Your habits shape your moral baseline
“What we call normal is not fixed.”
Because repeated media, habits, and companions quietly reshape our moral baseline, Muslims must intentionally guard their senses and replace harmful consumption with beautiful, faith-aligned content and elevating company.
The khutbah in 6 steps
- Opens with the khutbah's call to taqwa and submission to Allah.
- Explains how repeated exposure, familiarity, and social conformity reset perceptions of what is normal and good.
- Uses Risalat al-Huquq to frame hearing and sight as gateways requiring careful protection.
- Offers two questions for evaluating consumed content and warns that future character is formed by present habits.
- Argues that replacing harmful content with beauty, depth, and beneficial material works better than willpower alone.
- Encourages choosing companions and gatherings that elevate one's standards, then closes with Qur'anic reminders and a Jumu'ah prayer note.
In the khateeb's words
“What we call normal is not fixed. What we call standard is not the same. It's at a certain point and then it drifts and it changes with every single thing we feed our eyes and our ears.”
“Guard what you let in, because the person you'll be in five years is being assembled right now, quietly, by what your eyes, your ears, what your mind consumes.”
“you don't just lower your gaze from what's harmful you raise it towards what's beautiful”
For the dinner table
The khutbah reminds us that our idea of what is normal can change through repeated exposure to what we watch, hear, and read. If we keep feeding on outrage, vanity, or shallow entertainment, those things can begin to feel harmless or even good. The speaker encourages us to ask whether our media is shaping the person we want to become and to replace harmful habits with beauty, depth, worship, and good company. We can grow together by choosing friends and gatherings that lift our standards and help us stay close to Allah, the Qur'an, and the Ahl al-Bayt.
- What is one thing you consume that shapes how you think or feel?
- What beautiful or beneficial habit could replace a harmful screen habit?
- Who helps you become a better person, and how do they do it?
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