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Becoming a Friend of Allah - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Khutbah

August 20, 2019Dr. Omar Suleiman

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
This year was the most special of anything I'd ever seen at Arafah. For those of you that haven't seen the clips, it's the year that it rained in Arafah. And subhanAllah, I've had the opportunity to go for Hajj for over a decade, and I've never actually seen rain in Arafah. And to actually create the scene for you, before I even get into the subject of the khutbah, if any of you have been to Hajj in the last few years, you know how it goes on the day of Arafah. Everyone prepares themselves for du'a. They get themselves ready for that day. They say, I'm gonna go find a mountain and I'm gonna stand on a mountain. First they get to Arafah and there's a shock that it's not a mountain. It's actually a nice open space, a plain. And there are mountains and hills, but it is not a mountain. The entire area of Arafah is Arafah. Everyone gets ready to make those du'as, to make those prayers. And if you've been in the last few months, you know that the heat quickly humbles you. You start making du'a for about an hour, and then you have people passing out, out of heat exhaustion, because they underestimated the sun. And they end up instead in the tents. And a lot of people end up spending the entire time in the tents making du'a, just because it gets so tough. So this year, as Arafah began, the exact same thing happened as last year and the year before. It was hot. Everyone was excited in the beginning. And then the heat humbled people into their tents. And then subhanAllah, something happens. About two hours in, these clouds formed. Actually I'd say about an hour and a half in, these clouds formed over Arafah. And it was very distinct that these clouds were only over the area of Arafah. These millions of people with their hands raised to the sky, pleading to Allah for their personal and for the collective, for their dunya and for their akhira, for their worldly life and for the hereafter,
for acceptance and for forgiveness. And then you had these clouds that formed. And clouds at that time in the days of Hajj can be very scary as well, because people are very vulnerable. If the weather gets bad, then people have no buildings to retreat to. So it doesn't rain there. Usually it's very unlikely for it to ever rain there in that desert. It truly is wadin ghayri dhi zar'a, a place where fruits and vegetables don't typically grow, where it doesn't really rain. And so if it really rains bad, then it can get very dangerous for people. And so when the clouds form, they can be quite intimidating. So clouds form over the area of Arafah and a light drizzle starts to come. And then subhanAllah, that's where the rain starts. And the rain that came down on the day of Arafah on the people that were there in Hajj was so extraordinary, so refreshing. It brought everyone out of their tents. And if you took a moment to just peek around you, all you saw was everybody outside standing up with their hands up like this. No one was sitting. No one was in a tent. The rain hits you from this way, and then the rain hits you from behind you. And it was heavy enough to cool off the entire day of Arafah. And at the same time, it wasn't too heavy to where it became dangerous for the people that were outside. There was lightning, and the lightning actually struck, there's the main light source. The lightning bolt actually struck it directly and lit up all the lights at one time. Saw it happen in front of my own two eyes. And you have this scene out of a movie, and you just have suddenly the exact opposite. If someone were to tell you this would be the scene 30 minutes before that, you wouldn't believe it. And subhanAllah, as that day was special, and I ask Allah again to accept it not just from the people there, but for the entire ummah, for everybody that dua was made on behalf of on that day,
and for everyone who fasted that day in reaping the rewards of Arafah. As that's going, as that's taking place, can't help but wonder, who is here this year? Who is this guest of Allah, or who are these guests of Allah that this incredible scene was created for the benefit of everybody? And that's actually what I want to focus on for a moment. There are people that attain the status with Allah to where they are the friends of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And there are different levels of friendship. And there are different things that could happen for people when they actually attain becoming friends of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in that status. There's an exclusive status. There's an exclusive tier which is a Khalil, which is Ibrahim a.s. first. Ibrahim a.s. that special exclusive friend of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala where Allah chose Ibrahim a.s. And someone says, you know, you go through the story of Ibrahim a.s. and you hear all of these things that he was put through. And I know that the days of the Hijj are over and you guys like we've been hearing khutbas about Ibrahim a.s. for the last few months, or for the last month. But if you pay attention to this for a moment, you see the stages of Ibrahim a.s. and you go, did he really have to be that harsh? Did he really have to go through this and this and this and this and this and that? But here's the thing. Al-khulla or to attain that status of Khalil, Allah empties out everything and fills that only with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That heart has to be elevated to a place where it is only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and everything is cast within that love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So what he went through with his father, of course there was compensation for that. What he went through with his son, with Ismail a.s. The story doesn't end with the sacrifice of Ismail a.s.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives him, of course, many children after that, right? Many sons after that. So not only did he not lose Ismail a.s. Allah blessed him with many children after that. So Allah replaces what he loses and the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that the first person to be dressed on the day of judgment would be Ibrahim a.s. Because of how he was stripped and thrown into the fire and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would honor him first on the day of judgment with a garment as he proceeds to the place of assembly. So everything gets replaced and there is a good ending to all of this, right? But all of that, why? Allah cleared out everything for Ibrahim a.s. When you are chosen to be a Khalil of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, there have to be extraordinary steps. Things that no other person will be put through. Things that no other person will be put through. Even if you see a dream of you sacrificing your son, you're not supposed to sacrifice your son. No one else goes through this stuff. It's Allah elevating, He chose Ibrahim a.s. and elevated him to a particular spot. And the tests were unique because his station was so unique. And it's exclusive. Or it has a degree of exclusivity because the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, If I was to take a Khalil from my Ummah, a friend from my Ummah, it would have been Abu Bakr as-Siddiq radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. But Allah has already taken me as a Khalil. So even Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu could not ascend to that spot with the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He's the Siddiq, he's the best friend of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam amongst the people. But the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, Allah has chosen me as a Khalil. And once you're Allah's Khalil, no one else is in that relationship. And we have people like that in our lives. And if you look at the Hadith, because it's often just translated as friend, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam says that a person is on the Deen of who? You are on the religion of your Khalil. فَلْيَنظُرْ أَحَدُكُم مَن يُخَالِلُ
So look to who you take as that special friend. Not someone you just hang out with every once in a while. But you really, when you take time, when you start to spend a lot of time with someone, your love, your priorities, and your likeness starts to become the same. They start to synchronize. So Khalil is a very special thing that Allah gives to Ibrahim alaihi wasallam, to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Then there is this level of Wilaya, that a person becomes a Wali of Allah. That doesn't mean that you see a dream and then you wear a turban, and then everyone calls you a Wali, and you're a Wali, and you get to put it in front of your name like a credential. The Hawliya of Allah, these close friends of Allah are very much so scattered amongst the people, and you don't know who they are, and that's what makes this so interesting. You don't know who a Wali of Allah is. In fact, some of the Awliya of Allah themselves don't know that they're Awliya of Allah. They don't quite understand how much Allah loves them, and how they could have ascended in those ranks. And there are three ways that the ulama mention that a person attains that status of Wilaya, of that special friendship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The one that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam narrated in a Hadith Qudsi, that Allah has said, من عاد لي وليا فقد آذنته بالحرب. That whoever takes a Wali of mine, someone that is that beloved to me of mine, that special friend of mine as an enemy, I will wage war on him. May Allah let us be the Wali and not the one having war waged upon them by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allahumma ameen. That's both very beautiful and very scary at the same time, because again, because the Awliya or Akhfiyat, they're hidden. Ali radhiya allahu ta'ala said, Allah has hidden two things amongst the people. He's hidden his pleasure and his good deeds, so you don't know which of the good deeds is the one that unlocks his pleasure, and Allah has hidden his Awliya, his special friends amongst the people. You don't know who you're dealing with.
Literally, you don't know who you're dealing with when you're dealing with that person. That also doesn't mean a person goes out and commits major sins and says, well, I might just be that Wali of Allah. No, no. There's a person that's striving to reach that position, and then there is the person that has that unlocked for them. And Allah says, whoever reaches that position, I will wage war on the one who harms that person. Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahu allah said, How many nations have been protected or destroyed because of a Wali within them or against them? One or two people that Allah holds in such high regard and such high standard. Now, there's something instructive about this. The takeaway from this is not just that I'm just going to sit back and hope, make du'a, Oh Allah, make me a Wali. There are three things that allow a person to attain that state. The first one is that you do, you fulfill the obligations and you do good until you taste the sweetness of that good, which is the pleasure of Allah, and that becomes your unique driving force in life. The pleasure of Allah, the Rida of Allah becomes your exclusive driving force in life. It becomes your drive, it becomes your momentum, attaining His pleasure. And that's how the hadith goes. وَمَا تَقَرَّبْ إِلَيَّ عَبْدِي بِشَيْءٍ أَحَبُّ إِلَيَّ مِمَّا افْطَرَتُهُ عَلَيْهِ You don't come close to Allah with anything more beloved than doing your obligations right, praying on time, fasting, doing the things that Allah tells you to do, fulfilling the obligations. And then you get closer to Him with an nawafil. You taste the sweetness of the obligations and now you start to do the voluntary deeds. حَتَّى أُحِبَّ Until Allah loves you. Until Allah loves you with that exclusive, special love. And when Allah loves you that way, كُنتُ سَمْعَهُ الَّذِي يَسْمَعُ بِهَا Allah becomes the hearing with which you see, with which you hear, the sight with which you see, the hand with which you strike, the way that you walk, everything.
Allah becomes, you become entrenched in that pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and seeking that pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it becomes your exclusive driving force. There is no second, it's just the pleasure of Allah. That's one way of reaching that status with Allah, where the rida of Allah, the pleasure of Allah is what drives you to all of your good deeds, through all of your good deeds, so that you keep on doing more and more and more and more and you can't get enough of it. Because you taste the sweetness of prayer now, five times is not enough anymore. Taste of the sweetness of fasting now, Ramadan is not enough anymore. Taste of the sweetness of Hajj, Hajj is not enough anymore, I need to go to Umrah. As soon as I get my foot on that plane in Jadda or Medina, Ya Rabb, when am I coming back? When do I get to come back for Umrah? Are you making plans already for the winter, thinking about when's your next chance? If Allah unlocks that for you, some people never go but their hearts are there and Allah is accepting it for them. They never get a chance to go there but their hearts are there and connected to it. So Allah unlocks these things for you and you taste the pleasure of those good deeds and that becomes the driving force. The second one is that the sincerity of your repentance, it's actually a more sudden one. A person makes a sincere repentance to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, because of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the pleasure of Allah in that repentance completely removes the effect of the pleasure of that disobedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So that's where you find those ahadith about a person who was in major sin and then suddenly switches. The pleasure of Allah overwhelms any type of pleasure they used to get from that disobedience and now they are calibrated in that way and so they immediately rise in status with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The third one is when Allah tests you with a major tragedy. Allah takes away something from you and through that tragedy you do ihtisab,
which is to seek the reward and the reward is Allah's pleasure. And you try to seek that pleasure from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that's what sees you through that tragedy and that again becomes the way that you contextualize all of your tragedies and all of your tribulations. That a person would reach that status of wilaya. Subhanallah you find these stories of the salaf in the past. You've got examples of all of these. There's a man that Abdullah ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala said that one day that the people were out making istisqa, they were asking Allah for rain and they were in drought for a very long time. And as they were out asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for rain that all of these righteous people were making dua, were praying and it was a long time that rain did not come and then ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala said, I saw this man, an enslaved man who had no status in society in the corner of the marketplace. And he had his hands raised in the corner and he said, Allahumma inni as'aluka bihubbika ilayya illa amtartana. Oh Allah I ask you by your love for me that you allow rain to come upon all of us. What audacity that person has to ask Allah with that type of a dua. He knows that worldly status is not what conveys, confers status on a person. But he had a special status with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So he said, Allahumma inni as'aluka bihubbika ilayya. Oh Allah I ask you by your love for me that you would allow rain to come upon all of us. Ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala said, I was the only one close enough to that man where I could hear his dua and as soon as he finished making that dua it started to rain upon all of us. And I looked at him and I thought, who is this man?
Subhanallah, simple servant of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He wasn't a scholar, he wasn't giving khutbas. He wasn't someone that was known, he didn't have any prominence, but he had a status with Allah. And that was to the benefit of everybody else that was over there. Muhammad ibn Mukandir rahimahullah ta'ala, he said that one, in Medina we went six months without rain. And he said, wallahi the people were asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that I went next to the Ka'bah and I saw this person, unknown person, grabbing to the cloth of the Ka'bah. And he said, ya rab an'an. Like now. And complete sincerity drenched and then it started to rain on the people in Medina. There's one of the salaf who was on a ship and the, I mentioned this in the prayers of the pious series, one of the salaf, and as the clouds started to form and all of these winds started to blow the ship around and people were worried and he was in complete calm. He said, ya Allah, you have showed us your qudrah, you've showed us your power, so show us your pardon, show us your mercy and your pardon. And then suddenly everything calms. If a person reaches that position, it's special. And sometimes again you don't know. That's level one. Level two which was that a person has a sincere repentance, is what's narrated in At-Tawwabin by Ibn Qudamah rahimahullah ta'ala, the story of Musa alayhi salam and the disobedient one from Bani Israel. Where Musa alayhi salam, a prophet of Allah, was amongst the people and they suffered from a drought. And he asked Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for rain and it didn't come, so he called upon Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he said, Ya Rabb, what is it? Why is the rain being withheld from us? So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, there is a servant of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala amongst you,
who has been challenging me with his ma'siyah, challenging me with his disobedience. And the rain has been withheld because of him. So Musa alayhi salam gathered the people and he said, he called out to the people, Bani Israel, he said, who is it? Whoever that person is that's been challenging Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, stand up, seek forgiveness, repent to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we're all suffering because of you. And that man in those moments, feeling as humbled as he was, calls upon Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he says, Ya Rabb, you've kept me protected, you've covered me and sheltered me in my disobedience for all of these years. So Ya Allah, accept my repentance, I'm turning back to you. He was so humbled that Allah cared enough about him. You see when Allah calls you back to tawbah, cared enough about him to send that message to him, he knew it was him. He said, Ya Rabb, you covered me all of this time, I seek your forgiveness, astaghfirukahu wa atubu ilayk. He started to cry to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he started to repent to Allah and he sought his forgiveness. And as he did that, the rain started to fall. And Musa alayhi salam, he asked Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he said, No one came forward, Ya Rabb, no one came forward. How come the rain came? What happened? And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Ya Musa, I covered that man for all of these years in ma'siyah, in disobedience. You think I'm going to expose him in ta'a when he's in obedience? And the same person for whom the rain was forbidden for you, it now came down for you. Subhanallah, that one moment, that person upgraded their status with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
by turning back to Allah and prioritizing the pleasure of Allah over all of whatever disobedience he was committing, enough to forbid that entire ummah. Is the disobedience even mentioned? No, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what the nature of the disobedience is. It doesn't matter how bad you've been or what you've done, because Allah's mercy is greater than all of that. As long as you're now going to recalibrate and seek Allah's pleasure. If you seek His pleasure over all of that, then that's what counts. And that last one. Allah tests you with something so severe, so harsh, and you turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and you seek His pleasure through that. Allah takes something away from you that you thought you could not live without. Allah takes away, وَلَنَبْلُوَ أَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِّنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنفُسِ وَالْثَّمَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ Allah says you'll be tested with your safety, you'll be tested with your health, you'll be tested with your family, you'll be tested with your sustenance, you'll... All of this uncertainty, things are going to be all over the place. وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ But give glad tidings to the patient. When you walk around in Hajj, you see people without legs, you see people without arms, you see people in poverty, you see people... Some of them, their pain is apparent on them. People being carried on the backs of others. People that do not have the ability to see, that have to have someone... It's already difficult enough for a young healthy person to walk those days of Hajj. You see people that have all sorts of ailments and someone has to walk them around. You see people trip and fall, you see people collapse because they can't walk that many miles a day in that heat. You see obvious pain in health, you see poverty around you. And for how many people that are walking around in Arafah and Hajj this year, their pain was completely silent.
No one knows what that person's been through. You can run into someone in front of the masjid of the Prophet ﷺ or pray next to someone in the haram and you don't know what that person's been through. And you don't know why Allah chose them to be there or why Allah chose you to be there. Or what their calling upon Allah with or what their status with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is. We have such an arrogance by the way as western Muslims that we project on them. Look at these people, they can't even form a line. Look at you, you can't even pray. And they pray all night in the haram. They have faults and we have faults but you don't know that person's status. You don't know their circumstances. And they call upon Allah and invoke Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And no one knows who's around them. If you start talking to people you hear their pain. In this masjid right now, we don't know each other's pain, we don't know what everybody's going through. We don't know the struggles that we're having with family and health and wealth and all that. We don't know what struggles we're having with career unless you know someone very intimately and they're talking to you right. You don't know. Subhanallah you know who was there this year at Hajj? The families of the martyrs of Christ Church, New Zealand. And some of the survivors. The families of the shuhada, if you walked past them. I ran into Aziz, the hero of Masjid An-Nur in Sa'i. And talked to him there. And if you saw him you just think he's just another Afghani man walking between Safa and Marwa like everybody else. And this guy, Allah knows what his status is in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Walking and doing dhikr with his slippers in his hand just like anybody else. Abu Atta, Um Atta. These special people lost their families in Juma. Sitting here just like you. And their families were taken from them. And they're there in Hajj. Almost all of them were there in Hajj this year.
And if you saw them, wallahi you would not recognize them. You wouldn't know them. You see these people and you think it's just another Hajji. And these are people that put their loved ones in the ground for Allah. And Allah called them to Hajj this year. This is a brother, Wasim, who was in a coma when we went to Christchurch. Because he shielded his daughter. Wasim shielded his 4 year old daughter when the massacre happened. And he was shot 9 times. Holding his daughter. And the last memory he had before he went into a coma was getting to the hospital. And his daughter was in blood and he was in blood and he said take my daughter, don't worry about me. And then he collapsed and he went into a coma. When we went to Christchurch, Wasim wasn't awake. He was in a coma. When he woke up 3 weeks later, he started shouting for his daughter. And when they told him that your daughter is okay because Alhamdulillah she survived. He didn't believe them. He had to see her. And she turned 5 in the hospital right there in the hospital bed next to him. And they were at Hajj this year. They were at Hajj this year. If Allah is shy from the hands of a servant who could have disobeyed him and turned to him for those few moments. Then what about that person who gave it all for Allah. And there are people, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned, a martyr that could be walking and those people were there saying Allahumma and they could have been right next to him and you didn't even know. We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to accept our du'as, to accept the du'as of all of those for whom Hajj was made on behalf of and du'a was made on behalf of. To accept all of the good deeds of the first 10 of the hijjah that were done and to forgive us for our shortcomings. Ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to comfort the shuhada, to elevate the shuhada and the families of the shuhada.
And we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to accept all of our good deeds and forgive our shortcomings. Allahumma ameen. Aqooloo qawwihaadha wa astaghfiru Allahi wa barakoo alrisaalil muslimeen. Fastaghfiru anna huwa l-wafoor wa l-raheem.
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