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My brothers and sisters, I remind myself anew that if you want to measure success and failure in life, how do you measure it? Any ordinary person. I want to measure, say take my career, if I have a successful career or my career going down the drain, how do I measure that? Marriage, is it successful or not successful? Children, I’m raising children, successful or not successful? How? Compared with? Others? That’s one way. Pure reviews, pure comparisons. Effectively, whether you do it comparatively, you do it with pure reviews, you do it some other way, you are basically measuring your assets and liabilities, right? What did I gain? What did I lose? So what did I spend to get what? What is profit? Profit is where you spend less to get more. You cannot measure profit only by looking at what you have. You have to see at what cost did I get it. So if I got something which has high value at a lower cost, then I made a profit. But if I got the same thing at its regular cost, then it’s not a profit. I got the market value. If I paid more for it, then I have actually the same thing, but I made a loss. I remind myself when you… that when we stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, it is the same standard, the same criterion, the same measurement, measuring stick we should use. What did you spend and what do you get? What did you spend, what do you get? In this world, in our life, we have the opportunity to do two things. One is we have the opportunity to spend things which have everlasting value. Or we have the opportunity to spend something which has temporary value. So if you spend something which has temporary value and get something which has everlasting value, then you are on to a good thing. That is the best way of living life. I’m giving something which I would have lost anyway and I got something which is mine forever. But if I do the opposite, I’m giving up something which I could have had forever to get something which I would lose anyway. Makes no sense, right? If I give up something which I could have kept forever, an earning asset which would have been mine forever, I give it away and I got something which at the most is temporary, I will lose it anyway. That’s a dumb deal. But the opposite, if I am spending something which is temporary, in any case I would have lost it. And in exchange for that I get something which is going to be mine forever, that’s a fantastic deal. Just to give you an example, we talk about charity. We are coming to Ramadan, so we are going to get some fundraising here. We talk about charity. So give in the path of Allah, sacrifice in the path of Allah. I tell people, forget this word sacrifice. It’s a lie. There is no sacrifice in Islam. What are you doing? You are taking some part of your wealth which Allah gave you. Let’s face it, how many of us stand here and give the equivalent of the value of your car which you are driving? I am not saying nobody does it, but how many? So you give something and in addition, by giving that what are you getting? We are getting an everlasting reward with Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. Allah said this is with Allah and Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala will return it to you in keeping with His majesty embrace. The minimum of that is man ja’abil hasanati falahu ashur amasalia. Someone who brings one hasana, Allah will give him ten likewise. And then Allah said He will multiply that by 700 and begai risa. So something, now you say okay, if I don’t give that, sure it’s your wealth you can keep it. It’s not haram not to give, but even if you keep it, how long will you have it? You don’t have to die to lose it. You lose it probably but before that in many ways. Whereas if you take this and give it in the path of Allah, effectively what am I doing? I am transferring my wealth. Whenever I think about charity I think of it as wealth transfer. I am taking it from this account and putting it into another account. That’s it, wealth transfer. It’s very easy to understand for those of you who have spent any time in the Middle East, it’s very easy to understand that because in the Middle East there’s no such thing as a green card. There’s no such thing as permanent residency. There’s no such thing as citizenship. You can stay there for you know 100 years, they still won’t give you citizenship. You still have to go back to wherever you came from. So people are used to this concept of earning, working very hard, deliberately living in very modest circumstances and transferring all the rest of their surplus money back home to whichever country, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Egypt or wherever it is, they send the money back to their home country. They can actually afford to live in a, you know, they don’t stop it from doing that. I mean if you live in Dubai you can afford to live in or any country, whether it matter, any of the Middle Eastern countries, you can afford to live in a palace if you like. No problem. You can’t own the palace but you can live in it, you can rent it. But even your own friends will tell you what kind of stupid it is, why you’re spending all this money. You won’t be here. Even if you tell them one day I said I’m going to go to Dubai, one day I had this discussion with a friend of mine. I proved to him that it is stupid to do what he’s doing. Because I told him you’re going to be working. He came to Saudi Arabia at the time he was 25 years old. I said you will be here, say let’s say, let’s, you know, stretch it and say you will work for 40 years. Usually it’s not 40 years, usually about 30 but they said take 40 years. By 40 years you will be 65 years old. Let’s give it another 5 years, 70 years old. When you go back to India at the age of 70, how long do you expect to live? Another 40 years? Maybe you live 5 years, maybe you live 10 years. So to live for 10 years you are living in hardship for 70 years or 40 years or 45 years in order to have some level of luxury for 10 years, doesn’t make sense. But we still do it. We still do it. It would make much more sense to live in luxury here for 40 years and then go and live. After all when you are 80 years old what do you want to do anyway? All you need is a, you know, is a small house and you’re fine. But we don’t think like that. But with Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala this is what we are saying. Weigh every moment of your life, your time, your assets, your money, your company, your efforts. And wait and say what am I spending to get what? I’m spending time to get what? I’m sitting in this company to get what? Alhamdulillah every second that you are sitting here, Nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said the one who’s in salah, as long as he stays in the place of salah and as long as he’s not discussing worldly matters, as long as he’s remembering Allah subhanahu that entire period is counted as if it is in salah. So the time up to the salah, so he comes early, he’s sitting there in zikr and so on and so forth, he prays salah, after salah he’s sitting in zikr, he’s sitting in akhatira, he’s sitting reciting quran or whatever he’s doing until he leaves the entire time is considered as being an act of worship, as salah. So unless you are going off from here directly, you know you have some burakhs waiting outside to take you to the harem to make tawaf, there is nothing better you can be doing than sitting here. So you spend some time. How much does it take? Even if I talk for the next one and a half hours, they’re still about you know one and a half hours. What? Compared to what? That’s what we need to do. We need to analyze and say I’m spending something to get something. This is the standard. Whatever you’re doing, consciously unconsciously, you’re spending something to get something. What am I spending to get what? And always ensure that you are spending less to get more. You’re spending something which is temporary to get something which is permanent. Make sure you do that. InshaAllah we are home and dry. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to help us to live lives which are productive, which are beautiful, which are beneficial for us and for all those around us. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to help us to invest in our lives and then to make those investments multiply in keeping with His majesty and grace. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala for His safety and protection. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala for His help from sources that we cannot imagine. Wasallallahu ala nabi’ al-karim wa ala ali’hi wa sahbihi al-main. bi rahmatika ya rahmatu al rahimina wal hamdu lillahi wa at-tawfiq.
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