The Treasure and the Key – #2

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon all his companions. Peace be upon him, and upon all his companions. Now we have looked at two reasons why du'as are not accepted. Meaning, if we want du'as to be accepted, we must fulfill these things. The third one which Ibrahim A.S. said was, he said to them, you claim to love Rasulullah, you claim to love the Prophet Muhammad , but you abandon his sunnah, but you abandon his way, you abandon his teachings. Allah told us why he sent Rasulullah , the purpose of the Nuzul of the Prophet , and he called him his blessing. Allah said, لَقَدْ مَنَّ اللَّهُ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذْ بَعْسَ فِيهِمْ رَسُولًا مِّنْ أَنفُسِهِمْ يَتْلُوَ عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتِهِ وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَإِنْ كَانُوا مِنْ قَبْلُوا لَفِي ضَلَالٍ مُّبِينٍ In Surah Al-Imran, Allah said, which means indeed Allah has done the believers a great favor by raising a messenger from among them, reciting to them his revelations, purifying them, teaching them the book and wisdom, for indeed they had previously been clearly misguided. It is worthy to note that Allah, even though the Quran, is a blessing of Allah, even though everything we have is a blessing of Allah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose to call the teacher of the Quran, the Rasul alayhi salam, as his special blessing on the believers. It must be understood that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the key to the treasure called Al-Quran al-Kareem. He is the password to the database, the roadmap to Jannah. Without the password, without the key, the treasure chest, the roadmap will not open. You may hold it in your hand, but it cannot benefit you because you can't use it to find the road or to walk on it. Islam is all about practice. Who is a Muslim? The one who practices Islam, not the one who knows about Islam. There are many people who know a great deal about Islam. There are many heads of the departments, heads of Islamic studies in many American universities, full tenured professors, who know more about Islam, certainly than I do. But they are not Muslim because they don't practice Islam. For them, Islam is another ideology which they know about. Islam is all about practice, not only about belief, not only about knowledge. Without the example of Islam, without the example of Rasool Allah , we cannot practice Islam. There are two questions in the mind of anybody. One is why, the other one is how. The question why comes when you say, why should I obey? Why should I follow the Prophet? Why should I obey Allah? I obey Allah because I believe in Allah. And then I say, how should I do that? That's equally important. Without the how, the why cannot be implemented. And that is why the Sunnah is the key to the Quran, to the Ridha of Allah and to Jannah. Allah emphasized this particular point in two ways. One, by the use of the word, Laqad. Surely, indeed, verily, in the beginning. Laqad mann Allah. Surely, indeed. Allah could have simply said, I have given you a blessing. No. Just surely. He is drawing our attention to that. He said, notice this. And then, by how He, Jalla Jalaluhu, ended the ayah, where He said, وَإِن كَانُوا مِنْ قَبْلُوا لَفِي ذَلَالٍ مُّبِينٌ And Allah said, for indeed, before this, before the coming of the Prophet , they were clearly misguided. Please reflect on the fact, that the people had been following some ideology, before the advent of Islam. Because they obviously, like, anybody follows something because you consider that to be the best, and so they followed whatever they followed. But when Allah sent Islam and sent the Prophet , Allah said, all that was before is misguidance. Follow this. Because this is the clear path. And as they say, when the destination is chosen, the path becomes clear. That was and is the problem. The question I ask you to ask yourself, and I ask myself with word of mouth, I can ask myself with word, what is my destination? Where do I want to go? Allah asked this in the Quran, He said, أَيْنَا تَزَبُونَ Where are you going? And that's the question we need to ask ourselves, where am I going? Because based on that destination, the path will become clear. Nobody in his right mind will believe that all paths lead to the same destination, they don't. Not in this world, not in the hereafter. The path has four aspects, four stages, four key actions that we must do. Allah sent Rasulullah to take us through those four stages. One, recite the ayat he received, recite the revelation. Two, purify the listeners. Three, teach them those ayats in all their aspects. And four, show them the wisdom by practice. If I were to use four words to illustrate this, I would say inform, prepare, teach, and demonstrate. And for us on the receiving end, when we are being informed, we must listen carefully. When we are being prepared, we must submit to the preparation. When we are being taught, we must learn assiduously. And when the demonstration is done, we need to practice what has been demonstrated. So, inform, teach, and demonstrate. So, inform, prepare, teach, demonstrate. On our side, listen, submit, learn, and practice. These are obviously not independent activities, but four steps, four stages that lead to the ultimate goal, the rida, the pleasure of Allah . Imagine a farmer who has received a batch of very superior seed, which is guaranteed to give him a bumper crop. What will he do? Will he just throw it on the ground? He will first secure the seed and keep it safe. And that's where the issue of memorizing and reading and so on comes in with the Quran. Then he will prepare the soil to ensure that it is conducive to receiving the seed. He will check it for pathogens. He will treat it for that. He will check it for pH value and see the acidity and alkalinity and so on and so forth. He will test it for organic matter. He will add or subtract and so on and so on. Once the soil is prepared, only then will the farmer plant the seed. And then finally he will water it. And that is the relationship between tilawat al-Quran, the recitation and learning of the Quran, taskiyat al-nafs wa tarbiyat al-akhlaq, purification of the self and purification of our manners, uloom al-shariah, the knowledge of the Islam in all its aspects, and the itiba of the sunnah, emulation of Rasulullah . All stages must be passed through in this sequence. No stage can be omitted. And that is the meaning of love for Rasulullah . Not simply claiming to be an ashika Rasul and singing some nasheed. The example is to practice what he brought. My brothers and sisters, I would like to say that I am not a person who is a believer. My brothers and sisters, we ask Allah to help us to do that. Now think about this. Another example to illustrate why the relationship between the Kalam of Allah, the Book of Allah, and the Messenger of Allah is so important. For example, Allah said, إِنَّنِي أَنَا اللَّهُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا أَنَا فَاعْبُدْنِي وَاَقِمِي الصَّلَاةَ لِذِكْرِي Allah said, Truly I am Allah. It is truly I. I am Allah. There is no God worthy of worship except Me. So worship Me alone and establish prayer for My remembrance. But Allah did not tell us in the Quran how to do that. He taught this to His Messenger Muhammad who demonstrated it. And he said to the people, صَلُّوا كَمَا رَعَيْتُمُ وَنِي أُسَلِّي He said, pray as you have seen me pray. Now consider this in the light of the four steps. Allah commanded us to pray. He said, أَقْمِي الصَّلَاةَ We say we are ready. How shall I do it? We go to Rasool Allah . He says, first of all, purify yourself. مَيْكْ بُدُو مَيْكْ غُسَل Make sure your clothes are clean. Make sure the place you are praying is clean and so on. And then He teaches us how to pray. The khiyam, the ruku, the sujood and so on and so forth. All the usool of the prayer. All the usool of the salah. How many rakat for each salah. For example, now you are going to be praying at the time of Zohar. You are going to pray a salah which is very different from Zohar. Zohar is four rakat silent. You are going to pray two rakat loudly. Where did we get this from? From the Rasool Allah . Everything. So the methodology, He teaches us how to pray. And then He demonstrates how it is to be done, which we then learn and we do. Now, if you remove Rasool Allah from the equation, if you say, now I don't need the Rasool, I do not need his teachings, the Quran is enough for me, then show me how will you pray. Very fundamental thing. How will you pray? The Quran doesn't tell us how to pray. It's as simple as that. My brothers and sisters, that is why, I say that Rasool Allah is the key, He is the password to the treasure called Islam, to the map called the road to Jannah. To love Allah is to obey Him. You have to understand there are ways of relating. If I say I love Allah, I show that by what? By obeying Him. To love the Rasool, the Prophet Muhammad is to emulate Him. To love the Quran is to understand it and follow it in every aspect. To love Jannah is to choose the path to Jannah over every other path. To love the possibility of being in the company of Rasool Allah is to do what his blessed companions, his Sahaba did and choose what they chose. Every claim must be supported with a choice made consciously and followed sincerely. After that, we can look forward to the mercy of Allah and His forgiveness and the intercession and the forgiveness of the Prophet Muhammad . The intercession of Rasool Allah on the day when there will be no shade except the shade of Allah's throne. I ask Allah for the shade of His throne for all of us on the day when there will be no shade. Allahumma dhillana tahtta arshuk Yawma la dhilla illa dhulluk Rabbana faqfir lana dhunubana wa kafiranna sayyatina