 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa la alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. Being a principal person, especially in modern times, in our times, is a very difficult proposition. There's a hadith that's related by Imam al-Tirmidhi from Anas ibn Malik, where the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, يأتي على الناس زمان الصابل فيهم على دينه قلقابتي على جمر. And he said that there will come a time upon the people when the one who is steadfast in his religion will be like a person clutching onto a burning piece of coal. Simply maintaining that there is an absolute truth or that there is a moral right and wrong will make you the target of ridicule and verbal attack in our culture. Abrahamic tradition is under ideological attack. In the media and in the academy, they'll call you all sorts of things. All sorts of ad hominem epithets, backward misogynist, homophobic, violent, stupid, archaic. And people don't like to be ridiculed or verbally attacked. So what do they do? Well, they're going to drop the coal and say, wow, that is just too hot. I can't handle it. People are led to believe nowadays that atheism is better for societal well-being than theism. There was an 18th century French philosopher, a believer in God, who said it like this, imagine you had a magic button. And if you press this button, all of the wealth of the entire world would come into your possession. But there's one catch. If you press this button, a human being, a random human being anywhere in the world will fall down dead. It could be anyone. It could be your own mother. It could be a total stranger halfway around the world. So he says, to whom would you entrust this button? To a very devout, God-fearing Abrahamic theist who believes in absolute moral accountability, who believes in a day of reckoning, a day of judgment, or to a very committed atheist who believes in natural selection, who believes in survival of the fittest, does not believe in an afterlife, who does not believe in any type of supernatural moral accountability. Think about it. Ibn Jusea Al-Kalbi, he said that there are seven compositional forms in the Quran. In other words, seven types of ayat in the Quran. Two of them are covenantal and retributive, or wa'ad and wa'id, promise and threat. The following is a retributive verse that I find myself quoting a lot these days. Allah SWT says, ''O ye who believe, may the Sufi come to Allah with a people who love Him and love Him. Shadr over the believers and as a respect for the disbelievers. You strive in the cause of Allah, and fear not even if you meet Him. So be a favour to Allah and deliver Him whom He wills. Allahu Wa'S抹ign, you who believe. who ever amongst you amongst you, turns away from the deen, from his deen, soon will Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bring a people whom he will love and they will love him, lowly with the believers. But izzatina ala kaafirin, but having izzat, having honor, having a type of strictness with the unbelievers, yujahiruna fi sabilillah, striving and struggling in the way of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and never afraid of those who find fault, never afraid of being blamed for being believers. That is the grace of Allah, that He gives to whomever He wills and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is wasiun aleem, He is the one who is all encompassing and omniscient. So what do we glean from this ayah? We glean that the main reason for the irti dad, the main reason for the apostasy that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is describing in this ayah is a lack of love because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, ya'di, ya'di Allahu bi qawmin, yuhibbuhum wa yuhibbunahu, that if you turn away, then Allah will bring a people, a people that He will love and they will love Him. So it's a lack of love according to the exegetes, the ulama, the mufassereen of this verse. Whom does Allah love and why? Well in the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala explicitly tells us the categories of people whom He loves. These are believers who exemplify some sort of character virtue. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, inna allaha yuhibbu attawabin, for example. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves the people of tawbah, the people who repent. Inna allaha yuhibbu al muttahtahireen, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves the people of tahara, the people of purity who purify themselves. Inna allaha yuhibbu al muqsiteen, the people of qista, the people of justice. Inna allaha yuhibbu al mutawakireen, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves the people of tawakul, the people who put their trust in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Inna allaha yuhibbu al muttaqeen, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves the people of taqwa, the people of piety, the people who fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Inna allaha yuhibbu al sabireen, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves the people of patience, the people of perseverance, the people of sabr, Inna Allah yuhibu al-muhsineen, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves the people of ihsan, the people who make things beautiful, the people of spiritual and every other type of excellence. These are the virtues of the Hiba'u Allah, of the beloved ones of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now there is a hadith in Tirmidhi, and there's some weakness in the hadith. With the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, his reports have said something quite amazing. He said, Inna Allah ha'amaranee bihubi arba'ah, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has ordered me to love four people, wa akhbarani annahu yuhibuhum. And he's informed me that he himself loves these people. Qila ya Rasulallah, it was said, O messenger of God, sanmihim lana, name them for us. Now he's going to name them, but if you look at all four of these names you'll notice that these were men who never wavered in the Deen. They were principled, they were dedicated, they were loyal, all of the virtues that are extolled in the Quran. People of repentance, of purity, of justice, of trust, of piety, of patience, etc. The first one that he named was Sayyidina Ali ibn Abi Talib, radiallahu tara'anhu. Imam al-Tabari says that in the early Meccan period when the ayah was revealed wa anzir ashirataka al-Aqrabin, warn your family who are nearest of kin. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam asked Sayyidina Ali to organize a dinner party. And 40 men of the aristocrats of Bani Abdul Muktalib attended. And Sayyidina Ali was maybe 13, 13 years old at the time. And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, he stood up and he said, I've been ordered to call you to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wa htahu la sharikala. Call, I've been ordered to call you to Allah as the singular God with no partners. Which of you will help me in my mission? And there was a long uncomfortable silence and then Sayyidina Ali stood up and said, I will help you. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam said, haadaa akhii. This is my brother. Ateehu, obey him. And all of the men started laughing and said, he's ordering us to be under your son. They were saying that to Abu Talib. But that was Sayyidina Ali. La yakhafu loma talaim. He wasn't afraid of people who who found fault in him or blamed him for his religion. And of course we have the famous hadith or the famous statement of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. It's mentioned by Ibn Majah that when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was at Khaybar, he said one night, la aba'atanna rajulan yuhibbu allahu wa rasulahu wa yuhibbu allahu rasulahu. Tomorrow I'm going to give the standard to a man who loves Allah in his messenger and who is beloved to Allah in his messenger. And he gave it to Sayyidina Ali. In Bukhari we are told that the mushriqeen wanted to revise the treaty of Hudaybiyyah from saying Muhammadur Rasulullah to Muhammad ibn Abdullah. And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, he ordered Sayyidina Ali, he said, erase where it says Rasulullah and Sayyidina Ali said, la wallahi la amhuka abada. I would never erase you. So Sayyidina Ali even disobeyed the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, but it was out of love and reverence for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. The next name that he mentioned was Abu Dhar al-Ghifari. When Abu Dhar al-Ghifari became Muslim, he went to the Kaaba and started shouting la ilaha illallah and the mushriqeen beat him within an inch of his life. And al-Abbas had to throw his body over him to save his life. And the Prophet said to Abu Dhar, you should not have done that. And Abu Dhar said, I couldn't help it. And when the Prophet passed away sallallahu alayhi sallam, Abu Dhar moved to the Syrian desert. He never recovered from the passing of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. He was never the same. He was terminally heartbroken. And the third man he mentioned al-Muqtad ibn al-Aswad that just before the Battle of Badr, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, he held a war council. And the Prophet told the Ansar that the coming conflict was within the Quraish. In other words, between the polytheistic meccans and the Muslim immigrants. So the Ansar were not required to join the fight. Imam al-Bukhari, he relates on the authority of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud that al-Muqtad ibn al-Aswad, he stood up in the council. And he said, Ya Rasulallah, inna la naqoolu laka kama qalat banu Israel li Musa fathhab anta wa rabbuka fa qatilaa inna haa hunaa qa'idun. We will not say to you. As the Bani Israel said to Musa alayhi sallam, go you and your Lord and fight and we will sit here. Walakin imdi wa na'hnu ma'ak, but advance and we are with you. Faka anna hu surriya an Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam. And it was as if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam's face was beaming with joy at the words of al-Muqtad ibn al-Aswad. In the fourth name, he mentioned Salman al-Farisi. Salman, of course, was a scholar of religion who traveled the world to find the truth. He was told by a Christian bishop in Iraq that the appearance of a Prophet was imminent in the hijaz. Salman arrived in Medina and he was captured as a slave of the Bani Qureda and he was a slave for years. And once in a while he'd see the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and feel absolutely elated until finally the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam found a way for him to be free from his so-called master. And the Prophet said in a hadith in Tirmidid that if Eman, if faith was suspended from the Pleiades, haa tha wa ashaabuhu, this man and his companions would find a way to reach it. The Prophet said about him, Salmanu minna ahl al-Bait, Salman is from us, the people of the house, an honorary member of the ahl al-Bait. Amarani bihubbihim wa akhbarani annahu yuhibbuhum. The Prophet said that I've been ordered to love them and I've been informed by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that he loves them. So look at the qualities of these beloved ones of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So my advice, my parting advice is to be patient, to keep going, to keep the faith, to understand that life is a marathon and that we need to pace ourselves. But don't stop running. Don't sell out the religion and don't check out of the religion. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ordered us in the Quran wa abudurabbaqa hatta ya'atiqa liyaqeen, to worship your Lord, worship your Lord until al-yaqeen, certitude, or the certain thing should come to you. And many of the exigents, including Imam al-Qurtubi, Imam al-Razi, At-Tabariz al-Makshari, they say that the meaning of al-yaqeen here is probably a reference to death. Worship your Lord until death comes to you, because that's certain. One of the very last things that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said while he was in his final illness, he sat on the minbar in the mosque. And he said Inna Allah khayyara abdan, beina dunya wa beina ma'inda. Allah he said that indeed Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given a choice to one of his servants between what is in the world and what is with him. Fakhtaara thalika al-Abd ma'inda Allah and that certain servant chose what is with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Fabbaka Abu Bakr and at that Abu Bakr's Sadiq, he started to weep. And Abu Sa'id al-Khudr, he said Fajibna li-bukaihi, that we were very surprised at his weeping. Why was he weeping? And then he realized that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was talking about himself, that he was the servant, that his time was very short. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Fasbiru hatta talqawni alal haud. Be patient, persevere until you meet me at the haud at my basin. So be patient, keep going, persevere. Until we meet the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, insha'Allah just outside of paradise. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and his messenger know we can't be perfect. Do the best we can. Fattaq allah masdataatum as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran, fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as much as you can. Do your best. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, try your best to be upright, although you will not be able to do so. We will never reach perfection, but do your best. And he said, work work and the best of your actions is the prayer. Wa khayru a'malukum as-salah. Wa la yuhafidu alal wudui illa mu'min and only a believer is constant in his ablutions. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us the Taufiq to understand. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa alayhi wa sallam. Alhamdulillahi rabbil al-alameen.