You're Not A Lost Cause | Khutbah by Sh. Elshinawy

There is no one who is not worth saving. 

Look at the incredible journey of a Companion who went from hurting Muslims to becoming one of the most influential figures in Islamic history. 

This powerful story is a reminder that Allah can turn over any heart and guide whomever He wills. Before we are quick to "cancel" others, we must remember the boundless mercy and transformative power of faith. Learn why writing people off as “lost causes” is dangerous.

Transcript

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After praising Allah, the glorified and exalted, and testifying to his unique oneness and perfection, and to Muhammad being his servant and his Prophet and His Messenger. And after welcoming you all to the house of Allah Azza wa Jalaniu and reminding you all and myself with the taqwa of Allah to live dutiful lives to our Lord, the mighty and majestic, the glorified, the exalted. In the authentic hadith, brothers and sisters, the Prophet said, Ma da'outu ahadan ilal Islami illa wa canatlahu anhu kebwatun wa navarun wata rad. I did not invite anyone to become Muslim, except that they were kept away from Islam with some sort of hesitation, some pause to consider first, and some reluctance, just not Abu Bakr. That was the norm that people were gonna stop and but it was from the purity of Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu, the distinction of Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu that he did not hesitate. He was all in from the first moment, his heart recognized the truth of the message before his mind even rationalized the truth of the message. But also, what we take from this hadith is not just the distinction of Abu Bakr, but the realization that most people will not be Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu. So we should be patient with them and understanding with them and know that even his own family members, the house in which he was raised and the values around which he was brought up, some of them didn't become Muslim right away either. They eventually did, and Allah's promise is always true. If Allah knows there's good inside of any person, he'll cause them to consider. Sooner or later they'll consider. But some of them considered for a long time before they actually were bought in. Twenty-one years later, after the Islam of Abu Bakr, at the conquest of Mecca, at the you know the climactic close of the Prophet's life, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, there stepped forward an elderly man whose head and beard were like the white dandelion, the hadith says, you know, that globish plant that you blow into, they think you're supposed to make a wish. Of course not, but that one. His head and his beard looked like that. He was about 70 or 80 years old. He had stepped forward to want to become Muslim in the final hours, if you will. His name was Abu Qhafa. He was the father of Abu Bakr Sadiq radiallahu an, his remaining family member to become Muslim. And the Prophet said to Abu Bakr, Shaykhanahua Taina, why did you make him drag himself all the way to us? You should have told us to told him to stay where he is, we would have come to him out of honoring for Abu Bakr and his family and this elderly man. And then when this man stuck his hand out to pledge allegiance to the Prophet and commit to Islam, Abu Bakr began to weep. And the Prophet asked him, Why are you weeping? This is a great day, your dad's finally becoming Muslim. He said, If only this were the hand of your uncle Abu Talib, who died without Islam, if that were only the hand of your uncle. And if only Allah would have given you the joy of seeing him become Muslim, that would have been more beloved. A habbu illayyamin Abi. More beloved to me than even my own father. That was the extraordinary distinction and beauty of Abu Bakr. But look, his father, his father, who instilled for sure some of the values in Abu Bakr radiallahu an that contributed to how quickly he became Muslim. He himself didn't become Muslim. And this is what I want to stop at. Never count anyone out. This is our Islam. So long as the breath left in anyone, you don't count them out, you don't quit on them. You don't play God. Right? Allah can guide and continues to guide all throughout human history, people overnight. And we have to continue to believe in that. And we have to continue to operate with that in mind. You gotta keep telling yourself it doesn't matter what they've done or how long they've taken. What matters is how a person meets Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know, even when they're speaking about Ahlul Sunnah, who