“Who Is Your Favorite Football Player?” |️

Boy with the red shirt, red Adidas shirt. What football team do you support? لا إله إلا الله. It's okay.

Sheikh, we let him off. He said Manchester City. We don't apply capital punishments in the masjid.

Okay, who's your favorite football player? Ronaldo. Cristiano Ronaldo. Where's the loyalty to City? No problem, okay.

So whose t-shirt are you wearing today? Is there a name on the back? Ronaldo's name on the back. You see this, gentlemen — when you love someone, you want to follow them. You want to wear what they wear, walk what they walk, play like they play.

Love Leads to Following

This is the living evidence. This is why after this verse in Suratul Baqarah, three verses later, Allah talks about people who followed other people blindly — that they loved, and they led them down the wrong path:

Because there will come a day — everybody's following someone. Whether you like it or not, you love and you follow someone on this earth, or someone outside this earth. Because human beings, it is a human instinct to love and to follow.

Those who followed other than Allah, who loved other than the Prophet of Allah — they continued to follow, though their beloved took them down the wrong path. And then on the Day of Judgment, they stand there, and the ones they followed — the leaders — will say, "We don't know who these guys were. Our followers? I have no idea who these guys are."

So they have nothing to do with them. تَبَرَّأَ — they disassociated themselves from them.

Cristiano Ronaldo on the Day of Judgment will say, "I have no idea who this young man is. I'm sorry. I don't know who he is." And this is it — love leads to following.

If You Truly Love, You Will Follow

As the Arab poet used to say:

"If you loved — if you truly loved — you would be following them."

And this is why the secret behind the ayah in Surah Ali Imran:

"O Muhammad, tell them — if you really love Allah, then you have to follow me, and Allah will love you in return."

It's not just a commandment. He's not saying you must follow me. He's saying if you really loved Allah, you would automatically find yourself following me. That is the nature of love.

Love leads to following, leads to imitation, leads to obedience. And any love that doesn't lead there is a fake love. It's not a real love.