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Bismillāh ar-Raḥmān ar-Raḥīm. Alhamdulillāhi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wa salātu wa salāmu ‘alā ashrafil anbiyā’ wal mursaleen, Muḥammadur Rasūlullāh ﷺ, wa ‘alā ālihi wa sahbihi ﷺ. Tasliman kathīran kathīrān. Qamun badu.
My brothers and sisters, we are entering, insha’allah, from tomorrow the 1st of Dhul Hijjah. So the first nine days of Dhul Hijjah—ten days total, with the tenth day being Eid—as I mentioned yesterday, represent the most important and virtuous days of the year.
And the deeds done during those days, Allah subḥānahū wa ta’ālā rewards them more than He rewards similar deeds done at any other time of the year. So alhamdulillah, we have this advantage. The key thing to understand and remember is that therefore we need to treat those days as something which is the means of collecting for us assets which have eternal value.
Because the whole point of Islam, of īmān bil-ghayb, is to understand the concept, is to understand the concept of the life hereafter, the Akhirah.
Just to give you an example:
if you look at wealth, alright, think about it. How much wealth do you have? How much wealth do I have?
Even today, we don’t even have to go back to the time of “this king” or “that king” and ask what he had. Even today, if you look at people in different countries, right?
Alhamdulillah, I know people in this country who are considered wealthy by our standards here. I also know people
in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, in South Africa, in America,
whose wealth… I don’t even know how to compare. Because, even 1% of that person’s wealth is fifty times the wealth of the wealthiest person that I know here.
I have friends, for example,
who have game farms. Here you might have a farm in Moinabad or somewhere, five acres, ten acres. I don’t know how many people have even that much.
I know people; I have friends who have game farms.
One farm is fourteen thousand hectares.
One hectare is 2.4 acres.
So what is the worth of whatever farm you have in Moinabad or Bikarabad or somewhere?
So there is no limit and there is no comparison in terms of wealth. You might think you have something. It has no value. Even in this world, compared to what somebody else has.
I remember, I was doing a project with Ghazby where we were distributing scholarship money. We went to Nizambadha or somewhere, it’s a long story, I won’t mention the whole story here but
the value of… there was a girl who came and she wanted to become a teacher, which itself I found very surprising because most people don’t want to become teachers. She wanted to become a teacher and the fees for her degree suddenly occurred to me were less than the price of the shoes I was wearing.
Ajeeb. I was wearing a pair of shoes; the price of those shoes was more than the fees for her degree. So, it’s a relative thing. The point is, why am I mentioning this to you? The reason I’m mentioning this to you is because we get dazzled by what is in front of us. So, this car, this house, this whatever, whatever.
What we have to see is how long does that remain?
Right? Even if you look at assets, we have perishable assets and you have a lot of assets. Long-term assets. So, for example, if I tell you here is so much money. Say, if I tell you here is
one crore. Right? So, one crore is what? Ten million.
Right? Here is ten million. You have two options: Spend this one crore on a five-star cruise
to the Bahamas or spend that one crore buying a flat.
Which one is a better use of that one crore?
It’s not that you don’t… you already have a house so you don’t need a flat. But, I’m telling you, here is one crore. These are the two options. Spend it on a cruise in the Bahamas or buy a flat. Which is the better investment? The flat. Because the flat will remain.
The cruise will end the day it comes; the day it ends. Once you do the cruise, you come back. That’s it. At the most, you have a bunch of photographs and some memory of “oh, this food was very nice” or “I went diving there” or “I went snorkeling there” or something I did. That was nice. But other than that, that one crore is gone. There’s no sign of it. It’s finished. Whereas this flat is there. It has value. It will appreciate over time. You sell it. Maybe you will make more than the one crore and so on. So, both are halal. I mean, I’m not saying… you know, I’m not asking you to do something haram. Even the halal thing, clearly one has more value than the other. So, we are coming into days where
what we do will remain with us. And this is the concept of the Akhirah. The concept of the Akhirah is the same logic we apply in this life. We say: Buy assets which are concrete. Buy assets which appreciate over time. Buy assets which will remain with you.
Right? People like, for example, people like to spend money on expensive cars. I always say, unless you are buying an antique car which probably will appreciate over time. And that also is a very, very… you know, very small market because the same car, you can appreciate it in your head. But if you want to sell it, will you get that price for it? Allah knows. Allah knows best. Right? But, if you are buying something, so I always say, people who buy expensive cars, I say, your financial sense is wonky because you are buying a depreciating asset. You buy the car.
The latest BMW is called “Prenia.” Very fancy. Very, very fancy. But drive it off the lot of the dealer, turn around, go around the block, turn around, come back, turn around, drive it back on and say, “buy it back.” He will not even give you what you paid for it.
So, it’s a depreciating asset. Why would you put money into a depreciating asset?
This is the whole point of understanding the value of the Akhirah. Which is that we have the option to do deeds, to do things which have appreciating value and which lasts beyond our death. Which lasts forever. Hmm? That is the option. When we are talking about the Akhirah, this is the option. This is what Islam gives us. That you have an option. You have the same time, same 24 hours. Those 24 hours,
what do you want to spend them doing?
And again, I’m not talking about doing anything halal. Halal stuff. But you have the option of spending them doing something which has value in the Akhirah. Or you do something which is halal but it has no value.
Like for example, if a whole bunch of people go and you have a nice meal and come back, what’s the value of that? Nothing.
Depending on what you ate and depending on what time of the day you ate, probably it is going to harm you more than benefit you.
So the point is that
when we do our actions, because… time is limited, it’s finite. We don’t have… nobody has infinite time.
Nobody has infinite energy.
So when we have the opportunity to say, okay, I’ve got a day today, now we’re sitting at the time of Salatul Fajr till Salatul Isha. We have this day. How will I spend this day? What am I going to earn for myself in this day? So treat every day as an earning opportunity, which is what it is. It’s an opportunity to earn. So what is it that I’m going to earn in today? And at the end of the day, keep a notebook and say, “What did I earn today?”
Every day, write down: “What did I earn today?”
And there should be something. You should be able to write something. And if you can’t, if you don’t write anything, that also is, insha’allah, if you are a thoughtful person, it’s a lesson. And say, “My whole day went—24 hours—and I earned nothing.” Okay, if Allah gives me another day of life, what will I do? And of course, you might have earned
evil. You might have done *ghibah* or something, or you might have done something wrong. So, but the benefit of keeping track is that at least you can make a step forward and you make a *tawbah*. You don’t keep that in your record; you can remove it.
So let us remind ourselves when Allah gives us each day to treat it as an earning opportunity—not just time which passes. If it’s an earning opportunity, what did I earn today?
We do this in our businesses, especially for shopkeepers. We say, “What was my profit today?” How much money came in? Did we count it? Do we write down accounts? What was my sale today?
Sam Walton is famous for this. He used to fly around in his plane and land wherever there was a Walmart. He would walk in and ask the store clerk—anyone on the floor who works for Walmart—to say: “What was the revenue yesterday? The store, what did you make yesterday? What is your goal for today?” Anyone could answer.
He was so famous that people used to carry around little slips of paper. As soon as they came in, they would write down how things were. Otherwise, you won’t know. If you are a sales boy, sales girl, or somebody else, you don’t know what the revenue of the store was yesterday because you weren’t even thinking about it while selling at some counter. But because they had this culture of checking, anyone could see. So, try this: those of you who have businesses, do this in your business. See how the business operates and how it will prosper. You must know what my sale was yesterday. In my business consulting practice, I ask people directly, business owners: “What was your sale yesterday?”
If you don’t know, my point is that what kind of businessman are you? You’re running this business but you don’t know how much money you made yesterday. What kind of businessman are you? You should know. Literally, if they wake you up in the night and say, “How much did you make yesterday?”, you must know.
Now, if that is the standard of a good businessman or businesswoman in this world, what must be our standard for the *Akhira*?
So if you ask me, “What have you accumulated for the *Akhira*?” We should know this. We ask Allah ﷻ to multiply it and to accept it and so on. But we should also know. So, yesterday, what did I earn for my *Akhira*? Today, what’s my plan? What is my plan to earn for my *Akhira* today? There should be a plan.
The reason I’m saying this to you and myself is because we are entering these days which are the best of days where rewards will get multiplied. So please don’t live these days in some haze. Have a clear plan for each day and at the end of the day, check: “I had this plan for today. Did I do it?”
My plan was to read so much Quran. My plan was to give so much *Sadaqah*. My plan was to read so many *Nawafil*. My plan was to read so much *Durood*. My plan was to go and make up my bad relationship with my brother, my sister, or my parents. My plan was to go apologize and make up that relationship. Right? *Silat-ur-Rahm* is a very, very important part of Islam.
My plan was to make *Israfal Tawbah*. Did I do all this?
So let us make plans. Let us review those plans every evening and make that into a lifelong habit. Because one day, this time will finish. And then regret will be worthless; no point. Because once life is ended, it’s finished. There’s no regret, there’s no time to make *Tawbah*, no time to return, nothing. So before that happens, let us make sure that we maximize the opportunity that Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la gives us.
Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain bi rahmatika ya Rahman Rahimeen walhamdulillahi rabbil alameen.