How Is She Different - Mufti Ismail Menk
By Mufti Menk | 2026-01-11T21:27:21.343018+00:00 | Topic: Iman
How Is She Different? - Mufti Ismail Menk
Opening
In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful.
In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful.
Khutbah al-Hajah (Opening Khutbah)
We always praise Allah upon every condition with us. Allah will be pleased with us and with us Allah to open our doors to come to save us from our goodness. He made us, He created us, we are going to return to Him. He is the one who nourishes us, provides for us, cherishes us. He is the one who is in absolute control of every aspect of our existence. When we are sick and ill, He is the one who cures us. When we have problems, it is He who sorts those matters out. Whenever we go through any form of difficulty, it is He who is in absolute and total control of the solution of that difficulty. So we praise Him upon all conditions and we seek protection from the conditions of those who shall be cast into the fire.
Also we send blessings and salutations upon Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) the one who was sent to remove us from darkness and to bring us into the light. The one whom when we say he is our Nabi, when we say he is our Prophet, what we mean is that we will follow him and we will follow what he has said blindly. (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) May Allah's blessings and salutations be upon him, the one who will enter paradise first, the one whose intercession we are expecting on that particular day. And those who achieve it or those who are most deserving of it are those who follow him the most and those who are closest to him, not just by witness but by acting upon what he has brought. May Allah make us steadfast on it and may He make us of those who firmly believe that success only lies in following what Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) has brought. And if we fail, then He will be our Nabi - this is what makes us Muslims.
So we send blessings and salutations upon him and all his family and his household and all his companions and we ask Allah to bless every single one of us.
Main Khutbah
My beloved sisters and brothers in Islam, it is a beautiful evening tonight in this warm country of Bahrain
and we ask Allah to grant us every form of shifa. We ask Allah to grant us the love between us and to make us among those who can learn a lesson or two this evening.
The topic that I am going to be speaking on is: How is she different? How is who different? She? Who is she? She is a believing female. How is she different from the others? What makes her a believing female? What makes her so important? What is different about her?
Point Number One: Focus
Point number one, and we need to notice: a believing female is focused. She is focused. She has focus. Focus on what? Focus upon the pleasure of Allah. She is focused upon the goal that she has, which is to earn Jannah, to earn paradise. She knows that this life is absolutely temporary and she knows that she can go any minute - she can go now or she can go within the next 5 minutes or within the next 5 years or 50 years. So she knows that it is important for her to prepare for the day that she is to meet with Allah, and that is her goal. Whatever she does, she asks herself: will this please my maker? Will this be something that will earn the pleasure of my maker or will it be earning the wrath of my maker?
We ask Allah to bless all our sisters and our brothers and we ask Allah to help us all focus, because focus upon paradise, upon the pleasure of Allah, is what makes us primarily different from the others who are focused upon worldly material things.
When we get worldly material, there are some who are focused upon motor vehicles, some are focused upon the kitchen. You know, you have the latest rotary - have you seen it? Some are focused on every moment they are focused on their salat. I know the last lecture I went to, people sent me emails: "Please tell us where you can buy it." And I was like, there are 20 rotaries in one way or in 20 ways - I'm not too sure now - but we are more interested in good food than we are in paradise.
But in paradise, she is different by the fact that she is focused upon paradise. She will try to achieve whatever she can in the dunya in terms of facilitating the life and making it easy for her to live here, but the primary focus is the afterlife. It is the pleasure of Allah. So if she can achieve the kitchen while she is pleasing Allah, she will do that. If she cannot, the kitchen is by the way - the religion of Allah is never by the way.
So focus on the matters of the dunya sometimes leads us astray, in the sense that when we begin to focus on the dress, and "this is what I want on the phone, this is what I want," or for example on a burqa: "this is what I need," or an abaya: "this is what I'd like, with everything bling bling on it." If that is our focus, then we will be so happy and so excited when we have all those accessories and that handbag and that mobile phone, and those shoes and we can walk with that figure and we can wear that abaya - it will be so beautiful. "Jump jump, you have that car, you have that phone" - and it makes us so happy, not realizing what would you do to a judge on that? Because Allah is giving you five million windows to
spend with those items, not all. Allah, you have five million windows and enjoy the house, the husband, the children, and everything else.
So this is what Allah has given to us, and He has so many things in the world, but He has told the believing female and the believing male that your focus is not on the items that we can provide for you in the dunya. Maybe when we go to humanity, we don't realize that what your focus is on is actually the dunya, which is good enough for me or my daughter or so on and so forth, not realizing that He's got everything else.
But when you protect your daughter in such a way that the man is living in a castle in front of you and women of the world they have five million windows to live in, five years may Allah protect us all. This is why we say the hadith speaks of - the Prophet Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) says:
(Jami` at-Tirmidhi 1084)
"When those come for your daughters from those who are of deen and those whose character is acceptable, allow them to be married. If you don't allow them to be married, there will be fitna and corruption on the earth."
And what is the fitna and corruption? Chaos and sin. That is what is happening. May Allah grant us protection.
So we are not saying that look for the poorest person in the dunya. What we are saying is: you can compromise when it comes to wealth, you can compromise when it comes to the type of car you are going to have and the house you are going to live in, but you will not compromise when it comes to the deen, because you are a believing female who is focused upon the pleasure of Allah.
You might find a man with a gentleman's wealth - he provides everything for you, he has his bad habits which you don't know about which creep up later on, to the degree that the children that we get may not be as focused as they should be because of the choices we've made for marriage or the choices that our parents have wrongly guided us towards making if they themselves were not focused. May Allah grant us the issue of focus.
