The Land of Opportunity

In an Hamdulillahi tal and Madonna Starting over here on a stock photo when I was a bit late I mean surely unforeseen I will say it I'm Molina de la la mejor de la HuFa la mala one minute live further ahead, yella where Chateau La ilaha illallah Hua who luxury color who eyeshadow Anna Mohammed Abdullah who whenever you Hora Soto yeah you have Latina I'm an otaku Allahu Akbar to hottie he you Allah temotu Illa one two Muslim Moon from Ahmedabad. After praising Allah azza wa jal

and testifying that none is worthy of worship but him and testifying the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was our model and our servant and our messenger and the best to ever worship him Allah Zilla Jin and after reminding myself and even with the tough call of Allah subhanho wa Taala

and welcoming you all to the house of Allah, Allah Baraka with Allah for another Juma?

My brothers and sisters, there are two verses in the book of Allah azza wa jal that I've never understood the connection between this pair of verses until recently,

and they are at the beginning of SoTL Bacara. Allah Subhana Allah Allah says K fetac for Runa villa. Welcome to Anwar turn here calm Sama, you need to confirm my Yohei come through maybe he told Geralyn how is it that you can disbelieve in Allah, meaning Allah's ability in this verse, his ability to resurrect you for the Day of Judgment? How can you disbelieve in Allah, when you were once dead already you are non existent, and he gave you life. And so then he will put you to death and bring you back to life again, this is very straightforward logic. Anyone can understand this. Nothing hard to understand about it. How can you disbelieve in Allah when you were dead and he gave

you life and then he will put you to death and return you to life, the Day of Judgment. So my eternal Gerawan and then you will be returned recalled back to him indefinitely.

The next verse says, what, who are lazy Allah, Allah Kumar fill out of the Jamia, He is the One who created for you, everything on earth.

So it is as if the verse is saying, How can you disbelieve in Allah's power when it has already been demonstrated on you, bring you to life in this world? And how can you disbelieve in Allah and worship these idols, when everything on Earth was created by him for you. And this is so profound, people fall into selling themselves short dishonouring themselves disbelieving in Allah, and on a lesser level, even the Muslim disobeying Allah, when they get confused, regarding the prestige that Allah gave the human being.

When he doesn't realize that this entire world was created for him, and therefore he is above, he is above, living for anything on this world. No, it was created to serve me, I don't serve it. This is profound. And this is not just to offset the inferiority of worshipping a rock, you know, an idol, a statue, to offset anything, how can I settle for living for money, when all of the treasures of the planet were created to serve me, they I am their master, they are not my master. And so Allah gave us this whole planet and honored us with being allowed to enjoy it, and being given through this whole planet, a world of opportunities to use to make use of towards our greater purpose, bigger

than this world bigger than this life.

And I say that, and I reflect on that in these past few days as I'm preparing the hotbar. And I realized that they actually call the United States of America the land of opportunity, that is the common framing of the country. This is the land of opportunity. When the Quran is saying this whole world is an opportunity for you, on the condition that you don't settle for it. You don't get confused, that you were distinguished by Allah. In that case, use it. That's the default. It's all halal for you, unless I say otherwise, that would be the exception. So long as you have things structured, right? You will not dishonor yourself, enjoy the world.

And so again, it is not about idol worship, and it's not just about you know, living for money. It's even family you are created not to serve family relationships, family relationships were created you were given families by God, so that you may find peace and comfort and completeness and satisfaction through them. But they should never come at the expense of your true purpose. The expense of your greatest purpose the expense of

In your world, and I keep repeating the world, the word expense, because when you speak about opportunity, how do you properly value opportunity? You know, even in the business sector, they say, don't look at the return on your investment, look at the cost of your investment, you know, applying that to what is called the land of opportunity, the United States, you can say, is there anything better than Harvard? Put getting my kids into Harvard? Right? Is there anything better than, you know, $400,000 500, or a million dollars income, it's a great deal. I'm going to work hard for it, even if it takes me 2030 years to build out my opportunity for myself and for my family. The true

way to assess this is to see what was the cost of this?

And what will be the cost of this? You know, I have long wanted to visit England, the United Kingdom. Why? Because I want to see what Muslims generations will look like in America because they've been there for about you know, the mass migration has been there about three generations, us Muslims here, the most of you in the masjid are first immigrant or first generation, one to two generations have been here only. So I wanted to see what how well will we do? What what you know, pointers, hints, projections, forecasts they have for us, and they gave me such a difficult schedule, I was not able to discover any of this. But on the last night there, Allah blessed me to

sit down with a great Hanafi scholar over dinner, and I explained to him my interest, I want to understand I want to be able to compare and contrast. He said to me, brother, apples and oranges, don't try. So do you mean, he said I was an imam in United States for nine years. Islam in the United States is different. I said, Well, How's it different? He said, the people that came to the UK, were people that migrated villages at a time because it is closer. And also they were able to like, pull themselves together, pull each other together and get there and they were mostly village people and they want to remain together living as villages. And they were more conservative anyway,

because the villages naturally are less open to you know, change than like the cities and he has a completely different demographic, completely different experience than the United States. The people that came to the US, first of all, were a self selected group of privilege. They could afford to come so they came. That's number one. He said number two, they came for the opportunity. The word got me right game for the opportunity. So where's the hospital I'm going to work in or where's the University I'm going to study at or where, and they let that's where they settled on. That was their priority. That's what was in their crosshairs. He said, Then Islam after that, for some of them was

an afterthought, like, Okay, I'm here. Wait a minute, what am I going to do so after Juma?

The nearest Masjid is six hours away, 14 hours away. 15 hours away.

Gotta build the masjid. And so they began trying to find families to get together to mobilize and get a little house get a little bigger, expand, build a masjid.

Wait a minute, my kids are changing. These are not our values. Look, everything is an afterthought, right? We got to start building some Islamic schools. And so they start investing, it takes a generation or two and we're starting to see the rise of you know, Islamic schools in mass relatively speaking.

The cost of this was humongous. And you just need to understand where you're standing.

Because if you don't, you may not be able to calculate the cost of slipping if you don't know where what lens you're standing on. You see, number one, because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said to us Melfa production Aliko I don't fear poverty for you. We're lacking Akshaya and tough to Harlequin with dunya. What I really afraid of is that the opportunities of this world get opened for you. And then you start competing in them, the way the people before you competed in them, and then they destroy you the way they destroyed them.

And so the American Muslim experience, especially in the last 3040 years, because Muslims have been around for 400 years, but the Muslims that were around for 400 years, our brothers and sisters from the African American community, the Muslims from Africa, they were not brought here for opportunity. They were brought here for someone else's opportunity to be the the labor to be the underclass for someone else's privilege. So that is not the way to measure that community. And they showed resilience, but to show resilience in the face of opportunity. Your is very hard. That's what I want you to measure the cost what it costed you to act on it.

I've told you before, and you will need to think about this and just be frank with it.

If you say there are 2500 messages in America

Okay, and the average messages being extra generous. This is not true to be extra generous, we're going to say the average Masjid holds 400 people. That means there's a masjid. There are masajid for a million Muslims.

Means if you stuffed the masjid to the back on their end, that's a million Muslims every single message door to door.

What happens to the other 3 million Muslims? What happens? Other 75% of the Muslims, they don't enter the message not even on eight, right? So just understand it right in front of us. The Prophet alayhi salam Salam warned us right of opportunity. If we don't have our structure built right that this world is for me, I don't live for it. And then people that were blindsided by this opportunity, three quarters of them have never returned to the masjid. They might return to the masjid. If they decide to pray Janessa on their parents might this is the reality that you stand on. So understand, be honest with yourself. So how do we work around this? How do we make sure we are of the fortunate

25% Or rather the best of the fortune of the 25% Because even Masjid goers are not safe. After the break in sha Allah Allah Allah Allah has our stuff for Allah Hollywood.

Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Milena vivad Chateau La ilaha illallah wa the hula Che Guevara who are shadow and Mohammed Abdullah who interview who rasuluh.

There is ample and ongoing research by European Institute for Islamic research that speaks about faith transmission, and they study doubt and the pathways to doubt and you know, the what predicts doubt the predictors of doubt the first thing we can take from their studies and you should go back to them that should be important for all of us. Is that auto piloting the parenting project, you know, just let things go. It's all right things are going to work out this wishful thinking mindset is of the most dangerous things you can do

to feed and clothe and pay tuition for your children and by them what they need to be equal to their friends. And that is of the most difficult burdens you can put on your child's shoulders and weigh them down with. They said parental involvement when parents educate their kids on Islam formally and informally.

And when parents emphasize religion at home, they see you pray, they see you wearing hijab, they see you saying no, we don't mention people's names. Allah does not like this, right? That by itself offsets doubts by 30 to 50%.

Already, the child growing up, we'll have a 30 or 50% greater chance to not have what the team calls hard doubts.

So that's the first part parenting, no school, no message it will be able to do with parenting does, then we want to say that we have to invest in institutions and Wallahi there is no fundraiser after this. This is a mentality we need to refine in all of us a culture we need to create in our community. We have to invest in institutions. Because there's so much you know, the parents cannot do. Where do you put yourself in a place where you can ensure your values are reinforced by other Muslim friends for your children? Where else are you going to have systematic religious education? Where else are you going to find the modeling for this? Where will they develop the feel good

memories with people of religion? Right.

You know, there are children By Allah's grace who come to this Masjid. May Allah increase their numbers and increase them these children that come because the Imam of our messages Amazeen holds a stash of candy for them ready? Every once in a while tries to be unpredictable. He gives them these things connect you consciously subconsciously. And so being really committed to the masjid. This is extremely important. Being in in a Muslim environment and Islamic environment to be serious about it. You know, I just want you to think and I have to close the whole book because there's not enough time to get through the content.

Allah azza wa jal says, you know mineralogy Leta Jelena houfy Hi mana shadow human read whoever wants this immediate life whoever wants to sell themselves short for the opportunity of the immediate life, we will give them of it what we wish to whom we wish you will not get it all. And even if you do, it will not do for you what you thought it would do for you of satisfaction. The next ISS woman Aradhana, Fira and whomever seeks the hereafter was Salah has a yeha and strives for it with its do striving means strives properly, there's a proper level of commitment that is required to get the Hereafter.

And so I just want you to think about the hereafter prioritize that you are not created for this world. Allah honored you above serving this world you serve

far greater and better purpose this world is to serve you on route to the greater world. Think about that. And imagine you know, when you think about donations when you think about attendance, think about Allah telling you, I selected you

to be of the people that have a beautiful Masjid

in the middle of a non Muslim world, where you can pray and see others pray, and socialize with those of your values and those of your belief systems. What did you do with that? Did you feel privileged that I selected you from the 25%? Will you fight to hold on to that for yourself and your loved ones? May Allah azza wa jal help us to feel the privilege of our Islam? Help us hold on to it and keep it. Keep it in our families until the Day of Judgment? May Allah guide us and forgive us? May Allah subhanho wa Taala raise our rank and protect us? May Allah here heal us and cure us. May Allah provide for us from where we don't expect Allah McQuillan Alhambra. Allahumma fildena ohana,

love mouflon Ohana and Felina dooba dooba Kula de casa de la salle Raha Cyril Hawala, Anita. Wala Howard, Raha or Salalah Hussain Al Baraka, Nabina Muhammad while earning he was IVIG marine