Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | Youtube Music | RSS
Auto-generated transcript:
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ash-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen, Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kaseeran kaseeran. Fama ba’du.
My brothers and sisters, we were talking about the importance and the power of following the Seerah and Sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ in times of stress. We discussed how that helps us to get over that stress and to understand the realities of this dunya which Allah created. I remind myself and you that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala did not tell us to follow the life of the Prophet ﷺ only when there is stress.
Allah said: لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ (Surah Al-Ahzab 21). He said, “For you, the best example is the example of the life of the Messenger of Allah.” A good example is the example of his life. And Allah then mentioned the people for whom the life of the Prophet is the best example. He said: لِمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُو اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَةَ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا (Surah Al-Imran 139). This example is the best example for those who look forward to meeting with Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, who look forward to the Day of Judgment, and who remember Allah a great deal.
As I remind myself and you, Allah described the Day of Judgment in such tremendous terms, such awesome terms. Where He described the trials and tribulations of the Day of Judgment. He described the calamitous happenings that will happen on that day. That to use the word *yarju*—including the meeting with Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, the meeting of Hisaab.
وَلَوْ تَرَىٰ إِذِ الْمُجْرِيبُ وَاللَّهُمُ مَنْ عَلَمَهُمْ وَلَا يَعْلَمُونَ نَاكِسُ رُؤُوسِهِمْ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ رَبَّنَا أَبْصَرْنَا وَاسْتَمِعْنَا فَرْجِعْنَا نَعْمَلْ صَالِحًا إِنَّا مُكِنُونَ (Surah Az-Zumar 56)
This is the description of the meeting with Allah. May Allah have mercy on us and may Allah protect us from this. Allah said, “O my Nabi, when you see them standing before Allah, their heads hanging in shame, and they will say, ‘O Allah, we have seen and we have heard, send us back into this world so that we become obedient slaves.’ This is the meeting. This is the meeting with Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala of all the people except those on whom Allah has mercy.”
How can it be? Everybody look forward to this. It will happen. Whether you look forward to it or not, it will happen. That’s a different issue. It’s not in our control. Whether anyone believes it or not, it will happen. One day we will die and then we will be resurrected before Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and then we will face what we have to face. This is our Aqeedah. InshaAllah, it is my Aqeedah. I have an intention to do a series on *Tasheev ul Aqeedah*, the correction of the Aqeedah. It’s important to do this every year. I normally do it. So, InshaAllah, some day we will start. So, the point is, this is our Aqeedah. Our Aqeedah is that we will meet Allah.
Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala is not talking about this as something which is inevitable. We know this. The sun will rise. We know this. What is important is what will you do. So, here Allah is saying *yarju allaha wal yawm al aakhirah*—Those who look forward to that day. Now think about this and say who can look forward to a day about which Allah said: “When the earth shakes with its shake, and the earth throws up its throw, and man says, ‘What is happening?'”
إِذَا زُلْزِلَتِ الْأَرْضُ زِلْزَالَهَا (Surah Az-Zalzalah 1)
And so on and so on. Allah mentioned the Day of Judgment in terms which are so tremendous. Yet Allah is saying there will be people who will look forward to this day. May Allah make us among those. Who are these people? These are the people who followed the Sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ.
Allah said the example of Muhammad is the best example for those who look forward to the meeting with Allah and look forward to the Day of Judgment and who remember Allah a great deal. Now, the obvious logical conclusion is that anyone who looks forward to this day will be somebody who believes that the horrors of that day will not be visited upon him. Who believes that the horrors of that day, the difficulties, the trials and tribulations will not affect him. And this is not a figment of his imagination. This is not mythology. This is not something that he is imagining in a state where he is drunk. This is something which is based on his own amal, on his own life, on his own behavior, on his own actions. Where he knows that he tried his best to please Allah by living his life according to the Sunnah of the Prophet and he made continuous Istighfar and Tawbah for all the mistakes that he would have made inevitably in that. Right? So somebody who has continuously made Istighfar and who has also tried his best to live his life according to the Sunnah of the Prophet. This is a person who looks forward to the day when he will meet Allah InshaAllah. Because he knows that he or she will be protected from the horrors of that day. What will happen on that day will happen but this person will be protected from that.
So alhamdulillah, it may be happening but it’s not happening to me. So I am fine with that. Right? Like we have for example *Ta’ala Allah wa la man saal*—in terms of weather, it may be very hot outside but you are sitting in an air-conditioned environment so it doesn’t affect you. The environment, the outside has not changed but you are safe. It may be minus 20, minus 30 outside but you are sitting in a heated environment so you are fine. The fact that there is an… When you look out of the window, looks very nice. Oh beautiful, so much snow and so on. You are not… You are saved from the evil effects of that. You are only seeing the good thing. Oh so beautiful, the snow is so nice. You go out there, you know what is the meaning of snow. When they take one deep breath and you know what is the meaning of death, your lungs will freeze. You can’t breathe anymore after that. So the point is, however, but you are sitting in a heated environment. Doesn’t affect you.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala will keep certain of his slaves and we ask Allah to make us among them who He will protect from the horrors of the Day of Judgement, who will be given the shade of His Arsh on a day when there is no shade except His shade.
Allahumma Azillana Tahat Arshuk Jawma La Zillu Illa Zilluk (O Allah, shelter us under Your Throne on the Day where there is no shade save Yours).
This was the Dua of Rasulullah ﷺ. Who will Allah give the shade to? The one who follows the Sunnah of Rasulullah. And that is why Allah gave us this Sunnah and He caused the Seerah of Rasulullah to be preserved with such sincerity by his Sahaba. Bless them and grant them the best of best in the Akhiyah. They recorded every detail of his life so that people who come after them could follow them. They used to follow and they recorded it for us so we can follow. This is the importance of the Seerah. So we follow the Seerah both in terms of hardship and in times of plenty. So we ask Allah to make us among those who follow His Seerah.
So in this case as I said, Alhamdulillah, we may be living in times which we think are difficult. But we must understand that Allah Ta’ala creates everything for a reason. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala allows difficulty to happen for a reason. And that reason is to bring us back to Allah. So that we return towards Allah. So this is a period that Allah Ta’ala is giving us which is a period of… It’s a gap. And it’s a time when Allah is giving us some time to make Istighfar and Tawbah and to turn towards Him. Because Allah said: “The trials, tribulations, difficulties, calamities which are spreading on the sea and the land are because of the deeds of human beings.”
Allah is saying very clearly: Allah does not change climate. Allah does not warm the oceans. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala does not cause Pandemics and epidemics to happen. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala does not cause wars to happen. Allah did not make the war. Right? Whichever war it is, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala did not come down and start this war. So people are people. They complain, “Oh you know look at the difficulty. We are in a situation that is very difficult. Look at the reason for the difficulty.” Why is the difficulty happening? Whichever war, whether it’s the current war which is happening in the Middle East or any war, who started? Allah started this war? Did Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala come down from His Arsh and start this war? Who started the war? People started the war. So if you start the war, finish the war. End it. Nobody stops you. Nobody stops you from saying, *khalas*, we are done. Whatever we did, let us make amends. No. Because we have got used to this miserable way of living our lives. We destroy, we build, we destroy, we build. It’s a cycle of destruction and rebuilding which happens because there are a bunch of billionaires who make money out of it. There is no other reason. Wars happen because wars make profits. As simple as that.
They make profit for a bunch of people. People like you and I don’t matter. For the people who make profit, wars happen because they make profit for them. And they make profit in two ways. One is the building of armaments. So you need a war to finish your stockpile so you can build some more. And the other one is the cycle of destruction and rebuilding. So you build something, you destroy it, you rebuild it, and you destroy it again and you rebuild it again and destroy it again. And you do that in places where you don’t live. You don’t do that in your own countries. If you want to destroy and rebuild, why don’t you destroy your own countries and rebuild? You can do that. No, no, no. We don’t want to do that. We’ll destroy your country. We’ll rebuild your country. Thank you very much. So then we look so, you see, after we’re giving you so much money to rebuild your country. I don’t need the money to rebuild. You are giving me money to rebuild the country because you destroyed my country in the first place. This is the cycle that’s going on and unfortunately the world is stupid enough to believe it.
So, you know, what to do? But anyway, the long and short of it is that, Alhamdulillah, Allah Ta’ala gave us this sight. Allah Ta’ala gave us this *basira bil Qur’an*—because of the Qur’an, by the Qur’an, where Allah said: “Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by virtue of what the hands of people have earned.” (Surah Ar-Rum 41).
Liuziqahum ba’dal lazi amilu la’alhum yarjiwahum (Allah allows it to happen for some time so that you turn towards Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala).
So, even in the pain and the suffering, there is a goodness and that goodness is that it turns us towards Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. And that is still a goodness because you might say, well, you know, I’m after all my… for whoever it is happening, his whole life is destroyed, his family is gone, they are all dead and so on, so on. Even that is suffering something which is Khair because his family would have been dead anyway. His life would have been dead anyway. He or I would have, we would have died anyway. But if we die after making Istighfar and Tawbah, if we die after returning to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, if we die after making, seeking forgiveness for our sins and we die in a state where Allah has forgiven us, then what comes hereafter is forever. That will not end. If I die in a state of disobedience, the pain and suffering that will come, which will start with my death will not end.
Allahumma usta’a. May Allah have mercy on us and Allah protect us. Similarly, if I die in a state of forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, the pleasure and the relief that comes after that will not end. We ask Allah for this, InshaAllah. So even the difficulty, Alhamdulillah, we always say Alhamdulillah. That’s the reason why we say Alhamdulillah. Even the difficulty, the best that we have in this life will end. The worst that we have in this life will end. But what comes in the Hereafter will not end, whether it is good or it is bad.
If somebody dies, people say, “Oh, you see, at least his pain is over.” We don’t know this. We do not know this. He may have been in pain and if he lived a life of evil, now after he dies, his pain will increase and that pain which increases will never end. His pain has not ended. His pain is now starting. And what is starting is much worse than what he is feeling now. So we ask Allah to save us from this. Whereas if the person dies with Istighfar and Tawbah, that’s the reason why it’s so important. I remind myself and you, let us do it right now. Ask Allah to forgive us. We ask Allah to forgive us. Astaghfirullah al-Ladeem. We ask Allah Ta’ala to forgive us and to have mercy on us, InshaAllah. If we die in that state, then Alhamdulillah, indeed our pain has ended, indeed our suffering has ended, even if it was there and even if it was not there and we ask Allah to keep us in a beautiful state until we die and to take us in that state, InshaAllah, then what starts after that will be much more beautiful, much better and much more pleasure and much more relief.
We ask Allah Ta’ala for this, InshaAllah. We ask Allah to give us *Khatima bil Khair*. We ask Allah to give us a life which is pleasing to Him. We ask Allah to give us a life which is pleasing to everybody. We ask Allah to make us individually and collectively means of goodness and Khair and Barakah for anyone and everyone who comes into contact with us. We ask Allah to be those who will be a means of blessing for whoever we touch. We ask Allah to be pleased with us and to save us and to save all our families and to save all the Muslims and all the good people wherever they are and to keep us specially in the best condition. In His care. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi al-main bi rahmatik ya Rabbi.