Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. I wanted to mention, especially for those that are watching online and those that have benefited from the sign language interpretation of our sister Rebecca, who of course is not physically next to me, but who alhamdulillah right on the side is always translating our khutbah that her husband was afflicted and is in the hospital and we owe it inshaAllah to Allah to our sister and to our brother to make du'a for his healing. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala cure him and comfort sister Rebecca and her family and make it easy for them. Allahuma ameen. This is not a khutbah about recycling as the title might suggest when we talk about waste and you might notice that waste is in quotation marks, but there is a rich body of ahadith from the Prophet that seem to speak to a different time and things that we often find ourselves unable to relate to because of the nature of how the world operates today. I came across this beautiful hadith from the Prophet that got me thinking about this subject. It's an authentic hadith from Al-Bara' where the Prophet said, مَن مَنَحَ مِنْحَةَ لَبَنَ أَوْ مِنْحَةَ وَرِقَ أَوْ هَدَى زُقَاقًا كَعِتْقِ نَسَمَ أَوْ رَقَبَ He said that whoever lends an animal to someone so that they can benefit from its milk, keep in mind what I'm saying because it's very specific for a reason. I want you to think in that society if you own a goat and you are not someone who has the means by which you can actually donate entire animals. You can't give away your entire animal. But you
have a neighbor and that neighbor wants to benefit from the milk of it at least and you say you know what I'm going to lend you this animal of mine so that you can benefit from its milk for however many days and then you can give it back to me. Okay so think of it in our times and you read this hadith and say well that doesn't apply but think of it as maybe and Allah knows best of course but if you lend someone a car, you don't have the means to donate a car but you lend them a car to get around for a few days or something of that sort. Some means by which you are able to benefit yourself even though I can't give you what I possess you can benefit from what I possess for some time. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, من منح منحة لبن whoever lends an animal to their neighbor to someone else so that they can milk it for some time. أو منحة ورق or lends them a few coins, lends them some money. Okay and ورق here could be usually the scholars mention silver so it's not even the best of currency but lends them some money, some coins so that they can benefit themselves with it. A small loan so that I can get them through something in the immediate term. أو هدى زقاقا or guides someone who is lost. You can't give them a car, you can't pick them up, you can't house them but you can at least guide them along the way so that they don't waste the time and energy and effort of being lost. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, كَعِتْقِ نَسَمَ أو رَقَبَةَ It is as if you are freeing a slave. It is the reward of emancipating a slave and of course we know the great reward in Islam for purchasing the freedom of someone who is enslaved. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that if you do any one of these three things then you would have the ajr, you would have the reward from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala of the freeing of a slave. Now again you read that hadith and you go
wow. First of all it's like when people talk about back in the days here. Generations will talk about the differences of how we used to interact with our neighbors. So the idea of lending someone sugar next door or some salt or something small. These are things that are unheard of because didn't they just have some sort of Amazon Prime or just drop off your groceries within an hour. Couldn't they figure something else out. These are things that become even more foreign to us as time goes on. But think about that society and relate yourself to these categories and you'll find that there's a connection here. And what I want to speak about today is a different reflection of the famous hadith la yu'minu ahadukum hatta yuhibbari akhihi ma yuhibbu li nafsihi. That the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said no one of you believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. We usually talk about this hadith as we should with the greatest aspiration of itha, of selflessness and how to be selfless. And the ulema have broken it down, the scholars have broken this down, this selflessness into three categories. They say that the first level is that you give away what you don't need. You give to your brother what you don't need. The extra stuff, the stuff that's laying around in your closet, the leftover food, the leftovers of your garden. SubhanAllah the amount of ahadith, traditions about for example letting the water flow to your neighbor, not cutting it off at your garden, letting it flow to your neighbor so they can irrigate their crops as well. You don't cut off the extra from your brother or from your sister. That's the first level of selflessness. Remember the first group of people that Allah made an example out of in terms of Quraysh were the people of the garden. Who were the people of the garden that Allah spoke about in the Quran? A people that of course inherited a garden from their father and their father used to leave the crops out, let the poor come later on and pick what they could, get
their share of the crops. And so what did his children do? Not realizing that it may have been the barakah, the blessing of that small act that the father used to do. And of course I'm paraphrasing the story greatly. They said let's go out there early and pick everything before the poor people come and try to take it. So what happened? The whole garden was destroyed. So this level of selflessness, the first part which is just let the extra go. At least give to your brother or your sister what you don't need. Not even the best of what you have. Not even the best of your income, the best of your food, the best of your blessings. Give them the extra. That's the first level of selflessness. The second level, what you love for yourself, you take things into consideration exactly as you would for yourself for your brother. So you try to give them everything that you want for yourself. And mind you here, that Imam An-Nawi said brother here is not talking about your brother Muslim, your brother in humanity. So you give to your brother in humanity exactly what you would give to yourself, what you love for yourself. And then the third level which is the greatest level of selflessness is that you give to your brother even what you yourself would prefer. This is the level of the Ansar, the level of the people of Medina who we will be talking about in great detail starting this Tuesday night. They prefer others to themselves. They actually preferred the muhajireen, the migrants from Mecca to their own selves. They gave them the better share of the house, the better share of the crop. And that was the greatest level of selflessness. Now here's the thing, when we talk about this hadith we always go to what? We go to the level of the Ansar as we should. The most aspirational level of this hadith. However, what I'm going to argue today insha'Allah in just a few minutes is, let's not zoom past the first category. There is a spectrum here. There's zakah, 2.5% of your wealth. And then there's Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu
right, who says it's all for Allah. I'm giving it all away. There's a whole bunch of levels in between those two. Where you are sinful because of neglect if you don't meet the first part to a place, a level that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam would not even let the companions, the other companions reach because they did not have the iman, the faith of Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. There's a lot in between there. And so this first category, the food, the extra food, your leftovers, the extra wealth, your used clothes, these things that people literally consider waste, throw away. And they could actually sustain the world as it is today. They could actually sustain the world as it is today, the things that we waste. And so I want to speak about this from a mindset perspective, a mindset perspective. The extra things that we have that we've gotten so used to being destructive with. And let's forget about saving the world right now, right, as in, you know, again, the great aspiration. Let's just talk about the way you approach what you have, the way you approach the gifts that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given to you. And I said this khutba is not going to be about recycling. I mean, not entirely about recycling, right? But even that, you know, maybe you're not going to reverse climate change and everything that's happening, but at least you have a connection. You have a mindset of thinking very deeply about the consequences of your small things, the consequences of the small things that you have, the small actions. And so it's a mindset. If you go to your closet and you see things in your closet that you haven't worn for a year or two, that means you don't need it. Give it away. And they'll just throw it into a bag and not bother ironing it and making it look nice and presentable. Give it away as a gift. Do the best that you can with it. You don't have to perfume it, but you could iron it and get it cleaned up
and present it in the best way. SubhanAllah, the discrepancy when we ask people to bring blankets for those people that literally freeze to death in Dallas in the winter outages, right? Some people threw their blankets and you could have just cleaned them up. Some people went and bought the newest ones, the weighted blankets. And I can tell you, subhanAllah, the look in the eyes, I'll never forget when one of the workers in the convention center saw a weighted blanket, he said, whoa, this is a weighted blanket. He started telling the other workers, you know what this is? As if it was the most precious asset in the world. And you might not even be thinking about that when you're just throwing things, right? But think about it. Those things that are in your closet, it's actually an assignment for you. They say khutbas aren't practical. Go to your closet. If you haven't worn it for a year or two, give it away. It's time to go. Teach your children that if it's a toy that you haven't played with, I don't care how much you love it, what your game console is, you haven't played with it for a long time, give it away. Let's package it. Let's give it away. Let's make something special out of this. Your old phone. I know that people try to keep up with the models, right? And you try to get your trade-in value. You don't take it to the store and you get this much in return. Your old iPhone could be a new iPhone for somebody else. And it could mean something to them, much more than the trade-in value that you get there. Do something with it. Your old car, mashAllah, we have both iknurilif and ma'ruf, taking our old cars, cleaning them up, getting them ready for the refugee population that's here. Give it away. Think about it if you can. If you can afford to do so, make it a mindset that these extras for us have a lot of potential in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and can mean a whole lot to somebody else. And then the last one that I want to mention here is the memories. What about the memories? You get sentimental, right? Your old wedding dress. I know I'm getting a little personal now,
right? Old suit from your wedding, your old tux, this old dress, this thing that meant a lot, this little, this, this thing that was passed down. Your brothers and sisters, subhanAllah, someone mentioned this to me once about the weddings in Gaza. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy for our brothers and sisters in Gaza, in Yemen, these places where these, these things that we take for granted. I mean, there's a practice of having group weddings because people can't afford to do weddings as individuals, right? So what do they do if 50 people get married at a time, right? 50 grooms, 50 brides. It's really a sight to behold. And someone was saying, you know, what if we took our old suits and our old wedding dresses and we steamed them up nice, got them clean, and we found a way to send them to one of these places? Think about that. Maybe it's an idea that will settle in someone's heart or mind inshallah and you take it up as an initiative. The blessings of Ramadan, the leftover food, when it's packaged up properly and gone and delivered to the homeless every single night, special. It means something to your brothers and sisters. And I want you to think again about your memories, those things that you have that are laying around, the potential of those things, what they mean to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when you give them with sincerity and what they mean to the people that you give them to. Turn your occasional memory into an eternal reward with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Take that small thing that you look at every few years and say, oh, this was great. Let it be something that you get to stare at with pleasure on the day of judgment eternally and in Jannah because it is one of the means by which you qualify for the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so I'll end with this. You know, when you're trying to trade in your car, you think of trade in value, pawn shops, even that at some point will probably go away. All of these little things, right? What's the trade in value? What can I still get out of these things when I've lost, when I don't really care for the extras anymore,
the extra leftovers, the extra food, the extra used clothes, the extra things. Hadith from the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, an agreed upon narration from Aisha radiallahu ta'ala anha. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam gives this scenario to her of a family and he says, salallahu alayhi wasalam, Iza anfaqatil mar'atu min ta'ami baytiha ghayra musida, kana laha ajruha bima anfaqat, wa li zawjiha ajruhu bima kasab, wa lil khazni mithlu dhalik. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said that if a woman were to give away the extra part of the food in her home, right? And the ilmah mentioned here that this is just like the first hadith that I mentioned. This is not the super valuable stuff. This is the extra stuff that we're talking about here. This is the first category, the extra stuff. And she said that, you know, I'm going to give this away. And the assumption here is that she was not the one that earned it, right? She's at home and she's eating it. And the husband was the one that earned it. So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said she will have the ajr, this woman in this scenario would have the reward of what she gave away, even though she did not necessarily earn the income in that situation for the food that was there. But she'll have the full reward. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said, and the one who earned it will have the full reward as well. And even the khazn, the one who keeps it, the one who preserves it. So think about the one who puts the food and puts it in a box and says, I'm going to be the one that delivers it. And this taste, the one who stores it away has the full reward. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said, la yanqusu ba'dhum ajru ba'din shay'a. Not a single one of them will take from the reward of the other. One person has the reward of the kasp, the earning. The other person has the reward of the infaq, the giving. The other person has the reward of the transferring, the hift, the transferring, or the preserving of that charity. And Allah counts each of
it, each particle of it, for each one of them fully without taking anything away from them. That's what it could mean to you, what it could mean to that person. Another hadith from Aisha radiallahu ta'ala anha where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said to her, to set up a barrier between herself and Jahannam. Walaw bishqi tamra, even with half a date. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said, fa innaha tasuddu minal ja'ee'i masaddaha minash shaba'an. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said that it settles the hungry in the place of the full. And what that means according to many of the scholars is that the sweetness of that date, you know someone who's very hungry, maybe that date is not going to fully fill their stomach. That half a date's not going to fully fill their stomach. But the nutrition of it, the sweetness of it, would at least make it more bearable. You know in the Syrian refugee camps, many of you masha'allah donated what you donated. Those toys that you give out there in those Syrian refugee camps, the kids are not asking what color is it and is it the latest model. It's a toy. They will line up and they'll take the toy because that toy to them is the same as an Xbox or whatever it is for your child over here. It means something else to them. And so that leftover meal for them, that leftover used dress or clothing for them, that leftover blanket, that extra food. Think always about the hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. If a person would even take an animal over to their neighbor and say benefit from its milk for a few days, and that's the reward of freeing a person from slavery. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said to free someone from slavery is to free your entire body from the fire. Subhanallah. Allah writes it down. So let's take that mindset of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam and learn through that detachment from this world, detachment from greed and increase insha'Allah ta'ala in that focus on what these little things could be. May Allah make the mountains of reward for us
on the day of judgment. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow our hearts to be connected to him and towards that which benefits us. Allahuma ameen. Alhamdulillah, salat wasalamu ala rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Allahuma khafir lana wa rhamna wa a'fu anna wa la tu'adhibna. Rabbana zalamna anfusana wa ilam takfir lana wa tarhamna lanakun nana minal khasireen. Allahuma innaka a'fu wan kareem wa tuhibbu l'afu wa fa'fu anna. Allahuma khafir li waalidina rabbil hamwama kima rabbuna sighara. Rabbana hablana min azwajina wadhriyatina qurrat a'ayum wa ja'anna lil muttaqina imam. Allahuma ansur ikhwan al mustada'afina fee mashariki al ard wa magharibiha. Allahuma ahliki al zalimina bil zalimin wa akhrujna wa ikhwana min baynihim salimin. Ibadallah anna Allah ya'mur bil adli wal ihsan wa ita'idhi al qurba wa yanha' an al fahsha'i wal munkari wal baghi. Ya'idhukum la'al lakum talakkarun. Fathkur Allah ya thkurukum. Washkuruhu ala ni'ma yazid lakum. Wa la thikru Allahi akbar. Wallahu ya'lamu ma tasna'oon. Wa aqeem as-salam.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
