On the first night before the first day of fasting, we spoke of the Hadith of the Prophet A.S. in which he says that you are, O people, you are being overshaded, you are in the increasing shade of the approach of a tremendous month, a blessed month, in it is a night and so on. And part of that Hadith was that he said the first of it is compassion, the middle of it is forgiveness, being set free, like a slave that may even be chained to keep them in captivity, being set free from the fight. It is not a difficult thing for Allah SWT to include us this month among the people who are set free from the fire. It is not hard for Allah to do it.  So we ask him to count us in that group, inshallah. So we have 30 days of fasting, 3 sets of 10. The first of it is rahmah, compassion, but then the question becomes, how is a month compassion? Sometimes it is not good to stop and analyze things.  So sometimes if you stop and you analyze something, you find that there is something to think about here. How can a month be rahmah? But I think that we all have answers, right, and you all think of ways that Ramadan is a rahmah. The wiping of the slate. The wiping of the slate. That would be the middle of that is forgiveness, right, I suppose. Anybody else? Some really, really obvious ones. Chaining the shaitan. What's that? Chaining the shaitan. Okay. Masha'Allah. Chaining the shaitan. Right. I know that that must be a rahmah, but then for me it means that all of the, you know, not the greatest inclinations that I might have is just me. And I can't blame it on the shaitan. Right. But that's definitely a rahmah. What about the increase of rewards? We all know things that we can put our finger on that are a special blessing for Ramadan. SubhanAllah. Yesterday we buried Hajm Musa Rashid, a pillar of the open Muslim community. And everyone was saying, Alhamdulillah, he got to see one more Ramadan. But he wasn't fasting. We don't usually speak about the fact. We have, you know, this comment that people are going to have medical conditions. People have medicine they have to take. Right. And there is a way to deal with that. And Allah SWT has provided for these things. Right. And it's nobody's business. Right. But obviously the brother is, you know, barely conscious during his last days. Right. He's not necessarily going to be fasting. He's not going to be saying all types of extra prayers. And we know that it is from the rahmah of Allah SWT that when you create habits for yourself and norms for yourself that it's my norm when I'm healthy and in residence at home that I pray this sunnah and this sunnah and I do this and I do this so that when I get sick I continue to have the reward for that. So all of that is sealed for the Hajm Musa. Okay. Otherwise, you know, we don't talk about these things, but this is something obvious. But here for the sake of exploring this idea, Alhamdulillah, he got to see another Ramadan. But he wasn't physically participating in Ramadan. He was conscious of Ramadan. He knew that Ramadan was coming. Right. And it's a rahmah. There has to be something more to the specialness of this month than just the physical actions that we would engage in which are at the heart and the essence of this month. And I don't mean to discount them at all. Right. And we talked about how if you do a voluntary act in this month this is if you've done 70 obligatory acts and the reward and the jazaat that you get from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and if you do one of your obligatory acts that you're supposed to do anyway. Right. They say don't reward your children if they do what they already know they're supposed to do. Sometimes his parents were so desperate. Oh. He was polite. He sat up straight. He didn't have his hands in his pockets. Right. Subhanallah. We've got to give him something. Right. He passed his exams. Oh, no. Right. Don't do that. Right. Don't reward them for things that they're supposed to do anyway. Right. You're not supposed to do that for your employees either. Sometimes. Right. I remember when I worked in the Gulf. Right. If they just like did their job with like Edna degree of competence. We're talking about, you know, all types of increases and this that and the other because we're so excited. They just did, you know, the basics according to the job specification. Right. Subhanallah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives that reward. You do one obligatory act. Subhanallah. It has this immense reward. Right. As if it was 70 obligatory acts. Right. Done outside of Ramadan. So that is there. But what else do we know about being in Ramadan? Right. Once that moon flips from the new moon, which is black. Right. To your first liver of crescent. You are now in an envelope of time that is unlike any other time during the year. There is a special barakat. The economy of rewards changes. Right. Something happens to the devils and the sheyat thing and the temptations. And when you are in tune with the expectation and anticipation of Ramadan, you can feel it in the air, in your homes, in the massages. That night that we were together on the first night before the first day of fasting, you could feel it in the masjid. It was electric. That's part of that atmosphere. We spoke about the fact that the gates of the heavens are thrown open, never to be closed until after the end of the month. We already know that Allah SWT descends to the lowest heaven every night of the year to ask, is there someone calling that I could answer? Is there someone asking forgiveness that I can forgive? But we stand under this sky that is not the sky of any other year. You stand under the exposed jannah. For that, this moment, no matter what your particular situation, and for those among us who do have medicine that they have to take, that's not easy. Some of the early Muslims said, young man, do all of your sunnis. Those enhancements from the way of the Prophet, when you're healthy and still young enough to do it, because you don't want to be the person who on top of the sorrow that they might feel that they're no longer able to pray in the way that mirrors the beloved of Allah SWT, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, you don't want to add to that the regret of if only I had been doing it back then, if only I had learned the shama'il of the Prophet Alaihi Wasallam in the final sunnah of the way he did things because the reason why we invoke these details of our Fiqh is because we know that Allah SWT is witnessing us. We know that Allah SWT is looking to us. Allahumma wa fi l-eem. We know that Allah is seeing us, and what we want is that when he sees us in our ibadats, he sees the haytah, the form of his beloved Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. That's the whole point of the Fiqhah, is to be in alignment in harmony with the way of the Prophet Alaihi Wasallam. The first of it is mercy. The first of it is compassion. In one of the hadith of the Prophet Alaihi Wasallam, he says that Allah has 100 portions of mercy. He has withheld 99 of those portions that he keeps with himself and saves up for the day of judgment when his people are going to need it more than any other moment in their life. We ask Allah that we meet and encounter his mercy on the inevitable day of judgment. Ya'ar hamur rahmeen under his throne with the shifa'ah of your Prophet, Muhammed Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And one portion he sends down into the world. And by this one portion, the mother horse that we call a mare in English lifts her hoof in the stable or wherever it is that they are out of fear of potentially injuring her fold, the baby horse from that subtlety of that tie between the mother and the child whenever you see that in your wife, in your mother, in someone from your family that tenderness that all of a sudden shakes off the exhaustion, shakes off the fatigue. And she's fatigued and she's exhausted. No doubt, it's not like she's not, but she has that tenderness that keeps her going, subhanAllah. That is from that portion of rahmeen. Wa ma'a ar-sannaqa illa rahmetin lila'a adameen. And we've not sent you, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, except as a mercy to the world. Buy it, right? The mother horse lifts up her hoof out of fear of harming her fold. In the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says who alladi yursilu ri'aha bayne yadee rahmeti heen. He is the one who sends the winds before the coming of his mercy. What are these winds? We talked on that, it was a Friday night, wasn't it? We talked on that Friday night. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala having these breezes that he sends. That he sends out, right? And these are the opportunities to draw near to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. What is the understanding of this verse that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses the wind to bring the rain clouds out until they come out over a barren land? And what is this barren land that's been stricken by drought? And what happens to the earth, right? The grass and the foliage and the vegetation turns yellow and brown and breaks, okay? The earth will crack because there's no water.  He's the one who sends the winds which carry the clouds heavily laden with rainwater before his rahma. Allah has different types of rahma. Literally in this verse, what is that rahma? Does anybody know? The literal meaning of rahma in that verse, which is true. Which Allah intends in the verse. The outward form of the verse is the rain, okay? And in another verse, and he sends down the rain upon a dead earth and it comes back to life and blossoms and flourishes. And just like the earth might go dry, we have dry moments. Each of us is probably here today because of moments that we have experienced in our worship and devotion and relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in which we were moved by the divine presence. In which perhaps one person is moved to tears, another person might shudder, another person might be electrified and you tasted a nearness to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's the opposite of those dry moments. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. But your effort, and here we are in Ramadan and we have easy days, masha'Allah. Allah will make lots of easy days for us. Don't wish to meet the enemy on the field of battle. We have easy days and we ask Allah for easy days but some days are hard, some days are rough and it is your perseverance and resolve in those rough and dry times when you aren't feeling the good vibrations of the nearness to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that saves up or recede a capital in your account that one day, one moment, one night according to an agenda that Allah chooses, that account just opens floodgates and rushes forth and part of that is the fact that you carried on during the dry spells, during the hard days but sometimes it gets worse. Hearts get dry and hearts get hard and what happens when you get this hardening of the heart? You need a physician, you need a Tabeer and who's the greatest Tabeer? SubhanAllah wa aleyhi wa sallam and this rain comes and what does it do to the earth when it comes down? It makes it reverberate, it tazzat wa rabats, rabats from rabah, right? To grow, to blossom, to flourish when that rain comes down. So there is rain and there is rain and when we turn to that sky on the nights of Ramadan and we raise our hands and we stand in prayer hoping in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala what are we looking for? That that rain comes down but it's not the physical rain that causes the mountains to turn green and the vegetation to flourish and our homegrown vegetables and fruits to be in the marketplace and healthy and wholesome but hearts to flourish and minds to flourish and souls to become healthy and strong. All of this is in Ramadan, SubhanAllah. So we seek that this rain come down and that is for everyone. So there is the solace even for the person who wishes that they were able to fast but for some reason maybe for a medication that they have to take or an injury or some procedure that they have to recover from, right? Or maybe even the sister, right? Who it's that time and she actually doesn't see it as a break and sort of like recuperating strength but she misses being able to be with everybody else, right? During those days. This is the solace, right? For that person. That there's so much happening in Ramadan in addition to and surrounding the Ibadat that we bring because of the specialness of Ramadan. Ibn Abbas said that there was no one more generous than RasulAllah SAW and he was even more generous in Ramadan and on the nights at the end of Ramadan when Jibril SAW would come to him to review the Qur'an, he was more generous than a breeze released out over the surface of the earth. The Arab poets even in the early period of Islam there are many Islamic Qasidas and poems where they're speaking to the winds to the breeze, right? If you're in Sham, if you're in Syria and a breeze comes from the south, right? What's south of Syria? For a while in Medan I lived in a house right on the old Hijaz railway, right? That went from Damascus all the way to Medina to Munawwar doesn't end more, right? But the tracks are still there, okay? There you go. They would go, like every few years they try to revive it. It goes out to a few villages outside the city and stuff like that, but of course there's not a great deal of money involved so it would never last. SubhanAllah. Just south of Sham is Medina so if they would get a breeze and here's the subtlety of their sense their hiss and their taqafa, right? Of D. If a breeze came from the south they would imagine that this breeze has come all the way from Medina maybe even carrying news from the beloved that their heart is attached to, salallahu alayhi wasalam and they would speak to that breeze saying al-khuzami balli ghitah salami balli ghiyi an gharami right, haithu an khusabrufani O gentle breeze from the direction of the tribe of Khuzama who actually during the seerah were allies of the Prophet alayhi wasalam even when they were not Muslim they were constantly working with non-Muslims who were actually working with them to achieve the goals of the Medina community at the Feth hal makkah, right? Their guides getting down there were from Khuzama or better, right? They had people from Khuzama helping them out or when they went to Hudabiyah, right? They had guides who were non-Muslim from Khuzama that knew the honesty the sylip, the honesty and the amana, the trustworthiness and they weren't blinded by prejudice they weren't blinded by arrogance and so, regardless of what the religion is this is the person that we want to be allied with and working with right, and of course eventually Khuzama they all become Muslim anyway so, right? so they spoke, they said oh, gentle breeze from the direction of the tribe of Khuzama bring, send the news back ta-ta-ha, right? of my love for him and that's I have no patience left to be separated we have these breezes these opportunities in this month which is another part of the mercy of this month Allah SWT says about his own mercy wa rahmeti wa si'at kulla shay na fa sa'aqtuku haalin ladina yattapuna wa yuttuna azzaqata wa ladina hum bi'ayatina yuuminun and my mercy encompasses all things and in one of his ad-i'a Imam al-Khuzali would say I'm a thing you said that your mercy encompasses all things well, that's good news because I'm a thing if that's all you amount to it's just something but then it gets encompassed by the Rahmah of Allah So Allah SWT will gather what surmounts that what is bigger than that what achievement is greater than that so then tell me instruct me teach me what are the means to get there that is a driver that is a muxit that is an informing goal and objective that helps us to understand our path forward as a community this is cartography if you want to get somewhere you have to have a map to get there but then you have to have map reading skills as well mashallah we can make all types of metaphors for GPS but when it gets down to it we can't afford to just be the consumers of the GPS equipments we have to understand how these compasses work we have to understand map reading and the people who lead us have to understand the map of where we need to get to and to be able to then use have access to a compass because you have the stars those fixed points of light in the sky above us that no matter how rough the seas get the sky stays still but we are so busy looking at one wave after another wave how many people have had to travel before out on the open ocean at some point in your life nobody crossed the channel from France to London before the tunnel or some other rough sea you know what it's like you come up the wave goes like this and you're in the middle of the ocean however big the craft you're on it just drops down and descends into this valley and the other side is coming up you can't even see the horizon you're so concerned with am I going to make it through this wilderness this forest of mountains that I'm dropping off one cliff and then rolling up another it's going to become of me we never stop to look up and see if the stars are the same they're there to guide you we're so consumed by the tragedies and crises and issues and fears that grip us we don't realize that the law is unchanging he's still there and his principles guide us particularly his universals so you need to be able to read those stars to navigate to save harbour but you read the stars you have to have sometimes equipment you need to translate what you're reading through the astrolabe or the sextant and then you need a valid legitimate map it's based on reality our definition of knowledge for 1000 years is a decisive judgment that we take in a case that is in accordance with reality that is in alignment with reality in accordance with evidence that has to be the map those are the conditions of the map but then you need the compass to charge the map you need the compass to chart the right course because does anybody here ever sail? has anybody ever here sailed? I got my sailing license I was like 14 years old I'm sure I've forgotten everything it's been a million years since I ever went out but I used to be able to sail our sailboat by myself it wasn't giant, it was 22 feet but it's supposed to be sailed by two people right? so if you ever sailed you know that a sailing vessel doesn't go straight to its destination that's pretty much next to impossibleness you just get this incredible breeze that happens when the wind is going in that perfect direction but usually the wind is never going in the direction that you're trying to get you have to hook it and you're going this way the course is not always the shortest distance between two points right? that works in some of our sciences but in other aspects of life the shortest distance between two points is going to get a lot of people killed or hurt or throw babies out with bathwaters with ayyadabillah but it's wisdom sometimes common sense sometimes an awareness the ultimate metaphysics of the cosmology of the universe that tells us how to navigate in this way subhanAllah and it's rarely ever I'll tell you one thing one thing that should be taken to heart and I'm very serious about this one of the key things that differentiates you from the beasts of the earth cows that graze all day and members put their heads up to look at the sky all other types of animals is that human beings can choose to live according to principles and those principles that they live by often require sacrifice to stand by and that is one of the key and most important things that differentiates you from animals particularly predatory animals other types of nasty beasts and to live a life according to principles means not always taking the shortest distance between two points because those principles that make you a human being and allow you to fulfill your identity allow you to be who you were created to be and that person that you will regret inshaAllah not having been when you're on your deathbed is not the shortest distance between two points that's the bottom line but we're wooed in this world especially as we move further and further from the most virtuous generations what are the best generations the best generation is the generation right before my generation and it only gets better going backwards right so the most superior is the time of the prophet and then his companions and their students and then the students who learn from the students of the companions why because they're they're carrying this flame this torch somewhat similar to an olympic torch from one generation they're passing it on and each preceding generations superior in their abilities to both carry that torch and understand what it means to carry that torch until you have those dry centuries those dry generations someone who might carry a torch but not understand exactly why you know you know you know you know you know right maybe someone who carries understanding of D carries it to someone who will understand it better than the one who carried it I know that narration and I know what it means theoretically because all I ever saw was that the generations that came before me understood better than me right but I ran into places and students and met individuals who were missing and understanding subhanAllah but there are always Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala keeps alive in the face of the earth those who keep this reality alive right Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ta'ala ta'ala ta'ala ta'ala ta'ala ta'ala ta'ala ta'ala There will not cease to be a group from my ummah that stand up for truth. And part of truth is haqiqa, reality. They understand the big picture. They understand what they're being told by those stars in the sky of guidance that transcends our pettiness, transcend our crises, transcend the crisis of the moments, the fitzna of this week, this month, this year, and can look beyond the trends, look beyond the fashions that will never gain traction and see the way forward. Right? They see the haqiqa and they stand up for the haqiqa. La yodurrohum men khadalahum wa la men khadalahum. Right? They will not be harmed by those who forsake them until the command of Allah comes, until the end of time comes and they are as they had always been. So we need to be able to read those skies and have a map to help us understand where we're going. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says that my mercy embraces all things. Therefore I shall ordain it for those who fear Allah and pay the zakat and those who believe in our signs. Wa bi a'iyatina. Our verses are our signs. Here is Ramadan. What happens in Ramadan? We celebrate the verses amid the signs. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala shows literally the effects of his names and attributes in our world. The one who shows love. When anyone shows love to another, when one believer shows love for his brother or she shows some type of love and care and concern for her sister. If you see that when it happens, know that there were two people and things that transpired between them. But what you saw was a tajalli available to them. They couldn't achieve those Suifas between them except that they were reflecting Suifat of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah show me yourself. I will show myself to the mountain and if the mountain continues to stand then maybe you will see me in this life. Now what you've seen is a tajalli of the Suifat of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala here at Wudud. So we have signs that we witness. We have signed the Quran itself that is revealed in this month is one of those tajalli of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Subhan Allah. His communication, his eternal communication to his creation. He didn't as the deist wants to say create the watch, wind it up and walk away. Right and go to the Bahamas to retire. Subhan Allah. No, he's involved in every moment. But we're not always sensitive to the aspects of his involvement. But there's the learning and the knowledge again. The more we know and understand the names of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala with intimacy, the more that prepares us and enables us to see the manifestations. The tajalliat of the majesty and the jama'u, the beauty of those Suifats and asma'u in every horizon. So we will show them our signs on the horizons and in their very selves until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth. We think of one horizon, but the horizon is 360 degrees. It's not one horizon. We think of one horizon. But every point where your eye reaches its limit in its vision is a horizon. Anything that you look upon with your eye is creation of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala and at the very least it is a tajalli. If you can see it with your basira or with your insights of his name Al-Khalaq at the very least Al-Qadir and it's the way he wants it to be Al-Murid Al-Muqaddir Al-Muqtadir Al-Qadir according to his measure. If you see it and everything becomes a horizon and Allah is showing you those signs that you can read if you're sensitive to that language. If you're sensitive to understanding that كل يوم هو في شتن. And one of the early Muslims asked one of the scholars of the شبعين and so what شتن is he on today? كل يوم يوم is what? It's a portion of time. Sa'a is what? In the seerah and the hadith of the Prophet Aleyhi Salatu Salam Sa'a is not 60 minutes right? It's kind of like a few. How many is a few? Well you know three you got a few but do we say that's written in stone? Sa'a is a portion right? It's understood by the oath of the people of a particular region but it's a portion of time. And يوم then cannot be مهدد at 24 hours. So there are leeway. We're calculating we measure it by 24 hours today that doesn't change but we see that there is a potential for leeway and there is a truth in our Al-Qaeda that Allah SWT does not even not only create the dunya but he's sustaining it يَمُدُّهُ بِوَجُولِهِ with its existence in every single moment and if Allah were to withdraw that imdad that supply chain of support it would go black with nothingness and it always wants to return to its origin which is non-existence which is true darkness even darker than the darkness of when there is no physical light shining nothingness. So qul-la-yom-in-huwaf-i-shattin that is legitimately understood that yes every day but also every hour every moment every second every millisecond Allah SWT is busy huh and he does not get tired he does not get exhausted or fatigued right that's what ayatul kursi is about we like to read ayatul kursi don't forget ayatul kursi is talking to you there's things in there that are part of that khari'atah that map that are part of that compass that sextant that enable you right to be able to read those stars and then translate that into an operating agenda that is bigger than the crisis of this week or this year I'll help us through the crisis of this year to get through it safely us and our families physically but also emotionally psychologically spiritually we have an understanding if any of us are a member of a family or a member of a community we know how to put on airs and smile and everything's good but we know what crisis is and we also see how people can become damaged not just in their physical body and we have seen people who may become damaged in their physical body but internally in their hearts in their psyche their minds and their soul subhanAllah right they're fit as a fiddle sound as can be and we see others where everything seems to be right mashaAllah might even be super handsome right have all types of things going for them as it would appear but they're scarred they're damaged right some people heal well from their scars and other people get right that knotted up scar tissue and sometimes a scar tissue causes problems physical problems they might even have to have it surgically addressed you know it's not just a lump in the flesh where the scar was where that wound was right but it's actually causing other physical problems and has to be addressed by a surgeon so we ask Allah to get us safely right on the inside and the outside right to save harbour to enable us with the ability to do that right subhanAllah these are some thoughts on the rahmah of Allah subhanAllah we're talking about the rahmah so I mean even these pages that we're never going to get to is like nothing compared to the vast vast deep and shoreless ocean of the rahmah of Allah subhanAllah it's a rahmah right it's an ocean it rains from the sky it's an ocean above you it's an ocean below you right the heavens and eternity jannah is eternal and jannah has already been built right and Allah subhanAllah has commanded that it will never come to an end no end that is an ocean without shore but we are accustomed to looking at oceans below us right hopefully not around us and like that but here with the eternal jannah of Allah subhanAllah the wellspring of rahmah from it flows the kotha from it is the pool of the prophet alaihi salatu wa sallam that if you get there you drink a sip after that you were never thirsty again you become the mouth gets dry huh and sometimes even hard to talk huh during the days of rahmah daan just remember that the people who make it through this get to a pool sallallahu alaihi sallam that was built for Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam don't tell me he's a man like other men he just happened to be the one that Allah saw on that day and chose him there's a start to the knowledge of Allah where the knowledge of Allah is eternal Muhammad alaihi sallallahu alaihi sallam is lukhtar before the world was ever created can Allah without shaykh al-ghaibu Allah was and there was nothing with him but his knowledge has no start that jannah is eternal this earth is finite so the idea of an ocean flip it up and you have an ocean open above you in rahmah daan subhanAllah and you stand under it every single night and it's there and it's deeper and more expansive than any ocean of this planet if you just had the sensitivity to see it and wallahi all of this is in harmony and in keeping with and in alignment with the understanding that has come to us from this revelation that is revealed on the night of power in Ramadan and the teachings of the prophet alaihi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam which were his way and let's look at this generosity and let's look at this rahmah and in closing we hope in this rahmah but we're also responsible and this is the amana that binds us when we claim to believe in and testify that we follow the prophet who was sent for no other reason than rahmah and this amana is that not only do we pursue and hope in the rahmah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but we are responsible because the prophet alaihi sallallahu alaihi sallam is not walking on the face of this dunya with us here we are responsible to carry on that rahmah and to make sure that our neighbors and our fellow citizens know that this is the month of rahmah we can go out and affect it and try to force it with the kedli fi right but Allah will choose people right that will carry this rahmah to others it's inevitable and things don't look good in this country right now it'll be as optimistic as we want but you know the world is changing and time is changing you know we i mean personally i love this country this is my country this is my land i look at those mountains out there and they're a delight to me and that's home for me right i was born in california but i grew up in the northeast right so part of me like wishes for the different colored leaves of the northeast in fall and all that but it's beautiful but even despite the fact that things don't look so good look at the history of this dean in this country this is something special about this land subhanAllah 400 years ago believers in the worst horror and terror that you can imagine trying as hard as they might not to let the quran go with every opportunity trying to write it out with any utensils that they can get and it's illegal for them to do that it's illegal for slaves to learn how to read but some of these brothers and sisters or graduates of madaris of mattresses and they're trying to keep this dean alive some historians say you can go further back than that something strange right is going on here you know that we don't see in a lot of other countries a lot of other places where there are large muslim populations no matter how dumb muslims act people still come out and try to help them scares me to death right we're constantly surprised but it's like we do not deserve this right we do not deserve this let's be the people who deserve that so i don't know so i don't know i'll give y'all a wonderful round of applause where day eight we're almost to the end of the first ten right then we move into the second ten we're out of who huh malifia forgiveness i could use some of that man in surat al-hadid Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says sabiq race with one another to forgiveness from your lord in the verse to a forgiveness from your lord there's a special in the a special general application to the fact that an indefinite use of forgiveness right the forgiveness a forgiveness a forgiveness that can encompass everything the hadith that we've been looking at from the prophet aleyhi salatu wassalam you have been overshaded so now we're supposed to race to a forgiveness you've been overshaded there's so much alliteration in the arabic language the arabic language is constantly moving in three maybe even five dimensions right once you sort of move into an understanding of it race to a forgiveness subhanahu wa ta'ala so in the use of this indefinite form there is a generality and all encompassing a forgiveness for all of those things that some particular individual may need a forgiveness from but sometimes right often we'll go before we go to sometimes we'll start with often often we expect that the definite article the is what makes something great not a mosque the mosque right but sometimes when there's already an understanding that there's a greatness or an importance of a thing and then we go for indefinite that means that it's like priceless so some there are things that are expensive and there's a price tag on it but there are things that right you go to the nice restaurants there's no prices next to the items on the menu right because if you have to ask about the price you don't really belong in this restaurant right but there's a special malifira in Ramadan so in this hadith we've been looking at from the prophet aleyhi salatu wa salam he describes the month as the first of it is rahma right and that was our subject matter last time we met and the middle of it is malifira forgiveness right Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has gentle breezes in the days of your times and look at all of these things that he offers up in the month of Ramadan people think we're crazy right going for 30 days in a row which all do drink water during the day right now sometimes right and Muslims get excited about it and they get upset when it's over and right you can feel the electricity because all of these things are going on during Ramadan and you can't actually physically see them I know that Ramadan seems to have like a special light to it and you can almost see the light and feel the light right maybe it's because you're going without food and drink for so long right there's an almost perceptible tangible aspect to these attributes of the month that can be perceived with the five physical senses but really it's because of the strength of the unseen that's happening right so tomorrow is the night of better right tomorrow is the night of better and at the battle of better some of the companions saw the angels right some of the others of the companions saw things that the angels were doing but they couldn't see the doers right who was doing the things on the field of better right and what is the field of better we talked in our Wednesday night sessions in the gardens of the righteous about how we deal with those sort of vignettes of the Quran and the ahadith and the lives of the companions about the battlefield and about military matters when we're not in a combat situation the Dean of Islam has a moral conscience for all people in all circumstances in life right and of course it's revealed at a time when pretty much everything is going to be settled in a fight okay well not everybody is going to find themselves on a battlefield in life but for those people who end up there and sometimes never thought that such a thing could ever happen well Islam has moral teachings for how one should comport themselves on a battlefield but does that mean that we should absolutely suspend those teachings altogether if we're not on a battlefield doesn't have to be like that but part of it is being adult enough and mature enough and having enough culture and education to know what is appropriate for circumstances that we are not in and what's appropriate for the circumstances that we are in so those of you who have been in the Wednesday sessions know that there are parables that can be drawn from the battlefield vignettes that we can take to heart and benefit from and it is much greater and much grander and much more important than our American football analogies that we might use in the boardroom, in the conference room or in business or in Ramadan so what is it? when we get to the last 10 days