Miraculous Date of Discovery, Muhammed's Tough Times, Dawn Prayer, Dropouts

(0:01) Alhamdulillah, we praise God, (0:04) wa ash'hadu an la ilaha illa Allah, wahdahu wa la sharika lah. (0:07) And we bear witness that there is only one God we worship, the one God who created the heavens and the earth. (0:14) Douglas was supposed to give this khutbah, but somebody called and apologized on his behalf, (0:19) so I'm stuck with the khutbah. I'll just chat with you. (0:25) I will have to go through a lesson in history for a while. (0:31) Carl Skinner called from Canada yesterday, and he was talking about Islam to a bunch of students. (0:39) And one student asked him, he was talking about the miracle in the Quran, (0:44) and how the Quran is mathematically composed beyond human ability, on the basis of the number 19. (0:51) Every letter, every word in the Quran, mathematically composed beyond human ability, (0:56) so we know that this is a book from God. So that was the topic of his lecture. (1:02) One student asked him, how long was it from the time that the Quran was revealed to the time the miracle was revealed? (1:13) And this is what I'm going to go through with you. (1:17) The prophet Muhammad was taken to heaven, the seventh heaven, and the Quran was blessed in his heart in one night. (1:29) The blessed night that is mentioned in surah 44, specifically in the month of Ramadan. (1:35) So let's call this time zero, this is the revelation of the Quran. (1:41) But the prophet was sent back in the same night, and the Quran was with the person, with the soul, not with the body. (2:02) Which requires a process of release from the person to the body. (2:07) You may have information with you, it is not in your body, it has to be released from your soul to your body. (2:13) It comes in your physical brain, then you will be able to express it by talking or writing or whatever. (2:19) So the angel Gabriel did this process of mediating the release of the Quran from the soul to the body. (2:28) And the prophet started to preach the Quran, slowly, three verses at a time. (2:33) And stopped telling the people to worship God alone. (2:37) And of course he was persecuted, they told him, you are crazy, you want us to worship one God? (2:46) They threw garbage at his house and at him, they threatened him, they called him all kinds of names. (2:54) Some of them are documented in the Quran, and people started to believe in him secretly. (3:02) This went on for three years, three years secretly. (3:07) Preaching secretly, hiding, sneaking in, praying to God alone, mentioning the name of God alone in their prayers. (3:15) And then when they became known, inevitably, the people boycotted the believers. (3:25) They called them all crazy, you worship God alone, what do you mean God alone? (3:32) Sounds familiar, doesn't it? (3:34) And all the believers were persecuted and they were boycotted, they told them not to stay in Mecca. (3:39) So they went out of Mecca in tents, about a couple of miles out of Mecca, they were forbidden (3:45) from going to the Kaaba, this is Muhammad and the people with him. (3:50) And this lasted for, I believe a year and a half or two years. (3:57) You know the people of Mecca said you cannot trade with them, you cannot talk to them, (4:01) you cannot marry from them, from their families, just a total boycott. (4:09) This ended, let's say two years, so this makes it five years. (4:14) Three years in secret, two years of boycott, they were banished outside of Mecca, so it (4:21) makes it five years. (4:22) And then Omar joined the Muslims, Omar was one of the strongest disbelievers, and then (4:29) became one of the strongest believers. (4:31) When Omar joined they were able to come out of the closet, so to speak, they became public. (4:42) And then the number of believers increased, this is inevitable, the number of believers (4:49) always increase. (4:50) If you move to another town, and you start a Quranic study based, or a place of worship (4:56) based on worshipping God alone, and you are all by yourself, you are guaranteed to grow. (5:03) Somebody will come out of nowhere and join you, and this will keep happening. (5:08) When you have four people and one of them leaves, two people will come, or ten. (5:13) So the believers increased, and the movement became too strong for the disbelievers to (5:20) stand, so they decided to kill Muhammad. (5:24) And of course God protects his messengers, and on that night he was inspired to emigrate. (5:36) That was thirteen years after the revelation of Quran, it is called Hijrah. (5:48) This is emigration from Mecca to Medina, and this is very well documented. (5:55) The dating of the Islamic calendar started from this point, so this was year zero, from (6:05) the Hijrah, this year is 1409. (6:10) We are now in 1409, of the Hijrah calendar. (6:18) Now when Carl called and asked what was the length of time from the revelation of the Quran (6:24) to the revelation of the miracle, I went back to my documents here. (6:29) I have published my magazine called Islam, it was very luxurious, beautiful colors, every (6:37) issue had a different color, and beautiful paper, and so I went broke after three issues. (6:45) All I have is three issues, in fact I started to be cheap after the first two issues, I (6:51) put number three and four together, probably all of you saw that. (6:56) But anyway, I went back to those documents, now I know why God made me publish that magazine (7:01) for that year, 1974. (7:05) I also went to the publications in Egypt where I had written about the miracle, and we put (7:11) it in the biggest, God mobilized all kinds of forces, we put it in the biggest magazines (7:17) that have the dates on it, the Hijrah dates and the regular dates. (7:23) And I was able to pin down the time of the revelation of the miracle to one month. (7:30) When the number 19, as the common denominator throughout the Quran, became a reality, that (7:37) was January 1974. (7:48) And this corresponded to the last month, this is the first month of 1974, corresponds to (7:56) the last month of 1393. (8:02) This is from this point, from 1393 of Hijrah. (8:08) So from the time of revelation of the Quran, you just add the 13. (8:16) So here we have three dating systems, which gives us, happily, three years divided by (8:24) 19, every 19 years. (8:27) But anyway, we have the Christian era, from the time of Jesus, 1974, from the time of (8:37) Hijrah, 1393, from the time of revelation of the Quran, this time here, you can call (8:44) it Quranic calendar, Hijrah calendar, or Christian calendar. (8:48) So when you add these to get from time zero, from the revelation of the Quran, the total (8:55) is 1406. (8:59) This is the time of revelation of the miracle. (9:03) And this equals 19 times 74. (9:14) You can see the connection, don't you? (9:17) And 74 is the surah where the number 19 is mentioned. (9:24) So this brings it down to the last couple of weeks, Sammy has been saying 1974, this (9:32) is the year, this is the surah, this is the number, and I say what is he talking about? (9:37) Because I am not thinking of exactly when the miracle was discovered, because I started (9:41) the research in 1968, and this was going on, and Sammy was saying 1974 is the year. (9:48) And I thought he is off by a few years, but turns out he is exactly right, January 1974. (9:56) So what does this tell us? (9:57) This tells us that the history of Islam, from the very beginning, from the revelation of (10:02) the Quran, to the revelation of the miracle of the Quran, and all these things have been (10:05) predestined since before the creation of the heavens and the earth. (10:11) God put them everywhere, I mean look at the Christian date, and the Quranic date is 1406, (10:20) which equals 19 times 74. (10:24) So I think this is enough for one khutbah, so I am asking you to turn to God and repent, (10:31) and clean the slate, tubu illallah, repent. (10:34) Again, alhamdulillah, wa ash'hadu alla ilaha illallah wahdahu la sharika lah. (10:57) We praise God and we bear witness that there is no God except one God. (11:05) I want to, before we go to another subject, like I said I am just chatting with you, I (11:12) am not supposed to be giving this khutbah. (11:16) I want to emphasize the dawn prayer. (11:20) The dawn prayer, you have no idea how important the dawn prayer is. (11:25) It dawned on me, no pun intended, it just came out. (11:32) I was reading the Quran the other day and it dawned on me that God used the word the (11:38) dawn prayer. (11:40) And when we were growing up, he taught us to do the morning prayer. (11:46) And I noticed that even until now I say I intend to do the morning prayer, sanat al-subh in (11:53) Arabic, and that is wrong, because if you miss, if the sun rises before you do the morning (11:59) prayer, you have missed the dawn prayer, because the Quran calls it the dawn prayer, which means (12:07) it must be done at dawn. (12:10) And ironically this morning, there is a commercial now, you can hear it, if you listen to the (12:16) radio you can hear this commercial about a truck driver, listen carefully Imad, a truck (12:22) driver who is complaining, it is an Anacin commercial, and complaining that he is driving (12:30) long distances, and then he becomes stiff after a long distance. (12:34) So again, the commercial is saying, don't stay in the same position for a long time, (12:39) get out and stretch, in order to evade arthritis. (12:45) And God is telling us to do the dawn prayer for our benefit, because if you want your mental (12:52) health before your physical health, you have to get up at dawn and stretch and lubricate (13:00) your joints, at any cost. (13:03) And we had this problem in Canada when I was visiting 10 days ago, and people were saying (13:09) how they just shut the alarm off and go back to sleep, and I told them get the biggest (13:13) and most obnoxious alarm, and put it far away from you, at the other end of the room, because (13:20) this is what you need to do at the beginning. (13:23) At the beginning it is difficult to do the dawn prayer, which is an indication to you (13:29) that your soul is too weak, and is unable to control your body. (13:35) This is a thermometer for you, because as you do the dawn prayer, as required by God, (13:44) your soul will grow, and your body will become obedient to you, and then it will become easier (13:54) and easier, and then you will enjoy actually getting up for the dawn prayer. (13:58) But it is for your physical benefit and for your mental benefit to do the dawn prayer. (14:04) Also, if you are here in Masjid Tucson, you are a very special person. (14:10) I assure you, you have no idea how special you are. (14:14) And you must, you know the slightest, you must be perfect. (14:20) You have to do the five prayers, you have to do the dawn prayer, because your responsibility (14:25) is also great. (14:27) God has given you a great opportunity, and a great responsibility comes with a deal. (14:38) So you have to do the dawn prayer, please. (14:44) The five prayers, but I am emphasizing right now the dawn prayer, because this is how it (14:48) is mentioned, for your physical health and your mental health. (14:55) The next subject is, I sensed that some people didn't like Mahmoud Abir's khutbah, because (15:01) he was talking about another human being, emphasizing the miracles of Mahmoud here. (15:08) Okay, I hope your feelings are not hurt, a couple of people maybe didn't like your khutbah (15:13) last time. (15:15) The reason is, Mahmoud is presenting a lot of physical evidence that has to do with God (15:23) God's system is to send information to all of us, and it is very exciting, and I am excited (15:29) along with you as a believer, that God is sending to us a lot of information, fantastic information. (15:36) And God picks out one person to distribute this information, and he gave us the evidence (15:43) to do that. (15:45) So I want to remind you that Ibrahim was a very good believer. (15:52) God calls him his friend, and one who never was an idol worshipper, you and I have been (15:58) idol worshippers sometime in our life, but he never was an idol worshipper, Ibrahim. (16:04) And this is repeated in the Quran so many times, this makes him special. (16:09) And when he is stating the Quranic facts, it is not idol worship. (16:15) When you state Quranic facts, since God is the one who said that. (16:19) Because when we read the Quran and mention names, God is the one who is mentioning those names. (16:25) So Ibrahim asked God to show him how God revives the dead. (16:31) And a rhetorical question was asked, don't you believe? (16:35) This is to teach us that it does not reflect disbelief, or lack of faith, but Ibrahim said (16:43) I want to assure my heart. (16:44) So God is sending all this physical evidence to assure our hearts, to strengthen our faith. (16:52) And we cannot say we don't need it, because we have been convinced a long time ago. (17:00) But for eight years it was my opinion not to make any announcements or any declarations, (17:08) for eight years. (17:09) I was resisting that, and I was saying, together we will just worship God alone, and uphold (17:18) the Quran alone, and this is enough. (17:21) But it turns out to be a very important test. (17:25) In surah 17, verse 94, God says what prohibited, what stopped the people from believing was (17:35) that they said that God sends a human messenger, in other words, a human being like us, being (17:43) a messenger. (17:44) The exact words say what forbade the people from believing and asking God for forgiveness (17:51) is that they said that God sent a human messenger, and those were believers who dropped out. (17:59) So it turns out that that announcement was a very important test, because we are here (18:04) to sift away the drop-outs. (18:09) I mean, something happens and then it will sift away some people. (18:15) Because basically, we committed a horrendous crime back billions of years ago, and this (18:23) is why we are here, to redeem ourselves. (18:27) The original sin is very much a fact, a Quranic fact. (18:32) And it is not Adam eating people from the tree either, it goes billions of years before that. (18:38) So you notice that God designed the world so the sun will rise at 7.15, like in the (18:46) last two months, to see how many people will pray the dawn prayer. (18:53) So let's say 100 people pray, when the sun rises at 7.15, at 7 o'clock they are doing (18:59) the dawn prayer, it is perfect. (19:01) And then the design of the world is that the sun will rise at 6 o'clock in about a month, (19:08) then 15 people will drop out, and we have only 85 people praying the dawn prayer, because (19:13) now the sun rises at 6 o'clock, too early for those 15. (19:19) And then in about four months the sun will be rising at 5 o'clock, and 25 people will (19:25) drop out, and we have 60 people left doing the dawn prayer. (19:30) The sun rises at 5 o'clock, and they are doing the dawn prayer, 60 people. (19:35) And then in about six months I think, the sun will be rising at 4 o'clock, and there (19:41) will be only 40 people who will drop out, and there will be only 20 who are doing the (19:45) dawn prayer. (19:46) These are the 20 that God wants back into His kingdom. (19:51) The other 80 dropped out. (19:54) The same with the fasting of Ramadan, it is a sifting process, elimination process. (20:02) God wants in His kingdom those who are the real believers, who will carry out God's commandments (20:07) no matter what. (20:10) And I may be a believer, I am telling myself I believe in God and in the hereafter, and (20:14) I am doing the five prayers, I am doing the commandments, but God knows that there is (20:18) something in me that must be brought out. (20:22) So He tells me this person is God's messenger, I say oh come on, no, I don't accept that. (20:28) Then I drop out, I become a dropout. (20:31) It is a very important test that is stated in 1794, and in 1444 God says on the day of (20:40) judgment, there is a whole bunch of people who will say please God send us back, and (20:44) we will believe in the messengers and follow them. (20:47) It is not the person, it is God's information that we are following all together, it is (20:54) not the person. (20:55) In surah 3, verse 164, God says it is a blessing from God that He is sending information through (21:01) one of you to distribute this information, and recite God's revelations. (21:08) But I realized that that announcement was very important for that purpose, I was ignorant, (21:14) I didn't realize it was necessary, and God has been teaching me that it is necessary (21:20) for that purpose. (21:22) Because I see people whom I thought were perfect believers, all over the world. (21:30) Let me mention one name, Qasem Ahmed for example, in Malaysia, a beautiful person, I still think (21:36) he would be saved. (21:37) But at this time, he says I can accept everything, but I cannot accept that you are God's messenger. (21:45) So he is temporarily dropped out, but he was a perfect believer in my opinion, let's say (21:54) before the announcement. (21:56) He was a perfect believer, according to the Quran alone, doing the prayers, the duties, (22:02) the commandments, but then the announcement came, and this, he dropped out. (22:09) I still have hope for him, but he is talking from the political point of view. (22:14) He says you were doing fine, I don't think the announcement was necessary. (22:18) I said this is how I felt for eight years, I thought it was not necessary. (22:25) But God has his system, we cannot go against the system. (22:31) And as you know the announcement started by firing me. (22:37) I was fired, I was told you are a chicken, you cannot do it, I am going to find somebody (22:41) else, you are going to hell. (22:44) And I reached the conviction, that I was fired, I was lost, I was going to hell, I really (22:50) believed that. (22:52) And I cried as I never cried in my life, on that night, I remember the date, I remember (22:59) everything, and then I started repenting, and when I reached that point of course, you (23:06) don't care anymore, I said I am going to make the announcement, even if my children (23:10) tell me you are a crazy man, get out of here. (23:12) Even if I lose my children, my family, my friends, I don't care if I lose everything. (23:17) When I reached the conviction that I will make the announcement without any fear, without (23:22) any hesitation, and without any fake modesty, because modesty, if you live a lie, that is (23:35) actually arrogance, it is not modesty. (23:40) If you are a civil engineer and you say you are a civil engineer, that is not arrogance. (23:46) It will be arrogance if you think that this will alienate the people around you, by saying (23:52) you are a civil engineer and you hide it. (23:55) And so you are a poor uneducated person like you guys, in a situation with that civil engineer (24:02) who wants to be a friend of the laborers, for example. (24:05) Maybe I used a bad example, but that would be arrogance on his part to say that. (24:12) Also God wants to teach us that the messengers were just human beings who are not better (24:20) than anybody around them. (24:24) We have the great lesson from Moses, one of the great messengers of God, a prophet who (24:32) brought the torah, and not just a messenger, a messenger and a prophet. (24:39) And God gave him fantastic miracles, parting the red sea and all these things. (24:44) And then God sent him to one of our servants to teach him a few lessons. (24:50) Remember that in surah 18? (24:52) So we learn, it is very important to learn that the messenger is a human being who is (24:59) just as serious as we are. (25:03) And you can kid around with him and wrestle with him, while you are laughing at the video. (25:24) So, Mahmoud Habib's khutbah was necessary for us to reassure our hearts. (25:36) And you go to Lidia after the khutbah to explain to you why she was laughing. (25:41) I don't want to leave anything mysterious or anything. (25:44) And she will tell you. (25:49) Today, insha'allah, tonight we will celebrate Suad's birthday, and Hamid's birthday. (25:57) Who is the cake maker? (26:00) Lori, the best cake maker. (26:03) And the Irishman's anniversary, three occasions. (26:09) And they will only have happy occasions in this place, this is God's promise. (26:16) So, akum salat