Ammar Alshukry – Allahs Beautiful Names – Finale – Who Gets To See Allah in Jannah – Al Muhsin
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The speakers discuss the concept of Islam, including its cultural significance and the importance of showing excellence and gratitude towards oneself and others. They stress the importance of showing faith and gratitude towards one's parents and being mindful of one's actions to avoid distractions from others. The speakers also emphasize the importance of showing gratitude towards one's own employer and boss and how it can lead to productivity and success.
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The name of Allah,
the doer of good. This name doesn't appear
in the Quran. It appears in the hadith
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam where he
says,
that Allah
is He's a doer of good, of excellence,
and he loves goodness. He loves excellence.
Excellence is a constant attribute of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, one that he's prescribed
over everyone and everything. The famous hadith of
Muslim, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam says,
Allah has prescribed excellence over everything.
So if you kill, then kill well. And
if you slaughter, then slaughter well. And let
one of you sharpen his blade and bring
relief to his animal. The prophet
is saying that excellence is to be done
in everything, even in the things that people
normally wouldn't care to be excellent in. In
the execution of a criminal, the prophet
says, be excellent,
be merciful, be good. And even in the
slaughtering of an animal, the prophet
says, bring the least amount of pain and
tear it to the animal. That the prophet
saying, sharpen your blade and don't slaughter it
with a dull blade.
Don't bring any pain
more than necessary to the animal. Be excellent
in everything that you do. Be considerate in
everything that you do. When you think of
there are 2 general meanings.
The first is goodness
that is being shown to others,
and that's why this name translates at times
to the doer of good, that Allah
shows goodness to others.
And that's the meaning in the verse where
Yusuf, alayhis salan, he says,
He says, and Allah was good to me
when he took me out of prison and
he brought you his family, brought you out
of the desert. And the second is in
doing something well, doing something with with excellence.
Allah
says,
Allah says, the one who perfected everything which
he created. Allah
created everything perfectly.
Allah says the one who perfected everything which
he created
in Surat
And Allah
goodness to you and me is overwhelming even
in calamities.
He said, I never experienced any calamity
except that within it, I experienced 4 blessings.
What's the first one? He says that it
wasn't in my deen. That's the first blessing.
The second one is that it wasn't bigger
than it was. Any calamity could have always
been bigger. Number 3, he says that I'm
not stripped of contentment with it, and number
4, that I hope to be rewarded for
it.
So how do I interact with this name,
Al Mu'isun? Number 1 is to excel
to excel in my worship. You know, Jibrid
asked the prophet
in the famous hadith of Jibrid. He says,
what is Ihsan? And the prophet
said, to worship Allah as if you see
him, and if you don't see him to
know that he sees you. So the prophet
is describing 2 levels of here, 2 levels
of excellence. Number 1 is to worship Allah
as if you see him. That's the highest
level of excellence, that a person worships Allah
as if they see him in the dunya.
And those people who worship Allah as if
they see him in the dunya will be
rewarded with seeing him in the hereafter because
of their ihsan. Allah
says,
Allah says, for those who show ihsan, they
will have alhusna Surat Yusuf. What is Husna?
Husna is Jannah, but Allah also says and
more, ziada. And what is that more? That
more is seeing the face of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala in jannah. So because they worshiped
Allah as if they saw him in the
dunya, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will reward them
with seeing him in Jannah. And, you know,
this this level is something that people experience
even till today. You know, I was once
approached by a convert. I was giving a
lecture about mindfulness and salah. And afterwards, know,
he'd been Muslim for a couple of years
and he came to me and he said,
what's wrong with my prayer?
I said, what do you mean? He said,
you talked about how to overcome distractions in
the prayer, and everything you described, I don't
experience any of that. When I pray,
everything in the world disappears,
and it just becomes me and Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. It's like I'm looking at him.
I am most alive in the day when
I'm in salah. I long for it when
I'm outside of it and I don't even
need to set an alarm or anything. He
says my body responds to the time of
the salah. I get goosebumps.
So he's like, what's wrong with my prayer?
I was like, my man, there is nothing
wrong with your prayer.
Your prayer is the type of prayer that
we read about in the narrations of old.
There's something wrong with our prayer, and that's
the reason why we have to, you know,
talk about mindfulness in the salah. But this
man was a person who's praying, and he
says, I worship Allah.
It's like I see him. And this is
a relatively new Muslim, and so it's not
something that requires years of practice, but it's
an access that Allah gives, so I ask
him for that access. The second level is
to know that Allah sees you. And, you
know, anybody who reflects on the worship of
the prophet
will see that it was the highest level
of excellence. So when Aisha has asked about
the of the prophet, the night period of
the prophet she said, there were 11 units.
There were 11 rakas,
but don't ask about
Don't ask about how beautiful they were and
how long they were.
And so she's telling us the worship of
the prophet
was done with Ihsan, And that's something that
Aisha she learned from the prophet
and we learned from the prophet
So Aisha, what did her worship look like?
You know something really, really beautiful? When she
would give charity
and she would give
coins,
she would first perfume the coins. She would
put perfume on them and she would say,
they fall in the hands of Allah before
they fall in the hand of the person
receiving them. What a beautiful practice and what
a beautiful intentionality when giving. She's very aware
of not just what she's doing, but who
she's doing it for and thinking of ways
to do it better. Charity is something that
we all do, but she did it in
a beautiful way with excellence. So I have
a question for you. What is a beautiful
way that you saw someone doing something that
we all do? The second manifestation of is
that you show isan to the creation, that
you show goodness to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's
creation, and you already know who are the
people who deserve your isan the most. You
already know this answer. It's your parents.
Allah says,
Allah says, and show ihsan to your parents.
Show goodness. Show excellence to your parents. And
then those closest to you through blood
or through residence.
And so your neighbors are deserving of your
ihsan. The prophet says
that whoever believes in Allah in the last
day, then let them show ihsan to their
neighbors. The hadith is in Muslim. Also, that
you show ihsan in your work, that you
do things properly, that you do things perfectly
if you can, even if it's small. You
know, he says about Allah
that Allah loves his names and attributes, and
he loves for them to be manifested in
his creation. Allah is beautiful. He loves beauty.
Allah is knowledgeable. He loves the scholars. Allah
is generous. He loves the jawad. He loves
the the generous. Allah is
He loves the. He loves the people of.
He loves the people of excellence. And the
prophet
said that Allah loves that if one of
you does something, that they do it well
as it'll be helped to report it. And
mentions the story of a craftsman, and this
person was hired by a client to do
some work, but he didn't he wasn't paid
what he normally would have been paid. And
so he kind of cut corners, and he
didn't do he didn't do as good as
a job as he normally would have. So
this man
didn't sleep that night, the craftsman.
And he
went and he redid
whatever that project was, and he calls back
the client and he says to him, here,
take this new one that I I made
and give me back the old one. And
the man was like, okay. But he said,
I didn't want to put out my work.
I didn't wanna put out work that wasn't
perfected because and then this is an amazing
statement. He says, whenever a craftsman doesn't do
something well due to a lack of payment,
they're showing in gratitude toward Allah has taught
them. And he said, and perhaps they'll be
stripped of that ability. Meaning that if I,
Allah taught me and gave me the ability
to do something,
Allah allows for me to show that
I don't make what Allah
has taught me something that I squander.
And if I do that, Allah
may take it away from me again. You
know, it's unfortunate that when we think of
ihsan in work, we think of countries that
are famous for their excellence, for their precision,
for their amazing,
quality,
and we don't think of Muslim countries at
the top of the list when we are
supposed to be the people of Ihsan.
I want you to also know that Ihsan
is completely irrelevant to a person's social status.
It's completely irrelevant to where they are in
society. Yusuf alaihi sallam twice in the chapter
of Yusuf is described with being
We see you to be of the people
of Islam.
The first time he was in prison when
the people came to ask him to interpret
the dreams. They said, we see you to
be of of the people of his son.
Can you interpret this dream for us? And
the second time is when he's the Aziz
of Egypt, and his brothers came to him
and they say, we see you to be
of the Mycenaean. And so Yusuf, alaihis salam,
is a person of ihsan, and it is
independent
of his surroundings, completely independent of his surroundings.
Your your excellence is something that is a
part of your internal character, your internal expectations,
and it has nothing to do with those
who are around you. So can you be
one of the as a student? Yes. Can
you be one of the as a as
an employee? Yes. As a boss? Yes. As
a kid? Yes. As an adult? Yes. When
you're rich? Yes. When you're poor? Absolutely.
Just like Yusuf alaihi salaam was.
So then the last thing that I wanna
mention is how do you become
one of the Mycenae? Well, number 1, always
your greatest resource is to ask
And so the prophet
says, in the hadith that's reported about and
says to Mu'ad, he says, Mu'ad,
don't forget to say after every salah,
Oh, Allah assist me in remembering
you and thanking you and worshiping you with
Ihsan. So may Allah
make us of the people who worship him
with Ihsan.