Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

بَدَأَ الإِسْلاَمُ غَرِيبًا وَسَيَعُودُ غَرِيبًا فَطُوبَى لِلْغُرَبَاءِ ‏‏ Abu Huraira (R) reported: Rasoolullahﷺ said, “Islam began as something strange, and it will return to being strange, so blessed are the strangers.” Ibn Majah (Kitab Al-Fitan) In a world based on oppression, courage is strange. In a world based on amassing personal wealth, charity is strange. In a world where net worth means dollars, net worth meaning character is strange. In a world ruled by merchants of death, saving lives is strange. In a world where making money is the goal, the means be damned; virtue is strange. Therefore, blessed are the strangers because they struggle for a world where charity, character, courage, virtue, and kindness will be the standard. This is Islam. We Muslims are like those on a sailing ship, caught in a storm. As the captain of such a ship, there are two paradoxical things that you must be able to do well. Be aware of the forces that are trying to sink you as well as be disconnected enough from them to be able to focus on the best way to navigate your way out of the storm. If you ignore the forces around you to focus, they will sink you. If you get distracted by what the forces throw at you, and lose focus on the goal, that will sink you just as fast. Time is of the essence and urgency is a competitive advantage. That is the difficulty – how to be aware, yet emotionally disconnected. Emotional reactions, no matter how justified, always lead to bad decisions. Seerah is the answer. Suleh Hudaybiyya is Rasoolullahﷺ’s Master Class in dealing with this dichotomy. First a quick essential history lesson. The proliferation of nation states started after WW2. That is a reference point for us to understand that the Nation State is still very much a WIP project and is by no means complete. https://madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil/180-the-evolution-of-nation-states-and-their-role-in-the-future/ Add to this the complexity of the MNC some of which are wealthier than many Nation States – Amazon at $1 trillion (in 2018) would be #17 in rank if it were a country – and therefore what such companies and those who own them can do to impact global politics is a very important aspect to consider. Given the increasingly important and powerful role of online technology including AI and the enormous resources that these companies wield, it would be extremely naïve to imagine that they wouldn’t want to influence present and future markets. This will lead to a new form of colonialism which will be far more pervasive, insidious, and powerful than anything we have seen in the past. Here people’s minds will be the playgrounds and we will voluntarily allow them to use ours to make profit for their owners. FB and Insta members are already doing it. More will follow. The Nation State idea differs from empires principally because for the first time common people were given a voice in law making. Like all WIP projects it is far from perfect but from our perspective as common people it is a very big step in our development which must be cherished and supported. The alternative is dictatorship. The biggest strength in times like this is to have a historical perspective and as clear an idea as possible about the best way forward. To do that effectively we must be prepared to face facts squarely without any sugar coating. If you can’t diagnose the disease, you can’t prescribe or implement the cure. You can’t diagnose with your eyes blindfolded. So, here’s a no-praise-no-blame view as I interpret the history of our people. You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. It’s your choice. Let me choose three crore areas to analyze broadly and suggest alternatives: Education, Leadership, and Muslim Society. Education: The biggest calamity that happened to education was the separation of religious education from modern education. It happened originally after the brutal suppression of Muslims in Baghdad, Al-Andalus and India, and the genocide of Ulama but continued primarily because teachers in Madaaris didn’t know science, math, or English. English, whether we like it or not, is the language of global communication today. Without English the doors of much of the world remain shut, no matter how learned or creative you may be. Thus, the gulf between Islamic and other knowledge was established and grew. The same restriction of curriculum and teaching methodology happened in the Arab world with similar results. Regular schools removed all reference to the Creator and taught science as if there was no Creator. While Madrassas taught the Qur’an as if there is no creation. Roughly from the 18th century onwards, Muslims lost the race of scientific discovery and invention and are not even contenders anymore. The so-called golden age of Islamic science (from the 8th to the 15th century) took place in centers throughout the Islamic world, such as Al-Andalus, the Near East, Central and West Asia, Turkey, and India. In contrast since 190

Link to TikTok video mentioned: https://www.tiktok.com/@gems_of_islam/video/7324759208069516550

أَفَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِبَعْضِ ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ وَتَكْفُرُونَ بِبَعْضٍ فَمَا جَزَآءُ مَن يَفْعَلُ ذَٰلِكَ مِنكُمْ إِلَّا خِزْىٌ فِى ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَيَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ يُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰٓ أَشَدِّ ٱلْعَذَابِ وَمَا ٱللَّهُ بِغَـٰفِلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ Baqara 2: 85….Do you believe in some of the Scripture and reject the rest? Is there any reward for those who do so among you other than disgrace in this worldly life and being subjected to the harshest punishment on the Day of Judgment? For Allah is never unaware of what you do.

Link to the article discussed: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-human-condition/202401/life-doesnt-make-sense

This Khutba is a summation of the 7 Khutab titled ‘The Way Forward’. Here, I am going to highlight the action points only. I will begin with my gift to you, which is my own motto: “I will not allow what is not in my control to prevent me from doing what is in my control.” This is based on the reality that when we stand before Allahﷻ, we will not be asked, ‘What happened?’ But we will be asked, ‘What did you do?’ Get ready for the long haul.This is a generational project so the sooner we start the better. Never give up because the balance will tip.It just requires sustained effort. Work only for the pleasure of Allahﷻ. For any building to take shape, first, you need rocks who are willing to go into the foundation and be buried, never to be seen again, known only to the builder but nobody else. We must be ready to be those rocks so that the Muslim Ummah may be reconstructed. Let us remember that victory and defeat is only decided at the end and is not decided by who is left standing, but by which side you stood on. All great successes are built on skin in the game; what you do yourself and take the pain that comes with it. Excellence is the capacity to take pain. Legends are not defined by their successes but by how they bounce back from their failures. If ever there was a legend in the truest and most noble sense of the term, it was Rasoolullahﷺ. Nothing illustrates these principles better than his journey to At-Ta’aif. In the 10th year of Revelation, Rasoolullahﷺ decided to go to At-Ta’aif, to present Islam to the Banu Thaqeef. At that time, many of the biggest names among the Sahaba had already accepted Islam. Abu Bakr, Hamza bin Abdul Muttalib, Omar ibn Al Khattab, Othman ibn Affan, Ali bin Abi Talib (RA) and others were all Muslim and would have given anything to be entrusted with the job of taking the message of Islam to the Banu Thaqeef. But Rasoolullahﷺ didn’t give it to any of them but went himself, with just one companion, Zaib bin Haritha (R). We all know the story of the journey and all that happened during it, but if we talk about personal commitment to the cause demonstrated by action, there’s no finer example. As for resilience, Rasoolullahﷺ’s dua after leaving At-Ta’aif is testimony to his faith and Tawakkul on Allahﷻ. This is the very essence of Islam and the standard which we must compare ourselves to. After all it is the same Allahﷻ that we worship. But we have changed. He begins with: O Allah! To You alone I complain of my helplessness, the scarcity of my resources and my insignificance before mankind. You are the most Merciful of the merciful. You are the Rabb of the helpless and the weak, O Rabb of mine! And he ends his dua with: May it never be that I should incur Your anger, or that You should be angry with me. And there is no power nor resource, but Yours alone. This is the essence and the most beautiful example of Taqwa and Tawakkul that I can imagine. To always be focused on the pleasure of Allahﷻ alone. Imagine his situation. He had been walking for about three days to At-Ta’aif. There he and Zaid bin Haritha (R) had been attacked and reviled because of which both had been injured and were bleeding profusely. His emotional injuries were clearly much worse. He was a scion of the most honorable tribe in the Hijaz and descendent of its most honorable chief – Abdul Muttalib. He was famous and honored among all people before he announced Islam. He was a brave warrior, the Messengerﷺ of Allahﷻ who was on a mission as directed by His Rabb to invite people to Islam. He had a right to expect Allahﷻ’s help and protection. Yet when he reached At-Ta’aif, he didn’t see the help of Allahﷻ or His protection. He was insulted, reviled in public, attacked, and was injured and had to flee his persecutors. He knew that His Rabb was witness to what was happening and had the power to stop it and to punish the attackers. Yet Allahﷻ did nothing. There is no example of Ridha bil Qadha that I can imagine, that can be better than this. How would that have affected any other person? The Seerah is a treasure beyond value. Everything begins with building our connection with Allahﷻ and constantly strengthening it. Remaining connected is the key. That requires charging the battery of the heart with Dhikr, Shukr, and Sabr and seeing both plenty and difficulty, ease, and pain as tests from Allahﷻ. Our approach to both must be the same i.e., Istighfaar, Tawba, and keeping Allahﷻ’s pleasure foremost in dealing with the situation that life presents us with. Rasoolullahﷺ did three things when he came to Madina from Makkah. (1) He created a nation based on faith and not tribe. (2) He created a perineal source of funds and (3) a structure of leadership. This was the formula which gave the early Muslim community stupendous success and changed their state from being oppressed and despised to becoming the leaders of their world. This is the formula that we must replicate in our world today. Let us remember that knowledge is

What distinguishes people who never experienced subjugation from those with a collective memory of empire and subjugation, is their willingness to speak up, fight for their rights and to pay for what they enjoy, while the others only complain but do nothing to change the situation. This is the ‘learned helplessness’ of people whose bodies are free, but minds remain enslaved. To own responsibility for our destiny, and work and pay for what is important is a sign of a free mind and emotional maturity. The solution to the copout of globalizing is to localize. If you can’t feed a hundred, feed one. Ask, ‘What can I do?’ And then, do it. Because when we meet Allahﷻ, we will not be asked, ‘What happened?’ We will be asked, ‘What did you do?’ The Arabs of the Hijaz in the 7th century were not subjugated to any empire. They had no king. Their millionaires used to meet in a hall called An-Nadwa to decide on emergent issues. They didn’t have a codified law or judicial system. They had no rulers and bowed to no man. That is why it was easy for them to accept responsibility for taking Islam to the ends of the earth. Abu Sa’id al-Khudri (R) reported that Rasoolullahﷺ ordered us to act to stop injustice. Change it or speak out. The third ‘option’ is a reprimand. عَنْ أَبِي سَعِيدٍ الْخُدْرِيّ قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ مَنْ رَأَى مِنْكُمْ مُنْكَرًا فَلْيُغَيِّرْهُ بِيَدِهِ فَإِنْ لَمْ يَسْتَطِعْ فَبِلِسَانِهِ فَإِنْ لَمْ يَسْتَطِعْ فَبِقَلْبِهِ وَذَلِكَ أَضْعَفُ الْإِيمَانِ “Whoever among you sees evil, let him change it with his hand. If he cannot do so, then with his tongue. If he cannot do so, then with his heart, which is the weakest level of faith.” This was the speech of a man free in body, mind, and spirit. A man who was subjugated to nobody but Allahﷻ. And he told us to take charge of our lives, stop blaming others, and work to make things better. Today our biggest challenge is to reboot our mindsets and learn to think about the community as one and work together to change our lives and destiny. Each of us must learn to pull his weight and not wait for someone else to bleed for us. Muslims are 1.1% of the population in this country. There is no way that any Muslim can ever get elected to the Congress or Senate unless others vote for them. The only way for that to happen is by winning hearts. Our isolationist way of life is suicide. But what do we do about winning hearts? If we want to be taken seriously, we must stand for elected office at the local, state, and national level. Ask how many Muslims are Mayors, Aldermen, State Senators, and on School Boards? Yet we complain that nobody cares about us. Are you surprised? We must encourage our youngsters to make career choices that are different from what they do today. We don’t need more Muslim doctors and engineers. We need more Muslim Senators and Reps. The two paths are different. We must support our youth by working with them to build credibility. And by setting up an endowment fund to support their choice of career. We must accept that only we can save ourselves. But sadly, we hate anyone who tries to awaken us from our stupor. We will not invest what is necessary to change our situation and are satisfied with ‘doing at least something’. Sorry to disappoint you. ‘At least something’, is not from the Qur’an. It is not Sunnah. It is not what the Sahaba did. It is not only useless, but worse than useless because it gives a false impression of action and success. It takes the edge off the pain which is necessary to motivate us to do more than usual. It will never take us to the tipping point and so the scale will never tip for us. We must check what is necessary and do that. If you need to clear a 10-foot trench, you must leap 10.5 feet. If you leap 9.5 feet and say, ‘At least I did something,’ you will be speaking from the bottom of the pit. That is the truth, and you know it. Therefore ask, “If not now, then when? If not me, then who?” There are three major changes that happened after the end of empire and the rise of nation states as we know them. One was the creation of the Middle Class. This was the result of two things: the demise of nobility and class hierarchy and the rise of egalitarianism and free market economies. Much can be said about the defects in all of these, as can be said about any human enterprise. Only the work of Allahﷻ is perfect. But defects and all, these changes gave political significance and opportunity to the common man. That is the single biggest change from the days of empire. And that is what must be leveraged. For the first time you didn’t have to be born into a royal or noble family to have a say in public affairs. You could be from any background but if you managed to get elected to office, you could make laws, and change the path of destiny for populations. Therefore ask, ‘What can I do to get there?’ It is a numbers game. You need critical mass to tip the scale. And so the sooner we start, the

Related content: https://yawarbaig.com/loneliness-kills/ https://yawarbaig.com/kill-loneliness-before-it-kills-you/ Loneliness epidemic: https://youtu.be/I19btmIBhx0

Most of us are historically illiterate and our cherry-picking approach to history ensures illiteracy. However, our lives won’t change until we learn lessons from history and break out of the vicious cycles that we are caught up in. We don’t learn the lessons because we can’t differentiate between critiquing and critical analysis and criticizing. We have no capacity to objectively analyze incidents in history without either hero-worshiping those involved or trashing them. People who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. That is what we are doing today, both globally and locally in our organizations. We do the same with each other and have this insane, unspoken rule – For me to love you and be your friend, you must agree with everything I say. We must develop the capacity to not only accept dissent but to encourage it and learn to disagree without being disagreeable. We must not only accept those who disagree with us, but value them, because they help us to look at another side of our pet theory. Without that it is very easy to blind ourselves to reality until we meet it face to face and realize that it is the face of Malakul Mawth. Here's a short history lesson. Since the late 7th century, Muslims have lived in empires and have imbibed the culture of feudal subjugation. First the Banu Umayya (661-750). Then the Banu Abbas (750-1258). After that arose three great Muslim empires, the Safavid (1736), the Mughals (1857), and the Ottomans (1927). Today most Muslims live in democratic non-Muslim countries. The dynamics of society, opportunities for development, citizen’s rights, and obligations, have all changed. If we still want to live in the fantasy of empire, we will be discarded. It is time to wake up and face the reality of our existence today that we are far better off than we were under empires. Let me share my perception through the lenses of political science, and psychology. Emotional maturity is the process of changing our mindset from – Others are responsible for me – to – I am responsible for myself and others. So, are we adults or still children? In (Transactional Analysis) Eric Berne calls it the Parent-Child Ego State. The Parent is ‘authority’, and the Child feels powerless and blames authority for whatever happens to him. It is always someone else’s fault. To mature emotionally is to break out of this cycle and become Adults. Most people are physically adults but emotionally still Children looking to the Parent, to solve their problems. Let’s do a self-check. What is your greatest, most urgent desire? Job? Car? House? Marriage? Holiday? Umrah? What is it? Things for ourselves or for the Ummah? That’s why they say, ‘The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.’ The sign of emotional maturity is to think of others. The finest examples of this were the Anbiya. At the end of his life when Rasoolullahﷺ was passing away, Jibreel (AS) came to inform him that Allahﷻ wanted to meet him. Rasoolullahﷺ didn’t ask about the future of his family. He asked Jibreel (AS), ‘What will happen to my Ummah?’ Concern for others is the sign that we have matured. Concern means action. Without action it is only words; useless, powerless, and worthless. So, the next question is, ‘If you claim to be concerned about the Ummah, what are you doing about it?’ We had a self-test last week, the 25-mile march for Ceasefire in Palestine. It was an opportunity to see our faces in the mirror. You know if you participated or not. You know why and why not. However, let me remind you that the march was organized by Jewish Voices for Peace under the leadership of a college student, Molly Aronson. Ask why? In material terms what happens in Palestine makes no difference to her. And doing this resulted in paying a very heavy price. Yet she did it knowingly. So, on the Day of Judgment when she and we will be asked, ‘What did you do?’ she will have an answer. What will the answer be for those who didn’t participate? That is what growing up means. That is what true freedom and dignity means. To step out of our comfort zone and do something for someone when we are not personally affected by the hardship. Our parenting, oppressive governments, our schooling system, all contribute to delaying maturity and prolonging childish thinking and behavior. To change our future, we must grow up. This means to simply ask one question, ‘What can I do?’ It means that every one of us must donate time, energy, thought, prayer, and money to things that help us all as a community and not expect some authority figure, government, philanthropic people, or institutions to do it for us. Empire and slavery ingrain the Child into us. Globally, that is the state of Muslims today. We must break our mental shackles and take charge of our destiny. Allahﷻ told us that He blessed us so much that we can’t count his blessings. وَءَاتَىٰكُم مِّن كُلِّ مَا سَأَلْتُمُوهُ وَإِن تَعُدُّوا۟ نِعْمَتَ ٱللَّهِ لَا تُحْصُوهَآ إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ لَ

My brothers and sisters, in these series of my 7 – Khutab called, ‘The way forward’, I will try to define for you the problem that we Muslims face globally and to suggest the way forward to a solution. There are two critical things which you must remember as you listen to me. One, that we didn’t reach this state of being overnight. And therefore, neither is the solution going to work overnight. It is not magic. Second, the only way for the solution to work is if all of us commit to working with total sincerity and enthusiasm to create the solution and continue to work even though many of us will not see any change. It is the theory of the tipping point to which I will return in my 7th Khutba. I just want to highlight this now and ask you to make dua that Allahﷻ gives us the Istiqama (perseverance) to succeed. We are living in a revolution, but it is perhaps not what you may think. Let me explain. We are living today in times that I call, ‘Forks in history’. Forking times in history are characterized by turmoil. Epidemics, wars, economic collapse, political instability, civil war and so on. But it is precisely for that reason that the foundations of the structures of society are shaken, and for a short time, it is given into the hands of ordinary people to change the path of destiny. The Industrial Revolution (1760-1840), the War of Independence in India (1857), the American Civil War (1861-65), the 1st and 2nd World Wars, the Great Depression of 1930 which ended with WW2 in 1939 which shows that endings are not always happy. All these are markers in history of changes in paths of destiny. There were others but this list will suffice for us to see how the decisions of people of the time, leaders, and followers, changed the path of destiny for others. We don’t have the time to do an analysis of each of these events to point out what the decisions were. But we must do it because today as I mentioned, we are living in another revolution and what we choose to do or not to do, will define the path of destiny for coming generations. Believe me, our destiny is in our hands. In the hands of adults. Not in the hands of children or the youth. It is we adults who created this society and we adults who can act to change it. That is why Rasoolullahﷺ focused on teaching adults. Children learn from adults, be those parents, teachers, or others. What they learn, they teach their children. So, be careful about what you teach your children. Children listen with their eyes. They don’t care what you say until they see what you do. We Muslims globally are like a ship caught in a storm. Battered by winds and ocean currents, striving to drive it onto rocks. As captains of such a ship, we must do two paradoxical things simultaneously. Be aware of the hostile forces that surround us, yet not allow them to distract us from our goal of navigating the ship safely out of the storm. The good news is that all storms end. The bad news is that any storm can sink a ship where the captain has no idea about the destination or how to get there. Navigation, whether it is of ships or of life, must be learnt. This means that in order to learn, we must spend time and effort with teachers who know what to teach and how. It is not instant coffee and won’t happen in your spare time. This is the choice that each one of us must make. Because it is we who will have to live our lives. If you think learning takes too long and is too expensive, try ignorance. Our biggest problem today is the absence of viable alternatives to leadership. Our challenge is to produce ethical, moral, global leaders. Without that the world is doomed. It is as simple as that. We are fed and most of us believe and have internalized the myth that technology and wealth can solve all our problems. But both are value neutral tools. Neither good nor evil. It is the mind that decides how to use them and so it is the mind that we must work on. The biggest and most important change that has happened is that today, and especially in this country, we live in times when the voice of the ordinary individual is heard. Not every individual, but those who are elected to office. And that process of election is open to everyone, especially at the local level. The question to ask is how many of us take the trouble to get elected? Election doesn’t happen by magic but by first getting visibility through social work. Through helping people, participating in public projects, working with people across boundaries of race, religion, and culture. It happens by changing our isolationist ways and getting involved in our communities. It happens by thinking of where we live as OUR community. If you want a metric to see where we are on this index, see how many people participate in our Hunger Walk, Town Cleaning Drive, Black Lives Matter protests, and Food Pantries. See how many of us participate in interfaith work. Please add to this list and see what you can say about yourself. Ask yourself how many of us ha

Video of the reminder: https://youtu.be/mb4vgF-EqSI

If I must die,you must liveto tell my storyto sell my thingsto buy a piece of clothand some strings,(make it white with a long tail)so that a child, somewhere in Gazawhile looking heaven in the eyeawaiting his dad who left in a blaze–and bid no one farewellnot even to his fleshnot even to himself–sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up aboveand thinks for a moment an angel is therebringing back loveIf I must dielet it bring hopelet it be a taleLast poem of Refaat Alareer, academic, writer, poet, and the voice of Gaza for the English-speaking world. He died with his family yesterday. We live in troubled times, a huge sign of which is the very sharp increase in mental illness of different kinds. Ranging from anxiety to much more serious ailments, resulting at the extreme in despair and suicide. In 2021, 48,183Americans died by suicide and there were 1.7 million suicide attempts. An estimated 49,449 people died by suicide in 2022. The rate of suicide is highest in middle-aged white men, the most privileged section of the population who accounted for 69.68% of suicide deaths in 2021. The strange thing is that this is happening in the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world. While in Palestine there are no suicides. Not one. People are being massacred but they have set such an example of Ridha bil Qadha and Shukr that it has become the reason for a lot of people converting to Islam. We don’t know what Allahﷻ has decreed for Palestine and Palestinians, but if we look beyond the material visible world, we will be able to see the gates of Jannah open above Gaza and the angels escorting the souls of the Shuhada into everlasting grace and beauty. We will be able to smell the perfume of the most beautiful musk as the curtains between the A’alam ush Shahada and A'alam ul Ghayb are parted for those who Allahﷻ chose to honor. Like it happened with the Mongols, who destroyed Baghdad and the Abbasi Khilafa and then became Muslim and became the defenders of Islam, the West which is blindly supporting genocide will wake up as it sees the true strength and power of the human being, which is not in weapons or money but in heart and spirit. As someone said, ‘Courage is made in Palestine.’ Our Palestinian brothers and sisters are demonstrating a level of this, which I am not sure, has ever been seen in the history of humankind. To mention just one clip I saw, a journalist asks a Palestinian man, ‘You have no bread, no water, no electricity. How will you live?’ The man smiles, looks up at the heavens, raises his index finger and says, ‘But we have Allahﷻ.’ You can see the wonder on the face of the journalist. The reality is that you can’t kill someone who refuses to die. Because death is not the death of the body but the death of the heart and spirit. The body will perish, no matter where we live. But the heart and spirit live and die by different rules. They live when they are connected to Allahﷻ and a weakness in that connection makes them sick and a break, kills them. The response of the Palestinian brother points to the meaning of real wealth. Truly Rasoolullahﷺ would have been proud of these people. I remember the Hadith of Rasoolullahﷺ in Musnad Ahmed. عَنْ أَنَسِ بْنِ مَالِكٍ قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَدِدْتُ أَنِّي لَقِيتُ إِخْوَانِي قَالَ فَقَالَ أَصْحَابُ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ أَوَلَيْسَ نَحْنُ إِخْوَانَكَ قَالَ أَنْتُمْ أَصْحَابِي وَلَكِنْ إِخْوَانِي الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِي وَلَمْ يَرَوْنِي Anas ibn Malik (R) reported: Rasoolullahﷺ said, “I wish I could meet my brothers.” The Sahaba said, “Are we not your brothers?” Rasoolullahﷺ said, “You are my Sahaba, but my brothers are those who have faith in me, yet they never saw me.” Wallahi, this Hadith belongs to the Palestinians in Gaza In-sha-Allah. Allahﷻ mentioned those who know Him and love Him and said: ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَتَطْمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُم بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ أَلَا بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ ٱلْقُلُوبُ Ra’ad 13: 28 those who believe and whose hearts find comfort in the remembrance of Allah. Surely in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find comfort. Let us see what Dhikr of Allahﷻ does and how it produces peace of mind. The word Dhikr means to remember. This implies that we know the one we are remembering. You can’t remember anything or anyone the first time you encounter them. So, do we know Allahﷻ? I don’t mean, know about. I mean, know. Knowing about deals with the intellect. Knowing deals with emotion. The difference between knowing about and knowing is the difference between sterile, academic knowledge and a personal connection which guarantees a response. When you think of someone who you may know a lot about, nothing happens to you. But when you think about someone you know, you can feel the emotions in your heart. Your body temperature and breathing changes. It may bring a smile to your lips or a frown on your brow. This is what Allahﷻ described as a sign of the Believer. A responsiv