How Do You Know Allah Accepted Your Worship?

Point out a couple of things with respect to Ramadan, with respect to what's past, and with respect to tomorrow Eid and what is to come and to follow. We all hear hope. Hope that Allah has accepted from us our fasting, has accepted from us our prayer, has accepted from us any effort that we put in, no matter how great or small it is. However, what comes with that hope is a desire to know, has Allah actually accepted from us? And the question is, does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tell us when he accepts something from us? In other words, does he interact with us or is it just a blind kind of thing? We're just seeing what sticks and just trying all things and we can never really know because Allah doesn't really respond. How do we know if Allah accepted something from us? Who can tell us?

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Longer there. He said, "By our.

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Pretty pretty clear. I don't think it could be written in any broader ink that your actions increase, your good deeds increase. Right? So we all have the right idea. Listen to this verse of the Quran. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, "Is there any adequate reward for good than more good?" Notice that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he has promised us that he will reward us and that reward is predicated on the idea that he has accepted something from us and he asked this rhetorical question here and it being in the question form is even more emphatic than it being a statement. So notice Allah doesn't say in this verse the reward for goodness is more good. He doesn't say it that. He says is there any other reward appropriate for good than good? And the reason it comes in a question is as if to say this is absolutely logical. This is no other no logic would ever lead to any other conclusion. Everyone knows this. Anyone who has his sanity intact knows that there is no recompense appropriate for the best than that which is the best. And he doesn't say alass. He says and in the Arabic language means is perfecting something working to perfect something. So we understand from this verse that when we do something good the indication indication that Allah has accepted it from us is that that good becomes better. that not only do we retain that good but it becomes what better. Listen to this narration in Mus Ahmed. The prophet sallall.ai tells us he says Allah gives worldly wealth to those whom he loves and those whom he does not love. But he only gives eman to those whom he loves. What is eman? Is it just belief? Are deeds part of eman? So all good. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala refers to it as e all good deeds. So I get it right. So who was correcting me? You're making me double double doubt myself. Okay. So the point here is that iman is not just belief. Eman is belief, action, speech, giving, refraining from haram. All of this is eman. And so paradise is for the those who do. It's not just my heart is good, but my actions are bad. That doesn't exist. Whatever's in here manifests in here, out here. That's how it works. And so if you want to know if your was accepted, watch yourself after Ramadan. If you want to know if your fasting was accepted, watch yourself after Ramadan. If you want to know if your charity was accepted, watch yourself after Ramadan. The hypocrites came and repented. Oh, we're so sorry. But what was the response? He said the real test to see if someone has repented or not is do continue leading continue doing and Allah and his messenger and the believers will observe your future actions. That's the indicator. And that is the secret why the companions were so earnest with doing good deeds. Many of the companions were told they would be in paradise. The 10 that were giving glad tidings of paradise and many others there they're over 20 that were told you will be in paradise. You will be in paradise. That's a side of groups that were actually told all of the people of Badr, all of the people of Bewan, right? All of them were told that they would be in paradise. But when we watch their actions, after they were told they would be in paradise, their actions increased. Why? because they know that if Allah wants you in paradise, he's going to give you the paradise that comes that is in here first. Allah says, "Indeed, the righteous are currently right now in a state of bliss because as the scholars tell us, there is a Jenna in this earth, a paradise in this earth that exists. You will not enter paradise in the next unless you have entered the paradise that is here on this earth first. What is that paradise? The remembrance of Allah, the obedience of Allah. That is the paradise on earth. If you enter it, you will enter the paradise of the hereafter. If you have been prohibited and barred from entering it, most likely you will be prohibited and barred from the paradise of the hereafter. So if you look at things like this, you understand that Ramadan is actually the finish line. Have we reached the finish line or have we reached the starting line? We actually have just reached the starting line. We didn't reach the finish line. If you want your to be accepted, continue your now. If you want your fasting to be accepted, continue your fasting after. If you want your charity to be accepted, continue your charity after. If you want your attendance to the masid in the house of Allah to be accepted, continue your attendance to the house of Allah after Ramadan. Because Ramadan, the God of Ramadan is the God of the other 11 months. And Allah reminds us, he tells us the number of months with Allah are 12. He is to be worshiped in all 12. If you can retain what you accomplish this Ramadan, imagine what you will do next Ramadan and the Ramadan after and the Ramadan after. Imagine where we can go individuals and collective where we are headed if this is the attitude that we foster. But if the attitude we foster is, you know, Ramadan's over, back to business as usual, we're just going to keep taking one step forward and two steps backwards. And honestly, I am very pleasantly surprised tonight because I thought there'd be two or three guys here tonight. I didn't think anybody was going to show up. Not because I'm being pessimistic or because I'm being negative. It's just what I've seen in my experience, right? But it would appear to me that we are making progress together. We're all making progress together, right? We are not strangers to each other. If you go missing tomorrow, I am going to go looking for you. If I go missing tomorrow, you are going to go looking for me. We need to be so tightly knit that none of us is going to suffer in silence anymore. Never again. That I should feel ashamed of myself if my brother is suffering and he is forced to come and ask me for help. The companions would be very distraught with themselves if someone asked them, one of their brothers asked them for something. You know why they would say, "I should have known. Why did I force my brother to have to swallow his pride and to humiliate himself to come and ask me? I should have known. I should have been a better brother. I should have been a better sister." And we can do that. We have these illusions in our mind that oh, you know, we're not overseas. We're not in a Muslim country. And we're not the companions. And you know, any little thing we do is good enough. And you know, alhamdulillah, for people in America in this day and age, we're doing pretty good. We're not doing good enough. We're not. And we can do a lot better. So, let's go there. Let's break that cycle. Let's go better because that's the only way that our children are going to become better. Now the next thing that we want to mention is with respect to Eid tomorrow we have a couple of rules and our you know this is what separates us from the from the from the animal world is we have rules right so number one we're going to have security and we're going to have volunteers it's a big effort it's a monumental effort it is mostly headed by Ahmed J 99.9 9% of it and he has worked his fingers to the bone, mashallah, in his time with us during this Ramadan. Honestly, he's our elder and we couldn't thank him enough for his help. But these volunteers, these security, me, the board, everyone that is here trying to help enforce these rules, we're here to help you. So, you have to help us help you. So follow the rules. If the security guard says don't park here, park over here, don't question. Don't say why. I need to know why. Explain it to me right now. That is a very bad soldier. You are soldiers now. Take command. The best of soldiers isn't the strongest. It isn't the fastest. It isn't the most skilled. It's the one who embraces being a soldier and takes command, right? is able to take to take directions. Okay. Number two, if you have a child with you under the age of 10, please head to the gym. This area, so the malah here, the main mosa upstairs and downstairs, we're not going to want any children that are under the age of 10 in here. Okay? There's a number of reasons. is one of them is is peace and quiet. It's a happy day. You can't expect them to sit perfectly still, right? It's just it's unnatural. If a child is very still and very quiet, something is wrong. That's not a a child that is healthy, right? So, if you have children with you under the age of 10, take them to the gym. You will get the same experience in the gym. We have the microphone hooked up. We have everything there. You'll be able You're right there. So, just go to the gym. , usually we have food, drinks, candy, stuff that, and it becomes a disaster place in here. It It comes to a point where your feet are sticky, you're walking on stuff, kids are going to spill stuff. So, any child under 10, we want them to be chaperoned in the gym, please. Number two, wear your best clothing. This is the time of year for the best of clothing. Number three, salah is at 9:00, so come as early as you can to give time to be able to park. Obviously, there'll be a lot of traffic and so forth. Number four, you are not required to listen to the hutba. You don't have to. You don't have to. If you want to, fine. I'll be given the hutba. It'll be about 10 minutes long. That is better. But you don't have to listen. But if you don't want to listen and you want to chat or catch up or whatever, you have to leave to do that. So you either stay to listen to the hutba or you leave to the outside to talk or whatever it is. Don't stay in here because it'll be hard for those who do want to listen to be able to listen. Salah is two and the first after making the first Allahbar to start the salah will have seven additional you just say Allahbar with the im then you listen to the recitation in the second it is five additional and I'll mention this again tomorrow but prepare your families for that and the final thing that we want to mention is to make sure that you get your zakat taken care of and squared away before it is obligatory. It is referred to as zaka because it is of the same importance and obligation as as regular zaka and it is a part of your fasting. Meaning that your fasting is incomplete until you give zakat. Then it puts that final nail in in in that in that frame. So make sure that you get your zakat squared away before salah. After salah zakut is cut off and you cannot give it. That's it. It's it's over at that point. So make sure that you give zakat before you do that. And then you know keep coming for all of the salah and so forth. And Subhanahu Yes, we have a question here.

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Right. Usually from what I understand it's usually the community there from from Abu Hanifa center right if you want to make that salah that's fine there's no problem with that but we I will be given at 9:00 yes rules.

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Mean same same sheriff here for for both of them so let's go ahead and and keep that in order when someone disrespects our rules anyone one. They're disrespecting all of us. They're telling us you and your rules are beneath me. No one is beneath our rules. No one. Not me, not the board, not anyone. So, do not allow anyone to disrespect you. We have to in order to harvest our our you know in order to to better advance ourselves and to raise ourselves all of us for Allah to raise us we have to enforce our rules and respect our rules right so that's what it's there for it's not just for us to talk down to people it's so that everyone is able to come and receive their full measure here at the masid that they are allotted is at 5:45 inshallah.

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