AbdelRahman Murphy – Jumuah Khutba 10-01-2025

AI: Summary ©
The importance of understanding the joys and struggles of the Prophet's life is discussed, as well as the importance of being a valued member of the church and the Prophet's framework for life. The speaker emphasizes the importance of following the Prophet's framework and finding out what one can do, as well as following the messenger's teachings and building trust in him. The importance of listening to the messenger of Allah and covering one's hearts and bodies is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
So I'm like, before we get started, inshallah,
if we could just have everyone scoot up
as much as possible just because there's gonna
be a lot more people trickling in toward
the middle and the end of the khutba
and jama'a.
So instead of causing an interruption in between,
yeah, if we can just create space now,
inshallah, that'd be ideal.
JazakAllah.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest.
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of worship except Allah.
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of worship except Allah.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger
of Allah.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger
of Allah.
Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest.
Allah
is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest.
There is
none
worthy of worship except Allah.
Alhamdulillah.
One of the beautiful elements of our faith
and our tradition is the removal of opinion.
I know that this is something that is
shocking when you think about the world that
we live in today, where everything that we
judge, everything that we assess, is through the
opinions of people, whether it be ourselves or
those that are around us or even complete
strangers.
Think about the last time that you decided
where you were going to go eat at
a restaurant and you looked at how many
stars that restaurant got.
Was it four stars, five stars, three stars?
What the reviews were like when you purchased
things online.
The opinions of others or of ourselves have
become the gold standard as to whether or
not we feel that something is worth it.
And when it comes to purchasing something, reviews
are helpful.
You can learn from other people's experiences.
You can benefit from people's challenges or their
success stories.
And that's why we look at these things.
But these metrics, while helpful when it comes
to your personal purchasing and your personal life,
are not the same metrics that we use
to determine whether or not something is good
or bad for our Iman.
We don't use these types of metrics to
understand whether or not something is what Allah
Ta'ala loves or what Allah Ta'ala
does not want for us to do.
We have a different metric there.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, through many
narrations, many stories in his life, peace be
upon him, he demonstrated this over and over
and over again.
When you think about, for example, his initial
stage of Dawah in Mecca, as he was
encountering this challenge from Quraysh over and over
again, and Quraysh, the leaders, were upset, but
they were also trying to figure out a
way to stop the message of the Prophet,
peace be upon him.
They offered him, in exchange for his silence,
in exchange for his conceding, they said, we'll
give you whatever you want.
And the response of the Prophet, peace be
upon him, even for a moment, was never
ever to consider this trade.
And his answer, peace be upon him, was
what?
This is not my religion to give up.
This is not my choice.
This idea of submission was intricately built into
the entire understanding of what it means to
be a Prophet or a follower of a
Prophet.
So, how well can you submit, is the
question that Islam asks of us.
That's why Allah Ta'ala says, وَنَحْنُ لَهُ
الْمُسْلِيمُونَ And we are, to Him, in a
state of submission.
So, when it comes to understanding our religious
tradition, we find an immense value, we find
an incredible level of value and strength in
our ability to look at what our Messenger,
peace be upon him, taught us, and to
take from what he has given us.
In a narration, in both Sahih Bukhari and
Muslim, the Prophet, peace be upon him, gives
this standard.
He gives this instruction.
The narration is given to us by Abu
Huraira, رضي الله عنه, and he says, سمعت
رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول I
heard the Prophet, peace be upon him, that
he said, and I want you to understand
first, before we go into the narration, that
this is Abu Huraira, this is a person
who spent dedicated, continuous time learning and living
the life of the Prophet, peace be upon
him.
This is not like somebody, one of us,
maybe saying something.
This is a person that is vetted, right?
He doesn't have any moments where you feel
like, ah, he might be challenging the Messenger.
No, peace be upon him.
Abu Huraira was known to be a devout
student of the Prophet of Allah, peace be
upon him.
And he says, that the Prophet, peace be
upon him, says, ما نهيتكم عنه فاشتنبوه He
says, whatever I have forbidden for you, you
have to stay as far away from it
as humanly possible.
Whatever I have said in my language, that
this is impermissible, that this is something that
will take you further away from Allah, subhanahu
wa ta'ala, you have to stay away
from it.
There's no conversation, there's no point here where
the Prophet, peace be upon him, says something
like, you know, but if it makes sense
to you, then everybody has their own life
to live.
