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Don’t be Hasty | Khutbah by Sh. Ibrahim Hindy
In this khutbah, Sh. Ibrahim Hindy discusses the importance of being calm rather than hasty in all aspects of our lives. Being rash and hasty can bring about unwanted consequences that we may regret later.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. In the year of the delegation, Aam al-Wafud, in which delegations of people across Arabia came to meet our Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, and to accept Islam at his hands. One delegation, the delegation of Banu Abdul Qais, they arrived in Medina, and when they arrived, they immediately went to see the Prophet, and to pledge allegiance to him, and to accept Islam. And by immediately, I mean immediately they left behind even their camels, and their horses, and they did not even tie their steeds. And just as they arrived, they went to see the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam. And their clothes, we can imagine, were dusty from the travel, from the trip that they were on. And their bodies were sweaty from the travel that they had been embarking on. But they went right away to see the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam. Except one man amongst them, his name Al-Ashaj, he stayed behind with his caravan, and he tied his camel, and he changed his clothing, and he prepared himself before he went to meet the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam. So when he entered the masjid, he entered with nice clothing, and he was perfumed, and his hair was well kept. And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, sees this man enter, and they say to the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, this man is part of our delegation, but he stayed behind to prepare himself before arriving. So you can imagine the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, sees him, and he's well dressed, and he's taking care of himself, in contrast to everyone else who was there. So the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, calls this man next to him,
and he sits next to the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam. And then the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, tells him, Inna feeka khislatan yuhibbuhum Allah. He said, you have two qualities that God loves. And this man, he just entered Islam moments ago, so he tells the Prophet, what are these two qualities that I have? The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, said, Al-hilm wal-ana. It is forbearance, and it is calmness. Hilm is forbearance to restrict oneself when you are angry, or when your emotions may overcome you. But the scholars, the Arabs in fact, used to use the word hilm to mean al-aqd, to mean intellect. And Imam al-Nawawi and other scholars, they interpreted this hadith, that when the Prophet said al-hilm here, he means you have intellect, you have thought, you are intelligent. And al-ana is calmness, to slow down literally, to wait. And so the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, is saying that you have composure and poise. You are thinking through the things that you do. And these qualities that the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, mentions are qualities that are the opposite of al-ajl, of haste. And Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, criticizes haste in the Quran, even though the quality of haste is something that is in the nature of most people, if not all people. Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, says, khuliq al-insanu min ajl. Man has been created out of haste. Not that we are created in haste, but out of haste. Haste is within us. We are created of haste. sa'ulikum ayati falatasta'ajiloon. Then Allah says, I will show you of my signs, so do not impatiently urge me. Allah azawajal is threatening here. sa'ulikum ayati, I will show you my signs. It is a threat to who?
To those who are so hasty, even in their arrogance and in the rejection of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah azawajal also mentions in the Quran, wayadu al-insana bil sharri duaa'ahu bil khair, wakana al-insanu ajula. That man supplicates for evil, just as he supplicates for good. Or he supplicates for evil as though he is supplicating for good. wakana al-insanu ajula, and indeed, man is ever hasty. What does this mean? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying, we pray sometimes, we make dua'a sometimes, for things that are evil, and we think that they are good. How often we begged Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, O Allah, give me this job. I need this job, please give me this job. But we don't realize that job is evil for us. And if we got it, it would have been evil for our livelihood. And evil for everything, made us miserable in our life. How many times we made dua'a to Allah, O Allah, please let me go on this trip. O Allah, please let me marry this person or that person. Not knowing that what we are praying for is actually evil. And then when Allah doesn't give us what we want, some people become so hasty, they even get angry at Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I kept asking you for this and you never gave it to me. Allah says wayadu al-insanu bil sharri duaa'ahu bil khair. That man will be praying for evil as though he is praying for good. Wa kan al-insanu ajula, but man is ever hasty. And so Allah azawajal criticizes haste. And he praises forbearance and calmness. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Atta'anni min Allah, wa la ajala min ash-shaytaan. He said calmness comes from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, composure comes from Allah, and haste comes from shaytaan. Meaning calmness and composure, thinking things through, these are qualities that will bring you closer to Allah azawajal. And haste, not thinking things, reacting with emotion,
