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Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala sharafi al-anbiya wal mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasleeman kaseeran kaseera. Fahamma wa adhu. A’afiqatuh.
My brothers and sisters, we are on the mighty Zambezi. Behind me, that bank over there is Zimbabwe. And in front of me is Zambia. So we have taken off on the river from the Zambian side. And we are going up the river. Now, according to the rules of the river, we can use the river. Go up and down fishing, traveling, whatnot. But you cannot get off on that side unless you have a Zimbabwean visa or whatever. So we are not going to do that. The river is fantastic. It goes all the way to the Indian Ocean. And it’s one of the great rivers of the world and one of the great rivers of Africa.
I see there is grass. There is some water hyacinth occasionally that floats. There are little grassy islands in the river. From place to place, time to time. And yesterday, we had an absolute pleasure of seeing two elephants which crossed the river from the Zimbabwean side. And they were on that grassy island feeding. There’s lots of grass there. And the island was actually covered with water. But it is land. So they come up there and feed.
It’s very… For me, it’s an absolutely unique experience. To be, after many, many years, on an actual living river that flows and which has its own inhabitants and so on. The last time I did something like this was in 1980, ’81, on the river Burbis in South America, in Guyana. And this is… The Burbis, of course, are much, much smaller than the Zambezi. So this is the next time it is Zambezi.
The thing which has happened with rivers in India most of ours is, thanks to hydroelectric projects and dams and so on, the actual flow of water, as you see here, it’s like a sea. This kind of thing is… In India, it’s probably only in the Pramaputra and Assam where you can see this. Because all the others seem to have been blocked up by dams and water.
The thing I want to share with you… This is… What I remind myself and ask you to also think and remember is the position and the situation with Taqwa. And today’s… My father-in-law and I talked about Taqwa itself and, you know, what Taqwa means and so on. But the point I want to make is that, you know, we live in a world where we are… Where we have been conditioned, where it’s promoted for us and say whatever you want, whichever you want, makes sense to you. But we need to be goal-oriented. So we are all told to be goal-oriented. So people ask this question. I mean, I’m part of the… Of those who ask me. When I’m talking to… Especially MBA students. We say, you know, what are your financial goals? What are your personal relationship goals? Meaning as a husband and so on. What are your goals with respect to parenting? What kind of father, mother do you want to be? And so forth. What are your… This is not a question which you usually ask but people ask, you know, different kinds of goals to have. And then all of these must dovetail into your actual life goal, you know, why do you exist.
Now I’m asking myself that when we talk about this goal orientation, do we somewhere say also what are my spiritual goals? Because we have… Unfortunately we don’t. And this is one of the many indicators. Of course. Of how divorced we have become. Completely divorced from our physical soul. As Imam Ghazali said, how strange it is that man, human beings spend all their time and energy developing their physical selves. So in terms of, you know, we make sure we eat the right kind of food. We make sure we do proper exercise. They say… Your real strength is in your legs. Therefore as long as you keep yourself mobile, the problems of the geriatric period will not hit you and so forth. But what about our mental well-being? Do I also have a goal to say I must read so many books in a year? And how do I do so many books? These are the books that I should actually read. Books which will stretch my mind. Books which will fuel my imagination. Books which will give me the strength to do the right thing. Books which will force me if I need to be forced to think of solutions to problems and so on. Do I have this kind of thing? And any other mental development goals?
We also say, for example, and we showed, what are my spiritual goals? Right? With regard to my connection with Allah ﷻ, what is the goal there? Am I thinking in that line? So before we actually set up a goal, the question is, what is the goal? And actually, I think really we should ask ourselves this. So even thinking about this, that I must have a spiritual goal with regard to my relationship with Allah ﷻ, right? Whether I reach there or not is a different thing. We ask Allah, we make the goal at least, we make some effort. We ask Allah ﷻ to put barakah in the effort and to forgive our shortcomings. But do we even have a goal? The whole problem is this, right? To give you an example, suppose you ask me, have you been to China? I say, no, I have not been to China. Is it in your bucket list? Is it somewhere to say, I would like to go to China? As far as I am concerned, I mean, maybe now it is, but it wasn’t. It didn’t even come into my mind to say, do I want to go to China? May Allah have mercy on us, this is what we have done with regard to our relationship with Allah ﷻ. Is it even a goal? I am not saying I know I have ideas there, not reached there. Is there a there to say, this is my goal? Am I thinking about Allah ﷻ? What is the way to connect with Him? Forget all that. I mean, all of that comes once there is a goal. But the question therefore to ask is, do I even have a goal that I must be connected with my Rabb Jalla Shahrukh?
Imagine that I am sitting on this river, in this wonderful boat on this river. You go from one bank to the other, it is like a sea. There is a whole bunch of hippos there, if you look there, which are doing what hippos do. So, they have a goal. They are having their own time in life. On that further bank, I think what I am seeing there, two or three are probably elephants, which are grazing there. There is a lot of buck of different kinds. Now, all of this is the Khudr of Allah ﷻ, which He created on this one speck of dust called the earth. Literally, this is not philosophy. This is actually scientifically, astronomically provable fact that the earth is less than one grain of sand on a beach. So, how many grains of sand are there on a beach? It is a dumb question. Nobody can even say that. But the earth is one. The whole of this earth, the entire complete planet is one grain of sand. Now, on that one grain of sand is this one river, this one trickle of water. Which is so vast and so big and so beautiful and it is absolutely clean water. You know, you can dip it out of here and drink it without harming yourself. This is Allah. And Allah ﷻ created all of this for us.
Sakhra lakum maafi samawati wa maafi dhar. Qala ta’ala fi kalamin wajid balfuqani hamid. Sakhra lakum maafi samawati wa maafi dhar. Allah said, I have created for you. I have made this musakhar. Meaning, I have made this musakhar. I have given you the power over this. Everything that is in the heavens and everything that is on the earth.
Now, what must we do? How much we thank Allah ﷻ for this? What is my spiritual goal of connecting with Allah ﷻ? Now, once we get there, then inshaAllah we should think about it. Maybe next couple of recorders will talk about that. How do I then develop that? So, but first of all, I need to have a goal. Once we have the goal, then we go further and say, well, how do I achieve this goal? As I’m looking there, I’m seeing a great grey heron on that earthen, you know, I don’t know what that is. It’s like an anthill or something. There’s this huge termite mount here, which are famous all over. It’s fabulous. We ask Allah ﷻ to help us to look at him, to, you know, we ask Allah to make us among those who appreciate what he has created for us. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam ala nabiyyil karim wa ala ilayhi wa sahbihi ajma’in. Wa ilayhi wa sallam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.