Neglected Blessings and Unique Opportunities of the Coronavirus

So now when he goes into labor cuts everyone I hope you're all doing well know him the mouse or someone else would allow me he was like the woman welder. So I just walked back from the masjid from the Valley Ranch Islamic Center, and pretty surreal to see the parking lot empty on Jamal, handler it's amazing how these things change so quickly for us, right and this idea of

the quick sudden change of fortune, you know the prophets I seldom used to seek refuge in Allah subhanaw taala and anxiety negativity from the sudden turn of events, the sudden turn of fortunes and blessings. And it's very humbling for us to be in this situation. We ask Allah subhana wa tada to protect everyone. We ask Allah subhanaw taala to accept the intention for the good deeds that we had planned to do. We ask Allah subhana wa to write them down for us fully. We ask Allah that this Juma prayer that we had hoped to fulfill today, that Allah subhanho wa Taala write it down for us without any deficiency whatsoever. In its reward, we ask Allah subhanaw taala to forgive us for our

inability. We ask Allah that everyone that had planned to do on that Allah accepts a full nominal from them. We asked the last panel to honor that everyone that wishes to be able to have a successful Ramadan that allows parents Allah grant them that when they say Allah been living out on the lawn of Allah allow us to see more land, we ask the last parameter to grant the Neo Hajj for everyone from now that intends to do it, we ask a lot to give them the full name of hedge the full intention of hedge rewarded to them. We asked the last pentatonic to have mercy on any of our brothers and sisters that pass away anywhere that allows parents to grant them Shahada, we ask a

loss hunter to protect our elderly, we ask Allah subhanaw taala to use us in the service of those who are already vulnerable, but now be more vulnerable. As a result of this, we ask a loss parents to replace the losses of everybody financially, emotionally, whatever it may be with something greater in this life and the next 11. I mean, with that being said, and I'll probably make this. In the end, what I wanted to do was,

you know, allow for us an opportunity to at least go through some of the perspective and Subhanallah the title of the event that I have, is actually the one that I was intending to give, which was the things we took for granted. And I had imagined giving this hotel but in the messages write about how this might be our last time being able to do Juma here for some time, right? Or what if a loss penalty doesn't allow us to have total week prayer here.

And here I am doing this in my home office right now. So

I want to connect a few things for us, inshallah Tada. And just to note from now, and I'll repeat this again, this is not a replacement for Juma, so please pray your prayer for it is complete. Okay. This is just sharing what I had hoped to share with the multiple inshallah and to give that spiritual reminder, that test can show all the time that we were looking for,

perhaps in German, as a reminder, and jomar supposed to be reminder. So I want to start with this point, a loss of kind of what to add up, has all of these things that are destined for us that essentially flatten all sorts of difference in terms of status, in terms of health, in terms of wealth, in terms of whatever it may be the ultimate, the ultimate equalizer is death, right? Because when we die, it doesn't matter what we had in this world, it doesn't matter what's put on top of our graves. Ultimately, we all reside inside of our graves, and our status is taken away from us. Our wealth is taken away from us, the praise of people is taken away from us, all of that is taken away

from us. So it's the great equalizer, right? And that it puts us all in the exact same situation. before death, there are all sorts of disproportionality that exists. And people have blessings that are readily available to them that they take for granted. So for example, you know, I talked about this last year so Pamela and a lot of people have probably forgotten with everything going on. We are exactly one year away from the Christchurch massacre, the massacre of our brothers and sisters in Christ Church. And I remember that being one of the heaviest Jumanji that I've given here. And then of course, I was on a plane that same next day, to Christchurch to New Zealand.

