Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

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.

Auto-generated transcript:There is another Dua of Rasulullah which is mentioned in Baqariya Muslim. It is a Muslim's declaration to turn to Allah SWT in every matter and to take care about His pleasure and His orders regarding every action. It is also a declaration to be friends for the sake of Allah and to show enmity towards people for Him alone. May Allah SWT give every Muslim the ability to do this Dua and to act according to the declaration that He makes through it. Ibn Abbas narrates that Rasulullah used to make this Dua. O Allah, to You I submit. In You I have faith, I affirm my faith. In You I repose my trust. To You I turn in repentance and with Your help I contend and deal with my adversaries and enemies. And from You I seek judgment. O Allah, grant me forgiveness for the faults which I made, for the sins which I made in the past and those I may commit in the future, those which I committed secretly or openly. You alone send whomever You wish to Jannah and You alone send whomever You wish to the hellfire. There is nobody worthy of worship except You. Another narration is the additional line, There is no strength to resist evil and no power to do good except through Allah. Now see this very comprehensive Dua. This is the nature of the Dua of Rasulullah. They are so beautiful and so comprehensive. Where Allah SWT is saying, I accept Ya Rabb, I submit to You. It starts with Islam, I submit to You and then Iman. And then the result of submitting to Allah SWT and having Iman is Tawakkut, is total reliance on Allah SWT for everything. And to You I completely trust and Tawakkut, total reliance on You. And I turn to You in repentance. I ask You for Your Seek of forgiveness. And Your help in contending with my adversaries, Your help in fighting my enemies. And Your judgment I seek. O Allah, grant me forgiveness. Now think about this, Nabi SAW is asking for forgiveness. He was sinless, Allah had already forgiven him. All of this is to teach us the importance of submission. Even though he was sinless, even though Allah SWT declared in the Quran that I have forgiven you, all that in the past and in the future, He would still make this Dua with complete and total sincerity because we never take any of the Niyamat, any of the blessings of Allah SWT for granted. When Allah says I have forgiven you, still we beg forgiveness because it is not about Allah, it is about us. Because we are the ones who have sinned, we are the ones who need the forgiveness of Allah SWT. Therefore, we ask Allah for this most sincerely and with as much humility and humbleness that we can possibly bring to bear. Then another beautiful hadith in Abu Dawud and Dharmadi, Aisha R.A. She said the Nabi SAW is to say Allahumma inni awzbika min fitnatin naar wa adhabin naar wa min sharil ghina wal faq. O Allah, I seek refuge in You, protection in You from the trials and torment to the fire and from the evils of wealth and poverty. See the important thing to understand here, in today's world we take wealth as a blessing straight away. As long as I have money, everything is. But Allah SWT did not say that. Allah said we will test you with wealth and with poverty. Both are tests and they are different kinds of tests. So at Suharnada between wealth and poverty, probably wealth is a bigger test because wealth opens doors. Wealth opens the doors of and for evil. So it is where poverty, because you don't have the money, you can't afford to commit some sins at least. But people who have money, the doors are open. Also wealth brings with it pride and brings with it takabur and arrogance, all of which are terrible, terrible evils. So the evils of wealth, they signify, and this is in the commentary in Rav Sadaheen, the evils of wealth signify that one becomes so captivated by wealth that in his struggle to acquire it, he fails to discriminate between lawful and unlawful. How true is this? Any means? Halal means haram means? No, in Islam the means and the end are both very, very important. Or one may become proud and arrogant on account of their riches. We see it all the time. May Allah have mercy on us. Let us not be among those. The evils of poverty are that one loses hope of Allah's mercy and compassion, or shows resentment against his faith and the will of Allah, or deviates from the principles and requirements of integrity and honesty, meaning people start stealing and so on, which is not a, which is a terrible thing, or beg, beg others instead of submitting to Allah, you bow before other people because of money. So it's very important to ask, make all these, make all these duas that that Allah swt should keep us always in safety and keep us away from all forms of evil and give us blessings with afya. That's why this the whole dua of Allah, may Allah bless us with his blessings. We ask Allah for afya, for safety and the safety includes being protected from disobeying Allah swt. In all, in every, in everything. We want

Auto-generated transcript:We will take from what our Sheikh said just now with regard to what not to do. And therefore in those terms what we should do is to make istighfar on tawa. And the reason I say that is because talking about Lailatul Qadr as we heard on the first day, our mother Sayyidina Ayesha Siddiqa asked Rasulullah A.S.W. She said, Ya Rasulullah, if I find Lailatul Qadr, what should I ask Allah SWT for? What dua should I make? And we all know the dua which Rasulullah A.S.W. taught her. Beautiful dua, very small dua. Allahumma innaka afuun, tohibbul afu, fa'fani. O Allah, You are the one who forgives and You love to forgive, so forgive me. See the beauty of this dua, see the level of humility that the Prophet A.S.W. is teaching us. She is not saying, forgive me because I should be forgiven, forgive me because I am making dua, forgive me because I have repented. No, she says forgive me to please yourself. You are the forgiver, you like to forgive, so do what you like to do. In that process I get forgiven. So let us seek forgiveness. The very first thing that happened when Allah SWT created Adam A.S.W. was the whole conversation which happened. Allah SWT commanded the angels to prostrate to Adam A.S.W. to make sajda to Adam A.S.W. And Iblis was not an angel, he was from the jinn, he was there with them. And he was there with the angels because of the level of his worship of Allah SWT and so on, which raised him in status to the state where even though he was not an angel, he was in the company of angels. But when it came to this haqam, he refused. And the reason he gave, Allah SWT said, why did you refuse to do sajda to the one I created with my hands? And what is the reason he gave? He said, ana khairu minu, khalaqtani min naar, wa khalaqtau min teen. He said, I am superior to him, I am better than him. You made me with fire and you made him with clay. Racial superiority, racial discrimination is the original sin. My race is superior to that race. I am better than him, not because of virtue, not because of accomplishment, not even because of my ibadah. No, racially I am superior. I am created with something which is superior to that one. Innaar illayi wa innaar awadil. And then sometime later, Adam alaihi salam and our mother Hawa alaihi salam also made a mistake. They also committed a sin. And it is the beauty of Islam that Islam does not say that Hawa alaihi salam committed the sin and then she tempted Adam to do it. No, they both committed the sin. They are both equally responsible. She is not responsible for him and he is not responsible for her. The equality between men and women starts from there. And that is the reason why when they make the tawbah istighfar, what do they say? Rabbana zalamna anfusana. Together. Fa illam takhfir lana. Wa tarhamna lanakoonanam ila al-khasireen. Adam alaihi salam does not say, Allah forgive me and my wife. No, he says both of us have committed the mistake. We are both equally guilty. Forgive us both. And if you don't forgive us and if you don't have mercy on us, both of us will be losers. So two entities, our mother and father Adam alaihi salam and Hawa alaihi salam and Iblis, both of them, they committed a sin each. The difference was their attitude towards that after that committing of the sin. In the case of Iblis, even though he did whatever he could have said at that time, Yallah, I am very sorry. I did not know. I was, I am sorry. I made a mistake. I should have obeyed you. I did not obey. Please forgive me. He did not say that. He first justified his action. He said, I am right. You are wrong. You are wrong. Your, your hookah is wrong. Your order is wrong. How can you tell me even though I am superior to make sajdah to him who is inferior? So first he justifies himself and by, by inference he is saying Allah is wrong. And on top of that, he says, an tilni ila yam yubatun. Give me time until the last day. And then the rest of it, I will misguide them. I will do this. I will do all that. Whereas in the case of Adam alayhi as-salam, Muhammad alayhi as-salam, immediately as soon as they realize their mistake, Allah forgive us. Allah forgive me. I made a mistake. I am very sorry. Please forgive us. Have mercy on us. And when people do this, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, When people are repentant, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Oh my slaves, do not lose hope. Oh my slaves who have committed transgressions against themselves. Because when we commit sin, we are not harming Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We are harming ourselves. We are harming ourselves. We are destroying our own lives. We are destroying our own lives in this dhuriya and we are destroying our own life in the akhirah. When we are cruel, when we are unkind, when we are, when we commit some sin, when you drink alcohol or you fornicate or you lie, you cheat, you do all this stuff, who does it harm? Who does it harm? It does not even harm most of us except for some thi

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, tell me what is the number one important thing for you now? Which is your highest priority? Quickly, anybody? Allah, and prayer? Don't give me a sun-tis-ul-ansar. What is actually your highest priority? Prayer. 100%. Okay, Alhamdulillah, good for you. Anybody else? The Quran, highest priority, 100%. How much of it do you know? One Juz, billion. Highest priority, anybody else? You want to go to Jannah? You have to die first, right? So you are telling me here, and I am seeing the majority of you are college university students, that your university is not important for you, your degree you are working for is not important for you, your careers are not important for you, Allah is important for you, the Quran is important for you, Jannah is important for you. Is this true? If it is true, Alhamdulillah, I am not arguing. If it is true, you are inshallah among the awliya of Allah. But if it is not true, you are lying to yourself. And that is the worst kind of lying. Right? The reason I am asking this is, Allah swt tells us the story of a young boy. And my guess is, in that story Allah does not tell us the age of the boy, but my guess is that this little boy was maybe 10 years old, 10 years, 11 years old or something. And this boy is talking to Allah. He is having a normal conversation with Allah. And from the tone of the conversation it seems that this is not the first time he is doing it. He is not doing it because he is stuck in some trouble, he is asking for help. He is not doing it for... He is a normal, that is how he is. You talk to your friends, you talk to Allah. What is the conversation anybody? Allah swt says, Ibrahim said, Rabbi arini kaifa tuheel mawta. He said, Oh my Rabb, show me how do you bring back somebody to life after they have died? And I say this as a normal conversation because the response to that question is so beautiful and it illustrates a very close relationship which illustrates the fact that this is not the first time this kind of conversation is happening between these two. He says, Rabbi arini kaifa tuheel mawta. He says, Oh my Rabb, show me, can you show me how you bring back to life something which is dead after you have taken the life? So normally what should happen? Allah should say this is how I do it, right? Show it or explain it. But what is the answer? What is Allah saying? You don't know, you don't believe that? You don't believe that? What kind of question is that? From you? All the people, you are asking me this question? What is his answer? He said, of course I believe it. But for the ithbaran of my kalb, show me. So what does Allah do? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not say, okay, here is a chicken, dead chicken, live chicken, I saw how it's happening. No. Allah gave him a whole project. Allah says to him, get four birds. Imagine, Imam Ali sahab is living in an agrarian society. They have cattle, they have poultry. Allah did not say catch a duck, catch a turkey, no. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says find four birds. Raise them, tame them so that they come to you when you call them. He didn't say catch the birds, put them in cages, no. Just think about that. You know what that means? It means that you first of all have to find four different birds. So he is not saying four sparrows, no. Four different birds. Maybe one of them is a bird of prey, an eagle or a falcon or something. Maybe one of them is some other kind of pisarian bird or you know. If you want to tame a wild bird and have it come to you free flying, no cage, have it come to you when you call it, you have to get that bird at the exact time after it has hatched, before it starts flying. If you get it too young, it will die. You can't, you can't, it won't survive because it eats special food that comes out of the crop of the mother. If you wait too long and it gets its feathers, it will not tame. Exact time. Now you know and I know that different birds have different gestation periods for their eggs. So some birds hatch in 15 days, some birds hatch in 20 days. So four different birds. Then what do you feed them? A sparrow doesn't eat the same thing as an eagle. So Ibrahim Aleyhissalam is being given his entire project and of course Allah SWT then gives him, because there is no, he can't go to YouTube and say how do I feed sparrows, no. So Allah is giving him also now, imagine the kind of wild that he must be getting, how to catch sparrows. So Ibrahim Aleyhissalam now, the little boy is given a project where he has to go find different, four different birds, wild birds, feed them, tame them and they come to him. And then Allah SWT says then slaughter them, chop them up and then take from this whole chopped up, means wheat, separate it into parts and put it on different mountain tops. We don't know how many mountain tops. So Allah is making this thing as complicated as possible, right? And then A

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Salatuhu wa Salamu Alaa Isharafil Anbiya wal Musareen Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa Alaa Alihi wa Sahbihi wa Sallam. Tasliman kathir an kathirahu. Fama baadu. For those of you who remember our sheikh in the second rakat of Salatul Isha, he recited the ayah Inna Allaha Ma'a Allatheena Taqaw Wa Allatheena Hum Muhsinu He said, verily Allah is with the people of Taqwa and the people who do Ihsan. I remind myself and you that we are facing a world which seems to be getting more and more difficult every day. And Muslims seem to be at the epicenter of this. They seem to be the target of anyone who is interested in taking pot shots at them. And naturally we try to find solutions and we have strategies and we say take the advice of this one or that one or the other one and so on and so forth. But I ask you and myself how many of us remember that the help lies with Allah. Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala told us who He will help. Inna Allaha Ma'a Allatheena Taqaw Wa Allatheena Hum Muhsinu Verily Allah is with those who have Taqwa and those who have do Ihsan. Both these words are related to action. Taqwa is to have Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala's pleasure and His approval as the sole criterion for every decision and every action. A person who is concerned about Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala's pleasure in every decision, every action. So we need to look at ourselves in our lives. And if I say I am a person of Taqwa, then I must see how do I behave? How do I treat others? What is my income? What do I eat? Where do I spend? Right? This is not a mystery. There are metrics for every one of these. These are real hard core data. It's not a matter of opinion. I think I am a Muttakhi. I think so and so is a Muttakhi, you know. Nothing to think. You can see it, you can measure it. And Ihsan is to go beyond the Taqwa. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, the Rasul of Allah peace be upon him, described Ihsan. In the famous Hadith of Jibreel, Jibreel asked him, What is Ihsan? What is Ihsan Ya Rasulullah? And Rasulullah said, An ta'bud Allah ka anna ka tara Fa illan ta kun tara fa inna hu ya rak He said Ihsan is to worship Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala as if you can see him. To have such an amazing sense of the presence of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala in our lives that we worship Allah as if we can see him. And though we don't see him, we know that he is seeing us. And of course as you and I know, Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam always gave answers where he used the Salah as an example to illustrate everything else in life. So to worship Allah as if you can see him. To do business as if Allah is sitting there in front of you. To talk to people as if Allah is standing right there and you are doing it in His presence. To drive your car, to park your car, you put your shoes in when you come into the Masjid. To how you use the bathroom, the toilet, everything as if Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is right there. And though we don't see him, we know that he sees us. Question is are we there? You might say well nobody is there, sure. Are we making an effort? Are we trying even? Because the acceptance of Dua is based on this. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said, Istainu sabri wa salaah. Salah bil mani, Salah as in the worship as well as Salah as in the meaning of Dua. Istainu sabri wa salaah. Sabar is to not just have patience as you just sit there and wait for things to happen, no. Sabar is to do your best. Make every effort to succeed and then turn to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and make Dua. And ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. The finest example, the finest tafsir of this ayah is Istainu sabri wa salaah. Ya yaw lidhina amanu istainu sabri wa salaah. The finest tafsir of this is in the life of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam before the battle of Badr where he is standing and he is begging his Rabb Jalla Jalaluhu. And he is not doing that sitting in Masjid al-Nabiway Sharif. He is doing it on the battlefront. He is doing it after making whatever arrangements and whatever strategies and whatever deployments that were in his power to make. Having done all that, only then does he stand in salaah. Only then does he make Dua. And he says, Ya Rabb, it is in your hands. If these perish, there will be no one to worship you on the face of the earth. And we know what happened. Allah swt has said, We sent angels to help you. We sent a thousand angels to help you. Just think about this. Why do you need a thousand angels? Why? You know why I am asking you that? Because how many angels is it going to take to finish everything in creation? One. And that angel is not making any great effort. He will just go, gone. One blow of the trumpet, everything is ended. So when only one angel is enough to finish everything in creation, by the power of Allah, why is Allah sending one thousand angels? This is the

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, we ask Allah SWT for His help in everything. And one of the greatest helps of Allah SWT comes from dua as we have been saying. Dua is the essence and the brain of worship. Dua is worship itself and therefore just making dua itself is rewardable before Allah SWT. Allah rewards us for making dua itself and then of course we ask Allah to give us what we ask for with khair and afiyah because only Allah SWT knows in what there is blessing and what there is no blessing. Shekhar bin Humayr reported, he said, I asked Rasulullah SAW, Ya Rasulullah SAW teach me dua and he said, And this is in Abu Dawud and Thirmidhi. The evils of my seeing, the evils of my tongue of speaking, the evils of my heart and the evils of passions. Now all this refers to the ways in which we disobey Allah SWT with these faculties and these strengths that He has given us. The evil of or evil or mischief of the ears lies in listening to lies and and calumnies and backbiting and slander and forbidden things like music and so on. Or closing the ears to the truth, ignoring the truth. Mischief of the eyes lies in finding faults with people, looking at what is forbidden to look at, pornography and so on. And ignoring the signs of Allah SWT scattered everywhere in the universe. We walk through life as if we are blind. The mischief of the heart lies in occupying one's heart with the love of anyone else other than Allah. Especially those that Allah has prohibited us to have love for. Money, semen is you know what semen is. Now the reason why it says evil of the semen meaning the mischief that comes from using the sexual organs in a sinful act. So all forms of extra marital and pre marital sex in Islam is haram. It's prohibited and that's what we're asking Allah SWT to protect us from. So one is advised to safeguard one's eyes, ears, heart, sexual organs and all the organs. And to protect the body against their improper use in order to gain the praise of Allah. Because all of this we will be accountable for them. And Allah said to us about that day, Allah will seal the lips, the tongue. And the hands and feet will speak. Allah said on that day Allah will seal the mouth and the hands and feet will talk. And they will say what you did and they will say where you took them to. We ask Allah SWT to save us from ourselves more than anything else. Another beautiful and very powerful dua is a man called Ali. And Ali reported this. He said a slave who had made a contract with his master to pay for his freedom. He came to me and he said I am unable to fulfill my obligation. He told his master he will pay him so much to free him but he wasn't able to make the money. So he said I will pay him so much to free him. So he said I am unable to fulfill my obligation to help me. And Ali said to him, shall I not teach you a dua which Rasulullah SWT taught me. It will surely prove so effective that if you have a debt as large as a huge mountain, Allah will surely pay it for you. He said say Allahumma kfini bi halalika an haraamik wa aghneeni bi fadlika. He said say Allahumma kfini bi halalika an haraamik wa aghneeni bi fadlika aman siwak. Allahumma kfini bi halalika an haraamik wa aghneeni bi fadlika aman siwak. O Allah grant me enough for what you make lawful so that I may dispense with what you make unlawful. Make me free from using anything which is unlawful. And enable me by your grace to dispense with all what you. Right? Allahumma kfini bi halalika an haraamik wa aghneeni bi fadlika aman siwak. O Allah grant me enough for what you make lawful of the halal so that I can dispense with the haraam. I don't have to use the haraam. Remove this from me. And enable me by your grace bi fadlika aman siwak to rely only on you, to dispense with all but you. Now it's very important this dua if you recite and they recommend you to recite this in the morning after Salatul Fajar and in the evening after Salatul Maghrib. But Alhamdulillah any dua can be recited at any time. But if you recite this dua inshallah Allah will keep us free from all forms of debt. And this is one of the biggest evils and one of the most stressful things in life is debt. And anyone who has debt and anyone who is also a, also the, you know, who has some self respect will be somebody who stays far away from debt. Because if you really intend to pay the debt then there's no way it cannot stress you. And if you don't intend to pay the debt then there's a problem with your integrity. So it's something which is, you know, may Allah protect us, which can earn the punishment of Allah SWT. So very important for us to keep this in mind and make sure that stay out of debt. Don't borrow, stay within your means and differentiate between wants, desires and needs. If you stay within the needs you don't have to worry. Needs are easily satisfied but wants, desires are never satisfied. They're not even

Auto-generated transcript:As-Sulillah Al-A'laman Al-Reheem. Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salat wa Salamu Alaa Sherafi Al-Anbiyaib Al-Mursaleen Muhammad Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman Kaseeraan Kaseeraan. Muhammad Bahu, my brothers and sisters, one of the most beautiful duas which we all know and which we do is the one that Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam taught to Abu Bakr Siddiq. Abu Bakr Siddiq reported, I requested Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam to teach me a dua which I could recite in my salaam. Thereupon he said, Allahumma Inni Zalamtu Nafsi Zulman Kaseeraan, Wala Yaghfiru Zunuba Illa Anta, Faghfir Li Maghfiratan Min Indik, Wa Arhamni Innaka Anta Al-Ghfuru Al-Rahim. Allahumma Inni Zalamtu Nafsi Zulman Kaseeraan, Wala Yaghfiru Zunuba Illa Anta, Faghfir Li Maghfiratan Min Indik, Wa Arhamni Innaka Anta Al-Ghfuru Al-Rahim. Allah, I have wronged myself a great deal. Inni Zalamtu Nafsi Zulman Kaseeraan, I have wronged myself a great deal. There is none to forgive sins but you. So grant me pardon and have mercy on me. You are the most forgiving, the most compassionate. And this is in Bukhari-e-Muslim. Now think about that. The commentary, Imam Nawir Ahmadul Aliyyat says it is desirable to recite this Dua in Salah after the Shahud and before the Salim, before Salah. One can recite it at all other times also. Now the point here is this Dua is being taught to Abu Bakr Siddhi Sadalan whose Salah was at a level where people used to see him pray and they would come to Islam. This was the complaint within courts made by the Quresh about Abu Bakr Siddhi Sadalan. This was the reason why they put a condition. As you know the story from the Seerah, Abu Bakr Siddhi Sadalan was leaving and going away from Mecca because of the persecution of the Quresh. And one of the chiefs of the tribes, he came there and he saw him going. So he asked him where he was going. Abu Bakr Siddhi Sadalan told him, he said, no, no, this is not right. You can't leave here and go. How can you have Mecca without Abu Bakr? So I will give you protection. He called his sons and his sons that he put on their armor, they came to Mecca. They met the half of the Kaaba and he announced and said Abu Bakr is under my protection. So Abu Jahl said to him, we accept your protection, but on condition. The condition is that Abu Bakr must pray inside his house. He must not pray where anyone can see him. Now see the peculiar condition. What does it matter if somebody is praying, whether anybody sees them or not? Obviously it mattered. So the man asked the question, this man said, well, what kind of a condition is this? Why does it matter to you whether he is praying outside or inside? They said no, because when he prays in a place where people can see him, people are, our people are becoming Muslim. His prayer is so impressive and so effective that people are accepting Islam. We don't want this to happen. So let him pray inside. Abu Qasid Al-Hadilano agreed and he prayed inside his house for two or three days and after that he came outside again. He was praying in the courtyard of his house and the Meccans, the Khurais, Abu Jahl and others, they complained to this, to the man who gave him protection. The man said, look, I can't give you protection because this is the condition under which I give you protection and if you don't follow those rules, I can't give you protection. Abu Qasid Al-Hadilano said, JazakAllah, thank you for your protection. I don't need it anymore. Alhamdulillah, Allah is enough for me. Now point being, somebody whose salah is so good, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is teaching him, make this dua, Allahumma inni zalam tu nafsi zulman kaseera. When is this being made? At the end of the salah. At the end of salah of such beauty and such power, of such sincerity inshallah. What does it tell us? It tells us that when we do something good and we do something for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it is part of the adab that we owe to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that we don't take it for granted that this will be accepted by Allah. Allah does not have to accept anything. Number one. Number two, no matter who it is, no matter who it is, nobody can ever worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as he deserves to be worshipped. No one can worship him as he deserves to be worshipped. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's, what the level of worship, the level of sincerity, the level of perfection that is suitable to him is in keeping with his majesty and grace. There is no creature, whether it's a human or any other kind of creature, that can say that I worship Allah equal to how he deserves it at that level. Say, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam did not even say it about himself. So therefore, to go to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with our gift of ibadah as a supplicant goes to beg for charity. We don't go with the up

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, the Dua'as of Rasulullah are the most comprehensive, the most beautiful, the most complete in the fewest possible words that you can imagine. And we ask Allah SWT to accept those Dua'as from us the way He accepted it from His Habib Sallallahu Alayhi wa'ala Alihi wasallam. Among those Dua'as is one which is narrated by Anas bin Malik Adyalanu. Even the debt of gratitude that we owe to the Sahaba, without whose keen observation and without whose assiduous and persistent and very sincere preservation of the words of the Rasulullah SAW, we would not have any of these beautiful Dua'as preserved for us. We ask Allah SWT to reward the Sahaba in keeping with His Majesty and Grace. The entire Ummah of Muhammad SAW owes a huge debt of gratitude to all the Sahaba of Rasulullah SAW. So, Anas bin Malik Adyalanu who spent the entire period that Rasulullah SAW stayed in Medina with him, the whole 10 years, and he was with him from the time he himself was say about 10 years old to the time he was 20. He literally grew up in the house of Rasulullah SAW. He is one of his closest companions, one of his favorite Sahaba, a man who learned the Deen at the feet of Rasulullah SAW by literally living with him. Imagine if you talk about the benefit of Suhbah, the benefit of the companionship of the Rasulullah SAW, the people like Anas bin Malik, people like Abdullah ibn Abbas, who literally grew up in the house of Rasulullah SAW. Zayd bin Haritha Adyalanu, Usama bin Zayd Adyalanu, who literally grew up in the house of Rasulullah SAW and they saw him day and night and they were in his company day and night and they listened to him. And imagine these are not kids who are being bratish and stuff. They were very deeply conscious of the fact of whose company they were in, whose house they were in. They were hugely respectful. They had the essence of adab. They were very thoughtful and they were so conscious of the wealth that Allah had given them by the company of Rasulullah SAW. There is this famous story of Abdullah ibn Abbas who said that he saw Rasulullah SAW waking up for Tahajjud. What does it mean he saw him? It means that he was already awake. This is a little kid, he is maybe 10-11 years old. He was already awake. Why was he awake? Because he knew where he was, he knew in whose presence he was. So he said he saw the Ravi Alayhi Salaam wake up, so he ran to get water for Uduh and he poured the water when he made Uduh and Rasulullah SAW when he finished his Uduh, he put his hand on his blessed hand on the chest of Abdullah ibn Abbas, Radyalanu and he said, O Allah, give him the Fiqh of the Quran, give him the understanding of the Quran. Right? This is the dua being done for a little kid, 10-11 year old kid. But why is it being done? Because it is not just a kid. This 10-11 year old kid emotionally is at the level of adulthood. This kid is somebody who knows who he is with. He is not thinking, oh, this is my cousin. No, this is the Rasulullah SAW. This is the whole benefit of adab, which is so, so critically important. Anas bin Malik Radyalanu was also another one like this. His mother who brought him and gave him to the Ravi Alayhi Salaam and said, Ya Rasulullah, I am giving my son to you. Let him be your servant. Let him be with you. This is the wisdom of his mother who put her own, in a very positive sense, agent in the house of Rasulullah SAW so that she could learn from whatever the son observes. So he says, Anas bin Malik Radyalanu says, the Nabi SAW used to make this dua, Allah I seek refuge in you from helplessness to do good, helplessness in every way, from laziness, from indolence, from cowardice, from senility and from miserliness. And I seek your protection against the torment of the grave, the adab-e-l-khabr and the trials of life and death. In another narration in Muslim, he adds this line, Now imagine this beautiful dua is asking refuge from helplessness, adj, adj is somebody who is helpless, from kassal, from laziness, from, and then he's asking, Allah SWT is asking protection from cowardice, from being a coward and from senility, right? We are Alzheimer's and just being senility and forgetfulness and so on. Imagine miserliness, imagine miserliness is a curse that we should seek Allah SWT has forgiven us from, give and give and give. And I seek your protection against the adab-e-l-khabr from the torment of the grave. Those people who deny the adab of the khabr and the punishment of the grave should think about this. Why is the Nabi SAW asking for protection from the torment of the grave if there was no torment, right? So did he know the deen better or do we know the deen better? And from the trials of life and death, we ask Allah and then he from indebtedness, from being in debt, is nothing more tyrannical, nothing more terrible than being in debt. Irrespective of, with debt, after an interest-based loan is the worst of it because

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, as my brother recited the ayah from the Quran concerning Ramadan, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Ya ayyuha allatheena amanu kutiba alaykumu sriyamu kama kutiba ala allatheena min qablikum la'allakum tattaqun which as he translated means, O you who believe, fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may become pious, may become more God conscious. It's very important therefore to understand that fasting like salaah, like prayer for example, and like all the acts of worship in Islam is a tool. It's a tool to achieve something. It's not for itself. Salaah for example, prayer is not for itself. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Inna as-salata tanha anil fahshai wal munkar. The purpose of salaah is to separate you from, to protect you from, to keep you far apart from all forms of sins and all forms of misdeeds and all forms of rebellion and all forms of promiscuity and shamelessness. So if I am praying five times a day and I find I'm still lying and cheating and slandering people and blackbiting and doing all kinds of stuff, then doing drugs and alcohol and God knows what, then obviously I need to check my salaah to say what is wrong with my prayer that it does not seem to be doing what it is supposed to do. My prayer is supposed to make me lead a clean life, but my life is still dirty even though I'm praying. So something is wrong with my prayer, right? Take any tool, take absolutely any tool that we use. Every tool has a purpose. The tool is not for itself. You don't take the tool and you polish it and everything else and keep it nice and safe on top of a shelf. You use the tool, whatever the tool is. And if the tool is not working, then you see the results of that. So I'm, this tool is supposed to do this for me, it's not doing it, it means there's something wrong with the tool. I go, I fix the tool. And that's what we do with our all forms of worship. Salah is to keep us, to help us to lead a life which is clean and pure. Fasting is to help us to become conscious of God, of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in every aspect of our lives. It's not for its, fasting is not a endurance test of how long you can stay without food and water. Fasting is meant to do something and that something is to make us conscious of Allah so that every action of mine, everything that I am going to do before I decide, I will ask myself, is this something which is going to please Allah or not? If it is something that will please Allah, I do it. If it is something that does not please Allah, I will not do it. And if it is something about which I have a doubt, whether this will please Allah or not, I don't know, then I will not do it until I clarify the doubt and then of course I decide to do it or not to do it. That is the meaning of taqwa. Taqwa is to have this awareness of the presence of Allah in my life. Now that does two major benefits for us. It does two great pieces of good for us. The first thing is that a person of taqwa remains protected from all forms of sin and all forms of disobedience of Allah. Please understand this, in Islam every sin is intrinsically bad. Somebody asked me many years ago, over twenty-five years ago, I was speaking at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and it was a lecture called Introduction to Islam and at the end of that, a lady in the back, she raised her hand and I said, yes please and she said to me, she said, what is the Sharia? Right? Every once in a while you have this thing of saying, America is coming under Sharia law. I mean it won't happen in a thousand years, let me assure you. But at the same time, people make up these rumors. So somebody said, what is the Sharia? So I said to her, Sharia is the way in which every decent, law-abiding, socially conscious, a person of principles would like to live, period. Even if you remove Islam from it and say forget about Islam, let us just look at the Sharia law itself. It is a law that creates, it is designed to create a society which is based and built on compassion, on mutual help, on honesty, on integrity and so on. And that is the whole meaning of fasting. So it keeps us free from all forms of sins. In Islam as I said, every sin is intrinsically bad. In Islam, alcohol is prohibited. Alcohol is a drug. Alcohol is a chemical that has no business in the human body. But we have created a social system where we say, it's okay, it's okay to have a little bit of a drink now and again, it's nice, I'm celebrating so I'm going to toast your success in champagne. No, Islam says no. Eat well, eat healthy, eat wholesome, alcohol has no place in any of these troubles. All forms of narcotics, there's nothing good about them. Somebody can pass a law and say that recreational use of marijuana is now fine, it's legal. My point is, if that is so, ther

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 His messengers and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions. He is the one who has received a lot of peace. And what is next? My brothers and sisters, one of the most important things, if not the most important thing, is, especially in Ramadan, is to clean our hearts. Is to clean our hearts and to free our hearts from all hatred, from all enmity, from all greed, from all envy, jealousy, all negative emotions. To free our hearts from this. To clean our hearts and to make them pure for the sake of Allah alone. Part of that is to forgive each other. No matter who it is, no matter what they did, forgive them for the sake of Allah. Let me give you evidence from the Seerah, from the Quran and from the Sunnah. From the Quran first. When Misthah bin Uthatha indulged in gossip during the slander incident of Al-Ifq against our mother, Aisha Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then sent down revelation confirming the innocence of Aisha Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu. Abu Waqar Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu, who had been spending on Misthah because he was his relative and he was poor, so Abu Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu used to give him some financial aid, he said, by Allah, I will never spend anything on Misthah again. After what he said about Aisha, Qadil anhu. So here was a man who slandered the daughter of somebody from whom he was receiving aid. Now can you think of anything more serious than that? And not just any daughter, this was the daughter of Abu Waqar Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu. She was his mother according to the relationship with Rasulullah, she was the wife of Rasulullah, yet this man instead of being grateful, he slandered her. So if Abu Waqar Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu at that point said, look I was helping this man, I was giving him financial aid, this was a poor guy, I was helping him in his poverty and he backstabbed me by slandering my daughter, so I am going to stop my financial aid, this would be completely just and fair and completely understandable and something which nobody can find any fault with. Yet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, see what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed Quran and this is from the fazail and the marks of praise of Abu Waqar Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed Quran to advise Abu Waqar Siddiqa radiya Allah anhu not to do what he had decided to do. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed in Surat an-Nur, ayah number 22 Allah said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, So here is the first dalil, the first evidence that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants us to forgive others and that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is pleased with that and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not want us to hold grudges against each other. Rasulullah s.a.w. mentioned in one hadith where he said that in an argument if you are right yet you give up your position for the sake of your brother, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give you a palace in Jannah. When you are right, you give up the place, he will give you a palace in Jannah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, if you do good to those who do you evil, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give you a palace in Jannah. See the case of Rasulullah s.a.w. himself, he was mercilessly persecuted for 13 years in Makkah. His closest friends, some of them were killed, some of them were tortured, including his daughter, she was killed. The people of Makkah who were his own relatives, who were his close relatives, including Abu Lahab who was his own blood uncle, he was his closest relative, he was like his father. They rejected him, they abused him, they did all kinds of evil against him. Anyone who thinks that they have been wronged by somebody, I challenge you, look at the seerah of Rasulullah s.a.w. and tell me that what has happened to you is more than what happened to Rasulullah s.a.w. It is a challenge for you, go read the seerah. So these people did all this and on top of that when Rasulullah s.a.w. left Makkah, he was forced to leave Makkah. When he left Makkah and he went off to Wadina, these people they confiscated his property, they confiscated the property of all the muhajirun, all the people who left Makkah and went away to Wadina. They took over their lands, they took over their houses, they took over their property, their money, their wealth, everything. They just crammed it, that's it. Now, when Rasulullah s.a.w. returned after 8 years as the conqueror of Makkah at the head of an army of 10,000, not only did Rasulullah s.a.w. forgive everyone, but listen carefully, not only did he forgive everyone, he forgave them without them asking for forgiveness. Truly sometim

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 honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and companions. He is the most merciful and the most merciful. My brothers and sisters, we come finally to the end of this month. SubhanAllah, let us leave this month with a sense of loss, with a sense of grief, not with a sense of happiness and relief. Alhamdulillah, we are happy that tomorrow will be the day of Eid. And inshallah, that is something to be happy about. But we are happy about the fact that there is Eid, but we are not happy about the fact that Ramadan is over. And be very, very, very conscious that today might be the last fast of your and my life in Ramadan. Because if Allah does not give me another Ramadan, this is my last Ramadan. I said this in the beginning, I am saying it again. Let us consciously have this thought that this is my last Ramadan and make it the best Ramadan of my life yet. Two or three important things. One is the fasting of Shawwal. The six days after Ramadan, Abu Ayyub said, The Prophet said, Abu Ayyub Al Ansari narrated that Rasulullah said, Whoever fasts Ramadan and follows it with six fasts from Shawwal, That is equal in reward to fasting the whole year, every day of the year. So Ramadan effectively is like fasting for ten months. And Shawwal is fasting the six days equals to sixty days because Allah gives one for every hasana, for every good deed. Allah gives ten hasana. So therefore, fasting of six days gets us the reward of fasting for sixty days. So, for sixty days, fasting of one month gives us the reward of fasting for ten months. And therefore, we have fasted for the whole year. So do not miss the fast of Shawwal. The fast of Shawwal can be kept at any time during the month of Shawwal. They don't have to be kept continuously or continuously. You can fast on Mondays and Thursdays, for example, and you will finish the six days in the whole month or at any whatever combination. Don't pick a Friday to fast. If you are fasting, for example, the Yawmul Bidh, 13th, 14th and 15th of the month, if you are fasting, one of them is a Friday. No problem. Alhamdulillah. But don't pick the Friday to fast because Friday is a day of Eid and fasting is not permitted on Friday just by itself. Otherwise, you can fast. I find the easiest way is immediately after Eid, give it a day or two because the period of Eid is for three days. And after that, just fast six days and you are done. But whatever is convenient. So don't miss the six days of fast of Shawwal. Now Eid itself, it's called Eid ul Fitr. And therefore, Zakat ul Fitr, the charity for Zakat must be given. And it must be given. It is wajib on behalf of all Muslims, young and old, male and female. Even if a child was born the previous night, Zakat ul Fitr is wajib on that child also. Check with your masjid wherever you live. Whatever is the amount of Zakat ul Fitr, make sure it is given. Give it before you go for Salat ul Eid. It is not permissible to give it after. For example, the Hadith, not example, the Hadith, the dahlil is Hadith in Sayyid Abid-A'ood. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said whoever gives it before the Salat, it is Zakat ul Fitr. And whoever gives it after the Salat, it is ordinary charity. And therefore, it is very important to make sure that you give Zakat ul Fitr outside, before the Salat ul Eid. So be very clear about that and make sure that you give it. Ideally give it one or two days before the day of Eid, which is most convenient. So anyway, Kullu Aam, Mantum Bi Kheir. Eid Mubarak to all of you. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give you the Eid in the best possible way. Think of the people who cannot celebrate this festival, who are in difficult circumstances all over the world. Make lots of dua for them. Give lots of sadaqa. And thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala over and over again that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has kept you and me safe, has kept us in a state and in a place where we can celebrate this Yawul Eid with peace and harmony and comfort. Be good to our neighbors, invite people home, go to people's houses, and invite people to celebrate in all the halal ways which are possible for us to celebrate. Wa salallahu ala nabi'il kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa barakatu. Bi rahmatika ya rahmati wa rahimina wa alhamdulillah ki rabbi'il alameen. Eid Mubarak Kullu Aam, Mantum Bi Kheir for all of you. Jazakumullahu wa karim. Wa salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah. Arabic See the attitude of the Sahaba whenever some things were told to them. When the Sahaba were told of the last signs of the last days and the Holy Prophet said that the period of time will lengthen and an hour will become as long as a day and the day will become as long as a week and the week will become as long as a year and so on. The Sahaba did not say well you know how is that going to happen? What will happen to the rotation of the earth? Is it happening because of that? They asked the question. They said, Ya Rasulullah, how will we pray during this time? If a day is as long as a week or a month or a year whatever, how are we going to pray the five sarawat during this period of time? So there is complete yakin in what the Holy Prophet said and they were focused constantly on how can we maximize the benefit of that or if it was a dangerous thing how can we avoid that danger? Similarly in Laylatul Khazr when Aisha Cindy Khairul Zailana heard about Laylatul Khazr and about the benefit of Laylatul Khazr, she asked Rasulullah a beautiful question. She said, Ya Rasulullah, if I should find Laylatul Khazr, meaning if I am searching for Laylatul Khazr in the last ten nights and I am on that night, it's not that she will know specifically that that is the night, but meaning one of those nights is the night. So she said, if I find Laylatul Khazr, what draw should I make? What should I ask Allah SWT on this night? And he taught her this dua which all of us know, Alhamdulillah if you don't memorize it and make this dua, Rasulullah SAW said, Aisha, ask Allah and say, Allahumma innika afoon tuhibbul afoo fa afu annee Allahumma innika afoon tuhibbul afoo fa afu annee Allah, truly you are the forgiver. You love to forgive, so forgive me. See the beautiful dua, it's not saying I deserve to be forgiven, no, it's saying you like to forgive, so forgive me. It will benefit me because I will be forgiven. Ya Allah, you love to forgive, you are the great forgiver. innika afoon tuhibbul afoo fa afu annee Now many times you hear this dua, people say, Allahumma innika afoon kareeb tuhibbul afoo fa afu annee See the issue is, the best way of doing something is the exact way in which Rasulullah SAW taught us to do it. It's not haram if somebody says innika afoon kareeb, Alhamdulillah it's a good, you know, he is glorifying Allah SWT. But there is no one who glorified Allah more than Rasulullah SAW. So if he said something and he did not add the word kareeb, don't add the word kareeb. If somebody adds it, leave it, doesn't matter, nothing to argue about. But make sure that when we follow the Sunnah, we follow the Sunnah exactly as Rasulullah SAW taught us to follow. So Allahumma innika afoon tuhibbul afoo fa afu annee Wallah, you are the great forgiver. So you love to forgive, so forgive me. And we as sisters ask a lot of forgiveness because we know that when a person makes tauba, it's the part Allah SWT accepts it. And Allah SWT converts their evil deeds into good deeds. So this is a hugely beneficial thing. Then Allah SWT helps the one who is seeking forgiveness. Allah SWT does not send azaab until, Allah SWT does not send azaab until or as long as there are people who are seeking forgiveness. And Allah SWT does not, Allah helps the person who is seeking forgiveness out of difficulties. Allah SWT solves his problems for you. So forgiveness is a wonderful thing to seek and we, swa Allah, we need it more than anybody else. So continuously seek forgiveness, especially in nairatul qadr. And make sure that you make istighfar and tauba because tauba is very important. You seek forgiveness and it changes your life. It's not that we seek forgiveness and then continue in our old, you know, evil ways. No, you seek forgiveness and then you get out of it. Get out of that bad habit.

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 be upon him, and upon his family and his companions, a very short peace. So what is this? Our brothers and sisters, Allah SWT told us about the Night of Al-Qadr. Allah SWT revealed a surah. Allah said, Allah SWT said, Which means, indeed, it is we who sent this Quran down on the Night of Al-Qadr, the Night of Glory. And what will make you realize what the Night of Al-Qadr is? And what will make you realize what the Night of Al-Qadr is? Allah SWT said, The Night of Glory is better than a thousand months. That night the angels and Jibri, peace be upon him, Descend by the permission of their Rabb for every decreed matter. It is all peace until the break of dawn. Nowadays, Al-Qadr, Allah SWT is telling us, what do you know? Understand this, realize this. What do you know about it? Meaning, understand and realize what a tremendous thing this is. To worship Allah SWT in the Night of Al-Qadr is more than, not equal and so, more than continuous worship for 83 and a half years, one thousand months. Continuous worship. Obviously, it goes without saying that nobody can possibly continuously worship for that period of time because obviously he would have, he would need this and so on and so forth. Now Allah SWT is giving us this as a gift. And this is the whole point of Ramadan. Ramadan comes as a gift. We have to recognize this as a gift. Now Allah SWT gives us lots of things, lots of freebies in Ramadan. Lots of upgrades. Now if you don't take advantage of it, it shows us that either a person has no iman, has very little belief or no belief because he doesn't take advantage of this. Or it's just suicidal laziness because, you know, yeah, you have a belief, but you still don't want to do what you need to do in order to benefit. So what can anybody say? So here Allah is saying this is one night. Now this night is in the last, you know, one of the odd nights in the last 10 days of Abadarul Kareem, last 10 nights. So that is why we need to be very focused and make sure that we don't waste that night. Now, which is this night? Again, as I said, don't fall into arguments. They asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He gave them signs. But very interestingly, he gave them signs of the morning after. He said the morning after, maybe there will be a little drizzle, some rain, maybe the sun will rise with the rays which are not harsh and so on. Now the question here is very simple. The question is, it still doesn't tell me which night is Lailatul Khadr because if I really want to say I will pray on Lailatul Khadr, I should know before it happens. I should know the previous evening. So I know, OK, this night I'm going to do this. But if I know the following morning, the night is already gone. So imagine I spend the night in sincere worship and in the morning I see these signs. Alhamdulillah, I am very happy because that means I have been praying because that means I got this night of Lailatul Khadr. But if it's the opposite, if I wasted this night and may Allah have mercy on me if I did something wrong in this night or just slept through the night, didn't do anything and next morning I see all the signs that last night, the previous night had been Lailatul Khadr. I still don't know for sure because we are interpreting signs. But the point I'm saying is what is the use of that because the night is wasted already. So the thing to do is, again, don't get into arguments, don't involve yourself in useless things. Focus on the nights. Focus on worshipping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as sincerely as possible in all the nights of the last 10 days of Ramadan. So by that way, we automatically get the night which is the odd night. Yaa Aska Allah wa lailatul khadr wa lakhbis bil khair wa l-afya wa sallallahu ala nabi' al-kareem wa ala alihi wa sallim ala ajma'in bi rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu wa barakatuhu

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 honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family, and peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, Alhamdulillah, we are in the last ten days of Ramadan. The fuzillat of these last ten days or last ten nights, I think everybody knows. We have the hadith of Uyayna bin Abdur Rahman and Ruzaila Anuma who narrated, My father narrated to me the night of Al-Qadr was mentioned in the presence of Abu Bakra. So he said, I do not search for it due to something that I heard from Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam, except for during the last ten nights. For indeed I heard him say, search for it when nine remain or when seven remain or when five remain or during the last three nights. He, Uyayna Ruzaila Anu said, during the twenty nights of Ramadan, Abu Bakra used to perform Salah, just as he performed Salah during the rest of the year. But when the last ten began, he would make extra effort to pray more in the night. Now we know the hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam also where he came out of his house. There was some argument happening in the Masjid. He came out and he said to the people arguing loudly, he said, Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam had informed me about the exact night of Laylatul Khadr. But because of this argument that is going on in the Masjid, Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam caused me to forget it, but search for it in the last ten nights of Ramadan in the odd nights. So 21st, 23rd, 27th, 29th are the odd nights of Ramadan al-Qayyim. Now on a side note, of course, this also teaches us the danger and the problem with raising voices and arguing and so on in the Masjid. But in this case, think about this, that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam was made to forget the exact night. But Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam caused him to advise us to search for the night of Laylatul Khadr in the last ten nights. Now there is obviously everything there is khair, alhamdulillah. And the benefit of this is that it gives us the opportunity of worshipping Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam with great sincerity and devotion, which of course you must do all the time, but at least in this case, in these nights, the last ten nights of Ramadan al-Qayyim and in the odd nights. Now the thing I want to say to you is please don't fall into arguments. Again, the whole issue of problem with us today is that we argue about useless things. So don't fall into arguments about is it the 21st night tonight or is it possible that it is not? Maybe it is the 20th, maybe it is the 22nd, because in Saudi Arabia it is 22nd or in Pakistan it is 21st and this and that. I mean all kinds of people who do not understand either astronomy or don't understand the deen, may Allah have mercy on us. We make the statements and we get into arguments. The best thing is treat that entire period of the last ten nights of Ramadan al-Qayyim as if every night is an odd night, because even if you take the fact that Ramadan, the starting of Ramadan, because it is based on moon sighting, sometimes there is a different sighting. So people have, they start on one day in one place and a day later in another place. It is possible that when you are observing the 21st night in your country, it is actually the 22nd and vice versa. So the best thing to do is treat all those nights as if they are the daylatul khatr. Worship Allah SWT with complete and total dedication to Him for this because of the benefit and the fazilat and the position and the maqam and the magnitude of the daylatul khatr. Fiasco, Al-Usman and Tara to grant us the daylatul khatr with khayran. Afiya inshaAllah. Wasallallahu ala Nabiyyil Karim wa ala Aliya wa ala Sabaibiyyin. Bi rahmatul rahim.

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. The Prophet Muhammad also taught us this dua in the Quran. This is an English language. Allah save me from dependence on anyone except yourself. Make me ghani, make me free from need and dependent only on yourself. Allahumma kfini bi halalika an haramik wa aghanini bi fadlika aman siwak. So make this dua, make this into part of your morning and evening asqar inshaAllah. Make this dua in the morning, after Salatul Fajr maybe 3 times and after Salatul Maghrib you can make this dua again inshaAllah. Allahumma kfini bi halalika an haramik wa aghanini bi fadlika aman siwak. Make this dua inshaAllah. We ask Allah SWT to grant us khair and hafiz. Make this dua powerful for us and accept it from us. My brothers and sisters, as I mentioned too, dua is the connection between the slave and his Rabb, Jallatul Ado. And Ramadan is the time when we are close to Allah SWT. We are fasting. The dua at the time of iftar, this is something which is very important. At the time of iftar is one of the times of acceptance of dua. So two things you must not do. First, don't get the people in your house so involved in preparing all kinds of fancy foods. And this, I like this, I like that and this samosa and that, you know, whatever. So that they lose time to make dua. Those of you who are servants, who are Muslim servants, leave the world. Let them pray. Let them make zikr. People in homes where your spouse is or the ladies in the family, whoever makes your food, leave the world. Tell them, look, we want to simplify our lives. We don't want you to be in the kitchen at the time when you should be on your musalla. You should be making dua to Allah SWT. You should be reciting the Quran. This is the time. Time of iftar is the time for the acceptance of dua. So spend that time making lots and lots of dua. Don't be chit chatting. Get out of you. Get out from your phone. Right. Don't involve the people in who are, you know, who are in the house, who prepare food and so on. To get too burdened and too, you know, engaged in that rather than making dua and making manajat and asking Allah SWT what is mercy ahead. Don't do that. You focus on yourself. Focus on dua and help them also to make dua. Right. It's very, very important. The time of iftar, no conversation. Each one making dua, make a lot of dua. And so on. I make a lot of dua for this Ummat of Muhammad SAW. It is such a terrible thing that times we are going through so difficult times. And Hamdulillah, Allah SWT at a personal level has kept us free. Make this become the assets for those who are not free, become assets for those who are in serious trouble. In your mercy, O merciful and all praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters on the subject of Dua, please understand there are conditions of Dua and among the conditions of Dua, the most powerful condition without which Dua will never be accepted. The most powerful condition without which Dua will never be accepted. So, he is doing all of that but his food is Haram, his clothes meaning his earning is Haram. Now we see that the Mishra Sahab knew the man. So therefore he is saying this. The point I am saying here is that what do we learn from this? We learn from this that the free condition of earning, free condition of acceptance of Dua is the Dua must be made by somebody who is eating Halal and earning Halal. So please look at your incomes, look at where you are earning from. If you are based in, if you are, if you are earning from interest based businesses, your earning is Haram. If you are, if your earning is from shops which are selling Haram products, lottery tickets, alcohol, tobacco products, cigarettes, Argilas and what not, vapes, right? All of this stuff, all of this stuff is Haram. Any kind of gambling is Haram. May Allah have mercy in this country. I don't know if it's a monopoly or not but almost, right? All of these gas stations and convenience stores which sell all of these Haram stuff, many of them are Ommam Muslims. May Allah have mercy on us. Get out of these businesses. These are Haram businesses. And you are giving donations to these masjids and that madrasa and that room does not make your income Halal. Your income remains Haram, your donation in the sight of Allah that giving that money is not acceptable. Because Allah does not accept Allah is pure. Allah is pure and He accepts only that which is pure. From a Haram income, your Zakat is invalid, it is not accepted, your Sadatat is not accepted, your charity is not accepted. You can't just throw money at God and walk away. This is not from Islam. Please understand this. They say, oh but I am giving a donation to the masjid. You can give your whole money to the masjid. The masjid can take it because for them it's a gift but for you it is Haram. You will not get any reward for that charity. Change your way of earning. Earn Halal and eat Halal. It's a terrible thing in this country. In America, I don't know how it is in other countries but Muslims have seemed to have no conception of eating Halal. They just simply eat anything as long as it's dead. I am saying Bismillah and eat anything. What does it matter if you say Bismillah and eat or not? Meat becomes Halal only when it has been slaughtered in a particular way which is called Zabiha which is hand slaughtered by a Muslim cutting the throat from here to here in one go like this. And saying Bismillah. This is the best way. There are differences of opinion. Forget the differences of opinion. Alhamdulillah, leave them. The best way is this. This is the most Halal way of doing it. Machine slaughter is Haram. It doesn't matter how many Halal stamps it comes with. If it is slaughtered by a machine, it is Haram. Only and only hand slaughter is Halal. Please safeguard yourself. Safeguard yourself from the fire. Safeguard yourself from your Dua being rejected by Allah SWT. Earn Halal, eat Halal, make Dua, reap the rewards. And may Allah bless the Prophet and his family and all his companions with the mercy of Allah.

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, we are on the subject of Dua as I mentioned to you two days ago. Allah said, when my slave asks about me, O Muhammad Rasulullah, I am near to him and let him ask me and I will listen to him, I will give him and tell him to be obedient to me and to have faith in me and he or she will be rightly guided. So we ask Allah SWT for this inshallah. The issue of Dua, Alabaaz bin Abdul Muttalib, the uncle of Rasulullah SAW, he one day said to him, he said, please teach me a Dua and don't teach me a long Dua, big Dua because I have difficulty remembering and so on, but teach me something short which is powerful, which Allah SWT will grant me. And the Prophet SAW said, say ask Allah, O Allah, I ask you for Al-Aafiyah. Now you see in this hadith which I mentioned to you yesterday, the hadith of Ibn Umar RA, he said, He said that Allah SWT, وما سُولَ اللهُ شيئًا يعني أحبَّ إليه من أن يُؤسَلَ العافيه He said there is nothing more beloved to Allah SWT than being asked for Al-Aafiyah. Now Al-Aafiyah is something which is which is khayr, which is salamah, which is protection, which is safety, which is beauty, which is all kinds of goodness in something. So for example, people say I want to have children, O Allah give me children. No, don't say that. Say, O Allah give me children with Al-Aafiyah because I know people who have children who are who cry tears. Parents are weeping when they think about their children because their children cause them so much pain and suffering. We ask Allah SWT give me money. No, money with Al-Aafiyah because money is one thing, suqqun is something else. Everything with Al-Aafiyah, right? Whatever Allah SWT has a local Al-Aafiyah. So in dua be very very it's very important to ask for Al-Aafiyah. That is the reason why Allah SWT taught us this dua. So asking for goodness, asking for Al-Aafiyah. Not not in the asaduka, al-mal, al-banur, zina tul hayati duniya, al-sulta, al-jais, kaza wa kaza. No, Allah is not saying give me wealth and money and children and authority and armies and kind of. No, He said Al-Aafiyah, give me hasana, give me good things in the duniya and give me good things in the akhirah. Make this, Ramadan is the time for dua. Make the most of it. Make sure that you make lots and lots and lots of dua. Make dua for yourself, for your parents, for your children, for your siblings, for the whole of the ummah of Muhammad SAW which really desperately needs dua. And I ask each and every one of you who is watching this series, who knows me, please make dua for me and my wife. That we have a life where Allah is pleased with us and then we have an ending which is on Islam bil khatima, bil khair, with la ilaha illa Allah on our tongues in sajda, in sujood, in tahajjud insha Allah. And this is my request to all my brothers and sisters who are listening to this.

