Turning Back to Allah in Repentance (with British Sign Language) - Ustadh Mahamed AbdurRazaq

Khutbah: Turning Back to Allah in Repentance

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, we ask His help and we ask His forgiveness. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him. And whomsoever He misguides, none can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, there is no partner for Him. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger and His friend. Peace and blessings of my Lord be upon him.

O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except as Muslims.

O you who have believed, fear your Lord, Who created you from a single soul, through whom you ask for help and mercy. Indeed, Allah is ever watching over you.

O you who have believed, fear Allah and say the right words. He will set right your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great triumph.

As for what follows: the best of speech is the words of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. And the worst of things are its innovations. And every innovation is a newly invented matter. And every newly invented matter is a misguidance. And every misguidance is in the Fire.

O servants of Allah, fear Allah with true piety. O slaves of Allah, fear Allah as He deserves to be feared. For indeed, our bodies cannot bear the burden of the Fire.

The Straight Path and the Gates of Shaytān

Ibn Mas'ūd, may Allah be pleased with him, said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, drew a straight line for us, and he said, "This is the path of Allah." Then he drew lines to the right of it and to the left of it, and he said, "These are the ways. At the head of each divergent path there is a Shaytān that calls to it." Then he recited the verse of Allah:

"This is the straight path of Allah, so follow it. Do not follow the divergent paths, lest they misguide you from the straight path of Allah — to the right and to the left."

There are three gates through which every person can enter: the gate of anger, the gate of heedlessness, and the gate of desires. There must come a time when a person becomes angry. There must come a time when he becomes heedless. And there must come a time when he has desires. And so when this moment of weakness occurs to the children of Adam, the Shaytān pounds upon him and continues to whisper, to adorn, and to beautify that which is prohibited.

If that occurs, the Shaytān makes him think that this is his destruction — that this is his end — and that he can never return back to Allah. Woe to you, O Shaytān! For indeed the mercy of Allah is behind all of that.

Do Not Despair of the Mercy of Allah

Allah says in the Quran — say to My slaves who have transgressed against themselves with sins and disobediences:

"Do not despair. Do not give up on the mercy of Allah. Why? Allah forgives all sins." He never said He forgives some sins. Allah forgives all sins — that which is minor and that which is major.

That which Allah wants good for His slave — if Allah wants khair and good for this slave — then He opens up for him a door from the doors of seeking forgiveness, of seeking repentance, of regret, of humiliation, of breaking down in front of Him, of beseeching, of crying, of calling out to Him — showing his faqr, his need, and his humility in front of Allah. And he continues to remember that sin that he fell into, and so he strives hard to perform those good deeds that will wipe away this sin.

Just as Allah says in the Quran:

"Indeed, good deeds wipe away bad deeds."

And the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said:

"Follow up a bad deed with a good deed, and it will wipe it away." (Jami' al-Tirmidhī, Hadith 1987)

And so that sin gives him the fuel to go and seek forgiveness, and to perform all of these righteous deeds in hope that Allah forgives him for that sin that he fell into. He prays extra voluntary prayers, performs extra voluntary fasts, goes for Umrah two or three times in the year, and tries to strive as much as he can — until he wipes away that sin. To the extent that the Shaytān says, "Oh, how I wish I had never made him fall into the sin in the first place!" He makes him regret having caused him to fall into the sin in the first place.

How a Sin Can Lead to Paradise

This is the meaning of some of the statements of the Salaf when they say: perhaps a person does a bad deed and he goes into paradise. How is this possible? A person falls into a sin, and because of that sin he feels regret — he seeks a reason, he becomes steadfast upon the religion of Allah — and in the end he enters into Jannah.

And the opposite is true. Perhaps a person performs a good deed, a righteous deed — and then what comes after? He becomes arrogant. He becomes prideful. He looks down upon the khalq, upon the creation, and says, "I have done such and such. What have you done? Look what I've done for Islam." He feels like Islam owes him a favour. He feels like Allah owes him a favour. And these major sins that occur after this righteous deed that he performed become a reason for him entering into the Hellfire. We ask Allah to protect us from that.

Rush to Allah in Repentance

Allah encourages us in the Quran in many places to rush to Him seeking forgiveness and repentance. Allah says:

"O you who believe, turn back to Allah with a sincere repentance." What will happen if you do so? عَسَىٰ رَبُّكُمْ أَن يُكَفِّرَ عَنكُمْ سَيِّئَاتِكُمْ وَيُدْخِلَكُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ — perhaps your Lord will expiate from you your sins and enter you into a paradise beneath which rivers flow.

Allah also says:

"And turn back, all of you believers, in repentance to Allah, so that you may become successful." For by Allah, indeed success in this life and in the Hereafter is in turning to Allah in repentance.

The Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said:

"All of the children of Adam make mistakes, but the best of those who make mistakes are those who repent." (Sunan Ibn Mājah, Hadith 4251; classified as Hasan by al-Tirmidhī)

So do not delay. As long as you are living and breathing and have life within you, do not delay. Do not say, "Inshallah, when I get to 50 I will make Hajj and Allah will forgive me for my sins." Allah has not even guaranteed you that you will live until tomorrow.

The Lesson of Prophet Yūnus

Indeed we have in the story of Prophet Yūnus, peace be upon him, a great admonition and lesson. Allah tells us in Sūrah al-Anbiyā' that he called his people to tawḥīd — he called them to fear Allah and to fulfill their obligations — and they refused, and they never listened to him and they belied him. And so Yūnus, peace be upon him, became angry with them and departed without permission from Allah. And him leaving without permission from Allah was a disobedience. He thought that We would not make things difficult for him.

And so what occurred is that Yūnus, peace be upon him, embarked upon a ship. The ship became too heavy and they had to drop some load. And so they did the drawing of lots — the closest thing in your mind is rock, paper, scissors — and every time they did the drawing of the lots the name of Yūnus came out, not once, not twice, but three times. So they threw him off the ship. And in the sea he was swallowed by a large fish, a hūt — a whale or something larger than a whale — and he was still alive.

What did he do? Allah says he called out in the darknesses — plural — the darkness of the belly of the whale, the darkness of the ocean, the darkness of the night — and he said:

"None has the right to be worshipped except for You. Glorified are You from all imperfection. And indeed I was from amongst the wrongdoers." He sought forgiveness for his mistake.

What was the response?

"We accepted his supplication and We saved him from that affliction and that difficulty. And in that same fashion will We save the believers."

We accepted his duʿāʾ — but what type of acceptance? A day later? A year later? In the Arabic language, the fāʾ — ḥarf al-fāʾ — when it comes in a sentence or before a word, it indicates it occurred straight away, without any delay. Instantly, We accepted his supplication and saved him from that affliction and that difficulty.

And that is the benefit for us here — that we memorise this duʿāʾ. You don't know the way out. You don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Do not despair from the mercy of Allah. Say this duʿāʾ. And glad tidings — Allah says, "In that same fashion We will take you out from that difficulty and save you from that struggle of sins that you're going through." Show your sincerity to Allah, and He will accept it from you.

The Story of Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ

We have in the stories of those ṣāliḥīn that came after in this ummah — from the Ṣaḥābah and the Tābiʿīn — that which is too much to mention in this short khuṭbah. But I will conclude with one story: the story of Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, that great scholar whose words we still see quoted in the books — from those first three generations.

Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ — the one who said wise statements that we still quote to this day — was someone who used to steal and rob from the people when they travelled from one city to another. He would intercept them and take everything that they had. He was known as Fuḍayl the highway robber.

What changed? One day he heard the verses of Allah, where Allah says:

"Has the time not come for the believers for their hearts to tremble from the remembrance of Allah and that which He has revealed from the truth?" He heard this and it penetrated his heart. And he said, "Of course, my Lord." And so he made a firm resolve to leave off whatever he was doing.

He took shelter at a place, and a group of travellers passing by came to the same shelter — they did not recognise Fuḍayl. They took some rest, and one of them said, "Should we continue our journey?" Another replied, "No — Fuḍayl is out there, causing the Muslims harm and mischief." And so he made a promise to Allah that he would move to Mecca for the rest of his life. He lived in the vicinity of Mecca and became this great man who completely changed his life.

So what is the difference between us and Fuḍayl? He is a man and we are men. He had 24 hours just like we have 24 hours. And I'm sure many of us — perhaps not one of us here — has reached the level of being a notorious highway robber. But he made tawbah with sincerity and ikhlāṣ, and Allah flipped the script for him and completely changed his legacy — up until this day.

And for that reason Ibn Taymiyyah says: it's not about how you begin your journey — it's not about how it begins — but it's how you end your journey. All of us have a chance, and a moment, an opportunity to seize right now: that we seek forgiveness from Allah, that we learn His religion, that we seek knowledge, and that we are steadfast upon it — what we know of Him and what we don't know.

Duʿāʾ

O Allah, we have wronged ourselves greatly, and You forgive all sins, so forgive us O our Lord.

There is no god but You. Glory be to You. We were of the wrongdoers.

O Allah, forgive the weak of the Muslims everywhere. O Allah, forgive the weak of the Muslims in Palestine. O Allah, forgive the weak of the Muslims in Sudan, Kashmir, and everywhere. O Allah, have mercy on them. O Allah, have mercy on their dead and heal their sick. O Allah, forgive their sins.

I say what you hear, and I ask forgiveness for me and for you, so ask His forgiveness. He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.