CHAPTERS:
Muslims Wake Up! Let Islam Penetrate Your Heart!!
Islam Will Bring Us Peace If Understand and Truly Practice It!
If You Want Allah to Answer Your Dua, Do This!!
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
The Prophet peace and blessings be upon him entered the masjid and a person followed behind him. The man went and he prayed, and the man prayed very fast. He came back to the Prophet peace be upon him and he gave him the greeting. The Prophet returned the greeting, peace be upon him, and he said, “Go back to pray because you have not prayed.” So the man went, did his prayers the same exact way he did before, and then came to the Prophet again, peace be upon him, gave him salams. The Prophet peace be upon Him returned his salams and said, “Go back, for you have not prayed.” So the man did this; he did it three times, each time doing the same exact thing, praying very fast. The man came back to the Prophet peace be upon him the third time, and when the Prophet peace be upon him said, “You did not pray, go back and pray,” he said, “O Prophet of Allah, peace be upon you, I know no other way to pray; please teach me.” The Prophet peace be upon him said, “When you stand for prayer say say Allahu akbar and then recite the Qur’an, and then bow until you feel at ease. Then raise your head, stand up straight, and prostrate till you feel at ease in your prostration, and then sit with calmness and feel at ease, and do the same in all of your prayers.” So, in essence, the Prophet peace be upon Him is telling us: don’t rush; take your time. Focus; let the prayer have an impact upon you.
Many of us who have been Muslims for a very long time, myself included, tend to fall into a rut; our Islam kind of becomes dry and robotic over the years. What happens is when we pray we pray fast; we rush it and it becomes just a physical exercise for us. I’m guilty of this too at times. We go up and down and it has very little effect on our hearts, very little impact. After prayer we make thikr on our right hand and in our left hand we may be holding our iPhone, checking our email or checking our text at the same time while we’re making thikr. In Ramadan I’ve seen many Muslims cursing, bad language, backbiting, maybe cheating, lying while we’re fasting. When this happens we have to recognize and remember that Islam is not only a series of physical actions, physical practices, and rituals. It’s not only just that. Islam is a complete and total way of life that is meant to penetrate our hearts and to change us for the better.
I want to give you two stories that happened to me recently to try and illustrate to you what happens when we actually let Islam penetrate our hearts and we try to live by Islam. As some of you may know, two weeks ago I gave a khutbah right here in this spot and I spoke about the decree of Allah, the divine destiny—how everything is written by Allah no matter what. Every single thing that happens to us is destiny; it’s meant to be. I said that if something negative happens to you—something bad to one degree or another—if something bad happens to you and you lose something, lose some money, lose some property, whatever, and you say to yourself, “Had I done something differently the outcome would have been different,” I said that’s a minor shirk; it’s considered a hidden shirk and so we shouldn’t do that, because if it already happened you could not have changed it no matter what. If you believe this with your heart—that everything is predestined, that everything is by Allah’s will—when negative things do happen to you and you remember this faith that you have, it makes life easier; it lifts that burden of regret and it lessens your stress and your anxiety because you realize it happened, you can’t change it; it’s Allah’s will.
Sometimes Allah tests you, and this happened to me because I told you this: actually a week after that Allah tested me in a small way with this belief. What happened is that I borrowed a lawn mower from my landlord because I had to mow the lawn; the grass was getting pretty high. I mowed the lawn and when I was done I put the lawn mower in my van in the back, and the handle was sticking up out of the back. When I went to shut the hatch I pressed down on it; I slammed it down and it didn’t go down all the way. I said, “Okay, let me push on a little bit harder,” and I thought to myself that the little handle that’s in there should push down a little bit, right? It should have some flexibility to it. So I pushed down as hard as I could and the window shattered—the entire back window shattered in front of me. I shook; I was so much in shock: big explosion, glass flying everywhere. In that moment I was frustrated, but I swear to you three to five seconds into it I said to myself, “This is Allah’s will.” I said “Alhamdulillah,” and it brought me ease that this was meant to be. I thought to myself very briefly, “What if I had put it in a different way to the side and put it down into the space that’s below instead of on the seat?” Then I stopped myself and I said, “Wait, what am I doing? I’m doing what I said not to do in my khutbah just a week before, because I could not have changed the outcome.” Now that doesn’t mean of course that you don’t learn from your experience going forward—because you don’t know the future, you learn from it and you make better decisions the next time. But even if something negative happens, that’s Allah’s will. Five seconds after the glass exploded, and I knew, “Oh my gosh, this is going to take hours to clean up—all glass in between the seats—and I’d have to spend hundreds of dollars to fix the window and spend the time to do that,” I still knew this was Allah’s will. Alhamdulillah. I’m not taking any credit here; I’m just giving you a story to tell you the reality of what I felt—that this was Allah’s will—and it eased that burden. When I told my wife she got frustrated; I said to her, “But this is Allah’s will,” and she calmed down as well. So this is Islam: how beautiful it is when we actually inculcate it into our lives and we live it.
The second example I want to tell you is that a few years ago I gave another khutbah in which I talked about how there is a Sunnah of dealing with anger: when you get angry there are several things that the Prophet peace be upon Him taught us to do. You change your position—if you’re standing up, you sit down; if you’re sitting down, you lie down; or you just leave the room or whatever. Just change your position, change your disposition; or you go make wudu; or maybe you do all three of those things. I said that, and literally within weeks after that I got into an argument with my wife—which, I’ll be honest, is very rare. Alhamdulillah, me and my wife have a good relationship; we don’t argue that much. But within two weeks of this teaching that I gave, Allah tested me and I got very angry with her because of what she was saying. We had a disagreement and I felt myself getting hot—when you get really angry, your blood starts to boil. I thought to myself at that moment, “Let me get away from the situation,” and I just left. I tried to put the Islamic teachings into practice: I went and I made wudu. How beautiful this is that we have this teaching. Look at the wisdom: you get hot, so you go and you make wudu because water obviously cools you down. How beautiful is that? If only other religions and other people of other faiths—or anybody—could understand the wisdom of the Islamic teachings, that every single teaching has a benefit for us. How much crime is committed, how many murders are committed, how much injustice is committed through anger because people lose control. I made wudu, I calmed down, we went back and continued our conversation, and everything was fine.
My point is that Islam works. It works if we understand what Islam is: that it’s a complete way of life, and it works if we allow it to penetrate our heart and we live by it, or at least strive to live by it. So let’s ask Allah: Oh Allah, please allow Islam to penetrate our hearts so that we can live by it. Oh Allah, forgive us for all of our sins, first and last, big and small, overt and covert. Shower Your mercy and Your blessings upon Prophet Muhammad, his companions and his family until the Day of Judgment. Ameen. Ask Allah for forgiveness.
(End of first khutbah)
In ayah 186 of surah Al-Baqarah, Allah says: “Surely I am near; I respond to the prayers of those who pray to Me.” I mentioned in the first how sometimes our Islam, over the years, becomes dry; it becomes robotic, it becomes ritualistic, it becomes devoid of meaning and impact in our lives. When this happens, sometimes we forget that Allah is near and He wants to answer our dua. If we want Allah to answer our dua, we have to do two primary things (there are many things we can do; I’m going to focus on two of them). The first one is that we have to strive sincerely with our hearts to try and please Allah, and the key here is strive with our hearts. As in the Qur’an, in Surah 13 Ayah 11, Allah says, “I will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in their heart.” The importance of the heart: second thing we need to do is, at the very least, practice the basics of Islam that are required upon us—that’s the very least we can do. If we do these two things, Allah, inshallah, will be with us; He will respond to our duas regardless of the difficulty we may face because He’s in control—He’s in control of everything, He’s the All-Powerful—and so He can change our situation; He can remove the difficulty, whatever it is—oppression, death, persecution, whatever. If we do these two things, if we are sincere and we strive and we try to practice Islam, Allah can change our condition and He’ll answer our dua, inshallah.
Again, I want to illustrate this in my own life. By the grace of Allah, alhamdulillah, I embraced Islam in my sophomore year of college. For the first few years being new to Islam I dedicated myself to learning about Islam along with my studies. Then around my junior year I said to myself, “Let me start looking for a wife,” so I started paying attention in the MSA, looking around. I approached several sisters, and after graduating I continued that; I even traveled across the country to meet with a family. I was trying to get married; it just wouldn’t work out for one reason or another. I would meet with families, meet with sisters; there just wouldn’t be a connection. This went on for six years—six years trying to get married—and this was a tremendous test for me, meeting one sister after another, one family after another. Many years later I was working at a video production company and there was a sister who was there. I’ll be honest with you: I was attracted to her; I was interested in her but she was married. We’d find ourselves in the office sometimes alone and thoughts came to me. I said to myself, “Thank God she’s married because that’s what’s holding me back from doing what I shouldn’t do.” It wasn’t my belief in Allah, to be honest; this was many years ago. We all go through phases of iman and phases of practice. At that time I felt weak. Within either a day or two—or maybe at the most three or four days—I don’t remember exactly how long—I came in and I saw her and her face looked dejected, very down. I said, “What’s wrong?” She said, “I’m getting a divorce.” I said, “Subhan’ Allah, this is not good.” I said, “Allah is testing me for real; this is unreal,” and I said, “Allah please help me.” The one thing that was stopping me was now removed; this was a test.
As the situation unfolded I had to travel for my job and I said, “Oh Allah, on this trip I’m going to find my wife, inshallah, because I don’t want to commit sin.” I traveled: it was a long trip; I went to California, traveled up and down the west coast, visited many different Muslim communities. I said this would be a great opportunity; this should work, inshallah, because I was exposing myself to many different people and families and I was going to be forward about it: “Hey, I’m looking to get married.” I tried; it didn’t work. I returned from my trip. Shortly after that my coworker’s divorce waiting period expired, so I decided to approach her to see if she had any interest in possibly marrying me, but she said she wasn’t ready; it was just too soon after her divorce, and I totally understood. Another swing and another miss. Life went on. A few months later our company was producing a video commercial and all the workers were required to be there. It so happened the location of this video shoot was in a hotel room. We did the video shoot; she was supposed to show up—she was a little late—but the shoot wrapped up. Then she called and said, “I have a problem.” I said, “What’s up? You were supposed to be here; you’re late. What’s going on?” She said, “I got into a car accident. I’m okay but I’m very shaken up.” I said, “Where are you? Let me help you.” She didn’t have anybody to help her; she had no family—she was divorced at this point—so I told her, “Follow me.” She followed me in her car back to the hotel room. By the time I got back to the hotel room everyone had left, so we went inside. It was just me and her; she was extremely shaken up from the accident and very emotionally distraught. I tried to prepare some food for her to calm her down and help her. As I sat in the kitchen and she was on the bed, thoughts came to me: “Oh my gosh, what do I do? Do I stay? Do I leave? I don’t want her to feel bad.” All these things went through my head and she was saying, “Please stay with me, please stay with me.” Now I’m not saying she had any intention to do anything wrong; I’m not accusing her of anything—she was needy at that moment; maybe she just needed companionship or words of consolation. I said to her, “No, I have to go; I cannot stay here,” and I left. Alhamdulillah, Allah blessed me with the strength to say no, because I don’t know what would have happened. We know the hadith: two people together, shaytan is the third. So I got out of there. As I was driving home I burst into tears and I said, “Oh Allah, bring me my wife; please bring me my wife.” I was very emotional, crying. The next day was Jummah, and when I went to the Jummah I sat down and listened. The entire topic that the khateeb spoke about was patience: having patience in times of difficulty and that when you rely upon Allah, Allah will reward you, but you have to rely upon Him; you have to maintain your faith and you cannot stray, and Allah will open the doors for you. I broke out in tears; I cried like a baby sitting there listening because I felt like Allah was talking to me through that khutbah. I sincerely felt that and I was crying like a baby in the Jumuah prayer; I couldn’t hold my tears—I was just crying and crying and saying to Allah, “Oh Allah, bring me my wife, please.” That night at home I sobbed again and cried, “Oh Allah, bring me my wife; please bring me my wife. I don’t want to commit sin; I want to get married; I want to do this for Your sake.” Alhamdulillah, about a month and a week later my wife-to-be sent me an email in response to one of my matrimonial ads online saying, “How are you? I’m interested in getting to know you. Do you want to meet?” This was the first night of Ramadan and I saw that as a sign that Allah brought me somebody only a month and a week later after I made these duas and after I cried with what I believe was sincerity—true sincerity. When we met everything became so easy for us; when we conversed it was like talking to my soulmate. I felt we had so much in common; it was so easy; it wasn’t difficult or challenging to talk to her. We made each other laugh and had very common interests. She could tell after about three weeks that we should get married, and about eleven months later we got married, alhamdulillah. That ended up being about a year—almost to the day—since I made those duas, and we’ve now been happily married for almost twenty years, alhamdulillah.
What I’m saying is that when you walk towards Allah, Allah runs towards you, as the hadith says. This is true: Islam works. It actually works when you’re sincere and when you’re striving to please Him. Allah will open up the doors and Allah will answer your duas. Now some of you may say, “But I did cry; I was sincere; I am a practicing Muslim; I did make dua to Him, but Allah didn’t answer it—what’s up with that?” Many of the scholars will say that sometimes it’s not the right time for you. Sometimes you ask for something that’s good and beneficial for you but it’s not the right time, because Allah knows the future—Allah knows everything. He gives you what you ask for but he delays it; or sometimes we ask for something and it’s not good for us. We think it’s good for us; we may see a potential spouse and say, “I want to get married to this person; I think it’s best for me,” and you make dua, you make salat, you cry and you’re sincere. Allah may point you in the other direction because He knows that’s not best for you. So sometimes Allah does not answer your dua, and many scholars say that in replacement of that He’ll give you something better, and if He doesn’t do that He’ll give you something in the Hereafter for making that dua and turning to Him as a reward. This is why the best dua we can make is, “Oh Allah, guide me to whatever is best for me.” That is the best dua we can make.
Some people may ask how we achieve this sincerity and how we get the motivation to practice even the basics. That is a whole other topic. Alhamdulillah, I already gave it and it’s available on YouTube; it’s called “How to Transform Our Islamic Faith Into Action.” Search for it online or you can go to the URL www.aydenzayn.com/transform. So let’s pray to Allah: “Oh Allah, give us whatever is best for us; please forgive us and help us. Forgive us for being impatient at times; forgive us for being ritualistic and robotic at times in our prayers and in our duas. Bless us to be able to inculcate this deen, inculcate our faith, to actually live it and practice it to the best of our ability. Please forgive us for all the times that we’ve gone astray and guide us to be strong and guide us to be good Muslims. Shower Your mercy and Your blessings upon Prophet Muhammad, his companions and his family until the Day of Judgment. Bless all the believers all around the world who are struggling and having difficulty; please ease their burdens, ease their suffering. Bless them, O Allah, as a purification; forgive them and guide them and help us all. Bless us all and unite us, and bless us that our last deeds are our best deeds. Bless us that we receive our book of deeds in our right hand and not in our left hand or behind our back, and grant us the ultimate reward which is the highest level of Paradise. Ameen.
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