Transcript:

Alhamdulillah, these are blessed names of the beloved messenger sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam, gathered by Imam AlJazuli, in the opening segments of his amazing work Dala’il al khayrat, the pathways or the ways of being guided to all that is good. And Insha’Allah today we're giving a highlight on this beautiful work Dala’il al khayrat, which is one of the most recited collections of sending blessings upon The Prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam. And Insha’Allah Shaykh Ba-Dhib will be sharing a little bit about the Dala’il, bi’idnillahi ta'ala.

But Imam Al Jazuli gathered this work as a way of facilitating a very important religious aim, which is that there has come a lot in the Sunnah of our beloved messenger sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam, specifically to be of those who send a lot of blessings upon the prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam, Alright? The closest of you to me in the hereafter shall be those who most send blessings upon me. There's many hadith on sending much blessings upon the prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam and this frequency of sending blessings on the Prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam is clearly understood by the divine call in the Quran that : “Innallaha wa mala’ikatahu yusallūna ʿala nnabiy”, that truly Allah and his Angels are ever sending their blessings upon the Prophet, because “Yusallūn” is in the Muḍāriʿ form which indicates continuity, are ever sending blessings upon the Prophet. “Yā ayyuha lladina ʾāmanū”: All you who believe, “sallū ʿalayhi”: send blessings upon him, “wa sallimū taslīma” and much peace, and for you to strive to do what Allah and the angels do entails clearly a consistency in sending blessings on the Prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam.

Now, one of the roles of the ʿulamaʾ is to facilitate the guidance that Allah and His Messenger call us to in a practical manner in our lives. So how do I as a concerned Muslim implement this? They put together different means of fulfilling that. And one of the great blessed means gathered with very noble intentions, collected from some of the beautiful expressions of sending blessings upon the prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam made by those before Imam Al Jazuli, and with his own words as well, he gathered this work which is divided into eight parts customarily, such that if you recite one hizb of this, one portion of this each day, and on Fridays you strive to recite two, then you are by any reasonable standard of those, who are sending a lot of blessings upon the prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam. I just wanted to mention one more point, one that highlights some of the meanings of the Dala’il in which is, that Imam al-Jazuli brings out all kinds of wondrous expressions of the meaning of plenitude in sending blessings on the Prophet sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam.

And one of the beautiful things the ʿulamaʾ mentioned regarding that, is that all the meanings of sending blessings and peace salāh and salām upon the Messenger of Allah sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam, all of the mark contain in the basic expression when we say Allahumma salli ʿalā sayidinā muhammadin wa ʾālihi wa sallim: O Allah send your blessings upon our master Muhammad and his folk and his family and grant peace. We’re asking for Allah’s blessing and Allah’s Peace. This is at eternal, without limits, so why would you need to describe it? It’s because when you're asking, although we're asking Allah, you say Allahumma salli wa sallim wa bārik ʿalayhi wa ʿalā ʾālihi, this contains all those meanings, but how can we make our heart, our mind, our conscience and our soul connect with what does it mean to be asking Allah to send blessings upon the Messenger sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam? What does it mean to be asking Allah for his eternal peace for our messenger sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam? What are we asking by this? And this is one of the many beautiful elements of the Dala'il, that there are all kinds of ways for us to try to begin approximating, understanding what the implications of asking for Allah’s eternal blessings for the messenger sallallahu ʿalayhi wa sallam.

So this is a truly blessed work, it used to be a work that half, that any house of any concerned Muslim, one of the works that they would have and families would be connected to in amazing ways. I met my wife's maternal grandmother, she's a pious woman, she was basically between her bed and her sofa, she had this armchair and she'd been doing Khatm of the Dala'il for the last fifty years, weekly. And often more .She'd just be sitting there, and she’d, she had her daily portion of Quran and she would just repeat the Dala’il, she’d keep the book with her but you could see she wasn't always looking at the paper at the book in front of her. And of course, then people came and they said don't recite this because there must be Kufr and shirk in it. They didn’t even know that there is anything on this, they said there must be. And she got scared. She is a simple woman, she said if I've been saying things and I've kufered and shirked for 50 years, like how can I be saved? I said don't worry, this is, this is something very blessed. Really? I said yes. Do you know about it? I made the mistake and said well, my own teacher has done a critical edition of it. She said did you recite it? I had to speak the truth and said not really. She said: Beta, it’s full of benefit you should recite it. I said I'll try. I didn't say yes because I didn't want to break a commitment. She said you should do so.

But this is a truly a blessed work Insha’Allah we’ll be reciting the, yeah, so we’re reciting one of the chapters of this collectively, and you can you, can join in which chapter? From page 82, Alright? and you know, being earning on the side of slacking rather than high resolve, what I did when Shaykh Nuh Keller published it, I actually got gifted a copy, so I decided, they said if whoever points to the good has the reward of those who act upon it. So I gave it to my wife, then I went to ask for another copy and I got gifted a second copy. I gifted it to a friend of mine who I knew would recite it. I said now I have two people reciting it on my behalf .Then I asked for another copy, he said you have to buy it. And like that five copies, but then he sold me one copy, but then he said don't give this one away. I gave that one away too. I said but I have a question, saying if I keep this copy, what if I can't recite one section a day? Then he said that's why we put the bookmark in there, that’s why we put the bookmark. He said keep the Dala’il with you and recite even if it be you have a break, you have what you know, recite a few lines put the bookmark in, and you'll find it's not easy, it's not difficult to keep going through it, alright? So this is a beautiful work. It’s available, it's available and may Allah subḥanahu wa taʿālā grant us to benefit from it.

Source: SeekersGuidance, Faraz Rabbani