Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Khutbah What’s for Iftr
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AI: Transcript ©
Alhamdulillah.
In this country my preferred method of dealing
with Jum'ah
is that the talk, be
in English
first.
And then afterward, the chukfa be read in
Arabic. There are a number of reasons for
this.
Perhaps there's another way of doing it. I'm
not here to litigate fiqh issues in front
of people.
But one of the objections people come to
me when
I do this with
is that
you people prattle the Khutba in Arabic and
you don't understand what you're saying.
And I say, This is an interesting objection,
and I accept the possibility that somebody might
be prattling the khutba in Arabic and not
understanding what they're saying,
but that's not what I do.
I actually think the khutbah in Arabic is
very poignant.
And someone might say, Well, you say the
same thing every week again and again.
And I say that
if you say the same thing again and
again every week, and it's good,
it stays good every week, again and again.
And there's some benefit in it, and there's
a reason actually that certain ayaat are repeated
by the ummah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa
sallam.
To say that it's a sunnah to repeat
particular ayaat and the khutbah,
in the sense that the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam had at some point read those
ayaat
is true, But to say that he read
them every week again and again, the same
ayaat may not be true.
But this is also a mercy for all
of us that the Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
left these sunan.
We hold fast to any of them,
and it might be
the sabab, the reason
for our najat, our salvation on the day
of judgment.
Afterward, if you're going to
make a complaint about me or about somebody
that this person doesn't practice the entire sunnah,
who's the only one who practice the entire
sunnah? Rasool Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
We strive and we fall short, but it's
also not an excuse to stop striving.
One of the ayaat that we read in
the Khutba,
I read in the khutba I should say,
most weeks,
is
that Allah Ta'ala says,
O you who believe,
fear Allah
Let every soul, let every life, let every
living person,
Let every soul look to what it's prepared
for tomorrow.
Inna Allah habirum bi mataamaloon.
Allah ta'ala is well informed of that which
we do.
Preparing for tomorrow is an essential characteristic of
iman of
faith. It's an essential
characteristic of Islam.
It's an essential characteristic of the sunnah.
It's part of the way the Rasool Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam conditioned us to think. Not to
just be thrown into a situation and react
to it when it comes up,
but to try to predict what's gonna happen
in the future based on what you know
from the past and what you know from
the present.
So in the series of lectures about
preparing for Ramadan,
knowing that it's over the horizon.
Today, I want to talk about something that
people will find actually quite trite and mundane,
which is what? What are you going to
eat for iftar?
We don't put a lot of thought into
these things.
I will share with you something right now
which is not a halal haram issue.
Rather it's a planning issue,
which is what I personally, when people invite
me to iftar parties, nowadays they even have
suhoor parties. Wow, Masha'Allah. Right?
I personally, when I'm invited to an iftar
party, I very politely and lovingly decline.
I say inshaAllah when Eid comes, we'll enjoy
ourselves, we'll have a good time.
Why? Because in the Iftar party, a person
who is accustomed to reading a certain amount
of Quran in a day has that Quran
disrupted.
Who is accustomed to
reciting a certain amount of dhikr in a
day has that dhikr disrupted. A person who
is accustomed to praying in a particular masjid
has that prayer disrupted.
Mashallah, there are many pious people. They do
have Isthar parties, mashallah, and they make it
to the masjids for Isha and for Tawawi.
Many of them actually end up making it
late. Many of them actually end up not
making it because of this, and Ramadan is
only there one time in the year. There's
an entire year, mashallah, go be happy, eat,
drink, be merry with your friends.
This is not a, this is not a
a Shabei hukum I'm sharing with you that
it's haram to go and eat at an
iftar party. If you still feel like doing
it, by all means, go right ahead. But
the point is don't let people because of
their incompetence steal from your
opportunity with Allah Ta'ala.
If your job,
your boss at work
surely doesn't have more authority over you than
Allah Ta'ala. Right?
If your job,
your boss told you, Hey, really important,
deadline coming up next month. I'm gonna pay
you 70 times your normal salary, but don't
screw it up.
A person will say like, you know, I'm
sorry like my cousin's daughter's dogs like best
friend is getting married and they're having a
party at their house. I might say, hey,
you know like I'm I'm sorry I can't
make it work. What are we gonna do?
We all have to pay our bills. Right?
Yeah. This is exactly the the scenario that's
there with Ramadan. That the Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam said good deeds are multiplied
70 times. He said that a nafil deed
will be counted and rewarded as if it
was a fard, and a fard will be
rewarded, amplified as if it's 70 times the
normal fard.
And the backstory to that is the Rasool
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam also said that the nafil
equivalent of every
good deed
that's
an obligation
is worth 1 seventieth
of what it would have been had it
been an obligation.
This is literally what's happening. So it's nothing
personal. I'm not an antisocial person. It's not
like I don't like you.
But this is a particular time for a
particular thing.
That the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, say, in the Jibreel alaihi Islam came
to him when he was sitting on his
Mubarak member sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and said,
the person who gets through Ramadan and is
still not forgiven, that person is cursed. Say,
Amin. And the rasulullah wa sallam said, Amin.
In front of all of the companions radiAllahu
ta'ala anhu, and they didn't see Sayyidina Jibril
alaihi wa sallam, so they didn't ask him,
what what did you say amen to? He
said Amin to 3 things.
The hadith, we can talk about it later.
The point is is what? This is an
opportunity,
don't let time wasters blow it. The world
is filled with time wasters.
The world is filled with time wasters and
they love company.
And I'm not saying go up to somebody
and say, you're a time waster.
That's bad akhlaq.
But
the sunnah is to treat people well, to
give them good advice when they ask for
it, to be there to render assistance when
they need it,
to sing well of them.
But at the same time, it doesn't mean
that if somebody is, you know, there to,
you know, every like the last time you
met the guy, he burned your car. And
then this time before that you met him,
he stole your wallet. And the time before
that he you met him, he punched you
in the face. Right? The 4th time around,
you should know better.
And what is the sunnah? The sunnah is
still you don't call you don't you don't
mouth off to the guy or, you know,
commit an act of zulum against them or,
you know, have a bad opinion of them.
Who knows, maybe they had this issue at
home, maybe they're mentally ill, maybe they have,
you know, their mother didn't love them when
they're child or whatever, and they had some
disadvantage that you're, you know, that that you
had an advantage in or whatever.
Inside your heart, you think well of people,
but you don't let yourself be
victimized by their stupidity again and again.
Their excuses, they're stupid. What's your excuse?
So this is something with regards to preparing
Ramadan, what you're going to eat. What are
you going to eat in Ramadan?
The point of Ramadan is what? That a
person has an exercise
in sabr, in patience.
Ghazali Rahmoola Wa Ta'ala mentions what that the
human being has 2 great shahawat,
and one is built on top of the
other. What are the shahawat of a human
being?
The desire, the carnal desire to eat and
the carnal desire
to mate.
And the ladder is built on top of
the former. If you can master the former,
this the latter will come into your control,
or there's a possibility it might come into
your control.
Whereas if you cannot master the former,
you have no chance with the latter at
all.
Many of us, mashallah, many of us, Allah
protected us. Our own lack of charm,
in bad fashion sense, prevents us from having
any fitna in the ladder.
Otherwise, the crisis is only a crisis of
opportunity, I assure you.
And once that lack of charm and aesthetic
sense is lifted, then we will be in
a bad place. If we think that, the
diseases that pray and plague other people are
not going to pray and plague us.
They're not going to pray on and plague
us. We have another thing coming. This is
not how the world works.
Ghazal I rahimunuwa ta'ala mentions that if the
point of fasting is to control the carnal
desire for food and drink,
and you end up eating just as much
while you're fasting
as you would have when you weren't fasting,
then something has gone wrong because all you're
doing is you're taking that desire and you're
focusing in it, focusing it, focusing
it like a laser.
It becomes even more powerful.
If you're just gonna snap at iftar and
eat everything until you're sick and food is
coming out of your ears.
The sad part is that we actually end
up eating more in Ramadan than we eat
outside of Ramadan.
The point is not necessarily to browbeat or
or or give people a hard time, but
if this is something we struggle with, let's
at least think about it, try to plan.
If you're eating more than you would have
outside, at least try to say, okay, like,
this is how many calories I eat normally
or this is the type of stuff I
eat normally.
I am going to
control and try to eat as much as
I do normally. I'm going to think about
how is it that I can
Use the fast for its intended purpose in
order to benefit from it,
rather than abuse it and then wonder why
it's not benefiting me.
A person theoretically should eat less. It's okay,
go eat your Iftar. Nobody's saying don't eat
or even be, you know, don't satiate yourself
to some point.
I feel like many of us are.
Relationship with food is dysfunctional. It's not a
relationship of nourishment, but it's like more akin
to the relationship that an addict has with
drugs.
Say Bismillah before you eat. Say Alhamdulillah when
you're done. And when you're full, just stop.
It's okay.
You don't have to introduce another meal between
suhoor and iftar as well after you're done
with tawawi.
Read Quran, go to sleep, do something.
There are ways of mitigating it. It's not
like all or none. I'm not saying that,
Okay, either you go from gorging yourself to
like, Okay, now this Ramadan, I'm just gonna
eat nur,
and that's it. There's like a lot in
the middle, inshallah, even incremental,
improvements.
Every improvement opens the door to another improvement
afterward.
So take that approach with it.
Talking about food
in Ramadan, what you're going to eat in
Ramadan.
Eat those things that are easily digested and
they are not going to make you lazy.
If you know
eating more dessert, eating more sugar, eating more
cake, even eating more carbs is going to
make you tired and fall asleep during
taraweeh. Eat less of it. Eat something else.
There are all sorts of like other things.
There are many things that a person enjoys
eating.
That may be better for you. If you
don't particularly digest something well,
instead of belching
in the masjid while taraweeh is happening
and being a unique
fitna
to the iman of the person standing next
to you.
Try to eat something else, try to eat
less, maybe eat when you're done. When you
come back to Tarawee, none of us is
gonna die. You know what the world record
is? In terms of calories,
Obviously not drinking water, but the world record
for a person like how long a person
has gone without eating calories. It's something like
380 days.
You are not gonna die if you pray
tarawih and you come back and eat if
it's that's the issue. And Allata will reward
you for your salat and for the salat
of the people around you that you don't
disrupt if that's an issue.
What are we going to eat during Ramadan?
This is the most important thing all of
us have to remember,
which is what?
Fasting
is an exercise that was legislated by Allah
ta'ala,
one of the wisdoms of which is what?
You make those things that are otherwise halal
for you haram.
So that you have now inside of you
the capacity
to resist halal,
which will by rational analogy increase your capacity
to resist that which is haram.
If a person is going to fast, and
then they're going to open their fast on
food which is haram,
or food which is doubtful,
all it does is it concentrates and increases
the
harm
that the haram is going to do to
a person.
Halal
provision, halal food
is like a medicine.
It will treat your sickness. It will cure
you of your illness.
Only when administered at the proper dose.
If you take, you have a headache, and
you take an entire Costco
recommended dosage
is 2 pills and you take 20, you
may not die.
You might. I don't know. You may not
die, however, but it's going to screw you
up. It's gonna mess you up. It's gonna
give you other problems.
Halal risk, halal provision, halal food is like
medicine. It will be beneficial to you if
administered at the proper dosage.
As for haram, it is poison. All of
it will harm you. A great amount will
harm you, a small amount will harm you.
And those things that are doubtful,
it's like rolling the dice.
Someone says, There's only 1 out of a
100 chances that this thing might actually be
haram according to my
calculation?
What does that mean? It's harming you one
out of a 100 times. You're gonna eat
more than a 100 times in your life.
Leave the things that are doubtful.
Leave them.
In Ramadan,
especially leave them.
Why? Because you don't want to what? Concentrate
and focus that poison and its deleterious effect
on you.
I'm not going to stand here. I
I'm not gonna stand here and tell you,
this is haram, this is halal.
I usually don't
want to, and I try not to talk
about those fitq issues that are difference of
opinion,
whether that difference of opinion is real or
perceived.
Because this is not the forum for that.
You should go and learn the fiqh of
these things by the people who are knowledgeable
about them.
However, I'm telling you just the concept
that if you don't plan what you're going
to eat in Ramadan
beforehand, you may end up harming yourself more.
You come into the Ramadan expecting some kind
of benefit, you may actually end up harming
yourself more.
On the flip side, if you plan what
you're going to eat, you might find this
Ramadan is actually much better. It's much better
than
the Ramadan you've had in the past. So
be very careful and very scrupulous about what
you eat.
Fun, interesting
discussions we have about what's halal and what's
haram.
People say, Mawlana Saab.
Why do you guys only talk about this
again and again? Is this the only thing
you guys know?
They say the non Muslim civilizations have made
it to the moon, and you guys are
still talking about halal and haram.
Okay, they made it to the moon. We're
talking about halal and haram. What's your achievement?
The point is, is what?
The point is, is what? Even from a
materialistic
point of view, completely materialistic point of view,
Being strict about what you eat in terms
of hala and haram is a complete no
brainer.
Tell me something, is Islam supposed to be
something you do as a hobby on like
Friday afternoons,
or is it a complete way of life?
Is it something that you only practice as
an individual?
Or is it something that we have to
practice as a community?
Is it something that is only
restricted to ritual practices, and then when we
go out into the streets, you can act
like a monkey if you want to? But
I'm a good Muslim because I prayed 5
times a day.
Of course it's a complete way of life.
Allah Ta'ala
gave us, and we're not supposed to think
about it because everything we do, we do
for the sake of Allah Ta'ala. The greatest
reward and the greatest return, and the vision
that we have of why this is benefiting
us primarily is what? Focused on the day
of judgement.
But it's far away for some people. Some
of us have some sort of spiritual attention
deficit. So let's talk about this world.
Allah ta'ala
gave
us such a robust
economic system, a business,
that there are no more butchers anywhere in
America anymore. There are only 3 types of
people who go to a butcher.
One is
people who are extremely rich, and they have
some sort of high end meat that they
that they requires
require, procure, speciality,
something that's unaffordable.
The second is what? Foreigners
that eat things that are not industrially
processed.
And the third is what?
People who
fear Allah ta'ala.
Halal.
Everybody else has to go to these huge
multimillion, multibillion dollar shops in order to buy
their food.
And what's happened with food in this country?
The meat is a complete nightmare and it's
a disaster, and the non meat is a
complete nightmare and it's a disaster.
This country is the country where they used
to tell us that smoking cigarettes is good
for you and milk is poison.
Eggs are gonna kill you. Everything natural, everything
that's good and pure, put it to the
side. Here's some high fructose corn syrup.
Here's some sugar. How's it look? It's fat
free. Have some sugar.
Even scientists themselves will tell you, okay, yeah,
you know, we had to take that with
a grain of salt. Tell me something, has
something changed in the way the society works?
What drives all of that propaganda? It's all
a love for money and it's all greed.
Now someone says, No, no, no, no. We
don't do that anymore. Now, I'm having my
organic double triple skinny latte oat milk whatever.
Tell me something. What made them say the
things that they said in the past? Was
it some sort of data, scientific data? Absolutely
not.
Was it some sort of misunderstanding?
Absolutely not. It was all fraud driven by
greed.
You tell me, in this country, especially those
of you who've been around for a while,
have people become less greedy or more greedy
since then?
Have people become less God fearing or more
God fearing since then? They may not have
been Muslims, but they used to at least
go to church.
Do they care more about their fellow man
or do they care less?
Do they care more about their families or
less?
Those people who used to lie and cheat
in the seventies, at least they would come
home and they had like a wife and
kids.
Now it's all gone. It's all become a
mockery. It's all become fake. This is why
Shauliullah Rahimu Wa Ta'ala he said, lalal nabuwat
lahalak and ma'ash wal ma'ad.
If it wasn't for the knowledge of the
Ambia alayhi wasallahu alaihi wasallam,
both both this world and the Hereafter would
have been destroyed. Hereafter, you should understand why.
Because the key that opens the door to
jannah for everybody is la ilaha illallah without
it no one gets in.
But in this world, remember that as well.
Remember that as well, that you're the one
who says to me,
Sheikh so and so said that.
Eating at McDonald's
is halal, eating at Burger King's, halal buying
my meat from Jewel Osco's, halal, all of
this,
and I've become tired, my teeth are falling
out
trying to explain it's why it's not. Put
all that aside. This is again it's not
a fiqh dars.
You tell me now. You tell me.
Just like when the pandemic started,
we couldn't get masks in this country. Why?
Because we've outsourced all of our manufacture to
China.
As Muslims, we're like one of the last
sectors of society other than those people who
are obscenely wealthy,
that actually has our own food chain,
our own production chain intact,
relatively intact,
by which we can eat our things
and drink our things that are clean and
pure, that are suited to a human being
and suited to somebody
whose body should enter jannah one day. This
body will enter jannah, not another one.
Not just this ruh, your body will enter
jannah one day.
If it's filled with filth,
who has right over it, jannah or the
hellfire?
We're one of the few people who still
has this this this production line intact.
It's tenuous.
And then somebody is telling me that Sheikh
So and So gave a fatwa in the
70s because everybody in America is a Christian
that you can go and eat their meat.
They say they say this is a precept
in ifta when you're learning how to answer
fit questions. They say that the Mufti is
Asir al Mustafi.
The person who answers the question is a
prisoner of the one who gives the question.
Right? You who ask a question, the one
who's answering it is only going to answer
the question you asked.
So what is the question? America is a
Christian country.
So can you eat the meat over there?
Yeah. If there's something in, you know, some
Marvel Dimension X universe where called America that's
filled with only Christians,
then maybe the Fuqaha will say, okay, it's
not haram.
What happened to the economics? What happened to
the practicality? What happened to the common sense?
What happened to the food chain? What happened
to what's healthy? What's not healthy? What happened
to us? Building our own selves
and keeping the security, food security of our
own community intact.
Put those all those things aside.
How desperate are we to be lazy about
these things?
How desperate are we to be lazy about
those about these things that we're
willing to
take a fatwa from somebody who has no
idea what's going on in America, who's never
been to high school or middle school or
elementary school in America,
Who only thinks there's 2 genders?
Just so we can avoid paying, like, 15¢
more per pound for, like, chicken or beef
or whatever? Double, triple?
This is so expensive. It's because you guys
don't buy it. If you guys bought it,
I swear to God everybody. Every catheter himself
will scramble and fight with another catheter in
order to provide it to you cheaper because
it's a viable business.
Why is it that we didn't have masks
in this country at the beginning of pandemic?
Why? Because somebody in a suit
got, like, a $100,000
bonus
to know that we can save, like, half
a cent on, like, an entire carton of,
of of,
of masks
by outsourcing its production to somewhere else.
And then when we need it, it's not
there anymore.
This Ramadan, bite the bullet. Okay? Instead of
instead of buying a new chandelier for the
masjid,
instead of, you know, doing some other super
pious like double, triple,
gold star, umrah, or whatever,
This is going to be your nafata and
you and your family who are the most
deserving of your sadaqah, which is what?
Buy something, you know it's halal, you yomukriyama,
you're not going to have to explain and
say, but this, that, and the other thing.
May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala accept. RasallAllahu ta'ala
Surihi Saydna Muhammadu Allah Alaihi Wasabi Ajmain.