This World Is a Workplace, and Brotherhood for Allah's Sake Prepares Us to Meet Him

Occasion: Transcript of an Isha khatira delivered at Bayt Al-Karim on October 12, 2026 Source: Transcript of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif, watch the original video on YouTube

A big company and a long working day

Try to imagine that we all work in one very large company. The company has a huge building with different facilities next to each other, and we move between them. There are different levels of position: a treasurer, a janitor, a director, an engineer, and so on, and we work together. We go to work at the very beginning of the day, spend the whole day there, and return home at the end of it.

Now ask yourself: how many of us love to come back home from work, and how many want to stay there and carry on until the next day? I am giving this example to myself first, before anybody else.

When God asked us to come to this world, it was as if He asked us to come to work. We are here, working together in the same field, each in a different position. If we love to go back to our homes, we have to leave this world and return to God, glory be to Him. But if we love to stay in this world, and our hope is for more and more and more of it, we are acting like a foolish person. You will never find anyone who goes to work and then sets about changing it for his own comfort. Imagine me working with you here, and I say, "I don't like the design; I want to change it, my friend." You will be here two hours, then go back, yet during those two hours I insist on spending a fortune on redesigning the place?

Or take a hotel. If you are going to stay two or three nights, would you build a wall in the room, change the lighting, redesign the bathroom, add a locker? You would never do any of that, because you know you are staying only a few days, a few nights. And whatever you spend there, you cannot take it with you.

The Prophet came as a passenger

This is the real picture of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ when he came to this world, and it is the same picture he learned from the messengers before him, peace be upon them. He told us that he was passing through this world as a passenger, just crossing a doorway.^[1]

Think of me driving across the country, going fast. I have crossed a great many cities. If you ask me which one was the best, I will ask you how wide the street was, because that is all I need from a city: to let me pass in safety and ease and be on my way. If passing through a city is easy, that is the city most beloved to me, not because of what the city contains, since I am not staying. I am only crossing the road.

He also described himself as a traveler who stops for a few minutes under a tree, takes a breath, gets some water and a little rest, and says, "Praise be to God, I am well; now let us go." He does not linger. He keeps on until he reaches his goal. And what is that goal?

Not long ago, one Wednesday, I set out on the road to San Antonio. I finished my work there on Friday morning, early, and as soon as I was done I returned to Dallas. I had nothing else to do there; it was not my city. That is the picture of our stay in this world. It is not our place. Whatever we do here is the mission God has asked of us.

Sometimes somebody asks me, "Can you come and help us? We are building a facility here." I go, because I am there to serve. I help, and in some months I am asked to return to raise further support; and we watch the project from scratch until it is finished. I spent years with an Islamic center from its earliest beginning. I took a selfie when it was only bare land, and after some years it stood as a huge and great building, praise be to God. Yet once the project was finished, I had another project in a different place, and I simply moved on. That is exactly the example of our stay in this world.

If we have homes, careers, jobs, businesses, these are things we are required to do, but on the order of God, not on the desires of our hearts. I do not want more money because I love money. I want it because there is something I must do with it: build this, reach that. In every position we hold, we remain servants of God, glory be to Him.

Love for the sake of God

I am coming at the same responsibility toward our religion from a different angle. I had tried to prepare a lecture for you about loving one another for the sake of God. Do you have a brother, by blood? Or do you have other kinds of brothers? When we speak about brotherhood and sisterhood, we are speaking about a relationship built on something different.

Think about why God asks us to come five times a day and stand next to each other. I say "as-salāmu ʿalaykum" and see the same person again, and I might think, "Come on, I don't like you, don't stand next to me." Yet God is asking me to come and see you. And if I miss you, I ask after you. I tell a brother, "I haven't seen you for a long time," and he says, "Two weeks, I was busy with such and such." I miss somebody; it means he has a part of my heart, a room in it. What kind of relationship is this between us? It is what God is asking of me when He asks me to come: a relationship built on love for His sake. This is the real relationship by which we can meet God, glory be to Him.

The Prophet ﷺ explained to us the position of such brothers. On that Day they come to sit upon minbars.^[2] A minbar is a high place where you sit and anybody can see you. Imagine seats, big, fancy, very soft and high, where you can relax, like first class on an airplane. Have you tried it? Not yet? I tried once, by mistake. Anyway, when you look at the people around you, everyone is chilling. So imagine that, because of this relationship, we are given a different seat from the hands of God in Paradise, and God asks, "Why are you here? How were you given this position?" And the answer is: "Because I loved that person purely for Your sake, nothing else."

Once the Prophet ﷺ described the position of a traveler.^[3] A man left his home for another village, city or state, and God assigned an angel to him, appearing as a man, who asked, "Where are you from?" "From Egypt." "Where are you going?" "To America." "Do you have business there?" "No." "A family relation, a relative?" "No." "Then why are you going?" "To visit one of my brothers for the sake of God. He is one of my brothers in the faith." The angel told him there was no other relationship between them, and that God would reward him for that journey.^[4]

I am not asking people to travel everywhere. I am asking our hearts to feel the importance of a relationship built on religion.

Do we know each other?

I have asked this question here before: do we know each other? Do we even have each other's full names, first and last? Do we know what each of us does, what his work is, how I can help him and how he can support me? If we have a project, if we need something done in the masjid, do we know each brother's position, so that we can say, "Brother, come, we need your help with this specific thing"? This is the importance of having the relationship.

Imagine you come to the prayer, and somebody looks at your face. "How are you doing today?" "Praise be to God." But your face says something different. "Is something wrong?" "To be honest, I didn't sleep enough," and so on. "I know someone who can help you." And a problem is solved. Or perhaps you simply came to find somebody to support you and be your buddy. I hear my children say, "Hi, buddy." I ask them what the word means. If they felt the meaning of the word, they would enjoy it when I say it to my brother. I cannot say it myself; maybe I am saying something wrong in English. But this is the idea.

When we have a good relationship with one another, God, glory be to Him, mends the relationship between us and Him. And the other way around: when you have a strong relationship with God, God mends all the problems between you and the rest of the people. May I say it again? As much as you have a strong relationship between you and God, God mends your relationship with the people around you. The Prophet ﷺ told us that hearts are between two fingers of God, glory be to Him, who turns them as He wills.^[5] He puts harmony and mercy in the heart, or hardness, wherever He wills, according to your relationship with Him. God is preparing the people around you to be with you.

Prepare for the call

I do not want to take longer, but one of the main points is this: we are visiting this world for a little while; we are not here forever. Whatever we do in it, we do by the order of God, and we have been ordered to build and cultivate the earth. We came for a reason and a cause, and beyond that we will leave everything behind us.

Another main point: nobody knows when we will leave. The bus will stop at the door and call out the names, and there will be no time to prepare. Imagine we are at the airport, just waiting to go, and the bus comes and says, "This is Ahmed, Muhammad, Ibrahim, so-and-so, it is your turn. Come." You just take your bag and go. Whatever you leave behind is done.

Can we prepare our hearts for that meeting with God? First of all, can we go home tonight and pray just two rak'ahs, and ask God during that time: "Return our hearts to You. Please, return my heart to You. Teach me how to make You my only target, so that I need nothing else"?

And whatever we have in our hands is only in our hands. I have this microphone right now, not for myself, since I can hear myself, but for you. Whatever you have in your hands, make it for the rest of the people around you.

May God accept from all of us, make our aims purely for His sake, glory be to Him, prepare our hearts to meet Him clean and clear, and grant us Paradise.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The speaker paraphrases without citing wording. The image of the rider who rests in the shade of a tree and then departs is found in the hadith «مَا لِي وَلِلدُّنْيَا، مَا أَنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا كَرَاكِبٍ اسْتَظَلَّ تَحْتَ شَجَرَةٍ ثُمَّ رَاحَ وَتَرَكَهَا» reported by al-Tirmidhi and others. The words "crossing a doorway" and the mention of earlier messengers could not be matched to a specific wording. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The speaker does not give the wording. Likely referring to the hadith «الْمُتَحَابُّونَ فِي جَلَالِي لَهُمْ مَنَابِرُ مِنْ نُورٍ» (reported by al-Tirmidhi). This is the editor's inference. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: This is the speaker's own retelling, with the dialogue adapted to a modern setting. The well-known hadith in Sahih Muslim about a man visiting a brother in another town ends with the angel saying that God loves him as he loved his brother for God's sake. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: At this point the speaker says the angel told him that God would assign him a reward "between the earth and the heavens" for what he spent on the journey. This is the speaker's own wording and does not match the Sahih Muslim hadith (see note 3); it is left out of the body text pending the author's decision. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: Compare the hadith in Sahih Muslim that the hearts of the children of Adam are between two fingers of the Most Merciful, who turns them as He wills.