Bushmead 25 September, 2pm.
الحمد لله نحمده ونستعينه ونستغفره، ونعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا، من يهده الله فلا مضل له، ومن يضلل فلا هادي له. وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، وأشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله. أما بعد، فإن أصدق الحديث كتاب الله، وخير الهدي هدي محمد ﷺ، وشر الأمور محدثاتها، وكل محدثة بدعة، وكل بدعة ضلالة، وكل ضلالة في النار.
Dear brothers and sisters,
In this khutbah, I will continue the theme of learning and understand our deen, for, as I have said in previous khutbahs, the crises of the modern world for Muslims is often a crisis of religious knowledge or literacy. And so, today I want to talk about guidance.
One of the most important things we ask Allah for every day is guidance. We say in sūrah al-Fātiḥah: اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ “Guide us to the straight path.” This we ask Allah every day, every salah, every rakʿah that we pray alone.
And this teaches us something important: guidance is not just about knowing what is right. It is also about having the ability, the willingness and the strength to follow what is right. Allah says in sūrah al-Fatir (35:24) “There was never a nation except that a warner had passed among them.” Allah has also given us the cognitive ability or ‘aql to differentiate between right and wrong: “By the soul and He who proportioned it, and inspired it with its wickedness and its righteousness” (Qurʾān 91:7-8).
The Qurʾān speaks about guidance in different ways. Allah guides people through His revelation. He guides people through His messengers. He guides people through knowledge and understanding. He opens their hearts to truth. And He gives people the tawfīq to act upon what they know. So when we talk about guidance, we should not imagine that it comes in only one form. There are, broadly speaking, four concepts that are particularly useful for us to distinguish and these are: waḥy, ilhām, kashf and tawfīq.
Understanding the difference between them is important because one of the problems in religious life is that we often confuse a personal feeling or experience with divine revelation, or we don’t realise what divine address is about. So in this khutbah I will very briefly, only by way of very brief explanations take you through these, to whet your appetite perhaps.
The first and highest form of guidance is waḥy – revelation. Waḥy is the guidance that Allah gives to His prophets. Allah mentions that the revelation of the Qurʾān to the Prophet ﷺ “It is nothing but revelation that is revealed.” إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا وَحْيٌ يُوحَى. The Qurʾān is waḥy.
But here I must say one more thing my dear brother and sisters, it is binding only once you become Muslim. For people who are not Muslims the Qurʾān and Sunnah is not binding. Allah makes it clear, لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ, there is no compulsion in religion.
This also means, we shouldn’t impose our understanding of things with others in way that makes them lose their distinction. Others have a right to distinguish from us, we cannot deny this right. So, things like we shouldn’t say Christian’s and Muslims worship the same God, because in Islam God is one, He has no Son: قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ … لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ whereas Islam affords Christian’s the freedom to believe in the Trinity. لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ.
Coming back to waḥy … waḥy is divine address. It is not personal opinion or spiritual intuition. It is binding for people to follow. Because it is legislative and authoritative revelation from God, delivered to prophets, and creates binding law (Sharīʿah), dictates belief, practice and moral-legal order, provides commands, prohibitions, and doctrine, and so on…. this is what makes prophetic revelation fundamentally different from our own religious experiences or any other form of authority.
When the Prophet ﷺ received revelation, the Companions did not have to ask: “Perhaps this is just how the Prophet feels.” No. The Prophet ﷺ was conveying the message of Allah. And this is why the Qurʾān and authentic Sunnah provide the authoritative standard by which we judge religious claims.
With the death of the Prophet ﷺ, however, prophetic revelation ended. Allah says: مَّا كَانَ مُحَمَّدٌ أَبَا أَحَدٍ مِّن رِّجَالِكُمْ وَلَٰكِن رَّسُولَ اللَّهِ وَخَاتَمَ النَّبِيِّينَ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمًا “Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets. And Allah has full knowledge of all things” (sūrah al-Aḥzāb, 33:40).
We do not receive new Qurʾānic verses. No one today can say: “Allah has revealed to me a new command which everyone else must follow.” That would not be waḥy. And this distinction protects us from a great deal of confusion.
The second concept I want to mention is ilhām – Ilham is inspiration or inner prompting.
A person may sometimes experience a strong inclination towards something good. They may suddenly feel: “I should help this person.” “I should apologise.” “I should give charity.” “I should avoid this situation.” They may feel that something is morally right or wrong. They may even get a eureka or a light bulb moment that allows them to solve a problem or make a technological discovery or gain insight into something.
The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have alluded to ilhām in many ḥadīths, including ones widely reported by al-Bukhārī, Muslim and al-Tirmidhī, such as: “There were among the nations before you people who were inspired (muḥaddithūn). If there is one in my community, it is ʿUmar;” and in other reports, “The true dream of a righteous person is one of forty-six parts of prophethood.” ʿUmar was well known for moments of ilhām that led to far-reaching religious, social, political, and economic measures.
And so, Islam does recognise that Allah can guide people in ways other than prophetic revelation. But here we need to be careful. Ilhām is not the same thing as waḥy.
A feeling and or a novel idea inside us does not automatically become a command from Allah. This inner prompting can come from different sources:
1. It may come as a gift from Allah.
2. It may come from our own nafs, our human psychology, the way our brain works, our imagination or emotions.
3. And it may even come as a temptation or deception from Shayṭān.
The ʿulamāʾ are agreed upon this.
Therefore, if someone says, “I had a feeling that Allah wanted me to do this, we should not automatically assume that this is divine guidance. We should ask: Does it agree with the Qurʾān? Does it agree with the Sunnah? Does it contradict established Islamic principles? Does it make moral and rational sense? And what are its consequences?
This is particularly important today when people speak very confidently about their own spiritual experiences, and the growth of spiritual but not religious phenomena. Someone may say: “I felt this in my heart, therefore it must be from Allah.” But our hearts are not infallible. Our emotions are not revelation. Our dreams are not revelation. Our intuitions are not revelation. And our spiritual experiences do not give us authority over other Muslims.
Moving onto the third concept of how Allah guides us is the related concept of kashf – unveiling or spiritual disclosure.
Kashf literally carries the meaning of something being uncovered or disclosed. In Islamic spiritual traditions, kashf is a kind of spiritual perception or insight in which something becomes apparent to a person that was previously hidden and may appear to us in the unfolding of events. A person might experience an unusual insight, perception or awareness. In English sometimes these things are called premonition. We should not dismiss every spiritual experience simply because it is difficult to explain.
But we must also maintain an important principle: kashf like ilhām is not revelation. Even if a person believes that an experience has come from Allah, that experience remains personal and non-legislative. It cannot create a new ḥalāl or ḥarām. It cannot cancel a clear Qurʾānic command. It cannot establish a new article of faith. And it cannot make another person bound by our private spiritual experience. This distinction is extremely important. A righteous person may experience something spiritually meaningful. But another person is not required to accept it as religious authority. And indeed, the person who experiences it should themselves be cautious. Because what appears to us to be spiritual perception may come from our own psychology, imagination or emotions. It may even be deception.
That is why classical Muslim scholarship did not simply say: “I experienced it, therefore it is true.” Rather, spiritual experiences were to be tested against revelation and sound principles. Both Ilham and kashf can happen to anyone, you don’t need to be Muslim to receive it.
أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم ولسائر المسلمين، فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرحيم.
Second khutbah
الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين.
The fourth concept I want to mention is broadly called tawfīq.
Tawfīq is Allah enabling us to accept and act upon the truth. We may know something is right and yet still fail to do it. We may know that we should pray and still delay the prayer. We may know that we should forgive and still hold a grudge. We may know that backbiting is wrong and still speak about someone behind their back. We may know that charity is good and still remain attached to our wealth. So guidance is not simply information.
We may also find that by chance we’ve been delayed from catching a train or marrying someone or losing out on a job opportunity, only to find that we’ve been saved from an accident, or something better. This also is part of Allah’s enabling power that guides us in life. This is why we ask Allah for tawfīq.
So, to summarise:
- Waḥy tells us the truth – it is binding and establishes legal-moral order.
- Ilhām may give us a personal prompting towards something good, but it is not binding, establishes no legal order, and remains fallible.
- Kashf may describe a spiritual perception or unveiling, but it is not legislative revelation.
- And tawfīq is Allah enabling us to recognise, accept and act upon the truth.
Brothers and sisters,
Let us finish with one simple question: How do we know that we are being guided? Not because we had an unusual dream. Not because we experienced a powerful emotion. Not because we had a spiritual feeling. And not because we suddenly became convinced that our own opinion must be God’s opinion. We know we are being guided when our lives increasingly move towards truth, righteousness, humility, obedience to Allah and so on.
The Prophet ﷺ taught us that faith is not simply something we claim with our tongues. It transforms how we live. So we should ask Allah for guidance. We should ask Allah for ʿilm – knowledge. We should ask Allah for baṣīrah – clear insight. We should ask Allah for hudā – guidance. And we should ask Allah for tawfīq – the ability to act upon the truth.
Because knowing the right thing and doing the right thing are not always the same.May Allah guide our hearts, our families, our children.
May Allah protect us from being deceived by our own desires. May Allah protect us from confusing our opinions with revelation. May Allah give us the humility to say, “I don’t know” when we don’t know. May Allah give us the wisdom and learning to distinguish between revelation and personal experience.
And Allah give us the tawfīq to follow the straight path until we meet Him.
ربنا آتنا في الدنيا حسنة وفي الآخرة حسنة وقنا عذاب النار. إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَمَلَائِكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ ۚ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا صَلُّوا عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُوا تَسْلِيمًا إن الله يأمر بالعدل والإحسان وإيتاء ذي القربى وينهى عن الفحشاء والمنكر والبغي يعظكم لعلكم تذكرون.وأقم الصلاة
وأقم الصلاة.