Nawawi Hadith 3: Built to Last

Part One: The Building That Cannot Fall

Brothers,

Today’s khutbah is based on the 3rd hadith in Imam Nawawi’s 40 Hadith:

On the authority of Ibn 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him and his father), who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, 'Islam has been built upon five: testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establishing the prayer, paying the zakah, making pilgrimage to the House, and fasting Ramadan.' (Bukhari & Muslim)

Ibn ’Umar was a boy when he entered Islam and grew into one of the most careful narrators the ummah ever produced. He was known for imitating the Prophet’s ﷺ actions down to the smallest detail, because he understood something we forget: the deen is not a feeling. It is a structure. It has parts. It can be built, and it can be neglected.

Notice the word the Prophet ﷺ chose: built. Not “Islam consists of five things,” not “Islam includes five practices.” Built. Like a house. Like a wall. Something with a foundation, load-bearing supports, and a shape that stands upright against wind and time.

Every man in this room is building something, whether he intends to or not. Some men are building on sand. Some are building nothing at all and calling the rubble a home. This hadith gives us the blueprint the Messenger of Allah ﷺ handed to every believer: five pillars, and Islam stands on them.

Let us walk through each one.

Part 1: The Foundation Beneath the Pillars

Before we count the five, we have to understand how they relate to each other. A pillar holds up a roof. But what holds up the pillar? The foundation.

The testimony of faith, la ilaha illallah Muhammad rasulullah, is not simply the first of five equal items on a list. It is the ground the other four are poured into. Remove a roof tile and the house still stands, damaged. Remove the foundation and there is no house at all.

Allah bears witness that there is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him, and so do the angels and people of knowledge. He is the Maintainer of justice. There is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him, the Almighty, All-Wise. (Aal-i-Imraan, 3:18)

This is why the scholars distinguish between a Muslim who neglects prayer or zakah out of laziness, and a Muslim who rejects the testimony of faith itself. The first has weakened his building through sin. He remains inside the house, however damaged the house has become, and he is called to repent and repair it. The second has removed the foundation, and there is nothing left standing to repair.

This distinction matters for every man who has ever thought, “I’ve messed up so badly, there’s no point trying anymore.” Brothers, as long as the shahada stands, the house stands. Damaged, yes. Neglected, yes. But standing, and repairable.

Part 2: The Testimony That Anchors Everything

La ilaha illallah, Muhammad rasulullah. Two sentences. Eight words in Arabic. And yet everything else in this deen, every prayer, every fast, every act of charity, draws its meaning from this testimony.

To say “there is no god but Allah” is to dethrone every other claimant to worship: money, status, appetite, fear of other men, the opinion of the crowd. Whatever you serve without question, whatever you would compromise your deen to protect, that thing has quietly become your ilah, your god, even if you never bow to it physically.

He is Allah, there is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him. He is the King, the Most Holy, the All-Perfect, the Source of Perfection, the Watcher, the Almighty, the Compeller, the Supreme in Greatness. Glorified is Allah, far above what they associate with Him. (Al-Hashr, 59:23)

And to testify that Muhammad ﷺ is the Messenger of Allah is to accept that guidance did not stop with our own opinions. We do not build our own religion from instinct and preference. We follow a Messenger who was sent with clear proof, and every pillar that follows in this hadith comes from his example, not from human invention.

Part 3: The Pillars That Rise From It

With the foundation in place, four pillars rise from it, each one carrying weight the others cannot carry.

Prayer is the daily return to Allah, five times, regardless of how the day has gone.

˹O Prophet,˺ recite what has been revealed to you of the Book, and establish prayer. Indeed, ˹genuine˺ prayer deters ˹one˺ from indecency and wickedness. And the remembrance of Allah is greater. And Allah ˹fully˺ knows what you all do. (Al-Ankaboot, 29:45)

Zakah is the pillar that breaks the grip wealth has on the heart, forcing a man to give before greed can take root.

Take from their wealth ˹O Prophet˺ charity to purify and bless them, and pray for them, for your prayer is a source of comfort for them. And Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. (At-Tawba, 9:103)

Fasting Ramadan is the pillar of restraint, training the body to obey the will rather than the appetite.

O believers! Fasting is prescribed for you, as it was for those before you, so that you may become mindful ˹of Allah˺. (Al-Baqara, 2:183)

And Hajj, for the one who is able, is the pillar of total submission, a journey that strips away rank and wealth and leaves every man standing in the same white cloth before his Lord.

In it are clear signs, ˹including˺ the standing-place of Abraham. Whoever enters it should be safe. Pilgrimage to this House is an obligation by Allah upon whoever is able among the people. And whoever disbelieves, then Allah is not in need of ˹anything from˺ the worlds. (Aal-i-Imraan, 3:97)

Four pillars, four different disciplines: worship, generosity, restraint, submission. Together with the foundation of testimony, they cover the heart, the wealth, the body, and the whole of a man’s life.

Part Two: Standing on What Remains

Brothers,

Part 4: When a Pillar Is Missing

What happens to a man who cannot complete all five right now? What about the brother who has never had the wealth to pay zakah, or the one whose health will not permit fasting this year, or the one who has never had the means to reach Makkah?

The Messenger ﷺ, in the very next hadith after this one, described a life measured in stages, each stage bringing what the last could not. A pillar delayed by genuine inability is not a pillar rejected. Allah does not ask a man for what he does not have.

Allah does not require of any soul more than what it can afford. All good will be for its own benefit, and all evil, only to its own loss. (Al-Baqara, 2:286)

The danger is not incapacity. The danger is indifference, the man who could pray but does not, who could give but hoards, who treats these five pillars as optional decoration rather than the frame holding up his life. That man’s house is not merely unfinished. It is being dismantled by his own hand.

Part 5: Behind These Walls, the Pillars Still Stand

Brothers, some of you have said to yourselves, “How can I build this house in here? I don’t have my own space. I don’t have my own schedule. I don’t have the means for zakah or the freedom for Hajj.”

Listen carefully. This building does not require a mansion. It requires five things, and every one of them fits inside a cell.

The testimony of faith lives in your heart and on your tongue right now, in this room, as fully as it lives in any masjid on earth. No wall built by the state can reach it.

Prayer requires a few feet of clean space and a few minutes of your time, five times a day, and no schedule imposed on you removes your ability to find those minutes. Men have prayed in far smaller spaces than this facility gives you.

Zakah, for the brother with nothing to his name right now, becomes a smile, a shared item of commissary, a kind word to a man having a harder day than you. The scholars teach that every act of good is a form of sadaqah when wealth is absent. Hold onto that, and when Allah restores your means, the obligation of zakah will be waiting for you to fulfill in full.

Fasting Ramadan is, if anything, more within reach here than for a man juggling a demanding job outside these walls. Use it.

And Hajj, for now out of reach, remains a standing intention in your heart and a goal to work toward for the day Allah grants you the means and the freedom to stand at Arafah.

Brothers, the five pillars were never designed only for men with freedom, money, and comfort. They were designed for every believer, in every condition, in every era. You are not exempt from building this house. You are simply building it with the materials Allah has placed in your hands today.

Part 6: Rebuilding What You Neglected

Some of you are honest enough to admit that before you came here, this house was in ruins. Prayer abandoned for years. Zakah never considered. Ramadan broken more often than kept.

Here is the mercy in this hadith: it describes what Islam is built upon, not what you have already built. Every day you are alive is another chance to lay another brick. The man who missed twenty years of prayer and begins today is not disqualified from this house. He is simply starting later than he should have, and Allah welcomes every late beginning that is sincere.

Say, ˹Allah says,˺ 'O My servants who have exceeded the limits against their souls! Do not lose hope in Allah's mercy, for Allah certainly forgives all sins. He is indeed the All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.' (Az-Zumar, 39:53)

Do not let shame over the years you wasted stop you from laying today’s brick. A house built slowly, brick by brick from this day forward, is still a house. A house you refuse to touch because you are ashamed of how long it sat in ruins will never be a house at all.

O Allah, build our lives upon these five pillars, firmly, sincerely, without neglect.

O Allah, make our testimony of faith true in our hearts and not only on our tongues.

O Allah, help us establish the prayer, guard it, and find sweetness in it.

O Allah, purify our wealth and our hearts, whether our hands are full or empty right now.

O Allah, grant us the strength to fast with patience and to seek Your pleasure in every hunger we endure.

O Allah, if You have written Hajj for us, ease the path and grant us the means and the freedom to walk it.

O Allah, rebuild what we have neglected, and do not let shame over the past keep us from the brick we can lay today.

O Allah, make us people whose foundation is sound and whose house stands firm on the Day we return to You.