2015-04-24 - Friday Prayer - Sheikh Mokhtar Maghroui

The Adhan

Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. Come to success. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. Come to success. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

Opening: Taqwa and Surrender to Allah

O you who have attained faith, be Allah-conscious. Have awe and reverence in your hearts for Allah in a way that is worthy of His glory and majesty. In a way that is worthy of His innumerable favours upon us. In a way that is worthy of who He is. And make sure we do not die except in a state of Islam — in a state in which our souls lovingly surrendered to Allah, in a state in which our hearts and thoughts and minds and decisions and priorities and likes and dislikes all lovingly surrendered to Allah. Allah, help us be of those, my dear brothers and sisters.

Between Gratitude and Seeking Forgiveness

One man — a righteous man — was advising his good righteous brother in faith, and he tells him, he says to him, what means: since the human being constantly lives between a favour and a sin — the favours from Allah and sins from the nafs — that such a person, and he mentioned himself, should not ever tire from being thankful, from الحمد لله, Alhamdulillah, and from Istighfar, أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّه, Astaghfirullah. Because every breath of our lives is either we are in a favour from Allah of some sort, and while our response is sin, is disobedience — even when we obey Allah, it is a favour. So we should be between Hamd — gratefulness, thankfulness, Alhamdulillah — and between Astaghfirullah. I seek forgiveness from Allah.

The Divine Discourse: Allah's Goodness and Our Ingratitude

It is said that Allah in a divine discourse said: O child of Adam — son or daughter of Adam — My goodness continuously descends upon you, and your evil continuously ascends to Me. I want to make Myself beloved to you by My favours upon you, and you insist and want to make yourself despised to Me by your sins and disobedience. Constantly a noble angel ascends to Me from you with an evil deed.

I want to make Myself beloved to you by My favours upon you — of life, of existence, of health, of wealth, of knowledge, of peace, of serenity, of security, of goodness, of resources, of intelligence. The favours of Allah are innumerable, unlisted. And you insist not to be thankful to Me — striving, even striving to make yourself distant from Me, striving to disobey Me at so many levels, by being an ingrate to My favours upon you.

Allah says to us, children of Adam: be grateful to Allah if you are servants of Allah. Ibadiyyah cannot be accomplished without gratitude and gratefulness to Allah.

Be in dhikr of Me, I am in dhikr of you. And be grateful to Me and do not deny My favours and bounties upon you. Do not be ungrateful to Me.

The Command to the Family of Dawud

Allah even orders the closest and the nearest and the most special of servants to Him — such as the anbiya and the messengers of Allah. Here, Sayyiduna Dawud was given, upon the favours of Allah, not only knowledge and iman and spirituality and morality, but he was given wealth and power — a lot of wealth and power. And Allah says this is a ni'mah from Me: O family of Dawud, do gratefulness to Me. And Allah says: however, few of My ibad are grateful. Few of My ibad behave in ways and conduct themselves in ways that show gratitude to Me for the favours I continuously bestow upon them.

Shaytan's Oath Against Gratitude

Allah says to us in the Quran that Shaytan made an oath — and Allah permitted that — that he will strive against human beings, he will come to them from all sides and all tricks and all ways, until:

Shaytan says he will come to them from in front of them, behind them, from the right, from the left — until you will not find most of them grateful. Grateful for the ni'mah of Allah. Not only for wealth and health and power — for peace and security and serenity, for knowledge, for resources, for a family, for life, for being. The ni'mah of Allah are internal and external, hidden and manifest.

It is very, very unintelligent, as the ulama say, to think of the bounties of Allah only as food and drink and wealth and power. Those are ni'mah of Allah, and we ought to be grateful to Allah for them — for He gave that also to the likes of His most beloved anbiya like Dawud and Sulaiman.

The Kanood — The Human Who Forgets Blessings

You read this surah often times. What does it mean? Verily the human being is a kanood with his Lord. What is kanood? As they said: ya'uddu al-masa'iba wa yansa al-ni'ma — a kanood person, with sighat al-mubalaghah, with a high probability in language, is a person who always counts the hard times, lists them and knows them well, the difficulties and the challenges. But the bounties, the favours of Allah upon him or her, directly or indirectly — he forgets them very quickly. He never forgets and he counts and he lists the challenges, the difficulties, the hardship. That is an act of lack of gratitude to Allah.

The Prophets as Models of Gratitude

My dear brothers and sisters, the greatest of anbiya, the greatest of servants of Allah — Allah describes them in their ubudiyyah as grateful to Him.

Allah says about Nuh:

Nuh was a slave-servant of Allah who was very, very grateful — shakura.

Ibrahim, the father of tawheed, the father of monotheism — Sayyiduna, our master and nilatina alayhi salatu Allahi wa salamuhu — Allah says about him in the Quran:

That he was a shakir, a grateful one, to the favours of Allah upon Sayyiduna Ibrahim — which were favours in the material sense and, most importantly, favours in the spiritual sense. Allah gave him riches, a lot of riches — but most importantly, a lot of spiritual favours and bounties, for which he was, in heart, in words, and in deeds, grateful to Allah.

The Advice of the Prophet to Mu'adh: Dhikr, Du'a, and Shukr

The Prophet says to a companion of his that perhaps all of you know — Sayyiduna Mu'adh:

(Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 1522; also recorded in Musnad Ahmad)

Imagine that — Allahu Akbar! Imagine that the Prophet, saying to Mu'adh: Ya Mu'adh, wallahi I have hubb for you. Imagine the Prophet saying: Allahu Akbar, I have hubb for you. Hibbuka ya Mu'adh ya Allah! And then, because of that hubb, I say this to you — on account of that love that the Prophet had for Mu'adh, he gives him nasiha, he gives him a word of wisdom, he teaches him. He says to him: do not forget after every salah to implore Allah by saying: O Allah, help me be in dhikr of You, help me be in shukr of You, help me be one who worships You in the most beautiful way.

Part of that — help me be grateful — because sometimes some of us don't know how to be grateful. Some of us know how to be very ungrateful and unthankful, but we don't know how to be grateful. And sometimes we could, my dear brothers and sisters, invalidate our goodness by being deliberately and ignorantly ungrateful. So: Ya Allah, help me, teach me to be grateful to You. I want to be grateful to You, but maybe my nafs is too inflated, too big; Shaytan's impact upon me is too strong; or maybe I don't know enough. Ya Rabbi, please help me. And if we are like that, Allah will help us, Allah will change us.

Remember Death, Make Du'a, and Be Grateful

He said, the Prophet, in a discourse — to what many ulama related:

(Related by various scholars of hadith in books of adab and raqaiq)

Remember death — it will occupy you from everything besides it. And I advise you to be very frequently in du'a. Implore Allah. Al-du'a, al-du'a ya ibad Allah. Because He said to him: you do not know when Allah will answer your du'a. In other words, don't stop. You don't know which du'a and when Allah will answer the du'a — do not stop. You do not know the schedule of Allah. He has His own schedule. If you stop, you stop probably at the right time when it was meant for you to be answered. And thirdly: be very grateful to Allah.

Gratefulness is increase. As Allah says: if you are grateful, I shall increase you. If you are ungrateful, My punishment is severe.

The Prophet's Du'a for Gratitude and Dhikr

The Prophet used to say also:

He used to say: Ya Allah, make me one who reveres and holds in highest esteem gratefulness to You — a'zham shukrak — and that I am one who is very frequently in Your dhikr. Make me one who is very frequently in Your dhikr. And make me one who follows Your nasiha, Your admonition, Your advice to me. And make me one who preserves and guards Your wasiyya, Your will for me — what You want from me. Make me one who preserves that and who guards that.

The Morning Du'a of Gratitude

And he teaches us to say every morning and every evening — in the morning to say:

Ya Allah, whatever this morning I am enjoying of favours, or any creature in Your creation is enjoying of favours — it is only from You, and You alone. My heart should know that, my qalb acknowledges that, and consequently has hubb and leans towards Allah — has hubb for Allah. That is being grateful to Allah by our qalb. And then my tongue utters the words of hamd and thana and praise of Allah, while my qalb is in that true sincere state of acknowledging that all favours are from You — no matter how my efforts were, no matter how hard I think I worked and how intelligent I think I am, my heart knows that it is from Allah. My intelligence is His gift. My hard work is His gift. And then with that attitude I say الحمد لله — with that qalb I say Alhamdulillah, wal-shukru lillah.

Dawud's Du'a That Exhausted the Angels

It is said that Sayyiduna Dawud once said in his du'a:

O Allah, all praise is due to You in a way that the nobility of Your countenance is worthy of, and the dignity of Your majesty is worthy of. For that, it is said that Allah revealed to him: O Dawud — and He said — you exhausted the angels. Because he said it from heart, he meant that, and felt that, and knew that, and saw that — and the tongue expressed that. And the word of this, the Mala'ikah had a hard time assigning a sufficient word for it. It is so beautiful, it is the saying of Dawud.

Gratitude is of the Heart, Tongue, and Limbs

Gratefulness, my dear brothers and sisters, is from the qalb as we said — and the tongue, and the use of our senses: of our eyes, of our tongues, of our ears, of our hands, of our legs, of our sexual drives, of our food drives, of our intelligence, of our abilities, of our resources, of our families. We use all of those in ways He loves — not against Him. We don't use what He gives us against Him. That is treacherous. When a human being is good to us and we betray them — that is treacherous. Allah's ni'mah are uncountable — when we use them against Him, that is ungrateful, that is treacherous. We should strive to use them in the way He loves. That is being grateful.

So when Allah says, O family of Dawud, act in gratefulness — it is said that Sayyiduna Dawud said: Ya Rabbi, how can I be grateful to You, when You are the one who blessed me, then You gave me the gratitude for the blessing, then You gave me the blessing after the blessing? So the blessing is from You and the gratitude is from You — so how can I be grateful to You?

Allahu Akbar! And when Allah imposed on the family of Dawud to be grateful to Him, it is said that Dawud said: Ya Allah, how can I bear it — how can I have the ability to be grateful to You — when, first, all the ni'mah are from You; and then You enrich me by being grateful to You, You make me grateful to You; and then after that You increase me in favours one after the other? So the ni'mah, the favours, are from You — and the shukr, the gratefulness, is from You. How can I then be grateful to You? Allah, it is said, said to him: now you have known Me, O Dawud. Now you have known Me, O Dawud.

Counting the Blessings You Already Have

A man came to a salih and said to him: I am poor, I am destitute. Then he said to him — that righteous wali, in an indirect way — would you give up your sight if I gave you a hundred thousand in those days, golden coins? He says: no. He says: what about your hands — would you give them up if I gave you a hundred thousand more? He says: no. How about your feet — would you give them up if I gave you a hundred thousand more? He said: no. And he continued to enumerate the favours of Allah upon him, and he says: no, no, no. And he says: O man, I see that you have in your accounts hundreds of thousands — and you are still complaining that you don't have money? SubhanAllah, SubhanAllah.

The Faqir Who is Patient vs. the Ghani Who is Grateful

To be grateful for the ni'mah of Allah is one of the most difficult ibadat to accomplish — to the extent that our ulama, rahimahullah ta'ala, have differed as to who is better with Allah: when it comes to the ni'mah of wealth only, who is better with Allah — a person who is faqir but patient, or a person who is wealthy but grateful? Some ulama say the first, and some ulama say the second. And to see that the ni'mah of shukr — even with wealth and power, if it exists — one could be a wali of Allah just as a person who does not have, and who is sabir lillahi, could be a wali from the awliya of Allah, along with tawheed of Allah.

The Poor Companions and the Race for Good Deeds

At this point, a group of poor people from the Ansar came to the Prophet in the well-established hadith, and said — and look how they wanted to compete for khayr: Ya Rasulullah, the rich of our brothers from the Ansar, from those companions — they are better than us with Allah, they are nearer to Allah. They said: the rich are nearer to Allah than we the poor. Why? Because they do what we do — alhamdulillah, salah, sawm, zakah, hajj — and because they have wealth, they free slaves, they buy slaves from those who owe them and then free them and liberate them for the sake of Allah, and they give sadaqah. We can't do that. So they are better than us because they are rich.

So he said: shall I teach you something — if you do it, you will race with them? What is it, Ya Rasulullah? Dhikr of Allah after every salah — yes, tasbih, wal-hamd, and so on, after every salah. Not everybody can do that. He said: you do that and you will reach them, because you don't have — but you can do that.

Now look at this beautiful thing: when the rich people of the Ansar heard that — guess what they started doing too? Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! And then the poor Ansar came back to the Prophet and said: Ya Rasulullah, this is the situation now — they are doing the same! We can't race with them.

Then after that he said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 843; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 595)

The favours of Allah — He gives them to whom He pleases. And therefore the ulama, other ulama, said: who is better — the faqir al-sabir or the ghani al-shakir? They said — that other group of ulama — neither is better just for that. If both of them have the fullness of that quality — of being sabir in faqr, patient in poverty; and the other one having the fullness of being grateful in wealth — then the best of them is not because he is faqir or sabir, or because he is ghani or shakir. And since they both are special, then the one who does more nafilah — nafilah of itq, of liberating slaves; nafilah of charity; nafilah of dhikr; nafilah of salah; nafilah of forgiveness; nafilah of goodness; nafilah of patience — the one who does more of that is better with Allah.

Closing Du'a

Ya Allah, let hope in our hearts for You never cease. Ya Allah, let desire for You in our hearts never cease. Ya Allah, let us always strive to cleanse our hearts so that we also become beloved to You — so that we are not of those that You seek to be beloved to them and they seek to be hated to You. Help us always be beloved to You. Ya Rabb al-Alamin. Ya Arham al-Rahimin.

O servants of Allah, indeed Allah commands justice, excellence, and giving to relatives, and He forbids immorality, wrongdoing, and oppression. He admonishes you so that you may be reminded. Rise now to your prayer — may Allah have mercy upon you.