Appreciating Allah's Three Core Blessings: Health, Safety, And Food

The Three Core Blessings

Alhamdulillah, and may Allah not make this the last Jumu'ah of our lives. May Allah allow this to be a beneficial Jumu'ah for us all. Ameen.

That being said, in one hadith Rasulullah ﷺ summarizes the many blessings that we have. Out of all of these blessings, the Prophet ﷺ summarizes the three core blessings that you and I, we have. So he says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2346)

Rasulullah ﷺ says that those who wake up in the morning healthy in relation to their body, safe in their homes, and they have one day worth of food — just one day worth of food — فَكَأَنَّمَا حِيزَتْ لَهُ الدُّنْيَا — it's as if the entire dunya has been presented before you.

Meaning, all of the opportunities of the dunya are presented to you if you have these three blessings. If you are healthy, you are safe, and you have one day worth of food. الحمد لله ثم الحمد لله — all of us sitting here, we have these three blessings.

الحمد لله, we are healthy. Now yes, health differs from person to person, but the fact is that us being here proves that we are healthy enough. الحمد لله — there are many others that despite wanting to come to the masjid, because of one reason or the other, they are unable to be here with us today. And so us being here in the masjid proves that we are healthy enough. الحمد لله. Number one.

Then we are safe. الحمد لله — we are safe. We are able to come to the masjid freely. We are able to go to our jobs. We are able to go to our houses. We are able to worship Allah Ta'ala freely. That's a great blessing of Allah Ta'ala. Freedom of religion is a great blessing of Allah Ta'ala. الحمد لله.

And then, we have not one day worth of food — we have many days worth of food. الحمد لله. And we have the food at home. الحمد لله. But despite having food at home, we say, you know what, today I'm feeling let's have the food here, or let's have food at a nearby restaurant. So it's not about if we will have food — it's about where we'll have food. الحمد لله for all of us. It's a great blessing of Allah Ta'ala.

And Rasulullah ﷺ says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2486)

He says that the one who eats food and is grateful to Allah is like the one who is fasting and is patient. So therefore, the blessing of food — we have food — we must be grateful to Allah Ta'ala. الحمد لله, I'm able to eat this food.

A Reminder Not to Take Blessings for Granted

I remember there was this one young child — young meaning let's say 12–13 years old — a student in my community. He had a conversation with me at Jumu'ah. After Jumu'ah, he left. A few days later, his father comes to me and says, "You know, my son, that day he met you after Jumu'ah — he was on a parking garage, he fell two stories and he broke all of his bones."

So a few days later, he was at home. I went to visit him. And so I asked him what's going on and I spoke to him. And after some time I said, "What's the first thing you're going to do? What's the first thing you'll do after they take the tubes out and you can actually eat food?" He could not eat food — nothing. They were feeding him through tubes. I asked him, "What's the first thing you'll do?" He said, "I want to drink some water." He was unable to drink water for days.

And so alhamdulillah, it's a blessing of Allah Ta'ala. Every single morsel, every bite is a blessing of Allah Ta'ala. But the fact is that many of us, we take our blessings for granted. We think that this is normal — that the blessing of food, the blessing of safety, the blessing of health — these are all normal blessings. In reality, these are not normal blessings. But we take it for granted.

I'll give you an example. Alhamdulillah, I studied in South Africa for some time. While I was studying there, at one of the institutions, we did not have access to hot water. There was no hot water. I mean, it's kind of cold here, but it was very cold there. If you think today is cold, it was very, very cold there. So you wake up for Fajr, and it's freezing cold. You have to make wudu with freezing cold water. And you have to do ghusl — it's worse. Because what we'd do is we'd boil some hot water, mix it with the freezing water, and then we would take bucket showers.

Some of you, mashaAllah, you're smiling — maybe at some point in your life you did it. Long time ago, maybe. But now, we turn on the faucet and it's too hot for us. And we don't think about it. We think, okay, this is how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be hot. When I come into the masjid, it's supposed to be comfortable. These are expected. Whereas in reality, these are blessings from Allah Ta'ala. And every single one of these blessings, we must be grateful to Allah Ta'ala for.

So alhamdulillah, we came back from South Africa. But there are many others for whom that is their normal life — they don't have access to hot water. So all of these blessings, we must be grateful to Allah Ta'ala. We must understand that these are blessings from Allah. And we must appreciate these blessings from Allah Ta'ala and realize that there are many others that don't have the same blessings.

Empathy for Those Who Are Suffering

There are many others globally that are experiencing extreme difficulty in many different ways. And if we are not people who are cognizant and sympathetic to them and their difficulties, then we are not a complete believer. As Rasulullah ﷺ says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 13; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 45)

Rasulullah ﷺ says that one is not a true believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. So if we love for ourselves that we should be comfortable, we are happy, we're healthy, we're safe, our kids are happy, our kids are healthy, our kids are safe — then we should want the same for others as well. This is the first and foremost understanding.

The second. We look around, and when we look at those who are suffering, we see that many, many people globally are experiencing extreme difficulty. And as Muslims, alhamdulillah, living in Chicago — as you all say, mashallah, it's an amazing, comfortable environment you're living in, alhamdulillah — it's a blessing of Allah Ta'ala. And we must recognize that there are many others that don't share these types of blessings. And so therefore, we must be cognizant of those types of people. And we must do whatever is within our capabilities to look after others as well.

This is the obligation of every Muslim. That if Allah Ta'ala has blessed you, you must take care of others. That's where the obligation of zakat comes from — that if Allah Ta'ala has given you beyond a certain amount, beyond your basic necessities, then you should also look after others. It's an obligation.

As Muslims, you and I cannot be selfish people. Muslims are not selfish people. Muslims cannot be such that they only worry about themselves — my car, my house, my children, my 401k, and that's it. Cannot be like this. In reality, Muslims, we are people who are conscious of the sufferings of others. If we see others suffering, it should affect us.

That when we see our brothers in different parts of the globe — whether it's Gaza, whether it's Sudan, whether in other parts of the globe — we see our brothers and sisters suffering, this should affect us. That when we see children in different parts of the globe dying because of lack of access to food and lack of access to healthcare, this should definitely affect us. And subhanAllah, we spend so much money on so many different things. But the reality is that we can cut down on so many things and use those resources in much better ways.

Yes, you know, so many people during this holiday season are spending billions of dollars in these few weeks. And so we're tricked. We're deceived into thinking: I need this new product. I need this new jacket. I need this new bag. And why do we buy it? We buy it to impress people that don't care. We're buying these new shoes thinking that everyone will look at us and say, "Wow, very nice shoes." But nobody cares. Whether it's a knockoff or it's real, no one cares.

This is the reality of life — that we buy expensive things, we spend our money on expensive things, to impress people that don't care. Whereas in reality, there are people in different parts of the globe who are genuinely suffering, who genuinely don't know where their next meal will come from.

Gaza, Sudan, and Our Global Brothers and Sisters

We look at the many Muslims who are suffering globally. Gaza, of course — we know what's been happening in Gaza. Despite the ceasefire, we know how many of our brothers and sisters are still being killed. We see our brothers and sisters in Sudan literally starving. And we must empathize with these brothers and sisters. We must realize that these are my brothers and sisters, whether I'm from that area or not, whether I live there or my family is there — it doesn't matter.

Ask yourself: if your brother or your sister was starving, if your child was starving, what would you be willing to do? I had one musalli — making a long story short, his son needed a procedure where they needed to cleanse his blood. It was supposed to be a few-minute procedure. This was last year. And the doctor, with more than 30 years of experience, went in and nicked an artery. This 10-year-old boy is bleeding out. They go to the father and say, "Listen, we need to operate on him. We need to cut him open." The father says, "Do whatever you can." So they cut him open — a 10-year-old boy — and they did the procedure, inshallah. What was supposed to be 10 minutes took at least a few hours.

I spoke to the father later on and I said, "What was going through your mind?" He said, "You know, at that moment, all I did was — Ya Allah, it's only You."

And many times when we look at others, we think that this is happening to someone else. We look at someone suffering with cancer or struggling for some reason and we think, this is someone else, not my family. I'm okay, I'm healthy, I'm safe, I'm good. But the fact is that Allah Ta'ala can test any one of us with these problems. And so therefore, when we see others — strangers — we should also empathize with them and try to help them however we can.

SubhanAllah, we work with a charity organization. And this is something we found out — there are orphans that get killed in Gaza, and then the donors are informed: "Listen, your orphan, the one you sponsored, was killed. And if you'd like, we can replace this orphan with a different orphan." SubhanAllah, what an unbelievable time we are living in.

Just to give you some statistics: in the past little over two years, on average, more than 50 children have been killed in Gaza every single day. Every single day on average, more than 50 children. And when we hear these numbers, every single one of us should be appalled. We should be crying blood genuinely when we hear these numbers. We should be thinking, imagine this was my child. Many of us are parents here — imagine this was my son or my daughter. What would we be willing to do?

So every single one of us, we must be concerned about our brothers and sisters globally and do whatever we can to help them — especially our brothers and sisters in Gaza and Sudan and so on. I was speaking to one brother this week, and he was telling me, "Listen, I've seen you do these presentations and fundraising for Gaza. What are you doing for Sudan?" Alhamdulillah, immediately I was able to pull up and show him what we are doing this week in Sudan, alhamdulillah. And mashaAllah, he was very happy.

Many people, it's become like a sound bite — "Oh, just take care of Gaza." But in reality, there are people genuinely suffering, and we have the capabilities to help. It's important that we do. And if we do, Allah Ta'ala will take care of us. In the hadith, Rasulullah ﷺ says:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2699)

Rasulullah ﷺ says: The one who alleviates the problems of others, Allah will alleviate his problems on the Day of Judgment. The one who makes someone's life easy in this world, Allah will make his life easy in this world and in the next. The one who conceals the faults of others, Allah will conceal his faults in this world and in the Akhirah. And lastly — Allah will continue to help a person so long as that person helps his brother. So long as we look after one another, Allah will look after us.

Sponsoring Orphans — The Reward of Being with the Prophet ﷺ in Jannah

My humble request is, my dear brothers and sisters: there is a charity organization here — Human Appeal. MashaAllah, they are taking care of more than 50,000 orphans globally. MashaAllah — 50,000 orphans, that's not a small number. Alhamdulillah. And ranging from Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and many other countries, alhamdulillah — with offices on the ground there, helping the orphans.

And what's amazing is that such a nominal amount — an amount that we don't even think about — $60 a month. For many of us, it's nothing. If we were to go for lunch right now, we'd be spending $60 typically. If you take your family to Walmart, your son will buy something for $60, play with it for two days, and then throw it away.

All of us — if you can — sponsor an orphan, at least one orphan, for one year. Because we take on sponsorships for one year. If you're able to sponsor an orphan and take care of them for $60 a month for at least one year, and if you can, continue to take care of them.

I'll conclude with the hadith. Rasulullah ﷺ says — the famous hadith:

"I and the caretaker of the orphan will be like this in Jannah" — and he indicated with his two fingers. This is the famous hadith we know.

Ibn Battal, the commentator of hadith, says:

He says that it is a right upon every single mu'min who hears this hadith that they must practice upon it. He goes on to say: if you want to be with Rasulullah ﷺ in Jannah — which I'm sure we all want — you must do what Rasulullah ﷺ commanded us to do, which is to take care of the orphans.

So if you can, please consider taking care of at least one orphan — whether in Gaza, whether in Sudan, whether in Syria, whether in other parts of the globe. The brothers will be outside in the back, inshallah. And inshallah, this will be a means of your assistance, and Allah taking care of you in this world and in the Akhirah.

May Allah Ta'ala make us a means of positive change in this world and in the Akhirah. Jazakumullahu khairan.

Du'a

We have a du'a request for a sister who has been hospitalized. May Allah forgive her and have mercy on her. May Allah grant her complete and quick recovery. May Allah grant complete and quick recovery for all of those who are sick.

والحمد لله رب العالمين. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.