Khutbah – From Ritual To Spiritual

salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Who this up to Nasir Jang de and you're listening to the Calum Institute podcast. The following recording is hooked by gave here at the start of the month of Ramadan, in which I talk about how to take the ritual and make it more spiritual. How do we take that which has become mundane within our daily lives and make it more meaningful, and how we can truly make this Ramadan a transformational experience for all of us. So listen to the hookah. Hopefully it's a benefit to you and share it with family and friends. And I also wanted to very quickly share an opportunity with all the listeners in the subscribers and anyone who has benefited

from the podcast 100 love for the last six years, we've been bringing you the column podcast consistently with a number of different series like the Seattle podcast, all the different series with Mufti Kimani, the hood buzz like this, the column hanging out with myself and instead Murphy and inshallah we have every intention to continue to bring this to you. And keep on adding new series to the podcast in sha Allah. We have never asked the community for anything in exchange or in return for these podcasts. Because we believe that this is the right thing to do. And we're trying to benefit the community at large in every way that we can. However, what I wanted to share with you

here today is an opportunity to do some good and become our partners and continuing to benefit the community. Alhamdulillah Pelham is continuing to grow and expand. And we're launching a lot of very cool initiatives that are going to really hopefully in sha Allah by the permission, the will of Allah benefit the community at a very large scale. The seminary is expanding. We are launching programs to serve the youth in the community chaplaincy program, and we're continuing to grow all the services that we do for the sake of the community. So in sha Allah, this Ramadan, we have a campaign where people can support Calum and people can join in and people can become a part of this

hate and this other guy, God and good that's going on in the community. Please go to support alum.com support column.com and give whatever you can contribute whatever you can. If you've ever benefited from this podcast in any way, then please go to the link and help us continue to help more people and share the link with others as well. And we look forward to inshallah building and continuing to deliver more and develop more services for the benefit of all of humanity. Just below head on. Sorry for taking up a couple of minutes of your time here in the beginning. And now we'll go ahead and go to the hotel.

And hamdulillah al hamdu lillahi Alia Dotty Avi misaka smec magika bt Sharon, jelly Paddy raffia declamatory emilija legal prohaska for him is Mira Xena in us in a mega field of rock from

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win when I shall enter Mohammed Abu rasuluh remember also lls for the villa and Monroe to be sure he saw the water forensic. What's up Allahu Allah you either you or us hobby? Allah Dena whom philosopher da da da da da

da mb ambia. I'm about to figure out what to look for in a tetrahedron Soto. We're finding that tekoa malaccan has an ad. Where are they Commissioner? famous una de de la Lita. aminata, la Sula, hufa to Russia. What Yahoo will be the final Big Daddy in Amazonia mommy arcilla huaraz hula hoop, la la la la. La La can be a son saying Allahu Shiva machining, whether Ufa in the Houma Jeeva diary was sofiero you can be a Malinois by name

shaytani r Rajim Shang Ramadan living on Salafi hill or on hudl in sov anatomy, alhuda will focus on

the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and his time he gathered all the Sahaba the Allahu taala, on whom all the companions of the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him and may Allah be pleased with all of them. The Prophet gathered all of his companions together, and it happened to be about two to three days before the month of Ramadan was arriving on the 27th or the 28th of the month of shaba.

The prophets allottee some gathered all the companions together. This was in the second year.

of the profits, a lot of isms residents in the city of Medina,

they had spent 13 years striving and surviving, trying to keep their emaan amidst all the torments and the persecution that they faced in Mecca, they tried to keep their faith through all of them. Finally, Allah subhanaw taala provided them a place to call their own. And they made the migration a very arduous, a very dangerous, treacherous journey,

all the way from Mecca to Medina. And they arrived there eventually in the profits a loving senem also arrived, and they settled the community and they started a community from the ground up, they built a community from scratch.

And it had been about almost a little more than a year and a half, that they had been here in Medina now.

building this community and establishing a place a safe place

where anyone and everyone was welcome.

And where people could come from far and wide men and women, young and old, Arab non Arab, it didn't matter rich or poor, slave and free. It didn't matter who you were, that there was a place for you to belong.

And there was a place for you to practice your faith freely with dignity.

