
Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
1,077 episodes — Page 6 of 22
Practice not preach
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family. Peace and blessings be upon them. And after that, my brothers and sisters, it is very important after the first prayer to do the Masnoon adhkar of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family. All the adhkar, all the dhikr the Prophet used to do after the first prayer, it is very important to do that first. Before anything else, before the khatira, before anything which the Imam wants to say or any haddars or hadiths or anything else. Finish the adhkar of, these are all Sunnah Mu'akkadah. They are almost as important as the first. Finish that, then do whatever else you want to do. So the Prophet said, first and foremost, after you finish your Salah, you say Astaghfirullah three times. Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah. And then you say Allahumma a'inni a'la dhikrika wa shukrika wa husni ibadatika. And then if you like, you can say Allahumma takabbal minna innaka anta as-sami wal-alim wa tuba'ilina innaka anta at-tawabur raheem. And then you recite Ayatul Qursi. The recitation of Ayatul Qursi, after the Salah, the first Salah, Rasulullah said, the one who recites Ayatul Qursi after the first Salah, the only thing that is between him and Jannah is his death. Meaning, as soon as he dies, he will go to Jannah, InshaAllah. So simple. Ayatul Qursi after the first. So, the Ulema have said that this could mean Ayatul Qursi immediately after the first, or it could mean Ayatul Qursi as the last thing, before you say Salah. So after Atayat and after Dhurut Ibrahim and after the Dua's, you recite Ayatul Qursi and then you say Salam Alaikum, Salam Alaikum. In the Salah. So the Afdal way is to do that and immediately after Salah also. So after you say Salam, Salam, then Ayatul Qursi. And then SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar, 33, 33, 34. And then La ilaha illaAllah, Wa a'dahu la sharika lahu, la huma al-mulk, la huma al-hamdu, wa ala kulli shay'in qadir. So this is the minimum. And then of course, if Allah gives us tawfiq, La ilaha illaAllah, wa a'dahu la sharika lahu, la huma al-mulk, la huma al-hamdu, yuhi wa yumeet, wa huwa ala kulli shay'in qadir. That addition of yuhi wa yumeet. Huwa ala kulli shay'in qadir, ten times. And after that, Allahumma la ma'aleh ala ma'atayta, wa la muti lima manata, wa la yanfawzal jaddah minkal jaddah. These are the little one lines. This we must memorize and we must say this. Right? Then you do your, whatever else you want to do. The dars or anything else. But until you finish the adhkar, don't be in a hurry. If you do not even have, peace of mind and sukoon in salah, in the masjid, where will we have it? That this life is full of all kinds of tensions and this and that. At least in the masjid, let us be, stay with peace and khair. InshaAllah Allah Ta'ala will give us khair. The key thing is to understand that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us this deen in order to give us sukoon. The purpose of the deen is what? To give you trouble or to give you, deen is not meant to give, deen is meant to solve our problems. Deen is meant to give us sukoon. But anything is beneficial only if you use it. You can have a beautiful house and in that you have, for example, you have an air conditioner in your bedroom. But here in Hyderabad in the summer, the temperature is going to 40 degrees Celsius and you are sweltering in the heat, burning in the heat. You are trying to sleep in the bedroom and you can't sleep and it's so difficult. And somebody says, why don't you turn on the AC? You have the AC, it is installed, it works. Why don't you turn it on? You know, this example sounds stupid, but that is exactly what we do with our religion. We have it, alhamdulillah. All of us, at least all of us here in the masjid are born Muslims. Our parents were Muslims, their parents were Muslims, until Allah knows when. We must ask ourselves, what good is that? I'm not saying it's not good. I'm saying, what benefit am I getting from this? I'm burning in the heat. I have a beautiful air conditioner in my room. I have the remote control in my hand. I won't turn it on. What chance does it make? But that's exactly what we do with our religion. Allah gave us a beautiful system of life, whole life. Start with salah, which is why it is five times a day, reminder, reminder, reminder, reminder, reminder. How must I live my life? The way you do salah. You don't pray any way you like. You pray, you pray. How do you pray? Prophet said what? Sallu kamar ayyitumuni usalli. Pray as you have seen me pray. Not any way you like. I cannot invent my own method of prayin
How to get Khushoo in Salah
Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahirrabbilalameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kaseeran kaseera. Fahamna ba'du. My brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah, one of my friends asked me for some advice with regard to increasing khushu in salah. And subhanAllah, this is, I am no worry to give advice. My advice is given here in the context and in the way of reminding myself. Because khushu in salah is something that, I don't know about everybody, but certainly it's something that I sincerely believe that I need to. I need it as much as anybody else, if not more. And it's something that I am, you know, it's very important that we should have it. And khushu is one of the requirements for proper salah in the first place. I mean, it's not a frill, it's not a perk, it's not a fringe benefit, it's something which is, it's like a rukun of salah almost, that without khushu, salah is not valid. I don't mean that as a fatwa, I am just saying that the whole purpose of salah, which Allah SWT has said, aqim is salah, li dhikri, establish salah for my dhikr. Allah is saying this very specifically, aqim is salah, li dhikri. So, so ghafla in salah is literally like saying, I am hungry, I am eating, and my hunger is not going away. I mean, it's technically impossible, but this is the nature of things. So therefore, khushu and salah is absolutely critical. Now, how do we get there? The important thing to understand is that khushu and salah does not begin with salah. It doesn't begin when we stand there and say Allah Akbar. It begins in our whole life itself. First and foremost, khushu begins with our understanding of who Allah SWT is, and by understanding I don't mean, uh, cognitive or intellectual, uh, or theoretical understanding of who Allah SWT is, but what that feels in the pit of your belly. Uh, what is the first thought in the mind as soon as there is a problem? Do we think Allah, or do we think of something else? As one of my shaykhs used to say, if you have a headache, what is the first thing you think? Allah or Tylenol? Do you make dua, or do you look for a medicine? Nothing wrong in looking for a medicine, but is that, which is the first thought? So where is the khushu, where is the sincerity in asking? So do we ask Allah SWT, or we ask Allah only when, uh, you know, as an afterthought? Take for example, all the, uh, efforts, and the protests, and the marches, and the what not happening, uh, against this and that cause, uh, this and that situation, where Muslims are involved in. Um, but how many times have you seen people saying, let us make tawbah and istighfar? Let us make tawbah and istighfar, because Allah SWT's help comes to those who, Allah SWT, to those who have sought forgiveness, and who have turned towards Allah SWT. Faqultu istaghfiru rabbakum innahu kana ghaffara. You see, yusri al-samaha alaykum midrara, wa yumdidkum bi anbali wa baneen, wa yaj'al lakum jannati wa yaj'al lakum anhara. In Surah Nuh, Allah SWT mentioned and said that, faqultu istaghfiru rabbakum, and the Prophet says, oh my Rabb, I asked them, I told them to make istighfar, and I said to them, make istighfar, turn to your Rabb, apologize to him, be contrite, seek forgiveness, innahu kana ghaffara, surely he is the one who forgives. yusri al-samaha alaykum midrara, and then he will send down rain to you from the heavens, wa yumdidkum bi anbali, and he will help you with wealth, wa yaj'al lakum jannati wa yaj'al lakum anhara, yumdidkum bi anbali wa baneen, and he will help you with wealth, and with children, with meaning tribe, and which means influence, and, wa yaj'al lakum jannati wa yaj'al lakum anhara, and he will give you garden, then he will give you food, then he will give you food, then he will give you rivers, which refers to material benefits and wealth, and so on and so forth. The point being, all this will happen, faquldu astaghfir rabbakum, if you make istighfar to your Rabb. So salah begins with this sense of the greatness and glory and magnificence of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala in the heart, 24-7, and that comes from thinking about Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, reflecting on the glory and majesty of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, and that is the way of the Prophet Muhammad, and that is the way of the Prophet Muhammad, representing His Majesty, the Majesty of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, being grateful to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala for all that He has given us, and all that He chose not to give us, this is very, very important. This is very critically important. When we think about all this, then we become grateful to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. We continuously think about Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. That is when we stop playing games. That is when we get our ikhlas. Th
Decision by Shura – 3
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, this is the third part of the three-part series on decision-making in the Islamic way. Here I want to share with you a decision-making tool. And that tool is called Keppner-Tragot decision-making analysis. Keppner-Tragot decision analysis. K-E-P-N-E-R hyphen T-R-E-G-O-E decision analysis. It's there on the net also. You can read it up. I teach this in my leadership programs. Now, what they advise, they teach us a very nice method. In any decision, one of the reasons why people have difficulty making decisions is because they are not clear about what they want. And this might sound like, you know, might sound funny in an unamusing sense. But take, for example, if you say, people come to me and they say, I want to get married. I say, okay. So what kind of person are you looking for? What kind of, you know, girl or man or woman are you looking for? They're not clear, right? They say, oh, this person should be. A good Muslim. What is a good Muslim? A person should be from a good family. You know, what's a good family? So there are any number of questions. So the point being that it is very important. People get into confusion because they are not clear about what they want. So Keppner-Tragot gets this clear for us. And that's the method I want to teach you. The first thing to do when you are doing decision analysis, by using this method is to be clear about your goal. So what we advise people to do is we say, write down your goal. What exactly do you want? Write this goal down. You can write it in as much detail as you want, but write it down. Not verbally. Because unless you concretize this, it's like a soup in your head. Just floating around. And that's no good. So you need clarity on that. So write it down clearly. As clearly as you can. What is it that I want? As clearly as you can. Then what you do is, you take that description of yours, of what you want. And you write down, you analyze that. And you say, what are the essentials in this? And what are the desirables? So for example, you say, well, I want to buy a house. So what is the goal? The goal is to buy a house. All right. So when you want, so I ask you, well, what kind of house? Well, what are the essentials and what are the desirables? So you might say, well, you know, I want a house which is within 10 kilometers from my place of work. Now, I will ask you, is that essential or is it a desirable? Now, let me explain to you why I'm saying that. Okay. Now, essentials are go, no go. Black and white. So if you say that my, the house that I want to buy must be within 10 kilometers from my place of work. And I find you a house which is 11 kilometers, not 10, 11 kilometers from your place of work. Will you accept it or will you reject it? You might say, I will accept it. Then I will tell you you are not clear. Because if you... You are clear, then if the place is 11 kilometers away, no matter how stupid that sounds, you will reject that house. Say, sorry, not part of my essential. My essential is within 10 kilometers from 1 to 10. If it is from my place of work, I will buy it. If it is 11 kilometers, I will reject it. That is the reason why decisions don't happen because people have very vague requirements. So clarifying the requirement is absolutely critical. So what are the essentials? Obviously, the more number of essentials you have, the more difficult the decision becomes. You are narrowing the choices. Not difficult, but you are narrowing the choices. If you say house must be only 10 kilometers away, as I said, 11 is not good enough. So if there is a beautiful house which is 11 kilometers away, in reality, what difference does it make? It's a matter of 1 kilometer. But you say, no, this is 10. 10 is 10. 10 is not 11. 10 is 11. So it is very important to be clear about what are the essentials. I want to get married. Okay. What kind of person? Absolute clarity. For example, you might say the person must be Muslim. Now, there is no go-no-go situation. You say, this person is not a Muslim yet. He or she is very inclined toward Islam. And it is very possible that they will become... Muslim, you know, soon after we get married or before. Just before. No, no, no. Are they Muslim or they're not Muslim? Simple. There's no vague or no gray area in that. Are you Muslim? Are you not Muslim? So similarly, whatever may be the essentials. So list those down. So you have the essentials. And as I mentioned to you, the more the number of essentials, the narrower the choice. So that's the payoff for that. So. You get the essentials. Then for each essential, you put down what are the desirables. So now, take the house example. I have this house. Must be 10 kilometers from my... Or must be less than 10 kilometers from my workplace. So this house is there. Now, this house must have three bedrooms with attached bathrooms. Now, is it essential? If it's essentia
Decision by Shura – 2
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, we are on the topic of decision making or decision analysis based on the Shura method. So let's see first of all, what is the Shura method? As we said, Shura is mutual consultation or decision making by consultation. Now, there is a method to do that. And the method is that the people who are all the stakeholders for that decision must be part of the Shura. Shura is the name given to the group which is going to sit together to make the decision. So all stakeholders should be part of the Shura. This is a mistake which many times people make. And it's a very fundamental mistake. And that mistake is an absolutely killer for the decision. Because if a stakeholder, if a key stakeholder is missing, then that decision to get it implemented will be practically impossible. So to take them all into confidence. To have them all part of the decision making group, part of the Shura is absolutely critical. The reason why some people get missed out, one of the major reasons is because of the fear of disagreement. So you would have somebody, one member of the family or group or whatever it is, who is contrary, who is argumentative and all that. And people like to keep it. And people like to keep it. And people like to keep it. And people like to keep it. And people like to keep it. And people like to keep it. So they exclude them either consciously or unconsciously. And this person gets left out. And then obviously there is hell to pay because nothing will happen. Nothing will move. That person will make sure that everything gets sabotaged. So it is very important to make sure that all key stakeholders are part of the decision making group, part of the Shura. No matter whether you like them, you don't like them, they are agreeable, disagreeable, whatnot, doesn't matter. make sure they are part of the decision making group. Second thing is that when the meeting starts, people who are in that group, they must go there with a certain mindset. And that's why I said begin by throwing your ego into the garbage bin outside the room. So when you go inside there, go with the intention of keeping the primacy of the reason why you are coming together. So why are you coming together? I'm going to be coming together in order to solve this problem. And we are coming together in order to come to a decision about this issue. You're not getting there to prove who's right or who's wrong. You're not going in there to win an argument. You're not going in there to show who is smart and who is not smart and who is, you know, whatever, right? It's not a personal competition. It's not a boxing ring. You're going in there collectively to solve a problem. So it is not me versus you. It is me and me and me and me and me versus the problem, versus the decision. That's a very important mindset. And these things don't happen automatically. You have to be conscious about it and you have to think about it carefully and consciously take that decision. I'm going in here with one goal and which is to arrive at a solution. Okay. I'm not going in there to prove that I was always right, that I should be right. I should be, I should be obeyed. My idea should be taken. The other guy is wrong. None of that. Only goal is how do you solve this problem? Everyone together. It is not me versus you. It is all of us versus the problem. So that's the mindset you need to go in there with. Then it is important in the Sura system to select what is called a Faisal. Okay. So, let's go. Okay. There is one thing that we need to do. We need to decide what to do. We need to decide which is the best option, which is the best way to do it. We need to choose a leader for the group. If there is no leader, then there is chaos. The job of the leader is to lead that discussion and finally to announce the decision to which the leader has come. So appoint a leader. Obviously appoint the person who is most knowledgeable, the person who is ... One way of appointing is appoint the leader, appoint as the leader, the one who has the maximum stake in the business, maximum stake in the decision. By stake, I don't necessarily mean shareholding. I mean the person who will be most affected by the decision which is being taken. Appoint that person as the leader because at the end of the day, that person is the one who is going to benefit or be hurt either way. So, therefore, appoint them. That's one possibility. Other possibility, of course, is the biggest shareholder, the oldest person, the most knowledgeable person, head of the family, whatever you want to call it. So, there has to be a leader who is the leader of the meeting and this person will lead the discussion. The goal of the leader, again, must be very clear. The goal of the leader is not to get his point of view accepted. The goal of the leader. The goal of the leader is to arrive
Decision by Shura – 1
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, my brother and dear friend from Durban, Al-Pahla Institute, Dr. Zafar Ahmad asked me a question and before I go further and tell you what his question is and answer the question inshallah let me submit you that I dearly welcome this and especially my request to those who listen to these Fajr Reminders khatiras regularly do send me your questions don't send me fiqh questions I will not answer them I'm not a mufti ask your local mufti for any advice on the from a fiqh perspective but ask me questions about application of Islam this helps me to think this helped me to reflect it helps me also to try to share with you my thoughts on that now his question is can you give us some insights on decision making from an Islamic perspective using the shura concept the beauty of our religion is Alhamdulillah that there is every single thing that we face in life everything in every single dilemma question every single problem every single blessing that we face in life and we are searching for answers the answers are in the kalam of Allah and in the teaching of Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi salam there is nothing that has been missed out every single thing is there and it's up to us to do it and I'm very grateful to you for that and I'm very grateful to you for us to search for those answers in the Quran and in the Sunnah as far as the issue of decision-making and the issue of Shura which is consultation so we are talking here about consultative decision making we're not talking about a one-man show we are not talking about dictatorial way of leadership we are talking about consultative decision-making Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala in Surah Ashura Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala said Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala said Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala said do you know pyramid is going to be broken in ten twenty five forms and limits is no longer and I'm trying to read you to present in this 해서 those SealPs were carefully created and really whatever I legs feelings of Erik wants to be elevated to theaning evil which means this situation rise of making peace with God here late to keep us thelam in a shaikh hedon recruiting wallazine S Sepia Woo firearms not канал Indian well elsewhere KO main homίο so among we're not a colon call until several communities of credit glaubeIS one of the sugar people admitted policies the 48 of those are telling me tomorrow dr. Prabhu develop this sharing throw away mynesistesta job brow the local obs McCarthy here there are no other RF Allah isally in Allah's of towards articulating our desir that has read within three أيolian waters Because the orthodox neighborhood 25 of their They respond to the call of their Rabb and are constant in prayer. Wa aqamu salat. They have, they don't just pray, they don't just read Salat or make Salat or do Salat. They establish Salat. Wa aqamu salat. Wa amruhum shura baynahum. And whose rule in all matters of common concern is consultation among themselves. These are people who decide based on consultation. Wa mimmaa razaqnaahum yunfiqoon. And who spend on others from what we have provided them. So Allah is saying these are people who respond to their Rabb who establish prayer, who conduct their affairs by mutual consultation and who spend and donate from what we have provided for them. These are the qualities of the believers. These are the qualities of the believers. These are the qualities of people who Allah loves. So to make decisions by Shura is very much a part of Islam. Now remember, this is also what Allah asked Rasool Allah to do. To make Shura with the people. To consult with the people. Now let's think about this and say, well why on earth would this be? Why is there a wennab, the service which Guru Haheed alai his manipulating hands on , becauseengage that you are willing to listen to them? I mean, you've mentioned certain Najwa I mean? No, no, listen to someone. You take me to another He says, you've seen some dua where I say to the Muslims who are hearing about it then you do that. Um, you see, there was this tape of somebody emphaticallyassert peaceful aaya, deceitful, or misd100 things is길봐 And after reading it, it's like asking who I have to ask, they were telling eachother. They're Faith is like that No one is God, but if I supplicate then is an announce a мн! Where they would be under preacher, Lord has said in personality of his as one, that me may not pay this amount. look for you know for advice on something where I know that I know the best what I know is superior to what anyone else can possibly tell me because I am closer to the situation I am more deeply involved in it I am more knowledgeable about it why would I listen to anybody else so in the case of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is saying no no you listen to them you take them into confidence you con
Applying_Kaizen_to_mid_life_crisis
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. My dear brothers and sisters, people go through what is called a midlife crisis. And this happens for two reasons. One is that when you are young and you have your life goals, most of them are more or less straightforward and clear, which is to get a job, to get a good job, to get some career progress and so on. So people work for that. And they achieve various levels of success. But once they reach a particular level, they would have achieved most of whatever they set out to achieve. Some things they get, some things they don't get. And also as you grow older, your overall energy also becomes less. And you reach a plateau, you reach a point and then it's, you are climbing to a point and then it becomes flat. And then there is a loss of energy, loss of enthusiasm. There's a sense of loss of purpose. You don't know what to do with yourself. Also, most of the material goals of life get achieved. If you have been, living your life in a reasonably sensible way, then achieving material goals is not such a big thing. So you will achieve whatever material goals there are. So then there's a loss of purpose. So that's one midlife crisis or reason for it. Another one is that you set out to achieve goals and these are good grand goals, big goals. And you find as you go, you go along that despite your best efforts and so on, you are not able to achieve them or not able to achieve them entirely as you envisaged or as you thought you would like to achieve them. So these are the two reasons why people at, usually happens to people in their 40s and maybe later actually, maybe in the 50s or so, but can happen at any time. I've seen people with very fast track, even in their 30s, facing this wall, they don't know what to do. Whatever they thought they wanted to achieve, they achieved, came very early. And then they are at a loss. Now what to do? The issue is therefore what to do with your life because it's, you feel various people I've spoken to, one person said, I think my life has come to an end. But you are still living. So how is it at an end? And you can't say, go jump over, jump off a cliff or something. Life is ended. That we can't do. So what to do with your life? And sometimes it becomes a serious matter because there is a serious loss of purpose in life. And, you know, you are sort of at a completely loose end. You don't know what to do with yourself. Now, the key thing, therefore, to understand is what does Islam tell us. Now Islam tells us to relook and realign the purpose of our lives. And that realignment should be done not only when you are at a midlife crisis, at that time, of course, but even otherwise. And that realignment has to be done according to the purpose of life. And that purpose of life, Allah SWT mentioned, where He said, وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونَ Allah said, we have not created the jinn and the human beings for anything other than our worship. So the purpose of life is to worship Allah SWT to a level that He is pleased with us. Because worship is not just worship. Worship is at some standard. So what is that standard? The standard is the rida of Allah. Now, if you keep that life goal as a purpose, then there is no question of any midlife crisis or any other kind of crisis because this is a continuous improvement goal. What the Japanese call kaizen. In manufacturing, there is the concept, quality concept of kaizen. So, kai is continuous, zen is good. So, continuous, improvement. And the principle of kaizen is that small things add up to a big thing. So small changes add up to a big change. So in this, if you apply the principles of kaizen to the life goal in Islam, which is the rida of Allah SWT, so you have the goal to say, is Allah SWT pleased with me? And Allah created me for His purpose, for this particular purpose, which is His ibadah. Today, what has happened, somebody was asking me, I just came back from Kuwait last night. One of my friends there, he was asking me, how is it that you play people like, we all, I mean, we all talk about spiritual development and we all talk about these things and it's not as if we are insincere and liars or cheats or not like that. It's just that we, we talk about this as if these are desires. But if you look at people, in the past, our Salaf Salheen, for example, Imam al-Ghazali, Rahmatullah Ali, left his home, he settled his wife, his son had died, he had only daughters, he settled his wife and daughters and he left his home and went out and did not come back for 10 years. And he went out because he said, my heart has become hard and for the softening of my heart, I need to do something, some other things. And when he left, he was the, Dean of his area of expertise in the Jamia and Nizamia, which was the biggest university in Damascus. So he had a very, very lucrative a
Prepare for the Day
