What do you want to be remembered for

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, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions, is very, very peaceful. My brothers and sisters, yesterday one of our dear friends, Muhammad Ali Saab, whose children were all my students, prominent among them was his son, Hassan Zeeshan, who is currently studying, doing his Master's in Mechanical Engineering in UMass Lowell, Massachusetts. He passed away. And so I went to the Janatah last night after Isha. We asked Allah to forgive his sins and enter him into the Janatah for those without his Saab, to fill his Kaabar with his Nuh, and to give Sabah to his family. Mashallah, beautiful family, beautiful people. As I was there in the cemetery, the thought came to my mind about what do I want to be remembered for. That particular cemetery in Masjid al-Baqi in Hyderabad has, many of my friends in it, some relatives, some friends, some very old, very good friends. They all, thoughts about them flashed through my mind. That when I think of each person, what comes, foremost, what is the first thought that I think about them? What is the first thought that comes? What do I remember them for? There is Ikram Hai in that cemetery, with Ahmadineen Sheikh Imam Saab. And the thing that I remember, soon as I mention him, soon as I think about him, is how he used to come for Salatul Fajr. To our Masjid. Even when he had, started, he was getting, you know, physical health problems, he would get in his car and he would drive. And once or twice it's, the car got knocked here and there because of his driving. And we used to tell him, please, don't come on your own. And, and, may Allah bless Saib, he was there always, he would bring him. And Saib would tell him, look, you know, if, someday if I'm not there, because Saib had to travel and so on, so, he said, then don't go that day. But no, Ikram Hai would come. No matter what. Until he completely got incapacitated, he could not come at all. So the first thing I remember about him is, how he used to come for Salatul Fajr. Salatul Fajr. There is my dear, dear friend Zulfi in the same cemetery. And the thing I remember about Zulfi is his big smile. And the love and the affection that he had for me and I had for him. There's some, I mean, losses are losses, but there's some losses which are very, very, very, very serious and you literally feel them in your heart. And Zulfi is one of them. Zulfi's father passed away in Kuwait. And after that, I had gone to Kuwait for some programs. And Zulfi said to me, he used to call me Yawar Bhai, like everybody else. But after his father passed away, he said to me, can I call you Baba? Now what do you say to that? I said, there's no honor that is superior in my view, than that, that Allah is giving me through you, Alhamdulillah. And in that same cemetery is another one of my dearest and closest ones, Adnan Mahmud, whose death was such a shock. I was in Vermont, the Arabic courts, when I got news that he had died. And so on. I don't know. I don't think I will ever recover from that shock. He, that day was like, I mean, I tried to force, obviously control myself and so on, but everybody noticed. People came and sat around me. They said, what happened? Something has happened. What's happening? What's, you know, why are you looking like this? And the thing I remember about Adnan is, is always this tremendous sense of confidence. And he's always used to say, Allah is the one who gets our things done. Allah is the one who gets our things done. Allah is the one who gets our things done. Similarly, there's another dear friend of mine, Alhamdulillah, may Allah grant him a long and healthy life. Imtiaz Beg, who lives in Mysore. Imtiaz also has this thing. For everything. Allah is there. Anything, the slightest difficulty to them is the biggest difficulty. Allah is there. Allah is there. And I remember also with Imtiaz, how beautifully he took care of his parents. His mother and father, may Allah grant them both, Rahma and Janata Firdous. His mother passed away first, then his father. His father lived almost to be, I think, close to a hundred. And he was a famous Urdu poet as well. And a wonderful person. And mother also. Mother was a doctor. Imtiaz literally took care of them right to the end. Such Khidmat, MashaAllah. And there are many others. May Allah Ta'ala bless them all and grant them the method for those. My own parents, my wife's parents, each one, there is a memory. The point I'm making is, what do you want to be remembered for? And the reason I talked about all these people is, what is it that we remember them for? Because while I am saying these things about these people, these people also, they had worldly possessions. Some had more, some had less. They had properties. They had movable and immovable properties. They had titles and ranks. They had this and that. But what do you actually remember the person for? What is the first thought about that person that comes into your mind? And that thought always is to do with how that person impacted you. How that person's life touched you. How that person's action or their words or something they did or something they said. Some time, how they treated you. This is what stays. Nobody remembers the other stuff. The properties, the houses, the cars, or what not, what not. People don't know that. They don't know that. They remember these things. And these are the things we take away with us. Adnan's sons, his elder son called me. And he said, my mother, and this is before he was even buried. He called me and said, my mother said to call you and say that all that you have taught us with regard to the death and hereafter, and with regard to Islam, is coming in use today. We are using it. We are finding the strength in it. And Alhamdulillah, we want to thank you for this. This was before he was even, before he was even put in the room. Alhamdulillah. I didn't teach them only. I taught a whole bunch of other people. Alhamdulillah. So I'm hoping that when I die, people will remember these kinds of things. So the question to ask yourself is, what do I want to be remembered for? And keep something there. Leave something behind for people. That is your real legacy. The legacy is how do you touch people? What is it in your behavior, in your speech, in your actions, in your dealings, that we leave behind a memory, which is good, Inshallah. And as we know, you're not doing it for this reason. The reason you're doing it, do this or anything else, is to please Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala only. There is no other reason. But if you look at it from the Sadaqah Jariyah aspect also, this is what Sadaqah Jariyah is. Because remember, people can also remember you for the bad stuff. Because I said good things about many people. But there will be other people in your life and my life, who, people will remember them for how they harmed them, how they stole from them, how they misappropriated and usurped their rights and their property, their dignity, how they spread rumors about them, how they slandered them, how they lied about them, cheated them. All of this is also part of life. People do all these things. And those are also remembered. And people remember the positive things. Inshallah, we hope that they will make dua for us, and that Allah will listen to this dua and that Allah will forgive us. But think about the dua that people will make for the other stuff. Think about what people will say if you are one of the others, and how relieved they will be and how happy that you are not there anymore. This is a choice. This is a choice that we all have. And we have to make it. And we have to make it. And we have to make it. And we have to make it. And we have to make it. This is a choice that we all have when we, you know, when we, not when, but as we live through life. And we have the same choice every moment. The key thing is to live with that awareness, to live with the consciousness, not live in an unconscious way. Live with the consciousness that I may die anytime. And if I'm going to die, what will I take with me? That is the question. We ask Allah SWT, the General who will help us to live a life where, which is pleasing to Him, a life which will leave behind memories which are good. A life where we leave behind something where people will remember us positively and make dua for us when we are gone. And once again, I began this way asking you to make dua for our brothers and sisters, the Prophet Muhammad and the Holy Prophet .