Kamal El-Mekki – Trust In The Covenant
AI: Summary ©
The importance of trust and covenants in Islam is discussed, including the need to avoid being like oneself and the importance of leaders. The speaker emphasizes the importance of trust in relationships and leadership, as well as issues such as sexism and lack of care for people's lives. The speaker also discusses issues with sexism and hesitation from believers, as well as the importance of honesty and giving everyone their rights.AI: Transcript ©
Brothers and sisters in Islam, the title of
our today is trusts and covenants
and it's
from the verse in where
Allah
begins the Surah
by informing us
that
by describing
those who have succeeded. So
successful
are the believers. So Allah describes those who
have succeeded and those who are successful and
their first description is that they are believers.
Then
Allah
gives certain descriptions and characteristics of these believers
until he gets to the verse that we
want today.
Those who guard their trust and their covenants.
When you entrust them with something,
they will never betray that trust. When they
have a covenant between you or and them
or
anyone else or an entity, they do not
betray that covenant
in in any way. Likewise, in Surat Al
Nisa, in Surat Al
Nisa, Allah says
Allah
commands you that you return
the
things that you are entrusted with, you return
them to their rightful owners.
In Sahih al Bukhari narrated by Abu Huray
a man came to the prophet
and he said,
when is the hour? Meaning, when is the
day of judgment.
And Nabi salallahu alaihi wa sallam responded to
him,
If the trust is lost, meaning you
no one keeps their their trust anymore. You
entrust them with something, they betray you. You
give them something of value, they take it,
and you cannot trust people anymore.
Because as we know, the hour will only
come upon the worst of creation. So what
is a sign that the hour is getting
close? That
people are start to not be trustworthy.
So he asked
how will it be lost? He said
He said when the affair is given to
the one that is not the right person,
unworthy,
someone that is not worthy of that position
then we await the hour.
And just based on this hadith, half of
us are awaiting the hour then because we've
seen this, Yeah. I mean when is the
last time you saw the right person in
the right position or the right leader in
the right position?
When this starts to happen, you know that
the hour is drawing near.
There's a famous hadith that we all know
and memorize in Sahih al Bukhari and Nabi
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is telling us, here
are the signs,
the indicators
of some of one who is a hypocrite.
And we know that the hypocrite
is in the worst and the lowest level
of the hellfire.
The hypocrites will be in the lowest rank
of the hellfire meaning the worst part of
the hellfire. So they're in the worst position.
So that means we don't ever want to
resemble them or be like them in any
way shape or form. But the famous hadith
as we know, Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said
There are three signs of of a hypocrite.
When he speaks,
he
lies. And when he promises,
he breaks that promise.
When he is entrusted with something, he betrays
that trust.
Meaning,
it could be that you give him something,
that is valuable
or wealth, and he will betray and he
will take it. Or you give him a
secret. The scholars even said, even the secret,
he will con he will, like,
yafshusiriyah, and he will convey or tell your
secret to others. If he if it's a
right that
it's upon him to make sure it is
given
or so on, he will betray that as
well.
Just an important clarification here is that a
lot of times
if you let's say if you promise someone
and then you have an accident or yours
you fall ill, they always quote half of
this hadith. They tell you what's the sign
of the hypocrite. Yeah. And you promised me
he didn't show up. The scholar said that's
not what it means. The scholar said,
the the hypocrite,
while he's promising you
next Wednesday, I'm we're gonna do this.
While he's saying that to you, he knows
very well that next Wednesday he's in Dallas.
That's the difference.
Not someone who honestly promised you something and
then due to circumstances outside of their control,
they couldn't make the promise, then that means
they have the sign of a hypocrite. But
that's what it means. But the point is
that when we see
qualities in people that we don't wanna be,
we don't wanna be hypocrites. We don't wanna
be like the the misguided. So we want
to put effort to make sure that quality
is not in us.
So this also includes not just secrets, valuables,
wealth, rights,
also includes our relationship
with our employer
and also include that's, that's a type of
covenant and a type of trust
and also includes if we have employees
or if you're a manager and they're and
you have subordinates
or you're a teacher with your students. All
these are trusts and covenants
Or and and especially when it comes to
leaders especially when it comes to leaders. And
we've seen leaders and how they behave when
it comes to what we entrust them with
with wealth and with our lives. You see
leaders stealing the wealth as if it belongs
to them. You see them disregarding the lives
of or the population. They disregard the lives.
Whereas, Nabi sallallahu alaihi salam, he cared about
the lives of his companions.
Yeah. Ali, do you know one time when
the Nabi salallahu alaihi wasallam didn't care if
his companions will be killed or butchered severely
in battle because they're going to Jannah anyways.
Do you know how great it is to
be a martyr? Well, they're gonna die anyways.
They're gonna be in the highest level. So
therefore let them die. Did you ever once
hear something like that?
But where did we get this lack of
care for the lives of the believing men
and women? Where do we get that?
The in in Mecca, why weren't the believers
allowed to fight back in Mecca? Because they
were minority. They would all be killed
because Islam valued their life.
Uhud and Nabi salallahu alaihi wa sallam didn't
wanna go out and meet the enemy in
the battlefield. He want to meet them in
Medina as he did later on in Al
Khandaq.
Why? And he even saw that in the
dream that many of his companions will be
killed.
He cared.
Now we get leadership.
They make a decision. They kills thousands and
thousands of men and women and children, and
they don't care. And we hear speeches, and
we will present another 1,000,000
suhadah for the there's a million suhadah. And
who gave you the right to decide to
kill to have a 1000000 people die? Who
gave you that right? The worst caring for
people's lives.
Where was this ever in the sire? Where
was this ever in Islam?
Where do we ever learn that land is
more valuable
than lives?
This is something that has been ingrained in
in our minds in the recent years and
it's stuck now.
And even some of you don't like me
saying this,
but the soul of one believer is greater
than land
And bring evidence if you disagree.
And we have evidence.
Nabi salallahu alayhi wa sallam said the destruction
of the Kaaba is easier in the sight
of Allah than the extermination of 1 Muslim.
1, the Kaaba.
But this is from the trust.
People in charge, they care about people's lives.
They care about the wealth. This is a
trust.
But Nabi salallahu alaihi wasallam said it's gonna
be scarce and that's why we're not seeing
it much. He said it's gonna be so
scarce
that there will be you will hear people
say in the village of so and so
in the tribe of so and so there
is one honest person there. There's a trustworthy
one trustworthy guy. Just like that. That's how
scarce it's gonna be. In Nabi sabi salaam
narrated by Ahmad, prophet salaam said
there is no iman
for the one who does not have amana
and we see it scarce.
You go to the Muslim lands and you
see how government workers behave in the offices,
police officers and how they take
and
bribes.
Muslims in the west, we're not far from
that. Yeah. I
don't want to be cross in this, but
we have a lot of problems. Yeah. I
mean, one one of,
my friends is an imam, and he has
a workshop on sexual abuse.
He said, wallahi, when I finish the workshop,
the line is to the wall.
People waiting in line to tell me about
their sexual abuse stories and its relatives.
I was sexually abused by my uncle, by
by my stepfather. Stepfather?
Where is the trust?
So common now to hear about stepfathers.
This girl looks at you like you're her
own dad
and this is how you look at her.
What happened to the trust?
So it's a lot of problems and this
khutba is not meant to any to be
a beat down or anything like that. But
we we all need to review ourselves and
our lives and see
and we'll talk about that in the second
khutbah. But I wanted to give the story
of Ibn Aqeel He was one of the
he was a hambali fati
and he one time in hajj, and this
story is about the reward of your trustworthiness.
He was in hajj and he found a
pouch with a very expensive necklace.
So in Hajj, how are you gonna find
the owner with thousands of people? But he
spent his days nights asking around asking around
until someone told him, there was an old
man yesterday asking about this this this necklace
that he lost. Until he found the old
man, he gave it to him. He refused
to even take
a reward from him. And then Hajj is
over, he says, I was gonna go back
to Baghdad but I was not in any
hurry. He's single, he doesn't
he's not going back to a job or
anything. He said, I just started to take
my time. I said, I'll make my way
slowly to Baghdad. So I went to the
Mashq first and it was a cold night
so I slept in this masjid and then
when Fajr came, Yani, they saw him as
a person of knowledge so they had him
lead the salah, then they liked his recitation,
then they asked him to stay and and
lead them in Ramadan,
then he stayed with them in Ramadan, then
they said because the imam of the masjid
had passed on, they asked him to lead
Ramadan, then they said we have a young
girl
and, why don't you get married and stay?
And
he got married to this woman and then
he says Allah gave me blessed me with
a boy, a baby boy from her. He
said then after a while, she fell ill
and she was now on her deathbed,
so she gave me
the same pouch I gave the old man.
He said when I saw it, I was
startled. I said how do you have it?
Said this used to belong my father, the
imam of the Masjid you replaced.
He tells her the story
of how he gave it back to him.
She said, subhanAllah,
ever since my father returned from Hajj, he
used to always make dua. Oh Allah,
give me a young man just like that
one who found the necklace so I can
marry him to my daughter.
Or how about the example of the great
scholar, Abdulaihman Mubarak
who borrowed a pen from someone in a
sham.
He says I didn't remember it until I
was in Maru
in Persia.
