Does Allah Want You to Feel Better? | Jumu'ah Khutbah | Dr. Omar Suleiman

Does Allah Want You to Feel Better?

"I'm not a pessimist, I'm just a realist." What's the balance between all of these things, and how much are these emotions to actually be catered to? And how do we deal with ta'ab — just being tired. I'm tired, I'm exhausted.

What does that mean in regards to our faith? And I frame it with a conversation that I'll come back to insha'Allah at the end of this khutbah. It's the conversation with Imam Ahmad rahimahullah and a man from Khorasan — and some narrations say his son. So let's just imagine a father and a son sitting in prison. The trials of Imam Ahmad rahimahullah have gone on for so long.

He's been tortured from one ruler to another. One khalifa tortures him in his own way, and then another khalifa comes in and tortures him in another way. And it feels like it doesn't matter which party or which khalifa is in charge — everyone just pulls him in and abuses him and oppresses him and tortures him. And there's a point where you feel like you're starting to see hope, and then something happens again and you get pulled down.

So I want us all to kind of go to that sitting. And his son asks him the question:

When do we actually rest? When do we actually find relief from all of this?

Allah Honors Our Pain

Let's get back to the core question. How much does Allah want us to feel better about our life circumstances, about our world circumstances, about our pursuit — versus how much does Allah want us to respond to the call with a certain type of discipline?

I start off with this premise: Allah does not ignore pain. Allah does not ignore our feelings. Allah in fact shows that He cares about our emotions. He cares about our feelings. He cares about the way that things land on the believers even if He knows they are good for them. And so the pain is not the problem. Allah honors the pain.

Do not grieve. Don't lose heart. Don't feel fear. Because you are indeed the victorious party so long as you remain upon belief.

Allah says: We know that what they say about you — يَحْزُنُكَ — it makes you sad. We understand the grief that you're feeling, O Prophet of Allah.

SubhanAllah — think about this. Even in the hadith Qudsi, you can miss it if you're reading through it fast, especially the last line. When Allah says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

"I do not hesitate in anything that I do the way I hesitate in taking the soul of a believer. He hates death, and I hate to disappoint him."

What a relationship with Allah. He hates death and I don't like to disappoint him — even though Allah knows that is the appointed time: وَلَا بُدَّ لَهُ مِنْهُ — that is what every inevitable ending looks like for every single person. I care about how my believing servant feels about something that is inevitable.

So Allah actually honors those feelings. He honors those emotions. He makes it a point:

The Qur'an was not revealed upon you to cause you undue burden or distress. He tells the Prophet ﷺ:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 69; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1734)

Make things easy, not hard. And give glad tidings — don't deflate people.

Very interesting hadith, subhanAllah, because if you read the sharh — the explanation of that prophetic narration — the first part, يَسِّرُوا وَلَا تُعَسِّرُوا, "Make things easy, don't make things difficult," refers to the prescription of the actual rulings, the law, the ahkam. Allah wants for you ease. How does He want for you ease? He says it in the Qur'an: if you're sick, you don't have to fast. If you're on a journey, you're excused. There are dispensations and concessions embedded within the law so that there is yusr — not 'usr. When you travel, you can shorten your prayers. In fact, Allah likes that you shorten your prayers when you travel. Allah likes that you take His concessions the way that He likes that you take on the difficult commands.

The second line, بَشِّرُوا وَلَا تُنَفِّرُوا — "Give people glad tidings, don't deflate them" — speaks more to the delivery and the way it's going to land. People should not be told things in a way that they're going to feel like salvation is impossible and Allah's mercy is inaccessible — that هَلَكَ النَّاسُ, everything is done. They should not be made hopeless and fall into despair.

So all of this is actually deeply evident through the Qur'an and through the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ: Allah does actually care how we feel. And Allah cares how His servants feel when they are undergoing difficulty. Allah has taken that into consideration with the revelation and with the legislation.

The Danger of Seeking Religion Only for Comfort

But then there's a second layer to this. There's a problem when you approach religion — when you approach deen — for dopamine, and you're not willing to engage in the discipline. When your du'a becomes a form of mood regulation. When how I make myself feel better through my supplications and my prayers becomes about how I deal with the situation — not actually changing the situation, but just how I feel that Allah is going to make me feel a certain way.

