 Alhamdulillah for this blessing of Islam and the blessing of guidance and we praise Allah for the blessing of iman and belief. And we praise Allah for the blessing of Ihsan and of Irfan and of Itqan and all of the wonderful stations that he has given to us in this religion. And we pray that Allah gives love for him and for his Habib ﷺ to us in our hearts. And we have to know that just like Allah and his Messenger ﷺ call us to guidance and to truth, Allah has also created the Shaytan and the Shayateen to guide us to falsehood. As Allah says in the Qur'an that the Shaytan is your sworn enemy, your adhuwun mubeen, your sworn enemy, someone who is always trying to find a way to mess with you, who's doing whatever it takes to, whether it is a physical approach, whether it is a mental approach, whether it is a psychological approach to try and get you and I to slip. He does this at the individual level that each individual has a Satan assigned to them. And then this is done at the societal level where the chief Shaytan Iblis is devising strategies and tactics to try and get entire societies and entire generations to slip as much as possible. And when Allah uses these words, sworn enemy, this isn't just somebody who has a few issues with us. This is somebody who is trying to get us to slip at every moment possible. Hopefully we don't have that many enemies, but if we ever have thought about what it's like to have an adversary or someone who really, really hates us, they don't want you to ever succeed and the Shaytan is jealous of the human being, the station Allah gave the human being. He was envious of Sayyidina Adam, and so he tries to get the human being and all of human society to slip. And he knows what the weak spots are. And he also plays the long game. On a day-to-day basis, you have something called your nafs, yourself, your ego, which is trying to get you to slip up on the day-to-day basis. But the Shayatin, they play the long game. They're trying to think what strategies can I use to mess up this family unit, to mess up this community, to create animosity between people, to create ideologies and insert ideologies into communities which will completely break them apart, not in one year or two years, but in 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And that we'll try and get them to mess up. And his strategies are working in the time that we live in, especially, I mean, it's not even just in Western society. In Western society and really all throughout the world, extremely problematic ideologies have started to pop up and have started to pollute our minds and the minds of our children and the minds of those who we love the most. And most of us, unfortunately, because we're so busy with our lives, are completely unaware of this full frontal assault and onslaught that the Shayatin are using to hurt us, to hurt our children, and to cripple our framework and our belief system and our values. The Muslims, we have values. Allah outlines them for us in the Qur'an. He says that on this day, I perfected your religion for you. It's a verse mentioned in the Qur'an. We don't need any other ideology, any other ism, anything else. We just need Islam. That's it. And it has everything. It is a completely perfect religion. But really, we have to ask ourselves, how many of us actively know what goes on and what is being taught to our children and to whether it's our younger siblings or whoever we have some responsibility over in school? How many of us really know? How many of us know the curriculum that's approved at the board of education level in the state of California? And what types of ideas are being inserted into this curriculum? How many of us spend time, just at least a little bit looking at it, especially we're talking here at least at the public school level? How many of us know the types of thinking that our children's friends have and the way in which they approach life and which the way in which they approach running their household and what their values are? Or what goes on in the ether of the online world? That what goes on, how many of us know what goes on in the chat rooms that our children are in on Discord? And the people that they're chatting with or when they're playing video games with somebody and literally able to play with anybody. You're talking access to billions of people online to play any game you want and access a chat room and you can talk to them about whatever and they can convince you of whatever. And sometimes as you're talking about a strategies on how to beat a game and other times other conversations come up. Or the types of channels that they're watching on TikTok or on YouTube or the influencers that they are following. In one week in modern times, in 2022, the average human being is exposed to more pieces of content and more influencers and influential content than people of the past generations used to be exposed to for decades at a time if not their entire lifetime. Because of how much is out there in terms of social media and in just in terms of being online. And there are so many ways to pollute and to mess up the mind. And yet unfortunately, we are so busy that we fall in asleep. Sometimes you get so much into a rhythm of things that you just fall asleep. And that's what's happened to us, many of us as a community. That we are in this land and we're just like everybody else. We wanna blend in. We wanna be just like the society in which we live in. And there's nothing wrong with blending in in certain aspects. But the thought never blends in. The thought is guided by Allah and His Messenger. If someone introduced new philosophies, new thoughts, new ideologies, those don't become our thoughts. We already know what our path is. It's supposed to be super clear. But yet how does this come into our hearts and into our minds and into our households? We're watching the same shows as everybody else. We're watching, we're influenced by the same media as everybody else. We're in the same corporate rat race as everybody else. And of course we have to work and whatnot, but we have to know what's important in life. We're caught up in the same societal patterns, in the same habits as everybody else. And so how can we do everything that everybody else is doing, but then say, no, no, no, we're different. We have a different compass that guides us. It's very difficult to do that. And so we have to wake up and really, really think, how are we going to play offense against Shaitan? As they say, the best defense is a good offense. Shaitan is just, there's an onslaught happening. And he's convinced not just other Shaitan, but vast percentage of society, especially in the state in which we live in, in California. Which has a lot of very, very problematic thought in terms of the way they approach certain ideologies. And he's convinced them and all of this is okay. And so at young ages, at young ages, I'm talking at the elementary school level and at the middle school level. Children are now being taught question your gender. The concept of a man and a woman, which is clearly defined in the Quran. Allah says in the Quran that Allah, glory be due to the one who created everything in binaries, in binaries. Now what are they trying to do? What is a binary? A binary is two. What are they trying to do with gender in this society? And it's spreading like wildfire. There's a middle gender, it's a non-binary. You can be a man and a woman and you can be in between if you'd like. Up to you, it's your choice. They're saying gender is a social construct. It's not a social construct. It's constructed by Allah. And he is the creator and he decides what to create. He says very clearly in the Quran that we created men and we created women. And there's no in between. There's no debate. There's a small percentage of people, yes, that have been created from birth with both. But that's a very, very small percentage. That's not what we're talking about right now. We're talking about this idea of gender fluidity has now popped up. And you have celebrities that our children look up to and they watch and they're saying on one year, I'm going to be a girl. And the next year, I'm going to transition into a boy. And then the next year, I'm going to come back and I actually decided I want to be a girl again or I'm going to be in between a they. That doesn't exist in our tradition. If someone else is going to do it, that's up to them. We cannot dictate what other people do. However, we have to know what our values are. And we have to be prepared and have the psychological fortification to fight these ideologies. We can't just sit by and exist and expect that everything is going to be okay. We have to know what's going on. We have to know what's going on. This has been going on over for over a decade, the concept of marriage being questioned has already been going on. We know in Islam, very clearly, marriage is between a man and a woman. California as the state that's leading the way into saying, no, marriage can be between anybody, whoever wants. Now nobody wants to get married in California unless that they are of the same gender. That's what's happening. We don't, that's something we don't accept. If someone wants to do it, up to them. But we can't let that penetrate our thinking. But when we start to normalize these things and we start to say, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it becomes okay for our community and that's not okay. We have every right in this nation that we live in to practice our religion, our beliefs with our fundamental values and not let anyone question us, tell us that they're wrong, tell us that we have to change them. Look at the way that the majority of the country, not in California, look at the way that they do things. They hold on to their beliefs with firmness. Allah says, hold on to things with firmness. He says in the Qur'an to Sayyidina Yahya, alaihi salam, that hold this book with strength, with quwa, with strength. We have to hold on to our belief, to our faith system with strength and then pass it on with strength. We can't be weak when it comes to these things and we can't let people tell us that we have to be open to everything. We don't have to be open to everything. We know what our belief system is and so these things are being taught and where does this come from? Allah mentioned this in the Qur'an that the shaitan, he says and surely I will lead them astray. And surely I will lead them astray. And surely I will arouse desires in them and then surely I will command them that they will change Allah's creation. He begins by saying, I'm gonna lead them astray and then that the desires will be aroused and that will lead him to command them to change the creation of Allah. Now what's happening in the times that we live in? More than ever before, this is multiplied by 10X, 15X, 20X. People are saying that the concept called the gender transition surgery has popped up and people are transitioning genders all the time at young ages. You're talking before someone even fully realizes and comes into their body, they're open to these types of ideas and someone, if they go to a doctor or whatever, they're performing these types of surgeries. Shaitan says he's gonna do this. Allah says this very clearly in the Qur'an that shaitan will try to get you to change Allah's creation. That's not something that our community should accept and what we have to do and we'll talk about this shortly is we have to make sure that we understand the problems with this and that we from a young age very clearly have frank, open conversations about how as Muslims this is not in line with our ideology and we cannot accept this. No matter how controversial it is, no matter how sensitive of a topic it is, we have to guard these things otherwise generations get corrupted and then these views start to seep in to the Muslim community. Now even in elementary school, books are being changed like story books where they're introducing the concept and just if you don't believe me, just go out and look a little bit, go to your library, your school library and go and pick up, ask for different books and you'll see the books are being introduced where there's two fathers, there's no mother, there's just two fathers and that's it and they're trying to from a young age introduce this concept and we're sending our kids to these schools, they're gonna be influenced by the concept and then more and more that characters in movies who can choose whatever gender it is that they want and that they can be fluid if they're, and our children are watching these movies and they're watching these shows and of course this is going to start to seep into the mentality. What's going on in the world, the online ether that we are unaware of that on YouTube, on TikTok, on social media that all of these things start to seep into someone's mind and then they begin to question themselves and that's where the fortification becomes so important and so we as a community, it's very, very, very important that we wake up. We have to get out of this cycle, we're during the work week, we're just working all day, of course we have to work, we come home, we sit in front of the TV, children do their thing, we do our thing, maybe spend a little bit of time together, everybody's just kind of scrolling on their phones and then the weekend comes and we're just socializing and hanging out and not getting any quality bonding time which will allow the intellect to cultivate and allow us to actually instill these values at a young age because at a certain age it's gone, there's no more effect that somebody can have but if we're too busy in the rat race which is especially living in the Bay Area, we're all very aware of how busy things are, we have to take a pause and remember what's super important to us that we are accountable as families, we are accountable as parents to the types of thought that creeps into our children's minds and making sure that we play defense, you need to say this and forgive God. Alhamdulillah, I seek refuge with theahmet, I seek refuge with theahmet. Peace be upon you, peace be upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you, and upon you so. These are the things that we can do to combat this. First is we have to get serious, better spiritual practice, the case for many, many of our parents who may have been, grew up in Muslim countries. You just kind of grow up around the values. That's not happening anymore. We don't want to grow up around these values. That's the whole point. We have to get serious then about our spiritual practice. And it begins with the fundamentals. Sometimes something we often ignore that Allah says in the Quran is one of the foundations of the actions that we will take. And the Prophet ﷺ affirms this, that eating what is pure and halal will inform halal activity in the mind and in the brain and in the body. Allah links very clearly eating permissible halal food slaughtered in the name of Allah that to somebody not being influenced by the thoughts of shaitan. And the Prophet ﷺ affirms this when he says that the one who eats what is pure will do what is pure. Or he said something similar. And the one who doesn't, they will get caught up into doing things that are not pure. And so we have to start at this very, very, sometimes something we take very lightly and for granted. But the Sahaba, they would be more careful about what they ate. More careful about what they ate than doing other extra credit good deeds you could say. Other Nawafil prayers and so on and so forth. But now we're very, very relaxed with this. So we begin with the fundamentals. And then we have to take specific steps. We have to make sure in our household that prayers are being done consistently and in congregation. If we've become one of those households where Fajr comes in and everybody's asleep and Fajr goes out and everybody's still asleep, that's a big problem. Because we cannot expect to be protected from these fitan, from these tribulations if we are not up in the morning time. The Prophet ﷺ told us the one who prays Fajr is under the direct protection of Allah. At minimum that's something, of course we already know it's one of the five pillars. But at minimum we have to make sure that we are doing these things. If we have adopted a lifestyle and normalized this idea of everyone sleeping through their alarms and then just waking up and making up Fajr whenever that doesn't work, it doesn't work like that. Once or twice if someone sleeps through it, okay, it's a mistake, we repent. But it consistently, if we've normalized it, it doesn't work like that. We have to get serious. And this is especially important for parents and even more important for fathers. That is the man of the house. It is a responsibility that Allah in charges to us to make sure everybody in the house is praying their five prayers. And accountability comes with that responsibility. Accountability comes with that position. That everybody is praying their five prayers. And ideally we are leading them in Jama'at, when possible. So we have to make sure we're awake, that everybody's awake and that we're taking these things seriously. These spiritual steps must be taken because there's two ways where the heart is influenced, the spiritual heart is influenced by corruption. The first is when the yakin in the heart is weak and the certainty in the heart is weak. And that comes when people leave the acts of worship and as a result of that, the light, the nur that comes into the heart is no longer present. And then darkness starts to enter into the heart. That's the first thing. And then the intellect, now it absorbs certain ideas and it influences them into the heart. And it says, oh, this is fine, this is fine. And we start to become loose with our principles, loose with our values, loose with our ideology because we didn't fortify them. When you establish the prayer, Allah establishes you and he makes you firm. And so that's something we have to do that Allah commands us to have istiqama and uprightness and deen. Then another thing that we should do is we should try and increase the amount of zikr, the remembrance of Allah that we do. And if we can make sure that every morning with our children, we are doing the protection du'as that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would do in the morning and evening. There's various compilations of them, but the morning and evening du'as, at least in the morning time before reading them. And if we can't do that while we're on the way to school or work or dropping someone off, we're just playing them in the car on YouTube or something like that, the du'as so that we're listening to them. Because in these du'as that come from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam is protection and spiritual fortification and you have force fields, spiritual force fields that start to form and they start to protect you. So when the shaitan comes at you or when somebody comes at you with something that's not part of our deen, you'll be protected, at least at some level, at least at some level. And then the third thing that we need to do is have a bond in our household and as a family where we are comfortable discussing things that are a little bit difficult to discuss or that are a little bit awkward or controversial to discuss. We have to be open to that as a family and say, just sit down as a family or with our children and with our children and just understand what are you learning and talk about these ideas. Number one, inform ourselves of them, then inform ourselves of the Islamic view on them, and then have open conversations. Not in a, no, no, no, this is haram so we can't do it. That's not going to work. That worked maybe a century ago. It doesn't work anymore. With explanations and knowledge and conversation and discourse and sometimes disagreement, sometimes someone may disagree, I don't understand. You can't just say, no, no, no, this, Allah said it, you have to understand. Okay, Allah did say it, but you have to explain a little bit. That's our job. We might have to explain, right? And so being open to having these conversations and I would advise all of us at least once a week that we are sitting with our families and having some type of religious discussion. We're reading a hadith, reading a text, reading a book, watching some beneficial talk and lecture and discussing it, right? Because we're having at least 15, 20 hours a week of all the other stuff entering into our minds, of this Netflix show and of this worldview and of this YouTube influencer and this person on TikTok and so on and so forth. We have to counter that at least some way. The good thing is a little bit of religion goes a long way because it's multiplied many, many times. And then finally, we have to find ways to limit the ways that are entering our minds. We obviously can't just change the school curriculum ourselves and we could conceivably, ideally, just try to start more of our own schools and have an influence over the curriculum, inshallah. But we have to limit at least what's in our control. The amount of media, the amount of television, the amount of Netflix, the amount of scrolling on phones, what app someone is going on. We should at least have an awareness of what those things are. That when I was young, I remember there was a rule and inshallah will end with this. That we weren't allowed to sleep over at our friends' houses. We were allowed to sleep over at our family's house. Like, you know, in your kids, you have to sleep over. And I was always, I didn't quite understand. I was like, what do you mean? Everybody seems nice, it's all good. And my parents were like, no, no, you can't sleep over there, okay? And so we, alhamdulillah, we had cousins, so we would do sleepovers there. When I grew up a little bit, I started to understand why. Because you don't really know what goes on behind closed doors in someone's house. You don't know their values. You don't know how they talk. You don't know the way they treat their family and so on. You know with your family for the most part, right? But you don't always know with somebody else, especially with people who aren't people of your faith. And so it started to make sense. But that was a world where the majority of things were physical interactions. There was very little digital interactions. We didn't have all the level of digital interactions that we do now. Now people are literally having virtual, they're just like up all night, virtually staying the night with people online in chat rooms, playing video games with no idea what they're doing. No idea what they're talking about. And we would never allow that to happen were it in front of our faces. But because it's happening in the digital world, we allow it to happen. And because we don't know, so we have to be at least aware. And the advice I would give here is not in a controlling, intense, shut everything off, monitor everything with some security monitor. That's not what I mean. In an intelligent and wise way to be aware and then to have discourse and discussion to make sure that when ideas come, someone, our children are open to talking to us about them. And then we can counter them with what is right. Insha'Allah, if we do that, if we stay firm on this deen, we will be prepared for the times we're living in. For if it's not clear, we are very obviously in the end of times. The Prophet s.a.w. listed out a bunch of different hadith that mentioned the end of times. And a significant percentage of those signs have already come. The amount of immorality that's present. The amount of corruption that's present. The amount of promiscuity that's present. The amount of drinking that's present. And you go so on and so on and so on. Though all the corruption that has been entered into even the Muslim lands. And so in the end of times, things get harder but the Prophet s.a.w. advise us, stay firm and connected to the book of Allah and to the Quran and to his way and to his sunnah. And so we have to learn what that is, stay firm with it and then make sure insha'Allah that these types of ideologies don't get into our mind and play offense against the shayateen from what they're trying to do. Inna Allaha wa Malaikatu yusallun ala nabiya yuhl adina aminu sallu alaihi wa sallim ursima Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala ala Sayyidina Muhammad kumma sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala Sayyidina Muhammadin minna kameenu majeed Allahumma baraka ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala Sayyidina Muhammad kumma baraka ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala Sayyidina Muhammadin minna kameenu majeed Allahumma fillin mu'minina wa ala muslimina wa ala muslimat Ya Rabbi Alameen we ask Ya Hafid that you protect us Ya Rahman that you bestow mercy upon us Ya Rahim that you bestow compassion upon us Ya Fattah that you open the doors of understanding for us Ya Nur that you pour Nur into our hearts Ya Rabbi Alameen we ask you for all good and for all care and for all forms of protection for us and for our children and for our loved ones and for everybody it is that is in this community from all the fitna that are present we ask you for protection from the fitna the end of times and the fitna of the Messiah and the fitna of the shaitan Ya Rabbi Alameen and guard us against our own nufus and guard us against the shaitan we ask you for everything good the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam asked for and we ask you for protection from everything evil he asked for protection from sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa baraka ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbih sallam alhamdulillahi wa ala alameen