Jumuah Khutbah 19-04-2024
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Channel: AbdelRahman Murphy
File Size: 33.01MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The responsibility of influence and learning and modeling behavior in Islam is essential, as it is the core of the Islamic message. The importance of being a role model and inspiring others is also emphasized. The need for individuals to act and show up for oneself and finding a partner to support one's values is emphasized. The importance of finding small deeds and finding a way to live on the rest is emphasized, as it is the power of good behavior. The segment emphasizes the need for individuals to make their actions consistent with the teachings of Islam and fulfill all gaps and voids.AI Generated Transcript ©
One of the realities that each and every
person in this room has
is the reality of a responsibility,
of influence. The prophet he
said,
that each and every one of you are
shepherds.
And every single person will be asked about
their flock,
the people that they were in charge of,
the people that they were responsible for.
One of the responsibilities
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he tells us
about that we have is that we are
the
of this earth. Human beings are charged with
the responsibility
of taking care
of not just the
earth as an environment, but also of the
people
of the earth as spiritual and as social
citizens of this world.
And so every single person, whether or not
they realize it, has been given by the
gift of Allah the power of influence.
This is something
that even people in the secular world have
written about. You have the famous author Dale
Carnegie. He wrote a book about how to
influence people and make friends. This is a
question that people oftentimes try to figure out.
How can I influence other people? How can
I convince people of arguments? Even if you
took a speech class in college, you had
to write a persuasive argument essay.
These are all things that Allah
has given us as a privilege, but also
as a challenge.
Now, when it comes to our religion,
we know that the advent of da'wah,
of inviting people to our faith, to Islam,
is something that is at the core of
the Islamic message. The prophet was
sent
as,
bashirwan adira, as someone who was meant to
come and give good news, but also to
warn people
of the inevitable reality of the afterlife.
And as people who believe in him, and
as people who submit to Allah and his
messenger sallallahu alaihi wasallam, we acknowledge that we
also have that responsibility.
The Quran
is filled
with stories
of prophets
and nonprofits
that were given this responsibility
to try to influence others
and to try to talk to them about
the virtue
that they knew.
So when you look at yourself in your
life, one of the metrics of success
that Islam asks of us is how influential
are you?
How much influence do you have? And also,
how influenced
are you? What things change who you are
and the way that you live?
Now, this status
of being a person of influence,
being responsible
to influence
is a daunting status. There's no doubt.
To know that you are responsible to represent
and to give
information and to teach
and to model behavior
is something that's not easy.
And some of us, we might say, internally,
of course, that I didn't sign up for
this.
Right? I'm at work to work. I'm not
at work to teach people about Islam.
I live in my neighborhood because it's where
I live. I'm not there so that I
can, you know, teach everybody about the virtues
of Ramadan
or what Eid is or what Muslims live
like. I didn't sign up for this.
Or you might say, for example, that
this idea of becoming a parent or having
children because family is also part of your
circle of influence.
Having children or getting married is very intimidating
because I don't want to take responsibility
for the now the responsibility of influence that
I have over these people.
And this is where we take a beautiful
statement of
He's a great scholar and philosopher, and he
says something very powerful
about looking at the position that Allah has
placed you in. He says,
Never ever seek from Allah that
He remove you from a state that you're
in.
Never look at the situation that Allah has
placed you in, that He remove you from
that situation. Why?
So that you could do something else.
Rather,
If Allah wanted you to, you would be
able to do that work without being removed.
So So, if a person, for example, says,
you know what? I don't know if I
can handle this. Well, the reality is Allah
placed you there because you can handle it.
If a person says, I don't know if
I'm the right person for this, I can't
tell you how many people come to the
masjid and say, hey, I have a friend.
Can you explain Islam to them? Because I
don't know about Islam. I asked them, Are
you Muslim? They say, Yes. I said, Bismillah,
go ahead. You know enough about Islam to
practice. It means you know enough about Islam
to introduce
and to teach at the foundational level.
And so people feel this sense of intimidation,
but Ibn 'Ata'ala is saying, look, you don't
have to run away from the position Allah
has put you in. You have to own
it and you have to feel a sense
of responsibility
that, yes, as a coworker,
I can explain to people what my faith
is. As a father, as a mother, I
can teach my children what their religion says.
As a sibling, as a friend, we can
influence one another to come closer to Allah
subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And this is why Allah keeps
these stories for us in the Quran.
He memorializes them for us. All of the
prophets, they had the responsibility
of trying to influence and to teach the
people around them.
Now, there are 2 issues
that come up when you talk about teaching
or influencing or being a role model, this
idea
of giving off some teaching or lessons in
virtue.
Number 1
is that you notice that people are not
taking what you're giving them.
So for example, all the parents in the
room start nodding their heads.
You try to teach your kids something and
you feel frustrated because
maybe your kid is not taking what you're
trying to tell them. Or you're at work
and you're talking about something
and the person that's listening to you, it's
just they're glazed over, they're not listening. Or
you're trying to explain to your neighbor, for
the 4th time, we don't eat pork. Or
you're trying to and it just doesn't seem
like it's clicking.
There's something, there's a disconnect there. There's 2
realities that could be from this, and we
have both in the Quran. Allah
gives us the stories of prophets,
Nuh alaihis salam, Lut alaihis salam. Even the
portion of the prophets of Sayyid Niyunus alaihis
salam, where they did do their job, and
they did it well, and they did it
with sincerity, and they did it with perfection.
But at the end of the day,
not every single
not every single
or people that a prophet preached to accepted
them. Think about even our prophet Muhammad Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam. You had Abu Bakr, but you
also had Abu Jahal.
You had the individuals
who would accept him before they could even
take a breath, and then you had people
that would reject him until their last breath.
And so, subhanAllah, you have now this dual
responsibility. The person knows that no matter what
the result is, my responsibility is to keep
teaching. My responsibility is to keep modeling. My
responsibility
is to keep demonstrating.
But,
nonetheless, we are not prophets.
And so there's 2 options for us.
Either the person is truly
not hearing what we're telling,
or the second option, which is more likely,
and that is that we are not doing
a good job of modeling what we're saying.
That there is a disconnect between what we
say
and what we do. In psychology, they call
this somewhat cognitive dissonance,
That we understand the virtue of Islam that
we should live.
But when we speak,
it is different than how we act.
What we say
is an indictment against our behavior.
Allah
in the Quran, he mentions that this is
actually one of the most detested
characteristics in people.
When he speaks to the hypocrites, he asks
them,
Why do you say that which you don't
do?
And so when we look at our failure
or our struggle or our challenge
to deliver
this religion, whether it's to strangers or to
family,
the first thing that we have to inspect
is not the quality of the ears of
the people that we're talking to or the
eyes of the people that we're trying to
model for. No. We have to inspect the
quality of the actions
that we have. Because as Habib Omar, he
said, when
he talked about children to parents, he said,
your children's eyes will teach them much more
than your lips ever can.
How they watch and what they see
will always
will always be stronger
as a method of information
than the words that you say. May Allah
make us good role models.
And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the
Quran,
he tells us this. He gives us this
understanding.
The ayah that I quoted in the beginning
of the Khutba,
He's speaking to his beloved, his hadeb, the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, to give
him the understanding that you can't convince everybody.
You're not gonna have the ability to win
over the hearts of every single person.
But the difference, like I said, is we
know that the prophet example was perfect.
It was so perfect
that in the moments that there were
these human
errors, and I'm not talking about there's no
spiritual errors for the prophets, but human errors
like,
or like the Sayyid Niyunus alayhis salam,
or like prophet calling his son and saying,
he's from my family. Those errors are so
rare. Human errors are so rare
that they are memorialized and they are so
few and far between that we all have
heard of them and know them. Our mistakes,
on the other hand, are so frequent
that if you asked us to demonstrate
or to list or to keep a record
of our shortcomings,
we would probably miss 80 or 90 percent
of them being generous with ourselves. May Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us. So now the
solution.
The solution is quite clear. We have to
focus more on how we behave and how
we act as opposed to how we speak
and what we say.
