The Battle Of The Chains | Episode 7

[clears throat] Dear viewers of Im Hussein TV and welcome to another episode of the series titled Quranic Stories that change our lives. Allah subhana wa ta'ala has a striking feature in the way that he uses oaths within the Holy Quran. Various places Allah subhana wa ta'ala will use an oath and he will take an oath not only to show the importance of the topic that comes after the oath but also to show the importance of the oath that is being taken. What do I mean? For example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would say by I swear by the sun and the dawn break. I swear by the don't break. I swear by the fig and I swear by the olive. And in various instances we see this is a striking feature of the holy Quran where Allah subhana wa ta'ala tries to put a metaphorical divine light into this topic of whatever the oath is being taken off as an important item or what is to follow to that to be something that is quite important. [snorts] Now we move on and try and unpick the title of the episode of tonight that we will be discussing. The verses in question today are from the first five verses of the hundth chapter of the holy Quran surah where in five separate verses progressively Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala continues to take the oath. However, the oaths here that he takes are quite unique in the manner that he takes and as eloquent Allah subh is in the holy Quran, he does it very graphically trying to describe exactly what is happening. Allah subhana t starts the by the galloping panting horses and the firing sparks that strike from their hooves and launching the raids at dawn and raising the clouds of dust and penetrating into the hearts of the enemies. Here you may have realize Allah subhana wa ta'ala is describing the beginning of a battle, but he's doing it in a way that he's never done before. He is describing how the horses breathe. He is describing how the horses gallop and how the sparks come from their hooves. He describes very eloquently how the raids were launched in the morning and how the clouds of dust were on the air and how the army penetrates into the heart of the enemies and therefore today we will be discussing this very battle which is from the story of the holy Quran. Now many of you and I have heard of the battles such as that of that of now these are monumental historical important battles of the holy Islam of the religion of Islam and they're discussed from our massagids our minabers and our imam baras and rightly so they should be discussed however there are other battles that are perhaps not frequently as discussed as much as they perhaps ought to be discussed and this is one of those battles and therefore the title for tonight's episode is titled the battle of the chains the battle of that salass. Now allow me to give the context of how these verses came into being. Allah as you know was not only a prophet but he was also a head of state. He was a governor and as a governor he had many spies and many people that would perform the acts of espionage in different tribes and villages in order to keep track of enemies in order to understand if someone is trying to launch a surprise attack or ambush and so on and so forth. Then he's got his spies and messengers and people informing him exactly what's happening and therefore similarly he was informed. Now according to Ali Ali according to the narration of Ali Ali he says that revealed unto him however she alied he differs in the opinion and he says no there was another bedin Arab another Muslim that comes to Allah. Now what does he say to Rasool Allah? They say that the people of the valley of Yadis have gathered together 12,000 people with one motive and that is to killasool Allah and to kill annihilate and to attack the religion of Islam and they will do that through an ambush. They will try and do that through a surprise attack. Now as you can imagine when Allah heard this news he was of course extremely troubled and he gathered the people of uh Medina at that time. In fact, Imm Sadik, there is a tradition that has been quoted to him and he states that the people of the valley of Yabis, they got together, they made a packact, they made an oath against with one another and they said that look, we will be together and we make an oath that we will not leave this army. We will not leave each other's hands. We will not leave each other's unity until we get to the crux of our objective which is to annihilate Allah and this is a tradition of imam. Now as you can imagine Allah disturbed gets all of the people together and he says look we need to draft an army together. How many of you volunteer? So 4,000 volunteers came forward and they said, "Yeah, we will be happy to go ahead with this." Now Allah had to choose a commander for the army. According to some narrations, he himself chooses a commander. According to another narration, he decides to take lots and choose a command commander, a general of the army through that way. Now through the infinite wisdom of Allah the first commander that he chooses is Abu Bakr and he says look Abu Bakr you need to take this contingent of 4,000 people you need to go face the people of the valley of Yabis you need to tell them give them the ultimatum that's come towards the path of Allah subhanaa tala drop your weapons don't fight us and we will not have to have a battle however if the people of the valley of Yadis say that No, we do not accept this truth. Then you are to neutralize the threat. You are to fight them in battle. And therefore, the army of these 4,000 individuals gather and they go towards the people of the valley of Yadis. When they get there and the army is now resting, the commander Abu Bakr and a few of the highranking officers of the army, they go and meet and do what we call a parlay, a negotiation just before battle is meant to start. And the people of the valley of Yadis say that look we swear by our gods lot and usah that if there was not a relationship between you and I family and tribal relations we would have killed you here and now go back with your 4,000 people and know that we are going to attack and kill and now the army or the commander rather was overwhelmed by the numbers and so they decide to go back. The army tells the look, we've got explicit instruction from rasool Allah. We are not to go back into Medina if we haven't defeated this threat. However, the commander would say that no, we need to go back. And so the army makes the entire journey back to the city of Medina. Allah is perplexed as to why his orders were not followed. and he says very well he chooses a second commander this time alab and again he goes with 4,000 people to fight the people of the valley of Yadis again they have a party they have a negotiation and again they come back now the third time another individual by the name of a who had recently converted into Islam he says that look war is deceit what he's trying to say is that look these people they tried their own ways give me a chance and maybe results will be different. Allah says, "Try your luck." And so again, takes the 4,000 Muslims for the third time, goes and he comes back defeated. Now the morale of the army is at an all-time low. Allah now makes an announcement. He says words I'm sure we have all heard in history and in the pages for different battles altogether. That's Allah says now I'm about to send an individual that is a warrior and that does not come away from a battle with defeat. You all know who I'm talking about. He chooses Immin to now take the command of these 4,000 people and go to the bad people and fight the people of the valley of Yabis. Question Allah, why did you choose three individuals before you chose Imam Ali? Why did you not just choose Im Ali Alisam as the plan A knowing full well that the rest of the plans will not work? Allah may have responded to you and I saying that im Ali was never the plan B. He was always the plan A. However, it's important for the communities for the believers to understand it that others may fail but is an individual who will not fail. He will obey Allah. When Allah says he is describing the warrior of he is describing the warrior of he's describing the warrior of in fact when the enemy would say I am would say I am the one whose mother named him. Imm he takes the command of these 4,000 individuals and rather than going through the direct route that the previous commanders had taken you know he goes through a different route altogether he goes towards the route of Iraq he travels during the night rests during the day and he camps his army in a slightly different place when the time comes he goes again to have a parlay and they say introduce yourself he as I am Ali the son of Abu Talib. See you are the exact person that we have been looking for you. Let there be no agreement except for the agreements that we shall meet in battle tomorrow and we shall annihilate you. So Im Ali Alisam responds there is no power other than the power of Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala. And so im Abd he goes back to the campsite and he instructs his soldiers to make sure that they are well rested, that the horses are well rested, they're wellfed, and that they are to cover the mouth of the horses so that the horses noise doesn't alerts the enemy that they are now planning to attack. And as soon as dawn breaks, Imam Ali Alisam launches an surprise attack. He launches an attack. And at this point when he launches the attack, he penetrates into the hearts of the enemies. And he annihilates the enemy. Many of the enemies either run away or are captured. And Imm begins his journey coming towards the city of Medina. On the very same day where this battle of that salass occurred in that morning when Allah comes into the city of Medina into the masjid and he recites his salah he recites after salah the people ask him Allah what is the reason that you recite we've never really heard of explain us what this happened inasool Allah he explains to the people that has been gained victory in the battle of and these are the five verses that I had quoted at the beginning of this episode by the galloping panting horses and the firing sparks that come from the hooves of these horses and launching the raids at dawn and raising the clouds of dust and penetrating into the hearts of the enemies. And so the success of Amirin's victory in this battle can be summarized into the following three points. Firstly, he never let the enemy know his plans and his tactics in the sense that he took a completely different route. He would travel during the night, hide during the day. He would try and use this surprise. Number two, he acted on the important military principle of camouflage. Like I said, he would travel during the night, conceal himself during the day. He instructed his soldiers to tie the mouth of the horses. So the naying of the horses doesn't alert the enemy. Number three on another important military principle known as the elements of surprise and use the tactic that the enemy were going to use against them. And here when now approaches the city of Medina from very far away he sees Allah approaching and out of respect wishes to come out of he dismounts his horse. However, Allah at that point states, "Ride on for verily Allah and his prophets are pleased with you." And then Allah states his tradition where he beautifully and famously states that if I had not fear that a group of my followers may say about you what the Christians say about Isaam, I would have said something about you in such a way that people would have taken the dust from the place where you walk as a source of blessing from wherever you pass. And then