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 two sons, both of them are teenagers. They went with us to that Lake George trip. Continuously from here to there, the mother. Phone call after phone call after, how are you? How are you? Hurry. What will happen to you? Really, I mean, just wake up. You raise children like this, that's what will happen. So constant focus only is money. How much money do you make? Whether they're money or money. Whether that money comes to you, halal, haraab, makes no difference. Only one focus, how much money? Courage, not a focus. Compassion, not a focus. Kindness, not a focus. Charity, giving is not a focus. Even the giving, while it is being given, you've got a Facebook page which is updating that and you've got some other social media where the whole world must know what you are giving. So whatever reward you are supposed to get for that, you're not giving. You're not giving. So whatever reward you are supposed to get for that, it's gone. Halas. In Riya. Islam says the ends and the means, how you get something and what you get, both must be justified. Both must please Allah . So you can't make money in any way. The way has to be correct. And? Must be morally correct, must follow the Sharia and socially responsible. Now this is what the Quraysh fought. Because their system, and that's why I keep on saying this over and over again. The reason to study the Seerah today is because of the similarity between the systems of that time, the political system, the economic system, the social system, the similarity of those systems to our systems. It's absolutely uncanny. It's 1500 years. This year is 1500 years since the message of the Prophet . In 1500 years, we have the exact same system. The only difference is scale. Today that system is worldwide. Those days that system was in one place. In the Hejaz. But same system. And why we study it? Because in that system, we are looking at what worked to change that system. And my contention is, if you apply the same method, inshallah, we will get the same results. That's logical. That's the logic. If it works here, it will work there. Given the conditions are the same and the conditions are the same. So, that's it. Thank you. So, this is what people did. So, making money, nothing wrong with that. Islam is not against making money. There's nothing romantic about poverty. You should be wealthy. You should be influential. You should be powerful. But the way you get there is equally important. If you become that wealthy and powerful and so on using means which are prohibited in Islam, then this is not good. Then you become punished. As I mentioned, the whole banking system and the banking system of the Quraish was not invented by them. This was the Roman banking system and the Persian banking system which they used. And those worked in the same way. Right? The قARTED PAYMENT system which said below that people have not paid andfil Tuohy ل� biased data. In those days, those were not allowable. Also, we have our houses, our occasionally on Taxi. Everything. In those days, they can control theondoes. ント. Businessmen, if you brought them here to the Fed or to, you know, any of the big banks, the only thing they would find new and surprising is, of course, obviously the computers and the technology and whatnot and air condition. But the system itself, they would understand it in two seconds because that's the system they used. There's nothing new about that. And they were very, very wealthy people. In today's terms, they were billionaires. So we're not talking about some small mom and pop shop which was run. These were big multinational businesses because they were buying things in Arabia and selling them in Rome. Right? Where is Italy? Where is this? They were buying in Italy. Rome is where the heart of the empire was, but it came down all the way to Iraq. Iraq and Syria. And similarly, they were buying and selling here and doing that in Setastifon, which was the capital of the Iranian Empire, the Persian Empire. And that came all the way north up to Yemen. So how did they do that? Now what did Islam bring? Islam. Islam did not bring another way of charging interest in some other shape or form. Islam brought ethics into the system. Look at this. Look at some of these rules. I mean, just think about this. Whoever lets a person off in a transaction, Allah will relieve him of his distress on the day of resurrection. What does it mean? It means if I borrow money from you. I don't have to pay you. I don't have to pay you. I don't have to pay you. I don't have to pay you. I don't have to pay you. I don't have to pay you. I'm not talking about lying and cheating. I'm saying if I borrow money from you, and I'm supposed to return the money. And I'm not able to do that because my business, I borrowed money from you to start a business. I started the business. Unfortunately, my business failed. I lost the money. So I come to you and say, my brother, I am unable to pay you back. Now, do you have a claim on me? Of course. I borrowed money. You have a claim on me. I don't have to pay you back. So what is Allah saying?