2015-03-20 - 2nd Friday Prayer - Sheikh Khalil Abdul Rashid

Khuṭbah: Al-Laṭīf — Entering with Adab, Exiting with Lutf

لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ — repeated with devotion at the opening of this sermon.

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَهْدِيهِ وَنُؤْمِنُ بِهِ وَنَتَوَكَّلُ عَلَيْهِ، وَنَعُوذُ بِاللهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا. مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ. وَنَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، وَنَشْهَدُ أَنَّ سَيِّدَنَا وَنَبِيَّنَا وَعَظِيمَنَا وَحَبِيبَنَا مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللهِ، صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ.

أُوصِي وَأُوصِيكُمْ بِتَقْوَى اللهِ. قَالَ تَعَالَى:

وَقَالَ النَّبِيُّ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 32, Hadith 6266)

The Divine Name: Al-Laṭīf

The divine name of Allah — Al-Laṭīf — has been called upon and used several times by the anbiyā'. But it is only quoted seven times in the Qur'ān. And these seven times where Allah introduces His name Laṭīf, it is in connection to either His workings — the way that He does something. Externally, things are presented in one way, but then Allah works the way that He works, and something different happens. You expect one result, and out a different result comes.

The Story of Yūsuf: A Lesson in Laṭīf

We expect, from the story of Yūsuf alayhis salām — since he was separated from his parents and left alone in solitary confinement in the well, and then later on, when he was older, he was imprisoned — you would expect someone with such a pattern in their life to not be successful. Least of all to grow up to be a sovereign ruler of a metropolis like Egypt. But that was his story.

At the end of that story, he is reunited with his blessed parents. He brings them into Egypt. He doesn't wait — although he is the ruler, he has the position of a sovereign ruler — he doesn't sit in his palace and wait for his father and his mother to enter Egypt and enter the palace. No, he exits. He goes out himself and meets them on the outskirts of the city. Greets his father, greets his mother. Walks them into Egypt. Walks them into the city. Brings them to the palace. Shows them where Allah has placed him — He has given him a palace and a throne.

And then he puts his parents — in the words of the Qur'ān — he puts his parents on the throne. "Father, yā abī, this is for you, sit here. Yā ummī, O mother, this is for you, sit there." But they don't accept that. Their son gives them the ultimate gesture of adab.

And they bow down — they prostrate — instead of sitting on the throne and enjoying the comforts. They bow down in sajda, thanking Allah for that union. And then he says to them:

"My Rabb is Laṭīf. He is very subtle to whomever He wills. He knows everything, and the way that He works — there is wisdom in it."

What is Laṭf?

Laṭf — or Laṭīf — is Allah devoting Himself to His ibād. It is Allah dedicating and devoting Himself to His ibād on account of the fact that His ibād devoted themselves to Him in some way. And the way that that is done is that first Allah presents a situation to His ibād. He puts them in a circumstance. He puts them in a situation. He offers them an opportunity — a situation good or bad, a situation where they are presented with a choice.

Yūsuf alayhis salām was presented with a choice when he was taken out of the well. He was presented with a choice when he was put in prison. He was presented with a choice when he was reunited with his brothers. He could have reacted in a very violent way, in a very negative way, in a very harsh way. He could have done that. But he chose to react in a very gentle way — with adab.

So whatever situation you are placed with, you always have two choices. You can give with your anger, give with your frustration, give with hostility — but you don't get much from Allah when you give like that. Or you can give with rifq, with gentleness, with adab, with manners, with decorum. And when you choose to give like that, then that's when Allah's support comes. That's when His help comes.

And for this reason the scholars say: if you enter — meaning enter a situation, enter a place, enter a contract, enter a relationship — if you enter with adab, with rifq, with gentleness, with generosity, with kindness, with etiquette, with manners, with decorum — if you enter with adab, you leave with luṭf. You leave with grace. You leave with divine blessing. You leave transformed.

Leaving with luṭf — leaving with the help of Al-Laṭīf — means that you have won Allah's dedication and His devotion to you. And that means that any trial, tribulation, and difficulty you find yourself in, He will bring you out of that. The way that He brought Yūsuf out of the well, alayhis salām. The way He brought Yūsuf out of the sijin, the prison, alayhis salām. And not just bring you out — bring you out is good enough — not just bring you out, but bring you out and elevate you to a winning status.

It's one thing to come out of prison. It's another thing to come out of prison and become the president. It's another thing to have your difficulties removed. It's one thing for that to happen. It's another thing to have your difficulties removed and to come out on top — in a position for you to be able to help eliminate and remove other people's difficulties. That is Luṭf.

And for that process to have occurred — for you to come out of that situation on top, for that situation to occur in a way that no one would have imagined:

From a place, and in a way, and in a manner you could have never dreamed. How is it that a torn shirt elevates somebody to being a ruler of a kingdom? That is the story of Yūsuf alayhis salām. He entered with adab though — with manners. And he dealt with that situation with sublime gentleness and beauty. Rifq.

And that's why the Prophet ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam said Allah loves that gentle etiquette that you perform when you do it. And then he said:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 32, Hadith 6266)

And He gives you in compensation for that etiquette, for that gentleness, for that reaction — He gives you in compensation for that what He doesn't give when you react to that situation with hostility, or with frustration, with anger, with violence. In other words, He gives to you when you react with adab what He doesn't, and cannot, and shall not give to you when you react with bad adab — disrespectfully.

Yūsuf's Words of Gratitude

And that's why Sayyidunā Yūsuf alayhis salām, when he was reunited with his parents, said: "Allah brought me out of the sijin, the jail. And He brought you out of the badāwah — out of the bedouin, nomadic lifestyle. He brought all of us into this wonderful situation."

"You see how Laṭīf my Rabb is? You see how He does things? I would have never known that going into prison was the gateway to me sitting on the throne. I would have never known that me being kidnapped and thrown into a well was the gateway for you to come out of the bedridden lifestyle into the comfort of this place. I would have never planned it. Had I planned it, I would have never been able to write it like that." As one of my teachers says: you can't write this stuff. That is Laṭīf.

Enter with Adab, Exit with Lutf

When doors open in your life because you reacted to a situation Allah gave you with adab — with gentleness and generosity — because when you react with kindness, that is generosity. Because you could react with anger or frustration or violence. So you are being generous by choosing the other alternative. That is rifq, that is adab. You enter into that circumstance with adab, the ulamā say — you come out, you exit with luṭf.

How many of us entered here today with trauma, stress, worries, crisis, sicknesses — loved ones in the hospital, loved ones that have just passed away, friends in the hospital. Folks who don't know what to do. This is the house of Allah. This is the place of Allah's riḍā — the place of His contentment and pleasure. That's why we're here. We're not here because we make money off of being here. We're here because we want Allah's pleasure. He's asked us to be here so He can be pleased with us. So we show up, so that He can be pleased with us.

And we hope that we enter into a pattern of showing up to places where Allah can be pleased with us. And we hope that that pattern of showing up to different places where Allah is pleased — over time — puts us in the ultimate place that He's pleased with, i.e., Jannah. And we hope that when we live a lifestyle staying away from the places He's displeased with in the dunyā, it leads us on the Day of Judgement to being far away from the ultimate place of Allah's displeasure — the Nār.

So we seek constantly the places of His pleasure, His riḍā. What this parable is telling us — what we understand from adab — is that the same type of desire and eagerness and motivation and hope that we have when we come to the Masjid and we seek the pleasure of Allah, that same level of opportunity and hope exists in any situation Allah puts us in — if we enter it with adab. If you enter with adab, you'll come out with luṭf.

What Does Adab Mean in Practice?

Adab means impracticality? No — that's the theory. What's the practice? It is: no matter regardless of that situation that Allah puts you in or puts in front of you — you remember Him. That is adab. You remember your Rabb. Because the ultimate form of lack of adab is to forget the One that never forgets you and me. To forget Allah — that is breaking adab.

And so dhikr of Allah — being mindful of Allah — in all of our relationships: legal relationships, business relationships, familial relationships, neighbourly relationships. All forms of relationships. Contractual relationships, obligatory relationships, voluntary relationships. In all of those alāqāt — all of those relationships with the makhlūqāt, with the creation of Allah — there is adab, meaning there is mindfulness that Allah is watching us and that we have a certain way of conduct with that other form of creation of Allah.

We must not become hostile. When we are presented with an offer — someone calls us for assistance — we respond. That is adab. When one of the khalq of Allah asks us to stand up, we stand up. They ask for assistance, they ask for forgiveness — we respond. And we respond beautifully, with rifq, with manners and with gentleness.

The Four Levels of Adab

We have adab with Allah. We have adab with His Rasūl ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam. We have adab with our leaders. And we have adab with our fellow neighbours and brothers and sisters.

Adab with Allah is making sure that we don't break any of His commandments and that we don't forget Him. Adab with His Rasūl ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam is ensuring that we practice every single sunnah of his as much as we can — that's adab with the Rasūl ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam. We have adab with our leaders in that we respect our leaders and we advise our leaders, and when they ask something of us we respond to the best of our ability. And we have adab with our fellow neighbours and our fellow brothers and sisters — both brothers and sisters by faith and brothers and sisters in the earthly sense. We have etiquette with them and we have rifq and gentleness with them when we enter into all of these relationships.

When we enter into all of these things — whether we do it ourselves or whether we are called to action — when we enter with adab, with the mindfulness of Allah, and our behavior reflects that mindfulness of Allah, and the reason we respond is because we see that call to action as a place that brings the name of Allah and the pleasure of Allah — then we exit that relationship, and we exit that situation, and then we exit this dunyā with luṭf. That is Allah's dedication to us — His bringing us out of hardship and elevating us both in this life and in the next. That is Luṭf.

That is the reason why Allah introduced His name to us — Al-Laṭīf. Yā Laṭīf. Yā Laṭīf.

Be People of Adab

Brothers and sisters, we must learn this name — but we must earn the consequences of that name. We must be Ahl al-Adab — people of adab. Being a person of adab means that you look at a situation as an opportunity to get the pleasure of Allah. "How can I get the pleasure of Allah from this circumstance? There's got to be a way. How can I find the pleasure of Allah, the contentment of Allah here? How can I do that? How can I turn this prison into a palace — not physically, but spiritually? How can I turn this prison circumstance into a place where I am comforted by the fact that I will exit with luṭf?"

And that is done through adab — through reacting in a gentle way, being patient, and understanding that Allah will pull you out. Allah will elevate you. Allah will bring a good, positive end to you and your family one way or the other. But your responsibility and my responsibility is to go into that circumstance with adab. That's our job. We cannot control what happens but we can control our reaction to what happens. We can control the way that we deal with what happens. And we can always have hope. That is adab.

One of the crowning jewels of adab is that you never lose faith and hope in the One who has made it His job to manage your affairs. You never lose hope in the One whose job it is to manage your affairs. He has said He will take care of you, and He will. But you must have adab. So you enter with adab — adab in everything.

A Father's Lesson in Sunnah

When the Prophet calls you to respond — how does the Prophet call you to respond? By the fact that his sunnah should be performed at that moment. One of my parents converted to Islam in 1975, when I was 6 months old. And the very first sunnah my father learned — the very first sunnah he taught me when I was a kid — it was the sunnah of going into the bathroom with your left foot and coming out with your right. That was the first sunnah he learned, and that was the first one he taught me and my mother as well.

My father, even if he would go out with his right foot, he would actually go back into the bathroom and come out with his left foot. Allāhu yarḥamuh. And one day my mother asked him: "Why do you place so much emphasis on this foot business?" She was new to Islam at that time, and as new Muslims, everyone has a growth and development. And he said to my mother: "I don't know if this sunnah right here is the one to get me into paradise. I don't know. But the positioning of this foot and the positioning of that foot — putting this foot in this place at this time and putting that foot in that place at that time — teaches me how to put my feet in other places at other times. And that puts me in the habit of walking to Jannah, so to speak."

You don't know the barakāt in each sunnah. So that's the Prophet calling us to duty. When we go into the bathroom, the Prophet calls us to duty. We respond with adab. We respond to that call.

Allah, when He gives us a ḥukm — a command to do something — that's Allah calling us to duty, calling us to enter into duty. We enter with adab. When our neighbors call us to help, call us to support, call us to something — we answer that call, we enter with adab. When our neighbors call us to stand up, call us to enter into something, and we say "this is the pleasure of Allah, we need your help" — you enter with adab.

Enter with adab. If not for the sake of adab itself, then for the sake and the hope of your life being transformed — some difficulty that's on you being relieved, you exiting that difficulty and being raised as a result. That is luṭf. You enter with adab, hoping to exit with luṭf.

You enter into this masjid — we will make a call from you today, inshā'Allāh — you answer that call, and you exit with luṭf.

Du'ā — Closing Supplication

May Allah endow all of us and bless us with this luṭf. May Allah help all of our believers — men and women — in the hospital, who are sick and ill at home, and all of our families, all of us that are going through things both in this city and in other cities and internationally as well. May Allah allow us all to be reformed through our adab with Him, our adab with the Prophet ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, our adab with the dīn, our adab with our leaders, and our adab with our fellow neighbours, brothers and sisters. Āmīn.

Second Khuṭbah — Closing Reminder

Inshā'Allāh, right after the Ṣalāt, I'll ask brothers just to stay for five minutes, inshā'Allāh, as we make a short appeal to you.

Announcement: Masjid Repair Campaign

Brothers and sisters, alḥamdulillāh, our masjid is starting a campaign. We have some repairs — some much-needed repairs — that need to be done. The largest of which is the AC: the air conditioning unit needs to be fixed. In addition to that, the lights around the masjid also need to be fixed. These things have a substantial cost to them, and we wanted to ask brothers and sisters if they would be willing to make a monthly contribution to help us meet these costs. The cost to fix the air conditioning is about $160,000.