Best Day of Your Life

Best Day of Your Life

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ، نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ، وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَصَفِيُّهُ مِنْ خَلْقِهِ وَخَلِيلُهُ، بَلَّغَ الرِّسَالَةَ وَأَدَّى الْأَمَانَةَ وَنَصَحَ الْأُمَّةَ، تَرَكَهُمْ عَلَى الْمَحَجَّةِ الْبَيْضَاءِ لَيْلُهَا كَنَهَارِهَا لَا يَزِيغُ عَنْهَا إِلَّا هَالِكٌ، صَلَوَاتُ رَبِّي وَسَلَامُهُ عَلَيْهِ.

عباد الله — Allah says in His noble Book, after seeking refuge in Allah from the accursed Shaytan:

All praise is due to Allah. We seek His guidance and His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of ourselves and the whispering of our desires. Whom Allah guides, no one can misguide. And whom He allows to be misled, no one can guide. And I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah alone, having no partners, and that Muhammad ﷺ is His slave and His messenger and His perfect worshipper.

Allah says in the Quran: O you who believe, fear Allah as He deserves to be feared, and do not die except in a state of Islam. And Allah says: O mankind, fear your Lord who created you from a single soul and produced from that soul its mate, and made from their combination many men and women. So fear your Lord whom you ask each other by, and by the ties of kinship — verily Allah is ever watchful over you. And Allah says: O you who believe, fear Allah and say that which is correct. He will correct for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His messenger, then they are indeed victorious.

The Story of Al-Kifl

To proceed — Ibn Umar رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ reports that Rasulullah ﷺ said — and he said: I heard this from Rasulullah ﷺ not once or not twice, not five times, not seven times, but even more than that — that Rasulullah ﷺ told the story of a man called Al-Kifl from Bani Israel. And he said that this man, Al-Kifl, did not leave a single sin except that he committed it. Everything.

Until there was a woman who was in need of money, and she came and she asked Al-Kifl for it, and he offered her 60 dinars on account that she would give him access to her. And she agreed due to her need. And so when he was in a position of taking advantage of her, she wept. And he asked her why she was crying in that moment, and she said, "I never did this before."

And so Al-Kifl, in that moment, he repented to Allah, and he left her, and he left the money. And he said, "I will never ever sin against Allah again." In that moment, he repented, and he said, "I'm never going to commit sins against Allah ever again." And he died that night. And the next morning, they found written on his door:

"Allah has forgiven Al-Kifl."

And the Prophet ﷺ narrated the story of repentance many times over.

At-Tawbah in Ramadan

In this brief khutbah, I wanted to talk about At-Tawbah in Ramadan. I want to talk about repentance. Allah named Himself At-Tawwab — He named Himself the constant acceptor of repentance. Allah opens the door of repentance, and He extends His hand during the day to forgive the one who sins during the night. And Allah extends His hand during the night to forgive the one who sins during the day.

And Rasulullah ﷺ describes for us the greatest image of Allah's happiness that I have come across in the seerah. The Prophet ﷺ says that Allah is more happy with the tawbah of His slave — and he gives the example of a man who had been traveling in a desert. And this man had a camel, and that camel had on it all of his provision. It was his one lifeline, this camel, as he's traveling through the desert. And when he's journeying, somehow along the way, he loses the camel. There's no 911. There's nobody to call. He's lost his camel. He's lost his life. And I can imagine this person going through all of the stages of grief, panic in that moment. He goes through despair. Finally, this man comes to the conclusion that he's going to die. And so he sits waiting for death.

And in that moment, where he's waiting for a certain death, all of a sudden, what does he see? He sees his camel in front of him again. And so the man — مِنْ شِدَّةِ الْفَرَحِ — he says:

"O Allah, You are my slave and I am your lord."

And Rasulullah ﷺ says: أَخْطَأَ مِنْ شِدَّةِ الْفَرَحِ — he got it all messed up because of how happy he was. This is the example of happiness that Rasulullah ﷺ is giving to describe Allah's joy — for what? When you and I repent. When you and I say, "I'm done." When you and I say, "I'm done with this" — وَخَلَاص — "O Allah, accept it from me. I'm over it. I want to conquer this. I'm done with it, Ya Rab. No more. I know it's been years. I've flirted. I've tried. I've lied. But this time, for sure, I'm dusting it off of myself. And I need your help."

The Story of Malik Ibn Dinar

The stories of repentance are so many that the scholars wrote books on قِصَصِ التَّوَّابِينَ — stories of the repenters, such as the work of Ibn Qudama. And one of the most famous stories is the tawbah of Malik ibn Dinar. Malik ibn Dinar was one of the great scholars of Islam. But before that, he was your average thug. And Malik used to drink alcohol. And Allah blessed him with a baby girl. And he was incredibly attached to this baby girl. And she died. And he grieved.

And he said, "Tonight, I am going to drink a drinking that I've never done before. I'm going to go all out tonight." And he did. And in his sleep, he saw the Day of Judgement. And he had the fire that was in front of him that he was fleeing from. And he saw a dragon that was chasing him that he was fleeing from. And he sees an old, feeble man. And that old man — he runs to him and he says, "Can you help me?" And the man says, "I can't do anything for you, but keep running." And so Malik ibn Dinar keeps running, and that dragon is chasing him, until he enters into a bastion, a castle, where he sees hundreds of children. And inside, from amongst these children, out steps his little girl. And with one hand, she repels the dragon that has been chasing him. And she recites to him a verse.

This verse is included in the story of so many of the Sahabah, and so many of the stories of the Salaf with regards to their tawbah:

Has not the time come for those who have believed that their hearts be softened to the remembrance of Allah? Isn't it enough? Like — haven't you had enough? This sin that you've been immersed in — hasn't it been long enough? Haven't you enjoyed it long enough? Haven't you been broken by it long enough? Haven't you been grieved by it long enough? Haven't you been saddened by it long enough? Has not the time come? أَلَمْ يَأْنِ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا

And Malik ibn Dinar, he asked his girl and he said, "Tell me what this dragon was." She said, "It was your sins." He said, "Tell me who this old man was." She said, "It was your good deeds. He wasn't strong enough to help you." Your good deeds on the Day of Judgment — it manifested in that old, feeble man. It wasn't strong enough to help you. But she said, "Go back." And he awoke and he corrected his affairs. And he became the great scholar Malik ibn Dinar.

The Tawbah of Ka'b ibn Malik

Tawbah is something that Allah loves. In fact, Rasulullah ﷺ — in the story of Ka'b ibn Malik, the famous tawbah of Ka'b ibn Malik which is reported in Bukhari and Muslim — it's a long story. Ka'b ibn Malik finally repents. Allah accepts his repentance. But when the day comes — when Ka'b ibn Malik, after being boycotted for 50 days, walks into the Masjid of Rasulullah ﷺ — Rasulullah ﷺ says to him an amazing statement. He says:

You know, if you ask someone off the cuff, "What's the best day of your life?" — some people will say the day that they graduated, the day that they got married, the day that they had their first child. But Rasulullah ﷺ qualifies for Ka'b ibn Malik the best day of his life. He says, "Rejoice — congratulations on the best day you have ever had since your mother gave birth to you."

And so what that shows us is that the best day of a person's life is the day that Allah accepts their repentance. And that can be today.

You know, when we attend khutbas, sometimes the question that we ask is: "Do I know this information already? Have I heard the story of Al-Kifl already? Have I heard the story of Malik ibn Dinar already? Have I heard the story of Ka'b ibn Malik already?" That's not the point. The point is — did I repent today?

Rasulullah ﷺ says:

"O people, repent to Allah. Because I repent to Allah over 70 times a day." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6307)

One of the habits that we learn from the Sahabah is that a person constantly be aware of their sins. Because if a person is constantly aware of their sins, then that person will constantly seek forgiveness for their sins. And if they constantly seek forgiveness for their sins, then inshallah they will be forgiven.

Sins Transformed into Good Deeds

Allah says — and those who do not call upon other than Allah, they don't worship other than Allah, and they don't kill anybody, and they don't commit zina. And whoever does that, they will meet a penalty on the Day of Judgment, a multiplication of punishment on the Day of Judgment:

Except those who repent — and belief — and they do righteous deeds. What will happen to these people? That person who committed all of those major sins — Allah will forgive them? Allah says: it's unbelievable — those sins, if that person repents, Allah will transform those sins into good deeds.

Al-Bara' reports that a man came to Rasulullah ﷺ and he said, "Ya Rasulullah, what do you think of a person who committed every sin? Every single sin the man committed. There's not a single sin that I did not commit." And Rasulullah ﷺ said to him, "Did you accept Islam?" He said, "Yes." He said, "Then do good deeds and avoid sins, and Allah will convert those sins into good deeds. Every sin that you did, Allah will convert them into good deeds." The man said:

"Even my treachery, my betrayal, and even my immorality — all of the things that I did?" And he said, "Yes." And so the man continued to say:

Until he left.

Tawbah is an act that immediately makes the day that we do it the best day of our life. Tawbah is an act that Allah has left open for us for whenever we choose, as long as a person is not on their deathbed. Ramadan is the month of Tawbah. And so let us commit today that we make today the best day of our life and that we repent to Allah.

أَقُولُ مَا سَمِعْتُمْ، أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ وَلَكُمْ، فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

The Four Pillars of Tawbah

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ

What are the pillars of Tawbah? Very briefly:

The first is that a person stops doing whatever that sin is — they stop committing it.

Number two is that they commit to not doing it again. What does commitment look like? We all know what commitment looks like. If a person says, "I'm committed to being healthy, today I'm going to start a new chapter of my life," and then at iftar time you see them eating three burgers and two sodas — you're going to say to them, "You're not committed. This is not real commitment." Real commitment requires action. And so if a person is committed to Tawbah, they are going to change their behavior. That might mean that they need to change their phone number, that might mean that they need to get off of social media, that might mean that they need to put themselves in a better environment, they might need to surround themselves with better people, better friends. That's what commitment looks like.

Number three is that a person feels regret. A person doesn't look back on those sins with a sense of longing or appreciation or happiness. That person realizes that those are moments that were robbed from their life before Allah. So they don't think positively about it.

Number four — if the sin has to do with the right of somebody — that they return that right. A person can't steal ten thousand dollars from somebody and say, "I've repented to Allah from stealing." No, you have to return that money to that person.

Those are the four pillars of Tawbah.

Two Parting Reminders

And I want to leave you with two things.

Of the greatest causes of Tawbah — if not the greatest cause — is the Tawfiq of Allah. And so of the greatest causes of that Tawfiq is that a person ask it from Allah. And the Prophet ﷺ taught us that when a person makes Wudu, every time they make Wudu, that a person says: "O Allah, make me of those who repent and make me of those who purify themselves." Because for you to stand in front of Allah right now — you purify your outer with Wudu, but the internal needs to be purified as well. And that is purified by Tawbah. And so you say:

And if a person says that after they make Wudu, Rasulullah ﷺ says that the eight gates of paradise are opened for him — he enters from wherever he wishes. This is reported by Muslim. And so when you're making Wudu, I want you to learn and to make this Du'a. And if you make this Du'a already, I want you to be cognizant of what you're saying.

And number two — sometimes, even in Ramadan, a person might be making Du'a that Allah allows them to repent from every single sin except for one. And they don't mention that one. "I'm saving that for another year — next year." So what then? Allah is the one who controls people's hearts. And so if my heart is attached to a sin that I don't want to let go, then make Du'a to Allah to change that heart. A beautiful Du'a that you hear Imams make at times:

And this is taken from Surah Al-Hujurat (Quran 49:7). "O Allah, make faith beloved to us. If this sin is beloved to me, why not make Iman beloved to me? And beautify it in my heart, and make me hate Kufr, disbelief, and Fusooq, transgression, and Isyan, disobedience."

We ask Allah to allow us to hear the speech and to act upon the best of it.

Closing Du'as