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Does Allah Want You to Feel Better | Khutbah by Dr. Omar Suleiman
Islam values emotional well-being and encourages us to care for our mental health, but faith is not meant to be reduced to a tool for self-soothing alone. Allah says, “Do not grieve or despair,” yet He also reminds us that this life is a test, one that involves hardship as much as it does ease.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
Dear brothers and sisters, we begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad (ﷺ) is His final messenger.
We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon Him, the prophets and messengers that came before Him, His family and companions that served alongside Him and those that follow in His blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.
I want to frame this khutbah with something that Dr. Haifaa Younis, may Allah bless her, when she had gone to Gaza, came back.
And like many of the doctors, carried multiple gems of conversations.
And she said that the only complaint or the closest thing to a complaint that I heard was, It'ibna, we're tired.
And subhanAllah, you can see that as time goes on, and this is part of the psychological warfare that's waged on a people, that it'ibna, we're tired. And that is a sentiment, that word ta'ib.
That sentiment is something that may be the case for many of those who are trying to usher in positive change in the world. It'ibna, we're tired.
And this khutbah is not actually just about how we look at the becomings of a world that we really did not anticipate living in with normalized genocide and beyond.
But it's more about how are we supposed to feel about everything right now? And how much does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala actually care about how we feel?
How much does Islam speak to the idea of feelings? How much are you supposed to feel deflated? How are you supposed to be encouraged? What's the balance between optimism and pessimism?
You know, like every pessimist will say, I'm not a pessimist. I'm just a realist. What's the balance between all of these things? And how much are these emotions to actually be catered to?
And how do we deal with ta'ib, just being tired? I'm tired. I'm exhausted. And what does that mean in regards to our faith?
And I frame it with the conversation that I'll come back to insha'Allah ta'ala at the end of this khutbah. And it's the conversation with Imam Ahmad rahimahullah ta'ala and a man from Khorasan and some narrations say his son.
So let's just imagine a father and a son sitting in prison. And the trials of Imam Ahmad rahimahullah have gone on for so long. He's been tortured from one ruler to another.
One khalifa tortures him in his own way. And then another khalifa comes in and tortures him in another way. And it feels like it doesn't matter which party or which president at the time, which khalifa is in charge.
Everyone just pulls him in and abuses him and oppresses him and tortures him. And there's a point to where, you know, you feel like you're starting to see hope. And then something happens again and you get pulled down.
And so I want us all to kind of go to that sit down. And his son asks him the question, Mata ar-rahah? When do we actually rest? When do we actually find relief from all of this?
And let's get back to the core question. How much does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala want us to feel better about our life circumstances, about our world circumstances, about our pursuit versus how much does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala want us to respond to the call
with a certain type of discipline? And I start off with this premise. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not ignore pain. Allah does not ignore our feelings. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in fact shows that He cares about our emotions. He cares about our feelings.
He cares about the way that things land on the believers, even if He knows they are good for them. And so the pain is not the problem. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala honors the pain.
[Ali 'Imran 3:139] "Do not lose heart and do not grieve, for you will have the upper hand, if you are true believers." Do not grieve. Don't lose heart.
Don't feel fear because you are indeed the victorious party so long as you remain upon belief. We know that what they say about you, yahzunuka, it makes you sad.
We understand the grief that you're feeling, O Prophet (ﷺ) of Allah. Allah 'azza wa jall even says, subhanAllah, just thinking about this hadith qudsi, the end of it. And you can miss it if you're reading through it fast, especially the last line of a hadith. When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
"And I do not hesitate in anything I do as I hesitate in taking the soul of the believer. That I don't hesitate with anything that I do, the way that I hesitate in taking the soul of a believer.
Why? Is it because death is not good for the believer at the time that it is? No. He hates death and I hate to disappoint him. He hates death and I hate disappointing him. What a relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
He hates death and I don't like to disappoint him. Even though Allah knows that's the appointed time, and it is inevitable for him. That is, you know, what every inevitable ending looks like for every single person.
I care about how my believing servant feels about something that is inevitable. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala actually honors those feelings. He honors those emotions. He makes it a point,
[Taha 20:2] "We have not sent down the Quran upon you to cause you distress." The Quran was not revealed upon you to cause you undue burden or distress. He tells the Prophet (ﷺ),
"Make things easy and do not make them difficult." To make things easy not to make things hard. And he says, "Give glad tidings and do not repel people." And give glad tidings, don't deflate people. Very interesting hadith, subhanAllah,
because if you read the sharh of the hadith, the explanation of that prophetic narration, the first part of the hadith, "Make things easy and do not make them difficult," Make things easy, don't make things difficult, means in regards to the prescription of the actual rulings,
the law, the ahkam, right? Allah wants for you ease. How does he want for you ease? He says it in the Quran. If you're sick, you don't have to fast. If you're on a journey, then you're excused. There are certain dispensations and concessions
that are embedded within the law so that there is yusr, it's not 'usr. When you travel, you can shorten your prayers. In fact, Allah likes that you shorten your prayers when you travel. Allah likes that you take his concessions the way that He likes that you take on
the difficult commands. So the first line of the hadith, "Make things easy and do not make them difficult," is in regards to the ahkam, in regards to the law itself. The second line, "Give glad tidings and do not repel people,"
Give people glad tidings, don't deflate them speaks more to the delivery and the way it's going to land and how people should not be told things in a way that they're going to feel like salvation is impossible
and Allah's mercy is inaccessible and that the people are destroyed. Everything is done. They should not be made hopeless and fall into despair. So all of this is actually deeply evident
through the Quran and through the sunnah of the Prophet (ﷺ) that Allah does actually care how we feel and Allah does care how His servants feel when they are undergoing difficulty and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
has taken that into consideration with the revelation and with the legislation. But then there's a second layer to this. There's a problem when you approach religion,
when you approach deen for dopamine and you're not willing to engage in the discipline. When your du'a becomes like a form of like mood regulation and how I make myself feel better with my du'a
and my supplications, my prayers become about how I deal with the situation not actually changing the situation, how I deal with the situation, how I feel that Allah is going to make me feel a certain way. Even though you make du'as
"O Allah, I seek refuge in You from anxiety and grief." You ask Allah 'azza wa jall to protect you from being paralyzed or incapacitated by anxiety or grief. But when du'a solely becomes about that,
when the Quran becomes about the inspirational quote to get you through the next day and it becomes all about religion as therapy
and the religion of Allah is not therapy. There are therapeutic elements of the religion. There are therapeutic elements of this mission. There are things that are embedded with living with a life of purpose
that allow you to face what are otherwise obstacles that are impossible to overcome. There are therapeutic elements but the religion cannot become therapy. It can't become chasing dopamine.
It can't become I want to feel better and that's why I'm going to pray this prayer and that's why I'm going to do this thing that I've, you know, I heard that if I do this that I'll feel better because sometimes Allah doesn't want you to feel better.
He wants you to do better. Sometimes Allah wants you to be better and that comes through the difficult prescriptions
of sadness, of toil, of mission, of burden. It comes through those things and you have to accept that and there's always this healthy medium
of I should feel a sense of deficiency. I should feel like I should be doing more. Imam al-Hasan al-Basri rahimahullah ta'ala, he says,
"The believer performs acts of obedience while fearful and anxious, and the sinner commits sins while feeling secure." He said, radiya Allahu ta'ala 'anhu wa rahimahullah, that the believer performs good deeds
and the heart trembles and there is a fear that maybe I need to do more for it to be accepted and there is this sense of feeling charged
to take the next step. Whereas the sinner commits their sins, and they feel completely safe from those sins, like they're fine. I'm okay in life, right? So the believer feels entrusted with something that's deeper,
with something that's greater, that encompasses a certain sense of stress and burden to move you to another level of yourself
for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Allah 'azza wa jall constantly makes it a point to say, it was not to stress you out. It was not to hurt you. Allah takes no joy in causing you pain.
Allah takes no joy in disappointing you. But there are necessary burdens that exist in this life to wean you off of it a bit. And SubhanAllah, I was even thinking about the ayah,
[Ash-Sharh 94:5-6] "Verily, with hardship comes ease." Verily, with hardship comes ease. We share this ayah to comfort ourselves. We share this ayah to make ourselves steadfast.
But look how quickly Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala qualifies it so that you don't become sedated by the verse. [Ash-Sharh 94:7] "So when you have finished, then stand up for worship." And so when you free up from something,
whether it is getting out of a difficult moment or passing through this difficult trial, then exert yourself. And the root of "exert yourself," nasaba actually comes from fatigue. Exert yourself.
Put yourself through exertion. It's very interesting because it's the same root of the word that Khadijah radiya Allahu ta'ala 'anha, we know it most in her narration. When Jibril 'alayhi as-salam came to the Prophet (ﷺ)
to give the Prophet (ﷺ) the message to Khadijah to give her the glad tidings of Jannah, give her the glad tidings of a home in paradise made of pearl, in which there is no noise and no fatigue.
In which there is no noise and no fatigue. The stress is gone. Nasab, fa-nsab And so there is the stress that comes through the tiredness of test.
That test, where is the ease? And then there is the stress that is optional fatigue through exertion. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying if you're comfortable, that's actually a problem. That "Verily, with hardship comes ease"
moving from hardship to ease or with hardship comes ease does not mean you can go back to being comfortable. It means that if you pass through the inevitable tiredness of test then put yourself through
the optional exertion of fatigue for His sake. It's a very powerful transition that we find in these ayahs. And so for the sake of time because I promised myself I wouldn't go late in this khutbah.
For the sake of time, back to that conversation. Imam Ahmad sitting with his son. And it's a father sitting with his son in Gaza. It's a mother sitting with her child in Gaza. It's two people that are working and trying to do something great
sitting together and they're feeling deficient. And how do we deal with everything that's on the outside and move forward? Because the more that you know about the world the harder it becomes to be comfortable.
And the realization, the more you come to the realization that there is life after death the less comfortable you get with life before death. So how do I deal with this bundle?
Imam Ahmad could have responded and said, listen, the tide is turning. Soon I'm going to get out insha'Allah and everything is going to be great. And I'm going to become one of the most famous imams in history.
And my janazah is going to be the largest recorded janazah in history. Victory is on its way. This humiliation is for a short time. But you know what he says, "When is the relief?" Or when do we find the sweetness of relief?
The sweetness of relief. He responds and he says, "With the first step you take into Paradise." You know when your relief is? With the first step that you take into Jannah. That's when your relief is.
The expectation is that's when you actually find relief. That doesn't mean we're not going to seek victory. That doesn't mean that we're not going to seek a way out. That doesn't mean that we're not going to pray for a way out of our difficulty
and hope for a way out of our difficulty. But the actual rahah the actual relief that we're going to find is when we get to Jannah. Why? Because you know what dear brothers and sisters?
If bi-idhnillahi ta'ala we free Palestine in our lifetimes, for example, we're going to have a lot more work to do.
That's on like a very global level. When you come out of one test, if Allah brings you out of a test, the tax of your test is that you better now use your comfort to get somebody else out of their test.
The rahah of the believer, that true rest is not here. And it's a simple truth that carries a major implication in our methodology of how we approach Allah.
As the poet said, "You sought the greatest relief, but did not see it attained except upon a bridge of exhaustion."
That you sought that major relief in your life and you weren't able to find it until you realized that it is not found except on a bridge of tiredness.
Ibn al-Qayyim said, "Paradise is not attained except upon a bridge of exhaustion."
Paradise is not found except after you cross a bridge of ta'ab. Tiredness, fatigue, exhaustion. It's the opposite of rahah.
Jannah is rahah. When you get there, you rest. That's when relief is found. That's when relaxation is found. That's when you retire, is when you get to Jannah.
And that's it. If Allah 'azza wa jall happens to be squeezing you as an individual level or squeezing us as an ummah to the greatest extent right now,
the point is not for you to say, "Ya Allah let go of this for me so I can rest." The point is, "Ya Allah see me through this in a way that you will be pleased with me."
In a way that will contribute to my ultimate rahah, to my ultimate relief. And in a way that will enable me to be there for somebody else. That's why I want rahah. That's why I want rest. That's the relief that I seek.
And SubhanAllah, I think of that conversation of Imam Ahmad and what he set for the standard, the bar that he set for his son. Like, I might die in prison and that's going to be okay. Because that's not where my rahah is found. I might die here.
You know, we have stories in Islamic history. I mean, look no further. Imam Ahmad, Imam Abu Hanifa. One dies in prison, one dies out of prison. They're both two of the four Imams. Right? They make up half of the four Imams. Incredible.
But I look back at that. And that rest and that relief. And you watch these people in Gaza. And you can hear through the videos that drone over them.
Constantly buzzing over them. And then the bombs. And then the starvation. And then the news of someone else dying. 700 days of that. I don't know how a person functions, to be honest with you.
And then you think of the moment that they breathe their last and quiet. SubhanAllah. Like, think of Hamza radiyallahu ta'ala 'anhu and his last moments in this world.
How tired he was. He had a spear through his body and he was trying to get up and move forward and get up and move forward. And he had a spear through his midsection. And he died like that.
And the Prophet (ﷺ) sees him how? Relaxing on a couch in Jannah. Relaxation. Ar-rahah.
What did the Prophet (ﷺ) mention? That the first night that the believer goes to the grave, after all the becomings of the grave, go to sleep. That's your nap time. Now go ahead and take a nap.
After the exhaustion of this journey, take your first nap. Now, there's relief. There's rest. This changes the way we approach Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you're not tired, get tired.
If you're not uncomfortable, get uncomfortable. Push yourself to that. That's actually part of the point. And victory is only meant to become the foundation of another victory.
Because this world will never be perfect for us as individuals or be perfect for us in the collective sense or in the communal sense. The last thing, alhamdulillah, we have three people that are taking shahada that I already know of here today, alhamdulillah.
And I just left from giving another sister shahada, alhamdulillah rabbil 'alameen. And I know that at least one of those sisters that's with us today is one of those people that came to the protest for Gaza.
And that became inspired to learn about Islam because of her protesting for Gaza. And then looked into the Quran and realized that it's the faith of the people of Gaza that sustains them in this exhausting journey.
And is voluntarily coming to become a part of that journey as well. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless her and all of our sisters and brothers that have embraced Islam, that are embracing Islam.
And may Allah 'azza wa jall allow us to maintain perspective. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not let our tiredness go to waste. [Al-Balad 90:4] "We have certainly created man into hardship." You've been created in toil. Everyone gets tired in this world.
But some people's tiredness goes to waste. May Allah let all of our ta'ab be for His sake. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reward all of it. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bring relief and make us a source of relief for our brothers and sisters.
And allow us all to celebrate the ultimate relief, that ultimate rahah. In Jannatul Firdaus with our Prophet (ﷺ). Allahumma ameen. I say this and I seek forgiveness from Allah for myself and for you and for all the Muslims, so seek His forgiveness, for He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family and companions and those who follow him. And forgive the believing men and women, and the Muslim men and women, the living and the dead. Indeed, You are the All-Hearing, the Near, the Answerer of prayers. O Allah, forgive us, have mercy on us, pardon us, and do not punish us.
Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy on us, we will surely be among the losers. O Allah, You are the Most Forgiving, the Most Generous, You love to forgive, so forgive us. O Allah, forgive our parents. Our Lord, have mercy on them as they raised us when we were young. Our Lord, grant us from our spouses and offspring comfort to our eyes,
and make us leaders for the righteous. O Allah, grant victory to the oppressed in the east and west of the earth. O Allah, grant them victory in Palestine, in Sudan, in Yemen, and in every place. O Allah, be against Your enemies, the enemies of the religion.
O Allah, destroy the oppressors with the oppressors, and bring us and our brothers out from among them safely. O servants of Allah, Allah commands justice, good conduct, and giving to relatives, and He forbids immorality, wrongdoing, and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded. So remember Allah and He will remember you, and thank Him for His blessings and He will increase you.
And the remembrance of Allah is greater, and Allah knows what you do. And establish the prayer.


































































































































































































































































































