Was It Really Worth It? Re-evaluating What We Fight Over | Jumu'ah Khutbah | Dr. Omar Suleiman

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none is worthy to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him.

And we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. We ask Allah to make us amongst them, Allahumma Ameen.

Was It Really Worth It?

Dear brothers and sisters, when you look at the pile of rubble in Gaza, what do you see? This khutbah is not going to spend too much time with that particular question, but it does frame the hadith that we're going to be speaking about profoundly. There are some people that look at the rubble of Gaza, and in that rubble they see guilt, and they see an imperative to rebuild the lives of people as much as they can, to give the orphans — even if they're missing limbs — a home to live in once again, to try to restore whatever has been taken that can humanly be restored, and an opportunity ultimately for all of us to invest whatever we have into the rebuilding and the restoration of Gaza.

But there are some people — they call them the investors, and you can look up the politics behind that term — that have been looking at Gaza and they see gas under its surface. They see gas in the water, they see an opportunity to exploit, they see an opportunity to turn it into another dollar. They're talking about waterfront properties, and SubhanAllah, you see it with our enemies today — they can barely coordinate amongst themselves when they sit for an interview — that this has always been the plan. They see an opportunity to steal more, an opportunity to exploit more, and the people in that process become nothing but pawns, tools, things to be removed, or things to be used in order to increase the bank account, get more money into it.

So the gas in Gaza is an opportunity. You look at Sudan — today I saw a video that was heartbreaking, of a man that's being hung as his shoulders are dislocated by one of the RSF forces, and the person who's filming him, just like the Zionist soldiers in Gaza, is laughing uncontrollably. What did they see in Sudan? They didn't see people. They saw gold.

There are those that looked at Gaza and saw gas, there are those that looked at Sudan and saw gold. It's another opportunity for exploitation. What about us? Do we see the imperative to rebuild, to restore, to be with them in their moments of destruction and havoc? This is a global current of greed.

The Hadith of the Earth Vomiting Its Treasures

But there is an incredibly powerful hadith that the Prophet ﷺ told us will come to be before the Day of Judgment. He said in this authentic hadith from Sahih Muslim:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 12, Hadith 157 — also referenced as Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1013)

The earth will vomit its pieces of liver out, and that liver of the earth as it vomits out will be like columns of gold and silver. All of that wealth hiding in the surface. All of that wealth hiding in the oceans. All that they mine for and try to find and try to remove people so that they can get some of it, more of it. The new discovery of gold here, the new discovery of this there, the new currency that came out, the new way to make another dollar — all of it just vomits out of the earth.

And the Prophet ﷺ says: فَيَجِيءُ الْقَاتِلُ فَيَقُولُ فِي هَذَا قَتَلْتُ — the murderer walks up to all of this gold and silver that's been vomited out of the earth and he says, "It was for this that I murdered." It was for this that I murdered.

And he said ﷺ that after that man walks up to it, the next person who comes up — يَجِيءُ الْقَاطِعُ — the one who broke off, broke off what? The ties of family. He will walk up to this wealth and say فِي هَذَا قَطَعْتُ رَحِمِي — "I ruined my family relationships for this. I cut off my brother for this. I pitted family members against each other for another dollar of inheritance, for an argument over land. I cut off family members because of this." Looking at the vomit of gold and silver.

And he said ﷺ — فَيَجِيءُ السَّارِقُ — then the thief will come and say فِي هَذَا قُطِعَتْ يَدِي — "For this my hand was cut," meaning I was penalized. He doesn't regret stealing. He regrets the penalty of stealing. He regrets the consequences that came to his life. "I ruined myself because I got greedy and I stole more."

And the Prophet ﷺ says: ثُمَّ يَدَعُونَهُ فَلَا يَأْخُذُونَ مِنْهُ شَيْئًا — incredible. He said then they all walk away from it without picking up any of it. At that point, that gold and that silver and that treasure is so worthless — and the imagery of vomit is so worthless — it's like, "I don't even want to try to get another dollar, get another piece of gold." It means nothing.

When Greed Has Caused Global Breakdown

The incredible thing about this hadith is that as Ibn Hajar and the scholars say, this actually happens before the Day of Judgment. There's a moment — on the Day of Judgment obviously everything gives its secrets: the earth testifies, people come forward and things come forward, your own limbs will testify, all of the rubble, every piece of it in Gaza will testify to the crimes that are buried underneath. But they say that this is referring to slightly before the Day of Judgment, when greed has caused such an upheaval and so much chaos in the world that everything has broken down. The Day of Judgment is about to come and people have kind of lost hope, and they realize now that that gold and that silver cannot benefit them from what is about to happen. And so they look at the impending doom, and they look back at wasted lives and they say: "That was not worth it. That was not worth it."

Some of them talked about the loss of the currency of gold and silver — that it doesn't even matter anymore, that these things that global wars were waged over, that exploitation was waged over, that the value has already been lost at that point because of the complete breakdown of system. What was this for? What was it worth? I killed somebody. I stole from somebody. I lost family. Was it actually worth it?

And the term — that its inner livers, the liver as the scholars mention, is the most vital of the most vital organs. Usually the poetry speaks about the heart, but the liver keeps you functioning and people don't recognize how precious it is until it stops functioning. That's when people recognize that that precious possession — what you once considered to be so precious but did not pay attention to — has now come back to bite you.

The Personal Mirror: Was It Really Worth It?

