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Khutbahs
A Love Story In The Year of Grief | Khutbah by Sh. Elshinawy
Many of us know about Khadijah (RA), but do we really know what made her exceptional? Even after her death, the Prophet ﷺ spoke of her constantly, sent meat to her old friends, and grew emotional at the sound of her sister's voice. Listen to the khutbah by Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy to gain a new perspective on the Prophet (SAWS) and his relationship with Khadijah (RA).
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
We begin in the name of Allah always, and we praise Him and we thank Him and we seek His help and His guidance and His forgiveness. And we testify to His unique oneness and to the finality
of the Prophethood of Muhammad ﷺ. And reminding myself and you with the taqwa of Allah, to be conscious of Allah at all times and places as best as we can. Brothers and sisters, there was nobody
and there will be nobody ever like Khadijah. Not just because she was the only woman to be
married to our Prophet ﷺ and have him all to herself for 25 years. Not only because she was
in fact the very first person to ever believe in his message on the face of the earth. Not just because she was the only mother of his surviving children. Not only because she was the greatest
woman of the greatest generation ever brought out to humanity. But because she may have actually been the greatest woman of all time. In Sahih al-Bukhari, the Prophet ﷺ said,
Khayru nisa'iha Maryam wa khayru nisa'iha Khadijah. The best of her women, the women of her respective time, was Maryam, mother of Jesus, peace be upon them both. And the best
of her women, her contemporaries, was Khadijah. As Imam al-Nawawi said, and then he stopped ﷺ. He didn't referee between them, so the verdict may in fact be out.
In another hadith, he said ﷺ, Khayru nisa'i ahl al-jannah. The best of all the women of paradise are Maryam bint Imran. May Allah be pleased with her. And Asiyah bint Muzahim, the wife of the
tyrant pharaoh who believed in Moses. Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, the woman of the hour today.
And Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad ﷺ. And he said, wa fadlu Aisha ala sa'iri nisa'ika fadli
thareedi ala sa'iri ta'am. And the distinction of Aisha over the other women beyond these four is like the virtue of the most prized food we have over any other food.
What made her so amazing? First of all, don't be surprised that she might be the greatest woman of all time because it would be perfectly suitable that Allah set up the greatest human being of all time with the greatest, most supportive, most righteous woman of all time.
And that is the first lesson today. That especially when it comes to spouses, life partners, they are far more often than we think reflections of each other.
Oftentimes we like to think that our spouse or our spouse-to-be is so different from us, but they're actually not. And so the exception is rare. The rule of thumb is Allah sets you
up with a person to keep your pace or close to it. And that is why the Salaf, the early Muslims, would say, if you want Fatimah, you need to be Ali. May Allah be pleased with them both.
And if you want Ali, you need to be Fatimah. To keep projecting blame that no one's good enough or my spouse is so bad, it's actually the wrong way to look at it. You may want to look in the
mirror. But what made her so great? Some glimpses of her greatness, though we will for sure fail in this khutbah to communicate her greatness. Take this one hadith for example. In Sahih al-Bukhari,
the Prophet ﷺ told us that Jibrail said to me once, Khadijah is turning the corner right now,
with her is some food and some drink. When she comes, tell her, tell her, her Lord is extending to her salams, greeting her, and extend to her salams from me as
well. And the hadith continues, but Khadijah comes and he says, Jibrail just told me to tell you that Allah relays you his salams and Jibrail as well relays you his salams.
How does she respond? It's actually an indication, a testament to her greatness. She said, Allah is the source of all peace and upon you and upon Gabriel be peace.
I want you to realize this is early Islam. She didn't need to be told you don't say peace be upon God. God is where peace flows from. There is no peace, no harmony, no tranquility, except
that it comes from God. And if it doesn't come from God, it doesn't come. So she said, Allah is as-Salam and upon you and upon Gabriel be as-Salam. You know, even some of the senior Companions
made this mistake, by the way. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, just to contrast, he said, we used to say
when we were first saying Tashahhud in prayer, peace be upon God, peace be upon Gabriel, peace be upon Michael. And the Prophet ﷺ would correct us and say,
don't say peace be upon God, say all salutations, all honorings belong to God and peace be upon the righteous. Khadijah didn't need to be told that. She instinctively, intuitively had such a clear
conceptualization, image, if you will, of God in her heart. God is as-Salam. And then the Prophet continued to tell her, after the greetings from God and Gabriel, he said to her and he told me
to tell you glad tidings of a home in paradise. A home that is made out of a pearl. It's not
pearl tiles. It is a pearl, a massive pearl, 60 miles in the sky, carved out. That's your home. And in it, there is no loud noise. And in it, there is no exhaustion.
Peace, tranquility, quiet, comfort. Why did he call it a home and not a palace when clearly it's a palace? Because she was the home of the Prophet ﷺ.
You know, in English, we say the difference between a house and a home is that home is where the love is. She was his sanctuary where he would go back to. You know, she raised his kids for him,
even if it's the most righteous house. Kids are kids. Humans are humans. It can get loud. Life is never an Instagram moment, as they say, right? It's not picturesque. It's work. It's labor. Life
is strife, as they say. She was his home. And so Allah picked for her a perfect prize. She gets a home where there will be no more noise and no more exhaustion. And this is a lesson for
us as well, that Allah picks for every deed its most perfect prize. When we learn in Islam that Ibrahim alayhis-salam is sitting at al-Bayt al-Ma'mur, the Kaaba of the heavens, awaiting
there until the day of judgment. Why did Allah have his soul there? Because he built the Kaaba of the earth or rebuilt it. Why in Islam are we told that Bilal, the Prophet said, in a vision,
in a dream, revelation from Allah, I heard your footsteps ahead of me in paradise, O Bilal. Why? No way he's better than the Prophet ﷺ. Nobody is. Then why ahead?
It's because Bilal was always walking ahead of the Prophet ﷺ to the masjid to call the adhan to which the Prophet would respond.
Why is it that Zaid ibn Harithah is the only Companion whose name is in the Qur'an? Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali cannot be compared among the Companions. None of them are
spelled out in the Qur'an by name. Only Zaid gets that honor. Why? Because Zaid accepted losing his name, his last name. He used to be called Zaid ibn Muhammad, Zaid the son of Muhammad.
Then the revelation came down and said adoption shouldn't happen in this way. It's taking care of orphans, yes, but not in the way that erases your biological ancestry. There's rights dependent on this. So you are no longer Zaid the son of Muhammad, which is the most
honorific name. You are Zaid the son of Harithah. He accepted that. So how did Allah reward him? By putting his first name in the Qur'an and nobody else's. You see how it matches the prize?
Why is it that of all those martyred in the lifetime of the Prophet, we are told that Ja'far in particular was given two wings to fly in paradise wherever he wanted because Ja'far was the
one that lost his two arms holding up the flag of the Muslims at Mu'tah. And so when you remember Khadijah and her home, right, where there is no noise and no exhaustion, remember it's because
that's what she put forward for the Deen of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic. She was the emotional anchor of his home. She exerted so much of her protective nurturance, grounding. She reminded him when
he came back shivering from the cave, right? It wasn't just his kids. She reassured him. You know, I'll tell you something, brothers and sisters, in light of, you know, the gender wars that are force-fed to us in modern times, a woman will hardly ever find tranquility
without leaning into that strength of hers, that even desire of hers, hardwired inside of them
to exert, to exhibit protective nurturance. And men as well, men will hardly ever find tranquility in their lives without having at home someone that can offer them that protective nurturance.
And the Prophet ﷺ actually spoke to this. In Bukhari and Muslim, he said, the best women to ever ride camels, meaning the best women on earth,
are the righteous women of Quraysh. Of course, Khadijah is among them, actually atop them. Then he describes why. He says,
because they are most tender to children in their youngest years, and they are most protective, protective nurturance, most protective of their husbands with regards to
that which belongs to them. But you know, in this day and age, when a woman parrots, I don't need no men, and then men go their own way, that's actually the name of a movement,
men go their own way. They both suffer. But you know who suffers the most? The children suffer the most, for a lifetime as adults, because the parents couldn't stop acting like children, with this bickering.
You know, 46% of single-parent homes, and they're a lot, as of 2012, one of three kids in this country is born out of wedlock, let alone divorce rates.
46% of single-parent homes grow up with financial instability.
But let me ask you a question, do you think the other, the remaining 54% actually got away scot-free?
The other 54%, so many of them were able to secure, even through a single parent, financial security at the expense of emotional security.
And that is why you see these harrowing, horrific numbers of single-parent homes and delinquency rates, juvenile detention rates, poor academic performance, gang membership,
suicide rates, negative mental health outcomes, all of that, because the emotional security, you know, if a woman has to work, that's called being a superhero. Like, working mother is a redundant statement, it's two full-time jobs and more.
But to volunteer for this, nobody wins, especially the kids. Khadijah radiallahu anha provided our Prophet ﷺ with all of that and more.
So much so, that our mother Aisha radiallahu anha, who is the most virtuous of women on the planet, but she was still human,
so she says, I was never jealous of any of the wives of the Prophet ﷺ the way I was jealous of Khadijah, and I never once met her, but it's because of how much he would speak of her.
He would always talk about her and praise her.
She said, when her sister Hala would knock on the door and ask permission to enter, to ask some question or otherwise, he would become cheerful and say, Allahumma Hala, O Allah, let it be Hala.
Because he said, because of how much she used to sound like Khadijah, like the register of her voice, how much she used to speak like Khadijah, she would use similar phrases.
Then he would let her in, he would welcome her, and he would say, Kaifa antum ba'dana, how are you guys after us, meaning after the families went their separate ways naturally, right, with the death of Khadijah radiallahu anha. Then he would slaughter a lamb, she says, and he'll say, where are the friends of Khadijah?
And he would send them meat and say, they used to like my wife, they used to like Khadijah radiallahu anha. She said, he would speak about her so much that I lost my temper once, and I said, Khadijah, Khadijah, ka laysa fid-dunya illa Khadijah.
He always talked about Khadijah this and Khadijah that, as if there's no one on earth but Khadijah. And so he said to me, Inni ruziqtu hubbaha, I was provided, you know, who's the provider? Allah.
And Allah provides, you know, like sustenance, food and drink. He's saying, Allah nourished me, if you will, with loving her. And then he said, Kanat wa kanat, then he went on, she said, to say even more things. You know what else she was like? You know what else she was like?
Aisha radiallahu anha said, one time I lost my temper, and I said something that I spent a month asking Allah
to cause the Prophet to become pleased with me, and I promised him that if he does, I'll never speak negatively of Khadijah again. What did she say? She said, one time I spoke, and I said,
Ajuzun hamrau shidqayni halakat fid-dahr, abdalakallahu khayran minha, like I don't understand. This is a senior elderly woman with red gums, you know, red gums means teeth had fallen out.
She's trying to say like nothing's there but red gums, right? Red gums that had died of old age, Allah has replaced you with someone better. She's referring to who? To herself?
And the Prophet ﷺ stopped her there, and he said, Ma abdalani khayran, I swear to you, Allah never gave me anyone better. And we all know what Aisha meant to him. He's saying no one ever
gave me anyone, Allah never gave me anyone like Khadijah. And then he said, she believed in me when the world rejected me and called me a liar. And she spent on me from her wealth when the world
withheld their resources from me. And Allah provided me with children through her and did not provide me with children through any other woman. This is also why, brothers and sisters,
it is incredibly difficult to imagine how difficult it was, how hard on him it was to watch her die in front of him after the starvation of the three
years of boycott. You know, the Muslims were forced between two mountains and those who were not physically capable, they slowly deteriorated. He saw her falling apart in front of him
and was powerless in the worldly sense to do anything for the one that kept him together from falling apart herself. So much so that when she died, it was called the year of grief.
And this is another important lesson. Whenever life lies to you and tells you things aren't going your way, God hates you or something. Did God hate the Prophet? No,
he gave him the most difficult of tests and only he is able to give him the patience to go through those tests. And you're the same in that regard. He wishes to elevate you, gives you tests that
you can handle if you just turn to him the right way. You know, as the poet said about all of the trials he gave him, he said, you never saw your father's face and hardly felt the warmth of your
mother's embrace. And then your grandfather who adopts you now, his heart would burn with concern and then death would come to him in turn with no one to look up to. You're still a child at this
point. You set your gaze to the sky and when you live for truth, it hurts. It cuts deeper when they say that you lie, the poet says. He says, doesn't it? And yet you move on. You take it all in stride.
The honest Prophet who by his own people is belied. Then he has only two pillars of support, an uncle and a perfect wife. And in the same year, the year of grief, both would lose their life.
Gabriel came, gave Khadijah his salams, gave her news of a house in Paradise. But then another, another angel had to come to your house to collect the price, the angel of death. He said, then you
went to Taif seeking support for the mission you have to spread. They taunted you, they stoned you, they sent their kids after you until they stoned you until you bled. And then at Uhud,
you're struck with vicious blows. And then your wife Aisha, she is accused with rumors, accusations that caused pain. Allah only knows. And then he says, and then Ja'far, your dear
cousin Ja'far, his absence ends. He would, and from Abyssinia, he would come. And on the same day, he is martyred. Ja'far, along with Zayd, your adopted son. And then Ruqayyah would pass away.
And Zaynab, and Umm Kulthum as well, his own daughters. And then you carry Ibrahim in your arms with a heart that bursts and eyes that swell. Death will take permission from you, O Muhammad, Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, to take your soul, but not the souls of those you love.
And yet you never objected, Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, to the tests that came from up above. The trials made you stronger. And for Allah's perfect company, you would yearn
for to Allah we belong, and to Him we return. This was the greatest man ever, because of the greatest trials ever, because he had from Allah the greatest love ever.
Brothers and sisters, there is one more hadith I wish to include here for a profound lesson behind it. After the Battle of Badr, the husband of the Prophet's daughter, Zaynab, his eldest daughter,
was among the captives who had enlisted and joined to wage war on the Prophet, Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam. Zaynab was still in Mecca. He let her stay in Mecca because her husband was a good man,
but then he joined. He was captured. People were sending packages, offerings, as ransom, to the Muslims in Medina to release their captives. Among what shows up in Medina is a
package from Zaynab. And they bring the Prophet, Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, and he sees the necklace of Zaynab. The narrator says, فَرَقَّ لَهَا رِقَّةً شَدِيدًا
He became intensely, extremely emotional seeing this necklace. Because this was actually the necklace of Khadijah, who had given it to her eldest daughter, Zaynab, on her wedding night.
She's paying it to get her husband back. And so the Prophet, Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, turns to the Sahaba and says, إِن شِئتُمْ أَطْلَقْتُمْ لَهَا أَسِيرَهَا If you're okay with it, you can release her captive for her. وَتَرُدُّ عَلَيْهَا مَالَهَا
And you can give back to her her wealth, her property. Why is this so profound? He's telling them, even though I'm the Prophet of Allah, even if I'm emotionally charged right now, I still cannot impose against the laws of Allah my own rules.
I know my boundaries. And this is what a Muslim is. This is what a religious person is. Everyone's pious, brothers and sisters. Always remember that. When your feelings and the religion happen to coincide.
And it happens a lot because this religion is a natural religion and lots of good feel from Allah's way. But the test, the discernment happens when your feelings are one way and the religion is committing you for justice or otherwise to go another way.
The religious person takes his feelings by the neck, if you will, and forces them to fold, forces them to conform to the way of Allah. And the superficially religious, the weak in their religion,
takes the religion and bends it at the neck, discards it or distorts it, Allah forbid, to align with their feelings. At the end of the day, being Muslim means to submit. And he showed us, Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, right then and there,
what submission looks like in its most pristine, beautiful form. May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala grant us an opportunity in Jannah to meet our mother Khadijah, Radiyallahu Anha, and to kiss her hands and her feet for all that she has done for our Prophet, Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, and by extension for us all.
Allahumma ameen. Allahumma ghfir lana warhamna wa ila ghayrika la takilna, a'izzal Islam wa anzul Muslimeen wa idh illal zalama wal mu'tadeen harril Masjid al-Aqsa aseer ya Dhal Jalali wal Ikram ya Qawiyu ya Mateen Allahumma a'fi mubtalayna mubtala Muslimeen
warham mawtana mawta al-Muslimeen washfi mardana wa marudana al-Muslimeen wa Sallallahu wa Sallam wa Baraka ala Nabiyyina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa Sahbihi Wasallam

































































































































































































































































































