Quranic Healing For The Heart | Fri 27th Jan 2017 | Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan

May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you All praise is due to Allah , Lord of the worlds. Peace be upon Muhammad and all the messangers. wa ala alihi wa sahbih femenistenne bi sunnatihi ila yavmiddin Ya Allah, make us from those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience. Amin. I seek protection from Allah against the Shaytan. (25:63) وَعِبَادُ الرَّحْمَنِ الَّذِينَ يَمْشُونَ عَلَى الْأَرْضِ هَوْنًا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ الْجَاهِلُونَ قَالُوا سَلَامًا (25:64) وَالَّذِينَ يَبِيتُونَ لِرَبِّهِمْ سُجَّدًا وَقِيَامًا (25:65) وَالَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا اصْرِفْ عَنَّا عَذَابَ جَهَنَّمَ إِنَّ عَذَابَهَا كَانَ غَرَامًا (25:66) إِنَّهَا سَاءتْ مُسْتَقَرًّا وَمُقَامًا O my Lord! expand me my breast Ease my task for me and remove the impediment from my speech so they may understand what I say. Amin. First and foremost, I'd like to thank the masjid. ELM has been a place that's very close to my heart. As a matter of fact, I like coming here without telling anyone, often. And I've conducted some social experiments here, as well. So, I was here a few months ago, I think I mentioned this before. But I came here a few months ago to attend Jumu'ah. I was in the audiance, I kept hoodie on. And I kept my head down. So nobody'd know who I was. And I wanted to see if I would get caught. And I didn't. I truly survived the entire experience. One guy, in one of the rows, during the Jumuah, kind of did a sideview and I quickly did better hijab. Basically and then it was fine. But regardless, the hospitality, it's been exdended to me. And of course, the overwhelming number of you that've come tonight is an indication of the love Allah put between us and May Allah (awj) accept that love itself as an active ibadah. And only increase that between the muslims. What I wanted to share with you this evening, is something that a passage of the Qur'an at the end of suratul Furqan. This is the 25th surah of the Qur'an. And it's a passage that very near and dear into my heart. It's something I've talked about many times before but every few years I feel the need to go back and refresh my relationship with these ayats. And if I feel that need, I feel it something that you would need, as well. And so, that's the inspiration between our behind, sharing some of these reflections from the end of surah number 25 with you. Allah (awj), in this passage gives us, people, a special title. And that title is "Ibad ur Rahman", "Slaves of the incredibly merciful, the incredibly loving." Believers can be called the slaves of Allah. Believers can be called simply the believers. We can be called the Muslims. We have many titles. And of all of those titles, a special, unique title that Allah has chosen in this surah. is 'Ibad ur Rahman' and that's an indication of something. First and foremost, from a grammatical point of view, Ibad ur Rahman is what they call in Arabic, an Idafa. What that simply means is two words that are bonded with each other. Grammatically two words are fused with each other. And gramatically you say even that nothing comes between Mudhaaf and its Mudhaaf ilaih. They're inseperable. And using that kind of structure in and of itself-- 'cause you could say İbadun lil Rahman, also Slaves to Ar-Rahman. But the fact that those two's been fused together, itself, you know, some commantators were led to be inspired by the fact that this is describing a very close relationship with certain people and Allah. And the names of Allah-- of course, each of them has a certain cannotation, it brings about certain emotions for anyone of us. He could have said Ibadullah, the Slaves of Allah. But he chose his wisdom to say Ibad Ar-Rahman. And so, the relationship that has been described between us and Allah in this ayah, is one of love, care and mercy. We have been brought into the folds of Allah's love, care and mercy. As the ayat go, there are two ways, two distinct ways of looking at what's been said. One way of looking at it, there are going to be certain qualities of people. Who are these special people that Allah calls Ibad ur Rahman? And one way of looking at it is, well, here is a list of these qualities and until you have all of them, you have fail. That's one way of looking at it, isn't it? And so, for many of us, we're just going to look at the first one and say, "Ok, well, I already disqualified." But another very clear way of looking at it, which is extremely plausible in the Arabic of these ayats is that each one of these are a seperate group of people. Each one of them is a seperate group of people. What they have in common is that they're all believers. But the thing about it is, and this is the point that I want to give you in my introduction, we're not all the same. Some of you, like I met a woman this afternoon after Jumuah, she came up to me, and said, "I make tahajjud three hours every day. Is that okay?" That's what literally she asked me. Is that okay? And I said, you should get some kind of award because tahaccud for five minutes is impossible for people. We haven't got, you know-- People getting up for Fajr on time is incredibly hard sometimes. And this woman is doing three hours and I said what makes you do that and she says, What am I gonna do? Watch TV? I'd rather talk to Allah. Because that what she says to me and I was honored that she came to ask me, I should be seeking her advice, for people that are close to Allah. What I'm trying to get at is we're not all the same. I can't do what she does. I'll be honest with you. I'm not capable of doing what that woman does. I admire the ability Allah has given her. May Allah continue to give her istiqamah and answer her prayers. But you know, there are other people who are just amazing helping others. Their skill, their gift is to be able to help somebody else. There are yet other people who just have one effect. When they're around people, they feel better. That's their gift. You just go to them, even if they don't say a word, you just hanging around them and you just-- you feel like there's calm in you. There's a peace in you. Allah has given all of us different gifts. This passage, one of the ways-- I personally find that far more convincing is highlighting different things about different believers. So, there's a group of believers that has one special quality. And other group of believers that has another special quality. That's what makes them special. And as we go through these ayat, you might find, well, I don't fit in the first one, I hope I make it into at least one category here. And Inshaallah as you will see, you will. You may even make it into one of the category and that qualifies you to be an Ibad ur Rahman. May Allah include all of us among his Ibad ur Rahman. So the first of them, it's fascinating. You would think if Allah's talking about these are the closest to him that He loves the most perhaps you should begin with those that pray the most to him, that worship him the most, that are most diligent in their spirituality towards Allah where does Allah begin? He says, "Those who walk on the earth in humility." The slaves of the special merciful, these special people are ones who walk on the earth with humility. "Those who walk on the earth in humility." Before we go any further, we need to understand what that means. It does not mean that when you walk on the street, you walk half in ruku and make your shoulders are drooping down, and you know, I'm being humble. That's not humility. You walk upright. Humility means that you don't treat people like they're less than you. You don't talk down to people. And the idea "fil ard" is actually wherever you go, whether you're at home, whether you're at work, whether you're at school, whether you're dealing with your employees or you're dealing with your employer whether you're dealing with children or you're dealing with elders, whether it's your parents, whether it's somebody else, whether it's muslims or non-muslims. When you deal with people, there's a certain humility in how you deal with them, you don't feel, make anybody feel worthless. With your words, with the way you look at them, with the way you care yourself. This is walking on the earth in humility in a humble fashion. You see, the Qur'an will highlight different kinds of arrogance. Now, everybody here knows arrogance is a disease of the heart, it's inside the heart. Yes? But then when there is a disease inside, like a virus is inside, there are symptoms on the outside. There's high temparature, there's sweatings, all this kind of stuff. The Qur'an will highlight, what are some symptoms of arrogance. Allah will describe, for instance, the way people stare at someone. Just the way they look at him. They will describe how the Qur'an will say, they stare at people who stare at the prophet (pbuh), وَإِن يَكَادُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَيُزْلِقُونَكَ بِأَبْصَارِهِمْ They stare at you so hard, you might almost slip and fall by the way they're looking at you. That's how hard they stare at you. In other words, they didn't say anything, they didn't do anything, their arrogance was where? Just on their face. Just in their eyes. So, for a lot of young people especially, this is an advice to you, your parents are yelling at you, about something; fair, unfair, it doesn't even matter. And