[0:12]Does it look any hopeful now, Noor? Any signal?
[0:22]Yeah, I don't think so either.
[0:39]Ah. I give up. This thing is not going anywhere. Adam, I think we Adam! Where does this kid keep going? Adam! I'm going to kill this kid. Adam! Looks like there is a signal. Yes, yes it's a signal. Adam! Adam!
[1:14]Ah, jogger there. Seems like we got some trouble here.
[1:36]Think about human kings. The more power a human being has, the more corrupt he tends to become. When kings enter a city, they corrupt it because power almost always comes with arrogance. And that's not just true for kings on thrones, but any authority that feels unchecked and forgets who put them in that position in the first place is prone to corruption. And that's why Umar ibn Khattab, who was humbled by his position, once asked Salman, am I a king or a Khalifa? He said, if you take even a single dirham from the people's wealth and misplace it, then you're a king, not a Khalifa. And Umar wept out of fear of Allah, and even the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam, on the day of the conquest of Mecca, a man comes to him trembling as he approaches him. So the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam says to him, relax, I'm not a king. I'm just the son of a woman from Mecca who used to eat dry meat. So who is the King, the Possessor, the Inevitable King? And what's the difference between these three names? It all starts with Al-Malik, from which the other names unfold. And the Quran envelopes your life with the parallel of Rab and Malik, so you open with Lord of the worlds, King of the Day of Judgment, and you close with Lord of mankind, King of mankind. So the scholars point out that Rab usually addresses the personal aspects of lordship and Malik addresses the public aspects of authority. The merciful Master commands for the interest of the individual, while the mighty King legislates for the welfare of the many. And the King of the worlds still has time to be your loving Master in the most personal sense. So both praise and protection meet under the same throne of The Most Merciful. Allah says: "That is your Lord, to Him belongs the ownership of all." Imagine if you were to walk into the palace grounds of a king, how would you behave? You would be grateful to be there, careful to follow the rules, respectful of what the king wants. Here, you pledge allegiance to that King every morning, every night. We have entered the morning and the entire kingdom belongs to Allah. Then in the evening, we have entered the evening and the entire kingdom belongs to Allah. And all praise belongs to Him. You glorify His power and His praise. So who is this King? Firstly, he's a king who didn't need you to recognize him. The King needs no validation. He already declared himself the King. No one placed a crown on him, no one voted him in, no one can vote him out. His kingship is not acquired nor inherited. It simply is and always will be. Every other throne in history was only borrowed for a time. And think about Pharaoh standing proudly before his people, even carving himself into pyramids, only for Allah to drown him and preserve his rotten corpse as a warning to every Pharaoh wannabe after him. And look at all the arrogant emperors and empires now returned to dirt only to be artifacts of evil. Have they not traveled through the earth and seen what became of those before them? The lesson remains, but the kings are gone. And on the Day of Judgment, he will declare, I am the King. Where are the kings of the world? Now note that he's always the King. But on the Day of Judgment, it's particularly significant, which brings us to the next name, King of the Day of Judgment, Owner of the Day of Judgment. The Day of Reckoning is the day of debt, when debts are paid, when titles expire, when heads bow and hearts sink, and all private claims are put on display in this one big public tribunal. The kings who once ruled nations will stand as servants. The billionaires who thought they owned the world will realize they actually own nothing at all. And some recitations are King of the Day of Judgment, others are Owner of the Day of Judgment. Because he owns that day and he is the King over its proceedings and people. And notice how Allah says right before that, The Most Merciful, The Especially Merciful. So that you don't mistake him for a harsh king, and the Day of Judgment is the day when you want him to be most merciful. But of course, he's not just King of the Day of Judgment, one of his names is also Owner of all dominion, the Owner of all things owned. He just specified the Day of Judgment first to make that your focus when you read every other verse of the Quran. Because just like His mercy frames every other name of His, the Day of Judgment should frame every other station of your existence. Blessed is the One in whose Hand is the dominion, and He is powerful over everything, who created death and life.
[6:46]And he starts with death to remind you that you didn't even own your existence. And so when he reclaims what was always his, even our precious loved ones. The Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam taught us to say: To Allah belongs what He took, and to Him belongs what He gave. Even your loved ones are just borrowed gifts from Allah. And he reminds us to say at all times, to Allah belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth.
[7:18]If you don't truly own yourself, then you certainly don't own anything else. You're renting even what you think you're owning. And one day, the Owner will call back what was always his. Say, O Allah, Owner of all dominion, You give kingdom to whom You will, and You take it away from whom You will. So the King tells you who he is, The Possessor tells you what he owns, which is everything, and when you trust his ownership, he takes you to another level to trust his execution as well, which brings us to the rarest name, The Inevitable King. Whose decree, no one escapes. The Inevitable King adds to the notion of power, the power of execution. The righteous will be in gardens and rivers, seated in a position of honor, with a King who has absolute power. Pay attention. The King is the King who needs no validation. The Possessor is the King who owns all possessions. The Inevitable King is the King who then executes his decree with no fear of ever losing power. Because no coup or rebellion is ever possible with him. So when you realize Allah is the Inevitable King, you stop measuring your safety by proximity to people, and start measuring it solely by proximity to Him. But that's when you witness His power. How about when you feel His majesty? Which brings us to the last name, The Majestic. His majesty. You see, you can recognize the power of a king in front of you, but feel no real reverence in your heart. But if they possess this quality of Al-Jalil as well, then you're overwhelmed by their presence. So majesty, as the scholars explain, speaks to the internal condition caused by the King in his subjects. And when do you most feel that majesty of Allah? It's after prayer, where you stood in awe of him and then you say, Blessed be You, O Possessor of Majesty and Honor. But you know, the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he said, frequently say, O Possessor of Majesty and Honor. But His majesty is a majesty that humbles, not humiliates, and it brings you closer, it doesn't push you away. It's a magnetic form of majesty. Now in the human sense, the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam had more majesty than any other human being, which is why Urwah ibn Mas'ud met him in Hudaybiyyah as a negotiator, and he saw the reverence of the companions towards him. So he goes back to Quraysh and he says, listen, I've met the Caesar of Rome and the Kisra of Persia, and I've never seen a man more revered by his subjects than this man. It wasn't that the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam was sitting on a throne or that he was pompous. He was sitting on the floor and dressed like his companions. But it's like Amr ibn Al-As, who said that if you ask me to describe the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam, I couldn't. Because as beautiful as he was, he was so awe-inspiring that he would look down in his presence. So I could never look him in the eye. That was the best of man, but what about the Creator of that man? The Majestic, the royalty of all royalty, the majesty of all majesty. And to feel what The Majestic does to an aware human heart, there's this beautiful narration from Imam Al-Asma'i, where he says that I met this Bedouin one time in Hajj. And he said to me, can you read me some Quran? So I read Surah Adh-Dhariyat, until I came to this verse:
[10:59]In the heaven is your sustenance and what you've been promised. So the man said, that's all I need, and he goes and he slaughters his camel, and he gives everything away in charity, trusting that his sustenance is going to come from his Lord. Then later at Hajj, Imam Al-Asma'i says, he came back to me. And he said, can you read where you left off? So I read the next verse: By the Lord of the heavens and the earth, indeed this is surely the truth. And the Bedouin cried out and he said, Glory be to Allah! Who angered His Majesty until he swore an oath? Did they not believe His word the first time? Did He really have to swear? And he cried out saying the same thing three times until he was so overwhelmed by Allah's majesty, that Allah brought back his reverent soul. That's The Majestic, who invokes in us a reverence that no earthly throne can evoke. So how does he summon you now? How do you feel when you stand before Him now? I want you to pay very close attention to this. Every single day as the world goes to sleep, in a way that befits His majesty, He descends to the lowest heaven and He says, I am the King, I am the King. Who is asking Me so that I may respond to him? Who wants something from Me so I can give it to him? Who is seeking forgiveness from Me so that I can forgive them? The King opens his door and invites his subjects in. No guards, no red carpet, no bureaucracy, no fear. That's every single night an offer to the world from the King of the heavens and the earth. Then on that single fateful day when the world ends, that same King rolls up the heavens and the earth in his right hand. And he calls out again, I am the King, I am the King. Where are the arrogant tyrants now? But it's a completely different tone. Contrast the two proclamations of the King. There's the nightly mercy call, and then there's the Judgment Day majesty call. And if you answer His nightly call with humility and repentance, then that day's call will be mercy for you. But if you ignore him now, then that day's call will be judgment. But whether you hear him or not, you still belong to him just like every other one of his creatures. So why do you think he created you in the first place?
[13:40]O King, You are the King of everything I know and hold. Remind me that nothing I hold is truly mine, and that every rise and fall belongs to Your decree. Let my gratitude expand with every breath You lend to me.
[14:07]O King, the King whose command no one can escape. Let Your sovereignty humble my pride. Make me content under Your rule, and protect me from a rebellious heart that would cause me to fall out of Your favor. O Majestic, fill my heart with reverence that draws me near, not fear that drives me away. Let my awe of You refine me until I stand before You small, but never disgraced. To Allah belong the Most Beautiful Names; so call on Him by them.
