What Do You "Smell" Like?
By Omar Suleiman | 2026-01-06T17:34:56.127267+00:00 | Topic: Iman
What Do You "Smell" Like?
Khutbah by Omar Suleiman
Introduction
Dear brothers and sisters, if you looked at the title of the khutbah, you're probably already confused. What's your smell? And the khutbah is not about the (عُود - oud) or cologne or lack of cologne or (عُود - oud) that you use before coming to the Jumu'ah or the sunnah of a smell. It's actually about this entire concept of an odor and what spiritual implications that has.
Allah has given us different senses, has given us different ways in which we connect with the world around us in different ways in which we perceive things. And one of those strongest senses is this concept of odor, this concept of a smell. Because odor has a persuasion that is stronger than appearance, stronger than touch, stronger than a feeling.
It's a very strong sense that Allah has given to us. And there's a physical dimension to that and a spiritual dimension.
The Prophet's Love of Perfume
The Prophet (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) would never turn down a gift of perfume. And in our language, of course, in our common terminology, perfume usually refers to the sense of women and cologne to the sense of men. But it's actually to the composition of oil. They had very strong oils that they would use.
And the Prophet (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) used to love (طِيب - teeb). It was well known that he would never turn down a gift of (طِيب - teeb). And if you wanted to make the Prophet (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) happy with a gift, then your sure shot was to give the Prophet (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) a gift of perfume.
And the Prophet (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) would enjoy it. Umar ibn al-Khattab (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ - radi Allahu anhu) was usually not associated with the luxuries of this world or the goodness of this world. He said that if I was to spend half of my money on (طِيب - teeb) I would not consider it (إِسْرَاف - israf). I wouldn't consider it a form of extravagance.
Some of the great imams like Imam Abu Hanifa (رَحِمَهُ الله - rahimahullah), they said about Abu Hanifa that you could smell when he was approaching you from miles away. And you could smell after days if he was in a gathering after he had left it from the goodness of his scent.
So there is that element of it. And the sahaba and the righteous having this love of a good sense. And I assume (إن شاء الله - insha'Allah) the masjid is gonna smell a lot better next week after these first narrations because you'll take that sunnah (إن شاء الله - insha'Allah) seriously.
But please don't overdo it because the person next to you might not like that particular smell. But it's a goodness, right? (طِيب - teeb). And it falls under the (آثار - athar), the different types of traces and steps and senses that Allah has given to us.
The Spiritual Power of Smell
And it's most often likened to sight, to (البصر - al-basar). But smell does things that sight does not do. And now we start to segue into the spiritual of this. The power of smell is that it invokes memories in many ways. And so it's able to bring back a memory or to bring back something that is missing to the immediate detection of a person when they smell it. And you usually don't know it until it's been gone for some time.
And the greatest example of that is the story of Yaqub, Jacob and Yusuf (عليهما السلام - alayhimas salam) and Joseph:
"I can smell Yusuf."
His shirt was coming and before the shirt was placed on his face, there's a smell. I can smell the scent of Yusuf (عليه السلام - alayhis salam) after all of these years. There's something about it, something that really moved me.
There was a mother that lost her child. May Allah grant her Jannah and comfort and allow her to be reunited her entire family in (جنة الفردوس - jannatul firdous). And she said that one thing she never did was she never washed the blanket of her deceased child because she smells it. And every day it's like she has that scent, she has that memory. And it was very touching because I remember the story of Yusuf (عليه السلام - alayhis salam). So smell has a very powerful effect of bringing back something from the past.
The Scent of Paradise
The second most powerful element of smell is that it can invoke imagination the way that no other sense can. And so when a person, a believer, is passing away and leaving this world, the angels say to the believer:
That, receive the glad tidings of the mercy and the forgiveness and the pleasure and the good fragrance and sustenance of your Lord. A Lord that is not angry with you, a Lord that is not displeased with you.
And what do the angels carry? They carry a (كفن - kafan) that is scented with the musk of Jannah to comfort the soul as it comes out. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said that when you are placed in your grave, that Allah scents the grave with the scent of Jannah. And he said (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) that the scent:
That you could smell the scent of paradise from a journey of 500 years away. Imagine being on a journey and your entire life is that journey and you're proceeding to a singular destination for 500 years. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said the scent of Jannah is so strong, the scent of paradise is so strong that you could smell it from 500 years away if you were proceeding towards it, doing nothing but proceeding towards it for 500 years.
And (سبحان الله - subhanAllah) Imam al-Nawawi (رحمه الله - rahimahullah), he commented that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) often when he invoked punishments, he mentioned the deprivation of the smell of Jannah.
The Punishment of Being Deprived of Paradise's Scent
So all of the authentic hadith the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) talked about the oppressor. He said that whoever oppresses a dhimmi from one of (أهل الذمة - ahlul dhimma) a Christian or a Jew that is living under the protection of the Muslims, whoever oppresses or breaks the covenants with or kills a Christian or a Jew living in the land of the Muslims under the protection of (أهل الذمة - ahlul dhimma) that they would not smell the scent of paradise (Abu Dawud 3052). There are many hadith where the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) mentioned the punishment that you would not smell the scent of paradise.
And the Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) is hinting towards how incredible that smell is. And so imagine as you're leaving this world and what is that smell? Because the smell of Jannah is unlike the smell of any other scent. So it can invoke an imagination or tell you about something that you otherwise would not know.
The Analogy of Smell and Influence
Now what's the point of smell? And why are we talking about smell? Because most of the ahadith that bring up the analogy of smell bring it up in the capacity of influence, in the capacity of the mark that you leave on a gathering or the mark that a gathering leaves on you, the (أثر - athar) of it, the trace of it is in the smell. And that's where some of the more powerful implications of the sense come in because out of all of the things that are in a gathering, the smell cannot be detected at its source. It's very hard to detect the source of a smell, right? You can detect with your sight, you can detect with touch, but the source of a smell is hardest to find.
And so if there is a rotten smell, it's not always possible to detect the source of that rotten smell. And if there's a good smell, it's not always possible to detect its source. And so it's an interesting, you know, analogy that we find here in its presence in a gathering and the way the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) referred to its presence amongst a group of people.
The Nature of Smell
We also know about smell is that you often miss it when it's gone. And so you often don't know that you actually are detecting a smell until it's missing from you. Before Allah gives the baby the blessing of sight,
Allah gives the baby the blessing of smell. And when the baby cannot smell the mother, then the baby starts to feel a great sense of distress, right? So sometimes you don't know until it's gone, and then you start to miss it. And that's also one of the things that al-Hafidh ibn Rajab (رحمه الله - rahimahullah) brought up in this discussion of influence.
You also, as ibn Rajab (رحمه الله - rahimahullah) said beautifully, you know fake flowers from real flowers by the smell. So you can create flowers, or you can make flowers and mold them, and they can look beautiful as plastic, and they can look extremely beautiful, and they can look real, depending on if you use a certain type of cloth. But you know it from its smell, whether it's authentic or it's not. And the believer is the same way that you know the authenticity of the believer from the smell that emanates over time, as opposed to the appearance of that person.
The Quranic Analogy
So how did the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) conceive of this? And how do we actually take this into a practical consideration, or into practical consideration for ourselves? The first thing is the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) referred to smell in the way that we interact with the Quran. Ourselves and our interaction with divine revelation, and what that means for the world around us. He said, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam)
(Bukhari 5427)
The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said that the example of the believer who recites the Quran and acts upon it is like a citrus fruit. I smells good. And it tastes good too. So it's not deceiving you with its smell.
If you bite into it, it tastes good. If any of you are familiar with durian in Malaysia, the king of the fruits. It smells horrible, but if you can get past that smell and take a bite into it, it tastes good.
So the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) is saying the smell doesn't deceive you with good. It's a good smell. And if you bite into a citrus fruit, then its sweetness is there as well.
