 We praise him and we seek his aid and we ask for his forgiveness and So whomever Allah guides none can misguide and whomever he misguides none can guide and we bear witness that That there is no God but Allah alone that he has no like and that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is his last and final messenger and the man of praise literally We praise Allah as well for gathering us on this day of Juma as we know is a day of gathering between two different gatherings on The first gathering was the moment of our creation when we were brought out from the loins of our father Adam Alayhi salam on that day Allah asked us alas to be rabbikum. Am I not your Lord? And on that day we witnessed Allah's lordship and therefore we testified and we said indeed you are and And it is according to that witnessing that we will be held held to account on the day of Resurrection when we will be gathered again before our Lord and asked whether we remain faithful to that first and original covenant What this teaches us is that life is Coming from Allah and it's returning to Allah and that's all that this dunya really is Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un indeed we belong to Allah and to him do we return These are our days of inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un We've the stories and news we hear coming out of Turkey and Syria is quite devastating we hear of people who Who were trapped under rubble for days two or three days and couldn't move Couldn't go anywhere because no rescue teams and no one was coming to help them Here's stories of people who's Loved ones they could see in the rubble, but they couldn't get to them because it was too hard to remove all of the debris We hear of survivors who still to this day have no shelter still to this day have no electricity and in this winter in in Turkey and Syria, which is Colder and more devastating than than most winters that this is causing a lot of difficulty for people They can't enter their homes because their homes are destroyed or perhaps their homes aren't destroyed But it's so damaged that they feared that even if they were to enter the building may collapse in any moment But hearing from one of our teachers yesterday in Damascus He was saying that yes the the situation for people is indeed difficult But with that difficulty comes ease He said the people in Syria There's they're they sure they're showing more gratitude to Allah in this time than they were before the earthquake That the earthquake has brought people back to Islam has brought people back to To their religion because there were some people who are engaged in the dunya But when the dunya was taken away from them, they were they were forced to face the reality that's only them and Allah And this is something that Allah promises promises us in the Quran Well, I know the one that can be shayim mean al-khofi will do a you a naxin mean an amwari one Anfasi with them a lot of ashir as Sabirin Surely indeed we will try you with something of fear something of hunger and loss of wealth life and yields a Good news to the patient and who are the patient? And the dina is a sabbath a moseeba. I don't know inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raja own There are those who when calamity hits them. They say indeed we belong to Allah and indeed to him We return and so we know that fitna and that these that these calamities bring benefit as well and There are different ways in which they bring bring benefit and scholars list four types of people and the different ways that they are benefited There first they list those who survive and those who are sinless And for those people they die because they died in an earthquake They die as martyrs, and they are raised in their ranks And there are those who were people of sin and people of dunya And who passed away? For these people too they will enter jannah as martyrs and their sins will be forgiven and a third type of person is the survivor and this and the survivor who Did not bring about this this calamity with their sins And so this person is also elevated in their ranks and they are tried and they're given a higher station in jannah and higher rewards in this world and The fourth is the person who who survived who was Who is someone of sin and someone of the dunya and he too his sins are lifted and so there are many benefits to tribulations the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said ummati ummatul marhooma They saw a layha a gap in the Akhirah a gap of half of the dunya Al-fitanoo was ill-zali will cut My community is a community shown mercy It faces no punishment in the Akhirah, but his punishment is in the world with civil strife With earthquakes and with killing and we know that the prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam so he said what he to Joe on me I was given the most comprehensive a speech And if you look at the words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam carefully here You notice several things that he mentions in his word choice The first of them is that he says ummati ummatul marhooma That it is my nation that is a nation a nation shown mercy Which means that it is because of our iman and our belief in the prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam that he is the reason that that we are shown mercy Is not for any other reason The second is that the mercy is in the trials the mercy is in the earthquakes The mercy is in the killing that this is mercy itself Which is a jeeb if you think about it how can earthquakes and killing be mercy because otherwise there would be another Adab and This is the third part of the ayah Lisa aleyha adab in the Akhirah Inna ma adabu hafid dunya Allah also says in the Quran the hurl fassadu phil barri wa al-bahr Bima kassab at aid al-naas li yudhika hum ba'adalladhi amilu la'allahum yarji'un Corruption and ruin Has emerged on the land and in the sea by what people's hands have wrought By what people's hands have acquired to give them a taste of something of what they were doing To give them a taste of something of some of what they were doing And so these Trials and tribulations these difficulties and these earthquakes They're like the symptoms of a disease That for people who Whose hearts are troubled whose hearts are diseased there needs to be a way for us to see that disease To feel the pain of the disease so we can go and get help li yudhika hum ba'adalladhi amilu la'allahum yarji'un So that they might indeed return to Allah inna wa lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un Allah also says in the Quran Be wary of a fitna that does not only afflict those The does not only affect the The sinful mostly only but that also afflicts and troubles the those who are who are not sinful We know that In earthquakes that there are people who are raised in in degrees and similarly that similar things may be found in other instances of of history We see for example in the story of the fall of Baghdad When they say that the rivers were flowing with the ink of the libraries that they destroyed And the streets were up to the knees flowing with the blood of the Of the indiscriminate slaughter that occurred They say that in this event that Possibly there is no greater or more difficult event for the Muslim Ummah since the death of their prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam That about this the scholars who lived during that time One of them who was the teacher of Ibn Kathir and the teacher of Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali Wrathullah Anham whose name Afif al-Din al-Baqaal He said when news of the slaughter Reached them reached him in Cairo He could not believe what he was hearing He couldn't believe what would have happened in in Baghdad of the slaughter and the amount of people that were killed And so he said to himself, yeah, Rob. Oh Lord. Why is this? Why is this when there are innocent sinless children amongst them? And so that night the sheikh saw in a dream and he's telling this to his students He said I saw in a dream a man holding a book And so the sheikh took the book and he read that there were lines of poetry On in the book that were chastising him And these lines were Leave your your objection. This fear is not yours Nor is the decision in the movements of the stars. This is not random and by chance or by nature Do not question Allah about his actions for whoever dives into the depths of the ocean perishes To him returns the matter of his slaves. We are his slaves and he may do with us as he wishes Leave your objection. How ignorant you are of how Allah acts He warns us in the Quran that we should not question Allah's motives Because his wisdom is beyond our understanding He is not asked a question about what he does Rather they are questioned and asked about what they do The wisdoms in trials and tribulations are more than just the two that are always mentioned That of the expiation of sins and that of the raising of degrees Sheikh Azadine Ibn Abdul Salam in his well-known book about calamities He mentions several other reasons, several other benefits and wisdoms of tribulation That come to show us some of what's going on behind the veil He says first of all that it makes a person realize the power of Allah over him And therefore it makes him realize his own slavehood, his own poverty, his own incapacity and inability to do anything Because when the electricity is taken away from you When your homes are taken away from you, when your families are taken away from you When your food is taken away from you Then you realize the reality of who you are Nothing powerless, without any will, without any knowledge Allah could take away your life or your breath in the next moment And you cannot do anything about it And because of this, because of you realizing the nothingness of yourself You develop sincerity to Allah because you cannot help yourself Nor can anything else of this creation help you And so you return to Allah and are fervent in your desire for Allah And therefore you are humble before Allah and develop forbearance with the one who has afflicted you Because he is the one who is causing all of these things And in times of trial and tribulation and affliction You begin to forgive one another Because you realize that the things that you were fighting over were small and petty They were things of this dunya When it goes away you realize this was small and nothing This is not worth fighting over And because of these benefit, because of these trials and tribulations There is a type of happiness Happiness that now this affair is just upon Allah And that you become grateful for these benefits that Allah gives you There is a famous hadith and some narrated from the early generations instead That Ashadun Nasi Balaan Al-Anbiya'u Fal-Amthal Tum Al-Amthal The most tried and given the most affliction amongst you are the prophets And then those most like them And then those most like them And so in experiencing these things we are going through the experiences of the prophet We are going through the experiences of what it means to be prophetic Tribulations give you the blessing of having true recognition of the extent of these blessings And it reveals to you what are the realest of blessings They are not the things of this dunya They are what make us prophetic They are the things of the akhirah They are the things that make us grateful They are the things that make us humble They are the things that make us forgiving Tribulation prevents you from arrogance It prevents you from evil It prevents you from pride And it prevents you from tyranny