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Am I Accountable for My Thoughts? | Khutbah
What is the difference between passing and settled thoughts? And how are they judged in the scale of deeds?
Tune in as Sh. Omar Suleiman explains the difference and the accountability of thoughts in his Friday khutbah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Dear brothers and sisters, over the last couple of weeks we've spoken about the idea of questioning sincerity. Two weeks ago we spoke about questioning one's own sincerity, and then last week we spoke about the danger of questioning the sincerity of someone else. And I ended off that khutbah with a quick note about the words of Imam Sufyan al-Thawri, where he said that I was forbidden from praying qiyam al-layl for six months because of a sin that I committed. And the sin that he committed was that he saw a man crying, and I said to myself, he's not crying for Allah, he's crying for something else. And so I felt that I was forbidden from qiyam al-layl for six months as a result of that sin. And I briefly spoke about this idea of the sin of thought, or what a person would think about, and how in Allah's mercy, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that Allah has overlooked for my ummah that which crosses their minds so long as they don't utter it with their tongue nor act upon it with their limbs. That Allah has overlooked those things. And that Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahullah perhaps was holding himself to a higher standard, because you should hold yourself to a higher standard. But the idea of it actually being sinful is debatable here. And I wanted to actually pick up on that note with the difference that the ulama spoke about in that regard between passing thoughts and settled thoughts. And it's an interesting concept and one that is highlighted throughout our books of tazkiyah. That sin is a process and good is a process. And the process is as following.
First you have khawater, you have passing thoughts. And then after you have a passing thought, if you allow that thought to settle the brain, then it becomes afkar, a fikrah, a settled thought. And then after you let a thought settle inside your mind, then eventually it becomes a niyyah, it becomes an intention. And once you intend to say or do something, then it becomes himmah, it becomes determination, a sense of determination. Particularly when it comes to sin, you'll notice the way that subhanallah when you're on your way to do a sin or you're about to commit a sin, sometimes a block happens. But you still find a way to do it anyway. Because at that point you've already intended to commit the deed and so you're going to do it anyway. And that could be something as simple as the following. You're about to say something and you're in a gathering and someone else cuts in and starts saying something else. And that was a gift from Allah to stop you from saying what you were about to say, but you say it anyway. You wait until it comes your turn or you cut in and you backbite anyway and you make sure that the word is said. So in our nature, because of our hastiness, when we have intended it, then after that intention comes a sense of himmah, determination. After that determination comes amal, comes the deed. You actually commit the deed. And then after amal comes adah, comes habit. And so again, it becomes a passing thought, kind of all over the place. A whole bunch of things are crossing your mind at the same time. And then you choose what to settle in your mind. And then after you settle the thought, it becomes an intention to commit. And then after the intention comes the determination to do so. And then comes committing the deed itself. And then comes the repetition of the deed. It becomes a bad habit. And the same thing is true when you think about the process of good.
Except that there might be a bit of a break off between the intention and the determination. Because sometimes we might intend to do good, but we make excuses to not follow through and do that good. But it's sort of the same thing. You start thinking about it, you know, this is something I should do. You settle it. You make the niyyah to do that good. And then after that, hopefully you develop a himmah for that good. You actually are determined to do that good deed no matter what. You commit the good deed. And the best case scenario, أحب الأعمال إلى الله أدومها وإنقل The most beloved of deeds to Allah are the consistent ones, even if they're very small. Now here's something really interesting about how practically speaking the first two categories work. Because whether it's sin or a good deed, you want to diagnose the sin early on so that you can stop it from getting out of hand and becoming a bad habit. Or if it's a good deed, you want to nurture that good thought so that it becomes a good habit. So catching it early is a good thing, whether you're talking about sins or you're talking about good deeds. Now the question of, am I sinful for my thoughts? Which, by the way, Christian theologians have been discussing for a long time about the idea of sinful thoughts. And we also have our own notion of what sinful thoughts would be. And last week when I spoke about what Sufyan At-Thawri said, Imam Al-Nawwi has an interesting commentary on this. In his chapter on the gheeba of the heart, the backbiting of the heart, which is what? سؤال ظن, negative assumptions, suspicion. If you suspect something enough, if you keep spying, if you keep following someone's flaws and faults, waiting for them to fall, looking into their private affairs, eventually you're going to develop an obsession of sorts. And once you start looking through, looking through, looking through,
eventually it's like something you have to say to someone, you have to backbite that person. So the gheeba of the heart is at the level of سؤال ظن, that negative suspicion. And look what Imam Al-Nawwi said. He said that سؤال ظن, which is the backbiting of the heart, is just as sinful as speaking it. Interesting. He said, because just like it is محرم, just like أن يحرم أن تحدث به غيرك, just like it is sinful for you to speak to someone else about it, it is sinful for you أن تحدث به نفسك, for you to have that conversation with yourself constantly. But then he said, this is not talking about الخواطر, this is not talking about the passing thoughts. This is not talking about the things that just pass through, where you see something and you just kind of move away from it. You don't want to entertain it any further. He said, but this is talking about a thought with استقرار and استمرار, that you settle inside yourself and you continue with yourself. So you engage the negative thinking constantly, and you allow it to settle your mind, you allow it to settle your heart, and you keep on talking about it even to yourself. And you have to cut it off. Now think about this for a moment, because it's a powerful concept, and I'm going to talk about where the علماء drew the line, how the scholars drew the line and what that means for us, because Imam al-Nawawi gives us a clue when he talks about استقرار and استمرار. Do you let it settle and do you continue with it, or do you stop it? Think about this powerful notion for a moment, insha'Allah ta'ala, and go to another hadith, the Prophet ﷺ said, whoever intends to do a good deed, or that's how it's translated, but the actual words are, من همّ بحسنة. Whoever intends to do a good deed and does not do it, then Allah writes down for him the good deed anyway.
Right, we know this hadith very well. And من همّ بها, whoever has the intention to do it, and then does it, كُتِبَتْ لَهُ عَشْرَةٌ إِلَىٰ سَبْعِ مِئَةٌ Allah has written for that person ten, at least ten, up to 700, up to ad'aaf, up to however much Allah wants to multiply it. So the minimum you get for doing a good deed, for actually following through and doing a good deed, is ten times that good deed, and that's from the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that's the minimum. If it was done with even more ihsan, then listen to the ihsan of Allah 700 times, up to wherever you could imagine, or could not comprehend. And then the Prophet ﷺ said, and whoever, من همّ بسيّة, whoever intends to commit a sin, and does not follow through and commit that sin, then it's not written. Right? But then the Prophet ﷺ said, whoever intends to do a sin, and then commits that sin, how many sins are written down? Just one. Allah will never increase the sin. So it's out of His mercy that Allah increases the reward of the good deed. It's out of His justice that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala never increases the degree of the sin, the gravity of the sin. A sin is a sin, and it's one sin. A good deed is at least ten, up to 700, up to what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala decides. So the ulamas talked about this idea here. So what about that person then, who decides to commit a sin, meaning you wanted to say something, you wanted to do something, but you did not follow through. One of the narrations indicates, تَرَكَهَا مِنْ أَجْلِي They left off that sin for my sake. So it's not that you were on your way to do a sin, or you were about to do it, and something else stopped you, but that you developed the resolve along the way to stop committing the sin.
And what did the Prophet ﷺ say happens as a result of that? If a person leaves it off for the sake of Allah, Allah writes down a jirr for that person. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala actually writes down one good deed for you. Because you stopped yourself from doing it, and that was an entire process. And out of the mercy of Allah, Allah writes down a hasana for you. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala writes down a good deed for you. So what does that tell us? You go back to the internal thoughts. And you go back to where a person is thinking about something, thinking about doing something, thinking about saying something. When a person is thinking bad thoughts about another person. When a person is engaging in their thought processes. And that entire process is something for us to consider as well. And when Allah revealed, وَإِن تُبْدُو مَا فِي أَنفُسِكُمْ أَوْ تُخْفُوهُ يُحَاسِبِكُمْ بِهِ اللَّهِ That if you conceal what is in yourselves, or you make it public, Allah will hold you accountable for it. That's when the sahaba got afraid. They were afraid of what? الخلاطر The passing thoughts, the things that go through. The things that end up in our head all the time. Because our heads are constantly processing things. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put them at ease. That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will not burden them beyond their scope. Okay, that Allah azza wa jal will not punish them or burden them beyond their scope. And so what this tells us dear brothers and sisters, is that period between the fatrah and the fiqrah, the passing thought and the settled thought, is a lot more important than maybe we give it credit for. Because if you let things settle in your mind and in your heart, in some way the hastiness of our human nature is going to come out. Somehow. Because it becomes like a burden at that point that's encapsulated inside of you. Okay, if I'm not going to backbite the person altogether,
I'm at least going to throw out some doubt. Right, I'm just going to say something that the other person will get. Then I'll feel like, oh, I let it out. But that process of not letting it settle in the first place, is actually a very important process. To not engage something constantly inside of you. And that's why the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam gave us all these tools of what? Istighfar. Seeking forgiveness from Allah. Istighadah. I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan. As it starts to come to your mind, starts to come to your heart. I don't want to think about a person that way. I don't want to think about committing that sin. I don't want to move forward. No, let me get rid of this. And some of the ulama said Allah azza wa jal forgives the fikrah as well. If the fikrah was not acted upon. But the point is, dear brothers and sisters, you catch it early on. And I want to end on this point because it's so important. Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim rahimahullah said, The only way, the only way to rule out negative afqar, negative thinking, is to conquer your thoughts. Because Allah has created us in a way and he described our thoughts like a factory. It's constantly in production. We're always thinking about something. Your mind is always running in some way. Right? And what's the description of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam? It's beautiful. Da'im al-fikrah. Every time you looked at the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, you knew he was thinking about something. He was in deep thought all the time. Da'im al-fikrah. The only way to overcome bad thoughts is to occupy your thinking. To actually be very intentional about what you let yourself think about at a regular pace. To engage what you're thinking about more frequently. And to eliminate those thoughts when those bad thoughts start to come in. Just like how we talked about sincerity in the first place. And subhanAllah, this is such a beautiful reflection from our scholars. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless them and have mercy on them.
When he talks about this idea, a person who is always in fikr, in thinking about Allah, when they intend to do something, they're not going to have that difficulty of trying to intend sincerely for the sake of Allah that someone else might have because it's a natural transition. From their thinking about Allah constantly to their doing for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Whereas a person who's constantly fi kalam an-nas, in the thoughts of other people and in the talk of other people, how is it then that you expect that person to shut off all other people and then when it comes time for worship, they do it for Allah? Because their thoughts are constantly about other people. Make your thinking about Allah and about what's more beneficial with Allah by making your inputs and your thoughtfulness more intentional, more regular, and then the deeds will be more regular as well. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to bless us with pure thoughts to make us ulul albaab, people of purified thoughts, and to make us ulul azm, people of determination towards good. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala purify our thoughts, may Allah purify our deeds, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept them, may Allah make them regular, may Allah keep them sincere, and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to find them on the day of judgment as accepted deeds, and may He magnify them beyond 700, beyond anything that we could possibly imagine. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for our shortcomings, may Allah forgive us for our negative thoughts, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for our sins, the public ones and the private ones, the consistent ones and the irregular ones, the ones we're aware of and the ones that we are ignorant of, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala purify us from it all, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to always be in a state of pleasing Him and doing good and thinking good, and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us the ultimate reward of good, Jannatul Firdaus, and the companionship of Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Allahumma ameen.
Aqoolu qawlihaadha wa astaghfirullahalaihe wa alakum wa alisa'ilil muslimeen. Faistaghfiru anna huwa alghafurra raheem. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Allahumma innaka afoo wa kareem. Allahumma innaka afoo wa kareem. Allahumma kharri walideena Rabbi arhamhumaa kamarrabunna sigara. Rabbana ahablanaa min azwajina wadhuriyatina alqurra ta a'ayun waja'anna lilmuttaqina imaana. Allahumma ansur ikhwann almustad'athina fee kulli makaan. Allahumma aslih ahwaal almuslimeena fee kulli makaan. Allahumma ishfi maradaana wa marada almuslimeena fee kulli makaan. Allahumma arham mawtana wa mawta al muslimina fee kulli makan. Allahumma aslih ahwala ikhwanna almanqubeena fee kulli makan. Allahumma ahlik al-zalimina bi-zalimin wa akhrijna wa ikhwanna min baynihim salimin. Ibadullah, inna Allah ya'muru bil-adli wal-ihsan wa ita'i bil-qurba wa yanha'a al-fahsha'i wa al-munkari wa al-baghi. Ya'idukum la'alakum tadhakkaroon fathkurullahi yathkurukum. Washkuruhu alani'ma yizid lakum wa ladhikrullahi akbar. Wallahu ya'lamu ma tasna'oon. Wa qayrim al-salaam.
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