Khutba on the Significance of the Day of Ashura

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.

As many of you will be aware, we are currently in the month of Muharram, one of the greatest months of the year in the eyes of Allah. Al-Hasan al-Basri said,

إن الله افتتح السنة بشهر حرام وختمها بشهر حرام، فليس شهر في السنة بعد شهر رمضان أعظم عند الله من المحرم، وكان يسمى شهر الله الأصم من شدة تحريمه

“Allah begins the year with a sacred month and finishes the year with a sacred month and there is no month in the year apart than Ramadan which is better than al-Muharram. It used to be known as ‘the Deaf-mute Month of God’ due to its extraordinary inviolability.” Indeed, when the Prophet was asked which month was best, he replied,

وأفضل الأشهر شهر الله الذي تدعونه المحرم

“The best of months is the month of Allah which you call al-Muharram.” This month is known as the month of Allah, and is a month for drawing near to Allah, especially through fasting, for Allah loves those who fast in His sacred months. The Prophet said,

أفضل الصيام بعد رمضان شهر الله المحرم،

“The best fast after Ramadan is that of the month of Allah, Muharram.” Fasting places one in a state that is uniquely pleasing to Allah and enables one to take greatest advantage of the exalted and rarefied time of this, the month of Allah. The whole of this month is a time of joy and celebration for the Muslims, for it represents the renewal of Allah’s blessings to us and the arrival of His help and victory. And that is especially true of the tenth day of Muharram, the day of Ashura, which was yesterday. The day of Ashura is one of those days in the year that Allah has singled out for special attention since the first moment that He placed us on this planet, and many of the greatest boons and blessings He granted to His Messengers, Prophets and Awliya were given to them on this day.
In his well-known book, “tanbih al-ghafilin”, Abu Layth as-Samarqandi mentions a number of the most significant of these, narrating that it was on this day that Allah accepted the tawba of Adam, raised Idris up to a high place, brought the Ark of Nuh to land at al-Judi, gave Ibrahim a son, as well as taking him as a khalil and keeping him safe from the fire into which he had been thrown, forgave Dawud, raised Isa up to the heavens, saved Musa from the sea and drowned Pharaoh, saved Yunus from the belly of the whale, returned Ayyub to his family, health and wealth, and restored Sulayman’s kingdom to him in all its glory.  
So significant did the Prophet consider this day, that it was the first day he commanded his Companions to fast.

عن ابن عباس رضي الله عنهما قال: قدم النبي  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

Ibn Abbas narrated that 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 a greater right to Musa than yourselves,” and started to fast that day and commanded the Muslims to fast it. Thus, it was the precursor and herald of the month of Ramadan, and indeed it remained obligatory until Ramadan was prescribed a couple of years later, at which point fasting it ceased to be obligatory and become highly recommended instead.
Fasting is the primary way of marking the day, but is by no means the only one, for all good actions are magnified on the day of Ashura, especially that of giving and spending on your family.  Indeed, by doing so, you guarantee your own provision for the remainder of the year. Muhammad ibn Maysura narrated, 

من وسّع على عياله يوم عاشوراء، وسّع الله عليه سائرَ السنة

“Whoever provides generously for one’s dependents on the day of Ashura, Allah will provide generously for him throughout the rest of the year.”
This is the source of the practice of Muslims, here in Cape Town and throughout the world, of celebrating this day by preparing feasts and giving presents, especially sweets and nuts, to the children. We ask Allah to make this new year and this month of Muharram a time of renewal for the Deen and a time in which the hearts of the Muslims are united. We ask Him that He give every one of us the strength and himma to take full advantage of it and We ask Him to bring ease to those who are in difficulty, victory to those who are struggling in His Way and good health to those who are ill. We ask Him to bless the Muslims of this city and bring its other inhabitants to Islam in their droves. We ask Him to give us the best of seals.

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.

As we have seen from the Sunna of the Prophet, and the example of his Companions, the day of Ashura has always been commemorated as a day of joy and celebration, a day of expressing our gratitude and thanks to our Lord for His extraordinary generosity to us in the course of this day throughout the history of mankind. And that has always been the way of the Muslims, to concentrate on and commemorate the good times and forget the bad. All of the days we celebrate and commemorate are days of joy, days in which the blessings of Allah are most manifest, days upon which His help and victory and most pronounced and the cause of His deen most advanced: the two Eids, 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 beyond; and, of course, the day of Ashura which has just passed.
As for times of sadness and grief or times of defeat and reversal, we accept them as part of the qadar of Allah and learn our lessons from them, but do not perpetuate them or commemorate them. 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 again and again. This applies at a personal level and a communal level. We commemorate the days upon which we were born, the days we got married, the days we first had success in our businesses, not the days we committed major wrong actions, or got divorced or lost 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. There are too many difficult and sorrowful things that happen in our lives, both to ourselves and those beloved to us. We are human beings living in the daar al-balaa, and so 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?” And if we hold on to them and remind ourselves constantly of those tragic events, we will live 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.” And once Allah has made a promise, He never breaks it. Allah says,

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُخْلِفُ الْمِيعَادَ

the translation of which is, “Allah does not break His pact.” So, with that understanding, we do not grieve and feel sorrow about things He 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,

والإمساك عما شجر بينهم

“And refraining from discussing what happened between them.” 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, during the reign of Yazid ibn Muawiya, that Al-Husayn ibn Ali was martyred on the fields of Karbala, after having been invited and then betrayed by the people of Kufa, who left him high and dry and without support.
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 the sudden loss of someone beloved to Allah and His Messenger is bound to cause grief to those who knew him and lived alongside him and benefited from his presence and company. But that grief is never perpetuated and rekindled year after year and generation after generation. That is not the way of the Prophet or his Companions or the people of Allah. Allah describes the awliya as being people who,

لَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ

the translation of which is, “know no fear and feel no sorrow.” Sayyidina Husayn 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 after the battle and he was greatly loved by the Prophet. Both Umar and Ali were assassinated while they were khalifas, as was Sayidinaa Uthman, a man so loved by the Prophet that he married two of his daughters to him and said that were he to have had another daughter, he would have married her to him. 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, for they were as distressing as that of Sayyidinaa al-Husayn? Do we 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? Do we come together each year and remind ourselves of those events and recount the tales of what happened. No, we do not, for that was not the Sunna of our noble Messenger, the one whose life was an example to us all, nor the Sunna of his noble Companions. They did not commemorate his death and weep on its anniversary, but rather celebrated his life. 
And, anyway, the death of the awliya is not a cause for sadness but rather a cause for joy, especially when they die shahid, for they remain alive,

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. When the Prophets and men of Allah die, there is good in it for themselves and the entire Muslim umma, as the Prophet said, speaking about his own life,

حياتي خيرٌ لكم وموتي خيرٌ لكم

“My life is a blessing for you and my death is a blessing for you,” 
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 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 Muslim. 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.” And do not affirm or give life to any of their practices, no matter how innocent or harmless they may appear. Instead, rejoice in this deen and rejoice in the blessings we have received. Recount the many blessings and give thanks to your Lord. And show your love of His Prophet and Family and Companions by loving what they loved, acting as they acted, doing what they did and putting the great deen of Allah into place in all its aspects in all times and all parts of your life. May Allah give us the strength and knowledge to keep the sunna of His beloved Messenger alive, and may He protect us from engaging in reprehensible and repugnant practices that will take us away from Him.

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.