 forgiveness, his kindness, his mercy, and his guidance. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to extend his blessing and peace upon his beloved messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam. This as we seek refuge with him, with him, from the evil within our souls or from the ill effect of our misdeeds. Whoever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives guidance to none can mislead whoever misleads none can guide. I bear witness there's nothing and no one worthy of worship besides Allah alone. He has no partner and bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam is a servant and messenger. The warrior scholar Abdullah Abdullah Ibn Mubarak and a couple of verses of poetry he mentions is there anyone who has corrupted the deen other than kings and the scholars of law and the priests among them. See he singles out three factions of people, three categories of people. Those who corrupt the deen, most responsible for the corruption of the deen. And I choose not to translate deen because deen is not only religion. Religion we think of religion today as something which is very private. It is limited to matters of devotion because we live in a secular world that makes a distinction between the private and public spheres. And they say that public conversations or political conversations have no place in religion and true religion according to their understanding. But Abdullah Ibn Mubarak did not mean religion when he said deen. If anything he meant everything and all of the expectation that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has placed upon the human being. Be that prayer or fasting or a hajj, buying and selling, be it politics because Islam has advice for everyone in every sphere. Islam places a moral value on every human action that exists. Is that anyone other than the kings and the scholars of law and priests who are responsible for the corruption of the deen. And by kings he doesn't only mean those who are in public office. And of course the king can be also a reference to a president, a prime minister, a premier, but also the people of great wealth. The people of great wealth actually is what he means. Those with the greatest influence because of their wealth in society. And so individuals of course can be responsible for the corruption of life and society. But ultimately those with the greatest responsibility are those with the greatest power. So the scholars of law could be seen as also just scholars in general. The experts in general. But the priestly classes as well, those who are committed to devotion, those who are committed to devotional life and they abandon the worldly life. And then those who are concerned with the outward matters of religion and they abandon a focus on the heart and the corruption of the heart that all three factions become ultimately responsible. And this is something that our predecessors they passed down and had an understanding in that particular regard. Anas bin Malik, Raja Allahu An, he reports that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam said, oh would all ma tafqiduna min dinikum al-amana. He said the first aspect of your deen that you shall lose is trust. Wa aakhiruhu al-saraa. And the last of it is prayer. And another narration from Abu Umama al-Bahiri, Raja Allahu An, The first of the thing that shall be removed from the people, not just the Muslims, the believers, but the people is trust. And a last of the thing that shall remain is prayer. And many people, or many a person is involved in prayer but he has no good in him. And then the third narration from Zayd ibn Thabit, The first thing that shall be removed from the people is trustworthiness, or trust. And the last of the things that shall remain from their deen is prayer. And many a praying person shall receive no portion with Allah SWT. Trust, trustworthiness. Society, it runs on trust. Humanity runs on trust. A relationship between a parent and a child is built upon trust. A husband and a wife is built upon the trust. Citizens in a government is built upon trust when trust is lost. There is no longer a relationship. There is no longer a cohesion. And we know that our prophet Muhammad SAW was the most trusted man in all of human history. We know him as Asad al-Amin. That the Sahaba, they not only trusted the prophet's opinion and his ideas, they trusted his heart. They trusted his heart. And that's a different type of trust. That I can trust the expertise of my attorney. But I may not trust that my attorney won't betray me. They trusted the heart of Muhammad SAW. Even the non-Muslims, those during his time as enemies, they knew this. They called him this. The non-Muslims in our own age, people such as Michael H. Hart, wrote the book The 100 Most Influential People and Human History. And he put the prophet Muhammad SAW at the top. He wasn't a Muslim, but he was also a white nationalist. And this is where he said Muhammad SAW was the most influential person in all human history. An individual wasn't even a Muslim. He was the most trusted of all men in human history. He was most trusted by Allah SAW. Most trusted by his companions. He was most trusted by those who heard of him, those of us today. If Muhammad SAW was here today, then we would know other person what we trust even more. Not even our parents. We wouldn't trust anyone more than Muhammad SAW SAW. They trusted his wisdom. They trusted his heart. And you see glimpses of that. So many examples of this throughout the history of Islam. Take for instance, someone like Zaid Ibn Duthinna. Zaid Ibn Duthinna, along with nine other Sahaba were ambushed after Uhud. They