Safi Khan – Jumuah 27-09-2024
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Allah is the greatest, Allah is
the greatest, Allah is the greatest,
Allah is the greatest.
I bear witness that there is no god
but
Allah.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger
of Allah.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger
of Allah.
Come to success,
come to success.
Allah is the greatest, Allah
is the greatest, Allah is the greatest, there
is no god but Allah.
Praise be to Allah, then praise be to
Allah.
Praise be to Allah, we praise Him, we
ask for His help, we ask for His
forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from
the evil of our souls and from the
evil of our deeds.
Whom Allah guides is the one who is
guided, and whom He misguides, you will not
find a guardian for him.
I bear witness that there is no god
but Allah, there is no partner for Him.
I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant
and Messenger, peace be upon him.
Allah says in the Holy Quran, after I
seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan,
O you who have believed, fear Allah as
He should be feared, and you will not
die except as Muslims.
O you who have believed, fear your Lord
who created you from one soul, and He
created from it a wife, and He spread
among them many men and women.
And fear Allah with whom you ask for
help and mercy, for Allah is watching over
you.
Amma ba'd, our beautiful deen teaches us of
a concept that is rooted in the principle
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put certain
blessings into certain things that are done in
certain ways over others.
That two people could seemingly be doing the
exact same thing, but one person's reward could
be exponentially higher than the other person.
One person's yield may be exponentially greater than
the other person's yield.
And the principle that lies within that process
is something in Arabic that we call barakah,
we call blessings.
And the ulama and the fuqaha, they have
all translated the word barakah in different ways.
Imam al-Ghazali, rahimahullah, he says that barakah
is the attachment of divine goodness to anything.
So if it occurs in something little, it
automatically increases it because of the blessing and
the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
within that thing.
Imam al-Nawawi, rahimahullah, along the lines of
Ibn Taymiyyah, rahimahullah, both of them say that
barakah is when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
puts khair in something, even if it is
small, that thing eventually increases in quality, in
quantity, and any other measure of goodness that
you can imagine.
Imam Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahullah, says something very
beautiful about barakah.
He says that barakah is a secret that
lies within things.
It is a hidden and concealed element, but
it can be sensed and experienced by those
who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blesses.
How beautiful of definitions is the idea of
barakah.
This concept of barakah, I wanted to share
just a couple of riwayat to help us
understand not only what barakah was in the
life of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam,
but what symptoms of barakah existed within his
actions alayhi salatu wa salam that increased the
blessing of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
if another person were to do the exact
same thing, they would not actually get the
same reward as the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam.
It is because he did certain things in
the way that he did them that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed him so exponentially
in all of his endeavors.
One of the most famous narrations from the
seerah of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
took place in a time, and in fact,
in the books of hadith, this was actually
in a chapter called maghazi, the battles, the
chapters of battles within the life of the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And when you automatically think of battles, you
don't think of battles having blessing within them.
Battles are usually things that nowadays we've kind
of broken down to just dunyawi, you know,
shahwat and desires and greed and whatnot.
But even within the expeditions of the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala would put this beautiful, beautiful pieces of
barakah within them.
And so this narration comes from a companion
by the name of Jabir ibn Abdullah radiallahu
ta'ala anhu.
And Jabir ibn Abdullah radiallahu anhu would say
that we were digging the trench on the
day of khandaq.
We were digging the trench, and that trench
was influenced by a very beautiful sahabi by
the name of Salman al-Farisi radiallahu anhu,
this Persian sahabi.
He came and he gave the ummah in
Medina this beautiful idea that back in Persia
during times of war, what we would do
is that we would build this trench around
the city to fortify the city so people
could not pass through so easily.
And so Jabir ibn Abdullah, he says, we
were digging the trench on the day of
khandaq, and we came across a big solid
rock.
And we went to the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam, and we said to him, here
is a rock appearing across the trench, ya
Rasulullah, we do not know how to break
it down.
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he
says, I'm coming to help you.
And so when he got up, Jabir ibn
Abdullah, he says, we saw around the stomach,
the torso of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam, he saw some rocks or stones tied
around the torso.
And this was being done, by the way,
because the time of khandaq was such a
depleting time.
It was in the winter of Medina.
And if anybody has ever been to Medina
in the wintertime, you're kind of shocked to
see that it's actually very cool.
Now imagine 1500 years ago, right?
There would be extreme cold at that time.
And because of the cold, there was a
scarcity of food.
And so because of this, the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam and a lot of the
other sahaba along with him, they used to
tie stones around their stomachs to basically trick
the mind psychologically to think that my stomach
is full.
And so when Jabir ibn Abdullah, he saw
this, he said that I went to my
wife.
I went home to my wife because the
battle, Ghazwatul Khandaq, it took place in Medina.
And so he went home to his wife
and he said that I have seen the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam in such a
state that it really bothers my heart.
It bothers my heart.
I cannot stand to look at our Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam look like this, to
suffer like this, go hungry like this.
Is there anything that we have that we
can share with him, that we can feed
him with that will get him a little
bit of a more energetic state?
And so his wife looks at him and
she says that we don't have much to
begin with.
We ourselves are struggling.
We don't really have too much in our
own home.
I have some flour that I can put
some water in and make some sort of
dry bread if I can.
And we have this small, extremely tiny malnourished
goat in the backyard and we can slaughter
that goat and cook something.
But it's only enough to feed one or
two or three people maximum.
So we can do whatever we can, but
it will not be much.
And so Jabir ibn Abdullah, he says, fine,
khalas, let's do it.
Slaughter that animal, make the bread.
I will go call the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam over to our home and he
will at least have something to eat.
And so Jabir radiallahu anhu, he goes back
to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and
he says, Ya Rasulullah, I have got a
little food prepared.
So get up, Ya Rasulullah, and come with
me so that you may be able to
nourish yourself and call one or two other
of the sahaba to come along with you
to eat just for the sake of barakah.
Okay, and so Jabir ibn Abdullah, he tells
the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he gives
him the invitation and then he goes back
home.
And so the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam,
he gets up and he says, how much
food is there?
How much food is there?
And Jabir radiallahu anhu, he explains to him
how much food he has and the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he says, this is
kathiran.
There's an abundance of it.
You see the mentality of the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam?
It's never too little.
We can always work with this.
We can take something small and make it
much more beneficial.
He used to always have this mentality of
the glass being half full.
So he said, kathiran tayyiban.
There's a lot of good and a lot
of abundance within the food that you told
me about.
And so he tells Jabir ibn Abdullah, he
says, tell your wife to not remove the
lid to this pot from the fire and
not to take any bread from the oven
till I reach there.
Leave everything as is until I arrive in
your home.
And so Jabir ibn Abdullah, he leaves from
the company of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam and he goes back home.
He tells his wife all of these kind
of advices the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
gave him.
And so Jabir and his wife are expecting
Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wa sallam and maybe one
or two of the sahaba.
And if you were to kind of guess,
right, this would be, you know, when you
get that VIP private invitation, right?
The red carpet is rolled out for you.
You got the guy taking your car out
to the back, you know, parking for you.
This may be the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam and maybe Abu Bakr and maybe Umar
radiallahu anhu.
That's it.
Nobody else other than that.
So when Jabir radiallahu anhu, he gets back
home, the wife of Jabir, she says, Did
you invite the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam?
He says, Yes, I have.
And I told him to only bring one
or two people.
And then moments later, all of a sudden,
they hear footsteps, heavy footsteps approaching their home.
And they look out of their home and
the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is walking
towards them with hundreds of sahaba following him.
And that there's any family members here who
have told their husbands or their wives, you
can only invite three of your friends.
And then the entire khandan shows up.
You know how angry a spouse would get,
right?
You've embarrassed me.
You've ruined me.
Now we won't have enough food.
The house is a mess.
I only told you to invite two people.
You invited 700.
What is this?
Okay.
So she gets embarrassed.
The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he walks
in.
And when he comes into the home, he
brings the muhajireen and the ansar.
And he says, Wait out here for me.
So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he
enters the home.
And he says, Open the pot that you
have cooked this meat in, this lahm in
just a little bit.
And don't remove the entire pot.
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he
makes a dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
He makes, he claims and he begins with
the name of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And he makes dua to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala to increase and put barakah in
this food.
And through the small sliver of the opening
of the top of the lid, the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he would grab a
plate.
And he would put some food, some meat
on the plate with a little bit of
bread on top of it.
And he would call a few of the
sahaba in at a time.
So maybe seven or eight people had eaten.
And then they would leave.
And then he would call another seven or
eight people in.
And they would eat from the plate.
And then they would leave.
And then some of the other sahaba would
come.
And then they would leave.
And Jabir ibn Abdullah is sitting here.
And he's looking at this situation with his
jaw absolutely dropped.
How is it possible that we had food
for only two or three people?
And now all of a sudden, hundreds of
the worshippers of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
have eaten.
And they are happy.
And they are full.
And now there is food left for even
me and my family.
And at the end of the narration, it
mentions here that after everyone had eaten their
fill, till they all ate their fill.
By the way, they didn't just take one
bite.
Everyone took a few bites.
And they ate till their fill.
And Jabir ibn Abdullah, he said, some food
remained.
There was some food left.
Subhanallah, some of us eat with our friends
selfishly to the point where there's nothing remaining
on the plate.
Clean.
The plate is actually more clean than when
the person washed it in the back of
the restaurant.
That's how we eat sometimes.
There was some food remaining.
And at this point, Jabir ibn Abdullah, he
says, When
you look at this narration, there are a
few moments of barakah that are so easily
detectable.
What are some of the symptoms of barakah
that we saw from this one riwayah?
Number one is that the Prophet ﷺ himself
benefited from the invitation and the welcoming of
Jabir ibn Abdullah radiAllahu ta'ala.
Jabir ibn Abdullah, he saw the Prophet ﷺ
in a state that made him uncomfortable.
And he said, even if I don't have
much, even if I don't have much, I
want you to come and I want you
to eat whatever I do have.
It's like when you go to somebody's home
and you walk into their home and they
are embarrassed that we haven't cooked a meal
for you.
But what I have is a few biscuits
and I can make you some chai.
I don't have much.
I have some crackers or some cookies or
some biscuits here.
I don't have anything else.
And they feel embarrassed.
You know what's within that food right there?
It's barakah.
There's barakah within that food.
The thought that a person had that even
though I don't have much, I still want
to offer something.
Everybody has something that they can give.
This is what gains barakah in that person's
life.
So that idea of welcoming, the idea of
inviting somebody despite how much you have is
the first step of barakah.
Number two is that the Prophet ﷺ understood
that all of this that we have around
us is not ours to begin with.
I had a brother, subhanAllah, here last night
after the Thursday night class that we conduct
at Roots.
He came and he told me, he said,
you know, I've lost something in my life.
And, you know, every person I've asked, what
do I do about this loss?
They tell me to continue to make the
same du'a.
And that du'a is, إِنَّ لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّ
إِلَيْهِ رَجِعُونَ He said, can you explain to
me why people have been asking me to
make this du'a, إِنَّ لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّ إِلَيْهِ
رَجِعُونَ And I explained to him, I said,
this du'a is a testimony that nothing
you have is actually yours.
That nothing you have is actually yours.
The dunya and shaytan together combine to convince
the human mind that whatever is around you
is yours and yours only.
And if you give it away, then you're
going to be the one that loses out.
But when the Prophet ﷺ came to the
home of Jabir and he said, there's only
food for two or three people, the Prophet
ﷺ immediately thought of his 700 sahaba that
were waiting outside the door.
Why?
Because, وَمِمَّا رَزَقُنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ They give from what
Allah عز و جل has given them.
Whenever I have something in my life, I
cannot think but to share that small thing
with somebody, even if it's one person.
This is why there was actually a narration
that was attributed to Ibrahim ﷺ that Ibrahim
ﷺ never ate a meal by himself ever
in his life.
If there was food for him to eat,
he would find somebody else to eat with
rather than eat that food by himself.
There's barakah within it.
وَمِمَّا رَزَقُنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ And then the third symptom
of barakah within this narration itself is that
the Prophet ﷺ had confidence in Allah that
Allah would take care of the situation that
seemed logically impossible.
Logic, right?
This is one of the things that's brought
to us in this narration.
How could food for three feed 700?
Logically it seems impossible.
How is that possible for something to take
place like that?
But what does Allah ﷻ tell us in
the Qur'an?
Allah ﷻ, He shares with us in Surah
At-Talaq, He says, وَمَن يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ
لَهُ مَخْرَجًۭا وَيَرْزُقْهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ وَمَن
يَتَوَكَّرْ عَلَى اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُ If you have
Allah ﷻ in mind, يَجْعَلْ لَهُ مَخْرَجًۭا Allah
ﷻ will make for you an exit from
whatever difficult situation that you're going through.
وَيَرْزُقْهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ And He will
allow rizq, provisions, to appear in your life
من حيث لا يحتسب from places that you
could never imagine.
I got a job in this city that
I didn't even interview in.
How does that make sense?
I interviewed for 8 other jobs.
The 9th job was a job I didn't
even interview for and that's the job that
Allah ﷻ gave me.
وَيَرْزُقْهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ Allah ﷻ will
provide for you things that you never saw
coming in your life.
But one must have conviction that Allah ﷻ
can do that for you.
One must have trust in Allah ﷻ that
Allah ﷻ can do that for you.
The 4th symptom of barakah within this narration
is that you look at everybody around them,
they didn't take more than they needed.
Everyone took just enough so that they could
eat and everybody around them could eat.
Think about the people around you.
You know one of the greatest things that
I thought of subhanAllah when I was putting
this khutbah together.
I was transporting myself back to 2020 when
COVID first hit and everybody was in a
scarcity of paper towels.
And the grocery stores would have it lined
up on the aisles, please one per person,
two per person.
And I thought to myself subhanAllah, what a
society we've become.
Where we could care less about somebody else
and their family.
I'd rather hoard and make sure that I
have more than I need than the person
next to me having even the bare minimum.
But the barakah that Islam teaches us about
is that I shouldn't feel comfortable taking to
the point where I know the person next
to me will be suffering because of my
own selfishness.
And this is where we get the narrations
in the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ that
you should not go to sleep in the
evening knowing that your neighbor next to you
is hungry.
But what does that narration not say verbally
but says implicitly, you have to know that
your neighbor is hungry.
You have to have a heart.
You have to have a heart that beats.
Allah Ta'ala creates everybody with ears, with
eyes, with a mouth and a tongue and
a heart that beats.
But those things just because you have them
doesn't mean that they do their job.
A person can have a heart that doesn't
feel.
A person can have ears that don't hear.
A person can have eyes that don't see.
It is up to you as the creation
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to use
these faculties towards the pleasure of Allah Ta
'ala.
The last few blessings is that the Prophet
ﷺ himself was a man that gained the
barakah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala from
all the other endeavors in his life.
You've ever met somebody like that?
A person that just walks around and alhamdulillah,
just they seem content with everything.
Even if they have little.
Why?
Because everything they do, they do it with
the pleasure of Allah Ta'ala in mind.
They're happy.
This is why by the way, there are
people in the world that may make $40
,000, they're more happier than a person who
makes $500,000.
