Mufti Ismail Menk - Win the Battle Against Temptation - Leeds University ISoc
By Mufti Menk | 2026-01-11T21:57:12.893076+00:00 | Topic: Youth
Win the Battle Against Temptation
Mufti Ismail Menk - Leeds University Islamic Society
Opening Prayer and Recitation
أَعُوذُ باللهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّحِيمِ
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
"[By the [angels] who extract [the souls of the wicked] with violence, And [by] those who remove [the souls of the blessed] with ease, And [by] those who glide [on their missions], And they who precede [in the race of good], And [by] those who manage affairs, On the Day the earth will convulse, Followed by the subsequent [one]. Hearts, that Day, will tremble, Their eyes lowered. They say, "Shall we indeed be returned to [our former] state? Even after we are crumbled bones?" They say, "That would then be a losing return!" But it will only be a single blast, And at once they will be upon the surface. Has there reached you the story of Moses? When his Lord called to him in the sacred valley of Tuwa, [Saying], "Go to Pharaoh. Indeed, he has transgressed. And say, 'Would you [be willing to] purify yourself And [let me] guide you to your Lord so you would fear [Him]?'" And he showed him the greatest sign, But he denied and disobeyed. Then he turned his back, striving [against Allah]. And he gathered [his people] and called out And said, "I am your most exalted lord." So Allah seized him with the punishment of the Hereafter and the first [life]. Indeed in that is a lesson for those who fear [Allah]. Are you a more difficult creation or is the heaven? Allah constructed it. He raised its ceiling and proportioned it. And He darkened its night and extracted its brightness. And after that He spread the earth. He extracted from it its water and its pasture, And the mountains He set firmly, As provision for you and your grazing livestock. But when there comes the greatest catastrophe - The Day when man will remember what he strove for, And Hellfire will be exposed for [all] who see - As for he who transgressed And preferred the life of this world, Then indeed, Hellfire will be [his] refuge. But as for he who feared the position of his Lord and prevented the soul from [unlawful] inclination, Then indeed, Paradise will be [his] refuge. They ask you, [O Muhammad], about the Hour - when is its arrival? What mention do you have of it? To your Lord is its final knowledge. You are only a warner for those who fear it. On the Day they see it, it will be as though they had not remained [in the world] except for an afternoon or a morning.]"
Opening Khutbah
We commence by praising Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala and sending blessings and salutations upon Muhammad, may peace be upon him, sallallahu alayhi wasalam. May Allah bless his entire household. May Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala bless all his companions and all those who have struggled and strived to bring the deen to us. May He also bless us all and may He bless our offspring, those who come up to the Day of Qiyamah.
Main Body - Win the Battle Against Temptation
My beloved brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today so that we can feel like we are Muslims inshallah and so that we can feel like we are good Muslims inshallah. I don't think there is anyone here who does not love Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala and who does not want the love of Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala.
So we are gathered here, I know the topic I was given was connected to temptations and I'll try to stick to it, although it is very tempting not to! What we need to know is mashallah the deen is very simple, very easy. What we need to know is we find ourselves in circumstances that surround us. We need to make the most of the circumstances on condition that we are pleasing the creator.
So we are varsity here mashallah, I think the bulk of us here are students at the university. What we need to realize is seize the opportunity of your life at the varsity to maximize on your benefit. Why are you here? You are here in order to study a certain field. Be focused and inshallah you will achieve.
Whenever you are dilly dabbing or whenever you are losing focus, remind yourself once again and come back to the path. A winner is the one whom whenever they lose the path slightly they quickly come back. That's the winner because we are human beings and from the time of Adam alayhi salaam human beings err.
We are told that we make mistakes, we commit sins, we make errors. But the winner is the one who turns. Let me mention a hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasalam which many of you may know:
(Sunan Ibn Majah Hadith 4251)
"All the children of Adam are prone to error, and the best of those who make mistakes are those who constantly repent."
And that tawwab is not like a ta'ib. If who knows the Arabic language will be able to tell that there is a difference between a ta'ib and a tawwab. The one who repents once is ta'ib and the one who constantly repents is known as tawwab.
The Reality of Temptations
So there are so many things that happen to us. There are so many things that we find living here in Britain, living in you know what is known as the free world so to speak, that according to the law of the land may not be wrong. If I were to put a tattoo on my forehead from a British point of view there is nothing wrong with that.
But I think if David Cameron was to put a tattoo on his forehead and have an earring on one of his ears and talk to you like this, nobody would vote for him. Do you agree? So they know themselves and everyone knows and I know mashallah and that is good. That yes although people are free according to the law of the land to do what they want mashallah, we do know that there is a certain limit beyond which you are now known as a different type of a person subhanallah.
You are now known as a different type of a person. There are consequences for your decisions. You will decide but there are consequences that you will have to live by.
The Importance of Good Company
One of the most powerful ways of protecting ourselves from the temptations around us is to choose the best company. To choose the best company. Like-minded people who think alike, who speak in a way that is either better than ourselves or similar, who have similar thinking and so on or better. And inshallah by being in their company we will be able to help ourselves stay away from the temptations that are wrong.
When it comes to time of salah, we are with five sisters mashallah - I'm talking here about the sisters, not one brother with five sisters! No, but five sisters mashallah. And what happens to the sisters? All of them, four of them say "You know, let's read salah." The fifth one won't say "No, I'm not." She just nods her head. Yet, maybe in her own little private life she wouldn't have been that regular with salah. What happened? We saved ourselves with so much ease because we were with the right people.
It's way more difficult to read salah when you're alone when you're not regular than when you're with a group of people. All of them are going to read it anyway. You want to go to a restaurant and you're not really bothered about halal and haram, but the four people you are with are bothered about it. Do you think someone will say "Sisters, don't bother, man, pork or no pork, let's go and have a nice chow and have a nice meal"? No, they won't. Nobody's going to say that. So you get saved automatically. Automatically saved. Why? Because of your company.
Verses on Bad Company
If I were to talk about company this evening, wallahi, we could speak for two hours and valid, solid points. How the Quran speaks about the company. What powerful verses of Surah Al-Furqan where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:
"On the day of Qiyamah those who will have had bad company will be really eating their hands. That means they will be regretting it so badly saying, oh, we wish we would have chosen the path of the messenger and we wish we didn't have so and so as a friend. So and so as a friend because they led us astray after we knew what was right and what was wrong."
Dress Code and Identity
The issue of dress code - wallahi it is so tempting to just, you know, dress like everybody else does. You know, no bothering of anything. Wallahi, it is our duty. We would like to taste halawatul iman, the sweetness of iman, the link of your maker. Imagine if you could actually taste that Allah is with me and Allah is protecting me and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is constantly by me.
Dealing with Difficulties
You need to read the seerah of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam because he was the most loved and he went through so many difficulties. So going through difficulties does not necessarily mean that Allah does not like you. No. Going through difficulties with contentment is such a great sign. When Allah loves you He puts difficulty in your life.
Yesterday I spoke about a brother, friend of mine. He told me many years ago that "I've never had the reason to call out to Allah. He's always given me absolutely everything until one day something came crashing and I realized it's the first time in my life, 25 years down the line, that I actually raised my hand and said Ya Allah, I actually need you now."
I told him, "Brother, that's a gift of Allah. He loves you so much that he did something to you so that you can get close to him."
The Hadith on Testing
When Allah loves someone He tests them a bit more. So you have more tests. But brother, this is going wrong, that's going wrong, this is going wrong. Nothing is going wrong. It's Allah who wants you to turn to Him. Just continue making dua to Allah. Turn to Allah.
Examinations as Tests
There is a specific verse about examinations we can translate it that way, where Allah says subhanahu wa ta'ala:
"Do they not see that we test them very strongly once or twice in the year? They still don't want to repent. They still don't want to take heed."
Allahu Akbar. Aren't we tested once or twice in the year with big big examinations? And then we still don't want to repent. We still don't want to take heed.
Peer Pressure and Islamic Values
The issue of peer pressure is very, very real, very real to be accepted by others, to be greeted by them. We sometimes can discard our own Islamic values and principles just to be accepted by people.
So, you have a brother mashallah, you know, he has maybe, for example, dressed Islamically or possibly he visits the masjid regularly and then he has a certain group of people who don't read salah at all and he's the only one. And then he starts mixing with them. What happens? If he's not careful, he might end up giving up his salah. And if we do that, it has what I called moments ago, subhanallah, an impact. It has a reaction.
The Verse on Repentance
There is a verse in the Quran which speaks about adultery and which speaks about other sins and Allah says, if you turn to Allah after that, Allah says, those are the people we will give Jannah to. Those who turn, listen to the verse:
"Those who have committed immorality, an act of immorality which includes adultery or they have oppressed themselves in one way or another, meaning they've sinned, they remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala immediately after that, they regret."
What makes you regret? The hadith says:
(Sunan Ibn Majah Hadith 4252)
"When your good deed makes you feel good and your bad deed makes you regret, it's a sign of iman."
It's a sign that you're a mu'min because if you did not have that answerability to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, where would you feel guilty after committing a sin?
But with that, you need to turn to Allah, say, "Allah, forgive me." And Allah says, those who seek forgiveness in the verse I read, He says, they remembered Allah and they sought forgiveness. Saying, who can forgive the sin besides Allah? No one. We don't have a Rabb besides Allah. Allah is our Maker. The Maker, the Nourisher, the Cherisher.
The Meaning of Allah
I always tell people and something very interesting that you know the word Allah, a lot of the non-Muslims hear it and they think, oh, these people worship maybe a black box, maybe a stone, maybe, you know, something is funny. No, Allah is from aliha ya'lahu. It's from the Arabic root to worship. And Allah is al-ma'lum. Al-ma'lum means the worshipped one. So what I'm saying in effect is Allah, the worshipped one.
Who is the worshipped one? Rabbun, the one who made, the one who nourishes, cherishes, sustains, provides for, protects, the one with an absolute control of all creation. I call him the worshipped one. He alone deserves to be worshipped.
What powerful concept of God we understand. Nobody can argue with it. No one. If I were to tell you that we worship our Maker alone, who can argue with that? No one. If I tell you, I put my head on the ground solely for my Maker. When I say, subhana rabbi al a'la, do you know what I'm saying? All praise is due to or glory be to my Rabb, Rabb meaning my Creator, the one who made me, who is the highest.
What a powerful statement, subhana Allah. What a powerful statement. The one who made me. For him, I put my head on the ground. For no one else. Allahu Akbar.
Verse on Forgiveness and Paradise
So this verse, we are saying that Allah, the Maker, will forgive us. Who is there that we have? Who will forgive us besides our own Maker, the one who we are going to return to? Allah, subhanahu wa'ta'ala. Then Allah says:
"And if these people leave their sins and don't continue committing the sin, whilst knowing, knowingly, intentionally continuing committing the sins, they don't do that, Allah says, for those people, they will receive forgiveness from their Rabb. They will be granted Paradise. Beneath which rivers will be flowing of all sorts and there is Jannah, mashallah." (Quran 3:135-136)
And what a great abode for those who have done good deeds. So a good deed is not only a deed like salah and zakah and so on, but to leave that which is so tempting for the pleasure of your Maker is a brilliant deed to the degree that in another place in the Quran, I think it is Surah Al-Furqan, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:
"Those who have repented and done good deeds, Allah says we take all the bad deeds and we convert them into good deeds on the right side of the scale." (Quran 25:70)
So when they get on to the day of Qiyamah, they will see Hajj, they will see zakah, they will see salah that they did not fulfill and they will say, "Ya Allah, where are these deeds from?" And Allah will say:
"No oppression today, those are your sins, after your repentance, we converted them into good deeds and this verse is in the Quran."
How then can we lose hope in the mercy of Allah? How then can we lose hope in the mercy of Allah? He loves every one of us, every one of us, without exception, no one, there is no exception and we have access to Him, equal access, just like I have access to Him, so do you and so do all the sisters and so do the brothers and so does everyone else, we have access, but let's make use of that access.
The Temptation of Gossip and Backbiting
Let's move to something that is also tempting. It's very tempting, wallahi, nowadays, to gossip, to want to know things, to backbite, to talk about people behind their backs without realizing that wallahi, it's a major, major sin. It has a consequence.
When we backbite, when we engage in a sin, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that is so bad. There is a narration which says it is worse than committing adultery. Why? Because when you've committed
adultery, you ask Allah to forgive you. When I've harmed someone else, I need to go to them. Allah is ghafoorur raheem, most forgiving, most merciful. The person I've backbitten about is not ghafoorur raheem. They may not want to forgive me.
Why backbite? You know why gossiping and that is not allowed? We're now engaging in someone else's life in a way that we do not lead our own lives. I need a 24-hour day to rectify my weaknesses. I don't have one moment to go into the lives of others. So if I do go into their lives, it means I'm already lacking in my own life. Simple.
So why should I talk about you? For what? I really should not be doing that. I must be worried about my own. The narration says:
"Give good news of paradise to the one whose own weaknesses keeps him or her occupied from engaging in the weaknesses of others." (Related by Al-Bazzar)
There we are. You know طُوبَى is also a place in Jannah. So you could translate this hadith as, give good news of paradise to the one whose own weaknesses keeps him or her occupied from engaging in the weaknesses of others.
The Importance of Salah
Wallahi, that coolness will result in the heat of the day of Qiyamah. You can be as cool as you can, and you want to be. Within the limits of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you can. Mashallah. So we need to know that if people pass derogatory comments against you, that oh, this person is a that and a this, and you know, they call us names - I don't know this part of the world, but back at home, you know, a woman who's covering her face, for example, she'll be called a ninja, and somebody else will be called a Taliban, and somebody else will be called a this and a that. Don't worry, ignore that.
Don't even let it frustrate you. Consider it a gift of Allah. You know, I had one scholar in Madina Munawwara who used to say, if the people of, you know, the people of the countries where Islam is not predominant, if they want to know that they are dressed properly, they need to have had someone laugh at them or scoff at them at some time in their lives.
Salah and Technology
You see, it is tempting to sometimes stay asleep when the time of salah clocks in. And ten minutes later is the time for us to go to varsity, and then we'll get up, mashallah. What happens? You know, technology is so advanced these days, that I've already spoken to a few people who constantly visit China and so on, to say, please tell them to develop a mattress, that as soon as the time of salah comes, it springs you up, you
know. You're going to just come up, and you try and get back, and he says, no, you've got to read your salah.
Ask Allah to grant us goodness. It is something that is so great. Salah is something Allah is asking you for. He says, He really doesn't ask us for much. He's given us our lives, our noses, our ears, the faculties of hearing, and you know, seeing, and health, and the digestive system, and absolutely everything, and our looks, and our hair, and our, you know, everything else we have, the brains, and all. And he says, look, I'd like you to just do a set of things. This is all I want. That's it.
And we say, you know, I'm going to think about it. I'll see. I'm not yet ready. I'm weak. I make two, it's fine, you know. And then when we have a problem, we say, ya Allah, help me here and help me there, and Allah says, you know, I'll still give it to you, but I want you to think about something. What is it? I don't need you.
When I call out to you, you don't want to listen. And when you call out to me, you expect me to respond to you immediately. Through my mercy, I still will give you what you want, but consider what you're going to lose.
Being Proud Muslims
Allah grant us strength. And Allah make us from those who are proud Muslims. When I say proud Muslims, be proud of your identity, your name. If your name is a solid name, alhamdulillah, use it. And make it clear you're a Muslim.
So many times we have Christians who help, and when you say thank you very much, they say, well, you know, I'm a Christian, meaning Christianity prodded me to help you. Why don't Muslims say that? Is it because we don't help? Is it because we are not humanitarian? Well, we are supposed to be. You know, we should be assisting Muslims and non-Muslims, not just Muslims.
There is this misconception that, you know, the non-Muslims are enemies of Islam. They're supposed to be fought. They're supposed to be this and that. A lot of them are just purely ignorant human beings who probably would have loved Islam more than us had they been shown the light.
Protecting Our Islamic Identity
We need to improve that. We're living in a country that, mashallah, is so free that we're actually honored to be in this country. We're actually happy that we can sit, you know, with our hijab, and we can sit with so much freedom. Mashallah.
Why then would we want to hate, and cause a problem, and, you know, cause this difficulty and create a problem of peace and security? No. We are peace-loving citizens, law-abiding citizens of the land we live
in. Alhamdulillah. And at the same time, we worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We want Allah to be pleased with us.
We make most of the opportunities we have been given, and, inshallah, I hope and I pray that myself, as the days pass, I can become closer and closer to my Maker, and still enjoy the life. And the same applies for everyone else. May Allah grant you all the same. And may He grant the ummah as well the same.
Four Conditions of Repentance (Tawbah)
My beloved sisters, there are four conditions. Obviously the lesson is for all of us, the sister asked the question. Four conditions of tawbah:
- You need to admit your sin
- You need to regret it
- You need to ask for forgiveness
- You need to promise that you will not do it again
Once those four conditions are met, you are forgiven, even if you happen to repeat the sin a thousand times.
The Hadith on Fighting Temptation
(Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 6491)
"Whoever wants to commit a sin but doesn't commit it because of Allah, it's written as a reward for them."
The Hadith on Envy
(Sunan Abu Dawud Hadith 4903)
"Jealousy eats away your good deeds in the same way that fire eats away a dry log."
The Hadith on Bankruptcy
(Sahih Muslim Hadith 2581)
"Do you know who is the bankrupt person? A bankrupt person is the one who has lots of salah, lots of zakah, lots of obedience, but they come on the day of qiyamah, they have sworn this one, backbitten about this one, slandered about that one, eaten the wealth of that one, and so on. So their salah goes to this one, their zakah goes to that one, their hajj goes to that one, they don't have any more good deeds to give them, there's still a lot of people whom they have wronged, so now the evil deeds of those people come on to this person, and they end up carrying the burden of the sins of those whom they owe to because of what they did."
Quranic Verse on Replacement
"If you are going to abandon, we will replace you with someone else who will be more serious, and they won't be like you." (Quran 47:38)
So Allah is trying to tell us, I don't actually need you. You need me.
The Quranic Verse on Reading in the Name of Your Lord
"That Quran, Quran here refers to a few things, but one of them also is, you know, this Quran that we're talking about, the recitation and all that, it's witnessed by the angels, that which is read early morning, early morning is witnessed by the angels." (Quran 17:78)
Closing Prayer
Until we meet again, inshallah. Sallallahu wa sallam wa baraka ala rabbi al-Muhammadin wa salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi ta'ala wa barakatuhu.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us all ease and make us among those who win the battle against temptation. Ameen.