 Alright, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil ala'alameen wa sallallahu wa sallam. Wa barak ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala'ali wa sahbihi wa sallam. Hopefully this works this time, inshallah the audio is working. Thank you all so much. Alhamdulillah for your patience. So we are going to be doing a conversation here about repenting in the blessed month of Ramadan. And really the focus here is going to be just talking at first about what the focus of this blessed month is. And then we're going to be talking about what are the ways that we can actually start to achieve Allah's repentance in this month. So today we're just going to be talking a little bit in detail about what exactly is repentance and why is it imported in the blessed month of Ramadan. And what makes Ramadan stand out as a month to repent, as a month to turn back to Allah. So many of us know that Ramadan is a month of forgiveness. It is a month of achieving Allah's mercy. It is a month of achieving nearness to Allah. And as we start to go throughout this month, we want to try to think about all of the different ways that we want to transform our lives rather than just kind of going about the basics. And that's where repentance comes in. Repentance is a very, very important concept in this blessed month of Ramadan. So there are so many different Hadith that talk about the mercy and the forgiveness that is passed out, literally passed out in this blessed month. There's a Hadith that indicates that the first 10 days are days of mercy. That the next 10 days of the month, the second 10 days are days of forgiveness. And the following 10 days are days of freedom from the Hellfire. All of these have a kind of theme of mercy. They have a theme of achieving Allah's nearness. They have a theme of repentance. And so in this month, Allah is literally calling us to ask for his forgiveness because he's passing out so much forgiveness. But how do we go about achieving that forgiveness? So let's dive into that a little bit, inshallah. There are many, many, many ways to turn back to Allah. But the most important aspect of turning back to Allah is to do so sincerely. It's to think about all the different things that we've done wrong over the course of the last year. And it's to first and foremost feel remorse for those different things that we've done. And what better month than the month of Ramadan to turn back to Allah and to achieve Allah's mercy? A couple of things about fasting. Fasting, as we all already know, it's already just by you fasting, your sins, minor sins are being forgiven. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, said that whoever fasts this blessed month of Ramadan, their sins are actually being forgiven. And whoever stands in the night of the blessed month of Ramadan, their sins will be forgiven. So whoever stands for the tarawih prayer or just in praise at night time, their sins are being forgiven. So there's a general forgiveness that everybody's achieving, alhamdulillah, in this blessed month. A very, very general forgiveness, which is amazing. And then there is a specific, though, forgiveness that you actually have to ask for. There's a very specific type of forgiveness that if somebody asks Allah and you turn to Allah and you ask him to forgive you for something, you will be able to achieve forgiveness for your major wrong actions. So you have minor wrong actions and you have major wrong actions. The major wrong actions require a specific repentance. They require sincerely turning back to Allah and asking him to forgive you for your sins. So what exactly does this mean? What exactly do we mean here by major wrong actions and minor wrong actions? We'll talk about this more in detail, but in a future conversation. But your minor wrong actions or slip-ups you make, you know, you might say something, you might slip a word, you might, you know, cuss at somebody, you might lie about something. Those types of things would qualify as minor wrong actions. But then you have the major wrong actions. And again, we'll talk about a full list at some point, but you have ones like drinking alcohol, like sleeping with someone, illicit sexual relations, these types of consuming interests, these types of things are considered major wrong actions. And you actually have to literally feel remorse for them and ask Allah to forgive you for those wrong actions, whether it's in Ramadan or outside of Ramadan. Ramadan is this special month because God gives us this chance. He gives us a chance for a special type of mercy. But we just have to ask for it, right? So whoever asks, inshallah, will achieve this mercy. Now, a couple of things to keep in mind. It's first and foremost, it's important to have hope, to have hope in this month. It's very important to have hope. You never want to lose hope in Allah, but especially in this month of Ramadan, you want to believe that, yo, I could have done everything under the sun. I could have literally been a murderer. I could have been a drug dealer. I could have been an addict. I could have done all these wrong things. And many of us, we have done a lot of wrong, right? We've all done some form of sin. But I have to believe when I enter this month that I can change my life completely. Every single part of my life can be transformed in this month of Ramadan. And I'm not just saying that. That's not just exaggeration. That actually happens. There's so many people, so many people who entered this month and before the month of Ramadan. I know many people. They're going to the club, go to bars, drinking, having illicit relationships, doing everything it is that you could imagine. It took one Ramadan, one Ramadan. And they're live, they're live, completely transformed. They were completely changed. So the main theme of this month of Ramadan is to have a belief that you can change your life, that you can transform, that you can up level. And you want to up level in this month. It's important to try to up level because this is a month for you and I. It's kind of like a spiritual boot camp, right? You put yourself through 30 days of fasting, 29 to 30 days of fasting. And you spiritually up level, you spiritually up level. And as you're up leveling, see your sins are being forgiven. And part of up leveling is asking Allah to forgive your sins. It's asking Allah to accept your repentance for whatever sin that you might have done. So that having hope is very, very important. Look, God created you and me, literally. One of the things that he created inside of us is the ability to make mistakes. One of the meanings of the word insan, which is the word for human, is the one who is the forgetful one. We forget. We make mistakes. We're going to slip up. Our father, Adam, a mistake was made, which required us, right? Rather than being in heaven, it fell down to earth. So mistakes are going to happen. If God