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Alhamdulillah, Rabbil-‘Alameen. Wassalatu wassalamu ala ash-shaytani al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolullah ﷺ wa ala alihi wa sahbihi sallam. Tasliman kaseeran kaseeran. My brothers and sisters, I am near, not in yet. Tomorrow, inshallah, early morning, 5 a.m., we’ll go into the park, but very near Kruger National Park in South Africa.
What you are seeing there on the, there’s actually a water hazard for the golf course; I’m on a golf course, and that’s an Egyptian goose which is swimming along in that water. It’s very interesting.
And tomorrow morning, we, inshallah, go into the park and hope to see some wonderful sights. Yes, the thing I want to remind myself and you is to reflect on the glory and magnificence of Allah ﷻ.
Allah ﷻ created us to worship Him, and the job that He gave us was to introduce Him to people.
Now, as long as we do that, then we are fulfilling the purpose of our creation.
And in order to help us to do that, Allah ﷻ promised us all the resources that we might need in this dunya. And inshallah, if we do this job well, and we ask Allah ﷻ to enable us and help us to do it well, then in the Akhirah, inshallah, Allah ﷻ promised us that He would grant us Jannah. We ask Allah ﷻ for Jannah, inshallah.
My brothers and sisters,
we… Allah ﷻ therefore said: we all know the ayat of the Qur’an in relation to what I was saying, where Allah ﷻ said, وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونَ. “I have not created the jinn and the insan for anything other than for my worship.” مَا أُرِيدُ مِنْهُمْ مِنْ رِزْقٍ وَمَا أُرِيدُ أَن يُطْعِمُونَ. “I don’t ask them to feed me, and I don’t ask them to feed my creatures.”
إِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الرَّزَّاقُ ذُو الْقَوَةِ الْمَتِينِ. Allah ﷻ said that really Allah ﷻ is Ar-Razzaq. He is the one who feeds. He is the one who gives people all that they need, all the resources they need. So Allah is the one who feeds. Allah is the one who gives us our resources. And Allah ﷻ is telling us that you don’t need to worry about that. Allah ﷻ will take care of you. You do what you have been sent to do.
I ask Allah to make us among those who will fulfill and live their lives to fulfill the purpose of their existence, their creation.
As I’m talking to you, there’s a pair of Egyptian geese going along there. I don’t know if you can hear.
I stopped for you to hear the call of the Adida ibis. It’s an interesting looking bird with, as you can see, a very raucous call.
So we are created to introduce Allah ﷻ to His creatures. Now in order to be able to introduce Him, it is essential to know. Because obviously, how can you introduce somebody that you don’t know? And that is the reason why we need to know Allah ﷻ. The way to know Allah ﷻ is to reflect and to look around us and reflect on the glory and majesty of Allah. The way to know Allah ﷻ is to reflect on the glory and majesty of Allah. Reflect on the signs of Allah ﷻ in the creation all around us. Because Allah ﷻ encouraged us and told us to do that. Where He said, إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَآيَاتٍ لِأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ. “Allah said, ‘It’s truly in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and the night. There are signs for people of intelligence, people who can think, people who can reflect.'” In fact, let us be among those who will be called الْأُولُوا الْأَلْبَابِ. So Allah ﷻ told us, look around. We see the glory and majesty of Allah ﷻ in the introduction that Allah ﷻ gave of Himself in the Qur’an in many, many places.
In detail, in places like Ayatul Kursi, the last ayat of Surah Al-Hashr,
the opening ayats of Surah Al-Rahman, and so on.
And where Allah ﷻ showed us His signs in what He created. I’m in South Africa in the winter, but we are in the lowveld here, which is where Kruger is. And here you can see it is still pretty green.
The leaves of the…
especially of the evergreens and so on are still there, and there’s a fair amount of greenery.
I’m staying in Johannesburg, which is the highveld, which is much higher than here. And there it’s very cold. It’s around 5 degrees Celsius. And everything is brown because of the winter. All the greenery is gone. Very brown. Now, do you see this all over the world, in the changing of the seasons, where the colors of the fauna, of the flora, colors of trees and plants and their leaves, they stay on, some fall off, some stay on and they change color, like the spectacular fall colors that we see in the Northeastern United States and Canada, all along that, where you have spectacular changes of colors? Literally, I mean, it’s quite possibly the most glorious sight that one can see in this world, where it’s like somebody has thrown buckets of color all over the forest. Beautiful, absolutely. There’s a series of pictures that I’ve taken and small short videos, which many of you may have seen, of Ashley Reservoir, one of the most beautiful places on earth, where the flowers, where the leaf change, color change happens spectacularly.
In other places, the change is not so spectacular, but it’s very clear. Leaf change happens, flowers open, flowers fall. You have a change in the plumage of birds. Birds also, depending on the seasons, in the breeding season, non-breeding season, they change colors, they change their plumage, color of the plumage. In mammals, it’s not so spectacular, but, you know, you see the changes, the changing of the seasons in different ways. Change of mood, for example, spring brings with it a joyousness, a high energy. It brings with it, you know, a feeling of wonderful energy.
Winter has its own beauty, although because of the lack of sunlight, the sunlight hours are fewer. And so sometimes it feels a bit dull and depressing. But, you know, winter has its own beauty. The snow, the first snowfall that happens, is so beautiful. I mean, it’s absolutely incredible. Of course, until you have to start shoveling the snow, that’s a different issue. But, you know, just to see it, it’s so beautiful. So, the changing of the seasons, the alternation of the day and the night. As I’m talking to you, the sun is setting. You can see the glow behind those hills.
And shortly it will become dark. But, it’s almost time for Maghrib now.
And so this is the beauty of, you know, people of Al-A’raf; Allah shows us in the changing of His creation, which is dynamic, which changes shape and form, it changes color. As I said, it changes in different ways. And some of the changes are internal, in terms of changes of moods and feelings. And some of them are external, which you can see. So, all of this is things to remind us that we have a Rabb, we have a Lord, we have the one who created us. We have the one who created us and the one to whom is our return. This is what sometimes, this is what we need to remember and remind ourselves, because sometimes we forget that one day all of this will end. And we will go to Allah. And we ask Allah to make that day, the return to Him, the best day of our lives, where we will meet Him in a state, insha’Allah, where He is pleased with us. And may Allah bless the noble Prophet and his companions with the mercy of Allah.