Zia Sheikh – How to be Strong Momin vs Weak Believer Jumuah khutbah Nov 13th 2015
AI: Summary ©
The importance of strong and optimistic beliefs in believers' minds is discussed, along with the need for guidance and focus in pursuing the right path for success. The importance of small small things and forgiveness is emphasized, along with the advice of seeking forgiveness and small small things for small mistakes. The speaker emphasizes the need for closure and making small decisions, while also discussing the importance of trusting in Allah's and making a definite effort to remove inner weaknesses. mistakes and regretting past mistakes are also discussed as challenges.
AI: Summary ©
even through the most difficult and trying of
circumstances.
Hadith which I just mentioned, it highlights this.
And I'd just like to go through it
bit by bit.
Keep in mind that we don't have much
time because the Asr time comes in very
quickly nowadays, so my khutbah is going to
be quite short.
So we'll try to summarize as much as
possible and finish as quickly as we can
within the time frame we have.
The Prophet s.a.w. said, المؤمن القوي
خير وأحب إلى الله من المؤمن الضعيف The
strong mu'min is better and more beloved to
Allah s.w.t. than the weak believer.
And when we say strong, it can mean
physically strong, but the majority of the scholars
refer to this strength that is mentioned here
as an inner strength, an optimism.
Conviction, not to lose hope, to remain optimistic,
not to become pessimistic.
This is what المؤمن القوي is referring to.
And then at the end of the hadith
we'll see that in fact this is the
focus of the hadith itself.
So the hadith goes on to say وَفِي
كُلٍّ خَيْر In every believer there is khayr,
whether a person is weak or strong.
Every believer has some form of khayr in
him.
So if a person doesn't have these qualities,
we should not look down upon him or
belittle him.
Everyone has different temperaments, everyone has a different
way of dealing with things.
So we should not look down upon that
person.
وَفِي كُلٍّ خَيْر The hadith then goes on
to say احرِسْ عَلَىٰ مَا يَنفَعُكْ وَاسْتَعِنْ بِاللَّهِ
وَلَا تَعَجِزْ Be eager for those things that
will benefit you.
Not just beneficial for this world, but those
that are beneficial for the hereafter.
And when a person, his sole focus is
the hereafter, then the bumps in his life
and the difficulties that he has to deal
with, they become temporary bumps in the road
of the life that he is about to
leave anyway.
And that is why in a hadith, the
Prophet s.a.w. mentioned that on the
Day of Judgment, there will be two kinds
of people.
One will be the person who will have
enjoyed every single aspect of this life in
terms of financial independence and in terms of
having every type of material benefit that he
could have had.
And then there will be another person who
had so much difficulty in his life, so
much that he had to endure in his
life, always oppressed, always out of a job,
always in financial difficulties.
So the first person, he will get a
taste of the hellfire for a millisecond.
And then he will be asked that did
you enjoy anything in your worldly life?
That taste of the hellfire for a millisecond
will be enough for him to forget all
of the pleasures that he enjoyed in the
world.
Now on the other hand, the person who
had so much difficulty in his life, he
will be exposed to Jannah, Paradise for a
millisecond.
And then he will be asked that did
you have any kind of difficulty in your
life?
He will reply, I didn't have any type
of difficulty in my life.
That one second of exposure or even a
millisecond of exposure to the Jannah will make
him forget all of the tortures that he
had to endure in his very very difficult
and arduous life.
So this is how temporary this life is
and how fleeting this life is.
So when a person is focusing his concentration
on the hereafter, then the worldly life becomes
secondary to him.
And the hadith says, seek the help of
Allah SWT always.
When a person goes through difficulty, he should
always turn to Allah SWT.
Seek help through sabr, patience, persistence, perseverance and
through salat.
And this focus, it is difficult except for
those people that have khushu in their lives.
Those people that are submissive to Allah SWT
and have made Allah SWT a focal point
of their lives, it is easy for them
to turn to Allah when things get difficult
for them.
Otherwise there are mental blocks that a person
has.
I am not even praying my five times
daily salat.
How can I raise my hand to Allah
SWT and make dua to him?
I am committing sins on a daily basis.
How can I raise my hands to Allah
SWT when I am committing these sins?
This is the mindset that a person has.
So instead of stopping the sins that a
person is committing, and instead of observing the
commands of Allah SWT that he is supposed
to, instead he is digging himself deeper into
the quicksand of disobedience of Allah SWT and
not even asking Allah and making dua to
Allah SWT when he is going through difficulty,
even though this is a command of Allah
SWT.
Your Lord says, make dua to me, I
will respond to you.
So when we are going through difficulty, the
first turning point in our lives should be
always to Allah SWT.
Our first attention should always be to salat.
Our first attention should always be to dua.
Our first attention should be always to make
istighfar.
To seek forgiveness for the mistakes that we
make which are resulting in the trials and
tribulations of this world.
The hadith goes on to say, Do not
lose hope.
Do not become a hajis.
Do not become despondent.
Meaning, remain optimistic.
Don't become pessimistic.
Keep this optimism in your life.
Keep a positive attitude in your life.
Do not think that the whole world is
against you.
Do not use your own weakness.
Do not use other people as an excuse
for your own weakness.
This is what we are supposed to do.
Always continue to do whatever we can in
terms of action and then turn to Allah
SWT for the results.
The hadith goes on to say, Do not
say, if you are afflicted with any problem,
if you have any kind of difficulty, that
if I had done such and such a
thing, then such and such a thing would
have happened.
If I had gone to such and such
a doctor, then the life of my loved
one would have been spared.
He would have been cured.
If I had given him such and such
a medication, then he would not have died
or she would not have died.
This low, if I had done this and
this and I had taken this step and
that step, this is something that we should
never dwell upon.
This makes a person despondent and makes him
lose hope and makes him ungrateful to Allah
SWT.
He will never get closure in his life.
There is a big word in the west,
closure.
Closure meaning that you basically close this chapter
in your life and then move on from
that difficulty that you had to endure, that
loss that you had to endure.
When a person is always dwelling on these
types of things, then he will never get
closure in his life.
So, what are we supposed to say and
what are we supposed to do?
The hadith goes on to say, Say that
whatever Allah SWT decreed and whatever he did,
whatever he wanted, he did.
Allah SWT ordained something and whatever he wanted,
he did it.
This is from Allah SWT.
So, this sentence is such a powerful statement.
And this is one of the secrets that
a believer has to get closure in his
life, to get peace in his life, to
be able to sleep at night.
Otherwise, if a person doesn't attribute everything to
Allah SWT, then he will continuously be in
a state of depression and hopelessness.
He will lose sleep at night because he
lost his job.
And he will try to find excuses for
difficulties that are going on in his life.
He will blame other people for problems that
are occurring in his life, other than turning
to Allah SWT, closing that episode in his
life and moving on.
This is what a person should be doing.
And the best way to do that is
to say, Allah SWT ordained it and whatever
he wanted, he did.
I could not have done anything about it.
The whole world could not have done anything
about it.
And therefore, I need to just move on
with my life.
So, there are certain steps that we should
do when we are thinking about these things.
First of all, there is another hadith that
I would like to mention.
The Prophet SAW said, Don't become imma'ah.
Imma'ah means those people that don't have
any kind of mindset of their own.
They don't have any kind of opinion of
their own.
They basically just follow the way the wind
blows.
If the wind is blowing north, they blow
north.
If the wind is blowing south, they blow
south.
And this is in terms of their deeds.
The hadith goes on to say, This is
found in so many cultures.
That that person, he has been good to
our family, make sure you are good to
him.
That person, he turned up at our wedding,
make sure you go to his wedding.
That person, he gave us a very big
gift last time, make sure you give him
a very good gift.
This is tit for tat.
This is exchanging.
This is not ikram.
This is not ihsan.
This is not doing good.
This is not being benevolent.
This is simply doing what other people are
doing to you.
So, What is the good in that?
If people are doing good to us, we
will do good to them.
وَإِنْ ظَلَمُوا ظَلَمْنَا And if they do zulm,
then we will do zulm.
Again, what is the good in that?
If people are doing bad to us, if
they are oppressing us, we should, as they
say, turn the other cheek or take the
higher road and be the better person and
be forgiving and be tolerant.
The hadith goes on to say, وَإِنْ أَحْسَنَ
النَّاسَ أَن تُحْسِنُوا وَإِنْ أَسَاءُوا فَلَا تَظْلِمُوا That
if people do, وَإِنْ أَحْسَنَ النَّاسَ أَن تُحْسِنُوا
وَإِنْ أَسَاءُوا فَلَا تَظْلِمُوا fortify yourself, strengthen yourself,
have a strong character.
If people do bad, if people do good,
then obviously you should be doing good and
more good to them.
But if they do bad, then you should
not become an oppressor.
You should not do dhulm upon people that
have done bad to you.
How do we attain this inner strength?
There is a hadith, there is an ayat
of the Quran.
Hud a.s. was mentioning to his people.
He said, وَيَقَوْمِ اِسْتَغْفِرُوا رَبَّكُمْ ثُمَّ تُوبُوا إِلَيْهِ
يُرْسِلِ السَّمَاءَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِّدْرَارًا وَيَزِدْكُمْ قُوَّةً إِلَىٰ
قُوَّتِكُمْ وَلَا تَتَوَلَّوا مُجْرِمِينَ O my people, seek
forgiveness from your Lord and turn to Him,
make tawbah to Him.
What will be the result of that?
Firstly, Allah s.w.t. is going to
give you rizq, sustenance.
He is going to give you rainfall which
is going to fall continuously.
يُرْسِلِ السَّمَاءَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِّدْرَارًا And then the second
thing, the point of our khutbah, وَيَزِدْكُمْ قُوَّةً
إِلَىٰ قُوَّتِكُمْ Making istighfar and turning to Allah
s.w.t. It strengthens a person from
inside.
It strengthens his character.
It makes him strong.
It makes him a firm believer.
It puts his conviction in Allah s.w
.t. Secondly, we have to get the tawakkul
and trust in Allah s.w.t. completely.
As the hadith said earlier, استَعِنْ بِاللَّهِ وَلَا
تَعْجَزْ Trust, complete trust in Allah s.w
.t. is what we should be aiming for
and putting in our lives.
Tawakkul basically means to take all the necessary
steps that we can in this world and
then trust Allah s.w.t. that He
will fix the thing for you that you
are trying to get.
This is what tawakkul is and that by
itself requires a khutbah on its own.
I don't want to go into that into
too much detail.
The third thing we should be doing is
making a dua to Allah s.w.t.
There is a specific dua.
It's narrated that the Prophet a.s.w.
once saw a sahabi.
He was sitting in the masjid.
And it wasn't the time of salat.
It was an odd time of the day
for somebody to be in the masjid.
So the Prophet a.s.w. said to
him, يا فلان ما لي راك تجلس في
المسجد في غير وقت صلاة أو كما قال
a.s.w. What's up with you?
I'm seeing you in the masjid and you
are sitting in the masjid at an odd
time of the day when it's not even
salat time.
What's the problem?
And usually we see many people that are
going through difficulty.
Sometimes they'll just come to the masjid to
pray two rakah and just get some solace.
So the Prophet a.s.w. was told
by the sahabi, يا رسول الله I'm overburdened
by debt.
I'm in difficulty.
So, you know, that's why I came to
the masjid.
The Prophet a.s.w. said, I'll give
you the solution to that.
Read this dua all the time.
اللهم إني أعوذ بك من الهم والحزن والعجز
والكسر والجبن والبخل وأعوذ بك من غلبة الدين
وقهر الرجال It's a beautiful dua which basically
covers all of the inner weaknesses that a
person could have.
همي والحزن Basically worry and grief.
Allah, I ask, I seek your refuge from
worry and grief.
And I seek your refuge from cowardliness and
stinginess.
Again, inner illnesses that we have to be
a coward.
And to be stingy.
وأعوذ بك من غلبة الدين وقهر الرجال And
I seek your refuge from being overpowered by
debt.
Again, this makes a person weak.
It makes him weak as a person and
it makes him weak in front of the
person that he owes money to.
وقهر الرجال And from being overpowered by men.
By being overpowered by people.
So, this beautiful dua, we should try to
implement it in our lives And that will
result in the removal of these inner weaknesses
that we have.
And finally, we should not get hung up
on previous mistakes that we made.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Everyone goes through difficulties in their lives.
Everyone makes a decision that they regret later.
But if we get hung up on them,
then we can never move on with our
lives.
And this is basically what the end of
the hadith said, which I've mentioned already.
And finally, I'd like to quote a verse,
which is the verse which talks about the
anbiya a.s. How they used to address
the people that were fighting against them.
They said, وَمَا لَنَا أَلَّا نَتَوَكَّلَ عَلَى اللَّهِ
وَقَدْ هَدَانَا سُبُلَنَا وَلَنَصْبِرَنَّ عَلَى مَا أَذَيْتُمُونَ وَعَلَى
اللَّهِ فَلْيَتَوَكَّلِ الْمُتَوَكِّلُونَ Why should we not have
tawakkul on Allah s.w.t. while Allah
s.w.t. has guided us to our
ways.
And most certainly we'll have sabr on the
harm that you're trying to give us.
And only on Allah s.w.t. should
the believers have tawakkul.
This is the type of attitude that we're
supposed to have.
The attitude of the strong willed anbiya a
.s. that went through the hardest and the
most difficult of circumstances in their lives, with
their families, with their communities.
And then Allah s.w.t. took them
out of their difficulty.
Ultimately, this is the attitude that we're supposed
to have.
I pray that Allah s.w.t. gives
us tawakkul to understand and practice what is
being said and heard.