Abdul Rahman Chao

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته.

The Hypocrite Who Sought Excuses

During the time of the Prophet ﷺ, there was a hypocrite by the name of Jad ibn Qais. And during the battle of Tabuk, the Prophet ﷺ invited the Muslims to join him in this campaign.

And many of the Muslims joined, and of course the hypocrites, they gave their excuses one after the other. Either they're too old, they have family, they have reasons why they cannot join. But this hypocrite was very special.

Jad ibn Qais. In fact, a verse came down from Allah regarding this hypocrite. The Prophet ﷺ approached him and said, why don't you come with us on this war expedition? He said, Messenger of Allah, I cannot go.

I'm a weak man. And he was referring to weakness in desires. The Prophet ﷺ says, if you go to war, you'll get the war spoils, you'll get captives, prisoners of war.

And during that time, it was normal for prisoners of war to be exchanged when invading army wins. The enemy soldiers would turn into prisoners of war. So ibn Qais said to the Prophet ﷺ, Ya Rasulullah, I cannot control myself with women, so do not test me.

Because if I were to see the women of Byzantium, I can't control myself. And Allah actually talks about this verse.

He said, Allah says, and there are those who say, ائْذَنْ لِي, give me permission to stay back.

That's what he wanted. It wasn't because he has this fake self-righteousness of, oh, subhanAllah, I need to stay away from the fitna. He didn't want to go.

وَلَا تَفْتِنِّي, do not test me. أَلَا فِي الْفِتْنَةِ سَقَطُوا وَإِنَّ جَهَنَّمَ لَمُحِيطَةٌ بِالْكَافِرِينَ But Allah says that the greater fitna that these hypocrites fell into was in the fitna of disbelief, the fitna of nifaq. So he said to the Prophet ﷺ, permit me to stay back, don't test me, because I cannot control myself, and I will support you with my money instead.

The Nature of Hypocrites

The next verse, Allah talks about the reality of the hypocrites. Something for us to pay attention to. In which Allah says:

If a good thing happens to the believers, those hypocrites would be upset, they would be angry.

And so whenever the hypocrites heard of the Muslims winning, they would be angry, they would be sad. وَإِنْ تُصِبْكَ مُصِيبَةٌ يَقُولُوا قَدْ أَخَذْنَا أَمْرَنَا مِنْ قَبْلُ وَيَتَوَلَّوْا وَهُمْ فَرِحُونَ And whenever something bad happened to the Muslims, the hypocrites around the Prophet ﷺ, they would say, well see, we knew better. We know, we planned, we could see this.

We're smart. That's how we were able to avoid that kind of a misfortune. And this is the key part that I want you to focus on.

وَيَتَوَلَّوْا وَهُمْ فَرِحُونَ They would turn away happy, proud, celebrating, smug, thinking that they were smarter than the believers. Thinking that they were better than the Prophet ﷺ.

The Pattern of Opposition to Truth

Brothers and sisters, the conflict between truth and evil, since the beginning of time, since the bringing of messengers from Allah, has been of this nature. That when the truth comes, the disbelievers, those who reject and despise the truth, they will lean on, they will revert back, they will celebrate, and they'll be proud with whatever evil and misguidance and sin that they're on.

And they think that they're so enlightened. They think they know better than Allah tells them in the Quran. Allah tells us in the Quran, explaining this phenomena.

When the messengers would bring them the truth, بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ, clear proof, what is halal, what is haram, what you can do, what you cannot do. فَرِحُوا بِمَا عِنْدَهُمْ مِنَ الْعِلْمِ They would be proud of what they know of. In other words, these evil people, they would celebrate and be proud of what they think they know is better.

And you see this today. In France, they think that by not allowing women to wear the hijab, this is enlightenment. We know better of how to treat women.

And this is what you see in the media. They're always dunking and slamming Muslims. These backwards people, you don't know, we know better.

In fact, over a decade ago, when I was in divinity school, the running joke was, Christians have reformed. And so there are 500 years ahead of us. SubhanAllah.

