Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

Auto-generated transcript:In Hadiths by Musnad Ibn Muhammad, in Al-Hakimah and in Al-Baihaqi, the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, They will make Shafa' on behalf of the slave. Allah SWT will permit fasting and the Quran to become our Shafi' to make Shafa' intercede for us. As-Siyyam fasting says, O our O Rabb, I prevented him from food and obeying his desires during the day, therefore accept my Shafa' on his behalf. And the Quran will say, I prevented him from sleeping at night, therefore accept my Shafa' on his behalf. And they and their Shafa' will be accepted and they will be accepted as intercessors. Now please understand this. The thing here is that this fasting is becoming our an intercessor on our behalf because we are practicing the fasting correctly. As Rasulullah SAW said, some people for them the fasting is only hunger and thirst and loss of sleep. We do not want to be among them. So therefore the fact fasting prohibits us from all forms of bad behavior. Fasting is something which is a person who wishes to in one opinion, there is an opinion which says that engaging in bad conduct, engaging in actions which are, again there is a Hadith, Abu Hurairah narrated that Rasulullah SAW said in this Hadith in Bukhari and Abu Dawud, whoever doesn't give up false speech, which is all from the, apart from lying and so on, it's also backbiting, it's also slandering, it's also all kinds of stuff like this, whoever does not give up false speech and evil actions and does not abandon foolishness, Allah is not in need of His living food and drink. And this Hadith is in Bukhari and Abu Dawud. According to the majority of scholars, to do so, that is to indulge in these evil actions of lying and cheating and whatnot, lessens the reward of the fast. It makes it less valuable but does not break it. But some of the scholars of the Zahiri mazhab like Ibrahim, Al-Nakhai, Al-Awzai and Ibn Hazm, they said that it breaks the fast. So, irrespective of that, we want to make sure that the fasting is something which becomes beneficial for us and let us not, again, the idea is not to fall into any form of argument about all this. Now, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam mentioned three kinds of people who defeat the purpose of fasting. He said Qawla zuur, that is falsehood, for example lying, ghaiba, namimah, false testimony, swearing, slander, all forms of haram statements. And then Amal Az-Zur, which is haram actions. So Qawla zuur, haram speech, haram actions. Amal Az-Zur, which is oppression, fighting, stealing, listening to music, looking at haram, all the bad stuff. And then Jahil, this is not the antinom of knowledge, but rather it's the opposite of Hilb, meaning controlling oneself, holding oneself back and being patient. For example, one who does not have control on himself and is quick to fight and argue and get angry is a Jahil. We know that these actions are haram and all the more they become even more haram than haram in the month of Ramadan because where the goodness is multiplied, the evil also becomes even more reprehensible. So let us make sure that we don't waste our fasting and that we practice it correctly.

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalaatu wasalaamu ala ishrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammad rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasleeman kaseeran kaseeraan. From Abadu, my brothers and sisters, we talked about goal setting. I want to remind myself anew the importance of prioritization. The three things that we need to do. Set goals, prioritize and based on the priorities set our time. So, manage our time. Throughout life we are talking about Ramadan and let Ramadan become a training ground for us to bring about change in our lives going forward. As one of my one of my Shriyavahus to say, did you enter Ramadan or did Ramadan enter you? Because if you entered Ramadan then on the first of Shawwal you would have exited Ramadan. But if Ramadan enters you then it will transform your life and that is the key thing to remember and the key thing for us to think about and the key thing for us to focus on and say am I entering Ramadan or is Ramadan entering me? And we want to make sure that we don't just live by default and that we transform ourselves. The purpose of Ramadan is to transform our lives and to make us better human beings so that we succeed in this world and inshallah we gain the Rida of Allah and Jannah in the Akhira. So, in order to do that the tool is called prioritization. The reason why we need to prioritize is because all resources in this life are limited, Mahdood. No matter who you are, whether you are a king or a pauper, whether you are a man or a woman, whether you are a child or an adult, whether you are wealthy or poor, healthy or sick, whatever the case might be, all resources. Our life is limited, it is finite, our time is finite, everybody has only 24 hours, nobody has one second more than that, our wealth is finite, we only have so much, no matter how much that much is, right? Everything in our life is finite. It is something which is definite, has no, there is no, it's not unlimited. And therefore, the key thing is to use it in a way where we get maximum benefit for it. If I have only a few resources, then I cannot afford to squander them, I can't afford to just throw them around and hope for the best, no. I need to be very clear about where to place them to be able to make the most of them. The principle of leverage is the placement of the fulcrum. If you place the fulcrum in the wrong place, the lever will break. If you place the fulcrum in the right place, then with a small amount of force, a huge load is lifted and this is the load of sins and the small amount of force is the fasting. So let us make sure the fulcrum is in the right place. Now for this to, we must have, we must do two things. One is ask yourself for every action, what is the return of an investment that I am getting? My action is my investment, what is the return I am getting? I am watching one hour of football, one hour of basketball, I am watching two hours of soccer, whatever I am watching on television. For example, I am giving one example, you can extend this to whatever you like. I am watching that what is the return? What did I get out of this? I had fun, I passed time, no you didn't pass time, time would have passed anyway. So think about that. What did I get or what will I get in return for this? Do only that which gives you the maximum return, right? Work on it on the basis of RY. What is the return that I will get from this? Is it a return with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Then do it. If it is not, then please do not waste your time. Prioritize your life, prioritize your goals, prioritize your life especially in Ramadan al-Kareem so that we transform our lives completely when we come out of Ramadan. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Auto-generated transcript:Let us remember and think and actualize this feeling of the truth that Allah sent Ramadhan al-Kareem as a blessing for us, as a gift for us. Imagine if somebody gives you an expensive watch or somebody gives you, you know, somebody gives you, you wake up in the morning and you find it the latest S-class Mercedes fully loaded standing in your in your Porsche and there's a key and there's a tag saying this is for my friend so and so and this is from wherever your friend is who's generous enough to do that for you. Imagine how grateful you would be, how wonderful you would be, how you would savor the gift, right? You would look at it again and again, you would sit in it and you would drive this car very carefully. If it says watch, you're going to put it on and you know, imagine all the, just think about this, this extremely valuable gift that you got from somebody and then remind yourself that no matter how valuable that gift was, you are going to leave us behind in this world when you go, right? Whereas Allah subhanahu ta'ala gave us this gift of Ramadhan al-Kareem which is obviously there is no comparison between the gift of, the gift which Allah gives us, the gift with anybody else's gifts, material and spiritual, but Allah subhanahu ta'ala's gift comes with us in the Akhirah. There is a beautiful hadith where there were two Sahaba who came to Islam on the same day, they accepted Islam on the same day and after many years, one of them died as a martyr in one of the Ghazwat and the other one died one year later. And one of the other Sahaba, I don't now recollect the name of the Sahabi, he saw the second one, he saw in a dream, he had a dream in which he saw the second one going into Jannah before the first one. So the first one died as a martyr, as a Shaheed and obviously his Shahadah, inshallah, is true and he will get Jannah. But this person who saw, he saw the second one going into Jannah before the first one. So he came to the Prophet, he asked him, he said, Ya Rasulullah, how is it that I find this person who died as a Shaheed, he is going into Jannah after his friend who died a year later of natural causes and they both accepted Islam on the same day. Rasulullah said, why are you surprised? Did the second one not get one more Ramadan? Did he not get a chance to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala more in the month of Ramadan? Did he not get one more Lailatul Qadar? Did he not get the chance to do good deeds for one more year? Now that does not obviously detract from the position of the Shaheed, but the point I am making is let us be very very conscious of this beautiful gift that Allah has given us. In the hadiths in Bukhari and Muslim, Rasulullah said the fasting person has two happy moments. One when he breaks his fast he is happy and then the second one is when he meets his Rabb Jallalahu, he is happy because of his fasting. In another hadith in Tirmidhi and Mimajah, Rasulullah said, Allah has those whom he frees from Jahannam and this occurs every night in Ramadan. So about it, we have got this beautiful month which Allah has given us and Allah subhanahu ta'ala has blessed us with all of these blessings. So we have the issue of also the Umrah in Rabadhan, may Allah grant us this. Rasulullah said the one who makes Umrah in Rabadhan, the reward of that is equivalent to making Hajj with Rasulullah. So it is such a beautiful month with so much goodness and so much blessing. Let us make sure that we take full advantage of it and we don't lose that wasting time and doing useless things or doing things which Allah has prohibited.

Auto-generated transcript:All forms of worship are tools in order to achieve a goal and that goal is the Rida of Allah SWT. It is the pleasure of Allah SWT. Every Ibadah. For example, Allah SWT said, Allah said, Allah said, verily the Sarah separates you from all faujah and munkarat. Sarah separates you from all shameless and promiscuous and bad deeds and from all munkarat, all forms of disobedience and all forms of rebellion. So when we are praying, we are praying five times a day, then we must ask ourselves, look for the reflection. Is it happening in my life or not? Because this is a tool. Like you go to the gym, you don't go to the gym just to look at the furniture or to meet people there and have fun. You go to the gym with a purpose. You go to the gym to increase your strength, to increase your muscle size, to shape your body and so on. So when you go into the gym and you start exercising and the coach is guiding you, then you have metrics and you say, okay, I'm going to check after one month, what is the result after two months, what is the result and so on. And am I getting the result that I am looking for? Right. And if I'm not getting the result, then I will twist and tweak and say, maybe I need to do more upper body exercises. Maybe I need to do more lower body exercises. Maybe I need to do more aerobic exercises. Maybe I need to lift more weights and so on. Because there is a goal and your goal is to get a particular body shape and so on and so forth. So the same thing applies. Ibadat are tools. Ibadat are the gym. The goal is the Rida of Allah. Is Allah pleased with me? Very simple to understand that Allah will be pleased if I am obeying Allah. Simple as that. So I must look at my life and say, I am praying, but in my life, is there anything? The prayer is supposed to separate me and clean me and clean up my life and clean up my act. And therefore, am I still watching the same stuff? Am I still listening to the same stuff? Am I still going to the same negative places? Am I still engaging in the same negative conversations? Am I lying? Am I cheating? Am I buying and selling haram? Am I eating haram? Or have I gone the other way, which is I have left all of these things. My life is clean. It's free from all forms of corruption. Is that happening or not? The same thing is with fasting. Allah said, Again, the purpose of fasting. Allah said, we have made fasting, or you believe we have made fasting incumbent upon you like it was made incumbent upon those before prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before so that you may become Muttakoon. You may become people who have Taqwa. You fear Allah and you fear His punishment and you have hope in His mercy and you have hope in His forgiveness. This is the position of the Muslim, the Muttakhee, Bain ul-Kaufi wa Ta'wa. So Allah is saying this is the purpose for which fasting has been sent. Fasting has not been sent just to keep us hungry and thirsty throughout the day and at the end of the day, nothing to show for it. No, fasting has been sent to make us better human beings. Transformation, one month transformation, boot camp, which is called Ramadan ul-Karim. So we are in that. So therefore, let us find, let us check and say, is it happening? What are the metrics? What are the metrics to say that I am changing my life? Has my life changed? Have my, has my decision making changed? Or am I doing the same dumb things all over again? So very important. Keep on, keep on checking, keep on making sure that we are doing the right things because in the period of fasting, we are abstaining even from the halad, which is reinforces the importance of staying away from haram all the time. Abu Ura R. Radhi Allah Anhu, the reward for this, Abu Ura R. Radhi Allah Anhu narrated in a hadith in Bukhari and Muslim that Rasulullah Rasulullah said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, so it's the hadith of Qudsi, all the deeds of the son of Adam are his except for a siam for, because the siam is for me and I will reward it. Right? As siam u li wa ana azzi bi. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, the fasting is for me and I will reward it. And Allah did not say how much the reward is. Obviously the reward is in keeping with His majesty and grace. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make Ramadan and this Ramadan the best yet in our lives.

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, Ramadan Mubarak to you once again. I remind myself and you that it is critical and important to set goals for ourselves for Ramadan. What is the goal that we have set for ourselves for the month? If you haven't set those of you who have set your goals, all power to you, allahlal those who have not, now is the time do it. Make sure that we have goals for Ramadan because without a goal you can go nowhere. Now three very important things when you are looking at setting of goals. One is state what is the goal? State the goal, write these things down. State the goal, what is the goal, which is which means what do you want to achieve? So for example you might say my goal in Ramadan is to complete one complete recitation of the Quran Al-Karim on my own. So I will therefore then say therefore what is likely to help you and what is likely to hinder you. So if I am going to recite the Quran, the full complete Quran one time in the month of Ramadan, this is the minimum that you should do, then it means you are going to recite for yourself, buy yourself one juice, one sipara every day. So what will help you to do that? For example you might say what will help me to do that is to set aside a specific time and say I will recite this one juice and in that time I will shut out all possible disturbances which means I will shut off my phone, I will be somewhere where I am sitting quietly, nobody can disturb me and I will complete one juice of the Quran every day. Now this one juice does not need to be done at a stretch, if you are slow in recitation you might say well I am going to recite one juice is around in the Usmani script, it is about 20 pages. So you say after every salah I will recite 5 pages. So you have got 5 pages in the 4 salah you would have finished 20 pages one juice and you still have one salah left for you to maybe recite another 5 pages for the next day which speeds up your recitation. So what must you do? What is the goal? Second thing is what will help you to achieve the goal and third is what are the possible hindrances which might prevent you from completing that goal. Please understand when you have a goal completed for the day, complete it in the day. Don't let it lapse over into the next day because it will just keep on increasing and then you will end up giving up that goal or you will like for example in this case of one sipara a day, one juice a day, you will end up with falling back by one juice or more and then at the end of the month you would not have completed the recitation of the Quran. Imagine, remember this is what all I am telling you to do is not fard, if you don't recite the Quran in Ramadan you will not go to hell. This is the way in which we show our value and our appreciation for the gift that Allah has given us which is Ramadan al-Karim. Allah has given us a gift which helps us to speed up our hasanat. It skews, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala skewed the field completely in our favour. It's not a level playing field anymore, it's a field which is skewed in our favour. So let's take advantage of that. Let's do the best that we can do in that period so that we can come out of Ramadan as winners, not just as somebody who passed the month being hungry and thirsty. Abdullah there is benefit for that also because the fasting is a pillar of Islam, it's a rokon and to deliberately not fast is haram, to deliberately not fast and to consider it to be unimportant is kufr, so it's a very serious matter. But at the same time having got it and having fasted let us try to maximize that and that is why set goals for yourself for the month of Ramadan and then say what will help, what will not help, do what helps, don't do what does not help. Thank you.

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the most honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family. He is the most merciful and merciful. I remind myself and you, my brothers and sisters, this month has come as a month of mercy and a month of guidance. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawzi and Ibn Jawzi, they said that anytime you feel lazy in Ramadan to worship Allah, remind yourself that it is a numbered period, number of days. Allah the Almighty said, Ayyama ma'du daat, the days are numbered. So if I am lazy, the time doesn't stop. And once the time has gone, the leverage with that time also goes. Now the best way of ensuring that we get the maximum benefit from Ramadan is to make goals for Ramadan. So make goals for yourself and say what is my goal for reading Quran? How much additional Quran will I read? We are supposed to read Quran every single day of our lives. But in Ramadan, make a goal to say how much more will I read? In charity, how much more will I give? For example, if you make a goal and then make a timetable for that and break it down into sub-goals. For example, if you say, and you should say, try to do that, that in Ramadan I will do one complete Khatmah of the Quran. I will read the entire Quran from the first page to the last page and complete it in the month of Ramadan. So that is thirty Juz. Now if you are going to do that, then one way of doing it is to make a goal to say, after every first Salah, I will read five pages. In the Usmani Musaf, one Juz is twenty pages. So after every Salah, if you read five pages, you would have read twenty-five pages for the day, which means that you will be a little bit ahead, which is a good thing, because if the month comes with only twenty-nine days instead of thirty, you still would have completed the four An. Otherwise you get stuck with one Juz and last minute you have to read. So five pages a day after every first Salah. It's very easy. It's not difficult at all. Try it, InshaAllah, and Allah makes it easy. Even if you have hesitation in reading and you have some difficulty with reading, this is the time to change all that. So in thirty days you try it, InshaAllah Allah gives you fluency. Make dua to Allah swt, Allah will give you fluency, InshaAllah. Charity, make it a habit to give something every day. Every day in Ramadan. No matter what it is, five cents, something every day. Make it into a habit, inculcate that in your children and so on and say, some charity I will give every single day and the purpose of all of these is to carry this forward throughout our lives. So every day in your life give some charity. If you can't find somebody keep a walk, keep a walk, keep a bowl or something, put the money in that. So that's gone for the day. When you find someone you can give it. The whole point is to create goals to change our life going forward after Ramadan. The idea is not to change our life in Ramadan and go back to the old way. Change the goals going forward. Allah swt as I mentioned gives this month for us to leverage change, to make it easy to change and to give us additional rewards for changing. And therefore let us make the maximum of that and not waste any time at all. I remind myself anew that the most fundamental belief in Islam is the belief in resurrection after death on the day of judgment and the belief in meeting Allah swt. Take any of the other parts of our creed, including tawhid, risala, the creed of the oneness of the worship of Allah swt, the creed of Rasulullah swt, the prophet Muhammad swt being the last and final prophet or anything and ask so what? Why should I believe that? Because I will meet Allah. Why should I believe in Allah? Because I will meet Allah. Why should I believe in the prophet Muhammad and follow him? Because I will meet Allah. Why should I give charity? Because I will meet Allah. Why should I be good to my neighbors? Because I will meet Allah. And so on and so on. Everything. In our religion everything is based on this one simple question. Because I will meet Allah. Therefore when I meet Allah I want to make sure that that day, that time, that action is the best that I could have done. Right? So even though to do it at that time may be difficult, in some cases it might be unpleasant, in some cases people might be pushing you, in some cases people might not like what you do, but you still do what you must do because you know this is the right thing to do before Allah swt. And for that in conclusion, two very important things to do. One is make istighfar. One is make istighfar. Repent before Allah swt and turn towards Allah swt. first of firu, thumma tubu ilayh Make istighfar and turn towards Allah swt. Each one of us knows in our lives what are the things that I need to seek repentance for

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters and elders, all praise and thanks be to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that insha'Allah He will grant us another Ramadan. This is a gift, the value of which depends on what we choose to do with it. It is up to us to make it as valuable as we wish. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose to bless us by granting the month of Ramadan in which He does not only level the playing field but skews the playing field of life in our favour. It is for us to take advantage of this wonderful blessing and opportunity and remember that this may be our last Ramadan because one Ramadan will be our last. And the key therefore is to make every Ramadan the best yet so that if it is the last then we have no regrets. Anabih Huraira r.a. said about the Prophet, peace be upon him, He said, Whoever does the night of Qadr with faith and reckoning, forgive him what he has done for his sins. Whoever does the night of Ramadan with faith and reckoning, forgive him what he has done for his sins. Narrated Abu Huraira r.a. that Rasulullah said, Whoever establishes prayers, the salah on the night of Qadr with sincere faith and hoping for a reward from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, imanan wa hittisaban, then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will forgive all his or her previous sins. And whoever fasts in the month of Ramadan out of sincere faith and hoping for reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven. And in another hadith, the Prophet said the same thing with regard to qiyam. Man qaama Ramadan imanan wa hittisaban ghufir Allah hu dhamma. That the one who stands in salah, and this is not only a Lailatul Qadr but throughout the month, in the night, Salatul Qa'rawi or Qiyamul Layl, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will forgive all his sins. In another hadith in Bukhari and Muslim, Abu Huraira r.a. narrated that Rasulullah said, all the deeds of the son of Adam are for him except a siam. The siam is for me and I will reward it. A siam uli wa ana azzi bih. Rasulullah s.a.w. said in another hadith in Bukhari and Muslim, the fasting person, the sa'im, has two happy moments. One, when he breaks his fast, he is happy and the second, when he meets his Rabb, when we go before Allah, he will be happy because he fasted. Rasulullah s.a.w. also said, again in Thirmidhi and Imne Maja, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has those whom he frees from jahannam and this occurs every night in Ramadan. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to include us among those who he will free from jahannam every night in Ramadan. In another hadith in Musnad ibn Ahmad, in Bayhaqi and in Al-Hakim, Rasulullah s.a.w. said, a siam, fasting and the Quran will intercede on behalf of the person. Fasting will say, I kept this person away from food and drink and from his shahwad, from his desires during the day, so, O my Rabb, allow me to make shafa'a, to be an intercessor for this person's forgiveness. The Quran will say, I kept this person awake in the night because he was listening to the Quran, he was reading the Quran and therefore make me an intercessor for this person and the intercession of both will be accepted. In another hadith in Bukhari and Nabi Dawud, Abu Hurairah narrated that Rasulullah s.a.w. said, whoever doesn't give up false speech, now false speech refers to all forms of stuff, whether it's profanity, lying, cheating, backbiting, whatever you want, anything which is not good, whoever doesn't give up false speech and evil actions and doesn't abandon foolishness, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not in need of His leaving food and drink. I remind myself and you, it's about fasting, not about starving. Ramadan is the month of fasting, it's not the month of starvation. Even Omar radiyallahu anhu ma said that a man asked Rasulullah s.a.w. about the salah in the night, and Rasulullah s.a.w. said, prayers, salah in the night are to be prayed two by two, that is two rakat at a time, not three or four. If any of you fears the time of dawn is approaching, he's talking about praying the entire night, then let him pray one rakat as wither. So the specific number of rakat for Qayam-ul-Lail is not fixed, we pray as many as we want, Alhamdulillah there is ease, we can pray as many as we want or as few as we want, depending on our convenience and ability. Rasulullah s.a.w. said in another hadith in Thirmidhi, whoever stands with the Imam until he finishes, so whatever the number of rakat, until the Imam finishes, the reward of Qayam-ul-Lail will be recorded for that person, as if he prayed the entire night. In another hadith, Abu Hurairah said that Rasulullah s.a.w. said, fasting is a paradise, so there should be no obscene or offensive talk or behaviour during fasting. If a person fights you, if a person insults you, let this person say, I am fasting. Anasahim, say that two or three times, I am fasting. And then he said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, by the o

Auto-generated transcript:We had another beautiful dua. There is a wealth of duas in the Seerah. If we are lucky, we will be able to remember them and make this dua inshaAllah. Abdullah bin Umar says that the Prophet used to make this dua. Allahumma inni a'udh bika min zawali ni'matik wa tahawwuli aafiatik wa fujatik ni'matik wa jami'i saqatik. The passing of safety. The suddenness of your punishment and all that which displeases you. See this is very beautiful. O Allah, I seek refuge in you against the declining of your favours. The passing of safety. The suddenness of your punishment and all that which displeases you. And this is in Sahih Muslim. In the commentary it says that it's a very comprehensive prayer. Allah has blessed humankind man with innumerable gifts. One becomes conscious of them when one is deprived of any of them. Hence it is said that the value of a blessing is realized at its loss. It's so true. How many of us for example, thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for the ni'ma, for the blessing when we still have it. There's a beautiful incident happened in my life where one of my good friends, that time he was a little boy and now he is of course an adult and a family man and you know, masha'Allah, person of consequence. I was giving a speech and I was talking about the importance of shukr. And he said to me, I am thankful for my knuckles. I'm thankful for my knuckles. Now, my instant sort of feeling, I never said anything, but my feeling was that this kid is trying to be funny. And then I realized what he was saying because I recalled that one day, sometime before that, I was in the post office and I saw an old woman who came there. It was Christmas time so she had these packets which were not very well wrapped. And she was using a walker. She had these packets in a plastic bag and her hands were completely, the knuckles were frozen and her hands were open and extended. She literally could not hold. It's a very difficult, great difficulty. She was able to hold the walker and I helped her to repack and I helped her to post those packages, which were gifts for her children and she was living in an old people's home. May Allah have mercy on people. Anyway, so I was thinking to myself that these knuckles, how many times we hold things, we pick up things, we leave things and so on, how many times do we thank Allah for the fact that we don't have arthritis, it's not in the knuckles even if you have it, and it doesn't interfere with picking up things, with eating, with drinking. Just imagine the amount of pain and suffering that people have of arthritis and knuckles that they feel with simple, normal, everyday uses, like eating and drinking, using utensils, using cutlery, cooking, you name it. But you don't realize that while it is there. You think of it only when it's gone. Same thing with knees. Knees that don't pain. Same thing with back, same thing with overall health, eyes, ears. How many people thank Allah for being able to see long and short distance without glasses? And then how many of us thank Allah for glasses? Alhamdulillah, there are glasses. What if there were no glasses? Then you would go through life looking at everything like a blur, or maybe not seeing it at all. So I want to thank Allah while we still have that. So He's saying Allahumma, Inni awdhwika min zawalin nyamatiq. Allah, we thank you. Allah, we thank you for, not thank you, I seek refuge. Inni awdhwika, I seek your protection from the declining of your favours. And then, wadahawli afiyatik, from the passing of safety. Imagine we live in, alhamdulillah, here and in other places where we are living in safety. We're living in places where we are safe, where we don't have to worry about our life. You don't have to worry about our health and you've got good public services. And you go home, people are not worrying, will this person come home tonight or not? My husband has gone, my father has gone, my child has gone to school or to work or something. Will they come back home or not? There are countries where wealthy people, I'm not even talking about poor people, I'm saying wealthy people, they literally ask this question every single day in the morning when they go out, will I see my near and dear one back home tonight in one piece? There are countries where people are living like this. They're living lives of great insecurity. They may have got used to that. You may not see them, obviously they don't spend their time crying about it. But at the same time, they are living lives of great insecurity. And alhamdulillah, we are not among them. Allah has kept us in a place where we are safe. We need to thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So, the Holy Prophet Muhammad is teaching us this. The whole I ask you, your protection. Wadahawli afiyatik, from the passing of safety. Wa fuja'ati nikm

Auto-generated transcript:As-salamu alaykum. I did a detailed lecture on that which I have sent to all of you. It came on the group chat and all that. So, when you have time, watch that. But briefly, there are three things that I want you to keep in mind. Three critical parameters. Ramadan, inshallah, will start maybe on Saturday or Sunday, meaning we will have Talawee either on Friday or Saturday. And so we are quite close to that, couple of days. So, three things in mind. First and foremost, make your goals for Ramadan. What do you want to achieve with Ramadan? What additional Quran do you want to read? What else do you want to read? In terms of say, Qayam-ul-Layl, Tahajjud, how much do you want to pray? In terms of charity, how much do you want to give? Whatever your goals, right? So, what are your goals for Ramadan? Now, it's very important to start with the goals because unless we have goals, then we don't know how we are progressing. So, start with goals for Ramadan. One goal which I suggest is make it your goal to say that you will finish one dhawar of the Quran in Ramadan. You will read the Quran from page 1 to page 600, from the beginning to the end, from Surat al-Fatiha to Surat al-Nas in Ramadan. Now, what that means, so which comes to the second part, then make a timetable. So, once you have a goal, I'll use this as an example, you must do this for whatever goals you have. So, once you have a goal, then make a timetable with metrics, measurements. So, say my goal is to read one complete khatmah of the Quran, one complete recitation of the entire Quran, in the whole month. Now, what that means is if you take a Usmani Musaf, which is what we usually use in the Farsi, the Nastaliq one, which is the Pakistani one, I don't know how many lines to the page, but in the Usmani Musaf, one juz, one sipara is about 20 pages, so that's the number of lines to the page. So, if you take a Usmani Musaf, which is the number of lines to the page, then you have to read the whole Quran. So, if you take a Usmani Musaf, one juz, one sipara is about 20 pages, 20-25 pages. So, every day you must read 20 pages. So, break it down further. 20 pages a day, one way of doing that is to read 5 pages after every salaah. So, you end up reading 25 pages, which is good because in case the month of Ramadan is 29 days, then you would have enough time to finish the whole khatam. Otherwise, if you are reading only 20 pages, then you will be stuck with, at the end you will have one sipara left because you would have read only 29, 30th only. So, to finish the 30, read 25 pages a day, which is 5 pages after every salaah. So, if you read 5 pages, it doesn't take too long. It takes maybe 20 minutes, 25 days. It obviously depends on how fluently you read, but anyway, try that. So, make this into a framework for yourself. The first thing is to set a goal. Secondly, to have a timetable and within the timetable to have metrics, measurement. Third thing and very, very important is to get rid of all distractions during this month. Biggest distraction of course is social media. So, get rid of, just unsubscribe from all the groups, unsubscribe from whatever else you do, Facebook, this, that, except if you are using it for some official purpose, some college related stuff, if you have to see it, see it. But other than that, stay out of all that. Quite simply because otherwise you won't have time. If you have this thing beeping and then of course turn notifications off, right? Because if you have that phone beeping all the time, there is no way that you are going to read any qur'an or anything. You will not be able to do it. The important thing in this timetable thing is if you decide to read 5 pages a day, 5 pages after every salaah, you must read 5 pages. Because if you miss even one, the next one becomes 10 pages, right? You can't do it. If you miss two, then it's 15 pages to finish for the day. So, it's very important to stick to the schedule, make sure that you finish that part at that time. That's the easiest way. If you skip one or miss it for whatever reason, then it will just pile up and then you end up with so much that you can't do it and you might give up or even if you don't give up, you will still not be able to make your goal of reading one full juz of quran, right? So, make sure you get rid of all the distractions. Believe me, there is nothing that will be lost if you do that. Any emergency, somebody will find you. So, there's not, there's inshallah, may Allah keep us safe from emergencies. Other than that, it's okay. Some message comes and goes, makes no difference, right? And so, three things. Goal, timetable with metrics and stay away from all distractions. Your classes, all of this must come around this, depending on what classes you have and so on and so forth. Adjust it in such a way that you can manage, right? If you wake up, I suggest you do

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Salat wa Salam ala ashrafil anbiya'i wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolullah sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathiran. From Mubadhu. I remind myself and you there are four things to do before we enter Ramadan. Number one, clean our hearts. Clean our hearts. Because Allah said, يَوْمَا لَا يَنْفَرُ مَالٌ وَلَا بَنُونَ إِلَّا مَنْ أَتَى اللَّهَ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٌ In Surah Al-Shura, Allah SWT said, The day when neither wealth nor children, meaning neither money nor power nor any affiliations will be of any benefit except Him who brings to Allah SWT kalbun saleem. A clean heart, a sound heart. Clean from shirk, clean from hypocrisy, from rifah, clean from all sorts of evils. I remind myself and you that on the day of judgment, the only thing that will benefit the slave is a heart that is sound, whole, complete, pure, filled with the love of Allah SWT and His messengers sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. A heart that Allah SWT guided to Himself and therefore that we have to beg Allah and which remains steadfast on that path by following the sunnah of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, which is the best of guidance. خير الحدي, حدي محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم. The best of guidance is the guidance of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. A heart that is free from hatred, enmity, jealousy, greed, envy, fear of anyone other than Allah. A heart that is filled with the glory and majesty and kharshith and the hubb and the love of Allah SWT and the love of His messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. May Allah grant us such hearts. They have to be worked for. Dua alone is not enough. And the first thing to do in this case is forgive everyone. Whoever you are carrying rancour about in your heart, forgive them. It does not matter what they did. Forgive them for the sake of Allah. Say to them, if they are alive, if they are not alive, go to their khabr, go to their grave, stand there and say, I forgive you for the sake of Allah. Not that they can hear you. Don't say that now this is the dhaleel that the people in the grave cannot hear you. Somebody asked me then why do we say, Assalamu alaikum ya ahlul khubur. So I said that is a dua. May peace be upon you, O people of the grave. Because if you get a reply saying, wa alaikum wasalaam ya abdul ghafoor, you will be in trouble. Right? Forgive. It doesn't matter what they did. It does not matter what they did. Forgive for the sake of Allah. And then say to Allah, Ya Rabb, you know what this person did. You know I have been wrong. You know I am not at fault. You know this person has aggressed against me. But I forgive this person for your sake, so you forgive me. Nobody said it's easy. But that is the solution. That is the solution. That is the key. So ask yourself, do you want Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive you? Forgive people. You want Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to cover your faults? Cover the faults of people. Don't point fingers. You want Allah to hide you and cover you with His lihaf, to cover you with His glorious cover that people see and they praise and they are praising the cover, they are not praising you because Allah has hidden you. You want that? Then hide people. Hide the faults of people. Fasting in what comes out of the mouth, not just what goes into the mouth. Because it's not only about not eating and drinking, it's about reba and slander and brutan and namima and innuendo and casting aspersions and foul language and all of that. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala warned us against all of this. You know the hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam where Abu Hurairah radiya allanhu narrated and this is in Sayyid Muslim where Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam asked, do you know who are the bankrupt of my ummah? And they said, Ya Rasulullah, the people who have no dirham or dinar and no money and no property. He said, no, he said the bankrupt of my ummah are people who will come before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with good deeds the size of a mountain. But there will be a long line of people waiting. The people they slandered and the people they backbited and the people whose rights they took over, the people they killed, the people they beat up and the people they insulted, all a long line. And each one will ask for his due and this will be given from the deeds of the person until the whole mountain is finished, but the line will still be there. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala of course Allah knows, but Allah will ask them what do you want me to do? His deeds are finished. They will say, Allah give our bad deeds to that person. And Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said this will be done and the person will go into the hellfire with the deeds of somebody else. In the world of social media, when I first read this hadith many years ago I used to wonder we believe the word of N

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Ever Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. This was said in another place, O ye who believe, the Day is written for you as it was written for those before you, that haply ye may be righteous. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, let us remember all those of our family and friends who were with us last Ramadan, but are no longer among us. Maybe if you look around the masjid, especially the ones who come regularly for all these salahs, you will remember a place where that person used to pray. Most people are creatures of habit, so if they stand in a particular place, they will always stand in the same place. And today you look there and you see somebody else standing there, because that person is no longer there. So let us make dua for them and ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive them and fill their qubur with nur and to forgive all their sins and to grant them Jannatul Firidhahs without hesaab inshaAllah. And then let us ask ourselves two questions. The first question is, did they know that last Ramadan would be their last? Second question, had they known that, what would they have done differently? The reason to ask these questions, of course, is not for them, because their books of deeds are shut. The questions are for ourselves. And to remind ourselves, and I remind myself first and foremost, that this Ramadan, which we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us in good health and with the tawfiq to maximize its benefits, and with the fursa with the free time to maximize its benefits, to enable us to spend in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala more and more and more, to remind myself that this may be my last Ramadan, the last Ramadan of my life. And I request all of you to think about it like that. Because the reality is that there will be one Ramadan, whether it is this one, whether it is 10 years from now, whether it is a thousand years from now, there will be one Ramadan which will be the last in the life of that individual. And nobody knows which one it is. Nobody. Nobody. And therefore, the guarantee and benefit is to treat it like it could be the last, as if it is the last, because it could well be. Regret is useless. Planning and action are what make a difference. Therefore, I remind myself and you, let us not waste the opportunity. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent us Ramadan to enable us to draw close to Him. And that is why He said about the purpose of Ramadan, the ayah which I recited, O you who believe, fasting, a sawm is prescribed upon you, prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you that you may become al-Muttaqun. You may become people who are conscious of the presence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in their lives and who do everything with only one consideration and that is, does it please Allah? That is the definition of the Muttaqi. Somebody who is conscious 24x7 of the presence of Allah in his or her life and every decision they take, small or big, every single decision, every speech, every action, every decision is taken only with one consideration and that is, will this please Allah? If the answer is yes, it will please Allah, they do it. If the answer is no, it will not please Allah, they do not do it. And if the answer is I don't know, then they do not do it until they find out. And then they decide to do or not to do. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's promises in the Quran, all of them without exception, are for people of taqwa. Not merely for muslimoon but for Muttaqun. When you and I become Muslim, we enter the door. But to avail the benefits, we have to go to the mosque. But to avail the benefits, we have to go further inside, go to the centre. Just standing in the door is not enough. That is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Innallaha maa allatheena taqaw wa allatheena hum muhsinoon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, truly Allah is with those who have taqwa, the Muttaqun, and those who are muhsinoon, step beyond that. People of Ihsan. Right in the beginning Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, That is the book of Allah, in which there is no doubt about the righteous. The Quran is for everybody, but specific mention of Hidayah is for the people of taqwa. People who seek to please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We are not looking at people who seek to find loopholes of how to escape. We are looking at people who seek to please Allah. Just this morning one of my friends asked me a question. He said he sold a big property and so on. He obviously made a lot of money on that. He said, however, I have not passed on that money for a full 12 months. So more like maybe 8 months, 9 months, 10 months have passed, full 12 months have not passed on the money. So should I pay zakat or not? So I told him, if you want me to give you the fatwa, I will give you the fatwa. Fatwa is very easy. If 12 months have not passed, do nothing. B

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, Allah SWT and the Prophet SAW in Riyadh Salihin again about the issue of dua. Abdullah bin Masood reported that the Prophet SAW used to make dua. I ask you for guidance. What tuqa, propriety, to be a mutakeel, wal afaafa, for justity, wal ghina, wani anil alam. From everyone and everything in this life and this world content. But this is in Sahih Muslim. Now guidance, in the commentary now he says, guidance means guidance towards virtue which one needs at every step. The ability to do good and steadfastness on the right path is also covered by the term guidance. To comply with the orders of Allah SWT and to prevent oneself from what he has forbidden is taqwa, which is tuqa, fear of Allah SWT, fear of His punishment and hope for His reward. The importance of which needs no elaboration. This is what Ramadan is all about. Afaaf is prevention from sins. It also means prevention from seeking help from others. And ghina means riches, which makes one independent of others. So much that all one's hopes are centered on Allah anul. The prayer quoted in this hadith is very comprehensive indeed. Allahumma inni as'aluka al-huda wa al-tuqa, wa al-afafa, wa al-ghina. Taaraj bin al-Shi'aam al-Hutul Ali reported that whenever a man entered the fold of Islam, the Prophet would show him how to do Salat and then he would ask him to make this dua. Allahumma ghafir li warham ni wahdini wa aafini wa rzuqni. Allahumma ghafir li warham ni wahdini wa aafini wa rzuqni. O Allah forgive me, have mercy on me, guide me, guard me against harm, and provide me with sustenance and salvation. In another narration, Taaraj bin al-Shi'aam al-Hutul Ali said, wa radhi Allah anhu, he said a man came to the Prophet, and asked him to make this dua. And he said, I will make this dua. And he said, I will make this dua. And he said, I will make this dua. And he said, I will make this dua. He said a man came to the Prophet, and asked him, O Prophet, what shall I say if I want to make dua to my Lord? He said, Allahumma ghafir li warham ni wa aafini wa rzuqni. O Allah forgive me, have mercy on me, protect me, and provide me with sustenance. Surely this supplication, this dua is better for you in this life and in the hereafter. So again, Allahumma ghafir li warham ni, have mercy on me, wa aafini, guide me, wa aafini, which is to guard me against any harm, wa rzuqni, and provide me with sustenance and salvation. Allahumma ghafir li warham ni, wa aafini, guide me, wa aafini, and provide me with sustenance. Naudhila ibn Amr bin Al-As reported that Rasulullah used to make dua. Allahumma musarif al-quloob, sarif quloobana ala ta'atik. Allahumma musarif al-quloob, sarif quloobana ala ta'atik. O Allah, controller of the hearts, direct our hearts to your obedience. And this is in Muslim Sharif. O Allah, controller of the hearts, direct our hearts to your obedience. Now this is a very, in the commentary Imam Naoui says, this is a very important dua because through it one seeks steadfastness in virtue. Everybody's heart is always open to troubles and turmoil and ordeals, and is drifting from one situation to the other. If he is not supported by Allah SWT, he can deviate from the right path at any moment. For this reason, he has been required to pray to Allah SWT to save his heart from turning towards evil. And keep it towards Allah SWT because it is he Jalla Jalalahu alone who is capable of controlling hearts. So again, Allahumma musarif al-quloob, sarif quloobana ala ta'atik. O Allah, controller of the hearts, direct our hearts to your obedience. Abu Hurairah reported that Rasulullah SAW said, Seek refuge in Allah SWT against turmoils, attacks of misfortune, and evil of judgment and the joys of the enemies. So the enemy will be happy if something bad happens to you. So Rasulullah SAW is saying, make this dua, seek refuge in Allah against turmoil, attacks of misfortune, and evil of judgment and joys of enemies. This is in Bukharin Muslim. The commentary of this, the trouble of a trial which is unbearable for a person, and from which he does not have the power to rid himself, is called juhd al-bala, translated as turmoils. Some people are of the opinion that this is synonymous with poverty combined with a lot of children. But al-haf is iman al-hajar, al-hazkhalani, al-hutlali is of the view that it is only one of several kinds of troubles of a trial. Al-shaka is the opposite of good fortune, that is to pray for protection from misfortune. No decision of Allah SAW is wrong, but some of his decisions may be harmful for certain people, while others are benefited by them. This means that their goodness or badness is related to people. What it signifies is that one should pray to Allah SAW to keep one safe from such decisions, which may be harmful for this person. Jamaitat, the pleasure that one's enemy feels on one's troubles. In other words, it is prayed that Allah SAW ma

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, Allah SWT in the middle of the ayats concerning siam fasting Allah SWT revealed this beautiful ayat where Allah said, Allah said, Allah SWT is saying here that he responds to duas. The month of Ramadan is the month of the Quran. It is the month of dua. My brothers and sisters, we have the hadiths of Noman bin Bashir of the Allah ANHUWA in Sunan ABHDAWUD where Rasulullah SAW is reported to have said, Inna dua huwa li baada. Verily the dua is ibaada, it is worship. So the first thing and first and most important thing to understand about dua is that dua is worship and therefore dua cannot be made to anyone other than Allah. Without exception, no dua can be made to anybody other than Allah, first and foremost. Because like we do not make sajda to anyone other than Allah, we do not make dua to anyone other than Allah. Number one. Number two is also that when we make dua, Allah SWT rewards us for the dua. So that's the second thing to understand. And remember that when we make dua, Allah SWT responds to us and Allah SWT responds and Allah SWT rewards us for the dua. Because Allah SWT rewards all ibaadaat, all worship. So no dua to anyone other than Allah and that just for the dua itself, no matter what. So the two proof parts. One is you are getting a reward, we are getting a reward just for making dua. And making dua, as I said, dua has to be to Allah. No man in between. And second thing is then Allah will give us what we ask for and we always ask for whatever we ask for, ask for it with afya, with blessing. With khair. Nabi SAW said don't just ask, don't just make the dua, ask for afya. Abbas with Abdul Butta Ali Wadi Al Anu, his uncle of the Rasul of the SAW, he told him, he asked him, he said show me and tell me a dua which is short. But which is complete. Nabi SAW said ask Allah, say inni as aluka al afya. Allah, I ask you for afya, for blessing. Afya is a blessing, it's not really a good or adequate translation for it but that's all I know. At least I don't show any leadership, there's another word. But afya is complete goodness in every respect. So when we say Allah, I ask you and I beg you for complete and total benefit of every kind. So total benefit of every kind, we ask Allah SWT for that. So this is the issue of dua. Ask for afya. And then Allah SWT will give us what you want. So we got, even if you don't get what you want, you will still get the reward for the dua itself as ibadah. So we must keep asking Allah SWT for dua. Now in the Riyadh-ul-Saleheen, Imam al-Nabi r.a in the commentary he says, what is dua but an expression of one's humbleness and humility and helplessness before Allah? Some of the Orama have said that dua is when you are completely broken in front of Allah SWT. You see Allah, there is no one in the world, there is no one existing who can help me except you. And that's why when we come to Allah SWT, I come with that, with that level of humility. There's no need to tell Allah SWT what to do. Many times we make these duas and we say, well, give me this in this way, that way and so on. And no, you ask Allah, you beg Allah, Allah, you give me. You give me, how to give me, you know. You don't need me to suggest ways of giving me. So you give me and you give me in the best way. You give me with afya, you give me with complete salama, with complete safety, with all the beauty of this dua. You give it to me. How you give me, that is up to you. Give me without any, I ask you without any one in between, you give me without anyone in between, directly from you inshallah. This is what happened with Maryam alayhi salam. Food used to come to her directly. And then Zakaria alayhi salam came and asked her, ya Maryam, ya Maryamu andalaki hadha. What is this here? I see this food. I see these fruits, out of season fruits. Where are they from? Where did you get them from? And Maryam alayhi salam said this is from Allah SWT. Allah SWT will give and feeds whoever he wants to feed without his help. This is from Allah SWT. He said these are from Allah SWT. So ask dua with complete humility. Ask dua of Allah SWT knowing who Allah is. And ask dua in a way which shows our own reality. When we say ask with humility and helplessness, you are not acting. We are humble. We are helpless. We have no control over anything in this world. And we have no control over anything within ourselves or outside ourselves. So it is high time we accept that and stop acting arrogant before Allah SWT. So the expression of one's weakness, inferiority and lowliness before the infinite power and might and glory of Allah SWT is in fact the essence of worshipping. For this reason, prayer has been regarded as the essence of worship. Inna ad-dua'u muho li ba'da. The Prophet said that dua is the brain, is the essence of worship. Thus prayer, dua is reserved for Allah SWT alone and it should not be addressed to a

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the most honorable of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, peace be upon his family and his family. And peace be upon him and his family. My brothers and sisters, it's very important for us to get our focus right. And as we are coming into Ramadan, it's even more important. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, sends this beautiful month with short time, with massive rewards. He sends this month for us to catch up with whatever we have missed out. So let us not waste this month. Let me remind myself and you that there is only one person who truly matters in this life. And that person is yourself. For each one, that person himself. This is not selfishness, this is reality. And the reason I am saying that is because that is the only person about whom you will have to answer questions before Allah swt. May Allah save us from ourselves. I will not be questioned about my wife, I will not be questioned about my children, I will not be questioned about my parents, I will not be questioned about my neighbors, I will not be questioned about all the political leaders who live today and who lived before. I will be questioned only and only about myself. What did I say? What did I do? And that is the only thing that I will have to answer. Think about it like this. Say for example, you are about to go, in two days from now, one day from now, you have a very very important final qualifying exam. And somehow somebody leaks the question paper. So now you know what are the questions that are going to be asked in that exam. Absolutely for sure these are the questions. No doubt about that, question paper has been leaked. Which question will you study for? Right? Dumb question, right? Which question will you study for? If you find somebody who has the question paper and instead of studying for the questions which he knows are going to be asked in the exam, this person is reading all kinds of other stuff, this person is studying other stuff, this person is engaged in and busy with other stuff, what would you say? You would say really you are not serious about the exam, either you believe that you are not going to have the exam or you don't care if you pass or fail. Because even after getting the questions, if you still do the same things, if you still don't study for those questions and you continue to be distracted, you continue to study or read about other things, then what is to be said? Now that's exactly our situation. We have an exam which is on the Day of Judgment. We have an exam before that which is when we die. And we have been, the question paper has been given to us beforehand. There is no mystery. What are the questions that we will be asked in the grave? We know. We know for sure, there is no doubt about that because Rasulullah s.a.w. informed us. Now despite that, despite knowing that, if we still do the same old stuff that we have been doing, then believe me, who do we have to blame for that? And again, it's not a matter of blaming or not blaming. It's a matter, the question is, when we know something is going to happen, if you don't do that and if you do something else, it's completely senseless. Because as I said, it just means one or two things. Either you don't believe it will happen, which is a matter of Akhita itself. Or you don't believe it will happen. Or you don't believe it will happen. Or you don't believe it will happen. As I said, it just means one or two things. Either you don't believe it will happen, which is a matter of Akhita itself. Or you believe it won't happen to you or me, which is completely unreal. Or you don't care whether you pass or fail, which is even worse. Because how would you not care? Tell me. So please, let us not fool ourselves. Let us not get sidetracked. This religion of ours, Islam, is a religion which is based, which is a practice. I have said this a million times. This religion is a practice. It is not a theory. It is not a philosophy. It is a practice. It is not about talking and telling. It is about working and showing. Literally, it is not a matter of just talking something and saying. It is a matter of showing with actual practice. So now, when we have that situation, where we have to show by practice what we are supposed to do, and show by practice what we believe in, if we don't do that and we do something else, then what does it mean? So it is not a question of talking. It is a question of practicing. That is why in Islam there is no such thing as a non-practicing Muslim. There is no NPM. To be a Muslim means to walk and talk like a Muslim, deal like a Muslim, behave like a Muslim. It means to immerse ourselves completely in the Sunnah of Rasulullah SAW. That is the

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you that time is the most important asset that we have. Time is life itself. Time is so important that Allah SWT took an oath by time. Wallahasr in the linsanat of the fukus. Time is the only non-renewable resource that we have. Everything else can be renewed, not time. We had the longest life expectancy at birth. Then our clock started and it runs backwards. We literally don't know how much time we have left. Imam Shahbhai Ramantul Ali said two beautiful things. One, he said that time is a collection of breaths. When the last one is spent, that's it. And the other thing he said was that life is but an instant. Because Allah mentioned this thing, kam labis, labis na yawman, avadayo. Life is but an instant. Let it be an instant of obedience. And that's why it's very important to live life with a sense of purpose and urgency. To live thoughtfully with our goal always in mind. Unfortunately, we live in an environment where having fun, playing games, entertainment, watching movies, social media, shopping for things we don't need and all such stuff, all of this takes precedence over living thoughtfully and for a purpose. Many of you are parents of teenage children, of high school children. How many of you have asked your child, what is your ambition? What is your goal in life? Did you ever ask your child this question? The reason I'm asking is because when those children come to me and I ask them, they look blank. They look as if they're seeing stars. So how would you raise children who have no goal, no purpose? Go and do that. Ask your child, what is your goal? What is your ambition? What do you want to achieve in life? What's your purpose? And then take a deep breath. Because if a child turns around and says, daddy, what is your purpose? You better have an answer ready. Otherwise you won't look very good before them, right? To live without purpose is the life of animals. It's a life. Get up in the morning, eat some food, go to sleep. That's it. Day after day after day. And that's the whole problem that we have created a society which is so toxic that as an antidote to the toxicity of the society, we have created entertainment. Right? It's like saying I have, may Allah protect all of us from this, but I'm saying, supposing for example, I have severe migraines, headaches, and all I'm doing is taking handfuls of Tylenol. What would you say if I do that? You say, you're crazy. Go and see a neurologist. Go and see a doctor. What is wrong? Maybe you've got some brain tumor or something. This Tylenol is just taking care of some immediate symptom. Go and check what is wrong. Right? But what have we done in society? We created a toxic society. And instead of saying how can we solve this toxicity, how can we cure this tumor, how can we cure this cancer, we give placebos. We give painkillers. How does it help? Three hours in the movie, you get lost. They make nice movies. You get lost. You come back out. It's the same world. It is the same world. So that's why we have this great value for fun. Oh, at least we had fun. Really, I tell you, this is so tragic. It's unbelievable. We have been conditioned to believe that work and fun are two different things. That's why we talk about work-life balance. That's why we talk about I need time to relax. You need time to relax because your work stresses you. Why does your work stress you? Think about it. You need time to relax. Your work stresses you. Why does your work stress you? Think about that first. Somebody, when I was living here in 97, 98, somebody asked me, they said, can you look up the Zeera and the Hayat-ul-Sahaba and whatnot and see what was the entertainment of the time of the Misa Salaam, what were the fun things they used to do. There is one single account of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam running a race with his wife Aisha, Siddiqun al-Dilana. One time in his whole life. Rest of it, archery, horse riding. These were not fun things. This was training, military training for the people of the time. They needed horse riding. They needed archery. They needed swordplay. That was not for fun. If it was for fun, they wouldn't have won all the wars. For that they won, not because of fun. So within court they had no fun. But also recorded history. When Nabi Salah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam sent the embassies to different kings, he sent one to the Patriarch of Egypt, who was Christian. The Coptic Church. So he received the letter from the Misa Salaam with great respect and honor and so on and so forth. He didn't accept Islam, but he sent back presents. So he sent back different kinds of gifts and so on and so forth. They came. Among those presents were two doctors. The Egyptians were very very good at that time with medicine and so on. So they sent two doctors. So these two docto

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala sent Ramadan 4, which is to make us rather Rahman, to make us Mutakoon, to make us people of Taqwa. The people of Taqwa are the special slaves of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. We look at the last three qualities out of the nine that Rasulullah said, that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala mentioned in Surat al-Furqan. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said, One of the critical to success matters is prioritization of things that we choose to pay attention to and those we choose to ignore. Focus is the art of ignoring the fluff. The reason we must do this and why it's critical is because all resources are finite. Nobody has unlimited resources, nobody, period. So they must be preserved and leveraged to get the maximum benefit. Out of these resources, time is the most valuable because not only is it finite, but we don't know how much we have and when our clock will stop ticking. Above all, time is not renewable. Once gone, it's irretrievable, it's irreplaceable and so it is invaluable and precious. Everything else we can get back. Money goes, money can come back. Health goes, health can come back. Not time. But seems to be that in today's life, we spend time as if it was a never-ending river. The two places where we waste time the most are entertainment and argument. A lot of that entertainment ranges between useless and valuable. A lot of that entertainment ranges between useless and I'm not trying to be unkind. The value of anything is to look at it and say, what did I get from this? And if the answer is you got nothing from it, tell me if it's useful or not. So most entertainment that we have today ranges between useless to actually haram. Arguments are worse because they are worse than haram because they strain and break relationships and they achieve nothing in the real world. Many times that I, I mean I have many friends, many, many close dear friends. But people with whom on some very important matters, I am on the complete opposite. Total opposite. I mean there's a friend of mine who has a Muslim name but he's atheist. But he's one of my closest and dearest friends. I make dua for him. I learn a lot from him. He's a naturalist. He's a world-class naturalist. But so on and so on. He does not see the signs of Allah's mercy and nature. But he's a very close friend of mine. So we, first rule, we never have arguments. Secondly, if we have, anytime it comes to that, and Hanzele, he's also a wise man. The question I ask myself and the question I assume he asks himself is do I want the friend or do I want the argument? Do I want to win the argument or keep the friendship? It's simple as that. Same thing in marriages, even more in marriages. Do you want to keep the marriage or do you want to win the argument? Decide. You can't have both. Utterly useless. You win the argument, you lose the friend. You lose the argument, you lose anyway. So what's the point in arguing? Especially arguing about things over which we have no control, absolutely. And just think, just reflect. You know, this is something that we need to do. Reflect what are we arguing about. 90% of the time it's politics. Most of those who argue about politics won't even go to vote. The one thing you can do, because they're also, they argue, what is the point of voting? This one is also bad, that one is also bad. This one is also bad, that one is also bad. So what is the point of you arguing? He's voting hara-li Islam. His whole life, everything he's doing is against Islam. He's earning haraam, he's eating haraam. Voting, is it according to Islam? Please. Walk away. Allah ta'ala gave us two legs. If you had one leg, I say hop away. I have two legs, walk away. Just walk away, just go away, go away, go away, go away. Malkhshat, walk. Allah gave you two legs for that reason. Just go away. And if you have to stay, do two things. First of all, the moment that discussion starts, somebody says, what do you think about? Excuse me, thank you. Wonderful, beautiful topic. Let us decide on two things. Firstly, what is the aim of this, whatever is going to happen, discussion, argument, whatnot, what are we going to achieve by this? What are we looking for, right? We're going to be spending time, irreplaceable resource, our life. So what is the outcome? What am I going to get at the end of this? Let's decide that. Write it down. Second point you say is, how much time are we going to spend on this? Is it one hour, is it two, is it the rest of our lives, the rest of the day, what is it? How much time are we going to spend? Then let the argument happen. Set a timer. As soon as the timer starts up, no

Auto-generated transcript:The fifth quality of Ibadur Rahman Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala z-zalib wa allatheena la yada'oon wa allahi ilaha nakhara wa la yaqutuloon an nafsa al-latihi harraba Allah illa bil haq wa la yaznoon wa main yafa'a z-zalika yalqa asama yuza'af lahul azaabu yawmal qiyabati wa yakhludh fiihi muhaana Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, And they are those who invoke not any God, not any Ilah along with Allah. They do not worship anyone other than Allah. They don't worship anyone along with Allah, nor do they kill any life that Allah has forbidden to be killed. Except for just cause, meaning this refers to a judge handing down capital punishment in a court of law after due process. It does not apply to anyone else. Anyone else taking the decision to shoot somebody or to kill somebody in Islam, this is haram. It is murder and it is a capital crime. So Allah is saying, and those who do not invoke, they don't worship anyone other than Allah. They don't worship anyone along with Allah, nor do they kill such life as Allah has forbidden, except for just cause, nor do they commit illegal sexual intercourse. And whoever does this shall receive the punishment. The torment will be doubled for him on the day of resurrection and he will abide therein in disgrace. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala warned us against committing all forms of disobedience and sins. It is a very big mistake to consider sins to be minor, because any sin is a disobedience of Allah, who Allahu akbar. So to think that, oh this is a small thing, it's not a small thing, everything is disobedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala decides to punish us, that small thing can become a big problem as far as we are concerned. Because the disobedience is not specific to the action, it is specific to who is being disobeyed. About the avoidance of sins, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, in tajtanibu kabahira ma tunhawnu anhu nukaffir ankum sayyiatikum wa nudkhilkum mudkhalan kareema. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, if you avoid the big sins, avoid the major sins which you are forbidden from, we shall forgive your small sins and admit you to our noble entrance which is jannah. But this is not a license to do all kinds of small things. It means that the Muslim will not do any, but somethings happen by mistake or you forget or something, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will forgive. Abu Hurairah radiya Allah anhu narrated in a hadith in Bukhari, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, avoid the seven great destructive sins. The people enquired, ya Rasulullah, what are those? Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, to join partners with Allah, to practice sorcery, magic and fortune telling and all that, to kill the life that Allah has forbidden except for a just cause as per law, to consume and deal in interest, to eat up the orphans wealth, to show one's back to the enemy and fleeing from the battle feed at the time of fighting, and to accuse chaste women and always when he says women, also with men, to accuse chaste women who never even think of anything touching chastity and they are good believers. The sixth quality, those who repent and turn to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and become obedient, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us among those who repent. Allah said, Allah said, accept those who repent and believe in Islam and do righteous deeds. For those Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will replace and change their sins with good deeds. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is oft forgiving, most merciful. When this ayat was revealed, Sayyidina Muhammad went out and announced and said, I am the best of you. So people said, how can you make this claim? We are all trying to do some good things. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, when you repent, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala changes the bad deeds into good deeds. And he said, I was the most evil of you. So therefore now I have the most good deeds. But don't do evil deeds with the hope of getting the reward. You have to always make the disclaimers. Allah be Allah's mercy. And Allah said, whoever repents and does righteous deeds, then verily he repents towards Allah with true repentance. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive us. Allahumma affil lana dhuruwana wakaffil lana siyiatina wa tawfran ma al-abrara. All praise and due is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, who opened for us the door of taubah. Just imagine what would we do if there was no way to seek forgiveness? If there was no way to seek forgiveness, what would we do if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala punished us straight away on committing a sin? You know, in life it happens. You catch a... You hold a high tension wire, zap, finished. Instantly. Allah does not do that. You look at something haram, you don't go blind. Right? You talk something haram, you don't lose your capacity to speak. You

Auto-generated transcript:My dear brothers, sisters and elders, the series of khutbahs on Ibad-ur-Rahman is to give us a template to aim for and to ensure that we change ourselves and become Ibad-ur-Rahman and use the month of Ramadan al-Karim to power that change, to make it happen and make it happen faster than normal because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us added benefits in the month of Ramadan. We spoke about three of the qualities of the Ibad-ur-Rahman. Today is the fourth. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Walladheena iza anfaqoo lam yusarifoo wa lam yaquturoo wa kaana bayna zalika qawamaa. Allah said which means they are the people who when they spend they don't show off, they are not extravagant nor are they stingy but they hold a medium way between those two extremes. The natural consequence of being focused on the akhiraas to spend in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Like I said last Jum'ah I call this funds transfer. It's not going anywhere. It is your money, it remains your money. It is just going from one account to another account. Both the accounts belong to you. The other account is safer and the other account is accessible in the akhira. This one is not accessible in the akhira. So if you leave it in this account it will get left behind. But if you transfer it Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promised to keep it safe and return it with his bonus. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said ma indaqum yanfadhu wa ma inda Allahi baq. wa la nazi anna alladheena sabaru ajrahum bi ahsani ma kaano yaamaloon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said which means whatever you have will end. It will finish. It will perish. But whatever Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has is everlasting and we will certainly reward the steadfast according to the best of their deeds. But remember if Allah gave us the reward for each deed according to its quality this would be justice. And I don't know how much reward we would get. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says for those who spend in his path Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will take one of their deeds which he liked very much and give that reward for all the deeds. Imagine the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said baqimu salata wa atu zakata wa ma tuqaddimu li anfusikum min khayrin tajidu inna Allah inna Allaha bi ma ta'amaloon wa vasil. Allah said which means establish the Salah and pay Zakat whatever you good whatever good you send forth for yourselves. And this refers to Salah, Zakat, it refers to sadaqat, it refers to all kinds of good things. You will find its reward with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And surely Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees all that you do. Remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying you will find its reward. Allah is not saying you send me ten I give you ten. No. You send me ten I will give you the reward. What is the reward Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promised? Minimum. man ja'abil hasanati falahu ashro am saliyya. You send one good thing Allah said I will give you ten times like that. And that is the basic minimum. Allah does not give less than that. And then Allah said one is to seven hundred and so on. Allah said yu da'ifu li mayyasha and Allah increases as He wants. So let's think about that whatever we spend in the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not only will Allah return that He will return it in multiple times according to His majesty and grace. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala encouraged us to make this funds transfer because before it is too late. And He said and He said Allah said spend of that which we have provided for you before a day comes when there will be no bargaining, no friendship, no intercession. And it is the people who deny who are the zalimun, they are the transgressors. He jalla jalaluhu the glorious and magnificent said about the reward that He gives to those who do the smallest of good. Allah said Allah said the likeness, the example of the one who spends, the people who spend their wealth in the path of Allah is like the example of one grain of corn, one seed. It grows seven years and each year has a hundred grains. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives manifold increase to whom He pleases and Allah is all sufficient for His creatures and He knows everything. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala warned us against extravagance and against showing off, spending to show the world. And He said Allah said which means and do not let your hand be tied like a miser to your neck nor stretch it forth to its utmost reach like a spendthrift so that you become blameworthy and in severe poverty. And then He said Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said and give to the kindred, give to your relatives and people related to you is due. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying that is their right and to the miskeen and to the poor person and to the wayfarer but do not spend wastefully and do not spend to show off in the m

Auto-generated transcript:The reason why we should study the jihadis is because if you look at the punishments that Allah SWT prescribed, the azab, the punishments that He prescribed for the Manafiqin are even more than that on the mushrikhi and the kufr. If you see the ayat of Surah Tawbah by Allah SWT, it said even if you ask for forgiveness or eenamarra, seventy times Allah will not forgive them. That ayat came for? To Barakha. It came at the time when Uwais bin Salool, who was the father of Abdullah bin Uwais bin Salool, was a good sahabi, but Uwais bin Salool was the head of the Manafiqoon. So when Uwais bin Salool died, his son Abdullah came to the Prophet and he asked him for his gawad. He said, please give me that. I want to bury my father in it because I know what my father is. I hope Allah will have mercy on him because he is buried in your gawad. So the Prophet took off his shirt and gave it to him. Then Abdullah bin Uwais came and said, will you do sarathro janatha on my father? See the rahma of the Prophet, what kind of heart he had. Today when you talk about forgiving each other, you are back and forth. But see, think about this. Nobody caused him as much pain and as much suffering as Uwais bin Salool caused him in Madinah, including the Shahadah of the sahabah in Uhud. To a great extent, Uwais bin Salool was the reason because he took his people away. They all left Madinah to go to Uhud and halfway he took three, four hundred people of his people and he returned. So the Muslims were weakened. So you can say that one of the reasons, Allah SWT adores Allah, but one of the reasons why this calamity happened was because the Muslims were weak. And he caused him endless suffering despite that when his son Abdullah requested him, Aswad went and he performed salatul janatha on Uwais bin Salool. Say then, Omar had always been very particular about being, you know, everything that he was done. He literally stood in front and said, Ya Rasulullah, please don't do this. This man has caused you so much suffering. Why do you want to pray salatul janatha on him? Uwais said, move. He said, move. I will pray. And he prayed salatul janatha on him. I imagine this man is buried in the garment of Uwais. The salatul janatha, which is the dua-e-maffarat is done by the Rasul A.S. himself. Despite that, Allah SWT revealed Quran and Allah SWT said, even if you ask forgiveness for him 70 times, Allah will not forgive him. And then Allah SWT said, la taqoom ala qabri. Do not stand on their graves. Meaning do not do salatul janatha on him. No, forever. Never pray on these. That is why Rasul A.S. was given the names of the munafiqoon who he had confided this in Hudayfa bin Yaman Rudh Al Anu and Sayyidina Umar Rudh Al Anu constantly used to consult with Hudayfa Rudh Al Anu. And when somebody died, he would see if Hudayfa was in that, with the jama, then he would pray salatul janatha otherwise he would not pray. Now, you might say, these are people who at least they said they are Muslim, they said la ilaha illallah, they stood behind Rasul A.S. in Salat, they prayed behind Rasul A.S. and many of them were very particular. The thing is, the sincere person may not be so particular, but the one who is playing a game, he is very particular, he doesn't want to be caught. So even if a sincere person is not there, this man will be there. That doesn't tell. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala looks at the kalu, at the kalu and if the kalb has nifak, if the kalb has lies in it, then this punishment is extremely severe. So Rasul A.S. mentioned three signs, he said, when he speaks, he lies, when he makes a promise, he breaks it, and when he is trusted, if he is trusted, he betrays the trust. As I was mentioning to you, look at it from, because these are general statements, they are not, Nabi Sahaja was not, here he is not saying, if he tells big lies or serious lies, it is lies. So whether it is small or big, it applies to everything. Similarly, when he makes a promise, what promise? Any promise. Doesn't have to be a promise of some great, particular great matter, no, any promise. One of the simplest things is keeping to a time, keeping to a schedule. I will do it by this time, you are saying I will do it by this time? If you can't do it, then it is up to you to call the person and say, look, I'm sorry, I promised to do it, I could not do it. But you promised to do it, you don't do it, you disappear, you never come back, somebody has to chase you. This is a breaking of promise. And betraying trust, you know, one of the most common things, common ways in which we betray trust, is somebody tells you something confidentially and you go and tell somebody else. This person tells you in confidence, I'm telling you this is only between me and you, of course. And next thing you know, this thing is all over town because you have told this person, that person, that person. Even though you promised confi

