muslim world — Samarkand, then Baghdad, then across North Africa and into Andalusia, and from there into the rest of Europe.

The world before mass paper was a world of parchment and scroll — expensive, ceremonial, reserved for royal edicts and palace records. The world after was a world where ordinary people could own books. The intellectual explosion of the Islamic Golden Age — the libraries of Baghdad, the universities of Cordoba, the translation movements — was built on this foundation.

The first command was Iqra. The second oath was by the pen. Acquiring and preserving knowledge isn’t just useful for humanity. It is a religious command.

The Third Revelation: Al-Muzzammil — The One Wrapped Tightly

After reading and writing comes Surah Al-Muzzammil:

يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُزَّمِّلُ ۞ قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا

O you who is wrapped up. Stand the night, except for a little.

Muzzammil describes someone wrapped tightly in their cloak — the kind of wrapping you reach for when you’re shivering, when you want to be held by your blanket. The Prophet ﷺ had come home shaken, and pulled his cloak tightly around himself.

And in that state, the command came: stand the night.

This is the command for spiritual work. Qiyamul layl. Take the knowledge that has been given to you — iqra, al-qalam — and turn it inward first. Transform yourself before you try to transform anything else.

This is where revelation begins its real work on the believer: not in the marketplace, not in the public square, but at night, alone, standing before Allah.

The Fourth Revelation: Al-Muddathir — The One Covered

And then comes the surah Grounded begins this term:

يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُدَّثِّرُ ۞ قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ

O you who is covered. Stand up and warn.

Muddathir is a softer wrapping than muzzammil. Muzzammil is the tight, terrified wrap of someone shivering. Muddathir is the more relaxed cover — like the blanket you pull over yourself on these cooler autumn nights in Perth, not clutched, just resting on you, comfortable.

And the command this time is different. Qum fa-andhir — stand up and warn your people.

This is community work.

Notice the sequence Allah is teaching:

1. Iqra — read.

2. Al-Qalam — write.

3. Al-Muzzammil — work on yourself in the night.

4. Al-Muddathir — go out and work for your community in the day.

Read and write. Acquire knowledge. Turn that knowledge into self-transformation. Then take that transformed self into the community and contribute.

A good Muslim is not someone who simply sits at home reciting Quran, doing tasbih, doing dhikr, fasting, and isolating from the world. Those things are essential — non-negotiable, in fact. But the next question is always: how does this benefit the rest of creation? What is the contribution to the community?

The Two Cannot Be Separated

There is a tendency to split these two — to treat the spiritual person and the activist as different categories. Islam fuses them.

The Prophet ﷺ taught this fusion in a single hadith, narrated by Abdullah ibn Salam — a Jewish rabbi in Madinah who heard the first lecture and immediately recognised the signs of the final messenger. The Prophet ﷺ said:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ، أَفْشُوا السَّلَامَ، وَأَطْعِمُوا الطَّعَامَ، وَصِلُوا الْأَرْحَامَ، وَصَلُّوا بِاللَّيْلِ وَالنَّاسُ نِيَامٌ، تَدْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةَ بِسَلَامٍ.

O people, spread peace, feed the hungry, maintain family ties, and pray at night while people are sleeping — you will enter Paradise in peace.

Look at the structure of that hadith. Three of the four instructions are outward — spread peace, feed people, connect family ties. These are daytime acts, community acts, the work of being among people. Only the last — pray at night while people sleep — is solitary spiritual work.

The day is for community work. The night is for spiritual work. The night recharges the day. The …

Assalamualaikum,

Welcome back to Tajweed Tuesday! We are back after a long break. This term insha Allah we will be reading Surah al-Muddaththir.

Remember to practice your Quran daily, even if it is only 10 minutes. Consistency always beats intensity. And when practicing remember that, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow down and read smoothly. Only speed up once you are smooth.

The Structure of This Surah

Before we go forward, it helps to see the shape of what we have been reading.

Surah Al-A’raf is a Makki surah. Its primary audience was the Quraysh of Makkah. Its central argument is historical: look at the nations before you. Contrast this with Surah Al-An’am — also Makki, also addressing the Quraysh — but that surah makes its…

We praise Allah for allowing us to experience and complete another Ramadan. And now that we’ve emerged from it, there’s a question worth sitting with: what comes next?

Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali mentions that the pious predecessors would spend six months after Ramadan asking Allah to accept their deeds — and the remaining months begging Him to let them witness another one. That’s the rhythm. Gratitude, then longing. Never stagnation.

But the Qur’an gives us something even more precise than that rhythm. It gives us a transition.

