Did We Migrate?

Did We Migrate?

by Imam Mustafa

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and there is no partner for Him, and to Him belongs the kingdom, and to Him is all praise. He gives life and causes death, and He is Ever-Living, Never-Dying. In His hand is all that is good, and He is Able to do all things.

I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. He sent him with guidance and the religion of truth, to make it prevail over all other religions, even if the disbelievers and the polytheists hate it.

We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally praised except Allah. And we bear witness that Prophet Muhammad is his final and last messenger. And we ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon Prophet Muhammad, his companions and those that follow him to the end of time.

We ask Allah to cure the sick amongst us, be it physical or spiritual. And we ask Allah to have forgiveness and mercy upon all of the Muslims that have transitioned to the barzakh. And we ask Allah to forgive us, our mothers, our fathers, our grandmothers, our grandfathers, up until the first one of them in Islam.

We ask Allah for the couples that are struggling to have children, that Allah make it easy for them. We ask Allah for the parents struggling to raise their children in the current climate, that Allah make it easy for them. We ask Allah to protect these children from leaving Islam, and from a sudden death, and from any illness, and from bad friends, and from the evil eye.

And we ask Allah for the children that have yet to see the blessing of parents, that Allah inspire them to be obedient to their parents. We ask Allah to never take our souls except in a state that He is pleased with us.

The Best of Mankind

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was the best man that clouds ever provided shade for. And studying the life of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ brings comfort to the heart. I mentioned multiple statements of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in the beginning of the khutbah, which I would like to discuss with you all today. He gave us two definitions.

The first definition that Prophet Muhammad ﷺ gave for us is the definition of a Muslim. A Muslim is someone who other people are saved from his direct harm and his indirect harm — the direct harm that comes from his mouth and his limbs, and the indirect harm that comes from his mouth and his limbs.

Who Is the Muhajir?

However, he mentioned a very important definition for us that we should use to understand and calculate if we are really successful. He described the muhajir — the immigrant, the migrant. What is his description? And why do we want to know what the description of al-muhajir is? Because Prophet Muhammad ﷺ mentioned to us in another hadith about the reward of the muhajireen.

One day the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was sitting with his companions and he told them, "Do you know who the first people to go into Jannah from my ummah are?" They said, "Allah and His messenger know best." He said, "The muhajireen." They will come and they will knock on the doors of Jannah, and they will ask the gatekeepers of Jannah to open the door for them. And the gatekeepers will tell the muhajireen, "Did Allah question you? Did you finish your hisab?" They will respond, "What hisab? Our swords were between our shoulders and our neck, waiting to die and fight for Islam and defend Prophet Muhammad ﷺ." So they will be entered into Jannah 40 years before anyone else. And the muhajireen were the people that migrated from Mecca to Medina to support and aid the mission of Islam.

The verse that I recited, Allah says — that the first forerunners of the muhajireen and the ansar, and then:

And the people that come in 2023 and 2024 that follow them with excellence — they will have three rewards.

Number one: رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ وَرَضُوا عَنْهُ — You will have the pleasure of Allah in this world and the next.

Number two: وَأَعَدَّ لَهُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي تَحْتَهَا الْأَنْهَارُ — Allah will give them gardens beneath which rivers flow.

But that is not better than the third: خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَدًا — You will stay in Jannah forever. You will never get old. You won't have to work. And you won't deal with the stress of this dunya.

Then Allah says something very important: ذَٰلِكَ الْفَوْزُ الْعَظِيمُ — That is the mighty triumph. That's very impressive. You lived in 2023 with all of these distractions, so easily able to disobey Allah, and you enter into His garden.

The Three Components of Migration

How do you become amongst the muhajireen in our time? There are three components.

Component One: The Definition of a Muhajir

What is the definition of a muhajir? The Prophet said that you can be amongst them. You don't have to leave Dallas to go to Houston. You just have to do the following:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 10; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 41)

You have to migrate away from the disobedience of Allah to the obedience of Allah. And the companions did that — they migrated away from Mecca to Medina. And if they didn't, they would have disobeyed the command of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. How do we do this? Because if we do it, then the promise is there:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2948)

If you worship Allah in 2023 in these difficult times, Allah will raise you with Abu Bakr As-Siddiq and Umar, may Allah be pleased with them. And you will enter into Jannah 40 years before anyone else.

