Remembrance & Restoration

Remembrance & Restoration

Opening Praise and Blessings

Praise Allah. We send peace and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, upon all of the Prophets, his community, his family, and those who follow them until the end of time.

The Purpose of the Prophet: Facilitation and Ease

Allah, in the end of the 7th chapter of the Qur'an, identifies that one of the great purposes of the Prophet is something that often times people have a problem with, believe it or not. And that is his job was to facilitate and ease the practice of religion for people, not to make it difficult or overly burdensome. And that's why Allah says:

That the Prophet freed them from the shackles that had kept them in bondage. And most commentators say this was the response to the Judaic community, who made so many things forbidden, which were not forbidden.

As Allah says:

That everything was permissible for the people of Israel, except for what they made forbidden to themselves.

The Prophet comes to remove this inclination by people who think that religion is synonymous with making things overly difficult and hard for themselves.

To remove the chains that had held them down.

The Prophet as a Facilitator and Teacher

And that's why the Prophet, he scolded his wife, when she became extremely upset and began to speak ill of someone. He said to her:

(Sahih Muslim)

That I was sent to facilitate and teach. I was sent as a teacher and the one who facilitates things for people.

And also, we know that Sayyidina Muhammad, when he sent Mu'adh to Yemen, one of the important pieces of advice he gave him was:

بَشِّرْ وَلَا تُنَفِّرْ

You know, bring glad tidings to people, and don't push people away.

The Balance Between Extremes

But unfortunately, until we're able to appreciate that being irresponsibly conservative and irrationally harsh, can be as indicative of a corrupted heart as being overly lax, and irresponsibly liberal, we will fail to achieve prophetic balance. And that's why the Prophet, in numerous places, he said:

خَيْرُ الْأُمُورِ أَوْسَاطُهَا

The best things are things that are moderate and in the middle. One of the great blessings of that moderation, is to facilitate a relationship with Allah.

Allah chastises those people who push people away from God:

يَصُدُّونَ عَن سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ

Who push people away from the truth. And that was that the Prophet was able to create multiple entry points for people, whether individually with their Lord, or community with their community.

The Greatest Act: Remembrance of Allah

And one of the greatest acts, which exemplifies the ease and beauty of prophethood, is the remembrance of Allah. That's why the Prophet, when the less fortunate came to him and said, "The rich people have surpassed us. Because they give charity, and they do all this good. We don't have the financial capacity." And he said,

"Shall I now tell you:

إِنَّ بِكُلِّ تَسْبِيحَةٍ صَدَقَةً

You know every time you say (سُبْحَانَ الله - subhanAllah) It's a charity.

وَكُلُّ تَهْلِيلَةٍ صَدَقَةً

وَكُلُّ تَكْبِيرَةٍ صَدَقَةً

And every time you say (الله أَكْبَرُ - Allahu Akbar) This is a form of your charity."

So the Prophet eases a relationship with good, and unites the community around khair.

The Best of All Deeds: Dhikr

And that's why one day he was sitting with his beloved companions, and he said:

أَلَا أُخْبِرُكُم بِخَيْرِ أَعْمَالِكُمْ وَأَزْكَاهَا عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ وَأَرْفَعِهَا فِي دَرَجَاتِكُمْ

You know, and this is a really beautiful way, in rhetoric. It's used to grab the attention of the person. It's very interesting when you say it in Arabic. It sounds strange, because you're waiting for the khabar. The Prophet delays the answer to the question to create a sense of anticipation amongst the people. So he says to them,

"Shall I not tell you the best thing you can do?" Like that's all I would need to hear. But he continues, and he says, "I'm gonna tell you the best thing you can do. The purest deed with your Lord. The thing that will raise you higher than any other deed with Allah."

So after saying that, they're like, "What is it?" But he keeps going.

وَخَيْرٍ لَّكُم مِّنْ إِنفَاقِ الذَّهَبِ وَالْوَرِقِ

And it's better than you spending gold and silver. "What is it, Ya Rasulullah?"

وَخَيْرٍ لَّكُم مِّنْ أَن تَلْقَوْا عَدُوَّكُمْ فَتَضْرِبُوا أَعْنَاقَهُمْ وَيَضْرِبُونَ أَعْنَاقَكُمْ

Better than you meeting your enemy and you killed them and they killed you. And then finally they say, "What is it, Ya Rasulullah?" He said:

ذِكْرُ اللَّهِ

The remembrance of Allah.

The Living and the Dead

Well Sayyidina Muhammad, in the narration of Sahih al-Bukhari, he said very beautifully:

(Sahih al-Bukhari) مَثَلُ الَّذِي يَذْكُرُ اللَّهَ وَالَّذِي لَا يَذْكُرُ اللَّهَ مَثَلُ الْحَيِّ وَالْمَيِّتِ

The person, the example of the one who remembers God, and the one who doesn't remember God, is like the example of the one who's alive and the one who's dead.

Islam Asking Much of Us

You know subhanallah, sometimes we feel like Islam may be asking a lot of us. This is like a normal feeling, especially as people grow in their religiosity. And once a man, he came to Sayyidina Nabi, and he said:

إِنَّ شَرَائِعَ الْإِسْلَامِ قَدْ كَثُرَتْ

He said, you know, there's so much to do now in Islam. Like early on when we first started, it was easy. But now it's a lot. This is in Medina. It's a lot of stuff to do.

فَأَخْبِرْنِي

So like tell me something that if I do it, I can hold onto it. Like I can do it, be rewarded, I'm good. Like tell me a thing if I do it, I'm good. All the things there are, it's become somewhat difficult for me to keep up with. What

he meant of course are the extra things, not the obligations.

He said, so is there something that I can do, to like, you know, keep the gas in the tank basically. And the Prophet said to him:

لَا يَزَالُ لِسَانُكَ رَطْبًا مِن ذِكْرِ اللَّهِ

Keep your tongue constantly moist with the remembrance of Allah.

A Personal Story of Transformation

You know sometimes we don't know where to start. It can get confusing. You know, going to the mosque like for the first time or coming into a spiritual space for the first time is kind of like going to the gym after a month of biryani and binging. You know, you walk into the gym and you don't really know where to start. You just want abs. But you don't know how to get there. So then you look for people that have abs. And then you do what they do. And then you become an Instagram clip. But the point is, it can get a little confusing.

I remember subhanallah when I was in college. That was a long time ago, mashallah. And that was when Lion King was a cartoon. And subhanallah, there was this brother who used to drink alcohol regularly. He was a really good brother, mashallah. But everyone has their own issues. Each and every one of us has our problems. So I had just converted. So I had the enthusiasm of the neophyte.

And he ran into me in the computer science building. And we started to have a conversation. And then he was like, you know, I was born Muslim. The whole you're better than me, you're a convert stuff. Like, OK, let's get beyond that. Allah knows who's better than who's better. He was like, "Man, I drink every day, bro. Like I grew up drinking in my household. He's like, where should I start?"

And I was like, "Man, can you pray?" He's like, "I'm not there yet, man." I said, "Can you do charity?" He's like, "I'm a college student." I said, "Can you remember Allah?" He's like, "I can say subhanallah 10 times a day."

Sounds strange, right? To us and maybe in righteous indignation, we would want to denounce this person. But let's understand he's trying to rebuild himself. He's trying to rebuild his iman. So I said, "OK, start with 10 subhanallah every day."

And then I didn't see him for like three or four months. And then one day I was in the masjid. It's a very small student mosque making wudu. And I looked up and this brother was making wudu, subhanallah. And one of the brothers walked in. And this is the problem sometimes in the community. We need to be careful what we say.

So he saw me making wudu, normal, convert guy. He's making wudu like a lot. But then he saw that guy and he was like, "You're in the mosque, man? Like, why are you here?" And I said, "Be careful what you say to people."

And then we sat down and he said, "You know, I started with 10 subhanallah. And then I went to 20. Then I went to 30. Then I went to 40. And then I realized in the time I'm doing 40 subhanallah, I can pray. So instead of saying subhanallah, I prayed fajr. And then from there I added dhuhr. And from there I added asr. From there I added maghrib. And from there I made my isha, alhamdulillah. And he said, I'm not gonna lie, I still slip. But when I slip, I go back to the subhanallah."

The Restorative Power of Dhikr

The point is when the Prophet, sent as a facilitator, has recognized for us, alhamdulillah, the restorative power of remembering Allah. The transformative power of dhikr. That's something coming out of Ramadan we can all continue to think about. If we struggle to keep up with many of the things that we may have struggled with, after Ramadan, we can always go back to remembering Allah.

Remembering Allah doesn't need a PhD from Al-Azhar. You don't have to be a mufti. You don't have to be a sheikh. You don't have to be a scholar. You don't have to be a righteous person. The remembrance of Allah is for everybody. So ask Allah to make us from those who remember Him.

أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا رَسُولِ اللَّهِ الَّذِي أَرْسَلَهُ اللَّهُ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى رَحْمَةً وَجَعَلَهُ حُجَّةً وَإِمَامًا وَصَلَوَاتُ اللَّهِ وَالسَّلَامُهُ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَأَصْحَابِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ

Second Khutbah: The Qur'an's Guidance on Dhikr

The Foundation: Qur'an and Dhikr

There are a lot of questions that people ask about remembering Allah. How to do it? What are some things I should be thinking about? But the Qur'an really serves as the foundational source of the imagination of the Muslim when it comes to religious issues. And there are numerous verses in the Qur'an that encourage us to think about the etiquettes of dhikr, encourage us to think about the importance of dhikr, remembering God, and then also portray for us the situations and times when we should be remembering Allah.

Dhikr as Restoration

It's important to note as we talked about in the first khutbah, the restorative process of dhikr when the community has let us down, when friends have let us down, when remembering the dunya has broken us, then we should heal ourselves by remembering the One who is the Lord of the dunya. That's why one of my teachers used to say, the sadness of Bani Adam, the sadness of people is in their remembrance of dunya and they're forgetting the hereafter.

So mashaAllah there's really these beautiful verses that add to the restorative power of dhikr that we'll go over rather quickly.

First Verse: Good Words Ascend to Allah

The first is the 10th verse of the 35th chapter. Allah says:

And this is talking about the etiquette of dhikr. Allah says that all good words ascend to Him. Most of the scholars said, the good word is لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ

That's why Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ he said:

The best thing I and the prophets ever said, was that there's no god except Allah.

MashaAllah after the prayers today we have a brother who's going to accept Islam. He's going to say لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله

So Allah said:

Good words ascend to Allah.

And those good words ascend to Allah. And those good words are raised by good deeds. Commenting on this, one of the early companions said that the dhikr should be followed by action. As if to say that, those remembrances of God ascend to the heavens. And there's a hadith that says they're delayed until the actions of the person are examined. And if there's few contradictions between what they say and what they do, then their deeds will be accepted by Allah.

Meaning the good that we do, that we follow up our remembrance with, will raise our dhikr to acceptance, alhamdulillah.

Second Verse: Surah Al-Ahzab and Social Problems

The second is in the end of Surah Al-Ahzab. And it's interesting, you know, Surah Al-Ahzab is the 33rd chapter of the Qur'an. And within the 33rd chapter of the Qur'an, we find so many social problems, right? There are so many things that happen in Surah Al-Ahzab. Particularly between the Prophet ﷺ, his adopted son, and his wife, Zaynab. And you see, so many things are happening. The battle of Khandaq, the trench is mentioned, and the hypocrites are mentioned in Surah Al-Ahzab.

So you have all of these social problems happening, yet constantly, Surah Al-Ahzab is saying:

Remember Allah, remember Allah, remember Allah.

Remember Allah. As if to say, one of the best ways to save yourself from social ratchetness, is to be with Allah.

And that's why, subhanAllah, we find something beautiful at the end of this chapter about the etiquettes of remembering Allah:

O believers, O faithful committed Muslims, be dutiful to God, be committed to Allah, direct your piety to Allah. They say, whoever directs themselves to dunya will always feel empty, even when they're full, subhanAllah. And whoever directs themselves to Allah, even if they only get a drop of ma'rifah, they will feel full and satisfied.

Means in this issue of Zayd and Zaynab and Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ, speak the truth. Imam Ibn Taymiyyah said, no, here it also means say لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله Remember Allah.

Intention and Action in Dhikr

So, we find in the beginning of the verse, the idea of taqwa, which means intention and deliberateness, coupled with remembering Allah. So, from these two verses, that I just mentioned, Surah Fatir and Surah Al-Ahzab, the idea of intention, deliberateness and remembrance. A commitment to being a better person as best I can. Following up my remembrance of Allah with good.

Allah says in the Quran:

Ya Allah, remember me, I'll remember you. The hadith says, if someone remembers me in secret, I remember them in secret. If they remember me in a group, I remember them in a greater gathering.

Some scholars said, فَاذْكُرُونِي remember me by obeying me. أَذْكُرْكُمْ I will remember you when I forgive you. Some said, remember me in hardship, I'll remember you in ease. Remember me in ease, I will remember you in hardship.

The Lonely Ones Who Excel

The last verses as we finish, because really the beauty of dhikr, it allows any of us to be close to Allah in a special way. That's why Allah, through the Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ, the Prophet said:

It's a very interesting term in Arabic مُفَرِّد is the person that's alone. So he said, the lonely ones, the lonely ones have exceeded us. The sahabah said, "Who are they?" He said:

Those who remember Allah abundantly.

And there's a beautiful commentary that maybe for many of us here in New York City, we're not from here. We're alone. We find ourselves alone. Shaytan starts to mess with us. "How can you be alone in the Big Apple? Like this is where you're supposed to make it shine." And that kind of stuff starts to be destructive. Because the dunya does that to us.

So some scholars said المُفَرِّد is the person who's lonely. And they fill their loneliness with the remembrance of Allah. Some said it's a widow or widower who they lost their family and they're alone. So they spend their time remembering Allah.

