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A Jannah Worth Chasing | Khutbah
Jannah may be difficult to imagine, and it may even seem unappealing, but remember: nothing in this world resembles what's in Jannah except in name. Jannah is what you wish.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. After welcoming my brothers and sisters to the house of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala and praising him and testifying to his oneness and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad alayhi salatu wasalam and reminding myself and you the taqwa of Allah, to remain conscious and consistent and dutiful and loving to and of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. The reminder this afternoon will be about one of the worthiest whispers or suggestions that we may find in us or around us to combat, the worthiest to combat. And that is the whisper or the suggestion or the assumption that Jannah, paradise, our life mission and yours, the grand prize for us all, is something trivial, is something to be underestimated, something to be devalued. I always recall years ago when I was asked to give a summary of the Qur'anic description of Jannah and its bliss and its pleasures and its delights. The very first question that came from the crowd, a sister grabbed the microphone, she said, I'm sorry but this is not how I see Jannah. You made Jannah sound like it's some sort of candy land. That's what she said. And she was insinuating that the Jannah, if described like this, is not something very appealing. But first and foremost, you certainly may have one reason greater than another why you pursue Jannah. But you must never underestimate or fail to appreciate why Allah described it as such in so many different ways. Physical pleasures, emotional pleasures, spiritual pleasures, like connecting with Allah
Azza wa Jal, to connect with everyone. In fact, the vast majority of us live for some fantasy, live for some, nowadays they're gonna turn it into a virtual reality to watch it, watch our imaginations unfold. The technology is geared towards now. But what do we do? So much of our life is what? Talking about restaurants and recipes, right? Trying to reverse the aging process and hopefully become young again or immortal. Fixing all of our health, you know, dilemmas and challenges once and for all. Finding, you know, peace and security, finding some popularity, being able to own some big estate, you know, with an in-ground pool. This is exactly what Allah described for the people of Jannah. You will have mansions there underneath which rivers flow, right? In-ground rivers. And you will be treated like royalty in this place. As the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us, you will enter there with the height of Adam Alaihi Salaam and in the beautiful image of Yusuf Alaihi Salaam. And each person will enter with the heart, the contentment and peace that existed in the heart of Ayub Alaihi Salaam. That's what we're all chasing our whole life. He even said to us Alaihi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that the very last person to enter Jannah, as he's walking through Jannah, an intensely bright light will shine. And he will fall into sujood immediately, into prostration. And he will be told, what are you doing? Like, what's going on? He will say, I'm making sujood. Isn't my Lord, my Rabb, about to present Himself to me, show Himself to me? And then he will look up and he'll see a man standing there. Not Allah Azza wa Jal. And he'll say, no, this is just one of your properties, your estates. And I am just one of
your butlers. You're the guy who serves you drink. And you have a thousand like me. Come along. And then he will lead this man, the butler will lead the person through his property, through what he owns. And he will enter his least kingdom, his lowest kingdom, his smallest castle. And every time his butler takes him to one of the heights, the peaks of this kingdom, a mountaintop or a tower, he will be able to see, his vision will extend to the very extent of the boundary of that kingdom. And it will be on its own a hundred year journey. This was recorded with a sound chain from our Prophet ﷺ, collected by Abu Nu'aym, rahimahullah, and Is'hilya. And then a caller will call out to all of these people when they enter Jannah. He said, ﷺ, today you will finally be healthy, never to fall sick again. That's what we're chasing. Today you will finally be immortal, never to die again. Today you will be young and never grow old again. Today you will finally be satisfied. You'll finally be pleased. You never have to worry again. And so that concept of never having to worry, about being disappointed while in Jannah, is something that actually the Prophet ﷺ would do. It is the sunnah. That reassurance is a sunnah, and that's why I dedicate a khutbah to it. One time he was describing to the sahaba, one of the trees of Jannah, and he drew a parallel between it and the sidri tree, the loath tree. And so a Bedouin man said, Ya Rasulallah, I never thought anything harmful would exist in Jannah, because you know that the loath tree is filled with thorns, it's a thorny plant. So he automatically said, oh but that's like a downside,
that one has thorns. And so the Prophet ﷺ said to him, no, the loath tree in Jannah is shaved. Allah shaves off all of its thorns and places fruits there in its place. And when you look up at those trees and those fruits, they will be glamorous. He says they will contain 72 colors, no two of those colors resembling each other. So that's just, even the visuals will be so unique, so new. And then there are the tastes. The taste of the fruits of Jannah, Allah Azzawajal said in the Quran, كلما رزقوا منها من ثمرة رزقا قالوا هذا الذي رزقنا من قبل وأتوا به متشابه. Every time they're given one of the produce, one of the fruits of Jannah, they'll say, this is what we had before. Meaning this is an orange, this is a pomegranate. We've had this before, we can identify it. Allah says, but it will only resemble it, they will assume it to be so. Because nothing in this world resembles what exists in Jannah but the names. So that you can begin to imagine, begin to motivate yourself. We have to have some degree of familiarity. But then they will eat it and realize it tastes nothing like it. And some scholars said what this ayah means is every time they're given a fruit in Jannah, they say, oh we just had this fruit, meaning in Jannah, and it will taste different each time. And those are the fruits. Then there are the drinks. And we spoke in our last khutbah just as one example of al-kawthar, which is a river from Jannah. When they probed the Prophet ﷺ further, beyond the fact that kawthar quenches people, they said what is it like? He said al-kawthar is whiter than milk and sweeter than honey. And on it are birds with necks like camels. Maybe
nowadays we can relate a little better, we know what swans look like, the long neck. And so Umar radiyallahu anhu or another of the sahaba, they said, Ya Rasulallah, innaha lana'ima, that was one luxurious bird, gets to swim around in al-kawthar, gets to drink from al-kawthar itself. Not some pond somewhere or some swamp somewhere. Innaha lana'ima. He said ﷺ, akalatuha an'amu minha. This is in sunan al-tirmidhi. Those who get to dine on the flesh of this bird, those who get to eat it, are more luxurious than this bird. This is their food. And they have it prepared for them, cooked for them, grilled for them, whatever way you want it. Allah says in the Qur'an, walahmi tayrim mimma yashtahoon. And they will be allowed to enjoy the flesh of birds as they desire it. As they desire it. And if you desire to see something amazing after you finish eating this bird, the Prophet ﷺ said, when they are done with it, Allah ﷻ will allow it and cause it to regrow and fly away after you've eaten it. You know a Jewish man once came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, basically he asked about the rest of this story. He said, but what about the food that we've already taken in? What will happen? This is again another thought. Okay, but if you eat, naturally you have to release, you have to excrete, you have to let out the waste. He said, what happens to the food that is taken in, consumed by the people of Jannah? And the Prophet ﷺ said, Allah will cause the believers to perspire it. It will come out like sweat comes out, but smell like the smell of musk while appearing like the dew of plants. That morning moisture that comes out of the plants, it will come out. There will be no answering the call of
nature as we call it. There will be no bathrooms. There will be no waste. There will be no foul odors. You will simply perspire it and it will only increase the experience, the scent, the fragrance of that perspiration of yours. And so all in all, as Allah ﷻ said, وَفِيهَا مَا تَشْتَهِيهِ الْأَنفُسُ وَتَلَذُّ الْأَعْيُنُ وَأَنتُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ In it is everything you will desire and everything that will delight your eyes to see and you will spend forever in there. You know the Prophet ﷺ actually added to this and said that the least person in all of Jannah, Allah will ask him to wish, make a wish and he will continue tell him wish and wish for more and Allah will remind him of things he forgot to wish for. حَتَّى تَنْقَطْعَ آمَالُهُ Until he will just run out of things to say, run out of things to wish for. He will tell him, are you done? He will say, absolutely, Allah. And he will tell him you will have twofold and some he will tell them you will have tenfold from where your imagination expires, from where your wishes ran out. I will multiply that by ten for you. And Abu Huraira رضي الله تعالى عنه he said that one time the Prophet ﷺ was speaking to us, further illustrating for us Jannah and a Bedouin man, a desert dweller came and said, Ya Rasulullah, the Prophet ﷺ said first actually that there will be a man in paradise who Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى will say to him, do you have everything that you want? He will say, Ya Allah, absolutely, everything I want except I wish I could farm. I wish I could have a farm. You know farming is hard work, farming is toiling, but he wishes to farm. And so Allah will allow him
to plant the seeds and they will blossom and they will ripen and it will become a mountain, a vast mountain of harvest all in moments without the toil. And so the Bedouin man said, Ya Rasulullah, the man's actually gonna ask for farming. He said Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى will tell this man, the Prophet ﷺ said, nothing will please you O son of Adam. Like I give you all of Jannah and you desire something like this. You want to be a tillman or a workman. And the Bedouin said to the Prophet ﷺ, this man cannot be one of us. And this is a beautiful point. This man must be from Quraysh or the Ansar because we don't like farming. We're not the farming type. We're out in the deserts. And so it will have for each person what they want. You know some person, a sister may say, you know, Alhamdulillah, the pains of childbirthing are over. And another sister may say that I never had this pleasure or I wish I would have had more children and so on and so forth. And the Prophet ﷺ said that if a person wishes to have, give birth to have a child in paradise, the pregnancy and the gestation, the duration of the pregnancy and the childbirth and the growth of the child will all happen in moments. They will experience it all without any of the pain involved. And so Jannah is what you wish. And do not restrict Jannah to what your imagination wishes or what you don't wish and someone else might.
On several occasions actually, but not many, throughout the years people have also said to me, but won't we get bored in Jannah? Like everything is just so easy. Everything is always there. And again we are comparing it with our realities here, our context in this world. But Allah ﷻ will never do that to us. And He already told us, إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ كَانَتْ لَهُمْ جَنَّاتُ الْفِرْدَوْسِ نُزُلًا Those who believe and do good deeds prepared for them are the highest gardens as a hosting. I'm personally hosting you. نُزُلًا خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا لَا يَبْغُونَ عَنْهَا حِوَلًا Abiding therein forever, they will never wish to be removed and you know, relocated somewhere else. They will never wish that. It is not like here. You know, as one of the brothers said that I went to San Diego and San Diego is known to have the best weather in the country, right? It's just a perfect balance. A 70s sunny, partly sunny 70s throughout the year. And I said, man, what I would do to live in this city. And over and over again in my little stretch in that city, the Muslims would tell me, man, I wish we could experience snow. I wish we could see this or we could see that. Everything is the same here. Jannah will not involve any of that disappointment. Also because who said Jannah will not change? Anas ibn Malik radiallahu anhu narrates to us that there is a perpetual, there's like an endless upgrade in Jannah. May Allah gather us and you there and gather our families there. He said every Friday the people of Jannah are met in the souq, meet each other in the markets in Jannah. And when they are there in the
markets, the northern wind will blow. Allah will cause some breeze to come their way that will blow into their faces and blow through their garments, their royal garbs every Friday, which will increase them in beauty, increase them in every good thing. And so they will return home to their families, meaning return home to their houses, their properties, their servants, and they will find out that they too had improved and been enhanced in their appearance. And so their servants will tell them, Wallahi you are more beautiful than you left us. And these people will say to their servants and family, and you too are more beautiful than the last time I saw you. And so even the concept of boredom because things are staying the same cannot be understood about Jannah. There is an endless upgrade. And then Allah Subhanahu wa'ta'ala comes to them and with it we must close with the greatest of the pleasures of Jannah. That yes, the physical and the emotional and everything else is inferior to it. Then we can say this, that compared to Allah coming to us and saying, هل رضيتم؟ Are you pleased? And we say to Him, how can we not be pleased when you've given us what you've never given anyone? And then He says to us, ألا أعطيكم أفضل من ذلك؟ Shall I not give you something better than that? And we say, what can possibly be better? Can't even think it. And He says, أحل عليكم رضواني فلا أسخط عليكم بعده أبدا I make permanent for you my pleasure, never to become angry with you again. And then the veils of light are removed. May Allah permit for us to see it. And you're allowed to gaze upon the face of your Lord Subhanahu wa'ta'ala. That is something we are very excited about. That is something worthy of spending a hundred lifetimes chasing. So may we continually visit the Quran. This will
be my parting message. To never allow the whisper that trivializes, devalues, creates blur and fog and misconception about the worth of this chase to ever enter upon us or those we care about. Allahumma ameen. You will find it in every page of the Quran almost. So our task is to remain close to the Quran and its pages. Daily and weekly and monthly and may Allah allow us to see the month of Ramadan, the month of Quran. Allahumma ameen. Allahumma inna nasaluka aljannata wa ma qarraba ilayha min qawlin wa amal. wa na'oothu bika min al-nari wa ma qarraba ilayha min qawlin wa amal. nasaluka al-firdaws al-a'ala min al-janna ya rabbana. wa sallallahu wa sallam wa barakaa nabiyyina muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in.
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