Confronting Your Problems – a Khutbah by Sheikh Waleed Basyouni

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I know that there are so many of us here today, when we reflect about our own challenges in life; as I said no matter what your gender, or what  your age, everyone has their own set of challenges; everyone of us has their own set of problems that he or she deals with. It might be a job that you lost, or a business that you’re struggling with. Or maybe a boss or an employee that is giving you a hard time and sometimes it can be very painful and stressful; Also, a marriage that is not working out; or a debt that you cannot climb yourself out of. It could be a love that you were not be able to fulfill in the halal way; someone that you wished to marry. A young man or a young girl, who are in love with someone, they couldn’t get the one that they love.  Or sometimes the challenge will be a social problem; maybe your in-laws are giving you a hard time, or maybe you have relatives who have taken your rights and have been abusing you. Maybe it’s even somebody close to you. Maybe it’s a problem dealing with parents. Maybe it’s a problem of dealing with your teenager. A son or a daughter, that is giving you a hard time. Or you’re so worried about them. Or maybe it’s a sickness; a physical sickness. Maybe it’s stress.  I can think of so many things every individual can go through.

And also not only as individuals we have our own problems, we as a community have our own challenges as well.  So many times we complain about a shortage of volunteers, the shortage of financial support from the community.  We sometimes have a challenge as a community, some people feel that they’ve been discriminated against. Maybe as a community we see the high rise of the number of unemployment in our community.  We as a society have problems. And just last week, we all witnessed what happened in Newtown, Connecticut. As a society, as a community, we have a lot of challenges ahead of us. Actually, globally there are so many problems one can think of. There are so many problems, social, economic, environmental .   I know that all of you can mention so many problems out there.

I’m also a hundred percent sure that there are so many solutions out there.  As many as there are problems out there, there are as many solutions out there.  Because the Prophet said: There is no disease, there is no problem, unless there is a cure and a solution for it.  And ibn al Qayyim rahimaullah said, it will be very, very, narrow-minded to look at this hadith and only see it as the physical illness. This is a very general statement of the Prophet .

It’s not what happened to us in life that is the most important thing. Actually, the most important thing is what we are doing with what happened to us in life.  And then the question that I want to raise with you in my khutbah, I’m not here to remind you of all your pains. I’m not here to talk about your challenges and remind you of them and tell you how hard it is to get out of them.  I’m here to tell you that you will not live a life free of challenges.  I’m here to tell you  that you don’t need to face them alone.  You can face them with the advice of a sincere friend, or the support of a community, or the support of your family.  And in this way, we can all face our challenges, and we can overcome them.