In Surah al-Baqarah, the discussion of Ramadan begins at ayah 183 — *kutiba alaykum al-siyam* — and runs through to ayah 187. Then, immediately, in ayah 189, Allah says:

**يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْأَهِلَّةِ**

*They ask you about the crescent moons.*

The companions asked Rasulullah ﷺ about the significance of the moon’s phases — crescent to full, waning and returning. Allah answered that the moon exists so that humanity can track time. So we know when a month begins and when it ends. (I understand this topic is sensitive in Perth. We’ll leave that there.)

But then, immediately, Allah connects this to Hajj.

“Qul hiya mawaqitu li al-nas wa al-hajj.”

The crescents are time-markers for people — and for Hajj.

The transition is beautiful. One act of worship ends. The next one begins. No gap. No off-season. The life of a believer is simply moving from one ibadah to the next. The same Lord we worshipped in Ramadan is the same Lord who governs every moment outside of it. Ramadan ending doesn’t mean the haram becomes negotiable again, or the wajib becomes optional. We have a new aim now.

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Now, not everyone can perform Hajj. It’s a mathematical impossibility. Two billion Muslims, roughly two million pilgrimage spots per year — the number has been reduced since COVID. Do the maths. It would take something like 700 years before every Muslim alive today gets a turn. That’s why Hajj is the only pillar where Allah specifies man istata’a ilayhi sabila — for those who are able. Ability is a condition.

But the mindset still applies. The transition from one ibadah to the next is for everyone.

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There are so many dimensions to Hajj worth unpacking. But I want to focus on one moment — a snapshot — from the stoning at the Jamarat.

The backstory is Sayyidina Ibrahim عليه السلام. He was commanded by Allah, through a dream, to sacrifice his only son at that time, Isma’il. And when he told his son — and Allah recorded this exchange in the Qur’an — Isma’il responded with full submission: *ifʿal mā tu’mar* — do as you have been commanded. You will find me among the patient.

But Isma’il set conditions. He said: don’t do it in Makkah, because if I scream, my mother will hear and it will break her heart. And make sure the blade is sharp so it’s quick.

(Side note to the sons in the room: if your father knocks on your door and says he saw a dream about slaughtering you — dial 000. These days, the worst our fathers do is say, “Son, wake up for Fajr.” And even that’s a struggle.)

Father and son walked about five or six kilometres from Makkah to Mina. And at each of the three stations along the way, Iblis appeared. He whispered. He cast doubt. He said: *You’ve done enough. You built the Ka’bah. You migrated from Iraq to Jerusalem to Makkah. You’ve sacrificed so much already. Why this? Just say no.*

At each station, Ibrahim took seven pebbles, threw them in the direction of Iblis — *Allahu Akbar* — and moved on.

After the third station, Iblis left and never came back.

Falamma aslama wa tallahu li al-jabin. When both of them submitted fully — the father resolute, the son’s forehead on the stone — Allah called out. The test was fulfilled. A great sacrifice was sent in Isma’il’s place.

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Thousands of years later, during the Hajj of the Prophet ﷺ — Hajjat al-Wada’ — as he was riding his camel towards the Jamarat, he told Sayyidina Abdullah ibn Abbas: get me some pebbles.

Ibn Abbas picked up pebbles about the size you could flick between your thumb and index finger. Our scholars later said: about the size of a chickpea.

Rasulullah ﷺ took them and said: yes, get more of this size.

And then he addressed the community. He said:

**يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ، إِيَّاكُمْ وَالْغُلُوَّ فِي الدِّينِ**

*O people, beware of extremism in religion. For nations before you were destroyed because of extremism in religion.*

Think about that. This is a moment about picking up a rock. A small, mundane, physical act. But Rasulullah ﷺ saw the teaching opportunity and seized it.

Because it’s easy to go overboard here. You’re reliving what Ibrahim went through. You’re stoning Iblis. A chickpea-sized pebble? That’s not going to cut it. You want to find the nearest cricket club, practice your bowling, and make sure Iblis doesn’t come back next year.

But no. The Prophet ﷺ said: this is the size. Not too big — you’re not hurling rocks. Not too small — you’re not flicking grains of rice. Just right. The balance.

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So where do we draw the line on extremism?

I was speaking to some of the high school students at Qaswa about the practices of our predecessors in Ramadan. Imam al-Shafi’i would complete two full readings of the Qur’an every day during Ramadan — one in the day, one at night. That’s sixty khatam in one month.

The students said: that’s extreme, isn’t it?

I said: well, how do you define extreme?

