Suleiman Hani – What Defines a Successful Ending
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AI: Transcript ©
One time in a classroom setting, a teacher
asked, what is a good ending?
What does it mean to have a good
ending?
And of course, without more context, the responses
were diverse.
A good ending in what sense?
A good ending for this class, for this
khutbah, for your program, for your diet, for
your habits, for your life, what is a
good ending?
Oftentimes, when you explore the writing of fiction
and the documentation of history, you find that
many people are looking for a certain type
of feeling at the end of a novel
or a movie or TV show.
They're looking for people living happily ever after.
They're looking for the main character to have
succeeded.
They're looking for some kind of conflict resolution.
They're oftentimes looking for happily ever after marriage
in their perspective.
They're looking for some kind of success or
hero versus villain.
And these are very common tropes, we know
this.
It's very common in script writing, in books
and in movies.
The reality is in Islam, when you talk
about human experiences and you talk about the
purpose of life and you talk about what
it means to have a good ending, what
does it mean to have a good ending?
You find that in conclusion, in short, a
good ending in Islam is not always about
worldly or material success.
Again, a good ending in Islam is not
always about a worldly or material success.
How do we know this?
We know this throughout the Quran, the emphasis
on the purpose of life and what it
means to leave this world in a good
state.
But of course, let's talk about lived reality.
Look at the companions of the Prophet, salallahu
alayhi wasalam.
It is true that some of them struggled
for many years and they succeeded with battle
after battle after battle after battle.
But let's look at the very first decisive
battle in Islamic history, the battle of Badr.
You find that despite the fact that the
Muslims, and they were much smaller number, were
given a worldly success.
313 versus over a thousand of the Qurayshi
pagans.
They were given a worldly success and Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the
Quran that He sent down the angels to
assist them.
The battle of Badr was a very decisive
one historically.
But we also know that some people were
martyred.
Does that mean those who survived, their ending
is good, and those who died as martyrs,
as shuhada, their ending was bad?
Of course not.
Those who left as shuhada are also successful.
They're also experiencing a good ending.
And the reality is when you look at
the different types of shahada, martyrdom in Islam,
as we mentioned previous khutbas before, it's of
many different types.
The highest ranking, the most rewarded, yes, is
on the battlefield like the example of the
companions here.
But there are over 30 different types of
shahada mentioned in authentic hadith.
Amongst them, the one who dies in a
fire, the mother who dies while giving birth,
the one who dies due to drowning, the
one who dies due to a stomach cancer,
and on and on.
There are many examples.
The point is that leaving this world, leaving
this world on its own does not mean
that this was a bad ending.
Meaning the ending of life, the cut off
of future ambitions and goals and dreams does
not mean this person had a bad ending,
not from the Islamic perspective whatsoever.
A good ending can be like the example
of the man in New York City over
15 years ago.
He came to the masjid after Isha prayer
had just finished.
And his friend told him where to go.
He came late.
He arrived to the masjid.
He's like, I'm ready to become Muslim.
There's a sense of urgency.
Anyways, they helped him.
He embraced Islam.
They gave him some materials to start with.
And he's like, I will be back for
the first prayer tomorrow morning, Fajr prayer.
They gave him some of those books that
people have when they first become Muslim.
And they wanted to teach him salah the
very next morning.
As they were leaving the masjid, I don't
know how far from the masjid, but as
one of the mashayikh told us firsthand, that
brother who just embraced Islam was hit by
a vehicle and he passed away.
May Allah have mercy on him.
He did not pray a single prayer, but
he died with sincerity and humility in his
heart.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave him
the blessing of becoming Muslim.
And his slate is now clean because this
is an act of tawbah from shirk coming
to the truth, coming to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
We don't know how we'll leave this world.
We don't know how we will depart from
this life.
What is a good ending?
We have examples of good endings when people
are tested with hardships.
May Allah alleviate our hardships in our brothers
and sisters.
But as they are experiencing hardship, they hold
on to their faith.
There are people who lose their faith in
times of hardship.
They want to worship Allah only when things
are going well in a material sense.
They worship Allah on their terms.
May Allah protect us from any kind of
fitna.
Allahumma ameen.
So the reality is when you look at
the lived human experience and the stories of
the Qur'an, and they are almost 23
or 24% of the Qur'an in
terms of the number of verses, you find
that the people of certain prophets, their ending
is mentioned explicitly.
Like Prophet Hud a.s. Prophet Salih a
.s. Yes, there were some believers, but for
the most part, people rejected the clear evidence
that this is a prophet of God, the
message that he came with.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us
how He gave them an opportunity through these
prophets, and then they were punished.
When it was known that none of them,
no matter what, they would not believe anymore,
they were punished.
And their punishment, their ending is detailed in
the Qur'an for a reason.
These are lessons for later nations.
These are lessons for us.
You look at the example of Nuh a
.s. Yes, he had a good ending in
terms of being saved, and the believers who
are less than 100 with him were saved.
But his own son chose to flee to
a mountain, thinking with some pride that I'm
going to be safe on this day.
سَآوِي إِلَى جَبَلٍ يَعْصِمُنِي مِنَ الْمَاءِ I'm going
to go to a mountain that will save
me from this flood.
And Nuh a.s. is pleading to his
son to ride with us.
اِرْكَمْ مَعْنَا Ride with us.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us,
the waves came in between them.
And he became amongst those who drowned with
the disbelievers.
So when you look at the examples of
good endings, you see a really interesting case
study of Surah Al-Buruj.
Now in the Madani Mus'haf, in the
print that is very common, it's one page
this Surah, approximately one page.
And you have within it references to three
different nations, three different people.
Amongst them you have a reference to Fir
'aun, but specifically, the one I want to
talk about is the people of the ditch.
These were Muslims, they submitted, they believed in
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because of a
miracle that they saw on the young boy.
It's a long story, I think we had
a khutbah on this before.
They became Muslim and the king told them,
he threatened them, if you don't leave this
faith, you will all be killed.
Whoever refuses to let go of this faith
will be killed.
And they dug a ditch for them, lit
and kindled a large fire, and they were
threatened.
They held on to their faith and they
died.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala details their
history, their story, their experience in the Qur
'an for us to recite until the end
of times and to learn from.
You would look at a story like this
and say they were killed.
Is this a bad ending?
No, they were all shuhada.
They're all martyrs.
So sometimes we need to take a step
back and redefine what it means to have
a good ending.
The longest and most detailed single story in
one sequence in the Qur'an, the story
of Yusuf a.s. Pretty much most people
know the story.
Yusuf a.s. story is detailed in the
entire Qur'an once and it is in
Surah Yusuf.
His actual story is found only once and
it is in Surah Yusuf.
You find that what looks to be a
happy ending, that he succeeded, the dream came
true, he was given a position as a
minister, his family came, the brothers admitted, confessed
what they did to him, that they tried
to hurt him, harm him, kill him.
When you look at the ending of the
story, some people say, well, this is a
happy ending.
This is an example that's rare in the
Qur'an.
A happy worldly ending.
But if you take a step back and
you look at the rest of the story,
you see what?
Before that ending, you find that Prophet Yusuf
a.s. suffered a lot, struggled so much.
His own brothers, your own family, throwing him
into the well, the hardships he went through
in the palace of the minister, being accused
of certain things, being thrown behind bars and
he was innocent.
Prophet Yusuf a.s. went through many struggles
and hardships before what we see as a
worldly success or worldly victory.
And at the end of the day, the
point of all of this is to say,
happy material endings are not the goal in
Islam.
We seek comfort at times.
But comfort is not guaranteed in this life.
May Allah protect us.
May Allah make us grateful for all the
comforts that we have.
May Allah alleviate the affairs of those who
are suffering and struggling around the world.
We find that a happy material success is
not the goal in Islam.
And in fact, there isn't a concept in
Islam of the pursuit of happiness in the
sense of materialism.
There's a pursuit of contentment, tranquility in the
heart.
And a person can be content with very
little.
And a person can have a lot and
be very miserable and empty inside, looking for
more and more and more.
We see in the Qur'an, we see
in the Sunnah, we see in the books
of history an emphasis on where you came
from and where you're headed.
Who are you at the end of the
day?
And so I want to just mention these
three quick reminders.
When it comes to where we came from
and where we're headed, number one, if you
want to have some humility in a moment
in which there's some pride, if you ever
felt any kind of pride whatsoever, may Allah
protect us.
Think about where biologically you came from.
Think about the reality that we come from
nothing.
We come from things that we don't like
to talk about.
And the soul was given to us as
a blessing from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We are souls with vehicles, with bodies intertwined.
And this will bring some humility.
If you want to have more humility, think
about death and where your body is headed
and where your soul is headed.
Think about the reality that the body will
deteriorate.
And this will bring some humility.
However, in between birth and death, these two
reminders of humility is the test of the
state of the heart, is the test that
you will not become an arrogant person because
you have a job, because you think you're
better than others, because you have a certain
home, you live in a certain city, because
of your ethnicity, your language doesn't really matter.
There is no reason or permission or excuse
or room in Islam to ever think you
are better than other people.
To look down on other people, the Prophet
ﷺ defined this as kibr, as arrogance.
And the second part of arrogance is to
reject the truth when it comes to you.
That when it comes to you, you accept
this is true, I must change.
And the reality is oftentimes we don't accept
the truth when it comes to us.
May Allah ﷻ protect us and forgive us.
هَلْ أَتَى عَلَى الْإِنسَانِ حِينٌ مِّنَ الدَّهْرِ لَمْ
يَكُنْ شَيْءً مَذْكُورًا Allah ﷻ tells us in
surah al-Dahr or surah al-Insan, a
reminder about time or humanity, the two nicknames
for this surah.
Allah ﷻ reminds us that there was a
period of time in which we were not
even mentioned.
We were not mentioned.
We did not exist.
You did not walk on this earth.
So if Allah ﷻ blesses you with a
job, if Allah ﷻ blesses you with any
kind of privilege or test of this life,
and you know that others don't have this
test or this privilege or this blessing, don't
ever look down on others.
For as quickly as it came to you,
and as you quickly came into this world,
it can leave you as well.
May Allah ﷻ grant us humility.
There's a young brother that asked me recently,
what are some signs that our ending in
life is a good ending?
And when you leave this world, you left
in a good state.
Generally speaking, most of us know that yes,
towards the end of one's life, if you're
being righteous, you're taking care of your prayers,
your character is good, you're not committing sins,
you say the shahada at least once towards
the end of your life or as the
last statement, you know that these are good
signs.
In addition, some of the scholars say is
dying as a shaheed, we mentioned, there are
many different types of shahada.
Another is the janazah prayer itself, that it
was decreed for this person to have a
janazah prayer for at least 40, 50, 60,
100 people to come and pray.
There's a specific hadith that mentions, those who
die and 40 people pray janazah upon them,
they will be forgiven in that state, meaning
the one who died will be forgiven.
Another thing that is mentioned is that often
times when those who passed away and they
are righteous, they are being washed or they're
being buried, that sometimes people are smelling something
good coming from them, something that they cannot
fully describe.
And there are other examples as well, but
the end of the day all comes down
to their taqwa, their righteousness, their consistency.
What did they do in their last moments,
their last days?
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala have mercy
on us.
Umar ibn Abdul Aziz r.a, is considered
by some scholars because of how righteous he
was, and he was a descendant of Umar
ibn al-Khattab, he was considered to be
like the fifth of the rightly guided khulafa.
And Umar ibn Abdul Aziz r.a, within
two years of being the khalifa, he changed
so many things, reformed so many policies.
And in fact, there were so many injustices
during the Umayyad dynasty that he repealed, that
he changed.
At the end of his life, he was
in a way poisoned and slowly was dying.
At the end of his life, on his
deathbed, his wife who reports this story, his
wife Fatima, rahimahullah, and her brother, they were
both there.
And they reported, and this is found in
number of books of biography, that at one
point at the end of his life, he
said, leave, leave the room completely.
