"A man whose heart is attached to the mosques."
If the earlier parts
of this series have spoken about images, events, workers and the next carriers,
then this part is about a different kind of responsibility altogether: the
responsibility of simply loving the masjid, living for it, and letting your life
orbit around the house of Allah.
Not as an imam.
Not as a famous speaker.
Just as a servant of the masjid.
We often imagine “big” responsibility as something that happens on the microphone or in meetings. But Allah has placed a different kind of weight on the shoulders of those who quietly unlock the doors, clean the wudū’ area, wipe the bathroom floors, watch the children at home-time, and keep the maktab system ticking. Without them, all our programmes, talks and projects would not even get off the ground.
The Qur’an speaks about “ʿimārat al-masājid” – building, maintaining and enlivening the mosques of Allah. That isn’t only bricks and carpets; it is the human beings who move in and out of those spaces with love. The Prophet ﷺ described the one whose heart is attached to the masjid as one of the seven types shaded on the Day of Judgement. That attachment is not only about praying there, but also about caring for the place where others will pray.
Responsibility, in that sense, can be as simple, and as heavy, as refusing to let the house of Allah be neglected.
I have seen this up close in Masjid Noor, Old Trafford. For me, that building will always be remembered alongside one particular person: our elder who everyone knew as “Abdul Moli-sāb” though he was not a Maulana, we as children and young people still gave him that honourable title out of love and respect.
Every time I visited, he was there. It didn’t matter if it was a weekday evening, a programme, a dars, a random visit, somehow, he was part of the picture. Sometimes you would find him near the entrance, sometimes in the office, sometimes moving about the corridors, sometimes with cleaning things in his hands. He was not “the imam,” but he was part of the masjid’s heartbeat.
And every time, there was a pattern: he would ask for duʿā.
Not once in a while; every time.
A sincere, simple request: “Make duʿā for me.” Often, he would put sadaqah in my hand with that same request. It wasn’t a dramatic scene, just an elder who knew where the real transaction lies: between him and Allah. He didn’t want a platform; he wanted to be in people’s supplications.
It was said about him that he kept a regular practice of reading durūd sharīf thousands of times two thousand salawāt a day. While others saw him as the caretaker, Allah knows how much of his day was spent sending blessings on Rasulullāh ﷺ, how many quiet tears fell in those routines.
He loved the masjid, and he loved the people of dīn. So many ʿulamā’ and teachers passed through that building over the decades, and he was there supporting the maktab system: dealing with the practicalities, helping with the children, keeping the place ready. Generations of students, many of whom are now scholars, imams and teachers themselves, benefitted from an environment he helped look after.
When his janāzah took place, the turnout said what his tongue never did. The masjid was overflowing, even more than on Jumuʿah. People left work, rearranged their day, travelled in, just to stand in that saff and say “Allāhu Akbar” behind his bier. Men who had been children in the maktab days, families from the neighbourhood, elders, youth, scholars, they all came.
It brought to mind the famous line from Imām Aḥmad رحمه الله:
“Between us and you are the funerals.”
In the end, the janāzah often speaks more clearly than any biography. You see who Allah placed love for in people’s hearts. You see whose life quietly touched more souls than anyone realised.
There is also a hadith that kept echoing for me: when a man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said that he loved certain righteous people but did not feel he had reached their deeds, the Prophet ﷺ replied:
«المرءُ مع من أحب»
“A person will be with those he loves.”
Our elder was not called “Mufti” or “Shaykh,” but he spent his life loving the masjid, loving the people of Qur’an and dīn, loving those who taught and those who learned. If he is resurrected in their company, it will not be because of a title in front of his name, but because of that love and that service.
This is part of what “reality of responsibility” means: not only the big decisions and visible work, but the decision to attach your heart to a masjid and never really detach. To be the person who is “always there,” even when you are old and tired. To scrub the places nobody wants to enter. To stand outside in the cold until the last child is collected. To think about the maktab and the classes as your own amānah, even if you never stand at the front of a classroom.
For the rest of us, his life is a mirror. We speak a lot about khidmah. Are we actually attached to one masjid enough to serve it year in, year out, without applause? We speak about loving the ʿulamā’ and callers to Allah. Do we do anything practical that makes their work easier? We talk about wanting to die in a state that pleases Allah. Do we build a pattern of actions that would make people fill the masjid in duʿā for us when we go?
In the earlier parts of this series, I spoke about guarding īmān instead of images, building formation instead of fanfare, protecting the hearts of workers, and preparing the next carriers. Someone like our elder shows what all of that looks like when it is translated into one lifetime: no brand, no big platform – just a deep, stubborn attachment to the house of Allah and the people who walk through its doors.
That is a type of responsibility too. Maybe one of the most important types.
If there is a takeaway from this part, it is a simple one: choose a masjid and love it. Love it with your duʿā, with your time, with your money, with your effort. Look for the hidden jobs and take them on. Support the maktab. Protect the children. Honour the ʿulamā’. Be content if nobody ever knows your name, but beg Allah to remember you among those whose hearts were attached to His house.
And as we remember our elder, we ask Allah to accept every step he took to and from that masjid, every coin of sadaqah, every drop of water he used to clean an area for others’ worship, every salāt upon the Prophet ﷺ he whispered, every duʿā he asked for and every duʿā he made.
May Allah grant him Jannat al-Firdaws, expand and illuminate his grave, and place him in the company of those whom he loved: the righteous, the sincere servants of the dīn, the people of masājid and Qur’an. And may He give us a share of that same path of quiet khidmah, so that when our own janāzah is prayed, it will be something that testifies for us, not against us.
