Why Character Matters More Than New Year Goals

For for.

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Asalam alikum.

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As.

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H Allah.

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Alhamdulillah.

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Subhana for.

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My dear brothers respected Elders mothers and sisters we thank Allah subhana tala for keeping us alive one more day on the path of Islam on the and allowing me and you to enter his house and worship him in the manner that pleases him I ask Allah subhana to accept from me and accept from you the little we do in his path a mean and I bear witness there is no deed worthy of worship except for Allah subhana wa tala and Prophet Muhammad sallallah alai was is his last and final messenger for surely who Allah subhana tala choose to guide nson can misguide and whoever choose to misguide n guide him back to the path and we seek refuge in Allah from darkness of our ourselves and evil of our Deeds for Allah is all knowing and all seeing what his creation does alhamdulillah the Islamic new year has started and we had a about that and traditionally in the western culture when a new year begins people will like to do some kind of accountability and set up some goals for them eles to perform better in that year what I to say or what I like to personally actually tell myself and what I to do is not having goals setting up a goal is setting yourself up for failure in a sense stay with me though I believe we should have mild markers in our lives what happens is when you have a goal and you hit that goal or you reach that goal that job is completed you know my job is to get a bachelor's degree that's my goal in life what happens when I get the bachelor degree the goal is done it's over now education and learning and a betterment of oneself should be a lifelong Mission and for that lifelong Mission setting up goals is is setting yourself up for possible failures we to have Milestones set up when you and I travel from Tucson to Phoenix how many times is it that somebody in the car you know if you are blessed of not having kids and I say that you know in the other way blessing you don't get to hear are we there yet no and then literally 5 minutes pass so are we there no I just told you no no no but I want to know and then what do you do you tell them oh we are 65 Mi away from Phoenix we're now 55 mil away from Phoenix we're 80 Mi away from Phoenix whatever this this might be and I'm going backwards I know I went backwards it's okay maybe you stopped at the rest area for 15 20 minutes and that delayed you further you know but whatever it is you have a mile marker on the highway that tells you what have you progressed how far have you gotten along and as Muslims we need to have a mile marker and we need to have a retrospect an inspection of ourselves every single time there is a significant event and I say that a significant event because starting of the new year of the hij 1445 that means we are that closer to end of time we're that closer to rest of our lives being one year less the time is passing I don't know and you don't know when would it be a last breath maybe I will not get to lead Salah Allah we don't know that so those mild markers that we're passing in our life are we getting better or are we getting worse and one of the things that we should as Muslims be looking at ourselves is the main thing in my personal opinion and and if somebody has a disagreement please come and see me afterwards is the betterment of our character now hear with me and stay with me on this topic theam mentions explicitly he says I was sent not but only to perfect the character of the human being I said this last week we were talking about something a brother was in my office and he has advised on a different matter and this topic came up and W this is a topic that pains me every single time we talk about it the fasting was there before wasam got the prophet Hood some form of Salah was still present some form of IM in Allah was still present and the Haj of B was still being established we're not going to go into details of what form it was but it was still being done every single thing we have was there in some form or shape beforeall got Prophet hood and if you read this Hadith in that context I was not sent except to per the characteristic or the character of the human being when when the sahaba have migrated to Haba and Nashi calls them the famous spece that is made he says what the the the sahabi says we were the worst of the people we killed our daughters we did all the possible we stole land and we killed each other for no reason this is part of his famous speech that he says to explain what they have learned when they entered Islam today we see and we talk to brothers and sisters who cry for festine and so rightfully be the slaughter of innocent should be mourned every every single day every single time of any Muslim life Allah subh says the the killing of one innocent Muslim life is enough for the whole world to destroy itself over rightfully so but bear with me and hear me out on this matter what one happens when we are taking the property and the rights of another Muslim in our family where are the tears then how bad do we feel then are we are verbally abusing people around us where are your honors then it is okay to take the the the land of the poor and still say muham I'm I'm Muslim says Muslim a Muslim is a brother of a Muslim he does not degreg him denigrate him he does not show him lower theam was he was the toughest on himself and he had the most leeway for the others some of this community members went for Hajj and you talk to them and you figure out how much stress and anxiety and turmoil and and fatigue it is and is on and people are coming to him in I cut my hair off before I did the he pi the look at the books of the of the of the of the he's saying it don't worry about it it's okay don't worry about it it's okay you go to to spend one night's routine was that he prayed every night he prayed so long that his feet would swell up but he guessed to mif and he purposed chooses to rest because he knew that his umah would have a hard time to stay up that night in so say you pray the all your life alhamdulillah when you get to M sleep that night cuz that night is meant for rest from sahu alaih wasallam and we what do we do as Muslims we take out the most for ourselves brother you brother you know there's a Hadith for this okay and then you see somebody else brother what's wrong with you well hold on time out a minute ago you you had a Hadith for yourself there's no Hadith for your brother now what happened there hold yourself to a higher accountability than you do anybody else and that's the that's the way of the prophethood that's the way of prophethood to make ease for people to make ease for people to create ease for them you know a lot of times when the when the IM is leading Salah on the the is to read you know in the second have you paid attention what the topic is towards the end of the Surah Allah subh is talking to and remind them for you are a person who reminds remind the remind the people because you are a person who reminds folks literal definition or translation of this Ayah on under under one translation in English translation it literally said do not be a dictator upon them literally said the words meaning what you cannot hold that stick on the folks and start beating them up with that have we forgotten the story that we have about the the the Ramadan of am you know Ramadan is not even beginning yet and we Muslims alhamdulillah around the world are in a rush what time is what time is we're going to do we're going to finish the Quran what's happening what's happening did not come out of the house for the third night he stayed inside and the house is if you've been to M alhamdulillah if you've not may Allah take you and show you the Blessed SES where is that was his house that was the that's where he was and the Masid is right there's not literally if I had to exaggerate from this member to that pillar that's how the far the member ofam is from his door W without exaggeration people are outside he can hear them they're talking amongst themselves they're knocking the door come pray he does not come out F he comes out he said I heard you all I heard the knocks on the door I heard the complaint why did you come I did not want Allah to make it mandatory on my and the umah would not be able to perform that Salah and today alhamdulillah we have chips to give out you know most of you if you grew up in a big city you know what a parking mate is you don't one brother's laughing you don't have that in Tucson man I grew up in New York City we had parking mates and you know when they walked out they used to have a stack that big orange looking tickets two second Runing it and you getting it and they'll stand in front of your car and block you from leaving and look I'm leave no I already started riding stop and I can't stop riding we walk out with that booklet every day to give out fatwas to people oh you didn't pray huh this was Ramadan I didn't see you for you know you're not a good person now can any one of us guarantee the the condition we're going to die in no the time is flying by and I got several other things to cover inshallah so I'm going to try to speed up a little bit I want to mention this this story of of an Arabi who comes to and he says he says count to me the characteristics of do you know how to count my brother he's an Arabi he's meaning that he comes from far away places right they're usually not educated I'm not saying that present day I'm talking about General we stereotyping he says yes yes of course I know to count SOI tells him to count for him the blessings of the world and he says I can't I'm I can't count the blessings in the world so looks at him and he says he looks at him you know surprised he says you can't count the blessing of the and when Allah subh says the the blessing on this world is very few and you're telling me you can't count that and you're asking me to count the character of the Prophet when Allah subh says in the Quran you are at the highest character at the highest character and this is what we need to reflect upon let me close the first sermon with the story of is a huge name in the sahaba huge name there's a narration mentioned and there's a couple different names mentioned but the narration I me mentioned used to say if Allah subh asked me who I left behind for his umah I would say I left behind M and that would be sufficient for the umah is leading the prayers a man who lives outside of Medina comes to join the Salah and starts reading the joke amongst are when somebody asks you to read a short Salah you read I'm just joking it's okay don't worry don't worry no no we're going to keep it short is reading the man stands behind him and after a while he breaks his Salah he goes to the side he Praises Salah and he leaves mu finds out from some people there are some Whispers And there he's told that the man came broke his Salah his Salah separately and then departed M said he is not a Muslim right in a sense he's a maaf in a sense that he's a hypocrite he's not a good person the story reaches the man that mu has called you aaf the man gets toam and he goes to the to theam he says mu has called me this and he tells the story that we are day laborers we wake up early in the morning and we go far off to work and we slave away all day and we come home at night and now it's time for to rest because we have to wake up early and again and go out and do the work again and was leading a long Salah and I could not anymore stand there so I left the Salah prayed my own Salah and went back no problems calls and he says this is the words ofth brothers this is not my words please oh are you starting a f in the what is wrong with you what have you done now why can't you read and if you if you listen to Scholars they say F can be longer and then is should be a moderate Salah it shouldn't be too long because people have to retire to bed this is the words of to who which is saying that if Allah asked me who I left behind for the I will say I left behind m this is the character of the as this is the character of of sahab this is the character ofat I ask Allah subhana to give us the to have some interest back and have the thought process to go through and fix our characters and soften our tongues and soften our hearts for our fellow brothers and sisters.

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Alhamdulillah if I can request your brothers to move forward those empty spaces in front of you take those empty spots and adjust your sitting patterns please move forward please if you could we're almost to the door so let's like to have a little more space in the back for those Brothers they joining us later inah.

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Says I heard Prophet Muhammad s alai wasallam says facil facilitate things to people concerning their religious matters make it easier for the folks to follow the de and do not make hard for them and give them and give them good glad tidings or give them good news and do not make them run away from Islam this is the Crux of our religion is today W if you if you have to take an accountability of how long the Muslims have been amongst non-muslims and the reason those people are not attracted to Dean or to our religion I probably will have to boil it down to one main thing and that's this right here we we do not have a good characteristics we don't have a good character in a sense that we are not following the prophetic path of our tongues have not softened our hearts have not softened we are more tough on people than we are on ourselves you know a lot of times I see people who take the shahada and accept Islam and it's literally their first 10 minutes and then somebody has to give him a lecture on how they have to memorize the suras and brother take a deep breath this just only been 10 minutes you have to give some breather to the brother he's trying to learn when you were born alhamdulillah most of us born to Muslim household even you didn't learn the first time you read the Surah even today there's a lot of things that we do that we have not understood properly in our religion so if Allah subhana is for you why isn't to somebody else let me finish with this story and this the True Story by the way and I can relate with this story because I was once a young man too because I I went through the same torture as this person had gone through one of my sh mentioned a story of a young man who took shahada and became Muslim and the man had long hair a young man had long hair took a shahada went to the Masjid I see some of you smiling already they already know where it's going he went to the Masjid and and he was told Haram brother you have long hair now now I want you to hear this part clearly the man went home ashamed and had a debate with himself should he leave Islam now or should he continue to practice this is a new Muslim so he debates himself and he comes to the conclusion okay you know what is just here I will stick with my religion and Allah gued him because nobody else could have guided that at that point he stays with his religion and he shaves his head literally shaves his head completely bald and he said you know he came back to Mid and he tried to reconnect and he said after some time passed he started to to want to learn the and he said you know to my amazement when I read the SE ofam I found out Alam had long hair I pose a question to you and you can answer it to yourself you don't have to answer it to me if that person had left his Dean that day who would have been responsible on a day of in front of Allah subh so have the highest measurement stick for yourself and then the shortest stick for everybody else around you have the the the the and the and all of that for for others in your life not for yourself and offer them that may Allah subh make us a pure umah in the meanings of the pure umah and may Allah subh remove the hatred from our heart for each other as and our brothers and our sisters and may Allah subh make us all a guiding path and a Shining Light to those who want to come to the Deen of Islam and may Allah subh make us from the people who tongues are soft and the hearts are even softer and may Allah make us from the folks who are uniting and not dividing umah and make Allah make us from the people that when we meet Allah subhana tala we can proudly say that if we did not do anything else at least our tongues were the softest with theat and we tried to copy his characters as best as we.

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Can for.

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Allah.

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Str your minds full the gaps between may Allah have mercy upon usen alhamd.

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Aman for.

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Allahar.

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Allah abbar Allah abbar.

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Allahar allahar ald.

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Aman.

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Be.

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Allahar.

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Allahar allahar.

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Allahar.

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Allah Allah my.

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Asay.

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It was here yeah that's all I almost feel it should be back here literally about here you walk up.