“Thank you for Saving my life”…. He said

Khutba delivered on March 2, 2007:

• As I was thinking last night about what I wanted to speak about today, I had come up with a fairly good topic; but this morning, I heard a story on the radio that I think is important to touch upon and I will save the other one for next time
• One of the reasons why this story appealed to me was because, as you know, I am getting my pilot’s license; so in this one, in the mid 70s, a TWA flight took off from NYC and an American Airlines took off from St. Louis, I think. They were on a collision course and the Air Traffic Contoller, after realizing this, told one of the planes to lower altitude; on the way down, the plane somehow got stuck nose down heading straight for the ground; everything happened in 90 seconds; by asking the pilot to move left and right, the ATC person was able to guide the airplane to a safe landing;
• On this radio station today, they had connected the ATC person and the pilot of the aircraft and his daughter; they had never met and this was the first time they were talking to each other after the incident; what I would like to speak about in this khutba is specifically what the daughter of the pilot said to the ATC person: “thank you for saving my father’s life; because of you he has lived 30 more years, is 82 and has 3 children and 4 grand children”
• I thought this was a very interesting comment and as I began to think about it, I thought about what I would think and say in this situation; Allah mentions in the Qur’an that “every soul shall taste death” and we know from the hadith of our Prophet that there are things that are decided for you when we are in the womb of our mothers, one of which is the time of your death, or put another way, how long you will live; so lets break her statement down, and analyze it from a Muslim perspective
• The first part is when she thanked the ATC person which is a basic instinct that all humans have; that we show appreciation for the good things people do in our lives, sometimes to us directly and other times to us indirectly; and showing gratitude is a good thing to do and can be considered an act of charity; in fact I think one can argue that we, as Muslims, don’t do it enough; sometimes saying thank you for the simple mundane things that people (mothers, fathers, children, wives, and husbands) do go unnoticed and uncomplimented; but when the are done, even if the appreciation is in the form of a smile, it can go a long way and do wonders in a relationship
• Now the second part of what the daughter said to the ATC is what I would like to focus on next: because of you, he has lived 30 more year, is 82 and has 3 children and 4 grand children; would I have said the same thing were I in that situation? Most likely not, because as a Muslim I know that no one person can control my destiny, that is up to Allah; and since the time and place of my death is written for me, then I could never attribute my long life to any one person, no matter what they did for me;
• So even in this situation, where you see a direct cause and effect – ATC did something to avoid plane disaster and saved pilot and 150 other passenger lives, we must know that a higher power is acting on our lives and it wasn’t the act done by the ATC; put another way, even if that plane would have crashed, and all the passengers would have died, the pilot would have lived, would be 82, with 3 children and 4 grand children because that is what was written for him before the time of his birth when he was in his mother’s womb;
• How can I be so sure? Because the Hadith of the Prophet is very clear: On the authority of Abdallah ibn Abbas who said: ‘One day I was behind the Prophet (SA) and he said to me: young man, I shall teach you some words of advice: be mindful of Allah, and Allah will protect you; be mindful of Allah, and you will find Allah in front of you; if you ask, ask of Allah, if you seek help, seek help of Allah; know that if the nation were to gather together to benefit you with anything, it would benefit you only with something Allah had prescribed for you; and if they gathered together to harm you with anything, they would harm you only with something that Allah had already prescribed for you, the pens have been lifted and the pages have dried”
• So if you go to the part of the hadith where the Prophet says: know that if the nation were to gather together to benefit you with anything, it would benefit you only with something Allah had prescribed for you; and if they gathered together to harm you with anything, they would harm you only with something that Allah had already prescribed for you… based on this, I know with certainty that that ATC was not the cause of the man living that day 30 years ago but rather it was Allah who had already written for the pilot how long he would live; that day 30 yrs ago, it was not his time to meet Allah and so he survived;
• Many times in our lives we are faced with situations where it seems that because of your own actions, or of someone else’s actions, you survive death; and colloquially, people say “cheated death” as an expression; sometimes, it is in an accident, other times it is a doctor performing surgery, and yet other times it might be a disease we have and we take medicine for it and seek treatment; As Muslims, however, we need to be clear in understanding that the giver and taker of life is Allah, and Allah alone; many times in the Qur’an, it says “He creates life and creates death, and he has power over all things”
• So the next time we hear of someone being saved, or you save someone, or someone saves you, it is important to thank that person, but at the same time, we should be thankful to Allah, because he allowed that person to be a vehicle for saving us because it was not our time for death; more importantly, we should reflect on the the fact that Allah has given us more time in this world to do good and stay away from evil; in the story I gave earlier about the pilot who survived a near crash, besides having on the radio the reuniting of the ATC and the pilot, which was very touching and heart-warming, I think a better story would have been to find out what the pilot did for the next 30 years of his life; did he use this experience to do good, to become better, or did he just blow it off and did nothing, which would have been a complete waste;
• So as we go through these experiences in our own lives, we should know that all of us, one day will die, that Allah is the creator of life and death, and that this experience should be used as a learning experience that we become better Muslims by;
• On the other side of this thinking, however, is that we begin not to care about life, because it is with Allah anyway; yes, our life and its span is with Allah, but even then, as Muslims, we are encouraged to live our lives to the fullest; a quote by Ali ibn Abi Talib says: “live your life as if you will live forever, and practice your deen as if you will die tomorrow” and in a hadith of the Prophet, he mentions that if a farmer is planting his harvest and the day of judgment arrives, he should continue to plant.
• As such, we should not take the idea that Allah is the creator of life and the creator of death to be a fatalistic message, but rather a message of inspiration; not as a message that no matter what we do, it doesn’t matter in the end because it is all with Allah anyway, but rather, knowing that all matters, including life and death are with Allah, are with Allah, we should go about our lives not afraid of bad consequences when we stand up for justice and truth;

