Yasmin Mogahed – Covid-19 – are we being punished

			comes from physical immunity, where we know that, you know, there can be a virus, whatever that
virus is whether that's COVID-19, or the flu. And that virus may not necessarily affect to people
exactly the same way. And the reason for that has to do with something called the immune system,
it's the body's ability to fight off that intruder in a sense, that challenge, and people who have a
strong immune system are able to handle a virus that would otherwise destroy another person who had
a compromised immune system. Similarly, when we talk about spiritual immunity, what does that mean?
It means having the spiritual reserve, essentially, to be able to tap into when you yourself are
		

			combating some sort of challenge. And the stronger your immunity, the stronger your reservoir, the
stronger your reserve, the stronger your ability will be to withstand those challenges. And now,
what's really amazing about about the way Alaska has designed immunity, is that after you have
combat in a challenge, or any, you know, this, this, this flew in this in this case, after you've
combat it, after you fought, and then you won, what happens next, you become actually stronger,
because of that challenge, which is amazing, because there's something that Allah has designed,
called, you know, the, the resistance now, right, because now your body has built an immunity to
		

			that specific virus. Similarly, when we build this strength, psychologically, and spiritually,
challenges end up instead of destroying us, they actually end up making us stronger. And that's
amazing. That's the design of a lesson kind of got it. And in fact, one of the reasons why Allah
sends challenges to the believers is in order to strengthen them in order to purify them. And Allah
Subhana Allah says, in the, in the poor en la level, you're on your own in order for them to return.
And so one of the things that Allah wants from us is he wants us to return back to him, he wants us
to, to become stronger through our challenges. Allah does not send challenges and this is very
		

			important to understand. Allah does not send afflictions to the believers except to strengthen them.
Allah does not send afflictions to believers to destroy them. This is an important distinction that
we have to understand a lot of people ask the question of, is this a punishment? How do I know? Am I
being punished? Or am I being tested? This is a classic question right? Now the answer is, how will
I know the difference? Well, really, the answer comes to how I respond. And we know that Allah has
intent, the purpose that Allah has, when he sends a, a, an affliction, to a nation to believers, he
he is his his purpose is actually to purify the believers, to strengthen the believers, to allow the
		

			believers to wake up and come back, come back to what come back to their purpose, come back to their
relationship with God. As a wake up call, Allah does not send afflictions to believers initially, in
order to punish them, but rather in order to allow them to come back and allow them to rectify
themselves. And so when we look at the circumstance we're in right now, here we are, it's Ramadan,
the messages are closed. We can't go to community of dogs we can barely see our families. You know,
we're in this lockdown. There's, there's uncertainty, there's fear. What is all of this mean? You
know, a lot of us are very confused. Is this a loss anger? Is this a love punishing us for
		

			something? And so what we have to do is put this into perspective. First, let's look at what Allah
says in the Quran, Allah subhanaw taala says in the Quran, that sometimes he allows us to taste a
lesser affliction, before the greater affliction, okay. So, so, here Allah has explained that there
are two types of afflictions there is an adaptable and adaptable Aqua or sorry, I will add to that
rather and then I will talk about so Allah subhanaw taala is saying that there is a lesser
affliction and there is a greater affliction. Now, what is the difference between them the lesser
affliction is intended to wake people up, it's not intended to destroy it's not intended to punish.
		

			It's actually intended to bring us back to wake us up to make us
		

			Realize that Whoa, you know, like, imagine that your house is on fire, right? How are you going to
know that your house is on fire initially, before you see you know the the fire in front of your
eyes, you're gonna know that your house is on fire because you have a smoke alarm that goes off and
it beeps right now that smoke alarm is intended as a warning, it's a wake up call. It's telling you
sort yourself out before your house burns down. Right? That's what that's the purpose of an alarm is
that it's it's telling you and it recognizes there's smoke and then it goes off and it tells you
take out this fire before it burns your house down. Okay? This is the same concept Allah sends us
		

			afflictions that are lesser in nature in order as in order to wake us up like a smoke detector like
a smoke alarm. And to to allow us to to, to address the fire before it burns your house down. Right.
So this is how we have to view what is happening around us is that these are actually mercies of
Allah subhanaw taala in disguise, if you look at the smoke detector, that's actually a mercy for
you. I know smoke detectors are really annoying when they go off, right? It's like a really
obnoxious sound. But that noxious sound is actually a mercy for you Why? Because it's telling you
that there's something you need to fix in your house, right. And if you don't fix it, your house is
		

			gonna burn down. Similarly, there's a lot of stuff we need to fix inside ourselves. There's a lot of
stuff we need to fix in the way we treat people. There's a lot of stuff we need to fix in terms of
how we interact with our families in terms of how we interact with God, in terms of the the stuff
that's in our hearts, there's a lot that we need to fix. And so Allah subhanaw taala allows us to to
have this wake up call so that we can fix it before it's too late. And this is the difference
between the lesser affliction, Allah double Edna and the greater affliction Allah. Allah devil,
Akbar, is an affliction that comes to wipe out a nation right? This is, this is the ending, right?
		

			This is like what happened to Pharaoh at the end of his life, even though Allah sent actually lesser
afflictions to Pharaoh in order to give him a chance as well to wake up and to fix himself. But he
didn't. He refused every single one. And so what happened is the at the very end when Allah subhanaw
taala, allowed the Red Sea to drown him that was the greater affliction that was available. Because
it, he couldn't come back from it. And so the lesser affliction the smoke detector in my analogy, it
gives us an opportunity to come back to, to repent, to fix ourselves, it's like, it's like an
opportunity right now. It's a pause. And then on top of it, Allah gives us Ramadan, right? And it's
		

			a pause, so that we can look at our lives and we can look at ourselves and we can ask what needs to
change? What do I need to fix? Have I have I abandoned the Quran? Have I have I have I, you know,
not kept the ties of kinship? Have I been? Have I not been good to my parents? Have I not been
keeping up my responsibilities? You know, how have I been treating people? And wait a minute, do I
have diseases internally that that that are now becoming manifested, for example, selfishness,
right? A lot of people are they're they're, they're becoming exposed not not just to the world, not
to others necessarily, but to themselves that like this, this knee jerk reaction that when there's a
		

			scarcity nipsey nipsey, myself myself that that people want to hoard for themselves? That's an
indication of a disease internally of selfishness, right? Are we thinking of others? Are we just
simply wanting to cover it for ourselves? So these are all things that the circumstance allows us to
see so that we can rectify. Now when you look at Ramadan and the fact that Ramadan is now in this
unprecedented circumstance right now, Rob Bell Dawn is at a time when we can't really you know, we
can't go to the community of thugs. We can't go to the masjid we can go to Torah. We know a lot of
people, understandably, are very upset about that. And we're extremely afraid that oh my god, how is
		

			this going to be Ramadan without Fotolia and without the masjid and without our community? And I
want to just examine that for a moment. If you go back and you look at what the prophets I send them
said about Ramadan, and the reward of Ramadan, you find something very interesting. There are three
heads in which the prophets I send them talks about the reward of Ramadan and how we can get our
sins forgiven. The first one, the prophets
		

			Selim says, men Salama Ramadan, Eman and wacky Sabbath so that the requirement here is whoever fasts
and Ramadan with amen and with hoping the reward from Allah. So those are the two requirements, then
that person will have all their sins forgiven. The next one is whoever stands in praise pm in
Ramadan with the men and hoping for the reward from Allah will have all their sins forgiven. And
then finally, there is whoever stands on Laila to cut through the night of
		

			Eman and YT seven again, with amen and hope in Allah subhanaw taala will have all their sins
forgiven. Now let's look at these three golden opportunities that are given to us in Ramadan. Have
we in this global pandemic been deprived of any one of those three? Have we been deprived from
fasting? Have we been deprived from praying at night? Have we been deprived from a local pub? And
the answer is no we have not been deprived from any single one of these three opportunities to have
all our sins forgiven.