MashaAllah Pondering The Full Surah Al Fatiha Nouman Ali Khan

Foreign I'd like to first of all thank the organizers here movies especially and the volunteers and the sponsors for this program to make this visit for myself and my team possible it's been a dream of mine to be able to visit Muslims from all over the world and especially in this part of the world and alhamdulillah Allah opens these doors and I want to start by requesting all of you to make Dua for the team of mine that's traveling and our families that we've left behind that Allah makes the separation easy for them and that

Allah put Baraka in this trip for all of us and in this gathering for all of us including yourselves of course inshallah so tonight I'm supposed to be talking to you about the Fatiha and this is something I these topics that I chose during this trip and I'm also very grateful about that because I was actually given the Liberty to pick whatever topic I'd like to talk to you about and I chose to speak about the fatihad this evening with all of you um and some of you might be wondering why does he need three

hours to talk about the Fatiha so that Curiosity should get answered pretty soon or maybe not that soon but what I'm going to try to do is share some things with you about the Fatiha and hopefully that'll give you an appreciation of how to approach the rest of the Quran in a slightly different way and maybe with perhaps paying a little more attention than you and I are used to paying Attention to it so with that inshallah I'm going to begin and I'm going to give you guys a request everybody here when I ask you

a question you have to answer me as loud as you can otherwise this is the only way I know you're still alive I have no other way of knowing so if I ask you a question just try to call out the answer as loud as you can now if you're still shy or you belong to a social class in which speaking out loud is beneath you then you can just pretend like like that that's fine too okay but if I see some of you sitting and staring at me with your mouth closed like no then

I'm going to call you out okay so try to at least try to participate as much as you possibly can inshallah and and this is really uh one it's a long journey for all of us tonight and I don't want anybody to go to sleep at least not yet so let's try to be as engaged as we possibly can be alhamdulillah the most beautiful Surah of the Quran is the first Surah of the Quran it's the first complete Surah revealed many of you are familiar that there are a lot of narrations the first revelation but

that was the it was a passage of a Surah but not the entire Surah right so the Fatiha by many accounts is the first complete Surah given to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam historically there's been a difference what is the first Ayah of suratul Fatiha some people believe that The first Bismillah other scholars believe that the first Ayah of suratul Fatiha is so there's a difference now tonight because we have limited time I'm not going to discuss the details of that difference also only because of time if I started with Bismillah we would be here

the entire evening just on Bismillah so I'm going to share with you the position that I personally find more convincing and that position is that the Fatiha actually begins with alhamdulillah though I do respect the position on the other side I feel there are plenty of strong indications in the Quran itself and also in the sayings of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that Fatiha begins with alhamdulillah that it begins from there for instance in a very famous Hadith kudzi if you ever get a chance to read an explanation of the Quran from a classical scholar

they'll mention this Hadith when they're explaining the fatihad and the Hadith is very famous it says I divided the prayer between myself and my slave into two halves and then the Hadith walks us through the entire Fatiha but it doesn't begin with Bismillah that Hadith actually walks us through alhamdulillah alhamdulillah it begins with when my slave says and then goes on and on and on which means it's a pretty cool indication that Fatiha begins with what let's see if you're awake now what does it begin with Okay so that's what we're going to begin with

now the first phrase of the Fatiha is something Muslims use all the time all the time what is that phrase use it like in our daily conversation when we meet each other you ask somebody how they're doing and immediately the first thing that comes out is alhamdulillah alhamdulillah right you even use it when you want somebody to stop talking okay alhamdulillah [Laughter] you know so we use it in funny ways but you know this this first phrase we're going to try to pay a little extra attention to it one of the things that I'm a

student of is language and how not just what Allah says but how he says it and are there other ways of saying it so let me begin with a very simple exercise and I need you to be a little loud there what translation of alhamdulillah have you read before try to call it out call it out call it out praise belongs to Allah anything else thank you Allah that's a pretty interesting translation thank you Allah okay thank you that reminds me of my mother-in-law actually because one time she was so happy she said [Laughter] But

anyway so a lot of translations say praise belongs to Allah thanks to Allah yes but today I want to start with something the word hamd in the Arabic language means two things and I want everybody here to remember that hamd means two things the first thing it means is Athena which means praise that's correct and the second thing it means is thanks praise and thanks and these are two different things they're not the same thing they're not the same thing so the first conversation I want to have with you is what is the difference between

praise and thanks that's the first thing I want you and myself to be reminded of you pass you're walking on the street you see a really nice car what do you do praise it or think it hopefully you don't thank it like you don't like go over to the car and Pat it on the hood and say thank you so much BMW you know you don't do that you say nice car you praise it praise is a separate issue now for instance you have you go to somebody's house who just had a baby and even

though my personal opinion is new babies are really they look like very old men but you know you're supposed to go and be nice and say so cute oh so beautiful even though it looks like a weird and like a dinosaur and you know I can say that I have six kids I can say that I have no shame in saying it but anyway so you go over to a child you know a family and you say what a cute baby and what have you just done have you praised or Thanked praised you don't think

a baby you praise it you understand you don't think when you're watching uh you know Sports and you see an incredible athlete you praise the athlete wow that was awesome you don't thank the athlete you praise the athlete you understand but thanks is something entirely different thanks is only done when someone does something for you when something someone does something for you so when you see something impressive when you see something beautiful when you see something that intrigues you and interests you then you will praise it but when you when someone does you a favor

when someone does something nice for you then you will thank and you won't necessarily praise someone you praise is not necessarily someone you think is that clear when you praise something you don't necessarily think it but the opposite is also true the converse is also true when you think something or you thank someone you don't necessarily praise them let's let's think about that for a second how do you thank someone without praising them I'll give you an example or two from the Quran you know Musa was raised in a pretty interesting household where was he

raised what's his address pretty famous address yes and so he is being he's been adopted by Pharrell now firaoun has raised him and when years later when Musa came back basically said how dare you how dare you Talk to me this way and he he said to him didn't we raise you as a newborn in this house didn't we raise you here in our midst didn't you spend many years of your life here you could talk to me like that what is he saying aren't you what aren't you what fill in the blank for me

no the answer is not aren't you sleepy that's not the answer aren't you what aren't you grateful aren't you grateful and Musa actually when he responds he says that is in fact a favor you did for me thanks that's his way of saying thanks in other words even who will never be praised a guy will never be praised not by a prophet not by a Muslim but when he does a favor he will still be what thanked thanks can exist without praise the Quran talks about the rights of parents the parents here know that because

they use it all the time but anyway the Quran talks about the rights of parents and Allah says about parents be grateful to me and to both of your parents if your parents are struggling against you they're telling you to do shirk is pretty bad I don't think anything gets worse than shirk and parents are telling you to do don't obey them but the Ayah began you still have to be grateful to them in other words if they are doing would you praise what they're doing you wouldn't praise but even though They're still your parents

so you would still what you'd still think you would still think think about Ibrahim he does not praise what his father does but he's still thankful isn't he so what I'm trying to get at my first conversation with you is two things now you tell me what they were praise and thanks and are those two things different or the same they're different and sometimes you can have praise without thanks and sometimes you can have thanks without praise now we turn to what Allah is saying in alhamdulillah he's saying praise is for Allah and he's also

saying thanks is for Allah and he's not just saying one of them or the other one now what you know if the Arabic language said in Arabic means praise is for Allah I'd be okay with the translation because mother actually just means praise if it said if it said that then I would have been okay with thanks is for Allah gratitude is for Allah but Allah said alhamdulillah which means he combined both of them so how is this better well it's better for a number of reasons the first reason is when you praise something sometimes

it's not genuine for example you're driving a little too fast and the police officer pulls you over and the first thing you look at them is a nice hat officer Looking very dashing today well you're praising the guy but you're actually not really praising the guy you're hoping you don't get a ticket that's what that is right or some of you younger students younger people in the audience you get a really bad report card and you walk home and you say mom your cooking today is so delicious she hasn't even cooked yet you're praising but

it's not genuine praise could be fake there's fake praise that's done for Kings there's fake praise that's done for bosses for judges it's done all the time overly formal praise just to impress somebody but you don't really mean it right for example when you go to a job interview and it was a terrible interview it was the worst job interview you ever took even then when you're leaving USA nice to meet you it wasn't nice but you still have to say that it's fake praise you understand so when the word mud is used it could

be fake it could be fake it's actually not entirely appropriate for Allah now let's think about sugar if Allah said which means thanks is for Allah thanks is for Allah you know what thanks is only done when you acknowledge a favor something was done for you and you realize it was done for you and then you finally think you had a flat Tire somebody came and helped you out you say thank you if you had a flat tire and you had no idea that somebody else is you know even going trying to help you you're

sleeping in the car or whatever you know you have no one to think things can only happen when you have somebody to think and you realize the favor that's been done in other words thank you is a reaction is that clear to everybody thank you is always a what reaction thank you is not something you start with ever you don't meet somebody just walking away thanks thanks you don't do that that's strange Allah use the word which combines praise and thanks and by the way alhamdim the Arabic language in the Arabic sense of the word

can only be genuine it cannot be manufactured it cannot be fake and it's not necessarily reactionary it's not reactionary it's more powerful than saying it's more powerful than saying it is more comprehensive than both of them Allah chose something to say that is more better than both of them combined subhanallah then here's the final thing what if you know how in English how many words do I have to use for hand so far how many words do I have to use two but Allah used how many words one so you're learning about a complication in

the Quran and when we translate the Quran sometimes Allah uses one word but to get the idea across you need a couple of words isn't that true but what if Allah himself used both Words what if Allah said if Allah himself used two words praise and thanks is for Allah if you use both of them would it be the same actually no it won't be the same because of a very beautiful principle of the Arabic language and it's actually a principle of all languages and as a matter of fact they say in Arabic which means

in simple English the best kind of speech is that's very few words and gets the point across you use lesser words and get your point across that is the best kind of speech now some of you masha'allah have friends that you talk to for 30 minutes but they still haven't made a point yet they say a lot but but they actually don't say anything and you're still hoping they get to the point you know and some people use too many words to even describe the simplest things like today I was going over this architectural device

that is used one step after the other to go from one floor to another you just took the stairs just just see I took the stairs you don't have to go into unnecessary details the best kind of speech is the one that's brief that's less that's easier on the tongue so alhamda is even better than saying but there's another difference there's another difference and that is that in the Arabic in Old Arabic when you put end in between two things the word end is very simple we use it all the time but when you put

and hey guys guys stop with the pictures it's distracting I'm like okay fine okay Everybody's looking at you guys and you're taking their photo and they're taking your photo and it's like a confusing scene but anyway so they won't stop Relentless okay what was I talking about or something what was I saying I forgot what was I talking about and okay when you use and in Arabic what's the Arabic word for and anybody know what it separates two things even in meaning you know what that means if you say you're saying praise belongs to Allah

for some things and thanks belongs to Allah for some other things they're not always combined because the word isn't combined since you separated them sometimes you're in the mood to praise Allah but not thank him and sometimes you're in the mood to thank Allah but not praise him but when you say alhamdulillah for whatever you're saying alhamdulillah what's the reality you're praising him and you are thanking him at the same time you don't get to pick which one you don't get to pick which one so now for example you're walking by a nice car and

you look at a nice car and you say alhamdulillah what have you just done you praised Allah forgiving human beings the ability to do that to design that to manufacture that and you thanked Allah you thanked Allah to be able to give you the chance to sit in one without the owner realizing or something but you're praising and thinking at the same time that's what you're doing now this informs the attitude of the Muslim so often when somebody comes and talks To you you're having a bad day how's it going um alhamdulillah you're not really

praising Allah when you say that you're not really thanking him when you say that alhamdulillah is not just something we say it's an attitude it's an attitude Allah is not interested in what comes out of our tongues he's more interested in what comes out of our tongues that is connected to our hearts so we have to mean what we say when we say alhamdulillah for instance you got stuck in traffic and you say alhamdulillah that's kind of hard to think about isn't it because you guys I'm sure you get stuck in traffic a lot so

when you get stuck in traffic and you say alhamdulillah what are you saying Ya Allah as bad as this might seem I'm sure their wisdom there's wisdom in it and there's something good in this for me and I thank you for it and I praise you and I praise the fact that I am safe I'm happy for the fact that I'm you know I have a car that I can get stuck in traffic with but at least I have a car that I have a job you know you have you start thinking positively does it

forces the Muslim to start thinking positively that's what it does so that's the first thing I wanted to talk to you about alhamdulillah let me keep track of time I've got five minutes left before Maghrib so let's get a few things out of the way the second thing I want to talk to you about in alhamdulillah still on alhamdulillah so far is that in the Arabic language you can use nouns and you can use verbs and now this is going to sound like a grammar lesson but hopefully I mean you guys are probably much better

at English grammar than us back home in America when I when I use the word English grammar people start falling into depression in America and it's like what you're talking about like don't look at me you know but I think the level of English education here is actually better so nouns and verbs now which one of these has tents like past tense and present tense and future tense which one of these has tents verbs have tens nouns don't have a tense there's no past tense noun or present tense noun or future tense now is that

cleared everybody okay so now when I say I praise Allah and I mean praise and thank because I've already covered that but I'm being brief in English now when I say I praise Allah did I use a noun or a verb here's the question oh my God's PhD question huh that's a verb isn't it if I say we praise Allah is that a noun or a verb that's a verb what tense is it past tense present tense that's present tense yes okay when I say praise belongs to Allah is the word praise a noun or

a verb is that clear to everybody that Praises a noun Allah could have used a verb I mean in Arabic you could say I praise Allah like you hear the alhamdulillah you know who you've heard this before Right before you go to sleep right so you've heard you know who so it's a verb oh 10 minutes left fantastic we praise him I praise him but Allah didn't say I or we he didn't use the present tense he actually used a now now the thing I told you very basically was nouns don't have a tense there's

no past no present or no future but verbs have what they have tents they're present they have present tense past tense future tense now the thing of it is here's what makes this beautiful if I say I praise Allah then I'm only talking about the present I said nothing about the past and I said nothing about the future if I use the past tense then I'm not guaranteeing anything about the present or the future because the tense has to be one or the other has to be one or the other and by the way just

because I'm praising Allah right now does it guarantee the next hour or no no it's limited isn't it it's not permanent a verb is not permanent Allah used a noun and nouns are what permanent Allah's praise is described with permanence you know what that does that means I am only praising Allah now but the praise of Allah has always been there and I may not be there forever but the praise of Allah will always be there the thanks to Allah will always be there it is not dependent on me huge reality in alhamdulillah is that

alhamdulillah does not depend on me and that's the second point I want to make about nouns and verbs pay attention to this part right I think we can get this Across when you use a verb somebody needs to do the verb it's called the subject or the file in Arabic somebody needs to do a verb you can't just go into a conversation and say fill the test who filled the test you know you can't just say disappeared who disappeared oh my pen my pen disappeared like you see when you use a verb you need to

have someone who does it you need a subject you can't just have a verb by itself it doesn't make sense it Crea it creates confusion but a noun doesn't need someone to do it a noun doesn't need a subject a noun is independent by itself an apple is an apple you don't have to say who ate it you don't have to do that it's by itself you know when Allah uses the word alhamd he made it independent it doesn't need anyone if he used the verb then it needs someone doesn't it it needs someone to

do the praise either I praise or you praise or we praise but Allah made it independent of a person or a being it's even more powerful than everything Praises Allah and everyone Praises Allah because even if everything and everyone was mentioned then it was still the only the ones everything and everyone right now but Allah did not want to limit it by time or by the people who do it Allah Allah is not in need of you and me saying alhamdulillah we acknowledge when we say alhamdulillah We acknowledge to Allah that Allah is does not

need us we need him that's what we're acknowledging in just the phrase alhamdulillah so what have I given you so far when we say alhamdulillah it makes us optimistic that's the first thing I gave you when we say alhamdulillah now it makes us humble it makes us realize things don't depend on us we depend on Allah you know Allah doesn't depend on us and he doesn't need us we're not doing him a favor by saying alhamdulillah we're only doing ourselves a favor by saying alhamdulillah and here's the last bit I think I can make this

one happen commands a kind of verb a special kind of verb is commands like for example in Arabic you could say praise Allah praise Allah like if you know and it could be made as a request too let's pray or you can tell your child bring me water right so for example when I'm home and I tell my daughter hey bring me water she has two choices when you give someone a command there are two choices right what are the two choices either they do it or they don't do it so if I give if

I tell husna bring me water she has two choices either she will bring me water or she will bring me water there's two Clear Choices for her right if Allah says to anybody even if Allah says praise Allah what are the two things that will happen some people will do it and some people will not do it and therefore when you tell someone to do something the ball is In their Court it depends on them maybe they'll do it and maybe they won't Allah did not talk about praise in a way that depends on us

he didn't put the ball in our court he said whether you do it or not who cares it's still there alhamdulillah is still there it's been there forever it will be there forever human beings will come and go generations will come and go this world will come and go the hand of Allah will still be there it's a matter of fact I think in these last two minutes I can get this across I'm going to squeeze as much as possible in here and hopefully we can finish the conversation at least most of it of alhamdulillah

before we go I'm at least just alhamdul we haven't even got to lillah yet just al-hand maybe after the Salat okay but just about one one last thing about alhamdul there are two kinds of communication the Arab linguist argues in linguistics in balaja studies they argue that there are two kinds of communication it's informative or emotional they say that's technical terms you don't have to know that it won't increase your Iman or anything but I'm just I'll give you the the simple version of that either you have speech that is expressing your feelings or you

have speech that is communicating information two kinds of speech now that sounds really Technical and very hard to understand so let me make it simple for everybody when I say to I sit somebody down and I Explain something to them is that an act of delivering information or is that emotion when I explain something to someone information like for example as I'm discussing the Fatiha with you or saying things about alhamdulillah this is informative speech yes that's informative speech we take a break for Maghrib you are leaving your chair and you're making lots of Ayala

I have the front row seat let no one take this place and so you know as you are as you are sitting there before the salaams are said you're like it's kind of and then you dash back here and you know elbow as many people as you can to get back in your chair and you see that it's empty and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is what now at that point maybe nobody's in the hall yet you're like am I on the wrong floor you know but when you say alhamdulillah and

nobody is even there are you informing someone about alhamdulillah no at that time you use the same phrase alhamdulillah for what expressing your emotions if I'm teaching someone alhamdulillah if I'm teaching someone then I am actually being informative but if I'm saying it to myself the same phrase it can be emotional you understand the difference now let's talk about this begins you ever heard this What's the first word you heard in thank you for being awake what's the first word you heard what does anybody know what Inna means certainly for sure absolutely hand is for

Allah absolutely hum this for Allah now what's more powerful is saying hamd is for Allah more powerful or saying absolutely hum this for Allah what sounds more powerful absolutely alhamdas foreign the question is how come Allah didn't use it how come Allah didn't say in alhamdulillah because it's a very powerful statement why not make it more powerful by adding in After all you've been listening your whole life Quran is perfect you can't even add one word you can't even add one word it's perfect the way it is so what difference would it make I could

just throw in a little Inna khatib does it all the time I could do it too the only difference is when you use Ina in Arabic Linguistics when you use Inna the statement can only be informative the statement can only be informative it cannot be what kind of statement emotional emotional now if you don't use Ina your statement could be informative and could be emotional by not using Inna Allah actually made alhamdulillah a statement we use to tell Others and we he also made alhamdulillah a statement that we tell ourselves subhanallah the beauty of it

is now it's used in the in communicating the feelings of our hearts and also a message we want to give to somebody else both of them if in alhamdulillah is used then actually technically it's not an expression of one's emotion it's only meant to talk to somebody else not to yourself is not talking to himself first who's he talking to everybody else so he says I want you guys to remember alhamdulillah he's telling you so he uses Inna the point I've been trying to make thus far before our break is that every phrase in the

Quran starting with alhamdulillah is so perfect the way Allah says it that no matter what variation you try to come up with use a verb instead use Inna you shukar use you don't get what Allah communicated you don't get what Allah azzawajal himself said so I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about alhamdulillah after our break yeah we come back from Salat at 7 20 already so I'm gonna I'm gonna be back I'll give you a full half hour because a lot of people here so 750 inshallah we're going to reconvene I

don't care if no one is here I can talk while no one is here I can talk while you're talking to each other you're catching up on old times you've met an old enemy and you want to rekindle the fight whatever you want to do that is up to you but I will start Talking at 7 50 inshallah so what were we talking about iron number what were we talking about how far did we get so you guys are alhamdulillah familiar with the English language so I I'll say two sentences you tell me which one

sounds normal I ate lunch that's the first sentence second sentence lunch I ate which one sounds normal to you I ate lunch okay they went to school to school they went which one sounds more normal which one's Osborne almost at the end I went to school or they went to school yeah but if I say to school they went do you still understand me okay so one is normal and one is strange but they're still both understandable yes okay this is actually I'm not just trying to tell you how Yoda speaks in like Star Wars

you know the strong the forces or whatever but I'm actually telling you that in the Arabic language sometimes the sequence of a sentence is changed and it's made strange when you walk to the Eid prayer when you're driving to the eve prayer Allah Allah what do we say hilhamed say alhamdu it's the same words but they have been put in reverse sequence and this is not just when you're walking to the Eid prayer it's actually in the Quran also it's there in the Quran sometimes Allah says alhamdulillah actually seven times Allah says alhamdulillah and a

couple of times in the Quran you also find the unfortunate thing is that they're translated exactly the same way but they're actually not the same thing they're two different things and I want to explain to you what the difference is between alhamdulillah and what alhamdulillah what difference does it make if he didn't just say this is one of the last things I'll tell you about at least in Arabic when you use the unusual sequence let's go back to my example I ate lunch what was the strange way of saying it lunch I ate remember that

when you use the unusual sequence what you are actually saying is I did not eat anything else I only ate lunch but they don't have to use the word only they can just mess up the sequence and it communicates the word only If I say they went to school it's normal but if I say to school they went what am I actually trying to say in in the Arabic sense in Arabic logic what am I saying they only went to school they didn't go to the movie theater they didn't go to play sports they didn't

go to work they only went to school nowhere else you understand so it adds one word to the meaning when you reverse the sequence what word is added only and I want you to think about this word only in another context so you help understand it better as a teacher I used to teach elementary school I used to teach you know at one point I taught kindergarten at one point I taught second and third grade one of the best experiences of my life and also one of the worst experiences of my life but anyway so

I'm teaching third grade and you know uh you know two girls in the back are talking of the class and I can tell you one thing about girls because I got four of those they can talk so two girls in the back they're just going at it talking talking talking talking I said zainab and she goes I wasn't the only one now when she says I wasn't the only one what is she actually saying if I am going to the principal's office Fatima better come with me but she didn't have to sail another sentence she

only used what one word strategically only so if you use the word only Strategically then you actually can be saying two things by saying one thing that's the cool thing about saying the word only so for instance if I say I didn't only come to Singapore then I didn't say more but you understand what I mean right I also went to Malaysia Etc like you can fill in the blanks now Allah says sometimes hand only belongs to Allah hand only belongs to Allah fill in the rest there is more it's implied what is it hamd

only belongs to Allah I'll wait for you let this get awkward I don't care oh wait only belongs to Allah very good no one else it doesn't belong to anyone else full stop when you say only then you are actually saying only belongs to Allah and not anybody else Allah says in the 45th Surah Surah at the very end of the 45th Surah it's incredible that the entire 45th Surah is a debate with people who do shirk the entire Surah is a debate and at the end of that debate Allah says to them only belongs

to Allah and what is he saying to the mushrik it only belongs to Allah it does not belong to Anyone else in other words is a way of talking to someone who doesn't agree with you when Muslims talk to each other we don't say we say what because we don't have that confusion guys we don't have that confusion you don't talk to a Muslim say hey alhamdulillah you got that no we just say alhamdulillah because we're like is kind of done we're okay with that part you understand so there's no need for debating no need

to use that tone there's no need for that I'll give you why is the echo getting weirder and weirder are you are you remixing me right there okay so so here's the thing I'll tell you a little story as I travel across the the country one time earlier on and this was actually very recently after or very soon after 9 11 when the country was very tense also I traveled to Louisiana I don't recommend that but I traveled to Louisiana and I'm traveling and you know I um stop at a gas station getting gas and

the guy looks at me the guy with the pickup truck and I don't know usually the pickup truck has a shotgun in the back I don't know and he goes you from Islam boy and I'm like what should I say you know I mean if I say no from New York it's even worse for them but I said uh praise the Lord praise the Lord when I say praise the Lord he goes Amen to that and he left [Laughter] when I say praise the Lord can it be somebody understands me differently is that possible now

if I said to him praise Allah you know but praise the Lord can be understood by different people in different ways yes it can be the next point I'm getting at the next point now and that next point is Allah introduced us to himself in suratul Fatiha he didn't want to make it a debate he didn't want to yell at us when he started the Quran he wanted to speak to us as though the conclusion alhamdulillah is not a debate it is something you already know it is something already in your heart so there's no

reason to say Allah will say what instead alhamdulillah alhamdulillah you know that's teaching us that alhamdulillah is already in my heart it was already I didn't have to be convinced of it it didn't have to be stuck into me the mushrik lost it so he had to be given it again so he had to be told now this is the next part this is really cool Allah has how many names at least 99 names all of those are correct all of those are correct none of them are wrong how come Allah used alhamdulillah and what

Allah Fatiha is Allah introducing himself when you introduce yourself to someone you use your description or your name use your name if you don't know who I am I don't walk up to you say salaam alaikum I'm a teacher what assalamualaikum I'm no man and if I says you're also strange and walk away you know you don't start introducing yourself with a description you introduce yourself with a name the other thing is let's just say let's just play along and say maybe the word Allah is not there take it off what do you have left

you have left alhamdulillah I'm not giving you the accurate translation yet but belongs to the master of the world so the lord of the worlds that's how it's translated right and you don't even say the word Allah but remember what I said praise the Lord can that be confusing to somebody when you say to somebody is it possible they have a different concept of now if I talk to my my friend in Louisiana and I say praise Allah the lord of the worlds then there's no confusion left for him that I'm referring to Allah it's

actually happened in the Quran which messenger was supposed to Face Off against magicians faces off against the they throw their ropes and their rods he throws the staff it swallows everything They came up with what happens to The Magicians what did they do they fell into standing on stage they're on staring sajdah over there he's like he's confused like what's going on you're getting ready for round two or is this part of the act or what is that so they get up from such that and they say we believe in is still confused because he

says I know I know me I know because he thinks he is what Rob so when they say he has no problem with that he's like and go on and they say no genius the Lord of Musa and harun not you they had to clarify they had to clarify because if they just said he would have had no problem with that you understand so the word Allah is critical the word Allah and alhamdulillah is critical but there's another thing too oh so beautiful when I thank a painter like I look at a painting or they

made me a calligraphy piece or something and they say thank you what have I just thanked them for their art when you thank a teacher you thank them for the way they taught you when you think you know uh somebody who helped you do you thanked him for the help they did for you thanks is specific to what was done for you yes praise is also specific you praise the Beauty of a mountain because of its beauty you praise the freshness of the air because of how you enjoy it but then when we say if

if we say alhamdulillah praise and thanks belongs to the Creator then the only thing we're thanking Allah for is creating if we say alhamdulillah praise and thanks belongs to the wise the only thing we appreciated about Allah is what is wisdom how do I appreciate everything about Allah and I don't miss anything the things I can think of and the things I can't even think of I include everything in one concise statement so that I truly get to thank Allah the way he deserves to be thanked in one statement the only option I have left

is what alhamdulillah it's the only option so that's a little bit of a taste of alhamdulillah now this exercise I did with you guys this exhaustive exercise of just kind of exploring what alhamdulillah is and what are the Alternatives and how come the alternatives are not good enough can you imagine this exercise exists for the entire Quran word by word by word by word and it gives you an appreciation of the Quran like nothing else I was recently asked why the Fatiha I say if Muslims begin to reflect deeply on the Fatiha it would open

the doors to the rest of the Quran when we underestimate the Fatiha naturally we are going to underestimate the rest of the Quran when we begin to appreciate the depth and the beauty of The Fatiha it will make us want to explore the rest of the Quran so fatihai literally what does it mean the opener when you reflect on it it opens the rest of the doors it opened and you don't reflect on it the doors remain closed that's what we're trying to do today that's why the Fatiha what's the next phrase in the Surah

alhamdulillah what foreign how many names did we say Allah has at least 99 Allah chose one of them his first description to us of all the descriptions he could have chosen um you could have chosen that Aziz he could have chosen any of them he chose one now that he's given you his name which is Allah here's the first thing you should know about him which is what that's the first thing you need to know about him so we have to spend a little bit of time on this the word rub is complicated it has

a lot of meanings at the very base of it they say in Arabic I'll make it in English for you it's it's going to be easy Rob is someone who owns number one the owner it's the first meaning of the owner but if he's the owner what does that make me what does that make me property right an owner has what property it makes me property of Allah that's the first meaning the second is Means someone who ensures the growth someone who takes care of something so it can grow that's called a murabi now the

thing of the word murabi is is it possible that you own something but you don't take care of it does that ever happen like you own a car but you don't do the oil change right you own a computer but you never clean out the files or whatever you download all kinds of you know dumb things and it gets a virus and all of that you own but you don't take care of it it's very possible like you know you have a backyard but you never Garden in it it's all kinds of crazy things rolling

in the back or your kids have a room and they don't take care of it right so you have ownership but you don't care the word rub is someone who owns but also what cares he takes care of it he makes sure that it's take well you know cared for that's what I'd be the third is you own something you take care of it and you give it gifts you give it gifts now just because for example and obviously we don't have slavery like that anymore but if even if you have an employee it's one

thing to have an employee it's another thing to take care of your employee and it's another thing on top of that to give your employee what gifts benefit on top of what he deserves on top of what she deserves you're giving gifts and if you won't if you're reluctant to do that with an employee you would even be more reluctant to do that with a Slave imagine someone back in the day I mean we don't have the concept of slavery like that anymore but we have the concept for example of owning animals somebody owns a

goat you're not going to Buy your goat a nice bow tie or like you know you don't give a gift you just take care of it and that's enough but is someone who owns who ensures the growth who also gives gifts what that means to you and me I'll talk about in a second and the one who makes sure it stays together it doesn't fall apart because if he stops taking care of it it falls apart how many of you are into gardening at all nobody okay that's okay it's okay I I'm not going to

hold it against you sometimes in gardening you have very delicate plants and if you don't take care of them for one day they will Fall Apart some of you take care of like fish you don't feed it for one day oh that's okay it's okay he's poor can somebody find a parent please he's like a poor kid like so many people here okay if your child has a blue t-shirt and they're hyperactive that's where they are so I I was saying the one who maintains the existence if Allah stops taking care of us for one

second for half a second everything falls apart the blood circulating in my hands the heart beating from one beat to another is because Allah is letting it Allah is making it even he stops taking care of it for one second and it's gone it's all gone this is so what that word means is we're Completely dependent on Allah constantly then finally the final meaning of uh is a Sayed which means someone who has full Authority someone who has full Authority is it possible that you own something but you don't have full authority over it you

own a car but you cannot drive it however you want is that possible you own a property but you cannot build however you want you have to follow regulations is that possible yeah but when someone owns something and they have full authority to do whatever they want then they are called RAB then they are called Allah introduced himself with the word means someone who owns you which means you own nothing Rob is someone who will make sure that you grow he will care for you so he doesn't just own you and not care someone who

will give you gifts which means I I first of all I don't own anything so anything I do own must be a gift it's not something I earned I didn't pay for my hand how much are you willing to sell your hand for a leg for a nose for an eye for what are you willing to pay for it subhanallah Priceless gifts huh these are gifts given to us who's willing to sell their heart who's willing to who's willing to do that subhanallah this is these are Priceless gifts then on top of that and he's

maintaining my existence I only Exist because he's letting me one breath to the next is not because I eat well I do exercise I take care of myself I you know I make sure I breathe in a healthy environment et cetera Etc that is not why I am alive am I alive because he's letting me stay alive there are plenty of ways people can stop existing I have I I knew of people that were younger than me younger than me just I'm perfectly healthy exercise everything and out of nowhere the guy's cooking breakfast for his

children Falls and dies of a heart attack in the kitchen 29 years old with no history of heart attacks with no no priors in the family nothing that depends on Allah we're not independent of that from moment to moment to moment and finally a recognition that I actually have no Authority entirely The Authority is in Allah's hands all of that comes from the word it all comes from the word now about this word you know when I say teacher who does a teacher have a relationship with students when I say parent who does he have

a relationship with children when I say boss employer who does an employer have a relationship with employees there are some titles that necessarily have a relationship when you say intelligent doesn't necessarily have a relationship with anyone when you say tall doesn't mean you have a relationship with anyone but when you say employer it means you have a relationship with who employee now there are some names of Allah that don't give you a relationship Allah is knowledgeable the word knowledgeable does not give you a relationship it's a description of Allah independent of anybody else but when

Allah calls himself Master with all of these meanings is it necessarily creating a relationship yes Allah introduced himself with the first description the first description of Allah is something that builds a relationship now we have lots of relationships with Allah Allah is the creator we are the creation yes Allah is the giver we are the recipients yes Allah is the teacher we are the students yes these are all relationships we have with Allah but Allah says put all of those relationships as second the first relationship you need to know about that is the one that

you will never let go of that is the one that will always be there every moment of your day is which one that he is love and you are and I am what what does that make us in Arabic you know the term slave it makes us a Slave now I've explained the word we need to understand the word because that's that's what completes the relationship doesn't it I won't tell you a lot about the word I'll just tell you one thing because Allah introduced his part of the relationship which is that he is love

the only thing left now is what about our end so when you go further down in the Fatiha what are you going to find Iyaka we are robbed we become your abs we're ready we accept you as Love by the way my teacher used to say Dr Abdul Samir used to say he used to ask me one time we were just sitting like studying Arabic with him he's like hey give me a summary of the entire Quran I was like uh uh I I'm not sure what you mean he goes give me one sentence that

is a summary of the entire Quran I was like okay okay okay okay I got this accept Allah azraab and accept yourself as that's it he goes yep you got it I've taught you something that's that's it that's all it is except Allah accept yourself as now what is a slave a slave is someone who doesn't have a choice the bottom line a slave is someone who does not make his own decisions or her own decisions the decision is made for them let me be silly with you we don't have slavery but let's just pretend

imagine one of you comes over and you say hey come on you're my slave I want to say okay let's do it so now you're the master and I'm the slave and we're just sitting I'm just sitting there like awkward silence for 10 minutes so you you want to go get some coffee or something what do you a slave does not have free will so the only thing he can do is what the master wants but he cannot do what the master wants until the master Tells him if the guy just said you know I'm

my slave I was like okay fine and he doesn't tell me anything if he doesn't tell me anything the only thing left for me to do is whatever I want until he tells me to do something you understand what's the difference between a slave and an employee an employee is only working for a number of hours then they're free but a slave is a slave when you're sleeping you're a slave when you're awake you're a slave when you're on the weekends you're a slave on the weekdays you're a slave in the morning you're a Slave

at the night you're asleep at the Masjid you're a slave outside the Masjid you're a Slave you're not it's not a time when you're not asleep you understand and the second is you can only be a slave when you know what the master what once if you don't know what he wants then you are going to do what you want and if you do what you want by definition you are free yes so what I'm trying to get at then is there is no such thing as slavery until the master gives instructions is that clear

to everyone there's no such thing as slavery until what happens the master gives instructions now Allah called himself Master which makes me slave and makes me think well well if he's Master what do I need I need instructions is the Fatiha anywhere in the Fatiha did I recognize that I'm a slave and then I asked for instructions did that happen what do we say in the Fatiha that's asking for instructions [Music] guide us okay tell me what you do now I've accepted slavery of yours now you need to tell me what to do what path

should I walk guide me to the straight path there's a logical connection between master and guidance you understand that's why all over the Quran it's so beautiful you will notice in dozens of places Allah mentions and guidance rub and guidance if you know the Surah say it with me Allah the first I was then you find Hada is foreign guidance because they're connected with each other so the first part Allah describes himself in the litter part when we get to it the really juicy part we're gonna see that Allah azzawajal his only Arab when we

accept his guidance otherwise you can accept him as a creator you can accept him as a maker but you still haven't accepted him as a master until you accept his guidance that's the that's the logical connection here in the Fatiha a lot of people Overlook that you know a lot of people don't see that a lot of people think Allah made me Allah created me fine but that's not the first thing he asked of you to recognize he asked you to recognize that he is your master that he's your master so that's about rub then

about the word mean something just Very brief about the word mean how is that translated anybody know call it out lord of the worlds the problem with the word worlds is not a good translation of the word mean if you want to say Worlds the Arabic word for that is but the word here is I'm not going to get technical with you guys because if I get technical with you guys there will be accidents in the parking lot so I'm just gonna keep it simple means worlds of people worlds of people what Allah is saying

is different generations and different nations that's alamin that's why Allah says Allah I've gave you preference over all the other nations every nation is called a world it's really beautiful every generation is also called a different world if you ever talk to a senior who's like 70 80 years old tell me what life was like when you were young and he'll start by saying oh it was a different world you ever hear that it was another world back then we landed here we came to Malaysia we came to Singapore we look around we're like this

is another world a world we didn't know a world we're not familiar with we don't just think of it as another country we think of it as another world as a matter of fact in the United States I lived in New York most of the time and in New York you don't say hi to people by the way if you ever go to New York don't say hi to people okay it's not a good idea You know somebody who comes up to you and says hey how's it going you better take out the pepper spray

or like run if you don't say hello but I went to visit my sister in Atlanta Georgia and everywhere you go hey how's it going nice morning you know and that's just how they are it's a different world you know I would go off to California and the streets are actually clean I'm not used to that I'm from New York you know there are palm trees and there are people that are smiling it's all wrong everything's wrong about that place you know so I said this I call the wife and this is another world I

don't understand this so the idea of Worlds is there are distinct cultures there are distinct civilizations and Allah says I don't know it doesn't matter which civilization doesn't matter which culture I am the master of all of them foreign also Allah says that it is Allah it is Allah who created different languages and he's the master of all of them so you don't have to be like anybody else you could be like yourself it's fine Islam doesn't want us to look like Arabs or to be Arab it doesn't want that it respects every culture because

