AbdelRahman Murphy – Jumah Khutbah 24-05-2024
AI: Summary ©
The success of individuals is measured based on the number of things acquired and the success of individuals. The importance of structure and structure is emphasized, as it is essential to pursue a spiritual path that is sincere and is a safe assumption. Consistent values and faith are also emphasized, and the importance of finding a way to structure a good deed is emphasized. The speaker emphasizes the importance of value and surrounding oneself with people who inspire and push for success, and offers announcements for the upcoming weekend.AI: Transcript ©
Hey. I don't
Our
existence
on this earth is
measured
by a set of standards.
We see ourselves as successful
or as unsuccessful
based on a certain set of parameters.
Many of us would consider people who are
successful
to have acquired many things. For example,
a person who has acquired a lot of
wealth,
a person who has acquired a lot of
property, a lot of belongings,
we see them as
default successful because they have acquired a lot.
A person who is popular
has acquired a lot of friendships,
a lot of social relationships. And because of
that, we call them popular. A celebrity
has acquired a lot of recognition. And because
people recognize them when they see them,
we deem that person as successful.
So it's no secret that when we think
about what it means to be successful,
we oftentimes measure success by the numbers,
by the books, and we look and we
have simply made the equation in our mind
that if a person has a lot
of something, it means that they are successful.
Now one of the beautiful things about
Islam, the Quran, and the life of the
prophet
is
that when we take time to read it
and we see the messaging that Allah sends
down through his prophet
in the scripture as well as in his
behavior, in his modeling.
We see that the prophet
not only does he correct our understanding
in a way that, you know, turns it
slightly,
right? A slight degree or 2.
There are often times moments where the Quran
or the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam by his example
will flip our understanding
directly on its head.
An example of this was in the life
of the prophet alaihis salam,
there was a predominant
Jahili understanding
of race.
That people
of the Arab tribal system saw
anybody who was from Africa as being worth
less than them.
And when the prophet
lived and saw and grew up in this,
when he finally was given the chance to
make a decision
about who goes where and which position would
be occupied by which person, the prophet did
not hesitate to
put Bilal
an African
former slave
to be the
of
not only his masjid, but when the Muslims
had finally entered into Mecca
and had made their pilgrimage,
he instructed Bilal to ascend on top of
the kaaba and call the adhan.
Because the prophet
saw the incorrect understanding
And instead
of making a slight adjustment
to this really incorrect disposition, he said, no.
We're gonna flip this completely to teach people
what the truth teaches us.
And so when you
see our understanding of success being so far
off,
what Allah and his messenger have taught us,
and when we look back at the Quran
and at the sunnah of the life of
the prophet
we see that
not only is the acquisition of things not
deemed as successful, not only
is it if a person has a lot,
it is not necessarily successful. But in fact,
Allah tells us that getting more is a
liability.
Achieving more
means that we'll be asked
more about what we've achieved.
Allah in the Quran, He says,
you you are gonna
be distractedly
destroyed by your obsession with acquiring more and
more.
And you're gonna be obsessed with this until
you visit the graves, meaning until you die.
And so Allah is telling us here that
we have this inclination.
He says, you love money.
You love it with an almost unnatural
type of love. Right? And they've done studies
that show that when people even see pictures
of dollars, they get happy.
Their mind releases the the the happiness, right,
chemicals. So,
this is something that's deeply ingrained within us.
It's a vulnerability,
and then society, right, marketing, and things like
that have really taken advantage of that.
The prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
Whatever is little
but takes care of you
is infinitely better
than that which is in abundance
but
it is something that distracts you
or deters you or pushes you away.
So we hear these narrations. We hear these
verses
and we understand it mentally. We understand it
logically that you know what?
Living a life of contentment,
living a life of simplicity,
living a
life of having
moderate expectations
is in fact truly
the prophetic way, and it is the happier
way. And
as someone famously said, with more money, there
are more problems. And so I don't wanna
have that.
But the heart is where everything resides
in terms of integrating that knowledge into action.
So while we could all talk about the
benefits of being simple and being humble and
being modest in our aspirations
and being content with Allah at all times,
the heart wants
more than that.
And so today's,
I wanted to speak about how this
philosophical
principle
of seeking more is something that will absolutely
destroy us from within.
Now we know that
economically, right, this is the reason why people
struggle maybe financially,
sometimes because they spend more than they have.
We know that socially, this is the reason
why people burn out because they give more
than they have. Right? They commit to more
than they can.
But what about religiously?
What about spiritually? Yes. The same principle has
made its way into our understanding
of what religion means and how we practice
religion. We think that if we simply just
do more,
then that will be what will give us
success on the day of judgment.
But what we find, subhanAllah,
are many narrations from the prophet
and many stories and examples where you have
individuals
that did very little in terms of the
measurable
quantity
of the deed. But the quality of the
deed was so heavy and so substantive
that the reward that was prescribed for that
deed was absolutely mind blowing. And we'll share
some of those stories.
But before we begin, the verse that I
quoted in the Khubba,
a verse from Suratul Bayina,
Allah teaches
us the sequence
of how to understand, how to structure a
good deed.
And He teaches us the prioritization
of doing a good deed.
Allah says that
these messengers that were sent were commanded
to do nothing more than to
worship Allah in a sincere way.
Sincerely,
devotedly,
prayer
and charity. Now we know that prayer and
charity
are inarguably
are some beautiful deeds. When we get together,
we pray. When we raise money, we give
charity. We think that these are the deeds
that are gonna take us to inshallah. But
what we fail to realize is that in
the ayah itself,
Allah mentioned that each of these deeds, prayer
and charity and everything else has a qualifier.
And that qualifier is
what? Sincerity.
So before we actually stand up to say,
Allahu Akbar,
it would actually benefit us to say,
who am I actually even praying to?
Before I write the check for a donation,
it would actually benefit us to say,
what am I donating this for?
And if my heart and my action are
not aligned,
if I'm writing the check for a donation,
but all my heart is thinking about is
the tax exemption.
If I'm standing up to pray,
but all my heart is thinking about is
I can't wait to be done with this
to keep go back to the playoffs
or go back to dinner or go back
to the wedding, then my heart is not
aligned and my deed is not
The sign that I'm sincere for Allah is
that I understand the value of that deed,
and I'm less focused about finishing it and
more focused about
actually partaking in it. May Allah give us
sincerity.
So before Allah mentions the value of the
deeds itself, he mentions what puts value in
them
is the sincerity
that we have. I want you to think
about this. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
right before the believers
were making hijrah from Mecca to Medina.
It's
an incredible
story. The hijrah from Mecca to Medina leaving
everything that they've known, leaving their hometowns,
leaving their property, their wealth.
It was not easy. You know, sometimes we
think of Hijra, and we think of, like,
almost a story, like a fairy tale, that
it was something very easy, it was direct,
it was simple. No.
It was financially difficult, it required sacrifice, It
required a lot of question, a lot of
confusion.
Anyone in here who's ever moved before, you
know that when you move, even if everything
looks good, you still have this anxiety.
Now imagine if you have no idea what
the future will be.
You don't know what the new city is
like. You've only heard bad things. You haven't
heard anything reliable. You don't wanna leave your
hometown,
but you still have to move.
Now, it would be safe to assume that
anybody who is going to make hijra
would absolutely be sincere.
Any person who's leaving Mecca to go to
Medina with the prophet of Allah salallahu alaihi
wa sallam, that they're gonna be sincere. That's
a safe assumption for us to make. However,
the prophet alaihi wasalam, he gathered everybody,
and he
addressed them before making this major move, this
major migration
which required so much sacrifice.
And he says to them what?
Very famously,
Every action that you do
is only made possible and is only accepted
and deemed worthy
by the intention
that occupies the soul of the action itself.
Why would the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
stand before a group of people that have
pledged their lives to him, that have pledged
everything they have, that have sacrificed, that their
backs
are facing all of their net worth.
Every asset they own is behind them, and
they are about to embark on taking their
first steps towards a new life of which
they know nothing about the certainty of success
there. But he still, salallahu alaihi wasallam, found
it appropriate and perfect to tell them at
that moment,
you have to be sincere.
Brothers and sisters, the scholars say when they
comment on this hadith
because sincerity
is the toughest thing to guarantee.
Sincerity
is the thing that nobody else can see
besides God, besides Allah.
We can all appear to be a certain
way. We can all present ourselves in a
certain way, but it's only Allah who truly
knows who we are, why we do what
we do, and why we say what we
say.
