Hisham Jafar Ali – Names Of Allah And His Attributes #20 The GiftGiver & Opener
AI: Summary ©
The importance of "naught-impacted ones" in Islam is discussed, as they are not the ones who give gifts. The gifts of Islam include gifts such as children, wealth, and love. The speaker emphasizes the importance of having a clear heart and a pure character for one's life, as well as having a strong heart and a strong spirit. The speaker also highlights the historical significance of Islam, including the blessed "has been open" meaning to those who want to worship him, and the importance of knowing who one is and having good expectations of Allah. The importance of waiting and not giving up hope is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
As we approach the last 10 nights of
Ramadan
and as we approach the the best 10
nights of the year
and perhaps for many of us the best
10 nights of our lifetimes,
We know that a night is coming up
in these last 10 nights. We are searching,
we are seeking, we are wanting, we are
looking for this night, the night of Al
Qadr, the night of power, the night of
status, the night of decree.
And we know that this night is a
night of dua. It is a night of
asking Allah
all of our hopes, all of our dreams,
all of our wants, all of our needs.
We know that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala responds
in these last 10 nights unlike the way
He responds in any part of the year.
And so today we are taking two names
of Allah
that are closely related to, closely linked to
the act of dua, the act of asking
Allah.
And those are his names Al Wahab
and Al Fattah.
We start with Allah's name Al Wahhab.
There's a
in the Arabic language, wahhabayahabu
means to give a gift.
And what is a gift is when you
give somebody something with nothing in return.
It's very different from any other transaction.
When you buy, you purchase with money, with
currency,
with pounds, dollars, yen, bitcoin,
with anything you have in your hand.
When you buy, when you sell, all of
these are exchange.
The only transaction that human beings have
where you give something
with nothing in return is a gift.
The gift
tends to be given
tends to be associated with surprise. People don't
tend to expect a gift.
You don't call somebody and say, hey, tomorrow
at 5 PM bring a gift to my
house. That's not how it works. The gift
tends to be unexpected.
The gift tends to be something you don't
know what's inside. It comes in a bag.
It comes in a box. You don't know
what's inside it.
A gift
tends to have nothing to do with you
as a person. So for example,
whether I'm rich or I'm poor or where
I live or where I'm from,
people don't select a gift based on what
house you live in, which car you drive,
where.
People tend to give a gift out of
the goodness of their own heart,
not reflecting who you are and where you
are at.
These are the associations, the meanings that are
associated with the word gift,
alhibah.
Now Allah's name, al Wahhab.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
one of the names that He has called
Himself with He has given Himself in the
Quran
is His beautiful name, Al Wahab.
And
there are specific things, specific types of blessings
Allah describes with this name alwahab,
the gift, the giver of gifts.
Before we discuss and we understand, we explore
what are those blessings,
first,
the word itself, alwahab.
In Arabic,
if you want to say if I am
somebody who give gifts,
you can call me alwahib
isamfa'al,
and alwahab?
Uncle, is your hand up?
No.
Yes, Habib. Constantly giving. Okay. He's constantly giving
gifts, then you call malwahab. There's one more
association with it. Yes?
Okay.
Like he said, there's one more. He's someone
who's constantly giving gifts again and again and
again, but also the gifts themselves are
Yes?
He likes to give. He likes to give.
Yes. And?
The the gifts are,
of
The gifts are of high value. The gifts
are extreme in nature.
So when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala calls Himself
Al Wahhab, it's a way of exaggeration.
Extreme
the extreme giver of gifts, the intense giver
of gifts, the constant giver of gifts.
In the Quran,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala uses this name
al Wahhab in specific
gifts that He gave His slaves.
Who can give me the first
in order? Surah Alai Imran.
End of the first page.
This is in another part of the Quran.
Allah says he gifts people
whoever he wishes, he gifts them a child,
a female child, whoever he wishes, he gifts
them a male child. Note that there are
only 2 genders mentioned in this verse. No
more. So
one of the gifts Allah frequently mentions in
the Quran is children.
Okay. What else? What are the other gifts
that Allah describes in the Quran as gifts
from Him?
Sorry? Guidance. Guidance. Give me the aya. Someone
said the star of the aya. Yes.
Don't divert us, don't misguide us, don't send
us astray after You guided us and gift
us from Your mercy.
You are the giver of gifts.
There's three emphasis in this ayah. Innaka, antalwahab.
And that is the greatest gift of Allah
is the gift of iman.
Because without this gift, you and me,
our home in the hereafter is a home
in the fire. It's not worth it. All
the other gifts are lesser than this gift.
This is the first and the greatest gift,
the gift of iman. Now we just said
the gift of children. Allah grants people the
gift of children.
There's another
gift that Allah describes in the Quran as
a hibah.
Yes. Beautiful.
Beautiful. Oh Allah,
make our spouses, our wives, husbands, and our
children
the coolness of our eyes.
There's one thing to be gifted a child,
but that child could be horrible, that child
could be a test, that child could be
arrogant, that child could be difficult.
It's another gift for Allah to make your
family members, your wife, your husband and your
children
the coolness of your eyes. What is the
coolness of your eyes? They are the people
when you look at them, you feel peace,
you feel cool,
you feel serenity.
That's another special gift of Allah
Another gift of Allah as he mentions in
the Quran is actually a gift of this
world,
Suleyman alaihis salam.
It's one of the requests of Suleyman to
Allah. Go on.
Mhmm.
Can you tell me the Arabic ayah?
Yes,
forgive me, I made a mistake. He made
an error, he made a mistake and he
says,
gift me a kingdom that nobody after me
can have.
You are the giver of gifts.
He's asking Allah for a gift.
It's beyond anybody's expectation.
And because he's asking Allah with his name
Al Wahab, the giver of gifts, he knows
nothing is too small to ask Allah.
So Allah gives him a kingdom not like
anybody's kingdom. Now you might think for a
second, well, today there are people who are
multi billionaires.
Surely their kingdom was bigger than Suleyman's.
But there's something in Suleyman alaihis salam's control
that no human being will ever have control
over. What is that?
Okay. The ability to talk to animals. What
else? To control the wind. The ability to
control the wind. What else?
The ability to control the jinn. The jinn.
The yes. So Allah didn't give it's not
about the monetary value, how much money he
gave suriman, but he gave him control over
things human beings will never have control over.
So we're going to talk about these are
the gifts Allah mentions in the Quran. The
gift of Iman,
the gift of children and family,
the gift of making your family the coolness
and the source of peace in your life,
The gift of kingdom and power and strength
and control.
These are some of the gifts that Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions in the Quran.
Why does he call them gifts? I want
to start with one of these. Story of
Sulaiman Alaihi Salam.
Suleiman Alaihi Salam, he makes a mistake. The
scholars differ what exactly was his mistake. Allah
says,
We tested Suleyman
and we threw on his throne a dead
body, a lifeless corpse or a statue and
he made he realized his mistake and he
came back to us. Now,
there is no authentic hadith, nothing authentic telling
us what was this mistake that Sulaiman
made. There's various opinions between the scholars. Let
us skip what the test was. Let us
come to what happened after the test. I
want you to imagine in your life you
made a mistake.
You made a mistake in your life. Let's
say you missed a salah. Let's say you
wronged somebody. Let's say you, you know, you
you didn't pay your zakah. You missed a
fast on purpose. You made a a grave
mistake in your life. Now when you make
a mistake, you usually come back to Allah
and you are humiliated.
You are down.
You don't ask Allah big things because right
now you are in a really low mood.
So Uman he teaches us that when you
make a mistake, when you make you do
something wrong and you come back to Allah
sincerely,
you sincerely ask the forgiveness of Allah.
Don't be modest with what you are asking
him
because his name, al Wahhab,
you know when somebody is giving you a
gift, they're going to give you a gift
according to how wealthy they are.
You have a wedding. You have a akhirka.
You have a child. Somebody comes. They give
you an envelope. It has £50. Somebody comes.
They give you an envelope. It has £100.
Usually, it depends on
their generosity.
You are dealing with the one who is
most generous.
You are dealing with the one who can
give you a gift that you never expected
before.
When Soleiman
is asking Allah's forgiveness, he didn't say, oh
Allah, forgive me and just give me like
a small kingdom worth like £10,000, I'll be
happy.
He asks him in an ambitious manner
and he asks him convinced Allah is going
to give him beyond what he asks.
Oh Allah,
give me a kingdom you never gave anybody
before me.
As Muslims, we think very small.
We ask Allah for very small things.
When Neretul Qadr comes we ask Allah for
very simple and very small things.
But really those who know Allah's name, Al
Wahhab, the giver of gifts, you know
Allah can surprise you.
Allah can give you a gift you never
expected.
Allah can surprise you. The gift you get,
the blessing that you get is in a
way you never imagined. So why are we
why are we asking Allah in such a
small minded manner?
So Niman
asks Allah, give me the greatest kingdom ever.
Allah gives him something he didn't expect. Control
over the wind, ability to talk to the
ants, control over the jinn.
You and me, we have to ask Allah
in an ambitious manner. The Prophet
says If you are going to ask Allah
for something
in paradise, in Jannah, ask Him for the
greatest part of paradise,
Don't ask him for the basement. Ask him
for the penthouse.
Don't ask him for the 1 star apartment.
Ask him for the 7 star. He is
Allah al Wahhab. He gives
according to his means,
not according to your ambitions. This is what
we learn from the story of Surima.
In the Quran, the most frequent mention of
gift
is to do with one particular blessing, the
blessing of family.
When Allah describes Ibrahim alaihis salam as he
is waiting to have a child, Allah says
We gifted him ishaq and Yaqb. When Allah
talks about Zakariyah, alayhis salam, Zakariyah
for almost a century, almost a 100 years,
he's just waiting for a child, asking Allah
for a child.
He says,
rabbi habilimina
salihin,
or Allah gift me
a progeny. Gift me a child.
Allah frequently, when he talks about children, he
uses the word gift.
More than anything else in the Quran,
he uses the word gift for children. Why?
You tell me why.
Someone other than my diligent student. Yes? They
are one of the means after you pass
away. They are one of the means to
get reward. Okay. Children are one of the
means to get reward after you pass away.
Yeah. What else?
Why is children used as a gift in
the Quran? Yes, Habib? It's never guaranteed for
anybody.
Children are never guaranteed for anybody.
Now how many people have been waiting for
children? For 1 year, 3 years, 5 years,
10 years.
They go through IVF. They go through so
many treatments and solutions. It's not happening.
But one sincere
and serious dua to Allah
can yield serious results.
There's another thing as well. It's not just
not everybody's guaranteed a child.
Can you guarantee what that child would be
like?
No.
9 months,
this child is growing as a fetus in
the womb of its mother.
9 months of pain, of exhaustion, of tiredness.
And then after 9 months, 10, 15, 20
years, a parent sweats and tires and loses
sleep over this child, changes the nappies and
deals with the tantrums and all of these.
Are they guaranteed that this child will turn
out anything good?
No.
There is nothing in this world equivalent to
the gift
of a child that is righteous.
Everything else in this world, you can expect
what the outcome will be to some extent.
You can predict the outcome to some extent.
Everything else in this world, whether it's wealth,
whether it's family, whether it's whatever you are
working for, when you work for something, you
can work hard. Most likely, you get something
out of it,
except for your children.
You can sweat
to bring up your children.
You can do everything to do the best
for them and yet they can turn the
opposite of what you expected.
And this is why
whenever Allah grants a prophet a child, He
uses the word gift because it's a surprise.
It's unexpected.
To the extent that when the 2 angels
come to announce to Ibrahim, alayhis salam, that
Allah is going to gift you a child,
his wife starts to laugh.
She's
she's so surprised. Really?
I'm infertile.
I can't have children. I'm gonna have a
child.
I'm so old and, you know, this is
my spouse. He's too old to have children.
Really?
And what do the angels respond to the
wife of Ibrahim alaihis salam?
This
is Allah we're dealing with. He does whatever
He wants.
This is Allah's mercy and His blessing upon
you, the people of this household.
We cannot underestimate
the challenge for future generations.
If you're a father, soon to be father,
young man, young woman, soon to be mother,
the world your children will inherit is worse
than the world we live in today.
The prophet
said a famous hadith,
Every time, every century, every era will be
worse than the one before.
The prophet promises us times are only going
to get worse, they're not going to get
better.
The fitna is only going to get worse.
The tests are going to only get worse.
The challenges to our iman is only going
to get worse.
Your children and my children are going to
live in a world
more difficult,
more harder, and worse than we are living
today.
The greatest gift Allah can give us is
to keep them on the straight path.
So we have to beg Allah for this
gift. We have to ask him to surprise
us with our children and with our families,
with our spouses, with our families.
Because they if somebody if your if your
children and my children, your family, your spouse,
your husband, your cousin, your brother, if our
immediate families are lost,
you could have everything in this world. You
won't sleep at night.
And the most wealthiest people in this world,
when their children and their wife is in
the hospital,
when their children and their wife is having
a surgery, they cannot sleep at night.
And for us,
worse than the test of this world, the
test of health and the test of wealth,
is a test in our deen.
Allah. Don't try me. Don't put me on
a trial when it comes to my deen.
Similarly, with our family, with our wife, with
our children,
these are the people,
if they are having a tough time, we
cannot sleep at night. So the greatest gift
of Allah is to grant our spouses and
children
who are the coolness of our eyes. They're
on the straight path. They're healthy. They're in
good stead, and we have nothing to worry
about. And this is why frequently Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala in the Quran,
when the prophets ask Allah,
they ask him to gift them children,
spouses
and family
that makes them happy.
There's one last gift that Allah can give
us. We talked about family.
We talked about Iman. We talked about kingdom
and power and wealth in this world.
All of these are gifts Allah can give
us, but we have to ask Him sincerely.
Yes, Habib.
Beautiful.
One of the gifts that Allah mentions in
the Quran that he gives is the gift
of good character.
Musa alaihis salam.
He asks Allah.
Oh Allah,
gift me good judgment.
The ability to make good decisions. This is
a gift from Allah.
So many of us in this room, we
all have our challenges with our character. Somebody
has an anger problem. Somebody has a problem
with this. Somebody has a problem with that.
Somebody tells lies compulsively. Somebody is always late.
Somebody is everybody has a different problem in
our character.
One of the greatest gifts Allah can give
us is a clean heart and a good
character.
So one of the things that Ibrahim alaihis
salam asks Allah.
Oh
Allah, don't humiliate me on the day of
judgment.
The day in which my wealth and my
children will do nothing for me.
Except the one who comes to Allah with
a clean heart. Oh, Allah, give me a
clean heart. Say amen.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says
Allah loves a person who is hidden,
who is God conscious, God fearing and who
is pure of heart.
Clean of heart.
To sleep with a clean heart, with no
hatred, no grudges,
no anger against any human being. If Allah
gifts you a clean heart, this is one
of the greatest gifts of Allah. You cannot
pay for this guys. You cannot value the
value of this gift from Allah.
To have clean character and to have a
pure heart.
When you ask Allah in these as these
nights draw near, ask Allah with his name
Al Wahab.
Ask him be daring.
Ask him for the greatest of his gifts
and then say, you are al wahab.
Nothing is beyond you to give me. Allah
says in the Quran.
You cannot imagine the chazain,
the store,
the bank balance,
the treasures of Allah, you cannot imagine. So
why are you being so modest with your
request? The prophet says that Allah
conveyed to him that
if the first human beings all the way
to the last human beings, 100 of billions
of people.
Every human in the history of the world
and every jinn in the history of the
world, 100 of billions of creatures,
if they all stood in one place,
and they asked Allah whatever they wanted.
Allah gave them whatever they asked for every
single one of them. Imagine this scenario.
Allah says
You have not reduced
the kingdom of Allah.
Imagine if every human in history asked Allah
whatever they want and Allah gave them whatever
they wanted that would not reduce the kingdom
of Allah
except like a needle pricked into the ocean
when it takes out. How much water comes
out of the ocean? One drop. That's the
comparison that Allah gives us.
Yes,
Habib. He asked like sincerely
So like you have to ask
Beautiful.
Otherwise,
it would be fit. Beautiful.
When you ask Allah for something, he's saying
one of the reasons Suleyman alayhi salam was
granted such a kingdom is because he intended
to use this kingdom power, wealth, luxury that
he had
for the service of Allah.
And when Allah bless when we ask Allah
for a blessing intend with it, I want
to use this for the sake of Allah.
I want to use it to serve Allah.
I don't want this thing to be a
fitna for me, a test for me, a
reason for me to be punished on the
day of judgement. We come to the second
name of Allah, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's name,
Al Fatta.
Who can tell me where is Al Fatta
mentioned in the Quran?
Anybody can tell me?
Yes. Surah Saba.
Good. In Surah Saba, you give this Surah,
you have to give me the Ayah now.
Come on, Sheikh. Your vision your vision needs
it. It's okay. It's nearly 7 PM. We'll
let you off. So yes?
Say
Allahu Akbar.
Every time these boys, masha'Allah.
In
Arabic means?
Fata. What does it mean in Arabic? To
open.
Al Fata,
the one who repeatedly opens
the closed doors.
The one who repeatedly relieves you
when things have closed up for you. This
is what Al Fata means. Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala in the Quran, he refers to
many times he uses this word Fataha.
I want to take you to one specific
incident in the life of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
The Muslims are in Madinah.
The Muslims number roughly 1,400
men,
and they go to make an agreement with
the non Muslims, with the people of Makkah.
This agreement, it does not favor the Muslims
on paper.
Every line in this agreement does not favor
the Muslims.
When the prophet Muhammad, salar al salam, signs
this agreement, the Muslims are really feeling upset,
really feeling sad.
Who knows the name of this agreement?
Hudaybiyyah.
The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah.
In this agreement,
the prophet
signs an agreement with the people of Makkah
that they will allow the Muslims to go
and do the pilgrimage.
But
anybody who leaves Makkah to come to Madinah
and accept Islam, the Muslims have to send
them back.
But anybody who leaves the Muslims and goes
and takes safety in Makkah, the Muslims can't
do anything to bring them back.
The agreement, if you read the words, it
doesn't favor the Muslims. But it has only
one positive.
It give the Muslims safety.
They don't have to live in fear every
day that someone's going to attack them.
When the prophet
signs this agreement,
or rather,
he cannot write. And we know the prophet
is illiterate. He cannot read or write.
Now illiterate doesn't mean he's uneducated. He's the
most educated man in history, but he is
illiterate. He cannot read or write.
When he commands Ali ibn Abi Talib,
sign my name at the bottom,
Ali ibn Abi Talib refuses.
Even the at the start of the agreement,
the Maqan said we don't know Ar Rahman,
so write
They don't agree to anything. Right? They have
the the they have the upper hand, and
it is like the Muslims have the lower
When the prophet
agrees to these terms and he walks away,
Allah reveals Quran.
O Muhammad,
we have opened for you a great opening.
Umar ibn Khattab is so angry on this
day, so upset, he says, our fatunhu,
where is the opening? I don't see it.
What did Allah open for us? I don't
see any opening.
Where is the opening? He's furious, he's angry,
he's upset.
Sometimes
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala closes a door for
you in your life.
You're trying to get something, it's not happening.
Whether it's a job, whether it's marriage, whether
it's peace of mind, whether it's stability, whether
it's safety,
all of us are seeking something. Sometimes we
find Allah has closed the door. It's like
we're hitting our head on a brick wall.
Boom.
Boom. Boom. Keep going. It's it's closed.
It's a brick wall. It's lead made of
lead. There's no way through to the other
side.
It's at this point we have to remember
that Allah
is Al Fataah.
Anytime you find something closed upon you in
life, ask Allah from his name Al Fataah
to open the door for
you. If you try to open this door
with your hands, Allah
will break down this door.
The Muslims are in Madinah.
They are effectively in a stalemate. They cannot
go anywhere. Every day they live in fear
they're going to get attacked.
Allah
grants them this agreement, this peace agreement with
the people of Makkah. But when you read
the lines of the agreement, it looks like
this is not a good deal. It's a
bad deal.
It's a bad negotiation. That's what it looks
like.
But what were the outcomes of this deal?
The Muslims that day, the day they signed
the agreement, were 1,400
Muslims.
Within 2 years, who can tell me how
many Muslims accepted Islam?
How many were there in total?
10,000 Muslims.
What's the return on investment?
10 times.
Sometimes
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, opens a door for
you, and it doesn't look like you opened
the door.
But you learn later on that this was
a great opportunity for you.
Because of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah,
the Muslims had 2 years of safety.
People could come, other tribes could come and
embrace Islam, and there will be no threat
against them.
Nobody's there's no sword, no knife to the
throat.
In safety and in peace, they could trade,
they could buy, they could sell, they could
do dawah, they could invite people to Islam.
Their population of Muslims multiplied by 10 in
just 2 years.
Allah opened the door,
but they didn't realize he opened the door.
They didn't think he opened the door. Sometimes
Allah opens the door, but you don't realize
he's opened it for you. It comes in
the form of a closed door. It comes
in the form of a difficulty. It comes
in the form of something that you are
unhappy to accept
but you realize later on,
sometimes
Allah sends you his gifts wrapped in his
calamities.
Which name does this remind you of?
Allah sometimes sends you his gifts wrapped
in a calamity.
Al Latif. Yes.
It's the name of Allah Al Latif.
Allah's name Al Fatta, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says in the Quran.
Whenever Allah opens a door of mercy for
you, nobody can close that door.
And if he closes the door, none can
open it but him.
We learn from Allah's
that the mercy, the bounty, the gifts of
Allah,
you can think of them like they are
doors.
And many of us in this world, some
doors are closed to us and some doors
are open. I'll give you an example.
Some people here, like this young man here
and this young man here, Allah opened them
the door
of learning,
of memorization,
of understanding.
Many of us here, we sit with 1
page of Quran for 6 days. We cannot
memorize one
line. It's like that door has been closed
for us.
But there are people here, when they give
charity, nobody can beat them in charity. There
are people here, when it comes to the
night prayer, nobody can beat them in the
night. There are people here when it comes
to kindness to relatives, kindness to the needy
and the sick and the poor, nobody can
beat them. Allah opened for each of us
a different door to worship him, a different
door to serve him.
But what happens to us?
We see somebody
and one of Allah's doors has been closed
to them. So we say, look at this
guy. He can't even pray the tajjud. He
can't even pray tarawee. He prayed Isha and
he left. We didn't know. He prayed Isha.
He went home to massage his mother's feet,
to care for his ill mother.
Who is great in the sight of Allah?
Somebody tending to an ill parent or somebody
praying optional prayer in the Masjid. No doubt
it is the person who is doing the
obligatory duty of looking after their parents. It's
far greater in the sight of Allah.
Allah opens one door to them and he
closes another.
Never despair when you feel Allah has closed
some doors of worship. For some of you
here, you have very stressful and long hours
that you work.
You work in security. You work in physical
labor. You work in construction. You work in
decoration. You work in taxi. 12 hours, you
are driving, talking to customers. 12 hours, you
are bending your back in the sun. You
are sweating, and you are thinking.
I'm not able to recite the Quran. I'm
not able to remember Allah. I'm not able
to do charity. I'm not I'm stuck in
this job the whole day.
It is like Allah has closed the door
for me to worship him.
Realize,
Allah may have closed one door for you,
but he has opened for you another.
As it is stated in a hadith, its
authenticity is disputed but its meaning is correct.
Whoever earns a halal income is the beloved
of Allah. Allah opened for you this door
to worship him. Don't underestimate
this door.
If Allah opened for you one door to
worship him, don't underestimate. Don't belittle what Allah
has given you the opportunity to do.
He is al Fattah.
And if you want more opportunities,
ask him.
He is the one who opens all doors.
Very often in this world, especially in some
Muslim countries,
in order for you to get something, a
job,
a position, a power,
an exception, you need one special word. In
Arabic, it starts with wow.
Wasta, connections.
The famous statement, you call somebody, look,
I need somebody to give me a refund
on this item. They say, do you know
anybody?
Mentarif.
Who are you?
It's not about what you are. It's about
who you know.
For many of us, we know that there
are so many things in this world we
cannot get unless we know somebody who knows
somebody who can make it happen for us.
Allah's name, Al Fattah, teaches you something.
Very often, we rely on people to open
doors for us. Some connection,
some powerful connection, some wealthy connection to go
and call the member of member of parliament,
call somebody they know in the police force,
somebody they know in the hospital.
Allah's name Al Fattah teaches us.
Who did Ayub, alayhi salam, know when he
was in the belly of the whale?
Who did Yusuf, alayhis salam, know when he
was locked away in a room in the
palace
when he was imprisoned?
Who did Musa, alayhis salam, know when he
was exiled in Madyan for 10 years in
the middle of nowhere?
When you know nobody, when all the doors
are closed,
ask Allah Al Fattah, the one who opens
all doors.
Allah
says in the Quran.
When the prophets when they give up on
their people, they tried all the methods to
invite them to Allah.
Morning,
night, loud, quiet, secret, public, they tried so
many ways to convince the people around them.
Still, it's like their hearts are closed and
locked up. Then they ask Allah with his
name, Al Fattah. Oh Allah,
open the hearts of my people to guidance.
You are the opener of everything that is
closed.
Allah's name Al Fattah
and Allah's name Al Wahhab.
Do not
spend the night
in the last 10 nights
except you mention these two names.
Because all of us have doors that have
been closed to us, but Allah is the
one that can open them.
All of us are looking, are seeking something
from Allah,
and Allah is the one who can wrap
that in a gift and put it at
your door at one day delivery.
But we have to have good expectations of
Allah. There's something I want to end this
talk with.
Many of us, we think very little of
Allah.
Allah informs us, I will be as you
expect me to be. You think that I
am a miser? You think I don't have
much? You will not get much from me.
You think I'm powerless? You won't get any
power from me.
You think that somebody else is more important
than me? Go and ask them. Don't ask
me.
Go ask them if they are so important
to you, if they are so powerful to
you.
You think that I'm not going to provide
for you, cater to your needs,
respond to you when you ask? Then don't
ask me, ask to those you think who
will respond.
The crux and the center of dua is
to have a conversation with Allah.
And to have a conversation with Allah, we
have to know with certainty
and we have to have good hopes in
Him.
And when we ask, He will respond.
When the door is closed, He will open.
So many of us, Allah is the last
one that we ask.
We ask 10 people,
and then when all gives all fails, then
we go to Allah. But we forgot
Allah was more powerful than all of them
combined. Why did we not ask him first
before we asked anybody else?
This doesn't mean we don't take the means.
For the door to open, we have to
knock,
but we can still ask the one with
the keys.
So many doors are locked to us.
You can try brute force. You can try
to punch it down,
but Allah has the keys to all the
doors. He is al Fattah.
He has the miftah. He has the key.
So don't go asking the ones
who don't have the keys.
Ask the one who owns all the keys
to all the doors.
He owns the keys to all the treasures.
He owns all and he sees all, and
he is the one that we should turn
to. He is the one that Suleyman
asks when all the doors are closed. When
Ayub alayhi salam, his illness takes him to
the extent where he has no hope, he
turns to Allah. When Zakariyah alayhi salam has
tried all the methods, he can't have children,
he asks Allah for the gift.
When everything you tried has failed,
do not lose hope in Allah.
That is the gravest of sins.
Ibrahim alaihis salam,
when the 2 angels come to him
and they say to him,
you're going to have a son, Allah's gift
to you, this son. He says, me? How
can I have a son?
And they say to Ibrahim,
do not ever be a person who loses
hope from Allah. Ibrahim alayhi salam says,
Nobody loses hope in Allah except people who
are lost.
Many of us sitting here have lost hope
in Allah.
We have been asking him. We have been
pleading him. We have been trying, and nothing's
happening,
and we lose hope.
You have not lost more hope
than Zakariyah after 100 years of trying to
have a child.
You have not lost more hope than Ayoub
after decades of chronic illness.
You have not lost more hope than Ibrahim
whose father threw him into a faa. You
have not lost more hope than the prophet
Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam
who buried his mother with his hands, who
buried his son with his hands, who buried
his uncle with his hands. How many of
his loved ones died in front of his
own eyes? And yet, after all of that,
they never lost hope in Allah.
And so Allah always,
after a long wait and a long patience,
he opened the door to them.
950
years. I want you to remember one word
when you go home.
Just one
sentence.
His delay
does not mean
his denial.
If Allah is delaying giving you something, that
doesn't mean he has denied it from you.
That doesn't mean he rejected you. You have
to wait. We have to be patient.
Alayhi says, Subhoo Be Karib. The help of
Allah is near.