 We'll just begin. Alhamdulillah, certainly our praise and gratitude belongs to Allah SWT and we praise Him and we thank Him. When we ask for assistance for all matters of life, that's a tough one. It's a really tough one. And also elsewhere Allah says, be aware, be mindful of Allah, be conscious of Allah. And say beautiful, respectful, clear language. Communicate clearly, communicate with ambiguity, communicate with truth, communicate with facts. Don't misconstrued things, don't just make up things, don't just say things to win. Don't just get into arguments and just want to win so you just say whatever you want to say. You can see it today, right? With all atrocities taking place, anybody wants to take it on their own way, they'll create audio video for their own benefit, which most of them or all of them are not based on fact or evidence. Yusleh lakum amalakum wa mayyakhfirullah wa yakhfirullah. Yusleh lakum amalakum wa mayyatallah wa rasulahu faqat faza faza na'adima. When you fix your communication, according to the words acceptable, according to the facts and truth, Allah is going to beautify your deeds, your a'amal, yusleh lakum amalakum. It's going to make it awesome, it's going to make it beautiful. You're going to exude things out of you, out of everything that you say and you touch and you see and walk. And when you do that, Allah says here's another secret recipe. Whoever follows Allah, whoever obeys Allah, that is to say whoever follows the prophetic tradition, certainly has won incredible victory. Faza na'adima, incredible victory. So I'm going to give you a quick preview. It's going to be insha'Allah short and sweet. A quick preview of what I am going to cover tonight. I invite you all to come insha'Allah if you can. You should be able to. What else are you going to do? There's no 49 is playing tonight. So at 7 o'clock insha'Allah, I'll start. And here's the thing that the topic was picked a long time ago. It's going to be the dua of Ibrahim A.S. He did many, many, many du'as, but there's one particular section in Surat Al-Baqarah. I'm going to focus on that and the implication of that to our lives today and specifically the correlation to the Seerah. So it's one of those subjects that hasn't been touched much. And I love it. I learned about this some years ago and it just resonated really, really well. And I loved it so much. And I kept on studying, kept on studying. So I'm going to give you some tips and tricks insha'Allah tonight. But here's a preview for it. Allah says in Surat Al-Baqarah, starting from Ayah 122 to 130, 131, 132, somewhere around there. Those are the things that we're going to cover. Allah says, Addressing the children of Israel saying, Remember, you need to remember. You need to remember all the awesome things that have given you, all the bounties, all the favors Allah says, all the favors that have given to you. One of the favors was this. Just check this out. For generations, for generations, every one of them used to get their own customized prophet. Imagine sitting in Dublin, pleasant and MCC, get your own prophet. And that prophet is going to directly talk to Allah and give you direct revelation and show you the right path and constantly be with you, guide you. When that prophet has gone, another one will come to you. And that's gone. Another one will come to you. Thousands. You know that. We learned that they receive thousands of prophets. One of the incredible gifts they received. There's bunch of things you can discuss and ask. Then what happened? Well, we all know what happened. But Allah says this. When it comes to Taqwa, here's another definition of Taqwa. Protect yourself. One of the meaning of Taqwa is protect yourself. Allah says there will be a calm. There will come a day. Regardless of who's oppressing who, regardless of how many atrocities you create, you commit in this life, regardless of how many people's rights you take, regardless of what you think you are doing right because you are right. Allah says there will come a day. There will come a day. No one will be able to suffice for another one. You cannot substitute one for someone else. You cannot say I did this because of this person or that person. Allah, don't hold me in account. Hold the other guy in the account. It doesn't work. Allah says protect yourself from that day, which means protect yourself here in this world. Protect your behavior. Protect your attitude. Protect the way you see life. Protect the way you run your life. There are two other things. It's really amazing. The country I came from, the land I came from, and also some of the other ones that I lived. This is really prominent. Two things are prominent. One is this. If you want to move ahead, if you want to do anything, get anything done. Anything done. You want a telephone line in your house. You want a cell service, anything. You can do it. Authorities are not going to listen to you. You do one of two things. Either you bring an intercession, someone to intercede for you, someone to do wasta for you. In Farsi, they say wasta. I don't know what this is in Urdu or anything else. You bring someone. Or you bring some cash with you. You bribe. Those two methods work. Well, we have the same thing here, too, in this country. The only thing is we legalized it, and we put a beautiful name around it. We call it the lobbying. And it's legal term for same thing bribing, for same thing doing wasta. Same concept. We point finger at our culture, but we do the same thing here. Allah says on that day, if you want to bribe someone, if you want to bribe God or anyone else, that's not going to work. It doesn't matter what you're going to bring. Bribing is not going to work. Allah says, what about intercession? Shafa'a, that we understand. He's like, no, that's not going to help you either. Because you did something in this earth that you are responsible for and you do not want to take that responsibility, that accountability. Now you bring someone else to help you out here. That's not going to work. It's clear in the ayah. And they are not going to be helped. There's no help for them. You try to bring someone else to take your spot. That didn't work. You try to bribe. Didn't work. This person tried to bribe. Didn't work. This person tried to bribe Shafa'a. Intercession didn't work. They're not going to get any help. What is Allah telling you and I? He's telling you and I that you need to take responsibility for your own act, for your own action. That's what He's telling you and I. That's what He's teaching us. I must say one more thing here. We believe in the intercession of our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And it's true. It's real. No doubt about it. We make dua for it. But here's what we misunderstand. The Shafa'a of Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is true and works only when we take accountability and responsibility to our actions here. That means we correct our own ways of life here on this earth. And then ask for that and Allah will accept that. If we run our life the way I just described. If we run our life like that and then say, oh, you know what, at the end of the day I'm going to ask for the Shafa'a of Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. I'm going to be rescued. I'm going to be saved. We are really misunderstanding the Shafa'a. We're not really doing justice to it. What I'm going to talk about tonight, inshallah, is the ayah number 24. Think about Ibrahim Alai Sallam. Put yourself in this situation. Just imagine. The kind of things he went through, the kind of tests that he went through from a very young age all the way through the end of his life. All the tests that he went through Allah describes this way. Those of you who understand Arabic, the Arabic linguistic breakdown of this word it's just incredible. Allah says وَإِذِبْطَلَا أِبْرَهِمُ رَبُّهُ بِكَلِمَاتٍ فَأَتَمَّهُنَّ The whole thing is this in that word. Translation says he completed it. It just doesn't do any justice to the word or what Allah is trying to describe. Allah says he went through incredible tests one after another, one after another. And guess what? He passed every single one with a flying color. Those of your students, you know, once upon a time in 1850s when I was a student there were greats saying ABCDs and things like that. Allah says Ibrahim A.S. scored A plus every single one, every single instance and all those tests. When he did, Allah said I'm going to give you a gift. Guess what the gift was? Probably it's not what you think it is but here's what Allah says the gift was Here's your gift Ibrahim. You will be the Imam for the entire humanity. Imam of entire humanity. What is Imam? That's the question. Ibrahim A.S. understood immediately what Imam is and what is the ramification of that. What does that mean? He understood immediately and he asked for something to discuss but let's talk about what is Imam? To hold the title Imam today, you got to understand this is just not a small thing. Yes, Imam means someone to lead. Imam is a leader. That's true. Imam is someone who inspires you. Imam is someone who guides you. Imam is someone who holds your hand at every single step of the way. Imam is someone that is in every fabric of your life is involved to help you out to succeed. Imam is someone who knows the meaning of responsibility. Imam is someone who understands the accountability. Imam is the highest level of leadership you can imagine. All those books of leadership, all those LinkedIn learning leadership that you have learned, you studied. Imam is far, far more than any one of them. He understood that. He understood that this is incredible responsibility. On top of it, Imam for the entire humanity. Not for your two kids and household and all that. No, entire humanity. It's not a simple thing. It's not a small thing. What does that mean? That means at the end of the day, Allah just said protect yourself from that day in the last day. That means as an Imam, as a leader, he is responsible for everyone. For everyone from 10,000 years ago when he was born until now until the end of time, anyone who walks on this earth is part of human, part ofliness, that he is responsible for all of them. It's not a small thing. That means Allah is going to ask about so-and-so in 2050, did something, did your guidance reach the other guy? He's responsible. Well, he wanted to say something immediately. Guess what he said? He said, what about my progeny? What about my kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids until the end of time? What about them? Allah can help them out also. And he was expecting to hear from Allah. Of course, you're the Imam. But that's not what he heard. Allah says, When it comes to my promise, Allah says, When it comes to my promise, Allah says, it does not extend to those who are zhalim. Imagine, zhalim, those who are wrongdoers, those who constantly go against the truth, who constantly go, look for the loophole, constantly wants to do something else, constantly causes atrocities. You can imagine right now, the gazillion names in your head comes from today's situations to whatever in the past history. In other words, Allah is saying, from your progeny, there will be good ones. There will be really bad ones. Allah says, I'm not going to make the promise to you that I'm going to save every single one, including the bad ones. That's not going to be the case. It really shakes up. It really shakes them up. And he's like, from my progeny, and I'm going to be responsible for all of them, what does this mean for my imam'ship? For my leadership? And he's puzzled. And he's like, hold on a second. You have asked me to build Ka'bah. I'm going to build Ka'bah, and I'm going to modify my dua and I'm going to ask something else. Which is what you're going to learn to learn, insha'Allah. Inna Alhamdulillah. Wa-salaatu wa-salaamu ala Rasulillah. Allah says in his book, Ma'udu Billahi Minash-Shaytan al-Rajim. Inna Allah wa-malakitahu yasalluna al-Nabi. Ya ayyuhul ladina aamanu. Sallu alayhi wa-sallimu taslima. Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin wa ala al-Muhammad. Kama sallayta ala Ibraheem wa ala al-Ibraheem. Inna kahmeen al-Majeed. Allahumma barika ala Muhammadin wa ala al-Muhammad. Kama barabta ala Ibraheem wa ala al-Ibraheem. Inna kahmeen al-Majeed. Rabbana la tuakhizna inna sinna wa-khta'na. Rabbana wala tahmala alayna. Isgharan kama hamaltahu alal ladina min qablina. Rabbana wala tahmala ala taaqat ala nabi. Wa'afu anna wa'fil lana. Wa-rahamna anta maulana. Fansuna ala al-qawm al-kaafirin. Ameen. I'm sure you all know this dua. If you don't know it, memorize it. End of the Surat al-Baqarah. There are so many other du'as you can make. Keep our brothers and sisters in Middle East in mind while you're making this dua. By the way, speaking of which, I purposely didn't want to mention anything about that in the khudbah. But here's one request I have from all of you. Me included in that. The atrocities has been going on for generations, right? For decades. Seven decades at a minimum. Right now it's topical. Right now it's hot. Right now everyone talks about it. Right now we can avoid hundreds of videos that you can watch. It's easy to be involved and make dua every now and then. But here's the thing. The need is not for one day, one week, two weeks. It becomes stale after a month, two months, six months. No one remembers it. But the pain is not going to be gone. The atrocities, the oppression is not going to be gone. It's going to last for generations. That means you and I have responsibility. At the end of the day, Allah called you and I brothers. Remember brothers. There are two types of brothers you can mention in the Quran. You could have mentioned easily. There's ikhwah, which Allah mentioned, which means blood brother. Imagine this. If nothing else, please turn off your phones. Please imagine this. Your own brother. Picture your own brother, your own blood brother. The one that you love, the one not the one that you don't like, the one that you love a lot. You really have respect. Imagine that something happened to that brother. How would you feel? What would you do? What would you not do to help him out? Imagine that Allah describes our relationship. Muslims around the world, 2.5 billion of us is like your blood brothers. Just like your own loving brother that you have so much respect for. Which means at the minimum, keep him in your draws please. From a month from now, 6 months from now, 10 years from now, because it's not going to be gone. It's not going to go away. Don't make it stale. Just keep it fresh and keep the pain. Help. And you know where the politicians going to get hurt when the time of election comes? Don't give up phone calls. Don't give up emails. Don't give up contact with them. They are going to ignore you. We know that. It's going to get ignored. Guess what? When election comes, that's what's going to matter. That's what's going to matter. And it will matter. And those elections happen every November. You know that. Let's end with this. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. This brother is going to lead the prayer inshallah because I already did mine. So give us about a minute. Stand up. Make your rose, please. Let's give us about a minute.