2015 04 10 Friday Prayer Sheikh Khalil Abdul Rashid

Opening

أَمَّا بَعْدُ — it was a young man that I met this past weekend.

I was in a conversation with a brother — it's myself and two other brothers — and a gentleman from the distance, who we did not know, came up to us. We were standing in the lobby of a hotel, talking about something after Fajr, and this brother comes up, and his external features, his external presentation, was not the first thing that you would expect from a Muslim. He had tattoos all over his neck, on his upper body, all on his arms, around his ears and everything.

He was dressed modestly, but still a bit shabby — and I don't mean that in a disrespectful term, I just mean he was not kept in the way that we would expect, or we would assume someone to be kept, if they're in a hotel attending a conference. So he came up to us and he said, "Brothers, assalamu alaykum" — like that. He said, "May I join you? I hear you talking about Islam, may I join you?" Myself and the other two brothers, we looked at him with a bit of mild suspicion, wondering — we didn't know who he was, where he had come from, we had never even seen him before.

He was bald and a little shorter than me, he had plenty of Latino background. I said, "Yes, of course you may join us, tell us your name, where are you from?" He mentioned his name, and mentioned that he had been incarcerated, and he had recently been released, and he had become Muslim in January. I said, "Welcome to Islam."

And he said, "I just want to ask you a question." He said, "I'm from New Brunswick, I'm from New Jersey." He said, "I want to ask a question — can I recite the Fatiha, the prayer, may I recite the prayer in English?" And I said, "No, you are not allowed to recite it in English, but what you may do is sit with a teacher, and they may, in the very beginning, write down the words of the Fatiha in English for you — so in Bismillah, you write B-I-S, etc. Take a few days and pray with a piece of paper, learn it, go to the community, and learn and practice with a piece of paper, read, etc., the best you can — but we may not perform the prayer in a different language."

And he said, "But I cannot read." At first, it didn't click with me. And I said, "Well, you may sit with someone, and they may help you," and then I realized — he really meant he could not read at all.

He said, "All my life, I've been in a dirty environment, and the only thing, the only skill I have, the only thing I know how to do, is count money. I can count fives, and tens, and twenties, and fifties, and hundreds." And he said, "All I do is count money, that's all I know how to do." He said, "And my entire life, I've been counting bad money. And I've been working with bad money." Those are his words.

And he said, "I've lived a bad life, and I've lived a dirty life. And I ended up in a bad and a dirty place. Because of my involvement with bad and dirty money."

He said, "But then, Allah blessed me with Islam. I found Islam." He said, "And I'm so happy to be a Muslim, because — brother — I don't know a lot, but I'm so happy to be a Muslim, because I know now that I no longer have to be a bad and dirty person."

The Point of the Story

SubhanAllah. He got the point. Even in his state of illiteracy, being a new Muslim, he got the point. "I know I don't have to be" — I don't have to be reduced to أَسْفَلَ سَافِلِينَ — the lowest of the low. I don't have to be a bad and dirty person. I can be better. And no one taught me that I can be better, except the Quran.

Can you imagine? Your father never telling you: you have a future, you have a right, you have a purpose — you have a job to do, beyond just going to college and going to school. Your existence means something, it has spiritual value to it. The Quran — he came away from learning about the Quran, what brothers had told him in prison about the Quran — that's what he learned. He doesn't have to be dirty anymore.

Brothers and sisters, this is a point that was powerful for me. In the end of our discussion, he was in tears, and he hugged me, and he hugged the other two brothers, and all he could say is, "I'm so happy to be a Muslim. I'm so happy to be a Muslim. I'm so happy to be a Muslim."

This man, this young man, whose external presentation would have perhaps turned many people away from him — but inside of him, what he carried was the essence of what the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ is all about. That conviction: I can be better than what I was. I don't have to be subjected to dirty money, dirty life.

Our kids, our young sons and daughters, and nieces and nephews, and grandchildren — they need that kind of uplifting. They must be told that they are Muslim, and they should be proud to be Muslim. Not proud in the arrogant worldly sense, but proud — so that when they go out here and they work in the world, they exist in the world, they don't go out with their heads down as if they're ashamed. But they value what they have, and they know that what they have has value in their life, and in the lives of other people as well.

The Core of the Prophetic Mission: Tazkiyah

The core of the Sunnah, the message of the Risalah, the mission of the Prophet ﷺ, is this point about taking us from being dirty and cleansing us. That is the essence. That is the core. And in that process of tahara and cleansing, there is a type of uplifting that naturally occurs. There is a type of elevation — spiritual elevation — in the mind, and the ruh, and the qalb, and later on in the body of the person, that cannot occur in any other way.

His Sunnah operates on us in two different ways, and each way is unique to each individual person.

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Musnad al-Bazzar; also reported by al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab al-Iman, Hadith 7609)

"I was only sent to perfect noble character."

The First Method: From the Outside In

The first method is that for some people, the prophetic Sunnah of our Habib ﷺ, when we follow it, acts on us — it does the work of cleansing and tahara on us from the outside in. From the external to the internal.

For example, we may read hadith about how the Prophet ﷺ used to trim his mustache, trim his nails, keep his body in a certain way. We'll read Sunnahs and hadith, and we'll learn things about the external upkeep of the Prophet ﷺ. And then later on, we'll read things about the way the Prophet ﷺ kept himself — and that is the beginning of the internal — the way he thought, the way he spoke, the way he sat, the way he ate — those habits are now going from the external to the internal, that transition. Then how he interacted, how he dealt with people. Then how he was when he prayed, and he was in adhkar, and when he was with Allah — those private moments, those pieces of advice that stick with us and impact us. We take the Prophet ﷺ from outside and we slowly internalize those things. And so the process of tazkiyah and tahara begins externally, from the outside, and then we bring it inside. That's one process.

The Second Method: From the Inside Out

The other is a different method, a different process. For some people, it occurs the second way — from the inside out. And so what attracts their attention are the ways and forms of ibadah, the way the Prophet ﷺ acted as an abd, as a slave, to Allah, first. The way the Prophet ﷺ developed and cultivated his life and his relationship as a bashar in his relationship to his Rabb. That nature of ubudiyyah first — that is what attracts other people.

And in light of that, in that frame of reference, then they read the interactions of the Prophet ﷺ with other people through that lens. So one lens is reading the lifestyle, the seerah, the habits, and the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ from an interpersonal relationship first — the adab, the akhlaq, the habits, the dealings that the Prophet ﷺ had with people first — and then through that external lens, insight is given as to how the Prophet ﷺ was with his Rabb second. You go from the public to the private, from the interpersonal relationship to the relationship with Allah. That is one manner, one method.

And the other is the opposite: focus on the Prophet ﷺ and his relationship as a form of ubudiyyah, and then through that lens, you perceive and understand the Prophet's interactions with people through that lens of ubudiyyah to Allah.

Both methods, both ways of reading the Sunnah, are valid, and both ways operate on us and cleanse us.

The Core Ayah: Purification

What we have to understand, what we take home from this, is that part of the ayah in the Quran where Allah informs the Prophet ﷺ that his job — the core of his mission with us, the core of his teachings to us — is:

To clean them, to purify them, to rid them — meaning us — of the muck, of the dirt, of the stench of worldly attachments, worldly actions, worldly behaviors. To sanitize us, to deodorize us, to cleanse us, to scrub us from our norms and our worldly habits, and to raise us above that lowly status. To remind us that we are important, and we have value, and our importance and our value comes from recognizing our identity as Ibad — the slaves of Allah.

When they presented an alternative to the Prophet ﷺ — "Ya Rasulullah, why don't you sleep like this? Why don't you sleep on these comfortable things? Why don't you sit in this manner?" — he reminded us ﷺ:

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 3292; also referenced in Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah)

"I am only a servant. I eat as a devoted servant of Allah eats, and I sit as a devoted servant of Allah sits."

The Sunnah, his lifestyle, his Sunnah and his seerah — all of it is geared towards orienting us to that mold.

Why Ubudiyyah?

Why Ubudiyyah? Not just because Allah created us to be Abd — not just that. What's the point of Ubudiyyah? Yes, it is the maqsad — the objective of creation and the objective of our creation — but why? What is it about ibadah? What is it about devoting ourselves to the Creator of the world and not the world? What is it about that orientation?

What is it about my conversation with my son and my daughter and my nieces and my nephews and my grandchildren — that I explain to them that this is what Islam is, this turning of the face, higher not lower — what is it about that? As a lifestyle, as a way of thinking, as a way of being, a form of identity — Ubudiyyah — what is it about that that is valuable, that is important?

How is it that the lifestyle of an Abd can compete with the lifestyle of Michael Jordan or other sports players, for example? When our kids say, "I want to be like this or I want to be like that," and we say, "Wait a minute — that's fine, you can be a doctor or a lawyer, engineer or this, that or the other, and you can earn a living — but at the core, don't forget who you are. Don't forget your main task."

When you grab a job, you clock in and you clock out. You go from 9 to 5, 10 to 6, you have days off, vacation time, sabbatical, retirement — that's your job. You can have a job, be good at your job, fine. But an Abd is not a job. Ubudiyyah is not a job. You don't clock in and clock out of Ubudiyyah. You don't have vacation time from Ubudiyyah. You don't take a sabbatical from Ubudiyyah. You don't retire from Ubudiyyah. You are born, live, sit, eat, sleep, die as an Abd. That is your identity — before a doctor, before a lawyer, before a teacher, before an engineer, before unemployment. That is your vocation. That is your task.

Why? Why is that important? Why should we tell our kids that? What is it that is valuable about that conversation, about that point? What is it that the Prophet ﷺ — why is it that he spent 23 years of his life teaching us that? What was he trying to send us home with?

Worship Until Certainty Comes

Allah says: "Do ibadah to your Rabb, be devoted to your Rabb, until yaqeen — certainty — comes to you." This is a powerful ayah.

وَاعْبُدْ رَبَّكَ — "Devote yourself, attach yourself to your Rabb." You can have connections with the world, but don't become attached to the world. Don't become devoted to the world. It's an amr, it's a command. Devote yourself to your Rabb, until — حَتَّىٰ — until يَأْتِيَكَ الْيَقِينُ — until certainty comes to you.

Ah! What is the meaning there? Our ulama, our scholars explain that normally in the Arabic language, the word حَتَّىٰ means "until." You do something حَتَّىٰ — until. You're driving on the street, you come to Spring Creek, you drive all the way until Spring Creek, and you take a right. In other words, حَتَّىٰ becomes the meaning of غَايَة — the end of something. You do this until I tell you to stop.

But here in the ayah, that is not the meaning. Allah does not mean that yaqeen has entered the heart already — certainty is not there yet. It doesn't even mean that true iman, حَقِيقَةُ الْإِيمَانِ, has entered the heart. Faith and certainty in its external form has entered, but not in its internal significance. It takes progress. It takes work. It takes time to achieve certainty of faith.

And that is why the Sahabas were one way in the beginning of the Risalah and they were completely different at the end of the life of Rasulullah ﷺ. Their yaqeen was different. Their level of iman was different. And so there are stages, there are levels, there are developments in our strength and faith.

The stronger our iman is, the stronger our yaqeen is, the more that we are polished, the clearer we become, the better an Abd we are. Those things act on each other. And so the more devoted to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ we are, the more cleansed we become, the more our yaqeen increases — then the more Sunnahs we will practice, then the more cleansed we will become, then the more our yaqeen increases. And there is this cycle of operation, this cycle of cleansing, this cycle of scrubbing.

The more we practice externally, the more internally we are affected; the more spiritually we are devoted, the more externally we want to practice. Then the more internally we are devoted, the more spiritually we become increased and we gain certainty. And that occurs over time and over progress.

Similarly, the opposite is true. The more we are attached to the world, the more that we love the world instead of loving the Maker of this world — the more externally we function out here, the more of those symbols out there that we practice, the more values we will be influenced by, the more spiritually deprived we become, and our yaqeen will decrease and decrease and decrease.

And so the point of ubudiyyah is to increase our certainty — in our objective, our identity as ibad, and in worshipping Allah. The more certainty we have, the more cleansed our qulub will be, and then the more we want to act even more on that. And thus, the following of the Prophet ﷺ was commanded for that reason — to cleanse us, to cleanse us.

The Sunnah as a Cleansing Agent

Now, notice in the cleansing process — and we'll end here insha'Allah, because there's a Part 2 and a Part 3 to this as well.

In the cleansing process, for example: if you work hard outside and it's a hot day, you come home — you're sweaty, you're dirty — and you have an appointment in the evening to go somewhere very special, to meet a king or a ruler. But you're home from work and your clothes are dirty, you don't feel clean, you're sweaty and everything. So you have to cleanse yourself from the world, from working in the world. So what do you do? You take a shower.

The purpose of the shower is to remove all of the dirt, filth, the muck — to wash yourself. It would be pointless to come in the house from work with sweat and dirt, take your clothes off, and then put your suit on on top of that. We don't put our suits, our nice clothes, on top of our sweat and our dirt — because then that adornment, that decoration, becomes tainted by that muck, that dirt. So that dirt, before we adorn ourselves, we must remove. We must exit and eliminate the filth so that we can adorn ourselves.

You see, the first part of the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ is like that. Those external Sunnahs that the Prophet ﷺ left for us — how to eat, how to sleep, how to brush our teeth, use miswak, going into the bathroom, coming out of the bathroom, how to give sadaqah — those forms are there to scrub us, to cleanse us, to shower us, to take that muck of the world away.

Because the world will teach you: yes, give charity — but give with your left hand. Or give with your right hand, it doesn't matter how you give. Or give and then yell at the person: "Why don't you have a job? Here, take this $20 and don't let me ever see you again." The world will also tell you to act. But the way the world tells you to act — if you follow that, if I follow that — we become stained by it. We become smelly, dirty.

And so the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ is to cleanse us from that — from acting like the world. So that's where we get those forms about how the Prophet ﷺ used to do this and do that. And you read, "Well, why is this important? Why did the Sahabas leave us information about which ring the Prophet put on his finger?" It's because everything is about reorienting us from being like the world — following that way.

And so the first thing we need to take home insha'Allah is that we look at the Sunnah first as a cleansing agent. He's cleansing us, the Prophet ﷺ, from the world. That's the first level. That's why we teach our kids: go in with your left foot, give sadaqah like this, call the adhan like that, eat like this, eat with your right hand. That's why we teach our kids that. We're teaching them to wash before we teach them to put on new clothes.

There's a Part 2 and a Part 3 to this insha'Allah. If Allah gives us tawfiq next week insha'Allah, we will talk about the next level of the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ and how we should understand it, how we must practice it, and pass it on to those that we love, those that are around us — so that we may achieve yaqeen in our role as Ibad of Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim.

Second Khutbah

الحمد لله، الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين.

Ibadullah, have taqwa of Allah. Indeed Allah commands justice, excellence, and giving to those of close relation, and He forbids immorality, wrongdoing, and transgression. He admonishes you so that perhaps you will be reminded.

Establish the prayer. Ashadu an la ilaha illallah, ashadu an la ilaha illallah, ashadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah.