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Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil-‘Alameen, wa salatu wasalamu ala ash-sharafi al-anbiya’i wal-mursalin Muhammadin Rasulullah ﷺ, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi sallam tasliman kathiran kathirah wa mubarakan. Alhamdulillah. Allah Ta’ala gave us Islam; He gifted us with this beautiful religion, which is the most critically important ni’mat of Allah: the ni’mat of Islam.
Because the one who lives by Islam and dies on Islam, Allah will give him Jannah. The Rasulullah told us that the one who dies on La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ.
Despite Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam presenting Islam to him, literally you know pleading with him and saying, “Just say, La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah.” Let me hear it. Just say, “La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah,” and I will make shafa’at for you before Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la. I will ask Allah to just say it.
He did not say it.
He said, “I am dying on the religion of my forefathers.” Abu Jahl was sitting there, on the other side of the bed, and Abu Jahl said, “You are going to say this because you are afraid of death.” So the Ananiyat came in and said, “No, I’m not afraid of death.”
“I’m not afraid of death.” That is a very stupid thing to say because the point is, it’s like somebody who does not understand the dangers of a situation.
You are walking into the forest as if you are strolling in the moonlight. Somebody is telling you, “There are tigers, there are lions; you will die, you will be killed, and you will die a terrible death.”
“I don’t care, I’m not afraid of it.” If you’re not afraid, you think you won’t die? You think the lion won’t kill you?
What is the meaning of not being afraid?
He said, “I’m dying on the religion of my forefathers.”
So I remind myself: Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Insha’Allah, we cannot thank Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala enough that Allah gave us Iman.
And Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala gave us the Sha’ur, the understanding to live by this Iman. May Allah forgive us for whatever mistakes we make and our weakness and so on, Insha’Allah. We ask Allah for His mercy; we try to do our best. We ask Allah for His mercy; we are not perfect, we’ll never be perfect, we know this. But Insha’Allah, Alhamdulillah, Allah gave us Iman. Allah gave us, for example, the tawfiq to come for Salatul Fajr to the masjid. Alhamdulillah. Just think about this. They asked the Prophet ﷺ which is the best amal? And Rasulullah said, As-salatu ala waqtihah.
The Salah at its time.
Best amal. So when we stand here and you make the niyah for the first Salah, have this awareness that what I am doing right now is the absolute best action that I can possibly do. There is no other action which is superior to the first Salah being prayed at its time.
And then by Jama’at, Alhamdulillah, 27 times the reward. And this is only and only with tawfiq, by the tawfiq of Allahﷻ.
So we must pray with this awareness: “I’m standing here, I’m doing the best possible thing that I could be doing,” and this is the tawfiq of Allahﷻ, so see how much Allah loves me, that Allah gives me this tawfiq to stand here and to worship Him. And then when you make sujood, before sujood, you are either reciting yourself or you are listening to the Imam; recite the actual word, the actual speech of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala.
The actual speech of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala. This is not an interpretation. Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not say, “Allahu yaqul.” Allah said, “Alhamdulillah.” No. It’s Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la himself saying, Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim.
Words of Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la. Then you go in sujood, Rasulullah S.A.W. said the slave does not make sajdah on the earth; he makes sajdah before the throne of Ar-Rahman. Have this istihzaal, have this understanding: “I am making sajdah before the throne of Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la.” Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la, apne arsh ma jalwa afroz hai; He is on His arsh in a way that suits His majesty and grace, and I am making sajdah
right
because this is the only thing we live with; this we die with. Insha’Allah we are safe. You die without this, you die without this Iman. A door opens that you don’t want to open. Allah may Allah protect us. We come to the sixth of the beautiful Hikm, the words of advice of Fatima Al-Assam, and he said something very beautiful. He said, “I have seen that in this world everybody has at least one enemy. I have seen that in this world everyone has at least one enemy.” But Allahﷻ said in the Quran: إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ (inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un).
Hatim al-Assam said, “So I have taken Shaytan as my enemy, and I always try to stay away from him. And therefore I have no enemy other than Shaytan.”
Shaytan is your enemy. Take him as your enemy. Now think about this. There is a difference between somebody saying, “So-and-so is not a good person,” and this person, this individual, actually wanting to harm you. The definition of enemy is what? It’s not a question of, “You may not like somebody.” You may say, “No, I don’t like somebody.” Are you his enemy? I’m not his enemy. I just don’t like him. I try to stay away from him. He’s not a nice person. He’s not a good company. This is a different issue. But if somebody is your enemy, this means that this person is actively trying to harm you.
Allah is not saying defend yourself. Allah is not saying ignore shaitan. Allah is not saying stay away from us. All of this is true; all of this is also there. But in this case, Allah is saying, فَاتَّخِذُوهُ عَدُوًّا: “Take him as your enemy.” Meaning, fight him. Shaitan is trying to harm you. Don’t just sit there. Fight shaitan.
Don’t ignore. Fight shaitan.
So the first way of fighting shaitan is to say, أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ. Because seek the protection of Allahﷻ; Allah is the only one who can protect from shaitan. This is one characteristic of shaitan: that in the world, there are many people who are evil. But all those evil people, no matter who it is, no matter how evil, there is some goodness in them. In the sense, they may not be good to you, but for example, take the most evil person going and say, “How is he to his own children? How is he to his grandchildren?”
He will see tenderness, he will see kindness, he will bring some gift for him. He may be killing somebody as his children, but his own children?
So, there is some goodness. That goodness is not benefiting you or something, but there is some goodness. In Shaitan, there is no goodness.
So anytime you feel the presence of Shaitan, you feel that by Shaitan trying to deceive you, Shaitan trying to tempt you. I think I mentioned this earlier also, there is a way of differentiating between two things which misguide us. One is Shaitan, one is our own nafs, right? Our own desires. There’s a way of differentiating which comes from Shaitan and which comes from the nafs, the temptations. The nafs is; another way of looking at nafs is, it’s a form of addiction. So, the nafs takes you to addictions. So, somebody is addicted to smoking. Somebody is addicted to drugs. Somebody is addicted to pornography. Somebody is addicted to telling lies, right? Now, the person who is addicted to smoking, drugs, he may not be looking at pornography.
That doesn’t interest him. Right? But, and vice versa, for example, the guy who is addicted to pornography is not taking drugs. It’s one thing which the nafs is addicted to and the nafs drives you towards that. So, greed and jealousy and hatred, different people. I mean, somebody who is very greedy may not be jealous of anybody else, but they themselves are very greedy. So, this is one of the sicknesses of the nafs. But shaitan, he doesn’t care what particular addiction you have. He doesn’t care. As long as it is disobedience of Allah, shaitan will lead you and me to do that. Whatever it is, to the extent that if he cannot make you and me do something which is haram, he will make you and me do something which reduces the value of the good you are doing. For example, he can’t stop you from giving charity, but he will then make you publicize that.
You put a picture of that on Facebook and Shatai will say, “No, no, it’s good; you know, it’s encouraging other people.” You are putting it there to show your face. Don’t fool yourself. That’s not because you want to encourage anybody else. You want to put your face there so you’re putting it there
so all the reward of that charity has gone down the drain; you get nothing from this
right any Riya trying to show.
Somebody says, “Please make dua for me,” yes I will make dua for you today in tahajjud in sujud. Who told you to say all this? You want to tell people you are praying tahajjud. For what he said, make dua. You say Insha’Allah and make dua. You make this dua anyway wherever you want to make it in tahajjud or whatever. Why must you tell anybody? This is Shaitan. So, your praying of tahajjud is taken away as a reward for this. You want to come and pray Salah in the masjid? Shaitan will say, “No, no, no.” You wake up, pray. Why go all the way there? Pray. Pray here at home. He’s not stopping. He’ll even wake you up. So, we seek the protection of Allah from Shaitan. Second thing is, anything that Shaitan advises you to do, do the opposite of that. For example, you are giving charity, right? And you put your hand in your pocket, you want to give, say, 10 rupees, and you suddenly, I mean obviously when you are looking at the, when you put your hand in your pocket, you don’t know which kind of note it is. So, the note comes out, it’s a 100 rupee note. Shaitan will say, “No, no, the 10 rupee note also is there. Put this inside your pocket and give the 10 rupee note. That’s what you intended to do. No. Give the hundred. Give the hundred. Allah Ta’ala gave you the hundred. Give the hundred. Don’t give the ten. Just to beat shaitan.” Anytime, anything, an encouragement to do less, always do more. Always do more.
That’s the other way. One is to seek the protection of Allah. Secondly, anytime he tempts you to do less, do more.
That’s how you bechata. Until he runs away. Give 100 rupees, give another 100 rupees. Keep on giving 100 rupees until he runs away.
Anything good you do, hide it.
Let somebody else encourage people. Don’t get into this trap of, “Oh, I’m encouraging people.” No. You are not sent to encourage. You are sent to do good deeds. Let someone else do the encouragement; you do your own stuff, hide it, keep it safe between you and Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la, let nobody know it.
We ask Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la to help us to fight shaitan, we ask Allah to protect us, we thank Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la for giving us iman and tawfiq, and we ask Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la to keep us with iman and tawfiq and to take us with iman and tawfiq Insha’Allah. Ve sallallahu aleyhi ve sellem.