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Khutbahs
Are You Willing to Truly Sacrifice for Allah? | Lecture by Dr. Omar Suleiman
In this powerful reflection, Dr. Omar Suleiman shares a moving conversation with a man who was wrongfully imprisoned as part of the Holy Land Foundation Five—men known for their humanitarian work for Palestinian children. Despite enduring extreme hardship, including solitary confinement, this brother's deep faith and commitment never wavered. Explore how to stay true to our values, find purpose through our struggles, and stay spiritually grounded no matter the circumstances.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
00:00So I'm going to go straight to a conversation that I had last week with a
00:14brother who I hadn't seen in two decades. And this was a brother that was falsely imprisoned in the United States of America for the crime of feeding
00:29Palestinian children. Those of you that are familiar with the HLF-5, the Holy Land Foundation-5, it's one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the United States, where five innocent men who operated a charity that fed
00:43Palestinian children were thrown into prison with various sentences. Three of them are now out, two of them remain. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala free them.
00:55And may Allah restore the dignity of our brothers who got out. I sat with
01:05one of them who had just gotten out. And if you see someone going into prison or
01:15if you visit people in prison, right now in the United States we have this dilemma of these ICE detention centers filling up with Palestinian students or advocates for Palestine that are students and otherwise that are being
01:30thrown into them. It's not a pretty place. It's a very difficult place. And there's a difference between when you first go in and when you come out. You're not the
01:40same person. And I prepare myself always for the possibility of seeing someone who is broken or devastated, understandably so, after having gone
01:53through that trial. And wallahi, I met him and in two decades his smile has not
02:01changed. He gave me the biggest hug in the world. We sat down and I just asked him, I said, you know, how are you? He said, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.
02:14And he immediately said, I served this punishment because I served my people for the sake of Allah
02:25subhanahu wa ta'ala. And he said, even if they put on me a prison sentence, a lifetime prison sentence, he said I would have done it again and again and again and again. And I do not regret anything that I did and I do not regret
02:39anything that I went through for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now I'm only asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept. Two decades, some of it in
02:50solitary confinement. Prison is meant to break you. It's meant to break your spirit. It's meant to take away your heart. It's meant to make you hopeless. It's meant to make you cruel. It's meant to make you so broken that even when you
03:04get out of prison, you forever remain imprisoned. And you know what else he said? He said, alhamdulillah. He said, it's enough that I now can recite [Al-Baqarah 2]
03:18and [Ali 'Imran 3] as easily as I recite [Al-Fatihah 1]. Allah gifted me with these two shades. Bi'idhnillah on the Day of Judgment, [Al-Baqarah 2] and [Ali 'Imran 3] are to
03:32me like [Al-Fatihah 1] is now that wouldn't have happened perhaps had I not gone through that trial in my life. Why do I start off with this case?
03:43Al-Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim rahimahullah ta'ala tells us about his teacher Al-Imam Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahullah ta'ala, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahullah
03:50and the imprisonment of Al-Imam Ibn Taymiyyah. Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahullah ta'ala as he was being imprisoned, he has a famous statement that he said. Many of
04:04you know this statement. You've heard it multiple times. What can my enemies do to me? My Jannah is in my heart. Qatli shahada, if they kill me it is martyrdom. If they imprison me it is a chance to be alone with my Lord. It is khalwa, it's
04:17seclusion with my Lord and if they deport me then it is a chance to contemplate on the signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala all around. They can't
04:27do anything to me because my paradise is here. It's inaccessible to them. They can't reach it. They can't get it and the more that they try the more frustrated
04:42they will become, the more extreme they will become in their mechanisms, the more resolute I will become on my faith. And a lot of times you hear a statement like
04:54that and you think it's... not you think, I'll just say it could be perceived that sometimes this is like the initial stand. But then see the man a few years later
05:05and let's see if he has the same spirit. Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim rahimahullah he says that when we the students of Ibn Taymiyyah would start to lose heart, when we
05:16would be sad and we needed our iman to be refreshed, when we needed our ambition, our energy to come back, we went we visited him in prison. Think about that.
05:26We visited the man in prison to gain more steam and energy for our lives outside of the prison. Who's supposed to be encouraging who? Who's supposed to be
05:40energizing who? Who's supposed to be the one that's encouraging the other saying we would go to him when he was in prison. And amongst the things that he
05:50said was that the prisoner, the true prisoner is the one whose heart man hubisa qalbuhu 'anillah, the one whose heart has been imprisoned from Allah
06:02subhanahu wa ta'ala and the true captive is the one who has been taken captive by his desires. Imagine the prison door is shut on him and he recites the ayah with
06:17a smile on his face. ba'thuhu feehi ar-rahma wa zahiruhu min qibalihi al-'adhab On the inside is mercy and on the outside is punishment. He's a free soul,
06:32a free heart, a free mind and it's frustrating to the enemies. Our people in
06:43Gaza are free. Our people in Palestine are free. In fact our people in Gaza could make the argument that they're the only truly free people in the Ummah of
06:52Muhammad (ﷺ) right now. They're free from expectations. They are free from the delusions of this world. They are free from the captivity
07:05of their desires. They are truly liberated free spirits. That doesn't mean for a moment that we should look at the cruelty that is being inflicted upon
07:17them and say well alhamdulillah they're doing okay. Absolutely not. That doesn't mean that we should be less outraged over the daily stream of scenes of their
07:28punishment and torture. That's not what I'm saying. But they're free in a different sense. Their hearts are free. They are liberated in a different way.
07:40There are others wallahi that are imprisoned in their palaces. Captured minds, captured hearts, captured thoughts, captured bodies, even as they wear the
07:54finest clothes and they have too much money to count. They are slaves to those very things that they think are tools to their happiness. I started off with a
08:09real-life case because a lot of times you look back and you think these were unreal human beings. In many ways they were unreal human beings but they were
08:18still human beings. And the potential that they set out for us is very real
08:24and accessible to every beating heart, to every mind that thinks for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, to every person who strives. It's accessible to you as
08:38well. And there's a difference between the beginning and after it drags on for some time. You see the Prophet (ﷺ) said in an authentic hadith
08:50inna li kulli shay'in shirra wa li kulli shirratin fatra. The Prophet (ﷺ) said that everything has a peak and then everything runs its course. fa man kanat fatratuhu ila sunnati fa qad ihtada wa man kanat ila ghayri dhalika fa qad halak.
09:03Whoever runs their course in accordance with my sunnah then they are guided. And whoever runs their course, their low point is in accordance with other than that,
09:14they have failed. We usually cite this hadith or cite this idea when we're talking about Ramadan, your performance of good deeds has to have a
09:25level of consistency. Ila sunnati here means in accordance with what he brought (ﷺ), meaning you don't violate what he brought in your
09:35low points. Even if you're not performing as high as you do at your peak moments. I'm going to say that again in a different way. In Ramadan you were praying tarawih.
09:49You were reading Qur'an more so than you do the entire year. You were giving more charity. Alhamdulillah. After Ramadan you can't go from praying tarawih to not
10:01praying 'isha. Right? You can't go from doing extra good deeds to not even doing
10:09the fard. You can't go from abstaining from minor sins to indulging major sins outside of Ramadan or else you know if you're looking at someone's heart, their
10:22spiritual heart, it's just too much. Too much variance. It'll kill you spiritually. We usually cite this in regards to spirituality. I want us to bring it to a
10:35broader spectrum of how we approach the concept of sacrifice for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The concept of sacrifice for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
10:47It's one thing to say in the very beginning I can handle this. It's another thing to stay the course. It's one thing to get excited in the very
11:00beginning and to say this is what we need to be doing. It's another thing to convert that moment into momentum and then to collectively turn that into a
11:11movement. It's one thing to cry once and to say this is terrible. It's another thing to include a people and a cause in your du'a every single day and to think
11:23what you can be doing for them every single day. The initial moment is only as
11:30good as how long it lasts after whether in your acts of worship or elsewise. You understand that concept? The initial moment is only as good as it lasts after.
