Cheaters Never Prosper Infidelity in Relationships

Khutbah: Cheaters Never Prosper - Infidelity in Relationships

Imam Khalid Latif

Opening

"I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan."

"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

"All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds."

"There is no god but Allah, the Most High, the Most Great."

"May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon the noblest of the prophets and messengers, and upon his family and all of his companions."

"We bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, without partner, and we bear witness that our master Muhammad is His servant and messenger."

Khutbah al-Hajah

"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Universe, the Master of the Day of Judgment. I bear witness and testimony to the oneness of Allah, to His magnificence, His omnipotence, His might, His glory, to His being the creator and sustainer of all things, the giver of life, the guider of hearts, the master of the Day of Judgment. And I bear witness to the fact that Muhammad ibn Abdullah صلى الله عليه وسلم is His servant and final messenger.

May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and upon all those who choose to tread in his path until the last day.

Introduction: The Character of the Prophet

It is said that the character of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was the most remarkable thing. And when his wife رضي الله تعالى عنها is asked about his character, she says that his character is the Qur'an.

And in some narrations she goes on to recite the first ten verses of Surah Al-Mu'minoon, indicating that in those verses are what makes up the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم character. We've been looking at these verses over the course of many Jumu'ahs in the past couple of months. To understand embedded within them an opportunity for you and I to practically carry out in pursuit of a character that is in the legacy of the best of creation صلى الله عليه وسلم.

And may Allah make us from amongst those who have a beautiful character. And may Allah make us from amongst those who desire to have good character.

Verses from Surah Al-Mu'minoon

And so as the chapter begins, Surah Al-Mu'minoon:

"Indeed, the believers have succeeded."

They have definitively attained Falah, meaning Jannah. May Allah make us people of Paradise.

"Those who have a stillness, a focus of their heart within their prayers."

"They turn away from those things that are pointless. They bear no benefit or detriment."

"Those who are the doers of zakah."

Both ritualistically and also in regards to a purification of the heart.

"And those who guard over their private parts. They guard over their modesty, their chastity."

Guarding Modesty and Chastity

And this verse that goes into this characteristic is one that we started two weeks ago.

And it becomes important to understand especially within the framework of modernity. The two verses that come after they become attached to this verse.

The word حَافِظُونَ that precedes the word فُرُوحِ is one of emphasis.

And it's giving indication that the way that you would watch over anything that is important to you in your life. The way that you watch over your wealth, the way that you watch over your children, the way that you watch over your home, your most important and materialistic belongings. The emphasis is there to say that you gotta watch over this thing as well.

That the norm in and of itself is given now exception in the next verse:

They accept within these cases, meaning everything outside of this is what the verse is saying you should not be doing. So other than those that you are married to and those whom your right hand possesses, in the framework of modernity, and it's not the focus of this khutbah, perhaps it will be a later one, a pre-modern understanding of the relationship between those who one's right hand possesses, meaning slaves that existed within the pre-modern context and slavery was something that was allowed.

Within a modern understanding and not because we have moved away from something religiously but embedded within our religion was the abolishment and abandonment of the abhorrent practice of slavery.

But saying that in these instances, these are the only ways that one is allowed to engage in pursuit of that physical intimacy, that sexual behavior. Our focus is one of relevancy to where we are today because slavery is not allowed in Islam. It's just not.

And so it's not to say that that's not an important part to look at but in the context of what I'm hoping to discuss today, we can look at that at a different point.

When we call the nafs, in this qualification مَلُومِينَ means to blame. We're saying the self-reproaching, self-blame, an opportunity to recognize where you have areas of improvement, where is where you're good but can perhaps be better.

Physical Intimacy Within Marriage

So Allah is saying that when you are in this type of relationship, there's nothing that anyone can say to you that you're doing that's wrong. That Islam as a religion is not one that understands physical intimacy and physical love to be something that is looked down upon, that's something that is better to avoid or it's not more spiritual to be in a place that says, I will not marry nor even if I'm married, I will just leave behind a physical relationship with my spouse because somehow that indicates that I'm at a higher level of spirituality. That's not what this religion says.

Modern Challenges

This crazy man what humanity is possible in creating and inventing. The different ways that we have not only invented to take one another's lives but have actually then used each one of those things to kill indiscriminately. May Allah forgive us.

So to the various ways that we have been able to create and utilize not just physical but also in turn emotional infidelity to people that we have made commitments to. We live in a sphere where it's not that you and I somehow have more desire, more Hawa than people who came generations earlier. But we live in an era that tells us that we're totally justified in pursuing our desires under the notion of rendering happiness quote and quote regardless of what it is that we end up doing in pursuit of it.

That there was a time when people would leave relationships because they were unhappy in them. They did not find contentment which is fine. But there is now a time whether it's marital or otherwise that people walk away from relationships not because of unhappiness but they feel like they could be potentially more happy somewhere else.

That the nafs is not being satisfied it's being tyrannical and it's telling you just go and do whatever you want to do. That from amongst the many paradoxes of choice and decision making the notion was there that there is a liberation in being able to give humanity more choice and more things that they can just pick from. But your mind getting you to a place where you are constantly trying to satisfy something that remains unsatiated.

Controlling the Nafs

And this is where the wisdoms come to us that if you can be a person who can control what is between your two lips and your two legs then you have control over everything. That you can control your stomach and you can control your sexual organs then you can control and make decisions in pursuit of a different level of consciousness and ethics. The challenges can be real in relationships but the values that guide us have to also be understood and be constantly and consistently returned to.

Zina in our tradition refers to the act that most of us associate it with. But the hadith also speaks to us of a zina of the eyes, a zina of the hands, that the thoughts that you think even if they are not manifest they are still thoughts that you are thinking. If you go into an office space you close a door to a bedroom and turn on a computer screen you fly and travel some place else and you're away from community and nobody knows what it is that you're doing or who it is that you're doing it with it doesn't mean that it's not being done.

The Prophet as Al-Amin

We have a prophet who was known as being Al-Amin before he was known as Nabi. That his sense of integrity

was rooted in his honoring of trust and being truthful and trustworthy. And unfaithfulness, infidelity was not something that he ever strove for.

So if you had people growing up in your lives that made it seem like through their example that this was behavior that was acceptable you should know that it is not. That the very verse is saying that you can't do this with anyone other than your wife, your husband, your spouse. Which sets the parameters of premarital versus being married but it also says that in the context of it it is only with this person meaning that no one else gets to have that with you.

No ifs, ands or buts. What brings us to this place is a historical discrepancy that allows for in most societies men to do whatever it is that they want to do and for women to not be able to follow suit. And I'm not saying in any which way or form that the solution is to say let women just go and do it too.

But a big part that is necessary to recognize is that men have to revisit what it is that is our guiding philosophy on life where we draw our morals from, our ethics from and remember who our teacher is (صلى الله عليه وسلم)

Leading by Example

So people will look to you for examples. They will try to see how it is that you interact with someone and how it is that you interact differently with others. The young men in our lives they will look to us to understand how they should treat their women by the way they see us treat their mothers.

The young women in our lives will understand what it means to be treated as a woman by the way they see their mothers being treated by us. That sense of commitment, that sense of fidelity is a virtue that becomes a base for so many other things. The justifications that can be rendered for behavior that is not acceptable is something that you might say to yourself and given the dynamic in a community people might even validate it for you.

We just got to go back to this hadith. He who cheats is not from us. You want to think who you want to be with.

You got problems going on or you anticipate it. Work on your communication. Manage what it is that you need to have managed.

But to allow for it to be something that shifts. That no person should anticipate that when they grow up the person that they're entering into a contract with to manifest love permissible in all of its forms somehow has the leeway to go and wander in whatever way they want to wander by simply the gender that they have or the norms in the culture and society that allow for it without consequence.

The Day of Judgment

And in the broader sphere and sense of consequence whether or not we admit it to ourselves or we stay silent on it or leverage what we have as privilege in the sense of this dunya every part of us is going to speak, man on that day of judgment.

Your eyes are going to say what you watched. Your hands are going to say what they touched. Literally the breath that travels through every part of your inner that you can't see and every organ that it's touching to manifest those words that you should not be speaking to somebody that is not your spouse.

And you quench it. You push it away. You get the help that you need.

You make the decision that says that it's not working then let me end something before I go and start something else. But those justifications they're not going to bear weight. And in comparison to the hearts that get hurt through that act of infidelity.

Gender and Support

And why do we have to understand it? Through the framework of gender? Because you know as well as I do that there's an imbalance that's there. That those percentages that go crazy high likely there's a good number of Muslims that make up those percentages. That's not the kind of Muslim you want to be for your own sake more so than anyone else's sake.

Within yourself we have opportunity to understand where the fundamental level of trust can easily get swayed into a layer of betrayal that becomes damaging and difficult. The other thing that I would want to impress in this situation is to understand that that dynamic that exists between those two individuals where and how they gain support from the outside is not for us to be the ones that add more conflict and stir the pot.

This is what (فَإِنَّهُمْ غَيْرُ مَلُومِينَ - fa'innahum ghayru malūmīn) among many things, the Mufassireen says also it means that the people there without reproach or without blame it means that it is not for you to somehow now be from an external standpoint being judged, jury and executioner of a couple who you are not within the specific frame of their relationship.

And so if someone God forbid finds themselves within the situation where they have done something to cause pain or harm to the other there is still room for them to have whatever pursuit they want to have. Divorce, counseling, to come together and figure out a way to make it work. But our role is to not add more to the challenge.

It's to be a support mechanism in the best way possible. And that's not indifference but to listen, to absorb and to help them to make the decisions that they need to make without the presence of what will people say, communal pressure, this and that and otherwise.

Only Your Spouse

إِلَّا عَلَى أَزْوَاجِهِمْ

No one except your زوج

That means that glance, that flirtatious conversation, that one minute that you might have done something here or there. If you think it's okay, stop the thought process. That's not the kind of man you want to be.

The movement that says that it's just anticipated, something that you got to put up with because what else can you do? That kind of nonsense has to go out the window. And the consequence, if it's not enough that you are holding someone's heart in your hand and hurting it. And so many others that have relation to it as well.

Bring it back to you. You want to stand as a member of the Ummah of Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) on that day when everyone is behind the Prophet they claim to follow? Or you want to be the person who fits into the hadith that the best of creation, he said, the one that cheats is not from us. Don't even come close to it.

And where you have, don't make excuses for it. Let the apologies come and embrace in whichever way you can the ethics that are drawn from our Prophet's legacy.

For Those Affected

And where and how you find yourself in a place where you are dealing with this, may Allah make it easy for all those who find themselves in these difficult situations.

You don't have to blame yourself for somebody else's actions. And somebody somehow says that because you did X, Y or Z, I then went and transgressed this way. And they make you feel bad for them doing something that is haram.

That type of dissonance is not fair to you. Nor is it something that you somehow have to acquiesce to silently. But you can say that this is not honoring the rights that I have over you.

And it is not something that I will tolerate in the relationship that I find myself in. We are meant to be people of trust and truth and integrity. And may Allah make us so.

Self-Reflection

Really dig deep and think about what you bring to the relationship. And here in this verse, Allah is saying:

إِلَّا عَلَى أَزْوَاجِهِمْ

Going back to the first, (أَنَّ سَيِّدَنَا مَوْلَانَا مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ - anna sayyidana mawlana muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluh) the announcements before we make du'a. And to be able to reiterate also the idea as to why these are conversations that we want to not just begin, but to have deeply and introspectively.

Because quite often when we are taught religion growing up, generalizations that I'm comfortable making, it's simply within the framework of mechanics and rituals, but they have to lead us to something as well. And there's such a depth in our tradition that tells us how to be good, ethical, moral people. And says these are the parameters.

And even if societally something is acceptable, the Prophet said that this deen started as something strange and it's gonna end as something strange. And he gave glad tidings to the strangers. So be strange, man.

Allah gives us a parameter and process not for His benefit, but for our benefit. We have the capacity to be able to reflect inwardly or make commitment to yourself that says that I will never be the cause of that kind of scenario and situation existing. Because it can hurt in ways that many of us don't even realize.

Upcoming Events and Programs

We have some important programs that are coming up next Thursday inshaAllah on the 20th we're going to be doing an event with the Uyghur community here in our prayer room. There's a young sister who is of the community in our community. So she is Uyghur herself and she has asked that we host something.

We've put together a panel to describe the crisis that is taking place there. Many of you know it, that there are millions of our Uyghur brothers and sisters that are placed in internment camps that are being indoctrinated, tortured and abused. May Allah make things easy for them.

And quite often when I travel to speak in different programs, conferences, there's large bazaars. I'm met at the front doors by Uyghur Muslim men and women who will be asking person after person, will you help us with this? Will you help us with that? Speaker after speaker, can you talk about this from the stage? And different people will get uncomfortable or they might say yes but they then say like nothing about it after the fact. So come and be educated and be aware so then we can figure out how we become part of the process of a remedy.

Even if that's us coming together to just make dua and pray but we come with a different recognition of what the struggle is and not just rely on blips from media here and there but hear from the people who are impacted. That'll be next Thursday the 20th at around 6, 6:30 p.m. in the Musalla.

On the 29th, Inshallah, our Black Muslim Initiative will be hosting its second annual Black Muslim Symposium.

There's amazing speakers, amazing scholars and everyone in this room should do what they can to come and attend. One, to be able to just listen, learn and understand if you are a non-black Muslim in this space and to see

where you can and I can learn so much from following the lead of our sisters and brothers who self-identify as black but two, to also be in a space where we are invited as allies in the truest sense of the word and to recognize that we can be a part of celebrating which will be a long process of this community addressing its own anti-blackness and creating space for black men and women in it to celebrate their own identity and be a part of our collective growth as individually they are able to embrace all parts of who it is that make them who they are. So that'll be on the 29th and we want to make sure everyone is there.

You can sign up through our website. We're going to be having a team for the NYC Gaza 5K where proceeds will be going to help our sisters and brothers in Gaza. May Allah make things easy for the people of Palestine and the occupation that's taking place there.

And may Allah make us in our generation bear witness to a Palestine that's free.

Closing Salawat and Du'a

"Indeed, Allah confers blessing upon the Prophet, and His angels [ask Him to do so]. O you who have believed, ask [Allah to confer] blessing upon him and ask [Allah to grant him] peace."

"O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad in the first and in the last."

"O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad, and upon his family and companions, and bless and grant peace, O Most Merciful of the merciful."

"O Allah, You are forgiving and generous, You love forgiveness, so forgive us."

"O Turner of the hearts, make our hearts firm upon Your religion."

We begin this supplication in Your name, Ya Allah and beseech You to send Your choiceless salutations upon Your most beloved (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). We ask that You shower Your infinite mercy upon this gathering, granting each and everyone who is present herein and our loved ones only the best in this world and the best in the next.

We ask, Ya Allah, that if all of us are meant to be together only at this time at this place, whether we are young or old, male or female, regardless of our race, our ethnicity, our social class, our country of origin, our cultural heritage, whether we are Muslim or come from a different walk of life, Ya Rabbi if our individual hearts are meant to be in the presence of all other hearts that are gathered here only at this time, at this place then gather us all together again in the best of places in the world beyond this one.

Increase us, Ya Allah in all that is good. Protect us from any type of affliction, anxiety or anguish. Make us people who honor the rights, the trusts, the relations that we have been blessed to have in this world, Ya Rabb and never let us be from amongst those who are unfaithful or dishonor those rights in any which way.

We ask Ya Allah that You make us from amongst those who move forward in our time in this world in a way that is most pleasing to You that keep us away from those things that You have said are impermissible and make us from amongst those who love to engage only in that which is permissible.

Help us, Ya Allah to find value in all that it is that You have given to us to be grateful and appreciative and to let that gratitude be the basis of how we see what is around us and forgive us, Ya Allah for mistakes that we have made forgive us, Ya Allah for times that we have hurt hearts in ways that we might not even realize.

We ask Ya Allah for all those who are seeking companionship a companionship rooted in a marriage that You have prescribed for us that You grant them the best of companions, Ya Allah that will be a means of benefit for them in this world and in the next that for those who are blessed to have found their spouse their marriage partner already that You increase them in their love and their mercy that Your Quran speaks about and that You make theirs a marriage that gives to them only that which is good and from them emanates only that which is good.

We ask Ya Allah that for those who have dealt with the difficulty of seeing their spouse pass away or have been separated for whatever reason that You grant ease to their hearts and bring to them a real sakina and enable them, Ya Rabb where there is benefit and khair to have the best of reunions in the world beyond this one.

Make us never those, Ya Allah who abuse those that we have rights over and have rights over us but enable us to be those who honor those rights in every which way possible and to ensure that we follow in the footsteps of Your most beloved peace and blessings be upon him.

Protect us always from hearts that are not humble tongues that are not wise and eyes that have forgotten how to cry. Forgive us for our shortcomings and guide and bless us all.

"Ameen, O Lord of the worlds."

End of Khutbah