Prayer and Courage
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-08T16:53:35.107438+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Prayer & Courage - Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan
Introduction: Building Upon Luqman's Advice
Today, I'm gonna continue speaking to you about the 16th ayah of... Actually, no, the 17th ayah of Surah Luqman, where Luqman is giving advice to his son. The first bit of advice in that ayah that we've already talked about is when he told his son to preserve and maintain the prayer. And I talked to you last time about the difference between simply praying or what we become used to saying, establish the prayer, and preserving the prayer or maintaining the prayer.
And how that's a very broad concept, and it's something that's very important to talk about, and very easy to lose sight of. Today, we're gonna take a step further and see how the advice that he was giving is kind of like building a building. You can't build a second floor until you have the first floor, right? You can't take step two until you've taken step one.
The Progressive Nature of Guidance
So they're not just different advices, oh, make sure you do this, and this, and this, and this, kind of like a grocery list, where you can do them in different order, right? And if you forget something, you could do it later. It's logical progression, what's called logical progression. And what that means is, the first advice is actually the foundation on which the second advice is built.
And if somebody's not able to do the second, keeping with the simple analogy, if somebody's not able to reach the second floor, that means the stairway from the first floor to the second is missing something, right? So the reason somebody's not able to do number two is because they didn't take care of number one well enough, right? So sometimes we're not able to do something and we wonder why not? Why can't I do this? Like somebody could feel, because I'm saying step two is going to be something beyond the prayer. And when we talk about that, and somebody says to themselves, but I'm not able to do that, it's hard for me. Why is it hard for me? Well, the answer might be, there's still something missing in the prayer or the way we're dealing with the prayer, right? That might be the answer.
A Curriculum for Young Believers
So this is an important conversation to have about the foundations. With that point of view, if you study this small passage, because it's not pages and pages, right? I'm spending a lot of khutbahs on this passage, but it's very small. It's just a handful of ayat.
And in these handful of ayat, the advice that this father is giving his son is one thing built on top of another thing, built on top of another thing. And that progression is really important to understand because it helps us look inside ourselves. Especially because this khutbah is dedicated to younger people because the ayat keep beginning with, Ya Bunayya, Ya Bunayya, Ya Bunayya.
My young son, my child, right? Over and over again. And that's an emphasis not just that the father is showing love to his son which I already talked to you about, but the other is Allah is highlighting here maybe these are the things that every child should know. That every parent should have a conversation with every child because this is a parent-child conversation in the Qur'an, right? So this is Allah's way of almost devising a curriculum for the building of a personality of a young man or a woman that's a believer, right? So those of you that are physically in front of me and so many that are not, that are now starting to become young men and women, this is important for all of you.
The Challenge of Modern Society
Now a few considerations before I talk about what (أمر بالمعروف - amr bil-ma'roof) and what that means. Is that we are... And I was talking earlier to my wife about this. Is that we are today exposed to a very different world than when these ayats were revealed.
Like if some young boy lived in a village somewhere, right? And his family knew the neighbor's family and everybody knows everybody else and they have a certain moral code and people have certain norms and they believe in the same things, they have some similarities with each other, right? There's cultural cohesion if you call it. Everybody's kind of the same culture, they speak the same language, they have the same principles, they have the same manners. Things are pretty much in sync with everybody else.
And those of you that come from different countries, from traditional societies, when you go visit even for vacation and you go back to the home village, you'll see that, right? But you don't see that in an apartment building and you don't see that in a modern suburban neighborhood. Everybody's different, you might not even know your neighbor. So we're not all the same at all.
The Loss of Community Structure
In fact, your neighbor might even speak a different language than yourself, completely different religion, completely different norms, completely different everything. From food to dress to, you know, priorities, everything is different, right? So we're in a very individualized society, right? So everything is, in a sense, everything is up to the individual, right? So we don't, the society can put pressure on us virtually but at the end of the day, nobody really checks on you, what you're going to do and what you're not going to do. Even the larger family structures that used to be there that put people in check, they're not there.
And if a young man or young woman wasn't doing something right or they were being lazy in something, then there could be the uncle who corrects them, there could be the older brother who corrects them, there could be the neighbor that could correct them. There was an entire correctional society, right? We looked out for each other, we watched out for each other's kids, each other's families and that was the environment, but that's no longer the environment, right? We're in the environment where you have to stay, you know, at a safe distance from all strangers. I'm not just talking about Corona, but just generally, socially too, right? If you don't know somebody, they're a stranger, then keep a safe distance.
Easy Access to Evil
So strangers are not a source of safety anymore or our neighbors, our communities, they're a source of just make sure you lock your door, right? So it's a very different world in that sense, but it's also a different world in other senses and that is that, you know, even if somebody wanted to be bad or do something terrible, it was really hard to do. It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy to sneak out of the house.
It wasn't easy to gain access to something or to get together with somebody you're not supposed to get together with, to see something you're not supposed to see, to talk about things you're not supposed to talk about, to hear things or read things you're not supposed to hear or read. All of that stuff was very difficult. You have to make a lot of effort to do something messed up and it had to be very secretive and very, you know, inconvenient and scary too.
But then what's happened for us, for most of you as you're growing up, you don't know what that world is. It's almost like I'm talking about an imaginary world. In the world you live in, if you want to see something, you can just tap your finger and you can see it.
The Inversion of Values
You want to hear something, you can tap your finger and you can hear it. There are words that I never heard when I was growing up until I was a certain age then I came to hear of them, right? But those are the same words that someone today could be five years old, four years, even younger and they would know them. Even worse, not only know them, sometimes parents are teaching them to them and then making videos about them and putting them on lines saying, how cute my son, you know, cusses like a sailor or whatever, you know, my baby.
Like to them it's cute. So censorship for all practical purposes is gone. Access is completely open and you don't have to make any effort to have access to bad things.
You have to make zero effort now. It's all accessible to you all the time. And so things that were wrong all along and have always been wrong are now no big deal.
So forget that they're not wrong. First of all, they're no big deal. Most places they're even being celebrated.
They're called freedom. So it's something ugly and something evil and something that harms you inside. It ruins your insides, but it's being called freedom, right? And we're being brought up in a society, in a worldwide society where in the name of freedom all the things that Allah detests for us, that are harmful for us are being beautified and being made to seem like this is what, you know, being modern looks like, this is what being free looks like, this is what being liberated looks like.
The Corruption of Good Words
In other words, liberated or modern or free or progressive or these are good words. They're not bad words, you know. But these words are now associated with celebrating disobedience to Allah.
They're being associated with making bad things look good and at the same time, whenever that happens in any society, whenever bad things are made to look good, then good things are always made to look bad too. Those two things go hand in hand. So you know what happens then? Then you might be in a society where when you're praying you're the weird one, right? If you're not using bad words and you choose to use good words, then you're the strange one.
If you don't participate in a gathering where people are talking trash about each other and insulting each other and you refuse to do so, you're the strange one. If you're the one playing sports and all the kids are praising themselves, oh yeah, I'm number one, oh nobody can touch me, they're talking smack about themselves and putting somebody else down, you're garbage, you're this, you're that, and you're not doing that, you're the weird one. So every time you don't do something wrong and you stick to something right, there's something wrong with you.
You should be like everybody else. You should fit in.
Command to Stand for What's Right
What does Allah say in this ayah that the father is telling his son, he said, preserve and maintain the prayer.
Then he told him, (Quran 31:17) I'll choose a translation that is, it kind of captures the essence of the phrase even though it's a very loaded term. Like that's a, I've given like long, hour and a half long duroos on just أمر بالمعروف from Surah Al-Imran because it's a very comprehensive concept. But I want to simplify it at least for our younger audiences today.
And what it just means is stand by what's right. To stand tall and stand by what is right. Maintain the prayer and stand by what's right.
The Requirement of Courage
You know what that means? You have to have a lot of courage. That means you're okay with making somebody upset because they don't like that you stand by what you know to be right. You're completely okay being weird where everybody else thinks it's wrong but you know, you know better, you know it's right.
And you're still standing by it. It doesn't matter who's offended by you. It doesn't matter who makes fun of you.
It doesn't matter what friends you lose, what popularity you lose. It doesn't matter who gets angry at you. None of that matters because when you stand in prayer, you learn to fear only Allah.
When you stand in prayer, you realize a day is coming where people won't matter. I'm gonna be alone in front of Allah on judgment day. And when you maintain that, then it makes you courageous to deal with everything else because everything else becomes less scary.
Then I'm gonna do what Allah says is right and everything else is wrong and I have no problem saying it. And I'm gonna gently encourage others. You can't encourage somebody else to do something right if you're not standing by it yourself.
Starting with Yourself
So it's included within وَأَمُرْ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ is وَأُمَّرْ نَفْسَكَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ So tell yourself to stand by what's right. And then even tell others, look, I'm standing by it and I'm not just keeping my mouth shut to myself. That's the other part of this that's pretty interesting.
It is one thing that I don't do bad things. And then what we have now because we're in a hyper individualistic society, is something called mind your own business, right? So I'm not doing something messed up. These people wanna go to hell, they're welcome to.
That's their business, right? I'm not gonna interfere, that's none of my business. No, you can interfere sometimes and it is none of your business sometimes. But the command given to or the advice given to the son which then later turns in the Quran is a command given from Allah Himself, is you must speak up for what is right.
The Hadith About Changing Evil
(Sahih Muslim 49)
The Prophet ﷺ would tell us, - Whoever sees an evil among you, let them try and change it with their hand. If they're not able to do so, at least they should speak out against it with their tongue. And if they're not able to do so, at least they should hate it in their hearts. And that's the weakest state of faith you can have وَذَلِكَ أَضْعَفُ الْإِيمَانِ .
So two things, doing what's right and then what goes hand in hand with that is - forbid what is wrong. Speak out against evil.
Standing Against Evil
When something is evil, doesn't matter who's celebrating it, who's giving it a beautiful name, if it's evil, it's still evil. If it's something hated by Allah, it says something hated by Allah. If it's something against the fitrah, the nature that Allah created human beings with, then it's still against the fitrah and nature that the human beings were created with.
We can't change morality. That's something you guys should know. What used to be okay 10 years ago, and what used to be bad 10 years ago has changed.
Morality has changed. So some things that were weird are now normal, right? And some things that were okay are now extreme. There are societies in the world where anybody who prays five times a day is considered an extremist.
And they're under watch and surveillance. Because it's too extreme for that society that somebody would pray. There are societies in the world today where if a woman is wearing hijab, that can be considered a crime against the state.
Or that's enough reason for her not to get into a university or get a job or anything else. So what is maybe normal in some places, has now become more and more what? Extreme. What is actually a good thing has now turned into evil.
The Shifting Standards of Society
And things that were evil are not as bad, then they become okay, then they become kind of acceptable, then they become mandatory. So the bar keeps shifting. So by the time another 10 years go by, by the time you're adults, the world and the way the world sees what's right and wrong is gonna change again, and it's gonna change again, and it's gonna change again.
The definition of right and wrong will keep on changing. And you know what they say? They'll say it's up to the individual. They'll just say it's up to, you know, it's you decide.
It's personal freedom, right? That's the idea. Well, you know, for a believer, what's their personal freedom? Our personal freedom is we freely give ourselves in slavery to Allah. That's what we do.
The Consistency of Divine Morality
And when we do that, then we don't decide anymore what's right and wrong. Our conscience in line with the revelation of Allah, with the teachings of the prophets, which has been consistent throughout history. It's the same.
The prophets came in different societies, in different cultures, in different continents, you know, in different languages. And yet what was right and wrong was exactly the same. You know, sometimes different cultures have different right and wrong.
Something's totally okay in some culture, not okay in some other culture, right? But the things that are right and wrong that was given by prophets has always been the same right and wrong. It's a consistent set of morality. It's a consistent worldview.
That's why the Qur'an talks about ancient prophets. That the prophets never met, never spoke their language. And he's talking about those prophets.
Why? Because the thing, the right that was given to them, what was taught to them as right, and what was taught to them as wrong, is the same as what the prophet is being taught.
Tell them, I'm not some new invention among the messengers. I'm not something new.
Universal Principles Across Time
I'm not some innovation where there's new rights and wrongs. When you have to be the best to your parents, it's always been there. When you have to be truthful and honest, it's always been there.
Modesty has always been there. The path back to Allah has always been there. Tawbah has always been there.
Judgment day has always been there. The beliefs and the rights, the morality of our religion is actually universal across history. This is from the earliest times.
And so, we will not be people that... It'll take a lot of effort for us to not become people that change as society changes. Right? And not just not change, it's one thing to resist the culture. It's one thing to resist new morality.
It's one thing to resist the call for personal freedom and in the name of that freedom, change the definitions of our religion altogether. Or even let some parts of that religion go because it's too extreme. It's too intolerant.
Intolerance of Evil, Not People
Yeah, our religion is intolerant of evil. When something is wrong
Truth comes and falsehood gets destroyed.
That doesn't mean we hate people. That doesn't mean we hate groups. It means we hate evil.
When something is evil, we hate it. Our intolerance for an idea and our love for another idea. Our intolerance for certain actions and our love for other actions does not make us love and hate people.
But you know what? Others will try to confuse those two things together. Oh, if you hate these actions, that must mean you hate the people who do these actions. Right? Therefore, you're intolerant.
No, I can actually... The prophets, nobody loved the Quraysh. Nobody loved the Quraysh more than Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلم. No one. He was crying for them.
And the Qur'an is very direct and very critical of the Quraysh at the same time. No one loved their people more than Nuh عليه السلام. But Nuh عليه السلام is calling them out for 950 years. That doesn't mean he hates them.
In fact, all the way till the end, Ya Qawmi, Ya Qawmi, Ya Qawmi, my people, my people, my people. He didn't even say disbelievers, hypocrites, filthy people, dirty idolaters, etc. He didn't say any of that stuff.
He said, my people. You know what that means? He loves them. So that's not... Others will try to confuse these two things together.
Just because we have the right code and we stand by that code must mean that we hate anybody who doesn't believe in our code. No, of course we know people believe in other things. We know that.
But that doesn't mean that our love for someone is going to soften our beliefs about what's right and wrong. That's what he's telling his son. He's telling his son, when you make the salah right, then you're gonna have the courage to speak up for what's right and speak out against what's wrong.
The Consequences of Standing Up
And when you do that, stuff will happen. You don't just say that and get away with it. You can pray and be done with prayer and then live your life and nothing will happen to you.
But when you pray and you pray the way you're supposed to and then it gives you moral courage and then you speak up for what's right and you speak out against what's wrong, then people will give you consequences. You might lose your job. You might get bullied at school.
You might get harassed. You might get heckled and you might get bullied online. All kinds of things can happen.
But people will not like you for standing up for what you believe. They won't tolerate it. You need to get in line with everyone else.
The Command to Persevere
And when that happens, that's when we understand the last part of this ayah.
Persevere. You need to stand and take it.
Take the hits. Have grit. You know what grit is? One of the meanings of sabr is in fact grit.
Grit is when you're pushing, you're exercising, you're working hard or you're lifting a weight and your body is about to give up. And mentally you're like, I can't do anymore. You push yourself through anyway.
And you have to have toughness inside you to be able to withstand when somebody is going to be confrontational with you. Because you know for a lot of us, we don't want confrontation. If somebody is going to say something that we know that we're not going to like, we'd rather not even put ourselves in that situation.
We avoid it as much as possible. And in doing so sometimes we don't speak out for what's right. We don't speak out against what's evil.
He says وَاصْبِرْ عَلَى مَا أَصَابَكَ Stand tall, persevere, have grit in the face of whatever hits you. It doesn't matter what hits you. Let it hit you.
Don't worry about it. This is what happens when somebody prays.
Divine Protection for Those Who Stand by Allah
Because you know we believe, we know that when we pray, Allah عز وجل sends His protection to us. Right?
Qur'an says He sends guardians over you. So when your family is traveling in a car, there are angels that are security guards all around your car.
That are keeping the road clear.
That are keeping your tires from popping off. That are keeping the engine running. They're keeping somebody else from swerving into you.
Anything, death can happen in any second. We are literally traveling in a hunk of metal at high speeds. It can happen at any second for any reason whatsoever.
But Allah عز وجل sends guardians over you. But it's not just guarding you from physical harm or guarding you from sickness. Allah especially guards those who stand by Him.
Because when you say the right thing, and when you stand tall like that, then you're gonna get attacked. And when you get attacked, you need protection.
And the protection can only come from Allah.
Fear Allah, Not People
And some people say, well, we don't wanna deal with people being offended by us. We have to be afraid of people. What does Allah say about that?
Instead of being afraid of them, be afraid of Me.
That's actually what this ayah is. This ayah at the end of the day is, don't be afraid of them, be afraid of Me. Don't live your life wanting to make people happy.
Live your life making Me happy. Because I cannot control anybody's heart. This is the last thing I'll share with you about this.
I cannot control anybody's heart. Allah controls hearts. So it's a formula.
When I try to make Allah happy, then when Allah decides, He can make people happy with Me too. But when I keep trying to make people happy, and sometimes when we try to make people happy, we make Allah unhappy, and guess what? Those people, after you doing everything you can to make them happy, are still unhappy with you. Allah is very easy to please.
People are very difficult, impossible even to please. We live our lives trying to please people. No, please Allah, stand by what's right.
The Need for Knowledge Before Action
(Quran 31:17) The last thing that I'll include in this khutbah, because there needs to be some disclaimers with this too. Somebody could hear this and say, I'm ready to stand by what's right. As soon as I'm done watching this, there's gonna be a tornado in my family.
Because I just heard this khutbah. So I'm ready to stand by what's right. Well, the word ma'roof means that which is recognized, that which is known.
You really have to know what you're talking about if you're gonna stand by it. You can't google something and say, I know what the hadith says, and now I'm gonna stand by it. Wait, hold on.
You need a little more depth. You need a little better understanding. You have to learn what is right, and learn it properly, before you become a warrior to stand by what's right.
You guys know all too well what a keyboard warrior is, what a troll is. You can become a troll in life too. You know very little, but that little knowledge you have, you're very passionate about it.
That's also a danger. Because shaitan likes you to stay in ignorance, and then in that ignorance, make you feel like you're being righteous. Because you're standing and doing the right thing.
Not until you know right, you have to know well. You have to understand something deeply, before you can give it to somebody else. Right? So this is why all of us at some level have to be sincere, genuine learners of what is right.
The Necessity of Learning
Allah's word. We have to learn it. We have to spend time learning it.
We have to learn things about our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. We have to learn right from wrong, and learn it deeply. Learn it carefully. Not learn it casually.
Not learn it in passing. There's enough stuff you do in passing when you're scrolling through your apps on social media. You can watch something for two seconds, move on. Islam has been reduced to memes, right? So you can have a meme quoted by somebody, you're like, oh, that's a good one. I'm going to share that when I've done my Islamic duty. This video, that's two minutes long.
That's good, I can listen to that, it's two minutes. That's about my attention span threshold. You know.
I'll share this one, this is good. That's you getting a reminder, great. But if we're going to become people of (أَمْرٌ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ - amr bil-ma'roof) and (نَهْيَّ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ - nahy 'anil-munkar) then we have to become grateful to Allah.
And how do we become grateful to Allah? When Allah has given us His greatest gift, the Qur'an. That's His greatest gift. Then clearly the way to thank Him is to learn it.
Because the greatest gift from Allah is He taught the Qur'an. The greatest thanks to Allah will be to learn it. It would be pretty ironic if I had a student, who I poured my heart out into teaching and they never do any assignments, they don't do any homework, they don't spend any time reading what I sent them, they don't pay attention in class, and they say to me all the time, I'm so grateful for you Ustadh.
In Urdu I'd say,تیری شکل دیکھ Like, what's wrong with you? If you're grateful for me as a teacher, then the first thing I want from you is what? Show me the hard work you're putting in as a student. Grateful for what? That you're just sitting around? What are you grateful for?
The Call to Dedicated Learning
Allah (عز وجل) has given us something to learn. So all of what I've shared with this advice that He gave to His son that was so timeless.
All of that advice will make sense to us. How will we live that advice is when we become sincere learners of the gift that Allah has given us.
I pray that all of, especially the young audiences that are listening, decide to make dedicated time every day.
You guys have time for a lot of stuff. You have time for anime, you have time for Playstations and Xboxes. Many of you are making dua for the PlayStation 5 to be available in a household near you soon.
You guys have time for all kinds of app games on your mobile devices. You have time for all kinds of stuff. I know you have time.
There's no such thing as I don't have time. Everybody has time, okay? And if you have time, then you have to take some time out that nobody's telling you.
Your parents didn't tell you, your teacher didn't tell you, you weren't put inside of a school or a program.
Personal Responsibility
On your own you decided, I want this much time, I want to dedicate every day, I want to learn something about Allah's book. I want to think about it for myself because Allah has made me responsible. And that's really what He's teaching His son at the end of the day.
You have to maintain your own prayer. You have to stand by what's right. Not me telling you to stand by what's right.
You have to do that yourself. The earlier age you do that in, the better for you. The better for you.
InshaAllah in the next khutbah I'll still be talking about this ayah. There's another dimension of this ayah that I think is important for everybody to hear and me to remind myself of. We'll pick up from where we left off this week.