2015 08 21 Sheikh Khalil Abdul Rashid

Khutbah: Husnul Khatima — Anchoring the Heart to Allah

أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَّسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ

All praise is due to Allah. We worship Him, we seek His help, we seek His guidance, we believe in Him and we put our trust in Him. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him, and whosoever is led astray, none can guide him. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and there is none worthy of worship except Allah. I bear witness that our Master, our Prophet, our Greatest, our Beloved, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Peace be upon him and his family and companions.

I advise you to fear Allah. Allah says — I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan, in the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate:

So do not be deceived by the life of this world, and do not be deceived by the Deceiver about Allah.

Life and Death in the Same Circle

In the past 24 hours — just amongst the people that I know, just in my personal inner circle — there has been a birth and a death. Hayat is like that. A nafs has entered the dunya, and a nafs has returned to the Rabb of the dunya. We ask Allah to return all of us to Him in a good returning. Ameen.

The Parable of the Grammarian and the Sailor

There is a story mentioned in the Mathnawi of the great Seljuk scholar Jalaluddin Rumi where he gives the parable of a man who was a great scholar in grammar — in Arabic grammar, in ilm al-nahw. And he became such a great, prolific scholar in ilm al-nahw, in grammar, to such an extent that he relied on his scholarship. He thought he was filled with arrogance and pride. And he felt that because of his rutba — his position in grammar — that that was good enough to save him from the wrath of Allah. And he became filled with a bit of arrogance and pride.

And so one day this imam of nahw — this grammarian scholar — needed to take a journey from one place to another and he had to get on a boat. And so he went to the boat and the man says, "I'll take you across. Do you know anything about boats?" He said, "No, I'm a grammarian." He said, "Do you know anything about grammar?" The man said, "No, I've just been working on the sea — I'm a sailor." He said, "Look at you, look at your life. You deal with fish and water. You have no knowledge of nahw? You've wasted your entire life on water and fish, and you have no ilm of nahw? What kind of bashar are you? What kind of human being are you?" The man said, "I'm sorry, this is qadar, it is what it is." So take me across.

So he gets on the ship and the man is steering him across the sea. The grammarian is asking him about the i'rab of this, do you know this i'rab of that, and all these questions. The man said no, I don't know that, I haven't had a chance to study that. And the man is feeling so down and depressed. And all of a sudden, Allah causes a little storm to happen and the seas start to become very violent. And the grammarian shuts up — he's starting to become very fearful. And the sailor, who has been through this before, musters his courage, takes the reins and handles everything, starts his adhkar, his du'a, and faces the challenge and faces the test with courage. And the grammarian is sitting on his back, pale and white with fear. All the i'rab and the ibadah and the arab of the world can't help him.

And the sailor looks at the grammarian and he says, "Do you want to swim?" And the grammarian says, "No, no — I don't know how to swim. I've never had a chance to learn how to swim." And so he says: Forget your nahw. Literally what he says is — erase your nahw. And he uses the word that rhymes with nahw — which is mahw, to erase. Erase your nahw, and remember the Creator of nahw.

The "Grammar" of This Dunya

Allah mentions in the Quran:

This life, this dunya — we can get caught up in so many things. And we think that what Allah has given us — whether it's nahw, whether it's dollars, whether it's fame, whether it's status, whether it's a PhD, whether it's American citizenship — whatever it is, whatever that nahw is for us — sometimes we latch on to it, we take it as the most meaningful thing in life. And we use that grammar — in quotation marks, that nahw — to relate to other people in a way that sends the message that we are in some way superior to them because we've been given nahw. We've been given the grammar of money-making, the grammar of dollar-making, the grammar of connection-making, the grammar of political relationships, the grammar of education and status, the grammar of freedom.

Then when Allah sends a wave our way — to our communities, to our families, to us as individuals — that nahw that we have isn't so good at getting us out of that problem. And so sometimes there is a loss of benefit in not taking the lessons from the people who endure on a daily basis the waves of the dunya.

And I recall a hadith that the scholars debate in terms of its strength, but the message is relevant to the khutbah today. The meaning of which is: whoever chooses and wants to follow me, let them prepare for big waves over their bow. This deen, brothers and sisters, has a lot of izzah and respect with it, but a lot of tests and trials that come with it as well.

A Personal Reminder: Death Comes Suddenly

The person I knew who passed — Allah yarhamha — a respectable lady, the best friend of my mother. Her son, who was a companion of mine, went to visit her. Now imagine this for a second: you go to visit your mother. He puts the key in the door, walks in, sees his mother standing there. "Assalamu alaykum, Mom," he says. She stands up, looks at him, and drops on the floor. Imagine this — stands up, looks, and you watch your mother fall on the floor. He rushes to her, tries to revive her, calls 911, ambulance shows up. She has vital signs but weak. They put her on the ambulance. The ambulance is transporting her to the hospital — and in the ambulance she dies. Her janazah is today.

Allah yarhamha. Yarham jami'a mawtana ya Rabbal 'alameen. Wa yashfi mardana.

This hayat al-dunya is so quick. Therefore what we do must be meaningful. And al-ghuroor is out there — wala yaghurranakum billah al-ghuroor. Don't let the Deceiver trick you about Allah. Allah says in Surah Luqman: don't let al-ghuroor trick you about Allah. That you will return to Allah. That you are here not to study grammar, but to study how to get to Allah, how to return to Allah.

But sometimes because of the nature of this dunya, our minds and our conscience — al-ghuroor — become distracted. So we focus on the grammars of this and the grammars of that, and we think that in that circle, in that concentration, in that focus on that nahw, on that grammar, that that is life. Because that grammar has gotten us a stable job. And that grammar has gotten us a great house. And that grammar is what puts food on the table — even if that grammar sometimes involves haram methodologies. But we are still devoted to the grammar, the nahw.

And because of our ghuroor and our minds being so dedicated to that grammar of the dunya — that nahw of the dunya — we actually are in a state of mahw with Allah. We literally have forgotten and erased our relationship with Allah. That's why the fisherman tells the grammarian: erase your nahw, erase your grammar — your grammar doesn't work here. When you are in crisis, when you are looking at someone dying, when you are in turmoil, that grammar of the dunya doesn't work.

The Warning Against Being a Slave to the Material

But how wretched — how ta'if, how wretched — is the person that forgets Allah day and night, has erased Allah day and night, and only when they are in a wretched state do they all of a sudden have to be told that their grammar doesn't work. How wretched is that person?

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, used to say:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2887)

How wretched is the one who is a slave of the grammar of the dinar — the life of the dinar, and the life of the dirham, and the life of material possessions. The word qamis literally means shirt, but the word here refers to the material possessions that the dirham and the dollar can provide you with.

We are caught up in the dollar and we forget the Rabb of the dollar. And we think the dollar itself is Rabb — wa la'iyyadu billah. We are caught up in the job and we forget the Rabb of the job. We are caught up in the house and we forget the Rabb of the house. We are caught up in our routines and we forget the Rabb and the Khaliq of the routine.

The Hadith of the Angel and the Seal of One's Deeds

And we forget that al-a'mal innama al-a'mal bi khawatimih — that all of our actions throughout life, they culminate and they are assessed at the end by their khawatim. There is another lengthy hadith — the Prophet, peace be upon him, explains to us — and actually this is a very, very scary hadith. This is the only hadith that I learned when I was in my early twenties for the first time in my life, and it shakes my very being even today. A very scary hadith. Some of you know this hadith:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3208; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2643)

Allah gathers each and every one of you — myself included — in the bellies, in the womb, of his mother for forty days as a seed. Then for another forty days they are a clot of blood. Then after another forty days they become a piece of chewed flesh. Then after that period — after forty days — Allah sends an angel, and the elements of life are blown into that flesh. A quickening occurs, the ruh is paired. And four things are commanded of that angel: first, to document the rizq — how that person lives, where they get their income, how they spend their money, all that rizq. Their ajal — how long they live. Their amal — what they do with their life. And whether they are shaqi or sa'eed — wretched or blessed.

Fawallahi alladhi la ilaha ghayruh — and I swear by the One with Whom there is no other god:

Here comes the scary part: every one of you — one of you — may perform the acts, the actions, the grammar of the people of jannah, until he's just — or she's just — an arm's reach from jannah. It's right there, reach out and grab it. But that last action which has been written — that last programming overrides them — that last qadr overtakes them — and then they do the action at the end of their life of the people of hellfire, and they enter it.

And one of you may perform the actions of the people of hellfire until the hellfire is almost within reach — right there — and what has been written in the book, in the preserved tablet, in the lawh al-mahfuz, overtakes them and overrides them. And in another narration, the qawl — the statement, the command of Allah — overrides it. Be very careful about those two letters: Kaf and Nun. Most scary, most powerful letters in the Arabic language. Kun — Allah says, anything can happen. Kun — you get sick. Kun — you're dead. Kun — you have cancer. Kun — car wreck. Kun — you become kafir. Kun — you're broke. Be very careful about kun.

You forget Allah, Allah forgets you. Kun — you're forgotten about. The command of Allah overtakes that person — and for some reason they become at the end a person of jannah and enter jannah.

So just as we can never write off and cut down a non-Muslim that we see out there — because their end is not yet there, their khatm has not arrived yet — we cannot come against somebody out there and say that person is for sure going to the nar. We cannot claim victory yet. We must continue.

The Du'a for a Firm Heart

This is why the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, taught us a very beautiful du'a that we should say always. Because our qulub, our hearts, can get caught up in the drama of this world and we can be taken into a state of ghuroor and delusion. Our heart is not stable, our mind is not stable. And so he taught us:

O the One who maneuvers and manipulates the hearts — the One who turns the hearts from iman to kufr, sadness to happiness, anger to calmness — ya Muqallibal qulub, thabbit qalbi — vote my qalb, my heart. Cement it, anchor it in Your deen. No one else. Because if it is not anchored in this deen, it will anchor some place else. It will be cemented some place else. The qalb will go some place else.

And in another narration: ya Musarrifal qulub — from tasrif, the One that shifts and changes. Muqallab is the One that turns like a weaving machine or a wheel. Tasrif is to shape in different forms, like a Rubik's cube — you turn in different shapes, in different ways. And so fix it, orient my qalb to this deen. And what does that mean? That means to orient, to fix — thabbit qalbi ala deenika — fix and anchor in the metaphor of the sea, to keep the boat anchored. Anchor my heart in this deen means to keep me consistent in practicing and worshipping according to Your deen — so that at the end of my life, I'm not affected by yasbiqo alayhi al-kitab — I'm not affected by the book overriding my life, or the word overriding my life — in the words of that hadith — so that I end up with what's called a husnul khatima, a good ending.

We ask for husnul khatima. We ask for husnul khatima ya Rabb. That's what we want — husnul khatima. Anything else, don't bring it to us. We ask, ya Rabb — keep our deen, our qalb thabbit.

The Command to Know La ilaha illa Allah

And that is the meaning of Allah's command in Surah Muhammad:

Oh Prophet, know — La ilaha illa Allah. Understand La ilaha illa Allah. Why tell the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him — Fa'lam anahu la ilaha illa Allah? He is Habibullah, al-Mustafa, Habibur Rahman, Sayyidul awwaleen wal akhireen, Habibur Rabbil 'alameen, the best of all creation. So why tell him the ma'rifat of La ilaha illa Allah? He's Sayyidul anbiya wal mursaleen — of all the anbiya, he knows La ilaha illa Allah better than all of them. That's what we believe — that's our 'aqeedah. If we don't believe that, we've got to go back to 'aqeedah one-on-one.

So why tell the Sayyidul mursaleen the ma'rifat of La ilaha illa Allah? No — Fa'lam anahu la ilaha illa Allah — if you're not telling him to understand it, He's telling him: continue with La ilaha illa Allah. Don't stop. Don't take a break from La ilaha illa Allah. Don't sleep off of La ilaha illa Allah. Don't take a different grammar from La ilaha illa Allah. This is above the wall, this is above the board — and on that you will be resurrected — and that is what it means to have thabbit ala deenak: fix me, so that I don't waver; anchor me, so that I don't move; hold me, so that I don't shake — my qalb doesn't shake.

I might be exposed to this grammar or that grammar, but for me that's mahw — that's erased — because I'm focused on the grammar of Allah. That's what I'm rooted in. And so, as long as there is istiqama — that's what it means: istiqama, to be consistent in our practices — the biggest problem we have is lack of consistency because of ghuroor, because we are deceived sometimes. The wealthy are deceived by their money, and so they rely on their money to get them out of problems. The powerful are deceived by their power, so they rely on power to get them out of problems. The 'alim is deceived by their ilm, so they rely on their ilm to get them out of problems. We rely and we believe — we have i'timad and tawakkul on the wrong thing.

So our qulub are not rooted. Our hearts are not rooted. We believe in Allah but we rely on the asbaab of Allah — the means — and therefore we still stumble, therefore we still fall, therefore we still waver, therefore we are still shaky, therefore we are not rooted, and therefore we put ourselves at risk of a khatim, of an ending, where our actions don't overcome the kitab. We can have a false ending, a wrong ending — su'ul khatima. Allah can be displeased with us.

We ask Allah for husnul khatima. We ask Allah to fix us and make us thabit on His deen, to make our qulub thabit on His deen, and to forgive us for our shortcomings, and to teach us the nahw that is most pleasing to Him.

Second Khutbah

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'alameen, wassalatu wassalamu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in.

I advise you and myself with taqwa of Allah. Allah says:

O servants of Allah, fear Allah. Indeed, Allah commands justice, excellence, and giving to relatives, and forbids immorality, wrongdoing, and oppression. He admonishes you so that perhaps you will remember.

Surah Recited in Prayer: Al-Waqi'ah and Al-Humazah

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim

Announcements

Brothers and sisters, just really quickly — I know there were announcements before the Jumu'ah salat — but we wanted to highlight a special community that's with us today: a group of brothers and sisters from the Islamic Center of Kent, Washington. They're out there in the rotunda with a booth. Please support those brothers insha'Allah, as they are building a masjid in Kent, Washington. I believe it will be one of the first in the area insha'Allah. So let's help them do that.

And just as a reminder, we have a guest from Turkey coming this evening after Salatul Isha — a brother who is originally from Jordan, Dr. Ibrahim Halal Shah, who will be speaking with us about his institute of teaching Arabic to Turks and the importance of learning Arabic for non-Arabic speakers insha'Allah. He is also an 'alim, a hafidh of Quran, and a professional munshid as well, where he does nasheeds about the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. So he's with us today — he'll be leaving to go back to Turkey tomorrow. Please come welcome him after Isha as he shares some words with us insha'Allah.

Wa ta'ala barakallahu fikum. Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.