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When You Hit Your Lowest Point | Khutbah
Your lowest point in life is a chance to gain your highest reward. In his Friday Khutbah, Dr. Omar examines some of the text about hardship and repentance that important to turn to when despair overwhelms you.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Dear brothers and sisters, one of the most beautiful things about paradise, about Jannah, and it is full of beauty, and Allah has prepared for its inhabitants, may Allah make us amongst them, that which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no imagination could ever comprehend. But one of its most beautiful traits is that it never gets old. What that means is that every day when you think you have peaked in terms of beauty, it gets more beautiful. When you think you've seen its most beautiful palace, Allah opens up the doors of another palace. When you see your spouse in paradise, and no one is single in paradise, your spouse is more beautiful every time you see them. When you go to its marketplaces, you see things that you didn't see the last time, the fruits taste better. Every single moment in Jannah is an upgrade. It gets better and better and better and better, and Allah is surely capable of that being never-ending. May Allah make us its inhabitants. Allahuma Ameen. And no one in Jannah thinks that they have anyone above them. So that's also one of the blessings of Jannah, is that you don't have the fear of missing out. The person who is in the lowest level thinks that they must be in the highest level because of what Allah is unveiling for them. That's the beauty of paradise. It keeps getting better and better and better and better. Blessing after blessing after blessing after blessing. The counterpart to that is this dunya, is this life, where sometimes you get hit by a hardship, and you think this is the hardest it's ever going to get. And then something else happens, and something else happens, and something else happens, and something else happens. And so the idea of it all falling apart, and of course the way that we come in, to the way that we then age, and the way that things start to wither away,
we lose our appetite for this dunya, and it just seems to sometimes fall apart. And of course that's true also in the collective sense with al-fitn, with trials and tribulations. They start to strike one after the other, one after the other, to where you feel like you can't catch up on an individual level. You get hit and you think, this really hurts, and I think that this is the hardest it's going to get, and then something else happens. You look to the world, and if you are an empath, the believer sees a person falling off of a plane in Afghanistan, or off of a boat from Libya, and where does my heart go to? How can I encompass all of this? May Allah make it easy for all of our brothers and sisters wherever they may be. So, jannah keeps getting better. Dunya, seemingly at least, seems to keep getting worse. And one of the things that happens to us is that sometimes it's also our perception that when one trial hits, we read into things that aren't necessarily trials as being trials after that, or we magnify our trials. You know, it's like if someone is in a boxing ring and they get hit, and they say, you know, you can tell that the fighter was never the same for the rest of the fight, even if they managed to get back up and they managed to recover, but that the effect of that hit was there. And so sometimes what happens after a major trial hits you in life, you start reading into it way more than what should be read into it, and it's like, yeah, Allah, why is it all falling apart? What's happening? Why do the punches keep on coming? Now, what I want to talk about is that lowest point, because undoubtedly there is a point that all of us will reach that will be our lowest point, and it doesn't necessarily need to be our lowest point in terms of the severity of the tragedy. It could be the circumstances that we are in when that happens. Surely Ta'if, which we know was the lowest point of the Prophet ﷺ because he said so. Ta'if hurt more because the Prophet ﷺ did not have Khadijah to wipe his wounds. There's no doubt about that.
There is also a decade of rejection that precedes Ta'if that makes it that much worse. And so sometimes, and that's why every trial is unique, it's the circumstances around it hits you at the wrong time, at wrong in quotation marks, wrong time, and it's like, yeah, Allah, this is horrible. I don't know how to get out of this. I don't know how to move forward. And of course, certain trials also have a permanence in regards to the consequences in life. You lose someone you love, as much as you cope, that person will not come back to this earth. Something falls apart, sometimes there's a permanence to that. Now, what do we do? And I don't want to just talk about this from the perspective of hardship as a whole. I want to talk about that lowest point and how you actually take that and do something with it that's very unique. Because when you're at that lowest point, you know what else you are? You're most vulnerable. You're most vulnerable in that you're most likely to put your ego to the side and you can humble yourself most to Allah ﷻ. So you're most vulnerable, which has the capacity to reinvigorate your ego. To reinvigorate your du'a, your prayer, your reflection, your worship. Sometimes you see a relationship and they say, the best thing that ever happened to that relationship was that it hit crisis. And out of that crisis, we learn things, certain things happen. And you look back at that and you see that was a turning point. So your ego gets put to the side, you're humbled. And when you're humbled, you're in a perfect place to make sujood and to cry out to Allah in prostration and say, Ya Allah, I'm humbled. You're also in that vulnerability in a perfect place to rethink things, to be introspective, to actually start to think about what preceded that moment and what can be done after that moment. So it's an interesting place that you find yourself in. And you have to remember that Allah ﷻ doesn't give you a swamp.
Allah gives you a springboard. When you're in that low point, you have a chance to jump up. There is no fall that any of us will ever encounter than the literal fall of Adam ﷺ from paradise to earth. But even then, there was an elevation in his station, his maqam, his status with Allah ﷻ that made his station even greater than before he fell. The same thing with Yunus ﷺ plunging to the bottom of the ocean. That's a fall that none of us could probably quite come to terms with. But you're in this place where you can rethink. You're in this place where you can reevaluate, reassess, and then get back somewhere. Or where you've actually never been, and let it be an actual better place. And the reality is that a lot of times, especially when you're talking about the secular sense, when someone hits that low point, they talk about their potential from that downfall in this world. It's restricted to this world. That's the problem with a dunyawi dunya, a worldly worldview. It's so restrictive. It's so limited. What's the maximum they could talk about? Your potential coming out of that. And certainly, that's part of it, that there's a certain potential of strength and resilience that can be gained from that place. But when we think about it, we think about it also in terms of the potential of a higher place in paradise. The potential of a higher station with Allah ﷻ. And we're taught not to necessarily wish for the low point to achieve that potential. Very beautiful du'a from Salam ibn Abi Muti'a, rahimahu Allah ta'ala. He used to say, اللهم إن كنت بلغت أحد من عبادك الصالحين درجة ببلاء فبلغنيها بالعافية Oh Allah, if there is a station that you have gotten people to through hardships and trials, then allow me to reach that station without the trial. That was his du'a. If you let someone reach that station without the trial,
if you let someone reach a certain position, we read about Yusuf ﷺ, Ayyub ﷺ, Yunus ﷺ. I mean, the only prophet who we know that walked away from his people prematurely, yet he was the first prophet that Allah revealed to the Prophet ﷺ in the spirit of praise. He got back up and he elevated only by the mercy of Allah ﷻ. And Ibn Mas'ud is narrated to have mentioned that most of the people that enter paradise don't enter paradise by a good deed that they do, but by the way they responded to a hardship. A hardship came your way and there was a sabr, an ihtisab, a patience, a resilience, a steadfastness that you showed. And that was the means by which Allah ﷻ delivered you to a place that you otherwise would not have been able to get. The thing is, is that you don't see that place right now. And so sometimes it becomes hard to be able to see outside of where you are at the moment, to be able to see light at the end of the tunnel, to be able to see that position in a paradise that you can't even imagine. It's hard to imagine it, it's hard to grasp it, it's hard to act in accordance with it, but that's what makes it so rewardable. SubhanAllah, you get this one life, this one life to live in this dunya that is consequential to the rest of your eternity. And there are things that happen to you, one-time events that happen to you in this life, and there is one moment in that one-time event that if you capitalize on, it changes your entire hereafter. As-sadmat al-ula, the first strike. You know in the Prophet ﷺ said, as-sabr and as-sadmat al-ula, that patience is at the first strike. It's not as the scholars say that patience is only at the first strike, it's that there is a unique patience at the first strike, that if you seize that moment and you respond in that once-in-a-lifetime moment,
once-in-a-lifetime hardship, with a once-in-a-lifetime patience, what does it unlock for you in the hereafter? Bayt al-hamd, a house of praise that you walk into Jannah and you say, Ya Allah, for me, Ya Allah, how did I get to this place? Because you got hit and you responded right. It's that one moment that you could seize and you could captivate. And subhanAllah, a lot of us are so paralyzed in that one moment. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy for all of us. I've heard a lot over the last couple of years, I mean, it's the environment around us, right? Like, I don't think I'm gonna, this is the worst it's ever been for me. This is the hardest, I don't know how I'm gonna recover out of this. I don't know how I'm gonna come forward. Sometimes it's self-inflicted. Allah didn't give you a swamp, you stepped into it. Allah didn't give you a swamp, you stepped into one. But even then, there's a life jacket. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given you a way back. And you're like, how do I get out of this? Ya Allah, how do I get out of this? But you have to think about the potential, just as you are feeling the pain of the uniqueness of the hardship, you have to think about the uniqueness of the reward in that moment. Like, there's something right now that if I do, Ya Allah, I can achieve so much from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I can gain so much from Allah azza wa jalla. And dear brothers and sisters, there are various low points that we find in the Quran. And it's really interesting, subhanAllah, that when you go through the prophets in the Quran, you know, you get an array of experiences. Sometimes Allah gives us a lot about their da'wah, about their call. Sometimes Allah gives us a lot about their people. Sometimes Allah gives us a lot about their circumstances. But one thing that's almost always consistent is we learn about their hardships. Almost every prophet that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us about in the Quran, there is that moment, رَبِّ إِنِّي مَغْلُوبٌ فَانْتَصِرُ Oh Allah, I'm overwhelmed.
I am in need. I am faqeer. I am poor, in need, vulnerable. بِمَا أَنزَلْتَ إِلَيَّا For what you would descend upon me. Your blessings. I'm in need of your blessings. Yeah, Allah, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, Allah, I don't. Where do I go from here? لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ سُبْحَانَكَ إِنِّي كُنْتُ مِنَ الظَّالَمِينَ رَبِّ إِنِّي مَسَّنِيَ الضُّرُ Oh Allah, I'm struck. Oh Allah, have mercy on me. Almost all of them. Why? Because pain is the universal human experience that we can all relate to. But that unique reward, that unique place. And I want to end this khutbah because I don't want to make this too long. I want to end this khutbah by putting you in a conversation with your mother. Your mom, my mom. Umm al-mu'minin Aisha radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha. You know, it's really interesting. I remember the first time doing a study of al-Bukhari. How many times hadithatul ifk, the slander, the chapter of the slander of Aisha radiyaAllahu anha comes up because there's so much fiqh. It's so long when she tells her own story of how she was slandered and the circumstances of it. And there are tangents in her story. She goes off on a tangent sometimes. There is fiqh in there. There's jurisprudence to be learned. You go through the books of hadith, you can go one by one, capture this moment, capture that moment and these gems. But if you're sitting in a living room with your mom, Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, and she is our mother. And our mother felt a lot of pain. And I'm listening to my mom talk about the most painful moment in her life. Where everything was darkness. Where even the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, who was always a source of comfort to her, even the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam was withheld from comforting her in those moments. All alone, did absolutely nothing wrong. And her honor is being dragged through the streets of Al-Madinah. Our mom and our mother is talking to us. She's talking about the moments.
She's talking about what was going through her mind. She's talking about what ayat of Quran she could remember. And the ones that she couldn't. She's talking about how she felt when people looked at her. How she felt in this conversation. How she felt in that conversation. I was just paying attention to this one sentence that she says. And she says, والله ما ظننت أن ينزل في شأني وحيا She said, والله, I never thought that Allah would reveal Quran for me. Who am I? Who am I so that Allah would reveal revelation from the heavens for me? That's your mom talking. I didn't think I was worthy of that. I never would have imagined that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would reveal Quran for me. Who am I? 10 verses of the Quran come down to defend me. Who am I? أن يتكلم بي القرآن That the Quran would speak about me. I never thought that revelation would descend from the heavens for me. Dear brothers and sisters, we don't know what comes from the heavens for us when we're in those low points. But we know that the Lord that descended those verses from the heavens for Aisha radiallahu anha and the Lord that rescued Ayub alayhi salam and Yunus alayhi salam and our Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and answered those prayers is the same Lord that we're calling upon. أَمَّن يُجِيبُ الْمُطَرَّ إِذَا دِعَاءَ وَيَكْشِفُ السُّوءُ أَا إِلَهٌ مَعَ اللَّهِ Who else are you going to call upon? والله لا يضيع أجر المحسنين لا يضيع أجر الصابرين Allah does not let the reward of the good doers go to waste, nor does he let the reward of the patients go to waste. And so when you're in that moment, dear brothers and sisters, and you're thinking now I have a window, I have a window where I can really capitalize on the reward.
Remember that there are things that would come down from the heavens for you that you will only see when you make it to paradise, بإذن الله تعالى. And do not belittle yourself to where you think that the mercy of Allah سبحانه وتعالى will not encompass you. If our mother Aisha رضي الله تعالى عنها said that, I never thought Allah would reveal Qur'an for me. Who knows what Allah سبحانه وتعالى will do for us. We ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى to grant us patience, to grant us steadfastness, to maximize our reward, to grant us the highest station in this life, to allow us to reach our maximum potential in this life of pleasing Him, and to allow us to reach the maximum position and station in paradise and the companionship of our beloved Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. We ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى to forgive us for our weak points, to forgive us for our shortcomings. We ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى to make the best of our deeds the last of them, and the best of our days the day that we meet Him. اللهم آمين. أقول قولي هذا واستغفر الله لي ولكم ورساله المسلمين فاستغفروا إنه هو الغفور الرحيم. فاستغفروا إنه هو الغفور الرحيم. الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على رسوله الكريم وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين. اللهم اخل المؤمنين والمؤمنات والمسلمين والمسلمات الأحياء منهم والأموات إنك السميع قريب ومجيب الدعوات. اللهم اغفر لنا وارحمنا واعفوا عنا ولا تعذبنا. ربنا اغذلنا أنفسنا وإن لم تغفر لنا وترحمنا لنكوننا من الخاسرين. اللهم إنك عفو كريم وانت حب العفو فاعفوا عنا. اللهم اغفر لوالدين رب رحمهم عكما ربونا صغارا.
ربنا هبلنا من أسواجنا وذرياتنا قرة أعين وجعلنا للمتقين إماما اللهم انصر إخواننا المستضعفين في مشارك الأرض وغاربها. اللهم أهلك الظالمين بالظالمين وأخرجنا إخواننا من بينهم سالمين. عباد الله أن الله يأمر بالعدل والإحسان وإيطاء ذي القربى وينهى عن الفحشاء والمنكر والبغي. يعذكم لعلكم تذكرون فاذكروا الله يذكركم واشكروه وعلى النعماء يزد لكم ولذكر الله أكبر. الله يعلم ما تصنع وأقيم الصدر.
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