 Verily, all praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, we express gratitude to Him. We seek His help, we seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from everything that we do, all of the bad actions we do and from our bad states. And we testify that there is no God but Allah, He is alone, He has no partner, no share in His oneness, no share in His authority, no share in His existence as He exists subhanahu wa ta'ala. And we testify that Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the best of creation, is his Prophet and messenger, his servant, his slave. May the peace and prayers of Allah be upon him, upon his companions, upon his family and upon all of those who follow him to the last day, and may Allah count us all among them. Allah says in his Arabic Quran what translate roughly as, O you who believe, have fear and consciousness of Allah as is His right, and die not except in a state of submission. And in another place, in Surat An-Nisa, O people, O mankind, have fear and consciousness of your Lord who created you from one soul and from that soul is made and sent forth from those two many men and women. Have fear and consciousness of Allah through whom you ask of your various affairs and the wombs that bore you, truly Allah is ever watchful over you. It's related in our tradition, related that Musa and Adam, may peace be upon them both, met at one time and had a conversation. Musa turned to Adam and Musa knew what Adam had done, knew his history, that Adam was the one who was placed in Jannah and then because of a decision that he made was brought down to earth and the rest of us have to deal with the implications of that. Musa talked to Adam and said, how could you do such a thing that we're all having to suffer the consequences of your decision? And Adam threw that right back at him and said, would you really take me to account for something that Allah has destined for me to do before he even created me? We see Musa expressing similar sentiments, a similar need for clarification on a certain level in the story that we find in Surat Al-Kahf, the 18th chapter of the Quran which we're encouraged to read on Fridays. In that we find Musa meeting a slave from among our slaves, his name isn't given in the Quran though we know through Tafsir that it's, through tradition tells us that it is Qadr according to the Ahadith on the subject. So Musa meets Qadr, this strange charismatic figure, who Musa has been inspired by Allah to go and meet in order to learn something. And so he goes to him and Qadr says to him, no, you won't be able to have patience with me and what, I can show you. And Musa was insistent, he said, no, no, no, no, I can bear it inshallah. I want to learn from you and so they go off on the journey in Surat Al-Kahf and various things happen that Musa doesn't understand, things that apparently happen to be at the hand of Qadr who Allah has inspired to Musa that he is supposed to learn from and yet every time Musa cannot bear it, first Qadr puts a hole in a boat, seemingly inflicting hardship on the owners of that boat. And he goes and kills a young boy for no reason, taking away that life from this world. And then in a strange twist, they come to a town that's full of no one really good in the town and he does a good favor for them. He builds up a wall that's in the town that was about to fall down. And so Musa can't handle this on the way that he's used to relating and understanding things, the understanding that he had in those moments in both of these stories, in this discussion with Adam, alayhi s-salam, and in his meeting with Khidr, that to a certain level he can't understand these things in the position that he was. He was looking at these stories, he was looking at these happenings on a level of seeing just the actors in it, just the human actors in it. And yet what Khidr finally tells him and the sentiment is expressed by Adam as well, is Musa, you're not looking deep enough. You see what I do and yet you don't understand the real one taking care of things, the real one doing things, the real one who is the only one with the rights and the ability and the authority to make anything happen in this world is Allah. You're looking at the actions of a human and all you're seeing is that human. You're not seeing Allah in those actions and that is a poor state for us to be. A state that many of us, most of us, if not all of us at one time or another are in, in that Allah has created us, humanity as one of the greatest signs of him, of, we can't even talk about of his ability, of his attributes, of his, of his, all of these qualities that Allah has, we don't talk about them individually, we can see in humans, in men and women Allah has placed all of these attributes of his, all of the characteristics are manifest in us to some extent or another as much as is possible for us. Our desire, our vision, our hearing, our speaking, our ability to do things, all of this, Allah is the true one who has those attributes and who does that and yet he has made us as signs for him and so if we are one of the greatest signs in creation and all we see when we look at our own humanity and look at ourselves is ourselves, subhanAllah, what a poor state that is. Musa was put in that state, alaihi salam. Musa, a prophet, one of the best of mankind was put in that state, may peace and prosperity be upon him and so how much more are we likely to be in that state as well? This is something we must be aware of that it's important when things happen in our lives or when we see, when we witness things happening in other people's lives that we look beyond the veils and we look for Allah, we try desperately with all of our being to see Allah in everything because verily Allah is in everything. There is nothing in existence that does not come from Allah, that does not have its existence dependent on the existence of Allah because he is the one who gives subsistence and when we say that he is the living, that he is the subsistence, that means that everyone who makes a claim to life, who makes some claim of existing is ultimately making that claim only through Allah and by Allah and with Allah and in Allah if only we could realize it and so in this time when soon enough our brothers and sisters will be returning from Hajj, returning to our communities, blessing us again with their presence it's important for us to take some time to reflect on what really is our opinion of humanity that when we look at ourselves and others when we look at humanity what are we really seeing? We're told in our tradition that the Hajj is obligation upon us as long as we are able to do it. Allah says so in the Quran. We're also told that we don't just get nothing from this Hajj that the true reward of an accepted Hajj is that we return from that Hajj as new, restored human beings, return back to our humanity as if it's the day or shortly after the day when our mothers gave birth to us. The verse we quoted at the beginning of Surah An-Nisaat at the beginning of the Khutbah says have fear and consciousness of Allah through whom you ask of your various affairs and the wombs that bore you, and so many parts of the Quran, in many parts of the Quran Allah calls us to return, return to something returned to what we sometimes refer to as the fitrah, the original creation, what humanity, the essence of humanity really is. But how many times do we actually lose sight of that? How many times if one of us were to go off on Hajj and return feeling that that Hajj was a completed Hajj, feeling that Allah must have insha Allah accepted it, that we are as He has promised, restored to our humanity. When we come back and we do something that displeases us, we commit some kind of sin, whether it's raising our voice at someone, whether it's raising our hand to someone, whether it's anything we can think of, big or small, when we come back to that and have to face up to that and all we see is ourselves, we're missing the point. When I commit a sin and I say how horrible am I? What am I doing? How could I let myself do this? I thought I was a good Muslim. I thought I was a good person. I thought I was a good human. We're showing that we don't truly understand the meaning of humanity, if that's all we can say. However, what we must say, what Allah and indeed His whole creation requires us to say, is bringing it back to Him. We say Astaghfirullah. We say I seek forgiveness from Allah. We say Atubu il Allah. We say I turn to Allah in repentance. That every time anything happens in our life, good or bad, the key is not to see ourselves in it as much as possible. We see Allah in that thing. That when we commit a sin, we say Allah, forgive me. When we do something good, we say Allah laka al-hamd. Every good and every positive thing that ever happened and ever will happen and ever is happening in this world is yours, ya Allah. You are the creator of it, you are the sustainer of it, you are the one that makes it happen. We return it to Allah. But how many times is that difficult for us? How many times when we should be making zikr of Allah, when we should be saying Alhamdulillah, we should be saying Astaghfirullah, we make zikr of ourselves. How bad am I? How could I have done this? What kind of a person am I? I thought I was a good Muslim. On the other hand, wow, how good am I? How great is the thing that I have done? Subhan Allah, Subhan Allah. If we could just say that, Subhan Allah, in every circumstance, we'd start learning how to get back on track and how to actually return to our humanity, return to our humility and what we owe to our Creator, the one who is making all of this happen, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. It's important for us to read the Quran and reflect on the meanings because Allah says in the Quran, Allah tells us that man, humankind, is created weak. He even says in the Quran, inna insana wa balloomun kafar. He says in no, he says in completely explicit terms, verbi inna at insan la balloomun kafar. If you study Arabic, you see there are two points of emphasis there, there's inna and there's la. Two points that show that what is being said is very emphasized. Truly, mankind is oppressive and rejecting, right? Rejecting of the benefits of Allah, rejecting what Allah has to offer, rejecting Allah's rights, and oppressive committing injustice and real injustice, volm, as we understand it, as its true meaning is putting things in the places where they don't belong. And the solution to volm is adab. Adab is putting things in the right place, and adab is one of the essences of shari'ah, that when we learn shari'ah and when we practice shari'ah, the way of Allah that He has prescribed for us and all the details therein, we're putting things in the right place. When we come to prayer, we line up with the brothers or the sisters and we put our heads on the ground, we're putting ourselves in the right place. We're putting our heads in our minds and our hearts in the right place. Indeed, our whole bodies, our soul, our spirit in the right place. It's adab, the solution to volm injustice. When we treat people with the respect that they deserve as creations of Allah, it's adab putting things in the right place. And this is what Allah tells us to do. Allah tells us to put Him in the right place, not us in the place where Allah should be. And so, when I come to pray, when I come to, for example, make salat al-asr and I do my four rakahs and I say to myself during and after the prayer, man, I didn't feel much right there. I didn't feel something spiritual. I didn't feel like that was completely right. What's happening then? We're making vikr of ourselves again. We're putting ourselves in the picture when only Allah should be in the picture. Why do we pray? Okay. Yes, we normally, we often feel good things when we pray because Allah has created us in a sense that deed down, Alhamdulillah, to guide us to the straight path. He is placing us things that engender in us when we put things in the right place. We generally feel good, but often that's not the case. We're having a bad day. We're stressed out. We don't understand things so well. And we come to pray and we don't get what we want out of it. Whereas the salah that Allah requires us to do five times a day, that's not ours. That is Allah's, just like everything else in creation. Indeed, ourselves, we are Allah's. Inna dillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. That we belong to Allah right now. And if that's too hard for us to acknowledge, if we try desperately, try our best to see ourselves when we should be seeing Allah in ourselves. Inna dillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. We're going to be returned to Allah and have to face up to that fact when there'll be no room for denial at all, when everything will be clear to us. But how much, how much are we in need to understand this reality before it comes time for that day, before Yom al-Qayyama comes, before we're standing before Allah and we have no chance to actually finally put things in their place. Things are put in their place for us. Everything is revealed. Everything that we've done and that we've thought and what we've given to Allah, what we've taken for ourselves and held so desperately for ourselves because we think that's the right way. All of that comes out and is put in the proper place and we have no ability to say anything to do anything but say, yeah Allah, I deserve to be thrown in the fire. Subhan Allah. What have I done? But even on that day we won't be allowed to say that. What have I done? Allah, Allah, Allah, Subhan Allah. And so it's incumbent upon us now that we have the ability to try desperately to see Allah in all of these things. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to each other. If our relationships with others, if our understanding of ourselves are based on Allah and seeing Allah in everything that goes on and returning all of it to Allah, how much easier, how much better would our lives be? We would be granted the Tawfiq to see, to be in the state that Allah describes His awliya in the Quran. He says, that there is no fear on them nor do they grieve. How much could we be without fear, without stress, without worry if we simply return things to Allah, return our humanity even indeed ourselves to Allah and admit that truth. See forgiveness of Allah in this blessed time so that we can all return to Him. Allah commands us in the Quran to send peace and praise on the Prophet. And this is a key to returning us to our humanity, indeed returning us to reality. At the Prophet of Allah peace and praise be upon him was someone who not only understood humanity, not only understood himself, indeed the whole creation, but he was able to manifest that in his actions as well. And so the more that we look into his life, the more that we implement the things that he told us to do, which is Islam, the more that we trust in him and try to think the way that he must have thought and have the opinions of Allah and of creation that he must have had, that's the level of iman. But the more we try to return to him and gain inspiration through him, as Allah has taught us by making salawat on him, that is the station of ihsan. When Allah tells us in the Quran to send peace and praise upon him for a specific reason, it's something that doesn't just affect the body, it doesn't just affect the mind, it touches us on a spiritual level, the real, the higher, the real substance level that we're created on. The Ruh, that there's something that happens to the Ruh when we make zikr in a way that also mentions the Prophet alaihi salat wa salam. And so whenever we're feeling like this is difficult, whenever we can't figure out how to see Allah, how to reach Allah, how to put things in that proper place, salawat on the Prophet is one of the most powerful things we can do. Tried and tested, 1400 years of our tradition that people who keep up this practice of regular salawat on the Prophet alaihi salat wa salam, they can tell you through experience and through their writings that it does have its effects as much as we might wonder how words could do something. Many people stand before us in our communities or as we read about from their books, their writings, as testaments to the fact that this has some profound effect. And so finally I would like to encourage those of you who are able to participate in the one billion salawat today. I believe there's an event going on here at MCC this weekend with that initiative. It's a powerful initiative, but may that be a time for us to come together in making salawat on the Prophet alaihi salat wa salam and also be a catalyst for us bringing that practice into our lives. Allah tells us to do it. So who are we to deny that benefit when Allah shows he tries desperately to bring into our lives the realization of what these things can do, what sending salawat on the Prophet alaihi salat wa salam can do, what making vicar of him can do, what following shari'ah and following adab and putting things in that proper place can do. So may Allah grant us tafeeq in that, may He facilitate that. Ya Allah, O Rabbana, Ateena fi dunya hasana kufil aafirati hasana wa qeena adab and naaf. O Allah, give us good in this world, give us the best in this world and the best in the next world and save us from the punishment of the fire. Ya Allah, help us to actualize taqwa, actualize Islam, actualize iman, actualize ihsan. Ya Allah, grant us the facility to really live the deen and implement it into our lives. Ya Allah, bring us away from all the false opinions and the false gods that we put before you. Ya Allah, purify us to receive the only true reality in this world. La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah. Ya Allah, bring us to that state and may the last word that we say and may the last thing witnessed by our actions be la ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah.