We Celebrate Our Father

We Celebrate Our Father - Eid Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan

Opening Praise and Takbir

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ، اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ خَالِقِ الْوُجُوْدِ بَيْنَ الْعَدَمِ وَجَاعِلِ النُّوْرِ بَيْنَ الظَّلَامِ وَالْمُخْرِجِ الصَّبْرِ بَيْنَ الْأَلَمِ وَالْمَلِكِ التَّوْبَةَ عَلَى النَّدَمِ وَنَشْكُرُهُ عَلَى الْمَصَائِبِ كَمَا نَشْكُرُهُ عَلَى النِّعَمِ وَنُصَلِّيْ عَلَى رَسُوْلِهِ الْأَكْرَمِ وَالشَّرَفِ الْأَشَمِّ وَالنُّوْرِ الْأَتَمِّ وَالْكِتَابِ الْمُحْكَمِ وَكَمَالِ النَّبِيِّيْنَ وَالْخِتَامِ سَيِّدِيْ وَلَدِيْ آدَمَ الَّذِيْ بُشِّرَ بِهِ عِيْسَى ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ وَدَعَا بِبِعْثَتِهِ إِبْرَاهِيْمُ عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ فِيْمَا كَانَ يَرْفَعُ الْقَوَاعِدَ بَيْتَ اللهِ الْمُحَرَّمِ وَصَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ عَلَى أَتْبَاعِهِ الْخَيِّرِ الْأُمَمِ الَّذِيْنَ بَارَكَ اللهُمَّ كَافَّةَ النَّاسِ الْعَرَبَ مِنْهُمْ وَالْعَجَمَ

Standard Khutba Opening

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِيْ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِيْنُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنُؤْمِنُ بِهِ وَنَتَوَكَّلُ عَلَيْهِ وَنَعُوْذُ بِاللهِ مِنْ شُرُوْرِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَنَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيْكَ لَهُ وَنَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّداً عَبْدُ اللهِ وَرَسُوْلُهُ وَصَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ تَسْلِيْمَاً كَثِيْرَاً كَثِيْرَاً

أَمَّا بَعْدُ فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيْثِ كِتَابُ اللهِ وَخَيْرَ الْهَدْيِ هَدْيُ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَإِنَّ شَرَّ الْأُمُوْرِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَإِنَّ كُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ

Quranic Verse Introduction

قَالَ اللهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ فِيْ كِتَابِهِ الْكَرِيْمِ بَعْدَ أَنْ أَقُوْلَ أَعُوْذُ بِاللهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيْمِ:

"And who would turn away from the religion of Abraham except one who makes a fool of himself? And We have chosen him in this world, and indeed he, in the Hereafter, will be among the righteous. When his Lord said to him, "Submit", he said "I have submitted [in Islam] to the Lord of the worlds."

"My Lord, expand for me my breast [with assurance] And ease for me my task And untie the knot from my tongue That they may understand my speech."

The Legacy of Ibrahim in Our Celebrations

The two great celebrations in our religion that have been carrying on since the legacy of the Prophet (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) - actually in my understanding both of them tie back to Ibrahim in one way or the other, but this one more directly. This particular celebration is directly a result of the fulfillment of the tests of Ibrahim, as all of you know. All of the rituals that we perform at Hajj and all of the du'a that we make for the people that are performing Hajj and praying that Allah accepts that Hajj from them - every one of those rituals ties back in one way or the other directly to the legacy and the struggles of Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam).

Ibrahim: Our Father and Religious Identity

Allah has a lot to say about Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam) in the Quran, and I've talked to you about some of those things before. Just as a quick reminder, one of the names of our religion is the religion of Ibrahim. There are several Prophets that are talked about in the Quran, but Allah did not attribute the name of the religion to those Prophets. We don't say we follow the religion of Adam - Millat Adam, or Millat Isa, or Millat Musa. That phrasing is not used in the Quran, but Allah went out of his way to describe Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam) as first of all the religion of Ibrahim - Millat abikum Ibrahim.

Interestingly enough, it's not just Millat Ibrahim. Like in the ayah I'm hoping to share with you today where Allah (عز وجل - azza wa jal) says:

"And who would turn away from the religion of Ibrahim except one who makes a fool of himself?"

In other places He would add another wording in between, and that's that he's our father:

"The religion of your father, Ibrahim. Allah named you "Muslims" before [in former scriptures] and in this [revelation]"

So while we have an affinity and a loyalty and a reverence and respect for all Prophets, we have an added level of love and adoration and a sense of connection to Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam) because he's also called our father. Allah (عز وجل - azza wa jal) wants a different kind of connection with him to all of us.

Inherited Qualities from Our Father Ibrahim

It's not just something that was given to Banu Ismail to whom the Quran was originally revealed in Mecca, but by extension he's a father figure to all of us. Now the thing is that a person's self sense of identity, a person's sense of - of course all of your last names and my last name - these things come from our father, and children take on some of the inherited traits from their ancestry, from their fathers. The idea of him being called our father is actually to say that we have inherited something. We've inherited certain qualities and certain things that are supposed to become part of our personality. The more you get to know your father, the more you become loyal to that heritage and that personality.

The Meaning of Turning Away from Ibrahim's Path

Allah (عز وجل - azza wa jal) in this ayah says and I mentioned this to you in brief translation right now - whoever would turn away... Allah is saying in Arabic is actually to be attracted towards something or to be repelled away from something, but more closely it actually means that you're following something and something caught your attention, something else caught your attention and you got attracted to that. You got distracted from where you were headed and you started going a different way.

Basically what Allah is saying in this ayah about the way of Ibrahim, the religion of Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam) is any kind of person who gets distracted, sidetracked by something else other than the religion of Ibrahim

- it's not that somebody turns away from the religion, it's that they turn towards something else. They found some alternative to the religion of Ibrahim. Any person who would do that would be somebody fooling themselves.

The Value of Ibrahim's Legacy Despite Its Trials

Now this is a remarkable thing to say because you stay on track when you know something is valuable ahead of you, right? Some of you have had exams in your life. If there's an exam in 3 hours and there's an opportunity to play some video games or to go play something or to hang out or to just go to a dinner or something like that, you're not going to be distracted because there's an exam in 3 hours and there are consequences for leaving away, leaving out of the exam. And that's in the case of you're afraid of punishment.

But there are sometimes even rewards. Somebody's about to get married or somebody's about to attend some ceremony where they're going to be awarded something and they're going to be acknowledged. Well if that's the case, nothing else is going to distract them. That's the only thing on their mind. So when you have something of value in front of you, then it's very hard to distract you because everything else is lesser value than this.

The Difficult Trials of Ibrahim

Now that's ironic because the legacy of Ibrahim is a legacy full of very difficult trials. I mean if you look at it from an emotional point of view, Ibrahim as a very young man had to leave his home. That's not an easy thing to do - to become homeless, and he didn't have a place to go, he didn't have money, he didn't have a job, he didn't have any of those things. But just because he wants to be loyal to Allah, he's leaving the home.

Later on in his life, he's basically about to be killed, burnt alive, because of what he believes. And he could turn away from that and just say "ok ok ok fine fine fine, I take back what I said, I'm sorry for what I did," and you know we don't have to go this far. But he doesn't do that. He stands his ground even though he's supposed to face this terrible, terrible catastrophe.

Later on Allah will give him a trial, and you guys know so many of them. He's going to give him the trial of - once he gets married, he keeps seeing in his dream that he's slaughtering his son. He tells his son, "I keep seeing in my dream that I'm slaughtering..." First of all, seeing that dream is hard enough. Telling your child that dream must be a challenge by itself. How do you tell your son that I keep envisioning that I'm killing you?

And so one trial, and of course even before then, to leave his family, the ones he loves the most. And he made so much du'a to have a child, and finally he has a child, and then Allah says, "Ok, now it's time for you to leave this child in the middle of a desert," which basically means in the middle of death. That's

what that basically means. And you're going to do that if you're loyal to me. Just completely surrenders to this instruction.

The Nature of True Surrender (Islam)

One trial after the other after the other, and each one of them I want you to think about, and I want myself to think about the emotional difficulty it must be to fulfill any one of them. To leave your family, to be abandoned, to be scared, to be alone by yourself, to not know where your next meal is going to come from, to not have a place to go to sleep, to then be an entire mob of people ready to kill you, and then on top of that, what's going to happen to my child, what's going to happen to my wife, who's going to take care of them? And every single one of those trials is enough for a person to say "I can't do this, I just can't do it, this is too much."

And he keeps on giving in to Allah's commands. And Allah describes whatever Allah told him to surrender, just give up. And the idea of surrender - when soldiers point a gun at somebody and they say "I surrender," that's actually not Islam. That's the meaning of surrender. Salam comes from peace and surrender, meaning not only do I give in to Allah's command, I'm completely at peace with this surrender. Like I'm totally okay with this surrender. I have no reluctance in my heart about this surrender that I've just done.

You know sometimes we obey Allah but in our hearts like "I'm obeying Him but I really wanted to do this other thing. Okay fine, I'll obey Him." That's not surrender, that's actually reluctant obedience. You know and even when you do it, you're like "I'm not sure if what I'm doing is the best thing for me because what I really wanted to do, I didn't get to do because Allah wants me to surrender this way."

No Hardship in the Religion of Ibrahim

Actually Allah says:

"He has chosen you and has not placed upon you in the religion any difficulty. [It is] the religion of your father, Ibrahim."

Why did he say that? Because when we are to learn from the heritage of Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam), we have to learn to submit our emotions, not just our actions. And that's really what my khutbah is about today. It's not that Allah is just demanding ourselves to pray or He's demanding us to sacrifice an animal or He's demanding us to fast. Those are the submission of our body and our limbs. But He actually wants our emotions to be submitted like He wanted Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam)

Submitting Our Hearts and Emotions

Love for his family to be submitted to His love. He wanted his fear of a burning fire to be submitted to the fear of Allah. He wants every one of those emotions to be checked. And the thing is, you can obey Allah and I can obey Allah on the outside. It's actually not that hard to pray - it takes a couple of minutes. It's not that hard to eat halal, it's not that difficult. But you know the emotions inside that we have that people don't see, the thoughts that we have that people don't see, submitting them to Allah now that's a real challenge. That's a very difficult thing to do.

To submit, to surrender my love and my desire and the things I want, the things I've been thinking about, and to make sure they are under Allah's submission. They're not going to cross Allah's lines. And when Allah wants me to give up some of them because they're not okay, they're not permissible, I'm going to happily give them up.

How can somebody develop that kind of thinking? It's an easy thing to say, but how do we develop that kind of thinking?

Ibrahim's Heart at Peace

You see, this is why Ibrahim (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ - alayhis salam) - Allah didn't just say he submitted. He said, "He came before Allah with a heart that was at peace." With a heart that was at peace. It wasn't just his body was submitted and his tongue was submitted, his heart was completely at peace and surrendered before Allah.

Now how do we get to do that? Well the thing is, if you think about the things we give in to, if you and I think about the things that we do in fact do and sometimes we do them in disobedience to Allah, it's because we fall in love with something or we really want something. And that love and that desire for it or the fear of something else is so powerful that we can become blind to everything else. We can't see anything else.

Understanding Allah's Love for Us

Allah (عز وجل - azza wa jal) wants us to understand that the love He has for you and me and the love we're supposed to have for Him is so powerful. First of all, His love for us, before we understand our love for Him. Because you know often even when I was younger I'd hear khutbahs about how we have to love Allah, we have to love Allah, we have to love Allah. I used to keep thinking sitting in the khutbah, "How do you do that? How do you love Allah? I don't get it. I know how to love video games, I know how to love my favorite movie, I know how to love my family. I don't know how to love Allah. What does that even mean? How am I supposed to love Allah?"

The thing is, if you and I can recognize how much love He gives us, it becomes easier to love Him. When we internalize that nobody will care for you, nobody will love you, nobody will provide for you, nobody will give up on you like Allah (عز وجل - azza wa jal)

The Difference Between Human and Divine Love

Everyone else that you and I love, that we care for, if we mess up they're gonna get upset. They're gonna get upset. They can say "I love you unconditionally," it ain't unconditional. If you cross the line with somebody, if you disrespect someone, if you cheat someone, if you hurt someone, if you abuse someone, maybe first, second, third time they might take it, they might tolerate it. But the time will come where they're gonna say "I can't take this anymore. I loved you but I don't feel that anymore because I'm not feeling it from you, so I can't give it back." Because love is a reciprocated emotion. And if you're not getting it, it's hard to give back.

And you can get to a point where there's someone that you love so much that all you do is think about them to the point where you're so numb that even when you see them you're like "I wish I could go somewhere else. I don't wanna see them." How does that happen? Because that love has been violated over time and the love you may have has been decreased and decreased and decreased.

Allah's Unconditional Love Despite Our Disobedience

The thing with Allah's love for us is we violate our love for Him all the time. We disobey Him all the time. We forget Him all the time. We disregard Him all the time. He asks us not much. He asks us very little and we don't even do that. And we do it all the time. We dismiss His words all the time.

You know, it's easy to understand when you're talking to somebody and you know, they're ignoring you. You can see that they read it but they didn't respond. What did that do to you? "Excuse me? How are you? I just talked to you and you ignored me? I just said hello, hey, what's up? I miss you, where's my 'I miss you' back? Where'd it go?" You get really upset when you express love, you express care, you communicate and it's not reciprocated, right? And you go "Hey, how come you keep sending me the voicemail? How come you're never available? How come you never have time?" These things make you upset because you have expectations from someone else.

Allah (عز وجل) communicated with us, yes or no? And He knows we received it, yes or no? And we don't respond. We don't respond. And that's every right for Allah to actually be upset with us, but He doesn't.

Allah's Constant Protection and Care

You and I continue to breathe. Our lungs continue to fill with air. The blood vessels continue to flow. The provision continues to come. Our health is not an automatic thing. There are enough bacteria inside of us to kill all of us. There are enough of them inside. Who's constantly protecting us from dying? Who's constantly protecting us from diseases from the outside? Who's constantly protecting you and me as we drove or walked here to the masjid? Every single step while we're ignoring Him, He's protecting us while we're ignoring Him.

And so His love of us and His enveloping care for us is so overwhelming and so constant that if you can just think about that more often and I can think about that more often, you know what that will do? The next time we are presented with a choice where we either have to surrender what we love, what we think we love, we have to surrender that for our love of Allah - if we think about how much Allah loves us and you compare that to anything else, you will actually start making, it will become easier emotionally for you to let that go and be at peace with it. You'd be okay with it.

Ibrahim's Love for His Son

Sometimes we have this idea that if we let go of something that we love, "How am I going to live without that? What am I going to do?" That's my... Ibrahim had every right to think, "That's my baby. What am I going to do without my baby?" You can only imagine, when this child was born, when Ismail was born, Ibrahim was so excited he said "Yashba'eem" in Hebrew. He said "Yashba'eem" which became his name Ismail, which means "Allah listens," like he thought of Ismail as the answer of his prayers. And he used to hug him all the time and care for him all the time.

Even as he became later, Allah describes when he reached the age where he could run around with him. What does that suggest to you? That he spent a lot of time with his son. He was obsessed with his son. And that's the son Allah said sacrifice that.

Our Tests Compared to Ibrahim's

Now we are being told in contrast, Allah is not asking us, Alhamdulillah, to sacrifice our children. So the children can be like "Phew, okay," you know. He's not asking us to sacrifice our children. He's not asking us to give up on life. He's not asking us to jump into a fire. He didn't put any of those instructions on us. But he made us the legacy of our father Ibrahim to teach us: "I asked way more of your father and he was okay with it. I asked a lot more of him and he was fine with it. And I'm asking a lot less from you. He's not asking a lot from you, but you're still not okay with it. You still have struggle with it."

And whatever he asked of him is out of love for him, and whatever he's asking for us is out of love for us.

The Power of Du'a with Complete Surrender

So here's the last thing I want you to think about as I end this khutbah. You see, our main connection to Allah is du'a. Our main connection to Allah is du'a. In the last week's khutbah I talked to you about du'a, but I want to add some things to that just so you and I think about the relationship of du'a with Ibrahim (عليه السلام) and Allah - like how did they connect through du'a?

You see what we learn from his legacy is that when you completely in your heart give up for Allah, and you will have the ability to face any problem. When you give up, you surrender that Allah knows best and if he wants me to do this, that's what I'm going to do, and you give in and you just do it, completely

trusting him and letting go of all of your doubts, all of your fears, all of your anxiety, you just let that go. You let your heart before your actions, before your tongue, you let your heart be at peace, you give up. Then Allah will bend the laws of nature for you.

Then Allah will make a fire cold. Then Allah will make a knife no longer cut. Then Allah will make a desert that for hundreds of miles in every direction, there is no water to be found, and a well spring will come out that - can you imagine? - millions upon millions upon millions of people, dozens and millions of people are drinking from a well every year for thousands of years. Just imagine the amount of water that's coming out from the middle of a desert. And that much water is enough to create agriculture for an entire nation. And that's in the middle of a desert, burnt rock, you know, not a tree to be found. And yet there Allah will do that because He completely surrenders. He completely surrenders before Him. Allah will provide ways for you.

Allah Gives Strength, Not Removal of Tests

Allah will not get rid of your challenges. Allah will not tell Ibrahim (عليه السلام) "Ok ok ok, you don't have to jump into a fire. Alright fine, I know you're willing to do it, but you don't have to sacrifice your son." No, He'll put us through the test. The test will not go away, no matter how much du'a you and I make. The du'a will not get rid of our tests.

Well you know what du'a can do? If we completely surrender before Allah peacefully, then He will give us miraculous strength to deal with that test. Like you thought it was impossible to go through that test and you just go right through it. Go right through it. And that's actually the power of du'a. Du'a when it comes with surrender before Allah.

You know it would have been much easier if we just... if du'a was there to get rid of our problems, my first du'a would be "Ya Allah, kill shaytan, problem solved. Everybody make du'a, let's just get shaytan killed," then you know we don't have to deal with anything. It would have been much easier if Musa (عليه السلام) Allah gave him a giant snake, right? Gave him a giant snake. When he walked into the pharaoh's castle, he didn't have to give a whole speech. He could have just dropped the snake, let the snake eat pharaoh and we're done. Egypt's problem solved.

Allah does not get rid of your problem. Allah gives you the strength to deal with your problem. And that strength comes from du'a, yes. Allah will provide. Allah will give it His. But Allah will not get rid of our challenges.

This World is About Tests

Actually this world is challenges:

"We're absolutely going to put you to the test. Some of them will have to do with fear, some of them will have to do with hunger, loss of money, loss of children, people - loss of people."

It's interesting, he said children, people, meaning you might lose people in your life because you submit to Allah. People you love, people you care about, but being close to them is making you disobeying Allah. So you might get rid of some of those. You might have to wash those people out of your life because you're surrendering to Allah. And that's going to hurt because we love people.

And then he says (وَالثَّمَرَاتِ) - fruits Meaning fruits - a farmer puts in work, a gardener puts in work, the fruit comes at the end of the season. So now you have nothing to look forward to because the fruits aren't coming. The fruits you were hoping for, you have to abandon.

And he says (وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِين) - "Congratulations to those who are going to be patient or who are going to persevere."

Conclusion: Don't Fool Yourself

So this ayah was: "Who will turn away from these trials and surrendering before Allah happily while they go through these trials except somebody fooling themselves?"

So as I leave you, let me just take a minute and tell you about fooling yourself and me fooling myself. If we think that not surrendering to Allah will make our life easy... will you jump into a fire or stay back here? Staying back here seems a little easier. If we think staying back is easier, then actually we're fooling ourselves. We're kidding ourselves. Ease comes from Allah. Peace comes from Allah.

You might think you made your financial situation easier. You might think you made your family situation easier. You might think you made... you followed your heart's desire at the expense of obeying Allah and somehow you made things easier for yourself or your feelings. Let me tell you something: when you surrender before Allah, you get a calmness and a peace inside of your heart. And when you don't surrender to Allah, no matter what you do, no matter what you think you're doing to make yourself happy, you won't find peace. There's not going to be any contentment. You think there will be, but there won't be.

And you know Allah (عز وجل) will describe... we'll make a person like that, you know, their chest will become tight like they're climbing up into the sky and running out of air. That's what's going to happen to you.

So we need to really understand what it means to not fool ourselves and to really happily, contently surrender before Allah's will. Allah (عز وجل) give all of us the strength of heart to do that and to contemplate that for ourselves and to really become part of the religion of Ibrahim (عليه السلام)

Closing Takbir