Zia Sheikh – Blessing of Shaban
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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 prayer.
Come to prayer.
Come to success.
Come to success.
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.
My dear respected elders, brothers and sisters, I
think most of you are aware that the
month of Sha'ban has already started.
This is the month that comes between Rajab
and Ramadan.
I have just narrated a hadith in front
of you in which Usama ibn Zaid states
that he asked the Prophet of Allah a
question.
He says that I said to the Prophet
of Allah, O Prophet of Allah, I've
never seen you fasting in any other month
as much as you do in the month
of Sha'ban.
The Prophet of Allah responded by saying that
that is a month that many people are
ignorant about or they ignore it.
Why would they ignore it?
Because it comes between two great months.
Rajab is basically one of the Ashur-ul
-Hurum and Ramadan, we know the status of
Ramadan.
So because it comes between those two, it
kind of gets neglected and people forget about
its status.
So the Prophet of Allah said that people
are ignorant about or they ignore this blessed
month.
And this is the month in which the
A'mal are raised up to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
They are given to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
Basically an audit takes place for all of
our A'mal in the month of Sha'ban.
And the Prophet of Allah goes on to
say, So I love that my deeds are
raised up to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
while I am fasting.
So there's a few things here that we
need to understand and pay attention to.
The ulema say that the raising of the
deeds to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, they
take place on three specific occasions.
One is the daily raising of the A'mal.
This takes place on a daily basis.
It is mentioned in a hadith, There are
angels of the night and there are angels
of the day.
And they take turns.
They come one after the other.
And they gather at Salatul Fajr time and
Salatul Asr time.
Then the angels that are leaving their duty
and they are going up to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
asks them, How did you leave my slaves?
Meaning what were they doing?
Were they engaged in sin?
Were they engaged in disobedience?
Or were they engaged in Ibadah?
We came to them.
We left them while they were praying and
we came to them while they were praying.
So basically, we left them at the time
of Fajr and they were praying.
And when we came back to them at
Salatul Asr, they were also praying.
So again, this shows the importance of the
times of Fajr and Asr.
The Salat time itself to pray the Salat
on a daily basis because it is the
time in which the angels are switching duties.
And also the time of Salatul Asr and
the Ibadah that takes place between Salatul Fajr
until sunrise and Salatul Asr until sunset.
It is an important time because of this
issue.
So this first example is the example of
the daily reporting of the a'mal of a
person that is done on a daily basis.
So this is one aspect of reporting of
our duties.
The second aspect is one which is done
on a weekly basis.
And that is Abu Hurairah radiallahu ta'ala
who he narrates, سمعت رسول الله صلى الله
عليه وسلم قال إِنَّ أَعْمَالَ بَنِ آدَم تُعَرَضُ
كُلَّ خَمِيسٍ لَيْلَةَ الْجُمْعَةِ فَلَا يُخْبَلُ عَمَلُ قَاطِيَ
الرَّحِيمِ The Prophet ﷺ mentioned that on Thursday
night, meaning the night between Thursday and Friday,
the a'mal are presented to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and the only person whose deeds
are not accepted is the person who is
doing qat'ur rahim.
He is basically breaking relationships with his relatives
and he is not talking to them, so
his deeds are not accepted by Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
So this is the second category of our
deeds being presented to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala which is done on a weekly basis.
And then the third one is the one
that we've mentioned in this hadith that I
mentioned at the beginning of the khutbah in
which the Prophet ﷺ said that in the
month of Sha'ban the deeds are presented
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, so this
is the annual presentation that takes place.
So again, it could take place any time
during the month, so this is a month
in which we should be particular about being
observant and worshipping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and fasting as much as possible.
The other
thing is that because the month of Sha
'ban is coming before the month of Ramadan,
so this is the month in which we
get a chance to practice our fasting.
So what we say is, the word used
in the English language is, to go into
something called Turkey without practicing.
So that's why what happens is in the
beginning of Ramadan, everyone is kind of groggy
and have a headache because of not having
coffee in the morning and grouchy and don't
bother me right now, I don't want to
talk to you.
So this happens in the beginning of Ramadan,
why?
Because we haven't practiced the fasting before the
month of Ramadan itself.
So if we were to practice in the
month of Sha'ban the fasting, then the
beginning of Ramadan would become very easy for
us.
So this is one thing.
And the second thing is that you can
assume that the fasting in the month of
Sha'ban is just like the Sunnah before
the Salat.
When we come for Salat, why do we
pray the Sunnah?
Because we are mentally preparing ourselves for the
Fard, which is the most important Salat.
The Sunnah is also, we are conversing with
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we are talking
to Him, we are praying to Him.
