Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Ability vs. Acceptance
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al Hamdulillah
Al Hamdulillah in Ramadan who understand you know when to stop
Pharaoh who will you know be who you want to talk to Ali when I was
with him in Shruti and fusina Amin say Dr. Medina mania Hello father
mandala Whom are you the little who follow her the other one a
shadow Allah Illa Illa who the hula Shanika when I shall do
understand you then I will move on the knob the whole Rasulullah
sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbihi wa Baraka was seldom at
the Sleeman Kathira on Isla Yomi Dean Amma Berg
My dear respected
and noble brothers and sisters, As Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa
barakato.
hamdulillah Allah subhanaw taala has given us a trophy that we get
some amount of our Dean whether we like it or not every Friday, this
is specially so for the men who go and get to pray Jamar.
Imagine if we were totally deprived of that we'd be so busy
to go and listen to a lecture because many lectures happen,
maybe not in Stevenage. Insha Allah Allah subhana wa Tada
increased this place with his late but they happen in other places
like London and so on, and maybe in Luton and other places probably
a bit more than in outlying areas. But Allah has blessed us that at
least in Juma, we get this opportunity to go and listen. So
we have to go for Jamar anyway, let's just go a bit early and we
get to listen to Hamdulillah. There's a great rewards for going
early for Jamar. The hadith mentions and if you've heard the
Hadith before, the Hadith mentions that when it goes in the first
hour, he gets this really huge amount of reward the reward of a
large animal, like a camel or a cow, the second hour starts going
down until in the last hour, you get the reward equivalent to an
egg. And then it says once the Imam begins once the hotbar the
oven, the Imam begins, then the angels who are writing the names
down for everybody to slot them into the right into the right
reward positions. They roll it up and they say okay, we're going
inside us now to listen to the hotbar as well. So then the reward
gets diminished. Now, the Hadith mentions first, our second our
third hour. We don't count like that anymore. We have 24 hour
clock set start one o'clock in the morning, 12 o'clock at night. But
about 6070 years ago, there was a different form of time that was
being used around the world. Some of you are very old might remember
it. I never knew about this until some really old man from Iraq told
me because once I mentioned this hadith and he grabs me after
Salat, and he says, Do you know what it means by first hour and
second hour and third hour starting after sunrise. He said
this is how we used to count time before. So the first hour after
sunrise was the first hour, the second hour, the third. So time
started then in the daytime. Very interesting, but we lived all our
life in the 24 hour clock. And this is very difficult to think
outside of that. Anyway, that's not my topic to start speaking
about time and geography and that's not our topic today. Our
topic is inshallah a bit more important than that. The main
thing here that I want to speak about there's a hadith related by
Imam Bukhari, from Sahel of Masada Radi Allahu Anhu. He says that
once Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was sitting with his
companions. And a man was going on his horse.
You know, I think nowadays we can say there's a guy that just pulled
up in his Mercedes, BMW or some nice car that people respect. You
know, whether that's a Nissan you respect or whatever it is. He
pulled up in a really nice car, nice clothes, you can tell that
he's oozing wealth, money, influence, etc. But this person,
he comes along on a horse and the Prophet sallallahu sallam said,
Mara, you, Kofi? What's your opinion about this man, he just
wanted to gauge their opinion. And the people said, you know, he's
such a man that when he speaks, people are going to listen, he's
probably got something important to say. So when he speaks, people
will listen. When he comes to your door, you're gonna let him come
in. Right? When he sends a proposal for any woman she's going
to accept. If he puts in a word for you, that's your contact, his
intercession will be accepted, in the sense that if he puts in a
good word for you to work in a place or to get a promotion is
going to work, because he's got that influence. probably sounded
awesome said didn't make any comment. He's listened. Okay,
that's what you guys think. Okay. Then another person comes along,
who is totally the opposite of that disheveled hair, clothing,
soiled, not very smart looking and such and the process and said,
What's your opinion about him?
And they said, he's such a person that if he speaks, nobody's going
to listen. They're not going to consider him at all. Here.
Ask for women in marriage they are going to refuse him. He tries to
put in a word for you. It's just not going to be accepted.
Then the prophets of Allah made a statement. He said,
This man, the second man is superior to a whole world full of
the other men.
