2015 09 18 Friday Prayer Sheikh Mokhtar Maghroui

The Days of Dhul-Hijjah: A Time for Reflection

اللهم اجعلنا منهم. Ameen.

My dear brothers and sisters, these are the days of Dhul-Hijjah. The first days of Dhul-Hijjah — as we have reminded one another of their virtue, of their special character as Allah Azza wa Jal willed that to be — as another gift for us in time, to take advantage of, to draw nearer to Him Azza wa Jal, and to cleanse and to purge our minds and hearts and souls and spirits and words and deeds from that which keeps us distant and remote and away from Him Subhanahu wa ta'ala, and therefore miserable in this dunya and in akhira.

During these ten days I elected today to share with you — to remind myself and then you — to share with you something that is very important to remember. And I am sure you all have heard, have known about it, but this is a reminder.

Life Is Between Ups and Downs

First, that in this dunya and in this life we always are between ups and downs. Everyone — individually and collectively — we are between ups and downs, between high tides and low tides in every aspect of life: emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, academically, socially, economically, financially, family life, personal life — ease, hardship, prosperity, adversity — all sorts of ups and downs and high tides and low tides.

Even sometimes in our ability to understand we have ups and downs, in our ability to comprehend, in our ability to express ourselves. Sometimes we do it so beautifully, sometimes we seem to be very ignorant. We have ups and downs in every aspect of life, and we are therefore between sabr and shukr — between an expression of patience or striving to be patient, and an expression of gratitude and thankfulness to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.

We are always — and we must always be — between sabr and shukr, on account of the fact that we are always in high or low tides in our lives, my dear brothers and sisters.

Life is never, never without afflictions, never without trials, never without temptations, never without challenges at every aspect of life. Never think — never think — no matter what the condition in which you are or we are, that this lasts. Never think that way. If you are in a high tide, be very careful to continue to be grateful, to continue to hold the rope against Shaytan pulling you away in those moments when things are high and good — because then, when we are in that high tide, we let loose and we forget and we do wrong. Or when we are in a low tide, let us not forget — we must not forget — to strive to be composed and patient and not to do the wrong things or to express the wrong things.

Whether those challenges — I repeat — are at home or at work, socially, collectively, individually: health, finance, politics, intellect, ideology — all sorts of challenges, my dear sisters and brothers.

The Quranic Reality of Trial

Allah Azza wa Jal says:

Do people think we are going to let them say "we believe" without being subjected to trials? Without being tested? For we have done that to those before them. And therefore Allah has ever known — past and in eternity — those who are true and those who are not true in their claims.

And we will try you with sharr — with hardships and challenges and difficulties and evil around you and in you — and with virtue and goodness and ease and prosperity and wellness around you and in you, and do remember with that, that you will return to Us. And that means it depends on how we respond to that — whether we respond in the right way or in the wrong way — we will return to Allah Azza wa Jal to be held to account for the way we respond to the fitan.

And fitan and fitan and fitan — they never stop. They never stop. Sometimes we tend to be aware of the fitan outside of us, about others, and we are not aware of the fitan about us and inside of us.

The intellectual fitan we are subjected to in the world all the time — and nowadays to choices intellectually and ideologically and culturally: trials and temptations and afflictions intellectual and philosophical and ideological and cultural and economic and financial and social and psychological and moral and spiritual and religious and physical — subjected to all of those. Some of them to the very lowest, very tempting, very calamitous, very trying — and we seem to lose ourselves in that at the expense of being responsible and holding fast to our faith and to our virtues and to our moral values. And we give those up and we intellectualize that and we legitimize that to ourselves. They will be there.

The Hadith of Hudhayfa: The Two Hearts

Rasool Allah ﷺ and the messengers and the prophets before have always warned their own people and humanity about this reality. And Rasool Allah ﷺ said — my dear brothers and sisters, and this is a reminder — he said to his companions. And Sayyiduna Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, once asked the companions: who of you remembers what Rasool Allah ﷺ said about fitan? All sorts of fitan. Some started to say: "Oh, you mean fitan in the family life, fitan in economic life, in prosperity?" He said, "No — those are all fitan, and the kaffarah for those is salah and siyam and sadaqah and so on." He said, "No, that's not what I mean."

Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman was there and he knew what he meant — Sahibu sirri Rasool Allah ﷺ. And he said, "Hiya, Amir al-Mu'minin" — and he tells him what he heard:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 231)

Tribulations, trials, temptations, afflictions — challenges of all sorts that I have mentioned, at different levels of gravity — the hearts, he said, the hearts when they are exposed to fitan, one after the other, one after the other — just like the maker or the holder of a straw mat takes one stick after the other, one stick or one straw after the other. When he places one, the next one comes. When he fixes the one, the next one comes. When he fixes the one, the next one comes. Stick by stick, straw by straw, stripe by stripe — one after the other.

The First Heart: White and Pure

As the hearts are exposed to these incessant waves of fitan — from within and without — there are some hearts that will soak it in, absorb it, drink of it, and accept it in view of their own nature. Those hearts, as we shall see in a moment, will be stained with a dark spot with every fitna. And if the other heart — another heart — stands fast and rejects it, ardaha, ankaraha — turns it away, rejects it — then that heart will be granted a bright spot in it, until the hearts, fitna upon fitna, trial upon trial, become of two categories.

One heart: clean — abyadhu mithla al-safa — brilliant, glowing, like a smooth solid bubble. In other words, anything that falls on it does not remain — it is rejected, it falls away. Solid, smooth — whatever falls upon it falls down; it does not hold fast, it does not find root, it does not find food, it goes away. That is the secure heart, the heart in safety. And yet that heart, being tried — by the grace of Allah — la tadhurruhu fitnatun ma daamati al-samawatu wal-ard: never shall such a heart be detrimentally affected by fitna. That heart remains in faith, remains in yaqeen — in certitude — remains in uprightness, remains in morality, remains in moderation and balance. Remains special. The fitan do not do to it what they do to the other heart.

The Second Heart: Dark and Inverted

And the second heart is the heart that will be stained and darkened by those fitan — ugly, ugly in color — stained dark. When someone's face, ya Latif, is filled with evil — the heart, see, that is murbad — whatever the complexion may be, the qalb will be like that, on account of accepting the fitna. Because when this qalb — when fitna comes upon it as a challenge — this qalb, on account of what is in it of hawa, of personal inclinations and preferences and priorities — not what Allah Azza wa Jal prioritizes — not like that solid form that stands against and rejects them — the other one receives them, soaks them in, absorbs them, and it becomes dark and ugly.

Kal-kuzi mujakhkhiyan — like a bowl or a glass that is tilted or inverted upside down — which means nothing that is said or shown or expressed to that heart of virtue, of khair, remains. It does not accept it. It is like a bowl or a jar or a glass that is tilted upside down — nothing good remains in it. It does not accept it. That heart no longer recognizes virtue and goodness and logic and balance and haqq and batil. It does not — wa la yunkiru munkaran — nor does it any longer reject that which is rejected by Allah Azza wa Jal, whether in an aqeedah way or in a moral and behavioral way.

Illa ma ushriba min hawa — except that which that heart has absorbed and accepted to absorb on account of its hawa — what it has inside of it. Not on account of Allah's merciful love and expressions of Allah's words inside, but on account of the heart and what it wants. That heart, its hawa — it is full with that. And that's the only thing, the only dictionary. And the word is in that qalb: if it is not in that dictionary of hawa, it is not accepted.

What Makes Hearts Like This

Not only do we know that this has happened and continues to happen and will happen — may Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala save us — we ask Allah Azza wa Jal to protect us in these times and in this world against our own selves, against our hawa, against our choices. And we plead to Him to choose for us, not to let us choose for ourselves except what He chooses Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we need to know what makes hearts like that, in ways that are common to us to understand.

First: The Weight of Sins

Well, first of all, my dear brothers and sisters — as you all know, and should know, and I remind you and myself — kathratu al-dhunub: sins. The more we indulge in sins, the more our hearts become like that — aswada murbaddan. The more we indulge in sins — physical, external, or emotional, psychological, internal — the more we do that, the more our hearts become prone to fitan. In other words, they weaken. They do not solidify. Dhunub weakens the resolve of the heart to be good and to be patient and to be merciful and to be caring and to be loving and to be just and to be balanced and to be moderate and to be kind and to be benevolent and to be grateful and to be patient. Dhunub makes that worse.

And in general, al-hawa — as the text teaches — our personal whims and our personal subjective priorities and choices and likes and dislikes at every level — those make it that way. And when fitan I am exposed to, then my heart will be that second one.

Second: The Sick and the Hard Heart

Secondly, Allah Azza wa Jal says in the Quran, as He speaks of Shaytan injecting fitan into hearts — there are fitan and Shaytan knows what's available to inject into our hearts, to suggest, to throw here and there — and it's up to you to receive or not to receive it. It's up to you. Allah says in the Quran about those types of Shaytanic delusions and temptations and suggestions:

That Allah Azza wa Jal — by His will and His creative will and His mashi'a and His control of the events in space and time in the universe that we know and believe — He Azza wa Jal allows Shaytan to do that as a fitna. And it will be a fitna — detrimentally tempting — to that heart that is sick. Not every heart. The heart that is sick. And second, He said, the heart that is hard — wal-qasiyati qulubuhum — and those whose hearts are hard.

Then in life — in the up times and the low times, in adversities and prosperities, in the challenges of the world — those hearts are the ones that will be detrimentally affected. The hard heart — qalbun qasin — rude, crude, harsh, hard, impolite, ruthless, cruel — that heart, man or woman, is not only detrimental to itself; it is detrimental to society, to relatives, to neighbors, to mother, to father, to husband, to wife, to children, to Muslims, to all. And that's where it begins, my dear brothers and sisters.

Third: Excessive Talk Without the Remembrance of Allah

What makes a heart hard? Many things — on one level, sins, external or internal, major or minor, especially without sincere tawbah to Allah Azza wa Jal. And one thing I close with — and I caution you and myself:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2411)

Beware of talking a lot — whispering, talking, chatting — whenever we meet. And most of us, most of the time when we talk, it is all generally negative or useless. Beware of much talk without dhikr of Allah Azza wa Jal. He said — the doctor said — without dhikr of Allah Azza wa Jal, for much talk without dhikr of Allah Azza wa Jal hardens the heart, makes the heart qasi — hard, merciless, cruel. And he said the most distant of people from Allah Azza wa Jal are the ones with hearts that are hard.

I say this and I ask Allah for forgiveness for me and for you. So ask forgiveness — seek the forgiveness of Allah Azza wa Jal, He is loving, merciful, and forgiving.

Second Part of the Khutbah

Alhamdulillah wa kafa, wa sallallahu ala ibadihi alladhina astafa.

May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala grant rahma to the father of our dear brother Qasim in Tunisia, and the young boy who passed away, and those who are in any type of trials and tribulations — especially all of us who are in trials and tribulations inside of us, in our faith, in our commitment to morality and values. We are all tried, we are all tempted.

Ya Allah, help us. Ya Allah, don't leave us to ourselves. Ya Allah, rescue us. Ya Allah, rescue us. Help us live a life in Your obedience — voluntarily, lovingly — until the moment we meet You. And let the moment we meet You be the most beautiful and the happiest moment in our lives.

Ibadallah, innallaha ya'muru bil-'adli wal-ihsani wa ita'i dhil-qurba wa yanha 'anil-fahsha'i wal-munkari wal-baghi — ya'ibukum la'allakum tadhakkaroon. Wadhkurullaha yadhkurkum.