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In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honor of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions and companions. Peace and blessings be upon him. Remember, my brothers and sisters, 1997, I was the year when I first, for the first time in my life, I bathed the body of somebody who had died. There was a call to our Masjid here, to ISWM, from the wife of the person who died. The wife was Christian, and she called and said that, I think my husband was Muslim, and he has died, and can you take care of the burial and all that. Sheikh Wissam was here, he was the Sheikh. I was also here at that time. It’s a long story, I won’t go into that story. But I did the Ossal of the body. I’d never done it before. And there was this body. And when I went there, I almost said, excuse me, can I touch your, can I wash you? Can I touch you? I almost said that. Because all I could see was this person was like he was sleeping. And I had to tell myself that he is dead. And I reflected on this a long time. And I said, what was missing? What was missing? Because the body was there, the eyes and ears and nose and hands and feet, everything was perfect. But something was missing, because of which he needed me to give him Ossal. He wouldn’t bury himself. And that thing was the spirit, was the Roh. When the Roh left the body, the body is as it was. If you look at the body, there is no change in the body, in the structure of the body, in how it looks or anything else. Immediately after the person dies, it’s still the same thing. But something from inside has gone. And that inside, the thing which left from inside is the soul, it is the Roh, it is the spirit, which gave it life. If you were sleeping in the bush somewhere, I mean I’ve done that for years, I still do it. There will be ants and so on. They won’t bite you. They won’t start eating your flesh. But leave a dead body. The Roh has gone. The reason I’m saying that is, just as the Roh gives life to a human being, the Masjid gives life to the community. This Masjid is the Roh, it is the soul of the community. If this Masjid is not there tomorrow, we’ll protect the Masjid and keep it. But if the Masjid is not there tomorrow, your houses won’t change, your house won’t fall down, your car won’t stop starting in the morning, nothing will happen. Your jobs will be there, your businesses will be there, your children will still go to school, you will still have things to do, you will feel hungry, you will eat your food. But you will be dead. The community will be dead. Because the connection with Allah is gone. The place where the Malaika used to come is gone. The place where the Rizq used to descend and then be distributed is gone. The place where the name of Allah SWT was glorified and called in the Adhan five times a day is gone. The place where Allah SWT was glorified and praised and thanked in Salah five times a day is gone. The place where like now we are sitting in Tarawih, may Allah bless the Sheikh, and give him strength and make the Quran firm in his heart and in his life, that place will not be there anymore. You will still pray in your house, I don’t deny that. But you know and I know. Me praying alone in my house and me praying in the congregation with the Jama’at is a world of difference. Is a world of difference. The Masjid is a soul. And that is the reason why Rasulullah SAW, when he came to Madinah, the first thing he did was what? Build the Masjid. His whole life was unusual. It’s not one thing. His whole life was unusual. He did things like nobody else in the world did. Anyone goes to some place, to a new place, you have moved there, the first thing you look for is what? Your house. I should have some accommodation. Can I rent a place? Can I buy a place? Can I build a place? Can I do something? And then I will do whatever I want. I will do whatever I want. I will do whatever I want. I will do whatever else I have to do. But I have to help myself, I have to help my family. Not the prophet Ali, Isra, Tosaran. First thing he does is he builds the Masjid. He stayed as the guest of Avaayuva Lansari, Radhiala Anu. He was also related to him but he was one of his closest companions, one of the closest sahibah. He stayed as his guest in his house and only when the Masjid was built and then his house was built, then he moved. Because without the soul, what is the body? How will you have a community, there is no Masjid. So when you support the Masjid and remember the support of the Masjid is not only donating money. Money is important because somebody has to pay the bill, right? You have to pay the bill, there is some maintenance and so on, you have to do that, all of this stuff has to be done. So you need money. But if you simply wrote checks, and I have seen this, I have seen magnificent structures. But you go there for Salah, like to Biba. Juma, people come. But other times, people are busy. So okay, people are busy, how do you maintain this place? No, no, they are very generous. Imam has a salary, Imam has a house, carpets are beautiful, somebody is coming, cleaning company comes, cleans the place, elected lies, you know, the whole blast. What’s the point of that? What is the good of that? The Masjid needs you. That’s why I was saying to the Sheikh, Dr. Ahmed Wodhaim, that what really, really I love about this Masjid here, may Allah keep it safe from evil eyes and from bad intentions and from from conflict. The thing I love is these kids. They come with their parents. I have his son making Iyataka with his father last night. How beautiful is that? Today we say, there is a generation gap. Children, we can’t communicate with children. You know why? Because you don’t want to communicate. You don’t want to communicate. If you wanted to communicate with your children, you would bring them to the Masjid. Believe me, that child who is making Iyataka for his father, he is spending his night here sleeping and making and reading Quran and doing Zikr, and seeing his father doing all of that. That memory not only will he take that to his grave, but he will raise his sons and daughters like that. This is generational teaching. But that won’t happen if you don’t bring your children. It is not just a matter of money. Money has to be given, but forget the money. Apart from the money, come to the Masjid, bring your children. And when you bring your children, do their Tarbiyya. It has to come from the parents. Nobody else can do it. Nobody else can do it. Remember, and I want to end with this because we don’t want to cut the rest. The Holy Prophet Muhammad said, when a person dies, all his deeds end. Except three. What are the three? Sadhgajarya, some action of goodness, some charity he did which is continuous. Number two, Ailmul, knowledge which he Ailmul Nafi which is beneficial knowledge which he teaches. And the third, Father Sai. I will add children who are pious and who make Dua for them. If you want your children to make Dua for you when you are dead, if you don’t want your children to fight over property and have court cases against each other, make sure that your wealth does not become a problem for you after you die. You spend your whole life building property and accumulating wealth and so on for my children. Alhamdulillah, you know what happens to most of that? That wealth becomes the reason why the children then become enemies of each other. If the house was not there, if the property was not there, if the wealth was not there, then you would have been friends. But because there is money, because there is property, because there are houses, because there is commercial property and so on, the children are now fighting over that property even though Allah SWT’s Kanun is there but they don’t care about Allah, they don’t care about the virasa, the rules and laws of inheritance because you didn’t bring the Adama of Allah SWT into their hearts. So they don’t care what Allah has decreed or not decreed, they will fight. And you think those children who are suing each other, brothers and sisters, you think in the night they are praying tahajjud and in sujood they are crying tears for you and your wife? They don’t care. As far as you are concerned, you are gone. If you want your children to pray for you, if you want your children to beg Allah SWT to give you Jannah, to save you from Jahannam, to make your Qubur places of Rah, places of relief, a place where you will truly rest and raise them in the shade of the masjid. Raise them under the roof of the masjid. Teach them the Azama of Allah SWT. Put the khashyat of Allah in their hearts. Put the hubb and the love of Muhammad and Rasulullah SAW in their hearts. Teach them the beautiful seerah of Rasulullah SAW. His biography, his life. Demonstrate to them through your actions. How Rasulullah SAW used to lead his life. And then maybe inshallah, Allah SWT will have mercy on them and you. And Allah SWT will then decree for them that when you die, instead of fighting over property, they will live together in harmony. There is one case I know, very dear friend of mine, a big family. When the parents died, there was this very, very prime property on the beach. Their house, the parents’ house. And everyone thought that now you’re going to see some fancy court battles. But instead of that, what happened, you know? The brother and sister, they were all fighting. Instead of that, what happened, you know? The brother and sister, they called a meeting. They all came and sat down. They said, Alhamdulillah, Allah has given each of us enough for ourselves. This house we don’t need. So what we will do instead of fighting and dividing the house and so on? It is an old house. They said we will demolish the house and build a masjid and a mother’s science place. As the Sadakah, Jariah war of Benin. And I did the first Juma in that masjid. Beautiful, very nice masjid. Beautiful masjid. And the mothers also run in the same place. A property which is worth millions. Not a small property. Property is worth millions. Prime property on the beach. They said there is no masjid in this area. But it was. This is possible. This is also possible. But it won’t happen automatically. It will happen if you raise children like that. And that will happen if you support the masjid. If you have faith for the masjid. So Alhamdulillah, I am very happy when I see so many people, all of you here. You come here, you bring your children. May Allah bless you. May Allah bless your children. May Allah make all of you standard bearers of Islam. May Allah make you people who will be beacons of guidance for themselves and for the world. And because of whom Allah will choose to protect this place and will choose to send his khas, nur and baraka and rahmah on this place. We ask Allah to accept our qiyam and sujood and our salah and our fasting and all our charity. And we ask Allah to help us to use this Ramadan to completely transform our lives and bring them in total and complete obedience to him. And may Allah bless the Prophet, the most gracious, the most merciful and the most merciful.
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