20170609-1st Khutba - Imam Mokhtar Maghraoui

Khutbah Opening

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَسْتَهْدِيهِ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ سَيِّدَنَا وَمَوْلَانَا مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَمَّا بَعْدُ أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْكَلَامِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ وَخَيْرَ الْهُدَى سَيِّدُنَا وَمَوْلَانَا مُحَمَّدٌ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّا نَسْأَلُكَ الْجَنَّةَ وَنَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ النَّارِ

O you who have attained faith, be Allah conscious — have awe and reverence in your hearts for Allah in a way that is worthy of who He is, worthy of His essence, worthy of His names and attributes, and therefore worthy of His infinite beauty and majesty, worthy of His infinite, bountiful, merciful favors upon us. And make sure we do not die except in a state of Islam — لَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنْتُمْ مُسْلِمُونَ — make sure we do not die except in a state of Islam, as Allah says: in a state in which our souls and spirits, our minds and hearts, our words and deeds, are all in loving surrender to Allah.

The Meaning of Islam: The Heart in Surrender

That aim, that objective — that is Allah — must always be present in our minds. مَا الْإِسْلَامُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ؟ When he was asked, sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wasallam, قَالَ أَنْ يُسْلِمَ قَلْبُكَ لِلَّهِ تَعَالَى — he said, part of that answer was that your heart is in Islam to Allah, that your heart is therefore in loving surrender to Allah. That your heart — with its feelings and emotions and aspirations and fears and hopes and drives and wills and volitions and likes and dislikes and love — all of that is for Allah, towards Allah, surrendered to Allah. And with this attitude we navigate in life. With this aim, with this objective, we navigate in life. And that is لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — the context in which we live. لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ is the context that we choose in which to live, in which to do everything else, and we must never lose sight of that.

قَالَ أَنْ يُسْلِمَ قَلْبُكَ لِلَّهِ تَعَالَى — and consequently our deeds, our words, our actions under all circumstances are consistent and compatible with that aim and that awareness. And therefore he says after that: وَأَنْ يَسْلَمَ الْمُسْلِمُونَ مِنْ لِسَانِكَ وَيَدِكَ — and consequently, that others, Muslims in particular, would feel safe and secure from your tongue and from your resources, your hands, your might, your power, and so on. This is life.

Losing Our Compass: Ghafla and Dhunūb

And yet, as we navigate in life, sometimes we lose compass. We lose our orientation. We do things that are not consistent with that aim. Why do we do that? Because we do that through what the ulama would call — from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam — because of ghafla and dhunūb. Our hearts lose orientation and lose focus, mainly on the basis of two things: الْغَفْلَةُ وَالذُّنُوبُ.

Al-ghafla — distraction — to lose, in other words, your compass. الْغَفْلَةُ عَنْ وِجْهَتِكَ — you lose focus concerning your orientation. That is why we call ghafla also the absence of dhikr of Allah, because when we are not mindful of Allah then we have lost our orientation — our original orientation for which we were created:

So I lose that orientation when I lose that orientation, that's because I'm not in dhikr of Allah — that is ghafla. And so when we do what we do regularly in our everyday life — when we go to work, when we deal with issues at home and outside in life — many of us, in the midst of this reality, we lose the intent behind all of that. We lose the aim. We lose the objective. And then when we lose that, then we would be saying and doing things, acting and reacting, in a way that is inconsistent with the aim. Because we forgot the aim. غَفَلْنَا عَنْ تِلْكَ الْوِجْهَةِ، عَنْ ذَلِكَ الْمَقْصَدِ، عَنِ الْآخِرَةِ، عَنِ الْحَقِيقَةِ.

And then secondly, because of dhunūb — and with that come sins: deliberate, willful acts of disobedience of God, of Allah — and therefore causing harm spiritually, morally, socially, physically, etc., to ourselves and to others, to other creatures of Allah. That's the sin. And then when we sin it gets worse. Our hearts are stained. Our hearts are clouded. Our hearts are sick. And when our hearts — the spiritual locus of our existence — are blind, then we are unable to see truth as truth and to see falsehood as falsehood. And then we live our lives in accordance to this misread reality.

The Cure: Dhikr, Salah, and Staying on Course

And Allah — by His merciful love and by His grace — even though He told us all of that, He still did not leave us just like that. But He actually gave us very specific things to pay attention to and to do in order to keep us away from being in ghafla and away from being in dhunūb. And that is why, for example, He says to us: always be in shahada, always be in dhikr of لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ.

لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — when I keep repeating that statement of tawhīd, when I keep repeating it every day in salah and outside of salah, when I keep repeating that, I am reminding myself of what? Of my objective. First of all: لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — there is no god but Allah. In other words, I am reminding myself constantly through that, that my aim in this life — as long as I live, under all circumstances — is Allah. So it reminds me, and this helps me be safe from ghafla.

And that ghafla, sometimes especially when it goes into the heart, into the mind, into the thoughts, it's even worse. And therefore لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — to be said when you are alone and sitting and in contemplation — it is more effective than when you are not, because we would make an effort that لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ is felt by us inside. لَا إِلَهَ — to remove — there is no, to remove everything from your heart. إِلَّا اللَّهُ — and then to fill with Allah. And you keep doing that.

There is salah. Salah is not only once a week or once a month — five times a day in the obligatory way, and many more times in the supererogatory way, in the nawāfil way. And when that keeps repeating — salah, which has rukū' and sujūd and اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ — "God is greater than" — and it is left open to any and everything. That helps me develop that awareness and helps me keep my focus on Him and pay attention to what I do and what I feel. For Allah is greater than what I do and what I feel — positive or negative, opportunity or challenge, pain or joy. اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ. And so there is qiyām.

The Inner Dimension of Fasting

And as we've been learning, fasting is about certainly developing discipline inside of me, keeping aware of Allah, and developing a positive energy of will — of an irāda — that is able to say no to the temptations of sins. Because when I fast, we fast, and we say no by a will inside of us to what is halāl — of eating and drinking and copulating — from dawn to dusk. When we do that by choice, that's a will, that's an energy inside. And we're going to use that same will — developed through fasting — to say no to a temptation of disobedience of Allah, and therefore of harmful action or reaction towards the creatures of Allah, and therefore towards Allah. So that helps us develop that energy to say no to that which is sinful.

In order that you attain taqwā. Where is taqwā? التَّقْوَى هَا هُنَا — it is in the heart. And taqwā is a condition in which we are so aware of Allah that we keep distant from that which keeps us distant from Him — that we keep distant from that which keeps us distant from Him. So we keep deliberately away from that which would keep us away from Allah and would lead upon us — or incur upon us — His displeasure or His wrath.

Siyām — remember that this is the month of siyām. And we have emphasized, and we will continue to emphasize, the more important inner dimension of siyām that would help us be aware of Allah. Remember that my heart and yours, that my senses and limbs and yours, are also fasting. That my heart fasts — that I do not allow the negative energies inside of my heart to be present and to dictate my actions. I must fast in my qalb. I must not allow feelings and emotions and drives and energies that are negative — like arrogance and delusion and conceitedness and ostentation and greed and love for dunyā and love for leadership and unkindness and hastiness and high-temperedness — I must fast from that. And my limbs must fast — my eyes, my tongue, my ears, my hands, my touch, my legs — must fast by not engaging in that which Allah does not love.

That is why he said — and I remind myself and you about this essence of fasting — he said: there are those who fast and the only benefit they harvest from their fasting is hunger. And there are those who perform night vigil prayers — qiyām and tahajjud and tarāwīh — and the only benefit they harvest from all of that is sleeplessness and fatigue.

(Sunan Ibn Mājah, Hadith 1690; also reported in Musnad Ahmad)

Why? Because there are those of us who fast at the first dimension, at the first level — of not eating, and not drinking, and not copulating — who fast from that, and that's required of course, but that's the only thing they do. That means we do not care about where our hearts are, in which condition they are. And we do not care about how our eyes are used, and our ears, and our tongues, and our hands, and our might, and our pen, and our resources, and our wealth, and our power — we don't care how they are used pertaining to our relationship with people and with the creatures of Allah. If that happens, that siyām is in essence empty, and it's not enough at all. The essence of siyām is what helps us keep focus on Allah, navigating in this life, living in this life with full awareness of Allah and of the Ākhira.

(Sunan Ibn Mājah, Hadith 4105)

The one whose home — the home of the Hereafter — is the objective, is the aim, Allah would collect for him — or her — all his or her worries, and they will not be dispersed everywhere inside of themselves. These are the means by which Allah helps us stay on course, stay focused on our objective, and not lose that — because we have a job, or because we have a family challenge, or because we have a political issue, or because we have a financial or economic issue, or a global issue, or a local issue, or an administrative issue. We live in this life to go back home. And where is home? In Jannah, in Paradise. We live to go back home. That's our objective.

This home, this world, is simply with a transit visa — or at most with residency — but not with citizenship. I am a citizen of Jannah. That's where I was born. Adam, alayhi salam, was from Jannah. And you — in his genome — you came from Jannah. That's home. This is transitory. This is at most residence. Use it to go back home. No matter what we do, make sure what we do — make sure what we say — is consistent with that journey and that reality.

Freedom Through Allah: The Purpose of Worship

My dear brothers and sisters, of the ways Allah helps us remain focused — and to cleanse our hearts, and to strengthen us, and to liberate our hearts and our souls and our spirits from that which, when we are engaged in it, would keep us simply jailed and restricted and abased and not so free — because freedom, ultimate noble freedom, is the freedom in Allah, with Allah. This world is too constricted. This four-dimensional world is too constricted relative to the greater world of the Hereafter, with dimensions much greater than three or four. We have more freedom, greater freedom. That freedom, Allah wants us to begin to develop in this dunyā, in our hearts.

And all what He teaches us is to develop freedom from other than Allah. And so salah — when we are called to salah — so that we are free from all other attachments and addictions of this world, even work. "Come to success" — leave that when it comes to salah, and come to salah, to be liberated from those attachments that I have built to anything else — work, or food, or home, or the world. Come to the infinite Allah.

Siyām again — the least of which is to have freedom and to be free from my addiction and attachment to materialistic things, to food, to eating, to sleeping, to copulating. I need to be free from that inside of my heart.

Zakah: The Month of Giving

And zakah — and giving in the way of Allah. Bring the glad tidings, Ya Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to those who are humble in front of their Lord, to those whose hearts are humble, those who when God is mentioned — when Allah is mentioned — their hearts tremble. And those who practice patience in the face of the calamities and the challenges they face. And those who establish and perform salah that is with khushū'. And then finally, of what We have bestowed upon them, they give.

We all — human beings as you know — have a very, very strong attachment to food, to copulating, and to wealth, isn't it. And wealth for power. And we have that attachment, and that attachment oftentimes — and on average for many of us human beings — leads us to fumble, to fall, morally, collectively and individually. And Allah wants us to be free from that. And therefore zakah — and this is the month of zakah, the month of giving in the way of Allah.

And I remind you and myself again about the obligatory zakah in your wealth — whether you have little or a lot, as long as it is beyond the nisāb — remember that please. And during this month, alhamdulillah, with all these meanings that we are sharing, do not forget to practice — to liberate my heart from the attachment I have for wealth and for power. Give — أَنْفِقْ أَعْطِ — give in ways that Allah loves. Not in ways that are criminal, not in ways that Allah does not love, not in ways to promote the self and aggrandize the self, but in ways Allah loves — the needy, the poor, the destitute, the homeless, the sick, the bound, the slave, the masājid of Allah, the houses of Allah — to be built and to be maintained in every way possible of maintenance.

To give during this month — نُورٌ عَلَى نُورٍ — light upon light. As you can see, the light of liberating our hearts from so many elements. Now it is the element of attachment that we have — so strong for money, for wealth — give. أَنْفِقْ يُنْفِقِ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكَ — spend and Allah will spend on you, for you, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala.

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2588)

Not only that — we must never fear, and may Allah remove the fear that Shaytan puts inside of us from being poor. So Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says: never shall charity cause one to be poor — مَا نَقَصَ مَالُ عَبْدٍ مِنْ صَدَقَةٍ قَطُّ — which basically means never shall charity, in giving فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ, make a person faqīr, in need. On the contrary, Allah creates in the hearts of such people — and there are such people — liberty, freedom, expansion, ease, joy, positive energy to do other great positive things.

Closing of the First Khutbah

My dear brothers and sisters, we ask Allah the Almighty, the Merciful, the Forgiving, to make me and you from those who listen to the words and follow them. We beseech Allah, the Almighty, the All-Forgiving, the All-Giving, to help me and you be of those who listen to the words of admonition and follow the best of them. I say this and ask forgiveness of Allah the Great for me and you — so ask forgiveness of Allah the Great.

Second Khutbah: Salawāt and Du'ā'

All praise is due to Allah and He is sufficient, and may Allah bless His chosen servants. O Allah, bless and bless Muhammad — the one who opens what is closed, and the one who closes what is opened, the one who knows the truth by the truth, the one who helps the truth by the truth, and the one who strives against the armies of falsehood — and his family, the one who has fulfilled his destiny.

اذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ — Remember Allah and He will remember you. Stand for your salah.