Positive Mindeset
By Unknown Speaker | 2026-06-10T16:11:10.087949+00:00 | Topic: Khutbah
صَدَقَ اللَّهُ الْعَظِيمُ وَصَدَقَ رَسُولُهُ النَّبِيُّ الْكَرِيمُ وَنَحْنُ عَلَى ذَلِكَ لَمِنَ الشَّاهِدِينَ وَالشَّاكِرِينَ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
Respected elders, brothers and sisters, we are living in a time where all around us the only thing that we hear nowadays is bad news. It's as if good news has just become the thing of the past. Early in the morning when you turn on your radio or you access the internet, the only information which is coming to you is bad news. We no longer hear good news anymore. And especially in these times when we are surrounded by fitna all around and such times when those fitnas can become very destructive, and then we find ourselves and we start asking ourselves this question: that how can I protect myself against that fitna?
When we look into the teachings of Rasulullah (peace be upon him), we find that Rasulullah (peace be upon him) has foretold us everything. Many of the signs that will be occurring before the Day of Judgment—everything was told. But unfortunately when we start to hear this topic, when we start listening to the signs of the Day of Judgment or regarding any fitna, the first question that comes into our mind or the objection we start making is: Please don't talk about this topic because you're scaring us.
Early in the morning when we wake up, I'm sure we all listen to the weather forecast. And the reason why we listen is so that we can prepare ourselves ahead of time. It's not so that way we can be scared but rather so that way I can be prepared from beforehand. They're telling you that there's snow out there, there's ice out there, the road conditions are very dangerous. Now if a person were to say they're just scaring me, I don't want to turn this on, I don't want to listen—this is the forecast of Rasulullah (peace be upon him). Whether a person wants to hear or he doesn't want to hear it, the person who prepares ahead of time and plans ahead of time will be the only person that will be saved.
Imam Muslim and the authority of Abu Musa Al Ashari mentioned that Rasulullah (peace be upon him) said: The stars are like a protection for the sky. That as long as those stars are there, the sky will be there in its place. But as soon as these stars are gone, such disaster will be there in the universe that now there can be nothing that will stop anything from going up or coming down. Everything will just be all over the place. Because of these stars being a protection for the universe, then Rasulullah (peace be upon him) mentions: And I am a protection for my companions, my sahaba. And then when I'm gone, then my sahaba will start to face such difficult times after me, after my demise. And then similarly, and my companions are like a protection for my entire ummah. And as soon as my companions are gone, then as soon as my companions are gone, then my ummah will be faced with such difficult trials and tribulations.
In another hadith we find Rasulullah (peace be upon him) saying: Then my companions are like stars. Yes, we do find some of the muhaddithin saying or classifying this hadith as weak. But the reason why I am mentioning this hadith over here is to show you that why is it weak? Is because sometimes we think that if a hadith is weak then it's completely ignored or it's completely put to the side. It's no longer acceptable. But the question is that: Is the message of this hadith not acceptable? As you can see from the previous hadith, that the message of this hadith is very clear, it's acceptable. Yes, maybe the chain of narrators might not be acceptable or maybe some of the wordings might not be acceptable, but as you can see that my companions are like stars, we understand this from the other hadith. It's confirming to the other hadith.
Imam Muslim mentions on the authority of Hudaifat Ibn Al-Yaman (may Allah be pleased with him). Now amongst all of the sahaba, we find that there were certain sahaba—there were much of a greater protection for the ummah than the other ones. Hudaifat Ibn Al-Yaman (may Allah be pleased with him) he mentions that once we were sitting around Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) when he decided to ask us: Does anyone of you remember any of the signs of the day of judgment that Rasulullah (peace be upon him) had told us about?
Hudaifat Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) says: I am the one who remembers some of those signs. What are those signs? So he went on in mentioning those signs which were minor—something that you and I can probably narrate or something which is generally mentioned. Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) was not satisfied at this and he says: I am not asking you regarding this sign. I am asking you regarding those signs that will be coming like the huge waves of the ocean. And if any one of us has gone for a boat ride or a ride in a ship and maybe you were just going on it for fun or for vacation or something like that, when suddenly the tides or the waves start becoming very high, suddenly your vacation or that moment of joy suddenly becomes very dangerous. Now you start fearing for your life.
He says: I am asking you regarding those signs that are like tsunamis. That before this sign ends, this fitna ends, there is another fitna which is taking over. And before that second fitna can come to an end, there is a third fitna which is coming. And a person is just surrounded by fitna all over. He doesn't know where to go.
Hudaifat Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) says: If that is what you are asking, then you have nothing to worry about. Because between you and those fitnas, there is a strong door which is locked. Fitnas won't come in as long as you are there.
Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) says: Will that door be opened or will that door be broken?
Hudaifat Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) says: No, that door will be broken. If that is the case, then that door will never be closed.
Sometime after, some of the sahaba came and started asking Hudaifat Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him): That you and Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) both had a discussion and we didn't understand what you were talking about. Which door you were referring to? Who was that door? What was that door? What were you talking about?
Hudaifat Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) says: Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) is that door to those fitnas that will be coming in. And as we can see that Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) did not die a natural death, he was martyred. And after his demise, we see that all the doors of fitnas were just opened.
In these times, what is Rasulullah (peace be upon him) telling us?
(Sahih Muslim)
Hasten towards good deeds, do not delay. Badiru bil a'mali fitna—because such fitnas will come which won't allow you to perform good deeds. Hasten towards good deeds.
Sometimes we delay our good deeds. We think that, you know, I'll perform it later. And if a person is thinking to himself: Once I retire and I have a very big business, maybe at that time I'll go and start spending or donating in the path of Allah. Or a person starts thinking to himself that I'll start performing my surah when I have absolutely no more responsibilities left and I have nothing on my head, that's when I'll start performing my surah. Subhanallah, how do you even know that you'll be living till that time? Is there any guarantee that as soon as you walk out of this masjid, you'll be alive? We like to plan so far ahead. We're so short-sighted.
Badiru bil a'mali fitna—because these fitnas will be like the dark portions of the night. It'll be encompassing a person from all around.
(Sahih Muslim)
And times will become so delicate that at night time, this person is speaking so good about Islam and in the evening, this person was a believer and now by the time it's morning, this person has already turned away from Islam. Or in the morning, this person was a believer. By the time it's night, this person has gone against Islam. He has nothing good to say about Islam anymore. And what will be the main cause of this?
(Sahih Muslim)
People will be selling their deen just for trivial worldly gains. I'm selling my deen because I need some worldly materials. And subhanallah, when we hear this hadith, normally we start looking around: Yeah, you know, I know that brother, he's involved in that fitna and he's doing this and he's doing that. And then we forget ourselves that these hadith are there so that way we can learn them and protect ourselves. If someone else is involved in that fitna, first we need to look at ourselves: Am I involved in this fitna or no?
And usually those people that think or they feel that they are immune against fitna or any other types of things—those people are the first people to fall in those fitnas. If a person thinks to himself that, you know, I don't need anything, I'll be going straight into Jannah, then now there's a doubt whether this person will be going straight into Jannah or not.
Sometimes we like to judge other people. When we start pointing fingers at other people, not even knowing that person's situation, that maybe that person is doing something because of some need or for some other reason behind it, and I'm jumping to conclusion and I'm judging this person. Who am I to judge this person? Only Allah (Glorified and Exalted) is in that position to judge a person.
We see a person performing his salah and now this person has such a hard time, difficult time getting up from sajdah to qiyam. And now we start looking at him and saying: You know that person, he doesn't even know how to perform his salah. At least I perform my salah better than him. How do you not know what type of pain that person is going through? That person has a back pain, he has a knee problem, he has something that he's going through. You are completely unaware of that person's situation. But no, we just like to point our fingers.
Or sometimes a person wants to do something good from his side, but then he starts to say: That the reason why I'm not performing that good deed is because I don't have a beard. The reason why I'm not performing my salah is because I don't have a beard. Subhanallah, there are two different things. Maybe because of this good deed, Allah (Glorified and Exalted) might give you the tawfiq to perform another good deed. That doesn't mean that I stop one good deed because of the other one that I'm not performing.
A lot of times we hear people saying that: The reason why I don't perform my salah regularly is because because I don't perform my salah, so I feel bad just performing one or two salahs. Subhanallah, that doesn't mean that we just leave it out completely. So look what the Prophet (peace be upon him) is telling us:
(Sahih Muslim)
That when these fitnas will be around us and they won't be just the dark portions, they'll be so dark like the dark portions of the darkest nights. Sometimes nights can become very very dark. Those fitnas can be in a person's pocket. The fitnas can be all around this person. The word hasir is being used in the hadith—that it'll be like a carpet. Just the way a person is surrounded by a carpet, fitnas will be surrounding this person from all over. You take out your hand in the middle of the night; you have something written on it; you can't even see what's written on it. This person will completely be lost in fitna. He won't even know that I'm in fitna right now.
And at that time, Rasulullah (peace be upon him) is telling us that a person will just be selling his deen for worthy gains. Not so long ago, there was a masjid that was being sued by a brother who was working inside of the masjid. He was working for the masjid. He fell off the ladder. He broke his bone. And now him and the masjid are in the court. And this person is trying to sue the masjid. Why? For my own personal benefits:
(Sahih Muslim)
It doesn't matter if it's hurting Islam. It doesn't matter if it's hurting Muslims. It doesn't matter if it's hurting the deen of Allah. All the donations that people are giving to the masjid so that way Islam can spread—no, I just need that money for myself. I don't care about anything else. Just imagine if this becomes a situation of a person. It's not like that money is going to remove that person's pain or bring his bone back. What is he getting out of it? But no:
(Sahih Muslim)
A person is doing things for worthy materials. And in those times, Rasulullah (peace be upon him) is telling us that hold strong onto your deen because fitnas will become so strong that a person will be walking past a cemetery, walking past a graveyard, and he will start to say: There are such great fitnas around me.
(Not a Quranic ayah—this is paraphrasing from hadith)
I wish that I was in the position of this person who's there inside of the grave. I just had enough of life. I can't take life anymore. There's too much fitna around me.
So in those times, what is Rasulullah (peace be upon him) instructing us to do? What is he telling us? That when you are faced with those situations, don't we think that we are living in that era? Really, if we pick up the books of history and we look inside, we'll find that the most amount of fitnas that had occurred throughout the history of Islam was in this era that we're living in right now.
A beautiful advice that Rasulullah (peace be upon him) is giving us. He's telling us that when that time comes:
Start enjoining good and start forbidding evil. Because why? Because a time will come:
You will start to see people that are extremely greedy. You can give a person very little, but now this person is so greedy he wants to have more. And no matter how much you give this person, the person just wants more and more.
People will just be following their desires.
Don't you see those people that have made their desires their own gods? It's as if what this person's desires are telling him, that's the only thing that this person is following. He has absolutely no regards for the teachings of Rasulullah (peace be upon him) or for the book of Allah. And when you see those type of people, then Rasulullah (peace be upon him) says: The fitna will not just stop over here, there will be even more fitna.
وَذَوَن مُتَّبِعًا—you will see people that are also giving preferences to the dunya. People will be giving preferences to the dunya.
وَإِعْجَابَكُ الَّذِي رَأْيٍ بِرَأْيهِ—and people will just be so adamant upon their opinions that if I said so, then it has to be like this. As if you know, this person is receiving wahi. My way or the highway. The reason why I don't want to talk to this person is because this person doesn't listen to me. He doesn't consider my opinions.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) is telling us that once you are faced with those type of fitna:
Then the only thing that you need to worry about is yourself now. Because now nobody will listen to you. Now there are just fitnas all around you and there is nothing that you can do to save anybody else. If nobody is listening to you and now you only have to worry about your own self, now you just have to worry about your own family members, your own children, and how you will enter into Jannah.
This is the time that Allah (Glorified and Exalted) is giving us. Allah (Glorified and Exalted) has put us in this position where when Allah (Glorified and Exalted) wants to elevate the status of a person or He wants to elevate the status of this ummah, then remember Allah (Glorified and Exalted) will bring these situations about.
It's a very common understanding nowadays that we start to think that if Allah (Glorified and Exalted) gives me a lot, then I'm the most dearest person to Allah. And if Allah (Glorified and Exalted) was to take everything away from me, then Allah (Glorified and Exalted), he has turned away from me.
We feel as if Allah takes everything away from us, then it's as if Allah is angry with us. When you look in the life of Rasulullah (peace be upon him), how many of his own children survived throughout his life? Does that mean that Allah (Glorified and Exalted) was angry with Rasulullah (peace be upon him)? How much hardships and difficulties that the Prophet (peace be upon him) had to go through?
(Jami' at-Tirmidhi)
The person who is the closest to Allah (Glorified and Exalted) is that person who goes through the most amount of difficulties. When Allah (Glorified and Exalted) is putting us through this situation, what is it that we have to offer back to Allah (Glorified and Exalted)?
Some time ago, we were begging non-Muslims to come and ask us about our Islam. We were going from door to door, knocking so that way people can come and learn about Islam from us. Now Allah (Glorified and Exalted) has put us in such a position where everybody wants to just come and learn our deen from us. But unfortunately this has become the time when we are leaving our own deen. Like Allah (Glorified and Exalted) says:
Sometimes these situations are such that Allah is using this situation to filter out the believers, the true believers and the munafiqeen. Are we part of the believers or are we part of the munafiqeen? All that we have to worry about is that Allah does not filter us out along with the munafiqeen. Those people that just go in accordance to how the situation is—that if the situation is according to my way, then I'll be a practicing Muslim. But no sooner, when I'm faced with such situations or oppositions, then that's it, I see my way out.
And really it's gone so far that we even go to the extent of changing our names. Muhammad becomes Mo, Jabir becomes J, and we're doing everything possible to cover our identities. Who's responsible for this? When Islam is being given a bad name, who's responsible? Is it the people who are giving Islam a bad name? Or is it those people that are thinking that Islam is a bad religion? Or is it those good people that are hiding their Islam from the people so that way people don't even know what Islam is? Who's responsible?
And remember that Rasulullah (peace be upon him) told us that when we are put in this situation, this is our best time to get as close as possible to Allah (Glorified and Exalted). Because the Prophet (peace be upon him) mentioned that the last portion of my ummah when they do any amal, even though that amal might be very strong, but it'll be equivalent to those great amals that the previous nations have done or the previous people of this ummah have done. This is an opportunity from Allah (Glorified and Exalted). Allah (Glorified and Exalted) is providing us with these opportunities. We just need to take time and do amal upon these things. We need to take out time and to bring the sunnahs of Rasulullah (peace be upon him) into our lives.
Time is very valuable. Every second that passes by will never return. Seconds and minutes from our life are going away. And sometimes when we ask the youth, especially on the weekends: What are you doing on the weekends? He's bored, he has nothing better to do. He'll just tell you: I'm laying there on the couch or I'm just sleeping. I'm just trying to kill time. But he doesn't understand that he's not killing time, time is killing him. That those seconds that are leaving will never come back.
And if you want to know the value of time, ask a businessman, he'll tell you that time is money. Once a scholar was passing through the streets of Baghdad. And he says that: I always pondered over this verse:
Why is Allah (Glorified and Exalted) taking the oath of time? What's so special about time that Allah (Glorified and Exalted) is taking oath of it? I never understood it. Until I passed through the streets of Baghdad. And I saw one person who was over there, he was selling some ice. He was trying to sell his merchandise. And he was calling out to the people and he's saying: Oh people, quickly come, come before this ice melts. And every second that was passing by, you could see that there's water dripping from that ice. And he's saying: Quickly, quickly, before it finishes. And he's running around all over the place. He says that: Now I understood this verse. Why Allah (Glorified and Exalted) took oath in time. It's very valuable. Time is not something to be wasted.
If any thought comes into our mind that I need to perform this good deed, then do it now. Because it's the trick of shaitan that shaitan always tries to make us delay. Shaitan will tell us that, you know, just postpone this until afterwards. When you have better time or you're in a better situation, then maybe you can come back.
Sometimes we make a niya, we make an intention before we go to sleep that, you know, inshallah tomorrow in the morning I'll get up before Salatul Fajr and I'll perform two rakahs. And we don't even get up for Fajr Salah. Ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted) to give us this understanding and ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted) to make us steadfast upon his deen and to revive the sunnahs of Rasulullah (peace be upon him). Regardless of what type of fitnahs that we are surrounded by, may Allah (Glorified and Exalted) use us for his deen. And in that way Allah (Glorified and Exalted) can also help us be steadfast upon his deen.
I say this, and I ask Allah forgiveness for you and me and for the rest of the Muslims, and the Muslims, and the last of our supplications. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.