The Importance Of Having A Clear Objective In Life

Jumu'ah Khutbah — Mawlana Ahsan Syed

الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على سيد الأنبياء والمرسلين، وعلى آله وأصحابه أجمعين. أما بعد.

قال الله تبارك وتعالى في كتابه المجيد، بعد أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم:

وقال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

صدق الله العظيم وصدق رسوله النبي الكريم.

The Importance of Having a Clear Objective in Life

In life we have various different aspirations. We have different goals. And a person recognizes that Allah made a particular system — that if I want to achieve that particular goal, I have to go through that system, I have to go through that process. I have to find what those means are to achieve it.

It's a natural thing. Take anything — whether it's academic achievement, whether it's financial stability, whatever it may be, we recognize that there are certain means, there are certain processes that are involved. And if I go through it, I'll be able to achieve, hopefully, what I planned.

As an example, in school, you see in colleges and universities, a student comes in, one of the first things that they have the student do, even before they take any classes, is that you meet your academic advisor. Why do you meet your academic advisor? So that you know, you have a sense of what you're trying to achieve. If a student says, "I don't know what I wanna do," it's gonna be very hard for the academic advisor to help him. But if a person comes in with a focus and says, "I want to go into engineering, I want to go into computer science, I want to go into medicine, I know this is what I would like to pursue," your academic advisor will be able to help you. He'll tell you, "You need to take this class this semester, take that class that semester," and so on. You do that, he's able to help you — because you have an objective very clearly in your mind.

Somebody wants to buy a house, he doesn't know how to buy a house, but he knows he wants to buy a house. He goes and talks to a real estate agent. He says, "Look, I wanna buy a house, what do I do?" He says, "Okay, first you need to do this, make sure you have these documents, you need that document, you have a down payment," and so on. There's a whole process. But as long as a person already has in his mind the goal that he wants to achieve, then there is a process, and through that process he's able to acquire it.

And where it's true in terms of our pursuits, it's also true in terms of the different conditions we end up facing, which sometimes are not in our control. So for example, if you have a person who's sick, who's been diagnosed with a particular illness, whatever type of illness it is, he goes to a doctor. I'll give you my own example — I had some time ago a lot of pain in my jaw and this whole area, and I was thinking, you know what, it's something related to the tooth. Maybe I need to get my wisdom tooth pulled out, maybe it's something like that. You go and get it checked out from the dentist, and he said, "No, no, there's nothing like that. You have a lot of sinus congestion, it's all affecting this area." So a person who doesn't know and is trying to figure it out is not going to figure it out correctly, because he doesn't know. He has to go to people who know.

So in a similar manner, the first thing is we have to be very clear about what the objective of our life is. That's the very first thing. If you're not clear about what your objective in life is, you will not be able to fulfill your true task, your true purpose. A person who doesn't recognize Allah, a person who doesn't recognize that he is created by Allah — that person will go here and there, they will keep on wandering, and they will never achieve, neither in this life nor in the hereafter, the attainment of that true objective that he was actually created for.

The Objective of Human Life: Worship of Allah

Now, alhamdulillah, as Muslims, Allah Ta'ala gave us in clear words what your objective as a human being in this life is: you are created to worship Allah. And that is the greatest objective that you could be created for.

If something is created for a particular reason and for a particular function, so long as it carries out its function, that thing has value. The moment it stops functioning, we get rid of it — it's no longer valuable to us. This mic has a particular function. It will be here, we will use it, we will value it, so long as it does its job. The moment it stops working, get rid of it, we need a new one. It has no value anymore.

So if you recognize as a human being that your greatest objective is to worship Allah and to attain the closeness of Allah, now you already have that objective in your mind. It's just a matter of figuring out how to attain it.

That person who fulfills that objective, who tries to fulfill that objective — that person has closeness with Allah. That person, in the Quran and Hadith, we call a wali of Allah Ta'ala. Because when a person sacrifices for another person, you see that day in and day out — constantly working, constantly doing — naturally the person feels in his heart, subhanAllah, I am indebted to him. For us as human beings, we are indebted to Allah. Everything that we have is from Allah. Anything and everything. The fact that we can see, the fact that we can hear, the fact that we can move, the fact that my hands work, the fact that the internal organs work in my body — I am so indebted to Allah, so indebted to Allah.

That if Allah Ta'ala were to make a decision to take any one of these faculties away from me, what are you and I going to do? And if Allah makes that decision that this thing is to be removed from the person permanently, there is no individual that can prevent it. From our own end we can still try — a person, Allah protect us, becomes blind or deaf in life — and this is the decision and decree of Allah Ta'ala. So we try, we go from one doctor to another doctor, we follow whatever prescription and medication we can. But if Allah has made the decision, there is nobody that can do anything about it.

The Path to Becoming a Wali of Allah

And here, the second thing that we then recognize — when we recognize that our objective is to worship Allah — what is the method? What is the way to become that wali of Allah Ta'ala? In this hadith that I recited earlier, Allah Ta'ala — and Nabi ﷺ — lays it out in the most comprehensive way. It's what we call a hadith Qudsi, where Allah Himself is speaking.

First of all, if you want to know what the position of a wali of Allah Ta'ala is, then notice: his position is such that Allah says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

"You have any enmity, any animosity against any one of my awliya, any one of my friends — I declare war against you." Allah is saying. مَلِكُ الْمُلُوكِ ذُو الْجَلَالِ وَالْإِكْرَامِ — if He declares war against a person, you think that person can survive?

Now, how Allah Ta'ala does what He does — we as human beings, living especially in an age of instant gratification, a person may think: "This is a wali of Allah Ta'ala, maybe somebody is harming him — why isn't the help of Allah Ta'ala coming?" You and I, we look at life in small frameworks, in small frames. If you remember, the way movies would work — you would have all these different pictures and those pictures would have to move very fast, and it would look as if the pictures are in motion — that's why it's called a motion picture. You and I, we see the world in frames. We see one frame, we see another frame.

The whole aalam, the whole universe, and everything that is to happen to you and I, or to anyone else who has ever passed before or who is to come, is in front of Allah — it's in the knowledge of Allah. What's gonna happen to you tomorrow, you and I don't know. What's gonna happen to me, we don't know. Allah Ta'ala already knows. For us, Adam was. For us, Qiyamah will be. For us, we are here right now in the present. For Allah, it's not like that. For Allah, Adam is there. For Allah, Qiyamah — everything is in front of Allah, because Allah is the Creator of time.

Your job and my job is simply this: that you spend your life dedicated to the worship of Allah. You have responsibilities — you fulfill those responsibilities. But never, never forget that your true objective in this life is to worship Allah. Trials will come — no problem. That's part of life. That's part of what makes the nur of the mu'min and the iman of the mu'min stronger.

Trials and tribulations — from the beginning of life there are trials. You study in biology the type of difficulty both mother and child have to go through at the time of birth, and the type of stress on them is immense. From that time until the person breathes his very last, there are trials, there are tribulations, there are difficulties. But for the mu'min, each one of those trials is to make him stronger and stronger.

And the way you know that your relationship is getting stronger with Allah is you check and see: am I getting closer to Allah or not? Is my tadarra' ilallah — is my beseeching Allah, is my making du'a to Allah — increasing or not? If it is, alhamdulillah. Don't worry. That trial, that test, that tribulation is nothing but a source of mercy for you, though you may not see it right now — but in the hereafter you will see it.

The Two Steps: Fard First, Then Nawafil

So here in this hadith, first after mentioning that if anyone shows animosity against His wali, Allah declares war — what's the process? How do you become a wali? Allah Ta'ala then says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

"There is nothing that my servant gets closer to me with that is more beloved to me than what I have obligated on him." That's the first thing we check — am I fulfilling whatever obligations Allah has put on me?

Obligations are not limited to just the salah. Some people have the idea that whenever we talk about fard, we're thinking only of salah and zakat. No — obligations include all other types of responsibilities. If you are a father, you are responsible for your children. If you are a son, you have a responsibility toward your parents. If you are a husband, you have a responsibility over your family. If you are a wife, you have a responsibility over your household. These are all fara'id. These are not like mubahaat — that if I want to do it I can, and if I don't want to I don't have to.

If you are an employee, whatever contract you have, you have to fulfill it — that is now an obligation on you. You made that contract, you signed that contract. If you are an employer, whatever you have asked your employee to do, whatever you said you are going to do, you must do it now. That is now fard on you as well. Fard is not just limited to ibadah.

So the servant doesn't get closer to Allah by any means greater than the fard — what Allah has obligated. Then step two: he becomes even closer to Allah through his nawafil, through his extra devotional actions. But fard has to come first. So we each take some time and reflect — am I fulfilling this fard? Whether they are related to Allah or whether they are related to other people, am I fulfilling it? After fulfilling that, you see: is there anything extra that I could do? Extra devotions to Allah Ta'ala. That's how the person gets close.

Then the result is Allah Ta'ala says: he becomes so close to me and so beloved to me, that I become the eyes with which he sees, I become the hands with which he grasps, I become the feet with which he walks. Meaning what? Everything that he does now is bitawfiqillah. And everything that he does is now beloved to Allah. He doesn't waver here and there, earning the displeasure of Allah.

Our True Aspiration: To Become Awliya of Allah

May Allah grant us the tawfiq to acquire that and to become awliya of Allah. We have dreams for ourselves in this life. We have dreams for our children in this life. "I want my son to become this. I want my daughter to become that. I wanna become this. I wanna acquire that." Have we ever sat down and said: "I wanna become a wali of Allah Ta'ala. I wanna become close to Allah Ta'ala. I want my kids to become awliya of Allah. I want my spouse to become a wali of Allah." This is the objective. This is what we should be worried about.

Allah Ta'ala give us tawfiq, insha'Allah. وآخر دعوانا أن الحمد لله رب العالمين.

Second Khutbah

الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على سيد الأنبياء والمرسلين، وعلى آله وأصحابه أجمعين. أما بعد.

يا أحباب الكرام، اعلموا أن الله تعالى أمرنا بالتقوى وقال:

وقال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم فيما يرويه عن ربه تبارك وتعالى:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم ولسائر المسلمين، فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرحيم.

الحمد لله، نحمده ونستعينه ونستغفره ونؤمن به ونتوكل عليه، ونعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا. من يهده الله فلا مضل له، ومن يضلله فلا هادي له. أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، وأشهد أن سيدنا ومولانا محمداً عبده ورسوله. أما بعد:

عباد الله، رحمكم الله، إن الله يأمر بالعدل والإحسان وإيتاء ذي القربى وينهى عن الفحشاء والمنكر والبغي يعظكم لعلكم تذكرون. اذكروا الله العليّ العظيم يذكركم، وادعوه يستجب لكم. ولذكر الله تعالى أكبر، والله يعلم ما تصنعون.

Announcements

The program will continue Saturday, Sunday, and Monday on December 20th, 21st, and 22nd. Our weekly programs will continue insha'Allah. We have a weekly Monday night podcast-style conversation — it takes place every Monday with discussions on current events and current topics. We have a Tuesday Tafsir and we have our Thursday Shama'il program with salawat. And then Saturday we have our team Fajr insha'Allah. There are also sisters' part-time programs — you can find them online, along with many other programs.

Likewise, the North Side Islamic Center of San Antonio needs your help. They are almost done with the masjid construction but are in desperate need of about $500,000 to complete the 7-acre project. Please help a community partner in need and get reward that will never end. You can visit their booth at the archway by the entrance.

Du'a Requests

We have a couple of du'a requests. A du'a of shifa for one of our students' uncle — Brother Abdulsalam Ismail — who is in the ICU after having a stroke. May Allah grant him shifa.

A du'a of maghfira for the father of one of our local musalli and students here — Dr. Mateen's father, who passed away in India. May Allah forgive him and grant him Jannatul Firdaus.

Also for Sister Zahra Qadri, who passed away in Tampa — may Allah grant her forgiveness and Jannatul Firdaus.

And of course, keeping in mind all the Muslims and whatever they are going through — may Allah grant shifa to anyone in our community, to any Muslim around the world who is suffering from illness. May Allah forgive those in our community and those from the Muslim ummah who have passed away. And we ask Allah Ta'ala's aid and assistance for any of the Muslims around the world who are suffering and going through difficulty.

بارك الله فيكم.