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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem.
Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.
Wasalatu was-salamu ala al-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen.
Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam.
Tasliman kathiran kathiran.
I want to deal with two questions that two different people asked me.
One, a friend of mine from Hyderabad, he asked me,
he said, we keep making effort, we don’t succeed, we lose energy.
How to deal with that?
And the second one was, Umar Abd al-Ali asked me,
he is in medical school.
So he said, we have been given information that we will have
a very important qualifying exam, which will be for eight hours, the exam,
in May 2026, which is 12 months from now.
And we know what all we have to study in that one year,
and how it goes forward and so on.
But he said, there are two things.
One is that this thought of this exam 12 months from now is overpowering in the head.
And secondly, the regular work of the college also is there.
That’s going on.
So how to deal with this?
Like, too much.
The answer is very simple.
And the answer is structure.
Structure.
Create a timetable for the day.
And do not use an app for that.
Do not use an app.
There is a psychological advantage in writing with your hand.
So take a normal,
you take a normal notebook.
Make two columns.
In the left column, put time.
In the right column, put the activity you have to do.
And how much time is needed for that.
So from the time you open your eyes in the morning to the time you go to bed in the night,
that must be in the timetable.
And then, second part, which is,
follow that like a religion.
Nothing must move you away from that timetable.
No matter what happens in life.
That timetable must be followed.
Otherwise it’s a waste of time.
You write it down, you do nothing, makes no sense.
So follow that very, very, very strictly.
So that is why I remind myself and you,
focus on your effort.
Not on talent, not even on your long-term goals.
Your daily effort.
I’ll give you another example.
Take, many of you have the desire to become Hafez.
Alhamdulillah.
Very good.
But tell me, what is the most important thing if you are doing HIFS?
The number one, most, absolutely important thing.
What is it?
It is not the desire to make HIFS,
it is not the quality of your Usta.
The most important thing in making HIFS is your daily Daur.
Right?
I memorized one page today,
tomorrow I repeat that, I revise that,
day after tomorrow I memorize page two,
third day I revise two pages,
then I have third page,
and I revise third page.
This is the number one most important thing to do.
If you do not do your repetition,
you cannot become Hafez. Impossible.
And that repetition will kill you.
I mean that is so difficult.
It’s not easy. It’s very, very difficult.
And the beauty is, within quote beauty,
the more you memorize, the more difficult it becomes.
Because the portion you have to repeat is more.
But there is no other way. That is the way.
As long as you go on repeating,
it trips through the mind.
But if you don’t repeat,
and even if you miss one single day,
whatever may be the reason,
the reason makes no difference.
My grandmother came by at my wedding to attend,
my friend comes.
Makes no difference.
You missed today’s Daur,
believe me brother, you are in serious trouble.
Because the next day,
it gets doubled.
You can’t make it up.
You will kill yourself.
You will not be able to do it.
Must be done on time at that time.
So create a timetable.
Focus on your effort.
It’s good to have a long-term goal,
no doubt about that. Right?
But focus on your step by step by step.
Are you taking those steps?
I used to go trekking.
I remember one day I went
with two other friends of mine.
All of them young.
I was the manager, they were my sisters.
We climbed a mountain of what?
I think it was 5,000, 5,500 feet.
And the track was almost vertical.
It was very, very steep track.
And we started from sea level
and we were going up 5,000 feet.
So it is, it was extremely hot
and we were walking on the sand.
We were walking through forest.
But not tree forest.
This was scrub forest.
So there’s no shade.
But there are nettles and there are thorns
and there are, you know,
things which will cut you
and all kinds of stuff.
And of course, there are also wild animals in that forest.
Three hours walking.
And believe me, after walking
for about an hour,
and you’re climbing, walking is not walking,
you’re just climbing.
The whole time you’re climbing.
Now I’m thinking to myself, I am insane.
Why did I even start this?
Right?
What nonsense?
I mean, I was sitting peacefully at home.
Instead of that, I have to,
I get into my stupid mind.
I must climb this.
Why should I climb the mountain?
What nonsense?
I mean, I’ve got a car.
I can drive around.
I want to go to the top.
Take the road.
No, you have to climb.
I’m cursing myself, literally.
So what kind of, you know, crazy insan you are.
But what to do?
We climb.
And, you know,
that is the reason why you should climb with people.
Because then there’s a sense of shame.
If you give up, you feel,
these guys are going to say, what the hell?
This guy gave up.
So you can’t do it.
So the sense of shame drives you.
So because of,
believe me, if I was alone,
I would have turned around and come back.
Nobody to see me.
No problem.
But now I got this kid with me.
Now,
so I’m climbing and I’m cursing myself.
I’m sweating.
I’m scratched all over.
And then the sweat comes into the scratch and it hurts.
This is the salty sweat in the scratches.
And then we reach a halfway point.
I said, what happened?
About 3000 feet.
Now the halfway point,
the problem with the halfway point is that then there is only one way to go,
which is up.
You can’t go down.
And the problem with steep climbs is going down is more difficult than going up.
Because the pressure on the knees and the thighs,
it’s very painful.
So you stop there for a while,
take some breaths,
drink a little bit of water.
And you can’t take a lot of water.
If you drink a lot of water,
you would get cramps.
And then you have to climb another 2000 feet.
You look up there and you say,
Oh my God,
it’s right up there.
And you’re walking and walking and walking.
Finally,
we get to the top.
And as we stop there,
we turn around.
There is a breeze coming from the Indian Ocean all the way up to the mountain.
And you’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
You’re sweating.
And you’re sweating.
And believe me,
there’s nothing more beautiful than a cold breeze when you are sweating.
It’s like an air conditioning,
personal air conditioning system.
We stand there and we look.
I can see way in the distance,
in the horizon is the Indian Ocean.
And there are rice fields.
So green rice fields.
And in the middle of the rice fields are lots of big ponds.
And the ponds are lotus flowers.
I can’t see the details of the flowers and so on because it’s too far away.
But I can see the details.
And I can see the different shades of color, shades of green, shades of blue.
And then the sky has got these cumulus white clouds.
SubhanAllah, what a sight.
I mean, this thing happened in about 1992 or something.
And I’ve been talking to you about it now.
I do the numbers, how many years.
Absolutely fabulous sight.
And then we turn and we start walking.
And as we were walking, we had to go to the planters club for the car to come.
And that was another 14 kilometers from there.
So we turn and we are walking.
I have this feeling of something is watching me.
So I look around and don’t see anything.
I look up and there’s a leopard.
And the leopard is sitting on top like this and looking like this down.
I stood and looked at the leopard, never looking at me.
What do you do? Nothing.
Step by step.
Enjoy the step.
Enjoy the short-term goal.
Focus on the short-term goal.
People say, follow your passion.
I say, no, forget passion.
Follow your energy.
Follow your effort.
Passion will happen.
That long-term goal will happen.
But you have to start with the short-term goal.
What will I do today?
What will I do next hour?
Now it is 8.30.
What am I going to do from 8.30 to 9.30?
What is my plan?
9.30 to 10.30, what’s my plan?
How many hours will I sleep?
When will I get up?
The more detail you make your timetable, believe me, the more successful you will be.
And the key is, stick to that.
That is the most important thing because a lot of…
That’s why I say don’t use an app because apps are easy.
The app is designed to help you.
You don’t need…
Don’t take help.
Make the effort.
Draw the lines.
Write the stuff with your own hand.
As I told you, there is a psychological connection between the writing hand and the brain.
So, you have to make the effort.
It’s not just the brain.
It reinforces your will to do something.
Do that.
Focus on the effort.
Measure the effort.
And then the result is automatic.
Right?
So, keep the overall goal.
Keep it as a motivator.
I got my exam in May 2026.
That’s my motivator.
But what am I going to do on a daily basis?
So, my coursework, my work for the exam.
Make the timetable and do it.
What motivates you daily is this.
Is that measurement.
When you make the measurement, it motivates you.
Oh, I got my goal.
Right?
For example, in the Hebs of the Qur’an, well, today, one page, 15 lines, I had to memorize.
I memorized 15 lines.
I repeated that to the Ustad.
He is happy with my recitation.
Alhamdulillah.
That’s my goal.
That’s it.
And not thinking I will become Hafiz of Qur’an.
No, no, no.
Hafiz of Qur’an will happen in its own good time.
My job, 15 lines today.
That’s it.
Short goals.
15 lines.
I’m not saying 15, you know, yeah, do one line.
That’s up to you.
But my daily goal, what is my daily goal?
And this daily goal must be, as I told you, there’s nothing, if you die, that’s okay.
Nothing else.
Oh, I’m feeling tired today.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired.
I’m feeling tired today.
No, no, no, no excuses.
No excuses.
That goal must be done.
Absolutely zero excuse.
Right?
That way you will discipline yourself.
Then what happens?
Somebody says, Sheikh, I’m coming to your house for tea today.
No, no, no.
I have my goal to do.
JazakAllah fair and I’ll send the tea to your house.
You stay and drink tea in your house.
But I have to.
You know, really, I’m telling you, see, if you cannot take these hard decisions, if you
cannot take these hard decisions, you cannot do anything.
If you cannot discipline yourself, you will not achieve anything.
So very, very important.
Keep the long-term goal as a motivator.
Break it down into short-term goals and monitor those short-term goals without fail every day,
inshaAllah.
Then you won’t lose heart.
You won’t lose effort because you’re focusing on effort.
You’re not saying, oh, I did this today.
Nothing happened.
No.
My job is to complete my goal for that day.
That is my motivator.
If anything happened, didn’t happen, I’m not worried about that.
So you won’t get demotivated.
You won’t lose hope.
And inshaAllah, you will be able to do it.
And you will be able to do it.
And you will be able to do it.
And you will be able to do it.
So you won’t lose hope.
And inshaAllah, success is the result of consistent good effort.
Success has to come.
There’s no way success will not come as long as you do the effort.
We ask Allah to give us istiqamat.
That’s why there is the whole issue of istiqamat in Islam.
That’s why Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, do a small thing, but do a big thing.
Do a small thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
Do a big thing.
And not just a small deed, but do it continuously.
Don’t do one whole night of salah and then you sleep after that, and you don’t even pray
for the fajar salah.
No.
Small act, but consistently.
It adds up.
It adds up.
It adds up.
So we ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala to help us to do things in a way which is systematic
and to give us istiqamat so that we are steadfast in our effort, inshaAllah.
Wasalaamu Alaikum.
Dari Maalali Hiwa Saivej Maimbe Raho Tika Akhmatai.
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