Auto-generated transcript:Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. It begins with Ya'i wa al-ladhina amanu. It's a command from Allah for the believers, men and women. So Allah is saying, Ya'i wa al-ladhina amanu, anfiqoo mimma razakhnakum. Spend from what we have given you. Anfiqoo mimma razakhnakum. Spend from what we have given you. Min qabli an ya'ti ya yawmul la bay'un fihi. Wala kullatun wala ya'ti. Wala shafa'a. Wal kafirunahu zalima. Before a day comes in which there will be la bay'un. No trade. No exchange. No buying and selling. La bay'un wala kulla. No friendships. No friendships. Wala shafa'a. And no intercession. Illa mashallah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala insha'Allah al-musta'a'in. We ask Allah for this. We'll give intercession. We'll give shafa'a to first and foremost to Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And then to whoever He wishes. But the general rule, la shafa'a. Nobody will speak on that day illa binillah. Except by the hakum muhalla. Wala shafa'a. Wal kafirunahu muhzalimoon. And those who deny are the people who are the transgressors. So Allah is reminding us that this day will come. And this day will come. And this day will come for everybody. If you are born, you will die. There is no doubt about this. If you are born, you will die. Whether you die today, whether you die tomorrow, whether you die 10,000 years from now, you will die. Whether you are a king or a queen, whether you are poor, rich or poor, whether you are a sheikh or a shaitan, whatever you are, you will die. kullu nasin za'ifatul mawt. kullu nas. kullu nasin za'ifatul mawt. Nobody is exempt from this. kullu nas. Nobody is exempt from this. If there was somebody who could be accepted from this rule and kept separate, that would be Rasulullah . But he died. So who are you? Who am I? He will die. kullu nasin za'ifatul mawt. wa innama tuwaffahu na wujoo raqhum yawmul qiyamah. Allah said that your full reward, you will get there. jawal qiyama. Full reward you will get on the Day of Judgment. He says that his future Kimas aren't on the buffoon deck or with my it. . Allah Ta'ala used two words in the Quran al-Karim to denote success. One Allah used the word falah, muflihoon, falah. Falah is success, but it is success after which there is some other test. So the child is going to school, he passes the grade 10, the metric or whatever exam, education is not finished. After that he has another two years of to do, junior college. Then he passes that exam. He does fantastically well. First in the class, is it over? No. Now he's going into undergrad. You have three years of that. He finishes that, is it over? No. Then he's got post graduation. Test after test after test, until the final test, after which Allah used the word fawz. Fawz una aziyya. Fawz is the success after which there is no test. So who is the one? Who will have fawz? Qaman zuhzi aani naari, fawz khairul janday. Fawz khairul janday. Fawz khairul janday. Fawz khairul janday. The one who is saved from the fire and entered Jannah. Entered into Jannah. There is no other criterion of success. Nothing! No other criterion. Not wealth. Not power. Not money. Not glory. Not duty. Not health. Not wealth. Nothing! None of this is a sign or a guarantee of success. No! guarantee or an indication of success. The only criterion of success, فَمَنْ زُغْزِعَ عَنِ النَّارِ وَأُدْخِلَ جَهْنَّةً فَقَدْ فَاسِ And then Allah said, وَمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا مَتَعُ الْغُرُورِ Allah said, And the life of this world is nothing but deception. Nothing but deception. You buy a big car, you think, Ah, it does. I bought a brand new Mercedes. In Hyderabad, they are selling five Mercedes per day. Five per day. Five per day. In six days, 30. So if you buy one, so what? Not a criterion of success. Not a criterion of success. Success is only when Allah saves us from. We ask Allah, اللهم أجِدَ مِنُنا Allah save us from the fire. Right? We ask Allah to open our eyes before our eyes are opened. We ask Allah to open our eyes before our eyes are opened. The day of judgment will start. They came to the Prophet . They said, Ya Rasulullah, a group of people came. They said, Ya Rasulullah, when is the day of judgment? مَتَيَوْا الْخِيَامَةَ When is the day of judgment? مَتَيَوْا الْخِيَامَةَ When is the day of judgment? So the Prophet looked at them. There was a little boy with them. The Prophet said, If Allah gives this one a long life, all of you will see the day of judgment before he dies. What does it mean? He said, All of you will see the day of judgment before he dies. That is why in Arabic, the day you die is called خَيَامَة السُّغْرَة the small Qiyamah. And the actual day of judgment is خَيَامَة الكُبْرَة the big Qiyamah. So for each one of us, the day of judgment is the day when مَلَكُ الْمَوتُ will come. مَلَكُ الْ
No excuses
Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbih salam. Tasliman kathirun kathirun. My brothers and sisters, we all have aspirations and goals and we want this and we want that. We want success in life. You want to have a great career and you want to have a happy marriage. You start a business and you want that business to grow. But you don't always succeed. Now, I'm going to teach you how to succeed. So listen carefully. Number one, swear to yourself. And by swear to yourself, I mean absolutely 100% stand in front of a mirror, hold the Quran al-Karim in your hand if you want, and swear to yourself that you will never make an excuse ever. You will never make an excuse ever. No excuses. No excuses. What does no excuse mean? It means no excuses. Now, think about this. Six months from now, you will either have six months of excuses or six months of progress. Six months from now, you will either have six months of excuses or six months of progress. Only you, nobody but you can decide which it will be. You can decide which it will be. You can decide which it will be. My submission to you is that work means work. Not talking about work or posting on social media about work or planning your work or writing about your work or dreaming about your work. None of this is work. Only work is work. So get this clear in your head. Work means to work. To make the effort consistently day after day after day. No excuses. I'm going to give you on a side note, but very important. The most powerful health hack in the world is to walk 10,000 steps every day. That is five miles. 10,000 steps is five miles to 2,000 steps to a mile. Think about this. If you do that every day for six months, you will be 900 miles from here. Wherever that here is for you. Take a map. Map it. And say, what is 900 miles from me? North, south, east, west. You in six months will be there if you only walk five miles per day. But only if you do it. But instead of that, if you do all the rest, you talk about this intention of walking 900 miles. You think about it. You make movies about it. You sing songs about it. You do what you want. Except walking. If you do all the rest, but you don't walk, you will still be here after six months. So understand this very clearly. You want progress. You have to work. Now, to make progress, you need three things. Three things. One, a clear goal. Number two, a clear strategy to achieve that goal. And number three, consistent hard work for an insane duration of time. For an insane period of time. So let's see each of these. What's a clear goal? A clear goal is something that inspires you. That inspires you enough for you to taste it in your mouth. Inspires you enough for you to taste it in your mouth. A clear goal is something that will keep you awake in the night. Thinking about it. Dreaming about it. It brings tears to your eyes. And most importantly, it makes you show up every day as long as you are alive. It doesn't matter if you are well or unwell or sick. It doesn't matter if you are sad. Glad, glad, bad, mad, rich or poor. It doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing. If it's day or night, nothing matters. Nothing can stop you from showing up. No excuses. No excuses. Make this into something which is running in the back of your head. No excuses. That is number one, a clear goal. Number two, a clear strategy. A clear strategy is something... Something that you have thought about, taken advice and planned and then and above all, you take ownership for execution of the strategy. That means that you have decided. The decision is yours. You will do whatever it takes to apply that strategy. And you and only you are responsible for the result. Yes, you took advice. Yes, you asked people. Yes, some people tried to pressurize you. Other people left you to your own devices and they said, okay, that's fine. Do whatever you think is good. Whatever the case was, some fought against you, some supported you. At the end, the decision is yours and you must take ownership for that. Only you are responsible for the result. It means that you will give it your best shot. You will not give in. You will not give up. You will give it. Your best shot. You will give it all you have. You will act thoughtfully, consciously with full commitment and presence of mind. Not mindlessly, not half asleep, not in some kind of dizz. You will learn on the job. You will measure results. You will benchmark against best in class and make changes to improve. It means that you will not make excuses. No excuses. Third point. Consistent hard work. Consistent hard work means consistent hard work. It doesn't mean working when you feel like it, when you are not tired, when you are free from other engagements. It means that you are going to give your goal
Active Listening to resolve conflicts
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, Alhamdulillah, we all know and we all talk about the biggest need of the Muslim Ummah today, which is that of unity. And we also know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded us and said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, hold firmly together, jami'an, to the rope of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and do not divide among yourselves. Do not divide among yourselves. Don't form into groups and sections. Don't become enemies to one another. Don't say, I will not meet my brother. I will not pray behind him. I will not accept his invitation. I will not invite him and so on and so forth. Do not do all those things. Allah did not say, Allah did not say, do not have a difference of opinion. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, treat those differences of opinion intelligently and work out conclusions, work out solutions. But do not allow them. To divide you and to separate you from your brother and form a clique or a group or some form of separation, do not do that. And this is a command of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now, if you look at this and say, well, you know, we don't seem to be able to do that. And may Allah have mercy on us. Today, we see this even among scholars, even among... Muslim organizations. And if we see it in such an ugly way, so sad and so tragic and so, you know, unbelievable that really, I mean, it's, I mean, obviously we do not despair at all, but it's something that drives you to that point. It's one, I mean, how and on earth can, did this happen and how can we change it? So, let's try and see how do we do that if you, if you find yourself in a situation where you are, you know, damaged. has already happened, dispute has happened, dispute has escalated and gone to the point where now it seems to be insoluble, separation has happened already and so forth. Now, in that situation, how do you, you know, what do you do? So first and foremost is to look at what is the dispute about. So what I suggest to people is both the parties sit down and write down what does the solution look like to you? What would you like to see? And don't say I would like to see you dead. That doesn't help. You might say, I don't want to see you dead. You might want that, but that's a useless thing to do. That's not a point where you can approach anything. So look at this thing and say, what is it that I need to do? What is it I would like to see? What is it that I would like to see? So you say, this is my view of the solution. This is what the solution looks like to me. And both the parties. So you know, if it's... If the solution is A and B, so A writes down what the solution looks like to him or her, and B does the same. I mean, I use this all the time even in marital counseling, for example, you know, seems to be insoluble differences leading to divorce, almost to the point. How do you change that? This is how you change it. Look at it and say, what does the solution look like to me? Both parties. And take your time. You know, write as much as you can. You know, write as much as you can. As much detail as you wish. Once that is over, then we exchange those sheets of paper. You take... You look at my solution. I look at your solution. Many times I've seen when this is done, the two solutions are very, very similar. Both parties want to see the same thing happen. The reason they don't see it is because they're approaching it from two different angles. And it seems to them that... There is no other way. This is the only way. So they have stuck or got stuck in a place. But if they look at it objectively, we say, oh, this is what you wanted. Well, you know, it's not so far from what I wanted. That's exactly what happens. Then we start the dialogue. We start people to start speaking because that's very important. I always say this all the time. This is that every dispute. No matter what the situation is. I'm not saying that you should not have a problem. No matter what. Whether it's a dispute between two individuals. For example, the most common is between husband and wife. Or it's a dispute between two individuals who... It's a, you know, a business dispute of business nature. Maybe it's a dispute of a religious nature. Maybe it's a dispute between two organizations or two factors of an organization. An organization has split into two. So you've got this group and that group basically from the same organization basically doing the same work. But they are now, you know, on two different folks or two different platforms. So maybe it's a dispute between countries. We have plenty of that in the world. All of these, the root to that, the root to the solution is the same, which is to practice what I call or what we call active listening. Active listening. This is one of the first casualties of any conflict, which is listening. I m
Nobody’s coming to save you-Sahil Bloom
Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah., And the day that course was to be taught, I barely managed to reach the place because there was a snowstorm. And there was snowstorm warning and so on. So it was bitterly, bitterly cold, horrible driving conditions. But my thing was, I have given my word that I'm going to be there and I'm going to be there. There is no compromise on my word because my word for me is by bond. So I landed up there. With great difficulty. Parked the car and very, very slowly, very scared of falling, walked across the parking lot into the building. And I'm sitting in the classroom getting ready to teach. The time comes. About five minutes after the time, two ladies walking. And both of them were from the IRS. And that's it. Two people. And there were over 20 people. And 22 or 25 people registered for the course. Just two people came because the weather was so horrible. So after about five minutes, I introduced myself and so on. And then I said to them, I said, ladies, what do you want me to do? Because just two of you have come. And 20-something registered. But I don't think anyone is coming because of this weather. So what do you want to do? They said, what? What are the options? I said, the option is that you two stay here and I will teach you. We'll do the entire course, the whole day. I will teach you. And you decide if I'm going to teach you the way I would have taught 25 people or not. That's up to you. But I will teach you. Other alternative is you go home, I go home. But given the weather outside, I don't know how you are going to reach home. I definitely don't want to try and get stuck somewhere on the road. So it's your call. So they said, well, if you don't mind teaching us two people, we'll be obliged. We'll be honored. We'll be very happy. And I taught two people. Six hours of teaching. I did everything the way I would have done if there had been a room full of people. And that built for me a reputation which people talked about and which resulted in more work for me at a time when I really needed work. So to come back to Sahil Bloom, he says, Take the discovered scale. My son taught all his friends how to domain Windows Phone. I put weren't Ghent I know him in ajurp. And I sent him his skills. And he did the thing. Really? No. They got I had the convenience. I don't think I also get the I have to томуdim other. You know, somebody. People will have an cału me really good friend. And I'm a junior. I'll not anymore. I'm Valium who is veryλ hg expected me the region of Singapore, because Es Mutual lecture. I have been to the country for six years. Now I had come here myself. Gods is not fresh on my hands. but I've been for years. Do you know the? Yes, I see. your worst. Top performers show up with energy and enthusiasm for the little things, just as much as they do for the big things. One of my favorite stories of Kobe Bryant and the wonderful stories of him, lots of them, one of my favorite stories is when he was a young rookie in basketball, still playing the college circuit. So he plays this match and he misses two penalty shots. And as a result of which, his team wins, but they almost lose. So it's not as spectacular or wonderful win that they would have liked. So the commentators now are talking about this and Kobe gets off the stage. He goes and sits on a bench and he is bent forward, holding his head in his hands. His elbows resting on his knees, his head held in his hands. So the commentator says, oh my God, look at Kobe, look at Kobe, look at Kobe. He is absolutely devastated. He's so sad. He must be crying, must be weeping, must be terrible to be in that position. He's just almost, you know, the first time into the game and he missed two. And so on, so on, so on. Now, obviously, all this Kobe is hearing, doesn't react, just sits there. And after some time, he gets up to go when somebody, one of the reporters catches him and he says to him, Kobe must be really upset and you must be, you know, so sad because you're sitting there with your head held in your hands. Kobe says, look, I was sitting there, figuring out what I did wrong. What I did wrong. How did I miss those two baskets? He said, I figured that out. I will never do that again. That's it.
Words from the heart
Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen wa salatu wa salam ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammad wa Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasleeman kathiran kathira. My brothers and sisters, I want to share with you some words from the heart. I call these attitudes of success. The first one of them is an attitude of gratitude. To be grateful and to express gratitude. To thank people. We landed here in Hyderabad less than a week ago. And two things that simultaneously stood out for me. One was the attitude. The absolutely tumultuous welcome that we received. From friends, from relatives, from neighbors. Absolutely. As if I was the best thing or we were the best thing, my wife and I, that happened to them in their life. I ask Allah to make that true for them. And for them not to be disappointed. So, amazing. We are settling into our house. And we are flooded with food. Different people send us all kinds of absolutely fabulous Hyderabadi cooking. From their homes, hot. Fills up the fridge. At the same time, I go on the street and there is completely insane traffic. And unfortunately, unfortunately, the infrastructure is so bad that on the one hand, we have these buildings which if you keep your eye and you look at the angle of what 45 degrees, you will not be blamed for imagining that you were in Manhattan or you were in downtown Chicago or something. Beautiful buildings, huge skyscrapers, absolutely steep. And glass everywhere and so on. But lower your gaze and you find a road that is from the previous century. Completely filled with, I mean, I don't think you can call it a road because it's like one pothole joined with another pothole. And people are, you sit in the car, you have to hold on because you're being thrown from side to side. The only good thing about it is that traffic moves at walking pace. Now, I have a choice. I have a choice to moan and groan about that and say how bad the traffic is and how bad the road is. And obviously, there's a lot of pollution and so forth. Or I have the option of feeling immense gratitude to Allah SWT for putting love and respect and honor for me and my wife in the hearts of people. So people go out of their way. People welcome us. People are, you know, very, very good to us. Now, this is a choice. And believe me, no matter what situation you are in, this choice is always there for us. Which aspect of your life do you want to look at? Everybody in the whole world, no matter who they are, have things in their lives which are good and they have things in their lives which are painful. Everyone. Irrespective of... Place, irrespective of position, irrespective of wealth, health, you name it. And at the same time, they have a choice. What do you want to look at? So I remind myself and you, let us have an attitude of gratitude. Be grateful for what we have. Don't worry about what we don't have. Bear what is painful with dignity and silence. And then you make sure... Make sure that you thank other people. You thank the people who are doing all this good for you. The good comes from Allah . But Allah uses people to get that good to you and me. And that's why Rasulullah said, the one who has not thanked the people has not thanked Allah . It's very important to thank people because you may forget, but they won't. And that is called reputation. And you can't put a dollar. Value on it. So the first thing to do is attitude of gratitude. Second one is to define your purpose. Don't live life by default. Cows live by default. Buffaloes live by default. Get up in the morning, go eat some grass. Uh, come back to the stable in the night. I go to sleep. That is the life of animals. It's not the life of human beings. So take thoughtful decisions based on their expected outcomes. And as far as we are concerned, the expected outcome is the effect of that decision in the Akhira, not just in this world, in this life. I want to suggest to you a wonderful book in this context called Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. G-E-O-F-F-C-O-L-V-I-N. Talent is Overrated. Now he talks about this. What is what he calls thoughtful practice? Thoughtful practice. Not by default. Consciously doing something. Very aware of how you are doing that and the expected outcomes. So my advice to myself and you is don't live by default. Make active, thoughtful choices. Not to do that is also a choice. Meaning not to live thoughtfully. It's also a choice. But what you are really doing, if you do that, is choosing to hand over the control of your life to someone to whom you are at best a resource. Like raw material or money or something else. They will spend you and can afford to lose you. If you do this, you will be used. Then don't complain. I was here in the United States in 1997. Not here. I'm right now. In Hyderabad. But, you know, I just came here a week ago. So and I went to the United State
Facing reality
https://youtu.be/j09JBq9whEs 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 honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions, and upon many, many. Amen. As a video, just to also give you an idea of what Hyderabad looks like to those who haven't seen the city. It's a very big city, around six or seven million is the population. As you can see, it is extremely alive. It's very urban, extremely built up. I don't know if you can see that in this video, but way in the distance you can see the high rises, the skyscrapers, which is the financial district of Hyderabad. Practically every brand name, every big name industry, every big name multinational is here. And there you can see one of the denizens of Hyderabad, the Blue Rock Pigeons, which we have. I think we have probably the highest concentration of them in the world. This is a little clump of forests near the house, and then you see the rest of the built up society. The traffic, today being Saturday, is very heavy. The traffic is very heavy. Today, also partly holiday, traffic hasn't started yet, but still there's quite a lot on the road. The traffic is completely insane. I will post a video later on. I'm trying my best to stay inside. The traffic is completely insane. These things here are to prevent... I don't know if you can see them. These... they're like... they're plastic thorns, spikes. These are to prevent pigeons from sitting on this railing. And because they make... they make a big mess. Now, having given you a very quick thumbnail tour of Hyderabad, let me come to the point of what I want to share with you. Yesterday was Juma, and I prayed in my masjid. Very... again, a bittersweet experience, because on the one hand, it's a wonderful feeling, and I hope Allah gives this opportunity to all of you. It's a very beautiful thing to see something that you started, which people have carried out and carried on, and you see it working very well and functioning very smoothly. And that was my experience in my masjid yesterday. When I went there Saturday, the khatib came and said to me, I cannot deliver the khutbah when you are here. So I said, are you asking me to leave? He said, no, no, no, Astaghfirullahalazim. He said, you please do the khutbah. So I said, are you trying to test me? He said, no. He said, no, no, I'm not trying to test you. But how can I give the khutbah? I said, no, please do give the khutbah. He said, okay, with your permission. I mean, this is, you know, coming back, coming out of America after a week, even counting my own culture of in which I was born and grew up, a culture of adab, a culture of Islamic manners, alhamdulillah. May Allah forgive me for grumbling about this at one point in my life. I used to say, oh, you know, we have lost our culture. But we're all right. When I come back now, I find that now I have perspective of what happened when you actually do lose your culture. May Allah have mercy on all of us. So anyway, so this is the, that was a beautiful part of it. And of course, you know, practically I know every single person there. So after the Jum'ah, I spent about two hours with everyone comes and meets personally and hugs and so on. And Mashallah, may Allah bless all of us. I said, that's the sweet part of it. Of the bittersweet. But the bitter part of it also was, I could literally see spaces were not actually vacant, because obviously the vacant space gets occupied. But places where my very, very dear friends used to pray, I see that place and that place has got somebody else sitting in it now. Because these are, you know, in Masajid, people who go regularly, we tend to form our favorite places. So, you know, you always go and sit in that place. You pray in that place. You pray in that place. And in my Masajid also, there are, there were so many people who have passed away. And may Allah grant them Jannatul Firdaus without any expense. These were people who were, one of them was a founder of the Masjid himself, Adnan Mahmood. May Allah grant him Jannatul Firdaus without any expense and fill his khawar with Noor and reward him in keeping with His Majesty and Grace and forgive his sins. And others who were, who supported him and who worked with him and who, you know, did their best to establish a place of worship, a house of Allah, Alhamdulillah. So, he passed away, his place is vacant. I mean, I have a whole list of names. I won't mention all the names because, you know, this Fajr Bandra goes all over the world and people don't know those names. But, you know, I have a list of names. I won't mention all the names because, you know, this Fajr Bandra goes all over the world and people don't know those
ISWM Last Lecture #2: Thankfulness and Togetherness
