How Humans Are Better Than Angels
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Channel: Yasir Qadhi
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AI Generated Summary ©
The importance of Islam is highlighted, including the need for people to be mindful of their actions and not create evil. The speaker emphasizes the importance of striving to be better and not fall short, as it is a natural evolution. The importance of forgiveness and learning to trust Allah is also emphasized. The speaker also highlights the need for people to strive to achieve perfection and not allow failures to happen, and emphasizes the importance of learning to trust Allah and not giving up hope.AI Generated Transcript ©
Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
We begin by praising Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
who has guided us to Islam
and has blessed us with more blessings than
we can count.
As Allah says in the Quran,
wa asbagaalaykumni
amahu waheratinwabartina.
He has immersed you in his blessings.
Some of them are apparent and you recognize,
and some of them you don't even recognize
and are hidden.
And as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
He has given you everything that you asked.
And as Allah says in the Quran,
issuha If you were to try to count
the blessings Allah has given you, you would
not be able to finish the list.
If you were to try to count and
enumerate the blessings,
you would not be able to finish that
list.
And the biggest blessing and the greatest blessing
that Allah has given us
compared to which all other blessings
pale in comparison,
The biggest blessing that Allah has given us
is the blessing of Islam.
Alhamdulillahihadanalihhada wama kunlariyahdadiya laullahanhadanalihhada
wama
tadi Allahanhadanallah.
All praise is due to Allah who has
guided us to this.
And were it not for Him,
we would not be guided to this.
SubhanAllah,
brothers and sisters,
how fortunate we are to be sitting here
today in this Masjid.
How blessed we are.
And it was not from my doing or
yours.
How many
people are on earth tonight
and they have no clue
of the possible blessing and sanctity of this
night?
How many are
oblivious,
heedless?
How many are going about their routine as
as if this is not the month of
Ramadan, as if tonight is not one of
the potential nights of Qadr?
And here we are, me and you,
Throughout any power of mine, I didn't will
myself to be a Muslim.
I did not choose. Allah chose this for
me. And Allah blessed, and Allah guided.
And so out of this whole globe and
world,
Alhamdulillah,
Allah guided me and you to Islam.
And not only guided to Islam,
but Allah blessed to be amongst those who
at least are
trying. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect.
There's no such thing as holy saints in
our religion.
Every saint is a sinner in disguise.
Every
saint is a sinner in disguise. You just
don't know his sins.
And every sinner
is a potential saint.
We don't believe in some holy figures.
I am sinful.
You are sinful.
And we are all struggling
with our sins.
But here we are
in this Masjid
wanting
to come closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
desiring
to achieve Allah's mercy.
And in that desire,
and in that effort is our salvation.
O Muslim,
realize
Allah did not intend for perfection
to be amongst us.
If He wanted perfection, the Angel sufficed.
The Angels do not disobey Allah.
The Angels
do not ever disobey a command.
When Allah says do, they do.
There's no free will amongst them.
And Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, still chose to
create us.
Even the angels were wondering, why would you
create this new species, O Allah? Here we
are. Wanahanulu sabiuhbamdiqalukad
disulak. Here we are
glorifying you. Here we are praising you.
Even the angels in their limited minds,
they were thinking,
what is the purpose of this creation when
they are not gonna compete with us?
You're gonna create a creation that's gonna do
evil. They're gonna sin. They're gonna follow their
desires. They're gonna cause mayhem, wreak havoc on
this earth.
You're gonna create this new creation
that is gonna wreak so much havoc. And
here we are. There's no civil war amongst
us, You Allah.
There's no evil amongst us. There's no drunkards
amongst us. There's no people guilty of fornication
amongst us. There's no drug addicts amongst us.
Why would you create this new creation
in which the whole world is gonna be
full of that pain and suffering that we
don't have amongst us.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said to them,
Inni aalumumala
ta'alamu. You're gonna have to trust Me. I
have wisdoms you don't understand.
I know what you do not know.
Still to this day, we are struggling to
understand some of those wisdoms because in the
end of the day, the actual wisdoms are
known only to Allah. But our scholars mention
and comment.
Our scholars
mention and comment. And some of these wisdoms
are found
in the prophetic traditions.
Our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said in a
hadith in Sahih Muslim,
If you were to stop committing sins,
Allah
would have gotten rid of you.
I'm not mistransmitting the hadith. This is exactly
what the hadith says.
If you were to become perfect,
if you were to become
angels
because the angels don't commit sins,
were it not for the fact that you
are committing sins, if you stop committing sins,
Allah
would have eliminated your existence.
And He would have brought
He would have created a new creation.
They
are committing sins.
Pause here.
This hadith
is one of the most explicit a hadith
about
the rationale
and the wisdom
of our existence.
This hadith
is
explicitly
demarcating
one of the reasons why Allah created us.
I haven't finished the adi. Don't worry. Don't
stop right there.
Allah does not love sin.
Allah does not love evil.
Allah does not love oppression.
Wallahu la yuhibbuul fasad. Walla yardaliibadihil
kufr. Allah does not love evil. So then
why are we being told
that if you stopped committing sins, if you
as a creation
became sinless,
Allah has no need for you. That's literally
what the adith is saying. Allah has no
need for you. Then if that were to
happen, Allah would have gotten rid of you,
and Allah would have created a new creation,
a creation
that is faulty, like me and you. It
has leaks, like me and you. It has
mistakes, like me and you. It commits sins,
like me and you. Why?
Why?
Because the hadith goes on.
They would they would commit sins,
and then
they would turn to Allah in his
and tawbah,
and then they would turn to Allah and
ask for forgiveness,
and so that Allah
could forgive
them.
You see, ibn al Qayyah mentions
one of the wisdoms of creating
a fallible creation like us,
one of the wisdoms
of creating
mortals like us. The angels don't die like
we die. The same angel lives. There's no
procreation.
The same angel, the one that Allah created,
will be living forever and ever.
We are a different creation.
We come, we die, we go, and then
there's an akhirah, and there's heaven and hell,
and then there's judgment.
And in our finite lives,
no
one can attain perfection.
We can't compete with the angels, but here's
the point, Allah did not create us to
compete with the angels. That's not our job
and function.
That's not our reason for being here.
So then what is our reason for being
here? Ibn al Qayyah mentions,
one of the wisdoms for the creation of
mankind
is that Allah wanted to manifest
his forgiving nature.
He wanted to manifest
that he is
and he is
and he is Rahman and he is Raheem
and he is tawab.
He wanted to manifest
that he forgives the one who comes to
him for forgiveness.
And that wisdom
cannot be manifested
with the angels.
That
set of divine attributes, that side of the
divine nature cannot be demonstrated in front of
the angels.
The angels don't ask for forgiveness the way
we do. The angels don't come penitent and
repentance.
The angels don't say, you Allah, I really
committed a major sin. I need your forgiveness.
The angels are perfect. And if they do
istighfar,
it is because they are not worshiping as
much as they feel Allah is deserving to
be worshiped. Not because they fell into a
mistake, because the angels also do tasbih and
tahmeed.
But the angels don't commit sins. So ibn
al Khayyim says,
in order to manifest
Allah's forgiving nature,
He created us.
And this leads us
to one of the most important
chapters of Islamic spirituality.
One of the most important principles of tazkiyatul
nafs.
We cannot attain perfection.
That's not going to happen.
But Allah is not asking for perfection.
Allah is asking for us to strive to
be better.
Allah wants to see in us the resolve,
the himmah,
to turn to Him and to want to
be closer to him. Allah wants the tawba,
and Allah wants the turning back to him
because that's what tawba is.
And in the process, if we fall, and
if we fall short, and if we fail,
that is not a failure in the eyes
of Allah,
because perfection can never be achieved. So what
is failure?
Failure
is to not even attempt success.
That is failure.
In the eyes of Allah,
if you attempt, you have passed.
This is the beauty of our religion.
If you try,
then you will pass. You might not pass
with an a, you might pass with a
b or a c, but nobody
who tries,
nobody
who puts in an effort will fail, and
this is the beauty of our Lord, the
beauty of our faith, the beauty of our
deen.
O Muslim,
do not judge yourself based upon the template
of perfection,
because if you do so, you are setting
yourself up for failure.
You were not created to be perfect. Don't
you understand?
You were not created to compete with the
angels.
You were created
to show that despite your fallible nature,
despite your sinful
predisposition,
you still
choose to turn to Allah.
And no matter how often
you falter,
no matter how often you fail in the
process
of achieving perfection,
you never stop trying to achieve. You know
you're not gonna get there.
You know you're not gonna become an angel,
but you still try and try and try,
and in that trying
is your Jannatul Firdaus. In that trying is
your act to become an angel. You will
never actually become 1,
But when you attempt to do so, Allah
might even bless you more than he blesses
the angels. Our scholars mention
a part of our theology.
There's a debate in classical Islam. You know,
a lot of times our scholars have too
much time, so they start debating things that
are a little bit abstract. And one of
the things they debated,
who is better,
a pious person or an angel?
This is a debate in our Islamic theology,
And
the debate doesn't need to happen.
We know from the Quran who is better.
Allah said to the
do
fasajadalmalaikah
to kulluhumajmaroon.
All of the malaikah
showed reverence
to Adam.
Even though
Adam was mortal,
Adam was
fallible.
Adam was created of flesh and blood.
Our scholars therefore mentioned, in reality,
the pious human,
Allah has shown
that he is more worthy of respect than
even the angels.
And Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, demonstrated this
even before Adam became a sinner, knowing Adam
would become a sinner. That is the default
of piety, the default of taqwa. So, o
Muslim,
as we begin these 10 nights,
as we begin these 10 nights, tonight is
the first of the 10 nights,
We come
to this masjid,
every single one of us
with baggage
that our closest
friends,
our children,
our spouses
don't even know.
We come with a hidden closet of secrets,
maybe even not closets, but bank vaults,
mountains
of sins.
We come with that which if our closest
friends knew about us,
they would no longer want to be friends
with us.
Every one of us,
we have transgressed
against the blessings Allah has given us.
I am a sinner, and you are a
sinner.
We are all equal in this regard.
And shaitan comes,
and shaitan
wants us to reach his level of despair
and desperation.
So shaitan says, what's the point?
And he'll remember and remind us of that
secret bank vault.
He's gonna come and tell us of all
of that hidden skeletons in our closet because
he knows. Why would he not know? He's
accompanying us. He's the one enticing us. Half
for the majority of the stuff in that
closet, he's the one that whispered you to
do. So he wants to drag you down
there, but
we need to remind ourselves.
It doesn't matter
how many skeletons are in that closet. It
doesn't matter
how much baggage is in there.
What did our prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam say?
That Allah says hadith Qudsi.
You bina Adam, O son of Adam.
O son of Adam,
if you come to me with an earth
full of sins,
earth full,
Who amongst us has an earthful of sins?
If you come to me with an entire
planet of sins
and then you ask my forgiveness,
and you worship me without associating any partners,
you say the Kalima La ilaha illallah,
and you ask for my forgiveness,
I shall come to you with an earth
full of forgiveness.
Allah doesn't care how large your sins are,
how frequent your sins are, how massive your
sins are. You are not dealing with me
and you. You're not dealing with a mortal
such that there's a finite quantity
in the bank of Allah. No.
Allah's Khazana
and Allah's rahmah
cannot be counted.
It is infinite.
So when you approach
the Almighty,
when you approach
the source of rahma, he is rahman,
he is rahim.
When you approach the one who called himself
Arhamur Rahimin,
then realize,
it doesn't matter
what is in your cabinet and closet. It
doesn't matter the quantity of skeletons you have.
It doesn't matter how heinous the crimes are.
The goal is
to attempt to live a better life. The
goal is to try your best to turn
back to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and to
ask Allah azaawajal for forgiveness
and to make the attempt to be better.
Because here's the point, in that attempt,
we know deep down inside we're never gonna
be fully perfect.
Now the goal is, by the way, the
goal without a doubt is to eliminate as
many sins as possible. There's no question about
that.
But we know we're never going to be
sinless.
If that is the case, then what is
the redemption?
What is the salvation?
The salvation is
never to give up hope in Allah's mercy,
and to persistently,
continuously
put in good effort to counter the negatives.
I gave the talk 2 days ago about
the ayah and the Quran. Good deeds absolve
bad deeds. Al Hasan al Basri
said,
absolve bad deeds.
Al Hassan al Basri said,
I know of nothing
that is more effective
encountering
past sins
than current good deeds.
I repeat, I know of nothing
that is better in dissolving your past sins
than your current good deeds.
So increase your good deeds, and your past
sins will be resolved.
It's very simple, oh Muslim.
You turn to Allah.
You make a sincere
commitment to Allah. You make the intention in
your heart.