And I remember the Hulk but from last year, which was that why did the Christchurch massacre shake us up so much man was trying to grant all of them Shahada and melanosomes uncomfort their families. Why did that? Why did that shake us so much? It shook us for many reasons. One of them was that a lot of us who live in relatively safe

countries who live in easy circumstances and situations, you know, we've we've never had the thought in our minds of a bunch of people being killed in the masjid or having to fear

Their lives going to the masses. However, there are a lot of people that have gone out to their massage or their attempted to go out to massages in Syria and the verses are in India right now right at the time last year this wasn't the situation sees how how things have changed the Oilers, so many different people who did not have the opportunity to go out to Jamaat and safety already that would have to worry about bombs falling on them. You hear about, you know, a bombing and a mess, and nothing is done so frequently, right are in Iraq, and these places that have been forgotten Syria, it live, you look at the massage of the destroyed, you know, pulpits

and the minarets, where people are calling out to a loss penalty. These were things that were very usual for them, right where it was hard for them to go to the masjid and then Christ Church happened last year. And there was this element of this isn't supposed to happen in New Zealand. This isn't supposed to happen in a safe country. This isn't supposed to happen in a Western nation. And a lot of us started to feel like,

you know, we were left out, right, we were left out. And Subhanallah you know, that happened. Christchurch happened and suddenly an element of safety was taken away from us. And now you have to worry about this in the master, our worst nightmare had come true.

So what did that do it equalize things to an extent we're still not getting anywhere in the West, we're still not because anywhere in the West, we're still not what's happening in India, or weavers anywhere here, right. But the that that vulnerability, a new vulnerability had been added to us and taken and took away something from us that before we had taken for granted, right, which was that we could go to our mosques in peace, we could go to our massages in peace. Those of you that are from other faith communities, you could go to your places of worship and peace, right, like and then all of these different things happened. Right. And suddenly, we don't have that anymore. Safety was

taken away from us, or at least the the peace of mind of assured safety, right? hamdulillah we were still so much safer than different people, but the peace of mind of assured safety was taken away from us.

The idea of going to Oman or Hajj. So you you go to the next thing, right, if you live in a country and you have the means and your country is not restricted by quota, you don't have to worry about being at a certain age to be able to go to Andhra Hajj planning Hajin Allah is a scheduling thing for you, right? saving some money and scheduling, right? But you don't imagine not being able to get a visa, especially if you have, you know, the right passport, or you have the right economic status. And so how long now that's being taken away. You know, the, the thing that doesn't necessarily have to have a, you know,

you know, a particular type of status, but it was just something we used to do all the time, being able to go to the masjid, being able to say soleimani come to one another, being able to smile at one another, being able to, to pray with one another.

Title, we have prayer, right, who would have thought we have prayer right would be taken away from us. And so the point is, dear brothers and sisters, that these are things that we used to take for granted. And Ramadan is meant to be able to give us an appreciation for blessings that we often take for granted, right? When Ramadan comes. It's, it causes us to deprive ourselves of blessings that we regularly consume on a daily basis, right, so that we can have a greater appreciation for those blessings. So it's a lesson for us in the midst of having some of this taken away from us to think about those blessings and to say and have the love for them. So that hopefully, you know in the

nighttime as soon as possible when we get back to our ways of life, when we get back to our worship our congregations, our communal activities, that we can appreciate them once again, right that we can we can really revel in them. Like think about how much now we're thinking about today. Right? And so in a previous normal blonde, maybe I would have got lazy I would have said well, it's that Ramadan dip right now.

You know, I wasn't able to go to total week or I just didn't feel like you're dragging my feet to the masjid. Now, now, I have something right. If I get to do Tada, we may Allah allow us to have as normal of an online as possible. Right? If I get it, we're gonna value that total. We're so much more now. Maybe if I used to drag my feet to john, right and how you know, for how I had a man at four years old, really broke my heart. He said that I hadn't missed the gym on 60 years not for travel or sickness. Can you imagine that? 60 years you do the math of how many Jumana is that is right? 60 years, he's never missed the jumar and he just doesn't know how to come to terms with

being at home right now. Because it's just so unheard of. And you know, it's so inconceivable for him those people that would get there before the end to make sure that the angels registered them. Right because the profits license I mentioned the angels roll book that closes when the man says cinematical. How are we going to be the next time

