بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَحْدَهُ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى مَنْ لَا نَبِيَّ بَعْدَهُ

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praises are due to Allah who has created us, sustained us, has blessed us with iman and has given us the ability to be gathered here in His remembrance. All praises are due to Allah who has made us from amongst the ummah of His beloved Prophet Muhammad, may Allah send salutations upon him. May Allah send salutations upon the Prophet, his companions, his family and all the prophets before him, and may Allah protect those of us who choose to follow their path.

I wanted to very quickly discuss the advices of Luqman alayhi salam which he gave to his son — Surah Luqman, which is the 31st surah of the Quran, verses 16, 17, 18 and 19. Luqman alayhi salam gives these advices to his son, and if we look at it, it is a very ideal outlook of how a Muslim should behave, how a Muslim should perceive the world, how a Muslim should think about the world, how a Muslim's relationship should be to Allah, and how a Muslim's relationship should be with the people around him. It is basically a progressive outlook — from the private to the public.

Verse 16: Recognizing the Greatness of Allah

Luqman alayhi salam begins with verse number 16, where he stresses the foundation of a person's relationship with Allah. The way he describes and tells his son about Allah is not simply "obey Allah" or "follow Allah" — but he gives him an example. And he says: O my beloved son. From the very first word we understand that Luqman alayhi salam is adopting a very soft approach, a very gentle approach. He is trying to explain to his son in the best of manners why he should believe in Allah, why he should connect himself with Allah.

He gives this example and says: before you can follow Allah, in order for you to have a very healthy, consistent, productive relationship with Allah, in order for you to accept Allah wholeheartedly, you will first have to realize who Allah is.

If our foundation is not strong, if our iman is not strong, then any structure that we build upon it will be weak. When a person's foundation is strong, no matter how tall the building is, no matter how tall the structure is, it will be solid, it will be sound. But on the other hand, if a person's foundation is not strong, then even the smallest of structures will always be in danger of falling apart.

So Luqman alayhi salam begins at the foundation, at the root. And he says: I want you to recognize who Allah is. He gives him this example and says: if you feel that Allah knows everything about you, if you feel that Allah is aware of everything — then imagine this: any action that you do, if it is given a physical form and takes the form of a small mustard seed — something very small — and this mustard seed is within a boulder, or this mustard seed, which represents any action, is somewhere in the universe or somewhere on the earth, Allah will very easily be able to take out that mustard seed and bring it to you.

In other words, he is saying: no matter what you do, you cannot hide it from Allah. And if we just imagine it — a small mustard seed put within a large boulder — we would not be able to tell which part of the boulder the mustard seed is in. Is it on the sides? Is it in the middle? Is it on the bottom? Is it on the top? We will not be able to tell.

Our understanding of the universe is not only limited to the seven skies. We understand that we are one planet in a solar system. We understand our solar system is within a galaxy. This galaxy is on the edge of another galaxy. And we are just one from among billions and billions of galaxies in a universe that is constantly expanding. This mustard seed — no matter where it is — Allah will be able to bring it to you. This mustard seed, if it is put anywhere on earth, Allah will be able to bring it to you.

Through this example, he is telling his son: when I tell you to obey Allah, when I tell you to recognize Allah, I want you to understand who Allah is first. Recognize the greatness of Allah and your relationship with Him will be productive, your relationship with Him will be easy.

Verse 17: Establishing Prayer

Then he says: the first step that you should take once you believe in Allah — the first result of your iman, of your belief in Allah — is to worship Allah. Iman is a metaphysical thing. If I say I have belief, I will not be able to show you any physical form of it. You cannot taste iman, you cannot smell or touch iman, you cannot physically experience iman. But the worship that we do is exemplified because of our iman. The reason why each and every single one of us are here right now, waiting to pray Jumu'ah salah, is because our iman tells us that we should gather in the masjid and worship Allah. It is a result of our iman.

So Luqman alayhi salam tells his son: the first thing that should prompt you after you believe in Allah is to worship Allah by praying to Allah. We have to understand the wisdom of salah, instead of just looking at it as a serious act of worship that we do throughout the day.

Allah gave us 24 hours a day. Out of the 24 hours, roughly 12 hours is spent with our families, with our work, with our education. And the salah has been essentially spread throughout the entire day. Allah obviously knew that there will come a time when people will be working 9-to-5 jobs, and during the winter months it will be extremely difficult for people to pray Asr because they will be on their way home and the time between Asr and Maghrib will be really short. I'm not sure how it is in Chicago, but in New York rush hour is very bad — you can get stuck in traffic for hours, and it is very difficult for a person to make sure that they are able to pray their Asr salah on time during the winter months. Think about Fajr — that you wake up earlier than you are used to, and you cannot go back to sleep because if you do you might be late for work.

