Yasir Qadhi – What Should YOU do in Summer Break
AI: Summary ©
The importance of Islam is highlighted in a busy spring holiday season, emphasizing the need to not miss out on the blessings of Islam and the joy of life. The holy spirit is seen as a natural proof and a natural proof, and is meant to guide and guide us. The importance of learning and researching multiple gods is also emphasized, as it is designed to ensure one's existence. The speaker advises parents to focus on the holy spirit and not waste their youth. They stress the importance of faith in oneself and the future, and suggest learning to live up to what God has revealed.
AI: Summary ©
No Muslim can ever do what the evil
people are doing to those children of Gaza.
No Muslim, no matter what group has done
whatever,
no Muslim would ever resort to that type
of evil. Why? Because we have belief in
God.
Dear Muslims, you're all aware
that this week is the 1st week of
our holidays, the summer holidays.
And so our masajid are full of our
youth, our middle and high school students, they
are coming to our masajid.
And so I ask the elders for an
indulgence that today's khutbah is meant primarily for
our youth. It is meant for them, to
encourage them, and to speak at their level.
So I ask the indulgence of the elders
to allow me to do this opportune khutbah
in light of the week that we are
in. And my message to my young brothers
and sisters
will comprise of 7 basic points,
very simple points. You don't have to take
any notes, you can watch it online later
on, and take notes from the online video,
Insha'AllahHu Ta'ala. I want to remind all of
you of 7 very simple points that I
want you to understand,
to memorize,
to digest and to appreciate.
The first of these points,
we must be thankful
that Allah blessed us with Islam.
Dear brothers and sisters, dear youngsters,
the biggest blessing Allah has given you and
me is the blessing of Islam.
And you know, when you have a blessing,
you take it for granted.
When you have something, you don't appreciate it.
So it needs to be reminded,
you need to be told sometimes, you need
to be prodded,
there is no blessing
bigger in your lives right now than the
blessing of Islam, and Allah has gifted you
this blessing without even you asking for it.
Allah has blessed you with families that are
Muslim, so you have been born into Islam.
There are so many people, and you know
them around us, they have to search for
the truth. They have to find the truth.
They don't know the purpose of life. They
don't know why they are here. They don't
know how to live their lives. And since
your birth, and since your childhood, and since
your upbringing, you have been taught a code
of life. You have been taught some basic
Islamic theology,
basic Islamic manners, and you take it for
granted. But Allah azza wa Jal reminds us
that the biggest blessing He has given us
is the
blessing reminds us that the biggest blessing He
has given us is the blessing of Islam.
Allah says,
Allah has chosen you. Allah chooses who to
guide, and some of us are born into
the faith, and others they have to struggle
and find the faith, and those whom Allah
chooses to be born in, we should be
extra appreciative, we should be thankful to Allah
because you and I don't know if we
were born outside the faith, would we choose?
If we were born in another faith, would
we
take the courage and the intellectual
curiosity
and the explore and to actually make this
very difficult decision? Allah lifted that from us
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala alaihi
wa
sallam,
but
they
weren't strong believers. The time of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, but they weren't strong
believers, they were weak in their faith. And
so they came to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam boasting, Hey, we were the ones who
converted to Islam. Allah revealed in the Quran,
They think
they are doing you a favor by converting
to Islam.
No!
Rather
Allah has blessed you by guiding you to
iman. This is a blessing from Allah. It
is the biggest blessing,
far bigger than any other blessing. So appreciate
this blessing, and understand that Allah gifted you
all of this without even you asking. So
then what do you think He's gonna give
you if you actually ask Him? He gave
you the biggest blessing, and you didn't even
ask for it. So imagine if you turn
to Allah and you asked Allah how much
more would He give you. The second point
that I want us to reflect over
is that for us as Muslims,
religion
is not meant to make life difficult.
It is meant to make life noble.
Religion is not meant as a set of
rules
so that you don't have fun in life.
No. That's not the purpose of religion.
Religion is meant to give meaning to our
lives,
to tell us why we're here, to tell
us where we're going, and to tell us
how to get there. Without religion,
life becomes without value and meaning. Can you
imagine one day if you woke up in
a beautiful
luxury car, luxury jet, luxury yacht, and there
was nobody else there. You're getting all the
food you want, all the water you want.
