Coping With Loss

A'udhu bil-lahi al sami'a al-'aleem, min al-shaytan al-la'in al-rajim. Bi fadhlil-lahi bismillah al-rahman al-rahim. Al-hamdulillah rabb al-'alameen, Al-hamdulillah wal-hamdu haqquh kama yastahiqquhu hamdan kathira. Al-hamdulil-lahi 'lladi hadana li hadha wa ma kunna li nahtadiya lawla an hadanaAllah. Allahumma il'an awala dhalimin dhalama haqqa Muhammad wa aali Muhammad wa akhira tabi'an lahu 'ala dhalik. Allahumma il'an al 'isabata allati jahadati 'l-Husayn, wa shaya'at wa baya'at wa taba'at ala qatlih, allahumma il'anhum jami'a. Thumma al-salat wa'l-salam 'ala khair khalq il-Lahi ajmae'en Muhammad. [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad] Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa ali Muhammad wa 'ala ahli baytihil-tayyibeen al-tahireen wa al-la'natul da'imatu 'ala a'da'ihim ajma'een.

We spoke in the previous nights about death and dealing with the dead. Tonight, we will talk about grieving and what grieving actually is and what grieving is not and how to deal with grieving and how to overcome your grief.

Firstly if I was to look up the word grief and to find the meaning of the word, you will find it is a form of suffering after affliction or it is a form of distress after a loss. So grief is a feeling that we have. It is like an internal strain or internal suffocation. It is not an ailment or a sickness so that we can say there is a cure for it. It is more of a phenomenon. It is something that happens and there is a process in order to deal with such a thing.

The problem with grief, it has a dangerous effect, if it is not understood and dealt with properly, it can bring about a feeling of hopelessness; it can bring about a feeling where I do not want, I do not have any more ambition or any aspirations or put me in a mode where I do not have any prospects in life, I do not want to change, I remain in a somber mood, I remain gloomy. In fact, it can bring you to the point where you begin to accuse your Creator Allah, and have anger towards Allah for His decree of giving you this loss. And in fact, this is what you will find a lot of people leave religion after some big thing that takes place.

I remember once a man said to his family, he said to them, it is not that I do not believe in God anymore, but I do not love Him anymore because He took my wife. His wife had died. Or in the case of a more renowned story, is the story of the physicist, the famous physicist, Madame Curie, who was someone that we attribute radioactivity to, she is a double Nobel Peace Prize winner. So Nobel winner of an award in physics and chemistry. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, yet she stopped believing in God because she lost her mother and lost a sister. And she accused God for taking away the ones that she loved and turned away from religion. And this is what happens when we allow this grieving to take place.

But why do we grieve? We grieve because the world is important to us. Everything around us is important. Everything that surrounds us is important. And if we lose any of these, we grieve for this loss. Is it bad to grieve? No, it is natural for someone to grieve. It is bad when it becomes excessive because when it becomes excessive, I lose focus on why I am here and what my purpose is in this dunya.

How do I deal with someone that is grieving firstly? Is it good for you to avoid mentioning the subject? It is not. It is not good for you to totally tiptoe around it. It is good for you to actually mention to them. It is good when someone sees you and says "Allah Yirham waldak, may Allah have mercy on your father, he was a good man." And it gives you that comfort. You feel he is still around because people are mentioning him, mentioning their name and they understand your situation. And you should not shun it, if you are the one that is grieving, someone says to you, you know, "May Allah have mercy on this person" or "May Allah help you in this situation", you should not say "No no no issues I am focused."

Do not be one of those people that pretends, because if you do not grieve properly, it is going to remain within and affects you. And this is what begets other things that affect your body internally and mentally if I allow it to stay within. I need to deal with it accordingly. I have to hurt, I suffer, I cry. And then I get back into my life. And this is what we call resilience.

You never recover. This is something people say that you recover, you never recover. That is a fact. You just move on.

Once one of my friends whose father had died and he called me about two years after, he said, "I still think about him." And he said, how long has your father been - at that time, my father had died for seven years. And he said, "When do you stop thinking about him?" I said, "You do not stop thinking." I said, "You just move on. You accept, but you always remember them. And you have that feeling every now and then you will remember them." This is humane, this is normal. This is not abnormal.

