Before You Are Held to Account

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered at the Dix Mosque in Detroit on December 26, 2016, at the end of the year.Source: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Dr. Ahmed Abouseif begins by expressing his love for the people of Detroit in general and the people of this mosque in particular, and he asks Allah that this love find its like in return, and that love for His sake be a path to His pleasure in this world and the next. Then he says that he does not want to speak at length tonight, but that he pauses at the title the brothers chose for the gathering: «قبل أن تحاسبوا» ("Before you are held to account"), which their shaykh had linked to the end of the year and to preparing for what is coming in our lives.

And he says: I would have liked us to ask one another before we begin: before we are held to account for what? For speech or for deeds? Let us adjust the question: before we are held to account in this world, or before we are held to account in the Hereafter?

Before the reckoning of this world

«حاسبوا أنفسكم قبل أن تُحاسَبوا، وزِنوا أعمالكم قبل أن تُوزَنوا» (Hold yourselves to account before you are held to account, and weigh your deeds before they are weighed).^[1] Words spoken in the context of preaching, disciplining the soul and refining character, and when they are said the mind turns immediately to the Hereafter that the servants await. But he invites us to say also: before you are held to account in this world.

Those whose money is lost suddenly and without warning, or who are struck by a heart attack, so that we call one of the brothers and say to him: come help us! Those who are tried so suddenly do not know what happened, but they have lost everything, and then one of them comes to you asking for supplication or a sermon. So you say to him: before we supplicate and before we preach, come, let us review your history, what did you do? And it turns out that he had earlier consumed people's wealth unlawfully, so Allah held him to account for what he did.

And this one whose own family humiliated him at the end of his life, and who did not expect this disobedience from them, and they did to him the opposite of what he wanted. You ask with him: why? And it turns out he had fed them what is unlawful. From here we say to ourselves: feed your children what is lawful before you are held to account. And how will the reckoning be? That a body which «نبت من لحمٍ حرام فهو إلى النار» ("grew from unlawful flesh is headed to the Fire"),^[2] so no good is expected from it.

And a man whom old age humiliated, and who saw from it more frailty, weakness and abasement than he expected, and in the prime of his youth and strength he had humiliated his wife and abased her, so Allah held him to account for what he did. And so the examples appear before us. And when you see a person drinking wine or practicing what is forbidden, you say to him in the simplest way: stop before you are held to account. Stop before you are held to account. Just as you say to your son at study time: my son, study so that you pass, or study before you are held to account with failure, before you are punished with failure.

«ولتنظر نفسٌ ما قدّمت لغد»

Then our Lord presents to us in the Qur'an examples that answer this question. And he asks: have you heard this sentence before, «حاسبوا أنفسكم قبل أن تُحاسَبوا»? Who among us has heard it? All of us, Masha'Allah. So which of us has sat with himself even once to hold himself to account in a practical way? And the matter is not simple. Our Lord, glory be to Him, says: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَلْتَنظُرْ نَفْسٌ مَّا قَدَّمَتْ لِغَدٍ ۖ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ﴾ (O you who believe, fear Allah, and let every soul look to what it has sent ahead for tomorrow; and fear Allah; indeed Allah is aware of what you do).^[13]

We have a kind of sessions, which are sessions of planning for the future: I sit with myself to look at what I will do tomorrow. When you set out a schedule for tomorrow, ten items or fifteen or twenty, and when tomorrow comes you finish what is in it and say: praise be to Allah, I'm done with what was on me today, because you planned for it in advance. ﴿وَلْتَنظُرْ نَفْسٌ مَّا قَدَّمَتْ لِغَدٍ﴾ (and let every soul look to what it has sent ahead for tomorrow). So the matter is tied to action, tied to what you practice, to your schedule of work from morning to evening. Allah looks at a deed you sent ahead for by planning.

Then He says, glory be to Him: ﴿وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ نَسُوا اللَّهَ فَأَنسَاهُمْ أَنفُسَهُمْ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ﴾ (And be not like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves; those are the defiantly disobedient). And in Egypt we have a proverb that says: out of sight, out of mind; do you have the same in Yemen too? So it is apparently a universal proverb. And it was said to him (apparently by one of those present): whoever is absent from the eye is absent from the thought, and he said: that is true poetry. So the meaning of ﴿نَسُوا اللَّهَ﴾ (they forgot Allah) is that they moved away from Allah and from trying to remember Him, as if the remembrance of Allah in the soul is what moves a person to ask himself: am I pleasing my Beloved now or not? Am I in agreement with His will or not? Am I in accord with His way and guidance or not? And forgetting that or distancing from it breeds forgetfulness.

So if they forgot Allah, the matter is not, in return, that Allah forgot them; He did not say that here, glory be to Him, but He said ﴿فَأَنسَاهُمْ أَنفُسَهُمْ﴾ (so He made them forget themselves), that is, He placed in them what makes a person forget himself. Does this happen? It happens for a very simple reason. Consider a student absorbed in his studying; his mother, may Allah honor her, says to him: my son, you haven't eaten anything today! He says: really? I forgot! He forgot to eat, he forgot himself. Why did he forget himself? Because he was occupied with what fills his heart and mind. Likewise, if a servant forgets the Lord of the worlds, Allah fills his heart and mind with this world, and through it he forgets even himself.