The prophet was
one time described
by Jabir
bin Samura.
There was a companion who was sitting with
Jabir, and he asked him. He said,
Did you sit with the Prophet
now?
He said, yeah, I did.
So they asked, what was he like? Tell
us. Remind us. What was the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam like? And he described the prophet
with a very interesting description. We all know
that the prophet
he smiled more than anybody. We know that
he was the most beautiful in his speech,
in his character, in his physical appearance. We
know all these things about the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
But what characteristic
did
this companion use to describe our Messenger
He said,
He was very, very quiet for long periods
of time.
He didn't talk a lot.
And he didn't he wasn't the kind of
guy that was always laughing.
You know, he knew time and place.
Then he said, so when he's by himself,
when he's in a group, there's a time
for reflection.
There's a time for processing. There's a time
for
silence
because your actions speak louder than your words.
And notice that they were so observant of
his behavior that they could actually recall these
things. You know, if you or I are
quiet at a gathering, people might even ask,
were they there?
Because of the absence of our speech or
our laughter,
they might not even remember if we were
present.
But his behavior was so impactful
that his silence and his absence of laughter
was noticeable.
Everything about him was observed
Then,
But when the companions around him got together,
and they would start to make mention and
recite some poetry,
or they would start to talk about, you
know, life, their life's affairs.
He
would laugh with them.
And at times, he would just have a
big smile on his face, salallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
So in one narration, you have this very
comprehensive definition
of how the prophet
carried himself.
He wasn't the person that was speaking to
the extent that people wished he would be
quiet. No.
In fact, some of the companions would ask
him, You Rasulullah,
keep teaching us, keep going, give us more.
And he would say, I would, but I
don't want you to get tired of my
voice.
He realized the power of silence, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. All of the prophets as such,
and our Prophet
and the companions of our Prophet
they were convinced.
They were convinced that behavior
is what teaches people.
My father,
he actually always would tell us
that the reason he accepted Islam, the reason
he converted to Islam
was because of his experience watching people
before he had a chance to hear about
what Islam even taught.
The reality is
that if people speak before they act,
it's seen as an empty vessel,
a hollow substance.
But if people act, sometimes they don't even
have to speak.
The generosity, subhanAllah, that we see. There's a
great story that we find in the books
of our history
of one of the founders of Dayoband,
at one time was sitting on a train,
and he was obviously a shaykh and alim,
and he invited there was the man who
was pushing the tea cart,
and he noticed that the guy who was
pushing the tea cart was, like, not praying
and not doing the things that a Muslim
should do, and they're both Muslim.
So he said, hey, you know what? I
want you to come
and I want you to sit with me
during your next break. The tea cart guy,
he told the sheikh told him this. During
your next break, come and just sit with
me. Relax.
Usually, people in the in the service industry,
they don't even have a chair to sit.
So he said, come enjoy and sit with
me, and, you know, if you have a
30 minute break, we'll enjoy some conversation.
So the
he came,
and he sat down with him.
And the sheikh,
before the guy even got to the chair,
he had bought 2 cups of chai. So
the guy came and he sat, and he
goes, Who's the second cup for? He goes,
It's for you. He goes, You bought me
a cup of tea? I said, Yeah.
So they sat together, they had chai, they
spoke, you know, a little bit. And the
sheikh is telling the story, and the sheikh
said, I really did my best to, like,
do as much dawah as I could on
this guy. Love Allah. Love his messenger. Where's
your beard? Come on, man. You
know? And and really go at him. And
they, after 30 minutes, parted ways,
and they left. And the sheikh said, never
saw him again.
Until
many years later, I was walking in the
train station, and there was a man who
ran up to me.
He was wearing beautiful white kurta, and he
had a nice beard, and he looked like
he was on the sunnah. He comes to
me and says, Sheikh. The Sheikh says, yes.
And he said, do you remember me? And
the Sheikh said, by the way, this is
the worst question you can ask any Sheikh
ever, by the way. The sheikh said, I
yes. I remember maybe.
