Yaser Birjas – The Many Benefits Of Hajj
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My dear brothers and sisters,
as we're still living the spirit of Hajj,
we're seeing people coming back
almost every day.
We see the signs of excitement and exhaustion
at the same time from that beautiful experience,
once in a lifetime required by the believer
to visit the house of
in Makkah to perform the Hajj.
Now, this is a duty that you owe
to Allah
as Allah mentioned in the Quran.
People they owe Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala their
visit of the house for Hajj. So you
owe it as an obligation,
but what do I get out of it
as a believer?
Besides just taking this as a check mark,
1 of my 5 obligations that I owe
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has been taken care
of. But what am I getting out of
it?
Besides just taking that obligation off my list,
what benefits do I get from it in
this dunya before the akhirah?
We know the reward of the akhirah is
great, as the prophet said and mentioned,
Those who perform Hajj and they don't perform
any kind of profanity or any kind of
quarrel, any kind of
an insult during the time of Hajj, they
returned back just like the day when they
were born,
which means they now would come with a
clean slate. That's in the akhirah.
What about for me in the dunya? What
am I getting out of this? Allah
mentioned in the Quran that there are benefits
for those who go to Hajj.
Allah mentioned that in in the context of
the Hajj.
So the people, they go to
so that they might obtain
the benefit,
the many benefits that are therein for them
in store with
Allah So Allah
is saying, in Hajj, in going to Hajj,
there are so many benefits for you.
Have you ever wondered
what benefits before besides just having that obligation
being taken care of, and alhamdulillah,
getting my sins forgiven? What are the benefits
that Allah
has established for us in Hajj? My dear
brothers and sisters, there's benefits not just for
those who go to Hajj.
Those are just reminders.
This is for those when they go to
Hajj, they see it with their own eyes,
they live it.
But for us, when we come back, it
is something that a legacy we take with
us as we go to Hajj.
We bring from Hajj with us here as
we move into our daily lives. I want
to share with you some of these benefits,
inshaAllah.
What do we really learn?
What do we really learn from that experience
when we go to Hajj? Number 1,
the first thing we learn when we go
to Mecca
is seeing Al Aqaba.
What does that even mean?
My dear brothers and sisters, I have seen
those people when they first lay their eyes
on the Kaaba for the first time in
their lives.
I mean someone like myself and many others,
I'm sure, they've been to Mecca many times.
They've been to Umrah. They've been to many
Hajj. So for them,
that same moment is not just overwhelming
as the others who will, by the first
time, come to see it. I've seen people.
I led a group of hujjads this year,
and most of them, most of them, they
were there for the first time for Hajj.
But among these people, also there are few
who were ever the first time ever in
Mecca,
and I can tell you the excitement.
I can see the anticipation.
They just wanna rush through the crowd to
go there and just see it. And I
can see as they walk next to me,
they're anxious to make it sure that their
first meeting with the Kaaba is they're not
gonna miss it, so they keep close to
you saying, what do I need to say?
Is it a special du'a?
All of this is why. Why so?
Because Allah made the Kaaba sacred.
Allah
has made the Ka'bah for the people
a sanctuary
and a center.
A center for what? That's a symbolism of
the Kaaba in our lives.
Brothers and sisters, when people go to Mecca,
I know there are a lot of distractions
happen there,
But the faithful and the true believers, their
heart is attached to the center of the
city, to the Kaaba.
That's a reminder to you and I. Al
Hajj is all about making faith central in
your life,
to make faith
central in your life. The whole journey is
about seeing Al Kaaba.
I want being there and making tawaf and
being around the Haram. That's the whole journey's
purpose for. But at the same time,
it's all about making the Kaaba, the symbol
of faith, the central thing in your life.
And that's why when the people are there,
even though they're living in 5 star hotels,
they're waking up an hour, 2 hours early
to go to the Haram.
They go in the heat of the sun
at Duhr time at Asr because they wanna
be there and pray there in the Haram.
No 1 gets gonna be crowded, doors gonna
be closed, so they go early because they
wanna be there next to the Kaaba if
they can.
Many people, they even they make another umrah
so they can have the opportunity to pray
just right next to the Kaaba.
All of this because people, they wanna make
the Kaaba the center of their faith. Brothers
and sisters, that doesn't stop there in the
haram or in Mecca. It continues.
Even long after you're gone, what do we
do when we pray? We face Al Kaaba,
And memories will be there with you for
a many for a long long time. And
you always cherish that moment when you first
saw the Ka'ba,
making this to be the central part of
your Ibadah
and what it represents.
It's the house of Allah
and that should be the focus of our
life after Hajj.
That you go there, because I want to
make sure that what the Kaaba represents is
the central thing in my life. My dear
brothers and sisters, how much do you really
value this in your life?
When it comes to the sort of priorities
that you live by in your daily life,
How much faith is central to you, to
your family life, to your personal engagement with
people, and so on? How much
you really value that in everything that you
do in your life. If it's not where
it should be, then this is an opportunity
to remind yourself that Hajj was really about
keeping faith central in everything that you do.
The second thing we learn from the experience
of Hajj, my dear brothers and sisters,
is finding
peace and tranquility in the house of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Allah says
about the Kaaba or about being there.
He said to the Prophet
remind them, we have made this house
The translation says center,
but actually the word
means a place that frequently visited, like they
visited frequently,
which is true because the moment you visit
once, you always long to be there again.
Today, I received a video, promotional video about
the Hajj experience we did.
And just watching this and reminding and remembering
every step that we did, it was very
emotional.
Imagine if you keep that in your mind
every time when the Hajj comes by, when
Eid comes by, when you see the image
of
the Kaaba, when you see people making tawaf,
and you remind yourself of that moment of
peace when you've left everything behind in this
dunya, and you just don't worry about job,
you're not worrying about family, you're not worrying
about anything,
you're just now focusing on finding that peace
and tranquility
on those hours before fajr time.
Well, it's so peaceful there, and you really
just just hear
the the the birds from above.
And even just the chanting of the Hejaz
and the Mu'taminin,
how amazing that is. In the middle of
the chaos,
you're making tawaf and you're finding peace.
I remind you to you and I that
in the middle of the chaos of this
life, you can find peace.
How?
If you remind yourself about Allah
all the time.
Challenges will happen. Trials will come about. Things
will happen around us. And we'll get anxious,
we'll get exhausted, we'll get tired. How can
I find peace in that moment? You will
find that peace if you remind yourself about
Allah
Allah As Allah says, The
insan was created in a state of panic,
like we're always afraid, anxious.
When they're reflecting with the calamity, they freak
out. And
when they're blessed with something good, they also
become freak they freak out. Why? To lose
it.
He says,
except those who pray, those who connect.
You connect with Allah
in the moment of chaos, Wallahi, you will
find peace, and being there is a true
reminder.
If you missed the opportunity to be in
the house of Allah
in Mecca, what is preventing you from coming
to the house of Allah
in this place? What's preventing you from running
that peace and tranquility in salah coming to
the masjid and just have those moments after
salah to make your dua and your dikr
and find that tranquility after fajr as well
too? What prevents you from doing that?
You want peace
in this chaotic life?
Come to the house of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Number 3, my dear brothers and sisters,
what they will learn from the experience of
Hajj is knowing that we live under the
mercy of Allah
You live under the mercy of Allah
because when you see the the the size
of humanity,
and all these people have different needs,
and everybody is raising their hands and they're
asking for something. God knows what it is,
but guess what? Allah
knows each and everyone's need,
And Allah will
answer them, and he will show them with
his mercy.
1 of the moments of the the heat
of the season, subhanAllah, as we were in
Mina. And as everybody was kind of reaching
that peak moment of the heat, all of
a sudden you hear thunders.
And you realize, oh my God, the mercy
of Allah is coming. And it did. It
started raining. It's like everyone I heard about
them, you know, when they go to Hajj,
they say, it rains,
on Arafa, in Mina, and it was a
moment just like, what a blessed moment, seeing
people so joyful, so excited, like children standing
in their rain and making du'a, because they
want to expose themselves to the mercy of
Allah
And it's a very symbolic thing with the
rain.
Imagine on Arafah when everybody is just standing
there exposing themselves to the
It's everywhere.
It's your own bedroom, your own office space,
in the streets while you're driving your car.
What is stopping you from soliciting that mercy
of Allah
What is it?
What's preventing you from calling Allah
day night pleading to him with your teeth
flowing out of your eyes because you're looking
for the mercy of Allah
What a beautiful reminder.
With all the people around,
you realize that you have that very personal
connection with Allah
and you make that call and ask for
Allah's mercy. Allah says about the Hajjkal
He says
Allah that it is for them, those who
will receive the heavenly reward from Allah
for what they have earned.
So Allah is saying, you're gonna get your
reward for it. So you expose yourself to
the mercy of Allah
Number 4,
what do we learn from the message of
Hajj?
1 of the beautiful things that you've seen
there, subhanAllah, is the concept
of the ummah being 1 body and being
1 community. You know, we talk about this
here generally in lectures and khutbas and so
on, and we have a kind of representation
of that in our community, being extremely diverse.
But it's truly become so real and genuine
when you go there and you meet people
from all the walks of life and every
corner of the earth, people from countries you
have never even heard of, flags you've never
seen before.
And then it's hard if you're curious.
So you go, you talk to them. They
sit next to you in salah and you
get to engage in a conversation with them,
and you just feel so proud,
so proud
to be
of
Ummad
Muhammad
in a moment of weakness.
As we see the situation in Gaza, May
Allah make it easy for our brothers, and
send Gaza and Philistines
This whole
weakness of the Ummah in time like ours,
it's like sometimes you wonder,
are we truly 1 ummah?
I mean why no 1 is doing anything?
Why no 1 is doing anything to our
brothers in Philistines and Gaza? To the
extent that in the debate for the most
powerful position
on earth, last night at the Jamaha, 1
of those regardless
about who the candidates are, but 1 of
them has been using being a Palestinian as
an insult.
Wallahi doesn't know.
He doesn't know he will be honored
if he become a scratch of that title.
But we are in a weak position as
an ummah. When you go to Hajj, you
realize, why are we so weak?
Why are we so weak?
Unfortunately,
we lack the leadership,
we lack the commitment from the ummah for
their faith and their deen,
and it's just there's so much work to
be done. But when you go there, you
see the meaning of being 1 ummah. Everybody's
around you, And you realize the need the
meaning of going out there to to get
to know about them and their condition, their
affairs, and their situations,
and you start making du'a for them, and
they will make du'a for you. I heard
around the Kaaba in different places, people who
don't even speak Arabic make a du'a for
Gaza and Palestine.
You know,
regardless where they're coming from, everybody is united
when it comes to the affairs of the
ummah.
May Allah
facilitate ease for brothers in Gaza.
Brothers and sisters,
we also learn from Hajj many historic things.
Makes us live in a truly in a
time,
a different timeline really.
Like when you go there, you suddenly go
on a time travel.
You go there and remember Ibrahim
You remember
Muhammad You remember the hijrah. You remember Fathuh
Makkah, the conquest of Makkah. You remember so
many things. And as a Muslim,
if you have studied that,
just being there,
it puts you in awe, and it will
have that kind of impact on you,
making sure that you carry that same legacy
that lasted 1400 years. What are you going
to be doing afterwards?
How are you going to be part of
this beautiful history of the ummah? What is
it that you're adding? What value you're adding
to the ummah? That when the people 1400
years later come and they will look back,
they see that someone like yourself did something
for the ummah.
History is there and we lived it over
and over again. And every time you visit,
you live it again.
What legacy are you gonna leave for the
ummah, my dear brothers and sisters? There is
so much we could learn from the experience
of Hajj. I ask Allah
to facilitate that experience to each and every
1 of you, and make it easy for
you all to go there
and express and experience the blessings of Hajj
altogether
And I ask
Allah to protect our brothers and sisters in
Gaza and in Philistines and shield them for
My dear brothers and sisters,
1 more benefit that we learn from Hajj
that is not necessarily
spiritual matter, although it has some spirituality in
it, is worldly affairs, worldly matters.
And Allah
did not neglect
our personal needs as humans, even when we're
in Hajj.
He says
There's no harm, there's no sin upon you
if you seek the benefit, which means financial
gains, while you're there in Hajj.
So even in the duniya, I've seen people
networking.
I met people for the first time in
my life.
I haven't seen them before in my life.
And now, Marshall, we're a band of brothers.
We're 1 family, 1 community, connecting with each
other, knowing who does what and what what
benefit you can get from them or they
can benefit you. Connecting with each other
from different sides of the world.
What a beautiful thing. What a beautiful gain
you can by expanding your network, alhamdulillah, for
the matters of dunya and the matters of
the akhirah. There is so much higher in
going there for Hajj, my dear brothers and
sisters. My advice to all of you, especially
the young ones,
do not delay
your Hajj journey to a later time if
you can't do it early.
If you want to benefit from it, then
do it when you're still young.
When you're healthy and wealthy and capable insha'allah
and I guarantee you, once you try it
once, you will desire to do it more
than once.
And that's how much benefit you will find
it inshallah.