 We praise Allah, we say Bismillahirrahmanirrahim in the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most kind, the one that has been merciful to us to allow us to gather for Jumaan to pray when others don't have that blessing, others don't have the blessing perhaps of reaching this Juma perhaps they passed before the Juma came, or perhaps the news didn't reach them that they were supposed to be doing a particular act at a particular time, to be turning and orienting themselves towards Allah. And so for that we say Alhamdulillah that Allah has manifested His mercy, His Rahma on us, both through His name Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim, He has manifested His universe on particular mercy upon us that He has created us and then after creating us He has given us subsistence in this world and on top of that He has given us what? He has given us our iman in our hearts, iman in our hearts. And Asifa in attribute a trait, a characteristic of the believer is that he is a person who turns towards Allah, who orients himself towards Allah, who is ta'ib, repentant. The word that we use for seeking forgiveness is to turn back towards Allah, ta'ubah. Ta'abah yatubah means to literally turn back towards Allah, so when you do a ta'ubah you turn back towards Allah. And so here we are in 2021 in Pleasanton, California in the United States at this point in human history but where does our history begin? Our history begins before we were born, before our souls before our souls were put into our bodies, where does our history begin? Our history begins with our father, Adam, alayhi salam. That's where our history begins. And so Adam, alayhi salam, is in what? He's in Jannah where there is no moral obligations upon him except to not turn to that, not to take from that particular tree that perhaps that slip that shaitan had whispered into his ear, that slip occurred. And that slip, we need to remember that there's no moral responsibility upon Adam, alayhi salam, in Jannah. The prophets, alayhi salam, according to Moussid al-Anima are free from making any sins, minor sins and all Anima agree that they don't make major sins. So even the slip that he made was not a sin, it was a mere slip. But what was the first step when that slip occurred? What happened? What did he and his wife, alayhi salam, say? Oh, our Lord, by this slip we have oppressed ourselves, not oppressed Allah. They did not oppress Allah, nor do they oppress the angels that were in Jannah, nor do they oppress the other worshipers. Who do they oppress? They say that they oppress themselves. When you read the ayah, there's what's called a secta. There's a brief pause without taking a breath. It gives a sense of urgency. When you learn to djweed, you learn what the secta is. There's a brief pause without without breathing. And that's one of the few places in the Qur'an that there's a secta. So when they say and if you don't forgive us, what are we merciful towards us? Those who lost out from the many bounties that Allah has given. So our journey as human beings starts with Tawba. Before we put onto this earth, the history of mankind, the spiritual history of mankind starts with Tawba. So before we're able to enter onto our journey back towards Allah, our journey starts with Tawba, that journey that brought us here and that journey that brings us back starts with Tawba. It starts with repentance. And the first step to repentance is that we should all realize and recognize that every single one of us makes mistakes. We're not ma'asum. We're not infallible. We're not impeccable. Our characters have flaws. That's how Allah has created us. And had it not been the case, had we been perfect, Allah would have replaced us with the creation that would make mistakes because Allah is At-Tawab. He's the one that accepts repentance. He loves to accept the repentance of His servant. He's At-Tawab. So when we say, oh Allah, we have wronged ourselves and if you don't forgive us and you don't show mercy upon us, this Allah loves to hear it from us. The doors of Tawba are always open. There's no closing the doors of Tawba until that soul doesn't leave his throat. The soul is extracted from him. Until that moment, we have a chance for Tawba. And so before we're able to seek proximity with Allah and His Messenger, As-Salaam, and with the Qur'an that he revealed, with the signs that Allah has given to us, the ayaat that Allah has given to us, what does it take? First, it takes Tawba. If we don't have Tawba, we don't recognize that we have a fault in ourselves. It's been made into our nature that we're born pure. Yes, we don't have the concept of original sin in this religion. But surely we're going to slip up. We're going to slip up. The Prophet, As-Salaam, said, كلكم خطاء وكل بني آدم خطاء وخير خطائنا التوابون. Every single one of the children of Adam, As-Salaam, makes mistakes. But what does he say after? The best of those who make mistakes is who, التوابون. Those who repent, those who turn back to Allah in that moment when they make a mistake, they realize, Allah, I have oppressed myself. Right in the end, one of the most hopeful ayaat of the Quran, قل يا عبادية الذين أسرفوا على أنفسهم لا تقنتوا من رحمة الله. إن الله يغفر الذنوب جميعا إنه هو الغفور الرحيم. Oh, my servants who have transgress against themselves. لا تقنتوا من رحمة الله. Don't despair in the mercy of Allah. إن الله يغفر الذنوب جميعا. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Surely he is إنه هو الغفور الرحيم. He is the forgiving and the merciful. He is not just the merciful. He is not just the forgiving. He is the forgiving and the merciful. He is also التواب, the one who accepts repentance. He is الرحمن, the university merciful and الرحيم, the particularly merciful. All of Allah wants for us is to turn back to him so we can start our journey back towards Allah. There are two types of journeys. There is the سير اجباري. There is the coercive journey, which we are all going to take. We are bought into this world. We didn't ask to be put into this world. I don't think any of us remember asking to be born. And that journey, we all have to take. The سير اجباري, the coercive journey. But then there is also the سير اختياري, that you have particular choices you can make in this journey on your way back towards Allah. That once you are born and you recognize what is this reality that I have been created. What is the reality that I have been created for? To turn back towards Allah. يَا أَيُّهَا الْإِنْسَانُ مَا غَرْرَكَ بِرَبِّكَ الْكَرِيمِ Allah says, oh man, oh mankind, what has distracted you? مَا غَرْرَكَ بِرَبِّكَ الْكَرِيمِ What has distracted you? From your generous Lord, that Allah is, Allah emanates his generosity onto us. And often we are distracted because we see perhaps it came from ourselves. Perhaps we feel like we did something to deserve the bounties that have been given to us. We deserve that good feeling we get after we pray or after we give charity. We feel that sometimes. And that's a form of arrogance. That's a form of kibir. And if we, as so long as we have that arrogance in our hearts, we won't be able to see the signs that turn us back towards Allah. That all these signs turn us back, that all these signs indicate the reality that is Allah. One of the names of Allah is al-Haqq, the truth, the reality. All of these signs, what do they do? They point back towards Allah. And we won't be able to see those signs if we have this sense of self-importance. Now I'm not talking about self-esteem. That's something else. The believer is a person who has izzah, who has a sense of worth. When I'm talking about a sense of it came from, this all came from myself. That sort of feeling, that is what turns us away from the ayat of Allah. Because Allah says, I will turn away from my signs, those who are haughty, those who are arrogant in this earth. So perhaps if we feel that I can't remember making a mistake today, or making a mistake this hour, or a mistake this week, or this month, and so I have nothing to make toba for. That's the first sign that we should be making toba. We should be making toba for our actions and our non-actions. We have imperfections that are, if we can't think of an action that we actually committed and executed, we didn't take the steps to do those actions, we still have the thoughts that come into our heads. And the elect of those on the spiritual path, what do they do? They seek forgiveness for even those khawatil, even those passing thoughts, those passing notions that perhaps when somebody is being harsh with you, and you think perhaps I'll give them the like. This time I'll teach them a lesson so that next time they don't speak to me this way. When those thoughts come to our heads, those should be a sign that we should make, that's a sign that we should make toba. That we should repent towards Allah. And until we make that repentance, until we recognize that we should be making that repentance, that the first step to realizing you have a problem is to acknowledge that the first step to fixing a problem is to acknowledge that the problem exists, that we have these 12-step programs for alcoholics and all sorts of problems that we have. But what is the first step that these programs teach you? And this is from our tradition. This is from what the Prophet ﷺ taught us, is to recognize that we have a problem. And until we recognize that that problem exists in ourselves, we can't solve the problem. So we should all be people who are cognizant of the fact that Allah has created us as beings who are going to slip. But Allah has also created us as beings who receive His mercy. There's no more honorable creation that Allah has created than mankind. And this is not in a sense that we should feel that we are better than the rest of creation. But no. Allah says, We have given ability. We have ennobled the Son of Adam. Why? Because the Son of Adam, A.S., what is his job on this earth? It is to fulfill the laws, to fulfill the ethics, the moral code that has been sent down through the various stages of revelation, finally ending with the Prophet ﷺ, to execute the perfect method of morals and the perfect method of law, that there is laws to how we pray. We don't pray whenever we want. You know, this, this deen, this deen is not a deen that submits to us. This deen is called al-Islam to submit. So it's a deen that we submit to, until we're able to submit to that deen and to submit to that reality. The reality that's behind the deen, until we're able to turn back towards him, we can't expect to find any progress in our journey. And this is a collective journey that the ummah is on a collective journey together, that we take our physical means when we see problems in the ummah, that we speak out when we see injustices. But if we feel that that is sufficient without taking our metaphysical means, without taking the means that are beyond what we are able to comprehend and feel, then we've fallen for the trap of materialism. We fallen for the trap of there's only this world and nothing beyond it. So if we're not able to get up at night and pray for the ummah and pray for ourselves, pray for the guidance of this ummah and the guidance of this, the ummah that the ummah of Tabligh, the ummah that has received this message and the ummah to Dawah, the ummah that has still not received this message, those who have not yet entered Islam, until we're able to pray for them and to pray that Allah removes wrongdoing. We should be careful for praying against oppressors because how many of us are not oppressors? We oppress ourselves and we oppress others night and day. So we should ask Allah to remove oppression from our hearts and from any manifestation of oppression. Often we talk about Tawbah, we start to feel a bit helpless. We start to remember all the mistakes that we've made. Is Allah ever going to forgive me? La Tayasumil Ruhillah Ya'qub Al-Assam tells his children, don't remember what they did, they threw their brother Yusuf Al-Assam, a prophet inside the well and claimed that he was, imagine the oppression that was committed against Yusuf Al-Assam. But even then in their Tawbah, what were they told? La Tayasumil Ruhillah, don't lose hope in the comfort of Allah, in the mercy of Allah. Inna Hu La Ya'asumil Ruhillah Illa Al-Qawm Al-Kafirun, that none despair in the mercy of Allah except those who are, except the people who are disbelievers. And we began that the Sifah, that the attribute of a believer is that they're a person of Tawbah. Wa Tawbu Illa Allahi Jami'an Aiyuha Al-Mu'minuna La Allakum Tuflihun, La Allakum Tuflihun. Repent to Allah, all of you are believers. Allah addresses the believers because this is a Sifah, this is a trait of the believers, they are people who turn back towards Allah and recognize their mistakes. La Allakum, why? Allah says why? So that you may find success. And that success we might not necessarily feel immediately, nor might we feel it in this world. But we know that success is to come, whether we feel it in this world or not. And whether we feel, sometimes that success comes in ways we don't understand. There may have been a situation that could have taken someone from our family or taken something from our property or could have taken our iman from us and Allah has, Allah would have diverted that away from us. So we shouldn't become hopeless when we hear these reminders of Tobah because the believer is not imprisoned by their mistakes. They learn from the mistakes and remember that that mistake happened as a lesson. But know that Allah forgives and that door of Tobah is not closed until we either close it ourselves or until our soul is taken from us. And oftentimes we feel like I'll make Tobah, I'll stop doing this act. I'll stop doing this act when I'm older. There's a hadith narrated from the Prophet SAW with some weakness that the Prophet SAW said, The most beloved thing to Allah is a young person who does Tobah, who turns back towards Allah, who seeks repentance. And so we shouldn't feel safe from the fact that our souls might be taken from us this day and that we should live between the wings of hope and fear. That fear should drive us to continue to serve Allah and to show our servitude but our hope should continue to drive us to appreciate and make shukr that Allah has given us this iman and Allah has given us faith and Allah is the one who is Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim, At-Tawab, Ar-Ghafur. And how many more names of Allah does he have of mercy? So we ask Allah that he allows us to be people who recognize the mistakes that recognize the faults in ourselves. We ask Allah that he allows us to be people who are able to orient ourselves back towards the same way. We ask Allah that he allows us to be people who remove oppression from ourselves and remove oppression from those that we find in others. We ask Allah that he allows us to never find any oppression in ourselves. We ask Allah that he allows us to be people who are perfect in our moral conduct and perfect in our conduct towards others and towards Allah and towards the Messenger of Allah, the Son of Allah and towards ourselves. We ask Allah that he gives us perfect conduct towards ourselves. We ask Allah that he allows us to be people whose Tobah is accepted. We ask Allah that we be people whose du'a'as are not rejected. We ask Allah that we be people whose toba is not rejected. We ask Allah to be people of hope, to be people of hope and hope in the mercy of Allah. We ask Allah to be people of hope in the fact that Allah is going to accept repentance so long as we believe that He will accept that repentance. We ask Allah that He allows us to find every single one of our days to be a day of toba, a day of orientation towards, back towards Allah. We ask Allah that we find no source of peace other than Him. So we say, Allahumma anta al-salam, wa minka al-salam, tabarak ta'iyat al-jalani wal-ikram, haiyyina wa adakhilna dara al-salam, Rabbana aatina fi al-duniya hasnah, wa fi al-akhati hasnah, wa qina'atah bannar, Rabbana hablana min az-wajina, wa dhurriyatina, qurra ta'iyuni, wa ja'nna limuttaqina imama. We ask Allah that He have mercy on our teachers, particularly our first teachers and our parents. Rabbin hamhum aakima rabb'iyani sagheera. Rabbin hamhum aakima rabb'iyani sagheera. Rabbin hamhum aakima rabb'iyani sagheera. Rabbin hamhum aakima rabb'iyani sagheera. Rabbin hamhum aakima rabb'iyani sagheera. We ask Allah to recognize that Allah and His angels send their benedictions and salutations upon the Prophet SAW. And they were asked to do the same.