A look at how each of the six articles of faith in Islam can serve as a way and means for preventing and healing stress. Please note: This khutbah is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment. If you’re experiencing depression, including thoughts of suicide, you should seek professional help immediately.
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CHAPTERS:
Many Americans Are Not at Peace
Islam Brings Us Peace When We Internalize It
How Do Islam’s Articles of Faith Bring Us Peace?
Firm Faith in Allah’s Plan is a Key to Achieving Peace
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
There are a few very alarming statistics that I want to share with you that I heard on the radio not too long ago. The first one is that 70 million Americans experience some sort of sleep disorder; that’s nearly one in five Americans. Now, many psychiatrists attribute this to stress. The second statistic is that 35 million Americans take a regular antidepressant; that’s more than one in ten. The third statistic is that between 1988 and 2008, antidepressant usage increased by nearly 400 percent. So, what this tells us is that many Americans, millions in fact, are not happy, they’re not at peace, they’re stressed.
When you think about it, why is this the case? I mean, in America we have so much wealth, so much prosperity, and yet all these millions of Americans are depressed, have problems sleeping, and are not happy. You all know the cliché that is, “money doesn’t buy you happiness,” and it’s true; in fact, many times it does just the opposite. Look at all these celebrities: so much wealth, so much prosperity, so much fame, and yet many of them are not happy. A few examples I can think of off the top of my head are Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber. Many news reports say that they had to check themselves in because of depression, and yet they have all the money, all the fans, all the fame, and all the popularity, everyone wanting to be like them, and yet they’re depressed.
Now, let’s look at Islam. How does Islam provide us the medicine, the solution against depression, against despair, against unhappiness? Well, if I were to ask you to summarize Islam in one sentence, how would you do it? I want you to think about it, I don’t want you to answer out loud, but think about it in your mind. If I were to ask you to summarize Islam in one sentence, how would you do that? Many of you may say, “I don’t need one sentence, I’ll just give you one word: peace.” This is a very common answer, a lot of people say Islam means peace. But actually, it’s not the case. If Islam is peace, Allah tells us that He tests us, but He tests us with difficulties. So how is Islam peace when we have so many difficulties, and Allah tells us He will bring us difficulties?
What I would do if I was asked this question, I would summarize it in 10 words. Very simply, I would say that Islam is attempting to surrender to God in order to achieve peace. That’s my definition: attempting—so striving, trying, struggling—to surrender, which is the literal definition of Islam. Islam doesn’t mean peace, it means surrender or submission. So I would say that Islam is attempting to surrender to God, to Allah, in order to achieve peace.
But how do we do this? This is the biggest challenge. How do we surrender? How do we achieve that peace? Is it through rituals only? Because we know Islam is made up of rituals, they’re made up of practices, of beliefs. There’s something that me and my wife we call “Hocus Pocus Islam.” Now, try to follow me as I explain to you what this means, because many people believe that if you do the rituals of Islam that you will achieve Islam, that you will achieve that surrender and that peace by doing the rituals. And when I say rituals, I mean prayer, the fasting, the different thikrs that we do, the reading of the Qur’an—these rituals that we do, these habits. But here’s the problem: many people do these rituals and it’s just that, it’s just rituals. It’s something that’s superficial; they’re outward actions that have no effect on our inward state, our hearts.
And so we know somebody, me and my wife, who do these rituals, somebody in the community. We’ve been to their house and we observe their behavior, and every time we see him, every time we see him either in public or we go over his house, he’s always telling us, “You know, you should make this thikr and that thikr, do this prayer and that prayer, at this time and at that time.” And he’s very conscious of it, giving us this book of duas, and he’s very much into what we call, what we’ve labeled as, Hocus Pocus Islam. And that is this idea that you say certain things at certain times of the day, or if you walk into your home you say a dua, you walk into the Masjid you say a dua, you start your car you say a dua, you make certain thikrs and you think that’s Islam. But here’s the problem—and don’t get me wrong, that is part of Islam—the problem is that you have people who do these things, but that’s all they do, but they don’t pray, or they have horrible manners and horrible behavior and they treat people horribly.
And so my point in sharing you this story is that this man who we thought was very good and righteous and benevolent and sharing with us this information, the story came later that he got a divorce from his wife, which is fine, divorces happen. But why did he get the divorce? Because he was verbally abusive towards his wife and his children. And the stories came out; now Allah knows best, we were getting the story from one side, but we know that this is the reality: that there are people, there are many Muslims, who do the thikrs, who do the certain rituals, but yet they have horrible character. They don’t have that peace, they don’t have that true surrender. And so my question is, going back to the point of how do we achieve this peace? We don’t do it through the rituals only; it goes far above and beyond that.
I would say that we have to look to the example of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and the example of our Islamic history. Where was the Qur’an revealed? It was revealed in Mecca. And if we look at that first stage of Islamic history, we call it the Meccan phase. I would say we have to look to that to start with, because that’s our example. The early community, they didn’t have anything. They were believers, they believed in God, they believed in Allah, but they didn’t have the guidance. When the guidance came, what did the guidance tell them? What was the emphasis of the message? The scholars say that the emphasis of the message, and if you read the Qur’an you can see this very clearly in the Meccan verses, the message focused on beliefs. They focused on believing in your heart that Allah really exists. The emphasis on the signs; read the signs, strengthen your faith in the Creator. Believe in all the Six Articles of Faith that we come to know now. And so that’s my message: if we want to get to that stage of surrender, if we want to get to that stage of peace, of achieving or striving towards achieving peace, we need to focus first on the Six Articles of Faith. And this will be our stress relief, and we won’t have to rely upon antidepressants, as I mentioned to begin, we won’t have to rely upon these artificial things to bring us that stress relief. The stress relief will be our beliefs.
Now very briefly, I want to look at those beliefs one at a time and just comment on how they can relieve our stress, because we all have stress as we go through our daily lives. Just because we have Islam, we say we have Islam, we do have difficulties, that’s what Allah tells us, He will test us with difficulties. So how does Islam bring us that prescription of peace
If you truly believe in Allah, you put Him at the center of everything. He is the center of the universe, and therefore He’s in control. And when He’s in control, it doesn’t matter what happens to you, you know and you believe He’s in control, and this is a stress relief. This is a source of gratification for the believer to know that Allah is in control. And look at the example now with the whole COVID-19 issue, and the whole world is now in a state of disarray, and a lot of people are confused, and a lot of people are losing their jobs, et cetera, et cetera, I don’t have to tell you this, you know this, but yet we know and we believe Allah is in control, and so don’t stress. Yes, we all have stress, but you don’t dwell on it. You know that Allah, it’s all part of His plan, and we don’t know why, we can theorize, but ultimately Allah is in control.
The angels are there, and they’re bringing us barakah by Allah’s permission, and we know that there are many, in many cases, Allah sends angels to help us, and angels to guard over us, and angels to write down everything, and so nothing goes unnoticed. And that again is a source of stress relief.
The angels bring the books, and what are the books, what is the revelation? Guidance for us. You know when I think about guidance and I think about the Qur’an, I always think about my family who’s not Muslim. They’re very secular, they come from a Jewish background but they don’t practice, and they don’t—you know, religion is not in the foremost of their mind, it’s not even something they think about. They don’t think about God; they go through their life like, you know, most other Americans, most other secular people, and they just live their lives. And every now and then, you know, when somebody dies or somebody gets married, then religion comes into their lives. You know, 24/7 they’re basically just living their lives, and they don’t think about God. And whenever they have stressful circumstances, I wish so much that when we talk about it and I try to help them through it, I just wish I can say, “You know, just rely upon God, just go, go to the Book, go to the Revelation.” I can’t do that with them because they’re not Muslims, and they even, they, I can’t even go to them and say, “Read the Torah,” because they don’t really practice their own religion, they don’t even practice Judaism. And I find that very incredibly sad from a believer’s perspective. We have to see that as being sad, because we truly believe that Allah has given us the guidance on how to live our life, that the Qur’an is our instruction book. It’s not just something we recite, it’s something that we try to live by, something that we read to understand so that we can know this is the right thing to do, this is the wrong thing to do. I wish I can give that to my family. And so the instruction book, the Qur’an, our guidance is such a source of stress relief for us, such a source of happiness, because any question that you have, go to the Book, go to the Hadith. Even some of the sayings of the scholars and the works of the scholars will help us through the difficult times. This is what religion is all about: it’s about finding that guidance and relying upon it.
The prophets, peace and blessings be upon all the prophets, they were given the books, but then they’re there to show us how to implement those teachings, how to live by those teachings. When it was asked, “Who is the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him?” may Allah be pleased with her, Aisha said, “Verily, the character of the Prophet of Allah was the Qur’an.” So he was there, the prophets, all the prophets are there to show us how to live the message. And again, that is a source of stress relief for us.
When you have this belief, a true belief, that there is a life to come, all the injustices that you see in this life—yes, we concern ourselves with them, yes, we try to correct them—but ultimately there will not be justice, true justice and total justice, in this life, because that’s impossible; people get away with murder. And so that will ultimately be corrected in the next life, and nothing escapes Allah’s knowledge. And so on that day, anybody who committed even an atom’s weight of good or bad, it’ll be brought forth, and Allah will take it into account, and He is the best of judges. You know, me and my wife, we get into conversations a lot, and she’s always saying to me, “You know, what about these people who, they’re good people, but they have a kind of wrong understanding of God, maybe they worship statues or they worship a false god or what they believe is God, and they’re just misguided. What about them? What’s Allah going to do with them? You know, they’re good people.” And you do see on the news so many people, they go through tragedies, tornadoes and hurricanes, and they lose their wealth and they lose, you know, loved ones, and yet they say, “God will take care of me.”
What’s Allah going to do with them? I tell her, Allah knows best. Allah knows their situation, Allah knows their heart. Don’t worry, Allah will never treat them unjustly. Am I saying they’re going to go to Paradise? Not necessarily. But if somebody was taught from a very early age that this statue is your god, or they’re taught there is no God and they grow up with that belief, or they experience some kind of tragedy earlier in their life, maybe as a child, and they develop a hatred towards any kind of God, any kind of idea of God, is God going to punish them if they were taught that from a very early age? We can’t say that Allah will, we can’t say that Allah won’t, we don’t know. In other words, Allah knows best, and Allah will deal with them with all the information, He knows everything. But the point is, is that on the Day of Judgment, everything will be brought forth and not an ounce of injustice will take place on that day. And that should be again a source of contentment for us as believers, a source of peace.
(End of first khutbah)
And so what I’m doing is I’m going through the Six Articles of Faith to show us, inshallah, how Islam, if we really internalize these six articles, how they bring us towards that idea of peace, contentment, and happiness. And so I’ve gone through five of them, inshallah in the second khutbah I’ll go through the last one.
What is the greatest sin? We know that the greatest sin according to our Islamic traditions and according to the teachings of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is shirk. When we think about shirk, we think about this false worship: worshiping another god or so-called god, worshiping an idol, right, worshiping many gods, whatever. And so many Muslims are conscious of this, and they’re very much on guard over shirk, but that’s the major shirk.
There are different types of shirk, as we know. The scholars have identified three types of shirk. There’s the major shirk which we already talked about, which is the false worship. And then there’s a minor shirk, which comes in a few different forms, like swearing by something other than Allah, or believing things like amulets will protect you. But one of the most dangerous ones for us is showing off. It’s dangerous because it’s subtle, it’s hidden, and so in many cases we don’t even realize we’re doing it. So you’re doing good deeds not for Allah, you do it to show off. And so you extend your prayer so that other people can say, “Oh, look at this guy, he’s praying so much,” or you tell people, “You know, hey, I’m fasting today,” and in your heart you’re doing it because you want other people to know that you’re fasting. Now of course, if you’re doing it with the right intention of maybe encouraging others, that’s fine. The scholars say that’s fine, you’re trying to encourage, it’s all based on your intention. But if you’re doing it to show off, that’s a type of shirk. It’s a minor shirk, it’s called riyah, and it’s a disease which many Muslims have in their hearts. And so in a way, you’re trying to please other than Allah through your acts. You give charity so that somebody can tell me, “I’m generous,” that somebody can say to other people, “He’s generous, she’s generous.”
There’s actually somebody who will come on the Day of Judgment, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, told us, Allah will ask him, “What did you do with your life? What did you do? What did you do to please Me, to worship Me?” And they’ll say, “I gave in charity for Your sake.” And He said, “You lied. You gave in charity so that you can be called a generous person, and you got your reward in this life.” And Allah will say, “Then go to Hell. Take him to Hell because he was doing it not for My pleasure, he was doing it for other people’s pleasure.” Same thing with the person who taught others, and he said, “No, I taught other people knowledge to please You.” He said, “No, you lied. You did it so that people can call you a knowledgeable person, people can call you a scholar, and you got your reward, so now go to Hell. Take them to Hell.” And then likewise with somebody who fought and died in the cause of Allah, and they’ll say, “I did it for Your sake, Allah.” And Allah will say, “No, you lied. You did it so that you can be called a martyr, and now go to Hell.” And so this is the minor shirk that many Muslims unfortunately do, and many of them don’t realize it. And so we have to be on guard against that.
But there’s a third type of shirk which is called the hidden shirk. It is so hidden that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, described it as being more hidden than a black ant crawling on a black rock in a pitch black night. I don’t know about you, I’ve been in those pitch black nights before where there’s no moon, there’s no lights in the middle of wherever, not near any kind of light source, you would hold up your hand in front of your face and you couldn’t even see your hand, that’s how dark it is. And so the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is painting us this picture of how hidden this type of shirk is.
And what is that hidden shirk? I want you to understand, this is the whole point of this. The hidden shirk is described by a scholar, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed bin Humaid, who said that the hidden shirk implies being inwardly dissatisfied with the inevitable condition that has been ordained for one by Allah, consciously lamenting that had I done such and such, I would have had a better status. What does that mean? That means that if something happens to us, whether it was a result of our choice or not, that we feel sad and we say to ourselves, or we say to Allah, or we say to somebody else, “Had I done something differently, my situation would have been better.” That’s the hidden shirk.
Think about that, and how does this relate to our whole topic? Our topic that we’re talking about is Islam as a stress relief, Islam as true submission in an effort to achieve peace. And here Allah is giving us, Islam is giving us, the six prescriptions laid out for us in the Six Articles of Faith, and the last one is what? qadr, believing in the divine decree, destiny. But here, if you’re lamenting, if you’re feeling sad over something that happened to you, which is fine, you can feel sad, something bad happens to whatever degree, we feel sad, that’s fine, you’re a human being. But if you say to yourself, “Oh, had I zipped up my jacket pocket, I wouldn’t have lost that money, it wouldn’t have flown out of my, out of my jacket,” “Had I locked my car, it wouldn’t have been broken into,” “Had I not married that woman or had I not married that man, my life would have been better”—that’s the hidden shirk. Because what that’s doing is you are saying that you could have changed the decree of Allah, do you see? And we cannot do that, because whatever happens in the past, it’s part of Allah’s decree, it’s destined for us.
And by the way, I’m guilty of it too, we all are. One example I can give you in my life, something very small, very trivial: there was a big meeting that we had for work, and we had to drive three hours to go have this meeting, and I had to prepare a presentation for it, 30-page presentation, printed in color, bound, everything. And I put it by the door, and I said to myself, “Before I leave, I’m going to make sure I bring it with me because this is really important, we’re making a big presentation, I have to have these color copies with me.” As Allah willed, I walked right by it, outside, out to my house on the way to the meeting, got in the car, started driving. An hour into the drive, I realized I forgot it, it’s back home. I can’t turn around because I’m going to be late for the meeting. And at that moment, I said, “Why, why did I do that? Why did I forget? Why didn’t I put it in my car the night before?” And then I caught myself, and I said, “Wait a second, what am I doing? This is Allah’s will. This was meant to be, because it happened.” So we’re all guilty of that, and that’s fine, you can react in the moment, but we have to catch ourselves. We have to rely and go back to our faith in the qadr.
And when you do that, stress relief. You don’t hold on to that, that feeling inside of you, that anxiety, those feelings of regret. And that’s the problem is that we live in the past, we’re human beings, and unless we remind ourselves constantly—this is part of thikr, this is part of why we pray, part of why we fast—to remind us, to remind us that Allah is in control, that we have this beautiful belief in qadr, that everything that happened in the past was meant to be. Maybe it’s a test for you, and you could not have changed it. And when you have this belief, it relieves so much stress off your shoulders, so much burden, because it was part of Allah’s decree, you don’t have nothing to do with it.
Now, some people may say, “Well, you know, does that mean you go into the future and you say don’t worry about anything?” No, no, because we don’t know the future. And so you buckle your seatbelt, you tie your camel, you make the effort to not repeat the previous mistake that you made before. So if something happened, let’s say you get a divorce because of some situation with your wife or your husband, that was Allah’s will because it already happened, even if the divorce happened as a result of your own action, part of Allah’s will because it already happened. But going forward into the future, which is not known to you, you can say to yourself, “I will try not to repeat that same mistake.” So you can learn from your past, that’s fine. But even if you do that, you still may repeat the same mistake—Allah’s will again.
But the problem is that so many people who don’t keep this in their mind, don’t keep this idea in their hearts about qadr, about Allah’s decree, it brings them so much anxiety and so much stress, because they felt like they could control it, and they can’t. And this is what I wish I can give to my family, to my mother, to my father, and I look in their eyes and I know they’re stressed over so many things. Why am I not feeling that stress? The biggest difference is belief, is true belief that when something happens, it’s by Allah’s will, even if it came through my hands or my choices or my decisions, it was Allah’s will. We can react in the moment, it’s okay, you can have emotions, but eventually you catch yourself. And the best of believers, the ones who are most conscious of Allah, they don’t even do that, they know instantly, “Allah’s will, Allah’s will.” Whatever it is, I lost a child, I lost a lot of money, my house burned down, I made a wrong turn and I crashed, I did something that led to somebody’s death. Yes, you feel guilty and you feel bad, but you don’t hold on to that anxiety, and that anxiety is what brings you down. And look at how much heart disease there is, how much cancer there is in the world. Not something that just happens in a vacuum, these things happen, yes, because of poor eating habits, yes, because of poor lifestyles, but they also happen because of the stress that we bring upon ourselves. This is what Islam is, Islam is that stress relief if we really understand. It’s not only a stress relief, but it’s a big part of it. Islam, if we really inculcate it and really implement it and really truly try to live it, it minimizes your stress and your anxiety and brings you closer to what we want, which is peace, peace as much as we can possibly attain in this life, which we know is not going to be ultimate peace, because that’s for the Hereafter, where we can at least strive for as much peace as we possibly can.
Now, with all of this said, believing in destiny does not alleviate us from responsibility. It doesn’t mean it’s okay to just sit back and be content with things like injustice or evil taking place in the world, saying, “It’s all been predetermined.” What Allah wants is effort and action, knowing that whatever is meant to be will ultimately happen, but the point is that we’re content with the outcome, whatever that outcome is. Now, some people may say, “Well then, what’s the point if everything’s predetermined?” This is a conundrum and a debate that I’m not willing to get into, because we have to live our lives, and we have to make decisions. And the most important thing to remember, in my opinion, is that we don’t know the future. And so we should do the right thing, strive to fulfill our Islamic obligations, pray for guidance, and then make the decisions and take actions we think are best. And then whatever happens is meant to be, and we don’t hold on to guilt, regret, and anguish, which will lead us down the road of sadness, anxiety, and maybe even depression. Just let it go, because Allah is in control.
So we ask Allah, O Allah, please bring us towards that peace as much as possible. Please Allah grant us the contentment in our hearts. Forgive us for any time that we felt a type of discontentment with your plan. Please Allah, help us to implement these six articles of faith in our daily life, and let these six articles of faith lead us to willfully and gladly and happily practice the five pillars, because we know that these six articles are the motivation for us to bring us closer to You, to want to pray, to want to fast, to want to give, to want to strive to please You. And so please Allah, we ask You to guide us, forgive us, help us, bless us, and bless all of the Muslims, and bless all of the believers, and guide those who are truly seeking You and seeking Paradise. Ameen.