Allah says he's not just a rub of one of Allah gave us guidance so long as you can live by your guidance you can be happy in whatever culture you're in whatever Society you're in whatever language you have they're all honored by Allah it's beautiful The other thing does all of us are slaves which means all of us are equal status which means no nation is better than another Nation if the people knew that man we would have a different kind of international politics that all nations deserve respect all people deserve respect because all of

the only one that put all of them in place is care of all of them and gives all of them gifts and guides all of them as the authority over all of them so why do they have to fight for over authority over each other that's all it's so beautiful just that now that he's described himself as the next part comes along what is that oh my God you better be ready for this after this one I'm going to give you a two-minute break because you need to like process this you need to probably you

also need to stretch and maybe punch somebody I don't know but I'm gonna do this one for 10-15 minutes I'm gonna give you a short short break not to run away to stand in your place and cry and make international phone calls whatever it is you do and then we'll continue again but listen how is it translated people call it out please call it out how is it translated the merciful the merciful the most gracious the most merciful the most beneficial the most merciful the most merciful the most kind the merciful The Beneficial The Beneficial

the beneficial these words are so difficult to process in English in English The most beneficient when do you use beneficent in conversation have you ever used it actually in a real conversation with someone like somebody helped you with your homework you are so beneficient yeah you know you don't do that if you normally use the word beneficial see me after the program I have a few psychologists I can refer you to it the point is in translate the purpose of translation is that we get to understand the text but if we start using words in

Translation that we ourselves don't use and can't relate to then it defeats the purpose you don't have to have overly artificial translation you have to have translation that's close to the text but also close to you you know that's that's how translation makes sense so anyway let's talk about a little bit both of these words have to do with the word they have to do with the word which is what my talk was about back in Malaysia but I'll just repeat one or two things from it the word actually means has the meanings of intense

love care concern and Mercy Mercy is the last part of it not the first part love is First Care is first concern and then mercy this is when we call Allah and we already acknowledge that Allah has loved for us Allah cares for us it's concerned about us and he will show us Mercy no that's the acknowledgment inside any Word that has to come with him Allah is but what is the difference between in this difference there is a world of beauty oh my God I mean you will appreciate Allah like nothing else except in

these two names of Allah Allah just called himself Master didn't he master and I give you the separate meanings but at the at the top of it all is Master now when you have a master he has Authority and when you think of authority you don't think of love you don't and Allah is telling us right away I am a different kind of Master you will never find a master who will be described with you will never have an you pick any other Master they'll never give you love they'll tell you what to do they'll

punish you they'll make you they'll force you to do things they might even take care of you once in a while but they will never give you love they'll give love to their own you know this is what every other Master does but this master starts with love now there are two names both of them have to do with love and mercy and what what's the difference between them again not going to get technical but I expect you to remember this I'm going to quiz you on this and if you give me bad answers I'm

not coming back actually does three things I want you to remember three themes inside the word because of the way it's spelled number one it is Extreme it is Extreme it is beyond expectation that's the first extreme and Beyond Expectation what that means is Allah is not just loving he is what extremely loving Beyond expectation so whatever you expect from Allah from love and mercy know that it is beyond your expectation that's the first meaning the second meaning is that it is something happening immediately it's something you don't have to wait for it it is

happening immediately in English think about this in English what's the difference between someone who is patient and someone who is being patient I'll say it again the difference between someone who is patient and someone who is being patient which one is showing patience right now being patient like for example I say about my wife she's patient she's patient I don't know for sure if she's going crazy right now or not I don't know but if I say she is being patient I'm talking about her when right now you understand is something happening not generally but

right now in other words in we acknowledge that Allah is you don't have to wait for Allah to show you love or to show you care or to show you Mercy it is actually happening in its extreme form when right now but the third part so the first one was extreme the second one is right now here's the third part of the meaning oh my goodness this third part of the meeting is kind of hard to it's hard to take in when you first hear it sounds wrong but it's actually correct it's temporary temporary Every

word on this pattern in the Arabic language is temporary means extremely angry but your anger eventually comes down some sisters like no not my husbands it's always the same but but no khadwan means you're extremely angry and eventually you calm down means you're extremely thirsty but eventually you drink water and you're okay means you're extremely hungry but you eat and you're fine you understand so when you add the an at the end like that in Arabic the quality is Extreme it's right now but it's not what it's not permanent but it's it's not enough to

say that it's temporary there's one more thing it's temporary because something takes it away what takes thirst away drink what takes hunger away food what takes anger away a slap like something takes it away you understand but then you know what we're saying we're saying Allah's love is Extreme it is beyond expectation Allah's love and mercy is coming right now but don't mess up because if you do something so bad you might actually be disqualified from it because it might be taken oh wait and we'll talk about how it can be taken away but we'll

we'll leave that for now that's what's the next name of Allah you have to remember two things about Abrahim but before I go to him it's exam time what was the first quality of it's extreme very good number two right now number three temporary Now two qualities it's less less work for you foreign number one quality that it's permanent number one quality of Rahim is anything that sounds like Rahim is permanent is that different from it is huh the second quality of our Rahim is not necessarily right now there are two qualities of one it's

permanent two it is not necessarily right now for example when I say my teacher is merciful my teacher is merciful or if you say my mother is loving that's a long-term quality isn't it but does it mean she's loving right now not necessarily right now you understand okay now think about this if Allah only said then the love and mercy of Allah would have been extreme and it would have been right now but it would not have been it would not have been permanent if Allah only said the love and mercy of Allah would have

been permanent but it would not have been extreme and it would not necessarily have been right now how do I talk about the love and mercy of Allah so it's extreme so it's right now and it's permanent all at the same time the only way to do that is subhanallah you cannot talk about Allah's love and mercy in better terms but that still doesn't answer the question why is first why is second Please listen to this carefully you are at work you get paid on what day of the week what day do you get your

paycheck now over here huh first of the month okay so it's the first of the month and your boss is not there at the office and you're supposed to leave the office at five o'clock and it's already 4 45 and you still haven't gotten your paycheck and you need your paycheck because you need to buy those shoes you saw so you need your paycheck and you're getting desperate it's already 4 45 and your boss isn't there and your co-worker says don't worry he's reliable he's really he'll be here relax now it's 4 48. and your

employee your co-worker says don't worry he'll be here right he's reliable he's reliable and you'll you're like I know he's reliable I wish he was being reliable right now don't tell me he's responsible reliable good want to hear that because that's just his quality it's not necessarily happening right now when I'm in trouble I need help when right now so you want the name of Allah that gives you the help when right now first and then you want the other name the other name that takes care of the future when Allah says it's permanent right

which is a guarantee of the future it is immediate it's taking care of your immediate need I'll give you another example you go home you're really hungry husbands are hungry you get hungry a lot you know you get stuck in traffic somebody cut you off you know and and on the road and you're really upset you finally get home of course and the wife somehow I don't know how she skipped all the traffic she got Home early she made you a great dinner and everything so she's home early and she made she you know and

she's has made dinner but she didn't take it out but you're so so hungry and you got home and your wife says so what do you want to eat next week what do you say woman I don't care about next week what do we have right now when you're hungry the only thing you can think about is what right now by the way when right now is taken care of when you're finished eating you're like burp and you're just ah so what are we eating next week when you pay this month's bills you start worrying

about next month's bills when you pay this semester's fees you start worrying about next semester's fees you understand so we only think about the future when our immediate concerns are taken care of Allah understands who we are so Allah says here I took care of your immediate concern but when your immediate concern is taken care of where does your mind go into the future he says took care of your future too what a genius he was asked what does it mean he said is for this world and is for the Muslims in the next life

he just said one brief statement is for this world and the Rahim is for the next life and you understand the genius of this man because he saw something he saw that this world is temporary and which name is temporary and he saw that one name is permanent And which life is permanent next slide subhanallah he just sees it right away the sahaba saw it right away it takes me 25 minutes to explain it to you but they just saw it they just they didn't need to have this long explanation I promised you a two-minute

break so I'm going to give it to you now I'm counting I'm going to count to 120. don't come up and ask for pictures not yet because then it won't stop and then we won't be able to do this stuff we got a lot to cover we only got through him so far you guys doing okay though you guys doing all right okay so do your stretching and whatever you do in Singapore take two minutes I'm just afraid of the loudness it's too loud okay alrighty how was your break long and stretchy this is what

was the last thing we talked about Rahman let's move further I'm going to give you a silly example from my career where did I used to do what did I used to teach what did I tell you Elementary School you know in the school that I started working at I was the youngest teacher all the other teachers were aunties and they were a lot older than me and they were very tough with the kids Like they walked in and the children which they put the fear of God in them okay now I'm kind of a

goofy person so I when I got my job as a teacher I went in the first day of class and I'm telling jokes and I'm showing them like crazy tricks like I'm sticking things in one ear and pulling them out of the other ear and like I'm doing all kinds of silly things and telling them stories and all this stuff the first day of class I still remember when I was leaving class everybody was like no don't go and that's not because they loved me because the Auntie was coming that's more of the reason but

but still but still they look really enjoyed being in my class because I was joking around with them a lot right I was like why are these teachers so uptight why do they make it so hard for these kids to have a good time in class you know why can't they just be friends with them and all the other experienced teachers they said so what'd you do in class today we had so much fun we laughed we played we you know did you teach anything no no we can do that a little later I want

to you know be friends with them first and they all said you'll find out they just kind of like that evil laugh and I was like yeah no it's never gonna happen so a couple of days go by I'll go into the class and I'm starting to teach the class and nobody wants to sit down in their chair tell us a story do that thing with your ear and they're fighting with each other and one guy is like taking the other guy's pencil and they're drawing things and I still remember one kid was on the

back wall writing his name and he was looking straight at me And the friend next to him said hey I think he sees you and he said to him yeah but he's a nice guy and he kept going then I realized something when you only show love and mercy and love and mercy and love and mercy then is it possible that people take advantage of that um okay I'll give you a little bit of another example this is a kind of a silly example but I think it'll get the point across imagine that there's another

master and a Slave the master says look you're my slave but I don't want you to do all kinds of work I have very little requirements all I want you to do is here's the fence it's not even a fence it's just a line with chalk just go don't go on the other side of it just stay on the inside don't go on the outside don't step on the outside inside this line do whatever you want did you find your thank you he made it okay in this inside this line do whatever you want just

don't step outside this line that's all I'm asking so the slave is basically free but inside a circle you understand it's a pretty Wide Circle it's like a few Acres okay so you can stay do whatever he wants so one day he is going and he the slave is kind of close to the line and he slips and he falls on the other side And the master is watching he's sitting on a chair on the porch he's watching where does the slave look immediately when he falls on the other side he checks if the boss

was watching if the master was watching and the Master's still sitting on the chair no problem the master didn't say anything he just sat there so the slave got up and dusted himself off and went back inside the next day this slave kind of like he was near the fence and he pretended to fall and he looked again and the Master's still sitting in his chair he didn't say anything the next day he stopped pretending he just kind of put one foot on the line and checked and the master said nothing pretty soon he's walking

one foot on the outside one foot on the inside a few months go by and he spends most of the time on the outside and every once in a while he checks in with the master hey how you doing his master's like no problem living a happy life then one day the master calls in hey come here okay he comes there he goes remember when we first met I told you don't cross that line he goes yeah yeah you told me I remember that he goes yeah well you you started Crossing it you did it

by mistake once but then you started doing it pretending to make a mistake but you were doing it on purpose and then you started doing it more and more and then you started spending most of your time on the other side of the line and I've been keeping record [Music] I mean I didn't say anything to you but I've been keeping record and here's the record you you cross the line 5680 times and I'm gonna whip you for each of those today you know what that is that is a master saying you took advantage of

my Mercy and you forgot that I have a right to judge you I will show you mercy so long as you don't try to take advantage of me you don't try to make a joke out of my guidance but I'm not really talking about a master and a line in the circle and you know in the lawn I'm not talking about that am I I'm talking about us and Allah so if you only have a rahmana Rahim then people will take advantage and so Allah says not just he puts us back in check he says

