Living A Life Of Self-Respect

'A'udhu bi-Llahi min al-Shaytan al-rajim. Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim. Al-hamdulil-Lahi Rabbi al-'Alamin. "Al-hamdu lil-Lahi alladhi hadana li hadha, wa ma kunna linahtadiya lawla an hadana Allah" (7:43). Wa as-salat wa as-salam 'ala ashraf al-Anbiya', wa Sayyid al-Mursalin, wa Shafi'u 'l-mudhlibin, Sayyidina wa Nabbiyina wa Habibi qulubina wa Tabib an-nafusina Abi 'l-Qasimi Muhammad. [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad].

Wa 'ala Ahli Baytihi, at-tayyibin, at-tahirin, al-ma'sumin, al-madhlumin, al-muntajibin. La siyya ma mawlana wa Sayyidi Sahibi al-'Asri wa az-Zaman, ruhi wa arwahu al-'alamin, lahu al-fidha'. Wa ajjal Allahu Ta'ala farajahu ash-Sharif, wa la'natu da'imatu 'ala ada'ihim wa munkari fadhailihim min al'an ila Qiyami Yawm id-Din. Amma ba'dh, “Rabbi shrah li sadri" (20:25), "wa yassir li amri" (20:26), "wa hlul 'uqdatan min lisani" (20:27), "yafqahu qawli” (20:28).

For the hastening and the return of our 12th Imam, Imam ul-Hujjah, one Salawat upon Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad].

This evening I want to, in a way, continue the theme that we have been looking at over the last few weeks about some practical issues in terms of our life and existence. And being that tonight is my last lecture here with this community, and, as of next Wednesday, I will be completing my two-year term here, I am going to try to do my best to wrap up this particular topic in this one session - although it is a very vast topic. And, as you can see, the theme is, "Living a Life of 'Self-Respect'".

It is a theme which is vast in the sense that the terminologies we will get into and we will see are very deep in their meanings, and they can apply to us in different aspects of our lives. Let me begin with this topic by first off coming to a hadith that comes to us, a statement from our beloved Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam. [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad].

In this tradition, Rasul Allah says: "Inna li kulli dinin khuluqan, wa inna khuluqa al-Islam al-haya'". He says that, "Verily every religion has a natural disposition, a key trait that it is known by, and the natural disposition of Islam is al-haya'." Now, I have maintained it in the Arabic, I want to go into the meaning of the word in a bit of detail. You know, before I mention the meaning and the definition of this word, "al-haya'", it is one of those words in Islam that is very nuanced. It has multiple meanings, depending how you use it, in what context it is used.

As we know, words in general, in any language, probably go through the same transformation when you use them. In Islam, we see it quite pronounced. There are certain words, certain terminologies, that we have that we as Muslims use, and their meaning does not really fluctuate. When I say the word "salat" or "namaz", immediately, your mind is drawn to a particular action that we perform: a particular form, a particular recitation is done, a particular style of a particular action. When I say the word "sawm" or "roza" - fasting, we know fasting and we know the concept of what it is, and that word would not really change, it wouldn't change if you use it in a different context or a sentence, because these words have gone through a transformation with Islam. Arabs had a concept of "salat" pre-Islam; their "salat" was what we call "du'a" today. But now that Islam has come and redefined that word, it does not change with its meaning.

But if I were to say a word like "jihad", immediately, you would think, "Well, what does that word mean? What context?", because "jihad" can have multiple meanings. Literally, "jihad" just means, "to struggle, to put forth an effort, to make an endeavor", and you would think, "Well, what is the context of this?" So somebody could say coming to the center in January in Edmonton is a jihad, because of the snow and the difficulty and the weather. So it is a jihad to come to the center, and so you 7 people are mujahideen; you are literally going through jihad of coming to the center on a very cold, snowy night. The rest of the people are qa'idin - they are just sitting around at home, maybe watching the latest show of Netflix. Maybe they are watching online. I do not know, I did not check the stats of how many people are online tonight. But they are not mujahideen; they did not make that jihad. So the word will change depending on the meaning and the context.

"Haya'" is one of those words. Traditionally, when we talk about "haya'", in Madrasa, for example, or in Akhlaq classes, "haya'" is translated or defined as "modesty", "bashfulness", and it is traditionally thought of as being modesty in terms of clothing, right? We will say that, "That person does not have haya', they are not dressed properly," right? In other languages, like Persian or Gujarati, we will use the word "sharam" - "unka pasay sharam nathi", for example - "They do not have sharam, they do not have that modesty, that bashfulness."

But, the word is much more nuanced than just "modesty", than just "clothing", than just one particular application of it. And so, let me first begin with this word, "respect" - because I want to look at this theme of living a life of self-respect, so I am going to put that word "haya'" on the back burner for two minutes. "Respect" is a word also, which is sometimes defined, or translated, when you look at the word "haya'", and so English dictionaries define respect as being, "a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements."

When we say respect, why do we respect our teachers at school, let us say, right? We go to school, we go to university, we have a respect for these individuals. They have an ability, they have an aptitude, they have reached somewhere in their life, they are instructing us, and so we respect them. If we respect our manager at work, we respect our coworkers, it is probably not because of the clothing that they wear, or that they bring donuts every day to work. It is because they have some abilities, some achievements they have made in life, some accolades. And because of that, we tend to respect those individuals.

So what about the greatest person or individual that we should be showing respect to? Obviously, I am not speaking about the Messengers of Allah, the Prophets. I do not mean to put in the Imams or the Awliya', because these individuals are in a category far beyond what we would ever even think about disrespecting. We obviously have love, and the ultimate level of love and respect and admiration for these people. But after all of these noble men and women that Allah has sent for guidance, who should be the most important individual that we should respect? Yes, you might say parents. Yes, you might say your older brother or sister. Yes, you may say your grandparents. You may come in one definition or one outlook and specify certain people.

But I want to mention tonight again, the topic is living a life of this self-respect that really, when it comes down to it, Islamically, the one that we should be respecting the most - again, after Allah, the Prophet, all of these great people - is our self, having respect of our own selves. You know, having this respect of who we are as individuals, and I will get to why this is important and how it becomes a very important quality and characteristic within the faith of Islam.

So we have a hadith that comes to us from our 7th Imam, Imam Musa Ibn Ja'far al-Kadhim alayhi as-salatu wa as-salam [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad]. And this is a part of a very lengthy tradition, a discussion that the 7th Imam had with a very famous companion called Hisham Ibn Hakam. If you read the books of Hadith and you study the statements of our Imams of Ahl al-Bayt, peace be upon them, you will see Hisham's name is very prominent. There is a very beautiful, lengthy hadith, it spans 20, 30, 40 pages, in which the Imam, the 7th Imam, was talking to Hisham, and he gave him this amazing discussion about the armies of the intellect and the armies of ignorance, what he called the Janud ul-'Aql and the Junud ul-Jahl.

It is available in English, you can look for it online, but it is one of the most thought-provoking hadith that we have from the Ahl al-Bayt, alayhim us-salam. And it shows us the level of depth that they would give to certain companions who have that mental aptitude. They did not just speak these things to anybody, because the Imams of Ahl al-Bayt, just as the Prophets, they realized that not everybody is in a position to be given things that they might not understand, or they may not be able to fathom and comprehend, right?

And that is why we have the hadith from Rasul Allah, where our Prophet would say that, "We, the Prophets, have been commanded to speak to the people at their level of intellect." You would not have Rasul Allah, who knew the secrets of the heavens and the earth, he would not talk about certain things to just any companion, because they may not have had the ability to appreciate it, to accept it. It may even drive them outside of the religion, they may go to a complete misunderstanding. But Imams, obviously, as well as the Prophets, they looked at the individual and then they judged "were they able to accept and understand and make sense of what they are being told?"

And so the hadith, which I want to share with us a portion of it from Hisham, is where the 7th Imam says: "O Hisham, verily the worth of your Selves," - our own personal worth, he says: "is nothing other than Jannah", nothing other than Paradise - "so then do not sell yourselves for anything other than Paradise".

We were created, brothers and sisters, to go to Heaven, to make it to that land of felicity. We were not created to burn in Hell. We were not created to live a life of perpetual misery in the fires of Hell. We were created for a much nobler goal. We were created for a much better place. And so when the 7th Imam tells Hisham that your bodies, that you as an individual, your worth is nothing less than Paradise, he is talking about this life of self-respect, right? Because when you do not respect yourself - we understand this from this context of the hadith - when you are doing things which are against your desired outcome...

If Paradise, as the Imam says, is your worth, is the worth of a human being, then doing anything which would reduce that value, which would make you not go and reach towards your target - which is your ultimate worth - then obviously those things would be things which would not be permitted in the religion. And so we understand that when a person breaks Allah's laws, when they do actions, and we will look at a few different categories, that are not in line with their worth, then they are actually having disrespect for themselves, right? Just like you would not disrespect a professor, a Madrasa teacher, an elder. You would talk to them in a respectable fashion, you would interact with them in a way of civility, we have to also reflect on the fact that we ourselves have to have self-respect for ourselves, and we will see a few examples of this.

And so what the scholars determine and define is they say that the self-respect, this haya', modesty, it becomes a trait which we have to base our lives on based on three different factors:

One is Divine instruction. So first and foremost, you and I, as Muslims, all of our guidance needs to come from Divine instruction. From Allah, from the Prophets, from the members of the family of the Prophet, the Ahl al-Bayt, peace be upon them. And obviously when we talk about this self-respect, it means to look at what they expect from us, what we should be doing ourselves, and putting those rules into our life, into practice.

But it does not end there, because not everything is in the Qur'an. Yes, Allah says, "wa kulla shay'in ahsainahu fi Imamin Mubin" (36:12), or Allah says that, "We have mentioned everything in the Qur'an" (36:12), but we know that Allah is not speaking in a literal way because people will say, "Well, if everything is in the Qur'an, show me how to make bread." Where is the recipe in the Qur'an? It is not there. "Show me how to pray Salat," it is not there. "Show me how to fast the month of Ramadhan", it is not there. Show me how to perform Hajj step by step, step one, step two, step three," it is not there.

So we understand the fact that not everything is within the Qur'an; that is why we have the Prophet of Allah, and that is why we have the members of the family, the Ahl al-Bayt, alayhim us-salam, who go forth and give us the guidance from that Divine Source. So definitely Divine instruction is the first source.

But I also mentioned up there that whatever the sound intellect guides towards [the second factor] is also something we have to reflect upon when we talk about self-respect and modesty. Now, what do I mean by this? As I said, not everything is in the Qur'an, not everything is probably even in the Sunnah of Rasul Allah, spelled out word for word, letter for letter. But intellectually speaking, a person who has a sound intellect, who is not dissuaded by the transient world, their soul, their carnal soul has not twisted their intellect. If you go to those people, they will give you guidance which is not in the Qur'an, but which may be later on by our scholars, an obligation, or a prohibition.

As an example, today, majority, maybe, or a large number of doctors, will come forth and say that to smoke cigarettes - especially given the fact of the tobacco and the nicotine and all of the hundreds of chemicals which are in one cigarette - the doctors will say that if this is going to cause you, or this will cause you harm, maybe in the short term, maybe in the long term, cancer and many other illnesses and diseases will come out of this little thing called a cigarette.

Now, if you look at the Qur'an, it is not forbidden to smoke. There is no verse that says, "O who you believe, it is forbidden to smoke a cigarette". You look in the hadith, this was not a practice at that time, maybe it was not even known by the Arabs at that time. But today, intellectuals and people who have the brains, will tell you that their research has come to the conclusion, let us say that this is a particular habit which is detrimental to your health and so you should keep away from it. And our scholars will take such research and investigation, and sometimes we ask that from our scholars. We sometimes ask that, "Why do not our scholars become experts in medicine and science and astronomy?" And then they come forth and give a fatwa saying that, let us say, it is haram to smoke.

And then, unfortunately, some of us Muslims say, "Well, what does that guy know in Najaf or Qom? How can he pass a fatwa that is haram to smoke? He has not studied this, he has not gone to med school." We do that a lot of times with our Maraja'; we downplay, we ask for guidance. We say that they should be advanced in science and technology, and when they give fatawa based on research, we sometimes just downplay that research.

But when our sound intellect, and those who have the power and ability, when they come to a conclusion, to follow that is a mode of self-respect, is a form of haya', is a form of living that life, because we are again saying that there is not everything in the Qur'an.

And the third point I mentioned are societal norms. Again, there are things not in the Qur'an that sometimes we have to do, as a form of self-respect. Certain things that we do not do in our society, because in the community that we live in and the society in the Western world, let us say in Canada, or in the West in general, there are certain actions which may not be forbidden or wajib, they are neither an obligation or prohibition, but the culture and the society deem those actions to be virtuous. And so usually we do those things because of the fact that we, again, are looking for that level of self-respect, of following things which are not even within our religion.

An example: you go on the bus today, and the bus is packed on a very busy route and a senior citizen gets on and there are no seats available. Or a young lady gets on with a young baby, holding a child, or [carrying it] in a stroller. Most people who are respectable, decent people, they would get out of their seat and let that old person, or that woman with a child, sit in the seat. Why do we do that? There is no verse of the Qur'an that says you have to do it. There is no clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that says you have to give up your seat if a person comes on the bus.

So legally, we are not obligated; religiously, we are not obligated by the Shari'ah, by the Divine Laws of Allah. But the society we live in, they deem that to be a norm of our society, and if you were not to get out of your seat, people might look at you in a bad way. People might talk about you, maybe on the bus, people may speak about you. And so even though it is not an obligation religiously, it is not, maybe even intellectually, it does not make sense: "Why should I do that? They get on late, it is their fault. Let them stand. Who cares?" My intellect might not guide me to that, but the societal norm tells me that that is what I should do as a decent human being.

And so when we look at this topic of self-respect - let me define it and just go into one or two examples, and we will conclude tonight. That self-respect really means that you define your own worth as a human being, and not only as a human being, but more so as a Muslim. And then when you define your worth, keeping in mind the hadith that I mentioned of the 7th Imam, where our worth is nothing less than Jannah, is nothing less than Paradise, and that we should not sell ourselves short of anything less than Paradise, and that to get to Paradise, it is not only following Divine instruction, it is to use a sound intellect, what our intelligence will tell us is something good to do or keep away from, and what the society gives us as societal norms which will differ.

Today what we do in Canada might be very different if we go to a Muslim country, if we go back to our home countries. They may have different societal norms there, we have to keep in mind. But self-respect means that we define our worth as a human being, as a Muslim. And then we not only have that definition, but then we live that life of that respect, living the life of all of those actions. And that is why I said at the beginning that "haya'" can't just be translated as "modesty of clothing". That is one aspect of it.

The Qur'an uses this word, for example, when it talks about Prophet Shu'ayb and his two daughters, when Nabi Musa comes and helps them out. And Allah talks about the way that one of the daughters of the Prophet Shu'ayb walked. And Allah says that she walked with "istihya" (28:25), with modesty. So it is not just a way of walking, it is not just a way of dressing, it is not just a way of interaction. Again, it goes back to the fact that anything which will get us to Jannah is how we can define "haya'".

It is not just modesty in terms of bashfulness and the "sharam" and those sorts of words, but rather it is an overall global concept, and that is why even the beginning hadith I said from Rasul Allah, where every religion, every Deen is known by a specific quality. And he said, "the quality of Islam is al-haya'," is this overarching level of understanding, this mental understanding of every action that we do. I will conclude with two examples for tonight.

One is with respect to Allah, having haya' with Allah, right? This is a theme we see in the hadith quite frequently. When the Imam say that, "do not you have haya' in front of Allah?" What does that mean? Does it mean that we wear clothes 24 hours a day, we [do not] go for the shower because Allah is Ever-Present? Do we just cover up our bodies? Is that what it means to have haya' in front of Allah? It means a lot of different things, I am just going to give two examples.

One is to perform all of our obligations, whatever we are obligated to do, to not do that thing would be a form of breaking our haya'. As I said, when we respect our professor at university, when we respect our manager at work, when we respect our teachers at Madrasa, we are respecting them because they have reached a certain caliber, a certain level in their life. If we respect them, that we do what they ask us to do - your teacher at school tells you to do something, you do it, right?

What about Allah? When He says do something, He does not need that action to be done; it does not benefit Him as God. He does not become a greater God to tell us to do something. But out of the respect that we have for ourselves, we fulfill the commandment that Allah gives to us. And on the side of prohibition, when Allah says that certain things, I do not want you to do, it is because there is a reason behind it. It is not just that Allah woke up one day and said, "I am going to make life Hell for these people on Earth, and I am going to make things haram, haram, haram, and there are going to be difficulties." No, there are reasons.

There is a very famous statement that our scholars use in jurisprudence, in the science of Islamic jurisprudence, where they tell us that whatever 'Aql, whatever the intellect decrees as being, let us say, worthy or worthwhile or beneficial, is what the religion has decreed, and maybe even vice versa. Meaning that there is an intellectual understanding behind much of our religion, and even if there is no intellectual understanding, we have come to the conclusion that there must be some benefit in that action for us.

The second part of the second point [refraining from prohibitions] where I say, "Not doing things in private that we would not do in public," this is actually based on the hadith that we have from Imam 'Ali, alayhi as-salat wa as-salam [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad]. And when the Commander defined haya', in a practical application of it, he said that haya' means that you do not do things in private that you would not do outside in public.

There are many, and unfortunately, we live in a society today where this haya' is no longer a trait in most people. I do not say everybody because you have people who are still believers, who are adherents to haya', whatever religion they follow. But, you know, when you look at the world around us, in secular societies, many things that we would probably not do as Muslims in the private, let alone outside, are being done today on the streets. You just have to read articles of what people are doing on beaches. The levels of indecency happening. Things that should be done at home, in the privacy, in a bedroom, are being done on the public streets nowadays. There is no embarrassment in it; in many countries in the world, it is legislated, it is permitted, it is a business in some countries.

But Amir al-Mu'minin says, when you have that haya', that modesty, one explanation or one manifestation of it is that you would not do anything in private that you would not do in the public. So this is respect, having haya', this respect of ourselves in the presence of Allah. And again, there are a lot of other examples, and I do not want to go into all of them in this particular session.

I will conclude with our last portion, which is haya' with respect to ourselves. Again, having self-respect, respecting ourselves as individuals, what does that mean? What are some practical examples given to us by the scholars?

One of them is to make our life to be one of meaning, make it a purposeful and a meaningful life by setting goals for our lives. If we do not have goals that we want to attain in our life, then we are selling ourselves short, as [per] the hadith from Hisham Ibn Hakam. So as a community, as individuals, we always have to be setting goals. We have to be thinking about the future.

Parents, when a man and a woman get married, usually their goal or their thought is eventually they will have children. And when those children are born, then what do they do? They are planning. They are saving money every month for their education. They are saving money for maybe when they get to be eight or nine or ten. They are now saving money for their marriage. They are saving money because they are planning for the future. They are making plans.

We do not know whether that plan will come to fruition. We do not know whether we will die before that plan materializes. But as human beings, we have that amal, that hope for the future. And if we did not have hope, then we would just be sitting at home doing nothing. But Allah puts hope within us that we think, we plan for the future. We do what we can do, but obviously Allah has plans as well. But when we have that purpose and meaning of our life and we set goals, then we are at least aiming to reach somewhere.

If you or I do not have goals of what I am going to be or where I will be one year from now, three years from now, five years, ten years, then you just become, there is no purpose in your life. So we have to have goals - "I want to become this level of education. I want to become completely financially independent, that I can now be helping other people. As a community, I want the community to move in a certain direction. I want the community to be progressing on a certain path."

It is easy to plan certain things, let us say, in a physical level. We are going to do this, we are going to have this kind of food on that Thursday night majlis, we are going to have this food at that wiladat, we are going to have that kind of rice at that shahadat majlis. That is easy to do, anybody can do that. But, are you planning, as a community, where you are going to be in a year, in two years, in five years? Where do you want the entire Jama'at to be in 5 or 10 years down the line?

An example I have given before, maybe, but I will mention it again, that when the movie Avatar was made by a very famous Hollywood producer - James Cameron, I believe he was. He writes in his memoirs, when he was making this movie, he said that he wrote the script for this movie ten to twelve years before he could make the movie. He says that, I knew that technology, the computer, the CGI, the animations, the powerful computers, he says, "I knew they did not exist in the world at that time". But he says, "I wrote my script for this movie knowing that 10, 12, 15 years down the line, technology will catch up, and I will be able to make this movie Avatar". And so he was looking at a movie 15 years into the future, that when the technology catches up, when computers are powerful enough, when cameras are there that can record what he wants to record with his vision, his script would be ready and it would be ready to go to be made into a movie.

Now imagine he plans for a movie with a billion dollar budget, and we are looking at communities and where we do not even maybe plan for the next week's modulus or the programs or the events, or as I have said before, about youth events, or as I have said before, about seniors events, or as I have said before, about ladies events. People are planning to dominate the world in Hollywood, and we do not even plan for a few weeks in our community and what our special interest groups need in our own communities.

So if we are not setting goals as a community, then how can we even think that we are going to make it to the time of the 12th Imam? We stand every day, "Allahumma kun li waliyika...", we make the du'a, "al-ajal, al-ajal ya Mawlaya!" We make nohas, "al-ajal, al-ajal." But then, are we preparing for that return? Are we doing anything constructive to make that Imam's return easy? Because believe it or not, he will need you and I. And if we are not ready, then why will he even bother to come?

He saw what happened to Imam Husayn, alayhi as-salam - the people were not ready. He went because he did his responsibility, but they were not ready. And God forbid, we have that same issue with our Imam, that we are not ready, we are not planning. We are having food, we are doing this and that, we are having celebrations, but we are not preparing the community and our families and our children and ourselves to be on that path to the 12th Imam.

Another way, as the scholars say, to deal with respect of ourselves is to seek knowledge of Islam, and always ask questions. We cannot be a community who are complacent. We just know the "alif baa taa" of Islam - just we know the ABCs of our religion - and we do not delve deeper into the topics. We are content with just the basics of Islam. We are content with coming in Muharram for 10-11 days, beating our chest, crying, and then on the 11th day, it is back to normal; it is status quo. It is doing our normal day to day life.

No! We have to always be in a pursuit of knowledge and we have to ask questions from the right people, find those who have the knowledge and ask them. We talked about asking questions two weeks ago, the importance of being inquisitive, the importance of delving deep into the religion, because again, it is for our own benefit.

And last, but not least, is our demanding of our rights from others. There are a lot of things, I just wanted to put these three together. But sometimes we are taken for a ride, right? We are not given our rights by those people who owe us our rights. And sometimes people say, I will just forget about it, you know, let Allah deal with them. Yes, Allah will deal with them, but at the same time, we also have to take our rights when people have taken them away from us.

And it is difficult sometimes, and in the Qur'an we are told that Allah does not like people who speak out, who publicize too much, except those who have been wronged - "illa man dhulimu" (4:148), as Allah says in the Qur'an. Except when you have been wronged, Allah says go out and speak, and talk about what happened to you. It could be husband and wife, they had an altercation, and one of them has taken the rights of the other party, and they are not willing to give in, and give back what they have taken, what was not their right. It is the right of the other spouse to go and make it known and get their rights back.

And that is at all levels, whether it be at the level of a family, of a community, of the country that we live in. If our rights are taken from us as Muslims, and our government is not doing anything, let us say, to address issues like Islamophobia about this anti-Muslim bias happening, then we have to speak up for our rights, and if we do not, then we do not have haya' for ourselves. We have lost that self-respect, we have lost that dignity of the Nafs, of the Self. And obviously that is not something that Islam expects from us, because as we mentioned in the hadith from Hisham Ibn Hakam, that our lives, we as individuals, our worth is Jannah, and so we need to ensure that we do not sell ourselves short for anything less than Paradise.

I will conclude and ask Allah, as we conclude this Thursday night, that Allah accepts all of our acts of worship that we have done in this past week. We ask Allah to forgive us any of our shortcomings and slips. We ask Allah to give us the Tawfiq to be able to follow in all of His teachings. We ask Allah to forgive us and all of the marhumeen. We ask Allah to forgive all of us and the marhumeen from our community, those of our loved ones who have passed away, who are no longer with us.

We ask Allah to forgive any of our friends who have left this world and maybe do not have people to pray for them. We ask Allah to give maghfirat, and pardon, and forgiveness, to all of the ulama who have left this world, and who have given so much back to us that we are able to understand our religion. And we ask Allah to give the Thawab of this majlis tonight also to the Shuhadah, to the martyrs around the world the martyrs of Islam, the martyrs of Karbala, the martyrs of all of the battles that Muslims have gone through, and even the shuhadah who are dying even today in many of the countries around the world.

We ask Allah to grant them also position in Paradise, and that Allah forgives them for any of their misdeeds and their blunders. Let us conclude by reciting a Surat ul-Fatiha and asking Allah to give the Thawab to all of these individuals that we have just mentioned. But before that, one Salawat upon Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad].