Watch How You Speak
By Mufti Menk | 2026-01-11T16:36:32.669306+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Watch How You Speak
Mufti Menk
Opening
السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Main Body
My brothers and sisters, the first and most important piece of advice that we always deliver is to be conscious of Allah, something known as taqwaAllah.
(Hadith - Tirmidhi 2616)
Whoever has the taqwa, whoever engages in taqwa, shall save himself or herself. If you would like to save yourself from the torment, from the punishment of this world and the next, you need to develop what is known as taqwa.
People generally translate it as the fear of Allah. But it is a combination of the consciousness of Allah, the development of the relationship with Allah, the worshipping of Allah alone, the hope in His mercy, and the fearing of being cast into His wrath. May Allahsubhanahu wa ta'ala protect us.
Perhaps one of the first instructions that Allah has kept in the Qur'an, O people, worship your Lord who has created you. Worship the One who made you. He is unique in His names and qualities.
He has no partner. You shall worship none besides Him. It is unfair, my brothers, my sisters, to worship deities that are false, anyone or anything besides He who made you, it is not correct to worship them. No matter how much of power they may depict in this world, no matter how much of authority or wealth, no matter how much they look in terms of grandeur and greatness, they will never compete with the Almighty who made entire creation. We repeat this every time we speak.
We start off with this every single time we commence a reminder. We start off with this every sermon on a Friday because it is the core and the crux. What is it? Worshipping Allah alone.
We do not worship sticks or stones, nor do we worship other humans dead or alive, nor do we render an act of worship to anything or anyone besides He who made us. So what is an act of worship? An act of worship is that which was taught by the messenger who was sent to us from the same maker to teach us how he would like to be worshipped. Hence, something known as the sunnah of Muhammadsallallahu alayhi wasallam.
I cannot worship Allah according to my whims and fancies. I cannot worship Allah according to my desires. I cannot worship Allah by jumping, by doing that which is in transgression of Allah, by dancing and merrymaking.
I cannot worship Allah the way I wish. I will do it solely and only the way He taught me, how He wants to be worshipped, so I will worship Him, not what I want to do. So in order for us to realize this, we would actually be from among those who look at Allah and see what exactly He sent to us to tell us how He wants to be worshipped.
Once again, it goes back to Muhammadsallallahu alayhi wasallam.
The best of creation, the most noble of all prophets of Allah. Why? Because Allah chose him for that.
I will not be jealous when Allah raises one above another because that was one of the first crimes committed. You know that Iblis, what happened? He felt this complex wherein he thought he was better than Adam.
I am better than him. You made me from fire, you made him from tin, from the sand, from the dust, from the soil. So who is better? According to Iblis, the devil, he says, I am better. And that was the downfall of Iblis.
How many of us, when we see someone else doing better than us in this world, we get jealous of them. We say, subhanallah, may Allah protect us. That man is a thief. He made his money through drugs. That woman made her money through robbing people. This person is not what they think he is, et cetera, et cetera.
These are comments that are directed and dedicated from the devil himself. Protect yourselves. Go back to Allah.
Part of worshipping Allah alone is to confirm that He is the one who decides who will get what. When you are happy that Allah gave someone else more than you, that is tawheed. That is oneness in Allah.
Believe in the oneness of Allah. Because Allah elevates whomsoever He wishes.
Allah is the one who has elevated some of you above others when it comes to wealth.
And the same applies to knowledge. And the same applies to looks. And the same applies to everything else.
It's Allah. It's part of your test. Hence Allah tells us,
I have not created mankind or jinkind except that they worship me.
How do we worship Allah? By leading the entire life in accordance with what Allah has decided. By worshiping Allah alone, no matter what happens. When I'm struggling, my struggles draw me closer to Allah.
When I'm doing well, my doing well draws me closer to Allah. When things are neither good nor bad, it draws me closer to Allah. Then you are successful.
Then you have understood who Allah is. The problem with us, we don't know our maker. And that is the reason why we falter.
We become sad and depressed when we are tested by Allahsubhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah has not let you down. Allah has not let you down when He has given you a sickness, rather use that sickness to get closer to Allahsubhanahu wa ta'ala.
When Allah has tested you with many challenges, it's not that He has let you down, nor is He upset with you, but rather it is Allah alone who is in charge. He chose that for you as your test. My brothers, my sisters, be happy with the decree of Allah.
Understand that we worship Allah alone, that is the honor and dignity of a Muslim. That is the primary reason that we exist is to be able to dedicate our worship to Allahsubhanahu wa ta'ala, dedicated to Allah. Do not change in the meanings of His names and qualities, but rather accept them, believe them, understand them.
He is the one, He is the merciful, He is the owner of the day of judgment. It's not up to you and I to pass judgments within the hearts of the people. The minute I think I know what's in your heart, I've installed myself as a... not just as a mushrik, but as shirk with Allah, which means I am a partner to Allah, because Allah is the one,
Allah knows what lies behind the eye, the deceiving eye, the one who wants to cheat, etc.
I might not pick it up, that's why we are deceived sometimes on earth. A person comes and greets you, becomes your friend, and after so many years he steals your wife. I didn't know that.
Had I known that, I wouldn't have befriended him, but that was a test of Allah. Allah knew it from the very beginning. May that not happen to us, ameen.
But what we also need to understand is, Allah is the one who knows what's in the hearts. Imagine I look at you and I make a decision about you, I look at you and I make a decision about you, and I decide, subhanAllah, my brothers and sisters, we just need this brother to recite the shahada, inshaAllah, we cannot delay that further, it's part of our khutbah, we will not know how long we are going to live for, so it's part of the khutbah today. Brother, repeat after me.
.Let's start again .أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلَهَ
I bear witness there is none worthy of worship besides Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is his messenger, final prophet. MashaAllah, you may have a seat my brother, alhamdulillah.
We could not delay that because we don't know what is going to happen, my beloved brothers, my sisters, we can now sit down inshaAllah. We will do the rest after the khutbah, bi-idhnillahi azza wa jalla. So my beloved brothers, look at what we just did now.
. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship besides Allah. That is tawheed.
That is the oneness of Allah. We did not call them towards ourselves, we call them towards Allah. When you want to know the status of a man who is calling to Allah, look at him, look at his character, his conduct, and check whether he is calling to himself or he is calling to Allah.
If he is calling you to salah, to goodness, to worshiping Allah alone, to developing your character with others, he has fulfilled what Allah has asked him to fulfilled by doing these two things, calling you towards haqqullahi wa haqqul ibadi. Calling you towards fulfilling the right of Allah by worshiping none besides Allah. The goodness is from Allah.
Everything is from Allah. Good and bad is from Allah. We worship Allah alone.
And secondly, we need to fulfill the rights of the rest of us by developing our character and conduct. The difficulty with us, when we have wealth, when we have knowledge, the two of them can come with a lot of arrogance. And that is when we fail.
The more wealth you have, people should see it in your character, your speech. You need to have a good heart, a clean heart. You need to be concerned about the ummah.
You don't spew words of hate. You don't spew words of discord, but rather words of guidance. When a person is drinking alcohol, you should be making dua in the middle of the night for that brother, rather than go and expose him on internet.
You need to know if you're a true caller to Allah, your way is with the people directly. You love those who need help and are reaching out for help rather than attack them. No matter what sin you've committed, we still have hope in you.
We care for you. We love you. We will reach out to you.
We will hope, just like Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam was hopeful.
The messenger has come to you from amongst yourselves. What a great man with what great qualities.
He is so concerned about your guidance. You know the term حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُمْ means he desperately wants to see goodness for you. And he is so kind, compassionate with the believers.
He is such a beautiful man, so much so that with the kuffar of Quraysh, he treated them with such respect that they had no option but to accept Islam at Fatiha Makkah. The day he had victory, he was the most powerful on that day, the day of the victory of Makkah. He put his head right down, right down, right down to the neck of the camel.
Because he didn't come on earth with pride, with bad words, with attacking people. Today we attack our Muslim brothers and sisters, and we claim to be champions of the Nabi, champions of Tawheed and Aqeedah, champions of everything else, and we are deaf, dumb, and blind. I am speaking passionately because I have witnessed what Boko Haram has done in this country.
They started off, if you were to watch them, they only spoke with a bit of hatred at the beginning. They only divided people in their minds. They made you hate others so passionately and used the verses of Allah to do that.
The one who gave life to others, the one in whose hands lies the hearts of others, rather than us trying with them, reaching out to them, helping them, continually trying with them, remembering that their hearts are in the hands of Allah, we began to spread and spew such hate that we started killing them in the name of the same Allah who gave them that life. And we called it Islam. If we don't talk about it from these platforms, in this beautiful country of Nigeria, we have failed in our duty unto Allah.
Learn to love others. When people are going wrong, the first step is not to hate them. When people do something, the first step is called,
You need to... If you have done something with your heart, I need to think to myself, perhaps you're making a mistake. Think good. We think the worst things of the best of us.
Because our hearts are so dirty, filled with pride, malice, jealousy, envy, materialism. I'm not as popular as him or as rich as him. I told you two things bring about arrogance.
Knowledge brings about more arrogance than wealth. Because if that knowledge is not practiced upon, and it is not checked, it will come without any wisdom, without any character, without any conduct. You despise everyone you look at as though there is a stamp on your back saying you are from Jannah, and the others are from Jahannam.
It's a reality, we are facing it on the ground. I was in Maiduguri, I spent two days, and I went there despite what the people said, because I wanted to ensure that we have fulfilled the duty unto Allah.
Indeed, this ummah is one ummah. Worship me alone, you can hear the passion in my voice. Fight your hearts and your nafs. Eradicate from it, jealousy, envy, hatred, etc.
Yes, we dislike everything that displeases Allah. But when we say the love for the sake of Allah, when someone is sinning, we definitely detest the sin, but we have hope. Imagine your own son, you find out he's on drugs.
Many of you, that must be true. May Allah guide them. Look at how loud the ameen was.
Why? Because we care for them. They are our children. I'm on the pulpit of Jum'ah saying, may Allah protect our children from the difficulties of the age.
We don't hate our children, we love them, we care for them. We don't hate our own brothers when they've fallen for the bottle of alcohol. But rather, we detest the sin and we have hope.
If your son was on drugs for 10 years, and thereafter he came back crying, won't you embrace him? Oh my son, I love you. I was praying for this day, after 10 years Allah gave it to me. Forget about the past, we start a new future.
That's the truth. But if it's someone else's son, we demonize him, we break him, we destroy him. We don't want him to see daylight.
Why? He's not my son, he's an evil person. That is the essence of double standards. One standard for you, another standard for others.
Why should we do that? Where is your belief in Allah? Allah gave them the life, if He wanted He could have guide them.
Powerful. Themselves are so powerful, they make us tremble. Allah says, if Allah willed, He could have guided entire mankind, all of them, because the hearts are in the hands of Allah, obviously. Those who are misguided, do you think you have more power over them than Allah? Allah kept them that way for a reason, part of it is to test you.
And what do you do about them? Do you attack them, and harm them, and destroy them, and fight them, and kill them? Or do you reach out to them in a beautiful way, convince them, look at the kuffar of Quraysh, look at Khalid ibn Walid, how many sahaba did he kill? But we still say, radhiyallahu anhu, today, because there was a stage when Allah gave him guidance. Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Hashimi al- Qurashi, (صلى الله عليه وسلم), do you know what he said? He said, subhanallah,
(Sahih al-Bukhari 4317)
He told al-Walid ibn al-Walid, radhiallahu anhu, who was the brother of Khalid, he said, Khalid, where is he? A man as intelligent as Khalid cannot be ignorant of the fact that Islam is correct. Subhanallah.
Allah will bring him, and Allah brought him. That was the messenger, if it was our way, forget about it, there's no tawbah for him, it's okay, you can kill him and use the name of Allah, hold the Qur'an in one hand, and the dagger in the other. That's what we would do.
That's what some who claim to be knowledgeable would actually promote. And like I told you, go back and study book of haram, please do. Check how they started.
They started simply. They started with hatred and spewing that we are the only ones who are supposed to go to jannah. My opinion is so sacred that anyone who holds another one, now, by force, I'm going to ensure that they're not allowed to have a different opinion.
And what happened? The country is struggling to this day with that type of violence and killing. So be careful. Don't let it come to your pulpits.
Don't let that type of teaching come to your schools, to your madaris. Because there are people in our midst who look extremely beautiful. Listen to what they have to say carefully.
My beloved adults who are here, the seniors of society, save our children from such people. Protect them. Watch their mouths.
We are busy killing each other, wallahi, because it starts with a small spark. And then there was an inferno. Be careful.
I'm not saying this for no reason. We worship Allah alone. We are doing it for the sake of Allah.
I'm not a nabi of Allah. I will follow the nabi to the letter. I may not call towards Allah how you want me to do it, but I'm still calling towards Allah.
Methodologies can change, but the core is the same. If you don't understand it, you don't just call someone a deviant. Be careful.
Watch your words. Watch your mouth. Look at the masses.
Allah has made them look up to you and respect you. It's your duty to ensure that that is used to guide them towards goodness. Become a strong person, yes, in your relationship with Allah.
Worship Allah alone, but don't despise others. That's why at the time of war, when the kuffar were harming the Muslims, there is something known as the victory of Khyber. When the Jews were in the fortress of Khyber and they were about to be defeated, and the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) gave the flag to Ali ibn Abi Talib r.a, and he says, Wallahi, this was at the juncture of war.
They were about to enter into the fortress victorious. He says,
(Sahih al-Bukhari 2942)
Wallahi, my beloved cousin Ali, if Allah uses you today to guide a single person towards Him, it's better for you than the most expensive of the red camels. At war, he says, watch out, we are not trigger happy.
We want people to come to Allah, speak to them nicely. When you give a baby paracetamol, the baby thinks that it is drinking a strawberry juice, strawberry liquid, but it's gone in and the paracetamol has the
effect. Some people are so good at their da'wah that they give us that paracetamol as though we are drinking strawberry liquid, while others are so blunt.
If they in their bluntness are correct and respectful, it may be an effective way of da'wah. But if they are despising and creating hatred in such a way that the ummah is going to start hating one another. Today, wallahi, we may greet a Christian or a Jew, but we won't greet another Muslim because he goes to another masjid.
But we share, la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah. We share it, yes, we will have differences, but remember that's your brother in deen. You will be surprised to see them in jannah.
You will be surprised. Why? Because jannah doesn't belong to you and I. We are not Rahman, we are not Rahim, we are not Wadood, we are not Ghaffar.
Allah is that.
Allah will forgive you for sins that humankind will not forgive you for. You made a mistake in your marriage, your wife or spouse might tell you, I'm not forgiving you. But with Allah, Allah says, don't worry, come to me, I'm forgiving, I will forgive you, Allahu Akbar.
I tell people some of the spouses after a sin, they are closer to Allah than they were throughout the marriage prior to that. It can happen. May Allah help us to forgive one another.
You want forgiveness, you show forgiveness. You want mercy, you show mercy.
(Sahih al-Bukhari 6013)
Allah will not have mercy on those who don't have mercy on others.
Learn to love one another, that's my message here today. Learn to love one another. And it's not a sugar- coated message, it is a direct live message.
We are witnessing destruction across the globe of the Muslim ummah. From who? From the rest of the Muslim ummah. The destruction we have suffered at the hands of those who say, la ilaha illallah with us, is way more than the others who have also harmed us.
So if we don't talk about it in a solid way, and we don't spread the message, and we don't watch out in our own communities, we might be guilty of being a vehicle towards destruction. We don't want to see another boko haram here. We've had enough of them.
When you have your opinion, stick to it. Teach it in a nice way, preach it. But remember others have their opinions.
Understandings differ. They will be different. They are also perhaps using Quran and Sunnah.
They had differences among the sahaba radhiyallahu anhum. They had differences amongst those who came after. You are not the only one who has the right to exist.
Because Allah gave the life to those, even those who are kuffar. And Allah tells you,
Don't let the beautiful lives that are being led by the kuffar deceive you. It doesn't mean Allah is happy with them.
They will have. Allah might give them in this world for whatever reason, whatever He wants. But did Allah say, go and kill them, harm them, take them?
Wallahi my brothers and sisters, when you see a non-Muslim, you should actually refer to them as not yet Muslim.
That's how strongly you should know that Allah can change them at any time. Imagine referring to them as not yet Muslim. It means I have so much hope, I'm almost convinced they are going to come.
Subhanallah. May Allah help us. May Allah guide us.
May Allah guide our scholars. May Allah keep them with wisdom. May Allah instill love amongst them.
When the scholars have love in their hearts, the rest of the ummah will have love. When they have hatred and malice and jealousy for one another, the ummah is destroyed. The same applies to those with wealth.
The more you get, the more humble you should be. I want to end off by telling you, my beloved brothers and sisters, when the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) entered Makkah as a victorious person with an army that could never be defeated. He put his head right down to the neck of the camel.
He entered Makkah as though he was in sujood. Subhanallah. No form of pride, haughtiness, arrogance, nothing.
And on that day when he could have destroyed everyone who harmed him personally, he told them,
No retribution against you today, go, you are all free. Who said that? (صلى الله عليه وسلم), the one whom we claim to follow, yet we are harming and killing people who are closer to us than the mushrikeen of Quraysh whom that statement was made for. People who are already in the deen, people who are already with us, we tend to spread that which causes what we have already seen.
My brothers and sisters, this topic would never end. But as you know, the essence of it has been mentioned. May Allah help us to worship Him alone and to follow the sunnah of (صلى الله عليه وسلم), to protect ourselves from that which is innovation in the deen, and to be able to help one another in such a loving way, such a kind way, that people can come and taste this essence of the deen two billion Muslims on earth.
But we cannot agree on swatting a fly. Swatting a fly, we cannot agree. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala never ever let us taste the harm of our own selves and our own deeds.
Closing Dua
Seek the forgiveness of Allah and Allah will forgive you.