 Our praise is due to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. He seek his forgiveness, his guidance, and his assistance. And we take refuge with him from the evil within our souls and from the consequence of our misdeeds. We're about to give his guidance to an unkind mislead and her unkind mislead's unkind guide. I bear witness that there's nothing and no one worthy of worship besides Allah alone. And I bear witness that Muhammad is the son of Abdullah, sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam is a servant and messenger. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to bless him and to extend to him our salutations on this special day. This is as we ask him to bless and show mercy to his family members, his companions, and everyone who follows him, goodness and shows goodwill into the meeting and the reckoning with Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. In Surah An-An'am, verse 148, Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, He says, And those who ascribe partners to God will say if Allah had willed we would have not ascribed any partner to Him nor would our what nor would have our forefathers nor would we have made anything forbidden because that he could cut the ballad in a man qabli him had to do this and this same way those who came before them they rejected and belied the signs until they tasted our punishment and Allah he tells the Prophet and say to them do you have any knowledge to share with us? You only follow conjecture and you nothing more than fabricate lies and then Allah says say to Allah belongs the most far-reaching proof and if he had willed he would have guided all of you and this particular verse in response to a challenge made against them the idolaters who made a claim a theological claim that what they were doing was endorsed by God their shirk their idolatry their decision to make certain types of foods unlawful for certain people and lawful for others or forbidding eating from certain types of animals said this is from Allah this was Allah's will and so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala response to the Prophet saying to him ask them if that is so then do you have any knowledge to share with us in other words backing up your claims if there is any knowledge that you have which will confirm your claims about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but then he says you only follow conjecture and you only make things up you're making things up all of this conjecture and with Allah and with Allah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has the most far-reaching proof for evidence for what he is and who he is and everything else and this particular verse Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is teaching us the importance of knowledge among other things the importance of demanding evidence knowledge itself is a source of life as we know that is abur hasana ma wardi in the famous poem which also parts of it are attributed to earlier scholars including imam ar-e-mab-e-salad Karam Allah wajah where he says in ignorance in ignorance there is death before death and those who are ignorant their very bodies are graves even before they place into the graves and if any person does not enliven his breath with knowledge then that person has no gathering before the gathering knowledge is life ignorance is death knowledge is life ignorance is death abdullahi bin mas'ud ar-rajallahu anh famously said whoever knows something let him say it and whoever doesn't know anything say Allah knows best because it is part of knowledge to say about what you don't know Allah knows best it's a sign that you have knowledge that you say I don't know no one knows everything but this verse again demands that when people make claims that they produce evidence in the ancient european universities the medieval universities they used to study the liberal arts and then after studying liberal arts in some moral philosophy that students would choose one of three of the higher sciences they would study or choose theology or they would choose law they would choose medicine and these three sciences or disciplines were looked upon as be the highest sciences because they were concerned with the health of humanity law is concerned with the health of the body politic medicine is in concern with the health of the body theology is concerned with the health of the mind and the spirit and in our tradition theology was the highest of all of those disciplines the highest sciences you know of course in the greek uh and there and the western tradition it was philosophy for us it was metaphysics for us it was theology you know the true meta discipline but these three areas they share the concern with the health of humanity in one particular way or another and they don't share all the same assumptions but similar goals and among the beliefs or the the the principles that they share is that no particular judgment that any member of any particular discipline makes should be made upon something that is not factual that everything every judgment that you make should be built upon factual information our predecessors they taught us that that the judgment that you make about a thing is built upon or it branches out from the way that you perceive it the way that you apprehend it and if you misapprehend something then the judgment that you make will be faulty so jurors have an obligation to ensure that before we say something's halal or haram or makro or wajid that the judgment we make uh is built upon facts on the ground objective fact the same thing applies to theologians or it applies to doctors it applies to experts in every particular uh field. Abdullah Mubarak the warrior scholar in one of his poems he says that I noticed that sins they kill the hearts and becoming addicted to sin it produces humiliation and the abandonment of sin is life for the hearts or is the life of the hearts and it is better for yourself and for your soul to resist those sins and then he says anyone who has destroyed faith or has destroyed society other than or corrupt society other than kings bad scholars and the priestly class and when we look in many of the interpret the the the exegesis or the the the books of tefsir we find that what Amal would say that what Ibn Mubarak was talking about when he said kings wasn't only about he wasn't only talking about rulers he was talking about the the financial class the the the property class yeah those who have most of the money in society who had the means of production in society and when he talks about bad scholars he's not only talking about religious scholars or scholars of law he's talking about this we can say the scientists and then when he talked about the priestly class he's talking about those who were themselves were the vote the votees that the individuals were very much concerned with worship and devotion and religion and so fundamentally what this particular statement means is that when these three factions in society become corrupt then society is done with then when you have the the the wealth class of the property class and the the the scholars of the outward law and the outward sciences and the scholars of the inward sciences when they all become corrupt then society is done then society is done Allah subhanahu wa sara he tells