we say it's 3rd and 10th 3rd down 10 yards to go I'm not going to try to make it fit for the middle section 3rd and 10th, there's a football analogy being applied to Ramadan but let's take a Ghazwati Badr analogy and apply it to Ramadan the field of Badr is ultimately what? they're standing by the Red Sea making the decision, do we go for the caravans or do we go for the first time ever to stand and deliver in front of the army of Quraysh that's rushing out to defend the caravan that we were looking to take down and they go for the Badr and of course the Mohajirun have come from Makkah they were pushed out of their homes many of them were tortured some of them had family members that were even killed they've been humiliated all of these things and now their tormentors are coming out to face them militarily and they have permission from Allah SWT to defend themselves now because before that they weren't to defend themselves in a martial fashion so the Mohajirun are ready to go they're good to go they feel like this is intimately connected with them and the Prophet SAW is hearing one testimony after another from companions from the Mohajirin saying we're good to go Rasulullah if you're asking us to choose we want to meet Quraysh on the battlefield and the Prophet SAW is saying well I still haven't heard from you yet I still want to hear what you have to say and of course Sa'ad who is the representative or spokesperson for the Ansar from Medina steps forward and saying you keep asking I still haven't heard what you have to say and everyone has said enough it's as if you mean us and he says yes because the implication is that these are the people from Mecca this is our issue we're not going to try to drag you into this and of course Sa'ad said we pledged to be with you at every moment without exception if you were to march into this ocean right now not a man from the Ansar would stay behind but we would march in right behind you SubhanAllah and then they go to better so what is the field of better it's the field of weathering sacrifice and the threat of sacrifice the threat of potential loss to stand by one's commitment to be with Rasulillah sallallahu alaihi wasallam and when you are prepared to weather hardship to stand by your commitment to Rasulillah sallallahu alaihi wasallam what that means is that you are standing by what Rasulillah represents what his mission and objective is and what is the mission and objective of Rasulillah sallallahu alaihi wasallam to win on battlefields if you weren't paying attention in class maybe that's what someone thinks or if you're a little bit of a troublemaker or you're a bully or you've been bullied maybe you get hooked up on certain themes in the seerah but you're distracted from the ultimate ends of Rasulillah sallallahu alaihi wasallam he is mabiyurahma the prophet of compassion the prophet of mercy he brought, he came to you to give you ultimately freedom and liberation because we have a very very finely tuned definition of freedom we also care about freedom in the books of islamic ihsan or spirituality there is a maqam there is a station called freedom al-hariyah but the difference between us and the people of freedom fries right and freedom this and freedom that right undefined freedoms is that we are people of definition of ma'rifah of ta'rif and head and what is freedom in the spirituality of islam as an objective for a people it is to free your heart from attachments to other than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but I have bills to pay and mouths to feed right so I can't be an aesthetic living on a mountainside some of our great imams of ihsan throughout islamic history forbade their students from leaving the population and living like hermits up into the mountains which is a beautiful place to live right a beautiful place to live there is one sister who said to my wife that I like to go to this particular remote part of the muslim world that is very spiritual and all of these things because there everybody follows the deen of ihsan and there is a sister from Scandinavia I believe I want to say it wasn't maybe it was maybe it was no way maybe not right but it wasn't it wasn't Sweden she was there in the conversation and she said well if you go into a place in the middle of nowhere I should hope everybody is following the deen because they are not tested by very much of course there is tests there and there is intrigue you know idle hands become the devils play things and you have those problems there but it's another thing to stay among the people and that's one of the teachings of the prophet aley salatu wasalaam the best of you are the ones who stay with the people and are patient and suffer through their annoyances right and the mean and impolite things that they tend to do subhanallah so better becomes a field huh of battle of battle of battle a proving ground right I grew up in the US army right so every once in a while my father would have to go spend a few days at Aberdeen proving grounds right so better becomes a proving ground in the face of tamhiyus right of the rarification of elements are you gold or are you chaff are you gold or are you lead are you those other things because when you pull it out of the earth it's not all sparkling and shiny when you pull the diamond out of the earth it's not all sparkling and shiny right it's probably unrecognizable to most of us until it gets polished and burnished or melted down and refashioned chiseled away Ramadan is that and that's what happens on the plane of better so part of our acumen part of our thakatha of the Dean is our ability to draw out lessons that are appropriate to our particular situation not a situation that we want to live in our heads our bubbles that we've constructed our theories about Islam that we've made but the particular moment that we're responsible for if some people are upset well that's not what I signed up for I signed up for adventure personally I've got too much adventure in my life I'm done, I would like to retire from adventure right but you know you're responsible for the moment Allah has put you in don't wish to meet the enemy and look at that from two ways as well don't wish for some type of conflict right where you're involved in what is the opposite of compassion and mercy don't look to get yourself into that situation but also don't look to have your faith challenged your biggest enemy is your own ego and then those things that would incite and tempt your lower ego to want to rebel against Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala don't wish for those situations right or situations that are influenced by the shaitan situations that are influenced by the dajjal right or his little operators that run out in front of him the dajjalah that prepare the way for his coming don't seek that out no but if you find yourself in that situation then we have teachings to follow so we find ourselves in the middle of Ramadan race to amal firah right in this narration and teaching of the prophet aleyhi salatu wa salam we see that this is one of the bounties that is being passed out in these days and these nights if you can use that moment when your mouth or your throat binds up and all of a sudden you can't swallow and you can't talk and it's a long stretch from sahur to iftar a long stretch or there's moments when you feel fatigued if you can use that as a reminder of what your objective is what you're chasing what you're hunting what you're pursuing what you're hoping for subhanAllah that's what motivates you that's what keeps you going that's Imam Ali ibn Abi Tariq I love Ramadan in the summer time because it makes me feel that I'm really giving something to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala radiya Allahu anhu wa karram Allahu wajah so race one another race with yourselves to this amal firah that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has to give it's this amal firah that can be attained by the individual which is the only reality to our statement that we like to make in the modern world particularly Muslims in the western hemisphere that we don't have a clergy in Islam everyone, every modern Muslim is familiar with that modern statement that statement we have no clergy in Islam well the only true meaning to that modern statement is that what we don't have is mandatory confession and having to arrange your amal firah through a priesthood right? as far as a particular class of people that are specifically qualified for jurisprudence law, theology and these other things, we do have that and within that there is a hierarchy right? that is there and it bears all the way down through history to the time of the sahabah and the prophet alayhi salatu wa salam right? now but that's not our discussion today this amal firah is open to you when it's a bounty that Allah gives if Allah can forgive everything save shirk and what shirk does Allah not forgive the shirk that a person will ayadu billah dies on the mouth here just got wider because there may be someone who is a mushrik right now an idolater right now but we don't know what Allah has in store for them we reject the idolatry we have no need for that and we see it as unhelpful but the person engaged in it so long as their soul hasn't reached their throats the way is open and we don't know what Allah has written for Allah he's prostrating to idols in the Ka'bah because the prophet alayhi salatu wa salam never prostrated to idols and the dominant position among Sunni Imams is that neither did his father Abdullah abdu muttaleb was going to sacrifice Abdullah to who at the Ka'bah to the god, la tuarizah to Allah right? maybe not the best decision, maybe not the best way forward, maybe not the best way to please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala right? but of course it didn't follow through and we have the messenger alayhi salatu wa salam so if Allah can forgive people shouldn't we also be able to forgive people another aspect of modern sort of these modern goggles that we look at religion through is being judgmental of others there's only one judge by his own essence and that is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we're not judges on the day of judgements believe me someone who sees themselves as judging before the day of judgment is going to show up that day and have a lot of other preoccupations we have to be careful of looking at things through theoretical glasses right? looking at history with the luxury of 2020 vision, historical vision as if we can judge what so and so did on the ground at that time had we been on the ground at that time we would have a very different perspective than the luxury of looking back in the rear view mirror of history and the same thing about the day of judgment we know and are confident that Allah will give us all justice but our driving worry should be the justice of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will also be directed toward us so in this life religiosity is not found in being judgmental toward others right? we don't want our children exposed to the haram we don't want to hang out and chill with the haram because it's not good for our souls to know is it good for the development of our children's souls so we seek to maintain spaces where that doesn't have to be a factor but more importantly to educate our children so that when they are inevitably confronted by that haram their faith is not shaken they understand it they understand that it is a mirage and that its promises are a lie and they can deal with the world as it is not keep them in bubbles that are ideal yet cannot be maintained but we don't have to mix up or confuse religiosity with running around being judgy toward others I recently saw a non-muslim presentation story that had actually a Muslim character in it it's very interesting how precise they got the Muslim character and these were actually Americans doing it from American culture and American the history of Islam in this country American Islam but the Muslim character was just the way they portrayed her is that she was just constantly judging and judging about everything she disapproved of everything we may disapprove we may avoid but that shouldn't be the first and foremost thing that we are known for we need to be forgiven the sins of others and our own sins right are between those others and their creator just like mine or between myself and the one who I hope will forgive me but these things are things that we need forgiveness for right all of us are making errors all of us are making mistakes what we need to be preoccupied with is turning to Allah hanging on the doorstep of Allah like who Jaj will hang on the doorstep to the door of the Kaaba right so imagine if you will the nearness to Allah in the presence of Allah meaning in the nearness to Allah and the consciousness of the presence of Allah and hanging at that door that it sometimes in your life may be closed to you with the knowledge that you are where you should be if you are hanging on the doorstep of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala clinging to the doorstep and even if Allah has the door shut on you you tell him I am where I need to be I am camped out on your doorstep and you can keep the door shut for as long as you will but I'm not going anywhere and it would be easier for me if you were to open it but until then I'm here that's where we need to be and here we are in the heart of Ramadan the middle of Ramadan and if we can come out of this with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala having relented to us then here we have the objective here we have the muqsid here we have the purpose here we have actually the the metaphor or the idiom in Arabic language of the phara the phara is like the like a wild mule that they used to hunt and they would say if you can get one of these you've got everything you need so they say all pray is inside this phara animal that they would hunt meaning that's the one you're going for doesn't work in North America what will we say in North America right there's people who go out right when I was a kid sometimes they would go out they would hunt duck geese squirrels you know you're supposed to be a good shot if you can hit a squirrel in one eye people would come home with a whole brace of squirrels they cook it up and be like chicken but that's not kulu sayid right in this country what's kulu sayid huh a buck a stag how many points what have you that is the ultimate so if we were to strike that same parable here you could go out and come back with a squirrel but if you came out came back with a buck a male deer with all the points right now you've got there's nothing bigger than that because we don't we're not going to eat the grizzly even if we hunt it right we're not going to eat that subhanallah grizzly bear that's not even halah right but you can eat the deer now subhanallah so if we can come out of this with this maghfirah maghfiratin there's also right sabiqo ila maghfiratin in that indefinite form of maghfirah there's also this implication that it's attainable Allah doesn't make it impossible for you to get it subhanallah the messenger says in three places about Ramadan mensama imanan wa hatisaban ghufira lahuma taqaddama min dhambi whoever fast this month imanan wa hatisaban and what is that? imanan clearly having conviction ihtisaban I know you all have heard this before what type of translations of ihtisaban are you working with what does this ihtisaban mean? accountability isab muhaasaba right it has that meaning jizak allah khayr thank you for your class participation that's better than getting the answer on the head is just participating anybody want to take another stab at ihtisaban? out of in faith meaning belief, conviction that the promise of Allah is true and what is ihtisaban? so accountability accounting is muhaasaba ihtisaban muhaasaba here isab is the count ihtisab is taking count here ihtisaban is fasting Ramadan in conviction in the truth of the promises of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ihtisaban counting on the truth of the fact that my reward will be secured with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala whether in this life or in the akhirah that i am definitely putting something that confidence i am putting something in my account with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that i may not cash in now but might actually cash in even better time than now when i need it most when i stand in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so i may have trepidation about my errors and my faults in my shortcomings but i'm doing this because i know it's true i have faith and i know that what i do i believe that Allah does not allow the sincere effort of any man or any woman to be lost and so i make this particular effort that i seek to collect when i will need it most whoever does that and then there's all the reward for the that gets level from in Ramadan for what preceded of his dunub and what comes after of her dunub if they hit it on the head they fast right according to the jurisprudence i don't mean the complicated sophisticated jurisprudence of the advanced students who like to right some of us are thick nerds right and we go into the details those details are actually very important because it's your intimate knowledge of the details that what does it enables you to find solutions for believers in cases that are often not regular cases but irregular cases right so don't discount the details but i mean the main lines of Fiqh that every believer who has a full time career and a family to raise can know you got your Fiqh right your intention was for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala right you're honest about what you're trying to do here Allah asks honesty not perfection Allah asked that you make an effort right your HD had is called HD had in the Fiqh to see the moon is your effort not your exactitude we're not trying to land a spacecraft on Mars right that takes a different set of mathematics right this is theology Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asks for your honesty what could happen is that this Ramadan becomes that Ramadan right it goes the opposite direction of the mouth here in the verse right the standard use of definite and indefinite articles this goes from a Ramadan to the Ramadan that Ramadan right and we've been practicing Ramadan for a while now we should be getting to the one where we're primed and ready to make it that Ramadan but with honesty if you can hit that subhanahu wa ta'ala subhanahu wa ta'ala in Qama Ramadan whoever stands to the first was whoever fasts Ramadan but whoever stands for Ramadan and what is the standing in Ramadan obviously the Tarawiyah right obviously those eight raka'at before Fajr right the prophet so the Allahu alayhi wa sallam prayed all year round and even in Ramadan he stuck to his eight raka'at of tahajjud before Fajr right that is a qiyam and technically the tarawiyah is after a shah so that is also technically a qiyam now tahajjud is after you've slept qiyam is when you stand after you've completed your salawat for the day after a shah so every standing after a shah is a qiyam but not every qiyam is a tahajjud but this is the qiyam and whoever does that iman and wahtisab and standing wanting, hoping desiring knowing with confidence and yaqeen with nothing in your heart but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that's why Ramadan will be a vacation for the soul because when we fast and become weak from the fasting the body and the soul start to separate a little bit and if you could get down on the wrong side and say to your soul alright you go on ahead iman stay here with the physical or you could when the separation happens say iman ride with the soul this month insha'Allah you're more soul than body and that's one of the effects of fasting now subhanAllah and the third whoever stands the night of power when is the night of power don't answer right we have educated probabilities but ultimately we know that we don't know should we get mad at the larger community for only coming out on the 27th no look at these people they all only come out on the 27th if you're in the muslim world anybody's done Ramadan in the muslim world subhanAllah 27th night oh right first fedger of the day of fasting oh my gosh people are praying in the streets at fedger time subhanAllah 27th people all come out we don't censure them we don't judge them that's what they can do right now and they came out some bunch of people still at home but these people came out there's hope it seems that there lack of days on the 27th for Allah that pessimistic judgmental voice is misplaced because I'm looking using the eyes that Allah gave me to look at what is not my business to look at subhanAllah they came out inshaAllah but laylatul qadr is hidden and will remain hidden because the effect would be lost if it was delineated and named because what Allah wants from you is to look for it to seek it to hope for it think about it, wonder about it desire it and make that effort to find it and hit it look for it on the odd night but sometimes not like this year but in most years we're not exactly certain of the start of the month we're not certain so there's a chance that even an odd may not necessarily bind so we go even an odd as well and we do a little something for laylatul qadr on the times of its possibilities even though we might make a special concerted effort to celebrate and glorify the sha'ayr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because to stand for laylatul qadr is a sha'ayra of the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it's not in any other deen only in Islam it was the night that the Quran was revealed right to the prophet so it can't be from any other deen so it is a sha'ayra specific to the deen that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has spoken of so we celebrate it part of that celebration is making that effort for laylatul qadr making that effort for laylatul qadr and also seeking it whoever stands the night of power out of faith and counting their reward for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala everything that preceded and will come of their sins is forgiven we ask Allah to let us hit that night we ask Allah to give us that result in our standing we ask Allah to give us that forgiveness in our fasting that when we make that intention on the sha'ayr school it's actually mandatory that you intend every single day of fasting because you can't not have niyyah for your prayer you can't make niyyah for fajr and say well that should cover the rest of the other four for the day so they see each day as an isolated day of fasting you make intention for the month but you make intention for each day no matter if you score you make intention for the month at the beginning we only ask that people be consistent but there is that facet of attaching my own personal sense and driver of purpose to each day anu and when we make that I usually make my intention at tarawiyah right? or when I'm breaking the fast I intend for the following day in maghfirah but attaching that intention and then why? because I want this maghfirah from Allah SWT because I need this compassion and gentleness and my family needs this compassion and gentleness from Allah SWT and if I could get out at the end of this Ramadan with freedom from the fire right? then masha'Allah that will be the end zone then we'll have a lot to celebrate on it so let's not be that poor person who spends all eid every way is happy and celebrating and they're saying I could have done better hopefully I'll make it again to the next year but the next year is promised to no one Allah forgive us Allah pardon us Allah said Allah Allah you pardon others right? you pardon people you are generous so pardon us generous one right? Allah SWT doesn't benefit from punishing us Allah SWT doesn't benefit from disciplining us we are the ones who benefit but let's not we ask Allah to enable us to not be that hard-headed slave that only understands with a stick SubhanAllah may Allah forgive you Allah give you all much more much more the generosity of Allah right? he was the most generous of the people he was the most generous of the people and generous what is in Ramadan and if it was the night when Gabriel came to him he was generous of the people and on the night that Gabriel would come to him at the end of Ramadan he was like a breeze released across the land right? it covers everything and nothing stops it SubhanAllah we get caught up in that breeze from Rasulullah of his contentment and his being proud of us in our actions we say we say work make effort because Allah will see your effort and his messenger and of course the believers on the Day of Judgment if one of you says salawat and salam to me my soul is returned to me and I return the salams to that person salallahu ala Rasulina wa ala ali wa sahbihi wa salam barakah lafikum wa ahsalim alaykum I have a wonderful Saturday in the middle of Ramadan remember me it's your iftar it's not like this mean now salallahu ala salam ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam Allah bless us in our Ramadan we're at the very end right? so our sessions have been about 3 sets of 10 the first 10 the middle 10 and the third 10 the third and final 10 so each of these sessions have been in 3s each of the 3-10 sets of days in Ramadan but in this final set we'll look at the verse of Allah SWT in Surat al-Anbiya I seek refuge with Allah from Shaytan al-Rajim I seek refuge with Allah from Shaytan al-Rajim I seek refuge with Allah from Shaytan al-Rajim I seek refuge with Allah this day we went to i dh Pharm Telling so about the believers Allah SWT says they will not be grieved by the great terror and the angels will meet them with greetings in the Quran, it doesn't say saying but in English they figured we can't follow the literary style so it says saying but literally in the Quran, it says They will not be grieved by the great terror and the angels will meet them. This is your day, the day that you were promised. Subhanallah. Insha'Allah we make it there. This is your day. This is not our day. The dunya is not the day of the believer. Some of our brothers and sisters have become so far in a distance separated from the teachings of their own deem that in the name of their own deem they insist on this day being the day of the believer. We're not saying put off success, we're not saying put off victory, the best Muslim is the strongest Muslim. We go for success, tawfiq, right, ihsana, we go for precision, we're not fatalists, but in the ultimate scheme of reality we realize that this is the house of tribulation and the house of rest and repose is in the Akhira, that way we don't need to complain. Four hundred years ago the ulama didn't used to be poor like they are now, they had massive endowments like the biggest elite, Ivy League universities all over the world, these were stolen during the middle of the 20th century and then you have the result that we have today. It's interesting that it sort of dawns on you that the people, many of the people who might make fun of the ulama for being poor, it's their grandparents or great-grandparents sometimes that actually stole the endowments that had us end up this way, but in great cities like Damascus and Cairo and all over the world and not just the Arab world, right, there are massive portions of land, right, the proceeds from either the harvests or the rents and all of this thing went into supporting the educational centers and the different programs that were run by the scholars, subhanAllah, but for example the great Hadith scholar Yumni Hajj al-Asqalani, right, he had very fine horses, very fine robes, right, and when he'd ride with his students who were all, right, if you're a top scholar most of your students are wearing turban, right, meaning they're all ulama and when I studied with Sayyidina Al-Sheikh Adib al-Kalas, right, there were certain days during the week for his long-time students and in the class you had Muftis and scholars who were considered senior scholars all over the city, but ultimately they were sitting in the class of their sheikh, Muhammad Adib al-Kalas, Allah, Ibrahim.  And he sees what is called Amir al-Mu'mineen, the top scholars in Hadith are called Amir al-Mu'mineen fi al-Hadeeth. So he sees Amir al-Mu'mineen Ibn Hajj al-Asqalani, the author of Fajr al-Babi, riding through the marketplace, he becomes so incensed, so angry, right, so annoyed that he jumps out in the way and he grabs a hold of the bridle of the horse of Ibn Hajj, right, and he accosts him, this is a non-believer, and he says to the scholar, he says to Imam Ibn Hajj, he said, your prophet, Allah, Sayyidina Muhammad, so that would tell him to sleep. Your prophet said that this world is the jannah of the kafir and the prison of the believer. Bilahi alayk, right, I beseech you, tell me, what kind of paradise am I in right now and what type of prison are you in? Nihajr says, compared to what I'm going to have in the next life, insha'Allah, this is a prison for me. And compared to what you're going to have in the next life, if you stay the way you are, this is a jannah, believe me, subhanAllah. They will not be grieved by the great terror, they will be saved from the horrors of the Day of Judgment and of the Hellfire, insha'Allah. But despair, what is despair? This type of grief and this worry, right? Despair is to lose all hope or confidence. Despair, hopelessness, disheartenedness, dismay, depression, despondency. Despair is the opposite of hope. Hope, on the other hand, rajat, to cherish a desire with anticipation. As in, he hopes for a promotion of hope, expectation, desire, longing, wishing, fancy, want, eagerness. Both of these two despair and hope are ways of thinking about the future. Despair is a negative view to the future, while hope is a positive view of the future. Despair and its brother and sister anxiety and stress are a taste of the Hellfire that a person experiences in the life of this world. All of us seek to extricate ourselves from pain and discomfort. All of us seek relief and release and freedom from suffering. Here we are in Ramadan. A month, the first of it is compassion. The middle of it is forgiveness. And the seal, conclusion, end of it is freedom from the fire. And what is the fire? Ultimately, what is the worst part of Jahannam?  What is the worst aspect of Jahannam? Worse. Separation from the wall. Being eternally exiled for eternity from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. That's the worst part. How does it feel if you get separated from a loved one?  It hurts. Pain, that physical pain sometimes doesn't even match. That's the worst part of the Hellfire is exiled from the presence of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. Exiled from the contentment of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. Here we are in Ramadan. We have a chance. It's 3rd and 10. For those who understand our football analogy, it's 3rd down, 10 yards to go. It's the 22nd of Ramadan, I believe. 1438, I believe. This is a khutbah that I gave in Abu Dhabi eight years ago on Friday, which was also the 21st of Ramadan, I guess or day was. These last 10 days are a special period of increased worship. Prophet Aleyhi Salatu Salam used to become seriously focused during these days and was distracted by nothing. These are the days of Ertikaaf, taking up residence in the masjid or camping out in the masjid or sequestering oneself in the masjid every moment spent in a true mosque. There's a special blessing from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, in the way to the Ertikaaf, and I don't have the masjid. I've intended Ertikaaf so long as I'm in this masjid. You could make that intention every time you walk into a true masjid, a true mosque, anytime of the year. But what's a true mosque? What's that? A true mosque is not owned by any man or men or women. It has to be owned by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. It has to be eternally dedicated to Allah. It can't be owned by anyone. You have to set up a trust for it to be a true mosque. It can't be a rented space. You could use a rented space as a place to meet and a place to practice and you could decide that we are all going to intend to treat this place as a mosque, which is a healthy thing for a believer to have that place, but you don't have the Ertikaaf. Women don't have to wait out until their cycle is over, and so on and so on, and these other rules don't apply. In these days we have lay little qadr, the night of power, better than a thousand months. Whoever spends the night standing in prayer on the night of power is forgiven by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. Everything that goes before and everything that comes after. But how is it that the end of a month could be freedom of the fight from the fight? We ask the same question at the beginning. How is it that a month could have a beginning that is compassion? How is it that could have a middle that is forgiveness? How does that even make sense? A month is a time period, right? Not an Ertikaaf, a minute now, of freedom from the fight. So the point is, our scholars say, that the logical conclusion of forgiveness, if someone is forgiven, it has to be suspension of punishment, freedom from having to do time.  Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. The Muslim who fasts and prays and faith and counting on a reward from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, knowing that if they do this, Allah has promised, and I believe in that promise, builds up such an account of forgiveness during the month that it has to come to a crescendo at the end with this logical conclusion. Someone's forgiven, right? They're not supposed to be punished. All the portions of forgiveness that he or she is amassing during the beginning and middle of the month must tip the scales at the end, so for those fortunate, dedicated souls, Allah will reward them with the ends, the logical conclusion of forgiveness, to be freed from exile, to be freed from punishment, to be freed from fire. There's groups that he gives this to at the beginning of the month, in the middle of the month, on every night of the month, he actually has people that he sets free from the fire. Allah made us the ones that gathered on the first day. But we'll take the second day, or the third or the fourth or the fifth or sixth, right? But it's not hard for Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala to give it to us, and he has it to give Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. And if you're genuinely excited about that possibility, if that possibility genuinely grips you, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, that sincerity and that's the atlas that Allah is looking for. But if your attitude is, yeah, maybe that's not the type of enthusiasm that Allah is looking for, right? But you know, it's not for me to dictate the terms of Allah's generosity, right? It's like an ocean, right? Just give it and everybody gets wet, right? InshaAllah. But Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, so how is it that on every night, but at the end of the month, at one point they're saying every night there's a group, but at the end of the month there's a group, the believers they say are at varying degrees of righteousness and piety, right? They have different degrees of the severity of their sins and their misdeeds. So there are some who may get freed on the first night of the month, and some may take two days or three, right? And others, right? The judgment in their case might be postponed to the very end, right? Allah let us out of our own selves because ultimately that's it, right? At the center of every single misdeeds is being pleased with oneself. At the bottom, at the head, the statement literally goes, Ratsuf. So the Rats is like the chief, the head, the president, so the every, right? At the lead, at the essence, the essence, so that's probably the best way to translate it. The essence of every misdeed or error or sin is being pleased with oneself. Somewhere else, Rasulullah s.a.w. is reported to have said, at one extreme you have people who are self-satisfied, pleased with themselves, content with the status of their own ego or seeing for themselves as having some great status. At the other extent, you have people who have self-awareness. They see their own flaws. They have the capacity for self-criticism, self-critique. And so there's hope that this person could become a better person. But if this other person has already convinced that I've got nothing to change, I'm good just the way I am. That statement right there, whoever has an atom's weight of arrogance in their heart will never enter Jannah. Right? I'm just proud and brothers gotta accept that. Better place for me right now. So those who receive this release, this freedom will enter into a vast and expensive garden. That's what we're talking about. The Jannah of Allah s.w.t. In that Jannah, there's all types of things. There's all types of wonderful things. In it is what no eye has seen and no ear has heard and the thought of which has never crossed the mind of a person. But even more in it is no sorrow, only relief, only comfort, every joy. The question comes up, well, this group is going to get this, and this group has said that you're going to get this. So you know, what about this, this, and this? Look, what you need to know about the Jannah is that you will not feel like you're missing out on anything. That's the whole premise. You won't feel like anyone has something that you don't. That doesn't even enter into Jannah. That has no place. No one is going to feel like they're missing out, and everyone is going to be happy. So whatever we hear, whatever we think, what we need to know is that there's only contentment for the people who get in. There's only satisfaction and there's only joy and there's only relief. And this world is a test. This is the place of being upset. This is the place of feeling left out, not there. And those who have a connection to the world of there don't feel left out here. Because they look beyond the slights and the disappointments of the place that is set up just for disappointment. Ibn Hibban narrates from the Prophet, There's one hadith from Ibn Hibban, if you ever wondered, right where these statements come from, right? Here it is. Allah says, I have prepared for my righteous ways what no eye has seen and no ear has heard. Who's saying this? Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the one who la yamtaku anil hawa, he doesn't speak from his own desires or passions or caprice inhua illa wahyun yuhah. It is only revelation. And what has never been conceived by a human heart, and he says the truth of this is found in the book of Allah, no soul knows what has been hidden for it of things that would bring coolness to the eye as a reward for their efforts. Alhufra is coolness to the eye, kodra to ayun, right? The delight of the eye, right? When you see it, your soul, right? It's like the coolness of contentment has overcome your heart, right? It's a delight, right? When you're seeing it, right? It makes you feel delighted. So this garden, right? It's a landscape, right? It's a vista, it's a view, sweet water, sweeter fruits, and all of it the results of Allah's forgiveness. Here is a parable of the garden, which the righteous are promised in it, are rivers of water, incorruptible rivers of milk, of which the taste never changes, rivers of wine, a joy to those who drink rivers of honey pure and clear in it. There are for them all kinds of fruits, a grace from their Lord, subhanAllah. There's wine in the jannah, but the wine of the jannah is not like the wine of the earth. What happens, right? I'll tell you, I shouldn't ask you, I shouldn't ask you, right? What happens when you drink too much wine, right? If you drink too much wine, one, it all tastes like urine, okay? If you drink too much of it, what happens?  What happens when someone is under the influence of intoxication? Their senses are dulled, their reaction time is delayed, okay? They don't have their wits about them and they usually make a fool of themselves. The wine of the jannah, right? It leaves no sada, right? There's no headache. It only, it doesn't depress a person, right? But increases their senses and awareness, right? Yes, it has that uplifting spirit. It may have that sweetness to it, right? Of a grape wine or so and so, but it has the opposite effect of the wine of the earth, right? But the intoxication, the delight of intoxication is there without losing one's senses, right? So there's a difference between the two.  There will be a babbling spring, there in will be thrones of dignity raised high so you don't have to listen to the meditation soundtrack when you try to sleep and relax, right? The water sounds, the wind sounds and all of that. It's the real thing. Thrones of dignity raised on high, goblets placed ready and cushions set in rows and rich carpets all spread out, a place of free running water and pleasant richness. For them will, for them will be gardens of eternity beneath them, rivers will flow, they will be adorned therein with bracelets of gold and they will wear green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade. They will recline therein on raised thrones. How good the recompense, how beautiful a couch to recline on. Its fruit and pleasures are constant and its company and comforts are a solace for the soul. But give glad tidings to those who believe in work righteousness that their portion is the gardens, beneath which rivers flow. Every time they are fed with fruits they're from. They say why this is what we were fed with before for they are given things in similar to that they have therein companions pure and holy and they abide therein forever. They're given fruit. They said this is the same that we got before but every time the taste is going to vary and be more impressive than the time before. But there's going to be those people who don't make it. Allah save us from being in that group. They will not be granted entrance in the garden. They will be told to stop.  The words of banishment worse than anything you think you might have suffered in this world. This will be the worst. They will be forbidden and denied access. They'll miss the boat. Some faces that day will be humiliated, laboring hard and weary with the Iyad of Allah. The while they enter the blazing fire, the while they are given to drink of a boiling hot spring. No food will there be for them but a bitter the riyadh which will neither nourish nor satisfy hunger. They will be surrounded with pain and agony for an eternity. Death will harass them from every direction but never put them out of their mercy.  And he is given for drink boiling fetid water engulfs. Will he sip it but never will he bear swallowing it down his throat.  They will thirst but the scorching water they are given will rip their insides to shreds. And they will be given to drink boiling water so that it cuts up their bowels to pieces. The fire will close in on them like a prison and their only reprieve will be a rain of boiling water. Naran ahaltabihim soradipu hawa in yas tazeethu yuhafu bima'in kel muhli yashwil wujuhah mitzasharahu wa sa'at murtavakah.  If they implore relief they will be granted water like melted brass that will scald their faces how dreadful the drink how uncomfortable a couch to rely on to recline on. Every time they try to climb out they will be beaten back down into it with iron clubs and sorat al hajj yus harubihima fi butoonihim wal julood walahum qati'u min hadid. Kullama aradu an yakhruju minha min zammin hu'i'u fiha wa ghu'u adhab al hariyapa. With it will be scalded what is within their bodies as well as their skins. In addition there will be maces of iron to punish them. Every time they wish to get away they're from from anguish. They will be forced back there in and it will be said taste you the penalty of burning. Chained by their necks they will be dragged through liquid fire. Idil aghala alu fi anabihim wa sa'a asiru yus habun. When the yoke shall be round their necks and the chains they shall be dragged along in the boiling fetid fluid then in the fire shall they be burned.  Once more inna alladhiina katharu bi aayatina sa'u fa nuslihim. Naaran kullama natijat julooduhum baddalna hum juloodan ghayraha. To our signs we shall soon cast into the fire. As often as their skins are roasted through we shall change them for fresh skins that they may taste the penalties for a law is exalted in power and wise. Hanukkah. In this world has the ability to create other worlds. There's people in this world who may not believe in the existence of heaven in heaven. I can understand that but I would sure hate to be in their shoes on the day when a choice is being made and find out that I was wrong. There's no way however, there's no way to prove the existence of the garden in the fire. You can't prove that empirically in this world. You can't even prove it with logic. It's something from faith. You either believe what Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us or you don't. There's other things that can be proven even with logic like the existence of God. The existence of the Creator can be proven with logic. That's obvious but there's certain things like the punishment of the grave that once you have other things proven by logic or empirically like for example the intact nature of the Quran can be proven empirically using scientific method. There's no doubt whatsoever that this was brought to us by Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and through linguistic analysis and logic itself we can see that the Quran is a coherent book. There's other aspects with it that demonstrate it's true but other things we depend only on the report of the Prophet, only on the report of revelation. There's no way otherwise except for a miracle. A miracle can prove the truth of what is reported by the Prophet and the question is can you allow for miracles? Do you have space in your life for miracles? Some people don't have any space in their lives for miracles. It can't be. There must be some other explanation. What is a miracle? In Christian, not Christian but in the English dictionary a miracle is an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs an extremely outstanding or unusual event thing or accomplishment. Christian science it says, I don't know what dictionary I'm getting this from the Oxford English Dictionary, a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law but in our sacred law, the teachings of Sharia and Muadjiza, is it is an event that breaks the natural norms with the condition that it takes place after the claim of prophecy, right? It's coupled with this person, this Prophet's claim to be sent by God and then the norms of the world are broken like water flowing uphill instead of downhill at the moment of that claim such that we know that the world itself doesn't operate this way only the creator of the world could force it to do something that it's not normal for it to do. It means that when a truthful trustworthy Prophet is telling you of the existence of unseen realities at that very moment the norms and habits of nature as we know them are broken such as splitting the moon. Prophet, I'm sent to you by your creator and the truth of what I'm saying is that my creator who sent me will now do something that no human being can do and the moon splits for example, such as fresh water gushing forth from between his fingers, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, such as his predicting the future in such a way as to allow his enemies to willfully prove him wrong yet they do not, right? He could have disproven the entire Quran, right? If he had a mind too, but Allah knew he wouldn't, subhan Allah, and he didn't, such as him speaking in an unreplicable literary prose more elegant than poetry itself and defying generations and natures and nations to try to outdo it. A miracle is when the power that controls and regulates the norms of nature and the orbit of the planets and the seasons causes them to alter their course and break their habits in correlation to the claim of this man, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to know and tell you of the unseen. The truth of these miracles, right, is what impels us to believe the reports about the unseen. It's as if this overwhelming supreme power has just said to the doubting world, he speaks the truth. The way our scholars actually define it, right? The miracle as it is, as if God has said, my slave is telling the truth about what he's telling you about me, Allah says. Heaven in hell may or may not be true logically, but it goes both ways, right? According to logic, paradise, and it's opposite, can't be disproven. It can't be proven, but it also can't be disproven. That's the reality of it. Unless someone has issues in their heart, their haf, their deen, right, their qaada, right, in some type of cynicism, right, then they insist on, you know, forcing only certain conclusions. SubhanAllah. The multiverse theory, if any of you have heard of that in philosophy of science, right? One, it's a fantasy. Two, there is absolutely no way whatsoever to demonstrate it or prove it, right? And three, it's just an awkward way to go about saying that the finely tuned calibration of the earth does not mean that someone, right, intended for it to be this way, okay? And that defeats the purpose of Occam's razor, right? Science is all about the simplest explanation, okay? But when you see the finely tuned calibration of all of the aspects of the atmosphere and the earth and the seasons and gravitational pull and all of that, that this is the only planet we found so far that can support carbon-based life, well, there's a simple solution. And then there's a very awkward ways to avoid that simple solution. SubhanAllah. But logically, it could go either way. Personally, I'd rather not be on the wrong side of logic if we find out that it went the way of all of the prophets who have ever come to the earth. Those unfortunate souls who are still of weak conviction and narrow vision may want to at least consider Pascal's wager. You all know Pascal's wager? You know it? Say it in the fine blue shirt. My favorite color. Do you remember Pascal's? Principal light. Tell me. Like the math one or the physics one? The one about the existence of God. So Pascal's wager, right, is that we don't know if God exists or not, right? But what I lose by obedience is nothing compared to what I would lose if it turns out to be true. First of all, that's not faith. That's not acceptable in the being of the sun, right? But it was an exercise, right, that Pascal brought to western, western, you know, intellectual thinking, right? But some people might want to think about that. Some people might want to think about that. There may be some who find the promises of paradise too far off. It's too far away. Right now I'm dealing with the here and now. Okay, I can't think that far ahead, even though it might be before it starts tonight. A lot of people are safe. We can all admit that the stress and anxiety and worry that many of us experience in the life of this world, right, you're still too young for stress and anxiety and worry, right? It's going to get worse, don't worry. But inshallah, Allah is going to make you strong and you're going to handle everything that you confront, right? Some people may feel, right, that this is a taste of the flavors of hellfire itself, because it can get like hell sometimes. Zham is a word in Arabic that's in the Qur'an, it's in the statements of the Prophet, can be translated as grief, affliction, sorrow, distress and sadness, worry, anxiety, hem, anxiety, concern, worry, care, affliction, intention. We say this because the anxiety and worry that we experience in this life is a weed whose source grows out of the hellfire itself. It's a little taste of the hellfire.  In hell, they have anxiety and worry, right? And that gripping feeling, you're not relieved from it in the hellfire, okay? You don't get away from it, you don't escape it. That's part of the torture. And the anxiety of the tortures of the occupants of hell when they realize that they miss their chance to do right in the world, unlike the people of the Jannah. We're not going to feel like they missed out on anything, but the people of the hellfire will be constantly reminded of all of those things that they could have done differently and what they could have had had they done taken made the right choices. In the Qur'an, in Surah Fatiha, therein will they cry aloud for assistance, our Lord, bring us out, we shall work righteousness, not the deeds we used to do. Did we not give you long enough life so that he that would should receive admonition? And moreover, the warner came to you. So taste the fruits of your deeds, for the wrongdoers, there is no helper for the poor, for malid, vaal, imin, amin, nasir. They regret being so insolent and ungrateful in the earth, yawma taqallabu wujuhuhum. The day that their faces will be turned upside down in the fire, they will say, woe to us, would that we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the messenger, but regret is too late wa nada asha wa nari ashab al jannati an afil wa alayna minal ma'i. The companions of the fire will call to the companions of the garden, pour down to us water or anything Allah has provided for your sustenance and they will say, both these things Allah has forbidden to those who rejected him. Ya Rabbi, la ilaha illa anta subhanaka, fa lina adab al naaf. Humiliation combined with disappointment to turn into despair, and the focus in this part is on the emotional distress, right, of being rejected by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wa nada asha wa l-jannati asha al-nari anqad, wajalana ma wa alana rabu la haqqa, fahal wajal tumma wa aada rabu kum haqqa. The companions of the garden will call out in return to the companions of the fire saying, we have indeed found the promises of our Lord to us to be true. Have you also found your Lord's promises to be true? And they shall say yes, but a cryer shall proclaim between them the curse of Allah is on the wrongdoers. And it's the same thing that the Prophet alaihi salatu wa salam said to the casualties of the mushriqeen after they were thrown into the well that the khazwati better. He calls out to them saying, we found the promise of our Lord to be true. Have you found the promise of your Lord to be true? The Amr says, you're talking to dead bodies, Rasulullah. You know, how is this? And he said, you don't hear me any better than they do. But we heard that when Al-Ambi blazed through Palestine up into Syria and took Damascus in World War One, that he demanded to be taken to the grave of Salah Dina Ayyubi by the Amri mosque, behind the Amri mosque.  And he said, Salah Dina, where are your sons now? So remembering what the Prophet alaihi salatu wa salam did it better, one of the times that I was teaching in England, I demanded to be taken to Al-Ambi's grave. And we found it in Westminster Abbey, in one of the naives of the chapel. And return the favor, Salah Dina, let him know. Here we are. I asked him, did you find the promise of your Lord to be true? Humiliation comes with disappointment, and then it turns into despair, subhan Allah. They are tortured by the sight of lost opportunities and denial where there had once been pride and overconfidence of Allah, save us from pride. But for those who realize the error of their ways while they're still time, who perform their due diligence and cease and desist from their wrong actions, demonstrate remorse and seek to make amends, they stand a chance to gain a pardon, to commute their sentence, wa dideena amidu sayi'aati, thumma tabu min ba'diha, wa amanu inna rabbaka min ba'diha la ghafooru raheem, but those who do wrong but repent thereafter and truly believe verily, your Lord is thereafter off forgiving Allahumma. They have the chance to experience the clemency of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, thumma inna rabbaka lilladina aminu al-su'abi jahalatin, thumma tabu min ba'diha wa asrahu inna rabbaka min ba'diha la ghafooru raheem, but verily your Lord, to those who do wrong in ignorance but who thereafter repent and make amends, your Lord after all this is oft forgiving, most merciful. Sometimes we might get caught up in that little clades in ignorance. Oh, that doesn't apply to me because I did know better. But the scholars of Quran say that anyone who finds themselves doing something that is not in alignment with what Allah has requested, at that moment, they're definitely ignorant. So it does include you. He has forgiveness to give to those who make an effort to seek it in the Sahih al-Bukhari from Abu Huraira. The prophet says, So, there was a man who was walking along and he became very thirsty, so he climbed down into a well, and he drank down there at the bottom of the well, but when he climbed out, he found a dog. That was panting and clearly thirsty. So the drops of water that it spilled on the outside in the sand around the well or the dirt around the well, the dog is licking at that sand, trying to get some degree of moisture. And he said, This dog has reached the exact same point that I was at before I made it down to the well to quench my thirst.  And then he gave it to the dog to drink and a boss of Hanawata Allah in appreciation for this effort, even for a dog, forgave him.  They have the niches factor. It doesn't mean we hate them. It doesn't mean that it's okay to abuse them because even Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala cares about dogs and people who do something nice for even dogs. They said, Messenger of Allah, we get a reward for doing well by animals. And he said, if he could be kebed in ratbatin, aja. In every moist liver, there's an aja. In anything that has a liver, if you do well by it, there's an aja. Now we all want to run out and help the dogs. There's a lot of people that need help, right? There's a lot of people that need help. Freedom from the fire is not just freedom from eternal torture. It's freedom from permanent discomfort. It's freedom in relief and relief from mental and emotional stress and anguish, spiritual pain and freedom from the prospect of a never-mending broken heart. Freedom from the fire means to enter into the eternal peace of heart and mind.  What's al-ghurfa in Arabic? The room. Will you call your bedroom? This highest place in heaven is called the room. Is it a room? I don't know. But it's an interesting name. Because of their patience, constancy therein, they will be met with salientations of peace. Right? Their tahiyyah will be salam, peace, peace of heart, peace of mind, comfort. It means that fatigue and dishonor are erased from your dictionary for the rest of time. To those who do right is a good reward, more than in measure. No darkness nor shame shall cover their faces. They are companions of the garden they will abide therein forever. The khusma is the jannah, and the ziyadah is the gaze upon the countenance of Allah, it means to be cleansed and quenched by the sweetest, most wholesome waters. Upon them will be green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade, and they will be adorned with bracelets of silver, and their Lord will give them to drink of a wine pure and holy. It is freedom from the discomfort of illness. But the sincere and devoted servants of Allah for them is a sustenance determined. Fruits, delights, and they shall enjoy honor and dignity in gardens of felicity, facing each other on thrones of dignity. Round will be passed to them a cup from a clear flowing fountain, crystal white, of a taste delicious to those who drink thereof. I'm sorry, just a few more hours. Three from heaviness, nor will they suffer intoxication they're from, and beside them will be chased women restraining their glances with big eyes as if they were delicate items closely granted. No disappointment for the sisters either, no worries, right? That's the thing about gender, no worries, no worries. Worry now, right? All you want, but just know and have confidence that you will not be disappointed. It is happiness without disappointment, it is ease without annoyance or insult, wujuhu yawma idin, na'ima, lisa'i ha'radiya, other bases that they will be joyful, pleased with their efforts in the dunya, in a garden on high where they shall hear no talk of vanity, no arrogant speech, nothing of annoyance. It is complete satisfaction without pain of wanting more. Ha? Ida? Ha? Dakhala ahlu jannahil jannah, kala yakuulu ba'u tabarutu wa ta'ala? Ha? Atu ridhu na shay'an azidakum, fa yakuulu na alam tu bayyil wujuhana, when the people of jannah enter the jannah Allah will say to them, do you want me to give you something else? And they said, how can you give us anything else? Haven't you whitened our faces? Right? Haven't you entered us into the jannah? Haven't you saved us from the fire? Fa yakshifu l-hijaba fa ma'atu shay'an ahadu ilayhim, and he will pull the veil from his face.  It is the end of worry. It is the dissipation of anxiousness, Inna Allah yakuulu li ahlu jannahiyya ahlu jannah yakuulu na labbaika wa sa'daik. Now, subhanAllah, in the jannah Allah will come to those people and say, can I give you something more again? And they say, how can you give us more than what you've already given us? He said, I will release upon you my contentment, and I will never ever be angry with this. SubhanAllah. Allah give us that contentment. Allah give us that freedom. Allah give us that relief. It's very little that we have to do, right? To fulfill the conditions to earn it. Allah help us. Again, start on yourselves. I really am worst enemy. We'll see you all after Ramadan.


Abstract porous structures offer highly accessible surfaces and rich pores, which facilitate the exposure of numerous active sites for photocatalytic reactions, leading to excellent performances. Recently, metal organic frameworks, MOFs, have been considered ideal precursors for well-designed semiconductors with porous structures and or hetero structures, which have shown enhanced photocatalytic activities. In this review, we summarized the recent development of porous structures, such as metal oxides and metal sulfides, and their hetero structures, derived from MOF-based materials as catalysts for various light-driven energy dash-slash-environment-related reactions, including water splitting, CO2 reduction, organic redox reaction, and pollution degradation. A summary and outlook section is also included. This article was authored by Wang Wenjian, Liming Sun, and Shi Guanghan.