Joe Bradford

O mankind, be mindful of your Lord who created you from one soul, and from that soul its mate, and from those two spread many men and many women. And be mindful of the wombs that bore you, and be mindful of those you ask your rights from, who are indeed Allah's ever watchful over you.

O you who believe, be mindful of Allah and speak the truth. He will guide you to righteous deeds, and forgive you of your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has achieved the greatest achievement.

The best of speech is the speech of God. The best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, صلى الله عليه وسلم. And the worst of things are those newly introduced, and everything newly introduced is an innovation, and every innovation in faith goes astray, and everything which goes astray leads one to the hellfire.

The Prophet's Teaching on Inner Struggles

A man once came to the Prophet, صلى الله عليه وسلم, as was the norm for people to approach the Prophet, صلى الله عليه وسلم, while he was in the street, or he was in his masjid. Sometimes people would be so eager to speak to him, they would wait outside of his door, and wait for him to walk out. Eventually, we were forbidden as believers, from trying to anticipate his time alone. The believers were forbidden, in Surah Al-Hujurat, from going and standing outside of his home, not allowing him the free space to have time with his family.

But in the masjid, in the street, many people would come to him, صلى الله عليه وسلم, and confide in him, and ask him about those things that worried them. And once a man came to him, صلى الله عليه وسلم, and asked him about something that I'm sure each and every one of us has had to deal with it sometime. And if you haven't had to deal with it consciously, I'm almost sure that you've dealt with it unconsciously.

The man came to the Prophet, صلى الله عليه وسلم, and he said, O Messenger of Allah, O Messenger of Allah, I say things to myself in my heart, I say things to myself, I would prefer to fall from the sky, than to speak about them in front of people.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 208)

He, صلى الله عليه وسلم, said, "This is faith absolute."

And in another narration he said, "All praise is due to he who caused his plot to be turned back to mere whispers."

The Nature of Our Inner Struggles

Each and every one of us face different things that trouble us inside. Some of them are whispers from Shaytan. And that Shaytan can be a Shaytan from the jinn, and it can be a Shaytan from the ins. Because they are, Allah سبحانه وتعالى says, "They are Shaytans from man and from the jinn. They inspire each other with deception."

So at times in a weakened state, we can be susceptible to that, but that's not what I want to talk to you about today. What I want to talk to you about today, are the power of words.

The Power of Words

The words that we tell others, and the words that we use about ourselves, and the words that we use with ourselves, in our own presence. This is a very fine line, a very thin difference between these, but it is an important difference nonetheless.

How you talk to yourself, how you talk about yourself, and how you talk in your own presence, affects your emotions. It affects your disposition. It affects how you deal with the positive and the negative that you face in your life. The mere use of a word, can change your entire emotional state.

A Story of the Power of Words

It's said that a famous physician of the past, used to deny the power of the Qur'an to heal the sick. As we know that the Prophet ﷺ said, that reading al-Fatiha over someone who is ill, is shifa. One of his companions read it over someone who was ill, and he ﷺ said, وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ أَنَّهُ شِفَاءٌ "How did you know that this was a healing?"

Allah says, "this is a healing for what's in the hearts of man."

So this physician, he denied that. Now remember, being a physician was not merely an empirical endeavor as it is nowadays, but it was very much a philosophical endeavor as well. Not simply relying on the causes of sickness, but putting a whole thought process into the reasons why. Many times which denied the effect of faith and spirituality on one's life.

So he went to the raqi, he went to this person who reads and prays over people, a faith healer you could say, who reads the Qur'an and dua over people, and asking Allah to heal them. He said, you assume that the Qur'an can heal people. I think this is completely bogus. He said, if you think that, أنت حمار, you're a donkey.

He said, I'm a donkey? How dare you call me a donkey? I'm the top physician in the world. And he got so mad, and he said, leave if you don't want to have a cordial conversation. The physician went home, he got feverish, he got mad. How dare this person talk to me like that? I am not what he said. I am better than that. He spent the whole night in fever, sick for three days.

Came back to me, he said, what kind of magic did you do on me? He said, I didn't do any magic. I used a word, a bad word from a human being to make you sick. But you deny that I used the words of Allah to heal people. At that, he understood the power of what was being said.

Allah's Command to Speak Beautifully

Allah سبحانه وتعالى orders us to speak the best. Allah orders us with justice and ihsan, beautiful excellence. And giving those that are closest to us. And he forbids us from lewd bad speech and evil things and transgressing. He admonishes us so that we can take heed.

It's extremely important when we talk about the way that we see things or the way that we speak that the words that we use we understand that they have a transitive and an intransitive effect. They have a transitive effect meaning that when I speak to you the mere words that I use can change your perception of what I'm saying or what I'm describing to you.

So there's a big difference between me selling you a jar of honey and me selling you a jar of bee vomit. They're the same thing. Honey is the vomit of bees. But the mere way that I say it to you affects your psyche. And the mere way that I say it affects my own psyche as well.

Which is why it's extremely important that we try to balance our lives both inward and outward. Many times in public we can be eloquent. We can be polite. But when we're in private we're rash and we're crude. Many times we may curse. We think no one's hearing us. But Allah is hearing us. And even if we're not cognizant of Allah سبحانه وتعالى we have to understand of the effect that that has on our own heart.

Speaking About Ourselves

The things that we say around us can affect the way that we see or that we speak and the way that we feel. When we talk about ourselves as well and this is going to another level not speaking to other people but speaking about ourselves it's extremely important that we realize that the words that we use about ourselves have an effect on how we see ourselves. They have an effect on the way that we live our lives. They have an effect on our self-esteem and our self-awareness.

We present ourselves to people in a certain manner. And we're supposed to be humble in doing so.

Allah سبحانه وتعالى says, "And to Allah belongs everything which is in the heavens and everything which is in the earth. So that He may reward those who did bad with what they have done. And that He may reward those who strived for excellence with beauty in and of itself. Those who stay away from all of the major sins. And they stay away from those things which are lewd. But they may have a slip of the tongue every once in a while. They may slip up and do minor sins at time. Allah is expansive in His mercy. He is more knowledge of you when He brought you out from the earth. And when you were mere fetuses in the bellies of your mothers, in the wombs of your mothers."

Why is Allah saying all of this? He is reminding us of His dominion over everything in the heavens and the earth. Reminding us of the fact that we will be held accountable for those things that we do and we will be rewarded good with good, bad with bad. And then He reminds us of our own origin. That if you think that you're made of something, remember that Adam was made of dirt. If you think that somehow you are this magnificent person who is above reproach and above being held in low regard, remember where it is that you were born from and the situation that you were born in.

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala then says, "So do not commend yourselves." Literally the words here mean so do not self-purify your image. Do not act as if you are above others and holding yourself in that high regard. Allah has more knowledge as to whom is most mindful of Him.

So when we speak about ourselves, we must speak in humility. It doesn't mean that we deny our own abilities. What did Yusuf A.S., how was Yusuf placed over the storage houses in Egypt? Because he said, I'm trustworthy, I'm knowledgeable, give me this job. He applied for the job, he got it. But what he didn't do was boast of his knowledge, boast of his ability, make others feel bad.

That's when we talk about ourselves, we have to be cognizant that we don't demean ourselves. We don't have this false self-deprecation that is very common that we think sometimes is piety. Oh, you know, I'm just the worst person. Maybe you feel that way, I feel that way sometimes. But we don't have to, it doesn't have to be contrived. We should be honest with ourselves and honest about our abilities and honest with others as to what we can do for them and do for ourselves and our families.

Speaking to Yourself - The Inner Voice

And the last or the third type of speech that I want to tell you about today is when I say speaking in your own presence, speaking to yourself. And these are the words that we say but we don't hear. These are the things that we tell ourselves about ourselves subconsciously. We don't even realize the way we paint a picture of ourselves for ourselves, much less for the people that we may boast in front of.

So if you found a person who is many times extremely proud and is a braggart, talks about himself a lot, you can almost be certain that that person has a major self-image issue and probably doesn't see themselves as being that great at all. So they try to balance out their life because their inner voice is saying you're worthless, you're nothing, you're stupid, you're dumb, you won't amount to anything. This is what their inner voice is saying. So what do they have to say to other people to make themselves feel good? I'm the best there ever was. I'm this and I'm that.

But let's talk about that inner voice that we have and the effect the words we use have on that inner voice. The words that we use affect our mood. Have you ever been around a person? Or have you ever been in a happy state and said good things and felt good about yourself? Or maybe you were around bad people or in a bad situation or you said bad things and you automatically started feeling bad about yourself.

The Prophet's Guidance on Self-Speech

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6179)

The Prophet ﷺ, he said, "None of you should go around saying, I feel like garbage. I feel filthy. I feel like crap." I'm not saying that to say it on the minbar. I'm saying it because we all say it. We've all said it. We even say things which are much worse than that either publicly or privately. Let's be real with ourselves.

The Prophet ﷺ here is saying, this type of speech is not befitting of the Muslim. Why? Because of the effect that it has on his own soul. When you tell yourself that you're worthless, that you're garbage, that you're XYZ, it becomes a subconscious message that you send to yourself over and over and over and over again.

When something is filthy by nature, if I were to mention, go to any Muslim, you say, tell me about pigs. Oh, filthy creature, right? Oh, those are unclean. Unclean why? By nature of how it is in our faith, we view them as unclean creatures. Right? So when I say about myself that I'm filthy, what am I doing? I'm condemning myself to a nature that I can't change. To a mindset that I can't change. To actions and emotions that result from that mindset that I think I can't change.

But what did the Prophet ﷺ said? He said, instead, let one of you say, لَقِسَتْ نَفْسِي "Let one of you say, I'm annoyed. I'm disturbed. I'm perturbed. I'm not feeling well."

What's the difference between I'm annoyed and I'm dirty or filthy or garbage? The first is an unchangeable state. The second is merely a circumstance of a temporary condition. Something that you have it in your power to change.

Notice how a change of words can give you a change of attitude. How the stability of the words that you use can bring about stability in your emotional state.

The Subconscious Effect

Now you might be saying to yourself, no one said anything to me bad. I don't say these things to myself bad. But this doesn't apply to me. And I would say, yes, it does apply to you. Because what we're talking about is subconsciously telling ourselves these things.

If you want to find out how we react to things subconsciously, be honest with yourself and say to yourself, how do I react when I merely think about the possibility of criticism? When I merely think about the possibility of success. Some of us say to ourselves, I've never been successful in life. I haven't done anything in life. No, you have. But many times your success was at being bad. Your success was in reiterating the negativity that you allowed to eat away at you in the beginning.

Which means that you inherently have the capacity to change your mindset and to be a positive person with his heart connected to Allah. To be a positive person with her heart connected to the next life. All you have to do is reorient how you say those things and recalibrate your inner voice to match the outer voice.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 52)

The Prophet ﷺ said, "Is there not a morsel of flesh? When it is whole, then the body is whole. And when it is corrupt, then the body is corrupt. Is it not the heart?" Here the Prophet ﷺ is telling us, our actions have an effect on our heart. And our hearts have an effect on our actions.

The Quran as Our Guide to Positive Speech

Allah سبحانه وتعالى says, "This Qur'an guides us to that which is most upright." The Qur'an is not a book of science or a book of history. It's not a book of finance or a book of medicine. It's a book of guidance. It gives us the broad principles. And then we implement them in our lives.

Allah سبحانه وتعالى says "Say to My servants, say what is best."

(Sunan Abu Dawood, Hadith 1532)

The Prophet ﷺ used to say "Do not make dua against your fathers, against your mothers, your wives, and your sons and your daughters, or against yourselves. Only invoke what is good."

So by constantly saying those things which are positive, we can change the things which are negative in our life. We can make our mistakes in life a time for recollection and accountability to ourselves and to Allah. Not a time to condemn ourselves and to execute our souls as if they have no worthiness.

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2664)

The Prophet ﷺ, nothing bad would ever happen in his life except that he would say "God has willed it and he does what he wills." And he would keep moving. He would keep the positivity going forward.

It's okay to cry. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be human. But the important point for us is that in recognizing our humanity, we are able to recognize Allah ﷻ and the power of the positive words that were sent down in the Qur'an and in the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

The Master of Seeking Forgiveness

So I want to leave you with this one dua, which the Prophet ﷺ said is called, or he called it سَيِّدُ الْاِسْتِغْفَارِ "The Master of Seeking Forgiveness."

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6306)

The Prophet ﷺ taught us to say Allahumma "Oh Allah, You are my Lord. There is no one worthy of worship but You. You created me and I am Your slave. And I am fulfilling Your covenant and Your promise as much as I am capable of. I seek refuge in You from the evil of what I have done. And I recognize and embrace the blessings which You have shown me. And I recognize my sins. So forgive me because none forgives sins except for You."

Three Key Components

Notice that in this dua there are three key components which would sum up everything that I want you to walk away from today, from this khutbah today.

The first is to get rid of the negative inner speech, get rid of the waswasah. When you find those whispers, know that that's a sign that you're on the right path and you simply need to remember Allah. It's not a sign that you're going the wrong way. It's a sign that you're on the right path. So, put them to the side and remember Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Oh Allah, You are my Lord. There's no one worthy of worship but You.

Also, stay away from those things which are bad. Understand that Allah سبحانه وتعالى wants good for you. He created you and you are His servant. This is number two. Number one, stay away from the negative self-speech. Number one, stay away from negative self-speech. Number two, stay away from bad and speak those things which are positive to yourself.

And then number three, be assertive in the things that you say to yourself. Do you know that it's not becoming of us or it's impermissible to say Inshallah when we make dua? Why? Because we're asking Allah سبحانه وتعالى, right? We're not placing it. He loves to be asked that He's waiting for us. So, be assertive and declarative. Don't be self-condemning.

إِنِّي عَبْدُكَ "I am Your slave." أَبُوءُ لَكَ بِنِعْمَتِكَ عَلَيَّ "I recognize Your blessings." وَأَبُوءُ بِذَنْبِي "I recognize my sins." I know who I am as a believer, who I am as a human being, and I'm seeking Your help to make it into a positive future for myself, namely, and for those around me.

May Allah سبحانه وتعالى bless each and every one of us to be people of positivity.