Being Grateful for the Blessings of Allah (with British Sign Language) - Shaykh Wasim Kempson

Opening — Khutbah al-Hajah

أَمَّا بَعْد — for indeed the best of speech is the Book of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ. And the worst of matters are those newly invented, and every newly invented matter is a bid'ah, and every bid'ah is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.

Indeed, all praise and thanks is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah. And I bear witness that Muhammad صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ وَسَلَّمَ is his final messenger.

The Blessings of Allah Are Beyond Counting

Allah in al-Qur'an — and it is of course al-Qur'an al-'Azeem — it is a book. It is a great book. It is the kalam of Allah. It is the clarification for everything, and it is a book of guidance. It is a khitab — it is an address to you and I — to remind us of the many things that are required to be remembered.

And from those things which we must never ever forget is how merciful Allah is, and how Allah shows His mercy to His creation — to the believers and even the non-believers — that they receive many blessings. There is no creation except that they receive blessings from Allah. And yes, those who turn away from Allah, those who reject al-Qur'an, Allah is still merciful to them, and still gives them an opportunity to recognize the many ni'am — many blessings — that are given to them.

So no creation lives, breathes and walks on this earth except that Allah gives them a provision and a sustenance. And if we think about our own situation personally — to enumerate the many things that Allah gives to us — where do you start? The blessing of being able to speak. The blessing of being able to walk from your home to come to the masjid. The blessing of being able to come to a masjid. The blessing of not having any fear that when you are hungry or when you are thirsty you have access to that which will remove your hunger and your thirst from food and drink. Or living in a place of security, feeling safe, your children being educated, your wife being safe. You have the ability to earn a provision. So the list goes on.

And as Allah tells us:

If you try to enumerate and count the blessings of Allah, never would you be able to do that.

We Will Be Questioned About Every Blessing

But we must also realize and know that we will be absolutely asked and questioned about every single thing that Allah gave to us. You will be questioned about your relationship with the Book of Allah. You will be questioned about your salah — which is the first thing that you will be questioned about. You will be questioned about the health that was given to you, the wealth that was given to you, the time that was given to you. We will be questioned about absolutely everything.

Allah swears — so by your Lord, O Muhammad — we shall certainly call all of them to account for all that what they used to do.

The Story of the Prophet ﷺ, Abu Bakr and Umar Leaving Their Homes in Hunger

The Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ is in Medina. And when we think about Medina, quite often we think that the times were very good for the Muslims. The Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ had left Mecca to make Hijrah. And there you have the two tribes — al-Aws and al-Khazraj — the Ansar, they became Muslim and they were there to support the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ.

The Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ leaves his home. And the reason he leaves his home is that hunger has afflicted him so much that he went out to search for something to eat. I'm sure that for the vast majority of us, if not all of us, we never left our homes in such a state — in a state of hunger.

So the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ leaves his home. And when he leaves his home, he sees two other companions — namely Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab. And so the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ asks them both the reason why they have left their homes. And their reply quite simply is that they have left their homes in search of some food.

Now that alone deserves a time for you to think and to ponder. Our Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ had to leave his home due to intense hunger. And the two greatest companions, رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا, had to leave their homes because they were also hungry. Now "hungry" maybe doesn't quite put it in the correct light. They were starving. To leave your home in search of food is a very desperate situation.

So the Prophet عَلَيْهِ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ with Abu Bakr and with Umar رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا, they go to the house of one of the Ansar. And while they are looking for this individual, they knock on the door only to find the wife of the Ansari who was there. So the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ says, "Where is so-and-so?" And she replies that he has gone to get some water for them. So then the man returns from the Ansar, and he sees the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ and Abu Bakr and Umar رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا.

He says, marhaba — welcome to you. That nothing has visited the servants of Allah — namely himself — none better than a Prophet who has visited me today. He saw this as a great blessing to have a visit from the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ.

And so this man immediately climbs a date tree and brings down a cluster of dates. And so then the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ said, "Why didn't you pick some of them?" And this is the ziyafah — the hospitality — that he wanted to give. He said, "I wanted you to choose the dates that were pleasing to your eye. So I chose all of these for you."

And so then the Ansari did not stop there. He took a blade to go and slaughter a sheep for these blessed guests. And so the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ said, "Iyyaka wal-halub — do not slaughter a sheep that will give you milk. Slaughter a sheep that is not from the best of your sheep." And so the man slaughters the sheep. The sheep is prepared for the guests, the blessed guests. And they eat and they drink until their hunger is satisfied and removed.

You Will Be Asked About This on the Day of Judgment

And so then the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ sat there with Abu Bakr and with Umar رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا, remembering what caused them to leave their homes. They all left their homes for the same reason — because of hunger. And quite easily we can forget, when we are granted or given something, the state that we were previously in — when we didn't have something, when we were in a very difficult situation, very vulnerable. And then suddenly you get something. And at that moment, you will either choose to be grateful and remember to be grateful, or you won't.

And so here the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ says:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 36, Hadith 5. — On the authority of Abu Hurayrah رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ)

"You will be asked about this on the Day of Judgment. Hunger caused you to leave your homes, and you did not return to your homes until you came upon this. This indeed is from the blessings."

Just to be fed one meal — something that you and I have maybe two or three times a day. But how many times, when you have these meals, do you actually say to yourself: I will be asked about how grateful and thankful I was for this meal?

This companion didn't think twice about giving, providing for somebody else. Just as the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ always gave in the manner of a person who never feared poverty — did not fear that by giving you wouldn't have anything — never withholding anything from anybody. And the Sahabah رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ knew that. They would never ask from the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ — "Can we have this, can we have that?" — knowing that the Prophet عَلَيْهِ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ would give to them without any hesitation.

But it is these things that we must never forget — the blessings of being able to give to others. And if you ever receive anything, to be thankful and grateful to Allah.

The Two Black Things — Water and Dates

So when the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ further added — from the first things that a person will be asked about on the Day of Judgment — when it is said to him:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3358)

"Did We not make your body healthy and provide you with cool water to drink?"

When Zubayr ibn al-Awwam رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ asked the Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ — will we really be questioned about these small things that people see as insignificant on the Day of Judgment? Like what? The Prophet صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 1436)

Al-aswadan — the two black things: water and dates. You may question: how is water black? When you look through it, it looks see-through. The water that was drawn and that they drank from wasn't like the kind the water that you and I see from our taps and bottled water which is crystal clear. There were times when they drew water from wells and from other places that at times it wasn't as clear, and so it is given that color, described as black. But the point is that these two things — you and I will be questioned about them on the Day of Judgment, and how grateful we are, or how often we thank Allah for these things.

And the verse that I mentioned earlier — where Allah tells us, if you try to enumerate the blessings of Allah, you will never be able to do that — what does Allah also say? He mentions it in two places in the Qur'an:

That al-insan — man — is indeed oppressive and ungrateful. So Allah reminds us that with this great blessing that Allah gives to you, many a time mankind is oppressive and ungrateful.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ مِنْ كُلِّ ذَنْبٍ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

Second Part of the Khutbah

Being grateful to Allah is something that the believer is required to be in a state of constantly — because we are always receiving the blessings of Allah. And I just mentioned some of them to you. But if you think about — and as I have probably mentioned before on the minbar — the blessing of sight, about that what you see and how you utilize your sight; your hearing, what you listen to; the ability to hold, to touch, to carry, to help, to aid — how do you utilize these blessings that Allah gave to you?

And when traveling here today — to be honest, I was going to talk about a completely different topic. But maybe as you do, there were a couple of hours in the car. What do you want to do? Maybe you listen to something beneficial. And as I was listening to something, a very short twelve-minute reminder — this topic came up — and I felt more impacted by it than what I had prepared prior to what I'm delivering now. Because I thought it was just so important and so pertinent in a time where it is so easy for us to fall into the state of being ungrateful.

Children Who Leave Their Homes With Buckets

We see videos, we see pictures — of children walking around with buckets. Not actors or actresses — real life. They walk around with buckets. They leave their homes — and when I say "homes," it's a place where they sleep, which could be outside underneath the stars because they have no home. But they walk around and they don't have anything. What they have is the clothes on their back, and maybe something on their feet — maybe. And they walk around with buckets or bags, sent out every morning.

And it reminded me — just like a bird leaves its nest: when the bird leaves its nest in the morning, it doesn't know what it's going to get that day. It goes away and comes back with whatever Allah provides for that bird. These children — and I'm not talking about one place, this happens all around the world — it's not necessarily children, but people are leaving their homes with bags, and whatever they can find to put in these bags to take home so that they can feed their own families. Some of the places they go to are rubbish tips, they go to the sides of the street, and whatever they find, whatever they're given — you find them to be so grateful and thankful. And this is rizq — this is what Allah has provided for us. And who are we to complain?

And they don't complain — because their affair, and who they call upon, is Allah. Yes, there are charities and people who aid them, but ultimately when you speak to these people you will see that they are attached and linked firstly and lastly to Allah. And you think — the relationship that they have, how grateful they are — compared to my own self, it is like the difference between the heavens and the earth. How grateful they are, when in actual fact they don't have anything. And how much I have. And how life has become so easy.

Giving From That Which You Love

And when I give — I give the surplus of my wealth. I give the extra of my wealth. Let's not even talk about zakah — people perhaps don't know how to give zakah, maybe don't give zakah, and that is an obligation. That wealth that you're carrying around is not even yours. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about — when seeing people in desperate situations — how grateful you are to Allah. How do you show your gratefulness? To give back, to help others. But when we give, we give from our surplus — the extra that we have. "That's what I'll give."

But if you and I want to attain true righteousness — and righteousness is of course a very wide, broad, inclusive word — al-birr — if you want to achieve this station or this level of ibadah, then you have to give from that what you love. From that what you love. Not your surplus — your surplus goes without saying, your extra has to go, has to help others. We are talking about what Allah tells us:

You will never attain this righteousness until you give from that what you love. This is one of the ways that you can show that you are grateful to Allah. And until you do that, you will be living in a situation where you are not achieving righteousness — that level of ibadah that you wish for will remain a wish and will not become a reality.

We ask Allah to make us from the grateful. We ask Allah to allow us to be sincere in our giving. We ask Allah to help the Muslims around the world.

وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