 And even when one takes their shahada, it reminds them of that if they're coming into the fold of Islam. And our brothers and sisters in that realm, whether today they're Christian or Jew or whatever they are, at that point they were all believers. And that they were our brothers and sisters in the experiencing and the witnessing of the oneness and unity of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That He subhanahu wa ta'ala created us out of love and that He honored us. And the fact that some of us remember here or not that we were born Muslim, alhamdulillah, we remember that in a way. And some of us may not due to the consequences of family, environment, whatever, wherever we were born. But at any cost, all of it is a fuddle. It's the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So it is upon those that have been graced that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made Sayyidina Adam, alaihi salam, the Khalifa on earth. And we, an extension as human beings and especially as believers, are all hulafa. People that are protectors and maintainers of this earth that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has blessed us with. And at the least one of the things that we are responsible for is to remind others of that pact. Allah subhi rabbikum bala Shahidna. That when people look at us as Muslims, in our characters, in the way we interact, in the way we carry ourselves, that we should encourage people that when people look at us, they can see the Muhammadan light in character within all of us. That they too can be reminded. That they too can be reminded. It was said about one of the saints, Rahimullah, from Hadramat. His name is Habib Ahmad Mashour al-Hadad. That 300,000 people became Muslim at his hands. And some of those people became Muslim just by looking at him. And not only did he impact him that they took the shahada, he changed their hearts because the Prophet salallahu alaihi salam was one that changed the hearts of people. That's why with the Quraysh, the non-believers, they would say, don't listen to that man. So they would pass by him and they would hold their ears like this, but when they would look at him, they would bear witness that he's the Prophet of God, salallahu alaihi salam. Just by looking at him, his interaction, his character. So it is upon us. The deeper understanding then is that we should always remind ourselves of that day to have this ashhadu walla ilahilallah shadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah. This is a pact with Allah SWT that we are faced with in our everyday activities, that every single time we come to a place where we have to make a decision of taking the right road or the wrong road, that we have to remember, we have a pact with Allah, that we are Muslims, that we have said this pact, we say ashhadu walla ilahilallah shadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah. What does that mean? That kalimatein, the shahada should not be taken lightly. That when other people look at you, they're going to judge this deen. Then when other people look at you, that either they're going to love this deen or they're going to despise this religion. This is why we are the khulatha, this is why we are the protectors and the maintainers. Sidi Ahmad Zarouq said that I was a seeker, a seeker in search of Allah SWT for 40 years. And then I realized Allah's not lost to be found. It is my, myself that I am lost. I have to find myself. I have to get to know myself in order to find Allah SWT. And in every single human being, in every single one of my elders and my brothers and my sisters and the young youth that are here today, you should know that Allah is within you, that the whole entire universe is within you, that your hair represents the plants and the trees and that your eyes represent the stars and that your heart represents the sun that everything is dependent on. And your soul is the entire cosmos because you are blessed to have the greatest blessing of all. And that is to even say La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah. To have knowledge of Allah, to know Allah, the human being is the only one blessed to know Allah the way we know Allah. And this is why Allah SWT said, We have honored Bani Adam. We have honored him. We hear that so many times. Who is the one honoring all of us? Who is the one that is honoring the children of Adam? Me and you. You and I. It is Allah. It is Allah who gives you Izzah. It is Allah who gives you this honor that elevates you to the status of angels and even higher. It is Allah. And how did he honor us? Such an introduction into the universe. Such an introduction, such an honoring that he said, Usjuduli Adam. And the entirety of this creation in the Malaika to bow down to Adam, to this creation, the human being. What an honoring that is. And then today, who do we honor? Do we honor our Lord? Do we teach our children? And Alhamdulillah that everybody is here at Juma. But I have family members and I know a lot of people. There are so many people that we all know that are not here. And that we need to reach those. Who are those people? Who are they honoring? I just saw a little, what's it called? I was sent a link and I looked and it went into this little advertisement show of a reality TV show just like they do of all these housewives and stuff. But it's all these Afghan sisters now. Who do we honor? The athletes. Do we honor the reality? And it's not even a reality. Because they're faking who they are on the TV show. They're an illusion of who they're trying to portray and to be. They don't understand who their fathers were and their forefathers were. And what kind of people they came from. So they don't understand. So who are we honoring? We have to say that we need to honor Allah SWT. We need to honor the Anbiya. We need to honor the prophets. And we can't really blame anybody. Well, we can't blame anybody. We can't say, you know, a lot of us especially in this day and age we play that victim role. We love to be victims. Oh, it's because of this. Oh, it's because of that. But we have to, Islam is a deen that you have to look within yourself. The Prophet SAW said, That your greatest enemy of your soul, the greatest enemy of yourself, it was between these two shoulder blades of you. It's your own selves. That is the greatest enemy. And in another Hadith, the Prophet SAW, he says that that Iman has 77 branches. The highest of it is what is that the removal of something from the road. Like, for instance, you're walking and you see a piece of glass over here on the side of the road. And you move it. I don't want somebody's foot to get cut. But the ulima and the knowers of Allah SWT, they look at that even in a different way. They believe that there is a spiritual path as well as a physical path and that they need to remove things from the spiritual path of people in order for them to reach Allah. And they understand that the greatest, the lowest thing that you have to remove on the path to Allah SWT is your own self. It's your ego. That it's the ego. It's that pride. It's that I am. It's that Nike. I do. I want to do it my way. It's that. It's that that gets in between you and Allah SWT. And this is why our mashayikh and our shayyuf, this is why we mention that these are people that when we seek after, these are people that when we sit and when we come, there's so many programs that happen in this masjid. There's so many mashallah, blessed people come here. We are people today that we want to see everything on YouTube. But what we don't understand is that the light that descends in one of the scholars in one of the people of Allah is in a place, the light in the mercy in the guidance that descends. You will not find that until you come to that spot. You're not going to get that on YouTube. You might learn a few things. But you're really not going to capture the essence of it. You're not going to look at somebody and they're going to change their hearts for you. And wallahi, there's people that you could just look at and sit with that your iman will fluctuate and they will increase and they will change you. And these people at the end of the day, who are they? These are people that are connected, that are connected, that are connected to the beloved of God, the one that traveled the unseen road and came back. They're connected to that beloved of God, that they say sometimes when you take a sheikh, when somebody you take a spiritual guide or you sit in front of one of the awliya, that you won't even miss your prayers anymore. Because there's a spiritual light and connection that goes all the way back to the prophet of God that strengthens you so much. And this is why Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, he says, That the prophets of God is closer, is more important, takes priority to the believer than their own souls. Because why? Because he is here for our souls. He is here for our souls. He said, I have come. What? For the kaba'ir, for the major sins. The major sins of the human being. One of the sahabi comes to him and he says, He had a soul, it was right after a prayer. After the Zohar prayer, I think he says that, He had a soul, I have sinned. And he says, what should I do for expiation? He said, didn't we just pray? He said, yes. He said, then your sin has been forgiven. The five times prayer. It's like jumping in a river. The five times will do. How many of us forego that prayer? How many of us skip the prayer when the prophets of every single prayer that you do between the prayers and the prayers and the Jumma to Jumma that your sins are forgiven? And that is why people loved him. Because he was Ra'uf al-Rahim. He was compassionate and merciful to the believers. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la said that if he wasn't, that people would run away from him. People would run from you, O Muhammad, if you weren't so compassionate and so merciful. And that is why one of the sahabi, his name was Mu'ad ibn Jabal. When he goes to Sham, after the passing of the prophet, he goes to Sham and one of the Tabeen, he sees, they say, who is that man? He has such light, masha'Allah, who is that? He said, this is Mu'ad ibn Jabal, one of the sahab of the prophet. He's one of the companions of the prophet. So he quickly goes and runs to him and he says, As-Salaamu Alaikum. And then he says, what does he say? He says, can you please tell me something you heard from other beloved Sala'Allah. They loved him. They wanted to hear something that he said. We have books and books. Bukhari, Muslim, Anasai, we have so many books, six Sittasahiyah, six canonical books of Sahih hadith that we have, that we could read what the beloved Sala'Allah said. To increase our Eman. And this is the honor and the adab that they had, the love, and that takes you far when you have adab with Allah. And it takes you far when you have love with Allah on his messenger. There's a story of a man. His name is Bishr Ibn Al-Harif. He was born 150 years after the Hijra of the Prophet Sala'Allah, full-blown alcoholic. He was a known alcoholic in the entire town. And one day he's walking and he's staggering because he's so drunk and he sees this piece of paper with some kind of writing on it on the floor. So he goes and he picks up the paper and he wipes the dust off of it and it says Bismillah in the name of Allah. In all of a sudden this compassion and devotion comes over him in a state of drunkenness. So he staggers to the closest market, to the closest store and he buys some rose water and he cleans it up and he puts rose water on it and then he takes it to his house and he puts it in a high place of honor. And then that night one of the Shuyukh, one of the Awliyaar, the saints of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala they have a dream. And then in the dream it is said to them, Go find Harith and tell him this, You have perfumed my name. So I have perfumed yours. You have exalted my name. So I have exalted yours. You have perfumed my name. You have purified my name. So I have purified you. By my majesty I will surely perfume your name in this world and the next. And this man has his dream and he says, How could this be? He's a drunk. That was not divine. He prays, he makes wudu, he prays, goes back to sleep. Same dream again. Three nights in a row, same dream again. So finally he goes to Bishr and he's in some kind of brothel bar or something and he asks the people where is he? Where is he? And he says he's right there and he's drunk and he goes up to him, Oh Bishr and he recognizes him. He's one of the Awliyaar, the saints of the town and he looks at him and he says I got a message from Allah for you and he starts screaming and he said is it a punishment? Is it a warning? What is it? And he tells him the dream. And when he tells him the dream Bishr, he falls on his face crying. He falls and he makes toba. And he from that day on devotes himself to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And when the message came to him, he was barefoot. And he said that when this message came to me, I was bare feet. And I made my peace with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in that way. And Allah has said that he has made this world a carpet for us. So I will never walk with shoes on it again. So he was known as al-Hafi, the barefoot one. But this is the type of honor. This is the type of love. Even a drunkard had that went so far with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. What action of love? What action of fear? What action of exaltedness and honor do you have for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? To get us closer to him. And this is why the month of Hajj is coming inshallah. And so many of us will go see the Imam al-Adham, will go see the Habib al-Adham, will go see the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And if you read about or hear the hadith of Jibreel alaihi sallam, it's a long hadith, I'm not going to go into that. But it's the hadith about Iman, Islam and Ahsan. But what I do want to say about that is, when Sayyidina Jibreel alaihi sallam comes to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in the form of a man, the way he approaches him. Sayyidina Omar narrates the hadith. And he says about, he says, We did not see, we did not see the traces of traveling on him. Of course he was the angel Jibreel alaihi sallam, but at the same time he said he had shiny black hair and he had a white robe and he was perfumed. And then he comes to the Prophet of God sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and he sits before him directly giving him all his attention and he sits before him calmly and puts his knees against his knees with so much adab, with so much adab. And then we go and see the Prophet of God sallallahu alaihi sallam during Umrah and during Hajj. And especially if you haven't gone before. And when you enter, you enter through what? To Baba Salaam, the door of safety, the door of Salaam. Because when you enter in the sanctuary of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam you're in a state of safety and peace. You're in a state of being whole. And then you see him, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And that is the climax of humanity. That is the greatest experience the human being could ever have in this world is to go visit the grave of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam and stand before him sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And that is why when you exit, when you exit from al-Baqi the door of the graveyard because once you've seen him and been with him, then that's it. You can go back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But we go, how do we go to him? Some of us, we're on FaceTime as we walk by. Hardly even looking. Hardly even making dua. Hardly even making Salaam. I'm not judging anybody. I'm just saying for your first time go with respect to the Prophet of God. Because he said the one that comes visits my grave my intercession for that big person becomes obligatory on me. And once he may intercede for you, what's left? What's left? So adab goes far away with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I'll say this to you, and forgive Allah the great for me and for you and for the people of Muslims, Muslims and believers and believers, so forgive him. He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.