Make The Masjid Your Second Home

Opening — Khuṭbah al-Ḥājah

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَسْتَهْدِيهِ وَنُؤْمِنُ بِهِ وَنَتَوَكَّلُ عَلَيْهِ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ الْعَظِيمِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدُ يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ وَهُوَ حَيٌّ لَا يَمُوتُ بِيَدِهِ الْخَيْرُ وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَصَفِيُّهُ وَخَلِيلُهُ أَدَّى الْأَمَانَةَ وَبَلَّغَ الرِّسَالَةَ وَنَصَحَ الْأُمَّةَ وَكَشَفَ الْغُمَّةَ وَتَرَكَنَا عَلَى الْمَحَجَّةِ الْبَيْضَاءِ لَيْلُهَا كَنَهَارِهَا لَا يَزِيغُ عَنْهَا إِلَّا هَالِكٌ فَعَلَيْهِ أَفْضَلُ الصَّلَاةِ وَأَتَمُّ التَّسْلِيمِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَمَنِ اسْتَنَّ بِسُنَّتِهِ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنَا مِنْهُمْ وَمِنَ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ آمِينَ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ

وَأُوصِيكُمْ وَنَفْسِي بِتَقْوَى اللَّهِ وَقَدْ أَمَرَنَا بِالْحَقِّ

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 in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

Taqwa Has a Season — and a Place

Dear brothers and sisters, taqwa — piety, God-consciousness — is a lived reality on a daily basis, every moment. But taqwa has a season, and that is the season of Ramadan, that is the season of fasting.

Fasting was prescribed upon you as it was prescribed on nations prior to you, so that you could become more God-conscious, so that you could become more aware of Allah. And so taqwa is a daily reality, but it has a season in which it dawns upon us in a very special way. And we hope that it carries us well throughout the rest of the year until we live out the rest of our lives and meet Allah — hopefully as people of taqwa.

But taqwa also has a place — a place where it is generated. And that place is the masjid. And it's always very interesting to see Salatul Jumu'ah get more crowded on the Fridays of Ramadan, because Jumu'ah is followed inside of Ramadan and followed outside of Ramadan. And it's interesting to see how full the masajid are for Fajr and Isha for the different salawat — realizing that what Allah has put in the reward of these prayers inside the masjid, outside of Ramadan, is greater than what you would find in a voluntary prayer like Salatul Taraweeh. But still it doesn't translate into that connection.

And what I want you all to sit with for a moment — connecting the moments that we are in as we bid farewell to Ramadan over whatever is left of it — to the moments of uncertainty that we feel out in the world. The challenges to our faith in these moments. The very real problem that many people have, or conundrum: I don't know if I can raise my kids to be Muslim in this environment because of all the pressure and everything that's going to happen. The question that we all ask ourselves — will I die as a Muslim? Will I die upon a good death? Will I have a good ending? May Allah give us a good ending.

Not just in Ramadan but outside of Ramadan — it's deeply connected to what Allah has put in these places. The place that you are sitting in right now.

The Narration of Ibn Mas'ūd — Whoever Wants to Die as a Muslim

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه says — and this is the narration I want to sit with, and I want you to sit with, and play it through your mind over and over again, especially in the days that follow Ramadan — narrated in Sahih Muslim:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 4, Hadith 1479)

"Whoever wants to meet Allah tomorrow as a Muslim" — it's powerful language — whoever wants to die as a Muslim, die as a believer, then let him preserve the prayers in the places that they are called."

If you want to meet Allah as a Muslim, then keep coming to meet Allah in the masjid — spiritually, through your prayer. If you want to die as a Muslim, then live in the masjid — in the figurative sense. Obviously we work and we go about our days, but there is a direct connection between how your ending will be and how frequent you are in the masjid, how attached you are to the masjid.

And he continues رضي الله تعالى عنه: Allah has laid down for your Prophet the ways of guidance, the means of guidance, the paths of guidance. And he said these prayers that you have in these masajid — in these houses of Allah — are from the pathways to guidance, are from the ways that you stay guided. And he said: if you were to pray in your homes the way that this man — and he's talking about al-mutakhallif, someone who stays behind in their home — if you were to pray in your homes like this man, then you would leave off the way of your Prophet ﷺ. And if you abandon the way of your Prophet ﷺ, then you will abandon the pathways to guidance.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 4, Hadith 1479)

He said: "And no man purifies himself and gets himself ready for the masjid, and then approaches one of these masajid of Allah after having perfected his purification, except that Allah will write down with every single step a good deed, and Allah will raise him by a rank as a result of every single step he takes to these masajid, and Allah will remove a sin as a result of every single step that he's taking."

Meaning: it's not just the blessing that is found inside the masjid itself. It's the blessing in the entire process — the process of getting ready at home, the process of making your way to the masjid. All of that — you're indulging yourself in a spiritual exercise of consciousness, of taqwa, where you're connecting to Allah the way you hope to connect to Him in a time like Ramadan.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 4, Hadith 1479)

He said: "We have come across a time — I have seen a time — where no one avoided the masjid except for a known hypocrite, a hypocrite known for his hypocrisy. And I remember a time where a man would be brought, and he was so weak that he'd have to be placed between two people in the row, but he wouldn't miss the prayer in the masjid."

He's talking about a time that he witnessed and a time that he sees right now. So he's living in a time where he's saying the distance from the masajid is becoming obvious, the centrality of the masajid is clearly being de-emphasized. And he says: I remember in the time of the Prophet ﷺ where the only person who wouldn't be seen coming to the masjid regularly would be a known munafiq — a known hypocrite. And I remember a time when a person would be so haris — so diligent and dedicated to these prayers in the masajid — that imagine: they'd have to be carried and put between two people, situated between two people in the rows.

And you ask yourself: what's your excuse?

The Masjid: Where Taqwa Is Generated

Ramadan is a season to indulge taqwa. It's a season to indulge God-consciousness. It's where you take that taqwa — you have a practice of taqwa, a practice of thinking about Allah and being conscious of Allah that transcends every space — because you're thinking about everything that you're putting inside of you, you're thinking about your consumption, you're thinking about what you're putting out there. But the place to generate that spirituality, the place to immerse yourself, is this masjid.

And if you want to die as a Muslim, you need to live in these places — by coming here daily, by having an attachment to it regularly, by making sure that you don't leave off the obligatory and that you indulge the gift of an attachment to it outside of the obligatory.

If you want to stay Muslim — if you want your family to remain upon Islam, if you want the next generation to remain upon Islam — there is nothing greater that you could be doing for your kids than bringing them with you to the masjid and exposing them to that reality on a regular basis.

Salman al-Farsi's Letter to Abu Darda — The Masjid Is Your Home

I leave you with two narrations. I was looking at the correspondence — the letters — between Abu Darda رضي الله تعالى عنه and Salman al-Farsi رضي الله تعالى عنه. They were brothers — the Prophet ﷺ paired them off when Salman رضي الله تعالى عنه came from Persia, having gone through his deep struggles to embrace Islam. He was placed in the home of his brother Abu Darda رضي الله تعالى عنه and they became lifelong brothers.

They used to write letters to each other — Abu Darda رضي الله تعالى عنه in Palestine — may Allah liberate it — and Salman al-Farsi رضي الله تعالى عنه, sometimes in Iraq, sometimes back in Medina. They'd write these letters to each other in their old age, and amongst those messages are nasaih — advices. And one of the advices of Salman رضي الله تعالى عنه to Abu Darda رضي الله تعالى عنه — and it is an authentic narration — was:

(Reported by al-Tabarani in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir; authenticated by al-Albani)

"O my dear brother, upon you is to stay connected to the masjid — attach yourself to it. For I heard the Prophet ﷺ say: the masjid is the home of every pious person." And in one narration: "the masjid is the home of every believer."

It's your home. When you abandon it, you become spiritually homeless. And no — Jumu'ah is not enough. It's really not enough to generate that spirituality and to maintain that spirituality. You become spiritually homeless when you abandon it.

Every single person has to have this as a place. SubhanAllah — even when the Prophet ﷺ would come back from a safar, when he'd come back from a journey, when he'd come back from travel — before he entered into his actual home, he'd go to the masjid and pray two rak'ahs. This is your home. This is your attachment. This is the place where you will continue to generate what you've been trying to find in Ramadan.

Allah's Guarantee for the One Whose Home Is the Masjid

In another authentic narration, the Prophet ﷺ said that the masjid is the home of every person of taqwa, of every person of God-consciousness, and Allah has taken it upon Himself to guarantee for the one whose home is the masjid: comfort, tranquility, and mercy.

And when will you need that most? The Prophet ﷺ said that Allah will guarantee for the one who made the masjid his home safe passage over the Sirat — until he reaches the pleasure of Allah, until he reaches his place in Jannah.

I want you to think about all of this. Ibn Mas'ud says: you want to die Muslim — stay in the masjid. The Prophet ﷺ is saying: you want safe passage over the Sirat, when people will be pulled off of the path that takes a person to Jannah — attach yourself to the masjid. The Prophet ﷺ is saying: you want safe passage to get into Jannah — then ask yourself how many times you are entering into this masjid seeking the pleasure of Allah.

This is your home.

Attachment of the Heart to the Masjid

Of all the resolutions that we're making after Ramadan, I plead with each and every single one of you to increase your attendance in the masjid on a regular basis. If you can come at least once a day, keep it in your mind: I have to have some attachment to it — whatever it is, some sort of attachment to it. Then do so. And the more that you attach yourself, the more reward will come from Allah.

SubhanAllah — when you look at those who will be shaded under the Throne of Allah on the Day of Judgment, one of those is a person whose heart is attached to the masjid. And what does a person whose heart is attached to the masjid look like? They're thinking about attending the masjid. They're thinking about bringing life to the masjid with programming. They're thinking about volunteering in the masjid. They're thinking about building the masjid. They're thinking about cleaning the masjid. They're thinking constantly about the masjid. It's central to them.

The way that a person tries to decorate their home and keep their home in order — they're thinking about the masjid constantly. When they get sick: how can I get back to the masjid? When they're not feeling well: how can I get back to the masjid? When they're traveling: when can I get back to the masjid? It becomes a home — truly in your heart and for your heart. And the Prophet ﷺ mentioned the attachment of the qalb — the attachment of the heart — to it.

And that's why on the Day of Judgment you could hope to be amongst those not just sitting under the ceiling of one of the houses of Allah, but shaded under the Throne of Allah. May Allah grant us that shade on that day.

Closing Du'ā

May Allah increase the love of all that is beloved to Him, and that which attains His love, in our hearts. May Allah attach us to the times and the places and the deeds that bring about His love. May Allah allow us to stay consistent after this month of Ramadan upon that which is pleasing to Him. May Allah forgive us for our shortcomings in Ramadan and outside of Ramadan. Allahumma ameen.

We ask You, O Allah, to keep us attached to Your homes. We ask You, O Allah, to keep us attached to Your deen. We ask You, O Allah, to let us live and die as Muslims. And we ask You, O Allah, to forgive us for any of our shortcomings along the way.