Khutba on Praying in the Mosque
Muslims, we have been blessed by our Lord in numerous ways – He has granted us our lives and our livelihood, our homes and our families. Whatever we have, we have only on account of our Lord’s endless generosity to us, for everything in the heaven and earth belongs to Him, and He permits us to make full use of it, to the extent of making it all serve us. Allah says,
اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَأَنْزَلَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَأَخْرَجَ بِهِ مِنَ الثَّمَرَاتِ رِزْقًا لَكُمْ وَسَخَّرَ لَكُمُ الْفُلْكَ لِتَجْرِيَ فِي الْبَحْرِ بِأَمْرِهِ وَسَخَّرَ لَكُمُ الْأَنْهَارَ وَسَخَّرَ لَكُمُ الشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ دَائِبَيْنِ وَسَخَّرَ لَكُمُ اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ وَآَتَاكُمْ مِنْ كُلِّ مَا سَأَلْتُمُوهُ وَإِنْ تَعُدُّوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ لَا تُحْصُوهَا
the translation of which is, “Allah is He who created the heavens and the earth and sends down water from the sky and by it brings forth fruits as provision for you. He has made the ships subservient to you to run upon the sea by His command, and He has made the rivers subservient to you, and He has made the sun and moon subservient to you holding steady to their courses, and He has made the night and day subservient to you. He has given you everything you have asked Him for. If you tried to number Allah’s blessings, you could never count them.”
And, if that were not enough, He has singled us, the Muslims, for blessings not granted to the rest of mankind, placing us in the umma of His most beloved creation, the Messenger of Allah, guiding us and putting belief in our hearts, and granted us access to His deen, the only deen acceptable to Him, Islam. al-hamdu lillahi alaa ni’mati-l-Islam wa kafaa bi-haa ni’ma.
Moreover, He has joined our hearts together, hearts that would be forever be at odds were it not for Him, and made us into a jama’a, a single umma, and given us places to gather and come together, His houses upon the earth, the mosques.
And for all those myriad blessings, we must show our gratitude, not just by thanking Him at every opportunity but by taking full advantage of what He has given us and making use of it. That is true gratitude. When you give a child a new gift, it is all he is interested in and occupied with for the rest of the day, or at least for a few hours. We must honour Allah’s gifts in the same way, and as His gifts are continuous we must make use of them constantly. We must fill our moments and not waste them, letting them go by empty and unused. We must make use of our limbs and faculties, our eyes and ears, legs and arms, our very breaths, to live lives that are full and fulfilled. Laziness and lying around, sitting idly by and letting things happen instead of going out and making things happen, that is not the way of the Muslim. We were not created to be passive beings but active ones. The Companions of the Messenger of the Allah did not enable this deen to spread across the world at an unprecedented speed by sitting at home but by going forth. Allah says,
لَا يَسْتَوِي الْقَاعِدُونَ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ غَيْرُ أُولِي الضَّرَرِ وَالْمُجَاهِدُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ
the translation of which is, “Those believers who stay behind – other than those forced to by necessity – are not the same as those who go out to do jihad in the Way of Allah.”
We must take full advantage of our personal blessings, but equally we must take full advantage of our communal ones. This link that Allah has placed between our hearts must be cultivated or it will weaken and sometimes even die, to the extent that we isolate ourselves and cut ourselves off from our fellow Muslims. We must be in and out of each other’s houses, we must work with one another and help each other out, especially when our brothers and sisters are in difficulty and strife. We must be companions to one another, reminding and being reminded. Allah says,
وَتَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْبِرِّ وَالتَّقْوَى وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْإِثْمِ وَالْعُدْوَانِ
the translation of which is, “Help each other to acts of goodness and taqwa, and do not help each other to wrongdoing and enmity.” A burden that is heavy for the individual becomes light when it is borne by the group. This simple act of gathering and coming together solves all manner of issues and lifts all manner of concerns. And the venue where that has always taken place among the Muslims has been the mosque, for that is where the highest form of gathering takes place, the gathering for the prayer, which as we know is the slave’s connection to his Lord, his lifeline, and the central support of his deen. The Prophet said,
الصلاةُ عِمادُ الدينِ فمَن تَرَكَها فقد هَدِمَ الدين
“The prayer is the central support of the deen, and any who leave it will have destroyed their deen.”
أقول قولي هذا و أستغفر الله لي و لكم و لسائر المسلمين من كل ذنب فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرَّحيم
الحمد لله الحمد لله رب العالمين، وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله، صلى الله وسلم وبارك عليه وعلى آله وصحبه، والتابعين وتابعي التابعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.
