A sermon by Ali Hasan al-Halabi on Friday in the presence of the Shaykh.

The adhan is being called.
onAl-Halabi: Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and the badness of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, none can mislead, and whom He leaves to mislead, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows, the truest speech is the Book of Allah the Exalted, the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and the worst of matters are those newly invented, and every newly invented matter is a religious innovation, and every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. As for what follows: Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) sent His Prophet and His chosen one, Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), during a period of absence of the messengers. He sent him with the truth, as a bringer of good news and a warner, and as a caller to Allah by His permission, and as a luminous lamp. He sent him to clarify the path of guidance so that the believers might follow it, and to expose the path of falsehood, misguidance, and deviation so that the righteous and the God-fearing might stay away from it. The Muslims in these days, after a long time has passed for them and time has delayed them, we do not see them raising their heads with the Book and the Sunnah, nor following the methodology of the Salaf of this Ummah, except those whom my Lord has shown mercy to, and they are few. The Muslims have turned their faces toward their minds and their desires, so they looked at what surrounds them, of life’s problems and the remnants of Western civilization. They wanted to treat these problems and cure these ailments, but they were unable to place their hands on a healing cure and an effective medicine. If we had looked into the Sunnah of the Guide, Muhammad (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), we would have seen the greatest guidance and the most effective treatment. The Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) said, as narrated by Ibn 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both): This hadith, despite the brevity of its words and the shortness of its phrases, contains a disease and contains with it a cure. So it is incumbent upon us, Muslims, who have known the Sunnah of the Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), and who have known that in it is success and salvation in this world before the Hereafter, that we be among those who call to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), so that we teach ourselves and teach our brothers, those we support and those who support us, to teach them this righteous path and this straight methodology. But we, our brothers in Allah, today live among people with differing ideas, differing opinions, and differing perspectives. All of them say, "We are upon the Book and the Sunnah." All of them say, "The Qur'an is our constitution and the Messenger is our model." So what is the criterion that we must know and present our deeds and the deeds of others to? What is the scale by which we weigh our phrases and words, as well as the phrases and words of others? The criterion is what the Messenger of Islam (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) indicated by his saying: So this excellence, our brothers, was not a material excellence nor a worldly excellence; rather, it was an excellence emanating from the understanding that Allah (Exalted is He) granted them. So they understood the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and they knew his biography, his words, and his actions. We must apply this criterion between ourselves and our brothers, whether those who agree with us or those who disagree with us. The criterion is what our righteous predecessors applied in the religion of their Lord, from the Book and from the Sunnah. By this, we know who is truthful in his claim and who has contradicted the Book of his Lord and followed his desire. Without this criterion, we remain stumbling, not knowing the place of the truth, nor raising our heads with the religion. Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) commands us to obey the Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), and to obey those whom He commanded us to obey from our righteous predecessors, Abu Bakr and 'Umar, and those who followed their path from the Imams of the Companions and the Tabi'un and those who followed them. In them is all good and all example. And I seek forgiveness from Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) for myself and for you.
Praise is to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may the prayers and peace be upon the master of the messengers, and upon his family and all his Companions. As for what follows, this criterion that we have spoken of and indicated is a criterion by which the realities of matters are known, and through which claims are weighed and words are recognized. Our Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) mentioned this criterion in more than one hadith, the most famous of which is the first hadith we mentioned, in which the excellence is mentioned. Also, there are many other hadiths in which the Prophet of Allah (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) explained to us, among them: , among them: , among them: , among them: , among them: . And so on. These hadiths, our brothers, were not transmitted merely for the sake of being transmitted or merely for the virtue of a specific person, but they contain an indication to the understanding that Imam Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) spoke of when the Companions, or some of the Companions, asked him: "Did the Messenger of Allah (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) single you out for something?" What was his answer? His answer was: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did not single us out for anything except what is in this sheet, and an understanding that is granted to a slave in the Book of Allah." This understanding is not the understanding dictated to us by minds and desires, nor theories or opinions. Rather, it is the understanding weighed by the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), the understanding of the Salaf of the Ummah of the two noble revelations, about which the Messenger of Islam (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) said: And he (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) said: And this pure, clear, and righteous white path is what our greatest Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) indicated by his saying: So we ask Allah, the Great, Lord of the Great Throne, to make us and you among those who follow the Book of Allah, obey His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and call to the understanding of his righteous predecessors. Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Responsive. And establish the prayer.
The iqamah of the prayer