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My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you that time is the most important asset that we have. Time is life itself. Time is so important that Allah SWT took an oath by time. Wallahasr in the linsanat of the fukus. Time is the only non-renewable resource that we have. Everything else can be renewed, not time. We had the longest life expectancy at birth. Then our clock started and it runs backwards. We literally don’t know how much time we have left. Imam Shahbhai Ramantul Ali said two beautiful things. One, he said that time is a collection of breaths. When the last one is spent, that’s it. And the other thing he said was that life is but an instant. Because Allah mentioned this thing, kam labis, labis na yawman, avadayo. Life is but an instant. Let it be an instant of obedience. And that’s why it’s very important to live life with a sense of purpose and urgency. To live thoughtfully with our goal always in mind. Unfortunately, we live in an environment where having fun, playing games, entertainment, watching movies, social media, shopping for things we don’t need and all such stuff, all of this takes precedence over living thoughtfully and for a purpose. Many of you are parents of teenage children, of high school children. How many of you have asked your child, what is your ambition? What is your goal in life? Did you ever ask your child this question? The reason I’m asking is because when those children come to me and I ask them, they look blank. They look as if they’re seeing stars. So how would you raise children who have no goal, no purpose? Go and do that. Ask your child, what is your goal? What is your ambition? What do you want to achieve in life? What’s your purpose? And then take a deep breath. Because if a child turns around and says, daddy, what is your purpose? You better have an answer ready. Otherwise you won’t look very good before them, right? To live without purpose is the life of animals. It’s a life. Get up in the morning, eat some food, go to sleep. That’s it. Day after day after day. And that’s the whole problem that we have created a society which is so toxic that as an antidote to the toxicity of the society, we have created entertainment. Right? It’s like saying I have, may Allah protect all of us from this, but I’m saying, supposing for example, I have severe migraines, headaches, and all I’m doing is taking handfuls of Tylenol. What would you say if I do that? You say, you’re crazy. Go and see a neurologist. Go and see a doctor. What is wrong? Maybe you’ve got some brain tumor or something. This Tylenol is just taking care of some immediate symptom. Go and check what is wrong. Right? But what have we done in society? We created a toxic society. And instead of saying how can we solve this toxicity, how can we cure this tumor, how can we cure this cancer, we give placebos. We give painkillers. How does it help? Three hours in the movie, you get lost. They make nice movies. You get lost. You come back out. It’s the same world. It is the same world. So that’s why we have this great value for fun. Oh, at least we had fun. Really, I tell you, this is so tragic. It’s unbelievable. We have been conditioned to believe that work and fun are two different things. That’s why we talk about work-life balance. That’s why we talk about I need time to relax. You need time to relax because your work stresses you. Why does your work stress you? Think about it. You need time to relax. Your work stresses you. Why does your work stress you? Think about that first. Somebody, when I was living here in 97, 98, somebody asked me, they said, can you look up the Zeera and the Hayat-ul-Sahaba and whatnot and see what was the entertainment of the time of the Misa Salaam, what were the fun things they used to do. There is one single account of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam running a race with his wife Aisha, Siddiqun al-Dilana. One time in his whole life. Rest of it, archery, horse riding. These were not fun things. This was training, military training for the people of the time. They needed horse riding. They needed archery. They needed swordplay. That was not for fun. If it was for fun, they wouldn’t have won all the wars. For that they won, not because of fun. So within court they had no fun. But also recorded history. When Nabi Salah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam sent the embassies to different kings, he sent one to the Patriarch of Egypt, who was Christian. The Coptic Church. So he received the letter from the Misa Salaam with great respect and honor and so on and so forth. He didn’t accept Islam, but he sent back presents. So he sent back different kinds of gifts and so on and so forth. They came. Among those presents were two doctors. The Egyptians were very very good at that time with medicine and so on. So they sent two doctors. So these two doctors came and they stayed in Madinah. After two years they came to Nabi Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and they said, Ya Rasulullah, if you don’t mind, we request permission to go back home. Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, what happened? You came here, you are doctors, and did anybody mistreat you? They said, no no no, Hamtul Ali, we are beautiful people, we love them, everything else. Then why do you want to go home? He said, because if we don’t go home we will forget our medicine. He said, nobody gets sick here. He said, we have not prescribed anything for two years, so if we stay here we are going to forget our medicine. They sent us back. Nobody is getting sick. How many people you think wrote out prescriptions of Prozac or something? How come they didn’t get stressed? Because ask any, forget I am taking away from the Sahaba and so on, forget. Ask any entrepreneur, I have a book on entrepreneurship. Ask any entrepreneur, ask anybody who is doing a start-up, what he does for fun, what he does for relaxation. He’ll laugh at you in your face. He will say, this is the most fun thing in my life. This start-up is the biggest relaxation I have. His wife might complain, children might complain, he won’t complain, he is far, he is concerned, this is the thing. People who live with a purpose, their purpose is fun. They don’t need work-life balance because the reality of life is only those who are totally skewed towards their purpose win. You want to have a balance, have a balance. No problem, you won’t win. Take it from me in writing. You will not win. To win, you have to have single-minded focus on what you want to achieve. Your purpose should be clear and you must go towards that goal. That’s the only way of winning. Our brothers and sisters, Alhamdulillah, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala then said, وَالَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا هَبْلَنَا مِنَ اَزْوَاجِنَا وَذُرِّيَاتِنَا قُرَّةَ عَيُونَ وَجْعَلْنَا لِلْمُتَّقِينَ اِمَابَ And they are those who say, our Rabb bestow on us from our wives and our spouses and our offspring, those who will be the comfort of our eyes and make us leaders of the Muttaqun. May Allah make this dua come true for all of us, inshallah, but believe me, dua without daa, nothing will happen. You want children to be imam of A’imatul Muttaqeer, you have to work on that. Finally, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala told us about the reward of those who choose wisely, Allah said, they are those who will be rewarded with the highest place in Jannah. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala for this for all of us, inshallah, because of their patience, because of their sabr. Therein they shall be met with greeting, with tahiyyat and with salam and respect and abiding therein they will be blessed with the best of both worlds. And Allah said, they are those who will be rewarded with the highest place in Jannah. They shall be met with patience, with tahiyyat and with salam and respect and abiding therein they will stay there forever. Excellent it is as an abode and as a place to dwell. I ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala for this, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala promised Jannatul Firdous for those of His slaves, we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives and we ask Allah to make us among them who live our lives
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