How many times have we sat in Jummah khutbah day dreaming our plans for the weekend?

We listen in Jummah khutbah but how much of that listening is turned into action, how much of it is actually absorbed?

I personally found that the Jummah khutbah was turning into a routine and was carried out without a second thought. My attention in the khutbah was very inconsistent, I would pick up some parts and day dream over others. It was frustrating because I never realised I was doing it until a friend mentioned it.

I wanted to circumvent this problem, so I had to think of a different approach. As hyperbolic as that may sound I really wanted to take lessons from the khatib as I was already indolent when it came to learning about the deen.

I decided that I would treat the Jummah khutbah as I would a university lecture and have my unwavering attention on what was being said as if there was going to be an exam at the end of it. The irony. This life is an exam. So, treating it like a lecture meant that I started taking notes. Cheesy as that may sound, it worked. My attention increased as did my knowledge of the deen.

I have a few examples of the notes I have been taking for the past three weeks. It’s great to be able to look back and recall previous khutbahs and see how much of the lessons I was able to implement in my life.

23/11/18

“Jummah Lesson (my notes):

The significance of istagfar. Istagfar is the process of asking for forgiveness. The issue we have in this day and age is that people feel that their sins are so large or so frequent that Allah would not forgive them. If you think like this you have firstly misunderstood istagfar and misunderstood Allah S.W.T. A great way to explain this is in Surah Al-Furqan verses 70-77 Allah tells us that your sins as large as they maybe mean nothing to Him for Allah will turn them to good if you repent. Imagine you spent a life where you would commit the most atrocious acts known in Islam the worst of which was shirk, murder and zina but you sit in prayer once and with the sincerest intentions repented and asked for forgiveness. You would be forgiven by the will of Allah and not only that, the bad deeds would turn to good. This is the mercy of Allah. We won’t understand the mercy Allah has for us until the day of judgement. Take the mercy of your mother for example… it seems endless, but Allah is clear that He is much more merciful. To end take this lesson away no matter what you have done or how large the sin. Allah is larger than that in forgiveness. When asking for forgiveness don’t say if He has forgiven me, rather trust that He has forgiven you and live your life.”

30/11/18

“Jummah lesson (my notes):

Surah Ar-Rahman. The importance of the surah. The power of the surah is amazing. We all know the surah and we all know the ayath that is associated with it! Which is “which of your lords favours would you deny” ! We know the ayath and the surah itself, but do we know the true beauty of what Allah is trying to tell us. When looking carefully at the surah before every repeated ayath, Allah negates something. He takes it away from you and is still adamant that you can’t deny what He has done for you! He makes it clear that we need Him, He does not need us and He will be Allah until the end of time; the same Allah that existed before human kind and will stay the same once we perish. So, when we look at the surah Allah says He made us from clay and jinn from a smokeless fire but, yet we still deny His favours. Skipping a few ayath Allah again reiterates the fact that we will still need Him when judgment day arrives, and you have nowhere to hide; you WILL call upon your Creator and beg but it will be too late, and you will say why did I deny His favours? The eyes He gave me to see the parents that He gave me to raise me to be! The food that was my sustenance why did I not thank Him. He goes through everything that one may think of and Allah asks us as to why we deny these favours! He ends by saying you will be asked about your sins and then what favours would you deny now! Such a beautiful and realistic evidence of our selfishness and arrogance to our Creator.”

07/12/18

“Jummah lesson (my notes):

Surah Ghafir! We all know the story of Musa (AS) we also know of Firaun and his wife the believing women! Yet there was another believer amongst the ranks of Firauns that believed in Islam and he was an army general, one of Firauns closest allies. So how could he accept Islam? Someone so close to the evil that was Firaun. Because Allah guides whom He wills! The Prophets all have a special trait about them, for example Sulaiman (AS) was an excellent governor. Musa, from the tribe of Israel, came to the ruler of Egypt and his wife and they raised him like a prince; the same Firaun who dreamt a slave of Israel would de-throne him, so he had every baby from the tribe of Israel killed! How did he come to raising Musa? When Musa told everyone, he was a messenger of Allah he made himself a clear enemy of Firaun, but Firaun could not kill Musa as he had a love for him. This was when the general we mentioned earlier accepted Islam. Firaun did not want to look weak so he sent the order of killing the children of people who believed in Musa. Firaun said let the believers live but kill their children and Firaun himself would kill Musa and stop the rebellion! This is what Firaun told the generals in their gathering. The general could not take this as he believed in Musas message and with the fact that his children would get killed looming over him, he stood up and said that he believes in one God he is the God Musa has been talking about! Firaun didn’t kill him, he let him be and said well let’s see if this God saves Musa and as the story goes Musa survives and so did the general. One of the lessons we take from this is to always no matter what stand up for the truth. It does not matter what losses you face, the truth shall always be most important for the person who sees an oppressor and does nothing is the same as the oppressor, this is what this story teaches us!”

The goodness that has come from these reminders are all from Allah and if there are any errors they are from me and the shaitan. I ask Allah for guidance and forgiveness for me and the readers.

Author: Jamil Ahmed

Contributor to Freshly Grounded Blog!

Check me out on Instagram: @jamil.ahmed97