And so the prophet of god is reminding
his companions
that while you may, on the outside,
be making hijra with us,
He's saying, I know and you know that
there are other reasons. And in that narration,
he talks about them. He says, whoever is
migrating to get married,
then you're gonna get married. Whoever is migrating
to do some business, then you're gonna do
business. But whoever migrates for Allah and his
messenger, they have migrated for Allah and his
messenger.
And what that means is on the day
of judgment, when they are called by the
migrant the people who migrated for Allah and
his messenger, not everybody who did it will
be able to stand up.
Not everybody who did it will be able
to stand and receive that honor because their
intention may have not been there. May Allah
give us a sincere intention.
This is why
Imam Ghazali
when he talks about
the way in which Allah measures deeds on
the day of judgment,
Allah
uses the word
He uses the concept of a scale, and
it's interesting because in the world where we
count things,
scales are useless.
But in a world where we weigh things,
counting is useless.
And if we're convinced that counting something means
that we're successful,
but Allah is telling us, no. We're gonna
weigh your good deeds.
What Imam Ghazali says is, don't worry about
the amount of good deeds. Worry about the
weight of them.
And worry about whether or not the good
deed that you did was substantive enough, was
filled enough
to be heavy on the day of judgement.
Brothers and sisters, I ask you one question.
Filled with what?
With sincerity for Allah.
You see, there can be things that are
very large in their size or very many
in their amount,
but they're very light on the scale.
Meanwhile, the prophet uses
this metaphor
when he says,
there are 2 words which are light on
the tongue,
but they are very heavy on the scale.
And he says, they are what? SubhanAllah, he
will be
Why did he say the metaphor? Because he
wants to teach us that something that is
so simple
as 3 or 4 words that takes you
5 seconds to say while you're driving
or while you're putting your kids to sleep
or while you're getting ready for work in
the morning, these words that you may very
well forget you ever even said them,
Allah does not forget that you said them.
And on the day of judgment, when you're
standing and looking at your deeds being measured,
you're not looking at the words you said
being counted. You're watching them being weighed.
And that's why the prophet says
for the person who says them with a
heart that is full and a heart that
is focused on the day of judgment, they
will be pleasantly surprised
by the weight that it adds to their
good scale. May Allah give us a good
day on that day. So how do we
have sincere intentions?
How do we have sincere intentions? There are
a few advices
that the scholars give us, and it's hard.
It's hard because we live in a world
where appearance is everything.
We focus so much on what we look
like and how we are perceived
that we don't give ourselves enough time to
focus on what's on the inside.
And we end up becoming, may Allah protect
us, like the shiny red apple with the
rotten core.
And no one wants to be like that
on the day of judgement. So how do
we really focus
on achieving Ikhlas? Number 1, the scholars advise
and they say that one of the ways
in which a person can develop sincerity
is to try to find Allah in the
mundane moments of life.
You know, everybody can remember Allah when times
are really good
and times are really bad. When something is
extremely,
right,
has a lot of providence and when something
is extremely challenging. We remember Allah. We're forced
to remember Allah
because those times remind us of the miraculous
nature and the presence of Allah in our
life. But the everyday moment is when it's
difficult for us to remember Allah.
When you're putting your kids to bed,
do you make as much do offer them
then as you did to have a kid
in the first place?
When you're looking at your spouse on a
Wednesday night,
do you make as much dua for them
then and thank Allah as much for them
then as you did when you were hoping
to get married to them?
When you're going into work on a Tuesday
morning,
do you thank Allah as much then as
you did when you were begging Allah for
the interview for a job?
The mundane moments, one of the challenges
of the mundane is exactly that. It's mundane.
It's not special.
But believers believe that we can make those
moments special by remembering Allah whenever we can.
That's why the prophet, alaihis salatu salam, when
he talked to Mu'ad bin Jabal, he said,
what?
Remember Allah and be conscious of him wherever
you are. Why? Because that is what will
separate you as a person.
What will separate you from a mediocre believer
to make you an incredible believer is that
the believer who is incredible
is able to see Allah
in everything.
The believer that is just hanging on by
a thread
only sees Allah in the miraculous moments. But
guess what? Everybody sees miracles.
But who can see the miracle in the
mundane? That's what what makes a person special.
May Allah give us this.
What are the first words that come out
of your mouth in a time of happiness
or sadness?
