Omar Suleiman – Arafah- The Best Day of the Year
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The speakers discuss the importance of forgiveness and avoiding regret in regards to Islam. They emphasize the need for everyone to take responsibility for their actions and find personal moments to focus on. forgiveness is based on actions and regretting them, and personal moments and goals are necessary to avoid sinful behavior.
AI: Summary ©
As we start this day, subhanallah, just a
few reflections of the beauty of it, number
one, alhamdulillah, we thank Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala for allowing us to witness this day
of Arafah, for allowing us to be alive
for another one of his blessings, if you're
grateful I will increase you, so we thank
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for the opportunity
to be alive on this day and to
be in the masjid for Salatul Fajr on
this day and we pray that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala accept on our behalf a
hajj bi-idhnillahi ta'ala for those that
will stay until Salatul Dhuha, remembering Allah azzawajal
on this day and we also reflect on
his limitless mercy, the fact that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala's mercy is not limited to
a time or to a place or to
a generation or to one specific group of
people, but it is constant and ongoing and
every single year, this is the day in
which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala frees more
people from hellfire than any other day of
the year.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that
he write us down today amongst those who
are freed from the hellfiring, you have to
think of it in this way that as
there's a scroll that goes out at the
end of this day who made the list
of those that are freed from the hellfire,
how badly do you want your name to
be on that list of someone who is
freed from the hellfire, subhanAllah at the end
of Ramadan in those last 10 nights, Allahumma
innaka'afu wa intuhibbu al-a'afu wa
fa'afu anni, O Allah, you are the
forgiver, you love to forgive, so forgive me
and here you have a day that is
known, ma'loom, there's no question, today is
the day of Arafah and you're asking Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to pardon you and
to forgive you, knowing that today is the
day that more people will be forgiven than
any other day and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam said, call upon Allah and you
are certain of the response, so when you
are asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for
forgiveness today, be certain in the response that
he will forgive you, so long as you're
sincere in that ask, I wanted to just
reflect for a bit on that concept of
Arafah, of coming to know Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, this idea of coming to know,
becoming more aware, today is the day that
you should spend becoming a little bit more
intimate with Allah azawajal in your dua and
getting to know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and this idea of getting to know Allah
azawajal and the implications of that right away,
one of the implications that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala mentions of forgetting him, if you
forget Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he causes
you to forget yourself, if you remember Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, he also causes you
to remember yourself, if you get to know
Allah azawajal better, then you get to know
yourself better as well by necessity and the
goal or the gift of this day of
fasting in particular, that you're forgiven for two
years of sins, some of those sins you
don't even realize you committed, some of those
sins we did not even count as sins
because of how normalized they've become, because of
how normal they've become, because of how usual
and repeated they've become and you're asking Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive you what
you've already put forth and what you will
put forth, a previous year, an upcoming year,
what you know and what you don't know,
what is public and what is private, what
is major by your estimation and what is
minor by your estimation and that idea that
I don't even know the amount of sins
I've accumulated of the past year and I
don't know the amount of sins even if
they are unintentional that I will accumulate next
year but Allah azawajal is merciful enough to
forgive all of that and Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala mentions this concept in the Quran,
we have come to know our sins, now
some people will come to know their sins
on the day of judgment but the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam said at the essence
of tawbah, at the essence of your repentance,
your repentance is based on your remorse, is
based on your regret, the more that you
come to know Allah azawajal, the more that
you come to regret your shortcomings in regards
to him and Ramadan was an exercise in
many ways of getting to know the blessing
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, of becoming
more appreciative and more grateful of the blessings
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that you
take for granted and that kind of leads
you to this place, I admit you your
blessings upon me and I admit to you
my shortcomings and repaying those blessings, I admit
to you my sins, the sins that I
don't even know that I've done, I admit
to you ya Allah that I'm sinning constantly
even if I'm not recognizing it, I admit
to you oh Allah that I am sinning
on such a regular basis that sometimes there
are accumulations, and my heart becomes fogged at
times, sometimes I feel the effect of that,
sometimes I'm not as spiritually infused as I
should be and I know that at the
end of the day there are stains and
there are accumulations, there's plaque buildup, right, in
terms of sin and you're asking Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to remove all of that,
the only reminder that I want to give
you today, is that as you're going about
your day, you're in a state of you're
in a state of fasting, you're in a
state of already being pleasing to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala just by your very being
in the state of fasting inshallah ta'ala,
is to try to find personal moments where
you actually try to recount and you try
to put forth a sincere tawbah to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala because the goal of
today is forgiveness, the goal of today is
forgiveness, I know we've got our long du
'a lists and I tell people this when
we're actually at the place of Arafah, and
Arafah is Makan and Zaman, it's place and
it's time, and in our situation we're in
the time of Arafah, don't just bring forth
your wish list with Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala, make sure that the cover page is
asking Allah for forgiveness, everything else is secondary,
everything else that you're going to ask Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, now part of that
is that Allah can do more than just
forgive you today, Allah can do more than
just forgive you today, but the main thing
you want to happen when Salatul Maghrib comes
in is that you're forgiven bismillah ta'ala,
so make use inshallah ta'ala of that
as your primary du'a, ask Allah to
forgive you and then be confident in His
forgiveness bismillah ta'ala, and as you go
about your day, do not knowingly commit sin
on a day in which you are asking
Allah to forgive you for the sins even
that were done unknowingly, so be very very
careful today as you should be every day
to not spoil it with a joke, with
a conversation, with a glance as much as
you can, don't knowingly commit sins, you're asking
Allah to forgive you for the knowing and
the unknowing today, keep yourself involved in dhikr
even as you move from place to place,
the best thing that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam said and he said I and
all the Prophets have said is la ilaha
illallah wahdahu la sharika lah, lahul mulk wa
lahul hamd wa huwa ala kulli shayin qadeer,
as you are walking around today as you're
going from place to place just keep repeating
that dhikr bismillah and then allocate some moments
that are between you and Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala where you really try to get
to know Allah azawajal, where you really try
to connect to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and you inshallah ta'ala can move yourself
to a place of acknowledgement of all the
times that you've fallen short, maybe you made
some promises after Ramadan that you would be
a certain way and you haven't you haven't
been able to make make good on those
promises to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you
had intentions maybe, admit those to Allah azawajal
today, admit those shortcomings to Allah, maybe you
had quran goals, dhikr goals, maybe you promised
at least to yourself that you would, you
know, start committing a certain good deed, admit
that shortcoming to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
throughout the day and try to find some
personal moments and the best of the day
of Arafah as Ibn Mas'ud radiallahu ta
'ala narrates to him, not to the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasallam, the best part of the
day is the last part of the day
bi-idhnillahi ta'ala and so if you
can allocate that Asr to Maghrib inshallah ta
'ala, that last hour of the day of
even if you just recite you recite the
evening remembrances but some moment of personal du
'a inshallah ta'ala, make use of the
last part of the day especially of the
day of Arafah, may Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala allow us to have good endings and
may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow this
good beginning to be a sign of his
acceptance for us for this day and may
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for
all of our shortcomings, may Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala accept from all of the people
that have gone to hajj today that he
grant them everything that they asked Allah for,
may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us
an answer to all of our du'as
and at the chief of all of that
is his forgiveness, we ask Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala for his forgiveness for all of
us, the public and the private, the previous
and that which is to come, the major
and the minor, that which we've done and
that which we do unknowingly