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Bismillah ** الرحمن الرحيم** (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم). Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ash-shalafil abbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullahﷺ sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahibu salam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Khawam abadu. My brothers and sisters, I want to teach you a very quick and very important life lesson. And that is what I call the lesson of the ROI.
How many people know what is ROI? Nobody? The best one is this. Huh? No one knows. These people don’t know, right?
Return on investment. You say, do you do business? How do you do business? Return on investment, ROI. Right? This is a very, very important lesson to learn in life because this applies not only in business. It applies to everything in life. For example, you want to get married. Work out the ROI of the girl you are planning to get married. There are high maintenance women and there are low maintenance women. You marry a high maintenance woman, you will get a very low ROI. Right? You marry a low maintenance woman, you get a very high ROI. High return on the investment. Applies to everything. You’re buying something. For example, you’re buying a car. Are you buying a brand or are you buying features? All brands, low ROI. Nobody cares. Who cares what the decal on your car looks like? You think you’re doing a great thing by buying this thing. Which, oh, it’s a Mercedes or it’s a BMW or whatever. You drive a BMW on Hyderabad roads at 10 miles an hour. So the point is that work on the ROI. What is the return on my investment? Whatever I’m investing.
The reason I’m saying this to you is because, alhamdulillah, by the grace of Allahﷻ, we are here, especially the people who Allah has given the tawfiq to make it a . May Allah bless all of you. As I said yesterday, many of you have seen from the beginning. Like Hamza here, from the first day we started at the Kaaf in his masjid, he has been with me. Alhamdulillah. And even during the COVID days when I was in America, he was here alone by himself. And in those days, his grandfather used to live across from here. He used to come and bring special food for him, which he never shared with him. But I mean, I could see he brought it, brought the food and so on. Alhamdulillah. May Allah give him Jannatul Firdaus, Inshallah. So, you have invested your time, right, by being here. So, what’s the ROI on this? What’s the return you’re going to get?
Of course, return is, Allah gives return without counting. This is the ihsaan of Allahﷻ as Rabbil Alameen. But in terms of counting, also Rasulullahﷺ told us, he gave us numbers. Now, that numbers doesn’t mean that it is restricted to that number. But we have the numbers. For example, Rasulullahﷺ said that when you read the Quran, Alhamdulillah, reading the Quran and listening to the Quran being recited, Inshallah, the reward is the same. So, when you read the Quran, Nabiﷺ said, for every letter, and this is very specific. He said, for every letter. For every letter, Allahﷻ will give 10 hasarat. Right? For every letter. And he said, I do not say that Alif, Laam, Meem is one letter. He said, Alif is one letter, Laam is one letter, Meem is one letter. That’s how specific the hadith is. So, every letter, Allah will give 10 hasarat.
Now, I did a quick calculation because I wanted to say this. So, I did the calculation beforehand and you can check it out if you like. Now, if in a, in a, I read the Usmani script. In the Usmani Quran, Musaf, a page has 15 lines. And you have roughly 21 pages to the Jews, to one Separa. And randomly I counted the number of letters, it’s roughly 30 per line. So, multiply 30 by 15 lines. Multiply that by 21 to give you the number. Number of pages per Jews. And multiply that by 10, you get something like 94,200. Correct? Yeah? 94,500. 94,500. Now, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala says, for each letter you are getting 10 hasarat. So, each hasarat you take to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala, you get 10 more. So, it is 100. So, 94,500 multiply by another 10. That’s only, 9,000,000 is more than that. 94,500. Point being, that is just in one set of Tarawih. That’s it. And remember, in that, when I am saying one Jews, we are not counting the number of times you have recited Surah Al-Fatihah. We are talking only about the rest of the Quran. Surah Al-Fatihah, we have read it 20 times. You have recited Surah Al-Fatihah 20 times plus in Salatul Isha and whatever. You have recited. You have heard and recited and so on, so on. And then during this time, I am very happy to see, Mashallah, all of you are very dedicated and you are spending a lot of time. I don’t hear any noise in the day. Nothing, no laughing and this and that. Very good. This is the way to do Ithaka. Focusing on your Ibadah. Mashallah. May Allah bless you. So, you are doing that. Each one of you, you know what you are doing. All of this.
Now, think about this. That we don’t know how many times Allah will give us this opportunity. Alhamdulillah, we ask Allah to give us. What about this? But, we don’t know, right? We do not know. Whether I will be here next year, you don’t know, I don’t know. And we have enough examples of people who we thought will always be there, they are not there anymore. This is life. So, take advantage while we have the time. Alhamdulillah, Allah has given us. And Mashallah, those of you who are taking advantage, may Allah bless you. Those who are not able to do that, make dua to Allah. Because, this is the house of Allah. Right? If I want to enter your house, I can’t just walk in. I have to be invited by you. Or I have to try to get you to invite me. Or knock on the door, please can I come in? Same thing. Because this is not fardh. This is nafil. Fardh is fardh. Fardh is the house of Allah is open. You have to go and you have been already called. Hayal Salah, Hayal Fala, you are there. But for nafil ibadah, for tahajjud for example, you have to beg Allah. Ya Allah, please give me tahajjud. Imam Ibn Taymiyyah is very famous. He said once, Allah deprived him of tahajjud for one month because of some mistake he committed. I don’t know what mistake. He said Allah deprived him. Allah did not allow him to pray tahajjud for one month.
So you have to beg Allah. Ya Allah, please let me come. Ya Allah, let me pray tahajjud. Please allow me to do that. Allow me into your house for anything else. Because we don’t know when we are going. And now fast forward this to the time when we meet Allah. All of this will be inshaAllah al-musta’in in our records, in your records when you go before Allah. Then we will remember. Sahib was telling me, he said I was thinking should I go, should I not go, can I go, can I not go. I happened to tell him, kall apan milinge yeh te ka paise. He said, I thought aap bole kall milinge. Mui aagaya. Alhamdulillah. Allah karam. Today it may seem like abaaab 10 days, how will I, because after all I am running the world, right? So 10 days if I come out here, the world will collapse. You know. Really we should think, kya haon haon, what is going to happen?
Many of you, you know these are things to notice and take lessons from. How many of you have you seen, you have gone to a janaza, right? You are going there, the body is being buried, and that body is somebody you loved, and somebody you know, if you have gone all the way to the grave, it’s somebody you know. Somebody’s phone rings. Have you ever seen somebody just turn off the phone? Or will you answer the phone? I have never seen anyone turning off the phone. That is exactly how important you are. That is exactly how important I am. Period. The chap will not even turn his phone off while he is burying you, he will answer the phone.
And today we think, what will happen if I come for 10 days? How 10 days? How many days have we come? 3 days are over. 3 days gone. Just 10 days. Just like that. And believe me, by the time we get up from here, rest of it is gone and we are looking at Chandigarh, Nidigarh, it is nothing. See the moon, don’t see the moon, what not. And that opportunity, the one who got it, alhamdulillah, the one who didn’t get it, it’s gone. So please, think about this. The purpose of life. I remember, let me come back to that. I was a little kid. We used to live in Sanatnagar. And that colony, that whole colony was full of Marwadis. So one day, my father was walking, I was walking with him, then couple of these Marwadi guys. That time, there was a coin worth 5 paise, I don’t know how many of you saw, 5 paise, it was a square coin. One 5 paise coin was on the ground. People have stamped on it and so on, full of mud. This guy picks it up, he touches it to his eyes and kisses it, touches it to his forehead and puts it in his pocket. So my father says, he has 5 paise behind him. Lakshmi hai sahab, Lakshmi hai, he is a goddess of wealth.
My point is, that people who are focused on something, they make sure that they don’t lose any advantage. The smallest good deed, the purpose of knowledge is to apply it. Right? It’s not khari bhatke bayana sunne ka nahi hai. Kaano ki aayashi bale ho isa. Unka bayan bot acha tha, inka acha tha, unka bura tha. Aapko ya, dalga bana ke bitha hai. Nahi sahi bhi bola hai. Aarey waah, aay sahab, kya bayan karey hai. Usse kya, mane gana wala hai. Aapko kya, usko bawa kar kya. The purpose of knowledge is application. If you learn something, you must apply it. If you are not applying it, it’s a waste. It’s gone. Whatever you learn. So when you are learning the importance of return on investment, please understand. Shafi Rao Talal has said, life is a series of breaths. And the minute you started breathing, it’s a depleting account. You and I came with a certain number of, we don’t know how much, but we came with a certain number of breaths. The first breath I took as a baby, one less. Second breath, two less. Third breath, three less. Nothing is being added. It’s all a depleting account. Until the last breath, halam.
When will that happen? We don’t know. We do not know. So let us take advantage while you are still breathing. Make sure that that breath is earning something for me. Right? We have earning assets and non-earning assets. So a wise person is one who invests. In earning assets. So the asset is earning for him while he is sleeping. If that’s not happening, then you’re wasted. You know, whatever wealth is just sitting there. It’s doing nothing. It should earn for you. While you are sleeping, it should earn for you. So earning assets. So our life must become an earning asset. Everything we do. From the smallest to the biggest. So whether it is Vaadat. Whether it is Sadaqat. Ask yourself. Are you calculating your Zakat and paying it? It’s very important. And don’t say, oh, my father paid. No, your father, your Zakat is valid, is liable on you. Not your father. And if you have not paid, then you are answerable to Allah. That’s, Zakat is fard. It’s a rukun of Islam. In addition to Zakat, you have to pay Zakat. Zakat is only 2.5%. Now, depending on what it is, usually for gold, silver and money, which is what we have. If you have agricultural land and so on, that’s a different thing. But this is that only one thing. Beyond this, extra charity are you giving?
How do you treat your parents? How do you treat other people? How do you treat people who work for you? All of these things have importance. How do you treat people who are weak? How do you respond to whatever is happening around us? Right? So how we spend our time? How we spend our energy? What decisions we take? Let’s be aware of all these things.
That’s why I began with this ROI and saying, let us see. We are investing. Our life is going. The reason I mentioned ROI is because the investment is not in our control. Life is going. As long as you are breathing, the investment is going on daily. Every breath, the investment is going on. What you can do is to get the maximum out of it. I want to close with something which all of you would have seen. If you go down, there is a drain at the end of the road number 12. Usually, there is an ice cellar there. Based on ice. That’s a life story in that. He buys the block of ice in the morning from wherever he buys it. Now, that ice is melting. Every minute, every second, the ice is melting. So his capital is melting. He will win if he can convert that capital into cash by selling these ice. Now, if that fellow goes to sleep, I am tired now, I am going to sleep. Usually, the ice is melting. I found some friend, I have a friend who came and said, have you had tea? You have had tea, you have not eaten biryani, whatever you have done, the ice is melting.
So, if you bought this ice, you have to pay for it. If you bought this ice for 100 rupees, if he does not clear 100 rupees, if he clears 100 rupees, he is still not making money, he has just got his money back. So, if he can make more than 100, whatever he is making, that’s his income. But the ice is melting. Ice doesn’t stop melting. The ice will continue to melt until it is gone. This is our life. Our life is that block of ice. It is melting. It won’t stop melting. You do what you want, it will not stop melting. You cannot stop it from melting. So, what about the ice? What must you do? Maximize the revenue on this thing. Sell this for the maximum price. Sell that ice for the maximum price. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala is the buyer. So sell the ice for the maximum price. You are a winner. You don’t do that, fool around here, fool around there, this, that, what not. Ice is melting. Once it is gone, it is gone, finished. It is not coming back. So we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to give us this awareness, to help us to do this. To help us to live with that awareness, to help us to not leave any opportunity where we can convert our life into actions, good deeds, which will be waiting for us with Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala when we meet Him.