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 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

https://youtu.be/xe0oQ9PQjCw 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 honor of the Prophet and the messengers. Muhammad Rasulullah, peace and blessings be upon him, and peace be upon him. Tasslim and kassir. Aqwa ma'adu. My brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah, I am sitting here in the Masjid al-Nabiyy al-Sharif. We just finished Salat al-Fajr; we finished a khutbah given by one of the ulema of the Haram on the importance of Tawheed, on the importance of not making shirk. The khutbah was for one hour. And you will see the people who are here—the place is jam-packed, including little children like this little one running around here. No disturbance, sitting peacefully, sitting respectfully, and listening to the khutbah. This is the meaning of Tawheed. May Allah grant us the Tawheed to make proper Tawheed for our children. It's not difficult. I'm seeing it here. If others can do it, you can also do it. It's a question of whether you have the will to do it. This Masjid is very special, not only because it is holy and you get the Sawa of One Thousand. In Makkah, you get the Sawa of One Hundred Thousand. Not only for that reason, the main reason why this Masjid is so special is because this is the Masjid from which the work of Dawa started. The Hijri calendar was decided which should be time zero to start from. They chose not the birthday of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam but their... The day he came to Madinah, the day of Hijra. And that gives us a huge indication of what is important in Islam. What is important in Islam is to practice Islam yourself and take the word of that to the rest of the world. And that is what makes this Masjid so powerful and so special, because this is where it started from. Every time I come here, I look at the faces. SubhanAllah, there is every category represented. People of different colors, people of different ages, people who are healthy, wealthy, and wise, people who are the opposite, the young, the old, people from every village of the world. They all congregate here. They come for Umrah. And then they come here out of love for the Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, because visiting Masjid al-Nabawi wa Sharif is not part of the arkaan of Umrah. If somebody just comes to Makkah, makes Umrah, and goes back, he has not committed any sin. But he has also not expressed his love for Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, because how can you come to the Hijaz and not visit the Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? Because that shows the level of love for Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. There is no other way. The love of His Rasool is shown by following His Sunnah. There is no point in saying you call yourself an Aashiq, a Rasool and this and that. And then all you do is celebrate his birthday, Mawlid and Mawlud and Milad or whatever you call it. All of which is against the Sunnah. He never did it; never told anyone to do it. So you call yourself an Aashiq of the Rasool, someone who loves him, and then you show that love by disobeying him, by doing something which is not something he did. The idea is to show our love for Rasool SAW by following his Sunnah, by doing what he did, by saying what he said, by acting the way he told us to act. And that's what makes this Masjid special. This is the Masjid from which it began. Imagine when Rasool SAW built this Masjid. Today we have this beautiful, beautiful structure, amazing architecture, you have enough power which powers this Masjid. The electricity in the lighting, the air conditioning, and so on is literally enough to light up a middle-sized city. That's how much power is used here. And then of course all the cleanliness of it and it is very beautiful, very, very beautiful. Think about when Rasool SAW built this Masjid. It was a small structure, it had a thatched roof, it had no lighting in it, it was a mud structure. Now think about that if Rasool SAW at that point wanted to build a permanent structure, he wanted to spend money on lighting, if he wanted to have a decent floor, if he wanted to have a decent roof, believe me, all of that was possible, all of that could have been done. There was enough money to make it happen because there were people like Sa'ad bin Affan RADELANOO and Abdurahman bin Awf RADELANOO; all that needed was an indication from cafe of done all this. But what did Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam do? Did he spend time and money on architecture or did he spend time and money on the amal of the masjid? What did he focus on? Did he focus on the work of the masjid? Why are you here? What are you doing in the masjid? Did he focus on the ibadat, the khushu and khudu in the salah? Did he focus on the struggle for Islam? Did he focus on charity? Did he focus on akhlaq of being nice to people? Sumama bin Uthal, who was the great chief of

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, brothers and sisters. We will come close; we are coming close to the day of Eid. Remember, Zakat al-Fitr is wajib. Before you pray Salatul Eid, Zakatul Fitr must be paid before you pray Salatul Eid. It can be paid a few days in advance, no problem. It is actually a good idea to pay it a few days in advance because the person receiving it has time to do something with that money. Or if you just pay it on the way to the idga, it's not so useful, but anyway, you can still pay it there. There’s no problem with that. Zakatul Fitr is payable on the day of each find out how much Zakatul Fitr is in your country and pay it. Zakatul Fitr is payable for every individual in your house irrespective of their age. So even if a child is born the previous night, Fitr is payable for that child. Zakatul Fitr is also payable for any permanent servants and so on that you may have who they may live with you or not doesn’t matter, but if they are permanent servants with you, then you should also pay Zakatul Fitr for those servants. Make sure that you ensure that they make sure that you pay the Zakatul Fitr. Don’t leave it if you have left it after Salatul Eid, it becomes ordinary charity. It is not Zakatul Fitr. So make sure you pay that. This is conditional for the acceptance of Salatul Eid. It is a day of happiness, a day of joy and rejoicing. Let us make it also a day of joy and rejoicing for others whom Allah has not given as much wealth as He has given to us. And let us make sure that they also have money to eat some good food, maybe make some clothes, and so on. To make sure that the khair and barakah for them as well as their children and their children’s children. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to help us to celebrate Eid in a manner which is in keeping with the Sunnah of Rasulullah SAW and to ensure that we give Zakatul Fitr before we go to Eid. Go to Eid on one route and come back from another route and make the takbirat of Eid when you are going and when you are sitting there waiting for the Eid Salah. Do not pray tayyatul masjid when you go for Eid Salah. That's the only time you don't pray that. And then once the Eid prayer is established, the prayer is first and then there is the lecture. So do the prayer and then listen to the lecture. InshaAllah, we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to accept our Eid. Let me wish you kullu aam mantum bi khair, Eid Mubarak. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala make this Eid the best Eid of your lives. May Allah make us among those who will enjoy this and in khair and barakah and afiyah. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain. Bi rahmatika ya rahman rahim.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala Rasoolullah ﷺ, wa baad, my brothers and sisters, Ramadan is the month of giving. We know the Sahaba said that Rasoolullah ﷺ was known for his generosity. We know how generous he was. And we said that he was in Ramadan, he would become so generous that he would become like a beautiful wind that is coming full of, laden with water. Something is so generous, he would give and give and give. Let us become people who give. Most people pay the Zakat in Ramadan, Alhamdulillah. Zakat can be paid at any time of the year, but Ramadan we pay, we ask Allah to enhance the reward. Please understand that there are two conditions of Zakat. The first condition is that if you are sahib ul nisaab, and check the nisaab in your country, if you are the sahib ul nisaab, if you have enough gold or silver or money for the nisaab and more, then you have to pay Zakat, on that entire wealth, at the rate of 2.5% for silver, gold and money. And then if it is agricultural produce and so on, it is 10%. So you pay Zakat if you have the nisaab. And you pay this to somebody who does not have nisaab. Zakat cannot just be paid to any situation, to any institution or something. It has to be paid to the individual who is eligible to receive Zakat, and that would be somebody who does not have the nisaab. The condition of Zakat is that even if you give it to an institution, you have institutions who take Zakat from you and they disburse it. No problem with giving it to them. But please understand, it is your responsibility to ensure that the money goes to the final recipient, who must be somebody who does not have the nisaab. And then this money, this amount must be given to them, free of conditions, and they must be made complete and free owners of that. You cannot give Zakat with conditions. You cannot give the money and say, use it for your children's education. Use it for this or that. Then it is not Zakat. Then it is ordinary charity. InshaAllah, Allah will reward you for charity. But your liability for Zakat with Allah still remains. And if you don't pay, you will be punished. It is your job, even if you give the Zakat to an institution to disburse it, it is your job to ensure that it is disbursed and it is given to the people who actually are eligible to receive it. It is your job to ensure that. So make sure you do your due diligence, check if the organization has separate Zakat account, if they are keeping their account, ask them to give you the names, who they have given it to, go and investigate to make sure, so that you are clear before Allah. We ask Allah to make us among those who will not owe anything of Zakat when we meet Him. And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family. May Allah grant him peace and blessings of Allah.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala Rasoolullah ﷺ, wa baad. My brothers and sisters, we have been talking about forgiveness and how Ramadan must make us people who are forgiving because our taqwa is increasing, alhamdulillah. Measure it. Ask yourself, what are the signs that my taqwa is increased? And look for those signs, right? And one of those signs is your willingness to forgive others. We have this beautiful story in this very terrible time when the slander against the incident of Ifk, the slander against our mother, Sayyidatuna Aisha Siddiqa (RA), the cousin of Abu Bakr Siddiq (RA), Mistah bin Usaysa, who was a muhajir, who was also somebody who received financial aid from Abu Bakr Siddiq (RA). He also joined in the slander against Sayyidatuna Aisha Siddiqa (RA) and Abu Bakr Siddiq (RA). Abu Bakr Siddiq (RA) quite appropriately and quite justifiably got angry and he said, "I will not give him any more financial aid." Despite his justified action, Allah ﷻ revealed Quran and Allah ﷻ said, which means: "And do not let those among you who are blessed and blessed with graces and wealth—this is a confirmation and praise for Abu Bakr Siddiq (RA)—do not let them swear not to give any sort of help to their kinsmen, the poor, and the muhajirun who left their homes for the sake of Allah. Let them pardon and forgive. Do you not love that Allah should forgive you? And Allah is of forgiving, most merciful." Allah is saying, "Forgive others if you want Allah to forgive you." It is such a beautiful and such a powerful reminder. Anytime you feel reluctant to forgive others, ask yourself, "Do I not want Allah to forgive me?" And the answer is yes, and therefore forgive that person. We ask Allah to help us become forgiving people, seeking forgiveness and forgiving each other for His sake. And we ask Allah to accept that and to forgive us. سَلِّمْ اللَّهُ عَلَىٰ نَبِيِّ الْقَرِيمِ وَعَلَىٰ عَلِيِّهِ وَسَلِّمْ بِرَحْمَةِكِ وَرَحْمَةٍ

Auto-generated transcript: **Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulullah ﷺ wa baad.** My brothers and sisters, forgiveness is something, forgiveness is the manifestation of mercy. The action which shows mercy is forgiveness. And forgiveness is something without which no relationship can exist. Every conceivable relationship on the face of the planet in our lives needs forgiveness. Including our relationship with Allah ﷻ. If Allah does not forgive us, we are finished. We are destroyed. Forgiveness is something we need with our spouses, we need with our children, we need with our teachers, our students, with our customers, clients, with strangers, with everybody, we need to forgive each other. Forgiveness is the glue which holds the ummah together. It is the glue which holds the ummah together. To the extent that Rasulullah ﷺ not only promoted it, but he enforced it. In the hadith of Abu Dawood, Rasulullah ﷺ said: **وَعَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ لَا يَحِلُّ لِمُسْلِمٍ أَنْ يَحْجُرَ أَخَاهُ فَوْقَ ثَلَاثًا فَمَنْ حَجَرَ فَوْقَ ثَلَاثًا فَمَاتَ دَخَلَ النَّارُ** (It is not lawful for a Muslim to leave his Muslim brother without speaking to him for more than three days; whoever does so and dies will enter Hell). SubhanAllah, may Allah ﷻ save us from this, how terrible it is. And we have, we forget about brother, we don't talk to our own brothers. I know cases where people have not stopped speaking to their parents because of some nonsense they have, and they have this ill feeling. Please, after you listen to this, immediately, do not let the sun set, do not come to iftar without seeking forgiveness from Allah ﷻ, without making up with your brothers and sisters who you have not been speaking to, without making up with your parents, without making up with whoever of the Muslim brothers you want, who you had a problem with—go and forgive them, and seek their forgiveness, and make up and join hearts. Do not sleep until you do that. And inshaAllah, Allah ﷻ will accept your duas like He used to accept the duas of those He was pleased with. Forgiveness is absolutely critical. And Allah said: "Allah will forgive you—don’t you want Allah to forgive?" Ask yourself this question. May Allah bless the Prophet ﷺ and his family, and the companions of his company, and the mercy of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

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, the Messenger of Allah ﷲ, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions, peace and blessings be upon them. Fahm Abadu and brothers and sisters, please understand also one more thing: that Ramadan is a time for us to control ourselves, to control our food intake, to control our sleep, to control our desires. It’s not a time and opportunity for us to eat much more than we normally eat, to spend our time in iftar parties at the time of iftar. Suhoor and iftar are times of prayer. Allah ﷻ accepts du’as. There is barakah and suhoor at iftar, so eat suhoor and eat iftar. But these are the times for du’as. This is not the time for indulging in parties and in cooking special foods and in making a lot of noise and so on and so forth. This is the time when you sit quietly and you reflect and you introspect and you, inshallah, create a beautiful atmosphere of respect and an atmosphere of focusing on Allah ﷻ and focusing on our lives. Also make sure that this is the time when you share food with your neighbours, share food, especially with poor people. As I said, this is not a matter of having parties and sharing food with wealthy people who are on diets and you just keep on sharing food. Sharing food with each other, but also share food with poor people. Make Ramadan a play, a time when everyone around you looks forward to that time and says that, alhamdulillah, this is the time when the Muslims are especially generous. Once again, Ramadan is not only for Ramadan. We should be generous all the time. People are not anacondas. They don’t eat only once a year. So we must share food, we must give food, we must feed people throughout the year and make Ramadan as the booster for us. Make Ramadan as the instigator of all good things. And one of them is to be charitable, to share food, to share clothing, to share, help people through difficulties, especially go visit hospitals, especially go visit hospitals because there are people there who are sick and their relatives are there and they don’t have food to eat for suhoor, food to eat for iftar. Go share food with them. Let them feel the beauty of Ramadan. Let them not worry about how to find food for suhoor, anything. Iftar and so on. You go take food for them from your home. Help them, feed them. Do, do whatever you can, which you think and you know will please Allah ﷻ. My brothers and sisters, as I said, we don’t know if you will see another Ramadan. We see this Ramadan, alhamdulillah. We ask Allah ﷻ to make this the best of our lives yet, inshaAllah. And then if Allah ﷻ shows us more, we do more every time we see another Ramadan. But let us not waste it. Let us not waste a single minute, a single second of this beautiful month. We ask Allah, to bless us and to bless all around us. **وَسَلَّى اللَّهَ لَا نَبِيِّ الْكَرِيمِ وَأَلِيهِ وَصَحِّيَ أَجْمَئِنِ بِرَحْمَةِكَ أَخْمَا وَرَحِيمَ** (sallallahu alayhi wasallam, rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu)

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ. Tasleeman kathiran kathira. Wama baadu, my brothers and sisters, I remind myself in you that Ramadan al-Kareem is the month for us to change our lives and to bring them on to the path of obedience to Allah ﷻ in the way of His Nabi ﷺ. One of the important things in Ramadan also is to reflect on our relationships. Our relationships with our parents, our relationships with our siblings, our relationships with our friends and neighbors, our relationships with Muslims and non-Muslims. And to practice the beautiful akhlaq, the beautiful manners, the beautiful ways of dealing of the Prophet ﷺ, which made him the beloved of everyone in the society that he lived in. And this is an opportunity for us to do that in Ramadan. Rasool Allah ﷺ said, "If you cannot control your tongue, and if your tongue has the same kind of filthy language and useless talk and so on that you have in normal times, even when you are fasting, then Allah ﷻ has no need for you to be hungry and thirsty." Nabi ﷺ said, "When you are fasting, make sure that your tongue, that nothing vulgar comes on your tongue, that you do not use obscene language." My brothers and sisters, this is a very important thing, as I said, to understand that Ramadan is not for Ramadan. The admonition to keep your tongue clean and pure and to speak only that which is beneficial, otherwise to remain silent. It is not only for Ramadan, it is for the rest of our lives. And Ramadan is the place where we practice it, and so let us do that. Practice good akhlaq, practice good manners, practice the way of living with people in a way which is beneficial for them and us. Practice a way in which we build bridges and we bring people close to us on the basis of our Islam, where we, with our akhlaq, with our manners, with our dealings, we dispel all the propaganda that people put against Islam. And may Allah bless the noble Prophet and his family and companions with the mercy of Allah.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasool Allah ﷺ, my brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah, Allah ﷻ has chosen to give us Ramadan al-Kareem. Let us make the most of this beautiful month. Let us make this month into a month of khair and barakah for all of us. I ask Allah ﷻ to help us build relationships and become people of this ummah who join with each other. In Ramadan is a month of forgiveness and seeking forgiveness. We understand this where Rasool Allah ﷺ asked us to beg Allah ﷻ for His forgiveness. Allah ﷻ said, Nabi ﷺ said in the hadith in Tirmidhi, narrated by Anas bin Malik r.a., that Rasool Allah ﷺ said: “Allah ﷻ said” (hadith-e-Qudsi): *“O son of Adam, I forgive you if you worship Me alone, don’t make shirk, and hope for My forgiveness. Whatever sins you have committed, I will forgive all of them. O son of Adam, I do not care if your sins reach the height of the heavens, and then you seek forgiveness—I will forgive you. O son of Adam, if you come to Me with an earth full of sins, an earth load of sins, and meet Me associating nothing with Me, I will match it with an earth load of forgiveness.”* Please understand—be very clear in our minds. Number one: I will forgive you. The number one condition is we do not make shirk. Don’t join anybody with Allah, because Allah is not joined with anybody. And then seek forgiveness, because forgiveness is something from which taqwa begins. Forgiveness is the tahara of the heart. So we ask Allah ﷻ to forgive us. And remember, I remind myself and you: when you seek forgiveness, tawbah comes with it. Istighfar is to seek forgiveness; tawbah is to turn toward Allah ﷻ. Two go hand in hand. We cannot say, “O Allah, forgive me for this,” and then continue with that sin. “O Allah, forgive me for ghibah” and we continue with ghibah. Our whole social life is based on ghibah. “O Allah, forgive me for slander” and I still continue to slander. “O Allah, forgive me for lying” and I’m still lying and cheating. “O Allah, forgive me for this and that”—when you say, “forgive me,” it means you are going to stop doing that thing. Otherwise, the forgiveness has no sincerity in it. So please let us sincerely beg Allah ﷻ to forgive us for all our sins, and then make dua—Allah ﷻ will accept your dua. InshaAllah, we ask Allah to accept our dua. But seek forgiveness, make istighfar, and follow that istighfar with amal. The istighfar with the amal, InshaAllah, leads to success. We ask Allah ﷻ to make us those whose dua will not be rejected. And may the blessings of Allah be upon the noble Prophet ﷺ and his family and the companions. By the mercy of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wassalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ. Tasliman kathiran kathiran. Faham abadu. My brothers and sisters, we make etikaf to find Laylatul Qadr. And the Rasulullah ﷺ told us that Laylatul Qadr is one of the odd nights out of the last ten nights of Ramadan. We know the hadith where there were two sahaba who were arguing outside and Nabi ﷺ came out and he said, Allah ﷻ had told me the specific night of Laylatul Qadr, but He made me forget that because of your argument. But seek Laylatul Qadr in the last ten nights of Ramadan in the odd nights. Now this is the hikmah of Allah ﷻ. Alhamdulillah, Nabi ﷺ could have mentioned one night. He did not do that. And therefore, don't fall into these arguments about whether it is the 27th or the 21st or the 25th and so on and so forth. Anyone who says it is definitely 27th is talking through his hat because Rasulullah ﷺ himself didn't say that. Right? So don't get into all this. There's no need for all these arguments. Seek in the last ten nights. The best way to do that is to make etikaf in the last ten nights. Definitely you would have got it. Now Sayyidina Aisha Siddiqua, this is the beauty of the Sahaba and Sahabiya. She didn't say, "Rasulullah, when is Laylatul Qadr?" She said, "If I find Laylatul Qadr, what dua should I make?" And Allah taught her this dua: **اللهم إنك عفوٌ تحبُّ العفوَ فاعف عنِّي** O Allah, You are the Forgiver, and You love to forgive. Therefore, forgive me. Make this dua for all of us: **اللهم إنك عفوٌ تحبُّ العفوَ فاعف عنِّي** InshaAllah, we ask Allah to forgive us. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain, bi rahmatika ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah ﷺ, wa abad. My brothers and sisters, we are coming to the close of the month. I'tikaf is a sunnat of Rasulullah ﷺ. He used to do I'tikaf the last ten nights of Ramadan al-Kareem. He would seclude himself in the masjid and he would make I'tikaf. He would stay away from his wives. He would be in a state of zikr and he would exert himself in prayer. No useless talk. Please understand, I'tikaf has rules. I'tikaf, you are not going to the masjid to hang out with your friends. You are not going to the masjid to chit-chat and to make a lot of noise and stuff. Some of the ulama have even disliked any excess and too much of lectures and stuff. Maybe one reminder or something, more than enough. But go there only and purely for the sake of Allah ﷻ to seclude yourself. In zikr, in Tilawatul Quran, in Nawafil and then of course the A'mal of the masjid and then when you have done all that you get tired and go to sleep. So this is the way of I'tikaf. Try to do that in the masjid of your mahala, wherever you are close. Go and make I'tikaf last ten nights. In the last year of Rasulullah ﷺ's life, he made I'tikaf for twenty nights. The purpose of I'tikaf is to seek Laylatul Qadr. This is the purpose. And Rasulullah ﷺ told us that he said, "Seek Laylatul Qadr in the last 10 nights of Ramadan and in the odd nights of those 10 nights." So now if you are doing all the 10 nights then inshallah definitely you would have and I would have got Laylatul Qadr. The benefit of Laylatul Qadr, Allah ﷻ said: **إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَاهُ فِي لَيْلَةٍ مُبَارَكَةٍ** (Inna anzalnahu fi laylati mubarakati) **وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا لَيْلَةُ الْقَدْرِ** (Wa ma adraaka maa laylatu alqadri) **لَيْلَةُ الْقَدْرِ خَيْرٌ مِنْ أَلْفِ شَهْرٍ** (Laylatu alqadri khayrun min alf shahrin) Allah ﷻ said, "What do you know about the value of Laylatul Qadr? It is better than 1000 months." He didn't say it's equal to that. How much better? In keeping with His Majesty and Grace Jalla Jalaluhu. So if we get Laylatul Qadr, it is better than worship continuous worship without a break for 1000 months and more—how much more Allah knows. So make I'tikaf; it is a beautiful sunnah. Take this time out. Make use of it. Don't waste it in chit chatting and this and that and joking and whatnot and eating more and more food. Eat less, sleep less, worship Allah ﷻ more. This is the sunnat of I'tikaf. Do the sunnah I'tikaf inshallah. We ask Allah ﷻ to make it easy and to make it something which is full of khair and barakah. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in bi rahmatik ya Allah.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah ﷺ, my brothers and sisters, on the topic of dua. As I said to you, Ramadan is the month of dua, when we feel close to Allah ﷻ, when we have worked to try to develop our taqwa, and Allah ﷻ has helped us to become muttaqun, then we feel this unsiyat—we feel this closeness to Allah ﷻ—and we beg Allah ﷻ to help us. Inshallah, we ask Allah ﷻ to help us, and He will help us. When we are in this state, Allah taught us how to make dua. See the ayat of the dua of Zakariya ﴿ عليه السلام ﴾. Allah ﷻ said, he asked Allah nidaan khafia—in a small voice, not yelling and screaming, in a small voice—and then he began with putting his own weakness, his own helplessness, his own brokenness before Allah ﷻ. He said: *Oh Allah, I am an old man; my hair has become white, my bones have become weak. My wife is beyond the age of childbirth—she is also an old woman—but Oh Allah, give me an heir, give me someone to carry forward this work of deen.* Now imagine, this is what he is asking. This is the method. Allah ﷻ told us this whole thing in such detail to teach us how to make dua—small dua, khafi. You are a slave; I am a slave. We are talking to Rabbul Alameen. Go with that humbleness and humanity, and say: *Oh Allah, give me—I am begging you, Oh Allah, I am begging you.* Go like this, with humility, with humbleness, with brokenness. Put your problems before Allah ﷻ, and then ask Allah ﷻ—with your sight on His majesty and grace, on His power and authority. Don’t ask Allah ﷻ, putting all kinds of conditions in your mind. I don’t know whether it will happen. No doubt, ask Allah: *Oh Allah, give me, because You can give me. Give me because only You can give me. Give me because I don’t join partners with You. Because You have guided me to Tawheed, and I ask You, only You, because only You can give. La hawla wa la quwwata illa bik.* Oh Allah, give me, because I am begging You to give me. And inshallah, Allah will give you. Put power in your dua. And Allah taught us how to do that. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem ﷺ, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in, bi rahmatik ya Allah, wa rahmatullah.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah walhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala Rasoolullah ﷺ wa ba'd. My brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah we are in the month of Ramadan. And this ayah which Allah put in the middle of the ayat of fasting: **إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ** (inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un). Which means Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said: When my slave is close to Me, when my slave asks about Me, I am close to him. Tell him that I am close to him when he asks Me. I will give him, and let him obey Me and let him have faith in Me, and he will be rightly guided. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala—this is the beauty of this deen—when the slave has developed taqwa because he is fasting. He is now conscious of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He is conscious of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in his life. He is looking around himself. He is seeing the blessings that Allah has given him. He is thanking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for those blessings. He doesn't just say "this happened, that happened." He doesn't say, "I am a self-made man." No—he understands that only and only Allah gives. He realizes that everything he has is a gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He is therefore grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He looks around him and sees the glory, majesty, power, control, and khudrat of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. His heart is filled with the khashyat of Allah. His heart is filled with shukur to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala (thankfulness to Allah). And he is aware of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So he is asking: My Rabb, how can I please You? My Rabb, be pleased with me. And that's what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying: Make dua, and I'll ask you. Ramadan is the month of dua. Ask Allah. Beg Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give—and with the complete yaqeen. Inshallah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has put conditions. Allah said: "I will give whatever you have asked for. Ask Me, I will give you—but the condition is obey Me." No dua and no begging while you are doing something which is haram. You are earning interest. Allah has prohibited it. Allah has declared war on the one who deals in interest. What we deal with—we deal in interest. What do you call the one you are at war with? The enemy. You have accepted Allah as your enemy and you make dua to Allah. What sense does it make? Please let us clean up our act. Get rid of everything we displease Allah. Focus only and only on pleasing Allah—and then ask Allah. And see how Allah will give you. You will get tired of taking. Allah does not give—get tired of giving. My Rabb has no limits on what He can give because His treasures have no boundaries.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulullah ﷺ wa baad. My brothers and sisters, in Surah Al-Baqarah, in the middle of the ayat of talking about fasting, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed this beautiful ayah where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said: **إِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِ أَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانُ فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِي وَلْيُؤْمِنُوا بِي لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ** (inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un). Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said that when my slave asks about me, I am near him. **إِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِ أَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ** I am close to him. **أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانُ** I listen to his dua and I will grant him what he wants. **فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِي وَلْيُؤْمِنُوا بِي** Let him obey me and let him have faith in me. **لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ** And inshallah he will be guided to the right place. He will get good guidance and the right guidance. My brothers and sisters, everything in the Quran is conditional. Allah has promised enormous rewards. But everything is conditional. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said: **فَمَنْ جَاءَ بِالْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُ أَثْمَالُهَا** (faman jaa’a bilhasanati falehu athmaluhu). The one who comes with one good deed, I will give him ten likewise. But Allah did not say the one who comes with nothing, I will give him no. So, let us be very clear in our minds. This beautiful ayah, which is talking about Allah, is saying that the first part of it, Allah is saying that when the person asks even, Allah says I am close to him. Imagine, right? He is saying say it. He is telling the Prophet ﷺ, tell the person that I am close to him. And when Allah is close to the slave, what does he do? He begs him. He begs him for forgiveness. He begs him for help. He begs him for protection. He begs him for wealth. He begs him for all the goodness of this life. And he begs him for his forgiveness. And he begs him for Jannatul Firdaus. He begs him for the company of Rasulullah ﷺ and Jannatul Firdaus. Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us all of this. And then to give more from His majesty and grace and His generosity, which only He can give. And all of this happens because of fasting and because of Ramadan. Reflect on this ayah and see the hikmah of why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put this ayah in the middle of the ayat of fasting. Because this is when taqwa is increasing. And when taqwa increases, this is what the slave does. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to keep us and make us among those who will beg Allah and Allah will accept their begging and He will accept their duas. And may Allah's peace and blessings be upon the noble Prophet ﷺ and his family and his companions. By the mercy of Allah.

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 the Messengers. Muhammad ﷺ and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, peace and blessings be upon him, are very much in acceptance. My brothers and sisters, Abu Sayyid Al-Khudri, may Allah be pleased with him ﷺ, in a hadith which is narrated and which is preserved in Bukhari Muslim, he said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, anyone who fasts for one day—now he is not even talking about the fast of Ramadan, any fast—anyone who fasts for one day for the sake of Allah, Allah will keep his face away from Jahannam, meaning He will save him from Jahannam, He will move him far away from Jahannam, for a distance covered by a journey of 70 years. Now imagine what is that distance? A journey of 70 years. And remember when you are thinking about this, don't say is it 70 years on a horse, is it 70 years walking, 70 years on a camel, why not 70 years in a supersonic aircraft, right? 70 years of journey in a supersonic aircraft. And I am saying that only because that's all I know. As we go forward, maybe people invent rockets and travel devices, which are much faster. It's not a question of counting the numbers and saying what distances. The idea of all of this is that to encourage us to do something which is good, it doesn't matter 70 years or whatever number of years, what matters is that Allah will protect, that person will protect us, may Allah make us the person that He will protect from Jahannam. And how Allah does it doesn't matter, that's His khudrat and His ability. But what do we need to do? We need to fast. Now take that, this is for an ordinary fast, any fast in the whole year. Now in Ramadan, Allah increases the reward of that fast. Ramadan is a fasting and Ramadan is a Rukun of Islam. It's a pillar of Islam. And so it's not just a matter of, you know, it's not discretionary. This is firm. Somebody who can fast and who does not fast deliberately, he cannot even make up that fast. If he's doing it deliberately, he's saying, I will not fast, then this remains with him and he will stand before Allah and answer to Allah. May Allah ask to save us from that. Any fast that is missed for a reason, which is like travel or if it is sick or something, has to be made up. It cannot be, you know, just forgotten and say, okay, I'm sorry, I missed it. So we ask Allah to help us to understand the importance of fasting and to have this shock and this desire to fast. And we ask Allah to forgive our sins.

Auto-generated transcript: As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ash-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Firmabado. [PAUSE] My brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah. We are here in Madinah Munawwara. And tomorrow we go to Makkah Mukarrama or Umrah, inshallah. And since this is Ramadan, we know the hadith of Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh. He said, anyone who makes Umrah in the month of Ramadan, Allah will give him reward equal to making Hajj with me. Just think about that. Somebody who makes Umrah in the month of Ramadan gets the same reward as the people who made Hajj with Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh. [PAUSE] So the first and foremost thing to do is to be conscious of this and thank Allah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh. Because it's only by the tawfiq of Allah, that we are here. We are not here because we are pious. We are not here because we are so good. We should understand one thing very clearly, one thing very important, which is the reward of Umrah and the reward of Hajj, inshallah, is purification from sin. Allah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh will forgive all sins. Now, therefore, if anybody who comes, and feels very pious about it, must ask himself a simple question. What kind of clothes do you send to the wash, to the laundry? Clean clothes or dirty clothes? Dirty. So this is a laundry for sins. So if you are coming to the laundry, what kind of person are you? Dirty. It is the mercy of Allah. That Allah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh could have left you dirty. He didn't leave you dirty, He brought you to the laundry. La ilaha illa Allah. So you clean yourself. Alhamdulillah. So the first and foremost thing to do is to thank Allah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh. Alhamdulillah, Ya Rabb. Because of Your mercy, only and only. There is no other factor. It is not our piety. It is not our ability. It is not our race. It is not our language. It is not our color. It is not nothing, nothing, nothing. It is only the mercy of Allah that Allah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh brought us here. And inshallah, we ask Allah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh to do this. We ask Allah sallallahu alayhi wa barakatuh to take us in safety and to make the Umrah easy for us and to accept it from us and to wash our sins and to keep us and take us out pure as we were on the day in which we were born. So inshallah, this is the attitude with which we should go for the Umrah. Second thing is also, therefore consider the Umrah to be a reboot of our lives. So, whatever I used to do till today, inshallah, we make the niyyah to say that, from tomorrow, meaning, from now on, not even tomorrow, I will change and make my life, which is my tongue, and my actions, obedient to Allah swt only. so very consciously never say anything or never do anything that has any chance of being disliked by Allah so there are only three options when you are choosing to speak something or choosing to do something there are only three options one is yes I know this pleases Allah for example if I want to say something good I want to narrate a hadith I want to narrate I talk about an ayah I want to say something good to somebody I want to praise somebody I want to support somebody in anything good and so on so on so I know Alhamdulillah this pleases Allah therefore we do it second thing I am about to I am thinking I am going to say something critical about someone who is not here that is backbiting I am going to say something which can be slander about somebody I don't know for sure I am saying it it is slander this is a ! comes before the action and he said one of those things is envy jealousy because when a person is envious what is he doing he is his heart is breaking right he is burning from inside when he sees you having something good so his punishment starts even before before the action his punishment is already started because he is burning because he sees something good in you so he said don't do this rejoice in the good that you see in your brother and then what happens when you do that Allah will give you the same he said the good will come knocking on your door genuinely rejoice Alhamdulillah my brother has got such a beautiful car my brother mashallah he is a pious person my brother has such a beautiful family whatever right so anything good rejoice genuinely rejoice in that but if you are jealous the punishment actually comes before the action so we make this near to say I will not do anything which displeases Allah SWT so second thing is third thing which is that there may be something where I am not sure so when I know it is good I do it when I know it is not good I don't do it when I am not sure right for example one of the most common ones is you go and there is some food where you are not sure is it halal or not halal right I m

