Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Khutbah Deliberate Patience ICC 03262021
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All praises to Allah. And may his peace
and blessings be upon his servant and messenger,
our master Sayyidina
Muhammad
By the father of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
we have reached,
the bright
days
of the month of Shaaban.
Which means
there's not much more than half of a
month left before Ramadan.
In the past 3,
we have spoken about
preparation for this Ramadan both in general
terms
as well as
mentioning some
matters for consideration given the
relatively unique circumstances that many of us will
find ourselves in
this year.
This final in this series and indeed my
final in this masjid is imam.
I want you to mention
something
general,
something
related to the principles of
Ramadan and fasting,
which is that the messenger of Allah sambalahu
alaihi wasallam said
that fasting
is half of patience.
If you can fast,
this is
half of the knowledge of patience.
Given that fasting is one of the 5
pillars upon which Islam is built, the practice
of Islam is built,
This means patience is something very great.
This means what? The sabr is something great.
Allah ta'ala says in his book,
indeed
the reward for
the patient
will be furnished for them
without account.
Meaning the people who
are entered in the list of the patient
on the day of judgement,
their reward will have
seemingly no mathematical relationship
between the amount of patience a person had
and what they will be provided with on
the day of judgement.
And indeed,
the great maqam and great station of patience
is corroborated further
by this hadith of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
That
patience is half of the deen.
Just like fasting is half of patience,
then on top of that patience is half
of the deen of Islam.
And there seems to be some
type of misunderstanding
amongst people
when it comes to understanding what patience is.
Nobody likes to be patient.
Nobody likes to deal with difficulty.
Nobody likes to work hard.
Nobody likes to be sick.
Nobody likes to be persecuted.
People don't like to be punished for doing
what's wrong. People especially don't wanna be punished
for doing what's right. And yet it happens.
Yet we go through so many difficulties in
the day.
And the most difficult type of difficulty a
person goes through
is the one that they do not understand
why they're going through it.
This is one of the greatest gifts that
the deen gives a person.
Just like a mother, when raising her children,
will be able to do super human feats.
Super human feats.
That a woman,
although the age we live in, would like
to deny it is very different than a
man.
And from the cardinal virtues of
being a woman,
people of fitra rarely would mention physical strength.
However,
a mother, in order to serve her child
from before even having
having had laid eyes on that child,
will endure an amount of pain that would
make a grown man cry.
And after that, she will continue making sacrifices
until the day that she dies.
Why? Because
she knows what she's suffering for. She knows
what she's going through difficulty for. It's for
her child.
But there are so many things that happen
to us in life. We have no idea
why they happen.
Somebody gets into a car accident. I don't
know why.
Somebody catches a particular disease. I don't know
why.
Why me and not why another person?
People don't know why.
One of the greatest gifts of this deen
is what?
Is to relieve you and to relieve me
from the burden of why.
Allah ta'ala says in his book,
Allah ta'ala is not to be asked why?
Even though Allah ta'ala has the right to
ask all of his creation why.
The Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave us this
gift. How wondrous is the affair of the
believer. For indeed indeed his affair, all of
it is good.
If he is touched by
happiness,
he is thankful and it's good for him.
And if he's touched by affliction,
he's patient and it's good for him.
It's no longer your
problem why.
Rather,
the slave is given a job to
do and the slave does what he's commanded
and the lord commands.
That is the natural order of things.
And the Lord from his generosity has promised
the slave, not because of compulsion or necessity,
but because of his generosity.
That whoever at least puts in a good
faith effort to fulfill the work that he's
given.
The fulfillment of that work is what?
Is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will keep
that person's honor in this world and the
hereafter.
Not the least of which is that they
will enter Jannah forever.
A place where there's no deprivation,
a place where there's no sadness, a place
where there's no hunger, a place where there's
no poverty, a place where there's no separation.
A place where not even the least of
discomfort will be tolerated.
As a recompense
for the
effort as a recompense for the deeds
that were attempted by the slave
in this place of difficulty and in this
place of test.
So the first thing is that people run
away from patience
like a person runs from death.
And the fact of the matter is
nothing useful
that is to be
achieved in life
can ever happen without patience.
There's nobody who made it to the NBA
without
suburb.
There's nobody who's scored 20, 30 points in
a game
without having that ball in their hand
since the time they were a child and
constantly
throwing it out the hoop.
There's no doctor
who became a doctor except for through patients.
There's no engineer who became an engineer except
for through patients.
There's no king or prince or president
who made what they made except for through
Extreme difficulty, and suffering setbacks,
and going through all sorts of
tests and tribulations that tested their meddle.
That tested their resolve.
Muslim, kafir, democrat, republican, black, white, purple.
No exception.
No exception at all.
This is the first issue that we have
is that we run from patience as if
we run away from death,
but we should remember the hadith of the
prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam. That
jannah, the hijab of jannah is what? It's
it's things
that the nafs that the nafs finds
unpleasant, unattractive.
