The Slaves of Allah (SWT) - Sheikh Ahsan Hanif

The Slaves of Allah — Ibād al-Raḥmān

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

The Highest Station: Ubūdiyyah

The greatest station that each and every single one of us can hope to aspire for is the station that Allah mentions in the Qur'an as the station of Ubūdiyyah — the station of servitude, complete submission before Allah. All of the other different ranks and stations that Allah has mentioned in the Qur'an are but manifestations of the different levels of Ubūdiyyah, the different levels of servitude that a person has.

The Prophets and Messengers of Allah, عَلَيْهِمُ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ, they had most perfected this station of servitude and so they were the greatest of the servants of Allah. The Awliyā' of Allah, the pious, the righteous people — the muttaqeen, the ṣāliḥeen — those people that Allah mentions throughout the Qur'an, all of them are people who have at various levels and degrees perfected Ubūdiyyah. They have reached a level of servitude before Allah — servitude when you completely and wholly submit yourself before Allah. You are subservient in everything that Allah has commanded you to do. Your love, your hope, your fear, your trust, your certainty — it is all as a result of your servitude, your ibādah, your worship of Allah.

And that is why Allah mentions the highest level of servitude in the Qur'an when He says:

Say to them that indeed my prayer, and indeed my sacrifice, and all of my life, and my death — they are for Allah alone, Lord of all that exists. I associate none in worship with Him. That is the highest level of servitude — when your whole life revolves around Allah.

The Prophet ﷺ Described as Allah's Slave

And that is why when we look in the Qur'an — when Allah praises our Prophet ﷺ, when He defends our Prophet ﷺ, when He mentions some of the greatest miracles that He bestowed upon our Prophet ﷺ — He describes the Prophet ﷺ in those verses as His slave. Not as His Prophet, not as His Messenger, does not take his name Muhammad ﷺ, but rather He mentions him as His slave.

Allah says when He speaks about the revelation of the Qur'an and the blessing of the Qur'an, in the first verse of Sūrat al-Kahf:

All glory, all praise is due to Allah alone — it is for Allah alone who chose to reveal His book upon His slave. Not upon His Prophet, not upon His Messenger, but upon His slave.

When Allah defended the Prophet ﷺ — when the mushrikeen and the disbelievers of Quraysh would say that the Qur'an was sorcery or magic or poetry — Allah says in Sūrat al-Baqarah:

Say to them that if you have any doubt concerning that which We revealed upon Our slave. And Allah in these verses ascribes the Prophet ﷺ to Himself as an honor for the Prophet ﷺ.

When Allah speaks in the Qur'an about the night journey — the Isrā' and the Mi'rāj — when the Prophet ﷺ in a single night went from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to the seven heavens and back, that miracle that was bestowed upon him, that the Prophet ﷺ knew the kuffār would never accept — the disbelievers of Quraysh would never accept this miracle because it was too far-fetched for them to understand, to comprehend, and to believe — Allah says:

All glory is due to Allah who took His servant on a night journey from al-Masjid al-Ḥarām to al-Masjid al-Aqṣā.

It is in these circumstances that Allah refers to the Prophet ﷺ as His slave. To reach that pinnacle of servitude, of submission before Allah — that is what each and every single one of us should be aspiring for. That is the reason why Allah created us:

I only created humankind and the jinn except that they should worship Me alone.

The Twelve Attributes of the Ibād al-Raḥmān

To reach that level of Ubūdiyyah, Allah in the final passage of Sūrat al-Furqān tells and informs each and every single one of us as to how we reach that level of Ubūdiyyah. And those people who reach that level of Ubūdiyyah — in this final passage of Sūrat al-Furqān — Allah ascribes them to Himself as well. Twelve attributes, twelve characteristics that Allah mentions concerning these people:

They are the servants of the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. They are His servants. They are the ones who have reached that servitude, that submission before Allah.

Allah tells us that from their attributes is that they work on the relationship between themselves and their Lord and their Creator — perfecting their tawḥīd, perfecting their worship of Allah, perfecting their love of Allah and their hope in Allah and their fear of Allah and their trust and reliance upon Allah, the certainty that they have in the promises of Allah. This is what they work upon.

The Hadith of the Angel's Descent

In the hadith of Abū Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, collected in the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad, it is narrated that Jibrīl, peace be upon him, once came and sat with the Prophet ﷺ. Jibrīl sat with the Prophet ﷺ and he looked up to the sky, and an angel was descending. So Jibrīl said to the Prophet ﷺ: this angel, from the moment that it was created until now, has never ever come down to the earth before — this is the first time that this angel is descending to the earth. When that angel descended it said to the Prophet ﷺ: "Your Lord, O Muḥammad, sent me to you that I should give you a choice — either you can be a king and a prophet, or you can be a messenger and a slave of Allah." So Jibrīl said to the Prophet ﷺ: "O Muḥammad, show humility, show humbleness before your Lord." So the Prophet ﷺ said: "Rather I choose to be a messenger and a slave of Allah."

And so therefore, to choose being a slave of Allah is higher in station than to choose to be a king or a prophet of Allah. Those prophets of Allah who were messengers and slaves are higher in station than those who are kings and prophets. Thus Allah tells us that this is what we need to aspire for as well.

First Attribute: Walking with Humility

The first attribute — in the way that they perfect their relationship with Allah — is that they walk upon the earth in a calm, humble way, in a calm, humble fashion and manner. These are not people who are arrogant and proud. They are not people who think that they own the earth. They are not people who think that they can do as they please. But they understand that Allah created them for a purpose, and that they are weak and in need and in poverty of Allah. And so they walk in a humble manner — humble meaning that they don't walk in an arrogant, proud way; humble meaning that at the same time they don't walk in a weak way, as if they are lazy or ill, because the Prophet ﷺ would walk with a steady walk as if there was a purpose to the way that he was walking.

The Prophet ﷺ told us in the hadith in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī:

(Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Hadith 636; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Hadith 602)

Even when you walk towards the prayer, you walk in that calm fashion. He told us ﷺ that when you hear the iqāmah has gone, then walk to the prayer and upon you there should be calmness and tranquility, and do not hasten or rush. And that which you reach from the prayer, then pray, and that which you miss, then make it up.

Second Attribute: Responding to the Ignorant with Peace

And when the ignorant and the foolish come to them, to speak to them, to incite them, to do something to make them disobey Allah, they respond and they say Salām — peace. These are people who don't get sidetracked when it comes to their relationship with Allah. They are people who are not going to let other people come and take them away from the straight path, but they understand their objective in this life. They know where they are going and to which end they are travelling towards. And at the same time, these are people from whom you don't hear foul speech. They don't speak about others in a foul way, they don't address people in a way that is unbefitting of a Muslim, someone who is following the example of the Prophet ﷺ. Rather, they ignore these people and even when they ignore them, they say Salām towards them — good in their speech — just as the Prophet ﷺ would be gentle and kind in his speech towards all people.

Third Attribute: Spending the Night in Prayer

And these are the people who spend their nights awake, in standing and in prostration to their Lord, working on their relationship with Allah. Not just praying the obligatory prayers, but praying the extra nawāfil prayers. Not just fasting the month of Ramaḍān, but fasting the extra optional fasts as well. Not just giving the obligatory Zakāh of their wealth, but giving extra ṣadaqah as well. Not just performing the Ḥajj and Umrah that is obligatory upon them, but performing as many as they can over and above this. These are the people who are constantly working to come towards Allah, to become closer to Allah.

Just as it is related in Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān on the authority of our mother ʿĀ'ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, that the Prophet ﷺ often when he would pray during the night he would cry. But on one particular night he came to his wife, our mother, and he said to her: "This night, O ʿĀ'ishah, leave me alone, don't disturb me." So she said: "O Messenger of Allah, indeed I love that which you love. If you don't want me to disturb you, I won't disturb you." She said that she spent the night awake watching what the Prophet ﷺ would do.

The Prophet ﷺ began the prayer and as he was praying he began to cry. He spent his night crying in prayer. He cried to the extent that his cheeks became wet with his tears. Then he continued to pray and cry until his beard became wet with his tears. Until finally, when he went into sujūd, he continued to cry until the ground around him became wet and moist with his tears.

When the time for the adhān of Fajr came, Bilāl, may Allah be pleased with him, entered and he saw the Prophet ﷺ crying in this way, in this manner. He could see that the ground was moist from his tears. So he said: "O Messenger of Allah, do you cry like this when Allah has forgiven you for all of your sins — past, present, and future?" The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān, Hadith 620)

Should I not then be a grateful slave of Allah?

This is how the Prophet ﷺ would work on his relationship with Allah, work on strengthening those bonds between him and his Lord. Even though Allah had forgiven him for all sins, even though he has the greatest of stations on Yawm al-Qiyāmah and in Jannah, even though he is the most beloved of the creation of Allah to Allah — this is the way. The Ibād al-Raḥmān, the slaves of Allah, they work tirelessly to come closer to Allah.

Fourth Attribute: Fearing the Punishment of the Fire

And at the same time as they hope in Allah and they increase in their love of Allah, they are balanced in the sense that they don't let their good deeds overcome them — they don't become amazed by their own good deeds and their own good actions — but at the same time they are fearful of the punishment of Allah:

There are those people who make du'ā' to Allah. They call unto their Lord and they say: "Oh our Lord, take us away from the punishment of the Fire, for indeed its punishment is ever-adherent. Indeed whoever enters the Fire, it is an evil residence and abode for them."

Hudhayfah, may Allah be pleased with him, as collected in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, said that I prayed with the Prophet ﷺ one night:

(Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Hadith 772)

He said: on a single night, the Prophet ﷺ, whilst I was praying with him, began with Sūrat al-Baqarah — the longest sūrah of the Qur'an — and he finished the whole sūrah. Then he moved on to Sūrat al-Nisā' and finished the whole sūrah. Then he moved on to Āl ʿImrān and finished the whole sūrah — the three longest sūrahs of the Qur'an in a single night, one after the other. And not only this: if the Prophet ﷺ passed by a verse in those three sūrahs in which Allah was glorified, he would stop and he would glorify Allah. And if he passed by a verse in which Allah spoke about His blessings and His reward, he would stop and he would ask for those rewards and blessings. And if he passed by a verse in which Allah speaks about His punishment and the Fire, he would stop and he would seek refuge in Allah from His punishment and from the Fire. This is how the Prophet ﷺ would work in his relationship with Allah.

The Six Attributes of Character and Conduct

Allah then mentions in Sūrat al-Furqān six further attributes. Once these people have worked on their relationship with Allah, they also work on their own character, on purifying their own soul, on their relationship with those people around them.

Fifth Attribute: Balance in Spending

They are those people who when they spend, neither are they extravagant nor are they miserly and stingy, but they are a balance between the two. They are balanced in the way that they lead their lives in their dunyā, balanced when it comes to issues of wealth, when it comes to the beautifications of the dunyā. They understand that Allah has commanded them to take their portion of the dunyā — to look after themselves and their families and their children, to fulfil the rights of those people that have rights upon them — but at the same time they understand that this dunyā is not the goal. It is not the end but it is the means to the end and the goal. And so they are balanced in what they take from the dunyā. They don't just preoccupy themselves with the dunyā and with wealth and money and cars and houses and forget the next life, but at the same time they don't neglect their portion of the dunyā. They are balanced in that which they do.

Sixth Attribute: Pure Tawḥīd

And they are those people who don't associate partners with Allah. They don't hope in other than Allah, they don't fear other than Allah, they don't place their ultimate love in other than Allah. They don't rely and trust upon anyone before they rely and trust upon Allah.

Seventh and Eighth Attributes: Protecting Lives and Honour

And they don't kill innocent souls, innocent people, unless Allah has allowed the taking of that blood in the way that He has prescribed alone. They are people whom others are safe from — safe from their tongues, safe from their hands, safe from their actions. And they are people who don't commit fornication or adultery.

And the people who commit those sins will find that Allah will punish them accordingly.

In the hadith of Ibn Masʿūd, may Allah be pleased with him, he asked the Prophet ﷺ:

(Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Hadith 4477; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Hadith 86)

"What is the greatest sin, O Messenger of Allah?" The Prophet ﷺ replied: "That you should make a partner with Allah even though He alone created you." So then he asked: "What is the next greatest sin?" The Prophet ﷺ said: "That you should kill your own child out of fear that you have to feed him — out of fear that he is too costly, that you can't provide for him — not knowing that the One who provides is Allah alone." So then he asked: "Then what after this, O Messenger of Allah?" And he replied: "That you should commit adultery with the wife of your neighbour."

The Prophet ﷺ told us that these are the greatest sins in the sight of Allah — those sins that attack your relationship with Allah, and those sins that harm those people around you, those people who should be safe from your hands and from your tongues and from your actions.

These people — Allah will multiply their sin and their punishment on the Day of Judgment, and they will enter in a state of humiliation into the Fire.

Except for those people who repent and they believe and they do righteous deeds — those are the people that Allah will change their evil deeds into good deeds. And indeed Allah is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful. And those people who return to Allah and they repent and they do good deeds — then Allah will accept from them their repentance.

Our Prophet ﷺ told us in the hadith of the final man who will ever leave the Fire of Hell and who will be the final man to ever enter into Jannah — that Allah, when he brings this man out of the Fire and before He enters him into Jannah, will say to the angels: "Hide his major sins, hide them, and present before him his minor sins." So Allah will begin to account him for each and every single one of those minor sins, and He will remind him that on such-and-such a day you committed this minor sin. And for each and every single one of those minor sins that man will acknowledge that he committed them — he will remember, he will recall, he will acknowledge his sins. So Allah will say to this man, after holding him to account: "I have changed all of these evil deeds into good deeds — all of these sins have been changed into good deeds." The man will become so happy, so overcome with joy, that he will say: "Oh Allah, there are other evil deeds that You forgot to mention — there are other evil deeds that I don't see here. You forgot to mention them," meaning his major sins. "You didn't bring them here, oh Allah" — because he wants them changed as well. So the Prophet ﷺ smiled at the way that this man will have hope in the mercy of Allah.

The Ibād al-Raḥmān are those people who — just like every other human — will sin, will do evil, will disobey Allah. But they are those people who at the same time know, when they sin, that the doors of the mercy of Allah are open — that Allah is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful — and that if they return to Allah with sincere repentance and they renew their faith and they do more good deeds, then not only will Allah forgive them, but Allah will change their evil deeds into good deeds.

Ninth Attribute: Avoiding False Testimony

And they are those people who don't give false testimony — they don't swear by the name of Allah and then speak lies and falsehood — just as the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Hadith 5976; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Hadith 87)

He said: "The greatest of sins is that you make shirk with Allah and that you disrespect your parents" — and he was leaning on something so he sat up and said — "and to give false testimony." And he kept repeating "giving false testimony" so many times that the narrator of the hadith said: "We hoped that he would stop saying it."

Tenth Attribute: Turning Away from Vain Speech

They don't give false testimony, they aren't those people who take the name of Allah as something easy, they don't invoke the name of Allah and see it as a light and easy affair. And when they pass by people who speak vain speech, who speak false speech, who just spread rumors or backbite or slander — they pass by them and they don't stop. They don't pay any attention to them.

Eleventh Attribute: Heeding the Verses of Allah

They are those people who, when they are reminded of the verses of Allah, don't just pass by as if they are blind and deaf. They stop and they pay heed and they pay attention to the verses of Allah. They know that Allah is addressing them in the Qur'an directly — Allah is speaking to you, Allah is addressing you — so they don't just pass by, they stop and they pay attention and they take heed.

Twelfth Attribute: Du'ā' for Righteous Families

And they are those who call out to their Lord and say: "Oh our Lord, bestow for us from our families — our spouses and our children — those that will be a coolness for our eyes, and make us leaders of the righteous. Make us from amongst the forefront, from amongst those people who are Your closest, most beloved slaves of Allah. Make us from amongst the leaders of the righteous."

The Reward of the Ibād al-Raḥmān

These twelve attributes that Allah mentions in the Qur'an — they are the attributes of Ibād al-Raḥmān, the slaves of the Most Merciful. And what happens if you have these attributes, if you apply them, if you strive in attaining them?

They are those people — these are the people that Allah will give houses and palaces in Jannah — because of the patience that they displayed. Because it is difficult to apply and to have these attributes, to work hard and strive to attain them. It is extremely difficult and requires patience. Why? Because Shayṭān won't let you easily attain them, nor will the people around you easily let you have them. The traps of Shayṭān are many. So Allah, for those people who attain them, rewards them for their patience — the patience that they displayed upon this path and this road.

And then when they enter into Jannah they will be greeted with warm greetings and they will be greeted with the salām and the peace. They will abide therein forever. And what a beautiful abode and residence it is.

May Allah make us from His Ibād al-Raḥmān and may Allah grant us those palaces in Jannah.

Second Part of the Khuṭbah

Allah in this final passage of Sūrat al-Furqān dedicates all of these verses speaking about the Ibād al-Raḥmān — the slaves and the servants of the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful — showing us that each and every single one of us has the ability within ourselves to aspire, to attain, to reach that level of Ubūdiyyah, of servitude and submission to Allah. When Allah doesn't revolve around our lives, when we don't just fit Allah in when and where we think we can, but rather our lives revolve around Allah — from the moment that we wake up to the moment that we go to sleep at night.

Our lives revolve around Allah. When we first wake up, we wake up and the first thing on our tongues is the praise of Allah — "All praise is due to Allah who gave us life after death, and we shall return to Him." And from that moment, every single thing that we do — going to the bathroom, relieving ourselves, cleansing ourselves, eating, drinking, leaving our houses, coming back — everything revolves around Allah — until the moment in the night when we place our heads once again upon our pillows and the last thing that comes out of our mouths again is the remembrance of Allah: "In Your name, oh Allah, do I live and do I die." This is how the Prophet ﷺ was, and this is how Allah describes His Ibād al-Raḥmān.

These are the people that Allah will bless and will honor and will reward with a great reward.

The Warning: Those Who Turn Away

But the final verse of Sūrat al-Furqān — Allah doesn't dedicate it to those Ibād al-Raḥmān, but rather He speaks about those people who shun this path, who turn away from this path, who don't become from the Ibād al-Raḥmān, who disbelieve in Allah and reject the Qur'an and reject the Prophet ﷺ. Allah says:

Allah says addressing those people that Allah doesn't care about you. Allah doesn't care about those people. As for those Ibād al-Raḥmān — Allah has spent so many verses speaking of their traits. As for the rest of you — in a single verse Allah says He doesn't care about you. He doesn't need to go into detail, doesn't need to speak about them in many verses. A single verse is enough to show how little, how insignificant they are before the sight of Allah. "Worry not that you call out to Allah" — even the disbelievers call out to Allah, even in their most ardent times of need, when they need Allah the most, they call out to Allah. Worry not that they call out to Allah in those times — Allah wouldn't respond to them at all, but sometimes Allah will respond even to their supplications at those times. "Because you are the people who have rejected — you rejected Allah, you rejected the Qur'an, you rejected the Prophet ﷺ — and so now you are bearing the results of your actions."

Conclusion and Call to Action

Allah is encouraging us to become from His Ibād al-Raḥmān — from His slaves, from those slaves who aspire to reach that pinnacle of servitude and submission to Allah. And so the message from this khuṭbah and this minbar today is for each and every single one of us to go back to that final passage of Sūrat al-Furqān — those final few verses of Sūrat al-Furqān — and to read them and to contemplate over their meanings, and to see how we can apply them in our lives.

We ask Allah that He grants us the ability to become from His Ibād al-Raḥmān, and that Allah showers upon us His blessings and His mercy and His forgiveness, and that Allah rewards us for our actions and our efforts, and that Allah safeguards us and our families from every evil and from the traps of Shayṭān.