And forgetting the self here does not at all mean forgetting its share of food and drink, for perhaps that is just what occupies him, and it does not mean that he forgets the presence of this world with its buildings, heights, lands and squares, for perhaps these are what occupy him, but he forgets his true self that is in his heart. Then our Lord sets the scale for us: ﴿لَا يَسْتَوِي أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ وَأَصْحَابُ الْجَنَّةِ…﴾ (Not equal are the companions of the Fire and the companions of Paradise…); so whoever remembered was with these, and whoever forgot, so that Allah made him forget himself, was with those.

The way not to forget yourself

And what is the way not to forget yourself, and before you are held to account? ﴿لَوْ أَنزَلْنَا هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ عَلَىٰ جَبَلٍ لَّرَأَيْتَهُ خَاشِعًا مُّتَصَدِّعًا مِّنْ خَشْيَةِ اللَّهِ﴾ (If We had sent down this Qur'an upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled and split apart from fear of Allah). So what is the matter with people that they are not in the humility that is required out of fear of Allah, while the Qur'an of Allah is recited to them during the hours of the night and the ends of the day?

Have you not seen that Allah made the first prayer in the day audible, so that you hear the voice of your imam reciting the Qur'an to you in measured tones, so that the Qur'an descends upon the heart while it is in its stage of purity, before it engages in the affairs of this world and its conditions occupy it? So when it is pure, the Qur'an meets an empty heart and settles firmly in it, and you go out with this firm settling in your heart to your work, solid and strong, facing your life with all its stages. Then you go through the whole day, then you come to the close of the day and Allah brings you back to the first starting point, so you stand behind your imam and hear from him the Qur'an, which moves you to erase with it what has gone before of your deeds if you erred, and to complete with it what has gone before of your accomplishments if you succeeded. So you begin the day with good and end it with good, and this Qur'an which, had it been sent down upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled and split apart from fear of Allah, is the Qur'an that Allah made the path of your salvation. Then He says, glory be to Him: ﴿وَتِلْكَ الْأَمْثَالُ نَضْرِبُهَا لِلنَّاسِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ﴾ (And these examples We present to the people that perhaps they will give thought), and that is the field of the mind and its home, so that you act.

Then our Lord, glory be to Him, tells you that there is no need at all, at all, at all, for you to be distracted from Allah: ﴿هُوَ اللَّهُ الَّذِي لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ عَالِمُ الْغَيْبِ وَالشَّهَادَةِ﴾ (He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, Knower of the unseen and the witnessed), so He knows what you fear in the unseen and knows what you beware of in the witnessed. And He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, so there will be nothing in creation or in the universe that is not under His authority: ﴿هُوَ اللَّهُ الَّذِي لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الْمَلِكُ الْقُدُّوسُ السَّلَامُ الْمُؤْمِنُ الْمُهَيْمِنُ الْعَزِيزُ الْجَبَّارُ الْمُتَكَبِّرُ ۚ سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ﴾ (He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, the Sovereign, the Pure, the Source of Peace, the Granter of Security, the Overseer, the Almighty, the Compeller, the Supreme; exalted is Allah above whatever they associate with Him). So He brings you back to yourself to ask you: what do you fear, and what do you associate with Allah? Then: ﴿هُوَ اللَّهُ الْخَالِقُ الْبَارِئُ الْمُصَوِّرُ ۖ لَهُ الْأَسْمَاءُ الْحُسْنَىٰ﴾ (He is Allah, the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner; to Him belong the best names). To Him belong the best names, and you add: and to Him belong the best attributes. For what the Lord of the worlds is characterized by, His action issues from it, and what issues from Allah is nothing but good for you, for the Lord of the servants wills nothing for His servants but good, glory be to Him, exalted on high.

So the servant, if he forgets Allah, forgets himself, so the matter of self-accounting disappears from the circle of his thought and mind, and he does not sit with himself and does not hold himself to account.

The accounts of this world and their precision

We return to our question: how many of these noble ones, may Allah be good to you all, has actually sat with himself one night to hold himself to account and say: today I did such and such and such? I think eighty percent of us do that, but in the accounts of this world. In the smart phone, this lovely thing, there is something called the wallet, on which you put your credit card or debit card, and at every transaction it tells you: you spent so many cents. And at the end of the day you ask it: how much did I spend? And it tells you. And you have the bank statement that you review every month, and you enter your account online: what did I do today? What went out from me and what did not go out? And if fifty dollars is stolen from you, you call the company: come to my aid, people, rescue me! And so we really do with ourselves in the matters of this world: we let no cent slip, no millième, no piastre, and we sit down for the accounting.

And there are special papers and certain programs that help a person hold himself to account every moment, not every hour or day or week or month, but at every moment the data comes to you numbered and recorded. Ask the accounting experts and they will advise you on Excel spreadsheets and office programs and others, organizing your life precisely. But all of that relates to this world, and we have very precise scales with which we weigh the rise and fall of balances, and the rise and fall of shares, and so on.

