 All those two months that we prepared has been for the preparation of the arrival of this month. The Holy Prophet Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has a khutbah which has been famously known as khutbah sha'abaniyah. A khutbah he delivered on the last Friday of the month of sha'aban that just passed a few days ago. It's a very beautiful khutbah. He welcomes and describes the month of Ramadan beautifully. And in there, there's a couple of key points that I want to mention tonight so that we begin to create the proper mindset. I want to move away from the idea that this is just a hunger strike or an attempt to lose, you know, six to seven pounds. Or it's a month of, let's say, iftari parties. Let's attempt to move away from that a little bit and really truly understand what is it that we are now entering in these next 30 days. It's a matter of 30 days. It's a long khutbah. I'll just kind of, you know, I don't have much time. I'll extract a few passages and then we'll get to a discussion on the Qur'an itself. We'll start once Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He says, Starts off very beautifully. Says, So he addresses all of mankind that surely, That surely now the month of Ramadan or the month of Allah now is upon you. The verb used is Aqbala. Aqbala comes from a word called qabala. From qabala many different words are derived. One of them is istiqbal. Istiqbal is used in all languages for the exact same meaning. It is the meeting or the welcoming or you could say the coming together of two entities. Istiqbal happens when both entities arrive at the same location. Okay, Dr. Ibrahim, I have the honor of being picked up by him today at the airport. And, you know, usually you would say can you go and do istiqbal of our guests at the airport. They say in Urdu at least. Istiqbal means that I have to land at Philly airport. He has to also arrive at Philly airport for there to be istiqbal. If I arrive and he for some reason decides, you know what? I'm not going to get this guy today from the airport. Forget it. I'm sick and tired of him. He comes every single year, forget it. And I'm sitting there, I'm searching, I'm calling Dr. Salah. Anybody, can you please come pick me up? That's not istiqbal. Or if he arrives at Philly airport and my flight is delayed or canceled and I have no idea, I didn't tell him. No one told him. He's there. I'm not there. That's also not istiqbal. Istiqbal happens when both entities together arrive and are ready for each other. He came. He came with an empty trunk. He came with a bottle of water. He came prepared to pick me up. The Holy Prophet says, Meaning what? That the month of Ramadan now is approaching you. It's ready for what? For istiqbal. It's ready to be received. But we equally have to receive the month of Allah as well. We equally have to be there with the month of Allah for true istiqbal to happen. And it takes us, like I said, a few days for us to prepare ourselves for the true istiqbal of this month of Allah, which he says is full of barakat, is full of rahma, is full of maqfara. And then he goes on. A very beautiful Prophet says, You know, when somebody who is well known in the community, somebody who maybe is successful, somebody who maybe has a high post, a high position, maybe in the government, let's say for example, a famous celebrity and athlete, let's say for example, if they invite you to an event that they're having, let's say they invite you to their home, or they have a private gathering, let's say in some remote location and you are given a very special invitation, you are one of, let's say, 12 people. You're excited. You feel honored. You'll tell everybody about it. And the higher the position is of the host, the greater the banquet itself is. The Prophet of Allah is saying, This is the month, that you're being invited where the host of that invitation is Allah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. And all of you understand that when Allah is used as a word, Allah is the Ism-e-Alam, Ism-e-Jam, as they say, meaning Allah encompasses every sifat and quality and attribute of His. When you say Allah, everything else that you think of when it comes to Allah is included in that one word of Allah. That's why we don't have a translation for Allah. We don't use God to be a proper translation for Allah. God can be plural. God can be feminine. God can be masculine. We don't have that. We have God, mothers and God. We don't have that. Allah itself is a standalone entity that cannot be translated or properly understood through the lexical meaning of Allah. How we understand what Allah is is that we use His sifat and qualities to say that when we say Allah inside of that word, Allah, Him being Rahman and Rahim and Razik and Alim and Qadir, everything you know from Joshna Kabir to 99 names, all of that is wrapped up in the word of Allah. Makes sense? Now when the Prophet says that it's not one entity of His that's inviting us, it's a viyafatillah. Allah's ismijam is inviting us to be our guests this month, meaning every aspect of His entity is hosting us in this month. Not just for one day now, for 30 straight days, maybe 29. So let's understand what we're about to enter. And then he goes on to say, He says your breath is tasbih of Allah. Your sleep is ibadat of Allah. Now my question for my youth, has our breathing changed? Do we sleep different now? We might sleep less. We still have our standard way of sleeping, right? On the left, on the right, on the back. Whatever the case may be. Our sleeping in terms of our form hasn't changed. What has changed and what will change throughout the month is the person breathing or the person sleeping. Many things I've heard about the month of Ramadan, one thing that really caught my eye, it's the month of hope they call it. It's a beautiful discussion. Why a month of hope? Because sometimes Islam, the deen of Islam is a challenge. It's been presented to the masses from the era of Jahlia to today as a challenge. It's a challenge, no doubt. There are certain acts of worship inside the deen of Islam that is no doubt very difficult. Fasting is one of them. From the prophets, to the imams, to your parents, to the ulama, to the Quran, everybody has always presented fasting to be a difficult act of worship. Especially in the summertime when sometimes we reach 15, 16 hours of fasting. It is a challenge. It's a conscious decision. Taqwa is a conscious decision to be a God-centric individual where everything you do, you find Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in it. Be it your worship, be it your work, be it your school, or be it your breathing and your sleeping. And while our breathing will not change, our sleeping will not change, we will also be very, very different in this month. And that's what I want to touch upon a little bit in this next Tameh. Sallahu ala Muhammad wa ala Muhammad. This is a month of Allah where this is a month of hope as they call it. Meaning what? It reminds us of our capacity. It reminds us of what we are able to do. I have the utmost respect for a lot of you. A lot of you work your 9 to 10 hours. Some may have the luxury of having a reduced schedule or maybe your own schedule, but many of you, your work schedule hasn't changed. You might be able to come in an hour early, an hour late, let's say, work from home. But sometimes I think about the fact that you're up at 3.45, 4 o'clock in the morning, you might go back down after fudger and then go back up at 7.30, 8 o'clock, work throughout the entire day, tired, hungry, thirsty, having to deal with coworkers, not even water? No, not even water. Are you sure? Not water? Not water. Then you come home, you're exhausted, you're tired, you need a nap, and somehow you come and you pack your kids up and you bring them to the center. You don't get home till 11 sometimes and it starts all over again. You're sleep deprived, your energy levels are down, your kids are very tired, everything is there. You have to arrange for so-called when you're half awake and on top of that you're working 8 hours a day. The utmost respect for all of you. It's so difficult. It's not easy. But hadith says the harder the worship, the higher the reward. So this has always been a challenge. It always will be a challenge. And sometimes we convince ourselves that I'm not up for the challenge. Especially today's youth. I said, I can't do it. I can't do hijab, I can't do this idea of being the ambassador of the religion. It's too hard, too many temptations, too much shaitan. If I do the bare minimum, that's enough. And we sell ourselves short. And along comes the month of Ramadan. And all of a sudden now, you're awake an hour before the Adhan of Fajr. All of a sudden now, in the same 24 hours when you convinced yourself you couldn't do it, you find time for a few verses of the Qur'an. Every night in the center. Dwai iftitah, for example. Breaking bread with your fellow brothers and sisters. Feeding individuals. Some of you now are going to sponsor these Iftahs. And sometimes, you know, money is tight. It could require several hundred, if not more, to sponsor one Iftah at this very large community. And somehow you say, no, I have to. Why? It's a month of Allah, a month of Ramadan. Some of you sponsor individuals. You give charity. You do a number of extra acts of worship. And you do all of that in the exact same timeframe where outside the month of Ramadan you've convinced yourself, I can't do it. Allah says, yes, you can. And you're doing it. The same youth, the same 18, will tell me, I cannot fight my urge and my desire. I'm being pulled by Sheytan left, right, and center. The same body that you can't control outside the month of Ramadan is the same body at four o'clock in the afternoon, screaming at you to go to the fridge, open it, and just take one bite, Baba. It's okay. Nobody will know. Your parents are gone to work. You got home early from school. The fridge is filled with that nice kababal that you love. And if I just break off a half and refoil it, nobody will know. I've heard now. I've had experience. I've heard. That's how it is. And nobody will know. There's no camera set up hopefully inside your house. Nothing will happen, but yet somehow, even the thought of it hopefully doesn't cross your mind. You're watching, let's say, the game. You're watching highlights. Let's say, for example, there's a nice commercial on Gatorade. Dripping cold, wet Gatorade. And you're dying of thirst at four o'clock in the afternoon. But for some reason, that same body that's screaming at you to go feed me and feed me and feed me, you say, no, I'm fasting. I can't break a lost command. And that's the very hope and the very capacity that Allah wishes to show you. Not once, 29 to 30 times in a month. To show you, you know what? You've had it inside of you this entire time. Your breathing won't change. Your sleep won't change. You have changed. That's why when you get after 19, 20, 21 days of this constant and by that, you get to a point now where you enter the night of Qadir. And now all of a sudden Allah says your one worship, your one act of worship is equal to what? A lifetime of worship. Is it that Allah has gotten stronger on the nights of Qadir all of a sudden now? Allah has upped his game? No. He'll say, look, it's the exact same worship. The difference is, the worshiper now is different. You've now reached that capacity now where you are able to spend one night of true wa'ibad. That's it. Where now you are completely in tune with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala fighting every physical urge to break that fast. You fought all of it and now you enter the nights of Qadir on a high, a spiritual high, a physical high. And now that amal and those amal are equal to what? Over a thousand months of worship. Allah has not become stronger on that night. You've become stronger on that night. It's a reflection of what you can do and what you are doing. So yes, it'll take a couple of days for us to adjust to our sleeping patterns and our alarm clocks and our bodies. But after a while, let's begin to elevate towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.