But the grieving process must take place. They say that time heals all wounds. That is not necessarily correct, some wounds never healed. They are going to remain, I have to know how to deal with them.

Even when they try and describe, one of the most audacious claims that they have is that five step process. Have you ever heard that when someone is given bad news, and they say the first is denial, then anger, then depression and bargaining and then acceptance... That is a lie. Does not exist.

Why? Because everyone grieves differently. It is not something where you move from one step to another. It is a bumpy ride. One day you have highs, one day you have lows. When you are having a bad day, you will start weeping over those you have lost. This is normal. When you are having a good day, these thoughts run into your head. So how I grieve is different.

The other thing is a lot of the times people equate grieving with depression, but it has nothing to do with depression. It is different. Firstly, grieving. If you say when someone grieving because they have lost someone, they tell you, I have got a broken heart or there is a hole you know, they have a hole in the heart. Why do you have a hole? Because you have lost something. You are yearning for something.

Depression is not yearning. It is not an emotion that you have. Depression is different, depression is a mental illness. It is got to do with mental health. Grieving, grieving is not mental health. This is not something that requires mental assistance. This is something that requires me dealing with it and those around me.

In fact, that is why we have these majalis. We congregate, when Imam Al-Rida, 'alayhi assalam, [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad] when he mentions to his companion "in kunta bakiyan fa abki ala 'l-Husayn", "if you are to weep, cry over Aba Abdillah al-Husayn". That is why when we come, remind them we are doing a majlis for Aba Abdillah al-Husayn, because when we hear of the tragedy of Imam Husayn, 'alahy assalam, all tragedies become nothing. You say: I have got no problems. Is that what I lost? What did he lose? Everything.

And do not forget, a lot of people try and remove the human factor from Imam Hussain. And a lot of people try and make the Imams in a way to be immortal, a deities. The Imam gets tired, the Imam gets hungry, the Imam gets thirsty. The Imam gets sad, the Imam gets happy. Allah, 'azza wa jall, shows you this in the Qur'an, shows you when Yaqub wept over Yusuf, wept until he became blind from weeping over Yusuf, that they have emotions and these emotions are present. We can sit there and look over all these stories.

But to understand how I deal with grieving, I need to know what the cure for grieving is. We are weak. As human beings we are weak. We are deficient, and this is why when someone has a plan that they want to undertake, why is the plan from the outset doomed to fail? Because we have a tendency to say that is it, today I am going to stop lying. Or today I am going to stop speeding, or today - I have all these plans in my head and they always fail. Do you know why?

Because I put the situation in my hands. Rather than saying: O Allah, help me to stop lying. O Allah, help me to stop swearing. O Allah, help me to stop speeding. Because there are times when you are all alone and a problem comes and you start crying and you say, this is too much, this is too much for me to handle. And Allah responds, Allah says: "I know it is too much for you to handle. That is why I am here. I am the cure"

Imam Ali Ibn Al-Husayn Zayn Al-Abidin, salawatullahi wa assalamu 'aleyh, says[Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad] he says that if all the creation were to die and I was to remain by myself, imagine that, all the creation was to die and I was to remain by myself with all I had was the Qur'an, he said I would not feel lonely at all. I won't feel alone. "Ya Noor al-mustawishina fi dh-dhulam."

Allah, 'azza wa jall, is Noor. Allah is "Noor al-mustawishina fi dh-dhulam." Mustawhish is someone that has wahsha which means they are alone, they are by themselves. Because in your grieving you are by yourself in this moment. In this darkness, Allah, 'azza wa jall, is this light. Allah is the one that is there for you at this moment.

When Adam, 'alayhi assalam, he complained to Allah, 'azza wa jall, and he said to him, he said, he complained to him from the grieving. Remember Adam. Adam had something to grieve about. Imagine, he was in paradise and sent down to the earth. For 40 years, he wept over this. 40 years, he wept over losing this.

So he says "Allah, how do I lose this huzn?" So Jibra'il came down and said "Oh Adam, say La hawla wala quwwata illa billah". So Adam said this. And you mention this hadith to people, you know what they say to you? They say "I have said it, thousands of times. I can't get over my problem." It is not about saying it. It is reflecting over what it means. I need to reflect when I say "La hawla wala quwwa", when we talk about the word "hawl" you get a million explanations on what "hawl" is. You know, they say "hawl" comes from they say "tahawwal" change, some say "will".

But what it is from, if you look at Nahjul Balagha, Amir ul mu'mineen explains it perfectly. What is "la hawl" and what is "la quwa". "La hawla wala quwwa illa billah". He says the meaning of this, remember on the first night I was talking about, on the second night when I said that all mulk, all ownership is to Allah 'azza wa jal, is with Allah. He says "La hawla wala quwwa", because we say it when we have a tragedy, we say two things generally. We say "Inna lillah wa inna ileyhi raji'oon", the other one we say is "La hawla wala quwwata illa billah al 'aliyul 'adhim". These are the things we say.

Amir ul mu'mineen, in Najhul Balagha says what it means is that you have been given something, that you have some kind of mulk that you have been given, and Allah owns you and owns the thing that He has given you. So He has entrusted you with this thing. When He takes it back, it is returned to its rightful owner. Like a library book. You can sit there and you can enjoy it, but you still have to take it back to the library eventually. You can't keep it forever.

This whole world, when we say, "La hawla wala quwwa" I am talking about not the direct meaning, the the actual meaning of what you are saying here, it is that all is God's. It is only with me for a moment. When I go back, it is with me forever. This is where I get it eternally. Here, it is just a taste of what the beauty of being with God is.

I need to reflect over this. Because Allah, 'azza wa jall, will make a way for you when you have a problem, when you have any situation whatsoever and you turn back to Him. Allah is always there. You know, when you have those moments, what do they call them? LDS, Church of Latter-day Saints, when they come up to you and they want to preach to you religion. Once a friend of mine was on a train, I do not know if it was a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness that was talking to him, but they started calling him towards God. It would have been a Jehovah's Witness because Mormons carry the Book of Mormon, Jehovah's witnesses carry the Bible.

So he said to him in the Bible, it says that Moses spoke to God. He said yes. He said, how did he speak to God? He said God appeared before him in the burning bush. So he said, was God present there and he spoke to Moses? He said, yes. He said, we have a problem here. He said, what is the problem? He said, if God was present talking to Moses, what if someone elsewhere needed God? What if someone elsewhere needed God? And then he said to him, because he was bringing him towards something, he said to him, and this is the same teachings that you have with Jesus, Jesus was the personification and the incarnation of God. So if he is present in one place, then how could he be everywhere? How can this be the case?

How can God, as I mentioned on the previous nights, that Allah has to be the One that what? Sustains everything. Allah, 'azza wa jall, maintains everything. Allah allows everything to subsist. Allah does not go on vacation. He does not say I am away this week. Allah does not sleep. Allah does not get restless. "La ta'khudhuhu sinatun wa la nawm"(2:255). What does "sinatun wa la nawm" mean? "Sinatun" - "nawm" we know is sleep. "La ta'khudhuhu sinatun" is, you know, it is not even a nap or a kip, it is less than that. You know, the momentary lapse that you have, Allah does not even have a momentary lapse. Allah, 'azza wa jall, is always there. He never left. He never left you alone.

Furthermore, sometimes when you call someone, you ask for someone's assistance, you may exhaust them, you may tire them out. Allah does not get exhausted, nor does He tire out. In fact, He mentions this in the Qur'an in the same verse. "Wa la ya'oodoho hifdhuhuma" (2:255). Allah, 'azza wa jall, does not tire. He does not get exhausted, does not get worked out from protecting and overlooking everything. In fact, Allah, 'azza wa jall, is always there. This is where the whole idea of the relationship being a Muslim, it is a personal relationship between you and God. It is a personal relationship. That I deal directly with God. If I have a problem, I turn only to Allah, 'azza wa jall. I do not turn to anyone else. Why? Because everyone else is weak and deficient like me.

