What is the meaning of the hadith: “Indeed, your Lord is pleased with a group of people who are dragged into Paradise in chains”?

The Shaykh : Look at this observation, for it contains precision. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said in an authentic hadith: Who are they? They are captives from among the disbelievers who become slaves and are distributed among the Muslims who defeated them, so one becomes a slave in a Muslim’s house. However, this slavery brings him happiness in this world before the Hereafter, because he becomes a Muslim who knows Allah and His Messenger, and he attains the happiness that he previously suffered from, as witnessed first by the saying of the Exalted Allah, and secondly by the reality of disbelievers today. The West today lives this life of hardship, and this is the nature of disbelievers in every time and place. So when a slave is moved in a way they do not like, naturally, captured and shackled, he moves to the land of Islam and lives as a slave and servant against his will, taking no wage; and if he does earn a wage through his trade, that wage returns to his master. Nevertheless, history testifies that among the great scholars of the Muslims were those whose origin was slavery, and they became righteous, pious scholars. We, the free people, take knowledge from those slaves, but in reality, they are the free ones. Where did this come from? From slavery. Remember this first. Another hadith in which he (peace and blessings be upon him) said—and this is among the wonders of the eloquence of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): What is an “awwan” among you? It means captives, meaning like those who were dragged in chains, and also these women whom you have married. Be good to them, for they are captives among you. Why are they captives? Because she is commanded to obey her husband. So this slavery brings benefit to whom? To the wife. If she is a Muslim, what do you think if she is a People of the Book? Her case is like the case of the first disbelieving slave when he comes shackled to the land of Islam. The case of this Christian or Jewish woman when a Muslim marries her is that through the marriage, she becomes acquainted with Islam closely and intimately, and her heart opens to Islam, whereas while she was far from this special environment, she was the greatest enemy of Islam. And this reminds me that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family)—and the hadith is said to have many threads, but the truth is that it is among the wonders of the hadiths of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and his noble biography—reminds me that he (peace and blessings be upon him), when he chose for himself Safiyyah the Jewish woman, and she had been taken captive and came out of the share of a man from the Companions, some people said, “She is not fit for anyone but you.” The summary is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) chose her for himself and gave from his share five or six heads of captives or slaves. The point is that Safiyyah said, “I used to hate the Messenger before this as much as I hated any person on the face of the earth, but when she entered the protection of the Messenger and saw his gentleness and verified the description of Allah for him, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) became more beloved to her than everyone on the face of the earth. If we observe these meanings, we then know the secret why the Mighty and Majestic Allah permitted Muslims to marry women from the People of the Book, because as they express it today in the foreign language, it is a “crucible,” meaning the environment in which she will be found will stamp her and mark her with its mark. But today, the matter has changed the most. Today, there is no such Islamic mark, and no such Muslim environment that stamps this Jewish or Christian woman with the mark of Islam. On the contrary, as is observed in many husbands who marry women from the People of the Book, they bring corruption into their home and their house, and she raises the children with European upbringing, and perhaps she even takes charge of raising the husband, because he does not have that immunity from Islamic upbringing.