“Kullu nafsin zaa-iqatul-mawt, summa ilayna turjaΚΏuun.”
“Every soul shall taste death. Then, to Us shall they
be returned.”
(Al-Ankabut, 29: 58)
This fundamental principle of divine justice is reaffirmed multiple times in the Noble Qur’an. Allah says that everyone will be judged according to their own actions, without the faults or sins or even the merits of one person being transferred to another soul.
We must keep in mind
that this is a very significant debate in Islamic jurisprudence. But what every
believer must keep in mind is that what Hazrat Umar (ra) reported from Hazrat
Muhammad (pbuh), and what Hazrat Aisha (ra) reported from Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh)
– both are completely true, because fundamentally speaking, it is a warning to
his Ummah so that they do not follow the ignorant practices of the
non-believing Arabs. We must keep in mind that the practice of lamentation –
where a person beats their stomach and strikes their face in despair at the
death of a loved one – was widespread in Arab society before Islam. When Islam
came, it prohibited these practices.
Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh)
said (reported by Abdullah (ra)): “Whoever strikes his face, tears his
garments, and calls with the call of the time of Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic
ignorance), he is not one of us.” (Bukhari, Muslim)
So, if we look at the
Hadith where it is reported that when Hazrat Umar (ra) was stabbed, he heard
Suhayb crying loudly, and he (Umar) said to him: “Do you not know that the
Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said: ‘The deceased is tormented because of the
lamentations of his relatives’?” (Muslim)
When Hazrat Aisha (ra)
heard what Umar (ra) said, she said that perhaps Umar made a mistake, but she
did not condemn him for his error. Rather, she said that a few details were
missing from that Hadith of the Noble Prophet (pbuh). Hazrat Aisha (ra)
clarified that it is not the believers who will be punished, but it is the
non-believers who will be punished – where their punishment as non-believers
will increase – because of the lamentations for their loved ones. And then we
find in that Hadith that it mentions the Qur’anic verse: “No soul shall bear the burden of another.”
So, these two Hadiths
from Hazrat Umar (ra) and Hazrat Aisha (ra) seem to contradict
what Allah has said in the Noble Qur’an, where Allah has said that no soul
shall bear the burden of another. But what Muslim believers around the world
must understand is that if we take into consideration everything that Allah and
His Prophet (pbuh) have said – especially where Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh)
clarified that whoever behaves like the people before Islam, where they strike
their faces, tear their garments, and lament in an excessive manner, and they
have the bad behaviours of those ignorant people before the light of Islamic
knowledge came to illuminate them – then those people are not part of him (pbuh),
nor of Islam in general.
So, what they must
understand is that these two Hadiths – the one Hazrat Umar (ra) reported from
Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh), and the one Hazrat Aisha (ra) heard from Hazrat
Muhammad (pbuh) – are not contradictory in themselves, because Hazrat Umar (ra)
had already passed away before he could clarify whether or not he had heard
what Hazrat Aisha (ra) clarified, in that particular way, from Hazrat Muhammad
(pbuh). You must bear in mind that when Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) passed by the
grave of a Jewish woman, and her relatives were lamenting excessively, he said
that this woman was undergoing punishment because of those lamentations.
So, we – the Ummah of
Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) – when these Hadiths come to us, into our knowledge, we
must not ignore them, nor should we try to say: “Oh, this Hadith about
lamentation doesn’t apply to us, we can lament at the death of our loved ones!”
No! It’s not like that at all!
This is a very severe
warning that Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) gave so that Muslims do not follow the path
of the Jews and Christians and even the pagan Arabs in their extreme
lamentations at the death of their loved ones or other people.
O you who are aware of
these Hadiths, bear this in mind that Hazrat Umar may have directly heard those
words exactly as he heard them from the mouth of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh), and
Hazrat Aisha (ra) may also have heard those words exactly as she reported them.
And so, when these Hadiths come before you today – the Ummah of Hazrat Muhammad
(pbuh) – then you must not follow the ways of the people before Islam in their
ignorant practices. Yes, a little crying without making a scene, without
shouting or wailing, is permissible, because our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
cried like that (without making a scene) when his son Ibrahim (peace be upon
him) passed away. When the people asked him whether he too was crying
(silently), he said that these tears were a sign of sorrow and mercy – tears of
compassion. And right there he said: “The eyes shed tears, the heart is
afflicted, but we say only what pleases our Lord. O Ibrahim, we are truly
saddened by your separation.” (Bukhari, Muslim)
So, it is fundamental
that we understand that tears of sadness – tears that fall silently when a
believer is making many Duahs or when someone (adult or child) has died
– are not at all comparable to all the non-Islamic practices where a person
falls into despair and loses trust in Allah, and does not make Duahs for
the deceased, but instead expresses disobedience to Allah and His Prophet (pbuh)
when they lament loudly and do not show patience when a calamity like death strikes
their family or household.
So, just as I said in
one of my previous sermons about death, where I quoted what Hazrat Umar (ra)
reported before he succumbed to the wounds of his martyrdom – it is indeed
real. While no soul, fundamentally speaking, will carry the weight of the sins
or even the rewards of others, this is a warning for Muslims – true Muslims –
who have the fear of Allah in their hearts, to stay away from the ignorant
practices of pre-Islamic times and not to scream or perform all sorts of
actions that contradict their identity as Muslims. Bear this well in mind that
if a believer does what the ignorant people before Islam used to do, and they
do not place their trust in Allah and make Duahs (supplications for the
deceased), then they themselves will be responsible for that when they die and
return to Allah. Let me tell you that ALLAH WILL QUESTION YOU ABOUT WHAT YOU
KNEW. Allah will ask you: “When you were aware of such-and-such
prohibitions, even though you were not certain, but you heard that it was Me
and My Prophet who said it – then why did you not stay away from it
beforehand?”
Ponder carefully over what
Allah has said that He is as His servant thinks of Him! (Bukhari, Muslim,
Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah)
So, if that person has
trust in Allah – that Allah will forgive him – then Allah will forgive him. If
he has hope in Allah, places his trust in Allah, and asks Allah for
forgiveness, then Allah is full of mercy and will forgive.
So, you must bear in
mind that from the moment you place your trust in Allah, you must reject all
the bad practices that Allah detests. It is unfortunate that certain factions
of Islam – namely our brothers and sisters from Shia Islam – have deviated
somewhat from the vital teachings of Allah and His Prophet (pbuh). We all know
that lamentations, tearing clothes, piercing the body, and striking the face
and body – all of these are ignorant practices of the people before Islam.
As we are in the month
of Muharram, these explanations also fundamentally concern all Muslims around
the world who engage in extreme and non-Islamic lamentations to commemorate the
death of a great soldier and Imam of Islam – Imam Hussein Ibn Ali (ra), the
grandchild of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh). This same Hazrat Hussein and his brother
Imam Hassan (ra) were both assassinated, one after the other, and Hazrat
Muhammad (pbuh) had already prophesied about their deaths and how both of them
are leaders of the youth of Paradise. These are not empty titles. This is the
honour that Allah granted to these pious souls. They are the flesh of Hazrat
Muhammad (pbuh) and his beloved cousin Hazrat Ali (ra).
Imam Hussein (ra) was
assassinated by the army of Yazid Ibn Muawiyya. Yazid was the nephew of
Ummul-Mu’mineen Umm Habiba (ra). While Umm Habiba (ra) and her brother fought
for the cause of Islam, unfortunately Yazid became an anti-Islam figure who
sought to exterminate the roots of Islam and take control of the Ummah to
completely divert it from the path that Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) had laid out for
it. Yazid carried out mass killings of the family of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh),
and Imam Hussein (ra) was assassinated on the 10th of Muharram in
the year 61. This is a sorrowful moment in Islamic history – a period where
true Islam stood against false Islam. That is to say, among the Muslims,
tyrants took power who violated Islam, and as a result of their wickedness and
slander against Islam, they are not considered Muslims in the eyes of Allah.
Yazid was among those foolish types who, dressed in the garments of Islam,
sought to exterminate Islam.
But what is unfortunate
in all this is that a section of Muslims who claim to love Hazrat Imam Hussein,
over time, fell into the trap of Satan and began practising non-Islamic rituals
to show their love for Imam Hussein.