us that we elevate we elevate the statuses of whoever we want to and there is someone always someone more knowledgeable than everyone else and of course in this case Allah subhanahu wa sara when a scholar of any field refuses to acknowledge when he she made a mistake or he or she was negligent in his research before he passed a judgment then that scholar has betrayed his trust it can be a religious scholar it can be a scientist it can be anyone with any type of expertise the prophet tells us that every son of Adam is a sinner or every son of Adam makes every son of Adam every human being makes mistakes and the best of those who make mistakes are those who repent or those who correct their errors from our predecessors was known for saying may Allah have mercy on the person who gifts me my flaws my faults in other words he added to that has developed in many different circles is that as an expert I am always right and you should listen to me right I can never make a mistake and when we do make mistakes we don't acknowledge them but this is not our way this is not our dean Omar was well known for this that he would pass a judgment on one one thing and then Sahabi would say Rasulullah he said this and then he would change no problem at all change in one particular case known as the Himaria case of inheritance law he judged one way one year and then the second year he judged a different way and then the people they challenged him he said well last year you said this and he said that was how we judged last year and this is the way we judge now no shame no shine is to to turn back into correct his his error or at least change the opinion when he feels that something else is to choose and in a in a letter that he wrote to Abu Musa Al-Ashari part of that his council was to Musa was he said do not allow a verdict that you passed yesterday and then you then reviewed it with yourself and your mind it led you to a different view or it guided you to that which was correct do not allow that fact prevent you from returning back to the truth because the truth is ancient nothing invalidated nothing makes the truth false and returning back to the truth is better than advancing forward upon falsehood this was the way of our predecessors this humility we live in a time of humility the humility of the experts is at an all-time low unfortunately and unfortunately in my experience even many muslim experts the same thing unfortunately may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he guides may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he make us humble and improve our condition and protect us from any harm final point I wanted to make is that it seems today when we talk about knowledge that the only type of knowledge that we deemed to be true knowledge is material logic if it's material knowledge knowledge of the physical realm knowledge which we say is determined by objective fact knowledge that is reached through the senses knowledge that is reached through experimentation and then oftentimes we just simply accept things which are not even based upon any of that unfortunately but it's as if like the believer has abandoned the idea of the fact that being a believer belies any claim that the only knowledge that exists is what we can know through our senses or what we can know through our experiences we believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but no one here could prove his existence empirically no one can ever say oh there he is look no one can ever do that we've already believed that there's a knowledge of beyond what we are able to ascertain but we fall short of our obligations and this trust given to us by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we believe in angels we can't prove their existence we believe in jinn we can't prove their existence we believe in the power of dua and dhikr we believe in those things we say we believe the aeen these are things that are you know that give us access to a type of knowledge that even if one be acknowledged it being subjective to an extent that these are things that are part of our faith and we have to overcome this idea that the only true knowledge is the knowledge that we can see we can taste we can touch we can smell a loss of panel who was ta'ala he's made it such that he's kept us in ignorance in darkness regarding so many different things there was a a a bedouin who came to the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam when the Prophet was given a talk and in the middle of this talk as was the the custom of the bedouins that they were weren't very cultured people so he interrupted the Prophet sallallahu alaihi when is the hour and the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam didn't respond this hobble were confused they weren't sure like did he hear him or did he just simply ignore him you know something like no he didn't hear what he said you know others said no actually something like he ignored them maybe he's really um you know agitated by this man so once the Prophet completed saying what he wanted to say he then turned and said where is the man asking about the hour and then here I am is me I said it and then the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam said when trust has been squandered then expect the happening of the hour and then he responded once again to the Prophet okay for it and how will trust be squandered and he said is that when command and authority is given to those who are unqualified those who unfit for it then you should anticipate the hour expect the hour to occur and that is a lot of unqualified people in positions of power today may a law protect us may a law protect us but most importantly again the basic point I wanted to make about knowledge is that we are believers and we don't only believe in material facts we believe in the physical and the metaphysical metaphysical we believe both of those things really all of that that this is not the extent and then all of it of anything and then we all are going to leave this world one day we are returning to Allah all of us are returning to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala don't be saddened don't be overcome with fear that the antichrist the messiah did jaal will come out during the time when there is a a lessening or a reduction in faith a reduction in faith and religion and a turning away from from knowledge in other people turn away from true scientific knowledge so we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that we will not be included among those people and not be of those who contribute to this Allah we ask you for your forgiveness we ask you for your guidance you ask you for your protection Allah please forgive us in places in your graces and also placing your graces all of those who have passed recently and those who have passed away in the distant past among the believers Allah please forgive our brother Osama Canon and and why this make his grace his great spaces and open for him an entrance into your into your grace ya Allah resurrect him among the righteous among the the saintly people and do the same for all others who have died recently and Allah we ask you for your protection and your guidance to strengthen our faith strengthen our hearts remove our fear remove our sadness ya Allah we can be returning to you