When Should We Remember Allah?

The last verse, because we don't have time, when should we remember God? And I have a problem with people who like overly engineer this stuff. Like you need to be sitting here, you need to be like this, you need to look like this, you need to say this, if you didn't say this name 45 times.

Interestingly enough, we find that moments of real profound remembrance of God in the Quran would not be found in any of the manuals that tell us how to make dhikr. Like for example, Yunus in the belly of a fish. Like that's not the prototypical moment to make dhikr. Sayyidina Musa when he feels rejected and he says, I'm faqir. Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ in the battlefield:

In the battlefield remember Allah. I appreciate the statement of Imam Al-Qushayri that we should make the remembrance of God when our heart feels inclined to that in any situation.

The Farmer's Market of Your Heart

That's why Abdullah bin Mas'ud said you should take advantage of the, I'm gonna translate it in our language, the farmer's market of your heart. You know the fresh organic fruit that your heart has given you. They ask, "What's that?" He said, when you feel you want to remember Allah. Take the benefit of that moment.

That's why Allah says:

Those who remember Allah sitting and standing and lying down. And those who remember Allah in the morning and the evening, all the time.

As Sayyida Aisha said, the Prophet ﷺ used to remember Allah in every situation.

All Creation Makes Dhikr

We'll finish by mentioning two points. If you want to understand how important dhikr is, you find that every creation makes dhikr. Even the jinn:

The angels:

Shayateen, jinn, angels make dhikr. But even the creation, although we don't understand, but everything around you is engaged in the remembrance of Allah. That's something that we all share, there's intersectionality between all creation, is la ilaha illallah and the remembrance of Allah.

And that's why the Prophet ﷺ, he said in Sahih Muslim, the hour will not start until Allah's name is no longer mentioned. Because the purpose of creation is ibadah. And the easiest form of ibadah, worship, is remembrance. So when remembrance stops, the purpose of creation stops, and then the hour starts.

Action Items: Making Wird

As we leave this khutbah, there's a few action items we can do. Just try everyday to make a little dhikr. Our scholars call it wird. Wird is the amount of water, the Bedouins needed to survive in the daytime. The wird of dhikr is the amount of water we need to satiate our hearts in the desert of dunya.

One of my teachers in Egypt, he used to speak Arabic, English Arabic, he said, "Who doesn't make the wird, becomes weird." Wow, Shaykh, that's kind of cool. Shaykh got bars.

So just try your best. Don't overburden yourself. Don't allow yourself to fall into a state of not having confidence. When Shaytan tells you, "Allah is not going to accept this from you," remind yourself that Shaytan is a liar. And know that Allah is more Kareem and more Raheem than Shaytan is Rajim.

The Old Woman's Prayer

In Lebanon, my wife's family, there's a great story of an old woman who, she spoke a very rural dialect. Very, you know, like Oklahoma-ish Arabic. And she, as she became older, she tried to learn how to recite the Quran properly and how to remember God properly and she just like, she couldn't, man. So she used to say:

Which means, "Allah, I don't know how to say this."

"But you know how to accept it. So accept it from me."

Closing: Don't Lose Confidence

So as you engage in these kind of things, don't allow yourself to lose confidence. May Allah bless us to be from those who remember Him. May Allah allow us to translate that remembrance into our actions through love and mercy and fidelity.

Supplications for the Ummah

We pray for our brothers and sisters in Sudan. We ask Allah to support them, grant them victory, and protect them. We pray also for our brothers and sisters in Iran. We ask Allah to protect them from another attempt at western aggression and imperialism. We ask Allah to guide the leaders of the Muslim world.

We remember Dr. Muhammad Morsi. We ask Allah to accept him inshaAllah, and to bring those who killed him to justice. We pray for our brothers and sisters in Palestine, in Syria, in Iraq, in Congo. We pray for our brothers and sisters in Chad. We pray for our brothers and sisters in Nigeria.

We ask Allah to bless all of our single mothers and fathers who are struggling to raise their children. May Allah give you the strength and the tawfiq. We ask Allah to bless our married couples who may be struggling with their marriages. May Allah rectify, give you hikmah and wisdom and bring love between you.

We ask Allah to bless those who are trying to come back to Allah, but continually stopped by their nafs and by the dunya. May Allah give you the strength. We pray for our young brothers and sisters, our students, anyone who feels a sense of loneliness or anxiety. May Allah alleviate that from you.

We ask Allah to bring us together with our Master and Beloved Prophet ﷺ, as we believed in him and did not see him.

Glory be to your Lord, Lord of Glory, above what they ascribe. Peace be upon the messengers. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.