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 names. But, you know, I have a list of names. I know the names. I acknowledge those names. I remember those names. I remember the people. I remember all the beautiful experiences I had with them. So, a bittersweet experience in that sense of Friday. Then after the Salah, I decided to go to the cemetery where my dear friend Adnan is buried. Now, in that cemetery also, several other women were buried. Very close and dear friends of mine are also buried. So, I went there and I am walking around in the cemetery and I, you know, I made dua at their graves, Alhamdulillah, many of them. And what struck me was, I'm coming from West Springfield. I'm coming from the United States. And the cemetery is there. The Christian cemeteries, we see the Jewish cemeteries, we see also the Muslim cemeteries. By and large, they're very neat and clean. The Christian cemeteries especially, they have beautiful lawns which are mowed regularly and the flowers planted there. Everything looks very orderly and, you know. And, frankly, deceptive. It doesn't reflect the nature of what the place is. Here, I'm not for the minute applauding any lack of maintenance, if there is. But by and large, our cemeteries tend to be left to themselves. No, no. The church is one of the better ones, so it's neat and clean and maintained. But at the same time, there are some weeds growing and there are some… There is a lot of grass growing and there are some… Some people have planted a small flowering plant on the grave of their loved one. And, you know, those plants are not taken care of particularly well, so they look sick and so forth. And the whole place has a very stark… And, what shall I say? There's sort of a rough air to it. Now, in this particular place, since I know a lot of the people who are buried there, the thought that struck me was that every single person who was buried there, who I knew… I'm not talking about who else is there, but, you know, it's a small cemetery and the sort of people who are buried there and so on. And, as I said, I know a lot of them. Every single one of them was a wealthy person. Some of them were wealthier than others. All of them were wealthy. And, in India, being wealthy and especially wealthy at that level automatically comes with a certain lifestyle, with certain conveniences, with certain luxuries, which are affordable here, which even people with actual wealth, much higher wealth than these people are not able to afford in the West. They might drive a fancy car, but they are driving the car themselves. They don't have a driver at their beck and call. They might live in a fancy house, but they are no servants. They take out their own garbage, they wash their own dishes, and so forth. But here, none of that happens. Here, the lifestyle is far more comfortable and luxurious for a much lower cost. So here, I'm looking at this cemetery, looking at the graves of people who were from wealthy to very wealthy. And what do I see? I see the graves are all the same. They have the same weeds growing on them. They are the same plain earth. They are, you know, very beautiful. They are very beautiful. You can call it what you want. I mean, the graves are not beautiful. They are graves. And the thought that struck me was that this is reality. This is actual reality. No matter which kind of house you live in, no matter what kind of car or cars you have, no matter what, you know, position and authority Allah may have granted you in this life, no matter your children, family, you know, political power, whatever. A day will come and a time will come when you breathe your last. I breathe my last. And then we do the rituals. And then we are planted six feet under the earth to push up the grass. I mean, this is the ultimate reality for every single one of us. Ultimate reality for every single one of us. Now, the cemetery is the great leveler. It's the great leveler where the pauper, the beggar, the person who, the sa'il, the person who is to beg, ask, is buried next to the king or the equivalent of that. He's buried next to a millionaire. And it makes no difference even if you bury that king like we have in India. These magnificent mausoleums, worth in today's money millions and millions, designed by the most talented architects, built in the most beautiful styles, absolutely magnificent, beautiful, glorious buildings. Taj Mahal is the iconic peak of that. But what is it? It's a mausoleum. It has a grave. It has two graves in it. That's it. And all that wealth which you see of the monarch who built it is still visible outside on top of the earth. But below the earth is stark reality. And that was my first message to myself on Yom Kul Juma, on Friday. After the Salah, I went to the graveyard. And I remind myself and I'm reminding you that a day will come, no matter what, and no matter who you might be, that you and I will be in a hole in the ground. And the question to ask ourselves is, what is my preparation for that? What have I prepared to take with me? What is my preparation for that?