wanted you and me to not make any mistakes, he would have made us into angels. And there are angels. Angels don't make mistakes, right? I don't know about any angel that's ever, there's any mentioning of an angel slipping up or an angel making a mistake or angel sinning. They don't make, they don't sin. You and I, though, we are created with the ability to sin. And there's a Hadith where the Prophet says, I'm indicating that all of the children of Adam are make mistakes. The best of those mistakes, the ones who make mistakes, are those who always turn back to Allah, who repent to Allah. And that's where we're really honing ourselves. Because we can't lose hope in Allah's mercy. You can't lose hope for yourself, and you can't lose hope for other people in your life. We should never be the people who tell other people, there's no turning back for you. Oh, you did this? I don't know about that. And you're never really going to be able to change. No. We should be people who not only focus on repenting ourselves, but encourage everybody in our life to have a perspective of God that is a vast, expansive, perspective and one that we believe that Allah is a merciful Lord, is a Lord who forgives and is a Lord who loves to forgive. So don't worry if you sin. It doesn't matter really what you've done. It doesn't matter whether somebody has what you and I have been doing over the past year. If somebody slipped into the major sins, if someone slipped into drinking, or into smoking, or into illicit relationships, or into lying a lot, or into lying a lot, or into lying a lot, or into lying a lot, or into missing our prayers, or in all of these things. It doesn't matter what we've done. This is a month to turn back to Allah. Once you repent, and we'll be covering over the course of the next couple of weeks, inshaAllah, every Sunday at this time, the different ways that we can achieve an accepted repentance. Once you repent, you don't look back. You hope in Allah's mercy that Allah accepted your repentance. You don't worry, you have a little bit like, I hope Allah accepted it, but you don't look back at yourself like, oh my God, look at me. I'm never going to achieve Allah's mercy. No. You made the intention to repent. You did what was required of you, and inshaAllah, if you were sincere in that. We'll talk about the signs of sincerity and repentance. Allah will forgive your sins. Allah will. Allah forgives sins. That's, that's, he is Al-Ghafura Rahim. So, let's think about the perspective that we want to have of Allah. On one side, you have people who have a perspective of God. That's like, God is this vengeful, this like intense Lord who is out to get us, who wants to throw people into hell, and everything has to be done in a very, very specific way. And for those who don't follow the rules, there's no hope for them. There's a lot of Muslims who have that perspective for themselves and who have that perspective for other people in their life. Right? And that's obviously a problem. Definitely not the way we perceive Allah. And then there's another perspective where if you actually read the Quran, you will notice that Allah begins everything with mercy. He says, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim in the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate. He didn't say the most vengeful, he didn't say there's a lot of names that God has. Why did he sing Allah the names of mercy and compassion? Why does he mention mercy and compassion so often in the Quran? Why did he say that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam to just have the right perspective of God. They're like, I believe that God is merciful. I believe that God is all forgiving. And I accepted these different attributes that he has defined himself with, that he is merciful, and that he is all forgiving, right? So that's very, very important. The next thing, and someone says, please speak further on proper way of repentance correctly to it, we will be discovered getting into the details of repentance, that's part of the focus. So the next thing is that, Allah has other names in the Quran. So in addition to Abrahman al Rahim, he also mentioned the Ghafor al Rahim, the all forgiving, right? One of the du'as we make in this month of Ramadan is Allahumma inna ka afoon increase the affua fafoon, that oh Allah, you love to pardon, so please pardon everything that I've done. And pardoning is literally forgiving and like forgetting, it's an eraser. You erase the sins that somebody has done, and you forgive them. So there's all these themes in Ramadan about forgiveness, about pardoning, and about repentance. It just requires though, you and I take the first step. You have to take an action in order to expect that there is going to be some type of forgiveness granted to you. And that is what the focus of repentance really is. Allah also mentioned in the Quran, and again we're just focusing right now on why repentance is so important. Allah says in the Quran, he has a lot of categories of people he loves. He mentions in the Quran. Among those categories, Allah says, Allah, you hid betawabi. Allah loves those people who are awfully, who are always returning back to him. So when you slip up, if you turn back to Allah, your sin could be a means of you getting closer to God. How does that work? Because you mess up, you feel remorse. So we'll talk about this in detail in the future, but the basic steps of repentance are feeling regret and remorse. You feel bad. Deep down inside, you feel bad. Why did I do that? Man, I shouldn't have done that. You feel bad for the sin that you've done. That is already in it of itself, you've begun the process of repentance. And then you actually ask Allah, Allah, forgive me. And you feel sincerely. You're asking him sincerely. That's step number two. And step number three is you make a commitment to never turn back to that sin again. You make a commitment to not turn back to that sin again. And even if you turn back because you just couldn't follow through, follow through your commitment, you keep turning back to Allah. You turn back to the sin, you turn back to Allah. That's the towabin. We as human beings, we make mistakes, but the towabin are those who are always turning back to God, always turning back to him. So Allah loves those people. So that could be because of a sin somebody has done, but because of the sincere repentance that they achieved, they achieve a level of nearness to Allah that they might not have been able to achieve if they did not repent sincerely. It's not that the sin was by any means a good thing, but the sin enabled them to repent. And repentance is a door. It's a door that opens in a relationship between you and Allah. The spiritual master has actually mentioned that repentance is the first station on the stations of spirituality, on the stations of nearness. So you achieve a special nearness to Allah when