 So we'll continue in this series today. We're going to be talking about two big topics. First, we're actually going to start off by talking about the blessed month of Rajab, which tonight is the first night of Rajab, and it is one of the most sacred months in our traditions. We're going to talk a little bit about Rajab, some of the things to do in this month, some of the virtues of the month, and the importance of the first night. And then we'll get into the next two to three discussions. We'll specifically focus on the spirituality of wealth and of charity. And how do we think about earning income? What are some of the inner rules with regards to earning income? And then what are some of the inner rules with regards to charity, with regards to zakat, and with regards to making sure that we give and that we take care of other people if Allah has blessed us with wealth. So we'll start off just a little bit on the month of Rajab. As mentioned, tonight is the first night in Islam, then the month begins when the moon is sighted. So the moon was just sighted at Maghrib, and Alhamdulillah, the month that means has begun. Rajab is one of the four sacred months in the Islamic tradition. It is one of the four sacred months known as the inviolable months. This is a month in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would do abundant, he would abundantly say, Allahumma barik lana fi Rajab wa shaaban wa balliqna Ramadan. May Allah put blessing in Rajab, which is this month that we just entered. So we have just about 30 days of the month, roughly, and shaaban, which is the next month after this, and allow us to reach Ramadan. Ramadan is coming in just about two months. So it's not far away, right? And so Rajab is usually the month in which it's now supposed to be the preparation for Ramadan. They say you kind of plant the seed. You begin investing so that you can then start to reap the benefits of it in Ramadan. We don't want to start preparing for Ramadan the day before Ramadan or the week before Ramadan. Ideally, we'd be a little bit of preparation before. So that's one of the main virtues of Rajab, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would make this dua. Secondly, it is a month in which it is known in some narrations as the month of Allah, and it is also known in some narrations as the month of forgiveness. So it's a month in which a lot of toba, a lot of forgiveness should be made. So it comes in various narrations on the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that in this month, it's encouraged to do a lot of istighfar, to regularly say astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, and to just turn to Allah and start to clean the heart. Because over the last year, since the last Ramadan, the heart has gathered a lot of spiritual dirt, darkness, and so on. And so this is a month in which ideally we work on cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, right, and begin that process. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has told us many, many virtues for doing that. So those are two, two aspects of this month. The third is then specifically what took place in this month. So on the 27th of Rajab, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was invited directly to meet Allah. So this is the month in which the event known as Layla al-Isra' wal-Miraj, the heavenly ascension took place. And we won't get into all of that today, but in a future class, inshallah, if Allah gives us two people, go ahead and talk about the virtues of the Layla al-Isra' wal-Miraj. That is known as the heavenly ascension, that when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was taken from Makkah to Jerusalem first, where he led all of the prophets in prayer in Jerusalem, all the spirits of all the prophets joined him in Jerusalem, and known as Masjid al-Aqsa, the entire kind of area, not just what you see with the, with the, with the gold dome, but that entire area is known as, it's a sacred area for us, Masjid al-Aqsa. And then from there, he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam ascended, and he ascended to heaven. And, and then he ascended to the first heaven, and various events took place. And he ascended to the second, and all the way up until he got to a point where he got to what's called the Siddharat al-Muntaha, the low tree of the farthest limits, as the Jibril al-Asalam, the archangel Gabriel was with him and was taking him, and was his, essentially his guide, his guide to show him what's going on in heaven, this is this place, this is this place, this is this prophet, and each heaven he met a different prophet, which has different significations. And then he gets to a point where Jibril al-Asalam says, I can't go any, I can't, I can't go past this point. This is just for you. And he, and he looks at him, he says, I can, he says, if I go past this point, I'll pay, I'll burn, only you can go. And this was specifically reserved for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and then he went past this point. And this is now a direct meeting takes place with Allah, where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam meets with Allah, and the prayer is given to him directly. So the majority of the rules of the religion that we have were given via Jibril al-Asalam, right, was given in verses of the Quran. But the Salah, the prayer that we do, and we've just finished the last like four or five classes were specifically about the prayer. The prayer was literally given directly as a gift to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and first it was given as 50. And he comes back down and there's this whole process and this whole story where he meets Moses, Musa alayhi sallam, and he says, there's no way your, your Oma is going to be able to do 50. And then he goes back up and Allah reduces the amount, 45, 40, up until all the way where it comes into five. And he comes back down and Musa alayhi sallam is like, they're not going to be able to do five. And he's the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, I'm, I'm too shy to go back up. Like just, I can't ask for any more reduction. That's it. And so Allah says that you will do five, but you have the reward of 50. And you're legislated as five prayers, but you get the reward of 50. And so this all took place in this blessed month of Rajab, this blessed month of Rajab. And so the, the, the Salihin and the scholars, they say that this is a month in which you should seek out divine gifts. They're just like the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was given direct divine gifts from Allah. This is a month, a month in which we should be seeking out these gifts. And one of the best ways to seek out gifts is to clean the heart because these gifts aren't physical in nature. Spiritual gifts are very different. Right. You could have somebody who doesn't have much materially. And most of the time people don't have much materially. The companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself, he chose to live a life of, of, of, where he did not seek, seek much wealth. He chose to live a life purposefully of what's called Zuhud, right, where he just kind of abstained from the world. But many of the companions also, they did not have much physically, materially, but they had every richness possible spiritually. And so it's in these months that Allah's doors of mercy, Allah's doors of special forgiveness, Allah's doors of special tofiq, Allah's doors of special drawing near are open and is known as one of the sacred months for a reason. And this night that we are in, it is a, it is a very blessed night that it is mentioned in various narrations, a narration in the collection of Imam al-Behaki on the authority of Sayyidina Abu Dardar, Ali Allahu Anwan of the Sahaba of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, a narration of Imam al-Sha'fi, a narration of Imam al-Siyuti, and a narration of, a narration of many of the other scholars that this is a night in which Do'a is accepted, that there's certain nights throughout the year in which Do'a is accepted. And the first night of Rajab is one of those nights. The first night of Rajab is one of those nights. And so it's a good time for us to seek to make Do'a, right? That we should try to, after Isha, pray a little extra and make extra Do'a. That we should try to wake up slightly before Fajr if we can while the night is still there, right? And make extra and pray extra units of prayer if we can pray at the Hajj or these types of prayers or just sit and make Do'a. But it's a very, very good night because now begin the process of the sacred month has begun and insha'Allah the forgiveness is starting to be distributed and starting to be granted. So it's a good thing for us to do. So that's kind of a high level overview of the month of Rajab. Some of the, some just scratching the surface of some of the virtues of the month and specifically the virtues of this first night. And one of the other advices that the scholars give is just try to think about the things you and I have done and the either the sins we took on in this last year since the last Ramadan or the good deeds we used to do, but we stopped doing and reduce, this is the month now in which we start to, okay, I'm going to reduce those sins. Maybe I'm missing a lot of prayers or maybe I'm delaying the prayer or so on. I'm going to reduce that, right? I'm going to, I'm going to try to get on it. Or maybe somebody is looking at something Haram or regularly saying, you know, saying speech that they shouldn't be saying and so on, reducing that, that, that process of cleansing begins now. So that's one practical thing to begin doing in the month of Rajab and then increasing, slowly increasing the good deeds in this month, right? So we get to Ramadan and many of us, we have a kind of a zeal to, okay, I want to, obviously we're fasting and then there's a recitation of Quran that many people, you know, try to do. There is more prayers that people try to do, but the somebody builds up to it, it will stay consistent beyond Ramadan, right? So think about this as a warming up, right? You warm up and then Ramadan is game time. And so somebody starts to, to implement those, those one or two, okay, I'm going to try to read one page of Quran a day in this month and then gradually get to two by the end of the month. And then I'm going to, inshaAllah, intend to pray a little bit extra after Salat al-Isha in this month, right? So I can get to more inshaAllah and then Ramadan, okay, I can get to 20 tarawih or if I can't do 20, then how many ever I'm able to do, right? That's the kind of gradual step so that afterwards it remains consistent because Ramadan is like supposed to be a month in which we build spiritual habits that hopefully a portion of them remain consistent throughout the year. So the month of, the month of Rajab is very, very important for that. And so gradually, right? Somebody said, you know, don't, don't take on more than you can bear. That's exactly, that's a very, very good point. You gradually do things. Don't overdo it. Don't get overly zealous and like stay up the whole night and just go hard for like one day and then that's it. It's about consistent, slow amounts that we are able to do inshaAllah. So moving right along then to the, to the topic for today. I'm actually pausing there. Does anybody have any questions about anything with relations to Rajab or we just mentioned? Okay, great. Okay, so we'll go ahead and then move on then to the topic for today. So the, a core part of the Muslim's life is income, right? Well, at some point we will all have some level of responsibility with regards to money. We will either be, you know, if we're in a position where we're earning money, we'll have to be responsible for it. If we're in a position where we are looking after money, we'll have to be responsible for it. If we might be in a position in periods of our life where we're receiving money, we have to know how to look after it and so on. And so just like there are rules with regards to our physical engagements and transactions, you could say that we have to do in life, right? There's rules for prayer. Just like there's rules with regards to eating, right? Okay, there's certain things that we're supposed to eat. There's certain benefits. We walk through the benefits of certain types of food, the importance of keeping a spiritual mindset when eating, not overeating, right? The body has these rules. Society has rules. And then there's financial transactions have rules and Allah gave us in a complete religion that has all everything it is that we would need. And so he says, okay, this when it comes to earning money, you need to do it. This is how you do it, right? This is what to look for. And this is also when it comes to making sure to take care of people who have less than you, this is how you do it. At a minimum, you do this much. And ideally, you try to do more. So that's going to be kind of the topic for this session and probably at least the next two sessions. And we'll go through it gradually. So first thing to keep in mind is wealth that we are given. So wealth that we're given, our incomes, or any other inheritance, whatever other money we might come upon is it is literally something that we should see is coming directly from Allah. Because Allah is one of his names is ar-razaq. His name is ar-razaq. He is the provider, the sustainer. So every breath he has given you is sustenance. Every dollar he's given you is sustenance. Every drip of water he's given us is sustenance. Every bit of food he's given us is sustenance and so on. All of this is sustenance from ar-razaq, from the sustainer, and from the provider, the one who provides. So in reality, it's not like actually ours, right? We have to keep that's like something spiritually to keep in mind that these are all, this is Allah's lending it to us and saying now you use it and I have rules for how you use it, right? So it's not the idea of like it's my money that it's important to keep that in perspective that yes, it is our money from a outward point of view and we have responsibilities and so on for it but we should never see it as though we deserve something more than anybody else, right? We should always keep that in mind when it comes to wealth because who gave us the body to go and earn that money? Who gave us the energy to have that ability? Who gave us the eyesight to be able to do it? Who gave us the organs that were functioning to be able to then amass that wealth and acquire it and so on, right? All of these are gifts from Allah and so we want to keep that, keep that in mind. So that's the first point about wealth. The second point is it's actually so important that it is one of the early questions that's asked on the day of judgment. If you ever want to know what does God value a lot, look at the hadith that talk about what does he ask you on the day of judgment when you first get there, right? And one of the first questions that's asked in the list of five questions is where did you get your wealth from and what did you do with it? So these two questions, where did you get your money from and what did you do with it? And so here we see that source matters and we see that spending matters. So we're not a religion that says I can get it from anywhere. I can win the lottery as long as I spend it on something good, it's okay. No, the source matters. Lottery would not be okay because it's obviously gambling and games of chance and gambling with our haram, that entire wealth would be considered haram, right? And at the same time, we don't want to be getting it from a good source and then, you know, blowing it on something that's not permissible, right? So the source matters and the spending matters. So that's the second point to keep in mind. The third point is that our money is our foundation for basically a good portion of the other things that we do in life, right? And what we engage in. So if you think about it, the food you eat had to get it from somewhere, right? You usually purchase it and that comes from money. The clothing that you and I wear, we purchase it. It comes from, again, from money, right? The transportation that we have, right? Whether we are driving somewhere, taking the train somewhere, doing some other modes, have a bike, it comes from money, right? Every single interaction and transaction we have throughout the day, money is at the root of it. Now the reason why that's important is because if the source is haram, the subsequent transactions that you and I are going to do are very much in question, right? If not, could very much be haram. So if somebody earns their money from, you know, let's say a liquor store or dealing drugs, now the food that they wear or the food that they eat is gotten from haram wealth, that's going to be a problem, right? It's something that if we are in that stage, we don't despair, we work on it. Allah always has his door open. The door for repentance is always open from Allah. That's always something to keep in mind. Because at the end of the day, we live in the West and we live in a difficult time. We live in a difficult time that inshallah, Allah will pardon us and excuse us for certain things that we've done. It's though at the same time important to know, okay, what I'm doing right now, if I'm doing something that's not virtuous, we recognize there's room to grow and then we start to work on it, right? So if the source is messed up, everything subsequently can get messed up. Everything subsequently can get messed up. So the source is the most important thing when it comes to wealth. So those are the three first points you're going to mention, right? That first, to see wealth as, okay, it's from Allah and Allah is the one who's providing. Number two, that he is, number two, that it is so important that he is going to ask about it early on in the day of judgment. He's going to ask two aspects, right? Where did you get it from and what did you do with it? And then three, keeping in mind this is the foundation for a lot of what we do in our life, which is why it has specific rules that Allah has given to us, right? So then we get into the spiritual aspects of wealth, where there is an idea when it comes to money that you can actually have blessing in your wealth. You can have blessing in your wealth. What does that mean? That it means that for some people, a dollar goes way farther than a dollar goes for other people. Just like for some people, an hour goes way farther than it goes for other people, meaning they can get way more done in an hour than someone else can get done in an hour. There's times that have barakah in it as well. So for example, the time after fudger is known to have a lot of blessing in it. There's more productivity somebody can have in the time after fudger for the first few hours of the early morning than usually is possible in other times, usually. Similarly with wealth, wealth that comes from a pure source is going to have a lot more blessing in it than wealth that comes from a haram source, which will have no blessing in it, right? Which will have no blessing in it. What does barakah mean when it comes to wealth? A couple of things, right? First, literally it can go farther in terms of how long something might last, the effect somebody might feel, but the blessing starts to come apparent in other ways, right? So if somebody buys a home with permissible wealth, they'll feel very different type of tranquility and sakina in that home most likely than somebody who buys it with haram wealth, right? With a haram source, right? Because ultimately what ends up happening is something that is not rooted in purity usually will not result in purity. And so all of these things begin to manifest. And this happens a lot, right? I know I remember some people I used to know that they would get most of their money from dealing drugs. The most of their money we get from dealing, like most of their side money and pocket money sold, they would sell weed right back when it was illegal. And it would just disappear all of a sudden. It would be thousands and then it would be zero. And then it would be thousands and it would be zero. And then it would be a lot and then it would just go away. And it just didn't make any economic sense or financial sense of where does it just go, right? Where does it just go? And it would disappear. It would disappear. And these people were Muslims and Allah was very clearly, there was signs that were being shown that this is not the way to get the money, right? And then I know people who work like super hard in college, like just try to find like any little job they could take up. And just to do a little bit to put themselves through because they really just were committed that they didn't want to take a loan. They didn't want to take an interest bearing loan because interest, which is not the topic for today, but interest is impermissible in our religion. And that went far. That went far. Next thing, you know, this scholarship opens up and this scholarship opens up and they don't have to work anymore and then full tuition and it was just agi that when somebody puts in a little bit of hard work going towards the right place, the what Barakah can manifest, what blessings can manifest. And so that's something to keep in mind. So that's the another point to keep in mind here is that we do have a concept of Barakah in our wealth, Alhamdulillah. So pausing there. Any questions on any of these topics? Questions, questions? Okay, cool. So moving then, we're going to talk about the types of ways someone would manage a wealth that we're going to get into. And then we're going to get into zakat. So when it comes to spending and when it comes to earning, there's two things to keep in mind that one, the more somebody loves God, the more they're going to be careful about money. What does that mean? Money has a lot of great aspects to it and it can also be a little dangerous. We all know saying more money, more problems. It's a very, very real thing. And so it's not inherently evil to pursue wealth. It's not inherently evil to to have a lot of money or anything. However, if that distracts one from their main goal in life, which is to worship Allah, and that comes in many various means, right? To have a family, take care of your family, build a community, be a good human being and so on and so forth, right? But worshiping Allah is kind of at the center of all of that. And all of these things are manifestations of worshiping Allah. But if that begins to happen, somebody starts to get distracted significantly. Let's say a new opportunity comes and they start to, okay, they take that job and now all of a sudden that person used to pray and now they start missing their prayers, right? And they start to slip up a little bit and then people start inviting them to happy hour and then they start to sip, sip some drinks a little bit. And then next thing you know, they're just like two years later, who am I? What happened to me? They maybe they made, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars or whatever it is, but what did they compromise as a result of that? So always on this spectrum, it's important to consider that that when we are thinking about money, and this is going to be important as we get into this topic of charity, that it is not the goal of our life. Unlike many times in Western society, where literally the goal of most capitalist mindset type people is money, money, fame, power. That is the goal that there's no afterlife that I might as well make it big in this life. That's the usually the thinking. But the Muslims, that's not the thinking, right? Quote unquote, making it big is fine if there's going to be some in value to it, that some value that results from it, but that is not the entire is not the goal by any means, by any stretch of the imagination to just earn a bunch and and amass money and compromise our values. So as long as we though have a principled way that we are earning, then in a principled way in which we are spending and giving, then inshallah we will be in a good spot, right? And so there's, there's, there's, yes. What was his name, the guy that got all the web? We had so much. Karun. Yeah. Right. Yes, that's a really good example. So there's, there's a man at the time of Leba Musa, and he's mentioned in the Quran, his name was Karun or Korah. And he had so much money that literally they would need to be like a bunch of really strong dudes carrying the keys to the, to the, to his treasure, not even the treasure, just the keys. That's how much he had. Right. And now he was like, you know, very, very arrogant about it as well. So there would be people, literally there's a story that's mentioned in the Quran, where he would be walking and all these, these people are walking right alongside him, all the, and then there's all these people who are looking and like, oh man, like this guy, he's, he's on it. Like look at him. He's so rich. He has so much money. Like look at all these people, right? And they're really, really magnifying him. They want to be like him, right? They want to, they want to be like him. And, and, and then there's another group of people that are like, no, no, no, no, this this guy is tripping. He's arrogant. Like look at him. What's up with him? How could he be, why would you look up to this guy? Right. Like just because he has money, that's not the whole goal of life. And so I'm obviously adding things to this, right? But this is the, the, the dialogue that's going on now. And literally it was, his arrogance became so just apparent that as a lesson, Allah just swallowed him into the earth, completely swallowed him into the earth and he's gone. And his wealth, everything is gone. None of it matters. And then those people who are following him were like, okay, okay, you guys were right, right? Like some, we shouldn't be, we should not be pursuing this, right? This should not be our main pursuit. It should not be our main pursuit. And so it's very easy. It's very, money is one of the things that Allah has, he has made in it something naturally you incline towards and it's easy to fall in love with, right? It's easy to fall for. It's easy to just pursue, pursue, pursue. And different personalities have different inclinations towards it. Some people's personality is just like, I got to get as much money as possible. And that's the personality. Other people may be a little bit more like, I just need to meet my needs and it just depends. If we are in one type of personality, we got to be careful. We got to be careful because we got to make sure that that doesn't lead us to, right? That pursuit of wealth does not lead us to, hold on. Yes. Then there's another chapter about the era in one who had the card. Right. And sort of the Kaaf. Right. Right. And so it's mentioned in chapter 18 of the Quran, the story of the cave, that there's many stories mentioned there. One of the stories is there is a man who he has basically to think of like everything you could want in the world. He has nice the time to compare to a nice garden and all of these luxuries associated with the garden. And so think about in our time, like, you know, a nice, a big mansion and all the cars that you could have want and, you know, all the riches and private jets, whatever else it is, right? Like he's really, really wealthy. And now there's another, there's another guy who's like, why don't you thank Allah for this wealth? And this is the, the, the really, really wealthy guy is like, no, this is from me. Like he's not, he's not acknowledging that it's from Allah. And he's not acknowledging that it's from Allah. He's being again arrogant in the face of this. And then what ends up happening is literally one night he goes to sleep and then the next night, the next day he wakes up and everything is gone. It's all completely destroyed, right? It's completely gone. He doesn't have any of it. I believe either everything was eaten up or some other, you know, something came about such that the, the, all the successes that he had to do. Yeah, the garden. Yeah. Oh yeah. Right. Right. Like essentially a natural disaster, just take, took everything away, right? And then at that moment he realizes, ah, I should have recognized that this is from Allah, right? Like he didn't even thank Allah. So there's one, there's, there's levels of this, right? There's one, if somebody has a lot, they say thank you to Allah. Then there's another, somebody has a lot and they just don't even recognize it's from Allah. And the two are very, very different. The two are very, very different because the end of the day, as long as someone is thanking Allah, that's, that's, that's sufficient, right? InshaAllah, that's sufficient. But if somebody thinks it's from, from themselves, Allah says in the Quran, inna al-insan la yatqa, that the human being, they think they're independently wealthy. If they think they're independent, they think they don't need God. Many people walk around thinking they don't need God and wealth can trick somebody into thinking, right? Usually, it can trick somebody into thinking, I don't need God. I have this, I have that, I could handle this, I could pay someone to do this, I could pay somebody without recognizing who's really in control and how quickly Allah could snatch it, how quickly Allah could, could snatch it. So you basically have different categories of this and there's just, there's, there's two things to remember here. One is that wealth and the pursuit of overly pursuing it can mess up the heart, right? And then the second thing is that if somebody is in the pursuit of money, if they become like a miserly person, like really, really just stingy, that can also mess up the heart. That can also mess up the heart. And so there's this balance here that's needed that somebody is generally, they might have a lot and they're generous, they might not have that much, they're still generous, right? And, or they just don't tilt towards this trait of being really, really miserly and stingy with it, that they still care to spend on themselves, their family, and, and, and other people around them. Because what you don't want to do, if somebody has money, they can use that money to be a vehicle of getting close to Allah. We're about to get into zakat and sadhqah now, that it can be a vehicle of getting close to Allah. But what you and I don't want is that that whole pursuit of money becomes a means of distancing from Allah, either by becoming arrogant or thinking that we don't need, you know, God forbid we don't need any of God's help, or by becoming like one or no, it's mine and covetous and not sharing it, right? Those, those pitfalls can usually result. Yes. Yeah, another example is if you get to, so you're loving money more than humanity, you notice a lot of people in business, they start loving money and they get the money they get and then they want more, you know, so they're focused more on getting money than their love of humanity, right? And then, so their stories say that, you know, if you really like focus on getting money, getting money, the money will run away from you, right? You know, so if you do extreme in that case, you know, you have to remember the love of humanity too. And then, you know, when you're more generous, they say that if you go away from money and go towards God, the money will run after you, right? Right. You know, that's exactly the case. And that gets the very good transition into the next section, which is at the point that our brother said, Fenton was mentioning was just around that if somebody literally begins to pursue, pursue, pursue, they usually won't even be able to achieve it. Right. It's very difficult for them to even achieve it. And the, at the end of the day, we have to remember that the whole point of money is to spend the money, not just to collect it, right? And what better to spend it on than people who need it. And that's now gets us into this next, this next transition, which is around the spirituality of Zakat. So Zakat is the, it's an obligatory part that's due from our wealth, a portion of our wealth that's due. That's basically, you could think of it as something that is allotted for the poor every single year from the wealth of the Muslims, from the wealth of Muslims. And it's 2.5%. And this is not going to be a thick class on Zakat. If that needs to happen, we can, we can, you know, do that in a separate day, but I'm going to give a high level review. It's 2.5% of wealth that somebody has had standing wealth for one year, right? And that's due and that's given to the poor and to the needy. And so the Islamic system has an entire system to make sure that everybody in society is taking care of such that if everybody who had money gave Zakat, there would be all the poor people would be taken care of, right, to some level, right? And then there's more on top of it, which we're going to get into, which is called Sadaka, which is called extra charity. Now Zakat has goals with it. Zakat has a goal of purity, number one, right? So it has, the idea of that Allah says that the one who purifies themselves, right? Zakat has an element of purity to it. So what happens with wealth over time, somebody collects it and it has impurities. It's dirty in some way or shape or form, right? There's some way, somewhere along the process of it coming to us, it wasn't always pure, right? In the most pure form. So Zakat literally gets rid of those impurities. That's the first thing that it does. The second thing that Zakat does is it brings blessings into our wealth. It brings blessings into our wealth, right? So we talked about this idea already of blessings and what blessings are and why blessings and wealth are important. Zakat is a vehicle of bringing blessing into your wealth, just like Salah is the vehicle of bringing blessing into your life and Allah has paired the two together in the Quran. You'll see it all over the Quran. And he paired Salah and Zakat and Zakat is a pillar of the religion. It's at that level, right? So we have, in addition to the Shahada and the prayer, there's Zakat and then there's fasting and there's Hajj, right? And so it is a means of bringing barakah to our wealth. The third benefit of it is it helps guard, right? Zakat and charity in general helps guard against bad things from happening. Helps prevent, it's like a preventative measure of bad things happening and specifically extra charity really helps in this, right? So charity has, there's Zakat which is the farth charity and then there's extra on top of it. Someone's like, I paid my 2.5% but I want to just give to the masjid, right? Like let's say somebody gives 100 bucks tonight to the masjid. That's not Zakat. Zakat is allocated to the poor. It has to be used in very specific conditions, the poor, needy, traveler and so on. There's very specific conditions for Zakat. Somebody just wants to give to the masjid for the sake of keeping the masjid going, right? That would be considered Sadaqat, charity. And both of those are a means of get increasing, number one, actually increasing your provision. So charity increases wealth, it's amazing. And we'll talk about what this means. They're a means of bringing about health and removing sickness and they're a means of essentially warding off tribulation. So you'll see a lot of people who grew up in Muslim families. You'll see many times like mother, grandmother, father, grandfather, somebody like it's like something that happens is like oh, we got to give this much in charity or we got to get an animal slaughtered and distributed to the poor, right? Like they'll immediately charity become something and it's because it's ingrained in their mind that when something happens you've got to make sure to give charity to ward off tribulation, right? To ward off tribulation. Yes? Also in the earlier scriptures it's always mentioned like if you make a good deal and you make a bunch of money it's good to give some of the first fruits. Give some of your first fruits away in charity. So Hanuman, right? But as somebody comes upon success of new job, new income, some successful venture, whatever it is, right? Close a big deal, start a new business that among the first parts of that wealth it is a praiseworthy thing. You give a portion of that as charity to all y'all, bring blessing and everything it is that I'm doing. Right? To bring blessing and everything it is that I am doing. And so the zakat itself, again, we're not getting into all the rulings specifically of zakat, but it is applicable to most of our earnings, right? It's applicable to most earnings, it's equivalent to wealth that's been amassed and accumulated, gold and other types of things as well. Certain financial assets and that is required, that is required. So at minimum, a Muslim just to like the minimum obligation is okay, we pay 2.5%, we pay five times a day, we fast the days of Ramadan and we go to Hajj InshaAllah one time in our life and we try to live a good life, right? That's the bare minimum. Obligations. And then there's the people who want to do more and there's people who want to do more. They're like, you know what? I really, I want to get close to Allah. I love Allah. I want to be among Allah's chosen people. I want to be amongst the people who Allah loves. I want to be amongst the people who are amongst the elect of the Ummah of the Prophet ﷺ. I want to be close to the Prophet ﷺ on the Day of Judgment. I want to be close to him in Jannah and we ask Allah to make all of this true for all of us InshaAllah on this blessed night. So now one way of doing that is you increase in Ibadah, you increase in worship. We talked about all the types of worship. One way of increasing in worship is financial worship. One way of increasing in worship is financial worship. And so at minimum, it's to make sure somebody does not find ways out of paying their zakat. You make sure that, okay, it's you, I'm going to pay it. And then you move on to the second category, which is that I want to try and give regular charity. And so I want to try to give a regular amount in charity. Yes. SubhanAllah. Yes, 100%. Right here. You got it right here on this page. Allah mentioned in the Qur'an that you will not attain to virtue or righteousness until you literally spend from that which you love. Not just spend, but from that which you love. Right. And so most people, they love their savings account. They love it. They want to keep it all. Right. They love the money that they earn. They love their time. Right. So spending from your time, spending from your, your whatever, whatever it is that you have in this, this is here on page 69 of the book, that it is a way to attain to virtue. It is a way to attain to virtue. And so again, after we get into zakat, then you get into charity. Now charity has a few components. Number one brings reward. It's just a way to get reward. Right. So someone's like, Hey, I want to get some more reward in my book. Right. Okay. Go out and like start to get charity. Start to give charity. Start to give charity. It could be in the form of food. It could be in the form of clothing. It could be in the form of actual money. It could be in the form of donating on a website overseas, whatever, whatever way somebody wants to do it. Right. And it's applying to charity. Now we're talking applying to just everybody. Right. Muslims, non-Muslims, just anybody who needs help. Anybody who needs help. So that's, that's the first thing. The second thing is to try to get into a, into a rhythm of, I'm just going to try to finish this section. A rhythm of continuous charity. So someone says, okay, practically speaking, you get your zakat down, and you then move on to a little bit of charity. And you say, I want to give some charity, let's say every year. And then you start to improve on that. I want to give a bit of charity every month, such that there are people who they make it a mission that I want to give some charity every single day, every week or every day. Right. Amongst those, of course, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that is estimated that he would feed between 60 to 100 people a day. 60 to 100 people a day, the messenger, your Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would feed. Right. That is, and he didn't have, he wasn't just sitting on money by any means, right. But whatever he preferred others, that they prefer others over themselves. Literally, that even if he's hungry, he preferred other people. That's the level of his charity that he would feeding people was a big, big, big part of the religion. We'll talk about that shortly. So that he use someone gets to a point where it's goes charity, then consistent charity monthly, and then someone tries to give regularly. They try to give on a weekly basis or they try to give it on a daily basis. Right. And what that will result in is a result in an overall multiplication, number one of someone's wealth. And number two, it results in Baraka and blessing in their life. Right. Because now what you and I are doing is we are caring for other people. And this, you and I were not sent on this world just for ourselves. We were sent on this world for other, for other people as well. Right. Like to take care of other people, to build society, to build community, to help, to help people that are in need. And this is actually one of the lost oneness of promises on that he would feed a lot of people. And if you think about it, we're in Oakland right now, six blocks that way, there's at least the homeless, homeless encampment with 20 people, few blocks that way. There's, there's another encampment with, with a lot of people. Right. You go that way, same thing. You go East Oakland, same thing. You go West Oakland sent me just go to different parts and you have a lot of people who are just literally struggling. And most of the time, unfortunately, we walk around looking down on these people and like, Oh my God, it's so dirty and so on. Instead of thinking they don't have anything. They're living intense. We have, you know, shelter and heating when it's so hot and it's so cold these days. Right. We have food. We have clean running water. Right. So the human side of us should look beyond any some, any outward aspect. Okay. Maybe somebody struggling mentally a little bit. Maybe somebody might be caught up in some drugs and just think, you know, maybe they need some food. Maybe they could benefit from food. Maybe I should just order like a pizza for them. Right. Maybe they need some clothing. There was a, there was a woman literally walking on my street the other day and she was, you know, she was definitely not underprivileged and she didn't have a home and she was asking for people. And then, and then she told me that the thing we need the most is beanies and gloves. And I just felt so bad that like it was, it was a cold day. It was like, you know, right now, what is it like 52 degrees Celsius? It was like 40 some things. It was cold. Right. And I was like, wow, she was like, yeah, like that's really what we need most. And then hot food, right? Hot food. And, and, and there was, at that point there was like literally she was just a human being. There was no like the thoughts weren't like, oh, maybe she's doing this drug or that drug or this. It's just like, it's just human being is cold and basic needs need to be met. And so for those of us, and I reflected on that and I felt, I felt ashamed. I was like, I'm living here and how I never think about these people. Like how often am I going out and asking them, why did I not go out and ask them, do you need anything and like go to the encampment and say, can I, can I get you anything? Why do I like speed up when I'm driving that area or walk faster? Like, why don't I, I was just, this is just me, you know, reflecting on my own shortcomings in this instance. But then at the same time, I was like, you know what, then I was listening to a talk later and later that week and it was mentioned actually she comes I was mentioning that the profits of some would feed 70 people a day. And I was like, and he literally mentioned that these people didn't have, they were, they were the, the, the, they didn't have homes, right? So they didn't have any, they were known as Ahosufa. And these were, of course, Sahaba, these were very righteous, pious people, but they did not have much money, right? And the profits of some would take care of their meals as much as possible, right? And the other Sahaba would do so. So I thought, you know, in, in, if we're living in a state in a situation in the city where people are in the situation, we got to go, we got to try to put extra effort in, right? Privately, not, it doesn't need to be a big public thing. We're making an Instagram post, look at me feeding people, like it's none of that, just go and just help some people, right? Hey, are you cold? Do you need anything? Could I get you something? Or maybe consistently a few people meet up and, and, and say, Hey, we're going to get them this group of people pizza every week, right? Just something, it's a little something, at least one meal of the week is taken care of, right? So it's easy or make them sandwiches. I mean, whatever amount that somebody can do, but it is, it is, it is significant to think that there are so many people around us who are struggling and we're living in so much privilege. And we have the least have the, the, everybody's in a different economic state, but at least, most of us have the essential blessings of a home, a food, shelter, running water, right? The basics, security. If somebody doesn't have the basics, then they can't start thinking about their spirituality. As Allah says in the Qur'an, that the two most essential blessings in surah Quraysh, that he gives them, alladhi ata'mahum min juh, wa'amanahum in khuf, that did Allah not feed you and did He not give you protection from fear? And so the, the, the ulema, they say that these are the two essential blessings, right? That the essential blessings are food and, and, and security. And then you could also say right after that, essentially shelter. Once somebody has that, now worship is something they can begin to think of. Now someone can begin to think of worship. But if somebody can't, it has to spend so much time thinking about if I'm, what am I going to eat? What am, how am I supposed to be warm? Where am I supposed to live? How it's very difficult to start to think, you know, I got to make sure to, to read extra Qur'an tonight and worship on the night of regent. They're going to, they're not going to know what day of the month. They're just going to be thinking, when am I going to get my next meal? Right. And so part of the work of spreading this deen, it was many times spread by people going out, big, righteous scholars, the great, great, great grandson of the scholar who wrote this book, Habib Ahmad Mashor Haddad was his name and that he would go and he, he, even though he was very, very, very, I mean, especially because he was very, very, very learned and he spent time in the, his family was from, from this area in Yemen known as Hadramoth and then he went out to, to Africa and I'm forgetting if it was Uganda, I believe it was Uganda, but I might be speaking in the exact country that he went and literally there were many, many, many people there that were, I believe there were animists and they didn't, many of them didn't have clothing and they didn't have, all he did was he brought them clothing, he brought them food and then he would just do his thing and then slowly, slowly, slowly, they wanted to learn about his deen and it's estimated this was somebody who passed in like late 90s, early 2000s, over 200,000 people took their shot at this person's hands and all he's, his initial step was to go and feed people and clothe them and revive the sun now, the prophecy's on them, that feed people and clothe them, give them warmth, give them, you know, enough to, to, to feel like a human being, right, to not feel lower than every other human being who has clothing and to give them food and this is what, now this is somebody who has studied advanced, thick and advanced, you know, all of the advanced sciences and whatnot but like he wasn't teaching at some fancy university, you know, he was just to feed people in, in the tribes in, in, in, in Africa and clothe them and then sit with them and teach them deen and then many of them began to convert and learn and learn right, this was the way of the Muslims and so we're going to, you know, end with this portion that wealth and charity are a huge, huge, huge obligation that we have that for somebody who has wealth it is obligatory for us to give to the poor in the god and then it's highly recommended for someone who's trying to be virtuous to give charity and to give extra to give more from their wealth and charity and to just find and I would recommend just two or three practical things here. First is find some website online, some charity, right, like Islamic Relief or something else or any, you know, a foundation or whatever else it is, the cause that you are and just put recurring donations on monthly or weekly and just let that money go even if it's two dollars a month, five dollars a month, someone can afford 10, 20, 30, 100 whatever someone can let it go without you having to think okay it's just going in the background, that would be the first. The second is find some consistent amount that you and I can go out and give to people around us in our community, right, if we have family members, give it to the family members, if we have community members, if we there are people in in our Masjid community who could be struggling, definitely the people on the streets, right, definitely the people on the street and then third is increase the amount we give every year. So if last year somebody gave, I'm talking about extra now, right, the obligatory is last year somebody gave let's say $50 a month and total and then get that up to 75, right, then get that up to 100. It's not about the number though, it's about the how hard it is to do it, right, for somebody who has a million dollars, it's not that hard to give $10 or $100, even $10,000 or $1,000. But for somebody who doesn't have that much, even a dollars might really hurt. That's as long as it's possible for somebody and they're feeling like, hey, I can do this, just know that if you give it will come back to you multiple times. It will, that's how our Dean works, that's how our Dean works, that it is mentioned that charity will literally attract wealth, it will literally attract wealth and this now doesn't make sense intellectually, this is where spirituality comes in, where Allah will multiply the charity and come back to you in various ways, right. I know people this has happened to where big amounts were given in charity and then all of a sudden some random promotion or bonus or something just completely unexpected comes and that amount was multiplied, that amount was multiplied. And lastly to remember that this is a means of warding off tribulation for yourself, for your family, it is a means of bringing about health, warding off sickness and it is a means of most importantly though drawing near to Allah, that should be the primary intention. So when you make the intentions, the first and foremost, I'm doing this to please Allah, number two, I'm doing this to ward off, you know, harm or difficulty that I might be going through, right. Number three, I'm doing this in order to help people around me, whatever intention somebody wants to make, but have multiple intentions linked to the to the charity and ultimately try to use money not as a vehicle of becoming wealthier for yourself, use it as a vehicle of spreading good in society, that is the teaching of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that is the teaching of this deen, that's something that inshallah we hope that we can revive and so inshallah with that we'll go ahead and turn to any questions and then we'll end. So somebody said, somebody earns money from an abortion clinic, is it halal and if someone earns in haram way and repent from it, will Allah forgive that person. The second part, yeah, if somebody has done something haram and repents, inshallah Allah will forgive, right. So there's levels of haram, there's minor sins and there's major sins. If somebody has fallen, we've discussed it in some of the earlier classes which I think are available on YouTube, but if somebody falls into a major sin, it requires a very specific repentance from that sin saying, Ya Allah, I'm really sorry, making a commitment, feeling bad, doing the repentance and making a commitment to not go back to it, right, to make commitment to not go back to it. So yeah, in that situation, inshallah, everything is forgivable. Hajj is another way to seek forgiveness. With regards to your first question, if something is earned from doing something haram that Allah has made haram, then yes, most of the time that wealth and there's nuanced circumstances, most of the time that wealth would be considered, would not be considered halal, it would be considered halal. So that's also something important to keep in mind that if we're involved in companies or work that's like dealing with, again, weapons or alcohol or the drug trade or military industrial complex or so on and so forth, we have to be mindful. We have to mind financial instruments being a very, very dangerous one. We have to be mindful of that. Yes. So I guess my question is, what is the muslim obligation in kind of creating those conditions such that like one not just kind of having a reactionary response to where like we just the muslims don't even care about, you know, there's a fantasy so don't need to help them get a spot. But like, I guess not a lot of muslim scholars or that I've really talked about, okay, well, how do we stop them and not interlip it that far? What are the good questions? The question was that what is the obligation for, right, number one is that God is a system which, you know, in our society is not necessarily being distributed and or utilized in a way, especially because we live in a non-muslim society that actually prevents poverty and these difficult circumstances from coming. And then the thing, the main question was, what is the obligation that we have to try to come up with preventative strategies and approaches to rather than just being reactionary? Is that that? That's a really good question. So there's a couple of ways to think about this, right? One is the bare minimum, like individual responsibility you could say that somebody has and then there's the responsibility they feel like, you know what, Allah wants me to do this and the two are different. What I mean by that is like, if someone's not in tune with their spirituality, they're just going to do the bare minimum sometimes, not sometimes pray, sometimes not pray, sometimes they're just going to kind of happen, right? But with somebody gets more in tune with, okay, why has Allah sent me? What's my purpose on earth? You will start to really get clarity on, I actually need to spend a lot of time thinking through, let's say that and for it might be the case for one person in my, hopefully it's the case for groups of people where they'll say, I need to spend a significant amount of time thinking through strategies to prevent people from getting into these very, very adverse type of circumstances, right? And then they may actually start some type of, you know, proactively start some type of initiative, some type of charity, some type of community grassroots work in order to do that. But the root of the problem there is that most of us are not in touch with our inner world. We're just not in touch with this. When we're not in touch with it, we're living for ourselves completely and we're living for the nuffs. And when someone starts living for the nuffs, the nuffs literally means the self, the ego. We stop living for others. The more somebody begins to work on themselves. And so there's a reason why Imam Ahmad did all the other sections, then he gets to this section, that at this point, ideally somebody has worked on themselves, right? And has implemented some of these basic spiritual practices that now begin to cleanse ourselves such that we can even ask Mashallah, that's a really good question, we can even ask these questions. And now, yes, it's, it's a major responsibility, 100%. It's a major responsibility. However, if we're not even taking care of the basics, we'll never think about the major responsibilities we have. So in our religion, you have what's called Fard Ain, individual obligations, and you have what's called Fard Qifayah, communal obligations. And there's many communal obligations, unfortunately, that many times we neglect as a people or as a community, because we're just too focused on our own selves, our own lives, and many times not necessarily from a, from a, we're just too caught up, right? And so that the, when the more the awakening starts to have someone is like, I do have an obligation, I do have a responsibility. And then you actually see many of these people who, like, I know people who spent quite a lot of time incarcerated, wrongfully incarcerated, many times. And then literally, it was made clear to them though, while they were incarcerated, while they're in prison, that this is my life's work to help people that are in this situation. And then also to prevent people that might have come from similar neighborhoods to get into that situation, right? And coming up with different community programs and so on, in order to help. And there, sometimes there's a very apparent Islamic aspect to it. And sometimes it's not literally, we're just helping human beings. And yes, we happen to be Muslims, right? But that was now somebody who like, was very clearly awakened and that became their mission. It's usually starts with small steps where Allah says in the Quran, Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what's in themselves. So the obligation and the responsibility exists. The strategies need to be thought of. But most of the time, unfortunately, as a community, we're like, most of our minds are in some Netflix show, right? We're literally not even present with community. We're not thinking about grappling with the problems of society, right? What problems is my community going through? And then if we do think about it, we just argue with each other as a community instead of actually like, let me sit down with a couple of brothers or a couple of sisters and brainstorm ways in order to help the three encampments that are here and probably get all of them food and shelter and so on and so forth and start there and then move on from there, right? This was the approach of Malcolm, right? Malcolm X, when he took the approach of slowly, slowly starting with his grassroots work, grassroots work. The intention wasn't to be famous or to be known as the Malcolm X, but through the grassroots work that he was doing, right? And it wasn't at the time with the nation, the feeding people, educating them. There was a whole, there was a whole component of that. And then it became a societal system and then major change started to happen at the societal level, but it started small. And so that was a bit of a scattered way to, you know, at least share reflections on it. I don't have like a clear answer to it, but those are just some reflections. Is that, does that help? Yes? Sorry? The Sahaba, how did they make their well? Yeah, good question. So they had various ways. So trade was big at the time. So you had, I guess a couple of different, different aspects of this. Livestock was big, right? So they would have livestock, you're talking animals, cattle and so on. And then they would sell them, right? And then there would be a means of acquiring wealth, or the livestock would be the wealth. They would, with that, then purchase gardens, like date, date palm gardens, and then the date harvest would be a means of their wealth. The spoils of Jihad would be wealth for the Muslim state, right? So the Prophet Salaam was given permission to take the spoils of war. No other prophet was given that permission. Prophet Salaam was given the permission to take the spoils of war. So when you win a battle, right? All of the spoils then become part of the wealth of the Muslims. And then the, there would be various caravans that would trade, you know, they're trading some goods from somebody with someone in Syria, and they're making money on certain type of goods that they, you know, buy low, sell high, right? Like that, that type of, I'm guessing, that type of approach. So those are a couple examples. I don't know if anybody else knows, I haven't studied in detail, but that's like a couple examples of like people at that time, from my understanding, how they would make their, make their wealth, yeah. Yes. So you mentioned, you know, it's good to give, you know, at a regular interval or something like that. But I think a lot of people like to give their zakat or other charity, you know, during Ramadan, at thirty-six times. How would you, is there any recommendation on how to split that up, or what's more, see it as more effective? Great, that's a really good question. The question was around importance of giving in regular intervals, and then many people give their zakat in Ramadan, or give a lot of extra charity in Ramadan. So totally makes sense why you would want to give a lot in Ramadan, because everything is multiplied, multiple times, twenty-seven times, seventy times, thousand times. Like there's a lot of multiplication, a lot of multiplication Hadith mentioning in Ramadan, right, in terms of the reward that somebody gets. Zakat is due consistently at the same time every year. So you measure your wealth from, if you can, you, we consistently say, okay, I'm going to give my wealth every year on the twentieth of Ramadan. So whatever falls due on the following twentieth of Ramadan, and it's measured in the lunar year and not in the calendar year, you give. So if somebody starts off at that point, they'd have to kind of make sure they reset their calendar to start giving in other places. But charity, like their saddika, and by the zakat is not obligated to give in Ramadan, we should ideally distribute it out such that we're helping the people who need money all the time, right. And so I know many people, they'll give like twenty, thirty percent outside Ramadan, and then seventy percent in Ramadan. Like they'll kind of, they'll split it up a little bit. But charity and other forms of wealth definitely want to get to a point where we give outside Ramadan. Because if you think about it, like when you're struggling in life with something, you don't wait till Ramadan, I'm going to make dua in Ramadan, right. You're like, no, no, no, I think dua tonight. I'm going to call my mom, mom, pray for me now, I'm really struggling with this, right. You start to go with charity as a way to receive blessings in your life. Charity is a way to ward off tribulation for yourself, for your family, for your children, for your home, and for your community. And so it really shouldn't be seen traditionally, it was never seen as something that we would wait to do extra charity. It was like as soon as someone came, Ramadan literally mentions here, never disappoint a beggar who stands at your door, give him or her even as little as a date or less for he is a gift from Allah to you. So the beggar comes and you're like, no, no, we'll come back in three months, it's gonna come in Ramadan, I'll give to you then, we'll do that, right. But in these days, depending on where we live in Oakland, definitely we have people come and ask and many other places people don't have people come and ask. But the goal is like, you want to make someone happy, you want to feed them, people need food all the time, people need clothing all the time. So a couple of things to summarize there, right. Zakat is something that does fall to you on a calendar year. You want to make sure you structure that accordingly or give some portion of it throughout the year and then give a bulk of it in that month, Ramadan, Rajya, whatever it is. But Sadaqah, we want to get to a point where we see the benefits of Sadaqah enough and we see the virtue of it enough that it's like biker. It's a form of worshiping Allah. You don't want to reserve all your worship, you want to give a ton, right. And you hope Allah accepts it throughout the year and then you hope in Ramadan you'll give even more, right. So that would be the second point. And then the third point is like, as you and I see needs of the community around us or family members, whoever it is, we should be people who address those needs swiftly if we can. So if we know, like we read about something, let's say, unfortunately, there's so many Muslims in tribulation in Yemen right now, right. And in Syria and continue to be in Palestine and other places, right, due to various oppressors. We should, as soon as we, if we like happen to come across an article, obviously that war, those situations are happening. We come across an article, we should be moved immediately to go find a way to give some portion of money to help that cause, if we can, if we're able to, if we can afford it. We don't wait, right. And so the part of this goal is like, when you and I give, it helps us realize how much we have and how little other people have and it helps purify us as well, right. And they actually are doing us a favor by that person who we give to, they're the ones who are giving us a gift in reality, because we're going to get a benefit in the hereafter from being able to give. And they get, you know, something monetary in this world. Does that answer the question? Okay. Yes. Okay. This is something I would like to say, regarding this whole subject that we're talking about, we're moving towards being more of God's enemy. Right. Because, you know, that just like all the like worldly people out there, they don't have any spirituality. They just snuff, snuff, and stuff themselves. But as a good Muslim, we supposed to care about everybody. And you notice the prophet, he's a good example, you know, with someone that was so his love, that was so wide, he gave away all his wealth every day, every day to help people. That's how he was faithful, strong, even Abu Bakr was another example. Where he, he's not just living for himself because he's a servant of the more side. So he's living for everybody. So it's a different, it's a different viewpoint. Right. So when you're living for everybody, it's like a mother who's always looking out for all her children. So she's really looking out for them all. But we, as God's servants, should be looking out for everybody. Right. Right. And the greater we are is the greater that we're stronger. We are the more people that we can help spiritually, physically in every way. And even, you know, like you said, in the moment, right, because every day you can't wait to try to make your progress. Every day, when you have those chances, you make that progress. Because sometimes even if you have opportunity to help somebody and you don't do it, then you notice that they might have suffered a great amount because you just didn't give that little help. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So someone like Abu Bakr, he just sacrificed so greatly. You know, that's how he was such a great servant of the more side. Right. Right. 100%. Thank you for sharing that. I did, the Muslim should get to a point where we're not self-centric. We're thinking about other people and we are in the service of humanity that we're in the service of Allah and we're in the service of humanity. That should be the goal. And one of the big intentions we should have that if we are, you know, Alhamdulillah, accumulating money and earning income is that I want to give a portion of this. Right. I want to give a portion of this away. I want to help the people around me. And immediately as we see those needs that we try to try to do so. And the example of the best of creation, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and the example of the, of the Sahaba. Yes. Yeah. So the question was on farad a'ayn and farad kifayah. And what are the difference? So farad a'ayn is individual obligation. So individual obligation for a, for most Muslims, right, somebody who is sane, conscious, his post puberty would be to pray the five prayers, the zakat, if they have, if they have the money above the Nisab too fast Ramadan and so on, the pillars of Islam. And then there's other obligations you and I have in terms of taking, if our parents are in need, taking care of our parents, taking care of family and so on and so forth. Then there's what's called communal obligations. So for example, communal obligation, if somebody passes away, you and I, you or me individually are not required to necessarily take care of their funeral rights like as an individual, but the community, somebody is required. The community at whole is held accountable to make sure that they are delivered their rights as Muslims that somebody gives them a whistle. Someone prays the janaza prayer over them and someone gives them a proper Muslim burial. If nobody in the community steps up to do that, the way farad kifayah works is everybody in the community is sinful in order to do that, right? So alhamdulillah that we have like for the funeral prayer, there's always somebody alhamdulillah who's like okay, they're washing the bodies, they're going out and making sure the prayers perform and then they are they're burying, they're burying people, right? Usually if that's like a family member doesn't exist. So that would be one example and then that kind of extends beyond that to other concerns and other needs that the community has. Does that answer the question? Yes, good question. So the question was, you know, we've talked a lot about the importance of giving and generosity and what about like stability and you know saving and whatnot. So we are completely, it's completely okay and in most instances it's actually recommended for most of us to make sure that we have money that meets our needs, money that meets the goals that we have, money that's enough to take care of our family to save money and so on. What we mean here, so like let's say let's say somebody makes $5,000 a month in income, okay, to save all of that money is totally fine. As long as someone gives that they're 2.5% at the end of the year of what's left, right, in zakat, they would be okay and they give a little bit in charity or a little more in charity, they would be okay. So yeah, the point is definitely not to say that all of the money somebody has, somebody would give away. There are people who got to that point where they literally said, you know what, I have $100,000, I'm going to give away $50,000, I'm just going to give away all of it. But we are also told in our religion to take the middle path and so to make sure that we have more than what meets our needs at a minimum and then we're also totally okay to have what meets our wants as well and what we kind of prefer in life and so on. What we mentioned against hoarding is more like somebody pursues money at the sake of their deem. They've sacrificed their religion to pursue money. What I mean there is like, okay, they could work one job that pays them $50,000 or $100,000 let's say and another job that pays them $200,000. So the $200,000 job is like for a weapons manufacturer and the $100,000 job is for a normal, you know, it's for technology companies and stuff like that, right? You really get inclined most of the time, oh dang, double the salary, that's great. And then someone takes it but now almost all their wealth is haram because they're working for a weapons manufacturer and they're literally contributing to killing people, right? So that would be an example of someone compromises their money but to earn the $100,000 and to save a portion of it and to make sure that you are being wise and strategic and investing and being economically savvy and having a budget, all of those are, you would consider those wise aspects of the deem that the Muslim is also financially astute person, right? The reason I didn't mention that is because if you talk about that part too much people use it as an excuse to never give because usually most people are kind of on the other side of the spectrum or they're like, I'm just kind of going to save everything and never give. So you mentioned more like, no, no, generosity, generosity, generosity and then, but really the balance is to make sure that we don't ever earn money that compromises our religion and number two, that we make sure in our pursuit for earning money, like, oh, I got to work this job and this job. Oh, I miss Doher. I miss Asir. I miss this prayer. Oh, boss says I can't go to Juma. Well, I can't go to Juma, right? I mean, as a man that's obligatory for women, it would not be, but that type of instance, we're like, oh, well, we just sacrificed the religion because we wanted to earn the money. That would be blameworthy. But the first scenario would be totally fine. It's recommended, highly encouraged. Everybody lives a very kind of balanced approach financially, if that makes sense. Does that answer the question? Yeah, I think we did. Do you have a question to determine if you are someone who's supposed to pay Zakat or if you are eligible to receive Zakat? So if you're supposed to give Zakat, there's something known as the, so the question was, how do you know if someone is supposed to be giving Zakat? There's something known as the Nisab. The Nisab is an amount which is like, what is it right now? You can literally Google it. It's like a certain amount. I think it's like $4,000 or $5,000 right now. Nisab is an amount that if you have over that amount in Nisab, you now begin to give, right? And you are required to give. If somebody has under that amount in Nisab, they don't give, right? How much money that they have. Yeah, exactly. So it would be, it's a little bit, we could follow up on this like separately or in a follow up class. It's a little bit more than kind of just the account. It's like, they have that amount at the end of a one year period. And then it falls to you. So if like somebody has literally very few couple thousand dollars left in their account, they would have no Zakat due upon them. But if they have a few thousand dollars in their account and they have, you know, many, a lot of jewelry that's gold that's worth a lot and then a bunch of goats, let's just say someone has goats, and maybe their total wealth they accumulate and then that's actually worth well above Nisab then they would give that portion 2.5%. Yeah. Yes. Great question. Non-liquid assets. The question was the liquid assets versus non-liquid assets. So non-liquid means like a house or like a car. Yeah. So Zakat does not apply to, you don't have to pay Zakat on the value of your house. Alhamdulillah. Be hard in the day area or on the value of your car or anything. It's liquid, right? It's liquid and then it's like, but it gets a little tricky when it comes to things like 401k and when investments that could be liquid as a God is applicable on those, right? Like jewelry, like diamonds, it's not applicable, but gold, it's applicable. So there's like all these rules in terms of things that it does count on. Investments, it counts on it. Exactly. But you could have investments that are technically locked up like a 401k that you can't withdraw until you're 65. But technically you're supposed to be calculating how much you have due each year and then you either paid each year or you paid all at the end. If we make it to the end, that takes me. So that is a kind of complex, but it's basically, the majority is liquid assets we're talking. There is a website called Seekers Hub or Seekers Guidance. Now Seekers Guidance, I would recommend. They have like a whole guide A to Z guide on Zakat and they have a Zakat calculator. So you can actually enter in, I think Zatuna College, which is just right up in Berkeley, they have a Zakat calculator too. So you can actually enter in this asset, this investment, this much in gold, like whatever it is, and then it'll calculate, okay, someone has this much Zakat due. And then they'll say you actually have no Zakat due or something like that. So I know we're well over time, it's getting a little bit late. Yeah, and then it's the last thing. What should we stand for? Be careful of your savings and stuff like that. I would say it's encouraged to be like, spend through it, like be careful of your money because looking at other properties to find them, and even Olia and Santa are careful of the food, like, you know, they don't want you to waste any food. So if you put food on your plate, you want to eat all the food. So I think in a similar way, you know, we're supposed to be careful of our spending. And so we don't want to waste, we don't want to waste any money. But at the same time, the example that they give that we have right from the property to fund, those are like some extreme examples of how great one could become if one was sold like unanimous, you know, but so we can hopefully try to do what we can in that direction. But being very spent, so the charity we give a lot of giving, very meaningful charity, you know. Yeah, exactly. It's very, very helpful. It's important to be, important to be balanced, important to be wise and, you know, just about our spending. Insha'Allah, we'll go ahead and end and we'll continue this discussion. We have, I think the next at least one and a half classes are going to be a bit on the spirituality of wealth and sadhqa. And then we'll go ahead and move on to the next section. So we'll go ahead and end with the dua. We'll go ahead and end with the dua. Allahumma, ya Allah, ya Rahman, ya Rahim, ya Allah, we ask, ya Allah that you accept us, ya Allah that you pardon us and that you forgive us and that you forgive our families and you forgive our parents and forgive our loved ones and you forgive all the Muslims on this blessed night, ya Allah, we ask you on this blessed night of the month of Rajab, ya Allah, that you open your doors of mercy and your doors of forgiveness for us and for the Ummah of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, ya Allah, allow us to draw near to you and allow us to draw near to you, ya Rabbil Alamin, ya Allah, allow us to draw near to you through worship and through your kindness and through your generosity, ya Allah, ya Allah, you are the one who is generous. So teach us to be generous, ya Allah, you are the one who is all, the all providing and all sustaining. So provide from, for all of us and provide for those in need and make us vehicles of serving humanity, ya Rabbil Alamin, ya Allah, make us vehicles of people, ya Allah, make us the type of people who serve your community, who serve your community, ya Rabbil Alamin, ya Allah, make us people, ya Allah, who serve your creation, ya Allah, ya Allah, make us people who serve the community of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, ya Allah, we ask on this blessed night, ya Allah, that you pardon us and you grant us forgiveness and that you give us tophique and that you give us blessings, ya Rabbil Alamin, ya Allah, we ask you to put barakah in this month, Allahumma barakuna fi rajab wa sha'ban wa baliqna Ramadhan, ya Allah, allow us, ya Allah, to reach Ramadhan and put barakah and rajab in Ja'ban and allow us to reach Ramadhan, ya Allah, allow our hearts to be prepared for Ramadhan fi khayr wa l-lutfu al-afi'a, ya Allah, keep your lutfu down upon us, ya Allah, open your risk for us, ya Rabbil Alamin, ya Allah, ya Fattah, give us many openings, ya Allah, ya Nur pour light into our hearts, ya Rabbil Alamin, ya Allah, remove our anxieties, whatever anxieties and worries and problems we have come here with, ya Allah, we all have many of them, ya Allah, and you know better what they are, ya Allah, please remove them from us, please remove our difficulties, ya Allah, ya Allah, please take care of all of our needs, ya Allah, please, ya Allah, make us people of goodness, ya Rabbil Alamin, please make us people of khayr, and please make us people who spread khayr and who spread goodness, ya Rabbil Alamin, ya Allah, ya Allah, please, ya Allah, let us take care of those, ya Allah, who are struggling, ya Allah, ya Allah, please feed those who are hungry, ya Allah, please give water to those who are thirsty, ya Allah, please give clothing to those who need clothing, ya Allah, please give shelter and warmth to those who need shelter and warmth, Ya Rabbil Alameen, Ya Allah. Make us vehicles and people who are able to do that and give us the courage and the strength and the ability to do that and the tofiq to do that Ya Rabbil Alameen in this blessed month, Ya Allah. Ya Allah make us people who strengthen each other and strengthen our community, Ya Allah. And give us tofiq in this blessed month to worship you and to increase our worship in Rajab and increase our worship in Sha'ban and increase our worship in Ramadan such that we get near and near to Ya Rabbil Alameen, Ya Allah. And allow us to draw near and near to you until we die and let us die on La ilaha illa Allah Sayyidina Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. And we ask you for everything good that the messenger alayhi salatu wa sallam asks for and we ask you for protection from everything evil that he asks protection from wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, abaarak.