Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

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

https://youtu.be/Sd-8jKCk80w Auto-generated transcript: My dear brothers and sisters, I'm standing on a little hillock in Mactayo Park which looks down on the Connecticut River which you see there in the middle distance and part from snow melt, part from rain, the river is full back to back. It is very cold. It is right now it says feels like minus 11. I think the actual temperature is about maybe five or six degrees which feels much colder. Alhamdulillah today I want to talk about and remind myself and you. The question that people ask me, Allah bless them, they say how can we and how should we introduce Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to people? How can we kindle or we can't kindle or obviously even torment when we present Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as the glory and majesty in a way which kindles in the hearts of people the love for Allah, the love for His Rasul, alayhi salatu wasalam and the desire to follow this beautiful religion that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed us with, al-Islam. I can do no better than to take lessons and share my lessons in this line from the Quran. So the first three ways of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The first and foremost is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's introduction in the Quran al-Kareem. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala introduced Himself. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us who He is and for example Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said qul hu Allahu ahad, Allahu samad, lam yaleed wa lam yulad, wa lam ya qullahu kufwan ahad. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said say to them, Ya Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He is one and one not as in a number which is which can be multiplied or divided but one as in unique. Hu Allahu al-Ahad, al-Ahadu samad, lam yaleed wa lam yulad and He is complete and He has no needs and He has no offspring and He was not born and He wasn't He didn't begot He didn't have any son or something and this is a shout out towards Isa alayhi salam and the belief that they have the false belief that He is son of God. Allah is making this very clear. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying no it's not this and wa lam ya qullahu kufwan ahad and they're saying He is free from all needs and desires and everyone needs Him and He doesn't need anybody. This is Allah unique. Allah is Allah. Lay saka mislihi shay'un, wa hu wa sami'ul basir. There's nothing that can be compared to Him and He is the all seeing and the all knowing. So and there are many other ayat in the Quran. There are take from for example ayat al-kursi, take the last parts of surah al-hashr, take the beginning of surah al-mulk and many other surahs all of them introduce us to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. All of these are introductions of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala which Allah gave. So that is one very very very powerful way of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Simply quote what Allah said because no one can introduce Allah better than He introduced Himself. So just quote what He said. Who is Allah? This is who Allah said He is. Now for that it's very important to be able to recite the Quran correctly. That is very important. Don't take the time and trouble to learn how to decide the Quran al-karim correctly. I'm not talking about so much about the the lahm, the tune, the qiraat. I'm talking about tajweed. I'm talking about reciting it correctly so that the meaning doesn't change and so that people when they hear and they listen to the Quran they are clear in their minds and they can feel the glory and majesty of the kalam of Allah. That is very important right. So don't recite the Quran in a way that people do not feel its glory and majesty. So very important to be able to recite the Quran al-karim correctly and recite. So say introduce Allah by simply reciting the Quran. This is what Rasulullah did all the time. When people asked him about Allah SWT, he recited Quran and people came to Islam because they heard the Quran and these were linguists, these were people who were the people of the language and they said this is not the word of any human being. There is no human being who can speak like this. Because they were the experts and they said but we are the experts and we know that we cannot speak like this. So this is something which is divine. The second way is by talking about the creation of Allah SWT, by showing the creation of Allah SWT external and internal. Because Allah SWT mentioned this. Allah taught us how to introduce Himself. Allah said verily and truly in the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the alternation of the day and the night, there are signs for people of intelligence. Ayat. Remember Allah did not say verses ayat. There is a very important thing and on the side note I want to mention this. When we translate the word ayah as verse, linguistically, grammatically maybe it is correct but it

Auto-generated transcript:Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic34 Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic This is very, very important to keep in mind because what happens especially today, only bad news sells. So almost everything you hear, whether it's on television, whether it's on social media, whether it's on newspaper, is all negative. It's all negative. So many people died, this happened, that happened, demolished, war, this not. So our whole mind, the mind and the body gets affected, heart and mind gets affected by what we see. That's the reason why it is so important to make sure that you see the right things. And I have a principle that I try to follow, which is that I don't look at anything that I cannot control. So for example, I don't watch any of the Palestine videos and stuff because what is good about watching a child being killed, tell me? What is good about seeing a building being demolished and mothers crying their guts out because their children are blind in front of their eyes? What's the good of that? I can't control it, I can't stop it. I would gladly do anything to stop it, but it's not my control. So by looking at it again and again and again and again, all that it does is it drags me down. What I can do is to make dua to Allah SWT, which I do constantly, Alhamdulillah. What I can do is, you know, if there is any relief things going on or whatnot, I can donate to that, which I try to do to the best of my ability. But other than that, I don't watch all this stuff. And that's why I tell people don't even have a TV in the house. We don't have. We haven't had a TV in our house for the last 35 years. We are probably the only house in America which has no TV. No TV? We never had. The past 35 years. Alhamdulillah. You don't miss anything because there's nothing great about consuming content which is created by somebody else for their reasons. And you are, all you can do is consume. In front of the TV, you have no control. You're just consuming that content and it's damaging your life, it's damaging your heart, damaging your mind and nothing you can do about it. So throw out the televisions. They'd make a record or a video smashing the television and then post it on YouTube. You probably get some money for it. Only bad news. The reason I'm saying this is because what then happens is, a friend of mine tells me, I'm working for this company but I won't know what will happen in the future. I said, of course, nobody knows. He said, no, no, no, but you see, one man in this company was sacked just overnight even though he had been working there for 25 years, just like that. So I don't know what will happen to me. So I asked him, I said, how many employees does the company have? He says, 5,000. I said, how many got sacked? One. Now you want to look at that one person who got sacked or you want to look at the 4,999 people who did not get sacked and where do you link yourself? What can happen to me? What is the likelihood? Law of averages says that what happens to the most is more likely to happen, right? So what's likely to happen to you? Nothing. You will be happy. Like, 409. One man got sacked. We don't even know why he got sacked. God knows what happened there, right? Allah knows best. But the tendency, the mental tendency, it drags you to the negative. So I remind myself when you don't get into this spin, Allah said, I am for you what you expect me to be. Expect the best from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. My chef used to say, in this country you don't see that because there are not enough poor people I suppose. At least not where we live. But in my country we have on Eid days and so on, so on we have tam am. So you cook a lot of food, usually it's biryani, so you cook biryani and then there is Sufarah Dastakhan and anybody can come and sit and eat. Anybody, from the street, anywhere. People know that this is happening here, they come from all over the place. Hundreds of people, they come and they sit and eat. Now my chef used to say, supposing if I am doing this in my house, I am having this, I am daawat. So there are big Dastarkhans and food is there and people from all the villages, everybody is coming and they are sitting and they are eating. And he used to say, supposing I, he said if you come and you also go and sit on there. And as you sit down there and the servers, they are dishing out the food. But as the server comes close to you, your friend who owns this thing, who is giving this tam, he sees you. So what will he do? He will come, he will catch you by your hand, he will pull you up from the place where you are sitting and he will take you away. Right? Now if that happens, what is the thought in your mind? If you are thinking, if that happens and you are thinkin

Auto-generated transcript:As-salātu wa s-salāmu ala ash-sharafī al-anbiyā'ī wa al-mursaleen, Muḥammadun Rasūlu Llāhī sallallahu alayhi wa alā alihi wa sābihi wa sallam, tasleemun kathirun kathirun. From Mabādhu, my brothers and sisters, if there is one... if you ask me to give you one single line or one single thought or one single word, which is the secret of success in life, one word, that word is judgment. Judgment. The ability to choose, the ability to judge between multiple options. This is the secret of success. One single word, judgment. Somebody with the right judgment will succeed, somebody with the wrong judgment will fail. The options are the same. Right? Take for example, careers. Should I work for this company or that company? Your judgment decides the future of your career. Marriage. Should I marry this woman or that woman? If you are a lady, this man or that man? That will decide the rest of your life. House. I want to buy a house. Which house? I have the money. Judgment. Car. You take it. Anything. It is your judgment and the correctness of that judgment which will decide whether you will succeed or fail. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made it easy because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not leave us to guess. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us. The muhajid, when he calls the adhan, what does he say? And then? Come to salah, come to success. So Allah has told us where is success? In salah. Right? That is the reason why, see the beauty of the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala addressed the believers. The believers. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, do you believe? So first and foremost we have to decide, are we the believers? Because you know and I know that in the Quran al-Karim, anything which starts with that is an order of Allah, command of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So am I a believer? First question. If I'm not a believer then do what you want. But if I'm a believer what must I do? Allah said, when you hear the calling to the salah, when the time for salah comes, what must you do? Stroll along quietly, nicely, like in the moonlight. Others say no, run. Make effort. What? Rush there. And then what? Leave all your selling. Now imagine, see the beauty of the Quran. There is bayah and there is shara. There is selling and there is buying. Allah did not say don't buy. Allah said don't sell because if you don't sell you cannot buy. How will you buy if the shop is closed? So Allah did not leave it to the buyer. He didn't say no, even if the shop is open don't sell. Finish, khalas, bant, tukkan, khalam. So that applies not only to selling, applies to everything. All your work, stop it. Rush towards the salah. And then Allah is saying, in that there is benefit for you, that is the best for you, in kumtum ta'ala if you could understand. Why is Allah saying that? Because after all when we are doing business, we are going to school, we are going to college, we are going to university, we are working in jobs, why? Because there is benefit. There is benefit and nobody does this, right? We don't say don't go to school, leave your school, leave your college, don't go to work, sit at home. No, of course not. You should go to school, go to college, get a good career, study, you know, do your business well and so on and so forth. There is benefit for you. What Allah is saying, there is greater benefit in leaving that and going to salah. Not because it will harm you, but because it will benefit you. If you shut the shop, it will benefit you. If you leave the work, it will benefit you. So obviously if you don't leave the work, does it benefit you? That's why I said judgment, right? Where do we see benefit for ourselves? Here is Allah's command. As I said, Allah didn't leave us to guess. Allah is telling us, benefit is here, come. Allah will give you. Then you might say, but what about my one hour of work I will miss? One hour of business I will miss? One hour of school I will miss? Yes, of course. If I am going somewhere, if I want to travel say from here to Florida, then I have to buy a ticket, right? The ticket costs money. So what will I say? I lost $200. What do you mean lost $200? You spent $200 to buy a ticket to go to Florida. You went to Florida for a good reason. That reason is better than $200. You went to meet your family or friends. You went to make a $10 million deal. You went to do whatever you want to do, Alhamdulillah. For which you spent $200 buying a plane ticket. Is that a waste? How is it a waste? So I lose one hour of business. I shut my shop for an hour. I, maybe I have to make up one class in college or school or wherever I am studying. In exchange for that, what did I get? I got the promise of Allah's command, that there is benefit for you in this if you come. So ask yourself, I should ask myself, what is my value for the promise of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? If Allah subha

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, I remind myself and you that mankind, all human beings, irrespective of where they are, where they come from, which country they live in, what nationality, what race, what religion, all human beings live a life of anxiety. It's only the level of anxiety which differs, it's only the things that they are anxious about which differs, but they all live a life of anxiety. And who are the saints? Allah Almighty said, Those who believe and are righteous. And what do they have? They have good tidings in this world and in the Hereafter. Allah Almighty said, Do not change. Why? I remind myself and you that the only people who are free from anxiety are the Awliya of Allah. Those special people who Allah Almighty chooses and who Allah Almighty has close to Him. And Allah Almighty said about them, They have no fear and they have no anxiety, they have no sadness. No fear on them, no anxiety. They have no fear. Fear is with respect to the future, what will happen? And sadness and regret is with respect to the past. They do not have fear because they have Tawakkul on Allah SWT. And they have Rida'a Bil Khada. So Alhamdulillah, whatever Allah does, good for me. And I have Tawakkul on Allah. He will only do good. I am an Abduh of Allah. I will do my best to obey Allah SWT, to fulfill the purpose of my creation, which is Ibadah of Allah. He said, I have not created a human for anything other than my worship, so I worship Allah SWT. That is my job. So no fear about the future. And as far as sadness and regret is concerned, yes we make mistakes, yes we commit sins, yes we forget. And for this Allah SWT has said, Tawakkul. Make a step forward. Make a step forward. Look, look how Allah SWT says, He says, Say, O My servants, those who are prophets, witnesses and witnesses of Allah, Say, O My servants, those who have transgressed against their own selves, do not be deceived by Allah's mercy. Allah forgives all sins. He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful. See the mercy of Allah. Allah SWT said, He is calling the people who commit sins His slaves. Allah is not saying, Say, O My slaves, who are the Ambiya, the Shuhada, the Salih. No, Allah says, Say to them My slaves, who? Those who disobeyed Me. Those who committed sins, those who transgressed against themselves because nobody can harm Allah. When we commit a sin, we are harming ourselves. Ask yourself, somebody who is a drunkard, who is he harming? Somebody who smokes cigarette after cigarette, who is he harming? Somebody who is gambling, who is he harming? Somebody who is a druggy, who is he harming? Somebody who lies and cheats and slanders and abuses people, who is he harming? Himself, even in this dunya. Even though some of his actions or all actions may harm other people, they first harm the individual. This is the figment of the imagination the shaitan has put into our, may Allah protect us from shaitan. And we think all of this is fun. Dying of cancer is fun. Go look in the hospitals. See how fun it is to die of lung cancer. To lie in a gutter, in your own vomit is fun. But shaitan does not let you see that. Allah is saying, these are my slaves. And the shaitan says, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Surely Allah will forgive all sins. And surely Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala huwa al ghafurur rahim. He is the most forgiving, the most merciful. So the awliya of Allah have no fear because they have tawakkul. And they have ridha bil khada. And they have no hudan, they have no sadness. They have no fear. They have no fear. They have ridha bil khada. And they have no hudan, they have no sadness. Because they make haste in seeking forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Rasulullah s.a.w, the one who is free from sin, the one who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgave the past and the future. The best of the best of all creation. He says, I make istighfar 70 times a day. And in another narration 100 times a day. The sahabah said we count it 100 times a day. How much istighfar do I make? How much do you make? Make these things, making 100 times istighfar. Astaghfarullah illa ila ila ila huwa al hiw al khayyum wa atubh barai. Make this into a farthing in your life. Right? Absolute farthing. There is no excuse for this. Say alhamdulillah. 100 times. And if Allah used to have it, we make more and more inshallah. But 100 times astaghfarullah every single day. What is the benefit of seeking forgiveness? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will open doors for us where there are no doors. Allah will solve our problems. Allah will remove us from our difficulties. I did not say that. The nabi of Allah said this in the hadith in Musnad Ahmad. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala himself said this. Who is a Muttakhi? The one who seeks forgiveness. The one who is constantly aware of the importance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in his life and is constantly seeking for

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 is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family, peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, the... We normally utilize or we apply two kinds of criteria to deciding whether any of our spending is better or worse, which is a better place to spend. Right? Two questions. I'm not talking about any financial plan. Generally speaking, if you want to spend money, then one criterion is we say, we compare between something which has... which can give you pleasure, so short-term pleasure versus something which has a long-term benefit. Right? So which do you... which is the better one to spend? Short-term pleasure, yeah, of course. You have a party, you do something, you go to... you have a holiday, you spend money on that, you, you know, you buy something temporarily. But the same money, if you spend to buy in an investment, right? To buy gold, to buy long-term investment, to invest in a house and so on, then between the two, anybody will say the second option is the better option because you put your money where it is going to give you long-term benefit. If somebody takes... takes even time for the... for that matter. For example, our children, they go to school, college. They will want to go and play, go for a game or something with their friends and so forth, right? It's a good one, they learn. Nothing wrong with that. But if they are doing it and the cost of their studies, so if they have to go study, there's an exam, they leave the exam, they go play cricket or they play soccer or something, what will you say? The sort of question is, is it halal or halal? The question is what are you doing with the time? This time you should have been spending, studying for the exam, which has a long-term benefit on your life. Instead of that, you are playing a game, the game you can play anytime. You don't have to play the game just then. And even if you don't play the game, so what? Whereas if you fail the exam, then it is likely to have a long-term negative effect on your life. So this is how we compare. Where am I going to spend more time? I should spend more on that compared to where I'm going to spend less time, right? That's the basic principle. Sayyidna Usman bin Affan ad-Dhaya Lhanu died in the year 656. Today we are in 2025. So 2025 minus 656 is 1369. Right? 1369, do the math. 2025 minus 656 is 1369. Sayyidna Usman bin Affan ad-Dhaya Lhanu has been in the Barzakh and he continues to be in Barzakh for 1369 years. So how many years in the Barzakh am I planning to spend? How many years are you planning to spend? You're going there, believe me. We will go there. The day we see Malakur Mawd, the door opens. And we will remain there until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala calls us, until the surah is blown out. Until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala calls us, until the surah is blown, Israfil A.S., Rasulullah S.A.W. said Israfil has the trumpet to his lips and his eyes are fixed on Allah. He is in that position. Allah knows time has no meaning in that context. Thousands of years, millions of years, Allah knows best. So that instantly He will blow the surah and then we will come out of our graves. That period is Barzakh. So how many years have you got? The reason I'm asking is because we spend money. We work hard. We make dua for this life. This life is all on. 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, the Friendly Brothers, Friendly Ice Cream because you are, give you local examples. Friendly's Ice Cream was started, the company had started in 1935 by the two Blake Brothers. One of them died at the age of 102. And the other one, Priestley Blake, who built a house just after Long Meadow in Summers. When you're driving from here, you cross into Summers. On the left you see a house called Monticello. The name is written on the wall. It is the exact replica of Thomas Jefferson's house. Priestley Blake built it at a cost of $7 million, exact replica, to celebrate his 100th birthday. And he had his birthday party and he sold it. He never lived in the house. He sold it at a loss because the problem with big ticket properties is you can never sell them. Who's going to pay $7 million to buy that house? So he sold it at a loss and then he bought it back again at another loss. Eventually he died at the age of 106. So we spend money for this life. What is our spend for the barzakh? I gave you the example of Sayyidna Asma Ibn Asma Nadell Anhu because Sayyidna Asma Nadell Anhu made wakaf of one of his date gardens. And that date garden is there till today in Madinah. The Saudi government looks after it. It's still a wakaf. And every year the harvest is donated, sadaka, for 1369 years. And of course as we know, Allah knows it will continue until

Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah, my dear brothers and sisters, we heard the story of Ahnab bin Khayz, Rahmatullah Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, and his humility and his figure. The main thing is this, his figure, his concern, the deep concern that he had for himself and his connection and his position with Allah. We live in a life with concerns. There is nobody on the face of the planet who lives or who lived or who will come in the future to live until the Day of Judgment. Whether it is the Ambiya' alayhi was-salam himself, whether it is the Rasul Muhammad sallallahu alaihi was-salam himself, or whether it is the worst of the people, everyone had concerns. There is no intelligent human being who can say that I have no concern. If you have no concern, you have no brain. As simple as that. You have no clue. You don't know where you are. You are in some kind of, you know, God knows what. Everybody has concerns. The question is what are those concerns? What am I worried about? What am I concerned about? The game that shaitan plays and has played and is so successful is that he has flipped the things that we should be concerned about and replaced them with things that Allah has guaranteed. Allah said, don't worry. Allah said, do not worry. Not your problem. I will take care of this. And shaitan said, no, no, no, hold on a second. Forget about that. This is what you should be concerned about. And things where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, look out for that. Allah said, oh, you believe save yourselves and your ahlikum, your entire families from the fire. Allah did not say save yourself from hunger. Allah did not say save yourself from poverty. Allah did not say save yourself from poverty. Allah did not say save yourself from hunger. Allah did not say save yourself from poverty. Allah did not say save yourself from sickness. Allah said save yourself from the fire. So you say, okay, so I will do that. But what about hunger? What about poverty? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said this. He clearly mentioned this. Allah said, we feed you. Allah is the razaq. Allah is the razaq. And he feeds you with his power. I ask myself and you, what are we more concerned about? Our status in this dunya or our status with Allah? Our position in this dunya or our position with Allah? Our position with Allah? I'm not saying forget this. It's a question of which has priority. Which comes first? If somebody suddenly asks us a question, I'm not talking about in the majlis like this where you have been primed to give the right answer. I'm talking about just out of the blue. You are at your workplace or somewhere you're playing a game. Somebody stops you and says, name your three top concerns. Name your three top objectives. How many of us will say genuinely with that feeling and only we know the truth and only Allah knows the truth? How many of us will say that Allah must forgive me when I meet Him? Jannah is the result of that. We don't talk about Jannah. That Allah must forgive me when I meet Him. How many of us will say that? I'm not saying we don't believe. I'm saying top of the line, top of the line concern. We talk about careers. We talk about money. We talk about political ups and downs in society. We talk, do we have the forgiveness of Allah, the Rida of Allah as a top concern? I'm only saying top three. This should be the number one concern and frankly the only concern. Allah promised us food. Allah promised us our lifespan. Nobody can change that. Allah did not promise us Jannah. I remind myself in you. Allah did not promise Jannah to me. Allah did not promise Jannah to you. Even the ones who Allah promised Jannah to, the first of the human beings after the Ambiya' alayhimu s-salam, even he said, he said, I wish I was a blade of grass. I would dry up and blow away in the wind. So the question I want to ask myself and you is when we search and I'm not saying if we search, we need to search. If I search for myself in the Quran, where will I find myself? As I mentioned, Allah did not mention me by name. Allah did not mention to you by name. Allah mentioned people with certain qualities. Some of the ayahs I mentioned to you, they are not the only ayahs. Search for yourself. I was searching for myself. And then if I find myself in a place which is good, alhamdulillah, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for istiqamat, for steadfastness to remain there. Because the key is to live by that and to die by that. It's not just enough to say, oh today alhamdulillah I'm good. Today I'm good, tomorrow I might not be good. I remind myself and you that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave something in our control and Allah did not give some other things in our control. Everything to do with this dunya Allah did not give in our control. Allah told us ways, work hard, do this, do that, alhamdulillah. But Allah did not guarantee us anyth

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. My dear brothers, sisters, respected elders, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala jalla jalaluhu sent his kalam, his word, his speech with one purpose only, purpose. Al naqsadul nuzoorul kalamullah, huwa wahid faqad. That we should reflect on it, tadabbur fiha, and change our lives and live according to it. The reading of the Quran, the writing of the Quran, the tafsir of the Quran, everything to do with the Quran, to learn to read it well and properly according to the usul of tajweed, to read, to learn the different qara'at, beautiful calligraphy, writing of the Quran, printing of the Quran. You name it, all of those things are important, but they are not the maqsad of the revelation of the qalaq. There is only one maqsad, there is only one reason, there is only one thing that the Quran came for, and that is to be lived by. When we think about these two things, we don't look at them as two opposite. We don't say it is not important to learn to read, but it is important to live. That's a stupid statement. To be able to live by the Quran, you must also know how to read it properly, you must understand it, and so on and so on. But none of that is the purpose of the revelation. The reason I'm saying that is because this is what has happened to us, the Muslims, after the time of the blessed generations, the generation of the Sahaba, the Tabain and the Tabatabain, people became experts and they focused on one aspect of the Quran, and illa mashallah, they left the issue of living by it. They put that aside. Obviously, this is a generalization, it doesn't apply to everybody, but we have people who are ufaz, we have people who are qurra, we have people who make tafsir, we have people who do all kinds of things with the Quran, but if you look at their lives, and may Allah make you and me separate from that, you do not find a reflection of the Quran in the life of the person. One of the great Tabain, Anaf Bil Qais, Tahaatul Ali, he read the ayah, لَقَتَنْزَلْنَا إِلَيْكُمْ كِتَابًا فِيهِ ذِكْرُكُمْ أَفَلَى تَعْفِلُونَ In Surah Al-Anbiya, Allah swt said, indeed, we have sent down for you, mankind, a book in which you are mentioned. There is your zikr, there is your reminder. Will you not understand? I'm talking about people who understood the purpose of the Quran. So Anaf Bin Qais, the son of Anur Ahmad, read this thing, he said, Allah said, I'm mentioned in the Quran, so where am I? Where is my name? Where have I been mentioned? Allah said, فِيهِ ذِكْرُكُمْ, you are mentioned in there. Where am I? Now we know of course that Allah swt did not mention anyone by name, except the Anbiya and among the Ba'ad al-Anbiya, Zayd bin Harithah is the only one who is mentioned by name. So we know that your name, my name is not in the Quran. But we know that Allah swt mentioned people and their qualities. And Allah swt mentioned what would happen to people with those qualities. So Allah swt mentioned people with certain qualities, and then he said people with these qualities, this will be their ending, this is where they will end up. And therefore we need to look for ourselves in these quality definitions and say, where do I fit in? If I fit in with the people whose qualities are good and whose ending is good, then Alhamdulillah. But if I fit in with people whose qualities are not good and whose ending is not good, then it is time to change. So when Anaf Bin Qais, Rahmatullah Ali searched in the Quran, he found that with some people Allah swt said, He said they are the people, Allah said these are people who sleep but little at night. And the rest of the time they are praying, they are making sujood, they are making salah, rukuh, between a state of fear of Allah swt, punishment and hope in Allah swt's forgiveness. And in the hours before dawn, they are found asking and seeking Allah swt's forgiveness. And in their property, Allah said there was the haq, the right of the sa'il wal mahroum, of the one who asks for help and the one who needs help but does not ask. See the haqqu lisa'iri wal mahroum, Allah is not saying they give to the sa'il and the mahroum, Allah said no, they consider it to be the right of the other person. So I am not doing a favour, I am only fulfilling the right of the other person. Now think about this, Anaf Bin Qais, Rahmatullah Ali, Allah, Allah of course knows best, but if you ask me and say did he not fit this, was he not among the people who prayed extensively in the night, was he not among the people who made istighfar lots and lots of times, was he not among the people who were generous to a fault as far as their charity is concerned, I would say yes, without a doubt. But see the inkisar, see the humbleness, the humility of the people of truth. Anaf Bin Qais, Anaf Ya Allah Anur, Rahmatullah Ali, read these ayat and he said, Ya Allah, I am not from these peop

Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, I remind myself anew that if you want to measure success and failure in life, how do you measure it? Any ordinary person. I want to measure, say take my career, if I have a successful career or my career going down the drain, how do I measure that? Marriage, is it successful or not successful? Children, I'm raising children, successful or not successful? How? Compared with? Others? That's one way. Pure reviews, pure comparisons. Effectively, whether you do it comparatively, you do it with pure reviews, you do it some other way, you are basically measuring your assets and liabilities, right? What did I gain? What did I lose? So what did I spend to get what? What is profit? Profit is where you spend less to get more. You cannot measure profit only by looking at what you have. You have to see at what cost did I get it. So if I got something which has high value at a lower cost, then I made a profit. But if I got the same thing at its regular cost, then it's not a profit. I got the market value. If I paid more for it, then I have actually the same thing, but I made a loss. I remind myself when you... that when we stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it is the same standard, the same criterion, the same measurement, measuring stick we should use. What did you spend and what do you get? What did you spend, what do you get? In this world, in our life, we have the opportunity to do two things. One is we have the opportunity to spend things which have everlasting value. Or we have the opportunity to spend something which has temporary value. So if you spend something which has temporary value and get something which has everlasting value, then you are on to a good thing. That is the best way of living life. I'm giving something which I would have lost anyway and I got something which is mine forever. But if I do the opposite, I'm giving up something which I could have had forever to get something which I would lose anyway. Makes no sense, right? If I give up something which I could have kept forever, an earning asset which would have been mine forever, I give it away and I got something which at the most is temporary, I will lose it anyway. That's a dumb deal. But the opposite, if I am spending something which is temporary, in any case I would have lost it. And in exchange for that I get something which is going to be mine forever, that's a fantastic deal. Just to give you an example, we talk about charity. We are coming to Ramadan, so we are going to get some fundraising here. We talk about charity. So give in the path of Allah, sacrifice in the path of Allah. I tell people, forget this word sacrifice. It's a lie. There is no sacrifice in Islam. What are you doing? You are taking some part of your wealth which Allah gave you. Let's face it, how many of us stand here and give the equivalent of the value of your car which you are driving? I am not saying nobody does it, but how many? So you give something and in addition, by giving that what are you getting? We are getting an everlasting reward with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah said this is with Allah and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will return it to you in keeping with His majesty embrace. The minimum of that is man ja'abil hasanati falahu ashur amasalia. Someone who brings one hasana, Allah will give him ten likewise. And then Allah said He will multiply that by 700 and begai risa. So something, now you say okay, if I don't give that, sure it's your wealth you can keep it. It's not haram not to give, but even if you keep it, how long will you have it? You don't have to die to lose it. You lose it probably but before that in many ways. Whereas if you take this and give it in the path of Allah, effectively what am I doing? I am transferring my wealth. Whenever I think about charity I think of it as wealth transfer. I am taking it from this account and putting it into another account. That's it, wealth transfer. It's very easy to understand for those of you who have spent any time in the Middle East, it's very easy to understand that because in the Middle East there's no such thing as a green card. There's no such thing as permanent residency. There's no such thing as citizenship. You can stay there for you know 100 years, they still won't give you citizenship. You still have to go back to wherever you came from. So people are used to this concept of earning, working very hard, deliberately living in very modest circumstances and transferring all the rest of their surplus money back home to whichever country, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Egypt or wherever it is, they send the money back to their home country. They can actually afford to live in a, you know, they don't stop it from doing that. I mean if you live in Dubai you can afford to live in or any country, whether it matter, any of the

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 His servants and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family, and upon the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And many more. My brothers and sisters, the other day we talked about... I talked about needs and wants. And I mentioned to you and I said to you that the root of all problems, the root of all misery is when people convert their wants into needs. But if you keep needs as needs, and a need is something which if you don't have it, it will result in harm. Dharuri. The absence of which will create Dharar. Something which is critical, essential, the absence of that will result in harm. It's a need. Anything which does not fall into that category, it's something which is nice to have, something which you will enjoy, something which is, you know, which will make you happy and so on. But it's not something which is essential for survival. That's not a need, it's a want. Now if you convert these wants into needs, if you bring them into that scope of needs, then automatically your stress goes up, the amount of money you need to earn goes up, the space you need to live goes up, the number of people you have to satisfy and make happy goes up. And when all of these things go up, your own happiness goes down. Now in this context, the thing I want to say to you is this, second step of this, which is that you will find in life, and either take my word for it now and look at yourself and if you need to change, change, or wait for the next ten years, wait for the next twenty years and you will discover for yourself. Except that if you take my word for it now and do something to change yourself, you will benefit and if you don't, if you wait, then you will discover in another way which will be highly painful and you cannot change that. Now and that is that discipline always beats talent. Discipline always beats talent. Discipline always beats talent. You can be the most talented person in the world, but if you are not disciplined, that talent will never flower, that talent will never do anything good for you. Now take for example, think of artists, think of musicians, think of since you guys are interested in sport, think of great basketball players, great soccer players, great football players, great cricket players and so on and so on. And people who seem to be tremendously talented, they say, but this person has absolute talent. And then go into their life and see the number of hours of practice per day that they put into their game. I was watching Tiger Woods tournament last night. It's almost magical the way the guy puts, the way the guy drives from one hole to another hole. And I have to remind myself, it's not magical at all. It's the result of playing golf from the time he was two years old. His father put him, he started training him from the time he was two years old. And he's been, he has hit more strokes, he has hit more shots than his competent, than the one who is competing against him. The same thing with Kobe Bryant, the same thing with, name the person you watch. Zach Hirosano recently died, the tabla player. Like any so-called talented person who is top of their job, top of their profession and who the world thinks is doing magic, it's not magic. It's sweat. It is sweat. This is something that people forget. people come to me and they say, you know, I don't like this job that I'm doing. It's okay. So what do you want to do? No, I want to give it up. I want to give it up. Okay, sure. Give it up. But do me a favor. Go to Walmart and buy yourself a plastic bowl. Why? Because then it will be useful when you have to stand on the street corner to beg. Plastic bowl is useful to have, you know, you can stick it out like that and people can throw money into it. Because if you are going to leave a job that you're doing which is paying you money and you don't have another one lined up, a better one lined up, then you are looking at standing on the street corner. Is that what you want to do with your life? And because I don't like it, wake up, wake up, smell the coffee. You don't have to like the job. You do the job so that you can do something which you actually like. If you can find a job that you also like, fantastic, brilliant. I was personally, I was able to do that practically all my life. But not everybody can do it. People do jobs to put bread on the table. People do jobs to pay their bills. People do jobs to send their children to school. They don't necessarily like the job, but they do it so that lives are built. And they take satisfaction from the fact that I'm sending my children to good schools. I'm able to afford a standard of living for my family. Yeah, so I'm doi