are the people that are truly on the way of the Prophet? They say, Ahlul Sunnah ti aarafu nasibil haqq, waarhamun nasi wil khalk. The people of the Sunnah truly are those who are best capable of recognizing the truth and most compassionate to humanity, which is a part and parcel of the truth. The Prophet lived, embodied, walked. This is the truth, and I am compassionate. I want everyone, I'm concerned about everyone getting on that truth before it's too late. I am not the truth. I'm pointing people towards the truth that I'm trying to be on, right? And I don't pass these conclusive judgments on people. I'm looking for ways to maneuver past their defenses so I can set them up for success. You know, it's even with our family, sometimes we can lose sight of this. You you see someone commit a huge mistake and you just you deadlock with them. You you start becoming argumentative and you know critical of them, and you becomes a whole bunch of gotcha moments and lots of judgmental, you know, uh talk. We forget, we forget. Like, is that in the best interest of the person or not? Our job with our family, and of course also with wider society, is to be like the GPS. You know the GPS? When you make a wrong turn, does the GPS tell you, like, what are you a fool? How many times you're gonna make this mistake? You've done this 11 times. Uh snap out of it already. Uh, you know, doesn't doesn't shame you, it just tells you where to go from here. It just keeps rerouting and telling you where to go from here. That's your job. You want to show people the way out, the way up, the way to Allah Azza wa Jal, so long as they're breathing. And you you you will notice it in your approach. If that's what you want, you will you will maneuver, strategize, technique as such. When people speak to each other in the smug tone, right? In the contemptful tone, these are not people that wish well for each other. Keep telling yourself, not only I will not play God, and not only it matters most what how they die, tell tell yourself also this person could be the next Umar ibn Khattab, Radiallahuan, right? You know, Amr ibn Rabi'ah, his son Abdullah, says, No one was more relentless in punishing the Muslims than Umar alb-Khattab. Umar al-Khattab in that period where he was among those who persecuted, tortured the Muslims, religiously persecuting them, he would stop and say, Don't think I stopped out of pity for you. I only stopped because I'm tired. I'm just revitalizing and I'm gonna go back at it. And so when the Muslims started fleeing Mecca to Al-Habashah to Abyssinia, as they're packing their bags for you know that journey to their, you know, a place of asylum, the just Christian kingdom in Abyssinia, Umar notices they're leaving and they, you guys are leaving? He says, Yeah, we can't stand to live around people like you anymore. He says to them, Sahibakumullah, may God accompany you on your journey. Like he's he's starting to be a little bit sort of remorseful, he's starting to waver. So she goes back to her husband, Amr ibn Rabi'ah, and she says to him, Umar said X and Y and Z. He said to her, So what? Turjina Islamahu, do you actually have hope that Umar will one day become Muslim? Wallahi, I swear by Allah, he told her, Umar will not become Muslim until his father's donkey becomes Muslim. Did Umar become Muslim? Umar became way more than Muslim. Umar became the single most influential Muslim after the Prophet globally, in all of human history. According to non-Muslim historians, even he's top 50 most influential human beings in the history of humanity. That was Umar, and that's who Umar was. That the past doesn't define the future. That's our Islam. You know, you you all know the story of the Prophet, the man kept being brought to him that had this weakness, this had this addiction, kept drinking alcohol. And you know, the Sahaba at some point they got fed up with him and they said he's a lost cause. Akzak Allah. You know, some narrations it was Umar who said this, by the way. And others said, Ma'al Anahu, may God curse him. This is a cursed man, like his hopeless case. The Prophet said to them, I don't know except that he loves Allah and His Messenger. Yeah, he loves his drugs, he loves his intoxicants, but he also loves Allah and His Messenger. He's embattled right now. Don't lose sight of his good side. And he said to them, Why? He said, Do not be an assistant for shaitan against your brother. Badgering him, shaming him, condemning him will do what? You're actually aiding shaitan against your brother, not aiding your brother against shaitan in that case. That's the sentiment it needs to come from. There is hope in everyone. Umar could be Muslim, Abu Jahl might be Muslim. The Prophet prayed for them both. This man could give up his alcoholism one day. You gotta believe in that to to operate like that. After the Prophet's death, Abu Dardat, one of his companions, saw a bunch of people chastising a man, blasting someone, canceling someone, as we say nowadays, right? They wrote him off because of some sin he was committing. So he stopped them and he said to them, If this man had fallen into a well, would you not pull him out? He said, Yeah, of course we'd pull him out. He said, Then stop cursing at your brother because you're keeping him down, you're kicking him while he's on the ground. Stop cursing at your brother and praise your Lord, thank your Lord who spared you. You could be there tomorrow in a moment of vulnerability. That's it, and he could be better tomorrow. They said, Don't you hate him? Don't you hate the sinner? Basically, he said, What I really hate is his sin. Yes, we can't fully separate between the sin and the sinner, but it's not the same. I hate the sin 110%. But the sinner is not reduced to any one of his actions. He's not just a sinner. In that moment, yes, but he's they said, Don't you hate him? He said, What I really hate are his actions. As soon as he leaves them, he returns to being my full brother. That's the mentality, right? I don't hate him for who he is. I don't hate him in sort of the greater sense. He could change in an instant. As soon as he repents from it, that's my brother again. You know, Dr. Ali Tantawi, Rahin Allah, great contemporary Syrian scholar, may Allah have mercy on his soul. He meant it's mentioned in his biography, memoirs, that he walked into a masjid in Haleb one day, uh, Syria. Aleppo. He says, I finished praying and I see next to me a kid, rebel without a cause. We all knew him from the neighborhood. This guy was a like you name it, he did it. His parents had to throw him out eventually, an animal, right? And I said to him, Are you so-and-so? He's like, Yeah. He says, Alhamdulillah for your guidance. What happened? When did you turn a new leaf? He told him, Sheikh, you won't believe it actually. He said, We used to be in the club, partying, you know, our minds away. And there was a neighborhood Sheikh, an elderly man, who turned to his congregation and said, Where are all the youth anyway? They said, Sheikh, they're in the clubs. The sheikh said to them, What are the clubs? He said, You know, a place where people drink and you know, dancing and stuff. He said, Then what are we doing here? Gotta go get them. So they tried to stop the sheikh and they couldn't stop him. He got to the club, you know, there's the bouncer and the manager comes out, and they refuse to let the sheikh in the club. And the sheikh is negotiating and saying, How much do you make a night? He said, I make this amount of money. He said, That thousands of dollars amount, I'll give it to you. Let me in. He said, Okay, but not tonight. Come tomorrow. He says, The next night, I was in the club, this young man is saying, and there was a girl dancing on stage. She finished her skit and the curtain fell. And when it came back on for the next segment, there was an elderly sheikh sitting on a chair on top of the stage. People erupted in laughter. And they start heckling him. Get out of here, ruining our night, this, that, and the third. Half of them felt guilty and said, Hey, shut your mouth. This guy's old enough to be your father. Show some respect. Just hear him out. So the sheikh begins by praising Allah and sending salawat for his Prophet, begins to remind them of the purpose of life and the reality of paradise, the reality of the hellfire. And a group of the party animals walk out that day with him. And I, he says, not, he says, and I am one of those who walked out that night. And since that day, I'm a completely different person. You know, it's not even just Muslims who are repenting. There are so many at the helm, at the leadership, you know, plank of this Ummah right now. Some of the leading scholars of the Muslim community in this country, for example, right? Some of the leading ambassadors, callers to Islam, are those who were born into non-Muslim families, right or wrong? Some of the leading advocates for the causes of the Ummah were at one recent moment kufar, rejectors of Allah and His Messenger and the hereafter. So you never quit on people. You never count people out. You never forget that Allah can guide anyone overnight, even in their sleep. And you wish to be someone to help more and more of them be those people. Brothers and sisters, in full honesty, I share with you and without exaggeration, that one of my dearest