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, the subject of Dua is so beautiful, the subject of Dua is so important. Prophet Muhammad said, Inna Dua Huwa Al-Ibadah. He said verily the Dua is Ibadah. And in another place he said, Dua is the brain of Ibadah. Dua is when the slave talks to Allah, when he calls upon Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in need and that is the reason why for Dua there are no conditions for Dua. You do not need to be in a state of purity, spiritual purity and physical purity. You do not need to be facing the Qimla. You do not need to be standing on your Musalla or in the Masjid. You can be in any state, anywhere, doing anything and you can call on Allah and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala listens. Allah says, He said call me and I will answer. So any state, Alhamdulillah, obviously there are times for Dua, there are better ways of making Dua. So being in a state of wudu, standing or sitting or in sajda, facing the Qimla, during tahajjud, which is the best time to make Dua, between Adhan and Iqama, that period is the time of acceptance of Dua. Immediately after Adhan, immediately after Salah, immediately after doing something good, fasting, that is why the Dua at the time of Iftar, after giving some charity, all of these are, and then of course the Dua in the Harbani Sharifai, the Dua in Arafat, the Dua in Tawaf, all of these are, and this is not an exhaustive list, may Allah open doors for us, but the point is that all of these are there, but the key fundamental thing to remember Dua is the direct connection between the Abd and his Ram. We, in Islam, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala teaches us that there is a direct connection between the slave and his Ram, he does not need anyone in between, he does not have to go through this one or through that one. Abdullah ibn Awar r.a. said, The Prophet ﷺ said, Who opened for him the door of Dua, the doors of mercy opened for him, and what Allah asked for something, He liked it more than being asked for health. The Prophet ﷺ said, Ibn Awar r.a. narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said, Whosoever of you, the door of Dua is opened for, the doors of mercy have already been opened for him, and Allah is not asked for anything, meaning nothing is more beloved to him than being asked for health. And the Prophet ﷺ said, The Dua benefits against that which strikes and against that which does not strike, so hold fast, O worshippers of Allah, to the Dua. Now, MashaAllah, so many things in this. First of all, as they say, if Allah gives you the Tawfiq to ask for something, He has already decreed that for you. He will give that to you anyway. And this is His way of letting you get the benefit of Dua. Because remember, Dua is Ibadah. So whether you get what you ask for or not, you are going to be rewarded for making the Dua itself. So Allah wants to increase that reward. So Allah has decreed that for you anyway, but Allah will make you ask for it, He will make you beg for it because you are getting more and more and more reward just by begging and asking and so on. So when the time period is a bit delayed, we ask for something, it doesn't come, relax and say Alhamdulillah, Allah wants me to get some more reward, therefore He is not giving it to me immediately. Because if He gave me immediately, I would stop making Dua. So He is letting it go so that I make more and more Dua, get more and more Ajar. And anyway, that is decreed for me. It will come, InshaAllah. Wasallallahu ala nabiyyil karee wa ala alihi wassabi ajma'in. Bi hurmati gharam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

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 honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family, and peace and blessings be upon him. So, my brothers and sisters, all praise belongs to Allah. We are in the last ten days of Ramadan. The fadhilat of these last ten days or last ten nights, I think everybody knows. We have the hadith of Uyayna bin Abdur Rahman and Ruzal Anuma who narrated, My father narrated to me the night of Al-Qadr was mentioned in the presence of Abu Bakr. So he said, I do not search for it due to something that I heard from Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam, except for during the last ten nights. For indeed I heard him say, search for it when nine remain or when seven remain or when five remain or during the last three nights. He, Uyayna said, during the 20 nights of Ramadan, Abu Bakr used to perform salah just as he performed salah during the rest of the year. But when the last ten began, he would make extra effort to pray more in the night. Now we know the hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam also where he, sallallahu alaihi wasallam came out of his house. There was some argument happening in the masjid. He came out and he said to the people arguing loudly, he said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had informed me about the exact night of Laylatul Khadr. But because of this argument that is going on in the masjid, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caused me to forget it but search for it in the last ten nights of Ramadan in the odd nights. So 21st, 23rd, 27th, 29th are the odd nights of Ramadan al-Kadr. Now on a side note, of course, this also teaches us the danger and the, you know, the problem with raising voices and arguing and so on in the masjid. But in this case, think about this, that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam was made to forget the night, the exact night. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caused him to advise us to search for the night of Laylatul Khadr in the last ten nights. Now there is obviously everything there is khair, alhamdulillah. And the benefit of this is that it gives us the opportunity of worshipping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with great sincerity and devotion, which of course he was due all the time. But at least in this case, in these nights, the last ten nights of Ramadan al-Kadr and in the odd nights. Now the thing I want to say to you is please don't fall into arguments. Again, the whole issue of problem with us today is that we argue about useless things. So don't fall into arguments about is it the 21st night tonight or is it possible that it is not, maybe it is the 20th, maybe it is the 22nd, because in Saudi Arabia it is 22nd or in Pakistan it is 21st and this and that. I mean all kinds of people who do not understand either astronomy or don't understand the Deen, may Allah have mercy on us, we make these statements and we get into arguments. The best thing is treat that entire period of the last ten nights of Ramadan al-Karim as if every night is an odd night. Because even if you take the fact that Ramadan, the starting of Ramadan, because it's based on moon sighting, sometimes there's a different sighting. So people have, they start one day in one place and a day later in another place. It is possible that when you are observing 21st night in your country, it is actually 22nd and vice versa. So the best thing to do is treat all those nights as if they are the 25th, as if they are the Laylatul Khadr. Worship Allah SWT with complete and total dedication to Him for this because of the benefit and the fazilat and the position and the maqam and the magnitude of the Laylatul Khadr. Worship Allah SWT to grant us the Laylatul Khadr with khair and aafiyah inshaAllah.

Auto-generated transcript:As we know, the Prophet Muhammad SAW said that the one who cannot control his tongue for him, fasting is just going to earn him only hunger and thirst and sleepless nights, nothing more. Therefore, the focus and the purpose of Ramadan is to become Muttakoon and Muttakoon means people who behave with the behavior of Muttaqeen. Now, if you ask me for a one line definition of what defines the behavior of a Muttakhee, I would say it is consideration for others. Now, one of the things you find in Ramadan very sadly is if you look at obviously more people come to the Masjid, a lot of people who normally don't come to the Masjid come to the Masjid in Ramadan. And then we have chaos. You have chaos with car parking, we have people parking in front of other people's driveways, blocking driveways. I've never understood how anyone with any sense at all can park in front and opposite somebody's, you know, blocking somebody's gate or blocking somebody's driveway. How is it even possible? I mean, people have, I really don't want to say anything more. Just think about it. Believe me, the only people in the world who do this is Muslims. The only people in the world who do this are Muslims. And because of this, Muslims have got such a bad name, thanks to their parking, that anytime a community wants to build a Masjid, there is a huge opposition and uproar from the society, from the town, the city, wherever they are there or the neighborhood. And people oppose it, not because they are anti-Muslim, but they are anti-bad parking. Now this is something that we don't seem to get into our heads. I don't understand why. How would you feel if somebody parked a car opposite your gateway, blocked your gateway, you can't get out of the house, and he said, I'm going, I'm because I was in a church service or I was in a Hindu puja, temple puja. How would you like that? Right. And what you think the people are going to love it because you say I was praying Taraweeh. I mean, really, seriously, think about that. I have seen cars parked on top of pavements, on top of sidewalks. I have seen cars parked the traffic circle on top of the circle. I've seen cars any number of times blocking people's driveways, blocking people's gates. Really, please don't make Ramadan into a curse for your neighbors. Park properly. Same thing with shoes. I mean, it's a mess. How many times people send around photos to say this is what shoes in a Gurdwara look like, this is what shoes in a Buddhist temple look like, and this is what shoes in a bad, bad. Just throw people, throw shoes like a carpet of shoes, which you are forced to step on and stamp on if you want to enter the masjid. I mean, have some consideration for yourself. Your shoe didn't come out of the air. You paid money for it. You bought the shoe, keep it in a place where it is treated with respect and treated with care. I've seen massages, beautiful shoe racks made. Empty and the shoes shoe racks are on two sides of the of the hallway. Both are empty or just have a few shoes and the shoes are across the hallway like a carpet. Please treat the masjid with respect. This is the house of Allah. Don't waste food. Iftar time is like crazy. You know, go and heap up your plate and you can't eat it. You throw it. Think about people who don't have food to eat. Treat the masjid with respect. Treat the facilities with respect. Treat the food with respect. Park your car properly. Keep your shoes properly. Make sure that your behavior in Ramadan becomes exemplary. Alhamdulillah, do that for the for the 30 days and inshallah this will become your signature and you will really be a better human being. That is the purpose of Ramadan. And the most beautiful Ramadan. And may God bless this noble Prophet and his family and companions. With your mercy, O merciful.

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. Alhamdulillahir-Rabbilalameen. Wasalatuhu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya'i wal mursaleen. Muhammadu rasulullahi sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallamu tasliman kaseeran kaseera. Fumma badu. My brothers and sisters, as I was saying, connect with the Quran. Now, another one of the ways to connect with the Quran is that of course you know which part of the Quran the Hafiz is going to recite tonight. If you don't know, ask it. He will tell you which Juz. He will even tell you from which ayah to which ayah. Before that night, during the day, if you do not understand Arabic and most of us don't, we certainly don't understand it as much as we should understand it. Read the meaning of what is going to be recited in the Masjid. Read that meaning in your house before you go to the Masjid. Read the meaning and then you go to the Masjid. So the beauty of that is then, inshallah, as the recitation happens, you will understand some part of it. You still won't understand everything because obviously it's a different language, but you will understand some part of it and that is much better than simply standing there without understanding. The reason why we don't have Khushu, the reason why we don't have concentration and we have difficulty with that, the reason why our mind wanders here and there is because we don't understand what is being recited. Solution for that? Read the meaning beforehand so you will understand, inshallah. So it is not rocket science. Please do that. Make this additional effort. The benefit of that also is that you are going to be, you would have read the entire translation of the Quran in the whole Mathura of that. Each day you are reading the translation of one Juz, so in the whole month you have completed the entire translation of the Quran. Year after year you read this and inshallah, may Allah give us Taufeeh even to read it and read the translation even outside of Ramadan, it gives us a better understanding of the Quran. Now, having said that, do not fall into the trap of reading the translation and then trying to extrapolate and trying to use your intelligence and trying to say, well, even if this is that, that means that and then trying to inculcate, trying to create your own rulings of the Quran, this is what we should do and start becoming a great mufti and start inventing a new Masab and a new religion of your own. Please don't fall into that trap. This is one of the biggest problems of people who follow the Quran, who read translations and who think about it, all of which are good things, but they forget the boundaries. Any thinking in the Quran is hara. For someone to be able to extract a ruling, a rule from the Quran, this is a very serious matter that person has to first and foremost without that it is not even possible to begin, must have a knowledge of Arabic which is at the native speaker level of fusha, of classical Arabic, the Arabic of the Quran, right? That's not your regular Arabic which is spoken on the street. And then the person must have a knowledge of hadith, the person must have his tarbiya and taskiya which he should have accomplished and he should have done under somebody who is qualified to take him through that path where his heart is, all of us at every stage we are full of faults, but to the extent possible the heart is pure and then the person has sufficient knowledge of different kinds and only then does the person come somewhere close to being able to have an opinion. The person must have memorized hundreds if not thousands of hadith. The Imam of the Hadiths, I mean the Imam of the Hadiths had a standard of 100,000 hadiths to be memorized. This is a very, very complex and complicated thing and this is very serious and that shows us that our religion is not just some fun and game but anybody can take and twist and play around with. It's a serious thing which requires serious formal study. Just because we do not have formal clergy, we don't have a Pope and we don't have bishops and we don't have priests, it does not mean that we don't take our religion seriously. Our religion is very serious. It requires huge and in-depth study and it does not make you an alim just because you read the translation of the Quran in English or Urdu or something. So please keep that in mind. Read with humility, humbleness and connect with the kalam of Allah because this is the kalam, this is the sifat of Allah. This is as close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as we can get in this life. We ask Allah for His help and mercy and forgiveness. Wasallamu ala hala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wasabihi alameen. Bi rahmatu bi rahmatu.

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, Ramadan is also a beautiful opportunity for us to connect with the Quran. By reading it ourselves, by listening to it in Tarawih, and Alhamdulillah, if Allah has blessed you with an Imam who recites well, then this is a huge blessing. If you are in many Majeed committee where, you know, place where Imams are forced to recite fast, please have mercy on yourself. Do not incur the wrath of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you are forcing the Imam to recite fast and that poor guy because you pay his salary, he is obeying you instead of obeying Allah, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Allah said, do not move your tongue fast in a hurry. Now this ayat came in surah al-qayamah for Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, who used to, who was trying at that time to try to recite fast, not for Tarawih or something, but to memorize. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, no, take it, be peaceful. Allah said, I will make this Quran firm in your heart. But the order of not moving your tongue fast and not reciting fast applies to everyone. And the condition of recitation of the Quran is to follow the usur of Tajweed, to make sure that the pronunciation of the Quran is according to the rules of Tajweed, and that the Quran is not distorted because it is being recited too fast. Now if you ever understand this very clearly, if you are the reason why the Imam is distorting the recitation of the Quran, the sin is on you. He is doing it because the poor man needs a salary and you are the guy sitting there with the purse strings and you are trying to ride like a, like a, like, you know, riding horse, you've got the reins, while he has a bit in his mouth, this is haram. And you will answer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, remember that, fear the punishment of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Tarawih is not for, Tarawih is nafil. If you cannot stand behind the Imam for the full period, sit down. If you cannot sit down, if you need to leave, leave. But leave with a sense of regret that I wish I could have stayed. Right, thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for the opportunity of listening to his kalam. Leave with a sense of regrets and say, I wish I could have stayed. Don't try to force the Imam to read fast and so on and so forth. I see this so often in so many places. This is something which is reprehensible, it is despicable, it is terrible. It is not in keeping with the akhlaq of a muslim. Right, I hope I'm making myself very clear. So do not do this. And I've seen this with so-called people of power who just because you give some donations, you think that you own the masjid, though masjid is the house of Allah. Your donation does not make you a part owner with Allah. You are giving a donation for yourself so that your khabar will not be full of fire. So make sure that you do not do things which will negate all the good that you do. Do not force the Imam. Make that Ramadan, make the period of Ramadan a time where you fall in love with the Quran, where you learn to connect with the Quran. Stand there remembering and understanding that this is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala speaking. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is speaking to me through this Imam. And make dua for the Imam and say Allah make the Quran firm in the Imam's heart. Make him somebody who lives by the Quran. If the Imam resides fast, tell him to slow down, tell him do not distort the tajweed of the Quran. Read according to the tajweed. And educate the people with you. Educate the musaleen. If somebody else is trying to hurry, say no. This is the kalam of Allah. It will be read and recited the way it is supposed to be recited. If you are in a hurry, no problem. Please, even if you pray nothing at all, even if you do not pray tarabi, there is no sin on you. But if you force the Imam to read fast for your convenience, there is a major major sin on you. Please do not destroy yourself in Ramadan. Make it a means of saving yourself from the fire, not falling in the fire.

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 most honorable prophets and messengers. We praise the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family and companions. And he has accepted us in many ways. My brothers and sisters, this brings us to the issue of Qiyam-ul-Lail, which is Tarawih in the case of Ramadan, and it is Tahajjud in the case of the rest of the year. Now Urwa bin Zubair narrated that Aisha Siddiqua told him that Rasulullah used to encourage the people to pray Qiyam in Ramadan without insisting on that. So he didn't make it further on them, but he used to encourage them to pray Qiyam. And in the Qiyam in Ramadan is Tarawih. He said, Sallallahu alaihi wasallam, whoever spends the nights of Ramadan in prayer out of faith and in the hope of reward, whoever prays the nights of Ramadan in prayer, in Salah out of faith, because of faith and in the hope of reward, he will be forgiven his previous sins. Now this is very, very important to understand the same thing. So the same hadith, instead of saying, Man Saam Rabadar, we say, Man Kaam Rabadar, Imanan wa Ahdisaban, Bufirallahu Zamb, Allah SWT will forgive his sins. So Tarawih is very, very important. Another hadith, Abu Hurayr narrated that Rasulullah said, whoever stands in the voluntary night prayer Tarawih of Ramadan out of faith and in hope of reward, his previous sins will be forgiven. And Abu Ayyub Al Ansari, Abu Hurayr narrated this hadith and Alhamdulillah, we ask Allah SWT to make us among those who will benefit from this. So don't fall into the arguments of should you pray 8 rakat or should you pray 20 rakat. The Dahlil for this, Sahabi came to Rasulullah and said, Ya Rasulullah, Qiyam, which is the night prayer which applies to Tarawih, Tahajjud, everything, he said, how should I pray? Rasulullah said, pray 2 by 2. So don't pray 4 rakat at a time, don't pray 3 rakat, pray 2 by 2. Rasulullah did not specify how many he should pray. So pray 2 by 2, as many as Allah SWT gives you Tawfiq for as many as you are able to pray. Tahajjud, normally Rasulullah SAW prayed 8 rakat and then he followed that up with 3 rakat of Wither. The duration of his salah, he prayed practically the entire night. The Sahaba used to say that sometimes we thought the sun would rise, meaning the time for Salatul Fajr would come in and he would still be praying Tahajjud. So it is in terms of duration, he was not praying 8 rakat because he was trying to shorten it and go do something else. He was praying, he just happened to pray 8, but it was the whole of the night. Later on, Sayyidina Muhammad SAW, to make it easier on the people, he introduced this 20 rakat. Alhamdulillah, we follow the Nabi SAW, we follow the Khulafa Rasulullah SAW as ordered and commanded by Rasulullah SAW. He said, follow me and follow the Khulafa Rasulullah SAW and that is what we do. And therefore the 20 is for ease because it is much more difficult to stand long periods. So it gives you some relief to go into Ruku and Sujood. So Alhamdulillah, we get to do more Ruku and more Sujood in the 20. Pray 2, pray 4, pray 8, pray 20, pray 10, pray 12, whatever you are able to pray. Pray that with Khushu, pray that with love of Allah SWT, pray that with the hope of Allah SWT's forgiveness and inshallah Allah will forgive you. Do not create fitna, do not fight with each other, do not argue, don't become a Mufti-e-Azam for the night. Please stay out of all this Khurafa and all of this is from Shaitan. So the moment somebody opens his mouth to argue about this, say, Salam alaikum, turn around and walk off. Do not get into any arguments about the number of the rakat. You pray as much as you can pray and thank Allah and ask Allah SWT to forgive you and me and we ask Allah to forgive us. And we ask Allah to forgive us.

Auto-generated transcript:10 days have passed. Alhamdulillah, one Ashara of Ramadan is over. Be trying to take stock and say what were my goals? How much did I achieve? Did I achieve those goals? Have I done more inshallah or have I fallen short? If I have fallen short, what do I need to do to make up? The idea is to achieve those goals and to do more inshallah. One of the ways of making up is to keep making dua, so keep asking Allah SWT for His mercy and for His help without which nothing is possible. The Prophet said whoever fasts in Ramadan, fasts Ramadan meaning the whole of the month, out of faith and in the hope of reward from Allah SWT, he will be forgiven his previous sins. The benefit of Ramadan is that inshallah we will come out of it completely free from sins. Obviously there is the condition that we must make istighfar for any major sins that were committed. The assumption being that the Muslim does not commit major sins. Please understand that this is very important for us to understand that it is not expected of us that we commit major sins. But if something happens and major sins is not just talking about zina and khatl, I am talking about telling lies and backbiting, missing a salah, all of these are major sins. So let us see, we will try to make sure that we do not commit any major sins and we constantly seek forgiveness of Allah SWT. Istighfar is something which opens the doors of mercy of Allah. Istighfar is something which removes difficulty. Istighfar is something which eases our way. So continuously make istighfar. Istighfar is the thing by which duas are accepted. So keep on continuously making istighfar and Allah SWT will accept duas. Ask Allah SWT with sincerity and take stock of what we have done for the month. As I said, 12 days, 11 days have gone, this is the 12th day. So we are in the second asharah of the month. This month flies, time flies and Ramadan flies faster than time. So let us make sure that we do not lose out. Do not put anything up, anything over for the next day. You know, the very common thing, say for example, you made the niya of reading one juz of quran every day. Now for whatever reason, one day you read only half a juz or you read only three quarters of a juz and you say, no, I will make up the next day. You will not make up. This will continue, it will accumulate, then it becomes you lose the whole juz and you lose the whole tempo of progress will be broken. Don't do that. Make sure that you complete the juz. Even if you have to sit up all night and do it, do it. And that's the reason why the best thing to do is to do it as soon. I have a rule. I say wake up for tahajjud, wake up one hour at least, if not more, wake up one hour before the time for fajr starts. Read one juz of tahajjud, do suhor, very, you know, small amount of food and then go for salatul fajr. So your one juz of quran is finished before salatul fajr. Even if a little bit is left, you can do it after salatul fajr. Sit in the manjus, finish it and then only come home. Do not come home until you finish that one juz. For that day, this will be inshallah good for you. May Allah bless the Prophet and his family and the people of the water with his mercy.

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillah Rabbil A'lamin. Wa Salatu wa Salamu ala ashrifil anbiya'i wa barbursaleen Muhammadun Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasleemun kaseerun kaseerun aba'um. Fama ba'dun abidun sisters. People say that habit change takes three weeks, 21 days. So if you want to change your habit, you do something continuously without fail for 21 days and you must not, you know, you must not give gaps and so on. So you do whatever you do and you want to change that. Now you do that continuously for three weeks, that becomes a habit. And as they say, habits become your destination. So very important for us to understand this. Now the point here is that Ramadan gives us the opportunity of not 21 days but 29 to 30 days. So it's a reinforcing thing which Ramadan gives us, which we don't get anywhere else, to change our habits. So let us make full use of that. So in these habits, as I have been saying for the last two days, one is make goals for yourself, which is eat less, sleep less, and read more Quran and more Ibadah, more connecting with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Make qiyamul layl, tarawi is a form of qiyamul layl. So make, not tarawi, tarawi we pray only Ramadan, but qiyamul layl meaning the salah which comes after Isha. So sleep for a while, get up and pray tahajjud. Make tahajjud further on yourself. So that's a new habit that you're going to build into your habit, into your day, to say I'm going to pray tahajjud every single day until the last day and may Allah take my soul in tahajjud, in sujood, ameen, ya'rup. So make that into a habit. Reading extra Quran, now that extra becomes a normal habit for me because I've been reading it and I've been reading one Juz of Quran throughout the month, so therefore now I will read one Juz of Quran every day for the rest of my life inshallah. Right, so again another beautiful new habit. Beautiful new habit, I used to pray Salatul Isha and Salatul Fajr in the masjid all through Ramadan and Nabi Salaam said the one who prays Salatul Fajr by Salatul Isha by Jama Allah gives him the reward of half of having prayed half the night and he prays Salatul Fajr by Jama in the masjid, Allah gives him reward for worshipping him the other half of the night. So somebody who prays Salatul Isha and Salatul Fajr in the masjid, prays by Jama, he gets or she gets the reward of having prayed the full night. So let us make that into a habit. Women can pray at home but the men should go to the masjid. If you live in a place which is far away from the masjid, you can't go there easily, then make a Jama with your wife and with your children and whoever else is in the house, in your house but pray by Jama, don't pray by yourself. This is a habit. Then make another habit of giving charity every day. As I mentioned earlier, make giving charity in Ramadan, make this habit and say every day I will give something in charity. I don't care how much it is, make this habit every day, give something in charity. Do not leave your house empty handed. Take some money with you as you leave your house, don't return unless you have given something in charity. Make this into a habit. Throughout Ramadan you did that, now make this into a lifelong habit because please understand, you know we have this habit of feeding people in Ramadan but people are not anacondas, they don't eat once in a year. So make sure that you give them, make this into a habit of feeding people throughout the year. So all kinds of, in Ramadan we make it a habit, we are going to be polite, we are going to be kind, we are not going to use curse words, we are not going to raven rant, we are not going to, you know anybody argues with us, we say I am fasting, I will not argue with you. Make these into lifelong habits. Right, so InshaAllah at the end of Ramadan you are a beautiful transformed human being into a much better version of yourself. And this now becomes a lifelong habit throughout. We ask Allah SWT to help us to make these transformations and to enable us to live according to how Allah SWT wants us to live.

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 I send my greetings and peace and blessings upon the honorable prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family and companions, peace and blessings be upon him. On the subject of making targets and goals for yourself in Ramadan and measurement and metrics, the thing I want to say to you, my brothers and sisters, is here are some basic ones that I suggest for you. The first thing is in terms of how much Quran should I read. Now read at least one Juz of Quran every single day in the month of Ramadan. Now this is something that you should do throughout your life. But in Ramadan definitely say one single Juz or one Juz, if you are reading less than that. If you are reading one Juz then read three. Make it thrice. But if you are not reading, if you are not reading or reading less than one, say one Juz, one sipara of Quran every day. So what happens now is Alhamdulillah you do one khatmah by the time you finish the Ramadan and then you are also listening to Tarawih which will take you to one Juz, so you have finished two Juz. Now if you read one Juz of Quran every single day of your life, which you should do and which is very easy, Alhamdulillah, then you would have finished in the year, you would have finished, just take the 12 months, you would have finished 12 khatmah, 12 Juz in the Quran, 12 times you finish the Ramadan and then in the Ramadan then you would extra make it two Juz or make it three. So you add that up plus one Juz of Tarawih, that's what you get. Now think about this. Rasool Allah s.a.w. in the beautiful hadith he said that when you read the Quran, Allah gives you 10 hasanat, he said Allah gives you 10 rewards for each letter of the Quran. 10 rewards for each letter of the Quran and he said I do not say Alif Lam Mim is one letter, he said Alif is one letter, Lam is one letter, Mim is one letter. So to do this, take a Quran, take a bambusaf, open it anywhere randomly. If you are using a Usmani script, there are 15 lines. Count the number of letters in the line. You don't have to be absolute exact but count them up. So if this Alif Lam is one, that is three letters, Zalikal Kitab, Alif Lam, Ka, so this way. So count the letters in each line and once you get one full line, then you can multiply that as 15 lines. That is the number of letters. There are per page, there are 600 pages in the Quran, give or take one or two pages. So that is 600 pages multiplied by those 15 lines multiplied by those letters. That is the number of hasanat that you will get if you read one juz and Allah s.w.t multiplies that by 10 minimum when it goes to Allah s.w.t. So imagine how much of goodness you are collecting for yourself. This payaza, this payaza without even thinking. And then in Ramadan, every nafl you pray, Allah is giving you the reward of a fard. Every fard you pray, Allah is giving you the reward of 70 fard. Now add to that the Quran that you read and the Quran that you listen to carefully and not talking about some people listen to Quran like background music. No, don't do that. That is disrespectful of the Quran. When you listen to the Quran, don't do anything else. Don't be chatting and talking and doing it. Carefully listen. You can listen while you are driving because you are driving and you are listening, Alhamdulillah this is possible, but don't do other things. Don't talk to people and stuff. This is disrespect of the Quran. So listen to the Quran and listen carefully. And then you do that, then you will find that Alhamdulillah, imagine the number of hasanat that you are collecting. In Tarawih, the Imam is doing the hard work. He is reading, he has to remember and he has to recite. You are simply standing there behind the Imam and you are listening. Imagine the number of hasanat, the free benefit that you are getting of benefit and reward from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Thanks to Ramadan. Maximize the benefit of being in Ramadan by making goals for yourself. Eat less, sleep less, pray more. These are the three major goals that you must make for yourself. We ask Allah to make it easy and to reward us. Wasallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wasa bi hajmein bi rahmatul kareem.

Auto-generated transcript:From the minds of my brothers and sisters, we continue with our reminders on Ramadhan Al-Kareem. Allah has been very kind. Allah has given us Ramadan. Allah has given us the ability and the tawfiq up to fast. Allah gave us the free time to spend in His dhikr, seeking His pleasure. This is the purpose for which we were created. Allah is giving us the opportunity to fulfill the purpose for which we are created. There is nothing bigger and more valuable than to live your life according to the purpose for which you were and I were created. A very important thing in Ramadan is to make goals and tell yourself and ask yourself, what are my goals in Ramadan? What am I going to do different and better from what I normally do? So, of course, obviously, normally we pray five times a day and we try to go to the masjid to pray those five prayers. If not five, then four or three or two or one at least a day. In Ramadan now, try to increase that. Try to increase that and say, well, I'm going to go all five prayers. Isha, of course, will go because of tarawih. But don't make that Isha and tarawih into a social gathering. One of my very dear friends, Haider bhai, I lived in Hyderabad. He always says this. He says, people say, you are studying tarawih. No one asks you to study Fajr. This is very appropriate and very true. Because you don't have to study Fajr. People ask, where are you praying tarawih? So that we can meet there. But they don't ask, where are you praying Fajr? Because Fajr, you are praying. Fajr time you are sleeping, so you don't want to be disturbed. Please, let's get out of these habits and get into positive habits. So, say, for example, the habit of eating less. Ramadan must not become, you know, sometimes we say jokingly that in Ramadan we actually put on weight and that is true. I mean, it's may Allah have mercy on us. A lot of people actually put on weight because you eat more in Ramadan instead of eating less. You eat all kinds of fancy stuff in Ramadan which normally you would not eat. So these are all very bad habits. So don't get into that. Simplify your life. Ramadan has come to help us to simplify our life. Simplify your life. Eat less, sleep less, pray more, read more Quran, make more zikr, send more salat and salam on Rasulullah, peace be upon him, and keep targets for all this. What you do not measure, you cannot improve. This is the standard in quality control. So everything, metrics is everything. Everything must be measured. So, and we are talking about extras. We are not talking about, am I praying the five prayers? The five prayers we are praying, it's like saying, am I breathing? There is no compromise on that. In addition to that, what am I doing? So, okay, maybe you say, I am praying Talaweeh. Alhamdulillah, excellent. You are praying Talaweeh. Are you praying the four till the Imam, which is Talaweeh plus wither and then to the end where the Imam ends or are you escaping midway? I used to call them racketeers, eight racketeers, and not the twenty racketeers. So, jokes apart, the point is that since Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us a benefit that hasanat for every letter of the Quran that you read or listen to carefully, it's well worth that. So make target for yourself. How much extra, extra, extra, extra, how much extra Quran will I read? How much extra salah will I, now, now I feel which is Talaweeh is one of them, and now I feel will I pray? How much extra dhikr will I do? How and especially the dhikr, salah and salaam on Rasulullah, he, salallahu alaihi wasalam, how much extra will I do? And then make this into your lifelong habit going forward. And then the following Ramadan, inshallah, maybe we try to increase that to make goals and targets for yourself in Ramadan, which inshallah help you and me to improve and become better human beings.

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 honored messengers of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and upon his family. And peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, imagine this. In terms of Ramadan, in terms of investment, as I told you, I don't use the word charity. Imagine this. That a man has two bank accounts. One in which he gets, his interest is haraab. I am giving an example just for you to understand. In one, the interest is 2%. In the other, the interest percentage is 200%. Right? So if the guy takes his money from this account, low interest account, puts it in a high interest account, what do you call it? You got it in good sense. You got it in good sense. A person's money is invested in a place where it is getting a very low return. He takes it out from there and puts it in another place where the return is very high. You see, this is business acumen. This is financial understanding. This is great wisdom. When we are giving what we call charity, which I call investment, when we are spending in the path of Allah, remember very clearly that you are not giving anything. Because how can you give to Allah? You belong to Allah. Everything you have also belongs to Allah. How can you give to Allah? You are not giving anything. You are investing. You are simply taking your money out of this account, which is called dunya, and putting it into this account, which is called akhirah. That's it. You are changing the money from one place to another place, from the dunya to the akhirah. When people say, you know, this whole world and all the possessions we have, you can't take it with you. Of course you can take it with you. Of course you can take it with you. How? By changing it from this one to this one. Take this and spend it in the path of Allah. It's going with you. And Allah said that the thing with Allah, you will find it with Allah in a better state. What is with Allah is better and Allah will increase it. Allah said, What is with you will finish, will be destroyed, will die, will perish. And what is with Allah is forever. I remind myself in you that every single thing in this world, which is all this account, will be left behind, will not go. If I want this to go with me, I have to move it into this account. So whenever there's an opportunity to give in the path of Allah, Satan will try to frighten you with fucker. He will try to frighten you with poverty. And he will say, oh, if you spend in the path of Allah, you will become poor. If that were the case, Umar ibn Affar, radiallahu anhu, and Abdur Rahman ibn Auf, radiallahu anhu, would have been paupers. They were not. That is the reason why the Sahaba used to spend the way they used to spend because they understood that this is not net loss. This is net gain. We are moving our stock from a low return environment into a high return environment. The ROI here was 1 percent. The ROI here is 200 percent. The return on investment was 1 percent, return on investment was 200 percent. It makes zero sense to keep the money in a low return place, especially when that low return place is full of uncertainty. Can you believe that? It's a very, very bad situation. Low return place full of uncertainty to a high return place, which is completely certain. It's a no-brainer. Not a no-brainer. So please spend in the path of Allah. Spend because there is a tomorrow. And that tomorrow is in the akhir. I remind myself when you that we have only the opportunity to spend now. Don't think, oh, when I get old, there's no end. Nobody has been given a guarantee that they will be able to live. Nobody has been given a guarantee that they will be able to live. Nobody has been given a guarantee that they will become old. Spend when you have it. Spend right now in the path of Allah. And then correct from Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, when you meet Him. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to help us to transfer our funds from the temporary account into the final account, into the permanent account and to give us from His Majesty and Grace. And may Allah bless the Prophet and his family and the Prophet and his companions with His Mercy.

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 the messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and his companions. And peace and blessings be upon him. I have written sisters, I mentioned to you the hadiths of Anas bin Marik of the Al Anu where Rasulullah was asked which is the best charity. He said the best charity is the one that is given in Ramadan. So therefore, let us make this, make special effort to give charity. Try to give something every day in Ramadan, right? No matter how small it is, try to give something every single day in Ramadan. And you will find that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will multiply the reward. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not allow any good action to be wasted. Allah returns it. That is why I say to people, charity, forget this word charity, right? Forget the word charity. In Islam, there is only one thing which is investment. Just tell me something, charity is what? We see charity as what? We see charity as a zero sum gift, net zero. So I give something, it's gone. It went for a good cause, gives me satisfaction, but it's gone. Islam says no, it hasn't gone. You invested it. So your satisfaction for having done a good deed still remains. But you invested this thing and as a result of the investment, you get a return, ROI. Return on investment. What is the ROI of Islam? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Manja bil hasanati palahu ashwaru amthaliya. The one who comes or brings one good deed, the one who invests one unit, Allah will give ten times that. Which means 1000% ROI. 1000% ROI guaranteed by the one who is Aala Kulli Shain Khadir, who has Qudrat and who has control over everything that exists. So when you have the return on investment, which is so completely and totally secure, what prevents us from investing? In the world, we have two kinds of investments. You have highly volatile investments, highly uncertain, right? Like some startups and new scripts which we don't really know about and so on. So highly volatile, highly uncertain. But usually the reward on that or the return on that is high. On the other hand, you have national bonds and things like this or major established multinational companies where there is so-called guarantee of your investments. But then because of that, the reward, the return on the investment is lower. With Allah SWT, you have a huge return with complete safety, which is the opposite of the equation in the world. In the world, as I said, if there is great safety, return is small. If there is great uncertainty, return is high. With Allah, there is great safety and the return is high. One is to return minimums. And then Allah SWT in Surah Baqarah Allah says that the one who invests in the path of Allah, it is as if he has planted a seed from which will grow seven years and each year has 100 seeds. So it is one is to 700. And then Allah said, And Allah will increase it as he wishes. So maximize your investment in this month. I don't use the word charity. Maximize your investment in this month. It's investment in yourself. Think about that. Get your mind around that. Investment in yourself and maximize it in this month. Give something, invest something every single day. Teach this to your spouses. Teach this to your children. Teach this to your friends. Let everyone benefit. We ask Allah SWT to reward us in keeping with His Majesty and Grace and to make it easy for us to take full advantage of this wonderful opportunity that Allah SWT has given us, which will end on the last day of Ramadan. So don't wait for that. Wasallallahu ala nabil kareem wa ala alihi wassabi ajmaeen bi rahmatul kareem wa rahimina wa alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the most honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family and companions. He has been delivered many times. Then, the next one is from Abu Hurairah. It was narrated by Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him, who said that Rasulullah said, Whoever fasts in Ramadan and fasts the month of Ramadan out of faith and in the hope of reward, he or she would be forgiven their previous sins. My brothers and sisters, as I mentioned before, the purpose of our life is to worship Allah subhanawatar. And the goal of our life is to get Jannah. It is to get the Rida of Allah, the pleasure of Allah and Jannah. Now Allah subhanawatar could have left it like that. So you do one, you get one. You do one good deed, you get one hasana. You do one evil, you get one sayyya. But Allah subhanawatar did not leave it like that. Allah subhanawatar gave us accelerators. Allah gave us accelerators. So for example, Allah subhanawatar said, Manjaa abil hasanati falahu ashruu amthalihaa. The one who comes with one good deed, Allah will give him ten likewise. So the minimum reward and return we get from Allah subhanawatar is one is to ten. Now in Ramadan, Allah subhanawatar opens the doors of His infinite mercy. So in Rahudan, Rasulullah said to told us that, first of all, the hadith which I narrated for you, that a person who is fasting, and that's why the niya is very important, innama ala amalu bi niyaatuhu kawakala alayhi salatu was salam. The reward of the deed is based on its intention, so let us correct our intention. So if we fast with the intention of iman and ahdisabar, we fast with faith, with complete yaqeen. Why are you fasting? Because Allah told me, I believe in Allah, I believe in the Day of Judgment, and I'm fasting to please Allah. Ahdisabar, I look forward to the reward from Allah subhanawatar. I'm a beggar, I come to Allah for His gift, for His generosity. I'm seeking charity from Allah. And I do that, Ahdisabar said, ghafar Allaho ma taqaddama min dambihi. Allah will forgive all his previous sins, we ask Allah for this. So the purpose of that is to come to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and beg Him to forgive us. Now when we give charity, Allah, as I said, Allah has made accelerators. So in Ramadan, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives the reward of a fardh for every nafil ibaidah. There was a sunnah, you get the reward of fardh for nafil, you get the reward of fardh. You pray tarawi, you're getting the reward of fardh. And for the fardh, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala increases the reward by 70 times. Normal time you would have got one, now you get 70 times. Think about that. In Ramadan, if a person, even if a person is sleeping, it is counted as worship. So Allah has given us accelerators. Let us take full advantage of that. Stay far away from any disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And focus on pleasing Allah. Nothing more, nothing else. Because nothing is more valuable. They ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for his help in pleasing Him. Wasallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala aalihi wa sahbihi wa min barakutikari wa rahim.

Auto-generated transcript:In the middle of the ayat relating to fasting, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described and mentioned the different rules of fasting and so on and so forth. In the middle of all that, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed this beautiful ayatul kareema. In surat al-Baqarah, ayat number 186, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, When my slaves ask you, O Muhammad s.a.w, about me, I am truly near to them. Say to them that Allah is near you. I respond to their prayer, to one's salah, to one's dua when they call upon me. So let them respond with obedience to me and believe in me. Perhaps they will be guided to the right way. All the perhaps in the Quran, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is mentioning himself, la'ala is at the level of yaqeen. Definitely it will happen. It's not an expression of uncertainty because there is no uncertainty with respect to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. See this beautiful ayat. First and foremost Allah is saying, When my slave asks about me, I am near. The slave is only asking a question. But Allah says, When he asks me, I am near. So this is the first thing to understand and try to wrap our minds around is to say, When the slave asks, Allah says, I am near. So be very, very conscious of this and let us thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for this. Let us treat this with great respect and honor. That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is blessing us. Allah is saying, I am near. Imagine what is the nearness of Allah? What does it mean? The ma'iyat of Allah, that Allah is with me, Allah is near me. What does it mean? What should it mean? Think about this. How beautiful, how wonderful. Allah says, I am near you just because you are asking. And then Allah says, Let him ask me, I will give him. Let him ask me, wujibu da'wat ad-dai izad-dahan. Let him ask me, I will give him. Allah did not put any conditions or any limitations on what you can ask. Ask whatever you want. As long as you are not asking for something haram, ask whatever you want. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, I will give you. InshaAllah. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us what we ask with khair and baraka, with afiyah inshaAllah. And then Allah says, Allah puts two conditions. Fal yas tajeebuli, let them obey me. Wal yu'minu bi, and let them have faith and iman in me. Laa allahum yasudun, then they will be rightly guided. Notice here that obedience comes before yakeen. Because yakeen is the result of obedience. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Do something when you do it and you see the results of it, your faith increases. Allah says, Have tawakkul, have trust in me. Do not indulge in haram. I will provide you from haraal sources. So when the person is having this trust, he is having trust unseen. This is the whole point of Islam. Iman bil ghayb. But when he has this trust unseen, then he sees doors opening for him where he did not expect to see a door, his faith increases. So first obedience and then iman. That does not mean you have iman later deliberately. It means that after obedience, iman will increase. And these are the two conditions. Obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and iman in him for the acceptance of dua. And may Allah bless the Prophet and his family and companions with your mercy.

