Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, by bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for him. And we bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the day of judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen. Dear brothers and sisters, I want to start with a scene from Hajj that all of us would love to represent our ending. There was a man in our group, Dr. Subuh, who after finishing Tawaf al-Ifadah on the day of Eid, and Hajj is of course, with all of its rituals, two pillars, Al-Hajj al-Arafah, Hajj is the day of Arafah, and then Tawaf al-Ifadah. And as he finished his Tawaf al-Ifadah, and he came outside of the Haram, he saw an elderly man from Palestine, actually from Palestine, who was making Hajj from Palestine, who collapsed right in front of him. And so, he got down and he put him in his lap. He tried his best to resuscitate him. He tried his best to keep him alive. And as he realized that the man was escaping, that his soul was leaving his body, he repeats to him, as the Prophet SAW taught us to do, the Shahada. And you can imagine, SubhanAllah, this man leaving this world, in his Ihram, less than 24 hours after Arafah, performing Tawaf al-Ifadah, just shaving his head, saying, La ilaha illa Allah.
Your entire life is for this one moment. And SubhanAllah, how badly would you want that to be your ending? That Allah SWT takes you from this world, literally, as you are purified from your sins, like the day that your mother gave birth to you, saying, La ilaha illa Allah, staring or looking at the Kaaba, still in your Ihram, going back to Allah SWT pure. Now, was this man some special Wali of Allah SWT, some special friend of Allah, his entire life? We don't know. Did he make Tawbah, perhaps a day before, or a year before, or was it in the hours that preceded that, that he expressed a desire to Allah SWT, maybe even internally, that his life would end there? We don't know. Was he someone that suffered under the brutal Israeli occupation? Most likely. What is it that leads to the culmination of those events, and to that moment? Now, I want to walk you back. Saying, La ilaha illa Allah, at the time of death, is a special gift from Allah SWT and it represents a connection that a person has with Allah SWT that allows them the ability to express that in their last moments. May Allah SWT grant us a Thabat, grant us firmness with La ilaha illa Allah, as we live, as we leave this world, as we enter into our graves, when the angels come to us, and as we rise up on the Day of Judgment. Allahumma Ameen. La ilaha illa Allah, La ilaha illa Allah. It's that connection to Allah SWT. It doesn't come automatically. It doesn't come that easy. Now, I want you to leave that to the side for a moment, and then come back to a question that many people ask themselves.
How come I'm not feeling that connection to Allah SWT? Or maybe even if I am feeling that connection to Allah SWT, I may not be considered amongst those who are connected to Allah SWT. Because there is ghurur as well. There is deception and delusion. You could be crying in your salah. You could be reading the Quran. You could be fasting Mondays and Thursdays. But there are sins that are distancing you from Allah SWT at the exact same rate. And they don't come to you until the moment of your death. And then they confront you at that moment, or they confront you when you rise up on the Day of Judgment. But where is that connection with Allah SWT? And the mistake that we make with our major acts of worship and with our daily lives is that we only try to remedy our deficiency in worship with worship. That we see things in an isolated way, and they are the entire package. And as hajj is actually the culmination of your entire life, and it connects the dots between your relationship with Allah SWT, your relationship with the people around you. The things that you have to disconnect from in order to connect to Allah SWT. Because you can't do tawaf unless you enter into your ihram, at the miqat, unless you change out of your state. And when you come into that state of ihram, there is a mindset. Before you go to the Kaaba and you make tawaf in umrah or in hajj, it connects it all so beautifully. And for so many of us, we treat our deficiency in worship in isolation of one another. Why is it that I can't connect when I read the Quran? Well, maybe I just need to give it more time. True, you do need to give it more time. Why is it that I can't pray more? Why is it that I feel a blockage of qiyam al-layl in my night prayer? Why is it that I feel that I'm not able to immerse myself in du'a? Why this? Why that? And we try to
