The Prize of Submission to Allah
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-08T20:20:42.827223+00:00 | Topic: Allah
The Prize of Submission to Allah
Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan
Opening and Quranic Recitation
Allah says in His holy book, after I say I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:
"And from the people is he who worships Allah on an edge. So if good befalls him, he is content with it. And if a trial befalls him, he turns on his face, he loses this world and the Hereafter. That is the clear loss."
"He calls besides Allah for what neither harms him nor benefits him. That is the distant misguidance."
"He calls to one whose harm is closer than his benefit."
"O Allah, make us from those who believe and do righteous deeds and counsel each other to truth and counsel each other to patience. O Lord of the worlds."
"Indeed, Allah does what He wills."
"Gardens beneath which rivers flow."
Introduction: The Ayah That Has Been on My Mind
I've been thinking about this ayah for some time now. I haven't gotten a chance to give a khutbah about it or share any thoughts on it for some time, and the reason I've been thinking about this ayah is because of the several conversations I've had either on social media or meeting with people around the world in person - people coming up with their challenges and questions. I wanted to first paint a picture with you of the kinds of conversations that I'm talking about and then share with you why I feel this ayah is necessary for all of us to keep in mind.
The Challenges We Face in Modern Times
Personal Trials and Faith
We're living in a time that is riddled with a lot of confusion. There are lots of questions that we have of all kinds. For instance, people are going through very difficult trials in their personal life. When a believer is well acquainted with their deen and they understand the book of Allah and they understand the comfort, ma'idah (the heartfelt counsel) and the healing that the book of Allah offers - that the sunnah of His messenger (peace be upon him) offers - then they can find comfort in the deen of Allah.
But we're living in a strange time. We call it the information age, but for most of us we don't really know much about our own religion. We don't really know how our book and our faith and our scripture is supposed to give us healing, how it's supposed to help us through difficult times. When that happens, we are prey very easily to Shaitan.
Common Struggles and Doubts
When people go through hard times and Shaitan brings all kinds of thoughts to them - somebody's sick and they're in the hospital and they're getting all kinds of waswasa about faith itself, questioning Allah Himself, questioning qadr itself. People lose a job, people have a hard time in a marriage, there are difficulties in studies, whatever you may be going through or maybe health related - and it's very easy to start questioning whether or not Allah even cares. "Why would He do this to me? What did I do to deserve these problems? I made so much dua, Allah didn't even answer me. Why? He doesn't even care. I prayed all of Ramadan, I even went to do umrah and I still asked Allah to heal my child or to get rid of this problem and I still have that problem."
Global Crises and Their Impact on Faith
That's in your personal life and that's hard enough, but on top of that there are crises in the world. There are many of you who have family for instance in Syria and places like Syria all over the world that are on fire where families aren't safe, children aren't safe, where all kinds of human disaster is happening and people are being killed. It's almost like fulfilling the word of Rasulullah (peace be upon him) where the killer will not know why he's killing and the killed will not know why they're being killed.
In that kind of crisis, some people start not only questioning why is this happening in my personal life, they start questioning why is all this crazy stuff happening in the world and how am I supposed - where is Allah in all of this? Can't He just fix these problems? And it's not like we're not making dua.
Every night in so many masajids around the world:
"O Allah, aid Islam and the Muslims."
"Give strength to Islam and the Muslims."
Give strength to Islam against the enemies of the deen. But it seems like the enemies are just getting better and better and spilling more and more blood. So at that point somebody gets really frustrated with their religion and they start thinking there's no point - why do I even make dua? What's the point of it? Nothing's gonna change.
The Consequences of Lost Faith
Complete Abandonment of Prayer
This is actually a very common problem. As a result of this problem, a few things happen. For a number of people, they stop praying altogether - forget dua, they even stop making salah. They don't care about prayer anymore. The thing about salah is that it's what Allah describes as protection:
"Indeed, prayer prohibits immorality and wrongdoing."
The salah itself in fact prevents you from all kinds of shameless indecent behavior and it prevents you from all kinds of evil. So when Allah says that and somebody abandons salah, now they're actually prey directly to Shaitan. All kinds of bad things are gonna be done and one won't even realize why they're doing it.
Those Barely Holding On
But then there are those who haven't gone that far. They're actually still holding on to the deen, they're still holding on to it but they're holding on to it barely - they're barely barely holding on. You're barely making it to Jumu'ah prayer, even that's a struggle for you. And for some people, it gets so bad that they can't even spend too much time inside of a masjid, or even if they do they start getting uncomfortable - they just have to leave quickly. That happens.
I've met many such people and I don't think they're evil people. I do think however that certain fundamentals were not correct, certain ideas, certain concepts, certain feelings are misplaced, and because of those misplaced feelings one goes down a very dangerous path all the way down to misguidance.
Understanding Those Who Argue Against Allah
In Surah Al-Hajj, in the beginning, Allah described people who have an agenda to misguide other people - evil people who want nothing better than to just argue against Allah without any knowledge:
"And among the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge or guidance or an enlightening book."
Somebody who argues about God and debates and hates on religion, hates on Allah, hates on the Prophet - they're arguing nor do they have any guidance nor is it in light of any enlightened thinking. It's just complaints for the sake of complaining. Those kinds of people - it's not just enough that they're messed up, they can't sit still until they mess somebody else up. They have to actually misguide somebody else.
That's one group of people, but that's not the group of people I want to talk about today.
The People on the Edge
Literal Translation and Meaning
It's the one after that group - the ones that are on the edge, literally on the edge. That's how the Quran describes them:
"And among people there is someone who worships Allah at the very edge."
Actually, the edge of a cliff also. They're worshiping Allah, they worship Allah, but at the edge of a cliff. What does that mean? That means sometimes here, sometimes there. They're almost ready to fall off the cliff. They're not quite stable in their faith, they're not quite stable in their worship, they're not settled. They have unanswered questions, unresolved emotions.
How This Manifests
So how does that manifest itself? Allah describes:
"So if some good comes to them, if something good happens in life, they're doing better now - okay, okay Allah actually listened to this dua so I can pray now, I feel better."
"And if some fitna hits them..."
Fitna means some kind of trial or something that tests their faith. Fitna literally means a test. So Allah did not put the opposite of خَيْر as شَرّ, right? The opposite would have been شَرّ. So you would have expected Allah to say:
فَإِنْ أَصَابَهُ خَيْرٌ اطْمَأَنَّ بِهِ وَإِنْ أَصَابَهُ شَرٌّ
Nope:
Why is that word important? Because Allah is letting us know that when something bad happens to you, that is just Allah putting your faith to the test. Allah just wants to see whether you're willing to believe in an Allah that still loves, that still cares, that is still Ar-Rahman, that is still Ar-Raheem, that is still Ar-Razzaq - He's still the provider, He's still the protector, He's still the caretaker, even though you can't see it, even though in front of you you see like you've got problems and Shaitan wants you to question "Where is Allah?" He wants you to ask that question.
The Foundation of Faith: Believing in the Unseen
So Allah wants to put you in that circumstance sometimes to see how strong your faith is. By the way, this deen begins with:
"Those who believe in the unseen."
They believe in an Allah who they cannot see. And that doesn't just mean we don't see Allah - we don't see Allah's plan either. Allah doesn't lay out for you here's how He's going to have you go about your day and here's what - you know you're going through a difficulty now but there's another ease coming in a few weeks or a few years or a few hours. We don't know if things are going to get better in the next minute or things are going to take 10 years. We just don't know.
Allah will not tell you that:
"And Allah would not inform you of the unseen."
Allah is not going to be one to inform you of the plans of the unseen. He doesn't owe you that. All He's asking you to do is trust Him - trust Him that He loves you more than you could possibly even love yourself, that He gets nothing out of punishing you or torturing you.
Allah says:
مَا يَفْعَلُ اللَّهُ بِعَذَابِكُمْ
"What would Allah do with your punishment?" (Quran 4:147)
What's Allah going to get out of punishing you? Why do you think Allah's out to get you? Allah literally asked that question Himself.
The Real Test: Believing in Allah's Names During Hardship
So when you and I go through trials, that's actually to check and see - because it's easy to believe in Allah when things are good, it's just easier. But it's harder to believe, especially some of those names of Allah - the names of Allah that we hold on to in difficult times. It's harder to hold on to them when we get hit.
When we believe Allah is the healer, that Allah owns all of shifa and His book is shifa, and then you're sitting in the hospital with a terminal mother or a terminal father - that's harder to believe. It becomes difficult on someone.
Recalibrating Our Understanding of Dua
The Purpose of Dua: Internal Change vs External Change
I wanted to dedicate this khutbah to two things: one, just fixing a little bit, calibrating our thinking about dua itself. The vast majority of the duas in the Quran and the vast majority of the dua in the sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him) - you can find one common thing among them. The common thing among them is they're in a way, in some way or the other, you're asking Allah to give you better ability, for Allah to give you strength, for Allah to give you guidance, for Allah to give you forgiveness, for Allah to give you gratitude - "Give me the ability, empower me so I can become grateful."
An Analogy: The Man at Sea
I'm going to give you an analogy to help you understand what I'm trying to get at. Somebody was out at sea and their ship hit a rock and the ship sank, and this guy is holding on to a piece of wood and he's out in sea and he's making dua to Allah. Now at that point you can make two duas:
"Ya Allah, transport me from here to an island immediately, make the rain stop, make the storm stop."
Or you could say: "Ya Allah, give me the strength to overcome this difficulty."
Now when he makes dua "Ya Allah, send me a helicopter right away, pick me up into the sky and get me to an island" and he makes dua over and over "helicopter, helicopter, helicopter" and no helicopter came, and then he says "Allah didn't even send a helicopter, I made so much dua for one, that's not fair, I'm not making dua anymore."
In other words, he's making dua - or for example he wants the ocean to turn into land: "Ya Allah, just you have the power to change anything into anything, you made all of this so you could just convert this ocean into a land right now so I can walk. You turned Ibrahim's fire and you made it cool, so you could do that for me." And it doesn't turn, it's still the ocean and you're still drowning slowly.
The Real Purpose of Dua
The point I'm trying to make is oftentimes we think the purpose of dua is to change the reality around us. We focus on changing the reality around us. But if you study the duas in the Quran and the majority of the duas in the sunnah carefully, you'll notice that the change actually you're asking for is a change in yourself: "Ya Allah, I'm in a difficult test, give me the ability to change. Don't just change the test."
I'll give you a simpler example: some student is about to go take an exam. You can make two kinds of duas. You can make the dua: "Ya Allah, give me the ability to understand the subject matter, let me concentrate. Ya Allah, give me the ability to not be nervous while I'm taking the test, let me not get lazy" - duas about yourself.
Or: "Ya Allah, make this - I know it's a medical school exam but convert it into a second grade math exam for me so I don't have to have this problem."
Either you want to change reality or you want to empower yourself. For people that are weak in their faith, they don't think about empowering or changing themselves - they just want to change what? Reality around them. And they keep asking Allah to change the reality around them. And does it change? No. And when it doesn't change, they blame Allah. They turn to Allah and say "How come you didn't change the world around me? How come you didn't turn everything on a silver platter for me?"
The Path to True Submission
Reality Will Submit When We Submit to Allah
You want reality to submit to you? You truly have to learn first to submit to Allah. And you don't come to Allah when you need something. You don't just come to Allah when there's a problem. You come to Allah all the time. You're submissive before Allah constantly until that attitude is developed.
By the way, there will be a time when reality will submit around us, and that time is actually when we meet with Allah. They're going to have whatever they want. The problem is we want whatever we want right now. Allah says "I'll give you that." Right now you're going to experience some times of good and other times of test, and the only reason He gives you a test - the only reason He gives you a test - is because He wants you to pass so you can qualify for that Jannah. He wants you to go through these trials because they will bring you closer to Him.
The Purpose of Difficulty in Life
Our Worldly Priorities vs Allah's Priority
That brings me to my next point before I finish this ayah: the purpose of difficulty. In this life we want certain things. A young man wants to get married or a woman wants to get married. You want to have a good job, you want to have a house, you want your family to be okay, you want to provide for your children, you want to give them a good education, you want to get your kids married off. There are things we have priorities in our life. There's things that are on your mind right now you've been thinking about it for the last month, the last year, the last two years. There's stuff that you want to accomplish in your life.
Allah teaches us in His book that there's one thing - if you can get it in this life, it's more valuable than everything else. Everything else will be okay if you have this one thing. And that one thing is a closeness to Allah, is being good with Allah and truly developing a connection and a bond with Him.
The Trap of Good Times
The problem with people is when life is good and only good, for a lot of people they get distracted. You go from a video game to a movie to checking social media status to hanging out with friends to a restaurant to sleep. Allah is out of the picture. There's no Allah left. There's just you chilling. That's all there is.
Then times get tough and the friends aren't there and the game doesn't feel good anymore and the car doesn't look good anymore because the health is gone. When the health is gone, none of those things mean anything anymore. All you care about is "I just want to be out of this hospital bed. If I could just walk again, that'd be fine." People are bringing your favorite food, you don't want to eat it. People want to show you a movie, you don't want to watch it. All these things that you lived for, everything that you went from A to B to C to D - all these things are gone. "I don't care about none of them" because there's one blessing Allah diminished for you a little bit.
Two Choices in Difficulty
Then at that point you have two options. If you are of these people that are on the cliff, on the edge, you can start complaining to Allah: "Why did you do this to me? You just didn't like that I was so happy?"
Or you could earn the greatest treasure you and I can ever earn, and that is a humility and a closeness to Allah - to actually realize even when I was healthy, even when I was wealthy, even when I was doing well, everything was fine, I didn't realize even then that I was on life support. Allah was actually providing for me every moment. I didn't earn anything on my own. None of it was something that I deserved.
Allah's Description of Our Efforts
This is why Allah will say:
"For them is a share of what they have earned." (Quran 2:202)
Allah will describe even:
Fadlan not Kasaban - you can't earn something, it's a favor from Allah whatever He's given you. But you don't realize it at the time because it just comes easy.
The Sweetest Moments
But then you start begging Allah and asking Allah and crying to Allah and praying to Allah like you've never prayed before, feeling closer to Him like you've never felt before. And then Allah heals you and you realize those moments you had when nobody was in the hospital room, you were just by yourself crying to Allah, were the sweetest moments of your entire life. Those were the few moments of your life that you actually had nothing between you and Allah. And those might be the moments that save you in the Akhirah. That might have been the biggest gift Allah ever gave you - those moments.
The Consequence of Turning Away
Turning One's Face Away
But for some people who are on the edge, when times get tough:
"He turns on his face, he turns his face away." (Quran 22:11)
What does that mean? It means "I want nothing to do with Allah. How can He abandon me? How can He give me a hard time? Why would He do that to me?"
The Consumer Mentality Applied to Faith
This is actually very easy to understand in our times. We live in a hyper consumer society, so everything comes quickly. You want to be entertained? Just open up an app on your phone. You want to buy something? Just order on Amazon, it'll show up at your door. Everything's become effortless and everything's become instantaneous. You want something, it'll come to you. You don't have to go to it, it'll come to you. Everything's quick, quick, quick, quick. We're used to getting served now. We're used to constantly getting served. And if one order of yours is two days late, three days late, you're going to give it one star, thumbs down, bad rating. You're used to this now.
And now you make dua to Allah or you want something, you expect Allah to take care of some of your problem. But you're so used to getting things done so quickly and immediately, and when it doesn't happen we're like "This is poor service. I need better customer service. I'm not going to go to Allah again and place an order" because you're a customer now, you're entitled now. He turns his face from Allah. "He didn't even listen to me, he didn't even solve my problem."
Allah's Different Timings: Examples from the Quran
Yaqub and Yusuf vs Musa's Mother
Understand that Allah has a plan for everybody. Just to give you a comparison: in the case of Yaqub (peace be upon him) who lost his child, Allah returned his child to him after years - many, many years. And in the case of Musa (peace be upon him), his mother also lost her child. She put him in the water and he returned that child after a few hours, because by the time the child got hungry, the next feeding was from the same mother because he wouldn't drink from anybody else.
What am I trying to get at? Sometimes in this world, sometimes Allah will answer that pain of yours, Allah will relieve it immediately. Sometimes He will relieve it after many, many years. But in all of it there's good, in all of it there's good.
The Wisdom in Yusuf's Story
I love the story of Yusuf (peace be upon him) particularly because of the khair in it. Think about the khair in it. All those years this father cried. This father almost lost his eyesight and eventually the Quran says:
"And his eyes became white from grief." (Quran 12:84)
And he became blind from crying. But all this time, where was Yusuf? Yusuf was - he was a child servant when he got older, enough he got thrown into prison. He spent many of his years in jail. So either he served as a servant or he served as a prisoner inmate in jail - not a good life. That's not a good life.
But at the end of it all, when he interprets a dream of the king and that dream means that that entire economy is going to collapse in seven years and people are going to die of starvation, the only one who knows how to handle that crisis was Yusuf. Had he not been in jail, he would have never helped the king. You understand this? If Yusuf was with his father the whole time, that never would have happened.
But now that Yusuf is there to interpret the dream and says "I'm the one who can take care of this responsibility, make me the treasury secretary, give me this responsibility," when he does that and he takes care of it, what happens next? What happens next is thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of parents don't have to cry that their children died of starvation. One father cried for several years, but his tears Allah made them a way of saving thousands of families from crying. Because if he didn't save that
economy and he didn't save that crop, the entire land would have been in drought and people would have died of starvation and war would have happened, all kinds of crisis would have happened.
Your Difficulty May Benefit Others
Sometimes the difficulty you go through isn't just better for you. Maybe through your difficulty you will become a sadaqah jariah for so many others you don't even know. You don't know. But if you're on the edge, you don't have that kind of trust in Allah, so you turn your back to Allah.
The Ultimate Loss
Then Allah says:
"He loses this world and the next." (Quran 22:11)
This is what I want to leave you with. When people do that, they have lost this world and the next. What does that mean? This person lost this world and the next.
Life's Universal Struggles
If you can hold on look:
"We have certainly created man into hardship." (Quran 90:4)
Human beings were made in toil and labor and difficulty. Whether you believe in Allah or not, you will still have challenges in life. Yes or no? Whether you believe in Allah or not, it's still going to be tough to make a living, it's still going to be tough to battle a sickness. This life - it's not like for believers they get luxury and disbelievers get difficulty. No, Allah made all human beings in struggle. That's what He said.
The Advantage of Iman
If you could go through this struggle with iman, then you will have the best of this life and while you are making the best of this life, you'll be making the best of the next life too. You'll get a kind of peace nobody else enjoys. You're sick and the disbeliever is sick, but in your sickness you still find peace and they find no peace. You're in financial trouble, they're in financial trouble - exactly the same kind of trouble, exactly the same kind of hunger - but your heart is still at ease. Allah is still giving you tranquility, Allah is still rewarding you, Allah is still protecting you, and they're miserable. You made this life worse for yourself too, and on top of that you missed out on the next life.
"He loses this world and the next." (Quran 22:11)
The Proper Dua for Both Worlds
This is why we ask Allah:
"Our Lord, give us good in this world and good in the next world." (Quran 2:201)
The qualification of hasana means when you ask Allah for good things in this life, it's good on the outside and good on the inside - good as in beautiful, tasty, enjoyable from the outside and good for my next life, actually good for me in the long run, building my akhirah at the same time. This is:
And therefore:
And as a result, good in the next life - something that's beautiful and good on the inside as well.
The Ultimate Loss Described
So Allah says he lost this world and the next:
"That is the clear loss." (Quran 22:11)
The Quran uses three words for loss. Allah uses khusir, He uses khassar, and He uses khusran. And khusran is a مصدر صيغة المبالغة - the worst kind of loss, the worst imaginable loss. Of all the kinds of loss Allah could describe, of all losses, this is the one: somebody who was actually a believer and lost their faith when times got tough, and as a result they lost this life and the next life. And they had it all. Allah had everything laid out for them, everything was laid out for them.
The Promise of Jannah
Inheritance of Jannah
So I leave you with the following. Allah will describe:
"Those who will inherit Al-Firdaws." (Quran 23:11)
About believers He says they will inherit paradise. Strange word - Allah didn't say in many places He says they will enter paradise, but in Surah Al-Mu'minun He says they will inherit paradise.
Now you know that inheritance is actually something that is handed down to you because your family owned it already. And that's actually how the Prophet (peace be upon him) described it. Allah literally - there's two explanations of it. Jannah was actually given to our father Adam (peace be upon him) and so already we're qualified for it, so we're gonna get it in mirath, we're gonna inherit it.
But another beautiful hadith that I read when I was studying the meaning of mirathah and actually studying Firdaus - incredible statement of the Prophet (peace be upon him). He says Allah made a house in Jannah, in Firdaus - Firdaus is the highest Jannah - Allah made a house in Firdaus for every human being, not just every believer, every human being. But some people just didn't want to go. So when believers get there, there's going to be a lot of empty homes, and so they're going to inherit those homes.
May Allah make us of those who inherit homes in Jannah and not those whose homes remain empty. The house Allah has built for you and the house Allah has built for me is already there. The expectation from Allah for you to enter the highest place in Jannah is already there. Don't mess it up. Don't fall off the edge. Don't lose your faith in Allah. Just think of these tough times as just Allah wanting to see what price you're willing to pay for that house.
May Allah help us through our difficulties and never allow us ever to lose our faith in Him. May Allah bless you and me in the Quran Al-Hakim and help me and you with the verses and the wisdom.
Second Khutbah
"All praise is for Allah and that is sufficient, and peace and blessings upon His servants whom He has chosen, especially upon the best of them and the seal of the prophets, Muhammad the trustworthy, and upon his family and all his companions."
: يقول الله عز وجل في كتابه الكريم بعد أن أقول أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم
"Allah Almighty says in His noble book, after I say I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:"
"Indeed, Allah and His angels send blessings on the Prophet. O you who believe! Send blessings on him and greet him with greetings of peace." (Quran 33:56)
"O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad as You sent blessings upon Ibrahim and upon the family of Ibrahim among the worlds. Indeed, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious."
"O Allah, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as You blessed Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim among the worlds. Indeed, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious."
Final Reminders and Closing
"O servants of Allah, may Allah have mercy on you. Fear Allah. Indeed, Allah orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded." (Quran 16:90)
"And remember Allah - He will remember you. And be grateful to Him for His favors - He will increase you. And the remembrance of Allah is greatest. And Allah knows what you do."
"Establish salah. Indeed, salah has been decreed upon the believers a decree of specified times." (Quran 4:103)