Ramadan 17, 1435/2014 Tafseer , by Imam Muhammed Shoayb Mehtar, Khadeeja Islamic Center, SLC, Utah
Nightly Notes (17)*:
Allah (SWT) talks about the reward of believing in Him and doing good deeds. The perfect time to start doing good deeds is in Ramadan. Whoever can do these two things will be rewarded not just with Jannah but also everlasting success in this world as well. We should engage in beautiful speech inviting people to good. We only do this to strangers, mostly non-Muslims because we are embarrassed or we don’t want them to judge us, etc. but the reality is you’ll probably never see that person in your life ever again. Who is the one who can give better and more beautiful speech than the one who invites people to do good? The first people we should invite is our families. We are losing people, specifically our teenage sons and daughters in high school due to the environment they are in. What is the idea of high school? It is to socialize a person and make them part of a culture. You will notice the rich boys have their brands they wear, the poor boys have their brands they wear but they will wear similar jeans, similar shoes, they even have similar texting language that they use! It is a ‘monkey see monkey do’ culture. It is a culture for one behavior and one culture. We should invite our family members, specifically the youth, to do good deeds, in a nice way, in a kind way.
We should also be involved in doing good deeds ourselves. So there are two things to do:
- To do good deeds ourselves
- Invite others to do good deeds
Even if you are weak, continue to speak about doing good. Tell your child to pray, even if you don’t always pray. Give zakat, give charity, so that child can see you doing good deeds and insha’Allah emulate you as well. Many parents are afraid that if they don’t pray their child will not pray.
The third thing is to not be afraid to say, with our tongues as well as our hearts, “I am from the Muslims”. It doesn’t matter if you are modern, simple, rich, or poor, Jews and Christians will never accept us – Allah is saying this. Look at what is happening in Palestine, in Kashmir, in Bosnia, in India, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, etc. Muslims are being burnt, Muslims are being bombed for one reason and that is they say, “I am from the Muslims”. They will continue to be hurt because of this. There is only one difference between us and the Jews, only one difference between us and the Christians, and that we say, “I am Muslim”. This makes us in their eyes of worthy of attacking us. Evil and good cannot be the same so get evil far, far away from you. Bombs don’t create a solution, the only thing that will create peace is to continue doing the good within us.
May Allah (SWT) help us and guide us at all times.
*Nightly Notes provided by note-takers in the masjid, as heard during tafseer.