l and they're reaching out and they're lonely. So, of course, so then the children go and give the money to the beggar and then they come back and then Hajj Abdullah said, children, I'm going to tell you a story. Now, wait until you hear this story. There's how not to give and how you should give, all right? Once upon a time, there was a king and there were some people in the village that didn't have any food. So he went to this man, the man you see here with the red top and he was a land owner and he had tons of like animals and fruits and vegetables. And he said, go, go rich man, take some of the food and feed the people in the town. But this rich man, he forgot that his farm was only on loan. It was a loan from God. It was a trust. He thought this food is mine. So he goes into town and look what he does. He holds the food up on a plate. You see him doing it? And so the people, the poor people have to reach up. They feel low. They're like begging for food, right? And even they're thinking, oh my goodness, next time he comes into town, do you think we're beholden to him? Do you think we now maybe have to take care of his horse for the day? Is that the right way to give or the wrong way to give everyone? Wrong, right? Wouldn't it be exactly? Wouldn't it be terrible? You know, if you were giving something to someone and you made them feel low and begging, right? Now you're going to hear the right way to give. Once upon a time, there was the wonderful king and there was a poor widow. And the poor widow in town had no money to educate her children. So he sent this wonderful man, this man on the right in the beige coat. He was an orphan and he grew up. Some wealthy people taught him finance and money. And so the king went to him and said, see, there's a poor widow. She's in town. She needs money. So he took her gold. Look how he's gone. He's taken the gold. He holds the gold low. He doesn't hold it up high. He holds it low and he bends down a bit and he looks up into her face and he says, you can read it on the screen.  The king is Allah, right? King is God, right? By accepting, you make it possible for me to fulfill my sacred duty. I am the one receiving the benefit. Each of us is given special skills when we come into this world, which are meant to be ways of serving others. But it is very difficult if we are born or become rich. So what he's saying is, I beg you to take this gold in order that I may fulfill my duty to God. And what is the duty to God? He's given us skills at a place in time and space and connections. And these are the ways we are supposed to help other people to return that favor.  And I'll tell you how. We're all told we should be humble, not proud, that we should learn to be utterly humble before people. And I was thinking, how do you feel humble? Well, now, as a result of this story, I know I'm nobody. I didn't give myself who I am.  So since I'm nobody, I can feel humble, not full of pride. So remember, this is a very, very important story. For me, it was like it really changed my life, to be quite honest. And then, let me just do this. Now, let me put my glasses on here. Zakat, Zakat giving charity cleanses your heart and purifies what you have, right? Because it all belongs to God, right? And Zakat is always good for you all. Now, you all aren't paying that kind of Zakat, but you can give things away too, because it's a test for you to practice your generosity. And you all are going to get to do this with your toys, all right? And it's not only a test, but you know, if we fail to be giving things away, we start hoarding things, keeping all of our toys, and it makes us greedy, right? We hang on to what we have, you know? But by the way, it's very dangerous not to be generous and pay your Zakat. One of the Prophet's companions, his name was Abu Dhar. He said, I came upon the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in the shade of the Kaaba. And he heard the Prophet saying, by the Lord of the Kaaba, they are the losers. And so this man said to the Prophet, who are the losers? Who are the losers, everybody? He said, people who have plenty of wealth and don't give. And then there are those who say, another type of person that says, here, here, they try to give everyone who is in front of them to the side of them, behind them, to the right or the left of them. And those are the, those are very few people indeed. Which type of person are you? Are you always giving to the people in front of you, to the right and the left and behind you? Are you holding on to stuff? Right. You, you want to be one of the few, the good ones that give, right? Right. All right. So the children, when they heard this story, you know what they did? They ran back to the merry-go-round and they felt in their pockets and they did have some change. So they ran to the children and they said, we don't want to be losers. We want to polish our hearts from greed, right? So this is, you know, every opportunity you have to give, it's a blessed chance, right? So then Hajj Abdullah, he just sits with the children. They've come back in the woods and they're sitting with him in the forest by his big tree, right? And he said, you know, kids, even though you're too young to pace a cat, you need to understand it and you need to practice the virtues that are underneath of it, right? But you need to also know there are different kinds of the cat. And also they are manners, different kinds of manners when you give and you receive. And then certain things qualify people for being able to receive a cat. And then there's something called saddaka. Have you all heard of saddaka? It's just voluntary charity, giving. Yeah. Have you heard of that? And did you know even a smile? Yeah. You know that. It's saddaka, right? It's charity. Okay. So then, you know, people pay this cut once a year before Ramadan.   Maybe you grow corn and you give corn. Maybe you have camels, right? You give and you have extra camels, right? So you would be giving something like the things that you have. But in today's world, people don't have camels. They may have bank accounts. They may have jewelry. They may have extra land or wealth. And that's the kind of thing they give. So you're going to learn all these rules when you grow up, right? Now, you see these children here? They're in a village where they don't have much money, right? And there's something called zakat al-fitr. And that is you want to give it before the Eid. So everybody, you see, they've come to get food. So everyone has enough food for the Eid. Wouldn't it be sad to have Eid and no food? Wouldn't that be sad? But there's also regular zakat, which you can pay, you know. And it would be sad if we had Eid and no candy. Yeah. Exactly. Imagine no candy. Nothing, right? So anyway, did you know that there are five parts that are necessary to pay zakat, you know?   Okay. Yeah, sure.  Now, these are the first thing I want you all to do, all right? Put your hands on your hearts right now. Feel your heart, all right? Before you give your zakat, you have to intend something from your heart. Pretend you're in God's presence right now. And you've decided to give back from all the things you have. So your first thing is from your heart. You say, I intend to give this Ramadan. I'm going to give, right? And also, I promise not to delay. I'm not going to just put it off and put it off, right? And now there are two reasons I'm doing it. Now, think of all of this. One, I'm doing it because I want to help other people. Do you want to help other people? Yes. And also, I'm also doing it because I'm obeying a lot. Didn't Allah ask us to do this? Yeah. But you know what? Maybe sometimes it's not easy. It's even easy. Say you have a lot of money. You've got to figure out how much extra you have. You have to set aside the correct amounts. And there are eight types of people you have to give to. It's not easy to do all this, right? So what about you all do this?  You have a lot of that, don't you? Yeah, I have a pile. I have like two of them along. Yeah, you have a pile, all right? So now you have to be very honest. You're going to give some away. You don't have money to give, but you have toys, all right? So another thing you need to do is it's important is in some... Oh, these are some children. They had basketballs and they wondered, my goodness, we bought the basketball. Do we have to pay as a cat on it? No, no, they don't, right? No, they don't. Now, you see, when you have your as a cat, you know what? If you give it to people in another town, another city, the people in your own town feel sorry, it says here, when the money and goods are collected in a town and your toys, right? It's usual for these to be given to the needy in the same town. The poor would have their hopes crushed if everything was set off to a different place. So that's the fourth important thing that you give it in your own town. And also, there are different categories of people that you give to. Do you know, there are people who are very poor. They don't even have a change of clothes. Then they're needy people, right? Who don't make enough to survive. Then there are people who have debt. They owe money. And then there are prisoners who are deserving. And then maybe there are people who are traveling for the sake of God, right? And so all of these are categories of people. Now look at this little girl here. We have been learning from Imam al-Ghazali that they're both inner and outer ways of doing everything, just like in wudu and prayer. Remember in wudu and prayer, you can do your wudu fast, or you can be remembered from last week. Two weeks ago, you can be doing your wudu and saying, may Allah forgive me for what I've done. Allah, please make me, as I'm rinsing my mouth, say the right thing. That's the inner thing to do. And with your prayer, remember, are you just moving your lips? Are you just doing postures? Are you just saying ayat and you don't think about it? No. There's an inner way to pray and an inner way to do wudu. Well, there's an inner way to give zakat as well, right? Giving to the needy is outward help. But inwardly, are we helping ourselves by just doing what God asks us to do? Yes, right? So, let me go on. Now, oh, sorry, it keeps doing this. Now, to start with, you know, you need to, there are inward manners of giving.  Imam al-Ghazali makes a great suggestion for polishing greed of your golden heart children. Get used to giving things away all the time. Force it to do every day, give something every day. And you know what? If you do that every day, kids, it's going to become a habit. And this is for adults too. Every day, give something. Just keep doing it. Little, big, not so big, little, and it'll become a habit. And that will, then it won't be so hard once it becomes a habit. So, we want to, giving zakat is a test. It helps you reach the next world and it helps to polish greed off your hearts. But it's also a way of thanking God for all that you have. Like, maybe you're attached to your stuff and you really love your stuff. Maybe this little boy, what is he putting into the box here? Maybe it looks like a kind of yellow, I don't know what it is. Maybe it looks like a Trumpet. It looks like a Trumpet. You're right. I bet what maybe is really hard for him to part with that, right? So, there's three types of people who give, right? Now, you remember what the Prophet's life was like? Do you remember how he had very little someone would come and he'd give them all the food he had in the house? Well, one day he said to the companion Omar, right? Now, with zakat, what did you keep back for your family? And the companion Omar said, I gave half of everything and I kept half from my family. And then he went to Abu Bakr Sadiq and he said, and what did you keep back for your family? And he said, what I kept back from my family was a lot in his messenger. I gave everything. Now, these are incredible people that they can give everything. But then they're the kind of people, right? They give a lot, but they keep back for all of their needs and in case there's an emergency and they don't live in luxury. That's pretty hard to do still. And then the normal people who just give exactly what was asked no more, right? But don't you think it's good to be generous at all times, everybody? What do you think? Should you always be generous? Yeah. Okay, look at this little boy. Can you read what he says? I'm pretty greedy with my things. It's not easy sharing or letting my friends take turns with my bike or giving things away. I find that I want to keep it all. So my goodness, the Quran says whoever is saved from his own greed, those are the successful ones. It's very important to clean your heart from greed, because you know what the Prophet said, peace and blessings be upon him? He said, greed, holding on to everything, right? That can lead you to becoming completely lost. Can you imagine getting completely lost?  Do you all promise to do this? Mothers and fathers too? Because if you do it every day, you know what? The greed will go down, down, down and happiness will go up, up, up because you know what? It's fun to give people and it makes you happy and you'll love it. So now the third aim of Zakat, right? I have a question. Please ask it. What is it? So I don't get how I get lost if I'm greedy. Like I don't get how.  Do you know? A clear heart is like, have you ever seen a pond and trees are reflected in it? Beautiful reflections, but if the pond is full of waves, right? You can't see anything. Everything is, it's not reflected correctly. The tree looks like just a bunch of spots, right? If your heart is covered with spots, how can it reflect Allah's light, right? You want to keep your heart totally golden. So that's a very good question. I'm glad you asked it, right? So I also have a question. I would like to hear it. What is your question?  Does it still count if you give it to the nephew? Yes, you can give to anybody.  You all can find little, you know what giving is? You can run in the kitchen and say, mommy, I want to give you a surprise. I'm going to set the table. That's giving too, isn't it? Yeah. And also, and also I was wondering if you have a pet, pet, does it count if you give them food that's giving, right? Yes.  Do you like that? Yes. You love it? Yes. Well, there you go. Yes. Yes. And so also, you know why we're so lucky, you know, with, for our bodies, if we do fasting and prayer, oh, we're, in a way, we're showing thanks that our body. Nothing to give. Everybody has something to give. You know what you could do? You could just take a piece of paper and write a little card. I love you, mom, and take it and give it to her. Wouldn't that be giving something? Anything. Anything. Yeah. So helping, like helping around the house that's giving. Yeah. So now what I want you all to think about is this. Remember what the good person does. They're running it and they're saying, here, here, here to their person in front of them, to the person at the side. We want to be children and grownups that say, here, here, have this, you know, someone comes into your house to visit, here, have a cookie, you know. So let's be the group of the good group that says, here, all right. Now I move to another picture here. Now, uh-oh, is it some inner duties when you give, okay? And you can start these from right now when you're young, all right? You see this little girl? She's putting money in the donation box, but she's showing everybody. Is she trying to show off and impress everybody? It says, if you give the cat or any charity in order to impress or be seen by others, your good deed is worth nothing. What you should do should be done in secret. The prophet said, peace and blessings be upon him. God doesn't accept the good deeds from somebody who reminds everyone of the favors he has done for them. Say you go and do something nice for someone.  So you're trying, where are you taking your credit from Allah or from them?  So you don't want to do that, right? That would be the wrong thing to do. Showing off, all right?  He records what you do in secret, what you do in public, and what you do only to be seen by others, like people who are bragging, right?  And you know, we all do this. I mean, sometimes I want people to know when I've done something good. Do you ever experience that? Have you ever experienced that? Did you want people to know if you've done something good? Yes. But you know, when we watch people bragging and telling everybody the good they did, doesn't it impress us most if we notice somebody is doing it silently and sort of in secretly? That's much more impressive, you know? So also, it says also, look at this, if someone asked you for money in public, you should always give it to him or her.  But also, you also don't want to hurt somebody by turning them down. If somebody reaches out, you know, I keep dollar bills, $20 bills in the car. When I'm driving around, if I come to a stoplight and somebody is there playing music or they have a sign they need money, I unroll the money and immediately give it, right? Because they've reached out and because I don't want to turn them down. You don't want to disappoint someone who's reaching out to you. But also, there is the question. You want to do it in secret, right? You don't want to show off your giving money. So then there's this question that arises. What if you're at a fundraiser and everyone's saying, who's going to give, the auctioneer says, who's going to give more money? We're raising money for this, for this mosque. And if you raise your hand, maybe it's not to be, to be a showoff. Maybe it's by you raising your hand and saying, I will give $500. That maybe encourages other people at your table and they feel, I'll give $500. So your intention is to get other people to do it. It's not to show off. And also, there's another thing too. For example, here is a man, okay, Abdullah asks, but what if someone gives a lot of money to help build a mosque? People will know about this. Father Hamza replied, yes. But the upright giver wouldn't remind people. So I don't think you can give and people can know about it, but you don't want to remind people. By the way, everyone, I gave $500 to the new mosque. Yes. Yes. I gave. I gave. Would that be good or would that be showing off? Showing off. Yeah. Yeah. But by the way, say you give to a poor person and they receive what you give to them. Do you know what? They also get blessings because they are helping a rich person to fulfill their duty of giving, right? Do you know rich people? They have many trials because they face being greedy and full of pride. If you're poor, how can you be greedy or show off because you have nothing? So in any case, even a poor person is helping, is being generous to a rich person by receiving what they give. So you know, we need to see our Zakat or another thing. This is important. Let me see if it's the next picture. Look, here's a little girl. She has nothing. If you saw that little girl, wouldn't you give her something? Wouldn't you give her something, everybody? What would you give her? Yes. Yes. Toys. Toys? Money. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we don't, we, and we don't want to remind her that we're being generous, but I'm going to tell you something, kids. Being greedy is so bad for your heart that here are some ideas from my ma'am Al Ghazali to keep you from being so greedy. Listen to this, okay? Realize what you're giving is small.  Right. I'm really giving very little, right? And, then you have to remember all those toys are just from Allah and they're on loan. They're for you to use and to help and serve with. So this, you should feel shame for not giving more, right? And then, for example, let's say, let's say, see these little boys? Oh, a boy at school asked me to watch out for his big collection of Lego pieces. When he came to collect them, I kept a few pieces back for myself, thinking it was a small amount and wouldn't be missed. I can't believe I did this because he was stealing them, right? I will be returning them to him. I'm ashamed and embarrassed. So if you do anything naughty or wrong, you can always give it back. You can always say you're sorry and you can always change your ways, right? Now, here's, grandfather was a beekeeper, right? And it was time for him to give his a cat. So he had lots of wonderful honey. And so the children were interested that, you know, they enjoyed the bees a lot. And then when he came to give his honey, you know, beekeepers, we were beekeepers. We had beehives in Egypt. And we would take the beehives, not just to clover, but when there was the orange blossoms, just for a short time on the orange trees, we put our hives in the orange trees and then took them out. And the honey is like little flecks of orange and tastes like orange. I bet you never taste that honey, everybody, because it's so rare. And beekeepers usually keep it for themselves. But you know what grandfather did? The children said, so why are you giving your very best honey away? Children, grandfather replied, whom do we prefer, Allah, Sophanahu Wa Ta'ala, or others? It is good to give your very best. Would you give your worst food to guests if they came to your home? You wouldn't do that, would you children? So when it comes to going to your pile of toys, try to give your best. I know it's going to be very hard, but that's the greatest thing that you can do, right? Now, also, I have another question. Okay, go ahead. If you say if you encourage somebody, but you did give, is that still giving? Because if you encourage somebody to give, it's kind of like you're giving. Yes, that's a way of giving to encourage other people to give. That is very, you all are really smart kids, I have to tell you, I mean that you even saw that is really brilliant, right? Now, there are eight kinds of people you can give to. Let's think about these kinds. Now, you see this old lady here, Hajja Siddika spends every moment in prayer. She's devoted to the next life. We send her food regularly by feeding and helping pious people. I understand we are sharing in the rewards of their practice. What if she didn't have enough to eat and she was too weak to be glorifying Allah and we did nothing about it? So you must do ever know people that are old and perhaps poor, but they're very devout people, right? So that's one kind. And another kind is there may be scholars who give their life to studying and teaching. That's another, they may need money. They may need help, right? And then there's another thing you can do. Say you want to give to somebody and you don't want to embarrass them. So you go to their home and when they're not looking, you put behind the couch, maybe some money, maybe some food, maybe some gifts, right? But it's really what's going on is you are doing it for the sake of Allah and Allah knows that these people need help. So Allah uses you kind of as like a bridge to bring that to them. So these, sometimes you don't want to be thanked, do you? You weren't doing it for the thanks. Were you? You were doing it because it's the correct thing to do. So sometimes if someone gives you something, you don't have to thank them. You could say, praise to God who didn't forget someone who needed help. That's another way to do it. And also there is another type of person to give to. You see, here's a dignified man. He's very poor and he hides his needs. He doesn't complain. He doesn't say I'm poor. He doesn't grumble and ask for his needs. That's a good type of person to give to, right? And then there's some people who are disabled or hurt or they've been ill, right? And they need support because they can't even help themselves. That's a good type of person to give to. And then also you may have relatives who need money, right? Or maybe you have people that are your spiritual companions. These are all good people to give to. So now, one day the children are going to, we're about to end the story of Zakat before we do fasting. One day the children are going on a hike. So they're going to have a picnic on top of a mountain and they're walking through this town and they see a great number of people who have very little. Some of them are reading Quran. Some of them are selling small items of food. And there's the difference.  But the people who are miskeying, they actually have jobs, but they can't make enough. They can't make enough to support themselves. So poor people who don't have enough, they are very aware that they depend on the law.  You don't even remember that you're depending on the law. So poor people have that advantage. They know they know they're aware that they depend on God. So also if people give us something, right, we should thank them. Maybe it's coming from a law, but we have to thank those who give us because the prophet said peace and blessings be upon us. He who does not thank people does not thank God. So it's also our duty to pray for people who give to us, right? And if people do a favor, we should return it. And if we're unable to return the favor, we can pray for them too. Now the children here are on a journey. Are we all on a spiritual journey together? You and me and all of us together. We are your mother, your dad, your teachers. We're on a journey and we're trying to reach our golden hearts.  They're going up a path, a path of their golden heart up the mountaintop. And oh, by the way, if this is another important thing, right? If someone gives you a gift, make a big deal out of it. Say somebody has made something and they hand it to you. What do you just say? I'll just, you just take it and say, oh, thanks. No. Wouldn't you say, thank you so much. You make a big deal about them giving you something. And like you want to see other people, they're getting praise and we should do it in front of everyone. You have to make a big deal. And even for example, like cooking. Look at this lady. It says, my mom cooks all day for the guests, but she politely plays it down. When the guests come, she just says, oh, please come for a tiny bit of refreshment. She doesn't say, I've been in the kitchen all day long, slaving, getting the food ready for you. Right. She makes light of it. You know, she doesn't want to attract a lot of praise. So these are some of the ways to give, right? You don't brag about it. All right. Now also, Imam al-Ghazali said avoid things that are doubtful. And that is a mark of somebody on the path to the next world. Right. You can feel it in your heart. If you're not sure whether you should do something or not, whether it's good or bad, ask your heart and your heart will grate a little bit. It'll tell you. So you should avoid, if you don't know whether a thing is good or bad, just avoid it. All right. So the children finally reached the top of the mountain, but the path was filled with many difficulties. And they remembered the story Imam al-Ghazali told in the book of knowledge that we're on a journey. Your children, we're all on a journey. Do you think the path is going to be easy? There are going to be no rocks in the path? No. There are going to be difficult patches, right? But these are our opportunities to polish our heart.  What would you do? What would be your charity? Tell me. Cheer her up. Cheer her up. Right. That would be charity. That's saddaka, you know, even a kind word.  And so, and so when you have to give something away, maybe it's tough on you because, you know, it's hard. You want to hang on to your toys. You want to hang on to your wealth. But if you do it when you're young or like your parents age, many rewards, because it's difficult to give, you get to be old a person like me. I don't mind giving things away because I want to get rid of things, right? I have all the, I don't even need what I've got. Do you think I get as many rewards for that? No, right now, while you're young, if you give, you get many, many special rewards for that, right? And also, another thing, everybody, you don't want to, you don't want to complain. If you're sick, don't complain about it. If you, if, if you've given charity, don't brag about it. Don't complain about your hardships. Oh, I'm having such a hard time. Do you like to listen to people talking like that? Oh, I'm having such a hard time. I've got so many problems. I've got a headache. Do you like that kind of, do you like to listen to that? No. So it's, you're being charitable. You're being, giving charity, if you don't do that to people, if you give people a break, right? So we'll end this with the story about the sweater. All right. You know how we talked earlier, how it's better to give things in secret and not show off. Look what's happened here. This little girl said, when I gave my pink jacket to the little girl in the park, I wanted you all to see instead of my trying to please God, I wanted everybody to think highly of me. And even worse, I did it openly. I could have hurt the little girl's self-respect. Besides humiliating her, I singled her out from the others. I disgraced myself too. So if you're going to give something to someone, right? You, particularly if they're in need, you don't, you want to protect them. You don't want them to be ashamed of being needy, do you? And also, you don't want, maybe the people who are looking, she's giving the pink jacket. Maybe they're envious. Maybe they wish I'm getting the pink jacket too. So there is, by giving in public, you might create, people might feel envious. And you know, you know what Imam al-Dazali said? You won't believe this, everybody, parents and children. He said, you know, imagine, you might be careful when you go out to a party or to a big occasion, if you wear a really fancy new pretty outfit, maybe people will envy you. Do you want to create envy? No, it's a terrible thing, envy. So even to the point of not showing off when you go out with your clothes, right? So children, you know, finally the end. I have a question. I'd like to hear your question. What is it?  No, you should wear nice clothes, but not very show offy, very fancy, very expensive, not to show off with, not to make people envy you. No, we want to wear nice clothes. Of course we have to be, we have to dress with dignity and beauty. That's a very good thing you pointed out. Thank you. Can I tell my question now? Yes. Oh, I'd love to hear your question. What is it? What is envious mean? Envious is to want what somebody else has. Maybe you see they have a pretty dress or a better doll or a fancier car and you wish I wish I had what they had. That's to envy. Instead of the other way is to be content. I have what Allah gave me. Alhamdulillah. Right. Thank you. That's a good question. Okay, so now we're going to have the last question. So the children made it to the top of the mountain, of their journey. Here, high up among the heavenly clouds surrounding their mountain top, the children could see clearly with real sight, they could understand all of these invisible inner things that go on inside of us that make all the difference. So I think what we've just learned is that it's really, really important the way you give inside how you are. You know, I think we've all learned something from this. So now we're going to do very quickly. It's very short. The fasting chapter of Ghazali is just two or three pages, but I don't want you to miss it because it's got many amazing things you're going to have. Any of you ever tried to fast Ramadan even for a day or so? Have you tried? You have? Was it very? I tried that one I was three times. I was really hungry every Ramadan. You do? Even, oh that's wonderful. I fasted like most of Ramadan. And once I fasted too. Once I fasted too, but my stomach hurt. I fasted for two hours. Oh that's wonderful. Before I got starving. When you're older, you can do it. Now you're going to hear a little bit about 25 days. 25 days. That's brilliant. That's just great. All right. So I'm going to start out and tell you a little, a few highlights here. All right. Okay. Fast, we're going to hear some fasting. Okay. Look at this. See these kids in this fortress they made out of cardboard? Fasting is like a protective fortress. It protects you. Once you're inside, notice that when you're not full, but you feel a bit weak from fasting, you feel more spiritual. When you're slowed down and you don't feel all your everyday busy self, it's easier to be more aware of your spiritual heart. The fasting kind of weakens you, but it's actually, it's like a safe fortress. You can get inside and you're not just totally overwhelmed by all your whirling. It gives you a state of peace, right? And Hamza Yusuf said, it also lets you feel when you're calm, you feel gratitude, right? You can be grateful that you have eyelashes. Why aren't we happy to have eyelashes and eyelids? They're like windshield wipers for our eyes. We can say, we have eyelids. We can start to think about things we might overlook because we calm down when we're fasting, right? And also because if we didn't have eyelashes, we would look ugly. Oh, you remember that? Remember that we were doing that from, that's one, we were talking about the sunnah last time of prayer. And if your prayer didn't have all the sunnah, it would be ugly, like not having eyelashes. Good for you that you remembered that. You really learned a lot last time. I'm very proud of you. And also remember in Ramadan, also the doors of paradise are wide open and there's a special gate to Jannah and it's called the gate of Rahan. It's a Rahan for people who fast. Now, did you know that fasting, just like we do in prayer, has inner and outer parts, the outer parts of fasting are what? Giving up food and drink and water and all that all day long. Isn't that right? That's what you do. But did you know there's something you can do inside too? Like being patient. Patient is being patient is like invisible, right? Okay, let's look at this. Here are these children. They're being patient. Look at that. They're sitting with a big cake and they're fasting. Little Abed added. Yes, fasting can teach us a lot of different things. What if mother made a yummy cake and put it on the table? I would certainly want to run up and have a big bite right away. But when we are fasting, we have to be patient and we wait for later. We get a chance to practice and learn patience, which we know is very important. In fact, we're told that half of fasting is patience because it's that hard. There's a Hadith al-Qudsi.  This isn't something just that the Prophet himself peace and blessings be upon him said. It's something he heard from Allah, right? And it says, God, by the way, God is boasting to his angels about a young person. It could be one of you who is devoted to God's worship and service.  So in other words, children, you know, you're active and you want to be outdoors and you're running around and all this, you've got all this energy and all of a sudden you're fasting. You're giving up all that running around. Your grandmother, maybe she's just sitting at home anyway, and she's not giving up much, but it's tough. You've got to give up fun activities and running around and all your energetic stuff. So when you fast and you give up some of all that and you're calm down, you get to be like one of Allah's angels. Wouldn't you all like to be one of the angels? Sure. And also, it's also because you get a very special relationship with Allah when you fast. Fasting is done alone. Only for me is Allah saying it. So I give a special reward for it. Only God knows if you're fasting. People can see you praying, can't they? People can see you doing wudu. People can see you giving zakat. Can they see you fasting? No. How can they tell whether you're fasting? You could have secretly eaten a bite of candy, right? And so it's so. I have something to say. What? Yes. Go ahead, share. Sorry. I mean myself. Um, Dan, no, when you break your fast, I'm pretty, so if you stop thinking of Allah for one second, and I'm pretty sure that breaks your fast too, is that true? What was the question? Oh, I don't know what you're asking. It was kind of a question. I asked, when, um, I heard some, I heard some, where did if you stop thinking of Allah for a second when you're fasting in that it breaks your fast, is that true? Well, no, you can't possibly think of the law all the time, but you want to come back to thinking of the law. None of us can do it. It's too hard, but we are trying. That's you got it right. It's the aim. What you've talked about is what we aim to do. It's the ideal, but it doesn't break your fast. If you can't think of him at all times, we wish we could. But what's happening is our fasting is starting to like, um, oh, it's lowering our, our nafs, our lower self, we're getting weaker. And all, and also when you're fasting, it's like a shield that protects us, you know, and look at the Kaaba here. Imam al-Ghazali explains that just as the Kaaba and the sacred sanctuary that surrounds it are specially honored by Allah, even though the whole earth is sacred and belongs to him, fasting is special to Allah among all the Ibadah. You know, we, we have prayer and, and everything else. And those are all wonderful, but he says fasting is special the way the Kaaba and the sanctuary is special. So it's a, it's a very special thing we're getting to do. Now, all right, children. Now I know you all, all of you want to keep your pure golden noble hearts golden. Okay. So I'm going to tell you the outer and the inner ways to do it with fasting. Okay. To start with, there are six things you've got to do. Okay. And it's outer. First, the moon has to be seen. Did you all know that someone has to see the crescent moon for Ramadan to begin, right? Yes. You're that, right? Yes. Right. And then also, then also the night before, the night before, and I've forgotten this, every night before you're going to fast the next day, you have to intend that night. Tomorrow, Thursday, I intend to fast for a lot for Ramadan. You can't wake up in the morning and think, Oh, I'm going to fast. You're supposed to intend it the night before. So I want you all to remember that, right? And then of course, you all know that you can't take anything in medicine or nothing.  You can't do that, right? So, and there are other things you can't do, but grownups will tell you about this and all these extra rules you'll find out.  You want to wait until it's close to the Fajr prayer as you can to have your, to have your, your last bit of food to eat. And then you want to hurry and when the fast is over, you want to hurry and break it with dates and water. You all know that.  And we're not trying to get relief, right? Now, what it is good is if, now listen to this children, it's good if Ramadan, you can recite and study Quran, maybe a 1 30th every day. And an evening, you ever go with your, your parents to the mosque to do the Taraweah prayers? Have you ever done that?  You're something very exciting. Okay. It was very exciting. Do you know the prophet peace and blessings be upon him? He would spend the last 10 days in the mosque making a retreat. It's called it to calf. Can you all say it to calf? Say it, it to calf, calf. All right, it to calf. And he, in fact, he took his family and the companions, everyone went and did that.  And if you happen to be praying at that time, it's worth more than a thousand months. So it's, it's in the last 10 days. And the, as I said, the prophet did it with his family. Well, let me just tell you something children, listen to this. One of the children exclaimed, Omar, you don't have to wait until your next year. The mosque near my house has a special program during the last 10 days. We children take our sleeping bags during the day. We have special classes, a chance to read religious books. And of course we recite Quran by already going on retreat at our age. We can start the practice of an important sunnah of our blessed prophet. Alhamdulillah. Not only that, we can polish our hearts by practicing patience. So children, you might ask your local mosque, next Ramadan, if you all can come in, maybe just for a few hours and practice your retreat. Maybe you just do it a little bit and get used to it. Wouldn't that be fun to do? You get to do the very special retreat. I mean, it's amazing. Now, Hajj Abdullah. All right, Hajj Abdullah. I have a question. Okay, go ahead. Like, um, why did the kids say we have to bring our sleeping bags when they were not even gonna sleep? Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe you could sleep there with your parents, but maybe you could also just take a nap or rest.  So you're really right about that. It could rest maybe your father or mother would be doing the whole spending the night, and maybe you could spend the night too, but you'd have to be very good. You'd have to be very quiet. Could you do that? Could you be quiet? You could give it a try. You could probably not. Probably not. Well, just like some of you are just fasting for a few hours right now, maybe you could just go and do retreat for an hour. All right, now we got to the end of our program.  Whoever is calling out, they should be quiet so we can do the last bit. All right, here we go. All right. Oops. Oh, dear. I wanted to go back to here. Hajj Abdullah. All right. They went to Hajj Abdullah and he began. I am sure you came today because you wanted to learn about the inner secret conditions of the fast. What Imam al-Ghazali teaches us, you should first know there are three levels of fasting, everybody, three levels, one done by most people. And then there's the fasting of the elect, and then there's the special folk and the fasting of the elect of the elect, the really, really special people. The children wondered if they were special enough to be in the second group. Okay, I'm going to tell you the three groups. Normal group is people who give up eating and drinking and all of that during the day. You know what, just the normal fast. But then the special people, and you all can start to do this, you can become part of the special people. They also- I'm already the special people. Of course you are. You already got a golden heart. You just want to keep it that way.  We're actually thinking, Ya Allah, keep me from saying bad things. Washington years, don't let me listen to bad things. You can do it when you're fasting. So all the body parts, the ears, the mouth, the nose, the feet, the hands, they get to fast too. And I'll tell you how, right? And then the last one is the fasting of the heart. Now this is, this is like the prophet peace and blessings be upon him and all the wonderful saintly beings. These are people who only in Ramadan, they never think of anything. You know what, one of you mentioned about thinking only about Allah. They only think about Allah in the last day. And nothing more. But that's very hard to do. You have to be so pure, your heart has to be so polished and so golden. But that's, so we're going to try to be like the middle group.  We're not going to do that. We're going to, we're going to try to do the fast of a special people, the salihim. So I want you all to begin, right? Now let's think of ways that your eyes can fast.  Or what would be better to do with your eyes? Can anyone think what would be a more beautiful thing to do with your eyes? What could you look at that's beautiful? Listen to Quran. Yes. That's good for your ears. Your eyes, maybe you go outside and look at the trees and the flowers. You know, right? Something good for the eyes, maybe to, maybe to like watch something on TV, like that's on Ramadan, like something. Oh, that's good. You see, that's good. You could, that would be a good thing. And like with your mouth, should you be talking all the time or should you like read Quran or be quiet? What do you think is the better thing to do with your mouth? What if you are good idea? Would you be like arguing? Horrible. I have in comments. You what? I have in comments. What is your comment? I just can't wait until Ramadan. You want to fast, all right? You want to start fasting now? Yeah. You can. There are two days a week, some people fast. So why don't you try to fast part of a day and do all of these things in your fast? That would be fantastic. That would be great practice. All right. You can fast your eyes by looking at a beautiful water fountain. You know what? That is so beautiful. What you just said is so, I can't even tell you. Fast your eyes by looking at a waterfall. That makes me cry. That's so beautiful. Who said that? That's really great. What's your name? Abraham. I said that. Oh, Abraham said that. How lovely. Now if you were bragging or gossiping, wouldn't that be beneath your inner dignity to brag or gossip or argue in Ramadan? Wouldn't that be horrible? Horrible, right? Yeah, that would be horrible. Well, okay, there's something I've got to tell you. This is a terrible story. Yeah, this is a hadith. In the life of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, there were two ladies and they came up to him and they said, we are old and frail and weak. We would like your permission to break our fast in Ramadan. And he handed them a bowl and he said, you've already broken your fast. Take this bowl and throw up in it. And all these people were standing around looking and they went, and you know what came out? Pieces of flesh and blood because they had been gossiping. And you remember from the book of knowledge, if you talk a back bite behind someone's back, talk about somebody badly or behind their back. The Quran says it's the same as eating their dead flesh. So these women, and this is a true story, a true hadith of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. He told them to do that and everyone saw it. So certainly you wouldn't want to gossip during ever, ever anyway. But if you did it, if you gossiped and talked badly about someone during Ramadan, you broke your fast. You lost the day. So no one will do that. You would never do that, would you? I mean, you'd never do it anyway. All right. Oh, by the way, children, now let's see. And we come to the end. There are three levels. We've done the three levels of fasting. Okay. And okay, the next thing is, if you're hearing gossip, you wouldn't listen to that. Would you run away if somebody talks badly? Right. And also, with your feet and hands, don't do bad things because that will break your fast if you're trying the inner special way, if you're one of the special people. And actually, don't let your feet take you to terrible places. All right.  Dates. Dates and water. That's right. Now, we also do tahari or whatever that was. Oh, that sounds delicious. I'd love to hear about this. We fill out dates with stuff like butter and stuff. Oh, yum. Okay. Well, let me tell you something.  Don't make up all the food you've missed. Say you're having dinner. Have dinner. Don't make up lunch and breakfast. Don't pile it all in because we're trying to improve our souls and not just be all day long thinking about special treats and desserts. No, no. We're trying to stop thinking about all this worldly stuff. And the spirit of fasting, the spirit of when you're fast, is you want to be a little weak, right? You want to reduce your energy, right? It helps you feel more spiritual inside rather than the sort of a go-gettering attitude. And like, don't sleep all day. Some people sleep during that. Yeah. No, you don't want to do that because part of Ramadan, I would do that instead of doing PE class. Oh, that's good. And if you've had it, if you're in school, you need to rest. But there's some people who during Ramadan, they stay awake the whole night eating and having a good time. He does my PE teacher. Yeah. He makes us one of the hardest stretches. Oh, he does. Well, I'm very proud of you, you know.  If you're all stuffed with food, you won't feel, you'll just feel heavy. And also, it's like if we're the night of power, you know, if you were there for the layletal kadr and you were stuffed with food, it says that if you're slightly empty, you might even be able to see the heavenly dominion on the layletal kadr.  It's hanging down and it's got hay in it. Have any of you ever seen that, a feeding bag on a horse? No. Well, they haven't. I like horses and I've seen one before when I really want to go to a horse riding school and I went to one. Oh, well, you went to horse ride? Yeah, I think so. But I petted the horses there and I saw them. Don't you love horses? They're so beautiful. But I did not see a single horse eating it. Okay. Well, Ghazali said whoever places a feed bag between his heart and his breast will be bailed from deeper truths. He's saying that people who have eating, eating, eating, they've separated themselves from their heart. He said lots of food keeps us thinking about the world and you want to be light, you want to lighten yourself. And also don't forget when you break your fast, have your water and dates and very important, Ghazali says, when you're breaking your fast, this is something very important. Be in a state of fear and hope, hoping that your fast was good all day long and you didn't mess it up. And afraid, oh my goodness, even if you think you did a good job, you're afraid you might have messed up. If you don't want to think, I did a perfect fast. The thing is you'll want to be humble when you're breaking your fast, right? And then look at these children and he, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, recited a law's words. The Prophet placed his hands on his ears and his eyes and he said, hearing is a trust and sight is a trust. The children put their hands over their ears and their eyes, feeling these were precious gifts. Your sight and your hearing are trusts, so these are given to you by a law as a sacred trust. And so you don't want to mess them up or abuse them. You don't want to listen to bad stuff or see bad stuff. You'd never do that, would you? Right? Now, this is interesting. The goal of fasting, and this is very, we're at the end. This is very hard for you to understand, but I'm going to say it anyway. The goal of fasting is you're supposed to take on one of the qualities of a law. And that one is in fasting, he is the everlasting, independent, Samadhiya. Does God need anything or he needs nothing? Does God need anything or he doesn't need anything? Nothing. He has everything. He needs something like to listen to Quran. Well, he likes us to recite Quran. Those are his words. But a fasting person should imitate the angels as much as possible, because the angels don't want or need anything, anything at all. And they're the nearest to a law. So what we try to do is not be so needy, you know, be content with what we have. So children, what I'd like to say is, oh, you see here, here's this little girl, this inner practice, she's not eating lots and lots of food that increase the body's pleasure and strength. The spirit of fasting is to weaken the body's energy by taking less food. So look, she's not having tons and tons of stuff. Is she? Look at her. She's having a correct, simple, humble meal. So what I wanted to end by telling you all, here is Hajj Abdullah, right? I want you all to really think about your golden hearts. Every minute of the day, all of these ideas, keep them alive. Every minute there's a chance to polish it. Every second you have a way you can polish your heart. You can be smiling. You can give something. You can listen to the right thing. You can do the right thing. So the children, this is the end. Here's Hajj Abdullah. The children were deeply relieved to have been introduced to the inner meanings, the kernels inside the outer husks, the beautiful forms of their faith.   Children, parents, we're all in charge of our own hearts, right? And as he slowly disappeared between the trees, the little boy Abu Bakr said, now we know what to do and why. So children, parents, me, we've listened to Al Ghazali and we have all these wonderful things. We know what to do and we know why to do them. So let's start doing them bit by bit, all right? And next week, we're going to do, all right, we're, we all promise, we all promise. All right. Next week is, next week is the Hajj and it's really fun, some children going on the Hajj. And then afterward, we do the pilgrimage, the Hajj every year, the Muslims, you're going to find out next week. Oh, like, like we go to Umrah? Yes, exactly. You're right. That's the smaller pilgrimage.  All the secrets of the Umrah next time. Isn't it like, it's an extension. The beginning of the Hajj is like Umrah. And then you go on to, to, to Mount Ara, uh, anyway, to, uh, you go out to the plain of Mount Ara, Ara fat, Ara fat. Yeah, what was I thinking? I forgot. Anyway, so we're going to do that. In the final final session, we're going to have a magical thing on all the things we believe. You know, what is in our heart, what we believe and it's going to be so much fun. So you know what? I've kept you up 17 minutes later than you're supposed to. And I know you all want to go to bed, but I want to go to bed. So I love you all and I thought your questions today were wonderful and your answers. And I just can't believe that you can be as young as you are. And you're so smart. Thank you. Yeah. Mashallah. As-salamu alaykum everyone. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. As-salamu alaykum. Well, welcome this really wonderful family of brilliant young people. Your children are really smart. I remember last week you knew everything and we hope our friends from Indonesia are with us again. So now we're going to, of course, you children are too young to make the Hajj. Have any of you known anyone who went on Hajj or did Umrah, any grandparents or did you know of anybody, any of you? Yeah. You've known people? Well, it's a good thing to know about. Not only because you want to understand why they go to school, but it's such an important part of our religion, right? But I'll tell you something really special, everybody. The ideas you're learning in order to make the pilgrimage are also important for your life right now as it is. Do you know there are two journeys? One journey is the one we're on right now. You're grown.  You're growing up. You'll probably get married.  You'll get grandchildren. Then you'll die. That's a life, one kind of a journey, right? But the Hajj is another kind of a journey, right? And it has ideas in it which we can use right now.  This book was really written for older kids, sort of 10 years old and older.  But it's all really, really profound stuff.  Would that be all right? All right. So when your parents or people make the Hajj, this tells the inner meanings of it, this book. If they're going to make a regular pilgrimage, like your granny, she needs to buy a proper Hajj manual, which is adjusted for everything you need when you get there. So now, what the essential ideas, even though this book was written by Imam al-Dazali, oh, 900 years ago, yeah, 900 years ago, everything is still the same. And so, have you ever heard of our friend Hamza Youssef? He's a great scholar. Yes. He's great. Yes, I will next year. He wrote the introduction for this book, and he said, many things make journeys, right? Like, I mean, some journeys we do, we're just going on vacation, right? We're visiting our grandmother, but the Hajj journey is really important for all of you because it's the other part that's real in your life. But think of animals. Don't animals? Think of the monarch butterfly and think of salmon. They set off on journeys, the monarch flies from Mexico up to Canada, and its children know how to get all the way back to Mexico. The salmon come out of the ocean and they swim all the way back up rivers to get to the place where they came from, and nothing can deter them. They don't lose their concentration, right? But they prepare for this.  And so, we can learn a lot from animals, right? We should be concentrated and we should prepare, right? So, what we're going to do as people though, we don't have like animal instincts how to get back to an ocean, but we have the instinct, we have the deeper knowledge to go out and try to become close to Allah and have knowledge of Him. And so, this Hajj journey is going to remind us of things we have forgotten. You know, when somebody dies, they say, Did you ever hear that? It says, Surely we belong to God and surely the return is to God. And so, that very important idea you learn in the Hajj, by the way. So, like, we keep doing this wrong here. So, you have to know children that, again, we all have a really unique golden heart, right? Does everybody remember that? Remember that you all have a golden heart, right? And so, you have to remember that your golden heart is the thing that you're supposed to take care of and you're learning how to do that from Imam Al-Ghazali, right? Now, in the story, the children are walking home from school, but today they're going to the magic garden. Do you see the door to the garden hidden behind the wisteria? Isn't it magical and beautiful? They're going to see Hajj Abdullah, right?  You learned about zakat and fasting last week. These are all very special learnings. And so, anyway, the children are on their way to see Hajj Abdullah. And so, let me just say, in order to learn anything, we need guidance and we get this from the Quran, and we also get it from the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, all right? So then, let me just go to the next picture, all right? Now, the children go to Hajj Abdullah and they speak to him. And he says to them, you know, the Hajj is an incredible chance for you to learn everything you need to know and how to practice.  Have you ever known something that didn't die? Don't flowers die? Do people die? When the sun goes, night comes on, yes, yes. Do animals go to heaven? They go to the next world, yes, everything, you know? And so, since everything is going to die, isn't it good that we find out a little bit more about dying? Don't you think you need to know? Yes. Who else has their hand up there? Yes. Yes? We watch a show called Wild Cratch and it's about animals. Oh, it's about animals? Oh, how lovely. Animals are so beautiful, right? And so, since everything... I have a question. Yes? Well, I heard once, like, it's that moose or something, that all animals straight away go to heaven. Well, why wouldn't they? You know? Allah knows, Allah knows, you know? But I think so. So, anyway, so they're sitting with Hajj Abdullah and they go to see him. That's what they tell him. They're in the magic garden and little the fox is listening to him and a spider comes down and they say, oh, Hajj Abdullah, very exciting news. Two of us, Bilal and Leila, we're getting to go on the Hajj with our grandmother and our mother and father. And Hajj Abdullah said, well, that's really interesting that you're going to be doing this because this gives me a chance to teach you about the Hajj. And I just want you to know something, children. This may be one of the last few times you see me. I haven't been very well. So the children started crying and they said, what? You're dying? What's happening? We don't want to lose you. And he said, what did we learn in the very first time from the Book of Knowledge? One, we have two... There are two kinds of learning. One is the special learning how to polish the heart and we're learning to polish our heart because there are two worlds getting ready for the next world. In this life we're in has lots of difficulties. Remember that, kids? And these difficulties are chances to polish your heart. But, you know, in the end, when you go to the next world, you're finally at peace, finally in content and you have everything. So the children were really sad to think that Hajj Abdullah might die. And he'd given his life to polishing his heart. Why shouldn't he be allowed to go to the next world, go to paradise? So anyway, the children said, oh, they would love to know all about the Hajj. And they said, you know... Oh, let me see this. Yeah. They would love to learn about the pilgrimage. They did know it involved wearing special clothes, visiting the Kaaba, spending an entire day on the plane of Arafat and asking for God's forgiveness in the company of Muslims from every community the world over, right? So, Hajj Abdullah said that on his second Hajj, so we have to ask everybody, children, what is behind all these rights going to all these places? What do they mean and why are they so important? Would you like to find that out today? With lots of fun pictures? We're going to learn that today. So Hajj Abdullah, when he made his second Hajj, he used Al Ghazali's book. And so he's going to tell us why it's so important to go to Mecca and Medina. Have you ever wondered why is it so important? And then, like, why is Hajj considered the special worship, right? One of a lifetime. It's a seal or it's a crown for your other things, for prayer and purification, for zakat and for fasting. This is the crown of all these other ways. So anyway, keep doing that. So here are the two little children imagining themselves going to the Kaaba. This is Balala and Layla imagining themselves sitting there. Can you all imagine what it would be like sitting there?  And he also said that a Hajj that is accepted by Allah, is better than all the world what it contains and everything in the world and is rewarded by heaven. And by the way, Ghazali mentions, when you go on the Hajj children, you will be God's guest and you can ask him for whatever you like. Now, if you have guests that come to your house, would you tell them no if they asked for something? No, so you would be God being God's guest. So by the way, some people ride on donkeys to reach Mecca and the angels run out and greet them, but some people walk there and the angels run out and hug them and embrace them. Why do you think they would embrace the ones who are walking? Yes. They're trying to get more of Allah's blessing. Yes, because they're making more of an effort, aren't they? They're not just sitting, riding, they're actually walking. And so also when the pilgrims get to Mecca, even if you're just sitting there, see the children are gazing, that Allah gives special portions of His mercy 20% to those who are just sitting looking at the Kaaba and another 40 for those who are praying and another 60 of those who are walking around the Kaaba, making Tawaf, right? Now you see, here's the black stone.  It's put in a silver casing and it's put in the corner of the Kaaba. And I don't know whether you knew or not, but it fell from heaven and the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him and others helped to place it in the corner of the Kaaba. All right? Now, there was a companion, Radi Allahu Anhu, named Omar. And you know what he said? He said to the stone, he said, I know you are just a stone with no harm or benefit and I only kiss you because the Prophet kissed you. And then the companion Ali, Radi Allahu Anhu came and said, oh, I'm going to tell you a story. All right, children, get ready for an amazing story. All right? In the very, very beginning, did you know Allah created Adam? He was the first Prophet. And from Adam, all of us were inside of Adam before we even came to be. All humanity that would ever come to be were inside of Adam. And Allah said to Adam, Adam, am I not your Lord, your Lord? And Adam said, yes, of course you are. And God said, I ask you this because on the day of reckoning, the day of last judgment, I don't want you to say you never heard of this, you know, you never heard that I was your Lord. So Adam and Allah, there was a contract written, an agreement. Do you know where this contract is between Allah and Adam? It's inside of the black stone. It's inside of it. Can you imagine that? So this is an amazing thing.  And the very first thing you say, you say in the direction of the black stone, if you can't get near, if you can get near, you would kiss it.  Believing in you, affirming the truth of your book and fulfilling your love. So you are remembering the contract that is made in your name. It's inside of there. Wouldn't you all agree to this contract if Allah said, am I not your Lord? Would you all say yes? Of course you would. So then just to let you know that if you're in Mecca when you get to go, if you fast for one day or do charity or some goodness, do you know it's worth 100,000 fasts anywhere else in the world. So you could go to Mecca and you could fast one day and it's like 100,000 fastings or acts of charity. And the value of prayer and good deeds are multiplied as well, you know? So, see this little girl with her pure heart, do you all have golden hearts like this? You do. Can you feel it? When you're praying next time, remember exactly, yes you can feel it. This is who you really are. This is the real you inside, right? And so, you know, this little girl said, I would love to live in Mecca. But you know what they told her? No, it would be nice, but you might start taking Mecca for granted.  It's the house of Allah, right? And whoever visits it, visits God. So you should be yearning to visit God. Not just think, oh, I live in Mecca. I live here. You might get bored, right? You wouldn't want to do that. So you yearn to be near to Allah, right? So then here's a story. See the little boy standing?  That's called the kiswah. It's a beautiful covering. And they change it every year during the Hajj. They put up the fresh one. And this beautiful kiswah covers the Kaaba. Listen to the story. One night I was passing. Let me put my glasses on. One night I was praying in the hijra. This is this little semi-circular area where Saddam Ismail is buried. When I heard a voice between the Kaaba and the curtain, and the curtain, and the Kaaba said, to God I complain, then to you, oh Gabriel, of what comes from those who make circuits around me engrossed in chatter and vain prattle. If they don't cease, I will quake with such a quaking like an earthquake that every stone in me will go back to the mountains in which it came. So the children heard this story. And they thought, they said, oh, we have to be careful when we're walking around the Kaaba.  But you know, making Tawaf around the Kaaba, walking around it is prayer. But you don't talk to people when you're making prayer, do you? But when you're walking around the Kaaba, you can ask your mother and father questions when you go.  You would never do that, would you? So anyway, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, right? He, when he used to face the Kaaba, he would say, you are the best place on God's earth. Now, also by the way, this is the city of Jerusalem. This is the, do you see this is the Harama Sharif near the Mosque of Al-Aqsa. This is the dome of the rock. If you quote to Medina or to Jerusalem, if you do prayers and special acts of charity and good deeds, those also get, they're worth many, many, many more of them. So I hope you get to visit these three people, these three places when you get older. So now here's the Kaaba. Here's everybody walking around it, right? So one of the things, yes? Okay, I'll continue. The first picture before this one with the Kaaba. Yes. Right there. You've been there? You've been to Jerusalem? Yes. Mashallah. How lovely. I've been there too. Isn't it wonderful? I'm so glad you got to go there. It's so beautiful, so beautiful. I've been there. You've been there. And here is the Kaaba. Now, by the way, making this Hajj pilgrimage, it's a duty for every, every Muslim if you can afford to go and if you have good enough health, you want to go because it's so, so important. And you all are going to discover why it's so important. But if you can't go, maybe you're too ill, maybe you could have someone do it for you. Maybe a daughter or a son who finished their pilgrimage already, they can go and do it for you because it's a debt. It's something you owe to a law, right? It's a debt like any other, any other. Let's just read what it says here. The one who dies without having paid zakat or performing the pilgrimage will be among those who ask to be returned to the world.  I have to go back because it's from the Quran. And when, until death comes to one of them, he says, Lord, send me back that I might do righteousness in that which I left behind.  You wouldn't want to do that, would you? So you're all going to be very careful and try to make the Hajj when you can. All right. Now the family, there's a family that you're going to make the Hajj with today. We're about to go on Hajj together, right? And here's the family. There's the grandmother, the mother and father and two of the children. And they're sitting at home and they're, they're planning, they're planning their, their, their Hajj. That evening, Laila Balal, Zaynab and Abdullah were thrilled to share with their family some of what they've been learning about their upcoming Hajj. Balal said, I am so glad we've been watching and correcting our characters. It seems to me that the very things we shouldn't be doing in the pilgrimage, we shouldn't be doing in our life at home anyway. So you all are going to learn this, right? Now, one of the things you want to do is you want to have a good intention. Do you think if you're going on the Hajj, you should be doing it to do good business and make money or to go because you love Allah? What should you be doing it for? What's the intention? Yes. Yes. To go because you love Allah. That's right. That's right. And so also you want to take extra money with you so you can be generous. Wouldn't it be horrible to be on the Hajj and you saw people in need and you were stingy and didn't have extra to give? So you want to take extra to give, you know? Even you children, when you're walking around town or in your lives, you could keep extra change in your pockets in case you saw children like the Zakat story that needed something. So also, just like having good intention in your life, also another thing you need to have on the Hajj is pure speech without a lot of arguing. How are you all doing with arguing? Are you doing better with arguing? Because we've been talking about it. You are. All right. Because wouldn't it be horrible to go on the pilgrimage and argue? Well, it's horrible to argue at home. Do you like to hear people arguing? No. No. So of course. Now another thing. Yes. I even tried to stop making them argue, but they still argued and then I tried as hard and then that worked. Oh, bless your heart that you tried. Bless your heart. What a great blessing you had for trying that. Right. And another thing you're not supposed to do on the Hajj is hurt other people. And if somebody hurts you or bumps you or says, you just bear it patiently. Like shouldn't you do that at school if somebody says something mean? Shouldn't you just be patient and bear it? Yes. But what if they do it by accident? Oh, well then it's just an accident. Nobody cares. Right. Now, Imam al-Ghazali says a sign that your pilgrimage has been accepted is when you come back, when you come back home, you stop doing and saying bad things. Right. And instead of being with your friends that are really naughty and say, let's do this bad thing. Let's turn over this. Let's break this. Let's do this horrible thing. You have better friends. And instead of spending all your time when you come back, just going to the movies and being entertained, you try to do something higher with your time. Join groups, maybe people who are praying or doing Vick. So you have to remember something, children. When you make your Hajj, it's a kind of dying. But what are you dying?   That old person is dead and gone. So you want to die off some of the things you don't really think you should be doing. So, you know, let's continue. Now, here is Hajj Abdullah. Right. Yes. Why does it cost so much to go? Well, you know, planes cost a lot and then you get there and you have to have tents waiting for you. Like all travel costs a lot. You know, it's too bad it costs a lot. It used to be in the ancient days, people would walk from Africa, come by camel. They would do the long walking Hajj. Right. But I mean, unfortunately, now Hajj Abdullah was sitting in his garden surrounded by animals. And he's like very, very peaceful. Right. You see how peaceful he is. Right.  He said, no, that there are, there is no way to approach a law except by dying off one's lower desires and qualities. Right. And instead living, and instead of living with excess, you know, you know, and instead of living with excess, having too much stuff, choose to live with what you, what are really, what is our necessities. When you go on the Hajj, can you take a lot of luggage with you? No. You take a nap sack, you take a few changes of clothes and you're gone for weeks and you're, you can live with all that, right?  So shouldn't we in this life live with fewer things? Is it good to have so much excess? Maybe our excess toys and clothes we should give to orphans, right? So it's very important, right? That we're very taking good care of our hearts.  The young people thought about their own hearts. Were they being polished enough? I hope you all are drawing your hearts and putting dots of the things you want to polish away. The children wondered why grown-ups didn't draw and assess their own hearts. They found it very helpful to write down a visible list found inside of their own hearts, things which they needed clearing away. It helped them to remember their true nature, the fitra, their luminous gold and self. How did older people manage to fix themselves up if they didn't make a checklist for their jihad al-Nas or struggle with their lower selves? And what about understanding? You all want to have understanding. You don't want to just be told to do things. You want to understand it, don't you? Yeah. People need understanding. Now I just might interest you to know that other faith traditions have different forms of retreats. There can be monks and nuns and they go into monasteries. They go for short periods. They do long retreats. They may live there. But in the past, the hajj al-Ghazali says is our form of retreat in our religion. It's very concentrated, right? It's aimed at dying off all your attachments to the lower things of this world, right? And learning to experience that you can live with less. So our kind of retreat is making the hajj, right? And the hajj also teaches you to surrender, to just submit and do what you're supposed to. And that's what the word Islam means, peace, submission, surrender, right? Because part of your pilgrimage are things like things that maybe you can't understand. You can understand if you're fasting that how that helps helps your religion. You can understand the cat giving charity. But if you're asked to throw stones at a pillar, a run between two small hillocks, what you're doing, you're learning just to submit to what Allah asked. Like if a king told you, do this. If you were the servant of a king, would you say, why do I have to do it? Or would you just do it? What would you do?  Or would you say, okay, I'm not going to do it unless you explain it to me. So you see, yeah. It's a way of practicing being obedient, right? You should be nice to this girl she's making duet.   You could be in an accident. Something could happen to you. So you have to leave everything in order. You have to make sure the people, the family you're leaving behind who depend on you that they're well taken care of. that you're doing it for God, right, and by the way, if you discover you're doing it for a low intention, like look what this girl says, be sure it's not to show off or be well thought of. Maybe somebody's making the Hajj because they want people to think, oh, they're really great, they're making the Hajj. The little girl says, it would be terrible to set out to visit the king, yani Allah, for some other reason, like desiring to be seen or to be famous. So look at your hearts carefully, and children, this applies to you right now. If you notice, you have a bad intention for something. Maybe you're not really wanting to help mummy. Really, it's just for people to think you're really good. What you can do if you discover your intention is not that great, you can replace it. You can think, I'm going to replace it with a better intention. Isn't that wonderful that you can do that? That you can replace your intention? So also you have to put everything. Yes, it is, isn't it?  Okay, get ready for this. You have to put things in order. If you were in a bad mood with your mummy before you traveled, wouldn't you apologize and fix that up? If you had done things that you are sorry for, wouldn't you apologize? If you owed somebody money, if you'd borrowed someone's bicycle, wouldn't you return them and put everything in good order? Wouldn't you do that? You would. Right. So Ghazali said, listen to this image, you won't believe this image. You can take and hang around your neck a bag, a sack, and put all the things in it that you haven't done, that weigh you down. For example, if you have been mean to someone and you didn't apologize, it's hanging around your neck weighing you down. You know how you feel bad about something until you put it right? If you've been mean to your brother or something, it's heavy around your neck.   Aren't you ashamed? Don't you want to fix your wrongs and ask for his forgiveness? Now, you have to do this if you're making the Hajj, but shouldn't you all do this every day in your life? You should, right? And also Ghazali tells us you should turn your heart wholly and completely in the direction of Allah, right? When you're traveling. Otherwise, maybe if you're not thinking about Allah the whole time, you might as well not spare yourself the hardship and the exhaustion if you're just going to go and make Hajj and be thinking about everything else. So children, I want you to imagine you're going on Hajj. We're about to do it together, all right? And if you had to leave, I want you all to write a little will, what you would leave behind, what would happen to your toys and your things, because you might be leaving all of your friends and never see them again. So be sure you leave everything in beautiful working order, right? Because the Hajj is going to help you practice for your final journey when you do die. So the Hajj is a chance to ask for forgiveness, to put things in order, to get used to living with less, and also the best thing you can take with you on the Hajj is a golden heart. So children, don't you realize all these things that people have to do for the Hajj journey are the same kinds of things you have to do for your journey right now in your everyday lives, in your families, and at school? So then the children are leaving. They're going to be leaving the next day for the Hajj, and just as they're leaving Hajj Abdullah, look what flew into the garden. What is it, everyone? It's a white peacock. Do you see it? In some traditions, the peacock is the symbol of paradise, of jinnah. So sometimes in nature there are signs, I guess. Maybe this was a special sign, because they would not be seeing Hajj Abdullah again, right? So the next day, they're getting ready to go on the Hajj. Children, are you all ready to go on the Hajj now? We're all going together. We're going to have this journey so you can pay attention and you'll have a good idea, because you're going to see pictures of it and learn some very interesting things about it, all right? So the first thing is, you see, everybody is dressed in ikhram. Do you know what ikhram is?  The woman can wear a dress. It's all right, right? And so this cloth that the men wear, ikhram, right? It's a wichu in a special state. And you know what it looks like, ikhram?   They're going to have a week or so where they're only thinking about Allah and asking forgiveness and trying to get their hearts back in order. So children, if you were going to go and meet Allah, would you wear blue jeans? Would you wear a party dress? Or would you prefer to dress in something that shows you are empty of everything but him? Would you wear ikhram or would you wear blue jeans? Which would you do? Right, of course, of course. Yeah, so anyway, the children that the family is making certain prayers and do as and then they get in the car to leave. And you know what Layla says to her parents? Oh my God, she said, I am so glad I apologize to my friend Rukhaya because I was mean to her. And now if I hadn't done that, I'd be carrying that like a sack around my neck, a heavy sack saying, where are you headed? With never having apologized. So children, we also we always want to ask ourselves every day, did we apologize for what we've done? You know, we have to be very careful. All right. Okay, the family is packed lightly. Do you see that? And the and the main thing is their hearts have a good, clean feeling. And so they're setting out and they're going to the plane and here is Bilal, he's sitting on the plane seat. Okay, pretend you've gotten to the plane, everybody, you're sitting on the plane, right? And then, okay, you're on the plane. And then the plane flies over a place, which is called the me cat. It's a place where you actually enter the state of the wrong, where there are things you can no longer do. And at that moment, you know, you see, he's making an intention, everyone set straight up in their seats and repeated, I make the intention of entering Ihram, a special clothing, special state, for the sake of accomplishing the pilgrimage. But I could feel the intention deep in his heart. And then everyone gets to say the Talbiyah. Have you ever heard people saying the Talbiyah? Here it is. Do you see it right here? Here I am at your service, oh God. Here I am. Here I am. You have no partners. To you alone is all praise and all blessing. And to you is the sovereignty, the dominion. You have no partner. And you say this, you say this all the time, whenever you're moving forward, whenever you're with other people. But do you know what you're doing here? This is quite amazing. What you're saying here, you're answering the call of Abraham, Saydena Ibrahim. Do you know that Abraham and his son Ishmael built the Kaaba? Do you remember that? They built it. Abraham lived around 4,000 years ago. And when they finished building this beautiful sanctuary where people were, God said, proclaim that people come here to this sanctuary to worship me. And Abraham basically was thinking, I'm out here in the middle of the desert. If I call, you know, who will hear?  So when you're making, when you're saying this statement to tell Bia, who's you're answering Abraham, he called 4,000 years ago and you're answering him now. Isn't that amazing to answer over 4,000 years? And not only that, you are also answering. You know, one day there's going to be a trumpet blast. And that calls everybody back, people who died all the way back to be alive to the resurrection together. So this, tell Bia, you're saying you're, you're responding to the trumpet blast and also to Abraham.  You're going to be wearing this and to laugh and making the sigh and going to Mina. And also when we go to Arafat, you see here, the mount of Arafat, it's sunrise. Do you all see Arafat here? All right. So anyway, the next thing, let's get going. We've reached Saudi Arabia by plane and here are pilgrims from all over the world. You see all the luggage they have, these boxes of things they have, you know, they've got tons of luggage somewhat even bring food. And you see the buses in the background. You see the buses, children, right? And there's some cars. Well, Ghazali points out, you don't want to show off with your transport, right? You can take a bus or a van. You don't have to have a fancy, fancy car. And then he says something. Here they are in the bus. Do you see they're in their bus with the luggage on the top?  Now children, we're on the journey. We're going toward the house of Allah, the beta law. Now on the way there, the grandmother tells them something very, very important. She said, this vehicle, a vehicle is something that transports you. Here in this case, it's a bus, right? She said, but really, this bus is to remind you of another vehicle. When you die, they put you on a flat board. It's called a beer, B-I-E-R. And that beer is taking you to the Kaaba.  You want to make it like you're on your beer. You're dead and you've left everything behind and you're going to Allah with an empty golden heart, right? So now, are you ready to go? Are you ready to reach Mecca now? All right, here we go. Oh my goodness, everyone gasped when they saw the tall minarets of the Masjid Al-Haram come into view. Okay children, we're just reaching the front door of the Kaaba, right? So we're going to go in now and be his guests. We're going to be the guests of Allah with our hearts open. Is everybody's heart open right now? All right, all our hearts are open, right? Imagine kids. Now, you want to have a good state of being and soon you're going to even be able to touch the Kaaba, touch it itself. This building built by Abraham 4,000 years ago with his son Ishmael. And so in you go, here we are, right? Now, grandmother was worried. She said to the children, you know, you have to be a little bit worried here, right? That maybe you're not worthy to be so near to Allah. But on the other hand, you can have hope because Allah is so generous. You know, so you say the Shahada and come on in. So the children come in. Oh my goodness. They first set their eyes for the first time on the Kaaba and Layla and Bilal were dazzled by its grandeur and beauty. It stood majestically before them like the silent center of the universe around which all else seemed to turn. It was as though their golden hearts recognized it. Had always known it. They were home at last.  She was overcome by the splendor she beheld and the peace in her heart, right? So remember that Tawaf is prayer. So as you make it, let your heart be filled with fear and hope and reverence and love. Now, this is something children. This is very exciting, which you're about to hear. You see, in making and going around the Kaaba, right, making Tawaf, you are circumambulating. You are going with the angels. Did you know that? Right. And by the way, this walking around the Kaaba that you're going to be doing, don't suppose that the aim of making the circumambulation is for your physical body just to be walking around it. The aim, the purpose of Tawaf is of your heart, the Tawaf of your heart, by remembering God and His house. The Kaaba, do you see the Kaaba right here? You're seeing it with your eyes, everybody, right? Are you seeing it with your visual eyes, with your physical body? But it's a symbol in this world for a presence that your eyes can't even, your eyes can't even see, right? The Kaaba exists, the real Kaaba exists in the Alaba Malakut, a realm of dominion. Listen to this. The Kaaba is mentioned in the Quran as the Betel Mamur or the much frequented house and has been thought to correspond to the Kaaba above the one you can see with your eyes. And the angels are going around it just as we are about to do. And since we are far from being angels, children, we are asked to imitate them. We've been promised that he who imitates a folk becomes one of them. So we're going to pretend we're angels, everybody, all right? We're going to imitate the angels who are above the Kaaba in a world you can't see. The angels are going around the throne, right? The throne of God. Okay, are you all ready, children? You are all being angels right now, all right? So now the next thing, oh, I'm going to go a little bit further. You're going to begin at the Black Stone, all right? We're going to, the seven times walk, we start at the Black Stone and remember what we're going to do. We're going to put up our hand, reach out and say Bismillah, Allahu Akbar, Bismillah, Allahu Akbar. In the name of God, God is the most great. We are remembering what is inside of the Black Stone. We're remembering that we made a contract with God, that he is our Lord. Remember that, all right? So then we renew our pact, our contract with God. And this is very, very serious, all right? Now, see this little girl? You know the Kaaba has a curtain on it. It's called the Kiswah. It's a beautiful covering. You know what you can do, kids? You can go up and cling to it. And you can cling and hang on to it. You know, if you want something from your mother, have you ever clung onto her skirt or the hem and just beg her for something and you cling until she gives it to you? Has that ever happened? Oh, mom, you've got to do it. Please, I beg you, let me get the new doll. Let me get whatever. Mom, please, please let me, whatever it is. And you cling and beg. So this is what you can do with the Kiswah. You can go, cling on to the Kiswah and beg a lot, beg a lot to help you. All right? Now the Black Stone. The prophet said the Black Stone is the right hand of God on earth, with it he shakes hands with his creatures, just as a man shakes hands with his brother. Now, you start moving. You've started at the Black Stone. You're moving along and you're just passing the first corner. It's called the Iraqi corner, right? As Balal looked up, the Kaaba seemed immense. It was amazing walking with people whose faces showed they came from all over the world. He couldn't believe he was finally taking part in what he had only seen in picture books. Right now, children, if you haven't been, you've just seen pictures like this. But guess what?  And there are all kinds of prayers, you say, when you're walking around the Kaaba.  It's called the Yemeni corner, right? And it's hard to get near the corners because there's so many people. But at least their father was able to bring them close enough to the Kaaba itself so they could touch the Yemeni corner. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, not only touched it, as he made to Wath, but he placed his cheek on it. So if you can, everybody, place your cheek. Yes, you have a question there. What is your question? When you touch the Blackstone, do you touch it once you walk around the Kaaba once or seven times? Well, you know, I'll just be quite honest. There's so many people there that you can't get close enough. Maybe sometime if you wetted Fajr or Dawn or some middle of the night, but the ideal would be to touch it. But since you can't do the ideal, that's why we just put our hands out like this and say, Bismillah, Allahu Akbar. It's the same thing. And you go like this. You see? So you can touch it. That's a very good question. Thank you for asking it. All right? And then as you see here at this corner, children, all right, now you're going to move to the right. Okay, we're moving to the right, to the Blackstone again. And you're going to hear a prayer. All these pilgrims are saying, they're saying, oh God, our Lord, give us goodness in this world and goodness in the next, and save us by your mercy from punishments, right? So you're going to learn that prayer. People are saying it in Arabic, but after you've gone around a few times, you always hear people. And finally, you get to feel comfortable. You always know you're going to be hearing it, right? So then this is, okay, you pass the Blackstone again and right there next to the door, it's called the Babel Multazim. This special door, if you can reach up and touch it, they pretend you all are doing it, children, you're reaching up. And anything you ask Allah, he will answer your prayers. And when you get up close, you're touching it. And you can hear all these people from different countries, they're all trying to touch it too. And you can hear people crying and sobbing. What do you think people are asking for? What kinds of things they've come from Timbuktu and from Japan and Afghanistan. They finally made it and they're touching the door and they're asking from the bottom of their heart. He always said Timbuktu. What? Timbuktu? Anyway, it doesn't matter. But you see here is Bilal, he's, he's reaching up and he's asking, what kind of thing would any of you ask for? If you finally were there and you could have anything you wanted, what would you ask for everybody? Jannah. What? Jannah. Jannah. You're the smart one. You're the girl. That's exactly what you should ask for. Coronavirus going away. Yeah, you're really good, by the way. You're really smart. Okay. So then when you finish the seven Tawafs, this is called the Makam Ibrahim. Under it is a footprint of our prophet, Sayyidina Ibrahim. When he was lifting some of the stones onto the Kaaba, he made a footprint and they have it covered very beautifully.  You all know Kulhu Allahu Ahad, don't you? Right. And you all know Kulya Ayuhul Kaffirun. Do you know that one?  You know those. You already know those. That's it. Those are the two you say when you're standing where Abraham was. See all the pilgrims standing here? You'll be standing with them. Imagine you're standing there. Right now, you're doing two rakhaz of prayer and you're saying those two surahs. All right. And then you know what? You couldn't go have a drink of Zem Zem water, right? You're going to have Zem Zem water. It used to be when I made my first Hajj, the fountain was right near the Kaaba, but because there's so many people going around, they could have fallen and gotten hurt. So now they have pipes and they bring it outside and they have wonderful barrels of water here and they supply pepper cups. So you can go and get a drink of water at this point. All right.  Pretend you're with them. All right. Now we are going to do the sigh. Now this is the special running between the two hillocks like little mountains of Safa and Marwa. And do you know why we do this, everybody? Well, you need to know the full story. Before I remember the green light was there and my dad told me to run. Yes, you can get to do that. That's up ahead here. You can't quite see it in the picture, right? But anyway, you now should know the story of why you do this. Okay. Remember when Saddna Ibrahim, Alay salam, brought his wife, beautiful Hajjur, and they came, they came to this area which became Mecca. They left Palestine, right?  And she said, you do everything that you are asked to do. I trust in Allah, whatever he asks us to do. But then her little baby Ishmael was thirsty. So she ran from one hillock to the other looking to see if there were any people coming that could help her find water. And at the seventh time she didn't find anything and she was really worried about the baby. But she trusted Allah and you know what happened when she trusted Allah? Suddenly a beautiful spring of water, Zem Zem, came out of the ground and it's still bubbling. It's still bubbling there. This is 4,000 years. You can still taste the same water and the well keeps giving and giving and giving, right? And so you see it's very important to always trust Allah, right? Not doubt or not be afraid. So now is the family. Now the family are leaving the sigh and as they're leaving, they're very careful to give charity to everyone who reaches out. Remember in the book of Zakat last week, how if someone reaches out, you don't disappoint. It's very important because we have so many blessings. So we have to share them. What we have is on loan to us and it's a trust. So remember as the family was leaving and they're now leaving, they're going to go out. They're going out to the tent city of Minna. Look at the tents out there. Do you see it? Pretend you're arriving. You're going in the afternoon or evening. Look at all the tent city and this is where you're going to sleep. You're going to sleep here because next day tomorrow is the day of Arafat. And that day is what Hajj really is. So you see, do you see how beautiful it is out there, everyone? And by the way, by the way, you see the people walking. Everybody's walking all the way there. It's not far from Mecca all the way out to Minna. It's about five miles. It's an easy walk. I've done it myself. It's nothing. Okay. Now some people may take cars or fancy cars, but the problem is maybe they're doing it to show off or feel better than other people.  Would it be children? Much better to walk because you're trying to polish your heart with the Hajj. Remember, the whole idea is you're polishing off everything so you can come back new like the day you were born. Right? So anyway, let's see what's the next. So anyway, here it says here, it says the walk from Mecca to Minna was a challenge, but a wonderful experience. The family enjoyed being in the company of pilgrims from the world over. Of course, all men were dressed alike, but their faces were from everywhere, Africa, China, Indonesia, all sorts of other places. Now when they got to their tents, okay, the family got to their tents. Let's see what happened. Okay. They decided to go out for a walk and guess what, children? Imagine this.  You pass through the Muslims who come from Canada and we don't know what they're cooking, right? But suddenly, Layla here, Layla noticed an older lady maybe from the Far East who seemed all alone and in need. Immediately she offered her some of the sandwiches they had with them. Layla whispered to her mother, Haji Abdullah told us that pilgrims should carry enough extra long so they can be generous. Imagine being stingy here. He explained giving charity from one's provisions on the road to pilgrimage is spending for the sake of Allah. So here is Layla and she's giving some of the sandwiches. She's sharing them, right? Now, by the way, this day before Erafat, this nice, the day before day of Erafat, it's called the Yom Terawiya. And this was the night, everybody, that Sayyidina Ibrahim alayhi salam had a vision. Now, you all probably have heard this story, but if not, you need to know it. Abraham had this vision where Allah, a vision said, you should sacrifice your beloved son. You should take his life. And Ibrahim thought, this must be from the devil.  But the same dream came the next night. And then he knew, Arafat, just say he knew in Arabic as Arafat. And that's the day of Arafat. He knew that this was from Allah and he trusted God and he was willing to do anything that God asked. So he said to his son Ishmael, you know what he said? Oh my goodness. What do you think about this? I'm being commanded to take a knife and sacrifice you, right? Sacrifice, sacrifice to make sacred. And his son said, do as you were commanded, my father, right? Inshallah, you will find that I am patient, right? And since both Ishmael and his father both surrendered, they had a command from Allah and they did, and they said, we are ready to do it. You know what? Since they both surrendered, they submitted their wills to Allah. Then Allah said, Oh Ibrahim, right? You have already fulfilled the mission, the vision. So now they didn't, he didn't have to do that. That's why we sacrifice a lamb because at that moment a lamb was put in place of Ishmael, all right? So by the way, so that they start walking home here to back to their tents and they pass people, look at people from many different countries. The man on the left is from America. And his name is Warath Adin, and this next man is from Venezuela, and then the little girl is from Germany. You see all the different countries that come, all the different families? So the next day, right, is the day of Arafat, the day, you know what people do on this day? They spend the whole day asking God's forgiveness, right? And so Ibn Abbas said, I saw the prophet making supplications, right? Standing on Arafat with his hand on his heart, like a poor man asking for food. Imagine if our prophet peace and blessings be upon him. We're begging Allah. Shouldn't you be doing that too? So Bilal was a bit worried, you know. He was worried that maybe his hajj wouldn't be acceptable to God, but it said, when you're at Arafat, when you're a president at Arafat, you shouldn't think, it would be terrible to think that your hajj wouldn't be, that your hajj wouldn't be accepted and that God wouldn't forgive you. So don't ever think that. So then the next, that evening, people spend everybody, the whole day, children, thousands of pilgrims, as far as your eye can see. Your presenter there right now. You're all there. Okay. You're standing there. You're in your beautiful clothing. You're standing with pilgrims as far and everyone is asking Allah's forgiveness and it's utterly beautiful. And then the sun starts to set and you know what you're going to do next? You're going to start walking up this little hill to Muzdalifah to collect pebbles. So you're going to be walking up the hill, right?  It's going to look like a preview of the Yomul-kiyama, the last judgment when we're all brought back to stand together before Allah. It'll look just this, it'll look like this. So you know what? You were actually in your religion doing this Hajj, going to Mount, going to the plain of Arafat, you were actually getting a preview of what it's going to look like at the end of time. Can you imagine getting a preview, getting an idea of what's ahead at the end of, end of everyone's lives? So anyway, you start up the hill and you hear thousands of voices saying the Talbiyah, right?  She had some tattoos. She was African and she looked at me and she said, come on, come on sister. And I got to the top of the hill and there were some Nigerians and they opened their umbrella and you know what was inside? Cookies and tea and they said, please have some. And so after half the night has passed, you stay awake or you can sleep a little bit, then you collect pebbles. Do you see these people collecting the pebbles?  You only need seven on the first time, right? You'll be using over the next few days, right? So then, you know, at dawn, you're going to walk back toward Minna, right? You're going to say the Talbiyah that you know and yes, question? How many days? You know, why do you need them? The pebbles? Yeah. You're going to find out right now. Excellent question. Yeah. So now the pebbles, the sun has come up and you go to, it's called the Jamarat.  It's, you're like thinking about Abraham. He said no to his temptations, didn't he? He must have had the temptation.  So you're, if you have any doubts, you're saying no to your doubts, no to wrong dealings.  And so then after you've thrown the stones, you don't say the Talbiyah anymore. A lamb is sacrificed because a lamb was substituted for Ishmael. And don't you all, at the Eid, don't you all have lamb to eat? Right. Yes. So that's what you're celebrating this moment that's going on here in the, out in the desert of Saudi Arabia, right? And of course you buy an animal of good quality and the meat is given to the poor because remember that your, your generosity purifies you. And then look what, look what goes on with boys.  How would you like that boys? Yep.   And after you've done this, right, it says, the time had arrived to leave the state of Ihram. Father and son easily found a barber who was shaving the heads of men and boys who were reciting, Oh God, for every hair shaved off, affirmed for me a good deed and removed from me a bad one and raised my standing if you would agree. Okay.  They go walk back into Mecca to do what's called the Tawafalif Fada. Yes, question. Yes. How many days are you supposed to like camp or stay there in the tent?  Yes. Is that I thought you're not supposed to cut your hair, you're supposed to cut your hair and immediately throw it, put it somewhere like in the bin because I thought gins could, could, could blow bad deeds on it. And so maybe I don't, I don't know about this. I'm, what I'm teaching you all here is just what is from Imam al-Ghazali, but it could be these, we'll have to ask someone about that. All right. That's a good question. We should ask it, right? So now the family goes back to the Kaaba, see the little boy his head is shaved, there's his mom, right? They go back and they do the Tawafalif Fada, and this completes the Hajj, right? And the mother says, we are lucky to be worn and dusty as we return to visit his house. It's a brilliant reminder of who we really are. Oh, look everyone and see the Kaaba through the columns. Now the Prophet, peace and blessings, be upon him. He loved people to be humble and barefoot and all disheveled like this. The hair all messed up because it showed that they were trying to be empty of everything. They weren't thinking, oh, I have to look good. I have to be dressed up. I have to be perfect clothing. It showed, right, that we are trying to empty everything from ourselves, except our golden hearts are innate good. Okay. So then after doing Tawaf, we go back to the place of Ibrahim and do two more of those rakhas with those verses that you know, with those suras you know, and then again, you can drink some Zem Zem. Here's the little German girl. Just think of how ancient the source of this water is. I can almost taste these sentries going all the way back in time. So when you all go and taste the Zem Zem, pretend you're tasting it right now. Imagine tasting water. It started from a well 4,000 or more years ago. All right?  Yes.  I'll ask your answer, your question right now.  Yes. What is your question? Yes. Is that a question that I have to leave? Oh, you have to leave. We only have two minutes more doing Medina. Can you just stay for Medina for two minutes? We'll go really quick. Okay. We finished the Hajj, everybody. You've all been on the Hajj today. Mabruk. You've experienced the Hajj. You've imagined it. And now the next thing is we go to Medina. Oh, you can see people from all over the world carrying their children. And if you get tired, your dad will carry you. All right. Now they have arrived in Medina. Father Hamza reminded the family, imagine that we are standing on the very ground on which the Prophet and his companions walked. Imagine the humble reverence that he carried in his heart and the immense knowledge of God and that they are remembered together. We are nearing the house where he, salallahu alaihi wasalam, lived. See the green dome? That's over where his house was. And now he is buried there. Take each step with dignity and awe. Bilal was filled with joy.  There's a hadith by the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam.  So when you go to visit him here, it's as though he alive. He was alive. If you all were going to be standing before him and he could hear you, what would you say to him? Somebody say what they would say to the Prophet? Yes. Go ahead. If you were standing in front of him right now and you could speak to him, what would you say? Yes. I see your hand up. Go ahead. I wish we could take him to the dome and just see him. Oh, that's so lovely. That's so lovely. Because guess what, kids? Let's pretend you're in Medina right now and you're going to say something to him, whatever you say he can hear. Can you imagine that? And more than that, do you know how when we say, give our salams to the Prophet all the time? Right? Guess what? Allah is saying his salams continuously to the Prophet. So when we say ours, we're joining Allah. Can you imagine joining Allah salams being part of that? What an honor, right? So remember, you're standing on the ground of where our religion and all of its laws were established. This is exactly where you'll be standing. And then the next thing you do, right? You go, visiting the tomb is the same of visiting him.  So here is Bilal.  Father and son entered the mosque, which today encloses the garden, the Prophet's garden, Al-Rawda, next to the Prophet's house, peace and blessings be upon him. On entering, they first made two rakhaz of bowing next to the pulpit to the mimbar. And then they went to the nearby enclosure. Are you all with me right now? You're standing right here with me, right? And this is where the Prophet's body is buried. His noble being is in the ground, right in front of you, right? And then the father said to Bilal, he said, know that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is aware of your presence. Okay, children, pretend you're all here. We're all here right now. Know that he is aware of your presence and your greetings are conveyed to him by angels.  Even if you're in faraway lands, he's aware of the salams you're sending him, even if you're in California or Indonesia. There's a hadith that says, he who blesses me once, God blesses 10 times. Also, by the way, you see where what you're looking at this grill work, you know, there are two other people buried here. The companions Abu Bakr and the companion Omar, they are who helped establish the Dean. They're buried here too. So you would be greeting them as well. And then you go back to the Rauda, to the inner garden, right? And you can do some more prayers and more supplications. Isn't Medina beautiful? Look at how beautiful it is. Now, this is what we're finishing up right now. So our little friend here can leave. There are other things that are good to do while you're there. Important visits. Here is al-Bakia. This is the graveyard. And the graves of the companion Osman, radi Allahu Anhu is here. As well as, did you know the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him, had a little baby son named Ibrahim who died? He's buried here too, right? And also, you would visit the Kuba mosque, which is very, very beautiful. And some of the wells, they're wells that the Prophet drank out of and washed in. You would visit the wells.   Balal said, a sign our great journey has been accepted is if we pull back from so many worldly concerns and renew our efforts to be ready for the next world. Father Hamza completed Balal's words with all gazales. After having met the house, this is the house of God right here in front of you. After having met the house of Allah, now you return and you make ready to meet the Lord of the house. So when you die, that is your great hope that you will meet the Lord of your house, right? And look, look what, look about Medina. We will come to, the grandmother said, we will come to know this dear granddaughter from our hearts and deeds. If we find on our return, our hearts turning away from this world of delusions, inclining toward closeness to Allah, exalted and find our conduct, how we act, more complying with the sacred law, then we can have confidence that Allah has accepted our Hajj. And now children, Layla, a little girl who made the Hajj, she wrote in her diary. And this is the end of our presentation. She wrote in her diary. Why was it so overwhelming for me? Be imagine you, all of you imagine standing right here. And so Layla is saying, why is this so overwhelming? When on our normal daily life in your homes right now, can you get a glimpse of the underlying awesome story of humankind? Because you know what happened at the Black Stone? You were at the beginning where Adam is asked by Allah, am I not your Lord? And so you have the contract with Adam, the first man right there in that Black Stone. And then when you go to the plane of Arafat, you're, you're having a preview of the very end of time when time is all over and everybody is gathered together when the trumpet blasts. So she said, imagine that I have been standing with every race on earth and I've had seen the Black Stones. And then we end by saying, Layla said, even though, now kids, this is, this is the end, pretend you're there.  Even though you've got a huge crowd, Layla said, you know, I found the experience very natural. She said, very natural. And I experienced my golden heart. I wasn't separated from other people. I was with the whole.  So what you have done here is Ghazali has introduced you to the mysteries of the pilgrimage, right? And it will change the way you look at your life. And then the book also has a manual and then there's a children's book here, a children's book with lots of activities where the grandfather tells, talks to the little children. This is included in the bigger book. And then a bird comes and shows them his big chest because he's no longer alive and they read his letters to them and they do artworks. They make mosaics from pieces of color paper. They make lists of the bad heart and the good heart. The bad heart says being lazy, being rude, being grumpy, right? And then they also learn about the three keys that open the doors, that bring them closer to meeting the king. They remember the story about their boat turning over with all their stuff and their golden heart going on and on. They remember that you have to dress well, that your clothing makes you play the part. If you're dressed slobbly, you feel slobby. And they learn again, they practice weighing their good deeds and their bad deeds. And they love the thought of going on the hodge with their grandfather and being carried by their father on the side. And look at the tents they got to stay in with thousands of pilgrims, the simple tent they spent the day before Erafat. And this little girl will end with her. She said, look into your heart luggage and pull out your third golden key. If you remember, this key is called trusting God, which means everybody, kids, pay attention to happily say yes to everything that the king, meaning a law, everything he asks you to be, ask of you because of your love for him, right? And then the children, this is on the day of the Eid, the children are having fun. And look at all the activities, like you can paint pebbles, you can imagine gazing, you can make cabas out of paper.  So yes, we really went to visit the prophet himself. So children, oh yes, okay, I'll ask, it's over, I finished. Yes, you wanted to leave, didn't you? Yeah, can I tell you two things? Yes, you certainly, yes. The first thing is, I know something about that, the black stone on judgment day, a lot of nature can't alive like it, then given there enough, it has a tongue and then it stops. Sarah, thank you so much, Sarah.  I mean, I know that this was hard for all of you, but children, today you got to go on the hodge. Did you imagine yourself in all of those places? Did you imagine it? Good, good. Well, I hope you had a blessed hodge, a preview of hodge. Yes, Sarah, another question? Yes. I also started doing this. What did you say? I also started doing, I also started doing this. Oh, you're doing the would do right now? I just did it today.   That's just so wonderful. And you did it, when you were washing your hands, you thought when you rinsed your mouth, you were also asking a lot to help you say the right things, weren't you? You'll never do your would do differently. It'll feel thin and not happening. I'm so, I'm so grateful, Sarah, for that. I'm so pleased. Anybody else doing their would do better? Anybody praying better, doing their would do better? I have a question. Yes?  Then when you do them in Mecca or higher? Well, it's what, Jibril, what the Ghazali is reminding us of is that when you're in Mecca and Medina, one of the important reasons for going there is your prayers and your good deeds are just multiplied. You get more of them. If you fast one day, it's worth 10,000 days or something like that. So, I mean, it's the these ideas are to show you how important our blessed cities of Mecca and Medina are. Thank you, Jibril, for that. Any other questions or comments? I have in comments. All right. I learned to act all myself. Who is speaking? Raise your hand so I can see you. Who is speaking? Is it Jibril or who is talking right now? Abdu'l Basit. Abdu'l Basit. Yes, Abdu'l Basit. Say it. Now, what did you like to say, my dear? I learned to act all myself. You did? Yep. Oh, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Mashallah. You're so beautiful. Thank you for making that comment. That's wonderful. Thank you, Abdu'l Basit. Yes, Sarah, you want to say something more? I was just joking. Oh, that's wonderful. Oh, that's wonderful. Yes. And I see other hands raised. Yes. So, I think by now you all are very tired. Oh, my goodness, we went an hour and a half. I feel so sad. You know, it was supposed to be an hour and now you must be very tired. Well, guess what, children? I love you so much and next week we're going to do the Book of Belief and then you're going to find out who and what and where is a law, right? And the things we believe. Yes. One more question here. Go ahead. No. Good night.  Can I tell you something? Yes, yes, yes, Nazan. Wait, can I tell you something here? Yes, go ahead and say. So, Nazanid, yes, yes. It was really nice having you read the book to us about the well in Islam. Oh, I'm so glad. Thank you. What I'm hoping is that, you know, this was a big and wonderful book with hundreds of wonderful fun stories. I've only given you a few highlights, everybody. I really would love it if you'll now get to read the real book and do the activities and make and play the games that go on with it and do the workbooks because you will have fun doing all the activities. Really fun things. All right, children. Can I tell you something? Yes. So, this is a wild catch. So. Oh, that's Zahra. That's your Yusuf, right? Or is that Zahra? Wow. Oh, this looks lovely. What a lovely book. So, it's like a lot of animals. Oh, I love that book. We love animals. Thank you so much. Well, I'm tired now and I'm going to go to bed. You all are three hours earlier than me. I'm 1030 at night. So, I'm going to give you, say, Asalaamu Alaikum and sleep well.  It's really special. Asalaamu Alaikum, everyone. Bye. Bye, dear. Asalaamu Alaikum. Asalaamu Alaikum. Asalaamu Alaikum. Asalaam, everybody. Dear children and your families and our friends in Indonesia, what we're going to do is something very special tonight. Do you see the picture of Imam al-Ghazali here? Well, I sent to all of your all's parents email this link to this whole book and it's a flip book on the children's Ghazali interactive website in the library part and things to do. So, you can go and look at this beautiful book because I thought we just do a quick review not of this golden book but of his life because this relates to what we're going to be talking about tonight. Just a minute. Oh, that's gotten pushed down over here. Push that up over here. All right, do you see this man here, children? The father of Imam al-Ghazali was a very poor weaver. This is nearly a thousand years ago and he died while Imam al-Ghazali was a very small boy. But what mattered to him most of all was children's education. So, he set his two boys to this wonderful teacher, Imam al-Jawaini. Do you see him up here? And he was an amazing teacher, one of the most special. And he began to teach the two boys very much. And then one day al-Ghazali, he was a small boy, he was up out in the desert and this caravan was going by to see the caravan below. And thieves came and they stole everything from the people. And there was Ghazali holding his papers behind his back, his school papers. And the thieves said, give us that. And Ghazali said, oh, please, please don't take my bundle. If you take away my bundle, you know, I will lose everything. And then they said, well, of what use are these pages? He said, if you destroy my notes of my lessons, I work so hard to record everything I've been taught.   So from this scary event, it has changed his whole life. And then he got hired. Here he is. Do you see him teaching right here? He's teaching at the Nizamiya school in Baghdad. And he was a very famous professor. And you see all these other people come to his lessons. You see how proud he is. He was so smart. He spoke many languages. He won every argument. He knew everyone. He dazzled everyone with his brilliance. And then he continued to give his lessons. And you see below, he was very puffed up. We've talked about not being proud or puffed up, right?  Maybe I'm telling other people to do what I don't do myself. And then he got scared. He suddenly realized, he thought, I'm on a crumbling bank.  And then he worried, oh, I have to do something to be true to myself up, up and away, if not now, when. But you know what? He was too afraid to leave his job where he was so proud because he thought, I have a wife and two daughters. And this is a wonder and I'm respected and loved by everybody. And then the next day, he went in to teach and he opened his mouth and no words came out because Allah loved him so much, he took away his voice so he couldn't teach anymore. He was embarrassed and confused. And the doctors all came and they said, oh, his body isn't sick, right? Nothing's wrong with his body, right? But his heart needs to leave the life he is in. He's trapped. He needs to go in search to be near to Allah. So he made arrangements. There's his wife and two daughters. He said, I'll be back. I'll visit you. But I'm going on a long pilgrimage. I'm going out to find the truth. So then he traveled a great distance and he went to Damascus and he got a job in a mosque sweeping. This great scholar became a janitor. And he started learning what it was to be humble and empty. And many times he was tempted to talk to people in the mosque and show them how smart, but he didn't do it. And then later on, he went to Jerusalem and to Mecca. And finally he came home to his family and he wrote this wonderful 40 volume book called the Ahyat al-Muddin, The Revival of Religious Sciences. And that is, we're studying right now today book two of this great book. You've studied book one, The Book of Knowledge. You've done three, four, five, six and seven. But now we're going back to two. Now a friend of mine, her name is, she's an Egyptian named Farida. And she made this cartoon. What is the meaning of life? And this is in the workbook of workbook one. You must ask yourselves children, what is the meaning of life? The city, some people live in a city. Oh, she said it makes me forget. To breathe, it seems undegradable, unchangeable. I eat my way out of it, but nothing seems to fill the void inside of me. Sometimes the voice echoes from within telling me, look for meaning. But that I'm not just a zombie, a walking creature. My life in four steps. I sleep, eat, work and watch TV. I'm like a hamster on a wheel. A puppet pulled on a string. I don't mind living this way. Only if I could only stop asking myself these questions. Why was I born? Why am I here? Why am I going to die? Beats me. Is it for money? Is it for fame? Love?  Where do we go after we die? Gasp! Let's ask Imam Al Ghazali. So this book, the book of belief written by Imam Al Ghazali, this is the children's version, will tell you many different answers. I have to tell you all, Ghazali used many imaginary tales and beautiful stories and metaphors to illustrate really deep concepts and ideas. Remember we talked about the ant and the pen? That story tries to help us explain, while God knows and plans everything that will happen to us. Well in this book, the Imam uses the image of small plants which grow in our hearts into magnificent trees to illustrate how doing beautiful deeds will nourish our inner growth and later produce beautiful fruits. His metaphor for polishing the heart makes it easy for us to imagine the process of self-observation and self-correction.  So we decided that the Imam would make an imaginary visit to the children to answer their questions. Even though he died 900 years ago, as you know, his teachings, his teachings are coming to us right this minute. They're timeless. They're not stuck 900 years ago. So in the following story, the children pretended to came back to them through a magic door from the next world to answer their questions. Real church learning children and truth aren't bound by time and space. So we're very blessed to still have the help of Imam al-Dazali with us right this minute in learning how to polish our golden hearts. The children have been playing outside. Their mother called them in for prayer. They made would do very carefully like you all are doing now. And they prayed in the special place they prayed in in their home. And all of a sudden they finished their prayers and they were feeling very peaceful. They didn't feel like running back out to play. And all of a sudden one of the children saw a magic door open and light coming through. They could see a kind-faced and beautiful man descending into the room as he stepped down under the carpet. The special door closed and completely vanished.  I am Imam al-Dazali. I have been noticing that you are very good young people and also that you have many questions. So I have come to visit you. So these are the questions that are going to be answered by Imam al-Dazali. No matter what century people live in, many people like all of us have the same questions about what life means. Why we are born, what we must be doing during our stay in this world. Children don't you all don't you wonder about these things? Why were you born and what we're supposed to do? Yeah you do don't you? Yeah. So these children exclaimed, oh Imam al-Dazali, we're so grateful for this help. We were worried that we couldn't understand deep matters, what really matters. Now our very first question, our very third, oh I'm going back, our very first question dear Imam al-Dazali is we often hear our family saying, saying la ilaha illallah. That means there is no God except Allah. But what we want to ask you is who and what and where is God?  In fact it's hard for any of us to answer that question, but Imam al-Dazali makes it very simple. So now children you're going to hear the answer to these amazing questions, all right. And then you know just remember that the reason it's impossible to explain who God is is because words aren't able to do it, right. But our special hearts can understand even though our thoughts and minds can't grasp all that's real and true, but our hearts can. There is nothing like Allah. He has been here forever before anything came to be and before all these things he chose to create.  Everything you know about can come to an end, can't it? Like the horse there, the stream there, the tree there, like a bat flower or a bird, but not a loss upon Allah. He's aware of all that goes on.  I have a lot of questions. Oh, I'm glad I'm glad you do. We'll go through the story and then you can ask your questions. Like how did Allah even come in the world? Was he like already, already there? Yes, he made the world. He's before the world. The world is one little thing he's brought into being. The universe. Even there was like always, always there? Yes, always there forever. He's outside of, he has no beginning and no end beyond time. He created he created time. Ah, I don't know. Well, we'll, we'll keep going here. All right. So then the little girl Mah said, um, she said he seems like a powerful person creating all these things. The Imam said indeed he does because we think about him in ways that make him seem human. We say he is the generous. He is the all powerful. He is the beautiful. But let me tell you what he is not. All right. This is what he is not everybody. He is not a person. He doesn't have a body the way we do. He is not like anything you could ever see and nothing at all is like him. Now we refer to him as he, we say Allah, he did this, he did that, but Allah is not a he or a she and then the little boy of Bella said, but where is God? Allah's upon a what to Allah was even here before he made time and space. He was