You're having all the fun you want. All
your video games are there, but you don't
know where the ship is going and you're
just living your life day by day. Wouldn't
you be totally perplexed? What's going on? I
have everything I need, but what is the
purpose? Why did I end up over here?
Well, imagine life is even more precious than
some luxury yacht, and Allah has blessed you
with this life.
And since you were born into the faith,
you are taking for granted the questions
and the answers the faith gives you. But
somebody has to remind you, if you didn't
have Islam, you wouldn't know why you're here.
You wouldn't know who created you. You wouldn't
know where are going. We're going to Jannah
Insha'Allah Wa Ta'ala. You wouldn't know how to
get there. So Islam
is not meant to restrict your life. It's
not meant to make less fun for you.
No. Islam is meant to provide meaning to
your life, to make sense of why you
are here, to make life noble, to give
you a higher purpose.
And Allah
mentions in the Quran,
He didn't make the religion difficult, wama jalaalaykumfiddeenimin
araj. Allah says in the Quran,
I want to make things easy for you,
not to make things difficult for you. So
religion
is there so that we understand the biggest
questions. And what are the biggest questions?
Why am I here?
Who created me? Where will I go once
this world finishes? What is the purpose of
my being here? How do I live life
to the maximum?
These questions
you and I take for granted because we
know them, and we know them because of
Islam.
But I'm here to remind you, if you
didn't have Islam, you wouldn't have answers to
these questions, and you would be searching, or
even worse,
you wouldn't even bear to ask the question,
and you would just live your life like
the animals live their lives. But we are
not mere animals, We are more noble than
animals. Allah says in the Quran, out of
all of the creation, walakadakarramna
bani Adam, We have honored the children of
Adam. We have honored them above all the
other creation. When Allah created my mother and
father Adam and Hawa, when Allah created Adam
and Hawa, He even told the angels to
bow down to our parents to honor them.
We are honored.
How are we honored? Because Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala gave us a mind to think. He
gave us rationality.
He gave us a spirit to live our
lives with. He gave us what he didn't
give any of the other animals and creatures
around us. So to honor Allah, we need
Islam, and Islam provides answers to the most
difficult questions of life. Provides
answers to the most difficult questions of life.
Islam tells us right from wrong, good from
evil. If we didn't
have Islam, how would we know good from
evil? Look around, every few years, we need
to know good from evil. We need to
know good from evil. Look around, every few
years, we need to know good from evil.
We need to know good from evil. We
need to know good from evil. We need
to know good from evil. We need to
know good from evil. Look around, every few
years, Islam, how would we know good from
evil? Look around. Every few years, society changes
what is good and evil. Every few decades,
morality changes. That doesn't make any sense. So
Allah has told us what is good and
what is bad. Allah has told us what
is pure and what is impure. So we
have a code of ethics and a law
to live by. This leads me to my
3rd point.
Sometimes some of us come,
and they ask a very deep question, and
that is, but okay, I was born a
Muslim, but how do I know Islam is
true? I was born a Muslim, but I'm
just taking it for granted Islam is true.
And this is a very good question, it's
a very profound question, and I will answer
it in my 3rd and my 4th point.
We know Islam is true, point number 3,
because
Islam
is the most reasonable
and common sense religion, and it appeals
to our notions of logic and rationality.
There is no other religion
that is as easy and as comprehensible
and as in tune with our nature than
Islam. And I challenge you when you get
older to read other religions, and you will
see even a cursory reading you will understand.
We believe there is 1 God, All Perfect,
mighty, the creator of the heavens and earth.
We don't need complicated proofs to tell us
He exists. Our existence
means He exists. The world is so beautiful.
Who created that beauty? The world is so
perfect, who made that perfection? When the creation
is so perfect,
how much perfect do you think the Creator
must be? And Allah tells us in the
Quran, look around you, do you see any
flaw in the design?
Look around you, is there a crack in
the world and the heavens? Look
He is the one who fashions al musawwir.
He gave us our shapes. He made the
shapes of the bodies. He breathed life into
all of the creation. We need an all
perfect creator, and it doesn't make sense to
have multiple gods. Look at what happens when
you believe in multiple gods. Look at the
mythologies of the other religions out there, gods
fighting each other. Allah says in the Quran,
if there were multiple gods, you would see
the creation itself fighting. You would see civil
war between the gods. There is no civil
war in the world around us, in nature.
Nature is perfectly symmetrical. This means there must
be one creator who has made nature fully
systematic.
Allah is the one who has put the
laws of biology, the laws laws of physics,
the laws of chemistry. You study them in
your middle school and high school. Who created
Newton's equations? Who put all of these structures
into place, who was the one who made
osmosis,
who was the one who made the plant
that it absorbs carbon dioxide and gives out
oxygen, and then we are the humans, we
absorb oxygen, give out carbon dioxide. This perfect
synergy,
everything fits into place, more complicated than the
most complex puzzle, and Allah made everything seamless.
We don't need
very complicated proofs for God's existence.
Allah's existence is evident. Open your eyes. You
are a proof Allah exists. Now what other
religion has the simplicity of 1 God who
is all perfect, who is above us? He
is not like us. He is unique. We
don't believe in a God that is walking
on earth. We don't believe in a God
that comes down, and eats and drinks, and
has children. That doesn't make any sense. Allah
says,
Allah doesn't have uncles and aunts and cousins.
Doesn't make any sense. And the Quran tells
us,
There is nothing like Allah. Allah is absolutely
unique. Belief in 1 God, belief in prophets
to communicate. How does this God communicate with
us? Surely, there must be people who communicate
with Him, and that is the role of
prophets. So Allah sent prophets through all of
humankind,
and those Prophets had the same message. This
is another fundamental belief of Islam. No other
religion believes this. You look at any 2
religions they're contradicting. For us, we say no.
Every religion had one kernel that was true.
Every religion that came from Allah, it preached
the same concept of 1 God and prophet
and day of judgment. And if you look
historically, we find this to be true. So
we know Islam to be true because
it appeals to our conscience. It appeals to
our common sense. Allah gave us a brain.
Allah gave us common sense, and the religion
makes sense to our common sense. The religion
appeals to the intellect Allah created in us.
And if you look at any other religion,
we say politely, we're not being rude, we
say, your religion doesn't make any sense. How
can 3 equal 1? How can God have
a son, and then the son dies on
the cross? And then were there 2 gods
when the sun died, and then the sun
it doesn't make any sense. Politely, we're not
trying to be rude, but it doesn't make
any sense. How can there be 50 gods,
a 1000 gods? They must be fighting one
another. So we say to other religions, your
religions don't make logical sense. We have a
simple religion, one God, same line of prophets
with the same message, and then there must
be a hereafter.
Why must there be a hereafter? Because we
see this world is not fair. We see
this world, things happen that they shouldn't happen.
Sometimes the thief gets rewarded. Sometimes the evil
person gets away with the crime, and the
poor person or the the the righteous person
dies a miserable death. That's not fair. There
must be a hereafter.
Hereafter
is where ultimate justice will be demonstrated. So
these are the 3 main beliefs of our
religion. 1 God, prophets, and day of judgment.
This is the simple belief that we hold.
But that's not our only reason to believe
in Islam. Point number 4.
We know Islam to be true,
because we have an amazing,
amazing miracle.
We have a miracle
that we can turn to anytime we have
any doubts,
and that is the miracle of the Quran.
We know Islam to be true
because there is a miracle
that we can all listen to, we can
all recite, we can all experience,
and that is the miracle of the Quran,
the power of the Quran, the message of
the Quran, the impact of the Quran, the
memorization of the Quran, the very fact that
this book, 600 pages, it is memorized by
a 10 year old. Our own epic masjid
produces huffad constantly. They don't even speak the
language and they memorize the whole book of
Allah. There is no other book on earth
that is memorized even a fraction of how
much the Quran is memorized by people who
don't even speak the language. If this isn't
a miracle, then what is a miracle? So
every aspect of the Quran is a miracle,
its revelation is a miracle, the life of
the Prophet upon whom it was revealed is
a miracle. The seerah is a miracle. The
success of our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is a miracle. His akhlaq is a miracle.
The revelation of the Quran, the impact the
Quran has, and you know, every one of
you knows this, when you listen to the
Quran,
the impact of that recitation,
even if you don't understand Arabic,
no other recitation has that impact on your
qalb. This is a miracle, and Allah mentions
the miracle in the book. Allah says in
the book,
in the Quran itself, they come to you
asking for miracles.
Allah says,
Isn't it enough of a miracle
that we have revealed to them this book
that they listened to and tilawah is done?
The book is a sufficient miracle. So, dear
youngsters,
anytime Shaytan comes to you, you get any
doubt, I am telling you, turn on the
Quran. Turn on to a recitation of the
Quran. Listen to the Quran. Read the Quran.
And I guarantee you, if you listen to
the Quran with your heart and your soul,
any doubt will go away, because the Quran,
Allah says in the Quran that it is
a healness for the disease of the heart.
Walunaziruminaqurani
mahuashifaunwarahmatulilmuminin.
Any disease of the heart, spiritual disease, any
doubts that you have, listen to the Quran,
and it will go away. So this is
my 4th point.
3rd point, we know Islam to be true
because of rationality, because it appeals to our
soul. 4th point, we know Islam to be
true as well because of the Quran. Both
points together. We have a natural proof, and
we have a supernatural proof. We have a
logical proof, and we have a religious proof.
Both of them come together when it comes
to Islam.
The 5th point that I have.
Now that we've come to the conclusion, Allah
has blessed us with Islam, and Islam is
meant to guide us, and we know Islam
to be true.
What if
you come across a ruling, a commandment,
a verse of the Quran, a hadith,
And you ask yourself, or your friends ask,
a non Muslim friend, or you listen to
a lecture by somebody who's trying to poke
doubts,
and they try to
ask you, but this ruling doesn't make any
sense.
Why would God allow such a thing, or
why would God prohibit such a thing?
And you don't know the answer to that
question.
What if you cannot explain
why something is halal or why something is
haram?
My response to this is actually very easy,
and that is
just like you understand
that sometimes the wisdoms of commandments are beyond
you, and the more you grow in knowledge,
the more you will understand the wisdoms,
So too you have to understand
that sometimes the wisdoms of commandments will be
beyond you, even
a example that even you will understand. When
you were a young child, when you were
5 years old maybe, your parents would say
to you, don't watch too much TV, don't
eat just sweets. Maybe when you're 5, you're
wondering, why can't I eat? I I don't
wanna eat any any any, fruits and vegetables.
I just wanna eat cake. I just wanna
eat, you know, cookies.
Maybe when you're 5, you're irritated. I just
wanna watch TV. I don't wanna go to
school. But now that you're 10, you're 15,
even you understand, of course, I can't just
live by sweets. I need food. I can't
just watch TV all day. I need to
go to school. With age comes wisdom. With
more knowledge comes understanding.
So the question arises,
do you think your knowledge and wisdom is
infinite, or is it finite?
If you know that it is finite, then
there must be a level of trust you
give to the infinite.
There must be just like you trust your
parents when they told you, you can't just
eat sweets. Now you understand the wisdom, you
can't just eat sweets. Well then, what if
there's a commandment you don't fully understand?
So be it. You don't have to understand
it. You have to have trust in Allah.
In fact, the Quran tells us, there are
certain things that I have made
allowed for you, and you don't like them.
Wa asa an wa taqarahushayin wa khayrullahqaw Allah
says, sometimes
you don't like something, but it is good
for you. And sometimes you like something, and
it is bad for you. This is in
the Quran.
So my point number 5, you have to
humble your own mind. You are not all
knowledgeable, I am not all knowledgeable,
Allah is all knowledgeable.
So once you come to the conclusion, points
number 3 and 4, that Islam is correct,
and you come to this conclusion by answering
the big questions, who is God? What is
the nature of God? What is the purpose
of life? These are the big questions.
Then you come to a smaller question. Why
do we pray 5 times a day?
Well, maybe I don't know the answer. Why
5? Why not 6? Why not 7? Why
do we do wudu, and we just go
to here and not over there? Why do
I must rub the
wipe the hair and wash the hands? Maybe
I don't have a good answer for that.
But are you going to base
the claim that Islam is true based upon
you understanding wudu? No. That's not how you
make a judgment about Islam.
So, any halal that you don't understand, any
haram that you don't understand,
you must understand one point, which is, Allah
says in the Quran,
Everything that is harmful for you, I have
made it haram. And everything that is good
for you, I have made it halal.
Allah has made that which is harmful haram.
Just like the parent, when the parent says
you can't just eat cake.
Maybe you at 5 don't understand this point.
Well maybe when you're 50, you won't understand
every ruling of Allah, but you must trust
Allah,
because Allah does not make the good haram,
Allah does not make the pure haram, Allah
only makes the evil haram. Anything that is
harmful to you or to society,
anything that is dangerous to you or to
civil order, Allah has made it haram. Therefore,
I'm telling you from now, you're not gonna
understand
every single ruling of Islam. You're not.
Because that's not the purpose.
There will be rulings you might be confused
by. What is the wisdom? So find out,
is it an actual ruling? Is there something
that because you have to differentiate, some things
are culture and some things are Islam. And
if it's culture, well then you're at an
easier things because cultures change. But if it
is Islam, and it's in the Quran, or
it's in the sunnah, it's something clear cut,
well then, we must hear, and we must
obey, and we must submit, because that's what
faith is. We put our trust in Allah.
Even if we don't understand, well, we know
Allah wants what is beneficial. So this is
my 5th point.
Everything in our religion is meant to make
life better, wholesome,
pure, not just for us individually, for all
of society as well. My 6th point,
especially in light of the fact that we're
beginning summer, but not just about summer. This
is a point especially at your age.
I advise you as your older brother to
understand
that
time will fly by.
And before you know it, right now, you're
10, you're 12, you're 15. Before you know
it, you're gonna be 30, 40, 50.
Take advantage of your youth
before you become older. Take advantage of these
3 months of the summer. You have 3
months with absolutely no assignments from school, and
I understand
you wanna play. Xbox is calling you. PlayStation
is calling you. Your friends are calling you.
By the way, I hope it's your friends
actually calling for physical playing and not just
games and at home is healthy to go
outside and play. I understand.
And wallahi, no problem. Play a little bit
of Xbox. Play a little bit of PlayStation.
But
my sincere advice says your older brother,
don't waste 3 months having accomplished nothing.
Don't waste this whole years of your youth
doing nothing.
When you're older, you will not be able
to get this time back. And if you
want to be successful,
and by successful
I don't just mean religiously successful, I even
mean successful in this world. You want to
be a good businessman, a good lawyer, a
good engineer, a good doctor, you want to
have a healthy family, you want to have
a good career,
every successful person takes advantage of his or
her time. So I am advising you, as
your older brother, no matter what your age
is, whether you're 7 years old, whether you're
10, whether you're 15,
Do something at your age that is useful
and productive. And I have a task. Maybe
the parents won't like this, but you can
mention my name and say you heard it
in the Khutba. Go to your parents today
or tomorrow. Go to them, and write a
contract with them. Say the sheikh said to
do this in the khutba. Say that
give me some assignments that are good for
my age level.
Give me some tasks, some books to read,
some lectures to listen to, some surahs to
memorize.
And if I do,
you have to give me a prize by
the end of the summer.
Mention my name and say to your parents,
the Sheikh says so on the Khutba. I'll
deal with the anger. Don't worry. Say to
your parents,
if I memorize this many surahs, what will
I get by the end of the summer?
If I read these books, what gift will
you give me? And you can, as I
said, use my name, and I'll deal with
the parents. But I want the parents to
assign
useful,
productive things that are for your age that
will make the summer good for you. Yes.
Have some fun, but do something productive. And
by the way, parents, it's halal to incentivize
with the dunya as well. Nothing wrong here.
Let them do it for Allah and also
for the gifts that you will give them,
because I said you're gonna give them in
the khutba. But make sure they take advantage
of their time so that they benefit in
this time that Allah has gifted them with.
This is my 6th point. And my 7th
and final point for the first khutba is,
dear young brothers and sisters,
you're not gonna be perfect.
I'm not perfect.
You are human.
You will make mistakes.
You will fall. You will get dirty.
Remember,
when you go right or left from the
path,
when you take the wrong road,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will always accept you
back.
Allah will always forgive you.
Allah will always cleanse you of no matter
how much you have done.
So never ever give up hope in Allah.
If you fell down, you have to stand
up and continue walking. If you got yourself
dirty,
take a shower, change your clothes, and I
mean physically and spiritually. If you did something
you shouldn't have done, turn to Allah
as fast as you can. And
if you need some help, get help with
your parents. If you need to tell somebody
something, tell them something, but do not remain
on the path of error. Let me give
you a simple example. Suppose you're riding, you
one day you'll have a car, you're gonna
be going on the road. Suppose you took
the wrong turn, instead of going straight you
turned right, And you realized you went on
the wrong turn an hour down the road.
What are you gonna do? Continue going forever?
You have to turn back and find the
right path. If you understand this for this
world, know that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will
accept you coming back to the right path
at any time, and the faster you come
back, the better it is for you. But
my message to you, don't lose hope if
you go right and left, and you find
yourself where you shouldn't be. Do not lose
hope in Allah. Sometimes you might do something
you shouldn't do. That's bad, you shouldn't have
done it. But as soon as you realize
that, cleanse yourself. How do you cleanse yourself?
Raise your hands and say, O Allah, forgive
me and guide me. O Allah, I made
a mistake, let me come back to You,
and turn back to Allah, and make the
effort, and make the effort again, and again,
and again. And it is in that effort
that Allah will forgive you. You're not gonna
be perfect. I'm not perfect. Allah didn't create
you to be perfect, but you cannot give
up.
You cannot accept status quo as being something
that's wrong. You have to try to be
good, and in that trying, insha'allah,
that is where your blessings will come. Dear
youngsters, dear younger brothers and sisters, I want
to say to you on a personal note,
as a parent to some of you literally
right now in the audience, and as an
elder brother and sister to inshallah all of
you, sometimes
us parents, we are a bit too strict.
We come off as too harsh, but I
want you to know we do it because
we love you and we care about you.
We do it because we want you to
succeed.
We want you to flourish. You might not
understand,
and sometimes we might actually be too harsh.
By the way, sometimes we're not too harsh.
You think we're too harsh. But sometimes, maybe
you're right, we are too harsh, but we're
not doing it because we wanna make life
difficult for you. We're not doing it to
restrict your freedoms and pleasures. We're not doing
it because we don't wanna see you happy.
No. We are strict because we want to
see you happy. We are strict because we
want to see you succeed.
Dear youngsters, a day will come when you
are parents that you will realize how much
we love you. At this stage, it's too
much for you to understand, but all that
we do is out of love, out of
concern, out of care. We want to see
you flourish. We your happiness wallahi
is more precious to us than our happiness.
You don't understand that right now. These are
words to you, but every parent knows to
see you succeed
is our success. We will gladly
give up our happiness for your happiness. And
you need to understand that you are our
future. Everything we do, even our worldly stuff,
why do we go to work? Why? It's
for your happiness and to protect you. You
might be too young to fully understand, but
understand this point, and that is we love
you, and we want to see you flourish.
We want to see you succeed. You are
the future, and we are here for you.
Understand this point, and when you understand it,
appreciate, and try your best to live up.
And if you don't live up initially, keep
on trying and trying trying, and in that
trying will be your success
and our success as well. May Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala bless me and you with truth
through the Quran, and may He make us
of those who, it's verses they understand and
apply its halal and haram throughout our lifespan.
I ask Allah's forgiveness. You as well ask
him for his Ghafoor and the Rahman.
Alhamdulillah,
all praise is due to Allah, the One
and the Unique.
He it is whom we worship,
and it is His aid that we seek.
He is the Lord of the oppressed, and
He hears the prayer of the weak. As
to what follows,
before I finish my khutba for today,
I must mention the reality of what is
happening in Gaza.
A young sister of ours in middle school,
15 maybe years old, came up and asked
me,
how do we understand
this pain? Why is Allah allowing this to
happen to children?
And
my response
was,
I can't
explain to you, dear young sister of mine,
in 5 minutes. And perhaps even as adults,
we're struggling to understand.
I wish I could shield you from that
pain. I wish you didn't have to try
to understand at this age of your lives
how evil the world can be, how cruel
the world can be. And maybe I'm not
qualified to try to explain. Maybe even I'm
struggling, and the adults are struggling.
But
Allah has tested the children of Gaza,
and Allah has tested them in ways we
cannot even comprehend.
They are not shielded, so you also should
not be shielded.
They have had to mature
way beyond their years,
way beyond their years. And so perhaps Allah
is using them to cause you some maturity
even as we sit 5,000 miles away.
I don't know how to explain to you
the complexity
of the situation,
but I do know, I do know that
this is a wake up call. It is
a catalyst
that will force you to mature.
You cannot
remain the same when you see the evil
that is being perpetrated.
And I have given many khutbas from this
mimbar, you can find them online, to the
adults trying to rationalize and explain, how do
we understand the pain, the suffering, the divine
wisdom?
So if you wanna listen to that, listen
to those lectures as well. But in a
nutshell,
this is where faith comes the most essential.
It is faith that keeps us sane. It
is faith that gives us hope when there
is no hope. It is faith that gives
us courage. It is faith that causes us
to look forward to the day of judgment.
This is where faith really makes the most
sense and the most need. So we turn
to Allah. We might not fully understand the
day of judgment, and there is a hereafter.
Every pain that the children of Gaza are
suffering,
and
is a hereafter. Every pain that the children
of Gaza are suffering, every pain that their
parents have had to bear, every single person
that has passed away, they are not dead.
Allah says they're alive in Jannah right now.
Allah says they're alive in Jannah right now.
Allah says they're alive in Jannah right now.
Allah says they're alive in Jannah right now.
Allah says they're alive in Jannah right now.
Allah says
they are not dead. Allah says they're alive
in Jannah right now. Allah says they are
being provided by Allah. We have to take
comfort that what is prepared for them in
the hereafter is better for them. This life,
how long is it gonna be? It's a
short life, and the hereafter
is the real life. So whatever is happening
now, there will be a day of judgment,
and all the evil that is being done
by those evil people, all of the tyranny,
all of the injustice,
that is why we look forward to the
day of judgment. Also,
during this time frame, when we see how
evil some people can be, we are reminded
what happens when you don't have fear of
God, when you don't have love of God.
You become worse than animals.
No Muslim can ever do what the evil
people are doing to those children of Ghazah.
No Muslim, no matter what group has done
whatever,
no Muslim would ever resort to that type
of evil. Why? Because we have belief in
God. When you believe in God, when you
have faith, then automatically
your morality, your akhlaah comes to a higher
level. What happens when you don't believe in
God? What happens when you don't have faith?
We see how people can act. So we
go back to my first point. Thank Allah
for having iman.
Thank Allah for being Muslim. Thank Allah for
understanding,
and understand as well. When you don't have
that
faith, you can hate,
and you can be full of so much
evil
that the mind cannot comprehend.
It is truly
terrifying,
and I hear you, and I sympathize with
you. It is terrifying
to see our own politicians, and to see
our own media pundits
justify what is happening, and the massacre of
children.
It is absolutely terrifying, and I wish I
could explain to your young 15 year old
mind how to make sense of this. But
just like the children of Ghazah are forced
to become adults,
perhaps this incident will force you as well
to become more mature. It will force you
to realize the world is not fun and
games. The world is not just play. The
world is full of evil and also full
of hope. And religion forces you to fight
against the evil. Religion forces you to take
a stand. Religion gives you a noble cause,
so use what is happening in ghazah to
think, to ponder, to reflect, to study. Use
what is happening in ghazah as a catalyst
for you to rise up and become more
mature, and in the process rediscover your faith
and come closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And if you do that, then perhaps,
perhaps we automatically see some of the wisdoms
of what is happening. Allah has tested them
and chosen them in order to revive the
iman of the ummah. The whole ummah is
now rethinking through, and so much good is
also coming out of the evil, and this
is what we come to firmly,
that the net result of every single pain
is more positive than negative. That's what we
believe. The net result is there's more good
than bad. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala to give us courage, to give us
hope, we ask Allah to guide us through
these difficult times.