you're sitting there listening and your blood is boiling. and you want to yell back but you just stare at them with this ugly look. This ugly look you give them. And your mother says, "Why are you looking at me like that?" And you say, "I didn't say anything." You don't get an award because you didn't say anything. Because the arrogance wasn't just in your words, congratulations you didn't say anything, that's good, because that could've been far worse. But there's a pride, an anger, an a lack of humility, even in our face. even in the way ثُمَّ نَظَرَ ثُمَّ عَبَسَ وَبَسَرَ ثُمَّ أَدْبَرَ وَاسْتَكْبَرَ Just the way you stare at someone, just the way you frown. Just the way you roll your eyes, as a matter of fact, sometimes it's the way you look at someone sometimes it's the way you don't look at someone. Somebody said salam to you, you didn't even look at them. Just looked the other way, you ignored it. Or just said "Wa alaikumussalam" because you feel guilty, but you said it especially low voice to make sure they don't hear it and they feel like you didn't respond. So it's like, Allah knows I said it, but I don't want them to have the satisfaction of knowing that I responded to their salam. So when they come and say, "Hey, I said salam you didn't respond.", "I did say it." That's some special kind of lack of ....... "Those who walk on the earth in humility." Humility towards people. Mercy towards children. Mercy towards elders. Mercy towards people that are not worthy of it. They're not worthy of it and this doesn't mean by the way, at the same time, this does not mean that people walk all over you. There are situations in our familys, among your friends, among your circles of people that are very abusive, it happens. There are people in your family, maybe sometimes your parents even. That's a very hurtful thing. That's a very unfair thing. And you have to hear it all the time, over and over and over again. There are women in our audiance and I can't see there's somewhere in this zip code or postcode, but wherever they are maybe they have to hear things from their in-laws or their siblings or somebody else and they have to hear it all the time and it boils their blood. What do you then? Well, you have to still retain your humility? What you have to learn to do as one, stay out of those situations. If you know you're going to lose you cool, walk away. I can't be part of this conversation right now. I'm sorry, I'm just gonna take a walk. Just get away from there before you explode. This is, first and foremost, يَمْشُونَ عَلَى الْأَرْضِ هَوْنًا And then logically what's connected to it incredibly in the Qur'an is وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ الْجَاهِلُونَ قَالُوا سَلَامًا Piece by piece some incredible lessons here. Idha in the Arabic language doesn't mean "if" it means "when." When obnoxious people, when people that don't possess control talk to them, when ignorant people talk to them, it doesn't say if they talk to them, the ayah says when they talk to them. Allah is letting you and me know, there are going to be people that address us that engage us in conversation, communicate with us, that are not going to be nice. That's going to happen. You cannot avoid it. That kind of unpleasant experience is going to happen to each and everyone of you including myself. There are going to be those are "cahil." Now, understand what "cahil" means. Cahil doesn't just mean somebody who is ignorant. You know well, Mosa (pbuh) was asked about the cow, you know, he said, "You should slaughter a cow." and they said, "Are you kidding?" "You take us for a joke? We're gonna slaughter a cow?" We have a serious situation here, we don't need to slaughter no cow. He got really upset. And you know what Mosa (pbuh) when he gets upset, he could do stuff. So he immediately turns to Allah and says, "I seek Allah's refuge from becoming people who are cahil, among people who are cahil. That doesn't mean ignorant 'cause obviously Mosa was one of the most knowledgeable people ever live. He's not talking about ignorant. He's saying, I'm asking Allah's refuge from losing control over my emotions, from losing control over my temper. From saying things or doing things that I really wanna do right now but I need to hold myself back. Now with that understanding, come back to the ayah. There are people who have-- who just say the most horrible things and they have no breaks. You know, there's supposed to be, there's something in your heart and something in your mind and it supposed to travel down to your tongue. But on the way there's supposed to be some breaks. Maybe this shouldn't come out of my mouth. I'm feeling something, bad words are coming, they reached all the way here, but they shouldn't come out my throat. They should go back and swallowed in. But there are some people, whatever comes in their head they say it. You come and say-- You meet somebody after six months at a party, eid or something, "Hey, you got fat." In front of everybody to this guy. What a horrible-- How can you think it? And just say Mashallah in your head but why you gotta say it in front of everybody? Hey, you know, you dropped out of school a few years ago, you still not graduate? They say things to you like that and then it upsets you. What do you do in those situations? Allah (awj) says and this is part of your humility and mine. This is how will Allah check our humility. People will come and say it and do the most offensive things and by the way a lot of times those are the people that are the closest to us. Which means you get thrown in that situation over and over and over again. How do you get out of it? Allah says, when the ignorant address them they say "Peace!" This means a couple of things, I'll just share a few of these lessons here. When this happens, your immediate response should be "Peace." قَالُوا سَلَامًا could also means farewell, they say peace, I don't want any more of this conversation, I'm gonna leave you in a dignified fashion. Oh wait, I think I have and appoinment and you can say in your head the rest of it with Allah to make dua. But you don't have to let them know, just say I have an appoinment and just get out of there. Because you can't handle it. In other words, they walk away from it in a dignified fashion. That's one meaning. When obnoxious people come to you, find a way of, what Qur'an will later in the surah say, مَرُّوا كِرَامًا they pass by in a dignified fashion. Another is, when people are coming and trying to-- There some people who try to say things to get you angry. They actually enjoy doing that. They'll say things just to provoke you and some of them know exactly what to say because they've been in conversaiton with you before and they know what sets you off so they know exactly what buttons to press and get under your skin. And you're sitting there, "Not this time, not this time." and then you're the Incredible Hulk and everyhthing is gonna be destroyed. And when that happens, you need to diffuse it before, "Listen, I don't want to be in--" You can actually speak up and say something that declares, "Look I don't want this conflict." Let's have a peaceful dinner. Let's not talk about that today. And insist on it. This can also be "Galu Salaman." I don't mean to fight with you. I just rather have this conversation and not letting go down on ugly path. In other words, sometimes we don't say anything and people keep walking all over us. In the ayah, there's actually an indication perhaps, that you can, in a dignified way, in a respectable way, and in a confident way, let people know they need to back off, they're going too far, it's not right. That's not disrespectful, that's not a lack of adab. You can stand up for yourself but you just have to do it in a dignified way, in a way that is peaceful. Also سَلَامًا somehow looked at even as a state. In other words, when they respond they're completely at peace. That's another implication here. When obnoxious people were talking to you, they're getting under your skin, they're making you upset, they're saying lie after lie and you have to sit there and have to listen to it like it's true. And they're saying it in front of other people, too. You're being thrown under the bus for no reason. When you respond, whatever your response is, it better be calm. You need to be calm and collected when you're responding. This is "Galu Salaman." And to Allah, people who can accomplish that in life, special to him, Ibad ur Rahman. In other words, this motivation, we need to remember. At that time, the person you're talking to does not deserve your calmness, they don't. Actually, they may deserve a punch in the face. At the moment, you have so good at comebacks, some of you, when somebody says something sarcastic to you, you can crush them. Oh my God, the answers that coming to your head. It's a multiple list that place in your head. Should I go with A, B, C or all of the above. That's what's going on in your head. And at that time when you decide to back off what motivation can you and I have, to have the strenght, to not say, to not react, to remain calm, "I wanna be counted among Ibad ur Rahman." I'm gonna forget that I'm in this unpleasant conversation because right now, immediately right now, I am in the company of Allah and his special Rahme is descending on me. That is why He put me in this situation, so I can earn closeness to him. This is actually a blessing. This unpleasant gathering is actually a blessing for me to get to Him. Subhanallah. وَعِبَادُ الرَّحْمَنِ الَّذِينَ يَمْشُونَ عَلَى الْأَرْضِ هَوْنًا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ الْجَاهِلُونَ قَالُوا سَلَامًا Look what Allah says next. The second group of people, this is their special part. by the way this doesn't mean they don't do anything else like they don't pray, they don't eat halal. That's all covered. You are already "Ibad." This is above and beyond being "Ibad", yes? What's the second great quaility, second group of people that are special to Allah, what reason makes them special? Those who spend their night before their master in sajdah and standing. They're praying in the middle of the night where nobody sees them. They can't sleep and they know Allah is closest to them in the middle of the night and that's what they do. For a lot of us that's very difficult and by the way you would imagine, like I told you before if Allah was talking to the people that are closest to him, I expected Him to begin with this group. I except that Allah will tell me about the people that pray to him the most, especially at an hour that is the closest to Him which is in the middle of the night. We should start there but no, He didn't start there, he started with humility. Because, that act at night, when you and I are humble before Allah there is no chance of anybody else seeing us pray, there's nobody to impress, the only one you wanna impress is Allah. Your pride is gone. Your sense of self-worth is gone. You're in front of Allah, admitting everything you've done wrong. You're having an open conversation before Allah completely stripped of all of your pride. Allah (awj) is teaching us something profound. If you want to strip yourself of your pride, first step actually, is to see if you can get rid of your pride before people. And then come before Allah. You know, there are people who are great in worship, and yet really mean to people. I doesn't work that way. There is a group that was given a priority here. And those were the ones that humble to people and then of course, those who come before Allah in humility. This is not something easy to accomplishment if once in a week. once in a week, I know this is gonna be hard. But once in a week you pray isha at the masjid, and you go straight home, and you go to sleep. And it will only happen if you woke up super early and didn't sleep. So wake up at fajr, don't sleep. Exhaust yourself, pray isha and go to sleep and then set your alarm for maybe 45 minutes, half ana hour before fajr. I'm not asking for the entire night, it's ok. Half an hour before fajr, just set the alarm, get up, pray a couple of rakats. Just do that. And just take your time doing it and don't wake anybody else up. Do it quietly. Go in some corner of the house and do it there. And if you can start doing even one time, two times, you will find the peace, the connection you will find with Allah. It's something that will help you through the most difficult of times. And May Allah include us among these people, who spend their night before their master in sajdah and standing. Then, there's the third group of people. Third group of people are, وَالَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا اصْرِفْ عَنَّا عَذَابَ جَهَنَّمَ إِنَّ عَذَابَهَا كَانَ غَرَامًا إِنَّهَا سَاءتْ مُسْتَقَرًّا وَمُقَامًا People who just make one dua, not whole a list of duas, their only dua is "Ya Allah, I don't wanna go to hell." Just anything bu Jahannam, don't throw me in Jahannam. Keep us away from punishment of Jahannam, it's a horrible place to be, I don't wanna see it for one moment. I don't wanna be there temporarily and I don't wanna be there in long term. Listen to the dua carefully, إِنَّهَا سَاءتْ مُسْتَقَرًّا وَمُقَامًا First of all, it's punishment, it's a huge penalty and I don't wanna be there temporarily and I don't wanna be there long tern. There are some who develop the same disease among the ummah, among the muslims. The same disease that Bani Israil had. They said, Allah will not punish except a few days. Muslims developed this, and said, "Well, Allah's gonna punish but not forever, right?" We're muslim, eventually we come out. I mean, yeah, ok, fine, I'm gonna go to Jahannam, but it's gonna be like a long weekend. And then, you know, I'll be fine. Look at the dua of people who are close to Allah. They're telling Allah, "Ya Allah, I don't wanna go to Jahannam." Not temporarily and not permanently. I'm recognizing that it's a horrible place to be, a place to just stop over or just stay forever. I don't want either of those. This has many implications for us, I'll just highlight one for you. You see, you and I will never stop being tempted. Haram will always be in front of us. And it will call us. Shaytan will promise you bankruptcy, in other words, when you go down the road of halal, shaytan will promise, "You're missing out, you're missing out." You could be having so much more fun. You could be making so much more money. You could be having so much more pleasure. He's constantly going to mark it to you. Alternative products, alternative ways of fulfilling yourself. It will never stop. It doesn't matter how long you grow your beard, it doesn't matter how much Qur'an you memorize. It doesn't matter how much tahajjud you pray. None of that will matter, shaytan will not stop. You'll still be human being at the end of the day. You will still have those desires at the end of the day. And shaytan will not stop. He'll keep going at you. And it is in those times that shaytan, you know-- The tactic that Allah describes of him, the psychological tactic is, (27:24) وَزَيَّنَ لَهُمُ الشَّيْطَانُ أَعْمَالَهُمْ "Shaytan beautified their deeds to them." Shaytan will come to you and you're temped to do something wrong and you say, "Yes it is wrong but I also do a lot of good." "Yeah, I did mess up, but I prayed, too." "And it's not like I'm a qafir." "So, it's okay, I mean, this is just-- And I'm gonna stop after this time, it's not like I'm gonna do it later." "I'm just doing it one time." You start telling yourself all of these rationalizations. You start justifying it to yourself. In your head, it's not that bad. And then, of course, you're around people who, when you tell them, "You know, this is wrong", they also tell you, "No, man. Come on, it's not that bad. Stop, don't talk like that." "No, Allah is not like that. Allah is not gonna punish you." "Why are you gonna talk so depressing? You're so extreme." And then, you listen to that and it starts impacting you and you start saying to yourself, Yeah, okay, you know-- But the time you did it whatever you did, whether it was drugs or alcohol or whether is was something with someone, I don't wanna know. But whatever that was, and you told yourself it's a last time, it wasn't. 'Cause as soon as the last time and the guilt recovers in a couple of days and then there's another text message. Then there's another da'wah. And you're like, "No, this is the last time." And you go through that cycle again. And you do it again. And you keep on going. This is exactly what shaytan wanted. These are people, who can stop that cycle, turn to Allah and say, "Ya Allah!" No matter what my friends are saying, no matter what was going in my head with shaytan, no matter how many times I repeated this horrible cycle over and over again, I am done! I'm done feeling guilty for two days and then going back. I'm done apologizing to You and then going back-- (3:135) وَلَمْ يُصِرُّواْ عَلَى مَا فَعَلُواْ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ They don't insist on the sins they did. And they know what they're doing. I'm not gonna be from those people. (4:18) وَلَيْسَتِ التَّوْبَةُ لِلَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ السَّيِّئَاتِ Tawba, repentance doesn't work for those who keep on doing sins even after they make tawba. It's not for those people who keep cycling back in. These are people who say, "Ya Allah! I don't wanna go Jahannam." "Fine, I've done some pretty Jahannam worthy things, but I'm gonna stop now. And I'm done." These are special people to Allah. Because Allah knows how tempting it was. Allah knows how powerful the addiction was. Allah knows how deep into sin you were. Allah knows the holds of shaytan on you for so long. And you were able to break that hold and come back to Allah. Your journey to Allah is much tougher than other peoples journey. The temptations in front of you are much stronger, the gravitational pull on you is harder. And you faught that and came back to Allah, you're special. Don't think, "Oh, well, I don't pray tahajjud so I'm not that good." or, "I don't even know any Arabic." or "I haven't even read the whole Qur'an." "I don't even know tajweed, I don't--" No, no, no. You're not special because you're knowledgable, your speciality doesn't come because you may hajj 17 times, You're not special to Allah because of your ilm or your worship, you're special to Allah because you walked away from sin and you're just afraid of him. That what makes you special to Allah. You are also Ibad ur Rahman. And so, from there, Allah (awj) takes us in a completely different-- Each of these groups-- Think about what applies to you. How do you wanna be special to Allah? How do you and I wanna get close to Allah? What is it worth to us, really? At the end of the day, what is it worth to us? Sin is a kind of love. You fall in love with it. You get addicted to it. And this passage is really about a competition of love. 'Cause you love this pleasure and you love this sin, and you don't wanna let go, because it'll make you sad. And on the other hand, Allah is saying, "I will replace that fulfillment with myself." I'll replace it with my company, Allah is offering you. And you have to decide this equation for yourself. You're gonna be put in that situation. And nobody will know that the struggle is happening in your head. Nobody will know, only Allah will know. Only Allah will know and by the way when you're walking-- some of you guys, for example, haram relationships, I don't know, not accusing you. Some people, not you, some people that you know. And you're in an inappropriate relationship and you're trying to break it off. So, you heard this talk and texted her, "I can't do this anymore." And she'll ask, "What, you don't love me?" "You hate me now?" Do you think I'm the reason you're going to hell? I'm so evil? Now, you're like, "No, you're not that evil." No, but I do love you. You're not that bad at all. You're great. Okay, why don't you just-- Okay, fine, if you really wanna end it with me, see me tonight and end it to my face. No, I can't do that. Fine, you hate me. Okay, fine, I'm coming. And it starts over again. And then, you wanna do that later on. You see? It's not just you. You might even get emotionally sucked into something. And now, you're being emotionally blackmailed. You make me to feel bad. You have to fight that. You have to overcome it. And you have to recognize that you might disappoint someone but you're making Allah happy. and you're doing that not just for yourself, you're also doing it for the other girl who is texting you back or the guy who is texting you back. You don't want them standing in front of Allah, also. You just save them. If you really loved them, didn't just lust them but you loved them, and you wanna save them, too. This is for them, also. You understand that? So now, from here we go to a very unexpected place who else is special to Allah, وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا أَنفَقُوا لَمْ يُسْرِفُوا وَلَمْ يَقْتُرُوا وَكَانَ بَيْنَ ذَلِكَ قَوَامًا Those people, when they spend money, they don't blow all the cash they have, they don't overspend. and they're not cheap, either. They don't spend too much, and they don't spend too little. They have a balanced budget. What is a bugdet have to do with getting close to Allah. It does! The way you spend your money-- Because your mal-- In their money, there is rights that are known. Your parents deserve financial support, children do, you siblings do, your spouse does. Sadaqa. Your money should go into society. There are causes that deserve your finances. But when you become addicted to things that are useless, and your money keeps going into movie after movie after movie subscription after subscription, game after game after game, new gadgets for your car. You don't need rims that spin backwards, you don't need them. What you need them to for somebody else, you can't look at them when you driving. Somebody else is looking at them. They're spinning for someone else and not you. You know? Or the spoiler or the gadget, you know, you'll survive without the new iPhone, you'll be fine. You know? The Samsung little dangerous but, you know, regardless-- But when you keep on spending-- For a lot of sisters it's a purse or a bag. God! Some of these bags. Thousands of pounds. You know? Nothing you can't have any of it. But Allah does say, okay, spend but don't overspend. And for some of you, the greatest joy is holding onto money, the wifes have, you're going to groceries with your wife, she puts a carton of milk and then, "We need this much milk?" "Can't you get smaller milk?" "Can we wait till there's sale?" That's milk. It's eggs. Can you not be cheap with that? There are people who hold back from the ones they deserve. Your children deserve some money, they need some change, something to get by. Your wife deserve some money. If she's taking care of the household and she's not working, and she asks you, "Can I have 50?" "What do you need it for?" Give me a complete report. Show me all the receipts. Wait, hold on a second! This is لَمْ يَقْتُرُ That might be your challange. You wanna get close to Allah, don't make your family feel like garbage everytime they eat something. The Best money you can spend is on your family. Don't do that to your family. But don't overspend. There are others who are just blowing cash and Allah has given you a little bit of wealth and you're getting your 16 year old a BMW, they can crash it to the side of the street and then you get them another one and... No, no, you can't do that, either. There are people who have a balanced approach to their finances. لَمْ يُسْرِفُوا وَلَمْ يَقْتُرُوا وَكَانَ بَيْنَ ذَلِكَ قَوَامًا And they find an upright balanced way to stay inbetween those two and those a beloved to Allah. May Allah make us of them. This is my favorite one. The next group. Listen to this, this all one group. (25:68) وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَدْعُونَ مَعَ اللَّهِ إِلَهًا آخَرَ وَلَا يَقْتُلُونَ النَّفْسَ الَّتِي حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ وَلَا يَزْنُونَ وَمَن يَفْعَلْ ذَلِكَ يَلْقَ أَثَامًا Those who don't call other-- along with Allah, any other God. And while they don't call any other God besides Allah, they don't kill anyone. And they don't commit adultery. Three things. They don't worship anyone other than Allah, they don't call anyone other than Allah, combined with it, they don't commit murder and they don't commit adultery. Three things together. That's not an amazing accomplishment, somebody can say, "Hey, I made it on the list, I haven't killed anyone. " But you know why this is special? 'Cause this seems like very basic, doesn't it? There's a major sins. And Allah says, you can be special before Allah if you just do this? Why is this special? For some people-- Think about the people in Makkah. Think about the society which the Qur'an came. Those people were doing shirk for thousands of years. Murder became common among them. Zina was nothing. The stuff that is so bad for us was no big deal to them. And it wasn't a big deal for their parents or their parents or their parents, it was just part of life. It was a gangster life. And when they walked away from all of it to come to Allah. Did their family just say, okay, you're muslim now, congratulations? They went through all kinds of horrible experiences, from their loved ones, from society, from their peers. Because they abandoned those crimes, isn't it? For some people, simply taking the shahada, simply walking away from the crime, from the criminal life simply getting away from zina, it's so huge. For those of you that have been brought up in respectable families, have been surrounded by a good environment, it's easy for you to not get into that kind of trouble or easier. Nowadays anything is easy. But for those of you that came up, you weren't even muslim, you saw crime all around you, you saw drugs all around you, you saw womanizing all around you, every weekend is at the club. And then you came to Allah, you took shahada, your journey away from that life is a huge journey. And Allah acknowledges it. And says, that's a pretty big deal, some people have done that. They are special just on that account. They don't know nothing else, they don't have no exhaustive knowledge, no exhaustive worship, but the fact that they can migrate, they make hijrah for the sake of Allah. They migrated away from those major sins towards Allah, incredible. But the mercy of Allah in these ayat isn't done. First of all, those three things that I mentioned, shirk and murder, blasphemy with Allah and murder and adultery are major, major sins, so what does Allah says, يُضَاعَفْ لَهُ الْعَذَابُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ وَيَخْلُدْ فِيهِ مُهَانًا Punishment will be doubled for such a person. And they'll remain in it, humiliated. These crimes are not small to Allah. Especially, three of them combined. But, by the way, the worst of all crimes shirk is in this ayah. The second worst of all crimes, when you kill one person, it is as though you've killed one, all of humanity. That's the second greatest crime. And then the third greatest crime is what? Zina. All three together in one ayah. Therefore Allah says, this person is going to get some special kind of punishment. And they will be in that punishment humiliated remaining there in but even the worst of the worst of the worst. This guy is not the worst because he's done one thing, he's the worst because he's done how many? Three things. This is like, this is the hat-trick of hell fire. What does Allah say about him? He says, إِلَّا مَن تَابَ وَآمَنَ وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا Except somebody who repented, and came to their faith, came to faith, and from then on acted in a good way, I'll make an exception. This is important to understand. Allah described the worst of the worst of the worst. And then said, even of that person, if they come back to me, I will not throw them in punishment. But that's not enough. We're talking about Ibad Ar-Rahman. The unimaginably merciful. So, he won't just spare them from hell. What does he do? Then, those people, Allah will replace their grand sins, and I remind you what their sins were, shirk, (31:13) إِنَّ الشِّرْكَ لَظُلْمٌ عَظِيمٌ murder, (5:32) فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا as though he killed all of humanity, and zina, adultery. Major, major sins. Allah says, I will replace their entire mountain of evil with good deeds in their favor. They haven't done any good deeds yet. They haven't done any good deeds yet. They haven't prayed yet, they haven't worshipped yet, they haven't done hajj yet, they haven't given charity yet. All they've done is repentance. And from now on, they're going to be do right. That is enough for Allah to take the mountains of sin that were going to get them in the hell forever humiliated and convert those mountains of sin into mountains of good deeds. This is Allah for people of tawba. And you get to be special just through tawba. So as you're sitting there listening to this and thinking, "Well, I made some pretty good mistakes." There maybe somebody sitting in the audiance that even committed murder and went to jail and came out. How's Allah gonna forgive me? Some of you have made the mistake of zina, May Allah protect you. Some of you heading down that path. Some of you have commited shirk. There's all kinds of crimes happening, some people went into sihr which is a kind of shirk. And you can make tawba and come back to Allah, all of that is gone. But you gotta keep straight after that. وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا فَأُوْلَئِكَ يُبَدِّلُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ حَسَنَاتٍ In other words, when you come back to Allah, it's gotta be for real. It can't be artificial. وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا And Allah has always been forgiving. Extremely forgiving, always loving, caring and merciful. I am running out of time but I do wanna share a couple more things with you that I find-- Let's just finish this list inshallah, it's almost done. Somebody says, but I didn't do murder. I didn't do shirk, and I didn't to zina. I just did like little stuff like, I miss fajr, and you know, I stole my brothers chocolate milk the other day from the fridge. I think there's a couple of times I lost my temper with my dad, or I think I did some backbiting the other day at a party. But I didn't murder. This tawba is for really bad criminals, what about me? What about regular sinners? Like the rest of us, you know. 'Cause this is high profile sinners, isn't it? Oo the next ayah says, they're as for the rest of you, وَمَن تَابَ And whoever would make tawba, any kind of tawba, وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا and did good, فَإِنَّهُ يَتُوبُ إِلَى اللَّهِ مَتَابًا then he's come back to Allah with a sincere repentence also-- Allah acknowledges that too. Your tawba is good too. You don't have to, like-- First go rob a bank then make tawba. No, no, no. 'Cause I needed to be like mountains evil converted to mountains of good, no. Hold on a second. Just make your tawba. Whatever indulgence you are into. فَإِنَّهُ يَتُوبُ إِلَى اللَّهِ مَتَابًا وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَشْهَدُونَ الزُّورَ And people who don't witness, literally says, don't witness falsehood. What that means is, they don't stand by when something wrong is happening. These people are special to Allah because when in their family, somebody is being emotionally abused, somebody is being financially abused-- In their family, two brothers went in to a business, and one of them took all the money and never paid the other one back and now they're in court, fighting this, that, the other, and you're in one side and it's the other side, you will not stand quietly by and let injustice happen. You won't do it. Even if it's against your own dad. Even if it's against your own spouse or your own child. You can't stand idly by and stand for wrong. You'll speak up. And at least you won't be a silent partner to it, you'll walk away from it, I want nothing to do with this. I'm not gonna be a part of it. You know? لَا يَشْهَدُونَ الزُّورَ Other meaning of it is, they don't false witness. Sometimes there's pressure on you to side with people who are wrong, you know they're wrong but they say things like "Family first, man." You know, bro's first. And if you do that, if you have your loyalties in the wrong place, knowing that you're wrong, knowingly, then this is a violation of, لَا يَشْهَدُونَ الزُّورَ The second piece of it, وَإِذَا مَرُّوا بِاللَّغْوِ مَرُّوا كِرَامًا, also amazing. What makes you amazing to Allah in this ayah-- You're in a gathering, friends are hanging out or you're on a whatsapp group or something, there are different kinds of interaction today. And in those interactions, people are talking nonsense. People are backbiting against each other. They're making fun of each other. They're wasting each others time. And you don't want anything to do with this. So what do you do? You leave the group, but you don't give them a lecture first by the way, "This is all useless, you people are wasting your time, estaghfirullah. I called you to Allah and to make tawba. Watch the following video." Now, I'm out of this group. Or you're at a party and you're like, "Astaghfirullah, all you're doing ..., I'm outta here." وَإِذَا مَرُّوا بِاللَّغْوِ مَرُّوا كِرَامًا When they pass by this kind of a gathering, when they happen to be in that kind of situation, they get out of it in a dignified fashion. مَرُّوا كِرَامًا In other words, they maintain their own dignity, they don't end up falling into the kind of things that humiliate others and themselves. And in the process, they don't make anyone else feel bad, either. They make a dignified, respectable excuse and get themselves out of that situation. وَإِذَا مَرُّوا بِاللَّغْوِ مَرُّوا كِرَامًا And finally, وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا ذُكِّرُوا بِآيَاتِ رَبِّهِمْ لَمْ يَخِرُّوا عَلَيْهَا It's not finally but I just said that to make you feel better. وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا ذُكِّرُوا بِآيَاتِ رَبِّهِمْ لَمْ يَخِرُّوا عَلَيْهَا صُمًّا وَعُمْيَانًا Not for everybody who attends Jumuah. When they are remainded of the ayat of their Rab, when they're given reminders, they don't trip over those reminders deaf and blind. In other words, they don't ignore them, they don't take them lightly. They don't hear something and then say, "Yeah, that's talking about me. That hit me right here in my conscience but I'm gonna forget I heard that." I'm gonna pretend that wasn't about me and not think about it. They're not deliberately deaf and they're not deliberately blind to the reminder that was given to them. It was about you. It was about what you're doing, what you're up to. And you're now, you can't deal with it because you don't wanna change, بَلْ يُرِيدُ الْإِنسَانُ لِيَفْجُرَ أَمَامَهُ Human beings just wanna, just dive right into the things in front od them, the temptation is too strong. And Qur'an, you know, it's about it's people who hold you back. The people that can hold themselves back. You're being reminded to hold yourself back and you're like, "I don't wanna hold back, I felt pretty good." I already set up the appointment, the date and time and place and bought the tickets already and then the khutba ruined my mood. I'm just gonna go eat a burger not think about what I just heard in the khutbah. And go where I was gonna go. Is that's too late already for me? You know, they don't do that. These are people, when they hear a reminder they let it impact them. They let it change them. That makes you special to Allah. By the way, sometimes that change that happens inside you, nobody sees it. Nobody knows the sin you were heading towards, and nobody knows you changed course, because you heard something from Allah. Nobody knows that. That's between you and Allah and Allah considers you from His Ibad because you made that change. May Allah strengthen each and everyone of you and myself to make those changes. So now, as we tie this up, this is actually the last one. These are people who are now not only concern about themselves, they concern about their families. وَالَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا هَبْ لَنَا مِنْ أَزْوَاجِنَا وَذُرِّيَّاتِنَا قُرَّةَ أَعْيُنٍ Those who pray to Allah, they say to Allah, "Master, grant this from our spouses and our children what's called the coolness of our eyes, give us coolness of our eyes, which means two things. I'll skip the technicalities and give you the simple understanding of قُرَّةَ أَعْيُنٍ The first one means, "Ya Allah, everything else gives me stress, everthing else causes me trouble, but when I come to my spouse and I come to my children, Ya Allah! Give me this place I find my calm. All my troubles disappear, when I look at my spouse. All my troubles disappear, when I'm with my children. Ya Allah! Give me that in my wife and in my kids. Or my husband and my kids, for each side, you know. And then, the other meaning of it, قُرَّ comes from قرار قرار means when your eyes stay somewhere. Ya Allah! Make me so in love with my wife, that I can't stop looking at her. Ya Allah! Make me so in love with my children and so happy with my children that I don't compare them to aothers. I'm happy with what I have. I don't make them feel bad, I validate them. Grant me the ability to find قُرَّةَ أَعْيُنٍ in the spouse in the child. Give me a strong family and made me content with my family. Make them a source of peace for my family and for a lot of you the only strees is wife and kids. This dua is, the only stress relief should be wife and kids. And you don't just ask Allah for something, work on it. 'Cause Allah will not, like, descend some kind of special rain that drenches on your family and now, all of a sudden you love your wife. It takes work. It takes work to fix the relationship you have with your children. It doesn't happen overnight. It's something that you and I have to invest into so, May Allah grant us the ability to not only make that dua but to live by that dua. Because Allah will ask us, you know, in that famous dua, (2:201) رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ, famous dua, right? Give us the best in this life, the best in the next life, protect us from the hell fire, the punishment of the hell fire. What do we say right after that? What does Allah say right after that? (2:202) أُولَئِكَ لَهُمْ نَصِيبٌ مِّمَّا كَسَبُو They'll have the portion they actually earn. You don't just make dua and not work, you gotta earn it. You gotta put your work in. So, when you gonna ask Allah to give you peace in your family, when you're gonna be concerned about that, and by the way, what does that mean, husbands that are hanging out until 2,3 in the morning at some shisha place in London and not going home to their wife because they don't find content, the wife is not finding any contentment in them, and they're not finding contentment in their wife, when they say, "No brof, I gotta go back home." Then they're special to Allah. Spending time with their kids, their eyes are moving from their kids, the fact that your eyes are moving from your kids that means that you actually with them. The fact that you're spending time with your kids, and enjoying doing that, is actually in and of itself making you special before Allah. أُوْلَئِكَ يُجْزَوْنَ الْغُرْفَةَ بِمَا صَبَرُ These people-- and makes us Imam over Muttaqin, make us leaders over righteous people. Give them a good, righteous life, so that when I stand in front of you, Ya Allah, my deeds are only increase by the people that are in my family. So now, after all of these, أُوْلَئِكَ يُجْزَوْنَ الْغُرْفَةَ بِمَا صَبَرُ Those are the people that are going to be given high, lofty palaces because of the patience they demonstrated. Notice, Allah here says, because of the patience they demonstrated. If you go back to this list, those who hold their tongue, when ignorant people talk to them, they're humble and they hold their tongue, those who worship no one other than Allah, they worship Allah in the middle of the night, the list that we just went through, each one of them requires perseverance and strength and grip and commitment and that's the word sabr. Those people are going to be rewarded because of the commitment they showed. They were commited to this. This is, أُوْلَئِكَ يُجْزَوْنَ الْغُرْفَةَ بِمَا صَبَرُ And they're going to be met in those palaces in Jannah, they're going to be met with greetings and peace. Allah (awj) will send salutations to them, not just that Allah loves them, Allah is honouring them. These are specially awarded people by Allah. خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا حَسُنَتْ مُسْتَقَرًّا وَمُقَامًا They will remain in that incredible honour, and those incredible, lofty high palaces. An amazing place to be for a little while and forever. So, Allah (awj) contrasting it with Jahannam, right? Jahannam you said, I don't wanna be there for a little bit, I don't wanna be there forever. Allah says, the taste of Jannah, if you could even have a little bit you wanted, what to speak of forever. May Allah (awj) enter all of us into Jannah forever. And so the last ayah and this is I know I'm going over my time, I supposed to give you guys some time for questions, also. I'll need seven-eight minutes only. This last ayah profound. This is the last ayah of the surah. And the last ayah entire passage, it has nothing to do with the list that makes you special. It's a a turn back to Quraysh, and to all of humanity and the Prophet has told, now that they've been given this list of how to get close to God, what is the problem? (25:77) قُلْ مَا يَعْبَأُ بِكُمْ رَبِّي لَوْلَا دُعَاؤُكُمْ فَقَدْ كَذَّبْتُمْ فَسَوْفَ يَكُونُ لِزَامًا There are several ways to look at this ayah. I wanna share simply some of them with you. Because of the shortage of time I won't go into the language, I'll just share the implications just in English. Allah is, on the one hand, saying, what do you have in front of Allah? What do you worth in front of Allah? What do you think when you come before Allah? What value will you have? Had it not been for the fact that you as human beings were given the responsibilities that nobody else was given, دُعَاؤُكُمْ, you were to call on Allah. You were to make the choice to call on Allah. The mountain, the tree, the bird, they don't have a choice. They call on Allah, anyway. (17:44) مِّن شَيْءٍ إِلاَّ يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدَهِ وَلَكِن لاَّ تَفْقَهُونَ تَسْبِيحَهُمْ You, why are you valueable to Allah if not for one thing. The fact that you were chosen to call on him. But you've abandoned that responsibility. You considered that invitation to call on him a lie? فَسَوْفَ يَكُونُ لِزَامًا And this punishment will not leave you. This is going to be something you won't be able to escape. That's the first implicaiton. The other implication is-- Allah is telling the disbelievers. And those who have been doing all of the sins. You have no value before me, and the only reason you are still surviving is there are a few among you who still call me. There are still a few believers left on the earth who still make istighfar to Allah and they're the only reason you're still surviving. Now, third implication is Allah has-- even for the qafir and for the muslim who is far away from Allah, he/she should listen to this, too. Allah says, what value do I have of you? You don't pray, you don't obey, you don't stay with the halal, you violate everything but in moments of desperation you still call me and I still value at least that much about you. I'm still giving you a chance. لَوْلَا دُعَاؤُكُمْ But overall, you've still considered everything else valueless, you don't confirm that everything else that I've given you and asked you to do is actually meaningful for you. You considered all of the rest of it useless, a lie. And you better change your ways because soon this will become a permenantly sticking punsihment. Allah doesn't say you will be punished, he says, soon you'll be punished, soon you won't be able to escape, meaning right now you still have a chance, turn around. Then an implication, what would make you people, Quraysh valuable? Had it not been that Allah has called you in the Qur'an. Allah has honoured you with this book. And by extension, Allah has honoured you and me with this Qur'an. And yet, you dismiss it altogether? You don't care for this book? This message that Allah gave you? You better turn back and recognize the value of Allah choosing to speak to you. The final implication is that Allah (awj) does not want to punish you. مَا يَعْبَأُ بِكُمْ another linguistic implication of it is Allah is not interested in punishing you. He has no desire and no intension of punishing you except the crimes you commited of calling someone other than Allah are so huge that, that needs to be punished. In other words, Allah is punishing you even though He doesn't want to. (4:147) مَّا يَفْعَلُ اللّهُ بِعَذَابِكُمْ Allah gets nothing out of punishing you. What is Allah gonna get out of punishing you? Allah is saying here, I don't want to punish you, but your crimes are too, too big. And soon, that will become permanent, right now, it's temporary, you can erase it. So, please turn back. Turn back to Allah. After giving us all these opportunities to no just come back to him but be the closest to him, finally he says, why do you want to get punished? I don't want to punish you. Just come back. May Allah (awj) help us internalize in our hearts and make us of those, because of whom the people around you that are in sin, the people around you that are disobeying Allah, their hearts also soften and they come back towards Allah (awj) as well. May Allah bless me and you through the guidance of this noble Quran And may its teachings and remembrances benefit me and you May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you Allright, I'll start with the most fun question. What's the halal way of approaching a girl you like? Even though that's question number 12. I thought, you know-- So, this is more complicated, we've made it more complicated than the Sahabah. So sahabah were simple people and they came from a very rebellious society. Where men and women did all kinds of things and nobody cared and then Islam came. And I wanna give you some background here. In Medina, when the sahabah migrated, the Muhajirun were bankrupt nearly right, they left everything behind. And Medina was a crazy place, right now it's Medina Munawwarah. Medina back than was Las Vegas, it was bad. When the prophet (pbuh) went there it was not a good place. Okay, you have to understand it was a crazy, crazy society. For instance, one of the most common industries in the city of Medina was prostitution. Then the prophet (pbuh) moved there. And the women that were-- there were brothels like prostitution houses, they used to have flags outside their house. That this is a place that you can come for those kinds of things. And a companion comes to the prophet (pbuh) and says, Ya Rasulallah, there's a woman-- he doesn't make any money, he's a muhajir. "There's a woman, she makes good money, I'd like to marry her." And what does she do? Well, she's in the-- You know what I'm saying. I'm not gonna spell it out. You know, why I'm telling you this? Because sahabah didn't even know that's a bad thing yet. They were also learning, weren't they? They didn't become angels overnight. They were being developed. And so, he doesn't even think and imagine, you come to Rasulullah and ask this question. Can you imagine somebody come in to an imam today and say, Hey, so, I'm thinking about-- Next janazah would be of the sheik... And then the ayat came, no, you can not marry those kinds of women in Surat an-Nur. Like, revelation came to teach sahabah and teach the believers, look, those are not the kinds of people you want to marry, they are, they're all, you know, don't mix with them. Like Ibn Ashur says in his tafsir that ayah is referring to professional prostitutes. Zani will not marry a zani is referring to them, because the quesiton was actually raised. I wanted to bring this up to you because for them, you would think that, you know, if the sahabi saw a woman from a mile away, he went the other way and made istighfar the whole all night. No, it wasn't like that. They interacted with each other, they talk to each other, they work with each other, they were in business partnerships. All kinds of interactions happen between men and women but principles. It was respectful, it was dignified. And when a companion-- when somebody likes somebody else, you know what they did? Here's the astaghfirullah part. Here's what they did. "Hey, I like you, you wanna get married?" And she'd say, "Maybe, talk to my dad." He says, "Okay." And then, he goes to the dad and say, "Hey, I like your daughter. And I talked to her she's not entirely opposed to the idea. Is it cool?" And he says, "Let me talk to my daughter." How this happens today, in London, As you go to a girl, respectfully, you work together for three years, "Would you consider marrying me?" And she's like-- And maybe she says, "Please don't talk to my dad, he'll kill me." Because if you talk to my dad, he'll say, "This is why you go to work?" This is why you ... - You fathers-- I have four daughters. - Mashallah. Listen, those of you that are fathers, that have daughters. You sent your daughters to University. You brought your daughters to this country. You made them live here. You took outside in society. You made that decision. And when somebody like-- a muslim likes them, that's a good thing. How they're gonna get married sitting at home? Who's gonna like them? So, when somebody approaches them in a respectful way, you should not say, "Oh, my God, the day has come, astaghfirullah." What a humiliation, now we have to take you back into Bangladesh and hide you in a village somewhere because some guy likes you, astaghfirullah. Ruqyah on her and-- Calm down. It's okay. Somebody likes your daughter, that's a good thing. Now, you go and investigate, find out. It's completely fine. It's mentioned in the Qur'an. Approach mentioned in the Qur'an is that of Musa in Madyan. He was by himself, Musa was by himself. And these girls were by themselves working outside and he went up to them and helped them out and the girl said, "He's kinda nice." And she went back to her dad and said hire him which means, "Come on, dad, you know." And that happened and the girl said I liked the guy. That's actually what happend in the story of Musa. Musa didn't proposed, the girl proposed. And the father can't propose unless he has the approval of his daughter. So, it's okay for your girls to say, "Dad, there's this guy, this brother, at the embassy. He does the Thursday halaqah. He's really good, you should come. Your daughter is telling you something. It's okay, go attend the halaqah. It's okay, find out. Don't complicate it. There's nothing indignified about that. Don't go date a girl now. And don't take, Ustadh Nouman gave a lecture, I'm going to take her out the dinner. No, no. Not that either, but can you have respectful interactions with someone you're interested in marriage, absolutely. Absolutely, nothing wrong with that. Can you take your time to understand each others likes and dislikes, yes, it's fine. Respectful courtship is okay. With parental guidance, in dignified fashion there's nothing wrong with it. So what happens is, he have two extremes. We have people that are more conservative than the sahabah. And then we have people that are more liberal than liberals. Okay? And Islam is right in between, it's a natural way. It's completely natural way, okay? And so, this is something that I find it's important to mention for families and for yourself. Talk to your daughters, ask if they want someone? Don't create a-- Between fathers and daughters, there should be open communication. They should not be terrified to tell you that they're interested in somebody. Don't force them to marry someone they don't want to. Don't force your daughters and tell them, "If you don't marry this one whose gonna come and marry you?" And you have to-- we already said yes to them. Don't humiliate the family and say no now. Those kind of nikahs are haram. I will say it, they're haram. You can not emotionally and psychologically force the girl to get married under family pressure. That is batil. And that happened at the time of Prophet (pbuh). And Prophet (pbuh) considered those nikahs batil. They're invalid nikahs until the girl genienly likes a guy and "Yes, I want to marry him." on her own. No pressure from her father, no pressure from her mother, no pressure from anybody else. She likes him. And even if the day of nikah she says, "Mom, I don't wanna do this." the mother doesn't say, "Too late, girl, too late." We've got the whole-- People are gonna-- No, if the girl says "I don't wanna do this." then, no, stop. Allah gave her that right, you can not take it away. You're burying them alive. This is the new way of burying women alive by the way. Back then, they used to take the baby girl and bury her right there. Now, we bury them at the day of the nikah. This is what we do. This needs to stop. Let them marry who they want. If there is dignified muslim and because now you're living in a different society, you won't find someone from the same village, it's okay. It's okay, she can marry a Syrian, it's fine. I know. It's okay for Syrians too, yeah. ... Turkish, Somali, astaghfirullah Somali, yes Somali, it's fine. You know, Musa (as) is an Arab. Musa is an Arab. Actually not an Arab, he's from Israelite and he married an Arab. He went and married in Madyan, didn't he? So many Arabs, "We only marry Arab, really." Musa (as) was actually from Israel. What's up with that, you know. It's all good. It's a time now, it's a strange time we live in. And actually the only thing that can save us is the basic principles of our deen. And making the path to marriage easy. It's actually one of the greatest battles against shaytan. When we make the path to marriage difficult, when you have 28,30-- I'm not gonna do other questions, forget it, let's just talk about this-- What we're gonna do-- We have 35 year old boys not married. What do you think, they were doing tahajjud for 35 years? What planet do you live on? They didn't do anything haram? No evil thoughts went into their head? They didn't go to university, they didn't go to work? 28-29 year olds not being married? This is ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd. It's unacceptable. And we create standarts that don't exist in our religion and don't make any sense. You have three daughters, four daughters somebody proposed for the younger daughter. And no proposal came for the older daughter. No, no, no, we go in order. Who said you go in order? Which shariah? If there's a good, blessing that came to your home, for whichever age, how would you deny it? What will people say? What will Allah say, when you explain yourself to Him and say, I deprived my daughter of a good nikah because it wasn't in order. What will you say to Allah, you tell me that. What are you gonna do? Ridiculous. This nonsense needs to stop. Marriage needs to be made easy. And the guys side, because Hindu tradition says, the guy is the gift. So the girl side has to give him gifts. Islam came and said, the man has to give what? Mahr. The man has to give a gift. The woman is a gift to the family. And now we do in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, South East Asia,... No, no, no. We don't want jahez. We don't want gifts from the girls side. But there should be something. At least a fridge. That is the opposite of what Allah commanded. That is the opposite of what Allah commanded. You're not only disobeying Allah, you're reversing what Allah said. Asking to be gifted because you're the guys side? That's like way beyond haram, I don't even know what category that belong. Shaytan is giving you like five stars for that one. Do not fall into that category. Don't give your daughter-in-laws and your wifes gifts and then ask for them back. Now this is happening. They'll give them jewelery at the wedding, "No, that was his for the photos." Really? Allah (awj) described this. (4:20) لاَ تَأْخُذُواْ مِنْهُ شَيْئًا أَتَأْخُذُونَهُ بُهْتَاناً وَإِثْماً مُّبِيناً Don't take a single thing from the spouse that you've given to them. Are you taking a huge accusation against your own self? And taking clear sin on yourself? When you agree to a mahr-- You know, nowadays the fashion is, they don't discuss the mahr until the day of nikah or the minute of the nikah. Before them when the mahr comes up they say, "Oh, it's family, it's okay, we'll work it out, it's okay." And then the time comes, and then the girl side says, "50,000." And they're like-- The other guy who was eating biryani get stuck in his-- 50,000? And then his uncle was like, "It's okay, nobody pays it." If you have no intentions of paying mahr, your nikah is invalid. If you have intentions of asking your wife to forgive the mahr, you're commiting a grave sin. You can't even ask for a discount. You can not, you're not allowed. You can't give it when you decide, she decides when it's given. That's her right. That's what validates the marriage. Don't agree to a mahr you can't afford. Don't agree to a mahr you have no intention of paying. Don't agree to a mahr that you intend to get forgiven. All of your love-- you would've forgiven it. Why does money have to prove that I love you. Because it's mahr. And because you can't use that kind of language. (4:4) فَإِن طِبْنَ لَكُمْ عَن شَيْءٍ If they're out of their own free will, out of the goodness of thier own her decide to give you some of it, like you gave the thousand for the month to her of the mahr, and she says, here's two pounds, get yourself an ice cream, that's up to her. If she wants to do that, she can do that but you can not, that's not your money. That is not your money. Why am I highlighting these random things? These are the things that we've introduced into the institution of marriage, making marriage difficult. And when you make marriage difficult, the door to zina is wide open, the door to corruption is wide open. It's unnatural to think that 18 year old, 19-20 year old guy/girl are going to be in university and they're going to be there for 5-6 years and not develop any emotinal attachments. And then for them to randomly marry a cousin back in Lahore. That's not gonna happen and if it does happen it's form of oppression because she's emotionally attached to somebody else and no man wants to be with a woman who is emotionally attached to somebody else or vice versa. It's oppression. Sometimes you're denying a nikah only because it wasn't you. You didn't come up with it. The guy says, "I like the girl", "No, you will pick, you will marry who we say." Why? Who said? It's a mistake, I don't like it. I don't like that girl, that's not your problem. That's his problem. He's an adult now. Let him make that mistake. If it's a horrible mistake, so be it. But Allah gave those young men and women their right to pick who they want. Parents can give advice, yes, but when you try to control what your children are doing, it will only lead to disaster. It will only, only lead to disaster. I'm not giving licence to 12 year olds and 14 year olds. Ustadh Nouman said I can marry whoever I want, no. I'm talking about mature adults. I mean, I've met young women that are 25-26 year old, accomplished in their careers, pharmacist, physician, you name it, and they like somebody and they wanna marry them, their family says no. That is absolutely zulm, nothing else can describe it. That is zulm. If a woman says she wants to marry someone and he is a muslim, there's no reason for you to stop it. You have no right as a familty to stop it. This is wrong of you to do. You're abusing a right that Allah gave you. Abusing it. It should not happen. And for young man, the last bir of advices for young man, become man. Earn a living, be dignified, don't offer, like, dates for mahr. The sahabah used to get-- What other thing are you a sahabi? Other than the kit-kat you wanna give for mahr? No. Be dignified. Earn a decent living for yourself. Don't say, "I like her. I don't have a job but I don't know, her family is only interested in Dunya." Yeah, that's why we have mahr. Only interested in dunya. You're supposed to be concerned about Dunya too. (28:77) وَلَا تَنسَ نَصِيبَكَ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا it's in the Qur'an. Don't forget the portion you are owned in this life. It's a worldly decision, too. It's not just a spiritual decision. How is somebody provide for my daughter. Where is she going to live? Is she going to live a decent life? These are respectable questions, decent questions. So, these things we have to take very seriously in our communities. And when it comes to the subject of marriage, I didn't talk to you about what happens after marriage 'cause there's a whole set of zulm we do after merriage. That's for another time, I'll yell at you another time. But right now, let's just fix the institution itself. Let's make marriage easy for our young people. Especially, the ones that are ready and capable, you know. Whoever is capable let them get married. If capability is there, no other barrier should be there. And for those of you that-- you'll find this controversial, it's okay, I'm leaving here anyway soon, so, you deal with it troll me on online. If your son wants to marry somebody who just took shahada yesterday. Right, or the girl wants to marry a guy who just became muslim a week ago or something. And you say, "He only became muslim, 'cause he wants to marry yor girl." "Is that a real shahada?" Who decides what a real shahada is? - Who decides? - Allah. Can you tell why something happens? When Usama-- The famous narration of Usama came, that he was about to kill someone in battle. In battle he's about to kill someone and the guy falls, the enemy loses his sword and he's about to strike him down, and he says, "Ashhadu Alla Ilaha Illa Allah Wa Ashhadu Anna Muhammad Rasulu Allah." He took shahada, became muslim. Did he become muslim? Because when he fell down, it hit him really hard on the head and all of a sudden Islam started to making sense? He was like, "Hold on a second, I think we need to stop this and-- I'm ready to be muslim now." Obviously, he took shahdah because he knows muslims don't kill each other. He took advantage of the opportunity 'cause he's losing, if he was the one on top, he wouldn't have taken shahada, would he? So, he's on the bottom and he take shahada. And Usama sees it and says, "Yeah, right." He killed him. And when that happens, this news reaches the Prophet (pbuh). Is it obvious, like, 1000% the guy took shahada for the wrong reason? It's obvious. If anybody who sees it, Prophet says, "What will you do La Ilaha Illa Allah comes for you on judgement day?" That's what the prophet says. That shahada will complain on judgement day, I wasn't respected. And that's in the most obvious of cases. When somebody says they've taken shahada who are you to question reasons? That's between them and Allah. It's okay. As a matter of fact, even among the sahabah there were those, somebody said, I wanna marry you. The woman was a muslim and the guy was a nonmuslim. And she said, you're not muslim. He was okay, I become muslim. She says, "Okay, fine." And when you're muslim, we can marry, done. Well, you can say, "Astaghfirullah, he took shahada for a woman." Yeah, but the prophet was okay with it, why are you having problem with it? The sunnah is okay, you're more sunni than the sunnah? So, what you need to do now, what you and I need to do, is understand that we are in a challenging time. And our children are exposed to the worst kinds of haram are no big deal now. They're accesible, they're easy and they're not hard to fall into. And in that environment, when the opportunity for nikah is there, please, it is a grave crime for us to deny that opportunity. Consider, of course, give your children advice. I think this is a bad nikah for this reason, this reason but the decision is yours. The decision is yours. You have to share sincere advice, yo do. But at the end of the day, they'll have to make their decision. And it wasn a bad decision, so be it. That's okay, too. That's their mistake to make. That's a better mistake than the mistakes they will make outside of marriage, you understand that, right? And that you won't even know about it and you'll tell yourself, "No, no, my son, my daughter, they would never-- Really? Really? Because you come from, like, angel family? Your son and daughters don't have hormones? They don't have emotions? They don't have attachments? They don't have obsessions? They don't have temptations? They do. Don't be deluded into thinking-- He's a good boy though, he prays. Yeah, what is pray gonna do? You say, (29:45) إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ تَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاء وَالْمُنكَرِ that works to an extent. But Allah created us with an fitrah, you're denying that fitrah. I know I went on a rant but I felt I had to do it. May Allah (awj) make marriages easy for our community and bless the marriages that are happening. May Allah(awj) give the husbands the strenght of character and the understanding to be good husbands and the wives, the kind of commitment, loyalty and understanding to be good wives and thus raise wonderful families. Bârekallahu lî ve lekum. That's the end of the question and answer session. May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you

Channel: East London Mosque & London Muslim Centre

Views: 382,079

Rating: 4.8566628 out of 5

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Id: AYCxdTCifJQ

Length: 78min 11sec (4691 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 02 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Tariq_7]

Excellent talk with very useful reminders

Thanks for sharing