20170106-2nd Khutba - Hawa Vs Huda - Imam Mokhtar Maghroui

Opening — Khutbah al-Hajah

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 إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ سَيِّدَنَا وَمَوْلَانَا مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَمَّا بَعْدُ

أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْكَلَامِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ وَخَيْرَ الْهُدَى هُدَى سَيِّدِنَا وَمَوْلَانَا مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ

O you who have attained faith — as Allah says — be conscious of Allah, be reverent of Allah, have awe in your hearts for Allah in a way that is worthy of His names and attributes, in the way that is worthy of His beauty and majesty, in the way that is worthy of His bountiful gifts and favours upon us.

Everything Belongs to Allah and Returns to Him

This universe, this earth, this creation — all of space, time, and beyond — belongs to Allah. It is His. يَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَاءُ خَالِقُ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَإِلَيْهِ يَرْجِعُ كُلُّ شَيْءٍ — the Creator of everything and everything will return to Him.

And when we say "everything," we mean everything besides the Creator Himself — whether it is physical or aphysical, mental, intellectual, emotional, psychological, spiritual — not only physical things. كُلُّ شَيْءٍ هُوَ خَالِقُهُ، كُلُّ شَيْءٍ إِلَيْهِ يَرْجِعُ. And every such thing is created, and every such thing will return to Him. What I think, what you think — our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our drives, our sympathies, our antipathies — all our events in this creation and our created realities all will return to Him.

Number one. Number two: in this creation of Allah, the way things are created and we perceive them — there is good and bad, there is righteousness and evil, there is affliction and ease, there is difficulty and delight, there are good times and bad times, there are opportunities and there are challenges. This is life. It belongs to Him and it is this way He created what He created.

Number three: whether in prosperity or in adversity, whether in affliction or in delight, whether in hardship or ease, whether in challenge or opportunity — in both cases, we are meant as human beings in particular to be the stewards of Allah in this creation, in particular on this earth. We are to be His khalifa on earth.

The Meaning of Khilafah — Representing Allah's Attributes

How are we khalifa on this earth in light of what we experience in this creation — either challenges or opportunities? To be His stewards is, under those circumstances whether ease or difficulty, whether challenge or opportunity, whether adversity or prosperity, that I and you are to respond in the way He wants us to represent Him.

And how does He want us to represent Him? Since He assigned to us the task of stewardship — of khilafa, of trusteeship — we represent Him by behaving in adversity or in prosperity, in opportunity or in challenge, consistently with what and who He is. And who is He? And what is He? We know Him by His attributes. We know Him by His names.

He is al-'Adl. He is al-Muhsin. He is al-Rahim, al-Kareem. He is al-Qawiyy, al-Mateen. He is al-Hakeem. He is al-'Aziz, al-Jabbar. This is what He is, as He made Himself known to us — these are His attributes.

When we are His stewards, we are to respond to the challenges and the opportunities in a way consistent with those attributes. In that way we represent Him, because we are in a sense the reflection of His attributes on this earth. So we are His khulafa, we are His stewards. And if we do not respond in a way consistent with His beautiful attributes, then we are not His stewards, we are not representing Him — we have failed the task of khilafa on earth, of stewardship on earth.

Allah is al-'Adl — is just — for example. And in order that we represent Him properly on this earth, we are to exhibit ourselves the attribute of justice when required. And He is Rahim — mercifully loving — and we must exhibit the attribute of rahma, of merciful love, in our lives — in prosperity or in adversity, in opportunity or in challenge. He is 'Afu — one who pardons and forgives — and in order to represent Him we must also show and exhibit the attribute of 'afu, of pardoning and of forgiving, when it is required. Allah is Muhsin — one who is very benevolent, magnanimous — and I and you must exhibit the trait and the attribute of ihsan in our lives, of benevolence and magnanimity, when required. Allah is Kareem — generous — and we would fail to assume the responsibility of khilafa, of stewardship or trusteeship or vicegerency on this earth, if we fail to exhibit in our lives karam, generosity — at home, at work, in the masjid, in the streets, politically, economically, collectively, individually, under all circumstances — when we win, when we lose, when we succeed, when we fail. If we do not exhibit these attributes, then we do not represent Him, and we are not His khulafa.

And you all know by now — and if some of us don't, we must know — that Allah, as human beings, favoured us by honouring us with the responsibility of khilafa on this earth:

And this is the essence of being a khalifa — to represent Allah in His attributes, in His names, in our lives — collectively and individually, in big issues and in minor issues, at home and in the markets, in the masjid and in politics, in military circumstances and conditions or civil ones. We are wherever we are and whenever we are in His domain and in His dominion. And in this case we are created to assume the responsibility of representing Him — and representing Him well.

So if He is beautiful and I am ugly, then I am not representing Him. And He is beautiful — وَلِلَّهِ الْأَسْمَاءُ الْحُسْنَى — all the names of the divine are beautiful, whether of jamal or jalal, both are beautiful — لِلَّهِ الْأَسْمَاءُ الْحُسْنَى. And if I conduct myself — under any circumstance, at home or outside, in prosperity or in adversity, when things are easy or when things are very challenging emotionally, financially, economically, health-wise — under all circumstances, if I behave and respond in ways that are not consistent with His attributes, I repeat that I have failed the task and the responsibility to which I committed myself before I was even created:

For we gave the pledge to the divine even before we came into this world — when we were still in the genomes of our parents, Adam and Hawa — that we do acknowledge the lordship of Allah, lest on the Day of Judgment we shall say we didn't know. And then on top of that, when we are physically created in this world, Allah sent us revelation through His most beloved of creatures to inform us about the pledge we have and the commitment we make — especially when we affirm by saying:

That the pledge we have made is to assume the task and responsibility of khilafa on earth. And khilafa on earth means — I repeat — to reflect and to represent the divine attributes in our lives at our best possible human level.

I repeat: Allah is Rahim, I must be Rahim. Allah is Kareem, I must be Kareem. Allah is 'Adl, I must be 'Adl. Allah is Muhsin, I must be Muhsin. Allah is Ghafoor, I must be Ghafoor. Allah is 'Aziz, I must be 'Aziz — بِعِزَّةِ الْإِسْلَامِ — and so on.

Hawa vs. Huda — The Two Paths

And yet Allah has also said to us:

Who is worse — who is more lost — than one who walks and navigates by following his or her own, disregarding guidance from God? Who is worse of those who are lost than one who wants to get somewhere without a proper map to navigate? Who is worst of a loser and of a lost one in this world than one who lives this life and pursues his or her aims in this life without — and ignoring — the road map offered by the Creator of life?

You buy a car, you have to use the manual of instruction to use it properly. You are in a foreign land, you have to use the maps available to navigate through the land properly. We have to use the wahy — the road map offered by the divine — to navigate in this life. The Creator of life did not leave us without guidance. And if we don't use it, it is at our own risk and peril, and we will lose our way.

The First Type: Manifest Following of Hawa

There are two kinds of those of us who are lost. The utterly lost, the manifestly lost — مَنْ يَتَّبِعُ الْهَوَى الْجَلِيَّ. Those of us who follow, as human beings, their own inclinations manifestly — with utter and obvious and manifest and blatant disregard of the wahy, of divine guidance. "There is no such thing as the Quran. There is no such thing as divine revelation." And some even go to the extent of saying, "There is no such thing as God." Following their own instincts, their own whims, their own personal preferences and assessments and evaluations — this is اتِّبَاعُ الْهَوَى الْجَلِيِّ.

The manifest inner drives inside of us, the whims inside of us — the intellectual, mental, philosophical, and ideological inclinations inside of us — when we follow them in disregard of the guidance of Allah, we follow our hawa. And hawa in the ayah we recited, and huda, are juxtaposed — one facing the other, one opposite to the other:

A person who follows his or her hawa opposite to huda — hawa is therefore when we ignore the huda from the divine, the instruction from the divine. We will follow our own instructions, and we are running the gravest of dangers. And those who reject that — the mushrik, the kafir — prefer instead his or her own abilities, rely on his or her own capacities, worshipping in a deeper sense his or her own perceived, self-evaluated personal intelligence. And sometimes we take IQ tests which can be culturally based or biased, and we fail. And then this human being wants to take on the task of living this life and defining the parameters — allowed and not allowed in this life — on account of that type of intelligence.

The Second Type: Hidden Following of Hawa

And there are those who accept revelation, accept the divine communication — but we still follow our hawa in a latent, tacit way — هَوًى خَفِيٌّ. Not by rejecting revelation, but by misinterpreting revelation. We interpret revelation in the way we like — in the way that is consistent with our internal drives and emotions and inclinations and likes and dislikes.

(A principle articulated by scholars of Islamic sciences)

We then read and understand — and want to understand it — and interpret it in the way we are inside, not in the way it really is. Because there is a drive inside of me — an intellectual, ideological, emotional, or psychological drive — which dictates to me the way I am going to read this text, the way I am going to understand this nasiha, the way I am going to interpret this ayah or this hadith or this juristic text. "That's how I see it. I accept revelation — but this is what it means."

For example — the Khawarij in the time of Sayyiduna Rasulullah ﷺ and in the time of Sayyiduna Mawlana Ali رضي الله تعالى عنه وأرضاه وكرم وجهه. They would read the texts very well, and pray and fast and be in dhikr and so on. But they would tell a scholar like the super-scholar, باب العلم — the gate of knowledge — Sayyiduna Ali رضي الله تعالى عنه: "You didn't understand this text. The way we understand it is what is correct." This is hawa.

And this is what we do — many of us human beings. And Shaytan is the first one who committed this awful, horrible mistake. When the text was in front of him — in this context meaning when Allah spoke to him directly — "Do such a thing: اسْجُدْ لِآدَمَ — lay yourself prostrate to Adam" — along with all the others. But he said no — not on the basis of rejecting divine revelation, but on the basis of interpreting divine revelation in accordance with his hawa:

"Fire is greater than clay — how could fire lay itself prostrate to clay?" See how he obfuscated and broke the purity of the text, the obvious meaning of the text, into something consistent with his own — and the way he viewed himself, what he should and should not be, what he should and should not do.

Hawa Pulls Down — Wahy Raises Up

In doing that, in following our hawa, my beloved brothers and sisters:

Hawa leaves a person to fall freely onto the ground — it has a strong gravitational pull to be low. And wahy is from the sky, it is from the heavens — it raises us up. When we follow our hawa, we fall in hawa. When we follow al-wahy, we are raised into the heavens — intellectually and spiritually as well.

And when we follow our hawa and our shahawat as a consequence — our appetites and low passions — we are not representing Allah on this earth. We are not assuming the task of khilafa of Allah on earth.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ الْعَظِيمَ لِي وَلَكُمْ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ — طُوبَى لِلْمُسْتَغْفِرِينَ. Please seek the forgiveness of Allah. What an excellent abode awaits those who sincerely and honestly seek forgiveness from Allah. اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنَا مِنْهُمْ.

Second Part of the Khutbah

Finally, my beloved brothers and sisters — may Allah build the bonds of true hubb, love, between us for Him. Ameen.

In every situation we find ourselves in this life — at home, at work, in the market, in the masjid, in the streets, collectively, individually, world issues, political issues, common issues, small issues, health issues, family issues, whatever — we are human beings endowed with the task of stewardship, of representing Allah on earth. And we should — I and you — honestly and sincerely and devoutly pray to Allah and ask Allah:

To make me of those who know what we have talked about. Second, to commit to this task for which I am created. And to help me assume and fulfill that task of representing — through my character, through my words, through my action and reaction, under all those circumstances — to represent the attributes of Allah under all circumstances. I repeat — in prosperity or in adversity, in opportunity or in challenge, internally or externally, all the time, individually or collectively — خُلُقًا وَقَوْلًا بَاطِنًا وَظَاهِرًا.

Ya Allah, help us be of those who are most favoured, the choicest of Your servants, in following Your most beloved steward on earth, Your most perfect steward on earth — Sayyiduna Mawlana Muhammad صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم — internally and externally.

Du'a

Let the most beautiful of our moments and the happiest of our moments be the moment in which we ultimately come to You.

قُومُوا إِلَى صَلَاتِكُمْ يَرْحَمْكُمُ اللَّهُ