When the originally scheduled khateeb is a no-show, Ayden Zayn is called upon to deliver the khutbah. Caught off guard and unprepared, he decides to speak on a topic near-and-dear to his heart: struggle. Relying upon his favorite hadith as a starting point, he delivers what turns out to be an impromptu, but deeply touching talk. He first looks at the purpose of struggle and difficulty. Then he prescribes a simple formula that can help Muslims deal in trying times. In the process, he defines the ultimate purpose of Islam itself, then asks the believers to reflect upon a simple analogy that can provide the perspective necessary to realize and fulfill this purpose.
To view or make comments go to this title’s YouTube page.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
As you know, you’ve probably seen, I was just pulled up here at the last second, completely not prepared, and it will be about 10 minutes long, insha’ Allah. I guess this is what you get for sitting in the first row. So I’ll make sure not to do that again! 🙂 Anyways, I want to talk very briefly about the idea of struggle. This is a question that I get from my kids all the time, especially my daughter who is always asking questions. She’s like, “Daddy,” and this is probably a question a lot of your kids ask if you have kids or children, little children, “Why do bad things happen?” These are very innocent, very sincere questions: “Why do we go through struggles?” And this is a very relevant question obviously that not only kids ask, but adults ask, people of the highest philosophical persuasion ask this question. It’s a question called the problem of evil. You probably heard of it. It’s the idea that how can evil exist and God exist at the same time? Why would God, why would Allah allow evil to happen? And so even though we’re Muslims, we believe in Allah, we know that bad things happen to us. No matter how much we try, no matter how much we pray, still something’s going to happen in your life. Many things will happen in your life that are difficult, that are very heartbreaking to one degree or another.
Why? To answer this question—and I’m not a scholar, but I’ll give you my understanding of it—it’s two main reasons from my understanding of the Sunnah and my understanding of the Quran. That is that number one, it is a test, right? Life is a test from the moment you’re born to the time that you die. This is obvious, right? We know this as Muslims. But I think what many people forget is that difficulty can be a purification, or it is a purification for the believer.
Now, I want to talk about one Hadith. I want to focus on one Hadith in the first part of the khutbah, which will be only about another 3 minutes long. That is actually, when I read it, it had such an impact upon me, I can call it my favorite Hadith. On the Day of Judgment, the person with the most wealth in the entire world who ever lived will come to Allah on the Day of Judgment. He had the most wealth, the most happiness, the most success, but they did not believe. Here’s a person who had all the money in the world, prominence, family, wealth; they thought they had happiness, and maybe they did, relatively speaking, but they did not believe in Allah. And Allah will take that person and put them for one instant in the Hellfire. Take them there, put them in for one instant to see the punishment they’re going to get for not believing. And He’ll take him right out. Just there for one second, he experienced Hellfire for just one second. Pulled him back out and turns to the man and says, “Did you ever experience any benefit in life? Did you ever experience any, any wealth, any good feelings?” And that person will say, “By Allah, I did not experience not even one moment of happiness in the world,” because they see Hellfire is going to going to be there for eternity. That that’s what they’re going to now get for not believing.
So think about that. Now, Allah, at the same time, will take the person who had the most difficulty in life, the most hardship, and you can imagine who that is, but even though, even though they had that hardship, they believed. They believed in Allah no matter what faced them, the most difficulty. Take that person, put them one second, just one instant, into Paradise to see the reward that they’re going to get for that struggle and for that patience and for that belief that they had, that they maintained. Put them there for one second just to experience paradise and pull them out and say to that person, Allah will say to that person, “Did you experience even one moment of hardship in life on Earth?” And they will say, “By Allah, I did not.” Think about that.
(End of first khutbah)
Again, I ask your forgiveness. It’s kind of a rushed because of the circumstance, and I apologize that I’m not going through the formal process that you may expect from a normal khutbah, as far as the, you know, proper dua and etiquette. I’ve given a few khutbahs before but nothing in this type of setting, so I appreciate your patience. For those who have come in late, I’m not the not the normal khateeb. So I hope you understand. So think about what I had just told you about the, the Hadith in which a man comes, the most deprived man in the world, and the most rich, or the most, the one who believed that they had the most wealth and most happiness. What this gives us is perspective, in my opinion.
That if you keep in mind the Hereafter, and you keep in mind Heaven and Hell in your dealings and life—and this is something that obviously as Muslims we all know, we all need reminders—but if you have this perspective, the difficulty that you experience, no matter how hard, ‘cuz we just heard that the man with the most difficulty who had faith will say to themselves, “I really didn’t experience any hardship or difficulty.” Because you know this world, what? We live 80 years, we live 100 years. If we have even a difficult life for that time, what’s 100 years compared to infinity? Any mathematician—they don’t have to be a believer—any number, you, no matter how high you go, a thousand, 2,000, a million, compared to, to infinity is zero. That’s a mathematical fact. Any number compared to infinity is nothing. And that’s basically the crux of this Hadith: that no matter what you experience in this life, because this life is short, even if you live 100 years, compared to forever in Paradise, that’s your reward for being patient. That’s your reward for believing. And so whatever difficulty you go through, yes, we can grieve. It’s okay to grieve. Allah wants you to grieve. We’re human beings, we have hearts, we have emotions, we have feelings. If you lose a child, you lose a loved one, your house burns down, you’re going to be sad, you’re going to cry, you’re going to be, it’s okay to react emotionally. But you don’t let that drag you down. You don’t let that affect you for the rest of your life. As Muslims, as Believers, you don’t let that become a strain on your mental capacity going forward. You process it, you let your emotions out, you talk about it, you obviously grieve. I can’t even imagine, I have four children, I can’t even imagine one of them, you know, dying. I mean, it would just be obviously heartbreaking. For those who, who are parents, you know that, or anybody would know that losing a loved one like that is heartbreaking. But we are not to lose our faith over it. We’re not to question, because we realize that number one, like I said, going back to the beginning, it’s a test. And number two, it’s a purification for us. And there’s so many ahadith I can, I can recite, and so many verses from the Quran that talk about how hardship and struggle is purification, is a test. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go into them, but I think you get the message. Try to keep life in perspective.
And this is part of the purpose of Prayer by the way. You know, if you understand the meaning of the of the verses you’re reciting, they’re reminders for you five times a day, reminding you about the Day of Judgment, about Heaven and Hell. That we’re putting our forehead on the ground five times a day to remind us, this is where we’re going, into the ground. So it’s, Islam is amazing, you know, and probably running out of time here. Okay, Islam is so amazing. Islam to me—and again, this is just my opinion—it’s an, you know, like it’s an exercise for the soul. We have exercises for our body, right? We have exercises for our mind. Islam to me is an exercise for your, your, your soul and your heart.
And I’ll end with this. I, I’ll just tell you my, my favorite verse. I’ve already spoken about my favorite verse in the Hadith literature. My favorite verse in the Quran is that nothing will benefit you on the Day of Judgment—not your money, not your wealth, not your family. The only thing that will benefit you on the Day of Judgment is a sound heart. This is what Islam is all about. Praying, giving in sadaqah, fasting, believing in Allah in every moment of life, the Shahada, accepting Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, making Hajj, making the pilgrimage, and then all the other practices. All of these things—and this is a whole other khutbah by itself—but all of these things are meant to exercise your heart to prepare your heart to make you sincere. That is the purpose of Islam. Islam is an exercise to prepare us for that day, so that when we are raised up, we come to Allah with a sound heart. If we recognize that, if we recognize what Islam is, number one, I think we’ll appreciate it more. And number two, we will strive to do what is required of us, at the very least, with joy, with happiness, with with fervor, with excitement, to want to go to the prayer. Yes, we’re all human beings, we get tired of praying sometimes, right? We’re human beings, right? But when you understand the purpose of the prayer and and the reason why we pray, right—and this is what I try to pass on to my kids as well—why do we do these things? What effect is it having? Is it just a movement? No. Yes, it is a movement, but it’s not just a movement. It goes way beyond that. It should have an effect on your heart. You should feel something. And and by no means do I stand up here and and make myself the example, right, because I pray just like you guys and I start thinking of different things at different times, right, getting distracted. This is part of the process: it’s struggling against that, struggling to focus and to make it meaningful. But there are times in my prayer, few times, where you feel that presence of Allah. You feel something. This is what Allah wants; He wants us to strive for that. And so if you really understand Islam, you understand it’s an exercise for your soul, and you will appreciate it more.
And my, my, I know I said was wrap up, and I’m going to wrap up in the next minute, inshallah. I think a big test for us personally that comes on a daily basis is fajr prayer. Waking up for the fajr prayer is a difficult thing, taking yourself out of sleep. But if you understood the benefit of it, it would be so easy to get up. Yes, you hit the alarm, you keep hitting it and keep hitting it. Eventually, if you understand the benefit and the value of it, you’ll get up.
And I make one analogy, and then I’ll finish. If somebody called you, a trusted friend, right, who you trusted and you knew, either a family member or a friend, and that phone rings at 5:00 in the morning or whatever time it is that you’re sleeping, and you pick it up, and he says, “Hey, Aiden,” or whoever, “I just found a briefcase of a million or $10 million, and it’s ours. We can, we can share it, but you have to come to my house right now.” And you knew it wasn’t a joke, like he said, “Wallahi, this is serious, but you have to come get it right now. I called three other people, and they’re going to come get it, too. First come, first served.” How fast would you be out of that bed? Right? But Allah promised us so many rewards for praying just one prayer, and yet we find it difficult to get out of bed for that!
So Allah, please Allah, bless us, reward us, forgive us, guide us, help us. And please bless all of the Muslims, past, present, and future. Bless all the Muslims all around the world, and who are struggling and who are starving. Please Allah, bless all of the Muslims. Bless all of the Prophets. Bless all the followers of the Prophets. Bless Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Bless all the companions of the Prophet. And please Allah, bless our gathering, forgive us for all of our sins, guide us, and make us strong, and grant us a sound heart on the Day of Judgment. And forgive us for all of our sins, first and last, big and small, overt and covert.