 Alhamdulillah, this amazing day today, Alhamdulillah, Allah Ta'ala has allowed us to gather again on the day of Jumu'ah, the day of the Eid for the Muslims, and in addition to that, Allah has joined between the day of Friday and the day of Arafa, Alhamdulillah, which the Prophet ﷺ said about the day of Arafa, that Al-Hajju Arafa. So, if we could have only been in the sacred precinct yesterday for only 10 minutes, that would have been sufficient for us to have performed our Hajj this year. So, Alhamdulillah, Arafa has amazing blessings, which I'm sure we all have know of. But one of the interesting things about Arafa is that it's linguistically related to the word ma'rifah, which is that you have, it could mean perception, or it could mean knowledge, or it could mean really intimate knowledge. And one of the important things about this day is that it reminds us of how significant ma'rifah to Allah is, that the gnosis or the knowledge of Allah Ta'ala is. And it could have, the phrase could have been phrased as ilmullah, the knowledge of God. But rather, it's phrased as ma'rifah to Allah, because ma'rifah is a higher level of knowledge. It encompasses just ilm. It's a bit more than that. It's a bit more experiential than that. And the people who have ma'rifah, who are termed as the Arafeen, the people with gnosis or with this intimate knowledge of God, they are quite few in humanity because Allah Ta'ala tries to veil them. But nevertheless, we can still seek them out. But there are very amazing individuals in that. They have immense and complete trust in their Lord at every single moment of their lives. And to this effect, one of the early sages of this ummah said that the Arafeen are like earth and they're like clouds and they're like rain. They're like earth in the sense that they allow the righteous people to walk on top of them and also the worst of the worst people to walk on top of them. They're like the clouds in that they cover everybody, right? They cover their mistakes. They don't sort of differentiate. They treat everybody as a creation of God, right? That's one of the qualities of the Gnostics. And then they're like rain because they give rain to those that love it and to those that don't love it. So just amazing individuals Arafeen. And these are exactly the people that we are told to be like because when Sina Ibn Abbas, when he was asked to give Tafsir of the ayah, He would say this means we didn't create human beings or jinn except to worship me, right? Allah Ta'ala says. Ibn Abbas says who's been termed as the translator of the Quran, he said that meant you haven't been created except to know me, right? To have ma'rifah of me, right? So ma'rifah. It's one of the sort of the hallmarks of this deen that no other deen has sort of an understanding of this type of concept is that the ma'rifah of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, alhamdulillah. One of the things about that we can also glean from the uduhiyyah that we are tasked to carry out tomorrow is that when we look back historically what happened at this time and sort of where the sunnah of uduhiyyah comes from, the relationship between Sina Ibrahim and his son and how Sina Ibrahim had a dream that I've been commanded to sacrifice my son. And he tells his son this and his son says, well then I suppose you should carry out what you are being commanded to do, to carry out from your Lord, alhamdulillah. And then they go ahead and they do it and the Quran says that when the son was laid on his face then Allah told him that both of you have passed the test, you've both passed the test of obedience to me, right? And that even though, I mean who in their right mind does that, that's not something normal to do. But yet both of those in the father and son they didn't renege, they didn't stutter in carrying out Allah's command. They said, Samirana wa Ata'ana, that's the response of the Arafeen when they speak back to Allah when Allah tells them, Samirana wa Ata'ana. And then so Allah tells them that you've passed the test and that then the son was replaced with a lamb or a sheep. So this is one of the things that we can glean is that sacrifice is one of the important things of this day, right? Sacrificing. What are we willing to sacrifice for this deen? And have we sacrificed anything? One of the scholars said that when you sacrifice something of yourself for God's sake, God will replace it with something better, right? God will replace it with something better. So sacrificing in the interesting words, in the English of sacrifice, it comes from to make sacred. That's the root meaning of the word, it means to make something sacred. And it's a beautiful word, it's an amazing meaning. And I was once in a class titled Philosophy of Islam and the instructor was an atheist. So we were talking about the story of Abraham, and he actually said that the Qur'an says that he was asked to sacrifice his son. But then he said, well really, it's just you're asking them to kill it. And this is the sort of idea, the sort of mentality that when you don't have, when nothing really exists, when you don't have a certain type of perception to understand reality with, then this is the type of reductionist idea that you come with and you see sacred things with that type of idea, where murder and sacrifice are equivalent now. So that's nowhere near is that the case, right? But rather we believe in meaning, right? We believe there's meaning in the world and there's meanings in our lives. And that there's a reason, there's a purpose for our lives. And the purpose was, We haven't been created except for worshiping or what that really means is for having intimate knowledge of Allah SWT. So it's a blessing day, right? It's a blessed day, it's an amazing day. It's a day where the Prophet ﷺ said that Dua'z are accepted on this day. And so it's, insha'Allah, we are engaging in that to any needs that we have, any needs that any of our brothers or sisters have, any people that in the community that they have. We make Dua' for people, because we know that the angels, they say amin for us when we make Dua' for somebody else. So we get to take care of ourselves and other people when we make Dua' right? So Dua' is part of generosity when you make Dua' for somebody else. These are the things that we still have some time until Maghrib comes in. So these are the things to be engaged in. And it is to this effect that if we are unable to, right? If we're unable to, the Prophet ﷺ said that that actions are judged by their intentions, and then that every person has what they intended. He didn't say every person has what they did. وإنما لكل مريئن ما عميلة. He didn't say عميلة. He said ما ناوى. Whatever they intend. And it's also narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said that نية المؤمن خير من عمله. Right? The intention of the believer is better than his actions. And so if we are in any way, unable to carry out the task that we would like to carry out, we have some people today who, some of us, we weren't able to fast today. But we do have intention to fast, but for whatever reason we weren't able to fast. That's, you know, it's اجزأوه, right? It's received, it's done. So Allah تعالى looks at the intentions, not at the actions. Alhamdulillah. So عرفة. It's a day of related to linguistically معريفة of knowledge of Allah ﷺ. So let's, inshallah, we open ourselves up to allow the mercies and the معريفة of Allah ﷺ to take place and take root in our hearts, inshallah. And from that we give further meaning to our lives. Right? Because that's really the point of all of this, is to give further meaning to our lives. Imam is usually translated as a word that means belief, right? Imam. There are three statements that the Prophet ﷺ made that are quite popular in regards to Imam. And Imam is really the thing that sort of binds us all together, is that we have a certain common level of belief. We have common things that we believe in, and then we have varying levels of iman, right? There's tafawud amongst creation and iman. And then we have means of increasing our iman. So for instance taqwa increases our iman, always being vigilant of meeting Allah ﷺ's commands upon us, what he's told us to do, meeting those, and then staying away from the things that he told us to stay away from. So iman increases with good actions, right? The iman increases with better taqwa, iman increases. Now the Prophet ﷺ, in one way they're scary statements because he sort of pulls our card where he takes our membership card, the membership of Islam, in a sense. And he says that, you know, none of you truly believe. In fact, he said that in Arabic it's لا يؤمن أحدكم, none of you believe, right? That's what it translates, that's what it, right? So that's a scary statement when, and then after that really comes the conditions of, well what you can do to, or what are some signs that you know you have iman. So then the Prophet ﷺ, so one of the statements that the Prophet ﷺ made is that, لا يؤمن أحدكم حتى يحب ليخيه ما يحبني نفسه. None of you truly believe until you love for your brothers in humanity what you love for yourself, right? So brothers right here, it doesn't refer to just us in here in this building right now, but rather all of the most commentators of this hadith have said that, brother in this statement here refers to your brother in humanity, right? Bani Adam, right? Bani Adam, because at the essence of Bani Adam is a soul and that soul on, at some time in history was asked, along with our souls, every soul, أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ قَالُوا بَلَا شَهِدْنَا Right? That our Lord Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala asked all the souls, am I not your Lord? And everybody's replied, yes, we bear witness to this, right? It is true. You are our Lord. And it's to that effect that the pros and cons wants us to want good for other people. Is that we need to have, right? It's to have, and so then that negates having other things for other people, right? With the opposite of that. You can't want good for somebody if you hate them. You can't want good for somebody if you envy them. In fact, that's the definition of envy. You want them to lose their good. Or you can't, it doesn't work out like that. And you can't want good for somebody if you don't know them. If you don't know somebody, why would you want good for them? So that doesn't make so much sense. So this is part of allowing us to have conviviality in our everyday lives with the people that we come across. Is to not have hatred and that to have love for your brother and to love good for them. That you want good is that it's human nature to fall into the pitfalls of you make fun of somebody when something unfortunate occurs to them or we laugh at people's unfortunate circumstances. But in reality, if the pros and cons was alive, he would not have done that. He didn't laugh at the Quraish for the things they did. He was made fun of the Quraish, made fun of the pros and cons. But the pros and cons didn't, he didn't return it back. He didn't return the negativity back towards them, so that's one thing. That bears upon our Iman. La yu'minu ahadukum until you do that. None of you, your Iman is incomplete until that is satisfied, until that condition is satisfied. The second popular hadith that the Apostle of Samsa said, La yu'minu ahadukum is when the Apostle of Samsa said, La yu'minu ahadukum hatta yakuna hawahu taba'an lima jitubih. And this is a hadith that Imam Nauwi reports in his collection of 40 hadiths where the Apostle of Samsa said that none of you truly or none of you believes until your inclinations, your natural inclinations are in line with or parallel to what I have come with. And so what did the Apostle of Samsa come with? He came with the sacred law, right, the shari'a. And there's people, and I'm talking about Muslims. There's Muslims that have issues with the shari'a. They pick faults, or they attempt at least, pick faults at the points, minute points in the shari'a where it doesn't sit well with them. Well, according to the hadith, as Khun Surah Paul said, that's deficiency in Imam. If there's anything that in the shari'a that is not in line with what you like to do, it's a deficiency in Imam. Because the shari'a, it is in line with the rationality that we have. It is in line with rationality. And so anything opposite of that is a sign of deficiency of Imam. And one of the examples of that is when Ibrahim A.S., him and his son, again, right, is that when the Amr came, the command came, you got to do this, that was it. There's no stuttering, there's no half-stepping. You have to take care of the command. And then when you do that, and then what happened? He didn't even fulfill the action, and yet still, he was rewarded by having it substituted. The son was substituted for an animal. And then the last and final hadith where the, really the purpose of Ma'arifah, or one of the fruits of Ma'arifah, where it leads you is that when the Prophet S.A.W. said, لا يؤمن أحدكم حتى أكون أحب إليه من والده والناس يأجمعين. None of you believe until I am more beloved to you than your parents, your children, and everybody on the planet. And you can add to that things on the planet as well. Because before our time, people didn't love things more than they loved people. But in our time, it's a bit opposite. There are people in our planet now that they love things more than they love individuals. So things are also included in that. So loving the Prophet S.A.W. more than anything. Once there's Ma'arifah of who Allah SWT is, then it necessitates that we understand who the Prophet S.A.W. is. And then when understanding who the Prophet S.A.W. is, there's nothing other than loving him, S.A.W. Right, that's the connection. And that is why Allah SWT's name and the Prophet S.A.W. name are connected until يوم القيامة when we say لا إله إلا الله محمد الرسول الله. Their names are connected and they will always be connected even after يوم القيامة. On the day of judgment, it will be made manifest to everybody that this was real. It's not a joke or a game, it was real. So loving the Prophet S.A.W. That is the fruit of knowledge, right? That's the fruit of realm. And then we have Ma'arifah and then we have حب and then that is it. The Qur'an says, The ones who believe, their love for God is more intense than what other people love. The people that believe, their love for Allah is more intense than the people that love other things of this world. So that is really the point of all this, right? We have عرفة, we have حج, we have يوم الجمعة, right? Which is gathering, جمعة, right? It brings us together and that's what love does, is that love brings things together. Is that we have, we know opposites attract and we know that even at the minute level that protons and electrons are attracting at the minutest of levels. So it's all the way through, it's everywhere. We can't escape it, we can only just acknowledge it and then realize it. And حكذا. الحمد لله إن الله وملاء إنكته يصلون على النبي يا أيها الذين آمنوا صلوا عليه وسلموا تسليموا اللهم صلي على سيدنا محمد صلاة تنجين بها من جميع الأهوال والآفات وتقضي لنا بها جميع الحاجات وتطاهرنا بها من جميع السيئات وترفعنا بها على درجات وتبلغنا بها وتبلغنا بها أقص الخيات من جميع الخيارات في الحياة وبعد الممات. ربنا آتنا ملادونك ورحمة وهيئ لنا من أمرينا رشداء ربنا آتنا في الدنيا حسناتهم وفي آخرات حسناتهم قينا عذاب النّار ربنا لا تزيغ قلوبنا بعد إذ هديتنا وهبلنا ملادونك ورحمة إنك أنت الوهاب اللهم إنا نسألك العفاة والعافية والمعافات الدائمة في الدنيا والدنيا والآخرة اللهم إنا نسألك الهودة والتقا والعافاف والغينا والسعادة في الدارين اللهم أرحم أمة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم والحمد لله رب عمين سبحانه ربك رب العزاة عمين وصيفون والسلام علي المرسلين والحمد لله رب العالمين وأقب الصلاة