Nawawi Pair 41 & 42: Desires and Divine Mercy

Part One: Bringing the Self Under Revelation

Brothers,

Today’s khutbah closes out Imam Nawawi’s forty hadith. We reach the final two: the standard of complete faith, and the door of mercy that stays open no matter how far a man has strayed. One sets the bar. The other catches us when we fall short of it. Together they are the last lesson of the entire collection.

We begin with the 41st hadith:

On the authority of Abdullah bin Amr bin al-As (may Allah be pleased with both of them), who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: 'None of you [truly] believes until his desires (hawa) are in submission to that which I have brought.' (a hasan and sahih hadith)

Notice the shape of this sentence. It is the same shape as other hadiths in this collection: “none of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself,” “none of you truly believes until I am dearer to him than his father and his son.” Each time, the Prophet ﷺ is not describing the floor of Islam. He is describing the ceiling of iman, the level a believer keeps climbing toward for the rest of his life.

Part 1: What Hawa Actually Means

Hawa is not simply desire in the plain sense, wanting water when thirsty or sleep when tired. Hawa is the pull of the lower self toward what it wants regardless of what Allah has permitted. It is anger that wants to strike. It is lust that wants what is forbidden. It is ambition that wants status even through a haram shortcut. It is comfort that wants to skip what is owed to Allah. It is pride that wants revenge even when forgiveness was possible.

Every man has hawa. That is not the test. The test in this hadith is where hawa answers to. Does it answer to what the Messenger ﷺ brought, or does it answer only to itself?

It is not for a believing man or woman, when Allah and His Messenger decree a matter, to have any other choice in that matter. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has clearly gone far astray. (Al-Ahzaab, 33:36)

This verse describes exactly what our hadith is testing. Once Allah and His Messenger ﷺ have decided something, a believer does not keep a private vote on it. The desire does not get to argue. It submits.

Part 2: A Desire Examined Versus a Desire Obeyed

There is a real difference between feeling a desire and being ruled by one. Feeling anger is human. Acting on it without restraint is what this hadith warns against. Wanting something forbidden is a trial every soul faces. Chasing it anyway is the failure.

A desire that is submitted to revelation gets examined first. Is this halal or haram? Is this the right way to want this, or the wrong way? Is this the right time, or am I rushing past a boundary Allah set? A desire that is followed blindly skips all of that. It simply asks, “do I want this,” and moves.

But no, by your Lord, they will not truly believe until they make you, [O Muhammad], judge concerning that over which they dispute among themselves and then find within themselves no discomfort from what you have judged, and submit in full submission. (An-Nisaa, 4:65)

Look at the phrase “find within themselves no discomfort.” That is the inward half of this test. It is not enough to outwardly comply while the heart still resents the ruling. Complete faith is a heart that has made peace with what Allah decided, even when it cuts against what the heart first wanted.

Part 3: The Desires That Get Tested Most Often

Some desires show up again and again as the real battlefield of this hadith:

Anger, when someone disrespects you and every part of you wants to answer with your fists or your worst words.

Lust, when something forbidden is placed in front of your eyes or your imagination and no one else would know.

Ambition, when a shortcut to money, status, or power is available if you are willing to lie, cheat, or cut a corner.

Comfort, when worship costs you something, sleep, time, effort, and skipping it is so much easier.

Revenge, when someone has genuinely wronged you and getting even feels like justice instead of what it really is, a desire that has escaped the leash of revelation.

The heart's ruin comes from following desire and long hope. Following desire blinds one from the truth, and long hope makes one forget the Hereafter. (Ibn al-Qayyim, Madarij al-Salikin)

None of these desires are shameful simply for existing. What matters is the verdict each one is finally handed: does it bow to what Allah and His Messenger ﷺ brought, or does the man bow to it instead.

Part Two: The Mercy That Meets Every Failure

Brothers,

If Hadith 41 set an extremely high bar, the 42nd and final hadith answers the question every honest man asks next: what happens when I do not reach it?

On the authority of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), that he heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: Allah the Almighty has said: 'O son of Adam, as long as you call upon Me and place your hope in Me, I will forgive you for what you have done, and I will not mind. O son of Adam, if your sins were to reach the clouds of the sky, and then you were to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, if you were to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the earth, and then you were to meet Me not associating anything with Me in worship, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it.' (Tirmidhi (hasan hadith), also a Hadith Qudsi)

This is a hadith Qudsi, meaning these are Allah’s own words, spoken through His Messenger ﷺ. Read them again slowly. Allah is speaking directly to you, by the name of your origin, son of Adam.