Auto-generated transcript:My brother and sister, this is just a quick one to remind us to prepare for Ramadan. Allah SWT Jalla Jallalahu mentioned this month and He told us that He sent this month for a purpose. He said, Allah said, I have sent this Ramadan month. We have prescribed fasting upon you as we have prescribed fasting for people before you so that you may become Muttakoon. To have Taqwa is to have the concern continuously 24x7 for the pleasure of Allah SWT. To be concerned about Allah SWT's pleasure, to ensure that we do not do anything to encourage His displeasure. And therefore we must be very careful that that's the reason why I decided to say this ayat, to continuously monitor ourselves and say am I becoming a Muttakoon or not? The Ibadah in Islam, the prescribed worship in Islam of all the things which are prescribed are not to be done, they are not for their own sake. Each one has a reason for the reason why it's prescribed and each one has something that it brings with us. There is a benefit from that and we must therefore monitor ourselves to see whether these Ibadahs, whether we are getting this benefit for which they are designed. For example, for Salah, Allah SWT said, Allah said the Salah separates the person from all disobedience and all shameless things. So if I am praying five times a day, I must monitor myself and see am I being separated from Fawshat and Munkarat because if my life is still full of things which are prohibited, then there is something wrong with my Salah. I need to improve my Salah because this is what the Salah is supposed to do. About the siam, about fasting, Allah said, Allah said we have sent this fasting and prescribed it so that you become Muttakoon, so that you become people of Taqwa. So when I am in the month of Ramadan, especially of course this will be done throughout the year, but Ramadan comes as a reminder for us. So in Ramadan, I must question myself and say as a result of Ramadan, is my Taqwa improving or not? Monitor ourselves on a daily basis. Am I more concerned about the pleasure of Allah SWT than I used to be? Am I making more is the far? Am I more conscious of the mistakes that I make and I seek not to make the mistakes? And if I make the mistake, do I seek to make amends? Do I seek protection from Allah SWT for this? What am I doing? I think all of these things we must be conscious of and we must monitor ourselves. Now, Ramadan is a month that we need to thank Allah SWT for greatly because of the following Fadha'il of Ramadan. These are the following benefits of Ramadan. First of all, it is the month which is the Nuzul of the Quran. Allah SWT said, Allah SWT said in the Quran. Secondly, the reward for Fardh Ibadat and anything which is far, the reward is increased 70 times. So if you are praying Salatul Fajr, you are getting 70 times the reward and so on. And therefore, I must consciously increase the amount of, be conscious more of the Farai that I am doing. So the reward for Fardh is increased 70 times. The reward for Nawafil is equal to that of Fardh. This is something therefore we must increase our Nawafil. Increase the, you know, pray Tahajjud regularly, increase Nawafil Salat, increase the reading of Faham more and more, Zikr, all of these things we must increase continuously and consciously. Then, the gates of Jannah are opened and the gates of Jahandam are shut. So this is a very, you know, it's a very big blessing that Allah SWT has given us that in this month, Allah shuts the gate, opens the gates of Jannah and shuts the gate of Jahannam and the Shaitid are chained. Laylatu qadr, Allah gave us in this month, khayrun min al-fishar, Allah said the reward of this is more than that of the worship of 1000 months which is equal to about 83 years. So imagine one Laylatu qadr you get, you have got the reward of a lifetime of worship. And this means continuous worship for 1000 months which we couldn't even have done even if we had wanted to. And finally, very important to remember the acceptance of dua at Suhoor and Iftah. Don't waste that time in chit chatting, in, you know, watching your head in your phone. Forget about the phone and so on. Worship Allah SWT, make lots and lots and lots of dua. We need dua very, very strongly and very badly. Also don't get those of you who have servants or those of you, the people in the house who are cooking, the ladies and so on. Please don't put burden on them to spend that time instead of dua in cooking stuff for you. And you know, I like this samosa and I like this pakora. No, help yourself and be muhtat, be content with what there is and let them, leave them alone. Give them time to pray, give them time to make dua. And then also thank Allah SWT very much for another Ramadan. Remember those friends of ours and those relatives of ours who were with us in last Ramadan. This year they are no longer with us. Think about that. Did they know that last Ramadan wa

Auto-generated transcript:Allah SWT took an oath by time. It's a general statement which includes all human beings. And it's a statement with emphasis. Allah is using the word inna which means verily, truly, surely. Again, I'm not sure. Inna linsana laf yukus. Illa allatheena amanoo wa amiloo salihat. Allah took an oath by time. And Allah SWT said, surely, definitely, without a doubt, all human beings, no matter where they are, no matter what race, what gender, what nationality, what color, what tribe, all humanity is in loss. They are losers. Everybody. Illa allatheena amanoo wa amiloo salihat. Except those who have Iman and who do good deeds. Right? It's not only about Iman. It's not only about doing good deeds. There must be a relationship between Iman and doing good deeds. Misabab al-amalus-salih huwa daliil ala al-imad. Nahnu naqul ishadu wa la ilaha illa Allah. Wama amal daliil ala al-karima taiba al-salah. Allah has said, except those who have faith and do good deeds. Not only those who have faith, not only those who do good deeds, because we have both in this world. We have people who are doing a lot of good, but they have no Iman. And we have people who have Iman, Alhamdulillah. Allah said two things. And the reason is because there is a direct connection between Iman and amal-us-salih. Between faith and good deeds. The good deed is the daliil for the faith. The good deed is the evidence that we have the faith. For example, we say, ashadu wa la ilaha illa Allah. There is no one worthy of worship except Allah. What is the daliil for this statement? Salah. So if somebody is saying ashadu wa la ilaha illa Allah, but he does not pray, then there is no daliil on the kalima. How do I say that only Allah is worthy of worship, but the time for Salah I don't pray, then where is this statement, statement has no meaning, right? This is a key character of Islam, where Allah created this alaka, this relationship between speech and action. So it's very simple. For example, if I say to you, you should always speak the truth. We should never tell lies. But then in some situation, I am telling lies. That what is the value of my word? Zero. You say, okay, you are saying this, we should tell, we should speak the truth, but you know, you are telling lies here. And then Allah said, wa tawasubil haqqi wa tawasubisaur. Those who make tawasubil haqqi wa tawasubisaur, those who invite towards and advise each other on the truth, for the truth, in line of the truth, in service of the truth, and those who advise each other to have patience, have perseverance, have persistence. These are not four separate things, these are all linked. So first is Iman, second is amal-us-saleh, good deeds. In the amal-us-saleh, what are the supreme good deeds? The first and foremost of it is da'awat ila al-haqq, da'awa ila al-haqq, tawasubil haqq. Da'awa ila al-haqq, tawasubil haqq. Yani ashadhu an la ilaha illa Allah, ashadhu anna Muhammad rasool Allah. To call people to Islam, this is the highest of good deeds that we can do. And that is why this is linked to sabar. Because this is the only good deed where you will need sabar. If you feed people, if you clothe people, if you give people money, if you build houses for people and so on, you don't need sabar because you get a lot of applause and people will love you. But when you call people to eternal benefit, when you call people to eternal benefit, part of that will be you will warn people against what they are doing. When Allah SWT commanded Rasool AS and said, qom fa anzir. Allah did not say qom fa abshir. Allah did not say stand up and give bashaal. No, He said stand up and warn them. They are doing wrong, warn them. Allah did not say give them good news. No. Warn them. The moment you warn people, the moment you invite towards Allah SWT, the first thing you will get is opposition. This is standard everywhere. First thing you will get is opposition. That is where you need sabar. When you get opposition, don't fight. If somebody is being nasty to you, don't be nasty in return. Makes no sense. Have patience. And the best example of that is Rasool AS himself. Never retaliated on anybody. Not because he did not have courage, not because he did not want to. I mean, the number of examples of his life we show he was the most courageous of people, the bravest of people, never feared for anything. But he never retaliated on anyone who criticized him or abused him or who did anything. Never. Because that's not what Allah is telling us to do. Allah says have sabar. Advise each other to have sabar. Tawas o bisaar. Tawas o milhaq. Tawas o bisaar. That is the relationship between these two. So I remind myself and you that it begins with our own personal Iman, which is strengthened by our own good deeds. So I have Iman and then I pray, it makes me stronger. And then I invite somebody else also towards that. Because I see the goodness of

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, if there is one thing that Allah has emphasized in the Quran over and over and over again, including taking an oath by that thing and that thing is time. Allah took an oath by time. He said, Allah took an oath by time. And Allah mentioned time in the Quran, many, many places. And Allah mentioned activities that we do which are which translates into useless activities, pointless activities, just play and games. Now think about this. Why is this huge emphasis on time? The whole issue about the Akhira. What is the one big difference between the Dunya wa Al-Akhira? Dunya is temporary, Akhira is permanent. Means what? Time. Dunya is for a short time, Akhira is for a long time. Time. My question I ask myself when you is, what do we do with our time? If I ask any of you here and you don't have to answer me, it's for yourself. Can you tell me from the time you woke up today till now, what did you do the whole day? If I make a table, which I do when I teach the time management class and the Live World class, we actually make a table every half hour. On the time you wake up in the morning, say 4 o'clock, 4.30, 5, 5.30, 6, 6.30, 7, 7.30, 8, all the way down to when you go to sleep. And say every half hour what were you doing, right? Today, I'm not talking about 10 years ago, today, what did we do? How many of us can fill that table? And if you cannot fill that table, I'm not saying you're doing anything halal, right? But you don't know what you were doing. You forgot. So it was something which was so, you know, routine, maybe thoughtless, maybe pointless, I just went and the time passed and finished. Now this is a loss, huge loss. Because time, out of all the things that Allah has given us, time is the only thing which is non-renewable, which is irrecoverable. Once it is gone, it is gone, finished, khalas. Whether it went in a good thing or a bad thing, it is not important, it is gone. Everything else you can get back to some extent. Wealth you can get back, you can get back all that you lost, you can get back 100 times more, 1000 times more, billion times more. There are many, any number of stories of people who were wealthy and they went to become beggars and they became super wealthy and so on. So we know this. Even health, Allah cures us, but health is you lose your health. Then Allah cures you, you get it back, right? Jihad sent me a video of this guy who is in his, who is 75 or 78 and he is deadlifting 300 kilograms. So, health you will get back. What you will not get back is time. Is time. Now where is the maximum, I call these time killers, where is the maximum amount of time that we spend which goes wasted? Two things. One is useless conversation. Two is arguments, discussions, useless, pointless conversation. Which includes social media of course, right? I did a calculation, I used 25 dollars an hour as a wage. And I did a calculation that if you spend two hours a day in any activity, that's 50 hours, 50 you know dollars, right? Two hours a day is 50 dollars. In a lifespan of 50 years, that amounts to 950,000 dollars. Close to a million dollars. Just two hours a day. 950,000, close to a million dollars. Think about how many things we spend two hours a day. If you make today's time table, I can guarantee you there is probably not one person in this room who knows what happened to two hours. I know because I structure my day, every single day I can tell you for every five minutes what I do. That's very, I do it because I do it consciously. But I can guarantee you, two hours have gone somewhere in your life you don't know. That two hours is gone, that two hours is worth 50 bucks, multiplied by 50 years, 950 dollars, one million bucks. So where do we spend our time? Useless conversations. So I have a solution for this. My solution is three things. Three questions you have to ask. The moment anybody starts a topic of a conversation, suppose somebody says, what do you think about Donald Trump as the president? Or somebody says, what do you think is happening in, what is going to happen in Gaza? Somebody says, what do you think is happening in Pakistan with Imran Khan? Anything like this, right? This is what we talk about, right? So anyone starts a conversation, hold on a second, hold on a second. Let's tell you something. First of all, two questions. One is, what is the objective of this conversation? What are we going to achieve at the end of this? What is the measurable result that we are looking for at the end of this conversation? So please tell me clearly, right? This is what's going to happen. Okay, fantastic. Number two, how long will this conversation last? Is it from now until we die or what is the situation? Is it for one hour, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, two hours? What is the time duration? So what is the purpose of the conversation? Number one. Number two, or discussion about it. Number two,

Auto-generated transcript:As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu wa barakatuhu. As-salamu alaykum wa barakatuhu wa barakatuhu. Wa ma ba'du. My brothers and sisters, today, 9 o'clock in the morning, we had 60 students and 10 teachers. From the Hildale Charter School of East Hampton. All Christians, some Jews, all white. I think maybe a couple of them were probably Spanish or Sontobalahan. And they came here, they sat here. I'm always amazed at the level of adab that there is in these people. They all sat, they insisted on sitting on the ground. All of them sat on the ground, including the teachers. We told the teachers, if you want to sit on the chairs, most welcome. They all sort of sat on the floor. Everyone had covered. And absolutely still, not moving, not fidgeting. These are all maybe 9 years up to about 15 or so. No? Both of us were here, everyone. Completely wrapped attention. So anyway, I spoke to them about Islam and so on. And then they said questions. So they asked various questions. They asked about the funerals. How is it done in Islam? They asked about, is there a sabbath, a day of rest? And so on, so on. I won't tell you all the questions and all the answers. But one question which really hit me in the heart. One kid asked me, that kid must be maximum maybe 8 years old. He tells me, what gives you the greatest joy? A jeep. 8 year old child. He says, what gives you the greatest joy? So I said, reading and reciting the Kalam of Allah. This gives me the greatest joy. Because then I feel closest to Allah. That's the next question he asked me. He said, what makes you feel closest to God? I said, this makes me feel closest to Allah, reading and reciting the Kalam of Allah. We should really reflect. And these are all completely, they have no exposure to Islam. Whatever they are hearing about Islam, you know what they are hearing or what they would be hearing in the public media and so on. So I say to you and myself, see the glory and magnificence from the Kalam of Allah. See how this sort of the number for example, Allah swt, it starts with a question, what is all this confusion? What are they asking? What are they arguing about? And they are arguing about Nabai-il-Hazib, the great announcement, the great day of judgment. And then Allah swt, series of ayats from Alam Najal, Lardha, Mihadha all the way to where Allah swt starts talking about the Akhira. So that whole series of ayats have to do with this dunya. Things which we see on a daily basis. Allah says the night for sleep, Allah gave you sleep, the day for to earn your living. Allah sends rain from the heavens and your crops grow and so on. Daily things which we see on a daily basis, which we ignore mostly because we see it every day, it doesn't strike us, we don't reflect. But Allah swt is pointing those things out as His signs. And then Allah swt talks about the yarat. Inna yawmal fasli kaana miqaata, yawma yunfa qufis suri fata toona afwaaja. Fawti hati samaw, fa kaana abuwaaba, like doors. Allah will open. I don't know how many of you remember I mentioned a book called Hyperspace by Michio Kagu. He's written the book. In that he argues, he says that when you look at this expansion theory which is called the Big Bang, which fundamentally basically the theory says that there was a big explosion as a result of which planets were created and they are moving away, expanding away from that center. And this expansion will continue until they run out of the original energy which was there to make them expand and then they will come together, contract. And the logical reasoning is that when they come to contract they will all come together and they will like a black hole become one and complete annihilation. Michio Kagu says the only way to escape that annihilation is to find a way of going out of this dimension, finding doors to leave this dimension. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala used the word door. Kaana abuwaaba. I remind myself when you let us read the Quran, let us reflect on the Quran and reflect on the fact that this is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talking to me. Allama Iubal Rahmatullah is a great poet. He says that his father had a routine for him and it's something for parents. It's what you should do. It's how you raise children. You know we talk about, on a side note, we talk about all these great names. Imam Bukhari, Imam Malik, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi'i and so on and so on and so on. Khalid bin Walid. They were like, they didn't, they were not born as adults, so they were children. Khalid bin Walid at some point in time was running around like a little kid, like Muhammad. So what made him Khalid bin Walid? How did he become Khalid bin Walid? How did Imam Malik become, Imam Malik, you know, how did he become the great Imam? Malik Bin Anas. So there is something, there is some parents, somebody did that for them, right? We don't remember the na

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, in a Hadith narrated by Anas bin Malik, somebody asked Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam, they said which is the best fasting after Ramadan? And he said it is the fasting in Shaban in preparation for Ramadan. So we are in Shaban. I remind myself and you, let us fast in Shaban as much as we can. Of course Mondays and Thursdays and the three yamulbeeth, 14th, 15th, 16th, Alhamdulillah this is good but try and fast as much as you can. The only caveat is don't fast till the end and just go into Ramadan. There is a recommendation, Nabi Salman sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said don't differentiate between the two months. So the last three, four days, the last week, do not fast. And then we start fasting again in Ramadan. But that still leaves us three weeks from tomorrow until the third week is over, until the 21st of Shaban. Try to fast as much as you can. This is the best of fasting. And they asked him the same Hadith, they asked him which is the best charity and he said the charity that is given in Ramadan. So please give us as much as we can. Remember, it's not ours. It's going to go anyway. Right? Just yesterday somebody called me and said this is what my grandfather left and my father and my uncles are going to the attorneys and to the court. I said, Subhantam, I mean, you imagine. For the last three months, we have been doing this for the last three months. And the grandfather didn't make a, he didn't make a, even he made a, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's hokum is there, the relatives' laws are clear, so what do you want? But we want to use our own. Don't do this. It is not yours. It is not mine. It is going to be left behind. All we are doing is giving accounts. I always say that I do. I remind myself and I say to people, you are not giving anything to anybody. It's your own. Please understand this. Right? I gave a donation to the masjid. No, no, no, no, no. You didn't give any donation to the masjid. You took your amount, your money from account here and shifted it to the account with Allah. That's it. I gave charity to somebody. I gave money to some poor guy. No, no, no. You didn't give anything. You did not give anything. It is yours. It is still yours. It was in this account. It has been moved to the other account. That's it. So what's the problem? Shaitan comes in and says, you are giving it away. It's going. It's going. Going where? Going into my account. Allah said on the day of judgment you are going to fight it with me and I will return that to you in keeping with my majesty and grace. So where is it gone? It's not gone anywhere. Why do you think the Sahaba gave the way they gave? Just think about this. People are not nuts, right? They were as intelligent as we are. Why didn't they give? They understood this thing. They understood we are not giving anything. That's why I keep saying don't use the word sacrifice. For the sake of religion, sacrifice. Sacrifice is done by the dead person you have eaten. The dead person died. Your tree died. The poor tree didn't get anything. This is called sacrifice. The only sacrifice is Tandoori chicken. The chicken died and you ate it and it was good for you and the poor chicken died. It gave its life for nothing. There is no sacrifice for the deen. There is no sacrifice for Islam. Allah says minimum I will give you 1 is to 10. Where is the sacrifice? You are getting 1000% return. You call it a sacrifice? What is it? We are only transferring from this account to that account. That's it. Period. Transfer as much as you can because when you leave this world, whatever is left in this account stays here. Why do you want to leave it behind? For what? Take it with you, man. Take it with you. When people ask me, can we take it? We can't take this with us. Of course we can take it with us. Don't be wealthy. I say try poverty. Go straight on the street for one day and you will understand the meaning of that. Wealth is good. Read my lips. Wealth is good. Wealth is critical. Wealth is essential. The issue is how do you earn it? Where do you spend it? That's it. There is nothing romantic about poverty. Please. If you have wealth, you can spend it in the path of Allah SWT. You have nothing. You are a beggar. What will you do for anybody else? So third quality. And those who say, O our Lord, a word from us, the torment of Jahannam. Verily its torment is ever an inseparable punishment, permanent punishment. Evil indeed is Jahannam as a place to dwell. Now brothers and sisters, it is a sign of intelligence to remember our akhirah, to remember that one day we will go to Allah SWT and that day can be today, it can be tomorrow, it can be anything. Nobody comes with the guarantee that you are going to get old. Right? So let's prepare for that. A life that is lived purely for the present without a

Auto-generated transcript:My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, Alhamdulillah today is the first of Shaban, which means that we have exactly one month for Ramadan. May Allah give us the tawfiq to prepare for it, to make and take the maximum benefit out of Ramadan al-Fariq inshallah. We have Sayyidina Abada bin Samit radiya Allah Anu, he reports in Kanzul Ammal that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala liyya wa sallam taught us one dua at the approach of Ramadan. And that dua is Allahumma sallimni li ramadana wa sallim ramadana li wa sallimhu li mutaqabala. Allahumma sallimni li ramadana wa sallim ramadana li wa sallimhu li mutaqabala. Allah save God Ramadan for me, save God me for Ramadan and save God Ramadan for me and accept Ramadan from me. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala this dua for all of us inshallah. Safeguarding ourselves for Ramadan means to correct ourselves and get ready to meet this month in a state where we can take full advantage of it. Which means ensure your schedules, your working hours, what you do and so on and so forth to make sure that there is time. And also correct ourselves in terms of our behaviour and our approach and our shaukh for our, you know, the love for this deen and the love for the rida of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we can exert ourselves in order to get the rida of Allah. Today I want to do the second part of the khumbah that I started last Juma' which is Ibadur Rahman. The qualities of the slaves of Allah, the special slaves of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The reason why we are doing this is because Ramadan comes for this purpose. Ramadan comes to make us Muttaqun. Ya ayyu alladheena amanu kutiba alaykumu siyamu kama kutiba ala alladheena min kabilikum la alakum tattaqun. Qara jallahu ala, o you believe Ramadan has been sent, fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may become al Muttaqun. You may become people who are conscious of Allah's presence in your life. You may become people who are conscious of and who are willing to do whatever it takes to please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. People whose sole criterion for every decision, the question they ask themselves before they say anything or do anything, across their life, is what? Will Allah be pleased with this? No other question. Will Allah be pleased with this? If the answer is yes, Allah will be pleased with this inshallah. No problem, go ahead and do it. If the answer is no, Allah will not be pleased, then no matter who says what, no matter who says what, including yourself, including your own afts, we do not do it. And if the answer is that I'm not sure, then we don't do it until we become sure, until we verify and satisfy ourselves of the correct position and then we take the correct position. This is the meaning of being a Muttaqiq. We spoke about the first quality last Jum'ah, the second quality that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned, He said, He said, He said, And these are those people who spend their night, spend their time of the night before their Rabb in sajdah and qiyam. This is the most reliable sign of those who love Allah. We are going to come and we will be given a test in Ramadan when we come for Tarawi. Tarawi is Qiyam-ul-Lail. Qiyam-ul-Lail in Ramadan is called Tarawi. And we will be tested. There will be those among us who will take full advantage of it and stay with the Imam till the end. And the Prophet said, the one who prays and stays with the Imam till the end, Allah will forgive his sins. Those who will take full advantage of that, those who will revel and be joyous in their hearts, will feel with the love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, listening to the recitation of the Imam. And Alhamdulillah, Allah has given us a beautiful Imam with a fantastic qilad. So no complaints about that. So Alhamdulillah, there will be those. And may Allah protect us. I hope there will not be those who will say, shorten the recitation, speed it up, because I have to go somewhere. I remind you and myself, Tarawi is Nafil. Even if you don't pray a single rakat, there is no sin on you. Pray Isha and go home. No problem. Pray 2 rakat, 4 rakat, 6 rakat, 8 rakat, 20 rakat, 18 rakat, 16 rakat, whatever suits you. No problem. But this is a nyamah min Allah hita'ala. This is a blessing from Allah. It is a gift from Allah. Don't make critical remarks about that. Pray as much as you can pray and go home peacefully. Absolutely no problem. There is no comp- I told you, I began with what? Don't pray at all. No Tarawi. Alhamdulillah. You don't pray far, there is a problem. But Nafil is Nafil. Alhamdulillah. But don't make problems, don't argue, don't fight, don't tell the Imam, do this, do that. No. Make shukr to Allah. Make shukr to Allah. You see, Arab, Alhamdulillah, I ask you to reward me for 20 rakat of Tarawi even if I don't pray it. This dua is jahis. You can

