 All praise is to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. We seek His forgiveness, His guidance, and His assistance. And we take refuge with Him from the evil within our souls and from the consequence of our misdeeds. Wherever Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, gives guidance to the naked mislead and whoever misleads the naked guide. I bear witness that there's nothing no one worthy of worship besides Allah. He is alone, He has no partners. And I bear witness that Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, is His slave servant and messenger. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to grant Him peace, to extend to Him our salutations on this blessed day, to show Him mercy, just as we ask Him to be kind and to show mercy to His family members, companions, and all of those who follow in goodness and show goodwill into the meeting and the reckoning with Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, in His glorious book, when speaking about the children of Israel. And the stories of Bani Israel and the Quran for the Muslim are there not only to remind the Jews of the children of Israel, because also would be Christians too, because they were the children of Israel, of the many blessings that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, had given them. And the many times that they betrayed their covenant and that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, showed mercy and forgave them over and over. But it's for us to imagine ourselves in their places. Allah has blessed this on them as well. But in this context, Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, says in Surah Al-A'raf, verse 138, And this is after Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, had spared them from Pharaoh. After Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, had shown them his many signs that Musa, alaihi salam, and Harun, alaihi salam had been sent by Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to the children of Israel to liberate them and to give them guidance. And the grant them father, merit, advantage over all other peoples. And they saw all of that, witnessed it all. They saw the ocean parted. And they made it to the other side. And they saw their enemy destroyed and drowned in those waters. And they continued until eventually, as the Quran says, we transferred them beyond the sea. And they came upon the people who were devoted to idols of theirs. They said, O Musa, O Moses, is allana ilahin kamalhum alihah. Make us an idol just as they have idols. Musa's response, innakum qom tajhaloon. You are an ignorant people. You are people who lack knowledge, a people who lack forbearance. After everything you've seen, after everything you've gone through, you want to revert back. Worship Pharaoh, worship idols, Allah, he spared you. And you still want to go back to this. Make us an idol like Musa. I like those people. I'm sorry, like those people. They have idols as well. Now, we know Islam is a monotheistic religion. And our monotheism is different from that of others in that other religions exist that claim to be monotheistic. But our monotheism is radical in that we not only are opposed to the worship of physical idols. We are opposed to the worship of creation, be that an animal, or be it a person. We don't believe that God becomes incarnate. We don't believe that God is part of us or anything, nor are we part of God. La yakhul lufi sheikh, la yakhul lufi heikh. We don't believe in those things, but we go a step further. Our monotheism is one that combats the themes or the idolatry that we can see, but it combats the idolatry which is hard to see and detect. This is why in the Qur'an, Allah says, in more than one place, Have you not seen or observed the one who has taken his lust as his God? That we're opposed to any type of commitment or attachment to something other than the Creator. The worship of the self. The worship of your lust. All of those things I've been condemned in the Qur'an. And a Hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught the Sahaba, especially after the victory of Islam had come, The shaitan, he has given up all hope that those praying in the Arab Peninsula will ever worship him. Doesn't even, he despairs, you know. I give up. They're never going to worship me. They're never going to worship an idol. Well, I couldn't get to Heisha Ben Okun. But he settles for what? He settles for inciting this unity among you. Say, you know, I can't get you there. I'm going to get you here. And one of the ways, the most effective ways that shaitan, he inspires or incites immensity and disunity among people. Not just Muslim, but among people. It's through what is called in Najwa. Secret counsels. It is probably, we can say, the classical word for conspiracies. Now all forms of secret counsel are not condemned in the Qur'an. But most of them are. In the man Najwa man a shaitan, li yahsun al ladina amano, that secret counsels are from shaitan in order to make those who believe sad. What happens when you feel left out? You feel slighted. People get together and they conspire about something. They strike a deal with one another. And they leave you out. And they get advanced. They advance ahead and you don't go anywhere. So why didn't they include me? Li yahsun al ladina amano. To make you feel sad. And once you're sad, what does that lead to? I don't like you. There's resentment, we know. Shaitan is one of the ways that he goes about this. And there are many different levels of this. La khaira fi kathira min az-zuaqum. La khaira fi kathira min az-zuaqum illa man amara bi sadaqatin wa ma'roofin'u israhan bina nash. Is that there's no good in much of your secret counsel. Which means most of your secret counsel. Unless it is those who are enjoining something good. Of enjoining charity or something good. Or trying to make peace between people. You come together in order to do those type of things. La tatenaja wa b'l-ithmi wa l-udwani wa ma'asit wa l-rasur. Wa tatenaja wa b'l-birri wa taqwa. Wa taqwa l-lahi l-lady ilayhi t'aqsharon. Do not come together upon sin and disobedience. But come together, b'l-war taqwa, for righteousness and piety. That's what you, if you're gonna come together, come together for that purpose. But this is one of the ways that Shaitan he incites enmity and hatred and disunity among humanity. So he says, you know what? I can't get the Muslims there. I'll do it this way. And we live in a particular age. There's a Christian legal scholar at Princeton University who characterized the age we live in today as the age of feeling. In other words, so we had the industrial age, we had the age of science and enlightenment, et cetera. But we had the age of feeling. In other words, feelings and hurt, emotions, become a source of empowerment to the extent that the most oppressed become the most empowers in our times. So I'm black, you know, I'm from a oppressed class. I said, oh, but I'm gay. Oh, but I'm a woman. Well, this is the time of the age we live in where this is how things have become, unfortunately. And hurt feelings can do a lot of damage as we know. And Muslims, unfortunately, have embraced this. And you know, we don't have a sense of good self-esteem. This is why we're always looking for symbolism that reinforces our self-esteem. So we look for movies. Movies that portray Muslims in a good light. Not saying that, you know, it's not a good thing. But it's, we look for those things, you know, we feel like we don't feel whole without the non-Muslims telling us, hey, well, here you go. It's one who represents you. But we have to be careful that this doesn't become its own idol. Again, isd'alana ilahan kamalahum adiha. They ask Moses, give us an idol, give us an idol. They have an idol, give us an idol too. We're looking for idols. We're looking for icons. All right, I'm doing love, I feel good about myself. I've been waiting for this, my entire existence in America. I was waiting since 9-11, oh my God, I feel so bad. Till that movie came out, I felt like nothing. Finally, getting acknowledgement. And it's interesting that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he says in Hadith, he says, he says, اَنَّا اَخَوَ فَمَا اَخَافُوا عَلَيْكُمْ اَشْشِرْكَ الْأَصْغَرْ Said, the thing that I fear for you the most is the smaller idolatry, the minor idolatry. The Sahaba said, ya Rasulullah, what's that? He said, ar-riya, a sensation showing off. One can be seen to be put on display. People, I want people to see me, I want to be acknowledged. Right? Ar-riya. So he wasn't afraid that the Muslims are gonna bow down to idols again in the future. He was afraid that we're gonna overlook certain other things that are connected with our emotions, our sense of self-esteem, or even the other extent of arrogance. Because it can go to an extreme as well. That we look down upon others. I mean psychologists typically deal with what they call pathology. Addiction, all this type of things like that. But they don't really focus on self-centeredness so much. Of course we know that that's there, they do some of them do, but I bet it's not a whole lot of talk about that. When you're self-centered, that in itself is its own problem. The Prophet said on one occasion, he was leading such a prayer, and after the prayer was over, he went off to his home and Sahaba were following him. And then he turned around and he smiled, because he knew what they were coming after him for. And he said, I think you heard that Abu Ubaidah just came back from Bahrain with a lot of goods. And you guys have some interest in the Sadaqa and other things that he's come for. He want me to give it to you. So they said, yeah, yes, you heard that Yadus Allah, you're they acknowledged it with honesty. And then the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, abshiro wa ammilo mayus roko, he said. Don't worry. Have good news. Go and seek the things that make you happy. And of course he wasn't saying this to say that this is a good thing, that they made happy by the matters of the goods of the dunya. Anyway, he was scolding them in the sense, but he's like, you know, go and get it. No problem. I'm not going to tell you it's haram. Go and do it. Do so. But then he says after this, for wallahi malfaqra akhsha aareekum. I swear to God, it is not poverty that I fear for you. But I kini akhsha and tufsata dunya aareekum kama bukhsi sat'ala mankana qablakum. But what I do fear is that this dunya, it will be laid out for you. It will be opened up for you. And the way that it was given to those before you. Fata na fasuha, kama chana fasuha. And you will compete for it in the same way that they did. Fata hlikokum kama hlikakum. And it will destroy you just as it destroyed them. So shaitan, of course, in common, create division and wantsons by secret counsels. He can get another way through, get us attached to wealth and dunya. I don't know how much luxury we have. Sometimes, microphone, carpets. I mean, think of the Prophet's maz, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, for example, maz. I'm not saying tear the maz down and make it the mud, right? Floor and things like that. But it's just gratitude and understanding that the more luxury we have, the more we forget about all the blessings, first and foremost, but that it can have a very negative effect on our souls, make us weak. And when hardship returns, we lose it. We lose it. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, on one occasion, he was speaking as well. He said, He said, Once you see the people, not honoring their oaths, nor their trust, and they are like this. And he put his hands together. He interlaced his fingers, meaning they are at war with one another. Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Az was there and he said, Ya Rasulullah, I didn't approach the messenger and I said to him, How can I do that? Ja'arani Allahu fidak. He said, how shall I behave when that happens? May Allah sacrifice or ransom me for your sake. And the Prophet's response to him was, Izzan Baytik, Wa-mulik alaika al-Lisanik, cling to your home and restrain your tongue against yourself. Wa-khuzbima ta'rif, fulfill, perform the things that you know are good. Wa-da'ma tunkir, and leave off the things that are bad. Wa-alika bi amri, khasati nafsik. And cling to the privacy of your own self, your own affairs. Wa-da'anka amr al-amma, and avoid or abandon the affair of the masses. And of course, being social media, it's hard, right, let it go. And there's a whole lot going on, some good as well. But I'm gonna ask, of course, for him, he took this to heart and he was one who experienced a civil war. He was there, he was alive, in Imam Hussain, Rajallah-u-An. He was killed, that he was alive when that civil war erupted. And he was one of the Sahaba who refrained. They didn't take sides. They said, listen, we know he's bad, we know Yazid is bad. We know that. But Hussain, please don't go. The people of Kufa, they're going to abandon you, just as they abandoned your father before you, Rajallah-u-An-Majma'id. He, Amr ibn Az, Jabir ibn Abdullah, Abdullah ibn Abbas, all of them, they were discouraging Imam Hussain from going out. So he knows, he's again, reflecting on what the Prophet said to him. So he said, now I'm gonna remain in my home, right? And we have to think about this in many different ways. We think warfare, but also there are other things, you know, that we're constantly in these virtual communities as well with this great controversy. And a different narration of this hadith, he says, the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, says, He said, once you see greed obeyed, and lust followed, and worldly matters preferred, and the amazement of every opinionated person with his opinion, everybody has an opinion today, is going online. Everybody's opinions have been magnified. The intelligent and the opposite of that as well. When you see that, fariqa bi-khafsati nasiq, wa da'adi awam, once that happened in Klingord here to your private affairs, remain close to your private affairs and avoid the matters of the public. Fa inna muwa ra'ikuma yamana sabru feehinna misluqaabi da'alajamru, wa da'amri feehinna ajru khamsina rajru ya'monunuka amarikum. He said, because beyond you, or beyond your time, there will be days where patience during that time will be like someone who's holding on to colds, hot colds, and the one who does work during those days will receive the reward of 50 men who do the works of your life. This is the prophet speaking to the sahaba. And he said in the different narrations, the yati zamanun ara ummati, an qabidu feehi ara dinihi ke qabidu ajamru, ajru wahidi minhum bi sab'ina minkum. Said, a time will come over my umma, where the person who will be clinging to his deen will be like one who is holding on to hot colds, and the reward of one of those people will be as 70 of those like you. The sahaba thought the prophet made a mistake. Said, yadusul alal minhum wa minna. Said, you mean like us or like them, minna minna minhum. And so the prophet said, minkum, not from you, like you, 70 of your life. In other words, those living in those times will be, will receive a greater reward than even the sahaba. But then the prophet goes on and responds, and he explains why. le'annakum tejidun na man yureenakum alal haq. Wa la yejidun. Because you find in your time those who will help you upon truths, but they won't find people helping them upon truths in that time. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala spare us from living during such a time. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala keep us committed to our deen, our Islam, and to keep our faith firm as well as that of our children. I'll call you call your hatham. Wa s-saqfur Allah al-liw. Wa lakum wa l-ishat. And muslimi and muslimas. Alhamdulillahi wa bar'a alameen. Wa s-salatu wa s-salam. Ra'a khatum a'liyaa. Muslimi and muslimi. Niblina Muhammadin wa ala'ali. Wa sahibizmain. Inna Allah wa mara'ikatuhu yusallun a'liya nabi. Ya'igha l-lidina aamanu sallu wa rehi wa sallimu saslima. Rabbana laat wa khidna innazina wa aqsaana. Rabbana wa laat wa hamil a'lina as-salankana hamal tahoo al-lidina min qablina. Rabbana wa laat wa hamilna ma laat taqat al-danabih wa afuanna. Wa kthurnana wa rhamna anta maulana. Fansurna ala qawmin kafirin. Rabbana aati anfusina taqwaha. Ma zakiha anta khayru man zakaha. Anta bariyuha wa maulaha. Allahummaqsinna naa man khashetika ma taqooru bihi bina naa wa bina ma'aseek. Wa man sa'atika man tuballiqna biha jannatak. Wa min al-yakini ma yuhawminu bihi a'layna moseebata ad-dunya. Wa min ta'anaa bi asma'inaa wa aqsaarinaa ma qawwatinaa ma a'iyaytanaa. Wa ja'allu huwari taminnaa. Wa ja'al fa'ranaa ala man zaramanaa. Man surna ala man adanaa. Wa laat ja'al moseebata naa fideeninaa. Wa laa haajat man hawaaij al-dunya wa al-akhirat illa qadaita haa yaa ar-hamar rahineen. Rabbana aatinaa fi al-dunyaa hasanaa. Wa fi al-akhirati hasanaa. Wa qinaa azaab al-naar. Wa qinaa azaab al-naar. Wa qinaa azaab al-naar. Wa sallallahu ma wa sallim. Wa baraka laa siyyidinaa Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa ashabihi al-akhyaar. Wa sallim tasliman kathiraa. Wa subhana rabbika rabbil azad amma yasifoon wa salaamun aal al-mussaneen. Wa alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Ma'aqib isra.