The Most Dangerous Kinds of People | Friday Khutbah | Nouman Ali Khan

 

This week's khutbah by Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan shares the harrowing reality of the people we may face in our lives, drawing examples from the life of the Messenger ﷺ and the enemies that surrounded him.

Pulling examples from Surahs Al-Qalam and Al-Haqqah, Ustadh illustrates two different types of war that was going on at the time: the ideological war vs the physical wars.

Ustadh's primary focus in this khutbah is to highlight the psychological warfare that the enemies of the Prophet ﷺ carried out to undermine him, his message and his legitimacy as a Prophet of God.

Most notably, Ustadh focuses on the most dangerous types of people that Allah warned the Messenger ﷺ about very early on, preparing him for those that would behave as friends but were otherwise planning his downfall with sneaky games and plots behind his back.

Friends That Hold You Back | Khutbah by Dr. Omar Suleiman

re" allowfullscreen>

Who Are the Awliyaa (Friends of Allah)?

Friends and Role Models - eKhutbah - Mufti Menk

Who can be Awliya' Allah or Friend of Allah (azza wa jal)

[10:61] In whatever matter you [Prophet] may be engaged and whatever part of the Qur'an you are reciting, whatever work you [people] are doing, We witness you when you are engaged in it. Not even the weight of a speck of dust in the earth or sky escapes your Lord, nor anything lesser or greater: it is all written in a clear record. [10:62] But for those who are on God’s side there is no fear, nor shall they grieve. [10:63] For those who believe and are conscious of God,...

Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan, explains in Surah Yunus, who are the friends of Allah عزّ وجلّ. Explaining verse 61-63, he says:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ayah 61
You won’t find yourself in any situation and you won’t recite any portion of the Qur’aan, from any part of the recitation (there is a switch, Allaah عزّ وجلّ is talking to His messenger), you will not find yourself in any situation, you will not recite a single ayah anywhere from the Qur’aan. As for all of the Muslims there isn’t a single deed that any will be doing except that We will be upon you especially your witnesses. Allaah عزّ وجلّ is witness over all things but He is saying “I will be a special witness upon you” - Allaah عزّ وجلّ says, whatever action that one does He is a witness over us even whilst we are engulfed in it. Ibn Al faaris reports: they lose track of everything else they are so busy in that. Allaah عزّ وجلّ is watching this and is appreciating it. ‘Azaba = when you watch somebody walk away they go so far you can’t see them anymore. So you slowly see them disappear. Or if you take a pebble and throw it into a lake it slowly becomes smaller until it disappears. Allaah عزّ وجلّ says nothing disappears from the Vision of your Master no matter how far you think it goes. Mimmithqaali zarratin = from the weight of a speck, Fil ardi wa la fissamaa = in the earth and whatever is above. Wa laa asghar min zaalik = and whatever that can be smaller than that too or bigger, Allaah عزّ وجلّ is telling us the smallest deed that you do for this deen will not go unappreciated. I will be a special witness of that deed for you.

Ayah 62
You had better know, the protective friends, the deep, trustworthy friends of Allaah, there is no fear on them and they’re not the ones who will be grieving. In other words, in doing so and keeping the work up we have the opportunity to become the awliyaa of Allaah. The next ayah defines the walee of Allaah عزّ وجلّ

Ayah 63
Those who have emaan and they maintain the quality of taqwa in their life. The reason why Allaah عزّ وجلّ made the friendship of Allaah between the slave and the Master realistic is because when it is made unrealistic that is when help is sought from somebody else and say that he is much better than us, he should be Allaah’s عزّ وجلّ wali. The shafa’ happened because people were distant from Allaah عزّ وجلّ.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is possible for all of us to be friends of Allah عزّ وجلّ as long as we have Iman and maintain the quality of Taqwa in our life.

Below is another lecture on this topic by Ustadh Nouman.

Signs Of A Fake Friend - Nouman Ali Khan

Avoid useless company | illustrated | Nouman Ali Khan

Hadith of the Day: Love Each Other

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Shake hands and rancor will disappear. Give presents to each other and love each other, and enmity will disappear." Al-Muwatta

The Prophet also said: "There is a (place) in paradise. . .prepared for those who are polite in their speech, provide food (to the needy), fast frequently, and (pray) when (other) people are asleep." Al-Tirmidhi

MUSLIMS, OUR NATURAL ALLIES

I am a Catholic. My Church teaches me to esteem our Muslim friends and to work with them in the cause of promoting justice and moral values. I am happy to stand with them in defense of what is right and good. And so I stand with the young woman in the above video in defense of modesty, chastity, and piety, just as I stand with Muslims like my dear friends Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Dr. Suzy Ismail against the killing of unborn children and the evil of pornography, and with my equally dear friend Asma Uddin of the Becket Fund in defense of religious freedom. In the great document Nostra Aetate, we Catholics are taught the following by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council:

The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims link their own. Although not acknowledging Jesus as God, they revere him as a prophet; his virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly invoke. Further, they await the Day of Judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.

Over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have arisen between Christians and Muslims. The sacred Council now pleads with all to forget the past, and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding; for the benefit of all men, let them together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values.

Let us heed this teaching. Let us, Muslims and Christians alike, forget past quarrels and stand together for righteousness, justice, and the dignity of all. Let those of us who are Christians reject the untrue and unjust identification of all Muslims with those evildoers who commit acts of terror and murder in the name of Islam. Let us be mindful that it is not our Muslim fellow citizens who have undermined public morality, assaulted our religious liberty, and attempted to force us to comply with their ideology on pain of being reduced to the status of second-class citizens. Let all of us—Christians, Jews, Muslims, and people of other faiths who “esteem an upright life” and seek truly to honor God and do His will—embrace each other, seeking “mutual understanding for the benefit of all men [and working] together to preserve and promote peace, liberty, justice, and moral values.”
Through the great work being done by my friend Jennifer Bryson—who is a devout Christian and a great American patriot who spent two years as an interrogator at Guantanamo—I have met hundreds of religiously observant Muslims over the past several years and many are now my close friends. They are among the finest people I know. Like faithful Christians and Jews, they seek to honor God and do His will. They work, as we do, to inculcate in their children the virtues of honesty, integrity, self-respect and respect for others, hard work, courage, modesty, chastity, and self-control. They do not want to send their sons off to wars. They do not want their children to be suicide bombers. They do not want to impose Islam on those who do not freely embrace it. They thank God for the freedom they enjoy in the United States and they are well aware of its absence in the homelands of many of those who are immigrants. It is not right for us to make them feel unwelcome or to suggest that their faith disables them from being loyal Americans. It is unjust to stir up fear that they seek to take away our rights or to make them afraid that we seek to take away theirs. And it is foolish to drive them into the arms of the political left when their piety and moral convictions make them natural allies of social conservatives. (A majority of American Muslims voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. A majority of the general voting population did not.)
I admire Muslim women and all women who practice the virtue of modesty, whether they choose to cover their hair or not. There are many ways to honor modesty and practices vary culturally in perfectly legitimate ways. Men and women are called to serve each other in various ways, and women who refuse to pornify themselves, especially in the face of strong cultural pressures and incentives to do so, honor themselves and others of their sex while also honoring those of us of the opposite sex. They uphold their own dignity and the dignity of their fellow human beings, male and female alike.

I have no doubt that in certain cultures, including some Muslim cultures, the covering of women is taken to an extreme and reflects a very real subjugation, just as in sectors of western culture, the objectification of women (including the sexualization of children at younger and younger ages) by cultural pressures to pornify reflects a very real (though less direct and obvious) subjugation. But, of course, we are in the happy position of not having to choose between the ideology of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and that of Hugh Hefner.

Of course, defenders of pornification claim that they are “liberating women” and “celebrating female beauty.” The liberation claim is the very reverse of the truth. As for “celebrating female beauty,” let me ask you this: Is there an actress in all of Hollywood who when appearing at one of these absurd awards shows dressed in a see-through gown, bra-less and wearing a thong, can compare with the beautiful young Muslim woman in the video I posted? I submit that there is none. Oh, yes, to be sure, the actress will appeal to something in her male viewers. (I’m a man.Take it from me.) But it will not be their sense or appreciation of beauty. It will be something much lower and brutely appetitive. Their experience will be one in which who she actually is as a person is utterly submerged. The men viewing her will not be drawn in to wonder about her thoughts and feelings, her experiences of joy and sorrow, her strengths and vulnerabilities—the things that actually make her the unique person she is. Their experience will, quite literally, be an experience of de-personalized desire—the very definition of lust.

Source

Note to self!

Can Muslims be friends with Jews and Christians?

O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for your allies: they are but allies of one another and whoever of you allies himself with them becomes, verily, one of them; behold, God does not guide people who are unjust. (Quran 5:51)

This verse is often quoted to show that Islam is intolerant.

Quran is a complete book of guidance and while studying various issues it should be kept in mind that a particular issue may be discussed over several chapters or several verses in the same chapter. A complete understanding can only be achieved by understanding the whole issue as presented over all the verses and chapters and not by looking at only part of the Quran. God specifically warns us against doing just that, upholding part of the Quran while disregarding the rest.

.. Then is it only a part of the Book that ye believe in, and do you reject the rest? but what is the reward for those among you who behave like this but disgrace in this life? - and on the Day of Judgment they shall be consigned to the most grievous penalty. For God is not unmindful of what ye do. (Quran 2:85)

To understand the issue of befriending the Jews, Christians or people of any other faith, we have to study all the concerned verses from the Quran collectively.

Let us look at some other verses about this issue. The following two verses regulate relations with any people, regardless of faith:

As for such [of the unbelievers] as do not fight against you on account of [your] faith, and neither drive you forth from your homelands, God does not forbid you to show them kindness and to behave towards them with full equity: for, verily, God loves those who act equitably. (Quran 60:8)

God only forbids you to turn in friendship towards such as fight against you because of [your] faith, and drive you forth from your homelands, or aid [others] in driving you forth: and as for those [from among you] who turn towards them in friendship; it is they, they who are truly wrongdoers! (Quran 60:9)

From the above verses, we learn that we are only discouraged from befriending those who fight Muslims because of their religion. Now let's go back to the verse immediately after 5:51, to see if it sheds some further light on the issue.

And yet you can not see how those in whose hearts there is disease vie with one another for their good will (the hostile Jews and Christians), saying [to themselves], "We do fear lest a change of fortune bring us disaster." But God may well bring about good fortune [for the believers] or any [other] event of His own devising, whereupon those [waverers] will be smitten with remorse for the thoughts which they had secretly harboured within themselves- (Quran 5:52)

During the time of the Prophet when the Jews and Christians were in open conflict with the Muslims, there were some Muslims who were more concerned about maintaining there alliances with the Jews and Christians at the expense of the Muslim community. The above verse is referring to such situations where Muslims with doubts in their hearts will ally themselves with the enemy.

Chapter 5 Verse 57 of the Quran makes it clear again, who are not to be taken as friends; O you who believe! take not for friends and protectors those who take your religion for a mockery or sport,- whether among those who received the Scripture before you, or among those who reject Faith; but remain conscious of God, if you are (truly) believers. (Quran 5:57)

God teaches us throughout the Quran that there are righteous Jews and Christians. As such there is no prohibition for Muslims to be friends with Jews, Christians or people of any other faith who are of good character.

Quranic verses referring to the righteous Jews and Christians:

Of the people of Moses there is a section who guide and do justice in the light of truth. (Quran 7:159)

And We caused Jesus, the son of Mary, to follow in the footsteps of those (earlier prophets), confirming the truth of whatever there still remained of the Torah; and We sent him the Gospel, wherein there was guidance and light, confirming the truth of whatever there still remained of the Torah, and as a guidance and admonition unto the God-conscious. (Quran 5:46)

Verily, those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Christians, and the Sabians - all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds-shall have their reward with their Sustainer; and no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve. (Quran 2:62)

Not all of them are alike: Of the People of the Book are a portion that stand (For the right): They rehearse the Signs of God all night long, and they prostrate themselves in adoration. They believe in God and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten (in emulation) in (all) good works: They are in the ranks of the righteous. (Quran 3:113-114)

And there are, certainly, among the People of the Book, those who believe in God, in the revelation to you, and in the revelation to them, bowing in humility to God. They will not sell the Signs of God for a miserable gain! For them is a reward with their Lord, and God is swift in account. (Quran 3:199)

The following verse from the Quran capsulates this issue:

O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise (each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (Quran 49:13)
source

A Friend....

‎

"A friend cannot be considered a friend unless he is tested on three occasions: in time of need, behind your back and after your death."
-Ali ibn abi Talib (raa)

"How Muslims Became My Family" - Debbie Shankman - My Fellow American