أما بعد! فيأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله ما استطعتم واسمعوا وأطيعوا وأنفقوا خيرا لأنفسكم. يا عباد الله أوصيكم وإياي بتقوى الله وطاعته وأحذركم وإياي عن معصيته ومخالفته. قال الله تعالى في كتابه العزيز بعد أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم: وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآَتُوا الزَّكَاةَ وَارْكَعُوا مَعَ الرَّاكِعِينَ
Allah says in His mighty Book, the translation of which is, “Establish the prayer and pay zakat and bow with those who bow.” The prayer can be prayed alone, but it is meant to be established, as can be seen by Allah’s usage of the word aqimu in this ayat and many others like it throughout the Quran. And establishing it implies doing it publicly, in its time, in congregation. In other words, in the mosque. When it is done thus, it is many times better for the individual and many times better for the community as a whole. The Prophet said,
صلاةُ الجماعة أفضلُ من صلاةِ الفذِّ بسبعٍ وعشرينَ درجة
“Prayer in jama‘a is twenty seven times better than prayer alone” This refers, according to many of the ulama, to the prayer in the mosque. In other words, one prayer in jama‘a is the equivalent of more than five whole days of praying by one’s self. The Salaf were acutely aware of this and made it their business to never ever miss a prayer in jama‘a in the mosque. It did not matter where they were or what they were doing, they dropped everything and rushed to the mosque when they heard the adhan. Indeed, it is narrated that the salaf used to condole themselves for three days if they missed a takbiratu-l-ihram in the mosque and condole themselves for seven if they missed a prayer. They knew that by missing it, they had lost something huge and irreplaceable. The Prophet said,
مَن صلى أربعين يوماً الصلواتِ في جماعةٍ لَا تفوتُه فيها تكبيرةُ الإحرامِ كَتَبَ اللهُ له براءتَين: براءةً مِن النفاقِ وبراءةً من النار
“If anyone prays forty days in jama‘a, without missing a single takbiratu-l-ihram, Allah will write down two exemptions for him: a exemption from hypocrisy; and a exemption from the Fire.’
But even that was not enough for these great men. They understood the blessed nature of the time that is spent in the mosque between the adhan and the prayer, and they did not want to miss a single second of it. So they made sure they were already sitting in the mosque before the muadhdhin had commenced his call to prayer. Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib, the great tabi‘i and one of the seven fuqaha of Madina said:
ما أذّن مؤذِّنٌ منذُ عشرين سنةً إلا وأنا في المسجد
“During the last twenty years, the muadhdhin never once called the adhan, except that I was already in the mosque.” He knew that the secret to becoming intimate with Allah was to become intimate with His houses, as was confirmed by the Messenger of Allah when he said,
من أَلِفَ المسجدَ أَلِفَهُ اللهُ تعالى
“If someone becomes intimate with the mosque, Allah will become intimate with him.” It is through people having this intimacy with the mosque that the mosques of Allah are brought to life, for without people they become ruins and empty husks. Allah says,
وَمَنْ أَظْلَمُ مِمَّنْ مَنَعَ مَسَاجِدَ اللَّهِ أَنْ يُذْكَرَ فِيهَا اسْمُهُ وَسَعَى فِي خَرَابِهَا
Allah says, the translation of which is, “Who could do greater wrong than someone who bars access to the Mosques of Allah, preventing His Name from being remembered in them, and thus goes about destroying them.” They are destroyed when there is no one within them remembering His Name, in other words, praying to Him. But with people, they becomes beacons of light illuminating society and beating hearts, pumping blood to all parts of society and allowing it to function and run smoothly in the manner that pleases Allah.
We ask Allah to make us a people who fully appreciate the gift of jama‘a and take advantage of it, who realise that is through our coming together, standing together in lines and working together that Allah enables to do what He has commanded of us and bring this great deen back in its full glory. We ask Allah to give us a constant appreciation of our mosques, and in particular this mosque in which we all gather. We ask Him to make us people honour this mosque and frequent it, people who become intimate with it and thereby become intimate with Him. We ask Him to make the links between our hearts unbreakable and make us once again a single umma.
إِنَّ اللهَ وَمَلَائِكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ، يَا أَيُهَا الذِينَ آمَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسْلِيماً. اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلِّمْ وَبَارِكْ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ. وَارْضَ اللَّهُمَّ عَنِ الْخُلَفَاءِ الرَّاشِدِينَ أَبِي بَكْرٍ وَعُمَرَ وَعُثْمَانَ وَعَلِيٍّ، وعن خديجة وعائشة وسائر أزواج النبي، وَعَنْ سَائِرِ الصَّحَابَةِ أَجْمَعِينَ، خُصُوصاً اِلأَنْصَارَ مِنْهُمْ وَالمُهَاجِرِينَ، وَعَنِ التَّابِعِينَ وَتَابِعِي التَّابِعِينَ وَمَنْ تَبِعَهُمْ بِإِحْسَانٍ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ.
اللَّهُمَّ اهْدِ وُلَاةَ أُمُورِ المُسْلِمِينَ لِمَا يُرْضِيكَ وَلِاتِّبَاعِ سُنَّةِ نَبِيِّكَ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَهُمْ عَلَى الصِّرَاطِ المُسْتَقِيمِ، وَأَصْلِحْهُمْ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ.
اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى شَيْخِنَا، وَعَلَى أَمِيرِنَا، وَعَلَى جَمِيعِ أُمَرَاءِ وَزُعَمَاءِ المُسْلِمِينَ.
اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى المُسْلِمِينَ فِي هَذِهِ المَدِينَةِ، وَوَفِّقْهُمْ لِمَا تُحِبُّهُ وَتَرْضَاهُ يَا أَكْرَمَ الأَكْرَمِينَ.
اللَّهُمَّ أَعِزَّ الإِسْلَامَ وَالمُسِْلمِينَ (3) وَاخْذُلِ الْكُفْرَ وَالْكَافِرِينَ، وَانْصُرِ المُجَاهِدِينَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللهِ. وَاجْعَلْ كَلِمََتَكَ هِيَ العُلْيَا وَكَلِمَةَ الْكُفْرِ هِيَ السُّفْلَى.
رَبَّنَا ءَاتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقَِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ.
إِنَّ اللهَ يَامُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَى، وَيَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ، يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَّكَّرُونَ، وَلَذِكْرُ اللهِ أَكْبَرُ وَاللهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ. وَقُومُواْ إِلَى صَلاتِكُمْ يَرْحَمُكُمُ اللهُ.