Allah knew about this. Allah could have grouped all the salah together and told us to pray at the end of the day. But the reason salah is essentially spread throughout the entire day is that during our busy lives, Allah wants us to realize who it is that is giving us sustenance. Yes, you are working. You have a degree and with this degree you have a career and you are working long hours and you are bringing money home — but Allah is giving you what He has ordained for you. It is not through your own ability, but it is Allah who is giving you. Five times throughout the entire day we are reminded of our original purpose. We are reminded of our purpose in this world. Allah's infinite wisdom is that He does so five times a day instead of once a week.

So Luqman alayhi salam tells his son: establish prayer. Connect yourself to Allah, because Allah is the only constant in this world of chaos. Everything in this world will change, continues to change, and will always be in a state of change. Allah is the only one that will be constant. No matter what time, no matter what time period, no matter where you are, who you are, how you are — Allah will always remain Allah. So attach yourself with Allah.

Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil

Now, when you have this good in your life — that Allah has allowed you and given you the ability to connect yourself to Him — your first reaction should be: I want to share this with the people around me. So call people to Allah. Tell people. Encourage people to do good. Because as a Muslim, as a believer, we are not supposed to be selfish individuals. We are supposed to be selfless. Islam is not about something that only I practice and only I worry about myself — it is about the people around me as well.

So when you connect yourself with Allah, your immediate concern after that should be that you tell the people around you, you encourage the people around you to do the same. You encourage them to do good. You encourage them to recognize Allah. وَانْهَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ — and you discourage them from doing wrong, you tell them not to do acts of disobedience against Allah.

Patience in the Face of Resistance

Now, when you tell people to do something or not do something, more often than not they will not listen to you. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gave da'wah and people did not accept immediately — there was staunch opposition. So Luqman alayhi salam is telling his son: وَاصْبِرْ عَلَىٰ مَا أَصَابَكَ — as a result of your da'wah, as a result of your outreach, when you are telling people to do good, when you are discouraging people from doing wrong, people will resist you.

Do not become demoralized. Do not feel that your efforts are not having an effect whatsoever. If you plant a seed today, you will not be able to take fruit from it tomorrow. You might not even see the tree bear fruit in your own lifetime. But understand that your efforts will not go to waste. وَاصْبِرْ عَلَىٰ مَا أَصَابَكَ — have sabr. Be patient. Because Allah will guide the people whom He wishes. Your job is just to tell the people.

And usually the backlash is from the people closest to you. The staunchest opposition to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam came from his own family. Imagine how sorrowful the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was — people he grew up with, people he saw growing up, people who looked after him in his childhood — now they are calling him a liar, now they are calling him a magician, now they are calling him a poet. Can you imagine the hurt the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam felt when his own family members were opposing him?

Luqman alayhi salam is reminding his son of the same: when you reach out to people, people will inevitably resist — but do not give up.

So Luqman alayhi salam's advice starts from the very root: recognize Allah, love Allah, build a productive relationship with Allah — primarily through prayer, primarily through worshipping Allah. And the effect of that should be that you reach out to the people around you, you discourage them from doing wrong, you encourage them to do good, and whenever there is resistance, you are patient.

Verses 18–19: Conduct Among People

And then — how should you conduct yourself amongst the people? How is it that you should act with the people around you?

Never turn away from the people. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam faced staunch opposition yet he never gave up on the people around him. Luqman alayhi salam is telling his son the same: when you do not see results the first time, you might become discouraged. You might feel this is not worth it, or that you are not seeing any benefit to it. Do not turn your face away from the people. Do not become haughty.

Just because Allah has given you the ability to come and pray, to sit in the first row — do not look down upon the person who is not able to come to the masjid. If Allah has given you the ability to worship Him, do not look down on the people who are struggling to do so. If Allah has given you the ability to practice the sunnah, if Allah has given you the ability to draw closer to the deen, and you look at the people around you — it could be even family members or friends — and you see that they are struggling or they just do not care, never feel arrogant. Never look down on the people around you just because you are closer to Allah or you perceive yourself as closer to Allah.

وَلَا تُصَعِّرْ خَدَّكَ لِلنَّاسِ — even if you are in a position of giving da'wah to people, never feel that you are not in need of da'wah yourself. Never feel that you are in a state of perfection just because you are the one calling people to Allah. We are all works in progress. There is no such thing as completion in Islam. How you are today, you can be better tomorrow, and our today should be better than our yesterday.

وَاعْبُدْ رَبَّكَ حَتَّى يَأْتِيَكَ الْيَقِينُ — the idea is that we continue to worship Allah and we draw closer to Allah until we pass away.

Against Arrogance in Walking and Speech

وَلَا تَمْشِ فِي الْأَرْضِ مَرَحًا — do not walk arrogantly. Many a time when a person walks, you can see that sometimes he might be thinking too highly of himself. What we do usually is we confuse and blur the lines between confidence and arrogance.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the Sahaba radiyallahu ta'ala 'anhum were confident — they were confident in their message, they were confident in their deen, and when they walked it showed. We understand from the hadith of Shamail that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to walk with his chest out, that his shoulders were straight. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to walk with purpose. The Sahaba radiyallahu ta'ala 'anhum used to walk with purpose. But purpose and being confident in one's deen does not mean arrogance.

وَلَا تَمْشِ فِي الْأَرْضِ مَرَحًا — do not become arrogant, do not walk arrogantly. Because when a person looks at you and they get a bad vibe, they will say: this person is arrogant, I don't want to go close to him. No matter what we say, no matter the content of our speech, no matter how well-chosen our words are, no matter how great an orator someone might be — bad character ruins the best of messages.

The Quraysh, when they opposed the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, they called him every label possible — but they could never touch his character. They could never say he was a dishonest person. They could never say he was an untrustworthy person. Because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's akhlaq, his character, was spotless. Actions speak louder than words. How you conduct yourself with the people, how you carry yourself with the people, can sometimes be the best form of da'wah.

وَلَا تَمْشِ فِي الْأَرْضِ مَرَحًا — do not walk on the earth arrogantly. Why? إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ مُخْتَالٍ فَخُورٍ — because if Allah sees that you are arrogant, Allah does not love the people who are arrogant. And if Allah does not love you, how can you expect the help of Allah to be with you? If you are calling people to Allah but in a very arrogant manner, in a very haughty manner, how do you expect Allah's help to be with you?

وَاقْصِدْ فِي مَشْيِكَ — when you walk amongst the people, be moderate. Do not walk with such a gait that people look at you and say: what does he think of himself?

And when you speak with the people, speak in a gentle, calm tone. Don't yell at people. There is no need to yell at people. A loud voice is generally unpleasant. When you speak with people, your voice should be moderate, your voice should be gentle, your voice should be soft — it should not be harsh. It is possible for a person's voice and tone to be firm but also gentle at the same time. Harshness does not mean being firm — there is a very subtle difference.

Luqman alayhi salam is telling his son: when you shout at people, your voice will turn people off. They will say this is unpleasant. They will not like the fact that you are shouting at them.

Connecting to Allah Before Connecting Others

So when we look at these advices of Luqman alayhi salam and we look at ourselves — we try to find ourselves in a community and in the society, we try to see how we should conduct ourselves with the people around us, whether they be Muslims or non-Muslims, friends or family, colleagues, strangers, co-workers — we should understand that if our relationship with Allah is not strong, then no matter what we do with anybody else, no matter how many organizations we join, no matter how many speeches we attend, no matter how many programs we arrange — if our connection with Allah is not strong, then we will not be able to connect the people with Allah.

Our muhtamim sahib at Darul Uloom, Maulana Abdul Hamid Ishaq sahib, may Allah bless him, gave us this one example once. He said: if you want to give somebody water, if you see a thirsty person and you want to help that person, you should give him water — but if you don't have water, how are you going to help that person? If we want to give people the deen but we don't have deen ourselves, what are we going to give?

And he also said: if you want to give somebody a jug of water but you are connected to a bottle — you only have a bottle of water — then how are you going to give more than what you have? Similarly, if we want to connect people to Allah to the extent that they become firm believers, firm practicing believers, but we ourselves are not at that stage or we do not aspire to be at that stage, how do we expect the help of Allah to be with us?

Islam is not just for personal purification, it is not just for social purification, it is not just for community, it is not just for family — Islam is for every aspect of our life. No matter where we are, no matter who we are dealing with, no matter where we live, no matter what era we live in — Islam is for everybody. It has a place everywhere.

Most of us are obviously aware of the fact that we live in a society where many of the things are against the values that Islam teaches us, against the values of the Quran and of what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has taught us. We understand that. How do we navigate all the challenges that we as a community, we as individuals, face on a daily basis?

The advice that Luqman alayhi salam gave to his son is a starting point: you connect yourself with Allah. Your own foundation should be strong before you start building upon it. And always keep a steady connection with Allah. It is more likely that if a relationship with Allah is built on healthy foundations — in other words, it is built out of love, that you love Allah, you fear Him but you also love Him — that relationship will be more stable than a relationship that is built on fear only. Fear that you do acts of worship because you feel Allah will punish you.

Iman, our belief in Allah — everything is between hope and fear, it is between love and fear. It is a balance between everything.

Du'a

May Allah guide us and protect us. May He give us knowledge that benefits us. May Allah first of all give me, and give us all, the ability to live the advices of Luqman alayhi salatu wa salam. May Allah give us all the ability to have a healthy, productive relationship with Allah. May Allah guide, bless and protect us all.

وَاللهُ أَعْلَمُ وَبِاللهِ التَّوْفِيقُ

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah