 Again, with the praise of Allah, we begin seeking His aid. We begin asking for His forgiveness. And we ask His protection from the evil of ourselves and from the evil that is in our actions. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomever Allah misguides, none can guide. And we bear witness that there is no God but Allah alone that He has no like. And we testify that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, literally the man of praise, is his slave and final messenger. Praise be to Allah as well for gathering us on this day of gathering, on this day of Juma'a. Just as he brought the hardship together on that first day, the day of Yawm al-Mithaq, the day of the Covenant, when Allah asked us, Allāhi stābi rabbikum, am I not your Lord? And we bore witness after witnessing his Lordship. We bore witness and we said, Bella, indeed you are. So then this Juma'a, this gathering, is a reminder of that previous gathering, as well as a warning of that upcoming gathering that we are warned about, Yawm al-Qiyāmah. And this life is set between those two poles, between Yawm al-Mithaq and Yawm al-Qiyāmah. And on that day we will be questioned whether we remain faithful to that first primordial Covenant. We begin today with a reminder about praise. This is in following with the Qur'an, where Allah opens the Fātiḥah with praise. He says, Al-ḥamdu liLlāhi rabbil ālamīn. All praise belongs to Allah. And praise belongs to someone and to Allah specifically because all good belongs to Allah. Every praiseworthy trait belongs to Allah. Every attribute of perfection belongs to Allah. And so this praise that is concentrated in the divine then shines down onto this world and it shines particularly onto the man of praise, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. The man who is most deserving of praise, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, of whom Allah says, Muhammadun Rasulullah. The man of praise is the messenger of he to whom all praise is due. And this then means that just as Allah is possessed of all the attributes of praise, just as he contains all praiseworthy traits, so too does Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam contain all praiseworthy traits, so too is he characterized by all attributes of perfection. And this meaning is then summed up in a verse of the Qur'an. And this verse is possibly the central verse of the Qur'an because it tells us what is life and what is the relevance of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and our beloved messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. What is his relevance to this life where Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says, وما أرسلناك إلا رحمة للأالمين. And we did not send you or Muhammad save as a mercy to the worlds. Notice then we should ask what then is mercy? We hear about mercy all the time. We hear about hams all the time. And just as we began with hams and moved to mercy, so too did Allah and the fatihah. الحمد لله رب العالمين الرحمان الرحيم. All praise is due to Allah, the most merciful, the intimately merciful. So what is rahmah? Who is ar-Rahman? Who is ar-Rahim? In the Arabic language, the word for rahmah mercy is related to the word for benevolence. It's related to the word for desiring good for others, for having a good will that bestows blessings onto others. And mercy as well in Arabic has a condition. And that condition is that mercy can only be given to those who are in need. Because it's only those who are in need will be receptive to mercy in the first place. And thirdly, that mercy can only be complete and perfect and without limits and therefore infinite. When mercy is directed towards both those who are deserving of it and those who are not deserving of it. And when it includes every type of need, whether the need is material or spiritual, whether the need is in this dunya or in the akhirah, whether the need is something major and tremendous and extreme, or whether it be something minor and minuscule and minute. And so in total then, if we take all of these meanings together, who is ar-Rahman or ar-Raheem, it is he who is benevolent towards the needy. And we are all in need of Allah. Ya ayyuh an-nas, an-tumul fukara'u ilallah. You are all in need of Allah. Wallahu ghaniun hamid. And Allah is without need and praiseworthy. And so ar-Rahman ar-Raheem is he who is benevolent towards the needy. And so he fulfills and satisfies all the wants and all the needs of those who are in need, whether they be minor or major, whether they be in this dunya or in the akhirah, whether we be deserving of it or not, and this is all without exception. This is ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. It is every good imaginable, every good experience in the world is a manifestation, is a theophany of ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. There is, however, to just oppose this reality, something else to consider. Which is that if Allah's mercy is in fact infinite, why is it that we are at times in need? Why is it that we have needs in the first place? Why hasn't Allah fulfilled them? And so we might think, where is Allah? Where is the mercy? We might think, there are tribulations in this world and misfortunes and trials and difficulties and hardships. Where is ar-Rahman? Where is the all-merciful? And if we find ourselves thinking these thoughts in the depths of our hearts, then we should recognize that this thought is directly from shaitan, because it has the qualities of the khattur shaitan, it has the qualities by which you know the thought has come to you from shaitan. And that quality is that this thought is based off of falsity and deception, is based off of a lie, is based off of believing something that is not true. Or have you not heard the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam say in a hadith, Inna umma ti'umma ta'al marhooma, Laysa aalayha aadabun fil aakhira, Inna ma aadabuha fil dunya, al-fitan wa al-qatlu wa al-zalazulu wa al-fitan. My community is indeed a community shown mercy. It has no torments in the afterlife. Its punishment is only in this world, killing earthquakes and fitna. So pay attention then to the words of your Prophet. Reflect on these words, ponder these words. My community is a community shown mercy. How? Through killing, through earthquakes, through fitna. That's Ajit. Killing earthquakes and fitna are signs of mercy. They are not signs of Allah's wrath. How then are these a mercy? Why are these a mercy? Because it removes the aadab that would have been in the akhirah and puts it in the dunya. In other words, it removes the punishment that would otherwise be owed in the akhirah due to our constant shortcomings to our constant failings in fulfilling Allah's rights. This then is hikmah. This then is mercy. Because Allah, he doesn't owe us anything. We are His creation. And being His creation means that we hold no rights over the Creator. And because of this, He could have left us in dunya without any mercy. He could have left us in complete anguish and misery which is the natural state of the dunya. And this will not have been unjust for Him because we don't hold any rights over Him. And yet, and yet, even though He could have done this, it was within His power of Her and within His justice to do so. It was out of His mercy, out of His grace that He did not do so. But He showered us with blessings and mercy and He showered us with gifts. He gave us homes and families with good food and with blessed drinks which may quench our thirst. He gave us a beating heart and a conscious mind which we need to live. He gave us medicine from the earth with which we may heal our sicknesses. He gave us vehicles to travel around so that we might go and get what we need and that which we may just experience leisure and see the glorious blessings and creation of Allah. He gave us schools with which to get an education. He gave us knowledge with which to better guide ourselves in the dunya and the akhira. And He gave us a masjid and a community and fellow Muslims so that we could all receive Allah's guidance through the example of His exemplar, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. وَإِنْتَعَدُواْ نَعْمَطَ اللَّهِ لَا تُحْسُوْهَا If you were to enumerate or count the blessings of Allah, you would be unable to encompass them. So what Allah is showing us, what He's telling us is that the goodness that He has shown us far outweighs the pains and the hardships, far outweighs the afflictions and the difficulties. But only the people of gratitude will actually see this. Only the people of gratitude will notice these blessings. While the people of kufran, the people of ingratitude, and kufran comes from the same word as the word for kufr, unbelief or disbelief, the people of kufran, they complain. They only see the negative aspects of their lives. And so when things are going poorly, they say, woe unto me, where is Allah? And when things are good, they hop on by, they sail on by and they forget that Allah is facilitating all of this for them. These are the people of ingratitude who overlook the undeserved goods that Allah has given them and showered upon them in this dunya. And so then on top of all of this undeserved good, that Allah showed us mercy, but He did not have to, and He showed us far more mercy than He showed us hardship and difficulty. Then even the minor hardships that He showed us, even that small amount of difficulty and pain and tribulation, even that has a mercy in it, even that has a wisdom in it. Because everything apparently evil or bad or disliked that Allah has decreed, is only decreed for a greater good. That's the meaning of mercy, a greater good that comes from it. And there is no evil that Allah has decreed where He sought it for its own sake. And we see examples of this that Allah is al-Mujbir, He is a healer, just like al-Jabbar can also mean the compiler, al-Jabbar can mean the healer. And we see examples of this with doctors and healers, where someone may need to get his limb amputated if the limb is diseased, it has some sort of sickness and that can't be removed otherwise. And if a person didn't know that his limb was diseased and a person started chopping off his limb, you might think, how horrible a person, how cruel, how much torment, how sadistic, why is he causing me so much pain? But if you knew the wisdom, if you knew what was in that limb of disease, and if you knew the consequences of not amputating the death limb, that the disease was spread throughout the body and eventually killed the host, then there would be no difficulty in understanding this. Then the pain would be bearable and would not be insufferable. This is the wisdom in every trial, but it requires wisdom, it requires insight and perception. And just as this type of mercy is found in Allah's actions, so too do we find it in Allah's rulings. Allah famously says in the Quran, وَلَكُمْ فَلْكِصَاسِ حَيَاتُ وِنْيَا أُولِ الْأَلْبَابِ O people of discernment, O people of vision, you have an qisas in retributive justice and an eye for an eye punishment, you have in qisas life. And what this means is that when Allah decrees and ordains that the punishment in the sharia for an intentional murder is the death penalty, and the death penalty is a form of qisas, what he is telling us that this death penalty is not taking life, it's saving life, it's giving life. Ajeem, the death penalty is saving life? How is that so? This is because qisas is a deterrent, is a deterrent from others who would do evil, who would commit atrocious acts of criminality, is a deterrent from them, from committing further crimes, from their potential evil. And so in this way it's a mercy because this hukum, this act of implementing the sharia, takes into account the interests of the whole, it takes into account the benefit and the good of the whole rather than just the individual. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, also mentions in a hadith, though anna fatimata binta muhammadin saraqat laqataatu yadaha, were Fatima the daughter of Muhammad to steal, I would sever her hand. This is not cruelty, this is not causing pain for the sake of causing pain, this is a mercy. Don't you think that the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would have mercy and care and concern for his daughter? Don't you think that the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam who was sent as a mercy to all of creation, to all of mankind? Do you not think that he would first and foremost have mercy for his daughter, his beloved daughter Fatima of brother Allahu ta'ala anha? And yet he says I would cut off her hand. And so this act of severing the hand in the sharia as it's commanded is still an act of love and mercy, even though it might not appear so. It's still an act of love and mercy because there's a greater good in it, there's a greater benefit in it, which is lifting the burden and ugliness of that major sin of theft. This then is the wisdom of taqlif. This is the wisdom of Allah burdening us with the sharia because while at times the sharia may seem difficult and hard and we may question why did Allah do this in the first place? It's so hard for me, it's so difficult for me to implement his commandments and to avoid his prohibitions. Then you should know that yes, there is a temporary pain. Yes, there is a temporary difficulty, that's why it's called taqlif. But it's a temporary pain for a much greater good. It's a minor hardship that's endured to prevent a much greater hardship in the future. The sharia then, even with his difficulties, are instructions for how to navigate this dunya because if you were to leave the sharia, you would fall off the boat and then you would be on your own in the raging currents of the ocean. And the sharia, even with his difficulties, is a love letter. It's a love letter from Allah Azawajal to his beloved, his Habib, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so anyone who takes leave of it, anyone who decides, I don't need this today, I don't feel like implementing the sharia. Then he is saying, I can take leave of Allah's love. I can take leave of Allah's mercy. I can take leave of Allah's wisdom. And he does this at all at his own peril. I'll say to you this, I want to end with a hadith, a famous hadith, narrated by Sina Umar ibn Khattabra, Allah Ta'ala Anhu. Where he narrates that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he once saw a woman after a battle, she was walking amongst children who were captured as prisoners of war. And whenever she found a baby amongst them, she would stop and nurse the baby and make sure that the baby had the milk that it needed and that the baby was cared for. And so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam turned to his companions and he said, Ahtarounahadihi tarihatan waladahafinnaar. Do you think that this woman would throw her child, her baby, into the fire? La'allahu arhamu bi'ibadihi min hadihi bi waladihah. Verily Allah is more merciful to His slaves than she is to her child. Verily Allah is more merciful to His slaves than she is to her child. This then is the reality of the world that we live in. This then is the reality of the trials and tribulations that we encounter and that which we must face. And so if we each pause for a moment and think about those difficulties that we encounter in life, those moments of constriction, those times where we wish things were easier, we should recognize that whatever difficulty that is, that is no reason to doubt Allah. It is a reason to have greater iman and faith in Him. For is there any doubts for us as believers that Allah manages this entire affair that it is by His hand that the wind blows, that waves crash on the ocean shores, that a war breaks out in one part of the world and that peace is brokered in another part of the world? Is this not by Allah's command and by His decree? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when if we look at our own lives with an eye of gratitude, we will see innumerable examples of Allah's mercy and of His undeserved blessings upon us? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when He has promised it over and over in the Quran? He has started every chapter except one of the Quran with Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, emphasizing His attribute of mercy. Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when He has sent the man of mercy, Muhammad, the man of mercy, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, to all of the worlds? Is there any doubt about Allah's mercy when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam informs us Ashadun Nasi ablaan al-anbiya'u thumma al-amthal fal-amthal? The most tried, the most severely tried of people are the prophets, then those most similar to them, then those most similar to them. And if this is how Allah shows and expresses His love to His most beloved and those who are most like His beloved and therefore beloved, should we not welcome the tribulations? Should we not welcome the afflictions and the hardships? Not for their own sake, but recognizing this is from Allah. This is from the all merciful. Who else would we want anything from? Who else would we want to bring anything to us? Allah says in His noble scriptures, in the Quran, Allah and His angels pray to the Prophet, Ya ayyuhaladina aamanu sallu alaihi wa sallim utasneema