a story from the second khutbah

today is friday…  and in just 2 hours, i’ll be attending my 5th khubah here in alexandria insha’Allah.  unfortunately, i only mentioned 2 of the prior khutbahs in a previous blog post, and still haven’t talked about the other two yet.

so the 2nd khutbah i attended in alexandria was also at masjid al hedaya.  the sheikh was visiting the masjid and gave a good khutbah about the tafseer of surat al 7ujurat.

as is the seeming norm for masjid al hedaya, the sheikh gave an additional (optional) talk after the khutbah.  during this, he mentioned a story that i’d like to share.

there was once a sheikh who was invited somewhere - so he went, sat down, had a good time, good chat, etc.  when all was done, the sheikh needed a way to get home (he didn’t have a car, etc).  he was too shy to ask any of the people with him to drop him (especially since those people had their family with them, etc) so he went down to the street and tried to decide how to get home.

he thought, “i could take a taxi, but i don’t have any money…” - not knowing what to do, he raised his hands to Allah and asked, “oh Allah, give me x money” - afterwards, he found some money that he had missed in his pocket or bag.  he said, “great, i can go home now!” - but there was one problem - no one would stop for him (no taxi would stop to drop him home).

he then realized his mistake - so he raised his hands again and said, “oh Allah, i want to go home!” - a short while later, a brother was driving and recognized him - he said, “oh, you’re sheikh so and so!  come let me drop you!” - and he dropped him off, refusing to take any money from him.

moral of the story - instead of just asking Allah for the means, ask Allah for the end that you want to reach!