 Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reminds us about this beautiful month, shahra Ramadan, the month of fasting, the month of Ramadan, a unique month that's exclusively given to our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and by extension to his ummah. As we have done it for the people before you, we know in the tradition that Mary, the mother of Jesus says, I fast, therefore I will not speak. Every tradition, every revelation that came, they had some type of fasting but nothing unique like Ramadan. Ramadan is very unique and it's only for this ummah, the ummah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. But what's the purpose of Ramadan? There are many benefits but what is the primary purpose of Ramadan? The Qur'an is very clear about that, in order that you may become God conscious. What is this taqwa, this God consciousness that Allah reminds us every year brings this month just to remind you be God conscious, be God conscious. Because without God, a diamond is a worthless rock. With God, a worthless rock could be turned into a diamond. And this is the reason why Ramadan comes in order, it's like a chemistry lab that turns zinc into gold, that turns worthless rocks into priceless jewels. And that is through this consciousness, this connection with Allah SWT. This is the primary reason of Ramadan. The primary reason is taqwa, God consciousness. Now one of the great scholars of the 13th century, Aziz al-Din Nassafi, in his book Insan al-Kamel says, we have veils that barriers between us and Allah SWT. And when Ramadan comes, it's the best opportunity to try to remove these veils so we can see the light of God. We can experience the hand of Anayi, we can see the hand of Providence everywhere you look at. And that is what they call al-maqama al-sa'ada, the station of happiness. So he says there are four veils between the human being and the human being like us now and our maqam of Insan al-Kamel, our potential self where we can reach this station where we can see things differently. We don't see the form, rather we see the meaning in the form. He said the first one is that you have to remove the veil between you and Allah is the love of the things of this world. That doesn't mean you don't have or you're poor. That means that you don't have in your heart the things of this world. You can have it in your hand but not in your heart because the heart is a place for the light of Allah SWT. You cannot find God if you are completely in love with the dunya and the things of this dunya. One of the great sages, Ibrahim Ibn Adham, he was a prince in Balf. He was a prince. The man had everything he wanted. He had wealth, he had status, everything. He was the father's favorite. And he was living in a castle that he had everything at his service. And one night he hears a sound on the roof of his castle. And he comes out and says, who's on the roof? What are you doing? He said, I'm sorry, I'm looking for my camel. I lost my camel. He said, you're a fool. How are you going to find your camel on the roof of my castle? He said, you think I'm a fool? I think you're a bigger fool. How are you going to find God living in a castle with all these things of the dunya surrounding you? And Ibrahim said that he realized that he was occupied with all these things of the world. So he abandoned everything. The castle, the servants and the money and the wealth and the comfort, all of them. And he went on a path of asceticism. He abandoned zuhud. He left everything. There was a wake-up call. And there are people who wake up. There are people who wake up. There was a man in Afghanistan in the 70s, 12 years old, a young boy. His job was to, he said they used to give us a few rupees to fix the flags. I actually met her, his granddaughter and it was in his memoirs and I read it. He said that it was my job was to get a stick and fix the flags that would go around the pole when it winds go during the time of the Independence Week. He said as I was doing, he said I heard myself telling me, this is the higher self and the lower self, telling me you're not created to do this, to unravel flags. You were created for something higher. And he said I abandoned everything and became a great spiritual master and a scholar. But he, the point is that Ibrahim left everything for the sake of Allah. And he found it because he knew what he said is the heart is where the light of God is. It's not that the light of God has to enter your heart. It's already there. You just have to turn on the switch. Most of us, the switch is off. And this is what, what Sheikh Hamza said is that humanity are not disconnected from God. Rather they're disconnected from their own hearts because Allah resides in the hearts of every human being. And this month comes to remind us to reconnect back to our Lord, this consciousness. And this is why it's important that Allah sends this month every year as a reminder. Connect back with me. Connect back with me through consciousness, through this awareness, this step by the station that Allah praises in the Quran. So Ibrahim left everything. But he used to be the head of the state. He got so poor that he couldn't get a haircut. His hair was very long and he said this is not the sunnah. He went to a barber shop and they said, we can't cut your hair. You don't have any money. They kicked him out. A prince, one of the barbershops people who was working there, he came outside after him. He said, come sit down. I'll shave your head quickly. He got the razor and he shaved his head and one of the poets said, he said, Saramra sarsari matraash ay ustad salmani kima ad-dardiyare khut saridari mus'amane. Don't hasten the shaving of this head. This used to be the head of the state at one time. But he left all of that. The head of the, how many princes from Bagh do you know? How many princes do you know? The name of him from the 13th century, from the 12th century, from the 11th century, from the, name one of them. We don't know any of them. But we know Ibrahim had been unhammed. We read about him, right? May Allah be pleased with him. We read, why? Because he let go of everything to give the light of Allah on his heart. And once that light is on, you become unforgettable. You become unforgettable. Because the light of Allah is something that everyone is, it's like a, it's like the light with all the moths. Everyone is attracted to that moth. Everyone. But most people are attracted to the light of the dunya. There's this phony light. It's fire. It's phony light. It's not even real. The second thing that he said, he said is the hubr riyasa, love of leadership, of place, of status. Oh, I'm this and I'm that. The people, the spiritual master, they use hubr riyasa in order to get elevated in a spiritual rank, which is a good thing, in a spiritual path. But not in a dunya'i. Sayyidul qawqadimuhum. The master of the people is the one who serves them. This is the highest station that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam taught us. The greatest station of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. What is the greatest name of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam? Subhana l-lady asrabi abdihi. Glory be to the one who took his servant. Not Muhammad, not Ahmad, not Mahmood. Be abdihi, his servant. Because that is the greatest station to be the servant of Allah. Abdullah al-ansar, he said, Ya Allah, if you call me your servant, my happiness will be, my joy will be so much that I will laugh from joy that even the carrier of the arsh would hear my laughter. Just say I'm your servant. Abdullah. What a great station to be humble. Not to have this desire, oh I'm this and I'm that and boasting about your station. The third thing that he said is blind-following. He said, and I was thinking about this for a while. Why would he say that is a veil? Because if you're a blind follower, you never study, you never learn. And it is through learning that we find that religion started with iqra, bismi rabbika alladhi khala. Read in the name of your Lord who has created you. This is our Dean. And through that reading, through that learning, you find wajada, the one who seeks will find. If you lose something, you keep looking for, you will find it. Right? Maulana Rumi said, if you knock on the door, keep knocking, you will get an answer. Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door. Like even the Christians, they have that. You keep knocking on Heaven's door until there's an answer. But you have to learn the Dean. You have to learn because this, oh my father and my mother just give me this. No, that's great. But go ahead and learn it properly. Learn the Dean properly because knowledge is a light that shows you the path. What is that path? It shows you your best potential at the end, who you can become, that Insanel Camel. And the last one that he said, he said, the biggest veil between you and Allah is ma'asiyah. It's disobedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, sinfulness against Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And ma'asiyah is really foul. It has a bad smell. We don't smell, but the angels can smell that. Horrible smell of sins. One of the things about ma'asiyah is that all of the blessings that Allah has given us, Allah has given us eyes to look at His athar, atharah rahmatillah. Look at the traces of Allah's mercy on the earth. But we look at the haram. Allah has given us ear, istama'i qawla rahman. Athar said, istama'i qawla rahman, zikra gush. He said the zikra of your ear is to listen to the words of Allah, to the Quran. That is the purpose of your ears, but we listen to haram. The tongue was created after the zikri kelime tu la ilaha illallah. The best thing that your tongue can ever say is la ilaha illallah. That's the best thing. There's nothing better than that you can say. And yet, we use profanity with our tongue. And we use foul language. We use words that hurts people. Man kana yuubinu billahi wal yawmi al-akhir, qalyakul khayran awliyasmut awliyaskut tu riwaya. That the one who believes in Allah on the last day, they say that which is beautiful, or they keep silence. But what really hurts when you see people who are instead of disobedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is look at what Allah does for us and what we do for Him. Fa liyamsur al-insan ila ta'ami. Look, let man look at his food. Just don't think about anything else. Qura'asi, just look at your food. How does your food become food? Annasababnan ma'asabah. We are the one who's sent down rain, like showers. Allah is doing that. And then we spread the earth. Why? How are you going to grow anything? Allah is doing that. Allah spreads it. And then Allah says, I give life to the seed. I make that seed grow. What happened? I give you grapes. I give you olive trees and palms. I give you all of these things. I give you vegetables and fruits and grass for what? For you to eat and for your cattle and for your animals. All of that. All of that. Sa'abi said, if you look at the creation, everything in the creation is going in circle. The sun is going in circle. The moon is going in circle. The earth is going in circle. He said, everyone hates circle or job. If you're Boston, you do this, and you keep doing it, you will quit. Why am I doing the same thing over and over again? But they don't quit. He said, they're not quitting because Allah told him to do it. He said, all of them are doing it so you can have some morsel of food. You need the sun. You need the moon. You need the night. You need the day. You need the water. You need the earth. All of these you need in order to have some food to eat. Right? He said, everything in creation is obedience to the circle of job. In order for you to have food. He said, what a shame that you disobey him and have that food. Get that energy. But all of the things that goes into creation, take that energy and you have to go ahead and disobey Allah SWT. May Allah protect us from being amongst those people. I will say this first. I will forgive Allah SWT. All of these advices from our scholars is to make us pure. To take us back to our fitra state. Children are always in a fitra state. No matter what tradition they come from. Children are all, that's why when they die before puberty they ever say naibbrahim. No matter what tradition they come from. Because they're not a state of sinfulness. Instead of purity. And they always have a connection with God. There's a children's letter to God, there's a book. And one of the letter of five year old said, Dear God ever since I found you, I never felt lonely again. Five year old. And this is true because they're connected. Society disconnects us. Material disconnects us. Bad friends disconnects us. All of these things, these are all the barriers that we put in front of us in Allah SWT. But that state of fitra is nur, is light. And that light comes into the heart, it illuminates you. And make you back like a child. Make you like a child, pure. And that's, there's a story that the tafsir of Maybudi mentions it, and Al-Tar mentions it a few other people. About a man who's going to Hajj. And a thousand, you know, probably 900 years ago, this story, over a thousand. From Baghdad. And his son says, where are you going, Baba? He goes, I'm going to Baytullah. I'm going to the house of Allah. He says, I want to go with you. I want to go with you. And he says, no, no, no. It's not safe. There's routes. And they used to go by camel and walk in donkeys. And most, a lot of people died on the way, not even getting to Hajj. He says, start crying. He says, no, no, I want to go to Baytullah. I want to go to the house of Allah. I want to go to Baytullah. Please, please. And then the caravan sees it. Come on. Take the kid with you. Look how much hope he has, how much desire he has to go to Baytullah. So they take him with them and they go, and they enter the Haram in Mecca. And everybody says, you know, people who have been there, your first dua is accepted. So everybody's excited. They're making their first dua. And this kid is just standing there. And then, so that says, make dua. We are at Baytullah. He said, the house of Allah? Yeah, I said, where's Allah? What do you mean, where's Allah? He said, you said you're going to the house of Allah. So where's Allah? He said, no, no, no, son, look. He started explaining to him that there's a symbol of the house of Allah. That doesn't mean Allah resides in this house. And he said, so Allah is not in the house? He said, no. So he looks up, shouts, and he dies. So they bury him in Jannah-ul-Mu'ala in Mecca. And his father, I mean, devastated to lose a young child in Allah. Doesn't make anyone go through that. His father has a dream that night. In the dream, he hears this voice that said, don't grieve. La tahsa, don't grieve. Why are you grieving? You came for the house, you're with the house. You came for me, is with me. His purity, that is light. That is a human being, that the switch is on. And there are a lot of people like that on earth. Right now, there might be people sitting right here in our gathering that love along his messenger, Abdullah bin Zayn Umayyah. He was in a garden, and they brought the news that the Prophet, peace be upon him, passed away. He had a beautiful garden. He used to sit there and enjoy. He said, what? He said, the Prophet passed away on Monday. He looked up in the sky and said, Ya Allah, I have one dua. Please take away my eyesight. Because if I don't see the face of Muhammad, I don't want to see anything. This is love. This is the station of purity. This is our deed. This is our religion. This is what teaches us to become lovers of Allah and his messenger. And to turn on that light. You want happiness? That is happiness. That is Sa'aida. Sa'aida is not in the things you buy from Walmart. That's not Sa'aida. That's not going to bring you happiness. It's good things make you comfortable. But it's not going to bring you happiness. You can have everything in the world. There's nothing wrong with it. Don't get me wrong. Say, Northman is rich. It's good to be rich. You can help. But you know rich people, we want to have this masjid. Right? So it's good. But keep the wealth in the hand. Keep the light of Allah in the heart. InshaAllah. May Allah make us amongst these people. We seek forgiveness and forgiveness. I seek forgiveness and forgiveness. I seek forgiveness and forgiveness. I seek forgiveness and forgiveness. I seek forgiveness and forgiveness. I seek forgiveness and forgiveness. I seek forgiveness and forgiveness.