The Power of Power

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la La, la mina Latina Avenue amulets only had what was called Happy what was the sub amener about me, today is a rather broad topic, but I wanted to try to narrow it down so that we can take some practical guidance with us from Allah 's book today, what I'm going to choose to talk to you about are a small section of my art from Soto Rome. That's the 30th surah of the Quran. And I started thinking about this a lot, because recently I was out somewhere and I saw a painting of one of the Roman ruins, it was just a, just a painting on the wall in a restaurant, and I just took a look at it. And it got me thinking about some things. And I thought it's worthy of reminding myself in all

of you of some of the lessons that Allah has taught us about that. So here's what it is, Allah gave human beings, certain desires, from the moment of their, the way they were created, Allah says he did nasty hobo Shahada, and he made a list of things that were beautified for people. And one of those imbedded needs that human beings have is the need for power, the need for control and power. And power is defined by many things. So when we think of power, you can think of, you know, a general or a leader of a nation or a kingdom of a country in ancient King, or today, the president or prime minister of a country having a lot of political power, they have the power to command an

army to have a power to make executive decisions. That's the kind of power but there are other kinds of power, too. There's financial power, right? There are people that that have a lot of money, they have the power to hire lots of people and fire lots of people to have the fire, but the power to invest in places that nobody's ever invested in before and turn a barren desert into a thriving city, they can do that. So money has the power to bring about a lot of changes in the world, right? So financial power is a kind of power to not just political power. social power is also another kind of power, the power of influence. When you can influence and sway people's opinions, or people's

people's emotions you can you can have an influence over what makes people angry, or what makes people upset or what makes people excited. Right, then you can get to influence their behavior, they can start buying things you would want them to buy, or they can start voting the way you would want them to vote. So social power, actually then starts influencing where the wave

Money flows and the way politics flow, right. So the first two things were politics and money. And the third one social influence has a bearing on the other two. So social power is also another kind of power. And what we really think of these things and think of this big word power, or close equivalent, not exactly the equivalent of that in Arabic is Pooja. And again, we think of big powers, big businesses, multi billion dollar enterprise, when you think of like Amazon's or something, right, or we think of presidencies, or we think of multimedia, you know, corporations that influence people, you know, intellectually news organizations, things like that, right. But

let's start at the very bottom, Allah has given all of us every one of us is, and Allah has first and foremost, given us power to control our body, is giving me the power to lift my hand to move my tongue, is giving me the power to see is giving me the power to think at the individual level, he gives me power over this body of mine. And in fact, not only did he give me a power over this body every time, those of you that are here for jumar today, and many of you that are commuting every single day, we get inside of our cars, or you get to you sit on your bicycle, or you sit on your donkey, or it doesn't matter what ride, you have some handler, the sahana hada, on our canal

Houdini, we're in a lot of being a polygon, and we make a dog, we're actually acknowledging that Allah has overpowered this device, this vehicle for our service. So it gets to be under our control, it takes the left turn and the right turn when we wanted to. Because Allah has submitted for us, he surrendered that device, or that animal to our service, right. So we, we exercise that kind of power, we need it, we need some level of power to exist in life. It is it is this ability, this empowerment that Allah gave you and me that allows us to earn our living, that allows us to provide for ourselves that allows us to take care of ourselves and others around us. So there are every one

of us has some level of power, but then there are degrees of it. So now imagine somebody who didn't have a job and felt useless, felt powerless. And then Allah enabled them with some financial ability by getting them a job. Right? The way they see themselves has changed. They saw themselves in the mirror, they saw a loser, they saw somebody who's can't get anything done in life, everybody looks down on them, they're worthless. And now they have a really good job, all of a sudden, they have a really good job. And the way they see themselves has changed. And in fact, even the way other people see them, now they can see people look at me differently. They don't have the look of just my mother

doesn't have the look of disappointment on her face anymore. I my friends see me differently. My father looks at me differently. You're seeing a change in perception around you. And it's making you feel more and more empowered, right. So it's not just what you feel about yourself. Others can reinforce that feeling, right? You never had a car in your life. And then finally, you have enough money that you bought yourself a car, you'll feel like you just own the planet earth when you're driving around. It could be a 1978 Cutlass era, which you're driving around like you own the road. Yeah, four wheels and an engine. We'll start with that. What do you do about that? You know, like,

because you've just accomplished something that you never imagined accomplishing before. It's relative, isn't it? But then what happens? Then you see someone else who's driving, you know, the new m five. And they're driving down the rabbit on the same road. Right? And in that moment, you're in your own world, and you don't even imagine that you can ever compete with that that's not your world. That's just some other universe that's not for you. Right? What is Allah done in this world, Allah has given some people more wealth than others. Allah has given some people more physical ability than others. Allah has given some people more social influence than others, right. And

you'll notice something that if there were there were people that were weak

in some financial sense, in the social sense, in the political sense, in whatever sense they were weak, and that Allah gave them power, Allah gave them enabled them in some way, then their personality also starts changing.

They become different. They're not like they used to be the way they act, the way they treat other people is starting to change because people see them differently. Now, they get used to that and they don't want to be seen the way they used to be seen before. So somebody if you had a bunch of friends in high school, and you're always goofing around making jokes with each other, they're just a bunch of guys right? You're just friends among each other. But 10 years go by and you own a multimillion dollar business and or your the other friend is like the head of a hospital and he's the surgeon Surgeon General of a country or whatever. They're very accomplished people right? Now

when you go back to your old friends, some people when they go back to their old friends, they're still the same way they were when they were 15 1617 years old. Right? Other say I'm not that kid anymore. Okay.

I'm a big deal now. You better recognize what a big deal I am now. It's not like how I used to like to feel the need to make sure you realize that out now I am in a position

have power. So I need to be looked at and perceived differently. What got me wondering is that this, this different degrees of power that Allah has given us, I've seen it in life, I've seen people that are very accomplished, Allah has given me the opportunity to meet with people that are, you know, that are at the very bottom of the economic ladder, you know, people whose families were starving, and they basically got to work, they got a job somewhere, you know, lifting bricks, or driving a taxi for 20 hours in a day, just to make enough to feed their family back home, right? And didn't even take a day off for three, four years in a row. People like that. I met people like that. And

I've also met presidents of countries. I've also met kings. I've also met people that run multimillion dollar billion dollar corporations, people that have been casual conversation, they're like, yeah, I've come to realize it was a slow year, it was only 27 million. I'm just, I've had I've met people like that, too. You know. So you see people with Allah has given them different degrees of risk, different degrees of power, different degrees of influence. And the disparity is incredible, isn't it? It's just absolutely incredible. But you know, what's crazy? Sometimes you meet people that are at the highest levels of power. They're at the highest levels of power, and you

wouldn't know it.

You wouldn't know it. I met people that like, young guy, actually, maybe three to three years older than me, I met him 10 years ago, right. And he started, he was a tech whiz started, I won't name him or his company. So he started as you know, a website, it took off, he sold it, he went public, he sold it. Before he was 20. He had, he was worth $350 million.

Right. And when I met him, it was an entrepreneurs conference. Right. And when I met him, he was just wearing like, a Walmart t shirt and some gap jeans and just sitting around with everybody else, like nobody knows who this guy is. And some was even part of everybody else wearing expensive suits. And like, you know, there are this formal thing. And this guy who's worth more than all of them combined, is just sitting there like a T shirt and some slippers, because that's not what he's about. And he's just very easy going. And then you meet people that, you know, for the first time, they made six figures, right, for the first time they got received a title, right. And now they're

making, I don't know, maybe $100 million a year, which is a big deal. It's a lot of money. But it's nothing compared to this other guy. But the moment they hit that 1 million man, they get the film complex.

You know, I laugh in it, they're walking around, like, do you realize who I am. And then he just makes sure that the car they drive or the clothes they wear or the way they dress or the way the the way they talk to people, it's it, it screams million bucks, they need the world to know that they have this power, they need to make an impression on the world. And you know what, when you look at history, when you travel the world, you see a lot of ruins. Right? You see ancient Roman ruins, you see, you know, Colosseum, you see the, you know, the the obelisks that the Egyptians built remarkable architecture. But you know what a lot of that architecture was not because it was needed.