But as for the truth, everything we have just spoken about is an illusion, a light that comes out to alter the truth in the eye of the one looking at it, so a beautiful, adorned world appears. The Lord of the worlds says: ﴿زُيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ حُبُّ الشَّهَوَاتِ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ وَالْبَنِينَ وَالْقَنَاطِيرِ الْمُقَنطَرَةِ مِنَ الذَّهَبِ وَالْفِضَّةِ وَالْخَيْلِ الْمُسَوَّمَةِ وَالْأَنْعَامِ وَالْحَرْثِ ۗ ذَٰلِكَ مَتَاعُ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا﴾ (Beautified for people is the love of that which they desire: of women and sons, heaped-up sums of gold and silver, fine horses, and cattle and tilled land. That is the enjoyment of worldly life). This is the adornment of worldly life, an adornment and not a reality, and not a value. So we hold ourselves to account completely over the dazzling adornment, and we neglect and ignore when it comes to the truth.

Are we on the road?

Before the end of the year, merchants sit with themselves to see what they have accomplished. But can any of us sit with himself to see whether he progressed in faith this year or not? Do you know who can? Those who are turning toward the pursuit of knowledge, those panting after the Qur'an in memorization, recitation and measured reading, those who are diligent in acquiring the issues of learning, of jurisprudence and others; these realize their rate of progress, just as the doctoral or master's student realizes how many chapters of his thesis he has finished, how many papers he has written, how many studies he has completed, how many chemical procedures he has done, and so on. Each one knows the level of his progress in what he works on.

On that basis, before we hold ourselves to account over the rate of progress, we must hold ourselves to account over a more important matter: are we truly on the road or not? When you drive your car, may Allah honor you, you suddenly feel that the world around you is strange and you had not noticed: where am I? You feel lost, so you stop for a moment to review yourself: am I even on the right road or not? And if you review and find that you took the wrong street, what do you do? You turn back immediately, to the nearest point of return, and you go back quickly until you reach the first starting point, or the nearest point that gets you to what you want.

And the matter must be between us and Allah in this form: that you look whether you are walking at all on the true, sincere road or not. And for this there are measures and conditions: what are your daily practices that you engage in? Who are your friends? And what do they tell you? And what do you do to rise or to fall behind? And so on through a whole system of questions, which we will mention when we speak about the factors that help a servant hold himself to account well. So let us ask together: are we on the road or not?

If you say: I pray the five prayers and I attend with the imam the Fajr prayer and the ʿIshāʾ prayer, I ask you: is that enough? Yes, it is enough and more. Then this prayer of yours must be one that affects your life, so that you can say that it is enough. For if you leave the mosque and you see that you are dealing in something forbidden, or wronging your wife, or being disobedient to your children, or not maintaining your kinship ties, or not being good to your neighbors, or not doing good in its place, then this is not enough. So you are separating two matters: the matter of pure worship as if it were a kind of daily practice, and the matter of dealings that the Prophet ﷺ spoke of in a brief sentence made of two words: «الدين المعاملة» ("Religion is dealing").^[3] End of discussion. Religion, all of religion, is represented by dealing. Glory be to the Most High, the Powerful.

Once again we review the first matter: we hold ourselves to account before we are held to account. Yes, it is necessary. In speech or in deed? We gave very beautiful examples, but we must add to them a set of very simple scenes from our public and private lives.

A husband comes to me complaining that his life has become disordered, and you ask him a set of questions about the matter, and it turns out that, quite simply, he wrongs the daughter of other people with an unbearable wrong. She prays against him in her night; she cannot frown in his face, nor refuse him a word, nor object to him over a single utterance, and she goes along with what he commands and fears his violence, but she spends the night praying against him. What do you think of this picture? What can you imagine lies behind that? This is only a very small example: hold yourselves to account before you are held to account.

And Allah, glory be to Him, tells us that we must look at what we send ahead for ourselves. And those who complain that their children went astray, that the boy began taking drugs and is being lost, you ask him: what work do you do, and what do you earn from to feed these children? And you find yourself before an answer that settles the discussion and spares you the thinking, so you see that these people did not send anything ahead for themselves, but rather overstepped the limits of the Lord of the worlds, so Allah punished them by what He had in hand.

Between forgiveness and regret

And the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, says: ﴿وَأَنِيبُوا إِلَىٰ رَبِّكُمْ وَأَسْلِمُوا لَهُ مِن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَكُمُ الْعَذَابُ ثُمَّ لَا تُنصَرُونَ﴾ (And turn in repentance to your Lord and submit to Him before the punishment comes upon you; then you will not be helped). In which sūrah did this verse occur? In Sūrat al-Zumar, excellent. And one or two verses before it, which we love to recite in prayer and love to hear: ﴿قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ﴾ (Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah; indeed, Allah forgives all sins; indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful). And after it: ﴿وَأَنِيبُوا﴾ (and turn in repentance). And these who transgressed against themselves apparently forgot themselves, forgot them in everything. And ﴿إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا﴾ (indeed, Allah forgives all sins) indicates that there was no limit in disobedience, there was unrestraint to the very end. But ﴿وَأَنِيبُوا إِلَىٰ رَبِّكُمْ وَأَسْلِمُوا لَهُ مِن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَكُمُ الْعَذَابُ﴾ (And turn in repentance to your Lord and submit to Him before the punishment comes upon you) was the condition of forgiveness. This complete, general forgiveness that has no limit, and in itself, as a whole, no condition, has a prelude, and the prelude is that Allah the Exalted sees from you that you return to Him.

Then: ﴿وَاتَّبِعُوا أَحْسَنَ مَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكُم مِّن رَّبِّكُم مِّن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَكُمُ الْعَذَابُ بَغْتَةً وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَشْعُرُونَ﴾ (And follow the best of what was revealed to you from your Lord before the punishment comes upon you suddenly while you do not perceive). And look how your Lord depicts the matter: ﴿أَن تَقُولَ نَفْسٌ يَا حَسْرَتَىٰ عَلَىٰ مَا فَرَّطتُ فِي جَنبِ اللَّهِ وَإِن كُنتُ لَمِنَ السَّاخِرِينَ﴾ (Lest a soul should say: Oh, regret over what I neglected in regard to Allah, and indeed I was among the mockers), ﴿أَوْ تَقُولَ لَوْ أَنَّ اللَّهَ هَدَانِي لَكُنتُ مِنَ الْمُتَّقِينَ﴾ (Or say: If only Allah had guided me, I would have been among the righteous). You stand and say: if only Allah had guided me I would have been among the righteous, this is "if only" talk. Then: ﴿لَوْ أَنَّ لِي كَرَّةً﴾ (If only I had another turn).

And the shaykh tells: yesterday I went down to a town I know, and I was walking in the streets after being away six or seven months, and I looked and the town was as it was. I said: glory be to Allah, nothing in it has moved, not a brick has moved from its place. But I look at it and ponder it, and it comes to my mind that I am comparing and remembering, and memory turns in my head, for in every one of these situations and places I have events and memories. So I said: glory be to Allah, if Allah returned me after death to review these events and these scenes and these details, what would I do? I say: if in this place I had done other than what I did the first time, I would have had such and such, and if I had spoken to so-and-so with something other than what I said, it would have been such and such.

But now matters are in our hands, within reach, and we can resume. But if the servant comes to his Lord and says: if only I had another turn, with what does the Lord of the worlds answer him? ﴿بَلَىٰ قَدْ جَاءَتْكَ آيَاتِي فَكَذَّبْتَ بِهَا وَاسْتَكْبَرْتَ﴾ (Yes, My verses had come to you, but you denied them and were arrogant). Right? There is no speech after that. ﴿قَدْ جَاءَتْكَ آيَاتِي فَكَذَّبْتَ بِهَا وَاسْتَكْبَرْتَ﴾ (My verses had come to you, but you denied them and were arrogant), and that is the end of the matter for you, do not try again.

So if we have the opportunity to review our deeds and to reschedule what is in our hands, that is a matter that saves you, not someone else. And there is what saves with you your family and household, such as the servant turning from unlawful earning to lawful earning, for with unlawful earning he does not lose himself alone, but loses himself and his family together. And such as the servant refraining from practicing what is forbidden, like those who commit fornication, we seek refuge in Allah, or drink wine, we seek refuge in Allah, for they lose themselves and lose their families with them, indeed they lose a generation that comes after them.

The mistakes of those responsible for work

And there are mistakes I do not know whether it suits the occasion to speak about them or not, for we are now speaking about individual problems, each with himself and his family and household. And if we review the condition of those responsible for peoples and nations, and review our mistakes as those responsible for Islamic work, we say: before we are held to account by our children whom we are raising, these see discord between individuals and quarreling in the ranks, and they see a voice raised with no logic other than partisanship for the self or puffing up or anger without cause. And so the days turn round with them to put us at point zero and place restrictions on our conduct, because we were not wise when we spoke in front of them one day. So before we are held to account by them we must hold ourselves to account, when we look at this emerging generation, and we must review.

And look at a head of state who hands over his country and his servants to "Ghazzah" while they are being rained upon with shells from outside,^[14] is it before he is held to account in this world or in the Hereafter? Allahu akbar. Before you are held to account in this world or in the Hereafter? What logic can you use to judge in such matters, at the level of individuals and at the level of the nation?

Hold yourselves to account before you are held to account

And the shaykh pauses at the sentence that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) said: «حاسبوا أنفسكم قبل أن تُحاسَبوا، وزِنوا أعمالكم قبل أن تُوزَنوا، فإنه أهون عليكم في الحساب غدًا أن تحاسبوا أنفسكم اليوم» (Hold yourselves to account before you are held to account, and weigh your deeds before they are weighed, for it is lighter on you in the reckoning tomorrow that you hold yourselves to account today).^[4] It is as if he is setting out the equation. You hold yourself to account today, and you say: by Allah, I was wrong, and I erred in such and such. Fine, and what is the punishment? And what do I do? I don't know how to punish myself. So you look and think and ponder, then you come out with a result, whatever it may be. Then you come the next day and if you erred, then you come at the next accounting and it is the same error repeating.

Imagine you are a student who fails in mathematics, once, twice and three times, so you must stop: this mistake, where is it? Is it with the teacher, is it with me the student, is it in the material being explained? Where? So you begin searching until you find a result and set the matter right. So if the accounting is repeated on you and you become accustomed to it, and then you stand before Allah, blessed and exalted, you have become accustomed to what you hear: you did such and such on such a day. I have heard this sentence before, who said it to me? I said it to myself before. I heard it before that, and I have prepared an answer for it because I repeated the answer. Then comes: «أهون عليكم في الحساب يوم العرض الأكبر» (lighter on you in the reckoning on the Day of the Greatest Presentation), because I have corrected my errors as best I could.

And one of them used to see in himself a fault that never left him, that he backbites people; if he sat in a gathering he spoke about so-and-so and so-and-so. So he said: by Allah, if I backbite anyone after this I will fast a day. Nice, this punishment! Then he saw that he had come to fast every day, and he had not stopped the backbiting at all. So it was like someone who quits cigarettes three hundred times; every little while he quits and goes back, every little while he quits and goes back, the same calamity. So when he saw that this punishment did not suit his soul, for people are of different kinds, some of whom are pained by deprivation, and some of whom are pained by something else, when he saw that this remedy did not work for him, he decided that if he backbit a person he would give a dinar in charity. And money, my dear elder, pains people of course! He stands before the dollar like a statue not moving: pay fifty? No, uncle, I won't pay! (and the rest of the phrase is garbled in the transcript). And such is the state of creation.

So ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) says: «فإنه أهون عليكم في الحساب غدًا أن تحاسبوا أنفسكم اليوم» (for it is lighter on you in the reckoning tomorrow that you hold yourselves to account today). Then what comes after that? «وتزيّنوا للعرض الأكبر» (and adorn yourselves for the Greatest Presentation). Reflect: you are going to a big occasion, wearing the best you have, the tie is straight, the two hairs combed, and out you go like that, and your companion stops you: where are you going? Why are you all dressed up like that? Are you going to get married or what? Why are you laughing, you just came out of the egg! Leave this talk to the grown-ups who are in a tight spot, and keep quiet. So when you are going out to an important errand and adorned, can you imagine that a sensible person puts on the beautiful suit while sweating, smelling bad, with his undergarments dirty? Is this logic? He slaps two faces on the outside and walks off, and that's it? Of course not! Rather he puts up with the disgust and the sweat, then chooses and puts on clean clothes with a good scent, praise be to Allah, I repent to Allah. So adornment must be preceded by purification.

So when he said: «تزيّنوا للقاء ربّ العالمين» (adorn yourselves for the meeting with the Lord of the worlds), or «تزيّنوا للعرض الأكبر» (adorn yourselves for the Greatest Presentation), that was an indication that it is not enough for us only to hold ourselves to account, looking whether we are dirty or not, but that we step forward to purifying the self, cleansing deeds and settling matters between us and ourselves, between us and people, and between us and Allah. Then after that comes the stage of adornment. Do you know what the stage of adornment is? That you open the muṣḥaf and read two verses, this is adornment, this is something beyond the required limit. But the basic requirement is that you hear the two verses in the Maghrib prayer and set off to act upon them, this is what is required. As for after that, we sit and read extra: a juzʾ a day, or two pages, or three, this is the adornment you put on, like someone who puts on perfume and combs his hair and goes out. And there are those who put on "gel" until their hair falls out, may Allah be good to you.

The near ones fear

And when the Lord of the worlds spoke in His saying, mighty and majestic: ﴿إِنَّ الَّذِينَ هُم مِّنْ خَشْيَةِ رَبِّهِم مُّشْفِقُونَ * وَالَّذِينَ هُم بِآيَاتِ رَبِّهِمْ يُؤْمِنُونَ * وَالَّذِينَ هُم بِرَبِّهِمْ لَا يُشْرِكُونَ * وَالَّذِينَ يُؤْتُونَ مَا آتَوا وَّقُلُوبُهُمْ وَجِلَةٌ أَنَّهُمْ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ رَاجِعُونَ * أُولَٰئِكَ يُسَارِعُونَ فِي الْخَيْرَاتِ وَهُمْ لَهَا سَابِقُونَ﴾ (Indeed, they who are apprehensive from fear of their Lord, and they who believe in the verses of their Lord, and they who do not associate anything with their Lord, and they who give what they give while their hearts are fearful because they will be returning to their Lord, those hasten to good deeds, and they outstrip others therein), Lady ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) asked the Prophet ﷺ about this verse, she said to him: O Messenger of Allah, are these the ones who drink wine and commit fornication and steal? That is, are they the ones in whom our Lord pours these verses, those who are, from fear of their Lord, apprehensive, who in the verses of their Lord believe? Were these people doing terrible things? And the Prophet ﷺ said: «لا، ولكنهم الذين يصومون ويصلّون ويتصدّقون ويخافون ألّا يُتقبَّل منهم» (No, but they are those who fast, pray and give in charity, and fear that it will not be accepted from them).^[5]

And imagine the stage here! We are still in the kneading stage, still down below, bumping into the world and it bumps into us. You look at a beautiful woman and ponder, wow, so pretty, I seek forgiveness from Allah, and you put your eye on the ground. We are in a stage where we err, and we think that if we did something after it we would see ourselves such and such. No, no, no, no, you are talking about another level.

Likewise the level at which ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) described prayer to people one day, describing it precisely, such that some of those around him were unable to picture it. So when they said: this is an exaggeration and so on, he said: I am only speaking about the Muslims.^[6] So what are we then? I cannot picture the matter, and he tells me he is speaking about the Muslims, so what am I then? As if I had not reached the fullness of Islam nor its perfection so as to picture prayer in its reality.

And this matter is of the utmost importance. By the grace of Allah, glory be to Him, we are masters of pecking at the prayer in a most amazing way. You enter the prayer: Allahu akbar, you smack the two rakʿahs in three seconds with the blessings on the Prophet, run, boy, who can catch me! Allahu akbar, al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-ʿā, subḥānallāh, subḥānallāh, subḥānallāh, subḥā... and what did you do? What did you do? What did you do? Well, I was praying, I just got back, welcome back safe, an accepted pilgrimage! So what did he do? Nothing. For he is speaking about those worshippers who, when they set about an act of worship, knew what Allah intended behind it, and performed it as the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, wills, and benefited from it as much as Allah willed for them.

I still remember, by Allah, in my youth, and I ask Allah to bless these youngsters and their works, I used to ask one of my shaykhs, I ask Allah, blessed and exalted, to preserve his life and age: Shaykh, what is the difference between an accepted prayer and one that is not accepted? Imagine! He said: you have asked a question to which you have no answer, but I will point you to a sign: if you say at the close of your prayer «السلام عليكم ورحمة الله، السلام عليكم ورحمة الله» (Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah, peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah) and you feel that something has changed in yourself, know that Allah has accepted your prayer. And if you conclude your prayer while seeing yourself as you were when you entered it, know that your prayer was not accepted from you.

So are we, I wonder, leaving the prayer at the same level, or leaving better, or leaving lower? You say to me: is there anyone who leaves the prayer lower? We were praying! Well, there is another one too who goes in to take a "shower," in English, and instead of wiping himself with soap he wiped himself with mud. So does this one come out of the shower white, or white and black, or in colors? How does he come out? We sometimes enter the prayer and bump about, because you enter with a world, and debt, and thought, and money (so in the transcript, and the phrase is garbled), so concepts get mixed up for you such that you leave your prayer as if you had not been here.

The Companions: human beings like us, but they settled

﴿أُولَٰئِكَ يُسَارِعُونَ فِي الْخَيْرَاتِ﴾ (those hasten to good deeds) are the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them. And when we give them as an example we are giving as an example human beings. So let none of you say to me: Shaykh, may Allah honor you, you shaykhs, whenever you speak to us you tell us about the Companions and the Prophet, so where do we come in next to these people? My dear sir, may Allah honor you, they have precedence in meeting the Prophet ﷺ and merit, but in what is other than that they are human beings like the rest of humanity, one may reason by analogy from their deeds, and from some of them it is accepted and from others it is rejected, and there is no harm in that as long as we have not gone beyond the limit of the manners and following of them that is required of us. Do we agree on that?

Fine, these, may Allah be pleased with them all, had ambitions like people's ambitions, and had conditions that saddened them at times and gladdened them at times, they searched for food and drink and life and this world as we all search, like the rest of humanity, except that the nature of religion and the certainty of hearts prevailed over them, so they settled on what they had pledged to Allah, blessed and exalted. As for us, and Allah knows best, we are like a merchant who does not yet know what kind of trade he practices, so he approaches a little and trades in vegetables, then tries a little and trades in grain, then a little in medicine, then a little in something else, and he does not know what he is doing, so he gains a little from here and loses a little from there, and the world is muddled and the brain has "gone haywire," he does not know how to work. So we are going about like this as Muslims. But the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ settled, although one may reason by analogy from their conditions.

So you see, in what is said, that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) recited Sūrat al-Ṭūr one day until he reached the saying of Allah, blessed and exalted: ﴿إِنَّ عَذَابَ رَبِّكَ لَوَاقِعٌ﴾ (Indeed, the punishment of your Lord is to occur), the report says: he wept and his weeping grew intense until he fell ill and they visited him for that.^[7]

Imagine that you have made an appointment with the shaykh, the two of you are to meet after the Maghrib prayer because you have a fatwa, and our master passes by you at the office, then you do not come. So our master the shaykh calls you: peace be upon you, dear elder, so-and-so! You are crying? What's wrong, what happened? Why didn't you come? So you say to him: well, my foot hurts, and I banged it, and I am crying from the pain. Is this talk reasonable? Yes, reasonable, this is talk the mind accepts. So the blow that our master ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) had was not a blow from a nail nor from a knife, nor from the knife with which your wife hits you at the end of the day, but a very great blow from a verse of the Qur'an, its impact on him was heavier than a rock falling on the head of one of us, so he wept from the intensity of what he was in and from the intensity of being moved.

And whoever is not convinced by this talk, and people like me are many, says to you: how does this happen, he weeps over a verse? So the difference here is the difference in depth of reading. How do you read, and how does he read? That conscience that truly felt the impact of this verse: ﴿إِنَّ عَذَابَ رَبِّكَ لَوَاقِعٌ﴾ (Indeed, the punishment of your Lord is to occur) upon whom? I am the first one on whom the punishment will fall, so he fears the might of Allah, blessed and exalted, and His seizing.

And ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) says to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb one day: Allah has given victory through you to the cities, and Allah has opened conquests through you, and you did this and you did that and you did the other. So ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb replies to him and says to him: by Allah, I wish I could escape, no reward and no burden, nothing for me and nothing against me.^[8] Translate it as you like, say it in the way you like, what matters is that we understand it.

Can you imagine that someone comes at the end of the year, in these next two days, and will go with his papers to the tax office, and says: I only want, may Allah cover me, I want nothing from them, but let them not take from me? What does he want? He wants only to be saved: to come out not in debt. By the way, this man of ours had a business all year long that he was busy with, work here and work there, and labor and achievements and so on and so forth, and very many works had gathered in his hands, but when the hour of reckoning comes he only wants to come out safe, he wants not to become indebted. The same scene is with ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) and those like him who emulate him, and they have that ambition in this world and the Hereafter, and they have the resolve to change the foundations of themselves and of the life they live in and to set it right on the scale of the law of Allah the Exalted. Those like these, if they compare their deeds to what ought to be, saw that they were poor, saw that they had done nothing, saw that they had done nothing.

And I give you a very simple example. A very capable teacher stood in the classroom explaining a whole lesson in arithmetic, say, and after the lesson was over a student asked him: teacher, I do not know how to solve this problem. The teacher said to him: my son, do such and such and such, and the problem is solved. The student said: thank you, teacher, may Allah reward you with good, I am grateful to you. Can you compare his effort in solving a small problem with his effort in explaining a long lesson? What do you think? The same logic: these saw their deeds, however great, as nothing compared with what they see themselves charged with. So I see myself charged with this call, and my mission is to call to Allah, blessed and exalted, so I see myself as being asked to speak to people twenty-four hours, seven days, so if I come and give a lecture in this place, or say two words to people over there, what does this mean in the midst of seven days of twenty-four hours? These comparisons must be placed in your head: what are you doing, and what results have you come out with, and what have you accomplished?

We have people who, if he sees from his son that he prayed with him once in the month, rejoices at it and exults. And people who, if one of their sons falls behind from prayer once in the mosque, reproach themselves, saying: for what sin was I punished by my son being deprived of a prayer in the house of Allah? Do you picture this scene, our brothers? I ask myself: my Lord, what wrong did I do that You punish me by my son falling behind from the house of Allah once? I do not say a week or a year, nor that I did not see him in the mosque at all except when he came for a funeral, nor that he did not go to the mosque except to meet a friend of his, nor that he did not go except because we pressured him and hit him to go to Sunday school or the like of such schools.^[9] No, rather I punish myself and reproach it: for what sin did my son fall behind from a prayer?

Our brothers, «حسنات الأبرار سيئات المقرّبين» ("The good deeds of the righteous are the misdeeds of the near ones").^[10] It is the same story. And the example given for that is that there are people whose level of prayer is that it be on time, in its mosque, in congregation, and he attends the opening takbīr, do we agree? When does this one hold himself to account? When he errs, when? When he dawdles once and does not catch the opening takbīr, so he returns from the mosque upset and puzzled: what have I done, I wonder? This is a very big mistake, how did this happen from me? So you say to him: my dear sir, what happened? He tells you: I did not catch the opening takbīr. So you say to him: my dear sir, I haven't prayed in congregation for two months! He will say to you: like that, are you a Muslim or what? Imagine the difference in distance! «حسنات الأبرار سيئات المقرّبين». In the name of Allah the Guide, O Lord, O Allah, guide us, and guide through us, and be gentle with us, and honor us, O Lord of the worlds.

And ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may Allah be pleased with him) used to weep a great deal, and to fear and hold himself to account, and his fear was most intense for two things: long hopes and following desire. And he used to say: as for long hopes, they make one forget the Hereafter, and as for following desire, it bars one from the truth.^[11] Let us say it a second time: he feared two things, long hopes and following desire. And what do long hopes do? They make one forget the Hereafter, because you are thinking about your very long worldly hope, when will it be finished? It is not finished, so it is as if you forget that there is an end, and that after the end there is a gathering, and that at the gathering there is a questioning, and that after the questioning there is salvation or destruction, Paradise or Fire. So long hopes make one forget the Hereafter. And as for following desire, you are walking along with your desire, and the truth comes to meet you and you say to it: pull over a little please, let me pass! So following desire bars one from the truth.

These are words in preface to our topic "Before you are held to account." So I ask Allah the Exalted to accept from us the beginning of what we have spoken, and to accept our time and effort, and to accept from you your good attendance, which has cooled the heart, and I ask Him to bless you and bless in you.

Before we leave this gathering

But before we leave this gathering, you must repeat the question to yourself, ask yourself an important question: I wonder, are you going to die or not? Whether the term is long or short, are you going to die or what? Surely, surely, surely, we will die, surely one day this will happen. O Allah, bless lifespans, O Lord. So if the servant knows that he will certainly die, and that he will be taken by Allah one day, he must prepare. Exactly like one who knows that he is entering the exam in this subject on such a day in such a month in such a year, so he studies over a year or six months or three months depending on the subject. It is a hundred pages, and the hundred pages need ten hours of study, so that is ten pages an hour, so he begins to say: by Allah, I need so much in every minute.

And Allah has apportioned to you the day with all its tasks, and has provided you with well-being, and bestowed strength upon you, and given you mind, heart and body. So use these capacities in what pleases Allah, blessed and exalted, and in pleasing those around you first. Please those around you, for when we die and meet Allah, blessed and exalted, they will be the witnesses against us. And Allah the Exalted does not overlook what He knows about a servant and is pleased with what people know about the servant; for Allah the Exalted accepts from the servants what they testify to, passing over what He Himself knows about that servant.^[12] So if people say after the death of so-and-so: O Allah, forgive him, he was a generous man, and he was quick to good deeds, and he used to come to the mosque, and he did not miss prayers, and he was and he was and he was, then their Lord, glory be to Him, the Exalted, says: I know about him other than what you said, but I pass over what I know because of what you said.

So be certain that what you plant now is harvested tomorrow. If you reap hatred toward you among those around you, from stinginess, a look of the eye, injustice and harshness with which you deal with people, or you treat them as the cattle at home, then by what logic? You are free, judge as you please. So do you deal with those around you, whether your wife or your children or even your neighbors or your mother-in-law or your father-in-law or your relative or your family or your brothers or your friends or your companions, as a way for me to Paradise? Or do I deal with the attitude that I am above you, that I put you under obligation, that I give you more than you deserve? With what spirit do you deal? If it is the first, then Allah decrees for me your love, and Allah decrees for you the love of those around you. For if the servant falls to the ground in sickness or hardship, what draws people to him, fear or love? If they do not love you they will not turn to you however close their kinship to you, and if they love you they spend all they can and prefer you over themselves whatever their needs. Know that and work for it.

And I ask Allah, blessed and exalted, to accept from us and from you righteous deeds, and to reward us and you for the good things in our hands, and to help us against ourselves, and to help us against our desires, and to keep us firm on the straight path. O Allah, we ask You by Your mercy, Your pardon and Your pleasure to lift distress from the distressed, and to meet the need of the needy. O Allah, we ask You for help and right guidance for our brothers in Aleppo, Mosul, Somalia and Yemen, and for Your servants in all the earth, O Lord of the worlds. O Allah, we ask You for safety, well-being, security, covering, mercy, blessing and good. O Allah, make us among those who place their hope in You, O Lord, and those who work for You, O Lord, and those who believe in You, and those who hope in You, and those who are truthful in their reliance upon You, and those who have good hope in You. O Allah, keep our lives safe, and decree good for us at our death, and bring us out of this world safe.

And he asks Allah to bless those who run this mosque and helped with the work in it, and he says: may Allah make your steps right, bless your striving and reward you with good, and peace be upon you.

--- ^[1]: The speaker began with this wording («وزنوا أعمالكم») and repeated it when he cited the words of ʿUmar. Editor's documentation: The well-known form of the report related from ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) is «وزنوا أنفسكم قبل أن توزنوا»; al-Tirmidhī cited it in a suspended (muʿallaq) form in similar terms, and Ibn Abī Shaybah and others reported it as a statement of the Companion (mawqūf), and its authenticity is open to examination. ^[2]: The speaker gave the meaning of the ḥadīth without a narrator. Editor's documentation: Close to it is what al-Tirmidhī reported from the ḥadīth of Kaʿb ibn ʿUjrah (may Allah be pleased with him): «لا يربو لحم نبت من سحت إلا كانت النار أولى به»; the wording given in the body of the text is the speaker's wording. ^[3]: The speaker attributed the phrase to the Prophet ﷺ. Editor's documentation: I could not establish that it is authentic as a ḥadīth in this wording, and its meaning is attested by many texts on the obligation of good dealing. ^[4]: The speaker did not attribute it to a book. Editor's documentation: See the first note; I have retained the wording as he pronounced it. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah and Aḥmad reported the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) in explanation of this verse in a similar sense. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The speaker related the story without attribution, and stated that it concerns ʿUmar's (may Allah be pleased with him) description of prayer; I could not find its chain of transmission, so it is conveyed in the speaker's wording. ^[7]: The speaker said "the report says" and did not attribute it. Editor's documentation: I have not verified its chain of transmission. ^[8]: The speaker did not attribute it. Editor's documentation: It agrees in meaning with what is in al-Bukhārī in the story of the stabbing of ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him), in which is his saying: «وددتُ أن ذلك كفافٌ لا عليّ ولا لي». ^[9]: Editor's documentation: In the transcript there is confusion in the name of the other types of schools; what is given is what was sound of them. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: A current saying that the speaker conveyed without attribution, and it is not a ḥadīth. ^[11]: Editor's documentation: The saying is attributed in the speaker's words to ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him), and he did not attribute it to a book. ^[12]: The speaker gave it in his own wording without a specific ḥadīth, and I have not attributed any of it to the Prophet ﷺ. The apparent reading of the transcript is "does not overlook what He knows," while the context of what follows requires "overlooks," so it has been retained as it was said. Editor's documentation: On the meaning of people's testimony for the deceased there are ḥadīths, among them what al-Bukhārī reported in the Book of Funerals about their praise of a funeral procession and his saying ﷺ: «وجبت». ^[13]: Editor's documentation: The speaker did not name the location of the verses except Sūrat al-Zumar; their locations according to the known text are: al-Ḥashr 18-24 (verse 20 and verse 22 with only their first half), Āl ʿImrān 14, al-Zumar 53-57 and 59 (59 with its first half, and in 58 he uttered only "if only I had another turn"), al-Muʾminūn 57-61, and al-Ṭūr 7. ^[14]: Editor's documentation: The wording in the transcript is "li-Ghazzah," and it was not clear whether it is "Ghazzah" or "ghuzāh" (invaders); the speaker did not name the head of state.