You can never repay anyone

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen, wassalatu wassalamu ala al-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammad Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam, tasliman kathiran kathiran. Firmabadu, my brothers and sisters. Alhamdulillah, bi-zinillahi ta'ala. My wife and I, we are going for Umrah just now. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept our Umrah, to make it easy and to fill it with khair and barakah and to accept our duas. Inshallah, we will make dua for all of you. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept all your duas with khair and afiyah, inshallah. We'll give you what you ask with afiyah, inshallah. And we request you for your duas for our Umrah. A friend of mine asked me this question. His mother passed away. He said, what can I do or can I do deeds for her which will compensate for the fact that I perhaps did not serve her enough while she was alive? I want to answer that question in two parts. Firstly, a man came to Prophet Muhammad and he said, Ya Rasulullah, I carried my mother on my back for Hajj. So he's talking about carrying her from wherever he lived to Mecca and through all the manasik of Hajj, all the rituals of Hajj. He carried his mother on his back and brought her home. He said, Ya Rasulullah, I have done this. Have I? I fulfilled whatever I owed her for whatever she did for me. Rasulullah said, the action you did was a good action and Allah will reward you. As far as fulfilling her right on you, fulfilling or repaying her for what she did for you, he said, this action of yours, which is to carry his mother on his back for the entire Hajj, he said, this action does not even, doesn't even repay one birth pang that she felt when you were born. Now, this does not mean that we need to lose hope. It does not mean that we need to feel guilty about this, the fact that you were born. But it just puts things in perspective with regard to what we owe our parents. May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, whoever has parents, may Allah give them the tawfiq to serve them and to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la decreed and ordered us to do, which is to serve them. And for those whose parents have passed away, we ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to forgive them and give them to fill their khubur with nur. We have the hadith of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam also. In Ramadan, where he ascended the mimbar three steps, and he said, Ameen, Ameen, Ameen. And when he finished his khutbah, he descended, the Sahaba asked him, Ya Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we saw you doing something you have not done before, we have not seen before, which is that you ascended the mimbar and you said Ameen three times. Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Jibreel Alaihissalam came to me on the first step, and he said, Ya Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, if somebody gets Ramadan and is unable, to get the forgiveness of Allah, he gets Ramadan, but he is unable to get the forgiveness of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala punish him and cast him aside, cast him far away. Say Ameen. So he said, I said Ameen. Now this means that somebody got Ramadan, meaning he was there in Ramadan, he found Ramadan, Ramadan came to him, and, but, he did not take advantage of Ramadan. Maybe he didn't fast, maybe he didn't pray, maybe he did something, which was prohibited. And therefore, the forgiveness that Ramadan comes with, this person is deprived of this forgiveness. The person deprived himself of this forgiveness. And Jibreel Alaihissalam is saying, may Allah punish this person and cast him far away. And he said, Jibreel Alaihissalam said, Ameen. And he said to Muhammad , you say Ameen. And he said Ameen. And he said, when I came to the second step, he said, Ya Rasulullah, if a person finds his parents old, one or both of them, and does not serve them and does not help them in their time of need, then may Allah curse him. May Allah punish this person and cast him far away. Say Ameen. Say Ameen. Say Ameen. Say Ameen. And Jibreel Alaihissalam and Rasulullah said Ameen. And he said on the third step, he said, Ya Rasulullah, Rasulullah, if your name comes before anybody, if somebody says Muhammad, if somebody says Rasulullah, Rasulullah, and a person, a Muslim, does not say, does not send salat and salam on you, does not say, Rasulullah, does not say, does not say, Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad, and the whole of the, of the darud, of the salat and salam, then may Allah punish him and may Allah throw him far away, cast him far away. Say Ameen. And I said Ameen. And he said Ameen. So the position of parents and what we owe to them is something which is more than clear from these Ahadith. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help us to fulfill their needs. In addition to the Ahadith and even before the Ahadith, we have the Ayat of the Quran. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, do not even say Oof to them. Do not even express any form of irritation with regard to demands they may make on you. And you know, as we grow older, we get more crotchety, we get more irritable, we get more demanding, and children get to bear the brunt of this. Alhamdulillah, we must bless them for this. We must thank them for this. Because Allah, He says, give me a day will come when you will miss that. Today what you see as interference, today what you see as parents constantly on your back asking you, where are you going? Why are you going? When will you come back? Why were you late? And so on. A time will come when they will be no more to ask you that question. Nobody cares. Nobody cares where you go, what you do, what happens to you. Nobody cares. And that is when you will realize the value of those who care. So value them while you still have them. As far as repaying is concerned, let me say this. Not only can you not repay parents, you cannot repay anybody, anyone, for one very simple reason. And that reason is clear in the word itself, repay. Meaning what? They paid first and you are now repaying. You are returning that payment. Which means that if they had not paid first, you would have done nothing. So how can the one who paid first, how can the one who did something for you first, who did something for you without expecting a reward, who did something for you when you may not even have asked, who did something for you when he was the first person to do that thing for you, how can that person ever, how can you ever be equal to that person? Because no matter what you give in society, so-called return, it is in return. Whereas the other person gave you what they gave you without expecting a reward. They gave you what they gave you first. Right? So get this out of your mind that you can ever repay. You cannot repay your parents, you cannot repay your teachers, you cannot repay anybody, you cannot repay your servants, you cannot repay anybody on the face of the earth. Whoever does anything good for you has done it. He has done an ihsan for you and this ihsan is on you until the day you die. So what must we do? Again, I'm not saying this so you feel guilty. I'm not saying this because what must we do? Number one, thank them. Very clearly. Even though you are not repaying them, but thank them. Express your gratitude and say, Alhamdulillah, JazakAllah, thank you very much for what you did for me. Thank them. Then you can try to repay them in any way you like, whatever way, you have. By all means, do that. But don't do that with an expectation or with the feeling that I have done and that's it. Kalas, I'm, you know, done and dusted. No. Do it and do it and do it and do it and do it over and over again. But do it. Show your appreciation by saying it, by doing it. So every time I say this, I remember the number of times people ask me for things. Most recently, one of my, a friend from South Africa, he asked me specifically, many years ago, you did a particular program here for the Valama and you used a particular exercise in conflict resolution. Do you still have it? So I said, yes, I have it. I searched for it. I found it. I sent it to him and the man disappeared from the face of the earth. Ajib. Right? I mean, you have the time to take the time and trouble to send me an email and all this and ask me for something. And after you get what you asked for, not even one word to say thank you. Not even one word. Ajib. This is basic, fundamental akhlaq that you thank somebody who does something for you. And especially when you ask them to do it and the person is responding to that. And it's not that this person works for you. He's not your servant. Right? It's not as if he's sitting there waiting for you. I wish so and so will ask me something. No. He's got a million other things to do. But it takes time out to do what you ask him to do. Yet, not even the courtesy to simply say Jazakallah wa khairat. That's it. So please, let us repair our akhlaq before we go and give a khutbah somewhere or before we go and give nasihah to people. Repair our own akhlaq. Repair our own akhlaq. And it begins with being grateful. It begins with showing gratitude. Gratitude to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and gratitude to whoever it is who did whatever it was. No matter how small the thing is. Always, always, always thank. An attitude of gratitude. This is the secret of this is the biggest networking hack in the world. An attitude of gratitude. Genuine gratitude. I'm not saying do it for networking. No. Genuine gratitude. Thanking people. Alhamdulillah. Jazakallah wa khairat. Jazakallah wa khairat. Jazakallah wa khairat. Jazakallah wa khairat. Thank you very much for what you did for me. No matter how small it is. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help us to understand the value of what He gives us through from many different sources.