Guidance to Obedience Is a Granting of Success from Allah: Do Not Rely on Your Alarm

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 16 July (most likely 2025; 2015 was written in the original title) Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Our Standing Before Allah Is a Favor from Him

And now, may Allah preserve your station, and be pleased with you, and keep you in goodness and bounty, O Lord of the Worlds. We always remind that the standing of servants before Allah is a favor and a bounty from Allah. Whoever's last supplication in his night was: O Allah, help me with the Fajr prayer, is guided to it and granted success in it and is brought to his place of prayer and his place of prostration. And whoever's reliance was on himself and his ability and his alarm and the like, his reliance is upon what he relied on. And the aim in this is not neglect of following the means, but reliance on the One who causes the means.

How many times have you set your watch for a certain time, and then seen that the battery has run out or the charge has been cut off or something else! And how many times are you unable even to lift your head, or to rise from your place, or to get up from your bed! Hence guidance to the deed is a granting of success from the One for whom we work, and help from Him, glory be to Allah, the All-Powerful.

When Excuses Are Closed Off

An example of that: you tell your employer once, I cannot come, and he says to you: why? You say: By Allah, I have no car, and he says: I will send you a car, for example. You say: By Allah, I have no money for expenses, and he says: I will do such and such for you. So he prepares for you the means that leave you not excused at all, that leave you no excuse, and he does not accept any reason from you for apologizing. Glory be to the Creator, the Most High; and the confirmation of this we also repeat in His saying, the Most High: ﴿وَلَوْ أَرَادُوا الْخُرُوجَ لَأَعَدُّوا لَهُ عُدَّةً وَلَٰكِن كَرِهَ اللَّهُ انبِعَاثَهُمْ فَثَبَّطَهُمْ﴾ ("And if they had intended to go out, they would have prepared for it some preparation; but Allah disliked their being sent forth, so He made them hold back").^[1] So everyone who sits out from obedience is only held back by Allah, glory and exaltation be to Him, and everyone who is guided to obedience is only granted success by Allah, blessed and exalted.

O Allah, we ask You to help us toward more obedience to You, O Lord, and to inspire us with patience for more worship before You. O Allah, fulfill our needs for us in obedience, and inspire our hearts with an eagerness for worship before You, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy. O Allah, place in our hearts a hunger for more of the Qur'an, and fill our hearts with certainty in what You have promised of the Gardens. O Allah, make us steadfast, and be pleased with us, and guide us, and be for us, and have mercy on our weakness with mercy and good pleasure from You, O Lord of the Worlds. And may Allah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Tawba, verse 46. The speaker recited it only to this extent.