A'udhu Billahi Minash Shaitanir Rajeem Wa Ithaa Sa'alaka Ibadii Anni Fa Inni Qareeb Ujeebu Da'wata Ad-Da'i Itha Da'ani Falyastajeebooli Walyu'minubi La'allahum Yarshudoon Today we speak again about Allah Azza wa Jal and today I want to share with you two of His names that occur that are very unique in the Qur'an First place we find these names is on the tongue of Salih alaihi salam when he was inviting his people to Allah. Mentioned in Surah Hud, he says, إِنَّ رَبِّي قَرِيبٌ مُجِيبٌ My master is near and the one who responds. So two names have been put together, the closeness of Allah that he's near and two that he responds.
And these are important to understand because in life you can have people that are close to you. And sometimes, of course, we all have close relationships. We have parents, we have spouses, we have children, we have siblings, we have best friends, we have, you know, people that are just very close to us, we come into contact with them every day.
And the closer people are to us, the more expectations we have of them, and the more expectations they have of us, and there's rights and responsibilities. But oftentimes, those that are closest to us fail to respond to our needs. We have something we need from them, or we need them to give us something, and they fail to give that to us.
Or we ask them of things and they're not able to provide those things to us. They can be قريب, but they can't be مجيب. They can be close, but they can't respond.
Allah عز و جل is above and beyond all of His creation. No one is closer to you and me than Allah عز و جل. And no one, and the irony of it is, He's invisible to us.
The only place you can sense His presence is in your heart. And if you can feel that presence, then you have to know one thing. Not only is He close, He also responds. So whatever you ask of Him, none of it...
You know sometimes somebody asks, I make dua, I ask Allah, I don't even know if he's hearing my prayers. Nobody can hear that closer than Allah. He can hear the sound of your heart when your tongue doesn't even move.
وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ الصُّدُورِ Allah knows the nature of the chest, the things that you're feeling, the things that you want that you never even brought on your tongue, Allah knows those. That's how close He is. أَقْرَبُوا إِلَيْكُمْ مِّنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ We're closer to you than your jugular vein. You know, we can't even feel our own body as closely as Allah is to us. And that closeness then is coupled with His name, the one who responds, the one who gives an answer. In the Arabic language, there are two words for one who gives an answer.
You can say, مُجِيب and you can say, مُسْتَجِيب. مُجِيب means someone who responds immediately. And مُسْتَجِيب means someone who tries to respond, or takes their time in responding, or wants to respond. So if, for example, you ask me a question, and I said, I don't know the answer, let me get back to you.
All this time, I'm not your Mujeeb, I'm just Mustajeeb. I'm trying to answer you. Allah's name is not Mustajeeb.
Allah's name is Mujeeb. He responds immediately. Whether or not the response is the way you like it or not, but the response happened immediately.
The response happened immediately. Explaining his own name, Qareeb and Mujeeb, the best explanation of that is in the Qur'an itself. It's the ayah that I recited to you, and it happens to be an ayah within the ayat of Ramadan.
This ayah belongs within the instruction Allah gave of how you and I can benefit from Ramadan. Everybody here knows Ramadan is the month of the Qur'an. And the Qur'an is Allah speaking to us.
What we're standing and listening to in the prayer is Allah speaking to us. But a conversation with Allah, when someone is close to you, they don't just speak to you, you also speak to them. So when Allah azzawajal introduced Ramadan, He talked about how He sent the Qur'an in it.
But in the same passage He says, وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِ عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ So he talks to his messenger ﷺ, and this is the most powerful ayah of the Qur'an on the subject of talking to Allah. Like if somebody wants to understand, how do I talk to Allah? This is the ayah. The Sahaba would feel a closeness to Allah in the month of Ramadan as we all do.
And they want to know how to get even closer to Allah. They wanna know more about Allah as they hear His word. So they come to the messenger ﷺ, and they ask him about Allah. Tell us something more about Allah.
Tell us something you can give us about Allah. So Allah says, وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي When my servants ask you about me. When my servants ask you about me. Meaning they come to Rasulullah ﷺ to ask him about Allah Azza wa Jal.
Notice first of all, Allah Azza wa Jal describes this scene about people who want to know more about Him. People who want to know more about Him. And they turn to the teachings of their messengers ﷺ. to find out more about Allah.
So anyone of us that tries to learn something about Allah, Allah acknowledges them in this ayah. Because they asked about Him. And every time you try to go to find the teachings of your Prophet ﷺ, or the teachings of the book that was given to him, Allah acknowledges you in this ayah, when he says, they come to ask you about me. Now the expected language is, they come to ask you about me, tell them I am close.
But Allah doesn't say that. He says, when they come to ask you about me, I am absolutely close. فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ Meaning he is so close, that he didn't even tell his Prophet ﷺ, to tell us that, he told us that himself. Just understand this scene. The Sahabi came to Rasulullah ﷺ asking about Allah.
Allah was going to tell the messenger and the messenger would tell the Sahabi. Allah said, No, I'll tell him directly, إِمْنِي قَرِيبٌ I am near. That's how close Allah is. That's how close Allah is to us.
But closeness, like I told you before, there can be lots of relationships where somebody is close, but that doesn't mean they respond to you. And Allah's closeness is felt when we hear Allah's word, it brings us closer to Him. But is He hearing our words? That's the question.
Each... All of us hear the same Qur'an, but when we have needs, when we have pain, when you have sadness inside you, when you have something troubling you, when you have something taking away your peace, what you have to ask Allah is completely different from the person next to you. Each one of us has a different set of problems. Each one of us has a different set of needs, a different... Level of sadnesses.
And we all want Allah Azzawajal to hear our prayers. So Allah tells us in this ayah, أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ I respond to the single du'a. Every single du'a, da'wa is different from du'a. Du'a is the word everybody knows.
It's to call on Allah. Da'watun is called mastarmara, when somebody calls on Allah only once. The hint in this ayah is, maybe Allah is talking about someone who never prays, who never worships, who's forgotten about Allah.
and something came in their heart and they decided once in 10 years to turn to Allah and make one dua to Allah. One dua to Allah. And you know, usually, when someone goes away from you, like if you had a brother, who said, forget you, I don't like you. And he goes away from you, and he doesn't call you, doesn't care about you, doesn't follow up with you. And five years later, he says, hey, I need something.
You say, where were you all this time? All of a sudden, now you need something, you call me? You see? People forget about Allah. They forget about Allah, they follow what they want.
They follow everything else except what Allah wants them to follow. When Allah gives them instruction, they put it on the side. They never listen to what Allah has to say. They don't listen to Allah's words. They don't listen to His Prophet's teachings, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
But then they get in trouble. Then they fall on their knees. Then they're outside of a hospital waiting for their loved one inside the ER.
Or then they lose a job. Or then they get sick. You know, or then they have family trouble. And then they can't find peace.
And then all of a sudden they find Allah. And they turn back to Allah. And Allah could say, where were you all the other times? You know?
Where were you? Why didn't you remember Allah when He was giving you all of... And all of a sudden a little bit of pinch, and now you come running to Allah? You know?
Allah describes people that are traveling in a ship. Everything is going well. And all of a sudden there's a storm. And the ship starts going this way and that way.
دَعَوُوا اللَّهَ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينِ They start making dua to Allah. They become more sincere in their religion than ever before. You know? Some people go on a flight, and sometimes there's turbulence, right?
And people are watching a movie, some people are listening to headphones going like that, and people are playing video games, entertaining themselves, some people sipping drinks, some people sipping haram drinks, chilling, relaxing, you know? And all of a sudden the plane goes a little bit like this. Just pause, pause, pause, hold on.
Hey, what Quran do I... قُلْهُ اللَّهُ وَحَدَ اللَّهُ السَّمَدُ لَمِنْ لَمْ يُلَادُ Subtitles by the Amara.org community Whatever Quran you know, all of a sudden, and if the... You know those cups that fall?
You know the Malakul Maut cups? You know? If one of those falls, then all of a sudden, you become a hafidh of whatever Quran you knew, and it starts rolling out. دَعَوْا اللَّهَ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينِ And then the plane is stable again.
Sorry about that, we were going through some turbulence. We're gonna put the Malakul Maut cup backs inside. And then what happens? Okay, alright. I go back to my movie now, where was I?
So Allah can say, you only remember me when you have trouble, and when your life is going okay, you forget about me, you wanna party, you wanna live your life. But in this ayah, Allah says, even if the one who had pushed Allah aside, forgotten about Allah, dismissed Allah's teachings, dismissed Allah's remembrance, they come to Allah asking dua, not night after night after night, they came once, da'wata. And then he says, what kind of person is making dua? Is it a muttaqi, someone who is conscious of Allah? Is it someone who has high faith in Allah?
Is it someone who is a musalli, who prays all the time? You know, people come to some... Sometimes they come to people, they say, make dua for me, you're a good person, you make dua for me.
Make dua... because you know, I don't... But hopefully you seem to have a better connection.
If you make dua, you have... But you know, my connection is not even 3G. It doesn't go through.
You seem to have high speed Wi-Fi. If you make du'a, then you'll have better chance, you know? Because you yourself, or you just came from a club, or you just came after drinking some alcohol, or you just came from some haram thing or whatever, and you're like, I can't be making du'a.
Who am I to make du'a? And Allah Azza wa Jalla says, only one qualification for that du'a to be responded to immediately. Allah's name is Mujib. The one who responds immediately. But who does he respond to?
He says, الْدَاعِ The one who calls him. That's the only condition. He didn't say, الْدَاعِ الْمُؤْمِنِ الْدَاعِ الْمُتَّقِي الْدَاعِ الْمُحْسِنِ الْدَاعِ الْعَابِلِ The one who calls him who's a worshipper. The one who calls him who's obedient. The one who calls him who's conscious of Allah and remembers Allah.
has does nights and nights of ibadah. No, no, no, no, no. There's someone lost in the darkness and they just turned once to Allah and decided to sincerely, genuinely call on Allah.
And Allah says, immediately I respond, immediately I respond. Now think about that. Think about how you and I don't do that.
You and I are not capable of doing that, even if people are close to us. If you had a... You know, some people don't get along with their father.
They have an argument. And then later on you say, Hey, you know, father sends you a message. Or you send dad a message, Hey dad, I need something. He looks at it, it shows red, but there's no response. For 2-3 hours, 4 hours, because it's not an immediate response.
I'm still mad at you. I'm not gonna respond to you right away. Or maybe no response at all. Or, oh, you need something?
You see, even people close to us may not be ones that are willing to respond. Because we push them away. You see, we go away, Allah stays near. Think about that. We go, Allah is never ba'id.
Allah is always qareeb. We try to run from Allah, and no matter where we run, Allah is al-qahir. Allah is always closed down.
You can't run away from Allah. It's like running, it's as silly as running away from air. Where are you gonna run?
Where are you gonna run? You and I, our lungs are breathing the rahmah of Allah wherever we go. We can't get away from Allah azzawajal. You know? And so we think we've gotten away from Allah.
And when we get away from Allah, you know what shaitan comes and tells you? Shaitan tells you, Allah is away from you. Allah doesn't wanna hear you, look at you. What kind of person are you?
Allah is gonna listen to your dua? Please. I'm not the kind of person Allah would listen to.
You know those masjid people, those are Allah people. I'm not those type, you know. And so Allah عز و جل says, أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ أَدَّاعُ The one who calls.
Now, it's an important point of reflection here, that's so powerful. You know, when I teach, And sometimes I have a hundred students, a hundred students. Each one of them wants to ask me something, or needs my help with something.
Even if I give one of them one minute, then the next one one minute, then the next one one minute, then the next one one minute, what's gonna happen? I have spent a hundred minutes. I'm almost dead.
And each one of them thinks I didn't give them any time, he only gave me one minute, he started talking to somebody else. He didn't even completely hear what I had to say. It took me 45 seconds to ask my question, then he only had 15 seconds.
And then he moved on to the next person, what kind of person is this? And I'm trying to answer everyone as best I can, I can't, I can't do it. And on top of all of that, the next day, the same student comes, Hey ustaz, you remember my name? Muslim? How am I supposed to remember your name?
I can't. People come to me sometimes, remember I ran into you at a speech you gave, and I said salam to you, and I was like, yeah. I remember something happened. I can't. I don't remember your name.
I don't remember the question. People expect that I would remember. I wouldn't remember. You know, sometimes there are CEOs of companies, they have 500 employees, yeah?
Do they know everybody's name? They got a thousand emails every day. Do they know every email and respond to every email and able to answer?
And somebody comes and says, three weeks ago I sent you an email, did you get a chance to look at it? Nah, that's in the spam folder, buddy. That's in the, you know, that email is in the qabr now, that's not coming back. That's not coming back. Think about that, the more important someone is, they can't talk to all their employees.
Maybe he'll talk to his VP, maybe he'll talk to some executives, and he'll let them do the talking with everybody else. He doesn't know the security guard's name, he doesn't know the secretary's name, he doesn't know the janitor's, he doesn't know everybody's name. Allah Azza wa Jal describes not just somebody who calls, he says, anyone who calls on him is not a person who called, he says, the person who called. And when he put a the on them, T-H-E on them, meaning they are special to Allah.
He knows them by name. He knows specifically who they are. And he knows exactly...
Exactly their need. Now here's the thing, the more important someone is, it's hard to get their time. It's hard to get their time.
It must be a special time where you can talk to them. Because I can't just go up to the CEO and say, Hey, I need to talk to you. You gotta get an appointment.
You know? And they say, Oh, the schedule is filled for the next three weeks. Come at this time, this time, this time. And so Allah Azza wa Jal, you know, fine, He will respond. But must be a good time to ask Him.
You know, he'll just answer. He's not waiting for my call. I'm supposed to be at his service. You know, he's not just 100% immediately.
The moment I call, he's gonna respond. Allah adds, إِذَا دَعَانِي Whenever he calls me. Whenever he calls me.
You know, people say, what's the special time to make du'a? There are special times to make du'a. But think about that.
In your lowest moments, you and I, we commit sin. We make mistakes. And the moment you've made a mistake, you feel like you're furthest away from Allah. And at that moment when you call on Allah, Allah still responds immediately. إِذَا دَعَانَ Because that moment you called on Allah.
This is Allah when He's مُجِيب. This is Allah when He's قَرِيب. He's so close. And He's always ready and willing to respond.
Think about this now. I'll give you an example to help you think about this. Sometimes, you know, soldiers go to war.
And when they go to war, they give hugs to their mothers at the airport, they're gone to war. And the mother is waiting for the son to come back, yeah? And she's talking to her friends, does she say, if my son comes back, I'll make his favorite cake.
Or does she say, when my son comes back, I'll make him his favorite cake. If or when? When her love for him, and her weight for him, and her desire for him to come back is so strong, she will not say if.
She says what? When? Allah did not say, I will respond to your du'a if you call. He said, I will respond to your du'a when you call, as if Allah is waiting for your du'a. Allah is waiting for your du'a.
And His love for you, and His closeness to you, keeps Him waiting for you to finally turn back to Him. He's already spoken to you, now it's your turn to speak to Him. Quran is Him speaking to you, du'a is you speaking to Him.
إِذَا دَعَانُ And so Allah says, if you can do that, I'll do this for you. I'll respond to you immediately. But then, if I'm willing to do this much for you, I want something in return from you. Allah puts this in the saha. He wants something in return from you and me for him being قريب المجيب.
What does he want from us? He says, فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِي Then at the very least, they should try to respond to me too. Just like you are asking Allah for something, you are asking Allah for health. I am asking Allah for peace.
I am asking Allah for security. I am asking Allah to remove my problem. I am asking Allah to get me away from people that cause me harm. I am asking Allah to keep me away from the whisper of shaitan. I am asking Allah, I am asking Allah, I am asking Allah.
Allah says, by the way, I've been asking you too. I'm asking you also. And you know what Allah said about Himself? When you ask, how does He respond?
Over time or immediately? Immediately. But He says, when I ask you, I don't expect you to respond immediately. أَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَنْ خَلَقْ Doesn't He know who He created?
He knows, we're not like angels. We take our sweet time. We're weak.
We forget. We have shortcomings. We get lazy. So He says, فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِي They should at least try to respond to Me.
Let Me see in them the want. of responding to me. Can I see in their hearts that they want to respond?
How can you respond to someone you haven't even heard? It's impossible in any language. If say, hey, did you respond?
Respond to what? I never heard anything. When Allah says, فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِي He's saying, listen to my Qur'an.
Hear what I'm asking from you. And at least try to respond to me. And when you try to respond to me, even before we listen to Allah's words, you know what we say when shaitan comes to us?
And what does he say? Quran is really hard. Quran is gonna make your life difficult.
