 All praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the Lord of the Worlds, Master of the Day of Judgment. We thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for allowing us to be here today on Juma, the blessed day of Juma, Alhamdulillah. Beautiful weather in sunny California, Alhamdulillah. All praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It seems that we are seeing the end, or nearing the end of this COVID-19 pandemic, Alhamdulillah. It seems that we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. The vaccines are being distributed. The COVID cases in the hospital are going down. Everything seems to be getting better and shallower. We are optimistic. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. And so today, we wanted to briefly talk about how we can emerge from this COVID-19 pandemic better as a whole, as a Muslim community. How we can come out of this pandemic better than when we entered the pandemic. We don't need to be the same community that we were pre-COVID. We can be different from post-COVID. We can take this kind of the analogy like the pandemic, this time that we've been in quarantine, is like a cocoon. And we went into the cocoon, and we're coming out as a butterfly. So what do we mean by this? When the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam went and we entered off from Makkah to Medina, he gave the new community there some advice. He advised the new Muslim community there. They were creating a new way of life, a new society. And he gave them some amazing advice, Habib Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And inshallah this advice can also be applied to us as we go back to normal life as this pandemic comes to an end. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said to the people of Medina, many of you know it. He said, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, spread peace, feed people, and worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala during the night while others are sleeping. Spread peace, worship people, spread peace, feed people, and worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala during the night while others are sleeping. This is the advice that the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gave the new community of Medina. So let's look at each one. So the first one, spread peace. What does this mean? We know what it means, right? You see your Muslim brother or your Muslim sister, you're supposed to say, As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. And they're supposed to respond, wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. This is spreading peace. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa sallam. This reading has literally made peace be upon you. So yes, we're spreading peace in that way. And this is one of the rights that your Muslim brother and sister have over you. When you say As-salam to them, they're supposed to respond. This is one of your rights. The rights that your brother and sister have over you. But it means more than that also. Our scholars talked about how the Prophet Sallallahu alaykum wasn't just talking about that. Spreading peace also means rectifying the affairs of the Muslim community. Bringing peace amongst the Muslims, bringing harmony. If you see two Muslims arguing, your job is to rectify their affairs. Not to fan the flames. Right? So how does this apply to COVID-19? If we've been in this pandemic year and post-COVID-19, there was someone at the masjid you didn't like, or you had a falling out with someone, or you don't speak to someone anymore, don't bring that baggage in the post-COVID world. We've been in this quarantine for over a year now. There's no need to hold on to this baggage. Right? We should spread peace. The Prophet Sallallahu alaykum was telling us to spread peace to the new community of Medina. He's telling us to spread peace. And we should spread peace as we go back to life and start interacting with our Muslim brothers and sisters again. Alhumdulillah. What's the second piece of advice the Prophet Sallallahu alaykum gave? The second piece of advice that the Prophet Sallallahu alaykum gave was to feed people. And this literally means feed people, and it's directly tied to the first piece of advice, which is to spread peace. Because when you're eating with people, something special happens. When you're breaking bread with people, something special happens both physically and spiritually. And the Prophet Sallallahu alaykum, we know his sunnah, he never ate alone. He always used to eat with someone. And so, you know, one of the tough parts of this COVID-19 pandemic is that we have not been able to go into each other's houses and have each other's chai. Right? It's been tough. As we go back to COVID-19 to bring back the kids, go back to the normal society, and in order to bring back the kinship and the bonds, we should be back to feeding people. We should go back to feeding people and share food with each other. And usually when you see someone eating with another person, you know that they're pretty tight. They're not people who don't like each other. They're the only people that you like. And we know that secular scientists, there's a new book out called The Art of Gathering. When they talk about this, they talk about how something special happens physically when you're breaking food with other people. You break bread with other people. You eat food with other people. So this is the second advice the Prophet ﷺ gave us, which is to feed people. We should go back to this. And then the last piece of advice was to worship Allah, during the night while others are sleeping. And insha'Allah this didn't stop because of COVID-19. If anything, this increased during the pandemic because now we don't have to canoe. So we have extra time to sleep. We have extra time to rest. So maybe we got up during the night and we worship Allah. Insha'Allah we pray that that never stopped. But this is the last piece of advice that the Prophet ﷺ gave us. So worship Allah during the night while others are sleeping. Insha'Allah we can do this. Ramadan is right around the corner. Insha'Allah we can start to do this. So this is the three pieces of advice that insha'Allah we as a community, as we start to enter normal life, we can start to follow this advice and go back and bring back the kinship that we lost and make up for lost time insha'Allah. Insha'Allah I wanted to shift gears very quickly in the last few minutes that we have together. We talked about in the first half of the football about the advice that the Prophet ﷺ gave us in the video of Madinah and how we can insha'Allah implement this as we go back to normal society insha'Allah. Now insha'Allah we want to briefly talk about this month of Shaban that we are in that we currently find ourselves in. This is a very special month, a very special and blessed month and I know that many of you have heard a football talk after talk on this topic so we'll keep it very short insha'Allah. But there is hadith of the Prophet ﷺ where he says, Allah looked down at His creation and He forgives all of His creatures except for an idolater or one harboring malice. This is hadith from the Prophet ﷺ narrated by Ibn Keban. So there's two stipulations, right? Allah is ready to forgive us but there's two stipulations. The one who is an idolater or one harboring malice and I want to focus on the second one. Insha'Allah the first one is none of us here. Insha'Allah. So let's focus on the second one. One harboring malice, one harboring hatred. Allah is ready to forgive us and give us in this month brothers and sisters. As long as we are willing to forgive. As long as we are willing to forgive. We have an opportunity to enter the blessed month of Ramadan with a clear slate but we have to sit with ourselves and ask ourselves are we holding grudges are we holding baggage with one of our fellow Muslims? Not just Muslims, anybody. Are we holding grudges and hatred towards each other? The main point of this entire foot but it's very simple. Don't be mean to each other. Be kind to each other. Spread peace amongst each other. It will be very sad if we didn't learn anything from this COVID-19 pandemic by the system. How many janazah did we go to? How many people have passed away? How many people started this pandemic with us and are no longer with us? And are we really going to bring the same baggage and the same problems that we had pre-COVID back into the post-COVID? Or have we learned our lesson? Have we figured it out that it's not worth it? We don't have much time but the sisters. One of the greatest fallacies of this life is thinking that you're going to have a long life. Tomorrow is not fun as to anyone. There's so many stories of siblings who are not talking to each other people are not talking to each other in the community vitriol between the scholars. There was a scholar from the west and he was visiting this year in the Middle East and he was sitting with a ship and the ship was pouring him tea and he was complaining about the community in the west and he was saying, oh, there's so many, there's all these factions and everybody's fighting with each other and everybody's arguing with each other and there's all this vitriol between the scholars and nobody can get along and the ship just cut him off while he was pouring tea and he said, did you teach them to make tea? That's all he said. Did you teach them to make tea? If you look at the advice from the prophets and the law, it's not that complicated. It's nothing out of this world or like, you know, that we can't understand. Spread peace between people and worship Allah upon a one dollar doing the night while others are sleeping. It's very simple about this. You have to step on our egos and figure it out and shop. So we can be a unified and loving community. This is, we are heading into the second Ramadan where we might not be able to pray shoulder to shoulder right here at MCC. That are we prayer? We need to ask ourselves what is Allah without a time to tense? Are we getting it right? The Allah, except from all of us, the Allah, forgive all of our sins. Arabic I pray for each other. I pray for each other. Let's pray for our community. feel the love insha'Allah as we bring as the month of Ramadan is fast approaching. Allah is prepared to forgive us in the 15th night of Shaban which is next week. Provided that there are two things that we're not doing. One is idolatry and the second is that we're not harboring malice. Insha'Allah the first one that that's not most of us. If the second one insha'Allah we really need to figure out insha'Allah. Allah is prepared to forgive us. Peace be upon you. Peace be upon you.