2015-05-01 - Friday Prayer - Sheikh Mokhtar Maghroui

Opening — Adhan & Welcome

And sister Hadi Amos, so please make du'a for them inshallah. JazakAllah khair, Assalamu alaikum.

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Come to success. Allah is the greatest. There is no god but Allah.

Introduction — The Spirit of Nasiha

Who, when they hear the words of advice, the words of admonition, the words of nasiha, they follow the best of it. They follow the best of it.

Those who do that, indeed it is a sign that Allah has shown them guidance, has guided them, and it is those who do that who are indeed people of lubb, people of internal maturity and internal wisdom.

And on that basis, as also Rasulullah ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 95)

Deen is nasiha. It is sincere advice. With that spirit, I remind myself first — nasiha to me — and then nasiha to my brothers and sisters today.

First Advice — Living Through the Lens of Tawheed

That begins with first: Allah created me and you, created us in this world out of His rahmah, out of His merciful love, and wants us to return to Him, to return home in rahmah, in love, in merciful love. And therefore, we live in this life, and advice number one — I and you, especially as those who declare surrender and loving surrender to Allah with hearts and minds and souls and spirits — that we live this life with the lens of tawheed.

With the lens of tawheed. This world and what's in it, including ourselves, including the way we speak, and what we speak, and when we speak, including the way we act, and when we act, and how we act — in privacy and in public, in personal relationships and in social relationships, in prosperity and in adversity — that we all do that with the lens of tawheed of Allah. That we view the world through the heart, in a state of tawheed of Allah.

Tawheed of Allah — not only intellectually, and academically, and rationally, that the names of Allah, and the attributes of Allah, and the lordship of Allah, and the godship of Allah, are unique, and only to Him. Not only that, but that I and you live internally that meaning of tawheed. That I continuously live in this world, and view the world, and screen the world, and accept or refuse what's in the world, through the screen and the lens of tawheed of Allah.

That I should, as a consequence of that, be always in a state of reverence — ta'zeem — I should always be in a sense of reverence of Allah, of love for Allah, of fear from Allah, of obedience consequently to Allah, of a state in which I am reverent of Allah, all the time, all the time. Nothing comes inside of me except through the screen of tawheed. Nothing comes outside of me except through the screen of tawheed.

What comes to me — does Allah love? Does Allah condone? Is Allah pleased with it? How does that compare to what I like and I dislike, and I agree with and I disagree with — the lens of tawheed of Allah. And not only that: when things happen to me, good or bad, I should also see that through the lens of tawheed.

I should not be a person who is happy only when things go my way, and I say alhamdulillah — and that's good of course — but when things go bad, I don't see Allah. I see only me, and the means, and the resources, and the cause, and the fact, and I behave in ways that are inconsistent with my awareness of Allah. Or vice versa: sometimes some of us, when we are well-to-do and things go well, then we don't see Allah at all. And when things are hard and difficult, then we see Allah, and we turn to Allah.

No. The lens of tawheed requires that whether in prosperity or in adversity, I am aware of Allah. Tawheed. All the time — wahidun wahidun wahid. All the time, whether what happens to me is good or bad, I must look at that through the lens of tawheed.

In addition — as I said first — the lens of tawheed requires that I be always in a condition of ta'zim and ijlal and tawqeer from Allah and for His commands and His prohibitions. That's part of that tawheed.

And when things go well, or not so well — socially, family-wise, financially, health-wise — all conditions, sagheeratan wa kabiratan, minimal or major, I should always look at that through the lens of tawheed of Allah. Not disconnected from that. When I'm at work, I must do my work — even if it is engineering work or religious work — with the lens of tawheed, the lens of awareness of Allah. Whether I'm in the masjid or I am in the market, in the suq, I must do what I do, say what I say, feel what I feel, through the lens of tawheed of Allah.

Allah has always been — always, from eternity to eternity. Always. There is not a fraction of a tenth to the power of minus forty-five of a second where Allah is not, or is not aware of us. We must always be that way. This is tawheed, all the time, my dear brothers and sisters.

Second Advice — Caring for the Ruh Over the Body

Second: we view the world, as I said, through the lens of tawheed. The world is what we view it like. The world is — depending on the lens we have inside — either the lens of tawheed, or the lens of self, of nafs.

Secondly, Allah created us as human beings. And He created us with a ruh — a soul, a spirit — and a body, which is made of matter. And just like this earth in which we are as human beings is mostly water — four-fifths of it is water — the human body, most of it physically even, is water. And water comes from where? From the heavens, from up. And earth is from earth, and minerals are from earth. And water is from the heavens. Even then, it is saying to you and to me that I and you are made more of heavenly stuff than of earthly stuff. Even that.

Second: our ruh, our soul, the ruh that animates our bodies — it is not matter, it is not subject to time as matter is subject to time. It is timeless, it is boundless in time, whereas matter is time-bound. The ruh is what makes me a human being. The body will disintegrate, the body will rot, the soul will remain. The soul will remain. That simply means that I must care more for my soul than for my body.

Allah said to the angels to prostrate to the human being, Adam — not when He completed the creation of the human being as a physical body, but only after He breathed into the human body of His spirit — wa ta'ala Allahu 'an al-ashbah wal-amthal. Only then, He said to the angels, prostrate yourselves to Adam:

What makes us human beings is a ruh. And therefore, my dear brothers and sisters — in this second piece of advice — I must mind more my soul than my body, which however we do the opposite of. I must be more caring for my soul, my ruh, than my body. That's the balance. The balance is not to go full throttle material, but the balance is to give more weight to the ruh than to the body. The body rots, the soul remains. We are human beings on account of this ruh.

We must not suffocate and strangulate the ruh by feeding and overfeeding matter — the body inside of us — at the expense of our ruh. Therefore, not only legitimately and in a moderate way must we eat and drink and so on moderately, but we must feed our ruh more than we feed our physical bodies. Salah, with focus; tilawatul Quran; dhikr Allah; du'a; fasting; eating less. All of these are examples of mending and caring for our souls.

More importantly than that, mending our souls is caring for our souls by developing and strengthening the muscles of the soul, instead of only strengthening the muscles of the body. The muscles of the soul are the akhlaaq — the character of the human being, the khulq of the human being. Al-haya' as a khulq — to develop haya', bashfulness, as a khulq; to develop humility, humbleness, goodness, virtue in general, forbearance, patience, thankfulness, gratefulness — instead of developing arrogance and delusion and ostentation and envy and jealousy. We must develop the ruh by developing the beautiful characteristics of the ruh, of the qalb, instead of doing the opposite.

I must do that regularly as I every day care for my body. I want to make sure that my body is healthy, and even muscular and athletic, and with a certain shape and certain form. So my ruh requires that I mind it, I care for it, so that it is beautiful in that spiritual and athletic way. My akhlaaq — I must strive every day towards that, for that's what ultimately counts.

And I am a human being that needs to develop hubb, mahabbah, for Allah. That's the need for the ruh — to develop mahabbah, love for Allah, for Rasulullah ﷺ, to develop reverence and awareness of Allah and of the realm, the existence, and the world beyond this one. The dimension — the hyper dimension — of beyond this world, of akhira, of barzakh. I should with my heart — not only intellectually — strive to be connected to that world. That's the world the ruh belongs to and will return to.

And we will all return to this. Everyone knows — the intelligent and not so intelligent — that this world is transient. Everybody dies, everybody grows old, and everybody rots under the ground. What remains is the ruh:

And the ruh shall return to Allah until the time when both ruh and body are resurrected, by the permission of Allah. The human being is human on account of this ruh and the awareness of the ruh with the realm of the beyond.

Al-Insan and the Meaning of Uns

My dear brothers and sisters:

The human being is human — and the Arabic word is insan. And insan has also a root of uns — meaning to feel solace and peace inside with Allah. If I do not find uns — and that's the ruh's realm, the soul's realm — if I do not find uns in my ruh, in my qalb, with Allah, in moments of love or even amongst people where my qalb is in uns with Allah — if I do not know that, if I do not find that, I am in reality not a true insan yet. When we were in Jannah, we were in uns with Allah. That was the insan. And when we left Jannah, we lost our uns and we have to strive for it again. And that's the realm of the ruh.

Wahshah — the opposite of uns — is restlessness inside, insecurity inside, anxieties inside, anger inside, and all those terrible feelings for which most people think they need to go to a psychiatrist. And wahshah, in the Arabic language interestingly, comes from the same root as the opposite of uns — and that is wahsh. And wahsh is a beast in Arabic. We are in wahshah when we are inside a beast, a shaytan. We are afraid to be alone with the beast. So we are in wahshah because the inside of me is wahsh. Why? Because I have forsaken my ruh for so long. I have not cared for my ruh for so long. I have as a human being unfortunately given more weight — excessively more weight — to the body and not to the ruh.

Third Advice — Ukhuwwah, Love, and Unity as Fruits of Tawheed

Thirdly, as a consequence — my dear brothers and sisters — and only when the qalb would be led to such awareness and the spiritual dimension that Allah made mandatory upon us, the next thing will become easier for us. As a practical consequence of that, Muslims first — those who surrender lovingly to Allah — if we do, there will be inherently and automatically and immediately ukhuwwah and mawaddah and mahabbah and wahdah between them. There will consequently be ukhuwwah — brotherhood — and love and unity.

When the hearts are in the same place — may Allah be exalted from analogies — when the hearts are in the same place, then they are in unison, they are the same, and consequently brotherhood, and consequently mahabbah and mawaddah, and consequently unity. But when the qalb is deficient, when the qalb lacks that tawheed and lacks that proper ratio of soul to body, then that will not be there, or it will be very mediocre.

As some ulama say:

Islam was built upon two words — the word of tawheed and the tawheed of the word. The word of tawheed and the unity of our word — that we are united in tawheed, and that tawheed will unite us physically, socially, psychologically, and spiritually. That's the consequence and the fruit of the first two pieces of advice I mentioned to you, reminding first myself and then you, my dear brothers and sisters.

Allah in this world — and most importantly, happy in the hereafter — one leads to the other. The happiness that He wants from us is not the happiness of the fool, is not the happiness and the joy of a criminal, is not the joy of a beast or of a hyena or of a cow — but the happiness most noble and the freedom most noble, the happiness and freedom of the righteous, the happiness and freedom of even the angels.

I say this and I ask forgiveness of Allah for me and for you, so ask forgiveness of Him. Good for those who ask forgiveness. Please seek the forgiveness of Allah. What an excellent abode awaits those who sincerely seek forgiveness from Allah.

Second Part of the Khutbah — Allah Al-Kafi

Thanks to Allah, and enough thanks to Allah.

Allah is the sufficer of all needs. And the last piece of advice for today — in light of all of this — let us never forget, and hope to internalize in light of the tawheed I mentioned earlier, to internalize the name of Allah: Al-Kafi. Al-Kafi — the Sufficer of all needs.

Because in this dunya, the human being seeks wealth, seeks power — sometimes naturally and in legitimate ways, and often times in illegitimate ways. We seek wealth and we seek power. But those of us who do that have not internalized Al-Kafi. They will be sources of devastation for humanity, whether we claim to be Muslims or others. Because only Allah is Al-Kafi. If inside me I seek wealth and power to satisfy something inside me —

If I seek to have sufficiency through the pursuit — and often times the obstinate, obsessive pursuit — of wealth and power, even legitimately, and I will have kifayah, kifayah — enough, enough, enough — whether I am a person who does that in simple ways or does that through digging for oil as a resource or whatever — I will never have enough. Because if I seek sufficiency — kifayah — outside of Allah, in a world unaware of Allah, because His name is also Al-Kafi — the Sufficer of needs — if I do whatever I do disjointed from this haqiqa, from this reality, I will never have enough.

And if I will never have enough, what does it mean? I will keep doing more and more. And if I do more and more, I will abuse the resources — all resources: physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, you name them. I will abuse even spiritually. The Sufficer is wahid. Al-Kafi is wahid — is Allah. And if we disconnect ourselves from that:

I will violate the norms of moderation. I will violate the balance in nature. I will violate the balance inside of me. I will violate the balance in the family, in the community, in the world.

Keep in mind, my dear brothers and sisters — may Allah help us to keep in mind and in heart — this name: Al-Kafi, Al-Kafi, Al-Kafi. Allah is Al-Kafi. If He does not instill kafa' — sufficiency — inside of me, I will never have enough, even if I have everything I can have at all levels — not only physical and material, even intellectual and spiritual. If I do not have Al-Kafi inside of me, I will never have enough. And that is a recipe for disaster.

Salawat & Du'a

Closing Ayah & Reminder

Remember Allah and He will remember you. Come to your prayer — may Allah have mercy upon you.

The Prayer — Iqamah & Salah

Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Come to prayer. Come to success. The prayer has been established. The prayer has been established. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. There is no god but Allah.

There is no god but Allah, alone, without any partner. To Him belongs all sovereignty and all praise, and He is over all things capable. Straighten your lines, please fill in the gaps, straighten the lines, and guard your hearts.

Surah Al-Fatihah

Surah Al-Jumu'ah (62:9–11)

Surah Al-Munafiqun (63:9–11)

After the Prayer — Tasleem & Closing

Astaghfirullah. Astaghfirullah. Astaghfirullah.

Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Announcement — Nepal Earthquake

Dear brothers and sisters, over 6,000 people are confirmed dead in Nepal, and the crisis has just started.