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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allahﷻ, the Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the honor of the prophets and messengers, Muhammadﷺ and the Messenger of Allahﷻ, peace and blessings be upon himﷺ and upon his family and his companions.
We are looking at the ways to beat stress, the Islamic ways in which we can deal with the stresses and difficulties of life. May Allahﷻ have mercy on all of us. We are going through some tough times worldwide, globally. And first of all, we need to thank Allahﷻ that personally Allah has not subjected us to those problems. There are no rockets and no bombs falling here. There is no issue here, Alhamdulillah. Whatever we are hearing is things we are hearing. It’s not something which is happening to us. And we need to thank Allahﷻ for this. And we need to ask Allah to keep us, continue to keep us in His protection, inshaAllah. And to save all those who are not like us, who are in actual difficulty. We ask Allahﷻ to help them, to protect them, to save them, and to keep them in His special care, inshaAllah.
We talked about the first of those things, which was the hadith of Ibn Abbasرضي الله عنه. Where Rasulullahﷺ told him very briefly in the hadith, the hasil of the hadith, what we learn from the hadith, is that whatever Allahﷻ has decreed, that has been decreed. And only that will happen. Nothing else will happen. And that thing, whatever is happening, is the best that could happen in that situation, because Allahﷻ chose it. Whether we see it like that or not, whether we understand it like that or not, whether it seems to be for us like that or not, doesn’t matter. That is the best thing that could have happened in that situation, because Allahﷻ chose it. Sometimes these things which happen in this life, we don’t have, obviously we don’t have any perspective. So for us this looks like, oh this is a terrible thing, why did it happen? But it is, whether it looks terrible or not terrible, it is the best that could have happened in those circumstances, because Allah is the one who chose that. So this is our aqidah. This is what we must always remind ourselves. It may not be easy to remind, but this is the reality. And as Muslims we believe this.
Number two is, Rasulullahﷺ said, therefore, do not say if. If only this, if only that, if I had not gone there, if I had gone there, if I was driving this car, that car, if I was wearing this, if I was wearing that, if I was eating. This is the Qadar of Allahﷻ. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.
Whatever Allahﷻ wishes, Allah will do. And Alhamdulillah, we as the slaves of Allahﷻ, we have only one thing which we do, which is we bow our heads in submission and we say Alhamdulillah. Rasulullahﷺ used to say, Alhamdulillahi Ala Kulli Hal. All praise and all thanks to Allahﷻ. In every situation. In every condition. Whether it is easy, whether it is difficult, Allah knows best. And therefore, Allahﷻ does that. And the beauty of this deen, Rasulullahﷺ said, how beautiful and how ajeeb, how strange in a good way is the situation of the Muslim, that when he has plenty, he thanks Allahﷻ, therefore Allah is pleased with him. And when he has difficulties, he has sabr, so Allah is pleased with him. So in both situations. And then Rasulullahﷺ said, not even a thorn pricks the foot of a believer, except that Allah forgives the sin.
This is the beauty of this deen, that subhanAllah, even in difficult things, even in so-called worldly failures, even in so-called worldly disasters, there is khair from Allahﷻ. There is blessing from Allahﷻ. If you go out for, if you go to see somebody who is sick, what did Rasulullahﷺ, what did he used to say? He used to say, he used to say, this is purification of your sin. The person has fever, Rasulullahﷺ said, inshaAllah, Allah will give you shifa, and this period of fever and so on, is purification of sins. It’s not a disaster, oh my God, no, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. Whatever happens is, from Allahﷻ, and this is khair. This is the beauty of this deen, that there is nothing negative.
We are not fooling ourselves. This is the actual reality. We are not saying, we are imagining everything. No. Everything is actually positive, but if we look at it from the perspective of Islam. This is the beauty, the beauty of this deen, and that’s why this must make a difference in our lives. Otherwise, there’s no sense in, you know, saying we are Muslims. Right? If I am wearing these glasses, clearly, if I don’t see, if I don’t wear the glasses, it looks, everything looks blurred, right? Or it looks different. But when I put on these glasses, I am seeing everything clearly. I am seeing all the colors, I am seeing the people, I am recognizing the people. Use the glasses. The glasses are the glasses of Islam. When you see the world through the glasses of Iman, then you see the reality of the world.
Otherwise, the world deceives you. It fools you. The algorithm is, the algorithm is, it’s turning us. Right? I was just reading something which says that when you are scrolling, unconsciously, sometimes you see this, you haven’t even asked, you haven’t even spoken something. It’s just a thought in your mind, and 20 minutes later, you get a feed. In your feed, it comes whatever you are looking for. Now, it’s not that, the thing is actually reading your mind. The way it reads your mind is that when you are scrolling through, your finger hesitates over something you are in doubt about. You are interested in. So, you spend a little more, a fraction of a second more on something, and a fraction of a second less on something. The algorithm reads that. The machine reads that. And you do that three, four times, and they know where you are. Right? And then they send you stuff which you are, which you seem to be interested in. So, unless you have your mind is focused, and unless you are saying, this is how I want to lead my life, the machine will run it for you. So, no if. Alhamdulillah. Whatever Allah wanted, Allah did. Second thing, or third thing, is stop complaining. This is one of the, may Allah have mercy on us, this is one of the biggest problems, especially in this city, Hyderabad. Everything. You know, the moment there is summer, it is so hot outside. Oh my God, how hot it is. The moment winter, oh my God, how cold it is. I mean, is there something which is good? I mean, what is that? So, no, make very sure, do not complain. Because what happens is, complaining trains your mind to focus on what is missing. Not on what you already have. Whereas not complaining, shukur, focuses your mind on what you have. It is Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah, I have, I am living in, in aman. I am living in peace. I am living in safety. Alhamdulillah, I have a roof over my head.
If you, if you, if you complain, oh my God, I don’t have an AC in my house. But you have a house. Hey? How about if you didn’t have a house? The question of AC won’t arise. No rain, no rain. If you don’t have a house, how will AC come?
I used to go with Ghazaluddin Babu Khan. May Allah have mercy on him and fill his cover with Noor and grant him Jannatul Firdaus. Ghazaluddin Bhai used to go to give these donations to, you know, we used to give educational assistance to students. So, we went to Nizambat. And we used to interview the student before we gave the amount. So, one young girl came. And the girls always would be accompanied by a parent. So, the girl was, her mother was with the girl. And this girl said she wants to become a teacher. So, I was very happy. Alhamdulillah, somebody wants to become a teacher. So, we gave her whatever. What I noticed was that this mother of this girl, she had her cheekbones, her forehead, had what literally looked like burns. Right? The skin was burnt. And burnt to the extent that it almost looked like fire burns. I found very strange. What happened? Why this woman like this? So, we would, what we did was, we used to have our people before, when they have been, when the, somebody gave an application asking for educational donation. We, our employee, our person would go and do some kind of research and find out who are these people. You know, where is this person from? The student, what’s the antecedents and, you know, parents and so on. So, after they left, I asked our guy, I said, why is this lady like this? What happened? What’s wrong with her?
He said that lady is a beggar. She is a beggar. She begs. I said, okay. So, she is so jealous that she is in the sun all day. Because imagine, Nizamabad, that’s the heat. The whole day she is standing in the sun. So, she is a beggar. Her daughter wants to become a teacher. I said, where do they live? He said, you won’t believe. He said that she lives, she has a grass hut. Grass and plastic sheets and, you know, whatever stuff. She has a hut which doesn’t even have a door. It just has a, you know, a sacking curtain. Right? That’s it. The mother and daughter live there.
I wrote a piece, I remember that time, saying that, the cost of education of making that girl into a teacher was less than the cost of my shoes. That is the level of poverty. So, if you are going to sit here and say, the AC is not there. Imagine there are people just like you and me. Illa mashaAllah. Just, what’s the difference? Have you, you are a human being, right? Who are living like this. Now, imagine that lady, that girl, what happens to them? What is the level of safety for them? If they want to go to the toilet, where do they go? They go somewhere. There are people like this in this dunya. So, if we are complaining and if we get into this habit of complaining, we always look for things we don’t have. So, the mind gets trained for that. Ignores everything we have and looks only for things we don’t have. Whereas Allah says, لَإِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِدَنَّكُمْ وَلَإِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ أَذَابِي لَشَّدِيدٍ Allah says, the one who thanks me, I will increase that blessing for him. And the one who is ungrateful, let him beware that my punishment is severe.
The first and immediate way in which a blessing is increased is when you are thankful, you become conscious of it, so you enjoy it more. So, you are thankful. And the curse of ingratitude is that the moment you start complaining, it hurts you. It is not a problem. I gave the example the other day, I remember reading this somewhere, that a professor in class, what he did was, he showed people, he just took a plain sheet of white paper and he put a black dot in the middle of that. And he showed the class people and he said, what do you see? Everybody said, black dot. He said, you see the black dot which is so small, you don’t see all the white around it. Good example, no? He said, all the white around it you don’t see, you see only the black dot. This is our life, this is how unconsciously we train ourselves. Only look for the bad. What is the fault in this? What is the fault in that? Even with people and relationships, you may have somebody who is, you know, everything is good in this person, but one fault, you only see this fault. Allah Allah khut, Allah billah. You are a human being, you will remain a dream if you don’t do anything. Allah has made you that way. Who is perfect? No one is perfect, except the Messenger of Allah . So if you are going to look only for the fault, then he will see, what else will he see? You will only see that, what else will you see? So whether it is relationships, whether it is our conditions in life, whether it is, you know, whatever, right? If you look for faults, you will find faults. If you look for good things, you will see good things.
I want to end with another thought just came to me. I was teaching a course many, many years ago. Probably about 40 years ago. I was teaching a course in GE Medical Systems in Bangalore. And, I was teaching a course in GE Medical Systems in Bangalore. This was two-day course. So, on the first day, we were talking about this whole issue of noticing. So I said to the people, I said, Look for cars with a Delhi registration. And, this is in Bangalore. Right. How will you find Delhi registration in Bangalore? I said look for cars with a Delhi registration. Then, next day, the people came. and one guy tells me, he tells me, sir, you know what I realized? I said, what? He said, my car has a daily registration. He said, his own car. He said, I forgot, my own car has a daily registration. So, if you look for something, you will find it. Whatever you are looking for, you will find it. So, you want happiness, look for happiness, you will find happiness. You want to be sad, to be sad, look for sadness. So, it’s very, very important. And that’s why we say, do not complain. The more you speak about something which is not there, the more it will, you will find it, the more it will hurt you.
We ask Allahﷻ subhanahu wa ta’ala, we’ll continue inshallah tomorrow. We ask Allahﷻ subhanahu wa ta’ala to help us to be grateful. This is one of the greatest mercies and blessings of Allah, that He allows us to be grateful. We ask Allah to help us to be grateful for what He has given us and to continue to thank Him. And we ask Allahﷻ subhanahu wa ta’ala to save us from all danger. difficulties and trials and tribulations and to enable us to live our lives in a way which is pleasing to Him, Jalla Jalaluhu.