Rain drop by drop

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu Wa Salamu Ala Ashrafil Anbiya wal Mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Alaihi Wasallam. Tasliman Katsiran Katsiran. Fammamadu. My brothers and sisters, we continue with our reminders on things that we should thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for. And we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to enable us to live a life of awareness and a life of thoughtfulness and not just, you know, randomly just live. Because to live is not merely to draw breath. Breathing is not living. Living is when it is done thoughtfully, consciously, and where we respond to what Allah has given us by thanking Him and by spreading goodness around us. Because if you think, if you think about that, a person who is in a coma is also alive. He's not dead. But you don't call that living. Because the person is in a coma. He can't, he doesn't know what's going on. He can't communicate. He can't do anything. But he's breathing. So if we, may Allah have mercy on us, there are many of us, if not most of us, who live like as if we are in a coma. Because, you know, we're just living. We're just breathing. We get hungry, we eat. We feel sleepy, we sleep, and so on. That is not life. Life is to live consciously and thoughtfully. Let me mention for you a couple of things, which we usually take for granted. Let me ask you, when did you last clip your nails? Now, you might say, well, last week, you know, two weeks ago or something. And hopefully, if you have not clipped your nails for two weeks, your nails need clipping. So go clip them. And then also, in the process, learn how Rasulullah ﷺ clipped his nails. So you can do that according to the Sunnah, inshallah. And also get some... Go out for it. And similarly, let me ask you, when was the last time you had a haircut? And you will tell me something, you know, two weeks ago, one month ago, whatever. The reason I'm asking you why or when you had a haircut and when you clipped your nails is because... Let's reflect on this. What if nails and hair were live tissue and not dead tissue? Because these are all epithelial cells. These are all... Parts of your skin. The skin forms into nails and skin forms into, you know, the hair follicles come out of the skin. What if it was live tissue? What if it had capillaries which... What if it had capillaries which... With blood in them? What if it had nerve endings in them? Believe me, every time you needed to clip your nails, or every time we needed a haircut, you would have had to go to a hospital and go under general anesthesia for this to be done. And then every hair end that was cut would have to be cauterized to stop the blood flowing. If somebody just shaved your head, you would die. It would be tantamount to somebody taking the skin off your skull. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us hair and gave us nails and made them also into objects of beauty. Think about the billions of dollars worth of industry which is dedicated to hair care. I remember a friend of mine telling me, you can't do anything to it. Hair is hair. It's dead tissue, right? What can you do to dead tissue? If you are going to put stuff or, you know, massage your head with oil and so on, it's the... Oil is going into the... Oil is going into the... into the skin, right? Hair is dead tissue. But despite that, it's a... It's something of great beauty. And, you know, women especially, and of course a lot of men also nowadays, they spend a lot of time on haircuts, on growing hair long or short or perming them or God knows what. All time and effort and expense on dead tissue. And the fact that it is dead tissue is a blessing, is a huge blessing in itself. Think about that. I mean, just one small thing, but how important it is. Second thing, let me ask you, how many times did we thank Allah SWT for sending us rain in individual drops and sending us snow? Because right now in America, it's extremely, extremely cold and a lot of snow. Um, Allah SWT has sent this snow also in flakes, individual flakes. The reason I'm asking this is, just think about this. Now, right now I'm in Hyderabad. Hyderabad has a area of about 2,000 square kilometers. The overall area of the city, about 2,000 square kilometers. It gets approximately 20 inches of rain in a year. Now, one inch of rain covering one square meter, one square kilometer, one inch of rain spread over one square kilometer weighs approximately 25,400 metric tons. This is one inch of rain, right? Now, do the sums. Uh, 20 inches of rain over 2,000 square kilometers. That comes to, in terms of the weight of water, that comes to 1,016,000,000 metric tons of water. This water is falling on us from a height of 10,000 feet average. 10 to 15,000 feet is the, uh, is the cloud height. So, take 10,000 feet. This water, 1,016,000,000 metric tons of water is falling on Hyderabad from a height of 10,000 feet. And obviously, as it is falling, it accelerates at the rate of 32 feet per second. 32 feet per second. 32 feet per second. 32 feet per second. So, calculate the force of that when it hits the ground. The reason I'm saying this is because, uh, after the tsunami, which happened, I think it was 2007 or 2006 or some such thing, um, I had gone to Sri Lanka. And I went to, went to Yala National Park. And my driver took me and showed me, um, a place where there was a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, believe me, I was so shocked. The tsunami cut off that building from the floor level. So the RCC columns, reinforced cement concrete columns, were cut like a knife. And the entire building was transported several hundred meters from there, and it was smashed, and it was lying there. Cement concrete just cut like that. Now, this is water coming at a speed of about, I think it was around about 700 miles per hour, hitting that concrete. Imagine 1 billion, 16 million metric tons of water falling from 10,000 feet, accelerating at a rate of 32 feet per second per second. What will happen to Hyderabad city if that water falls on it? There will be, you know, Hyderabad city. It will smash every single standing thing, every tree, every building. Everything will be completely smashed and pulverized. Every person, every animal will be instantly killed. And all that you will probably see is one huge lake when it's all done. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not send rain like that. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sends that same 1 billion, 16 million metric tons of water, but he sends it dropping. Drop by drop, in droplets. And therefore, that same rain, which has the power to completely eliminate you in one shot, we use that rain to grow our crops and to water our gardens and to nurture our flowers and to drink and bathe. And we use that rain. Our children make, you know, paper, little paper boats and float them in the temporary rivulets after a rain shower. And that's why the poet wrote this beautiful song. You should listen to it. Kagas ki kishti o barish ka pani. Bo kagas ki kishti o barish ka pani. Listen to that. Go on YouTube and listen. Beautiful song. Same rain. Because it comes the way it comes. So not only does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us benefits, but Allah gives those benefits in a way which is beneficial. As I mentioned to you, the same benefit. There's no change. It's the same water. It's coming to the same place, same quantity. But if it came in another form, another way, it would not only not be beneficial, it would be disastrous. It would be disastrous. So Allah gives us benefits in ways which are beneficial. And we need to specifically think about this. When we think about our risk, our sustenance, because sometimes we feel, oh, why does Allah, why do I have to struggle? Why am I working so hard? You know, why doesn't Allah just give it to me? After all, it's all written for me. So if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has, you know, written a billion dollars for me, why doesn't Allah just dump the billion dollars on me or something? You know, Allah, why do I have to work? Think about that. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, that, if I, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, verily, if Allah gave to His slaves His provision in plenty, right, which means that, just like the water coming down suddenly, if Allah gave your provision to you in plenty, Allah said, surely, they will rebel on the earth. Now imagine, think about this, why is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala saying they will rebel on the earth? You know, why is Allah not saying that they will be very thankful? Because this is human nature. Rebellion is to disobey Allah. The more money we have, the more doors, potential doors of disobedience, that money will open for us. Right? You might think, I mean, you might think, and we all say, oh, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I wish I had, I wish I had a million dollars, I wish I could just write a check, somebody wants something, I just give it off, I walk in, I would love to go and walk around in hospitals and whoever cannot pay their bill, I would just pay that bill for them. I would love to go around and see people who don't have homes, build homes for them, build houses for them. I would like to do this, this, this. Think about this. As I speak, as I speak, I'm not talking about paying the bills of all the people, all the hospital patients who cannot pay, I'm talking about paying the bill of one hospital patient. How many of us have done that? Every single one of us, believe me, if you are listening to this thing on a smartphone, you have the capacity to pay the bill of one person in one hospital anywhere. Go pay that. Go and pay that. Any hospital, walk into the place and say, who is the person here who go to a hospital who got thousands of people? Go there and say, who is the person who cannot pay their bill? I'm paying them. Go do that. We all talk about this stuff. Oh,