these are qualities that will bring us closer to shaytaan. In the hadith that we mentioned in the beginning of al-ashaj, another narration of that same hadith, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said to him, Allah has given you calmness and composure. At-tu'ada, literally to slow down and composure. And so al-ashaj asked the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, O Messenger of Allah, was I created with these qualities, or were they instilled in me? And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, No, rather they were instilled in you. And so al-ashaj said, Alhamdulillah, all praise belongs to the one who instilled in me the qualities that he loves, that he and his Messenger love. And so this shows us that these qualities can be put in us, even if we were created without them. Even if we were created to be very emotional, even if we were created and we are very hasty and have a quickness to anger, we can instill these qualities within us. And throughout the Qur'an and Sunnah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala presents us with stories and scenarios which show us calmness or haste in order for us to realize their importance and to tame our haste. For example, in the story of Musa alayhi salam, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promised Musa a time in which they would be in seclusion. When Musa alayhi salam goes to Jabal al-Tur and he is in seclusion with Allah azza wa jal. And Musa is so eager to be in the company with Allah, to have this private audience with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So he leaves his people early and he goes to be in seclusion with Allah azza wa jal. And when he is leaving Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Jabal al-Tur in this meeting that they have, Allah asks him, وما أعجلك عن قومك يا موسى
What made you hasty to go away from your people, O Musa? And Musa alayhi salam says قَالَ هُمْ أُولَٰئِيَ عَلَىٰ أَثَرِي وَعَجِلْتُ إِلَيْكَ رَبِّ لِتَرْضَى He said, O Allah, my people are in a hurry. رَبِّ لِتَرْضَى He said, O Allah, my people are close on my footsteps. What does it mean they are close on my footsteps? It could mean physically they are close by to me, I can go to them quickly, they're not far away from me. Or it could mean spiritually, they're iman, they're close on my footsteps, they're on my sunnah, they're not far away from me. وَعَجِلْتُ إِلَيْكَ And I was hasty to you, O Allah, so that you will be pleased with me. Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells Prophet Musa, قَالَ فَإِنَّا قَدْ فَتَنَّا قَوْمَكَ مِنْ بَعْدِكَ وَأَضَلَّهُمْ السَّامِرِي We tested your people after you left, and As-Samiri led them astray. As-Samiri came with the golden calf, and he presented it to Bani Israel, and many of them began to worship the golden calf, and they followed idolatry. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is mentioning to him, because you were hasty, and you left your people before iman was firm in their hearts, while their iman was still shaky, you left. But had you not been hasty, and you waited a little bit longer, when their iman was firmer, perhaps they would not have been fallen into this test. Likewise, we see in the story of Musa and Al-Khidr, when Musa alayhi salam goes to meet Al-Khidr, and he tells him, I want to be in your company, because he knows he's a man of knowledge, and Al-Khidr tells him, إِنَّكَ لَمْ تَسْتَطِيعْ مَعَيَ الصَّبْرَةَ You will not be patient with me, it will be too difficult for you to do. And Musa insists, but what happens throughout the story, every time there's an issue, Musa's impatient, and he's hasty, and he questions Al-Khidr, he says, how could you do this? And Al-Khidr is telling him, didn't I tell you you won't be patient? Even until the last, or the second last, after the second time, when he kills the boy, Musa alayhi salam tells him,
if I question you one more time, then I will separate from you. And the Prophet ﷺ comments about this, and he says, رحم الله أخي موسى May Allah have mercy on my brother Musa. If he was just patient, اولو لم يستعجل If he just didn't get hasty, we would have learned العجائد, we would have learned the wondrous stories from Musa and Al-Khidr. But because he was hasty, and he kept questioning Al-Khidr, and he put this condition on himself, likewise we see in the story of Yusuf alayhi salam. Yusuf is in prison, as we know the story, and the king has the dream, and nobody is able to interpret the dream except for Yusuf. And when this happens, وقال الملك أتوني به The king says bring me him, bring me him. So the messenger comes to Yusuf alayhi salam, and what does Yusuf say to him? ارجع, go back, go look into the case of the women who cut their hands. Meaning go investigate my case, go see what happened about me. Our Prophet ﷺ said, I am amazed by the patience of Yusuf, because had I been in prison for as long as he was in prison, I may have left as soon as the messenger came. And our Prophet ﷺ is saying this for us to understand how difficult it is to be in prison. And yet, what does Yusuf do? He has his composure. He waits. He says I don't want to leave prison, and there's a question mark on who I am. I can't be a messenger and a prophet, and I call people to Islam, and they say wait, didn't you go to prison? Didn't this happen to you? No, I want to leave prison, not a free man, but an innocent man. So he waits, and he says no, go back and investigate my case. This is a ta'anni, this is calmness, this is waiting, this is thinking things through. Our Prophet ﷺ said, As-Samt al-Hasan wa tu'ada wa al-Iqtisad
