 Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, masha'Allah so wonderful to be back here, alhamdulillah in this place of beloveds with Ahl al Bay. And alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah Siri Uthman, masha'Allah who I fell in love with on my last trip, masha'Allah. Alhamdulillah love's still strong, alhamdulillah so nice to meet and obviously our brother Barak Abu, masha'Allah. It's been many years, how many years since you were last again? It's been a decade. So we lived right across from each other. My door was here and his door was here and we were both at Qasid. I was working at Qasid. He came to study, masha'Allah, very studious, studious, studious student, masha'Allah. Yeah, masha'Allah admirable, just sitting in the cubicle every day by himself just reviewing, masha'Allah. You haven't changed, you haven't aged, masha'Allah, you're looking better and better. So I just, my only, you know, the only regret in time is when you, when you don't get to do as many good things, that's when you regret looking back and knowing that you were right across my door and we didn't get to know each other as well. At least Allah has brought us back together now another time in the dunya. So hopefully insha'Allah we'll catch up, insha'Allah. So you know, alhamdulillah, one of the things about tonight, we won't talk long about the story of the Isra and the Meraj because that's tomorrow at the SBIA, insha'Allah, for anyone who'd like to come where we recount the entire story. But what this is, is to remember, is that the Isra and the Meraj, even if we don't know all the details, it's a love story. It really is a story of love. I'll tell you, one of the times that I felt, I felt that love, I realized that this love of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is what has been powering the Ummah, the Muslim civilization is powered on love for the Prophet sallallahu and you know when I felt that most clearly, I didn't feel that most clearly in the poetry, even though you know we love the poetry, I didn't find it in those things of higher culture. Sometimes you find it in the heart of a person and you realize the effect that it's been having on this Ummah for all these centuries, Subhanallah. I remember once, I shared this story only maybe once or twice before, but where it really opened my eyes was I was walking in New Delhi, actually Old Delhi and I had just started, this was about 10 to 12 years ago, I had just started to reconnect with my parents, my heritage and so I'm walking in Old Delhi which is the Muslim part near the old Jami Mosque, I don't know if anyone's been there and seen that, very historic ancient area, hundreds of years old and around it is this bustling marketplace and things are very rundown, the Muslim situation there is not like it used to be in the past and due to a lot of different things and there's a cacophony of noises, you know you're hearing like chickens, you're hearing rickshaws honking and cars and people yelling and hocking items and there's all these there are all these smells in the air, there's the dust, there's like the biryani that's cooking here and there's some other bad smells and all kinds of things are happening around you in your senses and as I was walking through that with my backpack and just you know I just hear you know back in the in the days in those countries you have like these shops that sell musical cassettes and they're blaring like stuff from their shop to get you to come inside and they've got all these different cassettes and CDs and everything and as I was passing by I'm hearing a qawali, right I wasn't too familiar with qawali at that time I wasn't too open to it as well but that's a different story but the thing is I was walking by and so I hear this playing and I'm not familiar with them right but because my parents speak Hindi so I understood some of their language it's very close to Urdu so I turned around with the noise and I look around and there is a poor man with Down syndrome sitting in the dust literally on the street in India which is just all these cars coming around and he was sitting with a card in almost inside a cardboard box and the flap of it was up and he was taking the flap of it and pumping it back and forth like a harmonium and he was absolutely lost in the words of that qawali and that and for some reason I just zeroed in on the words and I didn't even find it until many years later but it stayed in my heart and it was the qawal the qawal was saying and I'm not a qawali singer but he was saying and you'll see why this is relevant he said he was it's very simple qawali and he was saying that the night of the ascension of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is a mubarak night and sometimes I just start remembering my prophet sometimes I keep remembering him and remembering him and it was just that refrain over and over again it's really not a very complicated qawali and and I when I saw when I saw heard the words recounting the Isra and the Miraj but just this idea of the memory of Rasulullah says I'm so deep that love so deep and you're seeing this the words of the qawal which are reflecting the love of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the umma through art but being refracted through a pure soul this man with down syndrome he's completely involved in just engrossed in it it's like the entire world does not matter to him there's so much going on anyone can just hit you step over you and he's just in another world and that I felt like like a like a prison you know of light just went right and I felt that and I and that was such a time-stopping experience for me and that's at that point I realized that yes we can read the poetry study the books but the love of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam resides in the hearts of his umma and if you want to know all the words is only an expression but the best way to connect to it is to connect to the lovers of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and and I felt at that point not his love for the prophet I felt the prophet's love for him and the prophet's love for all of us because what's coming through that pure soul it's just like energy right it's just like something coming through so he's just a conduit and in fact we're all conduits we're all just like wires of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's love coming from since you know pre-eternity you know when when Allah willed him you know in Allah's knowledge you know obviously the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's creation but the point is that that's a mercy from Allah and when did Allah will that in pre-eternity right because Allah he's a subhan Allah the most beloved of Allah and so in this in the isra and the miraj in the isra and the miraj it's a love story and we won't go through all of it but in reality when you look at the who was the isra and the miraj for we often think it was for the prophet but from the prophet's perspective when you think about it it's actually for us the whole isra and the miraj is a love story and it's for us even though he's the one who suffered so much he's the one who suffered so much then and then Allah elevated him a lot you know not he was already elevated with Allah but here's the difference whereas Musa alayhi sallam he had an appointment with Allah and he had to go up to a mountain and to try to reach Allah he was seeking Allah it was different because angel jibreel came and Allah was seeking the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam Allah called the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam up Allah called the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam up he didn't have to go and search and this is why from the beginning we know that this was showing the high rank of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam the lofty status and it wasn't because Allah was you know it wasn't because the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam needed it it's to show it to the rest of the world because the world was already graced by Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam and yet the people of the world were not fulfilling their haqq to the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he was being opposed and bitterly persecuted and so yet there was one group of beings that had not experienced Rasulullah even though they knew about him and that was the people of the heavens the beings of the heavens and so I just imagine the treat that they got to finally lay their eyes on Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam right and that's why as soon as he goes he comes from angel jibreel with angel jibreel on burak and goes to masjil aqsa when he that masjil aqsa it's it's just something that's understood all the prophets fell behind him to pray you know when you when you when you when you uh it's time for prayer and people are equals everyone say no you go no you please no you pray and everyone's getting no for when the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was among them it was just natural that he would be the one to take the lead and this is this is prophets who have more knowledge than everyone else they understand the leadership of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam but sometimes do we allow him to take the lead in our lives and then when he when he finishes the prayer and just a few reflections angel jibreel alayhi sallam brings a tray and there is one glass or a vessel of milk and one vessel of wine in another narration do a three with honey as well and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam immediately he reaches for the milk and he drinks it and he leaves the wine right there and jibreel alayhi sallam sees that and tells him he said assault he said assault of fitrah he says you have chosen correctly and chosen the natural states the fitrah because milk is something that is it's uninterfered with it's not it's not meddled with and this is the fitrah when you have a heart that's not interfered with and corrupted whereas wine even though it wasn't haram in that time it was long before wine was made haram the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam himself avoided it because of his fitrah and then what did jibreel alayhi sallam say and this is what's the most amazing is he said had you chosen the wine your umma would have gone astray and so as our as my teacher taught me he said this is proof that an action of the prophet sallam determined the fate of the umma one sip of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam could have determined whether we were in iman or not our believing in Allah was not about everything that we've done and what we went to school we went to and what book we read it was one sip of Rasul Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam and khalas we were we were guided to the end of time as an umma allahu akbar this is that this is the the the being that we are speaking about when we think about Rasul Allah so if that's even from his his one sip could naturally go towards what would benefit his umma just imagine the rest of what he did for us and when the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he went through all of the the seven heavens and all the beautiful things that we'll discuss tomorrow about all those things we don't even realize how intimately connected we are to Rasul Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam because our sitting here was dependent on as I said that sip that happened before the ma'araj so what we don't even realize is we can go become heedless but we are intimately connected to him just like just like a baby like that's running around oblivious but there's someone watching over that baby who cares for that baby and this baby's like yeah I don't know whatever and there's a hard-working mother behind that child there's a hard-working father who's always looking out and making sure they can run around a little bit making sure they don't get hurt making sure they're fed making sure they're safe and protected getting everything they need and as as an umma many times we go through life not realizing how much of the blessings and love of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam is actually all over us protecting us his du'as from where he is now are coming towards us according to the according to the hadith of the prophet sallallahu so this is even as he goes beyond the seven heavens and beyond the city of muntaha into the divine presence and whatever it was that was there we don't even know the words we don't even know the words that occurred in that blessed meeting between Allah and his beloved Rasul sallallahu alayhi sallam it was it was between servant it was between master and servant but one thing we do know is that there was there was talk about us as an umma there that even in that maqam in that place he has concern for us and this is the amazing thing like just imagine if you are in a place after persecution after being tortured after being denied after being losing your loved ones and being stoned and finally you're in bliss paradise and even there when after all the troubles could be solved and no other hardship ever even there you're remembering us the umma of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he's still remembering us and when he gets those prayers he accepts it completely but when he passes by musa alayhi sallam on his way back right musa alayhi sallam advises him and he says you know go back he's like i have experience with human beings go back that's exactly what he said he said he said he said he said he said i have experience with people and he gives the prophet sallam loving brotherly advice from one prophet to another an older prophet to another to another prophet and you know it was when the prophet sallam left from meeting him musa alayhi sallam was crying so they was asked why are you crying musa like why are you crying jannah why would you cry in jannah he said because because this young man who came after me more people will enter jannah for this umma than my umma so even just the he didn't think about like that didn't occur until he saw musa sallallahu alayhi sallam and he realized how lucky his umma is how lucky his umma is that he made other prophets cry because they they wish that they could be the prophet of this umma and because Allah said no you can't then they said oh Allah at least making part of the umma but rather the musa sallallahu alayhi sallam is a shahid on our umma and on all the umma and on all the prophets just think about that where our little sallallahu alayhi sallam is and how lucky we are and then when he when he got that advice the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam does go back and he goes back why because if Allah gives you a commandment right you would take it you wouldn't say anything but he goes back because he knows it's in our interest so that's why he goes back usually when someone a king tells you something go do this would you dare enter back and say look I want I want you to revise what you've told me but this as the umma say that one of the wisdoms of going back and forth and we know he goes back the prayers are 50 then goes to 40 then goes to 30 in some narrations it goes by 50 to 45 to 40 but it goes all the way down to five and they say that the wisdom of that going back and forth back and forth back and forth is to prepare our sallallahu alayhi sallam for the shafaah for his intercession when he will go to Allah on the day of judgment and ask Allah O Allah take some of the people out of the hellfire and Allah will say go take these people out and so he'll take them back then he'll go back and go back and go back and forth because it's it's subhan Allah because if he as some of the ulamas say if it was the first time when he went to meet Allah on the day of judgment that would be very very scary it would be all the majesty and so here he experienced that on his own going back and forth back and forth because on the day of judgment that Haiba that all will not overtake him but rather it will be once it will be it will be intimate familiarity because when you see somebody very big and prominent and majestic in the beginning you're always a little taken aback by them you're a bit scared by them but when you get to know them you start to become familiar with them and it's a love that develops even with the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam that's what they used to say as they said in in in arabic they said man man r'aahu badiha the one whoever used to come up to the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam suddenly they would they would get a little awe and awe struck but once they got to sit with him got to know him a little bit and they would start to love him and i put that into a poetic phrase and it goes like this if you saw him suddenly one look would take your breath away but if you sat with him his character would steal your heart away so the thing is when this is the same thing with with Allah when he goes back and forth it's because of that now when you think about this as well that Allah swt gave him two honors on that night that Allah let him hear his speech directly only musa ar-e-san had heard Allah directly before that but the added thing was and this is a debate within the ahlus sunnah but there is that position of the many most of our scholars of that the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam also saw Allah swt on that day Allah he saw Allah swt on that day and this is what will come back to benefit the ummah during the shafa'a as well alhamdulillah so this is where when he came back this is now now think about this this is what um the great prophet muhammad iqbal muhamta alayh what he said in his he philosophized uh as it's written that this is the difference between a prophet and a wali a saint when a saint does everything for Allah and he goes to the hereafter in jannah that's it he doesn't want to come back because he's with Allah now he's with his lord why would you why the one beloved that you want to be with you would stay forever your problems are over a prophet comes back and that's what makes the prophet different from a wali any one of us if we could just go and take see a second of paradise or be with Allah moreover we would never want to come back never come back to this dunya with all the family and all the money and all the everything that we have all the beloveds we would never want to come back and yet it's the prophet that says no i will come back and he went does he come back to does he come back to a life that is so much more comfortable no no he came from hardship and persecution went to Allah and then came back to more hardship and persecution he came back to lose his children in front of his eyes he came back to be struck at uhud he came back for the fear with the fear of badr at the existential threat of the trench he came back to experience the poisoning at khaybar that stayed with him for the rest of his life until he passed away sallallahu alayhi wa sallam why for our sake that's why the isra and the miraj is ultimately a love story and it's the it's about the fact that before the victory of the world comes the spiritual victory and we were in one sense in the heart of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and there with him and it was done for our sake and the only thing that now is upon us the only thing that is upon us now is we have the example of the the greatest siddique abu bakar what did he say he was just asked do you believe about what your companion Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says that he went overnight to drew something came back when it takes us 30 days going and 30 days coming the Quraysh challenged and what did abu bakar say he said if he said it then I believe it because I believe something that is that is greater than this I believe he's getting revelation from through the seven heavens directly from Allah swt and that is why he got that name it's why he is the best person he is the best person after all the prophets he's the best of human beings not because of not because as the olama say not because of the amount of prayers and fasting he did but but something had that had settled inside his heart so when we realize what the isra and the ma'araj was from Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam for us then our only response is to be like abu bakar and say that we we bear witness that you are the messenger of Allah and that we will act like that and live like that for the rest of our lives Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam I'll just figure I'll just finish inshallah by reading something from I'll just sing one chapter of the seerah some inshallah you guys might know this from the four and I've actually started to um to translate the chorus into English as well let's see how this goes yeah yeah this this see the torque we see we kind of got into it like this so so you know how it begins sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Muhammad is his messenger alayhi sallallahu peace be on him from Allah after losing wife and uncle and the boy god of his clan after thought if where they stoned him came a gift from ar-rahman as he lay asleep beside the noble kaba in the night he was woken by the angel and then taken up in flight riding on bur'aq he made the journey that is called isra to the city of jerusalem to masjid al-uqsa there he led the prophets in a prayer and chose milk over wine then ascended to the heavens for a twist with the divine praise beyond the seven skies so many wondrous sights he saw till he crossed the furthest low tree for his discourse with Allah sent back on that very night he bought a gift for his umma on the next day muslim stood with him to pray there for sallallahu alayhi wa sallallahu alayhi la ilaha illa Allah la ilaha illa Allah la ilaha illa Allah la ilaha illa Allah la ilaha illa Allah Muhammad al-Rasul Allah alayhi sallallahu alayhi sallam Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barik alayhi wa ala alayhi