11:47So just because you told someone you love them in the beginning doesn't absolve you from everything you do a year later. The point of departure is meant to take
11:59you to another place in regards to what you put forward for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so here's what I want us to sit with for a moment inshallah ta'ala for the moments that we have here today as we are fasting. May Allah
12:14'azza wa jal accept our fast and many of you intended to fast. May Allah accept your fast as well. Allahumma ameen. Abu Darda (رضي الله عنه) has a beautiful statement. He says
12:26lawla thama'ul hawajir. Had it not been for the long days of fasting. I'm not
12:33going to lie when I got on the flight to come here. I left Dallas at 11 p.m. Fajr hit like less than four hours in. I looked at the time of maghrib in London
12:46and I went whoa. I'm being honest here. Pulled out some of those electrolytes and got myself ready. I was like all right this is going to be a tough
12:57one. Abu Darda (رضي الله عنه) said lawla thama'ul hawajir. Had it not been for
13:05the long days of thirst and the long nights of qiyam al-layl. Ma ahbabtu al baqa' fi dunya. I actually wouldn't want to be here anymore. I wouldn't want to live
13:18anymore if I didn't have the sweetness of long days of fasting and long nights of praying. Meaning he fell in love with the process of sacrifice itself for the
13:31sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Not that you enjoy the pain but you love the one that you are enduring for and that gives you joy. I can tell you I know
13:45people I know people not sahaba. I know people who in their elderly age when they could no longer come to the masjid or they could no longer fast or they
13:59could no longer do sujud would say I really don't want to live anymore. Like this is my sweetness in life is doing this and I know people that have cried
14:12because they were told that they can't fast anymore medically. I've seen it with my own two eyes. What's the difference between that person and the other person
14:23who's fully healthy but makes all these excuses in the world to break their fast and to bend the rules of Ramadan. Why is it that that old man is crying
14:34over the inability to fast Ramadan and that young man is making every excuse in the book to not have to fast at all. And if you were to question if you were to
14:49do a happiness test like a measure on those two people which one do you think was actually happier? Who's more fulfilled in life? That paradox exists
15:01even at the time of the Prophet (ﷺ). There's a juxtaposition in Tabuk where the hypocrites are exposed. Where the hypocrites didn't want to go out with the Prophet (ﷺ) and they made all these excuses. It's hot
15:14outside. It's comfortable here. We're going to be in unknown territory. There's going to be this difficulty and that difficulty. They made their excuses and
15:26they prepared their excuses and they weren't even worth entertaining in their excuses. Just go. Allah doesn't need you. Allah doesn't need you. If you read the
15:41whole trial of Ka'b ibn Malik (رضي الله عنه), that is actually a sign of Allah's love for him that he went through that when he did not make his
15:53excuse like the hypocrites made their excuses. There's a juxtaposition of the hypocrites that made their excuses that didn't want to go out with the Prophet (ﷺ) because it was hot outside,
16:04because it was exhausting, because it was tiring, because of this and because of that, and
16:11these two men that Allah mentions in the Qur'an. Same episode. Who are devastated that they can't go out with the Prophet (ﷺ) because they don't have the means to go out with the Prophet (ﷺ)
16:25and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions their tears. Their eyes are filled with tears as they are walking away from
16:35the Prophet (ﷺ) because they don't have the means to go out and be with the Prophet (ﷺ) in his difficult moments. It's the same episode. It's the same circumstances. What differs is the quality of
16:48the people involved. I want you to fall in love with sacrifice. I want you to actually feel like
17:00when you do for Allah, that is the greatest joy that you can have. Not to endure unnecessary pain
17:09but to pursue purpose and endure the pain that comes with the pursuit of purpose with joy and pleasure. There's a big difference between those two things. You don't throw yourself in harm's
17:24way in Islam. You don't unnecessarily put yourself under mashaqqa, under hardship, under duress for no reason but you pursue purpose and truth and you recognize that that's a painful pursuit
17:39and sacrifices will be made and at some point you start to actually treasure the sacrifices.
17:47You know what I think about? SubhanAllah when the Prophet (ﷺ) mentions to us that those that enter Jannah, they wouldn't want to come back. Like who would want to come back from Jannah? Go from dunya
17:59to Jannah. They wouldn't want to come back except for who? The shaheed. The shaheed who had the most gruesome experience of this world compared to the others of the people of Jannah. The shaheed would
18:13want to come back and to go through that trial over and over and over again for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because of what they have seen of the generosity and the honor of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
18:27Not because they enjoyed the pain but because they truly understood that the pain was worth it. I think of Khalid Nabhan (رحمه الله).
18:39We got to see a broadcast of Khalid Nabhan (رحمه الله), the soul of our soul, in his most devastating moment and by the way you know what's amazing about the people of Gaza? They're never rehearsing.
18:55The bombs are always falling, the bullets are always shooting and the cameras are always rolling. Like you're getting caught in your worst moment here.
19:06May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy for them. I mean subhanAllah and I think about this and yes there's an element of like someone's collecting the flesh of their children
19:18and there's a camera on them. Like it's not even like let me process this for a few moments. In real time you are witnessing their sadmat al-ula that the Prophet (ﷺ) talked about, their first
19:33strike. We witnessed Khalid Nabhan (رحمه الله) in his first strike. The pain of holding his granddaughter
19:43Reem for the first time after she had been martyred and kissing her eyes and showing exemplary sabr and then smiling for months and months and months after that and carrying that
19:58pain and converting it into purpose and saying alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah and
20:04channeling that kindness to an empty and cruel and cold world that could not understand the image of the man that they had seen for all of these years that would be portrayed as your typical
20:18terrorist. Turban, beard, is he going to blow something up? No, you blew him up with your bombs.
20:28You terrorized him. You terrorized his family and the average western mind couldn't grapple
20:36with what they were watching here. Then he was martyred and the smile was still on his face.
20:45If you were to ask Khalid Nabhan would you do it all over again? Would you come back to this dunya and live through the pain that you lived through
20:57all over again or would you rather that you just never existed?
21:05Every single shaheed from Sayyid al-Shuhada Hamza (رضي الله عنه) to Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Wael al-Dahdouh. May Allah have mercy on Hamza and the family of Wael and make it easy for him.
21:19To every single journalist, every single doctor, every single child that has endured that pain would say I would do it again for Allah.
21:35That doesn't make us a people who crave blood. That makes us a people who can't actually bleed in the full spiritual sense.
21:49There's something very different about that. Something very different about that quality of people. You look at that sacrifice and if you were to speak to the people that endured the most pain
22:03in this world and say to them would you come back and do it again for Allah and they say yes. And then you come back to yourself and you ask yourself what about me?
22:17And that's what I want to spend the rest of this talk on. Dear brothers and sisters, falling in love with the process of sacrifice for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is a process in and of itself.
22:33It starts off with you enjoying the smile on the face of somebody else's child. As much as you enjoying the smile on the face of your child.
22:47It starts with enjoying giving that money for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and spending it on an orphanage, spending it on a widow, spending it on a family.
23:00Only between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, nobody else knows. It's just between you and Allah 'azza wa jal and perhaps the carrier of that charity.
23:08It starts with you feeling just as good in fact even better when you see that deduction coming out of your account as you do when you just purchased your new house, your new car, your new
23:22whatever it is that you would enjoy for some time in this world. Where a click happens, where I feel better about doing this than I feel about doing that.
23:36It starts dear brothers and sisters with you going from, man Ramadan is so long and these days of fasting are so long and can't wait for Eid to come, to weeping when Ramadan leaves you.
23:51Because you know that there's a spiritual version of yourself that will wither away along with it. It starts with you going from enjoying being in places like this and in the masajid and the
24:05places where Allah is remembered and going to sleep at night and saying I enjoyed that more than I would have enjoyed a vacation or hanging out with my friends wherever it is and talking
24:18for hours and hours. I enjoyed that more. The change happens when the Prophet (ﷺ)
24:25mentions to us that when Allah 'azza wa jal loves someone that there is a weaning off process from this dunya. There's a weaning off process from this world
24:38to where you start to enjoy sacrifices and then comes the hits.
24:46You sacrifice for your principles. You lose your job for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I'm going to be very real here now and I will admit with full vulnerability
25:01and full transparency that yes I don't have to take the risks in corporate for speaking my mind
25:11about my religion and about Palestine or whatever it may be. I don't think Yaqeen is firing me for talking about Allah and talking about the issues of the day. So let me actually acknowledge
25:26to the brothers and sisters here I get it. You come into a clash with your career, your job, and you have a choice to make between your principles and your pay and you take that stand.
25:39I admire you. You are my hero. I look up to you because you're doing something honorable and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala rewards you. But I can tell you
25:52that I have sat with people that have been chief surgeons at their hospital, that have been at the height of their tech companies, and that took that stand for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
26:05And wallahi they smile and they say alhamdulillah I would do it all over again. I don't regret a minute of it. I don't regret a single dock of my paycheck. Alhamdulillah. Allah
26:21Allah 'azza wa jal gives and Allah takes but Allah never forgets his people. Alhamdulillah. I'm good. I've seen that rida, that contentment. In fact I'll go a step further. Not a single one of the
26:35people, and I know I'm speaking to an American context, not a single one of those students who have been detained for speaking for Palestine said to me that they wish they hadn't protested.
26:51That they wish they hadn't gone through that. Every single one of them came out of those prisons after three months or five months or six months or I don't know how familiar you are with these
27:02cases. The Mahmoud Khalil's of the world or whatever it may be and went right back to doing what they were doing. And said all this did was it instigated a further resolve.
27:15Allah 'azza wa jal grants that. That is from Al-Qawiy Al-Mateen. Allah 'azza wa jal grants that stability and that strength. You might not even know that you will have it before that time comes.
27:29And I tell you what. A lot of these people in Gaza, if you were to tell them what they were if you were to tell them what they were about to endure.
27:41The people that you see showing strength that you don't think that you could have. If you were to tell them they were about to endure what they were about to endure two years ago, they might not have told you that they could handle it.
27:56They might have said we don't know. This seems like too much. And it's too much for the rest of us to watch. But Allah 'azza wa jal unlocks something inside of them.
28:13Those who strive in our way, we will guide them to our paths. Sometimes those pathways are not just new trajectories and new lanes that you could work for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
28:24Sometimes they're new lifelines, new blood vessels that cause your heart to flow in a way that you did not think was possible before the moment came to you.
28:37And don't ask Allah for bala. The Prophet (ﷺ) said don't ask Allah for tragedy. Don't ask Allah for tests. Allah tests you. You don't test Allah. Don't ask Allah for the test.
28:50Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for well-being. But the first type of well-being that you want to have is in your iman. That your spiritual health does not decline
29:05when you face that moment. And that that repeated regimen of sacrifice for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and tasting the sweetness of that sacrifice, that repeated regimen,
29:18gives you something to lean on when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala really puts you to the test. And it's not always waiting for this train to hit you.
29:33How many people have come up to me, to others and said, Shaykh, what more can we do for Gaza? What more can we do for Palestine? We're feeling helpless. We're feeling hopeless.
29:46What more can we do? And yes, there is du'a as an agent for change. Yes, there is this lane and that lane.
29:56But I want you to know that the way that you get the answers is by obsessing over the question.
30:05You understand me? Not waiting for a Shaykh to tell you what to do. By obsessing over the question. By laying down at night and by looking at the set of cards that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
30:19given to you. The unique circumstances, the unique qualities, the unique position that you're in. And obsessing over the question of what more you could be doing. And then you will think of things.
30:35And if nine of ten of them fail and one of them succeeds in the worldly sense, it paves the way. And if ten of ten of them fail in the worldly sense,
30:46you have a Lord who is Ash-Shakir Ash-Shakur, who will reward you for the intention behind all ten of them. And you are not in control of the outcome. You are charged with the effort and the intentionality.
31:02Don't wait for somebody else to tell you what you should be doing. Don't wait for somebody else to give you ideas. Obsess over the question until you come up with ideas.
31:14And then work to bring those ideas to life. Alhamdulillah not all is lost. Alhamdulillah Rabbul Alameen.
31:22Two years into this thing, the tide is turning. Alhamdulillah Rabbul Alameen. Certain things
31:30have been set into motion that will come into fruition. And we will live to see Palestine free.
31:44I say it and I mean it. I believe it. Things are happening and you don't know where Allah will
31:55cause it to sprout from. But you have to fall in love with the process of sacrifice, you have to obsess with the question instead of
32:04waiting for someone to give you the answer. And you have to be willing to face the consequences
32:12when your principles come up against convenience, against comfort. And at that moment, seamlessly,
32:23you say, absolutely not. I will never give up my deen or my principles for anything that
32:34this dunya has to offer. Allah 'azza wa jal controls the dunya. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the provider of all provision. Allah is the withholder when he withholds. Allah subhanahu
32:48wa ta'ala knows best. Allah will enable. I will continue forward with a smile on my face.
32:57And keep moving. Never look back. You know, subhanAllah, I was actually just telling some of the brothers about, some of you might have heard about this basketball player,
33:08Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Go back and look up Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in the 1990s. He was an NBA star. How many of you have heard of Steph Curry? They called him the Steph Curry before the Steph Curry.
33:21They actually mirror Steph's game against his and Steph, you know, actually says like,
33:26took a lot of his stuff from him. Mahmoud was a star in the NBA. And he lost everything from a
33:37worldly perspective for taking a stance. And before social media and before Colin Kaepernick and before Black Lives Matter and before the protest movement in the United States, he was this lone
33:50Muslim that refused to stand for the national anthem because his faith had made him too principled and he had become aware of the crimes that were committed under that flag.
34:07Lost everything. I mean, it started, he even says it, subhanAllah, he schooled Michael Jordan in a game. The Bulls were like, on the 18 game winning streak, the longest in their franchise history. And Mahmoud just took Michael Jordan to the hoop,
34:22schooled him and then everything went downhill. Someone noticed that he wasn't standing for the national anthem. Lost it all. Lost his NBA career. The Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists burned his
34:35house down. After September 11, they cornered him into an interview. He thought he was going to have the justice of explaining his thoughts. And they did what they always do. They took a three-hour
34:46interview and they condensed it to three, four minutes and made it look like he was justifying
34:569/11. Turned him into a pariah. And you know what? He's in his 50s now.
35:06SubhanAllah, I am telling you, you will not meet this man without a smile on his face. I've met other NBA players that made it. They put their heads down. They did what they were
35:17supposed to do. They maxed out and they're overdosing. Miserable. This man smiles and he says, the only thing I want, the only thing I want is that when I meet Allah, subhanAllah,
35:31on the Day of Judgment, there was actually a documentary that they pulled. You should look it up. It's called Stands. You should watch it with your families. I watched it with my family and it was like a halaqa. Seriously, my kids had reflection after reflection after reflection.
35:45And at the end of the documentary, he says, all I want, with a big smile on his face and some tears in his eyes, is that when Allah asks me on the Day of Judgment what I gave for him,
35:55I could say, ya Allah, I gave it my all. Alhamdulillah. He's at peace. He's at peace. Allah 'azza wa jal says that on the Day of Judgment,
36:14every single person on the Day of Judgment, as they are standing there before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, will know what they put forth and what they left behind. As Qatada rahimahullah says,
36:26qaddamat means the sins that you put forth. Akharat means the opportunities that you left back in this dunya. The things that you wish you would have done, you know that you could have done,
36:41but you didn't do. Every single person will know what they put forth and what they left behind.
36:51And when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, the groups are being split, [Al-Hadid 57]. One group is calling out to the others that are going ahead with their light.
37:04And they'd say, anziroona naqtabis min noorikum, wait up for us, let us benefit from your light. qila rji'u wara'akum fal tamisu noora. They will say, go back and find a light. The meaning here
37:17is go back to the dunya if you can and kindle this light the way we kindled it. We kindled it the hard way. Your whole life here, all you're doing is lighting a torch to benefit you on the Day of
37:32Judgment. No, no, you don't get to be around us. irji'u wara'akum, go back. qila rji'u wara'akum fal tamisu noora. faduriba baynahum bisurin lahu batinuhu fee ar-rahma wa zahiruhu min qibalihi
37:47al-'adhab. yunadoonahum alam nakun ma'akum. And Allah 'azza wa jal gives us this painful conversation, wait, we were with you, we were amongst you. But you weren't as dedicated.
38:02As those that kindled that light. You asked those people that struggled, would you do it all over
38:08again? Absolutely. On the flip side, you got that person who got the house, who got the car, who got the money, who got everything that they wanted in this life.
38:24And they're standing in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they know they did not prepare themselves or make the necessary sacrifices for that moment. And what does that person say?
38:35Not just irji'oon, take me back. law anna li karra fa akoona minal muhsinin. If you sent me back, I'm not just going to be an ordinary Muslim. I will be from the good doers. I will be from
38:49the people of ihsan. I will excel. I'll do what they did. But it won't matter at that point. You left it out on the table. Dear brothers and sisters, especially the young people in here.
39:04Start now. Every day that goes by, there's a group of opportunities that you're leaving on the table.
39:15Collect those opportunities. Your muhasabah every single night, you're holding yourself accountable every single night, is not just on the sins that you committed that day, but the good
39:26deeds that you should have done that day. Not just the moments that you disobeyed Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but the moments that you could have pleased Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I've got to give you one more inshallah, then I've got the red here and
39:41I'm not going to like in this exercise of sacrifice make you miss your iftar. How many of you saw Ibtihal Abu Sa'ad? Anyone know who Ibtihal is? Do you all see the young
39:54Moroccan girl that stood up in Microsoft at the 50-year anniversary dinner? I'm going to tell you the irony of this situation. She was standing in front of one of the execs at Microsoft.
40:08Young girl in her 20s standing in front of an exec at Microsoft, right? High up there. What was his name? Anybody know? Mustafa.
40:22Mustafa. A guy who, at least from what I read, doesn't identify. May Allah 'azza wa jal guide him to Islam, guide him back to his religion, to his principles.
40:36You have a young hijabi Muslim girl saying, Mustafa, you're killing your own people. You are complicit in genocide. Bill Gates is sitting right there too, right? But it's
40:48not here. Like he's not here. Somebody looked over there. Bill Gates is sitting on the side. But like your company, you are complicit in this genocide. What are you doing? Shame on you.
41:02You are complicit in the murder of your own people. Shame on you. SubhanAllah.
41:1120-something-year-old young Muslim woman, mashallah, comes from out of town, isn't an American citizen. Parents sent her from Morocco. She went to Harvard University. I mean,
41:25you build the story, right? This is exactly what you want. A practicing Muslim woman that makes it through the legions of Harvard and then into Microsoft. You build the story.
41:36And then into Microsoft and in that prestigious position, and she's going to throw it all away in that moment. There are people that see that and say she's throwing it away.
41:48She's throwing away her opportunity. She threw her keffiyeh right at the stage. There goes her career. There goes everything her and her parents worked for.
41:59Had to leave the U.S. right away, whatever, and that story carries on. Do you think her parents will be proud of her on the Day of Judgment?
42:14Bi'idhnillah, yes. What she gained was far more than what she lost. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept it from her. And the final plot twist is that she now works at Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research.
42:34May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept your fast, accept those of you that intended to fast. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala use us in his cause. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be a people
42:44that find gain in giving and in losing for his sake, whether we are punished or whether we are penalized or whether we intentionally remove some of the comforts of this world for the noble
42:59causes. May Allah accept it. May Allah accept it from our people in Gaza. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala liberate Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala liberate Palestine. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow our people to eat. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow our people to live
43:13without bombs in the sky, to live without the crime of occupation. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala unite them with their families. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala restore their health in this life and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala maximize the reward in the next. Allahumma ameen.





































































































































































































































































































