 insha'Allah ta'ala we keep the khutbah short and simple this being the youth the youth khutbah Just a few reminders from the Kitab of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the words of his messenger Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He tells us in the Quran in an ayah Which is called ayah to the empty Han the verse of examination empty Han is the same word that's used when you take a Exam or test in school Except that we have to test ourselves Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in this ayah. This is surah al-i-amaran ayah number 31 pull impunto To hipboon Allah fat tabi arni yuhbib kumullah wayal filad madhubakum wa lahum wa lahum wa lahum hafurrahi Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says he says pull it to the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam by extension to all of us If you really love Allah then you have to follow me So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is telling the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam that tell the people If you claim to love Allah because there's a group of people who came to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and they said nahanu nuhibbu Allah Inna nuhibbu Allah, there we love Allah We love Allah and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam presented himself as the messenger of God and they rejected him And he said no we don't need that You know, we we're good with God. We don't need to believe in your Risaleh This is a salamu nuhu. This is the occasion of this ayah revelation That if you really love Allah fat tabi arni you have to have it to you back you have to have adherence to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam Yuhbib kumullah and then this verb yuhbib in English. This is called a just if mood Essentially, this is a purpose clause. So if you love Allah follow me so that Allah will love you you see so the Special love special muhabba of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and of course there's a level of love that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has for all of his creation You know, so we should listen to rhetoric and antiquest from propaganda that characterizes Artheology is being loveless Muslims don't have love in their religion, you know, these people put up videos on YouTube You know show me one verse in the Quran where it says God loves anyone in the Quran What will go forward with it? Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. These all are akin to love So there is a general love that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has for all of his creation And the reason we know that according to Imam al-Mazari is because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Created the universe and nothing can compel him to create anything Nothing compels him. He is the compiler. Allah is Al-Jabbar. He's never Majbu'l So the fact that he made a conscious choice out of his absolute volition to create anything means that he wants a relationship And that's an indication that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is a personal deity that he's loving But here we're talking about the special level of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala The special level of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala comes with it to that of the Prophet ﷺ Fanta bi-aruni Yuhbid kum Allah so that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will love you and forgiving your sins And Allah is wa furu raheem. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is constantly forgiving and he's Intimately loving So this is this is our Barometer as it were the measuring stick is Not based on the amount of money in our bank account or how much you know how many square footage our homes are It's not based on the size of our salaries It's not based on any of these how many children do you have? How tall are you? How white is your skin none of these types of things at the end of the day? The only thing that's going to matter is our itty-baq is our adherence to the Prophet ﷺ Right, so this is what we have to be conscious of in our daily lives Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran He has certain ayat that are ayat of promise of wa'ad and ayat of threat wa'id and these two words are related etymologically Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes a promise and we read these promises and we should be filled with hope That's the purpose of a promise. We should have rajat Rajat needs to have hope with action not just blind hope Right like the person who you know doesn't want to work to want to be a millionaire If it happens it happens. You have to work for it, right? Someone who wants to go to Jannah I want to be in the highest levels of Jannah. Oh, it's time to pray. You know, whatever Allah is forgiving. He's merciful. That's a true statement, but that's not real rajat Rajat is to work for something and then have hope and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So these are the purpose This is one of the purpose of these ayat of wa'ad these verses of promise But then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also has promises of threat or sorry Verses of threat of wa'id and the threat of Allah is something that we should take very seriously When a human being threatens us we take it very very seriously If someone calls your home in the middle of the night and threatens you you're gonna call the police You're gonna move out of your house. You're gonna take precautions Well, what about when the Lord of everything when the Creator of everything Threatens us so we should be cognizant of these Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in surat al-tawba ayat number 24 He says in meaning that if any of these Ephemeral things all any of these dunya we types of things and he mentions, you know houses and spouses and children and money and you know Any type any possessions that we have whatever they are if any of these types of things your career Whatever it may be if any of these things are dearer to you or more beloved to you I hope I like them in a line or a surah what you had in feasibility if any of these things are more dear to you then Allah is messenger and Striving in his cause for tarab basu then just wait Hacta yet dear love will be only then just wait and see what happens see wait till the Amr of Allah comes This is a threat. We don't want to wait. The purpose of this ayat is to shock our nefs out of its complacency right oftentimes we get comfortable in our lives and One of the reasons why we meet the Quran is to fill us with hope and also fear of Allah Shekharu wa ta'ala Hope of his mercy but also fear of his wrath and this is a healthy place to be spiritually not so much hope that we start acting Irresponsibly there's some people in the world who believe that they have an unconditional covenant with God Irrespective of obedience. Why is I'm born of a certain race. There's certain people who believe this. I'm born of a certain race I'm chosen by God study been based on obedience I have the upper hand there are other people in the world who believe that if you believe one time No action whatsoever. It's okay. You're totally okay. It has no effect of your iman. You're gonna go straight into jannah We're just these are extreme positions. We have to be careful That's not to have so much hope and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that we start become irresponsible in our actions We leave the prayer. We don't guard our eyesight. We're not watching what we're doing We're not watching what we're eating and drinking. We're loose with our tongues to our parents Allah subhanahu the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he says in the hadith. He says I would come out here The greatest of sins and he names them and it's your uncle billah Is to in partner with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to say Allah has some sort of partner. There's a there's a different person of God Something like that Right or someone has the attributes of God this person who's other than God has attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala This is the biggest sin. It's spiritual treason and then he says what will rally day disrespect of parents Disrespective parents and we know the hadith jibreel alaihi salam when the Prophet sallallahu alaihi salam is a foundational Hadith in our tradition with the Prophet sallallahu alaihi salam was asked by jibreel alaihi salam. This is Sahih Muslim and Bukhari He said I'll tell me about the hour And the Prophet said The one being questioned knows no more than the questioner Because the the end of the sa'a is only known to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Nobody knows it. No messenger. No angel only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So jibreel alaihi salam says that then tell me about its signs What are some portents of it and one of the first things the Prophet sallallahu alaihi salam mentions is that a woman will give birth to her master or mistress What does that mean? The ulema say this means that children will immediately be disrespecting their parents This is a major sin in the eyes as it were of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Right, so if hope and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala proper hope, hope with action we also have fear of Allah Khawf, be between khawf and raja Khawf and raja, fear and hope, where are the two sandals of fear and hope the Prophet sallallahu alaihi salam said But not so much fear that we begin to despair of Allah's mercy We begin to despair. I talked to a man who admitted to me that he's killed a lot of people. He was under orders He told me I've killed a lot of people. He said I've killed a lot of children. I was under orders This is what he said. I said, why did you do that? He said, I don't know I don't know, you know, there's a sign of the end of time and the Qatulu, right? The one killing doesn't know why he's killing He said to me, do you think God will forgive me? And he was non-Muslim, so I quoted an ayah of the Qur'an to him Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, oh say all my servants Who have completely debased themselves Completely debased their own souls La tachnatu min rahmatillah Never ever be in despair of the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala It is haram. It is wrong. It is incorrect to ever be in a state of despair of the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, if we make tawba, Allah is atawab. How many names of Allah, how many of his blessed names Deal with this idea of Allah forgiving us. He is atawab He is al-hafir. He is al-haffar. He is al-hafur. He is al-aafu. The one who erases the sin. There's no trace of it left This is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is our Lord. Allah will never go tired of forgiving us unless we grow tired of asking For tawba and of course he never grows tired. This is a matter of speaking In other words, as long as we keep making tawba, Allah will keep forgiving us But when we make tawba, it's very important That our tawba is correct Right? As one of my teachers said, sometimes our tawba requires a tawba But he's not really a tawba A tawba has requisites. One must have medamah. One must have remorse for the sin and a firm azimah, a firm resolve That this person will never return to this sin again Even if he does return at the time of tawba, he has full resolve that he won't return to the sin Right? This is a true tawba and Again, our Role model is the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam You have the messenger of god, a beautiful part of kandah Listen to what Allah says in the next part of the ayah For those who have hope, those who have rajah The messenger of god is a beautiful part of kandah. For those who have hope Rajah in allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and in the final day and remember allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with much remembrance So it's important for our young people to have role models Right? This which is studying the meccan period of the prophet's life When the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was living in mecca, allah's young people became muslim There's a very young companion of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam mus'ab ibn humair, radiallahu alayhi wa sallam Who was very very young at the time very wealthy became muslim And mus'ab was known for wearing new clothes every day sometimes twice a day. You have a new thomba Very wealthy, you know very beautiful looking young man He was like a superstar in mecca And he became muslim and his parents cut him off financially And He was in dire straits And the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sent him to al-habasha, abyssinia to live for a while Many years later the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was sitting in the muslim mecca in the haram And mus'ab ibn humair comes back to mecca. He's wearing the rags With patches sewn into him and into them his skin is just Tattered his hair is disheveled no shoes on his feet and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam began to cry Not because he felt sorry for him and the The moral the moral of this story is not to go walk around with with rags on you've missed the point if that's what you think The prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam began to cry because he saw this This this superstar amongst the kafar Just reduced to this humble slave of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He was crying because he saw the power of the revelation the power of iman Right, this is why we should never despair of allah's mercy and we should treat our neighbors and friends Uh as if they're potential muslims They're human beings the fact that people are human beings means that these they deserve respect Allah says in the Quran that we have ennobled these sons and daughters of adam So support for us have good attitude with people Right, even if people are fed false information, which is happening all the time Look at the prophet in mecca. There was a propaganda campaign out against him The leaders of the formation met in the dawn of nidwa their city council, right? And they decided that they were going to spread propaganda about him and they were molling this over What should we call him? They said let's call him a liar And then they said no, we can't call him that because we called him a saudi for la mean Now they're going to it's going to make us look bad if we call them a liar He said let's call them a shahir. He's a poet Right, he said well, that's not going to work either because he's not known for composing poetry It's not going to work so that i want even mohanah. He said let's call him a saher a sorcerer He's a sorcerer because he can divide families and so that's a good one So the police would send out these riders to intercept people coming into mecca Right, welcome to mecca Enjoy the festivities But stay away from this man mohammad samul alaihi salam. He's a saher. He's going to be with you Right, so people were told propaganda about him even before meeting him even before hearing him one time So a lot of people in our neighborhoods are like this In our lives are like this They've never actually heard from the prophet samul alaihi salam. How can they hear from him? They hear from him from us Because we are ambassadors of the prophet samul alaihi salam And when people whether you like it or not our behavior Right our behavior whether it's good or bad informs others of islam This guy's a muslim look what he's doing Whether you like that or not that's what's going to happen Right So a lot of people have negative perceptions of us not only because of negative media that they're hearing But because of their bad experiences with muslims Because we haven't actualized that beautiful khulq of the prophet samul alaihi salam Right, so the prophet samul alaihi salam is da'iyan ilallah. He is the caller to Allah our excellence How did he call people to Allah? What was he doing in mecca? He went about his business. He was being a good practicing muslim People wanted to hear from him. He would speak with them So to fail him to aamara dosi came into mecca. He'd heard about his propaganda about the prophet samul alaihi salam He saw the prophet samul alaihi salam and the ka'aba reciting Quran He said I was so afraid. I brought into the propaganda. I put cotton in my ears And made my ta'waf because I didn't want to hear him because he would bewitch me So to fail him to aamara he said he passed by the prophet samul alaihi salam He said Allah willed that something of his kana'a entered into my head Something of his kana'a And I said subhanAllah That was beautiful. So he took some cotton out And it went around again. I passed him again And I heard more And I said subhanAllah This is incredible So he took all of the cotton out and I just stood there and was listening to his kana'a And then he said to himself he relates to haqeeq. He said I thought to myself I'm a grown man I'm a grown man Why should I listen to propaganda? I'm going to sit with him I'll make up my own mind So he sat with him. He said who are you? What is this reciting? That this is the Quran and the messenger of God And he immediately became muslim Immediately. This is the way of the prophet samul alaihi salam Right? Somebody comes. He gives them guidance And to fail him to aamara he went back to his people the bunny dose And he started making da'wah Right? And the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam is da'iyya la ila allah And sallajah muneerah But nobody else really is And he was young muslim So he's trying to make da'wah And it wasn't working very well So he came back to the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam And he said ya rasulullah I'm calling these people to islam But they're laughing at me. They're rejecting me Can you curse them? Cursed them Yeah And the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam said no we're not going to curse anybody And the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam said I was set as a gifted mercy Gifted mercy And he said let's go fight against them and force them to convert They said no we're not going to do that either He said So go back to your people Oh to fail And shepherd to them And have rift, have gentleness with them So okay so he goes back He implements the training Tarbiyah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam And he shepherds to them and takes care of them He's a pastor to them Right he shows gentleness towards them And there's convert after convert after convert Eventually a man named Abu Hurairah becomes muslim But then he does Who becomes a fountain of prophetic knowledge This is the way of the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam There was a man in Mecca named Arkham who became muslim And the muslims would go to his house in a very large house And the girl would make vicar and pray there And listen to the lectures of the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam So one of the muslims he would sit on the way to dawn of outcome And he would bring these singing and dancing girls And he distract muslims who were going to see the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam With these singing and dancing girls And he tells stories of you know the great Persian conqueror and the great stories of the Romans and the Greeks So young muslims go into the house of Arkham To listen to the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam Would say hey let's just stop here for a minute We'll go there eventually We'll sit here and relax Listen to some stories, see some dancing girls Hear them sing a little bit Hey it's okay, we'll make toba later They sit down An hour goes by Two hours go by Three hours go by Four hours go by Nine hours go by You know the average American spends the average American youth Which includes our youth obviously Spends nine hours a day on media Whether it's television or computer or games Nine hours a day That's a full-time job So we're very distracted So we have to learn how to be disciplined enough To walk by these distractions And go to the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam And take the guidance from him Insha'Allah ta'ala