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As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, my brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah. One of the examples that our elders and the ulama have always given about this life is the example of a train journey. It can be any journey, but they usually give the example of a train journey.
So in a train journey, you buy a ticket and then you go to the station, you wait for the train. When you board the train, you sit in your seat as per the ticket. And then during the journey, it happens quite often: you make friends with the people in the compartment; maybe somebody brings some food—at least used to happen before, I don’t know if it happens or not—but people used to bring food and they would all share the food and they would all eat together, they would have a nice time. And then while all this is happening, some of those people will get off before us because their station comes. Even though we are good friends and so on and so forth, supposing the station comes, come to the night, if I am sleeping, I wake up in the morning, that bunk is empty. What happened? They got off.
They leave behind good memories; we were nice, we were friends in this train journey. And then when our station comes, we get off.
Now during this whole journey, there are times while waiting for the train, while in the train, there are times when something is nice, something is not nice. Maybe the fan doesn’t work properly, maybe the toilet is dirty, or maybe the opposite—very nice service, everything is working perfectly and so on. If it is not up to the mark, you get irritated maybe, but you tell yourself, “it’s okay, this will finish.” Finish, I have to get down. I am going to Delhi from say Hyderabad to Delhi, right? I have to get down in Delhi, when I get down in Delhi, then I go to my home there or wherever I am going—that is my destination. Meanwhile in the train, Alhamdulillah, if everything is good, I get good food, good service, Alhamdulillah. But even if something is not to my liking, then I tell myself, “this is only 2 hours to go, 3 hours to go, 4 hours to go, whatever.” Then we go. You don’t allow that to destroy your life and your peace of mind. No, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth all that; this compartment does not belong to me, this seat does not belong to me, nothing belongs to me. Me. Only what I am carrying—my luggage, my bag—only what is in that bag belongs to me, nothing else. Rest of it, it is there for me to use, alhamdulillah. If it is nice, alhamdulillah. If it is not nice, alhamdulillah.
Now this is the example of our actual life in this world, right? Sometimes we forget. Like for example in the train journey, supposing in that compartment, there are people you get along well with and, you know, I have seen people who are not playing cards and so on and they become great friends. They never saw each other before they boarded the compartment. Complete strangers. But in the car, they are good friends. They are buying food, getting food, sharing food. Right? So, you have even at that point in time when you are having this good time in this compartment, you have even forgotten: “I am going to such and such a place. That is my destination.” That thought is not in your mind. That’s automatically—it will go. Train is going there. Where else will I go?
So also in this life, we were born, we boarded our train, we have a ticket; only thing is we can’t see the destination on the ticket. That’s the only difference between the train analogy and this. In the train analogy, the ticket will show you destination, time of arrival, travel. Here, we have a ticket, but the destination is also there on the ticket, but we are not able to see it. Allah has kept that hidden. So it is even more easy to forget that there is a ticket, that there is a destination, because you are not seeing it. That is part, part of the nature of life. Now therefore, the time between our birth—when we boarded this train—to the time when our station will come. And just like the other train example, when the station comes, you get off. At that time, you cannot say, no, no, no, but you know, these people in this compartment, they are such lovely people and you know, I love them so much and we have been—we have spent so much time together, so much time together, we are such close friends—I don’t want to go, I will get off when my friend gets off—it doesn’t work like that, does not work like that. I get off and my station comes when my destination comes. My friend, we had a good time, good memories—that’s it—but nothing more than that; the friend will not get off with me. The friend won’t say, “okay, forget about my destination. Now we are so close. I come with you.” Here also when the destination comes, we will get off. We will take our bag with us. Whatever is in the bag will go with us. All the others will stay behind. Nobody will come with us to our destination. Nobody will get off when we get off.
And for us, that destination, ultimate destination is Jannah, inshallah, we ask Allah for that. The station is called mawt (death), and that is why Rasulullah said: when a person dies, there are three who go with him—one are his family and relatives and so on, two is his property, property, three is his amal, his actions. He said the property stays here, doesn’t go anywhere, does not even go with you to the Qabaristan. The house is not moving with you. The second lot are the family. Family, friends—is that? You hear the announcement in the paper, so-and-so passed away, Salatul Janazah will be after Salatul Fajr or Salatul Asr or Salatul Maghrib, whatever. So they go to the grave. There also if you see, some people will pray Salatul Janazah and they will go home because they have got other things to do. You are important enough for them to pray your Salatul Janazah but you are not so important that they will go to the grave with you.
Even though Rasulullah ﷺ said, a person who goes and prays Salatul Janazah and then accompanies the body to the grave until the dafan is over, he will get two mountains of good deeds. Finally, the ones who are closest to you—maybe your own children, maybe your own whoever, parents, close friends—they will take you to the grave. Somebody will put you inside the grave. They will also get down in the grave with you. They will place you there and then they will get out. They won’t lie down beside you and say, “close the grave. He is my close, I can’t leave him.” No. Then they’ll get out. So, Nabi said: the property remains here. The others will go with you to the grave. Then, the only thing which goes with you is your amal, is the box, is our suitcase, is our amal.
This is the journey. So it’s very important for us to continuously remind ourselves, continually at least, remind ourselves that this is a journey, this is not permanent; I am not here to be here, I—I’m not on the train to be on the train. I’m on the train to go somewhere. So also I’m in this world to go somewhere. And that somewhere is the Akhirah.
So therefore in our life also, when we look at our energy, time, effort, emotions, and then resources, money and so on. If you look at it and say, well, where am I spending that the most? That is very important. Because if I am spending all of that on things which are not going to go with me, things which are going to be left behind—what will you say? You say, stupid, why are you doing that? This is not going with you. By all means, you want to be comfortable, be comfortable. But levels of comfort, be comfortable. But you have to leave it behind. So why are you spending so much? Similarly, for example, if there is some—you know—in this world, something supposed to happen, didn’t happen, somebody—we get very upset. “So-and-so said he will come, he will do.” Chhoda yaar, it’s not worth it. It is not worth it. Just think about it: one toothache at that time, if you have, you will forget all this. No matter how involved you are—one toothache, one migraine—you will forget all of that until that migraine goes, until that toothache goes; everything is gone—that is the reality of it. So why spend more energy, emotion, everything behind something which has really no value, no value?
So that is why it is very important to continuously remind ourselves: *Wa dhakkir fa inna adh-dhikra tanfa’ul mu’minin*. Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala said, dhikr is beneficial for the believers. So dhikr of course means the adhkar of whatever you do—SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah. But dhikr also means, dhikr basically means to remember. So remembering and remembering death, remembering the fact that there is a destination. I have to go there. What am I doing for that? And that is the reason why Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala sent his Nabi Alayhi Salatu wasallam and he sent his Kitab so that the reality is always in our minds.
I remember Maulana Umar Sahib, may Allah fill his qabr with noor, in one of his bayans. I will say it in Urdu and then we can translate it for our international listeners. So, he said that Dada is sitting, it is the day of Eid, Dada is sitting, so his son brought his two sons, twins, he brought them to Dada. So, Dada has two small grandchildren—I am also four, five years old, three years old, four years old. So, Dada has jalebi in one hand, hot, delicious jalebi. And in the other hand, there is a diamond ring. So, both the grandfathers tell the children to take whatever they want. One is this and the other is that. Take whatever you want. So, one of the children reaches out his hand towards the jalebi. He knows that the jalebi is sweet and hot. So, his father tells him to stop. “Take the ring.” He says, “there is a jalebi in the ring.” *Angoothi mein jalebi hai*. *Angoothi mein jalebi ka karkhana hai*. *Angoothi lega to jalebi tu bhi khayega*, sab ko khilayega. *Angoothi le*. How can it be possible? What is left to do? He takes the jalebi. Now there is another one. Now he does not have jalebi. Anyway, the ring is left. But he took the ring. Then the Maulana used to say that when the jalebi-wala took the jalebi and the angoothi-wala took the angoothi, then the jalebi-wala showed the angoothi-wale ko angootha dikhaya. Haan? *Angootha dikhaya*. Woh jaanta hai heere ki angoothi hai, woh poori dukaan khareed lega jalebi ki.
That was one of the parables Maulana Umar used to say: that the grandfather is sitting there, day of Eid, he is giving Eidi to his grandchildren. So, his son brings his own two sons to his father for Eid, twin sons, maybe three, four years old. So, the grandfather is sitting there; in one hand he has a jalebi, he has a plate with a jalebi, lovely, beautiful jalebi even—you know, you can see the sugar syrup on it and it’s so tasty and so warm—and in the other hand he has a diamond ring and he says to the two boys “take whichever you want.”
So one of the boys he reaches for the jalebi, his father stops him and he says “take the ring.” The jalebi is in the ring. So this boy is thinking how can the jalebi be in the ring—the ring is so small, jalebi is so big—you are saying jalebi is in the… how is the jalebi in the ring? How can the jalebi will be in the ring? Father said no, believe me, I am telling you there is not only is this jalebi in this ring, there is a whole jalebi factory in this ring. You take the ring, you will eat jalebi all your life and you will feed everybody else also jalebi.
So this boy thinks: ok dad you are saying whatever you are saying sorry I don’t believe you—I see the jalebi, it is nice and tasty—I take my jalebi. So he takes the jalebi. And the second boy now he has got—so he takes the ring. And Maulana used to say that when this boy took the ring, the other one is thumbing his nose at it and he is saying, “you are a fool. See, I am eating this jalebi, it is so nice, so tasty, you got nothing.” But actually, he has everything. So, one has to say that this is the difference, this is the benefit of wisdom. The father is maybe 20 years older than his children; the children are 5, father is 25, so he is 20 years older than his children. With 20 years of age difference, the father has the wisdom to understand which is good, which is not good, which is permanent, which is not permanent, which is beneficial, which is not beneficial. We have—we are not comparing anyone to the Prophet—but we have the Rasool. You have the Kalam of Allah. And the Rasool comes and tells you, this dunya, don’t get fooled by this. *Yeh saari jalebi hai*. Akhirat is the real thing. This two rakat of Salah. Nabi said the two sunnah Salah of Salatul Fajr is better than this entire world and all that it contains: *Khayrun minad-dunya wa ma feeha*. *Do rakat Fajr ki Sunnat*, yeh saari dunya wa ma feeha, aur jo kuch bhi uske andar hai, usse behtar hai. *Khayrun minad-dunya wa ma feeha*. *Do rakat Sunnat*. Ab dikhta to nahi hai. Dikhta to nahi hai, do rakat Sunnat. Dikhta to nahi hai, ghayb hai.
To ab sawal kya hai: Do you believe the Nabi alayhis salatu wassalam? Alhamdulillah we believe so we come and we pray better than this world and everything it contains—just sit and think about what does it mean “everything it contains”. This whole world and everything in it—all the oil wells and all the diamond mines and all the gold mines and whatever is in this world—is better than that.
So I remind myself and you, let us remember Allah, let us remember our destination and let us remember that Rasulullah brought this beautiful Deen where these small things, apparently on the face of it, may Allah have mercy on us, we don’t give it importance. But these things are so important and such wealth and value we have got. Think about that. By the grace of Allah, we came for Salatul Fajr, we prayed two rakaat of Sunnah, we prayed two rakaat of Fajr. This ajar, inshaAllah, which Allahﷻ has given us, this is in our account. Unless we go and destroy it by doing gheebah and this and that—if we don’t do those things—this is in our account insha’Allah when we go to Allahﷻ then Allahﷻ will give us this two rakat of Salatul Fajr. Allah will give us this. May Allah have mercy on us. This is so important.
I am always very happy when I see Ahmad for Salatul Fajr. Masha’Allah, Masha’Allah, Masha’Allah. Because this boy is very smart, he is building his bank account from this age, mashaAllah. May Allah give him a long and healthy life and use him for his deen, inshaAllah. By the time when he is ready to meet Allahﷻ, he will have mountains of goodness, inshaAllah.
*Waise hi jaise Mushtaq Bhai ka beta tha*, Faisal. Aapko yaad hain? I don’t know, maybe a little bit younger also. Always. Salatul Fajr, he will be here. One day, really one day, it was raining very heavily. Very, very heavily. So I came down for Fajr. Nobody is here. I called the Adhan. Then I came inside. I prayed my sunnah and stood up. As I stood up and was ready to pray, I saw a shadow behind me. It was a kind of yellow shadow. I said, “what is this?” It is some Jinn or God knows what is behind me. I said, whatever it is, let me read it. When I finished my salah, it was my salah. One single kid, a little kid, was standing there. I said, Mashallah! Parents are that’s how they are raised—may Allah have mercy and may Allah bless them. Parents sent him in that rain and everything else; mother sent—he was somewhere else—but Faisal was there. We prayed Faisal. I’m talking now almost 20 years ago. Faisal all grown up, 15 years easily. This thing happened so we ask Allah to open our eyes to this, this beautiful religion, to the benefits that Allah has given us and help us to make the maximum of it, Inshallah. I request you all to do this.