 In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most gracious. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to send an abundance of peace and blessings upon our Prophet, our beloved Prophet Muhammad, alayhi salatu wa salam. My dear brothers and sisters, I remind myself and remind you to fear Allah and be conscious of Him. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive us, to forgive our shortcomings, and to accept this prayer from us. And we thank Him for having gathered us here today. Ameen Ajmayeen. My dear brothers and sisters, this religion of ours, this faith of ours, this religion of Islam is named after a characteristic it seeks to cultivate in the wayfarer, a characteristic it seeks to grant and internalize in the Muslim. Us, people who follow this religion, this characteristic of surrender, of taslim, is Islam, Islam in Salama. And this characteristic of utter surrender to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is a realization of our servitude to Allah, of our abudia to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that is a realization of our purpose in this world, our purpose in our creation in this world. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, This fulfilling this purpose in our creation is this abudia, this servitude. And in a manifestation of that, my dear brothers and sisters, this surrender to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is realizing that I am a weak servant of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And Allah Almighty is the God and the Creator. He is the One who has everything and is the reason behind everything. I find talking about this relevant today, my dear brothers and sisters, because as the new normal becomes the normal and the start of the pandemic, a lot of time has passed on that. There are certain things that are starting to trickle into our lives that the beginning of the pandemic made us realize. If we ask all, if I can ask all of you to and take you back to the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty. There was a lot of ambiguity. People were fantic. You see the supermarkets, the markets, the stock market, people in general, am I going to keep my job, my safety, my wealth, my health, all of that. It was very uncertain. And for a period of time, we were for the first time having the sense that we are not taking control of our lives, that perhaps we are not at the front seat driver this time. Although that is always the case. We realize that we don't know what might happen tomorrow. We realize that I might not keep my job. We realize that I might not know my loved one, what could happen to them. So as a period of getting close to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and revising and spending time in solitude and revising and reviewing certain things that for many, many periods of time we had put off. We faced certain realities and certain thoughts that we wouldn't think of otherwise. Many people would tell me that the Ramadan of the pandemic was the best Ramadan they had. It was the closest Ramadan they felt to Allah It's the most amount of devotional acts they did. A lot of people, community workers, there was no community to serve. They went back home and they spent that Ramadan in Ibadah and servitude and devotion. A lot of people say that that was the best Ramadan they had. And then this passing Ramadan, what happened? The new normal started becoming normal. We started thinking that we are back in control again. Complacency trickled in. We're settling in for mediocrity again and we're forgetting that it's Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala who plans everything and it's everything that is in his decree. We forgot that. We're starting to forget that. So I want to invite everyone to think about the fact that we're not in control. And a manifestation of our servitude to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is realizing this utter surrender to Allah. That I am weak. And that my honor and my dignity comes from my in-kisar and my dilla to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. To showing my utter need to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. That's where my honor comes. It's unlike any other relationship, any other dynamic. The our relationship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is hinged on us showing him our need of him. Realizing that we are in fact not in control of anything. It is Allah who gives and it's Allah who takes. And if he wishes he will take. And Allah loves it when we are in an intimate discourse with him and when we're in munaajat with him. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the most difficult time of the Prophet, when he's being given an immense gift, the gift of Salat. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is addressing him with the title of Abd, this Obudiya, this Taqiq of the Obudiya. This realization of the Obudiya. Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is addressing the Prophet in that difficult year during that very honorific journey, the journey of the Mi'raj, of the Israa. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is addressing the Prophet with the title of Abd. What is more honorific than that my dear brothers and sisters? Us realizing that our honor is in our Obudiya. My dear brothers and sisters, when we get on a plane no one is concerned about the speed the plane is flying at, the altitude of the plane, the size of the plane, the credentials of the pilot, no one is concerned about. No one thinks about going to the pilot and giving him instructions. Many of us get on the plane, I would assume many of us would not have, does not have information of flying a plane and landing a plane. Many of us get on the plane, make our du'as and we hope that we will land safely. Well the example of this lowly abode of this dunya is not much different. You have a Lord who is very merciful and very just, who has taken care of all their affairs and everything is written already. So the toil that you will get yourself into, the strife that you will get yourself into, it will not increase nor decrease anything. It's all written my dear brothers and sisters. And the examples of that within the prophets and the seerah is many. The prophets display this quality of utter surrender and realizing their need of Allah, their in-kisar to Allah is profound. You have the example of Prophet Ibrahim peace be upon him, taking his wife Hajar and a help house child, just a baby to a barren desert. Oh Allah, I have placed my progeny in a barren desert, in the baytika al-haram. But where is it? Where is the barren desert? It's in the sacred house, it's in your sacred house, Oh Allah. Prophet Ibrahim takes his wife and helps his child and he leaves them in the desert. What does Hajar say? Where are you leaving us? To whom are you leaving us? Where are you leaving us? The Prophet Ibrahim does not answer. She asks us again, where are you leaving us? Prophet Ibrahim does not answer. Ask us a third time, no answer. And then she realizes from her wisdom, is there a command from Allah? And Prophet Ibrahim nods. He's not even saying yes from the humility he has, from the tawadah and khulu'ah he has for Allah swt, he nods. Yet again we see this example with Prophet Ibrahim when he takes his child to slaughter him. What man in his right mind said would slaughter his child, would be willing to do that. I see in my dream that I slaughter you. His child is a part of him. This is an immense challenge. Yet what is he doing? He's doing it. He's not overthinking it. From Allah we hear, we obey, forgive us, and to you we shall return. This is his attitude. This is the attitude of the prophets. Realizing that we're not in control, striving for the better in ibadah, but yet when we're taking means, we're realizing that it's all in Allah's hand. It's not in my hand. The college that I will get into, the job that I will get, the spouse that I will get married to, it's not through the empirical measures that I will take. It's never about the empirical measures. The asbab we take them, we're commanded to take them, we have to take them, but it's not about it. We shouldn't lose sight of that. It is about what Allah decides to grant us, and it has always been about that. My dear brothers and sisters, as the pandemic is easing on us, and as life is coming back to a normalcy, some sense of normalcy, we want to cultivate this spiritual logic of surrender. Constantly being mindful of the fact that we're in need of Allah and we're not in control of him. If there is any beauty to the pandemic, if I may say so, perhaps it was that it showed us that we're actually not in control, that when our patterns are disrupted, when our routines are no longer taking place, when we're kicked out of our comfort zone, we realized that we were actually never in control. It was Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that allowed these motions to take place, and if he wants to, with a pandemic or without a pandemic, he will change all of it. And I hope that we realize our our our our our our ignorance that we actually don't know. We don't have it figured out. We really don't have it figured out. That our sustenance is through Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that when we embark on on on on any task or any matter, we say Bismillah and every meaning that word encompasses, by Allah, through Allah, with the help of Allah, realizing that I actually don't have the capacity to undergo this, to take this, to make this happen. It is with the help of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the isti'ana of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that this will happen. The examples with other prophets are many, my brothers and sisters, that the time is won't allow to to go through all of them. A quick example that that that that you all can go back to is the dua of Prophet alaihi s.a during during ta'if. Profound dua, beautiful dua, does not put the blame on anyone, recognizes his his neediness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and is in direct intimate discourse with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, stand up with his Lord. Or Prophet Musa, when he has flood from Bani Israel, he's scared of them. He's tired, he's on a journey, he comes upon a well. What does he see? He forgets the fact that he's thirsty and needs to drink water. He sees a woman that is having a hard time to take water. So what does he do? He goes and helps her. After he does that, he goes and sits under a tree and feels bad. What does he say? He says that, oh Allah, I am in need of the khayr that you might descend on me. It's no other measures. It's Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Or Prophet Ayyu, bed ridden for many years, sick for many years, from his adab. He doesn't ask for shifa. What's the blame? Not on anyone else. So the examples are many in the prophets. The prophets had a profound attitude of other surrender to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So as we move on, my dear brothers and sisters, with our lives and things are getting back to normal, people are getting back to school, people are going back to their offices, the wheels are back in their emotion, we want to cultivate this spiritual logic. Have Allah being in control of everything and us being in need of Him. Allahumma ahdina ilayk. Allahumma ahdina ilayk. Allahumma shahlana s'doorana wa zigh'anna humana wa tub'alina wa'afu anna wa aafina ya Rabbana. Oh Allah, we ask you to forgive us. Oh Allah, we ask you to allow us to have an attitude of utter surrender to you. A spirituality that realizes that you are in control and that we are in need of you. We ask you to allow us to have inkisar to you, neediness to you, to be humble in front of you. Oh Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.