 We have to know who is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and the Prophet ﷺ is an embodiment of the mercy of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. If you know the Prophet ﷺ, then you know something about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. One of the points of fasting is, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says we quoted this ayah, we quoted it all the time, that fasting is prescribed upon you, as it was prescribed upon those before you. And we said that something is known by its objective, and so therefore the objective of fasting is taqwa. So fasting is a great thing, to be conscious of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, this is taqwa. And part of being conscious of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is being conscious of the creation of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, our fellow human beings, to have empathy. So one of the reasons why we fast then is to empathize with the poor, with the needy. These are people who don't eat every day, they have to fast every day, they don't have a choice. Alhamdulillah, the Rabi'l-Amin, they have a choice, right, and we fast. So when we increase within our empathy, that increases our compassion. When our compassion increases, then we know more and more like the Prophet ﷺ. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la describes it, you're almost killing yourself over grief over them. This is how much of an effect it has on them. That there has come unto you a messenger from amongst yourselves, it grieves him that you should perish deeply concerned as he about you. And there's no taqsees in this part of the ayah, which means that basically this applies to the whole of humanity. The Prophet ﷺ has concerned for the whole of humanity. And then it means the Rabi'l-Amin, and this applies to the Muslims. So one of the ways in which we can increase in our ma'rifah of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is to study our Aqidah. So I brought a text, the tahawiya, this is the text, the creed of Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi, the basic or treatise of the Aqidah of Ahlul Sunnah wa Jama'ah. So I thought we'd read some of this inshallah ta'ala. You get to know who is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Because if you study different Arun, different sciences, sacred sciences, Aqidah is primary. So there's something called the ten ma'badah, the ten principles of every science. They say, what is the haqam shana'i? What is the stuqdadu? What is it called? What are the supports? What's the fadr? What's the result? What's the ma'rifah studying? So we have to know some basic Aqidah as Muslims. This is farh, ala kulli muslim. This is obligatory on every Muslim to know something about the basic Aqidah, something about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la and the Prophet ﷺ. So Aqidah is a word, which means to tie or bind something. So for example, the beautiful dua'a of Musa, when he was at the Shajran, what did he say? So untie the knot from my tongue. This is from the root Aqidah. So Aqidah means something that is binding us, something that ties us down. It's binding for us to believe in certain things about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. We have to believe in them. And Aqidah formulas or articulations are the strongest when it comes to sources. So the Aqidah is based on the Qur'an, primarily. What does the Qur'an say? The Qur'an is considered to be a definitive proof. It's called Tabil Qate'i. And then also, Mutawat al-Hadith, a multi-attested hadith. What is a multi-attested hadith? That means groups and groups of Muslims from all around the Muslim world are reporting the same thing from the Prophet ﷺ, which would have made it impossible for them to have collaborating in order to fabricate something about the Prophet ﷺ. It's a multi-attested. It's just simply known. And then also the Ijman of the Sadaf, the first three generations of the Muslims. Some people say the first four generations, these are called the Sadaf. And the Ijma'ah is consensus of what they taught their students. This is what Aqidah is based on. So he begins here by saying, Alhamdulillah, Rab al-Aliyyin, after Bismillah, Rab al-Aliyyin. Praise be to Allah, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And then he says, Now he's going to quote, this is the introduction here. What does Abu Ja'far al-Ta'awi say? Misr al-Rabbi, or Ta'awi al-Misr al-Qijab. So basically his introduction here, he's saying that this is an explanation of the Aqidah, the belief, the creed of the people of the prophetic precedent and the majority. This is called Aqidah al-Sunnah and Al-Jama'ah. And Abu Ja'far al-Ta'awi, he's Hanafi in his step. So he's one of the direct students of Numa'an al-Buthabah, who's Abu Hanifah. So basically this is the creed of Abu Hanifah in his two top students. The two top students of Abu Hanifah were Qadi Abu Yusuf, of Abu Hanifah, Sheikh Muhammad al-Shaytani. This is an accepted creed of Aqidah al-Sunnah and Al-Jama'ah. So then he says, So the Imam said, and the aforementioned two Imams, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaytani, we say in believing in the Taukhidah of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. What does Taukhid mean? Taukhid. This is a must-eat on the second form. It means oneness. It means monotheism. This is absolutely imperative for Muslims to believe in Taukhid. What does it mean to believe in Taukhid? He's going to go into that. But one of the things that we know as Muslims is that a Muslim who was a muwahid believes that all strength and power comes from Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. Nothing, nobody, nobody, nothing has any strength whatsoever except by means of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. So when we walk around, when we eat all of these things, these mundane things that we do on a daily basis, all of these things are by the permission and power of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. If Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala wanted to, he'd very easily take that away from us. If so, we're floating on the mercy of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. It's one of the meanings of Taukhid. This is the first point. So there's about a hundred and some odd points that he mentions here. Let me see if I can get the exact number. 130 points, 130 points. The first one is Allah is one and he has no partner. So like the Christians say, yes, Allah is one, that's what they believe. They'll say that. They say, Allah is one, right? But he does not have a partner. The Christian also will say that he shares, he's a Sharif with Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. That he has omniscience. He knows everything. He has power of Allah. He has power of Allah. This is what they believe. This is Sharif, right? So it's not just enough to say Allah is one, right? You have to believe that he shares none of his attributes with anybody. No one has divine attributes. It doesn't matter how great they are. The Prophet ﷺ is the best of creation. He does not have divine attributes. Nothing, nobody. Jibril A.S. No, nothing. A divine attribute, for example, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, right? This is our Tuhi. So Allah is one, right? And he's Ahad, right? There's a difference between Wahid and Ahad. What is the difference? Because the Arabs at the time of the Prophet ﷺ, they believed in many gods, right? They're polytheists. It's called polytheism. Right? But many of the Arabs, although they believed in these other gods, they only worship Allah. So is this Tuhi? No, it's not Tuhi. Right? They believed in other gods. These Ali-Aziz, those are gods, but we're only going to worship Allah. This is not called Marno-theism. This is called Heno-theism. People who want to take notes. Heno-theism means you believe in many gods, but you only worship one. Right? So this is not Tuhi. So he is believing Allah is Ahad. What is Ahad? One and only unique. One of a genus. There's only one god. There's only one entity who is ilaq, and that is Allah. There's no other ilaq. Right? So we might use this example of Allah when we did the Tafsirahs. What about that? I deflussed. If I say, for example, I'm a Rajulat Wahid. I am one man. Right? That doesn't mean that you're not one man. You're also a Rajulat Wahid. Right? All of you are a Rajulat Wahid. What if I say, That means there's no other Rajulat Earth. There's no other Rajulat in creation. I'm the only man. So I use the word Ahad. Right? He does not share in any of his attributes. His sifat, his fax, his essence, his afaaq, his actions. No one shares in these things. He says, There's nothing like him whatsoever. It's based on the Hadith. The verse in the Quran, Right? And when we talk about the essence of Allah We usually use a negating verb or particle. Right? It's called negative theology. Why do we use negative theology? Via negativa. Why do we say that? Because when we talk about the essence of Allah We can only say what it is not. Not what it is. We don't know what it is. We have no idea. You possibly comprehend what is the essence of Allah. We talk about the attributes of Allah. We can use positive descriptions. Positive. He is the most powerful. He is all-knowing. He has absolute will. Those are powerful descriptions of the attributes of Allah. When we talk about Allah's essence, we can only go the way of the negative. Nothing can debilitate him. Nothing makes him weak. Right? Like Sira'uul said, I am God. Sira'uul used to eat bananas according to some stories about Sira'uul. That he would only eat bananas. Why did he only eat bananas? Because he wanted to become constipated. Why would he want to eat bananas? Because he didn't like going to the bathroom. He said, I'm God. This is beneath me. I don't want to go to the bathroom anymore. So he'd eat bananas and this type of thing. Right? Nothing debilitates Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The Christians, they say, Is there Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? This is their orthodox position. Right? 99% of Christians, they believe this. If you read the Gospel of Mark chapter 9, Is there Allah in the city of Jerusalem? He sees a fig tree in the distance. He goes to take some figs and he notices that it's not fig season. So he doesn't know something. If a prophet doesn't know something, if a person doesn't know something, then automatically they're excluded as big. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows everything. وَمَنْ تَسْقَلْتُ مِنْ وَرْقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعْرَمْبَا A leaf doesn't fall without the knowledge of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Right? So nothing can debilitate him. He's never hatches. Right? وَلَا إِلَا هَأَيْرُ There is no God except him. This is point number 4. There is no God except him. And there's a difference between إِلَا اِنْ رَقَرْ A God and a Lord. So إِلَا The word must say, this is a reference to a God that is transcendent. Right? A God that is transcendent, that is removed. It's called إِلَا. So this approximates a belief called deism. The founding fathers of America, the vast majority, were not Christians. This is a misconception. Right? You know how they sometimes throw on Fox News and they say, these Muslims want to implement Sharia law in a Christian country. It's not a Christian country. In fact, this country was founded to be the very opposite of a Christian country. One of the founding principles of this country is not to be a Christian country. Not to imitate what was happening in Europe. Right? Christendom, that was Europe. What was happening in England with King George, the Anglican church, that were persecute scientists, Sir Isaac Newton. He was a monotheist, a Christian. He was not a Trinitarian. Right? He was a Unitarian Christian. But you couldn't express that because that was a death sentence. They would kill him for blasphemy. This is in England during the time of the founding fathers. Right? So the Treaty of Tripoli makes it very clear the Treaty of Tripoli was signed into law by President John Adams in 1797. It says it like, well, the United States of America was in no way founded as a Christian nation. It's not a Christian country. It's a secular country. It's a creation of church and state. Anyway, so many of them, the first six presidents, they were not Orthodox Christians. They were deists, which means they believed in sort of a neoplatonic concept of God that God created everything, but he has nothing to do with his creation. He's utterly removed and transcendent. This is a God. Isn't that? But the rub? What does rub mean? Rub means your cherisher, your sustainer. So this is God imminent. Right? God removed and God close to you. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is both of these. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is utterly transcendent. Laysik, if he's able, there's nothing like him whatsoever. He's utterly transcendent. But he's also close to us, meaning that there's a relational aspect we have with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. How do we know this? He says in the Qur'an, when my service asks you concerning me, say, I'm close. I'm close. Right? When we are close to the human being, then his jugular vein, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is transcended and he's imminent at the same time. He's a personal deity. Right? So that's the difference between Andra. So he says here, he is pre-existent without origin, eternal without end. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is the first without a beginning. You think yourself, how can that be? Right? How can he be first without a beginning? The reason that we can conceive of it intellectually is because we live in a linear world. We live in the temporal world. And in the temporal world, we think in terms of once upon a time, and then in the faculty of prayer, beginning and an end. Right? We cannot possibly conceive of how an entity is outside of time. How can someone be outside of time? It doesn't make sense to us. Right? Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, because nothing is like him. Right? Therefore he's dependent on nothing, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la means he is totally independent. Therefore he even transcends time. He's not in time. Right? For Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, it's not, you know, whatever, 4 Ramadan 13th, 3, 14, 34, get you? That's not the date, it's not date, with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, outside of time. Right? Isn't it? Who can a tawab? Can is past tense. Right? Why does Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la describe himself in the past tense? Can is an interesting verb. That when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la uses kanana to describe himself, it means past, present, and future. Right? It's a piece of meta-prime. He transcends time. And this is how he solved this issue of infinite regression. You guys know what this means? What came first? The chicken or the egg? What came first? You say the chicken came first. But the chicken came out of an egg. But the egg came first. Who laid the egg? It doesn't make any sense. You can go back and add infinite of it. Right? This is called infinite regression. Right? And we can't solve it because when we think of chicken and eggs, we're thinking of things that are preachers like us that are dependent on time. Right? They're dependent on time. But Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is not dependent on time. So how do we solve this riddle of infinite regression? Is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la? He always was. Allah who can, public like him was a man. Allah just was before time and space. He's Qadeen. Right? He's pre-existent. Again, the Christians say, Aisha alaihi s-salam is also pre-existent. It's a ship. This is not Wa-daniyya. This is not Monothea. He is the Daki one. He is eternal without an end. Right? So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has al-Qidim al-Daki an essential pre-eternality that nobody else has. No one else has al-Qidim al-Daki. He's also, he also has this attribute of Baqaa. Baqaa means that he lasts forever. Right? He lasts forever because that's part of his nature. Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. But Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la can also give this attribute to his creation. He can grant it to his creation. To live forever. Because jannah lasts forever. It doesn't come to an end. Right? And we're going to be insha'Allah Ta-A'la when we enter jannah. We're never going to perish. Right? So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has given this attribute of Baqaa ever lastedness. Right? To, or immortality you can say, to some of his creation that he will. Then he says, that he doesn't perish and he doesn't become extinct or obsolete. Right? He doesn't become annihilated. Kullu man a'layhaf fa'an wa yaduqa wa churabi. Everything else becomes annihilated. Everything else is annihilated except the countenance of your Lord. Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. So again we compare this Christianity, the Christians believe that the Jews are guilty of deicide. Right? What is deicide? You heard of suicide, right? You heard of homicide, suicide to kill oneself, homicide to kill another person. Deicide means to kill God. This is Christian theology. It's not a joke. It's what they believe. It's not funny though. I have to admit it. They believe God is dead. God died. God was dead in his tomb for three days. Right? And this is very interesting because one of the qualitative attributes of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in Judaism, as well as Islam, is that he is He lives. He never dies because that's part of his nature. Right? Never when the Prophet says to the Prophet, that's the way. Abu Bakr said to him, what did he say? Ma'an ka'na ya'hmudu Muhammadan that inna hum taqmat wa ma'an ka'na ya'hmudu Allah inna hum ta'ayyun la'yumudu. If you worship the Prophet, Allah says to him, he has passed. If you worship Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, he's alive. He never dies. Right? So one time I was in this debate with this Christian scholar, he had a PhD in Christian theology. And I said, when God is dead in his tomb for three days, who's running the heavens and the earth? You know his response was, he said it was on cruise control. That's what he said. It was on auto pilot cruise control. Right? And this is what Christian theology believes actually. They believe that there's secondary causation without getting too technical here. But basically, God created natural law and he sort of sets it in motion and it goes by itself. So he's somewhat removed unless he wants to interject. But our theology is that everything is caused directly when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. There is no secondary causation. Anyway. So he doesn't perish. He doesn't become obsolete. He doesn't become phased out. He doesn't become extinct. All right? And then he says, Wala yakulu ilama yurid. Nothing happens except by his dirada. Except by his will. And will is a qualitative attribute of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And then he says, imaginations. Right? Awam. Imaginations cannot contain him. And Fahm, comprehensions, cannot perceive him. So you can sit down for hours and hours and think what is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la? And whatever you think about is ultimately incorrect. So it's a big waste of time. In fact, it's haram to actually do that. We don't think about what is Allah essentially. We can think about who is Allah in the form of his actions. What does Allah do for us? Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is the most merciful of those who show mercy. There was a buzzword one time with military expedition. And the prophet said to them, was there with a group of sahabah. And they saw this woman suddenly come out of her house and she was hysterical. She had lost her little son. Right? Little toddler was lost. Running around, she's in storage screaming. Where's my son? Where's my son? She picks up her son and she starts to kiss him and hug him and starts to breastfeed him. Right? And then the prophet, sallallahu alayhi sallam, said, he said, So can you imagine this woman throwing her son in a fire? He said, he said, We cannot imagine this woman taking her son that she's hugging and kissing and squeezing and throwing him into a fire. Right? And then he said, Allah is more merciful to his servants than this woman is to her son. Right? So these are things you should think about. We don't think about what does Allah look like? Where is Allah? This question is immediately incorrect because there is no where with Allah is the man with God. Where is Allah? It's called thoughtful mechanical. Allah does not have a mechanical. When is Allah? When is Allah? Thoughtful Zaman. What do you think? There's no Zaman with Allah is the man with God. It's utterly inconceivable. So it's actually caught on to think about these things. You see, people don't understand anyway. What do we think about? We think about the ni'am. The blessings of Allah is upon us. Right? What's the rule? What's the rule? Ni'amatallahi alaykum. Think about the blessings of Allah is upon us. And the blessings are innumerable. What are you speaking about? Anaa. Creatures do not bear any similarity with him. Right? Mukhali, that's all. Lil hawada. He is completely dissimilar his creation. That's what we can't make. Paintings and iconography, like if you go into a church, you find all this iconography in the church. I remember one time I was in a church with another brother. We're doing an interfaith dialogue in the Catholic Church. So there's stations of the cross. There's like life-sized images of Asa and Asalaam holding the cross crucified on the cross. So we had to pay maghrib. So they cleared the altar for us. But there's like all of these images in front of us. So as we could pray on our altar. So I looked at the brother and he looked at me we're looking at each other and they're waiting for us to start our prayer. So immediately, almost instinctively, we ran out. We just started running. We ran outside and immediately outside we started praying. And then this, I remember this one lady who was so offended. She said, what are you guys doing? This is the house of God. We had to explain to them you know these are images and we can't pray in front of them and things like that. That was interesting. Anyway, so he bears no similarity. And then he says here, how do you lie and move? We talked about that. He is alive. He doesn't die. Qayyun, wud, la, yannam. He is all sustaining, self-sustaining. He doesn't sleep, right? Doesn't feel fatigued, right? La taqhulu sinatu wa la naum. He's not overcome with sleep or fatigue. Qali'u bi la hatati. He is a creator without need. Right? Raaz likhu bi la mu'nati. He is a provider without any kind of storehouses or budget, limited resources. You know like if we want to support something or give money to someone, we have a budget. It's a limitation. Even if you're a billionaire, you have a limit. Allah swt wa ta'ala does not have any type of limit or budget. And then he says, he sees his life without fear and resurrects without effort. Just as he was possessed of his attributes prior to his creation, so he remained in the same attributes without increasing in them as a result of his creation. Coming into being. We'll talk about this, insha'Allah. Qamakana fi sifati azadiyan. He had all of these attributes forever and he was described by the attribute al-qabit before he even created anything. Allah swt before he created anything, he still called al-qabit because he has that potential to create. Potentiality is still there because let's get around a little bit. Let's get some difficult, requires a lot of explanation. Qamakana fi sifati azadiyan. And then he says, Qamakana fi sifati azadiyan. That is because he has power over all things Qamakana fi sifati azadiyan. Qamakana fi sifati azadiyan. Fakir. Right. And everything is dependent upon him. So again, anyone who claims to be God the very fact that a human being is claiming to be God is immediately a proof that that person is not God. Because a human being is always dependent on things. A human being is dependent on many things. On food, on water, on gravity, on sunlight, on the moon, on clothes, on the weather. Right. This could not be enough to follow with the agha. So Christians, for example, Christians are very aggressive sometimes they're da'wah and Muslims. If you go to a public school and there's a group of Christians there and they find out that you're Muslim. It's like their ears will light up. Oh, Muslim, you come up to you. Who's God? You say Allah. It's like who's Allah? What are you talking about? Right. Allah is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They start making these things up. Right. God is Jesus. That's what they say. So don't you believe? God is independent of everything. They say yes. Okay, Jesus is dependent on food, on water, on gravity, on sunlight, on all of these things. Right. So what kind of God is this? You worship a God that has limitation. You know Allah SWT has no limitation. As soon as we can as soon as we can prove that someone has a limitation they're automatically disqualified as being Allah SWT, as being a God in any sense. He doesn't need anything. He doesn't need anything. Well, who's to be our embassy? There's nothing like him while he is the all-hearing and the all-seeing. I think we'll stop at this point with the text and try to take some comments or questions. If you have any questions regarding the theology of the Akhira or if you have sort of, you know, questions about fasting, 50-type questions about fasting, take the answer. You said that an answer to what Allah here says how can we answer that when kids ask that kind of question? That's a good question. Yeah, kids ask these questions all the time. Where is Allah and things like that? So the way we talk to children is that we say that Allah's mercy, we stress Allah's attributes. Allah's mercy, Allah's love is here. Allah loves you, Allah cares for you, Allah's merciful. So concentrate on the the fact that Allah SWT See what is Allah? Allah is a God who loves you. He's merciful. He's what Allah is talking about, His attributes. That's the best way to do it. They say where is Allah? It's difficult question that. I guess the question itself is faulty. So if they ask this question, where is Allah? Then you say Allah's mercy is everywhere. Allah's concern is everywhere. And then ultimately if you're kind of being smart out of it, you'll say no, no, no, where is Allah's essence? If they ask that question, they say that this question has no answer. But usually children don't ask those kinds of questions. And rejoin your vision. Concentrate on Allah's attributes. His love is personal. This is the best way to talk to children about it. Allah, Allah. Yes sir. Yes, one of a kind. So like when Bilal is being tortured, the question is defining the term ahad. It wasn't really a question. But ahad means all powerful, all merciful. Basically all of these attributes are excellence. Basically ahad is one of a kind. So when Sayyidina Bilal was being tortured by Umayyad and Khalaf, he was saying ahad and ahad. Sayyidina Bilal, he wasn't saying wahad, wahad. Because Umayyad would say yes, Allah is Wahad. We believe that too. And he wasn't saying Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah. To say yes, we believe in Allah also. But ahad means Allah is the only God. That's it. He's one of a kind. No other God. So this was a threat to the jahadi era. But yeah, you didn't do it. There's a massive commentary response to the false. Massive, massive commentary. But what is ahad? What does it mean to be ahad? Is it? It's not some of the questions you spent on after the fight. It's known that people, you know, our kids don't go to tradition of an Islamic, you know, teaching that it's a size of the afternoon itself. So this kind of thing, to protect from them, growing up in the future, and listening to all the people around this country. Yeah. That's not what it means to fight. My advice is children need to have a mentor. They need to have a mentor that's not quite as old as their father, but obviously not as young as they are. Sort of a go-betweener, right? That is kind of familiar with the context of the society. So that's someone they feel really comfortable with. Because, you know, when we used to do the youth holocaust in the early few years ago, we'd get youth that come in and ask us questions that they would never ask their parents. It's just out of the question. It would say things to us that would never, because it would be total basic suicide. They'd push their parents about certain things. So they'd ask us about them, because they would feel uncomfortable with us. And they'd ask us questions, you know, questions related to everything, to society, to theology. They need to have that mentorship there. I notice many Muslim youth are two-faced than you've done. There's something at home with their parents, and then they go out with their friends and go, completely different people. Completely different. I've even seen this with Hufa'la Hualar. There are Hufa'la that go to university, and they get addicted to drugs. And one time they came to a restaurant, and they were as high as the kind, there's three of them, completely high. They had just smokes of marijuana. They're Hufa'la Hualar, you know. So even they're not immune to this. So we talked with them, I'm not a Hufa'la Hualar, but I was, there were a few years younger than me. Right, so I said, what are you guys doing? They're a Hufa'la Hualar. Yeah, the pressure to school or so, whatever, you couldn't take either. So and so forth. So that's the most important thing, is to have that mentor, and not just any mentor, you know, this liberal baseball game. Someone who's knowledgeable of the dean. So this mentor can answer these tough theological issues that the philosophical issues that these youth are hearing in high school and in college that they won't approach their parents with, because number one, they think my parents don't even know this stuff. My parent, my father, my mother, whoever, is not even in a position to be able to answer these questions. Right, you know, how do you deal with each youth's concept of the death of God? Go pray, right? Don't worry about these things, because the focus of the immigrant community is more on orthopraxis, it's more on proper practices of religion, not on orthodoxism. Right, it's not on the autida. Because we didn't have these issues back home. Back home, there were no atheists, you know, we didn't have the internet. I'm talking about like my parents' generation, the internet. There's closed society, everyone's basically Muslim. Questions were more 50 type. But now people are asking these deep philosophical, theological, challenging things. People go on, children go online, and this is Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, these atheists. And they're very persuasive, some of them are very charismatic, they're very intellectual. And many of the youth are swayed by this, right? They think my father, he doesn't know anything, he has an accent. That's what they think. Obviously, that's not true, it's just because you have an accent, it doesn't mean you can be a brilliant, Paulie Batman. But the youth, they have that. That's how they think my parent doesn't know anything. My father, a poor guy, he can't even speak English correctly. But this professor at school was an atheist. He's a PhD. He knows what he's talking about, right? So they won't even approach the parents with these issues. There has to be a mentor. Someone who knows the language, and someone who knows the lay of the land, knows the context. This is why I wanted to show you our, a Mufti cannot give a fatwa in a foreign country, even if he's shameful in Islam, even if he's immoral in anything. He has to know the saman, the makan, and the insight of the context. He has to know the context of the people before he can even give a fatwa. So, that's really important for them. Joining the MSA, things like that are also important. Putting in contact with scholars, introducing them to scholars. You don't have to be in direct contact with them, because again, this is an age of technology. So you can take the courses online with, you know, qualified, authoritative scholars. Once a week, even. Because 99% of what these children are hearing at schools, they're not going to be confined to their parents. And they hear some garbage, trust me. They hear a lot of garbage. And I've even met youth that are just going through the motions now. They go to the Masjid, and then privately they tell me, I'm not even Muslim anymore. I just gotta, my father makes me go, I just go, just to make him happy. I go to the Janazah prayer. I don't believe in Allah anymore. I just go pray with him, because he wants me to go do it. So why do you believe in him? I don't know, it's something now. I was talking when I was a kid, now it's less than I art. I have a bigger and better thing to do now. And a lot of times it's the parents' fault. Because of the children, when they have this seal for their religion, when they're 16, 17, 18 years old, the parents only get scared. Oh, he's gonna become a mobile. Don't worry about these things. Go get your PhD first. And then he gets his PhD when he's 35, 36 years old. And then his father says to him, okay, go to the Masjid. I'm an atheist. Blast! How dare you? What happened? You told me not to go into these things. That's what happened. This is very common, by the way. Very, very common. If you have that seal to learn the religion, don't be afraid of it. Don't buy it to serve pain and rhetoric. Let them speak your religion. They're not doing anything wrong. They have love for Allah, so they're proud of what Allah was telling them. No, no, relax. Go chase the dunya for a while, then come back to the religion. Many of them, they never make their way back. At a much smaller age, when you cannot discern the religion to a certain extent, you need to understand them. With younger children, the best thing to do is connect their childhood memories with Islam somehow. One of my teachers once said, and he's an old man, he says, one of my greatest memories was going fishing with my father. And we would fish, and then right at the edge of the lake, we would pray our asa-asa. He makes this mental connection from a beautiful nostalgic memory from his childhood, with something Islamic. All right, take your son to a baseball game, football game, but somehow interject something Islamic about it. Like, do your prayer there, or make some zikr there, or talk about, have a conversation that we... So they make those connections between beautiful childhood memories and Islam. And when that happens, that love will never leave the child, the love of the deed. So we have to be people that practice the religion as adults, as parents. We have to practice. We can't tell our children. The children are not stupid. We say, you know, what are you doing? Stop smoking. It's hot out. Yeah. They say, well, you're smoking. It doesn't apply to me. Don't worry about me. I'm a bad example. I'm a bad example. You shouldn't smoke. What are you doing? Get out of the plane. But dad, I've never seen you pray. Don't worry about me. I'm a bad example. It's that good thing. Kids are not stupid. You know what that child's gonna do? He's like, okay, I'm gonna pray. He's praying the whole time he's thinking about this girl, or that video game, or that pop dog, this pizza. This quarterback, that's his prayer. Why should he pray? If the parents aren't doing it. So lead by example, and stamp these beautiful memories within the child's psyche, these nostalgic memories. One of my friends in college who was brought up on a very devout Muslim household, he actually left the prayer for a while and he was eating pork. So what happened to you? And one of the things he mentioned to me was that my father was too strict on me as a child. He would kick me in the head and wake me up for Fajr. And he would never take me anywhere except the Muslim. And he was very rude to me. And then when other people who were around, suddenly he became the prophet. So I said, I'm just smiling at people very nice and gentle. And then we'd go home and turn this around. So I said, yeah, but that's your father. That has nothing to do with your religion. He said, no, that's what happened to me. I can't bring myself to pray for him. Every time I make a move, his face comes into my mind. And I don't want to pray anymore. So the kids make that connection with an early childhood. Very young children, take them to the fun places like the Islamic museums. They remember these things. Go to the amusement parks and make sure that you pray there and have them pray with you. Don't be afraid of these. No, there's non-Muslims around. They're gonna make fun of me. Don't worry about that. You know, don't be negligent. Don't like, you know, get up in the middle of a tea party rally and do your sloth loss. So that's obviously a degree of negligence, right? But let them know that you're Muslim, you're proud and have those beautiful memories. Yes, Mr. The question is about praying behind the imam, any Salafi to be close to you and the mind that's the drift. Well, drifting of the mind is very, very common. It happens to everybody. One of my teachers actually said, you know, you know, you've attained, we lie on the same foot, but you can create, you've got to attain and it never wants to disfocus. Everybody, honestly, or what he, this point was 99% human beings who want to lose focus in the prayer. But a way to bring someone back is before the prayer, you know, sometimes we start praying and then in our prayer, we start worrying about things. If we have domestic issues, financial issues, whatever they are, if we're very busy, suddenly we're thinking about them in prayer. So what you do before the prayer is think about that very quickly and get it out of your mind. Right. You have to prepare yourself for the prayer. Think about these issues. You know, oh, you know, I have to pay the mortgage, whatever it is. I have to call my mother in two weeks. I should do that. Get it out of your mind. Now you can be ready to pray. And listen attentively to the Quran. Even if you don't understand, try to pick up some meanings. Right. But ultimately, we will, we will treasure it. But the Allah ma say that when you're standing in prayer, that on the day of judgment, we're also going to be standing in the same fashion shoulder to shoulder with people. So some of the Allah ma say, think about the Yom al-Tiyyama. Right. And I've been in prayers where I'm praying and I feel the need to yaw. And this is worth 100% of the time for me. 100% of the time. When I feel the need to yaw, immediately I think of the Yom al-Tiyyama. And my yaw goes away. Or I start to drift a little bit. I think of the Yom al-Tiyyama and I'm focused again. This happens. This works 100% of the time for me. Or even one time, I had to go to the bathroom. And it's my crew to pray where you have to go to the bathroom. But the prayer time is going to go out. So I started to pray. And as soon as I pray, I start to feel like I need to go to the bathroom. Immediately I thought of the Day of Judgment and it was gone. The whole prayer never came back. So think about it. Think about the Yom al-Tiyyama when you're standing before Allah swt. That's why you're holding your left hand because you want to receive the book with your right hand. Keep that left hand at bay. Receive the book with your right hand inshallah. Think about that day when you're standing before Allah swt. This prayer is a dress rehearsal for that. That's why we pray. Because people who didn't pray on the Yom al-Tiyyama, this is going to seem very strange. They have for sure a mechanical look up. They're standing next to people that are looking at them. It's very, very terrifying if you've never done that before. But we're trying to accustom ourselves to this type of standing on the Yom al-Tiyyama. Yes. I need to go out for a couple of things like that. I think I try to hide my prayer from people. I think maybe it's a weakness of the mind. But how do I overcome that? The reason I do that, I think that's not good. They have enough to take the wrong things or something insane, something. So I try to hide it from them. No, it's good to be discreet. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, we should be like, we should have made a spectacle of ourselves. Because then we're putting ourselves in a farmed way. And some of you are going to know what actually say that's how Allah will do that. Because people have real animosity in this country. A few people have real animosities with Muslims. And they're just looking for Muslims. So we should be discreet when we pray. We shouldn't be in people's faces. But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions that He loves this attribute of Muslims that fulfill the responsibilities and they don't care about the opinions of creation. But that's taken with a greater salt, obviously. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam means to put it in haqq and the mure'a. Wa laa taa khaf fil laa ila maa taa laa. Speak the truth, even if it's bitter. And don't be afraid of the reproaches of human beings. That doesn't mean we put ourselves in a farmed way. Right? Because they were being negligent. And that can, again, put us in the arena. It's impermissible to put yourself in danger like that. So I would recommend actually that when you have to pray, find a clean place that's discreet. Right? That's private. It also helps your concentration. Because if you're praying on the side of the street and parts are swimming by, you're going to be thinking about who's going to throw their car radio at me? Who's going to yell something at me? So the whole time you're sort of in hu-shur, in fear of haqq and not of al-qaq. So that's also problematic. But if there's no other place to pray and you can't leave the room or something, you know, like you're in an airport or something like that. If you're in an airport, use some airports. I was surprised. I used an airport. George W. Bush International Airport actually has a prayer chapel. I was very surprised. I walked by and said, I can just do my prayer here. And I go inside and there's, I see people kneeling and there's a brother making sledge done said that even Oakland doesn't have a prayer chapel. George Bush International apparently has a prayer chapel. So be just be cautious about things like that. Be wise about it. It's not an efficiency in your imam not wanting to show off at the middle or wanting to be discreet. It's not a weakness of the imam in shawl ta-ha. We should be discreet. The other policy I've read this is an interesting summary that there's actually this opinion about using the haqq on your board. And whether it was we talked about this last night that then we come to the masajid and we have hu-shur and the prayer and then we go outside the parking lot or haqqing at each other. Some of the irritable I actually say is haram to touch your boy. Why do they say that? Because they say that it's clearly a breach of your supple. That you're showing impatience and animosity towards another human being especially if you're Muslim. So they say you can only do it for 10 feet. You can just keep it if someone's like stopped at a red light and they're looking at their phone and then turns green. Just to let them know, okay you can go now. Many don't know masjid this is different for Muslims. This is something else they mentioned. The sign of hu-shur, a sign of lack of hu-shur in the prayer is impatience after the prayer. People are impatient after it. They just want to get out of the masjid. That's a sign that they were impatient in the prayer. Oh I'm glad I don't want to get out of here. Then maybe go, let me go. And then they're in bad moods. Also a sign of lack of hu-shur in the prayer is that when he's at home alone he prays like a chicken. The chicken takes the ground out. It's such a good prayer. And he's praying on the TVs on too so we can hear the news at the same time. So he's saying, kill two birds with one stone. I can listen to the news and I can pray like a chicken. But when it comes to the masjid, when there's other people watching. Oh, masjid. He's yelling. She'll put his thumb. He's got that. Straight back for Google. He's there for about two minutes. Deep such done. You can hear his raising his voice in the video. We have to watch out for his name. It's a sign of hypocrisy and lack of hu-shur. That our prayer at home when nobody's around could be exactly the same as the prayer at masjid. There's no difference. Allah swt. Allah swt. So Allah swt. He's a few. We'll be next week. InshaAllah I'll remember again. We'll do a little bit of the text. Any other questions or comments that you may have? It's going to be every Saturday. Sorry about the last week. I totally forgot about it. It's class. Sorry about that. So today, inshaAllah, we're going to be continuing with our reading of the the Cree of Imam And before we move on to the text, maybe some background information might be in order regarding the creed. There were some questions last time. You know, what is the creed? Why is it important? So the great creedal articulators, there's three of them, right? According to the vast majority of scholars of Of course, means the people of the prophetic precedent and the majority, of course, the majority. It's quite important for us to stay with the majority. It's an interesting statement attributed to the state Na'ali Karbala Wajah. It's mentioned in Imam Suyuti's Tariq Al-Qulathah. Of course, we know Imam Suyuti, the great scholar from Egypt, but this is also mentioned in something called primarily a source for the Shia, but some of the Sunnis say that it's authentic. It's very spurious. There's no sonnet for many of the things, but this is also mentioned. So mention the Sunni and Shia sources that Imam Ali Karbala Wajah, he said, Sayyid al-Kufi's infan, that two groups of people because of me are destroyed or on my account are destroyed. It's a very interesting statement because the Prophet ﷺ he said that Imam Ali, he said, you're similar to Issa al-Islam. You would compare Sahaba, certain Sahaba with certain Anbiya because they have similar characteristics. Of course, nobody has a higher station than Anbiya. And you know how he mentions that the Bi'u Mu'ahid when Qafbalu in Jameel al-Awliya. Right? One prophet is greater than all of the saints. It's, that's ma'amur that's known. So if he says, for example, that Sayyid al-Rumar is similar to Musa al-Islam because Musa al-Islam he had a lot of shidah. He was very strict. He's dealing with people that are very rebellious. Sayyid al-Rumar very early on he had a lot of shidah. He never lost his, you know, he was ambidextrous. Sayyid al-Rumar can write, read, he can write with both hands equally. Right? Because he has a hadadah. He has balance even in his physical body. Right? And so he says, the Prophet ﷺ he said that he compared Isha' al-Islam with Imam Ali. So Imam Ali says in the statement recorded nahti al-Balaqat also in tariq al-Khalafat Sayyid al-Kufi is infan two groups of people are destroyed because of me. He says, muhibb al-Mufritwan yafihahu bihir yafihahu bihir haqib al-Layhi l-Haqib The one who loves me so much that his love carries him out of the truth. And he starts ascribing things to me that I do not merit. Right? So there are some people today even to this day who claim to be Muslim and they say Imam Ali is a divine incarnation. They believe in something called tajasin. Right? This comes from the word jassad. Jassad is a body. Right? Tajasin also, you know, it's also called tashvii sometimes. This idea that Allah swt he comes down to earth and takes a human form for people who believe this. Obviously all of the Christians believe this. Right? At least a vast majority. This is the orthodox position of Christianity. Right? They're orthodox position. They're relied upon position for their church councils. And synods is that is not just the son of Allah swt he is in fact Allah swt. This is the orthodox with 95, 96, 97% of Christians they believe this. Imam Ali says that group of people that love me so much right? And it's love but we have to be careful because you know the prophet swt said her book was shaped you or me well you said he said your love for something will blind and death at you. If you're not grounded in your love then you start saying things about triple love that that are not correct. Right? And there's allowance for you know people go into states and things like that. Some of the people that are mystically inclined in our Ummah sometimes where they have a taste of what it means to actualize. You know Allah's nearness to them. This is called the verb or tahti. Right? That they actually have these flashes of annihilation in God. That they start saying things that are outwardly kufr. Right? Blast with us on the exoteric level but on the inside they're attempting to articulate a truth that is something that is impossible to articulate. Right? So people will say some things about the Imam Ali that are not true and then he said the second group is He said the one who hates me so much that his hatred takes us out of the truth. And then he said the best position is the middle position. Right? The best position is the middle position and he called it the great big black thing and this is what before this term was coined and then he calls the hadith and jama'a that the protective power and we're talking about you know what do we do with verses in the Quran that mentioned God has a hand and a shin and an eye how do we do with these verses? Right? So this is a big topic that's very important these verses are called Edmundeshabi had right from a theological perspective it's very very important to understand what's going on here at least from a position of scholarship how did the herd amount the vast majority of them deal with these anyway he says the protective power of Allah is with the majority or is over the majority so when we're reading these credo articulations of Abu Ja'far to Hawi or Abu Hassan and Eshadi or Abu Mansur and Mansur Deidi these are the great formulators they're attempting to articulate the religion of the Sahaba that's the point of it they're not making things up out of the blue right? that's why credo literature there's 130 statements in here this is based on the strongest of sources on the Quran on multiply attested Hadith and Ijma'a of the Sadaf okay Ijma'a of the Sadaf it's different than Shari'a Shari'a yes Quran you have Hadith in general you can you can in in legislation right when you're if you're a faqi if you're a jurist you can take from Hadith that are sound as well as multiply attested but in in credo literature you use only the best of the best Hadith multiply attested Hadith or if there's something just agreed upon by the by the consensus of the Sadaf of first or three or four generations of the Muslims and why is it important to study creed Aqidah why did they write down the Aqidah why not why would why did they decide to do that the reason is because there's so many different groups of you know so-called Muslims that were saying different things about the Quran you know splintered groups here and there Islam has not been immune to that that it necessitated these fourth century theologians to write down the creed to articulate the religion of the Sahaba all right that's all they're doing they're not making things a bit of thin air so they've done a service to us we should respect scholarship so last time we talked a little bit about he talks he begins by talking about ilahiyat or you know theology and then he goes on to Nibbouat which is a prophetology so remember we talk about Allah and we talk about prophets right and as we said last week as well when we talk about Allah everything is you know at best in adequate approximation at best in adequate approximation at worst totally wrong we have to say something so he talks about the prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam I'm Muhammed and I'm Tugul Mustafa and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm Tugul Mustafa we believe in Muhammed Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the chosen one the preeminent prophet his messenger with whom he is well pleased Khafim al Anbiya he is the last Nabi he's the last prophet a difference between a Rasul and a Nabi what is the difference so a Nabi or a prophet Nabi is translated as prophet is someone who receives a revelation from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but he's not ordered to take the revelation public okay that's one definition of a Nabi or someone who's inspired by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to confirm the message of a previous Rasul the Shari'a of a previous Rasul okay whereas a Rasul is someone who receives a Shari'a receives a revelation and he's ordered by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to take it to the people okay so with these definitions in mind we see that every single Rasul is a Nabi every single Rasul is a Nabi and according to the hadith there's a link that's in the hadith there is a hadith that says that there's 313 Rasul 313 Rasul in 124,000 Nbiya okay so a Nabi is not necessarily a Rasul but a Rasul is always a Nabi so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is the last of the prophets right he's the last of the prophets which means also then he's last of the Rasul there's no more no one can come and say I'm a Rasul of Allah and people have done that right there's people who have done that and even at the time of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam there's people some of these were women you know musaylim al-qadda claimed he was a prophet and his wife also said I'm a prophetess many of these people actually became Muslim his wife Sajja actually became a muslim after the battle of yamama but we don't accept anyone anyone who we don't what's his name there's a Baha'u'llah of these people Rushad Khalifa and this guy founder of the 19ers he came up with some mathematical code and probably true there's the adjaz in the bottom the bottom is a miracle and nobody doubts that we have to believe in our country but you know this is why we shouldn't get carried away with any one science so he's an Egyptian scientist who was a numerologist when you start getting into numbers you start noticing coincidences even if they're not there you start putting things together you literally will go insane so this man Rushad Khalifa who used to go on tour with Ahmad Dideh and Ahmad Dideh would bring him on stage and he would you know and then one day one of these events he says Rushad Khalifa says I'm the Rasul of Allah there's actually a guy on there's a there's if you go to YouTube there's a on piece tv there's a big conference and this man got up to the microphone and he said I have news I'm the Ahmad Dideh and everyone was laughing at him they said don't laugh at me I'm the messenger of God you can actually YouTube this and he didn't know he actually said I'm the Mahindy pronounced it incorrectly and then the speaker on stage his Muslim brother he said he said if you're the Mahindy then you can speak Arabic I mean obviously a lot of people speak Arabic but he knew that this man was an error right so he said can you give us some Arabic and he kind of froze and then he said and he started reciting you know and and really was a really bad touch weed and he said no that's that's not enough you're not the you know the Mahindy so all my teachers they get people all the time that come to come to them and say I'm a Isadeh said I'm the Mahindy it's very common actually very very common so people need to be grounded in the Aqidah Imam Al-Ataqiyah he is the Imam of the the righteous Sayyid al-Mursaleen he is the master of the messengers Habibullah Bil'Alamin he is the beloved of the Lord of the worlds this is the station of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is the station of the Mahaffa highest station of any Prophet that's part of our Aqidah to believe that he's the best of creation and there's actually some of the Aulama actually say it's also part of the Aqidah to believe that he's the most physically beautiful person some of them actually mention that as well right so we have to love the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam this is this is something that's far from the aim of a Kulli Muslim right that you have to love it with some type of love because there's Mahaffa is a Mahaffa chain there's two types of Mahaffa or love there's Mahaffa which is Aqali which is a you know a love that's based on a rational faculty right in other words you love something because you know that you should love it so for example if you have cancer you know that would be love we we take you know chemotherapy right nobody likes to do the chemotherapy people get nauseated you know it's just it's a terrible experience but I mean they'll gladly go and do it why because they know it's good for them they love to do it even though they don't like it's kind of bitter right so they'll gladly probably use it up analogy in the middle part it's like taking medicine that's bitter you know people become Muslim for different reasons their people become Muslim because they study the Qur'an and they say this is the word of God it has to be and they don't even know anything about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam so he tells them you have to love the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he says I don't love him I don't even know about him right and if we say oh you don't love the Prophet then what we're doing is we're saying this person is a Catholic if we say that somebody doesn't love the Prophet we're making him to fear of that person because you have to love the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam so what's the answer no he does love the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam but it's a it's a love that's based on the intellect right it's not a love that's based on the qalb so there's muhabba aqli and qalbi right love based on the rational faculty that you know you're supposed to love something because it will benefit you and then there's love that's based on the heart and this comes with time especially for converts right that they get to know the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam so the muhabba that's qalbi is attained through ma'rifah through noses or getting to know who the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is right so this is very clear here there's you know different types of ayat in the Quran and some of the other ones say there's seven types of verses in the Quran every verse will fall under one of these categories right so there's ahkam what is this what is ahkam hukum is Allah is telling you to do something or not to do something and even in ahkam there's different types ahkam maliyah that relate to your wealth badaniyah that relate to your body qalbiyah relate to your heart right ahkam and then there's ma'ad ma'ad is things that deal with the afterlife all right and then you have qasas stories then you have rububiyyah things that deal with Allah's panwar ta'ala nabua things that deal with the prophets then you have wa'ad the wa'ad is a promise Allah makes a promise in the Quran that promise will come to pass Allah never breaks his promise and then you have wa'id which is a threat right wa'ad and wa'id if Allah's panwar ta'ala threatens the mu'min he may forgo his threat and that doesn't take away from his majesty right that's actually that's a demonstration from his majesty right breaking your promise obviously this is called khiyana Allah will never break his wa'ad his promise is never broken in the Allah la yukhuliful mi'ad wa'ad allahi ha'a wa man astaqum in allahi qeela so if Allah makes a promise to a believer you're going to go to jannah if you do this and that if you believe this and that Allah swt on the day of al-qiyama is not going to say oh I was I changed my mind or I lied and I'm going to be liable do you make some promise you can take it to the bank as they said right if he threatens a believer he may forgo it and that's an act of karam of generosity from Allah swt for example a king has a law on the land and the king says whoever is caught stealing sheep I'm going to cut off his hands right so then this little boy is caught stealing sheep now the king can say look this is what the law says this is the letter of the law I don't care who you are how old you are what your circumstances are cut his hands off and that's justice because that's what the law says the kid broke the law but a generous king will say oh he's a child why were you stealing my family is hungry oh okay we'll pardon him in fact we'll give him the sheep and a couple more right so that doesn't take away from the majesty of the king that shows his generosity that he's foregone he's foregoing foregone is that even though we're his threat right however we have to be careful about that because some Muslims they say Allah swt so I can do whatever I want no we don't we don't have this antinomians it's called the murjiah there's a group of muslims that were deviant sect called al-murjiah the libertarians the antinomians they said things like the sharia is optional you know you really have to really have to fast no you say why don't you fast Allah doesn't need my fasting it's true Allah doesn't need your fasting you need your fasting you need it Allah gives a command to do it right so we hear a firmer right and they say things like your actions will increase your or decrease your iman and that's that's not true and that's not the position of the majority of scholars so Allah swt he makes a wa'id he says and meaning that if any of these dunya we things your father is your sons your houses your businesses your spouses any of these any of these any of these things in the dunya are near and dearer to you or beloved to you then Allah is messengers and struggling in his path then just wait until Allah brings his decision right so this is called the wa'id we don't want to wait you know this is a way of speaking it's a rhetorical way of speaking it's not like okay I'm just going to wait then no the point is don't wait right so we're obligated to love the prophet so the wa'id says them and if you look at some of the sahabah manifestation of love really actually you know like when when kids go outside all day to come home the parents ask them questions like where were you at what did you do you know what happened how long has it been since you brush your teeth when was the last time you took a shower when the people of medina when the children of medina would go home the first thing the parents would ask them is how long has it been since you've seen the prophet say so when was the last time you saw the prophet say so well last week last week go right now and go look at him go find him right now just go look at him and if you can talk to him that's better right so like hodayfa who was raised you know as muslim from a very young age great companion say that hodayfa about the allatah and who so one time he came home and his mother said to him when was the last time you saw the prophet say so right not where have you been or you know what did you do all day and you know when was the last time you saw the prophet so he said yesterday and she said astaghfirullah go right now because you know it's you know it's us or time and you haven't seen him the whole day what are you doing all day go look at him right now right so he goes to the musket and it's mother of time now and the prophet said to him is there in the musket and he's approaching him and then suddenly he's swarmed if you ever like been to like tidiyaf I've studied in tidiyaf how people have not been here before and uh you go into the dawn there's just people swarming over him and it's really difficult to get to him right we have to sort of catch him at a coming out of his house so who they thought he said and you know I can't get to him so they prayed the maghrib and he said if you'll wait till after maghrib right so he's sitting in the front row and he said the prophet said so after he left the fault he got up and prayed rakahatein rakahatein rakahatein rakahatein he said this continued until the Allah never hishab so he said I have to wait until after ishab now my mom's gonna worry about me well they feel very going at this time so he said that then he prayed ishab and then he prayed the sunnah after ishab and then he said run after the sunnah I tried to rush and then all of these sahabah came and they were like pushing me and they were you know touching him shaking his hand and asking him questions and swarming around him so he said I couldn't I couldn't because his mother said not only you know don't just go out look at him but ask him to pray for you and for me this is what hudayfah's mother told him I don't think I mentioned that just go look at the prophet and ask for his dua'ah ask him to ask Allah to forgive our sins right so hudayfah he's getting frustrated and finally he says the prophet said someone just rushed out of the masjid he rushed out of the masjid he's walking down the street he's hudayfah he said he was following his footsteps behind him following his footsteps and he suddenly he turned around suddenly and he started walking towards me and he said what has brought you out here he said he said Allah forgive you and your mother and then he said that's that's all I wanted that's why he was following you around the prophet suddenly noticed hudayfah was following him was watching him all these things this is the type of love they had for the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam so this is something that is that is farqul in kuntum to hit when Allah said to be only your hudayfah will come upon and in what in kuntum in is what harf is shot is a conditional particle right and in english we say it's that if clause an english grammar maybe some of the shabab can help us when you give a conditional statement there's a if clause and a then clause in english there's a technical grammatical language it's called the produsus and the apodesis in other words if you do this then I'll do that right first you have to do something then I'll do this so in kuntum to hit when Allah if you love Allah fed to the urni you have to follow me you bidkum oba then right you're bidkum there's a sakun it's called jasmu ittala al jasmu bittala right this is a the effect of this is it's a purpose clause so that or in order that say if you love Allah follow me in order that Allah might love you so the mahabba of Allah is not something that is freely given by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala this is the difference we have with our christian brother and we say the love of God is unconditional we say mercy of God is up additional we believe that wallahi yaf taswibi rahmatihi ma yasha Allah gives us mercy to whom ever he wills right and mercy is akin to Allah some say it's actually the same thing but mahabba technically speaking is a station to be attained with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because it becomes problematic then from a christian perspective is God loves everybody even those who are rebellion against him and why does God put someone that he loves into jahannam forever and ever and ever it's very problematic for the christian right God takes someone he loves unconditionally and puts it because they believe in in fire and jahannam and that people hearty than fiha will forever be in fire so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala takes someone he loves unconditionally and puts it into jahannam that's like a man a husband punching his wife and saying I'm doing this because I love you and punching his wife he says he's in love he says this is something that is he's lost it right anyway so when he says any claim to prophecy after him is deviation and heresy so all these people say anyone who claims to be Mahdi or Mahindi or whatever their claiming to be all of these people are mires or they're very much deluded right so he is the emissary to all of the jinn and the whole of humanity with truth and guidance with light and radiance so there's a few things though the thing about this creed it's not very organized that's one downfall of the creed is he doesn't deal with topics he doesn't exhaust the topic and then move on to another topic he kind of switches you know back and forth so he stops talking about prophecy here and then he moves on to iman right so he starts talking now here about the Qur'an so it's very difficult to understand this you know that's why this has to be studied with a teacher the Qur'an is the word of God that emanated from him without modality in his expression what does that mean he's like a figa so this is something that you know for the Awam for the lay muslim we say that and pick up a mushaf right a mushaf is a copy of the Qur'an and we say had a kalamullah right this is majazah when we say that this is figurative because the kalamullah is uncreated but what we have in the mushaf is something created a mushaf is something created right it's paper it's ink arabic is created it's a language right so when we say that the mushaf the physical book is the kalamullah we don't mean this haqibi this is not literal it's majazh it's figurative and it's permissible to say that because the vast majority of people they're not going to understand these things at a very deep level so it's permissible to say that but in a teaching sort of environment you know when the ulema talk about the uncreatedness of the Qur'an they're talking about pre-eternal meanings that are reflected in the mushaf because Allah swt his speech does not have soat it doesn't have sound my speech has sound he doesn't speak in a particular loha language because language is created right he doesn't you know have syntax he doesn't have you know morphology sartanahud these are things that were created by human beings the actual speech of Allah swt is a modal a modal means there's no how you can describe it in any way it's impossible for you to try to articulate so the ulema say as it's in the mushaf dalla ala kalami illa nafsi wal qadeem what is present in the mushaf indicates upon the pre-eternal and personal speech of Allah swt then we talk about the kalam of Allah we're talking about pre-eternal meanings right that are infinite one of my teachers explained it like this he said what we have in the ba'an is Allah's translation of those pre-eternal meanings Allah's choosing the Arabic letters right Allah's choosing the Arabic which is created choosing the letters the words in Arabic articulating in Arabic some of these pre-eternal meanings so this is I mean as far as it's not a big issue but apparently at the time of the great a'imah this was a major controversy because you know there's a group of muslims called the maritazi that rationalist who said the quran is created and so the aqasuna would clarify there's a story of imam shaabi or shafiri there's the same stories attributed to two men and their names sound the same shaabi and shafiri right that's where the confusion probably comes but I think it's imam shafiri because imam shafiri is a little too early I think so what happened was imam shafiri he was summoned to the the court of the caliph who was a who's a rationalist is maritazi and this caliph he would punish scholars he used to teach that the quran is uncreated this is a major issue for them apparently at the time not a really big issue for us today but so anyway he summons imam shafiri and he says to the imam he says to imam shafiri and he says is the quran makhluk or qadeen is it created or is it pre-eternal right so he wants to he wants to know what shafiri's opinion is imam shafiri knows that if he says oh the quran is qadeen then this this caliph is going to capture him and probably torture him Ahmad ibn Muhammad was tortured all four of these imams spent time in prison Abu Hanifa, imam Malik, imam shafiri imam Ahmad all four of them did time in prison one of them died in prison right because of the because of their opinions anyway so imam shafiri he says al quran is what he does it was al quran he did the he said at Torah wa l-zabur wa l-injil wa l-Quran kulluha makhlukah right so he says the Torah the psalms the gospel and the quran all of these are created and the qadeer says ah mashallah you know i've heard rumors about you i guess they were incorrect go and teach your students you don't tell them just talk about it so then then his students hear about imam shafiri's students he heard about this and he said we heard we heard something and you said the quran is created and imam shafiri said stop for a long time ever since so yeah you did so no no no so yeah you were questioned by the caliph said no let me show you what i did i said the Torah and the zawur and the injil and the quran kulluha my fingers all of these fingers that's that's what i meant he misunderstood me so let's see imam shafiri for you he was very clever so anyway so you know the ulamas use different analogies when we talk about analogies we have to be careful but we're talking about theology then we have to use analogies so we say what is the method of na'ala with Allah is the greatest analogy but you know the ulamas use things like if you're a mother who's speaking to her child who's very young let's say the child is in a topper and he's you know doing things that are inappropriate the mother doesn't say let's sit down and have a conversation about this so let's think about why you're doing this don't you know it's inappropriate for you to put a fork into the light socket because the child will say now he's like no no no no no no right when you talk to the child no no no no no no right it's just an analogy so in other words the mother has to condescend speak the language of the inferior intellect in order to have the child understand right so we talk about kalam allah we talk about the kalam allah that is qadim and nafsih his personal speech no one can understand that because it's not in human language but his kalam lafli his articulated speech is reflected in the Quran and we can understand that because allah shows the Arabic words right by which to articulate some of these pre-eternal meanings of the Quran or they say you're driving down the street there's a deer in the road right you don't walk out of your car and say hello mr deer you need to move now because my car's going to hit you and then you're going to die or be severely injured because the deer is going to say not even going to understand what you're saying right what if you get in the car the deer will run away to speak the language of the inferior intellect in order for the inferior intellect to understand your language you have to condescend to their level wa lilahiq method al-a'la this is just an analogy so make us understand inshallah a little bit closer so bi laqay fiyah qawlan no modality in its expression right so the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam when he recited the Quran he recited obviously the qalam the qalam lafay he recited the arabic Quran but as he's reciting this is why he repeat verses over and over and over again right like ayesha says that he repeated the end of ma'idah in tu'a adhikum fa induhum adhikatuk wa in taqfir lafum fa induhu anthal azeezul haqeen he repeated this verse for the entire night this one verse the entire night the reason why he's doing that is because according to the urlama the pre-eternal meanings of this verse are coming into his heart he's receiving openings al-futuhat in ma'am in meanings openings in meanings as he's reciting that's why he should recite the Quran slowly and try to understand because then you start having these breezes of understanding in your prayer right but oftentimes when we're reciting even if you don't understand the Quran there are Arabs who recite the Quran and they understand the meaning of the translation they understand it's their language but they don't understand what exactly is the meaning of the kalam the big meaning with a big m that this is the speech of God right they don't understand the meaning or they're not realizing that meaning but the actual meaning of the ayat they're understanding because they're Arab and oftentimes the ajam right he understands the big m that this is the kalam of God right so in his prayer he has khusur but if you ask him what's the translation I have no idea I don't know even know what I'm saying how can you have such khusur in your prayer because I understand that this is the Quran right so that's what's affecting him so we should have we should have both we should understand what we're saying because if we understand what we're saying and then Allah swt insha'Allah even if we don't understand insha'Allah we pray that Allah gives us openings in the meanings and the meanings are infinite they're infinite this is why the Prophet say as-sadam you know we have expanded your as-sadam because the Quran is revealed to the qalb and the qalb is in the as-sadam so the chest is that which encloses the heart right so it preserves the heart so one of the meanings of this you know nashrah you know as-sadam means to explain something right to explicate upon something so the Prophet as-sadam was given these these meanings of the Quran he can he can he has the best ability to explain what the Quran actually means right so that's uh that's one of the meanings of adham nashrah laka s-sadarab that not only have we given you the Quran and you're reciting it you know what it means better than anybody else amongst the creation but nobody knows all of the meanings except Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is this impossible for any human being to have something that's infinite like that nobody has an infinite qualitatively infinite infinitude belongs to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wa ansara'ala nabiyee wahyan it was revealed sat down upon his prophet as a revelation then he continues the believers accept it literally they're certain it is in reality the word of God the sublime and exalted laisa laisa bi mahluk and ka kalamil bariyya it is not the speech it is not created like the speech of of human beings abu baqar aba kalani who is a great scholar of ashari he is a student of abu rahasana ashari and unfortunately imam ashari today is much malign a lot of Muslims don't like imam ashari very strange to me my people they have problems with imam ashari it's nothing it is traditionally that was not that was not even the case not even close even even you know you can take me appraises abu rahasana ashari but anyway one of his students was named abu baqar aba kalani was a great preserver of ashara sunna wa jama'a and abu baqar aba kalani he says that if you look at poetry right they're weak verses and they're strong verses what does he mean by that he means that in poetry there are some verses that can be improved rhetorically right if you just sort of isolate that verse you can say it in a slightly better way but the reason that the poets have to use weak verses is because they they have to have a certain meter that they have to agree with right there's a certain meter in poetry these are called biha in arabic there's like 16 or 17 biha you know meters of poetry that they have to abide by right so but if you take one of these weak verses out of a poem you can actually improve it rhetorically but he says with the Qur'an there are no weak verses nothing in the Qur'an can be improved rhetorically in other words there's no any verse in the Qur'an there's no way to improve any verse in the Qur'an say it in a in a way that's more rhetorically sound the Qur'an is perfect rhetoric right so this this is not how a human being speaks and it's not poetry because in poetry you're going to have weak verses because you need the meter to line up right and in poetry you have sejaq sejaq means the end rhymes right and once upon a midnight dreary while a hundred week and weary right that's called sejaq so the Qur'an has sejaq but it's not poetry because it's rhetorically perfect right so it's not poetry it's not the speech of human beings and people who you know non-Muslim Arabs who study this they admit the Qur'an is the pinnacle of any type of Arabic literature there was no you know the equivalent of the Arabic Gilead or Odyssey anything like that before the Qur'an there was nothing written before the Qur'an there was poetry but that's it so whoever hears the Qur'an and claims that it's the speech of a human being has disbelief for God has rebuked and censured and promised such a one in agonizing punishment so I will roast him in hellfire that we know we acknowledge that it is the word of the creator of humanity it does not resemble human speech this is very very important we'll finish with this whoever describes Allah with human characteristics has disbelieved this is why we have to be careful when we approach hadith that that there are certain things mentioned in hadith that we cannot possibly take literally because then we put ourselves in a dangerous position of tajzim of ascribing human or created characteristics to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala right so we have to use aqal right one of my teachers complained that many Muslims are naqal heads there's aqal in naqal right there's intellect and there's revelation the naqal head is someone who takes a hadith and doesn't apply his intellect and then by doing so he makes grave errors in ascribing to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala physical characteristics which is impossible for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to have because Allah is independent of everything for example there's a hadith sound hadith and the last third of the night ar-rahman descends to the sumat of dunya and he asks who is making towa that i may forgive him you take this hadith literally what does it mean Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala physically descends to the sumat of dunya the last third of the night some people take it like that but the problem with that is what if you apply the aqal it's always the last third of the night somewhere right always you go to places around the earth always it's the last third that means Allah is always in the sumat of dunya astaghfirullah no Allah is not there's no enclosure with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah is not in time he's not in space because that would make him dependent on time and space this is called dahar dahar is a time space continuum Allah transcends space time right or you know the Qur'an says Allah is folkly bad he's above folk means above in the nakal heads they say Allah is above us physically well our up is china's down right and china's down is china's up is our down so what up are you talking about so you apply the the aqal it's impossible for that to be literal so how do we deal with these verses that seem to indicate because again speeches and approximation right when we talk about Allah all speech is approximation how do we deal with these verses the son of they deal with these verses so for example when we said yadullah right yet in Arabic means hand so how do the ulama deal with this verse there's two schools of thought there's the metahab of the sedaph the first three or four generations who would say when you come across a verse like this you make something called tough will tough will this means to leave the meaning to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala just leave the meaning this is there's a few steps to this step number one when you hear something like that completely disassociate your mind with anything physical completely disassociate because we hear yet I think this is a yet know how completely disassociate your mind with anything physical the second step is co-sign the meaning resign the meaning to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah knows what it means and it means whatever is proper to His greatness and majesty step number three affirm tenzee transcendence that Allah laisa means mihi shaitan this is what the sedaph would do the sedaph including sahabah they didn't have these conversations about is it a yad is it fingers does he have fingernails is it a germ is it skin they didn't have these conversations it didn't even occur to them this is what the sedaph would do co-sign the meaning to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah knows what it means right cannot possibly be literal because Allah is similar to His creation however over time because you have you know these different Muslim groups the mujasima was a group that said that Allah actually you know has a physical body and very kind of Christian literal reading of the Quran on Hadith so ahl sunnah they would start to make ta'uil right ta'uil is the best leave the meaning to Allah Allah knows what it means and halas that's it Allah's laisa can be fihi shaitan there's nothing like that Allah knows what it means the other school of thought is called ta'uil which means you interpret the verse but you do it in a way that in which you maintain the transcendence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so for example ibn abbas who's actually from the sedaph but he would make ta'uil he would say something like yadullah means the power of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the protection of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala right it's not a physical thing the protection of Allah but then he would say Allah knows best and that's just a possible meaning and laisa can be fihi shaitan there's nothing like Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but nobody no scholar in the history of abbas and the one jama'ah said yes yadullah means a physical hand and there's five fingers i mean this is all according to the classical scholars this is kufr to say something like this but you know nowadays Muslims say the strangest things they don't study the classical understandings and unfortunately they have sort of these weird ideas they ask Imam Malik about istawa aal al-arsh this is his favorite verse of some Muslims so istawa aal al-arsh istawa aal al-arsh Allah is seated on the throne istawa means to lose one of the meanings is to sit so they came to Imam Malik right this type of muslim who believes him touch a scene he came to Imam Malik and said tell us about istawa aal al-arsh and he said he said istawa is maalun meaning that in the Quran we believe it's known istawa he said what kafa and how it is is incomprehensible to you don't even think about it just make tough weeks leave it for Allah why are you asking about this what is it really going to how is it going to impact you why yeah and then he said asking about it is actually bidah for your information because the sahaba didn't ask about these things why are you asking about these things right so he's sitting on a physical throne so he's the last third of the night when Allah descends is he sitting on his throne say yeah so if the throne is like an elevator no no no no he leaves the throne so the throne is above Allah no no no no I don't know anyway so we don't describe human characteristics to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because this is what the christians have done okay just like we don't say the prophet says to him is the son of god or Allah or he dies for your sins the same way if you describe Allah or if you say something like well Allah has a maqan but it's nothing like our maqan so then the question is okay if that maqan wasn't there whatever it is is there still Allah does he need this maqan then no he doesn't need the maqan so why are you describing him maqan oh I don't know does he need the maqan he needs the maqan then Allah is meeting no no wait a minute I don't know just make tough weed I don't know it's it's whatever it means Allah knows what it means it doesn't concern him I think we should stop inshallah next time we'll talk about he talks about the beatific vision the rubia of seeing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala how do we see Allah alright this is another issue is it even possible to see Allah how do you see Allah with your eyes with your ruler with your essence is it mentioned in the Quran you know this type of thing any questions before we yes sir