Nouman Ali Khan

Leniency in Leadership Innal hamda lillah; alladhi nahmaduhu wa nasta'eenuhu wa nastaghfiruh wa nu'minu bihi wa natawakkalu 'alaih; wa na'oodhu billahi min shuroori anfusinaa wa min sayyi-aati a'maalinaa; man yahdihillahu falaa mudilla lah, wa man yudlil falaa haadiya lah; wa nash-hadu allaa ilaaha illa Allah wahdahu laa shareeka lah, wa nash-hadu anna Muhammadan 'abdullahi wa rasooluh. Arsala hullahu ta’ala bilhuda wadeeni alhaqqi liyuthhirahu AAala addeenikullihi wa kafa billahi shaheeda fa Sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallama tasleeman katheeran katheera. Thumma amma ba’ad. Fainna asdaqal hadithi kitabullah, wa khairal hadyi hadyu muhammadin Sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam, wa inna sharral umoori muhdathatuha, wa inna kulla muhdathatin bid’ah, wa kulla bid’atin dholalah, wa kulla dholalatin fin naar. Yakoolu Sub’hanahu wa ta’ala fi kitabihil kareem ba’ad ana koola a'oodhu billahi min ash-Shaytaani 'r-rajeem Transliteration Fabima rahmatin mina Allahilinta lahum walaw kunta faththan ghaleethaalqalbi lanfaddoo min hawlika faAAfuAAanhum wastaghfir lahum washawirhum fee al-amrifa-itha AAazamta fatawakkal AAala Allahiinna Allaha yuhibbu almutawakkileen (3:159) Transliteration In yansurkumu Allahu falaghaliba lakum wa-in yakhthulkum faman thaallathee yansurukum min baAAdihi waAAala Allahifalyatawakkali almuminoon (3:160) Rabbi ishrah lee sadree Wayassir lee amree Wahlul AAuqdatan min lisanee Yafqahoo qawlee Wallahumma thabbitna ‘AAindal mauti bi laa ilaaha illa Allah Wallahummaj'alna min allatheena amanoo waAAamiloo assalihat watawasaw bilhaqq watawasaw bissabr. Ameen ya Rabb alAAalameen. Surat Al Imran, the third Surah of the Qur’an, deals with several subjects, but one particular subject has been given a lot of space in the Surah. And that subject matter is the accounts and whatever happened in the battle of Uhud. And Uhud, as many of you know is the second major battle in the Madani life of the Prophet (Sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam). There are a lot of things to learn from these accounts and that’s why Allah dedicates a lot of Ayaat to this subject and we know that every ayah of the Qur’an offers us guidance. So Allah doesn’t just tell us what happened but He tells us what happened and what you can learn from it. What us, as Muslims can learn not just in that particular situation, but what universal lessons are we going to take from that and make our own lives better for ever to come. So the Qur’an is not just a book of history. It’s a book of timeless instruction, timeless counsel and timeless guidance. So, it is in that spirit that I want to share with you something very particular, that we learn about the Prophet himself (Sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam) in dealing with a difficult situation. How the Prophet (‘alayhi assalatu wassalam) is being taught himself. He is our teacher (Sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam). “Kama yakooloo subhanahu wa ta’aala wayu ‘aallimuhumu alkitab” ‘He is the one that teaches you the book.’ So he is our teacher, but he himself has a teacher (Sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam) and that is Allah azzawajal. And you know the best thing to do as a teacher is to find the right opportunity to teach a lesson. So the opportunity of Uhud, as terrible as it was, and many of you know the details and maybe some of you don’t know the details of what happened in that battle. I won’t give you too many details here because this is not the place for it, but I’ll at least share with you some of the accounts, so that you have an idea of where we’re headed here. It was a tough situation of battle. Earlier on Allah says, “Walaqad sadaqakumu AllahuwaAAdahu ith tahussoonahum bi-ithnihi....” (3:152) “Allah was fulfilling His promise when you were annihilating them; you were making them feel the heat of battle by His permission.” The Muslims came ready and they were destroying the enemy on t...

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh. Alhamdulillah ….(Arabic)….I was told I have about 30-35 minutes (I have added the 5 myself) for this talk, Insha’Allah wa ta’ala. I am going to try to keep my conversation focused to a college student audience. I don’t want to cater this as a general talk, but I wanted to kind of focus it to a student audience, Insha’Allah wa ta’ala, on the subject of appreciating the Qur’an, and I’m cognizant of the fact there may be even some non-Muslims in the audience, and so I’ll try to avoid Arabic terminology in this conversation; and, at the same time, if I do use some Arabic terms, I will try my best to translate those terms and make them easier to process. Okay. So I want to start with a very straightforward phenomenon, and that is that the Qur’an for most people, Muslim and non-Muslim, is a veiled text. What that means is it’s very difficult to just pick up and read and process. And the reason for that is…there are several reasons, and the primary reason for that is it’s being introduced to most of the world, Muslim and non, in translation. Most Muslims do not have qualifications or training in classical Arabic, the original language of the Qur’an, and so either they are reading the translation of the Qur’an in Persian or Urdu or, you know, Somali, or, you know, even Chinese, Cantonese, English, French, German, etc., etc. And, like any literature, there is a lot lost in translation; there is quite a bit lost in translation, especially older languages, because older languages had something, what the Prophet called jawami al-kamin, the ability to encompass a lot of meanings in very few words. So even if you translate, for instance, one line for another line, like a line of Arabic to a line of English, there is a lot more nuance in the Arabic line that is completely lost, so you got kind of a droplet of the meaning that was suggested in the Arabic text, and you got very little of that communicated in the English text or whatever other translated text. There is an additional problem, and that is that in old languages, they had their own figures of speech. They had their own, you know, sort of things they said that they didn’t mean literally, they meant them figuratively. And that’s not just true of ancient languages; it’s true of our languages also. Okay? You know, for instance, in English, when you say someone to someone, ‘That is extremely cool. That is so cool.’ That can’t be taken literally, unless you live in, you know, Boston or something; but, generally, when somebody says it’s cool, it’s nice. You know, it’s not to be taken literally. And these are things that are dependent on context, so even though the English language has been around for a while, if you said to somebody, ‘That is cool,’ to somebody a hundred years ago, they probably wouldn’t understand you the same way. Right? So, language isn’t just about translating a word from a dictionary; it also evolves in a context. So the original context of the Qur’an is very particular, and a lot of times those figures of speech that are in and of themselves very beautiful and very deep and very contextual, they get translated literally in our translations, and then we read them and we just scratch our heads and go, ‘What’s this talking about? What does this even mean?’ You know? So this is probably, I would argue, the biggest problem in Qur’an education or awareness even or literary appreciation, for Muslims and non-Muslims. It is, in fact, a veiled text. And to un-veil this text…..so now you say, well, translation doesn’t suffice, what else can I do? What else can I study or maybe access to maybe try to understand this book better? Well, you’ve got 2 options before you, right? One option is to become a student of classical Arabic, which is probably not an option for most people. You know, some very driven, motivated individuals like myself, 10 or 12 years ago, I decided I wanted to learn this language and take it se...

“"اسلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته “الحمد لله رب العالمين ، والصلاة والسلام على سيد الأنبياء والمرسلين و على آله وصحبه اجمعين” I don’t know about you, but that was a lot of really awesome talks & I am a little dizzy myself, I had all these thoughts that I wanted to share with you but I am kind of overwhelmed with what I have heard myself. So, first of all I would like you to give it up to all of our presenters; Jazakumullahu Khairan. And it is very intimidating going after heavy weights like that, not literally, OK so, Umm.. But I do want to share with you & I don’t think I’ll take that much time, I really honestly don’t think I will take that much time. Umm..I do wanna share with you some thoughts that I have some convictions that I have, some things that I have no doubts about in my mind, that I in shaa Allahu T’aala, I will see them in my near future & if not, my children will see them in the United States in the very very near future. We are going to see a new standard for the Muslim community, we are going to see the standard being that are high school graduates, it’s not out of the ordinary that our boys & girls have already memorized the Quran by the time they come out of high school. It’s gonna be a new standard. No, wait for the takbeers; hold on, that’s just the start. It’s gonna be a new standard that by the time our youth are in college, that they are fluent & versed in the Arabic language at the very minimum as a second language & they are already working their way to a third & a forth language of their choice. So when they speak with each other & they wanna kick it with each other they’ll kick it in Arabic, they’ll kick it in the language of the messenger of Allah (SAW) in “"الفصحة. There is no “عاميه”. "عاميه" dies in America. The dialectical Arabic dies in America & “"الفصحة is born & doesn’t matter if these children are African American or they are Indonesian or they are Pakistani or Bangladeshi, their Arabic is incredible & by the time they come out of high school & college, they’ll go onto their education & by the way they haven’t just memorized the Quran, they have been studying it their entire life too & by the time they come out of college their education in the Seerah & in the fundamentals of Islam is rock solid. It is absolutely rock solid & of course those of them that are Pakistani or still gonna go to Med school only & you know the vast majority of the Arab kids will still go on to be engineers in shaa Allahu t’aala because that’s a sunnah, right? But as they will go into those professional fields for the sake of “Islam” (*moves his hand in order to represent money*) as they do, even though they’ll go into those fields they’ll make sure, they’ll make sure that they have a minor in something that actually means something. They’ll at least have a minor, if not a bachelors before they go onto higher studies in sociology, in political science, in history, in anthropology; they’ll study the human sciences, the areas of enquiry that actually influence human thought because now that they have the guidance of Allah ‘Azzawajal, they study how far human studies have gone in understanding ourselves & they’ll bring those two worlds together. They’ll understand political science from Quran’s point of view. They’ll understand psychology from the Quran’s point of view, from the prophetic point of view. They’ll understand sociology form the prophetic point of view, from the Quranic point of view. These will be a renaissance generation. They’ll be incredibly intelligent people & the people all over the Muslim world are gonna say, one day is gonna come, you know how we used to say back in generations, “Where did you go to get you ‘ilm?” & people used to say “I went to Baghdad” & somebody went to Madinah & somebody went to this institution & that institution. People are gonna say “I went to Delaware”,

When Muslims Work Together | Part 07

Timeless Guidance

Linguistic Miracles of the Quran

Importance of Youth in Our Communities

Reflections from the Quran

Human Behaviour

Assalamu'alaikum Wa rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh In shaa Allahu ta’ala in today’s brief conversation, first of all I’d like to thank the community for inviting me here, it’s a pleasure to be here. May Allah swt bless this community, and bless this masjid and keep it full for all the prayers, especially fajr and isha. And may Allah SWT fill it with young blood in the mornings and the evenings. Amin Ya Rabb. Ok, what I wanted to do in this talk with you today is make reference to some ayats that I have talked about before, and I’ve given ‘durus’ on them before but I’ve tried to come at them from different point of view this time. Also what I wanted to do is start from kind of outside the Qur’an, kind of disclaimer. And that is that the concern we have for our children is something built in to our deen. It’s not something we just came up with now. The concern, the worry about the future generation is something that was given to us by our father, Ibrahim AS. And actually, even before him the first time we learned about a concerned father, is Nuh AS. Nuh AS is worried about his son. And even he begs Allah swt in case of his son. So the concern of father has for his child in regards to deen is something that’s built into this deen. It’s a very fundamental part of this religion. And Allah swt teaches us something by telling us many-many times about prophets, who had problems with their children. Many time, I mean, Ibrahim AS is blessed with wonderful children. He’s got Ismail, he’s got Ishaq. He’s got wonderful children. Nuh AS, not so much. Yaqub AS, couple of great kids, couple of problem kids, majority problem kids. So you've got even prophets that had troubles with their children. And that's important to know because if even prophets have trouble with their children, there’s no guarantee that you and I, no matter how much we try, we can’t avoid trouble with children. That's from the Qadr from Allah swt. Allah will bless some of us with easy children, or some of our children will be easy and some of our children will be a test. And we have to work with all of them. And that’s just a part of this deen. And that’s just a part of life. No two kids are going to be the same. There’s not one formula that deal with all of your children. Like for instance, in the case of Yaqub AS, we don’t believe that he treated Yusuf AS better, and he treated the other kids worse, and that’s why they got that way. He’s a prophet. Obviously one of the first thing prophets do is to live by justice. And that’s not justice that you’re good to one child and you’re not good to another child. We don’t expect that from Yaqub AS, so he did his best as a father but he still had trouble with his children. Alhamdulillah in the end even they made tawbah. And that’s a gift Allah gave him. But Allah also talks about Nuh AS, whose son until the end did not make tawbah. Also just because they are prophet, you would think, you know, when you have a good job, they comes with benefits, like some of you had a good job, and you get health insurance for your whole family, right? So if the prophet’s pretty good job it’s the employer of Allah swt, maybe should come with some benefits, ‘my family should be guaranteed’. Not even the prophets get a guarantee of their family. Not even the wife, not even the child. And even in the case of Muhammad ar-rasul Allah sal Allahu alaihi wa salam, in one of the most incredible ahadith you find, when he’s talking to his child, he’s talking to the mother of the believers, he’s talking to Fathimah RA, he’s talking to her..and he says; “Ya Fathimah, daughter of Muhammad, watch out for Allah, be careful about Allah. I will not be able to help you. I will have no authority even in your case in front of Allah swt.” He’s telling this to his own daughter, Sal Allahu wa Alaihi wa Salam. In other words, he’s teaching us something very important. Just because we are Muslim, and just because we’re doing our best,

Why Aren’t You Grateful? يا رب لك الحمد حتى ترضى، ولك الحمد اذا ما رضيت، و لك الحمد بعد الرضاء، ولك الحمد ابدا ابدا. فالحمد لله الذى هدنا لهذا وما كنا لنهتدي لو لا ان هدنا الله، والحمد لله الذى لم يتخذ ولدا ولم يكن له شريك فى الملك ولم يكن له ولى من الظل وكبره تكبيرا، والحمد لله الذى نحمده ونستعينه ونستغفره ونؤمن به ونتوكل عليه ونعوذ بالله من شرور انفسنا ومن سيئات اعمالنا، من يهده الله فلا مضل له، ومن يضلل فلا هادي له، ونشهد ان لا اله الا الله وحده لا شريك له، ونشهد ان محمدا عبدالله ورسوله، ارسل الله تعالى بالهدى ودين الحق ليظهره على الدين كله، وكفى بالله شهيدا، فصلى الله عليه وسلم تسليما كثيرا كثيرا كثيرا، ثم عم بعد فان اصدق الحديث كتاب الله وخير الهدي هدي محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم وان شر الامور محدثاتها وان كل محدثة بدعة، وكل بدعة ضلالة، وكل ضلالة فى النار. يقول سبحانه وتعالى فى الكتاب الكريم بعد ان اقول اعوذ بالله من الشيطن الرجيم: وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا مُوسَىٰ بِآيَاتِنَا أَنْ أَخْرِجْ قَوْمَكَ مِنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَى النُّورِ وَذَكِّرْهُم بِأَيَّامِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِّكُلِّ صَبَّارٍ شَكُورٍ اللهم اجعلنا من الصبارين و من الشاكرين. بارك الله لى ولكم فى القرآن الحكيم ونفعنى واياكم بالآيات وذكر الحكيم، والله ثبنتنا عند الموت بلا اله الا الله . آمين يا رب العلمين. (Ya rabbi laka al- ḥamdu ḥattá tardá wa laka al-ḥamdu idhā mā raḍīt wa laka al-ḥamdu ba’d al-riḍāi wa laka al-ḥamdu abadan abadā Fal-ḥamdulilāh alladhī hadānā lihādha wa mā kunnā linahtadiya lau lā an hadānā allāh Wal ḥamdulilāh alladhi lam yattakhidh waladan wa lam yakun lahu sharīkun fil mulk wa lam yakun lahu walī min al-ẓulli wa kabbirhu takbirā Wal-ḥamdulilāh, alladhī naḥmaduhu wa nasta’īnuhu wa nastaghfiruhu wa nu’minu bihi wa natawakkalu ‘alayh wa naʿūdhu billāhi min shurūri anfusinā wa min sayyiāti aʿmālinā, man yahdihillāhu fa lā muḍilla lah, wa man yuḍlil falā hādiya lah, wa nashhadu an lā ilāha illa allāhu, waḥdahu la sharika lah, wa nashhadu anna muḥammadan ‘abdullāhi wa rasūluh, arsalallāhu ta’āla bil- hudá wa dīn il-ḥaq, li yuẓhirahu ‘ala al-dīni kullih, wa kafá billāhi shahīda, fa ṣallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam taslīman kathīran kathīran kathīrā, thumma ‘amma ba’d, fa inna aṣdaq al ḥadithi kitab allāh, wa khayr al-hādyi hadyu Muḥammad ṣalla allāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam, wa inna sharr al-umūri muḥdathātuha, wa inna kulla muḥdathatin bid’ah, wa kulla bid’atin ḍalālah, wa kulla dalālatin fi al-nār. Yaqūlu subhānahu wa ta’āla fil kitāb al-karīm ba’d an aqūla a’ūdhu billāhi min al-shayṭān al-rajīm. Wa laqad arsalnā musá bi āyātinā an akhrij qaumaka min al-ẓulumāti ilá al-nūr, wa dhakkir hum bi ayyāmillāh, inna fī dhālika la āyāt likulli sabbārin shakūr, allāhumma aj’alnā min al-sabbārīn wa min al-shākirīn. Barakallāhu lī wa lakum fi- qur’ān il-ḥakīm, wa nafa’nī wa iyyākum bil-āyāti wa dhikr il-ḥakīm, wallāhu thabbitnā ‘ind al-mauti bi lā ilāha illa allāhu. Āmeen ya rab al-‘ālamīn. In sha Allāh in today’s khutba I’d like to share with you a few reflections from the 14th surah of the Qur’ān. This is Surah Ibrāhim. And in this surah among many other surahs of the Qur’ān we learn something very interesting: the nation that the Qur’ān offers up the most by way of examples for Muslims to learn lessons from is the nation of Musá AS. Seventy plus times passages are dedicated to Musá AS and the legacy of his people. And this is not just the case when the prophet SAW migrated to the city of Madinah and had interactions with the Jewish community; this is a Makkan surah. So even earlier on he was being served as an example for the Muslims. And his interactions with his people were being served as an example for the Muslims and even for the Prophet SAW. This surah begins kitābun anzalnahu ilayka litukhrij al-nās min al-ẓulumāt ilá al-nūr. This is a remarkable book, it’s a remarkable book that we have sent down to you so you, meaning the Prophet SAW, can bring people out of the darknesses into light. They’re stuck in many shades of darkness,

We Have Been Chosen

Link to MP3 Lecture: http://www.nakcollection.com/uploads/7/7/7/4/7774039/the_man_of_two_ gardens-nouman_ali_khan.mp3 Transcribed By Muhammad Talha (A Uni Student From Pakistan) Note From Transcriber: I've tried my best for a word-to-word transcription but still I've put a few phrases from the lecture, that were oblivious to me, in round brackets. For smooth reading of text, I've also put punctuation marks in the whole transcribed lecture below. In fact, I've put my own, very few comments, in round brackets for the same reason. Also note that instead of quoting the actual Arabic of Quran in this text, I've put english transliterations taken from Quran.com. I recommend you to actually read the Arabic from Qur'an wherever a transliteration is mentioned. (From 2:26 Onwards) I was very conflicted about what to share in this Khutbah with you today but I decided that I would focus my attention on one particular passage from Surat Al-Kahf and I'd like to start by expressing my appreciation and my uh... just pleasant surprise uh leading this community for the first time. I've been travelling across the country for some time now Alhamdullilah but this is the first time I've been to Wisconsin and obviously this city also. May Allah Azzawajal Bless this community and the efforts that are being made in this community. So what I wanted to share with you is some reminder for myself and for all of you from Surat Al-Kahf, the surah we are supposed to recite every Friday. And before I start talking about a little bit of these ayat, I want to share with you an observation that I've been sort of on the side (of) making about our community and communities across the world in general uh sociological fact that there are a lot of lot of families in the world it doesn't even matter if they are Muslim or not but they push their children to be successful. This idea of wanting your children to be successful is very common. Doesn't matter if you are a hindu family or a buddhist family or -you know- your'e a Western european family or an American family or -you know- Arab family it doesn't matter, we want our children to be successful. And we define that success in very specific or very similar ways... for instance in Chinese culture, they are considered successful at the point where your children (have) obtained a high degree in education they've obtained a career they own a property they own some part of real estate -you know- and they've made it and they've paid those things off and now they are considered successful and they work and they work and they work towards those things. And actually in some aspects of that culture, families compete with each other and the parents, they get together and they share notes on their kids; "well my kid already finished law school" and "my kid is in the middle of med school but he'll finish soon" and "he has already bought this" and "he has already bought that" so actually they compare with each other and when they find out one of the sons in the community has gone further, they all humiliate their own children saying "Why can't you be more like him?" but you know one thing ! I realise; that's not just Chinese culture, that's Muslim culture too now. Across the border and across ethnicities and cultures, we push our children to be successful, we look at other families and their kids and what they've obtained and what schools they went to and what degrees they got and where they bought a house and how leveraged their wedding was and we want ours to be the same or we are in this competition all the time and actually the more you

Quran: Your Companion On The Day of Judgement

Level of Faith by Nouman Ali Khan! In today's ceremony, I would like to share with you some teaching from 64th surah of The Quran” Surah Tagabun”. Before I share you that ayat, I would like to reflect on it and want to share things about and want to put little bit background in place. This is a medina surah and most of you are familiar that there are two types of surah in the Quran, mecca and medina surahs, early surahs and later revelations. Later revelation for the most part are the ones that came to the prophet (s.a.w.) after he migrated to the city of medina and most Muslims that are familiar with the Quran know that in the medina Quran or the later Quran is where Allah has reveled most of his instructions for the community, things that are permissible, things that are not permissible. when we think of the medina Quran, we think of the rules and regulation of the Islam and when we think of the mecci Quran or the early revelation, we think of our fundamentals of our faith and which is two third of the Quran and deals with matter of faith and beliefs. But this surah is unique, even though it is medina surah in nature, later surah but it still deals with the matter of faith and it begs the question why?? there is a very particular purpose for the revelation of this surah and this is important to understand when we study the Quran or try to benefit from the Quran, what context or what background is Allah azzawajal giving this speech because every surah is the speech of Allah and speech are given at particular address and specially when it comes from a particular authority right like in politics we have the president, a senator, a governor. He is gonna give a press release at particular occasion and speeches are concern with the issues that are happening at that particular occasion. So it is very relevant for us to know when was the speech was given, who was the speech given to, what occasion was the speech given at and what made him to say what he said. Same things happen in the Quran, Allah himself is speaking so it’s really important to know when Allah said this. At least have some idea to whom it is originally did Allah actually talking to. So I want to lay little bit in couple of minute before we go in to the ayat then I want to share with you why it is there in this khutba I chose to talk to you about this surah. You know in medina when the prophet migrated, becoming a Muslim became a lot easier. Begin a Muslim in mecca was a difficult thing because you were on the outskirts, you were the obscure new religion. Anybody who believe in this man of being a prophet is basically outcast immediately looked upon as weird, everybody around were cutting out off their own circle. The biggest thing would be you think about your nationality or citizenship nowadays that was tribal association back in the day. So they were basically ready to disavow their citizenship, cut you off the tribe if you became a Muslim and early on it was just words media propaganda if you will but later on they even became physical, it became extremely difficult for anyone to enter into Islam. But once the prophet(s.a.w.) migrated to medina and he came to a welcoming city where people were already waiting for him to arrive and before he even got there celebration happening that the prophet is coming, the atmosphere is totally different. He didn’t have to come and find it difficult to get an audience that wants to listen to him, this is what it happened in mecca. Every time he speaks people just walk away or start making noise wal al ghaufihi just make noise when he talks, just don’t listen to him(arabic), don’t listen to this Quran just make noise every time he speaks. Ignore hi, avoid him, insult him but that’s not the case in medina. In median he gets a warm welcome, he is honored from the very first day, people are even singing and praising before he arrives in to the city, that’s amazing but you know what also happened at that tim...