Masjid is the soul

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honor of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions and companions. Peace and blessings be upon him. Remember, my brothers and sisters, 1997, I was the year when I first, for the first time in my life, I bathed the body of somebody who had died. There was a call to our Masjid here, to ISWM, from the wife of the person who died. The wife was Christian, and she called and said that, I think my husband was Muslim, and he has died, and can you take care of the burial and all that. Sheikh Wissam was here, he was the Sheikh. I was also here at that time. It's a long story, I won't go into that story. But I did the Ossal of the body. I'd never done it before. And there was this body. And when I went there, I almost said, excuse me, can I touch your, can I wash you? Can I touch you? I almost said that. Because all I could see was this person was like he was sleeping. And I had to tell myself that he is dead. And I reflected on this a long time. And I said, what was missing? What was missing? Because the body was there, the eyes and ears and nose and hands and feet, everything was perfect. But something was missing, because of which he needed me to give him Ossal. He wouldn't bury himself. And that thing was the spirit, was the Roh. When the Roh left the body, the body is as it was. If you look at the body, there is no change in the body, in the structure of the body, in how it looks or anything else. Immediately after the person dies, it's still the same thing. But something from inside has gone. And that inside, the thing which left from inside is the soul, it is the Roh, it is the spirit, which gave it life. If you were sleeping in the bush somewhere, I mean I've done that for years, I still do it. There will be ants and so on. They won't bite you. They won't start eating your flesh. But leave a dead body. The Roh has gone. The reason I'm saying that is, just as the Roh gives life to a human being, the Masjid gives life to the community. This Masjid is the Roh, it is the soul of the community. If this Masjid is not there tomorrow, we'll protect the Masjid and keep it. But if the Masjid is not there tomorrow, your houses won't change, your house won't fall down, your car won't stop starting in the morning, nothing will happen. Your jobs will be there, your businesses will be there, your children will still go to school, you will still have things to do, you will feel hungry, you will eat your food. But you will be dead. The community will be dead. Because the connection with Allah is gone. The place where the Malaika used to come is gone. The place where the Rizq used to descend and then be distributed is gone. The place where the name of Allah SWT was glorified and called in the Adhan five times a day is gone. The place where Allah SWT was glorified and praised and thanked in Salah five times a day is gone. The place where like now we are sitting in Tarawih, may Allah bless the Sheikh, and give him strength and make the Quran firm in his heart and in his life, that place will not be there anymore. You will still pray in your house, I don't deny that. But you know and I know. Me praying alone in my house and me praying in the congregation with the Jama'at is a world of difference. Is a world of difference. The Masjid is a soul. And that is the reason why Rasulullah SAW, when he came to Madinah, the first thing he did was what? Build the Masjid. His whole life was unusual. It's not one thing. His whole life was unusual. He did things like nobody else in the world did. Anyone goes to some place, to a new place, you have moved there, the first thing you look for is what? Your house. I should have some accommodation. Can I rent a place? Can I buy a place? Can I build a place?