Does that reflect Allah or does it reflect
myself? If somebody congratulates you or offers you
condolences,
do you remember Allah or do you remember
yourself? The scholars say this is a sign
of sincerity. Number 2
is the
gift and the miracle of consistency.
You know, one of the things that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam had that made him
so special
was that he was the most consistent
person,
Predictable,
reliable.
Everybody knew who he was. You know why
when he was the age of 40, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, he was given the nickname
of
and alameen.
He was given that nickname not because he
was truthful or trustworthy one time
or twice or three times. He was given
that nickname
of the truthful one and the trustworthy one
because for 40 years,
he was known as being nothing but truthful
and trustworthy.
Consistency in and of itself
is a miracle.
Anybody can do something once or twice, but
how many people can do something for 40
years?
And all of the signs show us that
the people who are able to do things
consistently over a long stretch of time
are ultimately
the most successful people. You know, when you
interview these people that we deem as successful
in this life, may Allah forgive us, but
the dunya we success, of corporate success or
fame, or this and that,
the one thing that they all sort of
underline,
generally speaking, as what gave them success was
their consistency
and focus and hard work.
And so we see the we see the
flashes, we see the the highlights, but they
say what you don't see is the work
that was put in
late into the night when no one was
watching. That is consistency.
And that consistency in faith is even more
successful, bears even more fruit than the work
that we put in this life. May Allah
give us consistency.
Number 3 for Ikhlas.
Ask yourself one question.
Well, really 2 questions. Number 1, am I
a good friend? And number 2, am I
surrounding myself with people who inspire me?
The prophet, alaihis
salam,
unmistakably,
he advised everybody with deep
sincerity
that you need to make sure that you
look at the people you surround yourself with,
and you need to make sure that the
people you surround yourself with
inspire you
and push you to be the best version
of yourself.
This is why the prophet, alaihis salam, gave
the example
of the blacksmith and the perfume seller when
he talked about how we spend our time
and who we spend it with. Now we
don't have blacksmiths
today,
and I apologize if this is your industry,
but I want you to think of the
mechanic.
The person who is working on cars
and has oil
and has soot and grime all over.
If you step into a mechanic shop,
even if you don't work on the car
or do anything that has to do with
the work of the car, you could accidentally
pick up some smudge or smear on your
clothes,
or at the very least, you walk out
and you smell like oil or gas,
and then you come back and pick it
up. It's not the best of environments for
you if you wanna remain pure and clean
in your appearance and in your smell. But
the example the prophet alaihis salam gave of
the other side,
being around good people, is that of a
perfume seller.
That you might be in it with them,
selling perfume, trying it out, this and that.
You might be at least enjoying the fragrances
or at the very least,
when you walk out of the shop after
buying nothing,
you at least carry on the smell of
beautiful pure perfume.
The prophet he
said that every person in their friendship and
who they spend time with is either spending
time with a blacksmith
or a perfume seller.
If you spend time with people who are
sincere, you will inevitably start to value sincerity.
If you look at somebody and are in
awe
of how much Ikhlas they have
and how they're able to be sincere in
every relationship with Allah, with their family, with
their friends, with their colleagues, their coworkers,
even strangers,
you will inevitably learn something. But if you
and I don't value sincerity in our life,
then naturally, we're not going to find ourselves
being amongst
gatherings where sincerity is found.
And so looking and making sure that you
spend time, not only in good company, but
in the company of the sincere.
Number 4
is
to focus on Allah and not on your
actions. And I'll finish with one narration here.
There's a beautiful chapter in a book that
we've been reading here at Roots on Tuesdays
by Abdulah ibn Mubarak,
and the chapter is very beautiful. The chapter
is called
small deeds that lead to great rewards.
And the whole thesis behind the chapter is
there are some deeds that on the front,
they look very small and insignificant.
But on the
day of judgment side, on the afterlife side,
they are going to be
incredible,
magnificent.
So the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam one day, it's narrated,
that he finished his prayer and he turned
around to face everybody. And he said to
them,
I want everyone to listen closely.
He said this to his companions. So they
all paid attention. And he said, there are
people
that Allah has created, special people.
And he says,
they are people who the prophets
and the martyrs even envy
them. They're very unique status with Allah. So
everybody starts to think to themselves, wow. What
an incredible person. And they all start measuring
the same way that we measure, which is
what? Who are they? They must be very
well known. They must be very famous because
if they are the object of envy, then
of course, we must all know who they
are. The prophet answers
that question immediately, and he says, They are
completely anonymous.