The gift wrapping that Jannah comes in is
what? Is all of those things that the
naf doesn't like.
Hunger and thirst, which literally are part of
the fast.
Deprivation,
which is part of the fast.
Getting yelled at by the imam in the
khutbah for not turning your phone off.
Nobody likes it, but it's for your own
good.
Imam doesn't hate you. Imam loves you, that's
why he's here.
It's good for you, but nobody wants it.
I wouldn't like to get yelled at.
Nobody likes it, but it's good for you.
Literally, it is the gift wrapping that Jannah
comes in. According to who? According to the
rasul sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So we shouldn't run from this patience. We
shouldn't have this irrational fear of it.
But on top of that, we also still
have a misconception about what patience is.
There was a famous exchange between
2 of the
in the old times.
Both of them were people who were travelers
of the spirit on the spiritual path, so
they asked one another.
You tell me my brother, what do you
define as patience? People used to have these
types of discussions. Now we talk about, you
know, Teslas and,
Lexuses and, we talk about real estate and
Bitcoin and GameStop and these things. In the
old days, the people used to be fascinated.
They used to capture their attention.
They used to be fascinated by spiritual matters,
so they used to talk about them. So
2 of them are shayef, they said, what
does patience mean to you?
So the first
says, to me patience is that if Allah
gives you something,
you should be pleased with it.
And if Allah denies you something you want,
then you should be patient.
Then you should also keep it together, you
shouldn't fall apart.
The second says, this is
the definition that we give in my country
to the patients of dogs.
To the patients of
dogs.
By the way, it's a very high
I don't mention the story in order to
belittle.
Whoever is able to do that, but when
Allah gives you something, you're happy. And when
Allah decides that something you want, you don't
get that you'd be patient. This is also
a very great maqam.
There are many qualities that dogs have inside
of them. If a human being were to
bring inside of him or her,
that person would be a great person.
But the second sheikh says what? He says
that this is the patience
amongst my people. This is the patience we
call the patience of dogs.
What is true patience?
True patience is something that that involves some
sort of a plan.
True patience is not you
being a bubble of frost
on top of the ocean getting tossed here
and there.
Putting no effort into
a plan,
putting no effort into a goal,
putting no effort into
realizing
or seeing yourself,
the ones you love, your business,
your neighbors, your family, your children, your deen,
your ummah.
Get somewhere better than what it was from
before.
If you have a goal,
your goal is to lose weight,
you're gonna have to skip dessert. Not just
once,
several times.
It's going to burn.
But the patience you have at that burning,
that patience is not like, oh, well I
wanted dessert but I didn't get it today
so I'm gonna be patient. No. It's patience
and it's employed
as a tool that allows you that helps
you to prosecute a plan.
You see patience, like we said before,
is not the refuge of fools,
is not the refuge of the deprived,
It's not the refuge of victims.
Patience is the very tool through which greatness
is achieved. There is no other route to
greatness
other than patience.
If someone were to hand you your aspirations,
I wanna become a doctor, here's your medical
degree. Are you gonna be a good doctor?
No.
Someone handed you the rules. Say, Here's the
scepter. You're a khalifa. You now rule the
entire world. I promise you a person who
receives it without without earning it, without going
through the
difficulty, without, you know, going through the ropes.
That person will destroy the entire world right
before your eyes.
And it will be much faster than you
think. And if you don't believe me, see,
see how brothers and sisters fight with one
another
for the mirof, for the inheritance of their
fathers
without earning it.
See how quickly people go from 1,000,000 and
tens of 1,000,000, 100 of 1,000,000 to absolutely
nothing.
We should read history, masha'Allah, the greatest historian
in the history of
history, Ibn Khaldun.
We can, you know, say, oh look, he
was a Muslim and he invented sociology and
this and that and and you know, feel
good about ourselves. We should read those books
as well.
We should read those books as well. He
mentions he says it takes just 4 generations
for a dynasty, no no matter how powerful
they are, just 4 generations under normal
circumstances.
80 years.
To make a state, no matter how powerful
it is, to make it
shift
from rise into decline.
Why?
Because by the time the 4th generation is
born,
they no longer remember the difficulties of struggle
in order to
build
the dynasty their forefathers had.
Rather they assume that power,
order,
enjoyment
are just a natural state of life.
If this doesn't describe the state of this
ummah,
whether
somewhere else around the world or even inside
of this very masjid,
That we have been handed a Quran,
we didn't have to compile it and we
didn't have to memorize it.
We've been handed a salat,
we didn't have to struggle for it. No
one ever oppressed us.
No boot
of a military occupation ever kicked us for
making sajdah toward Allah ta'ala.
We have the books of hadith.
We have the books of tafsir.
There are places, people who are alive. Maybe
some people even in this
gathering, in this jum'ah.
That merely having them inside of your house
will get you killed.
Merely having them inside of your house will
get you deported to a gulag, to a
a a labor camp in Siberia, for which
you will never return.
We have all of these things,
we didn't have to struggle in order to
earn them.
And so we no longer
value them. We think that this is the
way it always is and it always was.
And it's not the way it always is
always was.
The kingship of our forefathers was wasted by
generations.
Those companions of the messenger of Allah salallahu
alayhi wa sallam, from whom many of us
are descended in this gathering.
Those people who accepted Islam at their hands,
or the ones who accepted Islam at the
hands of those who accepted it at their
hands. From whom
which many of us are descendants.
And from whom all of us, the silsila
of our Islam,
even if a person took shahada this morning,
they took it from somebody who took it
from somebody who took it from those people.
Because we took it for granted, because we
haven't struggled,
what happens?
We waste the patrimony that was gifted to
us by our forefathers in iman.
And we're not deterministic people.
The reason for studying history, the reason for
thinking about these things and talking about these
things,
it's not in order to say this is
your fate. You have to end this way.
You have to live this way. You have
to die this way.
Rather, the person who understands the danger in
things
can avoid it.
The person who understands the danger of car
accidents can always put his seat belt on.
He can also elect not to do so.
But and there's a difference in outcome between
the person who, you know, flies through their
windshield and lands
30 meters in front of their car
and the person who's safe.
We still have these opportunities.
And one of the beautiful things about Ramadan
is what? On top of its being an
act of worship that we do in order
to make our rabb pleased with us,
We also remember through the difficulty of that
fast,
through the avoiding those things that the nafs
likes.
Avoiding the TV, avoiding the music, avoiding the,
you know, endless stream of doom scrolling on
Facebook and kitty cat videos on YouTube.
And refreshing your,
different accounts,
it hurts. You want to do it.
Your fingers will twitch.
But through that difficulty, what do you do?
You build the capacity in yourself
so that even if you get to a
day when you can eat and drink,
everybody
don't have to fast anymore.
But still you have a skill set through
which you can push yourself to prosecute and
achieve
those things that you otherwise were unable to
do when you were a prisoner
of your own fear of discomfort, when you
were a prisoner of your own.
Fear of those things that we shouldn't fear.
Allah tells us one of the last things
Allah tells us to the prophet
This day, the people who disbelieved have given
up hope that we'll ever be able to
do anything about these
obstinate
muslims.
They've given up hope.
They'll go to the moon, they'll go to
Mars, but they're never gonna be able to
take this deen away from us.
They've given up hope, so don't fear them.
Allah says, Don't fear them
and fear me.
This day I have
perfected you for your religion.
And I have completed my favor upon you.
And I have chosen this Islam, the submission
as a way of life for you.
So don't worry. Don't worry about other stuff.
Your bills will get paid.
Corona is economically adverse.
Allah the will make another stimulus,
and half of Cuyahoga County will eat and
drink free money just so that Allah can
deliver the aid to you.
Don't worry. Don't fear these things. Fear Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala
and have a plan that's worthy of a
Muslim to have for yourself,
for your life, for your spouse, for your
children, for your relatives, for your masjid.
For our masjid,
for our ummah.
Have a plan worth planning.
You can plan start by planning your Ramadan
out and have a bigger plan and a
bigger goal worth having and worth planning.
And the day you have to go through
the difficulty like the person who's on a
diet and they have to skip dessert.
Say, what tastes better, my dessert or my
being healthy?
You skip the dessert. It's okay.
Say, I don't even want it anymore.
Fool yourself. Lie to yourself
the first time, the second time, the third
time. You'll believe it on the 4th time.
I promise you.
When you miss something, you skip something for
the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Say, I don't even want this thing.
I don't even want this thing even though
the body wants it, even though the limbs
want it,
even though the nafs wants it.
But that's not who you are. The nafs
is what you share and what I share
in common
with monkeys and with dogs.
So that's not me.
What I want is what makes my rab
happy. What I want is the thing that
makes me look like one of the angels,
not like something that belongs in a zoo.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give all of us
so much tawfiq. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
make all of us turn
our eyes away
from
the dog treats
that half of humanity have
turned themselves into pets by chasing.
And give us the tawfiq of following the
sunnah of the angels.
Give us tawfiq to follow the sunnah of
the odiya of Allah ta'ala.
Give us tawfiq to live our life in
such a way that we would be proud.
And it's hard, it's difficult. Neither am I
perfect nor is anybody else perfect. May Allah
give us a tawfiq to do good deeds,
and on the day of judgment, accept from
us the good that we did, the best
of what we did. And may Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala from his fable and his karam
overlook
and let us forget
those things other than that that that we
did. Allah
make us better people than who we are
and give us a life better than our
life. Give us time better than our time.
Give us words better than the words that
we've had so far. Give us something better.