Ihsan – The Standard of Excellence

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahibu sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Fama baadu. My brothers and sisters, to continue and expand on the theme of what we have been talking about for the last couple of days, which is the standard of excellence, al-ihsan. See the beauty of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's explanations and his answers. He was called Jamil Galim. The person who was in his speech and in whatever he said, he was so perfect and so complete. He did not say, he didn't speak for a long period of time. What he had to say? He said it in a short, you know, short speech or maybe sometimes a sentence, which was a wealth of meaning. So when in Hadith Jibreel, when Jibreel alayhi salam asked him, what is al-ihsan? What is excellence? His reply was so beautiful. He said, ! To worship Allah as if you can see him. And if you cannot see him, know that he sees you. Now think about this, that yesterday as I was saying, the thing to do is when you stand on the Musallah, is to specifically say, O Allah, this salah is for you. This salah is for you. I am praying for you. Because Allah says, Allah says, Personal. Establish the salah for my dhikr. So when we stand on the Musallah, we say, O Allah, this salah is for you. This dhikr is for you. And therefore, Prophet Muhammad is saying, that pray as if you can see Allah. So when you are standing there and saying, O Allah, this salah is for you, it is as if you are seeing Allah. And then obviously when you do that with concentration, you will find that all thoughts and distractions disappear. And you get concentration and you are able to focus on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now that is the whole issue of Ihsan. Now, ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! This is to be extended and should be extended into every aspect of our lives. So we pray as if we can see Allah. We do business as if we can see Allah. We are with our families as if we can see Allah. We drive our car as if we can see Allah. Everything in life, right? Our transactions as if we can see Allah. Now if we do this as if we are seeing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and knowing that even though we don't see Allah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will make us see Allah. is seeing us if we work with this awareness in every aspect of our life believe me our life will become very beautiful because every action will be an action of ahsan no matter how small or big that action is it will be an action of ahsan if i am cleaning my room then i'm and if i'm doing it with this consciousness that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is seeing me as i am working real time allah is seeing me then imagine how beautifully that room will be cleaned right this thing has there are two major benefits that come from this awareness the awareness that i am in the presence of allah and again this is we not only have the dalil of rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam hadith we also have the dalil of the quran where allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said he said he is with you wherever you might be right he is with you wherever you might be so now having this awareness there are two major benefits the first benefit is that it gives you uh it's a shield against all sin if i am for example if somebody is you know i i obviously i don't smoke but if somebody who's smoking uh once he has this awareness that my rabbi is watching me how will he even ever light a cigarette right think about that he's going to light a cigarette he says subhanallah allah is watching me what do you do throw away the packet because this is something we do not do we do not do this we do not do this we do not do this we do not do this which is which is prohibited so why would i do that same thing i'm about to for example i'm about to uh you know bad talk somebody backbite somebody do some ghibah uh carry some tail namima cast aspersions on people uh you know insinuate people cast insinuations on people and so on any of this kind of stuff the before you even begin if you have this awareness subhanallah allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is watching me allah is allah is here allah is with me he listens to me he hears me then any chance of doing that evil action completely disappears so this is a shield and a protection from everything which is evil and the other big benefit is that it's a sense it it's it's a source of enormous confidence uh that you get because you say alhamdulillah i am with allah allah is with me so how can anything harm me how can anything how can any anything uh you know cause me any pain any suffering anything negative nothing whatever i'm doing i'm doing it for the sake of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and i'm doing it knowing that allah is with me so therefore i will be supported therefore i will be protected uh therefore i have this enormous confidence in in what i'm doing so the benefit of this is that our actions are that become actions of excellence we are doing things uh because allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is uh is watching us and it gives us an enormous uh it protects us from sin doing something wrong and gives us enormous confidence now the other thing is that for a muslim the work is an extension of worship so it's it's a question of hisan not only in salah but also in our careers and our chores and our work and our responsibilities and our work and our responsibilities and our responsibilities and our work and our responsibilities and work is an extension of worship a poorly done job is a poor reflection on one's faith you know this is a we should we should work in a way where you should say this job has to be somebody looking at the job should say that you know i'm sure the person who did this job was a muslim because muslims do this work i remember many years ago i had gone to south africa and one of the judges there he said to me that there was a when during the apartheid regime and remember remember these are the the regime the the government was of people apartheid regime is the um african and um of regime of the time uh where they had uh the entire government was based on um on the whole principle of uh of discrimination and white supremacy um these were very uh they were actually very strict christians uh these people who were who ran the government at the time uh but they're also very moral people in the sense of you know very high level of morality they didn't have gambling they didn't have uh all kinds of stuff which which has become current nowadays everywhere in the world so now this just tells me that there was a time when muslim witnesses did not they were not required to uh take an oath on the uh on the quran or or any uh you know holy book because they said muslims don't lie right so a muslim witness was not was not compelled or not expected to take any oath before he spoke the truth before he spoke because they said muslims don't lie the muslims always speak the truth so this is the this is the reflection of a person who is a muslim who is a person's uh uh work right uh reflection of of of uh hasan in a person's work so now what to do that how to how to do that is uh do everything uh you know structure your work have an intention for to do the work with excellence and then structure the work and do that work according to the structure right so make make this a make this a structure and then structure the work according to the structure right so make make this a make this a stay stay stay stay stay stay stay stay stay stay say that today I will do one task, no matter how small, with absolute perfection and with the intention of pleasing Allah SWT, right, to start with Salah itself and then anything else and say I will do this job only for the sake of Allah and only with the intention of pleasing Allah SWT, right, make this into a, you know, your aim for today, inshallah, and today is Friday, Juma, Alhamdulillah, so make this intention to say at least one job I will do today only and only to please Allah, do it in the best way possible, the most beautiful way possible and do it only for the sake of Allah SWT, right, bring, see the, what I say to myself and you and remind myself and you is that live life in a way where you are not, you are not, you are not, you are not, you are not, you are not, you are a source of goodness for everybody, the whole purpose of a Muslim's life must be to spread goodness all around, not to harm anyone in any way, whatsoever, no matter what, right, spread goodness all around, this is, this should be the purpose of a Muslim's life and Alhamdulillah if we do that, then believe me, not only will our whole life become an act of worship, but we will please Allah SWT and then we will, inshallah, when we meet Allah SWT we will have grounds to request Him and to beg Him for His mercy وَسَلَّى اللَّهُ حَلَى نَبِيِّ الْكَرِيمِ وَعَلَىٰ عَلَيْهِ وَسَحَبْ إِجْمَئِن بِرَحْمَةِكَ رَحُمَةً