Aqeel Mahmood – Explanation of the Prophets Dua
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AI: Transcript ©
One of the greatest blessings of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala upon us
is that
he has told us
specifically
how we can please him
and what acts of worship we can do
to please him.
And
on top of this blessing of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala of being able to know how
to worship Allah, which not everybody has.
Meaning other groups and other nations or sects
or religions,
they want to worship a god, but they
don't know exactly how to worship worship Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. Even though they have this
need, They have this want. They know there's
this void in their souls where they need
to fill it up by worshiping Allah.
And they don't know specifically
how to worship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala himself.
In what way, in what manner.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed us by
telling us exactly how to worship Allah. Furthermore,
on top of this brothers and sisters, an
even greater blessing
is the fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
has told us
which acts of worship are better than others
and which acts of worship are more beloved
to Allah
and which things if we did them Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala would be happy when we
do them. And this is why one of
the companions when he went to the messenger
of Allah salallahu alaihi wa sallam and he
said,
which of the actions are most beloved to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? And he said,
prayer at its appointed time. And he mentioned
other things. But the point is that even
in Islam we know which things, which acts
of worship are better than which and which
are more beloved to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
than others.
1 of the
acts of worship,
in fact the essence of worship itself
as the messenger of Allah Subhana Wa Salam
himself said,
is the worship
or the act of supplication, the act of
dua.
The messenger of Allah Subhana Wa Salam he
said
He said dua supplication
is the essence of worship.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in many places
in the Quran talks about the virtues
of dua and calling upon Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says let them make
dua to me supplicate to me so I
can respond to them.
I respond to the caller so long as
it makes dua and supplicates to me.
In another narration, the messenger of Allah salallahu
alaihi wa sallam, he said, a dua hu
al ibada.
That supplication
in and of itself is worship.
And the reason why it's worship, brothers and
sisters, even though we're asking Allah continuously,
non stop for many things, in this dunya
and in the akhirah, a person may ask
Allah
for wealth,
for improvement in his health if he's sick.
He may ask for family or for protection.
He may ask for success in his career.
He may ask for many things in the
dunya or he may ask for things in
the akhirah.
That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives him ease
on that day, and that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala admits him into the highest parts of
Jannah. So a person is continuously asking Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, one may wonder how is
this an act of worship? Because when a
person, first of all, asks Allah, a zawajal,
he's asking knowing that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
is listening.
And many times when we supplicate to Allah,
we supplicate quietly.
And even though we supplicate
quietly, we know for a fact that Allah
is listening, he's going to respond.
And this is the other benefit or the
other reason why du'a is an act of
worship,
because we're asking someone knowing for a fact
that he's going to respond and reply
to our supplication.
Otherwise, we wouldn't make dua in the 1st
place,
and this is why it's even more of
a puzzle and it's even stranger when a
person makes dua to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and then he stops making dua. And in
fact, when a person does this, it's a
reason for his supplication not to be responded
to by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
As the messenger of Allah,
he said, one of the reasons why a
person's supplication isn't answered to and responded to
is when he makes dua
and then he stops making dua.
The follow me stajably.
I made dua, and I wasn't responded to.
And so he stops making dua. As a
result of him stopping making dua, his dua
isn't going to be responded to because he
never made the effort.
She said that the messenger of Allah alaihi
salatu was salam
after salat al subha,
after the fajr prayer, he would make a
specific dua,
And this dua he would make and it's
a narration which is sound and authentic.
This dua which he would make is a
dua which is very short. And maybe some
of us have heard this dua before, but
I want you to go over
the things which Allah subhanahu wa which the
messenger of Allah subhanahu wa sallam asks Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala for in this specific dua.
He asks for 3 things.
She said that he would make dua after
Surat al Saba and he would say,
Allah Oh Allah, I ask you for beneficial
knowledge,
and for pure provision,
and for actions which are going to be
accepted, accepted actions.
This is supplication, brothers and sisters, which is
very short
and is only asking for 3 things,
But if we look at this hadith and
this du'a specifically,
we can take away so many fawad and
so many benefits from this simple du'a.
First of all, the messenger of Allah, alayhisratu
wa sallam,
he made dua
and he's asking Allah
for specific things.
I ask you, I implore you, I'm requesting
from you.
And this is the first lesson we take
from this supplication, brothers and sisters.
Whenever we make dua to Allah Azzawajal, whenever
we supplicate to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it's
simply a request.
It's simply a question.
We're putting forward
something that we would like
Allah to
respond to.
We can't demand anything from Allah.
Allah
gives to whomsoever he wishes to give, and
he withholds from whosoever he wishes to withhold
from.
And so when we make dua,
we realize when we're making this request,
the su'al,
I request, I ask from you.
We realize from this our position compared to
the position of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Meaning
we're not entitled to anything.
