 بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ونتوكل عليه ونعود بالله من شرور أنفسنا ونسيئات أعمالنا من يهده الله فلا مضل له ومن يضل الفلا هادي له ونشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له ونشهد أن محمدا عبده ورسوله أرسله بشير ونذير بين يدي الساعة من يضع الله ورسوله فقد رشد وهتده ومن يعصهما فإنه قد غوى وإنه لا يضره إلا نفسه ولا يضره الله شيئا قال الله تعالى في كتابه الكريم بعد عوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم يا أيها الذين آمنوا اتقوا الله حق تقاته ولا تموتن إلا وانتم مسلمون نبدأ with the thanks and the praises of الله سبحانه وتعالى saying to him الحمد لله and we should always be thanking and praising Allah سبحانه وتعالى for any state that he has put us in so today we all need to say الحمد لله I'm probably going to be doing that a lot my throat's a little messed up so if I start coughing or anything please forgive me but again we say الحمد لله and I don't know if I'm from Orlando Florida so we have SeaWorld there so there's this thing called like a splash zone so the people that want to get into the splash zone Insha'Allah they'll get the most reward so Insha'Allah try to come forward closer because there's mercy up here and you might get a little bit of water in your faces as well Insha'Allah Insha'Allah not so again we say and we begin with الحمد لله because we need to recognize that if it were not for Allah سبحانه وتعالى willing for us to be here to worship him we would not have been able to come here to worship him and it is purely through the will and power of Allah سبحانه وتعالى that we have been given this opportunity to worship him so our worship of him سبحانه وتعالى is beneficial for us and it does not increase or decrease him in any state so all of the good that we're doing it's for ourselves and this is very important for us to realize because there's a lot of things that enter into our lives that we forget إنه سبحانه وتعالى Insha'Allah there's a lot of water there's a lot of things that we have in our lives that we don't recognize their blessings until those blessings go away and then when we lose those blessings and other people remind us of those blessings then we begin to realize and we start to regret and it's part of our human condition to regret no matter how good we think we're doing there's always going to be some form of regret in our hearts so we need to maximize every moment that we have and one of the greatest blessings that this community has been blessed with this Pleasanton Dublin MCC community and the Bay Area community the California community the United States of America what we've been blessed with are our wonderful teachers our people like Imam Zaid Shaker and Shef Rahmi and Dr. Rahmi we have been blessed with in this community we've been blessed with these teachers and because this community is always so thriving and there's always something happening anytime you look at the MCC emails it just takes 10 minutes to scroll to the bottom because there's so many activities going on so this community is very blessed but what happens with that blessing is oftentimes we lose sight of what a blessing it is there are massages in California in the Bay Area not even an hour away from here that are deprived of imams and scholars that are deprived of teachers and then so they reach out to students to come to help teach to give khutbas to give durus for their kids but we have people someone like Qari Amr teaching our kids grew on here a master of the Tajweed there are so many blessings that we have in this community we just need to remind ourselves of these blessings and so Allah SWT says فذكر فإن الذكرة تنفع المؤمنين that reminder is beneficial for the believers so remind one another and he continues to remind us throughout the Quran the status of these great teachers the status of the علماء the status of the people who have the knowledge of Islam and of Allah in their hearts Allah SWT compares them he says that he's raised the ranks of the people who believe and the people who have knowledge the people who believe and the people who have knowledge have been raised in the sights of Allah SWT but then Ibn Abbas comments and says that the people who have knowledge are over the people who believe by seven levels and between each of the two levels is the travel of a hundred years is the travel of a hundred years so the people who believe إن شاء الله that's all of us and if we don't have that true يقيم we need to continuously remind ourselves in ربي أشدو الله إله إلا الله شدو الله إلا الله شدو الله إلا الله we continue to reaffirm the faith within our hearts until we gain the status of a مؤمن and then those who Allah chooses amongst us he raises them to the level of the علماء and for them is a higher status الله SWT testifies to this he says bear witness that there is no God other than him والملايكة and to his angels and what? after Allah and his angels who does he say سبحانه و تعالى و أول العلم و أول العلم the people of knowledge so again this community is very blessed and when we look at the status of these scholars not only Allah SWT is praising them but the Prophet SWT is praising them the Prophet SWT says anyone who Allah wants good for that person الله blesses them with the understanding of the religion so those people who you see who are scholars when you hear the names like شيخ وارمي or إمام زيد or Dr. رانيا when you hear these names because they have understanding of the religion you know that Allah has already chosen them for good you know that Allah SWT already has accepted from them something in their lives that they are where they are now and you know that there has been something that happened in their lives some sort of struggle some sort of sacrifice that led them to they are being accepted with Allah SWT Prophet SWT also says that once the lineage of the Prophet has ended once the messenger ship has been cut off with him SWT now who is going to carry on the message of Islam it's the أولاماء the scholars so our connection to these scholars is what our connection to النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم is our connection to النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم so what these people do for us it's very important number one is what that they're connecting us to our beloved صلى الله عليه وسلم we wouldn't know his teachings and we wouldn't know his practices and we wouldn't know what he brought from Allah SWT if it were not for the scholarship of 14 of sacrifice of the scholars over these past 1440 years these individuals have sacrificed their lives so that we can be sitting here in the masjid in California today Imam Zaid during his talk on Isra al-Miraj said that this is the the furthest that someone can go this is a masjid al-Aqsa this is a masjid al-Aqsa because this is the farthest mosque this is the farthest someone can go and then once you go past California then the qiblah changes to the west so this is the farthest that we can get to so that Isra al-Miraj that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم actualized we have a portion of it here we are at the furthest masjid east and every prayer is a Miraj to Allah SWT so anytime we come into a gathering like this we are actualizing one of the greatest blessings given to the Prophet محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم so this is not any just like oh yeah it's Juma time this is a miracle everyone here is participating in a miracle but we're just not realizing it because we've gotten so used to it it's so common for us if you look to our elders look to the elders and ask them stories look to the elders and ask them stories how many people did you used to have for Juma when you first came over here you know we always hear the story my dad's great at the story I came from Pakistan from a ship I'm probably exaggerating now but he probably snuck onto a ship or something and then found his way to New York then somehow made his way to some other state he's like I did it all with seven dollars in my pocket and then I'm sure all of you all of the elders have similar stories your first coming to the United States and yeah I only had four dollars in my pocket seven dollars in my pocket and now you guys are establishing massage it like this so go and ask them these stories people used to pray in closets barely getting three people for their Friday prayers and now we have so many people here in Mashallah so this is a miracle that's taking place in front of our eyes and all of it is due to who is due to our teachers who have sacrificed their lives to bring us here so they we need to honor and preserve their legacy we need to honor and preserve their legacy and the best way to do that for us kids pay attention the best way to do that for us is to be good students to be good followers to have good respect proper respect with our teachers and the relation of benefit that you gain from your teacher is in accordance to the amount of respect that you give that teacher so if you hate chemistry and you're sitting in your chemistry class you're just like man I can't get through this this guy doesn't know how to teach me anything he's just reading from the test book this is the most boring class ever just let me go lunches in 20 minutes I can't take this anymore that constant bashing of the teacher and bashing of the class is doing what it's taking away from the benefit that you can gain from that class whereas when you're sitting in I don't know what do you guys enjoy like geometry I don't know maybe you guys don't like geometry maybe you do like geometry just fill in the blank the class that you like oh yeah I love that class now you're sitting in that class the teacher's always so much fun he's making so many jokes right in that class you're enjoying the teacher and you're enjoying the presence that class you're going to gain from a lot more when you look back you're going to have learned a lot more from a lot more from that class than you would have from the class that you hated and all of it's just dependent on your attitude are you being a good student are you being a good follower so in order to honor this legacy of our teachers we need to shift this intention within us and say how do I become a good student and how do I become a good follower and again in that in that you are recognizing the miracle that is taking place that has been taking place since the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم أستغفر الله لي ولكم ولساء المسلمين واستغفروه إنه هو الغفر بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين وصلى الله عليه وسلم وعلى سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه وصلم I mentioned that these teachers that Allah سبحانه وتعالى إستغفر شيء منهم and so now it's our duty to be good followers and students of them to attend their classes consistently not just oh I have three times I'm gonna go I don't have free time I'm not gonna go cherish these people that we have every week they're sacrificing themselves to come and teach us so every single week you see again that MCC email that so long but you have to go through it because you got to know what's happening right you want to know who's teaching this week make sure you're attending these programs and classes consistently number one and number two we know that Allah سبحانه وتعالى is pleased with them because he has given them a portion of knowledge from this religion so one thing that we can also do is that if we want to be accepted in the eyes of Allah we need to make these teachers our role models and our guides we can't just view them as oh yeah by the way there's a class going on let's just go no we need to take pride and we need to say these are the people that I want to be like these are the people that I'm going to model my life after these are the people who are going to give our religion and our identities honor and dignity so when someone comes and says that Islam oppresses women we say we got Dr. Rania what up when someone says and says Islam has something against slavery we say you see Imam Zaid what up we say we don't have any barriers in our religion we have living proofs in our communities and then we go and we model our lives after them and we become the next Imam Zaid and we make Dua to Allah O Allah make me the next Imam Zaid and make me better than him and our sister say make me the next Dr. Rania and make me better than her and allow them to be continuously increasing and if we do this if we say I'm going to be the next Dr. Rania the next Sheikh Rami the Sheikh next Sheikh Hamza the next Imam Zaid we give it our all and we give it our effort and Allah SWT Insha'Allah accepts from us then all of that reward is going back to our teachers all of that reward is going back to our parents all of that reward is going back to these 1400 years of scholarship that have brought us to this point and every single teacher in that line in that lineage is being rewarded and so imagine with the greatest of greats if your name could also be included so that on the day of judgment when Allah SWT says come forth أو علماء of إسلام and we're going to have Imam Ghazali standing there and we're going to have Imam Abu Hanifa standing there and we're going to have people like Imam Zaid and Dr. Rania standing there one of you will also be standing in their midst so have high aspirations for this and hope that Allah SWT grants us sincerity in seeking his pleasure استوفر الله لي ولكم لسائل المسلمين إن الله يأمر بالعذل والإحسان وإتائذ القربة وينهى عن الفحشاء والمنكر والبغي يعذكم لعلكم تذكرون اذكر الله يذكركم ودعوه يستجد لكم ونذكر الله تعالى أعلى وأولى وأكبر واقن الصلاة