So the question becomes: was it really worth it? Was it worth the betrayal? Was it worth the lost relationships? Was it worth the punishment on the Day of Judgment? And imagine when the Day of Judgment actually happens — now I've got to worry about this stuff too.

Here's the thing. There is, on the Day of Judgment as the scholars said, another layer of exposure — which is the agendas and the hidden motives — and those things will come out of the earth as well. So you have face value, and then you have what drove people to these crimes and what drove people to lose themselves.

And this becomes the personal mirror now. We can talk about these global shifts and we can talk about global greed, but all of these are built upon personal manifestations of greed and personal manifestations of evil and personal manifestations of narcissism — and people that lost themselves and then took an entire community, sometimes a whole country, sometimes the whole world with them on that journey of self-destruction and caused the world to destruct as well.

There's a personal mirror. Was the argument worth what it cost you? The argument between family, the argument between friends — "I really want to stake my ground in this. I want to win this argument so bad that I'm not going to give in, because if I give in, then I'm going to lose." What are you going to lose? Was it really worth it?

SubhanAllah, on the Day of Judgment when the Prophet ﷺ says that the last stage of entrance into Paradise involves two brothers at a qantara — they just didn't want to forgive each other. They didn't necessarily wrong each other, but they didn't want to forgive each other. Hard feelings. How does Allah do away with those hard feelings? Allah says to the person: "Look at that palace in Paradise — you want it? Let it go with your brother." Okay.

Do I have to see the house in Paradise to know that it exists, and know that to leave off an argument even when you're right is actually always worth it? Because I already believe that the reward is worth losing the argument. But you really wanted to win that argument. You really, really wanted to get that business deal over. You had to cheat a little bit more. There's this whole global scandal right now — a sports scandal of millionaires that were gambling to make more money. You were already a millionaire. Why are you cheating people out? Why are you putting yourself through more of this so that you can get an extra dollar?

That's worldly consequence — but was that extra dollar of riba, that extra thing that I cheated with, really worth the loss of barakah in my life? The complete loss of blessing in my life, and then meeting Allah and having to be punished for it? Was that ego worth your marriage? Was that ego worth your parents? Was that ego worth your brother, your sister? Was it worth it to stake your ground in that?

And you keep going on and on, discussing the opportunity costs that Allah gives to you every single day. Sometimes it's time. Was that extra time at work worth extra time away from family if I had a choice? What was the trade-off in all of this?

Imagine yourself to be this person who comes up and stands in front of it all, once the earth spits it all out, vomits it all out, and says: "Yeah, I don't think it was worth it. The permanence of it, the permanence of the consequences, the way that it will testify, the people I lost, the limbs I lost, the money I lost, the emotions I lost — it really wasn't worth it. None of it was worth it."

Curbing Greed Before It Leads to Regret

And Allah does not want for you to fall into the place of regret. In fact, before you get to the regret, Allah gives you the instructions of how to curb greed, curb the desire to betray, curb the desire to win an argument, curb your ego, curb it all — so that you don't find yourself standing in one of those situations saying, "This wasn't worth it."

Cut off the disease before it leads to the consequence. Cut off the individual consequences before they lead to global consequences. Take heed from what you're seeing in the world around you, and realize that if the only difference between you and global criminals and global schemes of exploitation is that they're able to do it, they're capable of doing it, and you're not — then you're no different in the sight of Allah than that person. Because if you could, you would.

So just like a person looking at Gaza right now and saying, "If I could save everybody there I would" — Allah will write down that intention. Likewise, a person of greed who looks at it and says, "If I could I would — hmm, that looks like a scheme I can get in on" — just because you fail doesn't mean Allah doesn't write it down against you.

Analyze yourself. Relationships with parents, relationships with spouses, relationships with kids, relationships with friends and brothers and sisters — was it worth it at the end of the day?

Recalibrating What Is Truly Valuable

Finally, I end with this. On a practical level, one of the things that the Prophet ﷺ showed us is that the Shaheed on the Day of Judgment — who lost everything for the sake of Allah — the only regret that he would have is he'd want to come back to this world and lose his life over for Allah over and over and over and over again. Because Allah makes everything worth it for us.

There has to be this level of recalibrating what's valuable in your life, and putting it all on a sheet, mapping it all out, and saying: "What's of greatest value to me, and does my effort, does my deed, does my expression show a proportionality to what I say holds more value in my life?" Because Allah will test us with our words just as He will test us with our possessions.

Du'ā

We ask Allah to not make us amongst those who have to wait for the earth to vomit to realize how lowly this dunya actually is. May Allah allow us to see the palaces of gold and ruby in al-Jannah and all that He promises so vividly with our hearts, that we work towards it from now as if we can see it with our eyes. May Allah allow us to rescue our relationships from ourselves, to rescue ourselves from our ego, and to rescue us from the desire for wealth that destroys societies, that destroys countries, that destroys the world. May Allah not let us be amongst those who take part in its destruction, and may Allah make us amongst those who rescue it from that greed and from that individual destruction turned societal destruction. Allahumma ameen.

Aqūlu qawlī hādhā wa astaghfirullāha lī wa lakum wa li sā'iri al-mu'minīna wa al-muslimīna wa al-muslimāt, al-aḥyā'i minhum wa al-amwāt, innahu huwa al-samī'u al-qareeb mujību al-da'awāt.

Al-Fātiḥah.