We love Allah so much that we should be concerned about earning His anger or doing something that would spoil the relationship between us and Allah.
Whenever we have faltered, whenever we have done something wrong, because we are human beings, Allah Almighty has favored us with one of His greatest favors, and that is the acceptance of repentance of a worshiper.
If Allah forgives you, even if you have nothing on earth, you have succeeded.
And if Allah has not forgiven you, even if you have everything on earth, you have failed.
We are all bound to follow a way of life. Now that way of life, is it true or not? The one that we worship is either true Creator that deserves worship or not. So this is where Islam came from day one to reconnect us back to the true way; So reconnecting us to the true way of life, and to the One that deserves of worship.
Islam’s essence is Tawhid (The belief in one God), is to know who your Lord is. And a lot of the times, a lot of these issues come from this. Any issue that you mentioned to me, the root is Tawhid.
We (Muslims) believe Jesus (A.S) to be messiah.We believe him to be a prophet, not to be God or the Son of God. So we believe he is a messenger of God, and the early Christians; they never believed Jesus was God. This was a later on invention and the idea of the Trinity.
Islam teaches is God can forgive Give us and God doesn’t need a human sacrifice. We shouldn’t just follow the religion of our forefathers. We should look at what is true. And Islam is something which appears not only to your heartable but also to your intellect. It tells you things which are logical.
There’s a Christian Deacon. His name is Dr. Gerald Dirks. He was a Christian and he studied the early history of Christianity and he realized the early Christians did not believe in Jesus being God. They had many different beliefs. And many of these beliefs, they came after Jesus. So, he converted to Islam and he has a lecture on YouTube. You can watch called Islamic trajectories in early Christianity.
‘Do what you desire’ and this is the opposite of what God’s message to humanity is. God’s message is do the right thing not just do what you want, and that’s where I see the conflict between God’s message and the message that we have in contemporary society today.
In the Quran, that God says Think, reflect, question, Ponder; don’t just blindly accept, and one of the messages of the Quran is don’t follow your ancestors. Follow the truth. Don’t follow desire, follow the truth.
God says in the Quran is whoever comes to God with a sound heart will be saved, with a sound heart. So having a connection with God, we can decipher what is God’s intervention in our life. What does God want from us? And one of the messages of the Quran is God is closer to us than our jugular veins, right?
Even though God is above everything, God is closer to us than our jugular veins meaning if we remember God, God remembers us. If we try to connect with God, God connects with us.
In Islam, it teaches us through connecting with God, through prayer we can make sense of what’s happening to us in our life.
Islam says the purpose of life is to worship God. It’s a very simple thing. What does worship mean? It means you love, Hope, fear, trust; Everything’s in God and everything we do in our life ultimately is for God’s pleasure and we believe as Muslims, The only way to be truly happy is by making God happy, then you will have peace and happiness.
Ruling on rice vinegar, then somebody else asked about red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar:
The Maliki Scholars and the Hanafi scholars, They say that vinegar doesn’t matter what source it came if it came from wine, if it came from dates, if it came from Rice.. This is… its all fine.
Because when it was …if it was wine in the middle, it gets changed over into another substance, which is vinegar which is pure and which is halal.
Wine vinegar, is it Halal? Is it okay to have in a salad?
So people sometimes ask about alcohol in sanitizers, alcohol in Perfumes and in some cosmetics and so on What about that? People are saying how could you have alcohol in Sanitizers and then read Salah? How could you have alcohol in your perfume and then read salah?
This world and the other world… the distance between this world and the next world is only one breath. Whoever is breathing is still continuous and you’re in this world and whoever’s breathing has stopped then you’re in the other world. this whole bead of breathing place inside the pearls of sending Salawat on prophet (saw) and keep on saying sallallahu alaihi wasallam between each breath.
Then whether it’s this world or the other world that will be with you if you did that? The leader of the Two Worlds Muhammad sall-Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam will be with you.
The prophet (saw) had four things to give to the companions to transform their lives from the ignorance to the enlightened life in the Surah Al-Jumu’ah [62:2] of the Quran.
