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My brothers and sisters, in a Hadith narrated by Anas bin Malik, somebody asked Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam, they said which is the best fasting after Ramadan? And he said it is the fasting in Shaban in preparation for Ramadan. So we are in Shaban. I remind myself and you, let us fast in Shaban as much as we can. Of course Mondays and Thursdays and the three yamulbeeth, 14th, 15th, 16th, Alhamdulillah this is good but try and fast as much as you can. The only caveat is don’t fast till the end and just go into Ramadan. There is a recommendation, Nabi Salman sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said don’t differentiate between the two months. So the last three, four days, the last week, do not fast. And then we start fasting again in Ramadan. But that still leaves us three weeks from tomorrow until the third week is over, until the 21st of Shaban. Try to fast as much as you can. This is the best of fasting. And they asked him the same Hadith, they asked him which is the best charity and he said the charity that is given in Ramadan. So please give us as much as we can. Remember, it’s not ours. It’s going to go anyway. Right? Just yesterday somebody called me and said this is what my grandfather left and my father and my uncles are going to the attorneys and to the court. I said, Subhantam, I mean, you imagine. For the last three months, we have been doing this for the last three months. And the grandfather didn’t make a, he didn’t make a, even he made a, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s hokum is there, the relatives’ laws are clear, so what do you want? But we want to use our own. Don’t do this. It is not yours. It is not mine. It is going to be left behind. All we are doing is giving accounts. I always say that I do. I remind myself and I say to people, you are not giving anything to anybody. It’s your own. Please understand this. Right? I gave a donation to the masjid. No, no, no, no, no. You didn’t give any donation to the masjid. You took your amount, your money from account here and shifted it to the account with Allah. That’s it. I gave charity to somebody. I gave money to some poor guy. No, no, no. You didn’t give anything. You did not give anything. It is yours. It is still yours. It was in this account. It has been moved to the other account. That’s it. So what’s the problem? Shaitan comes in and says, you are giving it away. It’s going. It’s going. Going where? Going into my account. Allah said on the day of judgment you are going to fight it with me and I will return that to you in keeping with my majesty and grace. So where is it gone? It’s not gone anywhere. Why do you think the Sahaba gave the way they gave? Just think about this. People are not nuts, right? They were as intelligent as we are. Why didn’t they give? They understood this thing. They understood we are not giving anything. That’s why I keep saying don’t use the word sacrifice. For the sake of religion, sacrifice. Sacrifice is done by the dead person you have eaten. The dead person died. Your tree died. The poor tree didn’t get anything. This is called sacrifice. The only sacrifice is Tandoori chicken. The chicken died and you ate it and it was good for you and the poor chicken died. It gave its life for nothing. There is no sacrifice for the deen. There is no sacrifice for Islam. Allah says minimum I will give you 1 is to 10. Where is the sacrifice? You are getting 1000% return. You call it a sacrifice? What is it? We are only transferring from this account to that account. That’s it. Period. Transfer as much as you can because when you leave this world, whatever is left in this account stays here. Why do you want to leave it behind? For what? Take it with you, man. Take it with you. When people ask me, can we take it? We can’t take this with us. Of course we can take it with us. Don’t be wealthy. I say try poverty. Go straight on the street for one day and you will understand the meaning of that. Wealth is good. Read my lips. Wealth is good. Wealth is critical. Wealth is essential. The issue is how do you earn it? Where do you spend it? That’s it. There is nothing romantic about poverty. Please. If you have wealth, you can spend it in the path of Allah SWT. You have nothing. You are a beggar. What will you do for anybody else? So third quality. And those who say, O our Lord, a word from us, the torment of Jahannam. Verily its torment is ever an inseparable punishment, permanent punishment. Evil indeed is Jahannam as a place to dwell. Now brothers and sisters, it is a sign of intelligence to remember our akhirah, to remember that one day we will go to Allah SWT and that day can be today, it can be tomorrow, it can be anything. Nobody comes with the guarantee that you are going to get old. Right? So let’s prepare for that. A life that is lived purely for the present without a thought of the future and just sensation to sensation is the life of an animal. That’s how animals live. The sign of intelligent beings is to think of the consequences of their actions. Every action has a consequence. We are free to choose, but no choice is free. Every choice has a consequence, either good or bad. Not choosing also has a consequence. Living by default is, don’t think that’s free, you know or no? Now brothers and sisters, this is the result of, this is the reason why we have stress. We have stress because we don’t realize the consequence of our actions. We take actions and then we get worried. So let me give you a test to see whether we are focused on the duniya or the akhirah. This is a test, very simple self-test. If I want to know am I focused on the duniya or the akhirah, what’s the test? The test is, see what you are most stressed about. Think about that. What’s the top of the mind thought in my mind? What am I most stressed about? Remember stress is the reality of every single living human being who has akal. Somebody whose brain is gone, you know, Alzheimer’s, what not, I’m talking about somebody who is intelligent, whose brain is functioning, stress will happen. Everybody is stressed. Everyone is stressed to the extent of sahabas, sahabas, sahabas, sahabas, sahabas, everyone is stressed to the extent the sahaba was stressed, the ambiya was stressed, Rasul was or Salaam himself was stressed. The question is, stressed about what? It’s not a question of freedom from stress. Nobody, if you’re free from stress, go to doctor’s where he’s sitting here. You check whether the brain is still functioning or not. If the brain is functioning, you will be stressed. Take it from me. There is no escape. Question is, stressed about what? Am I stressed about this dunya? Am I stressed about what will happen tomorrow? Am I stressed about who is sitting in the White House? Am I stressed about what is happening in Palestine or what is happening in Pakistan or India or wherever? What is happening on Wall Street? What’s happening in the NASDAQ? Am I stressed about all that stuff or am I stressed about is my Rabb pleased with me? Is Allah pleased with me? That’s why Allah said, He said that one sajdah which you think is so difficult frees you from a thousand sajdahs which you have to do to all kinds of people. One sajdah. When I make my single point of within force positive stress, is Allah pleased with me? I forget about everything else. Nothing else matters. Focus on the Rida of Allah and the beauty is, you might say, well, you know, I focus on the Rida of Allah and the whole world falls apart. No, the whole world will not fall apart. That is the whole point. If you’re focused on the Rida of Allah, the whole world falls into place, does not fall apart. We are learning ourselves like it, trying to grab this and grab that and grab that and this is learning that. One point and everything will come into place. You know, I remember I was in the Haram and there was a big bang, like an explosion. Obviously everyone panicked. I was in the Haram and I was running here, there and so on. Very intelligently, the Imam, and this happened just as Iqamah was, you know, like Iqamah finished and boom, people like, the Imam did a very, very intelligent thing. He just said, Allah Akbar. Wallahi, Muslims are Muslims. Alhamdulillah, the moment he said Allah Akbar, everyone stopped, they turned towards the Kaaba, they made the saffron and they Allah Akbar. Single point of focus. It turned out that a chandelier had broken and fallen. So the bang was not in, there wasn’t any bomb, it was just a chandelier broken. But the point I’m making is it brought into my heart the thought that, you know, I’m concerned about the pleasure of Allah, Allah Akbar. Everything falls into place, doesn’t fall apart. I ask Allah Subhanu wa Ta’ala Jalaluhu to help us to please him and to save us from doing anything which displeases him. I ask Allah Subhanu wa Ta’ala to help us to live in a way that he is pleased with. I ask Allah to give us Ramadan al-Kareem with good health and Iman and Tawfiq and the time to really benefit from the month. Amen.
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