 We begin with the praise of Allah. We praise Him for He is the Lord of the worlds. And we seek His aid and we ask for His forgiveness. And we seek His protection from the evil of ourselves and from the evil of our actions and from the evil of the world. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide. And whomever He 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 is a slave and final messenger. We praise Allah as well for gathering us together on his day of Juma, this auspicious day of Juma. Juma meaning a day of gathering. Just as he brought us together on that first day, on the primordial day of Yom al-Alas, Yom al-Mithaq. On that day, Allah asked us, alas tu bi rabbikum, am I not your Lord? And we testified, bala shahidna, we bear witness that you are. This gathering then is a reminder of that previous gathering. And it's a warning of the upcoming gathering, that upcoming gathering being of Yom al-Qiyamah, the day of judgment, when again we will be brought together and we will be asked about whether we remain faithful to that first covenant. This event of the covenant in our lives is really the beginning of our being human. It's something that we cannot overemphasize as believers or even as human beings. The covenant is our basis for our knowledge of Allah and our faith in Allah, because it is on that day that we testify to his Lordship. And this is also the basis for knowing our purpose here on earth, because after this life, we will be brought into the next life and questioned about what we did. And so the covenant is important. It makes us human beings. And because of that, the covenant is also to our basis for knowing what is our religion, what is Islam. Today, there's a lot of confusion about what it is to be Muslim. What does Islam really mean? Is Islam just a culture that we've brought from back home? Is it just to be Pakistani, to be Afghani, to be Egyptian, to be whatever, right? Some people think that Islam is just a culture. Some people think Islam is just protesting, protesting about Palestinian rights or these rights or those rights. And that's all it is. Some people think Islam is just about wearing a certain type of dress, making sure your hair looks a certain type of way. And because all these things are seen to be the essence of Islam, and what we are feeling to grasp is the real essence of Islam, what you find is there are many people leaving this religion. They're leaving it because what they see is people pinging to these outward appearances, to these edges and margins of the religion without grasping the essence of the faith that explain what all these other things are about. They hear, for example, about the differences in the Sharia rulings between men and women and they say, oh, this is sexist. And because of that, they leave this religion without understanding that there's an essence to what it means to be male and female. And that essence is what this religion teaches us. And that essence explains why those rulings are different between men and women. They hear about evolution and stem cell research and the age of the universe and they start to think, wait, why isn't the Quran talking about this? I guess this means that the Quran is unscientific. But having learned about what the Quran teaches us, that this material world, this physical world, this empirical world is not ultimate reality. There's a higher reality that we're being called to. And so if the Quran isn't talking to us about what science studies, that's fine because there's something higher that we're aiming for. They hear and they talk about, they hear that Allah is in charge of everything in this religion. And they think, well, I'm in hurt, I'm in pain, I'm in suffering. Is Allah causing all of this? And so they think, oh, yes, let's leave the religion. Who would worship a God that causes pain? And they fail to notice what the Quran tells us about pain and suffering, that Allah may have you undergo a small amount of pain, a small amount of suffering, even though in the moment it might seem large, they might have you undergo a small amount of pain to save you a great deal of suffering in the future. All of these doubts and confusions that people have about the religion that caused them to be skeptical, that caused them to leave the religion while they are the beloved in some cases. All of these come from feeling to comprehend the essence of Islam. And instead, you have people grasping as straws. When you have these strong winds of modernity, these strong winds are trying to uproot us, uproot the tree of faith. What you need are strong and deep roots. You can't cling onto grass and hope to stay firm. You need to be a tree with a sturdy trunk and deep roots. And along these lines, there's a famous hadith when the companion Mu'ad ibn Jabal radi Allahu Anh was dispatched to Yemen by the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and he was asked to spread the religion. And the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, gave Mu'ad ibn Jabal radi Allahu Anh some advice. He said, you will come to a people there in Yemen, meaning you will come to a community from Ahlu Kitab, from the people of the scripture, Jews or Christians. He said, call them to bear witness that there's no God but Allah and that I am the messenger of God. If they obey this, then, notice, if they obey this, only then inform them that God has obligated upon them five prayers each day and night. If they obey this, then inform them that God has obligated upon them charity to be taken from the wealthy and to be given to the poor amongst them. And the hadith continues, then this, then this, then so on. But notice, first things must come first and second things must come second. And the first piece of advice that the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave, the first thing to begin with is to know Allah and his messenger. And this is what we call Akhidah, the science of creed in our religion. What are the beliefs that characterize us as Muslims and what are the beliefs that are contrary to being Muslim? This is where Islam starts, with knowledge of what is true and what's real. And only then do our commandments, do the commandments of the prayer and the commandments of Zakat make any sense. Because when you're praying, you're worshiping someone real. And if you don't know who it is you're worshiping, if you don't have knowledge of this real entity, of this real being that is characterized by the attributes of perfection and by the most glorious names, then what are you worshiping? How are you ever gonna have presence in your prayer if you don't know who it is you're praying to? Allah says in the Quran, In the law of the Rasak, the quwwat al-matin, it is Allah who is the provider, the possessor of power, the firm meaning the unshakable. Are you aware then that it's only he who is Rasak? It's not your boss, it's not your company. They aren't the ones depositing a check in your bank account every month. It's not them who are putting food on your dinner table. It's Allah doing this. And why does this matter? Because it gets at the core of what it means to be human. It affects us at the level of our very feelings and our actions. And because it's the truth. Because when you know Allah is on the Rasak, in times of difficulty, in times when economists are telling you that there's gonna be a market collapse in the near future. Or if you're in a situation where you've lost your job, it's our Rasak. We can relax. It's Allah who gave me provision in the first place. And so if he leaves me without an income, it's Allah. It's the same person who gave it to me. He's the same person who can take it away. And he's the most merciful of the merciful. And we know, bejezim with absolute certainty that a person can only be merciful, a entity can only be merciful if they give to someone who's in need without holding back. Bal yadahu ma absurdatan. His two hands are outstretched. Allah's always giving. It is because his other Rasak that we shall never have any anxiety if this reality is actually internalized within us. Let the people on Wall Street waste their lives in a rat race to see if they can strike gold if they can predict the market. We don't need to entertain that delusion because the reality that was true as a matter of fact is that what Allah has decreed for us is guaranteed. And what he has not decreed for us can never happen. And so we don't need to be anxious about these things. We don't need to worry about what's gonna happen in the future. What's good has it already guaranteed. Rufiyat al-Aqlam wa jiffat al-Suhaf. The pens have been lifted and the pages have dried. And it's because he has a Rasak that we never need to lie, we never need to cheat, we never need to steal whether in school or in the workplace to get ahead. That is, if we really internalize this reality. Because it's by the consensus of our scholars that we know that every one of Allah's commandments are commands to do what is in man's best interest, what is in our best interest. And all of Allah's prohibitions are prohibitions against what is against our best interest. It's not worth doing, even if these things might appear to get you ahead in life. Or you might see others apparently getting ahead because of these actions. Because what Allah is telling us when he prohibits these things is that one day in the future they will come back to hunt them. It will come back to be negative for them and they'll see the consequences of what they were engaged in. And so it is because he has a Rasak because there is a reality that we never need to fear people either. Because our needs don't depend on them. And that's a fact. And it's because he has a Rasak that we have the courage to speak out, speak truth to power and speak about what is just and speak against what is unjust because they don't have the power to harm us. We don't need to fear what they will do if we speak truth to power. And that is a fact. And it's because he has a Rasak that we never need to sacrifice our dignity as human beings and our principles to those who are supposedly in power. Because he gives power to whom he wills and he takes power from whom he wills and he raises whom he wills and he lowers whom he wills and in his hand is all good. And that is a fact. And so this reality, this諱quida informs everything that we do it's the basis of everything that we do it's the basis of how we view this entire world In a famous hadith in the Arawbanian of Imam An-Noui relates the 40 most important hadith for everyone to know as believers. One of them he mentions is narrated by an ambassador of the Allah Hanh when he was a young boy and the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam taught him some words to live by and notice he's teaching this to a young child. So he Sallallahu alaihi wasallam says preserve Allah, Allah will preserve you. Preserve Allah and you will find him facing you. If you ask ask Allah if you seek help seek help from Allah. Know that if the entire world gathered to benefit you they could not benefit you at all but rather Allah had decreed it for you. If the world gathered to bring harm to you they could not bring harm to you in any way but Allah had decreed it for you. The pens have lifted and the pages have dried. This hadith is about Qadr which is one of the fundamental points of our Aqida and it's one of the points that falls under the phrase the kalima la ilaha illallah because la ilaha illallah there is no God but Allah means that part of what it means to be ilaha part of what it means to be divine to be a God is to have control of all affairs and this can be rationally proven as our scholars have done. Allah says ilayhi yarji al-amru kulluh fa'abuduh. To him alone all affairs return and because of that and so worship him because all affairs return to him. We should know that our first and only consideration in our affairs shabi Allah is only he benefits he is only he is an nafee and only he can bring harm he is ad-dar and so we go back to the beginning of this hadith preserve Allah Allah will preserve you guard Allah Allah will guard you. What the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was teaching this young boy was that in this dunya in this darul ibtila where we feel like we're facing calamity after calamity that the one who can protect you from these calamities is Allah so preserve and so preserve him keep him in the forefront of your mind in all of your actions and so pay attention to what he's commanding and what he's prohibiting because it's only advice for you it's only things that are in your benefit keep him in mind and you will find him facing you you'll find him in front of you and not in any physical way because Allah transcends time and place but your heart will be present with him just like your heart was present with him and witnessed him and witnessed his lordship on the day of the Covenant on Yom al-Ast and so we say in this life like we said on that day shahedna indeed we do bear witness