AbdelRahman Murphy – Jumuah Khutbah 13-09-2024
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AI: Transcript ©
To put Bilal radiAllahu anhu, an African former
slave, to be the muezzin 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 ﷺ 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 Qur'an and at
the Sunnah of the life of the Prophet
ﷺ, 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.
الهاكم التكاثر حتى زرتم المقابر Allah in the
Qur'an, He says, you are gonna be
distractedly destroyed by your obsession with acquiring more
and more.
حتى زرتم المقابر 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.
وَتُحِبُّونَ الْمَالَ حُبًّا جَمًّا He says, you love
money.
You love it with an almost unnatural type
of love.
And they've done studies that show that when
people even see pictures of dollars, they get
happy.
Their mind releases the happiness chemical.
So subhanAllah, 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 ﷺ said, ما قَلَّ وَكَفَى خَيْرٌ
مِّمَّا كَثُرَ وَأَلْهَا 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
want to have that.
But subhanallah, 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 khutbah, 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, this 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 ﷺ, 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 khutbah, a verse from Surah
Al-Bayyinah, Allah ﷻ 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.
وَمَا أُمِرُوا إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ مُخْلِسِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ
Allah says that these messengers that were sent
were commanded to do nothing more than to
worship Allah in a sincere way.
هُنَفَاءَ وَيُقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَيُعْطُوا الزَّكَاةَ Sincerely, devotedly,
prayer, and charity.
Now we know that prayer and charity, 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 heaven, inshaAllah.
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?
مُخْلِسِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ Ikhlas, sincerity.
So before we actually stand up to say
Allahu Akbar, it would actually benefit us to
say, whom 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 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 مُخْلِسِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ.
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 Ta'ala 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 ﷺ, 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 hijrah, 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 want to leave your hometown, but you
still have to move.
Now, it would be safe to assume that
anybody who is going to make hijrah, would
absolutely be sincere.
Any person who's leaving Mecca to go to
Medina, with the Prophet of Allah ﷺ, that
they're gonna be sincere.
That's a safe assumption for us to make.
However, the Prophet ﷺ, 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, إِنَّمَ الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ 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 ﷺ, 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 ﷺ, 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 hijrah 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 going to get married.
Whoever is migrating to do some business, then
you're going to 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
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 al-mizan.
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 going to 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 Judgment.
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, peace be upon him, uses
this metaphor.
When he says, there are two words, which
are light on the tongue, خفيفتان على اللسان,
but they are very heavy on the scale.
ثقيلتان على الميزان.
And he says they are what?
سبحان الله و بحمده سبحان الله العظيم.
Why did he say the metaphor?
Because he wants to teach us that something
that is so simple, as three or four
words, that takes you five 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 Ta'ala 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, peace be upon
him, 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 Ta'ala 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 Judgment.
So, how do we really focus on achieving
ikhlas?
Number one, 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 dua for 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 to 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 ﷺ, when he talked
to Mu'ad bin Jabal, he said what?
اتق الله حيثما كنت.
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 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 two is the gift and the miracle
of consistency.
One of the things that the Prophet ﷺ
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 ﷺ, he was given the nickname
of As-Sadiq and Al-Amin?
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 in hard
work.
And so we see the flashes, we see
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 three for Ikhlas.
Ask yourself one question.
Well, really two questions.
Number one, am I a good friend?
And number two, am I surrounding myself with
people who inspire me?
The Prophet ﷺ, 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 ﷺ 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 want to remain pure and clean
in your appearance and in your smell.
But the example the Prophet ﷺ 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 ﷺ, 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 co-workers, 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 four 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 Abdullah 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, 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 are 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, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, 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 five
days and leave and not even know if
they were there or not.
The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, 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, ya
Rasulullah.
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 the
ones who were used to, were very humble,
radiyallahu anhu, they didn't want to ask.
The Bedouin was like, I'm going to ask.
So he got up and he asked.
And he said, ya Rasulullah, 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 ﷺ said, yes.
The Bedouin says, so tell me about them.
Again, shameless.
The Prophet ﷺ said, their reward, listen to
this, on the Day of Judgment 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 ﷺ, 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 ﷻ 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 would 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 ﷻ.
A following narration the Prophet ﷺ, he describes
these people even further.
And he says that these people have earned
the love of Allah.
He says, حَقَّتْ مَحَبَّتِي Allah says, لَلَّذِينَ يَتَحَابُونَ
مِنْ أَجْلِ 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, وَحَقَّتْ مَحَبَّتِي لَلَّذِينَ يَتَزَاوَرُونَ مِنْ
أَجْلِ And these people have earned my love
because they would visit each other for my
sake.
They would stop by someone's house, say salam,
maybe drop off a little something, just for
my sake alone.
He says, وَحَقَّتْ مَحَبَّتِي لَلَّذِينَ يَتَنَاصَرُونَ مِنْ أَجْلِ
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.
يَتَنَاصَرُونَ مِنْ أَجْلِ For my sake alone.
وَحَقَّتْ مَحَبَّتِي لَلَّذِينَ يَتَصَافُونَ مِنْ أَجْلِ 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, وَحَقَّتْ مَحَبَّتِي لَلَّذِينَ يَتَبَاذَلُونَ
مِنْ أَجْلِ 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
raka'at 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 deed be large or small.
أقول قولي هذا واستغفر الله لي ولكم ولي
سائر المسلمين والمسلمات فاستغفروا إنه هو الغفور الرحيم
الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على أشرف
الأنبياء والمرسلين سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم
على آله وأصحابه أجمعين إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَمَلَائَكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ
عَلَى النَّبِيَّ وَالَّذِينَ آمْنُوا صَلُّوا عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُوا تَسْلِيمًا
اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ كَمَا
صَلَّيْتَ عَلَى إِبْرَاهِيمُ وَعَلَى آلِ إِبْرَاهِيمِ فِي الْعَالَمِينِ
إِنَّكَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى
آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ كَمَا بَارَكْتَ عَلَى إِبْرَاهِيمُ وَعَلَى آلِ
إِبْرَاهِيمِ فِي الْعَالَمِينِ إِنَّكَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ إِنَّ اللَّهَ
يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَائِذِ الْقُرْبَى وَيَنْهَى عَلَى
الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ يَعِذُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَرُونَ
أَقِيمُوا الصَّلَةُ