 One of the important things for a believer and especially in an age like the age we live in is to be able to maintain a nuanced understanding of things. In other words, to be able to understand that there are two sides to the coin, that there is more than one answer to questions, that there is inevitably that which goes beyond our ability as finite creatures to comprehend. The believer has chosen and by the grace of Allah has been blessed to orient himself or to orient herself in a position that says, Aaman to the laa, I believe in Allah. May Allah make us steadfast in that and may He never take away our faith no matter what He takes from us, Allahumma laa don't take away our iman. So the believer has already oriented himself in the correct position by saying, I believe in Allah. And then after that they inevitably have to explore what that orientation means vis-a-vis their lived reality and vis-a-vis the lived reality of the community and the world that they live in. We're very fortunate as believing people to have been chosen, to have been graced, to have been honored, to be from the community of the beloved Prophet Sayyidina Muhammad Rasulullah, peace be upon him. And Allah reminds us in the Qur'an about that blessing so many times and so many verses that would go on beyond the scope of the brief moments we've been afforded this afternoon. One of the beautiful things about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and everything about him is beautiful. Even in his majesty there is beauty sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. Even in those moments in which he must necessarily respond to given events in a way that is authoritative, in a way that is proper, even in those majestic manifestations his beauty because in him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the fulfillment of all of the manifestations of Allah's beautiful names and Allah's majestic name, the majestic names Azawajalla. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is understood to be not only the person who Allah gave the revelation but also to be understood to be the greatest manifestation of all of the names and the attributes of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. That may sound esoteric, that may sound too deep, that may sound beyond the scope of what some of us are ready to reflect upon but even you and I have been instructed to try to take on the character traits of Allah when the Prophet says sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, ta'alafu bi akhlaqina. Take on Okim Akhala sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, take on the character traits of God to the extent that is humanly possible. In other words Allah is merciful so we are to try to be merciful. Allah is just so we are to try to be just. Allah Azawajalla is forbearant, we are to try to be forbearant etc etc. So all of those realities are most prominently and most manifestly seen in the beloved Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So he has outward realities and he has inward realities sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. One of those things and this is what we wanted to speak about and reflect upon briefly today is in that narration where the companion said by Allah I never saw the face of the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam after I became Muslim, illa wa kanim of Tasimah except that he was smiling sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Now there's two really interesting things about that. There's a lot that could be said but two points will focus on one. I never saw his face after becoming Muslim. What does that mean for us? How do we treat those people who are new to the faith? How do we treat those people that are exploring the faith? How do we treat those people that may be visitors? How do we treat those people that may be less than us if we would be so arrogant as to deem anybody less than us at the level of religiosity when they see our faces? What do they see? Do they see a frown that wants to remind them that they need to get themselves right? Do they see an angry face that wants to prove to them that look, brother, this is serious? Do they see a disciplinary figure that wants to correct them or do they want to see a face that is like the face of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, illa wa kanim of Tasimah except that he was smiling? Well, this begs a really important question. What was going on in the Prophet's life that may have led him not to be smiling? All of the things that you are not struggling with on a day-to-day basis and I'm not talking about myself here per se nor am I talking about anyone of you in particular per se, but all of the things that we as people struggle with, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had some semblance or some resemblance or some part of that. We have family troubles. We have difficult people in our families that give us a hard time. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had people that gave him a hard time. We have spousal conflict or spousal tension. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and this is talked about in the Qur'an, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had difficult times with his noble wives. Allah be well pleased with them. What did he do? When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sitting eating and one of his noble wives made a dish and another one of them, Allah alayhi wa sallam, became jealous. So she comes in, the lady Aisha, Allah be pleased with her, and he's sitting with the group of his companions in his home and the lady Aisha comes in and she flips up the plate. What would happen if that happened in your house? What would happen if that happened in my house? Guys, you better leave. I'll see you guys at the Masjid for Fajr. See you guys at the office on Monday. What do you say? Moodu adiyukum, gharat umukum. Eat, your mother got jealous. One of the most amazing things about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is his ability to defuse socially awkward and socially tense situations, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And they used to test him. The better one came to the Prophet. He said, Oh Muhammad, give me from the wealth of