Then Let Them Complete Their Rites

Occasion: A summary of a Friday khutbah delivered at Albuquerque I. C. on 30 May 2025Source: A transcription of a video khutbah by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

A strange word at which the people of the language themselves paused when it passed them in the Qur'an: "al-tafath." What is it? And what does Allah want the pilgrim to do with it? And what concern is it of ours, we who are in our homes, far from Makkah, that there is a verse in Sūrat al-Ḥajj?

All praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, seek His guidance, and seek His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the wrongs of our deeds. Whomever Allah guides, none can lead astray, and whomever He leaves astray, none can guide. And we bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, with no partner, and that our master and our Prophet Muhammad is His servant, His Prophet, and His Messenger ﷺ. To proceed,

A House of Allah in a Blessed Season

Blessed are we that Allah has brought us to an honorable place in which the oneness of God is testified to and the rites are established, and to a time that our Lord blessed and swore by, saying: ﴿وَالْفَجْرِ ۝ وَلَيَالٍ عَشْرٍ ۝ وَالشَّفْعِ وَالْوَتْرِ ۝ وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا يَسْرِ﴾ [الفجر: 1-4] (By the dawn, and by ten nights, and by the even and the odd, and by the night when it passes) [Sūrat al-Fajr: 1-4].^[1] In the season of Hajj it is fitting for the Muslim to read the passages in which the Qur'an spoke about Hajj, and in the Qur'an there is a great sūra called "al-Ḥajj," so it is the most deserving of sūras to be read and its meanings pondered. Among its phrases that make the reader stop is the saying of the Most High: ﴿ثُمَّ لْيَقْضُوا تَفَثَهُمْ وَلْيُوفُوا نُذُورَهُمْ وَلْيَطَّوَّفُوا بِالْبَيْتِ الْعَتِيقِ﴾ [الحج: 29] (Then let them end their untidiness and fulfill their vows and perform ṭawāf around the Ancient House) [Sūrat al-Ḥajj: 29].

What Is al-Tafath?

Al-tafath is the dirt that clings to the body. And when does it cling to the pilgrim? When he sets out to Arafat, then returns to Muzdalifah and spends the night there, its ground his bed and its sky his cover. There is no distinction among people there: no rank that is recognized, no financial or scholarly standing; human beings on the bare earth alone. In such a moment the command comes: ﴿ثُمَّ لْيَقْضُوا تَفَثَهُمْ﴾ (then let them end their untidiness), that is, let them purify themselves and come out of what has clung to them of the dust of the earth.

And the dust of the earth is, for us, neither a disgrace nor something to be ashamed of. It is related that a man was ashamed to extend his hand to the Prophet ﷺ to greet him because of its roughness from work, so the Prophet ﷺ took hold of his hand and said: «هذه يد يحبها الله ورسوله» (This is a hand that Allah and His Messenger love).^[2] So the tafath that the Qur'an wants to be ended is not this trace left by toil and work.

A Message to the Heart

So what is meant? Here the people of knowledge note that the phrase in the Qur'an expresses an outward matter and intends what lies behind it. Take wuḍū' for example: why do we perform wuḍū'? The simple answer is that we remove the dirt from the limbs of wuḍū'. But in our homes and workplaces we are not, for the most part, exposed to dirt; our hands are clean to begin with, and our bodies are covered by our clothes. So what is the wisdom? The lesson is not so much in washing the outward as it is a message to the heart to purify itself, to the soul to be cleansed, and to the mind to become clear.

Likewise ﴿لْيَقْضُوا تَفَثَهُمْ﴾ (let them end their untidiness): an indication of complete purification from everything that has clung to the bodies, the reputation, the life-record, the souls, the hearts, and the minds. It is a decisive moment between a time that has passed and a time that is coming.

The Pilgrim and the Memory of Tawḥīd

And what is the great goal of the pilgrims when they leave their families and homelands behind? To perform ṭawāf around the Ancient House, and so recall the memory of Ibrāhīm, Ismāʿīl, and Hājar, and call to mind the striving of the people of Islam from the rise of Islam until our present station. They call to mind the great struggle that the people of tawḥīd waged since Abū Jahl was challenging Islam and its people, and al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīra and his like were a stumbling block and a barrier before the call of Allah. And they call to mind the generosity of Abū Bakr, and the resolve of Khālid (may Allah be pleased with them both), and they call to mind the journey of the Prophet ﷺ and his striving, the places of his prayer, and his going out to meet people's needs. It is an Islam that has passed through the ages, and Allah decreed for us to inherit what it left behind.

And the speaker poses a question in passing: where are we from this legacy which should be in our hearts and minds?

From a History That Has Passed to a New Future

﴿لْيَقْضُوا تَفَثَهُمْ﴾ (let them end their untidiness) means: let them turn from a history that has passed to a new future. And near each one of us is a past that needs review: estrangement from a brother or sister, disobedience to a mother, disrespect to a father, bad manners toward an elder, neglect of people of experience, rights of people that we took without right, and a forbidden thing we partook of. Or a time in which we were stingy with money, sluggish in obedience, abstaining from the mosques, turning away from the adhān, keeping the company of bad friends.

What is required is a decisive moment in which the mind turns to one direction only: reflecting on Allah, calling to mind His watchfulness over the heart, the mind, and the conscience, and acknowledging that the creatures have rights over me that must be returned, and seeking their pardon along with it, as a way of seeking the pardon of the Creator. After that the course turns to continuous obedience, knowledge of the right of Allah, familiarity with the people of obedience, and frequenting the mosques. This separation is not achieved unless the intention of the heart changes from within, so that it abandons that worldly life and looks to the Hereafter and the greatest abode.

Then look around you: nothing remains of this world but little, if anything. We have seen death appear before our eyes, making no distinction between old and young, great and lowly, strong and weak, healthy and sick; it overtakes people wherever they are.

Let Us Resemble the Pilgrims

Is it not fitting for us, if we cannot put on the iḥrām here, to take on their character? And that we not stray from the great goal of our life: nearness to our Lord and seeking His mercy, mercy for souls worn out by the hardships of life, and hearts troubled by the great suffering with creation and the hardships of dealing with people, and minds bewildered about how the world is run? Let us have before us a moment in which we say: O Lord, let us end our untidiness, and let us cast off from our shoulders the traces of what was of disobedience.

I say this, and I seek forgiveness from Allah for myself and for you.

Who Will Convey Islam to Those After Us?

Allah has conveyed Islam to you, and has made you content with its commands and prohibitions, and that is a blessing that calls for praise. And the question remains: will you be an instrument and a means of conveying Islam to those after us, or will Islam stop with you? We will be asked before Allah about a generation that grows up in front of us with no knowledge of a book and no familiarity with the Sunnah, no knowledge of the foundations and no acquaintance with creed; it knows of Allah's law only the word of testimony, so if you ask him his name he says: Muhammad, and if you ask him: are you a Muslim? he says: my grandfather was a Muslim, or my father used to take us sometimes to the mosque. He no longer looks into the muṣḥaf in the morning, nor sits where his father used to sit in the house of Allah, nor spends as his family used to spend.

And we seek a new generation that grows up in front of us in obedience to Allah, learning knowledge with its foundations and fixed principles, memorizing the Qur'an with its narrations and recitations, and sitting before Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī to derive from it what ought to be applied on the ground in America and elsewhere. This is what the Imams Academy strives for. And I hope we grasp the term: if the police academy graduates security men, then the Imams Academy graduates security men of another kind: the security of religion and the safeguarding of Islam in people's souls.

O Allah, we ask You for Your pleasure and Paradise, and we seek refuge in You from Your wrath and the Fire. O Allah, keep our hearts sound for us, and grant our bodies well-being, the preservation of our souls and the soundness of our minds, and establish faith firmly in our hearts. And it is not fitting for a conscientious khatīb to leave his minbar before making a complete supplication for the people of Palestine, that Allah preserve their dignity, secure their blood, and protect their honor. O Allah, be for them and do not be against them, do not give their enemy and Your enemy power over them, give them security in themselves, their families, and their wealth, be a helper, supporter, and support for them, and place at their disposal the soldiers of the heavens and the earth.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: This is Allah's oath by the dawn and the ten nights at the beginning of Sūrat al-Fajr. The speaker recited the verses without specifying the ten; there are opinions among the exegetes on identifying "the ten nights," the best known being that they are the ten days of Dhū al-Ḥijja, which suits the context of the khutbah in the Hajj season. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The story appeared in the speaker's words without attribution, and there is discussion about its authenticity, which is why it was given in the hedged form "it is related."