 He prays, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, who has chosen his beloved, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, over all of humanity. And we bear witness that there is no deity, no God worthy of worship other than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, without association. We bear witness that the prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa la alihi, is his messenger and his servant. And first and foremost, I give encouragement and advice to my own soul, and then to all of my brothers and sisters, my teachers, and the young in here to have taqwa, fear of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in both privacy and in public. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an, Do you call people to righteousness? And then you forget about yourselves. And one of the things, especially when you're in the line of dawa, when you're calling people to Islam, when you're really involved, sometimes you forget about yourself. Sometimes we forget that we stay at a gathering too long and maybe have difficulty waking up in prayer. Sometimes we may not be able to control or gaze the way we want to. Sometimes we need to do better in our businesses and how we treat our spouses and our children. Whatever it may be, we all have shortcomings and shortgoings. In fact, if you see, if you look at the word fir'aun, it's what's called a compound word in English, two words that actually compose one. And aun in Arabic literally means help. Allahu fi aunik, may Allah help you. May Allah be in your aid. In fir, Allah says in the Qur'an, firru ilallah, run to Allah, free to Allah. So when the aun of Allah comes, then you're freed. So you're freed like the Bani Israel when the aun of Allah came, they were freed from fir'aun. But sometimes what happens is that when you are put in the place of blessing and power and you have been emancipated, sometimes you forget and you become the fir'aun. And that is what is dangerous that we must always, this religion, we always have to look inward. And that is why we have two angels sitting on our shoulders that are writing everything that we do. They're not writing what your friend is doing or somebody else is doing. And in this last month, I don't know how many of us has woken up in the morning and been aware of those two angels. And I've said, As-salamu alayka yaa malayka al-yameen, As-salamu alayka yaa malayka al-Yasar, salam to these two angels, knowing that they're with us, that they're with us 24-7. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, We have created the human being weak. Alhamdulillah, we know this. We're all vulnerable. And that is why the Prophet, As-salamu alayka al-yameen, says in As-sahi hadid, The Prophet, As-salamu alayka al-yameen says, by the one whose hands my soul is in, if you all did not commit sins, the entirety of this earth's humanity, he says, if you did not commit any sins, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would wipe you out, all of you, and bring the creation that sins turns to Allah for forgiveness, so Allah could forgive them. So we understand this and we know in the Prophet, As-salamu alayka al-yameen says, That all of the children of Adam sin, make mistakes, but the best are the Tawabun. The Tawabun, the Tawab means to continuously, continuously make towa, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows, we make mistakes continuously. Alexander, a poet from the time of the enlightenment, he said, to err is human. So we are creatures that make mistakes, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Those who make mistakes, who sin, who oppress their own selves, and then they ask forgiveness from Allah, they find Allah, they'll find Allah most forgiving and most merciful. And in fact, in Surah Hujrat, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, He says that the ones that don't make towa, and Allah could have said, Those that don't make towa, they're the oppressors, they're the Tawabun, but Allah says, He put stress on it in this ayah, because he did not say that it was the person that commits the sin, the person that does this or that. Allah says, no, it's not the one that commits the sin, that it's the Zalimun. He says, it's the one that doesn't come back for towa. The one that doesn't make towa, that's who Allah calls a Zalim. So our teachers have instilled even in us that this religion is a religion of always looking inward and looking at yourself, tazkiyah to nus, that in fact, even when you stand before anyone, and you talk about this religion, and you talk about this Deen, Maqala Allahu Maqala Rasul, what Allah in His Messenger says, first of all, you have to picture yourself sitting in that audience or looking in the mirror that you're talking to yourself first and foremost, not isolating anyone, not alienating anyone. It's not about anything personal, that first and foremost you need this yourself, because Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, Verily that person that has purified himself, that's the successful one. And he says, that we sent you a prophet from amongst yourselves, his beloved Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, to teach you, to relate to you his signs, his ayat, and to what? And to purify you. But just like a farmer, just like a farmer who wants his garden to flourish, he must do what? If there's weeds in the farm, he has to get rid of the weeds, or the weeds will kill the good crop. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la talks about in Zakat, what is the purpose of Zakat? It's so your money can grow, but your money will not grow unless you take the impurities out of your money and how do you take those weeds of impurity from your money? You give it to the fukarah and the masakeen, you give it to the poor and to the destitute, then your money can grow. And this is growth that is accepted in the sight of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la from Allah with blessed wealth, true growth, not haram growth from haram money. And just like the farmers whose garden needs purification and just like our money that needs purification from these impurities, so does our soul. That we are the greatest, being the three most common enemies of humanity, of all of us is not one another. It's what? It's shaitan. It's our lower nuffs and it's attachment to this dunya. These are the three common enemies of the human being. So we must purify ourselves from these things. And in order when we purify, then you could become an insanil camel, a complete human. As the poet says, alayka bi ruhi fastak mil fada iliha fa anta bi ruhi la bil jasadi insana that it is not this flesh that makes you a human being, but it is your heart and your soul that is inside. That's what makes you human. Yet, what does it all mean? What is purification of your soul? What is five times a day prayer going up and down? You're fasting. What does it all mean if it doesn't transcend into the well treatment of all of humanity? Like the woman that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam does, how it came to say, yad asul allah, there's a pious woman. She prays all night. She fasts all day. What is to come of her? Says she will be in the fire. What cave yad asul allah, how? She slanders and she backbites her neighbors. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, in the Deen a mu'amilah, that this Deen is how you interact with one another. This Deen is Ithar. Ithar is literally giving preference over yourself, giving preference to your brothers and sisters over your own self. And that's why Allah says about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, فَلَا عَلَّكَ بَاَخْيُونَ نَفْسَكَ عَلَى آثَارِهِمْ إِلَّمْ يُؤْمِنُوا بِهَذَ الْحَدِيْثِ أَسَفَى Oh Muhammad, you would kill yourself. Kill Ithar is one thing. Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would kill himself at a sorrow that you may not accept this message. And there's two saints that meet each other in the outskirts of Medina, both seekers of Allah from Afghanistan. One Shaqeeq Balkhi and the other one Ibrahim Adham. And they don't recognize, they don't know one another. And Shaqeeq, he wants to see the station of Ibrahim to see where he's at with Allah and to test his knowledge. So he asks him, he says, يا أخي ماذا تقولوا أنه صبر وشكر? He says, oh my brother, what do you say about sabr, patience and shukr, gratitude? And Ibrahim looks at him and he says, وانت أول يا أخي, you go first my brother. So Shaqeeq says, إذا وجدنا شكرنا وإذا لم يجد صبرنا. He says, when we're given, when Allah provides for us, when we're sustained by Allah, then we thank Him and we show gratitude. And when we're in loss and we're not given, صبرنا, we stay patient. Ibrahim looks at him and he smiles and he says, يا أخي حقذ كلاب البلخ. This is what the dogs of Bulk do too. When you give them, you feed them, give them water, they wag their tail, they rub up against you, they're very thankful. And when you don't give them, they have sabr. They can't do anything about it. So he says, إذا ما تقول, then what do you say? And Ibrahim says, إذا وجدنا آثرنا وإذا لم يجد شكرنا. He says, when we are provided for, when Allah gives us, when we find, we give it to other people. We prefer other people. And when we don't and we're not given, that's when we thank Allah. That's when we show gratitude. So Shaqeeq recognizes his station and follows him. And a man comes to the Prophet ﷺ. He's a Bedouin man after one of the expeditions and he says, يا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم أعطيني شيئاً, give me something. And the Prophet ﷺ is after one of the expeditions and he gives them and he gives them immensely. Imagine giving a house in Ruby Hills with the Rolls Royce to go along with it, something like that. And then the Prophet ﷺ, he's in the community. He's in front of everybody. So he asks this man, أحسنت إليك؟ Have I been good to you? And this man looks at the Prophet ﷺ in front of the Ashab, the entire community. And he says, ما أقيتني قليلنا وكثير؟ وما أجملت وما حسنت إليها؟ He says, you really didn't give me a lot or a little and you really weren't that good to me and you haven't done me well. But he, now this is in front of the entire community. So the Ashab, they want to kill this man. They try to attack in the Prophet ﷺ's fifth stop. Leave him alone. He enters his house. He calls for the man. He's, the man is brought in and the Prophet ﷺ gives him and gives him and gives him. And then the Prophet ﷺ says to him, أحسنت إليك الآن؟ Have I now been good to you? And he says, جزاك الله وخيراً وجزاك آلكة. جزا الله وخيراً وجزا آلكة خيراً. You have been good to me. حسنتة, may Allah reward you. May Allah reward your family. Yes, you have been good to me. And then the Prophet ﷺ says to him, would you mind going outside now in front of the community, in front of those people and saying what you just said to me? You have to pay attention. It wasn't because the Prophet ﷺ needed any kind of praise, Hashah. He said, the reason I want you to go do this is because number one, you have hurt the hearts of my Ashab of the community. You have offended many people. And if you say this, they will feel better. You will cure their hearts. And then number two, I don't want anybody to forgo your rights in the future, to look at you with disdain, to not accept you, to not be alienated for your own self. So go to the Prophet ﷺ. He was very big on people's izzah in the community, on their honor in the community. And he even knew who the hypocrites, their identity of the Munafiqun was, but he did not expose them because of this. He never exposed anybody in public. In today's world, this is a, we're in big danger of this sunnah being lost, especially with this worldwide web that everybody falls into and gets caught in this worldwide web social media. No one's honor is truly safe at all times. And no one's even allowed to make towa because of the spread of words and what people say. Muslims and non-Muslims, this is for everybody. And then the social pressure on top of that, that one person does such a thing, and then the other person, because they're socially pressured, they did a study that even when you see there's a peaceful demonstration, two, three people, it takes only two people to start doing riots and vandalizing, and then people see that and they follow. And this is what happens and Muslims aren't immune from it. This is a plague that all of society, Muslim and non-Muslim is affected by. So we need to, so this, and then the cancel culture of somebody doing something, and then it doesn't belong your clicks little way and you forget about, you know what, the sins that you commit. And instead of doing reconciliation and towa and what do we do? We cancel that person. We humiliate that person. And if you read the Quran, it's social antagonistic through the whole Quran. We're not anti-community, but if you read every story in the Quran from, if you read the story of Ibrahim, alayhi salam, Musa, alayhi salam, Isa, alayhi salam, our beloved Nabi, sallallahu alayhi wasalam, it's one or two people standing against an entire community of falsehood. Speaking the truth, encompassing everybody in their mercy and not alienating anybody. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, Those who love, and he used the word love to Hibbuna, those who love to spread, broadcast, publicize, expose, it fits all of those meaning, immoralities of other people from amongst the believers, there will be a severe punishment for them in this world and the next. So there's no khair in it at all. And that's why one of the hadiths of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi salam is narrated as a weak hadith, but it nevertheless narrated by Imam Tirmidhi and Bayi Haqi. And the hadith says that when you criticize, jeer, mock, at the mistakes and sins of another person, you will not pass from this world until you experience the same things. And we have seen that happen so many times, we say something about somebody, the next thing you know, it happens to us. Imam al-Bahya, he says about this, he says, one of the meanings of this hadith is when you criticize other people about their sins, you actually commit a bigger sin right at that point because usually it's done out of a place of arrogance and to cover, that you're looking down and say, oh, so and so did this and so and so did that. What does the Prophet told us? sallallahu alayhi salam, وَمَنْ سَطْرَ الْمُسْلِمَنْ سَطْرَ اللَّهِ فِي دُونْ يَوَ الْأَخِرَةِ The one that covers the sins