Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

https://youtu.be/BTC30ZY_XpM 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 honorable prophets and messengers.Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.And upon his family and companions.And many, many blessings.Brothers and sisters, this is the second installment of the Qatira,the Fajr Reminder about the importance of or rather how to become influential in life.And I said the first one was help people.Look for opportunities to help people.Find those opportunities and believe it.They're all around you.They're your neighbors, your co-workers, your friends, your relatives.Just be helpful.Just help people.And you will.Find that you will become one of the most influential people that can exist.And I gave you one of the stories also from the Sira of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,which points to this.Now, we come to the second one, which is hide people's faults.Cover up people's faults.This is one of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Jalla Jalaluhu's beautiful namesand attributes.As well as Sattarul Uyub.He is the one who covers the faults, who covers the Uyub,who covers the shortcomings, the failings, the mistakes of people.And if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala does it, you can bet this is the thing to do.And if we do it, then we become people that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will love.Cover people's faults.As we know, Islam,strongly,not just prohibits, but condemnsfinding fault with people,spying on people.Allah said,In Surah Al-Hujurat,Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentioned, He said,Do not spy on people.In same Surah, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said,Do not curse, do not use foul language.Do not use bad words for people.And He said, how terrible it is that you use,bad language for somebody who is a Momin,for somebody who is a believer in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.And then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said,Do not backbite people.Do not say, speak ill about people.And to the extent Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, to reinforce this point,He said,Speaking ill of your brothers and sisters is like eating the flesh of your dead brother.And then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said,Fakariz Tumma,And you find this example distasteful.Unless this is something which is worse than that, to do that,to speak ill of somebody.Now, what I want to make is that,May Allah have mercy on us.Speaking ill of people seems to be now a,literally a mainstay, right?A pillar of our social life.In many cases, or most cases.All we do is we talk about people.There's a saying in English,and I may be misquoting it a bit,but you can see the meaning of it,which says that the worst people talk about other people.People who are better than that,they talk about events and so on,which are happening in the world.And he says the best people,are the people,who talk about the higher things,talk about principles and ethics and values and morals,and things like that.So, talking about people is absolutely the worst possible thing to do.The only place where talking,and not talking about,but informing somebody about the negative aspects,or potentially or possibly negative aspects of another person,is one where you are a,a potential witness in a crime or something like that,and you have to bear witness,you have to give evidence,so this is permitted.And the other one is where somebody you know,a friend or somebody asks you about,or you know that person is entering into a relationship,whether it's a relationship of marriage,or whether it's a relationship of a business relationship,with a person about whom you have evidence of a negative nature.So you have this person who is going to,is about to do business with someone who is dishonest,who is,you know,something is wrong with,and I'm not talking about just rumors or something you heard.You have actual evidence that this person is dishonest,this person is likely to take the other one for a ride or something.In that case,you are permitted,to inform the other person about that,to that extent,that don't,don't give them their entire life history to that extent.Many times this happens,and it happens to me also,where people come and say,do you know what so and so said?So I,my standard response is,I don't know what so and so said,and I don't want to know what so and so said.Don't tell me,I'm not interested.Because the,what is the,uh,the,what is the,the,the,the benefit of that?There's zero benefit.And the harm of that is plenty because then I will be party to the riba.Because the riba,backbiting,consists of the one who's doing it and the one who is helping the other one by listening to him.So it's not only the one who's doing it,but it's also somebody who is,you know,aiding and abetting by being the one who's doing it.Being there and lending a

https://youtu.be/bOzw3ViAYu0 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 is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his followers.Peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his followers.Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his followers.My brothers and sisters, I'm sitting here in one of my favourite places in Mitinayu Park.On the bank of this stream, which flows through the park.This is spring, so there are no mosquitoes.But later on, it becomes a bit of a test sitting here because of the mosquitoes.But right now, it's absolutely fabulous.It's early in the morning and you see the sun shining on the waters.Very, very, very beautiful part of the world.And one of my favourite haunts, I walk here from my house and. . .I go around the park.It's not a very big park, but I walk from my house, I go around the park and I walk back.And that is about six miles.So this is my Mashghala.Alhamdulillah, I want to talk about three things.Let's see how many of them we can hear.Maybe the first one.Question which gets, which I get asked because of my leadership development practiceand . . .the mistaken impression people have of my wisdom.People ask me, how can I become influential?And of course, by definition, they also mean wealthy, but they don't actually say that in so many words.But how can I become influential?How can I become powerful?Now, the answer is very simple.And first of all, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be influential and powerful.Because what is the alternative?To be powerless and uninfluential, nobody cares about you, you are a sort of, you know,a slave to people or something.No, that's not an alternative.So, wanting to be influential and powerful is good.How do you do that?The answer is pretty simple.You do that by three things, by doing three things.Number one is help people.Number two, become a cover for people, hide people's faults.Become a cover of Allah for people, hide people's faults.And number three is add value to people.So, three things.I want you to keep these three things in mind and we'll talk about them and we'll see how much, what we can do to this.So, first of them is help people.Secondly is hide people's faults.And I call it become Allah's cover for people.And that's my brother's term for it.I shall have a very beautiful and wise brother.Hide people's faults, become Allah's cover for people.And the third thing is to add value to people.So, let's see how do you do that.Help people.Very, very simple.Go around looking for ways in which you can help people.And some of these ways are so simple, it's unbelievable.We live in America and one of the joys of American life is that you get to take out your own light, own trash.So, in West Springfield where we live on our street, Wednesdays are trash days.Every Wednesday the trash goes.Every other Wednesday also recycling material goes.Each one of them has a different bin and each bin is about almost four and a half feet tall, quite big.And you might say, why do you need such a big bin for trash?Well, you live in America, you know why.Truly, the American lifestyle creates more trash and garbage than I've ever seen in my life.More paper, cardboard, plastics, you name it.Unbelievable amount of stuff that gets wasted.So, the issue of taking out trash.Now, you put the bins out in early morning, the trash truck comes around usually about eight-ish.But depending on where you are, I mean, obviously it can't come at eight o'clock in everybody's house.So, it comes along when it comes along.You go after it.You go after work and your trash bins are still sitting there in front of your house on the sidewalk or something,which looks bad, which looks nasty.So, what I started doing was, since I have flexible working hours,I started if I saw, say, about nine o'clock, trash is goneand my neighbor's bins are still out there,I would just go across because I would come out to bring my bins back into the garage.So, I would also walk across to the neighbor's house, take their bins, put them in front of the garage and that's it.I didn't send them a note or I didn't call them or not.Just take the bins, put them there, that's it.You'll be amazed how much difference that makes.What a huge impression it made.My neighbor came across me and said, you know, you are a good man.He said, we have lived here, people have been here 20 plus years, no one has done anything like this before.Something as simple as that.And of course, everything has a return curve to that,which is that now it's almost like a competition between me and my neighbor

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah, we're looking at the incident of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam's life where he left on the command of Allah SWT. He took his wife and their son and left them in the valley of Bakka and turned around and left. And then he made this dua. The first lesson from this incident that we learn is that of prioritizing the command of Allah SWT over any and everything else. To obey Allah SWT in every situation, whether we understand the command or not, whether we like the command or not. This command of Allah SWT to Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam. To take his wife and son, newborn son and leave them in this place. Is neither something that one can understand. And obviously it is not something that one can like. But he did it. Now this comes from a deep and unshakable belief. That what Allah SWT commands comes from a place of love that he has for his creatures. That it is a mark of his continuing and ongoing concern for their well-being. And that what he says is best for us. It comes from acknowledging and accepting the truth that Allah knows and I and we do not know. Allah SWT said, And there's no more �شئ مفضلتاتِ عَلِيهِ حَ!!! Or what you add to your knowledge. So Allah SWT says, Andaining Nemseni. And many people express anger-swearing. Likeая شاركت ان امان ايام اشئ اللذي اذا� %. What I have been learning is that I know the遺welings that they have and those things they have. I won't name the school, yesterday. And the person who picked me up from my house was a DARE officer. These are retired police officers who are working in this department called DARE, which stands for the people who work against drug addiction. And he's working in the school. This is a middle school. So children of 10 to 12, and from there, you know, maybe say between 10 to 12 to 16 or 10 to 16. So I said, you have cases of addiction? He said, it's not even a question of cases. He said, it's a problem enough for me to have a full-time job here. I mean, I'm not talking about some, you know, sort of, you know, sort of, city or city center school or some school in some sort of badlands. This is a big, very well-known school. And he tells me, we have cases of eight-year-olds vaping, smoking cigarettes and vaping. Please understand, smoking, vaping, all of this is haram in Islam. And when something is haram in Islam, doing it is haram, buying it is haram, selling it is haram, manufacturing it is haram, and there's a reason why it is haram. This is the state of where we are. So if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says something is haram, there is a reason for that. And Allah says, you like something, you like something which is harmful for you. You like something that will put you into trouble in this dunya and akhira. Imagine you have a business doing this. You're buying it, you're selling it, you're raising your children on it. And then you die. And then you stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then, what are you going to say? What will you say? Think about this. Think about this because the time will come when you will not be able to think about this. And the reason you will not be able to think about this is because you will be dead. Think about that before this, before that time comes. That is when you will be dead. And this is the reason why I'm telling you this. This is the essence of tawakkul. This is the essence of tawakkul to trust Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this is the reason, the basis of Ithbinaal ul Qalb. Peace of mind. A total trust on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, which results in peace of mind and tranquility of the heart. And this is based on our understanding of His glory and majesty and power. And trust that when we open our hearts, we will be able to see the truth. And when we obey Him, He will protect us and support us. And that He will take care of us. That's why my addiction to nature and nature photography. Because I go out in the world, I take photographs and ask myself, this is my Rabb. This is my Rabb who feeds a black-capped chickadee, which is smaller than a sparrow. In the middle of winter, when there's two feet of snow on the ground, and there's no way this bird can get anything to eat. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protects it. It survives that winter. And the temperatures are, I still have Celsius in my head. So I say minus 20, go walk out the Fahrenheit of that. If I go out without heavy protective clothing, I will die in 10 minutes. And that bird is out there. This is my Rabb. And I believe that my Rabb is the one who protects me. And I believe that my Rabb cannot feed me unless I do haram. What kind of Iman is this? What kind of Iman is this? Are you really worshipping some Rabb who is so weak and poor that He cannot feed you unless you do haram? La haluna khutai dhalil. So put ourselves in the position of Iman alayhi salam. And ask, if we had been there and before that, thank Allah subhanahu

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent his anbiya alayhi salam not only as guides for how to worship him, but as guides to lead our lives in a way that is wholesome, harmonious and beneficial in this life and a means of forgiveness and reward in the life of the Akhirah, inshaAllah. Islam, therefore, is a deen. It's a complete way of life. It's not just a set of rituals of worship. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, having sent this deen, also tests us. Allah said, Ahasiban nasu an yutraku an yakulu amanna wahum la yuftanoon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Do people think that if they simply say, whether once they say, we believe, amanna, that they will not be tested, that they will be left alone without being tested? Now, this is a fundamental principle of life. If you say in school and college, for example, if you say that you are ready, you are given a test to go to the next class. In organizations, if you say you are ready, then you are tested before you are given a promotion. And so on and so forth. So, we continuously pass tests after tests. The benefit of passing a test is that it makes you stronger, more confident, because after the test... After the test... After the test... After the test, you know that you have learned something. So, also in deen, with the benefit, additional benefit in deen, that when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tests, he helps the person to succeed. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promised to test us. And he said, وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيِّمْ مِّنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنفُسِ وَالصَّبَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَسَابَتْهُمْ مُصِيبَةٌ قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ أُولَٰئِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ صَلَوَاتٌ مِّنْ رَبِّهِمْ بَرَفَةٌ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُخْتَدُونَ In Surah Al-Baqarah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, We will definitely test you with a touch of fear and famine and loss of property and life and crops. Give good news and glad tidings to those who patiently, patiently endure, who, when faced with a disaster, they say, surely to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we belong and to Him we will return. They are the ones who will receive Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's blessings and mercy. And it is they who are rightly guided. Everyone will be tested, but those who turn towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and behave with dignity and patience, they will receive, they will receive Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's reward and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is witness for their faith. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that nobody was tested more than the Abiyyah alayhimus sallam, than the prophets. And that he sallallahu alaihi wasallam was tested the most among the prophets, which means that he was tested most among all the human beings. Ibrahim alayhi wasallam's life, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, mentioned in the Quran, was a series of tests. Among the most serious of these tests was when he was commanded by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to take his wife, our mother Hajar alayhi salam, and their newborn baby Ismail, and leave them in the valley of Bakka, later to be called Mecca. Imagine what's happening here. When you go home, look at, go to Google and see a map. Ask for a map from Jerusalem to Bakka. He is in Jerusalem. He started from there. And then, while he's there, and before that, after decades of making dua for a child, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala granted him a son. And this is not any ordinary dua. It's a dua of Khalidullah. Dua of one of the greatest of the Anbiya and Rasul, who was later to be the father of the prophets. His dua took decades. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave him a son. And then he gets this command to take his son and his newborn baby, while his mother is still nursing him, and take them to a place that he has never seen before, and leave them there and return to Palestine. So I went on Google to check the route and the distances and so on. And Google says that Mecca and Palestine, the distance is 941 miles. 1500 kilometers. Ibrahim A.S. walked with his family. The Quran does not tell us that he had, a whole, you know, servants with him and guards with him and so on. So Allah mentions only two people, him and his wife. The road from Mecca to Jerusalem later on became a major trade route, because this was the route on which the Quraysh used to send their caravans. But this was a few hundred years later. At the time we are talking, Ibrahim A.S. was from the Bronze Age, before the discovery of iron. And we know that Mecca did not exist. There was nothing there. There was only a barren valley, sand and rocks. And when Ibrahim A.S. reached there in a journey, which was obviously difficult and potentially highly dangerous, then I thought to myself, let's s

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the 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 companions. Peace and blessings be upon you all. My brothers and sisters, the number one requirement, the number one necessity that we have in this life is to be forgiven by Allah. The forgiveness of Allah is the number one thing. If we have everything else but Allah does not forgive us, then that's it. And no matter what sins we have done, if Allah forgives us, alhamdulillah. Now in this, there is good news. And the good news is that Allah promised to forgive. So one is that, say for example, I need money. And I say, well, I have to go and ask somebody. And I know, I have some friends who I know, so and so has money, so and so has money. And I go to them. Will they give me? Will they not give me? I don't know. They have money, but does not mean they will give me. But if there is somebody who tells me, look, anytime you need money, come to me. I will give you. He's telling you beforehand. At the time he's telling me I don't need it. But if you need it, come to me, I will give you. So if I go to somebody who has not told me this, I go with one state of mind. But if I'm going to somebody who said, you come, I will give you. Then there is no uncertainty. He told me to come, I'm coming. So Allah said this to us. Allah said, قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَصْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَتُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ Allah said, say to them, Ya Muhammad Ya Ibadiyy, my slaves. Who? Who are the Ibad of Allah? In this ayat Allah is not saying, My Ibadiyy. Ibadiyy allatheena min nabiyyin wa siddiqeen No, Allah is saying, allatheena asrafu ala anfusin People who have transgressed against themselves. People who have committed sins. People who have disobeyed Allah . People who have been indulged in haram. People who have not done what Allah made farth. And so on and so on. Allah said, say to them. What should I say to them? I will punish you. I will burn you. No. لَا تَقْنَتُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ Do not despair of the Rahmah of Allah . At no point don't feel, Oh my God, what's the point of making istighfar? I did so many wrong things. Allah cannot forgive me. This is haram in Islam. This is kufr. To say Allah cannot forgive me is kufr. To say to somebody else, Allah will not forgive you is kufr. Prophet said, there is a man who somebody asked him, some person who committed a lot of sins. He asked this man and the man said, Allah cannot forgive you. Allah said, you are saying what I can and cannot do. So Allah says, I will forgive that man and I will put you in Jahannam. Okay. So never say this. Anybody. Who? Whoever it is. Because forgiveness is for Allah. Only Allah is the one who forgives. لَا يَغْفِرُ ذُنُوبَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ He is not a human being. In our religion, in Islam, we don't go to the Imam and say, please, I made this sin. You know, give me forgiveness. You don't do all this. It is between you and Allah. You commit a sin, you ask Allah to forgive. If you involve somebody else, you ask them to forgive first, then you ask Allah to forgive. So two kinds of sins. One is sins in the Hukukullah. I was supposed to pray, I did not pray. This is baini wa bain Allah. So ask Allah to forgive. Then Hukukul Ibad. I was supposed to give somebody something I did not give him. So first give that. Finish this, then go to Allah. So Allah says, لَا تَقْنَتُ مِنْ رَحْمَةٍ لَا وَلَا تَقْنَتُ مِنْ رَحْمَةٍ لَا إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا And really Allah forgives all sins. Everything. As long as you make istighfar. Allah will forgive shirk, Allah will forgive kufr, Allah will forgive anything. As long as we make istighfar. If we die with that, that's a different story. If a person dies on kufr, dies on shirk, that's a different matter. But while he is alive, a person has been worshipping idols for a hundred years. Then he makes istighfar, Allah will forgive. And there is no shirk. إِنَّ الشِّرْكَ ظُلْمٌ عَزِيمٌ The biggest shirk is, biggest zulm, sin is shirk. Even that Allah will forgive if you seek forgiveness. إِنَّ اللَّهَ Then Allah said after this, إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُرُ الرَّحِيمُ And He is Al-Ghafur. He is Al-Ghafur. And He is Al-Raheem. He is the most forgiving, most merciful. See the mercy of Allah . The same ayah, if you think about this, if Allah had said, قُلْ يَا إِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَصْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ This was enough. This communicates the meaning. You are sinners? You are sinners? Don't despair of the mercy of Allah. What does it mean? It means Allah will for

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 honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. Peace be upon them all. And after that, my dear brothers and sisters, there is a question that I keep getting asked every once in a while about whether I am willing to, and if I am not willing to, then why I am not willing to, present my lectures in shorter forms. So people ask me, can you, you know, whatever you have been, you are trying to teach, can you do this in five minutes? Or can you do it in, you know, something like this, which is a very short time. And I have always resisted that. I've always said no. Now, I want to address that and try and explain mostly for my friends who ask me this question. I know they're very sincere people. So it's really in honour of their sincerity that I want to that I want to make this even stronger. So, it's not a disclaimer, but it's something that I want to state. And my answer to them is as follows. Which is, take the, as we always say, you know, the best example is the example of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the best example is the example of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the example of his, those who followed him in Exodus. So let me give you a couple of examples. Take for example, Abu Hurairah Radiyallahu Anhu. Abu Hurairah Radiyallahu Anhu used to, he said, somebody asked him, they said, how is it that you have, you have quoted so many hadiths, whereas Abu Hurairah Radiyallahu Anhu and others who have, who were and who spent far longer with Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, have not quoted that many hadiths. So Abu Hurairah Radiyallahu Anhu, now he's not criticizing Abu Hurairah Radiyallahu Anhu, but generally speaking, he said that while you people, meaning he's talking to whoever asked that question, he said, while you people were busy in the markets and in earning livings and in doing business, I used to spend that time with Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He said, I used to spend so much time with him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that I would not even have time to eat. And there were times when I would fall down and I would faint. I would faint with exhaustion and with hunger. And people thought that I was having an epileptic fit. And they would, those days the sort of cure or antidote to this epileptic fits was that people used to, you used to make them smell leather sandals. So they would hold up, you know, their slippers under his nose. And he said, people didn't realize that the reason I fell down was not because of epilepsy, but because of hunger. And the reason I was so hungry, to the point of starvation, to the point of literally falling down, was because I spent all that time with Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Second example. Imam Qi gur самой Larif was sent by his mother small little kid. So he came and Imam Malik had a system where he would give dars of hadith muwatta between Asr and Maghrib in the courtyard of the masjid and Nabi Muhammad Sharif and then after the Salat of Maghrib Salat, he would give the dars inside the masjid between Maghrib and Nisha. So two sessions, not ten minute beats, two sessions. So the two of them together were a couple of hours. Maybe more than that. The time between Asr and Maghrib in the Hijaz is a long time. And then between Maghrib and Nisha. So these dars he used to give. So now he comes there, he starts the dars and this little kid less than ten years old is sitting right in front at his feet. And as Imam Malik is speaking he notices that this little kid is doodling in the sand with his index finger. So because there was no carpets and stuff. So he would sit on the sand. And this little kid is with his finger, he seems to be doodling, making little patterns. So Imam Malik got very irritated. But he was a very kind person. He never said anything. He didn't say anything. He didn't stop the kid. You know, he didn't want to embarrass this kid in front of people by criticizing him or something. So he didn't say anything. But obviously he didn't like what was happening. And this continued. So after this, then the Adhan for Daghrib was called. And they went inside. So in the second session, this kid came and he made salab and he said I am so and so. I have come. My mother has sent me. I have come to be your student and I request you to accept me as your student. Imam Malik said, sorry, go back. I will not accept you as a student. Now this little boy who was who would later become the student of Imam Malik, the great Imam Ash-Shafei, he started crying. And he said, what have I done? He said, I came here to study from you. And what is my mistake? What did I do wrong? You know, you are rej

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu was-salamu ala al-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathiran. I want to deal with two questions that two different people asked me. One, a friend of mine from Hyderabad, he asked me, he said, we keep making effort, we don't succeed, we lose energy. How to deal with that? And the second one was, Umar Abd al-Ali asked me, he is in medical school. So he said, we have been given information that we will have a very important qualifying exam, which will be for eight hours, the exam, in May 2026, which is 12 months from now. And we know what all we have to study in that one year, and how it goes forward and so on. But he said, there are two things. One is that this thought of this exam 12 months from now is overpowering in the head. And secondly, the regular work of the college also is there. That's going on. So how to deal with this? Like, too much. The answer is very simple. And the answer is structure. Structure. Create a timetable for the day. And do not use an app for that. Do not use an app. There is a psychological advantage in writing with your hand. So take a normal, you take a normal notebook. Make two columns. In the left column, put time. In the right column, put the activity you have to do. And how much time is needed for that. So from the time you open your eyes in the morning to the time you go to bed in the night, that must be in the timetable. And then, second part, which is, follow that like a religion. Nothing must move you away from that timetable. No matter what happens in life. That timetable must be followed. Otherwise it's a waste of time. You write it down, you do nothing, makes no sense. So follow that very, very, very strictly. So that is why I remind myself and you, focus on your effort. Not on talent, not even on your long-term goals. Your daily effort. I'll give you another example. Take, many of you have the desire to become Hafez. Alhamdulillah. Very good. But tell me, what is the most important thing if you are doing HIFS? The number one, most, absolutely important thing. What is it? It is not the desire to make HIFS, it is not the quality of your Usta. The most important thing in making HIFS is your daily Daur. Right? I memorized one page today, tomorrow I repeat that, I revise that, day after tomorrow I memorize page two, third day I revise two pages, then I have third page, and I revise third page. This is the number one most important thing to do. If you do not do your repetition, you cannot become Hafez. Impossible. And that repetition will kill you. I mean that is so difficult. It's not easy. It's very, very difficult. And the beauty is, within quote beauty, the more you memorize, the more difficult it becomes. Because the portion you have to repeat is more. But there is no other way. That is the way. As long as you go on repeating, it trips through the mind. But if you don't repeat, and even if you miss one single day, whatever may be the reason, the reason makes no difference. My grandmother came by at my wedding to attend, my friend comes. Makes no difference. You missed today's Daur, believe me brother, you are in serious trouble. Because the next day, it gets doubled. You can't make it up. You will kill yourself. You will not be able to do it. Must be done on time at that time. So create a timetable. Focus on your effort. It's good to have a long-term goal, no doubt about that. Right? But focus on your step by step by step. Are you taking those steps? I used to go trekking. I remember one day I went with two other friends of mine. All of them young. I was the manager, they were my sisters. We climbed a mountain of what? I think it was 5,000, 5,500 feet. And the track was almost vertical. It was very, very steep track. And we started from sea level and we were going up 5,000 feet. So it is, it was extremely hot and we were walking on the sand. We were walking through forest. But not tree forest. This was scrub forest. So there's no shade. But there are nettles and there are thorns and there are, you know, things which will cut you and all kinds of stuff. And of course, there are also wild animals in that forest. Three hours walking. And believe me, after walking for about an hour, and you're climbing, walking is not walking, you're just climbing. The whole time you're climbing. Now I'm thinking to myself, I am insane. Why did I even start this? Right? What nonsense? I mean, I was sitting peacefully at home. Instead of that, I have to, I get into my stupid mind. I must climb this. Why should I climb the mountain? What nonsense? I mean, I've got a car. I can drive around. I want to go to the top. Take the road. No, you have to climb. I'm cursing myself, literally. So what kind of, you know, crazy insan you are. But w

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise belongs 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. Peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and his companions. From Abadu, somebody asked me a question about following a religion. So, how many of you can name what are the four madhabs in the Ahlus Sunnah wa Jama'ah? No, I know you all are this group. Yes. I won't take your name because this goes worldwide, so they won't know who it is, but you can ask me first. What are the four madhabs? Maafi, Hanafi, Ambalee. I'm asking you, Vaan. I don't know what's wrong. Nafsi. Whatever I want. That madhab? No. Maliki. Hanafi, Shafi, Maliki, Ambalee. Right? Okay. So, what is your madhab? No. What is your madhab? Islam. Islam is not a madhab. Islam is a deen. Hanafi. Hanafi. What Hanafi madhab follows who? Imam Hanafi. Imam Hanafi. What is Imam Hanafi's name? Maafi. Imam Hanafi. Maafi. No, I'm not trying to insult anybody. I'm just trying to show you the problem with people who say, I follow, I am Hanafi. They do not even know the name of the Imam who they follow. They do not even know whether Hanafi is his name, whether it is a kunya, whether it is the name of his cat. We don't know. Right? But we are willing to fight to the death with somebody who is not Hanafi. Inna liillahi wa inna ilahi rajim. So please understand this. This is a very big musibat in this ummah. I am Hanafi. I am Shafi. Be Hanafi. No problem. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Right? Al turab min khadam al Imam Abu Hanifa ala raasi wa ala aini. The dust from his feet is on my head and on my eyes. No problem. Alhamdulillah. Follow. But at least learn something. So let me explain something to you. Please understand this. Number one. In al ahlu sunnah wal jama'ah, which is what we are Sunni Muslims, we follow, there are four madhahib, four schools of jurisprudence. These are not schools of thought. All kinds of nonsense is spoken in the neighborhood. It's not a school of thought. It's a school of jurisprudence. These are fuqaha. They are not philosophers. They are not phala. They are not falasifah. They are fuqaha. Right? Four schools of jurisprudence. We believe, all of us, that it is acceptable to follow any of these four ayimma al quwara. Number one. Number two. It is not okay to criticize somebody who is following another imam. And I will explain to you from the Quran and Sunnah why it is not possible and not permissible to criticize. It is not permissible to criticize somebody following another imam. So if you say you are Hanafi, most welcome. You find out the name of the imam first of all. But if you are Hanafi, most welcome. Be Hanafi. But if my brother here is Shafi, it is not permissible for you to criticize him for following Imam Shafi Rahmatullah Ali. And it is not permissible for you to criticize him for following Imam Abu Hanifa Rahmatullah Ali. And I will give you the dalail for this. When we say we follow an imam. Say for example, I will give you one of the most common things which we see every day. Which is how we pray. Right? So if you are Hanafi, how many times do you raise your hands? Once. Once. Right? When? Starting of Salah. Starting of Salah. What is it called? That particular motion? Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. Learn. So first rule. If you follow some imam, follow him. Follow with knowledge. Don't just say blindly, I am Hanafi, I am Shafi. What is the name of the imam? I don't even know the name of the imam. What do you mean? Go and learn. Number two. It is not okay to criticize somebody else. I said an example, I will give you. In Salah. The Hanaf, people who follow Imam Abu Hanifa Rahmatullah Ali, they raise their hands once to the level of their ears. When they do that, what is called Takbir Tahrimah or Takbiratul Haram. Takbiratul Haram. And Allahu Akbar when we start the Salah. Right? In the Fiqh, is it necessary to raise your hands at all? Or is it necessary to say Allahu Akbar? Which one? Allahu Akbar. If somebody does not raise his hand at all, his Salah is valid or invalid? It is valid. So first of all understand that. But, it is not like that. People who follow Imam Abu Hanifa Rahmatullah Ali, they raise their hands once. Very good. People who follow Imam Shafi, Imam Muhammad bin Hanbal and the Malikis, they will raise their hands, how many times? With Shafi, how many times? First Takbir Tahrimah, after that? Before you go for Ruku and after you get up from Ruku and then in the third rakat. Right? So four times in the Salah. Now, tell me who is right, who is wrong? All right. Why all right? Why do you say that? Out of politeness, because we are nice people. No. Give me the dalil. Because Rasool Allah did that. He praye

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, I have been asked to give some advice about marriage. So here goes. I call this my marriage advice three by three. Marriage advice three by three. Three things that you do not want to do or you should not do and three things that you should do. So the first question to ask is, do you want to remain happily married? And if the answer is yes, then there are three things that you must not do. The first one, don't collect garbage. Have a selective memory. Remember only good and forget all bad. Because garbage always stinks and only you will smell it. So don't collect garbage. Now, remember, sometimes you will hear people saying, be very careful what you say to your spouse. One word can destroy years of relationship. My point is, a relationship, which is destroyed by one word, is a jail sentence. It is not a relationship. A marriage is a relationship which is bulletproof, which should be bulletproof. A marriage is like a ship. Ships are built to sail the high seas and to battle with storms from the outside. A ship is not meant to sit in the harbor in safety. It is meant to sail the high seas. The beauty of a marriage is the same thing as the beauty of any deep and real and genuine friendship. And that is the obviation, the lack of need for defenses. In a good marriage, there is no need for defenses. My point is, that if I have to watch every word that I say to my wife, every word that I say to my wife, every word that I say to my wife, every word that I say to my wife, or my husband, if I have to be careful about every single thing I say or do, then how is this a marriage? It can be, you know, a political relationship. It can be a diplomatic connection or whatever. How is it a marriage? How is it a close friendship? A close friendship is one in which there are no defenses. I don't need to defend. Because I know that this person will never deliberately harm me. Now, is that person, is it possible that this person may say or do something which appears to be hurting, even insulting? Is that possible? Of course, because they're human. They're human. But if you have this fundamental belief that it is never done deliberately, they're not trying to do that. They may have, their emotion of the time may have got over them or overcome them or overpowered them, or they may be, under some other outside stress or whatnot. That is the reason why they have said what they have said. It is not meant for me. Then believe me, nothing will happen to your relationship, except that it will make it stronger. So don't collect garbage. Don't collect bad stuff. Forget the bad stuff. Collect the good stuff. Remind yourself again and again about the good stuff. Anything bad that comes to you from, your spouse, forgive. Forgive. Number one. Number two, don't try to mold or change or sculpt your spouse. If you didn't like what you saw in the first place, why did you marry that person? If you liked what you saw, why do you want to change it? Your spouse is not a rock or a lump of clay or a patient in your hospital. They didn't marry you to be changed. So change yourself to like them. Remind yourself that you were not forced into that marriage. You went into it with your eyes open because you liked that person. And if you like that person, then like that person. Don't try to change them. Number three, not to do. Don't criticize. Nagging never works. If they wanted a nag, they would have married a horse. So forgive and seek forgiveness. Forgive and seek forgiveness. Nothing works like sorry. Nothing works like sorry. So, say sorry. And the other person, don't say, oh, you know, you always say this and you always say sorry and you always repeat. That is why we are human. Ask yourself, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said this in Surah An-Nur. Allah said, do you not want Allah to forgive you? So if you want Allah to forgive you, then forgive your spouse and thank them for giving you so much practice. So this is the three things not to do. Now the three things to do. Number one, laugh. Always first at yourself and laugh with others. A sense of humor is like air. You need it to remain alive. Laugh especially when you are having problems. Laugh at yourself for madding someone so irritating and you say, oh, I don't know. I thought you were clever. And laugh because she was stupid enough to marry you. Couples who can laugh together, stay together. Number two, thank. Thank your spouse. Because there's no thanking Allah without thanking the people. So thank them for all the so-called small things. You will know the value of those small things when they are not there. And that day comes to every single marriage. A day when that person is no longer there. And that is when you are not there. And that is when you are not there. And that is when you will remember and value those small things because they are no longer there. Numbe

Auto-generated transcript: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 kathira. Fahamma baadu. Now take the case of another one. Who asked the same question. How does Allah give life to the dead? Same question. But in a different tone. And this tone is the one. Tone of the one who knows. Allah. And has a relationship with Allah. The tone of one who talks to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala all the time. And is having another conversation. It's a very normal conversation. And so he asks. Allah said and remember when Ibrahim said alayhi salam. My Rabb. Rabbi. My Rabb. Arini kaifatu hilmauta. Show me how do you give life to the dead. Now think about this. Is the question being asked. So if Allah wants to answer it. He should have said. This is how I do it. Maybe demonstrate it. Here is something living. Die. Come back to life. Khala. No. What is Allah's response? Ya Rabb show me how do you give life to the dead. Allah said. Avalam tu min. You don't believe. You don't know. You don't believe. What does it tell you about the relationship. For the whole world to ask this question. You ask him this question. How come you ask this question. It's a response of such love and such affection. And you know. You my Khaliq. You. And see if I'm a response. He said. No no no. Of course I believe Ya Rabb. But for the. It's been out of my. Kalb. Allah SWT said. Rasulullah SAW said. He said the report. The information. Is not like seeing. So effectively. I'm saying. He said. Of course I believe that. I mean. There's no doubt of my mind. But if you show me. Show it. That is the reason why. Rasulullah SAW said. If Ibrahim could ask this question. We have even greater right. To ask Allah and say. Allah show me your khudrat. But be careful how you ask. Huh. That's why they say. Be careful what you ask for. So what does Allah say. What does Allah say to him. Allah SWT says. Get four birds. He didn't say. Get a chicken. Get a duck. Get a turkey. No. He said. Get four birds. Wild birds. Train them to come to you. So they are free flying pets. For him. Then. Slaughter them. Chop them into pieces. And then. They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be. They will be. Chop them into pieces. Mix it all up. And take a portion of that. And scatter it. Put it on top of each of these hills. And we don't know how many hills. So one lump of mixed bird. Khima. On each hilltop. Now think about this. From the tone of this ayah. It seems to me that Ibrahim A.S. at this time must have been a young boy. Because if an older person asks this question. This is not what you would say to them. This is a project being given to a child. And you are not going to be able to do it. You are going to be a child. You are going to be a child. You are going to be a child. You are going to be a child. You are going to be a child. You are going to be a child. You are going to be a child. Right. Your little son or daughter says something. You can give an answer. You don't do that. He says no. Now go do that. See how it works. How does this oak tree grow? Okay. Here. Here is an acorn. Go plant it. Now water it. Look after it. So on. So on. Maybe it takes you. God knows. Six months for the answer to come. But you are working on it yourself. So it is much more exciting. Much more interesting. So Allah says four wild birds. Now think about it. What is. Different bird species nest in different places. Supposing it is a golden eagle. On the cranks of hilltops. Peregrine falcon. You know. There are aquatic birds. There are birds with nests on the ground. There are birds with nests in tree hollows. If it is a hornbill it seals its female into the nest with the eggs. Different species. Nesting different. Different species have different gestation. Not gestation. The period for the eggs to hatch. Right? Incubation period. So a chicken's egg takes 21 days. Robin's egg takes about seven days. And so on. So different times. Then if you want to tame a wild bird. You have to take the chick from the nest. At the exact right time. If you take the chick too early. It will die. Because many birds when they feed the chicks. They don't just take an insect or a seed and stuff it down the chick's throat. No. They take it. They eat it. They partially digest it in the crop. And then they regurgitate that digested thing into the bird. Into the small chick. Because it can't digest otherwise. Obviously you can't do that. But you can. So if you take a chick which is too early. It will die. If you wait too long and the chick gets all its feathers. If it is fully fledged. It will not become tamed. So exact right time. Now think about that. Who's telling Ibrahim all this? This little boy. Is he an expert on ornithol

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, as we approach the blessed days of Dhul Hijjah and Eid al-Adha, it will be good to remember the one whose story Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala immortalized in the Quran al-Kareem and gave it to us as an example to follow in goodness. Ibrahim Khalilullah alayhi salatu wasalam. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala raised him and said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Indeed, Ibrahim alayhi salam was a model of excellence. He was an ummah by himself. He was a nation by himself, devoted to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, perfectly upright and not a polytheist. And in another place, Surah Al-Ruhud, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described his character and his manners which Allah praised and said, Indeed, truly Ibrahim was forbearing. He was patient. He had sabr. He was tender-hearted. And he always turned to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Somebody who constantly sought the forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I want to begin with this. As it is the standard that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala praised, and so it is something for us to try to develop in ourselves. To stand firmly. To stand firmly for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and live by His commands, even if you stand alone. Especially if you stand alone. Say to yourself, If not me, then who? If not now, then when? Secondly, become patient and forbearing and kind and compassionate, and constantly repent to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then, you will be able to see the true God. Last one. Since we brushed up, Qasemah, The second. If for the first time you think you are rolling on a mountain, O' the Lord! Isn't it up there. It is obvious. Things are changing now, everything changes. Even the control of your mind right now has another meaning. should make me benefit from this ayah in this world and the next. I ask the same for all of you, inshallah. In this ayah, in Surah Al-Anfal, Allah said, But Allah would never punish them while you, O Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, were with them, where you were in their midst. And nor would He ever punish them if they prayed for forgiveness. To have Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam with us in today's world, means to follow His sunnah. It means to follow His sunnah. With the Sahaba, He was there with them physically, with us. He is with us to the extent that we follow His blessed way, His sunnah. And then Allah said, And Allah will never punish them as long as they keep seeking forgiveness. So the way to avoid the punishment of Allah is to keep asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for forgiveness. And Abdullah ibn Abbas said, The Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, Ibn Abbas radiallahu anhu reported, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, Whoever increases his prayers for forgiveness, whoever repents, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah will grant him relief from every worry. Allah will find a way out of every hardship. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will provide for him in ways and from places that he does not expect. So let us make istighfar a part of our lives. And the first thing that we do when we need the help of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, let us remember that we are not alone. Let us not alone. Let us be steadfast in searching His nivel. Let us encourage Him and He will find the particular obedience for us in the near future. Let's insert Ivna in a prayer of God as you do in prayer. Let us purify. Ibrahim is his connection with Allah . His Taalluq with Allah. And that is the purpose of our lives. The essence of the purpose of our lives is to build that Taalluq, that connection which comes through only one thing, total and complete submission to the will of Allah. Allah told us what Ibrahim did when he was told to submit. When his Rabb ordered him submit to my will, he responded I submit to the Rabb of all the worlds. Now what made Ibrahim the way he was and gave him these stations of honor. Allah called him his Khalil. The closest level of connection of friendship in a way that suits the majesty and grace of Allah. No human being can be a friend of Allah. Allah is Allah. Makhluq is Makhluq. So when we translate Khalil into friend, it is not friend. It is what it is given the majesty and glory of Allah . And that means a person who Allah especially loves. All prophets had people who believed in them around them. But with the help of Allah, they were not friends. O Haqbaa, he clubbed this well and gave brol tickets to the city and found out which is vah %ah Vah غdoan is proper security, different from the place for quantification with which the auch unfolds gallery or but concerning lainness. And the question he asked was, how can the dead be resurrected? This is the, this is the, within quotes, problem from day one, and may Allah protect us to this day. We say we believe,

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, there are two ways to lead our life. There is a way that we devise for ourselves, a way that we think is the best, with whatever knowledge we have, and there is a way that is devised for us by Allah . If we lead our life by the way that we have thought of for ourselves, there is a problem because we do not know the future. We have no idea what the future holds. So whatever we decide will be based on our past experience and our current experience. So history experience. But whether that works for the future or not, we don't know because we don't know what the future is. But if we lead our lives according to the way that Allah devised for us and which He sent His Zamiya and the last and final of them, Muhammad . Then there is a guarantee in that because Allah knows. What is to come in the future. The doorway between our current life and the future is called death. Mouth. Death is not the end of life. Death is the end of the ability to do anything about life. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us a pointer. Do you know what the pointer is? Here is a pointer. He gave us some level of free will and ability to do something in this life. When that is taken away, when that ability to do something is taken away, that is called death. Most of you have done the ghusl of somebody or the other, janaza. You know and I know that if you lie down next to the janaza, say what's the difference between this person and me? No difference. He has got eyes, I have got eyes. He has ears, I have ears. He has a mouth, tongue, I have a mouth and tongue. Except that his eyes cannot see, my eyes can see. His ears cannot hear, my ears can hear. With my tongue I can speak, I can do the zikr of Allah . I can do something. But with his tongue he can't do anything. The... ability to function has been taken away. What is that ability to function? That is the roh. That is the roh. So they asked the Prophet . In Surah Al-Isra, Allah mentioned. Qul arroohu min amri rabbih. They will ask you or they are asking you about the roh. Say to them that the roh is the order, the command of my Rabb. So when this command is taken away, life is gone. Life is over. When the command is taken away, life is over. Life in this world is over. And the command is gone. Life is gone. The eternal life starts. Many times you hear this, especially when somebody has been in pain and suffering, if they were in a hospital or something and so on. People will say, at least his suffering is over. But my submission to you and reminded to myself is we don't know this. We do not know whether his suffering is over or whether the suffering is over. We don't know. We don't know whether his suffering is over or whether the suffering is now starting. And the suffering which starts now will never be over. Death is the opening of a door into a world and a time that has no ending. We ask Allah to make that the best of our life. Because when that door opens and we go through, if it is good, then the good will be forever. If it is good, then the good will be forever. If it is good, then the good will be forever. If it is good, then the good will be forever. And if it is evil, it will be forever. And what is death? The inability to do something about life. In this life, if you have any difficulty, you can do something about it yourself. Or if you can't do something about it yourself, you can ask your friend. Your friend will help you. Somebody will help you. Government will help you. Relatives will help you. Your relatives will help you. Your children will help you. Somebody. There is a means. You can buy something. If you have enough money, you can pay for this and pay for that. But once we go through that door, in the grave, there is no one to help. Nobody. We cannot do anything and nobody to help us. If Allah decides and we ask Allah to forgive us and not to give us the adab of the khabar, but if the adab of the khabar starts, if there is a fire in the khabar, nobody can put it out. If there are snakes, nobody can kill them. If the khabar contracts and squeezes, nobody can stop that. Now, how to ensure that none of this happens? By paying attention to what Allah has sent us in the form of His kalam and in the form of the teacher of the kalam, the Prophet . The people who understood that and may Allah bless the Shaykh, we heard one of the most beautiful ayat of the Quran referring to that, may Allah bless the Shaykh, that the Prophet такая were while he was writing his spiritual statement, they remembered that this is the miracle happened in such a marked era in which we are lucky in the Czytt. So I'll let you understand who said that about the والو'کرى pearls of the Prophet and in the Quran. instructor was there, a guy As soon as he been at the yoke of water, far away in the Welcome to that time, I remember going to the muck of water in Öyle. them because there was a bounty on both of

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen Salatul Salam From my brothers and sisters, Allah sent us a way of life called Islam, a deen called Islam. Islam is not just a set of rituals or worship or anything else. It is something that encompasses everything that a human being needs in leading their lives. To lead their lives in a way which guarantees them success in this life and the next. And it's a very simple formula because sometimes what happens is that, especially for those who consider themselves to be educated and who study various areas of philosophy and anthropology and religion, various other things, they tend to get distracted, they tend to get misguided because they bring their own thoughts and feelings and ideas into the practice of Islam. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us a very simple formula. And the formula is, obey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. In the way of, Muhammadu Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. It's a very simple formula. Obey Allah, which is the what, and in the way of the Nabi alaihi salatu wa sallam, which is the sunnah, which is the how. To give you an example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ordered us to worship no one other than Allah. And that is what Islam is. We say, Ashadu billahi ila Allah, I bear witness that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. So when a person accepts, Ashadu billahi ila Allah, that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah, the question is, how do I worship Allah? And somebody might say, I will write a beautiful nasheed, and I will sing this, and somebody might say, I will beat drums, somebody might say, I dance, and I whirl, or spin like a top, and I do this, and I do that, and I feel, very spiritual doing it, and I feel very good doing it. Is any of this acceptable with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? No. Because what you feel doing that is not a criterion before Allah. I may feel, many people feel many things, subjective feeling. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not bound by my feelings to accept or not accept. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us a standard. Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, for you, the best example is in the life of my Nabi, alayhi salatu was salam. And Allah mentioned to whom for this, to whom this is an example. لِمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُ اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَةِ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِرًا For the one who looks forward to the meeting, who is in the middle of the night, who is in the middle of the night, who is in the middle of the night, who is in the middle of the night, who is in the middle of the night, and who looks forward to the day of judgment, and who remembers Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala a great deal. Now think about that. Who will look forward to the day of judgment? يَوْمَ الْآخِرَةِ Who will look forward to that? Who is waiting for it? Let it come quickly. Who is waiting for it? Because if you read the descriptions of the day of judgment, إِذَا وَقَيَتِ الْوَاقِيَةِ إِذَا ذُلْذِلَتِ الْأَرْضُ ذِلْزَالَهَا وَذُكَّتِ الْأَرْضُ ذَكَّةً And so on and so on. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has painted a picture of the day of judgment which is so terrible and which is so fear-inspiring and which is so horrific. Who will look forward to that? But Allah says, يَرْجُ اللَّهُ Allah did not say the one who will meet. We will all meet Allah. Whether you like to meet Allah or not, you will meet Allah. I will meet Allah. But Allah says, يَرْجُ اللَّهُ The one who is looking, looking forward to that, who wants to meet Allah. وَالْيَوَّ الْآخِرَةِ And who wants the day of judgment to come. Who will do that? Only somebody who hopes for the mercy of Allah and the protection of Allah from all these things. Who is guaranteed that? لَخَدْقَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةً The one who leads their life according to the أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةً of Allah. of Rasulullah ﷺ. So Allah gave us a template. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, the first example, if I say, we just prayed Salatul Isha. And if somebody, if I ask myself, was my Salah good or not? How do I know? I must compare it to the Salah of Rasulullah ﷺ. How did he pray? Is my Salah close to that? It will never be equal to that obviously. But is it close to that? So to be able to do that, what must I know? I must know how he prayed. This is where the importance of the Seerah of Rasulullah ﷺ comes in. If you don't know the Uswa of, Uswatun Hasana of Rasulullah ﷺ, how will you compare your life with it? Study of the Seerah is ordered and commanded by Allah. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying, your life must be like the life of my Nabi alayhi salatu wasalam. How will I know that unless I study it? And that's the reason why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also caused the life of Rasulullah ﷺ to be preserved in such immense and intricate detail. There is nobody in the world whose life is