https://youtu.be/_ba2G380D70 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 honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and companions. Peace and blessings be upon him. I'm sitting under this tree and I'm literally within maybe 10 feet of these beautiful amazing birds. The Sandhill cranes, absolutely incredible. And it's a pair with two youngsters. The male is standing there on top, as you can see. He's the guardian, the custodian, the sentinel. And he doesn't see any danger from me, so he doesn't give any alarm call. And he hasn't, he says, there is no danger from me. And this is the one in front here. This is one of the juveniles behind him or her. I don't know how to distinguish. It's the mother and behind that is the other juvenile. Absolute privilege, Subhanallah. I thank Allah Subhanallah for granting me this privilege of being in such close quarters with these birds. My brothers and sisters, one of the big things to teach our children is the value of community, the value of togetherness. And that begins in the home, in the nursery, in the family. As many of you know, and those who don't know, you will know now that I consult with business families. Family business consulting is my specialty. I have a book on it called The Business of Family Business. And one of the things I see that I see with business families, and I am very sorry when I see it. But I wish I didn't have to see it, is internecine conflict, conflict between brothers, conflict with the father. I know a case in which where the sons filed a suit against the mother. Inna lillahi wa nna lillahi wa rajim. The mother of our two Muslim teaches us that under her feet is Jannah. And imagine a son filed a suit case against the mother. Over what? Not over that piece of Jannah under her feet, but for some, you know, father's property, a father passed away, a father's property, a piece of the business, and so on. Many times people come to me, wealthy people, all of these are wealthy people. Some of them are millionaires, some of them are billionaires. I have one client whose business is four billion dollars. So we're not talking about small money. We're talking about people who may Allah have mercy on them and us. Oh, all I can say is that they didn't raise their children right. And that's what I want to talk about now. How do you raise your children right? What is the meaning of raising them right? That is a squirrel. It's a peculiar squirrel to this place. It has this long tail and it has a black mark on its forehead. Anyway, let me stay with my cranes. So we don't bring them, we don't raise them right. And when I say we don't raise them right, the biggest mistake we do is we don't orient them towards their responsibility as community members. And as I said, that starts with the family. The community begins with the family. In Islam, the family is the fundamental foundational building block of the community. And that's why Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that a Jannah is under the feet of the mother and the father is the door to Jannah. When one of them dies, he said that both the parents are the doors to Jannah and the father is the door to Jannah. And the Jannah under the mother's feet is Jannah for the person or the son and daughter. And he said that when one of the parents dies, one door to Jannah closes for you and the other parent dies, the other door for Jannah closes for you. So take care of your parents, value them, serve them, be good to them. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala went to the extent in the Quran of saying do not even say oof to them. Do not express any displeasure with them. It is your job to please them. It is not their job to please you. And this is where we get caught up in our own, in the problem that we create for ourselves. So sense of community. How do you teach that sense of community? One very simple way, which is this way simple, but it's very profound. And that is that in the nursery, and I'm sure every single one of us has seen this scenario playing out. In the nursery, one child gets a toy and the other child wants the toy mostly only because the other one has it. It's not that this child was genuinely interested in that toy, but you know, because the other one has it, I must have it. And the usual response of parents, especially wealthy parents is don't fight. I'll get you your own. I will get you your own. Now take that same child, fast forward 40 years and you have a case in court, brother against brother, sons against father, and so on. And guess where that case really began? In the nursery, when that son and that daughter and those sons were three years old, fou

https://youtu.be/hVMcHK4Zcig Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. Peace and blessings be upon the Prophet Muhammad and his family. And upon his family and his companions. Madhu, I've run the sisters. In my view, if there is one single differentiating factor which separates people who are free, not enslaved in their minds, from people who are enslaved, is to look at and see how they take care of their surroundings. Now, as you can see here, this is a development on a golf course, villas on a golf course. I challenge you to find one piece of plastic, one scrap of paper, one empty bottle, one anything that would qualify as trash, anywhere, near a house, away from a house, anywhere, on the golf course. You won't find a single thing. Even if this was to be said about one particular place, it would be remarkable enough, but this is the default. This is the default. Except in places where, and this is America, also in America where you have the poor, the homeless, refugees and so on. And the first thing that hits you is the filth, the garbage, all the trash around everywhere. Now, I'm not being critical of poor people. I've been poor myself. But I want to differentiate between having resources and taking care of yourself and your environment. The two do not go hand in hand because I know situations, in India, for example, where you go into a house of a person who is a, may not be a billionaire, but certainly a millionaire. And in India, millionaires have billionaire lifestyles. So you have this fantastic house. You have people who are all over, you know, doing wonderful things, living in beautiful lifestyles, fantastic houses, furnishings and whatnot. But clothes strewn everywhere, shoes everywhere, expensive stickers. You know, each one would be worth more than somebody's salary for a month or a year maybe, but just throttle. You get into one of their cars and it looks like a trash can on a wheel. In India, you go into somebody I've been in, somebody's people's houses, people who are not billionaires, but definitely millionaires. And in India, alhamdulillah, millionaires live the lifestyle of billionaires. You know, servants and this and that. But you go inside the house, it has, it's a beautiful mansion. Inside it has fancy furniture, expensive stuff. Some of them even have a kitchen to show and a kitchen in which actual cooking is done. So, as we say, in Urdu, we say, yes, it's okay, the teeth of the show are different, the teeth of the food are different. Which is not strictly true, but you know, so we have this Dikhanika Kitchen Egg or Khanika Kitchen Egg. Or the one in which food is cooked, the Dikhanika Kitchen, the one in which food is not cooked, it's only for show. We have the most fancy kitchen appliances and stoves and god knows what. Never touched. Absolutely pristine condition, but to show people. Allah have mercy on us. We've gotten used to this very, you know, lifestyles which are very destructive. So, anyway, to come back to my point. So we have people with all these resources, fancy places. We're talking about change in the mind, mental enslavement versus mental freedom, true freedom. So we have these people who are really mentally enslaved. So they are, they have the resources, but they don't take care of them. And to me, as I said, the biggest and best sign that somebody is free is that they take ownership of their lives. They don't live their lives as if it belongs to somebody else. Not my job. I don't need to take care of it. As I showed you, as you can see, as I'm walking here, place is taken care of. And obviously, some of it is taken care of because the development, the golf course does it. But the maintenance fee here is, it is roughly $500 per quarter, which means you're paying $2,000 per year. For your surroundings of your house to be maintained. So you may be doing some things yourself, as in by your own hand and some things you might be paying for, but people are paying for that. When you go for a walk, you see people walking their dogs. You see people walking their dogs. You will find people with those people with either carrying a plastic bag with something in it or they have plastic bags in their pockets. And in parks and so on, there are boxes, dispenser boxes, which are free. And there's a trash can under that dispenser box. All of these are meant to pick up the dog's, what they call dog eggs. So you know what it means, right? So when the dog does what a dog does, they just don't walk away. They pick it up and they don't just pick it up and throw it there. They pick it up. They take it with them and carry it to this bag. And they take it to a place where there is a disposal for it. And they dispose of it in that particular place. Signs that these are people who are free in the mind. They're not enslaved. They own. The

https://youtu.be/hVMcHK4Zcig 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 honorable prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions, peace and blessings be upon them. What is next? Brothers and sisters, I am here in Florida, standing by this lake, this pond, near the golf course, what we call a water hazard. And these are the American ibises, the American ibis. You see the long curved beak, see how they dig in the grass to eat. There is a, you can see one, they're all white and one colored one. That is a juvenile, it's a young one. And they feed him by the pond. Very pretty scenery, Alhamdulillah. On the pond, there are also ducks. Let's see if they come close. So, they are, they look like morgan serves of some kind, not sure what. The demand for myself and you is we're talking about things that we keep saying teach children, but I think it has to do much more with teaching ourselves. Because children are little monkeys. They imitate adults, they imitate their parents, they imitate other adults who they respect. They learn by taking their values from adults they respect. I think of myself, I think of my own childhood, that's exactly what I did and that's exactly what any child does. They take their values from the adults in their lives and that is the reason why it's also very important to ensure that your children don't lose out from the company of respectable and respect worthy adults in their lives. Make sure they are around good people. Because that's how they learn and depending on the kind of people they are with is what they will learn. So if they are around adults who are, who take pride from the pride in the disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, or who take their children to clubs and to partying and who teach their children, give them their first drink, Subhanallah, may Allah have mercy on us. These are statements I've heard from Muslims. My father gave me my first drink. My father took me to the race course. The first time my father got me membership in this gambling den, in this club, which of course obviously the club is created for clubbing, so it's created for the enjoyment of everything that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has disapproved of everything which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has prohibited. May Allah have mercy. So this is the danger. This is also how animals and birds learn from the company of elders. Here we have some more ibises and another youngster here, another juvenile one, which is flying off. I don't know why he is so skittish, but he is. The others are fine. Nobody bothers them here. The ducks people even feed, but these ibises, they are not fed. They don't need to be fed. If you notice the little black feather at the end of the tail, this is all the khudrat of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The attention to detail is incredible. Let me make this bigger so you can see them closer. So among the things to do with children is to keep them around respectable, respect worthy adults. That's the first thing. Second thing is to ensure that they are exposed to the right environment. And that environment for most of us is the environment of the masjid. So make sure that your children go to the masjid. Now, there is a tendency to say, children will say, oh, you know, there is nothing attractive there and I'm not attracted to the masjid. If your child makes that statement, consider that to be a statement which is where the child is admitting to having a major psychological, a major spiritual illness. Don't take that as a norm. The biggest problem is that parents take that as the norm and then they want the imam of the masjid or whoever is an authority in the masjid to say, well, do something to keep my child interested, do something to keep my child engaged. I am reminded of a true story of Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of Aligarh Muslim University. When he was trying to fundraise for the university and he was facing the usual difficulties that Muslims face when they want to fundraise for long term projects, especially to do with education. May Allah have mercy on us. We are good at funding emergencies. You know, something goes wrong and you ask Muslims for money, for help. Alhamdulillah, may Allah bless those who give it. People are happy to give help. We are good at fundraising for for masajid, right, to build a masjid. But if you say, well, fundraise for a project which will in the long term ensure that the emergency that happened, the blood and gore that happened, the orphans and widows who were created, who you are now trying to support, this will not happen. Where the problem will be dealt with, the problem will be solved. There will be no oppression. There will be no wars

https://youtu.be/SDIKN0xlpsg Auto-generated transcript: This is Leo, my brother's cat. He's a Russian blue and not the friendliest of cats but he seems to like me. For reasons unknown. What I want to say here today is the importance of differentiating between needs and wants. And this is something that starts very early in life, in the way we raise children, the difference between needs and wants. So anytime the child says, mommy, daddy, I really, really, really need this. Very common in American families, really, really, really need it. Three times really, really, really need it. Is to help them differentiate between is it something you really need or is it a want, a desire. Nothing wrong with wants except that if you do not differentiate between needs and wants, you end up with increasing your cost of living. And by cost of living, I don't just mean the amount in terms of dollars or cents or rupees or whatever. I mean the price you pay for that life quality. So if I need an iPhone 16, then I'm adding that into my cost of living. Because when you're saying need or want, it relates to happiness. What is it that makes you happy? So the more the need you have to make you happy, two things happen. One is your chances of being unhappy go up because what makes you happy is more and more and more. And if I can't get that, then I'm going to be unhappy. So my chances of being happy go down and my chances of being unhappy go up. The second issue of the difference between needs and wants is of course the actual dollar value. What does it cost? And once again, the more the needs, the more it's going to cost. I therefore want us to, I remind myself on you, let us recalibrate our lives and say what is it that I truly need? Now a need, a good way of understanding that is to use the Islamic and Arabic and Urdu concept of zarura. What is zarura? What is something a zarura or zaruri is something that is essential for survival. Where if you don't have that, then it is dangerous to life. It is going to cause dharar, which is ham. So dharuri is something which prevents harm. So what is dharuri in terms of food? Say for example, what is dharuri? Dharuri is the hadith of the Rasul of Allah, he said eat enough to keep your back straight. And if you must eat more, then eat up to one-third of the capacity of your belly. One-third food, one-third water, one-third empty air. And he said the hadith doesn't begin there, the hadith begins with, he said the worst utensil, the worst vessel to fill is the belly. So it begins with that. And then he says well eat only enough, a few morsels, a few morsels, not handfuls, morsels, to keep the back straight. So we can do our work, we can worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we can go about our daily business and keep it free from and never fill the whole belly. Now if you look at this, the whole issue of saying I want a triple chocolate sundae, is it a need or a want? To say I want, I need this, I need that kind of food, I need Hyderabadi biryani, right? I need Bihari kaab, I need this and that, all our desires, they are desires. Now remember I'm not saying that it is haram to have a desire, no, if you want to eat a particular kind of food, haram to ila. But don't say it is a need. It's not about semantics, it's about the psychological effect of calling something a need. If you call the thing a need, then it becomes a need. It generates unhappiness because as I told you, a need is something which if you don't have, it causes you harm. I need to breathe properly, if I don't have that air I will die. I need a certain amount of food, if I don't have even that amount of food, which is frankly being one meal in 24 hours, is a need. So one meal in 24 hours if I don't have, then I'm likely to you know have low sugar and I'm likely to experience the harmful effects of that. So that's a need. But anything more than that is a want. It's a desire. Again, it's not haram, but if I convert it into a need, then it has the potential to create unhappiness. So always watch for that. What do I convert into my need? Go further and see, take a take a make a list of all the things that we have in our lives. And ask yourself, is this a need or is this a want? Ideally, reduce the number of wants. I'm not saying necessarily that if you have something give it away or sell it or something, no, if you do that, that's good for you. But even if you don't do that, it's okay. But take it out of that list of wants, list of needs. It's not a need. It's a want. Transportation is a need. A particular brand of car is a want. Food is a need. Particular kinds of food so many times a day are all wants. They are not needs. Shelter, a house is a need. But necessarily to own the house, even at the cost of the anger of Allah by taking an interest based loan, this is a want. It's not a nee

https://youtu.be/1hrPIMPrOp8 Auto-generated transcript: We are on 75 going from Fort Toddy to Tampa and on the right is the Evacuates National Park. And almost for probably 50-60 miles we had the channel which they have cut, repeat the road in the park. We saw alligators, we saw cosplays, we saw cowherds, greater or lesser egrets, all kinds of things. So the reason I'm saying all this is because on highways, on roads, I always remind myself, I knew that this is a tariq, this is the way. And there are things about this which parallel our lives completely. Now the way is leading to something. You don't just get onto the road and start driving. You go onto a road and you're driving to a destination. And so also in life you can just live or you can live with a purpose to get to a destination. You get on the road and when you want to get to a destination, nowadays it's very easy because of GPS and so on, but otherwise even otherwise you would look for the shortest way to get there, the fastest way to get there which might not be the shortest but which has less traffic or you might say I want to take a scenic route because I want to see some stuff on the way and so on and so forth. So the choice of your routing is also a conscious choice that you're making. So also in life when we want to live our life and we want to look at the pathways that we choose, that it makes sense to do that consciously and say what kind of life do I want? And I don't mean just for us just to say that you know janla, janla is yes, that is default inshallah and we hope so, but what will get me to janla? What is the best way of living by life in a way that I can get to janla? So that is the detail of it. Now for that imagine that you are on this bus and you have a driver who's an expert driver and who is one of the best routing heroes, so what to do? So you go to the driver and say when this is I'm getting on this bus, this is the bus taking me and you know I like to see something and so on and he says we have to ride, go ahead. Then what you concentrate on is the quality of your journey. You don't spend time or I would say even waste time in trying to make friends with the driver, in trying to have a social life with the driver, in trying to have you know interactions with the driver and stuff. That's not your problem, that's not your focus. Your focus is to get on the right bus, stay on the right bus, see the sites you need to see, learn what you need to learn. What I'm saying is that because today we live in a world where society has among the many ways in which society fools us, it fools us into what has been called the tyranny of feelings and the tyranny of feeling this works like this. It says that whatever I feel is supreme. This must take supersede, this must supersede and take precedence over everyone else's feelings. It doesn't matter what anyone else feels, what I feel must happen and it is the job of everyone else to modify their behavior in order to suit my feelings and if they are not doing that, they are the problem. This is how our society works which is why you have for example children going to school and teachers are taught that you must engage the children, the children must be engaged in your class, the children must find your class interesting, the children must find your class entertaining. Whether they're learning something or not is not top of the line. I don't say that's not important but that's not what they ask teachers. They ask them about how engaged are the children and so on meaning that if they are engaged enough, if they are entertained enough, if they're happy enough, they will automatically learn. Nothing can be further from the truth. The reality is that you go to a teacher like you go to an oncologist because you have cancer and because this oncologist only Allah can cure and give life but for the sake of my example, this oncologist knows what to do to cure your cancer. You don't go to the oncologist to make friends, you don't go to the oncologist to take your water data. You go to the oncologist because you need the oncologist otherwise you are dead. So if the oncologist tells you to stand on your head, you stand on your head. You do whatever the oncologist tells you to do no matter how painful it is, no matter how you dislike the oncologist's face, you go there because of his knowledge and because you know how this knowledge can help you. Believe me between you and me especially with regard to this, I have seen so many people lose the benefit of good teachers because I don't like the teacher. I had an interpersonal conflict with the teacher. Go ahead, don't like the teacher. It's your life. If you don't like the oncologist at most you will die but you will die anyway. Cancer or no cancer but you don't have to go to jahannam which you might end up doing if you do the s

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family and companions, who have accepted him many times. And what is next? Brothers and sisters, we have heard many people talk about the fact that the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, used to encourage the youth and he gave a lot of very serious responsibilities to young people. For example, we have the case of Usama bin Zayd al-Adha al-Anu, who was given command of the army, of a battalion which was going for a Ghazwa, and in that army were some very senior Sahaba. We have the example of Musa ibn Umayyad al-Raudilan, who the Prophet sent from Makkah to Madinah as his representative. And many of the great Sahaba, many of the great Ansari Sahaba of Madinah accepted Islam at the hands of Musa ibn Umayyad al-Raudilan, including Sa'ad bin Mu'adh al-Raudilan and Hussayb bin Hudayr al-Raudilan and others. Mu'adh bin Jawal al-Raudilan, another great Sahabi, who the Prophet sent as his governor and Qadi to Yemen. And we have the famous Hadith where the Prophet was holding the bridle of his horse and Mu'adh bin Jawal was holding the bridle of his horse. And Mu'adh bin Jawal was mounted on the horse and the Prophet led the horse out of Madinah. And he gave him advice. It's a lot of Hadiths, I won't mention it here. But he gave him advice, he asked him questions about how he will judge the basis of judgment from which we have our basis of our Sharia, which is the Kitab of Allah, the Sunnah of His Prophet, Ijma and Khayas. And there are others. But remember one thing, Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam gave these enormous responsibilities to these young people, not because they were young. So understand that. We get sidetracked, we say, oh, youth, youth. Youth has nothing to do with it. It is the effort that those particular youths put into learning the Deen. And they came up to the standard of the Nabi alaihi salatu wasalam, so he chose them. He didn't just randomly pick anybody. He didn't say, okay, all 15 year olds come and stand here. No, he picked one person. That person happened to be 15, that person happened to be 17, that person happened to be 20, that is immaterial. So don't get your priorities upside down. He didn't pick any 20 year old. He didn't pick any 17 year old. He picked Musab bin Umayyad, Radhe-l Anu, because he was Musab bin Umayyad, not because he was 17. So what does it tell us? It tells us that unfortunately in our society, all that our education system has done, it has postponed childhood. It has postponed childhood. It has postponed maturity. So we have 20 years old and 23 years old and 25 years old and 26 years old are still staying at home and their mother makes parathas for them and they eat that paratha and the father pays all the bills and they think they are, oh, they are cat whiskers. Seriously, they have not seen one single day of hardship in their life. They are not sweated anywhere. If you put them in one place and there is no air conditioning, they will have a fit. They freak out. This is what our education system has done, created adults who think they are children. This we have to break out of because the laws of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's world don't change because we have a Sikh society which has an education system which does not educate. What are Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's laws? Allah's laws are those who make the effort, who learn, who take hardship will win. No matter which year, whether it is the 7th century, whether it is the 15th century, whether it is the 20th century, whether it is the 15th century or any century, this is the law of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the one who makes the effort. Not your name, not your nasab, not your hasab, not your wealth, not your father's name, not how much money you have. How much effort do you put into whatever it is that you are doing? And therefore I advise myself and you, I am very happy to see a lot of young people in the masjid. Alhamdulillah, spend time in the masjid. Not just spend time as in sit around in the masjid. Do something. Learn. Take responsibility. I have a checklist. If you want to see whether you are capable of responsibility, whether you are fit to be considered an adult or not, I have a checklist. Let me tell you. And this is an American checklist. How many of you do the laundry in your house? Everybody's laundry. How many of you wash dishes? How many of you clean your house? How many of you take out the garbage? How many of you wash your father's cars? Alhamdulillah, you are a winner. But as one kid... How many of you sit and eat parathas? Still a winner. He deserves the paratha. Nothing wrong. Alhamdulillah, if your mother is cook

https://youtu.be/sOJilSFIJzk Auto-generated transcript: This is me in temperature is now minus 12 and it says minus 12 feels like minus 18 and I can tell you that's true. I am in this Martiniyu Park, it's a really beautiful place. As you can see here the river is also frozen. I will turn the orientation of the camera in a minute. The river is also frozen, the stream is frozen and it is very very cold. Alhamdulillah Allah SWT has continues to show the beauty of His creation in so many ways the whole time. My brothers and sisters, as I mentioned yesterday in the Khatira, the biggest trouble that the people of Mecca, the Mushrikin of Mecca and the Quraysh, the biggest trouble they had was with believing in the hereafter, believing in resurrection. For them to believe in Allah, they already believed in Allah as in their pantheon Allah was the supreme God and they said all the others are, they had different words which I don't want to use now but meaning that they interceded on their behalf with Allah and so on and so forth. So they were Mushriks, they were not people who denied the presence of Allah SWT. They were not atheists, they were Mushriks, they were polytheists. So that was not the issue, the issue was, Allah SWT said they say how is it possible that we, after we have died and we have become one with the soil, our bones are, bodies have disintegrated, they have decomposed, we have become one with the dust, that we will be created anew, that we will be recreated, resurrected, how is it possible? Allah says, Allah said definitely it will happen and you are denying the meeting with your Allah, meeting with Allah and Allah SWT then challenges and command and says, say you will die, have no doubt about this, you will die. Allah SWT says, and it is his job to extract your soul and bring you back to Allah SWT. I remind you of myself that this will happen. I don't think this is something that anybody denies, anyone, the most ignorant person, the most learned person, nobody denies death because every one of us has seen death. You have had, some of us have seen our closest and dearest ones dying in front of us, in front of our eyes, you have seen them passing away. I'm sure with some of us, they were so dear to us that if we had been given a choice, we would have gladly given our lives for them and say, Yallah, give my life to this person, let me die instead of them. Doesn't happen, does not happen and Allah SWT mentions all of these things so clearly and Allah SWT says in the Quran, Allah SWT says, Allah SWT says, when you cannot breathe, when you are having difficulty breathing, when you are going through Sakratul Mouth, I mean Allah SWT protect us from the pain of that and Allah SWT says, and you are standing there looking on, you are right there, you are not absent, you are present, you are looking on, but you can do nothing. Allah says, this is a challenge. Allah says, if you can bring that soul back, if you can ease their breathing, if you can bring them back alive, do it. See if you can do it. Allah says, Allah SWT says, we are closest to them, but we are not visible. We ask Allah SWT to make our lives easier, our death easy. As I'm talking to you, you see there on top, there is a red-tailed hawk which is sitting in that tree there. It's one of the predatory birds of this place. It's beautiful. Just thinking or talking about death, I'm thinking that that is malakul mouth for some rabbit or some unwary mouse or squirrel. The hawk is sitting there waiting for what Allah has decreed for it. The point I want to remind myself and you my present sister is that if one falls into a trap unknowingly, if something you didn't know and unknowingly there's a hole in the ground, you didn't realize it and you fell down, then okay, it's understandable. I mean you didn't know that. But knowingly if somebody falls into a trap, if knowingly somebody does something which he knows that it would be a tremendous loss, but he still does it, then what do you call that? And that's why sometimes people ask me, they say, what does it matter what I believe? They say, well, I don't believe in the akhirah. I don't believe there's a day of death, I don't believe that I will be called to account. This life is all there is and I have money and I have power and authority. You know, I have nice friends. So I'm doing something, you call it haram. I have a girlfriend, boyfriend. You say it is haram, so what? I have it, I'm doing it, you know. And if it's so bad, why doesn't punishment come? How come I'm not being punished? I find these, you know, I have all this, I mean, you know, so nothing happens to me. So I'll die, I become dust. Now I say to you, as far as I'm concerned, I believe in Allah and I believe in the last day and I believe in death. I believe that I will meet Allah and I want to live my life in a

https://youtu.be/5KnVlYA7TKE Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the Universe. And peace and blessings be upon the Prophet Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah. And peace and blessings be upon the family of the Prophet Muhammad. Muneer and I have reached kind of halfway mark also in this trek around this beautiful lake. And we're having a discussion and talking about certainty. And I was saying to Muneer that just walk, take slowly, walk slow motion. Just see Muneer's steps. What is he doing? He's taking a step forward. Now, when you're taking a step forward, ask yourself, what am I doing? What you're doing and what anybody is doing is you are consciously taking a decision to upset your equilibrium. Because the safest position for a person is to stand squarely on his feet, the width of his shoulders, his feet apart, the width of his shoulders and stay there. Don't move. That is the safest position. But if you take that safe position, then you are not going anywhere. You're going to be standing in one place until you drop dead. So that safe position is safe, but it's not of any use to anybody. So what do we do? We consciously lean forward. Just walk and see. You can practice this yourself. When you're walking, what are you doing? You're consciously leaning forward, knowing that you will fall, knowing that there is a chance of you falling. And then automatically, it has become automatic. When you were a little kid, one year old, one and a half years old, it was not automatic. You had to do it. You did it consciously. But automatically, your leg comes forward and stops you from falling. That is called the process of walking, to consciously choose to lose your equilibrium. Put yourself in danger of falling and then move the other leg to stop yourself from falling. If by some chance, your other leg gets caught in the carpet or somebody trips you or something, you will fall. You will actually fall flat on your face, right? But you walk because that is the only way that we can get ahead. Nobody says, be safe, don't walk. No, you have to walk. So we were talking about the attitude that we have to learning Islam. And I am talking about people like me and people like probably most of you who are listening to this podcast, people who have been born Muslims. In my family, I know that my ancestors have been Muslims practically from day one. From my mother's side, they came from Madinah and from the time of the Vizier Salaam. So they have been Muslims for 14 plus centuries. On my father's side, they came from Central Asia. So they were probably Muslims from maybe what, a thousand years or something like that, 1200 years. So Muslims for generation after generation after generation. We never saw anything else. We never saw anything other than Islam. We never saw our parents, grandparents, whoever worshipping anyone. Now that's a good side of it. But the problem side of it is that therefore we don't have enough value for Islam that Allah Almighty is going to give us. And by enough value I mean that we think it just, it's like the air you breathe or the culture or the mother tongue we speak or something, it just happens. And it's okay if I, you know, don't know all the ins and outs of the culture, it doesn't matter and so forth. So we don't take trouble to learn. One of the simple things that we were talking about is that we see in our mothers are here, children of the Afghan refugees who are here, small children, we're talking about little children who are, you know, seven years old or something. Those kids, they read Quran much better than the children of the Arabs. Even though the children of the Arabs are listening to, hearing Arabic all the time, their parents, grandparents all speak Arabic, they have Arabic channels running on the TVs and everything else. But they have not learned to read Arabic. Nobody taught them, they just send them to the school. Alhamdulillah there is a school, Alhamdulillah there is somebody to teach them here. But if that hadn't been there, they would just not know. And I know this for a fact because I know and I have, I know people and I have met people who were in their 30s and 40s, 50s even, who could not read the Quran. Just Nazir, I'm not even talking about reading it, understanding the meaning and what, just Nazir, Alif Lamim, they don't know how to read that. They don't know the letters. And it is not surprising, it's not a question of saying, how is it you are an Arab but you don't know. Learning doesn't come by osmosis, learning doesn't come through the air. A person who studies knows, if a person doesn't study, he doesn't know. So that's why we have people who are old enough but they have no knowledge. Now, Maudid Alhamdulillah is studying

https://youtu.be/KMz56W8C_lQ Auto-generated transcript: As you can see, it's all completely frozen. We had a bit of a snowstorm, not too much of it, but there was some snow last night. So, Munir, show your face. That is Munir. So, it's got snow on top. I don't think it is frozen solid, but don't ask me to prove it. These are the magnitudes, northern hemisphere, where in the winter it completely dies and things are, you know, as if there is no life. And then Allah's to continue to show us His signs and to help us to see His signs. The thing is not just about seeing because as I say all the time, seeing is different from looking. Good morning. Seeing is looking different from looking. Looking is a function of the eyes, whereas seeing is with the heart and with the knowledge. Because when you say I have seen, it means that you have recognized the reality of what you've seen. So, I remind myself to see, not just to look. And when I see this, the sight of snow covering the land is so beautiful. Looks so absolutely pure, everything. Reminds me of Allah SWT as a satar, the one who covers the faults of His slaves. And Imam Shafir Ahmdul Alayh said, if somebody praises you, don't take it to heart. Don't start believing it because the person is praising the satari of Allah. He's praising the cloak that Allah SWT placed over you. The people cannot see what's under the cloak. And when I see these scenes, this absolutely beautiful scenery, I'm reminded of that. Yes, it is very beautiful. Looks so peaceful, harmonious, smooth, level. No dips in it, no bumps in it, no holes in it for anyone to fall into and so on. But it's far from reality. If you walk across that field, then you really know the depth of the snow, you know what's under it and so on. From the… with this phone, it's not so easy to see just now, but it's… there is water there, which is, you know, not yet melted. So, Alhamdulillah, that water is not yet frozen. First, water is not yet frozen. On top here is… it's frozen. In this ice and snow, one of the most important things to make absolutely sure is that it can be frozen. And it's not frozen. It's not frozen. One of the most important things to make absolutely sure is that it can take your weight, because if you fall into a lake, which is… because the snow will not enough take your weight, then it's almost sure death with hypothermia and with drowning, because it's… it's not the same as swimming in warm water. So, talking about this… Oh, there is a flock of… There's some birds coming this way, I think. No, they're going the other way. There is a hawk flying on top. That's why they took off the birds. And they're coming this way. They… They are… Oh, they seem to be terns. Yes, they seem to be terns. Probably see them closer up. And the hawk came up, so they… And this is also the signs for us to see and think. No, these are girls. These are girls of some kind, small girls. And… He showed us this, you know, that… Anas Mahantara teaches us through his creation, through his Kuruvata. And one of the things we learn is that the thing that animals do is they don't take chances. As soon as they sense possible danger, they don't even know whether it's dangerous or not. In this particular case, I don't think that hawk was any danger to them. But as soon as they sense possible danger, they take evasive action. They fly away, they seek shelter. If it's a… If it's a narrow-rided, seek shelter, if it's a bird, fly away. Which tells us to think about what do we do when we sense danger. But the problem is that we have got used to a lifestyle where we have got used to the fact that we have got used to a lifestyle where we have got used to danger, not in any sense of being capable of handling it, but we have got used to not getting alarmed and not panicking when we really should be panicking. The… The example I gave the other day, I was reading somewhere, the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in Russia. So when the fire happened in Chernobyl in the nuclear reactor, firefighters went in there obviously. So people rushed in there to put it out to do whatever they could do. And they did whatever they could do and then they came away. And then over the months and years, they realized that they had been massively radiated. It resulted in almost certain deaths. For them, it resulted in cancer, it resulted in all kinds of, you know, bad ending, bad and painful endings for them. Now, that radiation when it was happening to them was… they couldn't feel it because you can't feel radiation. They didn't… they were not going around with tickers which were blaring or something, nothing. I mean, they didn't know it was happening. But it happened. So the message for us is that just because we don't know something is happening, it does not mean it's not hap

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. All praise be to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions, who have been very, very obedient. What is next? Brothers and sisters, Allah SWT told us in the Quran, in Surah Al-Isra, Allah is describing the situation and the condition on the day when we will meet Allah. And Allah is saying, Allah is not saying, No, Read your book. Read your book. This book is enough on this day as a witness, as a hesaab, as an account-taker for you. What is that book? Allah SWT said in Surah Al-Kahf, People will say this. What kind of book is this? Nothing is missing. Everything is there. It doesn't matter if you read it or not. It doesn't matter if you read it or not. Your book is a witness, you read it and you know it. What is this book? The Quran. The Quran is not a book. It is a book that you can read and you can read. Kabira, everything is there from the smallest thing to the biggest thing. What book is this? This book is the book of our life. Who is the author of that book? The author of the book of Abu Sarmad is Abu Sarvad. The author of the book is Abu Muqbil is Abu Muqbil. The author of the book of Abu Muqbil is Abu Muqbil. We are the authors of our own books. And that is why we will never be able to deny anything in that book because we wrote it. If Abu Sarmad writes something about me, I can say, you know, I'm sorry, you were mistaken. Maybe you are my enemy. But I'm writing about myself. I always remind myself and I remind you, in today's world, remember these ayat came in the 7th century. Truly Iman bil Ghaib was for the Sahaba. For us, Allah has made many of the things which were in the Ghaib for the Sahaba. Allah has given us the Mushahad of that. Allah has shown us those things. I remember seeing a documentary of this person who takes two phones. One phone switches off completely, totally off. And the other phone is on. He puts both the phones in his pocket and he drives around Washington from this point to that point to that point to that point. So, multiple points, 20, 30 points. And he comes back and then they go into the telephone company records and they find that the phone which was turned on tracked all the places that the person went to. He didn't use the phone anywhere. He just went there. The phone has the tracking of that, but very interestingly, even the phone that was switched off has tracked everything. So what is so difficult to believe that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows simultaneously what we are doing? If you go mentally, for example, into say Verizon, you know, at the data center of Verizon or any of the, you know, great telephone companies, for example, right? And if you could be sitting there, what would you see? You would see multiple conversations happening between people in multiple languages, in multiple locations in the world. Some of those conversations between two people who are stationary, so that means somebody is in a house or office, something in America, the other person is also stationary in his house, office, whatever it is in India. But many conversations happening between people who are in cars or who are, God knows, in planes, and they are flying, which means that their location is every instant the location is changing, yet the line does not break, the call doesn't drop, they have a conversation. And in theory, every single conversation can be recorded, yes? Every single one of them. There's no such thing as an unrecordable piece of public communication. If you don't want the communication to be recorded, don't say it, period. If you are going to say it, if you are going to send it on an email, if you are going to send it on a chat message, if you are going to send it on a phone, believe me, it is recordable. I'm not saying everything is actually recorded, maybe, may not be, but if somebody wants to record it, it is recordable. The reason I'm saying that is, so therefore, what is so difficult to believe that Allah I mean, we are the creatures of Allah, and the phone and the technology and so on is our creature, because we created it with the help that Allah gave us. If the creature can do something, the creator can do it. Yet we live our lives the way we live our lives. May Allah have mercy on us. I remind myself and you that a time will come when the door, one door will open and another door will shut. The door of the Akhira will open and the door of Tawbah will shut. Because Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, a person's Tawbah is accepted until the gargara, until the breath comes in the throat. Because when the breath comes in the throat, it means the person is seeing Malakum Bhaut. That door is open now. The door to the Akhira is