Poverty of the Soul - Corrected Khutba Transcript

Poverty of the Soul

By: Yasmin Mogahed

Opening

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

A'udhu billahi min ash-shaytani'r-rajim I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan.

Bismillahi'r-Rahmani'r-Rahim In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

As-salatu wa's-salamu 'ala Rasulillahi wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in Peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and upon his family and companions.

Man yahdihillahu fala mudilla lahu, wa man yudlil fala hadiya lah Whoever Allah guides is not misguided, and whoever He misguides is not guided.

Wa ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah wahdahu la sharika lah, wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan 'abduhu wa rasuluh And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, and no partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

Rabbi ashrah li sadri wa yassir li amri wahlul 'uqdatan min lisani yafqahu qawli My Lord, explain to my heart, and ease my matter, and heal my tongue, so that I may understand my speech.

"O my Lord! Open for me my chest (grant me self-confidence, contentment, and boldness)"

"And ease my task for me;"

"And remove the impediment from my speech,"

"So they may understand what I say,"

Introduction to Poverty of the Soul

So today I'm going to talk about poverty, but then you already knew that. Yet the poverty that I speak about today isn't the apparent kind. You see, before we can begin to talk about a concept, we need a criterion and we need definitions. In speaking about poverty, we need to understand that there is external poverty and there is internal poverty.

And one is far more dangerous than the other. Because while one form of poverty determines how we live temporarily, the other form determines how we live eternally. Today I will speak on the latter form.

The Nature of Internal Poverty

Internal poverty is the poverty of the soul. It describes the unmoved soul. The soul that has been created, but has still failed to realize why. It is the soul that lives a purposeless life. The heart that beats, but has already died. Because while the body cries and bleeds and feels pain from the material world, the soul is untouched by these things.

There is only one thing that can cut or stab or impoverish the soul. There is only one thing that can kill it, to deprive it of its only true need, to be close to its originator, to be near God. Spiritual deprivation is the true impoverishment.

The Prophetic Definition of True Poverty

We can see this for example through the prophetic tradition narrated by Imam Muslim. One day the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) asked his companions:

"Atadruna ma'l-muflis?" "Do you know who the poor person is?"

The companions replied that a poor person is a person who has no money or property. The Prophet (صلی الله عليه وسلم) replied:

(https://sunnah.com/search?q=muslim+2581)

"The poor person from among my ummah is one who will come on the Day of Judgment with a good record of salah and siyam and zakah, obligatory charity, but also has abused somebody, slandered someone, stolen the wealth of another, has killed or beaten someone. Then all of the oppressed persons will receive a portion of the aggressor's good deeds. Should they fall short of his aggression, then the aggrieved person's sins and faults will be transferred from them to him and he will be thrown into the fire."

In this hadith, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) explains that the true poverty is not one's lack of wealth in this life. True poverty is standing poor on the Day of Judgment.

The Temporary vs. The Eternal

Despite this reality, we continue to live this life, feeding our bodies but starving our souls. The sad irony of this focus is that the body we tend to is only temporary, while the soul that we neglect is eternal.

When a body dies, we cry, but the death of a body is not true death. It's only the removing of a shell and the movement from one realm to a truer realm. We weep for the departing bodies, but our hearts remain unmoved by those bodies which are alive, but whose hearts and souls have died because of the alienation from that which gives them life, God.

What Impoverishes the Heart

What impoverishes and kills the heart? It is allowing the heart to love anything as it should only love God. See, the heart was created with a very particular nature and for a very particular purpose. When you fail to use any created thing for the purpose for which it was created, it breaks. It drowns. It starves. It dies.

The heart was created by and for God. The heart was created to know and love God. The heart was created to be given to God, to be filled with God. The heart that is given to or filled by any other thing suffers the most painful impoverishment and death.

The Metaphor of the Heart as a Boat

The human heart is like a boat in the ocean of dunya. The boat that allows the ocean water to enter breaks and then drowns. The human heart that allows this dunya to enter also breaks and drowns. And it becomes owned. Owned by this life.

Owned by our gadgets, our Facebook, our jobs, the distractions, the fashion trends, the marketing tools, the money, the power, the status. The heart that is owned by this life is a prisoner of the worst kind. The heart that is owned by any other master than the master of masters is the weakest of all slaves.

That is true oppression, true death, true poverty.

Forms of Enslavement

As human beings, we enslave ourselves to different things. Some of us here are enslaved to money. Some of us have enslaved our hearts to other people. We love them as we should only love Allah. Some of us are enslaved to status or to our careers.

Self-Examination Questions

I tell you to ask yourself, what do you love most? Most of the people in this room will say with their tongues that they love God most. We say this with our tongues. We say this in our minds. But our hearts, our actions say otherwise.

How do you know? Ask yourself, what is your refuge? When you're most broken, where do you go? When you're afraid, where do you hide? When you need, who do you ask? What do you fear most? What do you stay up at night worrying about? Who, what makes you cry most? What do you think about most? What occupies your mind in Salah? Is it really God? Is it really Allah on your mind most? Is it really your fear of standing before him that makes you cry in your bed?

No, probably not. It's the person who left you, the money you lost, the career you couldn't have, the raise you didn't get.

What are you afraid of most? Just the thought of losing what thing causes you so much anxiety that you feel it physically. Is it your husband? Is it your wife? Your money? Your job? Is it your image? Is it your figure? What is it?

The Choice Between Masters

When you're given a choice, what do you do? When Allah says to dress and act a certain way and society says the opposite, which do you choose? Who defines beauty for you? Who defines success? When Allah says that interest is haram, but your financial ambitions command otherwise, when society's standards for the size of your home or the brand of your car command otherwise, what do you choose? Who defines richness? Who defines poverty? What type of poverty are you most afraid of?

The truth is we choose what we love most. When we love money most, that's what we choose. When we love people more, they fill our hearts. We think of them most. Our life loses center.

The Unstable Orbit of Creation

We leave the orbit of the Creator and we enter the orbit of the creation, a painful and unstable orbit. In the orbit of the creation, we rise and fall with the waves of the creation, the waves of praise and criticism. Our standards for success and failure come from the creation, from society. The standard for richness, the standard for poverty comes from the creation, from society.

But the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) gives us a different standard. He says:

(https://sunnah.com/bukhari:6446)

"Laysa'l-ghina 'an kathrat al-'arad wa lakin al-ghina ghina'n-nafs" "Richness is not having many possessions. Rather, true richness is the richness of the soul."

The Ocean Floor: A Place of Transformation

But how do we avoid true impoverishment of the soul? No one likes to fall. And few people would ever choose to drown. But in struggling through the ocean of this life, sometimes it's so hard not to let the

world in. Sometimes the ocean does enter us. The dunya does seep into our hearts.

And like the boat that breaks, when dunya enters, it shatters our heart. It shatters the boat. If you allow this life to own your heart, you will sink down to the depth of the sea. You will touch the ocean floor, and you will feel as though you are at your lowest point, entrapped by your sins and the love of this life. You will feel broken, surrounded by darkness. That's the amazing thing about the floor of the ocean. No light enters it.

But this dark place is not the end. Remember that the darkness of night precedes the dawn. And as long as your heart still beats, there is, this does not have to be the death of it. You don't have to die here. Sometimes the ocean floor is only a stop in your journey.

And it's when you're at your lowest point that you're faced with a choice. You can stay there at the bottom until you drown, or you can gather pearls and rise back up, stronger from the swim and richer from the jewels. If you seek him, God can raise you up and replace the darkness of the ocean with the light of his sun.

Transformation Through Fall

He can transform what was once your greatest weakness into your greatest strength and a means of growth, purification, and redemption. Know that transformation sometimes begins with a fall. So never curse the fall. The ground is where humility lives. Take it, learn it, breathe it in, and then come back stronger, humbler, and more aware of your need for him. Come back having seen your own nothingness and his greatness.

Know that if you have seen that reality, you have seen much. For the one who is truly deceived is the one who sees his own self but not him. Deprived is the one who has never witnessed his own desperate need for God. Reliant on his own means, he forgets that the means, his own soul, and everything else in existence are his creation.

Seek God to bring you back, for when he does, he will rebuild your ship. The heart that you thought was forever damaged will be mended. What was shattered will be whole again. Know that only he can do this, so seek him. And when he saves you, beg forgiveness for the fall. Feel remorse over it, but not despair.

The Wisdom of Ibn al-Qayyim

As Ibn al-Qayyim says, Shaytan rejoiced when Adam came out of paradise, but he did not know that when a diver sinks into the sea, he collects pearls and then rises again.

There is a powerful and amazing thing about tawbah, repentance, and turning back to Allah. We are told that it polishes the heart. What's amazing about a polish is that it does not just clean, it makes the object that it polished even shinier than it was before it got dirty. If you come back to God, seek his forgiveness,

and refocus your life and heart on him, you have the potential to be even richer than if you had never fallen at all.

Sometimes falling and coming back gives you wisdom and humility that you may never otherwise have had. Ibn al-Qayyim writes:

One of the Salaf, the pious predecessors, said, "Indeed, a servant commits a sin by which he enters paradise, and another does a good deed by which he enters the fire." It was asked, "How is that?" So he replied, "The one who committed the sin constantly thinks about it, which causes him to fear it, regret it, weep over it, and feel ashamed in front of his Lord, the Most High, due to it. He stands before Allah brokenhearted and with his head lowered in humility. So this sin is more beneficial to him than doing many acts of obedience, since it caused him to have humility and humbleness, which leads to the servant's happiness and success, to the extent that this sin becomes the cause for him entering paradise.

And as for the doer of good, then he does not consider the good a favor from his Lord upon him. Rather, he becomes arrogant and amazed with himself, saying, 'I have achieved such and such and such and such.' So this further increases him in self-adulation, pride, and arrogance, such that this becomes the cause for his destruction."

Allah's Mercy and Hope

Allah reminds us in the Qur'an never to lose hope. He says:

"Qul ya 'ibadiya'lladhina asrafu 'ala anfusihim la taqnatu min rahmatillahi innallaha yaghfiru'dh-dhunuba jami'an innahu huwa'l-ghafuru'r-rahim" "Say, O My servants who have transgressed against their souls, despair not of the mercy of Allah, for Allah forgives all sins, for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."

Escaping the True Poverty

But how can we fill our hearts with the true richness? How do we escape the constant bombardment from every direction, commanding us to worship other things, commanding us to take idols of the heart and love them as we should only love Him? How do we escape the true poverty of allowing any competitor into our hearts? How do we escape the poverty of enslaving ourselves to another deity, which Allah speaks about in the Qur'an, when He says:

"Wa mina'n-nasi man yattakhidhu min dunillahi andadan yuhibbunahum ka-hubbillahi wa'lladhina amanu ashaddu hubban lillah" "Yet there are men who take for worship others besides Allah as equal with Him. They love them as they love Allah. But those of faith are overflowing in their love for Allah."

To escape the true poverty, we need to be overflowing in our love for Allah.

"Ashaddu hubban lillah" Your strongest love should be for God.

The Path to Loving Allah

But you can't love someone you don't know. You need to know Him. You don't know someone that you don't speak to. Speak to Him. Ask of Him. And you can't love someone you don't remember.

Remember Him. And remember Him often.

Call to Rise

And so this is a call to all those who have been enslaved by the tyranny of the self and imprisoned in the dungeon of the nafs and desires. It's a call to all those who have entered the ocean of dunya, who have sunk into its depths and become entrapped by its crashing waves. Rise up. Rise up to the air, to the real world, above the prison of this ocean