But the Fard is the main component, the
main Ibadah, that is the obligatory part and
that is the Ibadah which we should do
it in the most perfect way.
So when a person is praying the Sunnah
before the Salat, he is actually getting into
the mindset of meeting Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
Just like a person who is preparing for
an interview, a very important interview which is
going to change his life, and it's an
important job, well-paying, and it's going to
be a very critical interview.
Just imagine how he is preparing in his
mind the different questions that are going to
come to him by the person who is
going to interview him and how he is
thinking and pondering.
And before he steps into that office where
the interview is going to take place, how
he is kind of prepared mentally to face
those questions.
So if you can imagine that kind of
mindset and now compare that with our meeting
five times daily with Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, how we deal with it.
It's kind of we come to the prayer
quickly, pray the Salat, and then just go
as if it's just something that we needed
to shrug off, a responsibility that we wanted
to just shrug off.
The reality is that each and every Salat
should be prepared for.
Right from the time we make Wudu until
the time we actually complete the Salat, this
preparation is for the Salat itself.
So similar to the Sunnah that we pray
before the Salat, is the Nafl fasting before
the month of Ramadan in the month of
Sha'ban.
So this is, inshallah, one of the reasons
that we should do it.
Imam Ibn Qayyim, rahimahullah, he says about this
Hadith that I've mentioned that the Prophet, a
.s., he used to fast most in the
month of Sha'ban.
What does it mean?
One meaning is that he used to fast,
and this is a Sunnah of the Prophet,
a.s., that he used to fast three
days every single month, which is known as
Ayyamul Bidh, the 13th, 14th, and 15th of
the Hijri calendar.
The Prophet, a.s., used to fast.
So sometimes, if any of those fasts were
left for some reason, he used to make
up those fasts in the month of Sha
'ban.
So, for example, his three fasts were left
in Muharram and in Rajab.
So that means six fasts.
So before the month of Ramadan used to
come around, he used to try to make
up those fasts to complete the three days
of fasting that he had a habit of
doing.
So anything that was left, he used to
complete in the month of Sha'ban.
And the reason, basically, you can say, the
Prophet, a.s., used to fast three days,
and we should also try to do the
same thing, either Monday or Thursday, Monday and
Thursday is Sunnah, or fasting the three days
on the 13th, 14th, and 15th.
These are also Sunnah.
So we should do that, man ja'a
bil hasanati falahu ashru amthaliha Whoever does one
deed, it is multiplied ten times.
So you do three fasts, it's multiplied ten
times, that means 30 fasts.
It's as if you've been fasting the whole
month, the whole Hijri month.
So if we have a habit of doing
that, we will be basically fasting the whole
time.
The other thing is that the Prophet, a
.s., the other reason that the Prophet, a
.s., used to fast in the month of
Sha'ban, he used to do it da
'zeeman li Ramadan.
He used to do it out of respect
for Ramadan, wahadha sawm, this is again what
I mentioned earlier, Ibn al-Qayyim is repeating
the same thing, wahadha sawm yashbahu sunnata faradhi
salati qablaha da'zeeman li haqqiha That it
is similar to the fasting or the sunnah
that a person prays before the farad salah
in respect of the farad that a person
is about to pray.
And the third thing is the reason that
the Prophet, a.s., used to fast, because
he wanted, as he mentions himself in the
hadith, that he wanted his deeds to be
raised up to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
while he was in the state of fasting.
So if you can think a minute how
the Prophet, a.s., was constantly doing good
deeds, all the time, tahajjud and nawafil and
fasting and sadaqat and never committing a sin,
and yet he also wanted his deeds to
be raised up to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala while he is doing good.
So where do we stand in comparison to
the Prophet, a.s., and what must we
be doing in this month of Sha'ban
to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala is something that we need to reflect
upon and we need to think about.
If we think about our sins and how
we disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, then
we should take full advantage of this blessed
month as much as possible.
There are general hadith about the month of
Sha'ban that are narrated from various sahaba
and sahabiyat that I'd just like to finish
the khutbah with.
Abi Salma, a.s., who says that Aisha,
a.s., on her she mentioned, The
Prophet, a.s., he didn't used to fast
in any other month other than the month
of Sha'ban and he used to fast
in all of the month of Sha'ban.
He didn't used to leave any days in
the month of Sha'ban.
And another hadith from Aisha, a.s., she
says, The Prophet, a.s., sometimes used to
fast continuously until we thought that he's not
going to take any break.
He's not going to take a break from
fasting.
Sometimes he used to go so many days
without fasting that we used to think that
he's not going to fast.
And she goes on to say, And I
never saw the Prophet, a.s., completing the
fasting of any other month except the month
of Ramadan.
And I never saw him fasting other than
Ramadan except in the month of Sha'ban.
