To the bride and groom on their wedding night, to high school students on the day of results, to university students on graduation day...
Peace be upon you and the mercy of God.
This word is directed to those upon whom God bestows goodness, yet they refuse to do anything but ascend evil towards Him. To those who do not rejoice except with the disobedience of God, to those who are deceived by the patience of their noble Lord. And to those who are grateful for blessings as well; so that they may remain steadfast and seek help with this word to advise the heedless, seeking forgiveness from your Lord, and perhaps they will become righteous.
Brother, imagine that you found an orphan child lying on the side of the road, so you had mercy on him, carried him, cleaned him, fed him, gave him drink, clothed him, raised him, spent on him, and taught him, then gave him money to get married. Then he holds a wedding party and invites friends, neighbors, colleagues, and relatives and forgets you! He forgets to invite you, and after the party is over, he puts the trash and food scraps in bags and puts them in front of your house!
How would you feel towards this ungrateful child? And would you be able to love him after that? Do you see how ugly ingratitude and forgetting the benefactor is?
And God has the highest example; God blesses you, O high school student, with success, and you, O young man, with marriage, and you, O young woman, with marriage. A great blessing after He has raised and nurtured you, and after you called upon Him for success and called upon Him for marriage and He answered you, then on the day of great joy you forget Him! But you provoke His wrath by excelling in disobeying Him, and you justify that by saying you want to rejoice.
Obeying Him spoils your joy while disobeying Him delights you? Blessings descend upon you and the response is with the trash of sins? How evil is what they judge! {O mankind, what has deceived you concerning your generous Lord, Who created you, proportioned you, and balanced you in whatever form He willed you?}
If there were no Paradise and no Hell, would you not be ashamed before the Lord of your blessings? Would you not love to be a noble, genuine, and loyal person who says to God on the day of joy, "Thank you, my Lord"?
Imagine how beautiful it would be if, at the moment the high school results were announced, we went out into the streets and saw pure and righteous youth here and there prostrating to God in gratitude. But instead, we see young men and women hanging out of car windows shouting like madmen, expressing their joy with car horns that disturb the worshippers in the mosques, and staying in this state until the next morning, not even asking about the evening prayer or the dawn prayer! {And few of My servants are grateful.}
Brother, imagine with me that the responsible authority for the exams had announced that it would publish the marks on the internet, then monitor the behavior of the students; whoever is proven to be disciplined and did not commit any uncivilized behavior, they will reward him by adding five marks. If this was announced, do you expect that one-tenth of the bad behavior, such as shouting in the streets and using fireworks, would occur?
Or is God's gaze lighter on many than five marks that do not save from the Fire nor enter Paradise? Five marks are enough to regulate behavior, but the phrases "haram, not allowed, disobedience" do not mean much to many because they are from the right of God Almighty, who has become light to them.
They have become light to them the prohibition of God and His Messenger from injustice, and the Prophet's saying, peace be upon him: "Every Muslim is sacred to another Muslim," and His saying: "There is no harming nor reciprocating harm."
When you use "firecrackers" and fireworks in the middle of the night and disturb dozens of people who live around you, with what face will you meet God on the Day of Judgment? And you have been forbidden from harming people, but you did not care about His command and prohibition, and when? On a night when He blessed you with a great blessing!
With what face will you meet God when He questions you about a small child who wakes up in fear from the sound of your fireworks, crying and disturbing the sleep of the household? What have you prepared when God asks you about an elderly woman who is bedridden, exhausted by diseases, waiting for sleep to rest a little from her pains and the pain of ulcers in her body, but you frighten her with your games, so she groans repeatedly and cannot sleep, and returns to the cycle of pain and cannot scream at you due to her weakness to say, "Fear God"?
And what blessing do you hope for in your life after that? In the hadith narrated by Abu Dawood and authenticated by Al-Albani, a companion was with the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, "dozing" on his mount and sleeping with a rope in his hand, so one of the companions wanted to joke with him and pulled the rope from his hand, so he was startled and woke up, and the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: "It is not permissible for a Muslim to frighten another Muslim." How many Muslims have you frightened on the night of the descent of the blessing, O ungrateful one?
O you whom God has blessed with a wife, and O you whom God has blessed with a husband, did not the Messenger of God prescribe for you two to perform two rak'ahs on your wedding night with lawful joy and permissible singing? But you made instead of that a bundle of sins with which you provoke God! {Will you exchange that which is better for that which is less?}
Did you not, O high school student, used to supplicate to God to grant you success? Did you not, O groom, supplicate to God to provide you with the costs of marriage? Did you not, O bride, supplicate to God to provide you with a husband? Then on the day God answered your supplication, you disobey Him! {And when adversity touches man, he calls upon Us lying on his side, or sitting, or standing; but when We remove the adversity from him, he continues as if he had never called upon Us for the adversity that touched him. Thus is made pleasing to the transgressors what they have been doing.}
And if you, O student, face problems in your university, and if you, O newlyweds, face problems in your life, you say: "How is this?" And perhaps you also blame fate! {And when We bless man, he turns away and distances himself, and when evil touches him, he is desperate.}
You sowed seeds of evil over the years .. and you lament when you reap what you have sown You are deceived by the patience of your Lord for a while .. you did not preserve the good nor were you ashamed
There is no gratitude in prosperity nor patience in adversity, so with what do you hope to enter Paradise then? Do you rejoice except by disobeying your Lord, angering Him, forgetting Him, and responding to His good with shirk? By God, a heart that rejoices only in this is a sick heart, so go and seek a cure for it before you meet God on a day when wealth and children will not benefit except for those who come to God with a sound heart.
Repent to God, O ungrateful one, and learn gratitude for blessings from the Messenger of God Muhammad, peace be upon him, who, when he entered Mecca victorious over those who had lied about him, harmed him, and fought him for eighteen years, entered it with his head bowed and his chin on his mount, humbling himself and submitting to God Almighty, acknowledging His favor.
Then learn gratitude for blessings from Joseph, peace be upon him, who, when the blessings of God upon him reached their peak, his innocence was revealed, he was released from prison, he was given kingship, he saved people from famine, and his father and brothers were gathered to him, said to his father: {O my father, this is the interpretation of my vision from before. My Lord has indeed made it true. And He has been good to me by taking me out of prison and bringing you from the desert after Satan had caused enmity between me and my brothers. Indeed, my Lord is Subtle in what He wills. Indeed, it is He who is the Knowing, the Wise.}
Then he turned to his Lord, saying: {My Lord, You have given me sovereignty and taught me the interpretation of narratives. Creator of the heavens and the earth, You are my protector in this world and the Hereafter. Cause me to die as a Muslim and join me with the righteous.}
Learning gratitude and appreciation from the prophets of God, peace be upon them, God does not ask of us more than our capacity: "What would God do with your punishment if you are grateful and believe? And God is Appreciative, Knowing." All that God wants from you is to believe in Him and be grateful, and this gratitude is a creation that a noble soul cannot do otherwise; for meanness, ingratitude, and denial of blessings are heavy on noble souls.
In conclusion, do not forget God as that wretched orphan forgot Him, who was blessed on the night of his wedding, and remember His saying: "O you who have believed, fear Allah. And let every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow. And fear Allah. Indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do. And do not be like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves. Those are the defiantly disobedient. Not equal are the companions of the Fire and the companions of Paradise; the companions of Paradise - they are the successful. If We had sent down this Qur'an upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled and splitting in fear of Allah. And these examples We present to the people that perhaps they will give thought."
Peace be upon you and the mercy of God.