So to be focused on the pleasure of Allah, to be focused on paradise and to be focused on the eternal life, and to realize that this life is absolutely temporary, is what differentiates a believing female from she who does not believe. Remember this, remember this and remember it carefully: what are you focused on? Ask yourself every day.
Some of us are just focused on having a degree in the dunya. We are not saying that's wrong - it's important that you are educated in the dunya. But are you doing it? Are you doing that and paying as a payment, you're living with Allah? Is that education making you stronger because of Allah? If yes, then alhamdulillah you've achieved your luck we would like to achieve in the dunya and in the akhir.
Remember the dua that Allah makes mention of in Surah Al-Baqarah:
"Our Lord, grant us goodness in the dunya and goodness in the akhir and safeguard us from the punishments of jahannam or the punishment of the fire."
This is something amazing. This shows us focus: "O Allah, as much as we would like to have a pleasurable, joyful, enjoyable or should I say a smooth life in the dunya, we would like to be focused upon the akhir in a way that we will achieve paradise no matter what happens in this particular world. I will not compromise my paradise so I will get up for salah, I will make sure I'm dedicated," and so on.
Point Number Two: Belief
Let's move on to some more of the points of differentiation and what makes the difference. The next point we have, closely connected to the first one, is the issue of belief. Belief is in the heart. Belief cannot be seen by people. If I were to tell someone "I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship besides Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) is his primary messenger," and so on - if I were to say that, I might just become Muslim, which means I might declare my Islam, my submission openly. But people cannot gauge the level of my iman and my belief.
The belief is the next step, which will now burn my link with Allah my maker. I bear witness that he who made me is he whom I'm going to return to. He has absolute control of every aspect of my existence. So if I am unhappy, he owns my happiness. If I am poor, he owns my wealth. If I am sick, he owns my cure. I need to know this and I need to believe in it early, and this is what makes me focused and this is what belief is all about. It helps us all.
This is to believe in Allah in his mercy, and to believe that Allah loves you. So when a sister believes that Allah loves her, she is different from others. She is different from those who don't believe in Allah to start with, and all those who believe that Allah is not merciful. We all read the beginning of the Quran, and when we start reading the beginning of any surah we find:
"In the name of Allah, most forgiving, most merciful" - or should I say most merciful, most merciful. One was a specialized mercy and the other is an all-encompassing mercy. The first one is that which is all- encompassing and the second one is that which is a specialized mercy for those who have believed in that mercy of Allah.
So you need to believe that Allah loves you, even when you're going through difficulties, my sister. Allah loves you. You're going through hard matters and issues? Allah loves you. Be focused upon that. Believe that is what makes you different from the others. Allah loves you so much that sometimes he gives you
such a great gift known as a sickness, which you might perceive to be negative, but your iman - the fact that you are focused on it, your belief - makes you realize that there is actually a gift of Allah to draw you closer to Him. This is belief.
So I'm convinced that Allah loves me, even if I took a walk down from here, I'm still convinced Allah loves me. I'm convinced. I don't need to become upset if this fan does not work, it's making a noise or for example, I have a distraction on this. I don't need to get upset. I can rectify it with a smile and I can still be like I am this person, because I believe that Allah has given me an ability, and as He gave me an ability, had I not wanted it I might not have had that ability. This is Allah. This is the focus. This is what makes you alone. This is what makes you different from other people.
No matter what you have, it does not make you lose focus. Today when we have a lot, we lose focus by sitting in front of the TV and watching Bollywood movies, or Hollywood movies or non-Hollywood movies, or if you come from Zimbabwe, it's Nollywood movies. And we are focused on that. Why? Because we have everything. We have the whole world. We have a flick of a finger and the driver comes. We have a flick of a finger, the car is there. We have a flick of a finger and everything is there. We have a little phone call, or a little tapping on the internet and the shopper is at home. So now what's left? I can sit in front of the TV and enjoy myself, and have a massage every day, and you know, look at myself in the mirror.
We are just interested in everything else. Why? Because we have lost focus. We've lost focus. So some of us are more interested in making ourselves up than we are in living the real life and focusing on Allah, and focusing on paradise. That face is going to be eaten by worms. We are not being negative but it's a reality. Allah Akbar. That was quite a hard statement but it's a fact. You have to face it.
If you are focused, you will know: "Mashallah, I have the power to look great. Alhamdulillah because that's Allah's gift upon me." But if that is my focus, then I've lost focus, to be honest with you. I've lost focus completely. It shouldn't be my main aim of existence to make up.
No, like I say, when Allah has blessed us with so many things, we want to show gratitude. So Allah says, "I can just take that away momentarily, so that you realize that I have given you a gift and you realize, refocus, come back to me."
May Allah bless us all to believe and to be convinced in the power of Allah is also what makes a mu'min different from others. What makes her different is that she is convinced in the power of Allah. Nothing is impossible for Allah. So if you are a person who has no children, not at all - 14, 15 years have passed by you will still continue making dua to Allah and having hope that one day He will provide you with what you are asking, because you are different. You have conviction and you know that Allah has given you so much in the Quran to show you that others have delivered even after 50 years, 60 years, 80 years of their lives. Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar!
So a believing female is convinced as to the qudra and the power of Allah. I believe firmly, and the men as well - obviously this is a believer - we believe firmly that Allah can do anything. He can do absolutely anything. Nothing is impossible for Allah. That's what I believe.
That conviction is what cures you when you are sick, do you know that? That conviction is what cures you when you are sick, and that conviction is what provides for you when you don't have. You are on limits because that is the power of Allah comes in, and it is Allah who is the provider. Ultimately it is always Allah who does that for us.
When we make dua we need to be convinced as we are supplicating our maker, that Allah is going to provide this for me. Why should we supplicate if we are saying "well it might not be and maybe perhaps" and so on? So many people who have had cancer that Allah granted cure, have been cured not by medicine alone, but by the will of Allah through His power, where He has given the ability to diagnose it at a certain stage, where it was early enough to have cured it. And I can tell you something else: sometimes we are affected by that disease, and yet through our dua, Allah cures it for us before we ever went for diagnosis, so we don't even know. Only the day they diagnose Allah, we might know one day we were sick, but you had such a detrimental disease - through your dua, we cured you before you even went to the doctor to get it checked and to diagnose it.
My mothers and sisters, I call here for a moment and I diagnose slightly to say: remember one thing - when you are sick and ill, it is your duty incumbent upon you to seek medication. It is your duty. Do not rely only on dua. Dua is a part of it. The conviction in the power of Allah is definitely correct and not a joke, but at the same time when Allah has given you ability and capability and capacity to go out and seek medication, you must do that. You must go out, you must test yourself, you must check yourself, you must diagnose as part of your duty unto Allah. He has given you an amanah, which is the body of yours. This body does not belong to you, it belongs to Allah. You need to look after it.
If someone gave you a car to look after whilst they were out of the country and you happen to damage it, would you go and repair it before they came? You say "this car doesn't belong to me, before anything happens I've got to drive it carefully, I've got to make sure everything is okay, if I've had a speedy one or two, I better go and pay it up before this brother comes back, or whoever comes back and before I have to give the car back." The same applies to our bodies - they are not ownership of Allah.
So a believing woman does not just tattoo herself anywhere and everywhere because she knows where the limits are. She does not just pierce herself anywhere and everywhere because she knows where the limits are. Whereas when you have people who are not believers at all, sometimes they don't even know, and sometimes they know but they defy, and they begin to do things not realizing that this body is only a uniform given for your soul to exist in this temporary world for a little while, and Allah will take it away.
So I know when He says that Allah took the soul, put it into your body, so your body has worn the soul. It's the uniform of the soul. One day the body will take out the soul, the soul will come out by the will of Allah, you leave the body in the uniform, gone. Down you are no longer known by your name. For the body is known as the body after that, not with your name.
You know what that means? Every one of us, when we die, nobody is going to say "Where's Muhammad?" They will say "Where is the body? Bring the body here. Is the body at home? Is the body there?" They're not going to say "Where is Khadija? Bring Fatima here, bring Abdullah, this side here, or lower Abdullah into the grave." Nobody ever says that. They say "lower the body into the grave, bring the body here, bring the body there, where is the body? How far is the body? What happened to the body?" and so on. Why is it the body? Because the soul is gone. Have you ever thought of that?
Well it is a reality. A believing female focuses on that. So as much as we're interested in back and back at one stage, it's all the body - no longer us. Mashallah Allahu Akbar. What happened to that body? It's gone back to Allah. So me? What happened to me? I must have gone back to Allah, whereas the body will decompose in the soil by the will of Allah, but with me? I will return to Allah and answer for what I did with the little bit of time and whatever else He gave me in this world. And the test is for all of us.
Parents make the life of their children a misery sometimes. Why? They are not focused. They are focused on what community, society, what will my relatives say? What will my community say? How can you wear hijab? How can you look like that? How can this happen? How can that happen? But are you focused on better practice? If you are, get out of it. They can't. They can say wow, you did it, we can do it. They are waiting for you, but we are not focused enough and we are not strong enough, so we lose every week. So people begin to turn away from the deen because of our weakness, and that is the problem. Allah got us linked.
My mothers and sisters really, it is amazing that Allah has given us so many gifts and He tells us: use this whilst you are here. Imagine this is one big examination room and we are allowed to cheat. How is that? It is like a big examination hall. You have an examination and all the results, all the answers are right in front of you. You can go and research it, you can go and check it and write the answers. Nobody is going to tell you that you cheated because it is in this big hall. Allah says: when you elevate the answer right, so go out and read the Quran - the answers are there. But we don't even want to read the Quran.
No. Why? Because I am busy with learning my psalm. What psalm are you busy learning? I don't know how to say that psalm. So what happened to the Quran? I am still quite young, you know. That is the answer to it: I am still quite young. Why? Because my dad told me that when you turn 30, that is when you start learning the Quran. 30? You might not see another human being. Then what will happen?
This is what makes you believe in a female different from others. She knows what she wants. She knows the temporary nature of this dunya. She knows the temporary nature of her body and her existence, and
she knows that she will change from this particular world to the next in a different existence altogether, which means in another place altogether by the will of Allah.
Point Number Three: Conviction in Allah's Decree
So to believe in the power of Allah and the fact that He can do anything and everything, when a person is sick and ill, we make dua, together with that we do what is known as dawah - dawah meaning the ilaj, the cure - to visit the doctor, to try our best. Then we ask Allah, we cry to Allah and we are convinced Allah will cure us.
You know when you find someone terminally ill and the doctors tell you that "ok, there are two days left" - many of us have been told "you have two days left" - 20 years down the line, you are still as fit as a fiddle. What happened? Well, medicine was wrong. That's what happened. Well, the truth is it's the power of Allah. We try and Allah provides. But even after 20 years, you still have to go. You still have to go. So Allah gave you another 20 years to pack away more good deeds in your bank as many good deeds as I can.
You know when we are young, we don't have a bank account at a certain stage. People start opening a bank account. They begin to work, the salary goes in, they want to save, the savings become big, and big, and huge and they get so happy. Why? Because our bank account is now 10,000 dinars. You know the dinar is so strong. "Wow 10,000, that's a beautiful receipt. I can do something with it."
Not realizing: where my receipt is in the akhirah? Where is your bank account? What does that mean to me? Nobody is saying don't pack away money for the dunya, but don't give preference to me because your focus is on the akhirah. Every dinar that you have packed away for the dunya, you need to pack away good deeds worth more than that for the akhirah, because the akhirah is everlasting. As for those 10,000 dinars, they will not help you for more than another 10 to 20 years when you get a job. Finally you settle down. How old are you? 40 years old. You've now settled and everything is ok. The average age of people who are now considered people who have settled down and now they're looking after their children and preparing for their kids: 40 years. How many years have you left? If you're lucky you have another 30 years to go and then what? Then I need to get you to the akhirah. Then everything I did which was focused upon the akhirah will come to benefit me.
So don't lose focus. That salat that you read, the best food you had, the good pursuit you had, all the good that you did will come to help you. May Allah protect us and the tawbah you're engaged in. Something powerful.
The problem with us, we lose conviction in Allah. So we think Allah is not powerful, and we think that he's not going to grab hold of us when we do things that are wrong and when we are astray. If a person doesn't read salah, it doesn't affect Allah, it affects them. If a person does not want to dress appropriately,
believe me, it does not affect Allah, it affects him, and it definitely affects them, but they don't realize and it will affect them.
When a person wants to engage in bad habits, it will affect them. It doesn't affect Allah. The good deeds of those who do good, they don't help Allah, and the bad deeds of those who do bad, they don't harm Allah. It's for us. This is us. It's all about us. It will help me, or it will harm me. So I have to be focused, and I have a beautiful way out: a tawbah. I can turn to Allah at any time and say "Allah forgive me, let me gain focus again."
You know what, this might be my last few days in this dunya. It may be my last few days in the dunya. So it's important for us to understand the power of Allah.
Something else that makes the difference is that she believes firmly in the taqdeer and the destiny that Allah - the decree of Allah that he has chosen. Sometimes we make a lot of dua, and Allah does not want to give us something. We are convinced that that was the best thing that could have happened. That is a believing feeling. May Allah grant us all.
Sometimes we have a disease, and Allah says "I don't want you to be cured from this because I want you to die in a condition that you are the closest to me. So die with a smile, thanking Allah. You made me sick, I made tawbah, I thank you. I'm really concerned about going to the akhirah. By Allah, my last few days were the best, because I constantly made tawbah. You gave me such a chance. I'm far better off than one who just died suddenly in a huge car crash and had no chance to engage in tawbah." Wasn't that Allah speaking to you?
So when we get to the akhirah, we are convinced that Allah gave me such a powerful gift to be able to get to a sickness which brought me closer to you. Sometimes you lose a child, sometimes you lose a family member, sometimes you go through a divorce, sometimes you go through some form of difficulty, sickness, financial loss, marital problems, whatever else you're going through - a child who's not obedient, whatever else. Allah says: that is for you to get closer to me. If that brought you closer to Allah, it was a gift of Allah upon you. That's what we are focused on. That's what we know. That's what we realize, because this is why we are closer to Allah through difficulty and analysis and like I say, we make our convictions, but we are also convinced that we don't receive what we are asking for, that that too was the best.
"Amazing are the affairs of the true believer - all his matters are always full of goodness, all of them. He's never upset. When goodness comes in his direction he is thankful to Allah, so it was better for him because it
brought him closer to Allah." [Sahih Muslim 2999]
How many of us when goodness comes to us we draw closer to Allah? If we don't, we are not true mu'mineen, because the hadith says "amazing are the affairs of the believer." So if we are not - if we have a promotion at work and a salary increase and we have millions and millions, our business deals are going right and we bought the cars we wanted, the houses we wanted, the latest we wanted, the bathrooms we wanted, the accessories we wanted, the abayas we wanted, whatever else we wanted - we've got all of that, but it did not bring us closer to Allah, then we have lost. We cannot call ourselves true believers. We might be believers, but not true believers, because this hadith says when goodness comes to the direction of a true believer, you find him thankful. He brings it close to Allah. Shukr, ash-shukr means a person who acknowledges the gift of Allah by worshipping Allah and obeying Him. That's the meaning of shukr - to thank Allah, to acknowledge from Allah by obeying His instructions.
Imagine someone says "Oh I thank you Allah," but you are not dressed properly. That's not thanking. Imagine you give a person a million dinars and they say "thank you very much, thank you very much," and they know that you don't like - for example, let me give you a simple example - they know that you don't like salami for example, just a thumbs up just an example of the kaka and they come to you after you've given them a million dinars with a whole pint of salami to tell you "please accept this as a gift" and you're so upset, but you know I don't like this, you know it's bad. That's one example.
The other example is: imagine you give a person a million dinars, and they come back and throw eggs at your house. What would happen? Is that gratitude? But they told you "thank you, thank you really I appreciate it." Their mouths said something, but their deeds are showing you something else. Why would we do that with Allah, when He's given you your life, your breathing, your eyes? Your eyes can see without a little knob on the side focusing something. No, your eyes can see absolutely everything by the will of Allah, and they are automatically focused. Your ears are automatic. You know you can hear without having a knob on your ear when you're twisting around like it was an old radio that people used to listen to. No. Amazing. And yet you're not thankful to Allah. Where are we? What is happening to us? We're losing focus. We don't even know. We don't even hear that.
So my brothers and sisters, it's important for us to understand: when we make a dua to Allah, when we call out to Allah through His gift sometimes, He will not give us what we want, because He knows that it's better for us. Don't become upset. The ending of that hadith says: a true believer when something negative befalls them, or reaches them, or touches them, or they are harmed by something, they are patient. They are forbearing. They persevere. They don't lose hope. So it is better for them.
What's better for you? It's better for you to be patient. Don't ever question Allah: "Why me? Why did my child have to go? Why did I have to suffer this cancer? Why did I have to be affected by AIDS?" - may Allah protect us all, may Allah grant us a cure even miraculously - "Why did I have to be this white?" No, don't ask that question. "If this is what you want, this is how you want me to go, I do not compete with
you. You are my maker, but I ask you to cure me. Give me your mercy and your power. That's the problem, ya Allah. If this is how you want me to go, I'm not going to compete with you, because you are my maker. You made me in the first place, so I belong to you. You own me totally. You own me completely. Ya Allah, I beg you to grant me a cure, ya Allah, from this disease I have." That's the way we should be looking at it.
I don't want to compete with the decree of Allah, but at the same time I can make dua that Allah grant us protection. Whilst we don't want to compete with the decree of Allah we should be making dua that Allah grant us a cure and Allah open our doors. No one wants to die. Everyone is going to die.
Like I always say: how many people want jannah? Put up your hand, everyone. Who wants to die now? Put up your hand. No one. How are we going to go to jannah if you're not going to die? Well you might say: "Well I don't want to die right now." Believe me, the weakness of man - no matter when death comes to him, he's always upset. I say: "Why are you [saying] ya Allah grant me jannah, grant me jannah?" Allah says "this is your jannah." He says "ya Allah grant me Allah, I don't want to die right now, I don't want to die right now." So what happened to the jannah? Come on, we want to give it to you.
The gift of a true believer is actually death, because now you're going to get what you want. It's like a child saying "oh man, make me first in class. Ok, I worked so hard, I'm first in class. I need a prize. When is the prize giving? Oh it's on Sunday in the evening. I'm not going to come. I'm not coming because why? I don't want to go, it's nighttime." Allahu Akbar. When are you going to get your prize?
So we need to think about it carefully. Death is something you have to go through. Alhamdulillah,
"And every soul shall taste death." Death is a door, and every single person is going to go through it. But the question is: have we prepared? Have we tried? Have we been focused upon it all, or are we just focused upon this and that and so on and so forth?
You know we have our schools and mashallah our children are doing very very well in the school. "My child can read a book with her eyes closed now." But come to Quran, they don't even know a word. Come to what the religion is supposed to teach, they don't know a thing. And Allah has only written 14 years for that child. In 14 years, the child is going to go. So when the child goes - may Allah protect your soul, but this is reality we need to talk about it, and we need to let it wake us up, because without it, we won't wake up - so 14 years later, the child is gone. Now everyone is going to be bragging, to say "wow, the child was first in class for so many years. The child was very intelligent. The child was this, the child was that. The child was top in mathematics, top in this, top in that." But you, you're busy sitting there remembering: "Ya Allah, the child is in the grave. In the grave, we've never heard that the angels will come and ask you what were your results in mathematics." Is that what we were taught?
So whilst we are importantly looking, quite focused upon the dunya and the secular education, we should not lose focus upon that which is more important. Allah Akbar.
"You have given preference to the dunya yet the akhira is better and yet is everlasting."
Surah al-A'la, powerful. It's read almost every masjid in Jum'ah, and Allah says: you have given preference to the dunya, yet the akhira is better and yet is everlasting. So that which is not everlasting we focus on. Why? Because we were lost.
I am not at all calling for us to take our children out of the schools. No way. I probably went with some of the best schools that were available to me. But all we are saying is: be focused. Be focused on something greater. Do not do one at the expense of that which is more important.
We also accept the taqdeer that Allah has chosen for us. That's what makes us good. We have to accept it. But we don't blame taqdeer for our failure. We don't blame the destiny and the decree of Allah for our failure. If I was lazy and I drove a car and then I fail, I need to have a little bit of the blame.
You know sometimes you have people, they tell you "make your adrah like a ghani, make your adrah like what's in the bag" and they don't give you the other side of the story. They give you proposal after proposal after proposal, but whatever Allah sends you, you just kicked it out. If you have a reason to obviously decline, no problem you make. But for no reason, you don't have that. So you've made such a big blunder by taking away what Allah sent. Now it's late. You say "make your adrah, make your adrah." Allah says "I sent you so much but you threw it back. What should I do? What should I do?"
Sometimes we blame taqdeer, but it's my taqdeer. Allah says "hang on, you are also to blame." Like my husband came at the 10 o'clock and they had stolen, they wanted to cut his hand and he says "hang on, hang on, hang on. I believe he predestined it and it was decided I was going to steal. So how come you cut my hand because it was decided already?"
To mention my name to tell you I don't even know what meaning was he trying to say. "Oh you know what, go ahead with this execution or do whatever you have to because it was predestined we were going to cut his hand as well." Look at that, it was predestined that we were going to cut his hand as well. You want to blame me? Well we can tell you the reality. This is why we say Allah sends you a lot. We tell you the way. We are to blame as well, but don't blame depression because you can always kick up from a lesson such as today's. You can always kick up, make tawbah to Allah and start afresh. Go again. Try. Don't make the same foolish mistakes as the past. May Allah bless us. May He open our doors.
So like I said, don't blame destiny for your failure, but when things have happened to you, when you've tried your best and still it was out of your hand and so on and something has occurred, you will surrender to the decree of Allah. You've been for every form of chemotherapy, every form of cure, you've tried this, you've tried that. Still you are suffering and now you are in your last - may Allah grant us all goodness and gentleness - you need to embrace the fact that I'm going to meet my Allah and I am hoping His
mercy, because if I were to ask you: are you going to enter paradise through your deeds or through the mercy of Allah? The correct answer is only through the mercy of Allah.
So have hope in the mercy of Allah. That's why I said one thing that makes her different is she believes firmly that Allah loves her. Allah loves her.
Point Number Four: Purity
Then we have the issue of purity. Believing female is always pure. Pure in what? Pure in absolutely everything. In the way she speaks, in the way she dresses, in her interactions, in her company, in her heart, in her mind. Purity of the heart. So the qualities are removed: jealousy, hatred, and there's a lot of gossips, a lot of sin. Everything is taken out. That's what makes it different.
So she's not jealous. If another sister looks more gorgeous, she's happy. "I'm her sister, Allah bless you. Mashallah, yes, I'm not jealous." But those who are focused on the dunya, do you know what they would say? "No way, she can't be looking better than me. Not at all. I'm not going to speak to her." Then we go around spreading rumour about her. We make life difficult for her, and then she cries and she's depressed and she becomes this and that, because neither is she focused nor are we. We're busy fighting a little battle in the dunya, not realising that as soon as we cross the age of 40, the first thing will come to me - unless you live in Bahrain. Allah Akbar Bahrain, I know it's a trip. Allah protect us all.
This is what happens, my mothers and sisters. We cannot be focused on little matters. We cannot be focused on these small things. We cannot be jealous of one another. No, we cannot start aiming. You know, "they've got a car I need the same car." Well, you know what? She wakes up at Fajr and has the haircut every morning. Where are you? Watching movies until 12 at night on the internet, busy with whatever else.
Now we have line and we check and we don't check, and everything else is there and what do we do? We're busy until 2 in the morning. We go to sleep when it's time for Fajr. The Mu'adhin calls out and he says "Salah is better than sleeping," and we're busy heading in another direction. In fact, he says "Salah is better than sleeping," we're just in our beds at that particular time. What happened to the Salah? Gone.
Then we are jealous of the sister in this closet. That's loss of focus. So what makes her different is she is focused on purifying her heart. She knows that I need to purify this heart. I will take out from it jealousy, hatred for others, deception. I will take out from it malice, any form of evil that is in it, the love of sin, the love of the dunya that exceeds the love of Allah - [that] is very very bad. It is actually completely forbidden. If you love the dunya more than you love Allah, there is a problem. So if trying to earn the whole of this world, we are earning the displeasure of Allah, we have done our wrong and we need to remember this and we need to know it.
So the purification of the heart, purification of the mind is extremely important as well. She is different because her mind is pure. When she sees things, she doesn't jump into conclusions that are negative. Rather she jumps into the most positive conclusions. Her mind is pure. She has a clean relation with people. She has clean understanding of what's happening, and when she communicates with people it's very pure.
And this is why we say another point is purity of companionship. What makes her different is her friends are all pure people. When it comes time for salah, they are all fulfilling salah. When they are going out, they are all dressed appropriately. That's what makes her different. That is what makes her different.
Otherwise what's the point? Allah protects. So to vet your friend and to make sure that they meet with those who are going to help you achieve that which you are focused upon in terms of the akhirah - that's what makes you different. Purity of companionship, your purity of interaction. You don't just interact with anyone and everyone because you know that Allah created you and he knows best how your machine operates.
Simple way of putting it: sometimes maybe Toyota, they will tell you how the machine operates. You will follow the instructions because you know Toyota has put in this and this is how you operate it. So when Allah made you and me - we are more sophisticated than a Toyota - so he sends the Quran and the Rasul (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) to us in order to tell us how we will be operated, in order to achieve success and the best mileage from our fuel.
And yet we want to turn away thinking "oh I can interact, I can intermingle and I can do what I like and who I like because you know what, I am an adult and I am responsible." And Allah says "hang on, you don't know. The heart and the mind are the most powerful organs Allah has blessed you with. Never ever give control of them to anyone besides Allah, otherwise you will be hurt and hurt very badly."
A lot of people are struggling and suffering, depressed because they gave their hearts away to someone they met on the way, and that person is huge. Can I tell you there are a lot of people who suffer because there was a password. There was a password made up of 8 characters that was used in order to use them to get to them and to abuse them. What's that password? "I love you" - 8 letters. And he continues saying "I love you, I love you," and he's like, he doesn't even know what love means. He's not focused at all. If he knew what it meant, he would be upright.
So that was the password. Once he did the password straight into your heart - "I love you too" - wow. Allah protects us. Then what happened? We are lost. We are gone because again we are lying, we are crying, we are depressed and you can't even tell my father or my mother nothing because they don't have a clue what was going on. And then they tell you "you are a fool," but it's their fault as well. They did not play a role big enough in your life to know what was going on.
This is why we say if you are focused, you will know your children are a ni'mah. You must be focused upon them as well. That is Allah placed a duty on your shoulders to look after your kids. That's what makes him different. She is focused.
We are going to get to that in a second. So don't allow this password. Don't allow this password that people utter to be a password straight into your heart, because anyone could say that and press enter and that would be the right password and so now, we are caught. We are hooked and what happens? Shaitan is with a group of us, like I say, and I'm repeating this: the heart and the mind are the most powerful organs Allah has given you and blessed you with. Do not allow people to control that. Nobody shall control that besides Allah. Don't hand it over to someone. No, it belongs to Allah.
We will only do with the heart and the mind that which pleases Allah. So when you are married, you have a spouse. Alhamdulillah, within the limits you will be able to give a portion of your heart and your mind too by the will of Allah. Why? Because that's what pleases Allah. But if you give it elsewhere, believe me, you are not focused. It should come back and believe me, I'm a counselor. I know what I'm talking about. It comes back to haunt you because everything that's rosy, the clubs and the nightclubs, and the drama, and the nightlife and the parties - people are focused on parties. Come Friday night, there are parties. What parties? We went to a party, we had fun, we danced, we had music and everything else. What happened? You're not focused on the party at all. Did that party help you at all? No.
What do you want me to say? "Read the Quran on a Friday night?" Watch and tell yourself "no Allah grant us goodness. How can you leave your home in the morning without having read one verse of the Quran? What do you do? What do I say? One verse of the Quran. I challenge you: do you want to make a change in your life? Before you leave your home every morning, please can we promise one verse of the Quran? Just give up our hands when we read one verse of the Quran before we leave our homes in the morning." Alhamdulillah. Believe me, it will change your life. It will change your life. And read it with meaning. Understand what you've just read and you'll see the words of your maker, the one who made you.
If you think you're falling in love with this one and that one because of how nice they look and how hot they are and how sharp they are and how wealthy they are and how beautiful they look when they're walking and talking and so on, believe me the one who made them should primarily be the one whom you are in love with completely. That's what it is, but we're not focused. It's Allah who made us in the first place. That's what makes the difference.
So we spoke about interactions, purity of interactions, purity of companionship, purity of the heart and the mind - that's what makes the difference.
Point Number Five: Purity of Dress
Purity of address, because she knows when Allah has instructed me to dress in a specific way which is beautiful - it is absolutely gorgeous - and Allah knows why he has told that to us. So what makes the
difference is she does not compete with the law of Allah. Not at all. She knows if Allah told me this, I will follow it because I am a creature of Allah. I want paradise. I want jannah. And to be honest with you, I will do what Allah wants of me, and that's it. That's what makes the difference.
We don't want to compete with Allah. "Oh I'm still young, I can move around naked, I can do whatever I want, I can show my legs, I can do this and do that." Well, the one who's attracted to you, to marry you, they've been attracted to your legs. Then what will happen when he sees his legs better than yours? He's now attracted to those legs. Same applies to your hair.
I always like to say, you know the shampoo - everyone wants to show how nice it looks when the wind is blowing, and "my hair is, I've got thick hair." Suddenly you start losing the hair, it's as if I'm kicking your shoulder, telling you to put on mascara and you really don't want to take as little bit more of your hair. Not always the case, but I'm just giving you an example. Don't be offended. And if he was attracted to you because of your hair, wait until you were expecting him, he might lose a little bit more hair. Then he might get someone else's hair. Then there's a problem in the whole. We were not focused in the first place.
He must marry me because of my deen. Those two things can get better, not worse. Not to say that he must not look at what I look like. That's correct. We need to. But that's not the focus of it. I can compromise a little bit here and there, when it comes to looks and size and age and so on. Those are all things I can compromise. But when it comes to the Deen and the Khulu, I don't want to compromise. That's what you need to identify.
Then we got focus on purity of speech. What makes a difference is she doesn't swear. Do you swear? What makes a difference is she doesn't hurt people with her tongue. When we say hurt people with the tongue, meaning utter foul words, utter falsehoods, accusations, gossip. She is away from gossip. That is a true believer. If she's not, there's a problem with her. She is beyond from backbiting. That's what makes her different.
What makes her different is she doesn't backbite. When others are backbiting, she can get up and say "my sisters, I love you so much. We are busy backbiting. I'm going to leave. Please phone me when you are stopped, or when you are stopped backbiting, so that I can return and we can discuss something more positive." And you walk away and they are like "did she actually just walk out?" They can say what they want. If you have been listening, so if they feel hurt because you were upright, the moral that they took is that you were focused upon the pleasure of Allah, when they were focused upon chatting about others.
So what makes a difference is she's worried about her life. And if she's worried about others, it's only in a positive way, not in a negative way. So I'm worried about the poor. I'm worried about the needy. I'm worried about those who are astray. How I can get the message across the environment. Not ever a
person who will start bothering about "this person committed this sin, so let me spread it across the globe. Did you see what she did? You know, this one did that, and that one did this." That's not my business.
This is what makes her, as a believing female, different. She considers all this a sin. She knows someone who carries tales will not get to paradise easily. Allah protects us. So we don't want to be carriers of tales.
My mothers and sisters, I really hope that we can take a page from today's lessons. I really hope we can. We can change our lives. Believe me, we can change our focus and we can become the happiest of people, because as I said: who is the owner of happiness? It is Allah, and Allah alone owns happiness. All these temporary pleasures are exactly that - temporary pleasures. That's what they are. But the ultimate pleasure, that is Allah, and it's the focus we should be upon.
And this is why I say: change your focus back to Allah, you'll be a happy person. Goodness comes, you're happy. Sadness comes, or should I say, evil comes and you're still smiling at the taqbeer of Allah that he has chosen for you, and you go through with a lot of patience and Allah will reward you for the patience.
Like Allah says:
"Those who engage in sabr [are rewarded] without limits, unlimited." [Quran 39:10]
Give what you want. Why? You were happy with what he chose for you. So you focus. Be happy. Be happy with what Allah has chosen for you.
What makes it different? She is focused. Work to work hard on certain aspects. Allah comes with us. So we've spoken about purity of speech, and we've only touched on it. Obviously there are details that you would perhaps want to add on it on your own. You would know what was included in the German purity of speech. We don't lie. We are upright people. We want to utter that which is good, that which will be written next to our names as goodness. We will read the Quran - it is the best of speech. We thank Allah.
Then we have the point I make mention of, about working very hard to do what? To serve Allah, to serve my husband, to serve my family, to serve my children including my family and my community, and the ummah at large and humanity at large. But that's the order.
So now people tell you "no, no, he must serve me. Who am I to serve him?" Well hang on, there are rights on both sides. Nobody is saying that you do not have rights, nor is anyone saying he does not have rights. But the term used is work hard on your humanity. Work very hard.
Laziness is one of the biggest components of the breakages of humanity. Laziness, lack of dedication, lack of focus, wasting time with other things that are not important. Today people are wasting their time on mobile phones so much that if they spent one tenth of the time smiling at their spouse like a mad person,
they could still solve the problem. Forget about the phone. Take out the switcher and smile. That's all. Believe me, he would just look at you and smile like that. Allahu Akbar, you solved the problem. Allahu Akbar.
Obviously I'm telling you something that Allah likes and [something He] don't[s]. But the point being raised is: we spend so much time on items that are for people whom we don't know, we will never know, we will never meet, we have no clue who they are. Probably it's the person who's cheating me on the other side, pretending to be someone that I'm not, and so on, and this is Allah. He's giving me a picture of a husband and a spouse, or children and so on, and I spend no time with them. Allahu Akbar.
And this doesn't mean that the men should not be dedicated as well. They too should be extremely dedicated. You have no excuse. You know we say: don't suspect your spouse, but we also say don't give your spouse reason to suspect. Both of them are equally important.
We ask Allah to help us work on our manners. Too many people are unhappy, for petty issues, petty issues - things that can be resolved and solved. Why? We're not focused. I don't realize: I've got a few more days in the dunya. What am I trying to do? I've got children to raise. I've got a couple to prepare for. A grave to prepare for. Allahu Akbar. And Allah helps us focus.
So that's what makes the difference. She knows, she knows that a sacrifice is required of me, to serve - to serve who? To serve the cause that Allah has instructed me to serve. May Allah bless us and make us of meaningful benefit to everyone around us.
Point Number Six: Not Enslaved by Environment
The last point I would like to mention this evening: what makes her different is that she is not enslaved by adverse environment around her. I touched on this at the beginning. Let me say it again: she is not enslaved by brand names, by training. Imagine you have a training, people are bringing things, so we all want to do that. Everyone has their hair, it comes down to the front and it's painted pink, so everyone has to paint it pink. Why? Because that's what they want to say. May Allah protect us.
If that is the system of operation, we've lost focus. So what makes her different is, she is original. That's her original. She is original. She is herself. She knows I believe, I owe my life and my existence to Allah. I don't owe it to the trends around me that are un-Islamic.
If there is a good trend of people who are reading the Quran, people who are engaging in khalaqat and engaging in different forms of learning and getting closer to Allah, then that is a brilliant trend. Mashallah. But we are talking of the evil trends around us. A believing woman who is never ever enslaved by the trends. Rather she is original. She remains on the same thing no matter what. The world can come up with all sorts of things.
You don't know if you take a look at the shoes. May Allah protect us. A lot of women are guilty of focusing on shoes. So when you open the cupboard, you have 45 pairs of shoes. You have the clogs and the court shoes, and you have the high-heels and the slops and the sandals and so on - pink and green and orange and purple and more. Like I said, I don't even know what colour that is. I just said that, but I got all the colours.
Those shoes are not helping them walk towards paradise. Why? Because they are not focused. I focus on shoes. When you get to the grave, are they going to ask you how many pairs of shoes did you have? That's not going to happen. Not at all. No way. Your shoes are so irrelevant that you are buried with other women. Perhaps your children are fighting this day: "I'm going to take [this pair], no, I'm going to take it." "Ok you take one, I take one." May Allah save us all.
I'm not saying may Allah have shoes. Please just now I'm going to see if you have a pair of heels. But, are you focused on shoes? Because it's in training, they may have this type of shoes. "No, I've got that type." They may have that type. "I've got that type." You can operate with a shoe that's beautiful, comfortable, lovely, and it serves the purpose of your feet.
Do you know, a lot of sisters, sadly, have calluses on their feet and blisters, because they are using shoes that they do not fit into that are so uncomfortable, but just because they want to wear shoes that are acceptable in the eyes of those who are the slaves of the trains and the brand names, they will do that. So if that's the case, we have a painful meeting you do by the will of Allah.
The same applies to your dress code. The same applies to everything else. We don't need to be or what makes her different is she's not enslaved by the trains and the brand names and so on. She's not enslaved by entertainment and parties and nightlife and what have you.
May Allah help us be focused on the akhirah. May He help us be focused on that which He would please Him, and may He take us there and may He make us the best of people who have the best of character.
Closing Dua
My mothers and sisters, my brothers and fathers who are here this evening - mashallah a beautiful evening in this beautiful city, in this beautiful country of Al-Bahrain - and Allah brought us together for a reason and the message I deliver for you is pertinent to me to start with and thereafter for every single one of us.
May Allah grant me humbleness and humility and the same to every one of us. May He make us love one another the pure true love which is for His sake. Someone asks what is the meaning of loving you for the sake of Allah? To be honest, we could translate it to mean: I love you in such a way that everything from you that will bring me closer to Allah I love, the fact that it is in you by the will of Allah, you will help me get closer to paradise. And anything that is negative I will help you recognize it and I will help you
eradicate it, because that is the love in the name of Allah. It is for the pleasure of Allah to get closer to Allah.
May Allah grant us that particular love. We are here only and solely for His sake. I hope and I pray what I said is not just entering one year and exiting the next, but inshallah it is something that will meaningfully change my life, make me focus, make me refocus, make me look back into my life and change a few things such that the day I die I tell myself: "Ya Allah, you've given me such a beautiful lifetime to prepare for the day I'm meeting with you. Here I am, ya Allah. Take me with the mercy of yours. Grant me jannah."
May Allah grant us the shahada that the day He takes us and may Allah grant us the good words of:
(لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَّسُولُ اللَّهِ - la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah)
the day He takes us away. May He make it easy for us to go and may He be very very merciful upon all those whom He's taken away and may He be merciful upon us the day He takes us away. May He grant us the intercession of Prophet Muhammad (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - Salla Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) bearing in mind that we only deserve it through His mercy and through the trial.
May we all be from amongst those who can try to be focused, because that's what makes all of us different from those who are totally hopelessly unfocused. May Allah protect us all.
End of Khutbah