 We are continuing on a series of the 10 characteristics of these people of success in the dunya and in the akhira. We talked about being truthful with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with your creator as the first principle. And then last night we talked about being angry with your nafs, being a dictator with your nafs, being authoritative with your nafs and not give in to your nafs. And those were the first two. The third one that Abdullah Ansari, the great sage of the 5th century, says on the 10 characteristics and habits of successful people in the dunya and akhira is that how do you deal with friend? He said, ba-dustan bin nasiha, with your friend deal with him with nasiha. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said ad-dino nasiha. The religion is nasiha. It's sincerity and sincere counseling. And friends are one of the great blessings of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala if you're blessed with the good friends. Because good friends are really like a treasure house that's always there for you. But bad friends are, it's the worst thing that can happen to someone's life. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was asked in Sahih Muslim that how do we pick a friend? Who do we choose as a best friend? And he said, choose the person that would remember Allah with you. But if you forget, he would remind you. And if you forget, she would remind you. That's a friend, someone who would remind you about Allah if you go in the state of gifla, but always is a person of virtue, person of high level of virtue in ethics. So, but what about bad friends? Bad friends are the worst thing that can happen in a person's life. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, al-maru ala dini Khalidi, a person is in the religion of his friends. In other words, they will affect you, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. Maulana Rumi has a beautiful poem. In the Muslim, he says, Tatawani miguris az yarabad, yarabad batarbu ad az marabad. Run away from a bad friend, run away from a bad friend, because a bad friend is worse than a poisonous snake. Marabad tanha atura barjan zanat. A bad poisonous snake will harm your body, but a bad friend not only will harm your body, but it will also harm your spirit, your iman, your faith, your religion. And this is why it is important to be surrounded with good friends. And if you have good friends, subhanAllah, what a great blessing. And if you have bad friends, to run away from them as though you run away from a poisonous snake. Now, nasiha, giving counseling to a friend, how do we give counsel? Maulana says that don't give counsel to a person when they're in a state of intoxication, when they're drunk. In other words, you have to wait till they're sober. And this is a spiritual meaning, not a physical meaning. Giving counsel, Sayyidina Ali said, if you give counsel in front of people is as do you put them down. It's not really a counsel. It's not really nasiha. You're putting someone down in front of other people. But you do it in privacy and with beauty and with ihsan. The way of our religion, the way of our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is always to go to the positive, not to go to the negative. So if someone is doing something wrong, you always tell them that, listen, you're too good, you're too beautiful to do this. And you tell them their deficiency because the believer, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Al-Mu'minu Mir'atul Mu'min, a believer is a mirror of a believer. And one of the nature of the mirror is that it shows the beauty and it also shows the aib in the deficiency of the person. And it shows the beauty so that the person be grateful for that beauty that Allah has given, but it also shows the deficiency so they can rectify and make themselves better. And this is the nature of a believer and of a friend that we give sincere advice and if our friends have deficiencies and they're doing things that are wrong, we say it in the most beautiful way to them in the privacy of the two. Not in public, not on Instagram, not on Facebook, you don't tell people that aib in the deficiency in public, you say it in private, but you say it in the most beautiful way. Because this is the way it's not, they said it's not what you say is how you say it. So may Allah give us to do that to be good friends to people and to be a beautiful mirror that shows the beauty some and also shows the blemishes of people and tell them how to rectify themselves and may Allah give us good friends that they do the same for us. Now, the second thing, the next thing that this is the fourth thing, he says, How do you deal with your enemies because you have friends, you have enemies, everybody has friends, everybody has enemies. We know that our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, the best of Allah's creation, he had enemies, everybody has enemy, even though he had control over his nafs where he didn't have a button to be pushed. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was buttonless. Nobody could push his button to get him angry to get him. No, he was always in control of his limbs of his body of his of his spirit. Everything was under his control. Nothing controlled him except Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So, the Abdullah al-Sadi continues, he said, with your enemies deal with them with him, with forbearance, with gentleness, because you don't want to add fuel to the fire. If you have an enemy and you're harsh with them, you're just going to make the situation worse. Lauzu said, the great Chinese philosopher, he said, look at the rocks and look at the water, the harshness of the rocks and the gentleness of the water. But he said, the water, the power of water is that it penetrates through the rocks. And that's the beauty of gentleness. Gentleness is control strength. Gentleness is controlled power. And that's the beauty of gentle people. They're actually very powerful people. They're actually strong people, but they have control over their strength and they're gentle and beautiful. And may Allah make us amongst those who are gentle and beautiful because with harshness, you will create enemy. With gentleness, you win your enemies. We need to turn enemies into friends. And this is the teaching of our Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And he always turned his enemies into his friends. Now, look at the way he dealt with Omar ibn al-Khattab before, who was the greatest enemy of Islam. One of the greatest enemies of Islam was Omar ibn al-Khattab and the other one was Abu Jahl. These are the two people that they were enemies of Islam. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam raises his hand and makes a dua. And this is a Sahih hadith. Allahumma a'iz al-Islamah. Ya Allah gives a dignity to Islam. But what? What is he making dua for? He's saying, with the one of the two Omar's that's beloved to you, either with Islam of Omar ibn al-Khattab or Islam of Abu Jahl. One of these two, give a aizah to this religion with the Islam of these two regalain. This one of these two, whoever is most beloved to you, give dignity and honor to this religion. This is the dua. And this is why Ibn Omar said that the dua of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was accepted. And my father is the dua of our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And that's why Omar ibn al-Khattab is in a category of his own because every Sahaba got dignity with Islam. But Omar ibn al-Khattab gives dignity to Islam. And he's in a maqam of his own because he's the answer of the dua of our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam didn't make dua against Omar that he's our enemy. And there you know, may Allah destroy it. No, he never made, he never added fuel to the fire. He made dua and he was gentle with them until Omar became Muslim and he became the, we know the story of Omar. The greatest conquest after the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam passed away. And after Sayyidina Abu Bakr, the greatest conquest that came in the history of Islam was during the time of Sayyidina Omar ibn al-Khattab. And may Allah turn all our enemies to friends. We want to turn our enemies to friends and not make dua against our enemies, but make dua for them that they're guiding and they become our friends, inshallah. Jazakallah khayran. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.