 He said, Special brothers and sisters, we begin by praising Allah, Azza wa Jal as he is most worthy and600 deserving of all praise. We ask Allah and we ask Allah alone to guide us, to prevent us from being misguided and from misguiding others. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala to forgive us of our sins, those that we commit knowingly, those that we commit unknowingly. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala to overlook our mistakes, our errors, our blemishes. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala to keep us safe, to protect us, to keep us in good health and keep our families and our communities healthy and safe. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala to bless his noble Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah, Sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahbihi wasallam, to bless his noble companions and the righteous everywhere, Ameen. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa Sallam reminds us in a hadith that is reported by both Bukhari and Muslim in which the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa Sallam tells us, To take advantage of five things before you lose those five things, five before five literally. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa Sallam says to take advantage of these five things before you lose them. To take advantage of your youth before you become old, to take advantage of your health and well-being before you become sick and infirm, to take advantage of your wealth before you are stricken with property or you lose that wealth. To take advantage of your spare time, the disposable time that you have before you become occupied and busy. And finally to take advantage of your life before you die, your life before death. Now what's interesting brothers and sisters about these five things is that at least five, at least three of them are directly related to time. That as time passes, you automatically lose these things. Or you run the risk or the likelihood that these things will disappear or be removed from your life. Time is what connects us to taking advantage of these five things before they leave us. Now in the Arabic language on a related note, there are several words that are employed for the concept of time. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and in our tradition we find that the Quran speaks of dhar. We also find the usage of the word Zaman, Waqt, Asr, Sa. These are some of the words that are used to describe time. And in the Arabic language we know that when there is an abundance of words to describe something or a concept, it underscores the importance or the import of that idea or that concept. Imam al-Ghazali, he said that time is like a double-edged sword. That either you cut with it or it cuts you. So time is how we measure success and failure. Time is how we measure the passage of our lives, the seasons, how we grow old. We are inextricably connected to time. In fact in the Quran there is a chapter that is named dhar, the first word that I mentioned that is used in the Arabic language for time. And the other name of that surah or another name for that surah, that same surah is Surat al-Insan. Even showing this inextricable link and connection between time and human beings, time and humanity. And so the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is telling us to take advantage of these five things before we lose them, often times because time passes us by. The first of those is to take advantage of our youth before we become old. George Bernard Shaw said it best when he said that youth is lost on the young. Meaning that when we are young we are full of energy. We have abilities that we won't have later in life. We have capabilities. We have passion and zeal. You also have time on your hands when you are young. And unfortunately those things are lost on the youth in that when you are young you overlook those things. You don't take advantage of the time that you have been blessed with with young age. Because the skill, the aptitude that you have, the abilities that you have to acquire new skills, to acquire new knowledge because your mind is sharp and ready to acquire new knowledge and information. The ability that you have to work, to be passionate and driven for righteous and good causes. That's the passion and the zeal of youth. And unfortunately it's lost on the young because we don't take advantage of that. So to take advantage, especially those of us who are still young and all of us are young to an extent or to a relative extent. But to take advantage of your youthfulness that time that you have before you become old. And then the Prophet continues and he says to take advantage of your well, of your health, your well-being before you become sick. We live in a time of a global pandemic and this couldn't be more timely. At those times that we have when we are healthy, when we have the ability to take care of ourselves, to devote ourselves to the worship of Allah. Because we know that health and our physical well-being is not just limited to our physical selves. When you are healthy, you have the ability to worship Allah because you've been given that physical strength and that ability. You can take advantage of voluntary fasting. You can take advantage of devoting your time and your energy to good causes, to offering, to being involved in the community, to being involved in your local massajah, to being involved because you have that health, that ability. Health is directly linked to abilities that we have that are not just limited to our physical selves and they have bearing on our spiritual life as well. Because if we are healthy, we can fast. We have the energy and the ability to worship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Not to say that you don't have avenues and means when you are not healthy. But to take advantage of your health before you become sick. Hold our immune system, inoculate ourselves when you are healthy. So that you can not only ward off illness and disease, but that you can fully take advantage of that health that you've been blessed with. Ask anyone who has a debilitating disease. Ask anyone who suffers from heart disease, diabetes or is stricken with certain psychological or physiological diseases and they'll tell you to take advantage of that health that you've been blessed with because you never know, you never know when that health will be taken away from you. And then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says to take advantage of your wealth before you lose that wealth. And we know whether it's your 401k or your retirement fund that you have set up, you can be gone in a blink of an eye. Market forces and market changes, we once think that we have a great amount of wealth accumulated, it evaporates, it disappears, you take a loss in the market and suddenly you lose that wealth. And so to take advantage of the wealth that Allah has blessed you with before you lose it, before you're stricken with poverty. And poverty is a test. When you don't have the financial means and the resources. And so the question then becomes what do you do with that wealth when you have it, right? That then becomes the test. That then becomes the tribulation. That are we spending it on righteous causes or are we stingy? Are we miserly with the wealth that we've been given? And so when you are blessed with wealth, you have certain abilities and capabilities that you don't have otherwise. There's just no getting around it. Certain opportunities that you have to serve Allah, to serve the community, to serve your society with your wealth, with your financial abilities. The Prophet ﷺ continues and he says to take advantage of your spare time before you become busy, right? And the reality is regardless of what your age is, you have some disposable or spare time on your hands. The question is what do you do with that spare time, right? Do you invest in ourselves? Do we invest in ourselves? When we have that spare time, when we have that disposable time, we can acquire knowledge, take advantage of the outdoors, improve ourselves, help in our well-being, right? Save ourselves from our ability to ward off and fight diseases, right? This is what spare time, this is the blessing of spare time. And so again the question becomes what do you do with the spare time that Allah has blessed us with? So to take advantage of the spare time that you have before you become busy. And finally, and this is the summation of it all, right? To take advantage of your life, your hayataka, your life before you die, right? Your life before you cease to exist on this mortal coil. And again there's no guarantee of tomorrow for any of these things, whether it's health, whether it's wealth, whether it's free time, whether it's life. There is no guarantee for tomorrow, of tomorrow. And so to take advantage of today, of the right now is what is of essence. And so the Prophet ﷺ is reminding us and telling us to take advantage of these things before you lose them. You know especially as I've grown older, one of the things that I've appreciated in my life is that perhaps the most difficult thing that you can live with, live with is regret. Because you don't have that time machine, we haven't discovered the ability to go back in the past to speak to our younger selves, to change a decision that we made. And so regret is a very difficult thing to live with. If you're young, ask those who are older than you and they'll tell you that. That they regret decisions that they made or regret decisions or opportunities that they did not pursue. Or regret the fact that they didn't take advantage of their youth or their free time or when they were healthy before they became poor or before they became busy or before they lost that good health. And so regret is something very difficult to live with. And it's an unfortunate reality of the world and of this worldly existence is that the older you get, the more regrets you have in life. And so that balance sheet of what it is that we are proud of, the accomplishments that we achieved with the blessings that Allah has given us versus the regret that we have to live with. That's how you measure the success of your life. Is how you took advantage of those opportunities. How you took advantage of the blessings that Allah has given you. Life in every single day is a fadal of Allah. It is by Allah's fadal, pure and simple that we are here, that we are alive, that we are healthy, that we have some sense of financial security, because it is by the fadal of Allah. And so the question then again that we have to leave with and we have to constantly ask ourselves is what am I doing with the fadal that Allah has blessed me with? What am I doing to take advantage of those beautiful blessings? I pray that Allah SWT gives us the ability to invest in ourselves, to invest in the time that we have and to take advantage of it before we no longer have it. I say this word and I seek refuge with Allah from all of you and from the last of us. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. All praise is due to Allah, we praise Him, we ask His forgiveness and we seek refuge with Him. And I seek refuge with Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds that which Allah has blessed us with, and does not harm us and does not harm us. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone and no partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger. Yahu aladheena aman uttaka allaha haqqatu qatihi walata mutuna illa wa'antu muslimun. Ya ayyuhan nasu taqur rabbakum aladhi khalaqakum min nafsim wahida wa khalaqan minha zawjaha wa batha minhum ar-rijalin kathirin wa nisa'a. Wattaka allaha ladheeta sa'a aluna bihi wa l-arhaam. Inna allaha kana aleykum raqiba. Yahu aladheena aman uttaka allaha wa qaulu qaulan sadida yuslehlakum amalakum wa yaghfirzakum bunubakum. Wa man yuti allaha wa rasulahu faqat faza fawzan azeema ama ba'd. Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala azee Sayyidina Muhammad wa barik wa sallam. Rabbana la tuwa akhidna inna siina awwakta'ana. Rabbana wa la tahmila aleyna isran kama hamatahu ala ladheena min qablina. Rabbana wa la tahmila ma la tahat alana bi wa'afu anna wa ghafir lana wa l-hamna. Anta maulana fansurna aalil qaumil khafirin. Ya muqalibu l-khulub, thabit kulubana aaladheenik. Allahumma nasalluqa ridaka wa l-jannah. Wa na'udu bikka min saqidaka wa l-naar. Subhana rabbika rabbil izzati yama yusikun. Wa salamun aalil mursaleen. Wa l-hamdu lillahi rabbil aalamin. Two quick announcements before we pray. I won't be leading the prayer because I performed the first Jum'an. So the brother here will be leading the prayers. Number two, please offer your sunnah prayers at home as opposed to here. Thank you so much. Insha'Allah.