It was just there to make a statement.

It was there to intimidate it was there to show what we can do. A lot of the ancient Egyptians, for example, built architecture for the purpose of intimidating people that would travel by by River. So they will see their monuments and say, Whoa, don't mess with these people. Look at what they've done. Look at what they've accomplished. So human beings have had not just the desire to acquire power, but to show it is one thing that you have ability, you have money, you have power, you have influence, it's another one you feel the need to let everybody know they need to feel it. You understand. They need to feel what you have. And unless you can make somebody feel it, you're

there's a hollowness inside you. Right. And this is this is the wild thing about this, Allah has given some people so little, and they feel like they need to demonstrate it. But when Allah gives more, and it gives more and gives more and gives more, but you can be on top of the world and still feel insecure. Still feel like until people, people acknowledge me, I'm still worthless until people show reverence to me. I'm so worthless so someone can reach the level of fit, Arlen, right. And he feels so worthless on his own, that he needs to say, another book on will Allah, I am your most supreme god. I am your highest master. And you know, we all know he called himself God, right? The

Pharaoh call himself God. But think about that psychologically for a moment. What does that mean? The concept of Allah the concept of a robe is someone who is worshipped, right, someone who is surrendered to someone who is revered

Someone people, someone we will pray to asked to. And he's already got the power where people come to him and they ask him for financial help people come to Him and ask Him for security, because he runs the nation. He already has all those powers where people come in need from him. But he needs to go beyond that. And he needs to make sure that people acknowledge it and revere him in a way that he wants to be seen as a God Himself. So you don't have to have that level of power, you could just be a, you know, like the head of your household, you could just be the oldest brother, the oldest sister, you can just have just a little tiny bit of power over your younger siblings, it's not that

much power, it's not like film versus these three lights, just a little bit of power, you could be the manager of the store the 711, down the street, you're the manager, you got a little tiny bit of power over the other couple of employees, you don't own the 711, you're just the manager, bro.

You just you're the you know, you're the head chef, at a restaurant, you're an employee, you got a bunch of other chefs working for you, you've got a little bit of power over them. Right. But you know what the same insecurity that if Iran had you can develop, it's such a powerful drug, that you need to make sure they recognize how powerful you are, you need to make sure to infer, and some people do this, you know, is the only way they can do it. The only way they can they can feel powerful is when they inflict pain on someone else and then say what are you going to do about it?

They'll say things that are hurtful and then say what are you gonna do about it,

they're gonna impose themselves be bullies be mean? That just because they can, because they, otherwise they won't feel powerful. What good is this power, if I can't do anything with it, I should, you know, throw that whip around a little bit.

I should lash others.

And unless Allah acknowledges that drug power is a very, it's a drug, I call this compound the power of power. Because the more someone gets it, the more drunk they can become,

the more drunk they can become. And the more hurtful, the more dangerous they can become.

And what happens people have this dream that they want to get there. This is one day, they want to have enough power that they will, man when I have this much money, watch what I'm going to do.

And some people in their mind, they don't even have, when I have this much money, I have this kind of house, this kind of car, this kind of family, this kind of this gives us you know what they have, when I make that money, you know, whose house I'm going to drive in front of, I'm going to take my Ferrari and pull over in front of the guys, obviously, what's up now.

Because even in your head, your your sense of accomplishment is incomplete until you can bring somebody else down or put them in their place. Right? That's what's going on in your head. So it's not even about yourself. That's it's not even about yourself. So what does Allah say about all of this? And how do we compare that to the legacy of the prophets, and by the way, non Muslims, non Muslims? Look at Rasulullah sallallahu, alayhi wasallam. And you know what they say? Not us, non Muslims. They say he spent 23 years trying to get power over Arabia. Listen to this carefully. Their claim is a little less loose on him. All he did this entire time was convinced a bunch of people so

they could give him power. So they could he could run the entire region. It was just a political scam. In fact, that is the accusation that the hypocrites made against those who say Salaam in Medina, that it's not a new accusation when I hit 100. He made that accusation in Medina, and the mccanns when they were trying to cut a deal with the profit slice of them, assume that's what he wants. Also, that's why they said, What do you want you want power? We'll hand it to you

will give it to you. What do you want? Let's make a deal. Because they don't know anyone who's driven to accomplish something unless they're in pursuit of what power of some kind, social, economic, political, but it's got to be one of them. What else is there, right? So you get you finally get there. And then you can see I made it, I've accomplished right. So what is it if you look at it from the non Muslim point of view, Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam is given victory over Makkah, nearly at the end of this 23 years, right. So the 20 years of the Salah, so he's in his early 60s, and now mocha has finally been conquered. And if the goal was power, the goal was power.

And this is the time where you get to enjoy now that it's been now that I have the kingdom now that I have the control and the power. Now I get to live like a king. Now I get to enjoy like a king. Because I finally have something I've been fighting for all this time, right?

And Larissa gives him victory, and before he even gives him victory, he says, By the way, the moment that victory comes, it's not yours.

It's the aid of Allah that came Elijah and Allah.

And people will be conquered not by you. They're not going to enter into surrender to the king or the ruler or the Prophet even without internet said hello nafi the Rila you're going to see

people entering into Allah has been

all this this entire mission of a civilization where it looks like he acquired power. And Allah says all of that was so people don't recognize that a sort of law samsara so the people recognize Allah Himself. So that people recognize Allah. And when you reach that you've accomplished your mission. Now people recognize Allah, which means you have nothing more to accomplish in this life for for, for people, then you just do reconnect to Allah subhanaw taala. Because you just do this, we have your up and seek His forgiveness and Sahaba understood that that means that the prophets mission has done a level call him back. It's not that he's now the ruler, so he gets to enjoy his reign as a

ruler for another 3040 years. That's not what he was sent for. He was sent to accomplish a mission. And the mission was to bring a lesbian to humanity. He's done with that. That's the victory. That's the victory. He's not interested in the empower itself for himself. That's that was never his mission. And his joy was actually To do this we have Allah so now look what Allah says to the Quraysh

he says to them, Well, let me ask you to fill out Didn't they go around in the earth? For young Guru kafer Ghana are people to live in amicably? Didn't they? Take a good look what came what was the outcome of those who came a long time before them? Ganesha Domine Overton they were much powerful, much more powerful than them when it came much more intense when it came to power. Quraysh obviously had power,

the end they exerted their power to undermine the profits lives alone. And unless has put this in perspective, Quraysh you live in mud houses in the middle of the desert?

That's where you live? That's the reality of it. Have you not traveled and done business towards the Rome Roman Empire towards the Persian Empire? And on your way? Have not? Have you not seen the ruins of previous nations that built homes that were much more elaborate than your own? Do you not see that people before you are way more powerful than you can even imagine to be? Do you not you don't recognize that you're not having a sense of perspective, as powerful as you think you are? With your million dollars a year? Do you not see that people before just look at a Roman ruin. For example, if people say I made a lot of money, I'm building this fancy mansion, you cannot compare a fancy

mentioned today. But even one of the Rome, Rome a ruin of the ancient Egyptians, like a budget it must have taken to build one of those monstrosities. To build one of those things you can't even imagine, like the level of power law had given to people before is just on a different scale. It's a completely different scale. So unless says, if you think you're so big, you there are people much bigger than you that I've dealt with already.

Why do you think you're so untouchable? Can you shove them in Hong Kong?

So he says they were much more powerful than them? Well, Assad will Allah and they made their mark on the earth. Look at these words, they made their mark on the earth. They left imprints on the earth. You can see the Great Wall of China even by satellite. You can even see from there. People human beings made their mark on the earth. What these monuments that even those ruins are visited by tourists today.

What do you think you're going to leave behind? Well, what is it going to be? I thought, well, I'm a rock star. I'm Emma amarula. And they developed it and built it and enhanced it way more than you ever than they ever did. They had way better road systems. They had way better irrigation systems, the way better technology way better, you know, housing standards, the way but way more sophisticated cities than you could ever build. You can't You can't even imagine that stuff. You're a bunch of veterans who just do trade in the desert.

And you think you have power? What is Allah telling us in these IOD? Whenever someone thinks they're when they are about to get drunk on their power, Allah gives a very simple reminder, whatever power you think you have, I have given much more to those who came before you.

And how did I deal with those people who I give that power to when they got drunk on their power, which are to sue

the unit. And messengers came to them with clear proofs to

when they were at the height of their power and less than the messengers. And when Allah sent the messengers, and one of the fundamental goals of the messenger is to introduce people to Allah, which means that is to humble you, right? humble you in front of Allah. When people have a lot of power, it's very hard for them to become what? To become humble. Right? So when Allah sent messengers to them, from McCann, Allahu young, the elderly, in my home, but I can kind of run for someone else. Neiman Allah wasn't one to do wrong to them, they were doing wrong to themselves. Everything was going right, all the power was there. The only thing was they were in denial of the IR of Allah. The

more the more drunk on their power they became, they became their own gods, instead of worshipping the true God. That's what happened to them. That's when that's when even the word of Allah wouldn't matter to them. The messengers of Allah didn't weren't relevant to them anymore. And as a result of that, Allah says that's why they look like ruins today.

Allah allowed for the those ruins to survive. wonder about that Allah allowed for those broken Colosseum of the Roman Empire. And the pyramids of the Egyptians and the sphinxes, Allah allowed for these ancient temples that are 1000s of years old, built by some very powerful people clearly, because they have a lot of people working for them to build these things. A lot, allow those ruins to survive. So you and I can see ourselves in those ruins. So we can see no matter how much we accomplish in this world, that was never the goal, that the for the, for the people for whom this was the goal. Well, they came in, they left and now that's just ruins. And you're not going to

escape that if that's your goal, then you and your goal will be a ruin. That's all it will be. This is what Volker main is so clear about. He built a wall to write, he built a wall. And he was clear that he's building a wall in service to people, not as a mark of his power. And not this wall shall stand through the ages, and people shall remember the great king, and none of that, you know why? Because when he built it, he said, but either our garbage can or cannot be haka is that when the promise of my master comes a level crush this wall, he'll turn it into something crushed, it won't exist anymore. No promise of my master is true.

Meaning this serves a purpose. And so long as it serves a purpose a lower limit survive. And when it's done serving its purpose, it will be gone. And it being gone will not be a commentary on Oh, the king didn't build that good of a wall. Or it's an insult to the king that this monument shall no longer stand his wall show all of our stand. He's not looking at it as his own accomplishment. He's looking at as, as a service that he was allowed to do by a less permission to help people.

That's what power is for helping people. That's what its purpose is. And so when we have a lot or a little, the way we see power, shouldn't change. The end point of my football today is the following allows where I started, Allah has given all of us some degree of power, all of us, which means all of us can get infected with the same kind of complex of wanting to up wanting other people to recognize our power.

And we need to, you know, vaccinate ourselves find intended from that disease. And we need to understand the power that Allah has given us is first and foremost is deserving, that we are thankful to him

that we're thankful to Allah for the ability that he's given us, and then that we should do something good with it. For others. That's that's what the purpose of power is. And that's really beautifully encapsulated into

you know, the elsewhere and I'll share that with you eventually. I'll be Oceania Anushka Yamanaka, Lottie and Anthony Weiner wanted a master empower me so I can be grateful. Right That's how I begin to do that study of your own your own Chanel tada barakallahu li walakum Fluker is again, one of only

100 reliable katha wa salatu salam ala Dino Stouffer also Salah Polly him Mohammed Nabi Muhammad Yunus meanwhile early he was happy as Rahim Allah azza wa jal Kareem

Billahi min ash shaytani r Rajim in Allah however ekata who is Hello darlin, maybe you already know amanu sallu Allah He was alluding to Sima Allahumma salli ala Muhammad Ali Mohammed masala Allah Rahim Allah Allah Karim, Allah mean the guy with the Majid, Allah abetik I don't know how many of you have not come up on

my feet either been in the community, about the law, Allah, Allah in a lie a little bit with your son, but he died when he wasn't political.

Allah we have a number matters. Now I'm going to say that in the salata content what we need Nikita makuta

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