Ashura is Not Nostalgia

Ashura is Not Nostalgia

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, we seek His help, we seek His forgiveness, we seek His guidance. We believe in Him, we put our trust in Him, and we seek refuge in Allah, the Most Great, from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him. Whomsoever He misguides, none can guide him.

I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, He is alone and has no partner. To Him belongs the kingdom and to Him is all praise. He gives life and causes death, and He is Ever-Living, Never-Dying. With His hand is all good, and He is Able to do all things.

And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger, and His pure one and His companion. He fulfilled the trust, and conveyed the message, and advised the Ummah, and revealed the gloom, and left us on the white path — its night is like its day, nothing escapes it except destruction. So upon him be the bestowal of blessings, and the completion of submission. And upon his family and companions, and those who await his sunnah until the Day of Recompense. O Allah, make us of them, and of those who believe and do righteous deeds, and continue in truth, and continue in patience. Ameen.

We begin by praising Allah, and by bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is His final Messenger. We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon him, the Prophets and Messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow his example until the Day of Judgment. We ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma Ameen.

The Day of Ashura

Dear brothers and sisters, we all know that we are in the weekend of Ashura. And insha'Allah ta'ala, tomorrow is a day of fasting. It is a day of emphasized voluntary fasting. You are not sinful if you miss it. But the Prophet ﷺ mentioned that the reward of fasting the Day of Ashura is an expiation, bi'idhnillahi ta'ala, for a year of previous sins. And we are in the new year of Muharram, and therefore everything that you have committed over the year up until Muharram, bi'idhnillahi ta'ala, we pray that it will be a day of forgiveness. And that is, of course, a great manifestation of the mercy of Allah.

But just like Ramadan is connected to the revelation of the Qur'an, and just like Arafah is connected to the initial covenant that we took with Allah, Ashura has a historical significance — it's based in something historic. And that is, of course, that the Prophet ﷺ mentioned that this was the day — or rather he found people commemorating this day, the Jewish tribes of Medina — because this was the day that Musa alayhi salam was given victory over the Fir'aun.

We are closer to Musa alayhi salam than the People of the Book. We love him. We're attached to him alayhi salam. We celebrate his victory. We are connected to him in triumph, and we are connected to him in tragedy.

And of course there are other narrations that this is the day of the arrival of the Ark of Nuh alayhi salam, where Allah delivered him to safety. And we know that afterwards, this is the day in which Imam Husayn radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was massacred and martyred in the battlefield of Karbala, attaining victory in a different way with Allah — the victory of istishhad, the victory of martyrdom.

This Is Not Nostalgia

But I want to actually connect it back to how the Prophet ﷺ and the companions would have felt as they entered into al-Madinah al-Munawwarah and as they came into interaction with this day for what it represented historically.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ migrated in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal, the month that he was born. And so he did not actually arrive in Madinah in the first month of the hijri calendar. Rather the Prophet ﷺ arrived in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal. And therefore Muharram would have shown up after the Prophet ﷺ would have spent almost a year settling in al-Madinah al-Munawwarah with his companions — the first time that they would fast Ashura in connection with the victory of Musa alayhi salam over the Fir'aun.

It would only be a few months after that fast of Ashura that Allah would grant the Prophet ﷺ and his companions victory in the month of Ramadan that same year — in the battle of Badr.

Pay attention. You come into interaction with this day, you fast this day as a form of gratitude to Allah for the victory that Allah gave to Musa alayhi salam over Fir'aun. A few months later, you are granted victory over the Fir'aun of this Ummah — Abu Jahl.

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud radiAllahu ta'ala anhu mounts, gets on top of Abu Jahl as he is breathing his last breaths, and looks down at him: "Victory is for Allah, O enemy of Allah. The Fir'aun of this Ummah is gone." The improbable victory has been realized — that would give the Muslims a certain psychology, a certain type of attitude towards everything that would follow.

And so you have the fasting in gratitude for Musa's victory over the Fir'aun. A few months later, your victory over your Fir'aun. And then a year later, in Shawwal of the third year after Hijrah, Allah tests you with the battle of Uhud. Where instead of standing on top of your Fir'aun, your enemies gloat over your dead bodies and chant, "A day for a day — victory for victory, our dead for your dead." And that's only the second year you're fasting Ashura.

There's a connection here. What happened here that was different? And so the very first thing that I want us to appreciate is actually the title of this khutbah — that Ashura is not some sort of nostalgia. It's not some sort of memory that you pull out and you say, "Oh, once upon a time there was this big bad man named Pharaoh, and there was this great man named Moses, and Musa alayhi salam overcame Fir'aun, and we should celebrate that out of gratitude." That's not how this works.

To the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself, this was so situated in the present. We are facing a Fir'aun who has run us out of our homes. We've already left Mecca to Medina. And they are coming to finish the job. And we are, for all purposes, like Musa alayhi salam — standing with our backs against the wall because there's nowhere to go forward, and there's an army behind us that's ready to massacre us. It is very present to the Prophet ﷺ and his companions. And it is so much more than fasting with a distant memory of a victory that Allah once upon a time granted.

Lessons from Uhud

And then Uhud causes you to reflect in an entirely different way. You have to learn to come to terms with a different outcome than what happened in Badr. You have to learn to come to terms with bloody bodies, dismembered bodies, of the greatest people in your midst — in your hands — and burying them and having the gloating of your enemy. What went wrong? Did the divine scheme change? Or did something change for us?

The divine scheme remains. Allah says:

The divine scheme remains intact. But we know that Uhud, technically, is the disobedience of 40 people who came down from the mountain prematurely before the Prophet ﷺ allowed them to do so — and everybody had to pay the price. The consequence was felt by everybody.

Now here's the beauty of the divine scheme. If you were talking to Hamza radiAllahu ta'ala anhu right now — and the Prophet ﷺ said, "I saw Hamza radiAllahu ta'ala anhu reclining on a couch in al-Jannah" — if you were to talk to Hamza radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, do you think he would be saying, "If I could get my hands on those 40 people — they lost it for us. We were so close. Victory was within reach. Those 40 people messed it up for us." You think that's what Hamza radiAllahu ta'ala anhu is saying? You think that's what the shuhada of Uhud are saying? Or are they as Allah said:

Assured in their own victory. Enjoying the fruits of their labor. Pleased with the divine scheme in the holistic sense as it encompasses the dunya and the akhirah. They're pleased. Alhamdulillah, Allah had a different plan that had to continue to unfold for those that were left on this earth. But as far as we're concerned, we've already achieved victory. We've already achieved victory. We've submitted ourselves to those outcomes. Therefore, we're not mad at the 40. We're pleased with Allah. And we are fully satisfied with the outcome.

Four Incidents: Seeing Through the Impossible

Now here's what I want us to pay attention to bi'idhnillahi ta'ala. I want to give you four incidents and I want you to pay attention to them insha'Allah ta'ala.

First: Musa Alayhi Salam and the Sea

The first one is Musa alayhi salam when he defeats the Pharaoh, and how Allah can break every single law of nature as He sees fit — because Allah is the author of those laws. Not you. And when we put our logic over His miracles, and when we place our odds over His qadr, over His divine decree, we've already lost the plot before it even started.

Musa alayhi salam is in front of the water with his companions on that day of Ashura. Allah tells Musa alayhi salam to strike the sea. And Allah parts the sea. But pay attention to the details — because Allah does not give you details unless they are relevant.

There's a visual here. Imagine the sea parting and then Allah turning each side of the sea into a mountain. Can you imagine the visual? Musa alayhi salam standing with his people, and his people saying to him:

"We've been caught. We're done. Give it up. The odds are against us." And Musa alayhi salam replies:

And Musa alayhi salam strikes the sea and Allah turns the seas into two mountains, frozen in space. And they just walk through. Suddenly it's a completely dry earth in front of them and you have two mountains of water.

Here's the thing — Allah controls the laws of nature. Musa alayhi salam is not surprised by this. This is how his relationship with Allah is. Notice that Musa alayhi salam has gone through many trials and tribulations in the past and he doesn't turn back to Allah and say, "O Allah, if you could have done this the whole time, then why couldn't this have happened just back then?" Musa alayhi salam proceeds.

Fir'aun is a materialist. As Imam al-Tabari rahimahullah says, he thinks — well, whatever just froze these two bodies of water on the side, if the laws of nature bent for him, they bent for me too. So Fir'aun willingly walks into it because he says, "Well, clearly whatever scheme is out there, whatever nature is out there, it works for him — it's gonna work for me as well." So he willingly enters into that path like the fool that he is. And Allah breaks down that water and drowns him and his people in that moment with that same water.

Pay attention to the elements: there's an obstacle ahead, there's an enemy behind, there are naysayers present. This is actually the case in every single one of these stories.

And by the way — if your political commentary on Gaza sounds like إِنَّا لَمُدْرَكُونَ — "We're done" — then how are you fasting in solidarity or in gratitude with Musa alayhi salam who's saying كَلَّا إِنَّ مَعِيَ رَبِّي سَيَهْدِينِ? If your heart is actually there, then you need to be reprogrammed. So there are naysayers, there's an enemy behind, there's an obstacle in front, and there are doubters present. And Allah takes care of all of those elements.

Second: Nuh Alayhi Salam and the Ark

Now come to Nuh alayhi salam — another incident. Nuh alayhi salam was building his ark on dry land. There are no elements of a flood. The people are walking by him and mocking him. "Like, what are you doing over there?" "Building the ark as Allah commanded me to." Can you imagine someone in the middle of a desert building an ark, preparing for a big flood? "What flood are you talking about?"

Not only that — Imam al-Qurtubi rahimahullah says there was not a cloud in the sky when the flood actually happened. So the enemies are walking by, mocking Nuh alayhi salam. He's building his ark. You can imagine that his followers are not all of the same quality — some of them are probably like, "What's happening here? We're building this ark for a flood. Where is the flood? No clouds in the sky."

And Allah says:

SubhanAllah — the flood came from under. Allah cracked the earth and the flood actually came from under. So it didn't even come from above. They're looking above and they're saying, "No clouds in the sky — we're not really worried about this." Allah brought it from the place that they did not anticipate. Because we've never heard of a flood from below. But it happens that way.

Third: Ibrahim Alayhi Salam and the Fire

Connect to Ibrahim alayhi salam — and we're just coming out of Dhul Hijjah. When Ibrahim alayhi salam is being thrown into the fire, the fire remained. It still burns. It was still a hardship. It was still very difficult. There's still the humiliation, there's still the stripping down of Ibrahim alayhi salam. And Ibrahim alayhi salam is thrown into the fire. And Allah did not extinguish the fire — He just changed its nature.

Don't burn. Be cool and peaceful. So it still burns as far as the visual was concerned — but Ibrahim alayhi salam did not feel the pain of it at all. And he walked out of that fire unharmed. And subhanAllah — in every single one of these incidents, the people are mocking. The naysayers are present. Ibrahim alayhi salam — imagine the whole crowd is against you, and no one is with you except for your wife Sara.

Fourth: Al-Husayn RadiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu at Karbala

The fourth incident is Al-Husayn radiAllahu ta'ala anhu who historically was martyred on this day. He goes out there. Yes, he made a plan. He strategically had something in place. The plan came apart. And Allah tested him with shahada. People let him down, betrayed him, did not come out to fight alongside him. But the sword actually cut. It struck his neck. The same way that it cut Hamza radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. Husayn radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was martyred — istushhida. Allah did not change the law of nature.

In each of these stories: there are people, there's an obstacle ahead, an obstacle behind. Allah's plan unfolded differently in each case — but Allah's plan unfolded perfectly in each case.

Making This Practical

First Lesson: The Du'a of Protection

The first thing is the du'a of the Prophet ﷺ — one of the morning and evening remembrances:

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 5074; authenticated by al-Albani)

The reality is that you need Allah's protection from all directions — the ones that you know and the ones that you don't know. So make those types of du'a, even when things become very, very difficult.

Second Lesson: Don't Be a Functional Atheist in Your Du'a

The second thing, dear brothers and sisters, and it's extremely important — if when you make du'a you are functionally an atheist in your du'a, what do I mean by that? You've subjected yourself entirely to the odds and to the logic of the situation. So when you're making your du'a, unless you can logically believe it, you don't even bother making that du'a. You don't ask Allah to change what seems to be an impossible situation. And even if you do, you do it mechanically, like a formality, because the odds are too large. The laws of nature are there.

By the way — there's a difference between الأَخْذُ بِالأَسْبَابِ — to take the means for victory and to do what you need to do while you make your du'a and put your trust in Allah — and actually worshipping the means and being subjected to the means. And if you can't see the means changing in your favor, then your du'a is weak or non-existent as a whole. That's not the way the believer makes du'a. That's not the way the believer calls upon Allah.

And that's not just for overcoming a large enemy. That's for overcoming a disease. That is for overcoming an impossible situation. That's for seeing yourself through what appears to be an inevitably broken marriage. That's what you do when you find yourself being oppressed at a micro level by someone and you feel like, "No one's gonna believe me, I have no way to actually overcome this oppressor." Allah is not subjected to those means. Allah is not subjected to those odds.

So when you make those du'as, don't make them with those calculations — saying it went from 60% to 80% to 90% and your du'a is proportional to the logic and to the odds. That's problematic. Believe in Allah's power. Believe in His ability to change what's a quote-unquote impossible situation. This isn't nostalgia — that's why you're fasting. That's why you're connecting to these incidents. And whether that's your grand political analysis or on a deeply personal level, renew that tawakkul in Allah.

Third Lesson: Submission Is Not Defeat

But then there's a last element to this as well. There's a difference between submitting yourself to the outcome and being defeated by what you think the outcome is going to be. There's a huge difference in our deen between defeat and submission.

Submission is like Al-Imam Al-Husayn radiAllahu ta'ala anhu on the battlefield: "If Allah has destined for me martyrdom, alhamdulillah. And if Allah sees a purpose for me on this earth past this battlefield, alhamdulillah." Because I'm not living for myself — I'm living for Allah. It goes back to the nature of the purpose of your life. If I'm here to worship Allah, so long as Allah sees a function for me on this earth to worship Him and to do something, alhamdulillah. And if Allah has destined another outcome, alhamdulillah.

Then roll back. Ibrahim alayhi salam when he was being thrown into that fire was fully prepared to accept the idea that he was going to burn in that fire and die. He'd already come to terms with that reality. It's not like Allah told him what was going to happen. But there was more to his story on this earth, and we see what happens after him now.

Musa alayhi salam — you know what's amazing? When you look at the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, like Badr was in preparation for what would come at Uhud, and Uhud prepared them for the eventual Fath of Mecca — the conquest of Mecca. There's something to be built on it. There's this grand episode that exists after you come through this incredible miracle.

What happened with Musa alayhi salam and his people once they made it through the Red Sea? You know what happened? His people disobeyed him, and they ended up wandering in the desert — until Musa alayhi salam died outside of Jerusalem, not able to enter, because of what his people had done. What was the point of what unfolded after? Allah knows best. Musa alayhi salam submitted himself to the outcome.

Nuh alayhi salam — "Ya Allah, am I going to get more followers after this?" No. "You told me build an ark — dry land, rain or shine, I'm going to do it. And I submit myself to the outcome."

Submission to the outcome is not being defeated by the outcome, dear brothers and sisters. I'm pleased with what Allah is going to choose for me after this. But I call upon Him trusting His power and His wisdom in every single one of these situations.

The Power of the Naysayer's Voice

And the power of the naysayer's voice — the other people in the room, the إِنَّا لَمُدْرَكُونَ — "we're done for" — the people mocking Nuh alayhi salam, the people jeering when Ibrahim alayhi salam is about to be thrown into the fire. Those people around — the power of their function is that there is no voice that causes you to have doubt more so than a voice that sounds like yours. It's a mighty test.

The human voice that tells you — "Are you sure about this? You're not going to get through this. You're done." And we have to see through the laughter of the devil — whether that's Benjamin Netanyahu or otherwise — and the gloating. We have to see through the laughter. And we have to see through the naysayers and the traitors and the doubters, and make sure that our hearts are as full of faith as Musa alayhi salam, as Nuh alayhi salam, as Ibrahim alayhi salam, as Muhammad ﷺ, as all of the righteous ones that came before us.

May Allah renew our tawakkul in these days, and may Allah grant us and our Ummah victory over the supposedly impossible barriers that lie ahead. Allahumma Ameen.