I am doing a series of these reminders on different topics and I have done one on the topic of knowing Allah SWT, our approach to the Quran and the next one on the Seerah of Rasulullah SAW. Today I want to talk about another thing which is we are talking about monitoring our level of knowledge and understanding. And the question I want to ask myself and you is what do we know about the Akhira? What do we know about the Akhira? If you think about it, the only thing which is certain, the only thing which is absolutely certain for which in which there is no doubt, that is our death and the Akhira, what happens thereafter. Everything else in life is a matter of doubt, we don’t know. If a child is born you don’t know how long it will live, if I am alive I don’t know how long I will, how many years, months, weeks, ten seconds, whatever I have. I don’t know whether I will be healthy or sick, I don’t know whether I will be wealthy or poor, I don’t know if I will be powerful or powerless, educated or uneducated. I don’t know anything about myself with certainty. I know some things but I can’t be absolutely certain. A simple thing like, just think about this, a simple thing like do I know whether I will wake up tomorrow morning? No, I know this is, you know, it sounds like a dumb question, it’s not, it’s very real question because we know this, we can think about it, but is it something that hits us in the heart? Do really believe this? I do not know whether I will wake up tomorrow morning. Now if I concentrate on this question and I really feel it, how will my life change from this minute onwards? Because if I say like I maybe I will not wake up tomorrow morning which means that from now, now is what, 8 o’clock, 8 p.m., what is morning? Even if you take it at 6 a.m., so I’ve got roughly not even 12 hours, 10 hours. So what do I want to do in that 10 hours? 10 hours is a lot of time. 10 hours is a lot of time if I use it in the right place, in the right way, right? 10 hours, a lot of time. But that 10 hours will pass like that. All I need to do is open my Instagram or something and 10 hours is gone. I turn on the TV and it’s gone, right? So what is my knowledge of the Akhira? Somebody asked what is one of the Shri Yuga, he said how can I get concentration in Salah? Right? I think this is a question we all have, how can I get concentration in Salah? He gave such a simple, beautiful answer, try it. He said when you stand for Salah before you say Allahu Akbar, the few seconds, right? When you stand for Salah, you don’t just walk in and say Allahu Akbar, you come and stand for Salah and then maybe you are reading, you are saying Inni Wajah, Wajah, and so on and so on. But he said before you say Allahu Akbar, that few seconds, remind yourself that I will die and when I die, I will be called before Allah and Allah will call me by name and I will stand before Allah. And the first question that Allah will ask me is what is the state of your Salah? That is what I’m doing here, I’m standing in Salah. He said start with this. Before you say Allahu Akbar, bring this thought consciously into your mind that this is what is going to happen before Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. I will be called and I will be asked what was the state of your Salah? What am I going to answer? So the question to ask ourselves is, what do I know about my Akhira? What do I know about the questions that I will be asked in my qamar? What do I know about the questions that I will be asked on the Day of Judgment where Rasul Rasulullah hadith he said the feet of Bani Adam, the feet of Bani Adam, the children of Adam Ali As Salaam will not move from before their Rabb until they answer four questions. What do I know what is questions? I’ve written a book, the book is called Questions but what will we answer? Read the book. Questions but what will we answer? I may have also run a series of classes on this, I’m not sure but, Balaam alaam. Questions but what will be answered? We need to know because every single one of us will be asked these questions. There is no doubt about this because this is what Rasulullah has informed us. It’s not a matter of doubt. So what do I know about my, what do I know about the Akhira? And final question to ask ourselves which is something a very very dear friend of mine once years ago, I was talking to him about the Akhira and so on and he said something amazing. He said to me, he told me uncle Yawar you know, this thing is not even on my list. I take the list of goals, what I want to achieve in life. He said this Akhira, Jannah is not even on my list. So forget about it, is it in the top three, top ten, top ten thousand? He said it is not even there on my list. And the man is not an atheist, he is a mashaAllah person, a good Muslim who prays five times a day and everything else. This is our state. This is the, I mean he was honest enough to say it but wallah alaam, this is our state. For a lot of us, if not most of us, Akhira, death, Jannah is not even on our list. We are living life. As life is going, we are living it. May Allah have mercy on us. Akhira is not even on our list. As life is going on, we are living it. And we know that if the thing is not even on the list then we can’t be working for it. We can’t say, I can’t say I’m working for it because it’s not even counting it. So what to do? That is the reason why at minimum we should know the questions. If somebody says, tell me the questions in the grave, how many are there? What are they? What are the questions on the Day of Judgment? How many are there? What are they? At least we should be able to say that, list it. Then we work towards it. Then we work towards those questions. So I remind myself and you, let us focus on ourselves. Forget about everybody else. This is one of the greatest traps of shaitan. Shaitan has focused us on everyone else. See what this one is doing, see what that one is doing, see this is happening, that happening. The whole social media is geared towards what people are doing. And we are consciously and unconsciously encouraged to share our private data, private details with people, including apparently harmless things. You’re sitting down to eat a meal, you take a picture. You’ve seen this, right? You take a photo and you put it on Instagram. For what? For what? Please understand, not everybody in the world is your friend. You think you are very happy with something, you post a photo, somebody sees it, that person becomes jealous. That person starts wishing ill for you. Of course, nothing happens without the will of Allah. But why do you want to invite all this? For what? Live your life quietly, be happy. If something good happens, enjoy it, keep your mouth shut. Don’t take photographs. If you’re eating a good meal, eat a good meal, thank Allah. Allah gave you the meal, eat it, thank Allah. What is the photo, did it come out of the phone? You’re sending the photo to someone, someone. For what? To do what? I’m eating this meal. So what? What shall I do about this? You’re eating the meal, so eat it. Right? I mean, it’s a dream. Please don’t do this to yourself. Focus on yourself because the only one who will matter to you on the day of judgment is yourself. The only one who will matter to me on the day of judgment is myself. Allah swt says, the day when a person will run away from his own brother, om hi vayvi, and from his mother and from his father, wasahibati hi vavani, and from his friends and from his children, you’ll run away. So, let us remember that. Focus on yourself. Allah swt says, yeah, you’re all in a hurry, focus on yourself. Allah swt says, yeah, you’re all in a hurry, focus on yourself. I don’t need to say who are you, or New York. No. Save yourself and your family. That’s it. Save yourself and your family. Focus on that. Focus on yourself. Focus on your your immediate circle, your spouses, your children. If your parents are alive, give them good and healthy lives. Your parents, don’t go, your siblings, don’t go beyond that. Stay with that. If we can keep ourselves out of the fire, believe me, we are doing good. And if all of us do it, everybody’s out of the fire. But instead of that, we look at other people, what is he doing, what is she doing, for what? Don’t waste your time. I remind myself and you, let’s not waste our time. Let us focus on that which benefits us. We ask Allah swt to help us to focus. We ask Allah to help us to put baraka in our work. We ask Allah swt to make it easy for us. We ask Allah to save us from the tests. We ask Allah swt to help us in ways that we cannot imagine and to accept our ibadah and our good actions and to forgive us, forgive our sins.
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