was a young man when he embraced islam and he came later on in the life of the prophet saws
but he would rise to be this person who was known as shabihal malaika a person who resembles the
angels not necessarily in his appearance or even in his character but specifically in his worship
and he gives this example of how that worship of allah manifested his household in the first place
by talking about how the prophet saws actually gave dawah to his father
he said that the prophet salallahu came to my father and he said to him yahushua how many gods
do you worship so he said seven total sit ten fil six of them on this earth and one of them
in the heavens so he says basically i've got these idols and then i've got this one god that i
deem supreme that i can't see so the prophet saw some said which one of them do you put your
greatest hopes and fears in which one of those gods do you give the greatest consideration to
so he said the one that's in the heavens that's the one that i have the greatest reverence for
the prophet salla isaam said to him then why don't you worship the one that's in the heavens
and leave the ones that are on the earth and subhanallah that made sense to him and he became
a muwahid he became a muslim a monotheist and a muslim so imran comes into islam around the
time of khaibar so we're talking about about six years after the prophet saws had come to madina
and immediately falls in love with this religion and dedicates himself to the prophet salallahu
and dedicates himself to this idea of worship of one god and it became to the point that he gains
this reputation amongst the companions of the prophet saws as being a zahid as being an ascetic
and being a scholar who's only interested in two things he's interested in knowledge
and he's interested in worship so it's ibadah that's all that you knew imran
ibn hussain or the allahu ta'ala and that's the way that the companions viewed him now when um
would become the khalifa he would actually appoint him to a government position he'd sent him to
basra and the people of basra loved him they said that no one has ever come to us from the
companions of the prophet saws that's better than this man but imran asked um
to be excused and to basically just teach the people but at the same time he didn't want to
hold office we also know of him that he avoided all fitna he hated all types of division and
disunity in the muslim ummah he said i will never use this tongue against another muslim or throw an
arrow against another muslim so when the people come to him and ask him to do this or do that
would shut his door and exert himself in ibadah exert himself in worship
now one of the things that we also see from him though is that despite him being a great worshiper
and a great ascetic that didn't mean that he used to come out looking like a person who
was in rags and a person who had abandoned this world physically in fact there's a narration that
had come out to the people and he was wearing this really nice robe the robe had a special
type of stitching and embroidery it had special buttons on it and when they asked him about it
he said it's because i heard the prophet saw i saw them say that when allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
blesses a person with nerma allah loves and ya'll to see the effect of that blessing on his servant
so detachment from this world is not that you wear raggedy clothes it's not that you inflict poverty
on yourself it's that you attach yourself only to allah and in the case of imran allahu ta'ala
who lived with the prophet saws an attachment to the messenger of allah
and he in fact is one of the narrators of the hadith where the prophet saws
the best of my ummah is my generation and then those that come after them and then those that
come after them and subhanallah because he was so young when he embraced islam
he lived long after the prophet saws and he never stopped longing for him especially when
he remembered ibaadah worship with the prophet salla sallam one of his students a great tabery
he said that one time he and i prayed behind eva and after the prayer imran
grabbed my hand and he said this reminded me of the prayer of the prophet saws this took me back
to that time of praying with the prophet salallahu
now of course everyone around the prophet's island was in a certain state and if imran distinguished
himself from the allah and who even amongst the companions went around the prophet saws
then how was he at all other times and you might recall a very famous narration of hamburg
going to abu bakr and then abu bakr alhamdulillah may allah be pleased with them going to the
prophet salla and complaining that maybe they were hypocrites why because they couldn't maintain that
same level of vikit that same level of remembrance of allah that same state of mind and state of
heart when they were with the prophet salla sallam and then with their families after they left the
presence of the prophet salallahu and what did the prophet saw isaac say to them he said listen
first of all it's you know you have to have a time for this and a time for that uh as long
as you're not sinful when you're away from the prophet saws it's understandable that you're not
going to be able to maintain the same state of heart and mind in the absence of the messenger
sallallahu sallam that you had when you're sitting in his halathas when you're with the prophet saws
and the prophet saw some said to them that if you were to maintain the same state in my absence that
you do in my presence the angels would shake your hands in the streets how does this apply to allah
imran actually aspired to be in that state imran actually aspired to be in the same
way that he was with the prophet saws even when the prophet saw some had already passed away
and some time passed where imran of the allah ta'ala became ill for an extended period of time
and he took inspiration from the story of islam prolonged sickness and worship and patience
and then one day his student visits him and he sees him very sad so he says to him what's wrong
he says that something was happening with me and allah took that blessing away from me he said
what is it he said that for an extended period of time the angels started to come to me that
i would come to my house and they would greet me at my door and then they would even come to
me when i would lay in bed and they would greet me at the head side of my bed so the angels sullivan
they were giving salaam to me and i was giving salam to them as well
and this was happening from every direction hello what a blessing from allah subhanahu wa to add it
to only happen to this one companion where the angels are saying salaam to him and he's saying
salaam to them as well he said but it stopped after i did al-qaeda which is a medical procedure
that the prophet saws generally disliked so he said when i did al-qaeda the angel stopped
coming to me so he was very sad about that said i told him that inshallah they'll come
back to you and subhanallah sometime after that was in joy and he said to al mutharafi
he said alhamdulillah they came back to me but don't tell anyone of this until after i die
i don't want anyone to know of this blessing that allah has given to me
until after i pass away and subhanallah it stayed that way until he passed away
and there's something very special about this that the prophet saws was not just giving a
random example if you are in a state of vikir you are in the presence of angels whether that's in a
gathering or whether that is as an individual and when this person imran is able to maintain that
consistent remembrance of allah then allah blessed him with the consistent presence of the angels
and for us the more we remember allah the more the angels are going to be present with us