Zaid Shakir – Good Character Rights and Responsibilities
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All praises due to Allah, the Lord of
all the worlds.
All praises due to Allah who has graced
us as in Ummah with the Quran.
With the
guidance of our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
who
is in historical
reality,
whose every move have has been recorded by
His followers
and passed on to us.
Sometimes
as believers,
rightfully,
we're very much concerned
with our worship.
We're concerned to make sure that our prayer,
our fasting,
particularly
the fast of Ramadan, which are is our
obligatory
fast,
our zakah,
our external
actions.
I'm conformedly
with the Kitab, the book of Allah,
and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
conforms to the
methodology
that our scholars have laid out for us.
And this is
very important,
but sometimes we neglect
focusing
to that extent on our behavior,
on how we treat people.
Our Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is related to him saying,
The essence
of this deen, this way of life that
we know as this as Islam
is how you deal with people, interact with
people, how you treat people.
There's a beautiful hadith, very brief hadith
that possibly
some of us might not have heard before.
The
hadith
hadith is related by
and
That Aisha relates that I heard the Messenger
of Allah,
peace and blessings of Allah upon him, say
that verily a believer
will reach
through his or her
literally his, but in
our sisters,
through his or her
good character,
The rank
of one who constantly
prays and stands at night in prayer.
So this
this emphasizes
to us the gravity of good character.
Our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
He was asked,
and
then
will
salallahu alaihi wa sallam was asked
about the thing which enters more people into
paradise.
And he responded
consciousness
of Allah, mindfulness of Allah, particularly particularly
mindfulness of His commandments and prohibitions
and good character.
And if
if if Taqwa is defined
by as many of the the Irul Ahmed
define Taqwa,
implementing the orders and avoiding the prohibitions, then
this is dealing with our
external actions,
our
our
the behavior
is dealing
good character with those actions that are
specifically
a part of our Ibadat.
When they become a part,
as Irulullah
said, With good intentions, ordinary actions become acts
of worship.
So I intend
through my good treatment of this person
to
to enhance their love for Allah
And their love for Allah leads them to
more willingly
implement his commandments and avoid avoid his prohibitions.
The point is
nothing
enters people into paradise more than these two
things.
He he didn't say one thing.
Abu Hurayrah he
didn't say, I heard someone ask about this
single thing.
On that
general,
that thing
which and he mentioned these 2, he could've
said
but he continued
Our rights
our rights that we owe, mentioned that din
and mu'anah,
the foundation of our good treatment of each
other
is good character.
So on the authority of Abi Zarr, may
Allah be pleased with him.
May Allah be pleased with the 2 of
them.
He said that the Messenger of Allah, peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him, said,
be mindful of Allah wherever you are.
Be mindful of Allah wherever you are.
This fulfills one of the rights we owe
to Allah,
that we don't join partners with Him,
and that we implement His commandments and prohibitions.
So we're mindful
of His commandments and prohibitions in order that
we will implement them.
What So that's a right wheel to Allah,
A right we owe to our soul.
What?
Any misdeeds you do follow it up with
a good duty
that will be right or,
more weighty.
Tell
any misdeeds you do, follow it up with
a good deed, being weightier
will wipe it out.
A good practice, if you have the ability,
if you can remember a place you sinned,
go back there and just
say
Because that spot when it delivers its its
akhbar, its news,
they'll say he told a lie here.
That she gossiped here,
but it also say
he said
Allahu Akbar, Allah no God but Allah, Allah
is the greatest, no strength or power but
Allah here.
And she gossiped over here
but something weightier than that.
She said there's no God but Allah, landhemulullah.
She said there's no strength or power except
That's the right to our soul.
Those who don't engage in
in in repentance,
they are the oppressors.
Oppressors against whom?
They oppress their own souls.
And deal with people
with good on the basis of good character.
Be honest with people, be truthful with people.
Don't violate their rights. Don't gossip about them.
Don't pass hearsay about them.
Be courageous in defending them,
etcetera.
Those are the rights we have to the
people
that encompasses
our 3 basic realms
of rights and responsibilities.
The rights we owe to Allah,
the rights we owe to ourselves, and the
rights we owe to the people. May Allah
bless us to fulfill those rights.
Goodness.
We mentioned the last kutba,
the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
Seek good
All the time you spend on this earth,
seek good.
