 so good to be here Fridays you already know Fridays are special for us Fridays are any Friday any given a Friday is a day of celebration for us a day to say Alhamdulillah a day to thank Allah and that's what we do there are multiple ways to thank Allah right and we do it on Fridays by reading Surah Al-Kahf what is the beginning Surah Al-Kahf? Alhamdulillah, praise and gratitude and thanks be to Allah and on top of it when you have a Eid on this day it's incredible it's incredible to have the the mercy of Allah and the celebration so for that I'll say Iain Mubarak to all of you first of all in Alhamdulillah certainly great gratitude and thanks belong to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and for that reason we thank him when we ask for assistance and help and we believe in him and we put our full unconditional trust in him and I seek refuge with Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds who guides him, Allah is the most merciful and the most merciful and I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone and no partner and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger and Allah is His servant I seek refuge with Allah from the devil and the regime O those who believe in believers, fear Allah, be aware of Allah develop consciousness of Allah, make sure Allah is number one in every single thing that you do Haqqatuqatihi dewehi desarzat falata mutuna illa wa antim muslimudun tu der that you forget what we just said and we just committed to ourselves and you depart this world while you are not in the full state of submission so Alhamdulillah for this day there are we went through a massive journey like for the past month we went through a whole lot Allah's promise was in the Quran Allah's promise was that I make this month easy for you it is not to make it difficult for you that was His promise and there were tons and tons of benefits and we went through a ton of things we gave up a ton of things habits, eating habits, watching habits, talking habits all sorts of things we did for the entire month that was the easy part that was the easy part here is the challenging part that we are all going to face by the way this khutbah is going to be nice, short and sweet day of Eid, I'm not going to sit here and drag for too long so it's just going to be just a few words insha'Allah the tough part is this how do I put this one when you work on a project, when you work on an assignment when you go through all the completion and then you want to make sure that sticks what does it take for that to stick so that will continue on as you move with your life the number one thing about Ramadan was if you didn't know that until now it was for us to make a connection with Allah there was nothing else beyond that all the things we heard, all the things that we did all summed up in one thing we made a connection with God we built a relationship the toughest part comes now how do we sustain everything that we did sustainment is the key word here what is it that we need to do that it will stick some of the habits that we have we can't do everything that we did it's not possible but we have to pick one or two things that we did and we want to change that and we want to continue that forward the entire purpose of Ramadan exactly that you already knew that Ramadan is not to keep yourself hungry or thirsty for 30 days and then the saddest thing will be this whatever we did before Ramadan we stopped, we'll pause for one month and we're going to continue from whatever we left off so I'm not trying to be negative here think about it this way we have to some changes we brought in our life we need to think about it and continue them maybe the changes we wanted to visit our family better maybe we have a better relationship with our siblings maybe we wanted to have a better relationship with the parents with the cousins maybe we want to make a commitment to ourselves of anyone that we know is sick to go and visit or maybe we have to at least do a phone call maybe the commitment is that I don't want to eat that burger and fries twice a week that I was eating or three or four times a week maybe I want to change that habit maybe our thing is that you know what I wasn't good at exercising I want to pick up 20 minutes every other day at a minimum whatever that thing is, commitment the toughest part is that sustain it one of the things that you hear in the Eid Khutbas or even in the Friday Khutbas it's kind of hard to hear and I'm going to mention it there is the remember the six days after the Ramadan thingy you must have heard that there's a hadith that says anyone fast six additional days after Ramadan in this month there's tremendous rewards for it what is the purpose of that the purpose is not to keep you another 60s hungry or thirsty you know the purpose is that hey you went through the entire month you went through this entire exercise just to continue that hear this just to keep the same spirit going do additional six days to keep you around the same vein there are a lot of rules I'm not here to explain the rules about when to do six days and how to do the six days and all that stuff it's up to you it's up to you to figure this out I have my favorite method my favorite method is do the six days on Mondays and Thursdays can you imagine why? double dip as much as you can why not? you're gonna get two rewards Mondays and Thursdays and then add the six days on top of it you get double rewards if the six days happen to come in the white days of the month the 13th, 14th, 15th then you get triple the rewards why not? catch it that way some folks like to do six days in a row alhamdulillah and some folks they allow the entire year for you to do the six days that's a given rule also in our tradition but the point I'm trying to make is this the habits we created for the entire month pick one or two pick one or two and try to stick it as you move forward in life couple of weeks ago one of our brothers one of the really incredible scholars gave a khutbah in the other masjid and it really I loved it everyone loved it and I watched it again the recording and one thing he reiterated he said that could be your door to jannah find your door to jannah that could be it because that was the purpose of Ramadan the purpose of Ramadan for us was to find our way to jannah to eternal life in an easy way in a better way one of these habits could be it if you recall when I was here sometime ago at the beginning of Ramadan I said let's make a goal two or three goals he reiterated probably 30 different options pick one or two of those and that's your goal for the Ramadan and that's your goal for the year if you did that that is it stick it I say this in a few seconds that I'm gonna say to myself and everyone else to ask for forgiveness from Allah I ask forgiveness from Allah I ask forgiveness from Allah I ask forgiveness from Allah Allah says in his book this could be one of the goals for us especially today Friday and Day of Eid it could be make that your goal if it's not your goal make that habit today starting today what am I talking about Allah says in his book the following exactly the same thing there were tons of benefits in Ramadan Saladum Ar-Ghaan we knew that what is one of the benefits guess what shaitan is going to hack if he doesn't know that for 30 days 29 days he couldn't do anything he's back he's gonna entice you with all the things that's the truth um he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you he's gonna tell you that's the truth um Allah said you do the Ramadan for him so he's gonna reward you there's no such thing as one to ten one to seventy one to seven hundred you know the ratio that we have that's not what it is Allah will give you according to he wants that's no longer applicable because Ramadan is gone that's gone now you have to one to ten ratios or so whatever that might be depending on your intention one of the things that we have at our disposal exactly what I just read the your salutation to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and that will increase your consciousness and that will increase your love that will be the secret for your success. Trust me it will bring you every single thing as long as you try to increase your salutation to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam specifically today, specifically today meaning Fridays from now until Morocco. And that is the end of the we inshallah we're going to pray