 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. My name is Dawood Yaseen. I want to thank Allah for this opportunity to be here with you this evening, this 13th night of Ramadan. I want to thank the organizers from MCC who has, you know, in the circumstances and the conditions that we are in right now, has facilitated or is facilitating this opportunity for us to be together, if you will, nightly. It's a great endeavor and may Allah reward them for every lesson that is placed up, for every dua that is made, for every intention that people have. May all of that good that comes out of this gathering be in the scales of the organizers in the community, everybody, at the MCC community and beyond all those that are touched by this. You know, as we said, this is a Ramadan in which none of us have experienced before. And yes, we are not able to be together physically, but Alhamdulillah, there are other benefits that we are enjoying. One of them for me is just the amount of time that I'm able to spend with my family. And I was, you know, kind of around the corner the other day and my daughter was talking about, in one of her classes, they started off by perhaps sharing something that you were thankful for. Things that she said that she was very thankful of the amount of time that she was able to spend with her family. And just, you know, Alhamdulillah, I'm sure like everybody else, the routines of, you know, preparing a meal and, you know, having the children put out dates and water and other things and preparing the family to break the fast and breaking the fast together and reciting, you know, dua before that. It's just a real blessing here. Beginning what I want to share with you today, there's a verse in Siratul Yunus, verse 58, where Allah says in the Quran, قُلْ بِفَضْلِ اللَّهِ وَبِرَحْمَتِهِ فَبِذَالِكَ فَالْيَفْرَهُ كُوَ خَيْرُمْ مِمَّا يَجْمَعُرُمْ This verse is, where Allah says, say to the Prophet Islam, in God's grace, Allah's grace in his mercy, let them rejoice. فَبِذَالِكَ فَالْيَفْرَهُ كُوَ خَيْرُمْ مِمَّا يَجْمَعُرُمْ And in that, in that grace and in that mercy, let them rejoice. Why? Let them rejoice because it is greater than what they amass. Okay, so I was looking at some tafsir on this verse and what I found is that Abu Sa'i al-Khudri and Al-Krimah, wa-ra'illahu anhumah, they said that fadl here is Qur'an and that rahmah here is Islam. So the verse would say that, tell them that from this gift of Qur'an and this gift of Islam, then let them rejoice in that because those two things together are greater than what they can amass and here greater than what they can amass, meaning anything from in this dunya. And then it made me think about this, right? It made me think about a couple of things. One, it made me think about my relationship with Qur'an. I had a very limited relationship with Qur'an before I was Muslim and now that I can have embraced Islam, what is that relationship like after embracing Islam, right? We talked about this last week in the lesson that a reading of this Qur'an is not a reading like any other book and at that time it was, I knew that it wasn't like other books but I didn't have the ability for it to be the types of things that we talked about last week. It wasn't a guide in my life. It didn't establish that Allah was a sustainer in my life. It didn't do those things when I didn't have the key to la ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah, a'i Islam, a'i the rahmah. And I just think it's very telling that first you get this rahmah, you get this mercy of la ilaha illallah then you get the fadl and what a blessing that this month that Islam legislates for us the fasting and then it becomes, as the Prophet of Islam says, it is a month of Qur'an. So this fadl of the Qur'an and this rahmah of al-Islam are all together now in this month of Ramadan and that is better than anything that we can amass. And, you know, this month, if we think about it from a bodily, a physical approach, if you will, a month in which this intense fasting is a type of detoxification but that detoxification is not limited just to the body. It's the body and then what does it do? It helps us to cleanse our hearts, to cleanse our minds, to cleanse our bodies for what? So we can draw nearer to Allah SWT, right? With souls that are purified, with hearts that are purified, with minds that are purified, with a body that is purified and that this experience, right? When we experience this, that that is the special sweetness, as we said, of the faith during this month. And that's the contrast. That's the connection, if you will, that I'm talking about that without Islam, I can't have that type of relationship with the Quran. Or without Islam, I'm not having that type of relationship with the fasting. So, Alhamdulillah, these are the things that I want to share with us that we rejoice in and that we think about these types of things and that we think about the blessings that Allah has done locking up, actually upon in this month, how is that for grace from Allah? How is that for mercy of Allah? That any types of distractions, the distractions of food, the distractions of carnal desires, the distractions that she upon of his waswas, of his baseless misgivings telling us how wretched we are, telling us how lazy we are, telling us these negative thoughts about us that we don't have to deal with those in this month. And that Allah allows us to focus on our worship without those distractions, but at the same time, exposing ourselves, right? Exposing ourselves to ourselves in a manner that we wouldn't really engage in because we might think, well, A'udhu billah min ash-shaitan ar-rajim from that thought, or, you know, A'udhu billah min ash-shaitan ar-rajim, you know, I was envious in that. No, those are all realities that are inside of myself, right? And as my teacher, one of our teachers said to me that this month of Ramadan is like a spotlight on the nuffs. It just amplifies what is inside of us and gives us clarity to be able to see it. And they were not able to just write it off that these are baseless misgivings. This is waswas from shaitan. No, that's what's inside of me. That is a grace. That is a rahmah from Allah. That is a mercy from Allah to know and to be able to have the type of exposure to the things that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is displeased with inside of myself to have that brought forth. That's a rahmah. But how can I know what those things are unless I know what they are, unless I'm engaging with the Quran and that's what I talked about last week? How can I know what those displeasures are? How can I know what the rahmah that this month holds for me except for that I've been given the blessing and the mercy of this month of Ramadan? So again, if we talk about fasting designed by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to increase us in taqwa, right? How do we know that? We know that through the Quran. So that's the Fadr. And what is it? It's a rahmah in our lives. And the fasting, as we mentioned, it has a purpose. It has a goal. What's that goal? So that you will gain taqwa of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now, how we define taqwa, that's something that everyone has the ability to do. But for me, which I like to think of it as is from the linguistic meaning, the linguistic meaning which it means to protect from harm. Right? It means to protect from harm. And that fasting is a shield from waqa to ward off some sort of harm, some sort of blow, some sort of a strike of something. And so what is it doing? It's warding off the harmful effects of sin, protecting others from ourselves and protecting ourselves from ourselves. Right? And so one of the things, again, that the fast does is by locking up the shaltin, then that protects us from the basis misgivings of shaitan, of which we mentioned before, the waswas of shaitan. And then these tactics, which normally are things which call us to indulge in our appetite, cause us to indulge in physical pleasures and cravings and desires in a really in an unfettered way, that Alhamdulillah, I have an entire month, right? I have an entire month not to engage in those things. And that he wants me to ignite that fire, if you will, of the animalistic tendencies and that make us pursue those pleasures as an end in and of themselves and not a means to a livelihood and a lawful way of living. That is fuggled from Allah. That is a Rahmah from Allah that he talks about. Right? That's the grace, if you will, and the mercy, if you will. And how do we know that? We know it through the Qur'an. We know from the Qur'an how to act upright. Right? How to act in a way that is pleasing to Allah SWT and to ward off the temptations of She'aplon. And again, that's out of his mercy. Right? Out of his mercy, he restricts our access to these pleasures in this month, which are pleasures and desires. And as you know that, the breaking of the two desires, a book that Imam Khosali talks about, a food and one's sexual desires, which are two things that Allah SWT removes for the most part of a day while we are fasting. And so, by restricting us of these accesses, or access to these things, then we don't define ourselves by these things. We understand a higher purpose within ourselves. Right? And through our fasting and our relationship, that these desires become less obsessive and less animalistic and more disciplined. That's the other part of this fuddle, if you will, and this rahmah, if you will, this mercy. It's to learn this type of discipline. Yes, as I said, you can be fasting and have intermittent fasting and other types of fasting that is happening, but these are the benefits, the grace, the mercy, and the blessings that really we have to rejoice about when we think about this. So again, when this month is over and we find ourselves back and as I said, this training is over and we're back in that relationship with shaitan, right? We have to think about that Alhamdulillah, this training, just like one trains and their body becomes tone, that one has trained and physically they have restricted the pathways, spiritually they have restricted the pathways and the entrances and the doors and the buttons that shaitan likes to push to get us agitated, not trusting in Allah, having anxiety, these types of things. Very clearly, that's what Allah says in one way. How can we avoid that? Ya ayi hunna, Ya ayi hunna deena amanu la tatiru khutawatu shaitan O you who believe, do not follow the footsteps of shaitan. Okay, so what does that mean? Don't follow in the footsteps of shaitan. Again, I went back to the tafsir and looked at some of the things. It is disobedience of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala that some of the scholars say. Disobedience to Allah, lewd acts and lewd talk, things that are displeasing to Allah that are made clear to us through the Qur'an. And this is what I was talking about last week when I said that once this Qur'an is established in our life as a guide, then it sets out for us the moral path. It sets out for us the principles that we bring into our lives, ethics that we bring into our lives, and that's what we want to live on. And that's what I'm saying that without this relationship of Islam, then the Qur'an does not have that type of relationship in our lives. I'm telling you that from experience. I had although a very limited relationship with the Qur'an. I did have a Qur'an. I bought a Qur'an before I was Muslim. And I read that and it did not have that type of impact on me to push me into those areas or to push myself to challenge myself in those areas and to think about it. But now, Alhamdulillah, Bi-fabdihi, Babirahmatihi, right? Allah has opened up this Qur'an. Allah has brought me to the light of Islam. And then all of that, I have an entire month in which, you know, this Islam, I can contemplate and think about and just to give gratitude, you know, to be of this ummah, the Prophet's Islam and to have this book to read and to have all of the gifts that are presented to self from that way. So those are some of the reflections that I wanted to share. And I pray that Allah SWT brings benefit from this. But at the end of the day, like I said, thinking of this Qur'an as a fadl of Allah SWT in our lives, inside Ramadan and outside of Ramadan. And also thinking of Islam as a rahmah from Allah in our lives. And again, unless, you know, one understands the intensity of life without faith, it really will aid you to understand what a mercy it is to be able to call ourselves Muslims. And so may Allah SWT bless everyone in the remaining days and nights of Ramadan. May Allah SWT bless the MCC community and continue to pour down his fadl and its rahmah on this community. And with that, I bid you a good night and may Allah SWT bless your ibadah and the remainder of this month and may Allah SWT bring you incredible blessings on this evening. Wassalamu Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.