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Allah Will Surprise You - Embracing the Unknown | Khutbah
No one knows what tomorrow holds, and embracing that is how we learn to trust Allah. Our circumstances as an Ummah and as individuals can change out of nowhere, and that’s why we shouldn’t have excessive hope or despair based on today’s circumstances.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
I want you to imagine with me for a moment that you are returning home after several decades to a family who didn't even know that you were still alive.
There's a story about a great tabi'i, his name is Farrukh Abu Abdur-Rahman.
And Farrukh was a free slave of Al-Rabee' ibn Ziyad, who was praised by Umar ibn al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه) as one of the greatest commanders in the history of Islam.
And when he passes away and he leaves behind Farrukh, this is a man that goes out and strives in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just as he was taught to do.
This is a man who follows in the path of his mentors, this is a man who spends for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and has absolutely no connection to this dunya. And he marries a woman by the name of Suhayla.
And as he's sitting in the masjid and the call for the next battle comes to go out in another expedition in Khorasan, he comes home to his now pregnant wife Suhayla.
And he says to her, listen, here is 30,000 dinars, I have collected it through the various missions of the spoils of war.
So invest it. Spend on yourself and on the child that will be born to you.
And bi-idhnillahi ta'ala I'll come back to you when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala decrees. He goes out and I'm paraphrasing the story because it's a very long one and I don't want it to become the sole focus of the khutbah.
But he goes out for almost three decades, fi sabilillah. And he comes home 27 years later.
And when he enters into the house, the young man that was his son who did not recognize him rises up to approach him.
And subhanAllah, up until this moment, you can imagine the mental anguish and torture of the wife that was waiting for her husband to come home. And she would ask the expeditions, what happened?
Did he become a prisoner in the hands of the enemies? And that was a theory. Did he die in the path of Allah? And that was a theory and that was the most likely one.
What happened to my husband? And some people would say, I think I saw him there, I think I saw him there. But he enters into the house and this young man approaches him to fight him because he thinks he's a stranger.
And he says to him, ya adu Allah, khuraj min manzili, oh enemy of Allah, get out of my home. Don't you know that you're infringing upon the sanctity of a home?
And he says to him, ya adu Allah, oh enemy of Allah, you get out of my house, this is my house. And as the commotion starts between the two men, said that Imam Malik rahimahullah ta'ala, he comes in.
And he says to Farrukh, who's an old man at this point, he says, ayyuhash shaykh, laka sa'atun fee ghayri hadhihi daar. You can find any other home, ayyub alayk, go, it's okay, just go to another house.
Why are you coming into this house like this? There are many homes for you to go to. Why do you have to come into this house in particular? And he says, hadhihi daari, this is my house. This is my house.
Wa ana Farrukh, I own this house. This is my house. And the young man says to him, that I will not leave you until I take you to the Sultan.
Wallahi laa faraqtuka illa inda Sultan. I'm going to take you to the judge, I'm going to get you in trouble. Why are you coming into this house and what is this claim? And as they're both fighting, the woman walks in. And she solves the debate.
And she says, that is my husband and that is my son. Meet your father who you haven't seen for almost three decades. And subhanAllah, as this family reunion is happening, he says to her,
what has life been like and what happened since I've been gone? And what happened to the 30,000 dinars? How did you spend them? What do we own now? And she said, go to the masjid.
And he goes to the masjid and from a distance, he sees that same young man wrapped in a turban and the people all sitting around that young man.
And this young man is a teacher of Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifa. May Allah be pleased with them. This young man is a teacher of the likes of Sufyan al-Thawri.
This young man has met some of the greatest of the companions and the tabi'een. And he comes back home and she says to him, فَأَيُّهُمَا أَحَبُّ إِلَيْكَ ثَلَاثُونَ أَلْفَ دِنَارٍ
Which of them is more beloved to you? 30,000 dinars? أو هذا الذي هو فيه من الجاه Or this glory that your son is in? And who was his son? رَبِيعَةُ الرَّأِي رضي الله تعالى عنه ورحمه الله
The great scholar and teacher of the Imams And his investment that he left behind had yielded him a tabi'een For whom you still reap the rewards
Now this is a story that shows up in the books of history I paraphrased it for you Some of the scholars say it's authentic Some of them say it's not But there is certainly something of that sort that planted the seeds for Rabi'a
Who became Amir al-Khurasan The Amir of his people who became one of the greatest scholars in the Islamic traditions But SubhanAllah
Over the last few days as I was looking at some of these people that came out of the prisons of Hama After 40 years Can you imagine being in a tortured dungeon for 40 years And coming out to your people
40 years later subjected to all sorts of torture Your family doesn't even know that you're still alive Rising from a dungeon for 40 years I said Allahu Akbar
What are the conversations like? And we see them with the Palestinians Some of them that were taken into the Israeli prisons at the age of 5 years old And coming out at the age of 38 or 40 years old And you see the shock of the mom
The shock of a spouse The shock of a child How do you catch someone up on all of that? I remember SubhanAllah interacting with someone who was in a coma For over 10 years
How do you catch someone up who's been sleeping in a bed for 10 years And tell them all that happened over 10 years How do you explain to the family you're back? These are the types of surprises
These are the types of miracles That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala shows us in our lives And while none of us Or I'd venture to say none of us have probably had that type of an experience
All of us have been surprised by the Qadr of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala At various points of our lives And there's a narration of a man named Warith ibn Amr
He was from the Bedouins in the time of the Prophet (ﷺ) In some of the books of Hadith he's the one or one of the people The Bedouins that approached the Prophet (ﷺ) aggressively And said when is the hour?
Because you can always count on the people from the outskirts To ask the Prophet (ﷺ) these direct questions But he didn't just ask the Prophet (ﷺ) about the hour The idea was you're a prophet of Allah so you should tell me everything that's going to happen
Because this was a society that was used to soothsayers That was used to magicians That was used to people that give them the horoscopes That was used to the people that tell them you're going to marry this person Have this many children
That's the idea of someone that can look into another realm As someone that can tell you the future So he said to the Prophet (ﷺ) Ya Muhammad (ﷺ) Qala inna ardana ajdabat
Famata yanzilul ghayt Our land has become barren We're waiting for rain So can you tell us when the rain is going to fall? Wataraktum raati hubla And I left my wife and she's pregnant
Famata tarid When's she going to give birth? Can you give me a birthday in advance? Can you tell me when it's going to rain? Can you give me a birthday in advance? Qala waqad alimtu ayna walittu Fabi ayi ardin amut
And I know where I was born So can you tell me where I will die? And so Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala revealed In Surah Luqman Inna Allaha indahu ilmus sa'ati wa yunazilul ghayt
wa ya'lamu ma fil arham wama tadri nafsun maada taksibu ghada wama tadri nafsun bi ayi ardin tamut inna Allaha alimun khabir That indeed Allah alone has knowledge of the hour and He sends down the rain
and He knows what's inside of the wombs and no soul knows what it will earn tomorrow and no soul knows in which land it will die because verily Allah is the all-knowing and the all-aware In another hadith the Prophet (ﷺ) said
Mafatihul ghaybi khams That the keys of the unseen are five No Nabi of Allah knows these five things and I want you to sit with that for a moment No Prophet of Allah knows these five things
because sometimes it's hard to understand the psychology of the people around the Prophet (ﷺ) He's so clearly divinely inspired Why can't you see that? Because they didn't believe in gods Everything in religion had been turned into stones and material
So you have to tell me what's going to happen tomorrow You have to tell me what I'm getting out of this You have to tell me what I'm getting out of that They became a very transactional people There's no akhira, there's no aitha mitna wa kunna turaban wa idhama Like we die and we become bones and stones
What is it that we get out of this? And the Prophet (ﷺ) says Mafatihul ghaybi There are five keys of the unseen No Nabi of Allah, no Prophet of Allah knows these five things And the Prophet (ﷺ) mentions
Innalaha indahu ilmus sa'ah wa yunazilul ghayt wa ya'lamu ma fil arham And he recited the ayah (ﷺ) Now I want you to pay attention to what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is telling us through this ayah He's telling us the who
Allah sends the rain, the who He's telling us what he sends wa yunazilul ghayt He's telling us wa ya'lamu ma fil arham wa ya'lamu ma fil arham
Only Allah knows how it will come He's telling us wa ma tadri nafsun maza taksibu ghada When it will come And he's telling us wa ma tadri nafsun bi ayi ardan tamut
And you don't know where it will come So Allah Azza wa Jal in one ayah answers the who, how, what, when and where And the Prophet (ﷺ) called these mafatihul ghayb The five keys of the unseen And when you sit with this for a moment
Allah has shown the Prophet (ﷺ) all types of things Anbiya before the Prophet (ﷺ) raised the dead to life The Prophet (ﷺ) has seen ad-Dajjal The Prophet (ﷺ)
has gone from Mecca to Jerusalem led the Prophets in prayer has been taken to the highest heavens has seen all sorts of things that you cannot imagine So when the Prophet (ﷺ) and all of these Anbiya of Allah
who were able to stop the sun like Yusha ibn Nun (عليه السلام) or who were able to raise the dead like Isa (عليه السلام) None of them were told what's happening next All of them had that concealed
And that's why the Prophet (ﷺ) when he was at the wedding of Rubaiyya one of the poets started to sing wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad amongst us the Prophet who knows what will happen tomorrow
And the Prophet (ﷺ) he could have took it he could have said you know it's poetic license it's art, it's culture, it's okay it can mean different things and in some ways the Prophet (ﷺ) told us what will come next
because if you think of Ghad as in Yawm al-Qiyamah, As-Sa'ah the hour, the day of judgment he told us (ﷺ) some of the signs so maybe there's something there wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad
wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad
wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad wa fina nabiyun ya'lamu ma fi ghad
al-fujaa'a, sudden death a sudden loss of blessings or fazaa'a, someone who is shocked by something out of nowhere and we are a people that don't like al-mawt al-fujaa'a, a sudden death
because we like to prepare for death these things that come out of nowhere zawal ni'mati the Prophet (ﷺ) used to seek refuge in Allah from a sudden decline in blessings it's the premise that there are things that are ahead of us
that none of us can predict none of us know and it is part of what makes the test of Bani Adam and the test of Ummah Muhammad (ﷺ) what it is in the first place
that you can have the greatest forecasters political forecasters, economic forecasters weather forecasters they could tell you there is rain in the horizon they could tell you there is risk tomorrow they could tell you that this superpower
is going to demolish this but then you turn on the news the next day or you come outside and it is the complete opposite of what was forecasted and sometimes that news comes to you from different places and the Prophet (ﷺ)
loved to remind us of that uncertainty that in that uncertainty that's where tawakkul is found in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that's where trust in Allah is found is in the uncertainty of what is ahead
and that's why Aisha (رضي الله عنها) asked, did the Prophet (ﷺ) used to recite a shi'r did he used to recite sometimes some poetry did he like some of the lines of poetry and she said (رضي الله عنها) anha
kana yatamathalu (ﷺ) bi shi'r Ibn Rawaha the Prophet (ﷺ) liked the poetry of Ibn Rawaha wa yatamathalu bi qawlihi ya'tika bil akhbari man lam tu zawid
that verily news will come to you from places you don't expect someone that you did not commission someone that you did not pay someone you didn't subscribe to someone that didn't travel with you someone that doesn't have any familiarity to you
and someone pops up and gives you news and you have no idea how it came from this person meaning you invest in lines of certainty you plan in certain ways but Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala shows you that those plans are not actually what makes things move
what does this mean for us as an ummah as the ummah of Muhammad (ﷺ) before we talk about the potential of Gaza being free and Gaza will be free and Al-Aqsa will be free
because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala promised it Allah Azza wa Jal will free it but before we talk about the way things are looking for Palestine the way things are looking for the ummah the projection of this place and the projection of that place
let's actually start with the places where we have certainty what does this mean for us as an ummah we know that we shouldn't be too hopeful in what seems stable at any point the most stable lands can be overtaken
from beneath or above at any point the most prosperous population can be tested with poverty this is the sunnah of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that at any point your hope can turn into despair
your stability can turn into insecurity your safety can turn into fear Allah Azza wa Jal can flip it upside down just like that so as an ummah even the places of the ummah and I'm not just talking about the physical places
the areas of the ummah where we seem to be stable we don't put too much stock into that and on the opposite side we don't despair in what seems absolutely impossible I don't see a way
la aro tariqah I don't see a way tariqat al-nasr I don't see strategically how this is going to happen I don't see how this is going to happen it looks bleak
you're right it can look bleak it can look bleak but I want you to just take the news over the last two weeks and be honest when you turn on the news did anyone think that the headlines
would be South Korea or Syria was anyone anticipating any of this no because the headlines change and the headlines change and the headlines change and the headlines change
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