Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honor of the Prophet and the Messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his companions, peace and blessings be upon them. And after that, my brothers and sisters, we are talking about the ways to beat stress and how not to fall into the trap of stress and depression and so on in this world because we are looking at very unprecedented times. I don't think any of us in our lifetimes have seen or been this close to global, possible global catastrophes. We ask Allahﷻ to save us from that. We ask Allahﷻ to save those who are caught up in these negative cycles and get them out of those cycles, inshallah. So yesterday I spoke to you about the hadith of Abdullah ibn Abbasرضي الله عنه and what Rasoolullahﷺ taught him with respect to our rizq and what has been written for us. Today, I want to talk to you about something else which Nabi S.A.W. said and that is, and that's the stress combat tool which is the stress combat tool. Stop saying what if? What if? What if I fail? What if everything goes wrong? What if there is a nuclear war? What if this? What if that? What if the whole of the Middle East is up in flames? What if oil supply stops? What if natural gas stops? And so on and so on. What if? Stop saying that because shaitan thrives on hypothetical fear. He keeps your heart stuck in possibilities that may never happen. So what must you do? Replace this what if with Qadarallahu ma sha'a fa'al Qadarallahu ma sha'a fa'al Allah has decreed and whatever he wills, he does. Qadarallahu means Allah has decreed and whatever he likes, Allah will do. Rasoolullahﷺ said in a hadith in Muslim Sharif, he said this word if opens the door to shaitan. So don't say if. If this, if that. Don't say that. I remember one person I had met many, many years ago who his son was 20 something and he died in a motorcycle accident. So when I met him, I condoled with him and you know I said may Allah Ta'ala grant him Jannah and so on. He was not concerned about any of that. He said if only he had not gone to this place. If only he had not left at this time. Now this so I tried to explain to him. I said there is no point in saying that. The point is his death, the time of his death, the way of his death has already been written by Allahﷻ. There is nothing that you could have done to stop that. There is something I could have done. Something I should have done. And as far as I know, that is how he ended his life. To the end of his days, he just went on like this. If this, if that. Now this is a terrible thing. It's like a curse if we get into this. Never say if. Whatever happened, happened because Allahﷻ decreed. Nothing else could have happened. And Alhamdulillah because Allahﷻ is Rahmanul Rahim fi dunya wal akhirah. Whatever happened, no matter how bad it may seem to be for us, was the best thing that could have happened in that case. This is our Yaqeen. Today is Friday, Juma'ah. And on Juma'ah, it is mustahab to read Surah Al-Kahf. And we have the story in Surah Al-Kahf of Musa A.S. and Qidr A.S. and the three things that Qidr A.S. did. All those three things, making a hole in the boat, killing that boy, and building up the wall which was falling even though the villagers did not pay them. All these things appear to be negative if you just look at them straight away. Why would you make a hole in the boat? People just helped you across the river and you are damaging their boat. Why will you kill a small child? What sense does it make? But we know that there is a hidden purpose that Allahﷻ has. And that purpose is for the benefit of the people, even though we don't see that benefit because of our restricted perspective. So never say if. Whatever had to happen, no matter what it was, no matter how bad it might seem to be, whatever had to happen was the best thing, was the only thing which could have happened and was the best thing that could have happened because it was decreed by Allahﷻ. Because this thinking of if is the main reason for all worry and then all that follows it. Because with the anxiety you have other problems that happen with depression and this and that. The more intense, paradoxically, the more intelligent a person is, the more they seem to fall prey to this. Because they are intelligent, they can imagine, they imagine all kinds of possibilities. What if this, what if that, what if that, and go on and on and on. For example, one of the most common things we hear, especially in car accidents, he should not have been driving that car. That car is not so safe. He should have been driving some other car which has more, more safety features. I always think to myself and sometimes tell these people, Princess Diana died in a sitting in the back seat of an ar

Auto-generated transcript: As-saltu wa-s-salmu alaykum wa-rahmatullhi wa-baraktuh. As-saltu wa-s-salmu alaykum wa-baraktuh. Whatever is going to happen to us, Allahﷻ has already decided. Right? There's nothing that somebody else is going to decide for you. Allahﷻ has already decided. Whatever, everything, every single thing. Whether we are going to get food or not, whether I'll get a gas cylinder or not, all of this is already written for you. So what is the worry? Yeah? As Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattabرضي الله عنه said, if something is written for you, it will find you. And if something is not written for you, it will never find you. And you will never find it. Right? Make effort, because Allahﷻ sent us into this world to make effort. Allah said, So make effort. But do not put your trust in the effort. Trust has to be in Allahﷻ. So you might say, why should I make effort? You make effort because, two reasons. Firstly, because Allahﷻ told us to make effort. So you are doing it in obedience to Allahﷻ. Second thing is, that your khadr also, some of it at least, is written connected to the effort. So Allahﷻ would have said, I have written for you and me, that if he makes this effort, this is what I will give him. So it's connected. So if you don't make the effort, you won't get it. But you are not getting it because of the effort. You are getting it because that is what is written for you. Think about this. Down the road is a hospital, star hospital. Go to star hospital. Ask them to show you the people in the ICU. Then many of them are not conscious. They are in a coma. But they are getting their food. There is a riles tube down the nose. They are getting their food. So their rizq is reaching them. They are making no effort. They are not even conscious. But their rizq is reaching them. Because what is written for them, has to reach them. So we ask Allahﷻ to give us our rizq bil khair. Not in a hospital bed. Not through some riles tube. We ask Allah to give us our rizq. Alhamdulillah. Bil khair wa bil izzah. With dignity and with honour and with khair and barakah. We ask Allah for this. Inshallah. So we make the effort. Not for... Not because the effort gets me this or that. We make the effort because we want to please Allahﷻ. That is why in Islam, when we work and so on, if you have this understanding of this concept, this is our aqidah. This is the fundamental aqidah that we have. Allahﷻ said, قُلْ إِنَّ رَبِّي يَبْسُطُ الرِّزْقَ لِمَنْ يَشَاءُ وَيَقْدِرُ وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ Allahﷻ said, Say to them, It is my Rabb who expands your provision or constricts it. Most people don't know. Most people do not understand. So the purpose of working in Islam is not to do your work, do it with dignity, do it reasonably, do it making sure that you do not do it with dignity, violate any of Allahﷻ's rules in the pursuit of this rizq. You are not missing salah, you are not borrowing on interest, you are not buying and selling haram, you are not deceiving anybody, you are not telling lies in the name of advertising, you are not doing all that. You are doing halal work in a halal way and do it at a reasonable level. So if you do this, then you will come home and you will sleep peacefully. You will not owe anything to anybody. You will not burn yourself out. People are working like donkeys. Day and night, there is no time to sleep, there is no time to spend with the family, there is no time to learn anything, there is no time to pray, there is no time in Ramadan. What busy? You are running the world? In 365 days, 365 days, you cannot take off 10 days. You have to be absolutely certain of getting Laylatul Qadr. If you get Laylatul Qadr, you are getting the reward of worshipping Allahﷻ for 1,000 more than 1,000 months. Allahﷻ says, Khairum Min Alf Shahr. So 1,000 months and more. Khairum Min Alf. No time. I am busy. You are carrying the world on your shoulders. Innaillahi And at the end of all that busy, what are you getting? You are still running around. This is not Islam. Allah did not tell us to work like this. Allah did not tell us to burn ourselves out. Allah did not tell us to work in a way where the whole family, everybody is suffering because of your work. Don't tire yourself out. Don't worry, and all kinds of concern and stress and problem with, a lot of people, they have no physical problem. They die because of stress. Point being, that their health suffers because of stress. Why are you stressed? You are not running the world. Allah is running the world. And Allahﷻ has said, don't worry. I know what I am doing. I have the power. I have written for you. Relax. That's exactly what the meaning of the hadith. Allah is saying, relax. Do as much as you are supposed to do. Relax. So, we ask Allahﷻ to help us to understand these things because these are the secrets of happiness in life. Focus on connecting with Allahﷻ. Focus on, ask yourself, what is

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allahﷻ, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and his companions. Peace and blessings be upon you all. And then, my brothers and sisters, praise be to Allah, we are talking about the issue of relationship with the Messenger of Allahﷻ and his family and his companions. And as I mentioned to you, I said there are three ayats that we should think about. One is where Allahﷻ mentioned the Messenger of Allah and specifically mentioned his role. Where Allahﷻ called the Messenger of Allah a special blessing and ni'mah on the believers and specified his role. I mentioned this ayah and what it all means in detail in the day of huwaa, so listen to that. Then Allahﷻ mentioned the connection, this role. Therefore, how does it mean? How does it affect us? Where Allahﷻ said, لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنًا لِمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُو اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا Where Allahﷻ said that the life of His Prophetﷺ, the entire life, all aspects of his life, are the best example for us. And Allahﷻ said they are the best example for the person who looks forward to the middle of the world. And Allahﷻ said that the day of judgement is the day of meeting with Allahﷻ and the day of judgement. And I explained to you yesterday, there is a difference between something happening, default, in any case it will happen, whether you look forward to it or not, the day of judgement will come, we will be presented before Allahﷻ. There is no doubt about this. Allahﷻ said, ذَٰلِكَ الْيَوْمُ الْحَقِّ فَمَنْ شَاءَ اتَّقَدَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِ مَا آبَىٰ The one who likes, who wants to do something about it, the one who wants this to be a good thing, let him make a way towards his meaning, let him correct his life and make it obedient to Allahﷻ. So that is default, that is going to happen to everybody. We are talking about someone who is looking forward to that. And as I explained yesterday, the day of judgement by definition, by its description, is not something that anyone can do. It is not something that anyone would look forward to, except those who believe that inshaAllah and musta'an, they will not be subjected to the trials and tribulations that other people will be subjected to. And the reason for that is because they followed the way of Rasulullahﷺ. So this is the second ayah which shows us the connection between the Nabi and his role, and us as those who believe in him and who follow him inshaAllah. The third ayah which I want to mention to you today is, what is the reward of this? And for that Allahﷻ said, قُلْ إِن كُنْتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِيُونِي يُحُبِبْكُمُ اللَّهُ يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ غَفُرٌ رَهِيمٌ Allahﷻ said, say to those who claim to love Allahﷻ. قُلْ إِن كُنْتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِيُونِي يُحُبِبْكُمْ اللَdb9b50c3e4a2f1d876a2a2a2a2a2a2a2