juz'un min arba'ati wa ashrina juz'an min an-nubuwa. He said As-Samt al-Hasan, which is the beautiful way, meaning the person dresses beautiful, they speak with beautiful words, they have beautiful akhlaq, he said this beautiful way, and al-tu'ada, which is calmness, and waiting, and thinking things through, and al-Iqtisad, the moderation, that you take the moderate path, you don't take the path of extremes. He said these are one portion out of 24 portions of Prophethood, meaning this is something that the Prophets would carry in their lives, and something that we need to have throughout our lives. We look, for instance, in issues of divorce. How often are there men who, in a moment of emotion, they get angry, what do they do? They pronounce divorce on their wife three times. In one setting, they just get angry, and they say divorce, divorce, divorce. Sometimes it is because of ignorance. They don't understand the rulings in Islam. But this is a type of, you know, haste, an ajala, and then what happens? A man came to Ibn Abbas, he said to him, I said divorce on my wife three times. And Ibn Abbas went quiet. And then he said, some people ride their foolishness, literally he called it stupidity, foolishness. Some people, they ride out their foolishness. The man said to him, won't you find me a way out? Doesn't Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala say, whoever fears Allah, Allah gives him a way out. Can't you find me a way out of my problem? Ibn Abbas said to him, you did not fear Allah. And you disobeyed Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And now you have divorced your wife irrevocably. Now I don't want to get into the fiqh of it, and whether three in one instance is three or one, we don't have to enter that discussion. But there is no disagreement on the scholars, that if someone pronounces divorce three times in one sitting, this is a bid'ah, and this is sinfulness.
Whether it counts as three or one is a different fiqh discussion, but it is a sin, by ijma' it is not the sunnah way of performing divorce. The sunnah way is that the person is calm, and they think things through, and if they were to utter divorce, they utter it once. Because it entails our thoughtfulness. Likewise, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala trains us in this regard, when he says, that if a man were to divorce his wife, Allah says, don't take them out of their homes. You don't divorce your wife and say, take your stuff and leave. This is not the way of the Muslim. Rather, she stays in the home. She observes her iddah in the home. And this allows both people time to reflect, to think, do we really want to do this? If shaitan is involved, perhaps they overcome shaitan in that moment of iddah. And if not, then they have rational thought and say, okay, maybe this marriage is not working, and it's a divorce that comes out of thinking, and calmness, and composure. We also have to avoid haste in our ibadah. We know the famous story, when the man came in the message of the Prophet ﷺ, and he prayed. And he prayed so quickly, as though he was described like the chicken that puts its head on the ground and raises it back up. Then he came to give salam to our Prophet ﷺ. And the Prophet said to him, Go back and pray because you have not prayed. He came back. He went back and prayed the same way, came back and he gave salam to the Prophet. The Prophet told him, go back and pray because you did not pray. Three times this takes place. Finally, he comes to the Prophet ﷺ, and he tells him, tell me how should I pray? And the Prophet tells him, you say the takbir, and you recite the verses of Allah, what has been made easy for you. Then when you go into ruku'a, until you are content, until you are, you know, calmness, a contentment, your body has entered into the stage, you're thinking about what you're saying,
you're trying to exit it, hatta tatmeen, then you go into sujood, hatta tatmeen, until you are content. This is the way of the believer. The Prophet ﷺ said, when the iqamah is made, do not stand up until I stand up. The Prophet ﷺ stands up, hatta tarawni wa alaykum bisakina, and you must have tranquility. And many times in ibadah, the Prophet would say, alaykum bisakina wal waqar, upon you is to have tranquility and dignity in your ibadah. We are so enticed, often in our communities, in believing news or information or following assumptions. We know the story, when the Prophet ﷺ sent someone to bin al-Mustaliq, a tribe that just entered Islam, he sent someone to collect zakah from them. So he goes to collect the zakah, and they were so excited to meet the messenger of the messenger of Allah. And they wanted to show honor. So they came out with a military acceptance of him. So they came out with their swords and with their horses because they wanted to give him a military type of welcoming of this messenger. But he saw the horses, they saw the horses and the swords, they thought they're going to come kill them. So they ran away. And they went to the Prophet ﷺ and they said, this tribe wants to fight us, they don't want to pay their zakah. So some people wanted to go to war. But our Prophet ﷺ said, calm down, let's send some people to verify this news. And when they met with the tribe, they said, we seek refuge in Allah from the anger of Allah. No, we were just trying to to honor the guest. And we wanted to pay our zakah. And there was just a misunderstanding. So Allah ﷻ revealed the verse in the Quran, If there comes to you someone disobedient with a news, verify that news.
How often are people not verifying news? They get messages on their WhatsApp and they just send it, they just forward it. They don't think, is this a credible website? Is this credible news? They get information, whether it's about vaccines or it's about this or that or politics, and we just send send the news without verifying it. Without knowing if what we're saying is true. It's not the way of the mu'min. The Prophet ﷺ said, كفى بالمرء إثما أو كفى بالمرء كذبا It is sufficient a lie or sufficient a sin to say everything that you hear. Just because you hear something doesn't mean you need to repeat it or say it. You need to verify it first. And there's haste as well, sometimes in attaining our rizq. An example of this is the example of Ali ibn Abi Talib r.a when he was entering the masjid and he gave his camel to a man to hold it. He asked the man, can you hold on to my camel as I go in and pray? And so he went in to pray and he came out of the masjid holding in his hand two dinars or ten dinars. He wanted to pay the man for doing him this favor. When he came out, he found the man had already left. And the reins of the camel had been stolen. So the man left the camel and he stole the reins and he went and he sold it. So Ali r.a told the young boy who was serving him, his servant, take these two dinars and go to the souq and buy me other reins. So the boy went into the souq and lo and behold he finds that man with the reins of Ali selling it for the same price of two dinars. So the boy came back and he told Ali r.a what happened. And Ali r.a said, how often are people too hasty so that they receive the risk from haram rather than receiving it from halal. Meaning he was going to get the two dinars either way. From halal, Ali r.a was going to give it to him as a thank you.
Or he took it from haram by stealing and selling it and he got the same risk. What was written for him came to him. But he chose to take it from haram rather than taking it from halal. How often do people do this? We are hasty to receive our risk right now so we do things that are questionable, unethical, stealing, cheating and in the end you're only going to get what Allah has already written for you anyways. And so these are you know different scenarios in our lives in which people are often hasty and we need to have calmness and composure. But there are times when we should not be hasty. Sorry, there are times when we should be hasty. Where we should not be calm and waiting. What are those issues? Amongst them is seeking forgiveness from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and making tawbah. We should make tawbah as soon as we can. When we realize our sin and our mistake we should be turning to Allah azawajal as soon as we can. Allah azawajal says, فَاسْتَبِقُوا الْخَيْرَاتِ Race towards what is good. سَابِقُوا إِلَى مَغْفِرَةٍ مِّن رَبِّكُمْ Race towards the forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this is why the Prophet ﷺ is reported to have said, أَتُؤَدَى فِي كُلِّ شَيْءٍ خَيْرٍ إِلَّا فِي عَمْلِ الْآخِرَةِ That calmness and waiting is good for all things except when it comes to the affairs of the Akhira. And what he means is seeking the forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Turning back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Likewise there should not be any slowing down when it comes to giving people their Haqq. Giving people their rights. If someone's rights have been taken away, if there's an injustice giving people back their rights should happen as soon as possible. If you have an entrustment that belongs to someone else, returning those entrustments as soon as possible. Likewise paying back debts should be hastened by the believer. We know the story of Abu Qatada radiyaAllahu anhu. When a man had passed away, the Prophet ﷺ says, does he have any debts?
They said two dirhams of debts or two dinars of debts. So the Prophet ﷺ said, would anyone pay it on behalf of your brother? So Abu Qatada said, it is upon me, I will pay it. And then they prayed upon him. Then later on the Prophet ﷺ sees Abu Qatada. He said, what happened to the two dinars? And did you pay them yet? He said, I didn't get to because he just died today. Meaning I was busy with the janazah and everything. So the Prophet ﷺ said, okay. The next day the Prophet ﷺ sees him, he tells him the same question. What happened to the two dinars? And Abu Qatada said, I paid them. And the Prophet ﷺ said, al-an, now his flesh has been cooled down. The flesh of your brother has been cooled down. And so paying off the debts, our own debts, and to help others who are not able to pay off their debts. You know, these things should be done hastily, should be done quickly and not slowed down upon. We ask Allah ﷻ to bless us all with the qualities of the prophets. We ask Allah ﷻ to bless us with the qualities of forbearance and calmness and intellect. I say this and ask Allah ﷻ to forgive me and you, and ask Him ﷻ to forgive me. I say this and ask Allah ﷻ to forgive me and you, and ask Him ﷻ to forgive me.
I say this and ask Allah ﷻ to forgive me and you, and ask Him ﷻ to forgive me. I say this and ask Allah ﷻ to forgive me and you, and ask Him ﷻ to forgive me. Al-Fatiha.
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