Auto-generated transcript:The second thing I want to remind myself and you is to thank Allah in good and as well as in difficult times. And therefore I advise you and myself to be grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Grateful for what he gives us and even more grateful sometimes for what he takes away. Because the one who takes away does that for one reason only. Because he wants to give you something better. My Sheikh used to say that if you go, if somebody has this what we call da'at-e-aam. So this is you know feeding the poor. You got a whole Sufra Dastur Khan there and everybody in the whole village, the whole town is there. Hundreds of people and you also go there and you sit down there along with the people on the floor. And suddenly your host sees you. What will he do? He will come and grab you by the arm and pull you up. Now when that happens, what do you say? Do you cry and say, oh my God, he's depriving me of my meal? Or do you feel proud and say, alhamdulillah, I have been recognized. My host knows who I am. And he lifted me from this place only because he wants me to sit at the head table to give me honor. He's not depriving me of the food. He wants to give me that food in a much more honorable place. And therefore, we thank Allah for what he gives us and for not giving sometimes what we ask. And for what he takes away from us. In the hadith in Musnad Imam Ahmad, Abu Sayyid al-Khudri reported that Rasool Allah said, there is no Muslim who calls upon Allah who makes dua. And in this dua, there is no sin. He's not asking for something haram. Nor is there cutting of family ties. But that Allah will give him one of three answers. He says, Allah will give him one of three answers. He will quickly fulfill his supplication. He will give him what he asked. Or he will store it with him. He will store it for this person in the hereafter. Or he will divert an evil from him similar to what he asked. So the Sahaba said, Ya Rasool Allah, in that case, we will make more and more dua. We will ask more and more. And Rasool Allah said, no matter how much you ask, Allah has more. Allah reminded us of the way to increase His blessings, which He has given us. And He said, He said, He said, And remember when your Rabb proclaimed and announced, if you are grateful, I will certainly give you more. But if you are ungrateful, surely my punishment, is severe. See the mercy of Allah. Allah did not say, I will punish you. Allah said, beware, the punishment is real. All the promises of Allah are for the muttaqun. Not simply the Muslimun. When we accept Islam, we enter the gate, the boundary of the palace. You are not on the street, you are in the fort. You are in the boundary of the palace. But from inside the gate, to the palace, and through the door, then inside that, to the throne room, to the treasury, is a journey. But real rewards are there. If you are only standing on the outside, if you are running around in the periphery, you haven't even entered the palace, this is not a great idea. And therefore it reminds, it is for us to constantly remind ourselves, about Allah . And that is why Salah is made farad on us five times a day. That is why Allah sends Ramadan, to instill Taqwa in us. And that is why we have so many opportunities to worship Allah in so many ways. And at so many times. Let us not wait for a blessing to end, before waking up to the fact that it is gone. The last thing, I remind myself and you, is to maintain unity. And not allow divisions. For any reason. Any reason. Allah said, Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic and he saved you from it. This is how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes his revelations clear to you so that you may be rightly guided. I advise myself and you to be together and not allow anyone to divide us. Please note Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not say la taqtalifu. He did not say don't have a disagreement. Do not disagree. He said la tafarraqu. Do not allow that disagreement to separate your hearts. You can have a difference of opinion. There is no problem. Alhamdulillah. But don't allow that difference of opinion to separate you from your brother or sister. Don't allow that difference of opinion to make you slander people. Don't allow the difference of opinion to form a new sect, to form a new group. Never do that. We can and we will have difference of opinions or matters. But I advise you and myself not to allow them to become walls between you. But to allow them to become walls between each other. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's protection is with the jama'ah and shaitan is with those who separate themselves from it. The only time when it is permitted to separate ourselves from others is when it is a matter of halal and haram. This is where we must respect Allah s
ISWM Last Lecture #1 – Taqwa
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 honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and his companions. Peace and blessings be upon them all. After this, my brothers and sisters, first and foremost, I would like to thank Allah the Exalted for having given me the opportunity to be here for these six years. It's a study in how fast time passes. I cannot myself believe that six years have passed. Alhamdulillah, they have passed. And we have been through, thanks to COVID and so on, different times and different things. And Alhamdulillah, I thank Allah the Exalted for His constant help and His constant courage and support that Allah the Exalted gave me. And gave all of us. I want to thank very specially the board of this masjid. And they know and I know that I don't, I'm not just saying this formally. But this is a masjid, the board of which represents the kind of brotherhood and diversity that brother Muhammad talked about. Where there is this understanding between the board members and their own dedication to serving this community. Many times in the face of opposition which is from people who don't understand what is going on. Despite that, they have been serving and they have been doing a brilliant job. And they all do it only and only for the pleasure of Allah the Exalted without any compensation. I want to thank especially Dr. Bajwa, who has been a mentor to me from day one. And Alhamdulillah, we have done some good work with the interfaith community. But I have always looked upon him and I continue to look upon him as a mentor and a teacher in how to deal with the interfaith community. My experience of the interfaith community was practically zero when I came here. Because we don't have this kind of thing in India. But after I came here, Alhamdulillah, we have been able to do things which I am satisfied about. But all of that is thanks to Dr. Bajwa's introductions, his guidance, his continuous support, his advice. Alhamdulillah, and I ask Allah to reward him in keeping with His Majesty and Grace. I will not name all the other people because there are so many. And they know and I know and Allah knows who they are. And I ask Allah to reward all of them in keeping with His Majesty and Grace. So I want to express my thanks to this entire community. To the children, to the elders, to the men and women, all of whom I have had the pleasure and privilege of interacting with. And Alhamdulillah, these are memories I take with me. The second thing I want to say to you is that while I am away, there are certain things which you have been receiving for me which will continue. One is the two classes a week. Right now, one of them Dr. Ali is doing, which is the Tafseer class. But that also is my responsibility. So two classes a week, the recording of the Jummah Khutbah. These three things you will get every single week. The second thing which you will get is the daily Khatira. Now here you get it live every alternate day. Because Sheikh Abdullah and I take 10 days. But the virtual is always there. But you will get the daily Khatira, InshaAllah, every day. That will also come to you. So InshaAllah, this will also continue. So also with regard to any advice that any of you want, any questions you want asked. I don't say I have the answer to all questions. I wish I did. But certainly I will try and I will try to get you whatever answers you want. Or any kind of help you like. InshaAllah. Whatever I can do, I'm at your service and will continue to be at your service as we go forward. So I want to start with these two things. So you are sure that I will, that you can't get rid of me that easily. I want to remind myself and you that we are on a journey and the name of that journey is life. And like in any journey, we have to take our provisions with us. And Allah told us what the best provision is for this journey. And that is to be conscious of and concerned about gaining His approval in all that we say and all that we do. To ask this question before every speech and every action. Will Allah be pleased with this? And this is the meaning of Taqwa. Taqwa. To be always concerned about the pleasure of Allah and to let that supersede and override everything and everyone else. Allah said in the ayat of Surah Al-Baqarah Allah said the best, take the necessary provisions for the journey and the best of those provisions is righteousness, is Taqwa. And be, have my Taqwa, O people of reason, O people of intelligence. So I advise myself and you to have the Taqwa of Allah . Three things that I want to leave with you. First and foremost is to have the Taqwa of Allah in all that we say and do because this is the beginning of all goodness. The beginning of all goodness is to have the Taq
Rights of Rasoolullahﷺ – part 7
Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Wa hamadu Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman kathiran kathira. The seventh right that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has upon us which we are supposed to fulfill is that we accept his judgment in all matters without any resistance. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala shut all doors to personal opinions and differences when it comes to the decision of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in any matter. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala included himself in this ayah as the one making this ruling. This is a hukum of Allah. This is a ruling of Allah. To emphasize the position of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and to support his authority. This is not oppression or blind obedience. But the basic requirement of having accepted that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is the messenger of Allah and is guided by him in all matters. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said وَمَا كَانَ لِمُؤْمِنِينَ وَلَا مُؤْمِنَةٍ إِذَا قَضَ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَمْرًا أَنْ يَكُونُ لَهُمُ الْخِيَرَةَ مِنْ أَمْرِهِمْ وَمَنْ يَعْصِ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ ضَلَالًا مُبِينًا Allah said no believer. Neither man nor woman has a right when Allah and his messenger decide on a matter to have an opinion different from that. To have a choice in that matter at issue. And whoever disobeys Allah and his messenger has gone astray into manifest error. Therefore if Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam rules in a matter that ruling is guided by Allah and is binding on us. We are allowed to have opinions. We are allowed to have our own thinking. We are allowed to have our logic. We are allowed to have our deductive reasoning. We are allowed to have all of that until it comes to a text. When we have our opinion and we are faced with a text, which is the Quran or the Sunnah, which is against the opinion, we give up our opinion and we follow the text. This is the meaning of being Muslim. Therefore if Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam rules in a matter, that ruling is guided and protected by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it is incumbent and compulsory on us as Muslims, men and women to follow that. Anyone who accepts Allah and his Rabb as his Rabb and Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as the Rasul of Allah and the recipient of Wahi, of revelation, must automatically accept his rulings because he understands who Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is. This is a sign of obedience with understanding, not blind obedience. The one who does not obey is the one who is blind because he doesn't understand the fundamental principle of Islam. The declaration of faith, la ilaha illa Allah wa Muhammad wa Rasulullah, to accept the rulings of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam without question is logical, reasonable, and the sign of intelligence and faith. The two are not mutually exclusive in Islam. Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Las reports in Abu Dha'in, the Hadith in Abu Dawud, I used to write whatever I heard from Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and wanted to learn it by heart. Some people of the Quraysh dissuaded me and they said, do not write everything you hear from Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam while he is, because he's a human being and sometimes he may be angry like any other human being, maybe meaning he says something, he doesn't mean it. They meant that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam might say something in a state of anger, which he did not intend to say. So one should be selective in writing his Ahadith. Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Las conveyed their opinion to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he said to him that this is what I used to do. I used to write everything you say, but people are telling me don't write everything because maybe he says something in anger, maybe he doesn't really mean it and so on. Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam pointed to his lips and he said, I swear by the one in whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, nothing comes out from these two lips except the truth, so write it. Those of you who claim that Ahadith were collected 200 years later, explain this to me. He's saying write it. If they didn't write it, how did you find it after 200 years? In any situation, I remind myself and you, be it religion, your career, marriage, culture, yourself in terms of self-confidence or any other aspect of life, nothing can be achieved by those who are in perpetual doubt. This is the biggest problem today. The people on the truth are in doubt and the people on falsehood are completely certain about themselves. A firm conviction that is free from doubt is the basis of self-confidence. Dithering doubters are too caught up in their own to be or not to be arguments to ever make an impact or to take any decisive decision in life. They lose all opportunities,
Rights of Rasoolullahﷺ – part 6
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Prot clause for the Healings. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. O' God, make us poor. O' بَت便بْد كانف Doo Cool. Ceil pigeonaffen, We call it like any pigeon. He should bevet unbelievers with you. Nazim begu kilhh Germani, cheil� baili huua kufri, reprodu friends. Allah said, He it is who has sent his messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with guidance and the religion of truth, which is Islam, that he, Jalla Jalaluhu, may make it, make Islam the most beneficial, the most, the number one choice prevailed over all other ways of beings and religions. And all sufficient is Allah as a witness. As an honor for his Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Ummah, he, Jalla Jalaluhu, gave them the job of conveying the message of Islam to the rest of the world. This is the meaning of helping the deen of Allah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded his messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to introduce himself and say, قُلْ هَذِهِ سَبِيلِ أَدُعِ لَلَّهِ عَلَى بَسِيرَةٍ أَنَا وَمَنِي تَّبْعَنِي وَسُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَمَا أَنَا مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ He said, Say, O Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, this is my way. I invite unto Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, to Islam with sure knowledge, I and whoever follows me. Meaning, they must also do the same job. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and glorified and exalted be Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, above all that they associate as partners. And I'm not of the mushrikeen. I'm not of the polytheists. This ayah declares very clearly our connection to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. It's not a connection by birth, or by gender, or blood, or race, or tribe, or family, or nationality. It is a connection of faith and work. Those who wish to be connected to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam must do the work that he did. They must do his work. He was ordered to start. He was ordained to start. Merestate, this is my way. I invite towards Allah. I and those who follow me. Like it was for the nabi, this job is not a choice, left to our discretion. It is incumbent and compulsory on the one who accepts Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, as his Rabb and Muhammad sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, as his messenger, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and enters Islam. This job need not be done in a specific way. way is good for you as long as it is inviting people toward Islam by word, by deed, by action, by behavior, by culture, by appearance, any way which suits you. But the intention must be to present Islam to the people in the best possible way that is possible for us to do. In honor of that, he Jalla Jalaluhu granted the job of the Nabi as his life goal. The reward of that is the company of the Rasul alaihi salatu wasalam on the day of judgment and Jannatul Firdaus inshaAllah. Rasul alaihi salatu wasalam said in a hadith in Tirmidhi, whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to that of those who follow it without the reward of either of them being lessened. And this is in Muslim. Rasul alaihi salatu wasalam warned us in a hadith in Tirmidhi. He said, I swear by the one who has my life in his hand. It is incumbent upon you. It is compulsory upon you that you enjoy what is virtuous and that you should forbid what is evil. Otherwise, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will send his punishment on you. Then you will pray to him, but your prayer will not be accepted. You will make dua and the dua will not be accepted. It is incumbent further upon you that you give Amr bil Maruf. That you command goodness and you command Nahi anil Munkar and you command people that they should leave the haram. It's not your choice. And if you do not do that, Allah said he will send his punishment on you. And you will pray among the punishment. You will ask for help. Allah will not help you. You will make dua. Allah will reject your dua. Allahumma ansur manna sara deena Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam wa ja'alna minhum. Allahumma khazal adina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam wa laa taja'alna ma'hum. O Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we ask Allah to help the religion of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and count us among those who
4-Hard Truths
Auto-generated transcript:Salam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salam ala al-sharafi al-anbiya ibn Musaleen Muhammad Rasulullah. Sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman kathiran kathira. So, amma baadu, my brothers and sisters, Jazakallah khairun to all of you, especially the brothers from UMass for taking the time and trouble to come and see me before I go to India. May Allah bless you and keep you in His special care and concern. Some of you are freshmen and some of you are seniors. And I don't know by the time I return, you would have graduated and gone. May Allah Ta'ala keep you safe always in His special care. May Allah Subhana Ta'ala protect you. May Allah help you in ways that you cannot imagine. May Allah Subhana Ta'ala open doors for you from places where you can't imagine. May Allah Subhana Ta'ala protect you from all evil. That which you know and that which you don't know. May Allah Ta'ala make it easy for you. May Allah grant you your wishes, your goals, your aspirations with khair and barakah and maafiyah. I want to share with you four, what I call my four hard truths. And I call them hard truths because these are painful to accept to face, but they are true. I used to go to a gym in Hyderabad called Talwarkots. In that gym, there was a huge scene to floor poster which had a picture of a very, over-muscled, big, huge man. And the slogan said, shut up and train. And I think that's a very good, very good rule to follow for yourself. To shut up and train. Meaning, to focus on our life goals. You're here at the university. And remember that you're here for one reason only. There is no other reason. You're not here for the clubs. You're not here even for the MSAs. You're not here for absolutely any reason other than to get the best possible grades that you can get. Absolutely the best possible grades that you can get. Because you're here for the best possible reasons. And the best possible reasons are doing it. Because what you do in these three, four years that you're here will determine your future for the rest of your life, more or less. So therefore, it makes absolutely zero sense to spend this time focusing on anything other than your studies. Now, once you have finished with your studies for the day, for the week, for the month, and then you have spare time, by all means, spend that spare time doing another six. And in that, I would put your MSAs as the top priority because to learn your deem and to do something good for people, this must be your top priority. Do spend time also on your physical education, on being on physical fitness. You must be known for the best food among all American universities. And usually that also means that it should be known for the... its capability to fatten you the fastest. Because all best food translates into enormous number of calories. So you want to be in a situation where by all means, enjoy the food, but make sure that you burn it off. So hit the gym, have a beautiful campus, go running, go walking. 10,000 steps per day. Make this into an absolutely invaluable rule. 10,000 steps per day. And those 10,000 steps must be done at one stretch. It's not throughout the day. So the routine that I always recommend for people to follow is number one, wake up one hour or one and a half hour before the time for fajr starts. And then make sure that you pray tahajjud. Make tahajjud firm on yourself. And once you've prayed tahajjud, then read one juz, one zibar of Quran. And depending on your speed of reading, if you can't finish the whole juz, read as much as you can. And then go and pray salatul fajr by jama'ah. Go to the masjid, go to the masjid, make sure that you pray salatul fajr by jama'ah. And when you finish praying salatul fajr, then you sit there in the place where you prayed, and make this. And make zikr until the time for ishra comes. And then pray two rakat and two rakat, four rakat, but in twos. The saba of that, the reward of that is an accepted hajj and an accepted umrah. Then you hit the road and get in your 10,000 steps. Do your five mile walk or run or whatever you like. Walking is best. Running is hard on the knees. And you won't feel it now, but you will feel it when you get to Mahil. So ideally walk. But if you feel like a run, go for a run. But do that. Then come back, have a shower and start your day or the rest of your day. Your day started already when you book off for tahajjud. And it started with almost two hours of, two hours or more of the worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then you did 10,000 steps. And then you had a shower. So that's the most beautiful way of starting a day and running a day. And then you have your breakfast and then your glasses and whatnot, water. You follow the schedule, and believe me, you will remember me long after I&#
The world is deception
Auto-generated transcript:As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. May the Lord of the worlds be with you. And peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad and the Messenger of God, and his family and friends and his family. Peace and blessings be upon him. Now we are walking in Ashley and with me is Zeeshad and Atiba. Who are both cousins and I have the pleasure of meeting Atiba for the first time and Zeeshad of course. For many many years now. Alhamdulillah. And as we shall see, very very beautiful place. Truly reminds us of what Allah mentioned about Jannah. We ask Allah for Jannah inshaAllah. The leaves are about to turn colour. So some signs of that colour we are seeing. But I know how what this place looks like another month. So we are completely transformed place. Very beautiful. Very very even more beautiful. We are talking about the issue of virtual reality. So we are talking about Apple's what is it called? Vision Pro. Vision Pro. Vision Pro which is a virtual reality supported device. And you wear it like a pair of glasses. And then it shows you all kinds of videos and images which you can see in the virtual reality. I mean it's VR so it looks real. And I was reminding myself and my brother said that we don't have to go to technology to understand this. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is showing this to us every day. What appears is not what is. There is a difference between the appearance of something and the reality behind it. And we see it throughout in life. You know some people who we think are friends. The way they talk to you, the way they sit with you, they invite you for dinner, for lunch and this and that. And then suddenly, Allah protects. But you discover that they are stabbing you in the back. Right behind your back they are talking stuff. And behind your back they are trying to stab you in the back. So I am always very happy when I hear that. Because it means now I am getting some free good deeds. So I don't confront them. The guy invites me for a meal, I am very happy. I never refuse free food. So I go have the meal. I make sure he eats first so I know it's not poisoned. But other than that, I say Alhamdulillah, please go ahead stab me in the back. And do as much Zaheer as you want. Because all that is good deed for me. And you cannot harm me. There is no one who can harm and no one who can benefit except Allah. So what do I care? Similarly we have, so appearance is something, friendship. Reality is enmity. Similarly, you see, you take the things in Israq. Many times people say, you know, this is not convenient, that is not convenient. The usual moons, not moon sighting but moon fighting arguments. About saying why should we wait so long to see the moon. Why don't we calculate? And this is the modern world. This is a combination of ignorance and self-importance. Because calculations are nothing new. The Hindus have had a calculation calendar for the last 3000 years. So there is nothing new about calculating. People have done, Egyptians had a calculate, moon, lunar calculations 5000 years ago. Because lunar calendars are nothing new. It's not as if the Arabs invented it. Lunar calendars have been there long before the solar calendars. Julius Caesar was the first one to bring a solar calendar. It was called the Julian calendar. So the point is that if you don't read history, then you have no clue what you are talking about. But anyway, so nothing new about that. But moon fighting. So arguing about, you know, which, which, whatever. What organization should you follow? I mean, all of this is for the sake of convenience. So why should we sit in the masjid till 11 o'clock at night waiting for a sighting report to come from California or wherever? But we don't ask this question. When the World Cup was being played in Qatar, because of the time difference, it was 2 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the night. And people sat. And they didn't just sit for one hour. They sat for two or three hours. They watched all the games. Nobody argued about that. There was no fighting about that. Nobody said, is it Haram? Is it Fard? Is it Sunnah? Is it Rusta? You know, what happens if I don't watch a soccer match when I go to Jahannam? Nobody asked any questions, right? But for the moon. And this is a convenience. So again, we're talking about what, what appears and what doesn't appear. So I always tell them, I said, this deen, Islam, is based on inconvenience. Everything in this deen is inconvenient. Take Udhu. Is it convenient? When you are at your workplace, you have to make Udhu. If you have not done Masa beforehand, then you have to take your socks off, shoes off, go wash your feet. Is it easy? It's very difficult. Especially in wintertime. Especially in wintertime. And then five times a day. Right? The time of Salah comes so quickly. You want to say, I want to sleep for a little bit. No
Crisis of Followership – #3
Auto-generated transcript:As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Faqala ta'ala inna allaha wa malaikatahu yusalluna ala nabi ya ayyuhal ladhina amanu sallu alayhi wa sallimu taslima. Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala ahli Muhammad kama sallita ala Ibrahim wa ala al Ibrahim innaka hamidun majid. Allahumma barika ala Muhammadin wa ala ahli Muhammad kama barikta ala Ibrahim wa ala al Ibrahim innaka hamidun majid. I remind you and myself that leaders come from the people. The leader is not sent from heaven. Leaders come from the people. If you have good people, you get good leaders. If you have a gang of bandits, you will not get Omar bin Abdulaziz as the leader of that band. Right? You will get the biggest. Bandit who will be the leader of that bandit of that gang of bandits. Abu Dahad al-Ansari. On a side note, I'll come back. Abu Dahad al-Ansari. He was sitting in Majid Nawawi Sharif. And he says, I saw a small boy who came to me. He was crying. He was weeping, tears flowing. And he came here. I want your help. Nawawi Sharif was, I mean, he's, there's no. When Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'ala said, What do you say about his Rama? What do you say about his heart? Allah is the one who is witness to that. This boy comes, he's crying. He says, Ya Rasulullah, I need your help. He says, what happened? He says, Ya Rasulullah, my father gave me, I'm an orphan. My father died. I left for me a small, you know, dead garden. And I want to build a wall around it. And there is a dead, big dead tree in the way of this wall, which belongs to my neighbor. And the neighbor is being difficult. He won't let me take the wall around the tree. I told him, give me the tree. He does not give me the tree. I said, sell me the tree. He doesn't sell me the tree. So now I don't know what to do. So now we saw that Salim said, who's the neighbor? The neighbor was Abu Lubaba. Who's also, he was not one of the manafiqun. He was a good sahabi, Mashallah. But you know, people are people. So, Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam called him. He called him. Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said to him, why don't you give this boy the tree? You've got a big dead palm garden, one tree, give it to him. He said, no. This is my haqq, my right. Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, okay. He said, no. Sell that tree to me. Sell that tree to me. And I promise you a tree in Jannah. I'm trying to show you what kind of people these were. He said, sell me the tree and I promise you a tree in Jannah. May Allah protect us from ourselves. This sahabi who was one of those who in one Ghazwa actually shared a mount with Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He's not a manafiqun. But human. He said, no. What is the meaning of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam promising you a tree in Jannah? What does it mean? He's promising you Jannah. Okay. You're not going to be sitting in Jannah and selling your people there. You know what? I got a piece of a tree in the Jannah. No. You go to sell. He said, no. And he left. Now Abu Dada, this is not Abu Darda. This is Abu Dada. Abu Dada is sitting, listening to that. As soon as the man left, he came to Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and said, Ya Rasulullah, if I get that tree for you, will you promise me the same thing? Yes. Yes. Now he said, I said, yes. So Abu Dada went behind his man. By the time he caught up with him, he's in the middle of the market of Madinah on his way home. Abu Dada caught up with him and he stopped him and he said, Salaam. He said, I heard this conversation in the masjid and I came to ask you, sell me that tree. So he said, I did not even sell the tree to the Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Why will I sell it to you? He said, no, no, no, hold on. I will tell you the deal. He said, my deal is, he said, do you know me? He said, of course I know you. Who are you? Who am I? He said, you are Abu Dada. What do you know about me? He said, everybody knows about you. He said, what is that? He said, you have the most valuable piece of real estate in Madinah. You have the most beautiful date palm garden with 650 bearing date palms. Wall around the whole thing, a well of sweet water and a house inside. He said, yes. He said, what I am proposing to you is, sell me that tree and I give you this whole thing. The whole garden, well, water, house, everything is yours for one tree. So he said to her, you nuts, are you crazy? What's wrong with you? What kind of thing is this? You are joking with me? He said, no. I am not joking with you. I am not joking with you. I am not joking with you. Are you serious? I said, yes. He said, you want to back off and say, no, no, I didn't mean. No, no, no, I will not do that. No, by the way, imagine, this conversation is happening. People have gathered around. They are listening to what is this funny happening. He said, then all these people h
Crisis of Followership – #2
Auto-generated transcript:As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Faqala ta'ala inna allaha wa malaikatahu yusalluna ala nabi ya ayyuhal ladhina amanu sallu alayhi wa sallimu taslima. Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala ahli Muhammad kama sallita ala Ibrahim wa ala al Ibrahim innaka hamidun majid. Allahumma barika ala Muhammadin wa ala ahli Muhammad kama barikta ala Ibrahim wa ala al Ibrahim innaka hamidun majid. I remind you and myself that leaders come from the people. The leader is not sent from heaven. Leaders come from the people. If you have good people, you get good leaders. If you have a gang of bandits, you will not get Omar bin Abdulaziz as the leader of that band. Right? You will get the biggest. Bandit who will be the leader of that bandit of that gang of bandits. So when we look at leaders and we criticize leaders that of course our leader, our leader, mashallah, are worthy of all criticism. But the point is that before we criticize them, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, this is my leader because I am who I am. And I did not say this. Sayyidina Ali bin Abi Talib said this. A man came to him and he said, how is it that in your time? There is so much fitna when there was no fitna in the time of Abu Bakr and Umar. Radhi Allah anhu ma. Sayyidina Ali radhi Allah anhu said. The reason there was no fitna in the time of Abu Bakr and Umar. Radhi Allah anhu ma. Was because the followers were like me. And the fitna in my time is because followers are like you. Huh? So let us think about this. As any Muslim today, what is the biggest problem of the Ummah today? And they will say the biggest problem of the Ummah is lack of leadership. Right? Anybody. Lack of leadership. We don't have good leaders. My submission to you is that, yes, that is a problem. I agree with you. But equal. If not equal. But bigger problem is lack of followership. Not only leadership. Lack of followership. And I will tell you what that means. It is not only lack of leadership. Let me explain to you what is the meaning of followership. By two examples. Now take yourself back. Take yourself back. To the 13th year of prophethood of Risala. 622 CE. It is in the Ayam-u-Tashriq. Days after Hajj. Dark night. And some people are gathering. In groups. Twos and threes and fours. And moving very quietly. They are collecting in one place. And Kaab-in-Malik Radhialanu narrates this whole story. And he said that in the night we slept in our camps. And then when the third of the night had elapsed. So roughly middle of the night. We began to leave quietly. And we came to this Hilak. Which today we call this place Aqaba. And there were 73 men and two women. And the two women were Umm Ammara Radhialana. And Umm Muni Radhialana. And we waited there. And the reason they did that was because quite literally their lives were in danger. The Quraysh were looking out for people who were. Ready to support Muhammad and they would have attacked them. So they gathered there. With their lives at risk. Just think about that. This Deen began. With people ready to put their lives on the line. For the Deen of Allah. This Deen began. With people ready to put their lives on the line. For the Deen of Allah. By supporting Muhammad . Just reflect on this fact. They did not hesitate. They didn't say hold on a second. I mean I'm not going in there. This is a dangerous meeting. What happens if I get caught? So they gathered. They gathered. They were all in the same place. They were all in the same place. They were all in the same place. They were all in the same place. They were all in the same place. They were all in the same place. They were all in the same place. And Rasool came with his uncle. Al-Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib. And we don't know at that point whether he was Muslim or not. Because he had become Muslim and he was hiding it. We don't know whether it was before this or after this. But anyway he was the supporter of Rasool . So Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib, he came. And when they got there, where al-Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib, he addressed them first. And he said, in effect, he said that my nephew, Muhammad, he's here, and he is willing to join you, and you have invited him to go with you to your town, but take him with you only if you are ready to protect him and defend him. But if you are going to take him and then abandon him, then don't take him. Because here he is with his family, he is protected, he is honored, and we don't want him to go to your place and then he has nobody to help him. So Ka'bin Malik says, we heard him and then we said to him, we have heard your words, and now, Ya Rasulullah , you speak to us and tell us what pledge you want us to make. Take from us any pledge you wish. Now, before I tell you, what he asked them, understand the situation. Here is Rasul Butter Packal, who has not been 앞ened to security. No one has told him not to speak, ör husuk anabas kadar no
Crisis of Followership – #1
Auto-generated transcript:Peace be upon you all. I remind myself and you, let us make this into a regular practice of ours. I don't like to use the word habit because habits are unthinking actions. I'm talking about conscious thinking action. To send salat and salam on Rasulullah s.a.w. throughout the day, throughout the night, every waking moment. Keep your tongue moist with the dhikr of Allah and among the afzal of the dhikr of Allah is to send salat and salam on the Rasulullah s.a.w. And this is the only thing, only thing for which Allah s.w.t. said the one who sends salam on me one time, Allah s.w.t. will send salam on him ten times for each one time. Only thing. So let us take advantage of that to send salat and salam on Rasulullah s.a.w. I was reflecting for myself in the presence of our Sheikh that it is amazing that he is sending salat and salam on me. And I was thinking that if I ask you, for example, and I use this example there, I say that if, for example, if through this door in the front, if Rasulullah s.a.w. walks into this masjid, imagine this, just think about this, right? Many of us make dua, O Allah, show me the Rasul s.a.w. in my dream. So let us imagine that he walks in through this masjid. How many of us here, and you don't know, how many of us here, and you don't need to answer this question to me, it's for ourselves, how many of us here will recognize him? How many will recognize him? I'm not talking about how many will say, Oh, Mashallah, this is such a handsome man, wonderful man, I don't know who. Or will you stand up and say, Assalamu alaikum, Ya Rasulullah, SubhanAllah. You have come to my masjid. How many of us will say that? We ask Allah s.w.t, show me the Rasul in my dream. How do you know you're seeing the Rasul? If Nabi s.a.w. comes in your dream, how do you know that you are seeing Rasul s.a.w.? If we ask ourselves and say, and I suggest this also, so when this shock treatment happens, which I hope it will happen, be prepared for it. If someone gives you a plain sheet of paper and says, write down on the sheet of paper, what you know about Rasulullah s.a.w. How many of us can fill one sheet, just one single 15 line sheet of paper with what we know about Rasulullah s.a.w. Whatever it is. How many of us can do that? And to me, this is the SubhanAllah, may Allah SubhanAllah forgive us. Wallahi, this is something we should collectively ask Allah s forgiveness. We must make tawbah, sincere tawbah. Stand before Allah s.w.t. Pray two rak'ahs Salah and in sujood, cry, weep and say, Allah, forgive me for forgetting your Nabi. Forgive me for forgetting your Nabi. The tragedy is not that the enemies of Islam criticize the Prophet s.a.w. or try to attack Islam. The tragedy is, the Muslims have forgotten the Nabi. We have forgotten the Nabi. We have reduced the Zikr of Rasulullah s.a.w. to one day in the year. And then we have a dispute. Is this Milad Mawlud? Is it Milad Sharif and Milad n-Nabi? Is it Sunnah? Is it Bida? Let us accept. Milad n-Nabi, Bida. Haram. Don't do it. On the 12th of Rabiul Awal, don't do it. That is one day in 365. What about the other 364? What about January 1? What about October 20? Pick any date you want. Do we gather? Do we sit together? Do we talk about the Nabi's? What do we know about him? If Allah Ta'ala had wanted and Allah is the only one who had wanted to make him the Prophet s.a.w., he was the Prophet s.a.w. He is our Prophet s.a.w. He is our Prophet s.a.w. We all know that he is our Prophet s.a.w. He is our Prophet s.a.w. wanted and Allah is Allah. خَالِقُ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ بَضِعُ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ فَاتِرُ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ رَذَّاقُ ذُو الْقُوَّةِ الْمَتِينِ خَالِقُ كُلِّ أَشْيَا وَالْأَحْوَالِ وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ There is no, there are no hudud to the khudrat of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could have sent his kalam, kalamul majeed. He could have commanded Jibreel a.s. to go and land on top of the Kaaba and recite the Quran. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could have made every person listening to Jibreel reciting the Quran to become hafiz of whatever he hears right away. The Arabs have brilliant memories anyway. There are many stories of people just listening to a whole long qasida of 300 ashar and remembering it just like that. So this was a memory capacity. Anyway, I'm talking about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Your capacity doesn't matter. If Allah wanted, he could have done it. Why did he not do it? Like I mentioned in my khutbah this morning, this afternoon, why did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when Allah said, when Allah commanded us to pray, why did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala all, that's logical, right? You command me to pray, so then show me how to pray. It is logical. So why did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not put that in his kitab itself? The book of Allah was not going to an edito
WiiFM – What’s in it for me?
https://youtu.be/rQgmlIImpQE Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and blessings be upon his family and his family. May Allah bless you a lot. Amen. WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM WIIFM It's because of how I presented that idea to them. In terms of what's in it for them. And that is the channel or the FM station. What's in it for me. WIIFM Presented in terms of what's in it for me. So somebody comes to you and says, well, can you help me in a fundraising project that I have? I'm raising funds for this project to do this. Ask the question, what's in it for me? Because when you do fundraising normally, you go to venture capitalists for funds. What do they ask you? What's in it for me? Why should I help you? Same logic. The venture capitalist is putting his hand in his pocket to, get the funds for you. Whereas you, as the fundraiser, are enabling or encouraging or inspiring other people to put their hand in their pockets to fund that project. So same logic. What's in it for me? Same logic. Apply the same WIIFM also, to, to decide on your priorities in life. Nobody has unlimited resources. Nobody has unlimited time. Nobody has unlimited money. Nobody has unlimited energy. No one has unlimited life. No one has unlimited anything. No matter how wealthy you think you are in any of these aspects, it's never enough. It's never something that is unlimited. It has limits. So, what makes sense? To get the biggest bang for the buck. And that is the meaning of prioritization. When you prioritize, you are ensuring that you are getting the biggest bang for the buck. The best benefit that you can get for something. And you get that by prioritizing. And the way to prioritize is, ask this question. What's in it for me? Spend your time and energy on something, where you get the maximum benefit from whatever you're doing. And don't waste your time with other things, where that benefit is not the maximum. What's in it for me? WIIFM. I ask Adas Mahantala to help us to make the right choices, to get the maximum benefit from it. And in that context, we will find that we are getting the maximum benefit from it. So, the thing to think about is, that as a Muslim, we don't think of benefits only in terms of the world, of this life, but we think of real benefit in terms of the Akhira. Now with that in context, when you look at the seerah of Rasulullah , when you look at the hayat of Sahaba, the lives of the companions, you will find that they constantly made this choice. So, they constantly applied this, what's in it for me, continuously. And that's how they were able to make choices, which today seem to be so difficult for us. The choice is not difficult, it's the criterion. It is the framework. It is the screen on which you are measuring that choice. That screen has changed, and therefore the choice is not the same. So, therefore the choice becomes difficult. But if the screen was the Akhira, that choice would be very easy. Very, very easy. Because what's in it for me, in the context of the Akhira means, what's in it for me in terms of eternal benefit, not temporary benefit. Choice becomes easy. And that is the point I want to leave you with. We ask Allah to help us to see, see the truth as the truth, and to see falsehood as falsehood. Allahumma arina alhaqqa hatka warzookna ittiba'a wa arina alba'tila ba'tila warzookna ijtina'a ba'a O Allah show us the truth as truth, and help us to follow it, and show us falsehood as falsehood, and help us to stay away from it. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi al bayyin bi rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Windows of opportunity
https://youtu.be/hGL9gB3jBzY 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 honour of the 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 him. Amma Madhu, we've been talking about priorities, taking advantage of opportunities. We were talking about WIIFM, what's in for me. Now think about this. We are here in Maine, and we're staying in this beachside apartment. And as you can see here, there are beachside apartments all around the beach, all the way. We also know that early mornings are very special. We know that there is... special concentration of ozone in this early morning air blowing from the sea. And if you are doing any kind of aerobic exercise here, walking or riding or, you know, running or whatever, this is the best time and place to do that. We know that. Umm... Yeah. This is the best use of this time of the day. So we know all the... We know all about the benefits of all this. But see the number of houses that are here, right? All the way. And then see the number of people who are actually on the beach at this time. Okay? So, I can bet you that probably every single person who is in... who is in these houses, they know about the benefits of getting out in the morning, going for a nice walk, and... And today is Sunday incidentally, so it's not even a question of saying I have to go to work. Umm... They know the benefits of all this. But how many people are here? But how many people actually take advantage of that? How many people are saying that it's not enough knowing about the benefits? I want the benefits. And the way to get the benefits is to get out and walk. Right? Now, second truth. Let an hour pass. And today they are predicting temperatures in the morning. They are predicting temperatures in the 90s. So the sun comes out. The same beach is going to be not a very pleasant place to be in. It's going to be very hot. It's not a scrap of shade. And the absolutely beautiful experience that we are having here will not be there for anyone who comes later. So this opportunity, this door, is going to shut. Maybe in an hour, maybe in two hours from now. So the question is not only whether the opportunity exists. The question is to remember and understand that opportunities don't exist forever. They exist for a short time. And when the time is over, the opportunity is gone. No more opportunity. Now, people who realize that take advantage of the opportunity by going through that door of opportunity while it is still open. And those who do not do that, who don't have that foresight, will spend the rest of their life complaining about how the road is not going to be the same. And they will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same. There was no opportunity which would be a lie or some other excuse about why they could not take advantage of the opportunity which still doesn't help. Because who are you trying to convince and who do you need to convince? Nobody. Nobody. Nobody needs to be convinced. And nobody frankly gives a damn. If you lose out in life, who do you think cares? Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody cares. Maybe your mama. No one else. Right? Who cares? So, the choice is yours. The choice is yours. What do you want to do with what has been given to you? Not moan and groan about it, but ask a simple question. What do you want to do about what has been given to you? As a person, I don't have to be convinced. I can't be convinced. I can't be convinced. As I'm walking here, I'm seeing there is a couple there and they have a chocolate lab. And they also have what looks like a professional photographer who is photographing them. And she seems to be doing a great job from the way she is completely crashing down and taking photos close to the earth, which is the right way to do that and so forth. So now here we have a question of, you know, somebody taking advantage of the opportunity. The person has a camera. There are people out there who want to be photographed. I don't think the Lord cares. But there's this lady. She's got a business. And she's taking advantage of this opportunity to do something for herself. Right. But this is what this is the point. The point is that the world is made up of people like this. The opportunity is there to be taken free. For anyone who wishes to take it. Now, whether you wish to take it or not, it's yours. Nobody forces you. But if you don't take it, then you also cannot complain that you didn't have the opportunity. That would be a lie. Because the opportunity was there. Everyone has the opp
Using ChatGPT instead of learning
https://youtu.be/HquHcnLZpy8 Auto-generated transcript:I am on this beach in Maine. Atlantic Ocean, the tide is just going out. So this part of the beach is nice and flat and clean. We can see the waves coming in. Now you can see the few boats in the distance. Very, very tranquil, peaceful, wonderful scene. You've got the gulls doing what gulls do. Living for fish. I must recommend this wonderful book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which I suggest you should read. I think it's one of the finest books to read, to understand, especially the concept of excellence in life. I read it. I read it many times. The first time I read it when I was in school. And it teaches the concept of excellence. In that context, I would also recommend that you read all the books of Ayn Rand. A-Y-N-R-A-N-D. It also focuses on the concept of excellence, of taking pride in your work, of building a legacy that you can be confident and proud about, leaving behind some traces. Unlike traces in the sand, which wash off every time the tide comes in. But these are more long-lasting than that. Now, all of that comes from one very, very important thing in life, which is to actually do some work. Not just the pretense of work. To actually do some work. The reason I'm saying that is because, I was speaking to another very dear friend of mine who's studying, he's doing his engineering in one of the Ivy League colleges here, universities in America. And he was telling me that, I mean, he said it jokingly, but obviously he understands the seriousness of that. So he was telling me that, people are submitting assignments using ChatGPT. The whole thing. And so he said, professors have now a way of detecting where ChatGPT has been used and catching it. But he says now they have come up with a tool where they do what is called humanizing ChatGPT. So you don't get the usual flat kind of writing. That's what I'm saying. So you don't get the usual flat kind of writing. That's what I'm saying. You find with ChatGPT, you get something which sort of sounds half a human. And then of course, we know how this technology develops and how it will, it is capable of, you know, constantly improving and so on and so forth. Simultaneously, and so on. This is, I mean, I think Allah guides and helps in ways we cannot imagine. So, while I was listening to this friend of mine saying these things, I also got a message from another friend of mine who's also doing engineering, who sent me a New York Times article. And lo and behold, to my great delight, I discovered that New York Times not only published the article, but New York Times gives that article for you free. So the firewall, doesn't affect it. And I'm going to ask him to put it, put that article into the description of this, of this reminder. And that article talked about an actual case, complete case history of this person who, the chatbot convinced him that he was one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. And, um, you know, resulted in him, in him, um, sort of actually falling into mental illness. And good news is for in his case was that he managed to get out of it as well. So he was able to break that, which may not be obviously the case with everyone who falls into that kind of a trap. So you have this case of these people like that, uh, also happening because of chatbot. Another thing which happened again recently, and all of these things, I, you know, they happened together, uh, which in, which is a message in itself is, um, two people wrote letters, uh, in which I was mentioned. And very interestingly, both the letters, although these are two different people writing these two letters, and, uh, they're trying to make it seem as if they are two independent letters, but they have both used chatdpt, uh, very clearly visible from the tone of the letter and so on. And to the extent that the words they have used are the same, the exact same words in both the letters. Now, so of course it is, you know, easy to laugh at this and say, what kind of stupidity is this? And it is stupid. But I'm not talking about that. I'm saying you're getting in this cases of students in colleges who seem to be getting, uh, most of their work done using chatdpt or Gemini or one of the, uh, chatbots, one of the LLM models. Now, I'm not against, uh, AI or, uh, LLM models and so on. Although I never absolutely do not ever use chatdpt. Um, I don't even use it for research, but, uh, in some cases I use, uh, some other things, um, some other LLM models, which I think are better for some research. But my writing is always, always, always is me. I never ever use any AI for a very good reason. And that is that, Alhamdulillah, I am confident about my writing and I take pride in my writing. And I take pride in the fact that I, uh, I want my writing to be my signature. I want my writing to be something that, that, that I have done, uh,
The Atlantic
https://youtu.be/qBk84YkaAYU Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, we are sitting here in Maine, literally opposite the Atlantic Ocean. And we can hear the waves, you can see the waves and the sun is gently rising. Not yet, but just finished the Fajr. And I'm reflecting on the, and I also advise you to reflect on the glory of Majesty of Allah SWT. This ocean which we see in front of us, obviously you can't see, it stretches all the way to the horizon. In Hadith, Rasulullah SAW said, that not this one ocean, but if all the seven oceans were collected and poured on top of the head of Mikhail SAW, that water would not drop off his head. So, when I first heard this Hadith, I was thinking to myself, you know, I mean, obviously, we know the Hadith is true, we believe the word of Rasulullah SAW, but the water of seven oceans, then this is only one piece of one ocean, which we are seeing here. We are not seeing the whole Atlantic, there is the one small piece of it. And it stretches all the way to the horizon. You can't see, there's no end to that. Collect that, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, all of them. Put all that water on the top of the head of one angel, and it will not even drop. And then I thought to myself that if I take a teaspoon of water and pour it on my head, it won't drop. Even with the, sort of, you know, my head is not exactly full of air, but if it had enough air, even water wouldn't drop. Even water wouldn't drop. A teaspoon of water wouldn't drop. So it's the question of skill. How massive is the angel? How big is the angel? And he's not, this is not the biggest of them. Rasulullah SAW, in Al-Isra and Miraj, when he, Allah SWT, took him up the seven heavens, he said, I saw the angels holding up the throne of Allah, the Hamal-e-Arsh. He said, there are four of them. And he said, they asked him, the Sahaba, they said, Ya Rasulullah, how big is this angel? The angel is holding the throne of Allah, so how big is the angel? Nabi SAW said, if a bird takes off from the shoulder of the angel, it will fly for 500 years, and it will not even reach the lobe of the ear of the angel. After 500 years of flying from ear to ear. And that is not reached, so we don't know how far it gets. And there are four of those. And Nabi SAW said, when Allah SWT created the Arsh, he created the angels, and the angels held up the Arsh, and they were sinking. They could not hold the Arsh. And they were sinking. So all that massive strength of four angels is not enough to hold up the Arsh of Allah SWT. Until Allah SWT inspired those angels to say, La hawla wa la quwwata illa Billah. And then it held. And on the Day of Judgment, Allah SWT's Jalal will be such that Allah will create another four angels only for that day. There will be eight holding up the Arsh of Allah SWT on that day. We ask Allah SWT on that day to grant us the shade of His Arsh. Allah SWT says, Allahumma adhillani wa adhillana taht Arshuk. Yawma la adhilla illa dhilluk. Allah SWT grant us the shade of Your Arsh on a day when there is no shade except Your shade. To come back to the ocean, I don't know whether here we will see any whales, maybe we will. But think about this. This ocean has humpback whales. A humpback whale in one day eats one ton of food, which is sardines, krill, all kinds of things. The blue whale eats four times that, four tons. And the food of the blue whale, the blue whale is the largest creature ever to be created. Allah SWT created them. The largest creature ever to be created. The call of the blue whale, blue whale's calling off the coast of California were recorded in Japan, across the Pacific. His Sheikh was a blue whale, he could have spoken to his father in Morocco without a phone. He was a blue whale. He was a blue whale. He was a blue whale. Kreel eats four tons of food And what is the food of the blue whale? Krill Kikle is like a small shrimp, it looks like a shrimp. But the biggest, the most massive of krill weighs one gram, one gram. Hey, it is how many crates? Now these whales, very interesting, think where they feed. They feed up in the Arctic Ocean. My brother just went in his RV from Florida all the way up through Alaska to the end of Alaska and he could not go to the coast of the Arctic because all that land is being, is with oil companies who are drilling in shale. So they don't allow anyone to go in there. So he couldn't go to the coast of the Arctic Ocean, but he went all the way up there. These whales are going actually from the Arctic Ocean and they go south all the way down to Hawaii. And they go to the Arctic Ocean. And they go to the Arctic Ocean. And into the Caribbean. They feed in the Arctic Ocean. Sub-zero temperatures. That's where they have the maximum food. And when they do this entire journey, they go from the Arctic Ocean all the way down the coast of North and South America all the way down to the Caribbean, t