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah walhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah ﷲ wa ba'd. My brothers and sisters, we have this beautiful hadith narrated by Abu Huraira ﷲ, which is in Bukhari and Muslim, where he said: Rasulullah ﷲ reported, "Man sama ramadana imanan wa ihtisaban." The person whoever fasts during the month of Ramadan out of sincere faith and hoping to attain Allah ﷻ's reward, then all his past sins will be forgiven. Imagine this thing. So when you sit and start your suhoor, make this dua and say: "O Allah, I am making this niyah to fast. Please Allah accept this fast and forgive my sins as You promised, and as Your Rasul ﷲ told us that the one who fasts with iman, with complete faith, and with this expectation and asking and hoping for the reward from Allah ﷻ, imanan wa ihtisaban, Allah ﷻ will forgive all his sins." And this hadith is in Bukhari and Muslim. Another hadith also in Bukhari and Muslim, narrated by Abu Huraira ﷲ. May Allah ﷻ fill his khawar with nur and increase his darjah. What a beautiful sahabi subhanallah—he dedicated his life to studying with Rasul ﷲ, giving up his business and everything else in his family and so on. And he stayed with Rasul ﷲ for three years and quoted the maximum number of hadith because he did nothing but spend his time in the sohba of Rasul ﷲ, noting what Rasul ﷲ was teaching. He says that whoever stands in the nafil qiyamul layl—and this qiyamul layl refers to tarawih, refers to tahajjud—again imanan wa ihtisaban: qiyamul layl, who stands in the voluntary night prayer of Ramadan out of faith and hoping for reward from Allah ﷻ, his previous sins will be forgiven. And then he said in another hadith in Bukhari: "Whoever stands in the voluntary night prayer—which is tahajjud, which is tarawih—in laylatul qadr out of faith and hoping to attain Allah ﷻ's reward, his previous sins will be forgiven." So see how easy, how simple it is. Just make sure that when we stand, don't worry about anybody else. Go to the masjid, stand in prayer at home. When you stand in prayer, make this niyyah and say: "O Allah, this is what Your Nabi ﷲ promised us. Please give us and stand and ask Allah ﷻ to accept your salah and ask Allah to accept it and ask Allah ﷻ to forgive our sins." Wasallallahu anha nabil kareem wa alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in bi rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. As beautiful as you want, it is up to us. Rasulullah ﷺ said, Abu Huraira ﷲ reported in a hadith in Bukhari, he said the five daily prayers and from one Friday prayer to the next and from Ramadan to another Ramadan are expiation for sins committed in between provided one stays away from major sins. See the mercy of Allah ﷻ. From Fajr to Dhuhr, the time period, if you have committed any sin and by sin it does not mean doing something haram deliberately. These are things which we do, we forgetfully or we do because we, you know, temporarily lost our judgment and so forth. Allah ﷻ forgives those sins even without making istighfar. Of course, we should try and make istighfar and tawbah, but even if we do not make istighfar, Allah ﷻ forgives those sins between Fajr and Dhuhr, Dhuhr and Asr, Asr and Maghrib, and so on, between the five prayers, between one Jummah and the other Jummah, and therefore it's so important to pray Jummah among many other reasons why it's important between Ramadan and Ramadan and in another generation, between one Umrah and another, and then between one Hajj and another, we ask Allah ﷻ to give us all of these, inshaAllah, with khair and barakah. In the hadith of Umm Salim, ﷲ, Rasulullah ﷺ said, the performance of Umrah during Ramadan is equal in reward to performing Hajj with me. Now, seeing this beauty of this deen, that the Sahaba were hugely fortunate enough to make Hajj with Rasulullah ﷺ. Now, we might say, well, you know, what can I do? I was born at this time. I was not born then. How can I get this reward? You can get this reward by making Umrah in Ramadan. For those of you who can afford it, please go and do it. Make Umrah during Ramadan, and inshaAllah, Allah ﷻ will give you, inshaAllah, Allah ﷻ will give you, give us the reward of making Hajj with Rasulullah ﷺ. The purpose is to try to do as many things as possible which please Allah ﷻ. So we are building our portfolio, building our bank account, building our bank balance with Allah ﷻ. A bank balance of good deeds, and a bank balance of deeds which earn His pleasure. And may Allah bless the noble and noble Prophet, and his family and friends, with His mercy, O Allah.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulullah ﷲ, wa baad. My brothers and sisters, Ramadan al-Kareem comes to us with so many beautiful benefits. Let us be aware of them. My idea of sharing this with you every morning is so that you can become aware of them and then practice them. As I said, the purpose of these reminders is to help us to become aware. And so therefore, whichever hadith you hear, whichever piece of advice you hear, I request you to make dua for me. May Allah enable me to say that which is beneficial for me and you. And I request you make notes and try to implement it in your life. The purpose of all knowledge is not the knowledge itself. The purpose of the knowledge is to implement it in your lives. It is like having a map with you. In the days before GPS, we used to drive with maps. It's like having a map with you. The purpose of the map is to enable you to go forward on the right road. If you just look at the map and you trace your finger. On the lines of the map and you say this is this town, this town, this town. It makes no sense. The idea is to follow that map and that map Allah has given us. And that map is Ramadan. Nabi ﷲ said Abu Huraira reported in a hadith in Muslim: "Fasting is a shield." So when one of you is fasting, he should neither indulge in obscene language nor should he raise his voice in anger. If someone insults him or attacks him. If he is not fasting verbally, then let him say *I am fasting* and I saw him. Let him say *I am fasting* and don't engage with that. Again, as I said, all of these things are for us to develop these beautiful habits. So when Nabi ﷲ says do not engage in obscene language, don't curse, don't use bad language. Don't say shameless things and don't raise your voice in anger. Because anger is a form of madness. It's a form of insanity. A person loses control over their intellect. They lose control over their behavior and they start behaving as if they are mad. Now that's the reason why it is something to be very careful of and avoid at all costs. And the way to do that is in the month of Ramadan, say *I'm fasting*. But even otherwise, say you are fasting because you're fasting from obscene language. You're fasting from expressing anger in an inappropriate way. You can express anger in an appropriate way without yelling and screaming and cursing. Just tell the person *I'm very sorry. What you did was very wrong. It makes me very angry. I'm very upset with you.* Do this. This is. This is the way to do that. With dignity, speak to the person in a nice manner. No need to yell. No need to curse. No need to use bad language. We ask Allah to enable us to use Ramadan to change our lives for the better for the rest of our lives. May Allah bless you.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, Wassalamu Ala Rasoolillah, my brothers and sisters. I remind myself and you: the month of Ramadan is a gift from Allahﷻ. I ask Allahﷻ to give us and continue with us in this month with good health and with the desire to please Him. Let us exert ourselves, not become lazy. Let us read as much Quran as we can read, pray as many Nawafil as we can pray, and of course, we are fasting. We ask Allahﷻ to reward us because one day, my brothers and sisters—whether anyone believes it or not doesn’t matter; whether you accept it or not doesn’t matter—the Day of Judgment is Haqq. Allahﷻ said, "Let the one who wants prepare himself for that day." That day is Haqq, and that day will come. On that day, we will be resurrected from our graves and stand before Allahﷻ. On that day, we will be called to account. We ask Allahﷻ to make that day the best day of our lives, Inshallah. For that to happen, Allahﷻ says, "Rasool Allahﷺ said, 'This is what Allah has given you, and Allah has made it easy for us.'" In a beautiful Hadith in Muslim Sharif, Abu Ayub al-Ansari, the host of Rasool Allahﷺ, reported that Rasool Allahﷺ said: "Whoever fasts in Ramadan and follows it with fasting six days of Shawwal, it is as if he has fasted forever." Now, the six days of Shawwal can be any six days in Shawwal—you can do it consecutively, immediately after Eid, give it a day or two, and after that, you can fast for six days, or you can fast any time in the month of Shawwal. These six days can be individually or in twos or whatever. A good way of doing that is to fast on Thursdays and Mondays, which is the Sunnah of Rasool Allahﷺ, and to fast on the three white nights: the 13th, 14th, and 15th of the month. Inshallah, you can complete it. But when we do that, remember we are getting the reward of fasting as if you have fasted for the whole year. He said, "Fasted even." See the beauty of this. How easy Allahﷻ makes it for us to please Him. Let us not become lazy. Let us make sure that we do all of this and more. We ask Allahﷻ to reward us. My brothers and sisters. We do not know if you are going to get another Ramadan. Let us make this into the best Ramadan that we have yet. And make this for every Ramadan. Allahﷻ gives us to say, let this be the best that I have ever done before.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah. My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala helps us in Ramadan to change our lives. He ensures we learn the right things, acts of obedience, reboots our intentions, and reinforces them so we will obey Him no matter what. In Ramadan, by denying ourselves even normally halal things, we remind ourselves that halal and haram are what Allah makes halal and haram; it doesn't have to make scientific sense. Even if it didn't, we would do it because Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala said so. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala helps us by skewing the playing field in our favor. He said Abu Huraira radiallahu anhu reported a hadith in Bukhari and Muslim: "When Ramadan enters, the gates of Jannah are open and the gates of Jahannam are shut, and devils are chained." Abu Huraira radiallahu anhu also reported another hadith in Bukhari: "Every action the son of Adam does during Ramadan is multiplied with one or two unyielding joys for a fasting person. One joy when he breaks his fast and another when he meets His Rabb Jalla Jalaluhu. The breath of a fasting person is better in the sight of Allah than the fragrance of musk." This hadith is from Bukhari. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala multiplies rewards. He gives the reward of fard for nafil acts and 70 times the reward for fard. The idea is to encourage us to be as obedient to Him Jalla Jalaluhu throughout our lives, not just during Ramadan. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help us do all that we can, within our power, to obey Him. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain. Bi rahmatika ya arhum wa raheem.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah ﷺ wa baad. My brothers and sisters, as I mentioned to you, every ibadah, every act of worship in Islam comes for a purpose. It is a tool to achieve something. Ramadan, Al-Kareem, and the fasting that Allah has prescribed for us is the tool to make us muttaqoon. And if we become muttaqoon, if we become people of taqwa, then Allah ﷻ has guaranteed hidayah. The book [Qur’an] is hidayah for the people of taqwa. Hidayah will enter the door, and the name of the door is taqwa. If that door is not there, hidayah will not enter. The kitab [Qur’an] will be there, but hidayah will not enter our hearts because this door is not there or the door is locked. Taqwa is that which opens that door. Taqwa is that which creates that door of hidayah, which is the kitab of Allah ﷻ. So this book of taqwa is the guarantee for that. How does fasting make this possible? Because during the hours of fasting, we stop ourselves from doing even that which is halal normally. Eating and drinking and having relations with our spouses are halal. These are commendable things. These are things which, if we do with the niyyah of pleasing Allah ﷻ in the way of Allah ﷻ, and we eat halal, we drink halal, and we have sexual relationships which are only halal (no zina), then this is commendable. But in the period of fasting, we stop ourselves from doing that for one reason only, and that is because Allah ﷻ ordered that. So we are reminding ourselves, and by our actions, we are physically practicing this, and we are showing by our actions, demonstrating to Allah ﷻ that His command, His will is supreme. We hear and we obey, no arguments. We don't say why is it possible? Why should we do it? Why not? We do it because Allah said so. And because Allah said so is the reason. Allah's command is a reason in itself. And therefore we follow the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ. And that is why it makes us muttaqoon. Who is a muttaqi? Who acts only to please Allah. And in Ramadan, we are proving that by denying ourselves even the halal. Therefore, how much more important is it to deny ourselves than to stop ourselves from doing haram in the rest of our lives. Ramadan does not come for Ramadan. It doesn’t come to make us hungry and thirsty. It comes to reinforce this point: that we obey Allah ﷻ unconditionally, always. And may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him. Al-Fatiha.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulullah ﷺ wa baad. My brothers and sisters, Ramadan al-Kareem came as a boot camp to revamp our lives, to improve our akhlaaq. Now see what Rasulullah ﷺ says about this issue of akhlaaq. Now Ramadan comes and Allah ﷻ does not only level the playing field, but Allah ﷻ skews it in our favor. Allah ﷻ locks up the shayateen. So the amount of temptation is far, far less. In spite of that, if you are getting temptation, it is from yourself. It is our own nafs, the biggest shayateen which is within us. So, but the shayateen, the evil shayateen, the devils are chained. The doors of Jannah are opened, the doors of Jahannam are shut. Let us take full advantage of this. Rasulullah ﷺ said: "I guarantee a house in Jannah for the one who gives up arguing even if he is right." Who gives up arguing even if he is right. Then he said: "And I guarantee a house in the middle of Jannah for the one who abandons lying even as a joke." And then he said: "I guarantee a house in the highest part of Jannah for the one who has good manners." I remind myself and you, the importance of good manners, the importance of honesty, and integrity, the importance of not lying and cheating, the importance of a smiley face, the importance of being a pleasant person, the importance of helping one another. This is how we build this deen. This is how we build our position with Allah ﷻ. Abdullah bin Amr ﷲ reported that Rasulullah ﷺ said: "Be merciful to others and you will receive mercy. Forgive others and Allah will forgive you." And this is in Muslimah. Let us ask ourselves: do we want Allah ﷻ to forgive us? And obviously the answer is yes. What is the way? Forgive other people. Don't carry grudges. Carrying a grudge is like carrying a burning coal in your hand. It only harms you. It only burns you. The other person against whom you have the grudge may not even know that you have this grudge. Even if he knows, he may not even care what you think about him. But we carry this and we go and slander him and so on and so forth. And you have to forgive him. And you are giving away your good deeds to somebody you don't even like. Makes no sense. Let us make Ramadan into a way of changing our lives. Of bringing our lives on the beautiful path of Muhammad ﷺ. I ask Allah ﷻ to make this easy for us and to accept it from us. **وَسَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى نَبِيِّ الْكَرِيمُ وَعَلَى الْعَالِيِّ وَسَحَبِي أَجْبَيْنِ بِرَحْمَةِكَ يَا رَحْمَةٍ وَرَحِمِينَ**

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, and all praise is due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and his family. My brothers and sisters, Ramadan is the month of changing our lives. Ramadan is the month of forgiveness, seeking forgiveness and forgiving others. We have the hadith of Abdurrahman ibn Auf, may Allah be pleased with him, which states that Ramadan is the month of giving, the month of investing, the month of giving as much charity as we can give with the intention of investment with Allah ﷻ. We have the hadith of Abdurrahman ibn Auf, may Allah be pleased with him, which is mentioned in Musnad Imam Ahmad, where he said, the meaning of which that Rasulullah ﷺ said, there are three things concerning which by the one in whose hand is the soul of Muhammad ﷺ, I would certainly swear an oath. And what are those three things? He said, the number one, the first one, wealth does not decrease because of charity. In another hadith, Rasulullah ﷺ said, if you are having financial difficulties, give charity. Charity is that which enhances your wealth. So wealth does not decrease because of charity. So give charity. The second thing he said is, no person, no man pardons another, no man forgives another for some mistreatment, seeking thereby the pleasure of Allah, but Allah will raise his status because of that. So forgive each other. And the third one he said is, no one asks from people, no one extends his hand to people asking and begging for their help. He said, but Allah will increase him in poverty. You beg from Allah, Allah will give you and decrease your poverty. You beg from people, Allah will increase your poverty. And this is the hadith in Musnad, Imam Ahmad. Qubada bin Thamid, may Allah be pleased with him, said that I heard Rasulullah ﷺ saying, there is no person who suffers an injury to his body, and then he forgives the other person who caused this injury, but Allah will absolve and forgive his sins, commensurate with the extent of the charity—meaning the bigger the injury, the more sins will be forgiven. We ask Allah to protect you from all injuries, and to protect you from all sorts of injustice by anybody. But if this happens, and in life these things happen, the best option is forgive the other person. Just walk away, forgive them, walk away, and ask Allah to forgive you and to, as the Prophet said, increase your status and elevate your status before Him, and to help you in ways which we cannot imagine. And may Allah bless the noble Prophet ﷺ, and his family and companions, with Your mercy, O our Lord.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolullah ﷺ wa baad. My brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah, Ramadan al-Karim comes like a boot camp. It comes to help us to clean up our act. It comes to help us to get our lives back on track. The track leading to the rida of Allah. The track leading, inshaAllah, to Jannah. The track leading, inshaAllah, to the forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And for this, I'll give you a little formula of which you might like to practice. Start your day with tahajjud, as I mentioned. Start the day with tahajjud and pray at least two rakat of tahajjud. Make a lot of dua and so on. Then read one juz of Quran, one sipara of Quran. And then go to the masjid and pray salatul fajr by jama'at. And after that, if Allah gives you tawfiq, sit there in the same place, in the masjid, in dhikr. Read some more Quran. If you could not finish the juz before the salah, then finish it after the salah, until the sun rises. Then you pray ishraq, pray salatul duha, two and two, two rakat and two rakat. And we know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us the reward of an accepted umrah, an accepted hajj. And then you start your day. Now imagine what a beautiful start to the day. That is, and Ramadan gives us the opportunity to do that. People for the sake of fasting, we wake up early for suhoor. And then we, if Allah gives us tawfiq, we ask Allah for tawfiq. We pray tahajjud and then most people will go and pray fajr in the masjid. Now add these things, tahajjud, recitation of Quran, fajr by jama'at. And then some more recitation until ishraq and you go home. Remember we have the hadith of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Where he said that a person who prays salatul isha by jama'at and salatul fajr by jama'at, Allah will give him the reward of having worship all the night. So let us make, let us use Ramadan as the, as the, as the simulator, as the stimulator, to put us, put our lives on this track of, inshaAllah, continuing and changing our lives and put our lives on this track, leading to the end. Leading to the rida and the pleasure of Allah . We ask Allah for his help in this. Rabbana a'teena fi dunya hasanatahu wa fil a'khirati hasanatahu wa khina azabannar. Wa sallallahu ala nabihi al-karim wa alihi wa sahbihi ajmain. Bi rahmatika ya rahman rahim.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolullah ﷺ wa baad. My brothers and sisters, people ask this question and say, what is the best way, how can I start tahajjud? And I say to you, the best way to start tahajjud is to start tahajjud and to pray tahajjud every single day. Sometimes people will tell you, pray once a week or pray, you know, two times a week. That is difficult because the way to make a difficult thing easy is to make it a habit. And a thing becomes a habit if you do it regularly without changing. One and two and three and four and five and six and seven and continuously throughout the day it becomes a habit. So getting up early becomes a habit and the initial difficulty that we have in getting up will go away only if you do it regularly. So make this regular. Make tahajjud Fard on yourself. At least two rakat, no matter where you are, whether you are at home, whether you are traveling or wherever you are, pray two rakat, make dua in sujood and inshaAllah Allah will accept your duas. I ask Allah to accept your duas with khair and afia. Always make this dua to say, Allahumma inni as'aluka al-afia. Al-Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib, who asked Rasulullah ﷺ, who was his nephew, he said, teach me a dua which is small but which encompasses everything. And he said to him, oh my uncle, make this dua. Allahumma inni as'aluka al-afia. Oh Allah, give me afia. Give me blessing, give me afia. Afia is every single kind of blessing. Because if you ask, everything has a downside to it. Wealth has a downside to it. Children have a downside to it. Spouses have a downside to them. The world has a downside to it. Power and authority has a huge downside to it. And so on and so forth. The way to save yourself from the downside is to ask for afia. Oh Allah, give me such and such with afia. Allah ﷻ to grant all our duas with afia. Let us make Ramadan this boot camp to give us and put us into the habit of starting our day with tahajjud. Every single day. Start the day with tahajjud. Then pray and I will give you a little formula which I hope will be beneficial for you. But start the day with tahajjud without exception. No matter where you are. We ask Allah ﷻ to make this easy for us and to give us the sweetness of this thing which Allah ﷻ prays in the Quran. And He told us that He has prepared a special reward for the people who pray tahajjud. May Allah make us all among people who pray tahajjud.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim walhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah ﷺ wa ba'd. On the subject of tahajjud, this is one of the beautiful things that gets initiated in Ramadan, qiyamul layl. Don't fall into needless arguments about whether tarawih is sunnah or not—it is sunnah; there is no doubt about this. Don't fall into arguments about how many rak'at you should pray, whether it should be 8 or 20 or whatever. Or in Maliki fiqh, 36—Sahabi came to ask Rasulullah ﷺ about qiyamul layl, and he said, "How should I pray?" He said, "Pray 2 by 2—that's it." He did not say, "Pray 2 and 10 and 15 and 2 by 2," right? Not 15, 16, 2 by 2. So you pray as much as you can pray, and then if you cannot pray anymore, go home. Please understand: Qiyamul layl, tarawih, tahajjud—is sunnah. Creating a faith fintan is haram. Don't do something haram because you have a problem with the sunnah. There is no problem with the sunnah. Anyone who has these doubts, please be aware of shaitan trying to take away the reward and benefit of Ramadan from you. Qiyamul layl is a sunnah—we ask Allah ﷻ to make this, to make tahajjud a practice in our lives for the rest of our lives. Allah ﷻ promised His special reward. He said, in Surah Salat: **إِنَّ الْمُتَّقِينَ فِي جَنَّاتٍ وَنَهَرٍ يَدْحُضُونَ بِأَكْمَامِهِمْ مَا كَانَتْ أَعْيُنُهُمْ تَرَىٰ** (inna almuttaqina fi janna tin wa nahrin yadhudhun bi akmaamihim ma kana ta3yunu hum tara) (These are the people who get up from their sides and they stand before Allah ﷻ between fear and hope—between the fear of Allah's punishment and hope for His reward.) And then they spend in the path of Allah from what We have given them. And Allah said, "If they knew what I have kept for them in terms of their reward, it would be the sweetness and it would be the coolness of their eyes." My brothers and sisters, Allah has given us an opportunity to pray tahajjud, to pray taraweeh. Taraweeh is a form of tahajjud; taraweeh is qiyamul layl—it's a form of tahajjud. Pray taraweeh, pray tahajjud as much as you can, reap the rewards, loot the rewards—and do not allow shaitan to come in the way to create needless difficulties and arguments and reduce the reward or deprive you and us from the rewards. Then make this into a lifelong habit, inshallah. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for His help: wasallallahu ala nabiyyin kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain bi rahmatika ya arhamar rahimeen.

Auto-generated transcript: Alright, I need to process this query where the user is asking me to act as an expert Islamic editor. They provided a detailed set of instructions for polishing a lecture transcript and extracting tags. Let me break down what they're asking for. First, the main task is to lightly polish the transcript for readability. That means fixing any phonetic errors, correcting Arabic ligatures, handling Arabic quotations, and managing pause markers. Additionally, I have to extract specific tags from the corrected content. Looking at the input text, it's a lecture about Ramadan reminders, specifically Day 6. The speaker talks about avoiding sin for momentary pleasure and the benefits of doing good deeds like Tahajjud prayer. There are mentions of Allahﷻ, the Prophetﷺ, and concepts like Jannah and Qiyamul Layl. I'll start by applying phonetic corrections. For example, "Kohut" might be "COVID" or "Kufr," but in this context, there aren't such words. However, I notice some terms that might need correction. Wait, actually, the input seems correct, so maybe no changes here. Next, replacing transliterated honorifics with proper Unicode ligatures. I see "(SAW)" which should become ﷺ after "Messenger of Allah." Also, "Allahﷻ" becomes "Allahﷻ" with the ligature. I'll go through each instance to ensure all abbreviations are correctly replaced without spaces. For Arabic quotations, the input doesn't seem to have any except perhaps "Bismillah." But in the output, they translated it as "بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم (bismillahir rahmanir raheem)." So I need to check if any other quotes from the Quran or Hadith are present and handle them accordingly. Pause markers are used to indicate breaks. The user wants me to use these as strong hints for paragraph breaks. I'll remove the markers and create new paragraphs where appropriate. Not every pause needs a break, but most likely, each significant thought can be its own paragraph. The language must remain English, even if parts are in other languages, except for the Arabic quotations. So I'll make sure everything else is clear and natural in English. Formatting-wise, I'll use Markdown with two newlines for paragraphs. Fix punctuation and run-on sentences. Ensure the transcript is complete and maintains the speaker's style. Now, extracting tags. They need to be specific, evidence-based, 1-3 words. From the content, key terms include Tahajjud prayer, avoiding sin, momentary pleasure vs long-term loss, Jannah, Qiyamul Layl. These should cover the main points without being too generic. I also need to avoid any transcription errors in the tags. Since the input seems correct, I don't think there are any errors here. Each tag should reflect something explicitly mentioned, like "Tahajjud Prayer" or "Jannah." Putting it all together, I'll first correct the text according to the guidelines, then extract the relevant tags ensuring they're accurate and based on the corrected content. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon the Messenger of Allahﷺ. My brothers and sisters, on the subject of staying away from sin, I remember somebody sent me this beautiful forward where someone said: do not commit a sin for the sake of momentary pleasure, because the pleasure will go away, the sin will remain, it will go with you into your grave, it will be with you on the Day of Judgment, and it will take you into the hellfire. And do not stop doing or do not stop yourself from doing something good because of the momentary difficulty, because the difficulty will go away, the good will remain, it will go with you in your grave, and it will be with you on the Day of Judgment, and it will take you into Jannah. What a beautiful advice. As I said yesterday, sin, people commit sin, we commit sin because sin is pleasurable, because there is some momentary pleasure in that. But for that momentary pleasure, what we are buying is long-term loss and long-term pain and suffering. Makes no sense. Similarly, good things, for example, getting up for Tahajjud is a little bit of difficulty, but it is not a big deal. Which is just getting out of bed. Once you are out of bed, the difficulty is gone. It is just getting out of bed, that difficulty. Do not allow that difficulty to prevent you from this great goodness where you get out of bed and then you make wudu and you pray two rakats of Tahajjud and you make dua to Allahﷻ. You are asking Allah at a time when Allah Himself has descended to the first heaven and Allah has announced: "Who is there who wants something from me? Let him ask. Who is there who needs my protection? Let him ask. Who is there who needs my help? Let him ask." And I will give it. And at that time you are asking. Imagine anyone who is serious about their lif

Auto-generated transcript: **بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم** Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathiran. Fama baadu wa brother and sister. The question we are talking about taqwa, we are talking about fasting. We are talking about the benefits of fasting and how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent us fasting in order to make us muttaqun, in order to make us people of taqwa. And the question is how do you develop taqwa? Very simple. The way to develop taqwa is to remember your death. To remember that one day we will stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There is nothing and nobody in the world who will escape no matter what it looks like today. No matter how much power they have today. No matter how many systems of justice they can warp and change and manipulate and twist and turn for their own benefit. On the day of judgment. Every single person, you, me and everyone will stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala naked and helpless as we are. And we will be judged. Remember that and let us remember that. And let us continuously remind ourselves about that. Remind others and remind ourselves to say that no matter what it is, one day I will face Allah. And when I face Allah, how am I going to answer him for whatever it is that I am doing today. Remember sin is sweet. Sin is attractive. That is why people are not happy. That is why people do sin. If somebody drank alcohol and they immediately had a stroke, they would not touch alcohol. If somebody was committing zina, if they were committing adultery, and if they immediately had a stroke, they wouldn't touch a person, a man or a woman that they were not married to. And so on and so forth. Everything, whatever, while lying and cheating and gambling and slandering and so on, if punishment came immediately, if it was painful, they wouldn't touch it. They do it because they see worldly benefit in it. The solution, the antidote to that is to remind ourselves, it doesn't end with this. This is the beginning and this has an effect. And that effect is on my Akhira. That effect is on my life hereafter. This benefit is small. The effect is forever. So let me not touch anything which is potentially harmful. Because on the Day of Judgment, I will not be able to prevent the punishments, the punishment from touching me, if I don't prevent myself from touching the sin. We ask Allah to make us Muttaqun Wa Salallahu Ala Nabiul Kareem Wa Ala Alihi Wa Sahbihi Ajmain Bi Rahmatika Ya Rahman Rahim

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wasalatu wasalamu ala rasulillah wa baad. My brothers and sisters, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent this month of Ramadan al-Kareem to make us or help us to become muttaqoon. Qutiba alaykum as-siyamu kama qutiba ala allatheena min qablikum la'allakum tattaqoon. Qala Jalla wa ala, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned this, that He said fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you. So that you may become muttaqoon. Taqwa is that condition where a person judges every speech and every action, every relationship, every transaction in only one framework. And that framework is, does it please Allah? If it pleases Allah, He does it. If it does not please Allah, He does not do it. And if there is a doubt, He clarifies that doubt. Let us use this in our lives going forward. Now in this context, I remind myself and you that one of the things that I want to say is, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us, is the benefit of becoming muttaqoon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, In Surah Al-Talaq, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, the one who has taqwa, that is the benefit of becoming a muttaqoon. Allah said, the one who has taqwa, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will take him out of his difficulties. Allah will solve his problems. Allah will solve his problems. He doesn't have to solve them. Allah will solve them for him. And Allah will provide him from sources he cannot imagine. [PAUSE] He cannot even imagine. He will be delighted in the way he is provided for. [PAUSE] And the one who has taqwa on Allah, the one who has complete and total faith and reliance on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah said, Allah will become sufficient for him. He will not have to go anywhere for anything. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Allah will become sufficient for him. This month has come to help us to become those people. We all have problems in this life. May Allah help us and save us. Some have more, some have less. The solution is become a muttaqi. Clean up your act. Become a muttaqi. Become obedient to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Allah will solve your problems for you. And Allah will provide you from sources you cannot imagine. And have faith only and only on Allah. Don't ask anybody. Ask only Allah. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will become sufficient. And Allah will be sufficient for you. I'm not saying this. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala himself said this. Surah At-Talaq, ayat 2nd and 3. Masallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa alihi wa sahbihi ajmain. Bi rahmatika ya arhamar rahimeen. Wa alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.

Auto-generated transcript:Allah is 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 sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. InshaAllah we will complete the khatira on the lessons from Surah Al-Kahf. And then if Ramadan starts then we will not have these khatiras after Fajr. The whole season of Ramadan is above. I have already recorded that. That will come out on our channel inshaAllah. So you can listen to that. [PAUSE] The last test. As I said there are four tests that Allah mentioned in Surah Al-Kahf. The test of faith. The test of wealth. The test of knowledge. And the last is the test of power. [PAUSE] In the test of power Allah mentioned a righteous king called Dhul-Qarnain. [PAUSE] Once again there is no need to conjecture about who exactly in history Dhul-Qarnain was and so on and so forth. If Allah wanted to specify he would have specified. If Allah did not specify it means that the actual specific identity of the individual is not important. What is important is what we learn. [PAUSE] So Allah mentioned this king. And Allah SWT then said. [PAUSE] He told us the story of this king. And the journeys that he undertook. And what he found at the end of his journey. And what he did. So Alhamdulillah all those details. And the journey that he did. And the journey that he did. Please read them. It's the last two three pages of this. And so I'm not going to talk about them here. We'll just look at the lessons from that. [PAUSE] The first and foremost lesson. [PAUSE] Is to understand and learn that all wealth and power. And all. [PAUSE] Sultan and hukuma. Belongs to Allah SWT. And he gives them. To whoever he wants. [PAUSE] Like Allah said. قُلِ اللَّهُمَّ مَالِكَ الْمُلْكَ تُؤْتِي الْمُلْكَ مَنْ تَشَاءَ وَتَنْزِعُ الْمُلْكَ مِنْ مَنْ تَشَاءَ وَتُعِزُّ مَنْ تَشَاءَ وَتُضِلُّ مَنْ تَشَاءَ بِيَدِكَ الْخَيْرِ إِنَّكَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ Allah SWT mentioned that everything belongs to Allah. Say. Allahumma my Rabb. My Allah. Allah. مَالِكَ الْمُلْكَ He is the Malik. He is the owner. And he is the, another form of recitation. He is Malik. He is the king. الْمُلْكَ Of [PAUSE] everything. Of all that exists. [PAUSE] تُؤْتِي الْمُلْكَ مَنْ تَشَاءَ He can give this mulk. All of it, part of it. To whoever he wishes. He gives it to whoever he wishes. وَتَنْزِو الْمُلْكَ مِنْ مَنْ تَشَاءَ And he takes it away from whoever he wishes. تُعِزُ مَنْ تَشَاءَ And he gives izzah and he gives prestige and honor to who he wishes. [PAUSE] وَتُظِلُّ مَنْ تَشَاءَ And he humiliates whoever he wishes. بِيَتِكَ الْخَيْرِ Allah in your hand is all khayr and all goodness. إِنَّكَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ Truly you are capable of doing whatever you want. You have control over everything. عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ So that's the first lesson. To understand this and to remember that in our lives. The purpose of all this understanding is not simply to get some information, but to implement it in our lives. Second one is to establish justice if you have wealth and power. Okay. Wealth and power doesn't mean that you have to be a king. [PAUSE] Whatever wealth you have, whatever power you have, you have one servant who works in your house, you have power over that servant. Establish justice. Don't ill-treat them. Don't make them work more than what they are supposed to work. They have to have some working hours. Follow that. Respect that. Talk to them decently, respectfully. Okay. And all the rest of it. So establish justice if you have wealth and power and don't oppress the people. Dhul-Qarnayn mentioned this when he was given the freedom to punish or to treat people kindly. Allah gave him the freedom. He said, Allah said, do what you want. He said, I will punish the criminals. I will punish those who are going against the laws of Allah SWT. But I will help those who are not because I have power. It doesn't mean I will use this power for anything negative. Third lesson is don't take from others and be content with what Allah has given you. People offered tribute to Dhul-Qarnayn. He said, I don't need tribute from you. What Allah has given me is enough. [PAUSE] And this is also similar to what Sulaiman A.S. did when the embassy came from Sabah. He said, I don't need tribute from you. He refused the gifts. And he said that what Allah has given me is enough and it is better. [PAUSE] Now, when he is saying what Allah has given me is better, it doesn't mean Allah has given me more money than you. It means Nubuwat. Allah made him a Nabi. And he is saying that what Allah has given me in the form of Nubuwat is better than you. Any gift that anybody can give me, any human being can give me. [PAUSE] So contentment and Qanaat with what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us is far better than seeking material wealth or comparing with other people. The s

Auto-generated transcript: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم، و الحمد لله، و السَّلام على النبيﷺ و عِترته. إخوتي وأخواتي الكرام، كل العبادات التي نمارسها في ديننا الحنيف هي أدوات مصممة لمساعدتنا في تحقيق شيء ما. على سبيل المثال، قال الله تعالى: "إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ تَنْحَةٌ عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ". Verily, the prayer is something that keeps us away from lewdness and evil deeds._similarly, regarding the month of Ramadan and fasting, Allah Almighty said: "يا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ". O you who believe, fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may become people of taqwa. Taqwa is that beautiful state where a person has fear and awe of Allah in their heart, along with gratitude for all that Allah has given them. This combination leads to taqwa, which is being afraid of displeasing Allah, especially since we love Him more than anyone or anything else. And this is why Allah Almighty said, "I have prescribed fasting so that you may develop taqwa." The benefits of becoming muttaqeen are immense, as all the promises of Allah in the Quran are only for those who possess taqwa, not just for ordinary Muslims. While being Muslim is a great honor, to truly benefit from our faith, we must cultivate taqwa. And Ramadan is the perfect time to do so. Let us make the most of this opportunity, leaving no stone unturned, and doing everything for the sake of Allah's pleasure. وَرَحْمَةَكَ نَسْتَغِيثُ.

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah, walhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Wa ba'ala. My dear brothers and sisters, Ramadan al-Kareem, Ramadan Mubarak. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala fill this month for all of you and for me and my family and all of you and your families with khair and barakah. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us the ability to make the best of this month, to earn the most reward that we can earn, to maximize our benefits in this month. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us the free time and the shawkh, the great desire to earn rewards from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to go and look for and seek all the good deeds that we can do, whether it is salah in the masjid, whether it is salah in the mosque, it is helping people, whether it is making sulah between people, joining people's hearts together, whether it is forgiving each other. And we will see, inshallah, there are so many hadith and the Quran itself concerning all of these things. Let us use this month. It's a month that comes for us to reflect on our lives and to ask ourselves this question, which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asked in the Quran, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, fa'ina tathawoon, where are you going? I remind myself and I request you, ask yourself the same question. Where am I going? Is the way I'm leading my life, is it going to lead to Jannah or will it lead to the other place? We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us the intelligence and the good sense to choose the right path. And we don't have to use our brains even to choose the right path. We just have to do what Rasool Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did, choose the path of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and you cannot possibly go wrong. So once again, I want to begin with this, this whole series, and you will get one of these every day, inshallah. I want to begin this with wishing all of you a beautiful Ramadan and at the end of that, a beautiful Eid. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make the fasting easy for you and to make this fasting full of khair and barakah and to enable you to really worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sincerely. With ikhlas, without showing to anybody. And I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant you whatever you ask Him with khair and barakah and afia. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help you to ask Him what He wants to give you and to give that to you. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in bi rahmatika arhu ar-rahimeen. Wa salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Auto-generated transcript: As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya ibn al-mursaleen. Al-murra wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Wa alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam. Wa alayhi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Fama ba'du. Our brothers and sisters, we are looking at the lessons from Surah Al-Kahf. And we looked at the first of those lessons, which comes from the test of faith, and the second from the test of wealth, and the third from the test of knowledge. We were talking about the test of knowledge. And we reflected on the fact yesterday that in order to gain knowledge, it's important to go to the teacher, to be humble, and to obey the teacher. Because without adab, there is no learning. The second part of that is that we see this from the Musa alayhi salam and his three incidents. Which Allah describes in the Quran. The Musa alayhi salam told him that, he told him right in the beginning, he said, you must have patience, and I do not think you will have patience. So Musa alayhi salam said to him, no, I will have patience and I will obey you. And that was his commitment. But the first encounter they had, where the Musa alayhi salam made a hole in the boat, and he said, no, I will not obey you. And they had to cross this river. The fishermen took them across. And when they got across, the Musa alayhi salam made a hole in the boat. So the boat sank there, near the edge of the river. So Musa alayhi salam objected to that. He said, why did you do that? These people helped us come across. Instead of rewarding them, thanking them, you made a hole in the boat. Khidr alayhi salam told him, I told you that you have to have patience. And you must not question me. Now think about this whole thing. You see, the thing to understand is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us the stories in the Quran. But if you look at it from a human angle, we don't know whether the boatman... The man objected or not. What happened to the boatman? Their boat is being damaged by somebody. So did they also fight with him or what happened? You know, we don't know this. So then they go from there. And then the second test is even more apparently severe, where Khidr alayhi salam kills that child. Musa alayhi salam objects. He says, what is this? You killed a child, an innocent child. Again Khidr alayhi salam says, I told you, you should not question me. Then third time, they go to another place. Khidr alayhi salam tells Musa alayhi salam to help him and they repair this wall. So the wall is now firm and good. So Musa alayhi salam said, at least now you can ask them for, you know, the labor for this. So Khidr alayhi salam says, now this is the end of our story. Our relationship is over. And then he tells them the reasons for all the three things. So they go to the village. And they reach there in the night or something. They ask them for some assistance, some food, some place to stay. They refuse. Which is against all the laws of hospitality and so forth. But there is a wall which is defective which is falling down. Khidr alayhi salam tells Musa alayhi salam to help him and they repair this wall. So the wall is now firm and good. So Musa alayhi salam said, at least now you can ask them for, you know, the labor for this. So Khidr alayhi salam says, now this is the end of our story. Our relationship is over. And then he tells them the reasons for all the three things. The issue is, what was that, what was it that Musa alayhi salam did which was, within quotes, wrong? If you look at the actions, if somebody is, you know, you take help from someone, and then you damage their property. And if somebody is questioning that, why is it wrong? It's not wrong, it's correct. Musa alayhi salam, after all, is sahib ul kitab. He is sahib ul shariah. Right? He brought a book, he brought a shariah, he brought a whole law. In front of him, you do something, he's going to question you. The second thing is even worse on the face of it. Where you killed an innocent, when you kill an innocent child. So of course he will question you. And the third one is, it's not as bad as killing a child, but still it doesn't make sense. You know, these are people who have not helped you. You do some work for them, you don't ask for anything. So Musa alayhi salam, Musa alayhi salam's questioning of Khidr alayhi salam, in terms of the questioning alone, is not, it's not wrong or it's not something which we, which we should say anything about. This is one of the, also one of the adab of dealing with the stories of the Quran and so on, that we do not say anything which is critical of the Anbiya alayhi salam. There are many stories in the Quran which are, where Anbiya alayhi salam have done things which, if you don't have understanding of what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's idea there is, meaning is, then it seems to be, withi

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, the Messenger of Allahﷺ, and upon his family and companions. Tashleem and kaseer and kaseera from my father. My brothers and sisters, we are at the beginning of Ramadan. And as usual, of course, we cannot possibly have Ramadan unless we have an argument. May Allah have mercy on us. Because moon sighting is Sunnah, not moon fighting. So once again, I am compelled by my friends to repeat what I have said every single year. That the sighting of the moon, and please understand very clearly, I am trying to be as clear and as simple as possible. The first and foremost thing to understand is this. The sighting of the moon is an act of worship. It is an act where if we do this for the rida of Allahﷻ, and with the intention, especially in the month of Ramadan, in the intention of fasting, then inshallah we ask Allahﷻ to reward us for making the effort to try to sight the moon. When you accept that the sighting of the moon is an act of worship, we have to understand that the basic fundamental principle with regard to every act of worship is that an act of worship is an act of worship. And that is an act of worship only and only if it was done by Rasulullahﷺ, or he commanded that it should be done. Otherwise, it cannot be an act of worship. For example, the adhan is an act of worship. Now, to the best of my knowledge, of course Rasulullahﷺ may have recited the adhan. We know in the case of Abu Mahdura, he taught him the adhan during the battle of Hunayn. But he did not go and call out the adhan as a normal thing. It was in the mosque or in the mosques or because it was commanded by the Rabbi alayhi salatu wasalam. The reason I'm mentioning this is because this is what relates to this issue of moon sighting. Now, let me first begin with the hadith concerning this. The hadith in Sayyid Bukhari, narrated by Abdullah ibn Umar radiallahu anhum, who said that Rasulullahﷺ mentioned Ramadan. And he said: "Do not fast until you see the crescent of Ramadan." Very important. And do not give up fasting. Do not leave fasting. Until you see. In the Arabic, it says, until you see it. Meaning, until you see the crescent of Shawwal. And then, very, very important. And this is where we insist on confusing ourselves. Rasulullahﷺ said, "But if the sky is overcast for you, He did not say the sky is overcast in the whole universe, or the whole world. No. For you. Alaykum. We say, salamu alaykum. I'm talking to the people who don't know Arabic. Salamu alaykum. Means what? Salam for the whole world? No. Salam to you. Peace be upon you. Fa'in ghum alaykum. If the sky is overcast for you, then count the days. Count the days meaning? Complete 30 days. Number one therefore, is this is the hukum of the Nabi alayhi salatu was salam. This is the Sayyid hadith, and it is in Bukhari. It is narrated by one of the most important of the Sahaba of Nabiﷺ, Abdullah ibn Umar, radhi allahu anhu. And therefore, to obey this hadith, to obey this command of Rasulullahﷺ is wajib and fard on anyone who calls himself a Muslim. Simple as that. Number two. The whole argument of saying, no, but the moon was born. The moon was there. It's only that we could not see it. Yes. Ghum alaykum means that the Rasul alayhi salatu was salam also knows that the moon was born, must have been there. Otherwise, where is the question of saying, if the sky is cloudy and you can't see it, where is the question of saying you can't see? When it would not have been visible anyway. When you say you can't see it, it means that the moon otherwise would have been visible. Had the sky been clear, you would have been able to see it. But in your case, the sky is not clear. Therefore, what must you do? You must not stop fasting and you must not start fasting. You must not say, well, you see, it is already born, so it is there. Therefore, it doesn't matter. The sky is cloudy. It matters that the sky is cloudy because the Rasulﷺ said it matters that the sky is cloudy. The simplest thing to understand in all of this is what is our akhira about Rasul allahﷺ. To obey the Rasulﷺ is wajib and fard on us. To refuse to obey him is haram and it is kufr. Now, another hadith in Sahih Muslim narrated by Abu Huraira radhi allahu anhu. He reported that Rasulﷺ said: "Start fasting on sighting it, that is the new moon, and break your fast on sighting it, that is the new moon. But if the sky is cloudy for you, then complete the number, which means of 30." And Abu Huraira radhi allahu anhu, Anna al-Nabiﷺ qala, Suumu li ru'yatihi wa aftiru li ru'yatihi fa in ghummi alaykum fa akmilu adada. Again, the command, again the tone of command, Suumu, fast. In the other case, he said, do not fast until you see it. Here he is sayi

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil anbiya ibn gursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi sallam. Tasliman basiran basiran. Fama ba'du. My brothers and sisters, we are looking at the lessons we learn from Surah Al-Kahf. May Allah give us the tawfiq to learn the lessons with the intention of applying them in our lives because that is the purpose of the revelation, the nuzul of the Quran. To apply it in our lives and to live our lives according to the Quran because in that there is khair and barakah for us in this life and the next life. We looked at the lessons, the test of knowledge, the test of wealth. [PAUSE] We looked at the test of faith and the test of wealth. And now we are looking at the test of knowledge. And that is the story of Musa alayhi salam and Qidr alayhi salam where Musa alayhi salam, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent him on his own request to meet Qidr alayhi salam and to learn something from him. Which Musa alayhi salam did not know. [PAUSE] Now many times people have this hierarchy of who is bigger, who is smaller. All of this is not from our deen. We do not sit and decide who is bigger and who is smaller. Musa alayhi salam is the Rasul and the Nabi of the time, Sahib al-Kitab, Sahib al-Sharia. And, Qidr alayhi salam has his own importance. Musa alayhi salam was sent to the entire Ummah of Ban Israel, people of Ban Israel. Qidr alayhi salam was not sent to any community. [PAUSE] We say he is a Nabi because Rasulullah said he is a Nabi and because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said he is an abid from his Ibad. [PAUSE] So the lessons that we learn from this, the whole story of Musa alayhi salam going to Qidr alayhi salam to learn and not vice versa, he didn't call Qidr alayhi salam to himself. Allah did not send Qidr to Musa alayhi salam. [PAUSE] So the first lesson and the most important lesson we learn is that to gain knowledge, we need to go to the teacher, we need to be humble and we need to obey. These are the lessons we learn. We need to be humble and we need to obey. These are the conditions. You don't go to the teacher to teach the teacher. You don't go to the teacher with the intention of criticizing the teacher. [PAUSE] When we were growing up, we were taught that it is wrong to hold on to the mistakes of the elders. There is a level of respect. Even if your teacher makes a mistake, you don't correct the teacher. That's not your job. Your job is to correct the teacher. Obey the teacher. And if the mistake is of a kind which needs to be corrected, then the thing to do is to find somebody who is at the level of the teacher or higher and request them to do it. It's not your job to do it. [PAUSE] Because there is no learning without adab. Adab is the key that opens the door of learning. Actual learning. It's not a question of how much data we accumulate in our heads. It is the digestion of that. It is what comes out of it. The maqas of that. So no learning without adab. Number one. Number two. The teacher's dua for you is critical to understanding. And that will never happen unless you have a relationship. Based on love with that teacher. Unless the teacher loves you and you love the teacher. The teacher is like a father to you. Like the mother to you. Depending on whether the teacher is a man or a woman. And you are like the child of the teacher. Because this is a relationship. It's a parent-child relationship in the field of learning. And unless the teacher is making dua for you. Learning will never happen. And for the teacher to make dua for you. You have to be there. Be respectful. Be obedient. Serve the teacher. And that's why I always also advise teachers. When I advise them that the teacher must love the student. And be interested enough in that student to teach the student. So when you go to a teacher. One of the first things to do is to make dua for the teacher. And that's why I always advise teachers. One of the first things to ascertain. And to be sure about. Is whether I call it the chemistry test. Which is that is there a chemistry. Do you agree on things. And you know. Do you like the teacher. Does the teacher like you and so on. Because otherwise it won't happen. Learning will not happen. And that's the reason also why. This whole you know practice we have of teaching students. And then beating them and punishing them. This doesn't work. This does not work. The student is not learning for whatever reason. Maybe he is not intelligent enough. Maybe he is very intelligent. So you are. The way you are teaching is not engaging his mind. Maybe he is just you know. Mischievous. Whatever it is. There is a problem. So solve it. And the solution to the problem is not beating. It cannot be. Right. It cannot be beating. You don't even do that to animals. Beating the animal doesn't teac

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. Muhammadﷺ, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family. Now, brothers and sisters, we are looking at the different lessons that we learn from Surah Al-Kahf. And the fact that these are things that, the tests that Allah SWT mentioned in Surah Al-Kahf, are the tests that the Dajjal will put on the people that he will encounter. We ask Allah SWT to save us from Dajjal and from all Dajjali influences. We looked at the first two tests: the test of faith and the test of wealth. Today, we look at the test of knowledge. This is one of the paradoxes that even with knowledge—even with the knowledge of the Quran itself—if that knowledge is not rooted in Taqwa (righteousness), which means that the knowledge has to be in practice, and if that knowledge does not come from a heart which is pure, and does not enter a heart which is pure, then that knowledge itself will corrupt. Even though the knowledge itself is pure, but the way it is perceived, and the way it is received and understood, will corrupt. And this is exactly what happened with Iblis. The knowledge that Iblis had was good. There was nothing wrong with the knowledge he had. What was wrong is what he did with the knowledge—where he used this knowledge in a wrong way. And even today, you have people who are people of knowledge. They are ulama. They have great qualifications. They are the hufadh of the Quran and so on. But then they will give a fatwa which is totally making haram into halal and halal into haram because they are carrying favor with somebody in authority, maybe a ruler, maybe somebody with money or something, and they will give this fatwa. So therefore, which means that the knowledge has not entered the heart. They are not fearing the anger of Allah. They are looking for benefit from some creature, from a human being. Or they fear the human being. They do not fear Allah. So what's the good of the knowledge? So the issue is to ensure that the knowledge we have takes us to the right destination, which is the Rida (satisfaction) of Allah. Ibn Kathirrahmatullah Ali quotes in his tafsir about the incident of Musa Alayhi Salaam and how he went in search of Al-Qidr. Ubayy bin Qaab narrated that he heard Rasulullahﷺ saying that Musa Alayhi Salaam got up to deliver a speech before the Bani Israel. When somebody asked him, "Who is the most learned person among the people?" Now obviously, Musa Alayhi Salaam is the Rasul. He is the Sahib al-Kitab, he is the Sahib al-Shariah. So obviously, he is the most learned person. Nobody can be more learned than the Nabi. And this is not just any Nabi, this is a Rasul. And he is a Rasul from the Ulul Azam, the Rasul. So Musa Alayhi Salaam, the man asked him, "Who is the most learned person in the world among the people?" And Musa Alayhi Salaam said, "I am the most learned person." Now Allah SWT rebuked him because Allah SWT did not refer the knowledge to Allah. He did not say by the will of Allah, Allah has given me knowledge. He said, "I am the most knowledgeable." So Allah SWT rebuked him for this. And Allah SWT revealed to him at the junction of two seas, there is a slave of ours who is more learned than you. Right? Now you should think about this. First of all, Musa Alayhi Salaam is the Rasul of Allah. And he is the Sahib ul Kitab, he is the Sahib ul Shariah. Now Khidr is not mentioned in the Quran by name. We have the name from the Hadith, but in the Quran, Allah SWT said, "Abn Minna Libat," one of our slaves. Obviously, that slave, whoever he is, is not Sahib ul Kitab. He is not Sahib ul Shariah. Right? He is a Nabi so in terms of status, he is not at the level of Musa A.S. Musa A.S. is much higher. But when Allah SWT said there is this person, Musa A.S. could have said, "Alhamdulillah, he didn't say that Musa A.S. said O my Rabb how can I meet him. He said, 'I want to meet him.' The lesson here is Musa A.S. had the humility and the humbleness. He didn't say, 'I am this, I am this.' No, he said, 'Allah, you have told me this man has knowledge. I want to go and learn. I want to go and learn what is the need for Musa A.S. to learn if Musa A.S. whatever he needs to know, Allah will teach him. Allah taught him. Musa A.S. was not a you know all the Anbiya received but Musa A.S. spoke to Allah directly. He is Kaleemullah. He is not an ordinary man. Musa A.S. So it's not just a matter of he actually spoke to Allah SWT right so he is a very very special person. So Musa A.S. said, 'How can I meet him? I want to meet him.' So Allah SWT said, take a fish, put it in a vessel, and then set out. Where you lose the fish, you will find this man. Right? Now Musa A.S. took a fish, he put it