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A World Without Muhammad ﷺ | Khutbah
In this khutbah, Dr. Omar Suleiman talks about what the world looked like, what it would look like, and what it will look like, without the Prophet ﷺ, and how we bring his light into our lives and world every day.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon His Messenger Muhammad, the Prophets and Messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen. Dear brothers and sisters, I want to give you an image that really would not resonate unless you think about it in the present. And then we'll come back to this image at the end of this khutbah. So to properly understand the end of this khutbah and the consequences of the final image, I want you to pay attention to the first image and think about it in the present. A world without Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam. A world where the name Muhammad is actually unknown. The name itself. Imagine a world in which there is no ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah. Imagine a world in which the name of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam is not mentioned. Imagine a world that we know right now where the most famous name in the world, baby name in the world, is Muhammad. Imagine if the name was unknown. And then take it further, what if we didn't have his sunnah? What if we didn't have his example? Imagine if he was a carrier of a message that left behind no example of how to implement that message. What would our relationship with the Quran be like without the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam?
And how ambiguous, not because the Quran is ambiguous, but how much ambiguity would we intentionally or unintentionally read into the scripture to fit with what's happening today because we don't have the clear, pristine example of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam amongst us. But just take a moment and think about what would your life be like if you didn't have the stories and the guide? If you didn't know the man, if you didn't have his shama'il to connect yourself to him alayhi salatu wassalam, if you didn't know of the seerah, if there was no such thing as the seerah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. You know, in many religious traditions, the central figure of the religious tradition is lost to a point in which the existence of that person could be questioned. Imagine if we didn't have seerah. How lost and confused would we be in the present? Now the first image is the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam giving us this view of the world before his sending alayhi salatu wassalam. Allah looked towards the people of the world. And the people were in a repulsive state, an absolutely repulsive state. The Arab and the non-Arab, except for a small group of the people of the book that were clinging on to whatever they could. Of the way of Ibrahim alayhi wassalam, the way of Musa alayhi wassalam, the way of Isa alayhi wassalam, and trying to salvage those principles. But you're talking about an entirely confused world. A world that has no ethical paradigm. A world that has no upstanding example of creed.
A world in which oppression and exploitation take place and there is no counterbalance to that oppression and exploitation that is based in anything that is divine and untouched. And subhanallah, you think about the change in the world when Rasulallah sallallahu alaihi wasallam is sent. And the way that it sends a ripple effect across the entire world. And you know a lot of us might think of 23 years as a long time. But to give you some perspective, the entire public call of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and if this wasn't a Juma khutbah I'd ask you to raise your hands. But the entire call of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam's public call is literally equivalent to our time as Muslims now from September 11, 2001. 9-11 to now, 21 years, that's literally the exact equivalent of the public call of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And we still talk about the effect of those two decades on ourselves and we remember vividly what it was like, those that were alive and those that were able to comprehend the shift and the turns and the trends. Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wasallam's entire da'wah is that long. And it's suppressed and suffocated for the first half of it, almost entirely, and so you only really have a decade in Medina to create a model civilization that has a ripple effect across the world and becomes the central conversation of the entire world. That in and of itself is absolutely remarkable. The transformation of one community in that short span of time is something to marvel at.
What do you say about the transformation of hundreds of thousands of people at that time and the transformation of the conversation of the world without digital means with the sending of this one man sallallahu alayhi wasallam, without the power of the armies that existed at the time or the means of spread and digital communication. Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wasallam shifted the world's conversation and through him Allah shifted the hearts of this entire set of people and took a society from being the most repulsive to being the most pristine, not just for its present but for all future generations to come. That we look back at that society and our idea of success is how much we can model our society and our world views to match with what reality they lived in at the time. That's the sending of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And so you have a repulsive world, first image, where the name of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam is not known. Where there is utter confusion, ignorance, jahiliyya. And then you can even see in the switch of hearts when Ja'far ibn Abi Talib radiallahu anhu goes to Abyssinia. And for the sake of time I can't even paraphrase the beautiful address but it's very easy to find where you can read the address of Ja'far radiallahu anhu to Najashi explaining to Najashi radiallahu anhu the change in the companions in Mecca with the sending of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. A complete reorientation of world view, of ethics, of character, of faith. A complete reorientation of everything to how the furthest parts of the world that they would never see in their lifetimes were now perceived by them.
To how they perceived their family members, perceived their parents, how they perceived their neighbors, how they perceived strangers, how they perceived notions of spiritual equality. How they shifted in their minds every single thing that was known to them in just a few years. This is just the first few years of Islam. This is before, this is before the things that are most familiar to us of Islam were even legislated. Ja'far radiallahu anhu when he's giving that representation of Islam to a Najashi and saying we used to be the lowest of low, a people in complete darkness and Allah sent this man to us sallallahu alayhi wasallam who completely shifted that. He's saying that before Ramadan was legislated, the fasting of Ramadan was legislated. He's saying that before Zakah existed in its formal manifestation. He's saying that before the five salawat even came. He's saying that before the Hajj of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam took place. Before literally four of the five pillars of Islam had even panned out. He's already talking about a transformation of an entire world view. And Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam comes to Medina. And how does Anas radiallahu anhu describe the day the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam came to Medina and left Medina? He said, The day the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam entered into Medina, not a year later, the very day that he set foot into Medina, into our world, into Medina, Everything in the city lit up. Was he talking about street lights? Was he talking about artificial light? What did he mean by that? Everything in the city was touched by that light.
And the day that he died, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, everything went dark. It was as if everything went dark the day that he left us, sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And what is he speaking about? The change in hearts. That we immediately felt a shift in our hearts from the moment that we buried him, alayhi wasallam. His presence brought light to us, changed everything about our being. The way we viewed each other, the way we viewed ourselves, our family relations, our business relations, Our view of life and death changed with this man, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, in such a short period of time. Now the final image is when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam talks about the end of times. You know, it's really interesting here when Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam speaks about the end of times. Before there is a loss of text, there is a loss of the spirit of that text. And before there is a loss of the spirit of that text, there is a loss of scholarly access to that text, meaning the clarity of those texts. And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam says that the hour will not be established until Allah, Allah is not said on earth anymore. When people don't even say the name of Allah on earth anymore. But before we get to that point where people don't even say the name of Allah, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said there is a phase before that. The phase before that is where people say la ilaha illallah. Why do they say la ilaha illallah? We used to hear our parents saying it. It's an inherited, cultural, religious testimony. Our parents taught us to say la ilaha illallah. Maybe they said we shouldn't eat pork, so we don't eat pork. But they lost all of the creedal implications and practical manifestations of la ilaha illallah in their lives.
And they just had the cultural repetition of la ilaha illallah. You know what's lost before la ilaha illallah? Muhammadun Rasulullah. What gets lost before la ilaha illallah is Muhammadun Rasulullah. Because once you eliminate the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam from the equation, you self-sabotage in regards to your relationship with the one who sent him. Your connection to him, not in dua, not in your prayer, not in your dua, not in your ibadah, but even there, there is something there. Because without salah ibrahimiya at the end of your salah, your salah is not valid. And saying salawat on the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam at the end of your dua is a means by which it is elevated. But that's not the point here. The point is that what you know of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, how you connect to Allah, how you worship Allah, how you be pleasing in the sight of Allah, you learn that through the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Once Muhammadun Rasulullah is gone, then la ilaha illallah, as far as what it carries, its implications, is obviously next. Similar to how those who seek to negate the Quran don't come after the Quran, they come after the sunnah. Because if you negate the sunnah, you negate any proper interpretation and manifestation of the Quran, and then you can attack the meanings by swaying them and introducing ambiguity. Ambiguity gives room for corruption. The beauty of the way of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is its specific nature. And where it's not specific, it still guides in such clear ways for us through his character and through his being sallallahu alayhi wasallam. So before la ilaha illallah is lost, clearly Muhammadun Rasulullah is lost. And before Muhammadun Rasulullah as a statement is lost, the meanings of Muhammadun Rasulullah are lost.
There comes a time where people maybe repeat that we knew of a man named Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam, we knew that there was a prophet that was sent, but I can't tell you anything about him. Now I want to make this practical inshallah ta'ala with the last few moments, beyond just an appreciation of him sallallahu alayhi wasallam. That if you want to have a character that is pleasing to Allah, you do so by adapting the seerah as much as possible into your own biography, into your own life. And if you want to understand the Quran, you go through the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam and the practice of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. That that is the connection. But I want to talk about it from a day to day for a moment inshallah ta'ala. Beyond our just utter appreciation of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Every arena of our lives in which his way is not the key orienting mechanism by which we view and carry ourselves in that domain is going to be darkened. Is going to lose light. Our marriages, our family relationships, our community relationships, our relationships with our neighbors, our relationships with every single person and every single thing. The more they start to lack that spirit and that guidance of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, the more the light starts to leave those places. And those places start to become places of constriction and hardship and burden rather than places of light and places of goodness. You know what that looks like from a religious perspective? You know how many times people will walk up to an imam and say, can you give me a dua from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam to fix this part of my life?
Can you give me a dua? What did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam say to say if you're in this predicament? The problem is that you just introduced the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam into your predicament before actually going to what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam would have done prior to that predicament. So our approach becomes purely one of teach me the supplication from the Sunnah. What did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam say here? Which is good, alhamdulillah, you should look for duas from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. But before looking at what he would say to get out of something, ask yourself, from the very beginning, how do I bring in what he would do, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, to bring goodness to this? What would have been his behavior? What is the guidance that he left behind? Beyond all of that. You know when Imam Malik rahimahullah ta'ala talks about a very beautiful analogy that he gives, a parable that he gives, he says that the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is the Safina of Nuh alayhi wasallam, it's the Ark of Noah. When the world is drowning in its ethics and its values, in its exploitation and corruption and its inequality and all of those things, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam's way is obviously a Safina. And when it loses its way in terms of creed and faith, which is the primary reason for which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was sent, to arrange that perspective of God first, of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala first and a way to him first, it's the Safina of Nuh alayhi wasallam. And when innovations are introduced, it's the Safina, it's the Ark of Noah, to save yourself.
But on your day to day encounters with this world that Allah has given to you, when you immediately resort first and foremost to the way of the one who was sent as a mercy to the world, sallallahu alayhi wasallam. You know people ask, and I have to give this example because it's really, it really is something. One of the hardest things that you can change about yourself is your temper. I think we can all agree if you have a hot temper, if you're prone to anger, if you're prone to fast responses and get hot headed very quick, changing that or trying to reign that in is very difficult. But it's not impossible. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, knowledge is through seeking knowledge, forbearance, which is one of the most beautiful traits of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was how forbearing and patient he was with people. Forbearance is a learned quality as well. Some elements of it are learned. Some of them, some people are more prone to that type of a nature, and that's a gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And some people have to work a little bit harder at it, but it's not impossible to become a patient person. Some people immediately excuse themselves, well you know I'm hot headed, I have a bad temper, that's why I blow up immediately at the implication of this or that. And then you start talking to someone who, you know, as soon as something is lit, they immediately respond in explosive ways. You say, you know, have you ever considered the practice of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in this regard? Like, you know, what do I do, Shaykh, can you make dua for me? I said, well, let me ask you this. When's the last time, when's the last time, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said in an authentic hadith in Muslim, when you got angry, you purposely said, I'm not going to say anything for the next couple of hours.
And I'm not going to respond to my text or my email. When's the last time you practiced that? Silence. You don't have to say, I'll get to you later, no, no, silence. Two hours, three hours, four hours, silence. When's the last time you said, I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan, in the midst of an argument? When's the last time you made wudu when you were having an argument with your spouse? These things are not there for us to just admire and say, oh, this is, you know, sounds great. Like, when's the last time you actually sat down and removed yourself? Did you actually try to bring that into your situation? Because I can guarantee you that it would have spared you a lot of trouble. It's not easy, it takes practice. And sometimes you'll fall short. But that's just one way in which the light of the Prophet ﷺ can come into your life, and can bring ease and tranquility to even your most intimate of needs. Intimate relationships, it's there, you just have to practice it. Instead of just coming afterwards and saying, what's the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ here? What dua do I make? What do I do here? What dua can I make? Someone came up to me and said, Sheikh, while pointing to his wife, what's the dua I can make to correct her? To rectify her? Like, you gotta fix her, it's like he's bringing a broken toy or something like that, you know? I was like, well first and foremost, what's the sunnah of how to deal with the situation that brought you here in the first place? You're looking for what the Prophet ﷺ would have said in this situation, and done in this situation, after the fact, not considering what the Prophet ﷺ would have said to even introduce the situation. So are you really looking for the Prophet ﷺ as a guide, or are you looking for the Prophet ﷺ as a means of validation of a way you've already chosen?
And when we do that, we ruin our ethics, we ruin our relationships, and we disconnect ourselves from something that is so beautiful in the way of Rasulullah ﷺ. What would a world be like without Muhammad ﷺ? A world not worth living in. What would life be like without the example of the Prophet ﷺ? A very empty one. Alhamdulillah for the guidance of Islam, Alhamdulillah for the guidance of the Qur'an, Alhamdulillah for the guidance of our Messenger ﷺ. May Allah ﷻ send His peace and blessings upon him, allow us to be like him in this life and allow us to be with him in the next. Allahumma ameen. Alhamdulillah wa salatu was salamu ala rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Allahumma ghufril mu'minin wal mu'minat wal muslimin wal muslimat. Allahumma abdulrahim wa abduh Wala lubkuru adab wa ibduru allaha amalim, qareesan. Wa h abrahatun adjustable usasses lahumi azaidan wa ha tas eldbat, wa ibptul wardatu amkala wa ha jalikun wal mubara. Allahumma munafyanu Abu Hurayra, wa khal parwarum wa abduh alBaqarim A. icu ma zubahuna shabaaltan alisah. Allahumma abla' to ma'rigu-tanda huwa faboo alshaytan a hayaataan u boquena paysa amuru zafaan. Allahumma kareesabitchin wa shabaaltaan wa huwa adzakum al hanga. Allahumma y'aizzal islam wa al-muslimin wa adhilla sh-shirka wa al-kathibin wa dammir a'ada al-deen Allahumma ahlika al-dhalimina wa al-dhalimin wa akhliqna wa ikhwanna wa baynina amsareemin Ibadallah wa allahi ya'muru bin adl wa al-ihsan wa itadil qurba wa yanhau an al-fahsha'i wa al-munkari wa al-baghiy ya'idukum la'alakum tadhakaroon fathkuru Allah yadhkurukum
wa ashkuruhu alani'ma yazid lakum wa la dhikru Allahi akbar wallahu ya'alu ma tasna'oon wa aqeem al-salat Al-Fatiha.
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