And they had been building this community. They were in the second year of their community, the community of Medina

and the end of the month of Shaban was the month of Siobhan was about to finish. And the next month, the ninth month of the lunar calendar. Even before Islam

was known as a month of Ramadan, Ramadan, the Arabs even before Islam called the ninth month of the lunar calendar, they called it Ramadan.

Because the word Ramadan it means heat, extreme heat.

And so they say that the year or the time when that name of that month was assigned. at that particular time Ramadan had fallen in the summertime like right now.

And so so hard that they called it Ramadan from Rama which means extreme heat. Nevertheless, this month of Ramadan

that so far there was nothing very distinct about it. It was not known as one of the sacred months. There were four sacred months in the lunar calendar for the pre Islamic Arabs, the month of Ramadan.

And then the month of April cada will hit Jaya and moharram Those were the sacred months. Ramadan was not a sacred month before Islam. So it's just an ordinary month of the calendar. And the Prophet sallallahu Sallam gathered the companions together. And at that particular time the profits allow me some told them

but the avala come shadow

that this month has come upon you

that it is a great blessing from Allah subhanaw taala

and is a month of forgiveness a month of mercy a month of coming closer and nearer to Allah subhanaw taala. It is a month in which souls are freed from the fire of hell.

great blessings reside within this month. It's a month of redemption a month to redeem yourself a month to find yourself again, a month to remind you of who you really are. To confirm your identity to have better your relationship with your Creator, to drop in work bad habits out of your system to develop and build good habits is a great blessing month that has come upon you. And this is the month of Ramadan.

And the prophets Allah exam recited the ayah to the companions from Sultan Baqarah Surah Surah from Surah Baqarah Allah the prophecies and recited the ayah that Allah had just revealed Shang Ramadan, the month of Ramadan, Allah He owns in a field

in which operon was sent down, which reminded the companions that 15 years before this conversation that they were having now with the prophets, a lot of a sudden, nearly 15 years ago. It was that same month of Ramadan in which the prophets a lot he said them went to the cave of Heyerdahl and he was there when you believe that a Salaam came to him and brought the very first revelation and the greatest message from Allah subhanaw taala to ever be delivered to humanity if Arabic Allah Allah

this month. If you look at this, it is the month in which the Quran first came down the mission of the Prophet system.

started the Koran was given to this world to the to humanity.

It is the month, as I mentioned, they came there in the second year, it became the month that the whole community would come together. People would fast together, prayed together, do air to God together, stay in the masjid together.

It is the same month in which Allah subhanho wa Taala granted the Muslims, the most remarkable victory of the life of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, and maybe in the entirety of Islamic history. And that was the Battle of Baba. It happened in this month, that the Muslims were given their dignity.

And they their pride was restored in terms of their autonomy

and their sanctity.

This is the same month in which Allah subhanho wa Taala returned that GABA back to its original purpose. For tomeka the conquest of Morocco was in the month of Ramadan.

With the legacy of Ibrahim Ali Salaam to do avec Rahim, Ali Salam from Allah knows how long before he was that that da was accepted that legacy was fulfilled, the Gada was returned back to its original purpose. When the prophets a lot of these women, the companions WinZip, aka, took control of Makkah, clean the Kaaba out from the idols, and restored it to its original purpose. And that is a worship of Allah subhanaw taala. All of this happened during the month of Ramadan, what is my point to say all of this, this is the month of change. This is the month of new beginnings. This is the month that has the ability Allah has placed the mercy and Allah has given us gifts and blessings

in this month that can help us change our lives.

The fact of the matter is, and I want to I wanted this conversation, I want this conversation to be a very positive, uplifting conversation. But the fact of the matter is, many of us have had a very difficult year.

Some of us, the year did not go as we planned for it to

what we have thought about doing last Ramadan did not come to fruition throughout the rest of the year. Many of us are very disappointed in ourselves. Many of us are very even, dare I say broken now at the end, after the entirety of the year. And we're maybe crawling, stumbling falling into the month of Ramadan. Undoubtedly.

But we cannot carry that negativity and that baggage into the month of Ramadan. great miracles are performed in this month from the revelation of the Quran, to the victory angels fighting in the battlefield.

great miracles, this is a month of miracles. And the greatest miracle of all is for a human being to be able to find his or her way back to their Creator, back to Allah subhanaw taala. That's what's possible during this month.

And that's the mentality we have to go into this month with.

And in terms of realizing some actual change in this month. There's one very specific action item, one point that I wanted to emphasize in today's football

in Islam, spirituality, spirituality Rouhani, they call it a lot of times EMA and Rouhani are building your faith, your spirituality. It is a combination of two things. It is a combination of two things. Number one is intentionality.

You have to know what you're doing, why you're doing what you're doing, how you're doing it while you're doing it, what you're doing, you have to know you have to understand you have to have awareness, consciousness.

cognizance, that intentionality, the Nia has to be there the intention, I understand it, I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Number two,

the second part of this equation of spirituality

is an action. It is both something that is a combination of the internal,

the internal and the external. If you're missing any one of those two, you will not attain spirituality

alladhina amanu wammie lasagna

that requires both. For example, if I have the most noblest of intentions, if I say I want to come closer to a law, I want to be pious, I want to be righteous, I want to be a better person, etc, etc, etc. But I don't pray and I don't fasten. I don't give charity and I don't do anything.

Then that's exactly what we talk about Nima Taku, Luna malata, follow, you're just talking but you're not doing anything. That's lip service that's empty. It doesn't do anything.

There's nothing no good that's put out into the real world. It's just empty talk. Talk is cheap.

But on the flip side, and this is the one that's very, very, this is the one that's very dangerous. Because this one is very sneaky.

We don't realize that it's occurring, we don't realize that we've fallen into it, you can fall into it without even realizing it. What is that second one. The second one is when you have all the action on the inside.

But you have no awareness and no intentionality on the inside. You are performing a ritual.

you're performing a ritual. We live in a very results oriented society. We live in a very results oriented culture today.

We're it's all about numbers. It's about the spreadsheet. It's about the bottom line. It's about the quarterly numbers.

It's about the numbers at the end of the month. It's about sales. It's about invoicing, it's all a results. It's about numbers and statistics. We live in a very results oriented culture and society. And you know what that does to us spiritually, spiritually, it has demented us, it has twisted us to where we just focus on the results. I fasted 30 days, I gave $1,000 in South Africa. And I prayed five times a day, and I finished a complete Muslim full complete reading of the Quran results produced.

And therein lies the problem.

Because we're just looking at the outward consequences and results. We've become bean counters as they used to call them.

bean counters to people that would do the accounting that would do the numbers

that they're known as Yes, they're very essential people. If they're any accountants here, I don't mean to offend you. They're very essential people in terms of the business. But the reason why they would talk call them bean counters, it was a demeaning term, because a bean counter is somebody who's very short sighted, he doesn't see beyond the table. He just sees the numbers in front of him and just obsesses over those numbers. But what about the vision and the strategy

and the 10 year plan and the 15 year plan and the 20 year vision?

The bean counter doesn't get that. And that is a classic classic clash in the business realm between the visionary and the bean counter.

Well, we have to understand that this bean counting world that we are a part of today

that that has turned into spiritual bean counters as well. We just count so the ones, you just count fast, we count just that we've read, we count the dollars that we gave him all the time we're satisfied with them. Now somebody will say, well, we're not supposed to pray we're not supposed to fess. Now that's not the point. The point is that we don't understand why we're doing what we're doing.

You were so satisfied, I will speak about myself. I am so satisfied that I prayed five times. today. hamdulillah somethings better than nothing. That's a losers mentality, by the way.

For somebody else somethings better than nothing for myself, I should never say something's better than nothing. Why am I excusing myself? So I get very satisfied and I pat myself on the back I prayed five times today. I shall Alhamdulillah

but did I actually feel a connection with Allah subhanaw taala even once in those five prayers.

I fasted 30 days but did I even lose one bad habit?

After fasting for 30 days?

I read 30 pages of the forearm in the month of Ramadan. Did I understand even one word

of Allah Allah one word of what Allah said to me.

I gave $1,000 in South Africa

but then I give even one person

who is crying and suffering did I give one person a hug

the prophet SAW somebody gave the example did I place even one time that I placed my hand on the head of an orphan

and so you'll be okay son.

When the preference a lot he said he sees an orphan The first thing he does doesn't write a check the profits a lot of them sees but she didn't but she wrote the Allahu Allahu lowboy. His father died in the Battle of martyred Shaggy, and the process of seasoned crying in the profits of others and picks him up, puts him on the right on the camera with him. And he hugs him and he says, I'm an akuna Baca.

