In the Name of Allah the most Gracious. Most Merciful.
May the blessing and Peace be upon the Messenger of Allah and all praise be to Allah: we praise Him, we seek His Aid, His Guidance onto the right path, His Forgiveness, and his Refuge from the evils in our souls and the sins in our deeds.
He whom Allah guides, he is the rightly-guided; but he whom HE sends astray, for him you will find no guiding advocate.
To start I have three suggestions to make and agree on so we could apply them together:
1. Sincerity and Honesty in your work is for Allah (SWT) alone. Your work should be sincere and devoted to the service and the pleasure of Allah (praise and Glory to Him) and not to a person that you hold dear to heart. People come and go, don’t let yourself become attached to someone in such a way that you are only ready to become “guided” for his/her sake.
2. Just like the moon and the sun, Islam is a natural Phenomenon. It is one of the main fundamentals of life. If the moon and the sun disappear it will be doomsday. Islam is great; it organizes and guides human life. It has remained strong since its appearance in the days of the Prophet (PBUH).
Don’t look at our Ummah’s situation now. It is not what Islam is about. Islam in our current Ummah’s situation is like the eclipse of the sun. An eclipse of the sun is different from a setting of the sun. The birds with their natural instincts know when it is an eclipse of a sun rather then a setting of the sun. They go to their nests during an eclipse and remain there waiting till the sun appears again. The birds are sure that this is not a setting of the sun because of the flicker of light that appears from the eclipse.
Therefore Islam is strong… maybe not at the moment… but at the moment it is like an eclipse of the sun… an exceptional case… but there is still that flicker of light.. That flicker is “the young Muslims” … the youth… our biggest hope for the future.
Allah's Messenger (PBUH) said: “Allah (glorified and exalted be He) has supernumerary angels who rove about seeking out gatherings in which Allah's name is being invoked: they sit with them and fold their wings round each other, filling that which is between them and between the lowest heaven. When [the people in the gathering] depart, [the angels] ascend and rise up to heaven. He (the Prophet, Peace and blessing be upon him) said: Then Allah (mighty and sublime be He) asks them - [though] He is most knowing about them: From where have you come? And they say: We have come from some servants of Yours on Earth: they were glorifying You (Subhan Allah), exalting you (Allahu-akbar), witnessing that there is no god but You (La-ilaha illa-llah), praising You (Al-Hamdu lillah), and asking [favors] of You. He says: And what do they ask of Me? They say: They ask of You Your Paradise. He says: And have they seen My Paradise? They say: No, O Lord. He says: And how would it be were they to have seen My Paradise! They say: And they ask protection of You. He says: From what do they ask protection of Me? They say: From Your Hell-fire, O Lord. He says: And have they seen My Hell-fire? They say: NO. He says: And how would it be were they to have seen My Hell-fire: They say: And they ask for Your forgiveness. He (the Prophet, Peace and blessing be upon him) said: Then He says: I have forgiven them and I have bestowed upon them what they have asked for, and I have granted them sanctuary from that from which they asked protection. He (the Prophet, Peace and blessing be upon him) said: They say: O Lord, among then is So-and-so, a much sinning servant, who was merely passing by and sat down with them. He (the Prophet, Peace and blessing be upon him) said: And He says: And to him [too] I have given forgiveness: he who sits with such people shall not suffer.” (It was related by Muslim (also by al-Bukhari, at-Tirmidhi, and an-Nasa'i)
As you notice, Allah (Praise and Glory be to Him) did not mention the extent of His Forgiveness because it varies according to the intentions and the sincerity of the person asking for it and his nearness to Allah. The more you love being nearer to Allah, the more the forgiveness. This will surely reinforce your devotion to Him and no one else.
3. There is another point I would like to clarify before I start talking about the topic of my lecture. It is something to do with our youth. You are our hope in making Islam prosperous again and you are our hope to see our country become one of the best countries in the world.
The lack of objective we have in mind when we are studying in schools and in universities is our problem. No one thinks that he/she could become someone important in the future.
Sociologists have performed some experiments to determine which societies will fall and which ones will continue to strive in the future. They have been able to pinpoint exactly the time at which some societies would fall or prosper. Their findings have not been proven to be wrong in fact they have proven to be correct every time the research has been performed. According to these studies, Norway has 30 years to go until we witness the fall of its society whereas Jordan needs 10 years to be an influential country in the world.
How did they know that?
The way they do their research is by going to the universities in each country and asking the young people there what do they hope to achieve in life?. Through their answers they are able to determine the future of each country. Unfortunately some young people in some countries are not able to reply whereas in other countries they would have very high ambitions. Some of them would want to be scholars in various domains and others would want to have sons whom they would like to raise-up to be a new Saladin (Salahu-Deen). Therefore they suggested that the countries with highly ambitious young people will become the best in the world in terms of development and progress. It will be the best in a one year’s time.
