 We begin by praising Allah and we can't praise Him enough. We continue to thank Allah and we can't thank Him enough. We continue to remind ourselves we weren't made for this world and we're going back to our true home and destiny. May it be paradise, insha'Allah. And we're here to warn ourselves that we're returning to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The first human Adam, your great-grandfather, my great-grandfather may Allah be pleased with him, alayhi salam. We compare Adam and shaitan. And each of them made a mistake, but there was the Adamic response and there was the Satanic response. It's very interesting to see the Adamic response to the mistake that was made and to see the shaitanic response to the mistake that was made. And they're very different and they're worlds apart. And we are the children of Adam, alayhi salam. Adam, alayhi salam, ate from a forbidden prohibited tree. And then what did he do? He made doba. He turned to Allah. He took accountability. He looked inside. He looked at himself. He took responsibility. What did shaitan do? Shaitan did the opposite. Satan did the opposite. He refused to blame himself. He refused to take responsibility. He refused to take accountability. Rather, he said, my lord, because you misled me. I will go adorn for them the dunya, the world and lead them astray. So Adam, alayhi salam, blamed himself and Satan, Iblis, blamed someone else. And these are the two choices we have to make. We go to the story of Satanayunus, Jonah. Jonah, may God be pleased with him. And Jonah, we know his story. He was with his people and his community and then he left them and he went and then he went on to the boat and he went into the water and then because of what happened he was thrown or jumped into the water into the ocean and then a whale swallowed him. And then he was in the belly of a whale in the darkness of the ocean and in the night. No one can hear him, can see him, can feel him. No one can help him. But what did he say? With that prayer that whoever says it is relieved of difficulty. He said, La ilaha Ant, Subhanak, Inni kuntu minal zalimi. He blamed himself. He looked inside. He took accountability. He took a responsibility. He didn't cause the whale to swallow him. He doesn't control the whale. He didn't control the waters or the boat or the ship. But he said, There's no God except you. Praise be to you. Glory be to you. I was from the wrongdoers. I went out of bounds. So he blamed himself again. Adam alaihi salam, Jonah alaihi salam. And now we turn to the famous book of Arba-e-Nawawi, the 40 essential hadith in our Islamic tradition. And in this book there's the hadith Qudzi where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Ya Hibadi, you have your deeds and I'm collecting it for you and I have them for you. And then Allah says, Oh my servants, to you and me. He says to you and me. Whoever finds good, let him praise God. Okay? If you find yourself doing good, pray, don't take credit, praise God. And if you find other than that woman, wajada ghayra dalit, phala yalu mannah illa nafsah. And if you find other than that, that you did something that wasn't good, then don't blame anyone except yourself. Mm-hmm. So these two lenses, the Adamic lens, look inside, look at myself, take responsibility. The Satanic lens, blame someone else. Bima aghwayteni, you misled me. Say, Prophet Jonah, Yunus. I went out of bounds. I was from the wrongdoers. In this hadith, if you find good, some people may tend to do the opposite. If we find good, I'm so amazing, my strategy. You know, I thought of this idea. I did this. Man, I was so amazing. And the question is such an interesting question. When we get like this huge gift from God, we get this huge blessing from God, we get this amazing thing. What do we say? What do we ask ourselves? What did I do to deserve this? It's a funny question. We're taking credit. What did I do to deserve this? Instead of giving credit to God, I take credit for my good, right? And then if I do something wrong, woman, what did I do? Then I say, Oh, what did she do? What did he do? Why did this happen to me? Why did this happen to me? Instead of looking inside and looking at myself and taking myself to account, taking myself, giving myself responsibility. This is a huge life paradigm. It's in our subconscious and it manifests every single moment with every interaction. It's interesting. One time these kids, these children were playing and they were playing catch. And so this child was throwing the ball to another person and then this person threw the ball and the other person didn't catch it. And they said, why didn't you catch it? Why can't you catch? And then that person threw the ball back and then they didn't catch it. And they said, why can't you throw it good? Either way, the other child was, was at fault. Either they didn't throw it properly or they didn't catch it properly. But me, I'm never at fault. I'm never at fault. Every day we are vendors, sellers of our soul. Every day. Either we free it or we ruin it. And so we have choice. And so we must look internally, look at ourselves and take ourselves to account. Take ourselves to account. Instead of always, always blaming my wife, instead of always blaming my husband, instead of always blaming my teacher, instead of always blaming my, my, my sister, my brother, my boss. How about the question, what did I do to cause them to react that way? Why are you yelling at me? Why are you yelling at me? Why are you so mean to me? Instead of, what did I do to cause them to yell at me? Could I have done something different? Could I have done something different? Are we flawless? Do we think, do we go around about our relationships where we can't examine ourselves? Because if truly, if our state was in a better state, you know what? The people around me would be better. Why didn't my, why is my child, why didn't they pray? Maybe if I was better, maybe if I was more, if I prayed more at night, if I called more to Allah, if I was, if I can do a little more, put more effort and energy and love and passion, maybe my child will be affected and impacted at a higher level. You know we come every Friday to visit the house of Allah to come and fulfill an obligation and fulfill a duty and obey a command. And we also come to see how can I leave a different person? How can I adjust? How can I grow? How can I grow? And the height of foolishness is thinking, I'm good enough. I'm good enough. And Satan is trying and he will continue to try until our last breath to take us with him to the blazing fire. In this very moment, whispering, possibly, this sermon isn't for me, it's for the person next to me. This person, he doesn't know what he's talking about, but there's what, how can we leave with something so we can go to our homes a little different, recalibrate a little adjustment. This victim mindset is a handicap because even if it's true, even if it's true, if I'm walking in the street and someone pushes me and knocks me out and knocks me down and I fall on the ground, am I just going to say, well, I'm not going to get up until you until you pull me up? Even if it's true, I need to get up. I need to respond with that which is better. I need to be productive. I need to be solution oriented. So even if it's true that perhaps my wife says this or my husband says this or my mother says this or my father does this or my boss does this, what can I do to enhance and refine and grow and beautify the situation? We have this unique, this unique quality of choice as our species of human, as human, that we can respond with what is better. Connect the person who severs you or pushes you away, give the person who's greedy to you and forgive the one who harms you. I can respond with what is better and then perhaps it might diffuse the situation. It might help the situation. It might help the relationship. So this idea of having a, of always seeing myself as only a victim and not taking accountability or responsibility can be a crutch. Even if there's some truth to it, even if there's truth to it that someone is a victim, we don't want to be, we don't want to stay down when someone pushes us down. We want to get up and be solution oriented. But the, the, the, the greatest Wallahu Ala import for today is an invitation for all of us to take this back to our relationships, to our relationships, to our families and to take, to ask myself what can I do better to make this situation better? What can I do better to make this situation better? And when we do that, we will only be adding light. We won't be at, we won't be fueling the fire. When we ask ourselves that question, Allah doesn't change what's in the people until they change what's in their nefs, their nefs, in their cells. And so we want to give victory to Allah. So Allah can give victory to us. In these little micro moments, we want to give victory to Allah. And that is when we do this in these micro moments, then Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will look at our ummah, will look at our little ummah, our little community and say they're, they're choosing me. I will choose them. They're taking care of me. I will take care of them because it's too easy to look at Yemen and this Saudi and this country and that country or this country and all of these, these wars and all of these things that are happening and to blame them. Why are they doing that? And why are they doing this? And I can't believe they're doing this and I can't believe they're doing that. But then I can't forgive my brother over our inheritance argument. I can't forgive my sister over this business loan. I can't forgive over that argument or over that invitation or over that party or over that insult. And so let's look in ourselves and blame ourselves the Adamic way, the Prophet Jonah, Prophet Yunus way, and say la ilaha illa and subhanaka. Inni kuntu min al-vaalimeen. I went out of bounds. I was a wrong doer. I transgressed. I did something wrong. And when we go with this humbleness and lower ourselves, Allah will elevate us. Wa khford janahaka lil mu'mineen. Lower your wings to the, to your fellow believers. Lower your wings, even if you're correct. It doesn't mean to compromise principles to compromise what's correct, but it means to salvage and build relationships. The greatest thing Satan does, Shaitan does is separate relationships. That's the greatest victory. And we want to build them. And how do we do that by breaking our own ego? By looking at ourselves. What did I do wrong? And so this question, the next time we're in an argument with our family, next time we're in a fight, next time we're in a disagreement, next time something goes wrong, we're driving on the road and someone yells at us, shouts at us. Instead of getting upset, what could I do a little better? What could I have done different? So I can be a source of joy and gentleness and have that Sayyidina Muhammad in beauty, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to respond with what is better and bring ihsan back. To bring ihsan back. To bring ihsan back. We live for Allah. We don't live for ourselves. We live for God. We deal with Allah through people. We deal with Allah through people. If someone is being difficult to me, it's a test from Allah for my patience. So we bring ihsan back and this question of instead of painting myself as an endless victim everywhere I go, everywhere I go, everything, I'm being wrong. Let's ask ourselves, can I sprinkle a little accountability, self-accountability on this? Can I sprinkle a little patience and forgiveness? And can I look inward? Can I look inward, insha'Allah? O Allah, we seek forgiveness for all of the believers and the men and the women, O Allah. We turn to You, O Allah, in this moment as an ummah, as a community, and we ask You for Your openings, O Allah. We ask You for victories, O Allah. We ask You for illumination and light in this world, O Allah. We ask You for guidance, O Allah. We ask You for blessings, O Allah. We ask You to give us victory over our egos, victory over ourselves. We ask You not to forsake us to our own selves. We ask You, O Allah, to take care of us. We ask You for the good of this world, the good of the next world, and to protect us from the true blazing hellfire. The hellfire is real, heaven is real, the next life is real, the afterlife is real, and sometimes we forget, but we ask You, O Allah, to be gentle with us, to wake us up gently with gifts and not through tests. We ask You to take care of our teachers, take care of our parents, our families, and those who've passed away to have mercy on them. In this temporary existence, this temporary journey in this world, we ask You to use us and not to replace us. We ask You to bring beauty to the children of Adam and Eve. We ask You to restore harmony unto this planet Earth. We ask You to restore harmony into this planet Earth. We ask You to restore beauty into this planet Earth. O Allah, O Allah, we ask You to accept our du'ah. O Allah, we call upon You because You are the all-hearing, You are the responsive one. We call upon You because we can't do anything ourselves. O Allah, we can't do anything ourselves. Ya Allah, when we wake up every morning, we commit to submitting to You. We commit to surrendering to You. We commit to selling our souls to You to obeying You and not to obeying our desires. We commit to true freedom, freedom from our desires and not freedom to obey our desires. Free, true freedom, Ya Allah. We ask You, Ya Allah, to let us have the fortitude, to have the hanim, to be gentle when people are difficult with us. We ask You to give us the strength to have silence. We ask You to, Ya Allah, to give us the strength to have silence in moments, in those arguments when silence can bring about Your pleasure, Ya Allah, and bring about the angelic presence, Ya Allah, and that silence can get rid of this of Satan, Ya Allah. Ya Allah, the Satan is real and he whispers, we ask You to protect us from him. Ameen, Ameen, Ameen. We ask You for the good of this world, the good of the next world, and to protect us from the Hellfire. We ask You for everything good that our Prophet, Humanity's teacher, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, asked You for. And we seek protection from every harm that our, that our teacher, Humanity's teacher, the beloved, the beautiful Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, sought protection from and sent peace and blessings on him and his family and his companions.