The Best Role Model - Mufti Muhammad Ibn Adam (UK)

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Bismillāh ar-Raḥmān ar-Raḥīm. Alḥamdulillāh, we are very honored. We have a guest speaker MāshāAllāh Mufti Muhammad Ibn Adam Kothari, who has traveled all the way from Leicester, UK and Inshāllāh, he will be, I'll give a more detailed bio tonight.

Inshāllāh, just to bring him to our attention He'll be addressing us for a monthly seminar tonight, Inshāllāh starting at 7 o'clock and this is a very important topic regarding how we can maintain our marriages, bring Barakah into our marriages and make them strong and also, we'll be having a two-day seminar, Saturday and Sunday Workshop, two-day complete class regarding this topic. So Inshāllāh, it will be covered in the announcements But this, just want to bring to your attention, this is our same scholar, sheikh, who will be addressing us this entire weekend.

Bismillāh ar-Raḥmān ar-Raḥīm, Alḥamdulillāh. As-salātu wa-s-salāmu 'alá sayyidinā rasūlillāh, wa 'alá ālihi wa ṣaḥbihi wa man walāh, Allāhumma 'allimna mā yanfa'unā wa anfí'nā bimā 'alamtanā wa zidnā 'ilmā. Subḥānaka Allāhumma lā 'ilma lanā illā mā 'alamtanā innaka anta al-'alīmul ḥakīm. Allāhumma arinā al-ḥaqqa ḥaqqan wa marzuqnā ittibā'āh, wa arinā al-bāṭila bāṭilan wa marzuqnā ijtinābāh.

Respect your brothers and sisters, As-salāmu 'alaykum wa raḥmatullāhi ta'ālá wa barakātuh. That's a very good welcome, Inshāllāh. Alḥamdulillāh. It's an honor and it's a privilege to be here at Darus Salām once again. Today is Jumu'ah Khutbah, Inshāllāh. I just want to briefly talk about something that we may have heard many times before but it's just a reminder, this Jumu'ah Khutbah is a reminder, reminders for all of us. I think the date today is What's the date? Islamic date first, brothers. Something of Ṣafar, or is it? 28th Ṣafar.

Yes, when you say what's the date, first we should think about Islamic date and then because we actually don't even remember the Islamic date, sometimes not even the month because you know, we live in a time and in a country, which there's nothing wrong with it but it's good to always keep in mind the Islamic dates. We're coming to the end of the month of Ṣafar, the second month of the Islamic calendar year. Muḥarram, and then we have Ṣafar, and we are approaching the month of Rabī' al-Awwal, which is a blessed month. Why is it a blessed month? Most months are kind of blessed, they have something, some significance. It's a month, one of the reasons not that we are going to have a party or celebrate but we still remember it's a very important month in which probably the greatest event in the history of mankind has taken place. The greatest, probably not probably, the greatest incident in history, so it's a historical event that has taken place in the month of Rabī' al-Awwal, which is the blessed birth of our beloved Messenger Muḥammad ṣallallāhu ta'ālá 'alayhi wa sallam. No great, no incident has been greater than this. Allāh subḥānahu wa ta'ālá sent our messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam to this universe in this blessed month for a reason: to guide humanity, to take humanity out of ignorance into the light of knowledge, from the darkness of ignorance into the light of knowledge, guide humanity and as a source of mercy.

Allāh sent him not just that we celebrate him as a person or as a Prophet, not just to celebrate him. That's not the maqṣad, the objective, the aim and goal of sending all the prophets and this great prophet of Allāh ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. There is a reason why Allāh subḥānahu wa ta'ālá sends the prophets and sent the final messenger Muḥammad ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. Allāh sent him so that we emulate him and we bring his teachings, his guidance, his guidelines into our lives. This is the whole purpose. Allāh mentions this in the Qur'ān as well, that the maqṣad, the objective of sending the messenger Muḥammad ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam is that you follow him. Follow him. For you in the messenger of Allāh ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam is a perfect example, the perfect role model, the best role model, the messenger Muḥammad ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. And that's why he was sent. Allāh subḥānahu wa ta'ālá guided mankind, guided all of us in two ways. The first method is by revealing the books on the messengers. Since the earlier times Allāh subḥānahu wa ta'ālá sent revealed books and scriptures. We have the four famous ones: Tawrāh, Zabūr, Injīl and the Qur'ān. But also other prophets had many scriptures, like the Qur'ān says Ṣuḥuf Ibrāhīm wa Mūsá. The scriptures and the books revealed on to Ibrāhīm and Mūsá. So that's one way he guided and the second method was by sending messengers and that was the more important way because if you look in history, there is no example of Allāh subḥānahu wa ta'ālá revealing books without a messenger or a prophet. There is no example.

There are many examples that prophets came. Many examples that prophets came but no book was revealed. They just continued and carried on with the book or the scripture or the message of a previous prophet, many examples. But there is no one example where a book was revealed without a prophet. In other words Allāh just sends the book like from the sky he drops the book down. Here's the book. Read it, recite it, understand it and act upon it and implement it in your life. Or everybody wakes up first thing in the morning, under the pillow, check. Oh brothers and sisters, check. You'll find a book. There's no example, but many examples of prophets coming and no books. Both are important. These are two ways of guidance.

Inzāl al-Qutub, Irsl al-Rusul. Sending of messengers and revealing of books. But the reason why sending of prophets is more important is this: because true guidance does not come just by books. The books were revealed. It was not enough for humanity, for human beings, for men and women to just read the books which Allāh sends from you know, the sky or you find it under the pillow. Humanity, human beings needed a human, another human being who Allāh chose to practically teach and explain the contents of the book that Allāh subḥānahu wa ta'ālá revealed. This is why books on their own are not enough. We need practical guidance and the companions, Ṣaḥābah raḍiyallāhu 'anhum. They took the guidance from the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam practically and this is why Allāh says in the Qur'ān. The verse I recited. You've got a perfect role model, a perfect example before you. You don't even need to look into the book because kāna khulqu-hu al-Qur'ān. 'Āishah raḍiyallāhu 'anhā was asked, the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam: How was his character? How was his mannerism? He said his character was the Qur'ān.

You just look at him and he is a walking Qur'ān. He is a talking Qur'ān. Everything that Allāh wants from a person, human being to the absolute perfection is in this human being. This is why Allāh also said to him: If there is the highest level of good mannerism, the peak of good character, the peak of humanity, the highest stage and level and position someone can reach, then this is the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. So this is why Allāh sent him like that. He chose him to be the absolute ultimate level of perfection as a human being can be. If he's not a God, a human being. So the ultimate level of perfection and this is the role model sent to us.

What do we have to do? He is a human being as well like us. This is why he was a human being so then we can emulate him because if he wasn't a human. Like the mushrikūn of Makkah said: mā li hādhā rasūl ya'kulu ta'ām wa yasmhi fil aswāq. They could not understand that this messenger also eats food like we eat. But this was the beauty. This is the actual reason Allāh specifically chose a human being to be the absolute ultimate level of perfection so that we have no excuse. We don't say oh, we can't emulate him because he's another creature, alien, some other species has come from Mars or Venus or somewhere. No, this is: From you, from your own selves. Huwallādhī ba'atha fil ummiyyīna rasūlan min anfusihim. Allāh says he is the one who sent Prophet to you from amongst yourselves. Not from another creature, not some you know alien or some another species that comes from Mars or Venus or Jupiter. Min anfusihim. So this is an example of a human being. Yes, definitely an absolute different level of human being. Because you can have two human beings, you can have two types of stones. You have a normal stone, and you can have a ruby. Muḥammadun bashar wa laysa ka-l-bashar. He is a human being but not like other human beings but we don't deny he is a human being and this was the reason. That if this human being can be to the ultimate level of perfection then we have to look at his role model and each one of us we need to try to emulate this role model that is before us. We can't reach. Without a doubt we can't reach that ultimate level, but then we all have our you know share of emulating him. Some people take 2% of his perfection. Some reach to 5%, some to 8%, some to 10%, and we have to continue to strive looking at this perfect role model before us.

Now you might say this role model. The Ṣaḥābah radiyallāhu 'anhum and whom the companions they saw him physically. The people after the companions radiyallāhu 'anhum like us. We can't see this role model in front of us. We don't see him coming into the masjid. We don't see him exiting the masjid. We don't see him offering ṣalāh. We don't see him how he spoke with people, how he talked with people, how he conversed. How he lived at home, how he treated his family, how he discussed issues with people. We can't see that. So what do we do? This is a responsibility. The role model is not before us. So now our responsibility is to learn about that role model. To spend time to know what the role model is. How can we emulate? How can we follow? How can we do it the bar. How can we emulate someone we don't know anything about?

You know, we hear a lot of the times that we need to follow the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. But it starts before that. We know the Qur'ān says: Ṭī'ū Allāh wa ṭī'ū ar-rasūl. Obey Allāh, obeyed his messenger. We all know obeying the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam, following the Sunnah, following in his footsteps, emulating him. But how is that possible? That's not possible until we actually there are three steps. You know, someone said this it was a made up like a line that to know him is to love him, to love him is to follow him. To know. What did I say? To know him is to love him and to love him is to follow him. In other words, there are three stages. We have to follow him, but you can't really emulate him or follow him directly. It's not that easy. If someone tells you, you know, there's a person here just try to just be like him you might say why should I just try to be like anybody just randomly? We are human beings. We all have egos. We want to be our independent people, of course to an extent. No problem. Why do I want. Why do I need to copy somebody? So it's difficult to emulate someone unless there's a stage before that.

What is that? Loving him. If you love someone absolutely ultimately you adore somebody then nobody has to tell you brother. You know, I try follow that person because you adore that person. You are absolutely madly crazy in love with that person. You know, sometimes husband wives they copy each other because they love each other. Hopefully Inshāllāh when we're talking about marriage in the weekend because and sometimes it happens. You have a marriage and you know a lot of the times because women they easily accept you know other people they get easily get affected which is a good quality of women. They start emulating the husbands. They don't have to but they just. The husband starts liking the food. They start liking that food as well. The husband likes a particular car. They like that car as well. The husband likes a particular way of something doing that they actually. But when they stop loving their husband, then they don't like that because love results in you following automatically.

So the stage before emulation and before following him is loving him. And we know loving the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam is one of the obligations of Islām. It's farḍ of the. I'm you know, we hear that praying ṣalāh, offering five-time praise. What is it? It's farḍ of the. We know personally obligatory on everybody. Fasting in Ramaḍān is a farḍ. Ḥajj is a farḍ. Zakāt is a farḍ. Likewise, ḥubbu n-nabī ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. Loving the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam is a farḍ of the. I mean personally obligatory upon every Muslim man woman if we don't have that extreme love for him. Our Īmān is incomplete. That's why the ḥadīth says you can't be a complete believer. I think of Sayyidunā 'Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb raḍiyallāhu 'anhu the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam mentioned to him that you can't be a complete believer ḥattá akūn aḥabbu ilayhi min wālidayhi wa-waladihi wa-n-nāsi ajma'īn until I messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam is saying I do not become more beloved to you than your own parents, your own children and the whole of creation and humanity wa-n-nāsi ajma'īn. We need to ask ourselves look into our hearts. How do we know we love him more than our children, family and everything and every person? More than pound and dollars and more than worldly materialistic things. Do we love him more or do we love our car more? Do we love him more? Do we love money more? We might say no, of course, we love him more. Well, the time for test is when there's a conflict between between what he says and between some money. If he said that brother, this is not halāl for you to take this money and it's a lot of money then that's when the test comes. If we give preference to the world to the dunyā to the materialistic things then and that's a clear clear witness and proof that we don't love him enough. We love we might love him slightly but not enough other things are more beloved and this is why in the ḥadīth he said ḥattá akūn aḥabbu. The word is aḥabbu more beloved which means that you will have love if you're a Muslim. Nobody's saying that you won't have no love. Nobody hates him. Alḥamdulillāh all Muslims. We all love him. Everybody has a small amount of love. There is no Muslim who does not have love for the Messenger. We should thank Allāh for that as well and say Alḥamdulillāh but the ḥadīth is saying aḥabbu af'alut tafdīl you have to have more love for Allāh's Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam and his teachings and this is this is the second category. I started from the third category, which is following him. If you have extreme amount of love then you will automatically follow him and there's a stage before that as well.