A whole world full of people like the other man, this man is
superior to that in the sight of Allah subhanho wa Taala though you
do not consider him anything.
There's another Hadith in Muslim Sahih Muslim which mentions roba
Shatha Akbar Rama through the middle of work below Oksana and
Allah He the Abara there are certain people
who are a chef Oboro disheveled hair soiled clothing, not smart at
all. More through the middle of work if they came to your door you
don't even want to let them in. You don't even want to get away
from here. But they are so close to Allah subhanahu wa taala that
no Oksana and Allah if they took an oath, Wallah he this is going
to happen what Allah he this is what it is Allah subhanaw taala
will make it like that.
If they said it's gonna rain today, Allah subhanho wa Taala
will fulfill that promise for them. Now because they control
Allah, He loves them so much and they don't ask for things
unreasonable anyway. But there's a hadith of Muslim.
Essentially what we're speaking about
keep this hadith in mind, let me just talk about something else.
Every one of us
we live in this world we use certain things that Allah has put
into us some of you are mashallah very good at maybe fixing
computers, programming computers, maybe programming software, maybe
you guys are some of you are it technicians. Maybe you're a car
mechanic or a car technician and a new cars don't have mechanics,
they have technicians because they do everything by computer, right?
You're either a doctor, you're either really good at studying,
maybe you always get top marks in whatever you do, maybe you're very
good at making money. You know, you can you know, you look at
investment opportunities and mashallah you just notice them and
you make more money than somebody else and the other guy's trying
and he never hits a six and you're always hitting a six.
You know, it's a metaphor.
Or you're gonna good taxi driver, you make good money in taxi
doesn't matter. Maybe a good painter
doesn't make a difference. It's about maybe a good solicitor,
lawyer, whatever it may be maybe a good restaurant business,
hopefully halal. So it doesn't make a difference what you're
doing, what you have actually done is you've discovered the potential
within you, you've discovered your ability. In Arabic, the word for
ability is carbonyl.
Carbon here in Arabic, this is a word I'm sure most of us have
heard of. He has carbon, a great carbon, we use it in order to use
in Gujrati. We use it in many, many languages. This word is
Arabic word RBD means ability. And if you haven't discovered your
ability, then I feel sorry for you. Because everybody must
discover their ability. Look, you could have discovered your
ability, you may be using it in the wrong, but you still
discovered it. You still got potential to use it in the right
way. Allah has placed in every single one of us some ability.
Have you discovered it or not? That's the question. If you have a
Hamdulillah, generally, if you get if you see people who pick up a
paper, you can tell by the choice of paper that they read how they
are for one thing, then you get a piece that you know, you get a
paper, let's just say you get the Evening Standard in London, which
is a free paper that they give out, or Daily Mirror, not the sun,
but the Daily Mirror, let's just say if the first page that you
open up is the back page, and you read a few pages and then you put
the paper away. What does that tell anybody about you? You're not
really worried about what goes on in the world. You're just worried
about what goes on on the pitch. The ball is very important for
you. But seriously, you got some people, that's all they take the
paper for. I mean, what's life for them football and that's it. An
example if we don't have to say that we're not talking about
football, it could be anything is that our life? The only focus that
we have. Now what's important is this we have this accountability
is this word carbon EITS comes from in Arabic, every word in
Arabic comes from a root term, root letters, whose asleep they
call them. So Kaveri it comes from cough ba lung. Now there's another
word in Arabic, which we're all very aware of as well, which is
called Kabuli.
So you got covariates and you got kuliah. They both come from the
same root term, cough Balamb.
Right. Kabuli means acceptance. What we're trying to aim for is
this core belief that Allah has given us this ability to do
whatever. Can we turn that into acceptance, accept
Turns means we use the cabinet in this world for our benefit. But
Allah subhanaw taala when we go to the hereafter he puts us in
Paradise because we use the in the right way and we gained his
acceptance. That's the question. Let's take an example. Has anybody
been to Egypt?
Has anybody been to the to Egypt?
Have you been to the Pharaonic Museum in Egypt? Yeah. So I don't
know how much you paid. But to go into the Pharaonic Museum, which
the British built about 100 years ago, it's like four or five
floors, this really massive structure. It's got everything in
there to do with Pharaoh from his chariots. So you know, you've got
his big, big, like, imagine somebody's cause to the needle
that they used to use. They've got everything in there. Now that's
amazing. It is absolutely amazing that after how many years how many
years ago did Pharaoh live?
Mashallah, 4000 years ago, 2000 years ago was isa Ali Salam 2000
years before that was Musa alayhis salam 4000 years ago, and from
4000 years, we've got chariots, we've got needles, and we've got
everything in between. All made from slave labor.
All made from slave labor. He had the whole of the Bani Israel under
his slavery. He was literally make making them do whatever he wanted.
For somebody to enslave someone, to make them work for you to do
whatever you want. In conditions that are not necessarily
favorable. You must have some ability. You can't do something
like that without ability. Allah has given you some ability. You've
used it to subjugate people. It's a bad thing, but its ability he
had called me a great club idiot. Pharaoh had great club idiots. Now
if you go into this museum when I went about six years ago, five,
six years ago,
you paid 40 You paid 40 Egyptian pounds to get in. Right? I can't.
You must I don't know when you when we paid 40 Egyptian pounds to
go in. There's not much 40 Egyptian pounds is at that time. I
do not think there's a seven eight to a pound I can't remember. But
then you go on the second or third floor. And there's another place
that we have to buy an additional ticket if you want to go into a
room there. The other day you pay 90 in nighttime, 90 So 40 at the
door and the special room you pay 90 Why do you pay 94 to see some
mummies
right to see some dead people there from 4000 years ago, I paid
for it because I wanted to the Ebro Allah subhanaw taala says in
the Quran, when Pharaoh was about to die and he tried to then
embrace the faith, I believe in the Lord of Musa and Harun
Alehissalaam it was too late. But Allah subhanho wa Taala said in
the Quran, Allah Winona jika be by Danica Lita Hakuna Lehmann
Khalifa, I'm going to give you respite with your body so that you
could be assigned for the people after you. Now what's most
interesting here is that Pharaoh's body was only discovered about 100
years ago, Ramses is in the MME Tarzan, they're one of those two.
Were the were the Pharaohs of Masada. He's one of those two but
you don't need to go there. I can save you your 9040 40 Egyptian
pounds. Check online for Ramses the second you'll see his mummy
there. Right so you don't need to go there to see him. You can get
your Ebro from here inshallah reading the verse. The main the
most interesting thing that I find one of the most interesting things
is that he's only discovered about 100 years ago.
His his mummy was only discovered, but the Quranic verse was there
from 1400 years ago to us. Can you imagine the people who lived 200
years ago they must be thinking, Allah says, I'm going to give you
a respite with your body, where is this body? Right where is his
body? But mashallah de Eman was so strong that they believed in the
unseen you Alladhina you're gonna believe maybe for our times where
we need evidence for things Allah has given us Pharaoh to see it's
there available. Right? But can you imagine the faith of the
people for 1300 years who didn't see him and it's there. That's why
I do not ever question anything in the Quran or the Sunnah.
Allah has a timetable and whenever he wants, things will happen most
appropriately. Our test is that we are tested to see if we believe
what Allah subhanaw taala says or not. He said the 1400 I'm going to
give you a respite. What do you think the people were thinking and
their own amount of thinking about what respite means here? But we
see it that he's got 4000 years How do you preserve about
Inshallah, inshallah knows everything is there you can see
him is not just a skeleton. It's not just a skeleton. It's there's
preserve the skin and things like that, whatever you call it now.
It's quite interesting. But the main thing is, our purpose of this
is not to do a history lesson, Egyptology. Although much of the
Egyptians are making a lot of money through Pharaonic tourism.
Right. The main thing for us here is to focus on the fact that
Pharaoh had cobbly it but no Qubool yet. He was a
made an example for us. Let's take a more recent example. After 2000
years, 2600 years
2700 years after, after the pharaoh
in the time of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam in the
beginning of Islam, profit and loss have made the DUA he said oh
Allah strengthen this Deen with one of these two armors there was
Ammar Ibn Hisham, and there was Omar YBNL hottub we all know Ahmed
Abdullah hottub these are both enemies of Islam at the time. They
were both leaders of the Quraysh they were both very powerful
individuals, both with great Covidien both go getters like you
know get up and do the work on what are the alarm was like that
I'm originally sham was like that. Most of you probably will not know
who I'm with. No, Hashem is by name. Some of you will know that
he was called Abdul Hakim at that time, his title was great. The
father of judicial understanding he was very good at you know,
judicial matters at the time. Unfortunately, nobody knows him
like that anymore. Except now we know him as Abuja *.
No, he sham was Abuja, they both had called idiots. Allah subhanho
wa Taala accepted Amara, the Allahu Anhu to become the
believer, and to strengthen this Diem, and that is exactly what the
do out of the extra load isn't was accepted for him. So you had to
carbonate, but only one Kabuli it for one of them. So we want to
follow the example of Omar the Allahu Anhu. If you're your person
who can do things, let's see how much we can use our good, how much
force you know how much we have for the force of good and not for
the force of evil. The prophets of Allah some said, Whoever takes the
person on the right track, they will Mandela, Hayden, wherever
indicates towards a good way they will get the reward of all of
those that follow whoever indicates towards the wrong way
they will get the sin of all of those that follow in that regard
as well. So do we want to be forces of good or bad? Let's take
a more recent example. When I was an imam in in America, we had a I
used to go to one shop, there was a shop the store called Costco. I
went in there once and I met this brother who comes up to his Salaam
Alaikum brother. Now I was in a very small area 100 people for
Juma like probably this area. So you know everybody, you know if
there's a new person, you know, if somebody is missing, I've never
seen this guy in the masjid. And he's working there, which means
he's not a stranger. He's not a foreigner. You know, he's not from
another city. He's living here. He's working there. But I've never
seen him in the masjid. A nice Turkish brother. He said my name
is Ahmed and everything. I didn't tell him brother. Well, why don't
you come to the masjid the first time you say that to somebody?
They'll never meet you again. Right? So then I just said slavery
come how are you brother? How's everything that every time I used
to go there, whenever he was there, he would come and meet me.
Then eventually one day I said Brother, you know you should come
for Juma. Where do you pray to him? He says I can't man. You
know, I've got two jobs I do. I just can't make Jumeau I'm married
to a non Muslim woman this that and the other big problems.
So eventually, what happened is one day I see him in Juma
and I after I finished a sunnah and everything I went outside and
brother is there he is giving everybody his Subhanallah he is
serving cold water to everybody. He's bought these two cases of you
know, 24 or whatever bottles of water. He's taken them home his
children. Now here when it's cold, you're probably not going to
appreciate cold water. You might appreciate tea or coffee or
something like that. But they're it's hot in California. And
believe me, if you're given hot water, cold water to drink, you
don't have to raise your hands to make the you don't have to tell
somebody here take some water make dua for me, the DUA will
spontaneously come out of the huts.
Right. So imagine how much reward this man was getting out of laws.
The worst thing for me was this. I'm the Imam of the Masjid. To buy
those two crates of water was only about $8. Right? Two cups of you
know, two, three cups of coffee one good $8 Like five pounds. In a
restaurant, you can't get a dish, a decent dish for five pounds
nowadays. That's all it cost. But it didn't occur to me. I didn't
get the Tofik for this. I didn't get the reward for all of that.
He's getting the reward I spoke to I said, Man, what happened? What
happened to you? He said, You know, I'm now working in a gas
station, the petrol station and the other guys are Muslim there as
well. So we've made an agreement, that one week he'll go for Joomla
and one week I'll go for Joomla
SubhanAllah. You know, for somebody saying I can't come for
Joomla and say you're a catheter but they know some people will say
that, but he's trying he's trying and may Allah give him moto fika
moto Vic, I mean, at the end of the day, he'd he doesn't know I'm
speaking about him today in Stevenage. He doesn't know that.
And you are saying I mean to my two hours about him. There must be
something good about that act. So selfless simple act of $8.05
pounds, which is getting you so much reward. This is what you call
selflessness. This is what you call compassion for the people
using your ability in the wrong way asking Allah subhanaw taala
for Tofik to do the right thing. I mean, this is exactly what is the
success of Abu Bakr Siddiq or the Allahu Anhu. It said about Abu
Bakr Siddiq or the Allah
Anhu that when he saw below the Allahu Anhu in all of this
turbulence in all of this persecution, he decided that he
will go and buy his freedom so that he could be freed from this
persecution. So he went to the master of Milan and he began to
negotiate the price with him. And eventually they negotiated on
three or four measures of gold to buy him off an Abu Bakr Radi
Allahu Anhu agreed and paid the sum and he emancipated below the
Allahu Anhu. Later that Master would go around and say that I got
a very good deal. If he had insisted on just buying him for
one measure, I would have sold him for that. I wanted to get rid of
him. I would have sold him for just one measure, but I made him
pay for and he paid it and he thought that he got a good deal.
But I'll tell you what Abu Bakr Siddiq Radi Allahu Anhu he thought
differently for us, we would have thought if we heard about this,
that a guy who we just sold our car to and or we just bought
something from and he went around saying that I would have given it
to him for a lower price we would have said, man, let me go back and
try to negotiate again. You know, this is how we act like this. But
oh Bakr Siddiq are the hola on when he heard this. He said if he
had negotiated up to 10 I was willing to pay for it.
This is the way people think that are going to be high in this world
and in the Hereafter. May Allah give us the fee for that. There
was another there was another brother one more story before we
end there's another brother Omar, his name was he was a young guy
about 20 years old or something like that. And about 22 years old,
he was separated from his parents had some problems separated
parents as well. He was living alone, the way he would make money
was by babysitting, babysitting children. He used to live 10 miles
from the masjid and he used to come for every salad. On a few
occasions. He didn't come for the salad. I was wondering what
happened to him. Only later did I find out that the only reason he
did not come for the salad is because he didn't have enough
petrol money to come for the salads. Because 10 miles you can't
walk it. You have to come in a car. He didn't have enough money.
One day before Ramadan in Shaban, we were you know we normally used
to buy the dates for the whole month I come into the masjid and
there are three or four boxes of dates there already. Who bought
this Omar bought this. I'm thinking how they how did he buy
these he eats hand to mouth. He owns a bit of money. And he
survived. But how did he do this? Right when he came in, I said
brother Omar, you bought these he says yeah, I want to reward for
the whole of Ramadan. Because when you feed somebody in Ramadan, and
they break their fast by by by whatever they break the if you
have paid for them to break their fast and you give them some food,
you get their reward, all of that reward is going to go to him look
where he's thinking, look where I'm thinking, for example, I said
to him, brother O'Meara, I'll pay you for them. You've got your
reward already. But let me pay you because I know his state. He said,
your shake? Do you can't steal this from me. He refused to take
the money.
Right? May Allah subhanaw taala, accept from him and give him
Tofik. Again, he's not asking to be made. What are we going to do
in this world that will remind that will that will keep a
remembrance for us? On the day we die, people will come for Jenna's
our janazah and pray for us and they will be for us for the rest
of our life. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? We
must think to ourselves, we're in this life for a very short amount
of time. What kind of compassion do we have in our hearts? Do we
know the ability that Allah has given us? And are we using it
properly? Are we going to get acceptance? ask Allah for tobique
You don't have to be a scholar to become a weenie of Allah. You just
need to do things for the sake of Allah in the right way and avoid
the harms. In that regard. I've also been told that mashallah
there's a big project here for this masjid, to expand it and do a
lot of other educational work and everything like that, believe me,
that is one of the greatest thing that you can do for your local
it's a right that we have to do this as well. I didn't do this by
hand for the sake, I was going to do this by hand and this lecture
beforehand. But when I found out that there's a project going on
here, I thought, let me speak about it. So you need to donate
because every penny that you donate here, and it will inshallah
last forever, then everybody that will come that will study here
that will benefit from here, you're getting part of that
reward, it's an investment that you will only see in the hereafter
and you'd wish you'd done more about it. So may Allah give us the
Tofik to invest as much as possible, and to ask ALLAH SubhanA
wa Taala for acceptance, and may Allah subhanaw taala forgive our
sins, and may Allah accept us in this world and in the hereafter
working with that one and in handling.
The point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get
further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion. The
next step is to actually start learning seriously to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on there, the Islamic
essentials certificate which you take 20 Short modules and at the
end of that inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of
the most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more
confident. You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue
to live, you know to listen to lectures, but you need to have
is more sustained study as well as local law here and Salam aleikum
wa rahmatullah