you begin to repent and when you begin to turn sincerely to him. So that is amongst one of the verses about repentance. You also have hadith about repentance where the Prophet ﷺ mentions that the one who is repented from his sin is like the one who's never sinned. So look Ramadan is this month, we're trying to erase our bad deeds. Well, if you repent and you ask Allah to forgive you for your sins and you ask him sincerely, it's like you never sinned. There will be moments. Look, all of us have probably watched movies before, right? Or we're like, right now we're on online platforms and you can, if you ever see a movie, you can also watch a part of a movie called the director's cut, right? So at some point on the day of judgment, you're gonna be shown a movie, like kind of like a movie about your life where God will press, and I'm speaking figuratively here, okay? We'll press play and you will see everything you did from the time you hit puberty, from the time you were accountable until the time that you passed away. But there will be certain moments of in life. There will be certain moments in life. Well, you'll be like, wait, I did that thing when I was like 18 years old. Where did that thing go? And you'll wonder what happened to that? And you'll ask God, like, what was that thing? Okay, I hope something bad we might have done. And God says, well, you repent it. So it's gone. I erased it. He has the director's cut. Because I clipped it out. I took it out. That scene is no longer there because I saw that you repent it. That is the power of repentance that on the day of judgment. So your whole life, Subhanallah, our whole life, we've done a lot of wrong. But if you repent sincerely in this month, you can turn to Allah sincerely in this month. On the day of judgment, you will have moments you sinned. Where you know how bad you felt when you messed up like that. You know how bad you feel when you look at something you shouldn't look at. You know how bad you feel when you do something with somebody you shouldn't. We all know. And we all want to change our life. Well, when you ask Allah sincerely for repentance in this month, those moments will be erased on the day of judgment. You won't even see them because you will have achieved this state of pardon. You will have achieved this state of complete forgiveness. And Allah will have wrapped you, inshallah, in His mercy. So that's why repentance is so important. There's a prophet's time again. He said, the one who was repented from a sin is as though the one who has never sinned in the first place. So that's very, very, very important. And again, if you have any questions, please post the questions. And we will get to the questions in about, you know, just five or so minutes. I see some different questions coming in. Let me just make sure that there are questions coming in. Okay, alhamdulillah. So that's something to keep in mind. There's also a couple other hadith that I just want to mention or a couple of different verses of the Qur'an that Allah says in the Qur'an, he or she who repents after they do wrong and then they do good. Allah will relent towards them. Allah will relent towards them. He will turn towards them. He will, inshallah, their special mercy will be given to them. And Allah says he is forgiving and compassionate. And Allah says also in the Qur'an that Allah forgives or sorry, Allah accepts repentance from his servants and he forgives evil deeds and he knows what you do. Nothing about that. God is saying at the end of this verse, he's saying he knows what you and I are doing. But at the beginning, he's saying he accept the repentance and he forgives evil deeds. So it's not that like he doesn't know what we're up to and that the repentance somehow changes that. No, God knows very well. Oh, you did this on this day. On April, you know, April 18th, you made this mistake, you did that mistake. But Allah says he accepts the repentance of the one who asks him because only Allah can forgive you. That's the thing to keep in mind. For your sins that you're talking about the sins between you and Allah now, not the sins between you and other people. We'll talk about that in another class but when you sin between somebody, you like punch someone in the face, they have to forgive you as well. You can't just ask Allah for forgiveness. They have to forgive you as well. But the beautiful thing about a religion is that you can't go to like anybody else and ask them to forgive you and to change your ultimate situation on the day of judgment. Only Allah can forgive your sins. Only Allah can forgive the sins. And that's why it's so important to repent in this month. There is a hadith that mentions and this is a very, very inspiring hadith that there was a man who had killed and now we're talking about a murder here. He doesn't really get much worse than murder when it comes to sinning. There was a man who had killed 99 people. He killed 99 people. So he went to somebody, he went to supposedly a righteous person and he asked them, he said, I've killed 99 people. Can I be forgiven? And he said, no, you can't. He said, he killed him too. So he had killed 100 people now, right? He didn't like what he said. He killed him. He killed 100 people. Then he went to a knowledgeable person, a person who had knowledge. He said, I've killed 100 people. Can I be forgiven? And he said, you can be forgiven. You need to change your life though. And he said, go to this town where there are people who do good. Go to this town where there are people who are doing good. And the man set off on this journey. Now, while he was on this journey, death overtook him. Can you believe that? While he is on this journey, death overtook him. And again, this is a man. He's killed 100 people. He's trying to change his life. He's trying to change his life. While he's on this journey, he dies. Okay, so now what happens? The angel of mercy and the angel of wrath come. And they're fighting between him. The angel of mercy says he was on his way to change his life. He's mine. I'm taking him with me. He's forgiven, inshallah, like he's going to have. The angel of wrath says, no, no, no. This man killed 100 people. He didn't reach the destination. He didn't, like he had not achieved forgiveness yet. And he is mine. I'm taking him with me. This man is destined for hell. So they're fighting, right? Now, God tells them, he says, okay, measure the distance. Measure the distance between where he started and where he was going. If he's closer to the distance of where he was going, he gets to go with the angel of mercy. But if he's closer to the distance from where he started, he goes with the angel of wrath. So they measure the distance. They measure the distance. And one narration that I've heard, it mentions that it was slightly closer to where he had begun, and yet a lot moved the earth, such that it tipped in the favor of where he was going and the angel of mercy got to take him. And the other narration that I heard that it was closer already, to slightly closer to the end where he was headed. And so the angel of mercy overtook him. Subhanallah, look at that. That's a mass murderer, guys. Like, again, it doesn't really get much worse than that. If Allah can give a chicken can pass forgiveness and give forgiveness for somebody who's done that level of sin. Subhanallah. We have so many, we have so much hope. All of us, we've done so many things. We've messed up. We've made mistakes. Allah tells us, don't worry if you've made mistakes. Turn back to him. Turn back to Allah. Turn back to him and ask for forgiveness. And your mistakes, your sins, doesn't matter how big they are, doesn't matter how small they are, doesn't matter how many times you've done them, they can all be forgiven, inshallah. So this is a very, very powerful Hadith story that I just wanted to mention. So let's talk now about repentance. What is it meant? The beginning of repentance. The beginning of repentance is that you feel this regret and remorse, as we mentioned, so you gotta feel bad, right? And feeling bad is a good sign. When you feel bad about something, it automatically means that you, there's some guilt associated with it. And so you were already beginning this journey to repenting, excuse me. Sorry, there's clearly getting me there. You're already getting on this journey to repent to Allah. So that's the sign is you feel bad. So what do you now have to repent from and for? We all have different things. All of us have different things we have to repent from. Whether it's ways we've been rude to people, whether it's drugs we've done, whether it's something we've drank, whether it's partying somebody has done, whether it is illicit relationships, whether it is lying, whether it's cheating, whether it's stealing, I mean, the list goes on. Everybody knows their own sins and then you have minor sins as well. But at a basic level, once somebody hits puberty from that time, they have to repent if they weren't a Muslim, right? They are, inshallah, they convert to Islam and that repentance has already begun for their time of disbelief. If you weren't practicing though, as a Muslim, let's say you were born as a Muslim and you just did it because your parents told you, but you weren't really practicing, you repent from the days and now you wanna change your life. Ramadan is the best time to do that. Now you start to repent from, okay, I'm gonna make a repentance from all the things I did when I wouldn't really take this religion seriously, when I didn't really care to practice and to implement this religion, right? So that is what we began with repenting from. And then the next thing is you repent from actual external sins you're doing. So you list the sins that you've done, okay? So the sins of the eyes, okay? Like not lowering our gaze, looking at pornography, looking at haram, we all know the sins of the eyes that we do looking down on people, these types of things. The sins of the hands, right? The sins of the tongue of which include backbiting and lying and cursing, cussing, cheating, all these types of things fall under the sins of the tongue, ridiculing people, making people feel bad, right? The sins of the ears, listening to backbiting, listening to impermissible things. There's a lot of different ones, right? The financial sins, taking out interest loans, these types of things. We know the different ones, the sins of consumption. Again, as I mentioned, consuming drugs, consuming alcohol. If somebody ever got into selling something, if someone owns a liquor store, right? Sin of selling the alcohol or if someone has ever dealt drugs or something, right? The sin of doing that. All of these different sins we categorize. And then we begin the process of repenting. That's at the one of the levels and you keep going down. So then eventually you've already repented for all of the external sins you've done and now you repent for the internal sins. These include the sins of jealousy, being jealous of people, oh, she has this. Oh, he has a nice car. Oh, she looks so good. And you feel jealous. That's a sin. But you didn't, you might not realize, we might not realize the sin, but it is, right? So you repent from that. And then as you continue, you feel greedy all the time. I want, they have this, I want this. I want, I want, I don't have enough money. I don't have enough. And you feel greed. This is kind of intense, obsessive greed. You repent from that, right? You repent from, you do something with the wrong intention. Somebody might pray with the intention of having people praise them. Somebody might try to, you know, go out there and by any means necessary gain a lot of money and they might do so by impermissible means. You repent from all these things. So as the person gets more refined, as the spiritual level starts to increase, the repentance starts to get more detailed. And it comes in the hadith, the prophet said he, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, even though he was innocent, he didn't do anything wrong. He said he would repent 70 times a day. How could the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam repent 70 times a day? What is he even repenting from? Well, the scholars say one is he's teaching us that that's how often you should be repenting. Repenting here means literally turning back to Allah, saying, yeah, Allah forgive me and begging Allah to forgive you. But the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says, he's repenting because he's progressing in every single moment he's progressing. Every moment he's progressing, who is always climbing spiritually, that he's repenting for his repentance is literally repenting from the past moments where maybe his spiritual station wasn't, maybe what he was experiencing wasn't the same as what he was experiencing in that moment. So he's a refined, but he's teaching us if he is the prophet of God, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he's repenting 100 times a day, how many times should be, or 70 times a day and some hundred times and others, how many times a day should we be repenting? In Ramadan, let's try to do it at least five times, at least a couple times, at least after every prayer, right? So this is the importance of repentance. And look, after somebody repents, life, your life completely can transform. I really mean that, completely transform. You, one of the signs of an accepted repentance, and we'll get into this in like the third or fourth class, the final one, is that somebody goes from living one type of life to their life completely changing. It's also a sign of an accepted hodge and a sign of so many other accepted things that your life completely changes. You are not the same person and don't let anybody ever tell you that you can't change. That's one of the worst things they could ever tell you. You can change, I can change, we can change. We can change for the better and God forbid Allah protect us, we can change for the worse but we can certainly change. The first step though begins with taking that step to Allah, that when you just move towards Allah a little bit, Allah moves towards you a lot, right? And again, figuratively speaking here, we don't believe that Allah is contained by any time or space according to our creed, but this is Allah teaching us, right? So you move to Allah handstand, Allah moves to you an arm stand. You walk to Allah, Allah runs to you. We just have to take the first step. So this Arama thought, I would encourage all of myself and all of you, take the first step to God or whatever step you are ready to take. Take that step, turn to Allah, think about the main takeaway here is know that Allah loves the people of repentance, know that you were created to make mistakes but the best of those who make mistakes are the ones who turn back and know that when you may do a bad deed, if you repent from it, there are even hadith that indicate that all of the bad deeds you've done if you do a sincere repentance, they turn into good deeds. And a sincere repentance, and we'll get into this, inshallah, is a repentance where the tears are flowing, the heart is feeling it, the, you are begging Allah, you are in a state of abject begging. You are literally turning to him saying, Allah forgive me, Allah please forgive me, only you can forgive me. That is the type of repentance we want to achieve. Not just the general, astaghfirullah, and then we just move on with our day. That's fine, this is just to check the box but it's not a sincere repentance. So this Ramadan, as you go through this week, think about the things you've done and then feel remorse from them. Just have a moment with you and Allah, where you sit, right? Right now, at least where I am, it's about we have about an hour until iftar. This time from now until iftar is a very, very good time because you sit and ask Allah for forgiveness and just a portion of this time and sit and think about all the things you've done wrong and don't let this month go by and the only thing you get is hunger and thirst. That's not the point of the month. Hunger and thirst is there so that all of the appetites can be calmed down so that you can focus on your relationship with your Lord. That is the goal, focus on your relationship with Allah. You focus on that in this month and use these moments, especially the moment before iftar, especially the time between usur and maghrib, salat, though that these are holy special times. Use these times to connect to Allah. Use these times to turn back to Him. Use these times to ask Him for forgiveness. Use these times to reflect on your life. We know we got to change. We know we got mistakes we've made. We all know we have things we have to work on. This is the month to make that plan. Don't wait until the last 10 nights. You don't even know if you're gonna be alive. Don't wait until the first couple of days passed on. This is the time. The time is now. One of the forgotten sunnahs of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is that he would live as though death was approaching him. Like any moment he could die. That's how the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would live. You and I should live like that. Always repent as soon as you mess up. Make us sincere forgiveness. And say I'm never gonna go back to this. You go back the next day even because you were too weak. It's okay. God created you weak. We created mankind weak. If you're created weak, it's mentioned in the Quran. But weakness, you have weakness but Allah has strength. You have need but Allah is rich. You and I are poor but Allah is all giving. You and I have no ability but Allah has all ability. You and I have no power but Allah has all power. You and I can't forgive and we can't forgive ourselves. From a sin's point of view, we can obviously forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made but Allah can forgive everything. You and I realize that we are weak but we turn to the strong one, the capable one, the one that we trust, the one that we're supposed to love, the one who can forgive all sins and the one who if we ask, he forgives. This is the month in which when you ask Allah, except inshallah, so just start asking. Just start asking and ask without limit. Don't contain your Lord. Your Lord has unlimited bounties to give. There's just people need to be asking for the gifts. Allah distributes gifts in this month. He's distributing lights in this month. He's distributing sweet breezes in this month. He's distributing all sorts of mercy in this month. It's just a matter of you and me turning, you and me asking, you and me putting our hands out there to receive for the one who asks will receive inshallah. The one who requests will receive inshallah. The one who turns to him will be forgiven inshallah. Now it's just a matter of will we take the first step so that Allah can then start to forgive us and Allah can then begin the process of helping us. He can help us change our life in this month. If he helps us, there's nobody who can prevent him from helping us and if he doesn't help us, there's nobody who can prevent us from being left to ourselves. We ask that Allah never leave us to our own selves. We ask that Allah never leave us to our abject needs. We ask that Allah always allow us to turn to him. We ask that Allah always assist us and all of you and all of the Muslims in this time that we are in, we ask that Allah, Ya Allah, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, Alhamdulillah, Allahumma Sayyidi Muhammad, we ask that Allah that you forgive us and that you pardon us and that you allow us to achieve an accepted repentance in this month, that you change our life in this month of Ramadan, that you pour your sweet breezes upon us, that you pour your repentance upon us, that you pour light upon our hearts, Ya Allah, we ask that you allow us to get closer and closer to you in every moment of this month. Don't allow any moment of this month to pass by except that we are ascending in some level of nearness towards you, Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah, we ask, Ya Allah, that you open up the doors of your mercy, that you open up your doors of your blessings, that you open up the doors of your bounty and that you allow us to turn to you with the complete sincere repentance and please, Ya Allah, turn to us and please completely forgive us and forgive all of us and all of our loved ones and all of the Muslims in this ummah, Ya Allah, for all of our sins and please allow us to die upon La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah. Please give us a khusna khatima. Please allow us to be resurrected on the Day of Judgment with the Prophet, Salam. Please allow us to enter into jannah with the Prophet, Salam, in the best of states as a community with all of our families, with all of our loved ones, remove all the rancor in our hearts that we have against Muslims or against anybody and allow us to be pure souls and allow us to achieve a state of purity in this blessed month. Wa salallahu wa salamu barak'ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa la alihi wa sahbihi wa salam. Alhamdulillah, Ya Rabbil Alamin. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. If anybody has any questions, insha'Allah. Take them now, insha'Allah. And Jazakum Allah khair. Continue this. We will be doing this every week, 6 p.m. PST in Ramadan, 6 p.m. on Sunday, Pacific Standard Time in the month of Ramadan, insha'Allah. So if anybody has any questions, check in, if not, Jazakum Allah khair. Thank you all so much. Alhamdulillah, I'm seeing if any questions have come in. Someone asks, what is the best approach to show someone who is Christian the truth of Islam? So the question is about how to show someone who might be of different faith, the truth of Islam. So if they're interested in it, you can have a dialogue with them. I wouldn't try to like proselytize and try to force it on anybody. Laikraha fiddin, Allah says in the Quran that there is no compulsion in religion. So only discuss, start to discuss things with those people who are open to it. If they are open to it, I think the best thing to discuss, let's say with somebody who believes in another faith and they wanna discuss Islam and they're open to that. First and foremost, you make the offer them. If you are making the offer, if you are not making the offer to somebody in the nighttime at the very least, that means that the sincerity of the da'wah might not be there. So your sincerity of your calling to them comes in how much da'wah that you make for them, whether it's a family member or a loved one or anybody else, especially right before five year time, it's a very good time to make da'wah. That's the first thing. The second thing is have a discussion with them but not a debate. So you discuss with that person, okay, what is it about Islam that you wanna know about? What is it about Christianity that you believe? And then you have that dialogue and that discussion. So that's the second thing. And the third is you begin to just talk about the beauty of toki, then the beauty of we just turn to Allah for everything. And we don't have to have all of these other aspects of our religion. Generally speaking, Christianity has its confusing components because of the trinity. And then you also ask them to look into the Bible and you've studied a little bit of detail. I would recommend watching the courses of the talks of Dr. Ali Atai. And he has done a lot of research into Christianity as well. And there's so many verses in the Old Testament and the New Testament that indicate the coming of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that if the Christians were just really deeply look and read, they would have nothing to say except to accept the truth of Islam. So yeah, alhamdulillah. Does that come out here? Any other questions? Let's see. Any questions? Sorry, I keep turning my head. I'm just on a couple of platforms right now. Okay, any questions? If you pray the Ur-Far is before Sunnah, can you pray the for Sunnah after or no? So pray the, you pray the farth and then in the Hanafi school, there are two Sunnah after Doher. So the four Sunnah are before Doher. There are two Sunnah after Salat al Doher. I don't believe that you can make up your Sunnah if you have missed it, but I could be wrong. I would check with a scholar on that one. Yeah, sorry about that. But you can pray the Sunnah of Doher are for Sunnah before Doher, then the for farth, then you have the two Sunnah after Doher. So just do the two Sunnah after Doher, inshallah. If you miss it and then in the future, just try to catch it in a time that you can. Someone said, what time next Sunday? We will begin at inshallah. Sorry for the technical difficulties today, but we will begin at 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Times, 6 p.m. Pacific Standard is the time in the California and the West Coast, wherever anybody is, watch or check it out accordingly. So we'll be doing that every week for four weeks. We're gonna get through basically all the different aspects of repentance in this month. When is the best time to pray at the Hajj? Somebody asks. The best time to pray at the Hajj is the time, call it the last one hour before Fajr is a very good time. So for these days, we're all up anyways. We're up at Suhur. So wake up for Suhur, try to wake up 10 minutes earlier and pray the Hajj before you start eating or stop eating about 10, 15 minutes before Fajr. And if you're able to already have Wudu and whatnot, that would be good. And then right before Fajr is a very good time. Right before Fajr is a very good time to pray the Hajj right before Fajr enters. So where I'm at, Fajr is entering, I think, like on five, 10 or something like that. So praying the Hajj anywhere from like 3.30 up until five, 10, that's a great time. If you are not able to pray the Hajj, just while you're making your Suhur and stuff, just make the up, just make the up, just make the up, ask forgiveness, right? Just try to use that time wisely. I know we're all slowly waiting or sorry, we're all slowly, we're really tired at that time, but we're slowly waking up and whatnot. But it's a good time to ask forgiveness and to turn to Allah, have your deep conversations with Allah if you can in those moments. Someone asked, when you keep on sinning and there is no change, how is there true transformation in their lives? So if somebody is struggling with sin and there's no change, how do you, I think the question might be, how do you bring deep transformation into your life? So the first step is that the sin that you're regularly doing, you have to make a deep commitment to leave that sin, right? That's the first step. And you have to sincerely beg Allah. So at least have one moment, let's say you do a certain sin every day, at least have one moment in the day or in that week where you just really sincerely turn to Allah and you'll feel bad about it. And you ask him and you let the tears flow and you ask him to forgive you. And then the next thing you do is you ask him to change your life and to transform your life. That is the step if for a certain sin that somebody is regularly doing. Now, it doesn't mean the transformation comes right away. Remember, God doesn't work on our time. So when somebody asks for a dua or makes a dua or when someone makes repentance, the change in the life might come a bit later. The transformation might start to happen over a gradual period of time. Even if you look at the way the Quran was revealed, Allah didn't prohibit everything at once. In the early days of Islam, even