 بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم This lecture is organized by Masoum Islamic Center Illinois Chicago أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين وبهين استعين والصلاة والسلام على خير خلق الله المصطفى محمد وعلى أهل بيته الطيبين الطواهرين المعصومين أما بعد فقال الله سبحانه وتعالى في كتابه الكريم أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم لقد كان في قصصهم عبرة لأولل الباب صدق الله العليج والعظيم My dear brothers and sisters السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته Thousands of years ago Egypt was ruled by the pharaohs One day one of those pharaohs saw a dream that made him worried He saw that seven lean cows ate up seven fat cows And seven dry ears of grain ate up seven green ears of grain When he woke up he told this dream to his courtiers And he asked them to interpret this dream But the courtiers said this is just a nightmare We cannot interpret nightmares One of the servants of the pharaohs said to him I know of a man who can interpret this dream So please allow me to go to the prison Because that man is in the prison That servant had spent some time in the prison And had known that man who could interpret the dreams And who was that man? None other than the great grandson of Prophet Ibrahim The grandson of Ishaq The son of Yaqub Yusuf, peace be upon them all So long story short The servant went to the prison And he told the pharaohs dream to Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him said That the interpretation of this dream Is that there will be seven years in which you will sow the crops And there will be abundance of food and vegetation and crops During those seven years You should eat a little bit out of the crops And save the rest Because then, after those seven years There will be seven years of drought You should eat that what you would have saved During the first seven years of vegetation and crops During the later seven years of drought And after that there will be a year in which again There will be rain and you will come out of the trouble When the servant told this interpretation to the pharaoh He became very pleased And eventually Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him Was released from the prison Not only that He was also appointed by the pharaoh As the head of the treasury And he started to manage the affairs of the kingdom And he helped the Egyptians through those 14 years First seven years of vegetation and crops And then the seven years of drought He delivered the Egyptians He helped the Egyptians And the story continues But I'm going to stop it here What does this story have to do with the topic of this lecture? Why did I start this lecture with this story? You see, if we pay attention We'll get to know and realize That this story has a close connection With the topic of this lecture Which is the return of Imam Al-Mahdi, peace be upon him What are we waiting for? In fact The story of Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him Contains clues for us And can make us aware Of what is going to happen When the final messiah When the 12th Imam Imam Al-Mahdi, peace be upon him Returns So what you're going to learn In the next 30 to 35 minutes or so Is the following First of all I will discuss What can we learn from the story Of Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him And apply the lessons learned From this story on us In the current circumstances And what is the connection This story has with the return Of our Imam, peace be upon him After that I will briefly discuss What the Imam Is going to return for What is he going to do After he returns In the light of a hadith I will explain the main agenda Of Imam Al-Mahdi, peace be upon him And then in the third and the last Part of the lecture I will discuss What does it entail To be waiting for the Imam What does it mean To wait for the Imam And what we are supposed to do As we wait for his return In Sha Allah But before I proceed Wherever you are Please recite A full of love From the bottom of your heart Salawat Ala Muhammad Wa Ali Muhammad In the beginning of this lecture I recited The part of verse number 111 Of Surah Yusuf In which Allah سبحانه وتعالى Says لقد كان في قصصهم عبرة أولي الألباب Indeed, in their story There is عبرة For أولي الألباب In their story Who are they Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him His brothers And other people associated With Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him In simpler terms In the story of Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him There is عبرة For أولي الألباب Now Who are أولي الألباب In simpler terms They are the people Of a deeper understanding The people who are not superficial The people who are Interested Core Not about the shell They are the أولي الألباب Who use الأقل They use the reasoning And intellect And think And derive Deeper understanding about things And what is عبرة عبرة is usually translated Into English as lesson Or moral However It has a deeper meaning عبرة which is in A non-Arabic languages Like Farsi Urdu Punjabi Or spots to another Moving from one place To another أبور كردن أبور In this context أرح is Deriving deeper lessons By looking at the story Of Prophet Yusuf Peace be upon him So what can we learn What is a deeper lesson That we can learn And then applied On our situation In the current circumstances Of our world You see Prophet Yusuf Peace be upon him Pulled Egyptians Out of trouble And he helped them Go through a period Of not seven days Not seven weeks Not seven months But seven years Of calamity Seven years of trouble Seven years of problems Lack of food Drought No rain But he had divine wisdom He had the knowledge And he had the management skills And he was the divinely Appointed حجت الله On earth At that time So he delivered The Egyptians He was what He was a foreigner He was forgotten By the Egyptians He was sitting in the prison And people had forgotten about him Even that servant Of the Pharaoh Who had spent time with him In the prison Had forgotten about him No one remembered Yusuf And then he appeared All of a sudden And he came back To the people And he was a foreigner Who had been sold as a slave In the market of Egypt And he came back And he said Do not eat You are living in abundance For seven years You have a lot of crops A lot of vegetation Eat little Give the rest to me So that I can store it In my silos For you Because there are going to be Seven years of drought And then we will consume it And people listen to him People followed The people Who were not from his race Not from his ethnicity People who believed In different kinds of gods They did not believe in one God He was just a foreigner In that land But people followed And what he taught to them He taught something Very important to those people That we can learn That we can learn from He taught collective Selflessness to the people Collective Selflessness What is collective selflessness? When you work together For one another For all the people When you are not selfish When you are not opportunist Now we find ourselves In times when we need Collective selflessness In the United States Perhaps some people would hear The word collective And they would start to think This is something like Communism Or something No Collective is a system For the people For everyone Where everybody works together That does not have to be communism There is a system Like in many European countries So collective selflessness Is when we are not concerned About only ourselves When we are not selfish When we care about all the people Regardless of their ethnicity Their religion Their background Their culture Their race Their language And so on This is one Important lesson that we learn From the story of prophet Yousaf Peace be upon him Some people say that In the time of Corona Period and COVID-19 Religion has no place What can religion help us with? This is a very superficial thinking This is silly thinking What religion can help us with Is with the values Give us the values That help man-kind Help one another And get through difficult times ماذا يجب علينا أن نضع محاولة في أحد الله و to be selfless and to help one and the other. The Abrahamic values, the values that Judaism teaches, that Christianity teaches, that Islam teaches. Those values are the values that religion promotes and that can help us get through these times. That was one thing that we can learn. Another thing that we can learn from this story is that whenever there are difficult times, whenever there are bigger challenges, we need a divine leader to get us through those times. What happened in the time of Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, was a big disaster. They did not have science, they did not have technology. They could not predict droughts and rains and so on, which we can predict now. And despite that, we have a situation. We have a virus that comes and sweeps through our world. And then the whole world is virtually under lockdown. Of course, we will find a solution to this problem. Insha'Allah, with the help of Allah SWT, the cure will come or the vaccine will come. Eventually, we will get out of this situation. But what we see now is perhaps only the tip of the iceberg. Maybe it is only a trailer of a film or God forbid films. Because I read a few years ago, I read an article which you can still find on BBC or maybe some other sources as well, which says that under the permafrost, there are many viruses and bacteria that we, our bodies and our immune systems do not know about, are not used to, don't know how to deal with them. And now, because of climate change, the permafrost might one day start to melt and those viruses and bacteria come out. How will we deal with that kind of situation? We live in a world that is very complex and complicated, interdependent world and it has become very apparent in the recent crisis how interdependent this world is. It starts from one city in a faraway country and it spreads across the world and how the interdependency of different countries and the supply chains just all has become very evident. Now, if we are in a situation when many bacteria and viruses, they spread that we have no idea about or other problems come, God forbid, how are we going to deal with those things? And human beings have a tendency to try and find solutions to problems and in doing so, create a number of more problems that has happened. For example, human beings invented the refrigeration systems and in doing so, they also used free-on gases and then ruined the ozone layer and then they realized, oh, we have to ban the free-on gases so that we can fix the ozone layer. And then, thank God, the ozone layer has started to fill. But this is what we do. We try to find comfort to our bodies. We've tried to find comfort through technology and then in doing so, we ruin the nature. We do something else due to which problems come. Then we try to solve the problems and then we create more problems. Eventually, what is going to happen is that mankind will become tired of all the problems. A complicated economic system, an unjust system and eventually everybody will be longing for just messiah, someone that can deliver mankind, someone who can pull us out of the troubles, someone who can help us get through difficult times and deliver mankind. And that is Imam Al-Mahdi, peace be upon him, about whom we pray every day for his return. اللهم كل وليك الفراج. But are we even aware of what we are waiting for? The question is, what are we waiting for? What is it? What is the agenda of the Imam, peace be upon him, that we are waiting for? Now I'm going to explain this with the help of a حديث. But before I do that, wherever you are, recite a full of love. صلوات على محمد وآلي محمد. The Holy Prophet peace be upon him has told us the agenda of the Imam of our time. What is the agenda? He will fill the earth with justice the way it will have been filled with injustice. Now there are four key words. ظلم جاور قيسط and عضل. And all these four words have different meanings and details, explanations. But since we have limited time, so I'm not getting into the details. For simplicity's sake, let's call it, the earth will be filled with injustice, ظلم and the Imam, peace be upon him, will fill it with justice, عضل. So what is عضل? What is ظلم? In order to understand justice, which can be a very abstract term. Everybody uses the word justice, عضل. We want justice, everybody wants justice on earth. But what does justice mean? In order to understand what justice means, what عضل means, let us understand what ظلم means. Because after all, if we can understand the antonym of something, then we can understand that thing. Because night is what day is not. So if we understand what night is, we can also understand what day is. What night is day is not. What dark is light is not. What cold is hot is not. What نمرود is Ibrahim is not. What فرعون is موسى is not. What معاوية is علي is not. What يزيد is حسين is not. And what ظلم is عضل is not. What is ظلم? ظلم, a simple definition of it, is that putting something in a place where it should not be placed. Putting things not in the right place. In justice. And justice is to put everything in the right place. Still very abstract. What does Islam tell us about the types of ظلم? What is ظلم that is prevalent in our world? We need to understand that and become aware of what we are waiting for. We are waiting for the Imam so that he can come back and establish justice on earth. But if we are not aware of what justice means, then we might be taken by surprise. Oh, I thought it was something else that was going to happen. First of all, when we wait for something by default, it means that we want the status quo to change. So when we say that we are waiting for the Imam, it means that we are not happy with the status quo. If we are happy with the status quo, it means that we are not truly waiting for the Imam. And what is the status quo? The status quo has different types of ظلم and injustices prevalent in our world. And we have to become aware of those injustices before we can truly want them to disappear. And in order for that to happen, we want the Imam to come back and establish justice on earth. So what are different types of injustices? When I look in the Islamic books, there are three main types of ظلم injustices. And I'm going to discuss each of the three one by one briefly. The first type of injustice that is the worst kind of injustice is the injustice ظلم related to the beliefs. The beliefs, the عقائد. شرك is the worst kind of ظلم. شرك is the worst kind of injustice. And the Imam, peace be upon him, will return and he will remove all kinds of شرك. All sorts of شرك from the face of the earth. What is شرك? شرك is that not believing in one God. The Imam is going to fill the earth with توحيد. The Imam is going to fulfill the mission of all the prophets because all the prophets said قولوا لا إله إلا الله تفلحوا. Say لا إله إلا الله. There is no God but الله سبحانه وتعالى تفلحوا so that you can succeed. قولوا. They did not say تلافظو. تلافظو means just say by tongue. قولوا means say with conviction, with a firm belief that there is no God other than الله سبحانه وتعالى. When someone truly believes in لا إله إلا الله then once life changes, one automatically moves away from different kinds of ظلم and injustices that I'm going to discuss in a bit. But first, شرك. The Imam is coming, going to come back to establish the توحيد system of توحيد in the world. Okay. Now, the Imam is also going to thrash all sorts of idols. All sorts of idols. And when it comes to idols you'd think okay, the Imam is going to break the idols made of stone and wood and so on which in certain parts of the world people do worship. It is easy to take distance from the idols made of stone that we all do. None of us likes idols. We all take distance from idols. We all hate idol worship. Alhamdulillah, we believe in one God. But there are many other things. Many different types of idols that we worship despite saying لا إله إلا الله. And I want to make you aware of some of those idols because if we continue to worship those idols then be sure that we are not truly waiting for the return of the Imam because worshiping those idols does not match with the agenda of the Imam of our times. Peace be upon him. What are those idols? The worst kind of idol is the one that is inside us. الله سبحانه وتعالى says Have you seen that man who has taken his desire his the desire of his the wish of his نفس as his إله as his God he worships his نفس his نفس as his idol so we have to break that idol from within and many problems are related to that when someone worships that idol then one also worships many other idols some people worship money some people worship power some people worship ideologies and ideas and concepts some people worship their own knowledge some people worship their career and what do I mean by worship anything that you use to make yourself prominent and make yourself better than others to project that you are better than others you are superior than others and therefore everybody should listen to you therefore everybody should follow you therefore everybody should obey you then that thing becomes an idol that is the thing that you start to worship then you are willing to do anything and everything to hold on to that idol to hold on to that power hold on to that wealth and so on and then there are other types of idols that the Imam of our time is going to thrash and one of those idols is ethnocentrism and racism if we have ethnocentrism in our communities if we are ethnocentric people if we worship our race our language our cultural background ethnicity then be sure that we have not understood the agenda of our Imam we have not understood that at all when our mosques become ethnocentric clubs when our mosques and Islamic centers turn into ethnocentric centers then we have definitely not understood what the Imam is going to return to do because the Imam is going to thrash ethnocentrism ethnocentrism and racism and nationalism all that pride in your languages when the mosques and Islamic centers are called the after the nationalities and the languages and then you want to do things in your own way excluding others then you can be sure that your agenda does not match with the agenda of the Imam of our times because the Imam is not going to exclude anyone he's going to include everyone Prophet Joseph peace be upon him included everyone everyone the Imam is going to include everyone mankind he is an inclusive Imam the inclusive Imam the Imam represents the Imam is the Imam of all types of people of all ethnicities his own bloodline has so many different ethnicities look at the different the mothers of different imams peace be upon them all from different countries Berbers Africans Iranians and Arabs and Roman and so on so how can we be so ethnocentric and start and then we are so occupied with our own thing our own language our own and then the mosque has to be only one type of people so before I take more time because we have limited time we have to get rid of these ideas the ideas like ethnocentrism and so on and after that the other kinds of idols the Imam is going to thrash are all those wrong ideologies and wrong concepts that we have to become aware of we might not be even aware of certain ideas and certain concepts and ideologies that do not match with the agenda of the Imam that do not match with the Quran and the Ahadith and the outlook towards life that Islam teaches us but since we do not have time so I have to move on the next type of zolm the second type of zolm is the zolm related to the society social injustice if we are not aware of social injustices happening in our world then we are definitely not waiting for the Imam of our time the social injustices like that are related to the corporates looting and plundering the countries in Asia and Africa and other parts of the world things that we do not even bother about does it bother you that migrants from Africa and other countries are trying to reach the shores of Europe and the border of United States and in doing so they are losing their lives does it bother you that the corporate you work for has left heaps of environmental disasters and a big footprint in African countries and Asian countries and other countries in which they operate does it bother you that the people who work in important fields like like the nurses and the kindergarten teachers and the teachers they are often in many countries underpaid while actors and actresses and sport stars they are they receive millions of dollars isn't this a social a type of social injustice does it bother you that one of the indecent and dirty websites has recently announced that it is going to give the Italians free access to its website for 30 days so that they can spend time when in isolation looking at that website this is the kind of social injustice that is happening around in our world and there are many other different types of social injustices racism xenophobia people of Abrahamic religions being harassed by the militant atheists does it bother you that many Jews in different parts of Europe and North Africa North America are harassed and they have to live their lives in fare does it bother you that Christians in many countries in certain African countries and other countries are persecuted does it bother you that Sunni Muslims in Myanmar are persecuted by Buddhists and no one cares about it and there are many other injustices happening to Muslims and non-Muslims Shia Muslims Sunni Muslims Zeidi Muslims Sufi Muslims and so on we have to become aware of those injustices before we can truly wait for the Imam of our times we have to become aware of those injustices and we have to genuinely and truly want to remove those social injustices and then the third and there are many different types of social injustices but since we have limited time Insha'Allah some other time I'll dedicate a separate lecture on this topic then the third type of ظلم injustice is the injustice that we commit to ourselves ourselves like in دعارة كوميل we recite ظلمة نفسي now ظلم that we commit to ourselves and what is that ظلم that is sinning not obeying الله سبحانه وتعالى disobeying الله سبحانه وتعالى and committing sins if someone wants to commit sins مرحبا and is not aware of those sins and does not want to quit sinning that person definitely is not waiting for the Imam of our times it is very important that we try to improve ourselves if we are listening to haram music if we have been watching haram movies if we are not wearing حجاب if we have not been saying prayers then we try to get rid of those bad habits we say اصطغفر الله ربي وقتوله and we decide today that I am going to change for better I am going to repent and I am going to obey الله سبحانه وتعالى no matter how big your sins are they are still not as great as the mercy of الله سبحانه وتعالى الله سبحانه وتعالى says قل يا عباد يلدين أصرفوا على أنفسهم قل يا عباد يلدين أصرفوا على أنفسهم لا تقنطوا من رحمة الله قل لأجل هؤلاء هؤلاء من هؤلاء الذين يكونون مجردين لهم by committing sins that they should not be in despair of Allah's mercy so we should do what we should have hope in Allah's mercy no matter how many sins we have committed we should repent and move on and that way we become one step closer to our Imam one step closer to the Imam of our time peace be upon him so what we have learned so far we have learned so far is that the story of Prophet Yusuf peace be upon him has deeper lessons and I have discussed only a few lessons from it it has deeper lessons for those who use reason who use intellect they can derive lessons that can point to the reappearance of our Imam just like Prophet Yusuf peace be upon him a pair out of out of the blue from the prison and then he delivered the Egyptians pulled them out of the difficulties similarly insha'Allah one day the Imam of our times will emerge and then he will deliver mankind he will help the Muslims he will help the believers and he will also help the known Muslims and all mankind and help them get out of troubles and solve the problems of the world that mankind would have become tired with and would not have become able would not have been able to solve those issues that is one lesson and then the second lesson is that the Imam is the second point that I have discussed in this lecture is that the Imam is going to return for one agenda and that is to establish justice on earth and justice is to remove injustices and the injustices are three main types that I have discussed one is the injustice is related to beliefs shirk and also the injustice is related to things like racism and ethnocentrism and the things like worshiping your own nafs the idol of your own nafs this is one type of zone that we have to work on and free ourselves from this kind of injustice and then after that the second type of injustice is social injustice and the third is the injustice in the form of the sins that we come into ourselves but Allah's رحمة Allah's compassion is much greater than our sins so we should always turn to him because he has made compassion الرحمة obligatory upon himself he says كتب ربكم على نفسه الرحمة your lord has made mercy obligatory upon himself obligatory علامة طبطبي رحمة الله عليه says that this verse means that everything that happens in the kingdom of الله سبحانه وتعالى is nothing but a manifestation of his mercy and he unfolds his mercy after people have become desperate people go in despair الله سبحانه وتعالى says وهو الذي ينزل الغيثة ينزل الغيثة من بعدما ونطول الله سبحانه وتعالى is the one who then sends down rain after the people have become desperate become hopeless after that he sends the rain and then he unfolds his mercy he he spreads his mercy وول وولي جل حميد this verse ends with the two divine names وولي جل حميد perhaps this verse also is telling us that when people have become hopeless than الله سبحانه وتعالى sends his mercy when mankind would have become hopeless and desperate than الله سبحانه وتعالى will send his وولي will send the guardian of the affairs and then the final messiah will appear who will lead the mankind towards a system a world in which there will be worship for one god justice will prevail and people will genuinely love one another and live in peace forever إن شاء الله so now in the end let us pray to الله سبحانه وتعالى that for the sake of his final messenger Prophet Muhammad and his progeny peace be upon them all he makes it easy for us we have no one to turn to other than you الله الله make it easy for all the brothers and sisters who are going through difficult times who are going through hard times in these days the days of lockdown the people who have smaller businesses smaller and medium enterprises the people who earn their wages daily who work on hourly basis they're having a hard time الله make it easy for them make فرج for them just like Prophet Yusuf peace be upon him make فرج for the people of Egypt made an opening فرج do you make فرج for the people in our times all the people of this world the people who are believers or non-believers you are الرزاق you are الرحمن you are الرحيم all are your creatures you give sustenance to everyone even to those who do not believe in you الله make فرج for the mankind make it easy for all of us and eradicate this virus and the disease COVID-19 sooner then later so that the doors to your house can open again so that the doors to businesses can open again and oh Allah make us truly wait for the return of your final حجة the حجة the ولي الأمر إمام زمان إمام المهدي أجل الله تعالى فرجو الشريف دعونا التوفيق to truly understand what it means to wait for us and become aware of what the waiting entails and make us pray genuinely and truly from the bottom of our hearts for his return