This research is not a new idea. It existed since history began. It also existed since when Muslims used to be in Andalusia (Spain now). Socialist back then used to be Portuguese. They used to be sent to the Muslims in Andalusia under the decoy of researchers but in fact they were spies sent to know how the young Muslim people think. They knew that youth of a country are its hope for the future, so they wanted to know if the young Muslims were serious in life or if they had an objective in life. At first they used to find examples like; a young Muslim telling them that he started memorizing Sahih Muslim after having already memorized Sahih Bukhari. Another one would be training hard to excel in archery and another one would tell them that he is the best knight in the country and no one would dare challenge him.
What I am implying by these examples that there has to be an objective in life that you need to live for. It does not have to be something that’s only in Sharia (Islamic law) or in religion. After all, we do not want to suppress talents and enthusiasm. Rather, we want to encourage exceptionality in any domain that a young Muslim person can see himself excel in. So get going, use your talents, achieve your objectives as long as your final goal is to honor your soul and to triumph Islam.
So, getting back to the story of the Portuguese spies, they did not have much options but to tell the army of their country not to attack the Muslims because of the will and the earnestness of the youth. Until one day, a Portuguese spy approached two young Muslims one of whom was crying. He asked him: why are you crying?. The young Muslim answered: My girlfriend has left me. Then the Portuguese spies knew that it was their chance to attack the Muslims and throw them out of Andalusia. The Muslims reined in Andalusia for 800 years but withdrew out of it in one month only.
Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?
Now I want to talk to you about something that would make us very happy and more willing to be nearer to Allah (SWT). So all of you young people, be the pride of Islam and start a new promise to Allah i.e. towards a brighter future… This will happen with Repentance.
So now I will talk to you about repentance and why we repent
There are major sins and there are minor sins in life. There are sins that we do as a result of human weaknesses and there are those sins that we do intentionally.
You might say to yourself now: There are no major sins in my life. Do you think that major sins are only drinking alcohol? Taking drugs? Committing adultery? No there are other intentional major sins that we do such as not praying, or praying for one day and skipping the other or even not praying Al-Fair salat on time. Don’t you agree that such examples are major sins from which we need to repent?.
Scholars have classified major sins as follows:
1. Polytheism.
2. The killing of a human soul (murder/suicide)
3. Not performing Salat (the five obligatory prayers).
Therefore for those who do not pray Al-Fajr prayer on time do you still think that Allah does not regard this act as one of the major sins? Do you really understand what it means when you don’t pray or when you pray but not all the prayers or even when you pray because it is only a duty rather then being out of devotion to Allah? This means that worshipping Allah is a heavy load to carry. Don’t you see the contradiction when you hear a person saying I love Allah yet I cannot worship him because it is difficult for me to do so? Or when you see another person watching a football match and he is careful not to miss one minute but when you remind him of his duty to pray, he gets frustrated or even changes the whole subject!.
Do you know that whoever leaves Al Salat is leaving Islam? It is like you have cut all the links or you have destroyed all the opportunities to be near to Allah (SWT). As if you are saying: O Lord I do not need you!.
There is a big difference between a person who puts the alarm on to wake up to Al Fjr prayer on time and another one who doesn’t want to wake up to pray at all.
Whoever prays on time at Al-Fajr and makes it a regular habit, his relationship with Allah no doubt becomes stronger. Al-Fajr prayer is a proof how much we love Allah and this was the reason why it was ordained on us in the first place. So when we perform Al-Fajr prayer it is like saying: O Lord you are dear to us!. So let’s encourage our children to perform Al-Fajr prayer on time the same way we make sure that they wake up early to catch the bus and go to school on time. Which one of these two is a priority with Allah?.
Do you know that Hellfire has many doors? One of them is called SAQAR. It is the most difficult entries to Hell. Allah says about it what can be translated as, “and what will explain to thee what hell-fire is?.. Naught does it permit to endure and naught doth it leave alone” (TMQ, 74:27-28). That means that whoever enters this door, will leave no seen trace; he will disappear; he will melt in the intensity of the heat. Then Allah will bring him up again to be melted yet again; it is a way of torture. Then when the angles will ask one of those who enter SAQAR: Why have you come here? He would say: I wasn't one of those who prayed, nor was I one of those who fed the poor (i.e. didn't do Zakat) and I was from those who did sins with my friends all the time.
So I ask this of whoever postpones his prayers or whoever prays them all at once; don’t you think it is one of the major sins? It is also the same to those who pray Al-Asr prayer just before Al-Maghreb prayer or join prayers.
There is also another major sin that we do. It has got to do with your parents and if they are happy with you. Do you know that when your mother cries because she is not happy with you; one of her tears would be greater to Allah then the amount of sins you accumulate in one year? Or when a father’s face turns red with anger from one of his children this would be greater than hundreds of sins?
Displeasing your parents is the 4th biggest sin in Islam.
Isn’t it a major sin when a young girl mocks her mother in front of her friends because she thinks that her mother is “old fashioned” and does not understand her?
Isn’t it a major sin when a boy looks at one of his parents in a challenging way?
How about when a young boy or a young girl, makes their house like a hotel. They eat and drinks in it without giving attention or talking to their parents. The parents, on the other hand, try their best to talk with their children, who in turn would not care to exchange any conversation with their parents and prefer to lock themselves up in their rooms for hours.
What do you call such examples?
Do you now know that there are major sins that we do in life without even knowing?
How about the newly married couple who do not call their parents up on the phone to know if they are well or not. Isn’t this one of the major sins? All these examples require our repentance.
We also do minor sins in our lives. For example, ask yourself how many times did you try to lower your eyes from looking at “Haram” the whole week?
I know of a young man who wanted to do a competition between himself and Satan to know how many times he can lower his eyes from looking at “Haram and how many times he cannot. So he started writing the results on a paper. At the end of the day he looked at his results and found for example that he was able to lower his eyes 6 times while he couldn’t help but look 4 times. Unfortunately some people’s results are 0/10000 i.e. they don’t even try to lower their eyes.
Another example of the minor sins we make is that of a young lady who wears tight and revealing clothes. Doesn’t that brings a great wrath from Allah?. If she went out of her house for half an hour she acquires 100 bad deeds but if she went to university with such clothes, 1000 deeds will be written for her. Al Hijab is what a Muslim woman should wear but if a lady cannot wear the Hijab(she should pray that may Allah eventually help her to wear it). Until that happens, I beg of her not to wear tight or revealing clothes… because Allah’s wrath will be great on her.
The Prophet (PBUH) said: “two types of women from my people do not enter Paradise nor would they seek its scent. Even if the scent of Paradise can be smelt from a 500-year walk. These are women who are dressed yet undressed (because of the revealing and tight clothes), swaying in the way they walk and making the heads spin around to watch them.” This does not mean that they won’t enter Paradise but their entry will be delayed.
Another example of the minor sins we make is gossiping. How many times do we gossip about a person or two over the phone? Can you see some of the minor sins that can destroy our life and make us carry a lot of heavy burdens?
The problem is that we do not see a need to repent because we are not aware that we make such minor sins.
The Prophet (PBUH) said: “a Muslim will be brought on the Day of Judgment then Allah will ask the angles to spread open the record of his bad deeds. In sixty years only, 99 records of bad deeds will be spread open, each one reaching as far as the horizon”.
This is an example that’s similar to that of a young man who comes home with 100 bad deeds in one day or a young lady who comes home with 300 bad deeds in one day. Do you now understand how did the man come up with 99 records of bad deeds?
Do you know that there are other sins that we make besides those minor and those major sins? What are they?
These are the sins that we used to do and stopped doing but did not repent from. Any sins we make won’t be forgiven just because we stopped doing them, they will only be forgiven if we repent.
So for a young man who used to do a particular sin when he was in high school and stopped doing since going to university only because he thinks he has grown up now for such sins not because he repented, he would say to Allah: O Lord! I have stopped doing that sin since when I started university. So how come I am asked for it? Then Allah would ask him: did you repent? Then the servant would say: no my Lord I have not repented. Then Allah would say: then, this sin will still be written down.
Did you know that when you intend to repent from all the sins you’ve done and all the sins you’ve stopped doing and forgotten, did you know that Allah will forgive you for all those sins? It is because your intentions were sincere for repentance.
There are also other sins which we do unknowingly.....
When we do not thank Allah for all the bounty He has bestowed upon us. Let me ask you this: are all those blessings, that you have, from Allah or from your parents? Did you thank Allah for his blessings or no??
Do you know that Satan hatred is so great to us that he says to Allah in the Qur’an, what can be translated as, "Seest Thou? this is the one whom Thou hast honored above me! If Thou wilt but respite me to the Day of Judgement, I will surely bring his descendants under my sway - all but a few!" (TMQ, 17:62). So this is Satan’s curse on us.
The phrase “bring his descendants under my sway” (in Arabic “ahtanekanna”) comes from the
Arabic expression : “hanakto el farass” which means bridling the horse to be able to ride it to any place. Do you understand now what does “ahtanekanna” mean? Do you know what Satan is doing to us? Satan whispers to us: do this sin and you do it.
Do you like it when Satan does this to you?
Do you know that there should be a repentance on a sin that is much more important than all the sins we have mentioned here?
The repentance on being “unmindful” about Allah. Unfortunately many of the religious people fall in this sin.
Humans are three types:
1. The transgressors, those who always do intentional sins.
2. The believers, those who obey Allah, make mistakes but in concept they love Allah very much
3. And those who are unmindful…. Meaning they are in an “insipid” state with Allah.
LECTURES DELIVERED ABROAD
A SPECIAL SERIES BY AMR KHALED
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