Importance of Salah

• Today, I would like to speak about a basic in Islam but people will be surprised how many people take it for granted
• when the Prophet was on his death bed, he called his close companions into where he was lieing on Aisha’s lap, and right before he passed away, he said 2 words. Do you know what they were?
• Imagine a very high person of influence that you are in contact with and any time they want to communicate with you, they either call you or send a messenger to tell you what it is; so if you were the President of the MSA and the President of the University wanted to tell you something, they might send you an email, call you, or tell someone else to tell you: do this, don’t do that, do it this way, not that way; but if it was really important, something that needed to be conveyed in detail, or they wanted you to realize its importance, they would ask you to come see them in person
• So in the same regard, when our beloved Prophet became a messenger, Allah used a messenger to convey to the Prophet the do’s and don’ts of Islam; in every occasion, whether to cheer him up, tell him if he could do something better, teach him about the laws of Islam, Jibreel would come down and reveal to the Prophet what needed to be revealed;
• But again on one topic, no messenger was used; Allah asked the Prophet to come directly and speak to him in what is known as the Isra’a and Mairaj; and so when the Prophet crossed the Sidratal Muntaha, the point where no creation had ever crossed before, what did Allah say to him?
• Similarly, on the day of Judgment, when we are standing before Allah about to be judged, what will be the first question that Allah will ask us about? He will ask us about our Salah and if it is complete, then he will not move on from there
• In the mairaj, Allah spoke to the Prophet about Salah, and the last words of the Prophet were Salah!!!!
• A very important act that we must perform and we must live up to; it is the second pillar of Islam and the four schools of thought are unanimous in stating that if you leave salah, you are no longer a muslim; Abu Hanifa is the most lenient wherein he says if you have to not just leave it, but deny it as a part of Islam
• So if it is so important, why do people neglect it so much? During the mairaj, initially the order was given that to the Prophet Muhammad that we should pray 50/day; it was Musa that told the Prophet to try to reduce it; Musa even asked him to reduce it from 5 to something lower, but the Prophet said he was too embarrassed to go back and ask
• So now we know how important it is, let us define it and then see how much of a benefit it is; then in the next khutba, lets look at how we can implement it in our loves; So Salah, means contact in Arabic, so it is not merely a prayer, although that is how it is most commonly translated; when you look at it from the perspective of “contact” then you know the seriousness of it, because it is a state in which you are in contact with Allah; not just in prayer, or talking to him, in which it could be a one way conversation; my wife often complains that she is talking to me and I am not listening; but if I make ‘contact’ with her, then she knows I am; and this is also why the Prophet said: Salah is the Meraaj of a Momin.
• And as for the benefits, there are many that one can think of; let me start by saying that salah is mentioned over 500x in the Qur’an and it is a means of shedding sins; the Prophet said that the in-between sins of a person who makes two salats are forgiven; also the Prophet one time picked up a dry branch and shook it until all the leaves fell off, and then said: The sins of those who pray Salah, drop off as the leaves of this branch fell off.
• And another benefit is that a person is constantly in contact with Allah; one of the greatest forms of remembrance of which Allah says “O you who believe, remember Allah often, so that you may become successful”; and this remembrance will keep you away from sins because I have never met a person that right after finishing to pray, says “lets go ….”; or for example, people are sitting around and backbiting, and then get up for prayer, finish, and then go back to backbiting;
• So not only will prayer shed your sins, but it will keep you away from them all together

