 When we read the Quran, the book of Allah SWT, we have to remind ourselves of many things before actually reading it. Two of the things that we have to remind ourselves of is that the Quran is a message to each and every single one of us. We can't read it as a book that was given just to the Prophet ﷺ, or as a book that was intended just for the people of Quraish at that time, or as a book just for the people of his generation. It is a book for every single generation, and it is a book for every single person. So when we open the Quran, we're not just reading a book of history, we're reading a message from Allah SWT directed at each and every one of us. When we look at the Quran in that way, we'll be able to relate the ayahs to our lives. It's no longer theoretical, it's now something that's applicable to every single one of our lives. And even the ayahs that talk about Firaun or Abu Lahab or the Khufar of Quraish or the Monafiqeen, we should be able to relate every single ayah to our lives. So when we read the ayahs of about Abu Lahab and how he had spite for the Prophet ﷺ, we have to do a lot of introspection and look at our lives and make sure we don't have any aspects of Abu Lahab in our lives. When we read about Firaun in the Quran, we have to make sure that we don't have any aspects of Firaun in our lives. Males or females, brothers or sisters, whether you're a husband with your wife or a wife with her husband, we cannot have any aspects of Firaun in his oppression of other people. So when we do this, these two things, when we recognize that the Quran is directed at each and every one of us and we're able to see that the Quran isn't just taken literally for that sebeb of nuzul. We understand that there are reasons why ayahs and surahs will reveal. Those are called asbab of nuzul. And to truly understand the Quran, you have to understand the asbab of nuzul, the reasons for revelation. So we realize that Abu Lahab cursed the Prophet ﷺ and said, Curse to you or literally means you're a loser. You're a loser. And so immediately Allah ﷺ responded, No, the loser is the actions of Abu Lahab and the surah goes on. So we realize why the surah was revealed, but we have to understand the underlying meanings of that surah. And this goes for every ayah in the Quran. So I wanted to take one ayah and allow us to analyze it and see how it applies to our lives. And this is an ayah where Allah ﷺ describes the believers. He gives the descriptions of who exactly are the believers. What do they do? And he says, And that the believer gives food out of love. And I'll explain the two understandings of what this love is. Out of love to who? To the miskeem, the poor person, the yateem, the orphan and the prisoner. So there's two things here. The love, why are we doing it? The iqam, the feeding, and who are we feeding? So let's take the first one. The first one is, They give food for the love. The scholars have two interpretations of this. One, it's for the love of the food. Like the food that we love, that's what we give out. Not the food that we're ready to discard and we're just going to give a donation when we're really just trying to get rid of our garbage. And that's what happens sometimes when they do food drives, people will clear out their old, the expired cans, when it's ready for, you know, when you're totally done with your clothes and you don't want to wear it anymore or it doesn't fit. Oh, that's what I'll donate. But we know that that's the characteristics of the munafiqeen. They would look at the worst of their wealth and then give that out. And in the story of Cain and Abel, Qabil and Habib. Qabil, when it came time for each of them to make a sacrifice, Qabil who was a farmer, he took the worst of his crop and put it on the altar. And in those days, if a person made a sacrifice, it would be immediately accepted or rejected. Allah SWT would send a fire from the heavens. And if it consumed the offering, the charity, the Sadaqah, you would know immediately whether or not Allah SWT accepted that. So Qabil put forth the worst of his crop because he wasn't going to listen to the command of Allah anyway. He wanted to marry the person that he wanted to marry. And without going into the details of that story, the point is that Qabil gave the worst of his wealth. It was not accepted. Qabil, on the other hand, gave the best of his wealth. He was a shepherd and he picked the best of his flock to give out. The munafiqeen, they used to give out the worst of their wealth. So the sign of a person giving sincerely for the sake of Allah is that they take the things that they love. So that's one interpretation. That when we give, we give the things that we love. Not the things that we don't care about because the real test is in giving the things that we love. The other interpretation of the name of Ha, of the pronoun of Ha, is that it's out of love of Allah because there's a lot of people that give and they may give the wealth that they love, but why are they giving it? Why are we giving it? We have to ask ourselves, are we giving this for the sake of Allah, for the sake of God? Or are we giving it so that people will say he's generous? So we have to do that introspection into our lives and see when we give, is it that we're giving for the sake of God or for the sake of so that we just get a good feeling or that people say something about us or they can see us giving the wealth? So that's one aspect. The hub, the love that's mentioned in that ayah. The second is if'am. Allah says, they give food. Now going back to the concept that I was mentioning about, we cannot take the ayah just as it was revealed. We have to kind of scrape the surface and look at the underlying meanings. So when if it's an ayah revealed about Fir'aun, it might be talking to us. If it's about the monafiqeen, it's not just to the monafiqeen. So if Allah is saying they give food, does that mean that it's just food? The Mufassirun say that Allah SWT used food as an example of doing goodness to others. Because everybody recognized the immediate benefit that anybody needs is food. If you don't have food, there's going to be no education, no social structure, no building of the family. You have to have food, the basic essential of survival. So Allah is just using that because every human being, even if you cannot communicate with them, you don't know their language. If you give them food, it's a universal language. You've done something good for them and they recognize that good. So because it's a universally recognized token of goodness or show of goodness, Allah used it, but it doesn't mean that it's just food, it's other things. So we cannot be in a state where we're just giving out food. We have to give out anything that benefits. Any benefit that a person needs, that's what we're giving out. So a person, his stomach may be full, but we have to see, is there any other benefit that he or she needs? And then we give out those things. So that could be in helping them get a job. It could be in helping them get married. It could be in helping them through a family dispute. It could be giving them time. It could be helping them in giving them employment or teaching them a job. Any type of benefit that you could give to another person, that's a Sadaqah. That's a charity. And that's why the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, said that every day that the sun rises, we should be given charity. But then some people might think, well, I don't have any wealth. I can't buy food to give it out. Or I can't buy money. But if we're thinking of charity just as wealth that we give out, then we have to reassess our understanding of charity. Charity is giving out anything of benefit to another person. And for that reason, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, said that even a smile is charity. Even smiling to your brothers and everybody knows that when you're having a bad day and you meet somebody, whether it's in your family or a friend, and they just look at you and they embrace you with a warm hug and they give you just a warm embrace and a smile, it uplifts your spirit. And that smile could be more beneficial to you at that time than a plate of food. So you might say, I'm full, I'm satiated. I don't need any food, but I just need somebody to talk to. And I remember I learned this lesson from my mother one day when I was in high school and I had a job at the mall and at that time I wasn't driving. So she picked me up and she knew somebody at the place where I worked. It was a Muslim sister. And so my mom spent about an hour and a half talking to her. And so I was in the car waiting and you know how teenagers will be like if their parents are late or they got a meeting. So I was getting frustrated. And so when my mother came back into the car, I said, you know, why did you take so long? I wasn't having proper ed up. It's not proper to address the parent in that way. But I asked her, I said, why did you spend an hour and a half just talking to her? And so she told me, she said, you know, Rami, sometimes people need somebody to talk to. She was going through a lot of issues in her life, family issues and financial issues and so forth. And they just need somebody to talk to. That's all. They just want a shoulder to cry on. And so by you giving your time, you're giving sadaqa because time is money. That's not just a cliche. You can break down how much your dollar is worth. Whether you're the richest person on the face of the earth where they can tell you how many tens of thousands of dollars their seconds are, or whether you're just walking the streets back and forth to work, each hour you could be spending it doing something to where you're getting money for it. Or you could be doing your ibadah. The point is that's your time. That's a blessing that Allah has given you, has given us. And Allah will ask us about our time and how we use it. So if we use it for somebody else, that's a sadaqa. That's a charity. So giving out your time is also a form of charity. And wallahi, there was a person who became Muslim just because of that, just because of giving his time. And we lived in an apartment complex and he was a maintenance manager. Rahmatullahi alayhi, he passed away. But every day I would pass by and say, hey Tyrone, how are you doing? And he would just start talking. And sometimes you talk for half an hour, sometimes for 45 minutes. And I'm just unloading his problems. This is my family problems. This is my job problems, whatever it is, my car, this, that, or the other. And so after a couple months, he said, you know, Rahmi, I really like talking to you. And I didn't want to tell him, well, we're not really talking. I'm just listening to you. But the point is that he built up a strong relationship with me just because I gave him the time to listen. And I gave him a CD, The Life of the Last Prophet by Yusuf Islam. And I gave it to him to listen to it because it gives a really nice overview of the Seerah in just about an hour. And so I used to ask him, I said, are you listening to the CD? He's like, well, I haven't started it yet. I haven't started it with a cassette tape. I finally figured out that he wasn't starting because at the beginning there's a van. So he's like, oh, Rahmi gave me a tape and Arabic. I can't understand it. So he took him a while to realize that the Arabic was just for about a minute of the tape. And then the rest of it's in English. So then I asked him one day, I said, where'd you get on the tape? He said, I'm at the Prophet Convention. I'm at the point where's the Prophet Convention? I was like, what's the Prophet Convention? And I recognized it's the story of Itzra'el-Mu'raj where the Prophet Muhammad SAW went from Mecca to Jerusalem and there he prayed with the prophets. And so the brother described it as the Prophet Convention. But Alhamdulillah, he became Muslim and he passed away a few years ago. But that all started because of just a little bit of Sadaqa. Just a little bit of Sadaqa. And Allah recognizes the power of Sadaqa and his infinite knowledge. And he put in one of the recipients of Zaka'a is the people that are close to Islam. Either newly Muslims or interested in Islam. Just because if you do good to people and you help them out financially they're going to have a good opinion of you and be able to see the truth of the message and not have their vision blurred by what the critics say about Islam. So we have to give all types of benefit. Whether it's knowledge, whether it's our time, whether it's charity, like money or food. Now who do we give it to? Who do we give the Sadaqa to? Allah SWT says the Meskeen, the poor person and the Yateem and the orphan and the prisoner. So when we look at these categories we can't look at it just like, okay you're a poor person, what do the books of Fiqh define as a poor person? Okay somebody that doesn't have enough food for one day. Well you've got food for two days so you're not including the ayah. We can't look at it like that because Allah is teaching us a principle. We can't get caught up in the exactness of that ayah. In some of the ayahs, the ayahs that talk about Ahkam, the ayahs that have a specific legal ruling, you take it as it is. There's no interpretation there. But if it's an ayah that's talking about motivation to do good, then we can't say well, Allah said the Meskeen, he's not a Meskeen, I'm not going to benefit him. Or the next one is the orphan. Okay what defines a person as an orphan? Technically the Prophet SAW said the definition of an orphan in the Shari'a, in the sacred law, is a boy or girl who has not reached the age of adulthood and they've lost their father. Their father specifically. That's the yateem in the Arabic language. But we know that if a person loses their mother, they've also lost a huge part of their life. So we have to treat them as an orphan. Or what about if a person is, maybe he's reached the age of adulthood, he's lost one or two of his parents. So technically he's not a yateem, so some of the aspects of the Shari'a that apply specifically to yateems, it doesn't apply to him, but we're going to treat him as an orphan. Or what if a person has both of their parents, but neither of their parents or one of their parents didn't give them what a parent usually gives their child by nature. And so he was raised with his parents, but sometimes the parent was actually more of a detriment to his development than somebody that didn't even have a parent. And so in a way they're an orphan. So we should treat them as an orphan in benefiting them. Look at them as an orphan. Or if a person comes new to a community, he might have his mother and father and they might have given him a good upbringing, but now he comes here, she comes to a new community and now they don't have anybody around them. And so in a way they're an orphan. So we have to look at them in that way and treat them as such. Or if a person comes new to Islam, in a way they've left a lot of things behind them. And so they need a community to embrace them as an orphan in the sense that they've left, they've lost a lot of things just like that orphan who has lost his parents. The third category that Allah SWT mentions in that ayah is the asir, the prisoner. Now this is a very powerful lesson that Allah SWT is giving us and all of the lessons in the Qur'an are powerful. But he says asir. In the Mufassir, they explain exactly who is Allah referring to in that ayah? Who is the prisoner that Allah is referring to? The prisoner that Allah is referring to and commanding us as believers to feed them and not just in food but in any type of benefit that we can give to them, those are the prisoners that were taken as prisoners of war. In the early days of Islam, when the non-Muslims were attacking the Muslims and there were engagements in battle, there was battle of the battle of Badr, the battle of Uhud, there were prisoners of war taking on both sides. And so the Muslims did take some of the idol worshippers as prisoners during that war and so Allah revealed to the believers saying take care of those prisoners and saying that a sign of the believers is that they bring benefit to those prisoners. Remember these are the idol worshippers that were out to harm the Muslim community. They wanted to kill people amongst the Muslims but when the battle was over and their weapons were taking away, Allah reminds us of the humanity and says feed that person. Take