When we say we have to love the Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam it's not easy to love somebody just like that. We don't see this role model. I mentioned the verse of the Qur'ān. The Ṣaḥābah companions for them it was easier because they saw him speaking. They saw him talking. They saw him entering the masjid. They saw him exiting the masjid. The way he interacted with them. They saw this amazing perfect absolute, you know perfection of a human being. They had no choice but to fall in love with him because they could not see anyone like this and it was impossible for normal human beings to be like this. We can't see that. So it's more difficult for us, isn't it? So, how do we create the love? That's why the stage before that we must know him. How do you know him? We have to learn about him and read about him. The problem crisis of today's time is we hardly spend time reading about Allāh's Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. The sīrah books every household. We should have a collective reading of the sīrah. Father mother daughter son once a week. If not every day, if not every day then at least once a week. Read any good book on sīrah. Finish that book another book you could do different books. We should have a complete reading of books of sīrah of Allāh's Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. Books like the Shamā'il of Imām al-Tirmidhī. That's just his physical features and then some of his character traits, but there's so many different books. There's nobody in the world on whom more is written than the Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. There's nobody. Muslims and non-muslims attest to this fact. There is no human being on which there's more material in as many languages than there is on Allāh's Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. We could carry on reading all our lives and we could die, but we won't finish reading about him.

So this is an obligation. Learn about him. Read about him. Continuously there should never be a day in our life that we don't learn or read something about the sīrah of the Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam. It's not just about attending lectures. It's about reading as well. To recognize him. Once we recognize him, automatically we will fall in love with him and I will end with this. There was a actually a new Muslim a revert brother once said to me. I was. I think it was in America somewhere, Detroit somewhere many many years ago that I actually fell in love with the messenger of the Muslims because of when I read this sīrah. I just had no choice. When I read. No human being can be like this. When I saw some of the incidents some of the things about him character traits. Like understood Mālik raḍiyallāhu 'anhu says: Khadamtu an-Nabī ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam 'ashar sinīn. I was a khadim, a servant. I used to be a servant serving the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam walking. Sorry working for him. Bringing him food this that everything for 10 years. This is a ḥadīth in al-Bukhārī from our bodily often cut in. 10 years he never even said a word of contempt. Like I mean we hear this ḥadīth. It's just simple. Okay, we read it. Very good. Imagine. Imagine just imagine doing this. Imagine you have somebody you've employed working for you for 10 years more. Every morning afternoon evening you see this person. There's not just nine to five even in the evenings doing everything for you and in 10 years you don't even. Not even that. That's what often means like. No, not even a sigh. In 10 years when someone they must have done so many things wrong. Like you wanted something to be done. They couldn't do in 10 years. Could any of us ever even imagine doing that? And then he said he never said to me: Why did you do this for something I shouldn't have done and I knew I shouldn't have done it but he never said why. And why didn't you do this for something I should have done. I've just won a random example. The Sunnah and sīrah is filled with incidents like this. We read this. Maybe not 10 years. Maybe we could try acting upon this. When we read about the messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam you have no choice, but you will fall in love with him because this is an amazing absolute level of perfection.

So that's why knowing him is to is results in loving him. Learn about him. Knowing him. Recognizing him. Learning his sīrah. Start as soon as possible. As soon as possible. Even if you've read something still read more. Start at home today. What a great day to start. Friday. People just do like a big, you know program in Rabī'ul Awwal and that's it and then one year go back to sleep. This is not learning about the sīrah. Sīrah is you start and every day every week. Learn about his character his traits how he was as a human being as a husband as a father as a grandparent as a businessman as a leader as all the different aspects of life. We have teachings. So knowing about him results in automatically falling in love with him, then we will fall in love with him. We'll have this love for him. And once we have love for him, then nobody will tell it need to tell us you know what? You need to follow him because you will automatically fall in love. You will automatically follow him Inshāllāh. May Allāh grant us tawfīq.