AbdelRahman Murphy – Jumuah Khutbah 14-06-2024
AI: Summary ©
The importance of pursuing taqwa, a sign of Allah's presence in culture, is emphasized. Success in life is rewarded through mindset and devotion, rather than actions. Representatives are given a command to return to family and to not give too many options. Consentation to Allah's rules is also emphasized. It is crucial to submitting to a sacrifice and not settling for promises, and individuals are encouraged to take part in social events like Connected to God.
AI: Summary ©
These days that we find ourselves in are
blessed days, and Allah
has ordained them
as days of blessings,
not because
of any random or any coincidental reason,
but because
of a moment
and a commemoration
in which a special
and a really remarkable event took place.
These days of
these days in which Allah preserved and memorialized
the story
and the sacrifice
and the dedication of our prophet, Sayed Ibrahim,
alaihis salam,
and the amount of sacrifice that he himself,
made
for the sake of Allah
These days are preserved in time,
and these days come every single year just
like the days of Ramadan
with a special purpose.
The days of Ramadan come, and they remind
us about the value of developing
self discipline,
the value of choosing less over more,
the value of being able to hold ourselves
back. All for the purpose as Allah says,
so that you may be able to attain
taqwa.
But these days,
although the practices are not the same
and although the rituals are different, the goal
is the same.
The goal is always to improve one's relationship
with Allah to gain taqwa.
The goal is always to become a person
that no matter where I am,
whether
it's the weekend or a weekday, whether I'm
at work or home or anywhere else, that
I remember Allah
and that I make choices
out of that remembrance. I choose to do
what I know he loves, and I choose
to hold back from the things that I
know he does not love.
But these days, as I mentioned, have a
different set of rituals and a different set
of circumstances.
In Ramadan, we fast. We come to the
masjid and pray.
In Ramadan, the fasting is ordained.
The charity is a highlight.
But the days of Dhul Hijjah,
the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah before
the day of Eid, reminds us of a
different kind of ritual,
and that is the ritual of reflection. You
know, Allah
when he tells us the stories in the
Quran,
he tells us the purpose why the Quran
has stories. And he tells the prophet
So that maybe by these stories,
your heart may gain strength,
That you may have the ability to persevere
and to be immovable, unshakable.
So the stories that we engage with in
the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
although they do have
a narrative joy, we love reading them, we
love hearing them,
the goal when we walk away from studying
them is that our hearts become stronger.
We take the lessons not from the story,
but from the people in the story so
that we can become closer to Allah just
like those people were.
Alaihiemas salam. And in this case, today, we're
talking about the story of Ibrahim.
And we're talking about a word that is
synonymous with his name, and that word is
sacrifice.
Now when you look at the story of
Ibrahim alaihis salam,
he gives us
some of the keys to sacrifice,
some of the secret ingredients to be able
to be a person who can sacrifice.
And this is really the core of what
it means to be a person of taqwa.
Taqwa is sacrificing
your desires for what you know Allah would
prefer.
Taqwa is sacrificing sleep for fajr.
It's sacrificing buying another thing you don't need
to give charity to those who need it.
Taqwa is holding your tongue
when your body, your mind, and your heart
are enraged
because you know that Allah
loves that a person can control their tongue
in a moment of anger. That is what
taqwa is. So instead of it being seen
as some kind of magical formula
that maybe one day, I will become,
maybe there will become a time where I
will stumble into taqwa,
the Quran preserves for us a checklist,
ingredients,
how to become a person of taqwa.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us,
Allah tells us that the first step to
gaining taqwa
is that you have to be a person
that understands that your life will be full
of tests.
If a person cannot bear the burden of
tests,
then they will never be able to pass
those tests.
Part of the virtue and the success and
the achievement
of passing a test
is having to take it in the 1st
place.
All of the prophets of Allah
they were people that fundamentally
understood that tests were a part of their
development.
And instead of interpreting the test as, oh,
why is Allah doing this to me? Why
is Allah upset with me? Why is this
happening to me?
They would simply see it as an opportunity
to become closer to Allah in that moment.
So much so that some of these pious
people that learned from the prophets, their sahabah,
right, notably our messenger, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, his sahabah, when they were tested,
some of them would actually start to smile
and laugh. And when people said, why are
you smiling? They would say, I know that
Allah has sent me this very special opportunity
now to get closer to him.
And you see this with certain people.
They get a nail in their tire. They
get into a fender bender. They get a
another load of things at work that they
didn't expect.
Something happens medically. Something happens financially.
And instead of letting that news derail them
and completely pull them away from Allah because
that's what shaitan wants.
He'll take that news
and he'll try to pull you from Allah.
That person sees the news and says,
I've prepared for this.
I'm ready for this. Allah has taught me
how to handle this. And that person sees
that as a ladder climbing towards Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. So Allah promises us. He tells
us. Look at the story of Ibrahim.
Ibrahim was tested
day in, day out from when he was
younger till when he was older.
Every time in between, he had a test
that was on his plate. But Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala says, and
he was able to pass those tests.
But how was he able to do it?
If we go to Surat Al An'am,
we see a statement where Ibrahim alaihi salam,
he tells us the sequence of how to
pass these tests, the mindset that a person
has to get into. You know, everybody here
who watches sports, you understand that what separates
the legendary athletes from the mediocre ones is
mindset.
What separates
the incredible
performers from the ones who fall short is
the way that they think. Many of them
have the same physical skills.
Some of the ones who are actually less
talented are more athletic.
But the ones who are more successful
have a different mindset. Everybody in this room
possesses the same human abilities.
But the mindset that Ibrahim alaihis salam had
was different.
What did he say? He said,
He made this proclamation,
and it was almost like a mission statement.
You know, every single person, every single individual
should have their principled mission statement. What do
I live by? What are the things that
no matter where I find myself, I'm always
gonna honor these principles?
And he says this. He says that my
prayer,
all of my devotion,
all of my worship, all of my praise,
ultimately, at some place or another, it goes
back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. What kind
of person does this?
A person that is able to see every
single good thing in their life and somehow
someway connected back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
That is true taqwa. That is true
faith. How many of us succeed in something
or receive something that is good, some provision,
and we take credit for it? We tell
ourselves that we're the ones who are successful.
We're the ones who are good. You may
have come from a place where driving is
difficult, and then you move to Dallas where
it's horrendous. May Allah protect us.
And you get from one place to another
place quickly, and someone says, how did you
do that? And you said, I'm from Chicago.
We learn that's how you know how to
drive.
Instead of you taking credit in that moment,
a person should, as they get into their
car, say what? I have no guarantee that
I'm gonna reach my destination safely.
I have no guarantee that I'm gonna reach
it in a timely manner.
Every single variable,
every single
element that controls whether or not that affects
how I achieve this goal is all dependent
upon Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Whether or not somebody is looking at their
phone, paying attention,
whether or not somebody has fallen asleep at
the wheel, all of those things that may
not even be my direct cause,
but they might affect me, I am submitting
to the will of Allah
So any praise and any devotion
that I have energy for is not worth
giving to myself.
And that's why whenever anybody praises us or
says anything good to us, we say what?
We indirectly and directly redivert that praise to
Allah because we as Muslims understand what? That
our devotion should always be aimed
at the divine, not at us. We are
not worth celebrating or devoting anything to
until we realize that Allah is
the one who gave us everything that we
have. May Allah give us this gratitude.
And then he
continues,
and my rights of sacrifice,
the things that I give up, the things
that I challenge myself with.
And again, this is another paradigm shift. We
give up certain things for certain reasons, for
certain causes.
You know, many people
give up food and drink for different reasons.
Some people, they give it up because they're
trying to achieve something in their health. Some
people have to give it up because their
health demands it in order for them to
live a healthy life. Some people,
they aren't able to have it for their
financial restrictions.
But there is a kind of person that
gives up food and drink for 30 days,
for example, in the month of Ramadan,
not for any of these reasons, but only
for the reason of Allah ta'ala alone. That
person is called a Muslim. There's a person
that gives away their wealth. You know, if
you look at
secular society, there really is no good case
for charity.
There really is no good case. I once
read a paper where in, secular atheists talked
about how charity
just enables
people who are failures to continue failing.
And it was one of the most callous,
one of the most horrific things I've ever
read. It was completely bereft of mercy. But
then you see the prophet, I sialatu, sialam,
coming, and his example
is to give charity
and to purify oneself by giving to other
people.
I want you to look at the paradigm
shift.
One of those paradigms is set
in a narcissism that feeds oneself and gives
back to oneself. The other one is set
in what? A sacrifice to Allah.
This money,
I worked for it, but because I realized
that Allah is the one who even gave
me the ability to work for it, when
Allah asks me,
and from their wealth, they give. When Allah
commands me to give,
I have no right to feel stingy.
I have no right to feel as if
this is my wealth because it's only one
moment that Allah could allow some test to
befall me that would completely
disqualify me from earning ever again.
And so out of praise and gratitude for
his fadl and his grace and his rahma,
this charity is not an obligation. It's an
honor. It's a blessing.
He says, all of my sacrifices. And that's
why when a person is able to go
on the Hajj, you are put in a
constant state of sacrifice.
You sacrifice your comfort. You sacrifice what you're
used to. You sacrifice seeing your family. You
sacrifice what you're familiar with. You sacrifice your
wealth, your PTO.
Everything gets sacrificed. Why? So that you can
go and be in the middle of a
hot desert for a few days
so that you can prove to Allah that
your sacrifices for him alone. May Allah give
us this proof. May Allah give us the
ability to sacrifice for him alone.
Now this is interesting because the tafsir here
points to something very unique. The tafsir that
I was reading,
means my life and my death.
Are for Allah alone.
The tafsir that I read said, why did
Allah begin
the ayah or the description, the list,
with actions and then finish with
a category of time like life and death.
Why?
Because he said Allah wanted to make it
clear to us that a person cannot successfully
give their life or end their life for
the sake of Allah unless they live their
life for the sake of Allah.
Many of us aspire.
Right? We have aspirations to say, oh Allah,
I'm living for you.
Or on our deathbeds, we aspire, oh Allah,
I lived for you. May Allah give us
a good ending.
We aspire for that moment. Right? And we
see our brothers and sisters in Gaza, for
example, or in Sudan, for example, or wherever
there's oppression. We see remarkable testaments of faith.
And the question always pops up, how are
these people able to continue living for Allah?
How? You know, we had an event where
we were talking to some physicians who went
and gave relief, provided some relief, and they
said the most amazing thing that they saw
was that despite all of the destruction, all
of the carnage,
they would still make sure that they gathered
for their 5 daily prayers. Now I wanna
ask all of us here, how many excuses
have we made
to delay or defer or even to miss
our 5 daily prayers? May Allah forgive us.
And when now you transfer the lens to
a group of people
that probably have, in Islamic law,
very good reason
to defer or delay their prayers, they don't.
Why?
Well, because their life is truly dedicated for
Allah
And when they die, their death will be
dedicated for Allah
But it's not an accident. It's not a
coincidence.
It's because they decided to make their devotion
and their sacrifice for Allah from day 1
until the end of days. May Allah Wa
Ta'ala give us the success.
So Ibrahim alaihi salaam, he makes this statement.
He makes his proclamation
because he wants to communicate, and this is
something that Allah preserved for us in the
Quran.
How a person has to have
their mindset fixed
on what it means to live and die
as the one who
submits to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now what
happens when a person submits? We have one
story
very well known. Obviously, it's a story that
centers around
sacrifice,
and we familiarize ourselves with it every year
because it is the story of
the great sacrifice that Ibrahim, alaihis salam, was
asked to make. And that was a sacrifice
of
offering his son
as a sacrifice for Allah, slaughtering his son.
And so I quoted the ayah, and this
is in Surat al Salfat, which is the
37th chapter.
So Allah ta'ala is setting the scene for
us. And he says that Ibrahim alaihi salam
has a son. And this is a son,
by the way, contextualized
that he has been begging and praying for
that he desperately wants.
And after
finally
having a wife Hajar who can deliver him
a son, he has a son. It's something
that he has been looking for and hoping
for. And this is now his prize
his his pride and joy. The thing that
he looks forward to the most in his
life.
And when he goes for the command of
Allah and leaves his family in what the
valley that we now know as Mecca, he
he is tested immediately by having to leave
his wife and child there in a place
that Allah
describes as having nothing. No vegetation, no water,
nothing.
As a result of that sacrifice and by
the way, his wife, Hajjal, is also very
much a part of that sacrifice,
and their son, who's a baby, is also
very much a part of that sacrifice. So
they are a family that is sacrificing for
Allah together.
When he leaves them in that sacrifice,
he goes
and only when prophet Ibrahim departs from them
does Allah give Hajar the well of Zamzam.
And so it's interesting because when he leaves,
he doesn't get the good news. He doesn't
hear that, you know what? Zamzam is there.
Everything's fine.
He has to just simply trust in a
lot.
And so there's an element here of being
a person who has, as they say in
English, blind faith. But, you know, in Arabic,
we call it iman.
A person that feels secure enough with Allah
that they trust him in every scenario.
Ibrahim leaves and his wife is given provision.
Later, when prophet Ibrahim is given the command
to return, he comes back and his son
is older.
And they partake in a lot of the
bonding that fathers and sons would, and they
do the greatest bonding exercise of all, which
is they reestablish the the foundations of the
Kaaba. It's like the the ultimate version of
building Legos with your sons
You think about how close the 2 of
them got by doing this for the sake
of Allah
At that moment, when this
dream has come to fruition
and the sacrifice has been made and he
leaves and comes back and his family is
still there and there are tribes for protection,
one might think that this is it. This
is the sacrifice. This is the reward. This
is the success that I've been hoping for.
But Allah,
he gives Ibrahim
a dream, which
prophetic dreams are revelations.
And he says to his son,
that, oh my son, I've seen in my
dream numerous times
that I am to sacrifice you.
Tell me what you think.
And this is an interesting moment as well.
We don't have time to go over this
all today, but the fact that he even
told his son, like, I wanna know your
thoughts,
is a very powerful
parenting method.
He knows that there's no choice. You know,
many parents in the room, we have to
understand something.
In life, your children
will actually
be your responsibility and not have a choice
many times.
There won't be a decision to be made.
But when you include them in the decision,
there's a bonding moment there.
Ibrahim is being given a command from Allah
via Wahi.
There's no choice to be made. There's no
opinion to be shared.
Right? And sometimes we think to ourselves, I'm
not gonna waste time.
But he turns to his son, and he
says, tell me what you think. Because even
though we have to do this,
I love you so much that I wanna
know your thoughts.
And his son, Ishmael, he turns to his
father and he says,
Oh, my father,
do what you've been commanded. You will find
me amongst those who can bear patiently.
He gives his father the dream response. I
want you to imagine this now, how any
child would respond to this moment, but how
the child
of a person who made his mindset sacrifice
for Allah responds.
The apple does not fall far from the
tree.
Kids will replicate and emulate what they see.
Ismail's whole life, he saw his father and
his mother sacrificing.
So now when it's time for him to
be asked to sacrifice,
it's become almost like a family tradition.
It's become a ritual.
Many of us ask from our children what
we are not.
We ask from our children or our spouses
or people in our life what we are
not. That contradiction
is uneasy spiritually.
Ibrahim can ask his son to sacrifice because
he's been through it. And his son feels
confident and strong in sacrificing because
dad's been through it. But the spiritual disconnect
that occurs when a person asks someone to
do what they themselves cannot do or cannot
do or will not do
is a big test upon somebody's heart.
So we need to make sure that we
ask others what we are willing to do
ourselves.
His son says to him, do what you've
been commanded, and this is the submission of
faith. So if you wanna become a person
who sacrifices,
step number 1 is mindset. Step number 2
is you have to actually submit.
The sacrifice cannot be negotiated.
You You know, you can't say, well, I
have to pray 5 times a day. Well,
what about 3? I'm a busy person.
You know, I have to give zakat every
year. What about every other year? I have
a lot of investments I gotta worry about.
You can't negotiate sacrifice.
Sacrifice comes in in one way, and it
has to be accepted. Sign on the dotted
line. Are you in or are you out?
That's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when he
says,
he completed it. He actually completed. He filled
it. There was no deficiency in his sacrifice,
whatsoever. Now what happens
when a person submits to the sacrifice?
Allah continues.
He says,
And then when they submitted to Allah, and
Ibrahim alaihis salam laid his son down on
the side of his head for the sacrifice,
Allah called out, Yeah, Ibrahim.
He was called out to and he says,
You have fulfilled the vision.
You passed the test,
and now your sacrifice will be rewarded.
Sit your son up. Pull the knife back.
Here is this animal that will be sent
to you.
The gap in time between submission and reward
is very small,
But the weight of that gap is so
heavy that time seems to slow down.
I want you to think about this. Ibrahim
and his son have a conversation.
They go up to the top of the
mountain. They proceed forward. It wasn't a long
time. It didn't take years or months or
days to discuss. They they they did this.
But you can imagine,
fathers or mothers in the room, how heavy
it must have been weighing upon his heart.
You can imagine older children in the room,
how heavy the sun must have been feeling.
But that submission
is something that bears dividends and bears rewards
unlike anything else.
And so Allah in that moment of wait,
he puts trust in the heart of the
one who submits.
Once you make your decision,
trust in Allah.
Many of us, we have tests of submission,
and we have to make a choice. We
get a job offer, and the the the
the the compensation is not coming from Haram,
and we fear.
We fear, if I turn this down in
this economy,
I'm never gonna find something ever again.
We have that moment, but this the moment
of submission
is where you gain the gift of trust.
You can't gain trust of Allah if you're
not willing to submit to
him. And then
as they are given the animal as a
replacement,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he says
that
this sacrifice became a great sacrifice, a great
ransom
until today, 1000 and 1000 of years later,
every
we
gather together, and we sacrifice as a ritual
of remembrance of what it means to truly
sacrifice and trust and submit to Allah
Brothers and sisters,
Ramadan has its time and its lessons.
Has its time and its lessons.
When we come to Ramadan, we talk about
holding back. We talk
about restraining oneself. We talk about these things
for taqwa,
but there's a different path to taqwa that's
been assigned to the month of Dhul Hijjah.
And that
path is what are you willing to sacrifice
for Allah?
What are you willing to give up?
Every single one of us has our own
Ishmael in our life. I'm not talking literally
here.
Not no one should be looking at their
child.
I need to sacrifice you.
Everyone has their own figurative sacrifice that you
have to make, something that you know
is the thing that is holding you back.
That
test. And it could be the most
the most beloved thing to you. But you
know
that if you prove to
Allah that you will open doors of closeness
to him that you never thought imaginable.
The time of the is the time to
make that commitment.
Don't sell yourself short.
Don't restrict and deprive yourself of the gift
of closeness to Allah, of taqwa, of trust,
of and
of the reward of your legacy being preserved
as a result of your sacrifice. We ask
Allah to give us pure sacrifice for his
sake. We ask Allah to purify our intentions.
We ask Allah to give us the strength
to be able to give things up for
him alone and that Allah rewards our sacrifice
by giving us trust and in our hearts.
Brothers and sisters,
as we are approaching, I'm sure many of
you have been seeing pictures or videos of
those who are at the Hajj. May Allah
invite us all and allow us to partake
in the beautiful pilgrimage. May Allah accept the
Hajj of those who have gone before and
those who are there this year.
Tomorrow is a very spectacular day. You know,
there was a quote that I saw that
I thought was beautiful, which was that the
night of power,
is not given to us in terms of
when it is, but the day of Arafa
is.
And the significance of the day of Arafa
is equal in our spiritual heart. It's equal
to the significance of the night of power.
Although there may be specifics, but the power
of rahma, the power of dua is replicated
between those two time periods.
So tomorrow for us will be the following
of the day of Arafah. It's a day
where fasting is a very, very, very strong
recommendation.
It is a day where duas are accepted,
particularly between the hours of.
It is a day where any sacrifice, any
charity is rewarded and multiplied.
It is basically the daytime version for us
in America when we think of the night
of power. It is the daytime version of
that
weight of blessings. And so I wanna encourage
everybody
to take part in that. It is tomorrow
to fast
the day if you can. We're offering Iftar
here tomorrow night for the community. So fasting
the day of Arafah will give immense reward,
forgiveness for the years prior and to come
And then, of course, the day following the
day of Arafah is the day of Eid,
which is Sunday. So inshallah, may Allah give
us the reward of the day of Arafah,
and may Allah give us a wonderful celebration
of Eid.