 Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Alhamdulillah, Rabla. Alameenu As-salatu wa-salaam. Aala sayyid al-amr. Sayyid al-amr. Sayyid al-amr. Ma'amal-i-wa'al haal. Yusaf, bi-salam. Rabb al-shahli s-sadri wa-sirli amri wa-halal-oqta tam min-nisaan. Yafqa wa-qawli amin. Qalla wa-taala. Fikri, abil-majin. Al-yum, a'akmaltu likum dinakum wa-atmamtu aalikum na'amati wa-radhidu likum al-islam ad-dina. Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. So, today obviously we'll be talking about Umrah. Umrah, as I'm sure most of you know, each of the pillars of Islam is obligatory, but each one has an associated recommended act with it. And so, for example, with the testimony of faith, the recommended act that is associated with it is sending sadaqat on the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. With your obligatory prayers, there are recommended prayers. With zakat, there's recommended sadaqah, etc. So, the recommended act that pairs with Hajj is Umrah, and that's why it's called the minor pilgrimage. When Allah obligated Hajj on us, he revealed to Aya that today I perfected for you your religion and completed my favor upon you, and I am pleased that Islam be your religion. In other words, Hajj is considered the final ayah. It's the final thing that you do in your life. It's the thing that you do right before you die. And in many ways, both the Umrah and the Hajj specifically are preparations for death. And so, when someone goes to Umrah and when someone goes to Mecca and Medina, there's a stripping off of all your properties, a stripping off of all your clothes. And you look the same as everyone else. Because when you're resurrected on Yom Kiamah, you'll be resurrected without any clothes on. It'll be so frightened on that day that you won't be looking at each other on that day. But everyone will be the same. There will be no material differences or variances between people. And additionally, we'll see this as we go through. What you're doing in the Hajj is reorienting yourself to Allah, Sunnah with Allah, and obviously the same in the Umrah. When you're making the love, you're circling around the Ka'bah. And we know that the Ka'bah physically is just stones. But at the same time, somebody who worships the stones has actually left Islam. We don't worship stones. We worship Allah. And the stones is just the place that Allah has set as a representative of him. And so, outwardly, externally, the Ka'bah is just stones. But internally, its internal reality is as the house of Allah. Again, this reflects the state of the heart and what the human being should be doing in all of life. We begin whenever we recite the Quran or most anything with the dua, I seek shelter in Allah from the accursed shaitan. What does that literally mean? To seek shelter means that you've compared Allah to a house. That house is what protects you, and Allah is what protects you. In other words, the Ka'bah is the house of Allah. And your heart should be at the house of Allah as well. This is Allah protects you. Just Allah protects people in the Ka'bah. And it's a sacred area. And to commit a sin in Mecca or Medina is much more grievous, a thousand times more grievous than committing a sin elsewhere. Similarly, Allah protects your heart. The ideal person is someone who makes his heart the Ka'bah, as it were. So let's begin by going over some of the fiqh. So the omrah has four requirements to fulfill. If you do all of these, you've completed the omrah. If not, then either you need to repeat your omrah, or you need to pay some sort of penalty, which we'll go over. The first one is the ehram. The second one is tawaf. The third is sa'ih. Sa'ih is running between Safdah and Marwah. And the fourth is the haircut. So to begin, ehram has several components. The first of which is the garment. Now, before we put on the garment, we'll do that in Istanbul, inshallah. The preparation for omrah begins before Istanbul. It begins when you leave here, when you leave your home. Because the meaning of omrah is to go and to get ready to meet your Lord as though you're dying, you should say farewell to everyone here. I think as my dad was saying, if there's anyone who you need to seek forgiveness from, if there's any debt seen to repay, all of those should be done as much as possible before you leave. And so you should prepare and make dua and ready yourself to meet your Lord. Practically what this also entails is if you're coming straight out of work and then getting on a flight and then you're going to be in Istanbul in 36 hours, that's not enough time to get out of the working business mindset into the mindset of service and being humbled before Allah. So I highly recommend before you leave spending half a day, one day, just clearing your mind, clearing your search, not doing anything. And just preparing your heart, being in a state of avivada, reading something about the Hajj or the omrah or reminding yourself in various ways. Reading some of the dua books that we'll mention. That way when you reach omrah, your heart will be ready for it. Your mind won't be distracted with other things. Before you leave, you should read two rakahs. This is just recommended, not required. And then when you land in Istanbul, obviously you'll need to leave the plane. And then when you get to the Jeddah gate, you should go to the restaurant change into literally essentially towels. And then you can make your intention and so on and so forth. The rules for the garment are as follows. You cannot wear anything stitched or sewn. Anything stitched or sewn that covers a limb. So the exception here are belts. You can wear stitched belts because stitched belts don't cover a limb. It is, you know, hold your, you know, hold your lower garment together. The stitches, the reason stitches and sewing are not allowed is stitches represent something, which is your attachments to this world. Remember when you're going to omrah, you're stripping off everything of the world. You're stripping off your clothes even. And so you can't wear anything that's tying you to this world. You're getting ready to go to the Akhara. You're getting ready to meet Allah. You don't want any attachments left. And so the stitches likewise have to go. They're symbolic of letting go of the dunya. You can wear a belt if you buy one of those Akhram packages that often come with a belt, or you can just wear your normal belt if you prefer that. You can wear sandals and flip-flops where the top is exposed. Meaning that, imagine this is your foot. You can't have something that's going to cover most of the bone of the foot here. What you need is the type of flip-flop where you have one thing that comes up and turns into two prongs. That's sort of a flip-flop. If any of you have seen thick Adidas slippers, those don't work. But other flip-flops will work. And you can, and actually should, wear a smaller traveling pouch around your waist. And that will carry your phone and your wallet and whatever other necessities. For women, you can wear any type of clothing. However, because of the spirit of the Umrah, it's recommended that you wear something plain and that it's mostly white or mostly black. Women can't wear a niqab and that includes a mask. And that also goes for men. You can't wear anything covering your face, mask, or anything else. Both men and women should not wear gloves, although there's one school that allows that, so it's not entirely prohibited. And similarly, women like men can wear pouches to carry their things. Any questions on this? On the garments? Glasses are fine, contacts are fine. You can't cover your head though. So anything that would cover any sort of head covering, a sort of hat, a sort of kuffee wouldn't be allowed. Glasses, eye contacts are fine. Just a minute. So once you put on the han garments, then you need to make your intention for entering into the state of Ahram. Now, what do you mean by the state of Ahram? All of you know that when you begin your prayers, you begin with a takbir, right? You begin with saying Allahu Akbar. That takbir is called takbirat al-Ahram. That's called takbirat al-Ahram. It's the Allahu Akbar, you say, to enter into a sacred state. Ahram means to make sacred. So you enter into a sacred state. When you're making the intention of Ahram, what you're saying is I resolve to begin my Umrah and I resolve to enter into the sacred state with Allah. That sacred state is the state of being a fakir, someone who's needy, someone who's a beggar, someone who's in utter humility before Allah. And that's why we'll talk about it more, but a person should always be in the state of Tadbiyah. Always telling Allah, Ya Allah, I'm at your service right now. O Allah, I'm here for you right now. I acknowledge your lordship as worthy of you. And so the intention, it does need to be verbalized. The intention is just resolve in the heart. If you want to verbalize it, you can say something along the lines of, O Allah, I intend Umrah, so facilitated for me and accept it from me. You are the all-hearing and the all-knowing. Once you make this intention, then you need to say the Tadbiyah at least once, but the sunnah is to do it three times. That's labbaik, Allahumma labbaik. La sharika laka labbaik. Inna alhamda wa ni'mata laka wal mulk. La sharika laka. At your service, Allah. At your service, you have no partner. At your service, all praise and blessings belong to you. As this dominion, you have no partner. And so you repeat this three times. Then afterwards, between you entering into the state of Ahram and entering into the masjid, a person should always be repeating the Tadbiyah constantly. You can obviously stop to make du'as or if you need to say some things to your neighbor or something that's fine. But the idea is you're in a state of sacredness before Allah. You're in a state of humility and worship before Allah. And you should always be trying to be in a state of dikkah and a state of remembrance of Allah and evoking Allah and specifically with this Tadbiyah. And then after you make your Tadbiyah, then you've entered the state of Ahram. As we'll get to you, there are certain things that are prohibited when you're in a state of Ahram. And that's when those prohibitions begin, once you've said your Tadbiyah. And then it's recommended to send prayers, salawat on the Prophet, salam, and to make du'a for yourself and for others as well. Oh sorry, there was one more thing I meant to mention. Before the intention, before you get onto the flight, it's recommended to pray two rakahs of a prayer. This isn't required, it's just nafah. And the first one to recite Surat al-Akhlas, quluhu allahu ahad. And then the second one to, sorry, the first one to recite Surat al-kaafirun, qulya ayyuha al-kaafirun. And then the second one to recite Surat al-Akhlas, quluhu allahu ahad. So you pray on the Ahram garment, pray the two recommended rakahs, make your intention and then Tadbiyah, and then you've entered into the state of Ahram. Now, what do we mean by Ahram? What do we mean by the sacred state? When someone enters into Ahram, you're in a state where you're going before Allah as if you were dead, as if you've died and been resurrected. In other words, there's no grooming in this, at this point. You're before Allah, there's no lewd speech, there's no argumentation. Specifically as well, hunting and murder and intimacy are both prohibited. So grooming, what do we mean? You can't trim your nails. You can't remove hair from any part of the body, even if that's like rubbing your head and hair falls down, you should refrain from that as much as possible. You can't apply oil to your hair. You can't touch perfume. That's why the warnings against touching soap or touching shampoo because that will get perfume on you. It's prohibited to touch perfume with your clothes or with your body. Another thing to understand is once you're at the Kaaba, oftentimes the Kiswah of the Kaaba will have perfume on it as well. So when you're doing Umrah, if you have the chance to go up to the Kaaba, there might be perfume on the Kiswah, so don't actually touch it. Maintain some distance from it. So all of these things have to do with grooming versus not allowed to do these things. Additionally, like I mentioned, hunting, murder and intimacy, and just general argumentation are all prohibited in this state. Argumentation is always prohibited, but it's a especially severe sin at this time in this state. What can you do? You can take a bath and take a shower, or you can scratch an itch as long as you're careful that no hair falls out, and you can wear a ring or a watch, even though this isn't recommended. It just wouldn't... It wouldn't result in a penalty. If you do anything on the left-hand side, that will require some sort of penalty to be paid. I don't have all that listed because the details can be quite lengthy, but if it happens, let me know, and we'll figure out how much that exactly is. It usually isn't too much money. So if you do... If you do accidentally end up trimming your nails or some hair falls out or something like that, then there's a penalty to be paid for that. Yeah, so once you arrive in Jeddah and you're checked into your hotel, there might be time to take a very quick shower or to change or to wash up or something. Yeah, and then we'll go to the Haram to begin the Omrah. Yeah, so after your hair is cut, then you'll leave the state of the Haram. You can continue to enter into the Haram, do Tawaf, you wouldn't be doing Salih, but at that point you don't need to be in the towels anymore. And so there's no restrictions on you in terms of the things we just mentioned. Ehram, when do we put it on? Now you'll notice here on the right-hand side, you see essentially an area laid out with boundaries. These boundaries are called the Miqat. And so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us to anyone who passes these boundaries intending to do Omrah or Hajj, must enter into a state of the Haram before crossing the boundary. This is for someone who's coming from outside of Mecca as we will be, because we'll be coming from Istanbul. What that means is when the plane is flying in, at some point it's going to cross one of these boundaries, at that point you have to be in a state of the Haram. But you won't know exactly when that is. You won't know exactly when that is. So, what does that mean? You should put on, basically you should put on your garment and pray in Istanbul before you leave, for sure. In terms of making your intention and reciting the Talibiyah, I would personally recommend doing it right when you board. Just so that if you want to sleep on the flight, if you forget, you're already in a state of the Haram. However, you can wait and about 45 minutes before the plane reaches Jeddah, you'll be crossing the border. So here I've written down one hour, around one hour before arriving, to make your intention and do your Talibiyah. So that should be fairly straightforward. Now, after we do our Umrah, you can choose to do a second Umrah, or a third Umrah if you like. To do so, you need to enter back into a state of the Haram. What does that mean? You need to go out to a Miqat boundary, then you need to come into a state of the Haram where the garments make your intention, do your Talibiyah, and then come back. The Miqat boundary for Makkah, if you start within Makkah, is Masha-d'ayshah. And so if you want to go every taxi driver, every bus driver will know what Masha-d'ayshah means. You get into a taxi, it'll be about a 20-minute drive to Masha-d'ayshah, there you make your intention, say your Talibiyah, and come back. And now you're in a state of the Haram again, and you have to complete the Umrah rituals before you exit the state of the Haram. Any questions on the Haram before we move on? Yeah, go ahead. Let's just say if you think by that time we would be warming up to do it ourselves. Yeah, yeah, I think so. It usually doesn't take too long to figure out where things are. And once you've done it once, it's pretty straightforward to know what you're doing. Yeah, go ahead. You don't have to care. So you just go back to the barber, they'll just do a one-over and take off whatever bits you might have, and that's it. They have clippers, and they have blades for shaving. No, go ahead. Sorry, the Umrah? Yeah. Okay. Any other... Yeah. So your intention in your Umrah, your first Umrah should be done with for yourself. I won't get into the fact of it, but you should do it intending it to be for yourself. Afterwards, you can do intention and combine multiple intentions together. So you can do it on behalf of 10 different people all at the same time. No. Ahram. Go once. Go twice. Let's go. Okay. So when you enter into the Kaaba, there's some landmarks you should recognize. The first one is going to be the Blackstone. You won't see the Blackstone. There will be a huge crowd around it, unless it's prayer time, in which case, as you can see here, they'll have blocked off the area, and you'll probably see some guards standing by it. After the Blackstone is the Hijra Ismael. So if you look on the left-hand side, on the left-hand side of the Kaaba here, that's where the Blackstone would be on that corner. You go around one corner, you're at the Hijra Ismael, which is also known as the Hatim. The Hijra Ismael is important, because this originally used to be a part of the Kaaba, and there's some disagreement on whether it's the entire space or just the space marked here. But in any case, this was the original part of the Kaaba. When the Kaaba was destroyed and rebuilt, the Kaaba was made smaller. And so praying in this area is a really special place in the world to pray, because you're praying within the Kaaba. You're praying within the original Kaaba. And this is a place where your dua is accepted, your dua is mustajab. So it can be quite hard to get in here. There's a lot of traffic and crowds, obviously, that's the significance of that place. And then the other place to know is the Yemni corner. The Yemni corner is right before the Blackstone. So here where it says Ruk and Aswad, that's the Blackstone. Ruk and Iraqi is where the Hijra Ismael begins. So before you, if you're going counterclockwise, then the one before the Blackstone is the Yemni corner. And the Yemni corner is a place that you, that when you're doing dua, you make special dua specifically because it's associated with the angels and the acceptance of dua. And then lastly, the last place to know is the Maqam Ibrahim. Maqam Ibrahim is that gold structure. Inside of it, if you're able to look, is a footprint of Sayyidina Ibrahim, and it's protected by this glass casing. This is next to the Blackstone. So the left side of the Kaaba right now is the Blackstone. If you come out, and on the right hand side is the Hijra Ismael and the Maqam Ibrahim is over here. So this will help you get your bearings for where you are around the Kaaba. You begin your tawaf and end your tawaf at the Blackstone. And there will be a green light on the opposite side, on the mushed side, which will tell you that this is the place that you begin your tawaf and end your tawaf. So you'll start there and start going around. So the Kaaba obviously is a place of many secrets and a greatly honored place. The first sighting of the Kaaba is especially something sacred and something that stays with you for the entirety of your life. And so from the time that you enter into the state of Ahram, to the time that you begin the Kaaba or the time you see the Kaaba, there are several things that a person should do. First of all, obviously be conscious and mindful of Allah in every moment and every act, because this is a particularly sacred state. To constantly chant the Talbiyah, again you don't need to be shouting at a medium pitch, it's fine. When you enter Makkah, there's a dua you should make that you're entering the Haram. The Haram is a sacred place. It is a place that things are forbidden. And so there's a dua that you should make here that you yourself are made forbidden from the fire just as you're entering into a forbidden place, into a sacred place. Then when you enter the Masjid itself, once you're into Makkah and then into the Masjid, then you're passing through the doors of the Masjid. Here's where you make the dua Allahumma iftahli abu abu rahmatik. Allah opened for me the doors of your mercy. So just as you're passing through the doors of the Masjid, this is like passing through the doors of Allah's mercy. When you enter, sometimes you might be able, if you keep your head up, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of the Kaaba. It's recommended to keep your head down and we'll be guiding you through all the crowds and where to go. Keep your head down until you're in the Matthaf. The Matthaf is the bottom floor where the Kaaba is. When you reach that area then raise your head because then at that point, the first time that you put your eyes on the Kaaba, this is another place that dua is accepted. So here in a state of utter humility is where you want to praise Allah and glorify him and then send prayers on the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and then make whatever dua is you'd like to make. The laf itself. The laf is seven circuits, beginning at the Blackstone and ending at the Blackstone. One of the conditions of the laf, as opposed to sahih, is you have to be in a state of bahara, you have to be in a state of racial purity, meaning you have to be in wudu. If you break your wudu during the laf, you have to go out, make wudu and come back in. If that happens after the fourth one, come see me, we'll talk about what to do because there's some detailed rulings there. But in general, you need to be in a state of wudu for the entirety of the da'af. If you break your wudu after your da'af and before you do your sahih between Safa and Marwah, that's alright, you don't need to be in a state of wudu for Safa and Marwah. When someone performs or when men perform da'af, for the first three circuits, for the first three cycles that you go about, you should be walking briskly and described like a warrior. What does that mean? You should have your arms up and you should be moving your shoulders a little bit. Now, the crowds will be so much that you can't actually move fast. So you're more like doing this in motion. But the idea is this is a place where a Muslim shows his strength, where a Muslim shows his fearlessness because Allah is with him. And so in the first three men should be doing this sort of motion and they're walking briskly and with some seriousness. And then they should bear the right shoulder. So normally your upper garment is going to cover both shoulders. But in this one you take your garment and put it underneath. And therefore your right shoulder will be exposed. And then after the three you can cover it back up. It's recommended when you pass a black stone in a circuit to kiss it. It's impossible to literally kiss the black stone. If people will fight for hours to get into the black stone you'll be pushing with all your force. It's not a good situation or other. And because you're in the house of Allah where sins are magnified and it's a place of great sanctity to fight in that sort of place is a deep sin and really looked down upon. So you really shouldn't try to kiss the black stone because it'll force you to get involved in the fighting and in the rough housing. Instead of what you can do another way of kissing the black stone is when you pass the black stone you turn towards it you put your hands to your shoulders and you face your palms towards it and you say Allahu Akbar. This is equivalent to touching the black stone or kissing the black stone and you don't have to get involved in the fighting. So you go about seven times in constant zikr the entire time there are specific du'as recommended for certain places but it's important not to get too caught up in the words of the du'a there are lots of recommended du'as for different times and places the one that's most authentic is Arabic Allah grant us in this life good and in the next life good and protect us from the torment of the fire so that's the only one I would absolutely memorize and make sure that you say it between the Yemeni corner and the black stone all the other du'as will give you some books it'll have several du'as listed there otherwise just being a state of zikr just being a state of glorification whatever du'as you have memorized this would be the time for them after you complete the seven surkats we'll all be going in a group so you won't get lost we'll all be doing it together after you complete it it's obligatory to read two rakkas you don't have to do it behind Maqam Ibrahim but is this in the again whether we'll be able to or not depends on the crowd and how much space there is but we'll try to find a space behind Maqam Ibrahim and pray two rakkas again here the recommended prayer is to do surat al-kaafirun in the first rakka and surat al-akhlas in the second rakka after that face the ka'ba stand up face the ka'ba du'as takfar zik forgive this of Allah and make du'a and then drink samzam and then you finish your du'af and you're about to go into your say was that al-furtaf before we get into menstrual periods about du'af any questions okay so we mentioned with du'af you have to be in a state of wudu now for menstrual periods this becomes an issue if your period is going to align with doing your du'af or doing your umrah a few rules about menstrual periods you can enter into ahram when you're on your menses but you cannot enter any masjid and therefore you cannot perform du'af what this means is you don't want to be caught in a scenario where you've entered into the state of ahram and then your period begins and you can't enter the masjid because what that means is you have to stay in the state of ahram until your menses ends which will be however long it is so it's recommended before you leave to plan out exactly when it's going to be if you need to take period blockers or period delays or something then talk to a physician and they'll be able to help you out with what to do there if it happens that you are on your period and you are in a state of ahram and you have to leave before the period is going to end then you should perform umrah while still in your period and there's a hefty penalty to be paid with that and so you just go ahead and pay the penalty afterwards there's obviously no sin involved no choice but there's still is a penalty and then we'll move on to sa'i sa'i is walking between Safa and Marwa in the Safa and Marwata from Shahair Allah from the heart you actually see this written when you enter into Safa there's a dome on top these are the ayahs that are written on the dome they mean really Safa and Marwa are from the rituals of Allah and whoever venerates Allah's rituals this is from the piety of the heart this is from the piety of the heart and so you begin and end with purity you begin and end with veneration of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the sa'i itself is just the walking between the two hills when we say seven cycles a cycle is going from Safa to Marwa as one Marwa back to Safa as two so you begin at Safa you'll end at Marwa after seven and then you'll need to walk in the middle there are two green columns and nowadays they've added green lights up top where we're walking that area is where men need to rush or hasten and so you just walk a little bit faster than normal again similar to which you mentioned before you walk this meant to show the strength of the Muslim and there's a fearlessness that Muslims are commanded to have at each hill at Safa and Marwa is recommended that you stand and supplicate and make dua and to spend time there not be rushing through these rituals and then lastly the haircut after you finish your sa'i then we'll go back and then there are barbers underneath the clock tower which is probably where we'll go you have the option, men have the option to either shave their head entirely or to trim trim means you're going to remove one inch of hair from all sides of your head if you have less than one inch then you have to shave it is highly recommended to shave in any case it is highly recommended to shave in any case trimming is allowed though if people want to do that while in a haam you can't cut your own hair you can't cut your own hair and you can't cut someone else's hair which is why you have to have a barber do it for you as my dad explained for women what that means is either if you're going with your husband or someone he'll have his haircut and then he'll cut your hair and then you can start cutting other women's hair and it just continues in a cycle from there and after you've gotten your haircut then you've reached the end of your Ahram your Ahram state has ended and all of the prohibitions that were placed upon you have been lifted any questions about Sa'i or yeah they usually charge about 10 dinars or so 10, yeah 10 10 real, so it's not expensive a little bit more any other questions about Sa'i or the haircuts or other requirements okay the last thing just a short thing about visiting Medina and visiting the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam we know that when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam made his hijra to Medina the place of Medina changed names from Taiba to Medina and changed names from Medina to Manawara Taiba means illness sorry, changed names from Yathrib sorry to Manawara Yathrib means illness or disease and so the Prophet the coming of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was like the coming of a light or the coming of a healing and while he is there Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam the place is still a place of light the when you are in Mecca and Medina you might be tempted to explore the Mushred which is fine but the secret of Mecca and Medina is in Mecca the secret is the Kaaba itself so ideally what you will be doing every day is going through the Kaaba really seeing it if not doing around it all the blessings of Mecca come from the Kaaba similarly in Medina the blessings of Medina come from the grave of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam everything that happens in Medina is from the blessings of that one place there is a consensus on the scholars in Jama'a that the holiest physical substance in the world is not the Arsh it's not the Kaaba it's not the Blackstone it's the soil touching the blessed body of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when we give Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam you'll enter through this gate this gate is known as Babu-Sana the door of Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam it's right at the front of the Mushred in Medina so you'll enter through here or there might be some other entrance depending on what sort of obstacles the Saudi officials have placed but more or less sorry yeah for women you'll enter from the other side and you'll go through here at the end will be the graves of Sayyidina Rasoolallah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam first and then Sayyidina Abu Bakr and then Sayyidina Omar Abdullah Alaihi Wasallam when you greet them you should greet them knowing that they can hear you as it confirmed in the Quran in several places including but Allah says do not think that those who are killed in the way of Allah and this includes the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam do not think them dead know they are living given provision with their Lord it's also known that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in Isahi Hadith said that he is shown in his grave the actions of his Ummah every Friday and if he finds what he has shown pleasing then he praises Allah and if he finds what they have done displeasing then he seeks forgiveness for them when you meet the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam you are meeting him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam this is important to understand the idea of being living is the idea of someone who responds to stimuli that's the biological definition and then our own scholars had a similar understanding and Allah said about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam inna fatahana laka fataham mubina really we have opened for your sake a great opening really we have opened for your sake a great opening in other words every opening is through the key of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam if you ever if there's anything that you feel like is locked in your life you bring that to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when you meet him if there's anything that you feel like is difficult in your life that's what you bring to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when you meet him Allah says in the Quran وَلَوَ اَنَّهُمْ اِدْضَلَمُ وَاَنْفَسُمْ جَا أُوْكَ فَسْتَغْفْرَ اللَّهُ وَسْتَغْفْرَ لَهُمْ الرَّسُولَّ وَجْلَ اللَّهَ تَوَابَ الرَّحِيمَ Allah says when they oppress themselves had only they come to you and sought Allah's forgiveness and had the messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam sought forgiveness for them then they would have found Allah تَوَابَ الرَّحِيمَ relenting of their sin and merciful upon them notice what Allah is telling you that you go to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and in that blessed location that's where you seek Allah's forgiveness so acceptance of the acceptance of forgiveness comes when you do it paired with and coupled with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam either physically in location or in heart or so on and on and so there's a great blessing in being in Medina like we mentioned the sins in Medina are very weighty just like sins in Mecca are very weighty and especially weighty on the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam because Allah says لَقَجَّاءَكُمْ رَسُولُمْ مِنْ أَنْفُسِكُمْ عَزِزٌ عَزِزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَعْنِتُمْ really there's come to you and messenger from amongst yourselves what distresses you is weighty upon him حَرِسٌ عَلَيْكُمْ he has he has earnest for you بالمؤمنين الرأوف الرحيم he is kind and merciful to the believers and when you send Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam what does that mean I send prayers on the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and send blessings on him what does that mean prayers and blessings our scholars tell us Sallall comes from the idea of Tasliyyah Tasliyyah is to burn away when you come to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam you're sending prayers on him in the sense that you're burning away everything that's contrary to him you're burning away everything that's not from his sunnah and you're saying and you're sending peace upon him peace meaning means you are safe from us you have peace you don't intervene in your sharia Ya Rasulullah and so every time you're sending Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam on the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam you're promising him to stay true to Allah's commandment and to his commandment and that's why specifically in that place to do any sin is to offend the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself and he is forced to ask forgiveness for you um you know any last questions before we end in terms of Mecca or Medina or the Umrah itself the last thing I wanted to mention books to prepare from the first book, The Accepted Whispers is by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thaniwi it has it's a collection of pretty much all of the du'as in the Quran and the Sunnah so I'd recommend everyone guess this um it'll be available on Amazon or um or Amazon or if you're having trouble we can find you copies the second book this is for people who want details about the feck of Hajj and Umrah this is by Sheik Anur Dinaatar who is a famous Sheikh, Shammi Sheikh of the previous century he collected this brief manual on the rulings related to Umrah and Hajj as well as the du'as related and then the last book, the Hajj and Umrah book compiled by our own local Sada Layla Fakira um we'll be passing out copies of those and those are just du'as for specific locations in Hajj and Umrah As-Salaamu Alayhi Wa-Alayhi Wa-Alayhi Wa-Alayhi Wa-Alayhi Wa-Alayhi it seems like they started praying so let's head over