Transcription
I am Adam, mother. I am your land's harvest. A harvest in your heart. Never forget it, mother. Stay strong. I won't last for you, but your land will. I know it was hard for you to leave Gaza. It was hard for me too. But... You are brave and strong, and I know you are a man who can handle responsibility. You can do it, mother. Adam. You were born free, mother. I want you to stay free.
The one who inherits all things also inherits your minutes. Ramadan is almost over. It felt like it just began, and suddenly the days are gone. The nights thinned out, and the moon is about to slip beyond your sight again. And it's not just Ramadan that's slipping. You're slipping. Every hour pulls you closer to your end. By time, mankind is in loss. By the passage of time, surely the human is in loss. Except those who believe and do good, and advise truth and patience. Except for those who hold on, who believe and do good, and keep reminding each other of truth and patience. That fear of time escaping is real. But the comfort is: you were never lost in time. You were being held through it.
The Prophet used to say in his supplication: O Allah, You are the First, nothing is before You; the Last, nothing is after You; the Manifest, nothing is above You; the Hidden, nothing is beyond You. O Allah, You are the First, and there's nothing before You. And You are the Last, and there's nothing after You. And You are the Manifest, the most apparent, and there's nothing above You. And You are the Hidden, the most near, and there's nothing nearer than You. Four names in a single breath, and they frame your entire existence from beginning to end, from outward to inward. And they serve as a map of everything you're trying to hold onto before it slips away. The first and last moments, and what you can and can't see.
Let's start with the First. There were some people from Yemen that came to accept Islam with the Prophet and they said, "We have come to you to learn the religion." We ask you about the beginning. And we want to know, what was the beginning of this universe? So the Prophet... said, "Allah was and nothing was before Him." There was Allah and nothing else before Him. Pause for a moment and think about nothing else existing but Allah. It's incredible. When I ponder upon the First, I feel everything else disappears while I'm praying. He was there before your beginning, before the first star lit up, before the first breath was drawn, before time itself had a clock to tick. He was, He is, without beginning. And you didn't stumble into existence by accident. You were thought of, designed, and intended before a single human being was even created.
So Allah pairs one name with the ones that the Prophet mentioned. He is the First and the Last the Manifest and the Hidden, and He is Knowing. He is the First and the Last and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He is Knowing, the knower of all things. Not only did He know what to do with time, but He knew how to schedule it for everyone else. And remember the day that your soul was introduced to Him before your mother even knew she was pregnant with you? And He said to you, "Am I not your Lord?" "Yes." Your yes to Him precedes you being able to even say your first word here. You're calling upon the One who wrote your name before you even had a tongue to say it. He measured your first Ramadan before you even saw a moon. And I could go on and on, but the point is we belong to Allah. Everything belongs to Allah. So when you feel like you're running out of time, remember the One who started everything started you too. You didn't appear out of nowhere. You came from Him. And that means you were never an accident, never a mistake, never without purpose. Every moment that you've lived has been under His eternal gaze. And every breath that leaves you is only returning to the One that it came from in the first place. And to Him we all return. To Him we all return.
And He is the Last. There's a moment where every single creature will once again be non-existent. Everyone is dead. Even those angels that descend on Laylat al-Qadr, gone. Even Jibreel, powerful in strength, dead. Everyone upon it will perish, And there remains the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty. Everything else perishes. And only your Lord Himself, in His majesty and honor, remains. He will remain when you're gone. And He will still hold you In the end. When the skies are rolled up like scrolls, when the mountains crumble into dust, when empires fall and names are forgotten, He remains. Al-Akhir doesn't mean the end in the way we fear endings. It means permanence. It means that when everything else fades, He is just as there as He always was. And because of that, He allows the ones who love Him to remain in His nearness. That person who stood in a corner at night and remembered Allah and shed tears for Him, as soon as He reconstructs and resurrects it all, He brings you right under the shade of His throne. Don't fear, for you are near. I never left you. I never forgot you. Your appointment isn't with time. It's with the One who remains when all time is dismissed. And suddenly, "To Allah we belong and to Him we return." We belong to Allah and to Him we return, becomes a statement not just of affirmation, but of longing. He was there at your first breath, and He will be there when you take your last. And He will still be there when your body is lowered into His earth and everyone else walks away. He remains. And just as Al-Warith keeps what remains after you, Al-Akhir meets you when it's all over.
But the whole point of learning these names wasn't just to get an the idea of a God you experience after death. Because even before death, He is Al-Zahir, the Manifest. You don't see Him yet, but you see His signs everywhere, evident in every sunrise, in the physical sense, or even in the metaphorical sense, when you thought your dark night would never end. The sky that doesn't hold itself up and your lungs that don't fill themselves. The moment of protection that made something just miss you, or that moment of relief after a despair that you thought would never go away. None of that was luck. That was Al-Zahir, manifesting Himself right in front of you. We will show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth. Open your eyes and you'll see His signs on the horizon and within you. None of these are random occurrences or coincidences. They are all declarations that He is manifest. And in these last ten nights of Ramadan, when you make dua and the answer arrives timed perfectly to your need, that is Al-Zahir. And even before that dua is answered, the way that you felt this month, like this is so real and I experienced His closeness Finally, every moment of success in that feeling, every softening of the heart, every tear that finally fell in night prayer, it's Him, near.
And just as He is most visible in what surrounds you, He is most hidden in what sustains you, which brings us to Al-Batin, the Hidden. Not hidden as in inaccessible to you. No, He's hidden in nearness, in intimacy. He's hidden in a closeness that transcends even space. You hide things from people. You even hide things from yourself. But you can't hide anything from Him because He's already there, inside the most secret chambers of your soul with His knowledge and His care. He knows the thought before you thought it, the fear before you name it, the hope that you're too ashamed to say out loud, that prayer that you said quietly when no one was listening. He heard it. That tear that you wiped away before anyone could see it, He saw it. In fact, the lump in your throat, He got that too. The regret that you never voiced to another soul out of shame, He knows it and He forgives it. And by the way, He doesn't just know your worst. He knows your best before you can even see it in yourself. He sees the potential you've given up on, and He sees the good you're capable of, and He guides you to that good. So don't feel distant from Him because of His greatness or anxiety because of how acquainted He is. The First was at your start. The Last will be there at your end. The Manifest is evident around you, and The Hidden is intimately felt inside of you. You're never alone, not in your highest moment, nor your lowest. Not when you're surrounded by people, and not when you're by yourself, even in the dark.
And as we count down to the end of Ramadan, see it as a mirror for your life's end. You will look back and feel like it was the blink of an eye. When they see it, they stayed but an eve or morning. It is as though on that day when they see it, that they had not remained in this world except for an afternoon or a morning. Twenty-eight nights felt like twenty-eight minutes. And one day, twenty-eight years will feel the same. Where did it go? How did it pass so quickly? And the only thing that slows it down is His blessing in your time. And there's no blessing except doing for Him, through Him, and with His pleasure as your ultimate aim. And this is why the Quran keeps reminding you of time. By time! And just as you wish you could go back and make the most of every night of this blessed month, you will stand on the Day of Judgment wishing you could go back and make the most of every moment you were given. But if you feel the weight of wasted hours, you may also feel the panic of days slipping away. So what do you do with the time that you still have left? Well, start by not squandering the two blessings that slip through most hands: health and free time. Many people lose out on two blessings: health and free time. Two blessings that are worth so much that people fail to take advantage of: health and free time. And seize five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your illness, your wealth before your poverty, your free time before your busyness, and your life before your death. Because your last appointment is already set, but you don't control the calendar, only your choices.
And then plant whatever you can, even if you think you've reached the end. The Prophet said, "If the hour is established and one of you still has a small plant in his hand, and he's still able to plant it, then do so." Think about that. The sky is splitting, the earth is shaking, the horn is about to be blown, and you're holding a small plant. What's the point? It's not like you're going to see it grow. It's not like you're going to taste its fruit. It's not like you're going to benefit from it at all in this life. But He tells you to plant it anyway. Because the First brought you here to do the seemingly insignificant. And the Last will see it through after you're gone. The Gatherer will collect it. The Inheritor will inherit it. The Grateful will multiply it. You don't know what will come of it in this world, and you don't know how He will reward it in the next. Imagine your hand presses the seed into the soil, and then your hand fades. You're gone, but the plant is still there. It takes root, it grows. And then a single creature passes by and eats from it, finding nourishment in the shade of your intention. And then the sky falls apart, and it's officially all over. But that deed, it's still with Him. Recorded, preserved, rewarded. So don't be paralyzed by thoughts of the end, of Ramadan, or of death. Instead, live with the truth of these four names. Begin with the First in intention. Aim for the Last in outcome. Look for the Manifest in the signs around you, and rely on the Hidden with the secrets within you. Because He is the First, and nothing was before Him. He is the last, and nothing will be after Him. He is the manifest in every sign, and He is the hidden in every heartbeat. And between "We belong to God and to Him we return," live like you know the One who holds both ends of the spectrum of time. Plant your seeds, guard your prayers, give your charity, seek your forgiveness, and trust that the One who began it all will bring it to completion. By His permanence, keeping, not by yours.
O First, You were there before beginnings were written. Before my first breath, you already knew my name. Remind me that nothing starts without you, and that every good I begin is only by your permission. Let my first step in anything always be toward you.
O Last, You remain when all else fades. When every name is forgotten, yours endures. Let my last breath be in your remembrance, and my last sight be upon your mercy.
O Manifest, You are evident in every beauty, in the rise of the sun and the appearance of the moon. Let me see your majesty in all that surrounds me, until everything I witness becomes a door back to you.
O Hidden, You are nearer than my thoughts, closer than my pulse. You know the things I can't say, and forgive the things I can't hide. Protect me in secret as you do in public, and let my nearness to you outlast my time on this earth. And to Allah belong the names most beautiful, so call Him by them.