Kamal El-Mekki – Jummah Khutbah 05-04-2024
AI: Summary ©
The importance of aiming high in communication and the deen and religious aspects of life is emphasized in the holy spirit. Success in business and money is also emphasized, along with the use of the "has" in the spirit. Success is a combination of effort and personal attributes, and is a result of achieving the holy spirit's guidance. The importance of following rules and praising those doing good deeds is emphasized, as it is a part of one's life. The annual family night at the Marquis of the mainland is a celebratory night for young men, and the event includes a presentation, discussion of the best sadaqa, and a fundraising opportunity. The event is a way for young people to increase their wealth and may be able to become rich.
AI: Summary ©
Brothers and sisters in Islam,
we have become
used to
the
idea
and the videos
and the encouragement
to increase our finances
to do better in communication.
There's always a video or an encouragement for
us to improve something
in this dunya, to aim higher in the
dunya with when it comes to our income,
when it comes to our performance, when it
comes to communication
abilities. There's always
encouragement in that field,
but much less so when it comes
to the deen and the religious aspect of
life.
And that's why our Khutba today is about
'uluh al himmah. It is about
aiming high.
And we'll start with this hadith narrated by
Tabarani Rahimahullah.
The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
was returning from one of his journeys.
So he stopped by the place of a
Bedouin man in the desert,
and the Bedouin man hosted them,
Knowing this is the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, he's a believer.
He hosted them and he honored them.
And so when the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam was about to depart to leave,
he said,
He said, If you ever pass by in
Madinah, come see me.
So
the Prophet went on to Madinah, days passed
and then this Bedouin man came. He came
to the city of Al Madinah.
And when he was about to leave, the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said to him,
Salni. Ask me. What would you like to
ask for?
And
he could he's talking to the Prophet of
Allah salallahu alayhi wasalam, so he could ask
for his dua to be mustajab,
always responded to. He would ask he could
have asked for the shahada, he would ask
for a high level of jannah,
but the man said,
I ask you a beast to ride, a
donkey, a mule, a horse,
and I ask you a dog
to guard my sheep
or my goats.
And a servant girl to serve my family.
So the prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam, tells
him,
He couldn't you have been?
Were you incapable of being like the old
woman
from old woman from Bani Israel?
So the companions asked him, and who is
this old lady from Bani Israel? So the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam explained,
when Musa alaihi wasallam wanted to leave to
depart with his people,
he said,
Yusuf alaihi wasallam, the prophet Yusuf, ordered us
not to leave here unless we take him
with us. So Yusuf alaihis salam, before dying,
he said before Bani Israel, before you leave
this land, take my body with you and
bury me elsewhere. Don't leave me here. So
then Musa alaihis salam said, so where is
the grave of Yusuf alaihis salam?
And they told him that nobody knows it
except for this old lady. Just one person
amongst us who knows where the grave is.
So Musa alaihi salam goes to her and
he asked her, where is the grave of
Yusuf alaihi salam?
And she said, wallahi,
I will not show it to you until
you give me what I ask.
So he said, what is it that you
want? And she said,
that I am with you in.
I have information that you want,
and I'm not gonna give it to you
until you give me what I want. And
what she wanted, she aimed high.
She wants to be with 1 of the
5 greatest prophets of Allah in Aljannah. So
obviously,
she will be in the highest level of
Al Jannah.
So the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam is
telling this man, and this is all I
the prophet of Allah is saying, what would
you want? And you ask for a donkey
and a dog, but what if the donkey
dies next month and the dog
It happens. So some dog is not good
at guarding sheep,
herding.
What did you benefit after that? So the
prophet is telling us to aim high.
Also noted by Tabarani
through Ibn Abbas
that Nabi salallahu alayhi wasalam said,
That indeed Allah loves the highest and the
best of al Umur, of all affairs.
