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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad ﷺ and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and his family. Tasliman kathiraan kathiraan. My brothers and sisters, one of the most critical things to do in life is not to waste time. Because time is life. Time itself is life. Muhammad Shafiq Ramatullahi said that life is a series of instants. Lamhat ke silsile ka naam zindagi hai. One instant, two instant, three, four, five, until the last. And he said life is but an instant. Let it be an instant of obedience. As I have said, many times before, our biggest, our longest lifespan was when we were born. And then our, when the moment you take the first breath, the clock starts ticking and that clock ticks backwards. It’s like a stopwatch which runs backwards. And then when it comes to zero, that’s it. Now we don’t know how far we are from zero. So it is very, very critical that we keep track of every second, every minute of our lives and we account for it. And we ensure that it is used in something which is beneficial. Something which is beneficial means either something which benefits us in the dunya or something which benefits us in the akhira. Right? If it is not sa, if both of these are not happening or either dunya or akhira, then it’s a waste of time. Even if what you are doing is not haram. If you are, what you are doing, if it is prohibited, then of course it’s a bigger problem because then you open yourself to punishment of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala which we ask Allah to forgive us. But even if it is not haram, it is something which is, in Urdu we say layani. Something which has no value. Right?
So for example, I always say watching a game is a waste of time. It’s a complete and total, it’s not haram, but it’s a complete and total waste of time because if you ask yourself a simple question, you sit and watch a World Cup match for example, and at the end of that you say what did I gain? That’s all. Just ask what did I benefit? What did I gain? What’s the answer? Nothing. You gained absolutely nothing. If you are for example a professional footballer and you watch a game with the intention of studying that game and seeing how Ronaldo or Messi or you know whoever, how they played a particular shot and how they defended something and so on and you, then you slow it down and you watch it and you practice it, then there is a benefit. Even if you are not a professional footballer and so on and so forth, if you go out and play football, there is a benefit. Alhamdulillah, I’m all for it. Please go out. Go kick the ball around, run around, so on and so on. It’s physical, you know exercise for you plus you learn how to work together as a team and so on and so forth. There is benefit. But just watching a match, who is benefiting when you watch the match? The people who are showing it to you, which is the television channels. The people who are running the big, huge, gambling games. For every game, there is a book that is open. They are benefiting. The players are getting some money for playing, right? What do you benefit? Nothing. How do the others benefit? Because you sit and watch. Just imagine for a minute that nobody is interested in, take test cricket for example. Now, test cricket is not even, nobody shows it even on television. Why? Because nobody, nobody watches it. Nobody listens to, there was a time when people used to listen to test commentary for five, five days. Today, nobody does it. So, the game is gone. Why is the game gone? Because people are not watching. So, you are donating, literally, this is what you are doing. You are donating that many hours of your life, to make somebody else, rich.
Now, is there anything more stupid than that? If there is, please tell me what it is. I, I’d like to know. You are donating your life. You are donating an irretrievable, irrecoverable, asset, which is your life, which is your time. It will never come back to you. You are giving it away, for free. So that somebody else laughs all the way to the bank. Hmm? Somebody else laughs all the way to the bank. And again, as I said, this is not haram. It’s not haram in the sense of, the actual action is not haram. But, giving away your time, is it haram or halal? So, we have to think. We should really think and say, what do I do with that? Now, one of the places, one of the ways in which also people waste time, is in useless discussions. For example, one of the discussions that people do is, on issues of fiqh. So, you say, evolution of fiqh, in this madhab, this is the ruling, in that madhab, that is the ruling. My first question to anyone who starts that discussion is, have you studied Usul al-Fiqh? And if the answer is no, then I would say, please, go study Usul al-Fiqh. Then come back. Because you are not qualified, to talk about this matter. There is no sense in talking to you about this matter. It’s a technical matter. Why would I talk to you about, evolution of fiqh, when I know that you have not studied Usul al-Fiqh? You will never understand it. It’s a technical matter.
So, why should I waste my time talking to you about that? But it sounds nice. You think you are doing something which is dini. You are not. You are wasting your time. And, what is more, it’s very dangerous, because since you don’t know the Usul of Fiqh, since you don’t know that, therefore you are now, going in an area, where you don’t understand the boundaries. And when you don’t understand the boundaries, you are likely to go, out of the boundary. And then you will end up with, shukuk and shubuhaat, with doubts, which can literally, take away your Iman. Like yesterday, somebody had a, was asking me. They talked about, the fasad in Aqeedah, of different sects. Right? And then they said, oh but you see those people, they are doing so much, so much good work, and they are doing so much charity, and they are doing, this and that. Why should we judge them? Who are we to judge them? So, I told him, understand one thing very clearly. If somebody says to you, if somebody, if I ask you a question, sala, is it fard or not? What is the answer? It is fard. So, are you judging somebody? You are not judging anybody. Supposing I ask you, a person who is, not praying, a person who is not praying, is he doing good or bad? He is doing bad. Right? So, if you say, a person who is not praying, is doing something which is bad, something which is haram, is it judging? It is not judging. You are stating a fact. A person who is not praying, is doing evil. He is doing bad. He is harming himself.
Supposing I ask you and say, so and so is not praying, Zaid is not praying, Bakar is not praying, Hasan is not praying, will he go to Jannah or Jahannam? That is a judging question. And if you say, he goes to Jahannam, then you can say, no, no, don’t judge. You are nobody to say, where he will go. But even in that question, supposing you say, if he does not, if he continues not to pray, and he dies in that state, then he will go to Jahannam, then that is not a judgmental question, answer. That is what Rasool Allah told us. He said, He said the difference between them and us, meaning people who are not Muslim and Muslims, is the Salah, the one who leaves the Salah, has committed Kufr. Where does a person who commits Kufr, where does he go? So this is the problem. Today, we have this, you know, people have invented words, peop
We have invented things which sound nice, and we get confused. Why should we be judgmental? Let us not be judgmental. Who am I to judge anybody? All of this sounds very nice. It is completely ridiculous nonsense. It is a completely, totally stupid question, a stupid statement. Nobody is asking you to judge anything. We are asking you a simple question. If somebody believes in Allah but joins partners with Allah, is this Tawheed or is it Shirk? What is it? Shirk. So are you being judgmental? No. No. So people say, no, but you know, this is common for everyone. We all believe in one Allah. That’s nonsense. That statement is a nonsensical question. We don’t believe in one Allah. We believe in Allah ﷻ with all His qualities. That is why we have Tawheed fi uluhiyat, Tawheed fi rububiyat, and Tawheed fi asma’u sifati Allahi ta’ala. We say Allah is Rabbul Alameen. We say Allah is Razzaqu dhu alquwati almateen. Allah is the Razzaq. Al-Razzaq. The only one. Not a question of one Allah. The question of believing that.
So now if you have somebody who says yes or no, I believe in Allah. I absolutely believe in Allah. There is no doubt about it. I believe in Allah ﷻ. But I also believe that this so and so holy man can grant me some favour. Then where is the belief in Allah? There is no belief in Allah. Then you cannot say that you are, we share, we do not share this belief. We share, we do not share a belief that there is somebody who is makhlooq. Whether this is Rasool ﷺ himself, or any of the prophets, or any of the malaika, any of the angels, or anything which has a share in the power and glory and majesty of Allah . We don’t believe this. We believe that Allah is unique. Qulhu Allahu ahad. Allah did not say Qulhu Allahu ahad. So where is this one God, this one concept, where did you get it from? Where did you get this one concept from? Allah did not say one. Allah said al ahad. Unique. The only. Not one. Why this one, three, four, six, seven, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 71, 72, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 80, 92, 93, 92, 94, 95, 100, 92, 93, 94, 95, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. So to give away something which you are accountable for even if it’s not hard it’s a waste. So we ask Allah ﷻ to help us to live lives which are purposeful beneficial and which help us to get close to Him and which help us to please Him and we ask Allah ﷻ to be pleased and not to be displeased and we ask Allah ﷻ to be pleased and not to be displeased.