 Inna Alhamdulillah, all praise is due to Allah, surely all praise is due to Allah, inna Alhamdulillah. Nafluduhu and then again we praise Him and we seek His assistance and we orient ourselves solely towards Allah. And we thank Allah, we give sugar to Allah and we start in the name of Allah that same Lord who has given us His rahmah, His mercy and manifest that mercy in many ways that He has manifested His mercy and allowing us to gather for Jum'ah allowing us to worship Him, allowing us to worship Him. That often we see our worship as a Khidmah, a service that we do to Allah. This is something that benefits us, it doesn't benefit Allah one bit. Allah doesn't need our worship, we need our worship towards Allah, we need to worship Allah. The benefit is for us. Allah is Allah, this Rahman and this Rahim, this most merciful God, this most merciful Lord has given us a world in which we live in that is full of wisdom, that is full of khidmah. And amongst the khidmah that Allah has placed in this world is the phenomena we know is causing an effect. That we, for example, might draw something and we expect it to fall. We drink water and we expect it to crunch our thirst and we eat food and we expect it to satiate our hunger. Allah has placed His khidmah in these means that He has placed for us, that He has placed His wisdom in the means that He has given us. And we are people who take the means and recognize that everything still comes from Allah. That Allah allows us to drink the water and Allah is the one who satiates, who crunches our thirst. And so we find ourselves taking our means for all of our worldly matters. We never stop and say, I'm just going to wait for my sustenance to come. We go out and do our jobs, we never say I'm going to wait for my hunger to be satiated. We actually go out and do the steps to satiate our hunger. We eat food to satiate that hunger. But often we find ourselves being lax in the spiritual means. And we're people who should be taking spiritual means. Right now we're in the 21st of Rajab. That leaves about 40, that leaves a little bit less than 40 days to Ramadan. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, it said that when Rajab came in, he would say, Allahumma, And Allah allows us to reach Ramadan. If it concerns Ramadan, it didn't start on the first of Ramadan. It didn't start the night before when everyone was signing the moot. It didn't start the first day. It didn't start until everything kind of settled in and people got used to the fast and the coffee had equals gone. That's not when the concern for Ramadan starts. The concern for Ramadan starts much before. It starts at the minimum in the beginning of Rajab. That one of the salafis said that Rajab is the time to plant the seeds and Shaaban were nine months away from Shaaban. Sorry, nine days away from Shaaban. Shaaban is the time to water those seeds. And then Ramadan is the time to cultivate those seeds. So that when we expect to find spiritual benefit in Ramadan, we need to take our spiritual means before them. We can't expect that the train of Shaitan would be derailed immediately on the first of Ramadan. If we don't stop, if we don't stop to take the means to derail that train, to break our habits or to build better habits, perhaps we might not have touched upon it in a while. Perhaps we may have gotten lashed with our prayers. Perhaps we may have gotten lashed with our fasting. Perhaps we haven't fasted since Ramadan. And it's going to hit us hard if we are used to it. So we take our spiritual means. Allah, if we want the spiritual effects, we also take our spiritual means. The same way we take our material means, when we take our material means we expect the material effect. The same way we should take the spiritual means and expect the spiritual effect. So a lot of times we find ourselves in Ramadan. And towards the end of it is when we start to really feel the blessing of the month. And then we find ourselves enjoying the prayer. We find ourselves enjoying Qur'an. Why not start that earlier? Why not start in Hajj and plant those seeds? Pick up the Qur'an up the shelf. Fast a few extra, no offence, fasts. A few recommended fasts. And take our spiritual means so that when the time comes in Ramadan that we find the spiritual effect of those means we took manifest. And so we might tell ourselves, well I haven't touched the Qur'an in a while. I don't remember how to read. Or I haven't prayed this prayer on time. Or I haven't done this particular action in a while. Or Rajab is almost over. It's too late for me. It's never too late. Allah is the one who's going to produce that effect. What we're asked to do is to take the means. What we're asked to do is to take the means. And so perhaps we haven't read Qur'an since the beginning of Rajab. It's not too late to start. This is still nine days. Perhaps we might not get a chance in Rajab. Or perhaps Allah may not give us the Tawfiq. Because we do have the time. Often we tell ourselves we don't have the time, but we do have the time. But Allah might give us His Grace and Tawfiq to allow us to make up the Qur'an again. Or to increase how much we read. To be able to make a Khatim in Ramadan or however much we can do. Perhaps we might tell ourselves I don't understand what I'm reading. Well, your reward in reading Qur'an is not contingent. It's not dependent on whether you understand what you're reading or not. There's ten blessings in every letter that you read. We know the Hadith. The Alif, Ma'am, Meem is not one of them. The Prophet ﷺ said that's not one Haqq. It's the Alif is one Haqq. The Laam is one Haqq. The Meem is one Haqq. And there's ten Hasana, ten rewards for each one of them. Imagine the amount of rewards we're going to be accumulating in Ramadan and where the rewards are already multiplied. And so we want to multiply our rewards in Ramadan and not just by the barakah of the time but how much we do as well. And we should get ourselves back into the groove of things. Perhaps if we haven't touched the Qur'an, pick up the Qur'an again. If you don't understand what you're reading, take some time to maybe read a translation in your own language. Or listen to a lecture on your drive. Explain one of your favorite surahs. Maybe visit a surah that you haven't read in a long time. Or maybe perhaps in the Ramadan, find yourself connecting to a surah that you haven't even heard the name of in a long time. A lot of the surahs towards the middle of the Qur'an, we're not very familiar with them. We all know surahs. We know these surahs. But what about some of the surahs we haven't touched? We are Allah's expounding on the bounties He has given us, the Prophet ﷺ. The one who is our Meem, say, thanks Allah, relatively short surah. So if we haven't found ourselves engaging with the words of Allah, it would be difficult for us to find that spiritual effect that we're looking for. If we haven't found ourselves taking our spiritual means, it would be difficult to find the spiritual effect. And we're not doing these actions for some sort of feeling. This is another religion of feelings. This is a religion of servitude towards Allah. Aslam yuslimu, Islam means to submit. It's a religion of submission. And one of the byproducts is that you're going to be closer towards Allah. Allah gives you jannah. Allah gives you this and Allah gives you that. Allah might answer one of your prayers. Ramadan is a time of prayers. Right after the Ayat of Ramadan, Allah says, Right after this Ayat of Ramadan, Surah Al-Bakr, he immediately says, the Ayat that follows immediately after that is when my servant asks of me that I am close. But if we distance ourselves from Allah, how will we feel that closeness? If we distance ourselves from Allah, how will we feel that closeness? Right, we come to Allah and we need something. But how are we going to find closeness to us when we've distanced ourselves? wujibu da'u tadda'i idha da'an. But immediately Allah says, I answer the call of the caller when he calls. Have we called on Allah in our recent, you know, throughout since the last time Allah, have we taken time to really stop into purposely, to very actively, with intention, call on Allah and show Allah our absolute dependence on Him? Have we stopped to show Allah that I'm willing to take the means of Allah, I'm willing to serve you and perhaps Allah from your grace, from your mercy, from your kindness, perhaps you may give me some of the reward. And the sum of the reward is sum of Allah's reward and sum of Allah's mercy is more than we can imagine. A little bit of Allah's mercy is more than we can imagine. Anytime we think that we have understood Allah's mercy, then we should know we have underestimated it. We're a few, only a few days away from Allah. Aiyan ma'ma adudah, we're a few days away from Aiyan ma'ma adudah from a few days. A few days away from a month that's only a few days long. In those few days, we want to take full advantage. So we should start preparing now. We should start putting in our efforts now. We should start looking into the book that Allah has sent us, the guidance that Allah has sent us. We should start looking into that, into the life of the one who was the perfect explanation of that book. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. They come together. We can't understand the Quran without understanding how it was applied by the one it was sent to. And we can't understand the life of the Prophet ﷺ unless we understand the book that was sent to him. They're co-dependent. So in these last few days, we should plant our seeds and in this next month, we should water those seeds, continue building our good habits. So in Ramallah, when the time comes, we feel the spirituality that we're looking for. And we find ourselves easily submitting towards Allah. Sustaining ourselves to Allah. If we feel that we've lost a great amount of time, we should remember that Allah is willing to accept the one who turns to him. The one who makes Toba is literally the one who turns to him. The one who What it literally means is to turn to face back towards Allah, start to face back towards the thing in this context that means towards Allah, right? To turn our hearts back towards Allah. Allah accepts that immediately, perhaps when somebody wrongs us, it might take us some time, it might take us some time to accept the one who turns back to us, right? For a parent, for example, and one of our children, you know, disrespects us. How quickly would the parent, out of the love for the child, how quickly would the parent accept the child? The unconditional love that a parent has, the love that Allah has for us and the acceptance of the repentance that Allah has for us is greater than that of the parent. So if we feel that we've missed out, it's not too late. Allah can allow you to move through the degrees within a shorter amount of time and it doesn't take much more than sincere orientation. Sincere orientation is all it takes and the one who has sincerity, they won't be turned away empty handed from Allah, from the most merciful. So if you feel that we've missed out on the time of Raja, or feel that we're not prepared for Shah-e-Lan or Ramallah, you shouldn't feel that way. It's as simple as us turning and orienting ourselves towards Allah and Allah is going to accept, if he gives us a Taufeeq to be accepted. We ask Allah that he accepts our action, we ask Allah that he accepts our intentions, we ask Allah that he accepts our orientation towards him. We ask Allah that he allows us to be people about the Taufeeq to be cared for towards him. We ask Allah that people who are consistent in Taufeeq, consistent in repentance, consistent in orientation towards him, we ask Allah that we be consistent and recognize our faults and recognize that we have faults and we ask Allah that He prepares those faults. We ask Allah that he allows us to be people who are aware of our own faults before we're aware of the faults of others. We ask Allah that we see no faults in others and that we see faults in ourselves so we may repair ourselves. We ask Allah that He allows us to rectify our own actions and our own intentions and we ask Allah that He allows us to be people, to have sincerity in our repentance, we ask Allah that we make us people who take the means, and we ask Allah that He be people who see the effects of our means. We ask Allah that He allows us to be people who have Dar Nathan within their Community in their Shabbat and their Masha'abat front. We ask Allah that He allows us to be people. who have Dar Nathan allowed us to be according to Allah, And allows us to have Dar Nathan vs Ramallah and what comes after him We ask Allah that He loves the train or whatever, or whatever bad habits we might have. We ask Allah that He loves us to rectify ourselves as this month comes. We take this as this month to be a means of us learning how to turn towards Allah. We ask Allah that this be a month in which we have proximity towards Allah, that we are close to Allah. We ask Allah that He doesn't distance ourselves from Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that He loves us to be people, to see our peace only in Him. We ask Allah that we recognize that Allah and His angels send about blessings and citations. And the Prophet ﷺ were asking the same. We ask Allah that we recognize that Allah and His angels send about blessings and citations. We ask Allah that we recognize that Allah and His angels send about blessings and citations.