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Alhamdulillah, Rabbil ‘Aalameen.
Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. Alhamdulillah, Rabbil ‘Aalameen. Wasalat-u wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah. Sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira.
My brothers and sisters, Allahﷻ. In the ayat of Surah Al-Baqarah relating to Hajj, Allahﷻ said: “Inna taqwa.” No, Allahﷻ said, *Akhairu zadi taqwa wa taquni ya ulil albaq*. Allahﷻ said, “The best provision for your journey is Taqwa, and have my Taqwa.” O people of intelligence! The thing for us to remember—and I remind myself and you—is that Taqwa is the fear of offending the one we love the most, which is Allahﷻ. Usually, Taqwa is translated in Urdu as *Khuda ka khawf* and in English as “fear of Allah,” but by submission, Taqwa is not fear because fear is a negative emotion by itself. You destroy your fear by submission. It’s like the thing you fear; you don’t love the thing you fear. People have fear of snakes. You might think, “We are standing here now on the bank of the mighty Zambezi, and I can hear hippos in that corner there at the back and so on.” So if somebody tells me, “I’ll give you a million dollars on the other side, which is Zimbabwe, if you can swim across this river,” right? Will I do it? Because this river is full of crocodiles, it’s full of hippos, all kinds of things; there’s a fantastically strong current. You know, you don’t want to risk that. So this fear—I mean, nobody loves that. But Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala, in His great mercy, said about the believers: may Allah ta’ala count us among the believers.
This is another thing on a side note; we take it for granted. We think believers are *Mominim*, but they are not *Mominim*. Please understand the word “believers.” The *Mominin*—Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala when He revealed the Quran—who was He referring to? Me? You? He was referring to the Sahaba of Rasulullah ﷺ. Right? *A’mannan rasulu bima unzila ilayhi wal Mominin.* Right? *Min Rabbihi bil Mominin.* Ha? *Bima unzila ilayhi bil Rabbihi wal Mominin.* So Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala said, the Rasul, alaihi salatu wa salam, has a great power. He has accepted and brought Iman, and those with him. And the *Mominin*. Who are with him? Ma Rasul. So the word *Mominin* refers to the original meaning: the Sahaba of Rasul ﷺ. Then because of them—and because we claim to be the followers of Rasul ﷺ, and may Allah ta’ala honor this claim—we are also included, insha’Allah. But let us not become complacent and say, “Hey, amara to khusn. I am the waris of Jannah, I will go.” No, no. In Surah Al-Momineen, Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala listed 11 ayats. At the 11th ayat, Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala says, *humul warisun*. They are the people who will inherit. Who are the people? Read the ayat before. Right? *Qad aflahal Momineen, alladhi rahum fee salaatihim khashiyun.* We just prayed Salatul Fajr. Can I say to myself that I, when I was praying Salatul Fajr, it was with 100% khushu’? I had nothing in my mind except Allah. Can I say this? I am supposed to say it—not for saying. I am saying, “This is how our Salah is supposed to be.”
Sayyidina Ali bin Abi Talib, Rabbi Allah knows, in one Ghazwa, he got hit in the thigh by an arrow and the thing broke off. So the head of the arrow was inside; the arrow broke off. Obviously, it became septic and it started becoming gangrenous. It was intensely painful. So they said, “Look, if we do not cut the thread—if we cut this out, you will die. Or at least, minimum, you will lose a leg. Then we have to cut off the leg because it is becoming gangrenous.” He would not allow anyone to touch it because it was so painful. They said, “No, we will make you unconscious and we will do it.” He said, “How will you do that?” Well, here is some wine, some liquor or something; you drink it, knock yourself out. He said, “No, I will not drink what Allah has provided; I will not do that.” Then what to do? You cannot knock him on the head or something. What are you going to do? So he is saying, “You cannot do that.” He said, “I will pray. When I am praying, do what you need to do.”
So, he is making Salah. As he is praying, they cut, they removed everything. No sense of pain, because he is completely disconnected from the world. He said, “Allah is totally disconnected. The world does not exist.” That is why somebody said, “If you gain everything in the world—everything, we are not talking about some wealth and something else. We are talking about millions or king of one country or ten countries. He said, ‘Everything.’ Meaning, including, for example, you own this water, for example. You own everything. So, they said, ‘If you own everything, but you lose Allah, then what have you gained?’ And if you lose everything, may Allah protect us, if you lose everything, but you gain Allah, what have you lost?” Nothing, right? If you gain everything and you lose Allah, what have you lost? Nothing. Because no matter what it is in this life, we have to leave it behind. This is something that, alhamdulillah, you know, we must get this one thing settled for us: between us once and once and for all. Sometimes I tell my students, “Stand in front of a mirror. Look at yourself in the mirror. Look at your own eyes in the mirror. And you say to yourself, ‘I am going to die,’ eye and I am going to leave everything behind.” Say this, say this aloud looking yourself in the eye and convince yourself that this is the Haqq, this is the truth. Whether anyone believes that or not doesn’t matter; it is the truth. Right? Supposing I say, “I jump into the water and nothing will happen,” it won’t change what will happen.
So in terms of Taqwa, Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala’s Quranic interpretation of Taqwa, insha’Allah, is not fear of Allah. Because as I said, fear is a negative emotion. What you are afraid of, you try to run away from that. You don’t like snakes, you won’t touch snakes. Right? You don’t like dogs, you won’t touch dogs. Whatever. Fear is a negative emotion. But how can our connection with Allah be based on a negative emotion? So Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala said about the believers, *walladheena amanu*, those who have accepted faith: *ashadduhubban lillah*. They love Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala more than anyone and anything else. *Ashadd*—in the Arabic language, *shadeed* is the description of a condition which is strong. *Ashadd* is the superlative form of *shadeed*. *Ashadd*. Right? Like the word *ghadab* is anger. *Aghdab* is anger which makes you insane. Right? So Allah said, *walladheena amanu ashadduhubban lillah*. Allah said, “But the believers—they love Allah more than anything and anything else.”
Now if you combine these two—the fear of Allah as in His glory and majesty, which is the Arabic word; the Quranic word is *khashya*: *lawan dhana hadha alqur’ana ala jabalilla ra’itahu khashia’m mutasawwim*. The angels, he said, “I am gone, I am gone, forget it, I am free from you.” And he said, *inni akhafu Allah*; he said, “Really, I fear Allah.” Now question is: if you fear Allah then why are you a shaitan? Why did you do whatever you did? Because *khawf* is not the same as *khashya*. *Khashyatullah* comes out of the love of Allah, and the element of *khawf* there is “I will not do anything to displease the one I love the most.” So Taqwa is an outcome of *khashyatullah*, and when a person has Taqwa, that person is saying, “I fear to offend Allah. I don’t fear Allah; I fear to offend Allah.” And if you say, “Al tabai, why do you fear to offend Allah?” Because I love Allah so much, I love Allah so much. You know, *ta’ala allahu lam thala allatwa*; Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala is above any example, so we don’t compare Allah to any other. But just take it from this for example: if you say, “I love my father very much,” right? Whatever my dad says to me, I will do; there is no argument about that. So I will never do anything which will offend my father.
There is a famous case in what I think was the Olympics where this Kenyan runner, long distance runner, marathoner, he was winning; he was literally in sight of the finish line. When he got confused, he had—he didn’t realize what was happening, he couldn’t read the signs—and so he stopped. Now the Spanish runner who was number two came; he caught him by the elbow, he said, “That is the finish line, run, run.” Now people ask him, “You are mad! I mean, that is his problem and he gets confused; that is not your problem. You could have gone, you would have won, you would have got the gold medal.” He said, “What victory would that have been?” He said, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. What victory would that have been?” And then he said something which is unbelievable. He said, “If I did that, what would my mother think of me?” Hey, we all talk about raising children—that we should raise children well and this and that. I have a book on that also called *Raising a Muslim Child*. The key thing is this: do our children think about us like this? Yes. And that is—you know when you see that? His mother is not there. The test is when that person is not there. What will my dad think of me? He is dead and gone. What will he think? But thought is with me; I will never do anything which my father would not have liked.
So *khasyat* and *hubb*, the combination of that, is Taqwa. So I remind myself with you: let us not talk about us like that. Let us have the Taqwa of Allahﷻ. Let us live our life in a way where every decision we take—no matter how small, no matter how big—every decision we take is taken only with one focus: Will this please Allah or not? That’s it. You are not thinking of any other thing. Will this please Allah or not?
So somebody for example comes to me and says, “You know, you have all this money lying around, why don’t we invest it and you will get this, it will multiply and this and that?” Why don’t we invest it? Why do we have these things? Why do we have these things? Why do we have these things? Why do we have that bar piece? Give it to somebody, let him run the bar. Do not even take that money; you have to lease it obviously you cannot give, so that lease money give it away in charity right. So do not use the lease money, give that away in charity; let the bar be there—you are not benefiting from the bar but the bar is in your hotel. Will you do it or not? I will find you fatwas to say, “I will find you people who will give you a fatwa to say ‘no problem.'” Will you still do it or not? With the fatwa to say it is not an issue. Taqwa is to say at that point in time, *Ridha* of Allah—*Fawq al fatwa*, is beyond fatwa—is above fatwa—and I will not touch something in which there is even the doubt that this might displease Allahﷻ.
So I remind myself when you—I want to finish with this. It’s about these two questions: these questions about these two, about these two questions, two questions about these of Rasulullah at his house, Al-Kawthar, along with him across the Sirat and into Jannatul Firdous. And I ask Allah to decree that we sit in the Majlis of Rasulullah and listen to the recitation of the Quran, *Bisawti Muhammad*. We listen to this or that Qari and say, “Mashallah Mashallah, what beautiful Qaraat.” How could have the Sirat of the one who received the Qalam? How would that have been? The Qari didn’t recite the Qalam; the Qari recited what he learned. But what about the one who received the Qalam? What about the one who Allah addressed? How would his recitation have been? We ask Allah to show us this, insha’Allah, in the Majlis of Rasulullah. And then we ask Allah to give us the greatest of His mercy and *Nia’mat*. Where Allah said when everyone will be gathered in Jannah, may Allah include us and all our *Mutalik* among them. He said Allah will say to us—to all the believers—Allah will say, “Are you happy?” Say Allah, how can we? We are sitting in Firdous; how can we not be happy? Allah will say, “Can I say something which will make you happier?” See Aram, what is it that… or he said, “Can I give you something?” What can I get? I mean, I am sitting in Jannatul-Firdous. I am sitting in the company of Rasul-Sallallahu-Alaihi wa-Sallam. What can be better than this? Allah-s-Mahama-Tayalam will say to Ridwan, to the angel in charge of Jannah: “Let them see me.” And he will say, “I announce, I declare that from now I will never be displeased with you.”
The *Ridha* of Allah is the highest reward, the highest honor that we can ever get. And that’s why again this is not my opinion. I’m saying this is the Quran is saying this because the Quran said about the people—the disbelievers, the people who denied Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala—who did commit all kinds of atrocities and so on. The thing you know—you know what Azab the Quran described for them. The Quran says, *La yuzakkihim wala yanzuru alaihim*. Allah will not purify them and Allah will not look towards them. Okay. He’s not—Allah is not looking at them. He’s not saying He’ll put them in the worst of… no. Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala Jalla Jalaluhu will not look at them. That is the worst punishment because the *Ridha* of Allah is the best reward. So we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to settle this in our heart and that we never ever say or do something which does not please Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Peace be upon you. Peace be upon you too. Al Fatiha.