By Sheikh Khalid ibn Ali al-Ghamdi – 06 Shaban 1437

His Eminence Sheikh Khalid ibn Ali al-Ghamdi – May Allah protect him – delivered this Friday Khutbah titled “As You Sow, So Shall You Reap” in which he talked about the unalterable and unchangeable divine laws. He mentioned in particular the divine law “as you sow, so shall you reap” and explained in light of the Book and the Sunnah that good deeds lead to a good reward while evil deeds incur punishment of the same kind, and that your Lord will not be unjust to anyone in the least.

Praise be to Allah Who ruled and decreed, and Who brought good tidings to mankind and warned them! He created this universe in accordance with a balance and justice, and favoured whomever He wished from among His servants with His Grace. I praise Him –May He be extolled– in a way that befits His unlimited wisdom and great ability! I bear witness that there no other deity worthy of worship except Him, alone with no partner. He is All-Knowing, All-Merciful, All- Powerful and All-Sovereign. I also bear witness that Muhammad is His Servant and Messenger, who is the ultimate balance and the most luminous lamp. May Allah send His profuse Salat (Graces, Honours, Mercy) and Peace upon him, his noble and kind family, his Companions endowed with strength, insight and leadership and those who followed them in righteousness as long as orbiting planets and the ever multiplying creatures kept glorifying Allah!

Now then,

I exhort you, servants of Allah, to observe Taqwa and fear Allah. You should know that if you observe Taqwa, Allah will grant you a criterion (which enables you to distinguish between true and false), will appoint for you a light whereby you shall walk, and forgive you. Allah is Lord of abounding bounty.

O Muslim Ummah!

Allah –May He be extolled– has laid down in this worldly life a fixed set of unalterable and unchangeable divine laws. The happy and the sagacious are those who recognize and heed these divine laws and do not object to, or go against, them. They may thus lead a happy and dignified life in the Herein and be generously rewarded in the Hereafter.

One of these great laws is one that has always had a great impact on people’s lives and ultimate ending. It is namely “as you sow, so shall you reap.” If you sow good deeds, you reap reward; if you sow evil deeds, you reap punishment.

It is a great divine law, an example of Allah’s Justice, Wisdom and unlimited Might. It is the rule of the well-balanced, justice-based divine retribution in this universe that shows neither alteration nor bias and recognises no favouritism.

If people only reflected on their own affairs, both covert and overt, they would readily discover that this divine law is permeating all their lives, and would recognise an aspect of Allah’s unlimited Wisdom in His Decrees and Rulings. Good deeds are perpetual, bad deeds are unforgettable, and the Judge (Allah) is immortal. You reap what you sow.

Is it not amazing that Allah should grant mercy to a prostitute because she had given water to an animal that was about to die of thirst!? Is it not amazing that Allah should make Qaaroon (Korah) sink into the ground along with his treasures and humiliate him because he overstepped the bounds and committed outrages, and because he was about to turn people away from their Lord and shake their belief!?

If you are amazed, so were the Prophet’s Companions on the Day of Uhud that they wondered: “From where does this come to us?” [Al Imran: 165], and they received a decisive answer from the Judge, the Just –May He be extolled: Say (to them), “It is from yourselves (because of your evil deeds).”

This divine law is the axis around which revolve all acts of reward with justice that are equal to the servant’s act in nature and kind. It is unremitting in shar’, in size, in time and place as it is shown in over a hundred verses of the Qur’an. Furthermore, there are many hadiths that confirm this divine law and work towards engraving it in people’s minds.

Have you not heard the verse from the Qur’an which says: Is there any reward for good other than good? [Al-Rahman: 60]? Have you not read the verse: whosoever works evil, will have the recompense thereof, and he will not find any protector or helper besides Allâh [Al-Nisa’: 123]

In a series of verses the idea that Allah rewards people of faith and taqwa by granting them good living is emphasised time and again. For them, Allah opens the door to absolute serenity through knowing Him and feeling happy with Him –May He be glorified. He facilitates their affairs, alleviates their sorrows, and protects them and their progeny. He grants them enough provision, gives them victory, and prevalence as a reward for what they have been doing.

He who faithfully observes taqwa vis-à-vis Allah and abstains from proscribed deeds, Allah will protect him from wrongdoing and fornication, and will grant him a reputation of honour among later generations5 That We might turn away from him evil and illegal sexual intercourse. Surely, he was one of Our chosen, guided slaves. [Yusuf: 24]

He who observes truthfulness vis-à-vis Allah by saying and doing what is good, Allah will grant him, as promised, knowledge and judiciousness and inspire others to love him too by making them flock towards him in compassion, love and mercy.

As for those servants of Allah, who are oppressed, treated unjustly and are helpless, listen how Allah will reward them:

And We wished to do a favour to those who were weak (and oppressed) in the land, and to make them rulers and to make them the inheritors, And to establish them in the land [Al-Qasas: 5-6]

O Muslims!

Good ending is an example of good recompense. You may see an elderly man leading a quiet, happy life only because when he was young, he was obedient to Allah, and sought to please his Lord. As a result, Allah protected him in old age. The Prophet ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ said: “Protect Allah (by obeying Him), and He will protect you. Protect Allah, and He will be on your side…” [Reported by al-Termidhi and other hadith scholars]

If a man is struck by calamity but shows complacence and surrenders to his destiny and divine decree, Allah will guide his heart, be pleased with him and grant him good ending; his divine recompense will exceed his loss. Such recompense is only for the believers, and taqwa does indeed breed good ends!

O Servants of Allah! Learn a lesson from those who will be sheltered by the Shade of Allah, the Generous. Because they showed patience in the Herein and withstood hardships in the cause of Allah, their recompense would be joy, happiness, and cool stretching shades while others would be in horror and worry under the scorching sun: “And their recompense shall be Paradise, and silken garments, because they were patient.” [Al-Insan: 12]

He who lowers his gaze, keeps his ears and tongue from hearing or speaking evil, he will be rewarded by Allah, Who will enlighten his heart and insight, grant him understanding, knowledge, and appropriate speech whose pleasures outweigh those of proscribed joys.

A good word is the outcome of Allah’s pleasure. When uttered by a servant of Allah’s, such good word wins its utterer Allah’s satisfaction until the Day of Judgement.

He who honours his parents, maintains relations with his relatives, he will be attached to Allah by His Mercy and Generosity. He who asks Allah to forgive the believers, he will be granted by Allah a good deed for every believer. He who protects a Muslim from malicious exposure, he will be protected by Allah from malicious exposure too. Allah will provide means of support for the one who spends money (in the cause of Allah). He will help the one who offers help to his brother (or sister), and Allah will have mercy on the merciful.

All the foregoing examples are but a trace of this divine law: as you sow, so shall you reap!

Allah rewarded His Close Companion, Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him and upon our Prophet‒ by making him a model imam and leader, whose words and deeds are a light and guide, after Allah had tried him with commands which he fulfilled. Allah found him to be patient, forbearing, compassionate, and repentant.

Behold Yusuf (Joseph) ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him and upon our Prophet! Such were his misfortunes and calamities that Allah, as a result, established him upon the earth, and gave him a good ending.

The Master of those of old and of later times, our Prophet Muhammad ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ also suffered tremendous trials, but having fulfilled total servitude to Allah, Allah, in return, perfected him, made him amiable, raised high for him his repute8 in the world, and made him imam for all mankind in all honourable positions both in the Herein and the Hereafter.

His wife: the immaculate, amiable Khadijah –May Allah be pleased with her– was given glad tidings by Allah of a house of brocade in Paradise because she was the first to believe the Messenger of Allah. Thus, she scored great success and honour, with no trouble therein nor fatigue, because she kept him good company, offered him spiritual and material support, and did her duties towards him ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him and his family‒ willingly, indefatigably and patiently.

Parables, proofs and stories abound in this regard; they all serve as reminders that the retribution is of the same kind:

“So whosoever does good equal to the weight of an atom (or a small ant), shall see it. And whosoever does evil equal to the weight of an atom (or a small ant), shall see it.” [Al-Zalzalah: 7-8]

O Muslims!

A wonderful aspect of this divine law tells us that Allah will simply forget the one who forgets Him. He will let everybody hear of the one who brags about his deeds, but by way of diminishing and humiliating him. He will make him an example to others he who shows off; he who tries to expose the flaws of Muslims, his flaws will be exposed by Allah to the public. Allah will cause the one who deviates from the straight path to deviate further and will immensely increase his torture, and he who turns away from remembering Allah, he will have a life of hardship and misery.

He who exposes the believers to sedition, torture, killing and burning will die a miserable, humiliating, hateful death, and will, in the Hereafter, suffer the punishment of the burning Fire:

“Verily, those who put into trial the believing men and believing women (by torturing them and burning them), and then do not turn in repentance, (to Allâh), will have the torment of Hell, and they will have the punishment of the burning Fire.” [Al-Burooj: 10]

Those hypocrite wrongdoers, who used to mock the believers in the Herein and used to laugh at them, and when they see them, they exchange derisive glances, will get retribution of the same kind:

‘But this Day (the Day of Resurrection) those who believe will laugh at the disbelievers, On (high) thrones, looking (at all things). Are not the disbelievers paid (fully) for what they used to do?” [Al-Mutaffifin: 34-36]

Some people used deviant ways in approaching Allah’s Sharia and His Rulings; they changed them, replaced them, and distorted them according to their own whims and those of the wrongdoers. As a consequence, Allah changed their images and shapes and turned them into despicable monkeys. He also sealed their hearts so that they would recognise no good or forbid any evil unless it agrees with their whims.

Allah ‒Be He exalted‒ threatened the preventers of Zakat with three burns on their foreheads, sides, and backs. These burns suit their bad deeds, a retribution that suits their ill intention.

As for those who conceal or obscure Allah’s Sharia, hide the knowledge that should be revealed to people, and do not repent therefrom, then they will be cursed by Allah and by the cursors, and on the Day of Judgment, He will put bridles of fire on them as an appropriate recompense.

O Servants of Allah!

When we think of the punishments that Allah inflicted on those who disobeyed Him and His Messengers, we find that they are so suitable to their deeds and sins. In this context, Allah has related to us the utter destruction of the people of Noah, ‘Aad, Thamood, the dwellers of Al-Aykah (near Madiyan), the people of Lot, Pharaoh, Saba’, and others.

“So We punished each (of them) for his sins, of them were some on whom We sent Hâsiban (a violent wind with shower of stones) [as the people of Lout (Lot)], and of them were some who were overtaken by As­Saihah [torment ­ awful cry, etc. (as Thamûd or Shu’aib’s people)], and of them were some whom We caused the earth to swallow [as Qârûn (Korah)], and of them were some whom We drowned [as the people of Nûh (Noah), or Fir’aun (Pharaoh) and his people]. It was not Allâh Who wronged them, but they wronged themselves.” [Al-Ankabût: 40]

Ibn Omar ‒May Allah be pleased with both him and his father‒ said: “There dwelt in Madinah some people who had defects but they were silent about the defects of others; therefore, Allah made people silent about their own defects and they died with no defects. On the other hand, there were in Madinah people with no defects, but they spoke about other people’s defects; therefore, Allah revealed their own defects by which they were stigmatised till they died.”

Ibrahim Al-Nakh’i ‒May Allah bless his soul‒ said: “I do see a shameful thing but abstain from speaking about it for fear that I be inflicted with a similar one.”

May Allah bless you and me by the Glorious Qur’an and may He make its wise verses beneficial to you and me! I say this, and I ask Allah, the Almighty, the Glorious to forgive me, you, and all Muslims! So ask Him for forgiveness and repent unto Him, for our Lord is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful!