The Source of Relief | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed | Friday Khutbah

Opening Praise

Amma ba'd. Allah says in His Noble Book — I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Shaytan, in the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful:

And He says in another place:

And He says in yet another place:

And the Prophet ﷺ said to Abu Sufyan:

(Referenced in Sirah sources regarding the conversation with Abu Sufyan at the Conquest of Makkah)

The Human Pursuit of Happiness

My dear brothers, sisters, elders and youngsters — it is from the nature of a human being that regardless of our age, our backgrounds, our ethnicities, every individual desires to be happy. Every individual looks for relief. They look for peace. They look for a sense of comfort. And this is a natural drive and innate feature of every single human being. The pursuit of happiness is something as real within us as the existence of our lives.

However, the question that we ask ourselves is not whether or not we choose or desire to be happy. The question that we ask ourselves is: what truly makes us happy? What is the process that we will engage within that will bring our heart peace and happiness?

The Life of the Prophet ﷺ — A Life of Trials

Because if we unravel all of the coverings between us and our Habib Muhammad ﷺ — the man, the individual, the epitome of a human being who lived in this world — when we look at him, we don't necessarily see a happy man staring back at us. We don't see a person who lived a life of complete joy and comfort.

Rather, it would be quite the opposite. How could someone be happy if they lost six of their seven children in their own lifespan? Where they had to bury their own children? How could they be happy if they were born without a father and lose their mother at the age of five? How could they truly be happy when their last child that was born to them — in Madinatul Munawwara — little Ibrahim — is breathing his last in his arms, and as he's holding him, the Prophet is tearing?

And the Sahabah around him looking at him are surprised and perplexed and somewhat confused that the Prophet is crying, and they say to him: "Ya Rasulallah, wa anta kadhalik?" — "You also cry? Don't you know this is from Allah?" And he responds by saying:

"This is mercy from Allah."

When Ibrahim is leaving this world, the Prophet ﷺ is saying:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 1303; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2315)

"The eye does tear and the heart does yearn. The eyes do cry" — and just as Ya'qub (AS) cried his eyes out to the point that he went blind, missing his son Yusuf —

"And the heart does yearn and it grieves, but the tongue will not utter an utterance that brings the displeasure of Allah."

"We will only speak and complain to the One who can listen to us without judging us. The One who can listen to us and we can be vulnerable in front of."

The Darkness After the Prophet's ﷺ Departure

When Hamza leaves this world at Uhud and he becomes Shaheed, the Prophet ﷺ will walk around town saying, "Who is there to remember Hamza? There are people remembering their Shuhada of the Ansar — who is there to remember Hamza?"

When the Prophet ﷺ leaves this world — the darkest day the world has ever seen — Anas ibn Malik (radiAllahu anhu) says:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3618)

"When the Prophet entered into Madinatul Munawwara, it lit up the entire city. It became known as Munawwara." And when the Prophet ﷺ left this world, "the entire world was dark."

What Made Madinah Munawwara?

It was not Munawwara, my dear friends and brothers and sisters, because of the lights that were in the city. It was not Munawwara because of the beautiful chandeliers. It was not Munawwara because of the beautiful furniture and the landscape and the architecture of their homes and their communities. Rather, the opposite was said to be true — this was a city where it was known that someone who would live there for too long would get sick. Hence it was known as Yathrib. The landscape didn't change. The furniture did not change. The architecture of the city did not change.

What made it Munawwara, what brought relief, what brought happiness in this community had nothing to do with anything exterior. What made it Munawwara was the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ entering their homes.

What brings happiness to our home is not simply the home being a home with furniture and people living there. Why is it so that I see bodies but I don't see humans? I hear chatter but I am not able to hear humans. Why is it so that there are homes and houses but they are void of peace and sakinah? Why is it so that there are families but they are lacking love, they are lacking compassion?

And at the end of the discussion, it is very simple: where do we rank the value and importance of Muhammad Rasulullah ﷺ being present in our home?

Allah says that He will never punish a nation, He will never punish a group of people, He will never punish a family:

And Imam al-Qurtubi comments on وَأَنتَ فِيهِمْ — meaning: as long as the sunnah is alive in their lives, the sunnah is alive in their homes, the sunnah is present in their children.

Contentment, Not Merely Happiness

We don't see happy people looking back at us when the Prophet ﷺ left this world. We don't see people smiling and enjoying life per se in the way that we see it. But we see people who are content, who are at ease with the decisions of Allah. We see people who are content — not because they were happy — but because they recognized that their source of happiness was something bigger than anything that could be present in this temporal world of ours. Their source of relief and their source of happiness was nothing that could be found in this world.

Of course, we are allowed to be happy with what we have, but their source was asking themselves: "Is Allah happy with us?" Their source was asking: "If I pass away today, will the Prophet ﷺ meet me with a smile on his face?"

The Example of Bilal (radiAllahu anhu)

When Bilal (radiAllahu anhu) was leaving this world, the people around him — seeing Bilal as a leader — said:

"Stand, O Master, and give the Adhan and give us peace in our heart."

Bilal was the same individual whose voice was synonymous with the presence of our Habib being alive. In the moment our Prophet left this world, Bilal said to Abu Bakr (radiAllahu anhu) that he could not live there anymore, because the alleys and the streets that he used to walk within once had the presence of our Habib, and today they are void of his presence. "I can't live here. Let me leave."

This same Bilal, who was a leader — the master of the believers — as he is leaving this world, we can imagine the sorrow and the grief that will strike the Ummah. His wife starts to say:

"What a sad day it is!" And he, in and out of his consciousness, looks at her and says:

"Don't say that. Rather say: 'What a blessed day it is! What a happy day it is! What a beautiful day it is — because tomorrow I will meet the Prophet again and I will meet the companions again.'"

