Sadullah Khan – Jumuah 13 September 2024
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Respected teachers,
and fellow students.
It is with great respect and honor that
we introduce our esteemed speaker for today's Jumu
Akhutba,
none other than Sheikh Sadullah Khan.
Sheikh Sadullah Khan is a renowned scholar with
a professional understanding of Islamic teaching, but he
also serves as the CEO of Islamic College.
A role in which he demonstrates remarkable leadership
and commitment to our education and spiritual growth.
In the name of Allah most gracious most
merciful,
all praise is due to our creator, our
cherisher,
our nourisher, our sustainer.
We bear witness there's none worthy of worship
but Allah.
We bear witness, we believe in all the
prophets who came throughout history.
And we bear witness that prophet Muhammad ibn
Abdullah,
Rasulullah
He's the final
of all the inner cities of
Allah.
Educators,
elders,
brothers and sisters,
respected youth,
I greet you with the Islamic universal greeting
of peace.
May the peace, the mercy, and the blessings
of Allah be upon each and everyone present
here
at this auspicious hour of Jummah.
I see we have but more space today
with the young people having exams
so they leave a bit early so
the school has been dismissed earlier this morning.
So alhamdulillah
I think,
we have a bit more space so I
would like all the people who are outside
not to pray on the outside but to
come inside.
Many of you don't get a chance to
come inside at some jummas.
Today is your turn.
Last night,
I received a message
from
a husband and wife
who are on the staff at the school
here
and sent a message that,
they have a newly born baby.
I sent a congratulatory
note
and a Mubarak note,
and as I'm typing that note,
my phone pings and I get another message.
And it
was
the announcement of the passing
of Sheikh Siraj Johan.
And it makes one realize not only transitory
nature of life but also the
contrast
that within a moment
and in fact at the same moment
while celebrating and congratulating
someone,
someone else
receives a message of condolence.
Birth notice,
congratulations.
Death notice,
message of condolence.
And this
immediately brings many thing to our mind.
Among them is
never take things in life for granted.
2 weeks ago,
just before Jum'ah,
I went to visit someone
at the hospital,
a regular mussali here and we used to
often meet
immediately after Jumayah and chat.
I went to visit him
and upon visiting him,
the speaker here was Sheikh Abdullah Bayat.
He's also a student
at Eco Saudi days also alumni of the
school. His father was one of the founding
members of this institution.
And the day or so after that he
entered into hospital.
And may du'a for Allah to grant him
recovery.
But among the people we meet in the
afternoon I was speaking about is a brother
whom we know for a long time, brother
Ibrahim Mohammed,
and this week we buried him.
While visiting him in the hospital,
Sheikh Abdullah who spoke here took ill the
following day,
and in this week
2 friends
have passed on.
People also remember politically Steve Vico passed away
in 12 September.
One of the great, poets and writers of
our time,
James Matthews passed away in this week as
well.
But I want to focus a bit
on this precarious nature of life.
My topic was gonna be about gender by
the way today
But
I was just overwhelmed by this
passing of Sheikh Siraj.
I thought
we rather reflect on the reality of life
and death
for this moment.
Sheikh Siraj was one of the first teachers
among the first teachers of tafir ul Quran
in this institution.
So many of the first graduates who graduated
at this institution
were students of Sheikh Siraj Juha.
And my association with Sheikh Siraj
spends many years.
He was the eldest in our group who
memorized the Quran under Sheikh Salih Khabadi at
that time. It included people like Sheikh Fawad
Kabir,
Mulla Abdul Ali Maklika,
Doctor.
Mohammad Khan,
Mulla Abdul Rahman Hefiji,
Mulla Abdul Haq Magda,
and just of course prior to us were
people like Sheikh Abdul Rahman, Sali, Sheikh Mohammed
Murat.
But that group, Sheikh Siraj was the eldest
and I was the youngest of that group.
And when we completed our tafeez, Sheikh Siraj
left for Mecca
for a few years
and he instructed me to go to 2
of his students to revise the Quran.
One was Sheikh Siraj
who was still young that time of course,
he was late teens or early 20,
just to revise the Quran with him and
he lived nearby Queen Mary flats in the
book up around the corner from where I
lived.
And also to go to Imam Shamshuddin, also
an outstanding student of Sheikh Saleh Habadi.
Sheikh Shamshuddin Farfari.
We read our first Tarawi. I read my
first Tarawi
with Sheikh Siraj in Fostrid Mosque in the
booker.
And on the weekends,
Mullna
Yusuf Kiran, you should come down
and pay us a visit.
And on the 28th Ramadan, we would go
and read in The Strand,
sometimes at Habibi on the 28th night or
29th night but we used to go to
The Strand and read.
And as we go to the funeral today,
so many people from our childhood come
come to the fore.
It makes you realize
how life passes by so quickly.
How many people have passed on
and where are we in that
line of life?
The first I've quoted from Surah Hajj Allah
says,
Allah brings to attention all humankind.
A whole series
of explanation,
unfolding of the stages of human existence and
human life.
And he says, we created you from dust
then within the human being is a drop
of sperm and
the egg that
unites.
Then all of that
an embryonic stage
yet incomplete,
and then you rest in the womb of
the mother until stage of development
sufficient for you to be able to be
born.
And as you grow you develop
your understanding, you develop your strength,
and you develop knowledge, you acquire position and
authority,
and then
you fade away,
and then death comes.
But in that verse Allah
says
Some passed away in their childhood and in
the youth,
and some reach old age,
but everyone
is guaranteed
a long life.
So as I reflected on last night,
on the one
hand, a joyous,
hearty
celebration of birth and the arrival of new
life,
and simultaneously
on the other hand,
the sorrowful morning,
brokenhearted
at the death and the departure
of another life.
And between the coming and the going, which
we all have to endure and go through
and experience,
there's the adventure
which we call the test of life.
And Allah
refers to this in the famous surah of
the Quran
and he begins with
Allah has given you death and life,
from non existence to existence
to the passing on to the barzakh and
to the
resurrection.
Has given you death in life
in order to test you
by your deeds,
those of you who are best and those
who are good.
My last visit to the Sheikh Siraj
was more about reminiscing.
Reminiscing about childhood, about the past
and it reiterated for me the significance of
those things
that we take for granted
because at the end of life is the
memories that count.
We didn't speak about
the degrees he may have had.
It's the memories that count, and he was
recalling with joy as much as he was
in a bit of pain at that time,
recalling
moments
that he interacted with people, with his sheikh,
with his students, with each other that he
remembers so fondly.
And I thought to myself,
indeed
life is a continuous
flow of unfolding reality,
providing us with opportunities
for and for for goodness and for excellence.
Opportunities for us to express
goodness and to manifest excellence.
Life is not a rehearsal for some future
event.
Sometimes we live life as if something is
gonna happen. It is happening.
Life is the event. Now is a moment
and we don't know how many more moments
exist
before all our time is up
in the life that we have been granted
as a gift.
We have become accustomed
in our times to a degree of false
invincibility.
We we make surgery. Many people do this
surgery to make them look younger.
Diet pulls to make them look thinner.
I don't say you mustn't
diet. I don't say you mustn't beautify yourself
but I'm just saying the vainness.
Millions are spent
on surgery to make us look younger.
Diet pools to make us look thinner,
medication to make us seemingly live longer,
but an assumed
prolonged life
is merely a postponed death
because death and departure
from this world
is inevitable.
Wherever you are,
death will come and fetch you.
Even if you are in a fortified building,
death will come and fetch you.
Said N Ali
most eloquently eulogized even the passing of Rasulullah
He said,
He said death
spares
nobody, it leaves nobody.
And this
is how it will be until everyone on
earth is no more.
The prophet lived amongst us,
but he did not remain and even was
not spared the passing on.
If Allah kept anyone forever, it would have
been the prophet,
but he did not preserve me in that
way.
The arrow of death never misses his target.
The arrow of death
never misses his target.
If the arrow passes by someone today,
be sure tomorrow it'll hit.
We are never
as aware of our being alive
as when we are at the funeral of
the dead.
And therefore, Rasul
hadith documented
in the Sahih of Imam Muslim.
He said words which we are also encouraged
to repeat.
May Allah have mercy on those from among
us who have passed on before us
and by the will of Allah eventually
we will be following and joining up with
you.
As we have witnessed,
we have witnessed every day someone leaves this
world behind,
We are all in the same line
without paying attention to the line.
We never know how many people are before
us
or how many people are in the line
behind us.
We cannot
move to the back of the line
nor can we avoid the line.
So while we are in the line,
it's important for us to make every moment
count.
The poet
says in Urdu,
He said, we are born
We are born sentenced to life without our
choosing.
We are sentenced to life without our choosing.
And he goes on to say the destination
of the living
has no alternative
but to pass through the avenue of death.
It is the last stage of our existence
on this earth.
So there's no choice of birth,
no avoidance of death
except utilize
the interval
in between
in a most effective manner.
In other words,
live life meaningfully.
And meaningful life create memories
and memories
are what lives on after we are gone.
Stop taking what we have for granted.
Instead,
be grateful
and do whatever good we can
wherever we are and realize
that we have to value
what we have
and we need
to motivate ourselves to do what needs to
be done
with full vigor,
and therefore we're encouraged
by saying
Prepare for the hereafter
as if you're gonna die tomorrow
but work in this world as if you
are living forever. Do what needs to be
done. Don't avoid this with the excuse of
death but be aware that death may come
at any moment.
Imam al Shafi'i.
Very thought provoking poem that he wrote.
And it makes us realize that sometimes,
as I mentioned, young people pass on
and olives,
people who are on the deathbed,
attend eventually the funerals of those who came
to visit them in the hospital door.
So Imam al Shafi'i in his poem says,
He said, how many healthy have died without
any ailments
and how many of those who are sick
have lived for a long time?
How many youth go to sleep and wake
up laughing?
But at sunset, they were buried
without even knowing that that's the
destination. How long can you live?
As long as you may live,
there's no doubt a day will come when
you'll have to be in the darkness of
the grave
And he goes on to say,
Oh you who are proudly enthralled
by the palatial abodes that you are living
in. This world is but a place really
for prayer
and for humility and piety.
Know that tomorrow you will enter in a
boat
that is narrow and dug out for you
with the people your neighbors around you will
be silent
and motionless.
We close by reflecting and I beg your
indulgence I'm really not
really in the real spirit of
giving the Jumah to walk today is just
overwhelmed by just so many things that happened.
So I beg your indulgence.
But we close by
reflecting upon the Quranic parable
that refers to the transitory nature
of our life on earth.
A life
that we come into
without our asking,
a life we live
without our permission.
Allah
We read this on Fridays.
Allah says 4th a parable example of life
in this world,
it is like the rain which we send
down from the skies,
the earth vegetation absorbs it,
it becomes
alive, it blooms, it blushes, it it it
it it flourishes,
but soon it becomes dry
fragments
and then the wind scatters it away
and only Allah prevails
over everything.
The Quran brings to our attention here
that just like the rain falls on the
surface of the earth,
it revives the land,
green vegetation grows,
lasts for a while.
It's our youth and our
main part of our life
and eventually
it dries up and blows away.
So too human life on earth.
We are born,
we develop,
we flourish,
and eventually,
if we are lucky, we age,
but all of us eventually die.
We are born
without bringing anything into this world,
and we die without taking anything from this
world.
We are born
without bringing anything into this world.
We die
without taking anything,
and the saddest thing of all
is in the interval between our coming and
going,
we fight over things
that we have neither brought
nor we will take with.
Much of the animosity between people, the fights
between people,
wars being fought
of a wealth, of a greed, none of
which power,
authority,
name, titles,
none of these will matter
at all.
What helps
when we leave the world
is the good
that we have done.
What is of continuous blessing,
everlasting benefit
is the good that you have done.
So what we
do with our lives
will help us when we leave the world
and with the good we did
and the memories
that we leave behind.
What consoles those who we leave behind
are the fond memories
that we have created.
Such
is the temporary nature of life,
the fleeting reality of our stay on this
earth.
Advised us in a hadith
documented in the
Be in this world
as a stranger
or as a passerby.
May Allah grant those who have passed on.
Those who are ill, may Allah grant them
recovery
or whatever is best for them. May the
mercy of Allah envelop
all of those who are ill, those who
have passed on, and all of us.
We are in the week
of the coming and the passing of
Rasulullah
This is the week in which the Rasul
was born and passed away. Some people differ
9th,
12th, 17th, doesn't matter.
He was born in this week
and he passed away
in this week.
May Allah
grant
that the Ummah which is going through a
very trial
trying time to the moment.
May Allah grant us
to be of those who bind themselves to
the Prophet
So so much so that Allah
grants us the
capacity to do what is best
for ourselves
and for the world as Allah mentions
If you bind yourself to the way of
the prophet, to the message of the prophet,
to the mission of the prophet, to the
example of the prophet, if you bind yourself
to the prophet, Allah says,
I'm on your
side. Never mind the world and all it
contains.
I'll give you the pen with which to
write your destiny.
We'd like to say to
Sheikh for the inspiring hootba which always helps
to strengthen our faith and practice.
There are just a few announcements.
We would like to announce
On behalf of our principals, Mashiro Farquhan and
the extended family, we would also announce,
we'd also like to say
to every single person present today.
Islamic college once again has the honor of
officiating the Jamaal proceedings.
The first adhan and second adhan will be
rendered by none other than Sheikh Farooq Mohammed,
our very own esteemed teacher of islamia college.
Assalamu alaikum wa rakatuh.
Inshallah. Everyone is invited to join us inshallah.
Some,
between short period of time make that intention
to spend
that time
between
and program. Males and females are welcome to
come Some refreshments after some coolness will be
served
after the program.
Along
with love.