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the honourable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and his companions, and he is very much in peace. In the next lecture, in the book of Fitna, in the book of Zunan ibn Majah, Abu Hurayla, may Allah be pleased with him, said, The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and his companions, said, Islam has begun to be strange, and it will come back as it began, so be kind to the stranger. Or as the Prophet said, peace be upon him. In the book of Fitna, the book of trials and tribulations, in Zunan ibn Majah, Abu Hurayla narrates that Rasulullah said, Islam began as something strange, and it will return to being something strange. Give glad tidings, give the good news of Thuwa to the people, to the strangers, to the people the world will call strangers. Thuwa is a tree in Jannah. The point I want to make is that if you take this Alice, and if you map it onto what I was telling you the other day, the secret of success is to differentiate, right? You remember that? Three, four days back in my khatira, I said differentiate, because if you are like everybody else, then you are one grain of sand, one grain of rice in a sack. Differentiate, stand out. A flag is a piece of cloth, right? What is a flag? It is a cloth, and if the flag gets dirty and you wash it and you hang it on the line, clothesline, and along with the flag is your shirt and your trousers and something else, and if a soldier is passing by, if somebody is passing by, they will not salute the flag. Nobody salutes a flag which is on a clothesline, right? But if the flag is flying high on the flagpole, then people salute the flag. Don't talk about whether saluting the flag is jahez or not jahez. I'm talking about what people... The problem with giving Muslims advice is everything gets converted into some masala or fiqh. Forget that. The flag is recognized as a symbol of the nation only when it is flying high on the flagpost. Same flag. Flag hasn't changed. You didn't change the color of the flag or the nature of the cloth. No. Same flag. When it is on a clothesline, when it is, within quotes, hanging out, nobody respects it. Nobody respects it. But the same piece of cloth, when it is flying high, it becomes a symbol of the nation and it is saluted. Differentiation creates brand. Brand inspires loyalty. Loyalty enables influence. You remember I said this? This is the manifestation in our life today of the hadith, Fatuba Lil Kodaba. So who is the gharib? Gharib in Arabic means ajeeb, strange. Not gharib in Urdu means poor, no. It means strange, ajeeb, not usual, not like everybody else. So who is the gharib? Who are the gharaba? In a society that is based on corruption, a person of integrity is gharib. He is a stranger. Everybody takes bribes? He says, I don't take bribes. You are a stranger. In a society where even the ulama, even the scholars take money to give khutba of Juma, they take money to glorify Allah, if you say I glorify Allah only for the love of Allah, you are a stranger. Gharib. In a society which is characterized with promiscuity and shamelessness, a person of dignity and honor is gharib, stands out. In a society which is based on cruelty, on oppression, on grabbing people's wealth and grabbing people's dignity and violating their rights and so on and so forth, a person who stands up and says I will not do that and I will not allow you to do that is gharib. He is a stranger. In a society that is sunk and drowning in hubbu dunya, in the love of the dunya, where people are, they have no problem making money in ways which Allah has declared to be haram. A person who stands up and says no, I will earn only halal. I will not earn haram. I will not earn haram because Allah is my raziq. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala huwar razaqh uduh al khuwati al batin. And Allah promised to feed me. I will not disobey Allah. This person is gharib. I can go on endlessly but you get the point. And what did our Rasul alayhi salatu wasalam, what did he say? Fathuba li'l quraba. Give them the glad tidings of Jannah. Nobody said that to stand out is easy. No. For a lot of people, when you stand out, you become a target. People blend in because they want to be hidden. The moment you stand out, you become a target. But remember, there is a sequence. And the sequence is that first they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then they follow you. This will happen. This will happen. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned this to us. Then what did they say? They said, no, you are not the Rasul, you are people like us. And the Rasul, what did he say? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows. Allah sent us. Next step. We will punish you. We will do this to you, it will do that to you, and so on. So

Auto-generated transcript:My dear brothers and sisters, today is the first of Sha'ban. Alhamdulillah, the moon was sighted very clearly in many parts of the United States. We are very happy that we have started the month of Sha'ban. One month left for Ramadan al-Karim. So let us make sure that we spend this time in a way which prepares us for Ramadan to be able to take full advantage of the month of Ramadan. Sayyidina Ubaidah bin Samit reports that Rasulullah used to teach the Sahaba this dua at the approach of Ramadan. Safeguard me for the month of Ramadan and safeguard the month of Ramadan for me and accept it from me. So, Salim ni li Ramadan, safeguard me for Ramadan means by making me see the month of Ramadan fit and healthy and able to take advantage of the month. Wasallim ramadan li, safeguard the month of Ramadan for me means by making the conditions in it such that I take maximum benefit from it. And then wasallim hu li mutaqabala means accept it from me. Another Malik radiAllahu anhu narrated that Rasulullah was asked which fasting is the most virtuous, the most Mubarak, the most beneficial after Ramadan and he said Shaban in honor of Ramadan. So Alhamdulillah we are in the, today is the first day of Shaban. Let us make sure that we fast as much as we can this month. Rasulullah did not like fasting in Shaban and continuing to the end and then directly going off into Ramadan. He didn't like that. He recommended and he commanded that we take a clear break between Shaban and Ramadan. So the last three, four days of Shaban, maybe a week of Shaban, do not fast and then start fasting again the first Ramadan inshallah. But that still leaves us three weeks. So let us try to fast as much as possible in those three weeks, if not all the three weeks, definitely Mondays and Thursdays and then the Yomul Bid, the White Nights which is 13th, 14th and 15th of the month. And Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam they asked him also which charity is the best and he said the charity in Ramadan. So this is the thing that I want to remind myself and you. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help us to make the best of this month of Shaban and try and do our best to prepare ourselves for the month of Ramadan. My brothers and sisters, we have a whole month to plan and plan our schedule, plan our working hours, plan our free time, plan our priorities, do some extra work and finish it off so that in Ramadan you'll be free. And then make sure that we fast and we pray and we read extra Quran and we make extra dhikr and we send extra Salat and Salam on Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and so on all through Ramadan. And the way to do that is to start now and get into the flow of it so that it becomes easy as we go along. At least alhamdulillah here, even everywhere, at least in Northern Hemisphere it's all winter months so the weather is not too hot. Southern Hemisphere, Australia, South Africa, it's the opposite where they're going into their hotter months. May Allah make it easy for all of us inshallah. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept, to give us ikhlas in niya and make it easy for us in every way and be pleased with us and to forgive our shortcomings and our sins and to enable us to make the best of this month of Sha'ban and then of course as Ramadan comes the month of Ramadan.

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, 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. Peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, Rasulullah A.S. told us in the hadiths that he said if a person wakes up in the morning with good health, body is working, he has a roof over his head meaning he is safe, and he has food for that day, that one day. He said it is as if the whole world has been collected for him. What is the condition? Body is functioning, he is not paralyzed or something, he is not lost. He has a roof over his head, without sleeping on the street, and he has enough food for that one day, on the next day. You can see the words. Mabeeza Rasool did not say that it is good for him, he should be satisfied. He said it is as if the whole world has been collected for him. That means he has no other need. Now think about this, why would Navasura Sam say as if the whole world is collected? Why would he say as if he has no other need? Seriously, if you think about it, if you look at ourselves and see the things that we are worried about, everybody has got some worry. For how many people is the worry about today? The reason we don't have worry about today is today is in front of us. So there is no need to worry. If I don't have food now, I will say, okay, let me go find some food. Or today I will fast, I don't need the food. Where is the worry? The worry is for the tomorrow. Always, tomorrow. Tomorrow what will happen? So and so will become President, so and so will become Prime Minister, this party is in power, that party is in power, stock market is going up, stock market is going down. How about tomorrow? But what did the Holy Prophet say and what did Allah say about the tomorrow? He said there is no tomorrow. Tomorrow is? This world, the Holy Prophet said, live in this world, like somebody who is travelling on a path. He said a man is on a journey, he just stopped under a tree for some shade, for a little while, then he is moving, that tree is for his life. He is on this journey. So the problem with worrying about tomorrow is that tomorrow may never happen. First of all it may not happen, secondly even if it happens, what you are worrying may not happen. And after all we have faith in Allah SWT, we make dua, we pray the hajj, we give sadhakaat and so on and so forth. Where is the, don't we have even at least that much of Iman on ourselves or not? Confidence in ourselves, even in Allah SWT? Then why are we praying? If we think the salat will not be accepted, why are we praying? We pray because this expectation is, alhamdulillah, inshallah Allah will accept. So our problem and stress is because of one or two things. One is because of the past. You are thinking about the past, you are worrying about the past, so and so said this to me, so and so said that to me. I did this, I did that. Now if it is something you did for which you need to make istighfar and tawa, make istighfar and tawa, then forget about it. If you need to redress some wrong gifts, give back something you took from somebody, give it back and finish with it. People's opinion, so and so said this about me, that person thinks this and that, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Let people think. In any case you have no control over what anybody thinks. Why you worry about it? Do it. Let them think. So past is, that is the past, alright? Khalas. Take from it whatever is good, finish it, make istighfar and tawa, over. Future? We don't even know whether it will happen. Now the real future, that's why I say, define your tomorrow. What is tomorrow? Seriously make this definition. If I say tomorrow, what do I mean? Do I mean the 27th of January 2025 or do I mean tomorrow as in the akhirah? Because the tomorrow which we are assured about, 27th of January 2025, do I know that I will see it? I don't know. I do not know. And wallah Allah is the witness. I do not know. Have I died tonight? Tomorrow I will not see. Tomorrow will come, who cares? I am not there. But the tomorrow that I will see and you will see is the akhirah, is the tomorrow of the akhirah. So what is our plan for that tomorrow? For this tomorrow we have all kinds of plans. This one, that one, I will make this application, job, what not, if I don't have a house, buy a house, halal, haram, everything is fine, no problem, we have to live in this world. What about the tomorrow which is sure, definite? We all have two tomorrows. One tomorrow or like this, which is temporary. If it is, whether it is good or bad, it will end. It will not last forever. And it may never happen. But the other tomorrow is something which is permanent. Whatever is good and bad is forever. If it is good, a hundred lives, if it is

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the ayat which I recited before you from surah al-Farqan, described nine qualities of His special slaves, al-Ibad ur-Rahman. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for His help in cultivating these qualities and taking the right exit on the road on which we are travelling so that we will be entitled to the beautiful destination on the road that He, jalla jalaluhu, chose for us. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to include us among those who He called al-Ibad ur-Rahman. These nine qualities are as follows. One, those who walk on the earth in humility and dignity and when the foolish address them they say salaam. Two, those who spend the night before their Rabb in sajdah and qiyam. Three, those who say our Rabb a word from us the torment of Jahannam. Verily its torment is ever an inseparable permanent punishment. Number four, those who when they spend are neither extravagant nor stringy but hold a medium way between those extremes. Five, those who do not invoke and do not worship any other god, any other ilah, any other deity along with Allah, either instead of Allah or along with Allah, nor do they kill such life as Allah has forbidden except for just cause and nor do they commit illegal sexual intercourse. Premarital sex and post and extra marital sex in Islam are both haram. Number six, those who repent and believe in Islam and do righteous deeds. Number seven, those who do not witness falsehood and if they pass by some evil play or evil talk, they pass by it with dignity. Eight, those who when they are reminded of the ayat, the signs of the Kalab of Allah, they are not deaf and blind to that. And nine, those who say oh our Rabb bestow upon us from our spouses and our offspring, those who will be the comfort of our eyes and make us leaders for the Muttaqun. To those people Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, ˹O˺ laika yujuzawna al-ghurfa ta bima sabaru wa yulaqquna fiha tahiyyatan wa salaamah, khalideena fiha hasunat mustaqarran wa mukama. Those will be rewarded with the highest place in Jannah because of their patience, because of the decisions that they took. Therein they will be met with greetings and word of peace and salaam and respect, abiding therein excellent it is an abode and as a peace and as a place to dwell. I remind myself and you of one salient fundamental fact and that is that no good can come out of disobeying Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I repeat, record it, write it down. No good can come out of the disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you are doing something which amounts to disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, because you think that whatever else you are doing instead of that will benefit you, I stand as a witness today and before Allah that I want you. It will not benefit you, it will harm you. And Allah is my judge and Allah is your judge and Allah is my witness and Allah is your witness. The first quality that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned here is those who walk on the earth with humility and dignity, not with arrogance, not as if they own the earth. People who remember, who are we? Listen carefully, who are we? Look at yourself in the mirror. I am so and so. My net worth is bigger than Elon Musk's. At least imaginary, right? You can imagine that. My net worth is so much, my house costs so much, my car costs so much. I have so many degrees, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatnot, whatnot, whatnot. I asked you the question when my Sheikh asked me, and he asked the whole group of us. And I was a little kid, I must have been maybe 10 years old. So he wasn't even talking to me, he was talking to the whole group. My Sheikh said, when you get up in the morning and you need to go to the toilet, and you think you are powerful, control that. Say I won't go. I am powerful. I am the king of the world. I will not go. He said, that is how powerful you are. You cannot even control what is inside your own body. You cannot even control the feces in your intestines. And you think you are powerful? That's exactly how powerful you are. If you think you are so powerful, in the morning when you get up and you got to go, that's why the Americans say when you got to go, you got to go. Don't go. He said, I will not go. Let's see how powerful you are. It's very important to understand this. Because we walk on the earth as if we own the earth. Remember that you and I and every human being who exists, exists because of one drop of semen which was exited and extorted, after which both your parents went and made usurps. Something so impure. That is our origin. Who am I? I am a drop of semen. The danger of money is human. After exiting, both parents went and made usurps. You are a big man. The danger of money is big. Something which makes the other person impure. Something which made somebody else impure. That is who I am. That is who you are. Go look at

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. My dear respected brothers, sisters and elders, we are in the month of Rajab and we have between now and Ramadan al-Kareem, one month and a few days. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us baraka in Rajab and Shaaban. May Allah give us Ramadan al-Kareem with good health, with time and with a deep dedication to attaining the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because about Ramadan al-Kareem, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the accursed. I have written the fasting for you as I have written for those before you, that you may become righteous. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed upon those before you. What's the purpose? So that you may become righteous. So that you may become people who live by the overarching, by the superior, by the completely overwhelming principle and criterion for every decision in their lives, which is, does it please Allah? The definition of the Muttaqi is the one who only concern is, does anything I say and do, does it please Allah? Because he is afraid of displeasing Allah. He's not afraid of Allah. He's afraid of displeasing Allah. He's afraid of displeasing Allah because he or she loves Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala more than anyone or anything else. So what is this standard? We want to become Muttaqun, may Allah make us Muttaqun insha'Allah. But what is the standard, what are we aiming at? And to share that in my understanding with you, I decided to do today's khutbah and insha'Allah the khutbah going all the way into Ramadan insha'Allah, on the standard of the Muttaqun which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala described in the Quran, in detail and specifically in Surat al-Furqan and he called them Al-Ibadur Rahman. Who are the Muttaqun? They are the special slaves of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, jalla jalaluhu, Al-Ibadur Rahman. I remind myself and you that it doesn't require an explanation to realize that the road that we are travelling on, whichever road it is, can only take us to the destination that it connects with. If we don't want to go to that destination, we have to change the road. Not merely continue on the same road but make dua for a different destination. Doesn't work. The dua has to come with a dawa. All reminders like this one and anything else that we get, we get it all the time. These are signposts along the road telling us where we are headed. And announcing exits if we want to change direction. Finally but however, there will come a time when we pass the last exit, after which there is no exit until we reach the destination that we chose. Remember that the one who ignored all exit signs cannot complain that he had no chance to get off the road. I ask Allah SWT to save us from ourselves. Let us introspect and change our ways so that we can take the right exit and go on the road that leads to the Rida of Allah SWT and Jannatul Firdaus. Insha'Allah. Allah SWT said in His blessed kitab, in His blessed kitab, Al-Kalam Al-Majid wa Al-Furqan Al-Hameed, Al-Quran Al-Kareem, in one of the most beautiful surahs, He mentioned these people, these special people who He honored by calling them His slaves, Al-Ibad Al-Rahman. And Allah SWT said, And when the ignorant people address them, And when the ignorant people address them, they say, Salam. And those who grow up prostrating and standing before their Lord, And those who say, Our Lord, turn away from us the punishment of Hell. Indeed, its punishment is a delusion. The people are prostrate and standing, And those who, when they spend, do not spend and do not spend, and there is a dispute between them. And those who argue with Allah about no one else, and do not kill the soul that Allah has forbidden except by truth, and do not commit adultery, and whoever does that will meet the punishment. The punishment will be doubled for him on the Day of Resurrection, and he will abide in it in humiliation. Except those who repent and do good deeds, Allah will replace their evil deeds with good ones. And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. All of them are with Allah SWT. And whoever repents and does good deeds, indeed, he will repent to Allah in repentance. And those who do not witness the visit, and when they pass by in ignorance, they pass by in honor. And those who, when they are reminded of the signs of their Lord, they do not run away against them deaf and blind. And those who say, Our Lord, grant us from among our wives and our offspring, a full house, and make us an Imam for the righteous. It is they who are rewarded with a room for what they have been patient with, and they will be greeted with greetings and peace. They will abide in it with a good habit, a stable place and a place of rest. Allah SWT has said which means, And the slaves of Ar-Rahman, the slaves of the most bene

https://youtu.be/WU80Kn2IiVE Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family and companions, and upon the many and short-lived. I am walking in Meadul-e-Nakyu Park. There is a blue jay that is flying from branch to branch. The undergrowth is too thick. Not thick, but there is a lot of drinks and dry branches. What I can hear is that blue jay and the couple, other friendly bees are flying around. It's absolutely beautiful atmosphere, which is minus seven degrees Celsius. As you can see, there is snow everywhere, except where it has been removed. It hasn't snowed recently, so this snow is about two or three days old. But the temperatures haven't risen at all, so it's not melted. What fell is still there. So you can't really walk on... I can't walk on the paths that I usually walk on. These are the main roads inside the park, which have been plowed and cleared. So I'm walking on them. Couple of things. One is, in terms of career planning, the program that I did recently, a live role, some questions that came to me, which I want to address. One question was, I emphasized there and I always emphasize that it's extremely important to have a main marketable, saleable skill that is yours, that you are licensed on, that you train on, that you're licensed on, and that skill which can help you earn money. One main skill. Now it's okay if you just have that one skill, but you might say, Well, you know, I'm also interested in something else and I'll give you some live examples. So what about that? I said, no problem. If you're interested in it, by all means pursue it, do it, but have that main skill with you. So the main skill is your bread and butter, and the other one that you're doing is the jam. So you need, you can do without the jam if you need to, but you can't do without the bread and butter. So make sure that you have your bread and butter in place before you go after the jam. To give you an example, I'm talking about America, Canada, all these places. Some of the most, some of the best skills to learn. I mean, I would learn if I wasn't my age and if I didn't already have my main skill, which is probably one of the only things that AI can never touch. And that is to be paid for your life experience translated into somebody else's life, which they can use. And that's my definition of consulting. So anyway, one of the best skills to learn is anything to do with living. So plumbing, electrical engineering, carpentry, you know, all that kind of stuff. In this country, heating systems and air conditioning systems. So I say to young people, get that skill. Now in this country, in our country, we have this very false sense of intraday with regard to these jobs. And you say, oh, bacha plumber hai kaise bholinge. Rishwas Khada so bol sakte. Plumber hai nahi bol sakte. This is the kind of garbage that got us to where we are. So there's no infraday, there's nothing wrong in doing a job and doing it well. So get us, get a license in any of these and there will be many out there. So I'm not telling you to restrict yourself to just these four. Plumbing, electricals, carpentry and air conditioning, heating systems. There can be many other things, but check for that. What is your criterion of assessing? Assessing. In my view, the criterion of assessing is the product that you are delivering must be a product which is essential to life. It must not be a product which is a discretionary buy for your customer. The customer has come to you and he has no choice. You are fixing his life for him. He comes to you when he has a problem and you are fixing that problem. So the benefit is that you get the benefit of fixing the problem. The customer does not grumble about paying you. The customer sees the effect immediately. I had a leak in my kitchen sink. I woke up in the morning, my whole kitchen and my god knows living room, whatever, is flooded. I call the plumber. The plumber comes and fixes it. I can see the difference it makes in my life. So I'm happy to pay the plumber. The plumber has added value to me and therefore there is no quarrel. Whether the economy is going up or down or sideways, my kitchen sink will still spring a leak. My house can still get flooded and ruined. If the economy is looking down, I can afford that even less. So I need the plumber even more. Number two, somebody is building houses. Once again, the same thing. Somebody is building houses. Once again, the same thing. High quality house, low quality house, high end house, low end house. He is building houses for princes or people who think they are princes or people who think they should be princes. Or he is

https://youtu.be/EZ87BmDaT9Q Auto-generated transcript: My brother says that I'm walking in Midnegah Park. They have cleaned the snow on some of the main roads but not on the others. And the temperature has now dropped a bit so some of the snow is melting but it makes the footing extremely treacherous. Slipping and falling is not a great idea. So I'm not going there. I want to talk to you actually in response to some questions that people ask me about friends. And this is a big thing. This is, you know, friends are important, friends are things that people are proud of having and in some cases justifiably. So who is a friend? What is a friend? What must I look for or look in? What makes a good friend a good friend? What are some people, what are some qualities because of which I should reassess my friends and see whether I should continue to be friends with them or not. And I don't want to make it sound like a very selfish exercise when I'm picking and choosing for my benefit. I want to also focus here on what kind of a friend am I to others because that's very important for us to remember because imagine this goes out to frankly I don't even know how many people in the world because if you look at our global Google footprint it covers every country except Greenland. And no one asked me why it doesn't cover Greenland but because I don't know. But the point is that there are others who are going to be listening to this, not only yourself. So what are they as a result of listening to this podcast, what are they going to be saying about you as their friend? Will they want to retain you as a friend? Will they say well you know what I have a beautiful friend or are they going to say oh boy good thing I was I got warned pre-warmed is pre-armed and so time to send Mr. or Ms. so and so to the sandbox. So think about that. Now talking of friends none better than the Kitab of Allah as for advice and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said al-akhid la. Al-akhid la is the plural of khalil. In the Arabic language there are many different words to denote and to describe friendship. It's not just one word and al-khalil is a friend who is the closest. You have Zamil, Rafiq, you know in other words but al-khalil is somebody who is a dear friend to the extent that there are no secrets between the two of you. It's a friend that completely has your back. It's a friend who quite literally will if necessary sacrifice their lives to save yours. It's a friend whose money, assets, everything is there if you ever need it and I'm not exaggerating. I'm not being poetic. Alhamdulillah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave me friends like that. I had one he passed away and that's the one of the biggest not one I think that is the only one Allah gave me has given me a beautiful life free from tragedy. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. But this is one tragedy that I a hole in my heart that will never fill and that is the hole that my dear, dear, dear friend Bhatti Swaras left in my heart when he died. Let's see, maybe I will tell you his story why I said that. So to me that's a friend. That's a khalil. Khalil is somebody like that who has his, who has your back. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Al-akhila yawma eezin ba'duhum li ba'din adu illa al-muttaqeen. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Al-akhila those who were your closest friends, your absolutely dearest friends, who knew everything about you, who always claimed to love you, these friends on the day of judgment, yawma eezin, ba'duhum li ba'din adu, they will be enemies to one another. Please notice Allah is not saying they will ignore each other, they will not talk to each other, they will not recognize each other, all of which would be bad enough. Imagine somebody who is so close to me, such a dear, dear friend of mine refuses to recognize me, will not come if I call him, will not return my salaam if I say salaam. How painful that would be but that wouldn't, that still not, that still wouldn't make him my enemy. The enemy is somebody who wants to harm me, who wants to kill me, who wants to destroy me, who wants me to not just, it's not just that he wants to have nothing to do with me, he actually wants to harm me, that's the enemy, right? You fight your enemies. Al-shaytanu adu, fa taqizu adu wa ala sayyidin, shaytan is your adu, he is your enemy, so become his enemy, fight him. Here Allah is saying, al-akhil la'u yawma idin ba'du hum li ba'din hadu, same word, enemies to one another, illa l-muttaqeen, except the people of taqwa, except the people who live their lives to please Allah, who live their lives with only one criterion for decision-making, does it please Allah? Anything they had to do, they applied that criterion, does it please Allah? If it was something that pleased Allah, they did it, if it was something that d