So again, these are the hadith that talk
about the Prophet, a.s., fasting in the
month of Sha'ban.
Then there are other hadith which talk about
nafl fasting that we should also be aware
of.
Abu Sayyid al-Khudri, a.s.,
he says that the Prophet, a.s., said,
Whenever a person he fasts in the path
of Allah, a.s., which is nafl fast,
Allah, a.s., removes him and takes him
far away from Jahannam, the distance of 70
kharif.
So kharif is kind of like a distance.
So you can say 70 miles or 70
furlongs, whatever the amount is.
So 70 kharif, a person is removed from
Jahannam further away whenever he fasts, one fast,
nafl fast, in the path of Allah, a
.s. Abu Umamah, a.s., he says, Abu
Umamah, a.s., he said that I said
to the Prophet, a.s., Order me to
do something that is going to benefit me,
that Allah, a.s., is going to benefit
me through it.
He said, Make sure you fast because there
is nothing equal to it.
There is nothing equal to it.
According to another riwayah, the wording is mithl
instead of adl, which is basically the same
meaning, that hold fast to fasting, hold on
to fasting because there is nothing comparative to
it.
Hudayfah, a.s., he says that the Prophet,
a.s., said, That a person
who passes away while he is fasting, then
he will enter into paradise.
And there are so many other hadith.
And I would just like to finish off
with one point that the Prophet, a.s.,
mentioned in a hadith.
He mentions that a person should not fast
after the 15th of Sha'ban until Ramadan
starts.
There is a hadith in which the Prophet,
a.s., prohibits people from fasting after the
15th of Sha'ban.
So he himself used to fast a lot
throughout the month of Sha'ban, so much
so that Aisha, a.s., she says that
he, a.s., used to fast the whole
month.
But he used to advise others that after
the 15th of Sha'ban, do not fast.
And the reason for this, the scholars say,
is so that people do not physically become
tired before the main fasting of the month
of Ramadan.
So if that's the case, if a person
is going to fast in the month of
Sha'ban and he feels that he may
be too weak by the end of Sha
'ban to deal with Ramadan, then for him
it is better that he should not fast
after the 15th of Sha'ban.
But if a person has a habit, for
example, of fasting on Monday and Thursday, his
body is already used to it.
So it's OK for him.
He can fast on Monday and Thursday or
the 13th, 14th and 15th of the month
and it will be perfectly fine for him.
And even if he wants to do more
Nawafil fasts after the 15th of Sha'ban,
fulfilling the Sunnah of the Prophet, a.s.,
again, if he is physically able to do
so, then he can do it.
Otherwise, for the lay person, for the normal
person who is not used to it, then
this hadith applies.
After the 15th, a person should not be
fasting in preparation, physical preparation for the month
of Ramadan.
I pray that Allah gives us tawfiq to
understand and practice what has been said and
heard.
I say this and ask Allah's forgiveness for
you and for the rest of the Muslims.
So ask His forgiveness.
Indeed, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.
O you who have believed, send blessings and
peace upon him.
Send blessings and peace upon Muhammad and the
family of Muhammad, the number of those who
prayed and fasted.
Send blessings and peace upon Muhammad and the
family of Muhammad, the number of those who
sat and stood.
Send blessings and peace upon all the Prophets
and Messengers, and upon the angels who are
near, and upon the righteous servants of Allah.
By Your mercy, O Most Merciful.
O Allah, honor Islam and the Muslims.
O Allah, shun polytheism and polytheists.
O Allah, help Islam and the Muslims.
O Allah, help those who helped the religion
of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him,
and make us of them.
And abandon those who killed the religion of
Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and
do not make us with them.
O Allah, help us and do not help
us.
O Allah, deceive us and do not deceive
us.
O Allah, increase us and do not decrease
us.
O Allah, give us and do not deprive
us.
O Allah, our Lord, give us good in
this world, and good in the Hereafter, and
protect us from the punishment of the Fire.
And admit us into Paradise with the righteous.
O Almighty, O Forgiver.
Ameen, O Lord of the worlds.
Ameen, O Lord of the worlds.
Indeed, Allah commands justice and good, and to
give to those near to Him, and forbids
immorality and evil and transgression.
He warns you that you may remember.
Remember Allah, the Exalted in Might, and He
will remember you.
And call upon Him, and He will answer
you.
And the remembrance of Allah is higher and
higher and greater.
And Allah knows what you do.
Aqeem Salah.
Come to prayer.
Come to prayer.
Come to success.
Come to success.
Prayer has been established.
Prayer has been established.
Allah is the Greatest.
Allah is the Greatest.
There is no god but Allah.
Allah is the Greatest.
Allah is the Greatest.