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Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil-‘Alameen. Wassalatu wassalamu ala sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasoolullah ﷺ wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasleeman kathiran kathira. Wa ma ba’du, my brothers and sisters, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said, Qul seeru fil ardi fanzuru kaifa bada al-khalqa. Allah said, go and tour in the land. Travel in the land and see how we have created our creation. Kaifa bada al-khalqa, how we started creation. How we created the creatures of this world. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said, Inna fee khalqis samawati wal-ardh, wa ikhtilafan layli wal-nahar, la ayaatin li uli al-albaab. Truly in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of the day and the night, are signs for people of intelligence. My brothers and sisters, I am standing here, just outside of Kruger National Park. This is basically the same place where I recorded yesterday’s reminder. I am deliberately recording this one also from the same place to show you how the place changes just by the time, just by the amount of light. Just as the sun set yesterday, yesterday’s was a little earlier so you could see the sun set today. The sun has gone, but the glow remains. And it’s a completely different scene. It’s a totally different scene. And as we know, in the morning when the sun rises, it will be a completely different scene. And when the sun is at its zenith, it will be a completely different scene. The structures remain, but just because of the play of light, the reality changes. And this is the khudrat of my Rabb and your Rabb, Jalla Jalaluhu. He paints; there is a bird, there is a bird, which is praising Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. He paints on a canvas that we cannot even fathom and imagine. The magnificence of that canvas, the magnificence of those paints, and every single sunset, and every single sunrise is different. And Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala does not care who watches. Those who are fortunate enough to watch it, and to praise it, and to see His signs, and His greatness, and His glory, and His majesty, and His hand in what He is showing us, these are the fortunate ones. May Allah ta’ala include us and make us among those fortunate ones. Make us among those, people who He called Al-Uleel Al-Bab. Now, brothers and sisters, go around, look around yourself, go into nature, go into the forest, go sit under a tree, and reflect on the glory and magnificence that you are sitting under a creature that came out of a seed, a little seed, which is a micro-fraction of what the tree is today. What is the proportion of an acorn to an oak? What is the proportion of a seed of a big, say, for example, a ficus bengalensis, the banyan tree, the seed that comes out of it, it’s a fig, the seed from which that tree grows. What is the proportion of that tree, of the seed to the tree? What is the proportion of the seed of a baobab to the baobab tree, which has a lifespan measured not in decades or in centuries, but in millennia, in thousands of years. And this is, out of that seed grows this creature of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, which is freestanding, which breathes in carbon dioxide and breathes out oxygen, which is self-generating, which propagates itself, which gives shelter to insects and animals and birds, which provides food, which provides shade in the summer, which provides shelter from the rain, and which stands there in all its glory and majesty, braving storms, braving lightning, braving gale-force winds, as a sign of the glory and majesty of its creator. Do we sit under that tree and think about this, and say that this is a tree, the trees that we so easily and happily cut down to light our fires or to light our fires in the homes or wherever, or to convert that tree into paper, without a thought, without a thought of what we are doing. This is the glory and majesty of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala in all his creatures, from big to small. I spent the whole day today in Kruger National Park. We saw some beautiful sights of the creatures of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. We saw herds of elephant, herds of buffalo, Cape buffalo. We saw a magnificent kudu, huge male, magnificent in the twisted horns, the markings on the face, as if he has painted his face to go to war. We saw a huge leopard, just peacefully walking alongside the road. The herds of impala, pairs of steenbok and draca, which pair for life, the monogamous. Amazing, the power of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. And we glorify the creations of our Lord, Jalla Jalaluhu. My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala made us thinking creatures. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala gave us a capacity that He, at least to the extent that we know animals, I never like to speak with great authority because we don’t know enough to say yes or no. But to the best of my knowledge, we human beings have a faculty and a capacity that Allah has not given to animals. And that is the capacity to think, to reflect. Animals also think, animals also learn lessons. They know what is dangerous, what is not dangerous. They know what is beneficial, what is harmful. And they learn these lessons. They teach these lessons to their young. The big cats teach their cubs to hunt. A tiger, for example, a tiger cub does not know how to hunt. Until its mother teaches it. And so on. But it ends with that. But with us today, we read the works of authors, of philosophers, of teachers who lived 2000 years ago. We read the Quran al-Kareem which Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala sent to His Nabi ﷺ 1500 years ago. We read the teachings of Rasulullah ﷺ which he taught to his Sahaba 1500 years ago. And these come alive and these are real for us. And similarly other things. We have people who have been given the capacity to think in terms of math, for example. To look at the laws of physics and the laws of chemistry. To understand biology. To understand science and technology and to invent tools. To invent enormous, enormously powerful machines that can move mountains even though we as individual human beings may not even be able to lift 100 kilos. But the machines we create can move mountains. I am endlessly fascinated with looking at factories, looking at machinery, looking at assembly lines. And the question in my mind always is how did the first person who invented this, what was he thinking? How did he come about, how did he come upon this idea that this is how something should be created in order to get the final product? All of these capacities have been given to us by Allah which Allah did not give anybody else. But the root cause, the root reason for all of this is to loop back, to complete the loop and bring it back to glorifying Allah and saying Yaarab is only because of you. You are the one who has the knowledge and you are the one who gave me the knowledge. You are the one who gave me the understanding. So therefore open my eyes. Open the eyes of my heart to your glory and majesty so that my heart can be filled with the Nur of your presence. My brothers and sisters, I remind myself and you that this is the actual reason why Allah created us. وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونَ بَمَعَانَ إِلَّا لِيَعْرِفُونَ Except that we worship Him and except that we recognize Him. So I remind myself and you let us think let us reflect let us remember and let us praise and glorify Allah Go and travel in the world. Go to the natural places. Go and see the creation of Allah as He created it. SubhanAllah this Kruger National Park is a marvel. It’s a place to go here and to see what Allah has created and to make dhikr of Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala and to praise Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala.
Ala, this is sheer Ibadah. Alhamdulillah. And that is something that I love to do myself and I strongly recommend to all of you.
صل الله على نبى الكريم وعلى آله وصحفه أجمعين برحمته يعرفون ورحيمين والحمد لله رب العالمين