Navigating The Trials Of Life
By AbdelRahman Murphy | 2026-01-19T11:15:58.730058+00:00 | Topic: General
Navigating The Trials Of Life
Ustadh AbdelRahman Murphy
Opening
Main Khutbah
Allah's trials and difficulties are something that is a very real and very common part of the experiences of people. And this is something that our tradition, alhamdulillah, doesn't shy away from discussing. The idea that it explains and it sheds light on the answer as to the question of why does Allah test us? And why are these tests important? Not just important, but necessary for the growth of the iman of an individual.
But before we begin to talk about the benefits of these tests and why they have to exist, we first want to talk about the reality of tests. And that is that the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم taught us very beautifully in a hadith that tests from Allah, meaning something that is not favorable, something that is not what we desire. A test is something that we wouldn't choose on our own because it's something uncomfortable or it's something even just painful.
That tests are something the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said every single person will have to endure. Every single person. One of the things that happens amongst communities and families and individuals and friends is that we look at each other and we start to say, well, my life is more challenging than this person's life.
Everyone looks at someone who is wealthier than them or more successful in terms of academics or professional and they'll say, this person doesn't experience any difficulty. This person has no idea of the difficulties I'm going through. Their life is so easy.
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم taught us that this is not the case. That every single son and daughter of Adam عليه السلام will be tested. And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم went so far as to say that the most tested amongst all of humanity are the Prophets of Allah and then those who follow the Prophets of Allah with their knowledge and so forth.
So the idea of being tested, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم he completely dispels this notion that when God puts a difficulty in your life in the form of a test, that it's a sign of punishment or consequence. No, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم taught us that the idea that a test exists is in fact it has function. And that to prove to you that it has function, the Prophet of God, who is the most beloved to God, is saying that I'm the most tested.
I'm the one that receives the most moments of confusion and difficulty out of everybody. So if Allah wanted to show displeasure, why would test be the language that he used? Number two is that Allah جل جلاله mentions in the Qur'an:
(Quran 90:4)
Allah, when he talks about the creation of the human being, he says that the human being was created in a status of work, in a status of hard work, toil, that it's not going to be easy. The reality is that there are some days where things might be easier than other days, but the reality is that every day has its own fair share of challenges.
And Allah tells us this in the Qur'an. So when these moments happen to us and we look up at the sky to the heavens and we say, Ya Allah, why me? Why me? The reality is Allah's response is already before the question, that this is the design of this dunya. Allah جل جلاله in the Qur'an, he says:
The reader of the Qur'an, the believer and the non-believer alike, that we will test you. There are going to be tests in your life with a certain amount of fear, that there are anxieties about what? About what's happening in the world around us, about the future. Many people, a lot of their anxieties come from the idea of the unknown. What's going to happen next year? Will I have this job or not? Am I going to, is this, is this application going to go through or not? Where will I be living? That's a form of a test.
And then Allah جل جلاله continues وَالْجُوعِ And a person will also feel the fear of their hunger, right? The fact that not everything is going to be comfortable all the time.
وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنفُسِ And there will be loss of wealth, look at the stock market, and there will be loss of life. وَالثَّمَرَاتِ And provision and fruits.
All of these things will go one after another. You will experience all of these. But then Allah جل جلاله finishes the verse very beautifully when He says وبشر الصابرين good news, glad tidings. You've won. To who? الصابرين Those people who have sabr. What does sabr mean? Many of the scholars define sabr very beautifully.
We say the word patience. That's not the definition of sabr. Because patience in and of itself is like an internal state, right? But patience is something, sabr is something that should be displayed.
That a person has the ability to persevere despite being put in the test. If it starts raining outside right now, are we just going to not go to our cars and not go home or not go back to work? No. We have to persevere.
We have to have sabr, right? If a person is patient then they'll sit and they'll wait for the rain to stop and then they'll go. But the one who has perseverance, who truly has true sabr, that person will get up, they will walk to their car, they'll grab an umbrella or whatever they can and they're going to keep going about
their day. So Allah جل جلاله is praising those people who amidst all difficulties can still look to the optimism of hoping in Allah جل جلاله and keep going and keep moving.
And who better to describe this experience, who better to live this experience and to show us how to emulate it than the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. He was somebody that no matter what difficulty happened in his life, he still found a way to keep going. Whether it was being boycotted and almost starved to death with his companions, whether it was the assassination attempts on his life, whether it was the constant rejection from tribe after tribe, people after people. I mean we complain about 10 minutes, 13 minutes of difficulty.
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم went through over a decade of rejection from his own people and never once did he look to say, Oh Allah I'm done. Oh Allah I give up. Oh Allah this isn't fair.
Why does Abu Jahl have more than me? Why does Abu Lahab have more than me? Why do these guys have more than me? Akhnas been shown. Why do they have more than me? The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم never ever let his heart turn in that direction on Isat al-Salam. He dealt with it beautifully.
Then Allah جل جلاله continues and finishes the verse. He describes who are the sabirin الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُم مصِيبَةٌ Quran 22:156) Those people that when they are hit with a calamity, which is again showing us it's not a matter of if but when.
Those people that when they experience a difficulty, when they get into the car accident, when they get the diagnosis of illness, when they lose their job, when something bad happens to them from all the list that Allah described and more. قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ )Quran 2:156) The first thing that comes out of their mouth because you can't hide it. You know what's in the heart comes out right away.
That's why some people they speak in their mother tongue. You know my wife is from Bangladesh and when she gets really upset with our kids for example, she'll start speaking in Bengali. And my kids they look at me and they say what did she say? I say I don't know.
She's speaking her mother tongue because it comes out of her heart. When you really really feel something, it comes out of your heart right. So what's the first thing that comes out of the heart of a true person who is patient and perseverance? The first thing.
The first thing. Not some sort of curse word, not some sort of question, not why, why is this happening? Ugh. Not complaints.
The first thing that they say is verily we come from Allah, we belong to Allah and to Him we are returning. The scholars of tafsir some of them explain this. Why is this statement so powerful? Why is this statement the statement that Allah Ta'ala designated? Because this statement reminds the person in difficulty that just like this life is temporary, your difficulty is also temporary.
Just like we say قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ Somebody passes away, guess what? You should also be saying it about this difficulty because why? When your life ends on this dunya, when you depart from this material world, you will realize that the difficulties you experience in this life will have no comparison to
the pleasure and the relaxation and the relief and the utter joy and beautiful experiences that you will have in Jannah. May Allah Ta'ala make us amongst them. The hadith teaches us subhanAllah that when a person enters paradise, they will be asked and they will have the hardest life.
The person who struggled to keep a job, who couldn't find a place to live, who couldn't eat what they wanted. I'm talking about the most difficult life. And when that person is given paradise, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will ask that person, did you experience any difficulty in the last life at all? And the person will be so overwhelmed by the pleasure and by the relief that they are experiencing in Jannah that they will say, oh Allah, we didn't experience any difficulty at all.
It's like when you go through a whole challenge to get to your vacation, but you check into the room and now you got the ocean view and even though you missed your flight, even though your bags got lost and even though all that bad stuff happened, you're looking and you're like, man, this is, this is worth it. This is worth it. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he explained to us and he gave us some indications about the nature of these tests and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala as well, gave us many indications about the nature of these tests.
Why? Because this is something that can shake the iman of anybody. This is something that can rattle the heart of anybody. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he describes it in the Qur'an, he says that people, they go through difficulties and it shakes them until they ask.
He said even the Prophets, the messengers and those with them will say what? So it's not a bad thing for a person to experience this, but Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and his messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they give us things to think about when you're going through difficulties. I wanted to share with you from this beautiful book called Fada'ul-Ibtila', Fada'ul-Al-Balwa Wal-Mahd. What are the benefits of these trials and I want to share with you just a couple of them insha'Allah so that we can walk away from today's khutbah with some good things from the bad things in our life.
First Benefit: Recognizing Who is in Control
Number one that he mentions and this is a very beautiful one. He says that when a person goes through difficulty, one of the things that they gain from that moment of difficulty is that this person realizes that they are ultimately not in control. They are reminded, right? And what does this mean? The scholar here is saying, the Shaykh, he's saying, he's a 7th century scholar, he says that in life when things go well, when everything is going your way, you start to walk with a little bit more swag in your step.
And you start to maybe feel like, you know what, everything is going the way that I want. Everything is in my control. And what happens naturally when a person starts to get everything they want and when everything is lining up perfectly and there's no challenge, not even the slightest irritation to your plan is that the person, and this is natural, starts to develop the misunderstanding of ultimately who's in control.
Who is Al-Ghani? And who is the one who is Fakir? Who is the one that is completely free of need? And who is the one that is constantly in need? And these moments even occurred to the best of people. The
Prophet Isa when he was doing his Dawah and people would come and ask him questions, the very famous story of the advent of Surat Al-Kahf. Surat Al-Kahf was a very interesting story.
Why? Because the Prophet Isa was asked by some of the people of Quraish to prove that you're a messenger, give us some evidence. We have some questions for you. Answer us the questions about the people of the cave, answer us the questions about the man with two gardens, and answer us who is Dhul Qarnayn? Who is Khidr and who is Dhul Qarnayn? We want you to give us the answer to these questions.
Some of the people of Bani Israel, they told us that if you're really a prophet you'll know. So the Prophet Isa he says, come back tomorrow and I'll tell you. God will reveal to me and I'll give you the answers.
But what did the Prophet in that moment in his initial stages of Dawah, what was one thing he forgot to say in that moment was Inshallah. The Hadith tells us that he forgot to say Inshallah, if Allah wills. And as a result of that, the revelation for this surah, the answers to these questions, the challenges that they were presenting was delayed.
Not one day, not two days, but many days. To the point where the Quraish who came to him they said, you told us that you would have the answer. You told us come back tomorrow.
And the Prophet Isa he said, I'm waiting for my Lord to reveal to me. Now this sounds like a very bad situation to be in. Can you imagine at work you have to deliver something to your boss, your supervisor, and you say I'll have it done tomorrow and you don't.
And then a week goes by and you still don't. And two weeks go by and you still don't. This is grounds for termination.
And the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is standing there in front of these people and they're saying where's your answer? And he's saying, I can only give you the answers that come to me. I can't make things up. So SubhanAllah, this seems like a really, really bad situation.
But the scholars talk about the beautiful good that came from this bad. Sure there was a lot of difficulty. Sure there was anxiety.
Sure there was confusion. But when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala finally revealed Surah Al-Kahf to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when he gave him this chapter, 18th chapter of the Quran, and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam answered their questions, there was a lesson that was learned by everybody that wouldn't have been answered and it would not have been learned had he received it right away. What was that answer? The answer was what? I am not in control, Allah is.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself and everyone around him learned that Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is not the one who makes these decisions. See, if he were a false prophet and all he wanted was power and money, then he would have just made something up. He would have just figured out an answer and presented it, right? But Allah caused a delay and that delay caused difficulty and difficulty and difficulty until when? Until Allah Ta'ala decided that it was the right time.
And as a result of that delay, it was clear to everyone who was there that this man, Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is a messenger of God. It served as a proof of his prophethood. So why does Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make you and I go through difficulties? Well, sometimes we need to be reminded who's in charge.
And sometimes if we get too far away from Allah and we start to think that we're in charge, it will lead to even greater moments of destruction. And so Allah gives us a little speed bump, just a little obstacle just to bring us back down to earth. You think that you have everything planned out and your flight gets delayed.
You think that you have everything perfect and the restaurant calls and says your order is not going to be ready. You think you have everything set and you forgot to catch one mistake before you turned in your presentation. All these things are small moments where Allah Ta'ala is reminding you that he's the one in charge.
Second Benefit: Turning to Allah in Du'a
The next benefit that I'll give inshallah, we'll do three today from this long book. The next benefit, which is very beautiful, Subhanallah, is related to the first benefit, but it's the action that comes from that. When you realize that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is the one who's in charge, the action or the behavior that comes from that is that you become a person of dua.
You become a person of prayer, of supplicating to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. One of the challenges that we have in today's day and age is that we have lost a meaningful connection with regular dua. Have you guys ever seen the small green book, Hasna al-Muslim, the Fortress of the Believer? It's everywhere.
It's handed out for free when you go to Mecca and Medina. They give it to you. What's inside that book? Why is it called the Fortress of the Believer? Because it is filled with remembrances and supplications to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Dua. Dua is something that every believer should be doing not just once a day, not just once in a while, multiple times a day, engaging in dua, seeking from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But again, Ibn Ata'allah mentions that when a person thinks that they're in control, they don't know how to seek and ask from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
How do you ask from someone when you think that you're self-sufficient? How can you turn to somebody and beg? Allah Ta'ala, He commands us not just to ask, not just if we have time, no. Allah Ta'ala says, seek from Allah. He says, seek from Allah like desperately, desperately ask Allah.
You know when you're standing there Subhanallah and you are overcome with emotion and you ask yourself, right? The famous statement of Adam:
"They said, "Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers."
Listen to that desperation. Oh Allah, we have wronged ourselves and if you don't forgive us and if you don't have mercy on us, then we're done, we're doomed.
You hear that desperation? In that dua, you're entertaining the idea of what happens if this doesn't go through. So when I ask Allah, Oh Allah, let me get the job. Oh Allah, let me get married.
Oh Allah, give us children. Oh Allah, this and this. Many people say, Shaykh, I make dua and I just, it's flat.
Just flat, right? Ibn Ata'illah says, you will never make dua properly until you know what it feels like to be helpless. You will never make dua unless you know what it feels like to be what? Helpless. Once all help has removed itself from your life, then you open your hands and you say, Ya Allah, no one is here for me.
I have nobody. Even if I could ask somebody, I can't because nobody is around me. Nobody can help.
Oh Allah, you're the only one who can help me. Please help me. And those states, the state of desperation, brothers and sisters, it doesn't happen unless you're put in a difficulty.
It doesn't happen when life is good. When life is good, you're like, I can figure it out. Can you give me a ride? No? Okay, I'll Uber.
Can you loan me some money? No? Okay, I'll ask another friend. But what happens when you're completely shut out from all assistance, from all aid? Only then are you reminded who is the one who can help you and you call upon Allah Ta'ala accordingly. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the Qur'an, He mentions:
"Rather, it is Him you call upon, and He will remove that for which you called upon Him if He wills, and you will forget what you associate with Him."
وَتَنْسَوْنَ مَا تُشْرِكُونَ And Allah Ta'ala will give you what it is you need and you will forget what it is that distracted you from Him. Allah Ta'ala wants us to come back to Him with a du'a and so He introduces a little test in our lives, a little illness, a little sickness, a little financial difficulty, a little uncertainty professionally, a little bit of a challenge. Allah just puts it right there for us.
And He says go through this and all the good things that we thought, all the ease and tranquility, it disappears just for the blink of an eye. And in that moment we are reminded, oh Allah I'm so sorry that I was distracted from You. I'm so sorry that I forgot about You.
Third Benefit: Becoming a Source of Strength for Others
The last benefit that we'll talk about, there's 17 so I don't want to go through all of them, but the last benefit that we'll talk about is when you are put through difficulty, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives you the ability to be a source of strength for someone else who is also being put through difficulty. When you are put through difficulty in life, in Allah's divine wisdom, Subhanallah, He has now made you a resource for somebody else. How? Well, many people who go through a very big challenge, big musibah in their
life, what's the first thing that we look for when we're going through difficulty? Who can help me? Who's been through this before? Who's experienced this? If I lose my job, I might go and talk to my friends.
Have any of you guys lost your jobs before? Where do you go from here? If I'm struggling to have a child, I might start to look for friends. Are any of you also struggling? If I'm struggling to, you know, get a job or move or whatever, I go to people and I say, can you guys, can you guys help? And the one person that says, come here, I know what you're going through. I've been there.
I've been there. Let me give you some advice. And more importantly, look, there is hope at the end of this.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. And this makes sense going back to the hadith earlier. Who are the most tested in all of creation? The prophets.
And who are the people that we have to look to when we are put in any situation to see how to go through it? The prophets. Allah Ta'ala tested the prophets the most because they are our role models. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam went through so much difficulty.
He was born and his father had already passed away. Shortly after, his mother passes away. He's taken in by his grandfather and after that, his grandfather passes away.
Then he's looked after by his uncle. He grows to be an adult and his uncle passes away and his wife Khadija radiallahu anha, she passes away. He goes through the loss of his friends and children.
He goes through financial difficulty. At some point, any human being would say, when is enough? Enough. It seems like he can't catch a break.
Then he's trying to do the right thing by going and establishing a community and he goes to Ta'if and he gets rejected from Ta'if. Only when he goes to Medina do they find some tranquility but then you have the tribes of Arabia scheming and plotting. It seems like it never ends for the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Look at the life of Surah Yusuf. Look at the life of Nabi Yusuf Alayhi Salam. He didn't make one single mistake.
His father says you had a dream, don't tell anybody. He didn't. His brothers plot to kill him.
He gets saved from the well but then he gets sold as a slave. He's tempted or he is seduced by this woman. He resists.
He says no. He runs away. He still gets punished and put in jail.
How? He made the right choice every time because there's wisdom for him to go through that difficulty. Why? Had he not gone through that whole process, he would have not been in the prison with the prisoners who had the dreams that he interpreted. And then when he interprets the dreams, they go and meet the Aziz and they say you got something special in that dungeon.
And he later becomes the leader of Egypt himself. These moments happen to people so that they can become resources for other people. When you go through a difficulty in your life, remember that Allah is training you.
What did Allah say to Musa Alayhi Salam after all of the difficulty he went through? SubhanAllah. Supposed to be killed as a baby, sent down the river for survival, accidentally killed a person, became a fugitive, ran away, got lost in the desert. When he finally meets Allah, what does he say to him? All of this that you've been going through, I've been preparing you for what? Allah is saying for myself.
Whatever you've gone through in life, brothers and sisters, there are so many benefits that Allah has given you as a result of your trials. There are some benefits that you can only get by going through trials.
We ask Allah to make us able to recognize those benefits.
Closing Du'a
We ask Allah to give us the fruit of those benefits and we ask Allah to allow us to deal with the trials in life with prophetic wisdom and with gratitude.
The purpose of today's khutba is not to diminish that difficulties are tough. We're not supposed to go to people and say, hey, I know that this happened to you, but get over it.
It's not that big of a deal. And don't you know of all the benefits in this and that? No. The Prophet صلی الله عليه وسلم when he was going through difficult times, he grieved, he cried, he shed tears, he wept.
When the companions went through difficulty, the Prophet صلی الله عليه وسلم went and he consoled them and he grieved with them. Even a loss as insignificant as a child's pet dying. A child had a bird.
The Prophet صلی الله عليه وسلم went to that young boy and he said, tell me about your bird. And he grieved with the young boy. The Prophet صلی الله عليه وسلم did not diminish or dismiss people's difficulties.
But what he did was, after a person was given time to process and to go through the steps of grief, the Prophet صلی الله عليه وسلم always tied up their experience with a beautiful bow of optimism. He always gave them something hopeful to look for:
(Sahih al-Bukhari)
"Give glad tidings and do not repulse, make things easy and do not make things difficult."
He always gave them something good to look forward to.
While we are allowed to and we are encouraged to give people time and space, we always have to be carriers of optimism for each other and to give each other the good news that whatever we're going through has a purpose and it is part of Allah's divine design. We ask Allah to make us caretakers of one
another. We ask Allah to give us the ability to experience the patience that we are given through these trials and difficulties.
We ask Allah to make us people that are noteworthy and that are admirable in our character. We ask Allah to give us the ability to follow the example and the sunnah of our beloved Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم . We ask Allah to forgive us of all our shortcomings. We ask Allah to forgive anyone who has passed away.
We ask Allah to untangle the challenges of those going through difficulty.