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As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Alhamdu li-llah Rabbil ‘alamin. Wa-salatu wa-s-salamu ala ash-sharafi n-nabi Muhammadﷺ wa-l-mursaleen. Tasliman kathran kathra.
And then, my brothers and sisters, we are looking at the ways of dealing with difficult times. How do we live in these times? What do we do? And especially where the difficulties are such that we have no control over them. But we still have to put up with them, bear with them. And so, what is to be done? We are looking at different things that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught us. Alhamdulillah. And among them is what he said, where he said, do not use if. Accept the Qadar of Allahﷻ and be pleased with it. Because whatever happened, happened because Allahﷻ wanted that to happen. It did not happen despite Allah’s will. So only Allah ta’ala has the ability to do whatever He likes. And Allahﷻ is the Rahman ar-Rahim dunya wa l-khirah. And therefore, He will do the best. In a Hadith-e-Qudsi, Allahﷻ said, and Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam informed us, اَنَا عِنْدَ زَنِّي عَبْدِي بِهِ I am for my slave as He expects me to be. So, Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, I have the best expectation from Allahﷻ. Don’t say, I don’t know, I have a sinful life, I don’t know if Allah will forgive me or not, I don . . .
Alhamdulillah, first of all, we should try to live our lives as obediently to Allahﷻ as we can. First and foremost. And then, expect the best from Allahﷻ. Inshallah, Allah will forgive me. Because I am trying my best, because I am making istighfar and tawbah, we should do all this.
Yesterday, somebody sent me one nazm. So, this guy was reciting. And he says, Taqat tumari hai, khuda hamara hai. Now, all the shairi is good. But the point is, khuda hamara hai, bulne ke baaste kuchona na. Khuda hamara hai, kya khareed ke lai. Kya baat khuda hamara hai? So, if you say that, you have the power, meaning worldly power, and we have Allah. So, to say that I have Allah, that Allah is mine, khuda hamara hai, ya naiz, humari milkiya ta gaya, Allah ta na’uzubillah. So, you say Allah is mine, I own Him, na’uzubillah. How do you say this? On what basis?
Because collectively, we are involved in everything haram. We earn haram, we eat haram, we talk haram, we deal haram. Right? You grab people’s property and rights, you slander people and you destroy their credibility in society, you attack their reputation, character assassination. We deal in interest on which Allahﷻ declared war. And that set of ayat ends with, in kuntum uminee. Allahﷻ said, forgive whatever you want, whatever is owed to you, of the money that you may have lent, don’t take it back, if you are believers. So, Allahﷻ has put a conditional statement, they are saying that, if you do not leave interest-based banking, then effectively you have left Islam. May Allah protect us.
We do all of this. And then we say, khuda hamara hai. Ye, kumar mein jeena koi akhal bandi nahi hai. To live, to live in this kind of fog is not sensible. Allahﷻ told us who He is with. This is the beauty of the kalam of Allahﷻ. Nothing is left for guesswork. Allahﷻ mentioned, supposing you say, who is Allah with? Allah mentioned this. Inna Allaha ma’al lazeena taqaw wa lazeena hum muhsinoon. The last verse, last ayat of Surah An-Nahl, Allahﷻ said, Verily Allahﷻ is with the people of taqwa and ihsan. And people of ihsan. Ihsan is step beyond taqwa. Ihsan is to worship Allahﷻ as if you can see him. And if you cannot see him, know that he sees you. To somebody who is living with that level of awareness of Allahﷻ in his or her life. That level of awareness. Where he knows, and he knows deep inside him, that Allahﷻ is with me, and he is watching me, he is hearing me, real time.
With such people, Allahﷻ said, I am with them. For such people, Allahﷻ said, Fama yattaqillaha yaja’allahu makharaja, wa yardhukuhu min haythu la yahthasih, fa man yatawakkal allalahi fahu hazmuk. Allahﷻ said, the one who has taqwa, condition, everything in the Quran, all promises are in the Quran. All promises are conditional. Do this and you get this. What you will get is way beyond what you do. It is out of proportion to what you do. Man jaa’a bil hasanati, falahu ashwar wa masaliha. You bring one good deed, Allah will give ten. So there is no proportion. It is huge. But that one good deed has to come. So Allahﷻ said, the one who has taqwa, I will solve his problems. I will extract him from his difficulties. I will make his life easy. I will remove the danger from his life. And I will provide them from sources that they cannot imagine. And then Allahﷻ said, the one who has tawakkul on Allah, Allah will become sufficient for that person.
So we are saying here that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam advised us to correct ourselves. So in difficult times, the first and foremost thing to do is to make istighfar and tawba. Istighfar is not only for making repenting from sins. Istighfar is the door which opens to all goodness. Istighfar is the beginning of repentance. The beginning of everything good. Istighfar is what removes the punishment of Allahﷻ. Impending punishment, istighfar stops it. In Surah Al-Anfal, Allahﷻ said that Allah will not punish them as long as you are with them, Ya Rasulullah swt. And Allah will not punish them wa hum istaghfirun while they are making istighfar. As long as they keep making istighfar. So Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is with them meaning, in our case not physically but in terms of the sunnah. So is our life on the sunnah of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And istighfar is istighfar. So it’s a very powerful thing to make istighfar.
So the way to deal with difficult times is number one to make istighfar. Number two, to remember that Allahﷻ is with us. And Allahﷻ himself mentioned this in Surah Al-Hadeed. Allahﷻ said He is the One who created the heavens and the earth in six days and ascended to the throne. He knows what lies in the earth and what comes out of it and what descends from the sky and what rises from it. And He is with you wherever you are. For Allahﷻ sees all of us possible and considers us to be the best tired of the values that come from our melodies. And He knows our points to go up to swath, to sohbat all over. Allahﷻ said Shepherd eha. That you do. In the magnificent style of the Quran, Allah first reminds us of who He is. This is Allah. He is the creator of everything we know and everything we don’t know. He created the sun, which is a star, which is one of the smallest stars in the galaxy, around which He created our solar system. And the sun sometimes throws what are called solar flares, which is basically a flame. And they have measured, some of these are 300,000 miles long. One flare. Allah created the magnetic shield around the earth. The sun throws out solar debris. One of those particles land on the earth will destroy everything. So you are worried about this nuke and that nuke, so comparison to what the sun will, all the nukes in the world are not even a fraction of what the sun throws out. People say the sun gives life. Allah gives life, sun doesn’t give life. If you really want to know, sun gives death, not life. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun burns. Allah protects. He created a magnetic shield around the earth. That’s how you see the Northern Lights. Aurora Borealis is the fight, the constant battle between the magnetic field and what the sun throws out. Because of the magnetic shield, it all burns off in the atmosphere. That’s what gives you all those beautiful green and blue lights. It looks very pretty, but that is a life and death struggle. Without that solar shield, I wouldn’t be sitting and talking to you and you wouldn’t be sitting and listening to me.
This is Allah . Allah is telling us all of this and more is what I do and what I have. Nothing escapes the attention of Allah . This Rabb of ours is with us. Where were we? He is with you. Where were we? He is with you. He is with us. No matter where we are. Everywhere. Now this knowledge, this awareness does two things and should do two things. One is, it should and it gives us tremendous confidence to say that my Rabb is with me. So who can harm me? What can anybody do?
What is the meaning of need? I have no need. Alhamdulillah, Allah is with me. If Allah is with me, I have no other need. If Allah is with me, I have no fear. If Allah is with me, I have no enemies. If Allah is with me, I don’t need anybody else. But that sense of awareness, do you feel this? Sense of confidence, you get this amazing confidence. That’s why Allah said, Allah is with you. in Theresa tawma innaul uqi Playing Allah said, peace of mind, tranquility. Anti-depression drug is the zikr of Allah. Remembering Allah Subhan He Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala. When you remember Allah Subhani Wa Ta’ala, Alhamdulillah so tremendous sense of confidence and happiness the second thing which it does is it’s a shield and protection from sin because if I am aware that my Rabb is with me and Allah is watching me and Allah is listening to me then how can I lie how can I slander how can I backbite how can I cheat how can I use bad language just think about this we don’t give the example of Allah but any person with any Izzat even if you use bad language or you tell some you know dirty joke somewhere with your friend and so on you will never do that in front of your parents no will you go home and say to your mom and dad it’s a good joke listen to it how do you say it in front of Allah there is a famous I forget the actual words now but there is a famous a man came to Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal and he said I have written Nazam so can I recite and he said tell me just the first misrah of it where where the man said Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala he said man says what will I say when I meet Allah if Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala asks me you are ashamed of people and you hid things from people but you did them in front of me they say Imam Ahmad Alhamdulillah wept and he kept crying he wept so much that his his stuff got wet his students they thought he was going to die he said how will you answer Allah when you go before Allah and if Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala says you did all this hiding from people what you were doing in front of me may Allah have mercy on us
so very important for us to keep this in mind Alhamdulillah Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala is with us and therefore we must have complete and total confidence that Alhamdulillah Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala will take care of us no need to get stressed out no need to get afraid and no need to keep wondering what will happen what will happen Alhamdulillah only what Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala wills will happen and that is the best that could happen so we should keep this in mind so we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to give us this confidence and to keep us all safe and to save us from all kinds of problems that we create as human beings hmm we create who makes wars human beings who creates all the suffering human beings there is no some other being from somewhere coming and doing it we are doing it we choose to do it so we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to save us from that we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to remove all oppression and all oppressors and to help those people who are being oppressed and to save them from that oppression and may Allah bless the noble Prophet and his family and all his companions