alcohol was allowed. Just was not, then it was slowly that you can't drink it during the prayer. And then eventually it was prohibited. So you gradually change your life and know that if you're turning to Allah sincerely, inshaAllah that gradual change will happen. Now, the risk is if you keep sinning and you don't ask, it means that you're missing something of sincerity and you're kind of like not really doing the requisite components of repentance because if someone sincerely repents, that transformation will follow, inshaAllah, inshaAllah it will follow. So I would try to kind of introspectively think, hey, what can I be doing to reduce this sin? Even if I can't eliminate it, reduce it and then eliminate and then turn to Allah. Okay, great. Any other questions? Let's see if you have questions, just post them in comments or in the chat. So again, any questions in relation to repentance or something else Ramadhan related or anything on your mind, inshaAllah we'll go, we'll take two more questions of Allah and then we'll wrap up. I know people have to get to Iftar and pray and whatnot. I'm gonna let hope everybody's Ramadhan is going well. Please keep us in your prayers in this month. Someone says brother is tarawih compulsory. No, tarawih is not compulsory. Tarawih is, so in the Hanafi madhab, tarawih is a sunnah moakada, meaning it is an emphasized sunnah. In the other schools, it is not a sunnah moakada, it is a sunnah, the prophecy of Salaam, from my understanding, in those schools. So tarawih is not something you have to do, but you should do it in Ramadhan, right? Because the prophecy of Salaam said that whoever stands in the nights of Ramadhan with sincerity and iman and with, sorry, with iman and hoping for reward, they will emerge from the month completely forgiven. So it's a very good way to achieve the forgiveness of Allah, inshaAllah. What I would recommend doing though for those of us who might have makeup prayers to do, if you have a lot of prayers in your life or that you missed, is do the makeup prayers in that time of tarawih. Do the makeup prayers. So that's a good thing to do. Of course, you pray a lot of Isha. Ideally, you can pray in Jama'at at the masjid and then do your makeup prayers if you can. But if you don't have any makeup prayers for sure go to tarawih, as many as you are able to go to. You can do 20 is the sunnah, by the way. There's no other sunnah except 20. 20 is the way we do tarawih. But if you can do even two, four, six, any number, and then that would be good, yeah. Someone says, I am not able to fast this year. What is the best thing I can do outside of the prayer? The best thing you can do outside of the prayer. First is in this month is to recite the Quran. Second is to learn the meanings of the Quran. So to learn knowledge and to read their tafsir of the Quran or a translation of the Quran. And then third is to do abundant vicar and ask for abundant forgiveness and do abundance al-awak upon the Quran. Those would be generally speaking, some of the best actions you can do. If you have don't know certain knowledges, like basic knowledges that many of us, we might not have learned them growing up, myself included, like there's a lot of stuff I'm still learning that might be considered more basic knowledge. All the details of how to pray, the details of who do all these types of things. That is the absolute best thing you can do outside of the prayer in the month of Ramadan is learn the essential knowledges, what are called the farthayn. Prayer, zakat, hajj, fasting, and the laws and the details. And then the diseases of the heart, what are the diseases of the heart and how do you purify them? So that's what I would do, recite the Quran, learn knowledge, read meanings of the Quran, and translation or tafsir, listen to beneficial talks and do abundant vicar, do abundant salawat upon the Prophet, salallahu alayhi salam, which is done by saying Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad. What is the best zikr to say? There's a hadith that says the aftal ad-dhikr, that the best zikr is la ilaha illallah. In Ramadan, there is hadith that indicates some of the best zikr we can do is saying Allahumma inna ka aafoon, tuhibbal aafoo aafoo anna, there is a dua. I would just look that up. You can look up the dua for Allah's pardon in Ramadan. It's a hadith of Sayyid-e-Aisha, radiallahu anha, that she mentioned that dua. And then just saying a stalk for Allah really in Ramadan is really good. There's a hadith that indicates that you should say, you should ask in abundance for Jannah in Ramadan. You should ask for forgiveness from hell, or you should ask for freedom from hell in Ramadan. And you should affirm, you should ask for general forgiveness. And you should say, aasha ad-dhu'a la ilaha illallah, aasha ad-dhu'a anna Muhammad, aasha ad-dhu'a la ilaha illallah, affirming Allah's oneness and affirming the messengership of the aftal as-salam. So those are some of the best zikr to do in the month of Ramadan. Alhamdulillah. Okay, cool. We have time for one more question. If anybody has any questions, please post them or comments. Somebody had asked earlier to achieve forgiveness. Do you do it directly? Like, can you just ask, yeah, so can you ask directly or do you have to make specific, no, forgiveness just as directly? Like there are specific du'a as you can do, but generally speaking, your sincere forgiveness is gonna come, sit and start crying. That's really the sincere. Like sit and just start crying and say, yeah, Allah forgive me in your language and begging him. That's really one of the best ways to achieve forgiveness. You don't have to do any long, elaborate, specific du'a for forgiveness, yeah. And yeah, being in the moment is really important when it comes to this religion. Like, du'a is there to help teach us how to be in the moment with Allah. That's really a good part of du'a. And there are certain du'as we do to help us follow the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. Of course, those du'as are the best du'as that we can do. We need to have moments where we also do du'a in our own language where we're just sincerely talking to God. It's really important. We don't talk to God enough, many of us. We talk to each other. We text other people. We were on Facebook and TikTok and all these other platforms with each other. But how many times do you just talk to God? Just take a break from everything and just sit and talk to God and sincerely open it up and have a sincere conversation. And then the tears begin to flow and the heart begins to open. Insha'Allah. Alhamdulillah. I think somebody says, what time will the next class be on the East Coast? The next class on the East Coast, it'll be next Sunday and 9 p.m. It'll be on the East Coast. So 9 p.m. in the East Coast. Insha'Allah. But all the classes at least for those who are watching on YouTube or Facebook, they will be recorded on YouTube. So if it's like a thar time or not, don't worry, you can just check the, if those are on YouTube or Facebook, it'll be on the MCC YouTube page or the Lighthouse Facebook page. Somebody asks, do you have to pray the sunnah in each prayer? So you don't have to pray the sunnah. You pray the sunnah. So here's what I would do. The only thing absolutely obligatory upon you is to follow the prayer. But there are ways to get closer and closer to Allah. So I would never ever miss the two sunnah before Fajr because there's a hadith where the Prophet ﷺ said that the two rakat before Fajr are better than this world and everything in it. So imagine all the money and the cars and the everything you could imagine in this world. All the food and of course, I'm thinking about food, it's almost a thar. All the stuff in this world, right? The sunnah before Fajr is better than that, everything in it. So for sure pray those two sunnah. And then there are what are called the emphasized sunnah. So the emphasized sunnah are the two sunnah, the two sunnah before Fajr, the four sunnah before Doher and two after Doher. I would at least try to pray one of those two sets, at least the two after Doher, the two after Mughrib and the two after Salat al-Isha. Try to just, but slowly work your way up. But just find what works. Try to bring sunnah though into your life. It's very, very important, inshallah, yeah. What if you have missed multiple prayers in the past? You work, how do you make up past prayers? So the way you do it is you calculate the prayers you've missed. So you know, roughly, okay, I always missed Doher. For five years, I missed Doher, let's say. Or for five years, I missed all my prayers. I don't know, everybody's on a different scope or 10 years or 20 years. Then you calculate all those and you come up with a list. And then you start to make them up. So what I would do is, and I have prayers, I'm trying to make up inshallah, that I just have a general list and I try to pray one makeup prayer with a prayer. So if I pray a Doher, I'll try to pray a makeup Doher with that Doher. So I pray my normal Doher and then I'll say, I'm gonna make it up. That takes priority over your sunnah prayers. So keep that in mind. In most of the schools, it takes priority to do makeups over your sunnah prayers. If you have, so whatever prayers you have, have a list and start making them up and then you just write it down, okay? Every time I do it, you do one tally, one tally or you keep a sheet on Excel or Google Sheets or something and you work your way through how many every years. The most important thing is to be in. You have a lot of fudgers, for example. It's very easy to Rekha, to Rekha, to Rekha. You can do like a ton of fudgers every day. You can instead of going to Tarawee, if somebody did 20 Rekha, a fudger, that's 10 fudgers a day, get through 300 fudgers that they might have missed almost a whole year of fudgers in the month of Ramadan. Somebody asked, do you have to do wither? In the Hanifi school, so generally speaking, yeah, wither would be considered right below Fard. It would be a good thing to do in the other schools, but there's sunnah, so you don't have to do it. If you miss it, you wouldn't have to do it. The Fard are the only things you absolutely have to do. But the other things, as you want to get closer, it's like you want to get the A grade, you want to get the A plus or do you want to just kind of get by with the basics. That's the thing I would always keep in mind. Someone said, husband went to Hajj without telling me and it made me sad, how do I get over it? That's a good question. I would just think that, remember, you will have your time to go, inshallah. Allah will open up that time for you. So when Allah's invitation comes for you, don't worry. It's not on any one person if they go or they don't go. When Allah's invitation comes, you can only go to Allah's house when the invitation comes. You take the steps. I know a lot of people who last year, they had an intention to go to Hajj and of course the coronavirus happened and they couldn't go. But it's because actually in reality, that invitation for most people wasn't there. So the invitation to Allah's house will come. I would just turn to Allah and ask him sincerely, regularly, please invite me to your house. Please let me go to Hajj. Please create the ways for me to come to your house and to do Hajj. And I would start with that. And forgive your husband if you were upset at him for going on Hajj without you. It's a month of forgiveness, especially for our loved ones and our family members. We don't want to hold on to anything. Maybe they made a mistake and it would be ideal if they had told you and taken them with you, let's say. But it's okay, just forgive them and let it go and ask them like, hey, what was it that made it that you went and you didn't even tell me? I would do that now. Someone said, isn't it impossible to make up prayers if you missed a lifetime of prayers? No, nothing is impossible. Look, you just have to start. I'll tell you right now. If you start, God will give you the energy. Don't limit God. He'll give you the energy. You begin, you have 40 years of prayers to make up. I guarantee you, inshallah, you begin. Two things. First, if you begin and you are doing it sincerely and you die, you get the reward for having done it because you were working on it every day. You were doing five, 10, 20 prayers a day. But the second is, if you begin, Allah says, those who strive in my way, surely I will guide them. He says in the Quran. So you just begin, take the first step and watch what happens. You will have doors open, Allah will facilitate it for you, inshallah, and He will make it easy. Just don't let the number psych you out. You don't limit God. Again, you said that in part of this. God, don't limit God. Just don't limit Him because He can do anything and it's very easy for Him to make it easy for you. Just start. The hardest part of this, and I'm telling you this from personal, it's the hardest part is just starting. Once you start, it becomes easy and you feel so relieved because it's a debt you have to do to God. Remember, it's a debt you have to do to God. And the day of judgment in our religion is called Yom Adin. The day the debts fall due. And you have a debt, you don't wanna show up to God with a bunch of debt. So you want Him to accept all of your prayers, inshallah, and you just have to start by going on that journey, inshallah. Alhamdulillah. Well, thank you all so much for the sake of time. We will go ahead and end here. We'll see you all soon. We'll be doing this again one week at 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Thank you all so much. JazakAllah Khair. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa sallallahu wa sallam. Barak al-Azim al-Muhammadin Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen.