 Maybe you're right. And I shall tell you that Muhammad al-Hakkab is the Messenger of Allah, He is the Messenger of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and he is the Protector, who grants us many blessings. Allahumma sallim wa sallim wa barakahalaseegi bina Muhammadin wa ala Adi Seegin bina Muhammadin. Salaatim wa salaam ed-da'inayn wa tulazimayn ilayhi ulamidin. And then after our praise is Allah, Salaam wa ta'ala. He sees his assistants, his guidance, his forgiveness. And we take refuge with Him from the evil within our souls and from the consequence of our misdeeds. Whoever Allah gives guidance to, that can mislead. Whoever He misleads, that can guide. I bear witness that there is no one in nothing worthy of worship other than Allah. He is alone and has no partners. And I also bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is a slave and messenger. We ask Allah ﷺ to grant mercy and peace and to give His blessing to Muhammad ﷺ, to also bless his family members, his companions and all those who follow goodness and goodwill to the meeting and the reckoning with Allah ﷺ. In Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ has said that none of you truly believes until I am more beloved to him than his father, his son or child in all of humanity. This, amongst many other Hadith, are examples of those particular reminders that as a Muslim and as a believer that there are stations to faith, there are different levels to faith. And that simply by being a Muslim, does that automatically translate into an individual being considered to be perfect in terms of one's faith in Allah ﷺ. Rather, faith is something that one is expected to grow into. And this is why Allah ﷺ in the Qur'an, he says that what he does for the believers is that, that he brings them out of darknesses into the light. And that is to say that an individual, even after accepting the religion, can still in many regards be misguided. If we haven't done the work that is necessary in order to come closer to Allah ﷺ. And another example, another story. A companion came to the Prophet ﷺ and he said to him, Ya Rasulullah, Mata Sa'a. O Messenger of Allah, when is the hour? When is the last day? And then he said to him, What have you prepared for it? And the man responded, I haven't prepared anything for it. Not much prayer, not much charity. Only that I love Allah and His Messenger. And then the Prophet ﷺ responded to him saying, Anta Ma'amana Hababta, that you will be with those whom you love. And so this idea of love, in particular the love of the Prophet ﷺ has a very special status amongst the Muslims, amongst the believers in Islam. And Islam is remembered as a religion, not only the name of this religion that we are here to, but it is a reality that we are seeking to achieve or realize in our lives. It is something, it is an ideal that we are seeking to realize in our lives. And the Qur'an, Allah ﷺ tells us, What may you tell them, That whoever seeks a religion other than Islam as a way of life, then it will not be accepted from them. And that person will be amongst the losers in the hereafter. That whoever does not seek Islam, and Islam itself is known as linguistic meaning, it means surrender and submission to Allah ﷺ. And this is why it is possible for us to say about the children of Israel, those who were following the Sharia al-Husa ﷺ, and then when they came to the time of Ibn al-Lariyah ﷺ, that they were not converse from Judaism into Christianity, rather they were people, they were Muslims, they were surrendering their wills to Allah ﷺ because they were told by Moses that another prophet will come after them and that will be Ibn al-Mariyyam. As Ibn al-Mariyyam told them that another prophet after them will be Muhammad ﷺ. So Islam is something that we are expected to strive for, it is an ideal for all the Muslims. And we know that these days are days where we commemorate the birth of our beloved Muhammad ﷺ. And as we commemorate his birth and this great event in the lives of humanity, that we know as well that there are many Muslims who every single year we argue about the permissibility of doing so. And those who consider permissible to do so, that they would argue or make argue that that is because of our love for the Prophet ﷺ, that we do so. But on the other hand, those who choose not to do so also argue that it is because of our love for the Prophet ﷺ, that we do not do so. Because they're different perspectives. The one particular perspective is that if they don't believe that the Prophet ﷺ authorized something for them to do, then they believe that that yourself is tantamount to showing their love for the Prophet ﷺ. So if they believe that the Prophet didn't allow it, then they believe that this is what love necessitates. On the other hand, others have a different view, a different perspective on this issue. And I've mentioned this before in the past, that the thing that really is, that bothers me quite often about this issue is that Muslims continue to argue over every single year that we complain about the people who are allowing us for our particular positions. If you have a position, then do it if you have a position. You don't need acceptance of another to vouch for what you do. If you believe that what you're doing is correct, then there's no need for you to complain about others who are saying that what you're doing is not correct. Otherwise, it seems they're not confident about your view. At any rate, that the Prophet ﷺ, on another occasion, a man came to him and he said to him, as in the other report, Ya Rasulullah, O Meshul Jabballah, rarely I love you, any or hateful. And then the Prophet ﷺ in this scenario, he said to him, watch what you say. Watch what you say. And then the man repeated himself, he said, Ya Rasulullah, any or hateful, any or hateful, any or hateful. O Meshul Jabballah, I love you. I love you, I love you. I swear to God, I love you. He said to him three times. And then the Prophet ﷺ said to him, then you are to prepare, you should prepare a coat of mail for poverty. You should prepare a coat of mail for poverty. And this tishaf is what you would place over the horse. In war times, the chain mill that was placed over the horses is what the Prophet ﷺ, as a metaphor, he mentioned to this particular companion, he said you should prepare this for poverty because poverty is something that comes fast to those people who love me in this particular report, which is a very amazing thing when you think about it. And that is to say that when we start to make claims of our love for the Prophet ﷺ, that we have to make sure that it is not a very empty claim and it is not a superficial claim, that our love for the Prophet ﷺ is not simply just about us remembering how great a guy he was or speaking about that wonderful ideal of a person, that the Prophet ﷺ, he also came with a mission. And so being an individual who claims or truly loves the Prophet ﷺ, we have to be an individual who believes in the mission of the Prophet ﷺ. And one of the things that the Prophet ﷺ he brought was the Qur'an. He brought the Qur'an and in the Qur'an, we say it is the word of Allah ﷺ. However, when you talk at times with certain Muslims, you can get the impression that Muslims would wish that certain things about the Qur'an would have even been mentioned. I'll give you some examples. That the Qur'an mentions something about whipping people 100 lashes for fornication. The Qur'an talks about cutting off hands for theft. The Qur'an, it makes mention of things about taking comfy behind from war. The Qur'an, even in one particular verse, it makes mention of how an individual, a husband who is giving direction to a husband to try to correct the behavior of a mystery wife and actually says, Now, of course, these things should all be contextualized. But the point to highlight them is not to say that Muslims, that there is not an appropriate way to understand these things. But at times it seems that Muslims, we are afraid to even mention that these things it says, or we wish that they didn't even exist, and so that even when sometimes Muslims bring them up, it's as if we want them to be quiet and shut up. Don't say that because they're non-Muslims by hearing. And they'll read this up and it discourages them from the sound. No, they can open up any Qur'an, any book and read it on their own. Because we may not have an explanation, doesn't mean that it's not true. But it's important for us to understand is that if we lack the trust, and we have lost trust, and the interpreters of the verses, if we lost trust in the scholars, then we cannot lose trust in Allah, that one of the major mistakes of the beliefs of She'aqan, when we read the Qur'an and it says, Allah says that he cursed Satan because it's disobedient. And he did not curse Adam, he even though Adam disobeyed Allah, that fundamentally the reason that Allah cursed Satan was because Satan not only disobeyed God, but saying, questioning God's wisdom, that what did he say? Why didn't you prostrate to Adam? I didn't prostrate to him because I'm better than him. He created me from fire. He created me from clay. I can see that. So if there's anyone who's more worthy of being a prostrate to than it's me, I can see that why can't you? Oh God. And so questioning the wisdom of Allah, that Muslims have to at least, when we start talking about this idea of the love of Allah, the love of the Muslims of Allah, that it's about loving what they love and hating what they hate. But most importantly, not questioning the wisdom of Allah, even if we don't understand what that wisdom may be. And so this is extremely important for Muslims going forward because as we are trying to integrate into a society and seeking acceptance in this society because at times when we ask the question of who is truly the exemplar? Who is the standard of humanity? And then you ask the Muslims, let's say that it is Muhammad, that you have an excellent example in the Messenger of Allah, in the Qur'an, that the Arab Muslim will tell you that he is the standard. But at other times you get the impression that the Muslims believe there's some other standard. That the standard is what we at times usually refer to as the West. That the West is the standard. So even our Prophet's actions have to be measured up and have to be judged on the basis of what those people in the West say about the Prophet Salaam's actions. And so we're conflicted. We're conflicted in many different ways. So either the Prophet Salaam is the standard for true humanity or he is not. And if we believe that he is not, then we need to question the sincerity of our faith. So when we start arguing over and over and over every single year about who loves the Prophet the most, that I think that all of us have enough to reflect upon and enough to become the basis for judging our own sincerity, that we can leave off those type of argumentations. That if you want to celebrate, then go ahead celebrate. But don't celebrate just simply by eating a nice meal and singing a bunch of nice songs. But this has to be about you re-evaluating your faith about you thinking about how much of Muhammad Salaam is not in you. How much of him is not in you because he is the example, he is the ideal when we ask Allah that he help us to achieve that ideal. I speak of this and I speak of it in Arabic praise be to Allah peace be upon you and peace be upon you by the name of our prophet Muhammad and his family and companions may Allah bless them and bless them with peace and peace and peace and peace of Islam and peace of Islam and peace of Islam and peace of Islam Allahumma inna naserakh jannata wa ma yulkaribu ilayha min qawli ma amal wa la wudmika min annari wa yulkaribu ilayha min qawli ma amal Allahumma ksemna na min khashyatika ma tawhulu ihi ihi mainana wa maina mahasiyatika wa min ta'atika ma ta'alibuna biha jannata wa min an yakinimata ghubinu bihi anayna wa sa'ib ad dunya wa min t'i'ana bi'asma'ina wa absaarina wa qumma tila ma'a hiitana wa ma'a hiitana wa ma'a hiitana wa sh'al huwali thaminna wa sh'a'a tha'rana a la manzana manzana manzana wan surna a la manzana wa la tj'a al musnibata na fi dinina wa la tj'a al ad dunya abba rahamina wa la ma bilgai minna wa la tusadli ta'alina bihumubina ma la yafahbina wa la yahumuna Allahumma na tj'a lana dhamma illa dhafarta wa la humma illa fahbastya wa la dinna illa qadaita wa la hajat al malhawa ijid dunya wa al aakhirati illa qadaita ya rahma ar rahmina rabbina aitina fi dinya hasra wa fi al aakhirati hasra wa qina aadab al-naab wa qina aadab al-naab wa sallallahu wa sallam wa ba'arak ara seedina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa ashabi al-akhya wa sallam chasliman kathira wa sallallahu wa sallam wa sallallahu wa sallam wa sallallahu wa sallam www.mooji.org