And in one report he says, welcome to
these faces that I see, faces that are
neither the faces of humans nor jinn, meaning
it's as though he was seeing something else
and Allah knows best.
But then in particular, in the narrations that
we find, is that he kept repeating one
specific ayah.
He kept going back to this one verse.
In one of the narration said, he would
repeat it, in another he said he mentioned
it.
What is this verse that he says as
he passes away?
تِلْكَ الدَّارُ الْآخِرَةُ نَجْعَلُهَا لِلَّذِينَ لَا يُرِيدُونَ عُلُوًّا
فِي الْأَرْضِ وَلَا فَسَادًا وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ That eternal
home, in the hereafter, we reserve, meaning Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la reserves, for
those who are not looking for tyranny or
corruption in the earth, and the ultimate outcome
is only for the righteous, Al-Muttaqeen.
It's only for those who have taqwa, God
consciousness.
He mentioned this ayah, and then they heard
silence, meaning he stopped repeating over and over
and over, and eventually went into check, and
in fact he had passed away.
What's interesting about this ayah, it's really really
remarkable.
If you were just to think deeply about
it, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
is linking arrogance, pride, corruption, tyranny, to all
types of crimes in this world.
And you'll find that an increase in arrogance
amongst humanity or a society or an individual,
you'll find an increase in immorality, an injustice,
an abuse.
In just one family you can observe such
a thing, that if the head of the
household is arrogant or has pride in their
hearts, that there will be some immorality, there
will be some corruption, there will be some
impact of their oppression or their abuse.
May Allah protect us and grant us humility.
So increased arrogance leads to increased crime in
the world.
May Allah protect us.
And the second is that your position in
the next life is proportionate to how much
humility you live upon in this life.
And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
says, وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ The good outcome, the ultimate
outcome is for those who have taqwa.
Those who are afraid of breaking the laws
of Allah.
Those who are so mindful of Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, they're not coming
close to the lines, the boundaries that Allah
has revealed.
And if they accidentally fall into sin, they
immediately go back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la.
So every time you find yourself perhaps angry
or about to react to a situation or
oppress someone or insult someone, remember, وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ
The good ending is for the believers right
after this.
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la gives
us some good news.
مَنْ جَاءَ بِالْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُ خَيْرٌ مِنْهَا Whoever brings
on the day of judgment, whoever comes with
a good deed, they will be given much
more than it.
Meaning the good deeds are multiplied.
Look at the mercy of Allah.
And then, وَمَنْ جَاءَ بِالسَّيِّئَةِ Whoever comes with
a sin, فَلَا يُجْزَى الَّذِينَ عَمِلُوا السَّيِّئَاتِ إِلَّا
مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ They will not be given
except that as a compensation, a punishment, consequence
for what they used to do.
Meaning what?
The sin is for the sin.
It doesn't mean it's a light punishment.
But the sin is not going to be
multiplied unfairly.
Everyone who deals with any kind of purification
or punishment in the next life, it's because
they actually deserve it.
And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
is Al-Hakeem, the All-Wise.
So once again, as we go about life,
as you go about your weekly work, your
studies, your education, many of you are, alhamdulillah,
starting your university classes again.
Your internships, as many people are raising their
children, as many people are doing different things
and trying to figure out the next move
in life.
Remember the promise of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la that the believer always has
a good ending.
The believer always has a good ending so
long as they hold on to that taqwa,
so long as they hold on to their
iman in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la.
And if you ever find yourself in a
heated argument with a loved one, in a
bad situation in terms of conflict, don't let
it end on a bad note.
Don't let a situation leave with some kind
of division or conflict or enmity in the
hearts.
The same way that when you start to
your university classes, your high school classes, you
should be looking ahead.
You should be looking at the end.
What do you want to do?
Do you want to celebrate or regret?
Do you want to pass or do you
want to fail?
If you want to pass, then focus.
Put in the effort that is required of
you.
And at the end of your day, every
single day, ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la for forgiveness because we have many
shortcomings from morning to night.
And of course, thank Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la for all the blessings that
He has given us.
May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
forgive us.
Ask Allah for forgiveness.
He is the All-Forgiving, the Ever Merciful.