When You Hit Your Lowest Point

We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. 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. Allahuma Ameen.

The Ever-Increasing Beauty of Jannah

Dear brothers and sisters, one of the most beautiful things about paradise, about Jannah — and it is full of beauty and Allah has prepared for its inhabitants, may Allah make us amongst them, that which no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no imagination could ever comprehend — but one of its most beautiful traits is that it never gets old.

What that means is that every day when you think you have peaked in terms of beauty, it gets more beautiful. When you think you've seen its most beautiful palace, Allah opens up the doors of another palace. When you see your spouse in paradise — and no one is single in paradise — your spouse is more beautiful every time you see them. When you go to its marketplaces, you see things that you didn't see the last time. The fruits taste better. Every single moment in Jannah is an upgrade. It gets better and better and better and better, and Allah is surely capable of that being never ending. May Allah make us its inhabitants, Allahuma Ameen.

And no one in Jannah thinks that they have anyone above them. So that's also one of the blessings of Jannah — you don't have the fear of missing out. The person who is in the lowest level thinks that they must be in the highest level because of what Allah is unveiling for them. That's the beauty of paradise. It keeps getting better and better and better and better. Blessing after blessing after blessing after blessing.

The Reality of Dunya — Trials That Keep Coming

The counterpart to that is this dunya, this life, where sometimes you get hit by a hardship and you think this is the hardest it's ever going to get. And then something else happens and something else happens and something else happens. And so the idea of it all falling apart — and of course the way that we come in, the way that we then age, and the way that things start to wither away — we lose our appetite for this dunya and it just seems to sometimes fall apart. And of course that's true also in the collective sense with al-fitan, with trials and tribulations. They start to strike one after the other, one after the other, to where you feel like you can't catch up.

On an individual level, you get hit and you think this really hurts and I think that this is the hardest it's going to get — and then something else happens. You look to the world and if you are an empath, the believer sees a person falling off of a plane in Afghanistan or off of a boat from Libya. And where does my heart go? How can I encompass all of this? May Allah make it easy for all of our brothers and sisters wherever they may be.

So Jannah keeps getting better, and dunya seemingly — at least — keeps getting worse. And one of the things that happens to us is that sometimes it's also our perception that when one trial hits, we read into things that aren't necessarily trials as being trials after that, or we magnify our trials. It's like if someone is in a boxing ring and they get hit — you can tell that the fighter was never the same for the rest of the fight, even if they managed to get back up and recover. The effect of that hit was there. And so sometimes what happens after a major trial hits you in life, you start reading into it way more than what should be read into it, and it's like: Ya Allah, why is it all falling apart? What's happening? Why do the punches keep on coming?

Your Lowest Point — A Unique Opportunity

Now what I want to talk about is that lowest point, because undoubtedly there is a point that all of us will reach that will be our lowest point. And it doesn't necessarily need to be our lowest point in terms of the severity of the tragedy — it could be the circumstances that we are in when that happens.

Surely Ta'if — which we know was the lowest point of the Prophet ﷺ because he said so — Ta'if hurt more because the Prophet ﷺ did not have Khadijah to wipe his wounds. There's no doubt about that. There is also a decade of rejection that precedes Ta'if that makes it that much worse. And so sometimes — and that's why every trial is unique — it hits you at the wrong time. Wrong, in quotation marks. Wrong time. And it's like: Ya Allah, this is horrible. I don't know how to get out of this. I don't know how to move forward. And of course certain trials also have a permanence in regards to the consequences in life. You lose someone you love — as much as you cope, that person will not come back to this earth. Something falls apart, sometimes there's a permanence to that.

Now what do we do? And I don't want to just talk about this from the perspective of hardship as a whole. I want to talk about that lowest point and how you actually take that and do something with it that's very unique — because when you're at that lowest point, you know what else you are? You're most vulnerable. You're most vulnerable in that you're most likely to put your ego to the side, and you can humble yourself most to Allah. So you're most vulnerable, which has the capacity to reinvigorate your du'a, your prayer, your reflection, your worship.

Sometimes you see a relationship and they say the best thing that ever happened to that relationship was that it hit crisis — and out of that crisis, we learn things, certain things happen, and you look back and you see: that was a turning point. So your ego gets put to the side, you're humbled. And when you're humbled, you're in a perfect place to make sujood and to cry out to Allah in prostration and say: Ya Allah, I'm humbled.

You're also in that vulnerability in a perfect place to rethink things, to be introspective, to actually start to think about what preceded that moment and what can be done after that moment. So it's an interesting place that you find yourself in. And you have to remember that Allah doesn't give you a swamp — Allah gives you a springboard. When you're in that low point, you have a chance to jump up.

The Falls of the Prophets — and Their Elevations

There is no fall that any of us will ever encounter greater than the literal fall of Adam alayhi as-salam from paradise to earth. But even then, there was an elevation in his station, his maqam, his status with Allah that made his station even greater than before he fell. The same thing with Yunus alayhi as-salam plunging to the bottom of the ocean. That's a fall that none of us could probably quite come to terms with.

But you're in this place where you can rethink. You're in this place where you can reevaluate, reassess, and then get back somewhere — or where you've actually never been — and let it be an actual better place.

And the reality is that a lot of times, especially when you're talking about the secular sense, when someone hits that low point, they talk about their potential from that downfall — but in this world, it's restricted to this world. That's the problem with a dunyawi worldview. It's so restrictive. It's so limited. What's the maximum they could talk about? Your potential coming out of that. And certainly, that's part of it — there's a certain potential of strength and resilience that can be gained from that place. But when we think about it, we think about it also in terms of the potential of a higher place in paradise, the potential of a higher station with Allah.

And we're taught not to necessarily wish for the low point to achieve that potential. There is a very beautiful du'a from Salam ibn Abi Muti' rahimahullah ta'ala. He used to say:

"Oh Allah, if there is a station that You have gotten people to through hardships and trials, then allow me to reach that station without the trial." That was his du'a.

If you let someone reach a certain position — we read about Yusuf alayhi as-salam, Ayyub alayhi as-salam, Yunus alayhi as-salam. The only prophet who we know walked away from his people prematurely, yet he was the first prophet that Allah revealed to the Prophet ﷺ in a spirit of praise. He got back up and he elevated, only by the mercy of Allah.

And Ibn Mas'ud radiallahu ta'ala anhu is narrated to have mentioned that most of the people that enter paradise don't enter paradise by a good deed that they do, but by the way they responded to a hardship. A hardship came your way and there was a sabr, an ihtisab — a patience, a resilience, a steadfastness that you showed — and that was the means by which Allah delivered you to a place that you otherwise would not have been able to get.

The thing is, you don't see that place right now. And so sometimes it becomes hard to see outside of where you are at the moment, to see light at the end of the tunnel, to see that position in a paradise that you can't even imagine. It's hard to imagine it, it's hard to grasp it, it's hard to act in accordance with it — but that's what makes it so rewardable.

As-Sabr 'ind As-Sadmat Al-Ula — Patience at the First Strike

SubhanAllah — you get this one life, this one life to live in this dunya that is consequential to the rest of your eternity. And there are things that happen to you — one-time events — and there is one moment in that one-time event that if you capitalize on it, changes your entire hereafter.

As-sadmat al-ula — that first strike. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 1283; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 926)

"Patience is at the first strike." It's not — as the scholars say — that patience is only at the first strike. It's that there is a unique patience at the first strike that, if you seize that moment and you respond in that once-in-a-lifetime moment, that once-in-a-lifetime hardship, with a once-in-a-lifetime patience — what does it unlock for you in the hereafter? Bayt al-hamd — a house of praise. You walk into Jannah and you say: Ya Allah, for me? Ya Allah, how did I get to this place? Because you got hit, and you responded right. It's that one moment that you could seize and you could captivate. And subhanAllah, a lot of us are so paralyzed in that one moment. May Allah make it easy for all of us.

I've heard a lot over the last couple of years — and it's the environment around us — like: I don't think I'm gonna make it. This is the worst it's ever been for me. This is the hardest. I don't know how I'm gonna recover out of this. I don't know how I'm gonna move forward. Sometimes it's self-inflicted — Allah didn't give you a swamp, you stepped into one. But even then there's a life jacket. Allah has given you a way back. How do I get out of this? Ya Allah, how do I get out of this? But you have to think about the potential — just as you are feeling the pain of the uniqueness of the hardship, you have to think about the uniqueness of the reward in that moment. There's something right now that if I do, Ya Allah, I can achieve so much from Allah, I can gain so much from Allah.

The Prophets at Their Lowest Points in the Qur'an

Dear brothers and sisters, there are various low points that we find in the Qur'an. And it's really interesting — subhanAllah — that when you go through the Prophets in the Qur'an, you get an array of experiences. Sometimes Allah gives us a lot about their da'wah, about their call. Sometimes Allah gives us a lot about their people. Sometimes Allah gives us a lot about their circumstances. But one thing that's almost always consistent is we learn about their hardships. Almost every Prophet that Allah tells us about in the Qur'an, there is that moment:

"Oh Lord, I am overwhelmed, so grant me victory."

"My Lord, I am in absolute need of whatever good You send down to me."

"There is no deity except You; exalted are You. Indeed, I have been of the wrongdoers."

"My Lord, adversity has touched me, and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful."

Almost all of them. Why? Because pain is the universal human experience that we can all relate to. But that unique reward, that unique place.

Our Mother 'A'ishah and the Trial of al-Ifk

And I want to end this khutbah by putting you in a conversation with your mother, your mom. Umm al-Mu'minin 'A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha.

I remember the first time doing a study of al-Bukhari — how many times hadith al-ifk, the chapter of the slander of 'A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha, comes up. Because there's so much fiqh. It's so long when she tells her own story of how she was slandered and the circumstances of it. And there are tangents in her story. She goes off on a tangent sometimes. There is fiqh in there, there's jurisprudence to be learned. You go through the books of hadith, you can go one by one, capture this moment, capture that moment — and these gems.

But if you're sitting in a living room with your mom, 'A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha — and she is our mother — and our mother felt a lot of pain. And I'm listening to my mom talk about the most painful moment in her life. Where everything was darkness. Where even the Prophet ﷺ, who was always a source of comfort to her, was withheld from comforting her in those moments. All alone. Did absolutely nothing wrong. And her honor is being dragged through the streets of Al-Madinah. Our mom.

And our mother is talking to us. She's talking about the moments. She's talking about what was going through her mind. She's talking about what ayat of Qur'an she could remember — and the ones that she couldn't. She's talking about how she felt when people looked at her. How she felt in this conversation, how she felt in that conversation. And I was just paying attention to this one sentence that she says:

She said: "Wallahi, I never thought that Allah would reveal Qur'an for me. Who am I, so that Allah would reveal revelation from the heavens for me?"

That's your mom talking. I didn't think I was worthy of that. I never would have imagined that Allah would reveal Qur'an for me. Who am I? Ten verses of the Qur'an come down to defend me. Who am I? That the Qur'an would speak about me. I never thought that revelation would descend from the heavens for me.

Dear brothers and sisters, we don't know what comes from the heavens for us when we're in those low points. But we know that the Lord that descended those verses from the heavens for 'A'ishah radiAllahu anha, and the Lord that rescued Ayyub alayhi as-salam and Yunus alayhi as-salam and our Prophet ﷺ and answered those prayers — is the same Lord that we're calling upon:

"Who is it that responds to the desperate one when he calls upon Him, and removes the harm?" Who else are you going to call upon?

Allah does not let the reward of the good-doers go to waste, nor does He let the reward of the patient go to waste.

And so, when you're in that moment, dear brothers and sisters, and you're thinking: Now I have a window. I have a window where I can really capitalize on the reward — remember that there are things that would come down from the heavens for you that you will only see when you make it to paradise, بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى. And do not belittle yourself to where you think that the mercy of Allah will not encompass you. If our mother 'A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha said, "I never thought Allah would reveal Qur'an for me" — who knows what Allah will do for us.

Closing Du'a

We ask Allah to grant us patience, to grant us steadfastness, to maximize our reward, to grant us the highest station in this life, to allow us to reach our maximum potential in this life of pleasing Him, and to allow us to reach the maximum position and station in paradise in the companionship of our beloved Prophet ﷺ. We ask Allah to forgive us for our weak points, to forgive us for our shortcomings. We ask Allah to make the best of our deeds the last of them and the best of our days the day that we meet Him. Allahumma Ameen.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ وَلِسَائِرِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

"Indeed, Allah commands justice, good conduct, and giving to relatives, and forbids immorality, bad conduct, and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded."

"So remember Allah; He will remember you. And be grateful to Him for His blessings — He will increase you. And the remembrance of Allah is the greatest. And Allah knows what you do." And establish the prayer.