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Reflecting on the very first khutbah

reflecting on the first khutbah
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April 16, 2021
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On the first Jummuah of Ramadan, the month of wonders, gifts, blessings and closeness to Allah, I would like to talk about the first Khutbah ever delivered.

During the migration of the Prophet (peace be on him) from Makkah to Madinah which took two weeks, he stopped along the way at Bani Salim bin Auf, where he delivered the first khutbah, as recorded by Ibn Ishaq in his Seerah, Ibn Khatheer and Imam Bayhaqi and others.

أول جمعة صلاها النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم بالمدينة في بني سالم بن عمرو بن عوف رضي الله عنهم قال فيها:

“الحمد لله أحمده وأستعينه، وأستغفره وأستهديه، وأومن به ولا أكفره، وأعادي من يكفره وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، وأن محمدا عبده ورسوله، أرسله بالهدى ودين الحق والنور والموعظة على فترة من الرسل، وقلة من العلم، وضلالة من الناس، وانقطاع من الزمان، ودنو من الساعة، وقرب من الأجل.

من يطع الله ورسوله فقد رشد، ومن يعصهما فقد غوى وفرط وضل ضلالا بعيدا، وأوصيكم بتقوى الله فإنه خير ما أوصى به المسلم المسلم أن يحضه على الآخرة، وأن يأمره بتقوى الله، فاحذروا ما حذركم الله من نفسه، ولا أفضل من ذلك نصيحة، ولا أفضل من ذلك ذكرى.

وإنه تقوى لمن عمل به على وجل ومخافة من ربه، وعون صدق على ما تبتغون من أمر الآخرة، ومن يصلح الذى بينه وبين الله من أمر السر والعلانية لا ينوى بذلك إلا وجه الله يكن له ذكرا فى عاجل أمره وذخرا فيما بعد الموت، حين يفتقر المرء إلى ما قدم، وما كان من سوى ذلك يود لو أن بينه وبينه أمدا بعيدا، ويحذركم الله نفسه والله رؤف بالعباد.

والذي صدق قوله، وأنجز وعده، لا خلف لذلك فإنه يقول تعالى: { ما يبدل القول لدى وما أنا بظلام للعبيد } سورة ق: ٢٩.

The Prophet (peace be on him) said:

All praise is due to Allah: I praise Him, ask only Him for help, and ask Him alone for guidance and His mercy. I have faith in Him only. Do not disbelieve in Him, despise those who deny Him, and I bear witness that there is no Lord but Allah. He is alone; He has no equal and I bear witness that Muhammad (peace be on him)  is His servant and His Prophet whom Allah sent for guidance, the true way, light, sincere advice and wisdom at a time when the delegation of prophets to this world had ceased, knowledge was meagre, the majority had deviated from the straight path, time was at its end, the Day of Judgment was near and the world had fulfilled its time-frame.

Those who follow Allah and His Blessed Prophet (peace be on him) have found the true path, and those who disobey Allah and His Blessed Prophet (peace be on him) have strayed and trespassed the boundaries [set by Allah and His Blessed Prophet (peace be on him)] and have fallen in the void of deviation. I advise you to hold onto taqwa, and the best advice a Muslim can give another is that he encourage him towards the Hereafter and ask him to hold tight to the taqwa of Allah; and fear Allah the way He demands that you fear Him, because the best way to attain the things you desire in the Hereafter is to fear Him.

And whosoever perfects and fixes his relationship with Allah in his private and public life, and does so only to please Allah, will be remembered and honoured in this world. It will help him after death, on the day when he will be most in need of the good deeds he sent before him and on the day when he will wish his bad deeds were as far as could be from him. Allah tells you to fear Him and He is merciful upon His servants. He is the Creator who spoke the truth and fulfilled His promise, which cannot be broken. Verily, Allah says, “Nothing can be changed before Me and I am not unjust upon mankind.”(50:29).

The main themes

This is the first part of his khubah (peace be upon him). Every single word of this khutbah is deep and important. We see the key themes of monotheism, praise of Allah and the description of time and how the succession of prophets had been halted for a while and ignorance prevailed over knowledge.

He describes how time was nearing its end and the need for taqwa (obedience to Allah), the path to salvation and encouraged believers to give advice to each other on how to attain it by following the guidance they had been sent.

Fix your relationship with Allah

Then the Prophet (peace be on him) mentioned something which really touched my heart. He said:

And whosoever perfects and fixes his relationship with Allah in his private and public life, and does so only to please Allah, will be remembered in this world and honoured in the Akhira.

The word used for perfect is yuslih, which means to fix. In order to fix something it must be require mending in the first place. The use of the word yuslih signifies that our relationship with Allah is lacking, it is not entirely sound, and it requires effort on our part. It is a single line, but it is a lifetime commitment.

Check what is motivating you

On a daily basis we are tested, but what is important is our motivation deep down. When we do something for Allah, are we actually doing it for Him, or are we doing it to show off, get credit, get followers or likes?

Imagine the moment this khutbah was delivered to the crowd of believers, who were listening attentively and would transmit this to other companions and pass it down the generations to us. Note that the Prophet (peace be on him) chose to focus on the purity of intention. If you fix this then the rest would follow inshallah.

The Prophet (peace be on him) in this point, focuses on the relationship between us and Allah at its deepest level. Fix your affairs with Allah fi siri wal alani – not just in public, but more importantly in private.

Plan, prepare and do your deeds for Allah’s sake alone.

Being honoured in dunya and investing in akhirah

When you perfect your intention and do things for Allah pleasure alone, you will be honoured in dunya, though you did not seek this.

If you sort out the purity of your intention, you will be also supported and saved when you die, for Allah will honour you in both dunya and in akhirah.

In dunya we save for a rainy day. Our rainy day is the akhirah, when we will need our savings the most. Allah will multiply our account based on the purity of our intention.

Striving for the sake of Allah’s pleasure is a huge investment in your akhirah account, so that when you need it the most, you will find it there.

We ask Allah to enable us to fix our affairs with Him and our relationship with Him, to perfect it and make it strong.

We ask Allah to accept our deeds and to make us better this Ramadan and afterwards. Ameen.

Shaykh Haytham Tamim – Thought for the Week 16th April 2021

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Shaykh Haytham Tamim is the founder and main teacher of the Utrujj Foundation. He has provided a leading vision for Islamic learning in the UK, which has influenced the way Islamic knowledge is disseminated. He has orchestrated the design and delivery of over 200 unique courses since Utrujj started in 2001. His extensive expertise spans over 30 years across the main Islamic jurisprudence schools of thought. He has studied with some of the foremost scholars in their expertise; he holds some of the highest Ijazahs (certificates) in Quran, Hadith (the Prophetic traditions) and Fiqh (Islamic rulings). His own gift for teaching was evident when he gave his first sermon to a large audience at the age of 17 and went on to serve as a senior lecturer of Islamic transactions and comparative jurisprudence at the Islamic University of Beirut (Shariah College). He has continued to teach; travelling around the UK, Europe and wider afield, and won the 2015 BISCA award (British Imams & Scholars Contributions & Achievements Awards) for Outstanding Contribution to Education and Teaching.

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