He says, they're so anonymous
that their tribe is unknown.
Are you with me? Their tribe is unknown.
You know what that's like? Moving to a
new city and nobody even recognizes your last
name.
Nobody even assumes. You know, you move to
a city and you can say, oh, I'm
this or I'm that. I have a cousin
here. I have an uncle there. And even
by association,
even by rough association, you're welcomed in. Now
I want you to imagine somebody who moves
to the community, has no association,
completely unrecognizable.
You could pray at the masjid for 5
days and leave and not even know if
they were there or not.
The prophet
says, this person
is so close to Allah that the prophets
are intrigued by him or
her. And then
he finished his statement there. So the companions,
they were all shy
and they typically did not like to dive
too much into things, but a bedouin was
there.
And so this Bedouin man, he says,
and he says as soon as the Bedouin
looked up, all the companions were like, yes.
Because the Bedouins were a little bit more
aggressive in their questioning.
So while Omar and Abu Bakr and and
The the ones who were used to were
very humble, they
didn't wanna ask. The Bedouin was like, I'm
gonna ask. So he got up and he
asked.
And he
said, wait. Let me get this straight. There
are people who are completely unknown,
totally unknown,
not recognizable, not rememberable, completely obscure.
And they are close to Allah in a
way that
the prophets and martyrs are intrigued by them?
The prophet
said, Yes.
The Bedouin says, So tell me about them.
Again, shameless.
The prophet
said, their reward Listen to this. On the
day of judgement is that they will be
given thrones of light.
On the day when there's no light and
there's no relief, they will be given light.
The Bedouin says, what did they do to
earn this?
The prophet of Allah the prophet of Allah
he said,
when they came to the gatherings at the
masjid,
they stood up next to each other
and they lined up for the sake of
Allah,
and they prayed for the sake of Allah,
and Allah
rewarded them for that sincerity.
Now if I told you the entire story,
but I left that good deed out
and then I asked everybody here, what do
you think the good deed they did was?
Everyone will come up with the most incredible
good deed.
But what is about a person that walks
into a masjid,
lines up, prays, and leaves is that their
sincerity
is
undeniable.
They come and they line up.
They're not here for business. They're not here
for social
posturing. They're not here for any other reason.
They're here to pray and worship Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
A
following narration,
the prophet
he describes these people even further.
And he says that these people have earned
the love of Allah. He says,
Allah says,
Why did they come to the masjid? Because
they love each other for my sake. There's
nothing that they need to have in between
them except for the love of one another.
Well, he says,
And these people
have earned my love because they would visit
each other for my sake.
They would stop by someone's house,
say salaam,
maybe drop off a little something
just for my sake alone.
My love has been mandated upon people
that have helped one another
just for my sake. It's not trading favors,
not I owe you one. Hey, I'm gonna
help you today. Can you help me tomorrow?
No.
For my sake alone.
He says, and there are those
who earned my love, who will be given
my love because they were sincere with each
other for my sake. And then he says,
And ultimately, there are those who sacrificed
for my sake. Again, when you look at
the list brothers and sisters,
it's not an incredible amount of that were
prayed. It's not an incredible dollar amount that
was given. It's not an incredible amount of
days that were fasted.
It is the presence of sincerity in the
deeds that they did that gave them presence
with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We ask Allah
ta'ala to make us sincere and to give
us the gift of sincerity and to give
us the ability to be sincere in everything
that we do, whether that be be large
or small.
Straighten your rosinshallah, fill in the gaps as
best as you can.
Pray this prayer as if it's your last
prayer.
Allahu Akbar.
I could go.
Everybody. May Allah accept from us our prayers,
inshallah, and
give us the ability to act upon what
we said and heard.
We have a few announcements for the
Related Episodes
- Daood Butt – Friday Jumuah Khutbah – October 30, 2020
- Omar Suleiman – How To Love Relationships In Islam Abdelrahman Murphy
- Mohammed Faqih – Khutbah Be Mindful Of Allah
- Mohammed Mana – Jumuah Khutbah 03-03-17
- Wisam Sharieff – Khutbah 3
- Suleiman Hani – Friday Khutbah 22-03-2024
- AbdelRahman Murphy – Relationships In Islam