That's not what the Prophet, peace be upon
him, says.
He doesn't say, but if you think that
you know better, then you can ultimately decide.
It's your family.
No.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, says what?
ما نهيتكم عنه Whatever I have forbidden for
you, فاشتنبوه Stay away from it.
And this is not given in the language
of power, although the Prophet, peace be upon
him, is our authority.
This is given, and you can understand this
better, especially if you are somebody who is
in charge of somebody else.
If you're a parent, if you are a
father or a mother, and you have children,
or if you're an older sibling, or if
you're somebody that has responsibility in your life,
you know exactly the flavor of these words
from the lips of our Messenger, peace be
upon him.
The flavor is what?
The flavor is, I'm concerned.
I'm worried.
I don't want you to have to go
through this thing.
I don't want you to have to deal
with the difficulty of this.
You know, when the Prophet, peace be upon
him, when he was engaged by companions that
had internal struggles, he, peace be upon him,
would always deal with them in a way
that was so gentle, that was so caring.
It wasn't about proving that he was right,
peace be upon him.
There were many moments where the Prophet, peace
be upon him, had to encounter somebody who
did exactly what he had advised them not
to do.
And they came back to him, and he
greeted them with a smile, and said, don't
you think now is the time to listen?
Isn't it now the time that you change
your mind?
Isn't it now the time that you decide
to follow the advice that you got in
the first place?
The Prophet, peace be upon him, part of
his mission, وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِلْعَالَمِينَ The
part of the mission that Allah described is
that he is mercy, and a mercy would
never want to see his students, his followers,
in pain.
He would never want to see us in
difficulty.
He would never, peace be upon him, want
to see us struggle.
And so his words are strong, but his
message is meaningful, which is whatever I have
told you to stay away from, please, for
your sake and for the sake of your
relationship with Allah, stay away from it.
And then he continues, and he says, وَمَا
أَمَرْتُكُمْ بِهِ فَأْتُوا مِنْهُ مَا أَسْتَتَعْتُمْ He says,
and whatever you have heard or seen me
command you to do, whatever has been obligated
upon you by me, Allah says, do all
that you can from it.
فَأْتُوا مِنْهُ مَا أَسْتَتَعْتُمْ Do whatever it is
that you are possible of doing from this
list of things.
So the scholars here, they say this hadith
is very interesting, because when it comes to
prohibitions, there is no exception.
When it comes to don't do, he doesn't
say, stay away from whatever you can.
But if you struggle, go ahead, enjoy.
He doesn't say that.
He says, whatever I have told you not
to do, don't do it.
Whatever I have told you to do, as
much as you can do, you know your
capacity.
You know what you can do, do as
much as you can.
For some people, for example, there is a
famous story of the Bedouin who came to
the Prophet ﷺ and he said, what is
it that a person has to do to
go to Jannah?
And the Prophet ﷺ, he gave the five
pillars.
They have to witness and bear witness that
Allah is one, and that his messenger is
Muhammad ﷺ.
This person has to pray, they have to
give zakat, they have to fast Ramadan, and
they have to make hajj once in their
life, if it's possible.
And the Bedouin says, if I do this,
I'll go to Jannah.
The Prophet ﷺ says, if you do this,
you'll go to Jannah.
And the Bedouin replied by saying, I will
do this and not a single thing more.
And he left.
Now the companions around the Prophet ﷺ, Umar,
Abu Bakr, others, their daily life, their average
day, includes sadaqah.
Not zakat once a year, sadaqah every day.
They're fasting multiple times a week, not just
Ramadan.
They are praying not just the five prayers.
They're doing all of the nawafil, they're doing
all of their sunnah, they're doing all of
the extra, the tahajjud, they're doing all of
it.
And so when they hear this man come,
and this man comes to the Prophet ﷺ,
and he says, what do I have to
do?
And his language is very much like, bare
minimum.
What do I have to do?
The Prophet ﷺ does not shame him, does
not make him feel like, come on man.
Are you a C-, are you a D
- Muslim?
He doesn't make him feel that way.
But he says to him, okay, this is
what you have to do.
And then the Bedouin, again, part of the
character of the Bedouin is that they're painfully
honest about how they feel.
All of us, we can hide how we
feel.
Hey, how's the food?
Oh, it's good.
But the Bedouin would say, it needs more
salt.
We have some Bedouins maybe here with us,
right?
So he says, if you do this, and
the Bedouin says, I won't do a single
thing more.
So the companions, they waited until the man
left, and they said, Ya Rasulullah, what gives?
That's, that's, we haven't heard that kind of,
you know, and the Prophet ﷺ said, I
said if.
If he's able to do it.
Which is a big if.
And it's true.
If a person is able to do that,
they will do it.
So why do we do all of these
extra things?
Because you're capable of doing it.
Whatever you can do.
And by doing more, subhanAllah, one of my
teachers, he said, when you do more, you
protect yourself from leaving off the things that
you have to do.
If I pray my sunnah for Fajr, I'm
probably not missing Fajr.
If I pray my winter after Isha, I'm
probably not missing Isha, correct?
But if I'm skipping all of those things,
then I will come to a point in
my life where I'm probably going to be
missing out on the things that I have
to do, and that's not a good place
to be.
May Allah ta'ala protect us.
So the Prophet ﷺ gives us his framework.
And he says, whatever I've told you not
to do, don't come near it.
Whatever I've told you to do, do what
you can.
The scholars also say very beautifully that it's
very easy to not do something.
You just have to stop.
A person might ask themselves a question like,
okay, well, how do I stop backbiting?
Well, just close your mouth.
How do I stop looking at haram things?
Look away.
Close your eyes.
Leave the room.
How do I stop?
Just don't.
But doing something requires more energy.
It's more active.
And that's why the mercy of the Prophet
ﷺ was more present in this side, which
is whatever you can do.
It's not possible for everybody to get out
of bed in the cold before Fajr and
pray to Hajj.
It's not possible for everybody to dig deep
in their pockets and to give from their
wealth when they're unsure if they feel confident
enough for themselves.
That's always not possible.
But what is possible, per the Prophet's ﷺ
advice, is to stay away from the things
that will take you further from Allah ﷻ.
And then the Prophet ﷺ, he gives us
the story behind this message.
Why is it important to live with this
framework?
Why is it important to adopt this as
your principle of life?
Because, he says, فَإِنَّمَا أَهْلَكَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ
He says, because it is the case that
there has not been a thing that has
destroyed more of the nations that came before
you.
Think of the stories of the Qur'an.
Think of how many times we read about
this nation, that nation, these people, this people.
And subhanAllah, he beautifully summarizes.
He says that there was not a single
thing that destroyed the people that came before
you.
He says, كَثْرَةُ مَسَائِلِهِمْ وَإِخْتِلَافُهُمْ عَلَىٰ أَنْبِيَاءِهِمْ The
thing that absolutely destroyed their chances at having
success with Allah was two.
Number one, was that instead of just submitting,
they kept asking questions.
And the questions were not good questions.
You see, there is always a difference between
a good question and a bad question.
A good question is a question where the
answer is not abundantly obvious.
The answer is not there.
يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ How do we do this?
يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ How do...
You see the companions ask good questions.
But you don't see the companions ask questions
that the Prophet ﷺ says establish prayer.
They say, do we have to establish prayer?
That's a bad question.
So the Prophet ﷺ, he says what?
He says, كَثْرَةُ مَسَائِلِهِمْ That they asked way
too many questions.
And the question, the story of Bani Israel
in Surah Al-Baqarah is kind of an
example.
You have to slaughter the cow.
What kind of cow?
What color should it be?
How big should...
The question is used as a mechanism of
what?
Deferring and delaying.
It's not sincere.
A sincere question is, please, I want to
complete this.
Give me guidance so I can complete it.
But then there's the second type of question
that you might see with your kids, right?
Because they think that they're smart.
And they are, mashaAllah.
They say, hey, go clean your room.
What do you want me to do with
my clothes?
Where should I put my dirty clothes?
And the dirty laundry hamper is right there.
Where should I put my books?
The bookshelf is right there.
They're asking those questions.
Why?
Because they want to make it so painful.
They want to drag it out step by
step.
That way the person says, oh, don't clean
your room.
I'll clean it for you.
It's faster if I just do it for
you.
So these nations would drag out their questions
with their prophets.
And they would ask, ask, ask, ask.
Why?
Because they didn't want to do the submission
piece.
They didn't want to submit.
They just wanted to delay, delay, delay.
Because maybe if we delay enough, we'll get
exactly what we want.
And that led to, وَإِخْتِلَافُهُمْ عَلَىٰ أَنْبِيَائِهُمْ And
as a result of that, they differed with
their teachers, their prophets that were sent to
them.
You know, a lot of times, subhanAllah, we
feel as Muslims that there will never ever
come a time or a day in which
we will differ with the Messenger of Allah
ﷺ.
And we pray that Allah makes us amongst
those people.
That we submit.
That we never have a moment.
But I want you to think about this.
The Prophet ﷺ is speaking to believers here.
He's not speaking to disbelievers.
He's not saying, Oh, kuffar.
No.
He's speaking to companions.
And he's telling these companions that you are
not immune.
You are not perfectly safe from being a
person that might differ with me, that might
disagree with me.
And we have some stories, subhanAllah.
And the companions did not differ with the
Prophet.
We're not going to say that because that's
not true.
But we'll have some stories from the seerah
where the companions may have not seen it
exactly the exact way that the Prophet ﷺ
saw it on the same timeline that he
saw it.
They were a step behind.
One of the famous stories is from Hudaybiyyah.
Or Umar ﷺ.
He didn't see exactly what the wisdom was
in the deal that the Muslims had with
the people of Quraysh, people of Mecca.
And he was upset.
He was confused.
He was frustrated.
Not with the Prophet.
Never.
Umar was never ever upset or confused with
the Messenger of Allah.
Ever.
But he was confused and upset by the
situation.
It came all this way.
We did all this work.
And now we have to turn back.
And we're leaving our people.
They're getting our brothers and they're taking them
back.
This isn't fair.
This isn't right.
And he, in this moment of emotion, he
protests.
Not the Messenger.
He protests the situation.
I don't like this.
I don't like this.
The Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr, and all of
those who were there, they gesture.
Hey, quiet down.
Quiet down.
Watch.
Observe.
See how things play out.
Sometimes you gotta let the situation unfold.
And then Subhanallah, as they're leaving, and as
they're making their way back, the Prophet ﷺ,
he calls in the caravan for Umar.
He says, where's Umar?
So they call Umar.
Umar radiAllahu anhu, he says, I was never
more regretful in my life of a single
moment, more than the moment that I spoke
and I raised my voice in front of
the Prophet ﷺ about this situation.
I was so regretful.
In fact, in another Athar, he said very
beautifully, I have never regretted my silence.
I've always only regretted my speaking.
Isn't that the truth?
Man Samata Naja.
The Prophet ﷺ says, whoever is quiet is
safe.
They're safe.
Umar, he said, I never regretted my silence.
I only regretted the times that I spoke.
So the Prophet ﷺ calls him up and
speaks to him.
He says, what?
He tells him about the revelation.
He says, Ya Umar.
He says, we have been given victory.
Allah Ta'ala revealed, inna fatahna laka fathammu
bina.
This is a clear victory.
Again, it was confusing.
There was a cloud of confusion.
But the Prophet ﷺ knew exactly and what
was needed at that moment was submission.
Can we submit to the Prophet of Allah
ﷺ?
That's the strength of our iman.
And if you look at the stories of
the great companions, those people that we follow,
we name our kids after them, we read
their stories.
We find that they had one trait that
was above all else.
They were intelligent.
They were successful.
They were very respected for other things.
But their greatest trait was their submission to
Allah and His Messenger.
They were able to put their head down,
to roll their sleeves up, and to get
to work, especially when the time called for
it.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to make us
amongst those.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to give us
the ability to submit.
We ask Allah Ta'ala to give us
the ability to see the wisdom in the
moments where we don't understand it.
وَقُولُكَ لِهَذَا وَاسْتَغْفِرَ اللَّهُ لِهِ وَلَكُمْ وَلِسَاءِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ
وَالْمُسْلِمَاتِ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوا إِنَّهُكُمْ غَفُورٌ وَحِيمٌ الحمد
لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام وعذاب أشرف المرسلين
سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم وعلى آله
وأصحابه إجمعين Brothers and sisters there is often
times when we talk about developing these religious
spiritual traits, things like submission, things like توكل
there is sometimes the idea or the notion
that when we hear a lecture or a
khutbah about these things that deriving them or
landing on them is like a jackpot or
it's very much like a lucky draw, has
nothing to do with skill or hard work
but maybe if I lead the khutbah I'll
become a person who has more توكل maybe
if I do this one day I'll wake
up and I'll submit to Allah more as
if there is not a plan or a
place, a pathway to Allah and his messenger
I want to share with you two things
that we've been taught from the messenger of
Allah from our teachers that has given us
an understanding of how to develop this توكل
how to develop trust in Allah and how
to develop the ability to submit to the
plan of Allah even before you can see
the end you don't see the light at
the end of the tunnel but you know
it's there number one is a deep connection
to the seerah of the prophet and I
say this not out of ceremony, I mean
this there will come a point in your
life if you've read the seerah if you've
studied the life of the messenger of Allah
where literally every single moment you're in you'll
be able to tie it back to his
life you'll be able to say ah this
reminds me of this this reminds me of
that my kids just did the seerah camp
here couple weeks ago alhamdulillah along with the
seerah intensive and I'm seeing the fruit of
this in their conversation that we'll be sitting
talking about something and they'll bring up oh
this reminds me of this this reminds me
of that and it's so beautiful to see
with children but there's a big imperative for
us as adults for us as community members
that our children may at some point because
of their Saturday schools because of their Islamic
schools they may end up knowing the seerah
better than we do and that's not a
good place to be in we want to
be able not just to listen to the
conversation but to also join the conversation and
if we don't know the life of the
messenger of Allah how will we ever be
able to take examples from it it's like
asking what is something delicious to eat at
a restaurant but never have been there we've
never even eaten there and people come to
you and say hey they have a great
dish and you say yeah I've heard all
of us have heard about how great the
life of the prophet peace be upon him
was but none of us really feel confident
maybe that we know exactly subhanallah how his
life went and we can apply it to
our lives and number two after you have
the knowledge, the reading, the listening the podcast,
etc you're able to then spend time reflecting
on the life of the prophet peace be
upon him and transposing it over your life
whatever you're going through connecting yourself emotionally to
him the knowledge is a prerequisite but then
you also have to reflect and think about
it often times we live our days and
our nights and we just kind of keep
going through the motions we don't think about
things we don't reflect but this is a
part of the Quranic imperative Allah Ta'ala
asked us in the Quran to reflect, to
think to take measure, to wonder Imam Ghazali
Rahim Allah, a great scholar, he actually has
an entire book called The Book of Muhasaba
and Muraqaba the book where a person how
to then at the end of your day
take account of yourself and to ask yourself
what were the things that I did today
we won't be able to apply these lessons
if we don't take time to prioritize them
in our life listening and learning the life
of our messenger and thinking about how our
life mirrors his we ask Allah Ta'ala
to give us all Tawfiq we ask Allah
Ta'ala to make us those that follow
him earnestly we ask Allah Ta'ala to
make us those that follow the book the
Quran and the sunnah of the prophet we
ask Allah Ta'ala to protect all of
us from all evil we ask Allah Ta
'ala to protect us all from hardships and
difficulty, we ask Allah Ta'ala to forgive
us, we ask Allah Ta'ala to envelope
us with his mercy we ask Allah Ta
'ala for those that have passed away that
he accepted them in the highest levels of
paradise we ask Allah Ta'ala that for
those who are sick that Allah Ta'ala
give them shifa we ask Allah Ta'ala
that for those that are being oppressed and
hurt like our brothers and sisters in Gaza
in Sudan and all over the world that
Allah Ta'ala be with them and give
them his security and his safety and his
blanket and we ask Allah to allow us
to be those that can keep continuing to
provide relief for them in our prayers and
in material support, we ask Allah Ta'ala
to protect any of our brothers and sisters
and those who are being afflicted by any
difficulty whether it be man-made or natural
like the fires in California, we ask Allah
Ta'ala to make us a mercy upon
humanity and mankind Innallaha wa malaa ikatahu yusalluona
aalan nabi yaa eyyuhallatheen baaaamanaal salli wa a
'liyyu wa salleemou tansmina Allahuma salli alaa mohammad
wa alaa aali mohammad Ka maa salleinta aala
Ibrahim wa aala Aali Ibrahim Fir aaalimeen innaka
hamid unmajeed Allahuma baraka alaa mohamad wa aala
aali mohammad Ka maa baraka aala Ibrahim wa
aala Aali Ibrahim Fir aalimeen innaka hamid unmajeed
Innallaaha ya amul bil acne wa il enhan
wa yaaituadeal qurba wa yaan haad al fahshaa
ya minakari wa albeeghi ya Uzoukum leralloomsizaki Aqeemah
Salah.
We have one car that...