The Core Of Islam And The Unique Blessings Of Dhul Hijjah

The Essence of Islam and the Nobility of Dhul Hijjah

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

I want to start off by asking a question, a simple question. What is it that makes a person beautiful? Is it the designer clothes that they wear? The beautiful expensive accessories that they don? Or is it the features that they have? The actual facial structure, the features that Allah has created for them.

Same thing goes with the car for example. What makes the car fast? Is it the top of the line best tires and brakes? And a spoiler? And an amazing paint job? Or is it the actual engine in the car? What makes a person beautiful is the actual facial structures. Clothing, accessories, all these extras, they only work to make the features, to compliment the features. Make it even better. But if you have a car for example that doesn't have an engine, you can put the best accessories on that car, it's not going to go anywhere.

The same thing goes for Islam. What is the essence of Islam? What makes Islam beautiful? The thing that makes Islam beautiful, the thing that is Islam, are the fara'id. The five fara'id, the five main components of Islam. We of course have the shahada, without which a person cannot even be Muslim. But then after the shahada there are four main acts of worship, four main rites in Islam. And these form the essence of Islam, the crux of Islam. This is what makes Islam beautiful.

And these are: salah, fasting, zakah, and hajj. And the nawafil — all the extra actions that we do — the sadaqah that we give, the nafil salah that we pray, umrahs, everything else — they just work to beautify the core aspects of Islam. So if one's core aspects are not good, then no matter how many nawafil they surround it with, it won't really mean much. The main thing that we have to focus on are the fara'id.

Why the First Ten Days of Dhul Hijjah Are So Special

And this is exactly why these days of Dhul Hijjah are so special. Why? Because as Hafidh Ibn Al-Hajar rahimahullah mentions in his book Fath al-Bari, he says that it seems that the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah are so noble, so great, because these are the only days in the year in which you are able to combine all four of these main aspects of worship of Allah. In no other days of the year — not even in Ramadan — can you combine all four of these into one day. Because in the days of hajj, hajj is only once a year. In these ten days, that's it. Along with hajj, one can fast. Along with hajj, one can give zakah. Along with hajj, one obviously prays. And he says that this is why these first ten days of Dhul Hijjah are so unique, so special. In fact, they are one of the greatest days in the entire year.

Two Groups of People in These Days

Now in these days, in these noble blessed days, we have two groups of people. One group of people are those who have been hand chosen and selected by Allah to come visit His house — to go for hajj, the pilgrimage. And the other group are those who have not yet been given that opportunity, or this year have not been given that opportunity, who are not invited by Allah. However, the greatness of these days extends to both of these groups.

Those who are able to go to hajj, who are able to go to Mecca — then obviously, first of all, like we just mentioned, the greatness of these days lies in the fact that they were selected, hand chosen, given a special invitation by Allah Jalla Jalaluhu, and they were invited to come to His home. And this journey is one of the most amazing journeys; this ibadah is one of the most amazing forms of ibadah when you think about it. Because this ibadah, this hajj, is all about forgetting oneself and completely connecting to Allah. Disconnecting from everyone else. Disconnecting from friends, from family, from loved ones, from the whole world, and even from yourself. You don't wash yourself, you don't comb yourself, you don't apply perfume — you're just wearing two pieces of unstitched cloth, that's it. It's just you and Allah.

And you spend these days just thanking Allah and showing your submission to Allah, your humility to Allah, for giving you this opportunity to come visit His home. Days are full of gratitude, unlike any other gratitude shown to any other being. That we just go to hajj and we do whatever Allah tells us to do, without even questioning why. And if you look at the actions that we do in hajj, many times they seem illogical. But the beauty of hajj lies in these seemingly illogical actions that we do. That we do whatever Allah tells us to do. Doesn't make sense, doesn't matter, I will do it. Ya Allah, I'm here.

We go to the most noble of lands, Makkah Mukarramah — the most sacred place on earth. And after visiting the house of Allah, Allah tells us to leave and go roam around in these random plains. Arafah is just a mountain; the plain of Arafah is an open plain with a mountain on it. You go sleep in Mina, you sleep under the stars in Muzdalifah. You go stone a pillar — just roaming about, sleeping under the stars — just because Allah told us to. We're going to the most sacred place and then leaving it, not spending our time in Makkah. Why? Because Allah invited us and we'll do whatever Allah told us to do. Complete submission to Allah.

And a person who engages himself in the purest form of submission, which is Hajj — as long as they do it with sincerity of intention, and they're present, aware of what they're doing, thinking about what they're doing — it's not possible that they can come back from this journey without having their life completely changed. How is it that you can connect so deeply to Allah and be the same person? It's not possible. And Allah shows His mercy when a slave of His completely submits himself or herself before Him. Then Allah opens the floodgates of mercy. And a person who lived a whole life of sin, just by showing gratitude like this — this pure form of gratitude and submission to Allah — once you're done expressing that, Allah forgives every single sin that they have. Such a unique relationship between Allah and His slaves.

The Virtue of These Days for Those Not Performing Hajj

However, the good news is that the greatness of these days is not restricted to only those who went for Hajj. We are also able to benefit from the greatness of these days — the nobility of these days — sitting right here in our homes. The days of Dhul Hijjah, the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah, are so noble in fact that Rasulullah ﷺ himself and the ulama for hundreds of years have compared it to Ramadan.

Rasulullah ﷺ himself says:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 758)

There are no days of worship more desired and more beloved to Allah than the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah. Every single day that you fast in these days, you'll get the reward of fasting the entire year. And every single night that you stand up and pray in these days, you'll be given the reward of standing up and praying in Laylatul Qadr. Such immense mercy coming down from Allah.

Rasulullah ﷺ also said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 5446)

The best days in the world, the best days, are the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah. And in fact, scholars adopt the opinion that the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah are better than the last ten days of Ramadan. However, the nights of the last ten days of Ramadan are more virtuous than the nights of the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah. Such nobility and virtue is given to these first ten days of Dhul Hijjah. And it's not fit, it's not appropriate that these ten days go by and we don't take advantage.

Seizing the Opportunity — The Overtime Analogy

What happens if a person, an individual, is struggling to make ends meet — trying to support his family, working day and night — when he's given the opportunity to have overtime with three times extra pay? Three times the money he makes, he gets to work overtime. What does he do? He jumps on the opportunity, right? Takes that overtime. Three times — you're getting your salary tripled.

Well, guess what? In these days Allah multiplies the reward of our actions 70 times, and reports 700 times. This is overtime. We're trying to make ends meet, we're trying to make it to Jannah. Our sins are so great, we're so weak. The good actions that we do are so flawed. We don't know if we'll survive, we don't know if we'll be able to make it to Jannah or not. We're so in need. And when these opportunities come by, when we get to work overtime, then we have to take the opportunity.

The Practice of the Salaf in These Days

This is the practice that we see from our Salaf. Sa'id bin Jubair rahimahullah — when the days of Dhul Hijjah would begin, he would strive to increase his amal so much, so much, that it would be physically impossible for him to do anything else. And he would say: do not put off your lights in these ten nights. Worship Allah for the entire night, from Isha till Fajr. Because Allah loves our worship in these days.

Abdullah bin Zubair radiallahu anhu — in these nights he would dedicate time to teaching and learning, which is one of the greatest forms of ibadah. From Dhuhr all the way till Asr, straight, he would sit down and teach. All of our Salaf, all of our pious predecessors — the sahaba, the tabi'oon, and the ulama until now — we find this practice amongst them, that these ten days they would exert themselves. They would do excessive ibadah, excessive fasting. It is reported from Rasulullah ﷺ himself that he ﷺ would fast these ten days. They would do excessive salah, excessive dhikr, excessive tilawah, and reap the benefits as much as possible.

Because we were not able to go on this noble blessed journey of Hajj. But we don't want to become those losers, who not only are deprived of going to hajj, but then they're also deprived of the blessings that come with hajj, that descend in these days. We don't want to become mahrum, we don't want to miss out on these blessings, and the extra reward that Allah sends down.

We ask that Allah gives us the ability to do the actions, the a'mal, that He loves, that grant us His pleasure. And we ask that Allah accepts every single one of us to go visit the house of Allah, again and again in our lives.

Announcements

Please pass the donation boxes from the left side of the masjid to the right side, and donate generously.

This Friday, next Friday, 8th July after Asr, will be an Arafah program.

Eid Salah will take place on Saturday, July 9th. The Fajr Iqamah on that day is 4:45 and the Takbirat will take place at 5:00 a.m. The first Eid prayer — the khutbah will be at 5:15, the Eid Salah will be at 5:45, conducted by Mufti Azimuddin. The second Eid Salah — the khutbah will begin at 10:00 a.m. and the Eid Salah will be at 10:30, by Muna Ahsan inshallah.

Admissions for the Tanweer Intensive Program for boys and girls are open now. Classes start from the 15th of August — the one-year intensive program.

Dar al-Salam programs are also open for admissions:

• The 8th grade Tadris Prep — only for girls.
• The Integrated High School Program for boys — in which, in 4 years of high school, along with the high school curriculum, 2 years of the Alimiyyah program are also taught.
• The full Alimiyyah Program.
• The Tanweer one-year intensive for both boys and girls.
• The full-time Hifz Program.

As for the weekly programs: the Tuesday Tafsir program continues after Maghrib — right now we're doing Surah Taha. Monday night's Bukhari Dars with Muslimin Hajar Deen is temporarily paused in the summer and will resume inshallah in August. Saturday's team Fajr will continue tomorrow after Fajr Salah — Iqamah is at 4:45 inshallah.

The brothers from Helping Hands are distributing flyers outside for their global udhiyah / qurbani campaign. Please pick up the flyer from the team outside and help out if you can inshallah.