Let’s pull out our phones. Check the screen time. How many hours on TikTok? How many on Instagram? People are clocking seven, eight, ten hours a day staring at a screen.

Now imagine we could transport Imam al-Shafi’i into 2026. We tell him: Muslims today stare at a glowing rectangle for ten hours a day, getting no benefit, and it’s actually harming them.

He would say: that’s extremely stupid, isn’t it?

So who defines what’s extreme? Rasulullah ﷺ does. Because he is the most balanced of humanity. The mark of this Ummah, as Allah describes it in the Qur’an: ummatan wasata — a balanced nation.

When three companions each decided to push further — one would pray all night and never sleep, one would fast every day and never break it, one would worship and never marry — the Prophet ﷺ said: I am the one with the most taqwa among you. Yet I pray and I sleep. I fast and I break my fast. I worship and I marry. This is my sunnah. Whoever turns away from my sunnah is not from me.

Everything has a right. Your body has a right — good nutrition, good rest. Your family has a right. Allah has a right over you in worship. Giving every aspect its due — that’s balance.

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Let me sketch a few dimensions of this balance.

Balance in belief. Islam respects both revelation and reason. We believe because Allah told us to believe — in Him, in the angels, in the books, in the prophets, in the Last Day, in qadar. These are revelatory matters.

But our tradition also respects the intellect. Look at how Ibrahim عليه السلام argued with his people in Surah al-An’am. He didn’t just say: stop worshipping your idols because Allah says so. He engaged their logic. Idols you carved with your own hands — you made them, and now you bow to them? They don’t speak, don’t benefit you, don’t harm you. Why?

And then the stars. He observed the kawkab — a beautiful star — and said sarcastically: this is my lord? But when it set, he said: I don’t love things that disappear. God can’t be present at some times and absent at others. I need God every moment.

Then the moon appeared, full and bright. He said: this is my lord? But when it set, he said: *if my Lord had not guided me, I would certainly be among those who are astray.*

Notice the shift. In the first argument, Ibrahim used pure logic — God can’t appear and disappear. But in the second, he acknowledged that arriving at the worship of Allah requires revelation. Intellect can deny what is not God. But to know who God is, you need guidance.

Imam al-Ghazali captured this beautifully. He said: revelation is l…

We stopped last week at the story of Prophet Salih. We didn’t finish it. Tonight, inshaAllah, we push through — all the way from Salih to Lut to Shu’aib. Three Prophets, three nations, three types of corruption. And then next week, we begin the long passage on Prophet Musa.

Quick Recap

We’ve been tracing a pattern. Prophet Nuh was the first Prophet to fac…

Ramadan is over, but the tafseer continues. Our aim is to finish Surah Al-A’raf in four weeks — which means we move faster than we did during Ramadan. In Ramadan, we paced the tafseer to match what we were reading in taraweeh each night. Now we push forward.

For those who missed the Ramadan series, all the posts are on Substack at groundeddaily.substack.…

We praise Allah for allowing us to complete another month of Ramadan and to celebrate the day of Eid together.

Today is a day of celebration. Today we are happy. Today we are joyous.

But if you look into the global geopolitical events at the moment, it is hard for us to be joyous. It is hard for us to celebrate. Palestinians are still being killed daily, still facing genocide. The Middle East is burning. Iran is under illegal attack by the US and Israel. And now we see yet another part of the region falling into war.

It is hard for us to be joyous, because the Prophet ﷺ said: if you don’t care about this Ummah, you are not from among us.

So how are we to celebrate?

The Boulder in the Darkness

To understand celebration in a time of conflict — when the future looks bleak and it’s easy to fall into despair — I want to take you back 1,442 years.

The Muslims in the nascent city of Madinah, having migrated there only five years earlier, were now under attack by all of Arabia. The largest army the Arabs had ever assembled. The Quraysh from the south. The Ghatafan from the north. The Jews of Khaybar joining the coalition.

The Prophet ﷺ consulted his companions, and Sayyidina Salman al-Farisi suggested a strategy the Persians would use when outnumbered: dig a trench so the enemy cannot breach through.

The Prophet ﷺ accepted the idea and commanded the companions to dig at the most vulnerable point of Madinah. He joined them in the digging. It was winter. It was cold. Food was scarce. They were hungry. They were exhausted. Yet they had to keep digging — for survival.

In the darkness of that trench, they struck a boulder they couldn’t break through. They called the Prophet ﷺ. He came — dusty like everyone else, hungry like all of them. He took the shovel and struck the boulder. A third of it crumbled. A spark flew. He said: Allahu Akbar — I saw the palaces of Yemen. Yemen is given to my Ummah.

He struck again. Another third crumbled. Another spark. Allahu Akbar — I saw the keys of Rome given to the Ummah.

He struck a final time. The boulder shattered completely. Allahu Akbar — I saw the Sassanid Empire given to the Ummah.

In times of darkness — when it is easiest to fall into desperation and give up hope — the Prophet ﷺ inspired the Muslims. He told them there is a bright future for the Ummah. All we need to do is work hard and persevere in the path of Allah ﷻ.

And here is what’s remarkable: the Prophet ﷺ passed away before any of it came true. Yemen had not yet been given. The Sassanid Empire had not yet fallen. Half the Byzantine Empire had not yet come under Muslim rule.

But the companions did not despair. They did not give up because it hadn’t happened yet. They understood that when Allah promises something — lā yukhliful mī’ād — He never breaks His promises. All we need to do is fulfil our part.

The Tried and Tested Recipe

What is our part? Allah tells us in Surah Āl ’Imrān. The secret behind the victory of the Ummah — regardless of number, regardless of material strength — is two things: ṣabr and taqwā.

If you have ṣabr and you have taqwā, Allah will send down thousands of angels to help you.

And in the month of Ramadan, we trained exactly that.

Ṣabr by day. And ṣabr here is not passive patience. It is not sitting quietly and doing nothing. In Arabic, ṣabr carries the meaning of steadfastness, perseverance — staying on the path regardless of how difficult it is, doing the right thing no matter how challenging.

We did that in Ramadan. Allah told us no water, despite 40-degree heat. And this Ramadan, we saw those 40-degree days. We said no to water. We held the course until Maghrib. At 3:30 in the morning, we dragged ourselves up for suhoor, prayed tahajjud, prayed Fajr despite the weight of sleep. That is ṣabr.

Taqwā by night. This is our direct line to Allah ﷻ — where the heart connects to Him in prayer, in tarāwīḥ, in Qur’an, in tahajjud, in adhkār, in du’ā.

These two — ṣabr and taqwā — are a tried and tested recipe for 1,400 years. When the Ummah returns to them, Allah grants victory.

Look at the history. The greatest victories came in Ramadan. Badr — 313 against 1,000 — in Ramadan. The Conquest of Makkah, the Prophet’s greatest political victory — Ramadan. Qādisiyyah, the fall of the Sassanid Empire — Ramadan. The fall of Iskandariyyah at the hands of ’Amr ibn al-’Āṣ — Ramadan.

Victory after victory. Because Ramadan produces the two ingredients Allah asked for.

Celebrate. It’s an Act of Worship.

Islam is a religion that celebrates our fiṭrah. Allah who created us understands our wants, our likes, our nature. He knows we like to eat good food. He knows we like to dress well. He knows we like to be with our families and friends.

So He legislated a day where dressing nicely is rewarded. Eating good food is rewarded. Sharing laughter with loved ones — within the boundaries of the Sharī’ah — is rewarded.

What kind of religion is this? Everything we love, Allah rewards us for it.

The Prophet ﷺ said that one of the most beloved deeds to Allah is to bring happiness to the heart of a believer. When we share happiness, when we cause others to be happy, when we create joy in the community — Allah loves to see that.

And there is no better place to start than with the children. Especially the ones who fasted this year — in the heat, in public schools where their friends had cold drinks and ice cream at recess. They had ṣabr. They held on to their religion. They stood steadfast without wavering.

Today is the day we celebrate them. We put joy in their hearts, smiles on their faces. Spoil them a little. Allah will reward you for it.

The Work Ahead

Today we celebrate our graduation from Ramadan. We stand shoulder to shoulder and declare: Allahu Akbar. God is greater than our worries. Greater than our troubles. Greater than all the problems the Ummah faces.

When we make du’ā, we say: Yā Allah, our problems are big — but You are Allahu Akbar.

The Ummah needs ṣabr. And ṣabr is not passively waiting for miracles, not sitting around hoping angels appear. It is hard work. What do we need to do to strengthen the Ummah? What planning, what skill sets, what community building needs to happen? Let’s do it together.

And at night, we maintain the line — prayer, Qur’an, du’ā, that personal direct relationship with Allah ﷻ. Taqwā.

We ask Allah to accept all our deeds in Ramadan. To grant us ṣabr and taqwā. To make us the people of change who bring glory back to the Ummah. To grant relief to our brothers and sisters who are oppressed everywhere — in Palestine, in Iran, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, in Sudan, and in every place.

اللهم آمين

Eid Mubarak.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​