Mustafa Khattab – Priorities in Islam
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In the name of Allah, the most gracious,
most merciful,
all praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. We praise him and we seek his
forgiveness and assistance,
and we take refuge in him from the
evils of ourselves and our shortcomings.
Whomever Allah guides, there is none to misguide,
and whomever Allah leads to go astray, there
is none to guide. We bear witness that
there is none worthy of our worship except
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And we bear witness
that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is the seal of the prophets and the
final messenger
to all humanity.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created us in
this life, and for every one of us,
there are duties and responsibilities.
And every time our lives are messed up
as individuals
or communities
or even countries,
it is because mostly because our priorities are
messed up.
So we started a long time this science
or branch of what we call priorities, the
5th of priorities.
And this is followed in the Quran and
in the sunnah of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. So for example,
we're gonna give a few examples of the
priorities in the life of a Muslim. For
example, marrying your son
who is not able to wait, if you're
not gonna marry him this year, he will
go to jail or we'll see him in
the paper.
This takes priority
over going for Hajj yourself. You have to
marry your son for him. You marry your
son first because he can't wait.
Or having the salah to save somebody's life.
Saving somebody's life takes priority over continuing your
salayah. Come back and, pray or continue your
prayers.
Also, saving someone who is drowning is more
important than giving them
about wearing gold, for example.
So the guy is drowning in the ocean,
and you leave him there, and you wanna
give them
about wearing the gold. And you recite for
them the 15, a hadith, and saiid, bukhari
about wearing gold. No. Save them first, then
give them nasiha.
You cut them
So we started, for example, a long time
ago
that some
or some acts of worship take priority over
others.
For example, obeying your parents,
doing something for them is more important than
praying.
So you obey them first, buy them something,
for example, then you can pray sunnah. Some
of our moments, some forbidden things are worse
than others.
So lying about Allah,
for example, attributing a son to him, is
worse than lying to the
So the prophet, salawahu alaihi wa sallam, has
always prioritized.
He looked at the situation he was in,
and he always exercised
this concept of Alawiyyah
or prioritized
in his life.
So for example, if you look at the
pact of, Hudaybir,
the peace treaty that the prophet
signed with the people of Mecca.
So at the time of writing the peace
treaty
so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam wanted
to write,
this is what Muhammad, the prophet of God,
agreed upon
with Suhayhi alaihi alaihi wa sallam. So Suhayhi
alaihi wa sallam protested.
So he said, if I knew that you
were the prophet of God, I wouldn't have
fault you. We wouldn't be here in the
first place. Just write, this is what Muhammad,
the son of Abdullah, agreed upon with Suhayl
al the son of Amun.
And the Sahaba were mad, and Umar ibn
Khattab radiAllahu anhu wanted to rip off the
head of Suhail ibn Amr. But the prophet
said, leave him alone.
Signing a peace treaty,
living in peace for 10 years is more
important than the titles.
So that was the priority in the situation.
So upon the opening of Mecca, the prophet
said to
our
and
Muslim
that if your people were still,
they have the remnants of Jannahi, and then
I would have destroyed
the Kaaba and rebuild it on the foundations
of Ibrahim.
Because before Islam,
the people of Makkah in Jahili, they wanted
to build a Kaaba, so they couldn't collect
enough funds to build it on the foundations
of Ibrahim. So they made it a little
bit smaller.
So the
prophet thought about expanding
it, but he said people
would not be happy about this, and this
is not a priority now, so we'll keep
it as is. So that was also a
priority.
Also, in Dawah, the prophet always
prioritize.
So he said, when you go to them,
priority number 1, tell them teach them that
there's only one god, and Muhammad is his
prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Number 2, if they accept priority number 2,
tell them to pray.
If they accept, tell them that Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala has prescribed Zakah on them. Take
it from the rich, give it to the
poor, and
be careful, be aware of injustice to people.
Because when the those who are oppressed,
they make dua,
then the dua will reach Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala straight. There's no barrier between the dua
and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Also, the last example for today,
at the time of marriage, the prophet
says people are married for 4 different reasons.
People marry a lady or a man for
that matter for their money
or beauty or status, but look for the
deen. Deen is the most important thing.
And there's nothing wrong in Islam if you
marry the most beautiful woman in the world,
but she has to have deen. You can
marry the richest man in the world
or the man with the fanciest car in
the whole city, but she he has to
have some deen in him because this is
what will last.
The money can be lost. The beauty can
be lost. The status can be lost, but
religion and the deed will always be there.
Sociology,
they classify all the actions we do in
this life into 4 things.
And always, we have problems when we miss
up all these categories.
So for example, the 4 categories are
important and urgent,
not important, not urgent,
urgent but not important, important but not urgent.
We'll give him 4 examples.
And the second example, if in one day,
you have to do 4 things,
pray on time,
play video games,
study for an exam today, and you will
have the exam in 6 months in the
fall, and pay your taxes, and this is
the last day.
So praying on time is important,
and it is urgent. You can't delay it.
Playing video games,
I know this is bad news for many
people. It is not important. It is not
urgent.
Studying today for an exam that you will
have in 6 months in the fall
is important, but not urgent. You can't study
today, tomorrow, or next week is not a
big deal.
Paying your taxes today because it's the last
day, it is not important, but it is
an emergency. You have to do it. And
I don't know of anyone who likes to
pay their taxes.
Okay? But you have to do it or
you will go to jail. So it is
not important, but it is urgent.
Well, I'm not gonna be,
when we were at the, the general body
meeting a few weeks ago.
We were talking about voting on the constitution.
Whether you vote for or against this is
not the issue today. It's up to you.
But
the direction of the discussion,
the importance, and the urgency of the talk
was directed to changing the organization's name. So
I want you to look at the two
examples,
name might be important,
maybe not,
But I don't think it's an emergency. It
is not urgent. So voting on the constitution,
it is urgent and it is important. And
this Sunday, inshallah, if I remember correctly, at
the dawn, they would be voting on the
constitution.
As we said,
the key to your success in this life
is to prioritize.
Allah has rights on you.
Your family has rights on you. The community
has rights on you, and your body has
rights on you. As the prophet
says in the Sahid Muslim, the hadith Salman
salakas Salman. So
So the problem we have in our societies
today and our families
is because the priorities are messed up. And
I'm gonna give a few examples,
then we'll conclude inshallah.
So for
example,
So most of the time,
the problems we have in our lives is
mostly because our priorities are messed up. Priority
number 1 is not number 17, and priority
number 17 is number 1. So you have
to put your priorities in order to be
successful in this life and in the next.
So I'm gonna give a few examples and
conclude with this. Number 1,
you will have a problem when
working
or studying or playing video games is more
important than salawu time because now your priorities
are messed up.
Some people never pray. Nothing. They don't pray
any of the 5 daily prayers, but for
them, salatul salawih is the most important salah
in the year.
Or salatulayid, for example, is more important to
them than any of the 5 daily salah.
They don't pray, but when the Eid comes,
you see them fighting in the first
line to sit next to the imam because
they love him so much.
So you have to put your priorities at
work. Also,
when
marrying a sister or marrying a brother with
deen
is not as important as marrying someone who
is beautiful or someone who has money. You'll
always have a problem in the marriage, and
you'll end up in divorce
most of the time.
Or marrying a non Muslim
takes priority over marrying Muslim sisters.
And I've seen in the past few years
many Muslim brothers coming to me to marry
a non Muslim sister, and and there's nothing
wrong with this Islamically.
But in this community or in the Muslim
community in general in the West,
Muslim brothers can marry Muslim, Christian, and Jewish
ladies, but Muslim sisters marry only Muslim brothers.
So if all of us marry non Muslim
ladies, who is going to marry our Muslim
sisters in the community? And there are 100
of 1000 of them in the west. Who
is gonna bury them?
Also, when you
have a job or you you deal with
the halal Haram because it produces
more money than working in the Haram because
it is little money.
So many people do this because they say,
if we if we don't sell pork, man,
if we don't sell alcohol, we would not
make enough money, man, to fail to buy
a fancy car, man.
And this is wrong. Al barakatufil
Khanim, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will bless the
little
because it's al halal. If you give haram
money, you become a a millionaire from haram,
there's no barakah in it. No Barakah in
your gut, no Barakah in your family, and
no Barakah in your children.
Also, working day and night
to make money and to become rich when
it becomes more important than taking care of
your kids
and teaching them Islam,
and bringing them up in an Islamic environment,
and making them decent Muslims,
then we have problems. The last example I
wanna give before I conclude, we have problems
when
we put what we want
ahead of what we need. And the best
example is when we go to, Walmart, for
example, or the lucky store. It's a new
store.
You go there
with a list of 5 items, and you
end up
30 items.
So people confuse what they want
with what they need. Why you need this
5 items, but what you want if 30
items? Don't need them, but you buy them
because it's on sale.
You buy them because they look good, but
you don't need them anyway. So you keep
wasting money,
borrowing money from people, and living a miserable
life, fighting with your husband to to have
him buy something he can afford.