Reformed into more misguidance. And so here, فَرِحُوا بِمَا عِنْدَهُمْ مِنَ الْعِلْمِ They would celebrate with whatever knowledge they think, whatever enlightenment, 21st century values, whatever they think. وَحَاقَ بِهِمْ مَا كَانُوا بِهِ يَسْتَهْزِئُونَ But Allah says, and Allah would surround them.

And Allah would punish them for what they used to make fun of, from the truth, the morals, etc.

Modern Examples of This Pattern

With the advent of social media, you see so many people like cockroaches coming out of the woodworks. You see a report, months ago, the people in Turkey and Syria, they had the earthquake.

May Allah accept those who died as martyrs, ameen. You'll see people commenting such vile things. Good, they deserve it.

You see people looking at what is happening in the West Bank, in the Middle East, around the greater Muslim world, Muslims suffering. And then you'll see people without specifying, you'll see people say, yes, this is what they get. These people, look at them, so backwards.

And does that make us sad? Of course it does. Allah tells us in the Quran:

When something good happens to you, when something good that Muslims do, they become upset. وَإِنْ تُصِبْكُمْ سَيِّئَةٌ يَفْرَحُوا بِهَا And when something bad happens to you, they get happy.

But Allah reassures us and tells us that when we are living in a time we're holding up morality and good values and the truth and the deen and the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, you're gonna get pushed back. So don't be sad because Allah immediately in the next verse what He says, He continues and He says, وَإِنْ تَصْبِرُوا وَتَتَّقُوا لَا يَضُرُّكُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ شَيْئًا إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطٌ

But if you are patient and you have taqwa, in other words you don't give up in your morals and beliefs. لَا يَضُرُّكُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ شَيْئًا Their plots, their machinations, whatever little things that they're trying to undermine us with.

لَا يَضُرُّكُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ شَيْئًا It will not harm you in any way. شَيْئًا Not even in one way. In one thing.

إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطٌ Verily, Allah is well aware, well encompassed in His knowledge, fully encompassed in knowledge of what they do.

What Islam Teaches Us to Celebrate

But brothers and sisters, I want to focus a little bit here on the celebration of self-righteousness. Like this hypocrite during the time of the Prophet ﷺ that we mentioned at the beginning of the khutbah.

Oh, don't test me messenger of Allah. The celebration of so called enlightenment, the 21st century. The celebration of we know better.

The celebration of oh, we told you so. And brothers and sisters, what does Islam, what does the Quran, what does the Prophet ﷺ tell us about what we should be celebrating, what we should be having joy for, what we should be having pride for.

Allah tells us that humans naturally will celebrate things that they earn, things that they own.

So if a person was to, for example, purchase a very large house, something to be happy about, rightfully so. A promotion in their career, rightfully so. A newborn child, rightfully so.

Celebrate. In fact, in a hadith, in Ibn Hibban, the Prophet ﷺ says, four things, among four things, there are four things in life that will bring you happiness. And he's mentioned four of those.

(Ibn Hibban)

And he said the first one is, a righteous woman, a righteous wife, a good neighbor, a good ride, and a comfortable house. This is in Ibn Hibban. And four things that bring about the opposite, are the opposite.

An unrighteous spouse, a difficult place to live in, a horrible neighbor, and also an unreliable ride. Like back then, during the time Prophet ﷺ was referring to horses, but now it's a car.

And so brothers and sisters, Allah says:

Allah bestows rizq to whomever He wishes, and whomever He has ordained.

And the people, they are happy from that. There's nothing wrong with that. But Allah tells us that when you celebrate the wins in this world, remember that the wins in this world, the happiness in this world is fleeting.

It's not meant to give you long-term happiness. The real happiness is in the akhirah.

The Four Things Allah Wants Us to Celebrate

Brothers and sisters, what does Allah want us to celebrate about? The permanent things that we should be celebrating about.

Allah tells us in the Quran, and Allah addresses this to all the people in the world:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ O mankind! قَدْ جَاءَتْكُمْ مَوْعِظَةٌ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ O mankind! Instruction has come from your Lord. وَشِفَاءٌ لِمَا فِي الصُّدُورِ Number two, a cure has come for what is in the hearts, in the chest.

