In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Echoes from the pulpit.
I have hesitated regarding this sermon.
A sermon by the honorable Sheikh,
Khalid Ibn Abdullah al-Hammudi, may Allah preserve him.
Yet, may He perfect and complete it.
O Allah, Yours is the praise; may You make it the most eloquent and sweetest.
O Allah, Yours is the praise, just as You have praised Yourself,
And as the angels of Your Throne have praised You,
And as Your favored angels have praised You,
And the prophets and the messengers,
And Your righteous servants.
O Allah, Yours is the praise, and we cannot enumerate the praise due to You;
You are as You have praised Yourself.
I bear witness that there is no god but Allah,
There is no Lord other than Him,
And we worship none but Him.
We fear Him and stand in awe of Him,
We hope in Him and seek His pleasure.
Whoever relies upon Him, He suffices him,
And whoever takes refuge in Him, He is his Protector.
He answers the distressed and the caller when he calls upon Him.
We love You, O Lord,
And we hope that You have mercy on us and accept us through that love.
O my God, my Master, and the refuge of my soul,
Shall I be wretched if I come to You, O my Protector?
Shall I be wretched if I have sinned unintentionally,
And come burdened by a heavy load?
No, by the majesty of Your Countenance, I shall not be wretched.
Your love is my goal,
And through it is my journey.
I bear witness that our master and our prophet,
Our beloved Muhammad, is the servant of Allah and His messenger,
His chosen one and His intimate friend.
The elite, the chosen,
The role model, the well-pleasing,
The leader, the selected.
The sign of all signs,
And the miracle of all miracles.
Eloquent in his speech,
Powerful in his expression,
Unique in his modesty,
Great in his character,
Exalted in his mention.
His words are like pearls strung together,
And his touch brings happiness to the deprived.
The master of all and everyone,
The first to speak and the intercessor.
Noble in his lineage,
Purified in his progeny,
Great in his humility,
Faithful in his commitments.
May my father be a ransom for you,
Yes, and may my mother be a ransom for you.
I have come with the best of words, and you are my hope.
Were it not that your light has shone forth,
We would have remained in the deepest darkness.
O soul, woe to you, do not deviate,
And turn toward the light of Allah, O my soul.
So send blessings upon him with sincere prayer,
Through which you may be saved from sin and anxiety.
May your Lord’s blessings be upon you as long as they continue,
And may our blessings be upon you from every mouth.
O Allah, send blessings, peace, increase, and benediction
Upon Your servant, messenger, prophet, and beloved, Muhammad,
And upon his good and pure household,
And upon his noble and blessed Companions,
And grant him abundant peace until the Day of Judgment.
Now then, servants of Allah,
I advise you and myself to fear Allah.
“O ye who believe! Observe your duty to Allah with right observance, and die not save as those who have surrendered (unto Him)” (3:102)
“O ye who believe! Observe your duty to Allah with right observance, and die not save as those who have surrendered (unto Him)” (3:102)
O community of believers,
First, we praise Allah for these rains,
And we ask Allah to make them rains of goodness and blessing,
And to let their benefit reach everyone,
And to make them a gift of satisfaction.
O Allah, answer our prayer.
Secondly, O servants of Allah,
I will not speak today about the New Year’s holiday,
Known as Christmas,
For we have been spared that
By the fatwa of the Council of Senior Scholars
Prohibiting it,
And may Allah reward them with the best of rewards.
The fatwa number is 11168,
For those who wish to refer back to it,
For it contains a sufficient and healing explanation,
Grounded in a sound legal basis
From the Book of Allah
And the Sunnah of His Messenger, peace be upon him.
As for our topic today, O servants of Allah,
It is a subject I will not hide from you,
I have hesitated to mention it for many long years.
I feared that I might be the one,
Or one of us,
Or most of us,
Among those mentioned in this hadith.
But I feared withholding knowledge
And suppressing goodness,
So I prayed to Allah much,
I prayed to Allah
Not to make us all among them,
And if one of us is afflicted by that,
That He covers us,
And does not expose us,
And that He turns to us in repentance and accepts from us.
This great hadith
Speaks of a personality whose state is strange,
Whose description is bizarre.
It lacks sincerity and clarity.
It walks in the open
Like a companion,
But behind the lines,
The walls, and the nights,
It digs tunnels
To violate moral boundaries.
The hadith is in Sahih al-Jami',
On the authority of Thawban, may Allah be pleased with him, who said:
The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said:
"I surely know people from my Ummah
Who will come on the Day of Resurrection
With good deeds like the white mountains of Tihamah,
But Allah will make them scattered dust."
Thawban said:
"O Messenger of Allah,
Describe them to us,
Clarify them for us,
So that we may not be among them
Without knowing."
He, peace be upon him, said:
"They are your brothers,
From your own people,
And they take from the night as you take,
But they are a people
Who, when they are alone with the prohibitions of Allah, violate them."
Narrated by Ibn Majah,
And authenticated by al-Albani.
This losing personality,
This miserable one,
Is found in every time and place.
You find them in the front rows of life,
Indeed, the Prophet, peace be upon him, informed us
That you find them
In the night prayer with those who pray,
Which is a place
And a time
That is precious,
Where it is assumed
That the one doing it is among the near ones.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, teaches us
In this hadith
Not to be hasty
In passing judgment on ourselves,
Or on others,
Regarding acceptance and attainment,
Because the truth
Is known only to Allah.
And if we want to establish the precise scale,
For the sake of disciplining ourselves
And admonishing others,
We say:
Far be it
That we should be certain of our own righteousness,
And acceptance and attainment,
Relying solely on the outward appearance.
Never.
Because the matter relates
To another affair
That our eyes do not see,
Our ears do not hear,
And our senses do not perceive.
The matter
Relates to the private moments,
And what the lines conceal,
And the walls,
And the nights,
When a person is alone,
And secluded from people,
When eyes are heedless of him,
And no one sees him
Except the One who knows the treachery of the eyes
And what the breasts conceal.
When the sinful soul says
To its owner:
"Do as you wish,
Come here,
No one sees us but the stars."
When the servant is alone
Away from observers
And guards,
And there is no observer there
Except Allah,
Exalted is He in His highness.
There,
The reality of faith appears,
And the proof of monotheism becomes clear.
This is the precise, truthful scale.
It is the secret and the hidden,
And the unseen.
He elevates certain people,
when they adorn themselves with their good deeds
and their righteous actions,
which they conceal from the people.
And He brings down others,
when they are
violating the sacred limits of Allah in the shadows,
in the darkness of the night,
and in their private moments.
Servants of Allah,
reflect upon the hadith,
so that we do not become
those whose state is exposed,
and whose ultimate end is made clear.
Muslim people,
from the Ummah of the Prophet,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
who come with great good deeds,
like mountains,
magnificent in the eyes of men,
to the point that they even take pride
in the worship of the night prayer,
the arduous and exhausting one.
Yet, despite that,
the Prophet, peace be upon him, informs us
that they,
when the realities are laid bare
before Allah,
in front of the Scale,
their good deeds will scatter
like dust dispersed.
They will be erased and vanish
before a great scandal
that corrupted every beautiful character,
every beautiful character,
and destroyed the excellence
for which a person
was known
among mankind.
It is
the scandal of violating the sacred limits of Allah
in secret.
It is the tragedy of the death of self-vigilance in the heart,
the tragedy of the mask falling off,
and the true face appearing—
the miserable, wretched face.
Whoever is in this state,
among the deluded,
Allah makes his excellence like dust dispersed.
And the recompense is of the same nature as the deed;
that is because
the deed, in its reality,
is light as dust.
No one
enters Paradise by his deed alone;
rather,
it is sincerity, turning to Allah,
and humility
that breathe life into deeds.
As for
piling up deeds
that are empty of reality,
devoid of spirit,
it is something that scatters
and will not endure
on the Day of the Scale
alongside the evil deeds
that exposed the servant's true nature.
O my Lord, Your concealment!
O my Lord, Your concealment!
O my Lord, Your concealment!
O my Lord, do not expose us among the creatures.
Adorn us with Your beautiful concealment,
and place beneath that concealment a righteous deed that You are pleased with.
Concealment, concealment, O Lord!
Concealment, concealment, O Lord!
Servants of Allah,
I adjure you by Allah
not to be
among those whose intention seemed good,
but whose reality was a failure.
Excellence in the outward appearance,
and adherence to rituals and outward forms,
while behind walls and curtains,
one tears down all sacred limits
with one's hearing, sight,
private parts, and limbs.
Whoever is in this state
deserves to weep,
and he is the most deserving of people to weep for his own soul
that has died,
and to search for his face that has been lost,
and his future
that has been destroyed.
Today, O servants of Allah,
there is action without reckoning,
and tomorrow there is reckoning without action.
And before Allah, the realities are revealed,
as are the hidden secrets.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, said:
"You will find the worst of people
to be the double-faced one,
who comes to these with one face,
and to those with another."
Agreed upon.
We ask Allah for safety and well-being,
and that He conceals us and does not expose us,
and that He makes our inner selves better than our outer selves.
O Allah, make our inner selves better than our outer selves,
and adorn us with Your beautiful concealment,
and place beneath that concealment a righteous deed that You are pleased with.
O Allah, Amen.
May Allah bless me and you with the Great Qur'an,
and benefit me and you with the verses and the wise reminder it contains.
I say what you hear,
and I ask Allah for forgiveness for me and for you,
so seek His forgiveness,
for how successful are those who seek forgiveness!
Praise be to Allah for His excellence,
and thanks be to Him for His guidance and favor.
I bear witness that there is no god but Allah,
and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.
To proceed, O servants of Allah,
Allah knows that we do not wish to wound people's feelings,
nor to read intentions or distribute accusations.
It is merely fear for those who have tasted the sweetness of righteousness
and known its path, that Satan might toy with them,
and that whims might toss them about
to where regret will not avail them.
Let us not appear to people with a good state and righteous deeds,
claiming righteousness and reform,
while we tear down the concealment of Allah and violate the sacred limits of Allah.
For whoever violates the sacred limits of Allah in secret,
Allah will expose his good deeds on the Day when secrets are laid bare.
We ask Allah for safety and well-being.
By Allah, O servants of Allah, and I swear by Allah,
it is enough for one of us
to contemplate the hour of his death
and the moment his soul departs,
to keep that before his eyes—
that momentous moment
in which Allah reveals the realities upon the faces.
The Day when some faces will be bright and smiling,
and some faces will be dark and frowning.
So beware, beware,
of being among those whose faces will be dark
at the time of the soul's departure,
while people are in shock at that.
Imam Ibn Rajab, may Allah have mercy on him, said,
and he said something remarkable
in *Jami' al-'Ulum wa al-Hikam*:
He said that most instances of an evil end
are due to a hidden vice of the servant
that people do not know about.
That hidden trait
necessitates an evil end at the time of death,
and we seek refuge in Allah from that.
O Allah, conceal us in this world and the Hereafter,
and make our end a good one,
and take our souls while You are pleased with us.
Make our station good,
and make our end a good one.
O Allah, You did not command us to seek forgiveness
except that You desire to forgive us.
And were it not for Your generosity,
You would not have inspired us to seek pardon.
You are the One who initiates the gift before the request,
and the Giver of bounty beyond all hopes.
O Lord, we hope for nothing but Your forgiveness,
and we seek nothing but Your excellence.
We ask You for concealment in this world and the Hereafter.
O Allah, conceal us above the earth,
conceal us beneath the earth,
and conceal us on the Day of the Presentation.
O Lord, we have found You to be Merciful,
so how could we not hope in You?
And we have found You to be a Helper and Supporter,
so how could we not call upon You?
Who will be for us if You cut us off?
Who can harm us if You benefit us?
Who can punish us if You have mercy on us?
Who can bring us evil if You save us?
Who can make us ill if You grant us well-being?
O Allah, forgive us,
O Allah, honor us,
O Allah, make us happy,
O Allah, provide for us,
O Allah, accept our repentance,
O Allah, overlook our faults,
O Allah, we love You,
so do not withhold Your favor from us because of our sins.
O Allah, make this speech
a witness for us, not against us.
O Allah, perpetuate our security and tranquility,
and perpetuate for us the blessing of security and safety.
Protect our leaders,
and provide them with righteous advisors.
O Allah, Possessor of Majesty and Honor,
Grant victory to our soldiers at the borders.
Grant victory to our oppressed brothers everywhere.
O Allah, O Hearer of supplications.
O You whose bounty is vast.
“And thou (Muhammad) art not occupied with any business and thou recitest not a Lecture from this (Scripture), and ye (mankind) perform no act, but We are Witness of you when ye are engaged therein. And not an atom's weight in the earth or in the sky escapeth your Lord, nor what is less than that or greater than that, but it is (written) in a clear Book.” (10:61)
O Allah, heal the sick among the Muslims.
Have mercy upon the deceased among the Muslims.
Relieve the debts of those who are in debt.
Forgive our fathers and our mothers.
And our brothers and our sisters.
And all the Muslims.
O Allah, whoever among them is alive.
Grant them health and well-being in obedience to You.
And whoever among them is dead.
O Allah, reward their good deeds with further excellence.
And pardon and forgive their misdeeds.
My Lord, have mercy upon them as they raised me when I was small.
My Lord, have mercy upon them as they raised me when I was small.
O Allah, we have called upon You in our distress as You commanded us.
So answer us as You promised us.
Just as You have gathered us upon these carpets.
Gather us beneath Your Throne.
As brothers who love one another.
Upon thrones facing one another.
O Allah, send peace and blessings upon our master Muhammad.
And upon all his family and his Companions.
And praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.