Our relationship with Allah – 5

Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolullahﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasleeman kathiran kathira. From Abadu, my brothers and sisters, we are looking at the issue of relationships. The first of that is with Allahﷻ. And we established the principle that every relationship has a requirement in exchange for which we get the benefit of that relationship. If you do not fulfill the requirement, you do not get the benefit. And we looked at the requirement that we have of Allahﷻ, our relationship with Allahﷻ, and that is to worship only Allahﷻ and not to make shirk. And to obey Allahﷻ in everything that He has commanded us to do. And I mentioned four things that we have, we obey Allahﷻ because of them. And one is, the first one is that we know that Allahﷻ loves us. And two, that we know that Allahﷻ knows what is best for us. What is good and what is harmful. The third thing is to remember and remind ourselves that Allahﷻ ordered us to do something because it is for our benefit, not His. Allahﷻ is the best. He did not give birth to or be given birth to, nor did He give birth to any animal. Allahﷻ is pure. He is free from all wants. Nothing benefits Him and nothing harms Him. So when Allahﷻ has commanded us to do something, it is for our own benefit. And the fourth thing is that we know that when we meet Him on the Day of Judgment, we will be questioned about whether we obeyed Allahﷻ or chose to disobey Him. May Allahﷻ save us from that. Now, these four things: Allah loves me. Allah knows what is best. Allah commanded me to do something because it is for my benefit, not His. And the fourth one is that I will meet Allahﷻ. These four things work hand in hand. All these four are together. And when we live our life like that, then we find our life is full of peace and harmony and stress-free. Alhamdulillah. Because at the end of the day, it's only what Allahﷻ has written that will happen. This is one thing which we have to have complete and total faith in this. That only what Allahﷻ has written, only what Allahﷻ wants will happen. Nothing else will happen. All the rest of it is drama. It's very critical to understand that we are not just people; we are the slaves of Allahﷻ. We have no choice in the matter. We didn't create ourselves. We cannot destroy ourselves. We were created by Allahﷻ. We are sustained by Allahﷻ. Allah gave us whatever we needed and desired. And He said that He gives us whatever we ask for. And if you try to count the blessings of Allahﷻ, you will not be able to count them. We are talking only about counting, not even about thanking Allahﷻ. Just say, one, two, three, four, five. We will not be able to remember it. The blessings that Allahﷻ has given us. And it is through our gratitude, our thankfulness to Allahﷻ, that we must make sure that we obey Allahﷻ in everything. This jazba, this emotion, this quality of shukr, the quality of gratitude to Allahﷻ. This is the source of all happiness, the source of our satisfaction, the source of us being at peace. Gratitude to Allahﷻ, being thankful to Allahﷻ. And I always remind myself and I remind you that the best way to have gratitude to Allahﷻ is think of something that you like, some blessing which we have, any number. And then think of how life would be if that was not there. Take eyesight for example. How would life be? If you did not have colour vision. If you would only see black and white. It happens to people. They lose colour vision. So they can still see but everything is only black and white. So now you are looking at the most beautiful scenery. You can't enjoy it. Somebody says look at that sunset. What sunset? Look at that sunrise. Which sunrise? Take away taste. Simple things. Taste buds. After her third child, she had three children. After the third child, her taste buds got knocked out. She cannot taste anything. Whatever it is, it's just like eating grass. God doesn't want it. No taste. Just think of what life would be if you did not have that blessing. Alhamdulillah, when you have the ability and Allah has given you something, appreciate that. Thank Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala for that. In sujood, pray tahajjud. In sajda, count the blessings. Allah said, if you want to count the blessings, forget about. I am talking about being thankful. Just count one, two, three, four. Allah says, you cannot even count the number of things that I have blessed you with. Right? When we choose to disobey Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, think about this. He said, you're trying to disobey somebody who has given you so much. We thank Allah because of gratitude. We do that because we know that our best interest lies in obeying Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you're driving down a road, and if you're on a path where you don't know what is ahead of you, but you have with you a guide. Who knows what is ahead, who knows the dangers, who knows the benefits, and who is showing you the way, how comforting that would be. And Allahﷻ not only showed us the way by giving us a map, which is the Quran al-Kareem, but by sending for us a guide to hold us by the hand and to take us through the difficulties of this life, on the path of safety, to the destination of glory and bliss. That is his Rasool sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Now, why would we not follow that guide? Why would you ignore that map? And insist on doing things your own way, even when we know that our way goes against the way shown to us by the guide. Even though when we know that we don't know the way, but we will still go. Imagine how insane it is to refuse to look at the map or listen to the guide. But this is what we do in our life. In your normal day-to-day going from point A to point B, we will not do that. But in our life, this is what we are doing. Alhamdulillah, Allah Ta'ala has not left us in the wrong path. In darkness, Allah has not left us to discover things by ourselves. Allah Ta'ala showed us the way. And a day will come, and sooner than we think, when we will stand before Allah Ta'ala. Just think about the number of janazahs we attended in our lives. Think of the number of people who died. People we knew very well, and people who we did not think that they would die so soon. But they died. So why do we believe that we will live forever? We will not live forever. We will also die. And just like we thought the other person died much sooner than I expected, we will also die sooner than we expect. Then what happens? So that is the reason why it is very important. Allah Ta'ala said, Do not die except in a state of Islam. Meaning, except in complete submission to Allah Ta'ala. Do not die in a state where you have been disobeying Allah Ta'ala. Die in a state of Islam. How can you die in a state of Islam? Only one way. When you live in a state of Islam. We cannot live in disobedience to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala and expect to die obeying Allah. It is not possible. Oh Allah, I want to die in Sujood. So what is the first thing to do? Start praying. Why do you not pray? Why do you not pray and die in Sujood? If you want to die in Sujood, start praying. If you don't pray, how will you die in Sujood? If I want to die and wish the same for you, if I want to die in a state of obedience to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, then I must live in a state of obedience to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. This was the switch in the mind that Rasool Allah made with the Prophet Muhammad. He showed them this factor of the Akhirah. That every action of ours, every speech of ours is not restricted to this life. It has an effect in the Hereafter. So everything I say here has an effect in the Hereafter. You are sitting and listening to this, it has an effect in the Akhirah. Alhamdulillah. This is a benefit, this is ni'mah, this is after the Salat or before the Salat, when you are remembering Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, it is counted as part of Salat. It is counted as Ibadah. So Alhamdulillah. We are getting this benefit, InshaAllah, as long as we don 't destroy it ourselves by Ghaybat and this and that. This will be our life. This will be with us on the Day of Jalim. InshaAllah. Everything, good or bad, anything you do here has an effect in the Akhirah. And once the Sahaba understood that, Ridhwanullah, their whole lives changed. They were people like us, they were people doing business and this and that, whatever, good things, bad things. But once they understood that everything is linked, every word I say, every action I do, has an effect in the Akhirah. Then they think, now you are reflectively living. You are living thoughtfully. You are not living like a robot. You are not living by default. You are living thoughtfully. Everything is what is the action? You get up out of your bed, you make wudu, you travel whatever distance you travel, short distance, long distance, you come to the Masjid to pray Salatul Fajr by Jama'at. It might look like a small thing, after all, when I lived in the US, we had to walk through the snow for this. There is no snow here, you come very easily. But end of the day, some effort is made. The value of this effort? The value of this effort is, Allah will give us the reward of having worshipped Him for half the night. So if you take 8 hours of the night, you will get 4 hours of worship. You will get the reward of having worshipped Allah for half the night. And then the previous night, if you also prayed Salatul Isha by Jama'at, Alhamdulillah, I think most of you who were here, you prayed. You get the reward for the other half. So if you pray Salatul Isha by Jama'at and you pray Salatul Fajr by Jama'at, you get the reward for worshipping Allah the whole night. Even though you did not get up in tahajjud, you did not pray tahajjud, Allah is giving you the reward. If you pray tahajjud, even more, it's even better. But even if that didn't happen,