Number three, وَهُدًى and guidance. Number four, وَرَحْمَةٌ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ and mercy to the believers. قُلْ بِفَضْلِ اللَّهِ وَبِرَحْمَتِهِ فَبِذَٰلِكَ فَلْيَفْرَحُوا هُوَ خَيْرٌ مِمَّا يَجْمَعُونَ Say that by the blessing of Allah, and by the mercy of Allah, this is all something you should celebrate.

These four things, guidance from Allah, instruction from Allah, رَحْمَةٌ from Allah, and the cure from Allah, from all of our spiritual woes.

Brothers and sisters, let's look at the first one, مَوْعِظَةٌ instructions from Allah. Have you ever been in a job sometimes where you feel you don't know what you're doing? You know how frustrating that is? But look how merciful Allah is.

Everything that you're supposed to do, Allah has told you what you need to do. Everything that you're not supposed to do, Allah has told you you're not supposed to do. Very clear.

How to get to Jannah? Allah has shown you every way of how to go to Jannah. Every way of what to do to get away from Jahannam, Allah has shown that to you. Shifa, a cure.

Allah has given us this Quran, this Islam as a cure for all of us. A cure for all of our problems. Guidance, brothers and sisters.

Why is it that sometimes when we hear some non-Muslim praising Islam, we get happy. But when we hear, قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ قَالَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَىٰ فِي كِتَابِهِ الْكَرِيمِ It doesn't hit us as hard.

And finally, brothers and sisters, how many billions of people today are walking around on earth not knowing who their creator is.

Completely lost. These are four things we as believers should celebrate.

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله العظيم الذي لا إله إلا هو الحي القيوم وأتوب إليه

The Story of Asmaa bint Umais

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين أما بعد

The wife of Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, the cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, Asmaa bint Umais.

She was one time sitting with Hafsa, the daughter of Umar ibn al-Khattab. Asmaa bint Umais had done, she had emigrated to Abyssinia when it was difficult for Muslims to live in Mecca. So on that one day, after she had returned sometime later, Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه, by the way this hadith is in Sahih Muslim.

Umar entered and visited Hafsa and she was sitting there and with her was Asmaa bint Umais. So he said, who's this? And she said, oh this is Asmaa bint Umais. He said, oh the one that went to Abyssinia.

She said, yes. So a discussion ensued between all three of them, between father and daughter and the friend Asmaa bint Umais. And so Umar made a comment.

He said, we have more rights over you when it comes to the Prophet ﷺ. نحن أحق بالرسول ﷺ And this angered Asmaa. And she said, I would not eat and drink until I tell the Prophet ﷺ what you said. Until I tell the Prophet ﷺ what you said.

And so when she went to the Prophet ﷺ, she recounted to him of what had happened. She said, Umar made this claim that he and the people who did hijrah to Medina have more right than us over you, Messenger of Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said, no, not correct.

But in fact you, none of you have more right over me than the other. But in fact you have virtue because you did two hijrahs. And what is the point of this story, brothers and sisters? The point of this story is that when the other companions who had gone to Abyssinia, when they heard of this interaction, they were so happy.

Because this is what we believers should be celebrating. That when you do something for the sake of Allah, those companions they emigrated for the sake of Allah. There is no regret ever for doing something for the sake of Allah.

You should be happy about it. And so when those companions heard about it, they were so happy. They're like, wow, the Prophet ﷺ said this about us.

The Two Joys of the Believer

Brothers and sisters, celebrating good deeds is like when we hear the hadith in Ramadan, in which the Prophet ﷺ says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 1904)

For the one who fasts, there are two times of joy. The first time when they break their fast. Why is it that you're so happy when you break your fast? Yes, of course, you're breaking fast because you're gonna eat great.

But the other reason that you're happy when you break your fast is because you are now enjoying what is halal. At that moment that food and drink is halal for you, you know that you've done a day of hard work of fasting. That is the first joy.

And the second joy, brothers and sisters, is when you meet Allah and get your good deeds.

We ask Allah to give us clarity. We ask Allah to give us the ability to celebrate and be proud of our deen, of our Islam, and the guidance that Allah has given us, and the mercy that He has given us, and Islam as a cure for us, and Islam as a way of life and instruction for us.