friends in the past was before he moved away, was a brother who grew up in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of New York City. Ghetto eyes, dangerous neighborhood where it was killer be killed. And he was a stone cold killer, in full honesty. And he went to prison for a very, very long time. And even that was a reduced prison sentence because it was framed alhamdulillah, self-defense, so he didn't have to at least die in prison. I met him as he exited prison and our relationship began there. He said to me, Since the very first years I was incarcerated, I knew Islam was true. But I hesitated to become Muslim for decades, or at least one decade, he said. Until I exited prison, I was waiting for the day to be released to become Muslim. I said, Why? He said, Because as soon as I got into prison, the Muslims were the biggest group, and the leader of the Muslims was a bully who tried to bully me. And so I had to make sure he understood I will not be bullied. So I got into a physical altercation with the head of the Muslims from day one. And so I said, I'm never gonna become Muslim because that would mean folding under him. If I get out of prison, I'll become Muslim. Allah lengthened his life till the day he left prison and he became Muslim, and he is a contributor to the Muslim community now. When I think of his story, I remember that this is the redemptive power of Islam. And it's not just like we're adapting, you know, because now in 2026 we need to sort of help people find a better. This is our Islam. Canceling people indefinitely, judging people conclusively is not from our Islam. I remember the story of Abu Mehjan, and with it I'll close. Abu Mihjan, a Thakafi from Thakif, was a rare breed of warriors. He was like a heroic knight, legendary. But he had a huge problem. He was a diehard alcoholic. Over and over again, he would actually get punished as a Muslim for falling back into relapsing into his addictions. He used to celebrate wine to such an extent that you read about him, he used to say, Ida mittufed finni ile jembi karmatin evami filmamatir. It's crazy. He says, When I die, I need you to bury me next to a grape plant. Wine is made from grapes, next to a grape plant, so that my bones get to drink from its roots after my death. And don't bury me off in some desert somewhere, because I am fearful that after I die, I won't get to drink anymore. Can you imagine how this guy is thinking about life and getting drunk? He became Muslim, but he struggled and struggled with this weakness until the reign of Umr al-Khattab, and then the battle of Al-Qadisiyyyah against the Sassanid Persian regime. And he actually drank in the middle of the military campaign. He got weak again. And so the commander locked him up in his own house, chained up in the house. And he hears the Muslims outside in Al-Qadisiyya. The Persians came out with armies they never expected, elephants in their army. They'd never seen stuff like this before. The Muslims were being decimated. And he was dying inside the house. Please, I beg you. He was telling Sa'ad's wife, let me out. There's a horse right there, there's weapons in the corner of the room. Just give me those two. I promise you. I promise you. And he was begging her and evoking her sympathy. I will come right back and put the chains back on me as soon as the battle's over. Just let me out. And she lets him out. And Sa'd ibn Abu Aqas comes back after Allah turned the tide of the battle and gave the Muslims victory. And he says, You know, I'm watching the battle, and the horse is my horse, Al-Balqa. And the way he's attacking, that's the way so-and-so attacks. But that's impossible because he's in here. She said, It's true. I let him out. So he said, I promise you, I will never punish you again for drinking. You have my word. And he said back to him, and I promise you, I will never drink again. Nothing stopped me from giving up alcohol except my fear, my honor. People saying you gave it up because they punished you. Now you're saying it's not you're not gonna punish me. Now I can give it up. People are complicated, and Allah is the ultimate guide. Let us never count people out, let us never quit on people, let us be committed, like our Prophet, to be concerned and to be strategic and to continue to save as many as we can and bring them to the shores of the most merciful, the Lord of the worlds. Allah Mahfillana or Hamna, Allah Mahdina Wahdibina, Wajalna Sarah Lima Hitada, Allahumma islama on Surin Muslimin, Wa Dilla Vala Matawa al Mu'atadin, Rabbena Latuzakulubana Badaid Hadaitana, Wa Hablena Milla Dunkarahma, Inna Kantel Wahab, was Allah Salah Warakana be in Muhammad.