 Alhamdulillah, we thank Allah for his infinite gifts that he has bestowed upon us. This is my first khutbah inside the masjid since this whole pandemic has began. And so, masha'Allah, I just thank Allah for this opportunity to be here with you and may Allah continue to facilitate khayr and goodness in the lives of those that are here and mercy and rahmah for those who have passed Ameen. I want to share a series of verses that really struck me, I feel, this Ramadan this year was 25 years, April was 25 years to the day, to the year that I took my shahada and became Muslim. And I was in Oakland in the masjid and this verse and this series of this conversation that Allah set out, starting at verse 21 and ending at verse 25 and I'll be brief in just setting it up, but just want to reflect for us to think about it, where Allah starts off in the 21st verse by saying, Allah says, وَمَنْ اَلْلَهُ مَنْ اِفْتِرَ عَلْلَهِ كَذِبَنْ اُوْ كَذِبُ بِ اَيَاتِهِ And it continues, but just to be brief, I'll mention there Allah says who is more oppressive than the ones who deny Allah's, sorry, who create lies against Allah and then deny his signs. And then that's the 22nd, then we move to the 22nd verse where Allah now talks about their state where he says, وَيَوْمَنْ اَحْشَرُهُمْ جَمِعَنْ ثُمَنَ قُلُ الَّذِينَ اَشْرَكُواْ اَيْنَ شُرَكَعُكُمْ الَّذِينَ كُنتُمْ تَزْعُمُونَ Allah says to them, when we will gather them together and say to those who ascribe partners with Allah, where are your partners that you claimed to be your God? And then Allah says, and again the brevity of time, I'm watching this clock here, they will only say by Allah, we have not set up partners with you. So now Allah knows their state, Allah tells us their state and they also lie about their state. And then Allah says, اُنْدِرُ كَذِبُواْ عَلَى اَنْفُوْسِيمَ Allah then says, look how they lie, look how they lie against their own souls, right? But their lie will only leave them, leave them to their own destruction. But this is what I want to talk about, this is the part that really hit me here. وَمِنْهُمْ مَيَسْتَمْ يُرْنَ إِلَيْكَ وَجِعُونَ عَلَى قُلُوْهِمْ اَكِنَّتَ يَفْقَهُ وَفِيْ أَذَانِهِمْ وَقَرَى In this verse Allah says, among them are some who appear to listen to you to the Prophet S.A.W. But we have placed covers over their hearts and they are unable to understand the Qur'an. And deafness is in their ears. And even if we show them every sign they would not believe in them. And when they come to you, to the Prophet S.A.W., to argue as disbelievers and they say that this is nothing but tale of the ancients, اصاتل اولين. That this is nothing but stories of the ancients. Why was this important to me? Because I think about this as I was talking to families and observing what was happening. Perhaps in one house you'd have a grandparent, a parent, a child and a child of a child. You'd have four generations inside of one house that Allah S.A.W. had honored with Islam. To be reading the Qur'an in the month of Ramadan. And I thought about this as I said, now that time matters. Whether it was year one or it's been year 25 for me. But to think that Allah S.A.W. didn't put that Akinnaten on my heart. That Allah didn't put that cover on my heart where I couldn't understand the verses of Allah. And Allah didn't place deafness on my ears where I couldn't hear the call of Allah S.A.W. And Allah didn't blind me so that I couldn't see the signs of Allah S.A.W. Because in that moment I thought to myself, just across the street and oaked in our people who don't know that it's the month of Ramadan. If they don't know it's the month of Ramadan, they don't know who the Prophet S.A.W. is. And if they don't know who the Prophet S.A.W. is, they don't know who Allah is. So I thought to myself, what a gift. And that's the message in the one minute that I have left to finish this khutbah. That's the message that I wanted to just convey today. Is that what gift do we have that is this Islam? And what gift do we have to know the book of Allah? And what gift do we have to fast the month of Ramadan? And what gift do we have to know the message of Allah? What gift do we have to know Allah? And what gift do we have to have a community such as this? That facilitates closeness and nearness to all of those things that we just mentioned. And how this community took care of itself and took care of others in a time of pain, in a time of darkness that it was a beacon of light. So from an individual level to a level of a communal level, may Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala continue to bless each and every single one of us on an individual level to keep our hearts open, to keep our lineage, keep our lineage intact of La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah. So there will never be a kinnatan. There will never be covers on the hearts of any of our generations from now until Yom Al-Qiyamah. There will never be deafness on the ears of our lineage from now until Yom Al-Qiyamah. And there will never be a blindness on the eyes on our lineage from now until Yom Al-Qiyamah. I'll call you in the name of Allah. May Allah forgive you and say, may Allah forgive you and forgive you. May Allah forgive you. We praise Allah & praise Him. We seek forgiveness from ourselves and from His mercy. All our lives are from the beginning. We seek forgiveness from others and from His mercy and from Him. And we seek forgiveness from others and from His mercy Sayyidina wa Habibina maulana Sayyidina Muhammadin abduhu wa Rasuluhu Ibar Allah, wu dhakkirukum bi qawlihi Sayyidina Muhammadin Sallallahu alayhi wa ra'ali sahbihi sallam Haith yaa qulf al hadith, itaq Allah haith maa kuntum wu dhakkirukum bi shayfim makaan mustafa Sallallahu alayhi wa ra'ali sahbihi sallam Haith yaa qulf al hasmuhatu l-Quran kareem Inna Allah wa malaykatu yu salluna ala nabi Ya ayyuhal ladina aamanu, sallu alayhi wa sallimu tassneema Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barik ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala ala Sayyidina Muhammad kama barrakta wa sallaita ala Sayyidina Ibrahim wa ala ala Sayyidina Ibrahim innaka anta hami du majin So alhamdulillah just in closing the I was one time in the Prophet's Islam's masjid and the son of one of the great scholars of Damascus we just kind of met each other after making the ziyarah and visiting the Prophet's Islam and he talked about the honor that we had it was Ramadan, the honor that we had to be there in that place to visit the Prophet's Islam to be Muslims, to have iman that would bring us to this place and then he just looked at me and said that you know, our shukr, our gratitude, right? That we are, we must give a shukr for our ability to make shukr we must give shukr for the ability to make shukr so may Allah make this a reminder of the gratitude, of the gift that we have of al-Islam Allahumma rahma al-muminina wa al-muminat al-muslimina wa al-muslimat al-ahya'i minhum wa al-amwati yurham al-rahmin rabbina la tuza qalubina ba'al ad-dhaditina wa hablana min ladunkah rahma innaka anta al-wahab Allahumma aqil qalubina biq Allahumma aqil qalubina biq Allahumma aqil qalubina biq Allahumma ja'am Quran al-Rabi'a qalubina wa shifa'an li-sudurina Ya Rabbi, Al-Alamin Allahumma rodina la dinaka raddan jameela ya Rabbi, Al-Alamin Allahumma kh'afif an umma tisaida Muhammadin sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Allahumma ultuf umma tisaida al-umma tisaida Muhammadin sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Allahumma wansur umma tisaida Muhammadin sallallahu alayhi wa sallam nasur minna ondak ya Rabbi, Al-Alamin Allahumma man yudkhayli hazee umma tima Muhammadiyya huwafiqa lakul i khayyar wa man yudghayla daak wa khuthu ahla al-Aziz al-mukthah Ya Rabbil Alameen, innaka ala kooli shay'in qadiya wa bi-hamdi jadiya Ya Rabbil Alameen. Wa sallallahu alayhum ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alayhi wa sahbihi as-salam. Tasliman kithian Ya Rabbil Alameen. Aqeem al-salat. Ya Rahamani, Ya Rahamakum Allah.