Because we have this other stigma in the
Muslim community that that if you're gonna excel
in business and make a lot of money,
then that's not a good thing. But the
hadith says, indeed Allah loves
the highest and the best of all affairs,
Din and Dunya.
The same thing.
The scholar said,
Allah He looks the best of everything.
And He hates the lowest, the unworthy, and
the things of no benefit. So Allah loves
the highest and best of all affairs, and
he hates and dislikes things of
no worth and no benefit and the lowest
of things.
And that's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells
us in the Quran,
like from sibah. You always race
and you rush to al khairat, to good,
and you rush
and race to your Lord.
Whereas when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks about
the dunya, he talks about walking.
But when it comes to the akhir, Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala tells you to rush, to
run, to race.
Ibn Qaym Rahimahullah says,
of all the nations have agreed on one
thing, that whoever
Whoever wants to relax
and to be comfortable,
he leaves comfort now. Yeah. And for now,
you have to leave comfort so you can
enjoy comfort later. You have to work hard.
And whoever wants luxury, he has to leave
luxury now. He has to work hard now.
He's saying that you
bear and withstand
difficulties
and
fatigue and all that. With that, that's how
you attain Ma'al Umar, the highest and the
best of all affairs. In Sahih Bukhari, and
Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is telling us,
even in our dua, when we ask Allah,
we aim high.
Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
When you ask Allah ask
for
And someone asked, he said,
what if you don't deserve Al Faridah
Why would you ask for it?
First of all, a couple of things. Yeah,
when you're asking for the highest level,
many things happen. 1, if you don't get
the highest, you might get higher.
You Ani. In another example,
in Surat Al Qathar, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says,
not
Wadbah. What's the difference?
Is for animals like
chickens, cows, goats,
even,
sheep.
That's dabb. But Allah didn't say what ba,
He said 1 har, and nahr is for
camels. So Allah
mentioned the largest available land animal.
So when Allah subhanahu ta'ala mentions the the
largest, you aim bigger and bigger and you
try to reach that. So you also ask
Allah Subha Ta'ala for those Al A'la, and
if you don't get it, you'll get higher
than what you would have gotten if you
didn't ask for it. And then there's also
something psychological
when someone does
bad deeds, and in their dua they ask
Allah for those
they will tell they will say to themselves,
these deeds that you just committed, these are
not deeds of people who ask for those
And what does guilt do just from a
psychological
point of view? Guilt gets you to stop
the action
because it makes you feel
hypocritical.
You get to stop the action. So that's
why so the continuing the hadith, An Nabi
salallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
If you ask Allah
for Jannah, then ask him
for Then he says, it is the highest
of Al Jannah
and the middle of Al Jannah,
and
its ceiling is Arshur Rahmah, the throne of
Arrahma.
How can it be
the middle of Al Jannah
and the highest?
It's either the middle or the highest, but
the Prophet said it's the middle of Al
Jannah and the highest of Al Jannah, and
the scholars explained that Al Jannah
is dome shaped,
shaped like a dome, like this.
So the middle of this semicircle
will also be the highest point,
and the highest point,
its ceiling is the throne of Rahman, and
from it the rivers of Al Jannah flow.
So we're aiming high in du'a. We also
see this in the Quran. Ibrahim alaihis salam
makes the du'a,
And he's not saying, min al muttaqeen. He's
not saying, make me from the muttaqeen. He's
saying, make me from the leaders and the
role models of Muttaqeen.
Omar ibn Abdul Aziz
even though he was number 13 in order
of the Khulafa, he is considered the 5th
of the Rightly Guided Khalifa.
He said,
I have a very ambitious soul.
I wanted leadership to be an amir, and
he was the governor
in the city before.
He said, I wanted an aspired
leadership and I got it.
And then and I aspired for the khilafa,
faneal tuha. And I wanted the khalafa, and
I got that. He says, now
all I want, my soul, my nafs, all
at once is
and I hope and I expect with Allah
by the permission of Allah, that I'll get
it.
So we're talking about aiming high when it
comes to
the deen because we always get bombarded with
becoming better when it comes to the dunya,
but aiming higher when it comes to the
religion. And the reason we're mentioning this in
Ramadan is that Ramadan naturally
teaches us that Because in Ramadan,
we push ourselves beyond what we're used to
when it comes to the acts of worship
and the ibadat.
We push ourselves against wanting to fall asleep
and against, you know, needing to sleep early
to go to work. We push ourselves, and
this is part of training
for aiming high when it comes to the
deen of Allah, azzawajal.
We'll end with the statement of Umar al
Khattab
He used to
say,
He says that I hate to see a
man
He's just not achieving anything. He's not doing
anything in deen nor in dunya. He's not
working. He's not improving. He's not doing anything.
Just sits there, doesn't do anything. I hate
to see a man who is
These are
and that's why it is in deen and
in dunya that you aim high, and Allah
loves the highest and the best of whatever
it is that you do.
We ask Allah for his forgiveness.
Indeed, those who ask for his forgiveness shall
prosper.
So just
a few things about our masjid before we
pray.
So the first thing is just always make
sure
that before the month is over, you thank
all the volunteers
who've been working very hard and coming, and
they don't get paid, they're volunteers,
And a lot of times they got yelled
out by people over little things that are
unnecessary.
So make sure you always feel make people
feel good, not not just Muslims, anywhere. You
see you see a mother doing a good
job with her child, Yani, outside in the
store, praise her for good.
Always praise when people do good deeds. If
you know who delivers the food, if you
run into him from the restaurant
or
thank them for the iftar and tell them
how delicious it is.
Just if you're invited to someone's house, thank
them for how good the food was. Always
make people feel good. The brothers who were
in charge of of parking,
thank them for their work and apologize if
if people have given them a hard time
because people give them a hard time. And
this year, we
hired non Muslims so our Muslim team can
not miss the salawat.
And
we don't wanna make this negative, Yani, because
people have been calling them names, try to
run them over, don't listen to them.
How are we supposed to call into Islam
after this, and tell them Islam is the
deen of akhlaq and adabat. How? Yeah. This
is just some of the things we need
to pay attention to. But again, at the
end of the day, this is our community,
this is our masjid,
and this is our responsibility.
We're we're a collective unit, we're one unit,
and we're going to be after the salah
inshaAllah.
If you stay for a few minutes, we're
going to be fundraising for the masjid. And
and sometimes,
when you find people they're tired of fundraising,
everywhere you go someone's fundraising.
But that's life.
That's how it is.
Which masjid is this where there's no fundraising
or there are no funds needed and there's
no calamity in some part of the world?
This is our responsibility.
Allah azza wa jal gave us wealth and
he's testing to see what we'll do with
it. So
we only fundraise in this masjid in the
month of Ramadan.
We never have fundraisers and events and dinners
during the year to raise funds for for
operations or anything like that. So we raise
everything during the month of Ramadan and then
we don't bother anyone for the rest of
the year.
So this is our time to do that
because all the events and every activity that
happens in this masjid,
this is it's supported by you and it's
supported by you in this month.
And
for those who understand, we're gonna do a
fundraiser at night during 27th.
Why
now? Because there are many of you who
pray Jum'ah with us but they don't pray
Tarawih with us. They live in another part
of the of the city. So So we
wanna give both of you the opportunity, inshaAllah.
So with that, we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala to make us of those who recognize
the truth as a clear truth and follow
the best of it, and to make us
of those who recognize falsehood
as clear falsehood and abstain from it.
Allah
Allah
So we're gonna do the announcements right now.
So, family night is tonight, 27th Ramadan.
We're look looking forward to our annual family
night in which we invite
your entire family to spend the night at
Clear Lake Islamic Center. There will be a
special presentation at midnight with Sheikh Amar,
unveiling the night of power, understanding and embracing
Het al Qadr. Sisters will also have their
final session of the return with sister Rana
after Tarawih
as well tonight.
And we're gonna have tahajjud prayer. It's gonna
be at 4:40 AM, followed by suhoor
from IHOP.
And Eid al Fitr is gonna be either
April 9th or 10th at 10:30 AM,
and we'll be praying at the Marquis of
the mainland. I'm not gonna give you the
address. You won't remember, but basically, it's gonna
be available on our website, social media pages.
It's in Texas City. There's gonna be a
Eid celebration
right after the salah at Texas Fun and
Social from 10 AM to 3 PM. It's
like 2 and a half acres indoor and
entertainment center and a 100% halal buffet.
Purchase your tickets today, today it's $35.
On that day, you pay 40.
Our annual our 21st annual spring camp for
young men ages 13 to 21 will be
on April 19th
to 21st, Insha'Allah.
We're already half full,
and, see brother Kabir for more details or
check our social media pages. Last thing,
tomorrow, Saturday, April 6th, after Taraweeh, we're gonna
have a special youth event dedicated to Palestine.
This is sponsored by students for justice in
Palestine at the University of Houston Clear Lake,
and the event includes a presentation by Sheikh
Khalid called Al Aqsa in the end of
days
and followed with some jeopardy and some pizza
for the youth.
So with that, please make sure your lines
are straight and keep no gap between you
and the person next to you. The lines
at the end of the room, look at
the
right and left. Make sure the ends of
the lines are complete before you start a
new line. Sisters also have to leave no
gaps between them and the person next to
them.
Question, what is the the best sadaqa you
can give? And you you listen to the
news that Bill Gates gave Musharraf
$50,000,000,000
in charity. How can you beat that?
So the prophet, salallahu alaihi wasallam, said, the
best sadaqa
is the one that you give while you
are Sahihun
Shahi Sahih,
healthy.
Why?
Because
may Allah give you and your families all
good health and protect you. But if the
doctor tells someone you have 1 month to
live,
how easy is it to give away things?
If the doctor tells you have one left
1 month left, it's easy to give all
your money, your clothes, your
car, your watch.
Yeah? It's like the joke this guy,
the doctor called him, he said I have
bad news and worse news.
He said what's the bad news? He said
you only have 24 hours left to live.
He said, what's worse than that? He said,
I've been trying to call you since yesterday.
So it's easy to give when you have
no time left. So the prophet said, the
best sadaqa is when you're Sahih, healthy,
shahi, covetous, You
you wanna keep the money for yourself. You
want to increase that wealth. You want to
become one of the the big shots.
You're hoping to become rich, and you're afraid
of being poor.
That sadaqa
is more valuable and more ajr. Because if
you're a billionaire,
and as if I was a billionaire
and give half a 1000000 to the masjid,
I'm gonna lose sleep over it, you're on
it? It's gonna affect me? No. It's no
big deal. But when you hope to become
rich and you're afraid of being poor, that's
when it's the most. Alright?
So and no offense to any billionaires in
the room. Yeah. We still want your money.
Alright? But I don't wanna start with 10
today, just 5. And we'll stop at 50,000.
We'll make it nice and quick. So I
just need the first hero,
or it could be a brother or sister,
to give us the first 5,000.
Who's gonna give our first 5?
Or maybe even our only 5 and we
move on to smaller numbers. But I think
we should at least get 50. And we
haven't been doing a lot of fundraising this
Ramadan
nor much collecting,
and this is our only opportunity.
Who's gonna give the first 5,000?
I need someone for it to give that
first 5,000.
And I know what's going on. Like we
said the other day, you're consulting
your accountant,
Iblis.
Don't listen to him. Everyone's accountant is Iblis.
He always tells you there are no funds,
we can't do it, there's too much going
on. Alright?
He promises you poverty like Allah says. We're
looking for the first five still so we
can move on. 1st person, you can be
25100,
25100.
It could be 5 at one time or
it could be a 1,000 for 5 months,
or you can pledge