Why?
That proves to you that money, quantifiable measure
is not what actually wins and cultivates happiness
and contentment in life.
What cultivates contentment and happiness in life is
whenever somebody is pleased with Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and they are pleasing to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
make us of the people who have barakah
within our lives.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to always allow us to be people who
do actions in this world with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala in mind.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to allow us to be people that always,
always follow in the footsteps of the Prophet
ﷺ.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to allow us to be people who are
selfless, that we do things selflessly and we
think about the people around us.
سبحانك اللهم وبحمدك ونشهد أن لا إله إلا
أنت نستغفرك ونتوب إليك الحمد
لله رب العالمين الصلاة والسلام على رسول الله
وعلى آله وأصحابه أجمعين I wanted to finish
with one short narration from a sahabi by
the name of Hakeem bin Hizam.
Hakeem bin Hizam رضي الله تعالى عنه went
through a very beautiful moment with the Prophet
ﷺ one time.
Hakeem رضي الله عنه was actually a person
who used to ask the Prophet ﷺ for
charity once in a while in his life.
He used to go to the Prophet ﷺ
and ask him, Ya Rasulullah, can you offer
me this?
Can you give me this?
Can you give me that?
And he said, in this particular riwayah in
Bukhari, he says, I asked the Prophet ﷺ
for some money one time and he gave
it to me.
And then again I asked him and then
he gave it to me again.
And then I asked him thrice and he
gave it to me and then he said
something on the third time.
On the third time, the Prophet ﷺ he
said, this wealth that I'm giving you, this
wealth is like green and sweet fruit.
Fruit that is very, very ripe and ready
for the picking.
And whoever takes it without greed, Allah سُبْحَانَهُ
وَ تَعَالَى will put barakah within whatever they
take.
But whoever takes it with greed, with selfishness,
with hunger of desire and things that they
want in the dunya, then Allah will not
bless it for him and he will be
like the one who eats but is never
satisfied.
وَكَانَكَ الَّذِي يَأْكُلُ وَلَا يَشْبَعُ They will eat
and they will drink but they will never
be quenched of their thirst and they will
never be satiated from their hunger.
And then the very end of the hadith
he says, وَالْيَدُ الْعُلْيَةِ خَيْرٌ مِّنَ الْيَدُ السُّفْلَةِ
He says, the upper hand that gives is
better than the lower hand that receives.
This is a powerful narration that teaches us
that don't focus on what you have, focus
on what you're doing with what you have.
Focus on how you treat the ni'ma of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in your life.
You may only have one child, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala will bless that child as
though you have 10.
You may only have a few dollars in
your bank account but those dollars will act
like thousands of dollars where other people who
have a lot more than you do, those
thousands of dollars will seem very minuscule.
You may have a job that you go
to 9 to 5 and you don't really
enjoy it but somehow some way you receive
satisfaction from being able to take care of
yourself and your life and your family.
You may not have the most friends in
your life, you may only have one or
two friends in your phone that you text
and you call and you check up on
while other people around you may have 20,
30, 40 group chats that are nauseating that
they belong to.
But those one or two friends that you
have subhanAllah have the quality of the sahaba
radiallahu anhum.
This is what is meant by barakah.
A little bit may go a long way.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
put barakah in our lives.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
allow us to be people who are conscious
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
allow us to be people who follow in
the sunnah of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
allow us to be people who are pleasing
to him.
رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً
وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ اللهم
صلي على سيدنا محمد وعلى آل محمد كما
صليت على إبراهيم وعلى آل إبراهيم إنك حميدٌ
مجيد اللهم بارك على محمد وعلى آل محمد
كما باركت على إبراهيم وعلى آل إبراهيم إنك
حميدٌ مجيد عباد الله إن الله يؤمن بالعدل
والإحسان وإتاء ذي الكربى وينهى عن الفحشاء والمنكر
والبغي