 As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu Alhamdulillah we thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala For this opportunity of life For every day that we have and every moment that we have And represents an opportunity for us To correct our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Insha'Allah we In our brief time together here there's a hadith Which is the 18th hadith in the Collection of Imam Nawab is 40 hadith Where the prophet alaihi salatu was-salam he says Itaqil la hayfum akhunt What's ba'a say? At hasinat tam huha wa khalaqin nas bi khalaqin hasin This hadith The prophet as-salam advises us first To fear Allah if you want to translate that Or God-consciousness of taqwa And I always find this word interesting Taqwa coming from waqa Meaning to ward off a blow In the Arabic language So how do we understand this And what I have understood and taken from Teachers and others that I have studied with It says that it's to ward off the punishment The displeasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala That's how we understand this Waqa to block something To shield yourself from the displeasure From the anger of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Hence we get the word taqwa So Itaqil la hayfum akhunt So really if we look at this hadith There are three aspects of the hadith There is one Which is establishing our relationship with Allah Itaqil la Two What's ba'a say? At hasinat tam huha Our relationship with the Akhira And three Khalaqin nas bi khalaqin hasin Our relationship with other people And if you look at that in terms of our Deen One is Tohid The second is Ibadah And the third is muamana We can think of it in that way So the first one Our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala But it's based on taqwa And One of the things That I'm a visual learner I like to see things It helps me to understand And I'll share with you two examples of this The first From the companions When they explained this concept of taqwa That they said it as if You are walking through a path That is filled with thorns And One narration from Allah If I remember correctly Is he said as if your garments Are made of cotton And another one that just says your garments Itself And the question is How would you walk through that path If it was narrow Wanting to avoid your clothes From being pulled on by these thorns So in this If you think about it The thorns Are the displeasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And the garment is like our iman How would we move through this space To avoid the displeasure Of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala This idea of taqwa It taqwa Wherever you are And Allah uses the singular Or the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in this hadith He uses the singular here And again it's this idea we're speaking to A student actually just last night When I read a verse of the Qur'an that said When he read a verse of the Qur'an that said Oh you who believe He said Whatever admonishment would come after He said I took it as if Allah was speaking to me directly So hearing this hadith Wherever you are on this planet If people see you If people don't see you If people know If people don't know All of that is irrelevant Because Allah is al-Busia Allah is the all-seeing Allah is al-samee Allah is the all-hearing Allah is al-khabia Allah is the all-informed Allah is al-alameen Allah is the all-knowledgeable As we hold these things in front of us It aids us in a world That is calling us away from Allah SWT To make it easier for us To have that type of taqwa To have that type of taqwa I was looking at this And I came across a saying Of Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu Actually What I thought was very interesting here Is that Someone of weak iman of myself I have to talk a lot About Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu This was a khutba That he gave in its entirety I came across this And it starts off with taqwa That's why I want to mention it He says radiallahu anhu There are five dark matters And five lamps to illuminate them There are five dark matters And five lamps to illuminate them He says Love of this world is darkness And taqwa is a lamp Which illuminates it Sin is darkness And its lamp Is repentance The grave is darkness And its light Its lamp Is la ilaha illallah Muhammad al-Rasool Allah He said that hereafter The Akhirah is darkness And its lamp Is righteous deeds Its lamp is righteous deeds And he said the fifth one The sirat The bridge over the hellfire That all of us will have to cross Is darkness And its lamp Is yakeen Certainty of faith And then he ended the khutba there Subhanallah Love of this world is a darkness He said And taqwa is its lamp May Allah illuminate our world The second one What's bi'asayat hasana tamhuha And Follow up A sin with a good deed It erases it Unfortunately Or let's look at it this way This hadith Alhamdulillah It is something that is calling us To be proactive It is calling us to be proactive If we fall into sin Then follow it with a righteous action However At times Or what this hadith is calling us To be proactive If we fall into sin Then follow it with a righteous action What the hadith is calling us to Is that understanding that sin Can be mobilizing And not debilitating That sin can be motivational And not debilitating Because at times We fall into this state It's almost like we take ourselves Out of the game Because we have committed a sin That's shaitan winning Because this is the prophetic This is the example of our tradition This is the example of our We're all going to make mistakes We're all going to make mistakes But what is the response to it And I came across a hadith Years ago I remember reading this beautiful hadith Allah says in the hadith Or it's actually a hadith qudsi Where Allah swt says I am with those whose hearts are broken For my sake Now when I was reading the commentary When is your heart broken For the sake of Allah swt When we do righteous actions The heart is broken When we are in an act of disobedience But Allah says I am with you I am with you when you are sad And by the wrong action that you have done I am with you when you have committed sin I am with you But shaitan comes in and tries to put a wedge Between Allah being with us To tell us how hypocritical we are To tell us how unworthy we are Of Allah swt So the question is Which voice are we going to listen to What's bi'a sayyat hasinat tam huha Right? Use it as a motivation Do not allow it to debilitate us Because Allah swt does not want us to sit And feel guilty to a state That we cannot respond This is the guidance This is the path here So if you think about it As we said One aspect of this hadith The first one Calling us to tawhid Having a relationship Establishing that relationship With Allah swt And that relationship Is based its foundation At taqwa The second one Being concerned about our hereafter And the beautiful thing Is that it's always When we look at this tradition It's always in a win-win situation for us You committed a sin We're not destroyed But what happens today Is that it is That one action That one moment will say We'll call it a moment That that one moment then Gets placed on top of us And it becomes in essence As if that is who we are It's not who we are It's a moment And it is in that moment That Allah swt Gives us the opportunity Or one that he comes near to us Brings his rahma Brings his rahma Brings his guidance Brings his ma'iyah As is mentioned I am with them Whose hearts are broken For my sake So think about this Say Say this And I swear to you To the believers Allah's thanks be to Allah For a lot of things As a result From Allah And it's in greatillon By ourijib And it's m'udman And we'll start After that And may Allah's peace, mercy and mercy be upon us The last few minutes here that we have together in the Khutbah, we look at the third part here, which really is Mu'amalat, and it represents our relationship with others. وخالق ناس بخلق نحسن. And be with people with the best of character. And it's as if we internalize the first two components of Taqwa and of following the bad deed with a good one, Sha'Allah it builds that foundation for this third one of having a beautiful character. Because really then this becomes the full circle and it's holistic now in our representation. Because what we have to avoid is that we have a light, a type of religious outward religiosity, but yet we have horrible relations with others. Poor Akhlaq, which is not prophetic in nature. But we engage in religious matters, as you said, with enthusiasm, but for example when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to whatever it is, we've seen it all in our lives of actions that are not befitting of prophetic character. وخالق ناس بخلق نحسن. Be with people with beautiful character. Now the beautiful character of the Prophet is such a high standard for us. But I'll tell you as Imam Zayn told me all the time, shoot for the stars you might make it to the moon. Shoot for the stars you might make it to the moon. We set that as our example. That example, the prophetic example of خلق نحسن, to want good for those who want bad for you. To want good for those who want bad for you. It's the same example that we see of Yusuf al-Aziz. And so as we think about this, in this idea of this having good character, I came across a text or actually it is in Imam Rosali's breaking of the two desires here. He says Imam Rosali writes that once a man summed up the signs of good character. And I just share this with you because this text for me is something that I like to visit this text or revisit. Not a text that oh I have read it and it goes on the shelf but I want to look at it. I looked at this section here on manners, prophetic manners, to find out where my deficiencies are and where are things that I am doing. But how can I improve them? How can I have greater efficiency in them? So now he gives us this map to put in front of ourselves here and he says a man once summed up the signs of good character by saying it is to be abundantly modest. To avoid harming others. To be righteous, truthful in speech and to be of little discourse. To do many things and to slip up infrequently. To avoid excess. To be loyal, friendly, dignified, patient, grateful, satisfied, forbearing, charitable, chaste and pitying. And not to curse or to insult people or to backbite or slander them. And to avoid hastiness, hatred, meanness and jealousy. To be thankful and kind. To love good and to hate evil for the sake of Allah. And to be well pleased with Him, capital H, and to only be angry for His sake, capital H. Such are the people of good character. So we hear something like this, I will close with this. A scholar once said to me, he said the application of knowledge he said is like, we should tell people it is like zakat. If we have zakat ul maal, how much is it? 2.5%. He said there's a kato knowledge between you and I, he said it's like 10%. Because we want to have more barakah than the 2.5%, he said. He said so what does he mean by 10%? He says whatever we learn, do not put the pressure on ourselves that we have to apply every single aspect of what we learn right then and there. We call this, for those that we have seen who have come into the fold of Islam, we call it the 90 day burnout. We want to do every single aspect of the Deen within 90 days and after those 90 days, you barely see the person anymore. So this idea of the application of 10%, he said if you have learned 10 hadith, apply one. If you have learned 100 verses, he said take 10. And I was just reading in that, that there was a sahaba who had one haaya it said that they kept in front of them and looked at where and when and how they could apply this in their lives. Now that becomes the acquisition, now that becomes the application of knowledge because we're not just about quantity. How much have I learned? How much am I applying? We're halaq in nasb, we're halaq in hasa. May Allah allow us to be people who one has a relationship with him built on fear, built on God consciousness, taqwa. And second, may we be people that are concerned with our hereafter and we use our mistakes, our sin, our disobedience as a way to draw nearer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala by following it up with the righteous action, amin. And may the third one be that we are people that are prophetic in their character. Allahumma rahma al-mu'mineena wa mu'minaat al-muslimeena wa al-muslimeat al-akhali minhum wa al-amwati ar-Rahma ar-Rahmeen. Allahumma kun ba'la wa laatukun aleina abudan ya Rabbi al-alameen. Allahumma rahmna fawq al-arwa tahtal al-arwa yawman akum binyadayka ya Rabbi al-alameen. Allahumma taqawal minna salatana wa qiyamana wa raku'ana wa sajourina ya Rabbi al-alameen. Allahumma ja'an quranan rabi'a kulubina wa nwooran fi qaburina ya Rabbi al-alameen. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa ba'lik ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim taslimin kintiyan ya Rabbi al-alameen wa aqeem al-salat ya Rahamani ya Rahamakum Allah.