God and You – What is Your Relationship – Pt 1

Mashallah, those will amazing. Now, I'd like to invite the next speaker of this event, who has come all the way from South Africa. He is really an amazing person who works a lot for Islam and his

smile come down, who at the age of 16, matches ama de la, lala, and was inspired to propagate the religion of Islam. And since then, he has been studying comparative religion and our techniques and doing Dawa at every chance he gets. He completed three formal courses, including a comparative religion course, at the Islamic Propagation central international IPC AI in 2006. He also did our training course on Islamic online university under the guidance of Dr. Bilal Philips in 2007. And the dollar power course, at our Cultural Institute under the guidance of shift command and murky of the USA in 2008. In the October 2006, he's tried to discipline the truth data forum on the social

network coded four digits from Well, he has been doing power to countless Muslim youth and non Muslims, and has changed the perception about Islam of so many people on hamdulillah while bringing many people closer to Islam. As of January 2008, his form was viewed more than 300,000 times and it's very popular Alhamdulillah. In the past, he worked as die for I fri that Islamic interfaith Research Institute. He conducted Islamic workshops and taught Islamic Studies in a medicinal for the underprivileged. Say that his Institute for learning and motivation South Africa, he was educator of business studies, English and social studies with Islamic sized sellers for alpha International

School, Chennai. Currently, he is a tutor assistant of BA in Islamic studies on the subjects of Arabic

for Islamic online university. He is also Arabic children and youth worship conductor for Deen class. For more details, you can visit Dean class.com. He is an active blogger on www dot Muslim matters.org. He's a radio lecture for various programs including mercy to the universe, women around the Prophet and the rightly guided caliphs on the radio aliens are out South Africa is Mashallah already a guest for various programs including naseeha today, intellectual challenge and sabaha on Islam channel.

He's also currently teaching private Arabic classes and working on some future projects for Muslim nations of Africa. So we have Alhamdulillah all in one shape with us today. So inshallah I hope and I wish that you all benefit from Should I invite him to address us on the topic garden you What's your relationship over to chef now.

Salaam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

All breezes you to Allah subhanho wa Taala, who has created each and every one of us, and who has guided us to be part of this Blizzard event.

Me the Peace and blessings of Allah be upon all of his messages. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the final messenger Muhammad, and everybody who follow the true way with righteousness, right until the last day.

We begin by praising Allah and thanking him, for guiding us to be part of such events. Whatever our stand is in religion, whatever our stand is in life, the fact that we are sitting here for such an event shows that we have at least some connection with our Creator, that this topic has interested us. It has made us interested to come and see what does the speaker have to say about my relationship with God?

we as human beings in general, we take a lot of our time to invest in relationships. We spend much of our time worried, is my mother happy with me? Is my spouse happy with me? Are my children happy with me? Is my boss happy with me? We have this relationship that we work on. And much of our time goes, just making sure that people who are important to us are happy with us.

Yet our Creator is more important than all of these people.

Not to say they are not important. They are very important for us to live a peaceful and stable life in this world. But our Creator is important for us to have peace in this world and in the next world is how many of us stop and think to ourselves. What does God think about me? What does Allah think?

About Me, what is my relationship with Allah? Am I his friend? Does he love me? Is he angry with me?

What is your relationship with Allah? subhanho? wa Taala? How often have you asked yourself this question? How often have you thought about this? Why? Why don't we take about this, about this topic in a hurry, because this is something which affects us greatly. Our inner peace in this world depends on our relationship with Allah, our inner peace, inner peace, is that contentment inside your heart, that you know what your purpose in life is, you work towards that purpose, you have a connection with your Creator. So you have peace, something goes wrong.

You have peace, things go right, or breezes, your love, you have peace, you have peace in all situations, you cannot get this if you don't have a close relationship with Allah.

So this topic raises three questions in the mind of the listener. The first question is, what is my relationship with God?

The second question is, what should be the ideal relationship with God? You know, what we use then? But what is the ideal? What should you be striving towards? And the final question is, how do we reach that ideal? What do we need to do to get there?

So we're going to begin by inshallah discussing the different relationships that human beings have with their Creator.

For my interaction with people across the world, I have found about seven or eight different types of relationships that humans have with the Creator,

ranging from the worst inshallah towards the best for the non Muslim listeners in sha Allah means if God wills, God willing, we always say this before when we talk about the future.

So

the first type of person who has Amish, or we can say he has no relationship with God whatsoever, is the atheist.

Not only does he think about God, but he doesn't believe in him.

And this is a very sad state of affairs to be in. Because if you don't believe in God, if you don't believe in the afterlife,

what is the purpose of your life? Why are you living,

there has to be an emptiness on the inside. And only belief can fulfill this.

So such people, the first group that atheists, and with them, I'd like to mention the second group, the second group of people who don't say that God does not exist, but they say, we don't know. We don't know if we exist or not the agnostics. So to both of these groups, I want you to think about the following.

You know, theoretically, if you are right, I have nothing to lose by being a good Muslim.

But if I am right, you will major trouble if you die, atheist or agnostic. It's not a small issue. It's something that's very serious. So you only need to take up time to think about it. Don't just think about it. When you're alone. Pay. I mean, if God doesn't exist, we'd hurt you to pray, pray and pray to God that Oh, God, if you exist, show me proof of this, show me the right way. It's not gonna hurt you to do this in any way. So ask anybody in the audience who might be an atheist or agnostic, to go ahead and do this between you and your Creator. Nobody needs to know about it. That should be the first step to improving your relationship.

Besides these two groups, we then have the type of people who believes in God, do you believe in him, but they don't really care about him. They don't really bother. You know, they will see that we believe in God, we are God fearing people, but they live their lives in such a way as if God doesn't exist.

Most of the time. The reason for this is to be so busy trying to earn money, trying to pay the bills, trying to maintain a relationship with family members, and trying to have a bit of fun, that we don't take up time for our Creator. Our entire life has become a competition just to get the good things of this world

speaks about in the Quran. This competition to pile up the things of this world has diverted you, it has distracted you

until you die until you get to the grave. Then you will know the reality. Then you will know the reality because then you will see the Hellfire with your own sight. And then you will be asked about all the good things that God has given you. This is true at Akasha in the Quran. Allah is warning us

Don't let this world distract you from your Creator.

We can change the world with the means with permissible means, we can do that. But it should not distract us from our Creator, it should be a secondary issue to us, that our Creator comes first and the world comes second.

So for these people who are distracted, take out time and think about it. This is the most important relationship that you have your relationship with your Creator.

The fourth type of person is the deist. These are the people who say God exists. But no, we don't need to do anything. We are a small speck in the universe. We don't have any purpose. Why would God care what I do with my life?

Now to this person, I'd like to ask a question. Do you know anybody will invent something without a purpose? Anybody who creates or invent something which has no benefit to it, that he may just like that.

You believe in a God who is so knowledgeable who is so wise, that he created is universal perfectly. And you think he left you without the purpose? You think he created you for fun? As Allah Himself asked him, the Quran does mankind think.

In other words, he says before that he says that we did not create, we return to God in the plural, the majestic little, we did not create the heavens and the earth and everything in between them for fun. The word used in the Quran is not fun. We didn't do this for fun. Allah did not create things just for fun to amuse himself. There's a purpose for everything. And there's a purpose where you and I exist. He goes on to ask us,

does mankind think you'd be left alone, without any accountability? God created you the best creation on Earth, the only creation that is asking, that has intellect that can think and decide for himself between good and evil? Who can who Allah has given the ability to invent things like the airplane, things like the internet, like the mobile phones that we have. God has given us this intellect, and we don't have to be held accountable for what we do.

We are all going to be held accountable for sure. But what do we need to do? What is this purpose? Why do we exist? Why did God create us? In the Quran, he stated very simply,

I did not create the genius, nor do humans, except to worship me. I need to divert a bit here because this word

in the English translation worship, it doesn't do justice to what the word Yabu means. The word worship seems to indicate the rituals. It indicates, you know, just ritual worship. So when you tell someone, our purpose in life is to worship Allah, they imagine 24 hours you are on the prayer mat praying to God. That is not what is meant by worship in Islam. Worship in Islam, comes from the word of Allah means to be a slave, to follow and to submit.

When Allah says, we do not create men or jinn except Leah we do, it means we do not create you except to submit to the will of God. So when we say our purpose in life is to worship God, it means to live our life within the boundaries set by God, to live our lives in obedience to God, not necessarily rituals all the time, there are certain rituals that we have to do, but not all the time. But everything we do needs to be within the boundaries set by God. This is our purpose. It's a test. It's a test to humanity. Allah has put you on earth. He has put many things before you. He has put many religions before you many ways of life. And he has given you the internet to choose between

right and wrong. We will choose to submit to the creator and we will choose to follow their desires, and be sure that they are repercussions for your choice. So this is my advice to those people who are not investing in a relationship with their Creator.

We did have a group of people who I feel are very ungrateful to the Creator. Do you believe in God? Definitely. But eating like the genie in the bottle, when you want to make a wish to call upon God, when they need something they call upon God. These are the people and 70 do they exist amongst Muslims as well? Who don't practice, they don't rush. But something goes wrong. They raise their hands, they say, oh, God help me.

And then they expect God to give them instant help, even though the net force

In God's rights,

assembly, you might be asking God's rights. Does God have rights over us? I'll say why not? We all talk about human rights. So often.

Every human being has rights, no doubt about it. If we don't you think the one who created us, gave us our intellect, give us everything we have to God, he has rights, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, he turned, he asked his companions,

what is the right of God upon you?

and his companions, they didn't know. So they said, God knows best, you know better than us. So the Prophet peace be upon him said, God's right upon you is that you pray to Him, you worship Him, and you don't worship anybody else. You don't pray to anyone else, him alone. This is his rights.

And you know what your rights upon God, imagine this we have rights. God has, God is not responsible to anyone, but he has put rights of himself, you know, for us, discovers it, what is it? He said that if you do this, if you worship God, as he had asked you to, without worshiping anyone else, he must let you enter Paradise forever.

No one's forcing God to do this, this is his mercy, that he in return for you fulfilling his rights, he has given you this right, that if you do this for God, He will repay you with this.

So this third group of people, those who only contact God, when they need him, if they need him, this is something that you need to think about it, this is not right. It's not right to do this to any person. And if you only talk to your father, when you want something from your father, naturally, he's going to get angry with you. If you don't talk to your wife, except when you need something from her. Naturally, she's going to get angry with you. If you don't see people, I just how could you see your own creating this manner? This is not right at all.

To the next group of people, these are the people who might be religious. They believe in God, they worship him.

But they have one major problem. And this is a very major problem. They worship others besides Him as well.

God is added as equals, or intermediaries, or you know his demigods or whatever it is that they worship someone besides God. This goes back to what I just quoted from the Prophet peace be upon him, that it's God's right not just you worship him, but you don't worship anyone else besides Him.

In fact, in Islam, we regard worshiping someone besides God as oppression. The word used in the Quran is oppression. Because oppression means to deny somebody their rights. So when you pray to an ID, or to a human being, or to a grave, you are giving the rights of God to someone besides God. This is oppression. If we don't tolerate oppression of human beings, why do we take denying God his rights so lightly? This is why in Islam, it is the worship of besides God, which is known as shirk is regarded as the only unforgivable sin if you die upon it. Anything that you repent, for in this life can be forgiven. But when you die,

Allah might forgive your sins he might not. But if your sin was shook videos, major shake, worshiping someone besides Him, that's the one sin He has promised never to forgive, because he traded you for a purpose. And now you are not fulfilling that purpose. If we buy for example, if you buy a pen, the purpose of the pen is to write if it doesn't fulfill the purpose.

So if you're not fulfilling your purpose, don't you think God might throw you in his bed, which is the eternal Hellfire?

So for those people, whatever religion you may be following, ask you to sincerely think about why do I worship someone besides God in this one creator? Who created me? Why you need to worship a human or a prophet, or an idol?

God is there he says in the Quran, call on me, I will answer you. There's no need to call anyone else. No one else can help you and God is angry with you. So this is the foundation of Islam, the belief in one God and the worship of this one God. So I ask anybody who is involved in any type of worship to besides God, and remember when you said worship, we said in Islam worship doesn't only mean rituals, obedience also is worship, where God tells you something, and somebody tells you the opposite and you choose to obey them overboard, is it also worship. So in any form of worship that you do to anyone besides God, you need to introspect, you need to think about it and you need to

work towards improving your relationship.

The next type of person

who I'm going to speak about is the one who has submitted his word to the Word of God, that person who has submitted his will to the will of God, he's a person, or she is a person who knows why they exist. They know why God created them. And they lived the life following this way. This person in English, we say he has submitted to the will of God. One word for that in Arabic, is he is a Muslim, she is a Muslim. And the word for submission to the will of God is Islam is what Islam is. It's not a religion, per se. It's a way of life, a way of life of worshipping God and submitting to him in your life in everything that you do. So, in essence, being a Muslim, is the primary revelation that

every human should try and establish between themselves and God, a relationship that God created me, he gave me everything I have, from my intelligence, to my personality, to whatever else he has given you, wild children, family, the least I can do in return is to worship Him.

And yeah, I want to just divert a bit

to look at what is meant by worship in Islam, because in the worst of times, people might think we need to worship God, we're going to sit and pray all day, you know, it's going to be difficult. This five primary things you need to be you need to do if you want to be a Muslim, these are called the five pillars. And each of them makes sense. Each of them are simple

things which are practical value, and they help shape your moral character. The first one is the belief that I spoke about that you believe there's only one God and you believe in all these messages from Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus right to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and everything that they taught. You believe in this. That's the first pillar. So it has nothing to do the except belief. The second pillar is to pray to God five times a day,

using the method shown to us by the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Now, this prayer, if you just count the obligatory unit of prayer, it only makes up approximately half an hour, 30 minutes, 30 minutes of 24 hours God is asking you, for everything is given you he just wants you to put your forehead on the ground for 30 minutes, out of 24 hours. With this, something difficult for us to do is this asking too much of us. This prayer benefits us in many ways. It keeps their split up at five sets. Strategic times, they keep us thinking about God all day. And they keep us in this way, morally upright, as God mentioned in the Quran, in the salata

that the Spirit stops you from doing and saying evil things. Because if you are praying to God, five times a day, is a very small chance that you're going to be living a religious life. This prayer is there to stop you from doing these things. This prayer is a communication with your Creator. When Muslims pray to God, do we start off with a long walk that God is the greatest? Isn't that something good? Can we fold our hands and we say Alhamdulillah here are

all praise to God, the Creator of the universe, the laws of the universe. And according to our beliefs, as Islam teaches us, when we see that in our prayer, God's response, it says hamadani Abdi, my state has praised me. And for every line that we see God's response, until when we say the line,

you will only worship and you will only ask for help. Then he says asked me wherever you want are granted to you. And then the next part of our prayer is at dinner Serato stacking guides our students straight but guide us to it. And as gorgeous said our graduate ever pray you want. And now he grabs to the guidance. Interestingly, it is the Muslims who are supposedly, you know, on the street, but who God tells us 17 times a day minimum to pay for guidance. In a way we may be on the same path in some parts of our lives. But there might be other issues where we still wrong. Okay, we got the right beliefs. Maybe our practice is not in order. Maybe the other issues of our beliefs are

not in order. Maybe we're not treating people properly. We need God's guidance until the day we die. This is what the Muslim believes. And that's why 17 times every day we make this prayer. It only takes up altogether half an hour from the entire day. Is this much for God to ask for. Is this not something logical that makes sense in this whole relationship with God? He asked us to give 2.5% of our money in charity. Charity is a good thing. This helps those who are not on the same list.

As us economically, and this charity is only compulsory on those who have savings, if you're just earning enough to live month to month, you don't have to pay the charity. But if you have savings for over a year, over a certain amount of money, can you just give two and a half percent away in charity, which is really nothing. That's the minimum charity. Of course, Muslims are encouraged to give a lot more.

You first in the month of Ramadan is one of the pillars of Islam. And this fast I can tell you is the most beautiful spiritual experience from non Muslims think for Muslims, they don't eat from sunrise to sunset for 29 days. I will tell you every Muslim is audiences I can't wait for Ramadan is the most beautiful time of the year. I love fasting. Because it's that spiritual experience. You need to become a Muslim to really experience it and understand it.

And finally, for those who can afford it, just once in your lifetime, you need to make the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Makkah, it just came back from there in October, we made the Hydra hamdulillah. And I can tell you it is an amazing experience. millions of Muslims are gathered in one place. I made Muslims from races I did not know existed. We spoke language I didn't even know existed from countries I didn't have never heard of. But they were Muslims. All of us gathered in one place as one oma, all worshipping the creator together. This creates this unity amongst the world, amongst people from every part of the world. It kills racism, it kills tribalism. And it brings about

universal brotherhood. You want universal brotherhood brotherhood, become a Muslim and go for it, you will experience it in Makkah, I guarantee you that.

So these are the five pillars of Islam. Very simple, very logical, very straightforward. This is the bare minimum you need to do to maintain your relationship with God.

There's really nothing Islam asks you, which is difficult. In fact, it's a bit of a diversion again, but in Islam, if you study Islamic law, one of the principles of Islamic law agreed upon that all scholars is the religion is easy. Out of non Muslim, the

religion is easy, is one of the most difficult religions ever heard of. But no, the more you study Islam, the more you begin to realize that it's an easy religion. Now, if you compare Islam to not practicing any religion at all, then no matter how easy Islam is,

if you don't play at all, even being one times a day seems difficult. But if you call if you compare the rituals of Islam, to other religions as a whole, it's very easy. In some religions don't allow you to get married, if you want to become righteous. Sometimes you to be righteous, you must get married. It's compulsory, it's part of your religion. Some agents to be righteous, you need to go live in the mountains and don't eat and put yourself to a lot of hardship. Islam says that's prohibited, don't cause harm to your body, never social life, live with the community and grow as a Muslim in that way. It's a simple religion, you just need to get to know it better if you think it's

difficult.

So this is a Muslim, this is a relationship with God, which I believe every human being needs to establish. But this is not the ideal relationship. This is the primary relationship, this is the minimum that you need to do. They are people in the world who are very rare. And only God knows them. Because only God knows what is in our hearts, but they have reached the ideal level of their relationship with God. These people are the Friends of God, only Allah because only Allah, Allah only Allah knows them, because his principal allies patient once he man and then once piety Only God knows who is pious and who is not. But this is the relationship that every human being must work

towards. It's not enough that we just worship him, but we want to be as close to him as possible. We want to feel his love. We want to be from those who are considered his friends. These innovation on the project