Day 14, Monday – Ramadan 2013 – Mufti Menk, Cape Town, Masjidul Quds
Mufti Menk – Ramadan 2013 – Pearls of Peace – 14 of 27
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salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
smilla rahmanir rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam O Allah Muhammad Ali Al amin Nabina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sahbihi wa Monica dmbs me, let me do that. We praise Allah subhanho wa Taala we send blessings and salutations upon Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, his entire household and all his companions, we ask Allah Subhana Allah to Allah to bless them, and to bless every single one of us and to grant us goodness, beloved brothers and sisters, Allah subhanho wa Taala has made what is the truth very clear. And he has explained falsehood as well. And he has kept for us
the choice in the middle.
Sorry, brothers, I think the sound needs to drop slightly very, very slightly, not too much Allah.
So Allah subhanho wa Taala has blessed us in so many ways.
He has given us a choice, and we are responsible for the choices we make.
And so it's a little bit too low, my brother, I was expecting that
we have a choice. Indeed, we are responsible for the choice we make the paths are in front of us there is the straight path, and there are different parts of the devil, what we choose to walk on Subhanallah will definitely be or will definitely have an impact on ourselves, it will definitely result in us either achieving something good or something bad. And this is why even on a religious level to choose your religion or to choose your path within the religion, because we can be Muslim and we can still be doing so many wrong things. And people can choose not to believe in God at all. May Allah protect us. People can choose any path but Allah says, although we have given you the
choice, remember whatever you do, ultimately you are the one responsible. So this is why they say you might be free to make your choice, but you will be enslaved by the consequences of that choice of yours.
Allah says in verse number 29,
what Conan have become,
show
me what
Allah says and say O Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam tell them that the truth is from your Lord, it has been sent to you now whoever once they may believe, and we ever once they may disbelief, but whatever you do, listen to what Allah says, In
Indeed, we have prepared the fire for the oppressors, which means those who make the wrong decisions, they need to face the consequences of that decision. You know, when a person steals, and then he comes and says, Why are you penalizing me it was my freedom of choice. That's not freedom of choice. In Islam, freedom of choice is governed by whether or not you are trampling on the feet of others. And this is something extremely important we need to know. People cannot say I am free to say what I want when you are swearing people. I am free to mock, you're not free to mock it, anyone and everyone, you are responsible for your actions. So why don't people meditate and let's say we
were free to do that because you're not free to usurp the rights of others. This is why Allah says when you do something, make sure you understand that freedom is such that you are totally responsible for the action that you have chosen through the freedom that we have bestowed upon you. May Allah subhanho wa Taala bless us. So if we want goodness, we have choices. Let's make the correct choices in life, especially when it comes to following the path, follow the correct path search look. Make sure that you find your own desires and lasts and you will be pleased Allah subhanho wa Taala because if you have struggled to control your own self, when it comes to staying
away from prohibitions, definitely you will have a good reward. Now Allah subhanho wa Taala bless us. And this is why in South Africa verse number 49, Allah makes mention of how every action of a human being shall be brought to the book, it shall be shown it is recorded, nothing shall be missed, while will be added.
On that day, the books shall be laid bare, they will be placed.
So when the books have been placed, you will find the criminals very fearful of what is inside those books of theirs their own books, but they are worried what's in this book. Why are
boo,
boo mommy know how
they will say, Woe unto us. What is it this book does not mean neither the smallest item nor the biggest item, except that it is recorded. Every single thing is recorded in the book, The small items and the big items, everything we do, recorded our statements, everything recorded the actions, even the smallest of actions, recorded May Allah subhanho wa Taala bless us and grant us goodness.
And this is why Allah subhanho wa Taala says, they will find their deeds in front of them present. And Allah says your will never oppress anyone, may Allah make it easy for us on that day. Brothers and sisters, for us to achieve eternal peace. We need to become conscious of the fact that everything we are doing or saying is written down. But I have good news for you. What is the good news? When we engage in repentance, then whatever was written in that book negatively is totally deleted, forgotten and the times swapped into something good. That is the mercy of Allah. So one might ask when is it swapped to something good, we can tell you that in sha Allah, when a person has
engaged in repentance, it is deleted, when they only do good deeds after that repentance, then those bad deeds have now been swapped to good deeds. So that's the difference. If you repent alone, and sometimes you might not have rectified everything thereafter, then perhaps you will be forgiven for what you've done. But because there are so many other things that you have not yet rectified, it is only forgiveness you've achieved for that particular item you sought forgiveness from. But if you have sought forgiveness, and you have not gone back to any bad ways and habits intentionally, and you have changed your entire life, Allah says we take all the bad you did in the past, and we swap
it into good deeds because of your change the effort that is required to put aside the bad deed is worth is worth achieving a good deed in its place.
It is a big effort, it is not something simple, when sin is readily available, or should I say when it is done so easily and the person abstains from it. They deserve inner and outer peace in the dunya as well as in the Africa. This is why if you are in a country where sin is very, very easy to commit, and still you extend you are far more noble or far more higher in spirituality than a person who lives in a country where it is not easy to commit sin.
Logic May Allah subhanho wa Taala grant His goodness.
Then Allah subhanho wa Taala explains how men
men is such that no matter how many examples Allah gives him, he still has this notion or this habit of arguing he becomes argumentative. He argues regarding what Allah has said as well. So Allah says verse number 54, SoCal Gas, while a todos en la Snuffy,
Colima, wacana,
jab de la, and indeed in the spot on, we have expounded every time for example, for men, we have given so many details so many examples for men, but man was always ever so argumentative. And he loved to argue that Allah subhanho wa Taala make us not from amongst those who when Allah declares something we start arguing, rather May he make us from those whom when Allah declares something and we know its source, and we realize it comes from our maker, or the messenger who was sent by that maker, we surrender immediately. I mean,
my brothers and sisters, this is why Allah says who can be more oppressive than the one who is reminded of Allah He is reminded of what is right he understands it, he knows it, and then he turns away and he chooses some other path. Allah says that is the most oppressive there is no one more oppressive than that. Listen to what Allah says verse number 57 of the same Sure. So you've got one man
who is more oppressive than the one who is reminded of his heart. He is reminded of his duty unto his robe and then he turns away and he forgets what his hands have earned, what he has done, what he has presented with his own hands.
His own deeds are forgotten.
May Allah subhanho wa Taala forgive us and make us conscious. Whenever we are reminded, we should really feel good. Do you know the excitement that a person feels when, for example, something that he likes is about to happen. Give you an example, typically, say a person is hooked on to football. And there is a match. Say for example, in Europe,
you know what I'm talking about.
And you see how excited the people are, they're supporting a team, they might fly out to Europe or they'll make sure they get to where they can watch it live and so on. The excitement, okay, how excited they are and when their team wins, and to see a few people who they really think are in tip top shape in terms of ability to kick a ball, they get excited, so Allah, that excitement is such that such people sometimes do not have similar excitement when they come to Salah to put their head down on the ground for the one who made them.
The day we are more excited to meet with Allah to come to the masjid to obey those instructions and we are so happy so excited, we talk to people we want to know about it. We We are so happy we want to take more time there. That is the day inshallah we will be heading in the right direction. May Allah grant the strength. This is a powerful example. Because it's the reality. You know, if you watch a ball, even if your team won 100 times and they broke world records, it does not make you within greater ability to kick a ball.
The people who support football are hopeless footballers. Do you know that they don't even know what the weight of a normal ball should look like? I don't want to say put up your hand if you know but I know very few hands, if any would go up. But yet, without knowing the wake of an international bowl, we are the biggest footballers and we want to know everybody's name and details and so on. Yet we do not know something that will take us to eternal paradise Subhan Allah we don't even know the names and details of the family members of the messengers and the ones who gave their lives in order to protect the deen Allah subhanho wa Taala be pleased with them and maybe unite us with them.
So Allah subhanho wa Taala tells us
a bit
upsetting Allah towards the end of surah. Number 103 104 a la Vina Melissa,
Jr.
Should I inform you tell them should I inform you of those who have lost their deeds, those who wasted their ability, they've wasted their deeds, their energies wasted everything, they are the ones whose effort on this earth or once they were alive in the world was fruitless, endless, it was actually a stray, it was few times, and they thought they were doing something good. When they died, they realize what we did was actually a waste of time. This has two meanings, a few meanings we will mentioned two of them. One is a person who is the greatest loser is He who works for his worldly life and forgets that he is going to a year after loss. Because today, if I were to offer you a job,
let's put it let's make it more interesting. If you were to offer me a job, for example, and say, You are for example, going to have such a salary and you are going to be having such perks and such this and such that I'm sure people would consider Subhanallah because they want it to be a means of they're confident that of their families in this world. But if we are from amongst those who are quick to respond to this type of work, which is going to earn a salary for this world, and we don't read our salah and we don't prepare for that,
then we are losers.
If you take a look for a moment, and I want to draw this parallel because it affects all of us, we all earn a livelihood, some more and some less. What is the effort that you put every day so that at the end of the month, you get a salary? Ask yourself, how many hours do you put? Well, I think on average, eight hours, am I right? On average, approximately eight hours and what do you get in return? Let's say the best salary from amongst us. 150,000 rounds. The best. Don't look at me and tell me where's the job. Now my god does goodness. My brothers and sisters you we are being paid 150,000 rands in order to work for eight hours a day, like slaves, five days a week, and five and a
half the other two you have a break. And you know what, we are only going to get 150,000 we will spend a little bit of it. It might result in us doing wrong things because we've got excess wealth. A lot of people when you have excess wealth, you need to control your expenditures. Make sure you don't spend it on the wrong path because it's very easy to do that when you've got a lot and thereafter if you get so much you better make sure you discipline your children and taught them. What is
slumming Allah is all about because when you die they will kill each other over the few millions you've left.
That's what you get. And we are not prepared to give a lot 24 minutes a day and he gave us the life we have the eyes we have there is no knob that you can get you need to press in order to get focused with your eyes they automatically focus imagine there is no q&a or no no way we need to we need to now fine tune it so we can hear someone it's there. And Subhan Allah asked those who cannot hear cannot see and have had health problems, how much they are ready to spend if that health of this can be restored now law restore our house for free.
We are ready to spend hundreds of 1000s you know we can actually take money from people borrowing and we want to restore our health but we don't realize the giver of the health of those who do not need any form of medical attention. Still, they cannot afford 24 minutes for Allah when we get up for Salah do not get up just to get it done with get up because you love Allah think of the football will lie if it was UEFA Cup we would get up at three in the morning and watch fact or not. Let's be honest, Stein we thought so Allah tells us Allah I don't want so much time from you get up it's better for you 24 minutes in the day we are spacing it out perfectly for your benefit and for your
really for your goodness in terms of your health, your health and everything else. And still we say no, no, I'd smoke and if we do get up a lot of us may Allah protect myself as well. Sometimes we are only getting it getting up because we need to get done with it. That's why so there is one higher level than that and that is to get up because you love Allah so now you get up early when you are Institute It's beautiful. Imagine when your team goes into penalty shootout you're so excited because now you know, hey 10 minutes more, don't disturb me leave the popcorn. Why? Because we want the ball to pop now Allah subhanho wa Taala gratis goodness, my brothers and sisters, look at where
we are, look at insert. These are real life examples we can relate to them. And this is why we don't have peace because we are confused with our priorities in life. We are not saying don't enjoy what is permissible on the globe, but not at the expense of that which is necessary to build your hereafter.
So Allah Subhana Allah says, Allah, the noble
dunya wa homea savona.
Those who have lost their deeds, they are the ones who have done deeds that are really few times those whose deeds are stray in this world wasted their energies and they think they're doing good. So Allah subhanho wa Taala says they lose a lot. The second meaning of it is people who engage in actions and deeds that were not taught to us by the messenger sallallahu alayhi wasallam people who engage in that which is against what Allah and His Rasool have taught, in that particular case, we will be doing deeds, but they will be few times. Let me give you an example. We get up for Salah for example of how many units or a car is Serato for the for this for. So if a man says no, today, I'm
going to make five. He's doing so much and he thinks I love Allah.
And you know what, I'm going to make five or maybe if I'm very tired in five and a half, I'll end after some
time and I'll carry on because I just want to offer a lot a little bit more. So his idea, his idea to him sounds right. But in the eyes of Allah subhanho wa Taala it is rejected, why he's doing something totally against what Salah is all about. So this is why it's important for us to learn that sometimes we do deeds thinking we doing a great deed, but in reality, it's not a deed of all men, Allah subhanho wa Taala God does goodness. So that is why the last verse of surah Allah makes it extremely clear verse number 110. He says,
Be mallamma
be
whoever is looking forward to meeting with Allah. Aren't we looking forward to meeting with Allah subhanho wa Taala whoever is looking forward to meeting with Allah subhanho wa Taala they need to do two things. They should do good deeds, and they should protect themselves from all forms of shields to things direct and clear cut verse. So Allah subhanho wa Taala says, do good deeds, so good deeds, you know the meaning of the term good deeds, all good deeds, your goodness to fellow human beings and so on. And the acts of worship that are taught by Rasulullah sallallahu sallam, make sure that you engage in them properly and Okay, make sure you do them in a way that you understand. I'm going
to meet Allah one day and never associate any form of partnership with Allah if these two conditions are met.
Allah says those who are looking forward to our meeting. If they do these, we then look forward to meeting them.
This isn't the hadith of Rasulullah Salah whoever loves to meet Allah, Allah loves to meet them. Subhana Allah, may Allah subhanho wa Taala bless us and open our doors. Let's move on to Subramaniam to pause for a moment with the name of the surah Mary, the Virgin Mary May peace be upon her, the mother of Jesus May peace be upon him, this surah is named after her. And in it there is an explanation of the birth of Jesus Christ may peace be upon him. So I invite you to open the Koran and go to the chapter of Mary Mae peace be upon her and read what it says and see how Jesus May peace be upon him was born and what happened and the miracles that occurred at the time and how he
spoke from the cradle. The fact that he spoke from the cradle the other religions do not make mention of this is a miracle that is mentioned in the Quran. May Allah subhanho wa Taala bless us. So inshallah we hope to benefit from that. However, I want to draw an example from the surah mentioned is also made of the Prophet Abraham Ibrahim Alayhi. Salatu was salam, one of the grandfather's of the Prophet Jesus May peace be upon him.
Allah subhanho wa Taala makes it very clear. And the reason why he makes it so clear is for us also to learn a lesson. Remember, it's not only for one reason or two, sometimes there are 1000s of reasons, we can only pick on a few, perhaps in order to remind one another. Here, something very great happened. There was a young boy, his name was Ibrahim, his father used to worship idols and all forms of chic used to happen and he realized, you know, I should render acts of worship only to my maker, nobody else. How can I render acts of worship to anything besides the one who made me and the skies and the earth and all the moon and the stars and so on. So he questioned his father and
his father became angry with him, and he told his father something, verse number 43.
Yeah.
Take
me.
All my father, knowledge has come to me that did not come to you. So follow me and I will guide you to the straight path. What do we learn from this? Sometimes our children will correct us. Sometimes those who are correcting us will be younger in age than us look very respectfully. He is talking to his father, his father got angry and upset, but he maintained the tool. This is why we are calling towards goodness and the attitude of a Muslim the behavior of a Muslim should be such that when you are attending something upright, and people get angry as a result, you don't need to get angry because of their anger. You don't you maintain what you are saying, maintain the same level of
calmness and keep repeating the statement. And this is the benefit that we have from the Quran, where Allah subhanho wa Taala never ever told any of his messengers that scream back at him. Not once did he say yell back at him not even once. But he always explained go to them and speak beautifully with Allah subhanho wa Taala bless us and grant us goodness. So the point we are learning from here, if we'd like peace in our lives and comfort when we are corrected, we should take correction even if it happens to be our own child correcting us. May Allah bless us And may Allah grant us ease and goodness. Then after making mention of many of the prophets of Allah
subhanho wa Taala Allah says subhanho wa Taala that a generation followed or generations followed, who abandoned salah and as a result of abandoning Salah, they began to follow their desires. Listen to verse number 49 of the same surah follow me back to him
salatu wa tada chahatein
after these messages,
they were followed by a generation who abandon their salah and began to follow their desires. So Allah says they will definitely meet something evil, something harmful, something painful, meaning they will see their punishment. Now the reason I am mentioning this today is to connect Salah with the protection from immorality and the lack of Salah with the diving straight into immorality. A person who is worried about their prayer
will be protected from immoral behavior by the will of Allah subhanho wa Taala imagine you make Hulu and you read your budget and when you complete your budget. You are now worried about the next Salah which is Baba and then you fulfill your law and you worried about us you you read your hustle and you worried about money. Do you think that you will start engaging in immoral behavior in the middle? No
This is the protection of Allah. So in one verse, Allah says, in
fact,
Salah will protect from immorality and evil. And in this verse, Allah says because they abandon their Salah, they engaged in immorality, so they abandoned their Salah, and as a result they became careless about their link with Allah once a person is not bothered about his link with his maker, what does he kV commits in morality, or if he does anything else that is bad. This is why brothers and sisters, you want to start earning the love of Allah start off by repentance, and establishing your Salah. Do not miss your prayer Come what may, a few months down the line, you start seeing miracles. Well, you start seeing miracles in your life. When you read your Salah and you have not
missed your Salah and you've stayed away from soon you will automatically find Baraka in your sustenance, your wealth will have so much blessings in it. This is almost a guarantee, time to come sometimes not immediately, but it will happen it will come a month or two. Sometimes Allah is just testing you to see how long you're going to endure, it will come you will be a calm person you will have so much love in your home, you will have so many problems and matters resolved and even if there are issues outstanding, you will be a person who's calm Why? Because the calmness that you have is derived from the prayer that you engage in so many times a day connecting with your own
maker.
May Allah subhanho wa Taala bless us and grant us ease.
And this is why the right at the end of this particular surah
Allah subhanho wa Taala makes mention of love, you know wouldn't do in the Arabic language is love. It's a very high level of love. And Allah says, verse number 96 in
indeed those who believe in do good deeds, the Most Merciful shall create for them, love.
What does this mean? That means Allah loves them, he will ask the angels to love them. And the angels will descend with the love of that person, through those are in the hearts of those who are similar Subhana Allah. So which means when you see a person trying to earn the pleasure of Allah and you love them as a result, it's because you do have something in common.
And this is why and the point I want to raise here, when you become upset by looking at someone who's trying to adopt the commands of Allah, it is because your link with ally is weak. That's the reason Are we following the point raised here? Some people get angry you see a man with a beard, you say you get a bandana? Well, I these are the statements that people utter nowadays, Mashallah at least they'll say look at the amla de Allah subhanho wa Taala protecting and granting goodness as well. Mashallah good ambassador of the deen.
So, it's amazing. But when you get happy, even if you are not that strong, even if you are a bit weak, but you get happy when you see a sister trying to dress appropriately you make to alpha I'm not that strong. But yeah, Allah help her to guide her protector. So Pamela, I know of someone who created or who thought of an idea of having a world hijab day. Well, the job day and what the idea was that let everyone whether they're Muslim or not supporting the hijab, and the protection from the ban of that job across the globe, let them down the piece of cloth for the day in support of it. So you find Muslims and non Muslims across the globe. Were that Egypt one day, one day we're talking
of the non Muslims, Muslims should be wearing it every day anyway. But even those who are weak, they don't need one day. So they are non Muslims who felt the comfort and coolness and serenity of that particular job, that they accepted Islam and reverted to the beautiful religion, just because of one day of a beautiful cloth that they have on their heads. Amazing. And our own sisters sometimes find it tough to put that piece of cloth on their head, my sister I call upon you, try it for the sake of Allah, Allah if you do not achieve coolness and comfort you can complain to Allah, you will achieve it, it will come maybe not immediately. It is a step. People will definitely laugh at you. We read
verses tonight, which explained to us that the people who are sinners and criminals will always laugh at those who are good and pious. They will always do that. They will call you names. They will scoff at you. They will make your life a little bit difficult. That's your test. You will have to have tests from Allah subhanho wa Taala. So it's important for us Let's try it. Let's Let's do this. Allah will love us. He will instruct the angels
To love us and the angels will descend with our love amongst the fellow believers and the love will inshallah increase as an oma when all of us are heading in the right direction. This is why I repeat my point again brothers and sisters, whenever you see anyone trying to earn the pleasure of Allah subhanho wa Taala if you do not feel love for them in your heart, there is something wrong with your link with Allah subhanho wa Taala we would need to rectify May Allah subhanho wa Taala open our doors and Goddess goodness inshallah tomorrow we will mention a few points from Surah Taha until we meet again inshallah we say you're Sol Allahu wa Sallim wa barik ala nabina Muhammad Subhan, Allah
Subhana Allah.
Allah, Allah Allah