Friday Sermon: Stop mocking President Tinubu’s Umrah Ibadah in the name of politics!, By Murtadha Gusau

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

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All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of all worlds, Who sees the hidden secrets of the chest and records every word uttered by the tongue. We send peace and blessings upon the Master of Prophets, Muhammad (Peace be upon him), who warned his Ummah against the destructive nature of the tongue and the violation of sacred symbols.

Dear brothers and sisters! President Bola Ahmed Tinubu performed the Ibadah of Umrah, the lesser Hajj in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, in late October 2026.

During the Umrah trip, President Tinubu and members of his delegation had the rare honour of entering inside the Noble Ka’abah to pray, following a privilege extended by King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

The Nigerian delegation included selected Muslim governors, led by Nigeria Governors’ Forum Chairman AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara State, National Security Advisor Nuhu Ribadu, industrialist Abdul Samad Rabiu, as well as various ministers and government officials.

During the spiritual exercise, President Tinubu prayed for lasting peace, national unity, security, economic progress, and stability in Nigeria. He also urged Nigerians to embrace national diversity as a source of strength.

President Tinubu subsequently departed Saudi Arabia after concluding the visit.

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Dear servants of Allah! Know that this world is a fleeting shadow, and politics is but a shifting game played within its temporary borders. Leaders rise and fall, nations shift, and political allegiances evolve. Yet, there remain certain constants that a Muslim believer must never compromise: the sanctity of acts of worship, the reverence due to the rituals of Allah, and the absolute danger of letting political animosity corrupt the spiritual heart.

A dangerous trend has crept into our discourses—where the sacred is weaponised for worldly rivalries, and the spiritual journeys of individuals are subjected to the mockery of the public square. Specifically, we observe the tongues of many targeting the Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage of our leaders, including President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This sermon is a clarion call, a solemn warning, and a heart-softening admonition to those who let political fervor blind them to spiritual boundaries: To Be careful!

The first and most critical reality to understand is that the Ibadah of Umrah is not a political rally; it is a sacred response to a divine invitation. When a human being—regardless of their political office, their shortcomings, or your personal opinion of their governance—puts on the white sheets of Ihram, cries out “Labbaikallahummah Labbaik”, Here I am, O Allah, at Your service, and circumambulates the Ka’abah, they are engaging in a foundational ritual of Islam.

Allah Almighty states clearly in the Noble Qur’an:

“That is so. And whoever honours the symbols of Allah – indeed, it is from the piety of hearts.” [Qur’an, 22:32]

Conversely, treating these symbols with flippancy or using them as punchlines for political memes borders on a spiritual catastrophe. When you mock a Muslim believer’s presence at the Ka’abah, are you mocking the man, or are you trivialising the place? Are you criticising his policies, or are you scoffing at the act of a servant standing before his Master, Allah?

The tongue is a small organ, but its harvest can drag a person face-down into the fire. Regulate your political speech so that it does not spill over into cosmic arrogance.

Human nature often tempts us to judge the intentions of others, especially those we dislike. In politics, it is easy to dismiss a leader’s pilgrimage as “PR,” “photo-ops,” or “hypocrisy.”

Let us recall the profound ascetic teaching from the life of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and his companions. During a battle, Usamah Bin Zaid (may Allah be pleased with him) faced an enemy soldier who had killed many Muslim believers. Just as Usamah raised his sword to strike him, the man cried out, “La ilaha illallah”, There is no god but Allah. Usamah, believing the man only said it to save his life, struck him down anyway.

When news of this reached the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), his face changed with grief and anger. He turned to Usamah and repeatedly asked:

“Did you split open his heart to see whether he said it sincerely or not?” [Sahih Muslim]

If the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) rebuked a beloved companion for questioning the shahadah and testimony of an active enemy on the battlefield, what gives any commentator, any blogger, any politician, or any citizen the right to peer into the heart of a pilgrim in Makkah and declare his worship invalid? Remember, you do not own the keys to acceptance; Allah Almighty does.

Political dissatisfaction is a right, and holding leaders accountable is a civic and Islamic duty. Islam encourages speaking truth to power and demanding justice. However, when political frustration mutates into blind hatred, it darkens the intellect and ruins spiritual discernment.

Allah the Most High warns the Muslim believers. He says:

“O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for Allah, witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.” [Qur’an, 5:8]

Psychologically, when you mock someone’s prayers or pilgrimage, you are training your mind to view them as sub-human or entirely devoid of good. This is a deception of Iblis, the Satan. A person can be a flawed leader, make economic policies that cause hardship, or govern in a way you deeply disagree with—yet still have a spark of faith that drives them to tears in front of the Ka’abah.