What must you do? You must migrate away from the disobedience of Allah to the obedience of Allah. How do you do that?

For my young men — migrate away from bad social media platforms to good social media platforms. And even when you are on those good social media platforms, you don't spend that much time on them. My young brothers, stop messaging girls on social media. You are not financially capable for marriage. You are not emotionally capable for marriage. You do not meet any of the criteria for marriage. You should not be messaging girls on social media. While she may be the daughter of a man, she is also the daughter of our community. And it is our responsibility to protect her. If we allow the men to just message the girls, those are our daughters, those are our nieces. Those are my advice for the young men. And my last advice for the young men: migrate away from speaking to your parents with a loud tone to a soft tone. This is what Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is asking from us.

For our brothers that have been worshiping Allah for 15 years, 20 years — the shaytan doesn't leave any door unclosed. While in the beginning you may have been worshiping Allah sincerely, after those years you become entitled, you become arrogant. Migrate away from those hidden sins of the heart. Migrate away from a heart of entitlement and arrogance to a heart of humbleness.

We ask Allah to make it extremely easy for our sisters. But brothers and sisters, you do not know what the sisters are going through outside these four walls. The temperature is very, very hot, and society is telling them to take off their clothes. My sisters that don't wear the hijab — migrate away from not wearing the hijab to wearing the hijab. Even if it's not 100% compliant, but at least it's a starting point. And if you're wearing the hijab and you have some hair showing, then don't stay idle in that stage. Work to get to a stage where you're covering all of your hair. Once all of your hair is covered, migrate to wearing the proper Islamic attire where your clothes are very loose.

For leadership — migrate away from pleasing the west to pleasing the One who calls the sun to rise from the east and settle in the west. What has pleasing the west done to us? Did they stop killing our brothers and sisters all over the world in the name of democracy? For our community members, for our leadership — we need to migrate away from competing with each other in negative competition, to completing each other.

Component Two: Migrating Courageously

Is that the only component? No. You migrate away from the disobedience of Allah to the obedience of Allah. But do you do it shyly? Do you do it cowardly? Or do you do it courageously and proudly? Let's look at the life of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to see how he did it.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, there was a man called Amr ibn Kulthum, and he was the chieftain of his tribe. And there was another man called Amr ibn Hind, and he was the king of that time. Amr ibn Hind summoned Amr ibn Kulthum. So he came with his tribe. And the women were sitting in one tent, and the men were sitting in another tent. The mother of the king, in a derogatory manner displaying her authority, told her, "Pass me the pot to make some tea." And she felt that she was being asked in a disrespectful manner. So she said, "Whoever owns the pot has more right to it than me. I won't, you get the pot yourself." However, the mother of the king insisted. So the mother of Amr ibn Kulthum said on the other side of the tent, "Oh the dishonor of our tribe!" What did Amr ibn Kulthum do? He saw the sword on top of the head of the king, he took it and he cut his head off.

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was sent to these people. These people that were easily offended, and they were quick to draw the blade whenever they sensed any disrespect or offense. And these people held certain things in high esteem. One of those things that they held in high esteem was their idols. Khalid ibn Walid says, "My father slaughtered one thousand camels for an idol." So these stones that they held in high esteem — higher than their mothers — they showed respect and obedience and love and admiration and reverence for these idols. And Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was being sent to these people to tell them that these 360 idols around the Ka'bah are nonsense.

You see India playing Pakistan in cricket — say something on the other side. You see Real Madrid playing Barcelona — look how they take their sports. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is going to them and he is going to tell them these idols are nonsense. And Allah tells him:

O Messenger, convey what has been revealed to you from your Lord. And if you do not, then you have not delivered His message.

Then Allah gave him even harsher words:

If Prophet Muhammad ﷺ were not courageous and did not tell them the message the same way it was revealed, Allah said: "We would have seized him by the right hand, and then We would have severed his aorta." Allah would have severed the aorta of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ if he didn't deliver the message the way it was supposed to be delivered. فَمَا مِنكُم مِّنْ أَحَدٍ عَنْهُ حَاجِزِينَ — No one could have shielded him.

So Islam teaches us courage. When you migrate away from the disobedience of Allah to the obedience of Allah, you migrate courageously.

When you make wudu at work or at college, you don't tell them, "I'm making wudu because I have a headache or I want to freshen up." No. You tell them, "I'm making wudu because I'm a Muslim, and I pray five times a day." When you wear the hijab, you don't tell them it's cultural. You tell them because Allah, above His throne, said that you must wear the hijab. When you're fasting, you don't tell them you're doing intermittent fasting. You tell them you're fasting because Allah and His messenger told you to fast. When you grow your beard, you don't tell them it's because of fashion. Because your religion told you to grow your beard. When you don't eat pork, you tell them you don't eat pork because it's unhealthy — or better yet, because Allah and His messenger told you not to eat it.

We ask Allah to make us amongst the people that migrate away from the disobedience of Allah to the obedience of Allah courageously.

The Second Khutbah: Never Lose Hope

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ، وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى مَنْ لَا نَبِيَّ بَعْدَهُ

"Brother Mustafa, you don't live in this society, you don't know how difficult it is. You're the one who told us that Imam al-Shafi'i complained to his teacher that he saw the ankle of a woman. What about if Imam al-Shafi'i was living in our time? It's difficult. The means to do haram are very easy, and to worship Allah is very difficult. What do we do, Mustafa?"

First thing — you can never, ever, ever believe that your sins are too much for Allah to forgive. No one in this gathering, no one online, is like Fudayl ibn Ayyad. He was born in 725 after hijrah and he passed away in 803 — he lived 78 years. Before he became a scholar at the tier one level, he was a highway robber. He didn't rob the Amazon trucks, he didn't rob the Apple trucks — he robbed people going to make Hajj and Umrah. Months and months of walking with their livestock and their family and their money, and he robbed them.

One day, he was going to rob two individuals and they had their backs to a wall, and they said, "We better hurry up and get going — Fudayl might rob us." Fudayl heard this statement and he said, "I will never rob them again." Imagine the hearts of these people. We go to Hajj and Umrah, we lose internet connection for one minute and we become different people. These people lost all of their provisions, and they were calling upon Allah with a broken heart that Allah take Fudayl ibn Ayyad into account — and what did Allah do? Allah still guided him.

Fir'aun himself — the one who claimed that he was a lord — Jibreel, peace be upon him, was pushing mud into his mouth out of fear that if he said لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ and asked Allah for forgiveness, Allah would accept his forgiveness. Who are we?

When you fall down, you get back up. You never gave up on a bachelor's degree. You never gave up to come to America. You never gave up on $60,000. You never gave up on a 2,000 square foot house. Now you're going to give up on your salvation with Allah?

Allah says, and I conclude:

For six years, you wore the proper hijab. And then for six months, you took off the hijab. What do you do? You get back up and you go back to Allah. What does He do for that six-month interval when you were disobeying Him? He turns all of it into good deeds.

Turn back to Allah courageously. Never lose hope in Allah. If you don't go to Him, where else will you go?

What Are You Working For?

And I conclude, brothers and sisters — the Jannah that we are working for is something that no eye has ever seen and no brain has ever comprehended. If you do not understand what you are working for, I encourage and implore you all to study what you are protecting yourself from when you migrate, and what you are rewarding yourself with when you migrate.

When you migrate, you are protecting yourself from a fire. A fire that has been kindled for 1,000 years by Allah until it was red. Then He told it to kindle for another 1,000 years until it was white. And then Allah told the fire to kindle for another 1,000 years until it was black. When you migrate, you are protecting yourself from this fire.

I ask Allah to make us of a people that migrate away from the disobedience of Allah to the obedience of Allah courageously. I ask Allah to make us of a people that never lose hope in the mercy of Allah. I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan.