Surah-Fatiha Points to Ponder

Nouman Ali Khan

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Channel: Nouman Ali Khan

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Episode Notes

Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan delves into a brief discussion on the reflections of Surah al Fatihah in the context of the most fundamental aspects of our Deen or a summary of the entire Islam.

He begins by the first three Ayats of the Surah. In them, he first analyses the difference between thanking Allah and praising Allah. The meanings of the word – Hamd are also elaborated upon.

Another wonderful thing about the beginning of Surah Al Fatiha is that the hadith tells us that Allah has 99 names and in Surah al Fatiha we specifically use Allah and there is profound benefit in that the benefit is that if we thank and praise Allah only for being Khaliq then the only thing you are  appreciating is that he created, if you thank/praise Him only for being Wise then the only thing you are appreciating is that He is Wise as is the case of the other phrase too. Alhamdulillah covers all. We are also acquainted with the concepts of how we want to be Allah’s slave, and how despite Him being our Master, He is Ar Rahman- the Bestower of Mercy.

The Ustadh also discusses:

  • The understanding of the verse Sirat Al-Ladhina ‘An`amta `Alayhim.
  • The paths that lead to Allah.
  • The concept of Hidaya (Guidance).
  • The reasoning behind a Muslim asking for Hidaya while he has already been guided to the truth.
  • The different levels of Hidaya

The absolute magnificence of the fact that Allah SWT Himself is responding to us when we recite Surat al-Fatihah in our Salah and the need for us to be in full realization and awareness of it the next time we perform Salah.

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I

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want you to

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hamdulillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala

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minister standards Nettie laomi de la Miranda Minho, mobility to me,

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but also the UK, but also the southern Oklahoma Taco Bell, Mina pm and

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we're going to talk about a few things. Again not at sea, but just a few points of reflection from SoTL Fatiha tonight Bismillah, which actually covers some of the most fundamental aspects of our Deen actually to consider some of the party had that we recite in every Salah, a summary of all of Islam. So if somebody understands Sultan Fatiha properly, then they also have the ability to explain Islam to somebody else comprehensively, because it contains pretty much everything you need to know. Or you need to explain to someone to give them a full picture of what it represents.

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We're going to divide the study of 33 parts the first three is the middle ayah. And then the last thing this is how the party is divided.

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In the firstly is again, not an extremely not a very detailed to see very simple discussion in shallow Tyler, the first word and come to the left here.

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even go into the discussion about the bus mela.

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Some of us you don't consider that to be the first I have the other say no and somebody landed on that island meaning the first we're gonna start with 100 I mean just to make the matter brief, and

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the first part of that is that come to them.

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And at the very least we have to translate a company that has Praise and Gratitude belong to Allah. At the very least you cannot really translate it praise belongs to Allah. And you can just translate it thanks belong to Allah. The word hummed includes two things, praise and gratitude. These are two very separate things. Now Arabic has a word for either of them. You could say mud, or Santa for praise. And you could say sugar for gratitude. So Alhamdulillah includes mother includes color, and it also includes sugar, it includes all of these things in one word. Now before we go any further, you have to understand the difference between praising a lie and thinking about. And before we talk

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about a lot, let's talk about just generally these two terms. Someone who prays isn't necessarily someone you think. And someone you think isn't necessarily someone you think these are mutually exclusive things. In other words, for example, if you see a really nice car in the parking lot, you're not going to think the car, but you might do you might raise the car, this is a nice car, you don't go over the hat, the car in the hood and say thank you so much You don't do that doesn't make any sense, right? On the other hand, you have, you know, a situation, let's take a religious situation. It's, it's obligatory on all believers. And this is not something new in our messengers,

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Revelation, it's been there from the very beginning of all the messages.

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We have to be grateful to our parents, we have to be grateful to our parents. Now, Ibrahim alayhis salam, of course, also has to be grateful to his parents. So he is grateful to as we know, as of his name, the name of his father, as mentioned in the Quran, he's grateful. But does he praise his father does what the father does is it worthy of praise or criticism? What the father does should be criticized, it shouldn't be praised. So he's, he's grateful to him, but he's not crazy, right? So you can praise someone without thanking them. And you can think someone without crazy. These are the two different things. Now when we talk about Eliza when we say 100 we don't say a mother who was

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sukru. Linda, we don't separate the two words we put them under one word, which is and this has very profound implications. It means everything that Allah does, we thank him for it. And everything Allah does we at the same time, praise him for it. We don't do things for everything we know about a lot. For everything we appreciate a lot about a lot so much. And we thank him for it. We praise him for this changes our attitude towards Allah vary drastically from people of other faiths. You may know of Christians and other people of other faiths in your circles. You may even know some Muslims, we don't know they do very well. And sometimes they say things about God or say they say things

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about a lot that are far from appropriate. Have you ever heard things like, if God is so great, how come there's so much war happen? There's so much hunger, how come there's so much famine? How come there's so much disease? How come there's so much chaos in the world? Where's God when all of this is going on? I was actually on a flight. This is true.

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story. I was on a flight back from Las Vegas. It was a clown conference, I swear. Okay, so I was on a flight back from Vegas and next to me was an old Jewish couple. And these are both very, they're Holocaust survivors. Right? And they see me reading Quran and the old man, he says to me, why don't you read this to me, recited in the in this language, I'd like to hear it. So I recited some karate, and we started talking. It's a long flight back to New York. Right? So really long flight five hours. So we're talking halfway through? Yeah, we believe in God, too. We also have faith and like half an hour into that conversation. Yeah, actually, I don't believe in God, what we started half an

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hour ago, you said you have faith too. He said, Well, where was God when the Holocaust happened? Right. In other words, they're kind of in a conflict. On the one hand, they say they believe on the other hand, how can we believe if this and this happened, etc. Now the thing is, our first response as believers is we understand that everything a lot is everything a lot is whether we understand it in our head or not. We are grateful to Allah for everything he does. And we praise Allah for everything he does. Now the matter of understanding the wisdom in it, and the larger plan, we may or may not understand. But we still have to have this attitude. Many times you may have heard this

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parallel when

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a parent is giving medicines to the child.

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The medicine tastes bad, right? The medicine tastes bad. But the mother when she gives them the medicine, when the child understands better, what are they gonna do? They're gonna think, right? And they're also going to praise. But at that moment, what are they doing? They're complaining because they don't know what else is going on. There are two worlds at work. There's a world you can see with their eyes, and there's a world we cannot see.

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Now we see things in Anima Shahada, we see the world the things in the world of the scene. And we start making complaints without realizing that there is another world, a world we don't see. And because Allah sees both of them, and his plan is in conjunction with both of them. Whatever he does, we thank him for and we praise him for another wonderful thing about this beginning of the Fatiha is we don't say, you know, the Hadith tells us that a lot as origin has at least 99 names right? When you know many of them, but we don't say Al Hamdulillah Harlock Alhamdulillah Malik and hamdulillah hain Alhamdulillah Hakeem for you know, Praise, praise and gratitude belongs to the wise, the

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knowledgeable, the powerful, the creator, we don't use any of those names, which one do we use? We use a lot. In fact, the how we use specifically Allah, and there's a profound benefit in that. And the benefit is, you know, if we thank Allah for being thanked and praised for being the harlot, then the only thing you're appreciating about him is that he created. If we say hum belongs to the wise, the only thing you thank him for is what is wisdom. That's it. If you say praise belongs to the Merciful, the only thing you praise and appreciate is His mercy. But if you want to praise everything about Allah, everything in one, the only thing you're left to say is what? Al Hamdulillah

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all the other thing that's really interesting and unique about the way the language of the I've just got phrase is structured. praise belongs to Allah as opposed to saying I praise Allah or we praise Allah, you know, halfway down the fatty how we say bamboo iaca nabooda we enslave ourselves we worship, but we don't say that Mandala we praise Allah. Even though the Hadith says that Alhamdulillah Allah Allah The McMurdo when we say we praise, so what's the difference between saying praise belongs to Allah, Praise and Gratitude belong to Allah and saying, We praise and we are grateful to Allah. The difference between these is very profound. When we say we praise a lot, we

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have not always been around, and we will not always be around. But the praise of Allah has always been around and it will always be around. And when I say we praise the Lord, I praise Allah. I didn't say anything about the rock and the tree and the sky and the earth and everything else that praises Allah right? I only talked about who, myself but when you say Alhamdulillah Praise and Gratitude belong to Allah. It means for all time, all places in all instances of that praise belongs to Allah, whether we counted it or not, whether we do or not, praise still belongs to a life independent of us upon Allah. This is a law's introduction to himself in the Fatiha and the very

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next term, the first description of a lot, the you could say the Islam that's used for Allah within Islam Alhamdulillah he.

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And this is a very profound thing in our Deen you want you have to understand this. This is the heart of the matter. Yeah, you know,

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this is the heart of the matter. You know, Rob in English translation is commonly translated as Lord. That's how it's commonly translated. Nowadays. The classical English is the classical Arabic meaning includes a few things aside, while more upbeat.

