When Love Makes You Crazy

Opening Khutbah

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ، الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَسْتَهْدِيهِ وَنُؤْمِنُ بِهِ وَنَتَوَكَّلُ عَلَيْهِ، وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ الْعَظِيمِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدُ يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ وَهُوَ حَيٌّ لَا يَمُوتُ بِيَدِهِ الْخَيْرُ وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَصَفِيُّهُ وَخَلِيلُهُ، أَدَّى الْأَمَانَةَ وَبَلَّغَ الرِّسَالَةَ وَنَصَحَ الْأُمَّةَ وَكَشَفَ الْغُمَّةَ وَتَرَكَنَا عَلَى الْمَحَجَّةِ الْبَيْضَاءِ لَيْلُهَا كَنَهَارِهَا لَا يَزِيغُ عَنْهَا إِلَّا هَالِكٌ، فَعَلَيْهِ أَخْتَارُ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالتَّسْلِيمُ الْأَتَمُّ عَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَمَنِ اسْتَنَّ بِسُنَّتِهِ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ، اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنَا مِنْهُمْ وَمِنَ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ آمِينَ رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ

وَأُوصِيكُمْ وَنَفْسِي بِتَقْوَى اللَّهِ وَقَدْ أَمَرَنَا بِالْحَقِّ وَقَالَ تَعَالَى:

We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right 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 Judgement, and we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

The Story of Marthad ibn Abi Marthad

Dear brothers and sisters, in our Tuesday night classes we've been going over the lessons of the firsts — the first companions, the first to stand with the Prophet ﷺ in the wake of many difficult circumstances, and who sacrificed their lives. I mentioned two weeks ago that I was going to save one companion for a khutbah. We spoke about what is known as Hadithatul Raji' — so consider this a bonus session.

Hadithatul Raji' was the massacre of six or ten unsuspecting companions in the wake of Uhud, alongside Bi'r Ma'una, in which over 70 companions were massacred after Uhud, and that caused great devastation to the Prophet ﷺ. We've spoken about five of the six: we spoke about Asim ibn Thabit, we spoke about Khalid ibn Bukair, we spoke about Abdullah ibn Tariq, we talked about Khubayb ibn Adi, and we spoke about Zayd ibn Dathina رضي الله تعالى عنهم أجمعين.

We left out this one companion, and as I mentioned, we are going to speak about him today bi'idhnillahi ta'ala. His name is Marthad ibn Abi Marthad رضي الله تعالى عنهما. The reason why he is such an interesting character is because he offers yet another complexity to the situation of these early Muslims, who immediately found themselves in situations in which they had to negotiate their taqwa with difficulties that were arising in real time.

Who Was Marthad?

Marthad and his father were both actually Meccan, and they became Muslim together. Marthad was a handsome, well-built young man who immediately dedicated himself to the Prophet ﷺ. He was a halif — an ally — of Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib رضي الله تعالى عنهم in Mecca. And in Medina he became the brother of Al-Aws ibn Samit رضي الله تعالى عنهم, the great Ansari, the brother of Ubadah ibn Samit رضي الله تعالى عنهم.

He has a very specific role in the seerah: he is the man that the Prophet ﷺ used to send on missions from Medina to rescue poor prisoners in Mecca. He was Meccan but he was strong, he was smart, he knew Mecca inside out, and the Prophet ﷺ gave him this task where he would send him from Medina on multiple missions. He'd basically park his camel in a place called al-Idkhir, go deep into Mecca, rescue someone, bring them back, and then take them back to Medina. Talk about a noble man; talk about the courage that he had to have to be able to do that.

The Hadith of Marthad and Anaq

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, narrated by Amr ibn Shu'ayb from his father, from his grandfather)

This hadith is in al-Tirmidhi. Amr ibn Shu'ayb رضي الله تعالى عنهم narrates from his father, from his grandfather, that there was a man from Mecca who used to go to Mecca from Medina and rescue the prisoners on behalf of the Prophet ﷺ.

And on one of these trips:

There was a woman who didn't have the best reputation in terms of what she would do — she was an adulteress, someone who was known in Mecca for a very particular sin, the sin of zina. But the hadith has a twist: she was prior to the days of Islam his friend. And "his friend" clearly has different connotations here — he knew her well in the days of jahiliyyah, the days of ignorance before he became Muslim. He used to have a relationship with her, and he hadn't spoken to her since he became Muslim.

Marthad is in Mecca on one of these missions from the Prophet ﷺ, and he narrates the story in first person. It is an authentic hadith.

He says: I came to the walls of Mecca on a well moonlit night — there was more light from the moon than other nights. And he said:

She noticed him by his shadow — she knew him so well that just his silhouette alone was enough for her to know that it was Marthad. So Anaq called out to him: "Marthad! Marthad!" — she called out multiple times. And he's on a mission. If he gets compromised here, he's dead. So Marthad comes up to her and says yes, it's Marthad. And Anaq says:

"Welcome back to Mecca, O Marthad. Come spend the night with me."

He has a snap judgement to make here. This isn't just zina — this is the test of Yusuf as well. It's zina or potential death. Adultery or death. He has a million excuses he could make for himself right now. And he does have an attachment to her from before — the attachment is there, the threat is there. And if he does not respond to her, she could compromise his security. But he responds to her and says:

"O Anaq, I'm a Muslim now. I don't do that anymore. And Allah has made zina haram. Allah has made adultery haram."

So what does she do? Marthad says that she screams out at the top of her voice:

"O people of the tents — the man who's been stealing your prisoners is here!"

His security is immediately compromised. Marthad says he immediately ran away, and eight people pursued him. It was night time and he found a cave and got into it. And he said, technically speaking, they found him. The hadith is very explicit:

He says: until they were right above me, and when one of them urinated the urine hit my head. I was that close. You can imagine the fear. I'm dead. They're right there. But he says, miraculously:

Allah blinded them from actually seeing him. They were right there, right on top of him — they could have taken him. Allah, who protected the Messenger ﷺ in the cave during the Hijrah, protected Marthad رضي الله تعالى عنه. So they left — alhamdulillah.

Then he said: so I went back into Mecca and I rescued the prisoner that the Prophet ﷺ sent me to rescue, because I didn't want to go back to the Prophet ﷺ empty-handed. This is taqwa in and of itself. He could have come back and said, I got caught, things got messy. But he went back, he got the prisoner — and this prisoner happened to be a particularly heavy prisoner, so he exhausted him. He carried him out of Mecca while there was already a high alert for him, got to Idkhir, unshackled him, put him on his camel, and they made their way back to Medina.

The Question That Brought Down an Ayah

He gets to the Prophet ﷺ and tells him what happened. Now — all of the things you think he might ask the Prophet ﷺ. Here's something that makes his story the most interesting, and this is why you find the commentary of the ulama on it.

This woman Anaq just tried to have him killed. And what does Marthad ask the Prophet ﷺ? He says: "Ya Rasulullah, can I go back and marry her? Can I go back and ask her to marry me?"

SubhanAllah — this shows you that Islam was difficult on these people in so many different ways. Suddenly they had a lifestyle change. They were used to zina, they were used to khamar, alcohol, adultery, partying — so many different things. But now Islam comes and makes all of that haram in an instant. He is a noble man, and this woman just tried to have him killed, but his heart was still attached to her. And the Prophet ﷺ was silent. He said it again, and the Prophet ﷺ was still silent.

So Marthad got the point that the Prophet ﷺ was not answering him — either he didn't like the question, or the Prophet ﷺ was waiting for an answer from the heavens.

The ulama say: look here — this is again a testament to the man's taqwa. Don't we always have people who get into a haram relationship and try to "halalify" it all of a sudden? Could have come to the Prophet ﷺ and said: "Ya Rasulullah, I abstained. I didn't commit zina. I didn't do anything haram. I was on a noble mission. Now inshallah she can take shahadah and we'll be alright." No — none of that. He waits for the answer from the Prophet ﷺ until the Prophet ﷺ receives Quran from the heavens.

The ayah comes down. So next time you read this ayah, I want you to understand what the context was:

An adulterer does not marry except an adulteress or a disbeliever. And likewise, an adulteress woman does not marry except an adulterous man or a disbelieving man. And this has been made prohibited for the believers. Meaning: the answer is no, Marthad.

And when the Prophet ﷺ comes back to Marthad with an ayah of Quran that came down for him, Marthad could have said, "But ya Rasulullah, what about this and what about that?" The shaitan knows how to play with people in these states. He's desperate. He could easily be exploited in this vulnerability, and shaitan loves to take a person in a temporary vulnerability and make them make such a bad decision that they cannot recover from it. That's what he does — take you in your desperation, make you make a bad decision. Try to cover up a sin with a sin. Try to cover up a lie with a lie. You keep digging yourself deeper and deeper and deeper.

That's the story of Barsisa, the priest from Bani Israel — he got himself into trouble, committed zina, and then he killed the woman, because that's what the shaitan told him: "Now you've got to cover your tracks."

But what does Marthad do? Marthad takes joy in this ayah, because Allah says at the end: this has been made prohibited for the believers. So what's the implication? Allah just referred to me as a mu'min. Therefore I take joy in being a mu'min. And he goes back to work.

What Allah Honored Him With

And what does Allah honor him with? He's a Badri — one of the people who fought in Badr. He's the one man that the Prophet ﷺ entrusted to go into Mecca and pull out those prisoners. He fights in Uhud and he becomes one of the greatest shuhada, because that class of the martyrs of al-Raji' are some of the most special and beloved companions to the Prophet ﷺ.

Lessons from the Story of Marthad

Dear brothers and sisters, the ulama say about this story — subhanAllah — that Marthad checks many boxes that were otherwise theoretical to us. And as we continue on Tuesday nights inshallah ta'ala, we're going to talk about the murderers of al-Raji' and their tawbah. But Marthad checks many of them.

One of the things that we learn from his story that is incredibly beneficial and useful is this: when the Prophet ﷺ talks about the seven people shaded under the throne of Allah on the Day of Judgement, all six of the other categories are categories of ihsan — categories of people who did an extra act of good when they found themselves in a situation, who beautified their deeds. And there is one person: a man who was called to zina:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 660; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1031)

He was called to adultery by a woman of power and beauty, and he said: "Inni akhaafullah — I fear Allah." And Allah places him in that category, under the shade of His throne on the Day of Judgement.

The ulama say: that is the one category of the seven that is a category of taqwa — not a category of ihsan. A category of being God-fearing, not necessarily a category of doing extra for the sake of Allah. And why is that significant? Because when you are in a situation in which you are most vulnerable, most desperate, that is the easiest time for shaitan to play in your mind and say: "Now you can twist a bit, now you can bend a bit, now this sin will save you, now you can do this, you've already done this" — and he'll sink you deeper and deeper.

But what does Allah say?

Whoever fears Allah, Allah will make a way out for them. Whoever has taqwa of Allah, Allah will make a way out for them. Taqwa in those circumstances — after having abandoned it, or finding yourself in a difficult situation — is so much more beloved to Allah than in regular circumstances.

You know how relevant this is to so many of the situations we see happening with the youth right now? To so many of the situations of people that get caught into a bad situation — and what do they do? They make it worse. They make the situation permanent by their sins. You know how many times it happens — because it's not just a person, it's also a drug, something else that you get attached to. You know how many people find themselves exploited? Because the desperate mind is the devil's playground. And it's at that moment that if you can say: inni akhaafullah — no, I fear Allah — attaqullah — I fear Allah — and I will instead abide by the way of Allah, then Allah may honor you and I the way He honored this man, Marthad ibn Abi Marthad رضي الله تعالى عنه.

May Allah be pleased with him, be pleased with the companions, and may Allah send His peace and blessings upon our beloved Prophet ﷺ. Allahumma ameen.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ وَلِسَائِرِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

Second Khutbah — Du'a

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ، وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِهِ الْكَرِيمِ، وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ.

عِبَادَ اللَّهِ، إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَى، وَيَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ، يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ. فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ.