Hisham Jafar Ali – Names Of Allah And His Attributes #25 The Greatest
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Today we
are going to be remembering our name of
Allah
that has two points of relevance.
It has two points of relevance with the
month that we are in.
Recited to you the last verses from Suratul
Isra
which Allah ends by saying
and magnify Allah
and declare his greatness.
And so we are looking today at Allah's
names Al Kabir,
Al Akbar,
Al Mutakabbir,
Al Kebriya
all of these names are associated
with the same meanings that are to be
given to Allah
And these names have two points of relevance
with the month that we are in.
Who can tell me?
Why is it relevant to remember this name
in this month? Yes.
Where have you been?
Where have you been? Come sit here.
Sheikh, come sit in your special place
and you cannot disappear like this again for
so long.
Sheikh,
everybody here missed you.
Okay.
Miss Miller, tell me, how is it relevant
to the month we are in?
Okay. Allah give you great rewards, this is
one element.
What else?
Okay. Greatest 10 days of the year. Correct?
Something more specific. Masha'Allah.
The 2 sheikhs are present.
Yes.
Takbir.
The idea of Takbir, what does it have
to do with these 10 days?
Because,
part of the pilgrimage,
Hajj people do Takbir.
Okay.
Part of the pilgrimage,
the greater pilgrimage of Hajj, people do taqbir,
they declare the greatness of Allah.
But also
the greatest zikr, the greatest word of remembrance,
the way greatest way to remember Allah in
these 10 days, the days of Hajj,
is to say Allahu Akbar.
And there's another point of relevance that may
not come to many people's mind.
Allahu Akbar, this word kibr
comes from the word kibr which means pride.
And we are also in another month called
pride month.
And that's not the month in the Islamic
calendar but we'll come to that Insha'Allah as
we get on with the talk.
In the Arabic language
this word kibr
and kibr in the Arabic language refers to
when a human being or when a person
has
an a greater
understanding of themselves than who they really are.
An inflated
understanding of who they are. I might be
this small, but I think of myself as
this big. This is the idea of.
And to see yourself as greater than somebody
else in comparison to somebody else. This is
the idea of kibr.
And then you have the the word which
is to make extra effort
to pretend to be greater than somebody else.
So kibr is a feeling,
is to pretend to be bigger than you
are.
To walk, and to sit, and to act
as though you are greater than who you
really are.
And then,
you have this idea or this name,
the name that is given to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala in the Quran,
which is when you refuse to submit to
anybody else.
That's what means. I refuse to submit.
And this name, this description is only given
to Allah.
All of this is how I describe human
beings.
But when kibr, takabbur, kabeer, when these names
are associated with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Most
High, it has a slightly different meaning.
The first I want to draw your attention
to is something that we say many many
many times a day and we hear many
many times a day.
And that is the words,
Allahu Akbar.
What does it mean to say Allahu Akbar?
Yes. I told him. No. It
has basically, it's
like a triyama. It's like a small triyama.
Yeah. Because people are
everyone is equal. There's no king or queen
or anything else. Yeah. Everyone is equal. Yeah.
And they say Allahu Akbar. Mhmm. So to
acknowledge that Allah is the the greatest. Allah
is the greatest. Similar
because everybody would be equal.
Okay. Beautiful. It's like the name Allahu Akbar
means there's no one above Allah. Okay. So
you're saying that we say Allahu Akbar in
this month of Hajj or it's a word
that we remember Allah within this month of
Hajj because
Hajj is the rehearsal for the day of
judgement, this greater pilgrimage.
And on the day of judgement everybody will
be equal,
but at the greatest one will be the
presence of Allah the Most High.
People translate Allahu Akbar as Allah is the
greatest,
but that's not technically correct.
What's technically correct translation? Yes? Allah is greater.
Allah is greater. It's a comparative word. Akbar.
Right?
When you say greater,
in your head, you automatically comparing to somebody
else. When I say this bottle is larger,
I've already got in my mind something that's
smaller than it. It's relative.
And so the beauty of the word Allahu
Akbar
is that when you use it you automatically
are comparing the greatness of Allah to everything
else in your mind.
Because Allah doesn't specify what he's greater than.
And so it's everything.
And so here, you hear it in the
call to prayer.
You hear it in the beginning of prayer,
salah.
You hear it in every movement in salah,
in prayer.
Because
this term Allahu Akbar,
or to declare Allah as great, as grand,
as magnificent,
it inspires in human beings this feeling of
humility,
this feeling of smallness.
If I'm saying Allah is great, that means
that I am?
Small. I'm small. I'm insignificant.
And so really this name, it reminds us
of who we really are as human beings.
Recently,
in the news,
you have this recent news of the sinking
of the Titanic submarine.
And not very long before that you had
the sinking of the ship itself the Titanic
and when the Titanic
many years ago
was sent out into the ocean
anybody remember what they said about the ship?
Yes even
God himself could not sink the ship. Look
at that. That's what they said. And what
happened to the ship? Yes sir.
Right?
What we see in the news and what
we see around the world today
is that human beings have decided that they
are Akbar.
They think human beings have come to decide
that they are the greatest, they are the
grandest, nobody can defeat them, they are invincible
And this arrogance, this human arrogance, this human
pride
has taken over all aspects of their life.
Until they thought and until they think
that we are so great, we decide the
rules for ourselves. Nobody else decide the rules
for me. I'm the boss. I decide the
rules.
And so of course, I decide the rules
related to gender.
I decide the rules related to morality,
related to right and wrong, and I'll be
proud of what I do regardless of who
thinks it's good, bad, moral, immoral, it doesn't
matter.
And so being proud
in sin,
and being arrogant
in evil,
this has become the state of humanity today.
And one of the things that we experienced
in the last year that brought humanity to
its knees,
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala God sent
the tiniest
microscopic
being.
And this microscopic being locked the entire world
in their houses and brought us to our
needs. What was it? Covid. Covid.
Allah says in the Quran.
Allah is not shy to set an example.
He can give the example of a tiny
fly or something greater than that. But the
point is for the message to reach you.
But don't underestimate the creation of Allah.
When Allah creates, he can bring you down
with the smallest and most underestimated
of creation.
Humanity overestimates
themselves.
They are too proud, too arrogant.
They think that science and technology,
lasers and microscopes,
have now made them so invincible they can
do as they please.
And every time humanity sets out a challenge
to God, Allah
sinks the challenge.
Whether it was a titanic ship, whether it
was some rocket, whether it was some submarine,
whether it was a tiny microscopic,
you know, being that brought the world to
its knees, to put us in our place.
This is the spirit of takbir,
is to remember your place.
You are nothing.
When you say Allahu Akbar, God is great,
the greatest, greater,
magnificent,
grand,
you remind yourself how small you are, how
insignificant you are, how little you are, how
incapable you are, and you lose this air
of arrogance and pride. Instead, you become humble
in front of God, in front of Allah.
And this is why we say it as
the entrance to prayer
because you cannot enter salah prayer, you cannot
enter salah with arrogance and pride
and so it inspires humility, it inspires humbleness,
it inspires respect
There are other names of Allah. When I
say Allah is close, it inspires hope. When
I say Allah is merciful, it inspires love.
But yes, there are also other names of
Allah. Other aspects of Allah's descriptions and attributes
which inspire fear,
which inspire respect,
which inspire humility in front of him.
I want you to imagine this moment.
A Bedouin walks into a big palace in
Arabia,
or in Persia, or in Rome.
And in front of this grand palace, with
all of its wealth and all of its
civilization,
he feels so small and he feels so
humble that he stands there like this with
his head bowed,
and he bows in front of his master,
the master of civilization.
This was always what would happen in history,
but something changed when people started to realize
that the only one they should bow down
in front of
is
Al Kabir,
the greatest, the one greater than anything else.
It made them realize that any human being,
any technology, any power, any government, other than
Allah, it's it's small,
it's lesser.
And so you have this famous incident of
Rebaib Nuhamer, this
emissary,
entering the palace of Rustam, the grand emperor
of Persia.
And if you read any history book, the
greatest empire in the history of the world
was not Rome,
it was the Persian Empire.
And as he enters this Persian Empire,
he enters this Emperor's Palace,
He's a Bedouin Arab with tattered clothes with
no money to his name.
He enters the palace and he stands there.
And in Rustam's Palace everybody has to enter
and they have to bow their heads to
him, but this guy is walking in with
his head up like this.
He's not bowing his head,
and Rustom is thinking where did this guy
get his this dignity and this self respect
from?
His guards say we're gonna we're gonna chop
off this man's head, why is he walking
in with so much pride? Muslim says, no,
let me see what he has to say.
He walks in,
and even today as Muslims, one thing that
we always feel shy of, we feel inferior,
we feel small, is only think about the
advancements of other civilizations.
Oh, we Muslims have not advanced in science,
we've not advanced in technology, we are behind,
we're this, we're backward. And so we feel
this little inferior, we feel small.
But as he walks in, and he sees
that this gentleman, Rustam, has so much, and
he has every advancement, he doesn't feel small,
in fact, he feels quite dignified,
and Rustam tries to humiliate him.
He says,
oh you Bedouin Arab, what brought you out
of the desert, you lizard eaters?
And he then says, Rebir ibn Umar says
a famous statement.
He said I have come to free you
from your slavery.
Thinks me? Slave? I'm the king.
I'm the slave. Okay?
He said I've come to free you from
your slavery to human beings
and to free you to become a slave
to God, the most merciful.
And I've come to free you from the
restrictedness
of man made religions
into the freedom of Allah's religion.
He walks in confident,
and this is really what Allah's name Al
Kabir will give you. It'll give you the
confidence.
Anybody
other than Allah
is not invincible,
is not great,
is not special,
is not all powerful.
Everybody other than Allah
is just another creation of Allah.
This is what gives Ibrahim alaihis salam the
confidence to stand in front of Nimrud,
and Musa the confidence to stand in front
of Firan,
and Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam the confidence
to stand in front of his great and
powerful enemies.
Because when you start to absorb this idea
Allah is Akbar, greater, you realize this guy
is nothing.
What is he gonna fight me with?
I have Allah behind me. I have Allah
with me. Allah says in the Quran,
Oh, Muhammad go.
You are within our sight.
Allah says to Musa,
With my signs, with my miracles, with my
revelation, you're going to win.
Nobody can defeat you.
This power, this confidence,
this strength, it comes from Allah
because you realize he is the greatest.
Muhammad Ali,
not the imam of the masjid,
the boxer Muhammad Ali.
Who knows what he used to call himself?
Greatest. He used to call himself the greatest.
And in his boxing career at one point
in time,
he fell ill for 6 months.
He couldn't recover. He couldn't step back in
the ring. After over a decade of a
spotless performance suddenly, he just falls ill.
And when he's asked, when he makes his
return to the ring, what happened,
mister Muhammad Ali, The big talker?
You're the big man, you're the boss of
the ring, what happened?
He says,
I used to call myself the greatest
until God reminded me he is the greatest.
Allah sometimes makes us fall to humble us,
to realize that actually we're not all that
much.
This is the spirit of takbir.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
some people sell the idea of God as
loving, as merciful,
and all of these nice things, but they
forget that there is another aspect of Allah.
We are to be humble in front of
him. We are to be respectful in front
of him. We are to be scared in
front of him, because he is not just
merciful, he is powerful beyond measure,
and it is important to balance these two
things, the fear and hope,
the mercy and respect.
We all have parents that we
love. Our parents love us, they are merciful
to us, they feed us, they hug us,
they cuddle us,
but the day that you mistake that mercy
and love to mean that you can abuse
your parents,
and you stand up and you give them
a word of abuse,
and you feel a flying slipper catch you
in the face, and you realize on that
very day that love
and mercy
does not mean that that person is incapable
of disciplining you, that that person is powerless,
no, there is a balance and this is
just a human example
and this is why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
when he talks about himself he talks about
himself with these two angles, these two sides
of the spectrum let me take you to
Ayatul Kursi the greatest verse in the Quran
Allah starts this verse describing himself Allah
Allah, there is none worthy of worship, of
love, of devotion, but him.
He describes himself as
which is someone who's close to you, who
looks after you, who is there when you
need him.
By the time you get to the end
of the verse it is like Allah zoomed
out.
He is the highest and the greatest.
It is as though he's saying when I
say Allah is close
and I'm inspiring you new hope and love
of him,
Don't think that that doesn't mean Allah is
also great, and he's the highest, and he's
beyond your imagination, and he's beyond your control.
These are the two sides we have to
keep in mind when it comes to our
Creator.
And this is why the movements in salah
are movements of respect and humility.
These are movements which have, for centuries, it
has been preserved and saved for when you
meet a king, when you meet an emperor,
when you meet a sensei,
a teacher,
you come, you bow.
You come, you prostrate your head on the
ground. This was only saved for the greatest
of people on this earth, and then when
the final law came, the final Sharia came,
now you bow
only to your creator.
Everybody else is not Kabir anymore.
Everybody else is not great.
They have all become lesser, lesser than him.
I often make a joke
to those people from Rochdale and Oldham.
They say, you guys say you're Greater Manchester.
The people of Manchester may not agree.
O Allahu Akbar.
Allah is Greater.
In Suratul Isra,
who can tell me what is Suratul Isra
about, this chapter of the Quran that comes
towards the center of the Quran?
Yes? Okay. That is featured in the Surah.
But what is the core purpose of the
Surah?
The core story that is revealed.
Yes. It's about the the the fallen
rise. Okay. The fall and rise of Bani
Israel, but there's a particular event that takes
place.
Al Isra wal Miraj. The night journey of
the Prophet, peace be upon him, okay, from
his house
all the way to? Jerusalem,
and all the way to the heavens and
back. And what is revealed in this event?
What ruling is given to him that now
the Muslims have to follow?
Salah. Salah.
Now I want you to notice something beautiful
about the structure of this Surah.
What is the first word of this Surah?
The last word of this Surah,
Allah commands the prophet
to declare that he is the greatest.
And very soon after he descends from the
heavens, what is the first thing that he
says?
Allahu Akbar.
Is really about this.
It's about tasbih and takbir.
The idea of tasbih,
subhanAllah, in Arabic
means you are rejecting anything to do, anything
that is an abuse to Allah.
When people say God has a son, God
has a daughter, God is limited, God is
powerless,
you say,
No way. Allah is not like that. Allah
is far above that. Allah is beyond that.
And you can only say that if you
know him well. If I came to and
I said, you know your friend, Umar?
Umar is a thief. He's a liar.
You would say, no no no, Umar's not
like that, and you'd only say that if
you know him very well. So
when you reject something negative said about someone,
is only if you know them very well.
And this how salah starts, Allahu Akbar,
what's the first thing you say? Subhanak.
It is about rejecting everything, every imperfection associated
with Allah.
But then when you say Allahu Akbar,
it brings humility in your heart.
And this is why this surah, this chapter
of the Quran, this last verse that I
recited,
Say praise be to Allah who never took
a son.
And he has no equal in his kingdom.
And he has no
close
one who can humiliate him or can make
him lower.
Sahib Musaad al Sadeer narrates
in Musaib Mohammed that the prophet
is reported to have said,
This is the verse that inspires
dignity,
respect,
and might when you think of Allah.
Allah has no son, no equal, no partner,
He is alone and unique in this power
that He holds.
This is really the meaning of this verse.
When, if you think about it, when does
Allah want us to say this word Allahu
Akbar?
We said in salah.
What what other days do you tend to
say Allahu Akbar on? Yes.
On the day of Eid.
Right?
What other days when else do you say
Allahu Akbar?
When you slaughter, when you slaughter an animal.
What is in common with all these things?
Why do we say Allahu Akbar in these
events?
Why not subhanAllah? Why not alhamdulillah? There's so
many other ways to remember Him. But why
do we declare the greatness of Allah on
these days?
The answer is gonna come from you.
Okay, we said, okay, human, but why specifically
in Eid?
Okay. Read this a celebration.
But why would you need to say Allahu
Akbar when you're celebrating something?
Yes.
What you're celebrating
the law?
Mhmm.
You're nearly there. You're very close.
Yes.
Not quite, yes.
Mhmm.
Masha'Allah, I love this, I love this. What's
your name? Omar. Omar, masha'Allah. I like your
answers. You should keep coming and sit in
the front always. Okay? So if the 2
big sheikhs don't come, then you come as
a substitute.
I like it, masha'a. You like it? You
like my jokes? Alhamdulillah. At least some people
laugh at my jokes.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gets us to say
Allahu Akbar, Allah is greater greatest,
specifically
after we complete acts of worship.
The companion of the Prophet narrate in Bukhari
and Muslim that when the Prophet, peace be
upon him, would complete his prayer,
what's the first thing they'd hear him say?
Allahu Akbar.
When we complete 30 days of fasting, then
Allah on Eid wants us to say?
Allahu Akbar. When he complete 10 days, the
best 10 days of the year, the greatest
days of worship,
and we celebrate on aid, Allah wants us
to say, Allah. But do you know why?
One of the reasons.
When you complete 30 days of fasting, you
start to think, you know what? I'm the
boss.
I'm a sick guy.
I'm big dumb.
30 days of fasting.
18 hours of no food and drink.
Who's who's as great as me?
You start to get a feeling, small feeling
in your heart, little firaun whispering to you,
you're amazing,
you're invincible,
You're so righteous.
And that is why Allah wants us, when
we complete an act of worship to say
Allahu Akbar. Allah is greater.
If it wasn't for him, I would not
have been doing any of this. He is
greater
than what I put forward for him. Whatever
I put forward is like 1p compared
to what he deserves.
This is
the saying Allahu Akbar humbles you with regard
to what you submitted to him.
Imagine you're at university,
there's an assignment due
and the assignment
that's due 8,000 words assignment
and you come on that day and you
submit a document with 3 words.
How you gonna feel on that day? You're
going to wish that you disappeared.
You're going to wish that a genie came
and he rubbed his lamp or the ayadabulla
and you just disappeared within air. You're not
gonna be feeling very great about yourself
Because you realize that what you put forward
was nothing,
was insignificant.
This is how we should feel about our
deeds.
Worshipping Allah
and putting forward things in front of Him,
for Him, in service, in worship, in sacrifice,
should not make us proud about our deeds.
It should make us humble that, you know
what I did?
I don't even know if it was worth
anything.
The day of sacrifice, the day of aid,
the day of sacrifice
is the day that Muslims around the world
will sacrifice an animal
in remembering their father Ibrahim as he sacrificed,
as he was willing to sacrifice his son.
But when we say Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,
we are reminding ourselves constantly,
whatever I have sacrificed for Allah, be it
time, be it money, be it blood, sweat,
and tears, it was nothing in comparison to
what he deserves.
He deserves more than what I put.
Saying Allahu Akbar makes us feel shame.
Whatever I did in front of Allah,
can I really say it was something
that deserves acceptance?
It humbles you.
When Allah describes believers in the Quran, he
says,
There are people who submit things to Allah
while their hearts are trembling in fear.
Their hearts are trembling in fear
that if I return to Allah, will he
even have accepted this deed? I don't even
know.
This is the spirit of,
you know, in in Madina, there is this
idea of the hypocrite, the pretend believer. Somebody
who is does all the actions, but inside
they're a disbeliever.
And the prophet, peace be upon him, Allah
reveals to him the names of the disbelievers,
and he goes and tells one person, Hudayfayb
muliaman.
And Umayy Bul Khattab comes running,
and he asked Hudayfa, I don't want to
know who's on the list, but just tell
me, am I on the list?
Am I a hypocrite?
Can you imagine? Umayy Bul Khattab thought he
was a hypocrite?
He
underestimated
himself,
and we overestimate ourselves. This is the spirit
of Allahu Akbar.
Any good that you do, it was because
of the greatness of Allah, you are not
great.
It was the greatness of Allah reflecting in
your deeds, but you are not great. Humble
yourself.
Stand down. Bow down. Put your head on
the ground. You know, in South Asian culture,
where I'm from, the most respectful the most
respectful element of a person is their head.
And that is why even before Islam and
before, you know,
the most respectful thing of a man was
his turban.
And when a man is really disrespected, he
takes off his turban, because he cannot handle
what has just happened to himself.
That is the respect.
You know, that that is the symbol of
respect,
symbol of dignity and pride, and the whole
purpose of salah, the culmination of salah,
is when you put this head on the
floor.
You would not do that for anybody else.
It is a mark of humiliation.
But this is exactly the meaning of Allahu
Akbar.
Allah is so great and I'm so small
that I'm going to put my head on
the floor. And when you put your head
on the floor, what do you say?
Glory be to my Lord, the Most High.
As I have lowered myself
to the lowest position on earth,
my head's on the floor,
I acknowledge that my Lord is the Most
High. I am the lowest, He is the
highest.
And this is very significant because when Allah
talks about his name, in
the Quran,
he always pairs it with his name, Al
Ali, the highest.
Allah is the highest and the greatest.
Al Kabir Al Mutaal,
the great and the high.
Because this is something that was used to
describe kings and
your eminence, your greatness, your highness,
your highness
and these are the words that we now
only describe our maker
Because he is the one we bow down
in front of, we submit in front of.
This is the spirit of Ibrahim alaihis salam.
That he understood the greatness of Allah to
such an extent he was willing to do
anything for his sake.
And you know it was easier if Allah
told him to to kill himself.
It would have been easier if Allah told
him give a knife to someone, let them
kill your son. But Allah asked him the
hardest thing for him to do really, there
was nothing harder, which is to take a
knife in his own hand and slaughter his
own child with his own hand.
And that is the greatest of all sacrifice.
That's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
His sacrifice was really something that could not
be calculated. It is so great you cannot
imagine it.
Knowing Allah is the greatest means you are
inspired to do the greatest things for Him.
When you know a cause is great, when
you know the purpose is great, you are
willing to really go the extra mile.
When something is small for you, insignificant, unimportant,
you're not willing to spend some time.
Somebody calls you, I want to meet you,
I have this request from you, and in
your mind you think who is this guy?
I don't even know who he is
and you think to yourself, you know what?
I'm not gonna give him 5 minutes of
my day, I'm too busy, I'm too important
for them,
but imagine somebody you greatly respect calls you,
a
king, the imam,
the tribal leader, the chief calls you. You
feel honored just the fact that they called
you,
and you feel like dropping everything to go
and meet sit and sit with them. If
they said I'm popping by your house,
you drop everything to come and sit with
them because you understand the greatness that they
have.
This is the spirit of the call to
prayer starting with
Allah is the greatest
because it's actually saying something slightly different
drop everything
because the greatest one is awaiting your meeting
with drop everything
if today the mayor of the city popped
around to your house and knocked the door
you would drop everything okay you know the
mayor's outside
If the police turned up to your door,
you would already be having a triple speed
heartbeat as you walk to the door. You
drop everything to go and see, because someone
great, someone esteemed, someone respectful,
and you are already in awe, already in
fear, already in respect, you are humbled in
front of them.
You know one time
my father was in a conference, an Islamic
conference
and he was with a group of people
and somebody told them that now
the Sheikh,
the ruler of this city has invited you
to his palace
he was with 2 other men
they got so excited they forgot their shoes
in the conference and they walked barefoot into
the van into the taxi
and they ended up in the palace of
the ruler of this country barefoot
they're looking at each other, how did this
happen? How did we end up barefoot?
When someone of eminence, of greatness, of respect
invites you, you forget everything, forget your name
What's your name?
I swear I knew this 3 minutes ago,
but I really don't know my name right
now.
Greatness
makes you drop everything,
but when we hear the call to prayer,
Allahu Akbar
Allahu
Akbar
Allah is greater, Allah is greater.
We don't feel like dropping anything
because we don't know of the grandeur and
the greatness and the highness and the eminence
of the one who is being
described. We think he's our friend,
our mate,
merciful,
nice creator.
We don't realize he's also the great, he's
also severe in punishment, he's also powerful, he
requires respect,
humility,
And you know what?
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala promised the greatest punishment
in the Quran
for the one who has pride.
Who can tell you what that punishment is?
No, not not Jahannam.
Before Jahannam happens. Yes.
If you give me this hadibi from me,
you have a 30 pound cash price.
No. I'm he lost the answer.
Yes. When Allah,
showed his one of the
Okay. This is true. This is not what
I'm thinking about. But, yes, when Allah
on the day of judgment revealed his shin
that then the arrogant, the proud person cannot
prostrate will not be able to
No. It doesn't guide them.
The cash prize was only for him.
Yeah?
I will actively turn away from my signs.
Whoever walks on this earth with pride and
arrogance.
And if they saw every sign, every miracle
of mine, they would still not believe.
This is the consequence of pride. The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says
None will enter paradise who has an atom's
weight of pride and arrogance in their heart.
This is the danger.
Because when you are arrogant, when you are
proud, you are pretending to be something you
are not, you are not great,
you are nothing.
Allah is the greatest.
And that whoever walks without that humility, who
walks with that pride and arrogance, Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala will show them.
And now let us come to our yes?
Yes. Beautiful. As Allah describes in the Quran,
They did not give Allah their respect, the
estimation He deserved. Now let us come to
that second point I mentioned, point of relevance.
We are in the month that is celebrated
as pride month.
We seek Allah's protection.
Is the month what what are people proud
about in this month? What are they celebrating?
They are celebrating the fact
that human beings have elevated themselves to the
status of God such that they say, I'm
the boss, I decide what's right or wrong,
and I will celebrate my decisions and no
one can tell me otherwise.
This arrogance and this pride was always a
sin. And this arrogance and pride will have
consequences.
It will create confusion. It will create corruption.
People will be lost. They will not know
who they are, where they are, and what
they are,
confused
between selection selecting which gender for themselves as
though they're standing in front of the alacarte
menu at a restaurant not knowing
which of the many letters am I today.
This is what pride gives you.
Pride
is not something that we should be proud
about because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam promises
promises
that you will never enter paradise if you
have an iota of pride.
Human beings should learn today to humble themselves.
Human beings struggle today to even govern a
country how can they decide how to govern
themselves
right and wrong morality
the greatest questions what is right and what
is wrong
is that something you wake up in the
morning and then by evening you've changed your
mind
that something so relative like 30 years ago
it was prohibited outlawed and made 30 years
later let's celebrate
it how does that work
where does the line stop
What are we gonna celebrate tomorrow?
*?
What are we gonna celebrate tomorrow? *?
Are we to be proud of that?
Are we to be proud of this kind
of vulgar and this kind of, you know,
immoral and indecent behavior?
That's not something that we can be proud
about as Muslims, and that's not something that
we can endorse.
But this is the trajectory that humanity is
going towards.
And what you will see and what you
will notice is a return to the old
school laws, the old school rules, as people
struggle to cope with this new world where
there are no rules.
You go today on the London Underground and
you'll see a sign
that if you look at another woman, it
can be considered sexual harassment.
Think, really? I'm sure that was in the
Quran somewhere that I should be lowering my
eyes.
Today in workplaces, if you go in workplaces,
it is discouraged for man, woman to be
in the same room on their own. I'm
sure that came in the hadith of the
prophet, salam alayhi salam. Any man and woman
are alone with each other except the shaitan
is the third.
What is a strange return to the old
laws,
the old rules,
when people humanity
has this emptiness?
There's no right and wrong anymore. We are
the bosses, we decide what we want that
will only lead to one thing and one
thing only,
the emptiness and the destruction and the loss
of purpose which is what we see today.
The highest rates of depression, the highest rates
of suicide, of divorce that we've ever seen
in the history of humanity,
that will only cause human beings to return,
we hope,
to the one ship of salvation,
that is the ship of submission
and humility
and not pride.
And I pray that Allah subhanahu ta'ala few
years from now that this month becomes month
of humility and that is celebrated the month
that we humble ourselves in front of our
Creator how many submarines,
how many ships, how many titanics are waiting
to sink
for us to realize, how many covids are
we waiting for us to realize that our
place in the cosmos, in the universe is
this,
we are nothing
and really our place is to declare
the greatness
of our creator.
This is the spirit of these 10 days.
Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar.
Abu Hurayrah
Radiallahu Anhu and Umar Bul Khattab Radiallahu Anhu.
They used to go to the markets,
the the busy places of the city, and
they used to recite Takbir loudly and people
would recite after them. Because
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, wants us to to
declare his greatness
on the days
where you
see the Muslim Ummah, the nation,
this multicultural
nation,
when you see them gathered on the day
of Eid, it really is a sight to
be beheld. When you see them gathered on
the day of Arafah, it is a sight
to see. You realize the greatness of Allah.
You realize you how small you are. In
the sea of 100 of 1000 of people
standing on the mountain and calling to Allah,
you realize you are nothing. This is the
realization we come to in these days.
This is the realization Ibrahim alaihis salam teaches
us.
Don't overestimate
yourself.
Submit.
Humble yourself to Allah, the Most High. That
is the life, that is the free life.
That is the life of peace. That is
the life of contentment and happiness.
Contentment and happiness is not freedom as they
describe it today, which means to do as
you want with what you want.
Freedom
is the freedom to submit to Allah.
That is the life that brings peace and
contentment
to all human beings. As Allah says in
the Quran,
Whoever turns away from my remembrance,
they will live a miserable life.
And we will raise them up on the
day of judgement blind.
They'll say, oh, Allah, why did you raise
me blind when I used to be able
to see? And Allah will say,
My signs came to you and you forgot
them, you didn't see them, and today you'll
be forgotten as well. And just before I
finish, just as a disclaimer so that I
don't get arrested or I get don't get
in legal trouble, as Muslims, we are not
homophobic.
We do not wish harm on anybody.
But we call a spade a spade. Something's
wrong and indecent, we can we say it's
indecent. We consider it indecent. That's our opinion.
We have the freedom to say and to
express our religious beliefs.
We don't mean harm on anybody. We also
consider
relationship outside of marriage indecent between man and
woman.
That doesn't mean we want to harm anybody.
That's just our opinion
and we will stand by that and we
hope to die by that and we hope
to be resurrected by that and if all
the other religion decided to change their minds
on these rules, then we would hope to
be the ones who stand by them until
the very day that we are resurrected. We
don't celebrate pride. We celebrate humility.
We celebrate that Allah is the greatest, not
us. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar. La ilaha illallah
o Allahu Akbar.
Before we finish, yes?
The pride is shaitan's promise to Allah.
Pride is shaitan's promise to Allah before applying
Adam
Pride is the promise of the devil.
Pride is shaitan's promise to Allah.
Changing changing
the creation of Allah. Mhmm. Shaitan's
Yes. This is also shaitan's promise. The idea
of changing the creation of Allah and deforming
the creation of Allah. May Allah protect us
from what's happening today. And may Allah protect
our children from these these ideas. And may
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to die
and be resurrected standing firm by our beliefs.
And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us
of those who are humble and who have
humility in front of him in our salah,
outside our salah. May Allah make us of
those who in these days, in these 10
days, remember the grandeur and the greatness of
Allah and humble ourselves in front of him.
There's just a few minutes until Saad al
Isha, so I will leave you to prepare.