We are all battling with our internal demons.
Every one of us.
I repeat, every one of us, don't ever
think the person next to you is an
angel. If we were angels, we wouldn't be
sitting here.
We might have different demons. No doubt about
it. We might have different levels. No doubt
about it. We might have different addictions. Yes.
But at core, we are all
equally human. Is that not the case? We
are all equally flesh and blood.
So, never think
that you are the only sinner sitting in
this masjid.
I am a sinner, and you are a
sinner. We are all equally
sinful
in terms of us being humans.
That we are all the same.
Now that we've established that,
the goal then, as I said, is not
to become sinless.
The goal
is to come to Allah with a remorseful
heart, a penitent heart. The goal is to
acknowledge
your sins,
to admit you're human and fallible,
to recognize
there is no hope for me except through
you, by you, with you, O Allah.
That recognition
is our salvation,
And we learn it from our father, Adam
alayhi salaam,
when he committed the sin that he did.
And SubhanAllah, annege, I've said this so many
times. Even last year, I gave the khatr,
the same thing I mentioned. Because wallahi, it's
an amazing story. The story of the Genesis,
the story of Adam and Hawa,
what Allah gave them,
and still
Adam being me and you, Adam did what
he did. Right? What Allah, he literally gave
them Jannah. He literally
created them out of nothing,
and said to them, you and your wife,
you and Hawa, go in Jannah and do
whatever you want. Eat whatever you want, wear
whatever you want, live wherever you want.
Just one little garden, and one little tree
in that garden. That's it. But see, here's
where the fallibility
comes. Right?
That's the story of humanity.
Adam is me and you because he is
our father. We would have done the same,
frankly, we would have done it before our
father, Adam.
Adam. Adam made the mistake that he did,
and he was sent down.
But he recognized,
thenakunanaminalkhasireen.
You Arab,
I wronged myself. I did something I shouldn't
have done. Own up. Be responsible.
Those addictions you're struggling with, the friendships that
are haram, the people that are in your
life that shouldn't be there, the dealings you
do that are filthy, that are haram for
your wealth,
We all know. You know. Between you and
Allah, it shouldn't be there.
Raise your hands and say, You Rabbi, you
know
my sins.
I don't need to hide you. There is
nothing to hide from you. You Rabbi, I
come to you confessing
my sins.
You Rabbi,
with these sins,
I come to you knowing
no one can forgive other than you.
You are the ghafur.
You are the ghafar. You are the tawab.
You Rabb, you promised us in the Quran
that you forgive all sins. You Rabb, I
believe the Quran. So I'm here right now
asking you, Allah, forgive all of my sins,
the first of the sins and the last
of the sins, the major of the sins,
the minor of the sins, the public of
the sins, the private of the sins.
Open your hands to Allah. Open your hearts
to Allah. Beg and plead.
And in that, dear Muslim, is your salvation,
not in becoming angels, not in becoming sinless.
That's not going to happen. That's not why
Allah created you. Don't you understand?
You were created
to manifest Allah's rahmah,
and so desire that rahmah. Show Allah you
want that rahmah. Show Allah you want to
be forgiven.
And if you do so sincerely and a
part of being sincere,
a part of being sincere is you put
in the effort.
You have to try. You can't just continue
to live your lifestyle of yesterday.
Again, you're not gonna be perfect. You and
I are gonna fall back to some of
those same sins, but try.
If you're a 5 out of a 100,
try to get to 10 15 out of
a 100. Right? And as Ramadan comes, try
to get higher and higher. You put in
that effort.
Just be better than you were yesterday.
O Muslim, you're not competing with the Prophets
and the Ambia and the Awliya, you're competing
with yourself.
You are your worst enemy.
If you can beat yourself, you'll win. Simple
as that. If you can be better today
than you were yesterday,
and you can be better tomorrow than you
were today,
you are a winner.
You are in your own race. You're not
competing with anybody else.
So as you are here today in the
first of the 10 nights,
I ask myself and all of you,
think about
that which is holding you back between you
and Allah.
Think about what is dragging you down.
And you know you don't want it. Wallahi,
you and I know we don't like these
things. They bring the stress and the grief
and the filth. They make us feel impure.
We don't want it, man. We really don't
want it. Deep down inside, we know it's
not good.
And that's why we're here right now on
Saturday night at 3:15 AM. That's why we're
here. Because we love feeling connected with our
Lord. Because nothing feels sweeter
than having that connection and taluk of our
qalb with our rabi.
There is no pleasure
greater than the pleasure of Islam.
There is no sweetness
more sweet than the sweetness of iman.
There is no nobility
more noble than the feeling of taqwa, and
that's why we're here right now. We know
this. That's why we're here.
So make this commitment between you and Allah.
You don't need any priests, any pundits. You
don't have any holy men. That's the beauty
of our religion. You and Allah, and you're
competing against yourself. Make that commitment right here
and now.
I'm going to be a better person
after this Ramadan.
Starting from now, not tomorrow, not the next
year, right now, I'm gonna try my best.
Think about your worst habits and make it
a point. I'm gonna start eliminating, cutting back
as much as I can. Think about that
which you need to do in your life,
whether it's your salah, whether it's your siyam,
and you make a commitment right here and
now. I'm gonna try my best to increase
that. And again, if you falter,
if you slip, if you
fall, you know what?
Dust off yourself, stand up again, and try
again. And if you fall again, stand up
again. And if you fall again, stand up,
and fall and stand, and fall and stand
until you meet your Lord, because it is
in your attempt to stand.
It is in your attempt to stand that
you will gain your salvation. Even if you
don't finish the race, o Muslim, even if
you don't get to the very first, as
long as you try and as long as
you attempt, you shall pass. This is a
guarantee,
a guarantee from Allah. Allah never fails the
one who tries,
unlike any boss, any professor, any teacher.
Allah never fails the one who tries.
So my sincere message to myself and all
of you, never lose hope.
Never lose hope. Keep on striving. Keep on
trying. No matter how guilty you are, no
matter how big your sins are,
Allah's mercy
is infinitely larger than you.
Allah's rahmah is infinitely vaster than you and
your petty sins.
So turn to Allah, cleanse your heart, be
firm in your commitment.
Even if your actions fail,
your commitment should not fail. Your commitment must
be up for the entirety of your life.
Remember, if you fail in your actions, don't
stop the commitment. The commitment has to be
maintained. You keep on trying and trying and
trying, and never stop trying. Never give up
hope.
Because as I said, in that
striving
and in that attempt,
this is what Allah wants. That's why Allah
created you and me,
to show the angels,
despite the fact these sinners are here, look
at how much they're trying.
Despite the fact they're not perfect, they still
are attempting
to be perfect.
And that is what the wisdom of our
creation is. So, O Muslim, as we begin
these nights,
cleanse your heart of any sin and evil.
Purify your intentions.
Ask Allah's forgiveness
tonight and every single night. Ask Allah for
hidayah. Ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to help
you to become better and religious. Ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to make the salat and
mustaqeem easy for you. That's why you say,
Ihdinasalalalmustaqeem over and over again so many times
a day. Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
allow you to overcome your addictions, your problems,
your troubles. Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
allow you to fall in love with the
sweetness of his religion, to fall in love
with this with with the intoxication
of iman so that the intoxications
of this dunya become nothing to you. Wallahi,
o Muslim. Wallahi.
Once you taste the intoxication of Ibadah, the
intoxication
worshiping Allah, there is no other intoxication in
this dunya that will ever compete with that.
And that's why the auliya and the muttaqun,
that's why the elite and the and the
righteous people, they are not tempted the way
me and you are tempted. It's not that
they are automatically created holy. It's that in
their struggle and in their attempt to become
better, they've tasted a sweetness.
They've tasted a reality that is more precious
to them than the fake realities me and
you live. That's the difference. It's not that
they were created different. It's that in their
struggles and in their attempts, they have reached
a level. And guess what? And with this,
I conclude,
you can also reach that level.
You can also reach that level. Don't ever
give up hope.
What is a pious person other than a
sinner who kept on trying and trying and
trying?
And every single pious person in history, every
single mutakih and wali, every single
person who achieved that level, they had to
begin right where you and I are.
Never lose hope. Turn to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Put your trust in Allah. Ask Allah
for forgiveness and hidayah, and In
sweetness of iman. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
raise our ranks, cause us to be of
those whose Ramadan is accepted, whose fasting is
accepted, of those who stand on little Qadr.
Allahujaanafihadashahari
min alfaizeen
birrahmatigarhamarrahimin
barakalu Muhammadin wala
barakalu Muhammadin wala