And anytime we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and Allah Azzawajal gives us, this is a
blessing from Allah Azzawajal.
And so when a person makes dua,
a person
realizes and knows he's in a state of
weakness,
and he's not in a position to demand
anything or expect anything.
But at the same time, he has the
hope from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala being the
one who responds to supplications
that he's going to give him.
Oh Allah oh Allah I ask you, I
request from you.
Beneficial knowledge.
And we see from this supplication that knowledge
is of different types.
You have knowledge which is beneficial
and then you have knowledge which isn't beneficial,
meaning people aren't going to benefit from that
specific knowledge in this life nor in the
hereafter.
And
it's unfortunate today that many of us, we
fall into this
this trap of the sheitan
where we end up
involving ourselves
into
things which aren't going to benefit us at
all,
neither in this life nor in the akhirah.
A person will end up sitting down having
discussions
with certain individuals,
his friends, his family members even, and those
discussions or conversations are of no benefit. In
fact, he may be sinful for the things
he says in that specific conversation.
He may talk about other individuals, what the
neighbors were doing, what these individuals were doing
at work the other day, for example, and
so he ends up talking badly about other
individuals.
And this is a situation where the knowledge
or the things you're sharing and the things
you're talking about and learning from one another
are things which aren't of any benefit neither
to you nor to those you're sharing it
with.
And at the same time,
especially in today's time, we end up wasting
much of our time on social media
where we end up just opening Facebook and
sometimes it's like a habit.
We're not even looking for anything specific,
but we end up spending 5 or 10
or 15 or half an hour or maybe
hours
going through things on Facebook or on other
types of social media with no real objective,
no real goal, there's no real reason why
we're looking through it, it's become a habit
for us that we end up doing these
types of things, and we end up wasting
time, or we end up reading certain things
which are of no benefit. No doubt there's
some things which are beneficial,
but a lot of the time it's things
which we
didn't need to know, and there's things that
we read or we end up looking into
which ultimately doesn't benefit us, and it's not
from Alman Nasir.
And when a person
learns something which is maybe not Islamic but
it's academic,
meaning he's going to benefit himself, he's going
to develop himself as a human being, he's
going to learn certain skills, he's going to
be benefiting himself and his family financially,
then those
things and that type of knowledge is knowledge
which is good because it's beneficial in one
way or another.
But even greater than this
Israel Manafi and
beneficial knowledge which is Islamic knowledge
when a person learns about Islam.
Because
when a person learns about Islam,
you're going to benefit in one way or
another if your intention is sincere. And this
is why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he says,
remind because the people are going to benefit
from the reminder.
Those who will benefit
are those who have Hashia, those who have
fear of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
If you remind another individual of a specific
act of worship or give him some Islamic
advice, he's going to benefit in one way
or another.
There's going to be some kind of benefit.
If you're sharing knowledge amongst yourselves, you're making
it into a gathering of benefit, a gathering
of barakah, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will
send down tranquility
in that specific gathering because his name is
mentioned.
And Allah
with the messenger of Allah,
he mentions beneficial knowledge first and foremost
before anything else.
Because without knowledge, brothers and sisters,
our actions won't be correct. Our actions won't
be complete.
When a person doesn't have knowledge, for example,
about how to pray to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, how to fast the month of Ramadan,
how to do other acts of worship.
When he doesn't know these things,
those actions themselves won't be accepted by Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And this is why
knowledge for each and every single one of
us is an obligation up to a certain
point.
Acts of worship that we do on a
day to day basis, we have to know
how to do them.
And this is why knowledge is mentioned first
because without knowledge, one's actions won't be accepted.
And this is why the scholars, they would
say, ala'il mushajara
walamaluthamara.
They would say knowledge is the tree
and actions are the fruits of that tree.
Meaning if the tree itself is
fast, if it's corrupted, if it's bad,
it's not going to
provide any beneficial
or good fruit.
It's going to come out with things which
are of no good to anybody.
So you have to have a solid foundation.
The tree itself needs to be strong.
And then and only then can a person
truly benefit from the fruits of his knowledge,
which is his actions,
his salah, his zakah,
his fasting, and so on and so forth.
The messenger of Allah alaihi salatu wa sallam,
he emphasizes the importance of knowledge, brothers and
sisters,
because as I mentioned, without knowledge your actions
aren't accepted and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions
this in many places in the Quran. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions
by time mankind is at a loss.
Except for those who believe and they do
righteous deeds.
Meaning you have to have both, and knowledge
comes before action.
Otherwise, your actions may or may not be
accepted by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because your
knowledge was incomplete
or incorrect or you didn't know.
The messenger of Allah alaihis salatu wa salam
he continues
and he says,
and I ask you for
pure provision, halal provision.
And this shows us brothers and sisters
that knowing certain things, having knowledge of certain
things isn't enough for a person's actions to
be accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
But his income also needs to be pure.
