Nawawi Hadith 40: Stranger and Traveler

Part One: A Hand on the Shoulder

Brothers,

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

On the authority of Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ took hold of my shoulder and said: Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a traveler passing through. Ibn Umar used to say: When you reach evening, do not expect to reach the morning, and when you reach morning, do not expect to reach the evening. Take from your health for your sickness, and from your life for your death. (Bukhari)

This hadith is recorded by Imam Bukhari, narrated by the great companion Abdullah ibn Umar, who received this instruction physically, with the Prophet’s ﷺ own hand on his shoulder. This was not a passing comment. It was a deliberate, personal lesson meant to be carried for a lifetime.

Part 1: A Stranger in a Foreign Land

The first image the Prophet ﷺ gives is that of a stranger, a man living somewhere that is not his true home.

A stranger does not build permanent attachments to a foreign land. He does not fill his heart with its politics, its status games, its petty disputes. He keeps his eyes on the place he actually belongs to. He may work there, eat there, sleep there, but his heart remains elsewhere.

This worldly life is no more than play and amusement. But the Home of the Hereafter is indeed the ˹real˺ life, if only they knew. (Al-Ankaboot, 29:64)

This is the first posture the Prophet ﷺ instructs Ibn Umar to adopt: live here as someone who knows this is not his true home, and never let this temporary place own his heart.

Part 2: A Traveler Passing Through

The second image intensifies the first: not merely a stranger settled somewhere foreign, but a traveler who is not even staying, only passing through on the way to a destination.

A traveler does not overpack. He does not build a house along the road. He does not quarrel with other travelers over whose spot on the road is better. He keeps his eyes fixed on arrival, and everything along the way is judged only by whether it helps or hinders that arrival.

Know that this worldly life is no more than play, amusement, luxury, mutual boasting, and competition in wealth and children. It is like rain that produces plants, pleasing the farmers, but then they dry up and you see them turn yellow, then they become chaff. And in the Hereafter there is severe punishment, but also forgiveness from Allah and His pleasure. And what is this worldly life except the enjoyment of delusion? (Al-Hadid, 57:20)

Notice how quickly the metaphor of rain and plants moves from green to yellow to broken chaff. That is how fast this world’s pleasures fade. The traveler who understands this does not mourn what withers, because he never expected it to last.

Part 3: Do Not Expect the Next Sunrise

Ibn Umar, having internalized this lesson from the Prophet ﷺ, added his own practical instruction: when evening comes, do not expect to reach the morning, and when morning comes, do not expect to reach the evening.

Every soul will taste death, and you will only be given your full reward on the Day of Judgment. Whoever is spared from the Fire and admitted into Paradise has truly triumphed, for the life of this world is only an illusory enjoyment. (Aal-i-Imraan, 3:185)

This is not meant to produce fear or paralysis. It is meant to produce urgency. If you genuinely believed you might not see tomorrow, would you delay that apology, that prayer, that repentance, that reconciliation with a brother? Ibn Umar is teaching us to live every single day as if it might be the last one given to us.

Part 4: Take From Your Health for Your Sickness

The next instruction is deeply practical: take from your health for your sickness. Use the strength you have now, while you have it, because a day will come when you no longer have it.

Take advantage of five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness, your wealth before your poverty, your free time before your preoccupation, and your life before your death. (Bukhari)

Every day of strength you are given is a deposit that will not last forever. The prayers you can stand for today, the fasting your body can handle today, the service you can offer with your own hands today, all of it is time-limited. Sickness comes to every person eventually, and it narrows what was once wide open.

Part 5: Take From Your Life for Your Death

The final instruction closes the hadith with its clearest point: take from your life for your death. Every good deed done now is preparation for the moment that is guaranteed to come.

O believers! Fear Allah, and let every soul look to what it has sent forth for tomorrow. And fear Allah, for Allah is All-Aware of what you do. (Al-Hashr, 59:18)

This is not a morbid instruction. It is the most practical instruction a person can receive. You are being told, plainly, to spend the currency of your remaining days on something that will still be valuable after they are gone.

Part 6: How the Companions Carried This Lesson

Ibn Umar did not merely repeat this hadith. His own life reflected it. Those who narrated his biography describe a man who lived simply even after wealth came to him, who wept easily at the remembrance of death, and who was known to say that a man should not sleep at night except as one who does not expect to see the morning free of accountability. This was not despair. It was a companion who had taken the Prophet’s ﷺ hand on his shoulder and let it reshape the rest of his life.

And give them the example of this worldly life: like the rain We send down from the sky, then the vegetation of the earth mingles with it, but then it becomes chaff scattered by the wind. And Allah is Most Capable of everything. Wealth and children are the adornment of this worldly life, but the everlasting good deeds are far better with your Lord in reward and in hope. (Al-Kahf, 18:45-46)

Notice how this verse mirrors the same image we already reflected on earlier in this khutbah, rain producing life that quickly withers, because the Quran repeats this picture in more than one surah so that it becomes unforgettable. What lasts is not the vegetation itself but the good deeds planted while it was still green.

Part Two: Living as a Traveler in This Place

Brothers,

Few environments make this hadith easier to understand than the one you are in right now, and few environments make it easier to forget.

This Cell Is Not Your Home, but Neither Was the World Outside

It is tempting to think that once you are released, you will finally be home, finally settled, finally permanent. But the Prophet ﷺ did not tell Ibn Umar to be a stranger only in prison. He told him to be a stranger in this entire world. Wherever you go after these walls, that place is not your true home either. Recognizing this now, while your circumstances are already stripped down, is actually an advantage. You have fewer illusions to unlearn than the man who still believes his house, his job, and his freedom outside are permanent.

Do Not Assume Tomorrow Here

Time moves strangely in confinement. Some men count down years as if arrival at release day is guaranteed. But Ibn Umar’s warning applies here exactly as it applies anywhere: do not expect the morning when evening comes. Use today, this exact day, for what matters, rather than postponing every good intention to a release date that is not promised to you any more than it is promised to anyone else.

Take From Your Strength Now

Whatever health, mobility, and clarity of mind you have right now, use it. Stand for your prayers while you can stand. Study while your memory is sharp. Reconcile with people while your tongue can still speak the words. Do not wait for a future version of yourself that may never come, whether through illness, transfer, or simply running out of time.

Prepare Now for What Is Certain

Release is not certain in the way you might think, appeals fail, dates move, circumstances change. But death is certain, for every single person in this room without exception. Whatever preparation you are making for a court date or a parole hearing, make double that preparation for the appointment that cannot be postponed or appealed.

The Traveler’s Freedom

There is a strange freedom in adopting this mindset. A traveler passing through a difficult stretch of road does not despair the way a man who believes he is stuck there forever despairs. If you truly see yourself as a traveler here, and everywhere else in this dunya, then no wall, no sentence, no injustice you have faced defines your final destination. Only what you do with the road in front of you does.

Preparing Your Own Final Advice

Ibn Umar did not keep this lesson to himself. He repeated it so often that it became attached to his name for every generation after him. Ask yourself what you are preparing to leave behind, not property or money, since most of you have little of either right now, but words, character, and example. If a younger brother arrived here tomorrow and you had one piece of advice to give him before you were released or transferred, what would it be. Let that answer guide how you actually live today, not just how you plan to speak someday. The traveler who has learned the road well is exactly the one whose advice future travelers need most.

O Allah, make us strangers to this world and travelers toward You alone.

O Allah, do not let us waste today assuming we are promised tomorrow.

O Allah, help us take from our health, our strength, and our time before they are taken from us.

O Allah, prepare us for death as diligently as we prepare for anything else in this life.

O Allah, let no wall or sentence make us forget that our true home is with You.

O Allah, grant us urgency in doing good and patience in awaiting what You have decreed.

O Allah, reconcile us with those we have wronged before our time here runs out.

O Allah, make our final moment a moment of Your mercy, wherever and whenever it comes.