Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Dear brothers and sisters, I found out, subhanAllah, just on my way to Jumu'ah that we have three janazahs today. Someone who is 60 years old, one who is one year old, and one who is five months, or was a five month miscarriage. We ask Allah to have mercy upon them all and elevate them, and to let this Jumu'ah be a testimony for them, and let it be a reminder for us, a reminder for us of our awaited death as well. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us all a good ending. Allahuma ameen. So because of that, I really want to keep this very short and to the point, inshaAllah ta'ala. And there is a narration from Abu Mas'ud radiyaAllahu ta'ala, and I'll preface it by saying, two weeks ago, we spoke about, وَتَرْجُونَ مِنَ اللَّهِ مَا لَا يَرْجُونَ You want from Allah what others don't want. And so, your motivations as a sincere believer, may Allah make us amongst them, don't make sense to someone who doesn't have that same motivation. And so we talked about the mockery of Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, and the suspicions that were passed, that why is he freeing people like Bilal radiyaAllahu anhu, and Khabbab radiyaAllahu anhu, who don't offer him any worldly benefit. And coming back to that point of, you want something different from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You want something different from Allah. And so Abu Mas'ud radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he says, لَمَّا نَزَلَتْ آيَتُ الصَّدَقَةَ When the verses of charity were revealed, كُنَّا نُحَمِدُ We were amongst the people that were carrying the sadaqah, we were transporting the charity. فَجَاءَ رَجُلٌ فَتَصَدَّقَ بِشَيءٍ كَثِيرٍ So one man came forward and donated a whole lot of money. فَقَالُوا مُرَائِي The hypocrite said, he's showing off. Now by the way, subhanAllah, look at the transfer of attitude. When we were talking about Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu and the mockery of Abu Bakr,
that was in Mecca when he was freeing the early mustada'afeen, the early weak and downtrodden and oppressed ones, and they said, it's got to be something else. He can't just be doing this because he believes in this religion and he believes he'll be rewarded in the afterlife. Here, we're in Medina, and these are the hypocrites in Medina that are praying in the masjid and pretending to be amongst the Muslims. And they're watching a man come and give a lot of charity, and they said, he's just showing off. مُرَائِي He's just showing off. And then he says, after that, جَاءَ رَجُل فَتَصَدَّقَ بِصَاعٍ Someone came and just donated a handful of dates. The opposite of a lot. فَقَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَغَنِيٌ عَنْ صَاعِ هَذَا They said, Allah has no need for this tiny amount of His. So they mocked the one who gave a lot by questioning his intentions. They mocked the one who gave a little by questioning the use of that little. Allah doesn't need that little handful from Him. So Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed, فَالَّذِينَ يَلْمِزُونَ الْمُطَوَّعِينَ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فِي الصَّدَقَاتِ وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَجِدُونَ إِلَّا جُهْتَهُمْ فَيَسْخَرُونَ مِنْهُمْ سَخِرَ اللَّهُ مِنْهُمْ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ Allah revealed that those who disparage, those who belittle, those who mock, the believers who give charity, here the المطوعين refers to those who are giving voluntary charity, from amongst the believers. And they mock those who have nothing to give except for their effort, إِلَّا جُهْتَهُمْ The only thing they were able to put forth was what their effort allowed them to put forth. Allah mocks them in return and Allah has prepared for them an agonizing punishment on the Day of Judgment. Now subhanAllah when you look in the
tafsir of this and some of the background further, scholars say this came down in reference to two men. The first one was Abdur Rahman Ibn Auf radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. Abdur Rahman Ibn Auf radiAllahu anhu when he heard the verses of sadaqah and he was who he was and it didn't take him long in Medina to establish himself as a wealthy merchant once again. He was that good of a merchant and Allah would bless everything that he did. So he came to the Prophet ﷺ with 400,000 dinars. Huge amount in Medina, huge amount, right? And as he's putting forth this 400,000 dinars, it was Umar radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, he said, مجنون أنت يا عبد الرحمن Are you crazy, O Abdur Rahman? Have you lost your mind? He's saying it not to mock him, but wait a minute, like are you really going to give all of that away? He said, no ليس بجنون I'm not crazy, but he said, I gave 400,000. He said, by the way, I still have 400,000 back at home. So subhanAllah like this 400,000 is actually only half of my wealth. Remember a very famous incident with Umar radiAllahu anhu, maybe he learned from this incident to come to the Prophet ﷺ with half of his wealth. Because that's what Abdur Rahman was doing. So the Prophet ﷺ was so happy with this. And the Prophet ﷺ said, بارك الله لك فيما أمسكت وفيما أعطيت May Allah reward you and bless you in that which you have given and that which you have held back for your family. May Allah bless you in the charity that you've given and may Allah bless you with that which you've left for your family. So the hypocrites are watching this and they're saying, مرآءي He's just showing off. He's doing this just so the Prophet ﷺ can praise him in front of the people. This is all just a show from Abdur Rahman. And then comes this other man. This other man and subhanAllah, his name actually shows up in some of the books of tafsir, the narrations.
Abu Aqeel al-Ansari. Whose name by the way, Abu Aqeel was also Abdur Rahman. رضي الله تعالى عنه. Poor Ansari man. A poor Ansari man. He was one of the allies to Bani Tha'liba. And when he heard the verses of Sadaqah, listen to the purity of this man's heart. Now if you were at the fundraiser, all you saw was a man who just gave a handful. And it's one of the inherent flaws of our fundraisers today that the praise is lavished on the large amounts and the small amounts are kind of overlooked. But Allah sees them. Allah sees them. So you just saw the end result, right? One guy gave 400,000, the other guy just gave a handful of dates. When Abu Aqeel heard the verses of charity, he actually didn't even own that handful of dates. He went and he worked for the day so that he could earn the handful of dates. And then he came to the Prophet ﷺ and donated that. Subhanallah, how beautiful and pure. Can you imagine how Allah is looking at that man? Now he didn't come and give the handful and say, Ya Rasulullah, I actually didn't have anything to give so I went and I worked for the day so I could earn, so I could give you this. He did it in a very humble way. The same way Abdur Rahman gave that 400,000, he gave that handful. Now the hypocrites mocked him too. They said, what is Allah going to do with this handful of dates? It has no benefit. And so the hypocrites don't just have a bad lens of people, they also have a bad understanding of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. They don't understand concepts of barakah. They don't understand concepts of ikhlas, of sincerity, and they don't understand the concept of barakah, of blessing. This masjid that we are in right now, I have no doubt, no doubt, that the blessing of some of you who gave 50 or 100 dollars is equivalent in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So some of you, may Allah bless you, all gave 100,000 or 150,000. You don't know which dollar has the blessing in it. You don't know which believer in front of you has that pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with them. You don't understand these concepts when you're looking at people and you don't decide who Allah is going to accept and at what level Allah is going to accept them. You only charge yourself and say, how do I count myself either amongst the Ibn Uth or the Aqirs? Either as a person who is ghaniyun shakir, wealthy and grateful, has time and spends it right, has strength and uses it right, or da'ifun sabir, person who is going through hard times but is patient and using what they have still to please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, what little they have. And that little has to be in quotation marks because it might be that that one handful of dates is so much more rewardable in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But then you go back to the hypocrites. The hypocrites, they didn't give a lot, they didn't give a little, they didn't even give an effort. But they had an audience with their mockery, so Allah will give an audience to their punishment on the Day of Judgment. Allah will mock them, make a mockery of them on the Day of Judgment, and not only will they not have jaza, a reward, lahum a'adhabun adheem, they have an agonizing punishment that waits for them to the display of everybody else. Now these people, the hypocrites in Medina, they didn't even spare people in their death. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, when he passed away, his janaza was light. When you were carrying Sa'd radiyaAllahu anhu, you didn't feel the weight of Sa'd radiyaAllahu anhu. So what did they say? They said, ma'akhaffah, how light is he, to belittle him. He weighs nothing. SubhanAllah, how light is he. How akhaff, how light is his janaza.
And what did the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam say? The angels were carrying the body of Sa'd radiyaAllahu anhu. Ihtazza lahwa arshur Rahman. The throne of the Most Merciful shook bi mawti Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, with the death of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh radiyaAllahu anhu. Out of the joy of receiving his soul, the throne of the Most Merciful shook. The angels carried his janaza, but these people saw Sa'd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, they said, how light is his janaza. They even mocked him in his death. They had nothing better to do with themselves. And SubhanAllah, as a result of that, they didn't want to do anything. They wanted to judge everything. They didn't want to be held accountable. All of this was only lowering themselves and seeking to paralyze the community. You've got to do something, and not complicate things, not pass judgment on people's sincerity, not be the perpetual critic. You know, SubhanAllah, you see constantly people that are making efforts in the community. And if you're going to make an effort for the community, it could be the smallest thing ever, the simplest thing. It could be the preparation of food in Ramadan. It could be the security, volunteering in security on Salat al-Jumaa. It could be the arranging of the shoes when people came in and they threw their shoes on the ground. And it could be the management of an effort. And it could be the volunteers of an effort. And it could be the donors of an effort. And it could be the visionaries behind an effort. And it could be the workers of an effort. It's so easy to pick out and point out the flaws and say this is no good, and this is no good. And it's much worse, by the way, to say he's only doing it because of this. Oh, you know how he is. He always likes to do this. And you know how she is. She always likes to be there when this is happening. Because then you're actually going to the judgment of the heart and the intention, which is the most severe of it all. Right?
But it's so easy to sit there and pick and belittle and criticize this and criticize that. And you know, there's a saying that in many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. So we don't do anything, but we criticize everything. And that makes it very easy. Now, with that being said, there's the other side of that, too, which is the one who is being criticized can also have a trait of hypocrisy. This is not all on the critic. To the critic, this is do less criticizing, do more work. Do as much as you can. Make sure that you're not just tearing things apart. You're offering a good alternative, and you're putting things forward, and you're always maintaining a good opinion of other people. Always. Husn adhan and other people has to be there no matter what. And you have to have something that you're doing beyond just the criticizing. Right? The other side of that, though, is that a person who's being criticized can also have a sign of hypocrisy. Allah describes the hypocrites as what? يحسبون كل صيحة عليهم That they perceive every shout to be against them. They have an insecurity. And so when any criticism comes, or they hear anything, they take it super personally, and they make a huge deal out of it. And they start to defend their intentions, and they start to lose it on people. And everything becomes territory, and us versus them. There is no us versus them in the Ummah of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. There is no us versus them in our community. Us versus them, and they're the enemy. And you see how they're coming after me, and us, and it's us, and our group, and their group, and fragile egos. Fragile egos. And efforts that become deficient, because it becomes about defending the ego, not perfecting the effort. And so all of us that are in the position of actual leadership and doing, you can't just dismiss every criticism, and say it's personal, it's about this, and this is all against me,
and this is this, this, this, and that. No. Consider the value. Consider the value. And don't even get caught up in the way that they're making judgments of your intention, because you weren't doing it for their judgment in the first place. Or you shouldn't have been doing it for their judgment in the first place. And so if criticism paralyzes you to a point where you stop working, then you have to ask yourself, very, very, very crucially, was I doing it for Allah in the first place? Because if I was doing it for Allah, will I stop it because people gave me a hard time? And so if the answer is that, you know, actually, you know, I think my intention was off, renew the intention. Review the intention and keep working. Keep going. Keep putting forth an effort for Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala make us amongst those who do for His sake, sincerely, and in ways that are pleasing to Him, and in accordance with the sunnah of His beloved Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. May Allah purify our hearts. May Allah purify our sight towards one another. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala unite our ranks. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala never make us amongst those that belittle the good of others, or pass judgment on others. May Allah purify us from hypocrisy, from riyaa, from showing off, from ostentation, from pride. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala use us as His humble servants for this noble work. Allahuma ameen.
Wa la dhikru Allahi akbar. Wallahi ya'nou ma tasna'oon. Wa alaikum salam.
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