Jamaat Ahmadiyya al Mouslemeen

Friday Sermon of Hazrat Amirul Momeneen Zafrullah Domun

Friday Sermon 27th October 2006

After greeting the members with salaams Hazrat Amirul Momeneen Zafrullah Domun read Tashahhud followed by sura Al Fatiha from the Holy Quran and then he said:

Today is the first Friday of the month of Shawwal 1427 i.e the first Friday after this year’s Ramadan. All praise belong to Allah who has given to each one of us on whom fasting is obligatory (farz) the opportunity to fast during this month and to enjoy its blessings. However much we thank Allah for this, our thanks will always be inadequate compared to the favors that Allah gave us during this month.

Allah, the Most Bountiful gave this blessed month as a gift to all His believing servants in order to help us to achieve the purpose of our life. What is the purpose of our life? Allah says in the Holy Quran:

“And I have not created the jinn and the men but that they may worship me”.Ch51V57

The word worship (ibadah) in Arabic has a very wide range of meanings. It means among other things that man has to subject himself to a rigorous self discipline in conformity with all the commandments of Allah that are found in the Holy Quran and according to the Sunnah of our beloved Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw). We do this in order to receive God’s impress and to assimilate and manifest in our own selves Allah’s noble attributes.

Hence Allah, in His Eternal Wisdom, has given us the month of Ramadan so that we may progress in His Worship and He has told us that this fasting will help us to become pious i.e to say to guard ourselves against evil. He says in the Holy Quran:

“O ye who believe! Fasting has been prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may guard against evil”Ch2 V 184

Therefore in this month we strived to keep ourselves away from committing any kind of evil as far as we could and to do as much good as we could. We stopped doing what we usually are allowed to do, namely eating, drinking and sleeping with our wives and we devoted ourselves to doing good deeds that may please our Lord. Furthermore, following the Sunnah of our beloved prophet we refrained from lying or harming anyone either with our hands or with our tongue. We woke up early to say our night prayers and we read the Holy Quran after the dawn prayer and we tried to complete one full recitation during this month. While fasting we were also able to feel the pangs of hunger and this gave us an idea of how those who are poor feel when they have no food. We behaved well with our fellow brothers and sisters and we forgave and forgot any harm that they may have done to us. Allah also gave us the blessed night of Decree (lailatoul Qadr) in this month. All these blessings had only one aim- to do draw us nearer to Allah and to protect our selves from sin. And this is why Allah aptly said “And fasting is good for you, if you but knew”.

Furthermore we should remember that our beloved Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw) is reported to have said that there are two persons who are very unfortunate: the first one is he who found his parents in old age but he could not get all his sins forgiven by helping them. And the other one is somebody who witnessed the month of Ramadan and he did not get his sins forgiven. Let us hope and pray that Allah has accepted our sacrifices during the month of Ramadan and that He will reward us by forgiving all the sins of each one amongst us.

I once read that the Sufis, i.e those people who are eager to experience Allah in their life called Ramadan the spring of believers. When the month came to an end they used to pray to Allah during the first half of the coming year beseeching Allah to accept their fasts and the sacrifices that they did during Ramadan. In the other half of the year they used to beseech Allah to grant them the opportunity to fast during the coming Ramadan. Therefore all member of Jamaat Ahmadiyya al Mouslemine, should continue to pray after Ramadan that Allah accept all the sacrifices they offered during Ramadan. Moreover they should ask Allah to help them to practice the virtues of Ramadan during the other months of the year. Then incha Allah we will achieve the purpose for which Allah sent us here as I mentioned in the beginning of the sermon.

Of course you should not misunderstand me. I am not saying that as from now on you should fast every day of the year. But following the practice of our beloved Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw), we should strive to fast for six days during this month of Shawwal. The Holy Prophet said that since good deeds are rewarded ten times more, therefore for the 29 or 30 days of Ramadan our reward will be as if we fasted 30 times 10, i.e. 300 days of the year and the 6 days of Shawwal will be equivalent to 60 days fast and this in all will be 360 fasts, almost the equivalent of fasting during the whole year. These additional fasts are usually kept immediately after Eid, but they may also be kept during the other days of the month of Shawwal. We pray that Allah may give us the opportunity to keep these additional fasts. You should make a firm intention and if you are sincere Allah will grant you the opportunity to keep them. But if for any reason you are unable, do not worry because Allah is Most Forgiving and Appreciative and He ‘does not burden any soul beyond its capacity’.

Of course these are voluntary additional acts of devotion (nawafil). But we should bear in mind that it is with these additional acts of devotion that we win the Pleasure of Allah. In a famous Hadith narrated by Hazrat Abu Huraira ra, it is said that once the Holy prophet Mohammad (saw) said:

Allah the Almighty has said: “whosoever acts with enmity towards a close servant of Mine (Wali), I will indeed declare war against him. Nothing endears My servant to Me than doing of what I have made obligatory upon him to do. And My servant continues to draw nearer to Me with supererogatory (nawafil) prayers so much so that I shall love him. When I love him , I shall be his hearing with which he shall hear, his sight with which he shall see, his hands with which he shall hold , and his feet with which he shall walk. And if he asks (something) of Me, I shall surely give it to him and if he takes refuge in Me, I shall certainly grant him it”. Bokhari.

We should remember that there is a big difference between what is obligatory and what we do as supererogatory. What is obligatory we cannot do without. It is the minimum that we need to make the grade. But what is supererogatory is what we do out of Love for Allah because we know Him and we Love Him and we want to show Him only our wholehearted devotion to Him. Through Love we gain access to Allah’s intimacy. Hence we should beseech Allah to put this love in to our heart. Therefore we recommend that all members of Jamaat Ahmadiyya Al Mouslemine learn the following prayer and that they read it every day. This is the excellent prayer of Hazrat Dawood (as) that our beloved prophet Hazrat Mohammad Mustapha (saw) recommended to his umma:

Allahoumma inni as’aloka houbbaka wa houbba man yohibboka wal amalal lazi yo ballighoni houbbaka waj’al houbbaka ahabba elaiyya minan nafsi wamaali wa ahli wa minal maa’il baaridi

Translation:
“O our Lord grant me Thy Love, Grant me the love of those who love Thee, grant me that I may do such deeds that will bring me Thy Love and make Thy Love dearer to me than my own self , my wealth, my family and even dearer than cold water.”

The Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw) said that this is an excellent prayer and he also said that Hazrat Dawood’s fast also was excellent. He did not keep fast the whole year. He fasted on alternate days during the whole year.
We pray and hope that Allah illumines the heart of each member of Jamaat Ahmadiyya Al Mouslemine with His Love incha Allah so that each one may experience that there is a love which is far beyond what we experience in our daily life.

Besides this prayer we also recommend that you read the following prayers that Allah , out of His sheer Mercy has taught us and He is Our Witness that we did not know these prayers. The first one is “O Allah perfume us with Tauhid and embalm us with renunciation from all creatures and from all besides Thee.” The second prayer is as follows: “O Allah purge from our heart everything but Thee”. These prayers will incha Allah purify our hearts for Allah’s Love. Once we develop love for Allah we will increase our additional voluntary acts of devotion which will help us to experience Allah’s Love and His Help in all walks of our life incha Allah.

Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), the Founder of Jamaat Ahmadiyya , while commenting on the verse “ faman tatawwa’a khairan fahowa khairoul lahou” which means “ and whoso does good of his own accord it is better for him” said that additional voluntary acts of worship is not limited to prayers alone , but they include fasts, zakaat, declaration of Tauhid and even Hajj. These additional voluntary acts are performed with love and they are very much appreciated by Allah, because they are done only with a view to win His Pleasure and not as a show. Here we may also appreciate how important the tarawih prayers are and why they should not be neglected.

Therefore the message to you all today is that you should keep up the good deeds that you have been doing during Ramadan. But in trying to do this, you will have to fight your formidable enemy i.e. Satan. Satan will try through very subtle and covert means to prevent you from continuing with these good deeds. First of all it would like that you should not pray on time and if you do not pray at all that would be even better for it. Therefore you will be lazy to wake up for tahajjud prayer and if you skip fajr, that will amuse it enormously. Satan was not at all happy during Ramadan because people were not listening to it and they were listening to Allah. Therefore after Ramadan it does its best to lure you away from Allah, so beware of it and its allies. Please meditate on the following verses from the Holy Quran:

“O ye men, assuredly the promise of Allah is true, so let not the present life deceive you nor let the Deceiver deceive you with respect to Allah.
Surely, Satan is an enemy to you; so treat him as an enemy. He calls his followers only that they may become inmates of the burning fire.” Ch 35 V 6-7

On the day of resurrection Allah will say: “Did not I enjoin upon you, O ye sons of Adam, that you worship not Satan – for he is to you an open enemy. And that you worship Me? This is the right path” Ch 36 V 61-62

From these verses it is very clear that Satan is our enemy and we should deal with it as such. We should pray to Allah that He grants us victory over this enemy. Again Allah, out of His sheer Mercy has taught us a prayer which will help us to overcome this powerful enemy. Allah says:

“And if an incitement from Satan incites thee, then seek refuge in Allah. Surely, He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.” Ch 41 V 37

And say, ‘My Lord, I seek refuge in thee from the incitements of the evils ones;
‘And I seek refuge in Thee, my Lord, lest they should come near me.’

Incha Allah if we repeat these prayers in our daily life we will be able to achieve our purpose and Satan will be frustrated because it does not have any power over the true servants of Almighty Allah.

So O members of Jamaaat Ahmadiyya Al Mouslemine! be determined to fight Satan with all the powers that are at your disposal. But remember that you are in need of the constant Help of Allah in order to be successful in this struggle which at times may go on throughout your life. Therefore, do not be discouraged and take a new resolution after this month of Ramadan to fight your arch enemy and to rest only when you have completely defeated it and made it a Muslim as our Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw) did with his Satan. May Allah be your Guide and Helper in this noble task. May He give you the perseverance to press ahead until you succeed by His Help. Be constantly engaged in asking forgiveness from your Lord because this will help you in your struggle with Satan. Remember that our Holy prophet used to ask forgiveness from Allah at least seventy times per day, and now you may wonder how much more should sinners like us ask for forgiveness every day! Please do not forget that the prayer “I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the rejected’ can also help us a lot in overcoming any satanic temptation.

Therefore O brothers and sisters, be steadfast with the teachings of Islam and do your best not to neglect even one of the commandments of Allah. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), the Founder of Jamaat Ahmadiyya has said that if we neglect even one of the seven hundred commandments of Allah that are found in the Holy Quran we would close the door of salvation on ourselves by our own hands. May Allah help us so that this does not happen to any member of Jamaat Ahmadiyya Al Mouslemine. If we fear Allah as He should be feared, He would give us a distinction and a light in which we would walk and we would become by His Grace the inheritors of the prophets.

One or two days before the end of Eid it was revealed to me:
“Verily Allah enjoins justice and the doing of good to others; and giving like kindred; and forbids indecency and manifest evil and transgression. He admonishes you that you may take heed”. I remember that in the beginning of the Divine Manifestation also I received that revelation and I was told this is our mission. Therefore take heed and let us make this the main aim of our life. May Allah help us to carry through with this noble mission.

Moreover once before and twice during the month of Ramadan I received the revelation “Anni Fazzaltokoum Alal alameen” I understood that Allah was saying this for Jamaat Ahmadiyya Al Mouslemine and its meaning is “I have exalted you above all the peoples of the time.” Therefore as a member of Jamaat Ahmadiyya Al Mouslemine, it is incumbent upon all of us to strive our best to be an Ambassador of Islamic teachings and Islamic behavior wherever we are. You have been privileged that Allah has put you in this Jamaat and now it is your duty to uphold the ideals of this Jamaaat. May Allah bless you to be such a person.

We hope and pray that Allah helps each one of us to please Him wherever we are incha Allah.