Do not let your political stance rob you of your spiritual objectivity. If a leader goes to seek guidance, forgiveness, or strength at the House of Allah, the mature response of a Muslim believer is to pray that they find it—because a guided, righteous leader benefits the entire nation, while a broken leader leaves everyone vulnerable.

Consider this a final, moving narrative for the soul. The classical scholars of Islam—the ascetics and the righteous—used to fear talking about the sins or spiritual states of others because of a terrifying spiritual law: What you mock in your brother, Allah may test you with before you die.

Imam Ibn al-Qayyim wrote that criticising others for their spiritual vulnerabilities or mocking their relationship with Allah is a sign of self-righteousness. When you look at a leader’s Umrah and sneer, you are implicitly saying, “My worship is pure, but his is fake.” This arrogance destroys your own good deeds.

Imagine standing on the Day of Judgment. You expect to see your prayers, your charity, and your fasts. Instead, you find your scale empty because your good deeds were transferred to the politician you mocked. You handed over your eternal capital in exchange for a few likes, posts, retweets, or laughs in a political WhatsApp group. What a miserable bankruptcy!

Respected brothers and sisters! Let us draw a firm, unbreakable line between political critique and spiritual transgression.

● Critique policies? Yes.

● Demand accountability? Yes.

● Express frustration over governance? Yes.

● Mock the sacred acts of worship, judge intentions, or ridicule a human being standing at the House of Allah? Never.

Turn your tongues away from the sacred boundaries of worship. Protect your own scales of justice. If you see a leader at the Ka’abah, let your heart-softening reminder be:

“Ya Allah, if he is seeking Your face, guide him to justice for the sake of the millions he leads. And if he is lacking, reform his heart, for the reform of the leader is the reform of the Ummah.”

Fellow Nigerians! In recent times, a deeply troubling affliction has manifested within our public discourse—an ailment born of political rivalry that has breached the boundaries of faith. We have witnessed individuals, driven by political differences, resorting to mockery, sarcasm, and ridicule regarding the acts of worship performed by others. Specifically, the spectacle of turning the sacred journey of Umrah—undertaken by leaders, including President Bola Ahmed Tinubu—into a jest for political scoring is a dangerous transgression that requires an immediate, heart-softening warning.

Politics is a worldly endeavour, a sphere of governance, debate, policy, and critique. Critique policies as you wish. Demand accountability as you must. But when you cross the threshold of secular criticism to mock a Muslim believer standing before their Lord in the Haram of Makkah, wallahi you are no longer playing politics. You are playing with your hereafter, your Akhirah!

Allah, the Exalted, issues a severe warning in the Glorious Qur’an regarding those who turn signs of faith or devotion into objects of ridicule. He says:

“If you ask them, they will surely say, ‘We were only conversing and playing.’ Say, ‘Is it Allah and His verses and His Messenger that you were mocking?’ Make no excuse; you have disbelieved after your belief.” [Qur’an, 9:65-66]

The Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) taught us that a person’s heart is a sanctuary known only to the Creator. When a Muslim believer puts on the Ihram, declares “Labbaikallahummah Labbaik,” and circumambulates the Ka’abah, they are answering the call of Prophet Ibrahim (AS). They are standing as a beggar at the door of the Almighty Allah. To reduce that profound spiritual submission into a meme, a punchline, or a weapon of political warfare is to display a terrifying lack of Taqwa and Allah-consciousness.

Remember the words of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him):

“A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim. He does not wrong him, he does not fail him, and he does not humiliate him. Piety is here”—and he pointed to his chest three times—”It is enough evil for a man to humiliate his Muslim brother.” [Sahih Muslim]

Consider the spiritual psychological cost of your actions. When you mock an act of worship, you cultivate a disease of arrogance within your own chest. You convince yourself that your political alignment makes you spiritually superior, or that your disdain for an earthly leader gives you the right to judge their standing before Allah. This is the very arrogance that led Iblis to destruction.

Let the history of our righteous predecessors serve as a moving narrative and an ascetic teaching. They would tremble at the thought of speaking ill of another person’s secret worship. They understood that a leader’s account is with Allah, and a servant’s devotion is private. If you believe a leader is falling short, the Prophetic remedy is sincere supplication and Du’a for their guidance and rectification, not public ridicule of their prayers.

Dear Muslim believers! This is a clarion call par-excellence to purify your hearts. The digital age and the political coliseum have desensitised us. We post, tweet, and share without weighing the weight of our words on the Day of Judgment.

Imagine standing on the Day of Resurrection, a day when every hidden deed is brought to light, and discovering that your good deeds have been transferred to the account of the very politician you despised—all because your tongue and your fingers could not refrain from mocking their pilgrimage. Is a transient political victory worth your eternal ruin?

Turn back to Allah in sincere repentance. Remove the poison of political malice from your spiritual practice. Let us critique with civility, hold to account with justice, but guard the sacred boundaries of Islam with absolute reverence.

Dear brothers and sisters! The Ka’abah is the absolute anchor of the human spirit, a terrestrial mirror of the celestial realm, and the immutable center around which the Muslim believer’s life must revolve. It is not merely a structure of granite and silk; it is the physical manifestation of divine oneness (Tauhid) and the ultimate focal point of human devotion.

When you stand before the Ka’abah, you do not merely look at a building; you stand at the intersection of heaven and earth. Islamic scholars of the heart remind us that the Ka’abah is positioned directly beneath the Baitul-Ma’mur, the most Frequented House in the seventh heaven, where seventy thousand angels circumambulate daily, never to return. When you perform Tawaf, your steps synchronise with the cosmic worship of the angelic host. You become part of a celestial symphony of praise that has echoed since the dawn of creation.

Five times a day, over two billion human beings turn their faces toward this single point on Earth. This is not an empty ritual; it is a psychological anchor. No matter how fractured, chaotic, or confusing your day has been, the moment you turn toward the Qiblah, you are choosing order over chaos. You are uniting your heart with millions of Muslim believers across time and space. The Ka’abah is our ultimate anchor of unity—a reminder that despite our different languages, cultures, and flaws, we share one heartbeat, one direction, and one Destination.

While the Ka’abah holds an unparalleled, sacred status, the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) looked at it and delivered a profound truth that should shake every soul. He said:

“How great you are and how great is your sanctity! Yet, the sanctity of a Muslim believer is even greater in the sight of Allah than you.” [Sunan Ibn Majah]

This is the ultimate Islamic insight: The Ka’abah was built to direct the human heart to Allah, but the human heart itself is the vessel that holds Iman (faith). To disrespect, oppress, or break the heart of a fellow Muslim believer is a greater violation than tearing down the stones of the Ka’abah. We must honour the House of Allah, but we must also honour the servants of Allah.

Stop living a life without a center. If your life feels scattered, it is because you have placed your desires, your anxieties, or your worldly career at the core of your existence.

Reset your spiritual compass. Let your daily prayers be your personal Tawaf around the commands of Allah. Turn your face, your heart, and your ambitions toward the King of Kings, Allah. Just as the Ka’abah stands firm, unmoving amidst the millions who rush around it, let your faith remain unshakable amidst the turbulent storms of this life.

Dear servants of Allah! Know that the minor pilgrimage, the Umrah, is not a vacation. It is not a tourism of sight, but a migration of the soul. It is a divine invitation issued by the King of kings, Allah, to those He chooses to forgive.

When you intend Umrah, you enter the state of Ihram. You strip away the garments of status, wealth, and ego. You shroud yourself in two simple pieces of white cloth, stepping out of the world and into the rehearsal of your own resurrection. You stand equal to millions, declaring with your body and your breath that you own nothing, and that Allah Almighty owns everything.

The position of Umrah in Islam is the position of an absolute spiritual erasure. The Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) declared that:

“Alternate between Hajj and Umrah, for they remove poverty and sins just as the bellows remove impurities from iron, gold, and silver.”

And he said:

“An Umrah to another Umrah is an expiation for whatever sins occur between them.”

Umrah is the ultimate weapon of the Muslim believer against despair. When the weight of the world crushes your chest, when your sins feel like mountains, and when your heart feels hardened by the illusions of this temporary life, Umrah is the divine reset button. It is the place where tears do not represent weakness, but the washing away of a heavy past.

Think of the Tawaf. You circumambulate the Ka’abah—the visual center of your entire earthly existence. Seven times you orbit the house of Allah, aligning the beating of your heart with the axis of Islamic monotheism. Every step is a heartbeat. Every circle is a declaration that Allah is the center of your universe, your thoughts, your family, and your destiny.

Think of the Sa’yi. You run between Safa and Marwa, retracing the desperate, unyielding trust of Hajar. It is the ultimate psychological and physical manifestation of Tawakkul, the reliance on Allah Almighty. You run in the valley of your struggles, crying out to the Heavens, knowing that when the means of this world fail you, the Lord of the heavens will cause Zamzam to gush forth from beneath your feet.

You arrive burdened. You leave unburdened. You arrive captive to your desires. You leave emancipated. When you shave or trim your hair at the completion of your rites, you are shedding the final remnants of your old self. You step out of the Haram as a newborn soul, clothed in mercy, enveloped in peace, and armed with an unbreakable connection to your Creator, Allah.

Do not delay the call. If your wealth allows and your body is able, answer the invitation of your Lord. Let your tears flow upon the sacred gravel. Let your voice rise with the Talbiyah: “Labbaikallahummah Labbaik—Here I am, O Allah, here I am!”

And finally, know that, mocking the religion of Allah is not a casual slip of the tongue; it is a profound spiritual catastrophe that instantly nullifies faith. In an era where sacred symbols such as Umrah are reduced to punchlines and divine decrees are bartered for social validation, the Muslim believer must confront a sobering reality: treating Islam as a jest is a definitive exit from its fold.

The Creator of the cosmos has established boundaries that are absolute. The verses of Allah, His names, the character of His Messenger (Peace be upon him), and the pillars of His law are the bedrock of human existence. When these are mocked, it signals a deeper, terrifying pathology—the death of Taqwa and Allah-consciousness, and the total absence of reverence in the heart.

The gravity of this sin is perfectly illustrated in an incident during the Campaign of Tabuk. A group of individuals, sitting in a gathering, casually remarked about the reciters of the Noble Qur’an. They said:

“We have not seen anyone like these reciters of ours—they have the biggest appetites, the most untruthful tongues, and are the most cowardly in the face of the enemy.”

A companion, recognising the poison in these words, immediately called them out as hypocrites and reported the matter. The men rushed to the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) as he was mounting his camel, clutching at his stirrups, pleading:

“O Messenger of Allah, we were only talking idly and jesting to pass the time on the journey!”

The divine response was immediate, terrifying, and eternal. Allah the Most High says:

“And if you ask them, they will surely say, ‘We were only conversing and playing.’ Say, ‘Is it Allah and His verses and His Messenger that you were mocking?’ Make no excuse; you have disbelieved after your belief.” [Qur’an, 9:65–66]

Notice the psychological reality: they did not intend to wage war against Islam; they intended to make a joke. Yet Allah did not accept their excuse of “casual humour.” Idolising entertainment over the Almighty strips away the garment of Iman.

The Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) warned us of this exact psychological desensitisation. He said:

“A servant may speak a word entirely half-heartedly, not realising its gravity, and because of it, he plummets into the Fire of Hell further than the distance between the East and the West.” [Al-Bukhari]

To protect your soul from this spiritual erosion, you must actively implement three boundaries:

1.⁠ ⁠Guard Your Tongue and Screen

Treat the Sunnah, the Umrah, the Ka’abah, the Hijab, the Beard, the Prayer, and the Islamic scholars with absolute sanctity. If a joke compromises these, it is toxic.

2.⁠ ⁠The Power of Departure

If you sit in a gathering—online or offline—where Islam is ridiculed, walk away. Remaining silent is complicity. Allah Almighty says:

“…do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation. Indeed, you would then be like them.” [Qur’an, 4:140]

3.⁠ ⁠Renew Your Awe

Constantly study the Majesty of Allah. The more you know Him, the more impossible it becomes to ever laugh at a joke made at His expense.

● The Bottom Line

Do not trade the eternal honour of being a servant of Allah for a cheap laugh. Protect your reverence, safeguard your tongue, and hold fast to the sacred.

May Allah open the doors to His Sacred House for every longing heart, cleanse us of our shortcomings, and accept from us our worship.

Ya Allah! Rectify our leaders and rectify our followers. Purify our hearts from hypocrisy, arrogance, and malice. Guide our tongues to speak only what is true and pleasing to You. Protect us from mocking Your signs and Your worship.

May Allah purify our hearts from rancour, safeguard our tongues from arrogance, and grant us the wisdom to balance our worldly concerns with our eternal obligations. Ameen.

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May the peace, blessings and salutations of Allah be upon our noble Messenger, Muhammad, and upon his family, his Companions and his true followers.

Murtadha Muhammad Gusau is the Chief Imam of Nagazi-Uvete Jumu’ah and the late Alhaji Abdur-Rahman Okene’s Mosques, Okene, Kogi State, Nigeria. He can be reached via: [email protected] or +2348038289761 or +2348024192217.

This Jumu’ah Khutbah (Friday sermon) was prepared for delivery today, Friday, Jumadal Ula 26, 1448 AH (November 06, 2026).

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