This Jumah lecture focuses on hope in Allah’s Mercy as a necessary part of our Aqeedah, and covers various Quranic verses and Hadiths related to this topic. It is based on ‘The Book of Hope for Sinners’ which is currently available at Amazon and Gumroad.
Ismail Kamdar – Hope in Allah’s Mercy
AI: Summary ©
The importance of fear and love in Islam is discussed, as well as the need for balance between fear and hope for achieving peace and happiness. The speakers emphasize the importance of forgiveness and the need for a good deed in achieving a better life. Pr practicing Islam properly is also emphasized, as is the importance of not falling into minus and losing hope in Islam. The importance of forgiveness and practicing good deeds is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
hamdulillah alameen wa salatu salam ala nabina Karim Allah Allah He was happy. He may begin by treating the loss of a Hannah with Allah and asking Allah to send his peace and blessings upon the final prophet Mohammed bin Abdullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and all those who follow his way with righteousness until the end of time.
Today inshallah I just want to share a few pieces and Quranic verse in a few stories related to a very important part of our Akira our belief, and that is the concept of hope in Allah as mercy.
I hope in Allah handlers Mercy is a fundamental part of the Islamic belief system.
to such an extent that it is mentioned in Surah Yusuf, that the Prophet yaku Elisa Lam, told his sons, that none display of Allah has mercy except for the speedy verse, meaning to give up on Allah as Mercy is this period it's an act of Cooper
to lose hope complete in Allah mercy scooper Why? Because Allah is our man he is infinitely merciful. So if someone gives up on Allah as mercy, they are negating their belief in Allah being
here negating the belief in Allah being the most merciful. So this concept of open Allah's mercy, it's a very important part of Aikido. And it forms part of a balance. This balance is between hope in Allah as mercy and fear of Allah as punishment. And both of these are two parts of loving Allah and the the two parts of loving Allah, which is the main thing this is what we are supposed to strive for as believers, we are supposed to love Allah. And both our hope in his mercy and our view of his punishment are supposed to come from this love. So the scholars of the past they described our Eman our fate to the metaphor of a bird. Right, they gave the metaphor of a bird. And they said,
for example, that the bird, the head of the bird is love of Allah. And it's two wings, our hope and mercy, hope and fear. What does this mean? It means just like a bird needs to wings to fly. You need hope in Allah as mercy and fear of Allah's punishment to be balanced in your mind. If you only have hope in his mercy and no fear at all, you will commit sin after sin after sin just saying to yourself Allah foolery, right? So you go off balance. On the other hand, if you only have no hope, you end up committing sin after sin after sin saying what's the point I was never gonna forgive me. You see, if one of the two is missing, you fall into sin. But for opposite reasons. Balance only
comes about when you have both fear and hope, fear before committing a sin, hope after committing a sin. This is the balance, right? That the fear of Allah stops you from sin. But when you do fall into a sin, the hope of Allah brings you back up. So that creates balance. But in the same
metaphor, the scholar says that the head of the bird is a love of Allah Meaning what? If you cut off the head, the bird dies. Likewise, if you don't love Allah, the man dies. So love of Allah is most important and there's hope and fear it comes from love. Now some people ask, Well, how does fear come from love? well understand is different types of fear. Right? The fear you have of a lion or a snake is very different from the fear you have of, for example, as a child has for the Father.
The fear a child has for their father often is a fear that comes from love. They love the Father, they don't want to disappoint the Father. And so they feel doing things that upset their father. This is the kind of fear we are supposed to have Allah subhanho wa Taala that we love Allah so much that we are afraid of disappointing Allah basically.