I'm your father. I She's your mother, don't you price them?

Did that ever occurred? Did that connection ever get made? That's the question.

And so we are dealing with a predicament. It's not a very it's not an insurmountable, it's not impossible.

But if we never acknowledged

problem that we never can work towards a solution. We have a problem. We have become committed, addicted, pacified, complacent with performing the ritual.

That's it. And the meaning the insight, the rule, the soul, the intention ality that is lacking that is missing. And we must make a commitment that this Ramadan is when we reclaim our souls. This Ramadan must be the time where we wake up. This Ramadan has to be the moment in which we re inject meaning and purpose into the rituals that we are performing. Nia in nama Malou Binya This is what the prophets also was talking about. actions are rooted within the intentions, actions are rewarded by the intentions, actions are supported from the intentions that are made behind them. The prophets Allah Subhana Allah, you went as far as saying Nia to look mini hadal minimally he, the intention of

the believer is better than his or her action.

Because I am a very weak, frail person, I might not be able to do much.

I might not be able to give more than a couple of 100 bucks I might not be able to read more than a couple of Jews.

But I can have great intentions. I am going to connect with a lot this month of Ramadan. I'm going to understand what am I saying to me in the peran during this month of Ramadan, I am going to try to make a difference in people's lives this month of Ramadan. I'm going to renew my relationship with the largest month of Ramadan. I'm going to better my relationship with my family in this month of Ramadan, I will lose these three bad habits this month of Ramadan.

Before we make those intentions, you do understand what a blessing it is. I was thinking about this last night I was talking to a couple of students as well. I was thinking about this last night What a blessing that Allah subhanaw taala I know that we want as many Juma eyes as many Friday's as possible in the month of Ramadan. I know that so you kind of can't help but think like man, if Obama started like yesterday, then today would have been Ramadan, Friday Ramadan. Mashallah, right, but there's a blessing and everything. What a blessing that Allah subhanaw taala gave us a jamara about six hours before Ramadan starts.

So that we would all get together in the masjid here and we would have this conversation together.

So that we would not be flying blind into yet another Ramadan, we would not just be running headfirst

into another Ramadan where we have no plan, we have no vision, we have no intention, we have no strategy, we have no focus, we have no meaning we have no purpose. We're just running into it. Well, I'm going to swing back to Maui tonight for a little bit. And I guess I'll set the alarm tomorrow morning for sure. And good thing, it's Saturday and Sunday, first couple of days of Ramadan, so I can sleep a lot.

And that sounds like every other Ramadan we've had. And no more of that. We're having this conversation for a reason Allah gave us this hook buffer reason six hours before Ramadan starts.

Because we're not going to make that same mistake again. And so I have a very practical action item for each and every single person here all the brothers and sisters, everybody. Hold yourself to this. After we get done with the salon Not now. But after we get done with the salon, maybe even before you leave because then you get distracted.

Maybe when you go outside and you sit in your car before you start driving, you turn on your car, you turn on the AC sit there for a couple of minutes. Take out your phone,

text yourself, text a friend, text your wife, text your husband. Or maybe if you if you're somebody who makes to do lists and uses a notetaking app, if you're punctual regular about something like that, and sit there and type up a note. A reminder a to do list of the things that you're going to work on and do some of them make your list and make it a meaningful list don't focus on the ritual because a ritual we have to perform regardless focus on the meaning and the purpose behind it. I want to start understanding the Quran this Ramadan, I'm going to start gaming assure quality in my Salah, this Ramadan, I'm going to try to make a difference in the life of some people who are

struggling just on the bottom, I'm going to renew my relationship with the law, I'm going to better my relationship with my spouse, with my parents with my children, etc, etc. Or whatever. I have these three bad habits. I'm going to quit this Ramadan, whatever it may be, do not go anywhere. Do not resume your day until you first make that list somewhere.

And you put that list down somewhere. That's that that's how that intention the NEA becomes an atom in the Delica nazmul Oh, that's how it becomes an assembled operon talks about it goes from just being an intention to being a commitment so that we have a commitment to some of them.

We will improve our condition. This will be a month of miracles for us and this will be a month of change for us. barakallahu li now we're looking for another one. Anyway jambalaya to ethical hacking a subfield la honey welcome Melissa in muslimeen for sub zero in a hula hula