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Right, there are a few things in it. The one who who's in charge Malik also the one who owns the one who has complete control and authority over something, the one who ensures the kid and takes care of something completely. They're in charge of the complete taking care of something. And then on top of that, the one who gives them gifts and money

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Most importantly, the master. Now when we translate that as Lord, when we translate Alhamdulillah, that is our Robben Island means Lord of the worlds. Tell me, where do you use the word Lord? Nowadays, in common language, we don't really use the word Lord much anymore, except maybe of the rings or something. Right? So otherwise you don't really use the word Lord. But you know the classical meaning of the word, Rob, it's closer to the English term master. Because what was used for the owner of a slave? And what do we use that in English for that when somebody owns a slave? What do we call them? A master. And so the slave is called

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the slave. And the master is called

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electrolysis and handling. And then the first thing he tells us about him is what that he is the master. And he's, if he's telling us that he is not, what does that make us immediately.

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So first of all, introduces us to how praiseworthy and how we should be grateful for. But now you should know that there's a relationship between you and him. And the relationship is established with the word love. He takes the role of master we take the role of sleep, we take the role of sex, here, another couple of very important pointers that no Muslim should ever forget. There's a difference between someone who worships and someone who's asleep. difference between a worshiper and asleep. There's a difference between, we were just making fun of prayer. That's an act of worship. That's worship. Christians do worship on Sunday, used to worship on Saturdays. Hindus do worship at

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their temple, right? different religions have different forms of worship. But what's the difference between someone who's worshiping and someone who's asleep? You see, worship happens at a certain time, doesn't it? The Adana is called. And then the karma was given and then we worship. The month of fasting, the act of fasting is an act of worship, these are specific acts. Hajj is an act of what of worship. But slavery is not specified by a time and it's not limited to a nap. Worship is limited to an act. But slavery asleep is a slave when,

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all the time he's not asleep, from nine to five, he's not asleep from 3pm to 5pm. Or between the prayers or right at the time of the prayer, a slave is asleep all the time. So by holding a father, he's not only demanding that we worship him, but what that we become his slaves and the slave is when he's sleeping, he's asleep. When he wakes up, he's asleep. When he's in the mothership, he or she is asleep, and they leave the machine he or she is asleep. When it's Ramadan, they are easily and when it's Eve. They're also asleep. I mentioned that particularly because we don't act a lot like slaves when it's a time. Right? We act a lot like slaves when it's time, then we become free.

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Literally, we're slaves still not free. Right? So anyway, this is the the first thing and slavery is also different from service. That's another thing. We don't really translate ourselves as servants, some people translate servant of Allah, right? There's a difference between a servant and a slave, I have these really literally slave. What's the difference between a servant and a slave assert the word servant in English comes from service, doesn't it? Right? Now you provide service at your company, you're an accountant, you're a programmer, right? You're an engineer, you provide a service. And you when you provide a service, what do you expect in return? a salary, a pay it's

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paycheck, right? A service is an agreement in which both parties or something, you owe the work, they owe the money. That's what services right. And service is also limited. And once you serve your company, as an accountant, they cannot tell you to wash the windows unless the economy's really bad. But you know, normally they can't tell you to watch the wind. Why? What what are you going to say this is not part of my service contract. This is beyond my job description. A slave doesn't have a job description. You know what the slaves job description is? Whatever the Master says. That's the slave job description. As opposed to that a servant. There are certain things he does everything

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else. He's basically what? He's free. He's got his own room. Right? Well, so we declare ourselves, you know, Allah declared himself Rob, and then Rob, will Allah mean master of the nations and the peoples and generations of all of the worlds? That's a long discussion that I won't go into right now, just the introduction, the understanding of the word that I mean, but a few other things right now. You know, I already I already said Rob will be translated as master and will be translated as what? slave. Now both of these words are very ugly in English. master and slave are ugly words in English, especially in all human history, but also particularly in American history. These don't

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bring back fond memories. These are ugly things to remember. Right? And whenever you think of a master, do you think a slave loves their master or hates their master? Usually, in human history, a slave hates their master, also a slave? If you give them the choice, would they rather be free or remain slaves? They'd rather be free. Here's another thing. A slave usually doesn't praise his master and usually doesn't think his master.

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exact opposite actually, they're ungrateful because

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They'd rather not be slaves, they're forced into it. And second of all, they complain about their master instead of praising their master. before Allah told us he's there. He's our Master, what did he tell us first before he even got to

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Alhamdulillah. Now who are a Buddha? I mean, well, hamdulillah he is the master of all of you and all the nations of the world, by the way, you should praise Him, no praise came even first. In other words, what we're learning here is, it is because you are so grateful to Allah and you realize that you have to praise Allah so much, that naturally you want to become his slave, you want to become a slave. This is a different kind of slavery, something that begins with no other slavery begins with this is the only one. No other slavery is voluntary. By the way, halfway down the aisle, we volunteer ourselves as slaves, he aka namboodiri. Allah doesn't say become slaves, we say we

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worship, we enslave ourselves, we give ourselves in such a different kind of slavery. Notice, nobody ever applied for a job to become a slave. Nobody ever says, Oh, I make a really good slave. I'm really good at taking beatings. I love living in a shack in the backyard, etc, etc. Nobody does that. Nobody wants to be a slave. But when it comes to a law, we declare in the party how that we actually want to be his slaves. We want to be slaves, right? So and hamdu Lillahi Rabbil aalameen. Now, the other thing that you never associate with a master is mercy. A master is usually associated with oppression, forcing things on you, punishing you if you disobey Him. But Allah describes him as

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himself, as soon as he tells us he's horrible. I mean, what's the next description? You all know this by heart of watchmen in two words for mercy. Now, I know English translations commonly say the beneficence the merciful, but I'm going to give you a, you know, a Down to Earth translation, because you don't use the word benefits in in everyday English. So you don't really probably connect with that word very easily. Our man basically means someone who is being extremely merciful right now. That's basically the connotation of the word, someone who's being merciful right now. And they are being extremely merciful, right now. unimaginably merciful. Now when you say about somebody,

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that person is very merciful,

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then they may not be they may not be be engaged in mercy right now. They may be merciful, but not necessarily. Right now, when you say this is a nice guy. That doesn't necessarily mean he's being nice when, right now. But when you say a rough man, what does that mean? That not only Ally's extremely merciful that his mercy is being executed immediately right now. And our he means someone who has always been and always will always be merciful. So our man takes care of our immediate need for mercy. And Rahim takes care of our future need for mercy. Both of them are covered in these two words. And these two words are incredibly powerful in depicting a loss of mercy. Between these two

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words lies this understanding that we will never understand how merciful allies we won't understand. Now, let me tell you something about a master ourselves as master you own your car, you are the master of your car. 1000 years ago, somebody was a master of their goat, or their cow or whatever, the cow stopped giving milk. What does the master have a right to do?

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Because slaughter the cow he can beat to do whatever he wants with it. The neighbors gonna say animal rights, you'll say no, not for a little 1000 years. I could do I am the master, I could do whatever I want. You're the master of your laptop, it freezes up on you, it gives you the blue screen of death, what do you have the right to do? You could slam it on the floor and kick it, punch it whatever you want. It's yours. You have full rights. By the way, when you own something, and it has a job to do. When it doesn't do its job. What does the owner have a right to do? Anything you want, they could discard it, they could you could let go of it. They could you know, break it,

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punish it, whatever it may be. Now we acknowledge that we are property belonging to Allah. He is love we are we are property. And we also have a task a job. Because if you're the slave, then your job is to do whatever the Master says. What if you and I were people who never figured out what the Master says or never cared? And we live life thinking that we are what? Free? Thinking that we're free? Does the master have the right to do away with us? Does he have that right? Absolutely. He does. And you know if you if you disobey the master disappoint the master once he has that right? Now imagine how many times you and I disappoint a lot. And imagine how many times humanity

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disappoints Allah. Does he let it slide? Does he keep letting it go? unimaginable how merciful he's been to us. To him even though he's the master. You see the placement of those words. It's put us in an incredibly grateful position. When you get to know him you want to go back and say Alhamdulillah again, because when our grateful to Allah for what for now, especially his exceeding mercy that he doesn't take punishes. And by the way, even though you learn his commandment

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For example, don't lie simple commandment. Whenever you do, why does lightning strike from the sky and cut your tongue off? You get to talk again, don't you? Whenever you're you steal, there's no axe flying from the clouds that chops your hand off. Nope. You could steal again. You could cheat again, you could oppress again. And you think, and the more people do that from and they nothing happens, you know what they do? They get more brave. Right? If somebody cuts a stop sign, first time they do it, they're looking around all over. Second time they look into a third time what happens? They get a little brave. Right? They think, ah, it's okay. This is an OK neighborhood. Right? And if they get

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caught at that time, they're in shock. How could this ever have happened? Right? This is exactly the attitude of the human being with a lot. The human being disobeyed the law once, twice out of mercy, Allah let him go. Let him go because of mercy. He thinks a lot because he didn't see. Or nobody's watching. We're not on camera. There's no surveillance. There's no record. But when he does catch, he's in shock. How could this ever happen? How did I become such a criminal? How did I let it go this far? Right. So

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and then this is the this is the part that I really want to emphasize inshallah, and the rest will be brief. Maliki omit D.

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On the one extreme is mercy. What's the other extreme of mercy? What's the polar opposite of mercy? You think?

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What's the polar opposite?

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Justice is not the opposite of mercy. punishment. The opposite of mercy is punishment. Either you're merciful or you're oppressive. These are two extremes. You know, what's in them? If you could say Mercy is on the positive end? and punishment is where, on the negative end, what's at zero? What's right in the middle?

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Justice, justice, on the one hand, mercy, on the other hand, depression and in the middle, at point zero, justice, you will think Allah told us about his mercy. What else is he going to tell us about his punishment? But in fact, the heart instead of telling us about the negative the punishment, what did he tell us about his justice Maliki home, at the Maliki omitting the Master of the Day of Judgment, justice, when everybody gets exactly what they deserve? From this, we learn a profound lesson. You don't have to fear the punishment of a law, you have to fear the justice of a law. You and I were not afraid of a less punishment as much as we are of a laws. Justice. You know why?

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Because if a law is justice begins, that's there is no difference between that and punishment.

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A lot. Of course, Allah does not punish unless there is a right to do so. So if justice begins, it means mercy has ended.

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Mercy is Allah doesn't do justice to you. He lets it slide. Right. But justice is everything you did get counted and audited. Right. And, you know, this is explained in the Koran as well as give you a brief reference to it. You know, people are given the book in their right hand on the Day of Judgment, right? amendment to kitabi, Yemeni, right, the guy who's given the book in his right hand. Now, just because the book is in your right hand, doesn't mean you're done with the testing. Now you have to present your book, you have to present your book. So now you think you're going to be nervous when you're about to present your book. You know, when you're taking a test in class, some

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teachers they like to grade the test in the classroom in front of you. You ever see that? The student takes the test at the desk, and the teacher starts grading right there in front of them. What happens to the student at that time? They're like, you know, nervous. As soon as the red pen gets close to the paper, they look over, like, oh, my goodness, right? And there's a checkmark and no Alhamdulillah right. So now that idea of the book has been presented in your right hand, now you have to present it before your master before the angel. You have to open it up. So you're nervous. You don't know what's gonna you feel good, cuz it's in your right hand. You're definitely failed. If

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it's weird in your left hand, so at least it's in your right hand looks good, but there's no guarantees yet. Now you present it and a lot is always an out of mercy. He says, I'm an Oto kitabi emini for so far, you have someone who he will be given an easy audit. In other words, not everything will be checked. Easy. The angel will go easy on this guy. It's okay. We understand. He's about to present page 2509. We had enough thanks, you can go. You can't go any faster. And when he gets to the other side, he's incredibly happy because he had graduated. So he starts reciting, he starts screaming, and this occurs an illustration of a memenuhi Akita who be emini. firehole,

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omokoroa, ottavia. When you get to the other side, and he's given the book in the right hand, what does he say? Oh, read my book. Look, I graduated, would you get

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right?

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But the point I'm trying to make is we fear Allah is justice. The messenger told us on the level in a woman so Elijah multimethod, halakhah, the one who is asked even once on the Day of Judgment, it's like they've been destroyed already. The angel so much just comes to you and says, what were you doing on November 13 November 30, outside the AMC theater,

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3pm What was that? What was that? Over there? One question, one little question. That's enough. If the questioning begins, you're done for we beg Allah xojo for that this is a Hadith of the Prophet, Allah Houma has even after 700 Allah give us an easy accounting and easy reckoning in which we benefit from Allah's mercy. And we stay away from allies justice, unless justice is for the wrongdoers. Allah's mercy is for the believers may only be included, maybe be included from them. Okay, so now now I want to get to just a couple more quick pointers and redundant shallow medical. Then after you understand these few things about a lot,

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you understand one more thing there. That's very, very important for theological purposes. And for students of philosophy. Nowadays, when our kids go to college, it's mandatory for them to take at least one philosophy course. And guess where the mind gets messed up? That one philosophy course. Okay, you know that, you know, these professors, they're there. The whole idea of being intellectual nowadays is to be agnostic. In other words, I don't believe there's a God, I don't believe there is no God. I'm just not sure. That's what makes me really smart. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But that's the that's academic culture. Today, agnosticism is considered a high intellectual

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place, and professors and intellectuals that have faith, they consider them biased because they have a they call it a faith bias. I call it a truth bias, but they call it a fake. Right? But anyway, here's what I want to share with you. That's really important for you to understand when you talk to other Muslims, or even non Muslims about the beam, and about Allah azza wa jal, it is impossible to believe in God without believing in an afterlife. If somebody says they believe in God, but they don't believe in an afterlife, that's impossible, then what they're basically saying is they don't believe in God at all, these two things are integrally connected, you can't separate them. So I want

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to show you what the connection between these two things is, why are they inseparable from each other? The belief in God and the belief in an afterlife, right? How are these two things connected? If anybody believes in a God, we believe in Allah as origin, the proper name for God, right?

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Then they have to believe that he's perfect in every way.

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He's, he's got the best names, the best attributes, the best descriptions, and he's flawless. If you give any flaw to God, he's not God anymore. If you say anything imperfect about God, then you believe in less than God, that your belief is gone. And among his most perfect names, is he just, isn't he? Justice is one of the attributes of perfection. injustice is imperfect. So God, if we believe in a God, he has to be what

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has to be done, he has to be just that a necessary condition of believing in perfection of Allah. No. One when you look, we believe in luck created this world.

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And in this world, is there justice or injustice?

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There's injustice. There are criminals who get away with it. They are innocent, who get punished.

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People get it. And people live their whole lives like that. There are people who do so much good and the only thing they get in return is the death penalty. And there are people who do so much bad and they live the life of kings. They kill and get away with it. And let me add to you this problem about the problem of justice in this world. If one person kills another person, what's the most you can do?

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If one person kills 100 people, one person kills 100 people, what's justice? What should you do to this one person?

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What's the most you can do? How many times you're gonna kill him? Once is that justice? He paid for one line. He didn't pay for 100 likes, is that justice? No. And is one life. The cost of you know, this guy had no brother, no sister, no father and a mother and he was a loner, and he was the killer, and the one he killed was supporting an entire family, even if you kill him is that still justice?

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was more damage caused by that loss of life than this loss of life? Right? So even if it's one for one, it may not be what? Yes, it may not be just justice is a very tricky thing. Right? So the question that comes in the mind of the atheist is if God is perfect, how come there is what? And just because he created it right? So everything should be just? Now the answer to that is very simple. I started by saying how many kinds of realities are there? How many worlds are there?

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The see the world of the unseen and the world of the scene. This is the scene world. Those of you that are in accounting, you understand debit and credit. This is the world of debit.

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This is the world of debit, some debit some credit, you know, when the books are going to be balanced?

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They have judgment day when justice is absolutely served. When one guy killed 100 he pays for how many?

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He pays for 100.

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There he can pay for out here he can't pay 400 but there he can pay for 100. In other words, believing in a perfect God as we do necessitates that Allah execute justice and that justice

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comes not in this life. But in the next slide, believing in a god demands, we believe he's perfect, believing he perfect demands that we believe in justice, believing in justice demands that we believe in an afterlife, all these things are connected. They're all connected. Now, the last thing about this, some basic lessons of

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justice is to, you know, for crimes to be punished, and good deeds to be rewarded, isn't that justice? Good things should be rewarded and bad things should be punished, who decides what's good? And who decides what's bad?

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Before we get to that answer from the fact that I want you to think about this human society from it's very inception, I'm not even talking in religious terms. Just think of it and out of the box terms, human society, since its beginning, has been in conflict.

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There has been a fight between men and women for 1000s of years. There is a fight, and let's talk about this fight between men and women. I'll give you the simplest version of it. I used to teach that in Islamic school, right? Boys and girls in sixth grade, half the classes boys, the other half is girls, and we can't give them recess together. You know, one of the girls keep them separated. So some days boys have recess. Other days, girls have recess. So I said in the class, I said, Look, we only have five weekdays.

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How about, we give three days to one group and two days to the other group. And I'll let the girls decide.

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Let the girls decide who gets three days and who gets two days, guess what they decided?

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Girl? Then I said, Okay, okay, let's let the boys decide who gets three days? Who gets two days? What are the boys decide?

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Boy,

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I'm putting the problem very simply to you. When there's a conflict between men and women, What is man capable of fighting with only? himself? What is women capable of fighting with? herself? Let's put it in contemporary terms. You go to divorce court. You go to divorce court? The husband and the wife? Are there the judges a woman?

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Who does she feel bad for more?

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The woman starts sympathizing with the woman, if the judge is a man who recently got divorced.

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Right? And he's a judge. And he's a Who's he gonna side with? side with the man? You understand? You have the human beings have bias. In the end, the judge is going to be men, or the judge is going to be what? woman? You won't bet you know, you want to decide what are the rights of men? What are the rights of women? What are the obligations of men? What are the obligations of women? How do you create justice between men and women? in marriage in business and social life? every aspect of life? How do you create justice? Okay, let's let men decide. They'll favor men, let's let women decide they'll favor Who? Women? How can we get a judge a judge who's neutral.

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A neutral judge doesn't side with men, does the side with women actually loves and sides and understands both of them perfectly.

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The only one who can be that I can only be the one who created both of them and knows them better than they know themselves can only be the fairest. That's the only one who can be the right judge. Here's another problem. This was the first problem was man versus woman, I'm going to show you four problems, okay, and then we'll conclude. The first problem was man versus woman. Here's the second problem.

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The boss versus the employee. In sophisticated terms, we call this the problem of capital versus labor. The boss versus the employee. The boss has an employee, he pays him, let's say $200 a week. And he gives him three days off in a month, he gives him three days off, okay. Now, the employee wants to get paid more.

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And he also wants more vacation. What is the boss wants,

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he wants to pay him more or less. He wants to do less, it wants to give him less vacation.

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The employee wants to work less and get paid more. The employer wants to pay less, and get work out of him bored, right? So you have to have a balance between them. Who should be right now you that problem is an ancient problem back in the day, the land owner and the farmer, the feudal lord and the farmer. Today you have GM and the union. It's the same problem the boss and the workers the same exact problem. But the problem the real question is, how do you find justice between these two sides? If you let the management decide who will the favorite management if you let the workers decide all the favorite workers, and this is always going to remain a struggle, you have to have a

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balance between capital and labor. And by the way our Dean has done. Our Dean has that balance between these two conflicts. So the first problem was men and women. We call it the social conflict. The second is the economic conflict, capital and labor. Here's the third conflict. There's the government and there's the people. The government says there should be more tactful, more control. Right. And the people say what?

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less taxes. The government says they should be less services provided the people say what they should be more service.

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They're both of the conflict against each other.

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The balance between the government and the people. And in the end, if you have a judge, either that judge sides with the government or the judge side with the people, you can't have both. You can't have some in your in our head, we're partitioned, right? We have to be this way or that way. So there's men versus women. There's capital versus labor. There's people versus what, where's governments and the social problem, economic problem, political problem. These are the three kinds of tenders a fourth last problem. last problem is Allah created us with this clay. But he put it inside, it's something else to throw, right? And this clay, it feels hunger, it feels thirst. It has

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desires, it wants to beautify itself. It wants to earn, it has greed, it has all these things. But the rule wants to worship Allah wants to remember Allah wants to stand NPM, the soul says, keep standing, finish and finish and we can hold on the body says go take a break, go drink some water, go eat something, go get some extra sleep, the soul says wake up and come to write, the body says stay sleeping. There's a there's another war going on, not between outside entities, entities, where's this war going on. Inside every person is a battle between the soul and the body, there are some people who only take care of the needs of their body. There are other extremists who only take

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care of the needs of their soul. At some monasteries among the Christian look, we're not going to get married, we're not going to eat good tasting foods, we're going to air we're uncomfortable clothes, like some brands of ancient Sophie's in Islamic traditions. In other words, soup comes from soul, which is a wool, they used to wear really uncomfortable wool, because they did not want to enjoy the pleasures of this life. They only want to keep concerned with their soul. So they keep denying their body. Now, is there a balance that can be reached between these two things? There is but it's very difficult, you know, the Buddhist has his own balance. And the Hindu guy has his own

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balance. And the Christians try to figure out their own balance, and they end up all in imbalance. Who's the only one who can provide the perfect balance between the body and the soul, the one who created the body and also created the soul who engineered this whole thing. In other words, true balance can only come from a large origin in this in this world. These are all the problems of humanity. These four are basically the entire problem of humanity, when we get to the AI is you know, fill up a little stuffing guide us to and along the straight path. Whereas the straight path, it's neither to the left, nor to the right. And the nation that goes on this path is called the

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middle nation. omoton was hapa. Why? Because this path is right down the middle. It doesn't favor men. It doesn't favor women. It doesn't favor government. It doesn't favor people. It doesn't favor the body doesn't favor the soul. It is a balance between all of these things. It's right down the middle. It's right down the middle. And so we have to ask a lot for that we make a lot

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of fit automa stockings an incredible declaration in the fabric of recognition that true justice only comes from a large order. This this is the quest for hedaya. A lot of times we think of guidance as something about just you know, staying away from certain things. And that's it. That's what guidance is. guidance is something so much more. It's something so powerful. The stuff we've been reciting tonight and just you know we finished the car tonight Oh, come

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on. The things we've been reciting thus far. If the Muslims just understood a speck of what has been recited thus far, we would be a different oma will be an entirely different oma. May Allah as always make use of those who begged Allah for his guidance and are able to live by that guidance. May Allah azza wa jal make us of those who follow the path who are already favored in the past, and not make us of those who either they earned rage or they went astray, they went the wrong way. And this is the last five minutes that I'm going to be done in follow on I promise. Here's my last five minutes, you know the Fatiha begins Al hamdu, lillahi, rabbil, alameen, wa, Imodium a D. Those are all ideas.

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Those are lessons. You could call them knowledge. All of those are the knowledge that praise belongs to Allah. Gratitude belongs to Allah, the knowledge that he's the master of the nations and peoples of the world, the knowledge that he is extremely exceedingly Merciful, the knowledge that he is the Master of the Day of Judgment, all of that is what knowledge when we say we worship, we enslave ourselves, we seek help. These are not this is not knowledge, this is action. Right? This is action, the surah began with what knowledge and immediately what do we start talking about? action, right? knowledge, action, all of his farm is like that. You have to have knowledge and that knowledge

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better leads you to action. That's all of Islam. In fact, the knowledge then action, but here are two extremes. You know, we said it's the middle path, right? So there is a balance between two things two ingredients knowledge and what action that's also part of guidance. But what are two extremes. Sometimes people have knowledge, but they don't have one

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They don't have action. And sometimes people have action but it's not based on any knowledge. And this used to be you know, for if you want to look at the nations of the past Jews, for example, when he saw in they had knowledge but no action, then they had a lot of action they worship a lot, you know, the robot and all of this stuff, but what's not what is it not based on? Now what's missing is now that you've got two extremes, each one missing one ingredient right now in the fatty how the balance is the middle pack, if you know Salatin was nothing

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but one of the two imbalanced paths. Ladies not to be highly him, when about two extremes right to imbalance paths, the path of those who earned rage. You know who these people are, they have knowledge but they don't have action. This is Alma who Brd and who are the people that are lost a bonding? I don't say ganas, straight because you don't use that nowadays anymore. When you speak to each other. When somebody invites you to dinner and you get lost on the way you don't call them and say I've gone astray. Could you tell me what? You don't do that? You say I'm lost, right? A bond lien or the lost? They're the loss. So you have Alibaba him, the people who have knowledge but don't

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have action consistent with that knowledge. On the other hand, you have people that have action, but it's not based on any knowledge when you act without knowledge, what do you call loss of body? So panela the Buddha has that balance, and then warns us against these two elements of imbalance. This is these are some of the more basic lessons and profound wisdom that the gems the treasures that are embedded inside fulfill Fatiha that we recite every single day. Every single day. You know, we asked a lot for it. This is the center of the solar andina, I have one minute left Idina guidance. If I asked you for water, I'm not that thirsty right now. But if I asked you for water and you don't give

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it to me, I'll survive. Right? Not the end of the world. What if I was dying of thirst? The way I would ask you for water? Would it be the same? There's a difference, right? There's a difference in attitude and difference in the way I act. The difference in the way I bank. We ask Allah for guidance every time we stand in salon every time how do we ask Allah for guidance? What words do we recite? And then?

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Are we really dying of the thirst for guidance? Or is this a casual laugh? I get it good. If I don't get it, it's okay. There's always the next record. I could ask for it again. What attitude is it with which we are asking a lot? Allah doesn't just know the words we're saying. He also knows the attitude of our heart in lemon A lot of you have been sending. We have to ask Allah for guidance. Sincerely, desperately we have to feel the need for it. You don't ask for something you don't need. So until you feel the need for guidance, you won't really learn how to ask for it. You and I both. We have to feel that desperate need for Allah's guidance. Then we asked for it. Then Allah opens our

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heart to receive the message and the wisdom of this one, which is the guidance that we're reciting throughout this month. May Allah azza wa jal accept our standing in Allah. May Allah azza wa jal open our hearts to receive His guidance and change our behavior in our lives and the lives of our family. On account of it, may Allah enlighten our hearts with the light of the Quran Subhana Allah more behind the shadow Allah

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I wasn't really asking