Where Is Happiness in the Worst of Times?

BismiLlahi r-Rahmani r-Raḥīm

إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ فَأَصْلِحُوا بَيْنَ أَخَوَيْكُمْ

(Qur’ān 49:10)

‘Innama l-mu’minūna ikhwa fa-‘aslihu bayna akhawaykum’

‘The believers are but brothers, so make settlement between your brothers.’ Ṣadaqa Llāhu l-‘Aẓīm.

Allāh ‘Azza wa-Jalla describes the Mu’mins, believers as brothers. Many ḥadīths also say so. “لا يُؤْمِنُ أحدُكُم حتى يُحِبَّ لِأَخِيهِ ما يُحِبُّ لنفسِه”, “No one of you shall become a true believer until he desires for his brother what he desires for himself.” Sadaqa RasuLlah fi-ma qāl aw kama qāl. Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam says, Īmān, belief is not complete until a believer loves for his brother what he loves for himself.

This is very important, very good benefit for Muslims, for all human beings. Because when you want for your brother – we’ve said that before: your brother in Islām – as you want for yourself, he will also want something good for you. The good thing gives and spreads goodness, spreads happiness, spreads barakah. This is what Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam explained and Allāh ‘Azza wa-Jalla is saying in the Qur’ān: Mu’mins are brothers.

We call Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam’s time “Asru s-Sa’ādah”, time of happiness. What happiness? They didn’t even have something to eat. They sometimes stayed hungry for two or three days; not eating anything, not finding anything to eat. But all people know this was the happiest time for all humanity. In all history, the happiest time was the time of Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam. Of course, it was for twenty three years. These years were the most happiest ones. After that, quickly, some of the people there became enemy, some of them fell into fitnah. Slowly, slowly going worse and worse.

For this Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam was also saying in ḥadīth, “My time is the best time. Next, the time of Khulafa’ Rashidīn after me, the Four Caliphs; Sayyidina Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Sayyidina Ali karrama Allahu wajhah wa radiya Allahu ‘anhum. After that, the first century. The second century is also good. After that, there will become more people that are not in the way.”

The way which Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam told about: to love each other.“ There will be many things coming between them.” Some of them are right, some of them not right. But in this time, they won’t be so happy like Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam’s time. Year by year, century by century, Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam says, “Each century will be worse than the other; each worse than the other.” And AlhamduliLlah we have reached the worst one, AlhamduliLlah [Mawlana laughs]. What shall we do.. Allāh ﷻ created us in this time.

But there is still the same order from Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam. This order did not finish. Mu’mins are brothers. The Mu’min must love his brother, his community, the Muslims. He must love them. He mustn’t make any fitnah between them, not be enemies to each other. As much as you are happy with your Muslim brother, Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam will be happy with you. Awliyā’u Llāh will be happy with you.

Allāh ﷻ is happy with you when you are happy with your brothers. Shayṭān is not happy. When is shayṭān happy? When Muslim brothers are fighting with each other, he will be happy. But the happiness of shayṭān is not as our happiness. Because he is envious, he is full of bad things, he can never be happy. As much as we are suffering also, he becomes okay; he seems happy, but Allāh ﷻ didn’t give him happiness. Allāh ﷻ gave happiness for the believers, for the Mu’mins.

Of course, you see many of those who make fitnah, who make bad things to Muslims, all the time in misery, full of bad thoughts. Their hearts are full of darkness, full of any satanic thought. They cannot be happy. If they finish the whole world, they will also be not happy.

But the believers, if anything happened from Allāh ﷻ, they are happy, they are full of happiness. When they are with family, when they are with ones who love them, they will be happy. An example of that is when they are going to Hajj or Umrah or visiting, happiness comes upon them. But if they go to casino, going to bad places, they are never happy. They even go out of this bad place becoming more miserable, not better; worse, worse and worse.

For this, AlhamduliLlah our ṭarīqah is for helping people to be happy. Some kind of people are claiming they are Muslim, but they are doing something making Muslims not happy with them. From the beginning, they begin to teach themselves or teach their children to be not happy, to curse good people, to curse Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam’s companions. And they are crying, crying, crying. AlhamduliLlah we are laughing; no need for that [crying].

Allāh ﷻ ordered us, ‘فَبِذَٰلِكَ فَلْيَفْرَحُوا’, ‘Fa-bidhālika falyafraḥū’, ‘In that let them rejoice’ (Qur’ān 10:58). Ṣadaqa Llāhu l-‘Aẓīm. You must be happy, Allāh ﷻ says. When you are in the way, with Allāh ﷻ and you are Muslim, ‘فَبِذَٰلِكَ فَلْيَفْرَحُوا’, ‘Fa-bidhālika falyafraḥū’, ‘In that let them rejoice’ (Qur’ān 10:58). This is an order! You must be happy! Not crying, beating yourself. And after that you say, “We are Muslim, we are loving this,” and making fitnah everywhere.

No, Muslims, ṭarīqah people are opening hearts. Sayyidina Ahmad Yasawi, the Sultan of Turkestan. His Mazar Sharif is in Kazakhstan. We visited him. He had hundred thousands of Murīds. He was teaching them and sending them everywhere, to non-Muslim countries. And they were going around, not fighting, just teaching people.

After that, when the army of Islām came, these people were happy to receive them. Because they teach them happiness, teach them good things, justice, every good thing, what they don’t have. These people were going and teaching them. Hundred thousands of dervish ‘ulama. Dervish means one who knows how to pray, knows what is sunnah, what is fard and is following ṭarīqah. They were opening hearts before opening castles or forts.

For this, ṭarīqah is love, giving love to people, giving happiness to people, to humanity. We see now also, many non-Muslims are coming through ṭarīqah to Islām. They are saying Sufi, Sufi. But if you tell them “Islām” they are running away because they think Islām is as these people are saying: killing people, making people in misery, no mercy, nothing good. But when you say Sufi, they are coming; for example, to Konya, to Sayyidina Jalāluddin Rumi. Non-Muslims are fond of him. Maybe they don’t know whether he is Muslim or not, but they say he is the master of Sufis. There are thousands, hundred thousands following him. The most sold book is his book.

People must know this and appreciate this. Sufi people, ṭarīqah people are doing exactly what Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam is saying. And through them, thousands, millions are maybe coming to Islām. And when it’s the opposite, when these people are acting against the teachings of Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam, many people are running out of Islām, running away, “We don’t want this. This is not good.” But they are not knowing the real Islām. This is Islām: brotherhood, loving each other and not oppressing anybody, not forcing anybody to be in Islām.

Islām is coming by heart. Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam never forced anybody to be Muslim. And it is said in the Qur’ān, in Surat At-Tawbah, when anybody wants to come to Ka’bah, he must be Muslim. If he is not Muslim he cannot come. But don’t fight them to become Muslim. If they don’t want to be Muslim, they can stay in their religion but have to obey the governor or the Sultan and give their tax.

Tax was not so much. Maybe some think it was a lot. Now, the tax in Europe is maybe ninety percent or eighty percent. But the Jizya is like the Zakāt, maybe two and a half percent; nothing. Now in the VAT you maybe pay twenty percent, thirty percent or I don’t know. You also pay tax for this, as a plus. So AlhamduliLlah when you do something, you give all your benefit for the government. And they are still making Islām seem as if it is bad.

No, Islām alhamduliLlah, is the best. Because it is the religion of Allāh ﷻ, everything is in balance; nothing hard, nothing difficult in Islām. Everything is goodness. Even Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam says about the miswak, “لَوْلاَ أَنْ أَشُقَّ عَلَى أُمَّتِي لأَمَرْتُهُمْ بِالسِّوَاكِ عِنْدَ كُلِّ صَلاَةٍ”, “Were it not that I would be overburdening my ummah I would have ordered them to use the Siwak at (the time of) every prayer.” When praying, to use the miswāk. And the miswāk has hundreds of benefits; not only Sunnah, plus for your health, for your teeth, for everything; countless of benefits. Even in this, for Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam not to make it hard for us, he was saying “I will not order this.”

So everything in Islām is in balance. And where do you find that balance? You find it in ṭarīqah alhamduliLlah. Ṭarīqah and sharī’ah are the same. The heart of sharī’ah is ṭarīqah. Maybe some people are saying, “Why do we want tariqah?” If you don’t want, follow sharī’ah. But after that, somebody will come and make you be away from sharī’ah also, cheat you, even make you curse Ahlu l-Bayt or ṣaḥābah. Most of those who are out of ṭarīqah are like this.

If they are not from this side or from that side, if they are in the middle, they can also be affected quickly by these people. They become making haram, cursing these people, these blessed people. So even in this, people must be following ṭarīqah or listening to ṭarīqah people. This is very important for our lives, for our children’s lives. It is very important to teach them to love Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam, love the ṣaḥābah and love Ahlu l-Bayt.

AlhamduliLlah, as we said, we are now in this month, the month of Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam. In our calendar, it is beginning tonight. Maybe in some other calendar it’s tomorrow. But it’s okay. What’s important is to respect and accept this month which is Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam’s month. He ﷺ was giving value to this month. And as written in all ḥadīth books and sīra, he ﷺ was fasting the most in this month after Ramadan; in Sha’bān, Shahru Sha’bān Al-Mukarram Al-Mu’azzam.

With our respect for Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam, respect for what he ﷺ was doing, we respect the months, days, blessed nights. All of this is from Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam’s teachings. And when you follow the teachings of Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam, Allāh ﷻ rewards you from ten times, seven hundred times and more.

AlhamduliLlah, this is a blessed day and blessed place. This is the first time we are here. May Allāh ﷻ bless you. May Allāh ﷻ keep us in His ﷻ way, not to be cheated by shayṭān and the followers of shayṭān. May Allāh ﷻ make us happy, happy. We are not crying, not crying, not making fitnah with something that happened before us. Allāh ﷻ will ask what happened. There isn’t any reward for swearing on good people or saying bad things about them. This is making your heart become more dark, more unhappy and fitnah is coming on you.

May Allāh ﷻ keep us away from this. May Allāh ﷻ bless them. May Allāh ﷻ give us from their barakah, the time of “Asru s-Saādah”, time of happiness from Prophet ṣallá Llāhu ‘alayhi wa-sallam. We are living in bad time, but Allāh ﷻ puts in our hearts from this happiness, in shā’a Llāh. This time is not good, but in shā’a Llāh, Allāh ﷻ is capable of everything. We believe it can be easy to be happy in our hearts, to have happiness in our hearts, in shā’a Llāh. Wa min Allah at-Tawfiq.

Al-Fatiha.

•⁠ ⁠Mawlana Sheikh Muhammad Adil ar-Rabbaniق

19 January 2026/ 30 Rajab 1447

Jamia Masjid Abu Bakr – Rotherham, UK

---