Allah, not from the wealth of your mother or father. Now what happens? Omar takes out a sword. He says, Ya Rasulullah, da'iri upta'ara sahabun munafi. Oh messenger of Allah, give me permission to cut off the head of this hypocrite. The Prophet said, No, I don't want it to be said that Muhammad kills his companions. So the Lord ran him. He didn't say he's not a munafi. He didn't say, don't, he said, What? Don't do that because I'm concerned about the image of Islam publicly. I'm worried about how this will reflect on the community. I'm worried about how people will see us if we do that kind of thing. Then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam took them out of sight and he gave him an abundant gift, a very generous gift. And he said, Are you happy with that enough? He said, Not really, no. Imagine going to the head of a community, going to the head of state. No, you're going to the head of creation. Sayyid al-Mujoo, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The last Prophet and he says, What? Was Adam enough? He said, Not really. So he gave him more. He already gave him, he gave him more. He said, Was Adam enough? He said, No. He says, Yes. Thank you very much. May Allah reward you kindly in your clan and in your people. In other words, thank you my brother. And then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam came out and he said, Would you mind going to my companions and clarifying to them that you have been sufficed because they're still upset. There's something bothering them. And he's worried about how that will sit in the heart of the companions. But he's also worried about the safety of this individual. So he comes out and he said, Tell him that you're happy. So the man said, Alhamdulillah, the Prophet gave me enough. I'm obviously paraphrasing for time sake. The Prophet gave me enough and he went on. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. When the Prophet is laying under the tree, by himself, no security guards, no gatekeeper, no storm troopers. There's no guard all by himself. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And the man comes and raises a sword above him. He said, Who would defend you against me now? And he says, Allah. And the sword falls. So the Prophet says and picks up the sword. He said, Who are we going to defend you now? He said, Just be gentle and punish me because you're a good brother. The Prophet said, Go, you're free. And the man goes to his people. He said, Oh my people become Muslim because I came from the best of people. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And then the other narration, he said, Because he said, Ya kho mi aslimu. The man who got the gift, he said, Ya kho mi aslimu. Oh my people become Muslim. Because Muhammad gives the giving of a person who fears not poverty. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Those are the people who were ill to him. Those are the people who disrespected him. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. His own personal challenges vis-à-vis the fact that his people are denying him. He's been exiled from his beloved homeland. And the Prophet loved Mecca. He wasn't like, you know, just a matter of religious processing. He personally loved Mecca. What he left, he said, Oh, Allah, you're taking me out of the most beloved city to me. So let me live in the most beloved city to you. And in one narration, he speaks to Mecca in the second person. And he says, Indeed you, O Mecca, are the most beloved of God's land to me. And had it not been that your people exiled me, I would never have left you. So leaving Mecca was painful for the Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Many of us may have experienced a piece of that. For one reason or another had to move unexpectedly. Whether it was under political distress or any other situation, economic distress, or whatever. Or a person left their homeland and they miss home, the Prophet had that. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He would try to kill him. And in Uhud, when they come and they're fighting the Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And the companion said to them, Yara shallallahu alayhi wa sallam, O Messenger of Allah, curse them. And what he said, I was not sent to curse people. And rather I was sent as a mercy. And he said, O Allah, guide my people for they do not know what they're doing. And in the narration, O Allah, forgive my people for they do not know what they're doing. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So feeling the blame, whatever difficulty we're experiencing, the Prophet was experiencing that. Not to mention, perhaps the most important point, that revelation is descending on his blessed heart. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. How weighty was that? It was so weighty that when the revelation would descend and he's riding in Qaswa, you could see tears come from Qaswa's face, the camera. Sometimes she would fall to the ground. When his blessed head was laying on the thigh, saying, Abu Bakr to Sadiq and the revelation descends, saying to Abu Bakr said, I thought my thigh was going to burst out of the weight of the revelation. So he's experiencing all of that and he's still, what? Smiling. May Allah give us the smile more. You wonder sometimes you come to Muslim spaces and you wonder either we have muscular dysfunction in our faces. Right? Brother, what's wrong? You're a mess, you're right? You see the brother, no, ahiam religious. So what are you from? Didn't he say, smiling in the face of your brother is a charity? Well, you don't know what I'm going through, you're right, and you don't know what I'm going through. So let's set that all aside and just love one another. May Allah give us to love one another. Alhamdulillah, this is not a message that necessarily needs this class, needs this particular lesson. Because Alhamdulillah, there's a lot of love in this message, but we don't want to be that one person, we don't want to be that one person who couldn't find it in ourselves to channel the prophetic mercy into this smile. May Allah give us this smile. And as some of you know better than me, it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. It's easier to smile than it is. And you know, again, no matter how hard it may be, I'll never forget one time being abroad overseas and I came to visit one of my teachers before coming home. And I had waited several days, literally several days to see the shape. And I'm waiting to get directives about what I should do when I get home to America and how I should engage a community. And I'm having a one-on-one meeting with the shape and it took all of this time and finally I come in and I'm waiting and it says, he says to my son, my advice to you, when you go home to America, just smile. And I'm thinking, okay, what else? He said, just smile. And remind the brothers about the importance of smiling. And then he said something very interesting. And this isn't someone who's read up on, you know, deep sociological studies, read up on demographic research. This is someone of intuition. He said, because my experience has been with American people that they know a sincere smile from an insincere smile. They know when someone's trying to sell them something. So he said, benefit from the beauty of a sincere smile. May Allah give our faces to smile. Y'all have been on an evening. Now, here's the really important part. He's also described, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, as always being in a somber, sober, or perhaps even grief-stricken state. How do we reconcile these two? And for those of us who are coming late, we began by saying we have to maintain the nuanced attitude. And this is why Hadith are not to be studied without the guidance of a proper teacher. Because you could be one of the Hadith and misunderstand it. And you don't know the complementary Hadith. The scholars of commentary said, what? His smiling was with the people, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. When he was with the community, he was smiling. His grief, his sobriety, his what? Being focused on himself and being saddened, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, was when he was alone with his Lord. When he was alone with his Lord, that's when he observed what? And deep, because why? This is someone who understands the reality of the unseen. This is someone who's been shown the realities of eternity, what it means for a human being. This is someone, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, who's seen the fire, who's seen paradise, who knows that reality. So, naturally, someone who knows that is not going to be sitting alone, unproperly cheerful to sitting and being happy and having a good time. Because he's thinking about the reality, not only of himself. Because he's not worried about himself, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. He's worried about you and worried about me, and worried about people that you and I may write off. Didn't the companions say, we used to withhold from praying that Allah would forgive the people of wrong action in our community. We used to withhold from saying a stop to the law for the people of major wrong, until we heard the Prophet say, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, shafa'atihi ahlul keba'i ma'umati, okim apana salallahu alayhi wa sallam. My intercession will be for the people of major wrong for my community. So, he's not just worried about the good people, the people who are practicing, the people who are praying. He's worried about the people from his community who have inconsistency, who have error, who have sin. He's concerned about them, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And he found narrated in the hadith that when he would be in prostration, you could hear him weeping so profusely that it sounded like a boiling, like a boiling pot of water. And he used to say, oh Allah, did you not promise me that you would not punish them, were I to fee him, and I am amongst them. Oh Allah, did you not promise me that you would not punish them, were whom you start feeling, and they're seeking forgiveness. And this is why one of our early Muslims, our predecessors said, we had two guarantees against the punishment of Allah. One of them was the physical presence of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, amongst us. And the other is saying, astaghfirullah, the other is astaghfar. And we have lost that one outwardly, the first one. Not to say that the Prophet's not amongst us in a figurative or in a broader meaning, but physically the Prophet passed, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. So he said, what? So you better do a lot of this to the fault. You better say astaghfar Allah a lot. Seek Allah's forgiveness abundantly. And he's the one himself who said, seek Allah's forgiveness for I seek his forgiveness 70 times a day, and in one narration 100 times a day. May Allah make us people of this to the fault. So they said he was always smiling when he's with the people. And when he was alone, he was grief-stricken, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And this is what I mean about maintaining a nuanced attitude. And it's not to say that we should be generally consistent socially. We should not have a type of schizophrenic contradictory two different modalities. But no, rather when we're alone, we should be people of the deep, reverential attitudes. And we should not be people who waste our time. May Allah make that easy for us. So can we do that? Can we meet people that when we're in a public space? Set your worries aside for a moment. Set your concerns aside for a moment. Set your criticism of one another or of the community or of the situation aside for a moment. He just smiled. And I'll never forget a brother. He came to me once, he told me the story, and on the way out he kissed a brother on the cheek. And the brother said to him, don't kiss me. Ah, don't kiss me. He said, why not? He said, it's not from me soon. There's no sooner. He said, but I love you. What's he going to say? Help us, please. May Allah have us love one another. What's love got to do with it? Indeed, those who believe and do good deeds, the most merciful will give them love. They'll give, the law will give them love. And the ulama said, there's three ways that this love manifests. One is between the servant and Allah. That Allah will give that individual love, i.e. he will take that individual as one of his beloved. Allah lists amongst his beloved, Ya Rabbi. Allah lists amongst his beloved, Ya Rabbi. When the Prophet said, when Allah loves a servant, he calls Gabriel and he says, O Gabriel, I love so and so, so love him. So Gabriel loves that person. And then Gabriel calls out in the heavens, O people of the heavens, indeed Allah loves so and so. So love that person. And he's made here, she's made beloved in the heavens. And then they're made accepted in the earth. And if Allah hates a servant, he calls Gabriel and says, O Gabriel, I hate so and so, so hate him. And then Gabriel hates that person. He's made it hated in the heavens and made it hated in the earth. Allah save us from ever being from the second category. This is the first way that it manifests. The second way that it manifests, the ulama said, the scholar said, between the believers that they'll have love with one another. That they'll be people who have a fraternity that is not only outward but it's actually at a heart level that they love one another. And he reminds his Prophet ﷺ that the believers are a resource for you. He says, He's the one who empowered you with his victory and with the believers, we'll elif abayn al-Qulubihim and brought the hearts together. Lo anfaqla ma'fin ardi jami'il ma'a elif abayn al-Qulubihim, if you spit all of the wealth and the earth of Muhammad ﷺ, you will not have brought the hearts together. But Allah brought the hearts together. Imnu Hu'azizun hakeem and he is indeed mighty and wise. So in other words, our hearts being brought together is the way that we are resource for the Prophet ﷺ. But if we don't have hearts that love one another, then that resource unfortunately will be diminished in its value. And then the third way, as we close, they said that if you're someone who believes and if you're someone who does good deeds, Allah will put love between you and even people of the creation that do not believe because in you, in your belief and in your good deeds, is proof that you don't have an agenda. Allah will make people love you just because you believe and just because you do good deeds. And this is where the Muslims always succeeded. This is how the Muslims spread Islam. This is how Muslims did that one. They didn't need pamphlets historically. Not saying pamphlets are a bad thing, but they were enough of a pamphlet. They were enough of a book. If you just interacted with them, may Allah revive that in this Yauda Billah al-Amin and may Allah grant us love between us in creation, between us in one another and between us in him Yauda Billah al-Amin, I say this word and ask Allah to forgive me and you for the sake of the Muslims. So ask them to forgive me. Yes. What's the word? No. Allah. Alhamdulillahi wa kafa wa salamu ala ilaadil ladhi wa s-tafa. We praise Allah and ask Him to bless the prophets. His companions, I advise all of you believing people and my sinful self to be mindful of Allah. Do the things He has commanded you to do and leave those things that He has prohibited you from doing. May Allah make that easy for us Yauda Billah al-Amin and may He make us people of taqwa. So we talk about the idea of maintaining a nuanced attitude and appreciating that things may appear at first glance to be opposite but they're actually complementary. And this is the case in the two narrations we found about the Prophet ﷺ. One of them being that he was always smiling and the other that he was constantly in a sober and grief-stricken state. Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And we said that that was because why? When he's with people he was smiling, when he was alone he was introspective and that led inevitably to a reverential type of grief. Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. May Allah give us to be nuanced people because that's what the next stage of our experience as a community is inevitably going to demand that we're people who maintain nuance. We have to be, we are a community that is not entirely of the West or entirely of the East or we're somewhere in between. We're not entirely stuck in the pre-modern world nor are we entirely modern people, we're somewhere in between. So we have to maintain nuances and I'll leave you with a statement of one of the great saints who said you'll never come into true knowledge of Allah, had to tajmah abayn al-dindayn until you're able to reconcile between two things that appear to be opposite. Because we're existent but in reality we're perishing. We're alive but in reality we're not really alive. We're here but we're not really here. This is the nature of the world that we live in. May Allah give us to maintain a nuanced attitude. And when we do that it should make it easy for us to get along with not necessarily kumbaya with, not necessarily you know feel wonderful about but at least get along with Muslims we disagree with. We can maintain an attitude of tolerance in those people who we have a different interpretation with. May Allah take out of our heart raker for the believing people, Ya Rabbil Alameen. And may Allah take out of our hearts arrogance, Ya Rabbil Alameen. And may Allah take out of our hearts vanity, Ya Rabbil Alameen. And may Allah take out of our hearts love of the world, Ya Rabbil Alameen. O Allah whatever you put in our hands of worldly possessions never put them in our hearts, Ya Rabbil Alameen. We ask you a lot to bless this masjid in this community and to bless our families and our parents and our teachers and our loved ones. We ask you to bless Allahumma especially our teachers, Ya Rabbil Alameen. Anyone who ever taught us so much as one letter we ask you that you make the reward that they enter paradise, be raidi isab, be raidi adab, Ya Rabbil Alameen. Without any account, without any record in the Ya Rabbil Alameen. And to bless our teachers' families and to bless their parents and to bless their loved ones Ya Rabbil Alameen. We ask you Allahumma to make us a source of mercy and good and light for the ummah. Make us Allahumma man abrakit umma ale umma from the most blessed of the ummah for the ummah Ya Rabbil Alameen. Wa man anfa'i umma li'l umma. And the most beneficial of the ummah for the ummah Ya Rabbil Alameen. Wa man arhamal umma ale umma Ya Rabbil Alameen. And from the most merciful of the ummah wa fi umma Ya Rabbil Alameen. Allahumma gfilana zunuban Ya Rabbil Alameen.