 When we say Alhamdulillah, we encompass this meaning of praise and gratitude to Him, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And when we praise Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we do it from a place of being His servants, of being His slaves. So it comes from a position of being low and praising someone who is above you. And so when we say Alhamdulillah, it's important for our hearts to carry the traits of humility and humbleness, of lowliness in front of Him subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because as we live each day in our lives, we sin and we fall short. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who asks us to do good, yet we are the ones who fail to uphold to that commandment of always being in worship to Him subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so in all of our lives, there's going to be some aspect in which we are not fulfilling our rights properly. And so with that realization, we must feel some sense of humility and some sort of shame within our hearts that I am not living up to my potential as the slave of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes Himself as Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim, the one who is indiscriminately merciful. He gives His mercy to the one who rejects Him, to the one who claims He does not exist. He gives His mercy subhanahu wa ta'ala to the one who challenges Him openly. He gives His mercy subhanahu wa ta'ala to the one who openly sins against Him. And so what kind of Allah is this? What kind of Lord do we have? Who even though we are so weak and we continue to fall short and we continue to sin, He continues to give us chances and He continues to forgive us and He continues to show us mercy. Every single day in this month, this month of Ramadan is a gift to the believer. Every single day in this month is an opportunity of forgiveness and an opportunity of mercy. So keeping these ideas in mind of mercy and forgiveness, let's see what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and His Messenger, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, say about seeking forgiveness, about seeking the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We know at the first level, definitely, that when we commit a sin, it's required for us to somehow repent for that sin. If it is a major sin, if it falls into the sin, major category of sins. Many different scholars have written different things about what categorizes a major sin versus a minor sin. One simple tool to use to distinguish is that any sin that you do intentionally and continue to act upon it, can fall into the category of major sins. So a major sin is something that requires sincere doba, sincere repentance, turning back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, intending to never do that sin ever again, just removing it from your heart completely and hating it as much as you used to love it. Other sins are minor sins. These sins can be forgiven by coming to the Masjid. These sins can be forgiven by recitation of the Qur'an, by giving sadaqah, by doing good to one another. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, إِتَّقُ اللَّهَ حَيْفُ مَاْخُنْ وَأَتْنِرْحَسَنَةَ سَيْيِئَ تَتَمْفُهَا that fear Allah wherever you are and follow up a misdeed with a good deed to remove it from me, to wipe it away. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an, as long as you stay away from the major sins, He will forgive your minor sins. But this is the first level of istilfah. The next level of istilfar is to do istilfar upon something that is considered good, upon an action of success, after something of ibadah. What does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say in the Qur'an? Something that we all know and recite frequently. إِذَا جَاءَ النَّسْرُ اللَّهِ وَالْتَفَرْةَ When the victory and the opening come from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, إِذَا جَاءَ النَّسْرُ اللَّهِ وَالْتَفَرْةَ وَرَאَيتَ النَّاسَ يَدْخُلُونَ فِي دِيْنِ اللَّهِ أَخْوَاجَةَ People will be flooding into the religion of Islam. Is this not a moment of victory and not a moment of success? Then what does He say? فَسَبْتِحْ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ وَاَسْتَوْ فِرْهِ Glorify and praise your Lord. And seek His forgiveness. So this next level that we need to incorporate into our lives is anytime we do something good, we also seek His forgiveness. Because any action that we do is good definitely has some shortcoming. So to fulfill that shortcoming, we need to seek forgiveness from Him subhanahu wa ta'ala. Another example of this, a very common adhkaw, a very common remembrance to say after someone finishes praying is what? Astaghfirullah. Now why is it after we have completed the best act that a slave can perform? One of the five daily prayers, he turns and says Saddam, immediately he says Astaghfirullah. After success too, we need to seek forgiveness. The Prophet ﷺ, it is part of our belief that he cannot sin. He cannot commit a sin. He has no sin, none of the prophets have any sin. Yet the Prophet ﷺ says that he wouldn't leave a gathering except that he repented and sought forgiveness from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala 70 to 100 times. This is a higher level of istighfar. An istighfar of being heedless of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and coming to know more of Him. The closer we grow to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we should feel that I lost this moment of closeness in my past. How can I maintain this moment of closeness moving forward into the next day of my life? Ramadan is our opportunity to incorporate this type of istighfar especially in these days. This is the middle of Ramadan where people are probably getting habituated into their apps but also losing the vigor and zeal that was with us at the beginning of the month. Yet this is our time to increase and continue to increase until the month ends. And so the last point, I may have forgotten it, to seek forgiveness from Allah in every single moment. This higher level of forgiveness. Okay, that's fine. We can end with this ayah, inshallah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says ... that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accepts this, accepts dua from people as long as they do whatever they do in ignorance and they're not insisting upon it. And they quickly turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ... And Toba is not for those people who they do evil until their last moment. And in their last moment, they finally say, I repent to Allah. So Toba is something that needs to be perpetually incorporated into our lives. I remember the point. There's a hadith that comes that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is described as laughing in a manner that befits him. He is pleased with these two people. The point of this story is to take that anything that we do is an opportunity to turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So even if we're sinning, our sinning can be turned into an opportunity to turn towards him subhanahu wa ta'ala. That is the mercy of Allah. That he is laughing in a manner that befits him subhanahu wa ta'ala about two people who are fighting with each other such that one person kills another and both of them enter into paradise and Allah is pleased with them both. And so it's explained how is that so. The person who died was fighting for the sake of Allah. So this person died a martyr and of course Allah is pleased with him. And the person who did the killing at the time even though he was against the believer, he realized that his killing was something of sin. So he repented and he became a Muslim and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accepted him. So no matter where we are in our path, no matter what sin we're committing, no matter how far we think we are from Allah, we need to realize that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is close to us. That every good deed and every bad deed we do we should seek a stilfah. We should seek tawba, literally turning ourselves to him subhanahu wa ta'ala. So as we begin to pray this blessed prayer of Juma in this blessed month of Ramadan, we should sincerely seek from our hearts that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive all of our past sins, prevent us from sinning in the future and to ask Allah that he never gazes down upon us except that we are in his worship and in his obedience. Fashtawfiru gunsah,... Alhamdulillahi Rabbilalameen wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa Aleyhi wa sahbihi wa sahab Allahumma salya'ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa Aleyhi Sayyidina Muhammad wa Aleyhseydina Ibrahim wa Aleyhseydina Ibrahim Wa Aalhina Sayyidina Muhammad Allah will remember you, and the soul will respond to you, and you will have the highest and the highest and the highest levels of Salat.