The Quran itself is the biggest source of knowledge; it’s not enough just to know Arabic. You have to know what Allah meant by those Arabic words. So this is another whole section of knowledge, which the prophets (saw) passed onto the sahaba.
It’s not just enough to recite the Quran. We need to know what those specific meanings of the Quran are sent to us.
But if you don’t know when to apply that knowledge, where to apply that knowledge; You don’t know how much of the knowledge to apply. Then you basically hit another big rock.
When to apply that knowledge, where to apply that knowledge, how much of that knowledge to apply, to whom to apply that knowledge to these all hikmah, and purify heart by removing illnesses like arrogance, pride, jealousy in heart to function that knowledge well
So our attitude and so on inside needs to change to save ourselves from the days of ignorance, of the days of jahiliyyah by gaining the spiritual cleanliness.
So the prophet (saw) came to recite the verses, He came to teach us the book, the meaning of the book, he taught us how much to apply what not to apply from his Sunnah, to have his wisdom of knowing where to apply, to whom to apply to, and most importantly after that is for our own spiritual cleanliness of the heart, the prophet salallahu alaihe Salam also gave us that teaching that was supposed to clean our inside.
Today’s khutbah I dedicate for ourselves. Mahasabha/ reflecting, pondering about your own situation because we all know that the betterment of the ummah starts right here. Right here, at yourself in your heart.
We are good criticizing everyone around us. But Honestly, I think we struggle criticizing ourselves. Whereas, we see that the sahaba radi Allahu anhum, they were very very critical with themselves.
The recipe of a shahabi was in that story was that he was reflecting upon his own deeds and his own actions every single night before he went to sleep and his recipe for jannah That he used to forgive every single one of the Muslims who wronged him during that day.
a characteristics of True Believers; they really reflect what they have done during the day during the week, during the month, during the year. So to better them, keep on doing what you found to be good and get rid actively of the things that put you on the path of shaitan.
What have we sacrificed for Allah?
The sake of this Deen of Allah subhanahu wa’ta’ala, for the sake of not you
We all have fantastic intentions when it comes to what we want to do Fi sabilillah in our life, But acting upon this intentions that’s where we struggled sometimes. how can you justify standing in front of Allah subhanahu wa’ta’ala and say I worked the decade two, three and I knew it was haram. But I was too comfortable.
Look into the mirror and say what am I doing? Do something.
If Prophet Muhammad Muhammad salallahu alaihe wasalam was to visit you today. What would you do? Would you be proud……
The change in the Ummah starting our houses in and if we can’t reflect upon our own situation, We have no right to criticize anyone else.
Asking Allaah for Taqwa and Purification of the Soul
Allahumma, ‘aati nafsee taqwaaha, wa zakkihaa Anta khairu man zakkaahaa, Anta Waliyyuhaa wa Maulaaha O Allah, grant my soul taqwa and purify it, You are the Best of those who purify it, You are its Protecting Friend and Guardian/Master.
to have the willingness and their intention to change ourselves But then also recognize that we will not be able to do that fully except if we put our forehead on the ground and say Ya Allah help me.
Mu’adh (رضي الله عنه) reported: The Messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) took hold of my hand and said, “O Mu’adh! By Allah I love you, so I advise you to never forget to recite after every prayer:
اللَّهُمَّ أَعِنِّي عَلَى ذِكْرِكَ، وَشُكْرِكَ، وَحُسْنِ عِبَادَتِكَ “Allâhumma a’innî alâ dhikrika, wa shukrika, wa husni ‘ibâdatika O Allah, help me remember You, to be grateful to You, and to worship You in an excellent manner”
Masjid being taken away from us and may Allah subhanahu wa’ta’ala allow us to return to His houses , when the masjid reopens here is how my commitment to it is going Change, here’s what I’m going to do different…
Let’s obsess over whether our hearts are open to Allah right now so that when those houses are reopened to us, our longing Hearts will do right by them this time around…
The All-Loving 