[0:00]Allahu Muhammad. Alhamdulillah. wa. Sallallahu. Allahumma Muhammad. Allahumma Muhammad. Allahumma. Allahumma. Allahumma. Allahumma. Allahumma. Allahumma. Allahumma. My beloved ones, I have some great news. Alhamdulillah, today marks the seventh year anniversary of R. C. M. N. or R. C. Main. Allahu Akbar. Seven years, alhamdulillah, we've been having access to this beautiful masjid and beautiful facility. And I ask Allah Subhanah Wa Ta'ala to give us many, many more years where we can enjoy this beautiful space, Oh Lord of all worlds. And allow it to be a lighthouse and a guide for people, Oh Lord of all worlds, in our locality and beyond insha'Allah, in the world. Oh Lord, amen. Oh Lord, amen. Alhamdulillah. Congratulations to all of you. Alhamdulillah. And insha'Allah, hopefully, seven years from now, we can celebrate the extension. Oh Lord, may Allah make it so. Oh Lord of all worlds, say amen. There is a hadith that I wanted to share with you all today, but before that, I want to ask you a question. Does Islam praise people that are people-pleasers? Is that a praiseworthy quality in Islam? No, but you're making people happy. Is being a people-pleaser a good quality in Islam? Who should you be aiming to please? Allah Azza wa Jall. If that means the people are happy, sure. If it means they're upset at you, doesn't matter because at the end of the day, we weren't doing it for their praise, we weren't doing it for them to insult us or criticize us, because our goal was always to please Allah Subhanah Wa Ta'ala. There's a hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, a beautiful hadith, and a hadith that we all need to remind ourselves of and implement. It's reported in Sunan Tirmidhi, also by Imam al-Mundhiri in al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib, and Musnad Bazzar, where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, with a good chain of narration, he said, on the authority of Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, where he said, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, pray for the Messenger of Allah, he said, don't be followers of others. You say, if people do good, we do good, and if they do injustice, we do injustice. But rather, train yourselves, if people do good, you do good, and if they do evil, then do not do injustice. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, in this beautiful, powerful hadith, as a reminder for all of us, he said, don't be a follower of others. What a way the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam starts this. You know, in Arabic, you have something that's called `bara'at al-istihlal` (artistic opening of a text). If I want to catch your attention, I'm not going to give you some long, many, many lengthy words. What am I going to do? I'm going to say, you know what, if they want to catch your attention, uh, and there's like a warning, what do they send out? Amber Alert, `ding, ding,` it's trying to catch your attention. Look at it, it makes your phone buzz, you see it. Or if there is a storm, uh, may Allah protect everyone, oh Lord of all worlds, the storm warning that they had today, what are they going to have? Storm warning all over on the TV, on the news, on your phone you'll see it on different apps. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, you can see immediately, he says, don't be followers of others, catching the attention right away. Don't be followers of others. What is followers of others? To be people that are blindly following, void of any independent thought. Whatever people say, let's do it. If people go this way, we'll go this way. If they go this way, we'll go this way. Herd mentality, acting like sheep. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, pray for the Messenger of Allah, look at all of the Companions, how all of them individually were so, had such a beautiful independent personality. Yes or no? You had Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, you had Khalid, may Allah be pleased with him, you had Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him. All of the Companions all serving different roles and different functions. Were they all following the Messenger of Allah, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him? Yes, they were all following the Messenger of Allah, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, but they had their own independent thought and independent personality. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, this is what he was training the Companions to be like. And this is what we must do also for the youth and the generations to come. And the way to do this, oh community, in upbringing, is don't just keep telling your children what to do, but ask them what their opinion is. What do you think, my son? What do you think, my beloved daughter? Make them think for themselves and raise independent, strong Muslims. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, pray for him. He said, the strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, and in both there is good. They're all good, but the strong believer is what we need to be and how we need to raise our children, to have a strong Muslim identity and not to be people that just go with the herd. How many times you'll see, for example, cases where it's like, why did you, why did you do X, Y, and Z? Oh, because all my friends were doing it. Why did you watch that haram movie? All of my friends were doing it. Why do you talk in such a language and speak curse words? I see all of my friends doing it. How many times we hear this, because everyone else is doing it, you're just going to do it? If you follow most of the people on the world, what are they going to take you? To Allah? They will mislead you. Allah says, if you follow the majority of people, they will lead you astray, they will lead you astray. And so it's never about who is with me, it's about who am I trying to please.
[6:20]Who, at the end of the day, are you hoping for his pleasure, the Mighty and Majestic? May Allah make us all people who Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, is pleased with, oh Lord of all worlds. You say, if people do good, we do good, and if they do injustice, we do injustice. Look at the parallelism. If people do good, we'll do good. If people do bad and they do injustice, we're also going to do injustice. No, no. Then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he tells us, purification before beautification. In self-purification, before you can beautify yourself with beautiful qualities, first what, what should you do? You must remove the bad qualities. Instead of just spraying deodorant, what do you do? You take a shower, then you put perfume on. But if a person just puts perfume on and they're still, haven't showered, it doesn't work like that, community. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he first says, purification, remove the bad stuff. Don't be like this, but rather, this is a conjunction of correction, meaning, this is a correction from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Accustom yourselves. What is `watinu anfusakum`? This is a metaphor. `Istawtan al-ard` means that you reside somewhere. We are all residing in Valley Ranch, alhamdulillah. Say alhamdulillah. May Allah bless this community, oh Lord of all worlds. To reside somewhere means you have resided here and you have now become accustomed to it. It has become your homeland, your nation, you have become accustomed to it.
[7:44]When you do something once, it's hard. Twice, three times, four times, it becomes habitual and then you become accustomed to those beautiful qualities. A person he works out for the first time, man, it's going to be very hard. But the hundredth time he does it, it's normal. It's daily routine. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he's telling us, discipline yourselves, train yourselves, accustom yourselves, accustom yourselves. May Allah make us people who train ourselves, oh Lord of all worlds. And then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he said, what's the correction? How do you train yourself? You do what, if people do good, then you do good. Yes, that part remains. If people are doing good, then you also do good. But if they do evil, if the people are heading in the wrong direction, your friends are heading in the wrong direction, your co-workers are going to the bar, whatever situation you might find yourself where everyone around you is doing the wrong thing, and how frequent is that for us as Muslims in America? How frequent is that as an example for our children who go to public schools, how frequent is that for kids that are in college, for kids that are in high school? How frequent is this scenario? If they're doing evil, what does the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he say? Then do not do injustice. Don't be one who does injustice, not to yourself, not to others. Be the Muslim that is strong in his personality, just as the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, were. You know, Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, look at how strong the Companions were. When the wars of apostasy happened, when the tribes of the Arabs, they rejected Islam. They they they they left giving zakat. They left giving zakat. They still said, there is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, but they left giving zakat. We don't want to give zakat anymore. What did Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, do? He said, I will fight anyone who distinguishes between prayer and zakat. I will fight anyone who distinguishes between prayer and zakat. The Companions, were they pushing back against him? Yes or no? In the beginning, yes, they were pushing back against him. But Abu Bakr, he was not a follower of others. Abu Bakr was strong. He stood for the truth. He knew what was right. And Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, he said, you know, Allah opened the chest of Abu Bakr, and then I knew it had to be the truth, that he would not fight unless Allah had opened his heart for something.
[10:17]And so Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, is one of the great examples, as all of the Companions were, of people that would lead with the pleasure of Allah and not look to left and right. And imagine who's in his circle, the Companions, and yet, despite that, he's following the truth. In our own lives, we should be people that are independent, independent in their own positions, be people of sound judgment, be people of strength, be people of determination. May Allah Subhanah Wa Ta'ala make us all strong believers. May Allah make all of our youth strong, oh Lord of all worlds, in their faith and their Islam, oh Lord of all worlds. But I do have a question. Sometimes people will misuse this Hadith and other Ahadith and even verses. Where they'll say, don't be a blind follower, means don't follow the schools of thought. No, now you have mistaken it. Don't be a blind follower, following people. Let's say if a person says, I'm not going to follow Imam Shafi'i, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Imam Ahmad, because I'm not a blind follower, I need to figure it out myself.
[11:20]It's like going, it's like saying, you know, I'm not going to go to the surgeon, I'm just going to figure this out. It's not how it works. So ask the people of knowledge if you do not know. So, following is not always bad. If a person follows the four schools of thought, for example, in their acts of worship, as we all do, as we all do in our acts of worship and transactions, this is not blind following, complete blind following. We are following them because we trust them and the entire Ummah has consensus that these were the great imams and the great schools of thought that have been that have transferred from scholars and scholars and scholars and everyone, the entire Ummah has agreed on. So sometimes people will mistake this hadith and apply it elsewhere. No, no, no, no. May Allah be pleased with Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Imam Shafi'i, and Imam Ahmad and with all of our great imams. And we ask Allah Subhanah wa Ta'ala to make us people that stand for the truth. O Allah, show us the truth as truth and grant us to follow it, and show us falsehood as falsehood and grant us to avoid it. And may Allah send blessings upon our master and our prophet Muhammad and upon his family and companions, peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.