First of all, because there won't be no
barakah in that income.
Secondly, because it may harm
the acts of worship that you do do,
meaning you may have done many acts of
worship, but they're tainted because
your your income wasn't halal, your wealth wasn't
pure.
And so as a result of this, you
may have knowledge, a person may know how
to do certain things. We may come here
for the Jum'ah prayer knowing it's an obligation
upon us to attend the Jum'ah prayer,
but there are certain things we're doing
when it comes to our businesses
or when we're buying and selling
or whatever it may be, in whatever circumstance
it may be that those things which are
financial in nature are actually things which are
harming our Ibadah and our act of worship
because we're involved in riba,
we're involved in mortgages, we're involved in usury
and interest.
And it's not just those types of things.
When we think of purity in finance, purity
in wealth,
many of us tend to think about interest
or we tend to think about mortgages and
things like this, but it's also on a
smaller scale.
When an individual, for example,
takes the bus and he doesn't put the
right fare in,
knowing that he has to put a specific
amount to get from one place to another,
and he intentionally doesn't put the correct amount
in.
This is something which will affect your Ibadah
because now your risk is something which is
impure because you're lying and you're being deceitful.
An individual goes to a shop, for example,
to buy something.
The shopkeeper gives him change, but he gives
extra than what he was supposed to get.
And you go out to the shop and
we see the change and we see we
have more than we than we were supposed
to to actually get from the shopkeeper and
we keep it. We think this is a
blessing from Allah, aza wa jalala bless me
with this wealth.
But it's not a blessing from Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
This is a test on you from Allah
Azza Wa Jal to see what you're going
to do, to see whether you want pure
provision,
pure income,
or whether it's something which will cause you
to have certain acts of worship
not
accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So pure provision, brothers and sisters,
is something which each and every single one
of us need to be careful about, and
we need to think and contemplate
what we do with our wealth. Where are
we spending our money? How do we spend
our money? Are we spending our money where
it should be spent
with regards to giving and charity,
giving it to those that we're responsible for,
our family members.
Are we spending that money
that we
that we have to give
on behalf of our spouses or on our
children?
And when an individual
doesn't have pure wealth,
this is one of the reasons why dua
in and of itself
won't be accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The famous story of the messenger of Allah
alaihi wasallam
when he told
the companions radhiallahu anhu Majma'in about the man
who was wandering in the desert,
and he was desperate for help. And so
he raised his hands into the sky and
he's saying,
my lord, my lord. Haram.
His food is haram, his clothing is haram,
everything about him is haram.
So how is he going to be responded
to?
Meaning because of your provision,
because of what you're doing with your wealth,
how you're spending this wealth,
buying things which are haram,
paying for things which are haram in nature,
like music and other types of things,
smoking.
When a person buys cigarettes
or drugs or alcohol or things like this,
you don't think this is going to affect
your ibadah?
You don't think it's going to affect your
relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala?
It's going to have an effect.
How will this individual's dua and supplication be
responded to by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when
he's not paying attention with regards to his
wealth
and how he has his income and how
he makes this wealth and this money which
he has?
And then the messenger of Allah alaihisratawasalam,
he finishes off this dua and he says,
actions
which are accepted by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Oh, Allah, I ask you for accepted actions.
And this is the messenger of Allah, alayhis
salatu wa salam, making this application.
And we know there was no one greater
than the messenger of Allah, alayhis salatu wa
salam. No one greater in worship
and in sincerity and in iqlas
than the messenger of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And yet even he is asking Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala for actions to be accepted,
for his deeds to be accepted by Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And this shows us brothers and sisters
that
there may be acts of worship which we
do and we think we perfected those acts
of worship.
And we think it's money in the bank.
And if for sure Allah is going to
reward me for those acts and we become
overconfident as a result of those acts of
worship.
But ultimately,
a person has no guarantee that those acts
are going to be accepted by Allah ahsawajal.
There is no guarantee.
And this is why we make these applications
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept our actions.
Because there may be certain things we did.
There may have been certain
moments when we had riya
showing off in our acts of worship which
caused that act of worship to become tainted.
And so a person asks Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala to make his actions accepted by him.
And also the messenger of Allah, riyal sratu
wa sallam,
leaves this final
part of the dua at the end.
Actions which are going to be accepted.
Meaning one of the reasons or some of
the reasons why actions won't be accepted ultimately
could be his knowledge and it could also
be his wealth.
Meaning because of your wealth,
other acts of worship which you do may
not be accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So having the right knowledge and the correct
knowledge and the correct understanding
and also being careful with one's wealth is
in fact a reason why your acts of
worship will be accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
that he gives us beneficial knowledge and that
he purifies our provision and that he accepts
our actions.
We were talking about the dua of the
messenger of Allah, alhissratu wa salam,
and we said dua in of itself is
an act of worship because the messenger of
Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he said a
du'ahu alibada.
Dua is worship.
And he would make a specific dua as
Umsalalam radiAllahu anha she said after the Fajr
prayer, he would say, Allahumma innee asalukaalmanafiyan.
Oh Allah I ask you for beneficial knowledge.
What is?
And provision which is halal, provision which is
pure, provision which is good, and not fasted
or corrupt or dirty.
And actions which are accepted
by you.
And we said
that there are certain
conditions or prerequisites
for a person's actions to be accepted, and
these 2 are from those prerequisites.
A person, first of all, has to have
the knowledge.
He has to have knowledge about how to
do certain actions or what to stay away
from so that he can take care of
his Islam and those that he's responsible for.
And at the same time, his wealth can
also be a factor in his actions not
being accepted by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And actions, brothers and sisters,
are the only thing that we are ultimately
in control of.
The things that we do on a day
to day basis, every single day,
Those things are what we have to account
for, and it's those things that we are
in control of.
And that's why
when we talk about other individuals
or we criticize
the actions of other individuals,
we have to be very careful
because ultimately we are going to be responsible
for the actions of what they say.
And a person may have deficiencies
himself.
He's living in a glass house and he's
criticizing others.
We ourselves may have deficiencies, and the only
thing we have control over
Because we don't have control over other people's
actions.
We don't have control over what other people
may say, but we do have control over
the things we say and the things we
do.
And this is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
he says,
Tell them, oh, Muhammad sallallahu wa sallam,
do fasayarallahu
amalakum. Just
do the actions and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will see them, and you will see them
regarding those who are around you when the
messenger of Allah sallallahu wasalam was alive and
the believers will see it.
Meaning it doesn't matter
what other individuals do, an individual has to
focus on his own actions.
And ultimately when we do acts of worship,
we're doing them purely for the sake of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
There may be some of us who are
involved in charitable projects,
things which we're doing not for any financial
gain, but for the pleasure of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Things that we're doing
to benefit and invest in the akhira.
And when we do these types of things
or there may be some of us who
want to do these types of things.
What we have to remember, brothers and sisters,
when we are involved in these types of
projects and charitable organizations
and initiatives
is that we're not doing it for other
people's sake,
and we're not doing it as a favor
to the masjid or the institute or the
organization or that specific charity.
Whether we're there or not, the work of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will continue.
When you do certain things for the sake
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, you're not benefiting
Islam.
Islam is benefiting you. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
opens that door for you to be able
to do good deeds.
And in fact when we talked about the
importance of doing actions
and the importance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
accepting our actions and not knowing whether Allah
will accept our actions or not, the scholars
they say one of the signs
of an action which is accepted by Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is when a person continues
to do that specific act of worship, when
he continues to do that specific good deed
because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala never closed it
for you.
And it may be a person does an
act of worship and Allah opens other doors
of good for you.
So you give charity to 1 family because
they're poor. That family mentions another family and
you end up giving charity to 2 families.
They mention 2 more and you have 4
or 5 families.
You ask other people for help and you
you end up helping a whole community and
you open a charity.
This is a sign from Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that he accepted that first act of
worship when you gave charity for the sake
of Allah.
And the opposite is also true, brothers and
sisters. When a person commits a sin, when
we do and something something which is evil,
when we do something haram,
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
maybe doesn't punish us as a result of
that haram. Meaning we don't fall sick,
we're not exposed or nothing else happens to
us where we think twice before committing that
sin again.
But instead what happens is we continue doing
that sin over and over again.
And this is why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
he says, don't think that when a person
isn't being punished
or that when a person
is an oppressor
and he's harming the Muslims
and there's no harm coming to him and
we've given him things, we've given him wealth,
status, or power,
don't think this is something which is good
for him.
Rather it's something which is harmful for him,
it's something evil for him.
Meaning when a person does a sin, when
we come when when a person commits haram
and he continues to commit that haram, that
in of itself
is a punishment from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
because he wasn't stopped by committing that sin.
He continued.
Other doors of sin opened up as a
result of that first sin.
And so this isn't something which a person
should think it's fine for me to do
because nothing happened to me. There were no
negative consequences from Allah Azzawajal,
but this in of itself may be a
test to see whether or not a person
will refrain and stay away from that specific
sin. And he may end up committing that
sin until he dies.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saving his
punishment
on the day of judgment, for the day
of judgment.
And the day of judgment,
no one wants to have his sins exposed,
no one wants to be punished for a
sin on that day because the punishment compared
to
this world and the punishment of this world
is nothing. There's no comparison.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that he
gives us the ability to be able to
do as many good deeds as we can
while we're alive.
Stretching your rose.
Stretching the roses from the perfection of the
prayer, so make sure your roses straight.