Crush Your Ego Before Ramadan | Khutbah by Dr. Omar Suleiman

Introduction: Preparing for Ramadan

We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad is His final messenger. We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them.

Dear brothers and sisters, in two nights or three nights depending on what part of the world you are in, you reach the midpoint of Sha'ban. Which means that we are officially only a couple of weeks away from Ramadan. May Allah allow us to live to see Ramadan, to be forgiven in Ramadan, to be granted the full reward of Laylatul Qadr.

The Core Message: Crush Your Ego and Channel Your Desires

And I wanted you to remember a very simple rule from the very beginning of this khutbah that is not specific to the moment that we are in right now, but should especially be highlighted in a time when we are seeking to turn a page with Allah and be forgiven. It's a simple sentence and I'll explain it throughout the course of the khutbah, but so that you don't forget the sentence: Remember the sentence as you try to do the laundry of the heart, as you try to wash yourself before Ramadan starts: Crush your ego and cause your desires to conform.

You see, each and every single one of us right now should be looking at themselves and seeing what needs to go out the drain so that we can come back to Allah and be purified. Every single one of us should be in an intense state of محاسبة (muhasabah) right now, an intense state of accountability, because you are coming upon, if you live, the greatest months of washing away the effects, the stains that you have accumulated that exists in an entire year. But there should be an intense moment of self-interrogation and self-diagnosis right now: crush your ego and channel your desires.

Two Categories of Sin

Let me explain what I mean by that. I'll give you two ahadith from the Prophet, and this entire khutbah I want you to be thinking about the category of your sins—two categories of sins and sinful behaviors.

The companions asked the Messenger of Allah when he said that when a person approaches their spouse, when they are intimate, there is a charity in that. They said, "Ya Rasool Allah, would a person really approach their desires and then be rewarded for that?" The Prophet said, "Wouldn't it be if you were to approach your desires with haram that Allah would punish you for that, that there would be a burden, a وزر (wizr)?" They said yes. He said, "Likewise, Allah rewards you when you channel your desires towards that which is halal."

Channel your desires. Ramadan is a month in which you learn how to govern and channel your desires. You leave off the desire of food, drink and شهوة (shahwah)—the desire of food, drink and intimacy—feeding the soul and pursuing Allah and learning how to discipline those desires. And so there's an entire category of sinful desires or desires that are acted upon in a sinful way. And I want you to bucket that and ask yourself: how much of my behaviors fall into this bucket?

If you were to open a book like Madarij as-Salikin or Ihya Ulum ad-Din or the summary of it, Mukhtasar Ihya Ulum ad-Din or Bidayat al-Hidayah or Mukhtasar Minhaj al-Qasidin or the summary of the summary, or any of these books of تزكية (tazkiyah), you will find a category of these things. People pursue their desires and sometimes their desires get out of hand. The problem is not the desire; the problem is that they didn't govern the desire. Ramadan is a month in which you are taught to govern that desire.

The Danger of Pride

Now compare that hadith, where the Prophet is telling the companions you will be rewarded for channeling your desire in a halal way, whatever that desire may be, because the rule is being established here, to the hadith of the Messenger of Allah:

"A person would not enter Paradise if they have even an atom's worth of pride in their heart." (Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 147)

I was reflecting on these two ahadith side-by-side as we approach the month of Ramadan, and I'll tell you exactly why. Because it is important for us to remove from our minds that there is any healthy implementation of pride that exists in this dunya in the sight of Allah. That كبر (kibr) is nasty in the sight of Allah, no matter what it is. That when you hear people say "go conquer the world," instead you conquer your نفس (nafs). Forget about that. Because the Prophet is saying there is no manifestation of that that is positive in the sight of Allah. Don't try to repackage pride. You have to crush your ego. You have to crush your pride and channel your desire.

Now why am I talking about this in the month of Sha'ban before we go to Ramadan? If Ramadan is about disciplining desires, then a prerequisite to even getting to that point where you can discipline your desires is to eliminate your ego and to crush your ego.

The Night of Mid-Sha'ban

We know that in the famous narration that is the most acceptable in regards to the midpoint of Sha'ban, that the Prophet said that in two nights or three nights depending on what part of the world you are in, Allah looks out to the entirety of His creation and Allah forgives all of His creation—إِلَّا مُشْرِكٌ أَوْ مُشَاحِنٌ—except for a person who associates a partner with Allah or someone who carries in their heart شحناء (shahnaa): rancor, spite, malice, grudges, hatred that consumes the heart so that I cannot connect with Allah.

Self-inflicted diseases that disqualify you before you even get to Ramadan from being forgiven. Because this is a ledge that you have to be able to cross before you can even make the claim to Allah that you want to be forgiven. And I know that for many people as you start getting to this point, you're like, "Yeah, but that person, and how could I possibly apologize to that person? Or how can I possibly forgive that person? Or how could I possibly reconcile with that person? No, I'm gonna double down because I don't want him to think, I don't want her to think." And in the process, your Shaitan is sitting there laughing at you before he goes to prison and saying, "Look at you, you're missing out on forgiveness."

We think of the angels in Laylatul Qadr—and indeed Laylatul Qadr is the greatest night of the year—look at you, you're not willing to cross even this bridge to even get to شهوة, to even get to disciplining the desires, because the ego is holding you down, that pride remains.

The Difference Between Desire and Pride

Sufyan ibn Uyayna said in a very powerful أثر (athar), in a very powerful statement: "Whoever sins out of desires, it is hoped that repentance will be very easy for that person." It's easy for that person. Why? Because Adam sinned—عَصَىٰ رَبَّهُ—he disobeyed his Lord in a desire, and Allah forgave him. It was very easy. He had the desire, the desire got out of control for one moment, one moment he slipped. But it was easy for him to come back to Allah because at no point did Adam couple that desire with pride. Immediately returned back to Allah:

"Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers."

Not "Oh Allah, why did You put me in the garden in the first place? Oh Allah, why did You put the tree there? Oh Allah, why did You create Iblis for me?" No, right away: "I messed up and I had no reason to mess up." It was شهوة, and he humbled himself to Allah in brokenness, in انكسار (inkisar). It's literally called in our books of تزكية: inkisar, brokenness before Allah. And I repent, Oh Allah. And He was forgiven.

Sufyan Ibn Uyayna says: "As for the person that sins against Allah out of a sense of pride, then I fear a curse on that person." Because Iblis sinned out of pride. Adam sinned out of desire. Iblis sinned out of pride, and he was cursed as a result of that.

If you compare by scale what Adam did versus what Iblis did at the action level, that's not the problem. Allah commanded Adam, "Don't touch that tree," and Adam touched that tree. Allah commanded Iblis to prostrate towards Adam—not towards Allah, towards Adam—and Iblis disobeyed Allah. He could have said, "I just lost it for a moment. It was anger. It was just something," and he could have returned to Allah. But remember the initial premise: channel your desires, crush your ego. Channel your desires, crush your pride. There is no room for even an atom's worth of pride.

Allah actually has no problem with the desire that He put inside of you, so long as you channel it towards that which is halal. You like to eat, you like to drink, you like to make money—make it in halal, spend it in halal. Anything that you like to do, anything that you desire, just channel it towards that which is pleasing to Allah. Make it conform. But when it comes to pride, when it comes to ego, Allah does not even allow an atom's worth of it inside of you.

Crossing the Threshold

And so now as you go into this month of Sha'ban and into Ramadan, and you're about to cross that midpoint and you want to come into that threshold, the first question you ask yourself is: am I willing to do that part first?

"O you who believe, submit yourself entirely and don't follow the footsteps of Shaitan."

The علماء (ulama) of تفسير (tafsir) mentioned: if you look at the two ayahs where Allah says "don't follow the footsteps of Shaitan," or two of these verses—"O you who believe, submit yourself entirely and don't follow the footsteps of Shaitan"—that is speaking about the insistence upon كبر, the insistence upon abstaining from submitting yourself to Allah. But also when Allah says "don't follow his footsteps" in regards to زنا (zina)—don't follow his footsteps in regards to adultery, don't follow his footsteps in regards to desires—he lays traps.

You know, if you lay traps in a house because you're trying to catch a particular animal, there's a particular type of poison that you put in the trap, a particular type of sticker depending on how big the animal is or what type of animal it is. This one catches raccoons, this one catches rats. Shaitan lays the footsteps tailored and customized towards you. He's had your algorithm since you were born, before TikTok and all these other things. He knew you, and he lays traps for you. But the footsteps of Shaitan in regards to pride are far more severe than the footsteps of Shaitan in regards to desire, because the turning back is easier.

Defining Pride

Now here's what I want you to also think about, building upon this concept. Someone might say, "Well, wait a minute, that's not fair, because I can't control my heart. So what is this pride that's being spoken about? Is Allah going to punish me for something that I'm struggling with on the inside?"

"Allah does not burden a soul beyond its scope."

So they said to the Prophet, "Ya Rasool Allah, what is كبر?" And the two things that the Prophet defined it are quantifiable things that you choose whether or not to act upon—not things that linger on the inside that you struggle with—that you choose whether or not to act upon.

"Pride is to reject the truth and to look down upon people." (Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 147)

غَمْطُ النَّاسِ (ghamtu an-nas): to condescend people in a very specific way, to believe that you are fundamentally better than someone, to look down upon them, to pass judgment upon them in a way that only Allah can—their final destination. Who told you this? To look down upon, which is Iblis's one half of Iblis's characteristics when he said, أَنَا خَيْرٌ مِّنْهُ, "I'm better than him." So to manifest the devilish pride of "I'm better than him"—don't ever look at your brother or sister and put yourself on a pedestal that Allah has not given to you, or send them to a hell that Allah has not given you control of. None of your business.

Now, does that mean that if I have some سوء ظن (su' adh-dhann) inside of me and some sinful feelings and I look at a person, I'm disgusted by them and I think this person is low, that that puts me in the same category? No. But if you don't check it from now and start removing even that سوء ظن and how you look at people in the first place and cleaning the lens by which you look at people, then you might one day fall into that. So that's one: غَمْطُ النَّاسِ.

بَطَرُ الْحَقِّ (batarul haqq): the rejection of truth. Very, very clear marker, very, very clear threshold. Allah when He tells us about those who seek forgiveness from Him:

"They said: we hear and we obey. Forgive us, O our Lord."

It is similar as the scholars mentioned. When Allah says:

"O you who believe, respond to Allah and the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life."

You want Allah to answer your call, you have to answer His call. So before you can approach Allah and ask Him for forgiveness, before you say غُفْرَانَكَ رَبَّنَا, are you saying سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا—"We hear and we obey"? Not like Bani Israel that said سَمِعْنَا وَعَصَيْنَا—"We hear and we disobey."

A Challenge to Us All

And this is a challenge to each and every single one of us, and I want you to hear it, and it might sting a little bit. If you do a hundred خَتْم (khatm, completion) of the Quran in Ramadan, but you reject a single ayah of that Quran, then those hundred خَتْم will do you nothing on the Day of Judgment. Will mean absolutely nothing for you on the Day of Judgment. You could read the Quran over and over and over again because you're just doing the سَمِعْنَا part—even Bani Israel did the سَمِعْنَا part. But سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا—"We hear and we obey"—every single ayah in the Quran is binding upon me. I submit.

I crushed that pride. I crushed that ego. Now, someone might say, "But part of truth—but something inside of me doesn't feel right with this ayah, something inside of me doesn't feel right with what Allah is saying here, something inside of me..." That's human. That's not what the Prophet is talking about. But if you're starting to show that, you better crush that from now before it materializes in outward rejection of what Allah says. Bani Israel didn't say that Allah didn't say it. No, "Allah said it, but I don't want to do it. I disobeyed." It was pride that ruined them and devastated them.

Practical Implementation

How do we operationalize this at a very practical level and we come back to that? Dear brothers and sisters, as we go into the month of Ramadan, especially as we're about to pass through the midpoint of Sha'ban, you need to clean your heart. Because the greatest place where pride will reside is in that relationship with people. That refusal to apologize, that refusal to forgive, that maintenance of a grudge that corrupts the heart to where Allah will not even look towards you in Ramadan. Because Allah says—the Prophet says—if three people don't talk to each other, or two people don't talk to each other for three days, the gates of Paradise are not open to them. Leave them alone until they fix what's between them.

Notice: one part of pride involves your relationship with Allah—سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا, "We hear and we obey." The other element of pride involves your relationship with the people.

Here's what I want you to think about, dear brothers and sisters: desire causes you to slip, pride causes you to stay down. Adam slipped, he got right back up. Iblis slipped, and he has been falling down ever since. The root of those two things comes back to this.

Examples of Crushing the Ego

Here's what I want you to think about, dear brothers and sisters: two examples.

When Umar ibn al-Khattab went into that house of his sister Fatimah and was ready to kill anyone on his way to the Prophet before he would kill the Prophet himself, and I want you to imagine the walk of Umar in the streets—if you saw Umar visually walking to the house of his sister with all that pride inside of him, his face, his tone, what his eyes look like, how heavy was the walk of Umar, banging on the door of his sister, walking in, acting like a lunatic—until:

Those few verses of Taha—if you could visually see Umar when he walked out of that house, his humility, the transformation, then going to the Prophet and his companions. And when he gets in the house, Hamza grabs Umar down. The Umar that walked into the house—his impulse would have been to get up and punch Hamza in the face: "Get off of me!" But Umar made a decision to break that barrier between him and Allah: أَسْلَمْتُ, "I have submitted."

None of us has more pride than what Umar had before he walked into that house. That's one.

The second instance I give you is, if not as rigorously authenticated, but the report of Abu Dharr: the second part of the report that after he made the racial remark, the racist remark, and the Prophet told him that "inside of you is some جاهلية (jahiliyyah)"—that he was willing, he put his face on the ground. This man that had some pride inside of him that caused him to throw a racist remark put his face in the ground and said, "Step on my face, and I won't raise this cheek from the ground until you step on it."

Why did he do that? Because that's the only way that you tame pride: you crush your ego. You remove it altogether. You don't give it an atom's worth of your time or in your heart.

Conclusion: Internal Accountability

When it comes to your desires, you channel it for the sake of Allah. So dear brothers and sisters, as we now pass the midpoint of Sha'ban, may Allah make us of those who are forgiven on that night. May Allah allow us to enter into Ramadan ready to be forgiven and ready to tame and control our desires for His sake.

I want you to do an internal محاسبة (muhasabah) of yourself over the next two days and categorize your impulses, categorize your sins. If it's of the nature of ego and pride, I need to get rid of this before Ramadan even starts and not give the Shaitan an atom's worth of it. If it's desire, how do I take this desire and channel it in a way that Allah will be pleased with me?

May Allah allow us to take everything that He has given to us and cause it to conform to that which is pleasing to Him. May Allah allow us to be forgiven in Sha'ban, forgiven in Ramadan, and most importantly to meet Him amongst those that are forgiven. May Allah allow us to be amongst those who hear and obey when He gives us what He gives us, and may Allah allow us to be amongst those who look to the Messenger of Allah as an example in Ramadan and outside of Ramadan, and may Allah grant us all حسن الخاتمة (husn al-khitam, a good ending), whether it is inside of Ramadan or outside of Ramadan.

Second Khutbah: Remembering Gaza

Dear brothers and sisters, before I make my du'a, I remind you as I always do about your brothers in Gaza, your brothers and sisters in Gaza. And you might wonder: isn't what they did, standing in the face of an enemy, pride? And the answer is absolutely not, because they did it only for the sake of Allah, seeking nothing but the pleasure of Allah.

There is a difference from عزة (izzah) in this deen, from having not pride but feeling the honor of this religion and the weight of its responsibility to stand up to the oppressor, and inflating yourself.

May Allah reward our brothers and sisters in Gaza who stood and stand like mountains in the face of a Zionist enemy and do it in a way that they show the people the greatness of Islam, and in the process Allah continues to dignify and honor them. And may Allah alleviate the suffering of our brothers and sisters throughout Palestine, throughout Sudan, in every single part of the world, in Yemen and beyond.