In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
It is Paradise.
The departure.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
And may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon our Prophet Muhammad.
And upon all his family and companions.
To proceed:
In the blessed month of Ramadan,
The gates of Paradise are opened,
The gates of Hell are closed,
And the devils are chained.
In this noble month,
Allah bestows His favor upon His servants,
Freeing many from the Fire,
And inscribing their names among the people of Paradise.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said:
"May he be humiliated, the one who reaches Ramadan,
And is not forgiven."
Truly, the loser is the one who fails to gain in Ramadan.
Congratulations to those whom Allah has granted a long life,
Until they reached this virtuous month,
So that they might increase in righteous deeds,
Hoping to catch a breeze from the breezes of our Merciful Lord,
To attain a happiness after which they shall never suffer.
Brothers in faith,
In these episodes, we will take you
On a journey of faith into the expanse of Paradise,
To the abode that Allah created for His believing servants.
We shall learn about it and what Allah has prepared for its people therein.
We will wander through its meadows,
And rest in its shade.
For speaking about Paradise
Is part of belief in the Last Day,
And belief in it is an obligation.
How many verses in the Book of Allah
Have spoken of Paradise,
And encouraged us toward it.
The Truth, Glorified and Exalted be He, has spoken.
And how many a hadith in which the Prophet (peace be upon him) urged
Us to work for its sake.
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said
One day to his companions:
"Is there anyone striving for Paradise?
For Paradise has no equal.
By the Lord of the Kaaba, it is a shimmering light,
A swaying aromatic plant,
A lofty palace,
A flowing river,
Abundant, ripe fruit,
A beautiful, fair spouse,
And many garments in an eternal abode,
In joy and splendor,
In a high, sound, and magnificent dwelling."
They said, "We are the ones striving for it, O Messenger of Allah."
He said, "Say: 'If Allah wills.'"
Come with me, brothers in faith,
Let us begin this journey from its inception.
Allah created our father Adam (peace be upon him) with His own hand,
Commanded His angels to prostrate to him,
Settled him in the abode of His mercy,
And comforted him with our mother Eve, his wife.
He permitted them everything in Paradise,
To eat and drink from it,
Until Satan whispered to them,
And they ate from the tree they had been forbidden to approach.
Then their Lord called out to them:
"Did I not forbid you from that tree?
And tell you that Satan is a clear enemy to you?"
Our parents realized their mistake,
Confessed their sin,
And said:
"Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves."
“They said: Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If thou forgive us not and have not mercy on us, surely we are of the lost!” (7:23)
Then their Lord chose them,
Accepted their repentance, and guided them.
And He said:
"Descend from it, all of you, as enemies to one another.
And for you on the earth is a place of settlement and provision for a time."
So our parents departed from the abode of bliss to the worldly life,
They went from the abode of ease to the abode of toil and lamentation,
From the abode of rest to the abode of hardship,
And from the abode of happiness to the abode of trial.
This was for one sin;
So what of the state of one who persists in sins for a lifetime?
Yet Allah promised our father Adam and his descendants
That if they obeyed Him in this world,
Adhered to His command, and avoided His prohibitions,
He would return them to their first home,
To Paradise,
Where there is lasting bliss and eternal rest.
He promised them Paradise,
Where there is complete bliss,
Which no deficiency mars and no impurity disturbs.
Paradise,
Where there is security and safety,
And the proximity of the Most Merciful.
That is Paradise,
Which Allah has prepared for His righteous allies,
Who shall enter it on the Day of Judgment.
“And will not be absent thence.” (82:16)
The strength of faith.
This is the story of our existence in this abode.
It is not our true home or final destination.
We are here at a passing station,
And shortly we shall move from it to our true home.
Soon we shall depart,
And settle our burdens in Paradise, by the permission of our Lord.
This home of ours
Does not deserve for us to lean upon it,
Or feel secure within it,
Or fight for its sake,
Or sever our ties of kinship for its fleeting debris.
We come into this world as equals;
The child of kings is like the child of the servant here.
And we leave this world as you see,
Alike, upon bare graves.
Our deeds raise or lower our status,
And our reckoning will be in truth on the Day of the Overwhelming Event.
Houris, rivers, and high palaces,
Or Hellfire and scorching flames.
So choose for yourself what you love and desire,
As long as your days and nights remain.
Tomorrow is your destiny, with no turning back,
Either the Gardens of Eternity or the Abyss.
Brothers in faith,
Allow me to speak to you in the first person.
We shall all adopt the persona of the people of Paradise,
And we shall be together on this journey,
Wandering through the expanse of Paradise,
As if we have already entered it and become its people.
This is our expectation of our Lord,
And He, Glory be to Him, is as His servant expects of Him.
It is also a matter of optimism that we shall be among its people,
And Allah, Glory be to Him, loves good optimism.
We ask Allah, the Generous, for His great bounty.
So, O people of Paradise,
Allah has decreed for us to remain in this world for a term,
Then we die, enter the grave, and dwell in the niche.
We remain as long as Allah wills us to remain,
Then we are resurrected for the Day of Resurrection,
The day of recompense and reckoning.
We shall emerge from our graves disheveled and dusty,
Barefoot, naked, and uncircumcised.
Then we shall stand on a day the length of which is fifty thousand years.
We shall experience great terrors and severe hardships,
We ask Allah to make it easy for us by His grace,
And facilitate it for us by His mercy.
O Allah, answer our prayer.
On that day, the scales will be set up.
“And We set a just balance for the Day of Resurrection so that no soul is wronged in aught. Though it be of the weight of a grain of mustard seed, We bring it. And We suffice for reckoners.” (21:47)
Whoever does an atom's weight of good or evil
Will see it present before him.
Woe to the wrongdoers on that great day.
And what joy for the righteous workers!
The records will be spread open,
The happy one will take his book in his right hand,
And the wretched one will take his book from behind his back in his left.
He will cry out, "I wish I had not been given my book,
And had not known what my account was."
On that day,
The Bridge (Sirat) will be set over the back of Hell.
That Bridge, my brother,
Is sharper than a sword,
And thinner than a hair.
And upon it are hooks,
And there is no light on that day.
Then we will be commanded to cross the Bridge,
In an impossible mission.
It is a journey on the Bridge,
Enveloped by dangers,
And surrounded by the Fire.
But crossing it is inevitable,
And salvation upon it is according to one's righteous deeds.
So increase your good deeds,
To be saved from the terrors of that dreadful day.
O people of Paradise,
After we have crossed the Bridge,
We will be detained on a bridge before Paradise,
Called the Qantarah.
There, our hearts will be purified,
And resentment will be removed from our chests.
None of us will harbor anything in his soul
Against his brother among the people of Paradise.
We shall become loving brothers.
O people of Paradise,
Now,
After our souls have been refined,
And have become fit to enter Paradise,
Where there is security and safety,
And the proximity of the Generous, the Most Merciful,
Now,
People will be distinguished,
Becoming groups according to their deeds,
And the people of every deed will be distinguished by it,
Gathered together,
A group followed by a group,
Driven in throngs toward it,
Where the meeting of good awaits them,
And the birds sing upon it.
"Enter it in peace, eternal."
O Allah!
Here we are, among the throngs of people,
our hands joined together,
prepared to depart for Paradise,
for we yearn for it,
and it yearns for us as well.
But suddenly,
we behold something we had not anticipated:
magnificent she-camels,
the likes of which creation has never seen,
adorned with saddles of gold,
drawing near for us to mount,
that they may carry us to the Gardens.
Our Lord, Exalted is He, says:
"The Day We will gather the righteous
to the Most Merciful as a delegation."
And when a delegation arrives before the Generous One,
they do not arrive on foot;
rather, the finest mounts are prepared for them,
and they are escorted in the grandest of processions.
We shall then mount those she-camels,
and they will draw us toward Paradise.
And Paradise, in its longing,
will draw near to us.
Did Allah not say:
"And Paradise will be brought near
to the righteous, not far"?
So hasten to the Gardens of Eden,
for they are
our original homes,
and therein is our true dwelling.
Yet we have been taken captive by the enemy;
so do you think
we shall return to our homelands
and find peace?
It has been claimed that the stranger, when he wanders far
and his homelands become distant,
is truly distraught.
And what estrangement is there
greater than our own,
over which the enemies have laughed,
and over us they have gained control?
O Allah, grant us Paradise.
O Allah, we ask You for the highest
level of Paradise,
without reckoning and without prior punishment.
O Allah, answer our prayer.
And this journey has a continuation;
it is Paradise.