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Universe. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and companions. And peace and blessings be upon him. Next, Allah SWT told us why he sent Ramadan. Allah SWT said, Ya ayyuhalladheena amanu kutibra alaykumu sriyamu kama kutibra ala alladheena min qablikum la'allakum tattaqoon Allah said which means, O you who believe, fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may become muttaqoon. la'allakum tattaqoon So that you may become muttaqoon. What is taqwa? Taqwa is that state of mind and heart where a person is concerned about Allah SWT's pleasure in everything that they say or they do. No matter how small, no matter how big, the person's question, there's a tape running in the back of the mind, the platform on which the whole person's software decision making and communication software runs is taqwa, which is, is Allah going to be pleased with what I'm going to say or not? So say if I'm going to, for example, if I'm going to say something to Nimab, before I say it, ask myself, what I'm planning to say to her, is this likely to please Allah or not? So if, for example, if I'm thinking of saying something critical about something, somebody to her, that person is not here, which is called backbiting. So if I'm planning to do that, which is also called most of our social life, so if I'm planning to do that, then I ask myself, is Allah going to be pleased with this? Answer is no, so I don't do it. Now the beauty of that is that when a person makes an intention to do something evil and changes that intention because of the fear of Allah's subhanahu wa ta'ala's displeasure, Allah's subhanahu wa ta'ala has, causes a good deed, hasana, to be written in their account. See the mercy of Allah, Jalla Jallalu, you haven't done anything, just change your mind. I had a thought in my mind, I think I'm going to do that, then I said, no, no, no, I can't do that because Allah will not be pleased. That's it. It takes like one second, it has, there's no effort, energy involved, nothing involved, but we get what hasana. What is the value of hasana? What is the value of one good deed? The value of one good deed on the day of judgment can be the difference between Jannah and Jahannam. One single good deed, right? If a person has one extra one, then the scale of good deeds is heavier, so they go to Jannah. If he does not have that one, then he has, he has, he has a problem. And how did I get this good deed? By being conscious of Allah's subhanahu wa ta'ala's pleasure. Will Allah be pleased or not? Right? So taqwa is to have this condition of heart and mind where everything we do, whether in public, whether in private, whether in secret, whether in a place where we think nobody is watching us because Allah is always watching us. We are concerned only about the pleasure of Allah. To bring about this situation and to bring about this condition Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent this month of Ramadan. Now how does Ramadan achieve that? It achieves it by a very simple and beautiful principle. And that principle is that from just before dawn to sunset, we are not allowed to do what is normally halal. Right? Eating, drinking, intimacy with your spouses is normally halal. But we are not allowed to do that during this period. Now if somebody says, why not? What's the answer? Why not? Why not? I'm saying, for example, this is a common question. A person who is not a Muslim, who is probably interested in Islam, so they tell you, okay, you guys are not doing this from this time to this time. Why? Fasting, why? Yes? To cleanse your soul. Yeah? To demonstrate faith to Allah. Demonstrate faith to Allah? Kind of yes, but what is the real answer? Discipline. Because Allah said so. That's it. Simple as that. Why? Because Allah said so. Discipline will happen, I will demonstrate my faith. All of this is happening. These are the beautiful side effects of obeying Allah. But why are you doing it? Because Allah said so. There's no other reason. That is a reason in itself. Right? Please understand this. The fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us to fast is the reason in itself. I'm not fasting to lower my glycemic index because I have diabetes or something. I'm not fasting so I become, you know, less fat or more fat or what. No, no, none of that. All of this might happen as a consequence. I've never seen anybody losing weight in Ramadan. Believe me, people actually eat. They actually eat more than they normally eat. But none of that is... the reason is because Allah said so. Now why is that so important for a Mu

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions. Peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, all praise is due to Allah. The month is passing and the month is passing fast. Today is the fifth day of Ramadan Al-Kareem. I ask Allah SWT to make the fasting easy for us, to help us to fast in a way which accomplishes the purpose of the fasting which is to make us Muttaqun. I remind myself and you that during this period of the fast, we stop ourselves from doing that which is Halal. Only because Allah SWT commanded that. What then of what Allah commanded and told us is Haram. What then of those things which Allah SWT prohibited us from doing, not just within the period of fasting, but throughout our lives. What of gambling? What of dealing in interest? What of bad mouthing people? Rebirth? Backbiting and slandering? What of telling lies? What of withholding our evidence and witness? What of foul mouthed speech? What of bearing grudges and enmity? What of hatred? What of greed and envy and jealousy? May Allah have mercy on us. The list is endless. Allah SWT commanded us not to intake even that which is Halal and Alhamdulillah in Ramadan we follow that. What about all of these things which Allah commanded and said it is Haram? I mentioned interest. With respect to interest, Allah not only made it Haram, Allah declared war on the one who deals in interest despite knowing that it is Haram. Yet we deal in interest. Yet we find excuses. What would you say to somebody who is fasting, who claims to be fasting and then you find him eating something and he says, no, no, no, you know, these are just these cheetos which came or something which are so tasty I just tried a little bit. Say, but brother, you are fasting. You are not supposed to try a little bit or more or less. So when doing that is not permissible, how can we be permissible to disobey Allah SWT? Brothers and sisters, please understand, I remind myself and you, we came here Allah sent us only to obey. Allah did not send us for any other reason. Allah said, you have not created the human beings and the jinn for any purpose. You have not created the human beings and the jinn for any purpose. You have not created the human beings and the jinn for any purpose other than to obey, other than to worship. That's the only purpose. We were sent to worship Allah. How then do we not do that? How then do we disobey Allah? Disobey Allah, knowingly. Please understand this. We don't want to stand on the day of judgment before Allah SWT and say, Allah, you know, I made a mistake. And we are told, no, it's not a mistake. You deliberately did this thing. It's a crime. You knew interest was haram, but you ate interest. You knew gambling was haram, but you went and gambled. You knew using of tobacco and tobacco products and cigarettes and argila and this and that. All this was haram, but you deliberately did this. You knew backbiting and cheating was haram, but you did it. You knew slandering was haram, but you did it. How are we going to, you know, justify this? Tell me. My brothers and sisters, please. The purpose of fasting is not just hunger. That is why Aswina Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, stay away from all these things. Stay away from bad mouthing. Stay away from foul language. Stay away from yelling and screaming, from raving and ranting. Stay away from telling lies and all these things. Otherwise, he said, there would be people for whom their fasting is only hunger and thirst. They will get no reward for the fasting because their fasting is going in all of these things which Allah SWT has prohibited. Let us not be among those people. Let us protect our fast and let us make sure that we fast from everything which is haram. Because we are fasting from that which is halal. We ask Allah to make it easy for us and accept it. Insha'Allah. Wa Salallahu Ala Nabi' Al-Kareem Wa Ala Alihi Wasaabi Al-Jama'in

Auto-generated transcript:As-salātu wa s-salām ʿalā ʿashrafī l-anbiyā'ī wa l-mursalīn Muhammadun Rasūlu Llāh ﷺ tasleeman kathīran kathīra Hammadu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu ʿAbdu alun maghummin wa ghair apar-arab suggestions Allah SWT said Allah's blessing has been and was and is on the Prophets, the martyrs, and the people who are good in the sight of Allah SWT. Among the Prophets, Allah SWT said Ya Seen wal Quran Al Hakim, Inna Kala Meenal Mursaleena Ala Siratil Mustaqeer. Allah SWT, the second Prophet, Ya Seen is one of the names of Rasulullah SAW, he said and Allah took an oath by the Quran, Wal Quran Al Hakim, Inna Kala Meenal Mursaleena, truly you are among the Rasul, among the messengers of Allah, Ala Siratil Mustaqeer, and you are on the Siratil Mustaqeer. Which Siratil Mustaqeer? The one we ask Allah for in every Rakat of every Salah, in Suratul Fatiha, without which the Salah is not complete because Suratul Fatiha is a Rukun of Salah and the one who has not recited Suratul Fatiha, his Salah is invalid. So every Salah, Fargh, or Sunnah, or Nafil, or whatever, we ask Allah for Hidayah. Ramadan came to give us this Hidayah. It came to open the doors. So when we stop ourselves from what Allah has prohibited, we are doing this as a way to turn towards Allah SWT. So let us use this month to make sincere repentance, sincere Tawwah to Allah SWT and wash our hands and clean our lives from every single thing, small or large. That is disobedience of Allah. Let us focus on our Salah. That is the first thing that we need to correct. Make sure that we pray, that we pray correctly, and we pray on time without delay. We ask Allah SWT to accept our fasting and to accept whatever we do for His sake and to correct our intention, to purify our actions and to accept us in His path and to give us Khatima Bil Khair. And may Allah bless us all.

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahir Raheem. Wasalaatu wasalaamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolulahi sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasleeman katheera katheera. From abadhu, alhamdulillah, we are in the month of Ramadan. Fasting has started. Taste the sweetness of this. What are we doing in fasting? Let me remind myself and you. What are we doing in fasting? What are we doing in this fasting? What we are doing in this fasting is that things which were and are and continue to be halal, things which were permissible, things if we did them for the sake of Allah SWT, we would be rewarded for them. Those things during a specific period of time in the day, we make them haram on ourselves. Eating of halal food is halal except in the period of the fast. From the time of the beginning of the fast to the end, it is haram to eat. Drinking is normally halal. In the period of the fast, it is haram. Sohba with our spouses being with our spouses halal during the period of fast, haram. Now why? Why is something which is normally permissible being made impermissible during a specific period of time? Very simple answer. Because Allah said so. There is no other answer. We are not doing this to reduce our glycemic index or to have some positive effect on blood sugar or to lose weight or nothing. We are doing it because Allah said so. Now this is the fundamental principle of Islam. A Muslim is the one who submits to Allah SWT. Why does he submit? Because Allah is Allah. Because he recognizes his relationship with Allah. I am the creature of Allah. I am the slave of Allah. I exist because Allah created me. I exist for the purpose of glorifying and praising and worshipping Allah SWT. Allah SWT said, We have not created the human being and the jinn for anything other than worship. And what is worship? Worship is the actions of worship of which Ramadan, the fasting and Ramadan is one. But worship is to obey. And then the month of Ramadan is supposed to reinforce this. Obedience. Why are you not eating? Because Allah said so. Why are you not drinking? Because Allah said so. Why are you not doing things which were normally halal? Because Allah said so. And the same things which we have not been doing and which we did not do all day today until the time of iftar become halal, once iftar is over. Once the time of iftar comes, they become halal. Obedience. Islam means obedience. Islam means submission. وَيِذْكَعْلَ لَهُ رَبُّهُ أَسْلِمْ قَالَ أَسْلَمْتُ لِلَبِّ الْعَانَمِينَ Allah SWT said about Ibrahim Ali, Allah SWT said to him, Submit. He said, I have submitted. It is to inculcate this spirit of submission, the spirit of total and complete obedience, not blind obedience. It is obedience because our eyes are wide open, our hearts are wide open and we recognize Allah SWT. We are not obeying blindly. We are not obeying without understanding anything. We are obeying because we understand. The one who is not obeying is blind. The one who is not, a Muslim who is not fasting is blind. A Muslim who is not fasting in the month of Ramadan has not understood anything. He doesn't know who he is. He does not know who Allah is. He does not know that he will die one day. He does not know that he will be resurrected, that he will stand before Allah SWT. He will be questioned and he will have no answer. The one who is fasting is the one who understands all of this. And therefore he said, لَبَّيْكَ اللَّهُمَّ لَبَّيْكَ Oh Allah, I am here. I am here to obey you and I am obeying you. I ask Allah SWT to make us among those who respond to the call of obedience, to the hukum and the order and the command of obedience of Allah SWT, which must be done in the way, the sunnah of Muhammad SAW. And may Allah's peace and blessings be upon the Prophet, his family and the water of the sea be upon him. With your mercy, O merciful and merciful. And praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Universe. Peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family and companions. He has been very, very peaceful. From now on, my brothers and sisters, Allah SWT said about this month of Ramadan, O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may become righteous, so that you may become people of Taqwa. I remind myself and you that all Ibadat, all acts of worship are not for themselves. They are tools, they are ways for the purpose, the sole purpose of attaining and earning the Rida of Allah, the acceptance of Allah, the pleasure of Allah SWT. Every Ibadah leads to that. Same result and same goal for every action of worship. Every action of worship is for that purpose, it is not for itself. For example, about the Salah, Allah SWT said, Inna Salata Tanha Anil Fahshai War Munkar. Allah said, Verily the Salah separates you from Fahushait and Munkarat, from all forms of shamelessness, all forms of disobedience and all forms of rebelliousness and disobedience. The purpose of Salah is not Salah itself. We don't pray for the sake of prayer. We pray so that Allah SWT purifies us, separates us from all kinds of shameless deeds and Munkarat, all forms of disobedience of Allah SWT and rebelliousness. Similarly, about fasting, as I mentioned to you the Ayat of Surah Al-Bukhara, So that you become people of Taqwa, people who are concerned about earning the pleasure of Allah SWT. The purpose of fasting is there. The reason I am saying this is because when you are doing something for a purpose, you must look at whether this purpose is being achieved or not. You go to the gym to develop your body, to develop your strength, to change the shape of your body from being spherical to being, you know, looking like a healthy human being. You measure that. You measure your muscle, the ability to lift weights. You measure your muscle strength. You measure your muscle mass and so on and so forth. Similarly for other things. If you are going towards some destination, when you are traveling, you say, well, how many miles more to go? Means there is a destination, that destination, there is a distance, I have traveled some distance, I have some more to go. The same thing we must apply with regard to our Taqwa. How many miles to go? So what is my level of Taqwa? What was it last year? What was it last month? What is it now? Measure it. And the measurement is very simple. How obedient am I to Allah SWT? How obedient am I to Allah? How obedient am I to Rasulullah SAW? Obedience to Allah SWT orders His Ahkam in the way of Muhammad SAW. We do it the way he did it. This is the meaning of obedience. This is the meaning of being on the path leading to the mercy of Allah SWT. That is why Ramadan comes, to focus on that. And Allah SWT is saying the purpose of Ramadan is to focus on pleasing Allah SWT. I ask Allah SWT to give us good health, to give us time, and above all to give us this intense awareness, this intense awareness that the most important thing for me to do in this month of Ramadan is to maximize the benefit by doing my best to please Allah SWT. And never, never, never do anything which amounts to the disobedience of Allah and the disobedience of His Nabi SAW. Live our lives according to the orders of Allah on the Sunnah of Muhammad and Rasulullah SAW. May Allah bless us all with His mercy.