 In the name of Allah, we begin with the praise of Allah, Allah who is the Lord of the worlds. And so we praise him and we seek his aid and we ask for his forgiveness. And we also seek his protection, both from the evil of ourselves and from the evil in our actions. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide. And whomever he misguides, none can guide. And we bear witness that there's no God but Allah alone and that he has no like and we testify that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the man of praise, appraised as most deserving for him and of him, is a slave and final messenger. Praise be to Allah as well for bringing us together on this day of Jumu'ah, a day of gathering as we know, which is a reminder of that gathering that came before when we were brought together on that primordial day of Yom Al-Ast, Yom Al-Mithaq, the day of the Covenant. On which day Allah asked us, Al-Astubi Rabbikum, am I not your Lord? And we replied, balaa, indeed you are. And so this gathering is a reminder of the two poles that define our life. One pole being Yom Al-Mithaq, that day of the Covenant and the other day, a warning of the other day, Yom Al-Qiyamah, when we will be brought together again before our Lord and we will be asked whether we remain faithful to that first Covenant. We begin with praise of Allah, following the book of Allah, following Surat Al-Fatiha, in which Allah begins with Al-Hamdullahi Rabbil Alameen. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. And for praise to belong to Allah means that all praise belongs to Allah, that all good belongs to Allah, that everything praiseworthy belongs to him, that every perfection belongs to him. And it means that this divine perfection, this divine greatness and beauty, then shines down from on high and it shines down onto Muhammad, Muhammad literally the man of praise, the man who is most deserving of praise. As Allah says, Muhammadun Rasulullah, he is the messenger and he is representative of Allah because just as Allah is most deserving of praise, he too is most deserving of praise. And just as with Allah we said that to be most deserving of praise means to contain, means to include, to be characterized by every attribute of perfection, by every quality of praiseworthiness, so too for our beloved messenger, is Allah, he too is characterized by every attribute of perfection. And to him also belongs every trait of perfection. And Allah tells us about this in a verse in the Quran that is possibly the most comprehensive verse about what it is to live in this dunya and how Allah is relevant to our lives in this dunya and how the messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is relevant to our lives in this dunya. And this is where Allah says, وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِلْعَالَمِينَ And we have not sent you, O Muhammad, to save us a mercy to the worlds. And so we have moved from Hamd to Rahma and we should ask, what then is the central quality of mercy in our religion? Because just as we moved from Hamd and Rahma with respect to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we can also do this in the Fatiha, الحمد لله رب العالمين الرحمان الرحيم. We say, all praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, the Most Merciful, the Intimately Merciful. What then is mercy? Who then is Ar-Rahman and Ar-Raheem? And for this we turn to the Arabic language because in Arabic, Rahma or mercy is related to word for benevolence. Rahma means to wish good upon others. It means to desire mercy, to desire a goodness for others. And mercy also has a condition and that condition is that mercy can only be directed towards someone who is in need. It can only be directed to someone who is open to receiving that mercy. And the third point is that mercy is only complete and is only universal and is only without limits when it includes both those who are deserving of mercy and those who are undeserving of mercy. When it includes all types of needs, whether material needs or spiritual needs, whether in this life or the next life, whether they be great needs and tremendous needs, the ruryat, or whether they be little needs and minute needs, tahsiniyat. And so if we take all of these qualities together, who is Ar-Rahman and Ar-Raheem? He is He who is benevolent towards the needy. And we're all in fact in need of Allah. Ya Allah says, Ya ayyuhan naas, Antimul fukarawil Allah, Allahu ghaniyun hameed. So He is benevolent towards the needy. And He fulfills and satisfies all the wants and needs, minor and major of mankind in this dunya and in the Akhira, whether we are deserving of it or not, all without exception. Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem, Alhamdulillah, Rabb-ul Alameen. Praise be to Allah for this quality of His. Now, the difficulty with this reality is that even though Allah is so merciful to us, this might fly in the face of some people's lived experience. And some people may begin to think, Allah is all merciful, but I'm still in need. Allah is all merciful, but I'm in tribulation, I'm in affliction. There are so many misfortunes in the world, so many hardships in the world. Where is the mercy? Where is the all merciful? And so we should say, we should first say that if you see this thought pattern, it's important to recognize this thought pattern. This thought pattern is very specifically a thought pattern from shaitan. This is a khatr shaitani. This is something from Satan. And we know it's from Satan because it's based off of falsehood and deception. It is based off of falsehood and deception. Have we not heard the hadith from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, where he says, My community is indeed a community shown mercy. It has no torment into afterlife, but rather its torment is only in this world, killing, earthquakes and fitna. So pay attention here to the words of your Prophet. My community is a community shown mercy. How? Through killing, earthquakes and fitna. So pay attention here to the words of your Prophet. My community is a community shown mercy. How? Through killing, earthquakes and fitna. These are a sign of mercy. Tribulations and trials and afflictions are a sign of mercy. How are they a sign of mercy? Because it removes the punishment that we would be otherwise owed in the akhirah due to us falling short in fulfilling Allah's rights. And so trials and tribulations have a greater purpose. They serve a greater good. And this is from Allah's hikmah that he could have left us in the dunya without any mercy. He could have left us in complete anguish without any knowledge of him, without being aware of his presence. Because we as creation, his creation, we hold no rights over the creator. And thus it would not have been unjust for him to do so. But he did not do so. He did show us mercy, not because he had to, but out of his compassion. He showered us with blessings and with gifts. He gave us homes and families with good food and drinks that quench thirst when we are thirsty. With a beating heart and a conscious mind with which we live. With medicine from the earth that heals us when we are sick. With vehicles to travel about the earth from which we can gain whatever we need and just so we can enjoy ourselves and have leisure time. He has given us schools with which to get an education. He's given us knowledge with which we can make our lives in our dunya and the Akhira better. He's given us a masjid to receive Allah's guidance through the example of his merciful exemplar, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Wa inta'uddu ni'matullahi la tahsuha. If you were to count, if you were to enumerate the blessings of Allah, you would be unable to do so and you would not encompass them. And so the goodness that he shows us, far outweighs the pains and the hardships, the afflictions and the misfortunes that he has commanded and decreed. But it's only the people of gratitude who will see this. It's only the people of gratitude who will notice this. And the people of ingratitude, the people of kufran, because kufran and kufr come from the same root word. The people of kufran and ingratitude, they will be the ones who complain. They will be the ones who focus on the negative aspects of life. They will always focus on what could have been, how much things could have been better. And they will neglect and overlook the undeserved goods that Allah, Azawajal, has showered on us. And then on top of all this, on top of us not deserving to receive any mercy from Allah, and on top of Allah showing us much more mercy and goodness and blessing than he has shown us any hardship, even then he tells us that this hardship has a mercy in it for us. That everything apparently evil has anything apparently bad or disliked in the world. Allah has decreed it for a greater good that comes from it. And he has not decreed any evil for its own sake. And we see examples of this in our own lives. This is not some foreign thought. This is like amputating a diseased limb. The amputation may seem like an evil if you don't know what's going on. Why are you cutting off my limb? Why are you cutting off my hand? It may seem extremely evil, sadistic, painful, cruel. But a doctor who amputates a diseased limb forestalls a much greater misfortune if the disease were to spread about the body and to kill the host. This is the wisdom in Allah's creation, but if only because see. If only it could be of Ulul al-Bab. So just as mercy then is found in Allah's creation, then we should also notice that this mercy is also found in Allah's rulings. Allah says, وَلَكُمْ فِالْقِصَاسِ حَيَاتُ وِيَا عُولِ الْأَلْبَابِ O people of discernment, you have an qaisas in retributive justice in lex talionis, you have life. And so when Allah decides that when he decrees and ordains that someone who commits a murder intentionally deserves the death penalty, which is a form of qaisas in the sharia. What he is telling us in this ayah is that this is not taking life. The death penalty is not taking life, it's giving life. Ajid, how is the death penalty giving life? Doesn't it seem like it's taking life? Why? Because there is a greater purpose here, which is that this taking of life is a deterrent. Is a deterrent from other evildoers who would they not see the consequences, the harsh consequences, do upon someone who commits this evil that they would commit far worse. This then is a mercy, but it's a mercy that takes into account the whole and doesn't just consider one part. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, لو أنَّ فَاطِمَةَ بِنْتَ مُحَمْمَدٍ سَرَقَتْ لَا قَتَأْتُ يَدَهَةَ وَرْفَاطِمَةَ دَاطَرَرَمْ مَحَمْمَدٍ تَسْتِيلْ I would sever her hand. I would cut off her hand. This is not cruelty. This is a mercy. Don't you think that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam cared for his daughter and is already good for her? Don't you think that the one who is sent as a mercy to all the worlds would first and foremost care for and desire mercy for his own daughter? And yet, he says, as لَا قَتَأْتُ يَدَهَةَ I would sever her hand. I would cut off her hand because this act of severing of a hand, of implementing the sharia, would be an act of love and mercy. Because there's a greater good in it. And that greater good is the lifting of the burden and ugliness of such a major sin as stealing. This then is the wisdom of taqlif. This is the wisdom of Allah burdening us with the sharia, which is that following Allah's commandments and avoiding his prohibitions, yes, there might be a temporary pain. It might require some subar, some steadfastness, some endurance, some patience. Yes, there's a minor hardship. But that minor hardship enduring it prevents us from falling into a much greater hardship, into a much greater pain, to a much greater suffering. And so then the sharia, even in the parts that are difficult, should be considered or instructions of how to navigate the treacherous waters of dunya ultimately to reach Allah. The sharia is a type of love letter from the divine to the Habib, to the beloved, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And therefore, anyone who takes leave of it, takes leave of Allah's mercy, and takes leave of Allah's wisdom at his own peril. I say, I say this, and I seek forgiveness from Allah. And he said, I seek forgiveness from Allah. In the name of Allah, and praise and praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings of Allah, and peace and blessings of Allah, and peace and blessings of Allah, and peace and blessings of Allah. There's a hadith narrated by Sayyidina Umrah from Al-Khattab, brahmah. He narrates that once the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, passed by a woman after a battle, and she was walking between children who were captured as prisoners of war. And whenever she found a baby amongst these prisoners of war, she would nurse the baby and make sure that it wasn't crying and that it had the milk that it needed. And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, asked his companions, atarona haadihi tariha tan wa adhaa finnaar. Do you think that this woman would throw her baby in the fire? But Allah, who ar-rahamu bi-ibadihi min haadihi bi-waladihi. Verily, Allah is more merciful to his slaves than she is to her child. This then is the reality in which we live. And so we should question, when there, where there, is there room to doubt Allah? Is there any doubt that it is Allah who manages to disappear that somehow, whatever is happening is not from Him, that is by His hand that the wind blows, that waves crash on the ocean shore, that war breaks out in one country and peace is brokered in another country? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy that if we do look with the eye of gratitude that we would see innumerable examples of undeserved blessings upon each of us? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when He has promised it over and over and when He has sent the man of mercy, Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to the worlds? How can there be, when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, The most tried of people, the most severely tried of people are the prophets and then those most similar to them and then those most similar to them. And if this then is how Allah shows His love to His beloved, what an honor it is for us to be treated in the same way as His beloved, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Allah says in His Noble Scripture, innallahu wa malayikaddu yusalluna ala nabi, yaiyuh aladina amanu, sallallahu alayhi wa sallim utaslima,