O my brothers, sisters,
and children of Shia Islam, you have the right to love Imam Hussein, just as we
too love him, and the rest of the biological and matrimonial (by marriage alliance)
family of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh). But to show that love, do not act like the
pagans, the non-believers before Islam with their non-Islamic practices. Your
faith, just like our faith, is something only Allah will judge. But what you
are doing in the name of Imam Hussein, for the love of Imam Hussein – perhaps
you think that doing “Ghun,” martyring your bodies, inflicting harm upon
yourselves to commemorate the death and suffering of Imam Hussein is attracting
Allah’s mercy upon you – but that is not the case. Allah and His Prophet (pbuh)
did not teach us, his followers, to demonstrate our love in the same way as the
ignorant people of Jahiliyya (times of ignorance/ pre-Islamic times). On
the contrary, what you are doing is following the practice of Yazid instead of
what Imam Hussein (ra) taught.
If Allah has informed
Imam Hussein of what you are doing – of the GRIEVOUS things done only out of
love for him – then think carefully: he is deeply saddened by what you are
doing, because you are breaking piece by piece what the Noble Prophet Hazrat
Muhammad (pbuh) taught. Yes, we are saddened by what happened to our beloved
Imam Hussein (ra), just as we are saddened by what happened to our beloved Imam
Hassan and the Ahlul-Bayt. But we must make Duahs for them, not
show ignorance by performing the practices of Jahiliyya.
As the death of Imam
Hussein coincides with Ashura, we must recall that the final victory belongs to
Allah. Just as Allah gave victory to Hazrat Musa, likewise He will give victory
to SAHIH AL ISLAM. All those who follow the true precepts of Islam are
the true Muslims, the Sahih al Islam, the true Mu’minun (believers).
So, keep this well in
mind, O my brothers, sisters, and children of Shia Islam – and the rest of the
Muslim world – death is written for everyone. There are deaths that are
prophesied, and deaths that occur in their time and hour, as Allah has decreed.
But death must bring us, the living, closer to Allah. We must reflect on death
and draw nearer to Allah, and perform good deeds, and put into practice the
true teachings of Islam that will bring us closer to Allah and not further away
from Islam.
No one has the right to
judge another’s faith. But nevertheless, as Allah has sent me to you in the
Ummah and for all humanity, it is my fundamental duty to bring you back to the
straight path. O Muslims, do not perform false worship of Pirs, Saints,
pious people, or even prophets giving them preference to Allah. If you say you
are Muslims, then show the sign of your ISLAM by submitting yourselves
completely to Allah and showing your loyalty to Allah and His greatest Prophet,
the Seal of all Prophets, Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh).
A new month of a new
Islamic year has appeared (1447 Hijri), and all of us are approaching death
minute by minute, second by second. Do not do things that will displease Allah.
Do all the actions that will bring you closer to Him, and strengthen your bond
with Him as our beloved Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) and all the prophets
(peace be upon them) taught. Believe firmly in LAA
ILAAHA ILLALLAH MUHAMMADUR RASULULLAH, and build your life upon
that. Do actions that will please Allah and stay away from all that will
attract His anger. This is my advice to you for this beginning of Muharram. Insha-Allah,
may Allah allow you to follow my advice and keep you away from all satanic
practices, and may Allah keep all satans away from you. Reflect on death, and
keep your bond strong with Allah, with Islam. Insha-Allah, Ameen, Summa
Ameen, Ya Rabbal Aalameen.
***** ******* **** ****
'We also recall in this sermon
Marhoom Seid Ahmad who passed away on a 4th July, and I personally led his
funeral prayers the next day, Saturday 5th. We pray also for him: May Allah
give him a good place in Jannatul Firdaus and give his soul a peaceful resting
place. May the angels transmit our Salaams to him, and this message too.
O you, all the angels present for the Jummah, go and give him this message! For the very short stay he had on earth, he did loads of Deen works - excellent works: the logo (of the Jamaat - Jamaat Ahmadiyya Al Mouslemeen), the audio recordings of revelations (and many more). May Allah be pleased with him and give him a good place in Jannatul Firdaus. Insha-Allah, Ameen.
---Friday Sermon of 04 July 2025~ 07 Muharram 1447 AH delivered by Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius.