Ingrid Mattson – Fruits of Faith in the Believer’s Heart, Mind and Actions
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Dear sisters and brothers, it's such a delight
to be back here at SeekersHub
to be spending
this blessed night and this blessed month with
you.
The fruits of this month are being felt
in our lives, I hope and I pray
for us.
One of the things I just wanted to
begin with before we we delve into this
topic is to remember that
as blessed
as this month is and as blessed as
this night is,
remember that
the most sacred thing
of creation in the eyes of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala is not any day
or any time or any place, but it
is the human being.
The prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he taught his companions this.
One day he was riding into
Mecca
for the Hajj
and
he asked his companion,
do you know what day is this?
And the Sahabi, he thought maybe
the messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was
going to name it a different day.
And he said,
Allah and his messenger know best. He said,
isn't this the day of Nahr, the day
of
the slaughter of the animals? He said yes.
And he said, what month is this?
He knew he knew what month it was,
but he thought maybe the prophet Muhammad
was going to say it's a different kind
of month. No. It's the beautiful month of
the pilgrimage.
And what place is this?
It is the sacred
city of Mecca.
And the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said
out of all of these things,
the sacredness,
the inviolability
of the believer
is more than all of these things.
How much do we hold in our hearts
this reverence
for
the month of Ramadan, for the month,
of the Dhul Hejjah,
for the Hajj, for Mecca and Medina, how
much love do we have in our hearts
and we believe that they're so special and
so sacred
yet each believer
is more special
and more sacred and has a right to
be protected
and defended and cared for even more
than all of those
sacred times and places.
May Allah
guide us to behave that way,
to give the
same and even more reverence and care and
respect and love and compassion to each other
than we do to these very important parts
of our faith.
Today, when I'm speaking about the fruits of
faith,
we're talking about Iman
and not necessarily
religious identity.
And it's so important that we understand this
distinction
because many people will say and as as
we talk about the fruits of iman, the
fruits of faith,
many people will say well,
if there are all of these beautiful faiths
why do we see that Muslims are hurting
each other?
That there are Muslims,
not all, but there are
some Muslims who are behaving in ways that
are not beautiful,
that are not
creating beauty in the world but are creating
ugliness,
that are not living a life full of
love and compassion
but a la a life full of aggression.
But faith
and good deeds, they're related but they're not
the same thing.
Allah
created
humanity
in the best of molds,
the the the very best shape.
But we will
go down if it is not for except
for those who
have faith, wa'amilu solihat, those who have faith
and who do good deeds.
They're related, but they're not the same.
And
it's so important that we understand this because,
you know, this is not gonna be a
discussion of
how many
obligatory
deeds or good deeds a person has to
leave behind before they come very close to
leaving faith. This is a long discussion.
It's contentious,
and
it's not our topic tonight.
What we should know is that
we leave the judgment of faith,
the faith of any believer
up to Allah alone. This is not the
place for our judgment.
We are not the people who can do
that.
It is
we do not know the state of anyone's
heart.
Indeed, it's difficult for us to even know
the state of our own heart.
So how could we judge the state of
anyone else's heart?
And when we see people who
claim to have faith, who claim they are
believers yet
are engaging in actions that are harmful to
themselves or others,
what is our response at this point?
We have to know that there are so
many people who have been hurt in this
life
and who have developed harmful habits in order
to survive
a brutal environment
in which they live,
and have developed
behaviors
that are
deceptive
or harmful
or not reliable, not trustworthy
to anesthetize their pain and to find some
way to survive.
So when it comes to such people,
our job is not judgment,
but to help change the oppressive circumstances in
which they live,
to support them in rehabilitation,
their physical, mental,
and spiritual
rehabilitation
so that they can realize their God given
potential,
and we have hope for that.
And,
alhamdulillah,
we have organizations like Nasihah Helpline
who are working on providing the support and
help.
So what do we do when we see
those who are believers
yet their
action and their deeds
are harmful to themselves and others, and we
feel, you know, are there any fruits of
their faith?
Where are the fruits of their faith? Again,
it's not for us to judge, it's for
us to run to their assistance,
to change this oppressive circumstances
in which so many people live.
And,
alhamdulillah,
we should really give
all of our thanks, our support, financial, our
prayers, and our assistance if possible
to, the brothers and sisters at Nelsiha helpline
who are doing this,
this fine work.
But when we see
those who are
engaged in actions that are harmful to themselves
or others,
our faith
is the thing that gives us hope.
Because
our faith tells us
that we have been created
whole
and not broken.
Allah
Allah created us
as beings who are receptive
to both Allah and to what Allah sets
as good.
We know that we have the potential,
the innate potential
to connect with God
and to connect with what God has determined
is good.
And that when we do that,
we will start to feel good. We'll start
to feel like we're coming home
back to our original place
of love and compassion and security, that place
in which we were created in the presence
of our creator.
The most important
connection between faith and actions is that faith
makes us believe
that complying with the actions that Allah tells
us to do
and to avoid the actions that Allah tells
us not to do is in our own
interest.
Doing so will allow us to realize
and strengthen
our physical, mental,
spiritual, and social capacities for our own good
and for the good of others.
This is perhaps
the most beautiful thing that we can know
about ourselves,
which is that Allah has created us good
and wants us to be good, and that
he has given us collectively
the capacities
to continually
repent
and reform and renew and restore
our physical our spiritual selves.
Now some might ask,
are you saying then that a person
who is despairing is a person without faith?
What is the relationship
between faith and despair
if our faith should give us hope?
And here
it's so important, and and I'm spending some
time on this tonight because of
so so much
of the news that we hear about the
state of people, the
psychological
state,
the emotional state,
the spiritual state of so many people today,
people who are really suffering.
And I want to make sure that we
understand there's a big distinction between someone
who philosophically
believes that life has no meaning. They have
made a decision that life has no meaning.
It's a philosophical
position so their despair
is a an intellectual
choice.
There's a distinction between that as a worldview,
as a philosophy, and the state of depression
which is a mental illness.
Okay.
So these are 2 very different things. A
person can have faith
and be depressed.
A person can have faith
and have a sense of despair as an
emotional state,
as a psychological
state because these are different than a spiritual
state.
Depression is not a spiritual disorder. It's an
illness.
Unlike other illnesses, a person who is in
this,
situation needs support
and resources to heal.
And the true spiritual test
of depression and despair is for us, those
of us who are mentally well
or relatively
mentally well,
to not leave those who are depressed and
despairing alone. So the real test is for
us because we are capable, we are still
capable
of acting in a way to help improve
the situation,
whereas someone
who is in a deep situation
and state of depression may be unable to
reach out and to help.
So the the true test in this situation
is for us,
not for the depressed person.
Faith, someone wrote that that it's so important
to remember that faith is not a feeling.
Okay?
Faith is simply believing
that God will do what he said,
k, even when it doesn't feel like that.
And so there may be times when we
feel
that
we're not benefiting
or getting the fruits of our faith, but
we know that
Allah is true to Allah's word.
We have that knowledge
even if our feeling
is still one of
incapacity
or sadness.
And we can understand this distinction if we
look at the lives of some of the
prophets,
Allah's chosen prophets when they were going through
hard
times.
If we look at the father of Joseph,
Sayna,
Jacob, Ayub,
who said or Yaqub,
who
faced with the the loss of his son
or the apparent loss of 1 son and
then the apparent loss of another son
and the betrayal
by the majority of his his sons because
he knew that something was going on,
who was so
sad
and distressed, so sad and distressed
that his weeping made it
impossible for him to even see anymore.
And his own sons, the ones who had
deceived him said
said
criticized him and scolded him and said, by
god,
you're never going to stop thinking about Yusuf
until your body and your spirit are broken
or dead.
So imagine what kind of state he seemed
to be in.
But in all of this in all of
this feeling that he had,
what did he say?
I complain
to Allah only of my
sadness
and my grief,
but I know
something about God that you don't know. That's
faith.
It's that knowledge that Allah is true to
Allah's word,
and that in the end it will all
turn out okay
even in the midst of sadness.
And we think of,
the prophet,
Ayub,
say, Nahjob
that when he was suffering
he described himself as being afflicted by Satan
with weariness
and suffering. His state was an intense emotional
state,
emotional distress,
yet at the same time
he had
faith that it was
it was all going according to God's plan.
How? Why? What? What it would turn out
to be? He didn't know. He only had
the knowledge that Allah gave him. But faith
meant
that he knew and believed that all of
this in some way would come out good
even though
his emotional state, his feeling was one of
sadness and despair.
And when Sayidina Maryam, subhanAllah,
the perfect woman
The perfect woman, a human being who's a
model for all of us in her state
of physical
suffering
when she's giving birth.
And I'm sure there was an element of
emotional suffering as well at the same time
because she knew what people thought of her,
that they didn't understand her situation. And it
was
overwhelming
being in this situation that,
you know, no one else had been in
before. Here she was the mother of a
child giving birth and
she had never been with a man and
this came from a law and what did
this mean for her life?
So physical, but also
some emotional suffering
saying and in the midst of that saying,
I wish I had died before this or
never had been born,
had been a thing not even mentioned and
forgotten. I mean, what a what a strong
statement
of emotional
suffering.
Yet
she still had her trust in Allah, subhanahu
wa ta'ala, saying Na Hajar,
who desperate,
desperate looking for some way for her and
her son to survive in the desert
In this
overwhelming situation, this distressing situation, we hear our
child cry
for a few seconds and we want to
run and relieve them.
Her child is
starting to suffer from being in the hot
desert and
she she's the one, you know, who has
to figure out a way
to save him.
But she
she knew there was an answer because she
trusted in Allah. When she asked her husband,
Sayyidina Ibrahim, is this from you or is
this from Allah? And when he said
this is from Allah, she said, then he
will not abandon us. She believed that even
though she couldn't see a way out
running back and forth.
Why'd she run to those top the tops
of those mountains? Because that's the highest place
where she could look and see is someone
coming, a caravan, some people with water.
But, subhanAllah, her salvation wasn't from other people.
It was from a miracle.
Allah opened the earth and brought this water
which we drink until today. So these 2
great men and these 2 great women, they
show us that we can be in a
state of
emotional distress,
a state of suffering yet still have
faith.
Faith is that knowledge and and
knowledge that
what Allah said is true,
that this is his universe,
that everything created is under his command,
and that
he will be true to his word. And
that is what faith is.
And that's the
the the test
of faith,
you know, when people talk about being tested,
the test of faith is not not to
be,
you know,
to act as if nothing's wrong.
And this is a this is a real
problem actually when when some people think that
that's what having faith means
because then they might not share with people
the difficulties that they're having, the emotional difficulties
and that they need support. No. To say
that you're struggling and suffering does not mean
you you don't have faith
at all.
And we also you know, sometimes we see
people struggling and suffering. We say, oh,
we have this throwaway kind of line. Oh,
oh, be patient. Be patient. It's just a
test.
You know? Simple. Easy for you to say.
Right? When there's someone who's suffering.
That's not you know, we're not there to
give cheap advice,
which is really what that is.
Our job
is to be with them,
be present with them
even when we cannot
relieve their suffering, but we'd have to try
to find a way to help them
and not to give them some kind of,
like, cheap cheap advice about faith. No. They
have faith,
but still they're suffering. And so what do
we do?
Be with them. Be present with them like
the blessed prophet Muhammad
who was
as we are sometimes when we see the
people in the world who are suffering, we
feel incapacitated.
We feel overwhelmed.
I can't what can I do? What can
I do for those people? I hear that
they're suffering. What can I do?
The blessed messenger of
Allah, he was in that state when he
saw the beautiful Sumayyah
and the beautiful Yasir and the beautiful Ahmad
being tortured in front of his eyes, and
he had no means at that point to
intervene and stop this.
He couldn't stop their suffering.
And what does it what would it look
like to suffer, to be tortured to death
and killed? How terrible
and and traumatizing to Ahmad who was able
to
leave that sit who, you know, was finally
freed from that situation but psychological
and emotional
trauma of the situation.
The prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam too,
you know, was incapacitated
as we are very often to to
change the situation or to stop the oppression,
yet he remained present with them,
praying for them. So when
he said, patience,
oh, family of Yaz that verily paradise is
yours.
This was
his
his prayer for them and his reminder of
what they knew as people of faith and
his commitment to remaining with them present even
though
even though he couldn't change the situation,
even though he couldn't change the circumstances
to stay with them even to witness
this
and to say this prayer.
So this is what faith is,
to carry us
through these difficult times.
So faith is not a feeling.
It is not a feeling but knowledge that
Allah has created us
and has given us
solid sources of guidance,
direction, and discipline.
Our faith
through this guidance
connects
us through revelation
to other people, to communities,
to practices,
to goals and to priorities
that allow and direct our growth,
our spiritual
growth.
What do we believe in? We believe in
Allah and the messengers and the books and
the angels
and the day of judgment
and
Qadr, the destiny that all of this is
under command. This is this is the,
you know,
the,
what our faith is composed of. And all
of these things then
connect us and direct us and give us
a way forward.
We have to in order to hold fast
to this faith,
we need to understand each pillar
of faith and how to connect it. What
does it mean to
we believe in Allah, so what does that
mean?
It means we
truly know and understand
that we are in Allah's
world.
You know, we're
if we think about that,
you know, and this is this is the
most important shift in perspective that we can
make.
Because if we walk through this world like,
this world is a playground for us, a
place where we can go and try to
get as much good good stuff out of
it as we can.
Fun,
enjoyable,
accumulate things. This is one way of looking
at the world. And if that is
how we look at the world, we will
never be satisfied because there will always be
things that we can't get.
There always be things beyond us. There will
always be though
those people who are
wealthier,
who have more children,
who have more happy homes,
who have
more,
you know, a comfortable life, who have more
wealth and even they can give it in
charity, who have all of these things. There
will always be people who have more.
But if we really
think about this,
all of creation that this is
Allah's world and we are we are just
have this enormous opportunity. We're brought into this
world for a short time.
You know? It's it's like
someone invites you, someone has a beautiful home
and they invite you, come on in.
Come on in to my house and you
say, look at all of these things. What
a wonderful,
beautiful place.
And there's interesting things to do and there's
an amazing library and you can go and
sit in their
library and read their books and then go
out in their garden. They've got an amazing
garden and you go and you wander around
and you smell the flowers
and you enjoy the sunshine, and maybe there's
a pool and you go for some
oh, you would be so grateful
to that person. And when they would say
when you realize that it's time to go,
it's okay. Time to go. I've had my
chance in here.
It's
to have faith
means that we that we have a different
perspective
on
our travel and our movement
through this life.
And, of course, there are challenges. Would you
ever watch any movie and think any movie
is good if there weren't challenges, if the
characters weren't challenged?
It would be so boring.
Any game that you would play
with no challenges,
if there wasn't something a little thrilling, a
little risky. I mean,
all this world is is
established by Allah
and created
for us so that we can
grow.
We grow by through challenges.
We go by taking some risks. We grow
by
pushing ourselves beyond what we thought we can
do.
SubhanAllah,
faith
gives us many fruits.
We believe in Allah, we believe in the
messengers, we believe in the books.
Why are we fasting this month? Only because
we believe in what the messenger brought us,
this Holy Quran, this book from Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, that's why we're fasting.
If we didn't have faith we wouldn't do
it.
And we know we wouldn't do it because
how many of us
fast
once, twice, 3 times a week, couple times
a month, the rest of the year?
We we do it because we believe
this is an order from Allah
transmitted to us by the messenger of Allah,
and we do it.
And
we may have a little bit of anxiety
before Ramadan, during these
this time of the year when Ramadan is
in these very long days, we think, oh,
it's gonna be tough.
Am I gonna be able to do it?
Yet here we are.
Many of us have been able
by the permission of Allah
to fast. And for those of us who
are unable, we found opportunities
to do other things.
So
to be presented,
faith allows us
to
believe that these challenges
are going to bear some fruit.
If it were up to me, I I
would definitely not think that fasting
during a long hot month, you know, rationally,
is that really the best thing? Is that
really the best thing for a person? Aren't
there other ways to be challenged and would
be good?
I know I know I I never would
have come up with this,
but we do it because we believe it.
We believe it, and it is our faith.
Even though we may not we may feel
a little anxious.
We may not
rationally understand it, but then
because of faith we do it. We have
faith in a lot, and we have faith
in the message
that
the messenger has brought
to us that we are going to fast
this month. And how do we feel by
the end? We feel light. Our soul feels
light.
We feel close
to Allah.
We're aware. We have the taqwa
that is the goal of this month.
We have a little bit more.
SubhanAllah.
Faith comes from Allah
We do not take any credit for it.
We do not take any credit for it.
No person will have faith except by Allah's
permission.
But when we have
it, we have to hold on to it.
And we hold on to it
by
doing the things
that our faith tells
us that we know
when we have faith in Allah and the
messenger,
the Quran, and the books that we know
we should do. That's how we hold on
to that faith.
And that's so important.
That's why
we
have to follow these commands. And that is
the link between
deeds, actions, and faith.
Allah says,
all you who believe, all you have attained
faith,
remember Allah with unceasing remembrance.
Remember Allah with lots of
constantly.
It keeps the faith in our heart. This
binds the faith in our heart.
And
in Ramadan and outside of Ramadan to keep
remembering, remembering and that will bind
this faith in our heart
and make it close and not let it
slip away.
And to follow all of the the other
commands to speak the truth,
to be just and not
just to those who you like but to
all people,
to uphold justice,
to fulfill our covenants,
to not break our word, to not violate
the trust of people.
All of these are things we do even
in difficult circumstances
because we
believe.
And the fruit
will be
certainly
for other people in this sense because sometimes
it might be better.
You know, it might make us
attain
our goals, our worldly goals more quickly if
we violate these, if we are dishonest,
if we break our word,
if
we violate some of the norms that have
been established,
we can quickly attain things
and by doing that hurt others.
So our faith
our faith benefits others certainly
if we follow these commands.
And we know that it's good for us
not in the sense that we judge necessarily
that in terms of our worldly priorities
by
following the commands of faith
that will be better off in this life,
because on a spreadsheet it might not be
that case,
but the
what's miraculous
and amazing and what is promised to us
is that in fact
we're probably going to have both benefits,
which is not only that we have the
benefit of following the commands
but also we will see
that
by staying within these limits
that we will have a better life.
Because while there may be short term benefits
of violating
the commands and the limits that have set
by Allah,
in the end, we they will usually trip
us up.
That over the long term, sooner or later,
being dishonest,
being untrustworthy,
making,
you know, unethical
deals
behind people's backs,
All of these things
eventually will catch up to us, and we
see that.
So it benefit
our own
sense ability to assess what is good for
us and what is not good for us
is is really skewed
and is very deficient.
Allah created us and knows what is best
and we will
feel that over the course of our lives.
We will see the wisdom of it
eventually,
Insha'Allah.
One of the greatest fruits of faith is
that
we
know who we are as human beings.
People are filled with identity,
you know, problems. Who am I?
Who am I?
You know, what is what is my purpose
in life?
The sense of so much despair comes from
not knowing one's purpose,
feeling
disconnected,
lost,
directionless,
at sea not knowing what to do, where
to go, and who am I.
And because of that feeling of being disconnected
and not understanding
essentially
who one is
that is why it becomes so so easy
for people to be attracted to false identities,
say, racist identities,
white supremacism,
or
some form of identity that denigrates others,
some form of identity that is very oppressive
or that is exclusive.
We are a group that is better than
any other human being. There are many different
forms of supremacy,
but our faith
tells us who we are and what our
purpose is,
that we are
servants of God
and children of Adam.
Servants of Allah
gives us our purpose
to worship,
to obey, to follow
this path that has been set for us.
In this life, who are we to each
other?
Well,
the children
of a man
are siblings to one another.
We know that we are
as.
It means we're brothers and sisters in humanity.
No matter what a person's faith or belief
or color
or culture
or age or gender is,
we are all brothers and sisters in humanity.
And that means that
as brothers and sisters in humanity, I don't
have to be with a certain kind of
people
who have my same
culture,
background,
skin color,
eye color,
in order to feel that I'm with my
people.
No.
All of these are brothers and sisters.
There are many people who feel displaced when
they go somewhere else. They don't they feel
uncomfortable. Who are these people? They're so essentially
different.
Our faith tells us that's not true.
We are essentially
the same
from the same stock, from the same brothers
and sisters and that's a huge fruit of
faith. It is why we find Muslims all
over the world.
A Muslim doesn't belong only in the so
called Muslim world.
Right?
This whole earth
has been made a masjid for us.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the holy Quran
links the karama,
the dignity of human beings with travel
and movement across the earth
to escape oppression or to seek livelihood,
you know, to be able to support oneself.
That is part of our human dignity.
So
we are never lost.
We are never lost on this earth. We
belong on this earth wherever we are.
We should not feel lost and disoriented and
out of place as if there is something
called the Muslim world that we all belong
in. No. This is Allah's world. This is
Allah's world, and as Muslims,
we belong
wherever we are.
And we know that we've ended up where
we are through the Qaldir of Allah because
this is a pillar of faith
that all of this has been destined and
we have a purpose here. We have we
know we have a purpose.
We know we have a purpose
and
there are many things that are set out
for us
right there.
We have our acts of worship,
our purpose as spiritual beings
and we have
our required actions
to
enjoin the good and to prevent evil and
oppression,
to help people who are being oppressed,
to feed the hungry,
to
accompany and be present with the lonely,
to visit the sick and stay beside them,
to,
be kind and loving to children,
to be respectful and helpful to elderly.
We have
a very, very clear purpose in this life,
and
that is the the most
amazing and sweet fruit of faith
because there is no state that is more
distressing for human beings
than than to feel that
they have no purpose,
that there is no meaning to their life.
Every one of us
has been ordained
with
a purpose
and with tasks that we should fulfill,
if we are able to
individually
and in community.
And this is,
you know, there's
if you have faith,
you will never be sitting around thinking,
I don't know. There's nothing for me to
do.
Right? There's always something for us to do.
There's always something for us to do, both
in terms
of acts of worship and remembrance of Allah
And all we have to do is open
our eyes
and look around because we are responsible for
caring for each other.
There's always something to do.
We have a purpose, each one of us.
Now, of course,
again, some people would say,
well, if that's the case, if faith,
you know, bears these fruits,
why is it that so many Muslims are
unhappy
and not helpful
and
are separated from each other?
One of
the beautiful things
that we learn through our faith,
because we have faith in Allah's book, and
Allah's book tells us
this
gives us a very realistic picture of humanity.
So we do have these high aspirations.
We do have a clear path. But you
know what?
We don't always do what we know we
should. Allah
says,
Oh, you who
believe, oh, you who have faith, you have
faith, why are you not doing what you
say
you should do? Why do you say
something?
Oh, we believe in this, we're gonna do
this, but you're not doing it.
So
one of the beautiful things about the Quran
is that at the same time that Allah
sets out for us
this this purpose in life
and
and orients us in this creation and tells
us all different things that we should do
at the same time Allah
reminds us
that
many of us will not do that,
that we will fail,
that we will be weak, that we will
slip,
that we will violate Allah's commands.
It is a realistic
picture of humanity.
And that's really important because one of the
things that happens is that
people misunderstand
the goals and the purposes that we have
with a as if it's a description of
the reality of the community.
It's not. Those are 2 different things.
Right?
When Islam says
or Allah says or we as Muslims we
say we believe in this.
Yes. We believe in this and this sets
out our purpose
and our goal
and what we should strive for.
But this is not a description of the
reality of this life because this life
is a place where we struggle to meet
those
goals, where we struggle to fulfill those purposes,
where we struggle
to
to,
you know, overcome our selfishness to do what
we know we should do.
So it's really important that we don't set
ourselves up
for failure to be disillusioned
thinking that
this life is a utopia, it's not.
And that is part of what we believe
in our faith. We have this life and
we have the next life.
And
in this life,
we are struggling.
And sometimes we succeed
and sometimes we fail.
And that is a realistic
depiction of humanity,
and that is one of the fruits of
faith.
One of the fruits of faith is understanding
that and accepting that and that makes us
not then
give give up and feel hopeless and feel
like why am I, you know, why are
we even doing this
when
we haven't
we haven't really done what we said we
were going to do?
Disillusionment.
Right?
We are not
Our faith does not
mean
that we believe that people
should be perfect or can be perfect or
that this world is a place of perfection.
Our faith tells us Allah is perfect.
Allah is perfect,
and Allah
has given us the capacities
and the resources to strive
to be better,
to strive in the path
of those who are perfect, the perfect
messenger of Allah
to follow his path. That is where perfection
is, and we strive to follow in that
path.
And and and that is a big protection
for us to understand
and to know and to have faith in
this message that tells us that we will
fail.
Because how many people are there? Good people,
people who believe in justice, people who fight
for justice, who fight
for the poor and the weak, but they
don't believe in God.
And they fall into deep, deep, deep despair
because they believe
that there is only the plane of this
life.
And that if they are unable if they
personally,
them and the and the people they're working
with, their allies
are incapable
of making this world
into a place of supreme justice
and peace,
then
what is the point?
But we believe something different.
We believe we should strive for these,
and we must and we must work but
we know
that
we'll never
reach perfection.
So we have this beautiful balance between striving
and realism.
Striving and realism.
And knowing that
we are required only to do the best
we can, really the best, try to do
what we can. And when we fail, we
have an opportunity to repent.
And
when we
give in to our selfish desires, we turn
back to Allah and Allah will forgive us.
And when our heart gets rusty,
failing to remember a law and falling into
sin, there are ways to clean that rust
and get back to that
state of a soft heart.
Faith
grounds us,
deeply grounds us in this creation.
It gives us a common
and a noble and foundational
identity.
When we look around
today and we see how how many people
are
filled with anger
and bitterness
and resentment
and hatred towards others,
it is because
they don't know
where
they want
value. They wanna be valued.
They want respect.
They want to feel that they're people with
dignity, but they look
in these false places to get it. They
don't understand that this only comes from Allah.
And if we seek it from others, if
we seek our dignity and our our nobility
from others,
and we're seeking praise,
we're seeking,
superiority,
We're seeking
positions of privilege.
We will certainly never be fulfilled, and we
will certainly trample on others.
So our faith
grounds us
and orients us
in a
sense of
of being people
who do have value,
but that and that value is there no
matter
who,
what anyone says,
no matter
what actions other take others take against us,
no matter
if the world
recognizes
any value in us or not.
I'm not saying it's not painful
to have to experience discrimination.
It is painful.
It's painful to have people
mock you or make fun of you
or your family or your community or how
you look.
It is it's not easy to bear that.
We feel that. We're human beings.
Yet we know
we know that
no matter what anyone says,
our value does not come
from the recognition
that others make
of us,
from the praise that others give us,
from
how
status and position and value is
assessed
by any others.
Our value only comes through
our lord and our creator.
That is the only value that counts.
That is the only status that counts. That
is the only dignity that counts. And that
gives us enough, Insha'Allah,
that should give us enough
to be able to to manage.
Certainly,
it's painful,
can be frustrating,
can be frightening sometimes,
yet we know who we are.
We know
each one of us is
a beautiful
valued
creation of Allah
who has inviolability,
who has the right
for that dignity
and
to be respected
no matter no matter what anyone says.
The prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam said if the trumpet of
the hour sounds and you have a seedling
in your hand then plant it.
You know, we've heard this and we know
that it means that we continue to have
hope even in dark times and we continue
to take action
to do good things for the long term
even
when when it seems very difficult.
It is
psychologically
I think it is
the opposite of learned helplessness.
You know, anyone who's taken a basic psychology
course learn knows about learned helplessness.
Right? About the
these horrible scientists when they put animals in
cages
and
and, you know, they try
to do something to get out of their
situation and no matter what they can do,
just random
things happen to them, random shocks, and they
become
so depressed.
And they don't even fight for themselves anymore.
They don't even try. They don't even try
to survive.
This idea that,
you know,
a creature who who who who feels that
they're just at
at
the whim of random
forces
that have no rationality,
that have no meaning, that no matter what
they can do they can't improve their situation.
We have the opposite,
faith gives us
the opposite,
faith gives us that confidence
that
what we do
when we do it with sincerity
for the sake of Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
that it is good.
And even if we don't see any fruits
in this life and even if there aren't
any fruits for generations and maybe
not ever in this life, still sincerity
sincerely doing something for the sake of Allah
has a purpose
because it brings us closer to Allah.
Just doing it brings us closer to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and that is our purpose
in life.
So there is
no futility
in what we do as long as we
do it with love and sincerity and belief
in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And that is the only empowerment there is.
The basic
desperate state of humanity
comes out of a deep realization that most
people
try to cover up, which is that in
the end
we are not in control of this life.
And so people try to exert power
over others to feel powerful.
Why do why do people oppress others?
In order to feel a sense of power?
We we know that we have no true
power, but this does not mean we are
without resources.
It doesn't make us feel helpless
because we know that we are relying
on the source of power
that
when we
rely on Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, when we
have Tuakil,
this is the ultimate power.
And that all that we should need to
do is to do
our actions and turn ourselves and our hearts,
not only actions, but our hearts
sincerely towards Allah
Allah and we are connected with the only
real power.
And so we don't need
to to find these other,
ways of feeling like we have
some kind of control and strength.
My time is ending. Let me just say
that,
you know, I've talked a lot tonight about
struggles,
about hardship, about sadness,
but
happiness
is also a fruit of faith.
We are
we are not to be in this life,
you know, a person of faith
should not be walking through this life with
a grimace
and just feeling that everything
is hard and horrible.
If that's the case I think that
that may be the result of some incorrect
teaching
because unfortunately
sometimes the way people talk about our religion
it leads to hardship on people and they
lay burdens that
that that are not right. You know, people
shouldn't be carrying around
heavy burdens.
It is the job
of all of those who are
encouraging others in their faith
to
to give good news,
to make people hopeful and happy,
to
to
ease the state,
you know, to make things to lighten the
burden of people.
So if
well, it is inevitable
that we will undergo hardships and difficulty
and our faith, you know, we're holding on
to our faith and and our trust in
the law during that time,
our life should not be characterized by a
feeling of being burdened.
We should have joy and we should have
happiness.
And we should
we should
enjoy the good things that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala has created for our enjoyment in this
life.
You know, within without tasrif, without excess
and without overstepping others, but to have
happiness
and to have joy. Allah
says, oh, you who have attained faith,
do not deprive yourselves of the good things
of life which Allah has made lawful to
you, but do not transgress the bounds of
what is right.
Right?
So.
Don't forbid the things that are good.
And
as long as they don't lead us astray,
we should enjoy them and we should have
happiness.
It is
it is joy and happiness that our faith
should give us.
We should have it should give us confidence.
It should give us
ease from anxiety.
Should give us a sense that
we do have some resources to find our
way even when things are very troubled. Allah
says,
oh, you have remain who, have attained faith.
If you remain conscious
of Allah,
he will endow you with a standard by
which to discern the true from the false.
Not that we we establish what is what
is right and wrong, but that we will
have
if we have faith, we will and we
turn our hearts to Allah, we will
be given some
some judgment.
Right?
Some
basic reliable judgment
about right and wrong. So we shouldn't feel,
oh, I don't know, you know, I have
to go every time
and and look something up. No. If we
have a good
basic knowledge of Islam and with complicated things,
we
we turn to other to experts and we
ask for advice, but we shouldn't feel that
we have no resources Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
will direct our hearts
to
have a basic
sense of
of how to
do something beneficial for people
and how to
how to ease their difficulty
and to recognize
when there are clear
harms
that we should avoid and we should help
others avoid as well.
We should
be joyful.
We should be happy. We know that, of
course, the ultimate happiness
is awaiting us
and
that is something that is eases our heart.
We
know that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
will has also promised
that those
who we've lost in this life, those from
our family
who we miss,
you know, all those who went before us
that
if they have faith that we will be
reunited with them as well, it gives us
ultimate hope for the future. It's difficult to
be parted from those who we love, whether
it is in this life, they're in another
country,
or in another city,
or we're parted from them because they have
gone ahead of us in their death.
But we know that this is a temporary
separation
and that inshallah,
we will be reunited
again with them
in the shade of Allah's mercy,
out of Allah's love and compassion.
We have that faith
and that in the end, there is
a beautiful end.
And that while we were limited and constrained
in this life,
that this is not our ultimate home and
that we will go to a place. Inshallah,
I ask this for all of you
and for myself
and for all of our families
and for our communities
and all of our loved ones who have
gone ahead of us and those who will
follow us
that we will
be in that state of bliss and joy
and happiness,
laughing
and
reunited,
in in a place of eternity
and love and
and and beauty.
And that is the ultimate
fruit of faith,
And
I ask Allah to
give all of us blessings in this holy
month
and in this special night.
I ask Allah to
bless this gathering that we have here today
to
send the angels, to accompany us in our
prayer, in our remembrance,
to make all of our
actions this month,
all of our striving
to,
accept
all of our fasting, our prayer, our Quran,
our patience, our cooking
for friends and family,
our acts of charity.
To accept all of these, we ask Allah
to forgive us for any mistakes,
failing, shortcomings
we've had in this month.
We could have done more. We ask Allah
to
let us learn from that and grow and
be better next year, next Ramadan.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to
protect our faith,
to never let it slip away from us
and to give us guidance,
of all of the things we should do
to prompt us to remember
him constantly
so that we hang on to this faith
and we are able to
to direct us to know
and love and follow in the path
of his beloved
messenger,
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam who is our model.
We ask all of this
You Allah in this month of Ramadan
and,
Alhamdulillahirubilahalameen.