Quran is gonna put some burden on you. If you read Quran, and you're responsible, better not read it. Because if you read it, then you're really in trouble. You know? So it's better you don't know.
Just listen to the recitation. It's good thing you don't know Arabic because if you heard what the imam said, man, you gotta make some changes tonight. That's way too much trouble. Allah says, at the very least, you should try to respond to me. And then he says, وَالْيُؤْمِنُوا بِي And they should have faith in me.
They should have faith in me. That when Allah speaks to us, He doesn't speak to us because He's putting demands on us for His benefit. We put demands on Allah for our benefit. Allah puts demands on us for our benefit.
Everything goes back to our benefit. If you're going to do your best, you will only be doing your best for your own benefit. Whoever is going to struggle and work hard and try to come closer to Allah, is only doing that struggle for his own benefit. Quran keeps saying that over and over again.
And so Allah is telling us, if you respond, first of all, if Allah answers your dua, you benefit. And if you respond to Allah, You still you benefit. So just have faith that Allah is asking you to have faith.
He doesn't want things to be hard for you. He wants things to be easy for you. Let Him speak to you.
Nobody cares more about you than He does. Nobody loves you more than He does. Nobody gives better advice to you than he does. Just listen to his advice.
Just listen, it's for you. And it's an act of love from Allah. يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ بِكُمُ الْيُسْرِ Allah wants things to be easy for you. That's his agenda. That's why he gave you this book.
And so he says, فَلْيُؤْمِنُوا بِي And finally he says, لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ And this is what I end with. This is the explanation of what it means that Allah is Mujeeb. He says, لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ So they may be set on the straight course. What does that mean?
That means we in life, we in life have a lot of different turns and twists. We have a lot of problems that come in life that throw us off. And Allah says, if you can respond to me, no matter how strong the winds are, no matter how bad the weather is, no matter how difficult the road is, no matter how many challenges there are in front of you, I will make sure you keep going on the right road.
You won't fall off the road. لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ Hopefully they will stay on the right track. All of that depends on us calling on Allah. Us believing that Allah is the one who responds. Us believing that Allah is Mujeeb.
The du'as are endless this month. This is the last thing I share with you. Du'as are endless this month.
You and I have to ask Allah for anything we want. Anything we want. But you have to have hope in Allah.
You cannot ask Allah and say, you know, I'm pretty sure you're not gonna answer this one, but I'm gonna ask anyway. You know, sometimes people make du'a into like, you know, well, I know I didn't study for the exam. And I'm pretty sure I'm gonna fail but I guess it's time for Dua now. So the idea is Dua is like an insurance policy, maybe like a lottery, maybe it'll work.
Oh my god, it worked! But in your... head you actually believe that dua is not going to work the dua is not going to work dua will not work if the one who calls doesn't believe that's why at the end allah says respond to me and have faith in me have real genuine faith in allah your circumstances can be the most impossible but that's the same allah that makes a fire cool that's the same allah that makes the water part that's the same allah that puts young men to sleep for 300 years that's the same allah that bends the rays of the sun so they don't touch them This is Allah, He's the owner of reality.
He's the owner of reality. That's the same Allah who can put a prophet to death for a hundred years and bring him back to life. ثُمَّ بَعْثَ That's Allah.
That's the Allah. That's not a different God. That's the same God we're calling on. That's the same Allah we're calling on. The all-powerful one.
The one who can respond with anything. The one who can change any reality. the one who can change any circumstance, the one who can give you strength to the most impossible things. You and I don't possess the strength to deal with our problems.
That strength can only come from Allah. And it will not come until you beg Him, until you turn to Him, until you and I acknowledge our weakness. Ya Allah, I can't. I am not capable. I am.
What I want is weak and I am weak. You're the only one who's strong. You are the one who will respond to me and give me strength. May Allah make us people of dua and give us strength. Give us the strength and the guidance and the commitment that we need more than anything else.
May Allah accept the duas of our forgiveness, and duas for our guidance, and duas for our protection, and duas for the future of our children. May Allah make all of us people whose duas are never just on the tongue and they're always stem from the heart. And may Allah finally make us a people who at least try to respond to Allah the way He wants us to.
بارك الله لي ولكم في القرآن الحكيم ونفعني وإياكم بالآيات والذكر الحكيم السلام عليكم