Morad Awad – Change is Coming
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AI: Transcript ©
Hang on inferno.
We start by praising Allah
and sending our peace and blessings to our
noble and beloved prophet Muhammad
And I remind myself and yourselves
on this blessed and joyous day of Yomul
Jum'ah to fear Allah
As Allah
reminds us to fear him when he said,
All you who believe,
fear Allah the way He should be feared
and do not die except in the state
of complete submission to him.
And in the state of Islam,
we ask Allah
to allow us
to die in the state
and to make our last words in this
dunni Allah, Muhammad
Rasulullah.
And to make our final actions
the best of our actions
Brothers and sisters,
it's been
it's been 4 years
since the start
of my work here in this blessed community.
It's been 4 years since I stood on
this
for the first time
to deliver a Jum'ah sermon.
Exactly 4 years.
But in these 4 years,
there were so many
changes
that took place,
Changes on
a personal level.
Changes on a communal level.
Changes
on the level of the
and changes on the global level.
In these 4 years,
I experienced this masjid filled
to the back of the gym
in a Friday khutbah and experience this masjid
empty with no one
listening
during the pandemic
except for a handful of us.
In these 4 years,
I experienced the pandemic.
We all experienced
it. On a global level,
something that
was unprecedented in human history,
to the degree and the level that it
was.
On the level of the umma, the past
4 years have been very challenging.
Seeing what is happening
to our brothers and sisters in Palestine
very recently.
And before that, in the earthquakes,
and in the floods,
and
in the changes that took place
all over
the wars
that happened
to our
various Muslim nations, SubhanAllah.
It's very challenging.
Things are changing and they're changing very, very
fast.
And in order to keep up, it requires
a level of diligence
and a level of commitment to the cause
of this ummah, to follow-up with what is
happening with this ummah.
And on a communal level,
when I first
gave a khutbah 4 years ago,
on this
It was broadcasted
on YouTube, and we only had about 3,500,
maybe 4,000
subscribers on our channel.
And now, it grew.
How many multiples?
We're at more than
450,000
subscribers, close to half a 1000000.
The community grew about 3 times its size.
Allahu Akbar.
This is something subhanAllah that
that draws us to reflect.
It draws us to reflect on the sunnah
of change.
Change is a sunnah of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala
that will never
be replaced.
The sunnah of Allah, the ways of Allah,
the way he designed
this universe
and the laws that govern it.
There are sunnahs, there are ways that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala said,
they will never change and no one can
replace them.
No one can replace them.
Change is something that every single one of
us will experience in life.
We will be in different states,
in different places,
in different
states of mind, states of intellect.
We either rise
or we go down,
we move forward, we move back, but no
one
stays in the same place.
A famous poet,
he said,
There are 8 things
that
every person will experience
And it is inevitable
that every person will experience them.
What are these 8 things? That every person
sitting here today will inevitably experience?
Everyone experiences these.
Happiness and sadness.
No one that is happy will remain happy.
They'll be sad at one point. And no
one that is sad will remain sad. They
will ultimately become happy at one point.
You'll either be united,
uniting or uniting
or united with someone
or loved ones.
Or you'll be separated from them.
There's either this unity or this separation.
Times where you're doing well financially,
and times when you're not doing so well
financially.
Or being unhealthy
and healthy.
These 8 things everyone will experience them.
And this is because the sunnah of Allah
will not change.
But the sunnah of change
can go both ways, either to the better
or to the worse,
to the rise or to the decline.
And what governs this
is a few points that I
want to mention in this that we can
reflect on.
What we none of us want
is to change
to what is less or to what is
worse.
There are things that prevent positive change.
And I'll only mention 4 points and there
are so many.
One of the things that prevents
change, the sunnah of Allah
is waiting for miracles to happen.
Sometimes,
we're watching the news
and you know, I didn't
Although I was tempted to give another and
all of my since October 7th have been
about They
have not changed.
But today
I will mention it indirectly
because of the occasion that this is
my last khutbah as an epic employee.
SubhanAllah,
As we watch the news and we see
what is happening to our brothers and sisters,
some of us may wish for miracles to
happen.
But miracles are not meant to be awaited.
And as a matter of fact, miracles are
what? The ignorant
and those who denied the messages of the
messengers
would ask for in order to believe.
Only if we can see a miracle
from his Lord.
Believers do not need to see a miracle.
They already saw the miracles.
Hence why they believe in Allah.
And because they believe in Allah, and in
the sunnah of Allah and in the sunnah
of change,
that's what makes them patient. That's what makes
them do their due diligence
and work hard
in order to achieve
what they are striving to achieve,
in order to achieve
what they want to see manifested
in real life.
Victory will not come
by praying for Jibril
to come and destroy the enemies of Allah,
the oppressors, the killers of innocent women and
children
and the occupiers of land. This is not
from the ways of Allah.
But it's from the ways of Allah
to do what we need to do in
order to get and in order to achieve
that result.
The second is laziness, and this prevents us
from positive change.
Laziness and lethargy
are things that
are only the characteristics
of those who do not
want to
achieve
their goals
in life.
See sometimes in life there are things that
hold us back.
But we need to diligently work on our
goal, and what we see is befitting for
this umma.
As laziness
in some cultures
is the definition of insanity. You know in
some cultures around the world,
they define
insanity as
one who does a mistake, the same mistake
over and over and over again.
Meaning they do not learn.
And no one who is lazy loses an
opportunity after an opportunity after an opportunity.
The third
is this belief
in luck that is plaguing us especially the
younger generations. I see that, oh, they
these people are lucky.
They're making
they're making
good money.
Oh, they got it well. It's pure luck.
There's nothing
there's no luck
in
diligently doing what you should do for the
Ummah.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
He said in the Quran
What did Allah
said? Say,
he said,
asked for the one who gives
and has
meaning avoids
Allah's prohibitions.
And then believes in jannah,
that person
We will guide to that which is best
for them. We will guide them to the
path to jannah. We will guide them to
what is good for them.
But after what?
Allah doesn't just give someone the taisir.
Will make it easy for them. It doesn't
come like that by itself.
It was preceded by a few things.
They gave.
They gave from their wealth, they gave from
their time, they gave from their energy.
And then they avoided
Allah's prohibitions that were there in the pathway
to obstruct them from achieving.
And believed in the reward of jannah. Husna
here means jannah.
Then that person
who's performing like this will what?
Will be guided
to what is easy for them and what
is good for them.
And the last is ignorance brothers and sisters.
Ignorance
will always prevent a positive change as there
is no
nothing more good
than knowledge.
There's nothing better
that a person can attain and gather
from in this world more than knowledge.
Allah gives power
to those He loves
and those He doesn't love. Allah gives wealth
to those He loves and those He doesn't
love.
But who does Allah give true and deep
knowledge to?
Only the ones that He loves.
So knowledge
and its attaining is what will
spiral us
to the next level. So that when the
next change that Allah decrees for us happens,
it happens
with the taisir of Allah.
And it happens with the tawfiq,
with the help of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And as for
the pillars and the foundations of change,
the first is growing one's
intellect.
So long as a person keeps learning,
and learning, and increasing
of and
knowledge,
they will always change to what is better.
The second is
relieving your
selves and ourselves from
environments
that are not conducive
of our betterment.
If a person is in an environment
that holds them down, if a person is
in an environment that holds them back, if
a person is in an environment
that does not allow them to be
or live their full potential, it must change.
And this is the sunnah of change.
The second, the third is to imagine
our goal every single one of us.
If we want this change
that is going to happen inevitably to all
of us.
We need to imagine our goal.
What is
it that I want to be
next year, in 5 years, in 10 years?
What do I want to be doing? Where
do I want to be going?
What do I want to see change in
this ummah?
And prepare for that,
and work towards that.
Because we can only work towards a goal
that we know and we can imagine.
The more we can imagine our goal,
the more we can strive for it and
the better we can strive for it.
And the 4th and the last
is to be
your own self critic
and to be the best critic,
to criticize, be introspective.
As this
can only
be a trait of someone
who freed their hearts from arrogance.
The one who is arrogant
will always blame others before themselves.
There's more than 7,000,000,000
people, they'll be willing to blame every single
one before
it comes to them.
And this is a sign of arrogance.
But a believer
who wants to change
positively
will always be their best self critic. They
don't need to hear it from someone else
because
they already told it to themselves.
So brothers and sisters,
we all know
that change is going to happen.
And we all know that every single one
of
us whether it be okay if we're not
married,
will be married one day.
If
we
have don't have children, insha Allah, we will
have children one day. If we don't or
we do and things keep changing.
We have a job today, we have good
pay today, tomorrow we might not.
But the one who is the most prepared
when this change happens is the one who
keeps these points in mind
and prepares for them,
and does not wait
to be
bombarded with it
or surprised by it.
Brothers and sisters,
we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to make whatever change
that we will undergo,
and whatever change that will happen to us
in our lives,
a change to the better.
And a change that's a means
of betterment for us in our lives, in
our livelihood,
in our state of mind, in our hearts.
And we ask Allah
to bestow His mercy on us,
and to bestow His forgiveness on us, and
to forgive us for our shortcomings.
You know brothers and sisters,
this is probably one of the most difficult
I I I had to prepare.
I have so many
delightful memories
in this blessed community. And
especially with the youth of the community.
It's difficult
to talk about
what I'm experiencing in my heart and to
translate it
into words
as
my heart was very conflicted between the many
causes
that are there around the world
that need to be addressed
urgently.
But you know,
it's
times like this
that
we live to see and we prepare for.
And
And
I'm very happy
to have been able to serve
this community.
It's a true honor
for me to be here, and for me
to have been here for the past 4
years.
I will not disappear. Alhamdulillah. I'm still gonna
be local to the community but not
working for epic masjid.
But I'll be here and perhaps maybe I'll
give
a later not as frequent as I would
normally do it, but maybe in the future
But it's still different, you know. And it's
still something
to move on to.
This is the community I my first white
hairs came out in.
Alhamdulillah.
Like I was thinking when I was coming,
driving over here. So this is fresh. I
was
looking at my white hair hairs in the
mirror. I'm like, man, I didn't have these
4 years ago.
And,
I remembered a poem that one of my
uncles wrote.
He said,
He said,
he said, we grew
and the place grew with us.
Right? Or we grew old and the place
grew younger with us.
And whoever grows has to leave at some
point.
Alhamdulillah,
this point came
with the fadl of Allah and the nama.
I'm so delighted.
I'm so glad. I'm so happy
to have
then serve this
like to have
serve this community.
And Insha'Allah
I want to ask everyone on, you know,
from this pulpit and from the minbar that's
an amana
left
to us, you know, to forgive me for
any shortcomings
that
you might have seen from me,
and to pray for me and for my
family insha Allah
to continue to grow and to serve this
Ummah of Muhammad
And
to
also
not forget
the youth of this community.
Some of the greatest souls
that I met in my life were here
in this community.
This is true gems.
And whoever comes after me and I don't
know who
that person is yet as there's still interviews
and whatnot, but whoever it is, it's a
great amana
and it is going to be
1 of the most delightful things they do
and they serve, Insha'Allah.
I ask Allah
to bless this community
with what is best for it in this
dunya and the next.
And I ask Allah
to guide this community to what is best
for it, insha Allah, and the best for
its future.
And I ask Allah
to prevent, to protect this community
and to protect its leadership
from all harm
and from the enemies of Islam.
And I ask
Allah
to allow us to serve
our communities
the best service.
I pray that Allah
forgives us and has mercy on us, forgives
our children, forgives our spouses, forgives our parents,
unites us in Jannatul Firdaus.
I ask Allah
to show us what is good as good,
and to guide us to it. And to
show us what is falsehood is falsehood, and
to guide us away from it. I ask
Allah
to make us from those who hear
the words of others and follow the best
of what they say.
I ask Allah
to alleviate the pains and the hardships of
our brothers and sisters in Palestine,
to give victory to the mujahideen in Palestine.
I pray that Allah
guides our brothers and sisters in Palestine to
what is best for them in this dunya
in the next. I ask Allah
to raise the martyrs in Palestine to the
highest ranks. I ask Allah
to bless them with the expiation
of all of the intercession
or for the intercession
of the whole entire ummah. You Rabbi, make
them intercede for us.
You Rabbi raise the status of the shuhada.
You Allah,
allow us to live to see a free
Masjid Al Aqsa, a free Palestine,
a free
a free people of ghazah. I ask you
on this blessed day of Yomul Jum'ah and
on this pulpit
to forgive us for our shortcomings in giving
nusra and victory to our brothers and sisters.
You Rabbi, if we are short then do
not
punish us for being short but guide us
to that which will allow us to give
them victory, give them nusrah and give them
their due rights towards us, You Rabbil Alamin.
Allow us for to be from those who
give them their rights, You Rabbil Alemen.
You Allah, alleviate the pains and the hardships
and the trials and tribulations
of our brothers and sisters around the world
in Burma,
in China,
in Kashmir, You Rabbi al Amin, in Yemen,
in Syria, in Iraq,
in Libya, in Morocco, in Turkey
and all over the world. You Rabbi alleviate
their pains. You Rabbi alleviate their pains.
You Rabbi forgive them from their sins. You
Rabbi allow us to be of their assistance
Brothers and sisters,
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah.
So still, tell you to
make sure you fill in the rows in
the back.
Allahu
Akbar.