The Four Categories of Believers
: (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) And then he said
(Bukhari 5427)
And he said that the example of the believer who does not recite the Quran is like a date. It has no fragrance but a sweet taste. What the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) is talking about here in the recitation of the Quran is not its recitation on an individual level, but it's teaching. It's teaching and it's lesson.
It's teaching either in teaching people through the recitation or acting it, basically influencing with the Quran. So this believer has iman, they have practice on an individual level, but they're not giving the
Quran to the world around them. And so it's like a date. It has no smell, but if you bite into it, it's still sweet. At least it's not a hypocrite.
And then he said (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam),that the example of the hypocrite:
(Bukhari 5427)
And he said (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam),the example of a hypocrite that recites the Quran, so gives to the world but is deprived on the inside is like basil whose fragrance is sweet, but if you bite into it, it's bitter.
So it's the opposite in this situation. Its fragrance is sweet, but if you bite into it, it's bitter. And he said (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam)that the example:
(Bukhari 5427)
And the example of the hypocrite who does not even give of the Quran, recite of the Quran, is like the colocynth. It has no fragrance and it has a bitter taste as well. It gives off no sense and it has a bitter taste as well.
Now notice here that the taste is omitted because no one knows the actual inside except for who? Except for Allah. But the influence is restricted to the smell. What are you actually putting into the environment around you? And that should be an analogy for what you bring to the environment around you and from what the environment brings to you.
The Influence of Companions
Because the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said about choosing friends. He said about the good friend what? That the good friend is like the one who actually sells perfume. And so if you're around someone who is selling perfume, then even if you don't purchase the product, it rubs off on you and you smell good when you leave that place. So you smell good when you leave that person's company.
If you have a righteous friend, that person's influence naturally will rub off on you. You might not be able to detect exactly how. You might not even apply the things that made that righteous friend as good as they are.
I love the righteous though I don't consider myself amongst them. Maybe, maybe I'll just get their intercession on the day of judgment. Maybe I'll get some of their qualities. Maybe something will rub off on me of a standard of a goodness from that person. So you might not have got the actual product. And the way that Imam al-Nawawi (رحمه الله - rahimahullah) describes is that you might not actually start to practice the good deed that made that person a righteous person.
But the influence of that person rubbed off on you positively. And so you start to smell good. Whereas the influence of a bad friend is like a blacksmith.
The Negative Influence
Even if you don't purchase anything of it, you're still going to smell like smoke. And anyone that doesn't smoke but that has friends that smoke, and that came home one day and got in trouble with their parents because their parents thought they were smoking can tell you about this. The Prophet صلى الله :said عليه وسلم
(Abu Dawud 4833)
You're on the religion of your friends.
If you're around people that stink, if you're around people that have bad manners, if you're around people that don't have standards of worship or purpose, if you're around people that waste themselves and things that are of no benefit, even if you commit none of those sins, you will inevitably be influenced by them. You cannot continue to hang around a dumpster and not expect to smell like garbage at some point yourself. It's not about actually picking up a piece or putting it on you.
It's not about actually picking up the cigarette and smoking it. If you're around someone that acts in that, their character will rub off on you. You know what the scary thing about this is? You might not even know how bad you stink until someone else smells you.
Say, what is that smell? You go, oh. Because sometimes Ibn Qudamah said that a bad character is like a scorpion that's on your back. Someone has to point it out to you, a bad characteristic.
Someone has to point it out to you before it bites you. But it's there, right? So you don't even know how bad you smell until you're around people that don't have that same stench. And then they realize that you stink.
The Normalization of Bad Behavior
And then you start to wonder, hmm, you're in a gathering where backbiting has been normalized. ghiba. Everybody else is doing it. And then you start to hang around people that don't backbite as much and they look at you funny when you say something about someone. And you realize you smell bad. Something's wrong.
Because you've changed the environment. And so it's about how you smell and the smell of the people that you interact with. And there can be a good sense of this as well because there's a societal implication to this also.
The Story of Umar and the Travelers
Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه when he saw a group of people coming from Iraq in the middle of the night. And the people were wondering in Medina, who are these people traveling through Medina in the middle of the night in Iraq? So he called out to them and he said, where are you people coming from? And they said (مِنْ فَةٍ عَمِيقٍ - min fajjin 'ameeq) from a deep valley. He said, where to? (إِلَى الْبَيْتِ الْعَتِيقِ - ila al-baytil 'ateeq) to the Kaaba.
Umar رضي الله عنه said to the people around him, he said, these people know Quran. There's someone around them. There's the sense of Quran. They answer with Quran. Something is up with these people. So he starts asking them questions about the Quran.
Which ayah is the best of the Quran? They recite ayatul kursi immediately. They all know ayatul kursi. أَيُّ آيَةٍ أَرْجَىٰ فِي الْقُرْآنِ؟ Which ayah gives most hope in the Quran? They recite:
Say, oh my servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah.
أَيُّ الْقُرْآنِ أَحْكَمْ؟ What's the most decisive verse in the Quran?
Whoever does an atom's worth of good will see it. And whoever does an atom's worth of evil will see it. So he's asking these questions of the Quran.
And he's like, these people have an influence on them. That's there. I don't know who it is. But someone's there. And at the end of it, he goes, أَفِيكُمْ عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ مَسْعُودٍ؟ Is Ibn Mas'ud amongst you? They said, yeah, he's back here. He knew it.
He said, these people have been hanging out with an extraordinary scholar of Quran. Because their literacy of the Quran, the way that it naturally comes out of them, the way that it flows, something is up with these people. Something about them.
And to the point that he zoned in, he said, I wonder if Abdullah bin Mas'ud رضي الله عنه is amongst them. And they said,اللهم نعم, he's right back there. And Umar رضي الله عنه goes to him and embraces him and sits at his feet to absorb the Quran from Ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه whose entire life is dictated by the Quran.
The Spread of Fitna
So the societal impact. And you know what? Sometimes, sometimes in fitna, usually a fitna, a tribulation or dissension is started by one or two people. But the stink spreads so much that you don't even know where it started in the first place.
If you walk into a community that's been embroiled in fitna for many years, and you just see chaos, and everybody's fighting each other. You're like, where did this start? Who is the فتّان? Who is the one who started this all? Who's the one that dropped the stink bomb in here? And started this dissension and tribulation. But it's hard to detect the source.
I don't know who did it. I just see a bunch of people fighting at this point. And that's why Ali ibn Abi Talib :said رضي الله عنه
(Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 313)
Someone who quotes people's words to each other, not a liar, someone who quotes people's words to each other, sits in one gathering, listens to someone being spoken about, goes to another person and says, Hey man, he said this about you.
And then these people start to form cliques and groups and start to argue and fight. And he said that a person, an imam, this person would cause in one hour a fitna that would drag for months and months and months. Forwarding an email starts a fitna that drags for months and months and months and months.
And then everyone hates each other. You don't know where the source of that stink is at some point. But that's the power of one person to induce stink into a community.
Protection from Fitna
May Allah protect us. May Allah protect us from being people of fitna ourselves. Or from the outcome of fitna. اللهم آمين. Because it just takes one person to start that stink and then it covers everybody. And you don't know where the source of it is anymore.
It's just a bunch of people fighting at some point. So who is the source of this khair that has touched all of this community? That made everyone come together like this or that brought some good to them? And who is the source of this evilness, ugliness that leaves a stench behind that someone else walks in and says, This smells like a dumpster. This place stinks.
May Allah always give Valley Ranch Islamic Center a sweet smell. اللهم آمين. But this place, where did it come from? Can't detect the source.
The Example of Imam al-Shafi'i
And this is why the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم speaks of it in this way. سبحان اللهthere's a quote on the good side of things because Imam al-Shafi'i رحمه الله says that:
I wish that my knowledge would be spread.
But no one would say my name.
I wish my knowledge would spread all over the world. But no one would say my name. I wish that the people would benefit from it. But they would not ascribe it to me. And that's why Allah made him the person that he was and elevated him to the place that he was.
Because his interest was in spreading that goodness. Not in being named the source of that goodness. He wanted to leave behind that sweet scent that covered the people. That spread all over the world. But his interest was in that. And there's a saying that you can be much more influential if people are not aware of your influence.
You can be much more influential if people are not aware of your influence. Often the architects of good and the architects of evil are not known. And that makes them more effective at being architects of good or architects of evil.
Sometimes you have a person, of course the most influential man in history and the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمwho's both publicly and privately influential. But that the majority of that influence is generated privately, not publicly. And you can be much more influential if people are not aware of your influence.
The Memory of Good People
Now, just like with the mother whose child misses her when she goes away, oftentimes the good influence is not recognized until that sweet smell, the source of that sweet smell is no longer there. I'm going back to Southern California tomorrow to be with our brothers at the Institute of Knowledge. One of the greatest Muslim Americans that ever walked in this land, Dr. Ahmed Sakr رحمه الله تعالىwho would not be recognizable in the years before he passed away if he walked into this masjid and prayed dhuhr and asr, but has started and built institutions all throughout this country and went around and built communities, but used to go and pray dhuhr with the school children at IOK in those last few years of his death.
And when he passed away, سبحان اللهthis last year at the banquet, we honored him. And I actually talked about this similar idea of sense and I said this place smells like Dr. Ahmed Sakr رحمه الله bringing all of these people together. It smells like him سبحان الله
That's what he did. He brought a bunch of people together for khair. And then he left the sweet smell and then he went away. And then when he died, you miss that void, you miss that person because of the goodness that they had.
Individual Spiritual Implications
And lastly, dear brothers and sisters, on an individual level, Muhammad ibn al-Munkadir رحمه الله said:
If my sins smelled, no one would sit next to me. If my sins had a stench, no one would sit next to me.
Sufyan al-Thawri رحمه الله, he was asked, how do the angels know that a person is about to commit a good deed or a bad deed? Sufyan al-Thawri رحمه الله said that when a person is about to commit a good
deed, they emit a good smell, a sense of musk. And so the angels naturally start to congregate around that person before the good deed even happens. But even when you're about to commit a sin that you emit a rotten stench, and so the ملائكة start to go away from you and feel an aversion towards you even before you commit that sin, سبحان الله.
Dear brothers and sisters, if you could assign a smell to yourself and your influence, what you leave in a gathering of dhikr or goodness or remembrance, beneficial, beneficial action or speech, or the opposite. Do you stink or do you smell good? Do you rub off good on people or do people rub off evil on you? This is why this is all here for us to consider in the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and the saying of the salaf. Because eventually it all comes out.
Because as they say, you can dress up greed, but you can't stop the stench of it. You can dress something up only for some time, but the true influence of it, the true influence of it, eventually comes out and it rears its head in good or in evil.
The Response to Negativity
And the last thing I'll mention here from Imam Al-Shafi'i رحمه الله تعالى he talked about when the environment around you gets tough, and when people are aggressive with you and abusive of you because usually you stink because other people stink with you. When the world stinks, you're more likely to stink too, right? He said رحمه الله تعالى
He addresses me with words of disgrace, but I hate to respond to him in like manner. The more ignorant he proves, the more patient I become. Just like the incense, the more you burn it, the more its fragrance is released.
سبحان الله may Allah make us those people that the more negative the world becomes around us, the more negative people become towards us, the more pessimistic people around us become, the more people decline into disobedience, the more that we shine in character and obedience and worship and dhikr, and extend ourselves in the sight of Allah, in goodness, اللهم آمين.
Conclusion
May Allah make us amongst those that are pure on the inside and that emit good influence on the outside, that bring goodness and good smells to our homes, to our communities, wherever we may be.
And may Allah protect us from being rotten at the core, or putting a stench in our homes, or a stench in our communities, or influencing people in evil, or being influenced in evil. اللهم آمين.
I say this statement of mine, and I seek forgiveness from Allah for me and for you and for all Muslims, so seek forgiveness from Him. Indeed, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.