Even though you make du'as —

You ask Allah to protect you from being paralyzed or incapacitated by anxiety or grief. But when du'a solely becomes about that — when the Qur'an becomes about the inspirational quote to get you through the next day, and it becomes all about religion as therapy — that is a problem.

The religion of Allah is not therapy. There are therapeutic elements of the religion. There are therapeutic elements of this mission. There are things embedded in living a life of purpose that allow you to face what are otherwise impossible obstacles. There are therapeutic elements. But the religion cannot become therapy. It can't become chasing dopamine. It can't become: I want to feel better, and that's why I'm going to pray this prayer, and that's why I'm going to do this thing — because I heard that if I do this I'll feel better.

Because sometimes Allah doesn't want you to feel better — He wants you to do better. Sometimes Allah wants you to be better. And that comes through the difficult prescriptions of sadness, of toil, of mission, of burden. It comes through those things. And you have to accept that.

The Believer's Trembling Heart

There is always this healthy medium of: I should feel a sense of deficiency. I should feel like I should be doing more. Imam Hasan al-Basri rahimahullah said:

The believer performs good deeds, and yet his heart trembles — there is a fear that maybe I need to do more for it to be accepted. There is this sense of feeling charged to take the next step. Whereas the sinner commits their sins وَهُوَ آمِنٌ — and they feel completely safe from those sins. Like, they're fine. So the believer feels entrusted with something that's deeper, with something that's greater — that encompasses a certain sense of stress and burden to move you to another level of yourself for the sake of Allah.

And Allah constantly makes it a point: it was not to stress you out. It was not to hurt you. Allah takes no joy in causing you pain. Allah takes no joy in disappointing you. But there are necessary burdens that exist in this life to wean you off of it a bit.

With Hardship Comes Ease — But Don't Be Sedated

SubhanAllah, I was thinking about the ayah:

Verily, with hardship comes ease. We share this ayah to comfort ourselves. We share this ayah to make ourselves steadfast. But look how quickly Allah qualifies it so that you don't become sedated by the verse:

"And so when you free up from something" — whether it is getting out of a difficult moment or passing through a difficult trial — فَانصَبْ: exert yourself. Put yourself through exertion. It's very interesting because the root of فَانصَبْ actually comes from fatigue. And we know this root word most from the narration of Khadijah radhiAllahu anha. When Jibreel alayhissalam came to the Prophet ﷺ to bring the glad tidings to Khadijah — the glad tidings of Jannah, of a home in paradise made of pearl — لَا صَخَبَ فِيهِ وَلَا نَصَبَ — in which there is no noise and no fatigue.

So there is the stress that comes through the tiredness of test — that inevitability. And then there is the stress of optional fatigue through exertion. And Allah is saying: if you're comfortable, that's actually a problem. That إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا — moving from hardship to ease, or "with hardship comes ease" — does not mean you can go back to being comfortable. It means that if you pass through the inevitable tiredness of test, then put yourself through the optional exertion of fatigue for His sake. It's a very powerful transition that we find in these ayat.

The Answer of Imam Ahmad: True Rest Is in Jannah

Back to that conversation. Imam Ahmad sitting with his son. And it's a father sitting with his son in Gaza. It's a mother sitting with her child in Gaza. It's two people working and trying to do something great, sitting together, feeling deficient. How do we deal with everything on the outside and move forward?

Because the more that you know about the world, the harder it becomes to be comfortable. And the more you come to the realization that there is life after death, the less comfortable you get with life before death. So how do I deal with this burden?

Imam Ahmad could have responded and said: listen, the tide is turning. Soon I'm gonna get out insha'Allah and everything is gonna be great. I'm going to become one of the most famous imams in history. My janazah is going to be the largest recorded janazah in history. Victory is on its way. This humiliation is for a short time.

But you know what he says? When asked مَتَى الرَّاحَةُ؟ — when do we find the sweetness of relief? — he responds:

You know when your relief is? With the first step that you take into Jannah. That's when your relief is. The expectation is: that's when you actually find relief.

That doesn't mean we're not going to seek victory. That doesn't mean we're not going to seek a way out. That doesn't mean we're not going to pray for a way out of our difficulty and hope for a way out. But the actual raaha — the actual relief — that we're going to find is when we get to Jannah.

Why? Because, dear brothers and sisters, if bi'idhnillah we free Palestine in our lifetimes — on a very global level — we're going to have a lot more work to do. When you come out of one test, if Allah brings you out of a test, the tax of your test is that you had better now use your comfort to get somebody else out of their test. The raaha of the believer — that true rest — is not here.

And it's a simple truth that carries a major implication in our methodology and how we approach Allah. As the poet said:

You sought that major relief in your life, and you were not able to find it until you realized that it is not found except on a bridge of tiredness.

Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah said:

Paradise is not found except after you cross a bridge of ta'ab — tiredness, fatigue, exhaustion. It's the opposite of raaha. Jannah is raaha. When you get there, you rest. That's when relief is found. That's when relaxation is found. That's when you retire — when you get to Jannah.

And that's it. If Allah happens to be squeezing you at an individual level, or squeezing us as an ummah to the greatest extent right now, the point is not for you to say: Ya Allah, let go of this so I can rest. The point is: Ya Allah, see me through this in a way that You will be pleased with me — in a way that will contribute to my ultimate raaha, to my ultimate relief, and in a way that will enable me to be there for somebody else. That's why I want raaha. That's why I want rest. That's the relief that I seek.

The Example of Hamza and the People of Gaza

SubhanAllah — I think of that conversation of Imam Ahmad and the bar that he set for his son. Like: I might die in prison, and that's going to be okay. Because that's not where my raaha is found.

Look no further. Imam Ahmad, Imam Abu Hanifah — one dies in prison, one dies out of prison. They are both two of the four imams. They make up half of the four imams. Incredible.

And you watch these people in Gaza. You can hear through the videos the drone buzzing over them constantly. And then the bombs. And then the starvation. And then the news of someone else dying. 700 days of that. I don't know how a person functions, to be honest with you. And then you think of the moment that they breathe their last — and quiet.

SubhanAllah. Think of Hamza radhiAllahu anhu and his last moments in this world. How tired he was. He had a spear through his body, and he was trying to get up and move forward, and get up and move forward. He died like that. And the Prophet ﷺ sees him — how? Relaxing on a couch in Jannah. Ar-raaha.

What did the Prophet ﷺ mention? That the first night the believer goes to the grave — after all the proceedings of the grave — go to sleep. That's your nap time. Now go ahead and take a nap. After the exhaustion of this journey, take your first nap. There is relief. There is rest.

Created in Toil — Let It Not Go to Waste

This changes the way we approach Allah. If you're not tired, get tired. If you're not uncomfortable, get uncomfortable. Push yourself to that. That's actually part of the point. And victory is only meant to become the foundation of another victory. Because this world will never be perfect for us — as individuals, in the collective sense, or in the communal sense.

Alhamdulillah — we have three people taking their shahada that I already know of here today, alhamdulillah. And I just left from giving another sister her shahada — walhamdulillahi rabbil 'alameen. At least one of those sisters with us today is someone who came to the protests for Gaza, became inspired to learn about Islam through her protesting for Gaza, then looked into the Qur'an, and realized that it is the faith of the people of Gaza that sustains them in this exhausting journey. And she is voluntarily coming to become a part of that journey as well. May Allah bless her and all of our sisters and brothers that have embraced Islam.

May Allah allow us to maintain perspective. May Allah not let our tiredness go to waste:

We have certainly created the human being in toil. Everyone gets tired in this world. But some people's tiredness goes to waste. May Allah let all of our ta'ab be for His sake. May Allah reward all of it. May Allah bring relief and make us a source of relief for our brothers and sisters. And may Allah allow us all to celebrate the ultimate relief — that ultimate raaha — in Jannat al-Firdaus with our Prophet ﷺ. Allahumma ameen.

Second Khutbah — Du'a

عِبَادَ اللَّهِ، إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَى وَيَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ، يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ. فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوهُ عَلَى النِّعَمِ يَزِدْكُمْ. وَلَذِكْرُ اللَّهِ أَكْبَرُ، وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ. وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ.