2014-12-12 - Friday Khutbah - Tauheed, Imaan & Haya

Tawheed, Imaan & Haya

Not only through our tongues do we disengage — through our hearts — and not only through our minds philosophically and intellectually, but in our hearts experientially and emotionally, we disengage from anything other than Allah Azzawajal. And that is Tawheed. That is the act of declaration and the act of confirmation of the Oneness of Allah Azzawajal inside of us.

Until there remains in our hearts no other than Allah Azzawajal. And when we say "no other," we mean everything besides Allah Azzawajal that is created — including colors and signs, not only physical entities, including the self. Everything. That is the Tawheed, that is the Ikhlas al-Tawheed of Allah. That includes also my priorities, my preferences, my sympathies, my antipathies, my likes, my dislikes — that includes all of that. Everything besides Allah is Makhluq, is created.

Tawheed — Allah Azzawajal — to remove everything, everything except Allah Azzawajal. The beautiful fruit of that which is intended by Allah Azzawajal for us to pursue — and if you will, an image of that Tawheed, an assessment of that Tawheed, a living sign, a vital sign of that Tawheed — is the next thing: it changes our hearts, it changes the image inside of us. We would say in the Arabic language it changes our Khuluq. Our Khuluq is what we are inside.

As we say in the Arabic language, our khalq would be our external attributes, and therefore our khuluq are our internal attributes, our internal image. Tawheed would naturally beautify our khuluq inside. We become beautiful — if Allah is in our qalb, for Allah is beautiful, and our khuluq would become beautiful. We develop characteristics that are beautiful.

And therefore, the less beauty of khuluq we have, the less real, experiential, mukhlis Tawheed we have in our khuluq — because the fruit of Tawheed that is purely for Allah is the beauty of khuluq. Beautiful khuluq is a natural, immediate, well-established, divinely-granted fruit of Tawheed of Allah.

Allah's Love for the Repentant and the Pure

And thus Allah says: Allah loves the repentant and loves the pure. Allah loves. So those who are very frequently in tawbah — and tawbah is a state of the heart, not merely a tip-of-the-tongue expression. Tawbah is when the heart returns to Allah emotionally and experientially, not only verbally, not only intellectually.

Allah has hubb — love — for those who are intensely in tawbah to Allah. And Allah has hubb — love — and He repeats the word yuhibbu — He has love for those who are mutatahirun, those who purge and cleanse themselves. That is their khuluq: they cleanse their khuluq from shirk, the ultimate sin, and then they cleanse their khuluq from the consequences of the mediocrity of Tawheed, meaning impotent akhlaq, su'ul khuluq.

The Prophet ﷺ — The King of Beautiful Khuluq

Allah consequently says to us in the Quran that the one He sent to us — the ultimate messenger, Sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam, Khatam al-Anbiya' wal-Mursalin, Khalilullah, Habibullah — Allah describes him as the ultimate sovereign of khuluq on earth:

And you are sitting upon the throne of momentous and great khuluq. Allah describes the Rasool in this metaphor as the king of beautiful khuluq.

And this Rasool, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, asserts that his mission within that Tawheed is to help us achieve the most beautiful condition of khuluq:

(Musnad al-Bazzar; also referenced in al-Bayhaqi, Shu'ab al-Iman, Hadith 7977)

"The only reason I was sent is in order to accomplish the most beautiful ways of akhlaq." Tawheed is transformative, is reformative. If I say La ilaha illallah and I am still on a path — alhamdulillah — and I have not yet reached the level in which, in my qalb, with every beat of the heart, I am aware of what Allah loves and does not love — out of their hubb for Allah, out of their tajreed in their qalb for Allah — that is the goal.

Innama bu'ithtu li utammima makarimal akhlaq. So if I or you, my dear brothers and sisters, as we observe ourselves in our conduct, find ourselves — internally and consequently externally — lacking in beauty of conduct, then I am lacking in the practical mission of Rasulullah, peace be upon him and his family.

The Station of Beautiful Khuluq on the Day of Judgement

He also said, peace be upon him and his family, giving us glad tidings — that those who will be next to him in station on the Day of Judgement in Paradise are those who in this life have the most beautiful khuluq. And he also said, peace be upon him and his family, that if a servant fulfills his duty with a beautiful khuluq, it reaches the degree of the fasting person who stands up in prayer all night. A beautiful khuluq in the way we are inside, and in the way we conduct ourselves consequently with the creation of Allah — at home, at work, in the streets, alone, in public, in the masjid, at school, in prosperity and in adversity.

And at the same time, he informs us that the absence of beautiful khuluq — by the presence of wrong khuluq — would spoil our deeds. He said, peace be upon him:

(Referenced in al-Bayhaqi, Shu'ab al-Iman)

That bad khuluq spoils good deeds — salah, dhikr, sadaqah, hajj, umrah, salat al-nabi — all these beautiful deeds are spoiled by bad khuluq. How we conduct ourselves with one another: adab or lack of adab, kindness or roughness, gentleness or toughness and ruthlessness, consideration or lack of consideration, haya or lack of haya, benevolence or demanding our rights harshly.

He says, peace be upon him, that a bad khuluq spoils good deeds like vinegar spoils honey. Honey is beautiful and sweet, and then we put vinegar in it — that is the bad khuluq — and it will spoil the sweetness of worship. The sweetness of good deeds is spoiled by bad khuluq.

My dear brothers and sisters, as we seek Allah's muhabbah, as we seek Allah's nearness, as we seek Jannah, as we seek to be beautiful human beings — we must be very careful about not spoiling our deeds. We must be very careful about watching what we see inside and how we express that outside. Because an improper and wrong external expression — especially when done with lack of repentance and when done with stubbornness and aggressiveness — would spoil our deeds, if we care about our deeds.

Haya — The Defining Characteristic of Islam

Of all the beautiful khuluq in our deen — our faith, our way of life — the one that our deen both emphasizes most is called al-Haya'. Haya', by the way, in my opinion has no word to translate it. It is a very special word in the Arabic language. People translate it as bashfulness, shyness, timidity in a positive sense — but none of those fully identifies haya'. All of those are elements of haya'.

Rasulullah, peace be upon him, says:

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4182; also Muwatta Malik)

Every faith, every way of life has a khuluq — a khuluq here meaning, in this context, an identifying characteristic, a core value of this way of life, the defining characteristic of a religion. Whatever that way of life may be, he says: the khuluq of Islam is haya'. In other words, if a person is wearing the garment of haya' — لِبَاسُ الْحَيَاءِ — then that person can be seen, by those who see with their hearts, as a Muslim. But if a person amongst us is lacking haya', then that person is identified as lacking Islam to that extent.

And also Rasulullah, Sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, said:

(Al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak; al-Bayhaqi, Shu'ab al-Iman)

Faith itself — Iman — and haya' have been joined together by the decree of Allah. If one of them is lifted, then the other one is lifted. Allahu Akbar! I have professed to be a Muslim. If I let haya' leave my heart, then some of my iman is lifted from me — it leaves. And if some of my iman leaves me, some of my haya' leaves me as well. Idha rufi'a ahaduhuma rufi'a al-akhar. It goes both ways. SubhanAllah.

What Is Haya'?

Haya' is that condition in the heart of the person, in the emotions of the person — not only the man, the person — where the person would feel extremely uncomfortable to offend the other. A feeling of discomfort. When a young person who has haya' sees his elder or a revered shaykh, and that young person was doing something frivolous or improper, and he stops — out of natural haya'. When a young woman who has haya' turns away naturally. When a person in the presence of others feels quite uncomfortable to do something wrong, or even to utter words that are presumptuous and harsh — out of haya'.

Sometimes when a person has haya', the complexion changes — you can see it in the face of the person. That person has haya'. And some of us may see the opposite in our faces — and we express things in an aggressive way — which is not, my dear brothers and sisters — ghafar Allahu li wa lakum — which is not what the Rasool of Allah, peace be upon him, loves.

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4185; Sahih al-Bukhari, Adab al-Mufrad)

Said he, peace be upon him: whenever haya' is involved in anything, it makes it more beautiful. And whenever haya' is deprived of something — that thing becomes ugly, it becomes ugly.

The Story of the Man With Natural Haya'

A man was admonishing his brother — his biological brother — and that biological brother, apparently, Allah had given him the gift naturally of beautiful haya'. So his brother was telling him: "You cannot go on like this with haya' — you are not going to be successful in this life. You are not going to go anywhere with this haya'." Don't we say that? "With wolves you have to be like a wolf."

But no — my character as a Muslim is haya'. I cannot do that. If it has become embedded in that Tawheed we spoke about — between emotional and experiential — I just cannot emotionally do that. Just like a person in whose heart Allah Azzawajal has placed this beauty — cannot approach that, even if it seems beneficial — because he feels that pull from Allah Azzawajal.

So he was admonishing his brother, telling him: "With this condition of yours, you are not going to go anywhere in your life." Then Rasool Allah, peace be upon him, came out and told him: "Leave him." In other words, leave him in that condition. Do not tell him to change. Leave him in that condition, for all haya' is virtuous, all haya' is good, all haya' is beautiful.

And with a lack of haya', my dear brothers and sisters, we are going to lack in our faith. And with a lack of our faith, we are going to lack in our haya'. And we do not want that. We do not want, in general, to disconnect our Tawheed from our Akhlaq. Our Tawheed is intended to enhance the beautiful qualities of our hearts and consequently to enhance the beautiful ways we speak, the beautiful ways we act, and the beautiful ways we react to challenges.

Please seek the forgiveness of Allah. What an excellent abode awaits those who sincerely seek forgiveness from Allah.

Second Part of the Khutbah

All praise is due to Allah, and may His blessings and salutations be upon His chosen servants.

Looking Into the Spiritual Mirror

We look at our khalq — our external appearance — and we want it to look proper in the eye of the beholder. And sometimes, yes, that beholder is my own nafs, my own nafs — perhaps the lower nafs. As we do that and as we look into a mirror, we should implore Allah Azzawajal to help us look into a spiritual mirror more regularly — to be able to see the condition of our qulub — so that we can rectify here and there, change here and there, ameliorate here and there, and adorn here and there.

And we implore Allah Azzawajal not to entrust us to ourselves. To help us change, to help us be beautiful inside. And as He created us in this external appearance beautiful in all cases, we implore Him to make us beautiful inside as well.

The Du'a of the Prophet ﷺ

Indeed, Rasulullah, peace be upon him, taught us such a supplication — when he used to say, in a long hadith, the last part of which is as follows:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 3823; also referenced in Ibn Hibban)

"O Allah, You made my external appearance beautiful — I am beautiful in khalq, alhamdulillah — so make my khuluq beautiful. Make my heart beautiful. Make my internal image beautiful. O Allah, rectify my heart, rectify my internal attributes, make me internally beautiful. And please, O Allah, forbid the fire from touching my face."

O Allah, make us of those who listen to the words and follow the best. O Allah, make our hearts beautiful for You and for the day that is presented to You. O Allah, purify our hearts from all filth. O Allah, make our hearts beautiful for You, O Kind and Merciful. O Allah, purify our hearts — we have no one but You. Make us worship You as our heart truly desires to worship You, O Kind and Merciful. O Allah, have mercy on us and cure our sickness. O Allah, have mercy on those who are living and on those who have passed away.

Du'a for the Deceased

As you know, some of our community members — some of their family members have passed away. Nabī Qayyib Muhammad Ali who passed away in South Africa, and a brother of the family, our dear brother Akram, who also passed away. May Allah grant them rahmah. May Allah forgive them. May Allah elevate them in Jannah. May Allah exchange for them a more beautiful family where they are. And may He grant their families patience and perseverance. And may He, Azzawajal, help us draw nearer to Him after them — righteous, and may we meet in that state of righteousness.

Wadhkurullaha yadhkurkum. Remember Allah and He will remember you. Come to your prayer.

Reminder Before the Prayer

Fill in the gaps and straighten the lines. Do not differ with one another, lest your hearts differ.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 717; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 432)

Settle your internal energies to disengage and disconnect from anything else in our minds and in our emotions. May Allah give us the strength to do that. Allahu Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is the One who grants that success.