Kutbah at Bayyinah Institute 6-01-23

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will hamdulillah Alladhina amanu who when asked that, you know who want to sell Pharaoh when we know he wanted to work Hello, Ali. When Ruby let him in surely unforeseen moments at Molina when you had the healer who Fela mobila Woman yoga lil fella had the other one a shadow Allah ilaha illallah wa the hula Sharika when a shadow under Mohammed Abdullah he was a solo or Salah hula hota Allah will who the body will hook the youth Hara who Allah de Nicola he worker Fabula he Shahida for sallallahu alayhi wa seldom at the Sleeman Kathira on Kathira Nevada for inner circle Hadith Kitab Allah for Halal Howdy, how do you Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam were in natural oedema data to her were

in Aquila modesetting Wakulla with it and voila, Bakula wala lesson for now.

Allah azza wa jal 50 W Karim by the pool arugula administrator Najim for our Atelier de Tavella outta Cali long work the India who are in Malaga up for Hua Frobisher, he saw the uncle Emily, who looked at that Melissa Ania Callie Allahumma, Tabitha Angela notability, Ilaha Illallah Allahu maganda, Mina, Latina Emanuel Amiel Sally hurt, what also be happy, whatever. So, I mean, yeah, but I mean, my hope in this hotbar today is to highlight wisdom regarding such the fundamental act of worship that we all do. That is, in a unique way represented at the end of Surah, two najem, I was conducting a series of lectures on sorts of najem are more than a week ago. And there are some

lessons that are still outstanding. So I thought I would dedicate this hotbar to highlight at least one of those things, that is very beautiful, and occurs at the very end of this, this incredible surah.

The starting point for this conversation, in order for you to understand this is that Allah describes different kinds of people that reject the message of Islam. And some of them just outright they hate it, they don't want anything to do with it, right. And they oppose it to the in the worst possible way. There are others who don't

ugly in their opposition of Islam, but they just love what they have. So they, they love their country, they love their tribe, they have this pride in their nation or whatever, and they can't accept the religion of the enemy. I remember a sister a long time ago in New York, she took shahada and her father was very upset with her it was a couple of years after 911. And he said, You accepted the religion of the enemy. So it's like it was considered treason, right? It's not he's not thinking about the religion itself. He's just thinking these people are I consider them my enemy. So siding with them is siding with the enemy. This is similar to Abuja, hell, in the time of the Prophet

salallahu Alaihe Salam, who doesn't so much hate Islam, but loves his tribe and loves the position of Makkah. And he thinks this is this new religion is going to create problems for Moroccan society. And for the strip the political stability of makan, that's the main reason he's opposing Islam. But there's a third category of people that understood Islam to be true. And they were also positioned, they were in positions of importance, they, they had a certain respect and a certain kind of wealth and certain kinds of recognition in their society. And they knew that even though Islam is true, if they accept it, it's going to cause problems for their position. So it's going to be they're not

enemies of Islam, but Islam is going to cause a lot of problems in their life. So the Quran highlights that these people thought about it, these people considered it, they knew it to be true. But then they turned around and stood against it anyway. And they didn't stand against it because they personally believe that they should stand against it. They stood against it, because if they stand against it, their followers will like that from them. So now they're not expressing what they actually think they're expressing what their followers want them to think. Right? So they're, sometimes leaders actually become slaves of their followers. We think usually the other way around

that followers are kind of entrapped and influenced and enslaved by their leaders. But a lot of times it's actually leaders that become slaves of their followers and they're not free anymore. This is actually very easy to understand nowadays because you have

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new currency in the world, right? Social media and how many followers can you have? And how much influence can you garner. And you have to keep studying the algorithm to figure out what's the way I can attract the most audiences. And now they're going to dictate what kind of content you should you should produce, and how often you should produce it. And what you need to do, and you need to completely craft yourself and alter yourself to be able to appeal to the growing audience. And if there's something on your mind that you want to say, then the marketing expert will tell you actually, if you say this, you're going to lose a lot of followers, you're going to lose, you know,

you're gonna use you lose your popularity. So you keep your mouth shut, because now you're supposedly you're known around the world for expressing yourself. But actually, you're enslaved by these people that have now become your following. They kind of become your bread and butter, because nowadays, actually, social media has also become a means of generating revenue, right? So they've become your bread and butter, and you can't lose your audience that you're pandering to. So you're gonna keep feeding them what you think they would love to consume the most. This is a new thing, but it's actually not a new thing. It's 1000s of years old. There were people in Macau who actually

liked Islam. They listen to the prophets, I said, I'm there, even narrations of William and O'Hara hearing the Quran and making such that individually, this incident, or that surround through to such dies, or some sort of an najem is actually one in which the entire congregation that heard the surah fell into such that, but I'm talking about a particular person who's now migrating kind of slowly making their way towards the religion. But then they see if I do this, then I'm not going to be popular among my crowd anymore. I'll lose my people. Right? So when radical Salama America, so when they've when the Quraysh found out that he's kind of, well, he didn't know he was getting a little

too close to Islam, they got worried. And they actually sent word to him. And they said, Listen, we hear that you're a little too impressed with it. You know, what should you because you're the smartest one among us, you should tell us? What campaign should we make against the Quran? Should we call it poetry? And he said, nice. This is way more advanced than any poetry. Okay, so should we say that these just a mind reader or a sorcerer? No, I know what those people talk about is gibberish. This is not gibberish. This is something else. This has a sweetness that cannot be compared to this is a kind of eloquence that I've never heard before he started praising the Quran. And his

colleagues were like, are you converting or something? What's happening here? Why are you talking so positively about the Quran? So we're afraid that you listen, by the way, if you do accept this religion, all of our business deals are done. We're not doing we're gonna boycott you, we're gonna cancel you from Makkah, that's what's going to happen. So he had to now figure out which way he's gonna go. And so then he said, Okay, you know, what, just come out and say that it's magic. I'll feed you the next campaign against the Quran. Deep inside, he knew that that's not the case. And so this is a complicated case of someone who measures whether or not they should take the next step.

And they have two things in front of them. They've got people and what people are gonna think and what how that's gonna affect them. And then they've got the truth and their commitment to Allah. And in the end, you have to make a choice. This is Allah's way of teaching us that every human being, at some point in their life, they have to make a choice. They have to make a choice Muslim or not. This is this is about 11 mohila in its original context, but there's a universal appeal here, to a choice we have to make, there are going to be points in my life and your life, where you'll have to choose between pleasing people and pleasing Allah. And it might mean that pleasing Allah is going to make a

lot of people have unhappy, right and pleasing people. You can do that temporarily. But it would mean you have to make Allah unhappy. You have to you have to displease Allah, you have to disobey Allah. That's the choice you're going to have to make. And every human being has been given a different story in their life, a different set of choices in their life, a different circumstance in their life. And every one of us has to come to that point, at one point or another. Your story is not the same as mine, my story is not the same as yours. But this is true of all of us. And when we get to that point, then there are different ways of dealing with this. Right? And I'm not going to

highlight all of those ways that Allah is going to show us one of the ways one of the sneaky ways that a person tries to deal with this, where they try to lie to themselves, they say, okay, you know what, I'm going to listen to people. But that doesn't mean I care. I don't care about Allah. I'll still do some good for Allah. But in this one thing, I really got to still listen to the people. I still have to protect myself. Right? So Allah says Allah Atalla theta Wella. Well Appa Kalyan, Wacka. Like, have you seen the one who turned away but also gave a little bit and then became tough became harsh? So the attacker Leland doesn't seem to fit with everything else. He turned away he

became harsh that goes together, right because they turned away from the profit solution and they took a hard stance against the profit solution, but this

guy turns away but then also does something good. And some of the Sahaba thought Cullinan here means he listened a little bit. He was kind to the prophets, I said him, he actually paid attention to the Quran he gave in a little bit. Others say also this, this, this also means he gave charity did some good deeds, perhaps even to ease his own conscience. I know, I'm turning away from what Allah says, but I'm not all bad. I'm doing some other good stuff too, you know, so he kind of made a negotiation compromise in his own head, like you and I can make in our own head. Yes, I'm doing this really messed up stuff. But come on, I do a little bit of good to, you know, I'm not all bad. I'm not all

and well after cleeland work there. And Allah says, Where did you get the right to make this compromise? Like, where did you decide okay, this much debit this much credit. And then the balance gets, you know, the, the books get balanced, like the accountant does, right? Well, how did you come up with this compromise? And the who are Elmaleh? IB for Hawaii Euro? Does he have knowledge of the Unseen from which he can see? Does he have this? Is this based on Allah's words? Is this based on Revelation? Or is it something he you know, Allah is? By this question he's highlighting, you have to ignore what Allah says. And then listen to this part, this is the scary part, you have to ignore

what Allah says. And then you have to speak about Allah on behalf of Allah from your own feelings. Now you have to actually represent Allah without actually hearing what Allah revealed. And you have to deliberately ignore what Allah revealed. And tell yourself yeah, I do this bad. I'm turning away from this. But actually, it's not all that bad. Because look, I'm not a bad person. I do this good, good, good, good stuff, too. So it balances out. This is not the way Allah's book works, you know, and you can look at ayat, like in Al Hasan, at youth happiness a year, good deeds, get rid of bad deeds that's there in the Quran. So that might support this person's worldview, right? But actually,

what Allah is saying is, once you've done a bad deed, and you feel like the weight of that sin you've made over and you still feel like the weight of that sin is on you, you keep thinking about it over and over again, and commit yourself to doing more and more good deeds, and the weight of that will be removed from you in this life and in the next life that's in that has allowed us to say, That's not saying do some sins, then do some good deeds, then go back and do some things and now you got some debit. Now earn some credit and get some good deeds. And now that you got extra credit now go do some extra bad sins. That's not the equation that's being presented. That's a

misuse of what Allah says. So Allah says, in the WHO Elmo baby for whoever, then Allah mentioned to prophets, right after that, I'm lamb unibe be Matthew Sophie Musa, where Ibrahim alayhi wa, he was any given information about the scriptures of Musa wasn't he told about the scriptures of Musa and Ibrahim, who fulfilled and it's just to not to prolong that part of the conversation, because I really want to come to such that in this in this khutbah. But I want you to know that, you know, Musa alayhis salam and Ibrahim Ali Sana have something very interesting in common they both had to make hedger off from their, from their family, and from their people. Right, and they live, they

weren't, they could have been fine where they were, but it's only because of their commitment to Allah that they had to get away. And one had to actually come back at the risk of being killed. And one had to leave, you know, so the both of them involve a kind of Hijra. And both involve very difficult confrontation that they had to make one, both with father figures, Ibrahim Ali salaam had to confront his father, actually. And Musa alayhis salam had to confront his father figure out who raised him, you know, alumna Rebecca Fina. Walidah. So we're finding two people that actually no matter what their consequences were, when Allah told them, they just they went for it, right. And

Allah took even a step further with Ibrahim alayhi salam and said, Allah the Wafaa, meaning he paid in full, what fire is actually used in Arabic for paying in full. It's used for on Judgement Day for ourselves, what will fit cooler NFC magazine, but every person will be paid and for whatever they earn, you're not going to be given less than what you earned. Right? Well, hello, Villa moon. So Allah says Ibrahim Alayhi. Salam, every demand Allah made he fulfilled it completely. And this was being said to the people in Makkah, especially because they were living in the proximity of the Kaaba, which would remind them especially of Ibrahim Ali set up who Rahimullah the Wi Fi, every time

they look at the Kaaba, they should think Ibrahim Allah the Wafaa. That's how they should think, right? So now this message has been given to them. But I'll skip forward Allahu Allah spoke about previous entire nations that God destroyed. But at the end of all of that, he turned his attention to the Quran again. And he says to them, that you are in a more serious situation than you realize. And by talking to them, Allah is talking to all of us, because he says to them as a philosopher, the thing that is meant to come down and really close has already come down and it's very, very close. He's referring to judgment day

Allah is talking about judgment day and he's saying the prophet is the final prophet there are no more Prophets coming these words that are now being revealed?

completely different 360 environment you know web 2.0 3.0 or whatever right now

Let's be in this metal zone where we're not, we don't have to deal with reality. Right? And this is actually a Kashif from the reality of the ACA. And so what will happen to you is like, it's so powerful that even if you're listening to a football you're listening to a lecture on you know, this is a machine right now you're not doing that. But if you're, if you decided to listen to something, right or benefit from anybody 3040 seconds in, you want to start multitasking and doing something else. Like the the avoidance, the impulse to avoid focusing 100% steps in and now we're setting up these barriers between us and actually dealing with the reality of what Allah is saying. They said,

I have been doing the HCA Shiva and then so ALLAH turns around to the operation he asked all of them a question and I asked myself and all all of you this question to as Muslims, if I'm in handle Hadith theta, Jawbone altered, hakuna matata, cool.

From this speech, meaning the Quran, this speech is what you're finding strange. This speech is you what you're having a hard time connecting with, you put on a new, Netflix special, and you're like, Wow, I love it. Man, this is my favorite. Once the next season coming out, and you listen to this music, I want to follow this person, I want to listen to what else they need you. And then storytelling, TV shows, whatever I really relate to this person that connects with me on a deep level, etc, etc. Some guy writes a stupid song that's as generic as it can be. But it speaks to you like he wrote it for you, or she wrote it for you or something, right? Because you find connect, and

then somebody talks about Quran like, I don't get it. Honestly, what the point is, is always talking about the same thing and you're finding this strange, everything else is intelligent, it's brilliant. It's creative, it's attractive. It's addictive. But when it comes to Allah's own speech, you find this strange, you find this unappealing, you find this something you'd rather not think about. You know what that is, that's Allah gave us no one speaks better than Allah, the ability to speak and communicate is something Allah, Allah revealed himself. Like, all of our speech, all of the art, all of the music, all of the stories, that's a manifestation of the ability of the human

being to express themselves. But that ability from Allah Himself, and Allah himself chose to communicate his own words in the Quran. So if I find the words of ALLAH strange, that's actually because I haven't upgraded my ability to analyze and think and contemplate, to the point where I can appreciate what's being said,

that's actually what's happening. You know, the Quran is not the Quran is not free

appreciation. It's not, it's not you can just glance at it and say, Wow, that was amazing. It doesn't, it's not so easy. Allah expects effort from anyone who wants to come to Allah's words, to actually put time and effort into trying to appreciate what Allah is saying before you can actually be in awe of what he's saying. If you're just going to what you know, you go to the Quran in order to be impressed, right. So you're reading whatever you're reading Harry Potter, and then you say, You know what, I'm going to read certain Bacara. And you're just going to read a translation. So you're not going to find yourself impressed? Chances are, you're like, I'm gonna go back to Harry

Potter. I want to go back to something else. Why? Because you came to it looking to be impressed. Right? And what did they compare it to? What are the disbelievers who didn't want to accept Islam? What are they? They compared it to poetry to magic, entertainment forms, isn't it? So they wanted to put it in one of the entertainment categories, you can think of it that way too. So when we put it in one of the entertainment categories, it needs to impress me. It needs to entertain me. It needs to captivate my attention, that we're not understanding something. When you go to the castle, the palace of a king, you don't demand that the king gives you attention. The king automatic, the fact

that you're at the king's palace means you will give 100% of your attention to the king. In fact, we can't imagine kings but we can imagine courtrooms right? If there's a plaintiff standing in the trial, and they're in that little box where the judge is talking to them, and they pull out their phone and start doing.

You don't want to go to jail like that because you're in the presence of the judge. You better show some respect. What do you think? What when when you and I are reciting the surah we're opening up the Quran. We're at the we're at the doorstep of a divine Palace revealed by Allah. We're at the doorstep of Allah's words isn't it's not required a certain kind of attitude. It requires a certain kind of mindset like your this is your God speaking to you. Right and when when we come to it with no one better impress me. Then

Allah says what God how cool and you're laughing. Well, that have gone and you're not crying. You're not crying at the tragedy of how Oblivion

as you are, how delusional you are that you're treating it like something that should be laughed at. If you just realized that the void you have inside you and I have inside me that we haven't appreciated what what it is that we're dealing with then it because if we did it would bring us to tears. While at the core This is not saying you should always be crying. Yeah, but you should be I shouldn't be crying and not realizing what it is that I have in front of me Allah's words. And he adds a comment and this is this is what this Cobell was supposed to be about one time Sammy dune and here you are all of you, Sammy, dune. And Simon is the the nouns being used to describes constancy.

Samad means two things. All of you people have your chest puffed up, and your heads held high. This is what Samad actually means in Arabic. When an animal puffs up his chest, fills it with air holds his head up high, because it's trying to intimidate its opponent to scare a predator away or scare an opponent away. And it actually makes itself look bigger than it actually is. And you know what we call that we call that posing? posturing. Right here you are posing. Here you are posturing. Here you are faking it. You know how to say fake it till you make it. This is iron the Quran. You're faking it, you're not going to make it though?

Well, I'm Sammy doon. That's one one dimension of the word Simon. And it's an it's an expression of how M how many empty things like air Have you filled yourself with to make yourself feel like you're all your big and you are the one who needs to be impressed. You're the one that needs to whose standards need to be met. You know, one to Sammy dude and the other meaning of Samad actually is singing, singing and dancing and like entertaining yourself. And here you are acting all hard. And here you are acting like you have all this time to entertain yourself and engulf yourself and just you know your your mind being taken away from the reality that you must deal with. And so Allah then

from that Iowa anthem Sammy dude, he puts on puts us in our place and we're going to recite that iron Salah will perform the search that for it. First you do lillahi so then fall in such trouble for Allah, put your head down before God. Like, I want you to appreciate what's happening with such that here. It's the exact opposite of puffing your chest and, you know, entertaining yourself and deluding yourself such that it's not just a physical act of putting your head on the ground, it's putting my pride, it's putting my distractions, it's putting you know, my priorities, all of them have been laid before Allah. So first you do Lilla fall before Allah let your ego go, let your false

sense of importance go, let your need to be entertained, go and fall before Allah first you do Lilla what's remarkable, a friend of mine check for him pointed this out. And I didn't think about it. At the time I was doing these rules. Allah didn't say first you do the law here, who do who were who do who worship Him, fall into such depth before Allah and worship him. He said first you do Lillahi wa, boo, and worship. So he mentioned worship, but he didn't say worship him. He doesn't mention that him at the end. What could that signify? Because obviously we only worship Allah. Right? Those two questions here why mentioned such that? And if you mentioned such that, obviously you don't have to

mention worship. Because first you do realize enough, right? But Allah mentions what you know, fall into fall into such that and worship. What does that tell us? It tells us we're going from Haas in alarm. Meaning right now crush your ego and humble yourself. I'm being told you're being told to humble yourself. And then after that, once you get up from such that, don't get up and go back to the same delusion. When you get up beyond when you get out of that stage to be in a state of being Abdullah. Like subsidize the act of us humbling ourselves. But you could do such that and still be an arrogant, distracted, egotistical maniac. After doing such that you could do that. You could be

you could still be full of yourself. Like there's nothing transformative that's happened in you, even after you've done such that we do that all the time we pray five times a day. That doesn't necessarily mean our personality has been transformed. Allah demands here the immediate humility, but then he demands this subservience in life, what we'll do. The other beautiful thing here is he didn't say what I will do, who is obvious it's for Allah, but not mentioning it as if there's there's a keen eye or there's a subtle hint, saying something without seeing it, that you haven't actually known what worship is, until you humble yourself first. And now you will experience worship

for the first time. Right? So the rituals of this religion, they are on the outside, but there's the heart and the mind needs to be in a certain state. Before those those rituals mean something. They do something for you. Right? And Allah is saying that first you doula, it creates that

mindset. And now you're ready for true everybody. Now what I will do, first you do the law he will do. And so we get a really profound deep meaning of the word sighs Now, one last beautiful thing that I'll mention about the surah. To you, you have in the beginning of the Surah, the stars fall when Nigeria either Hawa. And at the end of the Surah, Allah commanded us to fall into such that you have a lamb warning us that the judgment Judgment Day is coming down and close as effective as if, and the only way you can prepare for that is you bring your ego down, and you come close to Allah yourself. You know, first you were able to, it's an incredible bit of imagery that all ties

together, every one of these things comes together, you know, and he compares us to, you know, when you think of past nations that got destroyed. Some of the people of Fidel, Allah says, we'll move to Africa, our moto Africa, or PEEP nations that were flipped over, raised, flipped over, right? And it's also kind of jazzy language, nations that were raised, meaning they were able to raise monuments, buildings, structures, civilization, wealth, Empire military, they were raised, they raised all of those things, and all of those things got flipped back on them. And why is that example being given to you and me? Because we Allah can also raise you with money, luxury, power,

popularity, looks he can raise you raise, you raise, you raise you raise you and if you and I refuse to do such the AHA that happened to entire nations can happen to you and me. They could flip it right back down. So before Allah slams you down, why don't you voluntarily put your head down and humble yourself? Why don't I put voluntarily do that? You know, and that's the that's the message that's being sent to us in this remarkable beautiful Surah BarakAllahu li Walakum filled Quran Hakeem when they finally were er coming at it with liquid

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