Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Wasalaatu wasalaamu ala isharafil amliyai wal mursaleen Muhammad wa Rasululahi sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallamu wa tashreeen wa an kaseeran wa kaseeran wa badhu. My brothers and sisters, you can see here the temperature right now is about minus six Celsius. I am in Mitinigyu Park on my walk and you can see the beautiful patterns of the ice that is covered this stream. The stream flows through the park and goes out and eventually reaches the Connecticut rivers. But you can see this amazing, fantastic patterns of the ice and how the ice crystals form and all that has to do with the differential temperature of the water. First of all, the whole stream doesn’t freeze solid. What actually happens is that the water right on the top which is in contact with the cold air freezes first. And when the ice forms of a particular thickness, then below that the water doesn’t freeze so it continues to flow. So that’s one of the interesting things about water, apart from many other interesting things. So now that Allah SWT said, Allah SWT said, Allah SWT said, So in one case Allah SWT said that you cannot count the blessings of Allah SWT no matter how hard you try. Even beings are, they are jalim and they deny to their transgressors in their deniers of the mercy of Allah. And in the other case Allah SWT said, That you cannot count the blessings of Allah SWT. There are so many but Allah is the most forgiving, the most merciful. So Allah is saying effectively that even though sadly the nature of a human being is such and we ask Allah to change our nature and to make us on those who are the Shakiri and those who are grateful to Him. Despite this and despite the fact that Allah has blessed us and we do not count those blessings. We cannot even count the blessings so obviously we do not express gratitude for them because the idea of the blessings of Allah and the idea of being aware of them is not simply to count them, keep a list. But to thank Allah SWT for everyone, You gave me this, you gave me this, you gave me this and making shukar of Allah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. We don’t do that but Allah SWT said despite that Allah is the most forgiving, the most merciful. I always remind myself of the beautiful hadith of Rasulullah SAW who said that if a man wakes up, if a person wakes up, secure in his property, meaning that he has a house to live in, he has a roof over his head, secure in his property, secure in his health, his body works and he has enough food for the day, enough food for the day, enough food for the day, enough food for the day. If a man wakes up in that man, meaning man or woman wakes up in that state, then Rasulullah SAW said it is as if the entire world and everything in it has been gathered for him. Right? How can he want anything more than that? Now imagine, this is the level of gratitude that we are expected to have, that if we have, if we are secure in our dwellings, secure in our homes and we have our health is fine, Alhamdulillah, and we have enough food to eat, then what’s there to complain about? Rasulullah SAW is saying it’s as if the whole world and everything in it has been collected for you. SubhanAllah, may Allah grant us the ability to constantly and constantly and constantly thank him and for those who thank Allah SWT, I say, Allah SWT has announced, Allah SWT has announced, Allah has declared that the one who is grateful to Allah, the one who expresses gratitude to Allah SWT, that Allah SWT will increase him in goodness, will increase the blessings on him, on this person, and the one who is ungrateful, Allah SWT said let him beware of the punishment of Allah. So we ask Allah SWT to keep us always, always, always among those who are grateful and never be ungrateful. So anytime there is a word of or a thought of complaint, anytime, and usually, you know, it’s, may Allah have mercy on us, if for us it is like a, like a Takhiya Kalam almost, that every sentence has to begin with that, with a word of complaint. Say, how are you? Ah, I’m okay. You know, my groan, oh, I’m okay. What happened to you? You know, your back is broken, your leg is broken. What, what’s, why are you groaning? What’s the problem? Suha Allah, I mean really, ask yourself this question, right? How’s the weather? It’s always something is wrong with the weather, right? It’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too this, it’s too rainy, it’s too dry. It’s never perfect. So wallahi, that’s why I come out in this cold, just to remind myself that Suha Allah, I’m standing here in this forest. It is completely, except for these coniferous trees and even these look like they have taken a beating because the temperature last night was minus 10. And here it goes to minus 20, so we are nowhere near the, we are just about at the half point now. What when I come out in the morning, the air is so beautiful, it’s so clean and pure. I just take a deep breath of air and I say, Suha Allah, this is, this is a privilege. This being able to breathe this kind of air is a privilege. You see that tree and you see the bird right on top of that tree, there’s a single bird sitting on top. That’s a blue jay. I don’t have the, this camera can’t get there. I can’t take you close to that, but I will post a couple of pictures of blue jays when Umair sends out this video insha Allah. So the point is that it’s a question of focusing on the benefits, focusing on what we have, the beauty of what we have. And what we have as far as the beauty is concerned is that we have this clear air, right? Absolutely pure air that we can breathe. And I know that, you know, I come from India where there are jokes about the quality of air in Delhi and other places. There was somebody sent me a note from the Oberoi Hotel in Bangalore. It’s a very nice hotel. I’ve stayed there several times, but they have, they advertised and they said that inside the hotel you can breathe clean air because they have, you know, cleaning air filters and stuff. Now imagine if you have to, if breathing ability to breathe cold, clean air, if that becomes now a differentiating factor for cells, for cells, what kind of terrible situation that is. But I’m here where I am. It’s a very rural place. So absolutely pure air. I thank Allah SWT. I mean imagine how ungrateful and wretched I would be if I didn’t do that. So I thank Allah. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. The cold itself, yes it’s cold, but if you walk briskly and if you walk for a little bit then you don’t feel the cold anymore. And of course, you know, as the Nobiji say, there’s no such thing as cold. There’s only inappropriate clothing. So if you have the right clothing, you don’t feel the cold. Alhamdulillah, I have the right clothing. So it’s the, the question is your attitude. Just think about this, you know, I was reflecting the other day, I think I, one of my lectures I mentioned this also. I’m not talking about ancient history. I’m talking about my own lifetime. And people of my age will recall every single one of these things. I remember a time when there were no refrigerators. We had something called the Hawa-Dhan, which was a cupboard with, which was on all four sides it had mesh. Hawa-Dhan. So any food that was eaten after dinner and so on, if anything was left. And one of the blessings of not having refrigerators was that you cooked enough for the day and also you gave it away. So, you know, poor people, they benefited. So, but sometimes there is more food and there’s no one to give it. So this would be put in the Hawa-Dhan to keep it fresh. No refrigerators. We had no running hot and cold water. You could be living in a palace. And for those, for the Hyderabadis, think about Iram Mandir palace, right? Iram Mandir has completely, you know, gone to pot. They have destroyed it. Beautiful palace built by Fakhrul Murgh Bahadur. It had 600 rooms and 150 of those rooms or so were furnished with Louis XV furniture, French furniture from Louis XV’s time. To give you an idea of what that means, if you want to go and buy a chair today in the market, a Louis XV chair, the price ranges from $2,500 to $24,000. So I’m not saying that the, like that Fakhrul Murgh paid $24,000 for each chair, but certainly he paid a lot of money. So there were 150 rooms furnished with this furniture. It had big drawing rooms and so on. Imagine the, you know, a whole full dinner set, a full drawing room set and so forth in that fantastic palace called Iram Mandir. But guess what? It was built in 1898. Iram Mandir had no hot and cold showers. So no matter which, how much money you had, no matter which kind of magnificent palace you lived in, and this applies to all the palaces in Hyderabad. Jamaila had no hot and cold running water, Falakhtaba had no hot and cold running water and so forth. So it was not a question of money. The technology didn’t exist. So even if you are Fakhrul Murgh himself and you owned and you built Iram Mandir, and Iram Mandir was his second residence. His first residence is now what is the ASI hospital, what is the, yeah, ASI hospital. No, the TB hospital in Hyderabad just after, you know, you know, Heragada before Sanjeev Reddy Nagar colony. That was his actual residence. That’s where he lived and next to that is his tomb. He and his wife are buried there, a very beautiful sandstone tomb that is there, Red Sands Home, which is Fakhrul Murgh’s tomb, which was built in the garden of his house, garden of his deity. So this is the tomb that is built, that’s where he’s buried. And from there if you stand and look towards Panjagutta, you will see Iram Mandir on a hill. And the reason for that is because at that time Fakhrul Murgh, Fakhrul Umrah, the Prime Minister and who was the brother-in-law of the Nizam, Mir Bhaveli Khan, the sixth Nizam, Mir Bhaveli Khan built Falaknuma. So Mir Bhaveli Khan built Falaknuma, Fakhrul Murgh in competition built Iram Mandir, which is bigger, much bigger. So it wasn’t even as if, you know, he was homeless and he was building a house for himself. No, it’s just, we’re talking about, and this is a nobility of the Nizam. They are not royal princes. These are the nobles. The reason I’m saying all this is that today when you stand under a hot shower, thank Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and say, Subhanallah Ya Rabb, in my, I can say in my own lifetime, if you are younger than me, not your lifetime, but your parents’ lifetime, there was a time when people who had, I mean, there is not even a comparison between Fakhrul Murgh’s and Mikhar Lumbra’s wealth and, you know, whatever I have or people like you and I have. The point is not that, the point is that despite all that wealth, they did not have hot and cold running water. Forget Fakhrul Murgh, forget Mikhar Lumbra, Akbar Shah Jahan who built Taj Mahal had no more hot and cold running water in his palace. They had just something as simple as that, right? They had brocades and silks and they had gold and silver and diamonds and all kinds of, but they did not have that. They had ice days to bring ice down from Kashmir and put it into what they call Tahkana. The beautiful Urdu and Farsi, they’re such descriptive languages. Tahkana is something, it’s a room which is underneath. They had underground palaces, underground cellars in which ice was put and then they would get, you know, iced, not ice cream, but things like ice cream and so on, so on. So anyway, that’s a different thing. The point I’m saying is that the most normal things that we take for granted, they didn’t have. They could not flick a switch and turn on lights. They could not turn the light and then move the light directly or manually or remotely to shine on whatever they were reading. They couldn’t do that, not because they didn’t have the money, but because the technology did not exist, right? They had magnificent horses and magnificent horse carriages. But tell me, how many of you are ready to exchange a magnificent horse carriage with four horses for a, you know, at least in America, it’s not considered to be a luxury car, say a Toyota Corolla. I’m not even talking about Mercedes and BMW and what not. Toyota Corolla, how many of you are saying if you get this is a choice, you want this or you want this? The other one is the horse carriages, organically sound, the horse carriage is, you know, environmentally better. So do you want this or you want a brand new Corolla? We have that. We have that without asking for it. Do we thank Allah? Do we thank Allah that He has given us this? Today we are living in luxury, the kind of luxury that even the most powerful and wealthy monarchs of the past didn’t have. I’m not even going into what Europe was like and so on, because Europe was a slum compared to the East, compared to India, to China. Europe was to the Middle East, right? Europe was an absolute slum. They said life was nasty, brutal and short. And that was the description of good old days in Europe. Nasty, brutal and short life. Here life was not nasty, brutal and short. It was very luxurious, very beautiful. But compared to today, we are living a life which is much better, which far more conveniences, amazing conveniences, all kinds of options. And I’m not even going into all kinds of technical details and advanced technology and AI and the rest of it. No, there’s no need. There is no need. Look at the normal things, everyday things. Shampoo that you put out of your bottle. Conditioner for people who use conditioner on their hair. The precondition is you need to have hair. Right? And soaps of all kinds, all sorts of perfumes. Of course they had perfumes in those days, but believe me, people like you and me would not be able to afford them. These were not things that ordinary people could afford or could use. Today we have all of that and more. Access to education. Great universities. You know what proliferated? For example, people ask this question and say, what happened to the Arabs? How come all the scientific development that was the hallmark of the Abazi period in Andalusian, Cordoba, in southern Spain, all of that suddenly it’s almost like somebody has turned off a switch and darkness descended and nothing. So what happened to the Muslims? It’s very simple. What happened to the Muslims, of course, was the two things I mentioned. One was the decline of the patrons for all of this kind of scientific work, which was the kingdom. And then of course the very violent ending of the empires, both in Baghdad and in Andalusia under Isabella and Ferdinand, Castile and Aragon, the two Christians, Catholic states, when they finished. And then in the next almost 200 years, the complete, because of the Inquisition, what’s called the Spanish Inquisition, later on it went into the rest of Europe as well, the complete eradication, literally. I think that’s the terrible word to use, but it was the most efficient ethnic cleansing that you can imagine. The complete eradication of the Muslim population of Spain, which was done very brutally, mercilessly. But what that is a causal factor. But a bigger causal factor was that scientific learning and knowledge and the dissemination of scientific information was never a public thing. It was never an everyday thing. It was never a standard thing taught, for example, in the schools. Now this is the reason why it all disappeared and disappeared so completely, because the number of people involved in it were so few. And so when they were killed, hi. So when they were killed and their lorches destroyed, their books were burnt, and it was almost the most efficient destruction of knowledge. Knowledge of millennia, not just centuries, knowledge of over a thousand years was completely wiped out because of bigotry by the church, which ordered that to be done. And strangely enough, it was also what got saved, but also thanks to the priests and the monks, because this job was given to priests and monks, and they were told to completely destroy and burn all the books in the libraries of Alhambra and the libraries of the libraries of Cordova, of Granada and so on. Just to give you an idea, the largest, the biggest library of the church, and the church was the only institution which had any knowledge and any access to knowledge. The kings were illiterate, they couldn’t even write their own names. So forget about books. But the largest library in France at that time