Auto-generated transcript: As-saltu wa-s-salmu alaykum wa-rahmatullhi wa-baraktuh. As-saltu wa-s-salm. Only two relationships which transcend our life into the hereafter. And therefore it is critically important that we fulfill the requirements of these two relationships. The requirement of the relationship with Allahﷻ is to worship only Him and nobody else. And to obey Allahﷻ in everything that He has commanded us. The requirement of Rasulullahﷺ is to obey Him and to follow Him. To make His ita'at and to make His itibah. I mentioned for yesterday, I said three ayats which define this relationship. And the first of them I mentioned yesterday where Allahﷻ said, لَقَدْ مَنَّ اللَّهُ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذْ بَعَسَ فِيهِمْ رَسُولًا مِّنَ نفُسِهِمْ يَتْلُوَا عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتِهِ وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ بَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَإِنْ كَانُوا مِنْ قَبْلُوا لَفِي ظَلَالٍ مُّبِينٍ And I explained the meaning of this ayah. And how Rasulullah s.a.w. is a ni'mah, is a blessing for us. And how we need to appreciate that. Not just by saying that we appreciate it or by singing some nasheed or something. But by appreciating. Actually implementing that in our lives. Today we look at the second ayah. Where Allahﷻ said, with respect to Rasulullah s.a.w. لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُصْوَةٌ حَسَنًا لِمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُ اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَةِ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا Allahﷻ said, Verily and truly, the best example for you to follow is the life of my Nabi s.a.w. for the one who looks forward to the meeting with Allah and to the Day of Judgment. And who remembers Allahﷻ a great deal. You see the first ayah which I recited yesterday and today also. This defines the role of the Nabi s.a.w. That he came to inform us about the revelation. يَتْلُوَا لَهِمْ آيَاتِهِ To purify us. وَيُزَكِّهِمْ To teach the Kitab. يَجْوَالِمُوا الْكِتَابِ And hikmah. And his wisdom and how to implement what Allah has ordered us. So this is the definition of the role of the Nabi s.a.w. In the second ayah, Allahﷻ is connecting us to that. This is his role. So what? So you follow that. Right? This is his role. You have been informed. Therefore, follow it. It's not just an academic question to say, what is the date of birth or so and so. Something like that. No. This is something which is very, very important. Because it directly relates to us. So Allahﷻ is saying, I sent my Nabi for this purpose. And therefore, what must you do? Follow that. Follow his lead. Follow his teaching. Follow the Rasul a.s. And again, the grammar of the Arabic language, Allahﷻ is reinforcing. Truly and surely. In the life of Rasul a.s. In his Usfahasana. This is the best example for you. And I remind myself when you, Allahﷻ did not restrict any or restrict or did not identify or separate or differentiate any particular aspect of the life of Rasul a.s. He didn't say his worship, his way of worshipping or his way of his family relations or the way he was as an administrator or as he was as a general in the army or this or that. No. As one of us studied this and that. His group established the life of Rasul a.s. It is the one. Ummah is a system in which the poetry and description of the day of judgment in the Quran in many places particularly in Juz Amma but also in many other places the definition of the day of judgment is always very horrific very tremendous very full of turmoil right all kinds of I mean when there is an earthquake when the mountains will move from their places yeah and so on and so on Allahﷻ mentioned all kinds of things that will happen on the day of judgment which will be tremendous which will be terrible so why would anyone look forward to that Allah is saying Yardullaha wa yawm alaq why will why will anyone look forward to a day which is so full of fear and terror and the only answer to that which makes sense to me is the person looking forward to that is assured that he or she will not face that turmoil it's not happening to you Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah I am safe who will be safe? the one who has the life of the Rasul as his framework of living in this world so the person who looks forward to that day take the meeting with Allahﷻ for example right it's not a small thing it's not something which we say oh this is nice I'll go meet Allah no the Anbiya feared this meeting because the great scholars of this deen they feared this meeting nobody said this is fine I'll go no anybody who says things like oh yeah I know I will go I will talk to Allah he's talking nonsense basically somebody who has no sense and no knowledge of deen people who knew Allahﷻ who were close to Allahﷻ who were chosen by Allahﷻ the Anbiya the prophets and the messengers they were afraid of the meeting with Allahﷻ Allah is saying looking forward how will you look forward to that by obeying the Rasool by implementing his way in our lives Yesterday I was having a conversation with one of my dear friends and we we

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. And praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions. My brothers and sisters, you are looking at the issue of relationships. Every relationship has a requirement that must be fulfilled to avail the benefits of that relationship. If you fulfill the requirement, you get the benefit. If you don't fulfill the requirement, you do not get the benefit. And we saw this in the case of the first and foremost relationship that we have, which is with Allahﷻ. Today, let us look at the second of the relationships, which is with Rasulullahﷺ. I remind myself and you that we know the hadith of Rasulullah sallam. He said that all the deeds of a person end on his death, when he dies. Similarly, all the relationships of a person, end when that person dies. When you die, all relationships are severed. Your father is no longer your father, your son is no longer your son, and so on and so on. To the extent that you even lose your identity. You are not referred to by your name. You are called, the janaza, or the mayit. All relationships end with our death, except two. Our relationship with Allahﷻ, is daiman, and the relationship with Rasulullahﷺ, is the relationship by which, we will be called on the Day of Judgment, as the Ummah of Rasulullahﷺ. And therefore, these two relationships, are over and above all others. The relationship of Rasulullahﷺ, I want to present before you three ayats of the Quran. Allahﷻ said, truly, verily, Allahﷻ has blessed The Muminin, the believers, by sending His Nabiﷺ from among them, He raised the Rasul from the believers, He is human, He is from us, and therefore it is a double blessing, one, that the Rasul is also human, like we are human, and that He is the Rasul. Allahﷻ mentioned four things: yatlou alayhim ayatihi wa yuzakkihim, wa yuallimuhum alkitab wa alhikmah. Allah sent him for these four things, to inform the people of the revelation that he receives, to recite the Kitab of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, to purify them internally and externally, and to teach them the Book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, which is the same ayat which He recited, by means of information, to teach them what is the meaning of that, how it is to be done, and so on, and His wisdom, which is the implementation of those things in their lives. And then Allahﷻ said, and it is truly before that, they were grossly misguided. So before the coming of the Prophet, if you leave this, you will go back to that stage, which is the stage of Jahiliyyah. Now see the beauty of this ayah and see the stages that Allahﷻ mentioned. All of these are interconnected, it's not like four separate things. These are stages, these are like steps going up, these are like steps going down. First and foremost is inform, yatlu alayhim ayatihi. Nabi would receive revelation and he would recite it. This is what Allahﷻ has said. Aqimis salaata li dhikri. Allahﷻ said, establish the salaah for my dhikr. Establish the salaah for my dhikr, to remember Him. Next stage, as Muslims we say, Alhamdulillah, Allahﷻ has given us a command, establish the salaah, I am ready. Now how to do it? How must I establish salaah? What is salaah? Because salaah, the linguistic meaning in Arabic, is dua. So if somebody says, okay, Allah said establish salaah, ya Allah, is that salaah? No. Because there is a technical meaning of salaah. Linguistic meaning is by itself, technical meaning of salaah. Which is what we just did, salatul fajar. How did we get here? Did we prepare to come here? Yes. By making wudu, by purifying ourselves, if we needed ghusl, we made ghusl. Why? How do we know this? So Allahﷻ sent yathru alayhim ayati, aqim salatul zikri. So what must I do? Prophet told us what to do. Wuyuzakkihim, Allah said purify them, because the kalam of Allahﷻ jalla jalaluhu is pure, and the kalam does not stay in a place which is not pure. That is why the purity of the heart, tazkiyatul nafs is so critically important. Imam al-Shafi'i was a student of Imam Malik. And he had a prodigious memory, he used to say that when I am reading about a book I have to cover one side, one page because otherwise it photographs in my mind. He memorized it, just reading it once, gets memorized. I don't want to memorize, I just want to read it. So he used to say I have to cover one page. He was travelling once with his students, and he had some very important books with him in the saddlebags. And they got caught in a storm, in a flash flood. So everything was flooded, animals and so on and so forth. Finally they managed to escape the flood, and they came out. And then the people took out all the stuff, drying their clothes and various things. And when they came to the books, they found that the books were completely destroy

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah ** الرحمن الرحيم**. Alhamdulillahi rabbul alameen. Wasalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil nubiyyil wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah **ﷺ** Tasliman kathiran kathira wa ma'adu. Alhamdulillah we have a series of questions today. Let's see how many of them we can... Second question is, in Islam we have any form of dhikr and ways to ask forgiveness? Azkar of Allah **ﷻ**. Dhikr is basically remembering and therefore you can use any of the Asmaa wa sifat Allah ta'ala. The names and attributes of Allah **ﷻ**. You can use La ilaha illallah. So, the fundamental forms of dhikr. One is tasbih. Right? What is tasbih? Shukr wa malik. Right? Tamheed. Tahmeed. Alhamdulillah. And then what is the other one? Takbeer. Allahu Akbar. And then? Ahleel. La ilaha illallah. So, Subhanallah, walhamdulillah, wa la ilaha illallah, wa Allahu Akbar. So, these four you should do. And do as much as you can. But just for the sake of ensuring you do something, say, let's say, 100 times each. There's no magic formula. Just to make sure that we do something. So, you can do that. You can say, Subhanallah, 100 times. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, and so on. Or you can say, Subhanallah, walhamdulillah, wa la ilaha illallah, wa Allahu Akbar. And you can also add, La hawla wa la fawata illallah, wa la... And do this whole thing 100 times. So, whichever you... Which is your thing. The key thing is not the count. Please understand this very clearly. The key thing is not the count. The count, as I said, is only as a matter of convenience. At least this much you must do. Usually, this is what people will prescribe for you. Do 100 times. And there are... I had this also mentioning the value of each of these and the reward and so on. The key thing is to do the zikr. With complete understanding and the feeling of that zikr in your heart. See, think about this. Zikr is with the tongue, right? And also in the heart. But the zikr, like I said about Ibadah, is a tool to achieve something. So, when you are saying that zikr, then you must look to see what is the effect. And you must look to see what is in the heart. If I'm saying SubhanAllah, imagine you come and see this beautiful view. And you say, SubhanAllah. Yeah? SubhanAllah. I was coming back from Jeddah just now. Last week. And I was waiting for Saadatul Fajr. So, to see when should I pray. Because the flight took off from Jeddah at some 3 o'clock or something like this. 1 o'clock. 1.50. So, it just took 2 minutes. And then when the sky started to lighten, then I saw a little red glow on the horizon. Right? And I know the sun is going to come up. So, it's time for me to pray Saadatul Fajr. That view was so beautiful. SubhanAllah. This is one little planet in this entire universe. This is a galaxy of billions of stars. And so on. One planet which is not even like a grain of sand on a beach. Which has a piece of sky there. And this sky has got some clouds. It's got our star which is the sun which is showing itself on the horizon. That is so beautiful. SubhanAllah. So, how must the creator of this be? So, that feeling of the awe and glory and majesty of Allah must come to you. And you must come with every SubhanAllah we say without a doubt. Now, there is a story that Sulaiman was going somewhere with his army. And he was flying through the air. And all the jinn and whoever, you know, the magnificence of Sulaiman. And there was a farmer who was standing in his field. And he saw him going. He said, SubhanAllah. SubhanAllah caused Sulaiman to hear that. So, Sulaiman came down into the field. In front of that man. And he said, what did you say? The man got terrified. He said, my God, what happened? Sayyidi. He said, yeah, Nabi Allah. Did I do anything wrong? I am sorry. He said, no, no, no. You said something. What did you say? He said, I said, SubhanAllah. I saw you going with all your Lashkar. You know, your army and your pomp and your splendor. And flying through the air. SubhanAllah. So, I looked at this. I said, SubhanAllah. SubhanAllah said, by the one whose hand is my soul. That one SubhanAllah of yours is better than everything I have. We know that we shall set them set that a slave will be produced before Allah **ﷻ** judgment. And when his deeds are weighed, the pan with the evil will have scroll of unscores. Lord book and book. And from where the pan is to the heavens. And the other pan is high in the air and it's empty. There's nothing there. So, the man will, they will ask the man. He said, do you have any good deeds? Man says, no. I have nothing. Because he'll go to Jahanam. He has no good deeds and he's got evil piled up to the sky. Then it will be said to the man, you have one. You have one good deed. The man says, what? So a piece of paper will be given to him and they will say, take this piece of paper and put it in that pan. So the man takes the piece of paper and he puts it in the pan and

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi rukil alameen. Wasalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil nubiyyil wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullahﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira wa ma'adu. Alhamdulillah we have a series of questions today. Let's see how many of them we can deal with. If we leave anything behind then we do it. So the first question is the concept of Taskiyatul Nafs. What is Taskiyatul Nafs and how do we achieve it? Allahﷻ when he mentioned Rasulullahﷺ he called him, he mentioned him and he honoured him by calling him his ni'mah. He said the Rasulullahﷺ is by ni'mah on the believers. Allahﷻ says Laqad manna Allahu ala al-mu'mineena Ith ba'asa feehim Rasulam min anfusihim Yatlu alayhim ayatihi wa yudhuwa Yuzakkihim uliya'allimuhum al-gitaab wa wal-hikmah Wa in kaanu min qablu lafihi qalalim mubeen Which means verily and truly we have bestowed upon the believers our blessing, our ni'mah by raising from among them our Rasul, our messenger. What does he do? Yatlu alayhim ayatihi He recites for them and before them the ayat which have been revealed to him. Wa yuzakkihim and he purifies them internally and externally. Wa yu'allimuhum al-gitaab and he teaches them the book wal-hikmah and he teaches them the book. He teaches them wisdom. And truly before that they had been misguided. Clearly misguided. So the question of tazkiyah to nafs starts from the Quran itself. Tazkiyah means to purify. Allahﷻ said, Qad aflah man tazakka They have succeeded those who purified themselves. And in many other places Allah has mentioned the importance of purification and the importance of tazkiyah. And Allah as I mentioned in the ayat before, Allah mentioned tazkiyah as the purification. So tazkiyah is one of the primary responsibilities of Rasulullah . So purification in short means purification. So when you say tazkiyah to nafs, you mean purify our nafs. The question is purify the nafs from what? Number one. Number two, what is the state of purity? How do I know if my nafs is pure? Nafs means breath. Nafs means the self. Our understanding of our self. Nafs also is taken in the meaning of kalb, which is the heart. So when we say nafs, depending on the sentence and so on, it can also mean kalb. So tazkiyah to nafs is tazkiyah to kalb also. Nafs also means roh. So it's also tazkiyah to roh. Now without going into too many complications with this, the best way to understand nafs is it's your intellect and your emotions. In terms of your intellect and your emotions. So the heart and the brain, the human being, these two are not clearly separated. They're not two compartments. They are interlinked, interconnected. To the extent that we know today from scientific research, that the heart and the spine, they have neurons. So there is some part of the brain which is actually the brain. It's actually physically present in the heart and the veins. And then the heart also performs brain-like functions of directing the body to do various things and so on and so forth. So there is a physical connection between the two. But looking at it from the non-physical aspect, looking at it from the aspect of the intellect and the emotion, these are connected. They're mixed. There's no separate intellect, separate emotion. Allahﷻ mentioned it also as Qalb-un-Saleem. And I think I did hear a series of lectures, three or four lectures in this masjid on Qalb-un-Saleem. They are recorded somewhere. Allah said, on the Day of Judgement, everyone will be at a loss, except the one who comes with a Qalb-un-Saleem. The Qalb, which is pure and complete and not corrupted and not impure and filthy. Tazkiyah is to purify. Now the purification, what is the state of purification? The state of purification is where the Qalb is filled only and only with the greatness and glory and magnificence of Allahﷻ. The Noor of Allah. So the Qalb must be purified. The Qalb must be pure and must be cleaned from anything other than Allah. In every aspect. So when we say adhaat in Allah, Allah as the one we worship. Allah as the one we fear in terms of anything bad happening. Allah as in terms of the one we seek help from. Allah as the one we seek guidance from. And so on. So only and only Allahﷻ. Tawheed is to purify your heart and remove everything other than Allahﷻ from this. So all hopes and aspirations which are linked to anyone other than Allah, ghairullah. Whether this ghairullah is physically present in your life or whether ghairullah is some person or celestial body or God knows what, right? People have faith and belief on all kinds of things. So all of this to purify and to remove all this from your heart. This is the purification. It also means to remove from our hearts, our nafoos, all forms of disobedience of Allah. So all desire to disobey Allahﷻ. Anything. I don't want to make a long list of that, right? Anythin

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolullahﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasleeman kathiran kathira. From Abadu, my brothers and sisters, we are looking at the issue of relationships. The first of that is with Allahﷻ. And we established the principle that every relationship has a requirement in exchange for which we get the benefit of that relationship. If you do not fulfill the requirement, you do not get the benefit. And we looked at the requirement that we have of Allahﷻ, our relationship with Allahﷻ, and that is to worship only Allahﷻ and not to make shirk. And to obey Allahﷻ in everything that He has commanded us to do. And I mentioned four things that we have, we obey Allahﷻ because of them. And one is, the first one is that we know that Allahﷻ loves us. And two, that we know that Allahﷻ knows what is best for us. What is good and what is harmful. The third thing is to remember and remind ourselves that Allahﷻ ordered us to do something because it is for our benefit, not His. Allahﷻ is the best. He did not give birth to or be given birth to, nor did He give birth to any animal. Allahﷻ is pure. He is free from all wants. Nothing benefits Him and nothing harms Him. So when Allahﷻ has commanded us to do something, it is for our own benefit. And the fourth thing is that we know that when we meet Him on the Day of Judgment, we will be questioned about whether we obeyed Allahﷻ or chose to disobey Him. May Allahﷻ save us from that. Now, these four things: Allah loves me. Allah knows what is best. Allah commanded me to do something because it is for my benefit, not His. And the fourth one is that I will meet Allahﷻ. These four things work hand in hand. All these four are together. And when we live our life like that, then we find our life is full of peace and harmony and stress-free. Alhamdulillah. Because at the end of the day, it's only what Allahﷻ has written that will happen. This is one thing which we have to have complete and total faith in this. That only what Allahﷻ has written, only what Allahﷻ wants will happen. Nothing else will happen. All the rest of it is drama. It's very critical to understand that we are not just people; we are the slaves of Allahﷻ. We have no choice in the matter. We didn't create ourselves. We cannot destroy ourselves. We were created by Allahﷻ. We are sustained by Allahﷻ. Allah gave us whatever we needed and desired. And He said that He gives us whatever we ask for. And if you try to count the blessings of Allahﷻ, you will not be able to count them. We are talking only about counting, not even about thanking Allahﷻ. Just say, one, two, three, four, five. We will not be able to remember it. The blessings that Allahﷻ has given us. And it is through our gratitude, our thankfulness to Allahﷻ, that we must make sure that we obey Allahﷻ in everything. This jazba, this emotion, this quality of shukr, the quality of gratitude to Allahﷻ. This is the source of all happiness, the source of our satisfaction, the source of us being at peace. Gratitude to Allahﷻ, being thankful to Allahﷻ. And I always remind myself and I remind you that the best way to have gratitude to Allahﷻ is think of something that you like, some blessing which we have, any number. And then think of how life would be if that was not there. Take eyesight for example. How would life be? If you did not have colour vision. If you would only see black and white. It happens to people. They lose colour vision. So they can still see but everything is only black and white. So now you are looking at the most beautiful scenery. You can't enjoy it. Somebody says look at that sunset. What sunset? Look at that sunrise. Which sunrise? Take away taste. Simple things. Taste buds. After her third child, she had three children. After the third child, her taste buds got knocked out. She cannot taste anything. Whatever it is, it's just like eating grass. God doesn't want it. No taste. Just think of what life would be if you did not have that blessing. Alhamdulillah, when you have the ability and Allah has given you something, appreciate that. Thank Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala for that. In sujood, pray tahajjud. In sajda, count the blessings. Allah said, if you want to count the blessings, forget about. I am talking about being thankful. Just count one, two, three, four. Allah says, you cannot even count the number of things that I have blessed you with. Right? When we choose to disobey Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, think about this. He said, you're trying to disobey somebody who has given you so much. We thank Allah because of gratitude. We do that because we know that our best interest lies in obeying Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you're driving down a road, and if you're on a path where you don't know what is ahead of you, but you have wi

Auto-generated transcript: As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Our relationship is based on two things. One is love for Allahﷻ, and the second is fear of displeasing the one we love the most. Allahﷻ defined us and honored us Muslims by saying, وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَشَدُّهُمْ بَلِّ اللَّهِ The people who have Iman, they love Allahﷻ more than anyone or anything else. So when Allahﷻ has honored us, it is incumbent upon us to fulfill that honor by loving Allahﷻ. The way we show our love for Allahﷻ is by obeying Him completely and totally without qualification. Not by picking and choosing. Because selective obedience is disobedience. Selective obedience is kufr. Selective obedience is to choose which of Allahﷻ's commands we will obey and which we will disobey, which is the height of arrogance and kufr. So we do not obey selectively; we obey completely. Allahﷻ said, يَا يُهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أُدْخُلُوا فِي السِّلْمِ كَافَّةً وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطْوَةِ الشَّيْطَانِ إِنَّهُ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌ مُبِينٌ Allah said, oh you who believe, enter into Islam completely. Not partially, not as much as you feel like. It's not discretionary. You enter into Islam fully. When you say, لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ مُحَمَّدُ رَسُولُ اللَّهُ You have submitted yourself completely and totally to Allahﷻ on the way of Muhammadﷺ. You have not even submitted in our own way, no. On the way of the Rasul عليه السلام. And the finest example of that which I always quote is Salah. We pray the way Rasulullahﷺ prayed. Not our own way. If somebody is praying in a different way, then their salah is invalid. If your way of praying is different from the way of Rasulullahﷺ, then your prayer is not a prayer. It is invalid. It is faasid. We have to pray as Rasulullahﷺ prayed. Because this is his hukum. He said, سَلُّوا كَمَا رَأَيْتُمُونِي أُسَلِّي He said, pray as you have seen me pray. He didn't say pray any way you like. Pray in any way which appeals to you. Pray the way I pray. So the same principle applies to everything else in life. We submit to Allahﷻ in the way of Muhammad Rasulullahﷺ. So everything. I do business the way Nabiﷺ did business. I speak to people the way Nabiﷺ spoke to people. I eat, I drink, I do everything the way Rasulullahﷺ did it. This is the way. This is the meaning of entering into Islam fully and completely. Not partially. We don't say I follow Islam as far as Salah is concerned, as far as the Masjid is concerned, but once I am outside that door, then it is my life. I will do whatever I want. No, this is not Islam. Islam is to apply it in our lives in every aspect. So this position of the Muslim is, as we say, بَيْنَ الْخَوْفِ وَتَرْبُونَةً between the fear of Allah's punishment and the hope for His forgiveness and reward. We ask Allah for His forgiveness and His reward. This بَيْنَ الْخَوْفِ وَتَرْبُونَةً is the position of the Muslim. And Allah Himself mentioned this. He said, تَتَجَافَ جُنُوبُهُمْ عَنِ الْمَضَاجِرِ يَذْعُونَ رَبَّهُمْ خَوْفًا وَتَمَعًا بَيْنَ الْخَوْفِ وَتَمَعًا وَمِمَّا رَضَقَنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ فَلَا تَعْلَمُ نَفْسٌ مَا أُخْفِيَ لَهُمْ مِنْ خُرَّةِ عَيُونٍ جَزَىٰ أَن بِمَا كَانُوا يَمَلُونَ Allahﷻ Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said in Surah Sajdah that these are the people, Allah is praising those people. May Allah make us among them. Allah says these are the people who get up from their beds, get up from their sides in the time of Qiyamul Lail, before Salatul Fajr, who get up in the night from their side and they stand before Allahﷻ Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala بَيْنَ الْخَوْفِ وَتَعْمَى So they're standing before Allahﷻ Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, they're reciting Quran, they're praying, they're making dua and they fear the punishment of Allah and they hope for His reward. And they spend from what we have given them. So the action of also spending from what Allah has given us, whether it is wealth, whether it is health, whether it is energy, whether it is influence, whether it is strength, spending from the paths, spending what Allah has given, in His path. So they're spending from what Allah has given them. And then Allah said, if they knew what I have kept hidden for them as a reward, it would be the coolness of their eyes. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala kept that hidden. He said, I have made a special reward for them. May Allah Ta'ala make us among those who will receive this reward from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Now we obey Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for four things. There are four things to remember when we obey Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. One, we know that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala loves us. This is a fact. This is something which there is no doubt about. Because, and the biggest evidence of that, if somebody wants evidence, the biggest evidence of that is Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself. The bi'asat of the Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the revelation of the Quran Al-Kareem on him. This is the biggest

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad Rasulullah ﷺ. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Fama ba'du. My brothers and sisters, we were talking about the issue of connection with Allahﷻ. As I mentioned for the last few days, we have been discussing taqaza and faida—the requirements of a relationship and its benefits. The first relationship we discussed was our relationship with Allahﷻ. Now, the requirement of this relationship is that we worship only Allahﷻ alone and do not join partners with Him in His abudiyat, rububiyat, or asma wa sifat. We acknowledge that He is our Creator, Sustainer, Maintainer, Protector, and Provider. This means we seek help only from Allahﷻ. Additionally, we keep unique attributes exclusive to Allahﷻ, such as knowing the future, knowing the ghayb, and having the power to give and take away things. This is the essence of being a true slave of Allahﷻ, which makes us close to Him and feel His presence 24-7. Allahﷻ said, "He is with you wherever you are." So no matter where you are, Allahﷻ is present in terms of His knowledge. Being aware of this has two major benefits: it acts as a shield against sin and provides enormous confidence. Firstly, awareness of Allahﷻ protects us from sin because if we know He watches everything, we will not disobey Him. If by mistake we end up disobeying Allahﷻ, we immediately make istighfar and tawbah, washing off any sin. Secondly, it gives us immense confidence since nothing can harm us except what Allah wills. Therefore, we must focus on making istighfa and tawah, returning people's rights, correcting our aqeedah and actions, fulfilling fara'id, and pleasing Allahﷻ to avoid harm. Today, imagine how much time we spend worrying about worldly affairs while ignoring our ta'alluq with Allahﷻ. We must change this mindset and focus on repairing our connection with Allahﷻ through obedience. There is no love for Allah without obedience, and relationships do not count when standing before Allahﷻ alone. Let us repair our relationship with Allahﷻ today, especially during Jumu'ah prayers, by sending salat and salam on Rasoolullahﷺ, reading Surah Al-Kahf, attending the khutbah early, and valuing the rights of the Prophetﷺ and Allahﷻ. Our only help comes from Allahﷻ Himself, so let us correct our ma'milat, akhlaq, aqeedah, and amal, asking Allahﷻ for His mercy and forgiveness.

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. Many peace and blessings. We were talking about the issue of relationships. And the fact that every relationship, no matter with whom it is, whether it is relationship with our parents, children, spouses, friends, colleagues, employers, employees, even relationships which are temporary, as in you go to a shop to buy something, there is a relationship that happens with the seller, which is for a few minutes. After that, you may never go back to that shop for the rest of your life. But that few minutes, there is a relationship. Similarly, relationships with strangers, you are driving a car on the road, you automatically have a relationship with everyone else who is using the road, and so on. And as I said, every relationship has a taqadah. It has a requirement. If you fulfil that, it gives you a faidah, gives you a benefit. If you don't fulfil that, then you do not get the benefit. So the taqadah of our relationship with our parents is that we are supposed to serve them. And the benefit is, then you will get their dua. If you do not fulfil the taqadah, they might still give you dua because they are parents, but then obviously, at some point, this will suffer. And may Allah have mercy, may even stop. Similarly, we have a relationship with our friends. And the taqadah there, the requirement there is that you are loyal to your friend. And the benefit is that the friend will be loyal to you. Loyalty has many forms, including correcting your friend if he is wrong. This is part of loyalty. Loyalty is not simply to keep on clapping and telling your friend what a wonderful person he is, even if he is not. That is not loyalty, that is lying. So similarly, you have a, and we have a relationship with our spouses. And there again, there is the concomitant responsibility. So there is a taqadah, there is a requirement, and there is a faidah, there is a benefit. And yesterday we talked about our relationship with Allahﷻ. And the fact that the taqadah of that relationship, the requirement of the relationship is that we worship Allahﷻ. And we worship only Allahﷻ. We do not mix anything in that worship. We do not worship anyone other than Allah. And we do not worship anyone with Allah. There are two kinds of shirk. One is you worship someone other than Allah. And the other one is you worship Allah, but you join something else with it. You join some other entity, creature, your imagination, whatever. Both of these are prohibited. They are haram. They amount to idolatry. They amount to shirk. Our love for Allahﷻ, our relationship with Allahﷻ, and once we do this, the benefit of relationship with Allahﷻ, I don't think I need to explain that. We are living in that. We are experiencing that. And may Allah have mercy on us. We are experiencing that. There is a great benefit from Allahﷻ, even when we do not fulfill the Taqaza of that relationship. This is purely the mercy of Allah. Maybe we don no pray. Maybe when we pray, the quality of prayer is pathetic. Despite that, Allahﷻ does not stop our health. He doesn't stop our wealth. He doesn't stop our food. He doesn't stop the air we breathe. We still continue to get all the benefits that we have from Allah. We take it for granted. May Allah have mercy on us. Just see the fun. There is a false shortage of gas, of diesel and petrol. Actually there is no shortage. Somebody spread a rumor and so now all the diesel and petrol pumps in Hyderabad are jam-packed with people. There are fights happening and there is police and all that. One little thing which is not even true. There is no shortage. There is no problem with that. LPG is a different issue but diesel and petrol is available. But despite that, so one little change in our routine and we all feel it. And yet, when it comes to the worship of Allah, we have our issues. Our relationship with Allah is based on two things. One is love for Allah and second is the fear of displeasing the one we love the most. Allah honored us by saying, وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَشَدُّ هُبًّا لِلَّهِ Allah defined the Momineen. He defined the believers. And He said the people of belief, وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَشَدُّ هُبًّا لِلَّهِ Those who have faith are those أَشَدُّ هُبًّا لِلَّهِ They are those who love Allah more than anyone or anything else. Allah honored us. Allah could have defined us in any way. But Allah chose to define us in terms of our love for Him. And therefore, if you want to ask yourself, if I want to ask myself, am I a believer? I must ask myself, do I love Allah? And do I love Allah how much? Allah Almighty has said أَشَدُّ أَشَدُّ is the superlative form of شَدِير Very much. More than anyone and anything

Auto-generated transcript: My brothers and sisters, our life in this world is a set of relationships. From the minute we are born to the minute we die, our life is a set of relationships. These relationships are the basis on which we exist. These are the basis on which we get our sustenance, progress, happiness, sadness, and so on. And it's based on these relationships that eventually we are born and when we die, we are buried. Everything someone relates to has a relationship. Hypothetically speaking, if a child is born and abandoned by the mother or father, then the chances of survival for that child are practically zero. So right from the word go, there are relationships. Each relationship has its requirements and benefits. You fulfill the requirement, you get the benefit; you don't fulfill the requirement, you will not get the benefit. Think about this in all aspects. Take your vehicles, your car, your motorcycle, or whatever. We have a relationship with them. Even though they are inanimate things, we have a relationship. The relationship is that I own it, so I take care of it, so it carries me to wherever I need to go. The requirement is you need to take care of it. The benefit is that thing will take care of you. It takes you to wherever. If you do not fulfill the requirement of taking care of the vehicle, then at some point the vehicle will not fulfill your requirement of taking you somewhere. It will break down or maybe you didn't fill gas, and it can't go anywhere even though it's there. Similarly, apply this to your relationships with parents, spouse, children, employees, neighbors, strangers, carpets, air conditioning units, chairs, clothes, everything. This carpet has a relationship with us, the air conditioning unit has a relationship with us, the chair you sit on has a relationship with you, clothes have a relationship with us, everything has a relationship, and every relationship has two aspects: one is what is required to maintain that relationship, and two, what is the benefit we get from the relationship. The first and foremost primordial relationship we have is with Allahﷻ. He is our creator, master, ruler; He created us, maintains us, feeds us, controls us, and we live by His order and one day we will return to Him. So what is that relationship? Think about that. Every relationship has a requirement to maintain it and there is a benefit. So think about the relationship with Allah in this way, in this aspect and say what is my relationship with Allah and what is the requirement of that relationship and what is the benefit of that relationship. Let us look at it from the perspective of the benefit angle first. What is the benefit of our connection with Allahﷻ? I think this is a very important thing to think about and consciously understand because most of us do not understand the benefit of our relationship with Allahﷻ. If someone asks you, "You are a Muslim, so what?" Is there some benefit? This is something that is not a matter of argument. Reflect on it and say the fact that I am a Muslim, what is the benefit of that? How does it distinguish me? Today we are living in a world where there is oppression on Muslims. There is pressure on us as Muslims. Alhamdulillah, Allahﷻ has kept us safe from that. But there is a general pressure. As a Muslim, if I board a flight or go into an airport, I have a different mental framework. Some people try to escape that by shaving their beards and pretending to be something other than Muslims. People know who you are no matter how much you shave your beard. We went to see a good friend of ours, Babi and me. He told us stories about people with beards being attacked in North India. So I said, I would rather die with my beard on than without my beard. What value does my identity add to me? My contention is it must add some value because otherwise why do we have this? Think about that. What makes you special as a Muslim? We know that Muslims were special. They went through centuries of being looked up to and emulated. In our country, all examples are clear before us. Find any old book which has pictures of the Maharajas. Look at every single one of them. Every single one of them has a beard and a turban. That was the aura and power of the Mughal Empire, which was the aura and power of the Muslim culture. Even though the empire itself was gone, the aura and power remained. The ones who are not Muslim used to dress like Muslims. Take the Coptic Christians in Egypt. See what they wear. There is a benefit in that relationship. There is a benefit in that identity. We need to ask ourselves today: what is the relationship with Allahﷻ? What is the value that adds to me? And therefore, what is the requirement of that relationship? How do I maintain that relationship and build that relationship? Without the identity, you are nobody. So, we ask Allahﷻ to help us realize who we are, our connection with Him, and keep us connected with Hi

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah ar-Rahman ir-Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'Alameen. As-Salatu Wassalamu Ala Ashrafil Anbiya wal Mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasoolullah ﷺ. Tasliman Kathiran Kathira Hum Radhu. My brothers and sisters, yesterday we were talking about the issue of tawbah and istighfar and how that is the way to do that and why it is important. And as I mentioned yesterday, the importance of istighfar and tawbah is because everything good starts with that. Before Allahﷻ does anything for us, we have to turn towards Allahﷻ. So when we are talking about istighfar and tawbah, anytime we are in any difficulty and so on and so forth, the first thing we need to look at is say, how is my state with Allahﷻ? And am I obeying Allahﷻ or not? So, Allahﷻ said, especially with regard to difficulties and trials and tribulations, we see what Allahﷻ said, where He said, وَمَنْ يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجَالُّهُ مَنْ خَرَجَ. For the mutaqee, I will solve his problems; I will extract him from his difficulties. So the mutaqee is the one whose only focus in life is to please Allahﷻ. Nothing else. So all his decisions, all his actions, everything he says, speaks, is based on this principle: Does it please Allahﷻ? If it pleases Allahﷻ, He does it. If He does not please Allah, He does not do it. If there is a doubt, He clarifies the doubt. Until that time, He does not do it. Then depending on the clarification, He does it or He does not do it. Taqwa begins with istighfar and tawbah. Now Allahﷻ, therefore, we should know what tawbah is. Tawbah and istighfar have to do with the one whose rights have been transgressed. So the kind of sin or the kind of mistake, or the kind of crime that we commit, the istighfar and tawbah depend on that. So the first principle of istighfar and tawbah, Allahﷻ mentioned in Surah An-Nisa, where He said, أُوْذِنِ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ إِنَّمَا التَّوْبَةُ عَلَى اللَّهِ لِلَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ السُّوءَ بِجَهَالَةٍ ثُمَّ يَتُوبُونَ مِن قَرِيبٍ فَأُولَئِكَ يَتُوبُ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَلِيماً حَكيماً And then He said, wa laysati tawbatu lil-ladhina ya'maluna as-sayyi'ati hatta iza hadhara ahadahumu almawtu qala inni tubtu al-aan wa la al-ladhina yatoobuna wa hum kuffar ulaika aatadna lahum azaban alimani Allahﷻ said which means, Allah only accepts the repentance and istighfar of those who may commit something wrong, something evil, ignorantly out of ignorance or recklessly they don't think something has happened and then repent immediately as soon as they realize that I have done something wrong, they immediately seek forgiveness, they immediately repent and Allah will pardon them and Allah is all-knowing and all-wise. And then Allahﷻ said, there is no acceptance of repentance from those who knowingly persist in sin. Knowingly, they know it is wrong, they will still do it again and again until they start dying, until the last time of their life, and then they cry, now I repent. That repentance is not accepted. Nor is there any repentance for those who die as disbelievers. So that's a separate thing. But even believers if you consistently and continuously continue to do something wrong knowingly and then you want to repent when you see malakul baut on the way, then this tawbah is not accepted. And then Allah said, for them we have prepared a painful punishment. May Allahﷻ forgive us and may Allah save us from His punishment, inshaAllah. So as I said, there are two kinds of rights that are there on us. They are called hukuk. Plural of haqq. Haqq is right. Hukuk is plural. Two kinds of rights that are there on all people. One, we call them hukukullah. The right of Allah on us. The first and foremost and most important right of Allah on us is the right of abudiyat. Which is the right that only Allah should be worshipped without any partners, without any shareholders, without any ill-willed people. So it is only the right that Allah should be worshipped without any partners. And the second kind of right is tawheed. The right of Allah on us is the right of abudiyat itself, which is the Salah. So the declaration of Tawheed, declaration of Tawheed, which is called the Shahada, and what comes with it, which is the application of that, which is Salah. So these two are or rather the declaration and its manifestation. This is the first and foremost right of Allahﷻ. Then the rights of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala are all those things which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has made fard upon us, which refers to the other pillars of Islam, which is fasting, which is Zakat, which is Hajj, and it refers to everything else which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has made fard upon us. These are the rights of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, everything to do with Ibadah. Then there are rights which we have, rights of people. Which we call Hukukul Ibad. Now Hukukul Ibad is vast because Hukukul Ibad, the rights of basically Ibad is the rights of the slaves. So it is people

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the honourable Prophet and the messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. My brothers and sisters, Allahﷻ told us the solution for our difficulties. Today we are living in times which are stressful. And may Allah have mercy on us. Things seem to be going from bad to worse. And we ask Allahﷻ for khair and for afia. And for protection from all the evil that is there in the world. The way to get that protection, Allahﷻ taught us in the Quran. The people of Nuh, when they continued to disobey him and continued to disobey Allahﷻ, and they continued to reject the message of Nuh, Allahﷻ sent on them different kinds of difficulties and different kinds of calamities. So when they were caught in that, they would come to Nuh and ask him to make dua. Nuh said, and Allah mentioned this in the Quran, He said, Make istighfar to your Rabb. I said, Truly he is the most forgiving. He sent the hearing. And he will give you rain in abundance. And he will give you gardens and produce. And he will give you rivers. And he will give you children. Now if you see, what Nuh is saying, he is not saying Allah will give you Jannah. Allah will also give you Jannah if he makes istighfar and so on. Inshallah he will give Jannah. But the issue here is, they were asking him for solution to their worldly problems. And he is giving them a solution to worldly problems. So gardens and rivers and children and so on. These are literal as well as allegorical. In the sense of gardens means, you know, increase in your material wealth and power and authority and so on. So also rivers which support that and children support again. So the point is that Allah is saying that if you want a solution to your problems, even worldly problems, it begins with istighfar. It begins with seeking forgiveness. Istighfar is to seek forgiveness. Allahﷻ said, فَاسْتَغْفِرُوا ثُمَّ تُوبُوا إِلَيْهِ Allah said, seek forgiveness and then turn towards Allah. So, tawbah means to turn towards Allahﷻ. Istighfar means to seek forgiveness. Now, this shows us that when we say tawbah and istighfar, it implies two things. One, it implies that you are sincerely and totally and completely contrite and regretful and you are ashamed of whatever you have done. First thing is that, istighfar is to seek forgiveness. Absolutely humble yourself before Allahﷻ and say, Allah, I realize what I have been doing all this while is sinful, it is bad, it is something which you dislike and I am genuinely and sincerely regretful. I will never do this again. So, this is the first. The whole sense of genuine regret comes from istighfar. And then, therefore, you are seeking forgiveness, you are groveling before Allahﷻ. You are not justifying anything. If you see the original, that you have done عَدَى then there are two different ways you just forty and half, as long as you are asking your duty, whatever you are doing, of making mistakes. Both of them. Adam AS also disobeyed Allahﷻ. Adam AS and Hawa AS immediately they made istighfar to Allahﷻ. رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِلَّمْ تَخْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَا كُونَنَّ مِنْ الْخَاسِرِينَ O Allah, we accept, we understand, we realize, we are very sorry, we are regretful. That we have committed a sin and we have made zulum on ourselves. ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا We have made zulum on ourselves. We have transgressed against ourselves. وَإِلَّمْ تَخْفِرْ لَنَا And if you do not forgive us, لَنَا كُونَنَّ مِنْ الْخَاسِرِينَ Truly and surely we will be the losers. So please forgive us. There is no conditionality there. There is no justification there. There is not even, they are not even saying shaitan, you know, misled us. They don't talk about shaitan. They are not saying, this is our fault. Shaitan misled, somebody misled, my friend misled, whoever misled, my nafs misled. End of the day, you did what you did. This is something very important to understand. As long as you are exporting blame to somebody, it means you are not sorry. Simple as that. You are not sorry. If you were sorry, then you would not be exporting blame. Whoever told you, you had a brain, you had understanding, you knew your religion, who told you to go against it? The final decision, who pulled the trigger? You. No matter who put the gun in your hand, no matter who told you what, who pulled the trigger? You. So you are the person who has committed the sin. That is something to be very clear about and therefore when you make and when we make istighfar, we don't put conditions and we don't make all the statements. Rabbana zalamna arfusana. All are our fault. We have transgressed. No, there is no third party involved. Shaitan on the other hand, Iblis on the other hand, he took another route. Instead of saying, he could have also said, R

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah ** الرحمن الرحيم**. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah **ﷺ** Tasliman kathiran kathira. Wa amma badu. My brothers and sisters. Alhamdulillah bi zindillah ta'ala. Today we are on the last day of Ramadan al-Kareem for this year. So we thank Allahﷻ for granting us Ramadan and granting us the ability to fast. Alhamdulillah in the whole month. And to do whatever we could do towards the Ibadat of Allahﷻ. We still have a few hours left until Iftar today. So let us make the best of that and try to make as much istighfar and tawbah as possible. And today also happens to be Friday, Juma'ah. So Juma'ah has its own fadail and fazilat. And therefore let us use that to gain the forgiveness of Allahﷻ and to build. A connection with Allahﷻ The purpose of all of this. The purpose of Ramadan. The purpose of Salah. Of fasting. Of all the Ibadat. Is only one and that is. To build our connection with Allahﷻ As Ibn Taymiyyah rahmatullah said. Everything has a door. And the door of Ibadah is fasting. Because Sawm reinforces the single fundamental principle of this Deen. Which is the importance of Taqwa. Sama'ana wa atana. Whatever Allah says, we do. Fasting and Sawm reinforces that. And therefore it is so important. And Alhamdulillah Allah ta'ala gave us that. And He gave us 30 days of it this year. Alhamdulillah. So let us make the most of that. Number two. Let us monitor our life and our actions going forward. Because Ramadan is not for Ramadan. Ramadan is to bring about. Fundamental change in our lives. Change in our priorities. Change in our decision making. Change in our actions. Our akhlaaq, our maamilat. The maashara that results as a consequence of that. Change in all of these things. Change towards the positive in all these things. So monitor every action. Monitor every priority to see. If something has changed. And if that change is taking us closer to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. No matter how small it is. It's very important. So let us do that consciously going forward from now on. So that we, our life gets changed. It's not the same old thing again and again. Because fasting is not only about. Fasting is actually not about being hungry and thirsty and so on. It's about reinforcing the reason you are hungry and thirsty because. It is the commandment. The command of Allahﷻ in my life? In every aspect. Just like I. Made sure that I did not. Disobey Allahﷻ in the fasting. Whether anyone else was watching or not watching. Because this is the beauty of fasting. You can be fasting. But first of all nobody knows if you are fasting. So this is a pure matter of ikhlas because. Who knows if I am fasting or not. Nobody knows. And second thing is that even if you are fasting. Then you can. You know. Eat something or drink something. Quietly. Hidden from the world. Nobody will know. But you don't do that. Because you know that Allah knows. The sense of awareness of Allahﷻ presence in our lives. Is heightened. And we know that Allahﷻ continues to watch us. So Allahﷻ doesn't stop watching on the. First of Shawwal. Allahﷻ continues to watch us. And this feeling of Allahﷻ watching us. That Allahﷻ is connected. That we are connected with Allahﷻ This is the greatest strength in life. Because on the one hand, it has two advantages. The first advantage is that it keeps us free from sin. Because you are afraid. Allahﷻ will see me, I cannot do something. I am ashamed to do something. Because Allahﷻ is watching. I am afraid of doing something wrong because I have to answer to Allahﷻ. Right? So this is a big strength. This is a shield from shaitan. It's a shield from the nafs. It's a shield from sinning. And the second big advantage of this is of the sense of awareness of Allahﷻ is a sense of strength and power because I know I am protected. Because my Rabb Jalaluhu is watching. He has the power to prevent anything evil from happening to me and He will protect me. So I seek His protection and I am sure of His protection. So therefore, I feel safe. That's what Ramzan gives us. And this is what we need to carry forward in our lives. This connection with Allahﷻ, this awareness of Allahﷻ in our lives. I want to close with one of my favourite stories about connection with Allahﷻ which is a story from a great scholar by the name of Hatim al-Assam rahmatullah Ali in the time of Sayyidina Ahmad bin Hanbal rahmatullah Ali. They were contemporaries. And Hatim al-Assam was the student of Shakiq al-Balqee rahmatullah Ali. Another great scholar of this deen. Now al-Assam means the deaf. So he had this peculiar name Hatim, the deaf. And he was called the deaf. He was not deaf. But he was called the deaf on the basis of one incident where an elderly lady came to see him to ask him about some religious issue. And as she came and she sat down she passed wind with sound. Now obviously

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The third one is, if Rafayat-e-Dain is proven in multiple Sahih Hadith, why does the Hanafi Madhab not practice it? And in such cases, should a person follow the Hadith or continue following their Madhab? Also, what is the correct concept of strictly following one school of thought in Islam? Very good question. First and foremost, please understand that the Mahaddiseen have criteria based on which they follow Hadith. So, let me answer your second question first, which is, can we directly follow the Hadith? Answer is no. Because you do not have enough knowledge to just pick one Hadith and follow it. Because there may be other Hadith, there may be Ayat of the Quran, there may be the Azbab and Nuzul of the Quran. There may be the Azbab of the Hadith and so on and so forth, which either support it or negate it and so forth. So, you do not follow a Hadith by yourself. You do not invent your own religion. You follow one of the four Imams of Fiqh, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi, Imam Malik or Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal. Rahmatullahi alaihim ajma'in. That is the first thing. As far as Rafayat-e-Dain is concerned. Rafayat-e-Dain refers to lifting your hands up to your ears after Takbir-e-Tahrima. So, Takbir-e-Tahrima, you lift, everybody does that. You say Allah Hu Akbar. But after the Takbir, then lifting the hands again. So, people who do Rafayat-e-Dain, which is the Shafa'i do it. The Hanbalis also sometimes do it and so forth. They lift their hands before going into Ruku. Then they lift their hands again after they come up from Ruku, which is before going into Sujood. And then they lift their hands when they get up for the third Rakat. There are two Hadiths. One is the Hadith narrated by Abdullah ibn Mas'ud. Radhi Allah anhu. Who said, That Rasulullah s.a.w. lifted his hands only once. Which is when he was making the Takbir-e-Tahrima. And he did not lift his hands after that for anything. This is the Hadith that Imam Abu Hanifa rahmatullahi took. And his Fatwa is based on that. It is a correct Fatwa. There is nothing wrong with that. Alhamdulillah, this is very good. Ibn Mas'ud, Radhi Allah anhu, is the Sahabi about whom Rasulullah s.a.w. said, Whatever Ibn Mas'ud gives you from me, take it. That is the level of Ibn Mas'ud, Radhi Allah anhu. He also said, That the recitation of Ibn Mas'ud, he said, It is as if the Quran was revealed at the time it was revealed. So, it's so beautiful recitation. Imam Ash-Shafi, rahmatullahi alaihi, on the other hand, took the Dalil and the Hadith and the narration of Abdullah ibn Abu Hanifa. Abdullah ibn Abbas, Radhi Allah anhu, the cousin of Rasulullah s.a.w., who used to live with him. And Abdullah ibn Abbas, Radhi Allah anhu, he said that Rasulullah s.a.w. lifted his hands in Takbir-e-Tahima and then he also lifted his hands before he went into Ruku and when he got up from Ruku and when he came up for the third rakah. So, Ash-Shafi, rahmatullahi alaihi, took that Hadith. Now, you might say, why are there two Hadiths? The reason why there are two Hadiths is because Ibn Masud, Radhi Allah anhu, stayed with Rasulullah s.a.w. in the initial days and then Nabi s.a.w. sent him off to Yemen and he sent him off for different things. He was an older person and so he did not observe the Prophet s.a.w. and his Salah throughout his life until his end. Whereas Ibn Abbas, Radhi Allah anhu, because he was the cousin of Rasulullah s.a.w., he literally stayed in his house. And he stayed with Rasulullah s.a.w. from the time he was about 10, 20 years old. 12 years old until Nabi s.a.w. passed away, which by the time he would have been about 20 to 23 years old. And he said that I observed him doing this. So, what do we learn from this? We learn that Rasulullah s.a.w. initially used to pray in this way and later on he changed the way he prayed and he started also lifting his hands, Rafayadain, in the other places in the Salah. So, Alhamdulillah, his Hadith is also perfectly valid. He is Sikha. He is a highly, you know, very, very, very reliable narrator. There is absolutely no fault with Ibn Abbas, Radhi Allah anhu ma, whatsoever. Ibn Abbas, Radhi Allah anhu ma, one of the most beautiful Hadiths of his. He said that I saw Rasulullah s.a.w. getting up for Tahajjud. Now, imagine this boy. He must have been maybe 10, 12 years old. He is saying, I saw him get up. He is not saying he got up and woke me up. He is saying, I saw him get up. Which means that what was he doing at the time? So, the sense of Adab and the sense of Ihtiram and the sense of Azama of being in the company of the Rasul s.a.w. was so strong, even in the small boy, that when he was in the same room he was sleeping, he didn't say, oh, after all, this is my cousin. No. No. This is the Rasul of Allah s.a.w. So, he said that I saw him getting up and I ran to get water for his wudu. I brought the water. I poured the

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the Prophet and the Messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allahﷻ, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and his companions. Peace be upon them all. Huma Badu, my brothers and sisters, Allahﷻ gave us a standard to judge for ourselves whether we are successful or not. If we look at our lives in the world, everyone wants to be successful. We have different standards of success, mostly material, if not entirely material. Amount of wealth, amount of influence, amount of gadgets, amount of toys. But Allahﷻ gave us a different standard. Allah began with taking an oath by time. And in another place, Allahﷻ said, do not curse time because I am time. So Allah took this oath and He said, وَرَاسْر. And then He emphasized and He said, { إِنَّ ٱلۡإِنسَـٰنَ لَفِی خُسۡرٍ } Allah said, by time, truly and verily and certainly and definitely, إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ all humans, again, there is a second lamp of Baqir. Truly, all of humankind is definitely in loss. So Allahﷻ said, Allah began with this and when we say, truly all humankind, it includes everyone, Muslim, non-Muslims. { إِنَّ ٱلۡإِنسَـٰنَ لَفِی خُسۡرٍ }[Surah Al-ʿAṣr: 2] And then Allahﷻ mentioned those who are not in loss. إِلَّا الَّذين آمَنُوا Except those who have faith. وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ And who do good deeds. وَتَوَاسَوْا بِالْحَقِّ And who invite towards the truth. And when they face difficulties in that, they invite towards suburb, to patience and forbearance. Now the purpose of our standard is to measure ourselves against it. And say, how do I fit? Do I fit? Do I not fit? If I fit partially, then what is the part that is missing? Because Allah said, everyone other than this, in loss. Today I think the most important thing for us is to recalibrate ourselves and recalibrate our standards. Because we live in a world which is so completely materialistic that for us to think of something which is non-material is very tough. All our standards are materialistic. Whether it's individual success, whether it's success as in business or whatever, whatever we do, our standards are all materialistic. Numbers, only numbers. Dollar value, this, that. When you think of assets, suppose I ask you and say, list down your assets. Not to tell me for yourself. List your assets. What will you put there? List of assets, what will you put? What are they? Hmm? Property, goods, Correct, right? This much of wealth and property and I've got these flats, I've got this house and this lot. I've got this land and this and this. So many cars, so many planes. This is all this, assets. But the question to ask yourself is, how is this an asset? How do you define asset? An asset is something which has value, which gives you value, and which stays with you. No? You can't sit in a train and you're going, and you say, what is this? This seat is my asset. This is how it is. You bought a ticket and at the station you get off. It's not yours. Doesn't belong to you. Even though you're using it, it's not your asset because it doesn't belong to you. So if you list something which is not, which doesn't belong to me, which is going to go away, how is it, how is that an asset? So if you use this standard and say, an asset is something that belongs to me, that stays with me, that intrinsically has value, and it adds value to me. Then what will be assets? Because whatever we normally think of, you know, property, this is a, it's not, it doesn't stay with us. Good deeds. So do we count that? Do we have that? Is that our focus? Every day in the morning when you get up, in the time you go to bed, did you think and say, well today how many good deeds did I do? Something will happen, InshaAllah. But that's not how you look at your material assets, right? If you're studying, many young people here, you have to go to school, or you go to college, and you must have a certain amount of attendance. You can't say, Satchayal, maybe one day I go, one day I don't go. Somehow one day I happen to turn up at the school, next day I didn't go. Doesn't work like that. You have to go. So the good deeds that you are doing, and you're talking about as assets, these good deeds are, where are they? Do we count them? So Allahﷻ is saying, all that you have is zero. Has no value. Except now our Iman. So this is your Aqidah. Iman in Allahﷻ, Iman in His Rasool and all the requirements of Iman. So Iman in the Malaika, in the books, in the Prophets, Iman in the Day of Judgement, Iman in Jannah and Jahannam. Iman in being resurrected after the death of Allah, after death. All of these things. This is our Iman, the creed. Wa amiru salihat. Which I mentioned before, saying, what deeds are we doing? What is the value of those deeds? Just yesterday,

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the most honorable of the prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and his companions. Tasliman kathiran kathiran. And after that, my brothers and sisters, we are in the 27th day of Ramadan. All praise is due to Allah. So it is very important for us to take stock of what we have gained until now. I'm assuming that, especially the people in Ithakaf, I'm assuming that you had your goals for the Ithakaf. What are you going to do in this time? If you didn't have goals, at least do it now. But you should have had goals. When you come into the Ithakaf, I had sent out a reminder in the beginning itself. So the goals have to do with my activities during Ithakaf. I will read so much of Quran and so much of Namafil and so much of Dhikr and so much of Salat and Salam on Rasulullahﷺ and so on and so on. Whatever you had as your goals for Ithakaf. So I suggest that today, sit down and assess that and say, how did I achieve? Did I complete what I had expected to do? What whatever is, did I exceed that? If I'm falling short, make some plans. And those who did not have goals, make goals now. We have another maybe two, three days. Make goals now to say, what do you want to achieve in these two or three days? And then you can start to think about it. Matrix is very important. Matrix is measurement, ways of measurement, right? Matrix is the most critically important thing for success in life itself. And this period of Ithakaf is a microcosm of life itself. Has a beginning, has an ending. And it has periods in it. So treat it like a simulation for your life. And say from the beginning to the end, what am I going to achieve in my life? What are the stages? What do I need to do? How do I need to prepare? How do I need to pace myself? How much sleep? How much time in doing other than goal work? Right? And so on and so on. Do that. Pace yourself and see what are you going to achieve. Create those metrics and monitor those metrics. This is the most important thing. This is how you succeed in life. If you want to do something in life, this is what you do. You create a goal and then from today to the goal. And you have a timeline and you have a strategy to achieve that goal. And then you have metrics to measure yourself. Am I on target? Am I going in the right direction? Am I achieving what I need to achieve? And so on. Many of us get bogged down by external opinions. What people will say or don't say. Most of that is imaginary. Because we... You think you are so interesting. I mean, let me break the good news for you. You are not interesting. Except maybe for your mother. Right? The most uninteresting person in the world. Nobody will even remember your name. Take it from me. So forget people. In any case, people's opinion... I usually... I keep my language to the boundaries of the masjid. But the point is that, you know, people are not interested. You think people are talking about you? No, they don't. Even if they are, what difference does it make? Just look at the wonderful global leaders today. And see the amount of invective and the amount of insults and the amount of cursing that people are doing for each of those people. Does it make a difference to them? Nothing. They still do what they do. So why do you think some random public opinion makes a difference to you? It makes no difference to you. Forget people. Put yourself first. You are first. Focus on that. And say what is your goal? By when do you need to achieve it? What is your strategy? What is the roadmap for that strategy? The different stages? And then what are the metrics? How do you measure how you are doing? And this Ethaka period is a very... very good way to practice that to bring it into your life. So what were your goals when you came into Ethaka? As I said again, I am repeating it. You didn't have goals. Make them now. And then create metrics and say, what do I need to do? And become granular about that. What time do I need to wake up? How many hours am I going to sleep? The whole thing is about the goals. The whole purpose of Ramadan is to create life change. It's an opportunity every year that Allah gives us that we are alive. Allah mentioned in the Quran, He said, where are you going? Do you know where you are going? And if you don't know where you are going, then you are not going to be able to do anything. Then that's a sad way of living your life. Because what you are spending in this life is a non-renewable asset called time. Every breath you take, it's not coming back. Every minute spent is not coming back. It's spent. Like I gave you the example the other day of the ice block seller. The ice is melting. If that man wants to make a profit, he has to sell that

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'Alamin. Wassalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal ghusaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullahﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasleeman kathiran kathira famma baadu. My brothers and sisters, we were talking about the importance of khushoo, the importance of concentration and awareness. In Salah, I want to read for you something which somebody sent me, very nicely written. He says, what if I told you the Ummah's downfall didn't begin with politics or culture or society. It began on the prayer mat. What is the first thing lost from the Ummah? It is not hijab, it is not honesty, it is not charity. It is something far more subtle and almost gone. Rasulullahﷺ warned us in the Hadith, he said, the first thing to be lifted from my Ummah is khushoo. Not prayer itself, not fasting, not rituals. Khushoo, the heart inside the prayer. Khushoo, the body stays Muslim. The soul slips away. Think about that again. The prayer remains. The movements remain. The words remain. The masjid remains. But the presence, the presence of Allahﷻ disappears. The humility disappears. The trembling disappears. The softness disappears. The harmony disappears. We keep the shell. We lose the soul. Why is this terrifying? Because when khushoo is lost, you still pray. But your prayer doesn't lift you. It doesn't soften you. It doesnt restrain you. It doesn't change you. You pray with your limbs, but not with your heart. This is how an Ummah decays from within. And it's not a change. The Ummah lost khushu when we started rushing, when we started multitasking, when we started treating prayer like a chore. We started thinking about everything except Allah. Our bodies enter Salah, our minds stay in the Dunya. This is how khushu dies. The painful reality today we know the motions of Salah better than its meaning. We perfect our Tajweed but not our attention. We memorize Surahs but we don't surrender to Allah. We inherited the ritual, not the reverence. Khushu is not about crying. It is not about crying. It is not emotion. It is not drama. It is not fear. Khushu is being present, being humble, being aware, being small before Allah, being sincere, being still. It is the heart kneeling before the body does. Khushu was the secret of the Sahaba. They didn't pray long. They prayed deep. When they stood, their hearts trembled. When they bowed, their egos bent. When they prostrated, when they made sujood, the Dunya disappeared. They prayed like people who knew they would die tomorrow. How to revive khushu? In one sentence. Before you say Allahu Akbar. Say in your heart, Ya Allah, this Salah is for you. In the standard of Mus'ala, before you make your Takbeer Tahrib, say Ya Allah, this Salah is for you. Not for habit. Not for routine. Not for people. Not for discipline. For Him. Jalla Jalaluhu. That attention alone changes the entire prayer. It is not about prayer. It is the Qura'at. The truth no-one tells you. The ummah won't be revived by more lectures, by more institutes, by more seminars, it will be revived, the moment hearts bow the way bodies bow. Revive khushu and you revive a civilisation. So ask yourself, when I pray, does Allah S.W.T. have my body or my heart? Hadhrat Asma'i, one of the great scholars of Islam, he said, I heard the Arabs praying. He said, I heard the Badu praying. Hadhrat Asma'i says, Al-Ismail said, between fear of Allah's punishment and hope for Allah's reward. Both. In the Jauzi Rahul-e-Lahl he said or in the Al-Qayyim, Wallahu'alam, he said this Khauf and Tama are like the two wings of the bird. Hope is one wing and fear of Allah's punishment is the other wing. We need both. You can't have a bird flying with one wing. I have only hope and no fear. Or I have only fear and no hope. Both are wrong. We need hope and we need fear. And that's why Sayyidina Ali ibn Abi Talib asked some of his companions, how are you doing? And they said, we live in hope and fear. Sayyidina Ali said, when you truly hope for something, you pursue it. If you really want something, you go behind it. And when you truly fear something, you run away from it. So I don't understand a person who says that he fears Allah's punishment, yet when temptation comes his way, he does not give it up. Yeah? So he said, I don't understand a person. When a person fears something, he will not go near it. So you say, you fear the punishment of Allah, but when there is temptation, when there is the disobedience of Allah, shaitan is presenting it to you, you don't run away. You go towards this. And he said, I don't understand a person who says he hopes for Allah's reward, yet when hardship strikes him, when he has to face some difficulty, he doesn't patiently endure it. He complains and he moans and he groans. And he complains about Allah. Imam Hasan Basr

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah ** الرحمن الرحيم** (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم). Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ash-shalafil abbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullahﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahibu salam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Khawam abadu. My brothers and sisters, I want to teach you a very quick and very important life lesson. And that is what I call the lesson of the ROI. How many people know what is ROI? Nobody? The best one is this. Huh? No one knows. These people don't know, right? Return on investment. You say, do you do business? How do you do business? Return on investment, ROI. Right? This is a very, very important lesson to learn in life because this applies not only in business. It applies to everything in life. For example, you want to get married. Work out the ROI of the girl you are planning to get married. There are high maintenance women and there are low maintenance women. You marry a high maintenance woman, you will get a very low ROI. Right? You marry a low maintenance woman, you get a very high ROI. High return on the investment. Applies to everything. You're buying something. For example, you're buying a car. Are you buying a brand or are you buying features? All brands, low ROI. Nobody cares. Who cares what the decal on your car looks like? You think you're doing a great thing by buying this thing. Which, oh, it's a Mercedes or it's a BMW or whatever. You drive a BMW on Hyderabad roads at 10 miles an hour. So the point is that work on the ROI. What is the return on my investment? Whatever I'm investing. The reason I'm saying this to you is because, alhamdulillah, by the grace of Allahﷻ, we are here, especially the people who Allah has given the tawfiq to make it a . May Allah bless all of you. As I said yesterday, many of you have seen from the beginning. Like Hamza here, from the first day we started at the Kaaf in his masjid, he has been with me. Alhamdulillah. And even during the COVID days when I was in America, he was here alone by himself. And in those days, his grandfather used to live across from here. He used to come and bring special food for him, which he never shared with him. But I mean, I could see he brought it, brought the food and so on. Alhamdulillah. May Allah give him Jannatul Firdaus, Inshallah. So, you have invested your time, right, by being here. So, what's the ROI on this? What's the return you're going to get? Of course, return is, Allah gives return without counting. This is the ihsaan of Allahﷻ as Rabbil Alameen. But in terms of counting, also Rasulullahﷺ told us, he gave us numbers. Now, that numbers doesn't mean that it is restricted to that number. But we have the numbers. For example, Rasulullahﷺ said that when you read the Quran, Alhamdulillah, reading the Quran and listening to the Quran being recited, Inshallah, the reward is the same. So, when you read the Quran, Nabiﷺ said, for every letter, and this is very specific. He said, for every letter. For every letter, Allahﷻ will give 10 hasarat. Right? For every letter. And he said, I do not say that Alif, Laam, Meem is one letter. He said, Alif is one letter, Laam is one letter, Meem is one letter. That's how specific the hadith is. So, every letter, Allah will give 10 hasarat. Now, I did a quick calculation because I wanted to say this. So, I did the calculation beforehand and you can check it out if you like. Now, if in a, in a, I read the Usmani script. In the Usmani Quran, Musaf, a page has 15 lines. And you have roughly 21 pages to the Jews, to one Separa. And randomly I counted the number of letters, it's roughly 30 per line. So, multiply 30 by 15 lines. Multiply that by 21 to give you the number. Number of pages per Jews. And multiply that by 10, you get something like 94,200. Correct? Yeah? 94,500. 94,500. Now, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, for each letter you are getting 10 hasarat. So, each hasarat you take to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, you get 10 more. So, it is 100. So, 94,500 multiply by another 10. That's only, 9,000,000 is more than that. 94,500. Point being, that is just in one set of Tarawih. That's it. And remember, in that, when I am saying one Jews, we are not counting the number of times you have recited Surah Al-Fatihah. We are talking only about the rest of the Quran. Surah Al-Fatihah, we have read it 20 times. You have recited Surah Al-Fatihah 20 times plus in Salatul Isha and whatever. You have recited. You have heard and recited and so on, so on. And then during this time, I am very happy to see, Mashallah, all of you are very dedicated and you are spending a lot of time. I don't hear any noise in the day. Nothing, no laughing and this and that. Very good. This is the way to do Ithaka. Focusing on your Ibadah. Mashallah. May Allah bless you. So, you are doing that. Each one of you, you know what you are doing. All of this. Now, think about

https://youtu.be/2DJs81Dc53A Auto-generated transcript: I am in the Masjid which is in Uhud. Approximately where I am standing. Maybe a little bit more towards that side. Now between that mountain of Uhud, you can see here, there is this small hillock. Now that is the hillock on which Rasulullahﷺ had posted archers. And he told them, do not leave that place. Even if you see the vultures eating from our bodies. So irrespective whether you have success or you have failure, don't leave the place. But that order was disobeyed. And literally where I'm standing now is the passage through which Khalid bin Walid Rabi Al-Anhu, at that time he was not Muslim, brought the cavalry. And when cavalry hits infantry from the back, the result is predestined. And that's what happened. The Muslims lost the war and 70 of the great Sahaba of Rasulullahﷺ were shaheed. And that is the shahada of Uhud. Rasulullahﷺ used to visit here and make dua for them. And that is why we are also here to make dua. Alhamdulillah. That's a bonus of that sunrise, which seems to be so fabulous. I don't know if I can get a better shot than that. Anyway, that shot is good, inshaAllah. We have, this is Ibrahim. He's dragging me away from my job. He's saying we should hurry up so that we have time to rest, inshaAllah. Alright, inshaAllah. But take your time, take your time. Don't pretend like I'm talking to you. Right. We just walk very slowly and we enjoy the scene and they just look at us and it's fun. InshaAllah. They keep on pointing at us. Alhamdulillah. The thing to see, the lesson for us in this whole thing of the entire incidents, incident of Uhud, the battle, as well as, very importantly, the archers who were stationed on that hill over there. Oh. People were stationed there. Is the lesson of obedience to the Rasool, alayhi salam. Salal alayhi salam. This masjid is the new masjid that has been constructed here. I'm going now towards the graves of the shuhada of Uhud. But they have built a masjid there. It's not yet commissioned. So salah has not started in it yet. That is the Jabal Rumat. As I mentioned to you, the gap through which we are walking is the gap between Jabal Rumat and Jabal Uhud. And this is where the Sahaba who were stationed on this hill to prevent the cavalry from attacking the Muslims from the back. The Sahaba disobeyed and they came down and then the rest is history. So this is where we are. I'm going now towards the graves of the shuhada of Uhud. This masjid is called Masjid Sayyid al-Shuhada. Who is that one of the titles of Sayyidina Omar bin al-Khabba, Sayyidina Hamza bin Abdul Muttalib. Imagine these places are so blessed. These are the people who fought for the sake of Allahﷻ, gave their lives for the sake of Allahﷻ. And they know there are no headstones and there are no tombs and there are no structures constructed uh it's just one flat land we ask allah to forgive them and to fill their whole with nor we ask allah to make us among those who will be raised with these blessed ones is you are blessed by allah and were chosen by him to be witnesses for haq against batil There's this plaque which is uh which i will read out for you which says uh cemetery so the old martyr cemetery is located north of our masjid al nabawi approximately four kilometers away from the foot of one mountain 70 companions were buried there after being martyred in the battle of ahad in 3 a edge 3 hijri 625 by order of rasulullah who recommended we buried in the place of their martyrdom without washing he said i am a witness over these on the day of jannah among the most prominent of those very near are hamza bin abdul-muttalib rasulullah and leader of the martyrs standard bearer of islam and muslims abdullah bin jahash and hanzalah who was washed by the angels some of the bodies were later relocated to their current vocation during the era of mahavir with absurd bearing floods their bodies remain unchanged because they dug up the graves um to bury them they thought of no change in the body it had not decomposed the cemetery has gone through several stages where domes and mosques were built over it in different periods. After that, it was removed during the era of the first Saudi state in compliance with the Sunnah of Rasulullah regarding leveling graves. Today, the cemetery is surrounded by a fence. It is accessible and visited at all hours. Muslims from all over the world visited to greet the martyrs and pray for them, following the example of Rasulullah who used to visit them regularly. The cemetery stands as the eternal Sunnah of sacrifice and loyalty, reminding Muslims of the values of patience, perseverance, and jihad. The principal lesson we learn is the importance of obeying the Rasul ﷺ. Even when Muslims are not in the community, they are not in the community of the Prophetﷺ. The reason why the Prophet left the hillock is not because they became rebellious or left

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil amma ibn al-mussaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullahﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam. Tasleeman kathiran kathira. Wa mubadu. My brothers and sisters, we just celebrated yesterday Eid al-Fitr. The word Eid comes from the word A'ud. A'ud means to return. Something which returns. Something that you look forward to the returning of. So you look forward to something for it to return because you are happy. Right? Nobody looks forward to the return of some illness or evil or accident. Something which is good. You enjoyed it. It was very nice. You something which you look forward to. So you say, I hope it comes again and again and again. The reason why we look forward to the return of the Eid every year and may Allahﷻ grant all of us Ramadan again in good health and with the time and the tawfiq to take full advantage of it inshallah. The reason we look forward to the return of the Eid is because of the Eid. Because it represents for us victory. Fatah. Victory over ourselves. Victory over our own nafs. Victory over our own desires. We had a desire for food but we stopped it. We controlled it. We did not give in to that desire for food. Why? Because that was the hukam of Allahﷻ. There is no other reason. We did not stop eating because I think I need to lose weight or my glycemic index has to come down or there is some other reason. No. We did not eat from dawn to dusk, from before fajr to after maghrib only because Allahﷻ commanded that. There is no other reason. If somebody is fasting for any other reason that fast is invalid. Right? Why did we do that? Because Allah's order. We prayed. All of us. Alhamdulillah. We prayed Isha and we prayed Fajr by jama'at in the masjid. Throughout the month. 30 days. We prayed Isha and we prayed Salatul Fajr in the masjid by jama'at. So what did we get because of that? We got the reward. Worshipping Allahﷻ the whole night. Because the hadith of Jesus He said the one who prays Isha by jama'at, Allah gives him the reward of standing in Salat for half the night. Can you imagine? Even if you want to stand in Salat for half the night, maybe you can do it one day, maybe you can do it two days. How many days will you do it? But this is nothing. Just pray Isha by jama'at in any masjid. Pray Isha by jama'at in the masjid. Allahﷻ will give us the reward for praying half the night. And then Nabi said the one who prays Salatul Fajr also by jama'at, Allah gives him the reward for the rest of the night. So just praying Isha in the masjid by jama'at and praying Salatul Fajr in the masjid by jama'at, we got the reward for worshipping Allahﷻ the entire night. So the whole month of Ramadan, Alhamdulillah, we did that. Third thing is we stood in Qiyamul Layl. Tarabih is Qiyamul Layl. We stood in Qiyamul Layl. Whatever you prayed, whether you prayed 20 rakat or 8 rakat, that's not the issue. The issue is you stood in Qiyamul Layl. Alhamdulillah, as much as you could pray. So this is another beautiful thing. Qiyamul Layl is the time, is the Qiyam when Allahﷻ descends to the first heaven in a manner that suits His Majesty and Grace. And Allahﷻ announces who is there who needs anything from me, let him ask. I will give him. Who is there who needs my protection, let him ask. I will give him. Who is there who needs my forgiveness, let him ask. I will give him. Right? So think about this. Alhamdulillah, we can make dua at any time of the day or night. Allahﷻ, the doors are open. There is no problem with that. But to make dua specifically when Allahﷻ has set a time and Allah says, okay, right now is the time. Tell me. So Alhamdulillah, we did that also. We prayed Qiyamul Layl. Right? Then Alhamdulillah, Inshallah, for whoever Allahﷻ gave tawfeeq and may Allah have given tawfeeq to all of us, we increased our zakat and sadaqat and khairat and all kinds of things through the month. Then Alhamdulillah, bismillah ta'ala, we also controlled our tongues. We did not curse and we did not use bad language and we did not do ghiva and we did not do namima and we did not do any of the evil things with the tongue, which may Allah forgive us, this has become now almost the social currency, right? Social currency is ghivat. Four people sitting here, talking about someone. So either we talk, or if someone else is doing it, we listen. Both are the same. So, you may say, Allah has given two legs, go away from there. Why are you sitting? Either stop him, the fellow is talking, tell him, why are you talking about him, why are you doing this, Allah is haram, don't do it. You can't say anything, get up and go. Don't sit there, right? If somebody is doing ghiva, stop them, tell them, this is haram, this is like eating the flesh of your brother, Allahﷻ said in the Quran, what more do you want? Right? Please stop this, we don't want t

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah irrahmanir rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wassalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil abduhi wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah **ﷺ** Tasliman kathiran kathira. My brothers and sisters, Allahﷻ ordained on us some actions of worship. We have, for example, salah. We have fasting. We have zakat. We have hajj. Different actions of worship. The important thing to understand and realize is that each act of worship is a tool to achieve something. The action of worship is not for itself. Each action is a tool to achieve something. And that is why it is important to understand what each action of worship is supposed to achieve and to monitor that. Is it happening or not happening? For example, Allahﷻ ordained upon us the salah. Allah said, Aqim is salat al-dhikri. Allah said, I will establish the salah for my dhikr, for my remembrance. And the purpose of salah, Allahﷻ said, Salah separates you from all fawshat and munkarat. All shameless things and all acts of disobedience. So the salah is meant to achieve this. The salah is meant, first of all, the salah is for the dhikr of Allah. In the salah itself, we must think and say, Am I remembering Allahﷻ or is my mind wandering somewhere else? Because the salah is for dhikr, right? Aqim is salatah. Why? For what? For dhikr. For my dhikr. For my remembrance. So if I am praying and my mind is wandering somewhere, then it's a ridiculous thing because it's like saying this food is to fill your belly, but I am eating, I am still hungry, so something is wrong. How can you be hungry? You are eating. The food is meant to fill your belly. So the salah is meant for us to remember Allah. And if in the salah, we are forgetful, if there is ghaflat, in the salah, you are not remembering Allahﷻ, you are thinking of something else, then the salah is itself, you know, I mean, I won't go into the fiqh of it because khusho in salah is also one of the arkan of salah. It's one of the pillars of salah. But even without going into that, the fact is that salah is not doing what it's supposed to do. And then we say, well, what is the effect? What is the effect of this salah? What is it supposed to do? It is supposed to separate me from all forms of disobedience, especially from the fahushat, especially from shameless things. So I am praying, but I am looking at stuff which is haram. I am listening to stuff which is haram. Right? I am messaging things which I should not be doing. I am praying, but I am earning haram. I am eating, I am eating haram. I am talking haram. Something is wrong. Because this salah is supposed to wash my hands. Hands are supposed to be clean. I am washing and washing. Hands are still dirty. So something is wrong with the soap. So something is wrong with the salah if it is not separating me from the fahushat and balkarat because Allah said this is for His purpose. So the ibadah is a tool. The ibadah is not for itself. Similarly, now we are in the month of Ramadan. We are in the last 10 days, the most blessed of the nights. Allahﷻ said about fasting, why are we fasting? What is the reason? So that you may become muttaqoon. So that you may become people who are concerned only and only to please Allahﷻ and nothing else. Now how does fasting achieve that? Fasting achieves it by reinforcing the fact that we do something only because it is the command of Allahﷻ. There is no other reason. You are not fasting to lose weight, you are not fasting to adjust your blood sugar, you are not fasting for any reason. You are fasting because Allah said so. During the period of the fast you have made haram on yourself things which are normally halal. Eating and drinking and relationship with your spouse is halal. But during the period of the fast, from the end of the suhur time to the beginning of the iftar time, we have made these things haram on ourselves. Why? Because Allah said so. Therefore, the lesson which is being reinforced is if you can even make halal haram on yourself because Allah said so, what about things which Allah already made haram? Right? What about things which Allah already prohibited? Even the halal you are saying, no, I will not do it because Allah said don't do it. So if Allah said don't do it, even for the halal you will not do it, you are obeying Allah, alhamdulillah, very good for you. Then what about the things which Allah already prohibited? What about interest-based dealings? What about gambling? What about alcohol? What about being disrespectful to your parents? What about ill-treating your spouses? Right? Or they all get food, they all get drink, they all get nice place to sleep? There should be a difference, no? Kids are not pets. And so on and so on. So what Allah has already made haram, how can you do that? Because in the fast, this is being reinforced. You say, I will obey Allah. Allah said so is reason enough. I don't need any other reason. Logical, illogical, scientific, not scient