Stand if you are alive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkljOLcnQbM Auto-generated transcript: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. I begin in the name of Allah, the Creator, the Sustainer, the Maintainer, and the Protector of the entire universe and all that it contains, the most beneficent, the most merciful. We send salutations on his messenger, the last and final of them. Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, his family, and all those who follow him in excellence until the last day. Imagine this scene that happened over 2,000 years ago. A young woman, known for her incredible piety. Suddenly comes forth with a baby boy. People are shocked and blame her and call her and chase. She points to her son. The people say, how can a newborn baby speak in his cradle? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. His creator and our creator tells us this story. Fātat bihi qawmahā taḥmiluhu. Qālu yā Mariamu laqad jī'ti shayyan fariyyā. Yā uqtahārūna mā kāna abūki murā saw'in wa mā kānat ummuki baghiyyā. Fāshārati ilayhi. Qālu kayfa nukallimu man kāna fil-mahdi sabiyyā. Qāla inni abdullāh. Ātāni alkitāba wa ja'alani nabiyyā. Wa ja'alani mubārakannayna mā kuntu wa usā. Wa usāni bil-salāti wal-zakāti mā dumtu hayyā. Wa barra biwalidati wa lam yaj'alni jabbaran shakiyyā. Wa salāmu alayya yawma wulittu wa yawma mūtu wa yawma uba'athu hayyā. Zālik. Nisa bunu Maryam. Qawla al-haqqil ladhi fīhi yamtarūn. Mā kāna lil-lāhi ayyattakhitha min waladhin sub'āna. Idhā qadāy amran fa-innamā yaqūl lahū kun fa-yakūn. Fa-innā Allāhi. Wa-rabbī wa-rabbūkum fa-abūduhu. Hāzā sirātun mustaqīm. In Surah Maryam, in the Qur'an, Allah says this which means, Then she returned to her people carrying him. They said in shock, O Mary, you have certainly done a horrible thing. O sister of Aaron, your father was not an indecent man, nor was your mother unchaste. So she pointed to the baby. They exclaimed, How can we talk to someone who is an infant in a cradle? Jesus declared, Isa spoke as a baby in the cradle. I am truly a servant of Allah. He has destined me. He has destined me to be given the scripture and to be a prophet. He has made me a blessing wherever I go. And bid me to establish prayer and give zakat, the alms tax, as long as I live. And to be kind to my mother. He has not made me arrogant or defiant. Peace be upon me the day I was born. The day I die and the day I will be raised. The day I will be raised back to life. That is Isa, son of Maryam. Jesus, the son of Mary. And this is the word of truth about which they dispute. It is not for Allah, God Almighty, to take a son. Glory be to him. When he decrees a matter, he simply tells it be and it is. Isa also declared, Surely Allah, Lord Almighty is my Lord and your Lord. So worship him alone. This is the straight path. I submit to you that we confuse earning a living with living itself. Life is not only about earning a living. Life is about something much more important than earning a living or making money. Life is about living with honor and about leaving a legacy to be remembered. And that is the way of life. That is the way of life. So in the example of the skyAndres' photo. ¡ Boy, this is eternal respect for you! Life is not about competition, but about having an impact on the hearts of others. Life is not about consumption, but about contribution. Because power comes with territory and contribution defines territory. I want to share with you three points that we must never lose focus on. ¡ For the love of humankind, If we want to live a life, where we will be influential while we live and be remembered long after we are gone. The three points in one sentence stand for justice with compassion and courage. Remember that all goodness begins with justice. Justice means that you give everything it's due. To respect elders, to be kind to the young and the weak, to stand against oppression, to help someone in need, to comfort someone in grief, to walk the path that others don't want to are all signs that you are focused on justice. Look into your life from time to time to see if you are still on the path of justice. To establish justice. Remember that what is legal at any point in time and what is right are not always the same. Slavery was legal. Colonialism was legal. Racial and religious discrimination and segregation was legal. Apartheid was legal. The Holocaust was legal. Disparity of wages between men and women was and sadly still is legal. But not a single one of them is or ever was right or just. To fight against these or not is our choice and that is our meter to show whether we are still on the path of justice. Compassion or mercy is the foundation. It is a bedrock in which justice is rooted. If that cracks or dies then justice dies with it. Justice without mercy is cruelty with a mask. Compassion is the result of empathy. It happens when we see ourselves in the position of others, not with pity for them, but with compassion. We should not be afraid of others. We should
Get your priorities right
Auto-generated transcript:My father taught me many lessons. And his way of teaching was he didn't sort of sit down with a class. He would just ask some question and that would be my mind. And alhamdulillah it worked very, very well. Two of the most critical lessons that he taught me, I want to share with you. One was, he always said, get your priorities right. Get your priorities right. Which thing should take the most of your time? Most of your energy? Most of your wealth? You know, and which should be next? Which should be next? Get your priorities right. The reason is because at any stage in life, whether you are in school or whether you are in college, university, whether you are working, you just got married, you have been married for a long time, you have children, no matter what, any stage in life, there will be many things that will try to draw your attention, try to draw, you know, come to you for various things. Give me time, give me money, give me donation, come and spend time with me, come talk to me, do this, do that. Many, many, many priorities. And if you don't get those right, and getting the priorities right means for some things you do, for some things you say, sorry, I have to do this. You say, sorry, I will not do this. I cannot do this. You have to say no. If you don't do that, then your life will be a dog's life, literally. Because you will get pulled in every direction. And your impact and your effect will be zero. Because nobody is, if you spread yourself that thin, then nobody even knows you existed, right? Although you try to help everyone. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. So get your priorities right. And the second thing which he taught me was, he used to ask for everything. If I read a book, he used to say, what did you learn from that? If I went to, I spent some time with a friend, I came back home. So he would say, where did you go? I'd say, I went to so and so. Okay. So what did you learn from that? I mean, I went to spend time with my friend and, you know, I went to the gym. I went to the gym. What is the learning? He said, no. There has to be learning. There is always a learning. What did you learn from that? I go for a walk. What did you learn from that? I used to do a lot of horse riding. What did you learn from that? Learn from the horse? Yeah. What did you learn? I mean, Sheikh will understand this. Do you learn from the horse? Many things. Many things. Many things. What did you learn from that? Now, this thing is in my mind to such an extent that I continuously ask myself this question. I tell you, I have learned so much in life only for this reason. Because I ask this question, what did I learn? No matter what, what did I learn? So get your priorities right and what did you learn? So one of the most important things today in our life and our world, especially in the Muslim Ummah, is that as a rule, as a Ummah, as a people, we have got our priorities completely screwed up, completely upside down. Our attention, our focus, our resources, money, everything is spent on all kinds of things. All kinds of useless things. Whereas if you take at, if you look at, you know, key things which we need, they're always starved of resources. They don't have resources. Now, we like to, as general people, we like to criticize the billionaires and we like to criticize the kings. And we say, so-and-so bought this yacht, super yacht for a billion dollars. And see the standard of education in this country. Okay, fair enough. That's a reasonable comment, right? Ask yourself, where are you spending your money? Ask yourself in your country, in your place, what are the projects which are being funded? What are the projects which people are trying to raise funds for? If you see in this country, in America, one of the, and let me narrow it down, America, New England, one of the most crying needs, one of the most dire needs is for a world-class Islamic school. Right? For a top-quality Islamic school. Everyone that I talk to, their first moan is, the public school system is so bad. Our children are getting spoiled. They are getting this influence, that influence. All the woke culture. All right, all of that is correct. I agree. I completely agree. So, what's the solution? I wish we had a world-class, a very good quality Islamic school where we would teach Islam and we would also teach the regular sciences and so on and so forth. This time, we would teach STEM subjects and stuff so that the children could go from there to Harvard and Cambridge and MIT and wherever. Okay, excellent. Fantastic. So, what's stopping you? No, we have no money. Okay. So, raise funds. Raise funds. Let me ask you, in the last 10 years, I've been here last six years, how many pro
Rights of Rasoolullahﷺ – part 3
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 honour of the Prophets and Messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, with a lot of peace and blessings. And then, dear brothers and sisters in Islam, Allah Almighty said in another verse, My brothers and sisters, Allah revealed in the Qur'an many ayats in praise of His Nabi Muhammad defining his status, defining his honourable status, and his honourable position before Allah. But in this ayat of Surah Al-Ahzab, which all of us know, Allah mentioned specifically and He said, Verily, Allah and His Malaik and His Angels send their blessings on the Messenger and then He commanded, Ya ayyuha allatheena aafi, Ya ayyuha allatheena aamanu, Whenever you hear or read this phrase in the Qur'an, Ya ayyuha allatheena aamanu, O you who believe, this precedes a command of Allah. Whatever comes after Ya ayyuha allatheena aamanu is an Amr of Allah. It's a command of Allah. It's a Hukm of Allah. And Allah is saying, Ya ayyuha allatheena aamanu, Sallu alaihi, Ya ayyuha allatheena aamanu, You also send blessings on him. Wasallimu taslima. And when you greet him, you say, Assalamu alaikum. The beauty of the Sahaba and one of the many ways in which the Sahaba differed from us is that the Sahaba did not invent, the Sahaba did not imagine, the Sahaba did not use, their intelligence to discover or to figure out what to do in a situation where Allah commanded something. When Allah commanded something, the Sahaba went to the Rabbi alayhi salam and said, this is the command of Allah, what shall we do? They did not invent something on their own. Allah said, they did not say, okay, fine, khalas. I will decide what is Salah. No, they went to the Prophet, what must I do? Allah is saying, I'm ready. And so on and so on. So in this case, Allah says, Send Salam on the Rabbi alayhi salatu wasalam. So the Sahaba did not just stand up and start reciting Ghanasheed and Ghazal and Hamd and Sana. They did not start reciting Naat. They did not put their hand on their chest on the right or the left. And they did not say, they didn't start in this or that. They didn't start in that direction. And they did not say, As-salatu as-salamu alayka ya Rasulullah. They didn't say any of this. They did not say anything. They went to the Rabbi alayhi salam and said, Ya Rasulullah, this is what Allah is commanding. What shall we do? Please teach us. Al-inna. And Rasulullah taught them what we know as the Dhurud Ibrahim, which we recite in the Tasha ul-Masjid. After Ad-Diyat. Abu Muhammad Ka'b min Ujra reported, Rasulullah came to us and we asked him, Ya Rasulullah, we already know how to greet you. Meaning, As-salamu alaykum. But how should we send Salat wa Salam on you? How do we send Dua on you? How do we send blessings? And he said, Say, Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin wa ala aali Muhammadin Kama salli ta'ala Ibraham. Wa ala aali Ibrahima. Innaka habidun Majeed. Allahumma barika ala Muhammadin wa ala aali Muhammadin. Kama barikta'a ala Ibrahima. Wa ala aali Ibrahima. Innaka habidun Majeed. He said, O Allah, exhort the mansion of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as you exhorted Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim . You are the praised and the glorious. O Allah, bless Muhammad . And the family of Muhammad and the family of Ibrahim , and you are the praised and glorious. And this is a Hadith in Bukhari and Muslim. Uba ibn Kaab , Radi gia Allah . He said, I said I asked." ya Rasulullah Now the question is how many Salat do you send to your Prophet . So this is a beautiful Hadith about Uba ibn Kaab He said, ya Rasulullah , I look at your meal, Send a great deal of blessings on you meaning. I decide to rule many times a day I said salat and salam on many times a day How much of this of my dua meaning? I also make dua to Allah for different things that need and so on how much of this total dua should Comprise of sending salat and salam on you He said whatever you wish So I said one quarter So total dua that I make in the day one quarter of that should it be sending salat and salam on you He said whatever you wish but if you do better that if you do more that will be better for you And see the words he's not saying it's better for me Because whatever you do or not do how can it be better with Allah already did it? The Malayka already did it no matter what you do is not going to exceed that So he says Should I give a quarter spend a quarter of the time sending salat and salam on you and which was all of said Whatever you wish But if you do more that will be better for you, then he said one half He said whatever you do, whatever you like and if you do more that will be better for you He said two thirds and he said Salah Salem. Whatever you wish and If you do more That will be better for you. So
Marcus Aurelius’s Rules for a better life
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, as I mentioned I think in the reminder on Stoicism, I mentioned Marcus Aurelius who was the Caesar of Rome and an amazing human being. He was unlike any other Caesar that you can think of or read about. He was a stoic and a very wise man. Now he's written this book which is called Meditations and obviously I don't have to say that it's definitely worth reading and also worth following the stuff that he talks about. Here are four different things that he has mentioned and this was in one of the Twitter posts from the Daily Stoic. There's a Twitter site called Daily Stoic and they send, you know, every day they post something from Stoics, different Stoics. Now he says four rules for a better life and this is from Marcus Aurelius, the Caesar of Rome. First and foremost he says focus on the essential. Focus on the essential. He says if you seek tranquility, which is peace of mind, if you seek tranquility do less, not nothing, less. Do only what's truly important, which brings a double satisfaction. You get to do fewer things and you get to do those fewer things better. Remember this rule daily. Keep a reminder in place. You will often see. Focus only. On what's essential. I'm going to repeat that. I'll repeat all of these. He says focus first rule of a better life. First rule for a better life. Focus on the essential. If you seek tranquility, do less. Not nothing. Less. Do only what's truly important. Which brings a double satisfaction. You get to do fewer things and you get to do those fewer things better. Remember this rule daily. Keep a reminder in place that you will often see and focus only on what's essential. Now the tool that I teach with this is what I call my three by three rule. And that three by three rule is that every day you begin your day with three things that you need to do. You need to do three things that you need to do. You need to do three things that you need to do. So, in my product here at My Childhood School. This will only hit one hurdle. So, it's this one. One that I'll set the two pickles. I will write out five goals for the entire class. I will send you a list here of all theレ that you need to accomplish. So, three things completely and all the opps always get left out of the box. So, that group three. Three things. Obviously, you can't check it with those three things. You want to know your schedule. Repeat your work your process and you're good to set it up. All right. Now, let me show you two things that you should do today. Three of them I will explain. First one is the day you only realize on 책 itself. One thing you do that's a key. goal. If you have no life goal, then you're going nowhere and you can't get there. So, before that comes, what is your life goal? Why do you exist? What are you supposed to do? How do you want to live your life? So, life goal. Based on the life goal, what are the three things that I must do today? Then start on the first one, complete it, go to the second, complete that, go to the third. If you get interrupted, say you're doing the first thing, you get interrupted, come back and complete that first thing. Do not go to the second one, skipping the first. That's very important. You start on the first thing, complete it, then go to the second thing. If you can't complete the first thing for some reason, then do not go to the second one until you complete the first thing. You get interrupted, come back and complete. In the evening, you look at what you accomplished. And again, journal, write down. You started off with three things. You were able to do all three, excellent. Then you write in that journal, what is it that helped you to accomplish those three things? You could not accomplish some of them, one of them, two of them. Then write down what is it that came in the way, what prevented you from accomplishing those, the things that you could not do. And this is the lesson for the next day, which is you will do more of what works and you will do not less, but nothing of what doesn't work. You will eliminate the problems and you will do more the promoters will do more of the things that help you. The next day, you begin with again, a list of three things. Now, in that list of three things on the the second day, don't just put mindlessly what is left over from the previous day. Write three things for the second day as starting from zero. Now, it may have something from the previous day, but you're doing that consciously because you have thought about that and because you think it is important, right? So, this is Marcus Aurelius' focus on the essential and my commentary and my, hopefully, value addition to that. Second one. He says, don't suffer imagined troubles. Don't suffer imagined troubles. He said, don't let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Stick wi
Plan of Allahﷻ
Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulillah. We are talking about Allah's plans and what we should, what should be our attitude with regard to that. In short, the attitude of a Muslim to the plan of Allah is an attitude of submission. Which we say, we are pleased with whatever Allah decrees for us. Now, in the Quran, Allah gives us many, many examples of the prophets who seem to be in positions of being oppressed. Prophets who are not in powerful positions, they don't have wealth, they don't have military power, they don't have authority, they are not heads of state. Yet, they stand up. To injustice, they stand up against tyrants and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives them victory. Imagine, for example, Musa a.s., Moses, standing in the court of Ramesses II, the pharaoh of Egypt, the head of probably the most wealthy and powerful empire at that time. He became king of the formerónsрей school, new kings that night accepted victims. The King of Upper and Lower Nile, Upper and Lower Egypt, stretching from the Sudan all the way down to the South. Master of wealth, the position of authority, where he declared himself to be God, and the pharaohs considered themselves to be deities, and they compared people to two dès. to worship them. That's the reason why the pharaohs married their sisters, because no one was considered equal to the pharaoh, so he could not marry any other woman. They married their sisters and of course produced all kinds of genetic issues, that's a different thing. And Moses, Musa , single man, staff in hand, imagine him standing in the court of that pharaoh, and that pharaoh has power of life and death, he can order Musa to be chopped into small pieces, but as we know, to make a long story short, how did it end? It ended with the pharaoh and his army, perishing and Musa and the Israelites who were enslaved at the time, being freed. We take the story of Ibrahim , for example, where he is sitting tied up in the cup of the siege machine which is going to throw him into the fire, he is certainly not 엄청pants and gives the people a huge hole. But Ibrahim describe him as a man of complete helplessness. It is a picture of complete helplessness. Noawk saw an arrow which which he made into the scrip of the shape of alon? The picture of complete helplessness. Here is a man who is completely tied up in ropes. He is in the the cup of the trebuchet , he is about to be shot into the flames, Jibreel, the angel Gabriel, came to him and he said, O Abraham, O Ibrahim, what can I do for you? And Ibrahim, peace be upon him, smiles and says, nothing. He says, nothing. He's sitting there facing the fire. And the fire is so big, they lighted this fire and they made it so big that they can't go near it to throw the man. So they need actually a catapult to throw him into the fire. And Jibreel comes and says, what can I do for you? He says, nothing. Because by nothing, he means that I ask Allah. I don't ask you. You may be the angel, but you are makhluk, you are a creature. And we worship only the Rabb. We worship only the one who created us. So I ask help only from Allah. So Jibreel-e-Salam goes to Allah. Of course, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he's seeing what's happening. He knows what's happening in real time. But Jibreel goes to him and says, Ya Rabb, they are going to burn your Khalil. And I went to him, asked him, can I do something for you? He says, no. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, go now and tell him, I am asking. Your Rabb wants to know what do you need from him. You're talking about the plan of Allah, right? So Jibreel comes and says, and of course, all of this Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows and Allah knows that he knows and you know. So, but for the time being, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows that he knows. For the sake of narration. So Jibreel-e-Salam comes back and he says, Ya Ibrahim, your Rabb sent me and he wants to know what do you want from him? And Ibrahim-e-Salam says, my Rabb does not need to ask. He's not playing word games. He says, my Rabb does need to ask. He knows what I want. And what I want, I ask. And what I want is whatever he wants. The meaning of Rida bil Khada, the meaning of the plan of Allah. He says, I want whatever my Rabb wants. If he wants me to burn in the fire, I'm ready to burn. If he wants to save me, he can save me. So my submission to you is many times, we get into situations of stress. It's I want this and it's not happening and so on and so on. And so on. And so on. And you get stressed out and you get anxious and you get depressed. But the cure for that is to go and become in sync with what Allah wants. And you might say, well, how do I know what Allah wants? Allah wants what is best for you. So make ruju towards Allah. Pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ask him and say, Allah, do for me what is your plan becaus
Stoic Principles
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 honor of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon many, many. Today I thought let me quickly share with you some thoughts and then request Sheikh Abdullah to speak to you. In that context, I want to talk to you about, there were a bunch, even now it's there, but there was a philosophy called Stoicism. So the people who followed that and believed in that and lived by it were called the Stoics. S-T-O-I-C. And it's something very worth studying and worth thinking about. This was roughly about 2000 years or something ago. That's when it seems to have started. And among the many, many very famous people in history who were Stoics, and one of the very famous ones was Marcus Aurelius, who was one of the Caesars of Rome. So a very famous Stoic philosopher. The thing about Stoicism, especially the reason I'm saying, I'm talking about Stoicism, because Stoicism is something which seems very close to Islam and to some of the principles of the Quran. So I'm not saying that the Stoics were Muslims, Allah knows best from whatever we have records of, I don't think they were Muslims. But irrespective of that, they had some very wonderful wisdom, which we can all learn from. So here are some, of those principles. First of all, first one he says is, safeguard your innermost anxieties and doubts. Safeguard your innermost anxieties and doubts. Voicing intimate struggles can undermine resilience. And resilience is the ability to recover from loss. The ability to struggle with, you know, especially emotional things and to come back. He says to make these things public. Now, just think about this in the context today of social media. Think about what people post on Facebook, for example, or what people post on, especially Facebook. Instagram is not that much of this stuff, but especially Facebook. People really sort of pour out their hearts on Facebook. The Stoics say that this is the most damaging thing to do. They say never, never do that. Your innermost thoughts and your innermost anxiety, your innermost anxieties and doubts, believe me, everybody has it. First and foremost thing I want to say to you guys is, you might think that, oh, you know, we are teenagers, we are in college, we are in high school or whatever, middle school, and we are all kinds of thoughts and, you know, feelings and counterfeelings and, you know, all sorts of things and anxieties and fears. So believe me, this is not, join the club. Literally join the club. Everybody has it. So, believe me, this is not, join the club. Literally join the club. Everybody has it. Everyone and his grandmother has it. The only thing which differs is the kind of doubts. Some people have some kinds of doubts. Others have other kinds of doubts, right? I am 70 years old at this age. I'm at the top of my profession in terms of business consulting. I don't consider my Islamic thing to be a profession, but alhamdulillah, I have an international standing there also. But every time I stand in front, I stand on the mimbar, I stand on the mimbar, I stand on the mimbar, every time I stand in front of people to talk to them, every time I lead two rak'at of salah, there is doubt in my heart. Not doubt about Allah, but doubt about, can I do this job properly or not? Will I make mistakes? Will I say something which might not be beneficial? Will I say something with the best intention, right? But it has a different effect on somebody else. Maybe it raises a doubt, right? Maybe it raises a doubt, right? Maybe it raises a doubt, right? But it starts to reach out in the mind of that person, or maybe it causes that person to think something contrary to what I am trying to help them understand. And you know, may Allah have mercy on me, then I will feel responsible because of me, this guy, he went away from here, but he came here, okay, he went away from here with a doubt. This is because of me. So, everybody has doubt. So, the Stoics say, don't publicize that. Now you might say, well, I won't publicize that. And what should I do? What shall I do? Just sit with that? Cook with that? No. You can and if you want, you should say it to somebody who is wiser, somebody who can handle that, somebody who can advise you in private. Right? So, I'm not saying you sit on the doubt and go into some depression or something. No. Talk about it, but not to everyone. Not publicly. Definitely not on social media. Absolutely without a doubt. And also not generally speaking. In some circle, I'm gathering, no. Specifically, maybe your parents, maybe a trusted teacher or somebody like that. Maybe even a friend, but somebody who is wiser. There'
Seerah – Putting others before ourselves
Auto-generated transcript: Fajr Reminders series by Sheikh Mirza Yawar Baig. Then Omar realized what was happening, so he went there, he cleaned the place, he milked that goat, he made some food, and then he took the food to the lady. He made some bread or something, made the food, and he gave it to the lady. And when he gave the food to the lady, she said, you are not the man who comes here every day. So he said, how do you know? She is blind, she can't see him. He said, how do you know? She said, because he knew that I have no teeth. So he used to soften the food, and then he would feed me. Sayyidina Amar wept. He wept and said, Swaharlal, what? Swaharlal, what? What kind of man was this? Now who was he emulating? Muhammad , he was a person. Another incident, very famous. Sayyidina Amar found some stranger who had pitched a tent, and he was sitting outside the tent, looking very concerned, very worried. And from inside the tent they could hear sounds of a woman in pain. So Sayyidina Amar went there, Adela Anu, and he said, what's happening here? So the man said, go away, who are you? Sayyidina Amar said, no, tell me, I want to help you. He said, I am a stranger here. There is no one to help. My wife is in labour pains. And she was doing her work. And she was in pain. And she was in pain. And I don't know what to do. I have no help. And that's what the sound you're hearing is, she's in labour. Sayyidina Amar Adela Anu went home, and he said to his wife, Umm Kulthum, bin Ali bin Avitalib, Adela Anuma. People say that Sayyidina Amar Adela Anu struck Sayyidina Fatima Adela Anu and broke her arm. And that Sayyidina Ali and Sayyidina Amar were enemies. Then tell me, how is it that Sayyidina Ali was the wali who married his daughter, Umm Kulthum, to Sayyidina Amar Adela Anu? How is it possible? Nobody can have, make any harf and mini statement on the integrity and honour and courage and bravery of Sayyidina Ali bin Avitalib Adela Anu. Nobody can say he did it because he was afraid. Nobody can say he did it because he was afraid. If Sayyidina Ali was afraid, who is not afraid? If Sayyidina Ali has no honour, who has honour? A man with honour will give his daughter in marriage to somebody who breaks the arm, who strikes his wife and breaks her arm, and the wife is no ordinary wife. The wife is the daughter of the Rasool alaihi salatu was salam. The Sayyida of the women in Jannah. There is not any ordinary woman. Please understand this. People make up stories. May Allah have mercy on them and forgive them and forgive us. The Sahaba were a very different breed of people. They were people of Waqar and order. So Sayyidina Amar Adela Anu married the daughter of Sayyidina Ali bin Avitalib Adela Anu and her name was Umm Kulthum. Bin Talib bin Avitalib. So he goes home now and he says to his wife, do you want to earn the pleasure of Allah? So she said, of course. So he said, this is the issue now. There is this lady in labour. Do you want to come and help with that? He said, of course. So she said to him, you take some, they used to have this date powder, dried date powder, which you would cook like a porridge. So he said, you take that. He took her utensils. She took some hot water. She took some cloths. And they went there and she went inside the tent to help with the delivery. And Sayyidina Amar is sitting outside the tent. He lighted a fire and he started cooking that food. And then from the inside, they heard some sounds and the crying of a baby. And the lady, Umm Kulthum Adela Anha, she called out and said, Amir Bhavaneer, tell your friend that he has a son. That is when this man got a shock. He said, you are the Amir? He said, yes. He said, yes. He said, yes. He said, yes. He said, yes. He said, yes. He said, yes. He said, yes. You are Umm Kulthum Adela Khattab? Yes, I am Umm Kulthum Adela Khattab. The Amir, the Khalifatul Muslimin, he's cooking food himself. He could have given the food to him and said cook. Cooking it, food himself for this person. And his wife, the daughter of Sayyida Fatima and Sayyidina Ali, Khadiyah Al Hanuma. You can't get bigger than that. The granddaughter of Rasulullah , the daughter of Rasulullah , imagine, which, what rank, we talk about rank, we talk about this birth, which this birth? This is the granddaughter of the Rasulullah . She is delivering the baby of this woman. Some strange woman, nobody knows who she is. One day said, My wife had an amor of Abdel Khattab and his servant, going out in the night they hear some, another tent outside, children crying. So he went there to investigate, there is this lady alone and she's got two, three kids and they are all of them are howling there. She said, they say, what happened? She said, there's no food. But he said that somebody cooking on the fire. He said, no, I just am, I mean, boiling some water to, you know, to, you know, to drink, you know, to drink it. water to, you know, to make the
Analytical thinking
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions, and a lot of peace and blessings be upon him. And then, my brothers and sisters, one of the greatest and most important abilities to develop is the ability for analytical thinking. Now, analytical thinking, the way it's different from normal thinking is that normal thinking is, there's a fogginess and there is a mixture. There's a mixture between thinking and feeling. So emotions get involved in thinking. This is very normal. It's not a question of good and bad. It's not a sin. But it interferes with coming to good and correct decisions. So what happens with most people is that the degree to which you want something to happen, to that degree, your mind cancels out anything that goes against that. And it gives extra importance to things which seem to be favouring that. But that's not reality. That's not reality. In some ways, this is how human beings cope. When you have a, especially a tough thing you're doing, a difficult project or a difficult challenge, then some level of skewed thinking is good or some level of skewed feeling is good, making you feel positive about it. Yes, I can win. You don't know if you can win or not, but you feel you can win. And that helps you. But that's only a bit. . . Long term projects, for example, your career, career choices, marriage. They're long term things. They're not, you know, you don't get married for two weeks. You don't have a career for two weeks. Long term things. These require clarity of thought. And clarity of thought is what we call analytical thinking. So in analytical thinking, the first most important rule is to take the emotions and put them aside. . Now this is easy to say, not easy to do because we are human. And emotions are not sitting in a pocket somewhere. You remove this pocket and put it somewhere. So it requires some psychological skills. But unless you can separate your intellectual thinking from your emotional thinking, you will never come to a decent conclusion. It will always be foggy. . The Seeratul Rasool Allah is one of the greatest places to learn this amazing capability of putting emotions aside and looking at clarity of goals. Right? Take Hudaybiyyah, for example, one of the finest examples of analytical thinking and the ability to keep personal ego needs out of the equation. Now what's happening in Hudaybiyyah? Here is the Rasool who saw in a dream that he is doing Umrah. Now for the Nabi, the dream is Wahi. So he tells the people, we are going and we are going to do Umrah. So fourteen, fifteen hundred people go with him. These are people who believed in him. La ilaha illa Allah Muhammad Rasool Allah. He is not an ordinary leader. They believed in him as the Rasool. And he is telling them, we will do Umrah. But when they go there, what happens? When they reach Hudaybiyyah? No. There is no Umrah. You can't do Umrah this year. Not only can you not do Umrah this year. You can't do it. To make a long story short, they have to sign an agreement which is humiliating, which is one-sided, which is unfair, which is unjust. And even while writing the document, when they are writing the document, they said, this is a Ahad. This is how it was written. You can't start an agreement, but still some give existing things ¿how? Even though they were the Phot vulnerabilities. But still if you continue, we will be born again, start resilience. If we come back again. From when Fool showed up in the government offices. He said that Esto is the matter. Feoul also let war break out completely. But when it does break out and Shia weave, he will be handicapped that is what it will not change until tomorrow Friday. It will not be until tomorrow Friday. of Allah, then where is the dispute? There is no dispute. But we have a dispute and the dispute is because we don't believe you are Rasool. So write Muhammad bin Abdullah. And Ali bin Abi Talib , who is writing, he says, I will not write this because this is my Iman. My Iman is Rasool Allah. So I will not write Muhammad bin Abdul. What does Rasool do? He says, give it to me. The ego need, your own personal, here are people who are denying the most important thing, the most honorable thing. There is nothing, there is no greater honor than being the Rasool of Allah. That is his identity. That is his identity. Who is he? Rasool of Allah. That is his identity. And the identity is being denied. Sorry, we don't accept this. You could have said, go to hell. If you don't accept it, sorry, no agreement. Let's see. We'll fight. You could have said that. Now this is a question of analytical thinking. So of course,
Seerah – How to be successful in this world and the next
Auto-generated transcript:I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. Indeed, Allah and His angels send their blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe, send your blessings upon him and give him your blessings. O Allah, send your blessings upon our Master Muhammad and his family. As you sent your blessings upon Ibrahim and his family. You are the Most Glorious. O Allah, bless Muhammad and his family. As you sent your blessings upon Ibrahim and his family. You are the Most Glorious. My brothers and sisters, we are on the series of lectures on the Seerah of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. With an idea of understanding how the Seerah can help us to be successful in this world and the next. So today we talk about... One of the most important elements of the religion. Which brought about enormous change. And that is the way we deal with money. See, today people talk about how the world has changed. How ethics and morals have gone down the drain. And how we have so-called leaders who are... I don't even want to waste my time thinking of expletives for them. But... So we have all these things. Now the question is, how did it get that way? Just go back in history. Think about this. Imagine that you are listening to a conversation about... Say, a conversation at the time of a Sahaba. Or a conversation later on in Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. Tabi'in. They are talking about people in their own families. They are talking about their fathers, their grandfathers. Maybe they are talking about people who are respected in their society. Two things I want to look at. One is, who are they talking about? And what about that person do you think they are saying? So the people they are talking about, who are those people? The great warriors, great scholars. When we read the stories of Salaf, so and so was a Zahid. He prayed so many rakat of Salah every night. So and so, with the wudu for Isha, he would pray Salatul Fajr, which means he didn't sleep the whole night. Not on one day. That was his routine. So and so, when he was the Khalifa, that entire period of 10-12 years, he did not sleep lying down. Whole period. He did not sleep lying down. He would sleep, he would take a, he would hold a stick like this and rest against the wall, standing. Or he would sit and he would just doze like this. Done. Fumiliated. Few minutes of that, done. Back to work. So what are the stories? Sahawat. Donating money. And going there for the work. And so on. These were the stories, right? These were the stories that we were told. And believe me, this thing lasted for a long time. I remember when I was growing up as a child. I was a child. We heard stories like this. We heard stories like this about our children, our parents, our grandparents. Today, for example, one of the biggest problems, one of the major, major problems is what is called helicopter parenting. Right? The parents are whoring like this over the child 24-7. Children are not left alone for one second. They cannot get bored. They're constantly engaged. They forget that brain was not created for this constant simulation, continuously, which is what the phones are giving you. And we think this is parenting, constantly, never leave the child alone. When I was growing up, in my teens, I was 16, 17 or something like that, I would go from Hyderabad where we lived to a place called Adilabad, district Adilabad, the actual village was called Pembi, which was a journey of almost the entire day. I had to change three buses, three different places, and last two miles I had to walk through the... fields. Black cotton soil which sticks to the shoes, so I take the shoes off and walk barefoot, two miles through the fields. By myself, no phone, I couldn't reach there and call and say I reached safely. There was no question of writing a letter, it wouldn't get posted, it wouldn't come. I would be gone for a month. Living on the bank of a river. No electricity. No electricity. No electricity. No water supply. No running water. With this uncle of mine, friend of my father's, and spend the whole day in the bush. I'd leave in the morning, come back in the night. And this whole period of one month, my parents did not know if I was alive or dead. They didn't know. So what should I say? They didn't care about me. I know how much they cared. What's the last thing? Nothing. But they let me do that, so I became independent. My brother, same thing. He did other things, not these things, but he became independent. We learn to make decisions. You think nothing happened to me? Many things happened to me. I'm not talking here, I'm not sitting here to talk about my life, but I'm saying that today this is the problem of the parents continuously hovering. One of our brothers here, his tw
What is my attitude towards the Seerah? – #2
Auto-generated transcript:I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. Indeed, Allah and His angels send their blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe, send your blessings upon him and give him your blessings. O Allah, send your blessings upon our Master Muhammad and his family. As you sent your blessings upon Ibrahim and his family. You are the Most Glorious. O Allah, bless Muhammad and his family. O Allah, send your blessings upon Ibrahim and his family. You are the Most Glorious. My brothers and sisters, we are on the series of lectures on the Seerah of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. With an idea of understanding how the Seerah can help us to be successful in this world and the next. Now all of these, as I mentioned, on the first day, they represent changes that Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam made. Changes that were made in society as a result of Islam coming into people's lives. If you think about that, if you take the Seerah itself, and usually the way we discuss the Seerah is the Makkan period and the Madinan period. You will see a very interesting thing. One is, you will see that the focus of Dawa in the two places was very different. The focus of Dawa in the Makkan period was on the establishment of Tauhid. There were no laws, interest was not haram, alcohol was not haram, and so on and so on. Salah hadn't come down. They were praying Tahajjud from the beginning, but other than that there was no other, the five Salawat were not there, Ramadan was not, had not been made for, Hajj was not there, and so on and so forth. The focus of the entire Makkan period, almost the entire Makkan period, not entirely, but almost entirely, was on the establishment of Tauhid. The establishment of the oneness of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala Jalla Jaladhu, and the supremacy of the commands of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala over everyone and everything else. This was the focus of the Makkan period. Makkan period of Dawa, so I call this the theological Dawa. And the opposition to that also came from a theological perspective. People say, religion of our forefathers, this is how we found them, and so forth, and now you are bringing a new thing and so on. But there was also an underlying thing in this, an underlying flavor, an underlying platform, which the people of Makkah, the Moshiikin of Makkah, they understood that, they recognized that. And that was, what happens when I accept Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala as the supreme commander in my life. So it is not just a matter of intellectually saying, there is no unworthy of worship except Allah, La ilaha illallah. It is the consequence of La ilaha illallah. What is the meaning of La ilaha illallah? What happens when I say La ilaha illallah? Meaning when I accept that, as this is the truth, that there is no unworthy of worship except Allah, what does that happen? And believe me, they were not saying, I will get Jannah. No. They were looking at what will happen to me in my life here. How will my life in this world change? It's a strange thing. We have been Muslims, most of us here in this room, have been Muslims for God knows generations, a thousand years maybe, and more. But that hasn't dropped, the penny hasn't dropped in our brains. But the Makkahans, the Bushrikin of Makkah, they understood that in one second. And that is the reason why they opposed Rasulullah so vehemently. Because they recognize, what is this thing? It's not simply saying, one God. No, no, no. If I accept that there is no unworthy of worship except Allah, then I have to subjugate myself completely and totally to Allah. There is no alternative. If Allah is supreme, He is supreme. If Allah is not supreme, then I am a Bushrik. If you are saying, Allah is supreme, but I am also supreme. Allah has a will, I also have a will. Khala, you have to go on. Your Islam is zero, nullified. La ilaha illallah means, la yanfa wa la yadhurra illallah. La razzaqa illallah. La malika illallah. La khaliqa illallah. There is no one who can cause benefit or harm except Allah. There is no one who provides me with my sustenance except Allah. There is no one who is the owner, the true owner except Allah. There is no one who is the creator of conditions, ala shia wa ala hawal, conditions and things. Illa Allah. It's not just a matter of saying, la ilaha illallah, okay fine, alhamdulillah, I pray two rak'ah salah, I am gone home now, rest of the life is my own. No way, no way. Complete and total subjugation, which means that every decision I take until now, every decision I take, I took it on the basis of my own logic, my own understanding, my own likes and dislikes, my own desires, so on, so on, so on. This is how I live my life. But from the minute I say, la ilaha illallah, I said, la ilaha illallah, the minute I say that, everything changes. All those researchers now have got a rider, they've got a criterion
Power of the Sunnah
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. My dear respected ulema, brothers, sisters, the biggest strength in life is to be aware, to live with awareness, to live with ihsas, a sense of who you are, where you are, and why you are there. They say that every man and woman has two birthdays. The day he was born and the day he realizes why. So we are here today in obedience to the command of Allah, with respect to Salatul Jumu'ah, in the house of Allah. Let us be here with awareness. What does it mean to be in the house of Allah? Who is Allah? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala introduced Himself. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala introduced Himself. Think about the world. Think about the words. Reflect on the meaning of those words. Not on my recitation. May Allah forgive me. May Allah forgive me. May Allah forgive me. May Allah forgive me. May Allah forgive me. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, There is no god but Allah, the living and the living. He has no attainment of sleep nor Face. There is nothing in the heavens nor on earth that can get Him back from it. Who canальной漏ه من ذهب unless by His permission, He knows what is before and beyond their hands, and they carry nothing of knowledge other than that which they wish. وَسِعْقُرْ سِيُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَلَا يَعُودُهُ عِبْظُهُمَا وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ وَلِلَّهِ الْعَمْدُ لَوْ أَنْزَلْنَا هَذَا الْقُرْعَانَ عَلَى جَبَلٍ لَرَعِيْتَهُ خَاشِئًا مُتَصَدِّيًا مِنْ خَشْيَكِ اللَّهِ وَتِلْكَ لَمْثَالُ نَضْرِبُهَا لِلنَّاسِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ هُوَ النَّعَهُ الَّذِي لَا إِلَٰهِ إِلَّا هُوَ عَالِمُ الْغَيْبِ وَالشَّهَادَةِ هُوَ الرَّحْمَنُ الرَّحِيمُ هُوَ اللَّهُ الَّذِي لَا إِلَا هُوَ لَا إِلَا إِلَّا هُوَ الْمَلِكُ الْقُدُّوسُ الزَّلَامُ الْمُؤْمِنُ الْمُهَيْمِنُ الْعَزِيذُ الْجَبَّارُ عَزِيذُ الْجَبَّارُ الْمُتَكَبِّرُ سُبْعَانَ اللَّهِ سُبْعَانَ اللَّهِ عَمَّا يُشْرِعُونَ بِاللَّهِ هِا Guide them all to the right path! هُوَ اللهُ القرنِقُ prochینِ transform Aboriginal genetics Корكوا الْكُلِكُونَ هُوَ اللهُ الْخَالِقُُ الْبَارِيُaciُو Jacqu försöفسُو لَّهُ العَّسْمَاهُ الحُسنى أُتِك SWEETS His Exalted Class can glorify His Depbels and Sh comunic despious openings. Allah introduced himself. We know the ayat, we know their meaning. So I will not translate them here. The question to ask is, when I listen to this, what does it do to my heart? And the dalil, that it should do something to the heart, is the Qawwal of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, where he described the Muslim, the mu'mineen, and he said, In Surah Al-Anfa, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Verily, the believers, only those are the believers, إِذَا ذُكِرَ اللَّهُ وَجِلَتْ قُلُوبُهُ When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is mentioned before them, it does something, it does something to their hearts. Something happens inside. The heart is alive. It responds. It answers. وَجِلَتْ قُلُوبُهُ وَإِذَا تُلِيَتَ لَيِّمْ آيَتُهُ زَادَتْهُمْ إِبَانًا And when the ayat of Allah are recited before, before them, or they recite them themselves, their iman increases. And the result of this, وَعَلَى رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ They have tawakkul on their Rabb. I remind myself and you, that tawakkul is a ni'mah. Tawakkul is the reward that Allah gives for taqwa. If there is no taqwa, there cannot be tawakkul. Today we seem to live in a world where we think we can do everything haram and we say, no, I trust Allah. On what basis? On what basis? You disobey Allah in everything and you trust Allah. For what? To punish you? May Allah have mercy on us and forgive us. Tawakkul is the result. Tawakkul is the gift from Allah. For taqwa. Taqwa is what we must work for and work on. And when we have taqwa, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلَ اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَزْبُهُ The one who has tawakkul on Allah, Allah will become sufficient for him. And who is this person? Who is the person who has taqwa on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Who is the person who has taqwa on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, that this is the person who fears to disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now this Rabb of us, of ours, who introduced himself, he mentioned his ni'mat. Everything we have in life is a ni'mat of Allah. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the way that food acts inside our body to build our strength, our intelligence, the parents and family we have, the support we have, the political and other power we have, the wealth we have, the health we have, you name it, every single thing, every breath we take is a ni'mat of Allah. The kalam of Allah is the ni'mat of Allah. But out of all of these ni'mat, Allah subhanahu
Don’t nullify your Ibaadah
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 honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions, are very much in peace. My brothers and sisters, I want to speak about some very important matters today, so please sit and listen. And these matters have to do with a very important aspect, which is the way shaitan deceives the good people. Shaitan deceives people in different ways. He does not deceive everyone in the same way. And like I told you the other time, the way you differentiate between the wasafis of shaitan and the wasafis of your own nafs is that you are not the same. The nafs is addicted to some particular thing. Right? Some specific thing. There is somebody who will watch pornography. For somebody else, he will never watch pornography. But he will do drugs. Right? Somebody will smoke cigarettes. But he will not drink alcohol. Somebody will drink alcohol, won't smoke cigarettes and so on. So, the nafs is addicted to some particular thing. But shaitan is not like that. Shaitan does not care what you do as long as it is disobeying Allah. So, it doesn't matter what. No matter what it is. As long as it is disobedience of Allah, shaitan is happy. So, shaitan deceives different people in different ways. So, some people he will take them to haram. But other people, may Allah bless all of you, like you, who are, alhamdulillah, people who have knowledge of Islam, people who are connected to the masajid, you come for Jummah, you come for Salah, you read Quran and so on and so forth. Shaitan will not tell you, you know, go smoke some marijuana or have a drink somewhere because he knows you are not going to do that. Right? So, there is no sense in trying to tempt you with that. He cannot tempt you. So, what he does with you is something else. He does, what he does with you is, and this is again the typical game of shaitan. If he cannot prevent you from doing something which is good, then he will make you do the good thing in a way which reduces or cancels the benefit of that. So, for example, shaitan will, shaitan knows, he cannot prevent you from going for Jummah. You will go for Jummah. As long as you are alive, you will go for Jummah. You make the effort, you take the time off and you will go for Jummah. Shaitan knows he cannot stop you. So, what does he do? He makes you do something when you come for Jummah which makes your Jummah invalid, cancels. So, you come for Jummah and you have this feeling, mashaAllah, alhamdulillah, I went for Jummah and may Allah bless you, you went for Jummah, so on. But when you look in your aamal, when you meet Allah , there is no Jummah. Say, Ya Allah, what happened? I went for Jummah. Ya. You went for Jummah. But then what happened? You went for Jummah and then you met your, then you saw your friend sitting there. So, you went and said, Salaam Alaikum, how are you? He said, Walaikum Assalam, how are you? Both your Jummahs become zero. Khalas. So, shaitan is very happy. You come, sit here, do your Jummah, no problem. Right? Say, Salaam Alaikum, Walaikum Assalam. You come and sit for the khatrah, then you walk away because somebody, your mother called or father called or somebody called. So, I thought, let me give you the dalail for this. The majority of scholars are of the opinion that it is obligatory to be silent during the khutbah. And one is not allowed to speak during the khutbah, not even if it is to order somebody to do good or stop some evil. And this applies. This rule applies whether or not the person is sitting in the mosque and actually hear the khutbah. See the beauty of this. Suppose you are sitting in a big mosque. Khutbah is going on, the mic fails. You cannot hear the khutbah. But you are, you know khutbah is going on and you are in the Jummah, you are in the masjid. And you find somebody is playing with his phone. Somebody is on his phone. Now, he is doing something wrong. If you tell the person, don't play with your phone, your Jummah is gone. Somebody comes and says, Salaam Alaikum. If you say, Walaikum Assalam, your Jummah is gone. That fellow's Jummah is gone anyway. He says, Salaam Alaikum. But your Jummah also is gone if you say, Walaikum Assalam. Although, to reply to Salaam otherwise is wajib. If your brother says to you, Salaam Alaikum, you must say, Walaikum Assalam. Unless it's a group of people and one says, this is something wrong. It's insufficient. But if somebody is directly addressing you and says, Salaam Alaikum, you must say, Walaikum Assalam. But in Jummah, if you say that, Jummah is gone. Sir, I heard that, does it apply to all forms of communication like texting and... Everything, JazakAllah Khair. Good question. Does it apply to all forms of communication? Yes, like texting, like whatever
What is my attitude towards the Seerah?
Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallamu taslimun kathirun kathirakum waduh. My brothers and sisters, it is very important, we are looking at the seerah of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. It is very important for us to remind ourselves as to why we should do it. Right. And the reason I'm saying that is because attitude influences behavior. And behavior drives results. Three things, three stages. Attitude influences behavior and behavior drives results. It's not knowledge, it's not knowing something, you have to act on some path. Now, attitude is critically important because attitude, as I said, drives behavior and therefore attitude is what puts sincerity and dedication and so on into the behavior. What is the difference between your approach, for example, to your job compared to education? I'm not talking about a hobby. Right, I'm not talking about a hobby. I'm saying you got a job and you also have a hobby. Is there a difference in your attitude towards these two things? Yes. Why is it different? Because the job, you are clear about what am I getting out of this job. This job, I need it because this is how I earn money, this is how I feed my family and so on and so on. So I need to go there. I can't afford to lose a job. The hobby, yes, of course, I'm interested in the hobby. Something I like to do, no doubt about that. But if I miss out one day, usually hobby is not a daily thing, maybe weekend or something. So one weekend, maybe there is a party at home or something. So you miss going to your hobby. It's okay. I mean, you might think about that and say, I wish I had gone. But beyond that, there's no great regret because it's a hobby. It's something that you do. You do in your free time, in your spare time. It's not the aim and goal of your life. With regard to your job, you are concerned about it. You are also concerned about your progression in the organization that you're working in. Supposing you're working in the organization, you are at one level and you remain on that level for the rest of your life. No, it's not okay. Right? You want progress. You want promotions. You want greater authority because that gives you more money. You want more money and so on. But in the hobby, not everyone progresses in the same way. You know, you say, okay, I'm doing this for enjoyment. I'm not going to, you know, bust my skull about the quality of that and so on and so on. On the other hand, you might find there are some people who get so interested in their hobby and they get so dedicated and so focused that one day that hobby becomes their profession. And they do very well. Right? You might have somebody who was a medical doctor for a long time. Medical doctor, for example, becomes a professional photographer. Now he's, you know, making, even if he doesn't make millions, he's making enough to feed his family and so on. But he's enjoying himself. He's taking some fabulous photographs. I mean, the hobby converted into his life goal and into his mission in life. Why? Because of the attitude. Now, attitude depends on the benefit that you think you will derive. From something. And it depends on the benefit that you think that you will derive from something. So therefore, your attitude towards work is a certain attitude because you believe this is what I am deriving from this work. My attitude towards the hobby is different because, you know, that's not my actual goal in life. We all read the newspapers, for example, or whatever version of the newspaper. Compared to a journalist. Compared to a political columnist or a political commentator who writes a weekly column. So you also read the papers and you also are focused on the news. That guy is also focused on the news. There's a difference in attitude. Compare that, for example, to a politician. Who's got more dedication towards something? Politician. Because that guy literally is a matter of life and death, so to speak. So attitudes influence behavior. Behavior drives results. The reason I'm saying that in this session on Sira is let us begin with that. Let us examine our attitude towards the Sira, towards the life story, towards the biography. Of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahibu salam. This is not to tell me anything. It's not to tell anybody else anything. It's a matter of our own personal assessment of ourselves. And ask yourself and say, what is my attitude towards the life of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam? Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Now. What should it be? Of course, we all know. We all know that this should be the number one important thing in my life. And why is that? Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent us into this world. And Allah
Lessons from Hatim Al Asamm – 8
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 honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and companions. Peace be upon you all and upon you all. My brothers and sisters, we are on the last of the Hikaiyat and advice of Hatim al-Assam, may Allah have mercy on him. The eighth point, where he said, I have seen people that they place their trust in their own abilities and in things which have been created by Allah like themselves. So they trust their own abilities or they trust maqlouq. And he said, but I have read in the Quran where Allah said, And whosoever, which means whosoever has taqwa of Allah, He will extract him from his difficulties, will make a way out for him. And will provide him from sources that they could not imagine. And whoever puts their trust in Allah, then he will become sufficient for him. And so he said, Hatim al-Assam, may Allah have mercy on him. Hatim al-Assam, may Allah have mercy on him. So I have placed my trust in Allah alone. I remind myself and you that we live in this world for a short time. And then we go before Allah. And therefore it is essential for us to make sure that we do not do anything which displeases Allah . Now, if you see the advice of Hatim al-Assam, may Allah have mercy on him. And that is reason why we go before Allah. christ, and gunning into what mapping us into. And let us stop with this for a moment. and world we talk about the self-made man. I am the master of my own destiny. You must have heard these statements. These statements are kufr. Because Allah is the master of destiny, not me. But Allah has given me some abilities and therefore I must have confidence and nothing wrong with that. Now the finest example of this, and that is why I keep on saying all the time over and over again that the seerah of Rasul is the tafsir of the Quran. The seerah is the tafsir, explanation of the Quran. The point that Hatim al-Aswami is making which is that you may have confidence in yourself but ultimate confidence and trust is with Allah. This is illustrated in the story of Rasul Al-Aswami. This is illustrated in the story of Rasulul Ahmadi. This is illustrated in the story of Rasulul Ahmadi. Because Rasulullah have made his two devotions. One is he sent his safety missions, he 허� vielleicht sampai ke overcoming all the obstacles with his company and he gave his Person ofôle ahhiy DID to тем who feel, for example, thatthird ofbe puttheirrumin their series of battle, whereas his troops lose, but all the people on the course of the first journey reached to the battle of Badr. O Allah, if these people perish, then there will be no one to worship you on the face of the earth. And he said, O Allah, help me. O Allah, help me. O Allah, help me. Until Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, radiyallahu anhu, he couldn't see Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in such a state of concern. He said to him, Basti ya Rasulullah, your Rabb will not abandon you. So does it mean he had no confidence in himself? No. He had confidence in himself. He had confidence in whatever material resources he had. But the ultimate confidence is in Allah. The issue of taqwa is to be concerned about the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala alone. And to have a single-minded focus to say that everything I say or do, every decision I make, everything I choose to do. Whatever I decide to do or not to do will be done only with one focus, which is does it please Allah? And that is why I see the beauty of what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says. Think about this. Allah is saying, Wa ma yattakhi illa hai aja allahu makharaja. The One who has taqwa, I will extract him from his difficulties. I will help him. I will help him. Allah is saying, I will take him out of his difficulties. Allah is not saying I will give him the power to get out. No, I will take him out. And then Allah says, and I will provide him from sources he cannot imagine. The definition of Taqwa is that a person sees the signs of Allah all around him and everything. All of these ayats and others, they show us that Allah is saying Allah is with you wherever you might be, wherever you turn, you see the face of Allah. Meaning you see the signs of Allah in his creation. And the Muttaqiyy is constantly remembering that and constantly seeing that with the eyes of Ibrah. Where he is constantly seeing. He is constantly seeing the signs of Allah all around him. And when he is seeing the signs of Allah all around him, Allah is saying that I will then give you from sources you cannot even imagine. Because this person is seeing, saying, SubhanAllah, Allah is SubhanAllah, this is Allah, SubhanAllah, this is Allah, SubhanAllah, here is Allah. So Allah is saying I will give, now think about this. If you need something. And Allah gives you from an expected s
Lessons from Hatim Al Asamm – 7 – The journey of my pizza
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. Peace be upon him, and upon him, and upon him. From now on, we are looking at the story of Hatim al-Assam, peace and blessings be upon him, and the advice that he gave to people. And this is the seventh of them, seventh out of eight. He said, I have seen that people are struggling to earn their money. I've seen that people are struggling to earn their money so much that they disgrace and they demean themselves before others and even use haram means to earn their livelihood. What I have read in the Quran that Allah has said, وَمَا مِنْ دَابَّةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ إِلَّا عَلَى اللَّهِ رِزْقُهَا وَيَعْلَمُ مُسْتَقَرَّهَا وَمُسْتَوْضَعَهَا كُلٌّ فِي كِتَابٍ مُّبِينٍ And this is the first of the seven verses. And the second verse is the first verse. And the third verse is the first verse. And the fourth verse is the first verse. And the fifth verse is the first verse. And the sixth verse is the first verse. And the seventh verse is the sixth verse. And the seventh verse is the sixth verse. And the seventh verse is the fifth verse. And the fourth verse is the sixth verse. Then Allah says in Ayatul 추َسَّطَ passieren Weは انعم الْحَٰرين الذين بالحق القدم escola There is no moving creature on the earth whose provision, whose rizq is not guaranteed by Allah. And only He who knows where it lives and where it is laid to rest. And all of them is written in the perfect record. حادث الالميل الم记ع الأمر őlحاطم الأسم says I know that I am also one of those creatures selling some goods at the market. He knows that and He knows that I am also one of those people. sustenance depends on Allah and Allah has guaranteed that to me. So I engage myself in the Ibadah of Allah for which He created me and I have left the responsibility of my provisions to Him. I engage myself in the Ibadah of Allah and responsibility of the provisions I have left it to Allah. I remind myself and you, think about one thing. Most of you would have had your dinner I suppose by now, right? If you didn't have dinner, you had lunch anyway. Think about what you ate for lunch, whatever it was. Supposing you ate for lunch a roti, you know, a kufus. You ate a pizza. You ate a pizza. You ate a pizza. Now take that bread you ate and trace it back. Before becoming a bread, what was this thing? It was dough. And this dough went into an oven and somebody cooked it, right? Before the dough, what was it? Flour. And this flour, was it born as a flour? No. Before that, what was it? It was a plant. It was a seed, right? So somebody sowed a seed somewhere, we don't know where. That plant grew. It produced seeds, which is rice or wheat or corn or whatever. And then somebody harvested that and someone transported that to some place. It was stored. And then someone bought that and they took it and they ground it and they made flour. And somebody bought this flour and they took it into the bakery and they kneaded the dough and they baked the bread. And then this bread went into the pizza place and somebody made the pizza. Okay? And all you did was, you went and paid five bucks and you bought the pizza and you ate the pizza. You don't know and you don't remember and you don't acknowledge and you don't think of all the people and all the things that I only started at the plant. There's a story beyond that also. All of that, which was decreed by Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala Jalla Jalaluhu so that you could eat your pizza. How many people? In how many people? In how many? God knows how many countries because today our plates are international. The beef on your plate comes from Argentina. The mutton on your plate comes from New Zealand or Australia. The chicken on your plate comes from God knows where. Right? The fruit if you are eating that comes from somewhere. You got the whole world. If the plate could talk or if you could turn the plate into a map of the entire world, you could do it. You could do it. If you could turn the plate into a map of the origins of all the stuff on it, it would look like a world map. But we look only at the pizza. Oh, I had one pizza. No, you didn't have one. You had the effort and you had the, all the, the input of Allah knows how many people in how many countries. Imagine the guy growing the beef. Right? He's got this ranch in the Pampas in Argentina. He's got thousands and thousands of cattle. He has cowboys there on horses. And his calf is born and the calf is raised. And then there are wolf tries to get the calf. Somebody is fighting that wolf. There are big guard dogs there, big cattle dogs there, which are fighting wolves. And this calf becomes, comes to the level of being a heifer. And t
Rights of Rasoolullahﷺ – #2 Ita’at
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. We praise Him, we ask for His help, we ask for His forgiveness, we believe in Him, we trust in Him, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the evil deeds of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, no one is misguided from Him, and whosoever He guides, no one is guided from Him. And after that, my brothers and sisters, help us. We are looking at the rights of the Messenger of Allah on his Ummah, meaning on us. And as I mentioned before, the issue with rights is that if somebody has a right on you, and you do not fulfill that right, then you are culpable, you are punishable if Allah wants to punish. We ask Allah to save us from that, because of all the rights, the rights of the people, the rights of creation, the number one first right is the right of Rasulullah . We spoke about the first right, the first right of Allah. The first of them, adab ul-ihtiram, the respect and honour that is due to Him . Today we will speak about the second of them, which is itaat, to obey Him without question. Allah said that He sent His Anbiya to be obeyed. This is not blind following, but obedience with the knowledge of who we are obeying and why. And this is not a new system, you need to follow it completely, not partially, not selectively. That change is to move from living by our desires to living by the command of Allah . Allah said, وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ رَسُولٍ إِلَّا لِيُتَاعَ بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ Allah said, we have sent no Messenger but to be obeyed by the command and leave of Allah. That is why Abu Hurayrah reported, that Rasulullah said in a Hadith, Sahih Hadith which is recorded in Bukhari, Everyone from my nation will enter Jannah except those who refuse. Everyone from my nation, from the Ummah will enter Jannah except those who refuse. So they asked him, Ya Rasulullah, who will refuse? He said, whoever obeys me enters Jannah. Whoever disobeys has refused. May Allah grant us the Tawfiq not to refuse to enter Jannah. I remind myself and you that the most common reason we refuse to obey Rasulullah is because of our slavery to our desires, to our Nufus, to our Nafs. The question is to ask yourself this question and say, is whatever we want to do that is against the command of Rasulullah and can result in our being listed as a Nafs? In our being listed among those who refuse to enter Jannah, is it worth that price? Is it worth that price? Allah made it a condition of Iman, of faith itself, that not only should we accept every judgement of Rasulullah without question, but we must not even feel any resistance in our hearts or we risk being out of Islam. Now this is a condition that is unique to the judgment of Rasulullah. Which indicates his position and the importance of obeying him totally. Because in the Sharia, it's only what you say and what you do which becomes possibly culpable, which you are accountable for, not what is in your heart, not what you feel and not what you think. Except when it comes to the judgments of Rasulullah . In the case of anything which the Nabi ruled, even thinking and feeling against it is, an issue of great importance and great problem as far as Allah is concerned. I am talking about blind obedience versus obedience with knowledge. The most common, the most simple, the easiest way to understand is the standpoint from which you obey a physician without question. Not because you are doing blind obedience, but because you trust him. Because you know his training, you know who he is, and you know that he has the knowledge. He has your best intentions of heart. And so he tells you to do something, you do that. You follow his advice. You don't argue with that. Now Rasulullah in the same way, with the greater magnitude that as far as the physician is concerned, is something which cures an ailment, maybe it's a life-saving thing. Life is saved by Allah , but anyway. But with Nabi , it's the question of the difference between Jannah and Jahannah. So we obey him, we go to Jannah. Allah stated very categorically. Allah said, Now Allah is using, if you see the Arabic grammar of this, Allah says, No, but by your Rabb. This is like a, you know, double whammy as far as the taking of an oath is concerned. He says, Allah said, But no, by your Rabb. They can have no faith. They can have no faith until they make you, O Muhammad , the judge in all disputes between them, and find within themselves, in their hearts, no resistance against your Jannah. And they can make their own decisions, and accept those decisions with full submission. And then Allah said, And it was not for a believer, man or woman. When Allah and his Messenger have decreed, and the Messenger has decreed, that there be no doubt in Allah, and that there be no doubt in Allah, and that there be no doubt in Allah, the Messenger and the Messenger have decreed in a matter that
Importance of the Seerah
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. And we praise Allah, the Lord of the worlds. We praise Him and we greet His noble Messenger. And what is next? Allah said, Allah and His angels greet the Prophet. O you who believe, greet him and greet him with a greeting. O Allah, greet our Master Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as you greeted Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim. You are the Most Glorious. O Allah, greet our Master Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as you greeted Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim. You are the Most Glorious. My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders, and that one of the malaika was standing there trying to put a musalla. MashaAllah, may Allah bless you and keep you always, raise your darajat and keep you always in special protection, inshaAllah. We are gathered here today, Alhamdulillah, to do what is perhaps the most important activity that a Muslim can do in his life or her life, other than the fara'id which Allah has made for them. And that is to learn about the blessed life of Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and the blessed life of his family and companions. It is the haqq of Rasulullah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, that every time his name is mentioned, every time you say Rasulullah, or every time you say Muhammad, that at least we say, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and if you say more, Alhamdulillah, but at least this much. This is his right and therefore, you must do it, you don't need to do it loudly, but for yourself. And remember that when we do this, it is not that we are doing a favor to the Rasul , we are doing a favor to ourselves. Because when a person, as we know from the hadith, Rasul said that when a person sends salam on me, sends dhruud on me, Allah sends salam on that person ten times. Ten times for every single time that we send salam on him, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and upon him and upon his family and companions. And this is the most important thing. And the most important thing is that we are not doing a favor to the Prophet , but to the Prophet . The reason I say that this is the most important activity is because just now we heard the Tilawat of the Quran. Alhamdulillah. May Allah bless the Shaykh. May Allah illuminate his life with the Quran. May Allah illuminate his Qalb with the Quran. May Allah keep the Quran firm in his heart and may he be the means by which the Quran and the love of the Quran is spread across the world to everybody who comes into contact with him in every way. If Allah had wished, Allah could have sent Jibreel to come and stand on top of the Kaaba and recite the Quran to the people. Jibreel could have come in his true form or he could have come in the form of a human being or he could have come in any form that Allah pleased and he could have recited the Quran to the people of Makkah. This was perfectly possible for Allah to do. It was perfectly possible for Allah for example to send the Quran al-Kareem in the form of a book one for each of the residents of Makkah. And don't tell me they didn't have paper in those days and printing press. That doesn't matter. Allah is Allah. So Allah could have done this. Or Allah could have sent His Kalam to this world in any way or form that He pleased. But Allah did not do any of that. Allah said Allah said Allah said He sent Al-Furqan, which is the Quran to His slave. Abdeehee. So the Kalam of Allah came to Muhammad Rasulullah . We say and we should say that Allah sent the Kitab to us and He sent the Kitab Qudal-e-Nas for the Hidayah to everyone. But the person who received the Kitab of Allah is Muhammad Mustafa . And this is the great Hikmah of Allah . The Hikmah of Allah is that He did not send the Quran to an Angel. He did not send the Quran in the voice of an Angel. He did not send the Quran to a Malik to walk in the streets and recite to the people. Because Allah sent the Quran for two reasons. One, Allah sent the Quran to the people as a guide for people for their lives. Entire life. And the second reason is Allah sent the Quran as a Hujjah, as an argument, as the evidence in your favor or against you. And that Hujjat is Muhammad . The Hujjat is the guidance of the human nature of the Messenger of Allah . And Allah told him, announced to the world and said, Say, I am a human being like you. In terms of his human nature, in terms of his humaneness, he is a human being like us. In terms of his status, he is unique. He is not like us. So when we say, we should be very careful with the language we use with respect to Rasulullah . Because both ways, there is a problem. And this is the trap that people fall into. On the one hand, people fall into the trap of saying, oh, he is a man like me. If you really actually believe that he is a man like me, then you are committing kufr. He is not like you. Believe me. He is the Nabi of Allah. He is the Rasul of Allah. He
The last days of the Prophetﷺ
Auto-generated transcript:Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah wa kafa wa salamun ala ibadihi allatheena astafa amma ba'd. My dear respected brothers, elders and sisters, inshallah I'd like to first of all give salam to every single one of you and welcome you here today. And inshallah today I'll be speaking about the final few days of the life of the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The exact month in which 1436 years ago the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam breathed his last. In the month of Rabiul Awl. On the 12th of Rabiul Awl to be precise. And today inshallah I'm going to just share the narrative of the final moments of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with you all. And you might ask yourself, we don't really speak about this. We've not heard this. But there's a reason behind it. Why is it that the ummah of the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will re-account the final moments of the Messenger? Number one, it softens the heart. Number two, things get very real. Life becomes real. That the greatest man to walk the face of this earth, is death. And number three, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in a hadith, he says, When any one of my ummah, in their lives, face any challenges, any difficulties, let them remember my difficulty. That will be the greatest difficulty the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will ever see. This difficulty will become small, in light of the difficulties that the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam faced. So it was the 10th year after Hijrah, that the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, certain changes began to happen in Madinah Munawwara. The first change, Ramadan of the 10th year after Hijrah arrives, the Rasool sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, it was his practice that every year in Ramadan, he would review the Quran that had been revealed on to that point, with Jibreel Ali sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. However, this year, in the 10th year after Hijrah, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, Inna hu aaradani al-AAam marratain This year, Jibreel reviews the Quran with me twice. The month of Ramadan continues. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, it was his practice to sit the final 10 nights of Ramadan in I'tikaf in the Masjid. The 10th year after Hijrah, something happens. Ramadan is the month of Ramadan. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is there, and the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sits I'tikaf for 20 nights. After Ramadan, the month after Ramadan, anyone? Shawwal alhamdulillah. Shawwal and then? Dhikaa'dah. Dhikaa'dah and then? Bilhijjah. So Ramadan finishes and the months of Hajj begin. The Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam announces to the Arabian Peninsula, that he is about to perform the Hajj. The Hajj that today we know as Hajj. The Hajjatul Wiba. The farewell Hajj. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is going towards Makkah and a hundred thousand people gather to assist and accompany the Mesliha sallallahu alayhi wa sallam on this final Hajj. Jabir radiallahu anhi, in a Raeesah Hadith, he says, As far madda basari, as far as my eye could see, all I saw were men, women, on camels, on foot, on horses. And I looked towards my right and I see exactly the same. I looked to my left, exactly the same. I looked behind us and exactly the same. As far as my eye could see. And you know when you read the Seerah, you will realize a few years prior to this, this was inconceivable. It could not have happened. The Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam on his final Hajj, again, he's making subtle remarks. La'alli la'alqaakum ba'da aami hadha khudhu manasikakum. O my Sahaba, learn your deen from me. Maybe after this year you will never see me again. Hajj finishes, the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam returns to Madinatul Munawwarah. And the first month of the eleventh year after Hijrah enters, the month of? Now what is this? Muharram. It was around this time that the Hadith of Jibreel, we know the Hadith of Jibreel, where Jibreel is the one who is the most powerful, the most powerful, the most powerful, Jibreel alayhi salatu wasalam arrives in Madinatul Munawwarah, and he summarizes our entire deen in one sitting by questioning the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam occurs. by questioning the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam occurs. It was early this, in the eleventh year after Hijrah. It was early this, in the eleventh year after Hijrah. After that we go to the Hadith of Abu Muwayhibah radiallahu aami. He says, one night, in the month of Safar, ba'athani Rasool Allahi fi jaw fin layl. It was the darkness of the night, the Rasool of Allah sends for me, and he said, O tell, go and tell Abu Muwayhibah that he is the Messenger of Allah. that he is the Messenger of Allah. And you know when I read this, And you know when I read this, we look at this and we think, SubhanAllah, the Messenger is calling from one of his Ummatis in the dead of the
Lessons from Hatim Al Asamm – 6
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. Peace be upon him and upon his family. Faham Abadu. My brothers and sisters, we are looking at the hikayat and the advice of Hatim al-Assam. Arhatul Ali. And there are totally eight of them. We finished five. Today is the sixth. He said, I have seen that in this world, everyone has at least one enemy. I have seen that in this world, everyone has at least one enemy. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran, إِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّ فَاتَّخِذُوهُ عَدُوَّةً إِنَّمَا يَدْعُو هِزْبَهُ لِيَكُونُ مِّنْ أَسْحَابِ السَّعِيرِ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, which means, surely, shaitan is an enemy to you. So take him as an enemy. Treat him as an enemy. Shaitan is your enemy. So treat him as an enemy. He only invites his followers to become inmates of hellfire, of the blaze. So Hatim al-Assam, rahmatullah, he says, So I have taken shaitan to be my enemy. And I always try to keep away from him. Therefore, I have no enemy besides or other than shaitan. I remember myself when you, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, told us about shaitan. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ فِي السِّلْمِ كَافَّةً وَلَا تَطْبِعُواْ خُطْوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ إِنَّهُ لَكُمْ عَدُومٌ بِينٌ Allah said, Do you believe? Enter into Islam fully, completely, not partially, not selectively, fully and completely. And do not follow the footsteps of shaitan. Verily, he is an open enemy. When we look at this ayat, first of all, the ayat which I recited before, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is warning us and telling us clearly, your enemy is shaitan. So what must you do with the enemy? Treat him like an enemy. Don't treat him like a friend. Don't treat him like, he's okay, I will ignore. No. What do you do with the enemy? You fight the enemy. So Allah is saying, actively fight the shaitan. Actively fight the shaitan. And the other ayat of Surah al-Baqarah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying, don't follow the footsteps of shaitan. Which means shaitan is not there. He's not catching you and dragging you. He went away. Only the mark of his passing is there. Allah says, don't follow this mark. Right? If you remember the ayat that Sheikh recited in the first rakat, which refers to the ayat concerning the Battle of Badr, where first shaitan tells the Quraysh, don't worry, he says, I am your neighbor, I am your friend. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, then when he saw the forces that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent, when he saw the malaika, he says, he said, I am free from you. I am gone. So the friendship of shaitan is a very dicey thing. First of all, it leads you only into, one place which is the hellfire. And that is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, the shaitan will say on the day of judgment, that Allah told you to do something and I told you to do something. You chose to follow me. You made the choice to follow me. He says, don't send lanat on me, send lanat on yourself. Don't curse me, curse yourself. Because you chose the path. I was gone, only my footsteps were there. You made the choice. You knew these are the footsteps of shaitan. You know it is haram. Still you do it. So you can't blame shaitan. You can't say, oh shaitan made me. No, shaitan did not make you. Shaitan did not make you do it. Shaitan did what shaitan does. He was tempting. And this is what shaitan will tell us. That's the reason why we must read the Quran, understand the Quran, study the Quran and read. Because shaitan, Allah swt told us everything that shaitan will tell us. We have two forces to fight. One is shaitan, one is our nafs. Our own desires. Now there is a way of distinguishing, differentiating between what comes from the nafs and what comes from shaitan. So listen carefully. There is a way of differentiating what comes from shaitan and what comes from shaitan. And what comes from shaitan. And what comes from the nafs. Shaitan wants to make you disobey Allah. For shaitan, it does not matter how you disobey Allah. As long as you're disobeying Allah swt. Whether you are doing drugs, whether you're doing alcohol, whether you're doing pornography or fornication, whether you're not praying, whether you're not fasting, whether you're dealing in interest, buying, selling, haram. It makes no difference. Anything. As long as you are disobeying, Allah, shaitan is happy. So shaitan will tempt you in many different ways. For the pious people, for the ulama, for the righteous people, shaitan has ways of trapping them. In arrogance, he makes them feel, Oh, I'm so pious. I'm such a big sheikh. I know
Attitude influences action
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, attitudes influence behavior and behavior influences results. Attitudes drives behavior and behavior drives results. I heard an announcement being made about a Sira lecture conference. And the person making the announcement, obviously with good intention, was telling the people, if you are free, please attend it. If you are free, please attend the Sira lecture. Now, my question to myself and you is, supposing instead of the Sira lecture, you are announcing, say there is an open enrollment happening for Microsoft or for Tesla. Open enrollment. Meaning? Just go with your CV, get a job. Will you tell people, if you are free, go there? Supposing you are giving people health advice. Will you say, if you are free, go for a walk? If you are free, go to the gym for a little while. If you are free, eat dinner. Most of us, if we do not eat food for one full week, nothing will happen to us. You won't even feel hungry. Forget about weakness. Right? Is this wise? The other day, some of the neurotransmitters. What are they? Only things is different. Nothing will make you happy. And it is true that unspoken words do require deeper thought. When you talk about convenient things, we think of everything is윤 we believe everybody has Consort. We listen to the personality of God. Nobody has Yoshi's. Somebody has Srio. Someone does apaquatini of opium. Nobody has Dexam ответ. Imam don't do that. Forschees say that sometimes bonuses are the only thing responsible for their problems. Three days fast, fourth day, I wasn't even hungry, I just thought to myself, I am supposed to spend 72 hours, now it's more than that. On the fourth day, I just realized that I had not eaten. I was drinking only water. So if somebody says, if you are free, have dinner, what would you say? But when it comes to the seerah of Rasulullah , we say, if you are free, attend it. Think about this, what is the life of Muhammad worth to us? What is the value of that? I'm not talking about singing an acheed and so on, and saying, oh, mashaAllah, mashaAllah. No, no, no, serious, get serious. Really, what is the value of the life of Rasulullah and his family? Why should it have value? Because Allah sent us into this world, and Allah said, if you live in this world, in a way that makes me happy, that we get the rida of Allah, Allah will give us Jannah forever. We live in this world for a few years, that few years will get us Jannah forever. Condition that life must be in a way which pleases Allah. That's the first thing. And Allah did not leave this random to say, okay, you know, guess, figure out your, no, Allah sent us a model. Allah sent us a living model. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caused this living model and all the details of that to be preserved. Allah created a whole generation of people who preserved everything. How Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, what he ate, what he drank, what he liked, what he did not like, what he, how he spoke, what he spoke, including, for example, I always give this example. I said, you know, think about whoever you love the most, right, in this life, whoever you love the most. And then I will ask you, describe for me the sole of the feet, this bottom of the feet, of this person you love the most. I can guarantee you. You love the most. I can guarantee you. You do not, you do not know. But for Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we know. If I ask you, this person you love so much, how do they clip their nails? Which finger first? Which next? Now, if they are doing it according to the sunnah, you will know. But other than that, you will not know. With Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we know. So, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caused his life to be. Preserved in such minute detail. Why? Because this is an example for us to follow. Now, how will you learn that? By going to a seerah lecture, if you are free? Okay. So, you go if you are free. So, let me tell you now. You don't go because you are not free. So, what else were you doing? Right? You are not free for some reason, right? So, what is that reason? You are not free because you are not free for some reason. I am not free because I was doing brain surgery in the hospital on somebody. I was not free because I was doing open heart surgery and transplanting somebody's heart. I was not free because I was in the Kaaba making tawaf. But I have a jinn which takes me from here to Makkah and brings me back. I am not free because... You are not free doing what? You are not free because you are watching some show. You are not free because you are not doing anything. You are not free because you are... You know? Allah knows best. Point I am making is if you are not free for some tremendous reason like that, Allah, okay, we understand. But you are not free, why? You are not free to learn something which is beneficial for you for the Akhirah, which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala took the trouble t
[Urdu] توکل کیا ہے
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family and his family. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all. So, Allah said that when a person is sincere, we make his problems easy. We make the problems of his life easy. We open the gap in his life. We remove all his problems. We fight his enemies. We protect his enemies. Allah says that it is our responsibility. We do it. Allah does it. Allah removes him from his problems. Allah makes his life easy. And then Allah said, وَيَرْزُقُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ And He provides us with everything that is in human needs and desires. Everything. Whether it is food or food. Whether it is knowledge. Whether it is health in sickness. Whether it is his family or his family problems and problems. Whether it is his relationships with people. Whether it is his success in the world. All these things that are in human's control and he wants to be in human control. Allah says that all these things are included in risk. Now see how beautiful this verse is. Allah says that we will not only give this, but we will give it from such a place that he cannot even expect. Now see how much love this is. And how much glory Allah has. If a person, for example, if you have the wealth or fame to come from a place, or whatever you want, health or whatever, if you get it from such a place, if you get it from such a place, where he had expected that, okay, this is my brother, my brother will help me. And your brother helped you. Your brother helped you. He helped you. So, brother's work was done by brother. So, brother, Alhamdulillah. So, this is not such a place that you did not expect. So, if you get help from such a way, and all our needs are fulfilled, all our desires are fulfilled, then also, human can be fulfilled. No one will object to it. No, Allah says, Allah, no, Allah's intention is that not only we fulfill your desires, but because you want us, we show you our nature too. Right? You think, what is this? What is this? Because for 24 hours, you keep looking at our glory. And you remember us by looking at our glory. So, look at more. Look at more. Right? What is before you, you remember us by looking at it. Now, we will show you such a thing that you did not even expect. The closed door will open. Where you saw the wall, the door will open there. The enemy will come to your shelter The enemy will come to your shelter. The enemy will come to your shelter. Unexpected. Where there was no expectation at all, from there we will show you. The need will be fulfilled. Not only your desire will be fulfilled, but we will fulfill it in such a way that you will see our glory more. Now, if this is not the case, then what is it? Tell me. So, Allah says this is the thing. And then Allah says, Umayyat wa qar Allahi fa'afazmoo Now, when a person opens up to this, then Allah says, yes, it is enough for him. Now, think, there is no need for any world. This is Allah's saying, we are enough. What is this world? What is this world's daily bread? What is this world's great children? What is this world's great thing? In this world, you want to be famous. This is a foolish way, but I say, if a person wants, then this is nothing. In fact, in the end, Allah says, we are enough for him. Allah did not say, enough in the world. What is enough? That is enough. Enough for the world. Enough for the end. Enough for the end. Now, think, that a person who comes to this stage, and then he raises his hand and asks, Allah does it in such a way that there is no need to ask for it. He just asks that Allah be with you. Because he understood, what is the real secret? Secret is not even to ask for it. Meaning, it is permissible to ask. If a person asks for it for his needs, then who will ask for it? We are poor. Allah says, You are poor, but Allah is rich. Allah says, you are all poor. We are rich. But he is rich, he can ask. But this person reaches a certain level, Allah says, whereas the believer, who does not understand, he says, I will ask for only one thing, that Allah be with me. That's it. Because when Allah is pleased, now the famous Hadith, you have all heard it, that when Allah is pleased with a person, when Allah starts to want a person, then Allah announces, calls Jibreel and Allah says, Allah says, Jibreel, we are pleased with this person. We want this person. And Jibreel announces this thing in the heavens, and all the angels
Itaat wa Ittiba
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. We seek refuge with Allah and His Messenger. After that, Allah said, Indeed, Allah and His angels send their blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe, send your blessings upon him and give him your blessings. O Allah, send your blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad, as you sent your blessings upon Ibrahim and upon the family of Ibrahim. You are the Most Glorious, the Most Glorious. O Allah, bless Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad, as you blessed Abraham and upon the family of Abraham. May you be blessed with a happy life. My dear respected elders, brothers, sisters, I want you to remember two words. The first word is itaat. Itaat. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned this word many, many times in the Quran related to Himself, Jalla Jalaluhu, as well as His Habib, His Habib, His Nabi, His Messenger, Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. For example, in Surah Al-Hazab, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned in the ayah which you hear almost every Jum'ah, وَمَن يُطِي اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ فَقَدْ فَازَ فَوْزًا عَظِيمًا The one who obeys Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and His Rasul alayhi salatu wa salam, only that person is the one who will attain and reach and get ultimate success. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, وَمَن يُطِي الرَّسُولَ فَقَدْ أَطَى اللَّهُ The one who has obeyed the Rasul alayhi salatu wa salam has obeyed Allah. And so on. Many places in the Quran, this word إِتَعَت is mentioned with respect to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So obedience to the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is وَاجِب فَرْض لَازِم on every Muslim. And without that, nobody can hope to succeed either in this life or in the year after. But there is another word which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala used in the Quran with regard to Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, قُلْ إِن كُنْتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِهِ يُهْبِبْكُمُ اللَّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ وَفُرْرَهِيمُ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, which means, say to them, Ya Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, say to those who claim to love Allah, Allah, say to those who claim to love Allah, فَاتَّبِعُونِهِ Allah did not say, أَتِعُونِهِ He didn't say, tell them to obey, you know. فَاتَّبِعُونِهِ Tell them to make, tell them to make your itibah. Tell them, follow me, emulate me, imitate me, act like me, talk like me, walk like me, look like me. Emulate me. فَاتَّبِعُونِهِ And what do you do? And what will happen? يُحْبِبُمُ وَاللَّهُ Allah will love you. Allah will love you. And if Allah loves you, what is the first boundary condition? يَخْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ غَفُرُ الرَّهِيمُ All your sins will be forgiven. Allah is the most forgiven and the most merciful. So two words. One is itaat, obedience. The reward for obedience is Jannah. The other one is ittiba. Emulation. And the reward for emulation is Allah Himself. It is the love of Allah. Allah loving me. Now, what is the difference? Why this difference in these two words? Why is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala using these two words? Itaat or obedience is obviously it is necessary it is critical. Without obedience you cannot have any system you cannot have any nizam you cannot have any administration. No matter what it is. There has to be a chain of command. There has to be somebody who gives an instruction or an order. There has to be somebody who obeys. But obedience is something which is dependent on obedience. On what? For you to obey me what must happen? Rayyan? Just to respect you. You respect me? No. Even if you don't respect me even if you hate me that's a good answer. Even if you don't respect me even if you absolutely detest me I can make you obey. Yes or no? Aha. You bet. You bet. You will hate every minute of it but you will obey. Because the consequence of not obeying will be so painful. How do you think people who live in most of the world? Most obedience in the world is done by compulsion. Right? How many of you would drive who would gladly drive through a red light if there wasn't the camera on that on that pole? There is no one who would drive you that would drive you to a red light. So what is required for obedience? Anybody? Huh? Submission. No? Submission, no. Reward. Reward, no. Huh? Patience. No, no, no. Man. Fear. Punishment. No. Huh? Punishment if you don't know. Establish the rules. Establish the rules. No. Tawakkul, no. Very simple. Respond to that. Raiya, you're not obeying me. What do you want me to do? Shake my hand. No, no. What do you want me to do? Listen, I'm being... Don't get sidetracked by that. What do you want me to do? So what is required for obedience? Instruction. Wait, wait, wait. SubhanAllah, you haven't even eaten food yet. Instruction. Obedience is impossible in the absence of an order. Obedienc
Lessons from Hatim Al Asamm – 5
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, 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 his family, and upon the most obedient of the most obedient. From Abadu, my brothers and sisters, we are looking at the Hikaiyat, the advice of Hatim al-Aswari, may Allah be pleased with him, and the eight pieces of advice that he gave to the people. And we spoke about four of them, and this is the fifth. And the fifth one is, he said that I noticed that people find fault with each other, they insult each other and so on due to jealousy. And then I read in the Quran, أَهُمْ يَقْسِمُونَ رَحْمَةَ رَبِّكَ نَهْنُ قَسَمْنَا بَيْنَهُمْ عِيشَتَهُمْ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَرَفْعَانَا بَعْدَهُمْ فَوْقَ بْعَادٍ دَرَجَاتٍ لِيَتَّخِذَ بَعْدُهُمْ بَعْدًا سُخْرِيًّا وَرَحْمَةُ رَبِّكَ خَيْرٌ مِّمَّا يَجْمَعُونَ Where Allah said, which means, is it they who distribute your Rabb's mercy? Is it they who distribute your Rabb's mercy? We alone have distributed their very livelihood, among them in this worldly life, and raised some of them in rank above others, so that some may employ others in service. But your Rabb's mercy is far better than whatever wealth they amass. Surah Al-Zukhruf And so, Hathim al-Assal said, therefore, I stop myself from jealousy, and I don't concern myself with others. I know for certain that the distribution of wealth is entirely in the hands of Allah . I therefore don't hate them. I don't hate somebody because a person's effort has little to do with his being rich or poor. It has been decided by Allah. Hence, I do not feel angry with anyone. I remind myself anew that Allah in the hadith of Ibn Abbas , Rasulullah ended by saying, The pens have been lifted, and the ink is dry. Now, on the other hand, you might say, Well, if you say this, then why should we work? Why should we do anything? Right? The key thing to understand is, there are two aspects of risk. One is the amount, the quantity. And the second one is the place where you earn it from. If you want to call it the quality of it. So, where do you get it from? Allah kept the quantity with Himself. So, total amount that is written for you, is written for you. This will not change. But Allah gave it into our control, where we want to earn it from. Halal source or haram source. The total amount of life, for example, number of years, is decided by Allah . Allah said, You cannot delay it, and you cannot bring it forward. But the quality of that life, this Allah has kept in our control. So, for example, at a physical level, if you take care of your body, you do not indulge in substance abuse, you exercise regularly, you eat sensibly, and so on, then your body will, you live the same number of years, but the quality of life will be good until the end. We ask Allah for this. On the other hand, you do the opposite of that. Smoking, drinking, substance abuse, drugs, you name it. Even eating, drinking, you know, without any control, no exercise. You still live the same number of years, but you are miserable throughout. All kinds of ailments, especially in the old, towards when you get older, geriatric life quality is almost total. Almost totally because of lifestyle choices. It's not disease. It's lifestyle choices. Because you won't move, then you lose strength in your legs. You end up in a wheelchair. Not because there is anything wrong with you physically. It's not a disease. You just lost muscle because you didn't do anything, any work. Muscle gone, you can't stand up. You need help to stand up. You need help to climb steps. And so on and so forth. So, so also with regard to wealth, Allah has written what He has written. But how do we take it? Do you want to take it from a halal source or a haram source? Allah has given this in your control. You will still get the same amount. But if you take it from a halal source, Allah will give you this with barakah. Allah will give you this with reward. Allah will reward you for that effort. But if you take the same thing from the haram source, you still get the same amount. Shaitan spins this story. That unless you borrow an interest, unless you buy this, unless you sell this, nothing of that sort. What Allah has written is Allah's written. But you take things in a haram way, then along that will come disease, along that will come pain, along that will come suffering, along that will come all kinds of stuff. Plus at the end of that, when you die with haram wealth, then there is answer in my heart. So, you have to take it. You have to take it. Ahh! The qibitah of being paycheek does not only arise a person's! The qibitah of being paycheek does not only arise a person's! If you take any tawda from a person, from now on you will always value the tawda. You will
Rights of Rasoolullahﷺ – 1
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. We praise Him, we ask for His help, and we ask for His forgiveness. And we believe in Him and we trust in Him. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our hopes. Whom Allah guides, there is no one who is misguided from Him. And whosoever He guides, there is no one who is misguided from Him. And we bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and that there is no partner for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger. May Allah send him the truth, the good news and the warning. May Allah send him the truth, the good news and the warning. May Allah send him the truth, the good news and the warning. Parents have rights on us, children, employers, employees, the nation you live in, right? The environment, everything has rights on us. But the most important, the most critical rights on us are two, and that is the rights of Allah and the rights of Rasulullah. And the rights of Rasulullah. It is the right of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that only the right of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that only He should be worshipped without partners because only He is worthy of worship and He has no partners. This is the right of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And if anyone does not fulfill that right, then this person will answer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for not fulfilling that right. The rights of Rasulullah are seven. One is adab wa ihtiram. An attitude of utmost respect. Respect and honour. Two is itaat. To obey Him without question. Three is ittiba. To follow Him and emulate Him in every way. Four is muhabbah. To love Him above all things and everyone else. Five is the right of His Ahlul Bayt. Six is his family. To honour and respect. Them when we honour and respect the Rasul . Six is nusrat. To help him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in every way which means to help his deen and the propagation of his message. And number seven is to accept his judgement in all matters without any resistance either verbal or even in the heart. And inshallah this Jumu'ah, and inshallah this Jumu'ah, and next Jumu'ah, we will look at these rights. Allah called the coming of the Messenger even the sending of the Rasul Allah called it his great favour on the Muslims. Allah said لَقَدْ مَنَّ اللَّهُ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذْ بَعْسَ فِيهِمْ رَسُولًا مِّنْ أَنفُسِهِمْ يَتْلُوْا عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتِهِ وَيُزَكِّهِمْ وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةِ وَإِن كَانُوا مِنْ قَوْلُهُ لَفِي طَلَالٍ مُبِينٍ Allah said which means indeed Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala conferred a great favour on the believers when He sent among them a Messenger Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم from among themselves reciting unto them his ayat which is the Quran and purifying them which is تَسْكِيَةُ النَّفْسِ وَتَرْبِيَةُ الْأَخْلَاكِ internal and external purification and instructing them in the Kitab, the Quran and Al-Hikmah which is his Sunnah while before that they had been in clear and manifest error Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala drew our attention to the Rasul ﷺ and said وَعَلَمُوا أَنَّا فِيكُمْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ لَوْ يُطِعُكُمْ فِي كَثِيرٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْرِ لَعَنِيْتُمْ وَلَكِنَّ اللَّهَ حَبَّبَ إِلَيْكُمُ الْإِيمَانَ وَزَّلْهُمْ مِنْهُمْ وَزَيَّنَهُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ وَكَرَّهَ إِلَيْكُمُ الْكُفْرَ وَالْفُسُوقَ وَالإِسْيَانَ أُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْرَاشِدُونَ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said and know take note of this fact understand and know that among you there is the Messenger of Allah if he were to obey you meaning that if he cared for your opinions and desires and if he spoke in a way with the intention that he should please you and he should attract you and if he spoke the truth you will run away sound familiar right all of this is the pressure people put on Imams don't speak the truth speak in a way which will attract people agree with people if they do haram keep quiet don't say it is haram right people do this all the time either directly or indirectly this is the pressure on the Imams Allah is saying the opposite Allah is saying if the Rasool fera listened to all of this and know that among you there is the Messenger of Allah if he were to obey you follow your opinions and desires in much of the matter you would be in trouble you would surely be in trouble not that... not the Nabi Allah is saying you would be in trouble but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has endeared the faith to you and has beautified it in you and all of this in a way that is most important to God and to all human beings your hearts and has made disbelief and wickedness and disobedience to allah and messenger hateful to you these are the rightfully guided ones people who obey allah and his rasool not people who obey their own desires and then demand that whoever is in is in the authority or office must confirm to what they like as i mentioned earlier many times allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created an entire ge
Remember death
Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, it is customary that when we bury somebody, we demand ourselves of some important matters. This is not in the way of a eulogy. It is more in the way of a reminder to ourselves. I remind myself and you that every one of us, there are two dates in our lives. One is the day on which we were born. And the other one is the day on which we die. If you look at a gravestone, if you go to any cemetery, on the gravestone, these two dates are written. So there is a date which is written, say 20th of October, 19th. And then there is a dash. And then the date on which the person died, that date is written. Our entire life is that dash. Every single thing, every breath you take, every word you speak, every action you did, every action you wanted to do but did not do, every decision you made, whether it was good or bad, every single thing is in that dash. Every single one of us, no matter our ethnicity, no matter our religion, no matter our nationality, no matter our color, no matter our race, no matter our race, comes into this world without... without anything material. And every single one of us, no matter all of those things, also lives this world without anything material. But what goes with us is our actions, our actions, our decisions, the reasons we decide, what we decided, what we decided, who we helped, who we harmed, who we pleased, who we displeased, and so on. These go with us. Rasulullah , the Prophet Muhammad , peace and blessings be upon him, he reminded us two very important things. In one hadith he said that, he said that, he said that the deeds, all the deeds, everything of a person come to an end when he dies, or she dies. He said except three. Everything comes to an end when the person dies except three. One is Sadakha Jariya, ongoing charity, any act of charity that the person did, which continues after them. Whatever that may be, any good action which continues after them. Sadakha Jariya. And the second one is, a child who prays for them. A child who makes dua for them. And the third one is, any beneficial knowledge that they had, which they communicated and taught other people. These three, everything else. Doesn't go with them. All actions come to an end. In another hadith, in another, one of his beautiful teachings he said, that when a person dies, his or her material wealth stays in the house. Figuratively speaking, stays in the house, stays in the bank account, stays in the stock exchange, whatever. So this is one, one, if you want to call it a set of friends, for example. They all stay here. All my Ferraris and all my Learjets and all the Gulfstreams and you name it. Stays here. Stays right there in the house, in the, in the, you know, whatever safe. And there is another set of friends go with him to the cemetery. They take the, they push the body, they shroud, they take them to the cemetery. They put them in their grave. And they turn back. And that includes all of those who claim to love them more than they love themselves. I love my wife more than I love myself. I will give my life for, all of this is fine. We don't deny that. But no matter how much you love your wife, no matter how much you love your father, your son, your wife, they go into their grave, they will call them up. And they go home. And that person, whoever it is, will stand before his crate, will stand before Abu al-Adamey, would stand before the Creator, the maintainer, the sustainer, the protector, the provider, everything which exists, alone. You have won alone. You will leave this world alone. And it won't matter at that time when we stand before Allah. Who in this world we pleased, who in this world said this about us, who in this world said this about me or that about me, who in this world gave me this position, that position. Nothing will matter. The only thing which will matter is, is my Rabb, is my Creator, is Allah pleased with me or not? That's it. That is it. Every President, every Prime Minister, every King, every Queen, every everything, whatever, will stand before Allah alone. And minus all these titles, minus everything. And the only thing which will matter is, is my Rabb, is my Lord, pleased with me or not? And therefore I remind myself and you, every Janaza that we pray, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, how many we pray in this process? How many we pray? And may Allah have mercy on us. There are some people I see only when there is a Janaza. Whole year you never see only when there is a Janaza, that person comes up. And whether you like it or not, no matter how much you run from the Masjid, no matter if you never came to the Masjid, as long as your name was Muslim, as long as you identified as a Muslim, as long as somebody identified you as a Muslim, when you die, somebody will bring you here. Or go to the Masjid. So it makes eminent sense that well this is the incontrovertible truth. Whether anyone agrees or not, this is the