True beauty begins with the heart
“Allah will look at your hearts and your actions.”
True beauty is primarily the inward beauty of faith, knowledge, character, and righteous action, while outward beauty is valuable only when joined to humility and gratitude.
The khutbah in 6 steps
- Introduces the new minbar and frames the sermon around Allah's love of beauty.
- Argues that religious commitment should outrank wealth, lineage, and outward appearance.
- Classifies people by their combination of external and internal beauty, highlighting Yusuf and the hypocrites.
- Expands beauty to include patience, forgiveness, conduct, and beneficial knowledge.
- Urges minbars to be beautified with Qur'an and Sunnah knowledge rather than appearance alone.
- Closes by urging repentance, purified hearts, beneficial knowledge, and righteous deeds.
In the khateeb's words
“true beauty is that which is internal, that which is intangible as far as external beauty and beauty that is tangible, then no matter how long it continues, there will be a time that it will cease to exist.”
“The one who wears The finest of clothes And wears the finest of shoes While having pride While looking down upon the people This person has no value”
“Allah will not look At your bodies And your physical appearance Nor will He look at your wealth Allah will look at your hearts and your actions.”
For the dinner table
Today the khutbah was given from the masjid's beautiful new minbar, and the khateeb used it to teach us what real beauty means. He reminded us that Allah is beautiful and loves beauty, but that the most important beauty is on the inside: our faith, our good deeds and our good manners. Outward looks fade with time, but inner beauty lasts and makes people love us. He told us that a minbar is made truly beautiful by knowledge of the Qur'an and Sunnah, not just by wood and paint. He also explained that dressing nicely is not pride, as long as we don't show off or look down on others. Most of all, on the Day of Judgment Allah will not look at our faces, wealth or clothes. He will look at our hearts and our actions.
- What is one thing about your heart or your manners that you'd like to make more beautiful this week?
- Is it okay to wear nice clothes? When could it turn into something bad?
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