 blessed day of Juma'ah. We always want to remind ourselves to be people of Taqwa that is people who are mindful of our Lord, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, and to fulfill what He has commanded us to do, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, and to avoid what He has prohibited us from, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. This is the essence of Taqwa, where inwardly and outwardly we conform and submit to the way that our Lord wants things to be Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And on a day like Juma', this is a day that we always, always, always want to remind ourselves of what is important. To put into practice the words of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam wa idha salimat al-Juma'at wa salimat baqiyat al-ayam. If we give Juma'ah its right and our Juma'ah is whole, then this will directly affect the rest of the week. When we give Juma'ah its right and understand that it's not just the prayer. In fact Juma'ah begins, as we all know, on Mughrab the day before the actual day of Juma'. And it extends not just to the end of the khutbah or the tasneem from the prayer that we will pray, but all the way until Salatan Mughrab. So Juma'ah is an entire day 24 hours. And this is a time that you and I want to give it its due and to take advantage of all of the blessed opportunities that come on a weekly basis to draw near to our Lord Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And of those opportunities is the opportunity that we have to hear words of benefit in the two sermons that take place before the two cycles of prayer. And when Allah Ta'ala commands us in the quran fas'au ila dhikr illa, speaking to the believers, ya'i wa lila amanu, O you who believe, ila nudya lisa'ati min yawmun Juma'ati fas'au ila dhikr illa, O you who believe, when the call to prayer is called on the day of Juma', hasten to the remembrance of Allah. And Allah Ta'ala mentioned the remembrance of Allah, referring to even those two sermons that take place before the actual turakas that we will be standing up and also remembering Allah Ta'ala, in thus pointing to the dual meaning of remembrance, that it relates to learning what it is that we need to know just as it relates to invocation and remembering our Lord Subhanahu wa Ta'ala with our tongues. And today I want to speak on a topic that relates to our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. And you could say what we will be speaking about is the vocation of our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. But first it is in order that you and I to understand this word in English. This is a very good word and we don't want to restrict its meanings to the way that it's meaning the way that we normally will think of a vocation. And we think of for instance vocational school and a particular occupation or a particular profession. This word is actually deeper than this. And the word vocation also relates to a strong impulse that you and I might have internally to pursue a particular sphere of activity or to pursue a particular career, that inclination that we have. And here that is related to a Latin word from the 15th century that is about a calling in a particular type of calling, a spiritual calling. So really at the heart of this idea of vocation is that it is a spiritual calling. It is what you and I really feel inspired and motivated to dedicate our lives to. And every human being has this to some degree. And in some it lies dormant. And in others it comes to the surface. And this lies, this is a universal, this lies in various types of human beings. Even those who don't believe, some of them also have a calling. But ultimately for that calling that lies in the depths of every single one of our hearts, in order for it to rise to the surface, certain conditions must exist. And in order for it to be used for benefit, it has to arise in a heart that believes in a lot of Barakotana. And it has to be regulated by the Sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa adihi wa sahbihi wa salam. And this is why one of the established meanings of the word vocation is a divine call to Allah's service. A divine call to Allah's service. Nothing is more lofty and important than this. And ultimately you and I will all take a limited amount of breaths here on earth. And the question that you and I need to ask ourselves is, how are we spending our time? What is the state of our heart when we take these limited amount of breaths that we will be given here on earth? And this is one of the measures of time for us. How many breaths we take? Every single one of us where we to count has a limited amount of breaths. And every time that we take a breath, we're getting closer and closer and closer and closer to taking our last breath. And what we want to think about is, how can you and I live a life of purpose? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not create the creation of Ibn in play or for amusement or in sports. He did not create it. Allah did not create this in vain without purpose. Everything in the heavens and the earth has been created for a purpose. And you and I are the crown of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's creation. We were all created for a purpose. And one of the things that we have to ask ourselves is, how can we dig down deep within ourselves and find that purpose? And to excavate our hearts, if you will, to allow that call that lies dormant in many of our hearts to be able to serve Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's creation, to serve his religion and ultimately serve him while it is that we still have an opportunity to breathe. So our Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he had a vocation. And this is important for us to know what the Prophet's vocation was. And in knowing the Prophet's vocation, you and I will know how to benefit from him 1400 plus years later, because our tradition is very much alive. We have an unbroken chain of transmission back to the Messenger himself, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Our knowledge is not just in books. And as we will see, the living aspect of this tradition, i.e., sitting before living masters, great scholars that have been validated by Allah whose hearts are alive with the meanings of his remembrance and our people of the utmost piety. This is what takes precedence over all other things. The vocation of our Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, is pointed to in four clusters of verses throughout his book, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Two of these clusters are in Surat al-Baqarah, one in Ali Imran, and then finally in Surat al-Juma. And what we learn is that the vocation of our Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, is four fold. The first was to recite Allah's verses, his revelation, to those who were before him and taking from him, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. The second was to purify them. The third was to teach him the meanings of the book. And the fourth was to teach them wisdom. And then the most common interpretation of the wisdom here was to teach him his sunnah. And we'll be looking into each one of these in a little bit more detail. But we will start with the verses, although chronologically speaking there's some verses that proceed. On the tongue of the Prophet Abraham, alaihi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, is that he asked Allah to dispatch and send among them, rabbana wa ba'ath fihim. O Allah, send among them whom? Rasulin minhum, a messenger from them that does what? Yatlu alaihim ayatika. He recites to them your verses, wa yuallimuhum al-kitaba wal-hikmah. And teaches them the book and the wisdom, wa yuzakkihim. And he purifies them. Inna ka, inna ka anta al-aziz al-hakim, indeed you are the mighty and the wise. And then later on in surah al-bakara, we see another that verse that lays out for us the vocation of our blessed Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, kama al-sanna fikum. And here there's a subtlety here that our teachers have pointed out. How many times does Allah tawbarika wa ta'ala mention here kum, you in the plural, and the second person addressing everyone who believes. And there's no doubt that this was done for a purpose. Nothing in the book of Allah ta'ala is without purpose. Everything has been perfectly placed. Everything has a meaning. Sometimes we know, some of those meanings sometimes that we know more than but there is meaning behind everything that Allah ta'ala does in his book. So just look at how many times he mentions kum here, you. In other words, this is not meant for us just to know the vocation of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. One of the secrets of kum here, you in the plural, is so that you and I can have a connection to it. We don't just want to talk about it. You and I need to have a connection to it. kama al-sanna fikum. Just as we have sent among you, rasul and minkum, a messenger from among you, yathlu alaykum ayatina. He recites to you our signs, our verses, our revelation. wo yuzakki kum. And he purifies you. wo yuallimukum ul-kitaba wal-hikma. And he teaches you the book and the wisdom. wo yuallimukum. That's six times in one short verse. And he teaches you what? ma lam tokunu ta'alamoon. That which you did not know. Six times. kum kum kum. Teaching you and I the importance that how we need to connect to this reality. And we should not think that the Quran has just been transmitted and that's it. It is that a living book, it is meant to be recited. And this is one of the secrets of this first part of this idea of tilawa. Or you could say the reality of tilawa. It's recitation. And it's also interesting to note here that when we learn that wo yuallimukum ma lam tokunu ta'alamoon, our prophet teaches you that which you previously did not know. And then in that other verses we find wo yuallimukum. Even if before you were in manifest error. So our prophet gives us guidance so we have clarity on all matters. But he teaches us also that which we do not know. In the verses, the verse that was quoted in surat al-bakara, verse number 151, what's the verse that comes right after it? Feth koruni ad korkum. Remember me and I will remember you and look at the blessed tefsir literature of this. Remember me with toba and I will remember you with forgiveness. Remember me in times of hardship and I will remember you in times of ease. And look at all of the meanings, 20, 30, sometimes 40 different meanings of feth koruni ad korkum. Which human being could ever know that the Lord of the heavens and the earth mentions him, remembers him when the Lord is remembered. You need a prophet in order to tell you that. This is one of the greatest things that we can come to learn that we never ever would have known and our prophet taught us that which we did not previously know. And this is one among many things that he taught us. And continues to teach us because whenever we read the books of hadith, we are reading the words of Rasulullah. And they used to say about the collection of imam atanamidhi and really it applies to all narrations of our prophet, sallallahu alayhi sallam, especially those that reach the rank of being sahiyah. Because there's difference of opinion, but many scholars say that you can have certainty that these were the words of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. But even if you don't take that position that there's ghalab atadan, a high, high degree of probability. This is why you say qala rasulullah. The messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam said, and we should bring to mind as if we are hearing those words from the prophet himself, sallallahu alayhi sallam. And one of the great collections that you and I want to have a relationship with is the great work by imam and nowi, every Muslim should have this book in their home. And if you can't read the Arabic, find a translation. There's multiple translations in English have a translation of this book. Read it regularly. If you want to draw near to Allah, this is how you do it. Recite the Quran regularly, learn its meaning, strive to put into practice and read the words of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam and study the basic sciences of the deen. This is how we draw near to Allah. We learn that knowledge and then we put it into practice and the scholars have brilliantly mapped out that path for us. So our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, his vocation was mentioned in the various verses here that were quoted. And so let's look through this. The first aspect of this, yetlu alaykum ayatina. He recites to you our ayat and that can be trans as verses meaning verses of the Quran. Just as it can be translated, he recites to you revelation or it could be referred to in its broadest sense, ayat or signs. And it could extend into understanding the world in and of itself and the various manifestations of the power of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in it. So tilawat al-ayat, this was part of his vocation sallallahu alayhi sallam. And what is meant here is the Quran. What is meant here is the Quran. And so you can imagine these blessed companions of our prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi sallam hearing revelation directly from the best of creation. Imagine them congregating behind him in prayer, in hearing this blessed. And if we think that there's good recitation nowadays and if we like particular Quran reciters of the Quran nowadays, what would it have been like to hear from the very best of those who ever recited the book of Allah, how beautiful was the recitation of the message of Allah who received the very Quran itself sallallahu alayhi sallam. And so he would recite the book of Allah. And it's really beautiful here, this meaning of recital as opposed to reading. And of course we can say we read the Quran, but really it's a recital. It's a book that is recited. And as far as I know that Christians don't recite the Bible with tejweed in English. There's not really such thing as tejweed in English. And studying tejweed is amazing. Proper Quranic recitation. And no doubt in this meaning of recital, of reciting, reading melodiously in full measure, in reciting properly, there's a secret here. And it relates to the preservation of language. And this is why we should never ever look down upon anyone in some cultures. They look down upon the members, those who have memorized the Quran that might not have as much access to its meanings as they should. And we should never look down upon someone for not having, because even if someone had access to many of the meanings, what they don't know about the book of Allah is much more than whatever it is that they do know. This is important because once a language dies, i.e. it ceases to be spoken, it is impossible ultimately to resuscitate it. And the fact that you and I know how to recite every letter of the Arabic language, everyone has a mahraj. It has a point of articulation. And the scholars have laid this out for us. And it is so precise. And master reciters of the Quran know when people make even the slightest mistake that everyone else's ear doesn't even pick up. How we recite Allah Tabarak O'Dar's book. This idea of tilawah recitation is also an indication that we should be reciting the Quran as a community. This should be a staple part of our religious practice. This should be a staple part of our day. We should be reciting Quran together. And remember, Mudar al-satid Quran is a sunnah. It is a sunnah inside of Ramadan and outside of Ramadan. And that is reciting Quran with someone else. This is what Gabriel used to do twice a month. He used to you every year. And then the last year of the Prophet's life, twice in the month of Ramadan. Mudar al-satid Quran. And Allah Ta'ala ultimately preserved our Prophet's life center from making a mistake or that forgetting the book of Allah Tabarak without a bit still, he did this so you and I could do Mudar al-satid Quran even if we're not hafaz. Even if we haven't memorized too much, we should set up circles where we're reciting. And we really hope that this is something that we see in our masjid, in our places of worship, in a place like the United States of America. Bring the Quran to the masjid. Every Muslim should learn how to recite the Quran. Do your best and you receive reward for even learning when you're not reciting very well. You make mistakes and you are struggling and you have to repeat words because you're still learning what is a sun letter, what is a moon letter and how to recite different things and to connect letters. You get reward for doing so. So this element of recitation should be here. It should be in our home. Our wives, our family members, our children should all learn how to recite Allah Tabarak without his book. And if we start early, it's easy for them. We need to make this a priority because when we talk about the invocation of Rasulillah, this is the very first thing of all that is mentioned. Yatlu alaykum ayatina. He recites to you our revelation, our verses. And this is what you and I need to also bring into our life. And amongst the other many benefits here from this verse is yes, the reward that we get for recitation. Yes, reciting in the various prayers, but also this is an indication that the oral transmission precedes the written transmission. And this is really, really important. The oral transmission precedes the written transmission. When the companions had a question about the Qur'an, did they go to what was written down from the Qur'an during the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam? No, they went to Rasulullah. Yes, every verse was written down in his life, but when they had a question whether this was a valid recitation or not, they would go to the Messenger of Allah himself, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And this is important. It doesn't negate the written transmission. That is important. And the various stages that we need to study during the time of Sayyidina Bukar, during the time of Sayyidina Ertman, and then after into this day and age, the most half that we have before us, how do I understand all of these different symbols that are in there? What does it mean when there's a meme? It means that I have to stop or there's a lap, meaning that I'm not supposed to stop. Or there is a gene, which means that it's permissible to stop or it's permissible to continue. And there's like a sawd within a lamb and then a look like an aleck muxor. What does that mean? And what does like the what do these things mean? And the other symbols in the Qur'an learn this. It's easy. It doesn't take long. Familiarize yourself with the book of Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, and let learn the various diacritics and what they mean and how to read his book. This is all a part of this meaning of Tilawa, but also you and I don't want this to be autodidex at a certain point. And you could say being an autodidex, i.e. self-taught, you can really only do that in the rarest of circumstances after usually you've studied extensively. Then you tend to not be harmed if you that research a lot on your own. But if you try to do it yourself or with the help of Shaykh Google, you're going to make mistakes. And you don't know what website you're going to, whether these people are trustworthy or not and how to get the correct understanding if you even understand what they're saying. And not because you're not in contact with them. And someone told me interesting recently is that their Shaykh told them that if you ever take classes online with someone and they don't even know that you're one of your students, it actually doesn't really count as if you're taking classes from that particular teacher. It doesn't mean that we can't benefit benefit from what's out there, but also ask questions. Make sure your understanding of what you're being taught is legitimate and sound. So this is all a part of this meaning of Tilawa, of a prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam reciting the verses to his ummah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And then wa yuzakikum. And he purifies you sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam. Our prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he purified the companions and all of the meanings of purification. First and foremost at the level of belief. What does Allah say about the mushrikun, the polytheists in them and mushrikuna? Nejes. The polytheists are impure that is not referring to their clothes. This is referring to the state of their hearts. The worst form of nejes is to associate partners with Allah, is to not believe correctly. This is the haqq of Allah and there's no room for error here. There's room for that light biddah, someone not having been Khalid finnaar, nasallallahu alaihi wa sallam, but there's very little room here. You got to get belief right. You got to get belief right because everything else is based upon that. And the nature of ahl al sunnah wa jam'ah, they were very careful to say that someone wasn't a Muslim. This is how they were because they realized the severity just as they were very careful to articulate what true belief was and what is the essential creed that every Muslim is required to believe which is essentially articulated in the book of Allah and on the tongue of our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So he purifies you in all of the meanings of purification starting with belief and then leading to human behavior. And the next form of purity is purity that relates to action. And if someone is committing sins, these are abominations and who are we sinning against? We are only harming our own selves of course, but this is what our Prophet came to do is to purify our actions so that our actions are pure i.e. in conformity with the divine will which is represented in the sacred law that we've been given. Purifies at the level of our actions. And then of course purifies at the level of our hearts. There are certain vices when they grip you. It's very difficult for us to worship Allah Almighty sincerely. We need to learn how to purify our hearts of the terrible diseases which are in relation to the source diseases. They're actually major sins like urea, ostentation, acid, envy, kibir, arrogance, erjab, vanity. These are kabbar. These are very dangerous. And we have to purify ourselves of them and our Prophet came to do that. So he came to recite Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's revelation to us just as he came to purify us. And he also came to teach us the book and the wisdom. And in here when we learn about this meaning of being taught the book, what our Prophet taught the book, he didn't just recite it to us, but he also taught us its meanings. So in addition to hearing the book of Allah, reciting the book of Allah and learning how to properly recite it, we have to commit to learning the meanings of the book of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Commit yourself to at least learning a basic level of Arabic so that you can have access to this means. And if you can't do that and that's difficult, access good, trustworthy, tafsir literature in the language that you can understand. Attach your heart to the meanings of the book of Allah. Learn about how to implement its realities. And when this door opens up for us, i.e. learning the book of Allah, everything at that point changes. Because once your heart develops an affinity with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's book, it's actually hard to be around people at that point. As Sayyidina Ertman Ben Affan said, where our hearts to become pure, we would never become satiated from the book of Allah you start learning its meanings and you start noticing subtleties and these amazing things that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that mentions in his book and then you've read the verse many times when the one day just dawns on you a particular meaning and you know always check with your teachers or with the tafsir literature to make sure that it is a valid insight. But when you start developing a living connection with Allah's book and when you read it, you read it with the intention of Amal. And a lot of people make this mistake. They very subtly are reading it with the intention really of solely reciting beautiful so people can say that they recite beautifully. Recite beautifully. Our Prophet commanded us to do so. We're supposed to recite beautifully but not for people to praise us for Allah. And this is why the Mujahid like the Qara is one of the people in the Salaam-e-Arafi on the day of judgment. It will be said that why did you recite the Quran? And it was said that for your sake, oh Allah, no you recite it so people could say that you are a good reciter. And then the Salaam-e-Arafi that they will be punished as a result. But in addition to learning the meanings of Allah Ta'ala's book, we also want to learn the meanings of the wisdom which here is a reference to the Sunnah of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Imam Razi says, is that the essential meaning of wisdom here is learning to do what is right and say what is right. So getting things right at the level of what it is that we say and at the level of what it is that we do. Getting it right. And then this extends to learning our deen, developing understanding of our deen. It learns to learning the individual rulings of the sacred law. Understanding the distinct, the difference between truth and falsehood and that this is fully represented in the comprehensive Sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Once we understand the vocation of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, then you and I can benefit even from now 1400 plus years later. And we learn what it is that you and I need to do then to give back to creation because to the extent that we do this nowadays i.e. recite Allah to add His book to the extent that we become purified to learn the book and to learn the wisdom is to the extent that you and I will be pollinated such that when we find our calling it will truly be of benefit to Allah to add His creation and be a means for us to drown near to Him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and may Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala give us tawfiq and bless us in all of our affairs. Allah has blessed us to reach the month of Shaaban and this is a month that we should always remind ourselves that our Prophet asked Allah to add it to place blessing in. And one of the meanings of that is to prepare us for the blessed month of Ramadan which is not far off. This is a time that we have to especially prepare for the blessed month of Ramadan and my advice to my fellow brothers and sisters is to get as many worldly things out of the way now before Ramadan comes in. We know tax time is coming. Get your taxes done now. Don't be doing taxes in Ramadan. Anything that you need home repairs that you need to get groceries ordered get all of that stuff done now to prepare yourself to give Ramadan its due because the same thing applies to Ramadan is what was mentioned to Juma. If we give Ramadan its right that it will affect every remaining month of the entire year. May Allah ta'ala place blessing for us in Shaaban and bless us to be able to reach the blessed month of Ramadan and may Allah ta'ala assist us in all of the meanings of assistance and everything that we can possibly do to drown near to Him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and may this Ramadan be the very best Ramadan of our lives and constant increase in drawing near to Him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and may Allah ta'ala assist us in all of the meanings of