Following the Commandments of Allah

Eid-ul-Adha Khutbah 1440/2019

Shaykh Yusha Evans

Opening Salutation

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Opening Khutbah (Khutbah al-Hajah)

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ

In Alhamdulillah, we praise Him, we ask for His help, we ask for His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him, and whomsoever He leads astray, none can guide him. And I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and He is alone, and has no partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared, and you will die except as Muslims.

O mankind, fear your Lord who has created you from a single soul, and has created from it its mate, and has spread from them many men and women. And fear Allah through Whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed, Allah is ever watching over you.

O you who have believed, fear Allah and say the right word. He will amend for you your deeds, and will forgive you your sins. And whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great triumph.

أَمَّا بَعْدُ، فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ وَخَيْرَ الْهَدْيِ هَدْيُ مُحَمَّدٍ وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ وَكُلُّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 867)

Indeed, the truest of speech is the Book of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad. And the worst of things are its innovations, and every innovation is an innovation, and every innovation is a misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.

Introduction

My dear brothers and sisters, it is a unique honor and pleasure to be able to celebrate this Yawm ul-Adha, Yawm ul-Eid, in congregation amongst us, amongst all of us who are living in the West.

We are able to celebrate Eid with happiness, with joy, with sincerity. We don't have to worry about whether we are going to be able to eat after this, or whether somebody is going to give us Qurbani. We don't have to worry about bombs being dropped over our heads this afternoon. Things broke out in Palestine just yesterday for Muslims trying to get together. So we have to thank Allah for the blessings that we do have.

Because blessings that you do not thank Allah for become curses upon you on the day of Qiyamah, or Allah can quickly take them away from you.

The Story of Ibrahim and Ismail

On this day of Eid, Eid ul-Adha, we remember the story of Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and his son Ismail (peace be upon him). And the amazing sacrifice that not that they had to make, but that they were willing to make. We know the story and how it ended when Allah saved him from having to sacrifice his son and replaced it with the ram which we celebrate today when you go and do Qurbani, when you go and do the slaughtering.

But there are three principles I wanted to, small principles that are major in implication, that I wanted to pull out from the story of Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and the story of his son Ismail.

First Principle: Sacrifice, Obedience, and Submission

The first of those is sacrifice and obedience and submission. When it comes to the obedience of Allah, this was first and foremost throughout the life of Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and his son Ismail.

This is something that they were known for. This is something that anyone who has been praised by Allah in the Quran, anyone that Allah jalla wa ala favors, are people of obedience. People whom when Allah has told them to do something, people whom when Allah has told them through their messenger to do something, they were as the companions were as Allah describes them. This was the entirety of their deen.

If you wanted to ask me what was the aqeedah of the sahaba? What was their overwhelming defining characteristic of their religion? Whatever Allah said for them to do, they did it. They did it. It was not for them to decide whether or not to do it or not.

That's us. That's us. We are that generation. We try to find a way to decide whether or not this is actually an order. Is this a command? Is this wajib? Is this mustahab? Is it sunnah? We try to find escape routes.

When describing istiqamah, he told us not to do. He said istiqamah is to stay on the straight path without wavering to the right or to the left. You stay on the path of Allah without following to the sides. And you do not try to seek routes of escape from the orders of Allah.

So they did not try to seek an out. But for them the only decision was how do we go about fulfilling this command? Allah has commanded us. How do we fulfill that order? And this was the ni'mah of Allah upon them that He raised up from amongst them the messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) who showed them through his life example, which would become the sunnah that we follow today, of how to fulfill the orders of Allah.

For them it was never a question of whether or not we're going to do it. Just how do we do it in a way that is pleasing to Allah. This is obedience. Obedience is to follow the orders of someone. Obedience is to see yourself as under the command of another, without question, without disregard.

This is what Allah asked from Ibrahim when He revealed to him in a dream to sacrifice his son. It was not about whether or not he was going to do it. It was about how am I going to fulfill this order. So the first thing he did, he went and told his son. He went and told his son Ismail that I've had a dream that I had to slaughter you. Allah revealed this to me. What do you say?

His response was similar to his father, the exact same.

Father, if you have been ordered to do this, then do it. Insha'Allah ta'ala, you will find me submissive. You will find me submissive.

Second Principle: Submission

Which brings me to the next point: Submission. Submission is the characteristic of the mu'mineen. It is the characteristic of the believers. That not only do they want to obey Allah and all of His orders, stay away from that which He has asked them to stay away from, go towards that which He has asked them to go towards, but they submit to it. Meaning that even if it might not make necessarily 100% sense to them right now.

And that happens to a lot of us as Muslims in our current age, especially our youth, subhanAllah. I've been learning this over the past 10 years, is that sometimes they don't want to blatantly disobey Allah. But they have trouble understanding. They have trouble realizing what Allah is wanting from them through these orders.

They've grown up in this paradigm of the West. They've grown up in this system which designs their brain to think a certain way. It designs your mind to see things under certain values. And then Allah has given you an

order that seems to completely go against every single bit of that. Every single bit of the base nature that is pushing you towards this paradigm of the West.

So they have trouble actualizing the orders of Allah. This is what I teach our youth. This is what submission means.

Submission means I don't necessarily need to understand it. I don't necessarily have to have all of the information. I don't necessarily have to have gone to 10 shaykhs to give me the same answer. No, once I realize this is clearly from Allah, Allah is commanding me. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has ordered me to pray 5 times a day at certain times and shown us those times of days. Then I submit to it even if it doesn't make sense to me now.

Because through that submission, when the heart submits, as Allah tells us in Surah al-Muzzammil:

Then remember the name of your Lord and submit to Him with a complete submission. Submit to Him with a full submission.

And He commands us:

O you who believe, enter into Islam completely, without leaving anything out. And do not follow the footsteps of Shaytan.

Because the footsteps of shaytan was that shaytan did not disbelieve in Allah. Shaytan knows who Allah is. Shaytan did not go out in complete rebellion against Allah. But what he did not understand, he could not submit to. And his arrogance took over.

What did not make sense to him was how Adam (peace be upon him) could be so much better than him when he was created from fire. His logic did not rationalize this concept. And so he rejected it.

Submission is that even if your logic is telling you one thing, even if your paradigm that you've grown up in is screaming another concept, if you know that this is the order of Allah and His messenger, you just submit to it. And through that submission, Allah softens the heart. Allah opens the heart to gain the understanding that even if I will never understand this, it is best for me because Allah knows what's best for me.

You could never explain to anyone. I've had people ask me, why do you guys pray five times a day? Not three. Not two. Not one. Why does it have to be five? There is no answer for this. We pray five times a day because our Lord has ordered us to pray five times a day.

And He knows what's best for us because He created us. He created us, therefore He understands the system better than us. Just like someone who creates a brand new computer, a brand new system that no one has ever seen, and they give you an operating system for it. They've given you that operating system because they created the computer. They know best the software that will run with it. And if you try to use another software, you're going to not only void the warranty, but you'll probably crash the entire machine.

This is the system of Allah. Islam is the operating system for humanity. Submitting to that is what being a Muslim means. Being a Muslim means one who submits. One who submits to Allah. It is a verb. It means action. It means you do something. Islam is the system to submit to Allah with sincerity, with obedience, with genuine, heartfelt obedience to Allah. Why? So that the end result can be peace. The end result can be peace.

I've unfortunately heard so many people traveling the world, and I've been to so many dawah conferences and lectures, that people will say Islam means peace. And then they just leave it at that. And I'm just telling them, you're not even giving them half the story. Because peace does not happen as a hope and a dream. It does not happen through osmosis that we pray for world peace, and all of a sudden there's peace.

No, Islam is a system which brings peace. It is through the Islam, it is through following the orders of Allah, it is through obeying Allah, the same way Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and his son did, it is through submitting to Allah that the peace comes.

First you get personal peace. You get peace right here. But even though Ibrahim (peace be upon him) had taken his son, had brought the knife, both of them had tranquility in their heart. There was no fear, there was no worry.

Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him), on the night when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) made his hijrah, and left him in his bed surrounded by assassins, Ali said about that night, "I never had more beautiful sleep. I never had more peace."

When Abu Bakr was in the cave with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and the Meccans, the enemy was right outside, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) told him, when he was worried and said, "Oh messenger of Allah, if they look they'll see us, if they look at their feet, they're gonna see us."

He said:

مَا ظَنُّكَ بِاثْنَيْنِ اللَّهُ ثَالِثُهُمَا

(Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3653)

"Oh Abu Bakr, what do you think about two people whose third is Allah?"

He said after that, a tranquility, a sakinah descended upon me that even in that hardest of conditions, I had peace and tranquility. This is Islam. It brings the peace.

So if we see a world that does not have peace, it seeks to bring peace in this world because of their Islam. That was what we see in the story of Ibrahim (peace be upon him) and Ismail. That's what we see from them. That's what we see them doing.