[0:02]If you are to flick through the pages of history, and come to the beginning of our history, or the history of our nation, as in the sovereign Muslim nation. You would notice that at that time and that age or in that era, there were two main world powers, superpowers or empires. On the one side was the Persian Empire, and on the other side was the Roman Empire, and both of these empires had reached the zenith of power. They boasted political stability, economical prosperity, military capability and an influence that extended over much of the globe. And then there in the dry deserts of Arabia lived the Arab race, a semi-nomadic people, scattered across an endless desert. Their land was harsh, their climate difficult, their land barren, their people scattered, disunited, uneducated, undisciplined. And on the earth of God, it would be accurate to say that they had nothing going for them. So much so that the great conquerors of the past passed them by and didn't even look twice at them, they didn't even consider them a people worthy of conquest. Alexander the Great passed them by, the Romans passed them by, the Persians passed them by. They were an un-noticed, insignificant, uneducated, unlettered, undisciplined, disunited, scattered group of people that added up to nothing much in the annals of human history. They were small psychologically, small. I don't think you will find too many people in the annals of human history where they bury their own daughters alive. Politically they thought small, they aimed small. One of their greatest men, you know, this is later on, but the reference that I am giving here is when his days before Islam. A man came and asked them, "Ya Umar, what is your biggest aim in life? What is your biggest goal in life? What do you want to achieve in life? What do you live for?" He said, "I hope, I wish that if I could have a heard of camels that I could breed and milk and live off that comfortably, that is my aim in life." They were a small people, population didn't, you know, the numbers were not as big as the other countries. And yet Allah Rubul Izzat opted, chose and preferred this unnoticed, undisciplined, disunited, uneducated, scattered group of people to become the primary promoters and propagators of the one true religion of God. And I study history, and I contemplate deeply about it, and for the life of me I am thinking, "Ya Rub, the Romans were there, the Persians were there, armies were there, governments were there, governance were there, pomp was there, ceremony was there." And you up for this un-noticed, disunited, undisciplined, uneducated group of people to become the custodians and the promoters and propagators of the salvation of the human nation.
[5:07]There is history is making a point here.
[5:13]My Lord is teaching a lesson here and that point and that lesson is this, that you can be the lowest of low, the most insignificant, unimportant, undisciplined, disunited nation on the face of this Earth. But if you were to cling to this rope of Allah, you will reach the pinnacles of human achievement.
[5:43]There is not a second truth beyond this. And so far as they held on to this dean, there was not another nation that could show light to them. History calls them the torch bearers of light and education. At the time the prophet came, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to Mecca, the historians record that there were 18 people that could read and write in the whole of Mecca. 18. By the time the prophet left, Arabia had become teachers of the world. And that same Umar ibn al-Khattab, Radi Allahu Anhu, who yesterday wanted to have a herd of camels. They ask him now after Islam, "Ya Umar, what is your goal? What is your purpose? What's the mission of your life? What do you want to live for?" He says, "I want to struggle till the dean of Muhammad reaches every corner of the globe." The small became world notable, the unnoticed became significant. The localized dreams became world vision, the secret formula of change and success was Islam.
