The Prize of Submission to Allah – Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan

This khutbah revolves fundamentally around one ayah absolute Hajj. This ayah is
something I’ve been thinking about for some time now I haven’t gotten a chance to give
khutbah about it or share any thoughts on it for some time and the reason I’ve been thinking
about this ayah because of the several conversations I’ve had either on social media or
meeting with people around the world in person, people coming up with their challenges and
questions and I wanted to first paint a picture with you of the kinds of conversation that I’m
talking about and then share with you why I fee; this ayah necessary for all of us to keep in
mind. You know we’re living in a time that is riddled a=with a lot of confusion. There are
lots of questions that we have of all kinds. For instance, people are going through difficult
trials in their personal life, and you know when believer is well acquainted with their dean
and they understand the book of Allah and they understand the comfort …. The heartfelt
counsel and the healing that the book of Allah offers that the sunnah of his messenger offers
SWT then they can find comfort in the deen of Allah but we’re living in a strange time. We
call it the information age but for most of us, we don’t really know much about our own
religion. We don’t really know how our book and our faith, and our scriptures is supposed to
give us healing. How it’s supposed to help us through difficult times. And so when that
happens, we are pray very easily through shaitan. And when people go through hard times
and shaitan brings all kinds of thoughts to them. You know when somebody’s sick and
they’re in the hospital and they’re getting all kind of waswas about faith itself. Questioning
Allah himself, questioning qadha itself you know. People lose a job, people have a hard time
in marriage. You know, there are difficulties in studies, whatever you’re going through or
maybe health related and it’s very easy to start questioning whether or not Allah even cares
why would he do this to me, what did I do to deserve this problems. I made so much dua,
Allah didn’t even answer me. You know he doesn’t even care. You know I prayed all of
Ramadhan, I even went to umrah and I still asked Allah to heal my child or to get rid of this
problem and I still have the problem and that’s in your personal life but that if and that’s hard
enough. But on top of that, there are crises in the world. There are many of you who have
family for instance, in Syria and places in Syria all over the world that are on fire. Where
family aren’t safe, children aren’t safe, where all kinds of human disaster is happening and
people are being killed it’s almost like fulfilling the word of Rasulullah SAW, where the
killer will not know why he’s killing and the killed will not know why they’re being killed.
And so in that kind of crisis, some people start not only questioning why is this happening in
my personal life, they start questioning why is all this crazy stuff happening in the world.
Where is Allah in all of this? Can’t he just fix these problems? It’s not like we’re not making
dua. You know every night and so many masjid around the world. …………………………
Muslims Islam give strength to the Muslims, give strength to Islam. Ya Allah ate us against
the enemies of the deen but it seems like the enemies are just getting better and better at
spilling more and more blood. So at that point, somebody gets really frustrated with their
religion and they start thinking there’s no point, why do I even make dua? What’s the point of
it? Nothing’s going to change and this is actually a very common problem. As a result of this
problem, a few things happen. For a number of people, they stop praying altogether, forget
dua, they even start making salah. They don’t care about prayer anymore, and the thing about
salah that it’s a what Allah describe is it’s a protection. ----------- The salah itself, in fact
prevents you from all kinds of shameless indecent behavior and it prevents you from all kinds
of evil. So when Allah says that and somebody abandoned salah, now they’re actually pray
directly to shaitan. All kind of bad things are going to be done and one won’t even realize
why they’re doing it. But then there are those who haven’t gone that far, they are actually still
holding on to the deen. They’re still holding on to it, but they’re holding on to it barely.
They’re barely barely holding on, you’re barely making it to Jummah prayer. It’s even that’s
a struggle for you and for some people even, you know it gets so bad that they can’t even
spend too much time inside of a masjid, or even they do, they start getting uncomfortable,
they just have to leave quickly, that happens. And so about those people I’ve met many such
people and I don’t think they’re evil people. I don’t think they’re evil people, I do think
however that certain fundamentals were not correct. Certain ideas, certain concepts, certain
feelings are misplaced. And because of those misplaced feelings, one goes down a very
dangerous path, all the way down to misguidance. In the one hand is in the beginning Allah
Azzawajalla talks about people who have an agenda to misguide other people. People who
want nothing better than to just argue against Allah without any knowledge. ------- Somebody
who argues about god, and debates and hates on religion, and hates on Allah, hates on the
Prophet SAW and has no knowledge why they’re arguing nor do they have any guidance nor
is it in light of any enlightened thinking, it’s just complaints for the sake of complaining. And
those kinds of people it’s not just enough that they are messed up, they can’t sit still, and they
mess until they mess somebody else up. They have misguided somebody else that’s not the
group of people I want to talk about today. It’s the one after that group. The ones that are on
the edge. Literally on the edge. That’s how the Quran describes them. ------- I would translate
that as among people there’s somebody who worships Allah at the very edge half is actually
the edge of a cliff. They are worshipping Allah at the edge of a club. What does that mean?
That means sometimes here sometimes there. They’re almost ready to fall off the cliff.
They’re not quite stable in their faith, they’re not quite stable in their worship. They’re not
settled, they have unanswered questions, unresolved emotions and so how does that manifest
itself Allah describes himself ------- if some good comes to them, if something good happens
in life, they’re doing better now. Okay okay Allah actually listen to this dog so I could pray
now. I feel better. Well in ----- and if some fitnah hits them, fitnah means some kind of trial
or something that tests their faith, it now literally means a test, so Allah did not put the
opposite of khair as shar. ----- So you wouldn’t expected Allah would say ---------------------
Nope ------- Why is that word important? Because Allah is letting us know that when
something bad happens to you, willing to believe in an in Allah that still loves, that still
cares, that is still AR Rahman, that is still AR Rahim, that is still AR Raziq, he’s still the
provider, he’s still the protector, he’s still the caretaker even though you can’t see it. Even
though in front of you, you see like you’ve got -hip pit- problems. And shaitan wants you to
question where is Allah? He wants you to ask that question. So, Allah wants to put you in that
circumstance to see how strong your faith is by the way this deen begins with --------- They
believe in Allah who they cannot see and by that doesn’t just mean we don’t see Allah. We
don’t see Allah’s plan either. Allah doesn’t lay out for you. Here’s how he’s going to have
you go about your day and here’s what you know you’re going through a difficulty now but
there’s another ease coming in a few weeks or a few years or what a few hours. We don’t
know. Is things going to get better in the next minute or things are going to take 10 years? We
just don’t know. Allah will not tell you that. ------. Allah is not going to be one to inform you
of the plans of the unseen. He doesn’t owe you that. All he’s asking you to do is trust him.
Trust him that he loves you more than you could possibly even love yourself. That he gets
nothing out punishing you or torturing you, you know what Allah says? -------- What’s Allah
going to get out of punishing you? Why do you think Allah is ought to get you? Allah
literally asked that question himself. So when you and I go through trials, that’s actually to
check and see because it’s easy to believe in Allah when things are good. It just it’s easier but
it’s harder to believe especially some of those names of Allah, the names of Allah that we
hold on to in difficult times. It’s harder to hold on to them when we get hit. You know, when
we believe Allah is the healer, that Allah owns all of Shefa, and his book is Shefa and then
you’re sitting in the hospital with a terminal mother, or terminal father, that’s harder to
believe. It becomes difficult on someone. I wanted to dedicated this whole body to two
things. One just fixing a little bit calibrating our thinking about dua itself. The vast majority
of the duas in the Quran. And the vast majorities of the dua in the Sunnah of the Prophet
SAW. You can find one common thing among them. The common thing among them is
they’re in a way, in some way or the other, you’re asking Allah to give you better ability, for
Allah to give you strength, for Allah to give you guidance, for Allah to give you forgiveness,
for Allah to give you gratitude. -------- Give me the ability, empower me so I can become
grateful. I’m going to give you an analogy to help you understand what I’m trying to get it. I
haven’t made my point yet. Somebody was out at sea and their ship hit a rock and the ship
sank. And this guy is holding a piece of wood and he’s out in sea and he’s making dua to
Allah. Now at that point, you could make two duas. “Ya Allah, transport me from here to an
island immediately. Make the rain stop, make the storm stop.” Or he could say “Ya Allah,
give me the strength to overcome this difficulty.” Now when he makes dua “Ya Allah, send
me a helicopter right away, pick me up into the sky and get me to an island,” and he makes
dua over and over, helicopter, helicopter, helicopter and no helicopter came, and then he says,
“Allah didn’t send a helicopter. I made so much dua for the one, that’s not fear. I’m forget it,
I’m not making dua anymore.” In other words, he’s making dua or for example, he wants the
ocean to turn into land as Allah has power to change anything to anything. “You made all of
this, so you could just convert this ocean into a land right now. So I mean, you turned
Ibrahim AS fire and you made it cool, so you could do that for me.” And it doesn’t turn, it’s
still the ocean and you’re still drowning slowly. You know, the point I’m trying to make is
often times we think the purpose of dua is to change the reality around us. We focus on
changing the reality around us. But when we study the dua in Quran, and the majority of the
duas in the Sunnah carefully, you’ll notice that the change actually you’re asking for is a
change in yourself. “Ya Allah, I’m in a difficult test, give me the ability to change the test”.
Just I’ll give you a simpler example. Some students is about to go take an exam, you can
make two kinds of dua. “Ya Allah, give me the ability to understand the subject better, let me
concentrate. Give me the ability to not be nervous while I’m taking the test, let me not get
lazy”. You dua as about yourself. Or “Ya Allah, make this I know it’s a medical school exam,
but yeah convert it into a second grade math exam for me. So I don’t have to have this
problem.” Either you want to change reality or you want to empower yourself. For most
people that weak in their faith, they don’t think about empowering or changing themselves.
They just want to change what? Reality around them. They keep asking Allah to change the
reality around them and does it change? No. And when it doesn’t change, they blame Allah.
They turn to Allah and say, “How come you didn’t change the world around me? How come
you didn’t turn everything on silver platter for me?” You want reality to submit to you, you
truly have to learn first to submit to Allah. And you don’t come to Allah when you need
something. You don’t just come to Allah when there’s a problem. You come to Allah all the
time. You submissive before Allah constantly. Until that attitude is developed and by the way
there will a time when the reality will submit around us. And that time is actually we meet
with Allah. They are going to have whatever they want. The problem is we want whatever we
want right now. Allah says “I’ll give you that. Right now you’re going to experience some
times of good and other times of test.” And the only reason he gives you a test is because he
wants you to pass so you can qualify for that Jannah. He wants you to go through these trials
because they will bring you closer to Him and that brings me to my next point before I finish
my ayah.

The purpose of difficulty. You know in this life we want certain things. A young man
wants to get married or a woman wants to get married. You want to have a good job,
you want to have a house. You want your family to be okay, you want to provide for
your children, you want to give them a good education, you want to get your kids
married off. There are things that we have priorities in our lives. There are things that
are on your mind right now, you have been thinking about it for the last month, the
last year, the last two years. The stuff that you want to accomplish in your life. Allah
Azzawajalla teaches one thing in his book. There’s one thing you can get it in this life
it’s more valuable than everything else. Everything else will be okay if you have this
one thing. And that one thing is a closeness to Allah, is being good to Allah and truly
developing a connection and a bond with him. The problem with people is when life
is good and only good, for a lot of people they get distracted. You go from a video
game to a movie to checking social media status to hanging out with friends to a
restaurant to sleep, Allah is out of the picture. There’s no Allah left. It’s just you
chilling. That’s all that is. And then times get tough, and the friends aren’t there, and
the game feel good anymore, and the car doesn’t look good because the health is
gone. None of those things mean anything anymore. All you care is I just want to be
out of this hospital bed. I could just walk again, that’d be fine. People are bringing
your favorite food and you don’t want to eat it. People want to show you a movie, you
don’t want to watch it. All these things that you lived for, everything that you went
from A to B to C to D, all these things are gone. I don’t care about none of them
because there’s no blessing Allah Azzawajalla diminished for you a little bit. And
then at that point, you have two options. If you are these people that are on cliff, on
the edge, you can start complaining to Allah, why did you do this to me? You just
didn’t like that I was so happy? Or you could earn the greatest treasure, you and I can
ever earn. And that is a humility and closeness to Allah. To actually realize even
when I was healthy, even when I was wealthy, even when I was doing well,
everything was fine, I didn’t realize that I was on life support. Allah is actually
providing me every moment, I didn’t earn anything on my own. None of it was
something I deserved. This is why Allah Azzawajalla would say ----. You can’t earn
something, it’s a favor from Allah. Whatever he’s given you, but you don’t realize it
at the time because it just comes easy. But then, you start begging Allah and asking
Allah and crying to Allah and praying to Allah like you’ve never prayed before.
Feeling closer to Him like you’ve never felt before and then Allah heals you. And you
realize those moments you had when nobody was not in the hospital room, you were
just by yourself crying to Allah or the sweetest moments of your entire life. Those are
the few moments of your life that you actually had nothing between you and Allah.
And those might be the moments that save you in the Akhirah. That might have been
the biggest gift Allah ever gave you is those moments. But some people who are on
the edge, when times get tough, he turns on his face, he turns his face away. What
does that mean? It means I want nothing to do with Allah. How can he abandon me?
How can he give me a hard time? Why would he do that to me? You see what
happens to and this is actually very easy to understand in our times. We live in a
hyper consumer society. So, everything comes quickly. You want to be entertained?
Just open an app on your phone. You want to buy something? Just order it on amazon.
It will show up at your door. Everything becomes effortless and everything becomes
instantaneous. You want something? It will come to you. You don’t have to go to, it
will come to you. Everything is quick, quick, quick. We’re used to getting served
now, we’re used to constantly getting served and if one order of yours is two days
late, three days late, you’re going to give it one star, thumb downs, bad rating, you’re
used to this now. And now you make dua to allah. You expect Allah to take care of
some of your problems, but you’re so used to getting done so quickly and
immediately. And when it doesn’t happen, we’re like this is a poor service, I need a
better customer service. You know I’m not going to go to Allah again and place an
order, because you’re a customer now, you’re entitled now. He turns his face from
Allah. You know he didn’t even listen to me; he didn’t solve my problem. Understand
that Allah Azzawajal has a plan for everybody. And just to give you a comparison, in
the case of Yaakob AS, who lost his child, Allah returned his child to him after years,
many many years. And the case of Musa AS, his mother also lost her child. She put
him in the water and He returned that child after a few hours because by the time the
child was hungry, the next feeding was from the same mother. Because he wouldn’t
drink from anybody else. What I am trying to get at, sometimes int this world,
sometimes Allah will answer that pain of yours, Allah will relieve it immediately.
Sometimes he will relieve it after many many years, but in all of it, there’s good in, all
of it there’s good. I love the story of Musa AS particularly because the think about all
those years this father cried, yes. The father almost lost his eyesight and eventually he
became blind from crying. But all this time, Yusuf was in a prison. Yusuf was being
held in, he was in a child servant. When he got older, he got thrown into prison, he
spent many of his years in the jail so either he served as a servant or he served as
inmate in jail. Not a good life. That’s not a good life. But at the end of it all, when he
interprets a dream of a king, and that dream means that the entire economy is going to
collapse in seven years, and people are going to due of starvation, the only one who
knows how to handle the crisis was Yusuf. Had he not being in the jail, he would have
never helped the king. You understand this, if Yusuf was with his father the whole
time, that never would have happened. But now that Yusuf is there to interpret the
dream and says, “I am the one who can take care of this responsibility.” When he does
that and he takes care of it, what happens next? What happens next is thousands if not
hundreds of thousands of parents don’t have to cry that their children died of
starvation. One father cries for seven years, but his tears Allah made them away of
saving thousands of families from crying because if he didn’t save that economy, and
he didn’t save that crop, the entire land would have been drought and people would
have dies of starvation and war would have all kind of crisis have happened.
Sometimes the difficulty you go through isn’t jus better for you, maybe through your
difficulty, you will become a Sadaqa for so many others. You don’t even know. You
don’t even know, but if you’re on the edge, you don’t have that kind of trust in Allah.
So you turn your back to Allah and Allah said “this is what I want to leave you with.”
When people do that, they have lost this world and the next. What does that mean?
This person lost this world and the next. If you can hold on, look, human beings were
made in toil and labor and difficulty. Whether you believe in Allah or not, you still
have challenges in life. Yes or no? Whether you believe in Allah or not, there is still
going to be tough to make a living. It’s still going to be tough a battle a sickness. You
know, this life it’s not for believers they get luxury and disbelievers get difficulty. No.
Allah made all human beings in struggles. That’s what he said. If you could go
through this struggle with Iman, then you will have the best of this life, and while you
are making the best of this life, you’ll be making the best of the next life too. You’ll
get a kind of peace that nobody else enjoys. You’re sick, and the disbeliever is sick,
but in your sickness, you’re still find peace but he. You’re in financial trouble,
they’re in financial trouble. Exactly the same kind of trouble, exactly the same kind of
hunger but your heart is still at ease. Allah is still giving you tranquility. Allah is till
rewarding you. Allah is still protecting you and they’re miserable. You made this life
worse for yourself too and on top of that you missed out on the next life. This is why
we ask Allah ------ . The qualification of Hasanah means, you ask Allah for goof
things in life. It means good on the outside and good on the inside. Good as in
beautiful, tasty, enjoyable from the outside and good for my next life. Actually good
for me in the long run. Building my Akhirah at the same time. This is ----- and
therefore --- and as a result, good in the next life. Something that’s beautiful and good
in the inside as well. So Allah Azzawajal says he lost this world and next, that is the
ultimate loss. The Quran uses three words for loss, - - -. The worst kind of loss. The
worst imaginable loss of all kinds of loss that Allah talks about. The worst of all
losses is this one; somebody who is actually a believer and lost their faith when times
got tough and as a result, they lost this life and the next life and they had it all. Allah
had everything laid out for them. Everything was laid out for them and so I leave with
the following; Allah Azzawajal will describe – Among believers he says, they will
inherit paradise. Strange word Allah didn’t say in many places. He says they will
enter paradise, but in suitable he says they will inherit paradise. Now you know that
inheritance is actually something that is handed down to you because your family
owned it already and that’s actually how the Prophert SAWS described it. Literally
there’s two explanations of it. Jannah was actually given to our father and so already
we’re qualified for it. Already. So we’re going to get it in Mirath. We’re going to
inherit it. But another beautiful hadith, that I write when I was studying the meaning
of Viratha and actually studying Firdaus, I thought incredible statement of the
Prophet SAWS, he said Allah Azzawajal made a house in Jannah, in Firdaus for those
is the highest Jannah Allah made a house in Firdaus for those every human being. Not
just a believer, every human being. But some people just didn’t want to go. So when
believers get there, there’s going to be a lot of empty homes and they’re going to
inherit those homes. May Allah Azzawajal makes us of those who inherit homes in
Jannah and not those homes remain empty. The house that Allah has built for you and
the house that Allah has built for me is already there. The expectation from Allah for
you to enter the highest place in Jannah is already there. Don’t mess it up. Don’t fall
off the edge. Don’t lose your faith in Allah. Just think these tough times as just Allah
wanting to see what price you’re willing to pay for that house. May Allah Azzawajal
helps us through our difficulties and never allow us to ever lose our faith in Him.