 بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم وصلى الله عليه وسلم محمد ولا آله وصحبه جمعين سبحانكه لا علم لنا إلا ما ألمتنا إنك أنت العليم الحكيم ولا حول ولا قوة إلا بالله العلي العظيم السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته الله سبحانه وتعالى يساز إني قرآن يا أيها الذين آمنوا اتقوا الله وبتغوا إليه الوسيلة وجاهدوا في سبيله لعلكم تفلحون one of my all-time favorite آيات of the Quran I quote this آية in many many khutbas in the past it is an incredible آية of the Quran this is in Surah Al-Maeda verse number 35 which Allah سبحانه وتعالى says oh you who believe people of iman اتقوا الله have taqwa of Allah سبحانه وتعالى be conscious of Allah سبحانه وتعالى be pious have a type of fear of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and then وابتغوا إليه الوسيلة and this is a a command from Allah سبحانه وتعالى and seek الوسيلة seek to God what is الوسيلة this is related to the word which means intermediation literally the means of approach so there are many deficiencies there may be many deficiencies in our iman so Allah سبحانه وتعالى commands us to fill in as it were for deficient gaps of iman and taqwa with ووسيلة to give you an analogy if someone is going to apply to a university unless that person has a near perfect SAT score and a near perfect ACT score and a 4.0 GPA that person is going to need help in the form of letters of recommendation and who writes these letters of recommendation well people who have authority and rank in academia and it's similar in the spiritual realm we need all the help that we can get from those nearest and dearest to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and we all practice توصل at some level if you read the Quran which of course we do well the Quran is not Allah and the Quran is not you so reading the Quran is really a means of drawing near to Allah سبحانه وتعالى it is seek the means of approach to Allah سبحانه وتعالى in this case we do it through the Quran but specifically with respect to this verse ayah 35 of المائدة it's the exigence of the Quran as to what specifically is this some of the علماء say that it is توبة توبة is a means by which we approach Allah سبحانه وتعالى and توبة is a great thing we've mentioned it many many times right that the Prophet ﷺ he said اتائبو من ذنبه كما لا ذنب له كما قال عليه الصلاة والسلام من who is like the one who never had the sin at all توبة is a great thing and unfortunately in our modern culture we're taught to simply accept who we are accept our actions accept our thoughts in our inclinations and that really just cuts off the road to توبة so that really in a sense cuts off that وسيلة that means of approach to Allah سبحانه وتعالى as you know says سولة الأنفال in the Quran that he would not punish a people وانت فيهم speaking directly to the Prophet ﷺ as long as you are amongst them and then he says وهم يستغفرون as long as they are asking forgiveness for their sins and of course in the Quran Allah سبحانه وتعالى he explicitly says that he loves at least 8 types of people and they are described by these attributes we mentioned this in the previous خطبة or small lecture that Allah loves the محسينين and the متقين and the صابرين and the متوكلين and he also loves the توابين who are the people of توبة who are the توابين people who sin and then they repent another opinion is that the وسيلة in this ayah 35 of المائدة is the obligatory acts of worship that no one should be leaving if people aren't praying for example if people aren't fasting during Ramadan without a valid excuse then there's serious deficiencies in our Deen may Allah protect us yet another opinion is that the وسيلة in this ayah ayah 35 is a reference to our master محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم that he is the means of approach to our Lord با على وسادات of Yemen they recite a beautiful benediction upon the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم اللهم صلي على السيد محمد مفتاح بابي رحمة الله Oh Allah bless and give peace to Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم our master Muhammad مفتاح بابي رحمة الله the key to the gate of the mercy of God the analogy of the rahma the mercy of Allah as being like this walled city with a gate and many claim to have the key but the true key is our master Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم اللهم صلى الله عليه وسلم says in the Quran speaking directly to the Prophet again a very oft repeated ayah in many of my lectures and talks in khutbas قل إن كنتم تحبون الله فا تبيعوني يحببكم الله ويغفر لكم والله وفر رحم say if you love Allah so Allah is telling the Prophet to ask the people if you all claim to love Allah then you have to follow me you have to follow the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم then will Allah love you and forgive you your sins and Allah سبحانه و تعالى is forgiving and merciful سبب النزل the occasion of this verses revelation according to the مفصلين is that a waft delegation of Christians from the Najran they came into Medina and they said that they worshipped but they did it out of love for God and this ayah demonstrates that you don't demonstrate your love for Allah سبحانه و تعالى by worshipping anyone other than God you don't worship the messenger you don't worship the messiah you don't worship the sheikh you don't worship the Kaaba you don't worship the Quran you only worship Allah سبحانه و تعالى and that's how you demonstrate your love so what do you do with the messenger you adhere to him you obey him you follow him you have itiba because the messenger is he is the key to the gate of the mercy of God he is the key to the gate of the love the unconditional love of Allah سبحانه و تعالى so ask your lord by means of his beloved and you will not be rejected honor the beloved of your lord and you will be honored and this is how it works the prophet SAW he said غير نسب that all of the lineages all of the connections are cut off on the Yom Al-Qiyamah except my lineage and those connected to me so obviously here he is talking about the righteous أهل البيت as well as those who are connected somehow to the prophet SAW really the إتصال of محبه think of Salman Al-Farisi who is not even Arab he was a Persian and this hadith gives us a lot of hope that Salman Al-Farisi the Ansar wanted to claim him as one of their own because they said that he became Muslim in Medina the Muhajireen said no he made Hijrah he came into Medina just like we came from Mecca so he's one of us and the prophet SAW he said Salman is from us the people of the house and in effect made him an honorary member of the blessed prophetic house of the prophet SAW he was beloved to Allah because he loved the messenger SAW there is an amazing hadith recorded by Ibn Maja Imam Tirmidhi narrated by Ertman Ibn Hunayf over 15 masters حفاظ of hadith have explicitly said that the following hadith is absolutely sound بخاري النسائي that a man who was the prophet SAW he was blind he came to the prophet SAW and he said pray to Allah SWT for me that I might be healed and the prophet SAW said if you have patience it is better but if you want I can supplicate for you and the man said he said supplicate so the prophet SAW he told the man to go and then pray two units of prayer and then say the following words اللهم إني أسألك وأتوجه إليك بمحمد نبي الرحمة that oh Allah I ask you and I turn to you by means of Muhammad the prophet of mercy you see اللهم إليه الوصلة اتجاه الان to Allah SWT and of course the prophet SAW is the walking Quran كان خلقه القرآن and so his prescription his prescription to the blind man was based on the Quran recognizing that he is الوصلة that he is the means of approach to Allah SWT and the prophet SAW a man came to the prophet SAW after the congregational prayer and he said اصبت حدن فأقن فيه كتاب الله I have transgress the boundaries of permissibility so punish me according to the book of God the prophet SAW did you not just pray with us he said yes and then the prophet SAW indeed Allah SWT has already forgiven your sin so the point I'm making here is that this man brought his sin to the door of mercy and he was shown mercy well some might say well the prophet SAW was alive when that happened now first of all according to our أقيدة the prophet SAW this is the أقيدة that he was alive in the sense that he's he's in a state of consciousness somehow in a mysterious way in his grave there's a hadith of Abu Dawood which is a strong hadith من أحد يسلموا عليها إلا رد الله عليها روحي حتى أرد عليه السلام that no one gives me salams except that Allah SWT returns my soul to me so that I might respond to his salam Imam Suyuti says the meaning of this is that his consciousness a heightened state of awareness returns to him you might say it's impossible if millions and millions of people are giving salams to the prophet SAW he's able to hear this and respond you're making him into a God you're giving him divine attributes no one's making him into a divinity or a God or anything like that think of a tweet if you have a million followers and you send a tweet one million people if you have a million followers will simultaneously get your tweet you see the unseen realm is totally beyond our imaginative limitations Allah SWT says that the shuhada the shuhada are not dead بل أحياء that they're alive who's better the shuhada or الانبياء and amongst the anbiya who's the greatest it's the prophet SAW so the bottom line is that our ibadat our taqwa our iman is deficient and we need to take the means of approach to Allah SWT we need to appeal to Allah's beloved and nothing and no one is more beloved to Allah than our master محمد SAW and I'll end with this that somebody might say okay what about after the physical passing of the prophet SAW there's a very famous narration found in multiple books confirmed by all of the salaf you'll find كتابو شفا بقادي عياد who's a later scholar you mom know we as well a later scholar mentions this as well that a Bedouin came to the grave of the prophet SAW and he said oh messenger of God I've committed a grave sin but I heard the prophet SAW said in his book وَلَوَنَّهُمْ إِذَلَمُواْ أَنْفُسُهُمْ جَا أُوْكَى فَاَسْتَغْفُرُ اللَّهَ وَاَسْتَغْفَرًا لَهُمْ الْرَسُولُ لَوَجَدُ اللَّهَ تَوَابَ الرَّخِيمًا that if only when they had wronged themselves they had come to you جا أُوْكَى they had come to you the prophet SAW and they had sought forgiveness from Allah and the messenger had sought forgiveness for them then they would have found Allah relenting and merciful so the Bedouin said so here I am I'm here to ask Allah for forgiveness and ask you to ask him for my forgiveness right so this is someone who's coming to the grave of the prophet SAW and then Al-Artsbi according to this narration a man named Al-Artsbi was watching this happen and then the Bedouin left and Al-Artsbi he dozed off and the prophet came to him in a dream and the prophet told him go catch up to that Bedouin and tell him that Allah SWT has indeed forgiven him so the Bedouin he brought his sin to the door of mercy and he was shown mercy may Allah SWT give us the Tawfiq to understand and to rectify our Iman and our Taqwa and for us to be seekers of Al-Wasila unto him اللهم إِنَّكَ عَفُوا وَنَهِبُوا الْعَفْوَى فُعَفُوا عَنَّا we should make this dua إن شاء الله تعالى these last ten nights it is the practice of the prophet SAW according to our mother Aisha that he would recite this dua quite often in the final ten nights oh Allah you are the effacer of sin and you love to efface so please efface our sins وصلى الله عليه وسلم ورحمة الله وبركاته