He borrowed a pen from someone in a
sham and I didn't remember until I was
in Maru
and he went back. This is not on
an airplane.
This is on riding animals weeks weeks until
he got back and he returned the pen.
And just as there's great reward, there's also
great punishment for betraying trusts.
And
there was a a story that happened in
our times of someone who entrusted a 100,000
with one of his friends,
but they didn't write anything. They didn't write
down the the loan or anything like that.
And
when he comes back for his money, the
man said, do you have any piece of
paper or anything written to prove that I
have this money? The guy says, no. He
says, leave. He says, wallahi, the same day
I kicked him out and I stole his
100,000, he said the same day I lost
5 100,000.
This is in property and in stocks and
whatever he had. He lost 500,000 in the
same day and his wife told him that's
because you you betrayed the man. That's because
you were unjust to the man. And he
says even then I wouldn't give him his
100,000 back and time passed and then my
children were involved in a car crash and
I lost all 3 of them at one
go. And my wife again told me that's
what you get for betraying the man.
But being honest and trustworthy, this is a
constant quality in the believer.
It's a it's a constant quality in me
no matter the person I'm dealing with. It's
not that I'm only honest if I'm dealing
with a Muslim, but with a non Muslim
it's okay. Or
it's with the government, it's okay. I can
cheat.
Or with tests and exams at school, it's
about dunya if I had to cheat. But
it's a constant quality in you. You're honest,
you're trustworthy whether you're dealing with a Muslim
or non Muslim, a government or an individual.
And
in Surat Al muminun we said
they also guard their covenants.
The in the hadith, the Qudsih hadith Allah
Subha Ta'ala mentions 3 types of people. He
says 3 types of people I will be
their opponent on the day of judgment.
So when you oppose someone, you either win
or they win. If your opponent is Allah
azza wa jal,
what's the outcome, the clear outcome? You will
lose.
So the first of them,
The scholars explained this is someone
that using the name of Allah
he was trusted because of the name of
Allah azza wa jal. So he was given
because of that
and he betrayed.
And the prophet
said, 4 traits if you have them, you're
a hypocrite. Yeah. And if you have these
4 things together, you're a hypocrite.
And whenever he has a covenant,
he betrays.
Ask Allah for his forgiveness. Indeed, those who
ask for his forgiveness shall prosper.
So how can I become someone who always
who is trustworthy,
guards their trusts, covenants,
whether they're at work, whether with at home
with the family, wife?
Basically,
become a person who is more concerned with
making sure you give everyone around you their
rights before you ask for yours.
Do you understand?
Make sure you are always checking. Am I
giving this person their rights? Yeah. And let's
look at it this way. Imagine there's a
couple, 2 couples.
One of them, the minute he wakes up,
he thinks, is she giving me my rights?
She still didn't give me this one and
this one and this one and this one.
The woman who wakes up,
he didn't give me this one and this
one and this one and this one and
this one and her list is longer, of
course.
Which will be happier, this couple
or the other couple? He wakes up and
says,
am I giving her all her rights?
I'm falling short in this area. And she
wakes up and she says, am I giving
him all his rights?
Which couple do you think will last longer?
Which couple do you think will do better?
Because
one of the scholars said he said, on
the day of judgment, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will not ask you if you got all
your rights.
First, he will ask you if you gave
others their rights from you.
Allah Azrael will not ask you if you
secured all your rights in this dunya. He
will ask you if you gave everyone else
their rights. So that should be the number
one question in your mind. But we today
everything is about rights. Yeah. And even our
books the rights of women, the rights of
the husband, the rights of the children, our
khutab, the rights of women, the rights of
the man. It's all about you getting your
rights. So we've been put in that condition
to be in that state where we're always
making sure nobody tramples my rights. And if
anyone dares to think of it, out comes
our phone and we make a big ruckus
and a fuss because our rights are the
most important thing. More important than that, make
sure other people get their rights from you
because that's what Allah Azul will ask you
about. And if you make sure every morning
that your wife has all her rights from
you, she will reciprocate
even without telling her. She will reciprocate and
she will start to make sure you have
all her rights from her.
With that, we ask Allah 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.
Related Episodes
- Yasir Qadhi – The Book of Du’a From Sahih Al-Bukhari #5
- Faith IQ – Does What I Recite In My 1st & 2nd Rak’ah Have To Be In Order
- Omar Suleiman – There is Life for you in True Justice
- Haifaa Younis – The Keys to Evil 01
- Abdulbary Yahya – The Chapter On The Imam – Umdatul Ahkam
- Karim Abuzaid – Dealing With Non-Muslims
- Yasir Qadhi – The Islamic Concept of Futuwwa Imam Nadim Imam Salah Shaykh Arsalan Mufti WK