So that goodness
that we should be a vessel
to convey
to the creation,
is a reflection
of our following
those who preceded us all the way back
to the Prophet Subhanahu Wa'ala wa sallam.
Allah mentions in Quran,
The first
trailblazers,
Who are they?
From the migrants,
those who are willing to leave everything
so that Islam could be established in this
world.
Those who are willing to give up everything
so that you and I,
long after they have passed away,
Those who received them,
and helped them and assisted them and would
be willing
to give them
a share of everything they owned.
And those who follow them in goodness.
Character. Dear brothers and sisters,
we shouldn't confine ourselves
to talking about how good these companions were.
How good the Tabby anymore.
How good did Tabi Amin work,
how good the generation of salahuddin
was,
Rahimullah.
But we should be committed
to doing everything in our power
to be good
and to extend good and to represent the
goodness that they embody
as part of our mission as Muslims.
Went and said,
went and saw
And those who follow them in goodness. That
includes us.
Allah is pleased with them.
And they are pleased with Allah.
This is very important.
We also mentioned last week or the last
khutbah here, maybe 2 weeks ago.
With Allah.
And so Allah is pleased with them, they
are pleased with Allah.
How do we know we're pleased with Allah?
Ask yourself, don't raise your hand, are you
pleased with Allah? No. Don't do that. Ask
yourself a simple question in privacy,
when no one's around,
am I giving
to complain?
Do I complain about my food?
Do I complain about the weather?
Do I complain about my spouse? Do I
complain about my children? Do I complain about
my parents?
Am I giving to constant complaining?
If you are,
you might not be pleased with Allah. I
say might not, you're not condemning anyone,
You're just saying there's a possibility
you're not pleased with Allah.
Because Allah ordained the food you're going to
eat, Allah ordained the spouse that you married,
Allah can ordain
with no control from you, the behavior of
your children, the environment they're coming into,
what kind of parent you will be.
It's all from the takadeer of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
So a complaint against the parents, the children,
the food, the weather,
is a complaint against the Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Those who are pleased with the law,
They are pleased with the decree of Allah
They are pleased with the ordainment of Allah.
And if something
happens
which is not as pleasant as they think
it should be, what do they say? Most
of us know the answer.
Allah decreed something and what he decreed
came to pass.
I'm pleased with the will and the decree
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Is that a light thing?
It's not a light thing
because after Allah mentions it,
and he says he's prepared for them
gardens beneath which rivers flow to dwell therein
forever.
He's that light
when then he can falls with our fleet.
That is the great victory.
If we gain that in this world,
we're victorious.
We're victorious.
And what does what does victory look like?
We keep continue with derivatives from
hassina.
Those who do good
will have good and they will have an
increase.
And what is the good?
What is the good?
The good is Jannah,
and
the the increase which will be the Eid
in Jannah.
So the Uleman say we have the weekly
Eid in Jum'ah,
we have the 2 annual Eid,
and and fitter with adha, the end of
Ramadan and the culmination of the Hajj,
and then they say we have all of
those in this world we have the other
world the Jannah,
and that's the day of the wuvia, the
beatific vision.
On that day, faces will be illuminated
gazing upon their Lord.
May Allah bless us,
all of us, each and every one of
us to experience that aid
and to pay the price, and the price
is just being good.
Being good in our worship,
being good to our souls,
being good to our fellow creatures.
May Allah bless us to be amongst those
people. May Allah bless us to have the
Husna and Ziyada.
May Allah good character's courage will conclude with
this. We're entering a
very tenuous time in the history of this
nation.
There are difficult days ahead, not just for
Muslims, for everybody.
But these days will require courage.
And some people who are courageous
have,
from
a worldly perspective,
not so easy a time.
But the great Imam Nitayniya, Raheemullah,
he described those consequences
that the true believer might
face in this world, and we only mentioned
this in the context of
The believer you throw him in prison is
an opportunity for intense worship.
You ex Adam,
take his visa away,
take his green card,
exile
him.
So you exile him, it's a it's a
travel adventure.
You kill him,
it's martyrdom.
And in paradise,
who have
that paradise and then increase the ruya.
This is the dunya.
We don't live for this world, we live
in this world,
And may Allah bless us to live in
it with the very best of character,
and the very best of focus,
but we live for a Jannah.
May Allah bless us to never take our
eyes off the prize.