and does not expose a Muslim, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala will cover them and their sins and won't expose them in this world and the next world. Imam al-Shafi used to say, oh brother, if you wanna criticize me, pull me over to the side in privacy and you can criticize me all day and night, I won't say a word. But if you're gonna call me out in public, then I have to judge your intentions. And our predecessors, anytime somebody came to them and even mentioned somebody else's sins, sallallahu alayhi salam, the first thing they would say is, غفر الان الله ولاهم. May Allah forgive us and may Allah forgive them, because they knew that they had to look inward, they knew that they could have fallen into this. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasalam, he climbs the podium one day and he says, oh those who have embraced Islam only with their tongue, only with their tongue, while iman has not yet entered their hearts, neither harm Muslims nor mock them, nor try to expose their mistakes. For he who follows searches for other people's heirs, Allah will follow his heirs in whom he Allah follows their heirs, he will expose them, even if it's in the middle of their own home. Even if it's in the middle of their own home. Imam An-Nawi writes about this, that following and exposing people's mistakes is the action of a hypocrite or people of weak iman that talk, oh so and so did this, so and so did that. And he says that one of the reasons that people don't commit sins is a fear of humiliation and embarrassment. But when you humiliate a person already, when you embarrass them, when you expose it, when you go on your WhatsApp and you take somebody off of WhatsApp and the whole public sees it and they start investigating why did this happen, what did she do, what did he do, what happens? It prevents that person from making toba sometimes. Or if they've made toba, it makes them relapse because this person keeps bringing it up, that person keeps bringing it up out of humiliation. And that is why in the sharia, what does it take for a woman to be counted on for adultery, to say that a woman has committed adultery? What does it take to actually be able to say that? Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala says you need four witnesses to convict her. Not one, not two, not three. Why is it four witnesses? Because Allah is in other words saying it's impossible. He's made it impossible for you. Because nobody can go get four witnesses. And Allah has made it impossible because her honor is so sacred. And if a woman wants to take a man to court for anything, for divorce or something and he's committed fornication, she's not allowed to say to the qadi that he's fornicated, I saw him commit adultery. And the only reason it's okay, vice versa, is the possibility of the consumption of a child. Other than that, it's made completely impossible to expose somebody. And where people of your brothers and sisters reconciled between one another, you know, somebody calls you for advice, you know, so-and-so calls, you know what, sister, you know, my husband did such and such, you know? Reconcile, say good things. You know what? Yeah, sister, you know, maybe, you know, remember all the good things that he's done. You know, remember people make mistakes, you know? You're not supposed to go, ooh, uh-uh, I don't know how you deal with it, girl. I, you know, that was me. I would have been gone a long time ago. I mean, you're literally pouring salt on the wound at that time. This is not reconciliation. All the brothers are nodding their heads. Yes, yes, yes, masha'Allah, masha'Allah. This one. It goes vice versa also. It goes vice versa also. And when sins are mentioned and they're empty shot and they're spread, whether we, you see what's going on right now, people going online, whatever sin it is, they put it on themselves now. And when you do it, then it becomes easy on the tongue, Imam Nauli says. And then when it comes easy on the tongue, it becomes easy on the limbs. And everybody's doing it. And we shouldn't expose, we should look inward. There was a drought during the time of, say, Musa A.S. The Bani Israel were in a state of drought. So thousands of the Bani Israel and Musa A.S. they go out into a desert spot and they start praying for rain. They're praying for hours and hours, the rain's not coming down. So they say, yeah, Musa, what's going on? Why has Allah abandoned us? So Musa A.S. communicates with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and Allah says, yeah, Musa, amongst those thousands of people, there's a man that has disobeyed me and committed sins for the last 50 years, O Musa. Unless he gets up from that crowd and leaves, I will not send down the rain. So Musa A.S. is forced to make this announcement and there's a man that's in this crowd and he says to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, Ya Allah, I know this is me and I know I'm the most, the biggest sinner here. There's nobody worse than me, Ya Allah. And if me asking you forgiveness would increase your dominion one bit or decrease your dominion one bit, Ya Allah. I would not ask you out of embarrassment, but I know that it won't. Ya Allah, forgive me and don't expose me. Rain starts showering down. Rain starts showering down. Musa A.S. is confused. The bunny you saw you was looking around. Did anybody move? Did you see anybody? Nobody's moved. Ya Allah, what happened? O Musa, there was such a man that amongst the thousands of people sitting here and there were many sinners there, O Musa. He looked into his own heart he considered himself the worst there. And then he made such a toba that if his toba was accepted it'd be accepted for every single person that is here. Ya Allah, can you at least tell me who this person is? O Musa, I didn't expose him for 50 years when he was sinning. Why would I expose him now to you after I've forgiven him? How would I do that, Ya Musa? And we'll finish. There's this from the teachers of the Baalui from the Hadram out and one of the students, his father was his teacher and he, once he completes his coursework he sends them out into the, he says to him in order for you to now go teach I want you to go find somebody that's beneath you. And once you find somebody that's beneath you then bring them back here to me or bring the thing to me and then I will allow you to teach. So this boy exits and he goes and he first sees a child, a young boy and he says, you know what? This young boy can't be beneath me. He's just a Matsum, he's an innocent boy and you know, I'm older and I sinned you know what? I'm definitely worse than he is. Then he sees a sheikh, an older man and he sees he has a white beard and he says Subhanallah, look at the blessings and look at the white beard that Allah has put on this sheikh and he's given him more time on this earth to worship him. He must be better than me. He cannot be beneath me. And then he sees a man sinning in the open. He sees a man in a corner, he's sinning. He says, oh, this might be it. Let me go see. Maybe I can take this man and he walks towards this man and as he walks towards him, the man walks behind a tree and he loses sight of him. So he goes back around the tree, sees him there and he thinks to himself all of a sudden, Subhanallah. You know, maybe at the time I lost sight of him when he went behind that tree, he made toba to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala and Allah has forgiven him and Allah might not forgive me. I'm definitely beneath this man. So distraught, feeling failure, he starts walking towards the house of back of his father, his teacher, his sheikh. And as he's walking, he's thinking I have failed. Then he sees the carcass of a dead dog infested on the ground and he looks at the carcass of the dead dog and he says, you know what? Maybe this thing is beneath me. And he picks up and he says, I will take this to my father. And he picks up the carcass of the dead dog and he starts walking towards father's house and all of a sudden he's reminded of the ayah of the Qur'an where Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala turns the animals into dust and the human beings are looking at the hellfire and out of fear from the hellfire, they look at the animals turning to dust and they say, late and you couldn't do to Robin. Oh, we turned into dust like those animals instead of entering the fire. And then he says, what if on that day, that's me, this infested corpse of a dog is better than me. I know it. He drops it and he heads to his father's house and he tells his father, y'all father, I failed and I couldn't find anybody that was worse than me. Wa salt al-ad-bunayya. Now you have understood. You have arrived. You can go teach because he understood that. And Alhamdulillah, we are Muslims and Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Kuntu khayru ummatin ukhrijat linnaas ta'maruna bil ma'roof wa tanhaanil munkar that you were the best of humanity sent to mankind, the best and that you should be examples. You should not get affected. We are not people, like we're not eggs that you throw in a water and in the water, the environment makes us hard. We are like coffee beans that when you throw us in a pot of boiling water, we make coffee for everybody. Subhanallah. We don't get affected by the environment. We affect the environment. And this is the way we should be in the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, ar-rahimuna yar-hamuhummar rahma'ana tabarika wa ta'ala irhamu manfil ardi yarhamakum manfil samaa the merciful is with the ones that show mercy, show mercy to the descendants of this earth and the one in the heavens will show mercy on you.