"Al-Hamdulillah alladhi wakkalani ileyh fa akramani. Wa lam yakkilini ila al nasi fa yaheenuni." Allah, 'azza wa jall, put my affairs in His hands in order to give me dignity. He did not put my affairs in people's hands because what do people do? Someone does you a favor. Someone buys you a shirt. "Still wearing that shirt I brought you? Looks good on you." You know, if they help you out with something so small, they remind you about it over and over again. "You know, I was the one that introduced this guy to his wife." Every time reminding you. Khallasna! You know, do you have to keep reminding me about this? Do you have to keep mentioning this? This is how humans are. They always remind you, I did this for you. I paid for dinner last night. They have to remind you of this.

Allah, 'azza wa jall, does not do this. Allah, 'azza wa jall, even when we, one of the biggest problems when people read the word "Ni'ma" and I am a bit off subject, but it is very important point. People always associate this with what? You know, when someone is rich, they start telling you how much amlak they have. If you tell them "Why are you saying this?", They go, "Wa ama bi ni'mati rabbika fa haddith"(93:11). Speak about the blessings of God. This what it means.

"Ni'mat Allah" is not your wealth. This is not a "ni'ma". This can be a "ni'ma" on you if you use it properly, could be a blessing if you use it properly. This could be a niqma if you do not use a properly, it could be a curse upon you if you do not use it properly. When Imam al-Sadiq, 'aleyhi asalam [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad] was seated with Abu Hanifa and Abu Hanifa was eating on the table with the Imam.

Sallu 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad] All right. So he is sitting with Abu Hanifa and he says, "Oh Abu Hanifa, I heard that you interpret the Qur'an with your own opinion, using conjecture." He said yes. He said, "Did you not know Iblis was the first one to use his own opinions out of conjecture? When he said that Adam was created from clay and from earth and you created me from fire and I am better than him. So you are using the same method?" He said, "If I was to ask you about a verse, "Thumma la tas'alonna yawma idhin 'anil na'eem"(102:8), that you will be asked about the blessings on the day of judgment. What is "al na'im"?"

Once again, we go back to this blessing word. He says "Al na'im" is what? He says "al-na'im" is food. So Imam al-Sadiq, 'aleyhi asalam, says to him "If it is food" he said, "imagine after we eat, I ask you but "ammaninak" you know, do "mann." I tell you, look, I fed you and I ask you but you know, when someone does something for you and I remind you about it or I charge you for it, what would you think of me?

He said, "I would say you are bakheel, you are stingy." He said, "Is this what you say about God? On the day of judgment, Allah, 'azza wa jall, is going to say, look what I fed you?" He said "What he is going to ask you about is us Ahlul Bayt. This is the blessing that you will be questioned about. Allah, 'azza wa jall, has dignified you as humans, does it not suffice you? Honestly, does it not suffice you that Allah commanded His most obedient creations, the angels, to prostrate to your grandfather, Adam, 'aleyh asalam?

Allah has given us nobility. We degrade ourselves. We should only deal with Allah even at night when you have nothing to do. You know at night when you are by yourself, because we live in an antisocial society, no one visits people anymore, the whole world, everyone is working home. At night, when you are all alone, you got no one to talk to, you have Allah. And when you engage in Salat al Layl, when you pray Salat al Layl, you have that moment with God.

When one man was a poor man, he wanted to marry the daughter of a rich man, a ruler. And his mother was a servant in their house. So he said to his mother to ask the girl for marriage. You know, those people, they see something, they say, yes, I have been, he is struck, that is it. He wants to marry her, does not care, because they do not see in front of them, that is all they want. So the mother asks the girl. The girl said, "I am the one that makes the decision, not my father, because it is my choice and I will choose him and accept on the one condition." She said "What's that?" She said "He prays Salat al Layl for 40 nights. After he prays 40 nights, then let him come and ask for my hand."

So she tells her son that this is the situation, the son said, "I will pray for 100 nights as long as I get what I want." The son begins to pray Salat al Layl, night after night, because you develop something. When you pray Salat al Layl constantly, you develop a relationship, develop a relationship with God. Night after night, 40 nights pass and the son still hasn't asked. So the mother comes up to him and says, "Do not you want to go ask for this girl's hand?" And he said, "Leave her. Inna li fil jannah khayru minha. I have better than her in paradise. This is not what I want anymore."

Because he was marrying something, as they say, hitting above his weight. He was marrying something way above what? You know, he is from a poor family, she is from a rich family. There is a difference in this. Because religiously, if you marry a girl that has lobster for breakfast, you have to give her lobster for breakfast. You can't say, listen, I have fish sticks, are you going to come back down? No, the level she is at, that is the level that you have to [give her]. So do not sit there and try and hit for something that is going to be out of your way. Always look for something that is of your standard, of who you are and of your capability, that I can live like that.

So the only way that I can deal with my problems is that I turn to Allah, 'azza wa jall. Allah, 'azza wa jall, His door does not close. You know, when we read Du'a al Ifitiah, when we say Al-Hamdulillah and we say "La yughlaqu babuh", that His door never closes. "Wa la ya ruddu sa'iluh", that Allah never turns, you know, sometimes people knock on your door and ask for charity and you say, see you later. No, Allah does not close His door for us, He is never closed. Secondly, He never turns anyone away. "Wa la yukhayyabu aamiluh", Allah, 'azza wa jall, what else? Never not only does not turn you down, does not let you down. People always let you down. Allah does not let you down.

When I have a problem and I understand what I am here for, when I have this understanding as to why I am here and what the situation of or the reasoning behind my presence on this earth. Why am I here? Then I understand what this loss is. When I lose someone, for example, when a parent loses a child. That is one of the most difficult things, it is the most difficult thing. There is nothing more difficult than losing a child. In fact, we have narrations on this. And even with Imam al-Husayn, 'aleyhi asalaam,, when he, if you look at when he farewelled - sorry, one family or when his companions went to fight, it wasn't until when it was his family.

See, everyone that wanted to fight would ask for permission to fight, you know that, the Imam would always reject them the first time. He would only accept on the second time that they would ask. So he would give them a chance to turn back. Except for one person. The Imam never rejected him on the first request. It is the only person, that was Ali ul Akbar, because it was too difficult for the Imam to reject him, he may have the attachment not to send him again, it is too close to his heart. He couldn't do this, it is his child.

And in fact, even after he was martyred, he said, "My son Ali, 'ala al dunya min ba'dikal 'afa". After you, this world is nothing. It is not worth anything to me. Nothing is of value when I have lost my child. In fact, our narrations say if a person accuses God when their child dies, Allah still forgives them because it is such a great situation that they are in. And the loss of a child is so great that this child, through your patience, becomes a shafi' for you on the day of judgment, that this child will intercede to get you into paradise because you were patient over their loss. This is the position when I have a child and I am losing a child, this is the greatest loss. There is no loss greater than this.

But even still, I have to deal with the grieving. The wound will never be healed. The wound of parents, never healed. They just move on because they know one day they will be united with them. One day, they understand what the concept of this life is.

We are going to look when it comes to coping with grieving and turning to God. We need to look at God's position when we say "Inna Allaha 'ala kulli shay'in qadeer." Allah has ability of all things and Allah answers us. See, sometimes we may think to ourselves that Allah hasn't answered our prayers, but Allah has answered our prayers, but not the way we anticipate. Could you imagine Allah answered everyone's prayers like they wanted it? Because we have a hadith that says, this is a hadith qudsi that Allah says that I made the rich rich because of the belief, as He said, because they would have disbelieved if they were not rich. And I left the poor poor because they would have disbelieved if they became rich.

There are some people, this is what happens to them, I remember once we were in Najaf before Ziyarat Arba'een. And one guy I was with, he said to me, "When I walk, I am going to intend that when I reach the shrine of Aba Abdillah al-Husayn, I am going to ask the Imam so I can become rich." He said that is my intention. When we got to Karbala and we had a chat later, I said, "Did you go do your du'a?" He said, no. And generally when I go there, I find it difficult to ask, when you go in front of the shrine of Imam Husayn, it is hard to ask for anything. I usually ask Abal Fadhl al-Abbas, 'aleyhi asalam.Imam Husayn is broken.

