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So last time I spoke to you about some observations about the first two ayat of Surat al Mudattir, there are some additional outstanding things that are, I think, important to mention. And my intention today originally was to talk about the next two or three ayat, but I think I'm only going to talk about the next one Ayah today. InshaAllah. So where I want to start is actually what Al Mudathir represents, and a number of mufasiroon have made this commentary as well, is that when someone is wrapped up in a blanket, as we described before, someone for warmth is ramped up in a blanket. It is someone who's been impacted by what's happening outside, right? So they finally have some sort of relief. And what Allah is telling him is even though you just took a beating outside and you took this relief, get up immediately and get out there again. So the idea of coming back inside, in a sense, was just a recharge and you're supposed to just go out there again. What's also really interesting about that is there's an acknowledgement from Allah that the work that the Prophet has to do, it takes a toll on him, it does weigh heavy on him, and he does need to recharge. And this helps us understand the relationship between this surah and the surah right before it. Allah told us in Surah al Muzam al inna lakafin nahala, you have a long day, a continuous task in the daytime. So Rasulullah's job is continuous and ongoing. And on this, to understand how difficult the prophet's job is, I wanted to actually compare something that's been done by a few writers, the difference between a prophet and a philosopher, right? Because a prophet for that society, like our messenger, is presenting something new for Makkah. They don't know this stuff. It's a new idea. And what does a philosopher do in a sense? Comes up with a philosophy, presents an idea, and people before him haven't heard this idea before, right? So it's a new idea. So in a sense, a prophet has something in common with a philosopher because they're both presenting a new idea. But what's interesting about philosophers is if they present their idea, they're not taking any risks. They can sit, keep the blanket wrapped up around them, and they can document or write about their philosophy and their ideas, and they can keep it to themselves and maybe think, if I share it outside, maybe some people will call me crazy. Maybe some people will debate with me and argue with me. I don't Want to deal with people. I just want to write my book. Maybe one day somebody will find this manuscript and they'll put it in a library, or maybe somebody will be impressed with it centuries later or generations later. Etc. Etc. Many of you high school students studied the French Revolution and the literature that spread in Europe with authors like, you know, Candide and Voltaire. Voltaire and Rousseau and others like the book Candide. And these authors, they never imagined that their writings are going to lead to a revolution. They just wrote something because they just had some ideas and they wrote them down. No risk involved. Rasulullah is taking a risk every single day. Every day he has to go out there and present what Allah has given him, unlike a philosopher. And he's going to hit. He's going to be faced with continuous opposition. And when he's faced with that opposition, if a philosopher was presented with opposition, they would take offense to it. And they say, you know what? You don't want to hear what I have to say. I'll just go somewhere else, I'll talk to someone else who wants to hear what I have to say. But a messenger doesn't have that choice. Rasulullah doesn't have the choice. The people who are rejecting him, making fun of him, calling him insane, the next day, he has to go back to those same people and they're gonna say, oh, you're back for more? Okay, let's turn it up a notch. So they're not gonna, you know, tone down their aggression. They're only going to hype up their aggression. So his job is actually getting more and more difficult by the day. It's an important observation. And so every day he does have to go back after this exhaustive, hyper aggressive day that he's had with these people reacting to him in this visceral way. And he has to go back and he has to wrap himself up and Allah is saying, get up again, get up again, get up again. And there's this beautiful correlation between spiritual fitra and natural fitra. Many of you guys, I make reference to working out and exercising and things like that. In any exercise, if you do exercise, what are you actually doing? You're tearing your muscles. That's what you're actually doing. If you're pushing past your limits and you're really getting out, going past your maximum, et cetera, you're tearing your muscles. And then you need to recover, you need time for recovery. And then the moment you recover, you're stronger than you were before. And Even if you're 1% stronger, you go back to the gym. The next time you're able to push just a little more than the time before because your ability has enhanced just a little bit, but then so you withstood more difficulty, tore yourself up again. And there's this constant cycle of you literally getting injured in a way and then recovering and then getting injured and then recovering. And that's actually the Quran's relationship between dawah and spirituality. Surah al Muzamil is the surah of us and Allah. Ibadah qiyamul layl tahajjud, right? That's recovery. Now that you have recovery, you're ready to go outside and deal with people. And when you deal with people, you're gonna take damage, and it's gonna take a toll on you. The moment it takes a toll on you, you need to go back into recovery. So the night of the Prophet is recovery, and the day is for taking new damage and then recovery and new damage. And it intensifies every day. It gets worse and worse and worse. So as the Seerah progresses, his job is going to get more and more and more difficult. That's the cycle that Allah created. Now, what does that mean for us nowadays? One of the things it means for us is there are people who say, you know, I really love Islam. I love worship, I love prayer, I love reciting Quran, I love improving my Tajweed, I love ILM, I love reading books, etc. I just hate people, right? So I just. I just want to listen to stuff, read stuff. An introverted person, right? I don't have to deal with anyone. I could just