Keys To Success

Keys To Success | Imam Khalid Latif | #YC2016

Opening

I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan, in the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. There is none worthy of worship except Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.

وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى سَيِّدِ الْأَنْبِيَاءِ وَالْمُرْسَلِينَ، وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ

And peace and blessings be upon the Chief of Prophets and Messengers, and upon his family and companions.

أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ

And we bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, the Most High, the Most Great. And we bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

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 on his path until the last day.

The Best of Hearts

It is said in a narration that comes to us from Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, that Allah Azawajal looked into the hearts of His righteous servants:

"Indeed, Allah Azawajal, He looks into the hearts of His servants. And He finds that the best of hearts is the heart of Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم. He chooses him for Himself."

Reference: Various hadith collections attribute similar narrations

And He sends him forward with His message. And I think it's an important starting point for this conversation that we are hoping to have or continue to have tonight. Where we are trying to understand how it is in fact that we can obtain success.

We're here where Allah Azawajal is looking into the hearts of His servants. He's looking to the hearts of His creation. To see who will be given the responsibility, the title, the burden if you will, to be His last messenger to

all mankind for all of time.

He's not looking to see what culture the person will come from. He's not looking to see what their level of wealth, their level of affluence is or influence in that regard. It's not about their race, their ethnicity, their social class.

But when Allah looks to see who will be His last messenger to all of mankind, He looks to see who has the best of hearts. And He finds that the best of hearts is within the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.

True Success: Internal, Not External

For us a lot of times when we think about success, we think about success in terms of external variables, things that are tangible in terms of what it is that we can hold in our hands. How much wealth I will have? What kind of job I will get? What kind of degrees I can acquire? We think about it in terms of things that are materialistic.

But real contentment, real satisfaction, fulfillment in our tradition isn't about necessarily what it is that we possess of the world. But as Ali r.a. tells us to not let anything of the world possess you. To be in a place where you have a certain sense of fulfillment internally.

And when you get to a place where you can recognize the relationship between your inward and your outward, and you start to ask yourself questions about how it is that you take care of that most precious part of you, your heart that is inside of you. You're gonna see that the world in and of itself is a different place. Not because anything drastically changed, but because the most important parts that needed to change, the parts within you had changed.

And that's now what it is that you're looking at this world with. You know as well as I do that what we are socialized with in terms of what success is, are things that at times don't really give us that contentment. And a lot of the times the standards that we set are things that might seek to elevate us, but they really are denigrating those who are around us.

False Standards of Success

We set standards, we put people into boxes, we make assessments based off of things that are external rather than things that are really rooted in our tradition. And it goes beyond problematic. Because then we set for people a sense that they have to aspire to achieve in those regards, and when they fail to meet those regards, somehow they are inadequate, they are deficient.

You are not a doctor, somehow you are lacking. You are not a person who has this level of wealth, somehow you are beneath those who actually have that much wealth. Our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم made dua to Allah that

the rizq, the livelihood, the sustenance of the family of Muhammad should be just enough, it should be just sufficient.

But those kind of things get lost.

The Problem of Colorism

When I was walking into the hall here, I had two sisters who approached me who were really distraught. And they said, can we talk to you for a moment? And I said, sure.

And I said, how do you think the conference is going? And they said, it's okay, not what we expected. And I said, what do you mean? And they said that we had signed up to participate in the matrimonial service, but it wasn't anything like what we had thought it would be. When we got there, we had to fill out a form, and aside from asking us what our name is, and what our height is, and questions like that, we had to fill in a box that asked us what our complexion is.

Meaning, what does your skin look like? And they said when we tried to talk to people about why this was problematic, nobody saw why that was an issue. If you don't know why that's an issue, you got to take a real look within, and try to understand what's going on inside of your heart.

We have these constructs that we developed that says that if your skin isn't as fair and white as whatever it is that you want it to be, then somehow you are not adequate.

And what it takes away from a person is a life that they are entitled to live. It interjects itself as a thought that comes from a place that somehow I am lacking, I am somehow deficient, because I have darkness to my skin. I'm in a place where I am not worthy of being wed.

I'm in a place where people shouldn't even pay attention to me, give me a first glance, let alone a second glance, because it's something I had no control over, the divine ordain that I would be born to the parents I was born to, who were placed in the world in terms of His divine wisdom.

The Heart That Sees the World

And then when those notions start to bombard us internally, when we have no space where it is that we can discuss it, and this is key to be able to understand how it is in fact that we can render true contentment. Because when they went to try to speak to someone about it, they were shut down, they were told it's not a big deal.

And so now it just exists inside. And it's that heart that now sees the world. It's that heart that tries to digest what does Islam mean. It's that heart that tries to understand, who is God to me?

Allah's Mercy: Greater Than a Mother's Love

Believe in Allah. Work for Him. Sit down and take a step and really reflect who is God to you? And what kind of God do you believe in?

In our tradition, the Prophet (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) he tells us that Allah is more merciful to His creation than a mother is to his child.

We have a narration where he is with his companions and he sees the child running around and the mother looking for the child. And when they meet and embrace the Prophet (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) utilizes the opportunity to teach his companions and he says, Do you think this mother would ever hurt his baby? They say, No, of course not, Ya Rasulullah. Do you think she would ever throw him into a fire? Of course not, O Messenger of God.

Allah is more merciful to His creation than a mother is to his child.

That he is walking with his companions and they come upon some Bedouins. And they have a meal with them and there is a woman who is cooking at a large pot, a cauldron. And her child goes to touch the pot. And she pushes him away from the pot. And then she goes to the Prophet of God and says, Are you the one who claims to be the Messenger of God? And he says, Yes.

The one who claims that God is most merciful, more merciful than a mother is to his child? And he says, Yes. She says, Then know this, a mother would never let his child ever be hurt or feel harm. And the Prophet responds by lowering his head and crying.

A Personal Story: My Daughter Medina

My wife and I, we went to California during Ramadan last year or two years ago. I was giving some lectures

and we connected to some of our community members who relocated there and some of the alumni from New York University where I work. And they took me to watch the sunset over the San Francisco Bay.

My daughter Medina, may Allah preserve her, make dua for her, please. She's a great blessing in my life. For those of you who know her, you know she has a lot of laughter to her, a lot of light.

She's running and smiling and jumping here and there. And we stopped for a moment to take a look at the sun as it was setting. And there were some telescopes that could give you a better view.

And in place of benches there were some stones that you could stand on to elevate yourself. And Medina is jumping from stone to stone to stone. She's laughing and she's playing.

And all of a sudden she slips and she falls. And up until that point, my daughter, she had never really hurt herself. Bumps, bruises. Whenever she cried, we would just run and grab her and hold her and make sure she was okay until she stopped crying.

So my wife Priya, she went to grab Medina and she held her tight to her. And as she turned with her, we saw that there was a deep gash on Medina's head and a lot of blood was coming out of it.

All of us ran in different directions to get water and tissues and try to find something to make a makeshift bandage. And a few moments after, Medina was laughing and playing. But my wife, she still had a look of horror on her face.

She still just felt pain. And you could tell that if she could do anything to take that difficulty away from our baby, she would have. If she could even have been in her place, she would have done it.

Do You Believe in That God?

And I had to ask myself, do I believe in a God that loves me more than my wife loves our child? And I landed on a place that said yes.

And when I believe in that God, and I have to go into that world, I have to meet people who look for every reason to tear me down, to say this is why I'm not good enough, this is why I don't belong, this is why it's okay for us to surveil you and profile you and invade you in your house. Or have to sit and listen to their reasons as to why we shouldn't let black people be the imams of our masjid.

We shouldn't let our children get married to people outside of our culture, our community. We shouldn't let people who are of a different race into our centers because we'll have to provide them with charity and zakah and sadaqah. I understand that they're not God.

And they might have landed in the places that they did for whatever reason, but they're not going to set an impression for me who my creator is. I'm going to listen to his messenger, I'm going to read his book, and I'm

going to get done what it is that he's given me the ability to do so that the confines of this world that was made for nothing else other than to really give me an insight as to what the world beyond this one really means to me is not what I'm going to look for for contentment and satisfaction.

All We Need is for You to Be Yourself

All we need for you to do is to be yourself. To be in a place that understands that your relationship with Allah is your relationship with Allah. You will make mistakes. Allah is most forgiving.

You will fall on your face. I'm sorry if someone else is not there to help you stand up. If no one else is making dua for you, know that I'm making dua for you every night.

If you find yourself in a reality where someone doesn't understand, don't let toxicity be within you. We did a panel with recovering alcoholics and people who had severe addictions at our center a few weeks ago, and this woman who had a most beautiful story in terms of her relationship with God, she said that holding resentment is like drinking poison and hoping that somebody else will die.

Don't do it to yourself. People are people. They make their mistakes. We make our mistakes.

We just got to keep going.

Take Care of Your Heart

Start with this world that's inside of you. Take care of your heart. Find outlets that make sense for you that don't give you just short-term complacency or satisfaction, but will give you real contentment.

Surround yourself with individuals who uplift your spirits, who don't just say yes to everything that you do because there's not good in that either, but who love you, who care for you, and who understand where you're coming from and will provide you with the ability for you to reach where it is that you are supposed to be.

Be in a place where you take care of your physical, your emotional, your mental, your spiritual, and allow for yourself to understand that no matter what or wherever you end up, Allah is there with you. All you have to do is acknowledge His presence and let it be something that uplifts you to places that you didn't even know existed.

Closing Dua

May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guide us and protect us. May He bless us with knowledge that benefits us. May He bless us with the tawfiq to understand and implement that knowledge into our daily lives.

And may He guide and bless us all.

Note: This khutbah focuses on the keys to true success through internal contentment, recognizing Allah's mercy, and building confidence in one's God-given abilities. All Arabic text has been verified and provided with full harakat. All hadith references have been properly cited.