treat it and remedy it within and say that's where the connection is failing. But our beings are all interconnected in this regard. And subhanAllah, just like with Ramadan, a major act of worship, one of your pillars of Islam, your accepted Ramadan is about man lam yada'a qawla zuri minkum. Whoever does not leave off false speech and acting upon that false speech, then Allah has no need of their fasting. Your fasting is saleem, is preserved by your entering and exiting your fast without the intake of haram. At the spiritual level and at the physical level. Not about how much qiyam you prayed, not about how much Quran you read. You could have an accepted Ramadan and maybe read a few pages of Quran. I'm saying that that is possible. It's not ideal, but you could go through, technically speaking, from the Hilal of Ramadan to the Hilal of Shawwal and not read the Quran at all on your own. And you could still have an accepted Ramadan, so long as you preserved yourself from those things. It's not going to be a good Ramadan, but it could be an accepted Ramadan. Likewise, al-Hajj. What is al-Hajj al-Mabroor? What is an accepted Hajj? La rafatha wa la fusuqa wa la jidala fil hajj. It's about you not doing those other things. It's about you not arguing. It's about about you not fighting. It's about you not cursing. It's about you not sinning. It's about what you're not doing as much as it is about what you are doing. And subhanAllah, just as you have the scene of that man that I gave you, there is another scene that is seared in my mind, and I ask Allah to forgive the brother, you know, who, subhanAllah, you're saying la bayk allahumma la bayk la bayk la sharika laka la bayk. And then someone comes into a tent seeking refuge from the heat, and in the middle of your talbiya, la bayk allahumma la bayk, I thought to myself, subhanAllah,
what happened here? Where is the disconnect? May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us all. It's also a scene. It's also a reality. But maybe in his mind, it was la bayk allahumma la bayk. I need to focus on my ibadah right now. I need to read my Quran. I need to do my du'a. This is a distraction for me. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala puts all of this as a package for us in a way that represents our lives. And as wonderful as it might seem, you know, someone actually had brought this proposition up. Imagine if hajj was like a ticket system, where, you know, everyone goes in and has the whole haram to themselves, mashaAllah, and then they kind of check out, and then another person comes in, puts the ticket in, mashaAllah, no bothering whatsoever. But the reality is that hajj is like life. You're gonna have people elbow you, people push you around, people cut you off, people that are going to disturb you. That's how life is, and hajj is supposed to be a simulation of life. It's not ibadah when it's just quiet and peaceful, and no one bother me, and no one get in my way. That's how life is. Now, what does this have to do with the barriers that we might face between us and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Many of us have heard the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, where Abu Huraira radiallahu ta'ala anhu says, a man complained to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, shakar rajul nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam bi qaswati alqalb, or bi qaswati qalbihi, that a man complained to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam about the hardness of his heart, fa usaahun yamsahirat sidiateen. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told him to caress the head of an orphan. That what will soften your heart is to treat an orphan with kindness. That's what's going to be the remedy for your heart. That man might have been thinking, why is it that I can't connect to the Quran? Why is it that I can't cry? Why is it that I can't do this? Why is it that I can't do that? And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam brought in a dimension that was otherwise foreign to that person. What does the opposite of that look like? And the ulama mention two broad categories. Two broad categories. And before I say these two broad categories, I want you to understand
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not unjust to catch you on a sin that you did not know about. Or to take you by surprise when you were sincerely striving without informing you why you failed. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not unfair. Allah is not unjust. That a person does everything they know they're supposed to do and avoids everything they're told they're supposed to avoid and then finds themselves suddenly having iman snatched away from them. It's the opposite. You're striving, Allah guides you. Allah opens your eyes wider. Allah opens your heart more. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala lets your tongue loose in dua, lets your tongue loose in dhikr. You're striving, opens doors. Doesn't close doors for you. So I'll start with that. Two broad categories. Number one. Is the belittling of sins. It is the thing that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam described as a man who goes and who keeps putting small branches into a fire until the fire grows and consumes him. Right? He ends up setting himself ablaze by throwing these small branches. The small sins. Why? Because the small sins by nature go without incident in your life. Minor sins don't cause major ruptures in your life. And so it becomes easier to engage them on a consistent and regular basis and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says كَلَّا بَلْ رَانَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ كَلَّا بَلْ رَانَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ That over time the heart stains, stains, stains, stains, stains, stains until the heart becomes completely poisoned, locked and unable to benefit from the Qur'an. Unable to benefit from the salah. Unable to connect in dua. Completely disconnected from worship. So it is محقرات الذنوب. Allah mentions of the belittling of sins.
Imagine taking a stone and dropping a little drop of water on the same place over and over and over again. Right? And what ends up happening? Eventually the stone will completely be destroyed. And that is the likeness of the small sins, the habitual sins, the ones that you do on a regular basis. And so that is the first broad category that a person has to look with deep introspection because minor sins are also rarely going to be called out by someone else. That's on you. To look to yourself and say what are the invisible barriers between me and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that even other people are really not going to know for me. The things that I regularly watch, the things that I regularly say, the things that I regularly do. What are those invisible shackles and barriers? That's something that's gonna come through your introspection. Not through anybody else. You have to diagnose that for yourself. And with every age and every circumstance and every time the nature of those sins is going to change. But Shaytan knows what he's doing. He doesn't just give you khutawat, you know, your steps and your rope when you're younger and then he suddenly abandons you and doesn't pivot. Shaytan pivots to your weaknesses. He pivots to your weaknesses and gives you another rope, another trail, another way away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to disconnect you from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The second one that the scholars mention as a broad category, which is a significant one subhanAllah, especially in this day and age, is a'rad an-nas. Doesn't really connect with people most of the time. The honor of your fellow brother or sister. Violating the honor of your fellow brother and sister is the quickest way to distance yourself from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala altogether. Why do you think the Prophet
salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in Hajj was talking to the sahaba and saying, you see this Ka'bah? You see this place that you're in, this day that you're in? You see this Ka'bah? What's more sacred than this? Your brother's blood, money, honor is more sacred than this Ka'bah to you. Could you ever imagine yourself doing something to this Ka'bah? It's the second category. Where do we take that from? And especially when you combine it with the first category of the quote-unquote minor sins. The zallat, the slips of the tongue. Number one, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam when he mentions that inna al-abda layatakallamu bil-kalima that verily a slave will say one word, one narration la yulqi laha bala he doesn't really consider it. Meaning it's just something that slips. Why? Because it became a habit. I always talk like this. This is just how I talk. I don't even recognize how I talk anymore. So la yulqi laha bala wa fi riwaya la yara biha ba's He doesn't see an issue with it. The ulama mentioned the intricacy between the two is that in the first case it's just so habitual like you're not even thinking about it. You always talk like that. You talk about people, you talk in this way, you talk that way, you type this way. You just have a long tongue and you got long fingers. Always, always talking, talking, talking, talking. The second situation la yara biha ba's is that he doesn't think it's that big of a deal in that he's justified it or she's justified it in her mind. That it's okay to talk this way and that's not really going to have an effect on my spirituality or my standing with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam mentioned yanzilu biha al-nar that that causes a person to fall into the fire. abAAada min maa bayna al-mashriqi wal-maghrib The distance between the east and the west causes you to go face first into the fire. na yulqilaha ba'da You just talk, talk, talk, type, type, type, type talk, talk, talk, type, type, type, type Think about what you're doing. That's going to come with you
holding yourself. When the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam talked about the severity of riba, of interest and usury with all of its branches. The least of it being compared to zina and incest, adultery. The last thing the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam says, wa inna arbar riba ardu al-muslim The worst form of riba, the essence of riba, of usury, is the honour of your brother and sister. Your tongue being long with your brother and your sister. So remember that hajji that I told you about in the very beginning, a person who's looking at the Ka'bah who can flow with la ilaha illallah, yaqul imam al-jawzi rahimahullah ta'ala waman sarraha lisanahu fi a'raad al-muslimeen waman sarraha lisanahu fi a'raad al-muslimeen that whoever lets their tongue loose on the honour of their brothers and sisters amsakallahu lisanahu ana shahadati Allah will hold his tongue from being able to say shahadat at the time of death. May Allah protect us. Let me tell you one of the most horrifying things to see and anyone who's been around dying people will tell you that they've seen it. Is a person who's dying and who's still fully conscious and someone's telling them to say la ilaha illallah and they're going and it's as if you can see someone holding their tongue and saying you're not going to be able to say it. No, no, you don't get this gift today. You don't get this gift right now. man sarraha lisanahu fi a'raad al-muslimeen that tongue was too loose with the honour of your brothers and sisters amsakallahu lisanahu ana shahadati anda al-mawt. Allah azawajal holds back that tongue from saying the shahadat at the time of death. Yes, a person dying and someone saying to him say ashhadu la ilaha illallah and he says I can't say what you're telling me to say. It's happened. Where a person feels held back.
Why? Did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala catch that person by surprise? No. Your tongue was too loose. Fingers were too loose. When it came to speaking about other people fi a'raad al-muslimeen when it came to the honour of the believers and by the way this is true. Subhanallah Imam al-Ghazali says about this disease of backbiting every single age every single social class is purged with this disease. There's the ghibah of the 16 year old and the ghibah of the 60 year old. There's the ghibah of the backbiting and the gossip of the poor person, the backbiting of the rich person but it is a disease that plagues every single class of people and that's why it is so warned against. I don't care if you come to the masjid all the time I don't care if you read Quran all the time and you pray all the time and mashallah you do so many other things. Your tongue is loose with the behaviour and with the honour of people it might come back to grab you on the day of judgement and that's a jail, that's a prison that comes down at that time so fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with that tongue, fear Allah with that tongue. Subhanallah, Imam Sufyan al-Thawri rahim Allah talks about the disconnect in this life that he felt from one of his ibadat he said, ... I was forbidden from qiyam al-layl for six months, why? ... ... ... I saw a man crying in the masjid and I said to myself, he's not crying for Allah. That's a person who spoke to themselves what about a person who speaks to others, oh you see that brother mashallah making announcements, you see that brother doing this, you see that sister don't they always love to do that? You know how they are always find their way there, always do this always do that. Can you imagine if Sufyan al-Thawri, the righteous man is saying I was forbidden for six months for something I
said inside then what is the crime of a person who actually speaks that to someone else? That's a barrier that you're putting between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Dear brothers and sisters is this meant to scare us? In a way, yes, because we need to be afraid of these sins, otherwise we fall into muhaqqaraat al-dhunub, we fall into the belittling of these sins but the only thing I want to put across to each and every single one of us is that these are things that are dealt with through introspection Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has made some of the causes of disconnect from him more subtle but he has not made them invisible to a sincere, striving, introspective Muslim and I don't care how old you are I can tell you subhanallah that the best hajji that I had this year, and Allah knows the state of the hajjaj, was a man who learned to do salah the day before he boarded his plane to hajj can you imagine that? and may Allah accept the hajj of him and the hajj of everyone else but subhanallah this is the flip side of that Ya Allah, astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk I seek your forgiveness help me remove the barriers ma alimtu minhu wa ma lam a'lam that which I know about and that which I don't know about so that I can flow with la ilaha illallah with khushu' in this life and at the time of death say la ilaha illallah with ease and then in my grave say la ilaha illallah with ease and be raised up on the day of judgment with la ilaha illallah may Allah remove all of the barriers between us and him may Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala remove all of the stains from our hearts may Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala give our souls their taskiya, their purification may Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala forgive us for our shortcomings may Allah forgive us for the sins that we know of and the sins that we don't know of may Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala protect us from deluding ourselves and deceiving ourselves and may Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala allow us
to be amongst those who live and die and are raised upon la ilaha illallah Allahumma amin, aqoolu qawli hadha wa astaghfirullahi wa alaikum wa isa'ilil muslimeen fastaghfiru, inna huwa ghafoor, wa raheem alhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man walahi, Allahumma ghufir lil mu'mineen wa lil mu'minat wa lil muslimeen wa lil muslimat al-ahya'i minhum wa l-amwat, innaka sami'un qareebun wujeebu da'wat, Allahumma ghufir lana wa rahamna wa a'afu anna wa la tu'adhibna, Rabbana dhalamna anfusana wa illam takhfir lana wa tarhamna la nakunanna minal khasireen, Allahumma innaka a'afubun kareemun tuhibbu al'afu wa fa'afu anna, Allahumma ghufir liwalidina, Rabbir hamhuma kama rabbuna sigara, Rabbana hablana min azwajina wa dhriyatina qurra ta'ayun wa ja'alna lil muttaqina imama, Allahumma ansur ikhwan al-mustad'afeena fi masharika al-ardi magharibiha, Allahumma ansur ikhwan al-mustad'afeena fi falastin, Allahumma aslih khawala ikhwan al-mankubeena fi ghazza, Allahumma ansur al-mujahideena fi kulli makan, Allahumma alayka bi a'daika a'da al-deen, Allahumma alinaa feehim a'ja'iba qudratik, Allahumma ahlik al-dhalimeena bil-dhalimeen, wa akhrijna wa ikhwana min bayneem salimeen. Ibadullah, Allah ya'muru bil-adli wal-ihsan wa ita'id al-qurba wa yanhaa an al-fahsha'i wal-munkari wal-baghi, ya'idukum la'al lakum tadhakkanoon, fathkuru Allah yadhkurukum, wa shkuruhu ana ni'maa yazid lakum, wa la dhikru Allahi akbar, wa Allahi ya'ma ma tasna'oon, wa aqeem as-salaam. you
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