he would turn towards the people and would tell to the people that look do not blame me for the love of Aliam rather my love for Aliam is from the command of Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala and Allah has commanded me to love Ali and draw him closer to me. He turns to now and he says his famous words that I'm sure you and I have heard of previously. The one who loves you loves me. And the one who loves me, he has loved Allah. And the one who loves Allah, Allah loves him. And he has a right upon Allah subhana wa ta'ala that he settles the one who loves him into paradise. And he continues, oh, the one who hates you has hated me. And the one who hates me has hated Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the one who hates Allah, I will hate him and curse him. And there would be a right upon Allah that he stops them on the way on the day of judgment among the haters. And neither will Allah accept from him any exchange nor will he accept any ransom. And at this poem, at this moment, Immad Alisam narrates the people, the the the prisoners from this battle were chained up. And so this battle was known as the battle of the chains. When Allah said all of this, he looks towards the soldiers. He looks towards the army, the 4,000 people and he asks them, "How did you find your commander?" They said, "Yeah, we had the best of the commanders. He did what you asked him to do. However, there was one thing that we found awkward. There was one thing that we found slightly odd." Allah says, "Really? Tell me." He says every surah after every salat would recite same surah same surah same surah same surah all day every day would recite no other surah except for you know sometimes when people have nothing to complain about take the pettiest of things and make a mountain out of a molehill. And so in order to explain to them, he looks towards them and he says, "Do you know why recited so much?" Because loves and loves. In a different narration has said your example is that of just like the recitation of the surah gives the reward of onethird of the holy Quran such that if you recite the surah three times you get the reward of the entirety of the holy Quran. Similarly whosoever loves Ali with their hearts gets theab of onethird of mankind. Whoever loves Ali Alisam in their hearts and through their words gets the fawab of twothirds of the entirety of mankind and whoever loves Ali in their hearts through their words and through their actions gets the of the entirety of mankind. This was the battle of that salass, the battle of the chains. And in order to bring the conversation to a close in order to gain something that we are able to implement within our personal life. Allow us allow me to reflect upon a few lessons that we were able to take. One of the first important lessons that we take from this battle of salah is what? Never let the failure of others waver your own confidence. Imam Ali Alisam wasn't the first commander of this army. No, there were three other commanders that had gone and failed and come back defeated with the moral of the army at an all-time low. Imm says that this battle is unwinable. People before me haven't won it and now how can I go be expected to win this battle? No. meaning had the confidence in Allah subhanaa tala had the confidence to go and fight this battle and succeed in this battle. And therefore if we reflect how often in our lives do we allow the failures of others stop us. Sometimes we may look at some people go to university and they still struggle getting a job and then we doubt the value of education. Sometimes we will see someone start a business and fail, go bankrupt, and then we start to convince ourselves that no, it's better to never take a risk. Sometimes we see someone volunteer at our communities, at our mosques, at our centers, and we see that sometimes they're hurt, they're misunderstood, and we decide to never get involved. Sometimes we hear stories of marriages and relationships ending in divorce and so we start fearing commitment and marriage altogether. Imam Ali Alisam through this battle of Salah explains to us that never allow the failures of others to dictate and define your own life. This was one of the first reflections that we take. Another reflection that we take from this battle of that salass is what the importance of planning foresight and strategy knew exactly what he wanted to do and how he wanted. Yes, he had in Allah subhana wa ta'ala but he had something which is alongside action and go hand in hand. He had this foresight that yes, I need to go face the enemy head on, but I need to use the military principles of camouflage and the principle of surprise and ambush and so on and so forth. And even in our life, we need to plan our lives. We need to plan our we need to understand that how am I going to put my strategy into what I want to achieve in this life and for the betterment of my with this planning. And finally, the third lesson that I take from battle of Salas is his unwavering obedience to Allah. Others went and they came back without trying to neutralize the threat. But Amir never allowed the failure of others. He never allowed the sheer numbers of the enemies to waver his obedience to rasool Allah. And he had unwavering obedience to Rasool Allah. throughout his life be it in the night of hij be it in all of the battles that he's fought every single time would have this unwavering obedience to Allah subhanaa tala so as a conclusion allow me to end with the following that we you and I too have an imam of our time you and I too have a responsibility to show this obedience this level of obedience to the imam of our time not just when he comes in his dur and inshallah we're part of his and his ansar but you and I also have a responsibility to show obedience during his and I end with this reflection alhamdulillah Alami.