Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Al-Birr. Lantanalulbirr. MashaAllah. Righteousness. To have a sense of doing good. To be a person who achieves the heights of faith and worship. SubhanAllah, it's the aspiration of every believer in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It is the regret of anyone who hasn't attained it. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants us to come to a place of consideration, of love, contentment, happiness, and fidelity within ourselves, communities, and in pleasing to Him subhanahu wa ta'ala. That word is usually translated as righteous. We're going to discover what it means today. Birr is this really beautiful concept. Birr, if I was to try to explain it to you, I would have to give you an imagery. If you, to kind of close your eyes now and to kind of imagine a desert, and there's no vegetation in it, and as you're walking for mile after mile in rolling sand dunes of just plain white sand, all of a sudden, in the middle of this desert, where there's no water, no rivers, no aquifers, there's this bush, a rose bush, and it's got this magnificent fragrant flower. And you look at it and you say, how is this here? How is it possible? This is an oxymoron. This is opposite to the reality of everything around. How can this flourish in a place of desolateness? The word that the Arabs used to describe that flower is that this land is a land where birr has occurred, where something that could not, should not exist is existing. And that's how Allah describes righteous conduct. It is opposite to what most human beings do. And that's why Allah attaches it to some of the most significant and difficult acts of worship to maintain. One of the issues that we will discuss, of course, in this series of ours is about birr
al-walidayn, righteous conduct to our parents, because it's so difficult. It's not something that is the norm. It is the opposite to the norm. But birr, Allah says, lantanalul birr, you will not attain that righteousness that you seek, hatta tunfiqun mimma tuhibboon, until you're able to give of the things that you love the most. In other places in the Quran, laysal birru, birr is not just that you establish the prayers, that you visit the house of Allah, that you're charitable to the near and the far, and that you do good. walakinnal birr man ittaqa. Birr in its true definition is that you have a consciousness of Allah and a taqwa, a fear of Allah, a love of Allah, and a hope of Allah's mercy, which is something that is scarce and rare amongst many people, Muslim and non-Muslim. So how do you and I establish birr? How can we become people who are fragrant flowers in this desert of this worldly life? How can we become people of who are shining lights in the darkness of the world? How can we establish charity and sacrifice and kindness when other people find it difficult to just get along with each other in our day? And that really is one of the hallmarks of the believer. The Prophet ﷺ, he describes the believer as one who is ambitious to doing good deeds, who wants to establish birr, righteousness, good habits, good ethics, and good dealings with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So let's focus on this word birr, to be righteous, to be a person who does what other people are unwilling to do. And I want you to know that the gates of birr are so wide. You don't have to be like everybody else in doing the same good deeds. Some people, SubhanAllah, it comes really easy for them to give of their charity. But for other people, their greatest charity
is a smile, or that they are a comforting hug, or a comforting phone call that they give to people who need it when everybody else has forgotten them. I want you to know that perhaps one of us may be really good that we wake up at night and are able to pray to Allah before fajr, but many are not. And some people, those people who are able to pray at night, maybe they're not as giving with their wealth. And perhaps somebody who's giving with their wealth and prays at night, maybe they're a little bit rough in their personality. And although they're kind, they're not really generous with their spirit and they don't look after other people as much as they should. They're good in certain capacities but not in others. The first lesson of birr is that you can approach Allah in so many ways of kindness and righteousness. Listen to the words of the Prophet ﷺ in the authentic hadith narrated by the Imam Muslim. He says ﷺ, إذا أمرتكم بأمر فأتوا به ما استطعتم. When I invite you and give command to you to do something good and I've given you so many choices, do as much and as many of them as you can. وإذا نهيتكم عن شيء فانتهوا. But when I forbid something, stay away from it. There's no choice there. Why is there so many opportunities to do good? Why are there so many virtues and opportune ways for us to worship Allah, work righteous deeds and establish happiness in our homes because we're not going to be able to do them all. But you and I are able to choose different ways that we can approach Allah. Some of them related to other people. Some of them that are personal in the confines and the privacy of our homes and our rooms. Some of them is material with our wealth. Some of them is with our intent. Some of it with our dua or dhikr. So many opportunities of earning righteousness. Here is the key. The Prophet ﷺ said, لا تحقرن من المعروف شيئا. Do not ever underestimate
any good deed that you do. To give you an example of that, the Prophet ﷺ, he says كان في من كان قبلكم. In the times before we lived, the hadith is narrated by Imam Muslim, there was a man who had a troubled life. He was a well-known man, a religious scholar, a celebrated person, but in their own life there was something that they couldn't fix. Although they could help so many other people and help themselves in so many ways, there's that one thing they couldn't do. So they said to themselves, he said, I'm going to help myself by going out tonight and giving charity to help someone else. And perhaps by me helping somebody else in a difficulty in their life with my charity, Allah will send someone to help me. فنكر ثيابه. He changed his clothing, covered his face, went to a different part of the city, and in the darkness of the night, on a moonless night, the first person he bumped into, he gave charity and he said تصدقت عليك وهرب. And he ran away, فر منه. Ran quickly, doesn't want them to know who they are so that he can be sincere to Allah so that they don't say, oh, this person gave me money. He woke up in the morning and everybody in his village, in his city are talking, they say something strange happened last night. He goes, what happened? They said somebody last night gave charity to a thief. A thief? He said, oh, that must be me. They said in the darkness of the night, he gave charity to someone who was about to rob them. Could you imagine? سبحان الله. دحق الصحابة. The sahaba were amused. A man is about to take his life and he gave him charity. He said, oh, maybe Allah didn't accept that. Let me go out tomorrow night. So the next night he went out and he bumps into someone, gives charity, runs away. And the next morning, they say, oh my goodness, somebody gave charity to a woman of the night, somebody who was doing haram. And he said, that's just as bad. I'm going to go out the third night. And the third night he went out and he gave charity and everybody this time, they're just laughing, rolling, even the sahaba hearing it, they're rolling with laughter. And he says, what happened now? They said, somebody gave charity to the
king لغنينا. And the man, you know, سبحان الله, the sahaba are laughing. Who gives charity to the king? The richest man in the city. And then the Prophet said, are you amused by this? Well, let me tell you what its effect is. As for the first night, the thief and the brigand who took that charity, he said, I don't need to hurt anyone today. And he went home and didn't hurt anybody. And the man who had given the charity, he thought, oh my goodness, my charity has gone to waste. It went to a thief. But in fact, that was such a powerful charity. It didn't just help somebody in need, but it helped so many other people not to be hurt or stolen from. So many other people in society were protected. And it was a means for the guidance and the protecting even of the thief from doing extra wrong. The woman of the night who took it and she said, I don't need to dishonor myself. I wasn't out here on the streets doing this because it made me happy. She said, I was doing this because I was forced. Nobody was looking after me. I was destitute. I've been hurt and harmed. And now I can protect myself. And she took it and she went home and she was safe. And it stopped other people from doing the haram with her as well. SubhanAllah. The third night, the king, he took that money and felt ashamed of himself. And he said, somebody less than me is doing more than me. And then the Prophet ﷺ said on the fourth night, the king changed his clothing, went out and gave charity in secret. SubhanAllah. So it became a reason for him to do good that he had not been doing on himself. That is birr. That you've done something that is uncustomary, that Allah accepts and increases it. Don't ever underestimate a kind word, a kind act, a kind sadaqah, whatever dollar you give, whatever pound you give, whatever charity you share. Know for a fact that Allah accepted in the way that he seeks
and will increase it in its reward. Never look down at good deeds and know Allah is the one that you seek and your sincerity is with him. Wa Sallillahumma wa Sallim wa Zid wa Barik ala Sayyidina wa Nabiyina Muhammad. It's your brother Yahya Ibrahim. Wa Salamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.
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