Part 4: Three Promises, Each Bigger Than the Last

The first promise: as long as you call upon Me and place your hope in Me, I will forgive you, and I will not mind. Not a fixed number of chances. Not a ledger that eventually closes. As long as you keep calling.

The second promise raises the stakes: sins reaching the clouds of the sky, forgiven at a single sincere request. That is not a small pile of mistakes. That is a lifetime of them, stacked as high as the sky, and still answered.

The third promise is the furthest reach of all: sins nearly as great as the earth itself, met with forgiveness nearly as great as it, on one condition.

Part 5: The One Condition That Never Moves

That condition is named plainly: meeting Him not associating anything with Him in worship. Shirk. Every other sin in this hadith, however large, is described as forgivable through sincere turning. Shirk is the one matter the Quran singles out as unforgiven for a man who dies upon it, unrepentant.

Say, 'O My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful.' (Az-Zumar, 39:53)

Read who Allah is speaking to: My servants who have transgressed against themselves. Not the innocent. Not the careful. Those who have gone too far, more than once. And the command to them is not to earn their way back through some impossible penance. The command is: do not despair.

The one thing that actually shuts a man out is not the size of what he has done. It is giving up on calling at all. A man who stops asking, stops turning, stops hoping, has closed the door himself. Allah never closed it.

Part 6: Why This Comes Last

It is fitting that this hadith closes the collection. Forty-one hadiths before it lay out an extremely high standard: submit your anger, guard your tongue, love for your brother what you love for yourself, submit even your desires to revelation. Read honestly, that standard exposes every man’s shortcomings. No one reading these forty hadiths finishes them thinking, “I have already met every one of these perfectly.”

So the collection ends here, with Allah reminding us why the standard is survivable at all. The goal was never for a flawed man to become flawless overnight. The goal was for a flawed man to keep turning back every single time he fails to reach it. That is the whole of the religion in two hadiths: reach for the highest standard, and never let a fall from it become the reason you stop reaching.

Part 7: This Word for a Man Behind These Walls

Brothers, I know some of you carry sins that led here, or sins committed within these walls, that sit on you heavier than any sentence a judge handed down. Some of you replay a single night, a single decision, a single loss of control, and wonder if that moment has permanently placed you outside Allah’s mercy.

This hadith was not written for men with clean records. It was written for son of Adam, meaning every one of us, including the man whose sins reached the clouds and the man whose sins are nearly as great as the earth. Incarceration is not proof that you are beyond Allah. It is not a sentence that runs alongside a second sentence from Allah Himself. If anything, the stillness of this place, away from the noise that used to drown out this question, is where a man finally hears it clearly for the first time: as long as you call upon Me, I will forgive you.

Turning to Allah from inside these walls, tonight, in this room, is itself an answer to His call. It does not erase what a case still owes, or what a victim is still owed, or what time remains on a sentence. But it does mean the door named in this hadith, the one condition of turning to Him without shirk, is open to you exactly as it is open to any free man walking outside these gates. Nothing about a cell changes that door’s hinges.

Except for those who repent, believe, and do righteous work. For them Allah will replace their evil deeds with good ones. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful. (Al-Furqaan, 25:70)

Part 8: The Two Hadiths Together, and a Journey Completed

Brothers, hold these two hadiths side by side, because that is how Imam Nawawi meant them to be read.

Hadith 41 tells you where to aim: bring every desire, anger, lust, ambition, comfort, revenge, under the authority of what the Messenger ﷺ brought. Do not let hawa write your religion.

Hadith 42 tells you what happens the day you miss that mark, which will happen, because every son of Adam misses it. Allah’s mercy is wider than your worst failure, so long as you keep calling on Him and never set up anything beside Him.

This is the final teaching of the whole forty. Reach for the highest standard revelation sets for you. And when you fall short of it, and you will, do not let shame talk you into walking away from the One who is still waiting for you to call. We began this collection with intention, with the hadith that every deed is judged by what stood behind it. We end it here, with the promise that no deed, however heavy, outweighs the mercy of the One who judges it.

O Allah, bring our desires, our anger, our wants, and our fears into submission to what Your Messenger ﷺ brought.

O Allah, do not let our hawa write our religion for us.

O Allah, forgive the sins that reach the clouds and the sins nearly as great as the earth among us.

O Allah, keep our hearts free of shirk in every hidden and open form.

O Allah, let every man behind these walls know that his past does not seal his fate with You.

O Allah, do not let despair keep any of us from calling on You tonight.

O Allah, grant us the discipline of Hadith 41 and the hope of Hadith 42, together, for the rest of our lives.

O Allah, as we complete this journey through the forty hadiths of Imam Nawawi, make what we have learned a means of guidance we actually live, not knowledge we only remember.