Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la he says in the Qur'an An-Nabiyu Awla Bin-Mu'mineena Min-An-Fusihim. He says some of the meanings may suggest that the Prophet ﷺ is more dear or closer or takes precedence for the believers even over their own selves, that we love the Prophet ﷺ more than anything else that's in the creation of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. He said ﷺ in a rigorously authenticated hadith in Bukhari wa aladhi nafsibi yadih after taking oath al-qasam to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la by the one who holds my soul in his hand, la yubil wa ahadukum hata akuna haba ilayhi min waladihi wa waladihi. When nasi ajma'een au kamakala alayhi salatu wa salam none of you truly believe until I am more beloved to him than his father or his parents, his children in all of humanity. Sallallahu alayhi alayhi wa salam. Imam alayhi karam Allah wa jaha. He said, He said the Prophet ﷺ was more beloved to us than anything even more so than cold water and this metaphor is cold water obviously is a metaphor for life because for the desert Arab water meant life. This is a way of saying that he ﷺ was more dear to us than life itself. Sallallahu alayhi alayhi wa salam. When you hear these statements of the Sahaba, they're just very ajeem, the kind of love that they had for him and how they demonstrated their love. Abu Bakr al-Sadiq radi allathe al-albu. He said, I prefer, he said, Ya Rasulullah, I prefer that Abu Quhayfa become Muslim over Abu Talib. Who is Abu Talib is the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ was raised by him. You cannot guide all those whom you love. Allah swt tells him. Right? But Sayyidina Abu Bakr, who is Abu Quhayfa, his own father, he says to the Prophet ﷺ that I would prefer Abu Talib, your uncle, to become Muslim over my own father. Why? Because the happiness of the Prophet ﷺ is the happiness of Abu Bakr. If he's happy, he's happy. When the Prophet ﷺ would laugh, they would start laughing. When the Prophet ﷺ would weep, they would start weeping because they were so close to him ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ and the Nabi'u Awla bil Mubminina min Anfusihim. When the Quraish captured one of the Sahaba named Khubay ibn Adi and they took him out to kill him and they basically put him on a stake. They crucified him and they were making fun of him and they said to him, they were, you know, deriding him and making fun of him and they were saying to him, don't you wish Muhammad was here being killed and you were at home resting with your family? And he said, I don't wish that a thorn prick the finger of the Messenger ﷺ. And Abu Sufyan ibn Ahab, who was there obviously, was non-Muslim at the time. He made an amazing statement. I've never seen anyone love anyone like the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, love the Prophet ﷺ. And another example, a female companion named Nusaybah Bittu Ka'u.  His name was Ibn Qami'a.  This is a woman who came to the battlefield to give water to the Mujahideen. And then the Prophet ﷺ, we know the story, became under siege. So she picked up the sword and began to defend him. And she was struck to the ground by Ibn Qami'a. And she had fractured her shoulder or clavicle.  And he said to her, she said to him, she said, get away from me and protect the Prophet ﷺ. That was a priority for her, was a safeness and the well-being of the Prophet ﷺ. These are just some of the manifestations of the muhabbah that the Sahaba, radiolatul anham, Ibn Majma'een had for the Prophet ﷺ. And Allah ﷻ says in the Qur'an, if you love Allah, and Qul is interesting, because Qul is known as an imperative, the present active imperative according to English grammar. Allah ﷻ is telling the Prophet directly Qul. And when Allah ﷻ speaks to the Prophet ﷺ directly, this shows the ta'zim and the tashreef of the Prophet ﷺ. This shows his exalted station ﷺ. And this happens over and over again in the Qur'an. And it really demonstrates a loving relationship between the two. When Allah ﷻ says, for example, it is more befitting that you please him, Allah ﷻ at the end of this clause, it uses a third-person singular pronoun, even though Allah and his Messenger are two. And the reason is because according to Imam al-Qurtubi, may Allah be pleased with him, is that Allah ﷻ is demonstrating that obedience to the Messenger of Allah is obedience to Allah ﷻ and vice-versa. It shows a very, very close personal relationship. As our mother Aisha said to the Prophet ﷺ, she said, your Lord hastens to fulfill your wishes. As Allah ﷻ says in the Qur'an, soon will thy Lord give you that which will please thee. On one occasion, the Prophet ﷺ, he casted a glance towards the heavens. He just looked towards the heavens. But he had something in his heart. And obviously, Allah ﷻ, he knows the hearts. He knows what's in the sudur, in the qulu of the human being. That's all he did, he looked towards the heavens and he had this tashweek in his heart. He had a desire longing in his heart. And his desire was for the qiblah to be changed back to Mecca. That's what he wanted to happen. He didn't vocalize it. He just looked towards the heavens and he had this desire in his heart. Very, very interesting. Allah ﷻ, he says, he says, indeed, we have seen you turn your face towards the heavens, right? The Prophet ﷺ, he wanted the qiblah to be changed back to the original qiblah. Because Allah ﷻ says, that the first house of worship ever dedicated the worship of the one true God, Allah ﷻ, it wasn't Mecca, which is Mecca. So, Allah ﷻ says, indeed, we see you in Nara'a and he uses a plural. This is Nunu Ta'zeem. Indeed, we have seen you turn your face towards the heavens. Indeed, we, and this is an amazing verb here. We need to study grammar. There's so much emphasis in this verb. Right? We have lamb of toki, Nunu Ta'zeem. We have kafu l-khitab. Allah ﷻ, in other words, he's emphasizing it twice and talking about himself, referring to himself in the plural form, in the royal plural, because Allah ﷻ is honoring the person that he's addressing, the Prophet ﷺ. Verily, verily, we will turn you to a qiblah that will please you. Why? Because the Prophet ﷺ, he cast the glance in the sky. He looked towards the heavens and he had this shock in his heart, ﷺ. He had this desire, this longing for the qiblah to be changed. He changes it. So, this demonstrates the loving, personal, intimate relationship between Allah ﷻ and the Prophet ﷺ. And then he says, فَوَلِّ وَجْهَاكَ شَتْرَى المَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ So, turn your face towards the direction of the sacred Masjid. And then Allah ﷻ, he changes the person from second person singular to the plural. It's called iltifat, right? Sudden change. This is a rhetorical device. If you study rhetoric and people who don't really understand Arabic, like these, you know, the classical, quote-unquote, classical European Orientalists, who basically have the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in Arabic. They haven't studied these things in depth. They'll say, this is an inconsistency in the Qur'an. There's a change of tense suddenly. They don't understand the nuance. What's the purpose behind the change of tense? That Allah ﷻ, he says وَجْهَاكَ and then here وَجُوْهَاكُمْ Your face, singular to your faces. What is the significance of that? The significance is Allah ﷻ now is not only speaking to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, but he's talking to the ummah of the Prophet ﷺ, right? He's referring to the ummah. He's speaking directly to the ummah. He's speaking to us. So, this demonstrates also not only is Allah ﷻ very close to his Habib ﷺ, but also we are very close to Allah ﷻ because when Allah dresses him, he addresses us at the same time. We have to understand that. It's very beautiful. It's a beautiful nuance in the Qur'an. Is there some people who say that the job of the Prophet ﷺ is simply to deliver the news? And that's it. He's a delivery man. He brings the letters or the mail and then he goes and you have no contact with him. You don't see him anymore. You don't desire to see him. He just brings the news. Imam al-Subti, he mentions an interesting story. Story of Sayyidina Bilal ﷺ. When Sayyidina Bilal ﷺ had passed away, Sayyidina Bilal couldn't even stay in the city of Medina. He couldn't even stay there because everything reminded him of the Prophet ﷺ. This type of love, right? So, he had to leave the city of Medina because everything was by association connected to the Prophet ﷺ. So, he went to Damascus and he stayed in Damascus for over a year and then he had a dream of the Prophet ﷺ. And the Prophet ﷺ said to him, Oh Bilal, what is this aversion? What is this distance that you have? Isn't it about time that you come visit me? So, Sayyidina Bilal ﷺ comes into the city of Medina and as soon as he comes into the city he starts weeping because everything reminds him of the Prophet ﷺ. Everything reminds him of the Prophet ﷺ. So, then he comes into the city and he goes into the Masjid and he visits the Prophet ﷺ in his Masjid and Abu Bakr Siddique sees him and he says, Why don't you give us an Adhan like he used to do? And he said, No, I can't do it. I can't do it. I physically can't do it. I'm not able to do it. And then Sayyidina Umar sees him and says, Give us an Adhan. He says, I can't do it. And then Hassan and Hussain who looked like the Prophet ﷺ. The Erlumah said that Imam Hassan, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, from the head up he resembled the Prophet ﷺ because the Prophet ﷺ is his grandfather and from the neck down Imam Hussain radiAllahu ta'ala anhu resembled the Prophet ﷺ. And he hadn't seen these children in over a year and children grow very quickly. In a few months they changed. So now they look, they're two beautiful young men that look like the Prophet ﷺ and they say, Please give us an Adhan in Sayyidina Bilal. He decides to make the Adhan and he begins doing the Adhan. And when he begins doing it, the people in Medina, they say, This is the Saut of Bilal. Bilal is here. So they come into the streets of Medina. And Imam Shubki says that even women that had not left their homes in years and years, old women that stay in the house, they started to come out of their house. Because people started saying, Bur'itha Rasulullah, the Prophet ﷺ has been resurrected. That's why Bilal is giving the Adhan. So they come into the Masjid to listen to the Adhan. But Sayyidina Bilal could not even finish the Adhan. He couldn't even get to the end of the Adhan. Because as soon as he said, His legs gave out and he fell on the ground. Because he couldn't even say the name of his beloved, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And he told them, I told you I can't do this. This is how in love they were with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the Prophet says in the Hadith, What did you know? Anni raitu ikhwani. You can translate that wood is love. I would have loved to have seen my brethren. And the Sahaba said, Aren't we your brethren? He said, No, you're my companions. You're the Sahaba. So who are the brethren? Those who come after me who haven't seen me. But they're willing to sacrifice their wealth and their families just to look at me one time. He's talking about the ummah. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam has a very close personal relationship with the ummah. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la here says, Qul, which demonstrates again the close relationship with Allah and His Habib. In kuntum. In is called Harfu-Shark. This is a conditional particle. It's called an if clause. In English grammar, you have a process and you have an apothesis. If and then clause. If you do this, then I'll do that. If you love Allah, Fattabi'uni. Then you have to follow me. Fi'l-Amar again. This is the Jawa of the shark. If you love Allah, follow me. Follow the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. In other words, your obedience or itiba'at to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is commensurate, is equal with the love that Allah has for you. Do you want to know if Allah loves you? How closely do you follow the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? This is how we can tell. How closely are we aligned with His character, His manifestations in inward and the outward. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And then he says, Yuhbibkumullah. Right, Yuhbib. And this is, this is Majzum. This is called Al-Jazim al-Palab. This is something that is, is Jassif in English grammar.  And the effect of this on the sentence is that it's a purpose clause. The way you translate this is in order or so that. So it begins by saying, Say, if you love Allah, follow me so that Allah might love you. So that Allah, in order that Allah might love you, and in order that He forgives you your sins. Allah is ghufouru rakhim. Right? So the gift, the love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is, is, is something that we have to earn. We earn it. It's not cheap. There are people who walk around saying, I'm beloved by God. Right? But what do they, what do they have to show for it? How do you know Allah loves you? I know He better love me. They want to dictate things to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He gives to everyone. And that's the prerogative of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. To a kafir and a mu'min Allah. He gives His mercy. And mercy is akin to love. But mahabba is a higher station. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give His mahabba to a, not to everybody. It has to be earned. Right? Specialized. You have to earn it. The mahabba, the love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And it depends on our itibaa of the sunnah, and of the example of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa la alihi wasallam. So Imam Al-Razi and Imam Al-Suiyuti in their respective tafasir, they say that this verse was actually revealed because the mushriqeen, some of the mushriqeen came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa la alihi and they said, Inna nuhibbu la, we love Allah. Right? And they said about the idols, Ma na'abudu, ma na'abuduhum illa liyukaribuna ila Allahi zulfa. That we only worship these idols so that they might bring us closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Right? That's, that's, Allah quotes them in Surah al-Zumar. But ibn Abbas, he says something interesting here. He says this verse was revealed because of Bani Israel in Medina. They had a group of Bani Israel, a group of the Jews in Medina. They came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa la alihi and they said, We love Allah. Na'ahnu abna'u Allah. We are the sons of God. Right? And we are the beloved of God. And then this verse was revealed. And this is interesting because we're, they're quoting from the Psalms, Psalm 82-6. It says, All of you are sons of God. And we have to remember something here. In the previous dispensations, a lot of these words that the Qur'an condemns, a lot of these sort of beliefs that the Qur'an condemns, back then have different meanings.  That meant that you were a slave of God, ebadah mukramun. You were a servant raised to honor. It was totally figurative. However, this idea was corrupted by the Christians because the Christians said that Isa A.S. is not the figurative son of God. He is the literal son of God. And this is what they say in their creeds.  They say in their creeds, for example, in the Nicene Creed, in the Nicio-Constantinopolitan creed, in the Greek it says, gen ecenta upu ecenta, which means that he's maulud, lei se machlukh. He's begotten of God. He's not created by God. That is kufr. There's no doubt about it. Right? But in the Old Testament, the Jews, they don't believe that God has children literally. If someone's called a son of God or a daughter of God, they say that's a figurative meaning, although this is not used in the Quran because this concept was corrupted by the time of the revelation of the Quran. But anyway, this verse in the Psalms, this is predicated upon the Bani Israel's obedience to a prophet. That you can't be beloved of God unless you believe in the Prophet who is there. In other words, Bani Israel at the time of Isa A.S., they can't reject Isa A.S. and say, nahnu apna allahu wa hibabu. We are the sons of God. We are the beloved of God. And they reject the messenger of God. Likewise, when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam comes to them and he's preaching to them, he's making da'wah to them, and he's showing them clear signs of his Nabua. And they said, no, we're the sons of God. That's like a king sending an ambassador to a country. And the people of that country, they insult the ambassador. That's tantamount to insulting the king. That's what that means.  That's a declaration of war against the king. Right? So when God sends messengers, it is wajib upon us to believe in those messengers. Abdullah ibn Uba'i, when this verse was revealed in Abdullah ibn Uba'i as Raasul Munafiqeen. He is the head of the hypocrites in Medina. He said, Muhammad is commanding us to love him as the Christians love Isa A.S. He wants to become a Muslim Jesus. Right? This is what he was saying. Abdullah ibn Uba'i. It's very interesting because a lot of these Western scholars they make the same claim. Right? That he, the Prophet S.A.S., he wants to sort of rival Musa A.S. and Isa A.S. and things like that. You know, he's saying, Muhammad commanded us. But the Prophet S.A.S., we know from the Qur'an, he does not speak from his own hawaa. Right? And this is what the Qur'an says. So somebody might say, well, that's circular reasoning.  Even study it from the perspective of non-Muslims who are objective. There are many objective non-Muslims who have written vast corpuses of serial literature. And they say there's never an instance whatsoever in his life where he showed insincerity where he wanted something else and ulterior motive. He could have had those types of things in Mecca when they offered him to make him the king, gold and silver and marriages, all of these types of things. He rejected all of them. And he said he goes to Medina. It's not much better. Yeah, he's the head of state. He can defend the city now, but they're constantly trying to attack him. He literally has to dig a ditch around the city. They have to dig a ditch around the city to keep people from invading Medina. Right?  One day of the year, you can worship, we worship Allah the other days. This is not to read. This is not to read. Right? So he's a principled person, even the sincere non-Muslims. And there's many, many of them. They admit to this. He's principled. Right? So Allah says, وَمَا يَنْ تِقُوْ عَنِ الْهَوَى He never speaks from His Hawa. So this is interesting as well. As you know that Ibn Ubay said this, that He's commanding, He wants to command us to love Him like the Christians love Isa A.S. We have to ask ourselves then, what did the Christians do with Isa A.S. Because, you know, there's a Hadith of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, it's mentioned in the Shama'il Tirmidhi, where he said, Don't flatter me like the Christians did with Isa A.S. I am a servant. So say the Messenger of God and His servant. Right? And some Muslims actually use this Hadith to discourage Muslims from doing permissible activities like As-Sala'a on the Nabi. We send blessings of peace upon the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. This is not what's condemned by the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam whatsoever. Even if this is all you're doing, if all of your adhkar is Sala'a on the Nabi, every time you make zikr, you're sending blessings of peace upon the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that's a good action. How do we know it's a good action? Can there sound Hadith? Obey Ibn K'ab. Right? When he said to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, how much of my daily adhkar should I spend on blessings, benedictions upon you, a quarter of it, the Prophet said that's good, but more half of it, that's good, but more is better. Three quarters of it, that's good, but more is better. All of it, he said that's good. This is from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says, Inna Allahu wa Malaiqatahu yusalluna on the Nabi. Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he sends blessings of peace upon the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And this is mentioned in the Quran. In the Quran and its Ma'an and its meanings is pre-eternal. It's pre-eternal. This is the articulation of pre-eternal meanings. So when we talk about the uncreated aspect without getting too technical, we have to study theology. What I'm trying to say is, Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, before he even created the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, was sending blessings of peace upon the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Because what's in the Quran is an articulation of pre-eternal, pre-eternal meanings, min azaliya. And then this fi'l is fi'l mudaria. Right, this is an imperfect tense. Right, yusalli yusalluna. Imper, what does imperfect mean? That the action has not been completed and will never be completed. In other words, Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, before he created the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is sending blessings of peace upon him and that iman abadan into the future will always be sending blessings of peace upon the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So if Allah is doing this, just ignoring the angels for now, if Allah is doing this, how can we possibly overpraise the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam?  So what is condemned is what the Christians said about Jesus Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that have no warrant, right? What did they say?  This is the orthodox position of Christians, orthodoxy, right? Like the equivalent of what we call, for example, Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jama'a. Their dominant opinion, Christian orthodoxy, is that Isa Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. This is what's condemned, or he died for your sins. No, this is what's condemned. What is the Quran condemned, right? Giving him divine attributes, these types of things. No one is doing this with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. If they're doing it, they're gravely mistaken, right? But we love the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the youth especially should not be discouraged by their parents to manifest these devotional practices when it comes to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, right? Teach your children to love him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. This is the key to the love of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. This is very, very important. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we recognize who he is, that he's a means by which Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave us life in both worlds, right? Gave us a good life to live here in the dunya because the teachings of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they make human life sacrosanct. There's many examples of this. Of course, we've all heard the hadith, very famous hadith. It's related through multiple chains of transmission of the Bedouin who came into the Masjid and he urinated, right? It's a great lesson of akhlaq, adab, right? Of tarbiyah we take from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He came to the Masjid, we know the story, he relieved himself. Faqama nasu ilayhi, the people got up to address him. They're going to attack him, right? He said, leave him. And some of the narrations, they end at that point. Meaning the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam came to him and said, you know, brother, this is a Masjid, we keep it clean and that's where it ends. But there's an interesting conclusion to the story in Tirmidhi in Ahmed. When they left the Masjid, because the Bedouin went, he washed himself and he came and he prayed with the Muslim, became Muslim. So at the end of the prayer, when they're walking outside, the Bedouin turns around and addresses all of the Sahaba of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he said, Then he said, Oh Allah, have mercy on me and then Muhammad and nobody else. Because he's referring to the Sahaba that scared him, you know, because he's relieving himself and a group of men stand up and start moving towards him, he was scared. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he laughed at that, he thought that was funny, right, that he said that. And he said, you have constricted something that's vast. What is vast? The Rahma, the mercy of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Right? It's just one example of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And of course he's the means by which we have eternal life.  All worship, everything is for the sake of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. There's no doubt about that. Right? The Prophet is a means by which we have eternal life because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given him the Shafa'a on the Day of Judgment. He is Shafi'a wa al-Mushafa'a.  May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala give us a tawfiq to understand. I'll say this, wa astaghfirahli walakum fa astaghfiruhu innahu khuala qafooru rahim.