Prophet Nuh – Part 2
Prophet Nuh's Dawah
When Prophet Nuh started to give dawah to his people, the backlash from the community was immense. The rich said “Oh look at him. He is a poor man and only the most unpleasant and poor amongst us hangout with him. He has no superiority over us.” This response is documented in the Quran and clearly shows the mentality of these people. Prophet Nuh was constantly belittled, degraded and his dawah was rejected. Despite this abuse and persecution, Prophet Nuh continued to give dawah for 950 years. After a long 950 years, he made a Dua: “Oh Allah! Do not leave a single disbeliever on earth.” – and his Dua was accepted. While his story is usually associated with the ark and the flood, we often overlook the effort, sacrifice and pain he suffered to revive the oneness of Allah. Some lessons that we often overlook in Prophet Nuh’s struggle are listed below.
Lessons:
1. Impressed by the wealthy? Impressed by the powerful?
When he started his dawah, the leaders and the wealthy were like the ringleaders of a circus and the common people were puppets for their ego. Sounds familiar? What is happening today has been happening throughout the years. Despite our education, degrees and skyhigh careers, we are still impressed with a person who has wealth and power. We may not want to admit it but it is true. We are blind followers of propogandas and personal agendas around us. We do not realize how these powers impact us subconsciously and sadly we tell ourselves we are making our own decisions. We believe we are so independent while the entire time we are being used. This can only be avoided once we create a strong bond with Allah and clearly tell ourselves that He is the one that provides and protects. The powerful around us are not capable of anything without Allah’s commands. If we start living this lifestyle we will not be followers but rather strong individuals who can differentiate between wrong and right.
2. Shaytan uses arrogance....
The second point to note is that the formula shaytan used to poison the minds of the disbelievers is arrogance. The same arrogance that destroyed him – he embedded into those people making them believe that since they had more health and power, they were better than others. So much so that even listening to good advice was based on the status of another person. This is another mistake we make. We will listen to someone with a title who may have other motives but will not listen to a common person who may be genuine. Yet we call ourselves a very educated generation.
3. Patience.... Do we even have it?
The patience of Prophet Nuh is very prominent in his journey of Dawah. As teachers, parents , employers, etc. we love to taunt others about how much time we spend in our work, how much we pay our employees and to make income halal etc. We overlook the fact that maybe our employees are struggling with other issues and problems. Prophet Nuh did not give up in one day or one month. His people were not even victims of physical or financial problems – they were just arrogant. If a human being can be patient towards arrogant people for 950 years, then we need to rethink how we operate and develop more patience towards mental health, personal issues , behavioral issues etc.
4.How much is the power of a single sincere Dua?
- Prophet Nuh’s dua was accepted and it was against the disbelievers. One may argue that Allah is very merciful. No doubt he is. However when His servant is being oppressed, whether it be Prophet Nuh or anyone else, and he makes dua, then that Dua will be accepted. Think of a mother; she will do anything to defend and protect her child. She will face anyone and punish anyone if her child is hurt. Allah SWT loves his people 70 times more than a mother. When his rightful servant is putting in the effort, dong everything according to the happiness of Allah and still he or she is mistreated and makes Dua for help…. Subhanallah! Of course it is Allah’s mercy and love that will help the oppressed. This is not only for dawah and kuffar. It is for us too. When we use our passive aggressive poison to emotionally abuse others, and when we think that no one can tell or there is no trace of our horrific behavior – one dua, just one dua, from our victim can destroy us for life. So it is important to remember that someone doesn’t need to use the same poison we use against them to destroy us. He or she can just make one dua and everything will be settled inshaAllah.