were sent to a town. People were claiming that they wanted to learn Islam. And so they asked the Prophet to send someone to them. Zaid Ibn Duthinna, Khubei Ibn Adi, Asim Ibn Ka'b, the three of them among the leaders of that group. All of them ended up being killed. But Zaid Ibn Duthinna, Rajallah Haan, Zaid Ibn Duthinna, when era about to kill him, Abu Sufyan had asked him, he said, would you rather, wouldn't you rather that Muhammad be in your place today and you be at home with your family safe and sound? He said, no, I would not even want a thorn to prick Muhammad to be in my place. That I would die if I could prevent him from even being pricked by a thorn. And then he himself, of course he died and Khubei Ibn Adi showed similar resolve. And Abu Sufyan, after witnessing this, he said, that I have never seen anyone, love anyone like the companions of Muhammad, love Muhammad. Abdullah Ibn Omar, Rajallah Haan, he was blessed with great wealth. And among his property he had many slaves. When those slaves accepted Islam and he noticed that they were involved with religious devotion, he saw some of them fasting, observed their fasting on a regular basis or they praying a lot that Abdullah Ibn Omar, he would set them free. Once he had discovered and felt that these people were sincere, go, you're free to go. Someone came to Abdullah Ibn Omar and complained and he said, well, don't you think they'll just trick you? That they'll just act as if like they're sincere Muslims and then you set them free for nothing? He responded to that person, man khada'ana lillahi in khada'ana lahu. That whoever deceives us for the sake of God, we will allow ourselves to be deceived and tricked by that person. In other words, if he's insincere, that's his problem. I set him free, lillahi, for the reward of Allah swt. Mu'ad Ibn Jabal before the Prophet SAW has sent them to Yemen. The Mu'ad was steeped in debt and he told Mu'ad, the Prophet told Mu'ad that when you go to Yemen that it is fine for you to accept gifts from people in order to retrieve the wealth that he had been taking from you. So after a couple of years, he was visiting Makkah on Hajj and he ran into Umrah al-Khattab at the Kaaba and they sat and they started to commiserate about the days of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. And while they were sitting one after another, servants were coming to Mu'ad and bringing him things and taking things away from him and then Umrah had noticed and he says, what is this? Who are these people? And he said, they're my slaves, they're my servants. And so Umrah says, you should ask Abu Bakr's permission to keep them. Mu'ad says, why do I need to ask his permission to keep what is mine? He said, no, I'm not going to ask Abu Bakr. That night Mu'ad, he had a dream that he was on the over a pit of fire on the brink of the edge about to fall into a pit of fire and he noticed that someone was holding him at his waist strap, keeping him from falling into the fire and he turned around and he saw it was Umrah al-Khattab. He woke up from this dream and then he led his slaves in prayer and then after this he turned to them and said, who did you just pray to? We pray to Allah, creator of the heavens and the earth. He said, go, you're all free for Allah's sake. These are the type of people that were produced by Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam. A similar story, Muhammad al-Jawad who is a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, sometimes called Muhammad al-taqi, who the Shi'a considered the ninth of the 12 Imams. He was walking by an orchard one day and he had noticed that there was a man sitting there with a dog and he noticed from the distance that this man, every time he took a bite, a morsel of his food that he would toss the piece to the dog to eat as well. He would take a bite and then he'd give a piece to the dog and he went to that man and he realized that the man actually was a slave and he said, who do you belong to? He said, I serve the progeny of Uthman ibn Affan, and so he said, I've noticed this strange thing that you do that you give this dog from your food, you share the food with this dog. Why do you do that? He said, I don't know, I just feel uneasy to eat in front of someone else and then not share with them what I have. Muhammad al-Jawad, he goes to the family and he buys their estates and buys the freedom of this man. Then he returns to the man and he says to him, I bought your freedom and I've also purchased this land for you. It now belongs to you. And then the man says to him, are you kidding? Are you really serious about this? Did you really do this? He said, yes, wallah. Then he says, then I gift this land to the progeny of Uthman for the sake of Allah. In other words, he was a slave and he gave it back to his owners. So you know what? They were so good to me. They were so good to me. This is the type of people who were nurtured by the teachings of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And this is the way that Islam is spread. That we often talk about the issue of Islamic conquest and Muslims feel uneasy when they hear people attack Islam and say Islam is spread by the sword. Islam cannot spread by the sword. No religion or faith can spread by the sword for that matter because faith is in the heart. Islamic rule often is spread by the sword. In a world of conquest, what else were they supposed to do? They have people at their borders, they don't know what their intentions are. They go there, let's say, okay, strategic alliance or a treaty or pay a jizjah, but that was the choice that everyone had in those days. Muslims were not just raiding areas and just killing people. No, they would go there and then their rule would be accepted and they ruled as minorities for centuries. The places that we know today is Muslim countries, Muslim majority countries. They only became Muslim majority countries a few centuries ago or a couple centuries ago, some about one century ago. Muslims were ruling as minorities and so Islam spread through the character and a reflection, which is a reflection of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi wa Alaihi wa Sallam. Wa Ma'a Ar-Sallanak Illa Rahmatillil Al-Alamin. This is what Allah tells us about our message, Alaihi Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. We know this to be true. And one final story I wanted to share with you about, one last, one final sahabi, an important story I almost neglected to mention. Abdullah Ibn Hudaf al-Sahmi, the Raja Allah Haan, one of the great Sahaba as well, and during the reign of Umrah al-Khattab, Raja Allah Haan, he and about 80 or more Muslims were captured in a battle with the Romans, the Byzantines. They became captives, POWs. And the particular individual who had captured them was trying to force them to accept Christianity, to convert to Christianity. He chose one of them. And he used to have this large brass cow and they would put oil inside of it and they would heat it until it boiled. And so he chose one of these men and he said, turn us up, become Christian except Christ. And he refused to do so and he tossed them into that oil. And they watched this man die in the oil. Eventually they made it to Abdullah Ibn Hudaf al-Sahmi. And similarly he asked Abdullah Ibn Hudaf al-Sahmi, he refused. He refused. And he said, then we're going to toss you into the oil. So they grabbed them, they started to push them in the direction of the cow and he started to cry. Once they saw him crying, they thought, oh, he's going to change his mind, he's going to convert. And so they stopped and said, okay, so what do you have to say? And they said, listen, no, no, I'm not crying because I'm afraid to die. I'm crying because I only have one life. And I wish that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had given me a number of lives equal to the number of hairs on my body and then allowed for me to be tossed into this oil over and over and over so that I can get that greater reward, an immense reward from the times, the many times I'm martyred at this point. And so this man, he was astonished to hear this. And so he decided, no, he wasn't going to kill him, but he said to him, become Christian. So he said, no, I'm not going to become a Christian. And he said, kiss my head, kiss my head and I'll let you go. He said, no, I'm not going to kiss your head because there was a sign of humiliation to do so. And so he said, I refuse to kiss your head. Then he says, become Christian and I will marry you, my daughter, and give you some property, some of the land. And he said, no, I'm not going to become Christian for that. Then he said to him, okay, then kiss my head and I will set free 80 of the prisoners of war. And he says, I'm my hadaf and I'm. As for this, I will do it. So he kissed the head of that man and set free 80 of the PLWs as a result of this. And the Sahaba used to make fun of them about this. He said, oh, you kissed the head of a filthy unbeliever. And he said, yeah, but through because of that kiss, I set free 80 souls before their lives were taken. So no, I take pride in that. So these are the type of men, people who refuse to compromise their beliefs, their convictions and we need to remind ourselves of this over and over and over, the great sacrifices that the people before us made to have Islam in our lives, the value of Islam, not only for us as Muslims, but for the world, that Islam has everything to offer the world. Because everything, the world has nothing to offer Islam. Islam has everything to offer the world. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he plant our feet firm upon his paths, that he illuminate our hearts with true, sincere and strong faith and that he keep us guided upon his paths and also do the same for our children and our family. I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, where the treacherous, the traitor, will be trusted. Where you'll call one of these amin, you'll call one of these amin, and the trustworthy person will be deemed a traitor in such times. We have a situation where confidence in the news has dropped. In 1979, 51% of the American public trusted what they heard from newspapers. Now, only 16% of the American public trust what they read in the newspapers. In 1993, 46%, they trusted TV news. Now, only 11% of Americans trust what they see on television. Do you trust your government? Do you trust the intelligence apparatus? Big tech, the scientists, the experts, quote-unquote. These are the people who told us about so many different things. Told us that men can have babies. Told us that homosexual love is just, it is a good thing. Told us that you must refer to a gender-confused person by the pronoun they prefer to hear. They also tell us that it's okay to kill your baby, even if a woman is about to give birth. At any rate, there's so many problems that we know, but we have to do more to restore trust among ourselves. We live in a world which is falling apart. And I think most of you, if not all of you, should be able to see that. We have to return to Allah's path, return to the sunnah of the messengers of Allah, peace be upon him, return to the commitment of his companions and all of those great people from Islamic history that we don't see in anyone else's history.