GBK… What is his legacy?

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 messengers 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 and companions. I have this news this morning of the passing away of my very dear friend, Zoya Siddin Babu Khan Sahib. Gaiyaz Bhai and I go back 25 years. I first met him when I returned from America in 2000, and now 25 years later he passed away. And as I was, I got the news just as I was about to leave, very early in the morning for my walk, and as I walked, I was thinking to myself, what are the memories that she left behind? Because we are remembered by the memories we leave behind, and that's why when we live in this world, and when we act, and we speak, and we do things, and we invest, and we build, or we destroy, and we do the opposite of all that, we must ask ourselves one question, which is, what do I need? What do I want to be remembered for? What do I want to be remembered for? And when I think of Gaiyaz Bhai, the first thought that came to mind was a conversation that I had with him, maybe 20 plus years ago, when we were traveling somewhere on one of the Zakat trusts, this was before the formation of FEED, trips to Zakat trust trips, to distribute scholarships. And I asked him, I said, why did you start doing this work? What led to it? He said to me something which is very simple, but from that day to this, I asked myself, we go through the same thing, how come we don't seem to, see things the way he saw them? He said to me, I realized that one day I will die. Now, the question I asked myself, and the question I have asked those who listen to me many, many times before, I said, go stand in front of a mirror, look at your face in the mirror, and say to yourself, one day I will die. And I said, I will die. And if you can't say that to yourself, and you look at yourself in the mirror, and you say that I will never die, then you are a case for a psychiatric hospital. But anyone who has any level of sense, any level of intelligence, you will look at yourself in the mirror and say, one day I will die. Now, the question is, what will be your legacy? What will you leave behind? What will you leave behind when you die? And that's what it boils down to, because what you leave behind when you die will either be something that you will be questioned for, and if Allah does not forgive you, you will be punished for, or it will be something which Allah has kept with him, and it has grown with him, and he will then present it to you. With the growth, and with the rewards. And this is the choice that is there with every single person of ours, every single one, every single one of us, every single person. So, what did Ghazaluddin Babu Khan leave behind? I think there is one memory again in this context, which stands out in my mind, as a memory that describes his legacy. And that memory is that he had set up this, you know, he and Bashir bhai, his elder brother Bashir bhai, again, a remarkable human being. He was again a very dear friend of mine, and I was honored to be part of a group that he would invite every month to have lunch in Nizam Club. And it was a diverse group of people. People with different schools of thought, different beliefs, different political positions, and so on. And he deliberately invited all of us so that we could have conversations. And we would talk about subjects which were, on which we obviously didn't always agree upon, but it was a very civil, very, lovely and very rewarding conversation. And also some excellent food. And he did this, you know, almost every month. And I was one of the people in that group, and I'm honored that he invited me. He was again a remarkable human being, because he was a politician with principles. It seems like something out of space at this time in this world, where we are looking at people where politicians and principles are two opposite extremes. But he was a man, a politician with principles, who quite literally put his political career on the line for what he believed in. May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la grant him janatul firdaus without hesab. And his brother, Ghazal Babu Khan, he was the same. He's not a politician, but a man of enormous principles. So to come back to the story that for me is a marker in my memory, of Ghazbhai, which illustrates his legacy. We were in, I think if I'm not mistaken, we were in December, and we were distributing the scholarships. Now Ghazbhai had set up a whole system whereby they were, when somebody made an application for a scholarship, then one of the people of Zakat Trust would go and investigate the case of that person, to make sure that this person was not a person who was not a Muslim. To make sure that this application was genuine, that this person was genuinely a person in need, and it wasn't somebody scamming, and so on. And in that process, many times, these people would discover things that they would never have discovered if this investigation hadn't been done. So, and when the person who was the applicant, when this person would come, usually the, the, the investigating officer would be also around in the same place. So we were all sitting there distributing these scholarships. And in front of me came and sat down a lady and her daughter, obviously very poor by looking at them. This lady, what struck me was that her face, both her cheeks, above her cheekbones, on the cheekbones, which means just under her eyes, was scorched black. Scorched black. It wasn't just sunburn. It was, to me it looked like maybe skin cancer or something. Scorched, literally scorched black. Now obviously, you know, she's a woman. I didn't want to ask her something like that, about what happened to her face, but I just kept quiet. Her daughter wanted to be a schoolteacher. So she needed money to be, to do the B.Ed course, Bachelor of Education. And when I looked at the amount that this young lady, young lady needed, it struck me suddenly that this amount was less than the price of my shoes, the shoes that I was wearing. And I wasn't wearing some, you know, Louis Vuitton shoes or something like that. It was, it was, they were decent shoes, but I wasn't wearing some freaky branded shoes. Yet the cost of getting a B.Ed degree was less than the price of my shoes. And this struck me in my, in my head and my heart. Anyway, we, this thing finished, you know, we gave her the check. And when she left, I asked the investigating officer, I said, what is wrong with that woman? You know, if you see her face, it's like scorched. So what's the story? He told me, sir, that woman is a beggar. She begs on the streets. I was absolutely horrified. I said, what's the story behind that? He said, well, she got abandoned by her husband. She has this one girl. She has obviously no skills and so on. So she is a beggar. She doesn't get, doesn't find a job anywhere, can't get work anywhere. She's a little beggar. And he said, they live in a hut, literally HUT hut, which is a palace built out of, of sticks and straw and sheets of plastic. And has no door, has no door frame, has no, you know, zero security. But I suppose if you're a beggar, there's not much to steal. Anyway, yet, she's a beggar. She's a beggar. She's a beggar. She's a beggar. Yet, she did not, she gave her daughter an education. She sent her to the government school, which is free. The quality of education is obviously sucks, but the school is free. And it proves to me the fact that if somebody wants to study, then you don't necessarily need to go to a fancy school to get a, get at least a basic education. So she went to that school. She got the education. She passed the exam, entrance exam. For the B.Ed course. And now she's here to get a scholarship. The woman, her mother did not use her daughter to earn money like many people in that, in that position would have done. This really struck me. I said, Samana, look at this. And here is the money she wants is less than the price of a pair of shoes. Now, I'm thinking to myself, now when I hear the news of her husband passing away, the thought that came into my mind is that, Ghaazbah, above all, was a brilliant businessman. He was a very, very astute businessman. And I say that in the light of the ayat of Allah where He said, Ya ayyuhal ladzeena amanu, hal adullukum alaa tijaratin tunjeeekum min azaabeen aleeem Allah said, O you who believe, shall I show you a tijarah, shall I show you a business, shall I show you a trade which will free you from the sin of the world? will free you from the hellfire, which will save you from a grievous punishment. And that was the tijarat of Ghaisuddin Babu Khan. The tijarat which, the yield of that, his investment was in people like this, like the one I described. And the yield of that investment, the return on that investment was the fact that today when he has passed away, there will be not ones and twos, not tens and twenties, not hundreds and two hundreds, but thousands of such people who will raise their hands and they will say, oh Allah, in this world, when we were in need, he took care of us by your will. Now he is in need. So take care of him. Take care of him. And ask Allah to take care of my friend Ghaisuddin Babu Khan in keeping with his majesty and grace. And I say, oh Allah, show him the yield on his investment. Show him the return on his investment. Because your Nabi said that when somebody gives charity, you receive it in your hand. And when you give charity, you receive it in your hand. And you grow it and you nurture it like they nurture a young camel until it grows to its majestic proportions of maturity. And I say, oh Allah, he believed in you. He loved you. He trusted you. He had complete faith in you. He relied on you.