But he said to me, he said "While I was doing the mashaya, I fell asleep in one of the tents and he said, I saw a dream. I swear it was real." I said, "What kind of a dream?" He said, "I woke up and it was a huge amount of money in my bank account." He said, "I started going out, he said was renting penthouses and hotels, going to clubs." He said "I lost it completely." He said "That was real. It was so real." He said, "I started ignoring." He said "I lived a life in this dream." He said "And when I woke up, the last thing I wanted to ask for was money."

This is just a glimpse where you are actually given by God of what will happen. If God answered every prayer, how many kids would be dead from the parents saying, you know, when the mother gets angry with the child and she says something to them, curses the child, imagine they died instantly, if every prayer was going to be accepted, there would be no one here. This is what would happen.

In fact, the one that originated the hawza, the founder of the hawza in Qom Al Muqqadas, sheikh Abdul Kareem Al-Ha'iri, this was his story. When he was a child he lived on a farm, his father wanted to send him to get educated because he saw that my child is someone that should study, he is very intelligent. He should not be doing this agricultural work, not saying that if you do agriculture, some people you could see, some people are hands on, some people are thinkers. So I am going to send him to go study. At that time, Sheikh Abdul Kareem Al-Ha'iri being a child, did not want to go. So he said, I am going to send you to my sister's house and her husband will find you a teacher and he will teach. So he said all right. Just before he went to bed, he said Allah answers the prayers. He said, "Oh Allah, take the life of that teacher that wants to teach me, so that I do not have to go alone." Then he thought to himself, the teacher dies, my auntie's husband will find another teacher. He said "Oh Allah, while you are at it, take my aunty's husband as well." Then he thought to himself, even if my aunty's husband dies, my auntie will still find me a teacher. He said "Oh Allah, take my auntie as well so I can remain here."

Now imagine Allah accepted this prayer in the way that he had wanted it and killed them all off. No one would be alive on the planet, because everyone will be cursing everyone. What did he want? Allah gives you the ghaaya, He gives you the target, He decides the route that you need to take to get to the target. That is why we do not say "Allahuma ihdinal jannah." We say "Ihdinal siraat al mustaqeem", we ask for the path, the upright path because Allah knows the upright path. How do we know it? "Siraat al ladheena an'amta 'aleyhim" - Ahlul Bayt. That is the upright path that I need to know which route for me to take.

How do I get this? What did he want? He wanted happiness. He thought by living on the farm he would be happier. But his du'a was accepted because when he went and studied, he learned, he became a scholar and he established the hawza in Qom that many scholars come from right now. He is the one that founded it. His du'a was accepted. His du'a was not rejected.

Allah, 'azza wa jall, always answers your prayers. In some cases, the grieving is different. These days, generally, we talk about what took place. When they ask the Imam Ali ibn al Husayn, 'aleyhi asalaam, on why he wept so much, they said, "Oh master, al qatlu lakum 'ada, killing his normal, you people have been killed, all the awliya' have been killed for years and you have been honored with martyrdom. What is it that brings about this gloominess? What is it that grieves you? You are bereaved, but why? Is it over the killing of your father Aba Abdillah al-Husayn? Is it over the killing of your uncle Abu Fadhl al-Abbas, your brother Ali al-Akbar?" Every single one, he says it is not this. They say, "What is it the biggest thing that you are bereaved by?" He said "Al shaam, Al shaam, Al shaam."

It was all about Damascus. Why? Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn was present when all the women were being paraded from one place to another, with the eyes of the onlookers from Kufa towards Damascus. But when they entered Damascus Sahl ibn Sa'eed, who was one of the people that had seen Rasool Allah, sala Allahu 'aleyh wa aalih wasalam [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad]. When they entered and he had seen all this commotion and they were parading and there was celebrating and they were partying because they had overcome, they said, the enemies of God.

And as they were brought in, they told him, we are victorious. And held aloft he could see a face on a spear that was luminant and reminded him of the face of Rasool Allah, knowing that this was the face of Al-Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib. So Sahal looked up and he said, "I am amazed and bewildered that the sky has not started to rain upon us with the wrath of God with what has happened." As he moved towards them, he saw a young girl and she was weeping and he said to her, "Oh servant of Allah, if I could be of value, how can I be of value? Who are you?" She said, "I am Sukaina, the daughter of Husayn." She said, "Then make them move the spears away from us because of the looks upon us, have made us feel humiliated. The looks of the men upon us in the state that we are in." So they take him into the court of Yazeed. And while Yazeed was seated there, humiliating them, and in front of him they brought the head of Aba Abdillah al-Husayn, 'aleyh asalam. This head is used in what I want to end our discussion with, the grieving child for her parents.

