Your Future Self Is Not Who You Think It Is l Jumu'ah Khutbah

Opening Supplications

Ameen, ya Rabbal 'alameen.

We begin by praising Allah and 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.

We counsel ourselves and one another with the taqwa of Allah, as He has commanded us with the truth. And Allah says:

Amma ba'd.

The Prophet Musa and the Full Spectrum of Human Experience

Dear brothers and sisters, one of the amazing things about Sayyidina Musa ﷺ in the Quran — who is the most spoken about prophet in the Quran — is that Allah gives us everything about Musa ﷺ: from his emotions, to his thoughts, to his game plans, to his actions, to how he feels after something takes place.

And so when you look at the person of Musa ﷺ, you are given the full spectrum. Allah tells us about how he was preparing for an incident. Allah tells us about the very real human emotion of anxiety before an incident will take place. Allah tells us about Musa ﷺ's emotions while he is in the middle of the most heated encounters that we have ever witnessed. And Allah tells us about his relief and his praise of Allah after it is all done.

And so you will find of this prophet, Musa ﷺ, that there is a toolkit when he goes into some of these moments of great pressure — and a healthy level of self-doubt. Not doubt in Allah, not doubt in Allah having the tools that are necessary for him to be able to conquer the moment, but self-doubt to the extent that he goes above and beyond to prepare himself.

"You Will Find Me, Insha'Allah, To Be Patient"

And so even in the words — which are not unique to him — when he meets al-Khadr ﷺ:

You will find me, insha'Allah, to be amongst the patient.

You find that when his future father-in-law speaks to him:

That I will honor the contract with you, O Musa. You will find me, insha'Allah, to be amongst the righteous. You will find me to be up to the mission, up to the integrity that is required for the moment.

When Ismail ﷺ speaks to his father Ibrahim ﷺ:

You will find me, O my father, insha'Allah, to be amongst the patient.

They all recognized that they were entering into a very difficult moment — something that might challenge what they had already set out to do. And they put their trust entirely in Allah to see them through that moment.

And subhanAllah, with Musa ﷺ, when he says to al-Khadr ﷺ, سَتَجِدُنِي إِن شَاءَ اللَّهُ مِنَ الصَّابِرِينَ — he was sincere. He truly wanted to meet the moment. But as things started to unfold before him, Musa ﷺ slips. It's not a slip into sin — it's being too hasty, trying to get the answers of the situation. And every time al-Khadr challenges him and tells him:

Didn't I tell you that you will not be able to be patient with me? He once again renews: yes, I will be patient. This time I'll be patient. This time I will be patient.

What the ulema speak about in this regard, as you dissect these sentences from the Prophets of Allah, is that no matter how much you spiritually condition yourself for the circumstance, for the moment — you don't actually know how you're going to act in the moment.

The Most Frequent Du'a of the Prophet ﷺ

And that's why the most frequent du'a of the Prophet ﷺ — who has the least to worry about, the one who is forgiven for his previous sins, for his future sins, for anything that has come before and anything that comes after; the best of Allah's creation — his most frequent du'a is:

O Turner of hearts, make my heart firm upon Your religion.

(Jami' at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3522)

And the firmness that the Prophet ﷺ is talking about is not one that is like our firmness — because the Prophet ﷺ does not have the potential to commit the types of sins that we're capable of committing. But: O Allah, allow me to perfect the response in the most heated of moments. O Allah, keep me upon that which is most blessed, most beloved to You, when the most difficult of circumstances arise in the future.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ recognizes that no matter where you arrive, there is always the potential to slip. And there is still a ways to go in order to reach what Allah has made you capable of reaching, even in the most heated of circumstances.

The People of Gaza and Spiritual Conditioning

So what's the toolkit? And why is this so relevant to us right now? We're seeing a world around us fall apart. And we're seeing, subhanAllah, in the people of Gaza, a people that have clearly prepared themselves for the moment. And Allah has put them through conditions that mirrored, to an extent, the condition they are in right now — except that it is multiplied. But they have already played out in their minds the scenario that they are in right now. And so when you hear their responses — their perfect responses to these grotesque moments of genocide — know that there was a spiritual conditioning that preceded that moment. That that moment was already rehearsed in their minds over and over and over again.

And so for the rest of us: we live in an era of fitnah. We live in an era of trial and tribulation. We live in an era of great uncertainty, where things might happen tomorrow that we would have never anticipated. And for some of us, we're starting to think about these major signs of the Day of Judgment — not just the minor signs, but the potential onslaught of the major signs of the Day of Judgment. And how we respond to that moment.

And it's important for us to recognize that just because the Mahdi were to come out in your time, doesn't mean that you're going to be amongst those that are worthy of following him. That just because you have at least recited the du'a — maybe in passing — of:

I seek refuge in You, O Allah, from the trial of al-Masih al-Dajjal — maybe not thinking about it as you say it at the end of your salah, hopefully at the end of every salah — doesn't mean that you'll actually be able to resist his fitnah, his temptation, if you show up in front of him.

In fact, some of the scholars say that this is one of the dimensions of what the Prophet ﷺ says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3026; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1742)

Do not wish to meet your enemy.

Now here's the thing. The sahaba were prepared. The sahaba had the intention to always be alongside the Prophet ﷺ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ. The sahaba always looked towards the potential worst circumstances, and they were living an entire period of uncertainty — 23 years of uncertainty alongside the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, where a new enemy from within or without would suddenly attack, where a circumstance would arise. But even then the Prophet ﷺ is saying: don't wish for the most adverse of circumstances. Instead, prepare yourself with the right conditioning that's necessary. Ask Allah for a thabat, for firmness. And then be mindful of the reward that exists at the end of that moment should you find yourself in the thrust of that moment.

Do Not Trust Your Future Self — Trust Allah

There is something profound to this idea of not trusting your future self. There's something deeply profound about it. And self-doubt is a slippery slope — because there's a level of self-doubt that will simply breed insecurity, and a person will simply say, "Well, I'm done. There's no way. It's going to come and my iman is going to be taken away from me at the time of death. It's going to come and I'm not going to be ready for it." And there's a level of self-doubt that leads you to over-prepare for the moment — to rehearse circumstances in your mind, to put yourself in those positions mentally, constantly.

And that greatest test is the test of death itself. You won't be tested in life with anything greater than the moment of death itself, when the soul is actually exiting the body. And if the believer is preparing for that every single day, then everything under it will naturally be prepared for.

And subhanAllah, you'll find that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ connected seeking refuge in Allah:

I seek refuge in You, O Allah, from the torment of the grave, from the trial and tribulation of the grave. And I seek refuge in You, O Allah, from the difficulty of al-Masih al-Dajjal.

And you think about: what's the connection between al-Masih al-Dajjal appearing right before you and the angel of death appearing in front of you? It's that the situation can become so overwhelming that if you're not deeply rooted in what you claim to know, then your knowledge will escape you under the heavy pressure of that moment. And in terms of the world of deception that we're in, nothing would be more deceptive than al-Masih al-Dajjal in front of you. And in terms of your senses leaving you, if you're not deeply rooted in that knowledge, deeply conditioned in iman, deeply conditioned in faith — when the angels are in the grave and they ask you:

Who is your Lord?

In that type of scenario, you can't look around — there are no clues. There is nothing to search here. It's whether or not you've conditioned yourself enough in it to be able to answer from a place of spiritual reflex. You immediately can answer because you've conditioned yourself for that moment.

The Toolkit of the Prophets

We also take from this that in the case of Musa ﷺ — and in the case of all of these great people that came before, the prophets and the righteous ones — they built their toolkits.

First: Du'a — Entrust Everything to Allah

First and foremost, look at Musa ﷺ's du'a when Allah tells him to go forth to meet Fir'awn:

It's like he doesn't entrust to himself a single element of this affair. O Allah, expand my chest. Not: "alhamdulillah, I'm a prophet; I've already been through a lot — I went through the Nile River, I went through fleeing death and being a fugitive and being a refugee here, I went through this difficult situation." He doesn't trust his own chest. رَبِّ اشْرَحْ لِي صَدْرِي — Expand it for me, O Allah.

وَيَسِّرْ لِي أَمْرِي — Not: "I've been through difficult things before, so I don't need Your tayseer, Your easing of the affairs." No, I need You to ease the affair as well.

وَاحْلُلْ عُقْدَةً مِّن لِّسَانِي يَفْقَهُوا قَوْلِي — Not: "I've represented myself in difficult situations before and I think I know what to say if I find myself here." Ya Allah, untie the knots. Let it flow properly. Let me say the word that is pleasing to You at that moment of great difficulty.

SubhanAllah, if you took this du'a and you assigned it to the moment of death, or you assigned it to the moment of great distress, it fits each and every single one of them. What do you want? You want the clarity, the ease, and the ability to say that word that is pleasing to Allah under the moment of great duress.

Second: Righteous Company

He also teaches us to have in our toolkit that righteous company. As the scholars say: when it comes to fitnah, be with the righteous or be alone — but there's no third option. Be with the righteous or be alone, but there's no third option.

If you realize with Musa ﷺ:

Grant me my brother — let me have Harun with me. When Musa ﷺ goes out to al-Khadr, he takes with him Yusha' ﷺ, Yusha' ibn Nun. There's a righteous companion. If you can find a righteous companion, then be with that righteous companion.

And Allah speaks to this in the Quran:

O you who believe, be mindful of Allah and be amongst those who are truthful.

When Allah says:

Keep yourself patient with those who worship Allah day and night.

So you can't just say, "You will find me insha'Allah to be amongst the صَابِرِينَ," but you don't have صَابِرِينَ around you, people that teach you sabr around you. You can't just say, "You will find me insha'Allah to be amongst the صَادِقِينَ الصَّالِحِينَ," but you're not مَعَ الصَّادِقِينَ وَالصَّالِحِينَ today — you're not with the righteous and the truthful people today.

So you have the du'a in your toolbox. You have righteous company in your toolbox — or you're alone. But the point is that there is no third option. You prepare that moment with Allah.

Third: Do Not Trust Yourself — Trust Allah

You also find in Musa ﷺ again: do not trust yourself, trust Allah. Do not trust yourself, trust Allah. The sahaba mastered this.

So when al-Qadi Abu Layla says: I saw amongst the sahaba — tens of them, 70 of them — every one of them يَتَّهِمُ نَفْسَهُ بِالنِّفَاقِ — every one of them interrogates himself, accuses himself of hypocrisy. Does that mean that the sahaba were not striving for righteousness? No. They saw that within themselves was a potential that they feared, that they don't know what the future holds — and because they don't know what the future holds, they don't know what their future selves will be. And it's that fear that actually kept them straight.

As the scholars mentioned:

That the fear you have of a bad ending is actually the reason by which you have a good ending. Your fear of a bad ending is the reason by which you have a good ending. Because you've thought about it so many times, and you want to make sure that you don't end up in that space. And so you don't trust yourself — you trust Allah. Because you realize that circumstances can bring out these dormant spiritual diseases inside of us that we didn't even know exist within us.

And so you always accuse yourself. You always interrogate yourself. Again, not to paralyze yourself — but to take that trust you have in yourself and to relegate it to a trust in Allah. You fear the slip-up as much as you fear sin. You fear a zillah — that you can slip in a moment. And because you fear that slip-up, then you study those who have slipped up before you and those that are slipping up around you. And you say, "How can I make sure that I don't find myself in the same situation as those that slipped up before or those that slip up now?"

And you know what else? You don't mock those who have fallen. Because if you taunt the people that have fallen, Allah will test you with falling yourself. Instead, you internalize the slip-ups around you. You have a friend that went astray. You have a colleague that you knew. Even when you got older and you say, "SubhanAllah, I remember this person used to be this way. I remember this person used to come to the masjid. I remember this person used to speak this way. I remember this person used to dress this way. I remember this person used to worship this way." Don't mock that person. Instead, ask Allah for al-'afiyah. Ask Allah to be spared. And ask yourself: what happened? What happened? So that you yourself can be on guard as well. Because you're not just supposed to fear the slip-up — you're supposed to study the fallen and say, "What do I do to make sure that I don't find myself in that same situation?"

The Smaller Istiqamah Before the Greater Istiqamah

The other thing that we take from this, dear brothers and sisters — what the ulema mention — is the smaller istiqamah before the greater istiqamah. The word istiqamah means to stay firm. And it was the most frequent du'a of the Prophet ﷺ — to stay firm. And there's always a minor manifestation and a major manifestation.

That a person would increase إِيمَانًا مَعَ إِيمَانِهِمْ — faith upon faith. Just because you have faith does not mean that you have enough faith. That a person will increase from sabr to a greater level of sabr — just because you can be patient in some things doesn't mean that you don't have ways to go in the school of patience. And every single virtue in Islam has a layer that is yet to be achieved by you. Istiqamah is no different.

And what istiqamah looks like in the minor sense, in the smaller sense — subhanAllah, when you look at the way the scholars speak about it — it's the spiritual reflex. The spiritual reflex. Meaning what? Can you resist the minor urges in your life? Can you resist the urge to argue over something small? Can you resist the urge to complain about something small? Can you resist the urge to look at something haram? Can you resist the urge to speak that word in that moment? Can you resist these urges? Can you control these urges with circumstances that aren't incredibly devastating? And if you learn that, then you're preparing yourself for a moment.

SubhanAllah — you're watching people lose limbs on a daily basis. You're watching people lose homes on a daily basis. If something were to rip in your favorite shirt — coffee spills on it — how much does that ruin your day? How are you going to learn to respond with the right spiritual reflex when Allah tests you with the body part if you can't respond with the right spiritual reflex when Allah tests you with the garment that covers it? Your phone breaks, your laptop falls — do you just curse and yell and scream and it's the worst thing that happened in the world? What are you going to do if Allah tests you with your car, with your house?

So it's the spiritual reflex. And Allah always speaks about the spiritual reflex in the conditional:

Those who, when they are tested with tragedy, their reflex is immediately: إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ — To Allah we belong and to Allah we return.

Those who immediately say alhamdulillah for small things — then they'll say it for large things.

When they fall into a sin, they will remember Allah and seek forgiveness for that sin.

How strong are your spiritual reflexes? And you have to be practicing them every single day with the smallest things in life — with the smallest things in life — so that when the major test comes, your reflexes will still be sound. Your spiritual condition will kick in in the moment of crisis when you need it most. And Allah will protect you from that moment.

So subhanAllah, you think about: what's your spiritual muscle memory? What's your spiritual conditioning? How do you respond? And how do you interrogate yourself every day and say, "How did I respond to this? How did I respond to that? How did I respond to that blessing? How did I respond to that test? How did I respond to that irritation?" And do better the next day. Do better the next day. Do better the next day. Until you find yourself in a situation where Allah tests you with something that is far greater.

The Last Reminder: Al-Du'a, Al-Du'a, Al-Du'a

The last thing that I will say to you, dear brothers and sisters:

Seek Allah's protection. When you listen to the words that the Prophet ﷺ was using, he wasn't teaching the sahaba du'as for protection that he wasn't making for himself. He himself was making those du'as with tears — alayhi as-salatu wassalam — dripping from his eyes.

And so when you're asking Allah to protect your faith, when you're asking Allah to keep you firm upon iman:

O Allah, do not let our hearts go astray after You have guided us.

When you make these du'as — like at the end of your salah — don't think, "Alhamdulillah, I'm way beyond this." No. The sahaba were making du'a to die Muslim. The best generation of Muslims that ever lived were making du'a to die Muslim. That's the baseline.

And Ibn al-Jawzi (rahimahullah) mentions: I've seen people in their oldest age lose their iman in the last moments of their lives. SubhanAllah. He mentions a man who used to come to the masjid every single day until his 80s — and then his son passed away, and he lost it.

So ask Allah with a sense of desperation and vulnerability — that it could happen to me. But: I trust You, O Allah, not myself. And I have a good assumption of You, O Allah, to keep me firm if I'm trying to be firm. But I don't trust my own toolbox. Because I know that these tools are only successful to the extent that You bless them.

May Allah grant us istiqamah when we need it most. May Allah grant us firmness when we need it most. And may Allah keep us firm in every circumstance upon that which is pleasing to Him.

Closing Du'a

O Allah, destroy the oppressors through one another, and bring us and our brothers out from among them safely.

Indeed Allah commands justice, good conduct, and giving to relatives, and He forbids immorality, wrongdoing, 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 thing. And Allah knows what you do.