The power of Eman between formation and continuity

Occasion: Summary of a Jumuʿah khutbah delivered on March 27, 2026.Source: transcription of a recorded khutbah by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — watch the original video on YouTube

All praise belongs to Allah. We praise Him, seek His help and His forgiveness, and ask Him to increase the īmān in our hearts and to protect us from the devils. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Muḥammad ﷺ is His final Messenger and Prophet.

Our topic today, as the flyer said, is the power of īmān between formation and continuity. That gives us three ideas to hold together: power, the way īmān is formed, and the way it lasts.

What do we mean by power?

Start with power itself. I am speaking to you now, and that is part of my power. You sit in front of me and listen, and you have your own part, which includes not interrupting me. If I ask for money for the masjid, you raise your hand, and that is part of yours. Someone else offers a way to increase the masjid's income, because he has a talent for it. A fourth person comes to clean and serve the place. A fifth says to me, "You do not have the patience to deal with people. I do," and he has a different kind of power.

Each of us has something. Money is among the strongest forms of power in people's hands, and so are position, work, children. All of it comes together when we begin to act. But none of it moves without belief. If I do not believe in coming here, I will never come, unless I am forced, and even then I am believing in the force that brings me. There is no work without faith in the work.

So what can īmān give a person?

The power of īmān

Consider a man who was once among the fiercest enemies of Islam. He used his strength in front of people. Then, in a single moment, īmān touched his heart. He had been on the road to kill the Prophet ﷺ; along the way he heard the Qurʾān, it reached his heart, and he became a Muslim. He took the same road again, to the same man, to say what he had come to say. Compare the man before Islam with the man after, and you see two different people. What made the difference was īmān.^[1]

Allah gave us another picture in the magicians who came to Pharaoh. They had come seeking money and position at his hand. But once īmān opened their hearts, what did they say? He threatened to kill them, and they answered:

﴿فَاقْضِ مَا أَنتَ قَاضٍ ۖ إِنَّمَا تَقْضِي هَٰذِهِ الْحَيَاةَ الدُّنْيَا ۝ إِنَّا آمَنَّا بِرَبِّنَا لِيَغْفِرَ لَنَا خَطَايَانَا وَمَا أَكْرَهْتَنَا عَلَيْهِ مِنَ السِّحْرِ﴾ [Ṭā Hā 20:72-73]"So decide whatever you will decide; you can only decide for this worldly life. We have believed in our Lord, that He may forgive us our sins and the magic you forced us to do."^[2]

You decide for this life; the next is in the hands of Allah. Where did they find the strength for that sacrifice? There is one answer, and it is īmān.

Ramadan asked, and we answered

At the beginning of Ramadan Allah called all of us with the same words, addressing us as believers: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا﴾.^[3] He called us by our level of īmān, and then gave us a task that would move us up from that level. The expectation is that after Ramadan we pass beyond being merely Muslim toward the higher station of the believer.

And we saw it in you. During Ramadan you stood behind the imam night after night. You fasted all day and listened to the Qurʾān, and made duʿāʾ. When we stood here and asked for money, you raised your hands and gave generously, mā shāʾ Allāh. All of it came at once, because the roots of īmān in your hearts had grown. Allah asked, and we said yes.

Then Ramadan ended. Same building, same place, same imam, same Qurʾān, same form of prayer, and nobody shows up. After every Ramadan the imam asks the same question: where are you? What do you mean, you disappeared? What is wrong with me, or with you? I see people come to pray and then rush away, even from the witr. I do not know what permission they carry from home: a few minutes, and be back, or you will be in trouble. Is there anyone like that among us? Why am I not going on at the same level? I am supposed to go up.

Expectations rise

Here is how I think about it. Say you work for a company and they give you a task, and you do it perfectly, mā shāʾ Allāh. What do they expect next? They expect something more from you, not something less. And if the One watching me is Allah, what is the expectation? I am not speaking of expectation in His case, since He is above it; I am speaking of the idea itself. What do you think Allah is waiting for you to do for yourself, to support your īmān and to raise it in your heart? If He guided me to come here once, and then for night after night, and most of us went home to continue the prayer, or opened a muṣḥaf and read some pages, filling the heart with īmān in Ramadan, what happened afterwards?

If we reach a level of performance and let it drop, we are answerable for the gap between the two.

What īmān does for a person

So what does īmān do? First, it shows me my own worth. It tells me that I am a human being, that I can do something, that I have dignity in this world, and that I am a servant of Allah. It shows me what I am aiming at, and it gives me a mission to achieve.

There is a hadith about this, and it is worth telling again. A Companion came to Abū Bakr and said, "I am a hypocrite." Abū Bakr said, "What is wrong with you?" He answered: "When I sit with the Prophet ﷺ and he explains to us Paradise and the Fire, it feels as if I am about to touch the sky, as if I can see the angels, as if Paradise is before my eyes. Then I go home and I busy myself with my wife and children and my wealth, and I think, I am a hypocrite." Abū Bakr said, "I am in the same position. Let us go to the Prophet ﷺ." They went and sat beside him, and began to describe their condition. The Prophet ﷺ said:

«وَالَّذِي نَفْسِي بِيَدِهِ، لَوْ تَدُومُونَ عَلَى مَا تَكُونُونَ عِنْدِي وَفِي الذِّكْرِ، لَصَافَحَتْكُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ عَلَى فُرُشِكُمْ وَفِي طُرُقِكُمْ، وَلَكِنْ يَا حَنْظَلَةُ سَاعَةً وَسَاعَةً»"By Him in whose hand is my soul, if you remained as you are with me and in remembrance, the angels would shake your hands on your beds and in your paths. But, Ḥanẓalah, there is an hour and an hour."^[4]

You can balance this and that. But what matters is where I stand when I deal with each. When īmān is alive in me, I know that Allah has the last word in my life. I know that the money in my hand does not grow without His permission. And a man who believes that does not give up the call to prayer in the masjid for the sake of earning. He does not look for another kind of money by haram means, or by cheating anybody, because he knows the decision comes from Allah.

Recently, after prayer, I told myself first, and the others praying beside me, not to think that when you come to pray you are doing a favour to the religion. You are doing something for yourself. For the religion itself there is another kind of responsibility, and we should think about our real future. If you come to the masjid you lose nothing. On the contrary, you grow in the strength you carry in your heart.

How do we keep it?

My dear brothers and sisters: there is an umbrella over all of us, and all of us sit under its shade. That is Islam. We have a religion, and nobody else has anything of the same value. Do not lose it yourself. Do not choose to remove yourself from īmān.

How do we keep our īmān alive? Allah made it easy. We have the five prayers each day. Five times a day I scan my heart and stand in the hands of Allah to show my loyalty to the religion. Allāhu akbar, greater than anything, comes as training, to keep me connected to Allah all day.

And He asks us to read the Qurʾān. Someone will say that is hard, and I answer that Allah has already answered it:

﴿عَلِمَ أَن سَيَكُونُ مِنكُم مَّرْضَىٰ ۙ وَآخَرُونَ يَضْرِبُونَ فِي الْأَرْضِ يَبْتَغُونَ مِن فَضْلِ اللَّهِ ۙ وَآخَرُونَ يُقَاتِلُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ۖ فَاقْرَءُوا مَا تَيَسَّرَ مِنْهُ﴾ [al-Muzzammil 73:20]"He knows that some of you will be ill, others will travel through the land seeking Allah's bounty, and others will fight in the way of Allah. So recite what is easy of it."^[5]

He knows some of us will be sick, some of us busy from morning to night, some of us in the field for the sake of the religion. None of that is an excuse. What matters is whether you look at the muṣḥaf every day. The command comes twice in the same verse, and Allah addresses the whole community at the end of that sūrah, not the Prophet ﷺ alone. And it is reported that the Prophet ﷺ said: «شَرَفُ الْمُؤْمِنِ قِيَامُهُ بِاللَّيْلِ», "The honour of the believer is his standing at night."^[6] Are we believers, or not? Why do we let this world steal our minds and weaken our conviction?

We need to focus on our target. What will we have with us on the Day of Judgment? Nothing except what I did for the sake of Allah, here or in other places. Nothing comes with me unless I did it for Him.

A word to the parents

Recently I sent a message to the parents, asking them to bring the children and the youth. Do you know what the youth means in America? I sent it in English, in Arabic, in Bosnian, in Urdu. What more do you need? Name any other language and I will send it, so that you can answer: here I am, and my children are over there. We are giving you the chance to teach them. We are here for you and we ask you to come, and if we can do anything more, please tell us.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the khatib does not name the man; the description matches the conversion of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: the preacher paraphrased the magicians' reply without reciting it; the verses are supplied by the editor. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: the words in the khutbah are inaudible in the transcript; the address "O you who believe" opens the verses of fasting in Sūrat al-Baqarah 2:183. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: reported by Muslim, from Ḥanẓalah al-Usayyidī, may Allah be pleased with him. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: the preacher paraphrased this verse without reciting it; it is supplied by the editor. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: reported by al-Ṭabarānī and al-Ḥākim from Sahl ibn Saʿd, within the hadith of Jibrīl; scholars differ on its grading and many accept it as ḥasan. The khatib did not name the source.