 As we know the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him described Ramadan with three unique qualities and he said that the beginning of it is mercy and the middle of it is forgiveness and the end of it is freedom from the fire. And so as we approach the end of Ramadan the meaning that should perhaps be most present before us the goal that should be most immediate before us the grand prize as it were of Ramadan that we should all be after is liberation from the torment of the Hellfire we hope and pray and beg Allah that he grant us that Ya Rabbi al-Amin and that despite our shortcomings, despite our bad manners despite our heedlessness because of his grace, his sublimity his kindness that he gaze upon us and the rest of the Ummah and write for us freedom from the Hellfire Ya Rabbi al-Amin And we know that Allah created a world of means He created a world in which He makes ways for things to come about like He created that He made the door so you can come into the house so to speak He created means for things to happen He is the ultimate uncaused cause of all things but He created a world in which if you want something to happen you do something to get that thing to happen and fasting Ramadan and standing at night and giving charity and all of these things that we've been blessed to do of devotional activities is one of the ways that we do that but a reminder for us as we begin to wrap up Ramadan about some things that we can do throughout the rest of Ramadan to hopefully save ourselves from the torment of the fire there's a hadith where the Prophet peace and blessings of Allah be upon him I've reported to him said When he walked in his brother's house it was a good thing for him since he came here for ten years and when he walked in his brother's house Allah made between him and between the fire three windows all the windows were far from each other as the Prophet peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his companions Everything the Prophet said was fascinating this is a fascinating thing that the Prophet has reported to have said that whoever goes to fulfill the need of their brother and we understand by language that this includes their sister the Arabic language defaults to the masculine like many other languages do but it doesn't obviously suggest that it's gender specific so as I translate the rest of the hadith we'll just say it with the masculine default whoever goes to fulfill the need of their brother it's better than making Yertikaf than engaging in spiritual retreat for ten years men mashaf yihad yatiyahi who just goes to fulfill the need of their brother or their sister it's better than spending ten years in Yertikaf and whoever spends one day in Yertikaf sincerely for the sake of God God will place between them and the Hellfire three trenches each of them is further than that which is between the heavens and the earth or the east and the west if you will look how beautiful Allah is it's almost like you only don't get forgiven if you really really don't want to be forgiven it's almost like only if you refuse forgiveness will you not be forgiven whoever fasts Ramadan will be forgiven their past sins believing in Allah, anticipating reward will be forgiven their past sins whoever stands at night in Ramadan will be forgiven their past sins whoever gives someone to break their fast will be forgiven whoever stands on the night of power believing in Allah, anticipating reward will be forgiven their past sins and he says whoever makes Yertikaf for one day sincerely for the sake of Allah it's hyperbole right when he says that he puts three spaces between him and the Hellfire each of them further than the heavens and the earth it's hyperbole meaning that he doesn't even get anywhere near Hellfire if he does his Yertikaf sincerely for the sake of Allah but at the beginning he says what to go fulfill the need of your brother or sister is better than making Yertikaf for ten years so the good news is as Ramadan wraps up is back to life back to reality it's time to get to work it's time to look at if whether the spiritual energy that we got in Ramadan is going to fuel anything meaningful in the world are we going to be people who fulfill the needs of those around us immediately and then by extension anywhere people may have a need and one of the fascinating things about our Prophet ﷺ is that he always may ruin for whatever lane you're going to be in in other words if you're someone who is able to do a lot of devotional work Alhamdulillah you have the devotional side and you get to be rewarded for doing that but many of us especially the outside of Ramadan are extremely busy extremely busy but when the brother or the sister need help all of the sudden we become even more busy Qari Amr Hafidullah may Allah reward him abundantly and bless him and protect him and give him good health and bless his family to think that a man who just spent the last 27 days leading us in prayer the first thing he says when he's done is pray for the volunteers if I was him I'd say pray for me alright pray for me but he says pray for the volunteers what happens when we need help in the community say brother there's an event we need help Alhamdulillah community like this the volunteers are very generous but sometimes when it comes time to help we get even extra busy I remember one time a brother who was active in the community outside of the bay area he complained and he said every time I call the brothers and say that we we need help we need help with the masjid nobody shows up we come at 7 or 8 o'clock we need to help so and so do such and such nobody shows up he said so one day I wanted to trick them and I told them we have a meeting at the masjid at 7 o'clock for dinner and all of them came but there was no dinner so they came and said masha'Allah where's dinner he said there's no dinner I just wanted to show you where our hearts are at Alhamdulillah said if you find it hard to go to the masjid for Fajr but then someone told you tomorrow there will be a wealthy person at the masjid distributing wealth giving out gifts and you showed up to Fajr you know how sincere you really are may Allah give us sincerity my father one time who's a Christian he said to me son do you think you could ask a few of the brothers at the masjid to help me move I said insha'Allah probably hopefully but in my mind I thought what insha'Allah so I called a couple brothers brother Akhi my dad's moving can you help me oh I'm work right wife kids I'm busy and I started to think subhanallah I can't find anybody but then luckily I found one or two brothers who was willing to help so I called my dad I said Alhamdulillah good news I have brothers over he said no no don't worry he said the people at church found out that I was moving they have a moving committee a moving committee that's there all the time whenever anyone in the community is getting ready to move you just let us know and we're ready to help so in our community we have some room for improvement when it comes to willingness to help one another however big or however small but even deeper than that is to do a gut check about how we think about these advices of our beloved son of Allah wa alayhi wa alayhi wa salam salawat wa rabbi wa salam wa alayhi wa alayhi wa salam he said to go help your brother and I automatically think of brother Zaid at the masjid or brother Amr at the masjid hypothetical Zaid or Amr I said Alhamdulillah this hadith next time I said by forces me to give a talk even though I came just to pray Alhamdulillah insha'Allah the hadith applies but more important even than that is for us to remember that our parents our spouses our siblings our children they're included in the idea of someone being your brother our families are Muslim Alhamdulillah and it will apply insha'Allah even if our families are not Muslim our families are Muslim so when the prophet says whoever goes to help his brother it applies to our families as well so to think when your wife makes that ridiculous request that absurd request that insane request for you to stop on the way home and pick something up at the grocery store right do you think you can stop on the way home and get some milk long day of work right I don't have time for this I need to get home watch the game remember the hadith of the prophet and it applies insha'Allah and it applies insha'Allah when your husband makes that ridiculous request of kindly preparing a salt bath for his feet or whatever when he gets home because he had a long day at work she doesn't say I'm busy with the kids insha'Allah and what did the prophet say what did the prophet say Allah will continue to help a servant as long as that servant is helping their brother helping their sister so we say how does a child help their parent how does a child help their parent a child helps their parent by remembering that the frame of reference and the experience that their parent helps their parent and the experience that their parent is drawing from is very different than the frame of reference in the experience that you have so you're patient with your parent be a little more thick skin don't be so reactionary don't flip out every time your parent asks you to do something don't flip out every time your parent doesn't understand they just don't understand maybe they don't just understand but even if they don't be a little more thick skin a little bit more patient try to be more understanding try to be more merciful how does the parent help the child in addition to all the ways that the parent is helping the child already help the child by remembering that the frame of reference that your child and the experience that your child is drawing from is so different than the one that you're drawing from somebody came up to me the other day they said the reason we need young people to be the lingo of the youth and Ali John can relate to the fact that I asked myself do I really? because even me I don't speak, I don't know I was with a young person in our community a few weeks ago they said are you going to be at such and such place at such and such time I said I'm not really sure she said to me okay JW I said JW what does that mean she said just wondering I said JW I said JW I said JW JW different language, different experience even in a few years so if I'm out of touch Subhanallah so to be patient one of the salaf Allah be well pleased with them said I never asked my son and don't get any ideas here but this is just to speak in hyperbole that I never asked my son for 30 years because I was afraid that he might disobey me I was afraid that he might say no and then give him shabu it doesn't mean we're not going to ask our children to help us but it means what to help your child by remembering that drawing from a different experience and we have to remember that our prophet was the best example when it came to accessibility and I'll leave you with one story because it's a story that is moving when your beloved was in the marketplace and he went to buy something for himself and he only had a few coins he didn't have very much money and he came and saw this young slave girl in the marketplace weeping and he said to her and he said to her what's wrong miss what's wrong miss what's wrong when the Arabs say yahadah or yahadihi it's either kind of an affront or to speak in an endearing way if you say yahadah it's either saying hey or it's like saying hey so he says malik yahadihi what's wrong miss and she says O messenger of Allah these people who own me they sent me to the marketplace to buy something and I spent the money so what happens does he give her a khutbah inna alhamdulillah nahmaduhu wa nasta'inuhu what does he do sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam he gives you the little bit of money that he had left for himself and he says here you go so she goes on her way sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam and he comes back a little while later and he finds that she's still sitting there and she's still crying so he says what's wrong did I give you the money did it and she says yahadah I bought the thing that I was told to buy but now I'm late and I'm afraid that when I go home I'm gonna get punished for being late and she said oh messenger of Allah would you do me a favor and he said khubban wa qarama I would be honored to what do we say it depends on what it is huh that's why you have to write before you say yes you say what it depends on what it is he said I'd be honored to and she said oh messenger of Allah would you walk me home and so the prophet of Allah a leader of a community and a father to children and a husband to his family sallallahu alaihi wa sallam took time to walk this young lady halfway across town they said she lived in the furthest part of el-madina and when they came to the door of the house the prophet said assalamu alaikum and nobody responded so he said again assalamu alaikum and nobody responded and then he said a third time assalamu alaikum and then they said so the prophet came and he said why why didn't you respond the first two times they said salam they said oh messenger of Allah we knew that if somebody if you greeted somebody and they didn't respond that you would just keep saying salam and we wanted you to just keep saying salam to us so then what did he do the young lady asked me to come with her I'm paraphrasing obviously for time sake he said that this young lady asked me to come with her and she's worried because she's late and they said oh messenger of Allah since you brought her she's free she's free and they freed her this is how the prophet was sallallahu alaihi wa sallam how could you be the one who says my eyes sleeps but my heart never sleeps my eyes sleeps but my heart never sleeps sallallahu alaihi wa sallam how can you be the one had he said how can you be the one who remembers Allah in every situation how could you be the one he never got angry for himself sallallahu alaihi wa sallam how could you be the one if I look into his eyes How could you be the one that never said no? As it farasda describes him in praising his great grandson, Sayyidina Ali Zayn, Ibn Hussain. He never said no except when he said there's no God but Allah. And if it wasn't for that testimony, his no would have been a yes. One of the sahaba as we close, one time they saw the messenger of Allah wearing a burda, a mantle, like a cloak. And they said that he looked exceptionally handsome in it. And he was always exceptionally handsome. I see some of the mouse not moving. It's like you didn't hear the name of the Habib. I know it's late but it's never too late for Sayyidina Muhammad. They saw the prophet wearing this burda and it had a reddish tone to it. And one of the sahaba came and he said, Ya Rasulullah, can I have that? Can I have your coat? Imagine, be careful on the way out somebody because you heard what he said. He said, Ya Rasulullah, can I have your jacket? Can I have your cloak? And he said, No, of course, yes. And he gave the sahabi to wear the cloak. But then the companions were bothered by that. They didn't like the fact that he took the prophet's cloak. So they came and they said, Why did you take it? The prophet looked exceptionally beautiful in it. And he said, I only took it because I know he would never be asked something and say no. And I didn't want it for myself but I wanted it so they could bury me in it. So I could be buried in something that touched the body of the Messenger of Allah, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. How could you be all of those things and then still be in the menial service of the people in your community? Still be the one, it was narrated about him that never did one of his family members or his community or a young person or an old person in his community call him except that he responded by saying, Labbaik. Here I am at your service. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So we pray that Allah will make us service-minded people. Now some of you may say that doesn't sound spiritual enough. That doesn't sound Ramadan-y enough. But it's actually at the core of Ramadan. For those of you who came late, he said, Whoever goes to fulfill the need of his brother is better than being in Ertikah for 10 years. And whoever spends one day in Ertikah sincerely for the sake of Allah. Allah will put three trenches between him and the Hellfire, each of them further than that which is between the heavens and the earth. May Allah free us from the fire, Ya Rabbil Alameen. And may Allah continue to bless this community, Ya Rabbil Alameen. Bless this masjid and bless the people who care for it and bless the people who spend them and bless this young man who is knocking over the microphone.