jamara opens up to us in Charlottetown. And we're able to go back to our joumana salon a loss parents are allowed that to be sooner rather than later. I mean, a lot allow us to take that now with with with a greater degree of reverence, right, the ability to go and the ability to do these things with ease. How many people that wanted to go to aroma or hygiene or people that have their heads in limbo? Now, what if a loss of Hannah Montana opens that up for you, right, so

increase your near right now, increase your intention right now be grateful to Allah subhanaw taala for all that he allowed us to do, that we took for granted that other parts of the Muslim Ummah did not have available to them in terms of just a Bada, that now we're having to come to terms with and use that to propel you, and Chatelet Tada, not just through this to look forward to when that gets restored back to normalcy, but they're not atana. But use that to give you a greater appreciation for when it comes. So that's the first thing. Second thing is that obviously when equalizers come, it gives us an opportunity to develop empathy. And empathy is all about developing empathy is an act

of worship. And anytime you have an opportunity to feel what other people are feeling,

it's a chance to not just appreciate the blessing that you had, but to activate you towards making sure that others have that blessing on a normal basis as well. So the increase of empathy is special in these moments, right? How do we increase our empathy, thinking about our brothers and sisters that that, you know, have have lived through devastating circumstances you're at home praying germana or you know, not praying, Jim, I gotta keep on clarifying. You're at home praying.

I'm at home praying today, I don't have to worry about a bomb falling on my house right now. Right? And I pray that that doesn't become the case. So that shouldn't just make me go home to the law, I don't have to worry about things that other people have to worry about. It should make me think, you know, how do I how do I work make your app for and work for those people that do have to worry about those types of things. Right? So the increase of empathy is, is very bad in and of itself. It's an act of worship, in and of itself. So there is the equalizer, there is the empathy and developing that empathy. And then the next two things that come after that naturally sugar, it is gratitude.

Allah subhana wa tada says, well, in Shackleton, let as the Dominican if you are grateful, I will increase you. Right now, people, you know, some people are going to be focused on thinking about the things that they've lost out on, right? Oh, I can't do this anymore. I can't do that anymore. You know, I'm not going to be able to go to this gathering, or I had this special plan, right? Spring Break plans, I had the plan to be with this amount of family, you know, instead of thinking about those things that you don't have, or that you've lost out on, saying hamdulillah See, and hamdulillah Al Hamdulillah, all praises and thanks and glory or to Allah for what we still have,

right? The privileges that we still have, if you know the Hadith of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and ossabaw whoever wakes up with a roof over their heads laugh and he just at the end, and with with no major health issues, and a meal for the day, then that person is like a person who has the entire world. I mean, you're like a king at that point, or a queen, right? It's like you have everything in the world that you need, say hamdulillah be grateful to Allah Subhana time, now's the time to intensely focus on those blessings, not to not to think about the things that we're missing out on. Think about those blessings. Let that gratitude increase and let that gratitude give

you the perspective that's going to be needed in sha Allah, tada to power you through these moments. So equals the equalizer of sickness. Right. And somehow a lot you see now heads of state, right, that are not spared from sickness, sickness makes no distinction, just like death makes no distinction. Empathy, right? The growth of empathy, the growth of gratitude. The fourth one, the growth of service, the people that are already vulnerable have just been made more vulnerable, right. So the homeless that already had to worry about not having a roof top over their heads, now have to worry about getting this disease and no one even knowing about it, no one coming to their

aid, not even knowing how to get tested. People that never had to worry about homelessness, because they were making their check, right? They were getting their hourly wages, they were able to make it day by day, are now thinking about what it would be like to be homeless, our elderly population have to think about things that they did not have to think about before. Those of us that care for them have to think about things that that we might not have thought about before. Sugar is not just meant to make you gratitude is not just meant to make you say and come to delight it's meant to activate you towards works of hand works of gratitude as a double the work of family of David acts of

gratitude. So right now we should be thinking about what are some things we can do especially as this you know,

draws out. What are some unique service oriented projects that we can develop in Charlottetown in our communities, in our, you know, in our places of worship, through our organizations, through our through our groups, and Chatelet, to Ana to where we're taking care of those that are really, really going to suffer even more in these moments? And for those of you that are in that category, may Allah subhanaw taala help you and may Allah Subhana, to allow us to be of help to you. Right, I know that there are probably some of you that are watching this right now. That are those people that are having to worry about if you can make rent if you can, do you know your basic things. Next month,

May Allah help you and may last panel to allow us to come to your aid, and activate those of us who don't have the dire situation that you might have to be able to be in your service, but in the nighttime, so let's think about service in Charlottetown and how we activate ourselves towards service. And then the last thing the spiritual opportunities that we now have in front of us that we did not necessarily have before, you know, anyone who's taken a class I taught this class on mussulman has a class have been learning Mandarin Kodama, Rahim, Allah to Allah, which is a book of spirituality summarizes a summary of the deen by the Members, I owe him a lot of time. And it's

really interesting because I was reflecting on the breakdown of, of how they broke down the idea of the worship that comes the unique opportunities of worship that come with being around people, and the unique opportunities of worship that come with solitude. And they talked about the unique sins that come with being around people, and the unique sins that can happen in solitude. Right. So they actually broke down the idea of mixing with the people and the idea of

spiritual solitude, right? And what happens in those two. So let's start with the sins right?

Typically, people that spend a lot of time alone, right shavon can can offer some sense to you, right, that you could do you know, when you're when you're all by yourself, and that's what the prophets lie Selim said, when he was asked him, How do you fulfill them about surf homeland, I also like to explain or to describe them and ethopian to describe the hypocrites, and they are the people that either huddled Manhattan in LA when they're alone with the prohibitions, right? The harm, that they consume those forms of hell. So be very, very smart about how you, you you conduct yourself very, very careful about not letting shape on take advantage of your idle time, right, take

advantage of your alone time. The second thing, in terms of the sense of being alone,

you know, is that when we're alone, now, we're not really alone.

Because we still have these, right, so so Pamela, I mean, you could engage in so many sins right now, in terms of in terms of social media, just sitting around, you could waste your time watching things, you could waste your time, you know, going through all of this stuff, and you could waste your time getting involved in our ever, you know, our ever never ending community fitten and drama, that all happened in the sphere of online, right? Don't do things that are going to be against you. And this time now that you have alone and you're sitting on your phone and whatever it is, and you can you can engage in so much how I'm watching how I'm engaging, how I'm typing how I'm

following up, just try to make sure that you don't use this time for yourself inshallah on it to be sinful, right. And the unique element of this social media part of this is that it gives us access to since and it gives us access to good so think about the other side of this inshallah, how can I listen to more lectures now? How can I How can I grow my grow my knowledge,

you know, my knowledge base now that I have some time in Charlottetown? How can I engage some of the helpful things that are online and shall have time, right, so using that as well? The potential for reading an amount of capital and every single day? What is your width? How much are you going to read every day? You know, we're about to get into the that Run, run up to that till Ramadan, where we start talking about you know, don't wait until Ramadan to start reading Hold on, right? Get used to the poor and inshallah Well, now you have a lot more time to read more. And so think about how you can develop your width develop your daily recitation from now, how much Salawat are you doing?

On the Prophet sallallahu wasallam it's the day of nine Friday. How much are you increasing Salawat reading sweated calf just because you're not going to Juma doesn't mean that the sooner reading in calf is gone. reached with a calf today. Make sure that you don't let this Friday go without you finishing sorted calf. Right. do those things. Now. The Union

opportunities of individually bother that you have and avoid the individual. The sins that have now been more easily accessible to you, you've got a lot more time on your hands now you could go through these things online with these devices and things of that sort. Spend more time on the opportunities that you have a victory of remembrance of recitation, less time on the more opportunity now you have to kill time by killing your heart with more sins that you would not do if you were busy out there, and doing other things. And, you know, adding to that, if you're with your family now, so Pamela, and those of you that, that are going to have to go through this quarantine

