The choices that shape your life – Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre

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بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم (Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim). Alhamdulillah, Allah has given us the framework.

My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you that life is a set of choices. Every instance in life, we are making choices. Some choices we make consciously, most we make unconsciously. But there are always choices. Choices, and every choice has a payoff. The payoff might be positive or it might be negative, but every choice has a payoff. Every single minute, every single waking moment we are making choices, and every choice has a payoff. Off. The key to success is to try to make as many choices consciously for the best pay off. That’s all. To try to make as many choices as you can consciously. Because even if you don’t do it consciously, choice is being made. You make it consciously and obviously obviously, it means then you are choosing consciously to say which is the best payoff. Where do I get the maximum benefit? That’s all. If we do this, InshaAllah, we are successful. Despite all this, some choices will be made unconsciously. Okay, that happens. We might even make some choices, I won’t say consciously, but maybe semi-conscious. Which are negative, right? I mean, I don’t expect that somebody with Iman and with a brain will consciously choose something negative. If you’re doing that, then there’s something seriously wrong with you because you know something is wrong. You know something is harmful. You still choose it consciously. Then really something is, you’re not, something is wrong, right? I mean, why would you do that?

But having said that, think about it. Somebody who’s lighting a cigarette, what is he doing? Conscious choice. But unfortunately, a lot of people like that, that choice, even though it is conscious, it seems to be unconscious. It’s printed on the cigarette packet with horrible pictures and so on of lung cancer and whatnot. This is harmful for you. Still, you go buy it and you smoke cigarettes. What do you say for somebody who actually sells cigarettes and so on? You’re selling cancer sticks. That that income is haram, inna lillahi wa inna lillahi rajeem (inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un). So also for all kinds of drugs and addictions and, you know, and alcohol is a drug whether you believe it or not. I mean, all of this is interest-based dealings, for example, all riba dealings, all forms of deception, you know, lying, cheating. So conscious choices, which are negative. Sometimes there are unconscious choices which are negative, right?

For example, we know the hadith of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, he said that the one who prays Salatul Fajr by Jama’ah and then remains in the masjid in dhikr, remembering Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala, in whichever way, alhamdulillah, like we are talking now, this is the dhikr of Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala, InshaAllah. You make dhikr as in tasbih, you know, tamheed, tahlil. You make dhikr as in recitation of Qur’an and so on. After Salatul Fajr, of course, you don’t pray na’afil, but otherwise if you are in the masjid, you can pray na’afil. So you do all this. And then As-Solah As-Salam said that if you remain there in the state of dhikr, not talking about this and that, not chit-chatting, just doing dhikr, not updating your status on on Facebook, just making zikr. And then when the sun rises, right? So which means from sunrise, about 20 minutes after sunrise, till that time, if you stay there, then you pray two and two, two rakat nafil and two rakat nafil, then Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la will give you the reward of one hajj and one umrah.

What is the reward of hajj? Complete freedom from all, it’s like you’re born that day. Total wiping out of all sins. One hajj, one abhora. That’s it. Now, is it inconvenient in some way? Yeah, I suppose so. Because you would like to go home and go to sleep. It’s not haram. Do that. No problem. But what are you giving up? When you make a choice, this is what we have to also tell ourselves and understand. When you do something, when you are choosing to do something, you are choosing not to do something. This is the other aspect of choice. The other aspect of choice is when you are choosing to do something, you are choosing not to do something automatically. Similarly, when you are choosing not to do something, you are choosing to do something. So both ways, right? It automatically happens. So if I’m choosing to sit here in the masjid, then I’m choosing not to sleep for this I can go back and say, I mean, after this, after praying the Ishraq, then I can go to sleep. There’s no problem, Alhamdulillah, if you want to do that.

When you take something from one part of your life, from one part of your day, the whole issue of, you know, so-called time management is what? Managing priorities. You can’t manage time. You manage priorities. When you’re managing priorities, what are you doing? You’re taking something from one place and giving it another place. But that determines the path of your life. You make right choices, you get a great achievement. You make the wrong choices, the opposite. So if I choose to sit here and I choose to make dhikr of Allahﷻ and I finish that, I pray Israq, I get in my account one Hajj, one Umrah. That’s the reason why we have the story from the Seerah of these two Sahaba who brought Iman on the same day, they came to Islam on the same day. And then after some years, one passed away. And then one year after that, another one passed away, the other one. After that second person passed away one of the other Sahaba, I think if I’m not mistaken it is Abu Talha al-Ansari he saw both of them in his dream and he saw that the first one who died he died a Shaheed, he died in a Qazba, the second one passed away of natural causes one year later so Abu Talha al-Ansari or whichever Sahabi was who saw this dream He saw the first one who died as a shaheed go into Jannah after the second one who died of natural causes. Both go to Jannah, but that sounds kind of funny. I mean, the man who was shaheed is going later than the one who died of natural causes.

So he asked the Prophet, because the Prophet used to, after Salatul Fajr, he would sit and, you know, He would ask people if they had seen any dreams. He would interpret the dreams. Otherwise, he would make some khatira. He would talk to people. So, he asked Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, Yasirullah, I saw this dream and it seems to me strange that the Shaheed goes into Jannah after the one who died of natural causes. Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, why are you surprised? Because he said, did that man who died one year later, he said did he not have one Ramadan in his account did he not have one Lairatul Qadr in his account now he may have done he may have made I’tikaf did he not have I’tikaf in his account did he not have so many Salah that he prayed one year of Salah he may have made Hajj he may have made Umrah I mean all of these things did he not have all of that in his account so obviously he has more both going to Jannah but so these things which seem to us to be ordinary to be you know not so important they are actually very important and each one accumulates we don’t even realize right even sitting here initially first two three days it feels like a you know burden okay i’m sitting here i should have gone after that you get used to it this is This is one of the, Alhamdulillah, one of the beauties of the human condition, that no matter what your situation is, after a few initial hiccups, we get used to anything.

So you get used to it, Alhamdulillah. But that thing accumulates. Small things done consistently make a huge difference. [unclear] difference. Massive difference. So now when you go before Allah you have all of this. And may Allah protect us from having that regret. If you look at it and say SubhanAllah Abdullah has all of this and I had the same opportunity and I decided to go to sleep. What is that sleep worth? What is that sleep worth? Is it worth that Hajj? Is it worth? So, and Shaitan will, Shaitan will, will, will, you know, trick you and say, oh, but you know, you made so many Hajj already. So what? Even if I made 50 Hajj, and I’m going to live for one year from now, and I sit here every day, that is 365 more Hajj. Anything wrong with that? Just for one year. We don’t know how long Allah gives us, but even if it is only one year, that is 365 hajj and 365 umrah without having to worry about whether your flight will get cancelled and can I come back. Now everyone there is worried about that, will my flight go back on time, not time.

So I remind myself I knew may Allah Ta’ala give us the tawfiq to make the right choices so that we don’t regret. That’s the final point I want to close with, which is that the issue with choices is that once you make the choice, that door is closed. And then if you made a good choice, alhamdulillah, you feel very happy. But if you did not make a good choice, then you have to regret that. May Allah have mercy on us. That regret is bad because because you can’t undo it, it’s gone. That was a choice, you made the choice, now it’s only regret. I could have done this. I had the opportunity, I could have done it, I didn’t do it. May Allah Ta’ala save us from this regret. May Allah Ta’ala give us the tawfiq to make the right choices. Alhamdulillah, Allah has given us the framework, which is the seerah of the Prophet . And we ask Allah to make us, enable us to make the right choices and to save us from regretting choices that we make.