And this is what stops us from sinning. It's not a fear, in a primal sense, like the fear of lions. It's a fear in a loving sense that I love Allah so much that I do not want to send I do not want to disappoint him. Now, we have Alhamdulillah you know, in our community, a lot of lectures on the topic of fear of Allah. I this is something that's been drilled into us. We have a lot of lectures about jahannam, about fear of Allah about all of this, which is important. But as I said, for balance sake, we also have to talk about hope, hoping Allah's mercy and justice will be talking about today. So the purpose of this talk today is to balance the scales. I don't want us to come
away from this talk thinking only hoping Allah rather balance between fear and hope. So why do we have to have hope in Allah's mercy? Why is this an important part of our human
The main reason that this is an important part of our Akita is because as human beings we are destined to commit sins sinning is in the destiny of every human being besides the prophets. I this is something that cannot be avoided right This cannot be avoided no one here can see this is your child okay the children Mashallah is still below the age we are similar recorded against their nobody else you can see that in my entire life. I've never committed a single sin
if someone says that then Mashallah on a whole nother level and they should be up here talking down you're listening. I agree with I want to know how to get there. The fact is, the profits will allow at some stage Apollo Bonnie Adam kata is the son of Adam will make mistakes. And this is a Hades every son of Adam will make mistakes Allah Subhana Allah says in the Quran Bocconi call in Sangha mankind was created week, mankind was created week, one of the Tabby ino in explaining this verse of the Quran. What is the explanation? This is the Tawana, the second generation of Muslims the explanation of the verse, mankind was created. He said, This verse means that when a beautiful woman
walks, pass, 90% of men fail to lower their gaze.
That's what this verse means weak. It is natural, that you that sometimes you're going to fall into sin. And in our religion, in our religion only emphasized fear of Allah. Everybody would lose hope. Because reality is as you go through life, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to fall fall down, you're going to slip up. The way back to Allah is to Toba and repentance. Now, sometimes we given a wrong understanding of Islam. Sometimes we're given this idea that you know, if you if you committed a sin, now you're not a Muslim anymore, or you're a bad person or Allah doesn't love you, not gonna forgive you. This is not the message of Islam. This is not the message of Islam. This is
not how the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam dealt with the Sahaba whenever it reached the Prophet slice of the Sahaba committed a sin of the rich Abubakar already Sahaba committed a sin, what would be the response? Your response would be something like this right? Many, many different Hadees is almost all at the mercy in response. Don't tell me about your sins, just ask Allah to forgive you.
Very straightforward, very casual response, right? For example, once there was a Sahabi, who was selling dates in the marketplace, and a very beautiful woman came to his store. And one thing led to another and he kissed
and so he felt very bad about kissing her. And he went to Oman to ask for advice. And the advice was, don't tell me about your sins, just ask Allah to forgive you.
Right? So you notice the difference between their reaction and our reaction today? Nowadays, if a young man had to walk up to the shack and say, no, this happened? No, he's either gonna get a tongue lashing or a slap in the face, which is not dissimilar. neither of which is the sooner the sooner is give them advice that is in line with hoping Allah mercy, advice that will bring them back to Allah. That is how Abu Bakr and Omar and the prophet SAW some dealt with the situation and we'll come back to the story later, because there's another lesson in it that we'll come to later in this discussion.
So let's start with the verse of the Quran, where
this is called, by many of them for stealing the verse of hope. I the verse of hoping so Zoomer verse 53. We have lost behind Allah says kuliah ivanti alladhina Ostrava and put him lead up Nakamura, Mattila de la young Pharaoh the new Jamia in the hula.
Oh my servants unless they say oh my servants, who have sinned against their own shows, never lose hope in Allah as mercy because Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, he is most forgiving, Most Merciful.
This is a very important verse of the Quran.
Very often young people walk up to me and they say, you know, I've done this I've done that, however, forgive me.
Every single time this is the verse you have to tell them.
Allah forgives all sins are what condition that you regretted that you regard what you did as a sin and you're asking Allah for forgiveness, not if you proud about it boasting about including pictures about your Facebook, telling all your friends about it, and you can expect forgiveness for that. Right? The forgiveness comes from, from regret. Right. Now before I go deeper into this topic, I need to make a clarification. Yeah.
One of the problems we have in English is that we we talk about sin or haram as if it's all the same. And this is a major problem we have in the English language that we always say this is haram that is haram and we treat it all as if it's on the same level. But in reality, there's different levels of hierarchy. Okay, is this clear there's different levels of hierarchy. For example, for sometimes
You want to give the example because people may take it the wrong way. But I have to give examples for people to understand.
For example, if somebody lied about why they were late for work, it's not the same level of sin, as somebody lying about Islam. They understand the about sins, but not in the same level.
A woman who doesn't cover her hair is committing a minor set. It's not on the same level as a woman who doesn't cover certain other parts of her body, you understand these different levels, it's not all the same. And this is mentioned the books of Tafseer. But in English language, we get lost in English language, which reading we some of us, we treat all of this the same. This is why we sometimes find people jumping on each other's backs for things like, for example, you see a brother whose parents is below his ankles, you know, some of us are fighting with him about it, not realizing the number one this difference of opinion. And number two, even though it must have that
regarded as a sin, regarding amongst the most minor of sense, meaning not a big deal, not something you fight with someone over. But again, because we just use the word Haram, we don't realize this is different levels. Now, why do I bring this up? Because depending on the level of harm that you have done, there are different ways to come back to UCLA. For example, a very, very minor sir, any good deed that you do wipes it out, understand any good deed that you do, wipes out your mind innocence. For example, if a brother is walking down the street, and he mistakenly looked at a woman, and then he realized and he said are stuck in law that are stuck for years enough to wipe away, that good
deed is enough to wipe away That's right. But slightly higher than that you need to make serious mistakes. So you were sitting and looking at things you went to supposed to look at for a long period of time and this happens to many brothers, then to sit and see a stuck ruler and stuck to that stuck we will actually teach your heart that what you did is wrong. This is needed in those situations. even higher than that are the major sins the Kabbalah. By and many of us aren't even aware what the major sins are. We treat all sins like a major, but the major sins on even higher level, the major sins you have to make Toba. Now, what does Toby Toba is a step by step process, you
have to regret it. You have to ask Allah for forgiveness, you have to promise never to do it again. You have to make an effort never to do it again. Right? This is a much stronger level I want to be a carbide carbide, for example will be actual Zener the actual act of Xena, right, Abdullah even Abbas said anything that leads up to Xena is a minus sin and only the actual act is a major sin. Right? So that's when you have to actually make Toba. Another example of a major sin is murder. Right? So that one is scared to be speaking here. But murder is a major sin.
Now the example of a major sin would be
robbery, stealing things right? These are the major sense generally the major sins are the ones that explicitly mentioned by name in the Quran, and for which there is a clear punishment for these are the major sins. They specifically mentioned the Quran by name and there is a punishment for them. Like murder the the punishment for murder, stealing the the punishment for stealing, right? For Xena is the punishment for Xena. Anything less than that is a minus. So understand that if what you're falling into is a minus when you make a mistake. If what you fall into is a major sin you make Toba? Right And that brings me back to the story I mentioned earlier that's the hobby you kiss the girl
when he went to the Prophet lonesome for advice What did the Prophet sallallahu Sallam advise him to do to pray to rockets of Salah
he didn't time to make nobody told him to pray to Allah tala. Right and that occasion a verse of the Quran was revealed. That verse of the Quran is follow up your sins with good deeds because good deeds erasings another one of the sahaabah as the Prophet is this verse of the Quran only for him and the prophets it knows for every Muslim at the end of time, meaning when you fall into a minus sell, immediately do a good deed to make up for it. But if you fall into a major in you have to make doba right. So minus ends are the sins that people tend to fall into on a daily basis. And to some extent, you know, first let me make this clear. It is impossible to go your entire life without
completing a minus. Some of us we put to highest standard and ourselves our children, right? We expect you know, I've seen this happen quite a few times to convert one of my students after converting to Islam, now he put it this on him he's never going to come with a single minus and for the rest of his life. And then when he finally first probably two minus and after that he was devastated. And he felt he can't be a Muslim because he's committing sins. Right? This is a this happiness is schreeten strips does he want to shake a stick to get you out of the fold of Islam to make you lose hope in Allah has mercy. He makes you aim for perfection to such an extent that you
just give up. So what happens when young people has happened to a lot of young people when they start practicing Islamic ceremonial good
Muslim From today onwards. I'm never sitting again for the rest of my life to these later if huanghua minuses see I'm a terrible person I'm a hypocrite. Might as well just give up.
You see what she done? What did you do? He wanted you to give up. Understand that on your part to Allah on your part to piety on your part to becoming a better Muslim, you are going to slip and stumble many times, you're going to fall into minus ones many times, maybe once or twice in your life, you might even fall into a major sin Allah protect us from that. But whatever it is you fall into, there's always a way back to Allah shaytan doesn't want you to fall into that said he wants you to lose hope in Allah. That's his goal. He wants you to leave the religion he wants you to give up the sin itself. We actually work against * and if you repented from it, it may become a good
deed if you repented from it. So let's not shake hands go chitons only to use it step by step to take you away from Allah. So understand on your spiritual journey. You will make mistakes, you will fall into sin you will slip up sometimes they'll be minor sometimes they'll be major. The point is never to give up hope and Alas, mercy, and to keep trying again. And this is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that nobody enters genda because of the deeds, you only enter because of Allah's mercy.
Nobody enters gender because of the deeds you only enter because of Allah's mercy. Meaning what? None of us can say that we are so good, and so sinless, and so pious that we deserve gender, data, each and every one of us know what skeletons we have in our closets. Each and every one of us know what's in you we have committed and we all rely on only one thing for getting to gender, what's that? Allah has mercy. Allah will given us how do you earn that forgiveness by keep trying, keep trying to be better, no matter how much you fall into sin, keep trying to be better understand even amongst the Sahaba they were alcohol addicts. Even amongst this the harbor, they were alcohol
addicts.
There was once a hobby and unfortunately for what is named right now, one of the Sahaba who was addicted to alcohol. And he kept getting lashed for for drinking alcohol. On one occasion, the other Sahaba got very upset with him. And he began to verbally abusing while while punishing him for Jeannie alcohol. And the profit situation got very angry with him and said stop it don't do that. Because he loves Allah His Messenger, who is the profit source I'm speaking about, who is in defending, he is defending an alcoholic against the senior Sahaba. Why? Because his alcoholic loved Allah and His Messenger slowly. He was so happy to but he had a problem. But he kept trying and
inshallah the love of Allah and His Messenger would be enough for a lot to forgive him for his addiction.
So the point is, no matter what mistakes we have, what sins we have, what addictions we have, there's always a way back to Allah. The point is to keep track.
I want to mention that Heidi's on this topic.
And this is a Heidi's could see this is a narration directly from Allah subhanho wa Taala. And you will find it in the 40 Hadees of an AVI and it shouldn't it really, honestly been Malik rajala who narrates that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that Allah said, What Allah say, oh, son of Adam, as long as you call on me and ask of me, I will forgive you for whatever you have done. And I don't mind.
Oh, son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky. And you have to ask me for forgiveness, I would forgive you. Oh, son of Adam. Were you to come to me with sins greater than the size of the Earth and you were to face me? Having worship none but Allah having scribe no partners to me, I will bring you more forgiveness.
How can anybody lose hope in Allah is merciful. Allah has said this. What did I say? He said, If your sins are equal to the art, or more what you believe in life that will allow you avoid this ship, then there's still a chance I'm not going to forgive you.
Because of how great that one good the law is.
A law says even if your sins reached the cloud, but if you repent from them, Allah will forgive you. Allah didn't just say you forgive you. He said, I won't mind. I don't mind forgiving you. It's not something that Allah mind doing. He is our food the most forgiving, so he created creatures that sin so he had someone to forgive. He is the acceptor of repentance. So he commits so he created creature the comic major sins and repent, so he has someone who can accept repentance from the prophets. loise on stated that if y'all did not commit any sense, Allah would replace her with the creation the committed sins and repented so that he will have someone to forgive.
So understand my brothers and sisters in Islam, that whatever sins you fallen into in life,
Allah can still forgive you.
And you should never do so we should never stop doing
mean good deeds because a person and a lot of people you know for for example, you get sometimes young people stop coming to the mercy stop praying Salah you ask them why they said you know I I committed a sin
you should have praying more Salah if you committed a sin you need to do praying more Salah to make up for yourself. Don't let shaytan win by giving up your Salah. Because on the Day of Judgment
if your Salah is in order, Allah will forgive you for everything else in sha Allah.
if Allah wills if your five daily sign all these people give you for everything else.
I want to end this in this last few minutes to talk about
specific ways that Allah has created for our sins to be forgiven.
Allah Subhana Allah has mercy once you think about how vast Allah's mercy is because look at this, when you do a sin, Allah writes one sin in your book of deeds, when you do a good deed, Allah writes 10 to 700 good deeds in your book of deeds depending on the quality of the deed. So, if you had to, in a span of two minutes commit to one sin and one good deed, you will get the reward of 10 good deeds and the sin of one sin.
So how much sales you have to commit for them to outweigh our good deeds on the Day of Judgment. This is this part one of alleged must, right, this should get part two of alleged mercy. Allah subhanho wa Taala has created so many good deeds that wipe away sins. When you make Voodoo sins are wiped away. When you praise Allah sins are wiped away when you fast sins are wiped away. When you break the Ravi sins are wiped doing when you give Zakat sins are wiped away when you go for owner sins are wiped away. When you go for Hajj and it's accepted your major sins are wiped away. Show at the end of the day. What excuse Do we have to have a large pile of sand on the day of judgment?
Allah has created so many ways to wipe them off. Even if you committed 20 cents between father and daughter. If that Zohar is of high quality, it can wipe away two cents.
It can wipe away two sins this Allah made this religion that he wants to forgive us so much that He has created so many different good deeds that white boy says
another Hadith the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that Allah has divided his mercy into 100 portions, and whatever mercy you see on this earth is just 1% of Allah's mercy, and he has saved the remaining 99% for the Day of Judgment
99% of Allah's infinite mercy has been saved for the Day of Judgment. If that doesn't give us hope, I don't know what will.
So just a few hypotheses about good deeds and the reasons. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, the example of the five daily Salah is like a flowing river
if you had to wash himself in the river five times a day, right? So imagine this is a river flowing past your house and you bathe in it five times a day.
With any dirty left, no. Likewise, praying five times a day wipes away your sins in the same way in the exact same way. This is why when someone says they've committed a sin, tell him more than ever, you have to commit to your daily Salah. Why because the five daily Salah wash away your sins the way a river washes away.
In another Hadees the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam says, No servant frustrates for the sake of Allah accepted allow world record for him one good deed he raised one sin and elevate his status by one degree. So prostrate to Allah many many times. Meaning when you make such that you get a good deed, you get a senior age and you get your status or closer to Allah, you get elevated in your status closer to Allah. So the prophets have advised us to make a lot of and of course making a lot of such that means praying a lot of Allah
number three, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Whoever makes will do the way I do and then praise to rocket after it without allowing his thoughts to be distracted, his previous sins will be forgiven
right? This is in Bukhari and Muslim to pray to rockets of Salah after making a video with concentration wipes resets
the net Saudis the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said from one O'Meara to the next wipes away any sins in between and there is no reward for an accepted hij less than than gender besides gender meaning you know sometimes in our community some of us pick on the on the other people who go for camera very often, we say that guy's wasting so much money going for him right every year, he should largely somebody else go but the profit loss on sale from one owner to another is a forgiveness with any sense that in between. So if you have the money to go for camera and you know
You have a lot of sense it makes sense to perform as many O'Meara's as possible because every ombre becomes a means of forgiveness for the sins before this Hadees is an encouragement to perform Amara as many times as possible. And for Hajj, what's the reward for hygiene this Hadees not just forgiveness gender, if you have just accepted gender guaranteed.
Another Hadith the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, accepting Islam wipes away all of the sins that were committed before. Migration for the sake of Allah wipes away any sins that came before it, and Hajj wipes away whatever came before it. Right. So the proper choice, I mentioned three things. Firstly, when someone converts to Islam, whatever they did before that is forgiven. This is very important. Because sometimes some of us judge the converse, we say this guy, yes, tattoos and he did this. And he did that. You know, he can't be a real Muslim. No, you're not allowed to say that. The day he took his Shahada, whatever was done before that is forgiven, he has
a clean slate. The second thing migrating for the sake of Allah. So if you are in a community where you cannot practice Islam properly, and you move for the sake of Allah to a part of the world where you can practice Islam properly, then that wipes away the sins you committed before that, number three, hedge, hedge wipes really your sins, including your major sins. And finally, the last edition This one is relevant because it's coming up in five weeks time. The prophets lie some stated that Ramadan is the month in which Allah has made fasting obligatory. Right. And I have made praying the nitrile Ramadan recommended to whoever fasts, the days of Ramadan, with fate and hoping for Allah's
mercy, this sins will be forgiven. And whoever prays the nights of Ramadan would fate and hoping for Allah's mercy destined you'll be forgiven. And whoever prays the night of late Okada with faith and hope of Allah's mercy the sins will be forgiven. After all of these how Jesus How can any of us say that Allah will never forgive me? So I end again by reminding us a laughter by Hannah what Allah stated in the Quran
Oh my servants who have sinned against their own selves.
Lacock Nakamura Mattila never lose hope in Allah's mercy in Allah young Pharaoh's renew but Yama Allah forgives all sins and the prophets was I'm explaining said that.
He says he even if your sins reached the skies, and you asked for forgiveness, he will still forgive you and he won't mind in the Whirlpool room indeed he is Forgiving and Merciful, most perky, Most Merciful, Allah subhanaw taala forgive us for our sins except our good deeds. And interesting to janitors mercy because after hearing after the one and you have the law