had 900 books, 900 books. And in Granada and Cordova, there were merchants, and there were, you know, people who worked for the royal family and so on for the king, ordinary people. What would be today’s bureaucrats and things like that? There were people whose libraries had half a million books. So that was the level. Now, when this order was given to destroy these books and to burn them, from the libraries of Baghdad, nothing was left because the destruction was done by the Mongols. And they just burned everything. They burned everything. They threw them, they threw the books into the Tigris, into the Euphrates, and they said the river ran black with ink because the parchment, books written on paper, but with ink. So this was the state of that. So nothing happened. But in Europe, in Spain, a lot of that survived. And today when we say that this knowledge benefited and powered the Renaissance, that is true. Some of it was given and taken willingly by the people who came to learn from the Islamic, from the Muslim scholars. But the others was the books that were saved by the priests themselves. So these people were learned, so they realized that here is stuff which we have never seen before. And if you just burn it, it’s going to go and nobody will ever know. And that’s a terrible thing to happen. So what they did was that they would look at a book and if it was something that they knew that they had somewhere, and imagine that kind of encyclopedic knowledge they had. I’m sure despite that a lot of stuff just went and we’d never know because we never know. But what they felt was probably was something they had not seen before they hid it. They hid it and this was at a cost of their lives. If they had got caught, they would have been slaughtered. So they hid it and then they saved it and that’s how that knowledge got saved. So the point I’m saying is that we are, so therefore what happened was that when all this was finished, there was literally, there was no one to take the tradition and take the knowledge and the learning of science and technology forward. Because all the knowledge had been destroyed and the people were just too few. Because the teaching and learning of science and technology was not common, was not general as it is today. Today, no matter what level, what school, in every school, every college it is taught. In a primary school it’s taught, in a secondary school it’s taught. So even if somebody said today that is eradicated, there’s no way you’re going to do that because it’s so widely spread. But with the Muslim civilization, even though it was very impressive for the time and for all time, it was narrow so it didn’t happen. So my point is that when you go to school, when you go to college, if you’re studying things and you’re learning things and so on, be cognizant of that. That alhamdulillah Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala caused us to be born in a time when knowledge is so wide and so easily accessible. This includes of course Islamic knowledge. Islamic knowledge is also very easily accessible. Now sometimes this is a problem because people just pick up something and they read it and they think that they know everything and they start acting like as if they are the mufti’ahs of the place and they’re just like, as if they are the mufti’ahs of the place and it’s a terrible, terrible danger. So don’t do that. Don’t fall into that trap. Just because knowledge is easily accessible it does not mean that you know what to do with it. It’s like you found the keys of your father’s car and you start driving. You never learn to drive. You don’t have a license. And because the car is easily accessible, you get in the car, you start to drive and next thing you know you’ve crashed it and you’ve killed yourself or killed somebody else, worse than killing yourself. And you are in trouble. So the point is that just because something is accessible it doesn’t mean that you know what to do with it. You find the greatest Damascene sword in the world which has a blade. The edge of that blade is so sharp that it can shave the hair from your arm. But if you don’t know how to use that sword, your adversary will use the same sword to kill you. He won’t even need a sword. He will use your sword to kill you because he knows how to use a sword and you don’t. So just because something is easily accessible it does not mean that we should access it that easily and treat it as if it has no value, as if it has no worth. And use it as we please know. Knowledge demands respect. It demands adab. It demands respect of accessing it. So the point I’m saying and I want to end with that which is let us be grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. Let us thank Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala jalla shanahu for all that he has given us and all his ni’mat which surround us. And consciously think about every single thing that we are saying and doing which is a normal everyday thing for us. But it is from the ni’mat of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and which people before us even though they had huge amounts of wealth and huge amounts of power and authority and what not and we don’t have that, they did not have access to some of the most simple conveniences that we use today. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to make us and keep us among those who are always always always grateful to him.
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