for the most part, without many people around you may Allah subhanaw taala help you realize, oh, john, fill your, your your alone time with, with great spiritual and emotional fulfillment. Those of us who have families around us, our spouses, our children, our parents, those types of things, you know, people around us that we typically don't give enough attention to, that we don't give enough time to the Prophet sallallahu wasallam taught us that in every moment that we spend with our families, whether it's a moment of intimacy between spouses, or a moment of eating together, or a moment of playing with our children, or a moment of serving our parents, which is actually number

one, right? Every one of those moments is a unique opportunity very about that as a unique opportunity of worship. And we spend so much time in the hustle and bustle of life that we we neglect people in our lives, right? This is an opportunity to reconnect and shall let's honor to reconnect strongly with the people that are around us that were never well that are supposed to be around us. But you know, we don't spend enough time with so use that as a unique opportunity in sha Allah Tada. And the last thing that I'll say here

is what the prophet sallallahu wasallam said as you're thinking about prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer, right, and the congregational prayer, you know, the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said, Don't turn your homes into graveyards. Don't turn your homes into graveyards, leave some of your prayer for your homes. What that means is that typically speaking, even though we pray, felled and maktabah that which is written upon us in the messages, the prophets lie, some encouraged us to pray our sin as at home to prayer pm at home to pray as much as we can at home. Okay.

Why so that we could have that proper balance to where our sincerity is not compromised in the process of our public acts of good and the prophets Isom warned us not to turn our homes into graveyards to leave some of our prayers for the home. If there was any time where we could get regular with our son is now regular with our regular with our 200 regular with our prayers regular with it all inshallah time, and find a way to do this at home now. without someone watching us without someone said, just just to find a way to pray in solitude to find a way to pray with our families or by ourselves and to enjoy the sweetness of that prayer. Whether it's at night or during

the day, just in our homes. What a great reward that would be. And if you look at the prophets lie, Selim, you know, I know that a lot of people are thinking about how we were not just thinking about Ramadan, we're not just think about jomar we're thinking about selling we I know Tada, we have on our minds. If you think about total we write in particular, remember that the prophets myself only prayed total, we have prayer in Jamaica in Congregation for the first few nights of Ramadan, and then the Prophet slice and I'm starting to pray at home. Because the prophets lie some was worried that people would tack it on to the obligations of the religion. And so it totally is literally just

another word for pm for the night prayer in Ramadan. And the US have the default of all night prayer is that it's better at home. Instead of in congregation today. We're being the exception because of the idea accordingly, even some of the schools of thought even in Ramadan, praying Tada, we had home is more affordable. But the idea of keeping the mustards full and the idea of how we push each other more when we're praying in total, we're right, we're likely to pray longer. When we're in gym, or when we're in congregation, we're likely to finish the poll. And when we're in congregation, we're just more likely to hit our goals in terms of length. And so you know, if someone was to say what's

the reward or the benefit of praying at home, versus praying in the masjid that night in Ramadan, the breaker the tiebreaker between those two You know, when you remove Phillip from the equation to get the technical answer is, well, if you were going to spend 15 minutes praying totally at home, and an hour praying in the masjid, then the hour wins every time. You know what, switch it up, switch it up. Right now, we have a chance to establish a regimen of night prayer at home. And, you know, maybe some people I know you guys are gonna miss the fundraisers and Ramadan. Don't worry, we will still

fundraising and we'll just bring that online and shall let's add, but you're not going to have people pestering you at night. Maybe if we don't have the typical regimen with people that are standing up at night and asking you for salsa, who's who's removing the opportunity for salsa from you a normal blonde who's taking that away from you that opportunity for charity? Right? Of course, you can still do charity if in fact it makes it more sincere. So we have to recognize that as difficult as the concept of isolation can be. Isolation was what the Imam Hassan Busey Rahim, Allah said, was was was the tranquility of the pious predecessors on Earth. It's what the pious actually

looked for they longed for solitude, they longed for long moments of solitude, where they could stay in that form of they could stay in that form of remembrance, stay in the form of excelling and exceeding the next goals that they set for themselves in terms of their personal rainbow dots in terms of their personal acts of worship. You know, and making sure that that's only for Allah because no one else was around as they were taking that next step, and that next step, and that next step, so you have opportunities for that you have opportunities for worship, that are, you know, very, very specific to the time and, you know, with the, with the way that we're kind of, you know,

life is pausing on the outside, or eba that should increase our acts of worship should increase inshallah, use that time wisely, inshallah, tada, use that time alone, to do special things to connect to the one who never leaves you whether you're quarantined, or whether you are in the mustard or whether you're at work, use that time to really connect deeply with the loss of Hannah Montana. And, and and immerse yourself in that time, enjoy that unique spiritual opportunity that you have right now. inshallah, tada, it's a special time for you, you know, flip it in terms of perspective. So we asked Allah subhanaw taala, to allow us to increase our closeness to him in these

moments. Again, I just want to emphasize that those of you that are struggling even further, may Allah subhanaw taala be at your aid medalist, to help you activate us to be with you may allow us to increase us and empathy and gratitude and service and worship and spirituality and perspective and unite our hearts. May Allah subhanaw taala allow this to be a moment where we can all come together as a community with this equalizer of sickness and illness, may Allah subhanho wa Taala allow us to see each other in a different light not just to connect to him in a different way, but to see each other in a different light inshallah Tada, so your graduates your your your difficulties, remove

those inshallah Tada, anything that reminds us of death. You know, remember, when Kobe Bryant died, a lot of people were not happy that Why are there so why is there so much emphasis on death and somehow my opinion done beyond just all of the elements of that anything that helps us remember, the equalizer of death, more is a good thing for us if we're productive with it, right? Because it helps us live our lives better and it helps us long for the hereafter more. So all of that is good in Charlottetown if it makes us think more and it makes us do more inshallah Tada. So use this as an opportunity to be reminded, inshallah tada tomorrow we're going to be if you follow yaqeen Institute

for Islamic research if you if you like the page, you'll see some information on a webinar that we'll be hosting tomorrow inshallah Tada, sister Satoshi salon Sr najwa our than myself to talk about specifically spirituality anxiety and practicality in these times in Charlottetown. So it will be at 1pm Central tomorrow in Charlotte, Tana and you can look out for the information that we'll put here as well as on those pages. And again, you know, I pray that Eliza Joe, purify us of our sins through these moments and lost parents or allow us to achieve the next level in our spiritual potential. inshallah Todd will be regularly doing different activities, events are not events,

activities, so you got to change the terminology and activities, webinars, lectures, whatever whatever we can do in Charlottetown to stay connected in this time and to stay reminding each other with beneficial reminders inshallah we'll try our best to to move forward over the next period I don't want to say weeks or months

because Allah knows how long this is going to be but we'll try our best to be with you all inshallah Tata and try to connect and try to give us that spiritual thrust necessary with the month of Ramadan ahead of us. A lot of them have been living out on Milan alone with a living animal bone, a lot of other living animal and they lost out allow us to all see Ramadan, and to be forgiven through Ramadan and to elevate ourselves and this is all done more than any normal dog before a loss of hands out, protect our elderly, a loss of support our vulnerable May Allah subhanaw taala use us for them May Allah subhana wa Taala replace all of our losses with things that are better in this life

and the next May Allah subhana wa tada allow us to increase and rebound in our halwa and our moments of alone time, more so more so even than when we do so in our social gatherings. May Allah subhanaw taala protect our massages may Eliza return us to

His houses as soon as possible, a loss of Hannah Montana allowed this virus to subside as quickly as possible, protect everyone from its harm a loss of hundreds and allow our brothers and sisters wherever they may be, who passed away due to this debt to be counted amongst the Shahada and the loss of parents I'd be pleased with the Shahadat from Christ Church that we lost a year ago and comfort their families in this difficult time as the one year comes around. And may Allah subhanho wa Taala allow us to develop perspective and to act in accordance with that perspective. In these times a lot, I mean, again, a reminder pray for records this was not clipped with the joumana this

was the reminder that I plan to share for clip with the Juma zachman little heightened to all of you for tuning in, I hope inshallah to have to see you next week at Juma itself in Charlottetown. So now when I come when I come to LA, he will go to council