Restrain your tongue before judgment
“Are people thrown into the fire on their faces for anything other than the harvest of their tongues?”
The tongue is one of Allah's greatest yet most taken-for-granted blessings, and because every word we speak or type is recorded and will be accounted for on the Day of Judgment, believers must restrain it, speak only good, or stay silent.
The khutbah in 8 steps
- Blessings we are born with desensitize us; the tongue is the most-used blessing (COVID loss-of-taste analogy)
- Every blessing carries accountability; hadith of Mu'adh ibn Jabal, 'restrain this' and the harvest of tongues
- The tongue is small but heavy on the scale (last hadith of Sahih al-Bukhari on subhanAllah phrases)
- Words are irreversible: regret, divorce uttered in anger, and broken relationships
- Surah al-Infitar: recording angels document every word, including texts, posts, and voice notes
- The muflis (bankrupt) person on Qiyamah: good deeds transferred to those wronged by speech
- The principle 'speak good or remain silent'; mocking, cursing, gossip, and exposing others' faults for likes
- Closing warning from Aisha's remark about Safiyya; dua for protection and forgiveness
In the khateeb's words
“he held the tongue with his fingers and he said kuffa alayka hadha that restrained this”
“are people thrown into the fire on their faces for anything other than the harvest of their tongues”
For the dinner table
Today's khutbah reminded us that our tongues are one of Allah's greatest blessings, but we often forget them because we are so used to speaking. The khateeb explained that every word we say, or type, is recorded by angels, and on the Day of Judgment we will be held accountable for it. Our words can heal someone or hurt them, build a relationship or break it, and once they come out, we cannot take them back. He gave the beautiful guidance of the Prophet, peace be upon him: say something good, or stay silent. So as a family, let's try to speak with kindness, avoid gossip and bad language, and remember that even a small phrase like subhanAllah can be very heavy on our scale of good deeds.
- Can you remember a time when someone's words made you feel really good, or really bad?
- What is one thing we can say more often at home to build each other up?
- If the angels wrote down everything we typed today, would we feel proud or want to change something?
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