Kids Khutbas

Bismillah aruhmam aruheem
Auothou Billah min Shaytan reguime

We are approaching the greatest month of the year where we worship and aspire to please Allah. We know pleasing Allah is for our benefit, and if we care for our deen and the deen of our beloved ones then we will reap the rewards of the hereafter. One of the simplest ways we can please Allah is to thank Him for everything he gives us, and for every challenge that comes our way.

We thank Allah by sincerely expressing gratitude to Him throughout the day. We dedicate our time to Him by praying, and remembering to thank Him with our tasbeer. We thank Allah for the food we have, for the roof over our head and the clothes we wear.

When our mother puts food on the table we say Alhumdulillah that we have food to eat. We don't complain that it is not to our flavour or what we asked for. We are grateful to Allah because His Mercy on us is more than we could ever have on ourselves.

If you try to count up the number of the blessings of Allah, you will never be able to calculate it. Sometimes we get lost and forget to thank Allah. Sometimes we follow others who are not a good influence. Sometimes we are too tired to pray and having so much fun that we don't want to leave what we are doing to worship Allah. We try to blame it on anything we can think of, such as I have to finish my work, the kids have stopped me or as soon as I get time I will do it. AstaghfiAllah,
astaghfiAllah, Allah should be our first though and the lifestyle should be the last. Allah has told us who to blame when we forget him and fall into sin;

Any good thing that happens to you comes from Allah. Any bad thing that happens to you comes from yourself.
We must remember it is Shaytan who is happy when we are lazy. It is he who is laughing when we are being sheep and following bad influences. When we are tired or too busy to remember Allah we must know that Allah has remembered us and He never gets tired from our demands on him.
He wants us to remember him, He wants us to ask him for things, and he wants us to thank Him.
How would you feel if you give your sister or brother your favourite toy to play with everyday. They never thank you for being kind. They break your toy and throw it back in your room without even acknowledging what they have done. Would you keep giving it to them?
Well Allah's mercy is so great that even when we disrespect Him, forget Him, and don't behave towards Him as we should, He is ready to forgive us and is willing to listen to our repentance. He will keep giving to us, but he will not be pleased with us until we turn to Him, and follow only Him.
Sometimes the adornments and lifestyle of this world seems too great and we can easily forget and feel it is too hard to obey Allah all the time when we have friends who are not obeying Allah and there are a lot of people around us, or those in our environment in which we live are disobedient to Allah. Sometimes we know that others are doing wrong but we are afraid to say something or do something. We are afraid that if we say something the person will not like us anymore or they will not think we are not cool enough for them.

We must remember when we do something for the sake of Allah he will not forsake us. Maybe that friend won't like you anymore. But isn't it better than not having Allah happy with you? Maybe you will find real friends who think your righteousness is cool. You never know maybe that friend will like you more because you are righteous, and this is the best friendship of all.
Keeping the best of company helps us stay closer to Allah. When we meet Muslims we should choose those of the greatest qualities and who esteem to please Allah with knowledge and actions.

If we look at the story of the two scholars from Morrocco we can see that one has knowledge and the righteousness of Islam and one has knowledge and an arrogance that is far from Islam. One
keeps the fear and thought of Allah insight while the other is lost by his own emotions.
The story follows;

Some fuqara' asked their shaykh to explain to them the difference between false knowledge and true knowledge. He said to them that rather than tell them about it he would demonstrate it to them so that they would really understand it. He told them that two men were shortly coming to visit him, one a highly respected scholar from Fes with extensive knowledge of different tafsirs of the Qur'an, an acknowledged authority on hadith and a mine of information regarding the details of fiqh, the other an Imam from the mountains who had recently joined the tariqa. He said that when the two men arrived and came into the zawiyya and greeted the fuqara, they were not to answer them.
The first to arrive was the renowned scholar. He came in, stood inside entrance, and loudly and deliberately pronounced the greeting, 'Assalamu 'alaykum! -- No reply.
The fuqara' continued talking among themselves. A second time the scholar called the greeting, this time a little irritably.
Again no reply.
Once more the scholar, now quite angry, almost shouted the greeting, by doing so completely belying its meaning. Upon receiving no reply a third time, he burst out angrily, "What is wrong with you people? Are you Muslims or not? Don't you know that the Shari'ah says you should
always respond to someone who greets you. I thought your shaykh was a man of knowledge who taught his followers the deen but if you are any example to go by . . . your behaviour is only worthy of animals!"
Upon this, the shaykh appeared, warmly greeted the scholar, accompanied the disgruntled man to his quarters and mollified him with courtesy and hospitality.
Soon after this the Imam arrived, entered the zawiyya and seeing the fuqara' sitting in one corner, started across towards them, pronouncing the greeting as he did so with eagerness and warmth:
'Assalamu 'alaykum!' No reply.
The assembled fuqara' paid no attention to him, carrying on talking
among themselves. A second time the Imam greeted them, this time a little hesitantly.
Again there was no reply.
Once more he greeted them, this time in quiet almost broken tones and again they ignored him completely. "O my brothers," he said almost in tears, "what have I done to offend you? Please tell me what it is, so that I can set it right and become worthy of your companionship."

At this point the shaykh appeared again and explained the situation to the Imam, who immediately thanked and praised Allah and joined the fuqara' who now embraced him warmly.
Then the shaykh turned to the fuqara' and addressed them, saying, "Do you now understand the difference between false knowledge and true knowledge?"

When we follow our friends instead of Allah we will not have a good future.
But if we follow Allah we have been promised that our future is of an everlasting brightness.
The Prophet, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, said, "How marvellous is the affair of the mumin! If good comes to him, he is thankful and Allah gives him increase and if bad comes to him he has sabr, acts with patience and fortitude and steadfastness, and Allah rewards him for that."
And what is the reward of patience? The companionship of Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala Himself, for Allah says:
"Allah is with the steadfast."

Let us always turn to Allah in repentance. Let us turn to Allah for stength of character, and let us turn to Allah and give thanks. Ameen.