Tawheed is Boring? - Shaykh Ahsan Hanif

Khutbah: Tawheed is Boring?

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ تَعَالَى نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا

أَمَّا بَعْدُ، فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى وَخَيْرَ الْهَدْيِ هَدْيُ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ

The Supreme Importance of Tawheed

One thing that all of us know — it is something which each and every single one of us must know as part and parcel of our religion and our faith — is that there is nothing more precious, nothing more important, no issue that demands more time and attention from us than the tawheed of Allah. It is the principle and the foundation upon which our very existence is built.

If a person was to have every single pleasure and blessing and trapping of this dunya — they had all of its wealth and all of its delights, everything that the dunya has to offer — but that person doesn't have the tawheed of Allah, then in reality they are destitute and penniless. Whereas, on the other hand, if a person has the belief in Allah, the tawheed of Allah in their heart, they manifest that in their actions and in their sayings — even if they have nothing else to their name, they are penniless, they only own the shirt that they wear on their back — in the sight of Allah they are rich and they are successful. That is our religion.

And so for us to spend time each and every single day, every few days, every week, every month, for it to be an issue that we constantly revise and revisit — emphasizing the tawheed of Allah — is something which should be part and parcel of our very existence, our lives, and our religion. The tawheed of Allah is the single most important issue that you can give your attention to.

And it is unfortunate that in our time many of us consider this subject of tawheed — or the aqeedah, our belief, our creed — to be a dry subject, a boring subject, even a divisive subject. Most of us don't pay much attention to this because we don't consider it to be something which either bothers us or something which applies to us, because we are already Muslims, or because we think that it is just a difficult subject, a dry subject to study and to learn. But when we know that our success or our failure is based upon this one determining factor, then what else can be more important? What else should hold our interest more than the tawheed of Allah?

Lessons from the Nations of the Past

If you were to look throughout the history of the nations of the past — the stories of whom we have in the Qur'an and in the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ — you would realize and you would see that it is when they took their focus and their eye off the tawheed of Allah that shirk starts to creep in amongst them. They turn away from Allah and they lose their religion and they lose their tawheed of Allah. When they think that it is no longer important, look at the story of the people of Nuh ﷺ — ten generations they were upon tawheed. But when they lost that focus, when they didn't think it was important, when they didn't take out the time to learn the importance of this one issue and its opposite which is shirk, then that is when shirk becomes manifest and rampant upon them.

And you see that amongst all of the generations, even the Quraysh in the time of the Prophet ﷺ — who are the descendants of Ibrahim and Ismail ﷺ, coming from Prophets, living in the holiest of places in Mecca, custodians of the holiest of masajid, the Ka'bah, drinking from the water of Zamzam — none of that benefits them when they don't have the tawheed of Allah. And it is when we think that it's not important that it becomes something which is dangerous to us and our families and our children, dangerous to our community, to the Muslim Ummah.

Shirk — More Fearful than the Dajjal

And that is why in the hadith that is in Ibn Majah, Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri رضي الله عنه narrates — to show the importance of this issue — because it is a misconception, a misunderstanding that sometimes we have, that the Prophet ﷺ only focused on tawheed in the first 13 years of his prophethood, only in Mecca, and that once he came to Medina and the Muslims were in power and there were many of them, they didn't really discuss this issue. That's a misunderstanding.

Abu Sa'id رضي الله عنه says: he came out amongst us and we were discussing amongst us the Dajjal. And the Dajjal, as we know, is the single greatest trial that Allah will send upon humankind — the Prophet ﷺ said not a prophet came of Allah except that he warned his people about the Dajjal. So they are there and they're talking about the Dajjal. The Prophet ﷺ said: "What are you discussing?" They said: "O Messenger of Allah, we're reminding ourselves, we're discussing, we're studying the Dajjal." The Prophet ﷺ said:

"Shall I not inform you of something that I fear for you more than the Dajjal?"

They said: "Yes, O Messenger of Allah." He said:

"The hidden shirk — that a person stands up and prays and they make their prayer better, they beautify it, because they know that others are watching them." (Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4204)

That is more dangerous, more fearful to the Prophet ﷺ than even the trial of the Dajjal, which is one of the major trials of Yawmul Qiyamah.

Shirk Will Return to This Ummah

And that is why our Prophet ﷺ said in the hadith in Tirmidhi of Thawban رضي الله عنه:

"The Hour will not be established until tribes from this ummah become polytheists and until people go back to idolatry and idol worship." (Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2219)

Now, sitting here, that may seem inconceivable, may seem unlikely — that there will be Muslims who wake up in the morning, who know لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ as a statement and as a word, and مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ, and they are worshipping idols. How is that even possible? But then when you reflect on the situation of the Muslims across the world today and you see that there are Muslims making du'a to other than Allah, sacrificing to other than Allah, making oaths by other than Allah's name, making tawaf around the graves of the dead — then maybe it's not such a leap for those people to then turn towards idolatry.

Shirk manifests itself in many ways and in many forms. Idolatry and idol worship is what the average Muslim thinks they just have to stay away from — "as long as I don't worship an idol, as long as I'm not worshipping 'Isa or anyone else, I'm okay." But shirk isn't just that. That's one form of the many forms of shirk.

Shirk is More Hidden Than the Footsteps of an Ant

And that is where the hadith of Imam Al-Bukhari narrated in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad — the hadith of Ma'qil ibn Yasar رضي الله عنه — comes in. The Prophet ﷺ said:

"Shirk is more hidden amongst you than the footsteps of an ant." (Al-Adab Al-Mufrad, Hadith 716)

More quieter, more secretive, more unknown, unnoticed amongst you — than the footsteps of an ant. Abu Bakr رضي الله عنه said — and Abu Bakr is the most knowledgeable of this ummah of the Prophet ﷺ, he is the greatest of the companions — he said: "O Messenger of Allah, I thought shirk was only when you worship an idol. I thought that's what it was — you stay away from idolatry and you're okay." The Prophet ﷺ repeated: "Shirk is more hidden amongst you than the footsteps of an ant." And then he taught him a du'a — an amazing du'a. He said: "I give you this du'a so that you may recite it and read it:"

"O Allah, I seek Your refuge from making shirk with You knowingly, and I seek Your forgiveness for that which I do unknowingly."

The Prophet ﷺ Warned Against Shirk Until His Final Days

The Prophet ﷺ — his whole life was geared towards this one issue of tawheed. Every single day, every single few days, how many hadith that we have — countless narrations — in which the Prophet ﷺ would warn his ummah and teach people and educate them in one way or another about shirk, and the dangers of shirk, and the manifestations of shirk, and how important it is to have the tawheed of Allah. That's something which the Prophet ﷺ did until his very last moments upon this world.

Towards the very end of his life — and the Muslims are now strong, and they've conquered Arabia, and the Muslims are not like the Muslims of the Meccan period that are weak and few in number and the disbelievers are surrounding them from every side — no, the Muslims are stronger and they've shown their power and their strength by Allah's permission. But as Jundub ibn Abdillah رضي الله عنه says in the hadith in Sahih Muslim, he said: I heard the Prophet ﷺ five days before he passed away, five days before he died:

"Indeed, those who came before you would take the graves of their prophets as places of worship. So do not take the graves as places of worship." (Sahih Muslim, Hadith 532)

Five days before he died, the Prophet ﷺ is warning them against shirk. Because he knew that it's something which would be manifest. And you only need to go for Umrah, you only need to go to Medina, you only need to step foot in the masjid of the Prophet ﷺ today to see what people do in and around the grave of the Prophet ﷺ.

No Muslim wakes up in the morning — no Muslim in their sane mind wakes up in the morning thinking that they're going to perform shirk. No Muslim wakes up thinking: "Today I'm going to commit shirk with Allah." But the fact that there are Muslims across the world doing this shows that it's an issue that people have become ignorant and heedless of. To know the distinguishing factor between tawheed and shirk is something which is extremely important.

The Prophet ﷺ Corrected Even the Slightest Hints of Shirk

And that is why — if you look at the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ — if the Prophet ﷺ found amongst the companions (and they are the companions, the people that Allah selected and chose to be the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, to be the people who understood revelation, to be the ones who would relay that narration and that revelation to those who came after them) — if he found amongst them even the whiff or the scent of shirk, the Prophet ﷺ would speak out against it.

The Prophet ﷺ was sitting — as in the hadith of Al-Rubayyi' bint Mu'awwidh رضي الله عنها — and amongst them there are young girls who are singing poetry, reciting poetry in front of the Prophet ﷺ. And one of the young girls, below the age of puberty — she doesn't know, she's a young girl — but one of the verses of poetry that she recites is:

"And amongst us is a Prophet who knows what will happen tomorrow." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 4001)

The Prophet ﷺ stopped her and said: "Don't say that — say whatever else you were saying, but don't go there." Because once you open that door — that the Prophet ﷺ knows the future, that he controls aspects of the universe, that he can give me wealth, that he can give me a child, that he can cure my sickness — what is that other than different types and manifestations of shirk with Allah?

The Prophet ﷺ was stopping people. In fact, even at the beginning of Islam he was not even allowed to visit the graveyard. We know that from the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ — he wouldn't allow people to go and visit the graveyard. You have a relative that's passed away, they're buried — you can't go to the graveyard, because it's a place where shirk is manifested, people do all sorts of things around the graveyard. And when the Prophet ﷺ then abrogated that ruling and allowed people to visit, he told them: "Don't pray in the graveyard." Why? Because when you start to worship in the graveyard and you start to offer your salawat there — once it becomes a place of prayer, a place of worship — how easy is it to go from that to the shirk of Allah?

Intercession is for the People of Tawheed

In fact, the Prophet ﷺ — even when it came to his own station, the honor and the respect that Allah had afforded to him, the station that Allah has blessed him with — if the Prophet ﷺ thought that people may misunderstand the station that Allah has given to him, the Prophet ﷺ would connect it with the tawheed of Allah. As in the hadith of Abu Hurairah رضي الله عنه — when Abu Hurairah said: "O Messenger of Allah, who is most likely to attain your intercession on the Day of Judgment?" The Prophet ﷺ said — and he said: "I didn't think that anyone would ask me this question other than you":

"The one who is most likely to gain my intercession on the Day of Judgment is the one who says lā ilāha illallāh sincerely from their heart." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 99)

This is how important an issue it is. The Prophet ﷺ — as in the hadith of Aisha رضي الله عنها — she says moments before he died, on his final day in the dunya, while he's on his deathbed, he's ill, he's in fever, the Prophet ﷺ knows that his time is limited upon the face of this earth — one of the final things that he said to the people is that he told them that Allah cursed the past nations who took the graves of their prophets as masajid. To the very end — just as he started with tawheed, one of the very last things that the Prophet ﷺ spoke about is tawheed.

So each and every single day it is the duty of each and every single one of us — as a parent for your children, as a husband for your wife and vice versa, and as Muslims for one another — that this is an issue that we should study and learn about. It's an issue that we should remember, because shirk comes in manifestations and forms that unfortunately many people are just unaware of. And how dangerous it is to come to Allah on the Day of Judgment thinking that you've done good deeds, thinking that you have multiple hasanat in your scales, but in reality in those actions were forms and manifestations of shirk.

We ask Allah that He protects us and our families and our community from shirk and its manifestations, its people, and from the traps of Shaitan.

بَارَكَ اللَّهُ لِي وَلَكُمْ فِي الْقُرْآنِ وَالسُّنَّةِ وَنَفَعَنِي وَإِيَّاكُمْ مِمَّا فِيهِمَا مِنَ الْآيَاتِ وَالْحِكْمَةِ أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ لِجَمِيعِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِنْ كُلِّ ذَنْبٍ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ كَانَ غَفَّارًا

Second Khutbah

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَمَنْ وَالَاهُ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيمًا كَثِيرًا، أَمَّا بَعْدُ

We know — and it is part and parcel of our religion to know, part of our iman — that Allah only created us for this one reason, and that is to worship Him alone, His tawheed. And every prophet and messenger that was sent to earth, every divinely revealed book that Allah sent down, was only to emphasize and establish this one core principle of the tawheed of Allah.

So when you focus on this issue and you make it something which is front and center in your mind and in your life, then inshallah it's going to be something that Allah will help you with and He will keep you safe from shirk. But when it's something which you neglect, something which you just take for granted, something which you just think you know — because your name is Abdullah or Muhammad or Fatima, whatever your name may be, because you happen to be born a Muslim, live in a Muslim society or community where there are Muslims around you, come from a Muslim family — you take it for granted. Then how easy is it for shirk to creep in.

Tawheed: The Distinguishing Factor on the Day of Judgment

On Yawmul Qiyamah, we know that the Prophet ﷺ told us — and it is mentioned in many verses in the Qur'an and many hadith in the sunnah — that the distinguishing factor between the people of salvation and the people of damnation will be the issue of tawheed of Allah.

A party in Paradise and a party in the Fire. And even those believers who go into the Fire — because Allah decrees that they will be punished for the sins that they committed — they only escape from the Fire and only come out because Allah sees within them that mosul of tawheed, of iman. That's what the ahadith tell us: the people that come out of the Fire because they have in their hearts a dinar of iman, or a mosul of iman, or a grain's weight, a mustard weight, an atom's weight of iman — those are the people that come out of the Fire. That is the distinguishing factor.

So the message of this khutbah today is very simple. It is an issue that I would like each and every single one of us to revisit, to learn and to study. There are lessons and lectures all over the place — online, on site, in this masjid, elsewhere — where you can learn and study your tawheed. To learn that, and to spend some time teaching your children that, to make them understand what it means to have tawheed of Allah and what it is to make shirk with Allah — and how it forms, its manifestations, its different ways and types — is time that is well spent, time that is extremely important.

So we ask Allah that He keeps us safe — us and our families — from shirk and its manifestations, that Allah protects us from it, that Allah gives us life upon tawheed and death upon tawheed, and that Allah resurrects us with the people of tawheed, and that Allah gives us the reward of the people who made tawheed with Him with sincerity and in the way that pleases Him.

سُبْحَانَ رَبِّكَ رَبِّ الْعِزَّةِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ، وَسَلَامٌ عَلَى الْمُرْسَلِينَ، وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