Khutba on Ashura and Love of the Ahlul Bayt

الحمد لله، الحمد لله الذي جعل لعبده أسباب الفرح والنصرة، وجعل قوم نبيه أحق باحتفال أيامه ممن قبله، نحمده تعالى ونستعينه، ونشكره تعالى ونستغفره ونستغيثه، نعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا، من يهد الله فهو المهتد ومن يضلل فلن تجد له وليا مرشدا، ونشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، له الملك و له الحمد، يحيي ويميت، بيده الخير، وهو على كل شيء قدير،  ونشهد أن سيدنا و مولانا محمداً عبده ورسوله، وحبيبه وصفيه، بلغ الرسالة وأدى الأمانة ونصح الأمة، النبي الأمي الذي أرسله الله بالهدى والدين الحق، بشيرا ونذيرا بين يدي الساعة، صلى الله عليه وسلم وعلى آله وأصحابه ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين. أما بعد! فيا عباد الله اتقوا الله حق تقاته ولا تموتن إلا وأنتم مسلمون. يأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله وقولوا قولا سديدا يصلح لكم أعمالكم ويغفر لكم ذنوبكم. ومن يطع الله ورسوله فقد فاز فوزا عظيما. اتقوا الله فيما أمر وانتهوا عما نها عنه وزجر.

Tomorrow marks a great day in the year, the day upon which our Lord saved Musa from Pharaoh and his armies, and according to some narrations, the day upon which Allah accepted the tawba of Adam, raised Idris up to a high place, brought the Ark of Nuh to land at al-Judi, kept Ibrahim safe from the fire into which he had been thrown, saved Yunus from the belly of the whale, and restored Ayyub’s his family, health and wealth. That day is the day of Ashura, a day the Muslims have marked, commemorated and fasted since the moment the Messenger of Allah first found the Jews fasting it. Ibn Abbas narrated that,

قدم النبي ﷺ المدينة فوجد اليهود صياما يوم عاشوراء، فقال لهم: ((ما هذا اليوم الذي تصومونه؟)) قالوا: هذا يوم عظيم، أنجى الله فيه موسى وقومه، وأغرق فرعون وقومه، فصامه موسى شكرا فنحن نصومه، فقال: ((نحن أحق بموسى منكم))، فصامه وأمر بصيامه

“When the Prophet arrived in Madinah, he found the Jews fasting the day of Ashura, so he asked them, ‘What is this day that you are fasting?’ They replied, ‘This is an immense day, for on it Allah rescued Musa and his people, and drowned Pharaoh and his people. So Musa fasted it out of thanks to his Lord and we fast it as well.’ So the Prophet said, ‘We have more right to Musa than yourselves,’ and started to fast that day and commanded that the Muslims fast it.”
It is a day upon which we acknowledge and give thanks for the blessings of Allah and His extraordinary generosity He has shown us during the course of this day throughout history. It is a day of joy and happiness, and that has ever been the case on the days that are singled out for special mention and special attention. On every one of them a great blessing of our Lord to us is made manifest. The two Eids are the days upon which two key acts of worship are completed; the mawlid, the day upon which the reason for all our guidance was born; the day of Badr, the first military success; the Laylat Nisf Sha’ban, the night upon which many souls are freed from the Fire; the Laylat al-Isra wal-Mi’raj, the night upon which the Prophet of our Umma was singled out from all of Allah’s creatures for the station of قاب قوسين أو أدنى; and, then of course we have this day of Ashura which coincides with tomorrow.
As for times of defeat and reversal or times of sadness and grief, we accept them as part of the qadar of Allah, and we feel what we feel, a part of the tenderness and mercy placed in our hearts by Allah, and we learn our lessons from them. But we do not perpetuate those times or commemorate the days upon which they happened. We deal with them when they happen, but then we let them go and move on. We do not hold on to them, we do not relive them and revisit them time and time again. This applies at a personal level and a communal level. We commemorate the days upon which we are born, the days we get married, the days we have our first successes in education and business, but not the days we commit major wrong actions, or get divorced or lose our jobs. And that is the way it should be, for it encourages us to be thankful and not to wallow in self-pity or other negative emotions which encourage indolence and lack of action. 
We are human beings living in the daar al-balaa, and we will be tried. Allah says,

أَحَسِبَ النَّاسُ أَنْ يُتْرَكُوا أَنْ يَقُولُوا آَمَنَّا وَهُمْ لَا يُفْتَنُونَ

the translation of which is, “Do people think they will be left to say ‘We believe,’ and not be tested?” There are so many difficult and sorrowful things that happen in our lives, both to ourselves and those beloved to us, and if we hold on to them all and remind ourselves constantly of our tragedies, we will go through life in a perpetual state of grief and sorrow, unable and unwilling to move forward. That is not the state of the Muslim, the one who submits totally to Allah and understands that Allah is the best of planners, and that everything He does He does with wisdom. Nothing happens except that He wills it, and He has promised to preserve this deen. Allah says,

إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِظُونَ 

the translation of which is, “It is Us who have sent down the Reminder and it is Us who will preserve it.” Thus, we do not indulge our grief and sorrow about things our Lord has caused to be in the past and that on the surface appear negative and detrimental to the cause of the deen, but rather take our lessons from them and move on, or in some cases avoid looking into them entirely. For the ulama have said that it is not permissible for the general public to delve into the matters of the great fitna when the Sahaba disagreed and fought among themselves. Abu Zayd al-Qayrawani says in the section on belief in his Risala, among the things the mumin must do,

والإمساك عما شجر بينهم

“And refrain from discussing what happened between them.”  i.e. the Sahaba. And we certainly do not commemorate any of those events on a yearly basis or establish the date of their happening as a reminder. But that is exactly what one group have done to this great and joyous day of Ashura. They have hijacked this day and perverted it, indeed inverted it and turned it into a day of grief and sorrow, a day of mourning and self-flagellation, a day of the dead. For it was on this day that Sayyidina al-Husayn ibn Ali was murdered and martyred on the fields of Karbala.
Now there is no doubt that this, the murder of the grandson of the Prophet, was a shocking event and one that brought great sadness to the entire umma at the time. Even Yazid, according to some accounts, is reported to have wept when he heard the news. And there is no way that anyone even now who has love for him can hear the full details of this story without feeling shocked and saddened. But that does not mean that we memorise them and remind ourselves of them on a yearly basis. That does not mean that we set up events and coordinate gatherings purely to relive the trauma. That is not the way of those who showed us the way, the Messenger of Allah and his Companions. Yes, the Messenger of Allah felt sadness and shed tears for the passing of his son Ibrahim and his uncle Hamza, but he did not establish a day upon which he gathered with his family and Companions and wept for them. And when he himself died, a man whom the Companions loved even more than they loved themselves and their families, did they establish a day to mark his passing. The answer is of course no – they commemorated his life, his birth, his hijra, his victories, but not his death. Al-Hafidh Ibn Hajar said, “As for the time of the death of the Prophet, they chose not to use it because remembering it would renew their grief.” And the mumin does not deliberately renew his grief. He avoids what reminds him of things which are sad, he does not surround himself with them. Bilal left Madina because every part of it reminded him of the beloved he had lost, he did not stay to indulge in that grief.
But, they say, we remind ourselves of Sayyidna al-Husayn because of the manner in which he was killed. He was not the first great Muslim to be killed cruelly and unjustly nor was he the last, he was not even the first from the family of the Prophet, for Sayyidina Hamza was killed at Uhud and his body mutilated and parts of it eaten after the battle and he was greatly loved by the Prophet. Both Sayyidina Umar and Sayyidina Ali were murdered while they were khalifas, as was Sayidinaa Uthman, a man so loved by the Prophet that he married to him two of his daughters and said that were he to have had another daughter, he would have married her to him as well. He was murdered by a group of people while he recited Quran, an event so traumatic that it brought chaos and fitna to the Muslim world. But do we commemorate any of those deaths, do we establish days to gather together and mourn and weep? No, we do not even know for sure the days upon which they happened, or even the day upon which the greatest of mankind, the Messenger of Allah, died.
Our hearts remain soft and merciful but we do not dwell on the negatives of the past, we focus on obeying our Lord in the present. And, anyway, the death of the awliya is not a cause for sadness for those who truly know but rather a cause for joy, especially when they die shahid, for they remain alive, as Allah says,

عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ يُرْزَقُونَ فَرِحِينَ بِمَا آَتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ وَيَسْتَبْشِرُونَ بِالَّذِينَ لَمْ يَلْحَقُوا بِهِمْ مِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ أَلَّا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ يَسْتَبْشِرُونَ بِنِعْمَةٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَفَضْلٍ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ

the translation of which is, “well provided for in the very presence of their Lord, delighting in the favour Allah has bestowed on them, rejoicing over those they left behind who have not yet joined them, feeling no fear and knowing no sorrow, rejoicing in blessings and favour from Allah and that Allah does not let the wage of the believers go to waste.” Jalaludeen ar-Rumi famously said that if the Shia were truly sincere in their professed love for al-Husayn, then the occasion of his martyrdom should be a time of joy for them, for it is the day upon which he went to see his Lord and was received with great honour. There is no basis whatsoever in the deen for using the day of Ashura to commemorate the events of Karbala, it is a damaging innovation introduced by the Shia leadership to incite their populace against the Khilafate and delegitimise it, and by extension, the entire Muslim umma in their eyes. And its practice led to much violence and unrest. Ibn al-Kathir, the well-known fourteenth century Muslim historian said, “On the tenth of Muharram this year, the Shia celebrated celebrated the mourning of Hussein as they did the year before. The Shia and the people of Sunna fought violently among each other on this day and much property was looted.” And it is a direct rejection of the Sunna, for they declare the fast of this day to be forbidden.
And that is why it is extremely worrying to find so many non-Shia Muslims each year, recounting the events of Karbala, with some even calling on people to express their sadness and sorrow. There is no good in adopting this practice or any practice of this deviant group. All it does is strengthen them and legitimise them in the eyes of the Muslims. Based on this event, they have turned Karbala in a place of pilgrimage. They consider it to be akin to the Haramayn, if not more sacred. For when I was in the Haram in Makkah and in the Rawda of the Messenger, I personally witnessed Shia placing their bit of Karbala on the ground so that their foreheads rested on it and not on the blessed grounds of the mosques of Makka and Madina. Let us not commemorate this day in this way, even if it is to examine the martyrdom of al-Husayn from a ‘sunni’ perspective, but instead let us celebrate Ashura and remember it in the manner that the Prophet did. Let us be ever on our guard against the views and practices of a group whose history has ever been one of sedition and troublemaking. They relinquished any right to our ear and our attention, they relinquished any right to our sympathy and friendship by their attitude towards and slander of the Companions. The Prophet said,

لاَ تَسُبُّواْ أَصْحَابِي، فَإِنَّهُ يَجِيءُ قَوْمٌ فِي آخِرِ الزَّمَانِ يَسُبُّونَ أَصْحَابِي فَلَا تُصَلُّواْ عَلَيْهِمْ، وَلاَ تُصَلُّواْ مَعَهُمْ، وَلاَ تُنَاكِحُوهُمْ، وَلاَ تُُجالِسُوهُمْ، وَإِنْ مَرَضُواْ فَلَا تَعُودُوهُمْ.

“Do not curse my Companions. A people will come at the end of time who will curse my Companions. Do not pray over them or behind them, do not marry with them and do not sit in their assemblies. And when they are ill, do not visit them.”

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم ولسائر 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.

Do not mistake criticism of the Shia or their practices with criticism of the Ahlul Bayt. It is no such thing. The Shia have no exclusive claim to the family of the Messenger of Allah. In fact, they have all but relinquished their claim with the excessive and false claims they have made about them, raising some of their Imams above some of the Prophets and declaring them to be infallible. And just as Isa ibnu Maryam will wash his hands of those who made false claims about him and smash their crosses, saying he has no part of them and they have no part of him, so too will the family of the Prophet wash their hands of the Shia. For their affair is very much akin to that of the Christians. The Christians are one of the only other groups who commemorate death, and we know the excess to which they have gone in what they claim about Sayyidina Isa. The Shia have mirrored this in what they claim about their Imams, to the extent that some of their sects have even claimed divinity for them, wa naudhu billahi min aqwalihim.
We say to them, as the Prophet said to the Jews about Sayyidina Musa, 

نحن أحق بهم منكم

“ًWe have more right to them than you.” For their claimed love of the family of the Prophet is empty and destructive and actually lessens the degree to which the Ahlul Bayt is loved. For any extreme, anything done to excess, creates the circumstances for the opposite extreme to arise. Just as the image of Islam has been weakened in the eyes of many, even among the Muslims themselves, by the words, beliefs and actions of an extreme minority, and similarly the image of Tasawwuf, so too has the status of the family of the Prophet. Their extreme so-called love has caused many to lessen the degree of their love and even abandon it in response. Their behaviour creates a greater degree of antipathy for the family of the Messenger of Allah than there would otherwise have been because of people’s natural reaction to try and return things to the middle. When confronted by the excess of the Shia it can cause some to go to excess in the opposite direction in the misguided belief that that will some how right things. We must be on our guard against this and never fall into that trap, for there is no doubt that love of the family of the Messenger of Allah is wajib and essential to the well-being of the mumin. Its importance cannot be overstated. Allah says,

قُلْ لَا أَسْأَلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا إِلَّا الْمَوَدَّةَ فِي الْقُرْبَى

the translation of which is, “Say: ‘I do not ask you for any wage for this – except for you to love the close family.” In his tafsir of this aya, al-Qurtubi narrates a remarkable hadith in which the Prophet said,

من مات على حُب آل محمد مات شهيداً ألاَ ومن مات على حُب آل محمد مات مؤمناً مستكمل الإيمان. ألاَ ومن مات على حُب آل محمد بشّره ملك الموت بالجنة ثم مُنْكر ونكير. (ألا ومن مات على حُب آل محمد يزف إلى الجنة كما تزف العروس إلى بيت زوجها) ألا ومن مات على حب آل محمد فُتح له في قبره بابان إلى الجنة. ألا ومن مات على حب آل محمد جعل الله قبره مزار ملائكة الرحمة. ألا ومن مات على حُبّ آل محمد مات على السنة والجماعة. ألا ومن مات على بغض آل محمد جاء يوم القيامة مكتوباً بين عينيه أيس من رحمة الله. ألاَ ومن مات على بغض آل محمد مات كافراً. ألاَ ومن مات على بغض آل محمد لم يشم رائحة الجنة

“Whoever dies loving the family of Muhammad dies a shahid. Whoever dies loving the family of Muhammad dies a complete believer. Whoever dies loving the family of Muhammad will be given the good news of the Garden by the angel of death and then by Munkar and Nakir. Whoever dies loving the family of Muhammad will be led into the Garden in a procession as a bride is led to the house of her husband. Whoever dies loving the family of Muhammad will find two gates opened to the Garden in his grave. Whoever dies loving the family of Muhammad, his grave will be visited by the angels and engulfed in mercy. Whoever dies loving the family of Muhammad dies upon the Sunna and Jama’a. But as for the one who dies hating the family of Muhammad, he will be brought forth on the day of Qiyama with the words ‘no hope of the mercy of Allah’ written between his eyes. The one who dies hating the family of Muhammad will die an unbeliever. The one who dies hating the family of Muhammad will never smell the sweet scent of the Garden.”
We honour their memory and honour their lives, and raise up their descendants in our circles. And we speak well of them at every opportunity and show our love by the quantity of our salawat upon them. For no salawat for the Prophet, indeed no prayer at all, is accepted unless they are included. The Prophet said,

مَنْ صَلَّى صَلاةً لَمْ يُصَلِّ فِيهَا عَلَيَّ وَلا عَلَى أَهْلِ بَيْتِي لَمْ تُقْبَلْ مِنْهُ

“If someone does a prayer without praying over me and the people of my house, it will not be accepted from him.” We ask Allah to give us a pure love of the Messenger of Allah and his family and make us among the people who are raised up among them and counted as part of their circle, and we ask that He protect us from every excess and extreme relating to them and every other part of this great affair that our Lord has given us. We ask Allah to pour down His blessings upon the Prophet and his Family and Companions and all who follow in their footsteps.

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 أم المومنين عائشة التي أمرنا الله في سورة النور أن ندافع عنها، 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، 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.