Podcast: Play in new window | Download (11.8MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | Youtube Music | RSS
Auto-generated transcript:
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen.
Was-salatu was-salamu ala ash-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen, Muhammadin Rasoolullah ﷺ, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathira. Fahim abadu. My brothers and sisters, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala created us for a purpose, and He told us that purpose. And He said, “Wa maa khalaqtul-jinnah wal-insana illa liya’budu.” He said, I have not created the jinn and the human beings for anything other than my worship.
Liya’budu, ba maani ya’rifu: Allah’s worship, and to know Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.
This is our purpose. This is why we exist.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala promised to provide for us, and to give us, and to sustain us. And He said, “Wa maa khalaqtul-jinnah wal-insana illa liya’budu.” And Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said, “Maa ureedu minhum min rizqi wa maa ureedu an yuta’imoon. Inna Allaha huwa ar-Razzaqu dhu al-quwwati al-mateen.” Allah said, we don’t ask them to feed us; we feed them. And really, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala provides rizq bil-quwwati al-mateen by His power and His authority.
Rizq. It refers to all human needs. It’s not only food. It is every need of the human being, which includes guidance, which Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has already provided us in the best possible manner, which is by His own speech, His kalam, sent to us through the agency of His beloved messenger, Muhammad ﷺ. So therefore, our job is to be close to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and to live our lives in a way that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala prescribed.
Knowing that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s prescription, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s guidance about how to live is the best possible way of living. There is nothing superior to that. And that best possible way, in our own context, it is the best way because Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala gave it to us and it’s the best way because Allah knows what is best for us.
We cannot know what is best because as Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said, “Wa ‘asaa an takrahu shay’an fa huwa khayrun lakum, wa ‘asaa an tuhibbu shay’an fa huwa sharrun lakum, wallahu ya’lamu wa antumu lata’lamoon.” Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said, it is possible that you dislike something but there is khair, there is benefit in it for you; and it is possible that you like something but there is shard, there is harm in it for you. And Allah knows, and you do not know. And of course, this is the ayah of the Quran, it is true, and we also know this is true from our own lives. We cannot know what is good and we cannot know what is evil because our knowledge, our insight, our understanding is very, very mahdud, very, very limited. Whereas Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has no limits on it. So if Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has prescribed something, we know it is the best and therefore we accept it with this complete and total reliance and belief in Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala which is called tawakkul.
Fudhail bin Ayad, Fudhail (anhu) rahmatullahi alayh. He was a great scholar; he was from Yemen and he lived during the time of the Sahaba, but he never met Rasulullah s.a.w. He couldn’t come to meet him, but he lived in the time of the Sahaba. He was a great Qadi, he was a judge, and he was a Qadi in the reign of all the four Falafel Rashidin. So he was a Qadi under Sayyidina Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali RadhiAllahu Anhu Majma’een. Very famous scholar, very famous Qadi. So Fudhail bin Ayad RadhiAllahu Anhu was asked: “What do you find the strangest of all things? What do you find is the strangest of all things?” And he said, “I find the strangest of all things the heart that knows Allah yet still disobeys Him.”
Fudhail bin Ayad was asked, what in your view is the strangest of all things? And he said, the heart that knows Allah yet still disobeys Him. We know Allah. We have said, La ilaha illa Allah Muhammadur Rasulullah. We pray. We stand in Salah before Allah s.w.t. We pay Zakat b.t. Maybe we even pray; we even did Hajj. We fast in Ramadan
and we still disobey Allah s.w.t. We still earn haram. We still eat haram. We still do things which Allah has prohibited us from doing.
How strange is that? Somebody who does not know, he does something you can understand. Okay, he didn’t understand the danger of it. He didn’t understand what he was doing. But somebody who knows…
what is the cure for that?
Hasan Masih R.A was going somewhere. And on the way, he passed by two people. One man was complaining to the other man about his own life. This is a problem. That’s a problem. This happened. Hasan Masih stopped and said, “How strange it is that you complain about our Rahman to someone who has no Rahmah.”
You are complaining about the most mercy for Allah s.w.t. to somebody who has no mercy. He won’t bring us no mercy. What mercy do we have?
And you are complaining about… because if I say about, if I talk about, if I talk about my life, or if I talk about, if I complain about anything, suppose I say, oh, the weather is bad. End of the day, what are you saying? You are saying, what Allah has decreed is not good.
No, I am not saying: for example, if you have a problem, don’t tell anybody. No. Tell the right people. Tell somebody who can do something about it. If you are sick, for example, go to the doctor. Don’t tell the whole world. What will the world do? Go to the physician. He knows what to do. He will deal with it. If you are having a problem in the house, husband and wife, some marital issue, don’t talk, don’t tell the world. Go to a marriage council or go to one of the family elders and you know, tell them, please, can you help me? That is okay. There is nothing wrong with that. But talking about generally, moaning and groaning and complaining.
So, this is the thing.
And that’s why the advice of the scholars is, “Don’t miss salah for the sake of people.”
The most common reason for missing salah is what? I am not saying you fell asleep. That’s different. But, generally, especially the salahs of the daytime—Zohar, Asr, Maghrib—the most common reason: “I had a meeting. I had to go somewhere. My shop; you know, I was selling something, buying something. So, some people involved, whatever it is, right? I was with people. May Allah have mercy on us. I was watching football or some nonsense. Even that we do. May Allah have mercy on us.” So, we miss salah for the sake of people. He said, “Don’t miss salah for the sake of people. You were born alone and you will die alone and you will go to the grave alone and you will be questioned alone on the Day of Judgment.”
Now, we are talking about our friend, may Allah Ta’ala make his life easy, Mahfuz Bhai, and make it easy, may it remove his difficulty and make his path easy to him. He is in the hospital, surrounded by his family, but he is alone.
If he talks, they can’t understand. He cannot talk; you know, they can’t understand him and so on, so on. He is alone.
So, we are alone.
And you don’t have to be in a hospital, in hospice for that. In your own life, if you have a problem, see how many people stick with you.
We have seen cases: if you have a problem, stick with you. If something happens, how many people come with you.
We have seen cases in here, people who are our neighbours, when they were good…
how many people used to go to their house, how many people if they invite, they would go and eat, how many people would be around them. And then whatever is… I am not saying who is right, who is wrong. The person had some problem, see how many people went to there and said, okay, I understand you got a problem. Tell me, how can I help you? What can I do for you?
Not only that, they will go. That is the reality. This is unfortunately this is life, and that is why we must also have the right friends. Allah say
The verse states: “Al-Akhila, Yawma Izin.” Allah says regarding the Day of Judgment that close friends will be separated. In Arabic, there are many words for friend, each denoting a different level of closeness. *Khalil* is the closest. That is why Prophet Ibrahim (AS) is called *Khalilullah*. The Messenger of Allah (SAW) said, “If I could take a Khalil, I would have taken Abu Bakr as a Khalil, but Allah has taken me as his Khalil and therefore Abu Bakr is the first of my brothers and the first whom I love as a friend.” So, a *Khalil* is someone who is that close.
Allah is saying, “Al-Akhila,” people who are your *Khalil*, the closest to you, most beloved of you, knowing all your secrets, having access to everything that you have in this world. These are the *Al-Akhila*, on the Day of Judgment (*Yawm al-Qiyamah*). On the Day of Judgment, these people who are so close as friends in this life will become enemies to each other. There is a difference between an enemy and someone who ignores you. Ignoring is one thing; if you say *Salam* and no one answers, that is different from being an enemy. Who do you call your enemy? You don’t call him your enemy simply because he doesn’t respond. If you don’t answer *Salam*, you’re not your enemy. If he doesn’t respond to your *Salam*, he’s not your enemy.
Who is your enemy? An enemy is somebody who wants to harm you, who will attack you. Someone you must guard against. Allah is saying there will be enemies among those we consider friends today. Who will be our enemy? My closest friend in this *dunya* will become my enemy on the Day of Judgment. Except for those who are people of *Taqwa*. So, if your friends are people of *Taqwa*, then *insha’Allah* on the Day of Judgment they will still be your friends. Otherwise, if you have friends who are disobedient to Allahﷻ, friends who guide you or misguide you—telling you to do this, do that, go here, go there—and you know you should not go or do such things, these friends on the Day of Judgment will be your enemies.
So the final point for today is: we must prepare for uncertain matters in our lives. For example, marriage. How much preparation do you do for marriage? There is uncertainty; we don’t know whether this specific marriage will work out or even if we will get married at all. Yet, we go and try to find a spouse, doing everything possible. We prepare for uncertain things. Similarly, for a job: you qualify, but what happens next? You try to get a job. How much effort do you put into getting it? It is uncertain. You don’t know if you will get the job, what kind of job it will be, or if you will succeed or fail. But you make a lot of effort.
But what is the preparation for the one event which is completely and totally certain? No doubt about that; it will happen. We know it will happen. What is the preparation for that moment, for that time which we know will occur? Let us prepare for that moment. Let us not live a life of complete *ghaflah*. Remember that one day we will die. We ask Allahﷻ to make that the best day of our lives. We ask Allah to make it easy. We ask Allah to save us from all difficulty related with that. We ask Allahﷻ to help us lead a life which He will be pleased with when we meet Him. Jalla Jalaluhu. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyul kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma’in. Bi rahmatik ya ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim.