Mohammad Elshinawy – The HaterS Burden The Envy Within Us All Bu
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the difficulty of avoiding evil behavior during a Payment of Pibles court case, where a man from the Islam community called for people to be healed with a hand on a door. They stress the importance of addressing one's own views and finding one's own values before acknowledging one's own fears and hating. The conversation also touches on the negative sentiment of hating on people and the importance of avoiding one's hate towards someone or something. The speakers advise individuals to be vigilant and exited with gifts to build a soft spot and receive praise.
AI: Summary ©
Is it Permissible to Speak During a Khutbah?
Brothers and sisters, just a reminder insha'Allah
that it is impermissible islamically to speak during
a khutbah.
If there is an emergency, it is certainly
permissible to step out for that emergency.
Otherwise, the Prophet ﷺ said, whomever says to
his brother, be silent, aside from the khatib
of course, then this would invalidate the reward
of the khutbah, and we are protective of
you and your reward insha'Allah.
To begin, brothers and sisters, the Prophet ﷺ
was once approached by a man that said
to him, Ya Rasulullah, a'allimni wa awjiz.
Teach me something and keep it brief.
Meaning like, there's too many things, I don't
know what to focus on, or I'm elderly
and I can't retain much, just give me
the bottom line.
So he said to him ﷺ, إذا قمت
في صلاتك فصلي صلاة مودع.
Whenever you stand in prayer, pray like someone
that is bidding the world farewell.
Self-explanatory.
You know that if this were your farewell
prayer before meeting God, what that would look
like.
The second one he said, ولا تكلم بكلام
تعتذر منه.
And do not speak with any words that
you will have to apologize from.
Meaning have a filter, think it over.
The third one, which I wish to invoke
for the theme of this khutbah.
He said, وَجْمَعْ الْإِيَاسِ عَمَّا فِي أَيْدِ النَّاسِ
And I want you to collect within you.
Meaning maximize, right?
Despair.
But despair from what?
Despair from what exists in the hands of
people.
Don't look at what people have.
Stay away from social comparison.
Lose hope in.
Stop being so chasing of what others have.
This is the bottom line.
This is what deserves more attention than anything
else.
These three things.
And also it's an indication that these are
life projects.
These are not easy.
Abdullah ibn Mubarak, he says about this issue,
He says, سَخَاءُ النَّفْسِ عَمَّا فِي أَيْدِ النَّاسِ
أَفْضَلُ وَأَعْظَمُ مِن سَخَاءُ النَّفْسِ بِالْبَذْلِ That having
a sakha.
Sakha is like generosity, right?
You're ready to let go.
To have a generous spirit when it comes
to what people have is greater, he means
and also more difficult, right?
It's a higher station.
Is greater than having a generous spirit when
it comes to spending.
You know, someone can spend, they can donate,
but it's just something that comes easily to
them, right?
It's like donating a thousand or five thousand
or fifty thousand for some people is easy.
Just it's enjoyable for them or it's a
drop in the bucket in terms of their
net worth.
And also because spending, brothers and sisters, it's
not always selfless.
Sometimes we spend in a way that is
selfish, in a way that is transactional, in
a way that I'm gonna do this so
I can gain the acclaim, the praise of
the people.
I'm self-promoting.
I'm buying a reputation here, right?
So it's not exactly generosity.
It's a transaction.
But when you are not seeking what is
with the people, generous spirit, I don't want
revenue from you, and I don't want my
reputation from you.
I don't want any.
I'm doing it for Allah.
I'm doing it because Allah loves generosity.
Sincere, selfless act.
That's another station.
But that is as difficult as it can
be for some people.
It's really what delivers you.
Delivers you to the love of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Delivers you to his paradise forever.
As the Prophet ﷺ said, اِزْهَدْ فِي الدُّنْيَا
يُحِبُّكَ النَّاسِ You're asking for advice?
It's another incident.
You want advice?
Disinterest yourself in this world, Allah will love
you.
وَزْهَدْ فِي مَا فِي أَيْدِ النَّاسِ يُحِبُّكَ النَّاسِ
And disinterest yourself in what is in the
hands of others, and people will love you
too.
So it's a win-win.
And if you don't pay enough attention to
this, it's gonna be a lose-lose.
People are gonna hate you, and you will
miss out on the love of Allah as
well, subhanahu wa ta'ala.
In another very well-known incident that some
scholars do consider traceable to the Prophet ﷺ,
he repeatedly kept telling the companions, there is
about to enter from this door a man
from the people of paradise, one of the
people that has made it.
And every time it's the same man.
So Abdullah al-Mubarak keeps seeing the same
man turn up, the same man turn up,
every time the Prophet says this, ﷺ.
So he goes to the man, he says
to him, listen, I had a little something
happen at home, can I spend the night
at your house?
He wants to sort of get an inside
scoop, like investigate what's really so special about
this guy.
He spends the night at the house, the
guy is not even praying as much as
he does, and he said that like, the
only thing he would do is if he
happens to get up, he gets like sleepless,
he'll make some dhikr until fajr time.
He'll say, subhanallah, alhamdulillah, allahu akbar, till fajr
time, that's it.
He said, so I went to him, I
said, listen, I need to be honest.
I didn't actually have any sort of beef
with my dad back home.
But every time the Prophet ﷺ said, a
man from the people of paradise about to
enter, it's always you, what do you do?
So he said to him, I don't do
anything other than what you've seen.
I'm a simple guy, face value, what you
see is what you get.
He said, غير أني except, I don't allow
for there to exist inside of me any
ghish, any deception.
I'm not dishonest with people, I'm not deceptive
with people.
ولا أحسد أحد على ما أعطاه الله.
Nor do I envy anyone.
I don't hate on anybody.
Because of what Allah has given them, he
said.
So Abdullah ibn Amr said, ذلك الذي بلغت
بك.
That's what got you, that's what delivered you.
وذلك الذي لا نطيقه.
And that's the thing we cannot do.
That's the hard one.
We can spend here, we can stand there,
but there still might be some snakes and
some wolves inside, here, that are just chasing
after this world, trying to wrap around whatever
they can of worldly gains.
And that's what cause animosity between people.
So from his humility of course he's saying,
and that's the tough one, that's the one
that we weren't able to compete with you
in.
To develop that brothers and sisters, that zuhd,
that disinterest in this world, considerably of course,
right?
We're not stoics here, it's not like we're
non-human, we're detached from our emotions, we
don't have needs.
But no, to not be bent on chasing
this world, that's hard work.
But you need to put in the work.
You know often we talk about envy and
the evil eye, and it's always like someone
hitting me with the evil eye, someone envying
me.
But you know the Prophet ﷺ, when he
would seek refuge with Allah from evil, every
Friday on the minbar, he would seek refuge
from the evil within.
He would say, نَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِن شُرُورِ أَنفُسِنَا
We seek refuge, protection with God from the
evil suggestions within ourselves.
That requires remedying.
You may think, oh, it's like for really
bad people, not for us masjid goers.
He used to say it from the masjid,
from the minbar.
In fact, الحسن البصري رحمه الله May Allah
have mercy on his soul.
They asked him once, أَيَحْسُدُ الْمُؤْمِنُ Can a
mu'min, like a believer, be an envier, be
a hater?
That's what an envier is, it hates the
blessings that people have, right?
And so he said to them, مَا أَنْسَاكُمْ
إِخْوَةَ يُوسُفٍ How fast can you forget the
brothers of Yusuf?
The brothers of Yusuf were not believers, they
were Muslim.
Of course, not ideal believer, it's a flaw
to envy.
But he's saying the brothers of Yusuf are
Muslims, they're believers, they're in the Quran, being
the children of a prophet, and still envied
their brother so much, because the dad loved
him more, right?
That they committed what they committed.
So nobody's immune.
Another one of the early scholars used to
say, مَا خَلَى جَسَدٌ مِنْ حَسَدٍ There is
no jasad, no physical body, meaning no person,
that is ever void of hasad, that is
ever void of envy or hate towards others,
and their blessings.
He said, لَكِنَّ اللَّئِيمَ يُبْدِيهُ وَالْكَرِيمَ يُخْفِيهُ The
only difference is, everyone's got it in them.
It's like bubbling inside us all.
The only difference is the wicked person expresses
it, acts on it.
And the honorable person suppresses it.
And this is the job of every believer,
to be honorable in that way.
That you must suppress your envy.
You're obligated to do that.
Because even if you don't act on it,
like the most wicked person will, it's simply
being in there is already a major sin.
And the Prophet ﷺ said, This envy settling
in your heart, it existing there, eats away
at your hard-earned good deeds, the same
way fire eats through dry wood.
You know when the wood is dry, the
fire tears right through it, incinerates it.
Likewise, your good deeds are incinerated by the
presence of hasad inside.
Even if you don't act on it.
If you act on it, that's compounded.
That's like further problematic.
Because there's levels of what the hasad will
bring you to.
And so, let's actually work backwards, the diagnosis.
The worst manifestation of a hasad, the worst
possible outcome, which nobody is immune from, nobody
has a guarantee against, is that it can
actually get you to reject Allah altogether.
What was the first crime that we know
of to take place in the universe?
Iblis, shaytan, had hasad, had envy, hate inside
him, towards Adam, how come?
We prostrate to him, he doesn't prostrate to
us.
Why?
So he rejected Allah.
Banu Israel rejected the prophets of Allah, why?
How come the final prophet, the greatest prophet,
is from their tribe, not our tribe?
Okay, we'll admit he's a prophet, but not
for us.
Not our prophet.
We're not gonna sort of fold under someone
else's tribal leadership.
It was hasad.
So rejecting Allah, rejecting the prophets, can certainly
be an outcome of hasad.
In fact, the Quran even says about Banu
Israel, they wish you would disbelieve.
حَسَدًا مِنْ عِنْدِي أَنفُسِهِمْ Out of envy and
hatred that exists in their hearts.
How come they had the humility to accept
Muhammad?
Just believe in him, right?
How come they get to believe and we
don't?
So they wish that you would disbelieve, because
they don't have it in them to believe.
Can you imagine?
So this is the first and worst of
the layers.
The second that could certainly happen in this
ummah is that a person inflicts harm on
others, because of their hasad, right?
And so, that doesn't, brothers, it doesn't necessarily
mean you're gonna have to kill somebody.
You're gonna say, okay, I'm not gonna kill
him.
But you could kill his reputation, character assassinate
him.
That's a form of killing in a sense,
right?
When you slander someone, when you speak ill
of someone, Allah عز و جل, you know
when He said, وَلَا يَغْتَبْ بَعْضُكُمْ بَعْضًا أَيُّ
حِبُّ أَحَدُكُمًا يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا فَكَرِهْتُمُوا You
should never backbite each other, meaning speak negatively
behind each other's backs, in each other's absence.
Would one of you like to eat the
flesh of his brother, after he has diseased,
after he has died?
You would have been repulsed, you would be
disgusted by that.
Notice, like eating human flesh is disgusting to
almost all human beings.
Cannibalists are a non-factor, right?
Statistically insignificant.
And then your brother, now, not just any
human being.
Now your brother when he has died, after
he has died, before his janazah, you sink
your teeth into him, right?
Allah is evoking disgust at this.
That would be in our eyes equivalent to
murdering him, if not worse.
So that could be one of the manifestations
of the hasad.
You speak ill of them, because you're upset
that they have a distinction you don't have,
so you want to bring them down, to
your level or lower.
A third layer here, that Ibn Taymiyyah points
out, and it's very profound.
He says, some people, due to the envy
lurking inside them, they don't suppress it enough,
they don't do enough hard work to bury
it.
They may not violate their brother or sister,
but they also will not come to their
defense.
And that's still a violation.
Because the violation is not just that you
withhold from harming them, it is also that
you have to show up when the time
comes to protect them.
Backbiting again.
If someone were to sink their teeth into
someone in front of you, you wouldn't just
be fine with it, right?
But sometimes, the reason is hasad.
I'm not going to do it, because I
fear God.
But I'm not too upset that someone else
did it.
Maybe I'm even a little bit happy.
I'm gloating just a little bit, right?
That they had this misfortune.
And you don't show up in their aid.
You don't defend their reputation.
You don't assist in any way that you
can, financially or physically or otherwise.
And so this burns through our good deeds
and burns through our relationships.
And thus Islam made it categorically forbidden to
sleep on this sentiment of hate, of malice,
of envy that constantly resurfaces inside you.
In fact, the Prophet ﷺ said, before I
sit down, دَبَّ إِلَيْكُمْ دَاءُ الْأُمَمِ قَبْلَكُمْ الحَسَدُ
وَالْبَغْضَةُ There has crawled up on you, notice
the language, crawled up on you the disease
of nations before you.
What destroyed nations altogether, collectively.
He said, حَسَدُ, envy, and بَغْضَة, hatred.
And these are related.
That's why I keep using them interchangeably.
Because there's like, you hate the blessing that
they have.
You wish they didn't have something you don't.
They have a bigger lawn, or a nicer
car, or more intelligence, or a spouse, or
a child.
You hate the blessing, and then automatically it
translates over into hating the person who's blessed.
You hate them for the blessing.
It has crawled up on you, the disease
of the nations before you.
Envy and hatred.
He said, وَالْبَغْضَةُ هِيَ الْحَالِقَةُ And the hatred
is the shaver.
He said, not that which shaves hair, it's
not what I'm talking about.
That which shaves off the religion.
Peels away the religion.
Because not just because it does it eat
at your good deeds so quickly, but it
eats at the relationship, and the community fabric,
the social fabric, that we depend on to
grow our religion together.
أقول قولي هذا واستغفر الله العظيم لي ولكم
الحمد لله وحده والصلاة والسلام على من لا
نبي بعد أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله
وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمداً عبده
ونبيه ورسوله Brothers and sisters, it's attributed to
the great Imam Al-Shafi'i رحمه الله
that he once said in verse, in poetic
verse, أَلَا قُل لِمَن بَاتَ لِي حَاسِدَ أَتَدْرِي
عَلَى مَن أَسَأْتَ الْأَدَبِ Go tell the person
who spent his whole night hating on me.
People who sleep over this stuff, right?
Do you have any idea who you disrespected?
أَسَأْتَ عَلَى اللَّهِ فِي حُكْمِهِ إِذْ لَمْ تَرْضَ
لِمَا وَهَبْ You were actually disrespectful to Allah
in His decision when you chose not to
accept, be content, be at peace with what
He gifted me.
فَجَزَاكَ عَنِّي بِأَنْ زَادَنِي فَجَزَاكَ رَبِّي بِأَنْ زَادَنِي
He said, and so my Lord repaid you
for that behavior, right?
By giving me more.
وَسَدَّ عَلَيْكَ وَجُوهَا الْقَلَبُ And He closed more
and more doors in your face.
You know, the idea is when you envy
someone, your problem is not with that someone.
Your problem is actually with Allah, Allah who
gave him.
And not just this, when your problem is
with Allah, you're not gonna win.
Because even if Allah were to take that
blessing away from them, He's probably gonna give
them more in exchange because Allah is a
very generous God.
سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى So this is a bad place
to be and you need to pay attention.
Who are you disrespecting?
Who are you objecting to here?
Who is your animosity towards here?
And then He says, the one who spends
his night hating on me.
Abdullah al-Mas'ud about this point, radhiAllahu
anhu, the great companion of the Prophet ﷺ,
he used to say, مَا رَأَيْتُ ظَالِمًا أَشْبَهُ
بِمَظْلُومٍ مِنَ الْحَسُودِ I never saw an oppressor
who is more resembling, he looks more like
an oppressed, like a victim, than the envious
person, the hater.
Like you're the one oppressing by this hate,
but you, it's like, you know they say,
when you have a grudge, it's like you
drinking poison and waiting for the other person
to die.
You're doing it to yourself.
What is the benefit of this?
But this is the darkness of the heart,
that Islam came to liberate us from.
So how do you work past this?
Number one, just realize what's at stake.
This hasad is a sign of hypocrisy, muddying
the heart.
And your hate for something or someone could
grow to the point that it outgrows, it
overwhelms your love for Allah and His Messenger.
This is on the table.
The risk is very real.
That's number one.
Number two, be vigilant.
You need to know, who am I more
likely to be envious of?
It's the people within reach, right?
Like if you're an average person like me,
you're not gonna envy the guy who has
50 billion dollars.
You're gonna envy your next door neighbor because
he has an extra one-tenth of an
acre, right?
If you have two goats, you're gonna envy
the guy that has three goats, not the
guy that has a mega farm somewhere with
10,000 oxen.
He's out of your league.
So it's your family, it's your neighbor, it's
your peer.
Be vigilant about that.
That's where it creeps up.
The third thing is when you find it,
how do you deactivate it?
Our deen told us, praise people.
Admit when they're right.
I wish I would have won the argument.
You're right, I'm wrong.
Admit it.
I take it back.
My apologies.
Didn't think of it that way.
Give people their due.
Give people their merit.
Praise them.
Pray for them.
Say Allahumma Barik.
May Allah bless it for them.
May Allah bless you in what He has
given you.
Give gifts to each other.
You know the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did
not say, give a gift to someone and
they'll love you.
He said, exchange gifts, you will love each
other.
Experiment with this, brothers and sisters.
It's very interesting.
When you give someone a gift, you start
developing a soft spot for them.
It's very weird.
When you pray for someone you don't like,
you start liking them, right?
So exchange gifts and exchange praise and exchange
prayers.
This is how you offset it.
And the last thing I will tell you
as I step off, don't try to remove
it altogether.
Just harness it.
Allah made you with competitive instinct inside you.
You want to compete, fine.
Don't turn it off.
Compete the way Musa Alayhis Salaam competed.
When he said the Prophet Muhammad has more
people going to Jannah from his nation than
mine.
Compete as Umar competed and say, on this
day, if ever I'm going to beat Abu
Bakr, it's gonna be today, right?
If anything is worth envying, it is the
knowledge Allah gives a person or the wealth
Allah gives a person that are used the
right way.
So I'm not wishing I'm more knowledgeable just
so I can be praised the way the
Shaykh is praised.
Or wishing I'm more wealthy the way more
people can talk about me at the fund
rate.
No, no.
So I can use it in the right...
Harness it towards the hereafter.
Compete in what is worthy, in what is
better and more lasting.
Not in this transient crumbling world.
May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala purify our
hearts and propel us, move us forward towards
His pleasure.
May Allah Azza wa Jal clear our hearts
of whatever could destroy our deen or destroy
the relationships that we depend on in our
dunya and in our deen.
May Allah Azza wa Jal continue to rebuild
this ummah through our lifetimes and the lifetimes
of those we leave behind.
Allahumma ameen.