 Bismillah, Alhamdulillah, As-Salaamu Alayhi wa Sulaam. Obviously, I wasn't supposed to be here. And I came genuinely just to listen to Sheikh Ali. SubhanAllah, funny enough, I was actually supposed to be giving a Tafsir of Surat-e-Shara'ah at West Valley Muslim Association. But then there was a power outage. So that's proof that they took others tonight, right? It was so powerful that literally the power went out. My sentence to that joke is Lubna, the executive director. So we actually had to evacuate, SubhanAllah, the Masjid. And so I didn't really expect to have time. And Sidi Usama was here with me, my dear friend, from Sacramento. He said, Dr. Ali is speaking. So I said, Bismillah, we got to go. So I genuinely came just to benefit. But you know, there's a lesson in that. I think, SubhanAllah, it's not a coincidence that the most blessed night of the year is called Lailatul Qadr because you will never really appreciate the power of Allah until you learn to accept it. You'll never really appreciate the destiny of God until you learn to accept it. They do studies on this stuff now. They talk about how the most miserable people are just people who fail to accept what they can't control. And the happiest people are those who have been in contentment with God all along because they know it wasn't their decision anyway. They were never in control to begin with. This is exactly the meaning of the Hadith of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Forgive me for speaking in front of you, Sheikh. I really, this is very embarrassing. Dr. Ali is like a hero for me. So I'm just going to do this. I was asked. But the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, You know the Hadith, right? Strange, it's perplexing, the state of the believer. It's only perplexing for those who are not believers. That's the idea here. Ajabani Amr al-Mu'min, that strange and perplexing is the matter of the believer, what's the rest of the Hadith? Every matter of theirs is good. What's after that? How does the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam explain it? Exactly. Everything is good because if something happens, that they didn't expect, what they perceive as negative in that moment, they say Alhamdulillah, they're patient. And when something happens, which is a blessing, that they also did not expect, what do they say? Alhamdulillah, they're thankful, right? They're patient and thankful. So that idea of being able to always witness the Qaid, necessitates an acceptance of destiny. And so I think it's really, really out for us to reflect on that tonight, is that what we're here to do is we want to make du'a to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But the real gift is that we're making du'a to Allah. It's not what we're going to get from Allah. We already got the gift. We're here making du'a. So if I could leave you with two things, because that's like the, you know what happened tonight? Subhanallah, Taji, I have to tell you this. I was sitting there in the back, listening to you, and I would think of something, as well, Allah, I'm not just saying this because you're here. I would think of something and then you'd mention it, right? And then I'd think of another thing, like the incoherence randomly. I was just thinking about like, you know, the incoherence of the Quran arguments and nothing to do with your talk. And then you'd mention it. And then this is the, subhanallah, this is the strangest part of tonight for me. I was towards the end of your talk. I felt bad because I got distracted. It just happens. You inspired insights all the time. So I was thinking of the hadith of, you know, I leave you with two things. Al-Qur'an wa atlatu al-Ali Baiti. And then someone asked the question of the hadith of Baiti. So, you know, I interpret that as, you know, my love being true to our beloved teacher here, who is our teacher. But, you know, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would, you know, he said, I leave you with two things. So maybe, you know, in that light, I'll leave you with two things. The first, in terms of taking advantage of this blessed night, remember that we leave Ramadan the same way we came into Ramadan. We come into Ramadan with Tawbah through hope and we leave Ramadan with Tawbah through hope. And the beautiful thing about the word Tawbah, repentance, I personally, I mean, who am I to speak in front of Dr. Ali about like etymology? But from my very limited understanding of the etymology of the word repentance, is doesn't actually capture the concept of Tawbah because all of the etymology surrounds the ideas of like regret and being sorry. But the heart of why Tawbah is called Tawbah is because there's this idea of returning. And so that doesn't just capture the fact that we obviously need a plan, which, you know, our sheikh shared with us tonight. Like there has to be something that we do. But there's another really beautiful thing about hope that's captured in this idea of Tawbah, which is what would happen if we saw all of our mishaps and shortcomings as nothing more than just a wrong turn from our natural fitrah. And Tawbah being nothing more than a return to who we're meant to be originally. And so when you have this idea, you're not going to feel like you're inherently a failure. No, no, you just acted in a way that was unbecoming of what you're destined to be, of your true nature. And so you don't get caught and stuck in this type of stuff. When you realize, Alhamdulillah, Allah created me with a soul. He created me with a fitrah. And my task as an imperfect human being I was created imperfect by design. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us this clearly. If all of you stop making mistakes, he would wipe us all out and create humans that made mistakes just so he can forgive. So the idea isn't to be perfect. The idea is to be in a perpetual state of returning to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And you won't even be able to do that if you thought you weren't imperfect. You wouldn't be able to be in a perpetual state of repentance. If you thought, Alhamdulillah, I'm good. My friend Bashir Jones, he always jokes. He says like, we all have issues. And if you don't believe you have issues, lying is your issue. In other words, gently speaking, you're delusional. We're all, we all have issues. So number one, take Tawba to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala seriously, which necessitates hope and necessitates that no, Allah is capable of changing my state. Destiny, Qadar and Taqdeed, destiny is about power. You have to believe in the power of Allah. You have to believe that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala can change your state tonight. You have to believe that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala can change your state in an instant. Theologically speaking, we have to believe this. The second thing I wanted to share, if I may, and then I'll stop talking. So I shouldn't be talking. You know, we spend a lot of Ramadan even though it's the most communal month of our year. We spend it thinking about ourselves. And in a special night, a lot of us are thinking about dua, which is exactly the right attitude. How you need to speak to Allah, you need to ask Allah. But we should also be thinking about each other. And you know, I would even dare to say, your night is better spent making dua for others. Your night is better spent being, look at the ad-i'a of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Look at how many of them is, Allahumma Inna Na'udubika Min Al-Hammi Wal-Hazan. Allahumma Inna Na'udubika. It's always, so many of it is in the plural. Because we should not forget our brothers and sisters on the path, on our own path. We should not, our spirituality shouldn't be an individualistic approach to piety. But because our lives are like this, right, then it filters into our perceptions of the faith. I grew up in an era, Allah, you know, it's just crazy to think of this. But I grew up in an era where people would claim, this is the truth, when in reality, it was nothing more than a truism informed by the modern sensibilities of that time. Give me an example. I remember asking someone, you know, please make dua for me. And they would say, make dua for yourself, brother. It's like, what? I don't think that's how this goes. So you make dua for yourself, brother. It's like, Habib, if I wasn't making dua for myself, I wouldn't see the power of dua to ask you to make dua for me to begin with. But why would that become not just a one-off, weird thing that someone says, and we have to be compassionate to, you know, we don't know their stores. But how does that become a default norm of the status quo? I'll tell you how. Because we live in America. That's why. And in America, it's nefsi. It's nefsi, why do you, you want me to make dua, you make dua for yourself. Don't, you know, don't, don't, I don't want your piety to touch my piety. Wait, wait, we're supposed to both get individual piety by together. It's a, it's a community. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was not a prophet of nefsi, he was a prophet of ummati. And that's who we are. You know, that's who we are. And I'll share with you one story, just because it was shared today. It's a really beautiful story. It might, it might shock you. Actually it will shock you. Maybe not in the best way, but I'm gonna share it anyway. Sheikhs Ma'il Bowers, who's one of my closest friends, he's my partner in Dawah. If you don't know him, you should, you should look him up. You know, it's really good to see the next generation of scholarship so that you don't go around singing end of times blues, right? There will always be people who will carry this deen. That was that, that the guarantee by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so he shares a story that he received from his sheikh. And it's a true story, it's a true story about one of the great, great, great sheikhs of Morocco, Afas. And this great sheikh of Morocco used to, on Thursday nights, you know, Muslim kids, they're Muslim, but you know, like, Muslim kids can also do haram things, right? And not immune from the influences around you. And they would always just get drunk Thursday nights. Always get drunk. Every Thursday night they get drunk. And every single time without fail, sheikh would pass by and smile at them. Smile really big. So eventually, they kind of like, found love with him. Like, he's just showing us kindness. And you know, when a Muslim does this, especially when there's a culture of adab, they're still have shyness. Which is why we should never assume anything but that about people. Because if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's Medina had a regular drunken sahaba, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, loves Allah and his prophet. Who are we to assume anything else about anyone? So we'd always look and he would smile at them. SubhanAllah, he would smile at them. So then they said, sheikh, we just love to invite you. We would love to invite you over. Maybe let's do like a weekly halakah. Because it's Juma, but they still wanna get drunk. This is the craziest part about this. But they had adab. This is the funniest part of the story. They had adab. So they said, ya sheikh, why don't you come after we've kind of recovered? This is a true story. This is a true story. Do you know what the sheikh did? Not only did he come, the period where they were drunk, he devoted that entire time for dua for them. Every single week. Then this group of young people wake up one day and they all look at each other. And it was kind of like, you feeling what I'm feeling? Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling it. You feeling what I'm feeling? I'm feeling it too. What were they feeling? We are disgusted by alcohol. They couldn't even look at it. Look, they've had hangovers before. They've had hangover. They've had their fair share of throw ups and vomit. They've had that. They looked at each other. They said, we can't fathom even thinking about picking up this alcohol. Because of the dua of the sheikh. And this is not a silly story. This is not a silly story. We have to believe this. The only reason this is unfathomable to us is because our existence is so nefcy. It is so consumed by an individualistic lifestyle that we cannot fathom. That someone would spend their week making dua for a group that we would consider damned. And then see the power of Allah in that. So my sincerest request to you, make dua for yourself, obviously, obviously. But don't forget each other. Our faith, I mentioned this several times in my visit here, I'm here until I eat. And I find it so beautiful. And sheikh, maybe this is the wrong ishara. I'd hope you can correct me. But I find it strange and beautiful that the most private act of worship, slayam, is done in the most communal month of the year. The reason fasting is more rewarded than any other act is why. What do the scholars say? It's because no one knows you're fasting. No one knows you're fasting. You could do it privately. You know, you could walk through and it's between you on Allah completely. Yet that one act that can be rewarded infinitely, we don't even know how to quantify the rewards of that. Allah places its obligation in the most communal month of the year, which is Ramadan. Is that a coincidence? I don't think that's a coincidence. I think there's a clear lesson here that if we want to do faith right individually, we don't forget each other. That faith done right is faith done in a community. And so please make dua for each other. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says when you do that, you get whatever you're asking for anyway. It's a two for the price of one. Subhanallah. Right? So, you know, leave this beautiful night with Toba, which again, we said is rooted in hope, which our sheikh talked about. Hope and the best opinion of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la possible. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la can change your state. He changed the state of those drunkards. He can change your state, okay? A mass murderer was given redemption. You can be given redemption too. Everyone can be given redemption as long as you're sincere in your Toba. And secondly, please make dua for each other because, you know, this not only, this not only is something that we benefit from as individuals. And it's not only something that allows us to follow the Sunnah of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. What it does is it keeps our heart alive with love for each other, which the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, shall I remind you, said what? Is the very way we enter Jannah. And you will not enter paradise until you believe and you will not believe until you love. May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la us to love one another and to favor each other and to make us truly selfless by not thinking of ourselves and think preferring others over ourselves, even in this most blessed night. Barakalafiikum. Forgive me, Sheikh, for speaking in your presence. And it's an honor to be here. Thank you. Selamun alaikum. Barakalafiikum.