And he said, I sat with you 5,
10 years ago on the train,
and you sat with me, and you talked
to me about deen, and it changed my
life. The shaykh said,
but you guys are saying, but you haven't
heard the the punchline yet. The shaykh said,
SubhanAllah.
My dua worked.
So he asked the guy. He said, SubhanAllah.
Allah guides, Allah guided you. Allah used me
maybe to guide you a little bit. He
goes, can I ask you one question though?
In the chaiwala,
the new, you know, masha'Allah,
newly devout Muslim man. He said, yeah. Sure.
The sheikh said, what was it that I
said? I'm curious because we talked about a
lot of things.
What was it that I said that convinced
you to take your relationship
with Allah more seriously?
And the said, Sheikh, I have to say
something embarrassing. I said, what? He goes, I
don't remember a single thing you said.
The Sheikh said, what was it? He goes,
you bought me a cup of tea.
He goes, no one has ever bought me
tea.
I serve the tea. They don't give us
tea for free. I sat down, and there
was a cup, and I was confused.
And you said that this is for you,
and he goes, that moment
changed me.
And the rest of the conversation, he goes,
I couldn't even focus on what you were
saying because I was so overwhelmed by the
cup of tea.
That cup of tea
led to this man's, Insha'Allah, salvation in paradise.
Don't ever underestimate. The prophet
said,
Never underestimate
even the smallest smallest of good deeds that
we do for people.
The example that we set, the behavior that
we model is way more impactful
than the words that we say.
I read a narration the other day about
that I wanted to share with you, and
we'll conclude the Khuba today after this.
This. The narration
was actually narrated
by Umar ibn Zubair,
who was from the family of Aisha.
And Aisha,
we know, of course, she was the wife
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And I had some other stories I wanted
to tell, but we're gonna be running out
of time soon, so I'll abbreviate to this
one. Aisha, of course, our mother, Aisha Sadiqah
her example is known.
Her title that was given to her, umflib,
the mother of perfume because she would take
charity and she would perfume it before she
gave it to people because she said that
this this charity is going to go to
Allah before it goes to them. So I
wanted to reach Allah in a good state.
There's one narration about her, very short, 6,
7 words,
where it is said about her, says,
used to give
70,000
of dinar. And this could have been obviously
hyperbole or it could have been literal.
Basically was very very generous.
Okay?
And then he continues,
even though her own clothes
needed to be replaced.
She would give so much
even though her own clothes needed to be
replaced.
Now, I know what you guys are thinking.
Okay. She's one of the mothers of the
believers,
the wife, of course, of the prophet
one of our teachers, one of the one
of those who collected narrations.
It makes sense why she would be generous,
but I wanted to offer
a
piece of that puzzle. A beautiful piece of
that mosaic of her beautiful character
has to be attributed to none other than
whom? Who was the father of
Abu Bakr Siddiq? Abu Bakr Siddiq. And what
do we know about Abu Bakr Siddiq?
If we only had one narration about him
that described how he was able to teach
this to her, it would be the narration
of Umar, where Umar said, one day I
woke up and the prophet
was calling for sadaqa for charity.
And I thought to myself,
today's the day. I'm going to give half
of what I have in my wealth. Half
of it. Now a lot of us, we
think half. We're like, okay. You have a
100, split 50. No.
Half of your net worth this is what
Umar was thinking.
Half of your net worth. Everything that you
own, your cars, your house,
everything,
investments,
he was going to sell, liquidate all of
it, cut it in half, give half for
the sake of sadaqa, and figure out a
way to live on the other half.
That's a big deal.
So Umar radiAllahu an, he does this, and
he comes to the prophet and he pledges,
I have half of my wealth.
It's a big moment.
The prophet
he asks him. He says, Yeah, Umar, what
do you have left?
How are you gonna take care of your
family?
Umar, he said, It's
not much. I'm gonna figure it out, but
I have half left.
So I'm gonna, you know, we'll figure it
out. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he
praised him, and he made dua for him.
Along comes none other than Abu Bakr
He walks up to the prophet very humbly.
He says,
I would like to also make a donation,
a pledge. The prophet
says, sure.
What amount? He says, I would like to
give everything that I have.
The prophet
says,
what did you save for your family? Same
question as Omar. And he said, you Rasool
Allah,
I saved for them Allah and his messenger.
That's all they need.
The prophet, sallallahu alaihi, Abu Bakr Omer, when
he's narrating the hadith, he basically finished the
narration by saying, that's it. I can't compete
with this guy anymore.
Every time I try to do something, he
one ups me, he one ups me. That
part of the narration is beautiful in and
of itself, but I want us to take
a lesson here. The same person that Ardua
described,
that she would give her wealth even though
she needed new clothes,
was watching her dad walk to the prophet
and say, I wanna give all my wealth.
The same person
that prioritized
charity
over replenishing her own
wardrobe. By the way,
needfully, not needlessly. She needed to,
but she did not was the same person
that when the prophet
asked her father, what did you say for
your family? And she's one of them.
She heard him say Allah and his messenger,
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
If that
combination of narrations
does nothing else
but show us of the power of modeling,
especially between parents and children,
especially between family,
especially between siblings,
that I don't know what can.
May Allah make us good influencers.
May Allah make us good influenced
in a way where we take on good
and we give it out. May Allah allow
us to realize the power of good behavior
before we think about good words. May Allah
to Allah make our words justify our actions
and our actions support our words.
Brothers and sisters,
in this,
there was a lot
about the idea of being congruent, being a
person that lived their life
in the way that they perceived
and tried their best to make sure that
the virtue that they knew and the virtue
that they spoke was the virtue that they
lived.
This is obviously a tall task, and no
one's perfect.
The prophet
was the last person of perfection, and when
he passed away, human perfection also stopped.
We all have flaws and mistakes,
and our goal is to
try our best
to be as good as we can with
Allah and to minimize
the disobedience
and the flagrant sinning that we have. And
when we do commit mistakes, it's to come
back to Allah
Despite those
personal concessions,
one of the responsibilities
that we have is to make sure that
when it comes to
those that we are responsible for,
the people that watch us with their eyes
and that learn from us in their hearts,
we need to make sure that even if
we have
deeply, deeply personal states
that are conflicting with the virtue of Islam
as we know it,
we need to make sure that we live
a life of virtue for those that are
watching us.
This is not hypocrisy.
A lot of people say, well, I don't
wanna be somebody that I'm not.
Islam,
the Quran, the sunnah of the prophet
does not consider that to be false unless
you think you're getting away with it.
If you think that your perception or your
reputation
is going to replace who you really are,
then that's hypocrisy.
But if you know and feel the burden
and the weight
of that guilt,
of the incongruence between who you present yourself
to be and who you are,
and you hope that Allah will forgive you
and cover your gap, that's actually not hypocrisy.
That's literally the definition
of.
That is sincerity
in the flesh, in the moment.
When we live with our family, when we
socialize with our friends, when we work in
the professional environment,
when we look at our children,
we need to make sure that we are
living the values that we want them to
have.
How can I expect my child to pray
if they if I don't pray?
How can I expect
my family to be respectful if I'm not
respectful?
How can I expect the people around me
to be people who are upstanding individuals
if I am the worst amongst them?
We need to make sure that when we
read the stories of the Quran and the
life of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
these stories become more than stories. They become
recipes.
They become ingredients. Otherwise, we're asking people to
taste something that we can't even cook. We
ask Allah to forgive us. We ask Allah
to guide us. We ask Allah to give
us sincerity. We ask Allah to rectify us
gently. We ask Allah ta'ala to allow us
to expunge from our record and our state
the sins that keep us back. We ask
Allah ta'ala to allow us to live the
example of his prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
our prophet Muhammad,
our beloved, our messenger, our teacher,
We ask Allah ta'ala to make our actions
those which are consistent with the teachings of
Islam. We ask Allah ta'ala to make our
words consistent then with our actions. And we
ask Allah ta'ala to fulfill all of the
voids and the gaps that we have and
to forgive all the shortcomings that we express.
Assalamu
alaikum, everybody.
hope everyone's doing well and that their post
hope everyone's doing well and that their post