Our Source of Happiness

Similarly, dear brothers, sisters and friends — our source of happiness and our source of peace comes from Allah being happy. And all of our decisions now have a consistent point of reference in life. As I am moving forward in life — as a student, as a father, as a mother, as a professional — and as I am asking all these questions that lead to my happiness, does this question even exist in my portfolio: "Will my children be raised with Iman?" Does this question even exist within my portfolio: "Will my daughters and sons and my families live with Iman and be proud of their Iman?" Because this was their question. And this was their source and avenue of securing happiness.

And anything that we value in this world — to the extent we build homes, they're attached with insurance; we buy cars, they have insurance. Why do we have insurance? The idea of insurance is: if anything ever goes wrong, I will be able to reciprocate whatever the losses are and then gain whatever I lost. Nowadays we even have insurance on our phones. Anything which is valuable carries an insurance plan.

What is the most valuable asset that we have that allows us to sleep at night knowing that if we leave this world we are at ease, because we've left with Iman? The most valuable asset that we have is the Kalima of لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ. This becomes the source of our happiness. This becomes the source of relief for us — that we know when all of this will end, it will be a new beginning. And when we go to those places, it won't be going to a place of strangers.

Rather, when a person who lives in this world as a believer has a consistent source of motivation — which is Allah and His Rasul ﷺ — then whenever they make decisions, a question that they always ask is: "Where does Allah belong in this decision of mine? Where is the Sunnah of the Prophet in this decision of mine? If this brings displeasure to Allah and His Prophet, is it really worth me doing? And if this brings displeasure to everyone else but it brings honor to Allah and His Prophet, is it worth doing?"

As the poet says:

"If You are happy and my relationship with You is sweet, let life be bitter." If You are happy, and the people around me are not happy, I will survive that pain — because the goal, the source of my happiness, is You.

Children and the Legacy of Iman

The source of my children being successful is not the amount of wealth they earn and the degrees that they have. The source of my children making me happy in this world is them being raised in a manner that brings Allah happiness. When they stand before Allah, He will say, "Where are the parents of these children?" Why will Allah be asking for such parents? Because the only way in the Akhirah that someone can ascend a rank — the only way an individual will be able to move higher in Jannah — is through the effort and the acceptance of their children.

Where Allah says:

That when the children will be in the higher ranks in Jannah and the parents will say, "Where are my children?" and the children will say, "Where are our parents?" — the normal routine would be to bring the children down. But in the Akhirah, there is no one that comes down, there is no one that descends. Allah will say to the angels, "Let the parents also ascend and reach a higher level in Jannah."

As children, we understand the smile and the honor that our parents receive when we succeed in this world. Imagine the type of honor our parents will receive when we become a means of their Jannah becoming bigger in the Akhirah. There is nothing greater than this.

The Transformation of a People

And this all comes back down to: what is our source of happiness? What is our source of relief? What brings us peace?

For the Sahabah, though they lost much, they gained everything — because they gained Muhammad ﷺ.

If you look in the history of time, you will not find a nation that was more deprived of goodness, more plagued with ill and vice, than the community before the coming of the Prophet ﷺ. Such was the norm in their time that they would disrespect parents and elders. Such was the norm that they would bury daughters alive. Such was the norm that they would take from the orphans and those that had less. It was the norm of their time to such an extent that the Romans and the Persians said, "We don't want to rule these people. They're not worth our time. They're not worth the headache."

But something changed. Something happened. These same people became the rulers of the world. They were not worth ruling, but now they became the rulers. The only thing that we can see that changed within them is a point of reference — a source of motivation that was bigger than life itself. And that was the Prophet ﷺ, in the qudrah of Allah.

The Only Verse Where Allah Orders Us to Be Happy

Allah says: "Tell them, O Muhammad ﷺ." And this is the only verse in the entire Quran where Allah orders us to be happy. There are verses where Allah speaks to us about being content —

— but this is the only verse in the Quran where Allah actually tells us to be happy. He says: "O Muhammad ﷺ, tell them that the source of happiness is فَضْلُ اللَّهِ." According to Ibn Abbas, فَضْلُ اللَّهِ refers to Islam, and وَبِرَحْمَتِهِ — "in the mercy of Allah" — refers to the Quran.

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2906)

The source became the Quran. The source became the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

Returning to Our Homes — A Daily Question

So when we leave this gathering today and we return to our families and our homes — and we have everything around us, and there is family, there is wealth, there is happiness — we must ask ourselves on a daily basis: Is Allah being remembered in this home? Is Allah's dhikr taking place in this home? Is the mention of the Prophet's name taking place in my life?

Because Imam Ibn al-Qayyim echoes the same sentiments and he says that an individual whose entire day goes by and he or she does not remember Allah and say the name of the Prophet ﷺ — they are like dead people, they are like people who have no life.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6407)

"People who remember Allah are like those who are alive, and those who have nothing in regards to the remembrance of Allah and His Habib ﷺ — they are like those who have already died."

Our source and our avenue of happiness is something that is bigger than this world. So when we lose out on mundane things in this life, when we lose family and loved ones, when we lose out on a job or when we lose out on an opportunity — indeed it brings us pain. But we realize that true ease and true comfort is in pleasing Allah. And that is the source of everlasting peace, that is the source of everlasting contentment, and that will be the source of everlasting happiness.

As it will be said to us when we enter into the realm of the Akhirah: