Khalid Latif – While The Virus Shakes The World, We Are Blessed in Uncertainty
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
All praise is due to Allah
We thank him. We praise him. We glorify
him.
Beseech him to send his choices salutations upon
his most beloved
and upon all those who choose to tread
in his path until the last day.
We find ourselves in the most unique circumstance
and situation
That
the
moment that
is in front of us
is one that renders both a fullness to
one's heart as well as a breaking of
one's heart.
That we've been blessed for a month's time
now to be in the presence of the
unique gift that is Ramadan. May Allah accept
it from all of us and make it
a continued source of benefit for each one
of us and our loved ones throughout our
days in this dunya.
That we have been able to take from
the uniqueness of what it offers to us
in terms of gain inwardly and outwardly,
lessons that it gives to us instruction,
sometimes with ease and sometimes with difficulty
of who it is that we are so
that we can
embrace
our own self recognition and actualization
in pursuit of building a deep relationship
with our creator, Allah
And it endeavors to train us and school
us in such a way that we can
meet the coming days outside
of its blessed days.
And so with excitement,
we go forward to take on whatever
challenges
might come our way,
but also
a sense of despair
that we are leaving behind
this bliss of beauty
and real increase,
not knowing whether we will be from amongst
those who will be able to witness it
again.
May Allah
make the best of our deeds, the last
of our deeds in this world.
As you sit and try to understand and
think what it is that you will subjectively
take forward from this month of Ramadan,
the consciousness and awareness
has to be one that is only that,
subjective.
Then nobody else can choose your path for
you.
Your journey, your movement, your
ability
to increase and go forward is going to
be about you looking within yourself
and saying that I will affirm
with deep conviction
what it is that I want to take
and what it is that I will leave
behind.
How I will meet the days ahead. How
I will meet the weeks ahead. And what
it is that I set for myself
as a standard of who it is that
I want to become.
So that when the options and choices
are displayed to us,
we're making decisions
with the best of ourselves
being fully present.
In this month of Ramadan against the backdrop
of pandemic,
we see that there is no shortage
of real example and illustration
of what we can aspire towards being.
We find ourselves in a sphere of existence
that renders for us
revelations of all kinds,
because this is what difficulty does.
That trial, test, tribulation,
difficulty
in and of itself does not catalyze change,
but it creates opportunity
for a deeper sense of knowing, awareness.
It reveals things to us.
We just have to be those who don't
look simply from here, but look from here
as to what it is that it's showing
to us.
That we find revelations of real beauty as
well as revelations of real ugliness. May Allah
protect us from it.
A deep insight into the paradoxical
nature of humanity
outlined from the verses that many of us
likely know.
That we have made man in the most
beautiful of forms.
And then we let them fall to the
lowest of the low.
But indicating within each one of us is
the capacity
to be
real agents of goodness
as well as real agents of evil.
And may Allah make us from amongst those
who always choose goodness,
who always choose beauty,
who always choose to do that which is
pleasing to him.
In the midst of this pandemic, we see
such
tangible examples that fit into these categories
that the first revelation that we want to
think of that the difficulty reveals to us
is a revelation
of what it means to be a person
of sound inward faith, of real concrete goodness,
that each and every day, regardless of what
part of the world that you are in,
there are people who have gotten up over
and over and over again to meet at
the front lines this pandemic
with the best of everything that they have
to offer.
Going through an entire day
absorbing
sickness,
grief,
tragedy,
death,
somehow
going through all of that and then finding
it within themselves
to wake up and do it again the
next day and the next day and the
next day. What is it that they are
made of? And may Allah give each of
us a little bit of that.
But they demonstrate real beauty,
the epitomization
of self sacrifice,
selflessness,
literally putting their entire beings at risk
to be a source of healing and support
for people in their time of need.
In the community that I'm blessed to serve
at the Islamic Center at New York University,
we know of at least 4 doctors in
our community
who have passed
after contracting
COVID 19,
and they received the virus
because they were treating their patients.
They were living
with an understanding
of the verse that one life saved is
like all mankind.
And we can juxtapose their example
to a second revelation
of real greed and real ugliness.
Individuals who seek to think of no one's
interest other than their own self interest.
They hoard and they increase prices.
They create policy
that brings benefit to the majority and the
privileged at the expense of those that are
underserved and underprivileged.
Letting selfishness
be what it is that motivates them
and not anything other than that.
And then the 3rd, not in order of
priority,
but yet another revelation
that we find that
race and class
still define and dictate who has and who
has not
in moments like this.
And this is not a revelation of anything
new.
It's not just the last week, the last
month, the last year,
but from the very beginning,
we see individuals
who
will judge and assess
the value and worth of someone's existence
based off of the color of their skin
and how much money they have or do
not have.
And the systems and structures that are built
out
embodying
that element of supremacy and racism
that the sunnah we claim to follow
is a direct antidote of
that everything in the society that calls to
the idolization of the self, a modern day
shirk that is supremacy,
elevating the nafs and the ego to such
a place that you put your own wants
before the collective needs.
The way of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is a way of beauty,
a way of gentleness, a way of compassion,
a way of mercy,
a way that understands
that our God is not one that looks
at these bodies and forms, but he looks
at the hearts and the actions that stem
from those hearts.
And then the 4th
and arguably
most important revelation for any one of us
in the framework of Ramadan
given to us as a gift, as a
blessing,
in the backdrop of global pandemic.
May Allah make things easy for everyone.
This 4th revelation
is a revelation of ourselves,
that we have learned a lot about who
it is that we are and who it
is that we are not
simply based off of the manner in which
we have chosen to respond
to this crisis.
And the mode of reflection cannot be one
that is self deprecating,
but it has to be one that we
very deeply take consideration
of with an open,
honest air of productive
self recognition.
The spirituality
and spiritual increase
cannot be something that is achieved if you
believe that everything that you do is right.
For how can you have spiritual increase
if there is not something to improve upon,
if there is not a mode of growth
that is there for you to still
experience?
But where and how in the midst of
this Ramadan,
its final hours upon us, may Allah make
us from amongst those who take
benefit from each and every moment that we
are blessed to be able to experience in
it.
Wanna start to think about
where and how you will choose
to be on that spectrum of goodness,
To not be in a sphere where you
throw your back against the wall and you
seek to defend yourself in any way,
but you move forward and you strive
to carry forward lessons,
and you rethink the conversations that you've heard
over and over and over again,
and you choose to be a person
of goodness,
of beauty.
You choose to be a person who seeks
to bring benefit and reduces detriment.
You choose to live your Islam, to live
your iman, to live your ihsan as best
as you can,
and to not let anything
be left behind,
especially in moments like this.
At a time when there is so many
people who don't even have food to break
fast on,
so many people who are
making the difficult decision
still
of going out and performing job functions because
they do not get paid unless they work,
And their choice is not about working or
not. It's about putting food on the table
for their loved ones or not. Food in
their own stomachs.
Where the incarcerated still sit in prisons filled
to the brims,
refugees are in camps that social distancing
is not even a possible thing.
The undocumented
are not considered to be human enough to
even get a stimulus check.
That there are people in New York City
who, as they are going to get intubated,
tell their doctors to stop, to not do
it
because they are more worried about the sheer
expense they will accrue
from having inadequate health care
than the pain
that they are experiencing
and the ravaged
onslaught against their body from corona
because of not having
good health coverage.
There is no shortage of openings, my sisters
and brothers.
But with a heart that is observed Ramadan,
you have to look
not just with a body,
not just with physical eyes,
that the society around us
has socialized
to see
in terms of egocentricity.
You wanna place within yourself
a mode of engagement
that says, what am I really carrying with
me, and how much of it is going
to really bring benefit at the end of
the day
versus
the majority of what it is that will
yield for me gain
is not what I keep for myself,
but what I share with those that are
around me.
The sheikh is once walking through a forest,
and he comes upon a young boy that
he has never seen before, not from the
area in which they are walking.
This young boy seems to be on a
journey but is carrying with him no belongings,
no provision, and he seems to be speaking
to himself,
uttering words on his tongue.
And so when the sheikh gets close enough
to him, he says to him that,
where are you going, young man?
And the boy, he says to the sheikh
that, you, sheikh, I'm going to be with
Allah.
I'm going to perform pilgrimage to Allah's house.
The sheikh says, what are you reciting? What
are these words on your tongue? And he
says that, yeah, sheikh. I am reciting Quran.
What else would I be saying?
He says that you are so young. Why
are you undertaking this journey now? Usually, it
is people who are much older that will
do it.
He says, you Sheikh, I have seen people
who are younger than me that had the
means and capacity
to take this journey on,
and they simply chose not to do so,
to wait till a later time.
And many I've seen of them younger than
me pass away
before fulfilling this right.
So now when I have the means and
the capacity,
and it is something that I'm supposed to
do,
why would I wait to do it when
I can get it done
right now?
And he says, this is a long journey
ahead of you. You are carrying nothing with
you. Where are your provisions? Where is your
sustenance?
And the young man, he says that, Yeshekh,
if you were to go and be a
guest in anyone's home,
would you bring with you your own provision?
So why, when I am going to be
a guest of Allah's,
would I bring my own provision with me?
You wanna think for yourself
about what you are carrying with you
as you leave from this Ramadan,
What you will take with you to embrace
what it is that the days ahead have
set forth for no other gain other than
your gain and your benefit
should you choose to see it that way.
And so much of what it is that
we compel ourselves towards,
the acquisition of things that will never render
for us real benefit or real increase,
but more so just possessions, belongings
that will stay accrued
but will remain in the dunya
as we move forward into
what is ahead.
You and I have come from a place,
my sisters and my brothers,
and our intention is to get back to
that place that we came from.
May Allah make us people of Jannah, people
of paradise.
That our goal is to not simply be
in a sphere of existence
through which we compete and combat and adopt
mindsets of
accrual of the world as a way that
that will somehow
give us some type of satisfaction,
because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's words
are true.
Naysarginan
kafratalarudwalaqinal
ginaginan nafs that true richness is not having
an abundance of things from the earth, but
true richness is having the richness of your
soul.
And where the prophet's way
was a way of kindness and compassion,
a way of meeting people
at their
given reality
to help to uplift them.
Even at the onset
of Shawwal,
when Ramadan was coming to a close,
the prophet purposefully
did what he intended to do to make
room for those who might need his help
and support.
That the hadith is very clear in saying
that
the route that the prophet
would take towards the Eid prayer
was different from the route that he would
take on his return back from the prayer.
And there's numerous reasons that our teachers give
to us as to why the best of
creation, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
would move forward and engage in this way.
But of them,
one
was that going on a different route and
then returning on a different route
would allow for him
to be able to extend greetings of peace
to that many more unique people.
And another reason
to go one way on the way
and then come back a different way
was to be able to meet more people
whose needs he might be able to help
alleviate,
to see who was in a place of
need and how he might be a support
for them.
But he was thinking with consciousness
of the heart,
embracing
what it was
that Ramadan
affords for us an opportunity
to
reconnect with in terms of
our
fundamental
humanness,
that we are not the fastest of God's
creation.
We are not the physically largest or strongest.
We cannot swim on our own accord to
the depths of the ocean or flap our
arms to flight to the highest levels of
the skies.
But Allah has given you and I the
capacity
to think,
to have intellect.
He has elevated us.
He says
that all of the children of Adam are
dignified or given dignity.
In the embracing of that ability of our
intellectual
capacity,
our willingness, our irada, our sheer will and
determination
to choose
righteousness,
goodness,
beauty
requires us to embrace accountability
in all of its forms
and to be fully present
in
the pursuance
of goodness
in this world that will then yield goodness
in the world beyond this one.
You have the ability to think. Everyone does.
But there are very few who embrace the
liberty
and the gift
that is to choose what it is that
you think about
as well as choosing
how you think about the things that you
think about.
As you leave from Ramadan,
choose to think from your heart,
not from your nafs.
Choose to think from your heart
and not from your desires, your hawwa.
Choose to think from what Allah and his
messenger
have told you is goodness
and what is beneficial to you and not
from what the dunya, the material world,
seeks to distract you by.
Choose to
engage in what your own
elevation of consciousness and taqwa
has created within you
and not what the was was, the whispers
of shaitan
bring forward as
facades
and false
realities. May Allah protect us from everything
that seeks to bring us down.
And as you go forward,
seek with strategy
to breed a source of real benefit
for your fellow
members of humanity
to not gauge that you have done enough,
but to think about how and where you
can always do more.
And when the option comes
and the crossroads is ahead of you,
you choose and you decide
in a way that doesn't
stay
in hopes of avoiding difficulty,
but you recognize
that there's a beauty
in the struggle
and the achievement of growth that comes from
that struggle
that can only happen
by undertaking the action
that you didn't even know you had the
ability to perform,
that we call upon Allah,
invoking him
as Rahman and Rahim
over and over and over in the course
of our day.
And we say to him
that
guide us to the straight path.
And many verses later in his book,
the verse comes to us in Surat Al
Balad,
that we guided you to the 2 nejd,
that we are saying, take us on a
straight path,
and this verse is saying that we have
been brought to a crossroads,
that the nudge in the Arabic language
is
a pathway that's tough to traverse,
and the verse is saying that
both options
are nudged.
That you have been guided to the 2
nudged. It's It's not that one is easier
than the other,
but they're both there.
And in that moment,
you'll want to
yield, gain from this Ramadan
to inform your decision making, your choices,
how it is that you will
go forward,
to not sit back and let complacency
be what you aspire towards,
instantaneous gratification.
Your validation
should not stem
from a world around you that teaches you
to look at yourself but not for yourself,
but you embody and believe the teachings
of the best of creation,
and you bring the best of your presence,
every lesson learned consciously and unconsciously in this
month of Ramadan
so that when the nudge comes to you
and you have to make a decision on
which direction you're going to go in, you
will always choose goodness. You will always choose
beauty. You will always
choose what is pleasing to Allah and never
choose what simply satisfies
an unsatiated
nafs.
It'll be hard at times
because not everybody chooses that way.
There are people who quite often
choose for themselves at the expense of others.
There are people who quite often are fully
content
in letting other people suffer so that they
might have their own temporary gain.
Ours is not a deen
that
embraces
individualism
or sees independence
as the
mode of
self actualization
one aspires towards.
But ours is a dean
that places deep value
on seeing how we are interconnected
and sees interdependence
the way that we all fit together
as the highest level of self realization,
that you are not at the center and
everything revolves around you, but we exist in
spheres of influence that overlap,
and God is at the center.
Allah is at the center.
And we then revolve
in our own
spheres
and circles around that god.
And the world is going to tell you
at the end of this Ramadan,
at the end of this pandemic,
to come back to what it was that
it was making you worship,
to not have a qibla that faces you
towards a Kaaba in a sign of unity
with billions of people around the world,
but to do your tawaf around what it
is that they are selling to you and
to be subservient to it. So your direction
does not point towards Mecca, but your direction
points towards whatever the consumer driven society is
telling you to point towards.
But you stand strong,
and you say that I am bigger than
this body.
I am bigger than this being, this jesed,
this form.
I am a heart. I am a soul.
I have a spirit.
I desire to embrace
my pathway
to God that brings me to nothing less
than the highest level of his Jannah
When I choose
and I decide
and I seek to move forward,
that is the parameter
through which I will be basing my decisions
on.
You think about it for yourself, my sisters,
my brothers.
What is going to be worth
everything
of your heart?
Is there really a moment
through which you can yell or curse or
scream at someone,
break a promise, tell a lie,
not fulfill a oath,
engage in the arrogant act of racism,
and deny someone entry into your gatherings or
circles
simply because the color of their skin or
the social class they come from is different
from yours?
If you are going to give your heart
up for anything,
let it be only for Allah's Jannah,
because that is the only thing that is
worth the exchange of your heart.
And when you meet challenge in the days
after Ramadan,
let your strength not be
from telling yourself falsely
that there is no room to make mistakes.
But with a sense of self forgiveness and
self love,
you move forward recognizing
that, yes, you will make a mistake,
but part of it is learning through that
and increasing yourself in strength
by recognizing
how to get back on your feet after
you have fallen.
So in these final hours of Ramadan,
make sure you are taking advantage of all
of them.
Cement for yourself
a vision
of who it is that you want to
be when you stand in front of Allah.
What actions will you undertake
in your remaining time in this world
so that you can say when asked by
your creator
about the fulfillment
of his intended purpose for you, that you
actually got done
everything
that you know that he wanted for you
to get done.
You dig deep
and you think differently
because you think through the prism of a
heart that is observed and benefited from Ramadan
for a month's time,
in pursuit not of anything that starts and
ends with this world,
but you want your pursuits
to be forever,
eternal,
everlasting,
where you take from this month everything it
uniquely offers
in the
short amount of time that is left for
us from it.
It'll be a means of benefit for you
and for all those who are around you.
And so I'd ask that you join me
in making a short dua
as we conclude
our conversation
today.
And to recenter yourself to the space
to remove from you any distractions, to not
be simply present in a physical sense, but
in every sense of the word, emotionally, mentally,
spiritually,
and to recognize that our collective prayer
will only reach its highest point and pinnacle
with the attentiveness
of each heart that is with us today
being as present as possible.
You are the most important person in the
dua that we make,
and your voice is just as crucial as
anyone else's.
So turn off everything else that might be
a distraction for you
as we turn to Allah
in
pursuit
of our duas being answered.
He will give to us even better than
what it is that we asked of him.
We begin this supplication in your name, You
Allah, and beseech you to send your choices
salutations upon your most beloved
We ask that you shower your infinite mercy
upon this gathering,
granting each and everyone who is present here
in in our loved ones, only the best
in this world and the best in the
next. We ask you allah that if all
of us are meant to be together only
at this time, at this place,
whether we are young or old, male or
female,
regardless of our race, our ethnicity, our social
class, our country of origin, our cultural heritage,
whether we are Muslim or come from a
different walk of life, You Rabbi.
For our individual hearts are meant to be
in the presence of all of their hearts
that are gathered here only at this time
at this place.
Then gather us all together again in the
best of places in the world beyond this
one.
You Allah, You Arleen,
knower of all things.
You who has known each of us before
we even knew ourselves.
Help us through this month of Ramadan to
know ourselves better.
Help us through this blessed month to know
our strengths and to live by them, to
know our character and how to increase it,
to know our pains and how to heal
them, to know our value and how to
share it, to know our blessings and how
to be grateful for them, to know our
wants and to see where they conflict with
our needs, To know our shortcomings and how
to confront and defeat them. To know how
to really forgive all those who have wronged
us and to actually forgive them. To know
how to seek forgiveness from those that we
have wronged and to then go out and
seek it. To know what charity is by
being generous with our wealth and our time.
To know what integrity is by being honest
and truthful.
And to know what goodness is by extending
our hands without qualification
to all those who are in need.
Help us through this blessed month to know
who it is that we are and not
let the people we are today be afraid
any longer to meet the people we can
be tomorrow.
And through it, help us to know you
and your mercy,
to know you and your love.
Make us from amongst those who live with
true contentment every day of our lives and
grant us an abode in the place of
ultimate contentment in the world beyond this one.
Allow for our beings to be filled with
self love that we can go out and
share with others,
rather than a love of ourselves that keeps
us from being everything that we are able
to be.
When our hearts are heavy and we are
filled with darkness, bring people to us who
illuminate us through kindness, compassion, and love.
Make us always the reason that people have
hope in this world,
and never the reason that people might dread
it.
Help us to know the realities of those
that are around us by overcoming whatever it
is that exists within us that keeps us
away from one another.
Through this month of Ramadan, perfect us inwardly
so that we are victorious in the battle
that is taking place every day for control
of our hearts.
Give us victory over our selfishness
and remove from within us any feelings of
arrogance or racism.
Increase us in brotherhood and sisterhood so that
we might together take on every challenge that
we individually
face.
And together, we celebrate every success and achievement.
Give us hearts that feel anger whenever one
of our sisters are abused, and the confidence
and compassion needed to build for her the
services and shelters she's in need of.
Give us hearts that feel sadness whenever any
one of us loses a loved one and
the gentleness and mercy needed to be there
for them fully.
Give us hearts that feel joy whenever any
one of us succeeds
and the love and hope needed to celebrate
that achievement.
Give us hearts that are not lost in
the pursuit of this world,
but hearts that are bold enough to be
drawn to the world beyond this one.
Let our rage be only at injustice, oppression,
and exploitation
of people,
so that we will work for justice, equality,
and peace.
Let our tears shed only for those who
suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and conflict,
so that we will reach out our hands
to comfort them and change their pain into
joy.
And let our successes be many as we
make a difference in this world by doing
the things which others say cannot be done.
Make us those who use our strength, our
power, our sheer will and determination
to break down the walls of inequity, injustice,
and oppression
that can find so many today.
Help us to truly be those who come
together on principles of truth, patience, and mercy,
so that we can, as a ummah,
do for others what we have the ability
to do.
Inspire us to build the shelters and clinics
that our neighbors are in need of.
Inspire us to take in the orphans and
children that the world has forgotten.
Inspire us to be generous and honest,
people of integrity and sound character.
Inspire us to live our Islam in such
a way that it brings benefit to all
those who are around us.
Help us to see this world always through
hearts that have benefited from Ramadan.
To see the goodness in all those who
are around us,
and to never be those who elevate ourselves
by denigrating others,
to see the benefit in any challenge that
comes our way,
and to not pass on a gift that
can only be acquired through patience and perseverance.
Give us the strength to stand again after
we have fallen,
to understand that we will make mistakes.
For any pain and torment that we might
have faced through it, give us ease, understanding,
and facility.
For any suffering that we have sustained, bring
to us understanding and strength of healing.
Grant us always a life that is filled
with the wellness of our minds, our bodies,
our spirits, and our hearts.
Make this month of Ramadan a month of
rejuvenation
for us. A month of renewal, a month
of replenishment.
It is not our stomachs that are hungry
nor our throats that are thirsty,
but our hearts are parched and long to
be revitalized.
Grant us both in and through the remaining
hours of this month
and the weeks, years that we have left
in this dunya,
a much needed peace that we long for
even if we don't realize it.
Help us to always make decisions through our
hearts
and never into
anything that is at their expense.
Put into our hearts a desire for nothing
less but to take from this Ramadan
all that it is that we can
and remove from us anything that distracts us
from it.
Make us those who seek out witness and
benefit from
and in our standing in the nights help
us to remember all those who are forgotten
whether by us alone or the world around
us.
Give us the energy to stand into the
late hours
and the sincerity to make du'a for all
those who are special to us. Through this
Ramadan, increase us in our Islam. Through this
Ramadan, increase us in our iman. Through this
Ramadan,
increase us in our ihsan.
Make the Quran our guide and grant us
a deep understanding of it.
Make the sunnah our goal, both inward and
outward aspects of it, and make our prayer
our anchor,
granting us the true sweetness
that salah and du'a only can.
Make the best of our deeds the last
of our deeds,
and let us not leave this world other
than in a state that is most pleasing
to you.
You Allah, bless us in this month of
Ramadan,
and help us to gain from it.
For all those who find themselves ill,
make this ailment for them a means of
purification in this world and a means of
elevation in the next.
Grant each one a complete healing in shifa,
each one a quick and easy recovery.
For all those who have lost loved ones
in these days of corona,
bring ease to their hearts and let every
tear that they have shed raise their loved
ones in rank and degree over and over
again.
Make them from the shuhada, you rabbi,
and help us to remember them always.
You Allah, you are with us.
Though we cannot see
you, we know that you see us and
that you are always by our side.
You love us more than we could know
when you know each tear that we have
cried.
We trust you.
Guide us and hold us until we are
recovered and well.
Relieve us of all pain and free us
from any suffering.
Help us to obtain strength for the sake
of the weary,
hope for those who are discouraged,
and joy for each and every one who
is downhearted.
Protect us always from hearts that are not
humble, tongues that are not wise, and eyes
that have forgotten how to cry.
Forgive us for our shortcomings
and guide and bless us all.
May Allah preserve and protect each one of
you and your loved ones. May He accept
from us all of our actions in this
month of Ramadan.
May he make this month of Ramadan
a means of continued benefit for us throughout
our days in this world
and a means of entrance
into his Jannah without any judgment in the
world beyond this one. But please keep me
in your prayers. You and your loved ones
will be in mine. May Allah accept from
all of us.