 As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah Usa al-Shemira woke you and I will likely put you to sleep. I am really tired so I'm going to ask for your forgiveness ahead of time but mashallah following you is so difficult. No really, because mashallah she's amazing. I feel like, you know, have you seen those pictures of like these spider webs, you know? There are some of them that are kind of just messy and then there's these gorgeous ones. And that's how I imagine As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah wa rahmatullah Usa al-Shemira's brain. I'm like this gorgeous web of intricate just tangents and just design but everything comes full circle. You just do it so beautifully. May Allah increase you and protect your preserved view. Alhamdulillah. I mean, why do you mind? It is an honor to be with all of you here today. And I want to thank, again, the Rahmah Foundation and all of you for being here and for supporting this incredible organization. This is, as Usa al-Fadwa mentioned, our fifth installment of this series. And mashallah, each time we've come together to spotlight incredible women in our tradition but I'm going to veer into a different direction today, similarly to what Usa al-Shemira presented in terms of this concept of reflecting. So I'm actually going to share some reflections. I'm going to reflect on reflecting righteousness and I'm going to start off as I love to do. I'm a teacher. I like to teach. So I like to look at words and what they mean. So if we look at this word reflect, websters, you can look it up, but I want to actually focus on specific definitions here. There's many of them. They're expanded definitions. But here, to make manifest or apparent. And then reflection is the production of an image by or as if by a mirror. So I want you to keep in mind those concepts, to make manifest or apparent and then this concept of a mirror, because it's very relevant to our experience as believers and what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asks of Us. Here in chapter Surah al-Hajirat ayah 13, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Oh, humanity, He's speaking to all human beings, right? Indeed, we created you from male and female and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may get to know one another. Really the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you. Allah is truly all-knowing, all-aware. So to become known to one another, but also in order to do that, you have to make yourself known. And this is one of the great gifts of our tradition, especially for us as women, is that by wearing our hijab, whether you wear it all the time or not, and I've given a talk on this subject before, but I really encourage you to not fall into this black and white type of thinking that I have to either be a hijabi or not a hijabi. Don't do that. Just wear the hijab, embrace it. It is a beautiful symbol and it's an act of devotion and worship. But also one of the gifts of the hijab is that we recognize one another, right? How many times have you been somewhere and maybe you didn't feel safe for whatever reason, right? But then SubhanAllah, Allah brings someone around the corner and immediately you're like, Alhamdulillah, my sister, she's here. She came to bring me relief when I was feeling something, right? So we get to know one another through this beautiful gift of hijab and you don't have to, as I said, fall into this binary of I either identify as a hijabi. I'm using specific words or I don't. No, just wear the hijab. It's like with prayer, pray, do the kid. It's all, we have full access to it, all of us. And many people actually, by doing that slowly, they never want to take it off. And inshallah, that's the goal. He now speaks specifically to the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam and also through him to us. He says, tell your wives and daughters and the women of the believers, inshallah, that includes all of us to draw their cloaks over themselves. It is likely that they will be known, right? So this is specifically what I was referencing. So we are apparent to one another. And this is the gift, again, of reflecting our faith outwardly. Mirror, remember, that was part of the definition. So one of my favorite hadith, right? The believer is a mirror to the believer, right? Al-Mu'min, al-Mira'at al-Mu'min. Some of you have heard stories that I've shared over the years. But the one that always this hadith reminds me of is the story at the airport. And if you haven't heard it, I'll quickly tell you. I don't want to bore you, but I'll tell you because it's a good reminder. This is when I was waiting for someone many, many years ago, and I used to dress a certain way that I thought fulfilled my identity at that time, and I was very, very focused on the outward. So I dressed in all black, and I wanted to look very intimidating. I had certain very strange ideas. May Allah forgive me. So I'm at the airport, and I'm sitting waiting for my ride. And I want to kind of, I'm doing the typical thing that you do, you people watch. But I'm also sending a message, like I'm not scared of you, I'm not. Whatever it is I'm doing, I'm doing it. And then SubhanAllah, this car pulls up, and this woman comes out, and she is not, she's scantily dressed. She's not dressed modestly. And of course, I just started immediately judging her. I looked at her, I was like, look at her, tank top, shorts, what is this? All these thoughts came to me. And I'm just sitting there, and SubhanAllah, Allah in his perfect timing and his perfect wisdom, she puts, she was getting something out of her trunk of her car, she puts the trunk down, and she looks directly at me across all these people, and I see her full eye contact. And then she just starts to beeline to me, she walks to me. And at this point, my heart is like racing, like what's going on, you know? Was she in my mind? I don't know, maybe. But she comes and she stands right in front of me, and she's so humbled. She puts her head down, she's not looking at me now, she just kind of head down, hung low, and she's like, Salaamu Alaikum. Not the words at all I expected to hear from her. This is an American white, average, blonde, Californian woman. We're not thinking she even knows those words, let alone saying them. And then she proceeds to tell me she's embarrassed that she's dressed the way she is, and she is Muslim, but she saw me, SubhanAllah, look at her state. She saw me, and she was so happy, because she felt it was like a sign that Allah wanted her to come and meet me and ask me. She has a son who she's raising Muslim, she wanted resources. So we start talking. And the entire time I am filled with disgust in myself, because I just had all these horrible thoughts about this person, and Allah sent her to me with such humility. So to me, that single event was the mirror that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reflected for me to see my inward ugliness. Whatever I judged her for her outward display, my inward ugliness was far worse. And Alhamdulillah, that was a huge turning point for me spiritually. So this hadith reminds me of that, and this is why it's so important that when we see each other, we see each other as mirrors that are reflecting. And that's why we have the beautiful sunnah of smiling, right? This is a sunnah of the prophesies that I'm, because we want to reflect, as Sadashah Meirah, beautifully, beautifully elucidated the light of faith. And we do that through prophetic character. We do that through receiving people with pleasant faces. So it's very important to do that. And also to remove burdens, right? How many of you have ever been low at a low point, and someone, just by their smile, they uplifted you, right? And you just felt instantly transformed, because even whatever was going on at home, maybe your health wasn't well, but someone's energy, masha'Allah. I mean, we just experienced it with Sadashah Meirah, right? She has that ability to just wake people up, but people can do that. People can transform. So we're mirrors of one another, and it's a very important concept to internalize, that when you're out and about, that you see yourself with that capacity. And to be honest, I feel like it's such a gift when you really think about what outwardly displaying your faith does. It not only reminds you to be better, but you're also, insha'Allah, serving as a reminder for other people. And these are the types of rewards that await us on the day of judgment that most of us will have no idea about. Because we're doing all these things unknowingly, that Allah is so generous, He's taking it to account for us, just guiding people. There are people, and I'll tell you, this is kind of an odd story, but it's still something to share. When I was in college, because I was, when I wore hijab, it became kind of buzz-worthy. And years later, I met a friend from college who was Sikh. She's not Muslim, but she had a turban on. And she said, you inspired me to wear my turban. And I thought that was amazing. You know, I didn't, you know, she just saw me wearing my hijab and she started looking into her faith. And next thing you know, she's wearing her Sikh turban. So, you know, alhamdulillah. But this is the, you know, capacity we have, insha'Allah, to help ourselves and help other people. If we go to the next word of the title of my talk, which is righteousness, this is also a very important word to understand. This is specific, right? The words here that I've highlighted, really do bring us back to the divine law, morality, to be upright. And this concept of righteousness in our tradition is something that we also need to understand in terms of the terms that we hear. Because there's a lot of terms that are interchanged often when we're talking about this concept of righteousness. So here, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'wanu Al-Birri Wa Taqwa. So these two words specifically, and Taqwa are what we need to understand in order to have real clarity about what it means to be righteous, right? And they work beautifully. They're complementary to each other. How? Is according to the scholars, Al-Bir is the comprehensive term or phrase for acting upon everything which Allah loves and is pleased with, right? From the outward and the inward actions. That's Bir. When we do things that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'wanu loves, we're showing Bir, we're showing piety. And then Taqwa is the comprehensive phrase for avoiding everything, which Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'wanu His Messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, dislike from the outward and the interactions. So they're both needed in order to be righteous. We have to act. And that's why even in the Quran, they're often paired together. We need Bir and Taqwa. And again, here's another reminder, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'wanu And this is a beautiful reminder because all of us have to ask. I love, I mean, I wish, I don't know if there's a list. Maybe someone knows of all the questions Allah poses us in the Quran. But I really think that is a wonderful way of interacting with the Quran. Is finding, maybe someone can do that. Any students here want to take that project though? But to take all the questions out and just see them as an aggregated list so that you can examine the questions that we should be asking ourselves that Allah wants us to ask. Cause he's asking us, right? He's asking us, will you enjoin piti upon mankind and then forget yourselves? While you recite the book, do you not understand? I mean, this is, this should put some fear in all of our hearts because a lot of us, we'd like to, you know, correct other people, police other people, right? I mean, we can ask our husbands. They'll tell you that right now. My husband will be the first to say, yeah, you're the police in the house, you know, correcting him. Why are you doing this? Why'd you put this there? We like to correct a lot our children, you know, our siblings, any older siblings in the room, you know who you are. I'm in the middle. I have one younger sibling who doesn't even listen to me. So I get piled on a lot from older siblings. But we like to correct others. And then when do we examine ourselves, right? So this is why these verses are really important cause Allah is asking you to examine yourself, right? So how do we then achieve this concept of Taqwa? How do we get to the place of Bir and Taqwa? This right concept of righteousness, excuse me. Three things. I wish this was, you know, in a way that I could reorder it, but it goes in this order. I was like, arc, arc works, but it doesn't. So aqr is gonna be the acronym for this. Try to remember aqr. Aqr, aqr, I don't know, what can we come up with? But what are the three components of achieving righteousness? First is action. It's very important that we call ourselves to be people of action. We are not people of just words. Right? We're not people of words. So we must take action to move away from, and I'm gonna get to this specifically. Each one I'll expand on a little bit, but we have to have action to move away from what? Three things that destroy us spiritually. Doubt, distraction, and despair. These three things, you know, I like alliteration. So d-d-d, right? These are the things that take us away from the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and we have to be people who move away from these three things, and I'll get to that in a moment. Knowledge. We are a dean of knowledge. Blind faith is not acceptable in Islam. You have to, and I read this recently, it's not enough to believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You have to know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that's very powerful, because if you just believe without actually really examining, right? Because he calls us to look, pay attention, look at the signs, then you'll come to confirm that belief. But if just believing, because your parents told you, or whoever told you is not enough for the believer. So we actually have to learn, and then we have to learn about our faith, our creator, and our purpose. What are we doing here? And then we have to obviously act upon what we learn. And then reflection. So this idea that is informing the theme of this whole program of reflecting is also part of our responsibility as believers, right? That we openly and outwardly act upon our knowledge to keep ourselves accountable and reflect the light for others. So these three are how we do it. So how do we do this specifically? The first one, right? This is from a hadith where Ibn Omar may Allah be pleased with him, he said that the servant will not reach the level of true righteousness until he leaves what wavers in his heart. So this is why if you're having doubts, you, it's on you to seek and ask those as Allah Almighty says, ask those who know. You can't just sit and be okay with that. And I recently had this incident with someone who was having some doubts and I explored it with them and I gave them answers and they said it was sufficient. And then a few weeks later, they came back and expressed the same issues. And I said, well, I thought you said it was sufficient. And I said, well, you know, I didn't want you to be frustrated with me. And I said, I asked Allah, I would never become frustrated with you, I would want to help you, but you can't be okay with just sitting with those types of doubts because that's where you give the inroad to Shaitan to come and monopolize, right? He's the waswas, he's the whisperer. He comes when you're having a seed and he will water it, he will pour on that seed until it flourishes into something that really now causes you a crisis of faith. So that's why you have to nip it in the bud right away, seek out people who can answer those questions and don't ever lose conviction. The answers are there, we're insufficient. Like I will tell you right now, I don't have all the answers, but our deen, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said it, is perfected, it is complete. That means there's nothing that's missing. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and all the prophets completed their mission. It's part of the responsibility of the prophets that they give you the full entirety of the message. They completed the message, it's perfect. We are limited, but we can at least do our best and find the answers, inshallah, just through our connections and networking. But don't let shaitan convince you otherwise. So it's on you though, to move away from it and also with despair. If you're in a state of sadness over something that has happened in your life, you've got to remember this life is temporal and despair is forbidden. We cannot become hopeless. We cannot become hopeless because when you're hopeless, what you're doing is you're showing a lack of confidence in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to change your circumstance. And there are people who have been through horrific, atrocious circumstances who are walking with smiles bigger than many of us can maintain. How does that happen if it's not for the power of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? They've been through loss of everything that you can imagine. And we don't need to look beyond our Prophet Sallallahu alayhi to see the possibility of a heart that is strong with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Allah can change their circumstances. So never let despair and depression sink you down. And then distraction, this is very important because we are in the age of distraction. This is the age where our minds, our hearts, our every minute, speaking to someone recently about these phones, they're so intrusive. It's so difficult to have a clear, organized thought. How many times have you planned something but then you get derailed because oh, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So we've got to accept that there's too many distractions and that's why you have to hold on to the things that help you to get out of distraction. Number one, being prayer. Your prayer is literally, imagine you fall asleep at the wheel and then you get a splash of water on your face, right? That's dunya, dunya is like we're constantly falling asleep in terms of distraction, in terms of just forgetting our focus and the prayer wakes you up, it sobers you up, like wake up and remember, you're not here to eat and drink and listen to music and watch TV and socialize all day. You are here to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we need to hold on to those things that break our minds from the distractions of the dunya and what that will do when we're actively doing this, this is where action is so important, being proactive, is we will, inshallah, increase in our knowledge which will increase our certainty and our conviction, right? And this is the path, inshallah. So that's action. Now knowledge is also important because we talked about what is taqwa in its essence, but what is knowledge of the mutaqi, of the one who believes and who has these beautiful qualities, this verse again, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is teaching us and I love that he starts off with what it isn't. It is not piety to turn your faces towards the east and the west, very powerful subhanallah because what is, I mean, there's, when I first read this, I was thinking subhanallah of the end of prayer, what do we all do? We give our salam. So I just thought, okay, this is like this reflexive act that we're all doing, we're all very proud of ourselves, very happy with ourselves, which is, by the way, one of the dangers of the nefs is whenever you get content, too content. But sometimes we think, oh, I'm doing the bare minimum, I'm praying, I've got my bases covered, so you get too comfortable. But then I read the tafsid and it was specifically referencing the Christians who prayed toward the east and the Jews who prayed toward the west. And I'm sure there's more opinions, but anyway, either way, he starts off by telling us what it isn't. It's not pious to turn this way and that way or to basically outwardly do certain things that we may find ourselves proud of. But rather, what is piety? We believe in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the last day, the angels, the book, the prophets. We give wealth, look at the qualifiers here, despite loving it, right? When you give that which you love, it's, this is taqwa, right? Because it's hard to give away things that are nice or money. We wanna hold on to it, we're scared and this is where Shaitan is, he incites fear in the heart of the believer by, through poverty, right? This is one of his tactics. So you give, for the sake of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, even if you love that which you're giving, to who, to your family, to orphans, to those who are in difficult circumstances, travelers, beggars, and then the one who performs their prayer and gives the alms. I'm sorry, there's a typo here. And those who fulfill their oaths when they pledge. And those who are patient in misfortune. This is also, these are all qualities of taqwa. So not only are you doing your basic, obligatory actions, but you're also, what, patient in misfortune, which has to do with, according to the tafsir, it specifically has to do with loss of wealth or struggles with wealth, that you're patient. And hardship, which is referencing health issues. So if you are dealing with financial struggles or health issues, these verses are speaking to you, that you're patient. And then moments of peril are when there, like war or any, you know, a meeting of the enemy, there's more on that specific definition or term. But it is they who are sincere and it is they who are reverent. So these are the qualities of a person who has this concept of righteousness, right? Bir and taqwa. And here they are in an organized list for you if you like lists, which I love lists. So, and again, forgive me for the typos. I actually have two copies of this presentation and I realized I edited the one that I did not send to. So there you go. That's what happens when you don't sleep enough. So, but here they are, right? The beliefs and the actions. And this brings us back to that second quality, right? Which is actions are the first thing that you need to have taqwa, knowledge. And then the last one, which we'll get to is reflection. But this is a quote that I was reading, this document was just really fascinating. I can't wait to finish it was long, but it was a Christian document and it was really dealing with the modern world and how Christians have lost their way. And it was, I think published in the 80s, but they were dealing with some of the things which I'll get to in a moment relating to post-modernity. So they wrote this and I said, this is so relevant because this program was designed for the youth as well. So I'm really happy to see a lot of the young teens, girls in the room. But I love this message because I saw myself reading this. When I was your age, I was very zealous. The zeal of youth makes you want to just act and you just wanna be active. And I was doing so many crazy things when I was in college. The stories actually, I'm so glad the internet was not around. It was just, oh my, no, sometimes I swear. I'm like, thank you a lot because nowadays, like imagine you do something and then people have a picture of it and it's like on your record for life. So anyway, but the things that, some of the things I did, like just protesting and being very, very active. But the warning here, especially in the second quote, let's just read it actually. Many of the important world changing movements in history were started by teenagers and young people. So those of you who are youth, heed this warning. And that's because they're still fresh enough and idealistic enough to believe that the world can be changed. Right, you get to our age, you're kind of like looking at the exit door. You're just like, I'm out. I'm just, we do our best, but I'm can't wait to get out. But with you guys, I'm not showing you some hope, so I'm gonna, but here's the warning. If you're gonna change the world, you had better be informed about the issues before you change it and have an informed commitment to changing the world and not just a youthful zeal that is without knowledge because action without knowledge actually leads to darkness, which is the opposite, right? We wanna reflect light. We don't want to just be acting. And that's what this culture does is it activates people with zero basis of knowledge or purpose. And you just have all these people that are emotionally just triggered and dysregulated, looking for something to, as an outlet, to get those emotions out. That's not our tradition. Our tradition is a tradition of knowledge, first and foremost. You'll get to the action, but you better work yourself first before you start dictating to the world, right? So just a really great reminder. And why do I mention this? Well, I'll get to, sorry, I have more to say on that, but this is also another important concept in terms of reflecting, right? So there's many things that we could do, but my brain, and I like, as I said, lists. I feel like the simpler the message, the easier that we can retain it. So just, if you can work on these four, all of us, if we can work on these four things, we're good. Inshallah, we're good. Perfect our Salah, have a relationship with the Quran, where we never, and I wish, can we just do that now? Can we just do that right now? Ya Allah, can we make an oath right now, every single one of us? Ya Allah, I'm sorry, I'm gonna get emotional because just make an oath to never leave the book of Allah for a single day. Can we all make an aniyah right now? Ya Allah, never let me leave your book for a single day. If that means a verse, alhamdulillah, if it means half a page, alhamdulillah, if it means more than that, alhamdulillah, but you have to, this is what action is, make an oath and stick to it. I will never ever leave the book of Allah. How could we leave the book of Allah? I am mortified when I think of the days that I left the book of Allah and on the day of judgment, the regret that we will have the most is the hour that we did not remember Allah. We will regret many things, but that is gonna be the biggest regret of our lives. So have a relationship with the book of Allah where you never leave it for a single day. Da, we have to make the appeal that we want. I hear all the time when I talk to sisters or people, my children, my parents, and we have so much weighing on us about the future and so many fears, take it to the mat as they say. Wake up and cry to Allah. Ask him to save your marriage. Ask him to heal you from your burdens physically. Ask him to bring your family if your families are fighting or there's problems. Ask him to bring those things. Ask him to guide your children to keep them on Haqq. We don't know if we're gonna be around. You have to think about these things. Ask him, Ya Allah, you can do anything. Just protect them, but make our Da'a and make that a part of your life that you don't also leave. And then, vikr, being in a constant state of the remembrance of Allah swt. I know that sounds like a tall order, but it's not because if you're, as Masha'a Allah said, if you're looking with the divine light, you can't help but see Allah swt in everything. You'll see it. You'll see it in the people that He puts you around. You'll see it in every blessing that you have. You'll just be like, SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah. And that's why the Prophet swt, look at his life. He was constantly in the praise of Allah swt because that's all he saw. We can do that. That's why he gave us these Da'a's. But we have to want these things, right? So if we can work on these four things, we will reflect, insha'Allah, the righteousness, the light that is in our hearts. And then we can also, and we should also reflect righteousness in our companionship. The Prophet swt was asked, which of our companions are best? So look for these companions. If you don't have friends who do this, may Allah bring you friends who do this. I am so grateful for the people that I call my soul sisters. These beautiful people. Is that it? Suzanne, who please make Da'a that she returns. People who we love. Salaamu Alaykum. From our hearts, like, oh my God, because why they remind you of Allah? We don't come together to talk about frivolity. And I don't talk. Nobody's talking about television and music and concerts and handbags. I couldn't care less. You give me a bag from the 99 cent store. It's just as valuable as a Louis Vuitton. I couldn't care less about brand names. Why are we obsessed with these things? So you come together with your sisters. Look for people who their appearance reminds you of Allah. Just looking at them, you're like, Allah Hu Akbar. That person, she reminds me of God, whose speech increases you in knowledge. When they speak, you're like, every time I leave, I learned something. That's the kind of friends you want. And whose actions remind you of the hereafter. You see them running around, helping people, serving, doing khayr, because you know, assabikun assabikun, that's who these people are. I want to be like them. That's the companionship. So reflect that, right? Reflect it. The Prophet's lesson said, a person is on the religion of his companions. Therefore, let every one of you carefully consider the company he keeps. And then said, and said, mixed with the noble people, you become one of them. And keep away from evil people to protect yourself from their evils. Now this is just going to be the closing. I do have a few more slides after this, but I really want to send this message. This was really the most essential part of what I want to share, especially as it relates to the youth here. We want all of us should be as we've talked and heard to reflect the light of the truth, the single truth, the truth of Islam. It is the single truth. In order to do that, we also have to be mindful of the time that we're in. We are in an era where there is a huge push to privatize faith, to suppress the practice of faith. We have to be the ones who reject that openly. I will not be suppressed. That is why I will proudly and apologetically wear my hijab. I will proudly say my name. I will proudly greet people the way that our deans teaches us to greet. You can greet non-Muslims with peace be upon you. Peace be upon you. Say it. Why not? It's a beautiful gift to give, right? And when we do that, inshallah, we restore the balance. So what do I mean by this concept of privatization of faith? This is a post-modern world. What does that mean? You need to look into post-modernity, but we're in it. It's the world that we're in. And what is it? It's this framework that teaches, right, that there is no universal truth with a capital T. These are atheists, secularists, nihilists, Marxists, many of them who deny God. They do not believe that God exists. So what do they believe there for? That we all have little truths. Do you have your truth? I have my truth. We can all just be in a truth, I don't know, party all day long. We're just partying up with little truths. No, there's a single truth, right? But they, what they've done is they've created a society or a world now where religion is consigned to irrelevance. Like it's irrelevant if you're religious or not. How does that, how do Muslims exist in a time where this is acceptable or normalized? How can we, I mean, exist, right? We can't accept that. We cannot accept this worldview because religion is literally, we are a dean. We are not a, it's not a faith that we just have. It's a way of our life. It's a way of our existence. So it cannot be irrelevant. It is the most relevant and the most essential part of our entire being is our faith, right? All of these other things is what we call the accidentals. Your, the family you were born into, the, you know, color of your skin, your height, your weight, your color, all those things are accidentals. You had nothing to do with them. The essential is your heart. The essential is your faith. So the most essential part of us is actually our faith, right? But what they've done is they've privatized faith practice where it's a separation now, right? Between the private and the public. And this is something that this philosopher, Christian philosopher described as a two-story truth. This is what this society has created. And in order to, again, normalize the secularization of society, we're seeing massive changes happening. I know we're all, I feel like I'm shell shocked. Like every time I open the news I'm like, I get, what, this now? I was already dealing with this and now I gotta deal with this. It's happening at such a rapid rate, the, just the decay of our society. But that's, in order to do that, they have to force people to privatize their faith in order to secularize the society. So it all works to their agenda. But let's look at this concept a little bit more again, visually, okay? This two-story model of truth. This is a two-story house, okay? Just bear with me, I was looking for a good image, this is what I found, okay? So there's a two-story building here. The top is where they want our faith to be consigned to, which is not basically grounded. Think of all the symbolism here, right? Facts, knowledge, science, reason, rational thought. These are verifiable things, they're grounded. So they're on the ground level, right? It's physical level, it's touching the ground because that's where in the world of materialists and scientists and people who care more about this physical world. So they want us to just keep our ideas because they're personal, they're non-rational, non-cognitive, there's not much thought. It's all heart, right? And this separation to create this division that faith is in the heart is actually quite, it sounds nice, right? It's kind of purposefully presented that way. It sounds nice, but it's actually quite insulting because what they're saying is that we're not rational thinkers. We can't think if we have faith, right? You're not using any thought, it's all driven by your heart. No, this is why our deans, maybe other traditions that claim could be true, but if there's ever, I mean, from all of the world religions, there's no greater emphasis on knowledge acquisition than in Islam. You will not see any other tradition focus more on knowledge and learning and activating the brain than Islam. So we reject this idea that our faith is consigned to the heart. It's in the heart, but it's absolutely a rational thing. We think about things, we're supposed to anyway, right? We're supposed to be thinking. So we need to really take this seriously, especially for parents and educators that when we're teaching our children that we get this message across to be unapologetically proud of your faith. If other people are out there celebrating all the stuff that they're doing, most of which should never be even known to anybody else, why are we being or accepting this idea that we have to hide or minimize? Because even if you're outwardly wearing your hijab, but you feel like you have to minimize your faith and what it means to you, you can't really openly talk about it with your coworkers or your neighbors or whoever reject that. Be like, no, I will openly talk about it because this is how they're getting away with what they're doing. They're making, they're shaming us into oblivion and other traditions have gone down that path, but our Dean is all about outwardly, we just went through the verses that teach you to be outward and proud so that people can know you. So we don't accept this and that's why it's a very important message and I hope you're with me here. Now, I'm gonna close, I don't know if you know this story, I love this story, it's so powerful. The parable of the elephant and the blind man. This is a story, I don't know what culture comes from, but it's often used to talk about, atheists will use this to talk about and some perennialists who kind of have this idea that there's truth in every faith that religious people are just a bunch of blind people who are like these people, touching different parts of an elephant and that is all that they are experiencing. So they believe that part of the elephant to be true. So one will touch the tusks and say, oh, it's smooth and another will touch the trunk and say it's rough and then the tail. The point is this concept comes out of we're all just blind faith believers, right? That's what they want to categorize all people of religion. We're like these people with blind folds on and we all think we have the truth because we're just blinded by this section that we've been given and that's all we see. We can't experience anything outside of that. So they create this idea and then that's what they perpetuate. Whereas again, our Dean is all about what? Light, it's about knowledge. It's about like, I mean, I just had this little image here that I created but this sister, I was like, it's so obvious what the solution is, right? They're all kind of trying to fumble around this elephant, not sure of what's going on and the answer is pretty obvious. Remove the blindfold, remove the blindfold and you'll see truth as truth. That's the issue. And for us, that blindfold is not entrusting ourselves to ourselves. Don't entrust yourself to yourself. No matter how smart you think you are, no matter how, you know, what family you come from, you need Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We all need Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. No matter how much you've been practicing, how old you are, how many Hajj you've done, how many prayers you've completed, how many Quran you've completed. If you think for even a moment that you can last in this world without the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and his guidance, you are on a path to utter darkness. So for us, don't trust yourself. We remove the blindfold and we put our hands, ourselves in the care of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That is what being a person of taqwa is, is always reliant on their Lord, never getting ahead of themselves, never falling for the spiritual pitfalls and disasters that so many others go through. And so we don't accept this idea, right, that we're all just a bunch of blind believers. No, we are turning on the lights, we're removing the blindfolds, we're learning, and when you do that, you see the truth. The truth becomes manifest because Allah is so generous that He gives us the ability to see the truth. And so as the da'a that Osala Shamira left us with, I will also leave with the same da'a because we should be calling on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with this beautiful da'a from our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who taught us to ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for so much light that you're overwhelmed by it. It's overwhelming to you. It's not just turn on one light, flood me with light, bring me from all directions, make me light, turn me into light. That's the kind of utter desperation that we have to beseech our Lord with because this world is dark and it will remain dark. And the only light is the light of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us, again, people of light, inshallah, and we should do this da'a together. Allah placed light in our hearts, light in our tongues, light in our hearing, light in our sight, light behind us, light in front of us, light on our right, light on our left, light above and light below. Place light in my side, I think, in my flesh, in my blood, in my hair, in my skin, place light in our soul and make light abundant for us, make us light and grant us light. Ameen. Ya Rabbil Aadameen. Jazakumullahu khayran wa salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. JazakAllah.