Visiting The Sick-Hidden Blessings & Lessons

The Prophet said, "Every Muslim has five rights over another Muslim (five duties for another Muslim): to return the greetings, to visit the sick, to accompany funeral processions, to accept an invitation, to respond to the sneezer."

You dont realize how important these duties are until you practice them, and today I was able to experience the blessing of fulfilling my duty of visiting a sick Muslim.

"Visiting the sick is from the clearest signs of such mutual love, mercy and empathy. More than that, visiting the sick is a major responsibility that every single Muslim is duty-bound to fulfill"

At first I was telling my friend how visiting someone sick is going to be hard, and a reality check, but subhnallah I left this visit with lots of lessons. We went to visit our old islamic high-school teacher, a mother of two young ones and a convert of 8years who was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis disease http://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis/default.htm

Lesson 1: Being Around Good Company: Gossip Free Fun Conversations

She did not complain at all about her disease, nor did she speak of it, we talked about almost everything except her disease (until I asked her how was she feeling). Another thing that me and my friend both noticed was not once did we backbit or gossip during our two hour visit. There were three other convert sisters present with us. I realized the blessing of being around good people. Our conversation was gossip free, and the whole time we were laughing and enjoying each others company; in a hospital room.

She loved having us there, and all she wants is company, not a bunch of flowers and chocolate.This is why the Prophet put so much emphasis on visiting the sick by making it a right. This why there is so much blessings behind visiting the sick,afterall, why would you not want to visit the sick after hearing this:
Prophet Says:

"No Muslim visits the sick Muslims in the morning, except that sevety-thousand angels, sent Salat upon him until the evening, and he does not visit at night except that seventy thousand angels sent Salat upon him until the morning, and there will be a garden for him in Paradise."

Lesson 2: Accepting The Hardship With True Sabr-Patience:
The Power of Having Yaqyn-Certainty in Allah

One thing I loved was the way she was accepting this sickness. I told her about Eslam Elfahoumuis lectures which were focused on how to deal with hardships, and sabr (See earlier posts).

Her response was (not exact but what I remember),

"AlhumdAllah this sickness is a blessing, because Allah can be using it to remove my sins, preserve me a place in Jannah,

or even punish me  so that I wont have to be punished in the Hell-Fire. Allah is merciful."

All I can think is this is exactly the attuide or results of thoe who you have sabr-patience,  and certainty in Allah-yaqyn (see earlier posts). She is the example of the person Eslam Fahymoui is trying to get us to think like, a person who accepts bad situations and looks at them with an eye of gratefulness, not depression. A person who truly accepts what Allah has bestowed upon them, a person who looks at hardships as a lesson or possibly a blessing. A person who understands Allahs wisdom. A person who understands the meaning of " Surely with difficulty is ease 94:5". She mentioned this aya during our conversation and she said " after every difficulty comes ease". I told her how I learned that aya the same way, but recently I learned from various speakers such as Yasmine Moghed, that it doesnt say "After" but the Arabic word Maa which means "With" subhnallah. I still dont understand how it is "with".

Lesson 3: Looking At Everything As A Dawah Opportunity

This sister said she tries to be friendly with everyone on her floor, and all the nurses know her and she loves it because she said she looks at this as a form of dawah. My last posts was about "Silent Dawah", and as she spoke about being kind and friendly with everyone she meets, all I can think is "Silent dawah in action". Even upon checking in at the lobby, we only said her last name, and the security automatically knew her first name. While I was realying this story to her, she said alot of people were surprised at how many people had visited her already. I told her its a great dawah opportunity because they can see how much Muslims care for one another, and how diverse we are, after-all I was sitting with a Arab, African-American, and Hispanic, and yes we are all Muslims. Dawah is not all about giving out Qurans, but rather how you treat people, and your overall actions. Treat everyone you meet with kindness and who knows they may come to ask you for a Quran.


Lesson 4: We All Belong To The Beautiful Family Known as "Ummah"

We didnt visit her because we are friends or we are family but because we are all apart of this one larger family that goes by the first name: Ummah.

Upon leaving one thing we spoke about was the diversity of her visitors as I said in the sentence above there was two Arabs, two African Americans, and one Hispanic in the room. We spoke about how amazing our ummah is, and how this is only a blessing. I told her if you werent Muslim I would probably never even be here right now (actually all of us).

The thing that connects us is the fact that we are Muslims, and we understand the meaning of hadith mentioned in the very beginning of this post...

And finally, please keep her in your duaa inshallah,
afterall she is apart of your family to.

As alullah al-'azheem rabb al-'arsh al-'azheem an yashfeeka
I ask Allah the Supreme, Lord of the magnificent throne to cure you