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Your Father: The Middle Gate to Jannah | Khutbah
Dr. Omar Suleiman discusses what it means to honor your father in different aspects of your life and how that sets an example for your own children. He illustrates this by using stories from the lives of the companions.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Ibn Dinar reports that Abdullah ibn Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhum wa an abihi the great companion, the son of the great companion was one day riding on his way to Mecca and he was riding on a simple mule and as he was riding he had this turban that he was wearing on his head and then they passed by this Bedouin man in the middle of the road and Abdullah ibn Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhum gets off of his mule and he gives him the animal and then he takes the turban off of his head and he puts it on his head and he continues to walk the rest of the way so we were shocked by his action it just seemed out of nowhere, misplaced why would he leave his animal and take off his turban and give it to the man and continue to walk by foot to Mecca and their assumption because of the appearance of the man was that he was probably just a beggar some simple person so they said that we said to Abdullah ibn Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhum may Allah reward you but these Bedouins they're satisfied with very little they used to say if you would just send them off with a date or two dates they'd be satisfied so these Bedouins are satisfied with so little why did you give him your riding animal as well as your turban and listen to what he says he says my father used to love his father subhanAllah not that my father used to love him my father Umar ibn Khattab radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu used to love his father and I heard the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam say abarru albirri an yasila arrajulu wudda abihi the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said abarru albirri that the finest act of good deeds the finest act of goodness on the part of a son
is to treat kindly the loved ones of his father that concept is such a foreign concept to us we wouldn't even know where to start with that but for him to just get down off of his animal and give the man his riding animal and his turban just on the basis that my dad loved his dad and so I wanted to honor him because by honoring the son of my father's friend I'm actually honoring my father and I'm actually honoring what Allah has taught me to honor that is not an accident that type of a father-son relationship doesn't just happen Abdullah ibn Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhuma is the most frequent narrator of a hadith on behalf of a parent there are more a hadith from Abdullah from his father than any other son from his father any other child from their parents in the entire collection of a hadith he resembled Umar ibn Khattab radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu in his appearance he resembled him in his character he had two marks under his eyes because he used to stand up and pray at night and he used to cry the way that his father would stand up at night and cry at night he was noted amongst the abadila amongst the Abdullahs for his love for the sunnah of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam just as his father was noted for his love of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and all of these characteristics and qualities that we see in him that were so profound that when Umar ibn Khattab radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was stabbed everyone rushed to Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu and as he was assembling the shura to decide who will be the khalifa after him the companions were saying you should appoint Abdullah because there won't be a drop off then he's just like you he resembles you exactly in character, in judgement he will be able to carry the ummah where you left it off
and it was Umar who said that this office can only be for one person from the family of ibn Khattab we don't need to hire more people he didn't want to set that precedent of a father passing it down to his son but I want to just point out one more thing here about this relationship because sometimes you see a person and you might think well that's just the greatness of that person and you don't trace it back and subhanAllah, Abdullah ibn Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhuma was noted for one thing as well كان لا يأكل طعاماً إلا وعلى خيوانه يتيم he would refuse to have a meal except that an orphan was sitting with him when he was eating that's special when the Prophet ﷺ says the worst of feasts are the ones that only the privileged can attend and the poor are left out he took it to the next level don't you think that his father taking him out on the night patrols in his khilafah to serve the poor at night had that impact on him that wasn't accidental dear brothers and sisters we look at the Prophet ﷺ as the greatest girl dad of all time a father to Fatima radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha and what was Fatima radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha no one, no one resembled the Prophet ﷺ more in appearance, in character her walking, her talking, her worship than Fatima radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha doesn't that have to do with the Prophet ﷺ checking in on her every night even after she was married treating her like a queen giving her his spot in the majlis in any place that he was sitting and honoring his daughter subhanAllah, when we talk about fatherhood in the era where fathers are represented by buffoons in almost every movie or cartoon or anything that is presented these types of things are lost upon us but we need great fathers again and we need to greatly honor our fathers again
this is something that is so prevalent in the sunnah so prevalent in the stories of these companions and the small things that we would mock as traditions that no longer exist Abu Huraira radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu he saw two men walking together and he said to the young man who is the man next to you? he said that's my father Abu Huraira said do not call him by his name do not walk in front of him and do not seat yourself before he sits for I heard the Prophet ﷺ say la yarzi waladun walidahu illa an yajidahu mamluka fayashtariyahu fayu'tiqahu the Prophet ﷺ said a son does not repay his father unless he buys him as a slave finds him as a slave and buys him and emancipates him from slavery we know the lofty status of the mother in Islam it's always there that Jannah is at her feet that who should you honor first? your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then your father but there is something here that we need to pay attention to Abu Darda radiallahu ta'ala anhu saying that the Prophet ﷺ said alwalidu awsatu abwabil jannah fa inshi'ta fa adh'i thalikal baab aw ahfadhu he said ﷺ the father is the middle gate of the gates of paradise so keep to this gate if you want or lose that gate now, it was Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhu whose most famous narration in fatherhood was a man coming to complain about his son and Umar siding with the son against the father it's not just to say that we need great fathers it's to say that we need to try to be great fathers again that we have to bring that culture back to our communities that we take pride in this position this amanah that Allah ﷻ gives to us and here we are today once again
burying a father this week has been a burial of fathers we have seen sons stand over the graves of their fathers over and over again, this week in particular started off six days ago a young man standing over the grave of his father then walking over to the grave of his grandfather just a few rows over, standing over that grave where his father once stood and promising to continue something forward then we had a few days after that a couple of days after that another janazah hafidh al-wisam al-sharif and his father and he reminded us at the grave site to forgive our fathers and to revive this tradition that we have and today subhanAllah we bury a beautiful father the first thing that his kids say about him was that he took care of our mother that he honored us, that he always prioritized us first and he didn't have to do all of that but he did it and that is the definition of what a great father is as the saying goes that one of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mothers and subhanAllah we need great fathers again but we need to greatly honor our fathers again this is something that is lost often in our sunnah dear brothers and sisters and I wanted us just in these few minutes as we pray janazah today on our beloved brother Sami Yusuf may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala have mercy on him and be pleased with him who stepped in and who demonstrates and just in the tributes that his children paid to him today what a great father is supposed to be that we don't just use these texts when we need to weaponize them or we should never weaponize religious texts period but we look to these texts and just as when we're looking at a husband wife relationship we say you know if you want a Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam as your husband then be a Khadija radiAllahu anha as a wife and if you want a Khadija radiAllahu anha as a wife
then be a Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam as a husband and it goes that way for the mother son mother daughter relationship when it comes to these relationships of fatherhood this is the position the middle gate in jannah you don't get around it and even if it is a foreign tradition to us we honor our fathers with our gestures with our du'as with our utmost respect and love of them even if they have passed away to continue to do Sadaqa on their behalf and to take the best of what they taught us may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala be pleased with our parents and forgive them Rabbir hamhuma kama rabbauna sighara Allahuma ameen Aqooloo qawliyaa adha wa astaghfirullah wa alaikum wa risa'il muslimeen wa astaghfiru anhu huwa alghafur wa raheem Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala rasoolillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala Allahuma kuffaril mu'mineena wal mu'minat wal muslimeena wal muslimat al ahya'i minhum wal amwat innaka samee'un qareebun wajeebul da'wat Allahuma kuffar lana wa arhamna wa a'fu anna wa la tu'adhibna Rabbana zalamna anfusana wa in lam takfur lana wa tarhamna la nakoonanna minal khasireen Allahuma innaka a'fuun kareemun tu hubbul a'fu wa fa'afu anna Allahuma kuffar li walideena Allahuma kuffar li walideena Allahuma kuffar li walideena Rabbir hamhuma kama rabbauna sighara Allahuma ansir ikhwanina al mustad'afina fee masharik al ardi magharibiha Allahuma aslih ahwala ikhwanina al mankoobina fee kulli makan Allahuma ahliki al dhalimina bil dhalimin wa akhrijna wa ikhwanina min baynihim salimin Ibadullah anna Allah ya'mur bil adli wal ihsan wa ita'idil qurba wa yanha anil fahsha'i wal munkari wal baghi ya'idukum la'allakum tadhakkarun fathkuru Allah yadhkurukum washkuru wa'ala ni'ma yazid lakum wa la dhikru Allahi akbar wa Allah ya'numu ma tasna'oon Fatiha
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