Khutbah Beautiful Counsel

Beautiful Counsel - Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan

Opening Supplications

May Allah's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you. May Allah's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you. Whoever Allah guides, there is no misguider for him. Whoever Allah misguides, there is no guide for him. We bear witness that there is no god but Allah. There is no partner for him but Allah. We bear witness that Muhammad is the servant of Allah and His Messenger. Allah sent him with guidance and the religion of truth, so that he may show it to the whole religion. And Allah is sufficient as a witness.

May Allah's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon him. Many, many salutations. After that, the most truthful hadith is the book of Allah. And the best guide is the guide of Muhammad. And indeed, the worst of things are their events. And indeed, every event is a creation. And every creation is a misguidance. And every misguidance is in the Fire.

Allah Almighty said in his noble book, after he said, I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan

"Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom, and good admonition, and argue with them in a way that is best. Indeed, your Lord is the most knowing of those who stray from His way, and He is the most knowing of the righteous."

My Lord, explain to me my heart, and make easy for me my affair, and solve the problem with my tongue, so that they may understand my speech. And Allahumma make us steadfast when we die. There is no god but Allah. And Allahumma make us of those who believe, and do righteous deeds, and endure with truth, and endure with patience.

Introduction to the Ayah

I am continuing my series of khutbahs on ayah number 125 of surah An-Nahl. That's surah number 16. And once again, ayah number 125.

Allah says in this ayah, Call to the pathway of your Master using wisdom. And then he says, And with beautiful counsel. And debate them or argue with them in a way that is more beautiful or better.

Your Master certainly knows who he's in fact the one who's better knowing in regards to who is lost or strayed from his own path. And he is more knowledgeable about those that are committed to guidance, or those that are sticking to guidance. So that's the ayah, and I've talked to you a little bit about calling.

I've talked to you about calling to the way of your Master. I've talked about wisdom last time. And today I'm gonna talk about the next phrase in this ayah, which is call to the way of your Master with wisdom, and what I translated as beautiful counsel.

Understanding Al-Maw'idah

(الْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ - Quran 16:125). So the first thing I wanna do is kind of explore what this word means in the original language of the Qur'an, in the Arabic of the Qur'an. (الْمَوْعِظَةِ)

And how is it then transformed with the word (الْحَسَنَةِ) The word (الْمَوْعِظَةِ) the original letters of it are wa, wa'ayn, and dha. And this word, (وَعَظَ) is used for when you remind somebody (التذكير بالعواقب).

That's the most common definition you find among the Arabic lexicons, is (التذكير بالعواقب) meaning reminding somebody of something and what it's going to lead to. So you know if you remind somebody you're late for work. That's not (مَوْعِظَة)

You're late for work and you're gonna get fired if you keep doing this. That's (مَوْعِظَة) because you didn't just remind them, you reminded them of the consequences that are coming. Right? So (مَوْعِظَة) is a specific brand of counsel, or they say (النصح والتذكير) but the specific piece of it is consequences.

Two Types of Consequences

And because of that addition of the term consequences, (العواقب), some have concluded from it that (الْمَوْعِظَة تخويف) that it's a way of scaring somebody. Obviously when you talk to somebody about consequences, then it could be about bad consequences. Keep this up and this is gonna happen. Or if you don't do this responsibility, then that's gonna happen. Bad stuff is gonna happen to you. So the word (مَوْعِظَة) which is translated here as counsel, in its original sense, one of its meanings is to remind somebody of something that is scary, that can happen in the future if they don't take this advice.

So bad stuff that might happen because the advice isn't taken seriously. So that's one part of (مَوْعِظَة). The other is (التذكير بالخير).

Actually to remind someone of the good that can come their way if they take advice. Which is actually also about consequences if you think about it, right? Because consequences could be good and consequences could be bad. Like a doctor that says if you eat right, this, this, this, your blood pressure is gonna go down, your heart rate will be better, your cholesterol levels will improve, this will happen, that'll happen.

Benefits of doing that. Or they'll flip the script and say, well if you don't eat right, I'll be seeing you for surgery in six months. They could scare you, right? So both of those actually constitute (مَوْعِظَة).

The Wisdom of Choosing the Right Approach

Now, this is something that you and I live with everyday. We talk to each other and we give family and friends and anybody, people give us advice, we give them advice and we typically include consequences

with that advice very often. Right? So, you know, and that's our motivation for doing something or not doing something is we want things to get better and we want to stay away from things getting worse.

That's basically what the purpose of advice is. It's not rocket science, right? So that's the word that Allah is using but let's put it in the ayahs context now. Allah says call to the pathway of your master using counsel.

Using this kind of counsel. Meaning but the first thing he said is wisdom. Right? So he said call using wisdom and then he adds this beautiful counsel. I haven't even gotten to the beautiful part yet. We're just talking about the counsel part. What that then means is because we are one of its meanings is because we are supposed to be wise and sensible in the way that we call somebody, when it comes time to giving them counsel we should think about whether or not this is the time to mention good consequences or is this the time to mention bad consequences.

Right? (لكل مقال مقام) Everything that's said has a time and place. So is this the person and is this the occasion and is this the time it's a good time for the advice but do I want to tag this advice along with the good things that will come, positive reinforcement or am I going to tag it along with negative reinforcement and both of them have a place. They're both necessary.

The Danger of Overusing Fear

And you can sometimes have a mix between those two things. If a child is misbehaving and a parent keeps telling them keep this up, you see what I do to you. Keep this up when your dad gets home.

You know in Pakistan where I come from they have some interesting phrases (تیری بوریاں بنا کر تجھے کھلاؤں گے) Right? I'm going to chop you up and feed you yourself. When a kid misbehaving. Or wait till your dad gets home.

Dad is like the executioner apparently. Right? So there's this fear of the father when he gets home. Oh that's it. I'm here. But the idea is if you keep scaring somebody with consequences. Consequences, consequences, consequences.

You're going to get beat. You're going to get punished. You're going to do this, you're going to do that.

And then we bring that into religion. You're going to burn in hell. You're going to be called a munafiq. You're never going to keep bringing consequences of this life Allah will curse you and this and that. Or Allah will throw you in hell. When you do that over and over again a person becomes numb.

You know they become numb. Like you know in different sports they have like you know when people train for fighting and like Muay Thai or boxing or something like that. Then their knuckles or their shins or their knees they actually the nerves around them start dying out.

And they don't feel the same impact on their skin and on their bones as other people do. Because it's been hit so many times they don't feel anything. They don't feel anything.

You know? They become stubborn to that pain. Like it doesn't affect them like it affects other people. The shell gets hardened. The bones get hardened. You know? More reinforcement happens. Now why is that important to understand? Even in psychology.

In the way that human beings operate. If you keep yelling at someone all the time. If you keep scaring them all the time. If you keep telling them of the bad consequences all the time. Then that's not something that affects them anymore.

The Third Dimension: Softening Hearts

And that's the third dimension. So there are two dimensions that I mentioned of the word (مَوْعِظَة). One is that it's reminding somebody of bad consequences. The other is of good consequences.

Yeah? The third dimension of this word is (بما يَرِقُّ لَهُ الْقَلْبُ) They say an advice that will shake the heart up. Or by which the heart will become soft. Like some... what that means basically in simple English is you give somebody advice that you know they're gonna take to heart.

Right? But the problem with that is you and I don't control anybody's heart. I can't make somebody feel something. Allah is in control of the hearts.

But what Allah is teaching us here is you should be smart enough to know that when you talk a certain way will that impact this person emotionally or not. Or are these words that will make somebody defensive or put a guard up or tune you out because they're numb from that same thing over and over again? Or are they gonna actually tune in and listen? So there are different approaches you can take.

Practical Examples of Different Approaches

As a teacher I've taught adults I've taught children. Let's say a child is misbehaving or is bullying another kid. And I wanna give him some advice. I pull him to the side.

I could call your parents. I could go down that road. If I ever see you that again you're never gonna be let here again or you know what? There's no recess for you. There's no this for you. There's no that for you. I could go with the consequences or I could sit him down and say listen, I have seen you since we started and you're one of the smartest kids we have and I'm so impressed with how you think about things and I remember how you answered that question and I remember how you helped this person and these are the good things that I love about you.

So I'm really surprised that you're acting like this because I know you better. I know you're better than that. And what do you think if you keep on doing that, do you think that the kinds of things that make

me and other people look at you and be proud of you and your parents proud of you you think those things will stay? I think those qualities will disappear.

I don't want those to disappear. What makes you a wonderful child I want those things to stay preserved. So how about we make a little bit of change?

And when you start talking like that you know this is in some way. Why? Why am I choosing that route? Because some kids I can tell they've been yelled at so much and they've gotten in trouble so much. Getting in trouble is their normal. So somebody talking to them like, wait, you think I have good qualities? Is a shock.

That's a shock. You've got kids that get, you know, they have violent, they say they have violent tendencies they get kicked out of schools and stuff right? They get angry outbursts they get into fights and whatever else right? And you have one of those kids and you they come and they act all hard because they're used to acting that way because, well, people think I'm a loser anyway or people think I'm you know, aggressive anyway. Might as well show I'll show you aggressive then because what people do and children do this, adults do this.

How we talk to them and how we project how we see them, that gets reinforced and that's how they start seeing themselves they adopt that image and you know when you break that, you can break that by (الْمَوْعِظَةُ الْحَسَنَةُ)

Speaking from Personal Experience

(الْمَوْعِظَةُ الْحَسَنَةُ) also means call to Allah's way by saying something that you know affected your own heart. Because you can't know anybody else's heart, right? But you do know your own heart. So maybe something that from Allah's religion that deeply impacted your heart is something you can share and you know what that will do? There's a saying in Arabic (مَا يَخْرُجُ مِنَ الْقَلْبِ يَصِلُّ إِلَى الْقَلْبِ) what comes out of the heart goes into other hearts you felt something if you felt an ayah moved you, if you felt a story about the Prophet brought you to tears and you think somebody could hear that and they could feel what you felt so you're no longer talking about I need you to feel this.

I just want to share with you something that I felt right? So this becomes about you because that (موعظة) you have experience with and that becomes (الْمَوْعِظَةُ الْحَسَنَةُ) it's a very personalized way of sharing you know something about Allah's deen. Sharing something beautiful, some good advice with somebody (الْمَوْعِظَةُ الْحَسَنَةُ)

The Meaning of Hasanah

That last part (الْحَسَنَةُ) is actually literally one of the most common Arabic words for something beautiful something good and beautiful is called (حَسَنَة). It's something we ask for Allah in the famous du'a that we even make when we do tawaf of the Kaaba (رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ - Quran)

2:201( We want (حَسَنَة - ḥasanah) in this life, we want (حَسَنَة - ḥasanah) in the next life and then we ask Allah to protect us from the punishment of the fire.

Why? What is (حَسَنَة - ḥasanah)? Good and beautiful things Good and beautiful things and that du'a is very beautiful because we want good things in this life but the only truly good things and beautiful things in this life are the ones that lead to good and beautiful things in the next life So it's (آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً - ʾātinā fī al-dunyā ḥasanatan wa-fī al-ʾākhirati ḥasanah) It's the same adjective that's used so there's a connection made between this world and the next you can have good and beautiful things in this life that will make your next life miserable. And then you can have good and beautiful things in this life that will make your next life also good and beautiful and we're asking for that kind of combination good and beautiful things here that lead to good and beautiful things in the next life.

The Need for Empathy

Now coming back to this ayah Give good and beautiful advice. And that's where a person would have to learn a little bit of empathy. They'd have to think if somebody talked to me this way if somebody gave this advice that I'm giving to somebody else, if they gave this to me, how would I have responded? Would I have thought that that's beautiful advice? You know Would I have thought, man I wish I heard that sooner. Because you in order to do (الْمَوْعِظَةُ الْحَسَنَةٌ - al-mawʿiẓatu al-ḥasanah) you actually have to put yourself in somebody else's shoes.

You don't have to tell yourself, this is what this person needs to hear. Man, they need to I'm going to drop it on them today. I even got it prepared I googled it. I googled all the evidences I'm going to give them. All the dalils I'm going to dalil slap them today so good. Because Allah says call to the way of your master.

So here I'm going to drop it on them. Then hold on. Because none of that was about you putting yourself in their shoes. You know that's not how a beautiful counsel works. So it's remarkable that Allah, before he even talked about counsel in this ayah, he first talked about wisdom. Right? And if you combine those two, what that means is we're not going to be able to give the right kind of counsel with the right references to the consequences without using wisdom.

The Problem of Imbalanced Preaching

You know it's an actual experience that I'm shocked by that I've met many you know, individuals around the world that come to me and say you know, I don't even like khutbas anymore all they do is talk about hell Right? All they do is you're going to burn in hell you're going to burn in hell, you're going to burn in hell Now the thing is, the reality is that the hellfire and the standing before Allah on judgment day and the terror of the hellfire is a big subject in the Quran There's no way to deny that There's no way that that's not a reality But if you are imbalanced in the way you present that reality let me explain why would that be imbalanced.

Understanding Context and Audience

A lot of times the ayat of the Quran were talking first, the original audience was the Quraysh. You see when we do tafsir studies, we say that sabab al-nuzul is absolutely critical. Meaning when was the ayah revealed? Yeah? So the ayah was revealed to certain groups of people, for example the Quraysh who were the worst of the worst towards anybody who believed. They were terrible to orphans in many cases They were terrible to those who couldn't stand up for themselves and they were absolutely criminal towards the Prophet ﷺ and the believers. They tortured them physically psychologically, financially They did all kinds of heinous crimes against humanity if you will They engaged in those sorts of crimes And then what Allah did is Allah reminded them of the consequences of those who don't believe like them people like them and the kinds of punishments they're gonna get That's the context in which this conversation is happening.

So Allah is talking to some pretty bad people and he's talking about some pretty bad consequences for some pretty bad people You with me? And now you take the ayah without understanding who the conversation was with and what it was originally doing in this place and now you start having that conversation with a 13 year old who missed their fajr prayer or a 16 year old or a young man or a young woman who messed up here and there and now you're dropping the warnings of Quraysh on them and reciting the whole surah on them. Yes the surah is for humanity but the wisdom of the Qur'an is (وَلِتَقْرَأَهُ عَلَى النَّاسِ عَلَى مُكْثِ وَنَزَّلْنَاهُ تَنزِيلًا - wa-litaqra'ahu ʿalā al-nāsi ʿalā mukthin wa-nazzalnāhu tanzīlā) (Quran 17:106) and this is a recital. We broke it apart so you can read it on to people at the right occasion and we sent it down gradually.

"And [it is] a Quran which We have separated [by intervals] that you might recite it to the people over a prolonged period. And We have sent it down progressively."

So the best people who heard the Qur'an didn't hear the whole Qur'an at once and they didn't hear just any ayah Allah spoke to a certain audience a certain way, another audience another way another audience another way that's why surahs have different styles. That's why even if they're talking about the same thing they talk about it differently because different occasions different audiences. That's a study in Allah's book and that's a study in how we should communicate.

The Example of Prophetic Stories

Effective communication takes these things into consideration that's part of (الْمَوْعِظَةُ الْحَسَنَى - al-mawʿiẓatu al-ḥasanah) another example of that that I feel very strongly about. Some of you might find this politically incorrect or controversial. I don't think it's controversial at all is stories of the prophets.

There are stories of many prophets in the Quran. Nuh (عليه السلام - ʿalayhi al-salām), Salih (عليه السلام - ʿalayhi al-salām), Shu'ayb (عليه السلام - ʿalayhi al-salām) and the list goes on and in all of these stories of the prophets there's a common thread. The common thread is prophets and this is the kid Sunday school version right? Prophets come, people don't listen.

Then Allah destroys the people and only the few people that believed in the prophets and the prophets themselves get saved. Then a new prophet comes most people listen or don't listen most people don't listen then they get destroyed and then Allah sends another prophet for different people right? So what

happened to the people of Nuh and Salih and Shu'ayb and Musa you name it one after the other you know the pharaohs or whoever else over and over again yes? So now you're explaining this or you're sharing this and say well our kids the most important thing for our kids is that they need to know the stories of the prophets. Hold on hold on when the Qur'an was revealed and these nations and their destruction was being talked about who was the original audience of that conversation? The original audience of that conversation was the Quraysh who were acting just like the people of Nuh yes? And Allah told them you guys are about to be destroyed because you're acting just like those who came before you who acted in this way and I destroyed them so you think you're better than the people of Nuh? Do you think you're better than the people of Salih and Shu'ayb? You know (كَذَّلِكَ نَفْعَلْ بِالْمُجْرِمِينَ - kadhalika nafʿalu bil-mujrimīn) (Quran 77:18) that's how we deal with all criminals you're gonna act like that? I'll treat you like that.

"Thus do We deal with the criminals."

"(Quran 4:23) You will not find a change in the way Allah deals with things Allah has a consistent way of dealing with things. So what am I saying? A lot of times the stories of the prophets were being given to people that are on the verge of the same consequences of destruction Children are not on the verge of being flooded or being destroyed in this life They do need Islam but when a 7 year old says which one was Nuh (Alayhi Salaam - ʿalayhi al-salām)? Was that the fire or water? How did Allah kill his people? Then we've created a very negative image in the minds of children about what prophets do because in their minds over simplistically, prophets just come to what? Tell people to listen and when they don't, people get killed That's over simplified and a gross over simplification and there's nothing beautiful about that and here what does Allah say? Call to the pathway of your master using wisdom and good counsel if you create only fear that's the only way people are going to listen is by way of fear if that's the only thing that will work (بِمَا يَرِقٌ لَهُ الْقَلْبُ - bimā yariqu lahu al-qalbu) something that will soften the heart, that's the definition of so finding the appropriate thing to share at the appropriate occasion is the sunnah of the Qur'an is also the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ and finding the most beautiful way to share that is critical (بِالْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ - bil-mawʿiẓati al-ḥasanah) with beautiful advice.

The Prophet's Example with Hostile Audiences

And the thing is I was reading Imam Al-Qurtubi today about this ayah and he said something just in passing, something obvious but it really struck me that Allah revealed this ayah to the Prophet ﷺ first because it starts with (ادْعُ - udʿu), you call, singular meaning the Prophet is being commanded to talk to people and he was, I just gave you the examples, he was talking to Quraysh this is a Makki ayah and the Quraysh were not nice they weren't, they were hostile to what he was saying they weren't eager to listen they weren't tuning in they wanted to tune him out but probably even cut him off, you know aggressive people they don't even let you finish a sentence, right? they'll cut you off and they'll start insulting you on top of that or raise their voice over yours, drown out your voice they'll do those kinds of things and they even got physical on top of that all of that's happening and Allah is saying you stick to wisdom and beautiful counsel even if most of the time you have no opportunity to say something beautiful even if you find that half an inch, take it give them beautiful counsel do that for them.

What that tells you is Allah did not allow the Prophet ﷺ to dismiss the Quraysh even though they're the kuffar even though Allah is talking very harshly to them in the Quran but the Prophet is in his place as a human being and Allah is in his place as a master the master can be angry at Quraysh and say these people are gonna they're gonna end up burning like the way the you know the nations before them came they'll get destroyed the way they came they better change their ways he can speak as a master but when he talks to his servant, his slave, his messenger ﷺ you don't talk like I talk I can talk this way you will talk to them and find the best opportunity to share something beautiful with them with good counsel.

The Lesson About Not Dismissing People

What does that teach us? that teaches us that sometimes you try to talk to somebody they're very aggressive towards you or you share something good and they don't want to hear it and what do we do? well this person is off my list even if I have something good to share I don't want to hear from them and they're not gonna hear from me they're off because I crossed them off if Prophets did that then the list of people that would receive the message of Islam would get shortened very very quickly because they're going back and they're sharing something beautiful without letting it hit their pride and their ego because they're not doing it to feel better this is not a feel good job they're doing it because they genuinely care about somebody you're calling someone to a path because you care about them because you benefited from this path and you want them to benefit if you genuinely don't have somebody else's benefit in mind (الْمَوْعِظَةُ الْحَسَنَةٌ - al-mawʿiẓatu al-ḥasanah) isn't possible it's not possible.

Then the only thing you can do is kid yourself when you're trying to tell something to somebody and you find the ugliest possible words the most aggressive possible tone sarcasm dismissal name calling this has now become, oh I'm speaking the haq this is you standing up for the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ what about the sunnah Allah commanded him to (ادْعُ إِلَى سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَالْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ - udʿu ʾilā sabīli rabbika bil-ḥikmati wal-mawʿiẓati al-ḥasanah) Quran 16:125(.

The Grammatical Wisdom: Missing Object

And the last thing I'll share with you with today's khutbah it's a little bit grammatical but I think it's an important thing to note when you say call and the ayah says call to the way of your master but the important question the (مفعول به - mafʿūl bihi) is missing what that means in simple English is call who he didn't say call people to the way of your master call disbelievers to the way of your master call your family to the way of your master it's like a fill in the blank call blank to the way of your master what do you put in the blank Allah put nothing in the blank and by the way later on in the next khutbah you're going to find the blank has been filled (وَجَادِلْهُم بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ - wa-jādilhum billatī hiya aḥsanu) (Quran 16:15) debate them in a way that's best so the (مفعول به - mafʿūl bihi) comes back there is a fill in the blank and that's the word them which we'll talk about next week inshallah.

But today when he talked about inviting he didn't mention invite who why? because the scope of the invitation is so open it's so broad that there's no one size fits all and the kind of wisdom one group will

need and the kind of counsel one group will need will not be the kind of wisdom or counsel another group will need you might have to talk to one child one way another child another way you might have to talk to one parent one way another parent another way you might have to deal with one friend one way, another friend another way it cannot be one size fits all when it comes to (الْحِكْمَةِ الْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ - al-ḥikmatu al-mawʿiẓatu al-ḥasanah) so Allah didn't limit it to one group or call them no call this way but you decide which part which drops of wisdom which drops of good counsel will apply to which situation so he left that blank open for us to fill you understand? that's actually the wisdom of leaving that (مفعول به - mafʿūl bihi) it creates an openness and he expects us to fill that because he expects us to be people of thought and of consciousness.

Closing Du'a

May Allah (عز وجل - ʿazza wa-jall) make us of those who can take good counsel and take the best of it for themselves and be people of beautiful counsel that people hear and they don't develop ugliness in their hearts from what we said rather what good we had to share the good of it goes into their hearts and that won't just depend on what we're saying it'll depend on how and when we say it may Allah (عز وجل - ʿazza wa-jall) make us of those wise kinds of people.

(4:103 ,4,16:90 Quran) أَعْلَمُ بِمَا تَصْنَعُونَ أَقِمِ الصَّلَاةَ إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ كَانَتْ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ كِتَابًا مَّوْقُوتًا