Precious Moments - Shaykh Ahsan Hanif

Precious Moments

In the 18th year of the Hijrah, the illustrious companion Mu'adh ibn Jabal passed away. He died in the plague of Amwas in the area of Ash-Sham. Mu'adh ibn Jabal was one of the most knowledgeable of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, to the extent that it was said in some narrations that he will come at the forefront — at the head of the scholars — on the Day of Judgment. When the Prophet ﷺ was encouraging people to learn the Qur'an in Medina, he told them to take the Qur'an from one of four companions. From those four was Mu'adh ibn Jabal. He died at a relatively young age, in his thirties.

At the time of his death, when he was on his deathbed, he made a statement that I want us to think about, focus on, and ponder over in this khutbah. He said: "O Allah, You know that I don't want a prolonged life — not because I have any love of the trees or the rivers of this dunya. But what I will miss from the dunya is fasting the long days, and praying the long nights, and sitting with the scholars learning about Your religion."

The statement of Mu'adh, which shows the depth and the level of his iman, the level of his knowledge, the level of his ibadah, is something which brought a question to my mind. That question is: if we were in a similar situation — or even if we're not in that situation of death, but right now we were to look back and ask ourselves — what are the moments in our life that we would look upon fondly? What are the moments in our life that we would miss? What are the moments that Allah has so far allowed us to have, be that twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy, or eighty years — what would you look upon as the most precious moments in your life thus far?

And I think for many of us, if not all of us, if someone were just to ask you that question off the cuff — you had no time to prepare, you didn't know it was part of this khutbah — most of us would respond and say it was the time that I got married, maybe, or the time that I had my first child or even grandchild. Or it would be something to do with our career, or our profession, or our studies. Or maybe it would be an experience that we had that was unique in our lifetime.

And all of those are valid things — they're halal, they're permissible. Some of them are even acts of worship, like for example having a family or providing for them. But in each one of them, there is also an element of the dunya, an element of some worldly benefit that you take and extract, and that you can see as tangible.

But when it comes to the statement of Mu'adh, what he missed most would be those precious moments in which he was engaged in acts of worship that are purely between him and Allah. Acts of worship in which there is no place for anyone else, there is no worldly gain to be had — the fasting of the long days, the praying of the long nights, and sitting with the other people, the students of knowledge, learning about the religion of Allah. Those are the precious moments that Mu'adh would miss.

And that is something which I think all of us should focus upon — because for many of us, we find it difficult to reach that level of iman, or even before iman, that level of awareness — just simply to know that these moments that we have, for example like the moment right now, sitting in this khutbah, which is something you do only for the sake of Allah. You don't get paid for coming to the masjid. In fact, maybe some of you are even losing money because you are at the masjid right now. There is no worldly benefit or gain to be had here for the most part. It is something which you do purely for the sake of Allah. These moments are the moments that, inshallah, will count on Yawm al-Qiyamah — the moments that don't have any worldly gain or any worldly corruption within them.

And that is something which Allah mentions in the Qur'an. When He speaks about the people of righteousness — al-birr — on Yawm al-Qiyamah, He says:

Indeed the abrar — the people of righteousness and goodness — they will be in bliss. Ibn al-Qayyim in his commentary on this verse said that when Allah says that they will be in bliss, it is not just restricted to the bliss of the next life, of the hereafter, of the reward of Jannah. Rather, Allah says it in the generic form — the general form — they will be in bliss. So that includes the bliss of this dunya. In this dunya, they find bliss. In this dunya, they find happiness and joy. And then he says: because the person who understands the preciousness, the value of turning to Allah, being pleased with Allah and working for His pleasure — he spends his time loving Allah and trying to earn the reward of Allah — that is a person that Allah will give bliss to in this dunya.

How Do We Attain That Level of Iman?

So how do we attain that level of iman? How do we attain that level of what Mu'adh experienced at the time of his death — that the thing he would look most fondly back upon in his lifetime, relatively short, was those acts of worship? The following are three points I want to bring to your attention.

1. Awareness — Recognizing the Preciousness of These Moments

The first point is that it is a lack of awareness on the part of most of us. We lack awareness of the preciousness of those moments that we spend in the worship of Allah. For many of us, it becomes a tick-box exercise, or it's something which we do simply to lift off our shoulders a burden of obligation. But Allah wants us to enjoy those moments and to realize how precious they are.

This khutbah al-jumu'ah right now — the fact that you walked from wherever you walked from in order to come into the masjid — the Prophet ﷺ told us in the hadith that is collected by Imam al-Tirmidhi in his Jami' on the authority of Aws ibn Aws:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 496; also recorded in Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 345)

Whoever cleanses, bathes, and purifies himself on the day of Friday, then comes early to the masjid and sits as close as he can to the imam, and then listens attentively — for every footstep Allah will give him the reward of a year of fasting and salah. A year of fasting and salah for every footstep. You walk 10 footsteps, that's 10 years of fasting and salah. 50 footsteps — 50 years. 100 footsteps — 100 years. That is the preciousness of the worship of Allah. And it is those moments that we lack awareness of.

Then the Prophet ﷺ told us that when you make wudu, with every single drop of water that falls from your body, Allah expiates your sins. We don't think about that when we're making wudu. We think we have 10 seconds to make wudu because we've got to pray and then we've got to get back to work. And that's the way that we think, so we don't take those moments and we don't see how precious they are. We don't benefit from them, we don't enjoy them.

The Prophet ﷺ, it is said, was once walking by a grave — in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah — and he asked the companions, "Who is in this grave?" They said, "So and so is in this grave." The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6366)

Two rak'ahs — just to come back and pray two rak'ahs — would be more beloved to him than everything else in this world. Those two rak'ahs that you just offered when you came into the masjid — Tahiyyatul Masjid — those two rak'ahs that took you 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes, are more beloved and precious to that person than everything in the dunya. So we lack a level of awareness.

And one of the things that made the companions the amazing generation that they were is that they had that consciousness of Allah. They were mindful and cognizant that each and every single one of those moments — when you sit down and you open the Qur'an, or those few pounds that you just put in the bucket to give as sadaqah, whatever it is in terms of your good deeds that you do purely and sincerely for the sake of Allah — that is something which you should enjoy. And finding those moments and learning to enjoy them — that is one of the greatest ways of tasting the sweetness of iman.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 34)

He has tasted the sweetness of iman — the one who is pleased with Allah as his Lord, Islam as his religion, and the Prophet ﷺ as his messenger. Learning to enjoy that time and those moments that you have in worship. Most of us, we come and we pray, and because our mind is so preoccupied with what was going on before and what is going to come after, we don't enjoy the salah. The month of Ramadan comes and goes, and because there is so much else going on, we don't have the time to focus and enjoy those few days — and before we know it, the whole month has elapsed.

Those moments are extremely important to enjoy. So the first thing that we have to do is learn to become aware. When you come to any act of worship, it is important to stop and try to take a moment and reflect. And it is difficult because of the nature of the dunya and the life that we lead. It is counterintuitive because we live in such a fast-paced world — today it's all about go, go, go rather than to stop, and to pause, and to reflect. But the believer has to reflect, has to stop, has to pause and contemplate as to why they are worshipping Allah and what it is that they hope to achieve and gain.

2. Strive and Struggle — The Path Requires Mujahidah

The second thing that we have to be conscious of is that in order to reach that level of iman — the way that Mu'adh displayed at the end of his life — that type of level of iman requires a great deal of struggle and striving. It doesn't make sense to think that you can just wake up one moment and go from nothing to the level of iman of the likes of Abu Bakr, 'Umar, and Mu'adh. It is a lifetime of worship, a lifetime of struggle, a lifetime of turning back to Allah, of making tawbah, of learning and wanting to improve — that allows you to eventually reach that level. And for some people, they don't even reach it then. It is a precious gift that Allah gives to whomsoever He wills. But if you are sincere and you try, Allah tells us in the Qur'an:

Those who strive in Our path, We will guide them towards Our ways. You strive, you try, and when you trip up, you get up and try again — Allah blesses the efforts of those people.

And don't just think that it's me and you who struggle with this. From the earliest generations of the Muslims, we have narrations of how they spoke of that very same struggle and striving. It's no wonder they reached the heights that they did — because they weren't people who stopped at the first hurdle. They didn't just fall down or let Shaytan overcome them once and never get up again.

Thabit al-Bunani, from the scholars of the Tabi'in who studied under the likes of Ibn 'Umar and Anas ibn Malik — a famous, well-known scholar whose name you will find in the books of hadith — Thabit said: "It took me 20 years of struggling with the salah in order for me to be able to enjoy the salah for the remaining 20 years that I had." 20 years of struggle. 20 years of striving. 20 years of Shaytan whispering to you. 20 years of you praying and leaving and thinking that that salah didn't increase my iman, didn't do anything for me. But you come and you try again, and you turn back to Allah, and you look at your sins and try to seek forgiveness for them, and you come back and try over and over again.

Sufyan al-Thawri, from the scholars of the generation after the Tabi'in, said: "I never dealt with anything more difficult for me than my own sincerity." It took him a lifetime of struggle in order to attain that level of ikhlas for Allah. It takes time, it takes struggle. But the problem that most of us have is that we don't see any results in the first day, week, or month — and so we stop and give up.

Allah tells us to continue to strive. The word mujahidah comes from jihad, which means to strive and to struggle. The greatest of those forms is to strive and struggle against your own nafs — your own soul, your own temptations, your own desires. And so Allah commands us to do so in the Qur'an.

3. Find Your Gateway — The Act of Worship That Connects You

The third thing that we can do is to look for those acts of worship that help us attain that level of iman — contemplating over the Book of Allah and reading the Qur'an, reading the biographies of the scholars who came before, finding that act of worship that you find it easier to connect with, and beginning with that, letting it be a springboard for other acts of worship. This was the way that the Salaf used to operate — the practice of the Salaf — and the way that they used to achieve those levels of iman.

For some people, it is easier to give sadaqah — so find that moment of recognizing the enjoyment you find in giving that act of charity. For other people, it is acts of ibadah like fasting and prayer. For other people, it is seeking knowledge or reading and learning the Qur'an. Each one of us has a different pathway. The companions were not one and the same — each one of them excelled in something that maybe others from amongst them didn't. And the Prophet ﷺ would nurture the strengths, skills, and interests of those companions so that each one of them would excel in those particular ways.

Conclusion — The Words of Ibn Taymiyyah

There are many other points that we can mention as well. But these are the three that I want to leave you with: number one, to recognize the importance and the preciousness of those moments; number two, to strive and struggle; and number three, to find those acts of worship that you can use as a springboard for others.

I want to conclude this khutbah today by mentioning the statement of Ibn Taymiyyah in this regard. He mentions that if a person doesn't find that level of happiness and enjoyment in their acts of worship, then something in that process — something along the way — went wrong. And so you have to stop and think and analyze as to what it is. Is it a lack of sincerity? Is it a lack of recognizing and understanding the value of the acts of worship that you're performing? Is it perhaps a lack of knowledge — that you're not performing those actions according to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ?

Ibn Taymiyyah said: for indeed Allah, from His names, is that He is ash-Shakur — the One who, when people do good deeds, rewards them manifestly and abundantly. When someone does a good deed, Allah places all of the rewards that that person achieves before them. From that reward is the reward they have in the akhirah. But from those rewards are the rewards of the dunya. And from the rewards of the dunya are the blessings that you see around you in your life. From the rewards of the dunya is the contentment and the happiness that you find in your heart. From the rewards of the dunya is the sweetness that you taste of iman and the enjoyment that you find in the worship of Allah.

And if you don't find that — despite you worshipping Allah or trying — then there is still something that you need to adjust, something that you need to amend. And that comes back to the first point of being someone who is awake, someone who is conscious of what's going on. Many of us spend whole lifetimes — decades — doing acts of worship and not realizing any benefit from them. And then we only wake up to that fact once 20, 30, or 40 years of salah have passed by. So many Ramadans have gone. So much sadaqah has been given.

The companions were people who, when they would do an act and they didn't find it giving them the rewards that Allah mentions in the Qur'an or that are mentioned in the Sunnah, they would stop and question. They would hold themselves to account. They would seek knowledge. They would learn and they would try to rectify so that they could attain those rewards that Allah has promised those people. And Allah does not break His promises. And Allah is not false in His words.

So when Allah gives us that promise of reward, of happiness, of contentment through those deeds, then that is a promise that is binding upon Allah. So if you don't find it, then the problem is not in the promise — it is with me and you, and our deeds, and our sincerity, and our actions.

Ask Allah that He rectifies for us our state and our affairs. And that Allah bestows and showers His blessings upon us — His mercy and His forgiveness. And that Allah keeps us steadfast upon this religion. And that Allah allows us to live upon Islam and die upon it, and to be resurrected with the people of Iman.

سُبْحَانَ رَبِّكَ رَبِّ الْعِزَّةِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ — وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