CHAPTERS:
To Allah We Belong and to Him is Our Return
Allah is With Those Who Patiently Persevere
Hardship and Grief Purify Our Sins
Tribulation For a Sincere Believer is a Sign Allah Loves You
Grieving Over the Death of a Loved One is Okay, But We Must Not Fall Into Depression
Muslims Facing Hardship… It’s Temporary and Jannah Awaits the Faithful & Patient Ones
Our Return to Allah Begins Even Before We’re Born!
Crying Over the Death of a Loved One is Completely Natural and Normal
Can Muslims Grieve Over the Death of a Non-Muslim or Disbeliever?
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
A good Muslim brother and a dear friend of mine, his father living in Malaysia at the time, passed away and my friend immediately flew to Malaysia to be with his family to attend the janazah. And while he was there he was riding on his scooter and he was stopped at a traffic light and then all of a sudden behind him a truck came very fast, the brakes failed, slammed into him, and killed him instantly. So I ask you and I ask anyone hearing this to make dua for him. This was many, many years ago and it just reminds us how death can happen at any time and it’s just so ironic that he went there to attend the funeral of his father and little did his family know that they’d be burying two people and not one. And I can only imagine the tremendous amount of grief and sorrow that his family had.
And the reason why I bring this story up is because just recently, a few days ago, many of you may know a dear brother of ours in this community got into a car accident. This brother was driving on a one-lane road and somehow he collided with an oncoming truck, a very large truck, and as you can imagine the car was completely crushed. The truck driver was fine, but our brother is in the hospital currently. He’s still alive, alhamdulillah, but he’s on life support and he needs your dua. And so I ask anybody who’s hearing this, and for you as well, to make dua for our brother and his family. He has nine children, and so now this is a tremendous tribulation for this family. So I ask you to make dua for him. He’s in very, very critical condition at this moment, so please make dua for him.
And because of this incident, I thought it may be a good idea to talk about how Muslims can deal with grief—whether it’s grief of losing a loved one, whether it’s grief of somebody being in a tragic accident, or whether it’s grief of any kind of tribulation to one degree or another: losing money, losing your job, whatever. How can we deal with grief? And of course, the habit of the Muslims, as we’re taught in the Sunnah and in the Qur’an, the most famous saying that we say when we go through grief or we hear that somebody has died: to Allah we belong and to Him we return.
And what some people may not know is that this saying comes from the Qur’an. It’s actually an ayah in the Qur’an in surah 2:156–157. This is the complete ayah: Allah says, those who, when a calamity afflicts them, say, “To Allah we belong and to Him is our return,” upon these are blessings and mercy from their Lord, these are the guided ones. And so my first advice to those Muslims who may be grieving is: say this. Say this and try to feel it—that indeed to Allah we belong and to Him is our return.
Now like I said this is very familiar to Muslims, and I find it very commendable that when Muslims learn of somebody dying or go through a tremendous calamity, you hear them say this all the time. You see the postings on Facebook, you see the texts and the emails: from Allah we came and to Allah we return. And so it’s very commendable. However, I think a lot of Muslims don’t know that it’s an ayah from the Qur’an and that several ayah before this ayah are very important lessons for us.
In Ayah 153 Allah says, “O you who believe, seek help with patient perseverance and prayer, for Allah is with those who patiently persevere.” So these are ayah that we hear all the time, but sometimes we don’t connect them with this one ayah that we say all the time when somebody dies or somebody goes through a calamity: from Allah we came and to Allah we return. So these are also similar ayah that we should think about because they’re right there in that same group of ayahs.
Ayah 155—this is the ayah directly before the ayah that we’re talking about—Allah says, “And certainly We will test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, loss of lives, and fruits; but give good news to those who are patient.” So again this emphasis on being patient. So we have to keep these things in mind in hopes that this will ease, to one degree or another, our difficulty, to ease our pain, to ease our sorrows.
But many grieving Muslims may say, “I know all this. You’re telling me things that I already know. Of course, we all need reminders, but if somebody’s grieving so much and sometimes it’s just overwhelming for them,” and they say, “It’s not helping me.” Let’s look at what the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said. He said: “Never is a believer stricken with discomfort, illness, anxiety, grief, or mental worry, or even the pricking of a thorn, but Allah will forgive him or her sins on account of their patience.” Now just one footnote: I added in the part where it said “or her.” I want people to know that this applies to both, obviously, men and women. But the important point in this hadith is that everything that afflicts you—from the death of somebody very close to you, whether your son, daughter, mother, father, whoever, something so extreme, something so difficult as that—to even the pricking of a thorn: Allah forgives some of your sins.
The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said in another hadith: “The servant will continue to be tried until he is left walking upon the earth without any sin.” And then in another hadith the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “If Allah wills good for His servant, then He hastens the punishment for him in this world. If Allah wills evil for His servant, then He withholds punishment for his sins until he appears on the Day of Judgment.” So again if you have this perspective when you’re going through this sorrow and this difficulty—that you’re being purified, and that your burden is being lifted, that on the Day of Judgment you will have less to account for—that should be a source of solace for you.
And especially on the Day of Judgment, you will say to yourself, many of the scholars say, that when the people come on the Day of Judgment they will wish that they had more difficulty in this life because of the tremendous punishment they see before them in the form of the Hellfire, and that they would be willing to go back to the world and say, “Just give me as many difficulties as I can to purify myself so I don’t have to face the punishment of the Hellfire.” So try to keep that in perspective. And I’m talking to myself as well.
So I want to review very quickly the three pieces of advice that I gave so far: number one, the statement “from Allah we came and to Allah is our return.” Number two, the ayat that I mentioned before pertaining to gratitude, patience, and that everything is a test. And number three, the various sayings of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, giving us the good news that we’re going to be rewarded for the hardships we’re going through if we have patience and if we have faith.
The fourth piece of advice: if you’re trying your best to observe your Islamic obligations—meaning you’re trying to pray, you’re trying to be a good Muslim—you should take solace in the fact that tribulation for you is a sign that Allah loves you, that Allah loves you. And this comes directly from a hadith where the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “If Allah loves a people then He afflicts them with trials,” because like I said, on the Day of Judgment, these tribulations, these difficulties, will lessen your burden and you will enter into Paradise sooner than others because of that tribulation.
And finally before I sit down, insha’ Allah, some people may say—some Muslims going through difficulties, especially those losing a loved one—they may say, “It’s too difficult for me. I’m overburdened by this, I’m overburdened by the sorrow. None of this of what you’re saying is helping me. It’s too much.” And yes, initially that emotion is there, of course—the devastation of it, especially if something happens so suddenly like a car accident, something tragic and just out of the blue. So that’s understandable. But that feeling should not stay with us. It’s something that should come and go. How long? That’s up to each person; everyone’s situation is different. But what we must do is not allow ourselves to fall into depression. That is not the way of a Muslim because Allah says in the Qur’an in Ayah 2:286 that He does not burden any soul beyond what it can bear. This is directly from Allah. And Allah knows everything. He will not give you a burden, a situation, that you cannot handle.
And then a hadith before I sit down. This hadith actually is my favorite hadith. I read it a very long time ago, it has stuck with me, and I’ve never forgotten it. And it had a tremendous impact upon me. And that is that a person will come on the Day of Judgment who had the most suffering in life. This is the person who had the most suffering. So yes, if you’re going through difficulties, tribulations right now, you’re not this person. This person had the most suffering—had more suffering than you. And so this person will come on the Day of Judgment and Allah will take that person and put them in Paradise for one moment—just for one moment—to experience the rewards, the rewards for maintaining their patience and for having faith during that difficulty. And then Allah will take him out of Paradise—he was just there for one moment—and ask him, “Did you ever experience any difficulty? Did you ever experience even any suffering on earth while you lived?” And that person will say, “By Allah, I did not experience even a moment of suffering,” because he now sees the reward that he’s going to get for being faithful and being patient. So if we have that perspective, that should insha’ Allah help us to alleviate at least a little bit of the suffering that we may be going through because of this tribulation that we’re now facing.
So please, Allah, guide us and protect us and give us this perspective—this perspective that all your tribulations are a purification for us, are a test for us. And please Allah protect us. We don’t want tribulations, we don’t want difficulties, but if they come to us, grant us patience, grant us faith, and grant us a sound understanding that this is all part of Your plan and make it a purification for us. And 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)
Muhammed Marmaduke Pickthall, a British Muslim scholar who lived many years ago, he actually translated that saying that we mentioned at the very beginning—“from Allah we came and to Allah is our return”—he actually translated it slightly differently. He translated it as: “From Allah we came and to Allah we are returning.” Notice the difference: “and to Allah is our return” and “and to Allah we are returning.” I like that translation. And the reason why I like it—whether it’s more valid or not, I don’t know; I’m not a scholar, I don’t even speak the Arabic language, so I don’t know; I’ll leave that to the scholars—but what I’m saying is that that particular translation conveys a slightly different meaning, and that is that this process of return to Allah is an active process, meaning it’s happening right now. We are all returning to Allah. It’s not that we’re going to return one day. When you say, “I’m going to return somewhere,” it means somewhere down the road, somewhere in the distant future. But when you say, “I’m returning,” it means you’re in the process of doing that. So the point is that the clock is ticking down to our death, each and every one of us.
And the thing is, a lot of Muslims think that that clock begins when you’re born, but it doesn’t. Based on a hadith, that clock begins 120 days after conception. It’s in a Sahih Muslim hadith, book number 33, and it’s the Book of Destiny. And what happens at 120 days after conception in the womb of the mother—this happened for every single one of us and every person that ever lived and that ever will live—Allah sends an angel to the embryo or to the fetus at that moment, and the angel writes down four things. And this is in the hadith; I won’t recite the hadith but I’ll tell you the four things: number one, the angel writes down that soul’s livelihood, meaning how much money they earn; number two, it writes down their deeds, good, bad, whatever they do; number three, their fortune or misfortune, and some scholars interpret that to mean whether or not they’re going to go to heaven or they’re going to go to hell; and number four, it writes down the time of their death.
So the time of death is recorded before we’re even born. And that makes sense because some babies, some fetuses, don’t make it to birth. And I know this myself because my first child, my wife miscarried. Alhamdulillah, it was very early on, it wasn’t like the baby came out and we had to bury the baby—no—but my very first child, we had a miscarriage. But the point being is that even that time is written down.
So what I’m saying is that the clock is ticking down. No one can stop that clock no matter what. And the time is predetermined. So whatever happens to your child, to your father, to your mother, to yourself, to a loved one—whoever—it is meant to be. This is part of Allah’s decree. And this is part of our faith. This is the sixth article of faith, just like we believe in the angels, just like we believe in Allah, just like we believe in the prophets, in the books, just like we believe in all these things. We have to believe in the decree of Allah. And death is part of that.
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