• Bros and sisters, over and over again, Allah mentions in the Quran, “wa yu qeemas salaat” which translates as “establish salah” and as we mentioned in the earlier khuba, the better translation is “contact” rather then “prayer”
• And so we have looked at the importance of it and the benefits; but still we find that many people around the world, Muslims, neglect it altogether; so what can we do to establish it within our lives?
• The Qur’an says: “And truly Salah is hard save for the humble minded”
• So today we have to make a commitment and intention to begin to establish prayer within our lives; the biggest way to do this is to be humble about it by putting Allah back in our lives; and this humbleness is a humility of the intellect because intellect in the human brain lies on the forehead, and most human beings are not willing to put their intellect on the ground; which means that there is a higher being and our intellect is nothing compared to that;
• So if you are a person that never prays, then just begin by doing one, and if you are only occasional in your prayer, then begin by focusing on the ones you do and then work on increasing them
• One thing to keep in mind is that the a believer revolves his life around prayer, not prayer around his life; and this is a fundamental shift in attitude; that you don’t schedule something in conflict with prayer, and if it is unavoidable, then you make the prayer in advance of the time, or make it up afterward, knowing that the best is to make it on time
• And one place to begin the establishment of prayer is the Jumma prayer as we are here today; make it something you do every week no matter what happens; remember that the jumma is something that should motivate you for the following week and is also where sins are forgiven; and some people might have this idea that it is not a requirement but only a strong recommendation; this is a myth; in fact there is a sura named after this: Surat al-Jumaa and in it Allah tells us that when the call to prayer is made, leave whatever you are doing and come to it;
• When I was in college, many people used to skip jumma because there was a scheduling conflict; I had many opportunities to do this but decided against it, and Allah found a way for me to finish my BA on time; when I got to the workforce, many people didn’t go to jumma because they were afraid to ask their employer for a break or their employer said no to taking one; alhamdulillah, I have never missed a jumma for that reason and if fact, I always mentioned it in my interviews that this is not negotiable;
• So if you make Salah, and in this case, jumma a priority, then Allah will make it easy for you to attend
• And the last thing on jumma prayer is that there is nothing wrong with going back to work after jumma, in fact this is what is the sunna of Allah; in the verses where Allah mentions to stop what you are doing and come to prayer when the adhaan is made, he follows up by saying that when you are done, then go out and seek the bounties of Allah, and Allah is the one to give bounties; so if you have to go back to work, go back to class, or go back to whatever it is that you were doing, then go, and know that Allah will not make the break that you took bad for you;