See, Yazeed ibn Mu'awiya placed these people, these prisoners, these holy bodies in ruins. When I say ruins, they were in a prison without a roof where the sun comes down upon them and they feel the cold in the night. And he placed them in these wards. Now, in these wards while they were there, there was a child amongst them. A child that was three or four years old, the daughter of Imam Husayn. His daughter Ruqqayyah was there and she wept over him.

And you know when a child weeps for their parents, what do they tell them? You know, your parents are going on a trip, they are on a vacation, they will return later. You can not just automatically tell this child that their parents have died and they are orphaned. You can not give them this mention of the fact that you have lost your parents. Ruqqayyah was there weeping and weeping. And then she fell asleep. In her dream, she saw her father Aba Abdillah al-Husayn. So when she woke up from the dream, she wept so much and she wouldn't stop. She said, "Oh auntie, Oh 'Amma, I want my father. This is all I want. I want my father." And this caused everyone in this prison to start to weep.

They wept so loudly that Yazeed was awoken from this. And he said, "What is this commotion?" They said that the daughter of the Imam has awoken and she wants her father. So Yazeed said "Go take the head. She wants her father, give her her father." So they took a plate, and they placed the head with a cover on the plate. And they took it towards the prison. When they came to the prison, they gave the plate towards the prisoners and the prisoners put it forward in front of Ruqqayyah. Ruqqayyah said "I am not hungry." And they said, "No, remove the cloth, beneath it you will find what you want." So upon this, Ruqqayyah, 'aleyha asalam, removed the cloth over the plate and there behold was the head of her father Aba Abdillah al-Husayn.

So Ruqqayyah hugged head of Imam Husayn. She began to weep and say, "Aba, Aba, Aba look at the state we are in, Aba they killed us, they killed us some of the children that were running from the tents, they lit fire to the tents. Oh Aba, look at my sides how tough they are from the beatings. My bones have been broken. Oh Aba, do you know that they hit my Auntie Zaynab?" Imagine this, they hit my Auntie Zaynab. Zaynab, who was not seen during the time of Amir ul mu'mineen. Zaynab, who was under the protection of Abal Fadhl al-Abbas. They hit Zaynab.

So she wept and she wept and she wept. And while she was weeping, she fell asleep upon the head. But then after a while, they came towards her. They realized she had not woken up. But from the amount of weeping, when they went to wake her up, they found that she was dead. And this is what happened in the case of Ruqqayyah, 'aleyha asalam. A child that was yearning for her father.

We ask Allah, 'azza wa jall, in the name of Ruqqayyah, in the name of the daughter of her Imam Husayn, that no one that has a grievance, or no one here is grieved, you do not enter or place within their hearts, tranquility and serenity. We ask Allah, 'azza wa jall, to guide us with His light, to guide us with His light in the darkness that we live in. We ask Allah to hasten the reappearance of our master Al-Hujjat Al-Mahdi ibn al-Hassan, 'ajal Allah farajuh al sharif. We ask Allah, 'azza wa jall, to make us of his servants and those that stand beneath his standard and are martyred by his side.

Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim. Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad. Allahuma kun li waliyikal hujjat ibn al-Hassan, salawaatuka 'aleyhi wa 'ala abaa'ih, fi hadhihil sa'a wa fi kulli sa'a, waliyyan wa haafidha wa qa'idan wa naasira, wa daleelan wa 'ayna hatta tuskinahu ardhaka taw'a wa tumatti'ahu fiha taweela, bi rahmatika ya arham al rahimeen.

Wa ila arwah al mu'mineen wal mu'minat wa li arwah mawtaana wa mawtaakum nuhdee lahum thawaba majlisina hadha wa thawab al suratal mubarakatil Al-Fatiha ma'al salawat. [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad]