In Sahih Al-Bukhari, it was mentioned that there was a time when Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was praying towards the Ka’bah. Abu Jahal saw this & asked his companions: Who amongst you will go the to the slaughtered camel of so-and-so family, get its abdominals, wait until Muhammad prostrate & dump its filth on him?
‘Uqba bin Abi Mua’it volunteered. He was of the elite, had slaves so he could have told someone to do it for him. But his hatred towards the Prophet ﷺ was so intense that he was willing to personally pick up those filth with his two hands & poured everything when the Prophet ﷺ was in prostration.
Abu Jahal & friends laughed so much & so hard that they had to lean on one another so that they wouldn’t fall. Ibn Mas’ud, may Allah be pleased with him, saw what they did & said that if he had any power to wipe off the filth from the back of the Prophet, he would have done it.
Brothers & sisters, the ummah was so weak that the Prophet ﷺ himself didn’t have someone of the companions, or a group, or an army to help him. That was how weak that point of the ummah was.
Then someone else saw this & went to inform Fatima (the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ) may Allah be pleased with her. Fatima at that time was a little young girl! But she ran to her father, cleaned the filth over his ﷺ back, then turned to face Abu Jahal & his companions & started rebuking them. Then Prophet Muhammad ﷺ finished his prayer & made du’a against them.
Notice that I said he ﷺ finished his prayer – yes he finished his prayer! He didn’t give up on his prayer! He didn’t say there is no meaning in this worship! He didn’t say: Why would Allah allow this to happen to me while I was praying to Him? No! Because he knows that in order to be victorious, then he has to worship Allah. Because he knew that in order to not be humiliated in this life, a Muslim needs to hold tight to his connection with Allah.
Brothers & sisters, know that victory will come when we take care of our prayers, our obligatory duties & steer away from what has been made haram. Allah says:
“O believers! Seek comfort and help in patience and prayers. Without a doubt, Allah is with those who are patient.” [Al-Baqarah 2:153]
