The 10 Days of Dhul Hijjah - Shaykh Abu Abdillah Yunus

The Ten Days of Dhul Hijjah

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنُؤْمِنُ بِهِ وَنَتَوَكَّلُ عَلَيْهِ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ أَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَمَّا بَعْدُ

Allah, exalted be He, says:

My dear brothers and sisters, after Eid — which was just over, approximately two months ago — on Eid day you find a lot of brothers and sisters, when you meet them, they look like they didn't make the most of the last ten nights of Ramadan. Some of them say, "Oh, last year was better. Insha'Allah, next year, if Allah gives me life, I'll make that special last ten nights."

What we have, my dear brothers and sisters — for those of us who haven't performed Hajj, as well as those who are going to perform Hajj — we have Allah's gift of these first ten days of Dhul Hijjah. These first ten days of Dhul Hijjah — this is the last month in the lunar Islamic calendar, Dhul Hijjah — and these ten days, as the Prophet informed us, Allah swore by them: وَلَيَالٍ عَشْرٍ — "and by the ten nights." As Ibn Abbas and the majority of scholars of Tafsir mention, it is the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah. They mention, in more than one place in the Quran, that these ten days are the greatest ten days in the entire year.

A person may ask: what about the night time? The night time is included — but the last ten nights of Ramadan are greater, the greatest ten nights in the entire year, because they contain Laylatul Qadr, which is:

— greater than a thousand months, more than 83 years.

So what we're saying, my dear brothers and sisters, is that even if you messed up — you feel that you didn't do too well in last Ramadan, you haven't really become a changed person since Eid, since Eid which has been two months now — and you feel that although you had a high in Ramadan which you wanted to maintain, it's been going downwards since Eid — Allah has blessed us all with this opportunity which has just started a couple of days ago.

The Greatest Days for Righteous Deeds

My dear brothers and sisters, we really need to make sure — as the Prophet says in the narration in Sahih al-Bukhari — that there are no days in which righteous deeds, meaning performing righteous actions, are more beloved in the sight of Allah than these first ten days. These are the greatest ten days in the year, and at the end of this year as well.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 969)

So what we're saying, my dear brothers and sisters — let us ensure, from now, that even if you haven't done well, the fact that Allah brought you to this masjid to wake you up and wake up your heart means He wants good for you. So insha'Allah ta'ala, if you didn't make the most of these last couple of days, maybe some of the Muslims may say, "I don't even know about them," or they say, "How am I supposed to start? I'm not really qualified to do anything significant." We say: take the first step. That's our job. Start off with the first step. You take the first step, Allah will take care of the rest.

Like Usaylim — we find in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad and also in the Sahih and elsewhere — a man who hated Islam, and at the end of his life Allah placed Iman in his heart. So he went to the Prophet on the day of Uhud and said, "What should I do?" So the Prophet said, "Embrace Islam." He said, "Ok, I will embrace Islam." After that, the battle took place and he was found among the dead. The Prophet said he had done hardly any actions — hardly any actions — but his reward was mighty, and he was from the people of Jannah.

And then Abu Hurairah used to say to his companions, "Should I inform you of a man who is from the people of Jannah and he had not even prostrated one Sajdah to Allah?" — because there wasn't enough time, he wasn't given the opportunity. What we're saying is: start off with the first action. Start off with something. The key isn't that you do lots of actions — the key is that you do something.

Remember, dear sisters and brothers, even when we look at the ayat of the Quran — what does Ahsan mean? Allah is testing us so that we do the best deeds — He never said the one who does the most deeds, but the best deeds, the purest deeds, the cleanest deeds. So what we need to do is start off with the first action. That's our job.

Actions to Perform During These Ten Days

1. The Takbir

From the actions that are legislated is the Takbir. A person says:

And most importantly, my dear sisters, for us to nurture the new generations — the young children. When you're going in your car, if you're driving — your father, your older brother, older sister — do you tell your children, or when you're walking, do you say, "Ya Allah, let's do Takbir"?

Ibn Umar and Abu Hurairah, as Imam al-Bukhari mentions — these two companions, what would they do? They would go into the marketplace and recite the Takbir loudly, so that they were reminding other people to do the Takbir. How many of us actually do this during these days? If we haven't done it, let us do it from now — and specifically with the younger generation. We tell them, "Ok, let's do this." And subhanAllah, when you actually look at the faces of these young 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and you're saying, "Come on, let's say Takbir," and you teach them how to do it — you see, it actually brings happiness to their face. They're happy that their father or their mother or their older brother or older sister is nurturing them to do something good, although they have no idea what this actually means. You tell them: these are the best days, this is from the actions that we need to do. We need to do the Takbir.

2. Choose Your Righteous Action

A lot of the time, the only focus found during these ten days — other than the Takbir — is fasting. Everyone says, "We're fasting today, what about you guys? You're not fasting?" That's good, that a person does a good deed like fasting. But Abdullah al-Umari — from the scholars of the past, at the time of the great Imam, Imam Malik, in Medina — wrote a letter to him. Because Imam Malik was busy teaching, this man wrote to him and said, "O Malik, all you're doing is teaching. How about you find yourself in solitude and start doing some Ibadah?"

As a side point — Imam Malik's sister, when she was asked what his action was in the house, she said he would recite the Quran. But anyway, this is in the public sphere, so this man wrote to Malik and said, "Stop teaching people. Why don't you do some acts of worship?" So Imam Malik wrote back to him and said: "Allah has distributed righteous actions just like He has distributed our Arzaq — our provision, meaning money, wealth, Rizq. So you find one person whom Allah has given an opening when it comes to the prayer, but He hasn't given him an opening when it comes to fasting. You find another person whom Allah gave an opening when it comes to fasting but not when it comes to giving in charity." And he gave examples like that. He said, "As for what Allah has decreed to give me — which is teaching — I am content with it and I don't think it is any less than what Allah has blessed you with." And he said, "I hope we are both upon good and righteousness."

The point we're making here is that the Prophet said righteous actions — and that means one brother or sister may think they want to dedicate the remaining ten days to perfecting the prayer; they want to make sure they pray in Jama'ah, they give the prayer Khushu', they're actually focusing on it, and performing lots of optional prayers too. Another person may say, "I just want to fast — the main thing I want to focus on during these days is fasting." A third person may say, "I want to perfect charity." Another person may say, "I want to do Dhikr."

One point when it comes to Dhikr, my dear brothers and sisters — many of us when we do Dhikr nowadays, a lot of the time I worry that we may need to seek forgiveness even for the very act of seeking forgiveness. I remember one of the scholars mentioning: why is that? He said because when a person is seeking forgiveness, they're thinking about inappropriate things half of the time and not focusing at all. The point we're making is that if you're going to seek forgiveness, if you're going to do Dhikr, make sure it's done from the heart. Make sure you're focused — Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah — thinking of the meaning, that you're seeking forgiveness from Allah to forgive you, to conceal your sins, to pardon you, to overlook your shortcomings. And the same for Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, La ilaha illallah, Allahu Akbar, as well as the Takbir that we just mentioned.

Another person may want to focus on taking care of their parents — maybe they just want to say, "I want to sit by my parents' side. I feel I've neglected them for such a long time. Maybe I'll just take a bit of time off work." Some of the brothers and sisters may be on holiday and say, "I'm just going to dedicate myself to being next to my mum, my father, and just ask them: what can I do for you? Should I help you? How can I help you?" And they serve them.

Another person may want to actually get to know their relatives and go visit them — because many of us sometimes only remember our relatives on Eid day, on days of celebration, or sometimes on the day of a funeral. That's when everyone gathers. But before the funeral, there was no gathering. They haven't met their cousins, their aunts, their uncles for a year, two years, sometimes three or four years. So maybe we want to reconnect.

Another person may say, "During these ten days I just want to stop backbiting. I think I've passed on too many goodies as it is — the little goodies that I have. I'm worried I'm currently bankrupt because I can't help myself. I'm always backbiting, and then I justify it." So a person might say, "I want to stop backbiting during these ten days, and if someone backbites in my presence, I'll either say, 'You've probably misunderstood — I'm sure they didn't intend that,' and I'll direct the conversation; or if the person's not interested, I'll walk off, or I'll seek forgiveness for that person."

What we're saying, my dear brothers and sisters, is that you choose what you want to do during these ten days. That's up to you. The key is that you're doing something good.

The End of the Year — Reflecting on How We Finish

The second point is that this is the last month in the year — the last month in the lunar, Islamic calendar. That means the next month is the first month, Muharram. So this month, if a person contemplates, they see that Allah has blessed us with openings for doing lots of deeds and good deeds of righteousness. Likewise, think to yourself: this is the end of the year — how am I going to finish the end of the year? And also: how am I going to end and seal my lifetime as a whole? This is just a year. Insha'Allah, Allah will give me another year, two years, three years — but what about my life as a whole? This should give us an opportunity to reflect on how we want to finish our lives.

A person may say, "Fair enough, but that's not in my hands," — which is true, it's not totally in your hands. But there are certain actions that you can help with, with Allah's permission, in terms of how you're going to end your life. What does that mean? It means, for example, you can make du'a: "Oh Allah, give me a good death. Make my last day on this earth the best day." Or as there is the narration in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, which some scholars authenticate:

— you are asking Allah to make sure that your outcome, your ending, in all affairs is the best. So make du'a. Secondly, if a person hasn't made Tawbah — make Tawbah.

Just a few days ago my mum's sister passed away on Saturday — it's not even been a week. One of the beautiful things that I found was that just two months ago, when I visited her in the hospital when she was really unwell, she was saying: "Just let people go. Forgive people. Just forgive them. Doesn't matter who's wronged you, doesn't matter what they've done — just forgive them and try your best. And at the same time, seek forgiveness from all of those who you've been interacting with." A lot of the time she was finding it a bit difficult, but Alhamdulillah, Allah blessed her by giving her the ability to forgive and also seek forgiveness from everyone. After that, they let her out of the hospital. She went back home and she said, "I feel as if a mountain has been lifted — I actually feel okay now." And the last statements I remember her saying were: "Now I feel — the fact that I've sorted out my relationship between myself and Allah, and myself and His creation — I'm ready to meet Allah."

Likewise, my sisters — this is the ending of this year. We need to really think: when it's our time to go. In the space of one hour and thirty minutes — every ten minutes a new text message, a new message saying it's getting worse, they're saying she's critical, very unlikely she'll make it — in the space of one and a half hours she passed away. Rahimaha Allah ta'ala. But before then, she had prepared herself.

Likewise, we really don't know when it's ours. Maybe run over by a car, maybe a bad accident, someone crashes into you, something happens — and then it's too late. My brothers and sisters, it's too late. So this is an opportunity for us to think from now and be proactive. Let us have a clean slate between us and the creation, and between us and Allah.

For Those Performing Hajj

The last point that I want to make is specifically for the people who have gone to perform Hajj. I know the brothers and sisters may think, "What has this got to do with us?" We'll say two things: number one, some of the brothers and sisters may go for Hajj next year insha'Allah ta'ala, or the year after. Number two, some of us may have family members or friends who have already gone to perform Hajj.

The Prophet says in the narration in Sahih al-Bukhari:

A person who goes to perform Hajj — falam yarfuth: Rafath, my dear sisters, is relations with the opposite gender and also the introductions to relations with the opposite gender. The next part — walam yafsuk: Fusuq is all types of statements of the tongue as well as actions — like backbiting, lying, swearing, looking at the opposite gender in an inappropriate way. He says: a person who goes for Hajj and does not do these two things — and in the ayah in the Quran, Allah adds a third one, which is jidal — argumentation, disputes — especially if unnecessary:

What does the Prophet say? This person returns back — they leave Hajj — like the day their mother gave birth to them. The day that they entered into this world: a clean slate. According to a number of scholars of the past and present — like Ibn al-Mundhir and others — they say: meaning the major sins and the minor sins are wiped off. A completely clean slate. Normally an action wipes only minor sins — this particular one, a number of scholars say major sins and minor sins are wiped, like a newborn.

But what does this mean? This has conditions. This is actually very difficult to achieve. This isn't easy.

Conditions for a Mabrur Hajj

First of all — before you go for Hajj, during Hajj, and after Hajj — a person must be sincere. Why are they going for Hajj? It has to be for the sake of Allah. Not for a title. "I'm Hajj so-and-so," and then you remind everyone every time, "Oh, I've been 15 times, 20 times." You're going for Allah, not to tell people how many times you've been. Allah knows how many of those were accepted to begin with — we really don't know. So the first thing is sincerity.

Secondly, it was with mal halal — halal money. So when you go to perform Hajj, you remain sincere and you try your best to do it in line with the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wasalam. If it's 100%, you try to do 100% to the best of your ability in line with the Sunnah of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam — because we have to take our Manasik, our Hajj rituals, from him alone. As he mentioned:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1297)

So we learn our rituals from him and we try to follow him.

The third point is that a person tries not to sin during that time. Now this is very tough. Some of the brothers and sisters think this is light — it is not light. My sisters, if there's anything that normally destroys a person's Hajj — meaning stops it from being Hajj which is Mabrur — it's normally a sin. A person starts speaking about righteous good deeds. You meet people for the first time. Naturally, when you're meeting people for the first time, maybe you click with them. You say, "Let's have a conversation — where are you from? I'm from here. Where are you from? I'm from..." You start speaking, "Oh, I'm so-and-so's son. Oh, is that right?" And then you continue speaking for a little while, and then what happens — you speak for one hour, two hours, maybe even speaking about the religion — and then after two hours, Shaytan nicely doesn't mind you speaking for two hours. Why? Because then after that he'll tell you, "Oh yeah, but what about so-and-so?" — and then you belittle that person, you backbite about them, or the person in front of you backbites. And that's it. It's over. He wants you to destroy your Hajj — just by backbiting. Or sometimes a person may look at the opposite gender in an inappropriate way. Someone steps on your sandal and you get upset, maybe you swear or say something inappropriate, you get angry and lose it. So not sinning is actually very, very tough.

And part of it as well, my dear sisters — sometimes you have a brother or sister during the time they're in the tent in Mina, going to Arafah, going to Muzdalifah — in the tent they only have the Quran in their hands, which is jameel, beautiful — reciting Quran. A person wants to speak. They say, "Afterwards insha'Allah, I'm just busy. I want to try and use my time." On Arafah you see them making du'a all the way from Dhuhr all the way to Maghrib. When it's time to sleep, whilst others are speaking, they go to sleep directly after Isha in line with the Sunnah of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, waking up early to perform the night prayer, whilst other people are just about to make the Fajr prayer because they've stayed awake speaking.

This is all good — but what goes wrong? They don't even look at other people and say, "Oh, I'm reciting Quran. What are these guys doing? Wasting their Hajj. Look at me. These guys, these guys — don't they know? Isn't their heart alive? Don't they love Allah? They've spent this amount of money and this is what they're doing?" Belittling other people is something most people don't recognize.

The Danger of Self-Amazement (Al-'Ujb)

Like there was an incident from one of the scholars of the past mentioned in one of the books of Tafsir: a Sheikh, an Imam — people came over to his house and people of knowledge. When it was time to sleep, the guests went to sleep. Then the father and son started to perform the night prayer for a few hours — and they're looking at the travelers, the guests, just sleeping all the way to Fajr. Before Fajr, the son says to the father: "Look at these guys — what are they like? Are they dead? Are they not alive human beings? Don't they have a heart? Why are they not performing any prayer?" So then the father says to the son, using a statement basically meaning: "O my beloved, I wish you had slept like them before you made this statement." He said, "I wish you had slept like them." Looking down upon others in this way is a problem many of us don't realize.

Al-'Ujb — as Ibn al-Qayyim mentions in a number of his books, and also Ibn Taymiyyah — most of us never make du'a for Tawbah from it. We don't say, "O Allah, forgive me for the self-amazement that I've been having for the last two decades, three decades — looking down upon other people." That's a major sin, my sisters. As Ibn al-Qayyim mentions, he says that it is worse than the exterior major sins. Al-'Ujb — self-amazement, when a person is full of themselves and looks down upon others — is a destroyer.

So if you're going for Hajj, please, please — take this into mind insha'Allah ta'ala. Think about this. And if you know any relatives going, mention these points in order for the Hajj to be Mabrur and Maqbul — meaning accepted. So when they return back, they return back to you like the day their mother gave birth to them.

I say this and I ask Allah to forgive me and you and all the Muslims of every sin — for He is the Most Forgiving and Merciful. May Allah bless you all.

Second Khutbah

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon his family and all his companions.

Conclusion — Do Something During These Ten Days

My dear brothers and sisters — to conclude: as we know that these are the greatest ten days, let us try to do something. Don't worry if you don't spend the whole day — do something. Don't allow Eid day to come and the ten days to be over and you feel another ten days are wasted. Do something, even if it just means quietly saying your Dhikr — and don't worry about people who are looking at you. Just try your best. It might take a bit of time. Don't worry about what people think of you. Don't worry about, "Oh, this person — this guy thinks he's righteous, he doesn't normally do Dhikr all the time." Don't worry about others. Just try your best to focus on yourself, and don't let them become a deterrent stopping you from doing good deeds.

Do anything — even if it's just Takbir all the time, just keep doing that. And try to have something that, when the ten days are over, you carry it with you. Some action. Maybe you're doing lots of Dhikr, maybe you're doing lots of du'a, maybe you're trying to cleanse your heart — maybe that's your goal for these ten days. Like the example I just gave about self-amazement — maybe that's your goal in these ten days. You're making du'a to Allah:

— asking Allah to purify your heart. And you're learning how to purify it, because du'a is not enough — du'a is part of it, but part of the way of curing it requires action. Start just like you don't make du'a and somehow memorize the Quran — you have to do action. You make du'a and you do action.

The Day of Arafah

The last thing we want to say is that the day before Eid is the Day of Arafah. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, mentioned to us in Sahih Muslim: the one who fasts on the Day of Arafah — his previous year's sins will be forgiven and his coming year's sins will be forgiven.

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1162)

So even if a person doesn't have the opportunity to fast every day because it really weakens them and they can't do any other good deeds at work — no problem. But on the Day of Arafah, make sure that you are fasting. It is not possible to lose out on that day, my brothers and sisters. Even if it's a sister who obviously has her intention and if it's possible to fast she fasts — if not, she had the intention insha'Allah — and Allah is very generous.

Let us ensure that during these ten days we do something. We teach our children, we teach our younger brothers and sisters to make the most of it as well — so that insha'Allah in the future they will be making the most of it, and all of it will be added to your scale.