Humility & Serenity

Friday sermon (jum'a khutba) - Sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad - Cambridge - 21 November 2008 - 23 mins 58 secs

In this sermon, the sheikh discusses the importance of khushu', a term difficult to translate but that can be rendered as a humility combined with serenity of heart. It is not manifested byan obsequiousness or self-mortification that causes our shoulders to droop and our gazes to fall to the floor. On the contrary, its outward manifestation is a calmness and dignity with respect to the rest if creation that is granted by the true perception of our relationship of submission only to God. This khushu', God tells us in the Qur'an, is a foundation of prayer, itself the foundation of our relationship with Him. It is an inward state without which the outward acts are at best fragile and at worst meaningless. Although thanks to God the Muslim ummah still preserves most of its outward acts like prayer, can we say as confidently that it still preserves the inward state upon which their true significance rests? Everything else in creation is in natural submission to God. The sheikh reminds us that mankind too has this natural state of 'ubudiyya (submission/veneration) and khushu', and that we also have the capacity to deviate from it. Although many people think that religion demands the negation of human desires, it in fact asks quite the opposite - the fullest realisation of mankind's nature. As it is in the nature of the things of the earth to grow following the rain, so too is it within the nature of our hearts to grow when watered by the Divine Guidance of revelation.

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