We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, by bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is His final messenger.
We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment, and we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.
Brothers and sisters, if I was to ask you what is the word for wake-up call in the Qur'an, you might say various things that come straight to mind because Allah 'azzawajal speaks of
this idea of the ayat of Allah through the stories and the verses and the lessons in the Qur'an as being meant to inject into us a sense of urgency.
And Allah uses different words to describe the nature of different wake-up calls. And I was reading in Surah Ali 'Imran and what caught my attention was the way that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses almost two identical words to what are situations that
Allah 'azzawajal is telling us to wake up and to ponder deeply on either what we are perceiving or what we are seeing. On the first page of Surah Ali 'Imran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُوا
إِلَّا أُولُوا الْأَلْبَابِ And no one is able to remember properly except for أُولُوا الْأَلْبَابِ—people who have this deep sense of perception, they're people of deep remembrance.
They're people who clear their minds, and so when they hear any reminder, they immediately connect it to their own lives and they reconnect to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the nature
of a tathkirah, the nature of something that reminds is that it's something you already know, but it reminds you of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it brings you back to your core
over and over and over again to put you in a state of remembrance constantly. On the next page, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions, لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ That He has given to you an example, في فِئَتَيْنِ الْتَقَتَا When
two armies met one another, فِئَةٌ تُقَاتِلُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَأُخْرَى كَافِرَةٌ يَرَوْنَهُمْ مِثْلَيْهِمْ رَأْيَ الْعَيْنِ One group was fighting in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and another group was
fighting and they appeared to be double in number, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said وَاللَّهُ يُؤَيِّدُ بِنَصْرِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَعِبْرَةً لِأُولِي الْأَبْصَارِ Allah gives victory to whom He wills and
in that is عِبْرَة—a wake-up call for people who have deep insight. And so the word that's used is عِبْرَة. And I want you to think about this insha'Allah
ta'ala every time you now hear this word being used in the Qur'an, عِبْرَة—wake-up call, wake-up call, wake-up call—and how specific it actually is.
Allah 'azzawajal mentions ذِكْرَى—remembrance in the general sense—and things are meant to bring us back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But there are things that happen in front of you, things that you can see.
If you're someone that's plugged in to what is pleasing to Allah, then anything that you hear of Allah 'azzawajal immediately puts you in the zone and causes you to go into a state of deep reflection.
But when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala points out people that you can see or nations that came to pass or different examples that are so obvious to the eye...
But if someone is blinded from their spiritual reality of their existence, they won't be able to see. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses this word عِبْرَة. And I was thinking about how Allah 'azzawajal says فَاعْتَبِرُوا يَا أُولِي الْأَبْصَارِ
So wake up, O people of al-basira. Al-basira is that when you look at something you see its deeper reality, right? Al-basar is your sight; basira is deeper insight.
You can look at something and you can derive more from it because you're paying deeper attention. So two people can be reading the same book, one of them can take no lesson from it whatsoever, the other one can see something.
Two people can be looking at what's happening in Gaza and walk away with completely different conclusions or completely different reflections. You could see someone who has fallen from grace, someone that is away from Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala and one person walks away mocking, the other person walks away reflecting. They're looking at the same thing. But the difference is whether or not they're from أُولِي الْأَبْصَارِ—
they're people of deeper insight—and Allah 'azzawajal connects this idea of a wake-up call to people of deeper insight. And how does Allah 'azzawajal invoke this concept of عِبْرَة in the Qur'an?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala invokes it when He talks about nations before you that were destroyed. After Allah 'azzawajal tells us in Surah al-Nazi'at about the destruction of Fir'awn,
that's a wake-up call for a person who's paying attention, for a person who's in awe of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That Fir'awn, while he was a man in a very particular time—a tyrant
in a particular time—there are Fir'awns in every nation. And there are people that display Fir'aunic behavior in every single context.
And beware of having Fir'aunic behavior and being dealt with by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the same way Fir'awn was dealt with. Allah 'azzawajal mentions لَقَدْ كَانَ فِي قَصَصِهِمْ عِبْرَةٌ
That in the stories of the prophets that came before you, there's a عِبْرَة—there's a wake-up call, there's a wisdom, there's something you should be paying attention to. And I'll give you just one more layer to this definition insha'Allah ta'ala, then I want to bring it to our reality.
One layer of this definition is that عِبْرَة, the scholars of the Arabic language say, is when you see something that happens, and it causes you الانتِقَال مِنْ حَالٍ إِلَى حَالٍ. It causes you to move from one state to another.
It's not just مُشَاهَدَة; it is تَغَيُّر. You go from observation to transformation, to actually changing yourself. So you didn't just witness something, but you witnessed something in a way that made
you wake up to your own reality, and you said, "Wait, this is actually talking to me. Allah is not just talking about past nations, Allah is not just talking about past prophets, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not just talking about people in the past or things that happened
in the past. Allah is talking to me about me." So it takes you from المُشَاهَدَة—you're just seeing something—to التَّغَيُّر, to transforming yourself. And that's why some of the scholars of the language, they say if you look at the word
"bridge," مَعْبَر, it comes from the same root. You go from one place to another. So these are stories not to entertain you when you're talking about the past, but also in your present reality.
And this is where I really want us to pay attention. In the people that Allah 'azzawajal puts around us, and the multiple stories that Allah puts around us.
You know, subhan'Allah, social media today is filled with the أَخْبَار of others, the news of others. So even if you are locked up in a home, even if you have no social life, you're constantly
exposed to everybody's relationship difficulties, to everybody's recent change in their lives, to entire populations that are wiped out, to victims and villains.
You're constantly exposed to other people's news. Now your algorithm will give you what it thinks you're interested in.
And there's something terrifying about that, because the things that tend to drive our reactions tend to be things that are far less significant than things that actually matter in the world.
And that's a sign of what your algorithm thinks is for you. Your algorithm thinks you have a عِبْرَة—you have a particular thing to change your behavior—and it wants to feed that behavior and give you something.
But you're constantly exposed to, "Did you hear what happened to this person? Did you hear what happened to this person?" You don't even need someone else to tell you, "Did you hear what happened to this person" anymore? You already see it. It shows up on your newsfeed constantly.
And even if you're not someone on social media, the gossip in our communities is non-stop. Did you hear what happened to this person's marriage? Did you hear what happened to this person's job? Did you hear what happened? Did you hear that this person did this and this person did that?
We're constantly exposed to other people in their lowest states, correct? You constantly see someone else and their fall. The عِبْرَة is for you, though.
When Allah 'azza wa jall shows you what's happening to other people, the عِبْرَة is for you. The wake-up call is for you. And you're supposed to be a person of بَصِيرَة—you're supposed to be a person who's deriving
insight from everything that's happening around you. Someone might say, "Well, that means like if I'm looking at someone that went astray, I'm going to be very judgmental of that person. If I'm looking at someone who got caught up in the money and they started to slowly relinquish
their deen or they sold their principles for a meager profit, then I'm going to start judging that person. Or if I'm talking about someone that stopped coming to the masjid, I'm going to start judging that person. I don't want to look too deeply at what's happening to other people." And there's a difference.
There's a difference. When you look at people that have fallen or people that have ended up in present negative
outcomes, you're looking at them not to evaluate them but to actually evaluate yourself. You're looking at them not to pass a judgment on their outcome but to study their trajectory
of how they got there and then ask yourself, "Am I following the same trajectory?" So if someone else followed this trajectory as an individual or as a family or as a community,
you know, masha'Allah, everyone talks about Valley Ranch Islamic Center, our community is this, our community is that, may Allah protect it, may Allah protect all of the communities that are out there. When you hear something that happened to another community, you could mock it or you could
study the trajectory and you could say, how do we make sure our masjid never becomes that way? When you hear something, because we're all in each other's business constantly, when you hear something that happened to someone else's family, a marriage fell apart, a parent
and a child fell apart, something happened in a household, someone else's household, you don't study it to mock it. You don't look at it and say, well, that's just terrible and, you know, I always knew something was off about this person and that person.
You look at it and you look at the trajectory and you take the 'ibra—what's something I can take from that and look at my household and make sure it doesn't become that household. What's the 'ibra that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is giving to me?
When you look at the individual that has, at least in the present tense, seemingly gone astray or done something very harmful
or fallen into a state of oppressing someone else, you don't look at them to say that that person is less than you and that person is going to Hell and you're, you know, you're going to Heaven because you're not that person.
You look at that and you say, how did that person get there? There's a trajectory. There's something that happened. And I want to know how I can make sure it doesn't happen to me.
I don't know that person's state. And subhanallah, when it comes to how you look at other people, you don't know—as the scholars mentioned—you don't know their tawbah. You don't know whether they've repented or whether they will repent. You don't know their nihaya, you don't know their ending.
They might end up dying as the most pious of people and using what has happened as a catalyst to bring them back to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
And third, you don't even know their hal, you don't know their present state—what Allah sees in them now that you can't see in them because even the angels can't see certain things about us.
Perhaps Allah saw something in that woman of Bani Isra'il that was an adulteress to inspire her towards tawbah, to inspire her towards repentance because there was something inside of her that would click at the right moment.
So you're not looking at someone else and saying that happened to them and this person is done or this person even now is worse than me. There might be something about that person right now that makes them better in the sight of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
The 'ibra is to study the trajectory. Why are they in that behavior or in that state right now?
Allah is sending you the sign. Allah is sending me the sign. The 'ibra is for us. The lesson is for us. Some of the ulama even comment on:
"Wa la tattabi'u khutuwat al-shaitan"—do not follow the footsteps of shaitan. It doesn't just mean that the traps have been laid. It means that someone else has walked that trap before you.
So there are observable footsteps to not follow, to not end up in the same place. How did this person fall into zina? How did this person fall into infidelity? Well, there is a trajectory.
And if you are observing the same trajectory, then don't be surprised when you end up in the same outcome. How did that person become addicted to money and a slave to their wealth? "'Abd al-dirham wa 'abd al-dinar"—as it appears.
Well, there's a trajectory. Am I acting in the exact same way in my own business practices? How did that community get to this? How did that family get to this? Study trajectories and take the 'ibrah.
The fact that Allah 'Azza wa Jall gave you the eyes to see it means that He's also given you the potential to truly perceive it so that you take the lesson. And you don't fall. And so the Qur'an constantly says:
"Fa'atabiru fa'atabiru inna fi thalik al-'ibrah" Take the lesson. You don't want to be like Bani Isra'il. You don't want to be like Fir'awn. You don't want to be like 'Ad and Thamud.
You want to be like Nuh. You want to be like Musa. You want to be like these prophets. You want to be like Ashab al-Ukhdud. You want to be like Ashab al-Kahf. Constantly Allah 'Azza wa Jall is saying: Pay attention to the 'ibrah.
The Qur'an is not a book about the stories of other people. It's a book about what your story could end up looking like. Depending on how you respond to the revelation
and how you end up defining your future trajectory. Now I want to say one last thing here. You know, when Ibrahim 'alayhi al-salam taught us the du'a, or Allah 'Azza wa Jall teaches us this idea of:
"Rabbana la taj'alna fitna" O Allah, don't make us a fitna. O Allah, don't make us a trial "lil-ladhina kafaru" to those who disbelieve— there's a very specific manifestation of that.
That because of our own states, we end up being defeated by those who disbelieve and they would think that they are upon the truth because of how easily victory is coming to them. "Rabbana la taj'alna fitna"
And "Rabbana la taj'alna fitna li-l-ladhina amanu" Don't let my behavior end up leading someone else to negative behavior. Don't let my behavior end up leading someone else to negative behavior.
That means setting the trend. And when the Prophet (peace be upon him) says that every single murder goes back to Qabil and Habil, the share of the sin goes back to the original murderer
because he was "awwal man sanna al-qatl" he was the first one to set the trend. That's one way of being a fitna. Someone follows your behavior. There's a third thing here:
O Allah, don't make me the 'ibra for someone else in the negative sense. You know, subhanallah, you hear stories about people in "su' al-khatam" stories of people who had evil endings.
And we hear them in the "maw'iz" in the lessons of mashayikh and people of da'wah and people that have dealt with communities that will tell you the stories of people who had "su' al-khatam" who had evil endings. May Allah protect us.
People who wronged and people who did this and people who refused to listen to rightful guidance. O Allah, don't make me that type of 'ibra. Instead, you want to be what Ibrahim 'alayhi al-salam taught us:
"Wa ja'alna li-l-muttaqin imama" Let us instead be leaders of khayr, leaders of good. Stories of what it looks like
to grab on to the rope of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and to pull yourself up to the salvation that He has made possible for all of us if we listen. Instead, be imama, not 'ibra.
Be someone who is actually going to be a feel-good story, a success story. Now, in order for us to not become that 'ibra, we kind of need both in our lives. Subhanallah, I don't remember who said this and where I heard this,
but it was something very insightful: that imagine if all of the seminars and master classes and webinars and whatever else you want to call them— like where we study the lives of people— imagine if we had people that failed,
people whose lives were ruined, teaching those seminars. Seminars on how I failed. Master classes on everything not to do. We don't do that. We always have the success stories, and people, you know, they give you
the celebrated and decorated resume of everything that they've accomplished in life. Alright, there's some good in that. There's some good in that to study success. There's also good in studying failure
and making sure you don't pursue the same process of failure. I don't know what this person's ending will be. I don't know what this family's ending will be. I don't know what this masjid's ending will be.
I don't know what this country's ending will be. I don't know what this ummah's ending will be in the immediate sense. I don't know what it's all going to look like. But I know what it looks like right now. And I know that Allah 'Azza wa Jall is telling me something
by the way that it looks like. "Fa'atabiru"—pay attention. "Inna fi thalik al-'ibrah"—wake up. It's a call for you. The fact that Allah exposed you to it means that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala wants you to take something from it.
The last thing I'll say here, dear brothers and sisters. Just because, let's say that you're like, well, I actually am already that 'ibrah. I've already fallen. I've already been the example of this. I've already been the example of that.
How many people who became imams of good were once 'ibarah of sharr, of evil. There are so many stories throughout our Islamic history
of people that were in impossible states where this was the story that you never wanted to be. But Allah 'azza wa jall inspired them towards better versions of themselves.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala turned them into the complete opposite. And those are the best stories. You open the ayah أَلَمْ يَأْنِ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَن تَخْشَعَ قُلُوبُهُمْ لِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ وَمَا نَزَلَ مِنَ الْحَقِّ The ayah in Surah Al-Hadid
Is it not time for those who believe to humble their hearts to the remembrance of Allah and what He has revealed of the truth? Read the stories of Abdullah ibn Mubarak رحمه الله of Malik ibn Dinar رحمه الله of Al-Fudayl ibn 'Iyyad رحمه الله تعالى
All these people who were lowly, lowly people, drunks, adulterers, in some cases even murderers, who completely turned their lives around and became the imams for us today.
Not the 'ibrah of sharr, not the example of evil, the wake-up call of evil, but instead stories of salvation because Allah 'azza wa jall has not made us irredeemable so long as we're still alive.
And that's the Rahman behind the 'ibrah. The Rahman behind the 'ibrah. He gives you these wake-up calls out of mercy so that you don't relegate yourself and shut your book and say that it's done. It's not done.
Lastly, don't assign something that happened to you outside of character, just circumstance, as Allah making you a lesson for someone else. Perhaps it's the resilience in that circumstance or that difficulty that was visited upon you.
Despite good behavior that makes you an imam for someone else بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى on how to have patience in difficult moments and how to maintain your faith and your character and your dignity.
Even when things fall apart all around you. May Allah 'azza wa jall allow us to be amongst those who heed the wake-up calls and who wake up others by heeding the wake-up calls. May Allah 'azza wa jall
make us imams in khair, people who lead in good and not make us examples or lessons in evil and punishment. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us victory over our enemies, victory over our oppressors. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect our ummah,
protect our communities, protect our families and protect us from the spiritual diseases that erode all good. Allahumma ameen. Aqul qawli hadha wa astaghfiru Allaha li wa lakum wa li sa'ir al-Muslimin. Fa astaghfiru innahu Al-Ghafur Ar-Rahim.
Al-Hamdu lillahi wa As-Salatu wa As-Salam 'ala Rasul Allah wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man walahu. Allahumma ighfir al-mu'minin wa al-mu'minat wa al-muslimin wa al-muslimat. Al-ahya'u minhum wa al-amwat. Innaka Sami' Qarib Mujeeb ad-du'a'. Allahumma ighfir lana wa rhamna wa 'afu 'anna wa la tu'adhhbna.
Rabbana dhalamna anfusana wa in lam taghfir lana wa tarhamna lana kunna min al-khasirin. Allahumma innaka 'afuwwun Karim wa innaka tuhibb al-'afu fa'fu 'anna. Allahumma ighfir li wa lida'ina. Rabb ir hamhuma kama rabbayani sagira. Rabbana hab lana min azwajina wa dhurriyyatina
qurrata a'yunin. Wa j'alna li al-muttaqin imama. Allahumma insur ikhwanana al-mustadh'afin fi mashariq al-ard wa magharibaha. Allahumma unsuruhum fi Filastin wa fi as-Sudan wa fi Lubnan wa fi kulli makan. Allahumma a'alika bi-a'da'ika a'da' ad-din.
Allahumma arina fi adh-dhalimin 'aja'ib qudratika. Allahumma ahlak adh-dhalimin bi adh-dhalimin. Wa akhraj ikhwanana min baynahum salimin. 'Ibad Allah, inna Allaha ya'mur bi al-'adl wa al-ihsan wa ita' dhi al-qurba wa yanha 'an al-fahsha' wa al-munkar wa al-baghi. Ya'idkum la'allakum tadhkkarun.
Fadhkuru Allah yadhkurkum wa shkuruh 'an an-ni'am yazid lakum. Wa ladhikru Allah akbar. Wa Allahu ya'lam ma tasna'un wa aqim as-salah. Ishtarakoo fi al-qanah
La tansawu al-ishtarak fi al-qanah