care of that person and bring benefit to that person. So this is powerful because Allah is telling us to get away from our emotions and to not do things in an emotional way. Many of us are familiar with the story of Ali, when he was in a battle and his opponent spat on him and so Ali threw his sword down and walked away and then the person said why'd you do that? He said because, and then he came back he picked up the sword and then he continued the battle and then he conquered him but then he didn't kill him. The person asked him why'd you do that? Why'd you stop the battle or the duel that we were having? He said because I was engaged in a battle with you and I was doing this for the sake of God Allah has ordered us to protect the believers and what was protecting you as an enemy he didn't say this but this is the understanding I was protecting the safety of the community by engaging in battle with you. When you spat on me I became angry at you and it became personal and so I knew I could not continue this because now it's personal and we all know once things become personal once it becomes emotional you lose logic. You lose your logic and your emotions take over and your emotions drive you but if you look at Ali, it wasn't his emotions that were driving him it was the deen and doing the things for the sake of Allah SWT So when Allah tells us to feed these people that have just attacked you and now they're under your control feed them, take care of them it's a reminder to us that we have to benefit people even if they're our enemies even if they were out to harm us and even if they're still in the process of harming us if there's somebody from some of the media stations that have a negative view of Islam and spread lies about Islam and yet that person is walking along the street and get hit by a car are we not going to go and help them out? If we allow our emotions to take over and say hey, you deserve what you got and just go ahead and wait for the ambulance and maybe by that time it's too late or are we going to look at things without emotion and go to that person and give him benefit because he's a human being and he deserves that and Allah SWT has commanded us to benefit those people So these are the three aspects The love of the things that we're giving out and what exactly is it that we're giving out and who is it that we're giving it to Now the Mufasirun say about the Asir as an end to that ayah they say if Allah SWT is telling us to bring benefit and help the non-Muslim prisoner who was taken as a prisoner of war after attacking the Muslims then what about your Muslim brother who was taken as a prisoner what type of help should we be giving them and what importance should we be doing to help them So now there's some conditions to helping others One of the conditions is that we have to start with ourselves We can't help other people until we've helped ourselves and this is why Allah SWT guides us and teaches us in the Qur'an by saying Save yourselves and your families from the fire Before we go and we help other people help other people bring them benefit or bring them spiritual benefit we have to help ourselves we have to make sure that we are settled settled spiritually and financially settled in our identity and then we can move on to helping other people ayah also says our family we have to help our family there are some people that get so caught up in helping other people that they forget who's at home and there's an English saying the cobbler's son has no shoes and there's a colloquial saying in Jordan meaning the same thing and in all cultures in Mauritania they say the blacksmith's door has no hinges basically the idea is there's people that have benefit to give to others and they're so caught up in benefiting others they forget themselves and they forget their families so when we go out into the world into our community to help people we have to make sure that we're helping ourselves first and foremost we're helping our families and that's something that's it's across all societies and it's across almost some communities where you find people that sometimes they're not able to maintain that balance of serving the community and serving their families and it's a very difficult balance to maintain but we have to keep reminding ourselves and don't think that just because we give all this service to the community at large that it's automatically going to help our family because first people and a lot of people may know stories of people that are out in the community helping other people and then their children just need their father or their mother or their older brother or their sister and then they go astray and then the person wakes up from all of this good community work they're doing they turn around and they see oh my god what has happened to my son or what has happened to my daughter but that was because they were benefiting others while forgetting themselves so that's a condition of benefiting that you have to benefit yourself and your family first and foremost the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as it's mentioned in the Shemail when he would go home he would split his time into three three categories one third for his for his family one third for himself and then one third for Ibadah so taking taking care of personal matters sewing clothes helping his family out and also taking time for Ibadah so when we're looking at ourselves and trying to maintain that balance we have to make sure that we're giving ourselves time for Ibadah time for worship in addition to what we're doing outside so when we go home we have to be benefiting ourselves benefiting our families and also taking time to worship one of the things that we learned from the Sunnah is the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was a master of time management and every second had a specific purpose and a good book to read is a book by Sheikh Abdul Fattah Abu Ghuda it says qima it's called qima to zaman and the ulama the value of time amongst the scholars and it's been translated it's available in English but it just gives a lot of stories of how the scholars would really take their time seriously and they wouldn't let it go it's just like if somebody gave you a million dollars you'd make sure to take care of that well Allah subhanaw ta'ala gave you a certain lifespan and we have to make sure that we're taking care of them and the last thing that I'll leave about this discussion about benefit Allah subhanaw ta'ala in the Quran has a surah called Surah An-Nahl the chapter of the B and Allah doesn't just mention animals in the Quran for no reason there's a specific reason for why he's mentioning things for why he mentioned stories for why he mentioned certain people or why he mentioned certain animals and so if we if he mentions one whether it's the hood hood or the camel or the cow or the ant or the B we have to look at that and try to understand some of the wisdoms that Allah subhanaw ta'ala is giving us so in the B is a very beautiful example for us of benefitting others the B goes out and it goes to every mountain as Allah subhanaw ta'ala says in the Quran it goes to all of the different mountains taking from this pollen taking from this nectar taking from over here then it goes home and then it produces a substance which is a healing for mankind the honey the honey gives itself benefit so the B is eating the honey it's benefitting itself then it's producing something that benefits others and so that's an example of how we should be we should be just like the B goes out and collects from all of these different sources and then comes home synthesizes that and then produces something to benefit humanity and the B has a many we don't have much time to go into the beauties of the B but just study more about the B and see how you can apply lessons from the B into our life some of the the lesson B's are attracted to good smell so if you're around B then you have cologne or perfume or something a B will be attracted to that flies aren't attracted to good smell and flies are they have a lot of negative qualities so we want to look at how the fly is look at how the B is and see and try to emulate the good qualities that the B has flies are attracted to foul things if there's foul odors the flies will come from all corners of the area to land on the foul odors and there are people that are like that people that are attracted to foul things foul and evil things and yet the B is attracted to good smell and it goes to these good smell and it produces something very good the fly goes to very foul things and it produces something disgusting so we have to be like the B and going to all of these good things and producing something good and the B can even go to things that are harmful whether it's a bush that has flowers but it has a lot of thorns or poison ivy there was a brother who brought us or told us about some honey that he had that was poison ivy honey it was B that were taken from the flowers of poison ivy and it produced a very good honey and so the B was able to go to this thing that normally causes harm and yet finds the little benefit that you could take out of it or goes to that thorn bush and takes the little benefit and that's how we should be we don't discount anything we don't discount it totally we go to there we say okay this is bad and this is good let's drop from the benefit go back to my house synthesize it and see how I can benefit myself with it and then benefit other people with it so we ask Allah SWT to make us from the people that benefit themselves and benefit others and I'll begin the Arabic portion of the khutba Alhamdulillah We seek forgiveness from Allah from our sins and from our bad deeds Who guides Allah and does not harm him and does not harm him and I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and he alone is no partner and I bear witness that Muhammad is his servant and messenger O you who believe fear Allah for his rights and you will not die except you are Muslim O you who respect your Lord who created you from the one soul and created from it her husband and a lot of men and women and fear Allah those who ask about him and the mercy that Allah is most merciful upon you O you who believe fear Allah and say a word he will correct your deeds and he will show you your sins and who obeys Allah and His messenger and after that I will share the Hadith of Allah and the guidance of Muhammad peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and all the bad things and all the bad things and all the bad things in the Fire In the name of Allah and peace and blessings be upon the messenger of Allah and his family and companions O servants of Allah Allah commands justice and good and comes close and goes away from evil and evil and evil may Allah make you remember and remember Allah to remind you and thank Him to increase you and forgive Him to forgive you and make you out of your death and finish the prayer