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*This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. *
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My brothers and sisters, Allah SWT created the universe and He made the laws that govern, the universe. We call them the laws of physics, call them natural laws, whether it is gravity, whether it’s aerodynamics, whether it is thermodynamics, and whatever it might be, all of these are natural laws, physical laws of physics, which Allah SWT created to run the universe. The world operates according to these laws. Similarly, Allah SWT created laws for human success. And these laws that Allah created for human success are also the creation of Allah, and they are also as unchangeable, unimitable as the laws of physics. And they affect whoever is in the purview of that law equally. It doesn’t matter whether you are Muslim, non-Muslim, whether you believe in Allah, don’t believe in Allah, makes no difference. These laws will operate on you just like they operate on anybody else. If you jump out of a plane at 20,000 feet in a skydiving session, if you don’t pull your parachute at the right point, you will die. There is no other thing that will happen. You can say I’m Hafiz Khor-An, I’m Mufti Azam, I have memorized all the siasitta, all the books of hadith, seven books of hadith, right? I am the imam of the haram. You can be anybody. If you don’t pull the rip card of the parachute, you are a dead man. As simple as that. The law of Allah does not change because you know the Quran. The same principle applies to the laws of success in life. The benefit is that when those laws of success in life are applied, are worked on by a Muslim and he adds on to that with the ibadah of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, with zikr, with shukr, then they give him barakah, right? But without operating within the law, if he only does ibadah and zikr and shukr, nothing will happen. That’s the reason why Sayyidina Avar, Khattab-Rat-E-Ilahan came into the masjid one day at a time and it was not time for any salah and there were some young men sitting there and he said who are you? Why are you here at this time? They said nahanum mutawak kilun. They said we are the people who make tawhakhrun Allah. Sayyidina Avar whacked them with the dhurah and he said get out, go and work. He said dinah and dhira don’t fall from the sky like rain. And he said the bird leaves the nest and goes out in search of food and comes back with a full belly. Allah feeds the bird but not in the nest. You have to get out, you have to go and do some work. So the first and foremost law of human success is that we must make an effort. We have to stop talking and start walking. Right? You have to make effort. Second law of human success is that to influence you must be involved. To influence you must be involved. You cannot influence from the outside. If you want to win the game, where should you be? On the field. You should be playing the game. Then you can decide can I win the game, how can I win the game. If you are standing outside in the stands, you can want anything, that doesn’t matter. The players decide whether the game is won or lost. It is by their effort. It’s not by the screaming of the spectators. So if you want to win the game you must be involved in it. So if you want to influence, you must be involved. The more involved you are, the more influence you will have. The less involved you are, the less influence you will have. So get involved. Volunteer, show what you can do, contribute and then people will listen to you. When you say something, they will listen to you. Show what you can do, contribute and then people will listen to you. When you say something, people will listen because you are there. They are seeing you as a helper, they are seeing you as somebody who was with them in good and bad times. So then they will listen to you. Second point. Third point is in order to influence you must be able to speak in the language which makes sense to the people. And by language I don’t mean Arabic or English. I mean how you present your case. And for that I have a formula. My formula is W-I-I-F-M. W-I-I-F-M. What’s in it for me? What is in it for me? If I want you to do something for me, I must show you how it will help you. Straight forward way is of course to say, well do this for me, I will pay you ten thousand dollars. Okay. But not everything can be done that way. Not everyone has a price. Right? You can’t go to somebody and say do this because I’ll pay you. Oh wait, I don’t need your money. Show how doing, going by your recommendation, show how doing what you are advising them to do will help them. What’s in it for me? It’s not a matter of deceiving anybody. We are not deceiving anyone. It is the truth but not everyone sees the truth the way you want them to see it. So show it to them. They say this is how it works. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. So show it to them. They say this is how it will help us. You are seeing a classic example today. For example of what is happening in in Gaza and Palestine where everybody is talking about how bad the situation is in Palestine and people are saying stop the wall. Alhamdulillah, very good. But is the wall stopping? No. It’s not stopping. I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why it’s not stopping. Because we are not able to show the people who are I won’t say fighting the wall. There is no fight. This is just massacre. The people who are massacring, we are not able to show them how stopping that will help them. We are just saying stop it so that because it will help us. They don’t care. If they cared about you, they wouldn’t do it in the first place. No. You think they care about you? No. Our children dying, of course. Let them die. How can you show what’s in it for them? This is an extreme example because we are seeing it today. But take a very simple, normal example. Supposing you have a business and you’ve got your employees who are working and you tell the employee you must come on time. The shop opens, the factory opens, the business opens at 9 a.m. You should be here at 9 a.m. Show them why. What’s the benefit? We tell people get involved in the masjid. Why? What’s the benefit? You might say, you know, this is kind of dumb because you mean to tell me I need to explain to you why you should come to the masjid. You don’t understand the benefit. No, you don’t understand the benefit. This is the reality. If we understood the benefit, you would be here. So we have to go outside our comfort zone and show people what’s in it for them. Comfort zone and show people what’s in it for them. Communication is the key to success. Communicating in an inspiring way, the way you can get people inspired to stand up and do something. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is a beautiful example of that. He was able to inspire people to dedicate their entire lives literally to give their life for the sake of his dava, dhava tharisra. He didn’t pay anybody anything. Nobody did that for a salary. No one did that for a bonus. No, he sent Musab-e-Nubay-Rathe-Lano to Madinah to preach Islam. Did he get a salary? Did he get a bonus? He did it his whole life. He finally got shahadah in the Battle of Odh. All the people, all the sahabah who died before fatah makkah, they died before they could see the fatah of Islam, before the success of Islam. But nobody gave up his work. No one said, I’m tired. So Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was able to inspire them in such a way that they continued to work despite all the difficulties. So communication, inspiring communication, getting people to understand the value for themselves in what you want them to do. And the fourth principle of success is think about the benefit for others. This is Allah swt created a cyclical process. If I benefit you, I get benefited automatically. But if I say, what can I get out of it? Then you will fail. Say, what can I contribute to it? What can I do to help others and serve others? And you will find that things will come back to you. Always. Things will always come back to you. If you serve, you will get the return. So we ask Allah swt to help us to practice what we hear and what we speak. And to benefit us from that. We are seeing in the world today, the results of contribution over a long period of time. The people who, today we say, oh, you know, they are in the world, they have this power, they have that power. You forget the fact that of what they did for the last 100 years, from the first world war, 1947 onwards. I mean 30 years onwards, that is paying off now. Now you are seeing the results. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment. Not small investment, hundreds of millions. So when you are sitting on a pile where you have invested hundreds of millions, then you get to call the shots. Whether anyone else likes it or not, that is reality. Now you don’t want to invest that money, but you want to call the shots. Go fly a kite. There is no magic. There is no magic. It is investment and return. Invest and return. You invest, you get a return. For three, four generations, you will get a return. You will get a return. You will get a return. You will get a return. You will get a return. For three, four generations, you invest your children into making them attorneys, into making them legal experts, into putting them into academia, they become professors, shaping their minds. You get the payoff. For generation after generation, you pamper your kids. It doesn’t matter if they don’t work. Because you have money, you feed them, they get the best gadgets. And then what happens? They fall by the wayside. They get an odd job here, odd job there. They open their eyes in a Mercedes because daddy paid for it. The other guy is riding a bicycle. Believe me, they are not equal. They are not equal. They are not equal. I always tell all my students, from the minute you are 18 years old, I say 18 because that’s when I started, from the time you are 18 years old, if you are taking money from your father, you are a beggar. And what he is giving you is charity. Bheek. He is a beggar, he is begging. Nothing else. If you take one dollar from your father, you are a beggar. Earn it. Earn your own money. I never took. From the time I was 18 years old, nothing. Earn your own money. You will learn. That’s when you get, how you get confidence. Earn your own money. Get jobs, earn money, whatever you want. Never go back to your father for anything. Here you are in your 20s, sometimes even 30s, wearing branded clothes, who paid for it? Daddy. Driving a fancy car, who paid for it? Daddy. Credit card in the pocket, who pays the bill? Daddy. Who puts gas in the car? Daddy. Who pays the phone bill? Daddy. Huh? Hey, top of the line phone, paid by whom? Daddy. La, hello, La Cotella. And then you think somehow, magically, you are going to be sitting as the president of this university, on the board of that university, in Congress, in Parliament? Dream on, boy. Dream on. This is what we are seeing. This is what we are seeing today in this world. Whether you like it or not, this is what we are seeing. People who put their life and soul into it. I can tell you, they have written case studies, people who were billionaires, they made their children cycle to school. The guy could have bought the whole school. No? You would get onto a regular bus, you would go to the school. You get on a bike, you go to the school. So, what, daddy, you are driving a, you know, whatever, a Bugatti, yeah? I paid for the Bugatti. When will I drive a Bugatti when you pay for the Bugatti? My father told me this, not a Bugatti. My father taught me to drive a car. He got one of his drivers from his factory, he taught me to drive a car. My father had a Fiat. So, I got a licence. And that’s 1977, before a Bugatti was bought. 1975 or 1977, my first licence. So, I’m very happy. Then one day I wanted to go somewhere. So, I went to my dad, I said, can I borrow the car? He said, whose car? I said, your car. He said, how? Why would you want to borrow a car? He said, I have to go to a friend’s house, get on the bus and go. So, I said, but you taught me to drive. He said, yes, that’s a skill, you should know how to drive. I said, when will I drive a car? He said, when you buy your car. Literally, he said, you will drive a car when you buy your car, period. So, I went to my dad’s house, and I was like, well, a blessing when a filly is covered with noor. Parents were tough. I fell off a horse, a long story. I fell off a horse, dislocated my shoulder, came out. There was another friend of mine, the horse ran away, there was a friend of mine. So, I told him, hold by hand, hit me hard here and jerk, the shoulder came back into the socket, right? Then the horse ran away. Now, this shoulder is, it’s burning like this on fire. Fire or no fire, you cannot leave your horse to run away, you have to get your horse. So, my friend and I, we go, round up the horse, catch the horse, I get back on the horse, take it back to the stable, and then I get home. Now, when I get home, my shoulder is like a football, it’s huge. So, my mom is sitting there. So, I go over to my mother, and I tell her, this is what happened and so on, and like, I would have been about fifteen, right? I said, this is what has happened, my mother is, when she sees the whole thing, she recites one line of poetry. I love this, my friends. They were both tough. My mother says, My mother says, My mother says, only the knights fall in battle. What will a child, how will a child fall who is crawling? So, this finished? She said, go to the hospital, get it bandaged. That’s it. She didn’t say, oh my son, my god, whatever, nothing. So, I go to the hospital, get it bandaged. Alhamdulillah, I had parents like this. No, no, no, no, pandering and, oh my poor child, no, no poor child, it is, you are a man, behave like a man, period. So, I remind myself and you, Allah’s laws don’t change. Allah’s laws are the same. You want to succeed in this world, learn, respect your elders, take advice, stop acting like a pansy, do some hard work, and you will succeed. You don’t want to do that. You want to sit around, you want to get your parents to pay for you, you want to disrespect elders, you don’t want to learn from people, no problem. No problem, brother. It’s your life. But if you think you will succeed, not only Allah didn’t make the law, I told you, you who don’t want to die, pull the rib cord of the parachute, otherwise you are a dead man. Same principles applies in life. We ask Allah subh’anaHu ta’ala to help us to learn and understand and to live lives which are successful and to live lives where we live behind a legacy of success. Sallallahu ala Nabi’l Kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbih wa ala alihi wa sahbih wa ala alihi wa sahbih
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