keep my Islam to myself. Everybody else, they're always talking about their backbiting, or they're talking about useless things, or they're talking about shopping and material things. I don't like dealing with people. And if I. If I talk even a little bit about Islam, all my cousins call me a weirdo. I don't like talking to my cousins. I just leave them alone. I'm going to be the Surat Al Muzambil guy, right? I just got to stick to myself because I don't want to deal with the harsh conditions that come with opening my mouth about Islam. You get it, right? But the point of worship was to strengthen you enough so you can face the harsh conditions that are going to come in. Surat al Muddathir, that was the point. So there's a profound connection between these two things. And on the other side, there are people that say, I love da'wah, man. I Just love debating atheists. It's like, Mashallah, just find me an atheist, bro. I haven't crushed one in a while, right? And they just want to do all the da'wah, da'wah, da'aah. But the thing is, when you're doing da'wah and we're debating and you're arguing and you're engaged in hostility, what we don't realize is there's a natural toll that it will take on you. There will be a spiritual damage that you're not realizing that it's. Whether you realize it or not, it's happening. And the only way to address that is to go and recover and to go and enhance your worship. So there can be a tendency of those who say, I want to focus on the spiritual, I want to focus on the worship. And there's others that say, I want to focus on the activism, I want to focus on the dawah. But actually either one by itself is either just Surat al Muzamil or just Surat al Mudhafin. And they're paired together beautifully for a reason, because together they form a profound balance that was given to Rasulullah. Okay? So now this additional thing that is also an observation in the same vein is the conversation with Allah is beautiful. Contemplating Allah's Word is beautiful. Spirituality is beautiful. It's soothing, it's comforting. It's the same as when, you know, if you can't. If we're not Tahajjud people, and that's okay, most of us haven't upgraded, we're fine, it's okay. But you know what, when you go to Umrah or if you're just, you know, it's Ramadan and you just sat there and you listen to some recitation of Qur'an or something, you have a spiritual experience and it's. It's something that soothes and calms the soul. And it. It puts you in a certain state, right? And it takes your worries away and it kind of creates this isolated connection between you and Allah, even if it's temporary, but it creates this beautiful moment between you and Allah, right? But then on the other hand, there are conversations we have with people and they're the opposite of beautiful. They're very ugly, they're very aggressive, they're very humiliating. Musa got to speak to Allah on a mountain, right? Probably the most beautiful conversation of his life, talking directly to Allah. And Allah says, okay, now you're ready for the ugliest conversation of your life. Go talk to Firaun, alright? I'm pretty sure nobody wants to enjoy a conversation with Firaun, right? Especially a prophet of Allah is going to have to debate him. But what is Allah teaching us? This beautiful conversation is preparing you for that ugly conversation. This is the recharge. That's the battlefield. That was the first battlefield, right? So that's the, that's the impression that's being given. Now the other side is that this message cannot hide. You have to get up, you have to go and mourn. You can't keep it to yourself. Islam is not something from its origins. The Rasul, everything that he's being told then it got distributed to the entire Ummah. So even if you're not a Da'I and I'm not a Da'I and not everybody else here is going out and giving dawah to the every non Muslim, etc etc we collectively, when we come together, we need to support it. There are some people on the back end, some people on the front end. The fact that we've built our Masajid and the Masajid have an opportunity for people to gather and an opportunity for others to be invited here. So it's not just the person who has a microphone on, it's the people who contributed to it, the people that are helping maintain the place, the people that are in the administration, creating the programs, creating the schedules. All of those people are working towards something. This is an entire machinery. Think of a clock that has all these cogs that are connected together. What you might see is the person in the end product. There's a shaykh or the Imam or somebody sitting there and they're giving the dars, but behind them is an entire machinery, right? Rasulullah. The entire machinery rested on him alone, like he was alone, right? But after him that task got distributed and the work got divided to an entire community, an entire Ummah. So this instruction to him is as a person, but to us is as a collective. That's what I'm trying to get across to you. So we as a collective have to figure out are we rising up and actually warning or are we staying hidden. There are people that are, you know, and one of the projects I envision that I think I just, I haven't done my job with it. I'll tell you an experience I had maybe 22 years ago. I was in New York and I did my first series on the Quran. I was actually 21 years old and I did a darsa of the Quran, Surat al Baqarah every night after Taraweeh in Ramadan. Right. At a masjid in Queens. This is like 1999, 2000. Okay. And oh my God, it's 24 years ago, 25 years ago. Okay. So anyway, so I'm doing this and they were recording it and they were broadcasting it on what was called Queen public access television. So it was on cable, like channel 65. And the youth don't know what cable is. It's okay. Those of you that are old know this public access television. So it's. It's playing this maidars live on there. And this was in a masjid. I'm talking to Muslims about Surat al Baqarah. And you know, they, back in the day when you had a broadcast, they had a ticker at the bottom with a phone number. Let's say they had the masjid's phone number on the bottom. And the mosque starts getting calls from non Muslims that are just. They just want to. Where is this happening? I just want to become. I want to follow this. They don't even know it's called Islam because I'm not talking to non Muslims. I'm talking to Muslims. I'm giving adars. And non Muslims are calling in and saying, I want to do this. Where's your temple? Where church is this? I want to come to it. And they're hearing it and they just want to except Islam. It was a weird. It was shocking to me because I didn't have them in mind when I was talking. I was talking to Muslims like I'm talking to you right now. But it made me realize something. I as an individual, committed myself to educating myself and helping my fellow Muslims understand the Quran better. But I actually never focused on non Muslims not to preach to them. I'm not talking about preaching to them. They don't know what the Quran says. They don't know what it says. And for, I would argue the vast majority of Muslims, when they read the Quran in translation, they're often not sure what it's saying. So how do you expect a non Muslim to know what it's saying? And the Prophet, his job was to clarify it to people. That's part of his job. But I told you, every job Rasul Sallallam had every got distributed to an entire ummah. So that one man task now became our collective task. So the question then becomes, collectively, have we done a good job exposing our neighbors, our country, the West? For instance, India. Muslims have been in India for several centuries, right? Indonesians have had Islam for several centuries now. And there are Buddhists in Indonesia, there are Hindus in India, etcetera There are Sikhs in Pakistan, right? There are Christian minorities in Bangladesh, etc. Have they been exposed to what the Quran actually says? The crazy irony is the vast majority of Muslims haven't been exposed to what the Quran actually says. That's the crazy time we live in. So when he says, get off your blanket and warn, and he didn't mention who you're supposed to warn, what we're supposed to take from that is Rasulullah was willing to face the harshest conditions for people to get to hear what Allah actually has to say. The Quran actually has to say, go recite it to them, you know, struggle with this Quran, remind with the Quran, declare the, you know, so those who clarify. So we have a collective responsibility to introduce people to what Allah is actually saying. Let God speak for himself, Let the book speak for itself. You clarify where people might be confused in a transition. Your job is to clarify. And I'm not saying your individual responsibility, I'm saying our collective responsibility. So the few ideas I'm going to share with you today, I just want us to together think about our collective responsibility and what needs to happen and how things would be different if we were actually doing that. If we were actually doing that. And on that, I will tell you one last thing particular to Christians. Even though today's darsa is not about Christians, I'll tell you something particular about Christians. You know, the Quran has a special emphasis on a conversation with Christians. Allah wants to have a conversation with Christians among other audiences. There are one of the special audiences in the Quran. And the way he talks to them is remarkable. He doesn't debate with them. First, he acknowledges what they believe and then he redirects it. He gets them to think about what they already believe differently. Instead of a clash, it's what I call a redirection. He's navigating and turning it in, guiding them to something. As if Allah is saying that, you know, by the way, if you speak to a devout Christian of any denomination, none of them will say there are three gods. None of them. They will all say, if you say, how many gods do you believe in? What are they going to say? One God. They'll say there's a manifestation, there's a Trinity, Da, da. But it doesn't mean three. No, it doesn't mean three. It still means one. They're very hard about. It means one. You know the difference between a mushrik and a Christian? The mushrik might say explicitly, this is the God of the trees. This one's the God of mountains, this is the God of birds, this is the God of war, this is the God of whatever. This is the God of thunder, right? They'll have multiple gods. Christians will never say there are multiple gods. Christians will say what one God. And here's our interpretation of why that's broken up into three. So the Quran actually acknowledges that the Christians have a problem with interpretation. It's not a problem in, you know, it's not shirk directly. The interpretation led to shirk. So what does the Quran do? It redirects the interpretation. That's what it does. But you know what, you're hearing this, many of you are hearing that for the first time, right? But we've been around a millennium and a half and the Christians have been our neighbors for a long time and they deserve to know that. They deserve to know how their faith is being discussed by Allah directly in non combative terms. Non combative terms. Just warn, just give it out, let them know. So that's something that I thought I should bring to your attention before we move forward now on Qum. There's something that I didn't realize I didn't share with you last time. Allah says rise and then he says warn. Right? Rise, then warn. The word qum in Arabic has other implications. What that means is, I'll give you by analogy, there are some of you, not all of you, some of you wake up at 6am, 5am, whatever time you wake up. But after you wake up, between waking up and actually rising from the bed, there is a deep philosophical moment where you are struggling against your body and you're questioning your existence and saying, time to get up. Yep, it's definitely time to get up. Mm, yep, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, it's time. Just, you know, and there's a, there's a, there's an internal conflict of whether or not you need when it's gonna happen. The moment you're building up, you're charging up your juices before you launch, right? Others among you, the moment your eyes open up, you spring out of bed, you just do it, right? The one who just immediately just does it. When you jump into something, you immediately do it without hesitation. That's actually called qiyam. That's why they say, for example, he just started eating, he started traveling, just got up and started traveling. So qiyam is actually used for immediately jumping into action. And this is actually the Quran's way of describing its philosophy on motivation also because, you know, he just came from a storm and he's covered up in a blanket. So he's all the motivation to stay covered up, right? And you have to really motivate someone to get them to go back into the discomfort because they just reached their comfort zone. And Allah is teaching us that the best motivation is to just do it. Don't think about it, just get up and do it. And it's interesting, in new psychological studies, the greatest motivation for any activity, whether it's exercise, reading, studying, work, whatever, the greatest motivation has been to just do it without looking for motivation. Like take the first step. And the people that, for example, say, I gotta get on a treadmill, let me watch some inspirational treadmill videos, right? They'll keep watching one inspiration after the other. But some people say, you know what? I hate doing it. I'm just gonna, you know what? Just do it. And they get up and do it. The first time they do it became the ultimate motivation for them to do it the second time, the fact that they just got into it. So for those of you that are like, brother, just give me some word for motivation for me, please just, can you give me something that I can have? I can just be motivated. No, no, no, you don't need motivation. You just need to get into it. Whatever you're thinking about that is some motivation is holding you back. Just get up and just get involved. And then it will come. The consistency will come. Now, a little bit more about warning that I wanted to bring to your attention. Last time I did talk to you about warning in one sense, but today I'm going to talk to you about it in another sense. Warning is an unwelcome activity. Nobody likes to be warned. And warning means that you understand what someone is doing wrong. Because you can't warn someone if you don't understand what they're up to. The word warning already indicates that Rasulu is deeply aware of the wrongs that are going on in his society. He doesn't live in a bubble. He knows what's going on. How can he warn people if he doesn't know what's going on? There's no way he could do that. And you know the openness of this. Ayah. Allah didn't say warn them about what? He didn't say warned them about shirk, warned them about them killing baby girls, warned them about stealing, warned them about Zina, warned them about gambling, warned them about this. He didn't restrict it. Why? Because it's saying there are all kinds of things they're up to. And you know what kinds of things they need to Be warned about. There's an openness. Right, and, and what does that suggest? Rasulullah is keenly aware, deeply aware of what is going on in his society. So on the one hand, what we assume sometimes is when you're spiritually motivated or you want to just learn about this religion, then you need to not know anything about Dunya. You need to know about your deen. This is deen. That is Dunya. Inside the word anvil is a deep understanding of the Dunya, deep understanding of the, the challenges of a society. Where is the heart of corruption? What are the challenges of young people? What are the challenges in this profession and that profession and that profession? What are the corruptions that are happening inside the marketplace? What are the corruptions that are happening inside the families? There's an ear to the ground, there's a hand on the pulse. He knows exactly what's going on. So even though we can't know everything as a collective, we can be in conversation with each other, of different people with different areas of expertise, giving us an understanding of what's actually going on on the ground so that we can properly warn about what Allah is actually wanting us to warn about. Right? That's kunfa Andir. Rise up. Get up and warn. Engage. Now, having said all of that, we're going to get to this. Just some observations about this incredible, incredible ayah. Seems so simple at first, folks. This ayah seems so simple. Declare the greatness only of your master. That's all it says. Declare the greatness only of your master, which is takbeer. Right? Declare the greatness. But it's coming in the context of warning. So we're going to make a few observations here. Rasoolallah was giving this warning. And I told you before, when the Quran started giving us warnings, it, it was actually really going after the elite hard. It was going after the millionaires and the corrupt business people and the people of social status really aggressively. So Abu Jahl people like Abu jahir Al Walid, Ibn Mughira, Abu Sufyan, etc. They would hear the Qur'an and say, what did you say? You talking about us? So they got alerted. Now, usually when someone talks about them and they give them the eye, they stop. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Somebody makes a bad, you know, pre Islamic poetry, I've studied a little bit of it, not enough of it, but whatever little I've studied, there would be some poet who made some poetry about one of the tribe leaders or one of the tribe leaders wives or his daughters or something of Something offensive. Next thing you know, if you want to die, stay here or you're out of town. Don't come back. You lost your citizenship. And if we see you on the road somewhere, you're dead. So they would expel the guy from the tribe and he would have to go from one tribe to another to another, and he would never show up. Basically restraining order or shoot to kill order. He can't come back. Rasool is, through the Quran, very aggressive against the elite of Makkah. And he's not going anywhere. And it's getting more aggressive as it goes. The Quran is getting more blatant in its attacks. That's what it's doing. So they realize something. This thing isn't going away and he's not intimidated. This is different. Then I told you in another lecture, Walid Ibn Mughira is a strategic guy. So you know what? You know people that are very good at investing in politics, they see something and they say, you know what nobody has. Nobody recognizes that this stock is going to shoot up. But I see potential in this stock. I'm going to put money in it. I'm going to be an early seed investor before it takes off. So even though it's Rasool is presenting a message against the kuffar, against the elites. Some of the elites are like, yeah, he's talking against us. But this thing has some legs. This thing's got some wings. Maybe we need to become early investors. Maybe we need to know what he really wants. We need to know what he. Because nobody gets this aggressive. And they don't have a behind the scenes agenda because that's all they know, right? When there's a really fiery politician in the opposition, the moment he's done with his speech, he's gonna get a text message from the majority party, hey, we'd like to have a meeting. Because they want to negotiate behind the scenes. Because, hey, look, you're taking our market share, you're causing a lot of ruckus. What's it gonna take to shut you up? That's how politics works behind the scenes. In front of you, they're cursing each other, they're yelling at this one's a threat to America, this, that, the other. Behind the scenes, they're cutting a check. Behind the scenes, they're making deals. This is what they're used to. So when they see Rasulullah make an impact, an early impact, they're like, before this impact gets too big and it might become too expensive, let us buy him out early. Let's just Buy him out. So they come to him and you know the story. They try to negotiate with him and buy him out, offer him a deal. And Allah is telling us something through that, in that moment when they say, you can have whatever woman you want, just point to her, we'll give her to you. You want to be the governor of Makkah? You got it. What do you want? And we're not saying you give up your Quran. You can keep your Quran. Just. How about just some surahs? You take some surahs out. Oh, no, don't take out the whole surah. Just these few Ayat, you know, some people were triggered by that. Some people might think that you're not really loyal to the nation. Some people might have a problem with your patriotism if you mention this and this. But other. We like this other stuff. I like the. I like the whole, you know, praise and look at the stars and trees thing. I like that part. Keep that. That's good. It sounds nice too. Just some parts just, they want that. You give a little bit and they'll give a little bit. They want to negotiate. That's what they came with. And through it, I told you, every time I tell you something about Rasul Salam, project that over to the entire ummah. Every time. So we're gonna project that to the entire Ummah. I've been in the. In this scene, public speaking, Dawah, etcetera, for a very, very long time. And if you've been in this scene long enough and you become popular enough, famous enough, doors start opening up for you. You go to a restaurant, you're eating food, you go to pay, somebody already paid for it. Somebody recognize you. They're, oh, huh, I should come here more often, right? Then you start getting emails from the governor of this city and the president of that country or the, you know, the White House, or, you know, the governor of Jakarta, or, you know, the prime minister of Malaysia or, you know, university of something, or the, you know, the CEO of this and the oil company that. And they want to shake a hand with you, and they want to invite you and they want to give you an award. And they want. Starts picking up, and you're like, hmm, I was doing this for the sake of Allah. I love the sake of Allah. Business kills a lot of perks. And I'm gonna shake hands with the president. I'm gonna take a picture with this celebrity. That guy who has 50 million followers is watching my videos. What? What? I should go. He's calling me. I should go. They're inviting me. There's special invitation. Special invitation. They're gonna give me an award. I should go. So I'm gonna go running. I'm gonna take a picture. But why am I going? I'll be going because it'll raise my profile. I'll feel kind of good. Of course, I can add on for the sake of Allah, but I really know what's going on, don't I? Allah says when you're going to rise up and you're gonna warn, declare the greatness only of your master, right? Right. Now, if we start becoming influencers, right? The da'I influencer. And then the da'a influencer wants to have collabs and wants to have deals and wants to have sponsorships and wants to have. Whose greatness is going on here? Is that the greatness only of yorub, or is there something else going on here? And then what happens with politicians is politicians don't have legitimacy generally, especially politicians in power, they don't have legitimacy. And I've been on the receiving end of this. Politicians are in the middle of a financial scandal. Like the guy is getting hammered in the polls and the elections are six months away in some Muslim country, right? And I happen to be visiting that Muslim country and a lot of people are showing up to the lecture. All of a sudden, the prime minister would like to meet you. And I'm not that dumb. The prime minister would like to meet me because he's tanking in the polls, especially among the youth. His intelligence officers are telling him a lot of youth showed up to this program. So if you stand next to this guy and take a selfie and put it out there, some of those youth that have loyalty to his message, some of that might trickle down your way. If no one is okay with him, then he's not that bad. He'll probably give the money in Sadaqah that he stole, right? So let's do that. And you know what I could say? Well, you know what? You'll get what you want out of this, and I'll get what I want out of this. I'll get government contracts, approvals, backdoor access. I. I can land in a country and instead of going through checked luggage, they've already received my luggage. And I can go through, like a back entrance to a VIP room into a limo. And I didn't even see a passport officer. What? This is dope. I love dawah. That can happen, right? That's when you remember what a baqafa kabbir means. You're being bought out. Rasulullah. There was an early attempt to buy him out. Now I don't. I'm not. I'll be honest about what I'm saying here. I do believe in collaborations. I do believe in promoting your work. I do believe in advertising the message. I do believe in it. But never at the expense of the message itself. Never at the expense of the message. So when the message is going to be, hey, we want you to come, can you say a few words about this, that or the other? No. What I say, the warning, what a da'I has to say has to be dictated by what Allah has given, not by what the donor wants, not by what the board of a masjid wants, not by what the algorithm wants, not by what the following wants. Because the moment they start dictating, then they are Akbar, not Allah. This ayah says, keep Allah Akbar. That has to happen. What happens to a da'I who. I know this is going to sound offensive, but that's okay. I've noticed there's nowadays there's testosterone, Dawah and estrogen. Dawah, right. There's dawah like, you know, let's be as red pill, as red pill gets. And then there's blue pill dawah too. There's all kinds of pill, dawah, right? And people that have very angry messaging and you know, pounding their fists and you know, getting, getting after the kuffar, etc, etc, they have a certain kind of audience and they garnered their audience by being the angry guy. Now they're running out of things to be angry about. So they got to come up with new things to be mad about or new people to be mad about to keep feeding that audience that's hung. They don't, they don't come to him for something else. They, they come to him for his rage that feeds them, that feeds their dopamine. So they need that. So what's become Akbar for this da'ih? His rage? That's what he's selling. And by the way, sometimes he says something wrong and he realizes I've said something wrong, I went too far or I criticized someone who shouldn't have been criticized, or I made a mistake or I misquoted something. Is that possible? If I admit my mistake, I'm going to lose my audience. People are going to hammer me. What's Akbar now? Your image is Akbar. Your rab has to be Akbar. Not your agenda, not your group, not your school. Look at what happens. This is not a problem of Islam. This is a problem of religions. Religions there are basically at one level, the objective of Islam was to give a direct connection between a human being and Allah and God. There's no one in between. A prophet's job is to connect you directly to God. The revelation's job is to connect you directly to God. And there historically, if you look at a bird's eye view of the Quran, there are two barriers that were created in society between people and God. Two barriers, two kinds of barriers. One kind of barrier are false gods. So Mushrikoon have like these idols, right? They have these idols, but they say these idols, they are just shufa'a, shufa'auna'llah, they are just there to get us better access to God. So through them we get to God. That's their idea, right? So that's. And Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam undercuts that. But there's another kind of barrier that Allah described in the Quran. There are people that use religious education to legitimize themselves, to become the gatekeepers of what God is saying and what he's not saying. Like the Catholic Church, like the rabbis. You don't access the Torah, we'll tell you what it says. You don't access the Bible, the church will tell you what it says. So it's not the religion of Jesus, it's the religion of the church. It's not the religion of Moses, it's the religion of the rabbis. I could take the next step, but I think you're smart enough to figure this out. I think you're smart enough to figure this out. This job of the Prophet is to create the most direct connection between you and Allah. But when even within the Ummah, there will be a group of people who will say, no, no, no, my job is not to connect you to Allah. My job is to connect you to the group in the middle. And they are the ultimate authority on what is and isn't the word of God. My job is not to empower you to be directly connected. My job is to empower you to be connected to me. Then who are they actually declaring the greatness of that group? Whose greatness are they seeking? Their own, you understand? They become a mafia by themselves. And anything that challenges their greatness becomes a threat. This is what the Qur'an discusses at length. At length. What are false gods? False gods are these. This barrier in the middle that has an agenda. And when they see you, either they want to destroy you or they want to buy you out was one of those two things they want to do And Rasul sahil is being warned. Declare the greatness only of your own. Now let's talk about the message of rabbaka FA kabir. That's the principle. But there's more. And inshaallah, I'll be done very quickly when I say rabbaka fakabir, what's the message of Islam? Is that in every choice that I make, I need to ask myself was, did Allah, Did I put Allah first before I made this choice? I'm about to go into a business and that business has certain elements that are not allowed by Allah. Right? But it's good returns. I can pray and say Allahu Akbar. Eid comes and I say Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. La ilaha illallahu. Allahu Akbar. Allahukurullahi alhamd. I'll do lots of takbir. I'll say Allahu Akbar multiple times a day when I pray. But when I was signing that business contract, was Allah actually akbar? Not really. Because I agreed to something in which I reduced the authority of Allah. Because the money that was coming in became greater, that incentive became greater than the word of Allah, didn't it? The message of warabaka fakabir declare maintain the greatness only of your rab is actually now the message is in what things are you compromising the takbeer of Allah? The previous surah was about the takbeer of the salah. That's the takbeer. When we make salah, this surah is about the takbeer of dawah. There's a different takbeer. And this takbeer means this message is one in which I have to ask myself in business, in. In family life, in my relationships, how I deal with my friends, how I deal with my enemies, how do I deal with people I like, how do I deal with people I don't like? Is Allah actually Akbar? In the choices that I'm making, I give you the example of business. I'll give you a few more examples from different parts of our lives. Say you don't like your mother in law. I mean not you, you love your mother in law. I'm talking about some, I'm talking about people in Frisco. They have a problem. Okay, so you don't like your mother in law and she's asking for help, right? And you can help her, but you don't like her. You don't like her. And you know that Allah says that you should help those that are closest to you. And she qualifies as among those that are Closest. But if somebody you liked would ask for help, you would immediately help. But somebody you don't like ask for Allan is burning you a little bit. Your anger became Akbar than the word of Allah. Your grudge is akbar than the word of Allah, isn't it? I'll give you another scenario. Many of you will hate this one. That's okay. There's something Allah has made. Your son 30 years old, hasn't been married. He says, I like this girl, I want to get married. No, no, no, no, you can't. No. He's 30 years old. He's not a child, he's a man. He has the choice. Allah has given him the choice and he's asking you out of courtesy. He's making it look like he's asking your permission because we have a different Islam in Pakistan. We have some additional surahs there in which you have to ask your parents permission before you choose a spouse. But in the rest of the Islam, the rest of the deviants in the world, a man needs no one's permission to choose a spouse so long as she's halal for him. And they say no. And if you don't, if you, if you marry this girl, even though she's halal for you, if you marry this girl, your mother will never make dua for you. Your father will only look in your direction. We're not going to attend the wedding, we're going to cut you off. We're never forget about the inheritance. Don't come to this house again. Cutting the family ties. Now this young man, this 30 year old, not even young, he's getting old. This young man who's making a choice, is this choice halal? Absolutely halal. When they threaten to. And they cut family ties over this when they cut family ties. Keeping family ties is a command of Allah or no. You have to keep family ties with parents who are Mushrik, Mushrik. They're worshiping idols and you can't cut family ties. The worst crime in Allah's book, they're doing that. If they're struggling against you to do shirk, don't obey them but still accompany them. You don't have the choice to cut family ties. But you know what? He didn't listen to me. I want nothing to do with him. Now your anger, your pride, your need for control became greater than the word of Allah. You can go to Hajj and say all the takbeers you want. Allah is Only Akbar those 10 days for you or Allah is only Akbar when it's time to pray. But Allah is not Akbar in your family choices. Allah is not Akbar in business choices. Allah is not Akbar in where you're spending the money or where you're withholding the money. When Allah gave a message to Rasulullah, what is the now the warning? The warning is, are you really declaring Allah Akbar in this area of your life, in this area of your life, in this area of your life, in this area of your life or not? You know, you can't become selective in your religion. Another very powerful, powerful implication of this phrase. I'll particularly tell you finally about the message itself. There are. There are sensitivities and this is a uncut conversation. After being around Masajid for 25 years, I get to make lots of friends with lots of imams around the world. And there was a few conversations go something like this. I'm summarizing a few of them together. Man, this is a big masjid, really hard to Alhamdulillah. I got the job as the imam. It's a tough job, but I know a lot of guys want this job. They're waiting for me to mess up. So I'm really careful about which khutbah I give and which khutbah I don't give because I know if I give the wrong kind of khutbah that one board member doesn't like, they're going to put in a motion to get me dismissed. And there's these five guys that are just waiting to take my job in a second. So I stay away from certain topics because it's too hot, I can't touch it, and I'll be out. Job security became Akbar, didn't it? I'm thinking about what I should say and what I shouldn't say based on the politics of a community, based on the sensitivities of a community, based on my following, based on my donors, based on, oh my God. Is Allah really Akbar? Is Allah really Akbar? Funny enough, we live in the United States, one of the places in the world that supposedly takes pride in freedom of speech. Many of you, including myself, belong to countries. In many of those countries, saying the wrong thing can get you killed. Having owning the wrong book can get you killed, get arrested. You could disappear for saying certain things in certain places. And we come to the US And I can put my mic on and I don't have to worry about the government yet, about how much they're recording, what they're going to turn into what or whatever, right? Those of you that were, that are old Enough to remember how things looked after 9 11, remember what was happening with the Muslims then. Many of you are younger than 9 11, so you don't really remember what was going on. But we're coming close to those times again. I sense it. I sense that there's a, there's a conversation about Islamic extremism and a hyper like surveillance of Muslims and what I fear is the, you know, maybe I'll come back to you talked about, talk to you about how to, how to prepare ourselves for the next wave of the allegation of Muslims being extremists. Because it's coming, we should be mentally prepared. But when it does come, what's going to happen? What happened the first time? What happened the first time is. Oh no, no, that's not what our religion says. That's not. Islam is not. Islam loves everyone. We're the most American of all. We're more American than Americans. Islam. Yeah, what about this verse? No, no, no, that's the. Nobody understands this verse. This is. We don't, we don't, we don't follow this verse. What about this Surah of yours? What about. No, no, no, you misunderstand. This is, you know, we start hiding the word of God, right? So I told you, this testosterone, Islam, yeah, it says kill everyone. No, it doesn't say that, you idiot. That's not what it says. And on the other hand, no, it doesn't say anything about standing up for justice. No, no, you misunderstand, right? So either your cowardice became Akbar or your anger and your testosterone became Akbar. And the situation the Muslims find themselves in is now dictating what Islam should look like, what Islam should sound like. Woke culture came. The feminist movement had a resurgence and new formation, new variations of it, and these cultures came and they took the country by storm. And in that environment, if a bunch of imams are only talking about women's rights because it's the thing to talk about, right? I'm not saying Islam doesn't have women's rights, but why did that become the subject now? Why wasn't that always the subject? Because it's trending. Because if you don't talk about it, people might think you are on the wrong side of this. So in order to position yourself politically correctly, you better make this subject Akbar. You understand? When Allah says there's an entire worldview embedded in here that makes our message the same as Salah. When it's raining outside, ASR is ASR when it's sunny outside, ASR is ASR. When it's summer. When it's winter, Salah is salah. Allah is Akbar. Allah is Akbar. Allah is Akbar. When there's traffic and you're making salah on the street in New York City, Allahu Akbar. You go to Ruku, Allahu Akbar. You go to Sajdah. You don't change it. You don't change it. The same way the dawah of Islam is not impacted by what's happening in the world. The Quran is the eternal word of Allah. What he says is what he says. And we have to represent it, not impacted by what's coming from the outside. And then immediately start reacting to one thing, then another thing, then another thing, then another thing, and then inject into it our own biases. Because when we do that, the situation is Akbar. Our fears are Akbar, our anxieties are Akbar. But it's not the Rabb who is Akbar. Look, the situation in Makkah, did it change over time or no? Did it get worse or no? But study the earliest Makkan surahs to the last Makkansuras. The message is consistent. Consistent. You won't even know, actually, if you don't study deeply, you won't even know which is the early surah, which is the later surah. There's no, like, oh, let's change our tone here. It's getting too tough. It's not. It's just, it's. It has a stance, the book has a stance, and it remains on that stance consistently because it's not. It's not trying to impress anyone. It's not trying to influence anyone. The message is what it is. Whoever wants they can believe it. Whoever wants, they can disbelieve. Because the message doesn't need you and me. The message can speak for itself. This is the authenticity that is embedded inside these verses. And when people say, how do I know if I'm sincere in my dawah? I would say, study Surah al Muddathir. Just think about Surah al Muddha. You'll know if you're sincere. These few ayat in the beginning will slap a believer around. He'll be set straight. And so finally, instead of talking about the da'I'm, going to talk about the listener, the madhu, the Muslim listener. Muslims have also become consumers of Islamic content. Like people are consumers of, you know, fashion TikTok or fashion content or sports content or, you know, celebrity content. Now we become consumers of Islamic content. And the algorithm picks up on what kind of stuff you like, doesn't it? And then it feeds you more of what you like, and then you keep seeing similar things. And so the entire algorithm is designed to make you drown deeper in your own preferences, your own hawa. Right. And now, because your Islamic consumption is dependent on your preferences, oh, I like this guy. He makes jokes. I like this guy. He only doesn't talk for too long. I like this guy the way he tells stories. I like this one because it feels like I can relate to this person. So these are feelings that decided which Islam you like. Yes. Now, your feelings are Akbar. Your feelings are Akbar because you're not actually interested in what Allah has to say. You're interested in how it makes you feel. Feeling dictates. And the algorithm says, yeah, this is what you feel. Your pupils dilate. Okay, caught that. Let me give you more of that. And then you say, well, my Islam doesn't agree with your Islam. The way I think about it, is this because we're feeding into our biases. We have to maintain this as a principle in life, in every choice we make, we're gonna struggle. We're going to actually never be perfect. There are going to be times where we did not make Allah Akbar in a choice we did not make Allah Akbar in a business decision, a family decision. It'll happen. So I leave you with this. The nuhat, the grammarians were really baffled by this. Ayah, those of you who are familiar with Arabic, so FA is called a harfatif. It's a separator, okay? In grammar, you don't say FA between the object and the verb. So you say, but here Allah says, so what that does, it creates two separate sentences. So there's a kabbir mahduf in the first one. So that the implication of it is, in other words, is actually twice, once invisible, once stated. And how do we know that? Because of the fa'a. And what does that mean in translation? Continuously. Keep on repeatedly declaring the greatness of Allah. And you'll have to do it over and over and over and over and over and over again. And the first person to hear this instruction is rasulullah. And it's hard to imagine that Rasul is not already doing that. He's the ultimate role model of Takbeer. It's the same reason Allah keeps telling him to do tasbih. Right. But does anybody believe that until Allah says do tasbih? Before that, he was not doing tasbih, he was already doing tasbih. Why is Allah keep telling him, if you're eating food and your mother keeps saying, eat Eat. I'm already eating. Why are you telling me to do it again and again and again? It's not like I'm not doing it. And those ayat are in the singular addressing Rasulullah himself, who's already doing takbeer, who's already doing tasbeeh. And Allah says, keep on doing it, keep on doing it, keep on doing it. Why? It's as if Allah is saying, this is something that will never be on autopilot. You must maintain the same intensity, the same grit, the same stamina, and keep it going, keep it going. And this is motivation from Quran. This is the pep talk. Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop. Keep on, keep on, continue. Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on. That's how Allah is telling rasool. What does that mean for us? It means this is not. I can talk about this for 20 minutes and I can be done. But this is something you're gonna. You and I are gonna have to have this conversation with ourselves repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. If Rasul Sallallam is being told this to echo continuously, then we are in far more need of those echoes. Far more need. This is one of those concepts in this religion that you just gotta have this conversation with yourself over and over and over again until it gets deeply embedded in. Courses through your veins. Courses through my veins. So that we don't. We're not left ever with anything that's going on in life. And we can't help but think, did I just do takbeer or not? Did I do takbeer or not? Did I do takbeer or not? Make us people of takbeer, inshallah. See you next week and we'll talk about two more ayat. Who? Yusalan Abi. Yeah.