 We begin with the thanks and the praises of Allah SWT, proclaiming to Him, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, Alhamdulillah. And when we thank Him, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the very act of thanking Him is a blessing from Him. And so our very ability to thank Allah is a blessing from Allah. And thus we are always in a constant state of expressing our gratitude towards Him because He continues to place us in positions in which we can praise Him. So for all of that we say, Alhamdulillah. Allah SWT has chosen every single one of us to be in this specific gathering today. And this gathering is not like any other gathering that takes place. The Prophet SAW tells us that when those gatherings occur in which Allah is remembered, in which the zikr of Allah takes place, that the angels that are flying throughout the heavens and the earth, searching for these gatherings, they come to this gathering. And then Allah begins to shower His mercy and forgiveness upon each and every single member within that gathering. And so if we think about the very presence of this gathering, the attendance itself is the cure. The attendance itself is the blessing. The attendance itself is what we seek. If you make a simple analogy, you can go to a doctor's office and you have something wrong with your body. By you attending the appointment with your doctor, the appointment with your physician, through the attendance of that appointment, all you get is information. You begin to understand what is happening in you. You begin to understand how to be cured, but the cure does not take place. The cure occurs when you go home. The cure occurs when you have the operation. The cure occurs when you take the medication. The cure occurs after the fact. This gathering is an exception to that rule, that there is no requirement upon you other than to attend, other than to be present, other than to be here, and that difficulty that you feel that occurs before you come here or that will occur after you leave. Allah is telling you that by your very presence in this gathering, He will cure that for you. That is the intention by which we should be sitting here today. That our very sitting here is going to solve the problems that we face outside of here. And one thing that we can take away when it comes to a specific zikr is the zikr of the salawat. In this community, it is very well known that the salawat is done abundantly, that the salawat is done frequently. People are familiar with different types of salawat, but let us make it our intention to understand. What does this salawat mean? What does it mean that I am sending blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad SAW? The first is that the virtues associated with the salawat are endless. When we ask our scholars what are the virtues of the salawat? They write books, pages and pages, hundreds of pages just listing out the virtues of just saying Allahumma salli ala Muhammad. How many blessings can be derived from such a simple statement and they continue to write on and on and on. When one of the famous teachers that we all know his name, Marabat al-Hajj, was asked about the virtue of different afqar, he said do this one this many times and do this one this many times and do this one this many times. When he is asked about the salawat, there is no limit to how many salawat you should do. So the virtues are endless, we are only going to mention a few. And the few that we mention we should think about carefully and think about what it means to give salawat and what is the benefit of that salawat. So just to list a few, I will go through these quickly. That amongst the virtues of the salawat is the removal of sadness. It is the fulfillment of one's needs in the dunya and the akhira. It is granting one forgiveness from all of their sins. It is re-establishing the faith that exists within one's heart. It is the removal of hardships that one faces on a daily basis and so on and so forth. Ubay' ibn Ka'ab, radiallahu anhu, a Sahabi asked the Prophet ﷺ, I have extra time. How much of this extra time should I devote for doing salawat upon you? The Prophet ﷺ said do as much as you can. So he said I will do a third of my extra time for salawat upon you. He said that's good but more is better. So he said I'll do half of my extra time salawat upon you. He said that's good but more is better. He said two thirds of my extra time I'll give for salawat upon you. He said that's good but more is better. Until Ubay' ibn Ka'ab, radiallahu anhu said all of my free time that I have I give for salawat upon you. Through that act all of his cares and concerns are taken care of. Through devoting oneself to the salawat upon Nabi ﷺ. But let's think why? What is happening? What is the significance of it? When we hear the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ that's when he says and he's describing the one who is Baqeen, the one who is miserly, the one who is stingy with his wealth and has stinginess and miserliness and selfishness as part of his character. He says this person is the one who when I am mentioned he does not send salawat upon me. That when I am mentioned Nabi Karim ﷺ this person does not send salawat upon me. So the absence of salawat in someone's life is what a sign of their selfishness, is a sign of their miserliness. And so when we take this hadith and put it in relation to the other hadith of Ubay' ibn Ka'ab what do we understand from these two hadith? That the extra time that we have if we in that time ask Allah for our needs I'm having this issue at work, O Allah, solve it for me. I'm having this issue with my relatives, O Allah, solve it for me. O Allah, I'm having this issue at school, O Allah, solve it for me. It's good one that you're making dua. But what is this deeper implication that's hidden behind the meaning of salawat? Is that you're asking for yourself and so what Allah gives you is in accordance with what you ask. And so if you ask out of your wisdom and out of your knowledge and out of your understanding for the solutions that you think are best for your problems then that's what Allah is going to give you. But instead if you do as Ubay' ibn Ka'ab, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu does that he fills his extra time not asking for himself. He fills his extra time not worrying about his own problems. He fills his extra time not beseeching Allah for how he can figure out his own solutions but rather he dedicates that time to al-Nabi al-Kareem sallallahu alayhi wasallam. He dedicates that time to sending salawat upon the best of creation, he sends that time that he has for the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will take care of your needs without you having to ask for them. Allah will take care of your needs in a solution better than you can think of. Allah will solve your problems with a solution that you didn't even imagine. Allah will do all of this for you because why? You are not using your time for yourself but you're using your time for the one that Allah loves most. So then we ask what is the secret of salawat that many of us don't understand? The secret of salawat is handing over your affairs to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doing it through the mention of Habib sallallahu alayhi wasallam and in showing that selfless act, in showing your trust in Allah, in showing your love for Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam, no harm will afflict your heart, no problem will afflict your household, no sadness will creep into your mind, all of your difficulties will be taken care by the one who placed those difficulties in your life. All of those difficulties will be removed by the one who is in control on whether or not those difficulties exist. If you replace your needs, if you replace yourself with the love of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam that is the reward that Allah promises you. That is the reward that he talks to you about in the Quran when he says He is the one who will do salawat upon you along with his angels who will do salawat upon you. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow these meanings to descend into our hearts to allow us to develop a love for Nabi Kareem sallallahu alayhi wasallam and to allow us to learn how to sacrifice what we have for his sake sallallahu alayhi wasallam sallallahu alayhi wasallam astawfirullah ali wa lakum wa lisa'iril muslimin fa astawfiruh innahu hu wa l-ghafur ar-raheem Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam innallaha wa malaykata hu yusalluna anal nabi Ya ayyuhal ladzina aaman wa sallu alayhi wa sallim utasneema Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa ala alim Muhammad kumma sallayta ala Ibrahim wa ala ala Ibrahim innaka hamidun majeed Allahumma barika ala Muhammad wa ala alim Muhammad kumma baraka ala Ibrahim wa ala ala Ibrahim fil ala alameena innaka hamidun majeed A last note to mention before the end of the khutbah is how do we increase in our salawat upon Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam There are two methods that our teachers encourage us to do and those methods are Biladad or Bilkam in terms of quantity or without quantity so we dedicate ourselves that every single day we should dedicate this many salawat that we're going to do this many salawat upon Nabi Karim sallallahu alayhi wasallam whether that's ten in the morning and ten in the evening or a hundred in the morning and a hundred in the evening or to whatever extent that one is capable of doing that's one method in terms of number then the other method is without number that instead of doing salawat by account you do salawat by a place or an action that you dedicate your car ride to work to salawat or you dedicate your bus ride home from school to salawat or you dedicate the time when you're cooking to salawat or you dedicate the time and so on and so forth pick a time or a place in the day an action that you do something that's part of your schedule and you dedicate that action and you dedicate that behavior that in this time I will do salawat and I'm not going to count I'm just going to recite so either through number or without number and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us people of salawat so that when the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam sees us on the day of judgment that he will be able to recognize us by the light that is coming from our faces due to the salawat that we made upon him