 The month of Rabi'u'llah just passed us, and you may have noticed that every khutbah that you attended reminded us how important it was for us to build a relationship with the Prophet ﷺ. How a live void of mention and love of the Prophet ﷺ is hollow from within. There's a gap in our lives, something missing. And the Khatib must have repeatedly reminded you that if you wish to build this bond with the Prophet ﷺ, the first step you need to take is to learn about the Prophet ﷺ. And to study the life of the Prophet ﷺ. And there are those of us who maybe as of recently or for many years have been searching for guidance in the life of the Prophet ﷺ. But one of the things is that when a person studies the life of the Prophet ﷺ, the question you have to ask yourself is what do you want from his life? Because there can be 10 people here and I can give you one book and each of you can learn a different lesson from the very same text. Because what you want from the text, that's what that text will give you. Now in order for you to know what you want, you have to ask yourself what are the problems with me and what do I need? If I know what I need, if I know what the problems are, then I can go and search for answers for those problems. But if I don't know what the problem is in the first place, then what do I do? So you'll find people who will come to the Prophet ﷺ's life thinking that let me study it so that I can gain spiritual benefit. Because without doubt the Prophet ﷺ's life offers many spiritual lessons. Then there are those of us who think to ourselves, ok, beyond Tafwah and Salah and Ebadah, maybe I can find an example of my social issues. I can find a solution to my social issues. But very rarely will you find people who turn to themselves and say, I have an emotional issue. Because in our communities, accepting that something is wrong emotionally is a great taboo. And I was reading somewhere that if a president of the United States of America, or any president of the world for that matter, was diagnosed with some sort of physical illness, the population was still tolerated. But if somehow or the other they were diagnosed with some sort of a psychological issue, they would be impeached. They'd be removed. Within time their brains would go down and their effectiveness as leaders would be gone. Because we made taboos out of emotional issues. And because we don't address them and look at them in the eye and say that something is wrong here, or unwilling to explore the idea, those emotions continue to be repressed and they burn within us and they burn within us and we love to ignore them and turn away. But the Prophet ﷺ Allahu Akbar had anyone said to them, we ask ourselves this question. Is there something wrong with having emotional conflicts? Is there something wrong for a person to be conflicted emotionally? Is there something wrong with that? The Prophet ﷺ Yes, we know he had physical challenges. Yes, we know the Prophet ﷺ he had his financial challenges and he had his social challenges with his family and so on. He was a human being. But we forget to realize that when the Prophet ﷺ had all sorts of challenges, one of the great challenges he faced was his emotions. And this is that the seed of the scholar is gifted this ayah. The Prophet ﷺ at times was emotionally conflicted. But of the way he is a prime example of this. A period passes by, the Prophet ﷺ doesn't receive revelation, thoughts begin to roam in his mind. In all sorts of thoughts, maybe my Lord is angry at me, maybe something drawn, maybe I made a mistake and all the maybes start coming in. And you should ask yourself because you have a vision of life. Every one of us sitting here has a conviction, has a vision that this is what I want to accomplish from life as being an Imam in the community, as someone who's a father, as a husband, as a wife, as a business owner, as a citizen. I have a vision of what I want to accomplish. And when we fail in accomplishing with what we want, our emotions begin to stir. And we begin to look at everything else for answers. We start looking for solutions everywhere. We're too afraid to look for solutions for the emotions that we have repressed in our hearts. The anger over failure. Every time something goes in a way that we don't want it to go, over the past there is an anger that remains there, that things could have happened in another way. Why did it not happen that way? Anger builds. And then since there's failure and you're experiencing anger, the second emotion which goes hand in hand with anger is what? Anxiety. You think of the future. The past, anger, the future, you're anxious. What is tomorrow going to hold for you? What's going to happen in my life tomorrow? If we fail today, maybe it's possible four years from now when they fail again. If I fail as a parent today, my second and third child, along with Anna, what's going to happen there? I just had a business that went down the drain. What if two years from now it happens again? I just had an issue right now, whatever the case is. If I just fail, there's anxiety that what happens to me tomorrow? How do I deal with tomorrow? That's another issue. So when we're looking for real issues that we have, in particular today I'm going to address emotional issues that we have. Where do we search for answers? Why are we afraid to go to the life of the Prophet ﷺ and search for answers there? Where companions come to the Prophet ﷺ and they're emotionally struggling. And the Prophet ﷺ gives them advice. The Prophet ﷺ was walking past this lady and she's sitting on the side of the road and she's crying. And the Prophet ﷺ says to her, be patient. Without turning around, she says, what do you know about patience? You're not feeling my pain. The Prophet ﷺ walks on and someone comes and tells her, do you know who that man was? That was the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. She had just lost her child. She was sitting at his grave and crying. She comes to the Prophet ﷺ and says, I didn't know something happened. I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you. I didn't know it was you. I wouldn't have said that. The Prophet ﷺ says to her, You want to learn how to deal with your emotions? You recognize when the problem exists right there that you have a problem. And that's when you have to address it. You don't talk about patience one year from now. You don't talk about patience two weeks from now. You talk about it now. What can I do? The Prophet ﷺ loses his grandchild. Zaynabunadiyya Allah, Allah sends a Messenger. Go and call the Messenger of Allah. My son, my child, just passed away. The Prophet ﷺ didn't go. He said to the Messenger, go and tell her that my ma'az are with them. And then she becomes upset. She's a Prophet's daughter. She says, go to him again and tell him we request his presence. And the Prophet ﷺ came to the gathering. He had tears falling down his eyes. And he said, When you translate these words, you see how the Prophet ﷺ isn't only highlighting his spiritual emotion, his spiritual connection with Allah, but he's talking about real emotions. He's saying, Be patient. And have hope in Allah ﷺ. So, why are you getting hung up with them? You have your responsibility. But emotionally, the outcome of the issues that you face in your life, you have to submit them to Allah ﷺ. Don't oversell last night what I was coming to yesterday when I was flying into San Francisco. There was a sister, she sent me a voice note on and she wanted me to respond to her question. And the summary of the 7-minute voice note was, I'm trying to look for happiness, but the more I search for it, the further it goes from me. And I said to the sister, You're missing the point. You're over-planning and overthinking the future of your life. You want happiness focused on today. Tomorrow, plan for it, but don't focus on tomorrow. Don't give all of your efforts for tomorrow to a degree where you're losing out today. She's planning, planning, planning for five years from now. How will I be a happy lady? But as a result of her looking there and focusing there only, and ignoring today, guess what's happening today? Her possibility of gaining joy and happiness is right out the window. It can't happen. Because she's too focused on tomorrow. She's too afraid to focus on today. We need to focus on today. What do we do? Now, I want to take you guys to a narration that Imam Abu-Dawud, Rahmatullahi, how they bring about their dreams, all sorts of muhajji things. They bring this particular narration. And this is, I think this particular narration takes us to a point in the life of the companions where they must have experienced some really mixed emotions. Mixed emotions to the degree that I'm not even sure of any human being came shared over a Jammal Futbah or tried to really go into it because these people were really strong. And when does this narration occur? One of the prophets of Allah, he will say to them, make a statement on his deathbed. Try to think of what the Sahaba were going through. For those of you who ever sat by the side of your parent passing away or were told, your mother or father is passing away. It's not easy. It's really hard. And here they're sitting by the side of the prophet of Allah, he will say to them, and he's leaving them in all sorts of mixed emotions. Anger probably, anxiety, depression, as they had experienced in the battle of Uhad as well, when the prophet passed away, said, what's going to happen tomorrow? And the prophet of Allah sees this. And you know the most beautiful thing about the prophet of Allah, even though he's on his deathbed, he wants to ensure that he has emotionally guided the companions before they leave. Because if he can't give them guidance today while he's alive, tomorrow, few moments from now, when he passes away, there will be no guidance from the revelation land. So Imam Abu Dawud with Allah, and he actually says, these were the last words of the prophet of Allah, from the last words of the prophet of Allah, the prophet of Allah, has his companions around him and they're all just remorseing and they're crying and they're hurt internally by the prophet of Allah, he was leaving them. So what does he do? He says to them, As-Salaam, As-Salaam, As-Salaam, As-Salaam, Wa-Mahbana Takaym, He's reminding them that when you're emotionally conflicted, turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and be just with those who you have authority over. The people who are underneath you be just with them. The prophet of Allah, As-Salaam, is channeling energy. Every human being has energy. Now, it's our responsibility to channel that energy. You ever notice this that our kids at home, when they come back from school after a long, eight-hour school day, when they come back home, they have enough energy to jump on a trampoline, go swimming, and then go play. Go play with their bikes in the front. They come back and they want to jump around on your sofa. You get tired of telling them, Sofieba Jammat Karam. You get tired of telling them, stop jumping on the sofa, but they have enough energy to jump on it off the sofa for the next three, four hours. They have energy. Every human being has energy. But what do you do with that energy? The prophet of Allah, As-Salaam, emotionally gives them a nudge. He pushes them in the right direction. And now how they grieve is in a very positive manner. What does he teach them? He teaches them that if you are down, the only real way for you to get up is through the help of Allah SWT. And the only way you can get help from Allah SWT firstly, is if you have a bond with Allah SWT. We always talk about this in particular with the recent political changes. We tell them that, oh, make du'a that hopefully things are better. Make du'a for the oppressed. Make du'a, make du'a. What does that mean, make du'a? Let's be real. If I meet you on the way out, or if you meet me, or if we meet each other at a party, or if you meet one of your buddies or friends, other than your own parents. Let's put the parents out of the picture because they're just a whole different league. If you go to any other person and you tell them make du'a for me or make du'a for the ummah, what does that really mean? You know what that person is going to do? Allah make it easy, I mean. And that's it. Our du'a is that don't death in them. There's no meaning to them. It's lip service. One of the Muslim ambassadors says, our stefa has sold it of value that our stefa requires another stefa for the bad etiquette while we meet the first stefa. That's where we are. You know, asalatu ala ma'ma naqam. That's if the Prophet said Allah want to give us something the same. The east and west, north and south will become yours if Allah is yours first. But Allah is in yours and you think you can conquer then nothing is yours in the world. Nothing is yours at all. You want to cry? Every human being wants to cry, I want to cry, one of us carries pain in our heart, you know. And some of us think that crying is somehow an expression of weakness. It's not an expression of weakness. The greatest man that came in history that walked in this earth, they cried abundantly. These are people who stood fearfully in front of Allah SWT and they were rushed to making ruku in front of Allah SWT. These are people who spent their nights crying in front of Allah SWT. They had a bond with Allah SWT. Omar bin Khattab, as Imam Ali Khan Khattab, Ali Ali narrates in his Muattah. Omar bin Khattab, radi Allah, writes a letter to his governors, right? During his Khadab, Islam has now literally spread to the east and the west up and down everywhere, you know, from Yemen all the way up to, you know, the borders of Rome and into Persia and into Egypt. And you know, it's gone, peace everywhere. And Omar Ali Allah, who writes a letter to one of his governors, not one of them, all of his governors. He writes a letter to all of his governors. He receives some complaints. Omar Ali Allah, who I was very strict on his governors, too. So he wrote a letter to each of his governors. And in that letter, you know, when he wrote to them, he said that the most important thing you can do out of all of your affairs is your Salah. That's the most important thing. And then he says, because whoever protects Salah, that person has protected their Deen. And whoever wastes their Salah, whoever wastes their Salah, that person will waste everything else. That person won't be a good husband, won't be a good father, won't be a good businessman, that person won't be a good citizen. Because in their eyes, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala has no value. What kind of value will the place on another human being? Our first, our greatest responsibility is building a bond of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. The bond of the dunya will come and go. You know, you think about this. You know, men like Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani, many of you may have heard of his name, a great Hambly scholar, and you know, a giant in his own way, as a scholar and also as a pious person. When we talk about people like him and others from across the globe, I use him as an example for a reason. But otherwise, if you look across the globe and you read about great scholars that came or pious people that came in Islamic history, whether it be men like Sheikh Adamid Ibn Taymiyya, or in Egypt, if not Allah, or any of them, from whichever, you know, I use these two examples as well as a contrast. Wherever in the world, no matter what you took a methodology you have a lenience towards. You will always notice that these people did not live in political environments where everything was at peace. There was a lot of them. Societies were broken. There were political wars going on. The Mongols are attacking, the Crusaders are rain-sacking. You know, there's a lot going on. But these people realized that when that was happening, that couldn't stop their life, that couldn't stop their dedication to their deem. Because if everyone hits hold on their deem for political engagement, because we view the two as two separate pathways, then you will be at double loss. But at the end of the day, only people, human beings continue to politically disagree with one another. There's up and down, not that I'm saying we should be apolitical and not claiming that. But I'm saying that the world just went up and down in its political ways, but we have built a bond with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. We've worked with our immediate family. We've worked with our immediate community. And that's what the Prophet is saying, As-Salaamu Alaykum wa ma-Laykum wa ma-Laykum. He's saying to the companions, when he's passing away, when I leave, you will continue to gain success in your life if you have Allah with you. First thing. And the second thing, if you are just human beings, because your acceptance of Salah will be seen through your humanity. You guys understand that? The acceptance of your Salah will be seen through your humanity. If, for example, you pray Salah and it's all masha'Allah, your Haim Khayr is like on point. But at the end of that Haim Khayr, when you end your Salah, you're doing the good of Haim, you're throwing all that on people. If that's what your Salah has taught you, that from spiritually you build yourself, you come out to be a disaster to society, your Salah isn't translated. Your spirituality should translate to you being a better human being. That's what we end our Salah with what? As-Salaamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullah, As-Salaamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullah. It's as if we're making a covenant to the people on my right and left that I'm a better human being. My prayer is changing. It made me into a better human being, it just made me into a better person. So the Prophet SAW is teaching us, wa ma'ma deka teka ma'ma, very powerful, divine words, you know, Javan-e-Al-Qanim, concise and precise words. The Prophet's saying, be just with those who you have authority over. The reason why I want to highlight the language used here is because he didn't say be just to your children, because that would have restricted the scope of this statement. He says be just with those who you have possession, who you have authority over. It says that the Prophet SAW was telling every human being, you have authority to some degree or the other. Every human being has authority here. If you're a Wadi, you're a Salifah, you have a greater authority, you're a person who's just working their day job and coming home in the evening and praying Salah and the Masjid, you have an authority there. Be just with people. Have good character. Develop yourself. Be good people. You cannot fix the world if you haven't figured out that you need fixing first. If we haven't come to that point, you know, we can't offer things to other people. We can't offer other people. You look at the greatest political activists. The greatest political activists in history, even in modern times, are those people who are genuine good people. Otherwise, it's sort of crooked people. When you look at them, even though they may have a high position in politics, when you look at a person and you see them being crooked, you're not going to vote for them. You're not going to give them your heart. Even if you do vote for them, you're doing it because the alternative is horrible or was horrible. Okay? Develop yourself first. Be good human beings. You know, the Prophet ﷺ's advice as he finishes off his life, as he ends his chapter, and he's guiding the companions forward, is very powerful. And this is the same advice that I want to finish off this book about with a reminder. Build a bond with Allah swt. Make your du'a meaningful. Unfortunately, when it comes to our du'a, when it comes to us making du'a, when I look at my mother and uncles and aunties from my community who are from an older generation, maybe they weren't as well versed when it came to the difference of opinions amongst the madhhah. If you ask my brother, what is the hanifi madhhah, she would have no idea what that word even means. You know, there were people from the past, if you told them Madhavi Shafi'ih, that they were like, ah, that's a tongue twister. I don't know what that means. But these people, maybe they weren't intellectually sophisticated, but spiritually they were. They knew that whether you tied your hand here and here and here, that was up for discussion. But what wasn't up for discussion was, once those hands are there, you start crying from here. That was mujma'adi, that was a read-upon. Every person knew that you were supposed to cry in love. You know, I just wanted you to know that auntie who you were related to, who would wake up every morning and pull up this book that was really old and dustin and brown pages and the corners were ripping off of each page, and they would sit there and read, not knowing what they were reading, but they were reading it anyway. Because they understood the importance of du'a. That same very old lady who had her little namaz-i-jaga prayer scarf around her head, she'd have her book, she'd have her at the speed, she'd have her mus'ada and give her s'adaqah every morning. She'd give a corner a dollar a day. These people may not have been the greatest political activists or activists in general, but these people were spiritually built. And that's how we come. Each generation is indebted to the previous generation. And if you believe other than that, there's a big problem, Allah, you know, I didn't say. So we are indebted to them and their spirituality. Because what kind of people they were? Where are we today? You know, you ask someone to make du'a or the Imam makes du'a after salat and he goes on for another two, three minutes or four, five minutes, but after 30 second du'a turns into five minutes or a couple of quran du'a, instead of being five minutes turns into 30 minutes, people start looking at each other. After salat is over, after the du'a is over, they come to the Imam and say, Chik, the du'a was too long. If he did the khabla now for 15 minutes, we'd be okay with it. But if it is a du'a for 15 minutes, it's awkward for us. We've become people, you know, when you travel to another state to visit relatives and they tell you that there's a wedding in the community and they take you along with them. And when you go there, you don't know anyone there. And what's the first thing that, what's the only thing that you think in your mind? Let's get out of here. It's really awkward. Come on, I wanna go back home. I can't sit here for too long. How many times am I gonna ask the guy in front of me, how's it going? What do you do? You're gonna ask the guy social security too? Like, you know, how much are you gonna pry into someone else's life before you look really awkward? And that's our situation with Allah SWT. We raise our hands and we say, Ya Allah, Alhamdulillah, As-salatu wa s-salamu ala Rasulullah, O Allah, forgive me. Now what? We've never made God Allah SWT. There's no death there. There's no bond there. My teacher used to say something powerful. He used to say, if everyone engage your level of spirituality, if you ever wanna know where you are spiritually, there's a simple measuring stick. Sit down, raise your hand and see how long you can entertain yourself while talking to Allah SWT. Simple. And if you get tired five minutes into it, you know what kind of friend you have. And you see how interested you are in your friend. This will not right now. We are a people who need to come back to the teachings, the simple, very simple teachings of the Prophet of Allah SWT. Allah SWT, Allah SWT spiritually guide us, Allah SWT spiritually charge us so that we can benefit ourselves, benefit our community members and as always benefit the entire humanity.