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu Wa Salamu Alaa Ashrafil Anbiya wal Mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Alaa Alihi wa Sahbihi wa Sallam. Tasleeman kathiran kathira. Faham abadu? My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala tests and we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to save us from His tests. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala tested the Sahaba. And the name of the test was Hudaybiyah. I call this the graduation of the Sahaba. After the years in Makkah and the Hijrah and the battles in Madinah, this was the final exam to test their obedience in stressful conditions. So Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala tested them with a test so severe that had it not been for the help of Allah, it could have proven fatal for them and Islam. But Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala tests the pious to strengthen, not to destroy. And so He supports them and He grants them patience. The test was so severe that Umar bin al-Khattab r.a became the unconscious voice of many. He asked the questions, he asked and I'm not going into the details of this, InshaAllah. Someday when you have some patience, we'll sit and talk about this here. He asked the questions he asked and then he left the place. Now think about this, you know, we read these stories. Think about one very simple question. The thing that struck me was, how come Sayyidina Umar r.a just left the place without asking permission to leave the Majlis of Rasool Allah ? No Sahabi ever did that. To simply get up and walk away when the Imam is sitting here and giving a khutbah or giving a dars or giving a khatira, just walk away, show your back and then also chat with your friends on the way. This is our culture. These are our akhlaq. These are not the akhlaq of the Sahaba. Ridh ma'am laayhi alayhi majma'in. If they came to the Majlis of the Rasool Allah and if they had to leave for any reason they told him in advance, Ya Rasool Allah, I have to run for this thing, please forgive me. This is the akhlaq of the Muslim. This is what you are supposed to do. They never ever left without permission. Here is Umar ibn al-Khattab, not just anyone, here is Umar ibn al-Khattab r.a who goes away. And from whatever I have read of the seerah, he didn't ask anybody's permission. He didn't ask the Bishr al-Sarab alayhi salam. He didn't say, Ya Rasool Allah, can I leave? I am sorry, I am very anguished. No, he went. And think about this. Rasool Allah didn't stop him. He did not even question him, Ya Umar, why did you leave? No. Why? Because he understood the anguish of Umar. He understood that this is not only the anguish of Umar ibn al-Khattab, this is the anguish of all the Sahaba. But, did he change his position? Did he say to himself, Hold on, what am I doing now here? I am going to lose all these people. I will have no followers left. Let me go back. No. This is the test. They had been told, you will obey whether you like it or not. So now you don't like it. That is the test. Will the, will the, Will the action change? Will the Nabi change his decision? No. He will not change his decision. We say he is guided by Allah, and of course he is guided by Allah. We say he was receiving Wahi, yes, receiving Wahi. But there is no actual record of Jibreel coming there and talking to him. So he was receiving Wahi in different ways, right? He was being guided by Allah in different ways. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq r.a said, Hold on to his stirrup. He said to Sayyidina Muhammad, He said, hold his stirrup. Because he is guided by his Rabb, and his Rabb will not abandon him. My brothers and sisters, I am not saying that, I am not saying that, I am not saying that, My brothers and sisters, think about that. And then what happens? Allah s.w.t. turns the screw some more. They are already anguished about a treaty which is so unequal. Before the treaty can be written down, Before the treaty can be written down, Abu Jindal, who is the son of the man writing the treaty, negotiating on behalf of the Quraysh Suhail bin Amr, he turns up. Now he had been imprisoned by his father because he accepted Islam. And he manages to escape. He doesn't know what's going on. Somebody told him Rasool Allah s.a.w. is in Hudaybiyah. So he said, good, let me go and, you know, meet the Nabi s.a.w. and be with him. So he goes there. He has no clue what's going on. He goes there. He sees his father there. And Suhail bin Amr says, Give the man back to us because he is ours. And we just agreed on the treaty that if one of our people comes to you, you have to return him. As if the treaty was not tough enough. Allah s.w.t. has said, You have to send your son back to you. You have to send your son back to you. That's the way it is. This is the way it is. If you can't do it, you can't do it. You can't do it. But if you can, you can do it. But if you can't do it, you can't do i

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 honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. Peace be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders. Ask any Muslim today to name the biggest problem with the Ummah. And he or she is likely to say, lack of leadership. Coming from 40 years in leadership training and development, and my study of the seerah of Rasulullah , resulting in two books, I differ. In my view, the crisis is not lack of leadership, but lack of followership. Let me explain with two examples from the seerah. The first example is the second bay'ah of Al-Aqaba, which was taken in the 13th year of the Hijr of Prophethood, in June 622 CE, by 75 people from Madinah, which was called Yathrib at that time. Ka'b bin Malik , who was the leader of the Muslim community, said, That night we slept with our people in our camps. He is talking about Mina, where they had camped at the time of Hajj. After a third of the night had elapsed, we began to leave quietly and met at a hillock nearby. We were 73 men plus two women. Nusaybah bin Ka'b , who was also called Umm Mahmara, from the Bani Najjar, and Asma bin Amar, Umm Muni, from Bani Salama. We gathered, waiting for Rasulullah , until he came in the company of his uncle, Al-Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib, who at that time was still following the religion of his fathers, but who always wanted to be with his nephew, and to participate and look after him in any matters that concerned him. Al-Abbas spoke first, and he said, O you people of the Khazraj, The Quraysh used to call all the people of, from Madinah, from Yathrib, whether they were Aus or Khazraj, as Khazraj. So he said, O you people of the Khazraj, all of you know the position that Muhammad , holds among us. We have protected him from the people as much as we could. He is honored and respected among his people. He refuses to join any party except you. So if you think you can carry out what you promise, while inviting him to your town, and if you can defend him against his enemies, then assume the burden that you have taken. But if you are going to betray him, after having taken him away with you, you had better leave him now, because he is respected and well defended in his own place. Ka'b bin Malik says that we listened to him, and then we said to him, we have heard your words, and now, O Messenger of Allah , it is for you to speak to us, and take from us any pledge that you wish, regarding your Rabb and yourself. Now Rasool Allah then spoke, and he said three things. Now before I tell you what those three things are, listen very carefully. Put yourself in that position, and ask yourself what you would have done, what I would have done, if we had been in that position. Every time I read these kinds of stories from the seerah, I thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that I was not among those people. SubhanAllah, wallahi. That I was not among those people. It is the great mercy of Allah, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose to send me into this world, 1400 years after all of this happened, I am reading this as an account. On a side note, think about this. Maryam alaihi salam comes out of the blue, this young girl known for her piety, and all the rest of it, out of the blue comes with a baby. And when the people say, what is this? How do you have a baby? She points to the baby. She doesn't speak. Now we are hearing this, and we know this, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described it for us. For us, this is a matter of aqeedah, this is the Quran. If somebody says this did not happen, or didn't happen, like this and like that, he is out of Islam. Khareed ul Islam. Khalas. Very easy for us to believe, because this is the kalam of Allah. But the people who are standing there, in front, alive, looking at this, imagine the kind of test they went through. You really feel sorry for them, I mean, wallahi. Right? You are condemning them. Don't condemn them. Just put yourself in that situation and say, wallahi, alhamdulillah, Allah did not put me in that position. I don't know what I would have done. So also here now, Rasool Allah is about to ask them to do something which, listen to this, and thank Allah that you and I were not, I at least speak for myself. I am very grateful I was not in that place. Rasool Allah , here is a man who is seeking protection to do his work of Deen. He is not seeking protection from himself. To do his work of Deen. From practically everyone who came for Hajj. Right? For two years. The only people who gave him that protection, who offered that were the people of Yathrib. So what would you do if you were in this place? Nobody wants to help me. You want to help me. No, n

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 honour of His prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. Peace be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. And then, my brothers and sisters, we hear this Hadith every Friday, where the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said, Indeed, the most truthful Hadith is the Book of Allah, and the best of the Hadith is the Hadith of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. The evil of matters is their events, and every event is a misguidance, and every misguidance is a misguidance, and every misguidance is a misguidance in the Fire. We hear this Hadith in every Friday, where the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, has stated that the best speech is the speech, is the Book of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions. And then the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, has said, Every new thing that is introduced into Islam is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire, in the Hellfire. So what is Bida? Because many times people say many things, and recently people ask me about, normally nowadays people say Jummah Mubarak. I change my mind. I change my mind. I change my mind. I think the South Africans started this, if I'm not mistaken, Jummah Mubarak. So somebody said, well, Jummah Mubarak is Bida. And so on other things, celebrating a birthday, child's birthday, this is Bida, and so forth. So what is Bida? It's very important to understand this because it's a matter of Aqeedah. What is Bida? There are two fundamental principles of Islam. The first fundamental principle of Islam is that this Deen is complete. That Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, completed this Deen. And the Dhalil for that, the evidence for that is the Kitab of Allah. Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, said, Al-Yawma aqmaltu lakum Deenam wa a'tmamtu alaykum ni'mati wa radeetu lakumul Islamadeena. Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, said, which means today, I have completed my blessing on you. Al-Yawma aqmaltu lakum Deenakum. I have completed your Deen for you and completed my blessing on you. Wa a'tmamtu alaykum ni'mati. The ni'ma is tamam, complete. Wa a'laykum As-Salaam. Wa radeetu lakumul Islamadeena. And I am pleased for you to have Islam as your Deen, as your way of life. So this is the word of Allah, that this Deen is complete. There is nothing missing in this Deen. Then we have the second fundamental principle, which is in the Khutbatul Wada' of Rasulullah in his Hajjatul Wada' in his Khutbah. The Prophet said to the people, he said, Have I completed and conveyed to you completely, whatever was revealed to me? And they said, Ya Rasulullah, yes, you have completed. And the Prophet raised his finger towards the sky, he looked up and he said, O Allah, you are the witness. So we have the Kitab of Allah and the Qawl al-Kareem wa Sharif of Rasulullah to say that this Deen is complete. Nothing is missing. In this context, you must see the Hadith. Therefore Rasulullah is saying that if somebody is introducing something into the Deen, then this is misguidance. Balala wa kulla dhalalateen finnaar All of these dhalala will be in the fire. So what is the meaning of introducing into the Deen? The word Bida' comes from the word Bada' which is to start something. And the thing which is started is the Bida'. For example, the Prophet said, Bada' al-Islami ghareeban Islam started as something strange. Wasayahudu kama Bada' And it will return to how it was when it was started. And then he said, Fatuba lil ghoraba He said, give the glad tidings of Tuba, which is a tree in Jannah, to the people who the world will call the Haraib, the strange people. So who are the strange people? The strange people are the people who stand for justice, for compassion, for honesty, integrity, decency, halal, and who stand against the opposite of all this. People will say, what is this? Strange people. Everybody is eating interest. Everybody is dealing in interest. You say, I will not deal in interest. Everybody is buying and selling haraab. You say, I will not do it. Everybody is doing all kinds of haraab in relationship. You say, no, no, no, I will get married. I will not do this haraab relationship. You are strange. This culture, you are against the culture. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. If that, if people are saying, are calling you strange for this reason, then InshaAllah, the Bashar of Rasulullah is for you. So Bida' is something which is strange. Bida' is something which is introduced into the Deen. Now, what is De

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 noble and noble messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, may peace and blessings be upon him and his family, and many, many peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, I remind you and myself that we have a religion of love. Love for Allah and love for his Rasul, peace be upon him. We do not have a religion of convenience. My brothers and sisters, the religion of love is not an easy religion. The sign of love is the acceptance of the afflictions of the beloved. The sign of love is to accept the afflictions, accept inconvenience for the sake of the beloved. Any number of examples where we have the Rasul, peace be upon him, peace be upon him, and his Sahaba going through all kinds of difficulties for the Rida of Allah. Take everything in Islam. Take, for example, I always give the examples of the five Arqam of Islam. Right? Take Shahada. For somebody to accept Islam itself, I'm not talking about people like us, who are Muslim, who are born into Islam. That did not take any Taglif. That's a fortunate, lucky accident. I'm talking about the people who come into Islam. Is it easy for them? It is the most difficult decision. There is no decision which is more difficult than to change the religion of your forefathers. And almost all of them accept, maybe some accept, but almost all of them, they face all kinds of hardship. I remember one question which one lady asked one of the Shukh. She said, is it permissible to pray, to make Salah in the toilet? So I thought, what kind of a question is this? People ask any kind of stupid question. My immediate, you know, reaction, what kind of a stupid question is this? You know? So the Shaikh said to her, why are you asking this question? This shows that you must have some patience. She said, why are you asking question? She says, because I am the only Muslim in my house. And if I pray where my parents see me, they will kill me. I fear for my life. If I pray and my parents know I'm a Muslim, they will kill me. I cannot leave my house and go anywhere. I don't have that ability. But I don't want to miss Salah. So the only place I can pray without them catching me is inside the toilet. So am I permitted to pray in the toilet? What is the fatwa? So, Kaliwa, very inconvenient, full of Taglif. Then becomes a fatwa. So, Salah. Tell me, would it be convenient to pray one time a day or five times a day? No brainer, right? Obviously, one time is this. Or even five times a day at any time convenient to you. I am praying. Why should I pray at this time? Rasool Allah , they asked him, what is the best deed? He said, Salah, ala waqtiyah. Salah, ala waqtiyah. The best thing is to pray two rak'ahs of nafil between adha and nikamah. Bilat akhir, without delay. Time comes in, pray. Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, there is time for two rak'ahs of nafil between adha and nikamah. He didn't say pray Talabhi between Aghab and, Two rak'ahs of nafil. How long does it take? Give that time. Pray. It is not only for one. On all the Salah, this is the, Kaur of the Rasool alaihi salatu wasalam, not my opinion. So very inconvenient, right? No, you can't do all this. You have to pray at the time. You can't pray when it is convenient, I can come, I can't come. No, no, no, no, no, no. You pray at the time of the sala. And not going into the ijazah of this, ijazah of that and the, you know, the whatever people have done. No, I am saying this is the hadith of the Rasool alaihi salatu wasalam. So sala, five times a day at its time. Convenient or inconvenient? Very inconvenient. On top of that, which is the sala for which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala descends to the first heaven and Allah announces, who is there who wants me, wants something from me, let him ask. Who is there who wants my protection, let him ask. Which sala is that? Qiyam ul-layl tahajjud. I am working hard all day, I am studying all day, I am just, I have just come, I had, I slept late, I am sleeping at midnight. How convenient is it to sleep at midnight, again get up at two o'clock or three o'clock? Is it convenient? No. It's not even fardh, it's a nafil. But see the reward. The reward is for what? It's for the taklif. It is for the izaaj. It is for the difficulty. Allah is saying, no, when you give up your sleep for me, I will give you whatever you want. Ask me, I will give you. Inconvenience. Take some fasting. Is it convenient? For no rhyme or reason, one whole month, you cannot eat, you cannot drink and so on and so forth. That also Allah did not say pick the month. Do it in whichever month is convenient for you. Complete 30 days in 365 days. One day here, one day there, two days there. Finish it like that. Don't need to do together. No, no, no. 30 days i

https://youtu.be/6r8R4RB-hFE Auto-generated transcript: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the most honorable of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, and his family, and his family. Peace be upon him, and his family. And after that, we will continue. Sisters, one of the, or the purpose for which Allah created us is to worship Him. Because He said, وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا Allah said, I have not created the jinns and the insan, the jinn and the insan, humans and jinn, for anything other than my worship. إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا So we know that, we know what the purpose of our creation is. It is to worship Allah. Now, what are the bases of worship? Who do you worship? Why do you worship? If you think about this, you will realize that we worship for two reasons. We worship because we are so aware of the glory and majesty of the one we are worshiping. Right? We are so aware of that. It's not fear as in running away from something, but it is fear as in fearing to displease the one whose glory and majesty we are so conscious of and aware of. And the second reason is, theLove. Because we love him. We worship because he is there. It means to be an infidels. Because we live an infidel, because we love him. Because we stay faithful to him, we keep in touch with him His love runs throughout, every little thing. Faizullah said we love the one we worship. And this is a given part of it. That's all. We worship Allah. Now, how do we inculcate this? Because this is the basic basis of Taqwa. Taqwa is founded on this, on creating and inculcating in our hearts, the awe and majesty and glory of Allah and love and hub for Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala Jalla Jalaluhu. The way to do that, both of these, the way is through observation. Is by opening your eyes and looking around you. And that is the reason why Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala said, إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّنَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَآيَاتٍ لِوُلِي الْأَلْبَادِ Allah said, really in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and the night, there are signs, for people of intelligence. So Allah is saying, open your eyes. You want to see my glory and majesty? Open your eyes. Look around you. Use your senses. And when I say open your eyes, I don't mean necessarily open eyes as in eyes, because there are many things, some of the most critical and important things, are things that cannot be seen. By the eyes, so the eyes don't matter. Because take love for example. It's felt. It's not seen. Take the, I'm walking now in the morning, the sun hasn't risen yet. The thing that I'm very conscious about in all the years that I've lived here, the thing that I'm absolutely extremely conscious about, is the clarity. The clarity. The cleanliness of the air. Just the, the air is so beautiful and clean. Right? So beautifully. That I take a deep breath and I thank Allah . Alhamdulillah. Ya Rabb, you enabled this for me. You enabled this, me to breathe this absolutely beautiful fresh air. Right now the sky is overcast. There's some lightning flashing. And looks like it might rain. And this is Florida and the rain literally hammers down. So I'm hoping it will not happen while I'm out walking. But, InshaAllah, we'll see whatever Allah does is for the khair. So look around. Look around as in live a life of awareness. Don't live a life of default. That's the reason why in Islam, all forms of intoxication are haram. You know, all forms of intoxication are haram. Because intoxication, what does intoxication do? Intoxication takes away your awareness. You're no longer aware of your surroundings. You're not aware of what you're doing, your own actions. You're not aware of who might be seeing that, be affected by that. You're not aware of anything because you are in your drunken stupor. Or your drugged condition where your mind is taken over by the substance that you are using and abusing. So where is the question of awareness? Now, that's why it's prohibited. So live a life of awareness. See what's around you. Feel what is around you. Listen to what's around you. Smell what's around you. And recognize the glory and majesty of Allah. Of Allah in it. I'm walking through this garden. Somebody's garden is so beautiful. These are amaryllis, lilies. And I can smell their beautiful, very subtle aroma at this time. Just awareness, right? So one of the ways I practice and I recommend to you is describe for yourself your surroundings. Describe your surroundings. Say it in so many words. Say it to yourself. Record it if you like. If you are writing, write it down. But describe your surroundings. What are you seeing? And, you know, draw that picture in words.

https://youtu.be/BBNLkC7RWoM Auto-generated transcript: Bismillah walhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah. Wa ba'd. My brothers and sisters, a friend of mine asked me to share some thoughts on what makes a happy marriage. And I guess I have some claim to speaking on this subject because my wife and I, we've been happily married now for 40 years. We got married in 1985 and now it's 2025. Very quick short list of what makes a happy marriage. And then maybe we'll talk about it. Maybe we'll talk a little more in detail. Very short list. Number one, marry after you start your career. I'm not saying after you achieve your long-term goals because that's, you know, takes a long time. You want to get married before that. You need a companion in your life who you can literally trust with your life. So you need a partner. Believe me, I'm all 100% for it. Believe me, I'm all 100% for it. Believe me, I'm all 100% for it. I'm in favor of getting married. I think there's people who are not married are really missing out a very, very major part of their life. So it's very important to get married. The question is when. So the first thing is when your career has started. I started working in 1979. I got married in 1985. So that's to give you some idea. And there's no compromise. There's no exceptions to what I'm about to say. Get married only, and only and only, if you can support your wife. Totally and completely. I'm talking to the men because in Islam, it is the job of the man to support his wife, not vice versa. So, make sure that you can financially support your wife. Not with anybody's help, yourself. If you say, well, you know, I can support my wife, I'm getting married, my parents said we could stay with them and my dad will pay the bills. No, sorry. You're marrying the woman, not your dad. Your dad will pay for the woman that he's married to. You pay for the woman that you're married to. And if you cannot pay, then take cold showers and fast. Because that is what Rasool Allah told us. They had this very clear, he said, when a person, when a young man is ready to be married, he should marry. He should not delay. They asked him, what is ready? He said, ready is when you can support your wife. That is ready. Ready is not when you are, you know, just full of emotions, full of hormones. No, that's not ready. So, ready when you… So, start your career and then get married. So, the number one age at which you get married, because then you need some level of maturity. I got married at the age of 40… at the age of 30. Presumably, I had some maturity. Women tend to be more mature and they get mature earlier than men. I am not talking about physical maturity. I'm talking about emotional maturity. Wisdom, understanding and so on. Women get that faster than men do. And so, if you compare two 90-year-olds, they are not that young. The man is 19 physically and… Morning! Morning! Physically and mentally and emotionally, the woman is at least 25. So, it's important to have parity in that. So get married when you are emotionally mature. And third thing is get married when you have the wherewithal, the means to support your wife. You, yourself. You, yourself. Without help from anyone, not parents, not anybody else. So three, in my view, very important criteria for success in marriage. So, I did that. Fourth criterion is to marry somebody who has… A personal interest, a personal, you know, career even, which she is serious about. And ensure that you give each other space to be able to fulfill yourselves in that area of your life, in the area of… Your career, your choices. Now, career doesn't necessarily mean that your wife has to work for some corporate organization, you know, traveling all over the world and so on. That is not a good idea because the whole point of marriage is to be together. And if you have… Some people have this weekend marriages kind of thing, you know. You see each other only on the weekends. And that's not a marriage, I mean, you know. You are not living in a hotel, you have a home. So, but at the same time, if you do not have… If your wife does not have a career, she doesn't have something to do to occupy herself usefully and sufficiently, then the demand on you for your time, your energy, your attention will become overpowering. And you will either give in to that demand and your own career and your own ambition will suffer. And more than likely you will not be able to achieve that. Or you will say goodbye to the marriage. You will buy for yourself a lot of grief in the marriage. Remember that the… In Islam, the woman has the right. It is her right to demand. To demand attention. So if you put yourself in a position where she needs that attention and she is demanding it, you have to give it. And then what do you do? So, then what do you do? So, be clear about

https://youtu.be/sPeC1SlWOSc Auto-generated transcript: I remind myself and you that Allah taught us to ask people to take the right path .In the life journey we make various Mand commendings and we then tell the Lord.and you that allah taught us to ask for the path to ask for the siratallah did not ask did not teach us to ask for the destinationto ask for jannah jannah is the destination and to ask for jannah is not prohibiteddefinitely we can ask for jannah but the ayat is not does not say guide us to jannahhe does not sayit saysallah guide us to the pathsothe path of righteousness the path of steadfastness the path of being firm on the right thingthe path that leads to jannahnow this teaches us therefore thatwe need to focus on the efforton the effortthe effort is what we areresponsible for in this life the result the destination the goal the target is jannahnow this is very different from how we live our lives and how we are taught to live our livesbecause we are taught that we should focus on resultsso what we can do is we need to think about our policies about what will happen in our livesand if we do these things based on the results of our experience and developmentsit will be the arrow on the crown a number of examples or drugyeahwhich of themis eitheror butNow, even in the dunya, if you follow this process, believe me, you will succeed farbetter than focusing just on results.The problem with focusing only on results is twofold.One is that we sometimes start taking shortcuts.We end up compromising principles.We end up compromising the basic fundamentals of our work.And then the whole legacy itself is lost.Second thing is that when results don't come for a while, then we lose hope.We get discouraged.Now, results not coming for a while is very normal because everything has a gestationperiod.Just like a gestation period.Just like a gestation period.The chicken's egg takes 21 days to hatch.Now, if you are in a hurry and you say, well, let me put this into an oven and jack up thetemperature, the egg will get cooked.It will not hatch.Life will not be formed in the egg.Instead of life, the egg will die.Right?It will not be capable of producing life.So if you want the egg to hatch, you must have patience.Leave it alone 21 days under the chicken.Or in the incubator and it will hatch.So also in life, everything has an organic time period for it to fructify, for it to flower,for it to fruit.And until that time period is over, it will not, the result will not come.Now we are living in a world where we can't do anything.We can't do anything.We can't do anything.But this is a very important thing.We have to make sure that we have given speed a disproportionate importance.Whatever is fast is best.Now speed is a competitive advantage in many cases, so I'm not against that.There is nothing good about unnecessarily delaying things by postponing things.But at the same time, like everything else in life, speed also has a long-term benefit.Right?there is a appropriateness to it.There are things where speed is goodand there are things where speed is not good.And the place where speed is not goodis in the process of achieving goals.So focus on the efforts.When you focus on the effort,you will focus on the minute parts of the effort.Am I doing the thing in the way it is supposed to be done?Am I following the process the way the process should be followed?Am I compromising principles and ethics and morals?Am I being kind?Am I being compassionate?Am I looking at how I do something,not only what I'm doing?Now when you do all of this,then the result has to comebecause if the process is right,the process is for a purposeand the purpose is to achieve the result.So the result,will come.There is no way the result will not come.But when you focus on the process,you will find thatyou will not lose hope.You will not get discouraged.You will continue to do the right thingand the result will come.Inshallah.So our goal and the resultis the Akhira.It is the Ridha of Allah SWT.If you Jannah, we ask Allah for this.And Allah promised this.Allah said,And Allah said,أَخِبَتُThe success in the Akhirais for the people of Taqwa.So what must we do?Focus on Taqwa.How can I become a Buttaqi?How can Iget the Khashat of Allah?The love of Allah?The fear of Allah's punishment?The fear of displeasing Allah SWT?How can I get this into myself?And that is what produces us,produces us,the Taqwa and Akhira.This is for the Muttareen.We ask Allah SWT to help usto get our priorities rightand to be able tolive this life in a waythat pleases Him,which would result in a destinationwhich pleases us.وَسَلَّ اللَّهَ عَلَى نَبِي الْكَرِيمِ وَعَلَى عَلَيْهِوَصَحْبِي أَجْمَئِم بِرَحْمَةِكَ أَرْحُمَنُ

https://youtu.be/VpWE9616JxE Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Praise be to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his family. Peace and blessings be upon him. Now, my brother and sister, this is a Muscovy duck. These are, if I'm not mistaken, South American. But I might be mistaken, so do look it up. Now, that is a male, and this is a female coming towards me. They come in these very interesting colors, and they are almost feral, they're almost wild. And they're very capable of looking after themselves and looking after their little ones. They have these, you can see this. I don't know. I don't know what to call them. They're, you know, there's growth on their face. And they lay eggs, they make nests, they raise their young, all on their own. Here, where I am now, they are also wild. But also, I think some people feed them and so on. So, they are, I won't say they're domesticated, because they're not, but they're almost… But they're more friendly. They're more friendly towards people. And not so scared. Like this, this one is walking. Usually, she would have flown away by now. There's another one there at the edge of the water. There is a suspicious looking bump in the water there. I don't think it's an alligator, but then, I'm in Florida, so it's a safe bet to assume. In Florida, that if there is a piece of water, says the water body, then more than likely, it has alligators in it. I want to remind myself and you that if I can say so, I was going to say one of the most, but I want to actually say this. I'm not going to say it's a snake. I'm not going to say it's a snake. I'm going to say it's a snake. I don't want to say any snake. And these two things don't go together. And it's temple, destruction and countenance are deeply connected, but� And they're all suspects who are lurking. If I have to say it's hell, I do think that's killing people. Sometimes the Tan smiles and the monkey smiles and constantly fling in its eyes, which is Yorkshire hare. also created a lot of difficulty for the people of Makkah, the Quresh of Makkah, to accept. Because truly, I mean, it seems strange to say that, but truly, I think I can safely say that they understood Islam and what it entailed better than we do. They understood it much better than we do. And that's the reason why two things happened. One was that they opposed it so strongly. And secondly, that when they accepted it, they were so true to it. They were so completely and totally committed to Islam when they accepted it. Because they accepted Islam not routinely, not, you know, culturally, not because they were born into it, because they were not born into it. They accepted Islam because they truly understood it. And they accepted it with that understanding. And that understanding had to be, had to do, and has to do with this concept of accountability. Everything in Islam boils down. And comes around to the concept of accountability. And that also accountability to the one from whom nothing is hidden. So it's not just accountability to say that, well, you know, I'm accountable. But like, for example, you're accountable to the government of the country that you live in. But you know, and I know that governments are not infallible. There are people who deceive governments. There are people who... do all kinds of scams and shenanigans and they evade taxes and do all sorts of stuff. And they do it successfully. I mean, what they're doing is wrong, but, you know. But in the case of Islam, when we accept Islam, and I'm saying that we need to accept Islam consciously, very consciously with premeditated thought, not just because our parents happen to be Muslim, or something. So when we accept Islam consciously, the thing that strikes us very strongly is that we are accountable to the one from whom nothing is hidden. And so there is no question of getting away with anything. No matter how immune a person might feel in this life. And if you look at, if you look around you, there are people who seem to feel very immune. Who seem to feel that, you know, they cannot be touched. And nothing would happen to them. They can do whatever they like and so on. If you look at their lifestyle, this is how their lifestyles seem to be. But that's far from the truth. It is very, very far from the truth. Nothing at all is hidden from Allah . To under... So therefore, if you take any concept, for example, take for example the fundamental principle of the wisdom. And say, and I'm talking about the very first understanding of it, and we'll see, you know, what comes after that. But very first understandin

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillah wa alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala rasulillah. Wa ba'd. I am in my favorite place, which is in Florida. And you can see why I call it my favorite place. There are some mallards here, which are kind of resident. And this is a water hazard on a golf course. It's a man-made lake. And it has terrapins in it, turtles. It has these lovely oak trees, which border the course. I don't know if you can see the turtles. They dive pretty quickly. And then there is this family of mallards. Very beautiful scene. Some friend of mine asked me to talk about marriage. Because this year, my wife and I will be married. At least according to me, happily, for now 40 years. Alhamdulillah. We got married in 1985. On the 21st of March. So we married 40 years. And so this friend of mine said, she said to me, you talk about your parents in the different podcasts. And, you know, you talk about parenting itself, coming from that background of your parents. You have said many times that your wife has been a great support for you. But you didn't say much or anything about marriage itself. So can you do that? That's what I'm planning to do today. Talk about marriage. But before I go into the topic of marriage, I must talk about ambition. Because ambition is a very important thing. And it's important in terms of careers. Because in my view, and of course, I was going to say, I'm sure I will get pushed back on this. But there's no need for pushback because this is my view. And you're most welcome to have your own. My view comes not from reading a book or some intellectual exercise, but from, from, from the actual experience of 40 years of marriage and 70 years of life. And my opinion, a marriage is a career. So if you say marriage and career, at least for most people, I would say that's an oxymoron because a marriage is a career. And the secret of a successful marriage is if it's treated like a career. When you give it that importance, when you give it that prominence in your life, when it becomes the, the criterion for decision making, marriage is a career. Marriages come usually with the actual biological reasons, which are the reason for marriage, which is procreation of the species, meaning having children. And that makes it even more of a career. So I would say if you are thinking of marriage or career, first get that thing right in your mind and say that, and remind yourself, that marriage means career. Second very important thing is to, therefore ask yourself, what is my ambition? One of my very good friends says, my ambition is to get married. It's okay, Alhamdulillah. If that is your ambition, may you succeed. But if that is the ambition, that's my ambition is to get married, then, um, the chances are that that ambition is, I don't know what to say to that. I mean, I don't want to criticize somebody saying my ambition is to get married. But, if that is the ambition, then obviously you're not going to achieve anything much other than hopefully the marriage. But since marriages require, at least materially, marriages are not necessarily a marriage. But materially, marriages are a resource sink in terms of, uh, non-material, meaning emotional, um, emotional, uh, and other dancing awards. And I want to say spiritual, but certainly emotional, emotional, and other, uh, uh, aims. Marriages are, they are not sinks. Uh, they also give you some benefit, but materially in terms of money, time, energy, they are a sink. So you, and I'm speaking here now, both parties, both the spouses, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, the men and the women, and those are all the un Graduate classes and start when you're older and uh, but you're not going to be a Koh Kesar and be taken into a farewell one. You have to consider that you are going to be a Simen and never you have been epitomized for example a continuative romantic sticky artist Hardy or So you are going to you're looking at spending a lot and putting it into that relationship material stuff, which is time, mostly time money energy, um, and getting some emotional, So, ask yourself, what is your ambition? If your ambition, for example, is to build a dynasty and an empire, if your ambition is to build a great organization, to be an entrepreneur, if your ambition is to, you know, people say retire at 40, if your ambition is material in any of these ways, and all of these are very good material ways, if your ambition is to invent a cure for poverty, for example, which is, I think, people talk about inventing a cure for cancer, I think inventing a cure for poverty is even more important than inventing a cure for cancer. So inventing something. If you're... If your ambition is to solve some of the big problems of the world, believe me, all of those things are going to take a hit if you're married. Now I have some of the... I

Auto-generated transcript:Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. You had asked about advice on raising multiple children. I think in my experience, children are like sponges. They pick up everything from everywhere. And as far as multiple children are concerned, the younger ones pick up from their elder siblings much faster than they pick up from their mother or father. I don't know, maybe it's an age thing or something, but they pick up things from their elder siblings much faster. Now, in most households, the eldest one gets... the maximum attention. That's not his fault, I mean, in that sense, all the fault of the parents. Because there is a period of time before the second one comes where he is the only child. So he gets all attention, he gets a lot of love and affection and so on and so on. And then the next one and the next one. And one of the things that happens is that the elder one then starts feeling the pain because he finds that the total attention that he was... that he was accustomed to is getting divided. And it has to be divided. There's no way that he can continue to get the same attention. So there is some level of resentment that gets built in the heart of the oldest one. That must be addressed. And it's addressed not by talking to him, but by ensuring that he is included in the raising of the younger ones. In the role of a kind of... of a kind of... de facto mentor, a de facto parent. So this must be done subtly, but it must be done clearly. While of course keeping an eye on... on everyone for safety issues. So I think that is very important. Then the... Therefore if you have... if you create that kind of an atmosphere where the elder one now becomes a role model for the younger ones, then there is... this goodness spreads. Second very important thing. Is to strongly encourage collaboration. And to strongly discourage competition between children. This is the most important thing that I can possibly talk about. Because it's... It is the cause of... very destructive sibling rivalry, which I have seen. In many cases in my business consulting practice, I have people who are siblings who are at each other's throats. In many cases in... in the courts, in other cases not in the courts, but you know at home and so on. And I always point out to whoever is concerned, that... that this didn't begin now. At age 40, at age 50. It began at age 2 and age 3. Because a typical scene you will see in the nursery or what passes for a nursery in most homes. Is you will have one child who has a toy. And the other one wants to come and play. And the first one resents it and starts screaming and so on. And the parent comes, the mother or the father, and they say, no, no, no, no, don't... don't fight with the child. Don't fight with the child. Don't fight with the child. Don't... don't fight. I will get you your own. Now that is a fatal mistake. Absolutely fatal mistake. Because you are teaching them to not to share. On the other hand, what you must do is to say, no, this toy belongs to all of you. So share it. And share it the way where everyone is happy with it. Both work. This method also works, the other method also. But when you grow out of that, fast forward 40 years, fast forward 30 years, you do not... you... the difference between two siblings at each other's throats and two siblings who are cooperating and working together is what shows you as the end result of that. And believe me, in my consulting... in my business consulting, family business consulting practice, I've seen it all... I have seen it and I continue to see it all the time. People literally with millions, they will not share not one cent with their own brothers and sisters. I actually had one case where the father was absolutely desperate about it. That the two brothers should love one another. They should, you know, forget love. I mean, love was a long way off. At least collaborate with one another. The situation I saw there was that the two brothers, they were tacitly encouraging disrespect for each other with their children. So the children of one brother would disrespect the other. They would disrespect the other brother and there would be no comment from this brother about that. I mean, how evil is that? The father was desperate. And of course, the father was responsible for creating that situation in the first place. I mean, they... but you see, this is the problem. Parents don't recognize the evil that they create in their own homes. But they... that evil goes squarely into their laps because there's no one else. If it was good, you were responsible for it. You got the credit for it. So therefore, you must take the credit. You must take the credit or the debit for the evil as well. The parents were responsible. But anyway, the situation was very bad. So what I actually did was that I asked to meet the two brothers individually, separa

Auto-generated transcript: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 kathira. From Abadu, my brothers and sisters, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asked us a rhetorical question. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Afala yathadhabbaruna al-Qur'ana am ala qulubin akfaluhah. In Surah Muhammad, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asked this question. Allah said, do they not reflect on the Qur'an? Or are there locks on their hearts? Tadabbur is translated as reflection. Now reflection can have different meanings. One meaning of reflection is to simply think about something, even in depth. But in the Qur'an, the purpose of tadabbur, the purpose of reflection, is for it to become the motivation for action. It is not just thinking for the sake of thinking. The thinking must create positive action. The rhetorical quality of the question is saying, do they not reflect on the Qur'an? Meaning, if they had reflected, they would have believed. And obeyed. And changed their lives by the Qur'an. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us a meter to check if our hearts are locked or not. Because if Allah is saying, Afala yathadhabbaruna al-Qur'ana am ala qulubin akfaluhah. Then we should check to see whether there is a qufl, whether there is a lock on my heart or not. How do I check that? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala showed us, in Surah Al-Anfal, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, The real believers are those, are only those whose hearts tremble at the remembrance of Allah. The heart is responsive. Something happens, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's name is mentioned, something happens to the heart. The hearts tremble at the remembrance of Allah. And their faith increases when the ayat of Allah are recited before them. Or recited to them, or they recite. And they put their trust in their Rabb. So the consequence of a responsive heart is that your Iman increases and our trust in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, increases. The purpose of the Nuzul of the Quran is so that it may be reflected upon and acted upon in our lives. The Quran didn't come merely to be enjoyed for the melodious quality of the recitation or the beauty of the art of its calligraphy or for people to write articles and papers not on one ayah, not even on one word, but on one letter, on one harf. As many have done on the different huruf al-muqattaat, even though Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said that nobody knows their meaning except Allah. The Quran al-Kareem is the living word, the speech of al-hayyul-qayyum, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It speaks to us, but only if we approach it in the right way. And that's the meaning of the Quran. and that is why the method of approaching of the Quran is so critical. Imam al-Shafi'i said this very beautifully he said I will inform you about its details in my statement Zakat and care and hard work and diligence and companionship are required and are required and are required and care keenness diligence diligence effort just minimal resources to survive and study the company of a teacher and a long time you do not learn this deen through tick tock and through YouTube shots and through Samkhatira or through Khutbah or through Bayan you want to learn this deen you have to spend time you have to make effort you have to learn this deen you have to spend time you have to make effort you have to make effort You have to cry tears in the night. It's very important. There's a very famous story about three of the Tabirin, three young men. They went in search of learning knowledge. And they were in Baghdad. And they were at this Ustadz. And three of them studying, day and night studying. But they have to eat. So what to do? So they got to a stage now where they ran out of money. They had nothing. There was no food. And they decided, and all of them were, today we say, have this Quran. In the classical methodology of teaching, haves of Quran is a given. They won't even look at you if you are not a have this Quran. It begins with the haves of the Quran. Right? Today, because we have gone to such a stage where we cannot even recite Surat al-Fatiha correctly. So we say, mashallah, mashallah, hafiz. Alhamdulillah, it's good. But in our traditional teaching and learning of Islam, haves of the Quran was a basic fundamental condition. If you were not a hafiz of the Quran, the Ustadz will not even allow you into the class. You make haves first, then come back. Because everything is connected. Everything is connected to the Quran. Now, if you don't know the Quran, how can I teach you? So you go learn the Quran. Go memorize the Quran, then come and sit here. That was the method. So these people were, of course, of hafiz, and they were ulema themselves. Now they're

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 honour of the Prophet and the Messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his family. Peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his family. My dear brothers and sisters, I want to share with you three of my most critical and most important life lessons. Three lessons. First lesson is, which I learned and I have practiced all my life. First lesson is, nobody owes me anything. I am not entitled to anything from anybody. Not from my parents, not from my wife, not from my friends, not from my brothers and sisters, not even from Allah. I am not entitled to anything from anyone. Nobody owes me anything, including Allah. Allah does not owe me anything. First, very important. If you get this right, then automatically two other things come up. The first thing that comes up is, therefore, anything I want to have, I need to work for. Anything I need to have, I want to have, I need to work for it. I am not entitled to it. I can't just get it by wanting it. I can't get it because of who I am. So if I want it, I have to work for it. Whatever it is. I want Jannah, I have to work for it. I want forgiveness of Allah, I have to work for it. I want money, I have to work for it. I want a happy marriage, I have to work for it. Whatever it is, I have to work for it. And a corollary to that is, that I can have anything I want, as long as I work for it. Nothing stops me. It's just a question of price tag. Right? To give you a materialistic example, I have a small house. I have a small house. I have a small house. I have a small house. I have a small house. I have a small house. If you say I want to buy a Bentley... I'll give you a materialistic example. If you say I want to buy a Bentley... If you say I want to buy a Bentley... Can you buy a Bentley? Yes. Who can buy a Bentley? Anybody. Anybody. The only requirement is, you have to have the money to pay for it. That's all. They won't say no, no, no. You are a Muslim, I will not sell it to you. No, they don't care. You can be a Muslim, Christian, whoever. You can be a one-legged man with one eye. They don't care. As long as you have the money to pay for it, you can buy it. Even if you cannot drive it, you can be blind. You have no driver's license. Can you still buy a Bentley? Yes or no? Of course. Can I buy a plane if I want to buy a plane? Yeah, I can't fly a plane because I don't have a license to buy a plane. I can buy it. That's life. As long as you can pay for it, you can have it. You want great health? You can have it. You got to pay for it. What's the payment for great health? Eat what you should eat. And exercise. That's the payment. It's not in money. It's an effort. Can you become the president of Harvard? Yes. There's no no. Anything you want, absolutely anything you want, you can have as long as you pay for it. So the first, where does it start? I'm not entitled to anything. Nobody owes me anything. Not my father, not my mother. As I said, not even Allah. Allah doesn't owe it to me. If I want from Allah, I've got to beg for it. I've got to go pray here. Put my head on the floor. Even though Allah created me, he doesn't owe it to me. And when I understand that, then the other two things. If I want something, I have to work for it. And as long as I work, I can have whatever I want, whatever I need on the face of the earth. Final point. I then become grateful for what I get. Gratitude. Shukur. I'm not entitled to a smile from you. So when you smile at me, Alhamdulillah, my brother smiled. I'm not entitled that you should treat me with respect. But when you treat me with respect, I am thankful. SubhanAllah. Alhamdulillah. Allah put love for me, respect for me in the heart of my brother. He treats me with respect. I'm not entitled to that. You do that. I'm grateful to you. Alhamdulillah. JazakAllah khairah. A sense of gratitude. And Allah said about himself. Lain shakartum la'zidannab. If you are grateful, I will increase the bounty. And that applies also in this life. If you are grateful to people, people are nicer to you. You express gratitude, people are nicer to you. So I wanted to share this thought with you. Three things that have helped me enormously in my life. Which is this? Don't take anything for granted. You want something? Go work for it. Buy it at the price. What do I need to do? And then, be grateful. Thank Allah. Thank the people. Don't take people for granted. Don't try to use people. Don't try to deceive people. You are smart. The other guy is at least equally smart. Most of the time, he is smarter than you are. I don't think you can fool them. No, no. You

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 is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions. Many peace and blessings be upon him. Then after that, brothers and sisters, praise be to Allah, we come to the last part of this great surah. Allah took an oath by time and said, وَالْعَصْرُ إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاسَوا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاسَوا بِالصَّبْرِ Allah took an oath by time and said, Surely and definitely all of mankind is in a state of loss. Surely all of mankind is in a state of loss. As I mentioned before, the translation does not do justice to the original, because the original uses the word of emphasis twice. إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ إِلَّا الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ Surely all of mankind is definitely in a state of loss. Surely all of mankind is definitely in a state of loss. And this is the, on a side note, the beauty of the Arabic language, which indeed we as Muslims must make it further on ourselves to learn. So that not only can we truly understand the importance of what Allah is saying, but also enjoy the beauty of the Bani Al-Mu'minah, the Bani of the Quran. Then Allah said, truly after He said that all of mankind is definitely in loss, meaning that whatever mankind sees, whatever he must see and think of as beneficial, as profitable, as beneficial, as beneficial, as beneficial, as beneficial, as beneficial, as profitable, as profitable, as our wealth is actually false. That is not wealth. That is not something which is good. Actually it is something which is a source of loss, which is something which is a sign of sickness, illness, fatal, or sign of, you know, fatal faults. It's very important to understand this because this is not the opinion of an analyst or a, you know, commentator of some kind. This is the statement of the one who created everything, including all that we see as beneficial. All this also comes from Allah . Our wealth is from Allah . Our knowledge is from Allah . Our scientific development is from Allah . Everything is from Allah . But Allah is saying all of this are not signs of goodness. They are actually signs of the biggest problem. Which is that we are, these are signs of loss. They are signs of destruction, impending destruction. إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا Except for those, all of mankind is in loss except those who have iman, who have faith in Allah , who worship Allah alone, who recognize that لا ينفع ولا يذر إلا الله that nobody harms. And nobody can benefit except Allah. That everything comes from Allah . And then وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ And those who do good deeds. And what are good deeds? Good deeds are those which please Allah. They're not necessarily those which might seem to be good in our understanding. The condition for a good deed to be called a good deed is that it should please Allah . إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ And then in the last two episodes we covered this. And today we'll talk about the last piece which is إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاسَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاسَوْا بِالصَّوْا Those who invite towards the truth. Those who state the truth. وَتَوَاسَوْا بِالصَّوْا And those who invite each other to have patience, to have perseverance, to have persistence. I cannot possibly emphasize the importance of these two things. Because in Islam it's not only about yourself. It's not only about passively doing something good for yourself. But it's about promoting that good. It's about a sense of social consciousness and social responsibility. Where you not only are happy to enjoy what you have, but you want to spread this goodness around you. Believe me, this was the secret of the spread of Islam, which we forgot. Today, when we have wealth, Today, when we have wealth, we build a big house. And then the thing we do is we build a huge wall around the house. And then we put a barbed wire on top of the wall. And we electrify that. And then we have guard dogs. And we have securities. And we live in a compound with all of the security. Why? Because we are afraid. Of who? Of the poor people of the world. The question to ask is why are you afraid of the poor people? Why? What was your responsibility with regard to the poor people? Rasool Allah sends Ahmad bin Jabal to Yemen. And he is giving him advice. And he says, you are going to a people of the book. Because Yemenis were Christian. He said, you're going to a people of the book. He said, invite them towards the worship of Allah alone. Invite them to the worship of Allah alone. And then he says, If they accept, then teach them how to worship. Teach them Salah. So invite them to the worship of Allah. And when they accept, teach them Salah. And then h

Auto-generated transcript:We spoke about the first ayat of Surah Al-Asr. Allah said, Allah took an oath by himself, by time, and he said that truly all humankind, all human beings are in a state of loss. Today let's talk about the next time, maybe let's see how far we get. Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put, gave us criteria. Everyone is in loss except, إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُ إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُ Except those who have, have faith. So this also we spoke about in the last Khatira, what is the meaning of faith. Then Allah said, وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ And those who do good deeds. Now it's very important to understand what constitutes a good deed in Islam. For a deed to be good in Islam, there are three conditions. One is the Niyah. It is the intention of the deed. Why are you doing this deed? If the intention is not good, then even though the deed itself may be good, it has no value and in some cases it might actually become a bad deed. To give you an example, reading the Quran, is it a good deed or a bad deed? Good deed. But if I am reciting or reading the Quran, when my intention is that I am doing it because people are watching and people will think, oh Mashallah, what a holy man and what a pious man is reading the Quran, then what happens to the deed? Gone, right? It's real. It's not only does it nullify and cancel the deed, but it makes it into an action which is haram, which nullifies. Same thing for Salah. Same thing for charity. Same thing for charity. You take the whole lot. We have the very famous hadith of the Salahs, the three people who will be presented to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on the Day of Judgment. The first of them is a scholar of Islam who learned the Deen and who taught the Deen and so on. The second one is a philanthropist, somebody who Allah gave a lot of wealth and he spent it in the path of Allah. And the third one is a person who was a fighter. He was a soldier. He was a warrior. And not only did he fight, but he fought and he was killed in a battle between, you know, with people who were evil. But all three, and I'm condensing that hadith. I'm not narrating it in detail. But all three, Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, will be the first of them. The first of the people to be consigned to Jahannam will be these people. Okay. And the first of those will be the one who is actually a scholar, Islamic scholar, because of Nia. So the Nia is a very, very important, very first condition of the acceptance of any deed. And therefore, we need to continuously check our Nia to see what is our Nia. The Nia is like carrying, imagine that you are carrying a packet of money in your pocket and you are going through a very crowded marketplace. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think. Okay. So Nia, as far as making Nia, how do you see it Humans? Who say Nia that they will get stolen from the home, Nisha after this. What did you do so far. Why did you say what you say we are not going to bring more like a Harmonize? What is this so that we may have some. interesting letter to Sheikh Hussain Rahimahullah Itaada, where this man wrote and he said, Sheikh, I recite Quran well, so people put me forward for Imamate. Now, when I am praying, I make the intention that I am going to say, for example, I make the intention that I will recite 20 ayats. But when I am reciting and maybe I have recited three ayats or four ayats, I get a thought to say, you are reciting to please the people because your recitation is good. You are reciting well. So people will say, oh, mashallah, mashallah, what a great Qari. So he says, when I get that thought, I immediately, you know, shorten my recitation. Instead of reciting 20, I decided I have only five. Maybe I recite one more and I go into ruku, complete the rakat. What shall I do? And the reply of Sheikh Hussain Rahimahullah Itaada is very, very nice. He says, He said, when you get that thought, he said, immediately make istighfar. So internally say, astaghfirullah al-hadhim. He said, then increase the number of ayat. So you decide to recite 20, he said, decide 30. Because shaitan is trying to corrupt your niyyah. He is trying to put fear into you because he sees that because of your recitation, people behind you, they have khushu. They are connecting with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Shaitan wants to spoil that whole show. So he's trying to shut you down. Don't do that. Expand. Do more. Similarly, if you are giving charity and you are, you know, you are going to give some money and then the thought comes, oh, you see, you are doing this because you want people to know what a generous person you are. Immediately make istighfar and give even more. Right. Or if you are giving publicly, don't give publicly, give privately, but give even more until shaitan runs away. So the first requirement for a good deed to be good in Isl

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 his family and companions. May peace and blessings be upon them. My brothers and sisters, the Sahaba, whenever they began a meeting or they ended a meeting, they would start and end with which surah? They would recite one surah. Which one? Wa al-asr. Shukr. Wa al-asr. Inna al-insana lafi khusri. Illa alladhina amanu wa amilu salihati wa tawasubi al-hakki wa tawasubi sabr. Allah SWT said, Allah took an oath. An oath is just a promise. It is taken to emphasise the importance of something. So Allah took an oath by time. In another hadith, Allah SWT said, Do not curse time. People say, oh, bad time. Allah said, do not curse time because I am time. So Allah is taking an oath by time, by himself. And then Allah is saying, see the Arabic grammar of that. Inna, which is emphasis. Wa al-asr. Inna al-insana. And then Allah is using another word of, another command of emphasis, which is the lamb of Taqi. La fi khusri. If you say, Inna al-insana. If you say al-insana, kullu insana fi khusri, the meaning is convertible. No, Allah SWT is saying very simply. Inna al-insana. La fi khusri. Truly and verily and surely and definitely all of human beings. Inna al-insana. Every human being on the earth. La fi khusri. Surely that person is in loss. In khusran. He is in loss. He is in... And then Allah SWT says, makes the condition, the criterion, except those who have Iman. Wa amilu as-salihat. And who do good deeds. Remember, this is all related. Allah did not say, illa alladhina amanu, aw amilu as-salihati, aw no. He didn't say this or that or that. Allah said this and that and that and that. Illal alladhina amanu, wa amilu as-salihati, wa tawaso bil haqqi, wa tawaso bil haqqi, wa tawaso bil sami. And those who invite towards the Haqq, to the Truth, and those who have patience, who have sabr, who have perseverance, who have grit, who have persistence. Now think about this and say, why is Allah SWT... What do we learn from this surah? And why was this surah considered so important that Sahaba, Ridhaan la hiya alayhim in main, used to begin and end their meetings, meetings with this? And that is, because this surah focuses on the most critically important elements of life. Because remember, in our life, it's not how much money you have, how much of power you have, what properties you have, none of that. Your health, your wealth, your, whether you are handsome or pretty, or whatever you are, makes no difference. So Allah SWT in His beautiful Kalam has clearly specified what is important. The importance of, the important things are the ones that Allah mentioned. So the Sahaba used to say, read this surah to remind themselves, what is important? Iman wa amir as-sarihaat, wa tawassu bi-raq, wa tawassu bi-sawar. So let me examine myself to see, do I have Iman? What is the meaning of saying, Iman? It means that I believe, and totally and completely without any doubt, in the Tawheed of Allah SWT, that there is no one worthy of worship, except Allah. And in the Risalah of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi, that Rasool Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the Messenger of Allah and is the last and final Messenger after whom there is no message. I do not make shirk, I do not join partners with Allah because there are no partners. I do not worship something other than Allah because there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. I do not allow my desires to supersede the orders of Allah. I don't worship my desires, I worship Allah. When I say I worship Allah, it means I keep Allah's boundaries, the hudud of Allah. What Allah made halal is halal, what Allah made haram is haram. Nobody else can do that. Nobody else can come and change that. Wherever the kalam of Allah, wherever the word of Allah comes, I follow the word, I don't follow my own logic. Think about this. Iblis was a jinn, but because of his knowledge and his ibadah and his zikr of Allah and so on and so on, he reached a level where he was with the Malaika. Right? He was with the Malaika. He was with the Malaika. So this elevation of darajat, think about this. Some of these things we have to reflect on. You might say, you know, it's very good, my darajat should be elevated. It is good, provided the ending is good. The darajat of Iblis were elevated to the point where he was with the Malaika in the presence of Allah . Then what did he do? Think about it. He was with the Malaika. Allah commanded, the word of Allah. Allah said, make sajdah to Adam. Right? Make sajdah to the to Adam . What did the Malaika do? They made sujood. What did Iblis do? Iblis used logic. He used logic in the presence of the command of Allah. He used, in our terms today, he used logic in the prese

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 upon his family and companions. May peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions. And may peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions. I would like to remind myself and you that for all of this to happen for us, and we ask Allah the Exalted to make dua, but remember, I remind myself, dua alone is not enough. Dua has to be with dawah. There has to be action. The key is to get those good deeds into our account. It's not simply making dua. Allah said, see the generosity of Allah. Allah said, Masalu allatheena yunfiqoona anwaalahum fee sabeeli Allah Kamasali habbatin anbatat Sabaa salabila fee kulli tumbulat Immiyatu habba Wallahu yuda'ifu liman yasha Wallahu wa'asi unaleem Allah said, the example of those who spend their wealth in the cause of Allah is like that of a grain that is planted and it sprouts into seven years. The plant has seven years, each bearing 100 grain. You know, think of a corn plant. You plant one corn seed. The plant grows. It has branches. Each branch has a corn cob and each cob has 100 grains. There is one you planted, you got 700. And then the word of my Rabb, Jalla Jalaluhu. And Allah multiplies the reward even more to whoever he wills. For Allah is all bountiful, all knowing. Whenever I read this ayat, I revel in the fact that, you know, I am a person who is not a person. No thought is available to you. You move carefully that you are looking at God. We will first look at Mohamad Sanqu lotta who also says, a witness from the Prophet Mohammad, the ummah проблема has this command that I came from you. What does mooha meanơi That Allah is the hall ofиш and hu. which can really and truly only be done when we understand it in its original. And this is true of all languages. Urdu, for example, which I, alhamdulillah, is my mother tongue, and I think I speak it, and I understand, I read it, I write it, I love Urdu poetry. If you recite a Urdu couplet, with each word, the nuance of the word, the tone of the word, the way the word is used in that couplet, each one has a delight of its own, which you translate it, none of that can be conveyed. Now, this is the Kalam of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ta'ala Allahu alhamdulillah, we don't compare the Kalam of Allah to the Kalam of any shahir. In any case, the Quran is not shahir. Very important to learn the Arabic language. That is what touches our heart and strengthens our faith. Just think about the dua which we make every morning, and see how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is described in this dua. The glory and magnificence of Allah. And how we place ourselves in a position, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us the permission to place ourselves in a position where we are invoking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and making Him the witness on our tawhid. Allahumma inni ushiduk wa ushidu hamalata arshik wa malaikatik wa jamiya qalkik annaka anta Allah la ilaha illa ant wahadaka la sharika lak wa anna Muhammadan abuduka wa rasuluk O Allah, I make you the witness. And I make witness the malaika, the angels who hold the throne. And I make witness all the angels. And I make witness everything in creation. Every breath of air, every wave of the ocean, every drop of rain, every flick. of snow, every sound, every radio wave, every creature, every human, every jinn, every animal, every bird, every reptile, every amphibian, everything I know and everything I don't know, every grain of sand on every beach. I make all of them witness that you are one. Wahadaka. La sharika lak. And there is no comparison to you. There is no one who can be joined with you. There is no one who is like you. There is no one who is equal to you. There is no one who resembles you in any shape or form. Wa anna Muhammadan abduka wa rasuluk. And I bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahibu salam is your slave and he is your messenger. And you're the one who steps up against him. You are his master. Then again, you don't have to sleep with this supposed uses on your shoulders to rescue harm. I appreciate you guys being with me. I believe right now the return is 4.5%, up from 2.5%, which means that American debt has gone through the roof just now. U.S. Treasury bonds, they attract a lot of investment, even though the usual return is 3% or less, because the world considers the U.S. government to be a solid guarantor of investment. So people are willing to put money in something which has a lower rate of return because the guarantee comes, it's an iron-bound guarantee, hopefully. Then what about Allah? What is our view about Allah's guarantee, which is not 3%, which Allah said 700 tim

Auto-generated transcript:My dear brothers and sisters, respected elders, this life is a transaction. It's a deal. To get something, we must give something. So let us look at our lives and see what we are paying to get what we have. I'm going to count some things. It's not an exhaustive list. Just to give you some thinking points. Ask yourself, what did we give up for the conveniences of modern living? What did we give up to be able to eat processed food and drink sodas? What did we give up to get iPads and smartphones into our lives? That is the real cost, not the dollars you charged on your card. What did we get? What did we give up to get 24-7 news reports? Which rapidly morphed into super-focused propaganda. For example, we used to get literally hourly, maybe even minute-wise, I don't know, reports on the number of COVID deaths in the world. What did that do to us and our psychology? Today we get the same about Gaza. One of the things that happens, and I'm speaking as a psychologist, and that is the reason I've said over and over and over again, do not watch these videos. It deadens the heart. It makes you immune to the pain. Tears no longer come to your eyes. You no longer cry before Allah in tahajjud because you got used to that. Seeing it over and over and over and over. And that's the purpose of it. We get all these things. We get all these things. We get all these things. We get all of this in the form of graphic videos on our phones and social media feed. What did we give up to get this news? Think about that. And what would have been lost if we did not get this news over and over and over again? Our children compare their faces and their beauty and their bodies and their clothes with everything superficial. With everything superficial. With so-called influencers. And they get anxious. And they get depressed. And they despair. And they commit suicide. Have you ever heard of an influencer who talks about grades in school and working for real, worthwhile goals and feeding the hungry and helping the sick? Have you ever heard any influencer talk about these things? Things of true value? Our children are exposed through these influencers to cultures and values that alley cats would be ashamed of. But thanks to the power of the media, all that is normalized and applauded. And those who challenge that are maligned and denigrated and cast into the garbage bin of old people from the old country who don't understand us. Go ahead, do what you want. It's your fate. What did those children get in return? Today, mental illness is in epidemic proportions. Seven and eight year olds want to commit suicide. And they need psychiatric treatment. Do you think that's accidental? What did we get when we lost respect for parents and children and elders? What did we get when we gave up reading? What did we get when we substituted Instagram and YouTube shorts for serious study? What did we get when we lost our adab to the extent where you would go to a sheikh and say, shorten your lecture because I am getting bored? Hmm? Hmm? Hmm? Hmm? Hmm? I know all of these things. Or at least I don't know. I don't see all because I really don't see how all have benefit. But some of these things have benefits. But pause for a minute and calculate the cost. You got that benefit at what cost? As they say, there are no free lunches. So let's look at what we paid and ask, is it worth it? I remind myself, I knew that returns on interest are not the same as the cost of a job. I remind myself, I knew that returns on investment are assessed in terms of their magnitude and guarantee of safety. For example, if I sell my house and use the money to go on a world cruise in a luxury cruise liner, I will return with some nice photos, some worn memories, some amazing experiences and be homeless. Would you call that return on investment? Or a foolish waste of resources? On the other hand, if I sell my house and buy two shops, rent them out, move into an apartment on rent, nice apartment, live off the income, would that be a return on investment? To give up something permanent that appreciates in value in exchange for something temporary that depreciates, no matter how enjoyable the latter might be, is stupidity. Stupidity. Stupidity. A reason for the loss of money. Allah called this life a transaction, a business, and He promised a return. Allah said in Surah As-Saff, ... ... ... ... ... ... وَأَنفُسِكُمْ ذَلِكُمْ وَخَيْرٌ لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, which means, O you who believe, shall I guide you, shall I show you a business, tijarah, that will save you from a painful torment. It is to have faith in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and his messenger and strive in the cause of Allah with your wealth and your lives, your effort, that is best for you if only you knew. The quality of this particular business is that it is with Allah. So there is

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, I read something yesterday which I want to share with you. There is an author called Sahil Bloom. He writes, Your entire life will change when you realize that courage, which is himmah, courage is the single most important human trait. Your whole life will change when you realize that courage is the most important human trait. In 1942, the author C.S. Lewis, offered this brilliant characterization. And he said, Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. Courage is who you are when it is inconvenient, not when it's convenient. Courage is who you are, when it is inconvenient, when no one is watching, when the rewards are uncertain, when the outcomes are unpredictable. It is easy to declare our values and principles and virtues in times of peace. It's very hard to live by them in times of war. Courage is defined at the testing point. You are defined at the testing point. The truth, talent, and intelligence are abundant. Courage is not. There is someone out there living the life you want simply because they had the courage to act. They are not smarter than you. They are not more talented than you. They just took action when you didn't. They recognized that fear comes from inexperience, not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. They are not in-game. You are afraid because you haven't done it yet, not because you can't do it. Inexperience is a problem to be solved, and it's only solved through having the courage to act. They realized that the worst prison in the world is having the talent and intelligence to achieve something, to achieve something great, but lacking the courage to go out and do it. They understood that the guarantee of success is that the calculation is very good, They understood that the regret from inaction is always worse than the regret from action. But here's the most empowering thought. Courage is not born, it is chosen. Every single day, you get to choose how you show up at your testing point. You have agency. You are at the wheel. You are in control of your future with your actions in the present. The challenges do not get easier. If anything, they get harder as you rise. But you get stronger. You grow. You change. When you arrive at your testing point and choose to show up as the highest version of yourself, you become different. The Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote, it is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that things are difficult. You cannot build a life of meaning, purpose, and character by taking the easy paths at the testing point. Choose to dare. Choose hard. Choose courage. Courage now and easy later. I thought let me share this with you because if you think about this and you see this, this is the story. This is the story of the life of Rasulullah . This is the story of the Sahaba of Rasulullah . Take any part of the Sira. Even though he was the Nabi , Allah did not give him guarantees of success incident by incident. This is a very important thing to remember this. Allah gave us guarantee of success when? In the Akhirah. Wa al-aqibatu lil-muttaqeel. Not in the Dunya. Allah did not say if you take this step you will be successful. No. Take the step. See. When Rasulullah went to Taif, I'll give you examples from the Sira. When he went to Taif, did he know whether he will succeed or fail? He didn't know. If he knew he would succeed, why would he go there? No need. Just call them. If he knows he will fail, why will he go there? Nobody goes to fail. He took a chance. He had the courage to go there. He took a chance. He did his best. And he suffered. In the battle of Badr, did he know that they will win? If he knew that they were going to win, why did he make the Dua that he made? Oh Allah, if you don't help them, there will be no one to worship. He will not be able to do anything. He will not be able to do anything. He will not be able to do anything. Why are you saying that? Why are you saying that? Take the Sahaba, Musa ibn Umair radhiyallahu who goes to Medina. Young man. Please understand one very clearly important thing. We only get stuck on this youth business. Musa ibn Umair was young. Mu'adh ibn Jawal was young. Abdullah ibn Abd al-Masih. He had a young family. He had a young wife. He had a young father. He had a young father. He had a young wife. was young. I'll come back to Usab ibn Abbas. Let me give you Abdullah ibn Abbas' example. Abdullah ibn Abbas was young, right? So people say see Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he trusted young people, he had young people around him. Let me show you what kind of young people. Abdullah ibn Abbas was maybe ten years old. Abdu

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all mankind. And peace and blessings be upon the most righteous of the prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family. And many thanks and blessings. My brothers and sisters, it's very important. There seem to be small mistakes, but they are not small mistakes. They can, in some cases, they can invalidate your salah. In some cases, there is no salah. So be careful with that. Now, let's start with the saf. Formation of the lines. It's extremely important to form the lines shoulder to shoulder. Actually, touch the shoulder to shoulder. And when you stand, stand in a way where you touch the shoulder to shoulder. And then only your feet. Sometimes people stand with their feet so wide apart that the shoulder cannot touch. And in trying to touch the feet, they stamp the foot of the other person. Don't do this. Shoulder to shoulder. Then the feet should be at the level of the shoulders. If you touch the other person, you can't do it. But don't try. Don't try to push your foot and stand like this. No. Complete the saf. Second thing is complete one saf and then go to the next saf. So if there is some gap or there is some space at the end of the saf, make sure you fill that space. Only if there is space, then you go to the rest. Third thing is when you form any saf, the second saf, third saf, start in the middle. Behind the imam. Don't stand in one corner. Whether you are sitting on a chair, stand in the mat. Stand behind the imam. Start from there. And then fill up the saf as far as possible equally on both sides. Don't go and stand in one corner. Right? It's very important to remember that. Fourth thing is when you come and join and the imam has already started this allied praying. When you join, say for example you are joining in ruku or you are joining in qiyam or sujood. First thing is immediately join. Don't stand waiting there. Many times people are in sujood, they stand and wait to see, let him stand up. No. Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam specifically prohibited. He said, maybe Allah has kept your forgiveness in that sajdah. Don't be lazy. Trying to avoid one sajdah less. No. Go down and immediately join. Number one. Number two, when you join, it is the rukun of salah that you say Allahu Akbar. Simply moving your hand like this is like, you know, driving away flies or something. No. Just this. No. Raising your hand is mustahab. If you do that, very... Very good. If you don't do that also, salah is valid. You must say Allahu Akbar. Not necessarily loudly, but say Allahu Akbar. Without saying Allahu Akbar, if you simply do this and going to ruku, your salah has not even started. You are not in salah. You're doing some exercise. So please don't do that. Make sure you say the salah begins with the Allahu Akbar. With the takbiratul ihram. So very, very important. Start with say Allahu Akbar. And then you join the salah and then you follow the Imam as the Imam is doing. Inshallah. Right? Now in terms of adhan, many mistakes that people make, especially people from our part of the world, from the Indo-India, Indo-Pakistan area, we say Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. In the Arabic language, the dhamma, in Urdu we say pesh. The dhamma is the condition of every word last ends with u. Muhammadu, Allahu. Unless there is a reason why it changes to something else. So therefore, when you are joining the two, suppose you say Allahu Akbar and you stop, then you say Allahu Akbar. That's no problem. You can do that. But if you are joining Allahu Akbar with Allahu Akbar, you must say Allahu Akbarun, Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbaru, Allahu Akbarun, Allahu Akbar. Not Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. That is wrong. Right? So don't do that. Very common mistakes. Each, each area, which whether it's Arab or not, it doesn't matter. People have what we call in the Arabic language lahjats, which is dialects. So the dialect has a way of pronouncing things which is not necessarily, for the dialect it is fine, you can do that, no problem. But when it comes to the Quran, then you have to do, you have to pronounce it according to tajweed. For example, Egyptians, they don't pronounce ja as ja, they pronounce ja as ga. So they say ganna. Yeah, so in this, in the Arabic language, they pronounce it like that. In the Arab world, we have like, you know, humorously we say, Kullu muslimeen fee janna wa musraeen fee ganna. Right? So all the Muslims, because they say janna, they call it ganna. So it's, in the lahjats, it's fine. But if you are reading Quran, fee jannatin naim, fee gannatin naim, no, fee jannatin naim, this is the, the word ja has to be pronounced. So similarly, in the Indo-Pak world, two major mistakes, one mistake we do is this issue of, Allahu Akbar, Al

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammad wa Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathira kathira. Fammabadu, my brothers and sisters, if I ask you how critical is Islam for you? Or if you ask me the same question, how daruri? To use the Arabic word, how daruri? What is the answer? How important is it? How critical is it? Again, speak from the heart. Don't give me a standard answer. No. How daruri? How critical? Think about it. You don't need to tell me. Think about it. The reason I'm saying that, let me give you a comparison. Suppose I ask you three cards. A Costco card. Store card Costco. A health insurance card. Medicare, MassHealth, H&E, whatever. And a Social Security card. All three are cards. All three are numbers. Which is the most, if I tell you choose one, which will you choose? Which one? Social. Social, absolutely. Without the Social Security card, you will be in the icebox. Right? Right? Another example. Somebody goes to a storehouse. Somebody goes to TJ Maxx. He's going there because he has some need. The same person goes to ER in Bay State. He also has a need. Whose need is more? Yeah, right? Yeah, I mean, there's a no brainer. The TJ Maxx guy also has a need. He's going there to, you know, I want to buy a shirt or jacket or whatnot. If I get it, I don't get it, it won't kill you. But if I'm in ER, I can't breathe. My heart is doing all kinds of magic. Now, take this as a framework for comparison and ask yourself, how important, how critical is Islam in my life? Take this as a, is Islam as important as TJ Maxx? Or is Islam as important as ER? Is Islam as important as, I'm not saying it's not important. How important? What is the degree, the level? The reason I'm asking you that is because our decisions in our life, our actions, the choices we make are all related to the level of importance of that thing. As a family man, right, foreign boy, you have a family, a wife and children, you have parents, you also have friends. You have a family. You have a family. You have friends. You have colleagues. You are good to all of them. But if you had to choose and say, here is something, choose one. Will you give precedence to your friend over your son? No. No. That why, that's why we have to ask ourselves, how really important is Islam in my life? Because all my decisions, how much time do I spend in the worship of Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala, in the Ibadat of Allah? In Salah, in Dhikr, in Tilawatul Quran and so on. How much charity do I give? How much money, time, energy, life do I spend in the path of Allah? My earning, where do I give it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? Where do I spend it? And here's the question, how much money do I choose to earn from? Somebody comes to me with this fantastic scheme. The only hitch is that I have to borrow money on interest. But he's showing me this, you know, you'll become a billionaire in 10 days. Will you take that or not? Eating, what goes into my mouth? And so on and so on. My relationships. My effect? All of them depend on how important is Islam. Because if I am going to choose something which is halal, even though I have the option to choose something which is haram without any consequences in this world. Like Sheikh Hussain used to say, this country is the freest country in the world because you can do anything you want. I remember we used to go in 1997 when I used to live here. Dr. Ali and I used to go for, those days we used to do two jaulas in a week. We had a makhami jaula and an intiqali jaula. So the intiqali jaula we used to do in UMass. So interestingly, in UMass in those days, you had the MSO room, MSA room. And on one side, you had the MSA room. And on one side of the MSA room was Friends of Marijuana Society. This was the days when marijuana was illegal. Before now, of course, it's illegal. So Friends of Marijuana Society, it was their room. And on the other side was Worshippers of Satan. There was a board, there was a big board on the room. Muslim Student Association on one side, the shaitan, on the other side, the marijuana. Free, do what you want, no problem. You want to worship shaitan, most welcome. Nobody will stop you. You want to worship Allah, also nobody will stop you. This country I've seen more support for Islam and more support for Islamic culture, action, than any other country in the world, including Muslim countries. Freedom in this country. Absolutely no problem. Handu ilan. And the other side, there was a board. There was a board. There was a board. There was a board. There was a board. But the

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers, Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon many many. And what is next? My brothers and sisters, Ramadan has ended and so have the rites of Ramadan. But the rites of Allah remain and they will remain until we die. As Allah commanded, وَاعْبُدْ رَبَّكَ حَتَّى يَأْتِيَكَ الْيَقِينَ Allah said, worship Allah, worship your Rabb until the inevitable comes to you, until the truth comes to you and that is death. Ramadan came to increase our taqwa. As I mentioned in several of my khutbah before, every ibadah, every act of worship is not for itself. Every act of worship is a tool to achieve something. Salah is not for itself. إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ تَنْهَىٰ عَنِ الْفَهْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ Salah is the tool to separate us from, to protect us from everything which is shameless and everything which is not good. Everything which is rebelliousness of Allah and disobedience. So if I'm praying and I find that there is no change in my lifestyle, if I'm still disobeying Allah, if I'm still engaging in things that Allah has prohibited, then I must question my salah. I must question what quality of salah is this? That it is not achieving the purpose for which it is meant. Allah said about Ramadan, what is the purpose of Ramadan? Ya ayyu allatheena amanu kootiba alaikumus siyamu kama kootiba ala allatheena min qablikum la'alakum tattaqoon Allah said, Do you believe fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may become muttaqoon, so that you may become conscious of Allah in your lives, so that you may become completely and totally obedient to Allah, so that you do everything for one reason only and that reason is because it pleases my Creator. Now Ramadan reinforced that because in Ramadan during the hours of the fasting from before sunrise to after sunset, we stayed away even from things which are normally halal. Why? Because Allah said so. There's another reason. If anyone fasted for any other reason then the fast becomes batil. The reason we fast, the reason we don't eat, we don't drink, we don't have intimacy and so on is because Allah said so. Not for its physical benefits or you know any other reason. Because Allah said so. And that is to reinforce this concept in our minds. Because Allah said so. So if I'm going to stay away even from the permitted things which are wholesome, which are good to do because Allah said so and for no other reason, then what must I do with those things which Allah prohibited? Ramadan therefore did not come for Ramadan. Ramadan came for the rest of our lives. That is the goal. We use Ramadan as a habit change, an attitude change and a life change opportunity. So that we can become uttaqoon, we can become people of taqwa. We can become people who are conscious of Allah in every aspect of our lives. And so that we live our goals, we live our lives with only one goal in mind and that is to please Allah . Developing taqwa is the most important goal in life. Because all the promises of Allah are for the muttaqoon. Not merely for the Muslimoon. Not merely for the person who enters Islam. When you enter Islam, you just enter the fort. But you want value added benefits? It has to be more than that. We have to become conscious of Allah in our lives. And we have to worship Allah only without any partners. And we have to obey Allah over and above. And before we obey Allah, we have to obey Allah. We have to obey anyone and anything else including our own desires. And that is why Allah said وَبَنْ يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ لَهُ مَخْرَجًا وَيَرْزُقُهُ مِنْ هَيْثُ لَا يَهْتَصِبُ Allah said whoever is mindful of Allah, what is the benefit of being a muttaqoon? What is the benefit of being mindful of Allah? What is the benefit of being conscious of Allah in our lives? Allah says whoever is mindful of Allah, Allah will solve his problems. Allah will make a way out for them. And provide them from sources that they cannot imagine. When we face difficulties individually or collectively, let's ask ourselves do we seek material solutions or do we introspect to see which of our actions may be responsible for the difficulty and how we can solve the problem and invoke the help of Allah by bringing into our lives the blessed path of RasulAllah . By all means seek material means. There is nothing wrong with that. But do we have a place to go to the root cause of it? Because the fact is if Allah is saying I will solve your problems if you are obedient to me, automatically it means that if you are not obedient to Allah, then no matter what you do, your problem will not go away. Right? It's a mutually exclusive statement. Alla

Auto-generated transcript:In English, there is a saying which says that it's a sign of intelligence. It's a sign of intelligence to be able to hold two opposing ideas in your mind simultaneously. It's a sign of intelligence to be able to hold two opposing ideas, two opposite sides, in your mind simultaneously. And I want to say to you and myself that it's a sign of hypocrisy, of nifak, to be able to hold two opposing beliefs in your heart simultaneously. It's a sign of nifak, it's a sign of hypocrisy, to be able to hold two opposing beliefs in your heart simultaneously. The reason I say that is because today we seem to live in a world where for everything that we do in our life, we know and we believe. That anything related to that is connected. For example, take health. We all know and we believe that if I want to have good health, then I must watch my diet. I can't eat anything I like. I must eat the right kind of food. I must watch my physical exercise. I need to do that. I can't just sit in a chair all day. I must do some physical exercise. And I must watch any medication that I need to take. I must take that on time. According to my diet. According to the dose prescribed by the doctor. And I must also watch my life to say, is my life full of stress or something is happening there. All are connected. Right? Yes or no? If somebody says, you know, forget about the... Look man, I like to eat a lot of sugar and I like to eat nice fried stuff. And that's where the taste is. So I'm going to eat all that. I'll eat all the sugar. I'll eat all the fried stuff. I'll eat all the cakes and the puddings and the stuff. But... But... I've got high cholesterol. I've got diabetes. But, you know, just give me medicines. Instead of one, give me two. Instead of two, give me four. You think it works? I say, no, no. I will eat all the food. Forget exercise. It's just too much trouble. I have too much time, too much trouble, too much pain. I won't do it. Will it work? And if somebody has this argument and if he tells you... So, I mean, I'm doing something, you know. I'm not saying I won't take medicine. I'm taking medicine. I'm also exercising. So what if I eat a whole cheesecake? What will you say to him? You will say, brother, listen. You either do the whole thing or it doesn't work. You can't take a piece from here that you like and the piece from here you don't like and you say, because I like... No, it doesn't work like that. It's... The whole body is connected. The mind is connected. The stomach is connected. The... The... The... The blood flow is connected. The muscles are connected. Psychologically, it's connected. So you have to take care of all of that. Yes? Similarly, you drive a car. And this car is an... I'll only put gas. He said, brother, you've been driving that car for 10,000 miles. That thing needed an oil change at 5,000 miles. You already doubled the mileage for the oil change. Please, go and change the oil. No, no, no. Rubbish. I'm putting gas. I'm driving. Okay, do that. One day in the middle of the highway, it'll cease. The point I want to make is we have this logic for everything, right? Take education. You take anything in life. Anything in life. Take education. Take anything. You will... You have this logic and this is correct logic that if you want to succeed, you have to do everything because it is all connected. Now, my question is, what happens to this logic when it comes to deal? What happens to this logic when it comes to... When it comes to Islam? Allah said, Tawheed, first of all, worship only Allah and nobody else. Don't join partners with Allah. Allah said, Risalat, follow Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Itaat wa ittiba, not itaat or ittiba. Obey him and emulate him. Both are required. Yes, itaat wa ittiba. Both are required. Then, earn halal. Eat halal. Yes? Then, faraid. Make sure you fulfill all the faraid. What do you say? No, no, no. Hold on a second. I mean, it's like all this is too much. Right? So, what I will do is, okay, shirk I won't do. I won't go and worship an idol. I will not go and stand before a khabar and say, yeah, fulan bin fulan, give me a chai. I won't do all that. That's fine. But, you know, this whole issue of paying five times a day on time and in jama and so on, like too much. I mean, this is... So, I will pray when I can pray. And Ramadan? You know, I am on this. I am playing this game and I need to go to the gym every day. I can't do... I can't fast. So, I am not going to fast because it's too much stress. And earning halal... Come on, I mean, we live in America, right? Everyone is doing it. So, what's halal? What about zakat? No, no, we are paying tax. In America, paying tax is equal to zakat. No need to pay zakat. Very nice. What about not de

Auto-generated transcript:So the thing that strikes my mind is what is the result of that? What change does the Quran bring in ourselves, in our actions? And I want to tell you two stories. One story is with regard to the Quran changing somebody's life and the other one is the result of that. The first story is narrated by none other than Imam Al-Awzaie, Rahmatul Ali. Imam Al-Awzaie was one of the great Imams of the Sharia and he was the Imam of the Zahiri Masab and he is ranked on the same level as Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi' and so on. Allah swt spread some things and doesn't spread some things so the Zahiri Masab is not a big Masab but Imam Al-Awzaie is very hugely respected, he is fatawar in the books of fiqh and he is very very well known and very respected Imam. So he says that they were going for Umrah and so in a caravan and those were the days when there were people, bandits used to loot these caravans because people went for Umrah and so on. Usually they would go for Umrah just before Ramadan and then they would stay on and so on until Dhul Hijjah. So they would do Hajj and then they would, after Dhul Hijjah they would come back. So they had all sorts of provisions and stuff with them so it was good loot for the people who were the highway robbers. So Imam Al-Azai says that we were in this caravan and we got raided by this bandit group and of course there was chaos absolutely, some people were getting wounded and beaten up and some people, maybe somebody got killed or what not. Imam Al-Azai says that in the middle of all this I suddenly found myself the head of that gang of thugs, gang of robbers. He said he was standing in front of me, he had a naked sword in his hand and he said to me, who are you? Imam Al-Azai said, I am so and so. He said what do you do? Imam Al-Azai says I teach children Quran, I teach children how to read Quran. He does not say I am an Imam of fiqh and I am this and that. He said I teach children to recite Quran. So this Robert Chief says, okay so recite some Quran for me. Decide some Quran for me. I am talking about the effect of the Quran on the heart. Who is this guy? He is the head of bandits, you are not talking about some great sheikh of Tasiyyat-ul-Nafs. The worst of the worst, he is a man looting people and killing people and so on. Al-Azai, may Allah have mercy on him, recites only one ayah. He says, that's it. One little ayah from Surah Dhu Zariyat, and in the heavens is your rizq, your sustenance and whatever you wanted and want and need is in the heavens. Al-Azai said the man started shivering. His sword dropped from his hand, fell from his head. And he says, this is the Quran? Al-Azai says yes. He says this is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah said this. He said yes. He said then why am I doing this? Then why are we doing this work? If our rizq is in the heavens, why are we robbing people? Allah said, I did not say anything. He said the man picked up his sword and put it in the scabbard. He called his people and said, they all came. He said Allah says that our sustenance is with him. In the heavens. So, I am making taba now. This work we are doing is haram. We should not be doing this. He said we knew this. Now this is proof. And I am leaving this work. You decide what you want to do for yourselves. His followers said we are your followers. Whatever you do, we do. You are our sheikh. You are our chief. So, if you leave this work, we leave this work. So, Alaudah and Haath-ul-Aal says they returned everybody their things and so on. They apologized to people who were hurt. They gave some money and whatnot. They left. The effect of the Quran on her made it. Then Alaudah and Haath-ul-Aal said well then we hamdillah we thanked Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and so on and we continued. And we reached Makkah. We went to Omra. All this happened. He says that one day after Salat-ul-Fajr I am making taba for the Kaaba and I hear somebody weeping with such a broken way. Not just crying. He said this is like coming out of his heart. And Alaudah and Haath-ul-Aal said that weeping was as if as a woman who would weep if her baby was taken from her arms and the baby's throat was cut and it was given back to the woman. What would she do? May Allah have mercy. That is the kind of weeping I heard. Completely broken weeping. So, I said who is this person? Let me go and see and guess who it was. It was this chief of the bandits. He is sitting in front of the Kaaba. He is making dhaat all the time. He is making istighfar and taba. Alaudah said I tapped him on the shoulder and he looked at me. He recognized me. And he said I then recited the next ayah which I had recited. The next ayah is The next ayah is The next ayah is The next ayah is Allah is saying The wow is the wow of Qasm there. Allah is taking an oath by himself and he is saying By the Rabb of the This is true. What is true? It is true that your rizq is in the heavens. Allah is taking an oath and

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Mighty respected brothers, sisters, elders, I remind myself and you that 1459 years ago a window opened in the heavens and God spoke to man. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent his first revelation to his beloved messenger, Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, through his messenger Jibril alaihi salam. This was the spoken word. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala spoke to Jibril alaihi salam in a way befitting his majesty and grace and Jibril alaihi salam spoke to Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. This was not the first time that this had happened but this was to be the last. That initiative of re-establishing the direct connection between the creator and his creatures, between Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and humans, between Allah and you and I, this is Islam. Islam is for all human beings irrespective of ethnicity, color, race or origin. Those who accept this connection and benefit from it are called Muslims. The first word revealed was Iqra, read. Iqra bismi rabbikal ladhi khalaq, read in the name of your rabbu created everything. Now the word read has many meanings. It can mean to read as in read a book. It means, it could also mean to recite something which is written. It also means to read the signs around you. Sometimes there are expressions on the face of your beloved which tell you without a single word being spoken, what is in their heart and that you are headed for the dog house. Sometimes gestures, tone of voice, movements, demeanor tell those who can read them far more and far more truthfully the real story. And that is why they say the body does not lie. Body language may support words or may contradict the word being spoken. The command read that was given to our beloved prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam was to encourage him and all those who were there and who were to hear that command from him to read the signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the creator in his creation and to marvel at his power, his mercy and his wisdom and accept him as the only one worthy of worship. It's not just a matter of reading the signs and say oh fantastic creation. So what? So what? If that seeing the sight, if that marveling at the creation of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not make me fall in sajdah before Allah and say If that does not happen then it's a waste of life, it's a waste of that experience. When we see the last signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we love him and we obey him. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in surat Fusilat which means we will show them our signs. See the tone of command and challenge in this. Allah says we will show them our signs in the universe and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this, meaning the Quran, is the truth. Is it not enough that your rub is a witness over all things? Think about this, imagine if blood didn't clot, hemophiliacs don't need to imagine it. Imagine if your hair had nerves, you would need to go under general anesthesia to get a haircut. Likewise for nails, you cut a nail more deeply and you know what that means. Imagine veins without venous non-return valves. The moment you stood up, your blood would go down your feet and would never come up to the heart. That happens for people who have circulation problems, that's why they faint, that's why they fall. The brain makes you drop so that the blood can come back to the brain. Imagine if rain and snow did not descend in single drops and flakes and instead if it came down in one mass, one solid mass. I did the sums for Hadley. Hadley received 50 centimeters, 50 inches of precipitation, meaning rain and snow in the last year. That multiplied by the weight of water over one acre and multiplied by the acreage of Hadley amounts to sixty million tons. If sixty million tons of mass falls from the average cloud height of 15,000 feet with an acceleration of 32 feet per second per second and smashes down, there would be no Hadley. There would just be a big lake. But Allah does not send it like that. Allah sends it in a way where you can say the joy of life is to dance in the rain. It's a joy of life because it comes down in drop by drop, believe me. Imagine if you and I were given total control over all bodily functions. Everything, the heart will beat to your command, your digestion will happen the way you want it to happen. Your brain will function, everything. All bodily functions are given into your complete control and they would function only on command. That means that you could never sleep. If you slept, your heart would stop. Your digestion would stop. Can you imagine? Your fast asleep, your heart beats, your digestion works perfectly fine. You eat your food, it's digested and so on and so forth. All your functions, nothing stops. Allah has not given it into our control.

Auto-generated transcript:As-salamu alaykum. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, what is unity? I know all of us talk about it. I can probably say that almost every Muslim, if not every Muslim, if you ask him today anywhere in the world, what is the number one problem of this Ummah, he will say lack of unity. Right? Everyone. Lack of unity. We should be united. What is unity? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described what is unity. In the Ayatul Karima which I just recited from Surah Al-Ali Muran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala defined what is unity. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us how to get this unity, how to become united. Allah said, Allah said, Allah said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told firmly to the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala together and do not be divided, do not become divided. Allah did not say, Allah did not say do not disagree on any matter, you can have difference of opinion. Allah did not say this is haram. Allah said, Allah said, On the basis of the difference of opinion, don't say my brother is no longer my brother. I will hate you, I will not pray behind you, I will form my own masjid, I will form my own group. No, I can disagree with you. No problem. Any matter. But you are still my brother. I will still stand by you. If you are attacked, I will still defend you even at the cost of my life. I do not agree with you. But I will not allow you to go down as long as I am standing. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala defined. The definition of unity is, No divisions. Find for me one ayah, find for me one hadith, where the definition of unity was to have Eid-ul-Fitr on the same day. Find me one. I will take this ammama of mine and put it at your feet. You can play football with it. Find me one thing, that the whole Muslim community in the entire world must have Eid on one day, and if they don't have that, there is no unity. Truly, we are the architects of our own demise. We are the architects of our own problems. We give ourselves an impossible definition, and then we fight and we destroy what Allah told us to keep together. We destroy the things that are not in our control. Then we fight and we destroy what Allah told us to keep together. We are forming divisions on the basis of our nafs. We must have Eid on the same day, and because we cannot have Eid on the same day, just read some geography for God's sake. Then I found divisions. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala prohibited. La ta farraku. Brothers and sisters, remind myself and you that we are Muslim. What is a Muslim? A Muslim is somebody who submits without question to the Amr of Allah, to the Hukam and the command of Allah, in the way of Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. This is the definition of a Muslim. Who is a Muslim? This person. A Muslim is not somebody who was born in Pakistan or India or Saudi Arabia or Syria or somewhere. A Muslim is not somebody who does that and the other ethnicity, nationality, name. No. A Muslim is the one who submits to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's command without question. Not blindly, without question because he knows who Allah is. He has a ta'alluq with Allah. Al alamatul muslima al azima. Al alamatul azima alaka bayna Allah wa bayna abdullaha. This is the great sign. Alaka bayni wa bayna rabbi. Bayna ka wa bayna rabbu ka. The sign of a Muslim is the connection between him and his Rabb. That is what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in the ayah which also here in the Qutba. It is said today also. Ya ayyuha allatheena amanu taqullaha wa qulu qawlan sadeeda. All you who believe have taqwa of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and speak the truth. And what will happen if you do that? Yuslih lakum a'malakum wa yaghfir lakum dhulubakum. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will bless your deeds, will correct your deeds, will beautify your deeds, will raise the darjaat and the honor of those deeds and He will forgive your sins. Yaghfir lakum dhulubakum. And then a conditional statement. Wa main yut'i Allah wa rasoolahu faqad faza fawza nadima. The one who obeys Allah and His Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, only that person, faqad faza fawza nadima, only that person will achieve ultimate success. Nobody else. This is the authority of the Sunnah. The Sunnah is the field book, the road map to the book of Allah, the Quran. The Quran commands the what? The Sunnah shows the how. Allah said, taqim is salaat al idhikri. Establish salaat for my remembrance. We say yes, we accept. How? What is the method? What is the meaning of salaat? Where do you find that? In the Sunnah of the Habib alaihi salatu wassalam. In the Sunnah of Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, if I want to know how should I pray? He said, sallu kamar aaytumuni usalli abu kamar qal. He said, pray as you have seen me pray. Allah SWT said very clearly, only those who obey Allah and His Rasool alaihi salatu wassalam are successful. And for those who obey and follow the Sunnah,

Auto-generated transcript:SubhanAllah, may Allah bless him. He said this wonderful thing about Allah SWT being Al-Hadi and this is absolutely true. And so I will want to tell you three stories of how Allah SWT gives Hidayah. Allah gives Hidayah without any help from us. Allah does not need our help. First story is here in ISWM. One day I am sitting after Sahad al-Asr in the Masjid. There is almost nobody there, just one person. One little kid comes. He must be about maybe, I was like two connected to one. One day I am sitting there. Two kids come. One is probably about 13 and the second one must be about 11 or 12. So he comes and this is one, the older one. He says, who is the Sheikh? So I said, I am the Sheikh. He catches the other one, brings him here. He said, give him Shahada. I said, what? He said, you are a nutty or something. What do you give Shahada? He said, no, he wants to become Muslim. I said, who is he? He is my friend. I said, who are you? So he tells me some name. I said, where did you come from? He said, Springfield. Springfield. How did you come? On my bicycle. I said, you both rode on... No, no, no. I brought him on my bicycle. This kid rides with the other kid on his bicycle from Springfield to West Springfield. And he says, give him Shahada. So I said, who am I to stop with? If Allah says this, well, well. Later on my friends told me that kid is 12 years old. How can he give Shahada? He says, I don't care. As far as I am concerned, he brought him here. He said, Allah has sent him my gift. Another time, one comes from West Springfield High School, which is just up the road from us. He came and he said, I want to become Muslim. He must be around 14. What is your name? He said, Devin. But the way he said, I am sitting in the masjid, somebody says Devin, I hear Devil. So I said, Devil has come to become Muslim. He said, this is pretty good. So I said, what? He said, Devin. So, okay. So I said, why do you want to become Muslim? He said, no, I like Islam. I said, what do you mean, like Islam? Sort of, you know, orange flavor or something. What do you mean, Islam? He knew a lot. I said, how do you know all this? Oh, my friends are there and I have been talking to the friends and so on and so on. So, he became Muslim. Somewhere he gets a Palestinian scarf. And next thing I know, I see him and I am thinking like this is some malak which has descended. He is wearing complete white and he has got this Palestinian scarf and so on. The only thing missing is a topia kufi. So I said, he looks beautiful. So I said to him, what can I give you? He said, can I have your cap? So I said, here, take it. Has he? What is our effort in this? Third story. I started my career in 1979, Guyana in South America. And at the age of 21, I was the de facto mayor of a mining town on the bank of the river Babies in the Amazonian rainforest. So when 21 year old kids come and tell me that they did this or that, I said, you know, it takes a lot to impress me, believe me. Because at your age, I was running a mining town. So I don't think you are anywhere going to impress me with what basketball you played or something. Who cares? So, I had a manager there called Nick Adams, James Nicholas Adams. Nick Adams was absolutely the most beautiful human being on the face of the earth. Absolutely wonderful human being. And he was, I mean, he was so particular about me following Islam and so on that, I mean, this not eating Zabiyal, not modern or new, you know, Kiri kumnai brein, which most people think it is. I have never unknowingly eaten anything which is not Zabiyal. So I, what he used to do among things, he would call me one day, he would say, please come and there would be a whole crate of chickens. You know, 50 or none of you would say 20 chickens. He would say, Zabiyal for all of them and we'll clean them and you put them in the freezer for when you come to eat with us, we cook this chicken for you. So to that extent, very, very West Indian, West Indian African man, wonderful human being. And my constant thing in my heart was, Allah give him Islam, Allah give him Islam. Now, I never presented Islam to him when I was in Ghana. I was too busy working and hunting and fishing. Every weekend I used to go hunting and fishing. So that never happened and we left. Now, this was 1979 to 1983. Then in 19, must have been 2000, not 90, but 2010 or something, I knew Nick had moved to New York. So I contacted him and so on. I said, come in to meet you. I go there and I meet him. He is a doorman in one of the buildings in Brooklyn. Now this man was my boss in Ghana. So I was the assistant administrative manager. So I was de facto mayor of the town, which means what was he, right? Very big powerful position and with all the, you know, the hoo-ha that goes with it. And he is a doorman in this building. I almost wept. Anyway, I hope I didn't show that in my face. So I met him and I said, Nick, how are you? He said, oh, I am fan

Auto-generated transcript:Now let me begin my khatira. The khatira today, the title is focus. And focus is important because without focus, there is no destination to reach. Without focus, if you are in a shooting competition, you cannot shoot because you have no focus. You can have the best weapon in the world, you can have the best bow and arrow, best gun, you won't hit anything because you have no focus. Focus is critically important. Now in life, what must you focus on? You must focus on the questions that you will have to answer before Allah. There is nothing that is more important than that. This whole life is an exam. This whole life is an exam. You are living the exam. And the passing and the failing is when you meet Allah. Right? The one who is freed from the hell fire and entered into Jannah, into Paradise, is the only one who is successful. It's not the one who had money, power, wealth, glory, whatnot, whatnot. The Quran is full of stories of people who had all this and more. They had more than you can even imagine. Yet they failed. So, focus on the questions that will be asked. What are those questions? There are four questions. Tell me anybody. What are the four questions? What is the first question? No. No. No. On the Day of Judgment, I'm saying, who is your Rabba? The question is in the grave. There are two kinds of questions. The Akhidah questions in the grave. The Amal questions on the Day of Judgment. I'm assuming that you got through the Akhidah questions. On the Day of Judgment, you're still not clear. Day of Judgment, first question, yes. Where you made your money and how you spent it? One of the questions. Good. You're halfway there. The first question is, what did you do with the time you had? What did you do with the time you had? Second question, what did you do with your youth? What did you do in your youth? Third question, what did you do with your life? That's the first one. Third question, money. Where did you earn your money? Where did you spend the money? And the fourth question, what did you do with the knowledge that was given to you? Now in these four questions, what are you being asked about? The quantity or what you did with it? Which one? Quality. Allah is not asking how long did you live? Why did you die at 50? You should have lived for 100. No. Your life has been given to you. What was given to you is given to you. Just before Ramadan, we did a janaza for a child who was born and two or three hours later he died. Date of birth and date of death is the same day. But that child also will be resurrected. Obviously, the child has no sins. So, in the dua of Makhfirat, we do not even say Allah Makhfir Lahoo because he has no sins. But the point is even he will be resurrected. So Allah will not ask how long did you live? Allah will say what did you do with the time? I was doing zikr and I was also scrolling. That's what I was doing. And you know the scrolling was more interesting than your name and your zikr. So I was looking at the scroll. You will say this. You will say it on the day of Jannah. If you don't make istighfar and taubah and you do not stop doing that, you will say this to your Lord. You will say I am a Zikr or Lord. I made no mistake. It's not funny. It is not funny. Religion is not funny. It's very serious. What did you do with the time? Then what did you do with your youth specifically because this is the time. greatest energy, greatest power, you have money, you have all kinds of shahwats, all kinds of desires and the means to fulfill them halal or haram especially while living in an environment in countries where in the name of freedom you can do whatever you want. Therefore, what did you do in your youth? And that is why one of the seven who would be shaded under the shade of the Arsh of Allah on the day when there is no shade except he's shaded is the youth who spent his time in obedience and dhikr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Not the old person, the old person has what else will he do anyway? He's sitting there on the edge of the grave, both his legs are hanging in the grave, he knows, he's going to drop just now. But the youth? Third question, money. Allah will not ask did you make a million dollars? How come Iran must get more money than you? You know the question. Where did you earn from? That earning was it halal? And where did you spend it? That place you spent it, was it a halal place to spend it? Not how much you made? Right? Last question, what did you do with the knowledge that Allah gave you? Allah will not ask did you memorize the Quran? Did you memorize the siha sitta? Were you mufti adham of Egypt? How come you are not sheikh of haram sharif? Whatever you know, whatever you knew, what did you do with that knowledge? Did you hold it? Did you keep it to yourself? Did you say pay me then only I will teach you? Because Islam is also nowadays a source of income, good inco

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah, I remind myself and you, my brothers and sisters, that all the promises of Allah SWT are for the Muttaqun. And therefore it is in my own interest and your own interest for you and me to examine whether we are Muttaqun or not, whether we have Taqwa or not and if we do have Taqwa Alhamdulillah, Insha'Allah, then what is the level of that Taqwa? How strong is it? One of the best ways to see that is our attitude towards Salah. Do we see Salah as an honor or as a burden? Which one? Do I want to finish Salah and go? My South African friends have this wonderful saying, Let us make Asar finish. Let us make Zor finish. And then what is finish? Do we just finish and go? Or is it an honor? Rasulullah SAW used to say, Go call the other. Give us relief. Give us Sukkwa. Call the other. We stand for Salah. When he prayed Tahajjud, the Sahaba said, sometimes we were afraid the sun would rise. He would pray the whole night. Almost till the time of Fajr. What is our attitude? Allah SWT praised him and he praised those who stood with him in Salah. What is our attitude? What is our attitude towards spending in the path of Allah SWT? Do we see that as a burden, as a nuisance, as something to be done and finished? Somebody asked me on Zakat. They said, there are stores, you know, stock value of the store. There are big department stores. So they say stock value of the stores. So he said, should I pay Zakat on the market value of that stock or the price at which I bought the stock? So I said only one thing. I always say the same thing. I told him, do you want Allah to count and give you? Just tell me that much. Do you want Allah to count and give you? How many Salah did he pray? What was the quality of that Salah? My Rizq what I'm going to give him for food will depend on that. You want Allah to do this calculation for you? He said, no, I got you. I got the answer. Thank you. Seriously, spend in the path of Allah understanding one thing. If you don't get anything from this, take this one thing. Hold your hand like this. This one, your left hand is your bank account in this world, is your worldly assets. This, your right hand is your assets on the day of judgment. All right? When you are spending in the path of Allah, it's not going anywhere. You are taking it from this one, from the left hand, your bank account in this world and transferring it to the right hand. That's all. That is all. It's yours. How can we give to Allah? Can we give to Allah? The one who gave it to you in the first place, we can give it to him. All that you are doing when you are donating to the masjid, when you are donating to some other cause, when you are giving it to your own poor relatives who take first precedence, when you are giving to people who are in need, no matter where you are giving, whether it's your money, whether it's your time, your energy, you are simply taking what belongs to you in this world about which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, whatever is with you will finish with perish and you are taking it and putting it into your own akhira account about which Allah said, wa ma'indallahi baq. And what is with Allah will remain. So ask yourself, ask yourself, I have this much of asset, my net worth is so much, what do I want my net worth to be on the day of judgment? Forget who is asking you. Forget the masjid. Masjid needs this. Forget the masjid. The house of Allah, Allah will provide. That's why I never do fundraisers. I say I will never do a fundraiser inside a masjid because to me to do fundraisers inside the masjid is an insult to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You want me to beg people for the house of Allah? When I'm standing in the house of Allah? I will ask Allah, Allah we need this, we need so much money to run this masjid, give us because it is your house. How would you like somebody to come into your house? And do a fundraiser and say, I have to run brother Abdullah's house so please we need so much money, give us. He will throw me, he will kick me out. He said who told you to come in my house and beg people to give money to run? Running my house is my issue, it's my problem, it's my responsibility, right? We stand and say how much money will you give for the house of Allah? Give because it is your need, not because the house of Allah needs. It is Allah's house, it does not need you, it does not need your money. You give because it is your need, you give so that you can say Allah I gave for you. Allah I gave for you, please accept yaarab I beg you please accept. It is my need yaarab give me, allow me to spend on your house. You give and the people say we don't want, no no no please I beg you please take it. Please take it. People running fundraisers you know per table so much money this that even to give money somebody has to feed you. Get out of this mentality, the terrible mentality. We must pay must gi

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. My dear brothers, sisters, elders, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala commanded us and told us that fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may become Muttaqun, so that you may become people of Taqwa, so that you may become people who are conscious of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala in their lives, so that you may become people for whom the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is the soul, not just the most important, but the only thing which is a criterion for every decision in their lives. Ramadan comes to help us to become Muttaqun and to become eligible for all the promises of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala which all of them without exception are only for the Muttaqun. Being Muslim is a boundary condition. You enter the door, but everything that comes after that is based on the level of Taqwa of that Muslim, to the degree to which that Muslim is conscious of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and to the degree to which that Muslim is willing to spend his life and lead his life according to the rules and the laws and the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala as we know from the Sunnah of His Nabi Sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. That process of becoming a Muttaqi begins with Istighfar and Taubah. Allah says, فَاستَغْفِرُوْهِ ثُمَّ تُوبُوا إِلَيْهِ إِنَّ رَبِّي قَرِيبٌ مُّجِيبٌ Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said, So seek his forgiveness and turn to him in repentance. Surely my Rabb is ever near and all responsive to dua. Seeking forgiveness must be followed by turning away from sin. We must change the basis of our choices, keeping the Rida, the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala as the sole criterion for all decisions. If it pleases Allah, we do it. If it does not please Allah, we don't do it. If we don't know, then we don't do it until we find out. Al-Qulana al-Kareem begins with a reminder of our Taqwa. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala reveals Suratul Fatiha, which reminds us about the glory and majesty of Allah, our Rabb, our Creator, Sustainer, Maintainer, Protector, and defines our connection with Him. It reminds all humankind that we have a Creator who is interested enough to teach us a way of life, which if we lead it, will result in a society which is based on justice and compassion. And it reminds us that one day we will all return to Him, Jalla Jalaluhu. Just as we had no choice coming into this world, so also we will not have a choice about leaving it and meeting Allah. Everyone who was born will die, and everyone who dies will be resurrected before Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. Whether anyone believes this or not is immaterial, makes no difference. This will happen. Dhalikal yawmul haq. Allah said that day is the day of truth. It is the day of truth if you believe it, if it is the day of truth even if you don't believe it, because the day will happen. The difference between believing and not believing is for us. If we believe it, then we will prepare for it. If we don't believe it, then we are going to meet it in a state when we are not prepared for it. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala gave us a choice to make that meeting the best meeting of our existence, even though that meeting is not a matter of choice for us. And that's very important because unlike this life, what happens after that meeting is forever. That way is called Al-Islam. Al-Fatiha is the surah of khashiyah, of the awe of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. It is the surah of shukr, of thankfulness. It is the surah of tawbah, of returning to Allah. Al-Fatiha is the surah of guidance to the path of the prophets that lead to Jannah. The people to whom this will be granted are the Muttakoon, those whose single criterion of all decisions is, does it please Allah? Taqwa is the fear of displeasing the one we love the most. And only for such people did Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala promise guidance. He said, dhalikal kitabu la raiba feehi udallil Muttaqeen This is the book in which there is no doubt and it's a guide for the people of Taqwa. To help us to become people of Taqwa, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala prescribed fasting and He sent Ramadan. Ya yuwal lazeera amanu kutiba alaykumu sriyamu kama kutiba ala allazeera min khablikum la'alakum tattaqun O believers, fasting is prescribed for you as it was for those before you so that you may become mindful of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, you might become Muttaqun. Fasting helps us to inculcate Taqwa by emphasizing the fact that when in this month we could stay away even from the halal, only because Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala commanded us, how much more important it is to continue to obey Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala's commands about His prohibitions throughout our lives. The reason Muslims fast is because Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala commanded it. There's no other re

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen was Salat was Salam Alaa Sharifil Ambiya Wal Mursaleen Muhammad Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa Alaihi wa Sahibus Sallam Tasleemun Kaseerun Kaseera Fahmul Baduk My brothers and sisters I remind myself when you that fasting comes to reinforce this primordial and fundamental foundational message that all virtue and blessing and success starts with obeying Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and making his will the guiding light in our lives. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to illuminate our hearts with his light and to drive out the darkness of fear and depression and despair. As we face a hostile world it must be clear that the only source of support and protection that we can rely on is Allah. So let us repair our bridge to him. Here is what I suggest for all of us. Number one, visit the goals we set. If you did not set goals do it now. Check how you are doing with respect to achieving those goals. Number two, identify the blocks and retardants to your success and remove them. They will be for example time wasters, pointless conversation about things not in our control, low achiever friends who will drag you down to their level, distractions in your day combined with the inability to say no. Learn assertiveness and practice it. Number three, apply the start stop continue standard. What do I need to start which I'm not doing? What do I need to stop which I am doing? What do I need to continue consciously which I am doing which is good? And see on each if we are on track what are the measurable changes in our lives. Remember that metrics are evidence of existence. If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. Good intentions that are not followed by action are useless. And four, finally having identified these turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala especially in tahajjud. Make tahajjud further on yourself for the rest of your life inshallah and ask for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's help to get closer to him because that is the purpose of Ramadan. Allah said, was judh waqtarib. Allah said, make sajdah and come close to me. Sajdah is the ultimate quintessential icon of obedience. You want to come close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? There's only one path and that is the path of obedience. And that's why in the middle of the ayat relating to fasting Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed, wa idha saadaka li baadiyanni fa inni qareeb wujeebu daawat ad da'ee dha da'aan fal yastajeebu li wal yu'minoo bi la'allaghum yarshudoon Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, when my slaves ask you O Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam about me, I am truly near to them. I respond to their da'aan when they call upon me, so let them obey me and believe in me and they will be guided to the right way. La'allah, which is translated as perhaps in the Quran, is at the level of yaqeen. So whenever you hear la'allahu yarshudoon, la'allahu turhamoon and so on and so forth, there's no element of doubt in that. Even though Allah said la'allah, there's no element of doubt in that. Now see this, the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the slave only asked, wa idha saadaka li baadiyanni, the person is only asking about Allah and Allah says I'm close to him. I'm close to him. And when the slave is close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he is in need, so he asks Allah. And Allah says, Allah assures him. wujeebu daawat ad da'ee dha daan Allah said I will give you. But two conditions, fal yasta ji boolee wa joomeen ubee. Obey me and believe in me. Obedience is the key and obedience with knowledge of who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is engenders and strengthens belief. Obedience is proof of Iban. When the heart of the slave is illuminated by the noor of the glory and magnificence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it is filled with gratitude to him for all his blessings. The first and most critical of them is tawheed and then his immediate response is to make istighfar and seek forgiveness. The surest sign of khashyatullah is the frequency of istighfar that a slave makes. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us among the people who are who seek forgiveness often. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the Nabi said, He said all the children of Adam alayhi salam make mistakes. The best of those who make mistakes are the ones who repent. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us among the tawaboon, among the qanithoon, among the uwinian people, among the sajidoon, wa rakhiyoon, wa sa'imoon, and among the people who make ruku and sujood and musalleen, among the people who make salah, among the people who make wudu, among the people who make salah, among the people who fast. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to purify our ikhlas and our niya and to make our actions purely and only for the blessing and for the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We ask Allah

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillah al-Haram, adhara-rohim, alhamdulillah, my dear respected brothers, sisters, elders. I remind myself and you that all acts of worship, all ibadahs are tools. The ibadah, the act of worship is not for itself. It is meant to achieve something. Each one has a different goal. For example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said about the purpose of salah. Qudlu ma'uhiya ilaika minal kitabi wa qimi al-salaat. Inna al-salaata tanha'anil fahsai wal-munkard. Walazikrullahi akbar wallahu ya lamu ma'a tasna'oon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said which means recite what has been revealed to you of the book and establish the salah. Indeed, salah deters one and protects one and separates one from indecency and wickedness from all kinds of sin. Inna al-salaata, verily the salah, tanha' takes you away from anil, from fahsai wal-munkard. From all indecencies, all shameless actions and all munkard, all disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then Allah said the remembrance of Allah is even a greater deterrent in that because when you remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala immediately, you will stop doing whatever wrong action you were doing and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala fully knows what you do. So salah is a tool. If I am praying five times a day and I look at my life and I should look at my life, and I find my life is still filled with disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, then I must question my salah. Did I pray properly? How come this thing is supposed to work and it is not working in my case? Something is wrong with my salah. There was a man who used to come to Sayyidina Amar, who was very close to him. He and a farm used to grow some vegetables. He would bring vegetables for him and so on, he used to come. Then he stopped coming. And some time passed and Sayyidina Amar asked the other people, he said, He used to come so often, he used to be with us and he is not coming. They said, yeah, yeah, yeah, Amir Bominin, he has fallen into bad company. He is doing all kinds of wrong stuff. He is indulging in all sorts of haram stuff. Sayyidina Amar said, has he stopped praying? They said, no, he continues to pray. He is still praying. He has not stopped praying, but he is doing all sorts of other stuff along with the prayer. So Sayyidina Amar wrote on a piece of paper, which is that of the Quran, Allah swt forgives all sins and he accepts tauba. He wrote that on his piece of paper and he said, give this to that man and tell him to continue to pray. Now think about this, the man is doing all kinds of haram things. The man is doing all kinds of haram things. Sayyidina Amar is not saying tell him to stop doing haram. No, he says continue to pray, tell him to continue to pray. Why? Because we know the prayer is supposed to work. And sure enough, after a few days the man came back and he said, Yabin Bominin, Jazakumallahu Khair and I got your mursal, I got your message. And Alhamdulillah, Allah swt has protected me and saved me. I have made tauba, I have done istafar and I will not go back into the stuff that I was doing. Salah is a tool. The purpose of fasting is not to, it's not an endurance test to see how long you can stay away from food and so on. But to inculcate taqwa in our hearts. Qutiba alaykumu sriyamu, qala jalal wa ala ya ayyuha alladheena amanu, qutiba alaykumu sriyamu kama qutiba ala alladheena min qablikum. Limada? La'al lakum tattaqu. Fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed for those before you. Why? So that you become muttakeen. Thereby transform our lives and put our lives on the path of success in this world and the next. This is what I keep saying over and over and over again. Please understand this. Islam is not suffering in this world and Jannah in the hereafter. It is not. Islam is a beautiful life in this world and a beautiful life in the hereafter. Islam is wealth and power and authority and you name it in this world and correspondingly and far more in the hereafter. Wealth and power and authority acquired correctly and used correctly. Not for oppressing people. Acquired correctly and used correctly. There is nothing remotely romantic about poverty. Please understand that. There is nothing great about it. Allah did not send us into this world to leave this world. Allah sent us into this world to use this world to build our Akhila. So Ramadan Kareem comes to reset our standard. The criterion of what has value and what doesn't have value. When we stay away from even the halal during the hours of daylight, we are emphasizing for ourselves that what makes good and valuable is not the thing itself. But whether it pleases Allah or not. This is the meaning of Udiya. The slave has no will of his own. His will is the will of his Rabb, Jalla Jalaluhu. He wants whatever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants for him. And not only accepts that but is pleased with it. This is the essence of Rida bil Khad

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah. My brothers and sisters, let us put ourselves in the caravan going with Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam for Umrah. He invited us and we knew that the invitation was a result of Wahi. And so we were going with complete belief that we would be able to do Umrah. And then thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that this did not happen. That He saved you and me from this test. Because not only were Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the Sahaba stopped at Hudaybiya, but Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam signed a one-sided treaty and they had to return to Medina without performing Umrah. As we know from the details of the story, the Sahaba were all of them very upset and sad at this unexpected turn of events. Imagine the severity of the spiritual and emotional test they faced. To the extent that even somebody like Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattab radi al-Anu questioned Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam about it. Imagine the severity of this test. Here they were following Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam who they believed in, who had promised them that they would make Umrah, but it turns out that they would not be able to do that. Their desire is pure. What is purer than the desire to worship Allah? What is more pure than the desire to make Umrah? Yet they were stopped by the Horesh and refused entry into Mecca and Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam accepted this and he signed a one-sided treaty. So when Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam ordered the Sahaba to shave their heads and sacrifice the animals, nobody moved. They didn't refuse to obey, but they did not move. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam was shocked. It was the first time it never happened before to him that he'd said something and they did not do it. But he didn't insist or repeat his command out of his mercy for his Ummah, because to deliberately disobey a command of the Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam is Kufr, it takes you out of Islam. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam got up from where he was sitting and went inside his tent. His wife, our mother Ummah Salama nadiya Allah Anha saw his expression and she asked him, Ya Rasulullah what is wrong? He said my Ummah is destroying itself. She said what happened? When he told her, she said Ya Rasulullah this is a very severe test. My advice to you is please go out and do it yourself. Shave your head and sacrifice your animals and inshallah they will follow you. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam took her advice and did that. On a side note, just pause for a moment and think of this beautiful relationship between Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam and his wife. He didn't argue with her, he didn't pull rank on her, he didn't say who is getting vahi, you or me. Right? He didn't do anything. He listened to her and he accepted her advice and he acted on it and so it happened. He came out of his tent and he called Sayyidina Ali bin Avithari, brother Al Anho and asked him to bring the animals to be slaughtered and to shave his blessed head. The Sahaba got up and followed his actions. Nobody argued or dissented with tears flowing down their cheeks. They shaved each other's heads and made their sacrifices. Not even one of them refused to obey Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam. When the Sahaba accepted Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam's decision and returned to Madinah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called it a manifest victory and revealed surah al-fatih. Inna fatahana laka fatham mubeena to the end. The real victory there was the victory over the nafs, over personal desire. In this case the desire was noble and pious. It was not a haram desire. But with Allah, their obedience to him and to the Rasul alaihi sallallahu wasallam was more worthy of reward than their doing umrah. The reward was that though the treaty was for the suspension of hostility for a period of 10 years, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave Muslims Mecca itself in two years. That is why I call surah ad-debiya in my study of the seerah. I call surah ad-debiya the final qualifying exam of the Sahaba. This reiterates the fundamental criteria of right and wrong in Islam that ridha, the pleasure of Allah decides if something is right or wrong. Not the thing itself but whether it pleases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or not. Virtue is to do what Allah wants us to do. Sin is to do the opposite. It's not the action but whether it pleases Allah or not which matters. When the Sahaba followed Rasul Allah sallallahu wa ta'ala despite whatever difficulty or reservations they may have had, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called it a manifest victory and opened Mecca for them. That is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala declared that to obey Rasul Allah sallallahu wa ta'ala is to obey Allah himself. He said, He said whoever obeys the messenger has truly obeyed Allah but whoever turns away then know that we

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, our life is a journey which we hope will end in Jannah inshallah. Our parents, Adham alayhi salam and Hawa alayhi salam, came from Jannah. And when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent them to the earth, He gave them the key to return home. Istighfar, repentance. And they said to Allah, qala rabbana zalamna anfusana wa illam taqfir lana wa tarhamda lana qunanna minal khasireen. They said, O our Lord, we have wronged ourselves. If you do not forgive us and have mercy on us, we will certainly be losers. To make istighfar and ta'wa is to acknowledge that we have a creator, our Lord, Jallah jalaluhu, to accept that we need Him to be pleased, to be pleased with us in all matters, and therefore to humble ourselves before Him and seek His pardon when we make mistakes. This is the key to Jannah, because istighfar and ta'wa, repentance and turning to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, fasta firu summa tubu ilayhi. Make istighfar, repent, and then turn towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Istighfar and ta'wa is the first step to develop taqwa. The mistake that our parents, Adem alayhi salam and Hawa alayhi salam, made was to give precedence to their desire over the will of Allah. They didn't deny Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but in that one instance, they denied the superiority of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's will over their own desire. To give Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's will its true place, as being superior to anything and everything that we may wish for, is the essence of taqwa. I begin with this primordial and fundamental incident because it is such a powerful message for us about where we need to start to return to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It is never too late and never too soon. I remind myself and you to identify the things in our lives that must change and to change them and to turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and seek His forgiveness. Change precedes and is the evidence of the sincerity of seeking forgiveness. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in His great mercy, In the ayat of Surah al-Zumar, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Ya Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, say to them that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, O my slaves who have transgressed against their souls, do not lose hope in the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala certainly forgives all sins. He is indeed the all-forgiving and most merciful. Who other than Allah will call people who have disobeyed Him and angered Him and gone against Him and been rebellious to Him as my slaves? Who other than Allah will do that? When somebody disobeys us, we distance them. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala draws close. This is the mercy of my Lord, may He be exalted. Anas bin Malik in a hadith in Tirumiti, reported that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, O son of Adam, I forgive you if you worship me alone, without partners, and hope for my forgiveness whatever sins you have committed. O son of Adam, I do not care if your sins reach the height of the heavens. Then you ask for my forgiveness and I will forgive you. O son of Adam, if you come to me with an earth full of sins and meet me associating nothing with me, I will match it with an earth full of forgiveness. Alhamdulillah, we have a merciful and forgiving Rabb, Jalla Jalaluhu. Let us return to Him. The blessing of Ramadan is to help us to develop Taqwa, which is the secret to solve all our worldly problems and to become deserving of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's forgiveness. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned the benefit of Taqwa. And He said, وَمَن يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلَّهُ مَا خَرَجَهُ وَيَرْضُقُهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَهْتَسِبُ Allah said, And whoever has Taqwa of Allah, whoever is mindful of Allah, whoever considers the Rida of Allah in every decision, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will make a way out for them from all difficulties and will provide for them from sources they could not imagine. Not only did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promise to help the Muttaqi, but said that He would help them in ways that they could not imagine. Imagine Ibrahim A.S. sitting in the cup of the trebuchet, thrust up in ropes, about to be flung into a huge fire. Ask why he showed no signs of fear or worry. That is the meaning of Taqwa. When a person has Taqwa, he has no will of his own. His will is the will of Allah. He wants whatever his Rabb wants for him. In the case of Ibrahim A.S., when he demonstrated his tawakul, his total reliance on Allah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala directly commanded the fire to become a means of safety for him. Allah said, قُلْنَا يَا نَارَ كُونِ بَرْضًا وَسَلَامًا عَلَى إِبْرَحِيمَ Allah said, we said, we commanded, we ordered and said, oh fire, become cool and be

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, there are three kinds of people in the world. There are people who have experiences. Everyone who lives has an experience, some experience, good, bad or ugly. But there are some people who have experiences and they learn nothing. There are other people who have experiences, they suffer, they get into trouble, they have lost, they have gained and they learn something. There is a third kind of person who learns from the experience of others. So who is the smartest? Last one, right? Learns from the experience of others. The way of learning from the experience of others, there are two ways. One is reading and especially biographies because biographies are real. You know what actually happened to the person, this was a real person, but also other things, histories and so forth. So reading. And the other way, second way is by talking to people, by having friends who are older and wiser than you are. Throughout my childhood and growing up well into college, even now, but my childhood, my mother used to joke and she used to say all your friends are at least 20 years older than you, which was a fact. And I said, Hamdhar is good because how else will I learn? If I am 15 and I am hanging around with a whole bunch of 15 year old people, I am learning nothing. Because there is nothing that they know which I don't know. So what will they teach me? Similarly, I think I mentioned this before in one of the khatras, there is a university in Delhi called Hamdhar University. In Hamdhar University, they have a place where people who are studying for our UPSC, United Public Service Commission exams, which is the IPS, IAS, IFS, Indian Foreign Service, Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, which is the cream of the government bureaucracy, extremely, extremely difficult examinations. They all gathered there together to study. So I was invited to speak at Hamdhar University once I went and then I asked to see this place. When I went to see the place, I saw there was, you know, it was a hostel kind of thing. There were rooms and there was a reading room and the reading room had some books in it. Not a very impressive library, but it was there. So I said, what happens here? Do you have classes and so on? They said, no, we don't have any regular classes. Once in a while we get some IAS officer or somebody who is willing to come and talk to them, he talks to them. So I said, how do you get the results you get? Because they had fantastic results. The people who went to study there, they are among the trappers of the whole exam. So I said, you don't have a particularly impressive library. I'm sorry to say you have you don't have any regular classes and coaching and so on. People come occasionally. How do you get the results? They said, we get the results because of the quality of students who come to study here. Just being in the company of smart people, that's it. Everyone has only one focus in their mind, which is to get into the civil service, nothing else. So they are studying 20 hours out of 24. And there is huge pressure, there's immense peer pressure to study. If you are not studying, they look like you, they look at you as if you are, you know, some creature from outer space. Why do you do? Why are you here? So nobody oversleeps, nobody is fooling around, nothing, because people are completely focused on study. The company you keep is extremely, extremely important in terms of driving your own excellence or the opposite. I want to share three lessons of my life which I learned with, which I learned in my whole life and which I continue to learn, Alhamdulillah. The first lesson is, nobody owes me anything. And I strongly recommend that you think about this for yourself. Nobody owes you anything. Today we have a generation which thinks that the world owes them a living. This didn't happen, that didn't happen. You must hand over this to us. On what basis? On what basis? You know, whatever you did, whatever thing, it was an organization or whatnot, no, hand it over to us. Why would I hand it over to you? Do you think I'm looking like a fool? Why would I hand it over to you? Prove to me that you can run it. Prove to me that you won't ruin it. Yeah? Why will I hand it over to you? So, nobody owes me anything. Now, when you believe that, and that is the truth, whether you believe it or not, nobody owes you anything. But when you do believe that, two other things happen, two good things happen. Number one thing which happens is, then you realize that anything I want, I have to pay for. Payment is not always money. It's money, but more than likely it is effort, time, relationships, you know, all of that. So, I can have anything I want as long as I can pay for it. Nobody owes me anything. Nobody will give me anything. But I can have whatever I want as long as I am prepared to invest in myself, not anybody else. I wa

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatuhu wa Salamu Alaa Asharafil Anbiya'i wal Mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa Alaa Alihi wa Sahbihi wa Sallamu Al Jaseeman Katheeran Katheeraan. Fama Badhu. My brothers and sisters, I want to begin by once more congratulating our brother Conor for becoming a Muslim today. He gave me the honor of having Iftar with me and we were sitting in my room, there's the two of us, and eating our food. When he said to me, I wish I was born a Muslim. We talked about how he came to Islam and so on. And he said, I wish I was born a Muslim. And spontaneously a thought came into my heart and that thought was, I wish I were accepting Islam today. Wallahi. I wish I was born a Muslim. My family for at least a thousand years have been Muslim. Traceable. But I said that I wish I was accepting Islam today, now. And the reason is that he accepted Islam and right now, this is the purest person among all of us. The only one who has zero sins, insha'Allah with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the only one whose, whose amal, his book of deeds is absolutely pure as the day he was born, is this man here. So I said, I wish I was born a Muslim. So the first thing, then the thought came to me again, Wallaha, I'm not claiming to get Wahi or something, naul billah. But the thought came to me was, what prevents you from accepting Islam today? Who said I cannot accept Islam today? So I'm going to do that now, loudly and clearly, before all of you, whoever wants to join me, join me. And then we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to count us from today as Muslims, meaning wipe out all our sins, whatever we did till today. From today we are newly born, insha'Allah. Ashadu an la ilaha illallah, wa ashadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah. Wallaha, I bear witness that there is nobody worthy of worship except you. And I bear witness that Muhammadan rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam is your rasul and the last and final of them after whom there is no other. This is the wealth of Islam. What is the value of that? And Conor said to me, so what is your advice to me as a new Muslim? Alhamdulillah, today all of us right now are new Muslims, insha'Allah. He said, what is your advice to me as a new Muslim? And I said to him, because before that we had a conversation about his education in Amherst College. And he said how he was studying religion and different religions. And he made a very beautiful statement which stuck in my mind and heart. He said the problem with approaching religion from an intellectual perspective is that it takes the belief out of religion. It takes the religion out of religion. It became extremely academic. And the thought to me was, if I were to say Muslims believe that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. See the statement, Muslims believe that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. This is one statement. And the second statement is, there is no one worthy of belief, worthy of worship except Allah. Is there a difference between the two statements? The difference between the heavens and the earth, right? One is Muslims believe there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. And the second statement is, there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. There is a world of difference because one is coming out of the heart out of belief. The other one is an intellectual state, Muslims believe this. So I said to him that the advice I give him and the same advice I give myself is, leave the intellectual piece out of it. Know Allah. Know Allah. Because if you look at Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala from an intellectual perspective, you can only define Allah in terms of what He is not. He has no shape. He has no form. He is unlike anything. He is not. He is not. He is not. What is He? What is He? So the way to describe Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is in two ways. One is to look at how He described Himself. Who did Allah say He was? Allah is the only God, the only living, the only standing. To the end of the verse. I am shortening because of the khatira. Say, He is Allah, the one. To the end of the surah. He is Allah, the one, who has no divinity but He. Knower of the unseen and the witnessed. He is the Most Merciful, the Most Merciful. To the end. To the last of those verses of Surah al-Hashr. And many other places. Who did Allah say He was? Who is He? Read that. And then reflect on the creation of the earth and the heavens and the earth. Inna fi khalqi samawati wal ardi waqtila fi layli wa annahari la ayatil li ulil al-bab. Allah said truly in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and the night are signs for people of intelligence. Ask yourself a simple question. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala created the earth and He created gravity. And He tilted the earth at an angle of 23.5 degrees exact. If the axis of the earth was not tilted at 23.5 degrees,

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, ideology can be combated only with ideology. Since we have a lot of my brothers and sisters from Egypt, Egypt for centuries was an idol worshiping society, just like India and unlike the Quraysh in Arabia. Unlike because in India and Egypt, idol worship was developed to a point where there was an elaborate mythology. There were gods and goddesses, there were priests for each class, and there was an entire hierarchy of priests. There were stories, there were books, there were teaching schools. With the atoms, that was not the case. They used to worship idols, but for them the very famous story of Sayyidna Yawar Malik Khattar Wodeelanui, he said, I didn't have an idol, so I took some dates, I made the idol, I worshipped it, I got hungry, I ate the idol. No, Hindu does that. No Egyptian did that. So, there was a big difference. Now, what happened to Egyptian idol worship and the Egyptian religious? Where is it? Today, it's a tourism thing, right? You go and see the temples. I remember I went, and as I went in a boat, as we got off the boat, there was this guy there, he's telling me, Shaif, this is the god of fire, and this is the god of, I said, what? Then he suddenly looked at me, said, no, no, it's not philosophy. No, no, I didn't mean that. So, but he got used to that. That's what he got used to telling the tourist guy, to telling tourists. So, he's telling me, the god of this, god of this, god of this. I said, excuse me, you are a Muslim, don't talk like this. I mean, just say it what it is. Point I'm making here is ideology is defeated only by ideology. It was not the army of Amar-e-Malik, the last Wodeelanui, which conquered Egypt, it was the ideology of Islam which conquered Egypt. To the extent where the Egyptians today, they speak Arabic, it's not their language. The language of Egypt is not Arabic, but today they speak Arabic, and today they worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Alhamdulillah. Some of the best, Allah has given different things to different people of this religion. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave the voice to Egypt. The Korah are from Egypt, subhanAllah. The Muhaddithun are from my country, from India and Pakistan, that area. Great Muhaddithin, and so forth. So, ideology. The reason I'm saying this and I'm giving you this example is, today's ideology, and this is a global ideology, America is the, is the markers of this, but it's a global ideology. And that ideology is the ideology of commercialism. Do this as an experiment. Randomly ask any group of people to name for you three role models, three icons. I will guarantee you, they will name for you three businessmen. And also I will guarantee you, they will be three white men, right. Try this. In your college, may ask, ask students. Three, I did this in our masjid, and we had the same, same, same story. I told, this is a masjid for God's sake. Nobody says Abubakar and Omar and Osman and Hali, Radhe-i-al-anum, Ajmaeen. Nobody, Jeb Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett. Why? Think about this. Forget about the Islamic great people and, and so forth. Leave that. How come they don't name three scientists? How come they don't name three musicians, right? I'm not talking about music, ha-la-ha. I'm saying in this country and in this world, music is, how come they don't name three musicians? How come they don't make, they don't name three film, filmmakers? Steven Spielberg, they know, they see the films, they'll never, they'll never mention his name as an icon. How come they don't mention anybody except three business people? Because this is the ideology. This is the ideology. Take yourself back in the time of the Sahaba, Ridwanullah-i-Alaihi-majmaeen. Ask people to name three icons. Who would they have named? Even though Abdurahman-i-Minaf, Radhe-i-al-anum was one of the biggest, wealthiest businessmen in history, even though Osman-i-Minafman, Radhe-i-al-anum was one of the biggest and, and, and most wealthy businessmen, even if they named them, which itself I would have doubt, they would have, there are other people they would have named, but even if they named them, it would not be because they were businessmen, they had money. They would be for their piety, for their commitment to Islam, for their, for their, you know, issue as, as people in Islam, not because of business, not because of money, because the ideology was different. Today's ideology is commercialism. Now commercialism, you might say, well, so what's so bad about the ideology? I'll tell you what's bad about the ideology. And that will also explain to you why people seem to be against Islam. They're not against Islam. There's another, another big thing, you know, people are, they're not against Islam. They are against that part of Islamic ideology which I

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honor of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions and companions. Peace and blessings be upon him. Remember, my brothers and sisters, 1997, I was the year when I first, for the first time in my life, I bathed the body of somebody who had died. There was a call to our Masjid here, to ISWM, from the wife of the person who died. The wife was Christian, and she called and said that, I think my husband was Muslim, and he has died, and can you take care of the burial and all that. Sheikh Wissam was here, he was the Sheikh. I was also here at that time. It's a long story, I won't go into that story. But I did the Ossal of the body. I'd never done it before. And there was this body. And when I went there, I almost said, excuse me, can I touch your, can I wash you? Can I touch you? I almost said that. Because all I could see was this person was like he was sleeping. And I had to tell myself that he is dead. And I reflected on this a long time. And I said, what was missing? What was missing? Because the body was there, the eyes and ears and nose and hands and feet, everything was perfect. But something was missing, because of which he needed me to give him Ossal. He wouldn't bury himself. And that thing was the spirit, was the Roh. When the Roh left the body, the body is as it was. If you look at the body, there is no change in the body, in the structure of the body, in how it looks or anything else. Immediately after the person dies, it's still the same thing. But something from inside has gone. And that inside, the thing which left from inside is the soul, it is the Roh, it is the spirit, which gave it life. If you were sleeping in the bush somewhere, I mean I've done that for years, I still do it. There will be ants and so on. They won't bite you. They won't start eating your flesh. But leave a dead body. The Roh has gone. The reason I'm saying that is, just as the Roh gives life to a human being, the Masjid gives life to the community. This Masjid is the Roh, it is the soul of the community. If this Masjid is not there tomorrow, we'll protect the Masjid and keep it. But if the Masjid is not there tomorrow, your houses won't change, your house won't fall down, your car won't stop starting in the morning, nothing will happen. Your jobs will be there, your businesses will be there, your children will still go to school, you will still have things to do, you will feel hungry, you will eat your food. But you will be dead. The community will be dead. Because the connection with Allah is gone. The place where the Malaika used to come is gone. The place where the Rizq used to descend and then be distributed is gone. The place where the name of Allah SWT was glorified and called in the Adhan five times a day is gone. The place where Allah SWT was glorified and praised and thanked in Salah five times a day is gone. The place where like now we are sitting in Tarawih, may Allah bless the Sheikh, and give him strength and make the Quran firm in his heart and in his life, that place will not be there anymore. You will still pray in your house, I don't deny that. But you know and I know. Me praying alone in my house and me praying in the congregation with the Jama'at is a world of difference. Is a world of difference. The Masjid is a soul. And that is the reason why Rasulullah SAW, when he came to Madinah, the first thing he did was what? Build the Masjid. His whole life was unusual. It's not one thing. His whole life was unusual. He did things like nobody else in the world did. Anyone goes to some place, to a new place, you have moved there, the first thing you look for is what? Your house. I should have some accommodation. Can I rent a place? Can I buy a place? Can I build a place? Can I do something? And then I will do whatever I want. I will do whatever I want. I will do whatever I want. I will do whatever else I have to do. But I have to help myself, I have to help my family. Not the prophet Ali, Isra, Tosaran. First thing he does is he builds the Masjid. He stayed as the guest of Avaayuva Lansari, Radhiala Anu. He was also related to him but he was one of his closest companions, one of the closest sahibah. He stayed as his guest in his house and only when the Masjid was built and then his house was built, then he moved. Because without the soul, what is the body? How will you have a community, there is no Masjid. So when you support the Masjid and remember the support of the Masjid is not only donating money. Money is important because somebody has to pay the bill, right? You have to pay the bill, there is some maintenance and so on, you have to do that, all of this stuff has to be done.