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In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and upon his family, peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, the… We normally utilize or we apply two kinds of criteria to deciding whether any of our spending is better or worse, which is a better place to spend. Right? Two questions. I’m not talking about any financial plan. Generally speaking, if you want to spend money, then one criterion is we say, we compare between something which has… which can give you pleasure, so short-term pleasure versus something which has a long-term benefit. Right? So which do you… which is the better one to spend? Short-term pleasure, yeah, of course. You have a party, you do something, you go to… you have a holiday, you spend money on that, you, you know, you buy something temporarily. But the same money, if you spend to buy in an investment, right? To buy gold, to buy long-term investment, to invest in a house and so on, then between the two, anybody will say the second option is the better option because you put your money where it is going to give you long-term benefit. If somebody takes… takes even time for the… for that matter. For example, our children, they go to school, college. They will want to go and play, go for a game or something with their friends and so forth, right? It’s a good one, they learn. Nothing wrong with that. But if they are doing it and the cost of their studies, so if they have to go study, there’s an exam, they leave the exam, they go play cricket or they play soccer or something, what will you say? The sort of question is, is it halal or halal? The question is what are you doing with the time? This time you should have been spending, studying for the exam, which has a long-term benefit on your life. Instead of that, you are playing a game, the game you can play anytime. You don’t have to play the game just then. And even if you don’t play the game, so what? Whereas if you fail the exam, then it is likely to have a long-term negative effect on your life. So this is how we compare. Where am I going to spend more time? I should spend more on that compared to where I’m going to spend less time, right? That’s the basic principle. Sayyidna Usman bin Affan ad-Dhaya Lhanu died in the year 656. Today we are in 2025. So 2025 minus 656 is 1369. Right? 1369, do the math. 2025 minus 656 is 1369. Sayyidna Usman bin Affan ad-Dhaya Lhanu has been in the Barzakh and he continues to be in Barzakh for 1369 years. So how many years in the Barzakh am I planning to spend? How many years are you planning to spend? You’re going there, believe me. We will go there. The day we see Malakur Mawd, the door opens. And we will remain there until Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala calls us, until the surah is blown out. Until Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala calls us, until the surah is blown, Israfil A.S., Rasulullah S.A.W. said Israfil has the trumpet to his lips and his eyes are fixed on Allah. He is in that position. Allah knows time has no meaning in that context. Thousands of years, millions of years, Allah knows best. So that instantly He will blow the surah and then we will come out of our graves. That period is Barzakh. So how many years have you got? The reason I’m asking is because we spend money. We work hard. We make dua for this life. This life is all on. 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, the Friendly Brothers, Friendly Ice Cream because you are, give you local examples. Friendly’s Ice Cream was started, the company had started in 1935 by the two Blake Brothers. One of them died at the age of 102. And the other one, Priestley Blake, who built a house just after Long Meadow in Summers. When you’re driving from here, you cross into Summers. On the left you see a house called Monticello. The name is written on the wall. It is the exact replica of Thomas Jefferson’s house. Priestley Blake built it at a cost of $7 million, exact replica, to celebrate his 100th birthday. And he had his birthday party and he sold it. He never lived in the house. He sold it at a loss because the problem with big ticket properties is you can never sell them. Who’s going to pay $7 million to buy that house? So he sold it at a loss and then he bought it back again at another loss. Eventually he died at the age of 106. So we spend money for this life. What is our spend for the barzakh? I gave you the example of Sayyidna Asma Ibn Asma Nadell Anhu because Sayyidna Asma Nadell Anhu made wakaf of one of his date gardens. And that date garden is there till today in Madinah. The Saudi government looks after it. It’s still a wakaf. And every year the harvest is donated, sadaka, for 1369 years. And of course as we know, Allah knows it will continue until Allah keeps it. And then we also know the rahmah of Allah SWT and that is the benefit of doing good things regularly. Because we know the hadith as Rasulullah SAW SAB SAID, when a person does something regularly, you pray tahajud every day. You give some sadaka every day. You go for Juma every Juma. You read so much of Quran every day. And you read so much more in Ramadan and so on. Whatever you do on a regular basis, Nabi SAW SAW SAID, if for some reason the Qadar of Allah may Allah give all of us long and healthy lives and a khatimah bil khair inshallah, but for some reason something happens and you are unable to continue that action, Allah SWT will cause that action to continue to be written in your book until you die. Because, the malaikah will say, because these are accountants, so they will say, but he has not done it. Allah SWT says, he did not do it because of the affliction I gave him. If that was not there, he would have done it. So my question to myself and you is, what is our investment for the Barzakh? I am not even talking about the Akhira forever, for Barzakh it is not forever. Barzakh is a specific period. We don’t know how much period, but it is a specific period, it is not forever. It is until the Day of Judgment when the surah is blown, Yawm al-Qayyamah is established, end of Barzakh. For some people it is thousands of years, for some people it might be one day. The man dies today, tomorrow, Yawm al-Qayyamah is one day. Who knows? But it is a specific period. So I am talking only about that. Akhira, Alhamdulillah, InshaAllah, we ask Allah for His mercy. What is our preparation for that? Final point, let me ask you this. Think about this, this thought came to me the other day. When we make dua, how much of our dua is for the Akhira? How much of the dua is for the Barzakh? And how much of the dua is for this dunya? There is no problem, you can make dua for dunya, I mean absolutely nothing wrong. You make dua for the dunya, make dua for your business, make dua for your family, make dua for… No problem, Alhamdulillah. But the same question, if I am going to say that I am going to make dua for the dunya, but the same question, if I am going to spend 20, 30, 40 years in one place and I am going to spend 2000, 4000, 5000, Allah knows how many thousand years in the other place, how much of my dua is for the 30, 40, 50, 70 years and how much of my dua is for the 2000 years? Just dua. Just think about this. Because our actions define us. We can talk, everybody can talk, forget about talking. Our actions define us. So if I take my actions and say, my actions in terms of the yield for this dunya versus my actions in terms of the yield for the barzakh. And for akhirah, what is the proportion? 10%, 15%, 20%, 50%, 99.9% for this life, 0.1%. Alhamdulillah, we ask Allah for barakah. But I am saying, really we have to analyze. You know the biggest problem that we have and I want to end with that, the biggest problem we have is that we have taken Islam and put it in a place as a ritual. Right? Good to do, nice to do, we dress up for the masjid, we come, we listen to some beautiful recitation of Quran, we pray, we feel good, we go home. We don’t treat Islam as a tool to live in this life and to use it as a tool to live in this life. This is the difference between us and the sahaba. For the sahaba, Islam was a tool for this life. They had a problem in their life, they went to salah. There was some issue, they went to salah. They had some problem, they went to dua. Al-Aala Al-Hadrami, radiya Allah anhu, commander of the army, which Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam sent to Bahrain. And between Bahrain and Damami, we know the area, so what is now Damami? When Bahrain is across the bridge, now there is a big bridge. So obviously those days there was no bridge. So they go there, they see the sea, as they can see the island of Bahrain is on the other side, but how do you get there? And Bahrain was under the Persians. So the Persians said the simplest thing is take away all the boats, put the boats on our side of the thing, the Arabs have no boats, they can’t come across. So when the army reaches there, no boats. What is the first thing that Abdullah Al-Hadrami, radiya Allah anhu says to the people? As he says, go search for boats, find boats. How can we get boats? Can somebody swim across? No. He says, is there anybody here who has committed a major sin? Just think of this, these things have blown my mind. So what’s the man, this man is a general, he is an army general, I’ve got a physical problem brother, I don’t have boats. You are talking about sin? What sin God do? I mean, I need a boat. I have a physical problem, I have a resource issue. He says, is there anyone in this army who has committed a major sin? Telling a lie is a major sin. Ghiba is a major sin. You know, drug, murder and you know, zina. Deliberately leaving a sala is a major sin, can be kufr, depending on what kind of niya you did it with. Has anybody committed a major sin? They said no. He said make istighfar anyway, get off the horses, pray two rakat of sala. They prayed two rakat of sala. He said mount and he said ride. He said mount and he said ride. Ride where? In the sea? He said ride. And they have said, they have written that the horses ran on the water and the water did not come above the hoof of the horse. They didn’t swim. They rode. The water did not come above the hoof of the horse. The politicians saw them and they ran away. They said these are jinn, these are not human beings. These are jinn. We cannot fight them. They ran away. The sahabah used Islam in their daily lives. And that’s what gave them the power. You did not need to convince people to spend years, spend there, do this, do that. They do. They used to do it every day. For us we made it into a ritual. You finish the ritual, now I am on my own, now I do my business. I do halal, I do haram, I talk, I do hiba, I do namim, I do whatever I like. Until the next time I come for sala, then I come make usurps. That is why there is no baraka in life. That is why there is no, the heart is full of fear. What will happen? What will happen? What will happen? What can happen? When nothing can happen without the hukum and amr of Allah, what will happen? Only what Allah wills will happen. What is the question? What will happen? As a Muslim, I am not a Muslim. What will happen? Only what Allah wants will happen. And what Allah wants depends on my connection with Allah. Depends on my connection with Allah. My sheikh used to say, it will be raining but you will not get wet. It will be raining but you will not get wet. It will be raining but you will not get wet. It will be raining but you will not get wet. There will be accidents on the road but you will go safely. The whole market will collapse but your business will succeed. Because Allah is not dependent on these things. Have your connection with Allah, correct? Nothing will affect you. Nothing will affect you. Allah did not put out the fire to save you from the Prophet. No, the fire was burning. Allah said, Ya’nar, kuni bardhan ma’shalaman ala ibrahi. Become cold and a means of safety. Sorry about that, my sheikh. We are stuck in the conditions. What will happen? What will happen? The horror of what will happen. I remind myself and you, let us repair our connection with Allah. Let us focus on the place where we will spend most of our time. This life, we don’t know how much we have left. For most of us, what we spent already, that much we will not spend. That much more we will not spend. Father, may you Allah ha’ra. But let us focus on what is sure which is, that in the akhirah, once we die, in the barzakh, after that, is a very long time. Let us focus on that and say, what am I sending ahead? What am I doing? We ask Allah SWT to be pleased with us and to be displeased. We ask Allah SWT to protect us from all that we know and all that we don’t know. We ask Allah SWT to help us in ways and from sources that we cannot imagine. We ask Allah SWT to fill our hearts with His khashya and His nur and with the hukf for His Habib Muhammad SAW. We ask Allah SWT to make it easy for us to do that which pleases Him and to protect us from that which does not please Him. We ask Allah SWT to protect us and to protect our children, our families, and to protect our entire muscle, to make sure that we all are on Islam, we remain on Islam, and become strong in Islam, inshallah. And may Allah SWT send us to be free from all that we know and all that we don’t know.
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