The Responsibilities of Love

The Responsibilities of Love

Imam Khalid Latif | Qualities of the Believers (Part 12)

Opening

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.

There is no power or strength except with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.

Peace and blessings be upon the most honored of prophets and messengers, and upon his family and companions.

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the universe, the Master of the Day of Judgment.

Shahada and Opening Praise

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 ﷺ 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.

Main Khutbah Body

The Character of the Prophet ﷺ

It is said that the character of the Prophet ﷺ was the most remarkable thing. And when his wife رضي الله تعالى عنها is asked about that character, she says that he is the Quran personified, walking, talking, its very epitomization. His character, she says, was the Quran.

And in some narrations after she says that his character was the Quran, she then recites the first ten verses of Surah Al-Mu'minoon, indicating that in those verses are what embody his character. And we've been looking at these verses over the last couple of months. And the idea as we look into them is so that we can relate to them, gain from them, to not just have a Quran that we're afraid to read or a Quran that we bring out only at certain

occasions ceremonially or a Quran that we listen to only at one point in the year or in a given month of the year or anything like that, but we take the text for what it is and we fulfill its purpose.

The Quran as Guidance

That as a book in and of itself, it's very conscious of itself in its own self-awareness and it tells you and I that in it is a means of guidance. That's what it's about. And extrapolating meaning not just so we can engage in rhetorical conversation or discussion, but to make ourselves seem as if we know a lot about something that we can always know more about in relation to discussions that we have with others who might not know as much.

But to look at these verses with the intention that says that what they are calling to has benefit for me individually, for you individually, and to try to act upon its teachings, its lessons, its parables as best as we can in a very proactive manner. And then to use it more broadly as a means to have an entry point to say that my philosophy on life, why I do what I do is based off of this book and the life of the messenger who embodies the book in its entirety.

And so you make an intention on this blessed day of Jummah to say that what it tells us to do, I want to do.

The Promise of Success

And the gain is not for anyone other than you or I. That the first verse it says:

"Indeed the believers have succeeded."

It's written, it's done. And that falah that it talks about should be in and of itself enough of what we need to move to say we'll do what the next verses say because that falah we're taught is nothing less than Jannah. May Allah make us people of paradise.

The Qualities of Believers

"Those who have khushu in their prayer." Reference: Quran 23:2

This is the first characteristic that it tells us of when it identifies who the mu'minun are that have that falah, those that have a stillness in their heart, a state of calmness, a state of focus.

"And those who turn away from that which is futile." Reference: Quran 23:3

They turn away from that which is futile. It has no benefit or detriment whatsoever. There's really no point to it.

"And those who are the doers of zakah." Reference: Quran 23:4

Thirdly, the literal ritualistic act of alms-giving that we are mandated to give but also those who do zakah in the sense of tazkiyah. They purify their hearts inwardly so that their outward and external is as impacted in pursuit of real goodness and beauty as it possibly can be. And may Allah make us people who have good pure hearts.

The Fourth Attribute: Guarding Chastity

And then the fourth attribute that we'll start in conversation today:

"And those who guard over their chastity, their private parts." Reference: Quran 23:5

When we break down the verse in and of itself, it starts again with the same format, the relative pronoun الَّذِينَ مؤمنون Going back to the . اسم موصول the

The believers have succeeded. Those who do hifadha of their furooj.

Understanding the Terms

The word فَرْجِ which is the singular of the word فُرُوج refers to things that have gaps or spaces. And so when you read books of fiqh that talk about wudu, the areas between your fingers, for example, are referred to from a similar word. And by extension one can understand that when we're referring to فُرُوج in the sense of one's private areas, it's referring essentially to your groinal area where there's gaps between your legs.

حَافِظُونَ - Similar to a word that many of us likely have familiarity with, when someone has become a guardian of the Quran, they have memorized the text in its entirety. They are literally a protector of that book. They are called the حافظ. And so here too in a similar connotation that you are protecting and recognizing that it's something that's important to look over and protect.

Islam's Approach to Intimacy

Ours is not a religion that considers physical intimacy to ever be a taboo topic. It does not tell us that somehow the engagement or the absence of engagement of physically intimate acts renders a higher state of spirituality. But it puts parameters.

And the parameters are rooted in a morality and a system of ethics that is not about the نفس or me determining what goodness is. And when we deepen in terms of where we are in the prism of modernity, the conversation can go in so many different ways and quite often within Muslim circles. The generalization I'm comfortable making is that it really goes nowhere.

Prophetic Guidance

When you have حدیث upon حدیث that indicate that individuals would come to the Messenger of God saying that they struggle with the attractions that they have that cause them to want to commit zina. Ya Rasulallah, you have to make it permissible for me. Messenger of God, I kissed somebody I wasn't supposed to. That there's literal حدیث where the Prophet sees young men staring at women and he will move their face in a different direction. That they had opportunity to explore and discuss, have conversations.

As they were responding to a system that now understood a being in their entirety: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. That you had a جسدan entity that was the holder of your soul in this world, your body. As much as you had the نفس, the ego, the قلبthe heart, you had your عقل the intellect to discern right from wrong in the framework of what دین says is right and wrong. And your إرادة,your sheer will and determination.

Teaching Proper Conduct

Where the Prophet would sit down and in the حدیث we would find narrations where he would tell young men that when you engage in acts of physical intimacy with your spouse, ensure that you are simply not pleasing yourself but you engage in acts prior to so that your spouse also feels pleasure. And you derive from it principles of ethics, principles of law.

But you also understand that the Prophet of God as an elder man was sitting down with younger men, teaching them how to be men. And in your own consciousness, whether you are male or female, regardless of what makes you you in terms of your race, your ethnicity, your culture, your class, aside from maybe awkward conversations that did nothing more than to confuse you, when have you ever sat down with somebody who's Muslim that not only talked to you in real meaningful ways, how to deal with your physical appetites, let alone allow for you to explore it by giving you space to talk about it. And all they do is listen and absorb.

Modern Challenges

With modernity, there's so much that happens. We've transitioned from a sphere where monogamy meant that you were just with one person in your life to now in this context, it means you're just with one person at a time. That you're entering into a relationship with somebody means that I'm just not doing anything with anybody else in the moment.

The advent of technology allows for there to be all kinds of opportunity to engage in behaviors that feed and feed and feed the nafs in whichever way possible you can imagine.

And where and how we seek many things in terms of companionship, relationship. May Allah grant us all companions and make each one of us companions that leads our companions to the best of places in the world beyond this one. The standard and system of values has to be rooted in something that understands that the immediacy of gratification is never going to be enough of a pursuit.

The Command Against Zina

And where and how the Quran is not setting the parameters for anyone else other than you and I to gain benefit from:

"And do not approach zina." Reference: Quran 17:32

Means don't even think about coming close to it. Because the impact that it's going to have on your inward as well as to the other that's involved is something that you don't want to just leave to well, I wanted to feel satisfaction.

Important Conversations Ahead

In the coming weeks we can talk about it in a lot of different frames. Beyond just the conversation that's an important one not an unnecessary one but an important one about what the difficulty is physically and metaphysically in terms of the committing of zina.

But this verse and the verses that come after that qualify what it means also teaches us a lot about consent. It also teaches us a lot about recognizing that physical responses to certain actions are not in and of itself enough to indicate emotional attachment to those acts. That just because somebody's body is responding a certain way doesn't mean that that's enough for you to believe that they're saying yes to what you're doing to them.

The Prophet's Example of Mercy

Our Prophet was a man of mercy, compassion, gentleness. It gives us parameters and understanding of what to expect in the other to not be objectified or to not let ourselves simply be in a space where we guilt or coerced into any type of behavior. But there's a distinction between you and I as humans from everything else that God has created that is animate that we are from amongst those who seek to control the nafs and to not be controlled by it.

Addressing Modern Issues

And the deeper meanings and purpose that we seek to gain from life. How do we understand these verses in terms of things like pornography? How do we understand these verses in terms of norms, practices that we ally ourselves to that say that we can't let one of our children get married because the elder one has not gotten married. Or they have to have four or five hundred degrees before we can even go ask somebody to be potentially interested in being married to them.

Or when they come with someone who is a viable partner we say no and we expect them then to be comfortable in a marriage that they did not want to be in and engage in acts of physical intimacy with somebody who they have no desire to have been with in the first place and all the complexities that then come thereafter.

Ethical Parameters

These verses set parameters that give us indication that you're not just in pursuit of your own physical carnal desires. That you don't raise your hands, your voices on anybody that you're blessed to have in that type of relationship with you.

And there's so much that goes into it and it's arguably one of the most important and imperative things for us to be reflecting on. Why do we say that? Because we live in a society that is heavily sexualized in ways that nothing was like it before. We live in spheres where we believe that certain conversations and actions that we undertake are somehow not going to be things that we have to necessarily hold ourselves accountable for.

Prophetic Wisdom in Action

There's a deep wisdom that our Prophet ﷺ has hadith that are attributed to him that when men and women came to pledge allegiance to him and his way that he wouldn't hold the hands of the women the way he would hold the hands of the men. But your Prophet is teaching you to think twice before you put your hand on somebody that you shouldn't be putting your hand on to begin with. You gotta remember who your teacher is

When he calls to in the framework of ethics, good conduct where you don't have to succumb to basic whims but you also don't want to create what it is that people find themselves immersed in that makes difficult situations that much more difficult.

The Exception in the Verse

"And those who they protect, they guard their chastity."

"Except from their spouses or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they are not to be blamed."

It sets now the exception. إِلَّا عَلَى أَزْوَاجِهِمْ - Those that you have that relationship with, those to whom you are married.

The Significance of "Ala" )عَلَى(

Where and how the general principle becomes narrowed down to the specific. The word عَلَى when it's referring now to what you take from your زوج is unique grammatically because in the Arabic language when you're talking about that type of behavior you wouldn't use the preposition عَلَى you would use the preposition من from.

But one of the things that happens when عَلَى is used and من is not used is that it makes it now restrictive. Because if I said that I got water from the water fountain it doesn't also mean that I didn't get water from the

sink in my apartment or water from the sink in the bathroom. And I can take it from the water fountain but it also assumes that I can take it from elsewhere.

عَلَى also indicates that it's not just about the singularity of the physical relationship but عَلَى is saying that in order for you to be able to engage in that physical interaction you understand through the utilization of this preposition and not that preposition that that is only given to you if you honor all of the rights that are upon the person that you are seeking it from. Not just the physical but the mental, the emotional, the spiritual.

Rights and Responsibilities

In the hadith it says:

How can you be men who abuse their women in the days but seek to spend the nights with them in bed?

(Source Name)

General meaning from various hadith on marital conduct

Allah protect us from it.

You don't want your mind to go to a place of automatic defense but you want to understand that the Quran is setting for us parameters and guidelines in order for us to aspire towards a behavior that is good for us but also good for the people around us. And where you can buy into a mindset that tells you what society tells you in a heavily consumer-driven mindset that you are entitled not just to your happiness but to whatever it is that needs to happen in order to make you even happier or to make you feel even good in a better way. Regardless of what it does to anybody else or what it's doing to you at a deeper level in terms of impact.

Addressing Real Questions

And where and how we seek to draw meaning from it and we see how norms might be in flux in the situation around us but it's not just a simplistic conversation that gets rooted in the confusion that if we polled many of the people who are sitting in this room from age 10, 15 to 75, 85 and everything in between the constructed thoughts that we have around something like this topic is limited to confusion and nothing else.

How do I find somebody to get married to? What do I do when I have real feelings towards someone? What do I do when I'm physically attracted to somebody? Or what do I do when I'm not married and I can't control my urges? What looks like an unhealthy relationship? What are unhealthy expectations of my significant other towards me? What do I do when my husband doesn't understand that I'm actually tired and I don't want to do this?

Building Healthy Foundations

These verses are giving foundational blocks to the most fundamental relationship within an Islamic framework that is rooted around the construction of healthy family life and if that relationship is not good or the intimacy is not rooted in attaching itself to things that are positive or rendering that which is positive then in and of itself is going to be an added means of an obstacle.

And so within the context of this verse in the broader frame of trying to be people who adopt the characteristics and attributes of those that the first verse of the surah says have falah, they are given Jannah. May Allah make us from amongst them.

Topics for Coming Weeks

In the coming weeks as we extrapolate more meaning from these verses we will talk about what consent means through the prism of our religion and tradition and why it's important for all of us in this room to know whether you're married or not because marital rape is a thing. And those who foolishly will utilize hadith that speak about angels cursing wives that have turned their husbands away in bed when they seek to engage them in that and they're denied and the angels curse them as their husbands are frustrated you can focus on the part that you want to we're going to focus on the part that the husband still went to bed frustrated. He didn't just get to do something because he felt like doing it.

We talk about pornography, we talk about habits, we talk about socialization because a lot of us turn towards certain behaviors not in pursuit of what it is that we think that it is.

Understanding Behavioral Patterns

That when the experiments are done by Pavlov and he has a dog that is responding to a bell that is then associated with eating food and it goes on and on and on the food is given and then the bell is rung and the dog gets its food or the dog is eating and the bell is rung and the sound of the bell ringing now starts to be associated with the food to the extent that the dogs all they hear is the bell and they start dripping saliva because they know food is coming or they associate it with the consumption of food. The dog's not trying to eat the bell man it's not going to consume it.

So it's not salivating over it but its presence is bringing it mentally through learned behavior of something. So some of us to compensate for gaps of support in other things, we look for comfort in the arms of somebody that makes us feel secure.

We watch something for a moment that we know we shouldn't be watching to give us release from difficulty that plagues our mind. We don't have people to talk to. And it's not a justification that somehow renders the impermissible permissible but it helps to be able to say well how do I overcome this when my assumption isn't rooted that I engage in the behavior simply because of the behavior and the act in and of itself but it's giving me something else that it's satisfying.

Call to Study and Reflection

We'll talk about what healthy communication looks like and also what the rest of the verse is saying in terms of how it can be applicable to us as well as parts of it that are no longer necessarily found within the framework of modernity but are still things that we should have familiarity with.

So between this week and the coming weeks read these verses that we're going over. Surah al-Mu'minun, just the first few. Start to memorize them. Make it a part of you and then ponder upon it, reflect upon it. Draw meaning from it.

Use it as a means through which you move forward and you assess and base your decision making. And what you don't want to do is go back and say that oh my god I do this thing I'm the worst thing ever and Allah is going to send me to hell. But you understand that if you find yourself in a place it doesn't mean that there's permanency to it but you can bring yourself to a place that is beyond it not just with love from people around you but also finding a sense of self-love and self-patience that says you have the means you have the ability it might just take some time but you'll get through it.

Conclusion

The verses are there for you and I to gain from and to draw deep meaning from. InshaAllah ta'ala they will become a means of our benefit and a means through which we bring benefit to those who are around us.

Dua

وَصَلَّى اللهُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَبَارِكَ وَسَلَّمَ يَا أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِينَ

We beseech you to send your choicest salutations upon your most beloved. 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 of their 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. Increase us in courage, compassion, and confidence. Protect us from any affliction, anxiety, or anguish. Remove from our hearts any feelings of jealousy, bitterness, envy, or animosity towards any of your creation.

Grant us hearts that are filled with understanding and hope. Hearts that are filled with mercy and love. Hearts that are drawn towards your remembrance. For indeed in your remembrance do hearts find rest.

We ask, ya Allah, that by the barakah of this blessed day of Jummah that you accept every dua that we are reaching out to you with. That you, ya Rabb, know us better than we know ourselves. We ask, ya Allah, that

those duas that our tongues are scared to utter but our hearts long and yearn for us to ask of you that you grant us those and you put khair in all of them.

That for those of us who have loved ones that are ill and sick, ya Allah, we ask that you grant them a complete healing as you are the source of healing. For those of us, ya Allah, who have lost loved ones either in the recent time or many years ago or anything in between, we ask, ya Allah, that you grant them peace and grant us the best of reunions with them in the highest level of your Jannah and the world beyond this one.

We ask, ya Allah, that for those of us who are facing any type of stress, any type of difficulty, any trial or tribulation, that you increase us in our resilience. That you send us those who will be the best of supporters and helpers to overcome whatever it is that's in our way. That you help us to learn whatever it is that you want us to learn through going through this test and this trial, ya Allah.

We ask, ya Allah, that you make us from amongst those who find a deep meaning and understanding of your Quran. That those who seek to adopt the sunnah of your beloved both inwardly and outwardly. We ask, ya Allah, that not one of us leave from this world other than in a state that is most pleasing to you.

Forgive us for our mistakes, forgive us for any hurt that we have caused and help each one of us to recognize our own ability and potential to be a source of good and benefit for your creation.

And let not this day end upon us, ya Rabb, without each one of us being a means of benefit for someone else that we will meet in the course of its remaining hours.

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.

And forgive us, ya Mawlana, for you are the Most Forgiving, Most Merciful. And may Allah's peace and blessings be upon the best of His creation, Muhammad, his family, and all his companions. By your mercy, O Most Merciful.

آمین

End of Khutbah