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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and the messengers.
Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,
and may Allah grant him peace, and may Allah grant him much, much peace.
And then, my brothers and sisters, we know the ayat of Surah Al-Bahim.
Allah, the Exalted, said,
Allah, the Exalted, said,
Which means, let it be announced that the one who is grateful to Allah, the Exalted, for his blessings,
Allah will increase the blessings.
And the one who is ungrateful, let him beware that the punishment of Allah, the Exalted, is severe.
Before we go further, let us just reflect on this.
Allah said,
The one who,
thanks Allah,
Allah will increase the blessings.
But the one who is ungrateful,
Allah did not say, Allah will punish him.
Allah said, let him beware, the punishment is severe.
Right?
Normally, if you look at the construction of a sentence,
it should be, I will give you, I will not give you.
I will reward you, I will punish you.
But this is the rahmah of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.
Allah does not say,
I will punish.
Allah said, beware, punishment is severe.
Meaning, there is always room for us to make izdighfar and tawbah and not reach that point where the punishment becomes wajib.
Today, I went to a place called Longmeadow Conservation Area,
which is 15 minutes from here,
just behind Bay Path University.
And I took some photos, I posted them.
Whoever is interested, send me a message, I will send you the photos.
I saw two families of swans.
Absolutely fabulous.
Most beautiful two hours that I spent.
15 minutes from here.
How many of you never heard of this place?
You lived here how many, 30 years, 40 years?
Why?
Why don’t you go out?
Why don’t?
Why don’t you go and see the khudrat of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala?
What are you doing?
Sitting in the house every day from morning till evening, making money to do what?
Please, enjoy the mercy of Allah.
See how Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has blessed us.
Today, unfortunately, we live in a world where we hear only negative stuff.
This is bad, that is bad, that is bad, that is bad, right?
So, let us look at something.
Some of the opposite, which is true, which we should really focus on.
And I’ll just go back to my own childhood and growing up.
I’m not going back to ancient history of how it was in ancient Egypt and with the pharaohs and with, you know, kingdoms.
No, I can give you all of that as well, but just by…
When I was growing up in our house, and alhamdulillah, I didn’t come from a poor family.
I came from a very wealthy.
I came from a very wealthy family and a very noble family.
My father was a medical doctor, physician.
We lived in a huge house.
I was born in a house which had three acres of land around it.
But then we moved to my father’s house, which had four bedrooms, half an acre of land around it.
And this is in Hyderabad.
Mango trees, this, that.
But no hot and cold running water.
I’m not talking ancient history.
I’m talking about the 60s, late 50s.
No hot and cold running water.
Not because we were poor.
Not because there was no hot and cold running water.
System didn’t exist.
No air conditioning.
And why is air conditioning important?
Because right now, as I’m speaking, the temperature in my city in Hyderabad is 120 Fahrenheit.
You’re always right.
The chicken lays an egg, it becomes an omelet straight away.
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Right?
My family, you’ve met a few children.
lt’s not.
They live in an apartment building or whatever.
You took your children.
What would you do if she was not with you?
She wasn’t?
You wouldn’t even neck her?
You wouldn’t even?
generators. So we had something called the Hawa Daan. How do you translate Hawa Daan
into English? It was a box of air. So it was a covered, wooden covered with mesh on all
four sides. So any food that was left, you put it in that. Next morning, if it was good,
you ate it. If it wasn’t good, you gave it to the chickens. Right? How did we live in
that heat? Two ways. And if you ever got caught in that situation, use this. One, we would
flood the room in which you would sleep. And flood not like in five feet of water, just
about one inch of water on the floor. So remove, take away the carpets, just put it in the
stone floor, one inch of water on the floor. Automatically the water evaporates with the
heat. It’s nice and cool. If you can’t do that, then take a sheet, soak it, wet it,
wring it so it’s not dripping with water. Cover yourself with that sheet and sleep.
You’re fine. You don’t need air conditioning. You learn to survive. As I told you, this
is just from…
Late 50s, early 60s. Say early 60s. Today, push a… You’ve got hot and cold water. You’ve
got… You push a button. You don’t even have to push a button nowadays. You’ve got motion
sensor switches. You walk into the house, the lights come on. In my days, if you walk
into the house, the lights came on, you ran out screaming because there’s some jinn inside
here. How did the lights…
Huh?
It’s called no…
Right? Imagine. Child mortality. When we were growing up, almost every person, almost every
person had somebody, some child who had died. My father’s family, my father’s second, my
second uncle, my father’s younger brother, Abbas, he died in childhood. Almost… I don’t
think there was any family in which children had died. I don’t think there was any family in which children had died.
Either at childbirth, sometimes childbirth, child and mother both die. Sometimes after
they are born, when they are small, almost every family. Today?
In hospitals, I have gone to a hospital. The most advanced…
Yeah.
Yeah.
In ordinarily robberies, operation on the kids for them?
If, if not, they weren’t there, it’s really not…
One hospital every day was always limited to dramatic changes.
Be that one of
.
It’s such Nobel meditate, you think the fueron type?
Yeah, they became it.
Just so many years.
Obviously, if there was no air conditioning in the houses, there was no air conditioning
in the cars.
And I once traveled from Jaipur.
Go look in the map.
I went from Jaipur to Ajmer, which is both in Rajasthan, in the summer, through the Thar
desert.
So there the temperature is even more than 120, maybe, God knows, 140 or something, in
an ambassador car.
No air conditioning.
You sit in the front seat.
It’s like sitting in front of a fire, literally sitting in front of fire.
And it was Ramadan.
So we reached Ajmer.
I’m waiting for the sun to go down.
Sun doesn’t go down because the day is also so long.
It’s summer.
So almost around 7 or something, 7.30, sun went down.
I went to a shop which sold cold drinks.
So this fellow had a big box with ice in it, and he had cold drinks.
So I said, give me Fanta.
You know, you get the Fanta orange?
I drank seven Fantas, one after the other.
One after the other.
Then I told him, one more.
He said, you are crazy.
He said, madman, you will die.
I said, what?
He said, is there a seven?
He told me, you are crazy.
You will die here.
You drank seven Fanta.
I will not give you.
I said, you are crazy.
You will die here.
I was so thirsty.
I mean, literally, I was so thirsty.
You won’t believe how thirsty I was.
The reason I’m saying is that these are all things to thank Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala
for.
I went to the best school.
Satya Nandela went to the same school, the Hyderabad Public School.
I went to HPA Satya Nandela when I was three years old.
Set up by our king, the Nizam of Hyderabad.
I was a student.
I went to school.
When I finished, I showed you the pictures of the school.
No academicity.
There was no academicity.
So, the school was good.
But in the summer, you boiled.
Nobody complained.
So, really, let us thank Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala.
And Allah said if you thank Him, He will increase the blessings.
So, my request and advice to myself and all of you is literally, one by one, let us take
a step back and check the blessings of Allah.
Let us keep them.
List the blessings of Allah .
List them one by one.
Right?
This masjid here itself, SubhanAllah, I tell you, I thank Allah .
Allah made me witness to this.
Two miracles, literally, according to me, they are miracles.
They are the ma’ajidat of Allah .
Two of our young boys, right?
Who should have been dead.
By all accounts, they should have been dead.
They did not die.
And nobody other than Allah saved them.
And I’m not, you know, this is our akhida, of course.
But I’m saying that there is no chance.
When I saw Hudhaifah in the hospital,
and when I saw,
and when I saw little Muhammad, Asad’s son,
all SubhanAllah.
And see him now.
Mashallah, Mashallah, Mashallah.
May Allah protect him from all evil influences.
Both of them.
We have to thank Allah .
Literally look and say, Ya Rabbi, this is your khudrat.
Mashallah, Alhamdulillah.
This is your khudrat.
So we ask Allah ,
to help us to thank Him.
And help us to count our blessings.
And thank Allah for them.
And remember, you got,
you and I, we got all of this without even asking.
Without asking.
Mashallah, all of you have good children, Mashallah.
Beautiful children.
Did you pray for that?
Did you specifically say, Allah give me a child,
who is this, this, this, this, list.
Allah give me a child, who is this, this, this, this, list.
Allah gave.
Without asking.
Allah from His mercy.
From His grace.
We ask Allah to continue to bless us.
We ask Allah to make us among the shakireen.
To make us among people who are constantly grateful to Him.
Express our gratitude.
We ask Allah to help us to be people who are obedient to Him.
Qaniteen.
We ask Allah to make us among the dhakireen.
Who constantly and continuously remember Allah .
And make us among the muttaqeen.
Who constantly live a life of obedience to Allah .
And may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon the Prophet and his family and his companions.
May Allah grant them peace and blessings.
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