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Alhamdulillah. My brothers and sisters, that is why Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala taught us to make dua for guidance to the path, the Siratul Mustaqeem.
The path of those who He blessed and not those who incurred His anger or were misguided.
Think about this. We make this dua at least 17 times a day when we recite Surah Al-Fatiha in every rakat of every Farsalah.
Just the Farsalah is total of 17 rakats.
Then of course Sunan and Nawafil and so on and so forth.
There’s no salah which is valid unless Surah Al-Fatiha is recited in every rakat.
And what do we ask?
We ask for Hidna Siratul Mustaqeem.
We say, O Allah, guide us to the path, the straight path, the path of guidance, the path of righteousness.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala accepts.
He accepted the dua of Ibrahim alayhi salam and he decreed and said,
He is the one who has sent his Messenger ﷺ with right guidance and the religion of truth,
making it prevail over all others and sufficient is Allah as a witness.
I remind myself and you that the religion is Islam.
And this is the religion of every prophet.
Every messenger.
This was the religion of Ibrahim alayhi salam or Ibrahim.
This was the religion of Musa or Moses or Isa or Jesus.
This was the religion of Muhammad ﷺ.
This was the religion of all the prophets who are mentioned.
He is Islam.
Submission to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.
The question to ask therefore is, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala accepted my dua.
I made dua Hidna Siratul Mustaqeem.
Allah accepted that dua and he sent his Messenger ﷺ.
But am I following him or somebody else?
Let us ask before we are asked.
Because that is the first question in our grave.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala not only accepted our dua,
but he also told us that the way of Muhammad ﷺ, Islam,
would become the most preferred and prevalent way of life on earth.
Today, we wonder how certain negative harmful lifestyles have become so prevalent and powerful
when just a few,
few years ago they were despised and kept hidden.
That is the power of living your choice with confidence.
No matter what it is, if you do it with confidence, the world will accept.
If this is possible with negative things, how much more with positive ones?
But when the ignorant are confident and the knowledgeable are diffident and apologetic,
ignorance will prevail.
Remember that when the truth must be spoken, silence is culpable.
The Prophet ﷺ and all those who followed him will be our witnesses.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala called the Prophet ﷺ, his blessing on the believers and declared his mission.
And he said,
Allah said,
Allah said, which means indeed,
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has done,
the believers a great favor by raising a messenger from among them,
reciting to them his revelations,
purifying them and teaching them the book and wisdom.
For indeed, they had previously been clearly astray.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala emphasized two things.
The fact that the sending of his messenger,
who was also human, is a double blessing.
That we got a messenger and he is from among us.
And that before the coming of the messenger,
sallallaahu alaihi wasallam,
the believers had no way, were misguided.
This is the most certain evidence that guidance is only in the way of and through Muhammad ﷺ.
And all other ways that do not come from him or bypass him are misguided.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala granted Ibrahim alaihi salam his dua,
but changed the order of what he asked for,
which underlines for us the importance of the sequence of learning.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala sent Rasulullah ﷺ
with four
connected duties.
These are four progressive stages of learning and guidance.
Four steps to Jannah.
They are,
yathlu walaihim ayatihi, recite,
wa yuzakkihim, purify,
wa yu’allimuhum alkitab, to teach,
wal hikmah, to demonstrate.
From the perspective of the audience, of the learners,
these four, our four steps would be to listen,
when he recites, to submit,
when he purifies, to learn, when he teaches,
and to practice what he demonstrated.
These four are not independent of each other,
but are a continuum, like a staircase,
which takes you to the top.
If we leave out a stage, we will fail.
Today, this is our biggest problem.
Out of the four steps or stages,
we focused on two and almost totally discarded the other two,
paying only lip service to them.
We focused on the recitation of the Qur’an,
and what comes with it,
which is hivs of the Qur’an and tajweed.
So the lahan, the tune of recitation,
memorization of the Qur’an,
and the actual method of pronunciation,
all of which are important,
but we focused on them exclusively.
But we ignored
taskiyatul nafs wa tarbiyatul akhlak,
purification,
purification,
purification,
of the soul and heart and the molding of manners of adab of treating each other of ma’milat
of dealing with each other all of this got dumped.
Then we focused on the teaching of the book Ulum-ush-shari’ah and we have big madaris
and big jamiat and big universities where we get degrees and become muftis and we become
muhaddithoon and so on and so forth teaching of the Quran but we ignored the practice of
the sunnah.
We considered the sunnah to be something which if I do that is good if I leave it that’s
no problem.
The tragedy is that when we separate taskiyah purification from ta’aleem and ta’aleem which
is teaching from amal which is action the nur left the ilm the light left knowledge
.
And only words remained.
That is how we can recite the Quran beautifully we can memorize the whole Quran and we can
recite the ayat of the glory and majesty of Allah very beautifully but the fear of created
things the fear of makhlook remains in our heart.
How is this possible?
You are talking about the greatness and glory and magnificence of Allah and you fear the
makhlook you fear people you fear you are losing your jobs.
You fear this and you fear that.
How is this possible?
This is like eating and still remaining hungry.
Something is wrong with that.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala commanded us and he said Ya ayyuhallazeena amanu taqullaha
waqulu qawlan sadidah yusliha lakum amalakum wa yakhfir lakum dhunubakum wa man yuti’i
allaha wa rasoolahu faqad fa’aza fawzan azeema Allah said O believers have taqwa of Allah.
Be concerned about the pleasure of Allah and speak the truth then He Jalla Jalaluhu
the glorious and magnificent will bless your deeds and forgive your sins and whoever obeys
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and his messenger has truly achieved final success.
So obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and obedience to Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam is not optional.
That is the way if we want success before Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.
But then there is a level higher than obedience and for which the reward is even more than
success and that is the level of the love of Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
expressed by the emulation of all his ways.
The reward of that is that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala will love you.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala told us this and he said qulin kuntum tuhibboona Allah fa’tabihooni
yuhabibkumu Allah wa yakhfir lakum dhunubakum.
Wallahu ghafoorur raheem.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said that if you love Allah then you will love me.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said that if you love Allah then you will love me.
Wallahu ghafoor raheem he said say o prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam if you
sincerely love Allah then emulate me imitate me.
Don’t only do what I tell you to do do what I do because I do it.
And then what will happen then Allah will love you and He will forgive your sins for
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala is all forgiving most merciful.
Just think about this and reflect what is the meaning of saying Allah loves you.
If Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala loves you and me and I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to
make us among the best.
those who Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala will love. What is the meaning of that in our lives? It means
that you raise your hands for dua and your dua will be accepted before your hands come down
because you are talking to the one who loves you and he will do what you ask him to do. He will
inspire you to ask for things that he wants to give you and he will give them to you. He will
help you. He will protect you in every possible way. He will make you popular. He will make you
influential. All the stuff that we want in this life, the thing to understand is everything we
want in this life. We want power. We want influence. We want wealth. We want peace of mind. Above
everything else, we want peace of mind. All of this, the route to get there is obedience to Allah
subhanahu wa ta’ala and the emulation of his messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Allah sent him as an example.
For us to obey and emulate and become like him. If we do that, then we will get what he got,
which is that just like he became the most influential. Imagine in one generation,
in 23 years, not even a whole generation, in 23 years, he and his people went from being the most
despised, the weakest, the most oppressed people to becoming the rulers of the land.
And that happened without shedding any blood. That happened without massacres. That happened
without killing anyone. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was not Julius Caesar.
He was not slaughtering people and enslaving people. All of this happened with love. It happened with
concern. It happened with genuine good manners. It happened with sincerity. It happened with a big
heart and the willingness to forgive. I keep saying this over and over again, and I will say it till the day I die.
Learn to forgive each other.
Clean your hearts. Don’t carry garbage in your hearts. Grudges are garbage. They stink. And only you will spend that stink, nobody else.
Whatever happened, if it was good, alhamdulillah, thank Allah. If it was bad, forget it. Learn the lesson. Forget the data.
Clean your heart. Unless and until you forgive, nothing in this world remains. Believe me, there is no relationship, including
our relationship with Allah.
Which can survive, not forgiveness. Not forgiving, not our mad.. your wife, your husband, your children.
Nobody, no relationship can survive if you are not willing to forgive each other. So forgive each other.
I say this the whole time, and Insha’Allah, may Allah make us among those who will forgive. Alhamdulillah, today we saw
a beautiful demonstration of that, in the way we prayed salatul Eid. The whole, all the masajid, in this, in this, in the way we prayed.
in this western Massachusetts,
coming together to pray.
You and I know,
there were people there
who had differences with each other.
There were people there
who had conflicts with each other
for decades.
But alhamdulillah,
they cleaned their hearts,
they came there,
they hugged each other,
they kissed each other,
they prayed together as one.
It shows us that this can be done.
And they did not do that
because I told them.
I didn’t tell anybody anything.
They did that because
Allah put it in their hearts.
They did that because
they wanted to do it.
And all power to them,
takbir, Allahu Akbar.
Alhamdulillah.
That is what we need to maintain.
Will we have disagreements?
Of course we’ll have disagreements.
But does it mean that
therefore we must make enemies?
No.
Does it mean that
if I disagree with somebody,
the natural progression is
that now I will not talk to him,
I will not go to his house,
I will not invite him,
I will not pray behind him,
I will teach my children
to disagree,
to respect him and his children.
I mean, come on.
Is that a natural progression?
That’s corruption.
I have a different opinion
with the other person.
I’m intelligent,
he’s intelligent.
Sit down, talk about that,
resolve it.
If we cannot resolve it,
we can have differences
on something which cannot be resolved.
We decide that there are certain matters
in our conversations,
henceforth,
we will not talk about them.
I have friends of mine,
very dear friends of mine,
who are atheists.
Committed atheists.
Committed atheists.
Just like I am a committed,
committed,
you know,
muwahid,
and committed Muslim.
Two opposites.
We are great friends
because we have decided
and we went through
some rough patches
and then we decided,
that person and I,
both of us asked ourselves,
is this friendship important to me or not?
Or is it important
that I win this argument?
I know I will never win the argument.
Neither will he
because he won’t win the argument.
I won’t move.
So what do we do?
I said, what we will do is,
in future,
we will not talk about religion.
But we have so many other things in common.
And we have,
both,
that person and myself,
both of us are very
deeply interested in nature,
in wildlife preservation and so on.
We do,
we have an absolute ball with that.
Great fun with that.
Alhamdulillah.
And I keep mentioning that,
I said,
I’ll not turn the heart
because the person is alive,
Alhamdulillah.
I’ll not turn the heart
because the person is alive,
Alhamdulillah.
I’ll not turn the heart
because the person is alive,
Alhamdulillah.
I’ll not turn the heart
because the person is alive,
Alhamdulillah.
Show him your glory and majesty.
Fill his heart with your nur.
It is possible
to live harmoniously
with people
with whom we do not share beliefs,
we do not share religion,
we do not share race,
we do not share culture,
we do not even agree on things,
but we can be friends
and we should be friends
and we can have
a beautiful relationship.
This is the meaning
of emotional maturity.
This is the meaning
of emotional intelligence.
So, I remind myself
and you, grow up.
Grow up.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala
to fill our hearts
with His glory and majesty
and love for each other.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala
to help us to be together
in a way that serves Him.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala
to help one another.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala
to help us.
Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem
wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain.
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