A New Year, A New Start, A New Heart

The title of my khutbah is “A New Year A New Start, A New Year A New Heart”. The reason why I chose this topic is because throughout the school year, we always seem to find ourselves questioning our thoughts, our daily lives, and how we live out our actions. Much of this has to do with our Imaan or faith, and trying to keep it steady. Ramadan is coming up in no more than 30 days, so this time right now should be of reflection and of how we want to spend our time. In Ramadan, inshaAllah our faith can take a great leap, and it is our duty to keep it at that level throughout the rest of the year. There are people from last Ramadan, who are not with us today, and we ask Allah (SWT) to give them the best in their grave life and in the hereafter. We should be grateful for being welcomed into Sha’baan.

Now to begin, I’d just like to say that everything in this khutbah is to me first and foremost, and please forgive me for any of my shortcomings. I hope that this khutbah can connect with each and everyone of you personally, and I hope that we all try to take what’s best from this khutbah into our own lives, and pursue the good parts personally.

In Surah Hashr (59) ayat 9, it says: "Therefore be careful of (your duty to) Allah as much as you can, hear and obey and spend, it is better for your souls; and whoever is saved from the greediness of his soul, these it is that are the successful."

Going into depth with this ayah, we see that charity brings us closer to Allah, and makes us successful. When we give out of our own money, we feel good about the cause, whether its for the recent Hurricane tragedy, or for an orphan in another country, or for your parents village back home, whatever you spend in righteousness will be recorded for you.

The greatness of recording deeds goes like this, and it is tied in with intentions. There are two angels who are on our shoulders, who write down our actions, thoughts and concerns about the world, they hear what our mind thinks. So say you’re thinking of going out with some friends, and you know they are going to go to a night club to get some partying on for the night. Your conscious gets a hold of you and right before you enter the club, you say, ‘You know what, I’m hungry, any of you guys want to go out to eat instead?’ Your thoughts, your actions, even though they started as bad intentions, will be turned into good deeds, and inshaAllah you’d be rewarded for saving your friends from going inside as well. Now say that you would have gone that night, and partied it up, the Angels would have written a slightly different entry, and it would be recorded as a sin. The Angels wait until you have committed the sin, and even wait for you to repent. Now on the other hand, if you are having good intentions, of going to the Masjid for Isha every night, and Fajr every morning as to have been praying the whole night in worship of Allah (SWT), you will be given good deeds for those good thoughts. And if you actually carry out your thoughts and perform them into actions, you will be handsomely rewarded up to 70 times. For Allah (SWT) is the Ever Merciful and He can do anything He pleases. Lets use this knowledge of intentions to benefit us throughout this year, and lets help each other out by getting onto a good start on this semester, educationally and spiritually.

Just think of life on parole. What if we had a cop behind us everywhere we went, what if we had a tether on our ankle, what if we were restricted from going places. Would we really do all of the pointless or idiotic things we do? How do we feel when a cop car pulls behind us as we’re driving on the way home from school, or from a friends house? We get uneasy in our stomach because we were either speeding, or cutting lanes quickly. This uneasiness in our stomachs should be there, whenever we are doing anything unlawful, because we have our two angels on our shoulders, and because we know that Allah (SWT) is always watching us. Not a leaf falls without Him knowing it. It is important that we keep our level of Imaan consistent, if not high. We should live our lives as if there is a copper dude tailgating us. We should be mindful of the choices we make, and be ready for the consequences that occur. We know that Allah (SWT) has planned out our life, that’s our fate, but we have the chance to choose and make decisions, so we need to use that wisely.

Our lives are somewhat like a tragic poem, and it goes something like this: We know about the future, and how there’s an afterlife, but yet we do nothing to ascertain the beauty of it, and why? There’s really no answer, except for that we should be ashamed of our actions that deter us from our goal, and that is to be side by side with Prophet Muhammad (SAW) on the Day of Judgement, and in the Shade of Allah (SWT). In our lives we try to change and get into shape, eat healthy, but we still eat junk food, chips, cookies, slurpees, and sit on the couch for hours on the weekend watching football, we truly are couch potatoes. That is how we are with the akhirah, we say we’ll change, but we make no effort to.

To help us realize the importance of this matter, I’ll start talking to you about something you see in all graveyards. Yes there is the remote silence and peacefulness of the afterlife, but on each headstone, each one reads birth date hyphen date of death. On each is that hyphen, and within that hyphen is all the actions, all the words, all the thoughts, all the deeds they’ve had, and that’s the only thing they take with them into the soil. This hyphen is the importance of the life spent here on earth, each and every one of us will have a hyphen on our headstone, and what will be doing to prepare our statement that will be sent to Allah?

I would like to narrate a historical event that happened during the time of Omar ®, and I think this story has deep meaning with it, and it is something we can all learn from. There was a prisoner on death row and the mans last wish before his death was to ask for 3 days grace period where he can repay anyone he had owed money to. He was only let go on the condition that someone would vouch his or her life for his. So Omar ® had agreed, thinking that no one would give their life up for an unknown convict. However, one of the nobles from the city council had accepted. The three days grace period had ended, and they were waiting for the convict to return. They had gathered the nobleman in the front of the city, and waited. The convict finally returned, and Omar ® is in awe. He ® asked the nobleman why he was willing to sacrifice his life for someone he didn’t even know. The nobleman replied, ‘I didn’t want historians to talk about this time and Muslims as people who couldn’t trust and forgive one another’. After this, they had forgiven the criminal and set him free.

As Muslims we need to trust one another, and forgive one another no matter what religion, no matter what sect of Islam, no matter what race. The PM (SAW) simply said it best in his Last Sermon, “No Arab has superiority over a Non Arab, and no Non Arab has superiority over an Arab”. We must never forget the hardships our beloved Prophet went through in order to bring us this mighty revelation.

Jumah is probably the one time a week that we all tune into Islam, the one time a week we give importance to learning about Islam. We need to start acting upon all of the benefits that Islam comes with. It is so easy to be good, but yet so tempting to be bad, we must balance our lifestyles according to the Quran and the sunnah. No matter what profession we go onto pursue, or what degree we get from this university, one thing will remain the same as long as we are Muslims, we must remain loyal to Allah (SWT). Just as a tree loses a branch, and it turns dry, losing its beauty, when we lose our Islamic roots, we lose our beauty in the eyes of Allah (SWT). We need to be mindful of all of the benefits we are given, and we can start over again, so long we promise to do so for the better of ourselves. A New Year A New Start, A New Year A New Heart. Let us work together, using this time we are blessed with, here today and hereon forth to strive towards the truth, wherever it may be, and deter from the evils of our own souls. Ameen Ya Rab Al Alameen.

SIT DOWN

Aou dho billahi minashaytan ir rajeem bisimillahir rahman ir raheem. Was salatul was salaam ala Rasulullah Salaahu Alayhi Wasallaam.

Now I would like to talk about the situation over in Northern Africa and also the Hurricane Victims here down south. We are all blessed with great health here, and we need to be generous. Referring back to the story of Omar ®, we must look within ourselves and ask ‘What do we want others thinking about Islam?’.

This Saturday a group of individuals will be going to the Ramada Inn in Southfield as over 200 victims from Hurricane Katrina are staying there. We are meeting up here at 8:30, or we can meet up at the hotel at 9 am. InshaAllah if you are free, please join us. Also on Sunday there is an Islamic Relief Dinner. IRW just donated $2 million to Hurricane Katrina and over $5 million to Northern Africa. Over in Texas, they are hosting families with food for one whole week. And the other parts of the money are going towards families still in Louisiana. They have nothing left, just themselves, their hearts and their deeds. Their houses are flooded, cars are wrecked, jobs are gone. The city of New Orleans will never be the same. There is a group of 75 families in one masjid. Imagine that, 75 families staying in a room no larger than this. “What do we want others thinking about Islam?” Should they know that we care about them? There is only one way to tell them that, and that is through our donations and efforts.

In Africa, the situation is far worse as it has been like this for the last decade. The future of African civilization is at stake as their youth are in poverty. Of the 10 countries with the highest rates of under-five deaths, seven are affected by armed conflict. About 16% of children in the least developed countries will not reach the age of 5. About 14 million children have lost a parent to AIDS (1 parent almost every 14 seconds). The dinner is to help the orphans all around the world. We know that there is great blessings in this, as the PM (SAW) said, those who help the orphans are like this with me on the Day of Judgment, and he placed his two fingers like so. What else could we ask for? Again, this dinner is on Sunday, at Burton Manor, talk to me afterwards if you’re interested in helping out, or even attending. Now lets do the least amount of help we can do, and pray to Allah (SWT).

Oh Allah, please help all the people around the world, those who are struggling, those in pain, those who have lost there families.

Oh Allah, we turn to you as you are the All-Wise. We beg of you forgiveness and mercy as you are the Ever-Merciful.

Oh Allah, help us become better sons and better daughters.

Oh Allah, please accept our du'as for this life and the hereafter.

Oh Allah, increase our knowledge, and help us to do well in school.

Oh Allah, please forgive our parents, please forgive us if we've wronged them, or our friends or loved ones.

Oh Allah, please help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and let the families be re-united.

Oh Allah, help our brothers and sisters in Africa, the orphans, the widows, the youth, the future of Africa, let it prosper as it had in the past. Let the knowledge flow back into the lands of Cairo and Timbuktu.

Oh Allah, we want people all around the world to see the beauty of Islam. Oh Allah, please let the world know that we are good people, and that we care for our brothers and sisters in humanity.

Oh Allah, we turn to You and only You. Guide us to the strait path, the path of those who you will give The Book to in their Right Hands on the Day of Judgment

Oh Allah, please help us here at school on campus, in our classes and in our MSA so we can work together, hand in hand, towards what is right, wherever it may be, Oh Allah, guide us to the Truth, as you are the All-Knower.

Oh Allah, please help us all get along, do not let us divide in our friendships, and please keep our Imaan high at all times.