Auto-generated transcript:I was saying to you that there are two substances, two things that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent on the earth. I mean of course with that we know about whatever else Allah sent. And one of them is iron. Allah mentioned this in the Thu'lq al-Hadith. Allah said, Anzalna al-Hadith. That we sent down iron. And the second thing Allah sent was water. This water which we use, which is in any form, you drink it, you wash with it, you do whatever you want with it, you sail your boats on it. Hopefully you don't waste it. This water is at least four billion years old. Because that is when two things happened. One was there was a collision with a planet called Tia, which was about the size of the earth. And subhanAllah, amazing how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caused this to happen before He created us. Otherwise nothing would have existed when that collision happened, obviously. So Tia collided with the earth and it accreted into the mantle of the earth. And Tia was iron. So that's when iron gate tree onto the earth. The second thing which happened was Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent water. And this came as the geology says. Again these are educated guesses based on evidence, but obviously nobody was there to see it. In Allah. So water came as massive thunderstorms. Imagine a whole portion coming and hitting. So billions and billions and billions of gallons of water came and it hit three planets in our solar system. It hit Mars, it hit Mercury and it hit the earth. On Mercury it instantly evaporated because of the proximity to the sun. It's too hot. On Mars it froze. So now when they go to Mars and they do the mass probes and so on, they're saying they are finding they are buried or underground oceans in Mars. Well guess what? That's what it is. The third place it came to was the earth. And thanks to the tilt of the axis of the earth, Earth had the kind of climate required for this water, neither to evaporate, not to freeze, but to be in its liquid form. Now water is also very interestingly, as you can see here, water is also the only substance that can exist and does exist simultaneously in three states. In a liquid state, in a solid state as ice, and in a gaseous state as steam and as water vapor. No other substance can do this. That's important also because, for example, a lake like this has fish. So if it gets cold and if this water froze all the way to the bottom, froze solid, one big chunk of ice, then all the fish would be dead. All life forms in the lake would be dead. But that doesn't happen. What happens is, the top three to four feet will freeze. And of course that depends on the temperature. But below that the water remains liquid. And the reason it remains liquid, and the reason ice remains on top and doesn't go to the bottom is because of what is called a phenomena called the anomalous expansion of water when it freezes. Or rather, you could say it's anomalous expansion of ice. Where when water freezes, it expands in volume. That's why if you fill a glass, and don't try it, but you fill a glass and cap it and put it in the freezer, it will freeze and the glass will break because the ice, the volume of ice is more than the volume of water, it expands. The reason I'm saying this is because this is unlike every other substance. Every other substance, when it melts, it expands. When it freezes, everything contracts on freezing, volume decreases except water. Water expands on freezing. Now, the benefit of that is that because it expands, it becomes lighter. So it floats on top. Now when water floats on top, what it does is, it becomes like a jacket. It's an insulator for the water below the ice so the water below the ice does not get to zero degrees Celsius. It remains roughly around four degrees Celsius. So it remains liquid and therefore life form, creation, again material, it exists. Go about, feed and so on. Now see that, see the Nizam of Allah, how Allah created this world and Allah created everything in it. And Allah then made all of His subservient to His laws and Allah made these laws for our benefit. Sir, I say that I want to give my self-report, my self-right, that the laws are for our benefit because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, because, be

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 honorable prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and upon all his followers. And brothers and sisters, life is a transaction. Right? We talk about winners and losers in life and this and that. So who's a winner, who's a loser? It's a transaction. In business, who's a winner? The one who makes more profit. Who's a loser? One who does not make profit, makes loss. So if you say the winner, does he never have a loss? No. But over a period of time, more number of wins, more number of transactions where he makes profit. Does he sometimes make a mistake? Does he sometimes lose some money? Of course. It's like cricket. Every cricketer will get out. At some point in time, he'll get bowled out. So in cricket, we have a term called batting average. So the best cricketer is not somebody who never gets out because everybody gets out. The best cricketer is the one with the best batting average. So per match, how many runs did he make? Same thing in life. Now, so let's look at our own life and say, what are we paying to get what? Life is a transaction. You're paying something to get something. For example, you are sitting here in this five, ten minutes. You're spending ten minutes of your life. So after you get up from here, I want you to evaluate and say, I spent ten years of my life. Did I get something worth ten minutes? If you got something worth ten minutes, then these ten minutes is not wasted. If you got something which was worth more than ten minutes, hamdillah, you made a profit. But if you got something which was not even worth ten minutes, then you wasted your time. So also social media, we are spending how much time? God knows. There we don't spend ten minutes. We spend hours. You count the hours. There are apps. The app will tell you how many hours a day you spend on the phone. The app will tell you. It counts. So you say, today I spent two hours and that's a very low number. The average they give for America is six hours a day. Six hours is a full working day. And a working day, you work five days a week. On the social media, you are seven days a week. So for it's one work, every year is one lifespan year on social media. So you ask yourself, what did I get from spending one lifespan year on social media? If you had spent four lifespan years in studying, you would have got a PhD. How many lifespan years have gone on social media? What did you get? So life is a transaction. This is the reality. You like it, you don't like it. This is the reality. So to get something, you must give something. So we need to ask ourselves. They say there are no free lunches, right? Every time you're doing something, you're getting something. So let's ask ourselves this question. What am I giving up to get what? And then ask, is it worth it? Is it worth it? If it is worth it, keep doing it. But if it's not worth it, get out. Just get up and walk away. Returns on investment, the way we calculate ROI in business, they are assessed in terms of the amount, the quantum, and the duration. So for example, if I sell my house and I use the money to go on a world cruise in a luxury cruise liner, is that a good deal or a bad deal? Very bad deal, right? Very bad deal, right? I said, no, no, no, no, no, I enjoyed myself. See the photographs. I've got this beautiful album, fantastic photograph. And now you're homeless. That's nice. Right? Take a photo of that also. So if you would have, if you do that, what kind of investment is that? On the other hand, if I sell my house, I buy two shops, I rent them out, I move into an apartment on rent, and the income of those shops, I'm living off of that investment, that's a return on investment. I've got two shops, that's the real estate value, plus I've got an ongoing return, rental value. I have a house, I'm living in a rented apartment. So what? Now that is smart thinking, right? Now do anything, do any kind of permutations and combinations of this, sell the house, buy gold, stocks, so on, so on. Any of that, vis-a-vis, going on a cruise, you would say, which is the better investment? So now think about this and say, let's see how this works with Allah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala used this word. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called it a business. Allah said, Allah said, oh you believe, shall I guide you to a tijara, to a business, to a buying and selling transaction process that will save you from a painful punishment? What is the result of that investment? Allah said, Allah said, whoever brings a good deed, which is any form of obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, will have ten times that, ten times likewise.

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Wa alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Wa salat wa salam wa ala ashrafil anbiya'i wa ala mursaleen. Muhammad rasulullahi salallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahibu sallam tasneefan kathiran kathiran. Let me ask you a question. What is Salah? Anybody? Yes? You remember that? Go on. He's also a prayerist. No, the hadith is where it separates us from others. Do you remember the hadith? Anybody? No? Okay. Inshallah, you can remember it, inshallah. The hadith is, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, qala rasulullah sallam, wa qa'la alayhi wa sallam. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that the thing that separates the ahad, the covenant, the promise, the dividing line between them and us, them is other people who are not Muslim and us is Muslim. He said the dividing line, the covenant between them and us is a Salah, the one who has left it has committed disbelief, has left Islam. Salah is the first thing that Allah s.w.t made fard, made compulsory, obligatory on every nabi and on anyone who came, the people of those ambiyan, from Adam sallallahu alaihi wa sallam all the way to Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. For example, Allah s.w.t said to Ibrahim sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, tahir bayti litai fee na wal aaki fee na wal ruqa e sujood. He said purify my house for the people who will make tawaf, for the people who make itikaf, for people who make ruko and sujood. Ruko and sujood are the symbols of what? Salah, right? You make ruko and sujood, right? Maryam alayhi sallahu alaihi wa sallam was told to be with those who make ruko and sujood. Musa alayhi sallam and Allah s.w.t called out to him when he went to get a firebrand from the burning bush. Allah s.w.t called out to him and he said ya Musa, innani ana Allah wa la ilaha illa ana, fa'budini wa aqibi salata li dhikri. Allah said to Musa, I am your Rad, I am Allah and there is no one worthy of worship except me. So establish my dhikr, establish salah for my dhikr. Aqimi salata li dhikri. Allah s.w.t said to Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, Ya ayyuhal muzzammil, qumil layla illa qaleela, nisfahu awin kus min hu qaleela, awzid alayhi warattilil qur'ana tartila. Allah s.w.t said in surat al-buzzammil which is supposed to be one of the first surahs to be revealed after the Quran, the first five ayahs of surat al-alq were revealed. There is a difference of opinion whether it was muzzammil or muddasir which came first, Allah ala. But obviously it's one of the earliest of the Makkah surahs and this surah is evidence that Allah s.w.t describes salah on the Rasul allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam And Allah s.w.t said to him, Oh who wrapped, oh you who are wrapped in garments, who are sleeping, stand up in salah, qumil layla, stand up for the whole night illa qaleela except for a little bit, nisfahu awin kus min hu qaleela, warattil al qur'ana tartila, and then recite the Quran in a pleasant way. So Nabi s.a.w. used to learn the Quran, Allah is saying now tell me the Quran, when you are learning Quran with Sheikh Abdullah what do you do? What do you memorize? You recite back to him right? So he corrects you. This is Allah s.w.t is the teacher. Your teacher is Abdullah al-Khuldi, hafizullah, the teacher of Muhammad s.w.t is Allah s.w.t himself. So Allah s.w.t is saying repeat, show me what did you learn? Salah is the thing where Allah s.w.t in the hadith where Abu Hurairah radiallahu anhu narrated by him, where he said that Allah s.w.t said, they say any hadith that starts with this, call Allah, what does it mean? What do you call it? You call it hadith? Hadith or what? Anybody knows? No? Okay you will learn inshallah. Hadith of Qudsi, Qudsi okay, hadith of Qudsi is where Allah s.w.t is saying something. Nabi s.a.w said Allah said this. Even the other hadith are things which Allah s.w.t said. That is the hadith also is a revelation. But the other hadith is Allah said to Nabi s.a.w and Nabi s.a.w said in his own words. But hadith of Qudsi is Nabi s.a.w is repeating the words of Allah. So he said Allah s.w.t said I have divided salah prayer between myself and my slave into two halves. And my slave shall have what he asks for. So the first thing Allah s.w.t is saying that in the salah when you make dua and when you recite, Allah will give you what you want. In this hadith Allah s.w.t used the term salah. But the meaning here is specific to surah al-fatiha. Then Allah s.w.t said when my slave says, Bismillah hir rahman hir rahim he says it starts with this which is the first ayat of surah al-fatiha. Which is the first ayat of surah al-fatiha? Which is the first ayat? Yes? Alhamdulillah? No? No? Yes? Bismillah hir rahman hir rahim. JizakAllah khair. Bismillah hir rahman hir rahim. This is a very very important point. Please understand this. Surah al-fatiha is a rukun. It's a pillar of the salah. Which means that your salah is invalid if you do not recite surah al-fatiha

Auto-generated transcript:As-salamu alaykum. I mentioned to you the other day the issue of excellence and the issue of the company of people who will stretch you. Not the company of people who you coast along, mediocre people. We're talking about the company of excellent people because you grow only in an atmosphere where you are stretched. If there is no challenge in your atmosphere, you will never grow. Right? If you look at trees that are grown in a greenhouse, they look very lush because of the controlled environment. They're getting nutrients at the right time. They're getting water, this, that. A lot of greenery. They look very lush and very healthy. But you take the same tree, you put it outside, one gust of wind, it falls flat because there's no root system. Roots are not developed because roots develop only with stress. Roots develop for two reasons. One, roots develop when they go searching for water in the earth. So when there is not enough water, the root goes deep to hit the underground aquifers. And the second reason roots grow is to hold the tree in place and that happens when there are winds. If there are no winds, there's no need for roots. You need the roots when there are winds. So, that is the same situation with human beings. If you are among people who are just like you and you are very comfortable with them, you will never grow. You need to be with people who are superior to you, who are better than you. That's when you grow because you get stressed. You need to be with people who are superior to you, who are better than you. That's when you grow because you get stressed. So I mentioned that in detail in my last khatras. I won't go into that, but I thought let me give you some live examples to show you what ambition and passion looks like. Right? So do this as a test. All your friends who you hang out with, ask them what's your ambition? What are you passionate about? Right? Let them, you ask them, you tell them. What is your ambition? What are you passionate about? And then see if it compares to something which I am going to show you just now. Because as I told you the other time, if you are with people who have no ambition, who have no passion, run like hell. Get out. Your life is in danger. Your future is in danger. You are in danger. Because for everything there is a period, there is a time period, there is a window of opportunity. Once that shuts, you can cry till the cows come home. Nothing is going to happen because the opportunity is gone. You have to take advantage of the opportunity at the time it is there. It doesn't come because you want it. You have to take advantage of it where it is there. Otherwise you will stay where it is. Otherwise you will stay where you are. Now give me two examples. Since you guys are interested in sports, I did a bit of research. Michael Jordan, who is supposed to be, he's called the greatest basketball player of all time. He led the Bulls in six NBA championships. He says, my whole life had always been about being the best basketball player that I could be. He said, I had absolute tunnel vision. Everything was channeled towards making me the best basketball player that exists. And that's how he became. Kobe Bryant, as I told you, they say, his own teammates, they said, we would win a match. Listen carefully. We would win a match somewhere. We would come back home. All of us, we have won the match, obviously come with the money and this and that. We go for a party or we go home and Kobe would go to the gym. He would not go home. He would go to the gym. What's he doing in the gym? He's doing a gym. What's he doing in the gym? In the gym, he's practicing the two shots in that match, which he missed. Now think about that. In the whole match, how many shots would he have played? You know, God knows, right? And the missing those two shots did not do any harm to the match. They still won the match. But he said, no, I missed the two shots. So he goes and he said for one hour or two hours, he would be practicing those two shots from that place. So he remembers where he missed the shot, which point on the court. And he would be standing in that point on the court. And he would be shooting the basket until he got all the shots. They said, we would call, the coach would call for a meeting at 830, breakfast meeting. And he said, all of us would moan and groan and say, for God's sake, one weekend, one day off we have, and the coach wants us. But you know, the coach calls you, you have to go. So he said, all of us would bleary-eyed come into the restaurant in the hotel, 830. And Kobi would walk in, completely covered in sweat from head to foot. He said, where were you? For three hours before that, he was on the court. Three hours before that, 830 meeting, 530 is on the basketball court, he is practicing. Now he set a goal for himself of 10 baskets from each spot on the court.

https://youtu.be/mTH39Dxb090 Auto-generated transcript: Asalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Thank you very much for inviting me to speak today on the topic of social justice. Social justice is the idea that everyone should have equal access to opportunities, resources, and privileges in society. This requires fairness and non-discrimination, equal access to opportunity, respect for human rights, which includes the right to life, freedom from torture, freedom of expression, and the right to work and education, and equality in legal rights, and access to redressal where they are violated. This must be available to every single person, irrespective of caste, creed, culture, race, or gender, or any other division. To live means to choose knowing full well that the freedom to choose doesn't free us from the consequences of the choice. To choose the side we want to stand on, the side we want to support and uphold, understanding that there may be a price to pay for speaking out against injustice, but the cost of silence is higher. I recall the famous words of Pastor Martin Naimolla who said, Injustice to one is injustice to all. That is Islam, and that is why Islam orders us to stand against injustice. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ordered us to stand against injustice no matter who commits it, and defend the victim of injustice no matter who that might be. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded us, and he said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said which means, O believers, stand firm for justice as witnesses for Allah. Even if it is against yourselves, your parents or close relatives, be they rich or poor, Allah is best to ensure their interests. So do not let your desires cause you to deviate from justice. If you distort your testimony or refuse to give it, then know that Allah is certainly all aware of what you do. I quote also one of the greatest fighters for justice who prayed for it with his life, Martin Luther King Jr. He said, There comes a time when silence is betrayal. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. He also said, Society asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but one must take it because it is right. I say to you, O people of conscience, everywhere, the time has come to speak out against all hatred. Hatred is fire and the result is always ash. Speak out against all forms of racism and extremism. Speak out against Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, all forms of racism, all forms of extremism. Speak out against all ideology which tell you that land and power and oil and energy, that anything is more valuable than human life. Speak out against all ideologies that seek to differentiate the value of human life based on color and religion and race or nationality of the human being. I say to you that every human being is exactly as valuable as every other human being. And anyone who seeks to devalue one human being has devalued us all. That injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. That is what we must all pledge to fight. Because when we are called upon before the one from whom nothing is hidden, we will not be asked what happened. We will be asked what did you do. I want to conclude with Emily Dixon's lovely poem called Hope. She says, Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. I repeat, Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. Emily Dixon. Thank you. Thank you.

https://youtu.be/zKkgYyU1Zjw Auto-generated transcript: Okay, so here's my greatest secret of how to achieve your life goal. That greatest secret begins with answering one simple question for yourself. The question is, is this my life goal? Is this my life goal? Now you might say well you know, obviously it is. I mean why should I have to answer this question? Why should I have to ask this question? I'm saying that because in my experience many people like this term life goal. It's one of these, you know, I don't know what you call them. It's one of these words that are bandied about. Many people talk about life goal. This is my life goal. That's my life goal. But they don't understand what is the meaning of life goal. A life goal is something that you are going to dedicate your life to. A life goal is something that you will be recognized by the achievement of that or working towards. A life goal is something that at the end of your life you are going to turn around look at it and say now that was a life well lived because it was a life that was lived achieving or trying to achieve this goal and I'm combining the two because depending on the life goal sometimes you may not be able to fully achieve it and there is no need to punish yourself. There's no need to feel, you know, terrible about that because even if you depending on the magnificence of the goal in some cases it is really commendable for you to be able to achieve that goal even partially rather than live a life without meaning. So I think that therefore I combine the two. I say achieve or try to achieve. So this is what a life goal is. So ask yourself and then decide for yourself is this goal of mine a life goal or is it merely a hobby because many people mistake life goals for mistake hobbies for life goals. They say this is my life goal but actually it's only a hobby because it's something that they like to talk about is something they like to feel good about and they say oh but you know my life goal is to become an airline pilot or you say my life goal is to sing or play in the opera or something you know one of these great things and then you ask them well okay fantastic it'll sound good so what are you doing about that and you discover that they are doing very little because and that's the reason I'm saying determine and be clear with yourself about is it really a life goal because if it is a life goal then you are going to be spending or you should be spending the maximum amount of time on this goal not do it once in a while on weekends when you're free you when you have nothing else to do that's not a life goal that's a hobby and that's nothing wrong with having hobbies what is wrong is to confuse the hobby for a life goal and to call a hobby a life goal because a hobby is not a life goal a hobby is a hobby if it is a life goal then it is something that you are going to be dedicating your entire life to that and it's something that you will get the maximum satisfaction when you are done that it was a life well lived so define this and be very clear in your mind that what you are embarking on is a life goal now if you want to achieve the life goal we come to the the so-called secret and that secret is to create a structure is to create a structure and a timetable now I will tell you this again from my experience that the secret of efficiency the secret of productivity is not intelligence it's not even hard work I mean it does take hard work I mean let me not discount that it does take hard work but it is structure it's hard work done according to a system it's not just random hard work it is hard work done according to a system that is what gives you the maximum productivity in any situation hard work done according to a system this is what adds it gives wings to your goals and to your to the achievement of the goals which is a system and that system I call this structure so the structure would be to begin with it would be the your timetable for the day what time will you wake up to what time do you go to bed please understand and remember and my I say this to everybody that this whole theory of the fact that you need eight hours of sleep is as far as I am concerned bugger because eight hours of sleep is one third of your life 33% of your life ask yourself are you willing to kiss goodbye to 33% of your life I'm saying kiss goodbye because I don't know of anyone who achieves anything while they are sleeping so if you're talking about achievement the first requirement of achievement is that you need to be awake you cannot be achieving anything if you are faster sleep no one does neither will you so if you are going to be faster sleep 33% of your life then I don't know what you think you will achieve I don't think you will achieve anything so you need to be able to live on less sleep than that obviously we need

https://youtu.be/PLf8AfUlD20 Auto-generated transcript: We spoke about discipline and I hope that is clear. We come to the next step in realizing and achieving our life goal and that is to keep track of our day. And I'm going to teach you a very quick and small and very simple but very powerful way to do that. And that is to keep a notebook. Just get a plain notebook. Now again when I say notebook I don't mean any digital thing. I've got nothing against digital things but there is psychologically speaking there is a power in the written word which is written by hand. So get a notebook and a pen and write. This notebook what you should do is on the left side the left page that will be your page of goals for the day. And on the right side will be your page of achievement of those goals. So left side is the goal and right side is the achievement of those goals. So now take this book and every day before you go to bed write down three goals. Never more than three. Once you're finished with three then you can go and write more if you like. But at one time only three. Three goals in order of priority. Most important, next important, next important. Every day. So do not go to sleep until you have written down three goals in order of priority. Once you have written those three goals then you go to sleep and next day before you go to sleep you analyze those three goals. And you say these are the three goals that I wrote yesterday and today what of these did I achieve? Did I achieve them? Did I not achieve them? Did I partially achieve them? What happened with my goals? This is very, very important that you write your three goals every day and in the night before you go to bed you analyze that and say how did I do with these goals? What was the level of my achievement? So this is a very important exercise which I strongly advocate that you do every day and as you can see it's a very simple thing. Nothing complicated about it. Just a notebook and you're writing this. Now you might come to a situation where one day you have written the goals down but when you look at your... in the evening you say well you know I didn't do too well. Doesn't matter. That's a wake up call. Nothing to despair about. Wake up call. Just make sure that you don't do the same thing the next day. Make sure that you do the right thing the following day. So this is very important to do. Second thing is for each of those goals that you write create metrics. I think I mentioned this before. The guy who invented the Six Sigma Quality Standard was a man called Michael Harry. That's how he spelled his name. Michael Harry. He worked for Motorola and he created the Six Sigma Quality Standard. On a side note, the Six Sigma Quality Standard operates on the principle that you cannot measure how well you did something but what you can measure is the number of mistakes. So now imagine this. If I tell you that I have a business, I have an activity at which I am 99% successful, 99% good. And I ask you what do you think? I mean do you think this is... am I doing it well? Do you think this is good? I'm sure you will say yes of course. 99% good is fantastic. But give me... let me explain that to you in double Six Sigma. 99% means scale it. 99% is 10,000 mistakes per million. 99% is 10,000 mistakes per million because it's one mistake per hundred which is 10,000 mistakes per million. Six Sigma is 3.4 mistakes per million. Compare 99% with Six Sigma, 99% is 10,000 mistakes per million. Six Sigma is 3.4 mistakes per million. Now if you are flying in a plane at 30,000 feet elevation and somebody tells you that these engines of this plane were built by such and such a company which operates at 99% good, 99% success. What will you feel? 10,000 mistakes per million which means for every million miles, these engines can field 10,000 times. Not a very comforting thought, right? So 3.4 mistakes per million compared to 10,000 mistakes per million. This is the difference between Six Sigma and 99%. Now why am I saying that to you? Because this is the power of the power of metrics of measurement. Unless we measure, we don't know what is the level of efficiency of ourselves and our actions and our operations. So it's very critical to measure. So set metrics for each one of your goals. Whatever your goals were for the three goals for the day, metrics which will tell you how you should be doing at those goals. And then when you do your assessment in the night, you are going to be looking at your goals in the context of those metrics. And you can then see what was the performance and how you did with this money. So this is very, very important to do. Goals, metrics and assessment every day. If you do this, inshallah, you will find that your time will never be wasted. You will be occupied in actual real goal achievement, which you can measure and which you, you know, you feel nice about that. You don't

https://youtu.be/uJtqTxTTWXc ---*This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. *--- We come to the third part of life goal achievement, identifying an achievement. And that is, the first thing I want to say to you is, the number one thing you need to succeed is discipline. Discipline. Without discipline, nothing will happen. I can give it... give that to you in writing. You write it down and you will know. Without discipline, absolutely nothing will happen. So make absolutely sure that you are disciplined. As somebody said, you want to change the world, as soon as you get up in the morning, make your bed. If you cannot make up and make your bed in the morning, believe me, you're not changing anything. You can want anything you can say. I want to do this, I want to do that. There's a huge difference between wanting and getting. You want, but you don't get, because you have not invested. The simple rule in life, and this rule is irrespective of everything, the same rule applies to you, whether you're black or white or Asian or Indian or green with blue spots, whether you are rich or poor, whether you are from the north or the south, whoever or whatever you are or might be, the same rule applies. And that rule is that investment, reward is directly proportionate to investment. Reward is directly proportionate to investment. You want a big reward, you have to make a big investment. The return on investment, the multiplier, multiplying factor can change. There are some investments which have a much higher multiplier than others. And by all means, look at that. But no matter how big the multiplier is, the final result, the yield, depends on the quantum of investment. Even with a multiplier of a million, somebody who invests one dollar and somebody who invested a million dollars, the reward will be, the difference will be that of a million. So it is extremely, extremely important that you get disciplined. And as I said, discipline begins with making your bed. As soon as you get out of bed, make your bed. Make sure that your shoes are cleaned. If they are leather shoes, they won't be shining. If they are non-leather shoes, they won't be clean. Make sure the clothes you wear, depending on what those are, some might need ironing, others might not need ironing, but they should be neat and clean. If you are okay with going around in the world looking like something the cat brought in, morning, then believe me, the world will treat you like that. The world will treat you like something the cat brought in. And even there they will say, well, they know the cat made a mistake, brought in the wrong thing. So don't do that to yourself. We define how we want the world to treat us and the world treats us accordingly. This is the reality of life. We define how we want the world to treat us and the world treats us accordingly. So make sure that you define yourself in a way where people will respect you. People will treat you with deference. People will treat you with seriousness, that when you say something, people will listen, that your opinion will be taken into account and that you will have influence. And all of that will happen only and only if you create that impression for yourself. It's not a matter of deception. I'm not asking you to deceive anybody. It's a matter of understanding and accepting that people go by what they can see. Nobody's going to do a dive down in-depth research about you. Nobody's going to say, you know, it doesn't matter. I mean, he talks like a fool, but he's really a nice guy. And maybe he has great achievements. It doesn't matter if he doesn't seem to have grown up. His behavior is like a four-year-old who's having a tantrum, except that even the four-year-old's tantrum ends at some point, but this one's tantrum is like lifelong. It doesn't matter, you know, let me... Nobody's interested enough in you to do that. They will just discard you and you will be treated like a fool. Even though you might well have great talents and so on and so forth, nobody gives... I'm trying to keep my language clean in this, but you can fill in the blanks, right? So please don't do yourself this great disfavor. Be disciplined. As somebody said, every one of us, every single human being must feel one of two pains. Every single human being must feel one of two pains. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The thing about it is that the pain of discipline is temporary because it goes away. Then you start enjoying your disciplined, structured life because the secret to productivity is not talent. The secret to productivity is not money. The secret to productivity is not even time. It is structure. People who are structured are hugely more productive than people who are not structured. Now being structured doesn't mean that

https://youtu.be/mfkMElvCURE Auto-generated transcript: So clear goals, metrics, structure and assessing your achievement at the end of the day. This is the absolute secret of success. So do that. Now two very important points. One is the of consistency. In life, the people who achieve the most are not the people who are the fastest, they are not the people who are the most intelligent, they are not the people who are the most talented, they are the people who are the most consistent. Because consistency is the base of trust. Consistency produces trust and trust is the base of leadership. If you want to be a leader, you want to be trusted because nobody will follow someone And how can you be trusted? By being consistent, by your word being your law, by developing a reputation. You do not develop a reputation by talking about it, you develop a reputation by showing it and by demonstrating it. By developing, you become trusted by developing a reputation of being somebody who always delivers on that promise. So if I say to you that I will do something and it doesn't happen, then it means that I'm dead and then you can make dua for me. Because if I told you that I would do something and if I was not able to do it, either not able to do it at all or not able to deliver in time, then I would get back to you. I will never leave you in a lurch. I will never be in a situation where you are sitting there wondering, I said this to him, is he doing it? Is he not doing it? What's going on? This will never happen if you give me a job. This is how I've lived all my life, Alhamdulillah. And this is the reason why I have found great satisfaction and great success and I have made wonderful friends because of this. Becoming trustworthy, becoming somebody that people can rely on. People follow those who they can rely on. So being able to rely on you is number one thing in the context of being a leader. So become reliable. How do you become reliable? By being consistent in your delivery. Consistency is the secret. The other thing connected with this is don't overdo it, but always under promise, over deliver. Everyone likes to be delighted. They like to have nice surprises, not nasty shocks. So what's a nice surprise and a nasty shock? Under promise, over delivery is a nice surprise. Over promise, under delivery or no delivery is a nasty shock. Nobody likes nasty shocks. You don't like it. Others don't like it either. So don't give people nasty shocks. Under promise, over deliver. There is this tendency because of hubris or because of just over-enthusiasm, over-confidence or whatever of promising people the earth and the moon combined. And obviously, you can't do it. And then when you don't do it and somebody calls you out on that, then you have this whole litany of excuses. Oh, but you see this happened, that happened and so on. And you should be reasonable. How can anyone do this? If somebody cannot do this, how come that person promised to do it? The person who promised to do it is responsible for doing it. So if you promise to do something, then it's your job to ensure that you do it. And that's the reason why be very careful what you promise. But once you promise, you are bound by your word. And if you promise and you're not bound by your word, then you are an untrustworthy character. Quite obviously, you are not somebody who is fit to lead. People will not trust you and they will not follow you. So becoming trustworthy and reliable is very, very critically important. And for that, consistency is the call. Final thing, because this is a very common thing that I am seeing and have been seeing in the last few years, and that is people's readiness to give up, the ease with which they give up. I mentioned this earlier as well, which is somebody in a college degree, which it takes maybe 40 or something in between, you get bored and you leave. And you say, I didn't like it. The point is that why do you believe that this decision to leave is any better than was your decision to do it in the first place? Because that was also your subjective decision. This is also your subjective decision. So always see things to a conclusion. See things through to the end. This is very, very important. And it all ties down with being reliable, ties down with consistency, ties down with delivering on promises. All of these are the same things. So make sure that you stick in there and you do not give up. Morning. Giving up is cowardice. It shows that you are a coward. So don't give up. Stick in there and understand that in life, that life is really a marathon. It's not a sprint. So in life, the people who win are the people who simply stay in the race long enough. You win not because you were the fastest, you may not have been the fastest. There were people ahead of you, but those people stopped and those people gave up and you didn't give up. And when you

https://youtu.be/oIg8u1-E_FM Auto-generated transcript: So we're talking about the coming at or deciding on your life goal and as I mentioned to you yesterday or not yesterday I recorded yesterday but the last episode on this the first one that I suggested to you that you should narrow down your choices to not more than two, two different choices. So after that what you do is as much in-depth research about those choices as you possibly can. Research on different careers and so forth has become now thanks to the internet, thanks to social media and so on has become much easier than it was. So utilize that. Social media is generally harmful or negative but in this case it's useful. So utilize that and we do as much research as you can and find out about the two career choices that you have narrowed down to. Once you've done that part of that research you should have come up with the names of the top people in that profession and this should be part of your research so you would have you would have names. Pick three top ones of that. Now these are people who are in effect living your dream. They have been there done that they have achieved what you are setting out to achieve. They are at the goal and you are starting out on the path to get to the goal. Now I'm not suggesting to you that these people will give you you know their life is exact copy or exact model of what you should do with your life. No but it's the closest that you're going to get to that and you're looking at a success model. So you're looking at somebody who's had done that, who's struggled and who was successful. So obviously they will have wonderful things and potentially they will have a lot to to teach you. So take that and then contact them and request to be allowed to shadow them. Now this is very important because you want to get as much of a hands-on experience as much of a hands-on experience of the profession before you actually get into the profession and the way to do that is to shadow somebody who is in that profession. So if you want to become a you know bus driver for example or say a long distance 16-wheeler truck driver. So before you actually get a truck license and whatnot ask one of the truckers if you can ride with him ride with him and my experience of people is that most people who are successful are very open to sharing their lives and their struggles and their goals with anyone who is genuinely interested in listening to them and please notice my words genuinely interested not somebody who's sort of passing by no genuinely interested. So you need to convince that person that you are truly interested in learning from them. Once you convince them and it doesn't take long anyone worth his salt will figure out in the first you know 30 seconds of your conversation whether you're serious or not. So then request to shadow them. As I mentioned people are very willing and open to that and once they agree then you shadow them and do it for a few days maybe a week or so because otherwise you don't get it and get a clear idea of that profession because especially if there's something you want to do it would seem very exciting and and nice to begin with and before you can come to the painful aspects of it which every single profession has you would have got out and you would have got out with a wrong impression so you don't want to do that you want to make sure that you understand it fully and to understand fully you need to be to have enough of an experience the one week is still not enough but it's the best you can do so ask for that and then that one week must be the most serious week of your life be very very serious with them and with their time because their time is valuable and for you it's something which is even more valuable so don't treat that lightly they have taken the troubles to share their life with you so take it seriously now what does that mean in in practice it means that you show up before they show up so if they're working hours begin at depending on who you are shadowing if you are shadowing for example a surgeon most surgeons begin their surgery very early in the morning 5 a.m so if the surgeon is beginning at 5 a.m you make sure that you are there well before that and so on and then stick in there and don't say i'm feeling hungry or i don't know i am tired i need to take my afternoon nap or i need to run to mama for my milk no stick in there no complaints where you need to where you are with them for example the surgeon takes you after surgery takes you to the cafeteria pull out your wallet and pay for the coffee or pay for the the lunch or whatever you are having if he stops you then you might gracefully accept his hospitality one time but otherwise always be the first open their car doors pull out chairs for them to sit right treat the whole thing as that this person is doing you an enormou

https://youtu.be/A7VxrTuHrpg Auto-generated transcript: The question that I'm asked from time to time by thinking individuals, thinking young people is, how should I focus on a goal? How do I arrive at a goal for myself in life? Now those who are born with that thought and that knowledge and that focus clearly in their minds are blessed. But those who are not born with that are in a way blessed even more. Because when you get something easy, sometimes you tend to lose value for it. You think it's okay, it comes easy to me, so it must be easy. Whereas the reality of life is that it's not easy. And for those to whom it does not come easy, I'm saying they are even more fortunate, they're more lucky because on the one hand they will get that knowledge when they work hard enough for it. And meanwhile, they will have the opportunity to develop resilience, to develop perseverance, and to develop consistency, and to develop persistence, and to develop commitment, and to develop discipline. All of which are critically important to achieve that goal no matter how easily or no matter with what difficulty you arrived at it in the first place. Because even the person who knows from the moment you open his eyes that I want to be this, whatever that this is, he will need persistence and he will need a sting power, he will need the commitment and he will need all of that if he really wants to achieve the goal. Getting that you want something is one thing, getting it is a whole different ball game. The benefit or rather the only benefit of knowing clearly what you want is that you can start working in that direction sooner than somebody who has to go through a lot of soul searching and so forth before he or she gets to that clarity. That's about the only benefit. But if you know it clearly, but you do not do anything to develop, to bring discipline into your life, to be persistent, to be consistent, to have determination, then good luck to you because you are not going to achieve that goal. Now therefore how to do this? So I'm not talking about the one to whom this is clear, I'm talking about the one to whom it may not be so clear and they are struggling. The first thing to do is to make friends with yourself. I've said this many times and I believe this and I believe it very strongly that one of the greatest things that we have lost, which used to be a strength, maybe for some people it was a strength by default. I mean, you know, they didn't ask for it, but it was there. It became part of their life. It's like people living on steep hillsides, they get to do a lot of cardiac work, walking because they're interested in cardiac fitness, but because that's how you get around. You live on top of the hillside, you would go down to the river for water, carry the water back up again and so on and so on. So you are getting, you're doing some work for some other reason, but you're getting cardiac fitness as a bonus and I think that is something which is, you know, worth thinking about. The thing to do, what we have lost is this, which is the ability to be comfortable with yourself. The comfort with silence, the comfort with solitude, comfort with being by yourself. And when I say by yourself, I don't just mean by yourself physically, personally as in one human being, but one human being minus their phone, because the phone is the biggest distraction and the biggest interference that we have bought and brought into our lives. And we have created this completely toxic lifestyle, which is based on where the most common feeling is that of fear, FOMO, fear of missing out. And if you just think about all the time we check the phone so that we don't suffer from FOMO, so that we don't miss out something and see, okay, so I check my phone, you know, 10,000 times a day because that's the truth of it. That's how much we check every three seconds and say, okay, sure, so I did that. Now what did I get? Well, obviously I didn't miss out. I was taking care of that every three seconds. So I must have got what I was chasing. What did I get? I ask you, sir, what is the answer? You know the answer. I know the answer. The ability to be alone and to be comfortable with yourself being alone. So number one, you're talking about how do I get to a life goal? So first step, make friends with yourself. Learn to be alone. Seek being alone. Don't seek company. Seek being alone. Seek solitude. I don't mean seek solitude as in, you know, somebody who is dysfunctionally introverted, somebody who is depressed. No, as a perfectly healthy human being who's very comfortable with other people, who has high social skills and so on, but they like to be alone by themselves for some part of the day. And that's where we need to get. Today, there is a whole branch of psychology which deals in these things, which is anxiety creating moments for p

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalaatu wasalaamu ala ash-sharafeel anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolullahi Sallallahu Alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, tasliman kathiran kathira. Fumma badhu. My brothers and sisters, one of the courses I teach is called the elevator speech. Now the scenario of the elevator speech is that we say, we tell the people imagine you are CEO or imagine some very powerful person who has the ability to do something that can change your life positively, right? Now imagine that you are in the Trump Tower and on the 80th floor and as you are in the elevator and as the doors are about to close, you hear a shout, hold the door and you hold the door and Mr. Donald Trump walks into the elevator. The door shuts and the elevator is going down, right? You can change the name of Donald Trump to whoever you want to change, meaning this powerful person who can do something for you. Now those elevators, they travel pretty fast, right? It's not a slow train to Kokomo. So you have maybe, I would say, 20 seconds or so, or 25 seconds before you come to the first floor, doors open, the man is gone. So now you have this person with you exclusively for 20 seconds. The question I ask people is, what will you say to that person which has the potential to change your life? Obviously positively. What will you say? Most people will say, my name is so-and-so. Your name might be the most interesting thing for you, maybe it was for your mom, but for anybody else, makes no sense. Why is he interested in your name? Now you have 20 seconds. Out of the 20 seconds, mine is so-and-so. How much time? And obviously you can't ask the man, what is your name? Because if you didn't even know who he is, then what are you talking about? So you are supposed to know his name. Then most people will say, I'm a businessman. So you are a businessman. We are in the United States of America. They are like three and a half zillion businessman and you are one of them. Very nice. I'm an IT programmer. That's fantastic. 80% of the IT companies in the world have Indian IT programmers. I'm a doctor or even better. So what would you say that sticks in the mind of the person? That's the question. So I'm not going to give you any answer. Answer it for yourself. The point I want to make here is this. The principle I'm talking about here is what I call differentiation. What differentiates you? What makes you different from everybody else? What makes you stand out? Because differentiation creates brand. Brand inspires loyalty. Loyalty enables influence. Memorize this. Differentiation creates brand. Brand inspires loyalty. Loyalty enables influence. When you go to a grocery store to buy toothpaste, you don't say, give me toothpaste. You name a brand that you use. Right? If I tell you I'm going to go out of here and I'm going to buy a car, what's the first question you're going to ask me? What's the question? Which car? Exactly. I said, Nabil, what do you mean which car? I'm going to buy a car. You tell me, Sheikh, what is a car? There's no such thing as a car. Is there something called a car in the market? Tell me seriously, is there something called a car in the market? There's no car. There's a Mercedes, there's a BMW, there's a Tesla if your brain has fried. There is a, you know, there is a Maserati, there is a Bugatti, there is a this and that. What's a car? What's this thing in the car? Differentiation. Branding is all about differentiation. What makes you different in a positive way? Which touches the heart of your customer? Without brand, you are one grain of rice in a sack. You're still rice, but you're one grain in a sack. Nobody knows you live, nobody knows you died, nobody cares. Differentiate. How do you differentiate? You differentiate by surrounding yourself with people who are better than you, who will push you, who will stretch you, in whose company you will be uncomfortable because you are trying to catch up with them. Which means that if you are in a group of friends with whom you are very comfortable, run like hell. Get out. If you are in a group of friends who make you feel that you are God's gift to mankind, run like hell. Because the only person who believes that you are God's gift to mankind is your mom. For almost everyone else in the world, you are a pain in the you-know-where. But what's the normal tendency of people? We like to be with people who we are very comfortable with. We like to be with people who never ask us any uncomfortable question. We like to be with people who make us feel great, oh fantastic, you are the best. You're not the best. You are a nice person. You are not the best. You are not even close to the best. Because the best, what is the best? If I think I'm an olive, I don't

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 most honored of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family, and peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family. Brother and sister, normally in America if you ask somebody how are you, what is the answer you get? Let me ask you, how are you? Good. He says good. First of all, good or bad is an assessment of you by somebody else. You don't decide I am good. Somebody else decides if you are good. Allah will decide if you are good. Right? So this is the American culture in which things are upside down. So good. Wrong answer. You say Alhamdulillah. That is the correct answer for a Muslim. And then you be polite and ask the other person how are you? After all somebody asked you a question, how are you? So they deserve to have a polite answer, right? So Alhamdulillah, I am well, how are you? But that's not the point. My point is what I want to say here is, when you say I am well, what is wellness? It's very important to understand, very very important to understand what is wellness. Wellness comprises of many things. Physical wellness, mental wellness, emotional wellness, spiritual wellness, financial wellness, wellness with regard to your relationships. If you are married then wellness in your family, wellness with regard to your children, your relationship with your children, how your children are growing and so on and so forth. Right? Many aspects of wellness. Now why is it important to think about this? Because in this world Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made this word, Allah said for the human being is only that which he works for. It's a world of cause and effect. So if I want to be well, and by well what does that mean? It means I want to be well in all these aspects. I want to be physically well, mentally well, emotionally well, spiritually well, well in my relationships, well in my finances and so on and so on. Then I must have a game plan for all of that. Because it won't happen. Unless I work for it, it's not going to happen. So if you take your day, and I'm suggesting that you do this as an exercise. Right? I'm teaching a course on live goal planning on the 15th in Hampshire mosque. Anyone interested come to that course. So if you are interested in being well, then you must have a plan. And if I look at your day from the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep, you must have a plan which is targeted at physical wellness. How do you get physical wellness? What determines that? What you eat and drink? How much exercise do you do? How much sleep do you get? And how do you take care of your body? Hygiene. Right? Four aspects to that. You must have an answer for all of this. Mental wellness comprises of what knowledge do I have? What knowledge do I need? What am I doing to gain that knowledge? Emotional wellness. How do I deal with my emotions? Sad, glad, bad, mad. How do I deal with that? If I get angry, what do I do? If I feel disappointed, what do I do? If I feel depressed, what do I do? Spiritual wellness. My connection with Allah. How much time in a day do I spend in my connection with Allah? And I'm not talking about the four salawat. The four salat is the four salat. This has to be done. In addition to that, how much Quran I'm reading, do I understand that? How much dhikr do I do? Do I focus on that dhikr, what happens to me? In his last qatra, he talked about this. The believers are those who when Allah's dhikr is mentioned, their hearts shiver with the awe and majesty of Allah. Does it happen to me? Spiritual wellness. Finance your wellness. How much money do you need? What's your game plan going forward? What's your career looking like? What are your career goals and aspirations? You've got a lot of young people sitting here. Do you have a career plan? Where do you see yourself 10 years from now? It's not just a dream. 10 years from now I'm going to be the chairman of General Electric. What tells me that it will happen? Do you have that plan? Do you have ambition? In business, you're running a business. What's your plan in the business going forward? 5 years from now, 10 years from now, what's the plan? Do you understand markets? Do you understand finance? Do you understand inflation? Everything has to be learned. And therefore, how much time do you want to spend learning these things? Then, relationships. Marital relationship with your wife and your husband. Relationship with your parents, relationship with your children. How are those going? One simple question I ask people, do you have a conversation with your children? Go get this, go get that is not conversation. Conversation is when you sit and you talk about things which have mutual

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah, Rabbi Alameen, wassalatu wassalamu ala ashrafil anbiya'i wal mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, tasliman kaseeran kaseera. Fama ba'du. My brothers, sisters, elders, we are talking about what the significance of the incident of Al-Isra wal-Miraj and what do we need to do with regard to it. Is it simply something which happened historically, we know about it, alhamdulillah, good for Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa sallam, or does it have any bearing on your and my life? And as I mentioned to you, the first bearing it has on your and my life is that thanks to this incident, this was the time when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala opened the doors of His darwar, of His presence for all of us. Thanks to Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. When Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa sallam told the Quraysh about his journey, he first told Umba Iman radiallahu anha, and as soon as she heard it, she said to him, Ya Rasulullah, don't tell anybody else. Don't tell this to anyone else. Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa sallam said, I have been commanded to say to the people. And when he said to the people, some people he said too and then they started laughing, then suddenly somebody went and informed Abu Jail and Abu Jail came running. And they asked him, tell me the story. And Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa sallam told him the whole story. So Abu Jail said, look, I am going to bring some other people here. Will you tell the same story or will you change it? Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa sallam said, this is the truth. What is there to change? There is nothing to change. I will tell the same story. And Abu Jail Sallallahu Alaihi wa sallam was thinking maybe Abu Jail's heart is coming towards Islam. So Abu Jail now brings a whole bunch of people and he says, tell the story. Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa sallam tells the story and the people are laughing and they are falling all over themselves and mocking him. Then he went from here to there and some of the Muslims who were weak in faith, they apostated, they left Islam. Abu Jail said, well, you know, he has destroyed his own credibility, khalas. And that time somebody went to Abu Bakr as Siddique Khilafat-ul-Alam. He was not there in this whole group. He was at home. Somebody went to him. They said, you know what your friend is saying? Abu Bakr as Siddique Khilafat-ul-Alam said, what is he saying? So the man told him this story. He said, this is what he is saying. He said, he went from Mecca to Jerusalem and seven heavens and back and this and that. Abu Bakr as Siddique Khilafat-ul-Alam's statement, one line, his statement is today and from that day, the standard on which every hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is judged. When you want to check the authenticity of the hadith, it is judged on this standard. He said, if he said it, I believe. Think about this. He didn't simply say, yes, I believe. No. He said, if he said it, I believe. So when we authenticate a hadith, what do you authenticate? Did he say it? You don't have to say, well, you know, he may have said it, but does it sound logical? Does it make sense to me? Is it scientifically possible according to whatever science I know today? Is it this? Is it that? No. So obviously, they asked him the same question. Believe it or not, nothing new. Anytime somebody thinks they discovered something, I tell them to read history. You don't discover anything. Everything is known. I didn't say it. I just started to say it 2000 years ago. So the man asked him, he said, how can you believe this? Does it make sense to you? How does somebody go from Mecca to Jerusalem and this and that and what not? I mean, does it make any sense? Is it possible? How do you believe this? Abu Bakr Asidya Khilad-al-Alam laughed. He said, we believe even more than this. This is nothing. He said, we believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Have you seen him? He said, we believe in the Day of Judgment. Have you seen that? He said, we believe in Jannah wa Jahannam. Have you seen that? He said, what is this? If you believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Jalla Jalaluhu, who is the creator of the heavens and the earth and everything in between and whatever it contains, how difficult is it for Allah to take one human being to wherever he wanted to take him? The root is that. Do you believe in Allah? The root is not how did this journey happen and can I explain it logically and so on. Very interestingly, there is a book called Hyper Space, read it, by Michio Kaku, who's a physicist, very famous, lives in America. When I read the book, I understood two things. One is, I mean, I believe it, I believe it, so I don't need Hyper Space to believe this. But I'm saying, this, Ayat of Suratul Isra and the Ayat of Suratul Naba, wa futi hati sama ufakanat abu aba. You&#039

Auto-generated transcript: Salamu alaikum. My dear brothers and sisters. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala jalla jalaluhu said in his book the first ayat of surah Surah Bari Israel, Surah Al-Isra glorified and exalted is he, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, above all that they associate with him, who took His slave Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam for a journey by night from Al-Masjid Al-Haram to Masjid Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. The neighborhood and surroundings of which we have blessed in order that we might show him, Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, our ayat, our signs, verily he jalla jalaluhu hears all and knows all, is the all hearer and the all seer. Narrated Malik bin Sasa radiallahu anhu, Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said when I was in the Kaaba in a state midway between sleep and wakefulness, an angel recognized me as the man lying between two men. There was Hamza bin Abdul Nuttalib and Jafar bin Abi Talib radiallahu anhu wa lying on either side of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the Mataaf of the Kaaba. A golden tray full of wisdom and belief was brought to me and my body was cut open from the throat to the lower part of the abdomen and then my abdomen was washed and my heart was washed with Zamzam and my heart was filled with wisdom and belief. Al-Buraq, a white animal smaller than a mule and bigger than a donkey was brought to me and I set out with Jibril alayhi wa sallam. When I reached the nearest heaven, Jibril said to the heaven gatekeeper, open the gate. The gatekeeper asked who is it? He said Jibril. The gatekeeper says who is accompanying you? Jibril said Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The gatekeeper said has he been called? Jibril said yes. Then it was said he is welcome. What a wonderful visit is his. Then Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam continued and he said there I met Adam alayhi wa sallam and greeted him and he said to me you are welcome, oh my son and a prophet. Then we ascended to the second heaven and the same conversation happened and there he said I met Isa alayhi wa sallam and Yahya alayhi wa sallam who said you are welcome, oh our brother and a prophet. Then we ascended to the third heaven where the same question and answers happened at the gate and there he said I met Yusuf alayhi wa sallam and greeted him and he replied you are welcome, oh my brother and a prophet. Then we ascended to the fourth heaven and again the same questions and answers were exchanged as in the previous heavens. There I met Idris alayhi wa sallam and greeted him and he said you are welcome, oh my brother and prophet. Then we ascended to the fifth heaven and again the same questions and answers were exchanged and there I met and greeted Harun alayhi wa sallam who said you are welcome, oh my brother and a prophet. Then we ascended to the sixth heaven and again the same questions and answers were exchanged and there I met and greeted Musa alayhi wa sallam who said you are welcome, oh my brother and a prophet. When I proceeded on Musa alayhi wa sallam started weeping and when I asked him why he was weeping he said oh rab followers of this youth who you sent after me will enter Jannah in greater numbers than my followers. Then we ascended to the seventh heaven and again the same questions and answers were exchanged. There I met and greeted Ibrahim alayhi sallam and he said oh you are welcome, oh my son and a prophet. And then I was shown Al-Baitul Ma'mur which is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's house above the Kaaba in the seventh heaven. I asked Jibreel alayhi wa sallam about it and he said this is Al-Baitul Ma'mur where 70,000 angels pray daily, they make tawaf daily and when they leave they never return and the next day it is a fresh batch that comes into it daily. Just imagine think about this how many times do we go to the Kaaba and how many times may Allah give us the opportunity to go again and again and I see some of the faces of our brothers who have been just now for Umrah welcome back and inshallah we will sit and talk to you about your experiences but imagine how many times Allah gives us the opportunity to go to the equivalent of Baitul Ma'mur which is on this earth the Kaaba. There is no limitation it's not to say you can go only once in a lifetime but for the malaikah there is a limitation once you go khalaas they cannot come back. And then Rasoola as said then I was shown sidratul muttaha which is a tree in the seventh heaven and I saw its nabak fruits which resembled the clay jugs of the people of Hajar and its leaves were like the ears of elephants and four rivers originated at its root two of them were apparent and two were hidden. I asked Jibreel alayhi wa sallam about those rivers and he said the two hidden rivers are in Jannah and the visible ones are the Nile and Euphrates. Then fifty prayers were enjoined on me. I descended till I met Musa alayhi salam who asked me what have you done what has happened and I said fifty pray

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 be upon him, and upon his family and companions. And peace be upon him. Now, brothers and sisters, this is the year 2025. Right? We just came into the year 2025. If I change one number and make it 21, 25, we are looking at 100 years from now. 100 years from now, if somebody takes a picture, of course we don't know whether the building itself will be there, inshallah it will be there. But one thing for sure, that everybody who is here in this room, whether they are young, whether they are old, small, big, anything, not a single one of them will be there in their pictures in 2020, 21, 25. 100 years from now, we will all be dead. Our children will be dead. Probably grandchildren will be dead. Maybe some will be there. Great grandchildren may be there. Now let me ask you another question. How many of you know the name, name? Not Jeddah, name of your great grandmother? Either side. Mother's grandmother or father's grandmother? You and who else? Who but you? Great grandfather maybe. Some people will know. Some won't even know that. So what do you think I'm saying to you? I'm saying to you that in 100 years, even your name will be gone. Your own, your own descendants who have your blood in their veins, who have your genes, they all know that you existed. So if they don't even know you existed, do you think they are making dua for you? Logically no, no? They don't even exist yet. If somebody is sitting in my place 100 years from now and he says, you know to Asad's great-great-grandson or by, well I am the last on my line so I have nothing, no one to come behind me but others, what was the name of your great-great-grandfather? Now why is this important? It is important because all of this will go, including our name. Our name goes very fast. Believe me, our name goes so fast. I've said this so many times. You know when our name goes, the minute our eyes close. I'm sitting here. If you want me to move, you will tell me, Shekh Yawar, please move here. Or you will say, move Shekh Yawar from here to there. Yes? But tomorrow if I die in this place and my janaza is done in this masjid and I'm lying there, and you need to move, what will you say? Will you say move Shekh Yawar? No, move the body. Move the janaza. Move the bayt. And if somebody says, ya Shekh, this is your brother, this is your friend Shekh Yawar. Shekh Yawar, Shekh Yawar Khas. This is the mayt. Our name goes very fast. Some memory will remain, some people will remember you for some time. After that their memory also gone. But you know what remains? What will remain until the Day of Judgment? What will come out on the Day of Judgment? What will be with us when we stand before Allah? You know what? Our actions, our deeds, our beliefs, our akidah and our amal, they don't go anywhere. They stay with us. Your car will stay here. How you bought that car will go with you. Your house will stay here. How you bought the house, whether you took an interest based loan and a mortgage to buy the house or not, that will go with you. Your job will stay here, your shop will stay here, all the goods in the shop will stay here. But your decisions, your actions, my actions, my decisions, they will go with us. They have eternal life, they don't die. They will be with us. And they will not only be with us, we will be answering for them. We will answer for them. We have in my city, in Hyderabad in our whole country, one of the prime ministers, was a man called Nawab Salarjung, Salarjung the third. Because the father and grandfather all had the same title, so Salarjung the third. So he wanted to marry a particular girl, his grandmother refused to agree, so he never married anybody. And he spent his wealth collecting things. He was very fond of the wealth. And he spent his wealth collecting things. He was very fond of different collecting different things. So he collected all kinds of paintings and jade, diamond cups and jade cups and saucers and different kinds of clocks and millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of collection. It is the largest collection of things, of artifacts of a single person, in the whole world. There is a huge museum called Salarjung Museum. And people say that in the, you know, many, many things were stolen, watered, but still there is a whole big building full of things. But where is Salarjung? Gone. Things are all here. People are paying a ticket every day to go and see it. This is the clock, this is the clock. Somebody sent me a thing saying that, what is the Facebook guy's name? Mark Zuckerberg. The guy looks like a fish. Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg bought a latest watch which he bought which has a hand. It's

https://youtu.be/kM5fBMEvUjg Auto-generated transcript: Surah Al-Ran Al-Rahim Al-Hamd Al-Illahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu Wa Salamu Alaa Ashera Fi Al-Anbiya'i Wa Al-Mursaleen Muhammadu Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Alaa Alihi Wa Sallam. Tasliman Kathiran Kathiran. Salma Vaadu. These are oak trees with what is called Spanish moss on them. Spanish moss is not moss, it's lichens that grow in a very interesting fashion and they hang on the tree. These are what are called saprophytes. So they use the tree as a way of anchoring them to some spot and then they grow, they take moisture from the earth. I'm going towards the lake. There is a giant, actually it looks like a greater egret which has just taken flight. It's interesting for those who are interested, one of the ways of distinguishing between a heron, egret and a crane is their flight. The herons and egrets, they fly with their, with a bend in their necks, whereas cranes fly with their necks stretched out. There are a whole lot of ducks on the lake but they are quite far away. I'm going to try to see if I can get closer to them. Let's see. I remind myself anew of the importance of, oh look at this, fish and lots of them. I don't know if you can see them in this camera. You can, yes you can. You see the fish. The water is so clear you will see all the fish and these are probably people feed them. I don't know. There are some bigger ones also a little bit deeper. All of these waters incidentally could potentially have alligators. Somebody sent me a very nice little video clip which this lady is saying, I will teach you the absolutely sure fire alligator detector method. And she says put your fingers in the water, trittle them a little bit, take them out. If they are wet, there is an alligator. And it is like that. The default is that there is an alligator. Here may not be because since this is not a natural lake, this is an artificial lake. And there are people patrolling this place all the time. So if there is an alligator, if there was an alligator, people would have seen it and they would have removed it. I'm coming up to the ducks and there's a turtle on the side here which is a little bit more than a half an inch. And just took a look at me and vanished. So obviously I'm not attracted to turtles. I remind myself anew about the importance of staying rooted in fundamentals. Fundamentals of our creed, fundamentals of our religion and belief. And the beauty is that these fundamentals are so simple and so easy to remember that you cannot go wrong with them. We ask Allah swt to keep us rooted and to keep us in His boundless mercy and grace. I'm trying to get you a closer shot of the ducks. There you go. Now there are three basic fundamentals that I want to share with you. And I ask you to take a look at them and think about them. These are as follows, which is the first and foremost is the fundamentals of our Aqeedah to Tauheed. The Aqeedah of the unity of worship of Allah swt. The Aqeedah of the truth that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah swt. And that Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam is the last and final one. And that Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam is the last and final messenger of Allah swt. Never to lose sight of this, the unity of worship of Allah swt. And the position of Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam as his last and final messenger whose message we follow. This Aqeedah of Tauheed is what separates us Muslims from everybody else. Please understand and please do not allow anyone to lead you astray. No matter how famous that so called Sheikh might be. Because I've been seeing and hearing reports of people making all kinds of claims. May Allah swt guide them away from the path of the wrongdoings. The path of misguidance that they are following. Where not only are they misguided but they are trying to misguide others. There is a small bro heron. There he is. Who is also hunting here now. That's the little blue heron. And the great blue heron, you might have seen pictures of that. Which I have said many times. So first and foremost, as I said it's a very simple thing. Don't get lost. First and foremost is the Aqeedah of Tauheed. The Aqeedah of Tauheed, our belief in the uniqueness, the oneness, the wahdaniyat. We ask Allah SWT to always keep us focused on this and never let us down. Allow us to lose track of it. So Aqeedah of Tauheed. Never make shirk, never fall into bid'at. Never invent things on your own and never follow the inventions of anybody else. Please understand and remember that the Deen is one. It is distinct. It is not like anything else. Just like Allah is not like anything else. Allah said there is nothing like Him in creation. And He is the all seeing and the all hearing. And so also is Deen. The Deen that He sent and chose for us is unique. Has no parallel. Unlike anything else. Among the other adhyan, among the other religio

https://youtu.be/1U_rHJqxpoA Auto-generated transcript: My brothers and sisters, I mentioned two ways of introducing Allah SWT and His glory and majesty to ourselves and remind ourselves and to introduce Allah to the people in my last video, one was by reciting Allah's introductions, places where Allah introduced Himself, Surah Al-Ikhlas, Ayatul Kursi, the last part of Surah Al-Hashr and many other places in the Quran, where Allah mentioned Himself and He spoke about His own glory and majesty. There is nothing that is more magnificent than the introduction of Allah by Allah. The second way is to reflect on the creation of Allah SWT. Again, there is no shortage of that. As I mentioned, do your research correctly and make sure you use factual stuff and inshallah, this is a beautiful way of introducing Allah SWT. The third way is to remind ourselves and to remind others of the importance of shukr, the importance of being grateful to Allah SWT. Again, if you just look at yourself in the mirror in the morning when you wake up and say, Allah made me like this, so beautiful, so wonderful, so unique, there is no other person in the world who is like this. I am alone and you are alone and each one of us is alone and each one of us is a miracle in himself and herself of the khudrat of Allah SWT. So remind yourself and remind others to be thankful and continue to make thanks to Allah SWT, continue to be grateful to Allah SWT. Part of being grateful is to make istighfar because one of the things that we thank Allah SWT, most of us, is for covering us with His cover, for covering our faults, for not exposing us, for not exposing our sins, especially those that we do quietly when we think nobody is watching. There is nothing more stupid than that for a Muslim to believe that he or she is somewhere, somehow alone and hidden and nobody is watching. How can it be that nobody is watching when Allah SWT who was Samuel Basir, he is the all seeer, the all hearer and he knows what's in the hearts. So how can there ever be a time when nobody is seeing and nobody is watching and nobody is hearing when we are truly hidden. There is no such thing but shaitan fools us and we believe shaitan instead of believing Allah and put ourselves in trouble. So therefore we thank Allah SWT for all that He gave us physically. For example, the ability to do things, the ability to construct things, the ability to have a strength and power, you know, just think lists. That's why it's very important to sit down with a piece of paper and a writing pad and a pen and list down one after one after the other and say all the things that Allah gave me and which I am grateful to Him for. Go on Bhawa, make sure you don't miss anything. If you want to count the blessings of Allah, you will not be able to count the challenge of Allah SWT. So let us try at least. We are not trying to say disprove the challenge, that cannot be done possibly, but for us to make the effort and say Allah at least I tried, so please forgive me. So when we thank Allah SWT, as I said especially for the cover that Allah SWT put over us and over our actions and over our speech and what we did and didn't do. And Allah SWT saved us from the evil of our speech. For example, one of the most important teachings of Rasool Allah SWT, which Allah SWT even mentioned in the Quran, when he mentioned the story of Musa, Allah SWT said, Allah told Musa, He said speak to Firaun in a soft way, in a gentle way. SubhanAllah I remember the times that I did not do this myself. Sure my intention, inshallah, was good. I was frustrated for the right reasons and I was trying to do my best, but did I speak gently? I did not speak gently. And it had its evil effects and I shudder to think that if anyone was turned away from Islam because of the way I presented it, because of the way I addressed that issue, then I begged that person to forgive me. I begged that person to ask Allah SWT to forgive me and I asked Allah SWT to forgive me. If anyone was turned away from Islam because of the way I presented it. This is one of the big problems that we have today, especially people who within courts newly come to Islam, the newly born into Islam. People who are Muslims, alhamdulillah, but suddenly Allah SWT, alhamdulillah, with His khudrat, with His power, glory, majesty, Allah opens their hearts and they start studying and learning about Islam and suddenly they turn into jinn, they turn into raqshasas because they start acting as if the Quran is being revealed to them directly and that they have the right to say halam, halal and they pronounce takfeer and they say so and so is a kafir and so and so this and so that. May Allah have mercy on us please like Ibn Taymiyyah said, do not make the cure worse than the disease. Meaning when you go and correct people don't make that into a worse problem because people might be turned off and might be turned away from Allah, might be turned away fr