Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wassalaatu wa salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een. Our praise is due to Allah, we send salutations upon the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, his household and the righteous companions, alhamdulillahi. So before we start, as we should always do, we will start with the blessed intentions and alhamdulillahi of the sisters. If they're comfortable with it, please, there's a side that is appropriated for you all because this class is a interactive class. So if you want to, if you like, please come over and join us because we will ask questions as we go along, insha'Allah. But before we start, we will start with the intentions insha'Allah, as we are always encouraged to be very intentional in what it is that we do before any action it is. So I will say those in Arabic first and then we will translate them into English, insha'Allah, and then we'll get started with our program. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen wa as-salatu wa as-salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa ala… Allahumma salli wa sallim ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een. Allahumma la sahla illa ma ja'antahu sahla wa anta ya hayyu ya qayyum. Taj'al ul-Hazana idha shitta sahlan sahla subhanaka la ilma lana illa ma alamtana inna ka anta al-alimul hakeem. Rabbil shrahli sadri wa yassil li amri wahlu al-uqdatan nillisani yathqahu qawli. Allahumma alamna ma yanfa'una wa anfa'una bima alamtana wa zidna ilman wa amala yukarribuna ilayka birahmatika ya arhama rahimeen. Ya fattahu ya alim iftah lana fathan qareeban. Ya fattahu ya alim iftah lana fathan qareeban. Ya fattahu ya alim iftah lana fathan qareeban. Allahumma aghnina bil'ilmi wa zayyina bil'ilmi wa akrimna bil'taqwa wa jamminna bil'afiyati ya arhama rahimeen. Nawaytu tta'al luma wa tta'i'ima wa ttadakkura wa tadkira wa nnafa'a wa al-intifaa'a wa al-ifadata wa al-istifadata wa hadf'a alat tamassuki bi kitab illahi wa sunnati rasulihi wa dua'a ila al-huda wa dala'ata al-ankhairi ibtgha'a wa jillahi wa marzatihi wa qurbihi wa thawabihi Subhanahu wa ta'ala.  You make that which is distressing the easiest of easy if you want to, O Allah, so make things easy for us. All glory be to you with no faults attributed to you, O Allah, and there is no knowledge with us except that which you have given us. Truly, you are the all-knowing, the all-wise, O nurturer, expand our chests with understanding and make easy our affair and please untie the knots from our tongues and please strengthen our speech so that we may understand one another. O Allah, teach us that which will benefit us and benefit us by that which you've taught us and increase us in knowledge and actions that will draw us closer to you by your mercy, O most merciful of those who are merciful. O opener, O all-knowing, grant us a speedy opening. O opener, O all-knowing, grant us a speedy opening. O opener, O all-knowing, grant us a speedy opening. O Allah, enrich us with knowledge and adorn us with wisdom and honor us with consciousness of you and beautify us with piety.  All of that by holding and grasping the Book of Allah, the glorious Quran and the living ways of His Messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, all while pointing others in ourselves toward goodness and seeking and desiring the countenance of Allah, His pleasure, His nearness, His reward, for truly He is without Allah and He is the highest. So today's class will be, insha'Allah, on the boastful gardener. And even though this is now Saturday night with the lunar calendar, Friday is a beautiful day and we're encouraged by the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to read Surat al-Kahf. And Surat al-Kahf, the more and more that you read it and we're told to read it on Friday as it has special attributes that it'll protect you from. The harm of ad-dajal, these are one of the protections. Another one is that if you read the first 10 ayats of Surat al-Kahf, in the last 10, that there's a protection that comes over you and a light that will be and emanate from you all the way up to the highest heavens from Friday to Friday. And it's good to keep that up. So basically, you're recognized inside of al-Ghayb, right? And especially amongst the angels, because there's this purified light that's always emanating from you when we read Surat al-Kahf specifically on Fridays. So it's very, Allah gives us things to really connect and give us reason to connect with this Surah because there's many jewels within it, which everything of the Glorious Qur'an is a jewel. And so just to give some context regarding the story, it's pretty simple. We'll see that there's two archetypes, two types of characters. And generally, these are the typical characters that Allah has put on this earth. And some of these characteristic flaws may be within our character. And Alhamdulillah that we are given this Qur'an and that we read it because we become more conscious of ourselves. Our actions, our words. And then there's another archetype of character inside of this glorious story that we can also resonate with. And Allah shows us the type of character that he actually wants us to be as compared to the other. And there are many things we'll get to pick up as we will recite some Qur'an and then we'll talk about some of the verses in the middle of that. So if anyone wants to raise their hand, please, this is an open floor the whole time. So don't feel like you're disrupting anything. If there's any aha moments, any light bulb moments that comes to you and you want to share something, please do because as we said in our intentions, we are here to teach and to be taught. OK, so we're all sitting here learning with one another. And when you bring your thoughts or you bring your questions, you actually help the rest of the group because someone may have been shy and didn't want to share something or something may have not been thought about and you might bring a new insight to the group, inshaAllah. So therefore we can benefit. And if anybody was present for the khudba today, we spoke about gatherings of remembrance. And so what is extremely beautiful about this gathering right now is even if you read this surah today, you have light upon light because when you sit in a gathering amongst one another and you remember Allah, Allah has angels that go inside of all the paths of the earth seeking for those who are remembering Allah as a group. And so we'll be mentioned among those people. And many things happens within this conversation that goes on between Allah and his angels. And so we'll be we come with all of our needs. So also have an intention to have your needs fulfilled while being here. Allah knows what is inside of your hearts and what it is that you're going through or the people that you care for and that you make du'a for. So bring that to these gatherings and bring those intentions to have those answered by Allah because you're connecting with His Glorious Qur'an, you're remembering Him and connecting with His Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. And so we'll begin. Allah advises or he tells the Prophet Muhammad after In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. Allah tells the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to give them the example, give the believers an example of two men. And one of the two men, Allah gave him more so the boastful gardener, he gave him two illustrious gardens. Now these illustrious gardens were made up of date palms as Allah describes. These were two gardens and they were surrounded by grape vines. And Allah also, I'm sorry, forgive me, surrounded them with date palm trees and he put in between them produce vegetation which would produce abundantly. So you can imagine these two beautiful types of gardens, right? If they're surrounded by grape vines, imagine how beautiful this is. Like maybe if you ever take a spin and drove up around Napa or whatever the case is, right? You see all these beautiful grape vines that are intertwined and it's a big land. And so this man had two gardens at that. And continuing, Allah further describes these two gardens saying And so Allah continues to describe these illustrious gardens saying that those two gardens, they produce their fruit, their fruit abundantly and it didn't fall short in anything that it produced. So if you can ever remember a time that you had a piece of fruit or any type of vegetable and it was probably the, imagine a peach or strawberries or whatever the case is, it's the sweetest of sweet and they're big and fruitful and very divine. Allah is the one who blessed these gardens and said that they didn't fall short in any of them. So this man was also able to feed many people from his garden and he had the business that came from these gardens as well. And also Allah describes now if we learn, I took a little class regarding permaculture, what is permanent agriculture? And so we get to know more about the earth and how it works. And so Allah also describes inside of this glorious Quran and these two gardens that he also produced river that came up in between both of them. So also people had a means of water or water source and also the vegetation and the plants and the trees were always satisfied from a point of nutrition and able to grow because of this water supply that was there. So you need water obviously in order to produce a garden. And so Allah allowed the water to produce from those gardens as well. And Allah also says with it was many fruits. But also I looked in a tefsir and it describes of how much wealth that this man had amassed from having these two gardens. All right, so fruits can be little fruit that we eat, grapes, dates, oranges, etc. But also the fruit that he got from it from his sustenance and able to provide and to make money off of it as well. So now let's listen to what this man with the two gardens said when he's speaking with his friend. Now this friend who he's with is the more level headed and we'll say the Muslim brother in some of the tefsir. They say that this boastful gardener actually was some say he was a disbelieving person. But we'll get to see going forth. But what we want to do is put this into a perspective of ourselves today. We want to really associate these characters with ourselves and see maybe if we have some characteristics of the boastful gardener and if we have characteristics of the Muslim man and see how can we get ourselves more in tune with the Muslim brother inshaAllah. Continuing So now the man with these two alashya gardens he decides to boast to his friend and he tells them on the account of my two beautiful gardens and everything that is in it I have more money than you and I have a bigger group who follows me who is with me and I have more children than you is what he says to his friend who doesn't have as much meaning the Muslim man and Allah continues and he says And we must pay very much attention to this because one thing that we learn that Allah does not like oppression. And one thing that we can reflect about specifically let's just take a break real quick before we finish our verses but Allah doesn't like oppression and when we think about what is oppression and why wouldn't Allah like oppression is because firstly we are the creation of Allah and only Allah is able to do with his creation that what it is that he wants to do with his creation and it is not up for anyone else to force Allah's creation to do something that is not within their right to do and so you can imagine when Allah says that this man entered the garden he oppressed himself now how many times do we sit and we think about the sins that we may commit and how often are we actually oppressing our own selves and so we must take heed into these verses and understand and look at it from a lens that it's not only just what we can reflect on what does this man do firstly this man he boasted it is not up for the human creation to boast about anything because the only reason why you have anything to boast about is because Allah ultimately gave it to you no matter the means if someone comes right right now to you and gives you a million dollars and you were to boast to someone else about that the only reason why you got that is because Allah blessed someone else to give them that money to be able to give it to you as everything comes from Allah no matter who it comes from ultimately if you reduce the fraction you always get down to one and that one is Allah and so Allah is the one who provided this man with these gardens so Allah says when he boasted to his friend as if he is the one who created these great vices as if he is the one who makes it produce forth all of his goodness all the fruit that it bears as if he is the one who made water and allowed it to come from this space he just happens to be an owner of it and then and is in charge of it and is supposed to manage it the correct way but he decides to be boastful and tell someone about things that he has and then he lets the brother know who he's speaking to that he doesn't have any of these things and so how he's not on his level basically right and so listen to what the man said was being oppressive to himself furthermore how he oppressed himself so Allah says when he entered his gardens so he says to his friend the muslim brother and i don't think that any of this any of this will ever go away right we have this dream of living on this earth forever especially when it's something that inclines to our nefs to our desires he he is clinging on to something and so he's extremely hopeful because he sees how much he's surmounting from his garden so he says i don't think this will ever die i don't think this will i will ever lose any of this and also he continues and he says so look at the arrogance that he also has when he tells the muslim man he says and i don't think the hour will ever be established so this is why also in the tefsir they show and say that he was a disbelieving man because he says and i don't believe in yomo piano i don't believe that there's this day that oh god is going to bring us all together and that we're going to have to stand before him in however way that we stand and that we're going to be judged based off of what we've done but as muslims we know that this is the case okay and so on top of his arrogance of already denying that he don't think that this will ever end and also that he doesn't believe in the day of judgment we hear people speak like this as well today and he says you know what even if let's just say if there were to be a day of judgment he says then i will return i will return back to my lord and i'm sure that i will find much more better than these two gardens in exchange when i go back to him so imagine that a person who abuses on this land who denies that yomo piano is true a person who feels as if they are the one who made their success come about their by their own means and then he also decides to say that he doesn't believe in the last day but yet if he were to go back to his lord and if his lord was real then he would definitely have even better than what he had in life so right this is like um some people when a famous song came out they would say yolo right you only live once and so i'm going to take the best of this life and these are how some other believers believe as well in their trick they say they thought they can say a certain word and then that means that they're saved so now they can go out in the streets and do whatever it is that they want to and commit whatever atrocities and whatever sins that they want to as long as they believe by saying some word then they'll also be saved in their akhira but we know that that isn't the case even us as muslims we stand between two wings the wings of fear and the wings of hope with Allah because we do our best to try and strive and to be a proper muslim to submit ourselves to Allah even though we have our shortcomings so we fear that we will be tried and tested in a sense that Allah will make us stand before and answer all the things that we do that we've done wrong and that's Allah assalamu alaafi say i mean i mean we think Allah's protection from having to stand before him actually we actually ask that Allah allows us to stand underneath his arsh on yawm al qiyamah and that we don't have to face any hisa any type of judgment say i mean i mean and so Allahumma salli wa sallim ala Sayyidina Muhammad so following this thought we know the reality of what things are and we were talking about those two wings but we're also hopeful that yes we say we say nashadu an la ilaha illallah wa nashadu anna muhammad an abduhu wa rasuluhu we also say that we are muslim and we bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship and that the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is his last messenger in serving so we're between these two wings and one thing that we can always remind ourselves about being on these two wings which is extremely beautiful is why why should we be uh in a constant state of between fear and hope with Allah is because it'll always keep you balanced right if you have too much fear of Allah you may cripple yourself to where you can't even perform and you may become arrogant and whatever it is that you're doing in life and feel like you're the one who's making things happen even though it's for him it's it's it's Allah alone and also there's another arrogance you can have in uh believing that because you're on the quote unquote right team because you're a muslim that everything is all good and that you're saved and so now you don't even try hard in your worldly affairs to conduct yourself in a correct way and better yourself because you think that because you say la ilaha illallah muhammad ar rasulullah right you feel as if you're already saved and protected so these are a beautiful type of analogy for us to always remember in this being between fear and hope and this is what Allah also shows us that resonates inside of surat al-fatiha um and many other times even in the characteristics of our beloved prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam we see that everything is always drawing us to the middle firstly we're not the the group or believers who associate partners with Allah nor do we stick to scripture in a sense to where we uh only we take things solely literally right and then earn the wrath of Allah and so um alhamdulillah forgive me i got a little bit distracted but what i'm getting at is that it's important to always be balanced and this word these were the characteristics of the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam we always have like this reflection is mirror if you look at the characteristics of the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he is described as not being very tall nor was he short right his hair wasn't necessarily very curly nor was he straight right there's a lot of things that we see that always draws us to be as the prophet muhammad peace be upon him told us to be is the middle nation right because everything with balance is where you'll find success and one more thing to just point out about all of these things that happen in the middle and always reminding us they say we live about five lines correct they say that there's the uh realm of the arwah of the souls and which we uh poor witness and testify that there is no god but god and that uh we wanted to be these human beings when we took uh essentially a contract with Allah secondly there's the life inside of the womb right there's this another life that we lived inside of our mother's real wounds may Allah bless them all um that we also lived and there were certain experiences that we had gone through and then three right out of the five if you look at my hand right we're on the third life you and I how we're speaking right now we're in that life now where's that one that's the middle life because then you have a barzakh afterwards right that's the the realm of the waiting period and then you have either paradise or it's opposite and we ask Allah's protection from his opposite we ask Allah to grant us janata for those so if you see everything aligns with being in the middle everything about how the human being should be is about trying to find ourselves in the middle and sorry to make that tangent but I think some of these things and these beautiful reflections are really good in order for us to know how it is that we should be whenever we're judging ourselves of how to get back right with anything whether that's a relationship in our homes with our spouse with our children uh looking at our role us as fathers how are we implementing rule in our house how are we implementing schedules right how for Ramadan do we set up things so we don't burn out um how is it uh with our warships right and so just taking things steadily and trying to be uh peaceful within them and so to get back to the story and just to remind you guys forgive me um and I did say that this will be kind of like an interactive as well and I know that I've just been speaking the whole time but is there anything that anybody will like to share or to kind of point out while we're in the middle of our story anything that anyone wants to share any reflections are okay so we'll continue inshallah you guys with me I'm not born you guys to death am I I hope not and you guys can speak up we're all brothers and sisters inside of here okay and this is the safest uh safe spaces um I don't want to just be up here also rambling at all okay I want to make sure that you guys are benefiting and that you guys are feeling something uh from this because this is all for the sake of Allah and for us to become better Muslims inshallah so please feel free to share at any point in time and so again so now we were back to when this boastful gardener or a man who owns a garden uh told his friend all of these things and he doesn't believe that Yomo Kiyama will start and even if he did um he will return back to his lord and a beautiful thing about the Arabic he says which is the lamb of tokyi and the noon of tokyi so there's a double emphasis on this and as we will say is like um it's like saying for show for show for show like I'm I'm definitely he's saying like I'm definitely going to receive something better than this even if I were to return back to my lord right so he's saying for show like I got this in the bag as the youth was saying and so um now let's listen to the more better and level headed side of how and Allah shows us of how he wants us to respond if we are having conversations like this if um we're trying to help guide our brother or sister who may be talking most fully or even for our own selves and so the level headed Muslim believing brother he says to his friend he tries to bring him back he tries to have him basically do toba toba is like making a u turn on the street if you were getting off of an exit you got off the wrong one you get back on right it's tabaya too but it's like you're coming back he's trying to direct him back to Allah and this is the point of toba for Allah is the most great is the most merciful right Allah is the All-Forgiving Al-Ghafur whenever we make a mistake it's okay in a sense that we can always return back to Allah we turn back to Allah and correct ourselves and try to stay from making that mistake and so the level headed brother he tells um a beautiful way of how to articulate to someone and to bring them back without being so harsh with him so he tells them brother do you think about the one who created you do you think about the one who brought you from dirt and he's referring to our father Adam the one who created you out of something that all of us walks on he created you out of dirt then from a drop and this drop is a place where every single one of us once were and this is that that drop that was clinging to the womb of our mothers and how we eventually started to grow then he says and so you grew and cells of you multiplied and then you were fleshed and clothed with you were given bones and those were fleshed and clothed right and Allah gave you a brain and all of your organs and everything that you need in order to function and then you were a baby you were born and then you grew from a weak state to a stronger state do you not think about the one who actually created you so what about the gardens he is the one who created all of this you're simply a driver of a vessel of a vehicle and you're put in charge of that thing and you're made to take care of it you're not the one who created anything so for you and I my dear brothers and sisters anything it is that we have specifically being here in America we feel like this is my this is my house this is my these are my kids this is my car this is my this is my this is my this is my this is my right and sometimes it's my my my tricks us and then it will allow us to have a certain attitude as if we have a certain type of dominion or kingdom over that thing now it's okay to say if something is yours so rightly Allah tells us to take care of our possessions so they are ours but how do we actually perceive those things and what is our relationship with those things and how do we actually juxtapose ourselves right like we can say that this is our earth but Allah says that he sent us right as a Khalifa as a vice-geron as someone to take care of the earth so all of the roles and responsibilities that we have whether we're a father a mother brother sister a manager at some place whatever job it is we are to be taken care of that thing and that's why we are responsible because we will have to be able to provide a response right what's the point of Yom Kiyama being asked about anything even if we are given that chance the point of being asked something is because you are responsible for something therefore you must and we must provide an adequate response and that's what Allah has given us kingship or some type of management over something to see how did we fare within managing that thing so being a father mother an owner of anything is righteously taking care of something yes you had a question oh here's the uh here's a microphone right behind you is it uh no what's going on over there it's not working okay uh if it's okay no problem you can go ahead and ask your question now uh reiterated for the rest of the group that's here inshallah that's a that's a really good question so the question is are we just like role playing on the earth and Allah is in control of everything this is almost like a yes and no type of answer of course yes Allah is in control of everything and Allah has written every single thing down and Allah knows the outcome of every single thing Allah knows the beginning of every single thing Allah knows everything about everything okay but it works things the way that Allah controls his dominion the way Allah controls and runs his kingdom is different from that which you and I experience here right like um Allah knows how much coffee is inside of this cup and how much of it if it were to spill out and I would and I was to catch it Allah knows exactly how much would have came out as compared to how much doesn't right and even I don't know that much you understand and so you still have an obligation to fulfill to learn about Allah and to do that which is right even though Allah knows the outcome of what you're going to do you still don't correct it's like um like taking a test for example and many of the things especially and I don't want to uh go on prolong this too much but I'll just say it in English there's a hadith of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tells us about intentions for example and for every single person who intends that's why this dean is really based off of intentions so for example when you say okay are we just role playing for example and uh Allah is in control of everything yes but let's imagine if you intended to do a good deed right uh you saw a homeless person sitting outside of some restaurant and you wanted to feed that person you said oh Allah I intend to go and feed this person Allah knows the outcome whether you're going to feed that person or not correct so you go you don't have any cash on you but you go into whatever place and you go get this person some food and you come back and they're not there do you know what happens you're rewarded for that right but Allah knows the intention but imagine because Allah the one who's in control of everything but imagine if Allah made it so much so that even if you intended you didn't get the reward of whatever it is that you were seeking right Allah knows and Allah made that also a test for you to be able to go through that to recognize that he is the one who's in control of everything but you still get rewarded for that which you intend right and so yes uh it's still up for you and I even though we don't know the outcome of things it's for us to not take on this mindset and think well since Allah knows that I'm going to do this and I was born to this type of family and I have this type of problem that's going on inside of my life and I can't get over this type of addiction and these types of people are condemned and I'm not perfect so I'm just going to give up no but these are some ways that people think and this is the way that they try to sometimes people the shaitan tricks people and tries to have them to get them to ostracize themselves from the worship and remembrance of Allah Allah is the most merciful so it doesn't matter what you do in a sense that um you did something wrong and now the shaitan wants you to have this bad sense of yourself and that there's no return but that's only be that's only predicated for him as he made a swear that you know instead of seeking forgiveness from Allah he wanted to do his best to lead us from the straight path but us as human beings we have um the forgiveness of Allah which the shaitan is rejected from so he gets inside of people's heads to try to get them to think in this type of matter so that they don't worship Allah and so that they just feel like well let me just give up because Allah already knows everything so why even try right your Lord is merciful and wants the best for you alhamdulillah is there any more questions we we still got a little bit more inshaAllah does that i hope that that satisfies your question does that help okay alhamdulillah okay and so the muslim brother again is reminding his brother you know Allah is the one who created you and Allah is the one who created all of these things especially he's trying to help hint to him so like bro this is the same thing that he did in regards to your garden right if he created you from dirt and then from a clot and then fastened you as a human being who is walking who is capable of doing everything that he or she is able to now well what about something as simple as a garden right we're much more complex in the garden even though we share many things in actuality and so the brother he also reminds him he says as for me he is Allah my Lord and i do not associate any partners with Allah now why is it that he said i don't associate any partners with Allah does anyone know in here who this man this boastful man associated a partner with Allah does anybody know who with that thing it was right typically we hear from some religions they associate a certain type of prophet to be a partner of Allah as if Allah has a right hand man that he consults with right some people worship other guys right and so we would typically call this association or ship so something else that Allah is teaching you guys he says wala usviku bi rabbi ahad meaning i don't even associate myself right with anything i don't attribute anything to myself because it's solely from Allah so i don't make myself a deity either so sometimes us as human beings we forget that we do uh what some people call is a minor ship right in associating ourselves with Allah and sometimes we don't even recognize it from the words that we say when we convey to others how many times that we may we had had an argument inside the house and said this is mine well i did this i did that how many arguments how many people have we shown that oh i made all of my soul at once i fasted huh so you start to take on this type of arrogance and the only reason in the only way you were able to do so and to fulfill anything was solely because Allah Allah gave you and i the toe feet to be able to walk Allah gave you and i the toe feet to have limbs Allah gave us the toe feet to give us a voice box to give us strength to be able to push air out of our bodies and to have a mind to think every single process that it takes in order uh from a synaptic nerve to go off in your body and to happen all happened because of the will of Allah and Allah allowed it to happen so what are we really and who are we really if we are to think about it sometimes we forget with this little power that Allah has given us we also make ourselves associates of Allah and we ask Allah's protection from that and for us to be able to recognize to not to never associate anything even ourselves as partners with Allah and so in this reminding the Muslim brother he continues and he says and so the Muslim brother he says and why isn't i would advise you old brother i would advise you that when you enter into your garden that you say mashaAllah it is how Allah willed correct it's the way that Allah wanted it to be so i'm grateful for what Allah has given me why don't when you walk into your garden you say look at that beautiful spring that is in between my two gardens which allows fruit to bear forth and produce abundantly why don't you say this is how Allah wants things to be look at the importance that Allah is showing you and i inside of his glorious court on of how we should respond to anything so when you get a home when you get a car when you get a child it is for us to say mashaAllah right because sometimes we we get so comfortable with ourselves we say look at that pretty babies she got my eyes or she has my nose or they have this of me and they have that and alhamdulillah we're grateful that Allah has blessed us with something but we should say we should say mashaAllah is how Allah wanted it to be my house is how Allah wanted it to be and i'm appreciative of that right because this remembrance will take and extract anything of association of Allah of anything or anybody right and so that's the importance of the remembrance of Allah because it helps keep us always in this middle state that we spoke about earlier and so when you remember Allah when you say words of righteousness Allah as we said also today in the khutbah he will therefore correct your actions so every time when something good in our lives happened we should say mashaAllah alhamdulillah la ilaha illallah because this reminder goes off first oh yeah it is Allah the one who allowed it to be i didn't have no part of it but i i want to show my appreciation for that thing even if you hit the game winning buzzer beater okay alhamdulillah mashaAllah Allah is the one who allowed it to be even if you cook the best tandoori or whatever meal it is inside of your house mashaAllah Allah allowed all the best spices to come together i was just a vessel who did it mashaAllah it came out how Allah wanted it to be and when when i fail at something mashaAllah it's the way that Allah wanted to be and therefore i won't become so much more down on what it is that i on what i couldn't make happen why is because it's Allah is the one ultimately who makes every single thing happen but we are just to take the means and when Allah sees us taking the proper means in order to make that thing happen he may bless us in the way that we want the outcome to come come about right but ultimately is all up to him and every single thing is a lesson and not a loss it's a reminder from Allah um are we good on time for salah oh yeah okay about nine moments okay so um after this reminder that the brothers uh gives to the disbelieving man oh he also uh what he said that and if you see me as uh lower than you because i don't have as much money or i don't have as many children or a squad behind people who are with me right if you don't if you see me like this why is it that you are arrogant and you point out my so so-called flaws about the things that Allah has blessed you with that i don't have and one thing that will help keep us in check regardless the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has said in an authentic hadith so the Prophet Muhammad advises us in a cure for when we're out in this world and we see that people have more than us oh that person drives a really nice tesla i just saw a brother with a beautiful car mashallah i was a tesla and it like had the suicide doors it came out like this and his son hopped out of it and ran into the masjid i said mashallah it was really is awesome and may Allah bless and increase that family but uh the Prophet reminds us if you see anyone who has uh more money than you or who uh may have a better creation than you someone is so-called prettier you feel or a brother is more handsome or wow this person has some really nice height or whatever the case is uh you know especially what's growing on instagram and getting caught up in all of the mental games there well we it's a game of just seeing what everybody else has compared to what we don't right the cure for that uh the Prophet reminds us is to look at someone who has less than you and boom you're snapped right back into reality and therefore you become what grateful to Allah right when you look at someone and this can be a little bit funny and we don't um put anybody down by this but if you feel like you're not the most handsome person there's a lot of people out there who's probably doing worse than you and in their looks right if you feel like you're not the tallest person and you wish to be a baller like in the NBA for example you know what you might not be in the NBA you might not be that tall but guess what you still got legs and you can still go out and who because there's people who don't have legs right you may be wanting to have more than one child or whatever the case is some people can't have children at all correct so the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gives us a direct medicine that helps us avoid this despairing because things could always be worse things could always be worse and so when we know the words of Allah and his messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will have a cure for every single thing that goes on inside of our lives right and that's the point of these beautiful gatherings and gatherings of dhikr of remembrance because it helps us always constitute and orient and orient ourselves in a direction that Allah Azza wa Jalla wants us to face we'll continue a little bit more before we break what's Allah and then we'll come back and finish inshallah but we have about six more minutes so the brother who had been reminding his companion this boastful brother regarding these gardens that he has and his arrogance is saying that you know he don't think this will ever end and that he has more money and more people behind him let's see what happens the brother continues and he says and so the brother the Muslim brother tries to put things more so into perspective for his brother right again we said of how this Muslim man he could have came down harsh on his brother he could have said what you don't know this you don't know this about Allah you behave this way no he tried to reason with the man in a very justful and dignified type of way to get the brother to think and he said so you know perhaps my lord what's your arrogance and the way that you're speaking and thinking that you're the one who controls and owns everything and all of your success has solely come from you perhaps what if Allah gave me goodness from your garden Allah can end up giving me the goodness from your garden Allah can end up giving me goodness from your garden he can also send a thunderbolt down from this guy as he controls everything and it can shock and hit your gardens and turn it to perpetual dust to a point where you wouldn't even be able to go and search the water for the water to even irrigate any more crops or fruits after your whole plantation has been destroyed because as the way that he gave it to you Allah can take it away right and this is what he's trying to convey to your to his friend and also Allah the one that you put down Allah can give him and grace him with much more than what you even had and now you're sitting there looking what foolish and you had to learn life in a lesson a much more harder way than taking heed right also being youth when people speak to us when people give us advice there's a reason why Allah has sent that person for the youth having parents your parents tell you and they convey to you for a reason because they've already lived the life that you have so also with growing up and being in the state of feeling like no one ever listens to you or no one gets you okay parents for us too we got to understand that our youth goes through a certain type of crisis as well right and we got to try to be merciful with them even in their little ignorance that they have right and we got to try to reconcile the meet in the middle regarding these things but we got to try to hear them out in youth children you need to try to do your best to also listen to your parents because they have a wisdom that sometimes we don't have i'm sorry that that you don't have right and so it's important to take heed and to take advice when someone is trying to help you out and the person who was advising you that's the person who actually loves you generally today we live in a world that is extremely sensitive whenever we we receive some type of criticism right they used to call it constructive criticism right someone critiques me or let me know oh when i was speaking i didn't really connect with the audience hey bro you didn't really connect maybe today you know if you memorize a little bit better and you looked at the crowd when you speak maybe people will feel more connected for example right oh honey um next time if it just with our dishes if you just added a little bit more salt it'll be that much more better right uh brother if you just went to the gym maybe once or twice during the week man you you know you'd be able to make more for example right so these are the things but sometimes we get we don't know how to take criticism right and the same for our youth the same for us sometimes as parents or as a husband or uh a spouse forgive me the uh we're about to make salah so uh we have to take uh a quick break and then we'll come back and finish our story inshallah okay so uh we had uh been continuing uh what to continue we had uh kind of went off into a little tangent and that tangent was regarding uh being able to take criticism and knowing uh within this story of these two uh archetypes one who was a boastful person and one who was more so a level-headed person the muslim and also the disbeliever really um we were again discussing about uh taking criticism one thing that I can remember which was a really nice way of I saw um this funny show that uh my father used to show me and there's this tooth this toothpaste called aim right and so again we're discussing about how to take criticism but also uh regarding this story because again we're on a tangent about how to also give criticism in a kind way and there was these two brothers who would be really funny towards one another and there's this uh toothpaste called aim and so he uh his brother came up to him and said uh hi hi marlo hi shan how you doing and so he smelt his breath and he turned his face and he said man did you use aim and his brother said uh no I'm sorry he said did you uh did you brush your teeth and the brother was funny he said yeah I used aim right that's the brand of the toothpaste he said well oh man it smells like you missed right and so these are some of the ways like uh some kind ways of how you know it depends on who you're talking to first and foremost but how to kind of break ice with people right sometimes we come from relieving ourselves from the restroom and we then made with boo and we then hot and we try to get all the mucus out and we walked out god mucus sitting on our beard and the brother will look you in the face and don't even tell you hey hey brother you got some boogers coming out you know you probably want to wipe that right but they say the person who criticizes you the person who can acknowledge something to you and let you know something about yourself is actually the one who cares for you right because you see that person and it may be something embarrassing but because of your love for them you'll tell them and therefore that person generally and should uh be able to take that criticism and therefore we can always better ourselves so again this was a little bit of a tangent that we end up um taking uh regarding our story of uh the muslim man and the boastful gardener so just to remind the last place that we had been on was the muslim brother was uh responding to his brother of letting him know the one who created you is the one who created your gardens right and the one who has blessed you in life and who has given you all of this means that you have all of this wealth um all of these people who are with you because you can take care of them because of your garden he is the one who ultimately blessed you with it all with it all and so you should be thankful and therefore not arrogant within that so then he also tells him the one who controls your garden he controls the sky just as well and he can send a thunderbolt to your garden and he can seize it all he can take it on he can also strike it to a sense of where the river that you have growing uh and coming out of those gardens can also sink down so much inside of the earth that you'd never be able to trace it you'd never be able to go and get that water and what do we need in order for uh gardens to grow is you need water and this man was blessed with a spring that came from the water which always made this uh garden produce year-round right but the the brother's reminding don't be arrogant about the things that you have because the one who was in control of everything can ultimately take it away from you and so um finishing this same part the brother is still advising him and back to the Quran and so Allah describes to us inside of this glorious Quran that it came to pass that this man's uh wealth uh his garden the river that uh gush forth in between this garden was seized by Allah right in order to teach this boastful man a lesson so it came to pass and all this man could do was shake his hands and dismay over his broken hardness over his foolishness over his arrogance right how many times have we stepped in life and maybe our mother or our father has told us to not do something as we said before even while we have the uh children's song no more monkeys jumping on the bed right one fell off them bumpers have I can't forget kind of how it goes mama called the doctor and the doctor said no more monkeys jumping on the bed why is that because somebody was advised to not do that thing typically a parent or someone who has been through something they're advising that person so they don't have to go through a hard experience right and that's the point of love and also being inside of the position that you're in is to rightly try and guide people and also being the subject of that conversation is for you to take heed these are things that helps us put ourselves into uh our perspective places in life it's when elder or someone who is in charge of something when they give a command or ruling or advising us to come back to the middle path right is to listen to what they say even if it may hurt our feelings even if it may goes against our arrogance because the nefs right those things that are desiring so much is so riled up and just feels like it has so much power so it feels like it can't be torn down so when someone tells you hey you're being a fit of um we need you to calm down you don't respond like fit right and you don't disregard what the person like moosa is coming to you trying to advise you hey bro take it easy calm down come back to earth dad you're being really mean you said some really mean things to us i should be able to hear my son and listen to him and say you know what maybe i was a set of being like who are you to tell me anything or mom you fussing just a little bit can you get off just a little bit right mother should be able to say you know what i am a bit stressed but let me actually calm down a bit because Allah is the one who gave me this child Allah is the one who gave me this child and it is up for me Allah sees what i'm doing right now and i'll be questioned about these things and i don't want something to happen hard in my life and so that's why Allah is giving us this example right this person who was both slow and he kept going and he went to the edge don't push me don't push yourself because you close to the edge yeah did y'all get that reference okay anyways when you keep going perpetually more and more and more of not listening you'll end up falling off that bed and bumping your head right and so this is the point of why Allah grants us these beautiful stories because Allah knows ultimately how the human being is and what our characteristic types are like and so how magnificent why out of all of the things that Allah could have put in his glorious Quran to connect to for something to resonate with you and I why this type of story because we typically are of these type of archetypes of characters so continuing when the man he gets dismayed and he says what have i done what did what did i do i can't believe look at out of all the money that i put into this garden out of all the people that i was able to serve and to feed based off of what i have all of my power is gone and then he had to come to what the reality of what he was trying to be advised about before and he says the simple thing of what his friend his peer a father a mother a friend when they tried to advise him he didn't take that advice and he kept pushing through and then he had to come to the reality as they say he had to learn things the hard way and he recognized and realized that he should have never associated himself as partners to Allah because Allah is the one who gives you every single thing it is that you have and then Allah gives us a message after this and he tells us and Allah says do not become like this man Allah reminds us and warns us to not become like this person he says that there is no a fee a fee attune is like a group uh like a rescue group could you imagine when we get in trouble in this life and things are strenuous on us and whether it's bills to pay the children are driving you crazy um you're fearful of anything so you feel like you're out in the ocean all by yourself just drifting and so you realize that it's just you and Allah now imagine right in today's time we have what they call rescue teams who come inside of a helicopter and save you but Allah says there's nothing there's no thing in the earth that can save you all human being except Allah so how needy are we in actuality even being able to be rescued right even if we were out in that ocean and a rescue team were to come it is only by the will of Allah that Allah allowed for you to be noticed to get help and that is Allah who actually helped you even through that rescue team so we must always be able to put things in their proper perspectives going forth in life and this is the last uh aya of our beautiful story um and uh just to continue just to make sure i said this part and Allah also says what mad canna moon tells you raw and there was nobody there to aid this man right except for Allah so even when things seem like um you having a problem and no one can help you in your despair right it doesn't matter who you go and talk to about your issue of what you're going through in life there's no one who can make any difference in what it is that you're going through you slowly feel the way that you feel about it have you turned to Allah regarding your situation have you pleaded to Allah the way that you will plead to others about whatever issue it is that you have inside of your life have you take the time out the way that you will complain to a parent to a friend to anyone go online and type ways that you feel have you took the time out to actually do that with your Lord before someone else so Allah is also showing us about having to walk in Him which is having trust in Him regarding the things that we go through and lastly the last verse Allah says And Allah says that these narrations they are true right and they have a resounding meaning for you and I to pick up on he is the most rewarding and he is the one who gives so Alhamdulillah that has been our medallist in our talk regarding today between the boastful gardener and the Muslim and now this will be the time for any Q&A any epiphanies or aha moments or anything that you would like to share please the floor is open because as we mentioned before and some of you are also new to the group and so you probably couldn't hear the gist of this story from the glorious Quran but if there's anything regarding the story or even not please share because we have the floor for about 20 more minutes and again when you share we all get to benefit so please speak up if you have anything that you'd like to share it doesn't have to deal with the story it could it doesn't have to it can be anything well would anybody like to share the wife the mice working okay great is there anything that anybody would like to share regarding the story is anything that anybody maybe have picked up or realized is anybody familiar with this story inside the glorious Quran okay i guess we're gonna sit here and do this is anybody gonna share no i know some of y'all thinking i know the hearts are like yeah i want to share something but i don't know i might sound a little bit weird you got something to share come on you got something to share anybody got something we want to hear from you guys yes uh the microphone right there behind yes so um i kind of was not here the whole time of the maybe somebody has something to share maybe i can ask a question please yes have kids as well so sometimes i i'm just you know one is how to respect your parents but on the contrary how can um i mean i know this might be a deep question but if you want to give a simple answer i'd appreciate it it's just what is the because i know i want to teach my kids about the dean and so forth but i haven't got that far to understand the meaning of what a parent's responsibility is towards their child mashaAllah okay okay i can i feel like i can help shed a little bit of light on that inshallah so our dear brother has acts and i'm gonna rephrase the question just to make sure i said it correctly okay i make sure i'm understanding so our brother has said that uh he has children and so are you saying that you're new to islam as well oh okay okay so uh with having children how to first i heard about like uh respecting your parents but also your position as a parent and how to actually be with your children is is this yeah or obligation or obligation oh yeah as a parent okay obligation i know i wanted to children regarding the dean of course they have to do this a lot okay okay i got you okay i got is that the fine line at least i feel comfortable that i've done my part yes that line okay okay so what is that line well that line is i mean there's a lot of there's a few technicalities but we're going to keep it simple okay and just brother to brother advice from what um i've learned since being on my journey of studying being around great men and women who have led and set and a great example through the sunnah of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam so firstly what i would advise you is knowing and getting to know the life of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam because we get to get uh really the inside scoop on how he sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was and this is the best way to uh be obviously right is following the footsteps of the greatest of creation and that is the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam so when you know what he would do and the more conscious you are of what he did right you will start to try to implement those things into your life and so as they say monkey see monkey do right and so when your children see it coming from you because they don't say monkey say monkey do right especially being a vice-chairman a caretaker of anything people are more prone to respond off of your actions other than your words right and that's how children really pick up on things so for example and not saying that you do this but if you say children you guys got to be up for fadir for fadir and you need to make sallallahu on time and you need to call the adhan right but if you never if we never set that example if we don't ever do it and we expect to get done because we told them they don't have any type of model to copy after so you're not doing other action gives them a confirmation that they don't have to do it either no matter what comes out from the mouth right so i've learned the more that i've sat with these people that i've been around these people and they are men and women of action and they do the sunnah of the prophet muhammad peace be upon them that's where you have success at and i've been able to see that within my household just from when i uh hadn't been studying so when i started studying and i was implementing it and seeing it with my child uh alhamdulillah so that would be my advice in short is doing the so um i love to connect it to like uh we love sports right and so we have this great debate who was the greatest nba player of all time right or for the our sisters too they could put it somebody sneezes and say kovie or even for our sisters um you can juxtapose this same type of idea right but let's just say for example a lot of people say michael jordan right and so what is it when you look at michael jordan if you want to be the best baller you're going to do every single thing michael jeffrey jordan did you see how i even know his middle name for example right so you're going to know something about him you're going to know where he comes from you're going to know uh what he eats the way that he trained the way that he dressed what he does you're constantly uh in knowledge about this person because they're the greatest in their field of what they do right because i want to be like this particular person i'm going to do everything to mimic them right so when we are able to juxtapose our minds and our hearts about what is the point of us being on this earth we would juxtapose ourselves to the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and say how is it that i can be the best the greatest human being that i can possibly be and that's by following the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and that's by getting to know him and so the more that you get to know him you have references about how to act and react in whatever situation that you're in and therefore you know as Allah is pleased with his messenger Allah will be pleased with you alhamdulillah i hope that that answers the question i couldn't uh i didn't want to give something that was even more like short or terse because uh a lot of it is just whatever we can do to connect with the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in the Quran i know as cliche as it may sound but the more that you're around good company and you see good parents you get ideas on how to do that like for example i saw one of my teachers man like his son was acting out and from the culture that we like come from that we were taught especially being raised up in oakland like the your parents are just used to like what they heard something bad you're going to get a wolf all right and so but the prophet peace be upon us wasn't like this with his children and so when i was inside of this house like the kid he raised his voice to his father and the father's like a chef right but the way that he did like he just came to the boy he spoke gently to him and he hugged him and a little boy just melted and he was able to just be uh the father was able to speak to him to tell him about what was uh wrong about what he did the little boy was able to understand and it's just switched things from like it had almost cried looking at it because when you don't have the right example but then you see this person with this new order because they're practicing this prophetic character inside of your household and you get to witness that now it gives you a direct like oh he's the jordan of muslims right i want to be like that right and so i want to how can i be like muhammad not like mike but like muhammad right and so that's these are the type of things so when you surround yourself also a really good company and those who lead a righteous life and you can do whatever you can to get around them it'll rub off on you right there's a hadith that the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam tells us about the uh i didn't memorize this one yet but i've heard it plenty of times about the uh one who makes perfume and the blacksmith right and so the blacksmith who hammers and beats that metal on whatnot they'll come back home smelling like iron and ore and that uh smell from being around them will eventually get to you in effect you but imagine being around the perfumist right the one who smells extremely beautiful because they've been around roses and beautiful flowers and whatnot all day and so imagine what type of effect that that would have on you just uh due to fragrance from being around them right so we want to do our best to surround ourselves with good company because that's how we will become and you there's no way you can help it because you got a good example so that would be the answer to that about how to lead children and again the first thing will be monkey see monkey do thanks brother i appreciate it and i think that was a best answer i was my question was more so that hey um is there a set kind of like you know obligation that you can do but that that example the way you gave i think it's so universal that truly even as cliche as it is it applies thank you and even besides as we could talk uh more besides that but i just also don't want to when we kind of talk about technical things like from a sixth standpoint right about like what you are actually just obliged to do there's a lot there can be some gray areas in that and that can kind of mislead people so being in the gathering too uh i just want to also make sure we give something that is digestible for people but we can still have a conversation besides inshallah inshallah is there anything else anybody would like to ask to add um to please share because it would truly benefit us is there anything that you picked up from the class maybe is there anything that you would like to maybe start working on your own selves um how about uh i'll put myself in the guillotine let me think um regarding myself there's a lot that um i would like to work on and that i learned a lot from uh this story of the quran and i would say uh as sheikh hamza used to call that is um is like this spiritual which is uh getting used to doing something over and over and over and over again and it may be boring but to where you become refined and that thing becomes good and sweet for you right so for myself i would say what i learned from this um is trying to stay in the best state that i can't be a like the level headed muslim inside of this story right so uh there came a time where this man and it's called the man is called a disbeliever actually who was being very boastful and arrogant but look if we look at how the muslim responded to this arrogant person who put him down who told him that you don't have as many children as me you don't have as much power as me you don't have any wealth actually you don't have any kids right uh i don't believe in what you believe yet look at everything that i have do you understand like how much would that infuriate one of us if someone was talking down to us and look at the way that this man responded to this disbelieving person and he still gently reminded him right because he still knows a lot of the one who is in control of all affairs so whether him being poor not having much as this disbelieving person doesn't mean that he's a loser ultimately when you have faith in the law you're the ultimate winner no matter how much you have or don't have and so i would like to just sharing what you guys are i would like to be a person who can respond to criticism as we mentioned earlier too i would like to be a person who can respond to criticism with wisdom who can forbear certain things that may be hurt who when a child comes to him and vince maybe their frustration or they're saying for a wife or anything that i can respond in a way that is pleasing to a law every single time so that's something that i've learned from this story alhamdulillah and something that i'd like to take an impart inside of my life uh maybe this may help may have helped you all think about something but we would love if you guys shared something that uh you know that you may have picked up from the story if not that's okay but again the more that you sure uh share the more benefit that we all receive inshallah is anything that anybody would like to share before our time is up i got just a few more minutes was it was a story at least comprehensive did you go yeah oh yeah okay did you find it was a story interesting okay well so what we hope what we hope to do is inshallah is learn to that these great stories are in the glorious Quran right and these are the greatest of stories no matter who produces what movie uh what station at things come on netflix root cool whatever the case is Allah has given us the best of stories and if we learn to connect ourselves to the stories of Allah we'll find deep meanings every single time no matter how many times we recite them and read them as long as you look forward Allah will bless you with meanings and understandings of his glorious stories and they are the best of any story that has ever been given in life in history so when we look at it like that uh we'll be able to engage love more and connect with the glorious Quran that much more and derive much more benefit inshallah but um i guess that's going once going twice no one wants the microphone anything young man you got something to share yeah you did you pick up on anything can you could you go back home and teach something about this lesson to someone in your family huh i'm just most of you did but you what about some of it what about the some of it that you did pick up it's okay what's your name amar amar yes mashaAllah beautiful name is that like with an iron in a beginning do you know amar yeah okay i think i see how to spell it i think is iron meme in the wrong right amar mashaAllah that's a beautiful name we have a teacher uh with that beloved name that's a really really beautiful name actually i live outside marvin yes sir mashaAllah mashaAllah what a what a beautiful name alhamdulillah is anybody else have anything please what's up man i'm gonna share something on there you want to share some what's your name fahid fahid where you from indonesia and what's up with your brother i was around a lot of indonesian brothers back in turin so i'm pretty familiar with uh your culture a little bit in the food it's really good stuff man is there anything you want to share as you pick up something you can share come on bless us with something please here's a microphone anything that comes to the heart and i think you came a little bit later too and so we're happy to have your photos i think like it was just about the the parenting thing that actually kind of stood out like even though i'm not a parent i just like i just want to like it was like interesting to know what about though being a child you know if you do you have parents okay alhamdulillah but what about being a child and the way that you feel like uh you should be toward your parents let me give you something the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has told us the most beloved actions um to Allah is um a salatuli waqtihah meaning praying the sallah in its appropriate time then having this respect and obedience towards the parents then striving and struggling in the way of Allah meaning if you have any type of uh let's say if someone has um a vice or uh what is it called like when you're addicted to something and you know it may be wrong to be doing but you strive to overcome and you try to put barriers between yourself and that thing that you may be go back to right this is doing jihad fi sabili la doing jihad fi sabili la is knowing that you know what i'm supposed to respect my parents but they get on my nerves and i know that i can respond in a good way right now but i'm not right no doing jihad is responding in the best way in overcoming the nefs so to translate that the second one was too much different while he then which is respecting and loving and being obedient to your parents as best as you can right and so these are the most beloved of actions to Allah and so what about just like being a child who has parents does this story make you reflect on uh in a way of like how you can be maybe even better towards them um i miss most of the story i i just came today oh okay so i don't know much about the story okay maybe you might catch it next time inshallah you can catch it on your local youtube station on mcc yes mm brother i'm gonna get you too you came a little late too didn't you okay yeah i just uh you know just share something yes please well like i remember when i was younger and i come from an environment where we respect your parents i come from a background and so you know every parent that comes i came from that kind of thing you keep the mic a little closer to you so everyone can yeah yep there you go so so i did come from that kind of environment and i'm very grateful for my parents but i did have some friends when i was younger and they were complaining about their parents or mom and support and i remember i told them i shared with them one thing that they were very happy they did so at that time we didn't have that much money on us as youngsters but i did tell them i was like hey my brother like i advise you instead of being on the bad side of your mom let's go to the dollar store even and get like so like they had like little beanies and gloves and a scarf i was like spend three bucks brother and let's just put that in something and take it to your mom you know yeah and he's like bro i don't want to do this you know i encourage them just do it for me for my side you know like i tried to help him as a friend and he when he did it he realized that it was a very good effect on his relationship with his mom so even though he wasn't in the best of state with his mom but sometimes even though if even it doesn't make sense to yeah you spilled a lot and you know and you do that kind of back shift mashallah i realized that it was a very good outcome that's right and i i felt even very happy or two as a friend mashallah and see this is this is just a blessing of islam and the ni'ma just a few of the things that a few of the many things that allah has blessed us with and that's having good companionship and so sometimes when you're in a difficult situation where maybe our arrogance is the forefront of our response to a certain type of situation just as you mentioned their friend was like whatever my mom she's acting like this i ain't about to do nothing for her right but he overcame some took some advice we spoke about criticism right he was able to listen to some feedback and say you know what let me just try now let me pass up my ego i'm gonna respond in a better way that allah actually would like for me and look majority of the times i would even go to say a hundred percent of the time something good will end up coming out when you forgo the ego and you try to mend in better relationships right instead of always standing on the principle that no someone wronged me so therefore i'm not going to do x y and z there's another story that we actually told before this that you guys are reminding me of in the quran but um that's really beautiful thank you so much for sharing that for us um if it if uh come on man you can share some a little bit of some what's your name brother i thought she was mexican wash Allah i just came back from mexico i was ready to speak to you in spanish a little bit man but okay abdul rahman mash oh okay yeah you you you'd be pretty good yeah um but are you from here oh yeah mashallah is there anything that it doesn't have to be again related to the story but if so i know that you said you came a bit late too and you missed out but is there anything that you would like to just share is there anything about this helical like um just our gathering of remembrance that makes you feel the new type of way yeah from the summary that you gave me of the story bring it up a little bit closer to you from the summer you gave me a story and that last part that you shared um like given criticism nowadays it's difficult because nowadays people take it with like people are sensitive with it so there's a specific way you have to give it especially depending on like the personality of that person and i go to a public school where there's not a book on muslims so the things that they do you know it's it's kind of a corrupt system nowadays so giving that criticism to these people to like i want to say these people i know i i understand what you're saying i understand but giving those giving that criticism is difficult because i mean a lot of blessing for being gentle because i'm sorry yeah giving those giving that criticism to um people that do these things is difficult because they take it with uh i don't know i'll explain it yeah they take it highly offensive yeah that's the that's the time that we live in subhanallah um you're right and um just before we close up i think a lot of that has to deal with obviously the day and age that we live in the more and more we get closer to yomo qiyamah um there are just specific things that are going to happen but it's up for you and i to be strong and our uh never uh relenting to becoming the norm of what the society is doing right so as long as you are firm on the principles that you have and stepping in the footsteps of the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam be following Allah then your uh your example as we kind of been this whole thing been going around right this monkey see monkey do will eventually have a certain type of effect on someone right even if it's one person we've done we've done good right and so i understand exactly what you're saying but i think a lot of that has to deal with uh things like the internet for example and when we're on such a uh uh a climate now where everybody has an opinion everybody can be heard so now how much more scrutiny are you able to be subscribed to now right like if the whole if you can post a picture and the whole world can see it now the whole world can comment on that picture right so therefore uh it also stops it has this blockade between it of actual real connection with people so now when you read a comment you're not hearing the words from people right how many times have someone ever texted someone and things are taken fully out of context right like someone may be reading your your whatever you're saying to them in much more of a offensive type of way like uh you can say uh for example like your wife can text you or i know you guys are really young or a friend or whatever the case but i just give an example right of the wife for example like you can text uh she can say hey honey what's the food grade you can text back yes right yeah but yes you probably was like yes for example right you like yes but she's probably he just read it like yes right and so she she's reading something she's comprehending something in her head much more differently than how it actually was you come back home and now there's an issue correct because there's this miscommunication because it wasn't this actual human connection to where you can actually hear a tone which is extremely important for human beings to know kind of how things are being communicated right you could tell you can walk into a shop somewhere someone can speak a different language but you can tell if someone is actually mad or they're saying something kind to someone else based off of tone right and so a lot of things get lost in translation because of these obstacles and barriers that we kind of have in between one another and so um and that's a really good thing that you brought up and something that we was able to benefit so uh yeah abdul rahman thank you so much for sharing and sorry you guys this has been our time for tonight i don't want to hold you guys anymore and make you guys feel obliged but so we'll just end with a closing du'a we ask that Allah forgives us of our sins in our wrongdoings we ask that Allah guides us to the straight path we ask that Allah blesses um our teachers and everyone who has facilitated for this uh gathering of remembrance to commence we um ask Allah to relieve our brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering those in philistine in the west bank in the hajjah we ask Allah to alleviate our brothers and sisters who are starving even in that in those areas of the world and the horn of africa and sudan and so maria and so on and so forth we ask that Allah relieves the umna of uh the fitan that is uh going on and we ask Allah to safeguard us and make us fabric make us firm and his dean of his and to love his glorious quran and to love his messenger may Allah inculcate within side of our hearts the love of Allah and his messenger say amin amin may Allah uh direct every single muscle five or every single neuron every single adam in our body to want to do everything to please him himself and to please his messenger muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam say amin amin ya rabbal alamin Allahumma inna n'awudu beeka minal jahannam wa min wa min azab al-qabri wa min azab al-mahya wal-mamaati wa min fitnat al-masih al-dajjal wa minal maqrami wal-maathami Allahumma gfil lana ma qaddamna wa ma'a kharna wa ma'a asrafna wa ma'a asrarna wa ma'a alanna wa ma'a anta alamu bihi minna anta al-muqaddim wa anta al-muakhiru la ilaha illa anta nasta aghfiruka wa natu al-bu'ilayka and we just said that oh Allah we ask your your protection from uh the punishment of the hellfire oh Allah say amin oh Allah we seek refuge in you from the punishment of uh the the cover of the the life of the grave oh Allah we ask you to relieve us from punishment of anything that is harmful on this earth that can happen to our bodies our minds our souls oh Allah we ask you to guide us to the straight path we ask you to relieve us of the trials and the fitna of ad-dajjal the anti-price the the fake one who will eventually come oh Allah and for everything that you know about us everything that you see every secret that we have every wrong action that we've done in secrecy and public oh Allah the things that we have wasted we ask that you forgive us of that for you are the one who sees all things and we were time back to you assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh and we should say in closing surat al-fatiha Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Alhamdulillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim alaikum ad-din yaka na'abudu wa yaka nasda'in ad-dina sirat al-mustaq al-mustaq al-mustaq al-mustaq al-mustaq al-mustaq


From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Covering Comcast Innovation Day. Brought to you by Comcast. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at the Comcast Silicon Valley Innovation Center here in Sunnyvale just off the runway here at Moffitt Field, really interesting place. A lot of cool toys downstairs. But we had a conversation today about customer experience and kind of next gen customer experience and how to drive a better customer experience so that you have a better customer relationship. And we're really excited to have our next guest. She's Christy Schaffler, the Director of Customer Experience for Comcast's California Regions. Christy, great to see you. Thank you. Thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. Absolutely. So it's funny, we had this great little panel discussion talking about customer experience, but you kept coming back to employees and really leading with employees before you worry about what's going on with the customer. Kind of where's that kind of mindset come from and how should people be prioritizing employees for the benefit of customers? Yeah, so honestly it all comes back to Comcast itself. It is a very strong employee culture. And so the company began as a small company, family owned, and I think that's what's permeated throughout the company as a whole. So when we started to introduce the best practices for Net Promoter System overall, it was an easy grasp I think for employees to start looking at like how is it that I'm going to be able to help overall? Because I think they're all out there trying to help each other. Right, right. Well it's funny, right? Because there's kind of two dynamics. There's a great dynamic of helping a teammate, right?  But it's different in terms of getting bad news up to the boss. That's a really hard problem and nobody wants to tell the boss bad news. And in fact a lot of times the bad news doesn't get up. So how do you enable people to actually share the real bad news that they might be uncomfortable or not necessarily it's even addressable? Yeah, so what we did was we introduced our employees to the concept of elevations. And so what they do is they input an issue where they are struggling with helping out the customer. There's a barrier to them to be able to deliver the service that we're expecting. And what happens is once that gets input then that actually goes up into the region. We take a look at it and say we can't really do anything with it here but we can bump it up to the next level. That eventually gets to a point especially in the case of employee tools for example where it has to go all the way up to the headquarters and there's a team that's ready and waiting for that to happen. So when you tell them hey there's something broken here they have to come back and respond within two weeks they have to be able to get back with that employee to say here is what we're gonna do about that or it may be put on a map to say that we're gonna eventually fix that. That communication goes directly back to the person who actually input it. So it's a direct direct communication between the employee who's having the issue and the software developer who may actually own that tool. So it goes directly, is it a special type of ticket if you will? That I wanna post knowing that this is, I've decided it's a high enough priority that I'm gonna take the risk and take the personal risk, the professional risk to go ahead and escalate that up the chain of command. Right, so what I'm so proud about is we've gone back to the team and said give me your number one barrier that's holding you back so they work it out amongst their peers about what they think should be the top issue then they get everybody else to watch that issue. Once you get a number of watchers on it it becomes elevated into the company where it becomes a big issue. It's like, hey, there's a lot of people that look at this issue and want it resolved. And so as soon as they put that in they assign it to the area that's responsible and that is it's a direct communication because as soon as they comment anybody who's watching that elevation gets an email in their inbox with the actual comment from the person who owns it. So it's a nice targeted communication for issues that they're having. So is there any fanfare when there's some big one that gets voted by the broader group that oh my gosh this was a really big deal? So recently we had something that came up with our Xfinity home and so as you probably know we have the ability to have security where you can actually look at your cameras on your mobile app and one of our technicians said hey guys I'm hearing this from the customer so what they do is they come back in and they have a huddle with their team and have the discussion and then that manager takes that and puts it into the system. What happened was it went straight back up to the person they actually did a software update on it and then our senior vice president of customer experience out of our corporate headquarters said hey guys congratulations that's fantastic this got fixed and that communication went directly back to the person who input it. So it's just it's a celebratory moment when you can be able to get that direct feedback from the customer it comes up through the employee the employee's owning it as an issue that they can't solve personally but they know to get it to the right people. Right so you talked a lot earlier today about employee tools and so you know as you clearly something you think is a great investment how should people think about investment in employee tools actually manifesting itself in better customer experience with the company? Exactly we actually had an elevation that was associated with that where the employee was using a tool in the home and when he was trying to check the health of the system they found that there was a piece of the tool that was breaking off and so again they took it back to the owner of that tool and then they worked with the manufacturer to go back and redesign that tool so that meant that the customer was able to get better service because if their tools aren't working that's what they depend on to be able to serve our customers and so it's key that we take care of them. So just curious to kind of wrap it up what has the focus on the NPS both the score as well as the process kind of what's happened from that not only the direct result in terms of changing the score and execution details but more kind of the second order and unintended consequences of that focus. Yeah so we've definitely seen our net promoter score increase year over year so that's very exciting and we're celebrating that and we're not there yet so we still have a ways to go but the other thing that we're seeing is that the employees are feeling empowered they're feeling like that they can bring back issues and if it's something that they share with everybody they feel like that they have a sense of I can help direct where we need to focus our time and make sure that those issues are being addressed. So we have an employee survey it's actually called the ENPS so it actually we send that out every other month and ask our employees how do you feel about the workplace? Are you motivated? We have some of the highest scores of any company of employees that are motivated because we have set up this system to basically come back and say let us know where you need help and we're coming back in and helping so I'm excited about it. Great all right we need to have another follow up conversation about NPS at another time I need to get educated but thanks for spending a few minutes and inviting us to attend today's event. Thank you so much I appreciate it. All right she's Christy I'm Jeff you're watching theCUBE we're at the Comcast Silicon Valley Innovation Center thanks for watching we'll see you next time.


So it's my anniversary today. It's been 37 years. I'm sitting in Hyderabad, Habi is sitting in London. There's a five and a half hour difference between us so he's only going to wake up at around 11.30 his time in the morning by which time I'll be heading off for my event. After the event there will be an official dinner. By the time I come back he'll be heading off for his lunch and so eventually when we finally manage to connect which will be at the end of the day I will pick up the phone hoping to hear something really romantic and I will get, why haven't you sent me your invoices for Bombay yet? Your accountant has called about this and I'm getting really fed up and did you know that the prices of electricity have gone up so much and chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, and I'm thinking where are those romances that you see in the films where you know you've had a long day you're feeling a little bit low and just before you go to sleep the doorbell rings you open the door and there is your partner standing there saying I couldn't bear to be parted from you any longer I've flown across the universe to be with you where are those romances who gets those romances bhaiya haame to nahi mila and so regularly on my anniversary I end up wondering about relationships and what makes relationships take is it the big grand gestures like these romantic gestures because they're very nice too or is it that even when you really, really want to kill them you're still planning what to buy them for Christmas I don't know what the answer is but that's what's keeping my relationship going