Maliki he's the master of the day of judgment now this is the easy translation Master of the day of judgment I'll talk to you a little bit about it because there's so much more we have to cover tonight the word Malik the word Malik actually I'll talk to the word Malik later I'll talk to you about Justice first Allah says he's the master of the day of judgment judgment here is Deen Deen in Arabic actually means precise dealing or you know accurate dealing they say in Arabic the way you deal with someone that's how they

will deal with you in other words this is an Ayah about Dealing with you with Justice what we are learning in this Ayah is a very powerful philosophy of Islam you only have two ways that you will be dealt with on Judgment Day there's only two possibilities either you will get Allah's love and mercy or you would get Allah's Justice Allah did not say you will either get Mercy or punishment that's not what I'm saying Allah did not say either you will get mercy and love or anger that's not what I'm saying I'm saying you

will either get love and mercy on the one hand and what's the bad option justice justice you have to understand what that means you know traveling in the United States I think about sometimes I think about the ayat in strange ways when you travel you know you go through security and you know in like the early 2000s like 2002 2003 it was really tight security in American airports you know and so they go they make you take your shoes off they make you take your jacket off belts you know watch everything and they go through

everything and they give you a pat down all of this stuff right so one day I'm traveling at the airport and the you know the security officer looks clearly tired you're just like so I go through the you know the little bar thing I go through it and he doesn't stop me he doesn't say Sir could you step to the side I'm going to give you a special Muslims treatment like he doesn't do that I was confused he didn't stop me and check me extra so I just did this [Laughter] but you know what I

thought of hisabanyasira Allah on the day of judgment you know people will have a book in their right hand some people will have a book on their left hand and the book has what in it what does the book have in it all of our Deeds now you know when you hand have you ever graded a have you ever taken your test paper to the teacher right and sometimes the teacher just puts it in his bag but sometimes the teacher says stay right there I'll grade it right now you ever have that you're standing at

the desk and your teacher's checking your exam it is the most stressful thing you will ever do in your life because as soon as the red pen gets close to the paper you just start going like oh ah right Allah azzawajal even if he gives you the book in the right hand just because you have the book in the right hand doesn't mean it's been graded yet you have to open the pages and check the assignment and you know you're if you're like me I'm thinking maybe I should bookmark it if you check page 35

there's a little Qatar in there if you just get that first and if you you know I the Hajj I think is page 80 if you look at page eight if you could skip these Pages they're kind of page 80 is good you know students do that like they they kind of make you want to skip the bad assignment and they want to show you the good work you know But Allah so people are nervous and they're about to show their books to the angels and the angels the the Hadith tells us they're just gonna

say it's okay let's go it's okay it's okay you don't have to you don't have to show me page 80. it's okay you can go sir it's fine it's like you're going to the security officer to show him your passport he goes you're like really I just go that means you passed that means you graduated you got to the other side when you get to the other side the guy is so happy the guy with the book in the right and he goes hey look at my look at what I got look at my score

you know when people get a bad grade and I used to do this back in the first year when I started teaching the Arabic program I used to have the exams and I used to call people's names and I used to have them come up to the front of the class and they used to hand in their exams and then they walked back the Walk of Shame back to their seat now when students do really badly on an exam what do they do with the paper as soon as they get it Fold It Up and

the people who got a hundred on the test their paper falls out of their hand accidentally oh excuse me [Laughter] the guy who got through security on Judgment Day says hey check out my book I knew I was going to get a great score I knew I was going to meet my rewards subhanallah now the guy on the left hand the guy's got a book in his left hand and the Quran describes behind his back so you got a bad report card and you don't even know how bad it is because it's behind your back

and the guy behind you Caesar goes oh man and you're like what what I can't see it now they show their book they show their book and are the Angels going to say no no it's okay just go no they're going to open that book they're going to go line by line and the prophet describes someone who got asked even once on Judgment day is done if you get asked even once in other words if the angel stops you and says sir excuse me let me see that book for a second what is that what

is that on Thursday what where were you what is that place what is this club here what is that substance you're drinking what is the amount you drank hmm who are these friends you're with are these Halal friends no it doesn't look like they're Halal on the record oh man it's all on record with video footage you know I mean they'll see what they did standing in front of them if that record comes out you're done but will that record be unfair no on Judgment Day there are people who Allah shows love to and mercy

to and says I'm not even going to open your book just go it's okay just go And there are people who Allah says open their book and they get Allah's judgment it's two things either Mercy or judgment we want Allah's Mercy we want his love on Judgment Day that's what we want but if we take advantage of it will Allah people take advantage of it there are people who get into Haram ways of earning money clearly wrongdoing they get they they go into Bad Company they eat the Haram thing they drink the Haram thing they

smoke the Haram thing you know they watch the Haram thing they do the Haram thing and then they say but Allah is loving Allah is so merciful is so awesome that's okay Allah is not going to make a big deal out of it you're trying to take advantage of Allah's Mercy he doesn't take lightly to that he does not take lightly to that Allah balanced both things on the one hand his love is beyond imagination it is always going to be there for you his Mercy will always be there for you and on the other

hand don't you think for one second that you will get to just use Allah's love and mercy to take advantage of him and do whatever you want don't you start thinking like that because that will disqualify you for Allah from Allah's Mercy subhanallah it's a balance between both of those things on the other hand now I'm not going to go into more detail tonight with these three ayat but I will tell you this this is this is now we're getting to the my favorite part of this this session these three ayat alhamdulillah Are the most

complete introduction to Allah in the Quran what every human being needs to know about God is in these three ayats it's all you need that's all you need somebody says what is your God in Islam like what do you believe about him the first thing he told us about him is he deserves praise and thanks the second thing he told us about him is that he's our master the third thing he told us about himself is like he's not like any other Master he has extreme love for you extreme Mercy for you and the last

thing he told us about himself is just don't think his extreme love and mercy can be taken advantage of he will deal with some people justly if they do wrong to him if they if they if they continuously do wrong to him subhanallah it's enough it's complete but at the end of it all what is the relationship we have with Allah I told you this already what's the what's the primary relationship we have with Allah that he is Master we are slave that's the relationship if someone truly understands this introduction to Allah then necessarily they

reach a conclusion that conclusion is that is the conclusion it is only and only you that we give ourselves to willingly into slavery now Let's talk about slavery has slavery ever been willing or unwilling what's the usual form of slavery willing or unwilling unwilling nobody says hey I'm looking at different career options and I kind of enjoy long chains on my feet and you know nobody applies for the slave job you understand slavery Is Never Done willingly in my crazy example yes you came up to me and say hey you're my slave is like okay

let's do this that was willing but that doesn't normally happen does it Allah is there is no more powerful Master than Allah and you know here's the other thing about all other Masters usually slaves love their master or hate their master they hate their Master the first chance they get they will want to get freedom and even if they praise their Master is it real or Genuine or fake it's fake but the Surah began with alhamdulillah it's real genuine praise for this master how can that be it is because this master did not force you

to be a slave you have to come to that conclusion yourself that's why he didn't even say be slaves to Allah we said we give ourselves to you in slavery we are ready we made the choice we will ourselves we will ourselves into slavery it's incredible that the religion of Islam tells you in the Fatiha itself you have to make a Choice nobody can make you be Muslim you have to come to Allah yourself and why should you come to Allah you should come to Allah because of the first three ayats of the Fatiha that's

enough for you if you really knew what alhamdulillah meant if you really knew what rabbit meant if you really knew what Rahim meant and if you really knew what Maliki omidine meant each of those are plenty of reasons by themselves but all together more than enough to say Ya Allah I'm your slave I don't want to do what I want to do anymore I want to do what you want me to do because what you want me to do is better for me than what I want to do for myself because you are my caretaker

my you love me more than I can imagine and your love is coming all the time and your love Came Allah mentioned his love even before he mentioned slavery didn't he so he gives his love even to those who don't become his slaves even those who say bad things about him even those who disobey him Ya Allah you've been so good to me I am ready just just take me I'm right I sign up this is what you and I say when we stand like this [Music] some of you are watching a movie pretty bad

one too and then you pause then you make Salat I'm only your slave I never disobey you I came to this conclusion myself please guide me Then you say salaam and hit play again that makes sense you know some of you come for Juma you come from and thousands of you saying to Allah I'm your slave I came to that conclusion myself I realized I don't want to what I when I do what I want to do for myself I hurt myself I want you to guide me and then right after you do some pretty

messed up things you know what is that that means we're saying something with our tongues but it hasn't reached here and we haven't actually thought about it we haven't actually become conscious of what we are saying whenever we say we are making an agreement with Allah we're telling Allah something about ourselves we're making a claim to Allah how do you how do you tell your mother that you love her you come to her house she tells you take your shoes off you don't take them off she tells you eat on the dinner table you eat

in the couch she says don't bring your friends over you bring your friends over she says don't make loud noise you turn the volume up and then you tell her I love you Mom is that is that a joke and she heard when she said when you say I love you is that actually offensive to your mother are we being offensive to Allah we do everything he tells us not to do we do and then we say Allah we were slave totally your slave absolutely You're a Slave subhanallah and it's only your help that we

seek one of the most beautiful ayat in the Quran easy translation it is only and only your help that we are looking for it's only and only your help that we're seeking but what in the world does that mean my goodness when we decide that we are going to be Allah's slaves we have to realize that's not an easy thing that's a pretty big commitment made to Allah it's not a small thing and when you make a big commitment you need help so we say to Allah I just made a pretty big commitment I don't

think I can do it on my own can you help me with that yeah understand please help I can't do it all on my own that's the first meaning of weak understanding but one of the most beautiful lessons in iak understand in the Arabic language there are like a dozen words for help it's a very specific kind of help I want you to understand this help because it will open doors of understanding in your life you really will when you saying what are you actually saying you're driving on the road and you have a flat

tire you pull over to the side now what do you do you get out of the car and you look for a spare tire in the back you take it out and you're jacking up the car and you're trying to lift the car so you can put the spare tire on but you are not strong enough to lift the car the whole way so when somebody is passing by you say hey can you help me and they help you That is called istiana in other words is when you are already trying you could not finish

then you asked for somebody's help that's called istiana istiana is not that when you had a flat tire you sat in the car and somebody passed by and said hey I have a flat tire can you help me he says yeah okay well here's the button to Pop the trunk can you press that for me and then take it out I'm gonna I'm gonna sit here I'm listening to the news right now I just that's not necessary that's not the stiana why not because it's the Anna requires that you are doing work first yourself and

then you couldn't finish and you need somebody else's help you got that so lazy people cannot ask for Christiana lazy who don't do any work you can't ask for that kind of help by saying nastarin we are actually telling Allah Ya Allah I am trying I am telling you I am trying I am putting in the effort you can see it and now I need your help so anybody in the world who turns to Allah and says how come you don't help me and people do that people ask how come Allah doesn't help me and

they don't don't even try themselves they're making no no effort themselves but they blame Allah for him not helping they have only themselves to blame this is a principle of Allah he will help you when you start making the effort yourself if you never make the effort Yourself and he will not help you there are two things you have to understand here I'll go through both of them there are people in the world who don't do any effort and then expect Allah to help them it will never come the sahaba were held by angels in

the Battle of badra you know about that the companions were held by angels in the Battle of Badr but the sahaba had to go into battle meet the enemy and then the Angels Came the Angels were not there waiting ahead of time we've been here since three o'clock where were you it doesn't work that way Ibrahim alaihissalam has to be thrown into a fire then it turns cool you understand the help you have to do your part first everything you can and then Allah's help will come it doesn't come on its own then there are

the other side of that is there are some people who think they can do everything themselves they don't need to ask Allah for help I got my job because I'm very intelligent I have a successful business because I made some very good decisions you know I have a good degree because I'm very smart you know and we start thinking we we get this because we deserve it or that we earned it ourselves the Fatiha is teaching us success even in this life comes from two things you put the effort yourself and then you ask Allah

for help Here's the final thing about this time when you ask someone for help it's always specific it's always specific if you if I'm hanging off a cliff Help and somebody walks by and hands me a water bottle the help I was asking for was pick me up it's specific I'm not just asking for any kind of help I need this kind of help you understand when your pen runs out of ink and you say excuse me could you could you help me here and you you're asking for their pen so if they hand you

a cookie that's not the help you were looking for help is always specific is that clear to you because it's always specific you're supposed to say what you need help in but in the Iowa FEMA in what we need your help we say we tell Allah Ya Allah we're asking for your help but you're asking for my help in what are you asking for my help in your health in your family life are you asking for my help in your studies are you asking for my help in your in your religion what are you asking

for you know when someone is so desperate so desperate that they are at a loss of words that they can't even explain what they need help in then they just say help that's what we say in the Fatiha Ya Allah help because the way we the things we need help in are so many we can't even list them subhanallah one of the most beautiful insights one of my favorite insights He said subhanallah he said why did Allah first and why do you say in second what happens if you reverse them why can't you reverse them

why not he says there are two reasons why were we put on this Earth to ask for help or to do worship and slavery to Allah so our purpose is mentioned first and what we need to accomplish that purpose is mentioned second but there's another even more beautiful thing when we enslave ourselves to Allah when we worship Allah it is for Allah when we ask for help it is for who ourselves for ourselves what you want for Allah should be mentioned first what you want for yourself should be mentioned second it's good manners foreign you

guys doing okay 10 more minutes before the next break you'll survive yeah I'll give you a little two minutes it's okay I want you to keep paying attention short attention span you know [Music] guide us this is beautiful this beautiful language the word hidayah in Arabic Why did Why did why did we say guide because Allah is the master and you cannot have a master until he gives instructions and how does that relationship begin with Guidance and then since you just said I am your slave I need your help the first kind of help you

and I need is you Ya Allah tell me what to do tell me what to do now if you are asking Allah to tell you what to do that means you are ready to do it yes so when we say we are actually telling Allah Ya Allah I am ready to obey you I'm just tell me I'll do it I need your advice and when you give me advice I'll take it I have friends who ask me for advice all the time but they never follow it and what do you think about this what do

you think about this what do you think I should do what do you think I should do I've been telling you for four years what you should do you don't do it I don't want to tell you anymore there's no point you are you and I are asking Allah for advice don't ask him for advice and not do it at least try to do it that's the first thing the second thing that's so beautiful about the word guidance you know in Arabic you can say also is guidance guide us also guide us what's the difference

though the word Huda in Arabic comes from hadiya hadiya in Arabic is a gift when the Arab would get lost in the desert what's the biggest gift you can give him guidance water is not good enough food is not good enough because he if he that means he'll stay alive two more hours he'll survive one more day but in the Desert the biggest gift you need is what guidance that's why they Associated survival and guidance together The Ultimate Gift would be having the right directions especially in desert life we are asking Allah for The Ultimate

Gift guide us and we didn't even say guide me we said guide us so it's actually a we're switching we're going from Individual to Collective everything in the beginning was actually individual in some sense alhamdas individual Allah is a master of me individually Allah's Mercy comes to me individually the Judgment Day is about an individual each individual will be judged but immediately we switch over to nah because in this life if you're going to have a healthy relationship with Allah as an individual you have to come together as a community to ask you have to

be with other people you need other people for guidance you can't do it on your own that's why it's not it is and it's not even which actually would have meant guide only us that would have been bad yeah Allah only guide me everybody else can go to hell I don't care about that okay but actually guide all of us we have to talk a little bit about a little bit about guidance before I give you a break it's such a beautiful Concept in Islam you know when you are lost you need directions right and

somebody Maps it out for you go three kilometers this way to kilometers see I use kilometers I didn't Use miles I'm proud of myself but you know take a left and take a right and you'll get there that is information isn't it sometimes guidance is just information but Allah's guidance is more than information your counselor's guidance is information the traffic officer's guidance is information the GPS guidance is information that's all information but Allah's guidance is more than information Allah's guidance it actually has to do with personal choices at every given moment and we're not just

asking for information we're asking for the strength to make the right decision two different things it's not just information sometimes we have all the information we still make the wrong decision because we didn't have the strength the will the commitment the the right mindset to make the right decision don't people do the wrong thing and you tell them don't you know that's wrong yeah yeah but I got angry that's that's why we ask Allah for guidance by the way if it was just information if guidance was just information how many times do you need information

one time if you're given the information you don't have to ask for it again how many times do we ask Allah for guidance over and over and over and over again as a standard you know I compare guidance to understand asking Allah for guidance You have to compare to drinking water you can't say I already drank it yesterday I'm good it doesn't work if you want to survive you have get it again few hours it is as though Allah is telling us just like your body every few hours it needs water your heart every few

hours it needs what guidance you have to come back to Allah again now a few hours your fuel is learning low and you have to ask Allah again if it was just about information it wouldn't be repeated this way and we're also learning something else it is not something you get to keep just like water in your body you get you don't get to keep it once you have it it's not yours you don't own it you run out of it then you have to go get it again and then you run out of it

again and you have to get it again nobody can say I have it I have it already I don't need any more you can't do it that's why I like the comparison of Guidance with what water there's a thirst for guidance just like there's a thirst for water just like that right so we have to keep asking Allah over and over again I'll give you that give that to you inshallah after our short two-minute break because again I want your attention spent to stay fresh so stretch at least at least like you know pull your

arms up and do whatever it is you do I'll stick around over here rasulullah foreign How far did we get where are we huh somebody tell me we talked about Idina we didn't talk about him there are lots of language technicalities here I'm going to skip all of them and I'm going to give you the bottom line of us that's the first part about that you should know just and try to remember this lesson as you recite the Fatiha the a minimal translation or a limited translation is guide us to the straight path that's the

one you're familiar with but actually what the Ayah is saying is guide us to the straight path guide us all the way through to the end of the straight path like guide us to the straight path actually would have been in Arabic a different word would have been used guide us through the straight path is also part of the meaning so here's the bottom line guide us to to through and all the way to the end of all the way to the end of there are three implications let's talk about each of those when you

are looking to go somewhere and you ask for directions and somebody says you need to take this highway get to this highway and you'll get there you were guided to the highway and by the way people usually don't ask For directions to a road they ask for directions to a destination right so when you ask for directions typically you don't ask for directions to a path but rather to a destination but it's Unique that the Ayah is telling you and me or we're asking Allah to ask for directions to not a destination but to a

path a path what we're learning here is you won't there's only one way to get to that destination and once you're on this path you don't have to be told it's automatic you'll get to the destination you understand is there some roads they can take you into 100 places now can a road can do that but this road only takes you to one place so if you get on this road it's the same as getting to the destination that's why you don't have to be told about the destination you're just told about the road itself

it's beautiful so the first thing is you are told about how to get there that's Ila let's get to the path that's one meaning the second meaning is there are some people who once they get on the road they say look I'm really nervous please don't hang up I know you told me how to get to this road can you stay on the phone while I'm on the journey and don't hang up stay with me okay okay I'll stay with you okay what do you see right now oh I'm passed by some trees oh yeah

I know that place sure in Singapore how do you know us trees yeah yeah that's the one place yeah you know but the idea is what's called an Arabic Ya Allah guide me through this path stay with me as I am traveling so I am not a traveler alone that's actually the the interpretation of the Hal form of the technical side of but then finally guide me all the way to the end in other words it's possible that I was going on the right road but I ran out of gas I was going on the

right road but I took an exit I was going on the right road but I started hitting it reverse yallah make sure that once I'm on this path number one you stay with me and help me go through this road but also get me all the way to the end when you get to the end you use an Arabic you use a nam that's why we say alhamdulillah alhamdulillah who guided us all the way to all the way to the end of this meaning to Jannah very famous Quran we couldn't have guided ourselves had it

not been that Allah guided us you know so this is the the three parts of asking Allah for guidance it's a path we have to go on now let's go back to illah guide me to the road that actually means you are asking Allah for knowledge you are asking for information information is part of guidance you need the information you need to know what Allah wants you need to know what makes Allah happy you need to know the advice you need to have for raising a child and being a good husband and being a good

good father and being a good mother and being a good wife and you know being a good son and daughter being good neighbor you need to know how to do that you need that guidance and that information that's illah when you're walking through it just because you have The information like Allah says for example about tell us about patience and in one particular occasion talks to us about patients with our children patients with bad children tough children that's easy to read but not easy to accept and not easy to do that's Allah be with me

when the time comes and I have to do that just because you know about it doesn't mean you're going to do it you know so you're asking Allah you know alone I'm not good enough I need you to be there with me then the third is Ya Allah just let me keep going at this until death comes I don't want to burn out so many people were so so active in their Deen they were learning they were praying they were serious and then they burnt out then they said I'm not like I used to be

anymore that you know the the fire is gone you don't want to be from those people and that's captured also inside let's talk about the word sirat now is translated as path but every word in Arabic has a particular flavor in Arabic you can say sabil for a path like Visa you heard that before there are lots of words for path and of course Salat is also a word for path so what is unique for what is it specifically Sirata is used and this word has a few qualities I want you to note them if

you're taking notes Surat is wide A road that is wide so it's not narrow now when a road is wide one person can travel or multiple people can travel multiple people can travel at the same time yes so that's one benefit it's a lot second benefit it's straight there's no turns it's only straight sarath itself means straight Salat comes from the Arabic word Surat which is a straight sword you know some swords are curved like that and some swords are straight when the sword is straight then it's called Surat but it's perfectly straight so the

path is completely straight then the third meaning of is it's a path that is dangerous long long implying it's dangerous because when you're on a long journey you can you know run out of supplies run out of help nobody for Miles things like that right so it's wide dangerous long and straight that is the meaning of what but if that's the meaning of sirat then what's the purpose of adding because in Arabic actually means straight wait a second if it means straight what was already covered straight up with a straight balance the one who's standing

is in other words the path is not going this way or this way or this way it is going up Whoever travels this path is rising to Allah is rising and as they are rising they are leaving the love of this World Behind they're still living in this world they're still enjoying this world but some other love is taking over as they're rising and by the way when you're Rising are you in more danger as you're rising or less Danger in this world when you rise higher and higher more dangerous if you're climbing up a

mountain if you're only two feet high like I'm jumping off the mountain that's not jumping off the mountain you just got two feet when you get to 200 feet then you're in more danger you understand in other words the people who have made more progress better be more careful so the more progress you make the more the more danger you're in the more susceptible you are to fall so you know what that's why you find people you know people in your family you'll know friends that are that worship Allah a lot that stay away from

bad things and you also notice they cry a lot and they worry a lot and they make a lot of Dua and you're like you're like so good why are you why do you like pray so much you're like already good you don't realize they're up there which means if they fall they're going to fall a lot harder than you fall so they worry more and what this teaches us is the one who goes on this path they become less concerned or more concerned as they go they become more concerned the guy who only made

one foot of Progress says ah whatever I can handle the crash what this also does it teaches us this journey teaches us that the people who go on this path there are no guarantees no guarantees that you are safe until you get to the very end that's why includes that linguistically it's beautiful it includes get me all the way to the end because if I stop halfway it's going to be really bad Allah describes he fell down deep into the Earth and he went into the Earth he crashed and he made a crater you know

and Allah says if we wanted we could have raised him by means of the guidance the ayat we gave him he fell into the Earth he became a materialist and by the way when people crash you know you ever heard of people who are religious they were they were serious and then they crashed they burnt out when they crashed they crashed bad it's bad I mean they don't just stop doing good things they get involved in really bad things right so it's not it's not a a simple thing and we beg Allah that's why we

turn to Allah for that yallah keep us going on that path that elevates Higher and Higher and Higher subhanallah by the way there's something else about this imagery when you go higher what improves when you go higher what improves your view you see things you didn't see before you understand things you didn't understand before You realize things you didn't realize before now you notice things that people who haven't gone up didn't see but you're able to see them and Allah says in the Quran you can rise through the ayat of the Quran so the more

ayat you begin to understand the better you begin to see the higher your view gets subhanallah so beautiful it's so beautiful that this in in this one phrase the entire journey of life is captured now this you're standing at this road and it's going up and it's long and it's wide and it's dangerous who do you ask help for are there any people that can help you Allah will help you yes you already asked Allah but will Allah send you some people that can help you too the thing is when you go to college you

go to a med school you go to engineering school you go to a Polytechnic University you go to a programming School do you take advice more seriously from fellow students or do you take advice more seriously from graduates who do you think is better advice graduates or fellow students graduates people who graduated already did this they know what it takes to graduate they know what it takes to get a job their advice is a lot better if the guy is sitting in the class next to you he or she doesn't know any better than you

do they can't be relied on there and maybe they're good students but you don't know if they're going to be good students tomorrow you don't know if they're going to make the best decisions because they haven't done it yet So if you want role models you have to have role models that have already gone through the path you understand why do people ask me for Arabic studies advice because I'm already I've already done some of it if you're a fellow student somebody else is in the same class as you you're not going to ask them

for what's the best way to study what book should I go through because they haven't done it yet you understand I go to olama in sciences that I haven't studied I go ask their opinion why because they've done it I haven't done it I need their advice so in the next Ayah Allah says the path of those you showered favor upon showered ananta is in the past tense in other words you will look for role models in the past you will look for I will look for Role Models you will look for role models in

the past yes we will try to help each other but my guidance tomorrow is not guaranteed and yours is not guaranteed but Ibrahim alaihissalam graduated graduated graduated as graduated they're done they went through it Yusuf alaihissalam and his father graduated they're done we should learn from the graduates you understand what I'm saying that's why the past tense is used Allah did not say him the path of those who you favor right now no because the past the path of those who Allah favors right now is Right now is no guarantee if they make it all

the way that's why we will always go back to the past to those Allah highlights in the Quran the other thing the beautiful thing about that is ananta and Anta comes from the Arabic word softness Ease comfort did you know cattle or cows are called an AM same word because they move Softly Allah says there were people in the past who went on this journey and was this journey described as easy or hard was it described as easy or hard hard so hard you need Allah's help and it gets more and more dangerous but Allah

says Allah made this path smooth and easy for people before you you should find out how Allah made it easy for them Allah did not just say I mean those who were blessed those who made it all the way no those who you favored we know we can't make it without you we know people in the past would not have made it without you you help them show me how you help them so I can learn how you help them then you can help me too I'll qualify for that too so instead of praising the

people who went before us Allah actually taught us to praise him for helping them foreign those who you favored you know now you showered your favor upon them also means that when the prophets and The Messengers and the good people that are talked about in Quran this is all an answer to him I turn to Allah and said Ya Allah I want to be your slave help me help me show me the path of people who've already done this and Allah says fine Now read this Quran and I'll show you the path of everybody who

did this path before you but Ya Allah also showed me the people who tried to go on this path and messed up I messed up so I know how not to mess up you need to know good examples and you also need to understand bad examples because sometimes if you only know good examples you start getting overconfident so you need to know okay well let me just tell you also also let me know who are the people who didn't graduate and why didn't they graduate what else do we say foreign [Music] both of them both

of them so we have to talk about both of these groups too how come Allah talked about how come Allah tell us to say don't make us don't make us I have a lot of things to tell you about this very important things I'll start with the most important there's a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam which is used in the Tasia of the Fatiha to say him are the Jews and Allah are the Christians one of the most misunderstood Hadith in Islamic Studies one of the most misunderstood Hadith in all of Islamic Studies

the prophet described it as the Jews the prophet described it as the Christians that does not mean that if You have a Jewish neighbor and you talk to them today and you say Hey I was talking to my mother friend and he was like going to the synagogue you know and my Godly neighbors you know it's celebrating Christmas that's not what that means let me tell you what that means Allah's Prophet was telling us Allah that some among the Jews had the kind of behavior that can be described as and there were some among the

Christians who had the kind of behavior that can be described as the criticism is about the behavior and the prophet saws said some Jews had the kind of behavior you would describe it with what and some Christians had the behavior you would describe it as what if Allah meant to say Jews and Christians he would have said but it's not about the Jews and Christians it's about Behavior it's about Behavior if you missed that point you're you're missing the boat entirely but we have to understand why the Jews and why the Christians and what is

Allah talking about so I'll give you a again a silly example I love silly examples it's a problem so I have two sons the younger one Ahmad is the older one imagine I tell and I put a jar of cookies on the dinner table big jar of Juicy cookies really good chocolate chip and both of them are sitting on the couch and I say Waleed Ahmad I'm going to the office I'm going to make a phone call and I'll be right back don't eat the cookies you see these cookies they look good you look good

yeah here here smell it don't eat it okay I'll be back in five minutes don't eat the cookies I said Willie hey did you understand me don't eat the cookies and actually I'll make the story more interesting only Ahmad is on the couch we'll leave this upstairs I said you might don't eat the cookies and we'll leave candied either okay we'll leave Canada and we'll leave this little so tell Waleed he can't eat either okay but I'll tell him all right so now I come back after five minutes and guess what Cookie Monster now I

told Ahmad I told Emma don't eat the cookies Walid goes upstairs but they're both eating who am I more angry at my mother will eat why because I told him you knew what not to do you still did that and waleed's like I I had no idea you know what I'm trying to get at is when you tell someone to do something when you tell someone not to do something and after knowing it they still do it then you get angry after knowing it they still do it then then they get angry it's the same

of class of teaching I have an exam I'm giving tomorrow to I tell my students Friday there's an exam here are the 10 questions on the exam Here are the answers I'm Giving You Everything get 100 on the exam tomorrow because here are the questions and here are the answers which teacher ever does that then your students listening gotcha gotcha got it one two three four five six seven eight nine ten he comes back the next day to class and he fails the test am I supposed to be angry at that one come on I

told you the questions I told you the answers and another student failed because he was absent yesterday who am I more angry at the one who was there the one who knew all the answers when you do something wrong after knowing then you deserve anger you get that Allah the prophet described the yahood or some aspects of the yehud as the recipients of Rage the recipients of anger why are they recipients of anger because the Jews in the Quran specifically the Jews that Allah highlights were the ones that were very knowledgeable in religion and still

made the wrong decisions after knowing when you make the wrong decision after knowing then you are mad and we ask Allah not to take that path which means we are in danger we are at risk of taking that path the Ayah is not about Jews the Ayah is actually about us we sometimes know and we do it anyway we sometimes know and we don't do it anyway you understand Is about but the language of it the most one of the most powerful phrases in the Quran describing Allah's anger you know Allah could have said not

those that you are angry at he didn't say that he said now the thing is when I said the path of those who you favored the path of those who you favored you refers to who first to Allah how do we translate anybody know the translation not of those who earned your anger have you heard that translation before not of those who earned your anger the crazy problem with that is there's no your in the Arabic the word your is not there and it's not there on purpose Allah is so angry at these people he

doesn't mention himself he mentioned himself with the people that he was happy with what did he say you favored you was mentioned Allah is not mentioned actually all that's mentioned is they get anger you know directed towards them but Allah does not mention whose anger it's kind of strange language it's hard to explain in English I'll try my best how you know when somebody says this child was beat up at school he was beat up at school who did I not mention who beat him up I didn't mention is it possible more than one beat

him up is that possible all we know is a beating happen we don't know who it happened from Allah says I Don't want we ask Allah don't make us from those who get anger towards them who receive anger Allah did not mention receive whose anger you know why because it's Allah's anger and the Angel's anger and the believer's anger and their children's anger and their ancestors anger they get Anger from them at them from so many directions it cannot be counted so it said they just received anger these people receive anger that's why it said

now what did I tell you about nouns and verbs today which one is permanent nouns are permanent remember that is in the past is that permanent no which means our role models are not permanent they're always in the past as done with but the people who receive Allah's anger Allah used a noun what does that mean that phenomenon is permanent it was in the past it's in the present and you will find it in the future which is why we are in danger of it it was if it was only a phenomenon of the past

we would not be at risk but Allah made it a noun which means it's going to happen even now and we are not safe but what about Allah in Arabic means the one who's lost now some translations say nor those who were LED astray or who were misguided these are bad translations because that's in Arabic here's the bottom line it means lost nor those who are lost now what is when Someone is lost what is missing if somebody tried to come to this program and they got lost what was missing directions information right they didn't

know is there a big difference between the first and the second are people who do the wrong thing even after they know people who do the wrong thing because they don't even know they don't even know that's why they do the wrong thing so the first one is actually more it's worse that's why Allah talks about anger with them the second one Allah did not talk about anger with them it's interesting Allah did not mention his anger with them he just mentioned or we told us don't be like these people because it's not an excuse

that you're just lost you know and sometimes you can be lost and Allah will guide you Eve this word is even used for rasulullah you could be lost and find guidance the point is once you find guidance you will act on it the problem with they find guidance and they still don't act on it you understand the difference between these two now let's talk about Muslims what kind of Muslim could be when they know something is wrong and they still do it what kind of Muslim could be a Muslim could be Dal if they do

something wrong and they don't even know it's wrong but is that an excuse no because we're supposed to ask Allah for guidance which means we're supposed to ask seek knowledge so maybe if you didn't know yesterday you should learn and learn today and Learn and keep on learning now there are some Muslims who say I don't want to learn because if I learn I'll be responsible it's better I don't know it's better I would be from the LA lean because I don't want to be from him that's the logic I don't want to be from

the law I'd rather be from the law lean because I don't want to be from the Fatiha is perfect because it says you shouldn't be from and you shouldn't be from abalene when you say I don't want to know it's like you're saying I like bloodline I want to be in that category it's not a good idea buddy you with me this is this is very powerful now I get to my favorite part of the entire night I hold that for last what to me personally makes the Fatiha miraculous what makes the Fatiha so beautiful

that it can't even I can't logically say even if I don't even think like a Muslim if I think like a non-muslim if I reflect on what I'm sharing with you it's hard for me to come up with how a human being can talk like this how can a human being speak like this here's what I'm going to share with you pay attention to this part okay this is this is probably the most important part there are two themes in the Fatiha knowledge and action there are two themes in the knowledge and action all of

that is knowledge knowledge about Who knowledge about Allah yes you with me three ayat are about knowledge is that clear to everyone when we say is all of this is verbs all of this is about what not knowledge but action the Surah began with knowledge the Surah concludes with action you with me so far okay now there are three situations some people have knowledge and that knowledge leads them to action if your knowledge leads you to action then you must be on the straight path make sense so to be on the straight path what do

you need you need knowledge and you need action okay but there are two other situations there are some people who have knowledge but it doesn't translate into action and there are other people who have action but it's not based on correct knowledge now if you have knowledge but you don't act which category in the Fatiha which category they have knowledge but they don't have the corresponding action if you have action well intended but you're it's based on incorrect information then you have action without knowledge which category is that the Surah begins knowledge then talks about

action and knowledge together then it talks about knowledge without action Then it talks about action without knowledge is perfectly symmetrical it balances both of those themes perfectly let's go back again the Surah begins how do you talk like that by the way who talks like this and the Quran just spoken it's just spoken and it wasn't like it was repeated like let me say it another way now because that might sound better there's no editorial process now look at it from a Linguistics perspective and I know you're not students of linguistics maybe probably most of

you are not so I have to make this simple for you to understand but this is one of the most incredible things about the Fatiha one of the most incredible things the Fatiha or in the Arabic language has two kinds of sentences they have verb based sentences and they have noun based sentences now today I talk to you about verbs and nouns which one is permanent nouns which one is temporary verbs yes so the Arabs have two kinds of sentences verb based and noun base that's what they call it okay now when the verb based

sentences are used the context is typically temporary when the noun-based sentence is used the context is typically or the ideas are typically what permanent it's just a rhetorical thing okay the fact now I want you to keep that in the back of your mind noun-based sentences are describe permanence verb Based sentences describe temporary that's the linguistic function of them okay now Fatiha can be divided into three parts first I said there are two themes what are the two themes knowledge and action now we're going to divide it into three parts the first part is about

Allah you tell me which part is about Allah alhamdulillah that's part one part two is an agreement between us and Allah part about Allah part about us which part is that okay and the third part is about ourselves we want something for ourselves what part is that is three parts part one is about Allah part one is an agreement between us and Allah part three is our request to Allah it's about us what's incredible from a Linguistics perspective is that part one is linguistically it's noun sentences it's a noun sentence now what do you know

about noun sentences it's talking about Allah so it's only appropriate that noun sentences be used because noun sentences are permanent and Allah is permanent what was part three about part three is about who not part two part three us that's a verb based sentence too and verb based sentences linguistically are what temporary just like we ourselves are temporary What's left what did I skip I talked about part one I talked about part three what did I not talk about part two now part two is incredible because they say the noun sentence begins with a noun

and the verb sentence begins with a verb that makes Common Sense doesn't it but sometimes they do this crazy thing where they have a verb sentence even though it began with a noun now when a verb sentence begins with a noun it's considered a mixture in Arabic grammar you call it but who cares who cares the middle sentence is actually a verb sentence with a noun beginning it's a mixture of both sentences and the middle sentence is also a mixture because part of it is for Allah and part of it is for ourselves the Linguistics

of the first part of the Fatiha is noun based because it's about Allah the middle is a mixture because it's mixing between us and Allah and the last part is verb based because it's about ourselves even linguistically it's perfect that's perfect you couldn't move anything now I've talked to you about it linguistically and I've talked to you about it thematically it's the balance of the Fatiha but there's other balances let's go back if you want to learn about its Perfection its Perfection comes from balance it balances things it balanced the theme of knowledge with action

it Balanced nouns with verbs now we're going to learn something else it actually is a perfect symmetry because the what's the middle of the when something is balanced it means it hangs from The Middle so if you put something in the middle there should be half on this side half on that side so which I I is in the middle which I is in the middle trick question is in the middle okay itself that Ayah itself has how many parts two parts what's part one what's part two now check this out is the conclusion of

part one is the conclusion of part one what do I mean if you know alhamdulillah what conclusion do you reach that's your conclusion I want to be Allah now I know Allah and I want to be a Slave now what's the second part of that Ayah what's the ultimate help you can get from Allah what is the ultimate hope you get from Allah his guidance is the introduction to part two is the conclusion of part one is the introduction of part two the Surah is perfectly balanced from the middle Ayah perfectly balanced it's incredible It's

mind-boggling let's go back again the Fatiha balances other themes hope in Allah hope in Allah comes but if hope is blind you become irresponsible so responsibility comes with what Ayah Allah balanced hope with responsibility between between okay there are two other things that are balanced if you just have praise it's artificial if you just have thanks you don't include praise how do you balance praise and thanks what do you say alhamdulillah it balances between knowledge and action by the end I told you knowledge and action together just knowledge no action just action no knowledge everything

about the Surah is balanced look at the beginning the beginning says All Peoples of the world all nations of the world and at the end of the Surah Allah says there are only going to be three kinds of people in all of the al-ameen the al-ameen will either be the alameen of people or it will be the people of Ali him or it will be the people of Abdullah lean all of humanity falls under one of these three categories every human being on this Earth is from which means every human being on this Earth is

either Minim it's from those who Allah favored or those who get Allah's anger or those who are still confused and lost and don't know any better yet also the only three categories that's it is described by the end Fatiha began with an individual concern alhamdulillah Al hamd is done by a group or is it felt in the heart so it felt in the heart even if you do hand as a group you have to feel it in your heart individually will Allah judge the hand collectively or individually individually Allah is our rub individually is that

an individual personal relationship that Allah is yes personal Allah is that personal or individual or personal or Collective first and foremost it's personal Allah will judge us on Judgment Day as individuals or as a group and everybody will come to Allah one person at a time one person out of everything about the beginning of the Fatiha is individual and when you get to the end of the Fatiha it is balanced with the collective everything becomes Collective and the Quran itself is balanced the Quran itself is bound this is the first Surah what's the last Surah

and the whole Quran what's the last Surah at the end right Fatiha began with a positive word it began with alhamdul which is a positive word begins Which is a negative word seeking Refuge positive reinforcement negative reinforcement Fatiha began with a noun Nas begins with a verb that's the entire Spectrum Fatiha is collective I seek Refuge not we seek Refuge I see Refuge that's about the individual Fatiha says there are two kinds of groups you should not be a part of two kinds of groups you should stay away from what are those two kinds of

groups two groups these are in these are groups there are also two kinds of evil influences but they're individual evil influences two into two groups over there subhanallah everything's and now wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait will be finish it he says what do we read in Fatiha by the way means the one you worship what do we say iyaka the entire thing is balanced the entire thing is balanced this is Fatiha guys that's Fatiha the Fatiha by itself is enough this is the last thing I'm sharing no more

breaks sorry I just need 10 minutes for this last one this is the last thing I'm sharing with you about the Fatiha the ultimate Balance of all of these balances are incredible to me but this one it stops them all over and above all of them you know I want to talk to you about four kinds of conflicts there are four kinds of conflicts Wars four kinds of Wars four kinds of battles and conflicts the first battle is between my body and my soul my heart my heart that wants to turn to Allah and the

heart that wants things from this world there's a battle inside me there's a battle inside you too there's not one of us that does not have this battle there's a spiritual thirst and there's a material thirst there's a there's a desire for the beauty of Jannah but there's also desire for beauty of this world you can't fight it it's there and there's a conflict between those two that's the first battle the Second Battle is between men and women men and women they have to live with each other but they also hate each other there's a

love-hate relationship it's a constant struggle what are the rights of men what are the rights of women if you let women decide what the rights of women are they will have they will end up oppressing men if you let men decide what the rights of men are and women are they will end up oppressing women it's a constant battle it's a constant battle I'll give you an example you know you know what Divorce Court if the divorce court judges a man who just went through a divorce and he has a case in front of him

guess what you better not be a woman in front of him Because you're gonna get some you understand because he's biased he's at the end of the day he's a man and he can't think like a woman and if the if the divorce court judges a woman and she just went through a divorce you better not be a man in front of her because she's gonna tear you apart you understand we can't help but be who we are we're limited in our perspective so there's a conflict the social conflict between the rights of men and

the responsibilities of men and the rights of women and the responsibilities of women that's the second conflict the first conflict was what what was the first conflict Body and Soul second conflict men and women third conflict is between capital and labor the third conflict is between the boss and the worker the boss says you should work more and you should get paid less the employee says I should work less and I should get paid more they want the opposite things the boss says you should have more time on and less time off the employee says

I should have more time off and less time on they're on the opposite and there's a constant struggle that's why you have Labor rights that's why you have minimum wage that's why you have unions you have these things in the world because there's a conflict between capital and labor what was the first conflict Body and Soul second conflict men and women third conflict boss end employee last conflict government and people doesn't matter where you are in the world a government will want more taxes It will want more Authority it will want more control and the

people will want more freedom if you let the government decide everything it'll become a dictatorship if you let the people decide everything it'll become chaos there has to be a balance you have to balance these things and you know the finding that balance is what we call the struggle for justice yes we call this the struggle for justice the Justice could and this is kind of like political Justice right finding the balance between government and people finding the balance between boss and employee filing the balance between man and woman now the thing of it is

in all of these conflicts in all of these conflicts who will get to decide what's fair this is the final Miracle of the fatihad the final guidance of the Fatiha at the end of the day a human being will either be a man or a woman which means they will think like a man or they will think like a woman at the end of the day a person will either be a boss or an employee so they can only think like a boss or they can only think like an employee at the end of the

day either someone will be a representative of the government or representative of the people's perspective you can't have both perspectives it's impossible it's impossible so this conflict seems never ending this struggle seems never ending gave us the answer to these etern and by the way inside is the body and the Soul sometimes your body will win sometimes your soul will win and if and because we Become materialistic people we crush the needs of our soul and some people say no we should be spiritual people and they become so spiritual they stop eating correctly and they

start dressing funny and they start getting weird and then they think that's spiritual and that's not spiritual that's just weird that's what that is you have to you have to find a balance between spirituality and living in this world you know how do you find that balance Allah azzawajal told us in this Surah one phrase that is the balance guide us to the straight path that doesn't lean towards men and it doesn't lean towards women that doesn't lean too much towards the soul and doesn't lean too much towards the body that doesn't lean too much

towards capital and doesn't lean too much towards labor doesn't lead towards much government doesn't lean towards towards people show us the path in the middle so we can live a happy life show us that subhanallah because Allah created my body and he created my soul and what he created he cares for both of them he doesn't hate one or the other he cares for both of them he created men and he created woman he created the boss and he created the employee he created the government and he created the people so he cares about both

of them and he's the only one who can give us balance if you follow his principles we'll find balance that's the balance humanity is looking for that's the struggle we're trying to find subhanallah I know time is pretty much up but okay last last one I promised last one I want to talk to you one more time about you know the criticism of the Quran of certain Jews certain Jews not all Jews Certain Jews is that they were so intellectual their hearts became hard they were only they looked at their religion only as something to

study and to look at academically but it was not a spiritual thing for them at all their hearts became hard on the other side the Christians are described as a very spiritual people whose hearts are soft their hearts are soft but the problem with them is a lack of academics according to the Quran they don't look at the book the way they should they don't ask the questions that they should so you have the scholarly people who become too scholarly and lose their spirituality and you have the spiritual people who have too much spirituality and

lose their intellectual promise two problems well these two problems happen in the Muslim ummah will you have people that learn a lot they learn a lot and they know a lot but they're spiritually empty they're becoming spiritually empty and will you have people that are spiritually very concerned but know almost nothing about them will that happen sure you're gonna find the conflict between knowledge intellectual growth and spirituality the Fatiha gives us the balance between knowledge and emotion remember I told you alhamdulillah is both intellectual both in an informative sentence and an emotional one the Quran

constantly throughout itself is an is a highly academic Intellectual text and at the same time it is a highly what spiritual text what other book is going to balance intellectual philosophical wisdom with spirituality which book will do that which book can some scholar read and do a PhD on one Surah and not be done and at the same time a farmer is listening to the same Surah and crying in Salat seems which which other book will do that which constitution of the world is going to make you cry you know subhanallah the balance between spirituality

and intellectualism found inside this one book subhanallah balance after balance after balance after balance after balance that is the Fatiha I pray that I was able to do some justice to the Beauties embedded inside this incredible Surah and I pray that you enjoyed yourselves listening today as I as I leave you tonight I know there's a very short trip this time right I'm actually flying out tomorrow morning uh and I'm very grateful for the opportunity that was offered to us by by muiz and the the volunteers and the sponsors for this program I make Dua

for all of you for coming and attending I'm really really grateful to have this chance to meet all of you and I know I won't get to say salaams to everybody here but I honestly just pretend that I came over to you and that's a slum to you because I mean it I I really am very grateful for all of you in attendance here tonight I just briefly wanted to before I let you go introduce you to a project that I'm committing myself to completely actually more and more I'm getting less opportunity to travel because

of this one project that I think Will benefit Muslims more than me actually traveling because I have I have to make a conscious decision about what I think I can be of most benefit with and by team and the work that we're trying to do there are two things we focus on in Bay you know we focus on Arabic and we focus on the Quran tonight was a little bit about the Quran right so I'll just talk to you about the Quran I personally believe every Muslim should have gone through an explanation of the Quran

but hear me out hear me out I don't expect every Muslim to read the entire translation of the Quran I don't expect it I don't even think it's practical I don't think it's practical because either you'll get bored or confused you will read an Ayah in Translation what does that mean kill them wherever you find them what does that mean you know and you won't find an explanation and maybe you don't have the wherewithal to read technical tafasir that's even more expectation from the average Muslim well they're not going to do that that's not going

to happen let's be practical so in my personal position on this is the Quran needs to be explained in simple language not in print first but in video in talk you have to talk it out that's a lot easier for people to digest and it should be presented in a way that's not overly academic it's just the Quran 101 for everybody especially paying attention to the parts that are confusing Like the parts that talk about things that are used by CNN or Fox the parts that are used that some people use to say some very

horrible things and they misuse them to say some very terrible things and you're like is that does the Quran really say that does it actually talk like that what does that really mean and you know what for most people they don't they're not going to end up reading something about it they're just going to stay confused for years about it unresolved this was a concern I've had for some time and to try to address that concern one of the projects bayina took up was the cover to cover project the idea was to go through a

translation of the entire Quran with little explanation especially longer explanation where it is necessary you feel like common confusions occur what is that talking about or things like how come the subject changed all of a sudden how come the story is only a little bit here and a little bit over there what is he talking about when he says this about women or that about inheritance what does that mean you know so there's a common questions people have but I wanted to make a resource available for the entire Quran so the average Muslim does there's

no hurry they just listen to 10 15 20 minutes of it a day maybe every other day and they just kind of keep going slowly through the Quran and it's a lifelong kind of thing so you go through it once you go through it another time whenever you have time but it's done on your convenience that project has come to a conclusion the recordings are done for the entire Quran alhamdulillah the cover to cover project back in Texas and they've already been put up online Now this is different from YouTube because on YouTube there's like

little snippet here a little clip there little piece here a little piece there but it's not one organized Continuum right I wanted it to be like an organized Library so you can just kind of it becomes a an at home or at your mobile device educational resource that's what I really wanted it to be then after this project I'll introduce you to two only two projects even though there are more so that was one project the second project was I felt that there are certain themes there are certain subjects that the Muslims should know about

because they are hurting us for instance the world is now flooded with indecent images the world is flooded with indecent video and images online on tv in print etc etc and we're we're exposed to that our children are exposed to that you know it's just inevitable it's just there how do we deal with it it's a it's a problem of our of our shame right of decency does the Quran have something to say about this subject and if it does what does it have to say and I'm not just talking about putting a hijab on

I'm saying that shame or shamelessness is a big subject in the Quran and Allah talked about it way before hijab was even revealed hijab was revealed 16 years after the prophet started his mission but Allah started talking about shamelessness from the first or second year so it's a bigger subject than clothing it's something there's something more there so I wanted to explore that being thematic studies in the Quran I personally think for example a lot of parents are having a lot of trouble Raising their children communication problems anger management sibling rivalry these are problems that

every family goes through does the Quran have advice about this stuff what about parenting from the quran's perspective you know if we believe in this book then we believe it has Solutions we asked Allah to guide us then he'll guide us with parenting he'll guide us with friendship he'll guide us in our business dealings he'll guide us in things that matter in our life so we should come to the book for that purpose so I took one of these themes at a time and I started doing a series on them based on the Quran each

of them I've only done two so far and more are coming so shame in parenting are done and they're posted online too and the re that I want to put this all in one place so that it becomes a convenient resource for you inshallah and that resource is called bayina TV and I'm hoping tonight inshallah that you guys check it out I mean I can come maybe once in a year once in two years at the most at the moment that's a good that's a that's the best case scenario right but I want you to

have a relationship with me and me to have a relationship with you based on Quran studies at your convenience throughout the year that's what I really like to have and I would like every family to have that kind of access because me personally inshallah somebody will come along and do a better job but until that happens you'll have to deal with me so I hope you check it out tonight it's beginner.tv that's the URL for it but you know and but you know people don't know how to spell but you know people spell Banyan people

spend the balloon people said Banyan so I'm gonna spell it out for you it's [Music] b-a-y-y-i-n-a-h b-a-y-y-i-n-a-h dot TV that's where this resource is so I hope you check it out the clip you saw was actually me that was the third project actually I teach my daughter Arabic about 15 minutes a day and she's not a super genius so if he can do it you can do it that's the point I record it I record it at home I teach her she makes mistakes I yank her ears and all kinds of cool things to her

and she learns alhamdulillah we have a lot of fun doing it but the point is even if you want to learn Arabic later on then you can get started on that too on your own time you know this is a curriculum I use for my full-time students and I'm using it for my 10 year old so it works it gets you somewhere so inshallah you take advantage of that but you know TV I thank you so so very much for the honor of your presence here tonight I I know that I'm not going to get

a chance to meet all of you but even if I don't my my gracious warm welcome in Salam to you and to your family for myself and all of my team I know because we are traveling ourselves I would ask all of you to make Dua for not just us but our families that are missing us at the time and you know our kids our parents everybody and that Allah keep them safe as we travel back we're going to be making lots and lots of Dua for your community and I pray that you're able to

have flourishing lives as Muslims here in Singapore and that your awareness and knowledge and and practice of this Deen grows and that your communities become more and more united and a place where Families can really find a love of Islam that's what it's about at the end of the day if we can give our families a love of Islam we're doing something right as a community so inshallah does that for all of you thank you so very much for listening tonight [Applause]