 Praise be to God. We seek his help. We seek his guidance. We seek his forgiveness We seek refuge with God from the evils of ourselves and our misdeeds Those whom Allah guides cannot be misguided and those whom Allah misguides shall never find a friend to guide them Washadu Alla ilaha illallahu wahdahu la sharika lah And I testify that there is no God but Allah alone and without partner Washadu Anna Sayyidana wa Nabiyana Muhammadan abduhu wa Rasuluhu And I testify that our master and our prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is a slave and messenger Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barik ala haathal nabiil kareem dil qalbi r-raheem al-mabroothi rahmatan lila alameen May Allah send prayers and peace and blessings upon that noble messenger that kind-hearted man sent as a mercy to the world أما بعد فأوسيكم بتقوى الله فإن خير ما نتواصل به بيننا تقوى الله To commence I counsel you all to be wary of Allah for the best that we can advise each other to is Taqwa قال الله تعالى في محكم تنزيله فلا تزكوا أنفسكم Allah says in the Quran Do not think of yourself as being good In our lives We love to blame other people and other groups Whether it be the Republicans or the Democrats or it be the deep state or the rich and the wealthy or Corporations and greed in general or the white man or blacks and Mexicans and immigrants or liberal ideology or whatever. It may be and Perhaps there is some truth to our blaming these things Perhaps some of these people or some of these organizations are in fact a cause of trial and tribulation to a people and They could these groups also be victims of the world and victims of the ideologies that shape them Just as we may be victims of their actions And we don't know So how could we judge? And of course none of this means that we remain silent and unmoving by the injustice that we can correct But in this world of confused causes and misshapen morals We should remember that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam tells us إذا رأيتم شحن مطاء وهوان متبع ودنيا مؤثرة وإجاب كل ذي رأي برأيه فعليك بنفسك وداعك العوام The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam tells us if you see greed being obeyed and Desire being followed and this world being preferred over the next world and every person being infatuated with his own opinion Then focus on yourself and Leave everyone else In some ways with the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is telling us here It's to look back at ourselves and to focus on our own reformation And only once that we are bettered we can help those that are immediately around us And once those that are immediately around us are better They can help those around them in this ever expanding circle that might cause change in those systems We so love to point fingers at and this is because reforming systems Without reforming that people in them is useless If you have an organization with the best protocols and the best practices, but with filled with evil people Little to no good will emerge from that organization But if you have an organization that is disorganized internally But filled with good people much more good will come out of that organization So organization and reforming systems and reforming organizations are important But they're ancillary to the true good the true goal of bettering people So what we should be doing in this time is Looking to bettering ourselves to focus on our religion and our relationship with Allah But as we see most of us don't Most of us don't think all that deeply about our own selves But instead think about how we are victimized by the people around us or How wrong this world is and all the injustices that fill it and we point fingers to this person and that person And we never consider what is my role in this world's degradation and this way of thinking about the world tells us two things Tells us one that we think that ourselves are blameless and thoughtless At least we act in that way Or we talk in that way or we think in that way and we will not act or talk or think in this way if we acknowledge our faults and Two We think that if we were in charge of this world we would do better at least we act in that way We think in that way we talk in that way and even if we say we would reject that authority where it ever offered to us and What these two things they comprise arrogance We are aggregating to ourselves. What is properly God's alone? Only God is perfect Only Allah is wise and we have no right to contradict that the authority to govern as a matter of capital T truth is from wisdom and Wisdom comes from knowledge So if you look at ourselves None of us can explain how our bodies work We don't understand things as simple as yawning or dreaming Not any deeper than a level of Hypothesis and then on an individual sense each of us most of us can't explain how our cars work Or how our phones work or how our micro our microwaves work or how our acs work all these things that we use on a daily basis and yet In our delusion we think that we have enough knowledge To challenge what Allah is doing in this world and that is an arrogant ignorance To think that we know things when in fact we do not know So if we don't have knowledge if we don't have true knowledge Especially at the end of things how things will turn out that how can we have wisdom? And how many times if we look back at our own lives Have we been in pain or in loss or in grief and in that moment? We curse God or we complain and we don't see anything But that pain that we are in and perhaps some hope that Allah will make things better But if we look back at that same event one year later or two years later or even ten or twenty years later Free from the shadows that have been cast by those immediate emotions We see how that event that we were so pained by Directed us to change and directed us to be better And it's through that hindsight that we perceive wisdom that we perceive God's wisdom in how he organizes the world but in that moment Lacking knowledge of how things will turn out. We are blind and If this is our condition If this is the state that we all live in then what right do we have to question God What makes us think that we are better that we could imagine something better for this world We learn when we study our theology that everything that happens in this world is the wisest and the most perfect possible thing that could happen God organizes it and his wisdom is absolute and God's favor upon us is far greater than those brief moments of pain and hurt And that is why we trust God and we do not think our of ourselves as being better than a lot And we look at it this way arrogance is a type of ship a minor ship But a ship nonetheless because through our actions and through the way we are thinking about the world and our words and Reactions and perhaps our inner anger or a silence We are declaring that we are God's equals or that we are God's betters and that is the opposite of faith After all we can't even say that we're better than any other person Allah says in the acramakum indallahi at Atkakum that indeed the noblest of you is the most weary of Allah and Taqwa is an interstate at Taqwa have you now the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said pointing at his heart three times It's in the heart and Perhaps in a science and has proofs on the limbs a seductive Burhan the charity is a proof But the truth of Taqwa the truth of our consciousness of Allah lies in the heart And we don't know the hearts of other people We can't see what's inside them, and we don't know if we would have done as well as they did if we were in their shoes The only thing that we do know is ourselves But in Sanwa on a left see her what I'll come out here Allah tells us indeed mankind is acutely aware of himself Even if he offers up excuses So if we stopped and we really examined ourselves Our faults and our flaws We plainly evident and we cannot truly think ourselves better than any other person Let alone better than Allah So if I think that I am better than you because I'm standing up here and you are sitting down there Or if you think that you're better than someone else because you pray more or because you have more wealth Or because your skin is some nicer color or however We choose to divide ourselves and judge each other and that is a delusion And that is a delusion that stems from our arrogant ignorance The judgment of people is for a law And that's not to say that we should abolish our laws and our courts because the law judges cases It is not judge people The judgment of people is for a law and the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam tells us Inna Allah la yandru ila seulikum wa la ila amwadikum wa lakin yandru ila kulubikum wa amadikum The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam tells us Allah looks not as your forms or your wealth But he looks at your heart and your deeds And if that is the criterion by which Allah judges Then who are we to say no I Can judge a person to be worse than me even though I only know myself and I don't know that person and In fact, I can make that judgment based on outwards forms and based on wealth even though Allah does not use those those criteria and Thus we return To arrogance as being the very opposite of belief because in arrogance Whether it is arrogance over God or arrogance over his creation. We imagine ourselves to be greater And if there is one thing that every person this much should must know it is Allah who akba It is that God is greater. I call it only had that was told for a lot of them Alhamdulillahi wa shadu Allah illa Allah Wahdahu la sharika la wassalaatu wassalaam wa ala Rasulina Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wasallam Praise be to Allah We testify that there is no God but Allah alone and with our partner my prayers and peace be upon his chosen messenger Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam The Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said La la yadkul jannatan man kana fi qalbihi mithkala habbatin min khardarim min kiba Wala yadkul al-nara man kana fi qalbihi mithkala habbatin min khardarim min iman He said none shall enter paradise Who have in their hearts a muster see a mustard seeds weight of arrogance and None shall enter hell who have in their hearts a muster seeds worth of faith Here what the Prophet ﷺ is telling us is that arrogance is the opposite of faith. Prayer is not the opposite of faith. Charity is not the opposite of faith. Fasting is not the opposite of faith. It is arrogance and action of the heart which is the opposite of faith. Our hearts are the centerpieces of our relationship with Allah. And while all those actions are prayers and our charity and our fasts, they're all indispensable. But they are reduced to being nothing more than hypocritical formalisms if the heart that is doing those actions is competing with Allah. And anyone that competes with Allah, the Prophet ﷺ tells us, we've thrown headlong into hell. Whenever great scholars Abu Madiyan says he says he says no good deed accompanied by arrogance is of any benefit. And no inactivity accompanied by humility is of any harm. And so we sit here in this masjid today, a masjid that is currently being renovated and a masjid that is currently being beautified. And we should be reminded here that while we want beautiful mosques and we and Allah loves beauty and Allah loves ihsan, the truly beautiful mosque is the one that is full of beautiful hearts. And a truly ugly mosque is the one that is filled with impure and filthy hearts. The Prophet ﷺ told Ibn Masrood, among the signs and the portents of the last hour as a mihrab, the masjid will be adorned but the hearts will be left in ruin. So let us reflect on this sign and on the message that Allah is sending us through the beautification of this mosque and commit ourselves to bettering ourselves and to removing this arrogance that is in our hearts. Allah promises us that this is not difficult. He promises us that this religion is not difficult. He has not placed hardship in this religion. And if it is true that arrogance removes us from paradise and casts us into hell, then what Allah is promising us here is that removing arrogance and being humble is not a hardship. It may not be simple and may not be easy, but it is not unattainable. And it requires us to wake up and to not accept the world as it is presented to us, that we deserve things or that we have power or that we should be serving ourselves and our desires. This is what the Prophet ﷺ tells us, Temptations, fitan, represented to the heart as a mat in vertical and horizontal threads. And whichever hearts are given to drink from them, a black dot shall be inscribed therein. And whichever hearts reject these things, a white dot shall be inscribed therein. Until there are two types of hearts. Until one is white and pure and no fitna shall harm it as long as the heavens and the earth exist. And the other is gradually blackened like a jug that spills out everything. It knows no good and condemns no wrong except what has been fed of its desires. This is the essence of the difference. One person uncritically takes in what he has fed and his ego grows and his puffs up and it competes with God. And the other actively examines what enters his heart and rejects much of what this world has to offer. And everything that is offered to us in this world, it either has angelic origin given to the prophets by Allah through angels or it has a satanic origin inspired to people by Satan. So whatever we believe, no matter how original we might think it is, fall into one of these two categories if we trace it back. And when we do that, when we trace these things that we are offered back, we will realize what our place in this world is and how we should be in this world. And to see this, we only need to look at the example of the Sahaba. Look at the example of Umar ibn Khattab who is given the title Al-Faruq because of his ability to distinguish between truth and falsity. Who is so inspired that the Prophet ﷺ declared that if there were to be a prophet after him, it would be Umar. Who is so mighty and so tough that his enemies cowered before him and Shaytan himself cannot bear to be near him. And yet despite all these qualities, when the bishop and the patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, called Umar the Caliph at the time, to negotiate the surrender of the city of Jerusalem, Umar came. And he was not riding on a horse as would be the normal for the noble Arab at the time, nor even was he riding a camel. But he was leading a camel on foot and the camel was being ridden by his servant. And he was wearing patched, ragged garments. And meanwhile this bishop, he came out of the city and he met him. He was carried on a couch by eight men, decked out in fineries and gold and perfume and fanned on each side by servants. And when he approached, this bishop asked the servant on the camel. He asked, where is the Caliph? And the servant nodded his head towards Umar who was standing on the ground. So the bishop asked Umar, where is the Caliph? And so Umar said, I am the Caliph. And Sophronius, this bishop, he could not believe what he was hearing. He said, you're wearing patched rags. And yet you've effectively just conquered without defeats all of Iraq and all of Syria and all of Palestine, from major territories of the two greatest empires to exist at the time. And so what are you doing? But Umar was wise and he had not accepted those temptations that the world would have him freely eat. And he said, I am the humble man with humble needs. All I need is a simple meal. So Sophronius asked, so why aren't you on the camel at least? And Umar explained, my servant and I, we switch back and forth, so that neither of us gets too exhausted by this by this long journey to Jerusalem. So look at this man, a ruler of a nation that through a nearly undefeated campaign has defeated two empires, has an immense following. And if he understands that throughout all this his own needs are unchanged, that here that his own needs are no different than the servant that is accompanying him. And he's not think of himself as being any better than his servant, let alone better than Allah. But the story does not end there. Sophronius who's now shamed, he gets off of his, he gets off of his couch. And the two walk together through the gates. And Umar starts their negotiations and he suggests that what he wants from from the people of Jerusalem is that the Roman politicians and the Roman beer cracks be thrown out with whatever they can carry. And he puts no other conditions on the surrender of the city. The bishop cannot believe what he's hearing. We have to understand at that time the Roman way, when a city was conquered, was to pillage the city, to enslave its people, to take its women, and to redistribute all of that to its own people. But that's not the way of Islam. That's not allowed in Islam. So everyone in Jerusalem was to keep their homes and to keep their property. And only those politicians that posed the danger were to leave. As Sophronius accepts this, without any question, he accepts this immediately. And as Umar tells him about Islam, he, Sophronius invites Allah to pray at his church besides him. And Umar rejects. He says, no, I can't do this. He says, I know that wherever I first pray in Jerusalem, the Muslims will come and they will make that place a mosque and I don't want you to lose your church. So what happens is they find an empty lot across from the church and the two men pray there. And today there is a mosque there and the church that is across from that mosque is the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is perhaps the holiest place in the world for the Christians. So look here again at his humility. He does not proclaim, oh, I'm a Muslim and you're a disbeliever, so I am better than you. And let's get rid of your church and convert it into something better and make it a mosque. And even though the things are true, Umar is better and Islam is better. But that is not the way of Islam. Arrogance repels people and does not invite them to the religion. And Umar here understood that puffing himself up because of his religion might seem like the right thing to do, but it was a demonic temptation and so he rejects that. And so the story finally ends as Umar asks to see the Temple Mount, where Masud al-Aqsa is, and Saphonius is confused. Like, why would he want to see that? And Umar explains, this is the whole, this is the Holy site, it's holy for Jews, it's holy for Christians, it's holy for Muslims, it's holy for all the Abrahamic faiths. And Saphonius explains back, he says, when we took over as a punishment to the Jews after we destroyed their second Temple, we've been using it as a garbage dump for centuries. And Umar is shocked and he rushes up to the Temple Mount. And when he sees this with his own eyes, he falls to his knees and starts creating the trash with his own hands. And his army seeing this, they follow and they start clearing it up. And after it's clear, he turns back to the Bishop and he asks, he says, I want to see these Jews that were wronged. And Saphonius says, there are no Jews left in the city. And Umar is confused, the Jews have been wronged, this is their holy city, where are they? So Saphonius explains, there's a mutual hatred between the Jews and the Christians in the city. And that when the when the Jews come, the Christians persecute them. And in fact, 20,000 of them were slaughtered in Jerusalem when they sided with the Persians in the latest war. So there are no Jews left in Jerusalem. And so Umar turns to one of the companions, one of the companions who was a Jew before he converted. And he says, go out, go back to your people and invite 80 Jewish families to reestablish a Jewish presence in the city. Because that is the right thing to do. And while the story is interesting with respect to the current circumstances in Palestine, I don't mean to comment on that, but rather again to reflect on the humility of Umar. He's willing as a ruler of a nation to go down on his knees and clear the trash. He's willing as a successor to the messenger of Allah, to invite people of other religions to share in that holy city. He's not going out proclaiming his greatness or his achievements or his rank or even his own religion as a cause for his personal betterness. Instead, his religion dignifies him and it ennobles him enough to know what is right and to do what is right, no matter what his ego may want. And his religion does not delude him into thinking that he himself is greater. And so perhaps while we may not be leaders of nations, we are men and women in our own households. We are the caretakers of our families and the mothers to our children and the exemplar to the world around us. And if we are so full of ourselves, so inflated by the world around us, too inflated to get on our knees and to serve our families and to serve our communities and to serve the world around us and to live that life that Allah asked us to live. And if we are too arrogant to get on our knees and worship Allah as he asked us to worship him, then we are deluded and we are arrogant and we can only hope for the mercy of Allah in the life to come. We ask Allah to grace us with that which he loves and is pleased with. Allahumma salli wa sallam wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammad Allahumma wa r-Azaan saadatina abibakum wa mu'amara wa atman wa aali wa r-Aza Allahumma an al-Hassim wa an al-Hussain wa nuhmeen maafati mad-az-zahra wa an al-sahabati ajma'een wa an al-azwaji nabiyyika umma had al-mumineen wa al-tabi'ina wa tabi'ihin bi ihsanan ila yawm ad-din wa alayna ma'ahum bi rahmatika ya'rahman ghahimeen. Allahumma inna na'udabika min al-dhabi jahannam min al-dhabi al-qabr min fitnat al-mahya wa al-mamat min sharif fitnat al-masih al-dajjal wa ba'adu fa inna allaha ta'ali ya'qul inna allaha ya'amur bil-adli wa al-ihsani wa ita ila qorba wa yannhan al-fahshai wa al-munkri wa al-baghi ya'idakum al-alakum d-dakkarun wa akim al-salah