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My brothers and sisters, I’m walking on Watch Hog Road in Summers, Connecticut.
And one of my favorite walks, as a matter of fact, when we arrived here in September 2019,
I think it was, if I’m not mistaken, the 23rd or 24th of September.
Straight off the plane, I started this walk.
I came here, I walked, and I’m not describing for you the route because most of you don’t know the route.
But for those of you who know that, I went down Watch Hog Road to the end, took a left all the way to Pease Road, up Pease Road.
All the way to Hall Hill Road at the cemetery and then back to Hall Hill Road to my brother-in-law’s place.
And the whole thing was about eight miles.
Didn’t realize that, how far it was going to be.
And I remember there was a guy who was mowing the sidewalk near his house on the way.
And I asked him, how do I get back to where I need to be?
He said, oh, wow, you are very far away from there.
So I said, anyway, I still need to go.
So I did.
Now, this is a little brook that I have passed over many, many times on these walks.
They seem to have done a great job with repairing it and repairing this little bridge here and so on.
You can see the brook.
Literally, this is the beauty of this place, that the water is literally good enough to drink.
Stop by deep.
This is maybe about three feet deep or so, at least at this point.
Has some fish.
Lots of this aquatic greenery and very beautiful scenery.
I’ve been on this walk many, many times.
I see many things here.
I will show you here some signs of wealth as we go forward.
There’s a guy who owns most of the upper land here, and he’s recently bought himself a plane.
And he’s built himself an airport, a whole landing strip with a hangar and everything.
So anyone who’s feeling very rich because you have a nice car, well, there are people who are, for them, a nice car is not something they even think about.
The reason I’m saying that is because this is one of the biggest, most confusing, most confounding, most problematic parts of our life.
And that is the question of sustenance.
The question of rizq.
Most of us, if not all of us, at some point in time, we are subject to anxiety about our rizq, about our…
about our sustenance.
Will I get it?
Will I not get it?
What happens?
And then we have to deal with all that is happening on the global scale.
Although having said that, people like to talk about how global markets are going up and down and what…
For example, right now, the war in the Middle East, or the impending war, the war that just stopped and we are not sure is it a ceasefire or a complete cessation.
It’s a complete cessation.
It’s a cessation of hostilities.
Is it a peace?
Be that as it may, how will it affect what will happen if the Suez Canal is blocked and so on and so on?
A lot of anxiety over this.
We spend a lot of anxious hours over this.
We spend a lot of time in, frankly, useless conversation because the people who are talking all this will not be affected one way or the other.
Because even if the stock market crashes, the only people who are affected are the people who have…
stocks.
If you don’t have any stocks, if you are a mom and pop shop, you’re selling something, then somebody is buying those things from you.
You are a farmer, you are a carpenter, you are a mason, you are a plumber, you are somebody with a trade.
This is the beauty that people don’t seem to understand.
If you have a trade, if you have something that is saleable in terms of your efforts, then you are a farmer.
You are a farmer.
You are a mason.
You are a plumber.
You are a farmer.
You are a shepherd in terms of your knowledge.
No market crash can ever touch you.
But people don’t want to learn that.
They think it’s infradict.
How can I be a plumber?
So don’t be a plumber.
Stop.
That’s nicer for you.
Right?
Always be somebody else’s slave.
It’s up to you.
I mean, you can free yourself by learning a trade or you can be a slave all your life.
Anyway, that’s a side note.
Here’s this hangar.
This is where the plane, this man’s plane is.
You can see the heavy equipment that is around here.
He’s a tobacco farmer.
So what I’ll show you is the tobacco barns where they dry leaf tobacco.
The kind of tobacco they grow is not what goes into cigarettes.
This makes cigar wrappers.
So this is the tobacco that is used.
This is the bulk of the cigar.
There’s some other tobacco inside.
Except that most people are not for cigar nowadays.
So those are the hangars.
Those are the tobacco drying sheds.
They have slats on the sides.
So the slats open and air flows through.
Very much like what we used to have to dry rubber, sheet rubber in India.
What you see here are the tobacco plants, the broad leaf.
And what I’m coming up here with is the cornfield.
Mace.
Mace, corn.
Makai.
That is what you see in the tarmac beyond this truck is the landing strip of the plane.
So there we have this.
Now why did I stock all of this?
I’m saying all this because, as I said, the complication of risk.
Now what Allah SWT tells us about risk, and this is where the guardian knot, as I said,
is the best thing.
Because it’s the story of Hercules and how he cannot, nobody can untie this knot.
And he says that the best thing is, is it Hercules or Achilles?
I’m not sure anyway.
He pulled out his sword and he cuts through it.
And the knot is open, obviously, but it’s cut.
So the guardian knot that confounds us and we should tie it up.
We should tie it up.
And it is that of this sickle, this worry, this concern about our sustenance.
What will happen to me?
What will happen to my family?
What will happen to this one, that one, the other one?
And so on.
What will happen to the market daisies?
What will happen if I, if there is a war?
All of this stuff Islam shows us and tells us the solution.
And the solution is that what will happen to you?
Is what your Rabb, Jalla Jalaluhu, wants to happen to you.
No war, no economic upturn or downturn, no market collapse, no market anything can affect
you negatively if your Rabb does not want that to happen.
And the converse is equally true.
None of this stuff.
And the opposite of that, which is a bull market, stocks going up, wealth coming in,
all of this, it will not affect you positively unless your Rabb and my Rabb wants that to happen.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala makes it very clear.
Allah says,
قُلْ إِنَّ رَبِّي يَوْسُطُ رِزْقًا لِمَنْ يَشَاءُ وَيَقْدِرُ
وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا حَلَمُهُ
He said, Jalla Jalaluhu, say to them that it is my Rabb who enlarges provision or restricts it.
But most people don’t understand this.
Now this is where we need to, where we need our religion.
So anyone dying of anxiety about this is nothing to be anxious about.
Allah said He will feed us, He will feed us.
Now therefore what must I do? I’ll come to that in a second.
Let’s first get this thing out of our worry meter.
So what will happen? What Allah wishes to happen, will happen.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala mentioned the issue of risk many times in the Quran, many many ayats.
And so look it up.
I will not go into all the ayats here, but many times.
And the message is always the same because there is no contradiction in the Quran.
One ayat does not cancel out the other.
And so therefore the message is always the same, which is that it is Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala who is al-qabiyyul aziz, who is in control.
Right?
إِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الرَّزَّاقُ ذُو الْقُوَّةِ الْمَتِينِ
Allah is the one who is the Ar-Razzaq.
Not just Rajaq.
He is Ar-Razzaq.
He is the one who provides everything we need.
And remember risk is not only food.
It’s every conceivable need.
Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.
All of this is risk.
What you receive is risk.
What you give is also risk.
To learn is risk.
To teach is risk.
To earn is risk.
Charity is risk.
Because each of these,
in turn, earns us something.
When I’m earning money, I’m earning money.
When I’m giving in charity,
I’m earning in hasanat, in good deeds.
And therefore,
that also is rizq.
So as we think about that,
I want you to think about this and say,
my risk is fixed.
Now,
Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in the famous hadith of Ibn Abbas,
R.A.
Who said that,
he said, I was sitting on
the back of
the
right
back of the mount of Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam behind him.
And you can imagine this small boy
riding behind Rasul Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
on his horse or his camel,
holding onto his,
maybe holding onto a belt or holding onto him
on the back.
And
Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
tells him,
he says,
Ya Ghulam,
he said, oh boy.
And he says to him,
if you worship anyone, worship only Allah.
When you worship, worship only Allah.
And he says,
if you ask for rizq,
ask only Allah.
He says,
have,
I mean,
I’m trying to translate this into English in a way that makes sense.
In fact, it means protect Allah.
Obviously you can’t protect Allah.
It means
protect
your
connection with Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala.
And Allah will protect you.
Right?
If you worship Allah,
if you worship anyone, worship only Allah.
If you ask for help,
ask help only from Allah.
And then he says that the
destiny has been written,
the pants have been lifted,
the ink is dry.
Now, very good worry is,
which
I request you,
you know, read it,
think about it, reflect on it.
So therefore, what is the worry?
Now the second part to this which I was mentioning is,
it’s not only the worry,
it’s other thing is the questions that come with regard to
how you earn.
So the obvious thing is that if
my sustenance is fixed,
and I’m going to get what has been written for me,
irrespective of what I do or don’t do.
That’s the meaning of Allah saying,
Allah is the one who decides,
and he is the one who gives and extends.
He gives provision more or less.
So therefore,
my working,
does it have any effect?
Short answer, no, it has no effect.
Then why should I work?
It should work because you’ve been told to work.
You should work because you’ve been given the choice to work.
You work because
working is a way in which
we earn hasarat, we earn good deeds.
Because when a person is
engaged in halal risk,
trying to earn halal income,
this person is
in a state of worship.
So he’s getting
his reward with Allah .
If you had, for example, take somebody who’s in a coma,
and his risk is not finished,
he will get his coma, his risk,
through the rice tube,
through his nose, down the esophagus,
he’s in a coma.
But is he getting hasarat for this?
Well, he’ll get hasarat, he will get,
he seems to be forgiven because of his illness,
and so on and so on.
But,
it’s not the same as somebody who’s engaged in
working for a living,
and who is
resisting
all haram ways of earning,
even though they’re available to him,
like they’re available to anybody else.
But he’s not doing that, he’s
working and earning halal.
Big difference.
So the second person
is the one who’s going to get reward for that.
So therefore, what we need to focus on is,
how am I earning?
Not how much am I earning?
How much is fixed?
How is opened?
The way I explain this also,
as you imagine that there’s this huge
warehouse, right? Like,
you have your Costco or
K-Mart or whatever, big, big warehouse.
And in this warehouse
is everything
that has been destined for you in your life.
Animate, inanimate,
whatever allows it.
Money, wealth,
of different kinds,
you know,
power, authority, education,
your family, your children,
you name it,
every single thing that has, that is destined for you
is inside this warehouse.
And this warehouse has a full
glass front, so you can see,
you can look through that, you can see everything in there.
Red, all of it belongs to you.
All of it is yours. All of it
is just waiting for you to come and take it.
Now, the warehouse has two doors.
One on either side.
One door has a
tag, a label on top
says, which says halal.
The other door has a label saying halal.
Now, obviously you can see
that no matter which of these
two doors you enter, whether you enter
through the door which says halal,
or you enter through the door which says haram,
what you are going to get
is exactly the same thing.
The contents of the hall,
the contents of the warehouse, do not change
because of the door
through which you enter.
So now imagine you are standing in front of the door
which is marked haram.
The door has
an automatic opening system.
There’s a camera with a camera.
You look up at the camera with the camera,
takes a picture of your retina,
and retina recognition, which is unique
to you, the door opens.
So you are standing there, you look up
at the camera, the camera clicked,
the door opened, and you are about
to enter.
As you are about to enter,
your friend calls out and says, stop.
You stop. He says, look,
don’t enter through this door
because it is marked haram.
If you enter through this door,
everything that you touch, everything
you take, will become a
source of punishment for you.
Even though it is yours, even though it belongs to you,
you take it in the wrong way,
and it becomes a source
of punishment for you.
Turn around,
go to the other side, there’s a door called
halal, which has exactly the same
opening system. It recognizes your retina
and opens for you, and
you will get into the warehouse,
and you have access to all the same
things, beyond exemption,
and you will also
have hasanat. Allah will reward you
for using that door.
So you say, okay, this makes sense.
You turn around. As soon as you turn around,
the door shuts. The haram door shuts because
the camera is now
seeing the back of your head.
Then you panic. You say, oh my god,
this is shut. Now what do I do?
What if the other door,
now shaitan is there with you, and shaitan says,
look, forget this guy, he’s talking rubbish.
What if you go there and you find
the other door does not
open? Then what will you do?
What will you do?
What will you do if the other door
does not open?
Right? You panic.
And you turn around, the haram door opens again.
And you say to your friend,
hold on a second, I’m going through here.
I don’t know about the other door.
The friend says, look, for God’s sake, believe me.
Believe me.
This is the way I tell them.
So you say,
I’ll tell you what.
You go to the other side,
you get that door open for me.
And you go to the other side, you get that door open for me.
And then I’ll come.
Tell me, how does the door open?
By a retina scan.
The retina scan is exclusive to who?
To you.
If it
is looking at somebody else’s
retina.
So what do you say to the guy?
Say nothing.
Say alright, I did my best.
I tried to warn you.
I tried to tell you.
You didn’t listen.
I’ll lie.
What is to happen, will happen.
Now, my brothers and sisters,
my submission to you.
This is life.
This is what is happening to us on a daily basis.
Shaitan brings for us
things to do with risk,
with sustenance,
and says that,
take it like this.
Take it like this.
Earn through
convenience stores.
You say, well, you know,
I’m selling tobacco,
I’m selling cigarettes,
I’m selling liquor,
alcohol,
I’m selling lottery tickets,
all of which are haram.
How does it work?
Shaitan says, don’t worry about all that.
Allah is the most forgiving.
What can you do?
You are living in a haram system.
You are living in a country that does not run according to the Sharia.
And therefore,
in this country, all of this is halal for you.
Don’t worry.
Whose fatwa is it?
Shaitan’s.
Who accepts it?
You.
Does it make sense?
You tell me.
You tell me if it makes sense or it doesn’t make sense.
Right?
See these beautiful flowers?
These are all wild flowers
absolutely by the roadside.
And see them.
Beautiful, beautiful things.
They are all beautiful.
So this is what we do.
So clearly Shaitan tells us
do day trading.
Do day trading.
Buy, sell, buy, sell, buy, sell shares
in the day.
Don’t take possessions.
Just buying and selling.
This is not permissible in Islam.
You are not allowed to sell something you don’t possess.
So you can buy something,
you take possession of it, and you can sell it.
And as long as you are buying and selling
shares, there is no problem with that.
You can do that.
But if I am buying and selling within 30 minutes,
within 20 minutes, within an hour,
and I have not taken possession
because there is no way I can take possession
in that period of time,
then this is not halal.
Shaitan says, man, come on.
Give me a break. This is America.
This is the 21st century.
Right?
Forget all this halal, haram, and all this stuff.
It doesn’t work.
All of this is old-fashioned stuff.
Which is, you know,
went out of fashion decades ago.
We are living in a different world.
Forget all this.
And may Allah have mercy on us.
Some of us
listen to shaitan.
Day trading.
Similarly, futures trading.
Right? Futures trading.
Which is even more haram.
If I can use that term.
More haram.
Futures trading.
Something which doesn’t even exist.
In the future.
And you are trading that today.
You are making money on that today.
Islam prohibits that completely
and totally
without exception.
This is the thing
which I want to talk to you.
I want to tell you what.
Similarly, take cryptocurrency.
Again,
cryptocurrency
is at best something which is
doubtful.
It’s among the things
on which the jury
is out.
There is no clear decision from the
scholars of Islam.
Is it halal? Is it dhara?
The short answer is
we don’t know.
So what must we do with things we don’t know?
We must find out.
And until we find out, we don’t do.
The one
the hadith which is considered to be
one of three
which completely and totally
encapsulates Islam.
Everything is Islam.
Three hadiths.
And the hadith is
Al-Halal Ubaien Wa Al-Haram Ubaien
Wa Bayna Huma Mujtabihaat
The Prophet
said in this hadith
The halal is clear.
The haram is clear.
And between the two, there are
doubtful areas.
And in the hadith
again, one of the three
of the greatest of the hadith
narrated by Hassan ibn Ali
the grandson
of Rasulullah
where he said that
my grandfather said
leave that which is
haram
leave that which is doubtful
for that which is not doubtful.
Leave that which is doubtful
for that in which
there is no doubt.
So cryptocurrency
at best
is something in which there is doubt.
Now when you are operating
with this complete and
total certainty and belief
that Allah is my Raziq
Allah is the one who provides
and nobody else
Allah is the one who provides
and nobody else
then why
do you need to get into something
which is doubtful?
Wait until
there is a clear
opinion on this
then at least you have
some grounds.
And then of course
if the opinion of the scholars
is clear, by all means
please go ahead.
But until that time
until that time
save yourself.
Seriously I request you
save yourself. Stay away
from futures trading
which is completely haram.
Stay away from
day trading which is
also prohibited.
And at best highly
highly doubtful.
And stay away from cryptocurrency
which is also
among the things which are
in doubt and therefore it is something
which I certainly do
not recommend you
to go into.
I say before this, I ask forgiveness of Allah for me and you
and for the Muslim people.
So ask forgiveness of him.
Indeed he is the Most Merciful.
Now , 他但是
denen
As-a�실
I seek a robyn
of
Allah
“.
Same type
O Allah
Yes there is an
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