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Forbidden From Qiyam For Questioning His Sincerity | Khutbah
What are the dangers of assuming the intention of someone else or insinuating that the individual has a motive or purpose that is not purely for the sake of Allah? Watch Dr. Omar Suleiman uncover the various ways in which questioning others' intentions can lead to deprivation for ourselves.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Dear brothers and sisters, I'm going to preface this by saying that because I'm in so many, masha'Allah, of the community, WhatsApp groups and social things, please do not feel targeted by what I'm going to say. But if what I'm going to say in this khutbah makes you cautious, then alhamdulillah, rabbil ameen. I hope that it makes me more cautious than anyone else. What I'm going to say today has nothing to do with any recent event that triggers this. So it is merely a nasiha, an advice that we pick up on from the last week. Last week we talked about this idea of interrogating your own intentions more than anyone else interrogates your intentions. You should be more questioning of your own motives, your own intentions, your own ikhlas, your own sincerity, than the harshest person in the world to you. And this week we're going to flip it insha'Allah ta'ala. And there's a direct connection, which is the danger of assuming the intention of someone else or insinuating that someone else has a motive or an intention that is not purely for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And I want to start off with this incident and then we'll build up insha'Allah ta'ala in just a few minutes back with our Imam Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahullah ta'ala, who we spent time with last week with some of his sayings. Usama ibn Zayd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, the beloved one of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, the son of the beloved one of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. If you wanted to get close to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, you got close to Usama ibn Zayd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. People thought that maybe if they could sneak in an intercession, they would go through Usama ibn Zayd li makanihi ainda Rasulillahi salallahu alayhi wa sallam, because of the place he had with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. But of course the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam was always just and merciful and did not allow for that type of maneuvering.
But that's how close Usama ibn Zayd was to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And Usama ibn Zayd says, I'm in the battlefield and I'm about to take my opponent's life. You're in a battlefield and a person is trying to kill you and you're trying to kill them. And just as I disarmed him, as I'm about to kill him, he says, la ilaha illallah muhammadur Rasulullah. Is there any doubt to anyone from the exterior of this what might be going on here? Right? Wouldn't it be reasonable for us to make an assumption? He just said that to get himself out of the situation that he was in. But Usama ibn Zayd felt something inside of him. It's natural what he did. He goes to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he tells Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wa sallam what happened. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam was so angry. He said, afala shaqaqta'an qalbihi? Did you check his heart to know that he said la ilaha illallah? Just to escape a dangerous situation? He said, ya Rasulullah, he only said it, khawfan minas silah. It's clear he was saying it just to escape death. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, did you check his heart, oh Usama? So that you could know that his repentance, his submission was insincere in those moments? Usama ibn Zayd said he kept repeating it over and over and over again. He said, I wished I had not become Muslim before that day. Meaning the only thing that would have given me comfort would be taking shahada all over again and becoming Muslim on that day because of the gravity of the sin that I felt in those moments. And I ask you this question, dear brothers and sisters. Is there any person who would be less deserving of husn adhan, less deserving of a good assumption of their intentions than that man in those moments? And is there any person that is closer to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam would lighten up his anger
because the boundaries of Allah were transgressed than Usama ibn Zayd radiallahu ta'ala anhuma? Yet look at what the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam responded. Dear brothers and sisters, the questioning of someone else's intention is a severe matter in Islam and it does not always come through a direct question. Just like with slander, the slander of Aisha radiallahu ta'ala anha came through a suggestion. Someone just threw something out there without saying explicitly what they meant. But it's the same thing as saying, hmm, this is fishy. Oh, now that person is there. Okay, it makes sense. Okay, yeah, they always show up when this happens. Now that there are people around, they're there. You did not explicitly accuse the person of having bad intentions, but you insinuated it. And in insinuating it, it's just as bad as the slander. And subhanallah, just like when you go and you search out people's faults, Allah says the core problem of a person who does ghibah an-namimah, who backbites and gossips and slanders is what? Wa na tajasasu. First start with su'avun, a person has a bad feeling, and then you overexpose yourself to people. Why are you looking at everybody else's faults? If you're looking at everybody else's faults and spying and following, of course you're gonna end up saying something. Because you would have allowed it to enter your eyes to a point that it must penetrate your heart. And then once it penetrates your heart, then the thoughts just stay there. And then eventually you slip with your tongue or with your fingers, where it's so much easier because it's so dehumanizing and so easy. Just throw something out there that insinuates gossip or backbiting or slander. This one is the same thing. When you're so overexposed to other people, and you start to say, oh, they only show up when this happens, they speak when this happens. Did you notice how mashallah this person was acting?
And that could be insinuating something about their intentions. And before I say what our Imam Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahullah said, just like with any other thing, you know, they say that a person who believes everyone else around them is always lying, probably believes that because they lie a lot. A thief assumes everybody else is a thief. A crook assumes everybody else is a crook. The most corrupt people in Quraysh, they assume the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had a price tag, but he didn't have a price tag, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. But they had sold themselves and sold their religion, bought and sold their gods. They thought, maybe if we give him the right price, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he'll give in. Because they didn't understand his integrity. They didn't get Abu Bakr as-Siddiq radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, freeing Bilal radiAllahu anhu. They said, there's gotta be something behind him freeing Bilal. It can't just be seeking the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Maybe he owed him something, maybe they had something that took place before. Because they didn't get integrity because their hearts were not in the right places. And so you have to ask yourself, if you always assume other people are insincere and cast judgment on their intentions, what does that say about the lens of your heart? Is that because you know that your insincerity overcomes you a lot? And that you don't do things purely for the sake of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So you never can see someone doing good just because it's for the sake of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now what is the consequence of this? Obviously there's a sinful version of this. There's hirman of al-jannah, and that's the worst, to be forbidden from paradise because of casting that type of a judgment. But let's go back to our Imam Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahu wa ta'ala, who is a leader for us in his teachings on sincerity, as much as he is in the Islamic sciences. Imam Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahu wa ta'ala, he said, Wallahi, aqad hurrimt, he said, I swear by Allah that I was forbidden min qiyam al-layl sitta ta'ashhur. I was forbidden from praying the night prayer for six months for a sin that I committed. I said, what sin did you commit
for you to feel like you couldn't get up and pray qiyam al-layl at night? You think qiyam is a given? Allah wakes you up. If you're waking up, you think it's a given? Imam Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahu wa ta'ala said, I committed a sin and I couldn't pray qiyam al-layl for six months. What is that sin that you committed that forbade you from qiyam al-layl for six months? He said, ra'aytu rajrun yabki. I saw this man cry. Wa qultu fee dafsi anahu la yabki lillah. I said to myself, he's not crying for Allah. SubhanAllah, do you understand the implications of this? I said to myself, he's not crying for Allah. Sufyan al-Thawri didn't tweet it. He didn't put it in a WhatsApp group. He didn't say, oh, now he's crying. Inside himself, he said, he's not crying for Allah. And because of that, it led to direct deprivation for him, for what was beloved to him rahimahu wa ta'ala, and for Sufyan al-Thawri, not being able to pray qiyam al-layl is deprivation. It's deprivation. Now you might be thinking to yourself, la yukallifu Allahu nafsan illa was'aha. Allah does not burden a soul beyond its scope. And you'd be right. Wa ghafara Allahu li ummati ma ta'addathat bihi anfusaha ma lam taqool aw ta'mal bihi. And Allah has forgiven my ummah for what a person says to himself, ma lam taqool aw ta'mal bihi, which you don't actually verbalize and don't actually act upon, and you would be right. But we're talking about holding yourself to higher standards. And Sufyan al-Thawri started with the heart, because Allah started with the heart. When a person gets to the point of backbiting and gossiping and slandering, it's because the heart was messed up before the tongue got messed up. The eyes were overexposed and the heart was not exposed enough to Allah. And Sufyan al-Thawri rahimahullah is blaming himself because he holds himself to a higher standard. And so dear brothers and sisters,
when we interrogate our own intentions, be careful. Be careful from suggesting that someone's tawbah is not sincere, someone's repentance is not sincere. Oh yeah, whatever. We know why they're doing that. Be careful when you suggest, oh, here they go again. Be careful when you make those types of insinuations about people. Be careful when you verbalize it to a friend, and you and him know what you're talking about. Because it's just like Imam al-Ghazali rahimahullah talked about compounded ghibah, compounded backbiting. You know what compounded backbiting is? Where it's ghibah times two? It's when you bring up someone's name, knowing that the other person is going to backbite them. You have someone, and you know the other person doesn't like that person. And you know if you just bring up their name, you get that smirk on your face. Or who knows, now we don't talk to each other in person, we don't see each other's faces. It's on a group, but you know that if you plug it in there, the other person's going to wipe the floor with that person's reputation. Who caused the backbiting? You did. So you have the sin of it, and you caused your brother to sin. You have the sin of that brother's honor, and the sin of the one who actually took away his honor. The same thing is with intentions. Questioning people's intentions. Be careful. Be careful. And interrogate your heart. And be so busy, worried about your own sincerity, that you don't even have the time of day, or the lens, or the thought to think about whether someone else is sincere or not. Be so afraid, and so careful and cautious, that you know, am I sincere, and I need to keep on refining my own sincerity. I can't look at other people's sincerity or question their intention. Their hearts are between them and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. At no point, dear brothers and sisters, is this making haram halal. Right? The prohibited lawful. At no point does husn adhan mean that we lose the standards of Islam. No. Husn adhan, good expectations and assumptions of people,
simply means that we relegate every excuse. And we watch our tongues, and we watch our eyes, and we watch our hearts. We focus on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the month of Sha'ban is coming upon us. And Sha'ban is a month to empty out the heart of everything, so that when Ramadan comes, you can fill it with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow our hearts to be free of that which is displeasing to Him. So that He can fill our hearts with that which is pleasing to Him subhanahu wa ta'ala. May Allah forgive us when we slip with our eyes, with our tongues, with our ears, and with our hearts. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for our negative thoughts. And when those negative thoughts transpire in negative words, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from being deprived for reasons that we are aware of and reasons that we are not aware of. Just like the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, taught us to say, I seek refuge in you Allah for knowingly associating a partner with you, and I seek forgiveness when I don't know. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala remove the things that deprive us of closeness to Him that we are aware of and the ones that we are not aware of. And let us be completely sincere and truthful with Him subhanahu wa ta'ala. Amin. Surah Al-Fatihah
Surah Al-Fatihah Surah Al-Fatihah
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