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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wasalatu was-salamu ala ash-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen, Muhammadin Rasulullah ﷺ, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kaseeran, kaseeran.
Habib Abad, brothers and sisters, I am on the bank of the Zambezi, the great Zambezi River, which is also the international boundary between Zimbabwe and Zambia. I’m on the Zambian side, and it’s early morning just after Fajr, and it’s an absolutely incredibly beautiful scene. As you can see, the sun has just come out, and it’s just a ball of fire; I can’t possibly describe for you how beautiful it looks. The river is huge— as I said, it’s an international boundary between the two countries, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
You are allowed to use the river; you can go boating on it, fish, and so on, but you cannot get off on the opposite side, whichever side you came from, because that would be a violation of the boundary of the other country. And if you get caught by one of the patrols, then that’s serious. The river has a very strong current, as I can see, and the scene is incredible. We have been hearing hippos all night just now as I’m standing here, and I constantly hear hippos. They are in that grass which you can see, kind of midway between the two; they are in there somewhere, somewhere. Just now we also heard lions roaring on the other side, on the Zimbabwe side. Sometimes you can see them. They also come across. This river has some pretty serious crocodiles. But you know, I mean, animals have a way of dealing with the challenges in their environment. So if they want to get across, they get across.
The depth of the river, as far as I can make out the channel, of course will be deep, but otherwise the width suggests that closer to the shore, it’s probably not as deep as that. Where we are standing, it is probably deeper than the other side, on the opposite side. I remind myself and you that Alhamdulillah, Allah ﷻ created us and gave us the tawfiq and the ability to see His creation, and we have been very, very fortunate to have friends who invite us to come and see, and that’s what we are doing here, just looking and marveling at the creation of Allah ﷻ Jalla Jalaluhu.
Madrasa sisters, we come into this world for a very short time, and then we go. It’s not whether we came or we didn’t come; it’s about what we did when we were here.
Ismail was telling me yesterday about a conversation he had with a friend of his, who talked to him about a lead— somebody who was interested in some photography and so on and so forth. So, he said, “the friend said to him, ‘you know, that’s a wonderful lead.’ So, he said to him, ‘it’s not the lead that is important, it’s whether it is converted or not that’s important.'” Then, can you convert that lead into a profitable deal? And that is the key thing.
About this, you know, we all, uh, or many of us at least, celebrate birthdays, and you know, we’re very happy: “Oh, this is my birthday,” and “that birthday,” and so on. The issue is not the birthday you and I had no control over, either with being born or on which day we came into this world; that was not in our control. What is important is what you do. What did you do with this life which was given to you? Did I live my life in a way where Allah described? He said, “the gardens under which rivers flow.” This combination of land and water, greenery and water, is so intrinsic to us; it’s so internal, it’s so powerful. Mindful that, you know, Allah ﷻ is drawing attention to that. He said even in Jannah, this is what InshaAllah Allah ﷻ will give us: Gardens through which, and in which, and under which rivers flow.
The, here I’ve seen there’s a motorboat that looks like a patrol boat on the other side; you can see it going quite fast, and yeah, I think that looks like a patrol boat. And on this side, there are these two fishermen in their boat, uh, going along.
Jaise Zambizi aur dousron ke tor par jo main nahi chahta hoon ke iske liye infisal karon, kyunki yeh ek bohat ehtiyati baat hai. Aap jante hain ke infisal karne se crocodiles, hippos… infisal karne se hi hippos hain jinhone ye mauqa nahi infisal kar raha hai. Ye mauqa hai Allah Subhanahu Ta’ala ne inhein yahan paida kiya hai, ye apna ghar hai. Agar kisi cheez se hum inhein infisal kar rahe hain… but how the life we treat what Allah has created with respect, then we have right to enjoy that and to see the hand and the face of Allah ﷻ in it.
Allah ﷻ said anywhere you turn, you see the face of Allah ﷻ. Obviously, “face” does not mean that; we don’t mean that or say that in an individual sense. Face means the presence of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala’s creation, His presence of His power to create, which we see in the world around us. And that’s what is meant by the face of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala. So, the thing is to say, what did I do? That is the question that will be asked.
So, I remind myself and you that a good way to lead life and a good way to be in this life is to think about the questions that we will be asked on the Day of Judgment, and to live our lives in a way where the answers that we will have to give to those questions will be answers that will be pleasing to Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la. So we will not be asked; the key thing to think about is, that these questions that Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la, Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us that Allah will ask us— none of them has to do with the quantum of everything. Because we will be asked: How did you spend the life I gave you? The time I gave you? How did you spend that? Allah will not ask how much time did you spend on the earth? Why did you not live to be a century old? He won’t ask this question because that’s not in our control. Allah gave us a lifespan, and we cannot live longer, we cannot live shorter. Suicide is haram. I can’t jump into the river from here and say, “well, I’ve had enough,” no. So, quantum-wise, we are not going to be questioned about. What we will be questioned about is the quality of that: what did you do in the life that I give you?
Similarly, Allah ﷻ will not ask us whether you know we had youth or not; obviously we did, but the question will be: what did you do in your youth? How did you spend it? The third question that Allah will ask us is to do with knowledge. Allah will not ask us how much knowledge did you acquire? I’m not against knowledge, obviously, you know, the more we learn the better, but the focus in Islam is on living that knowledge, on using that knowledge in a powerful, in a productive, in a positive way, not just accumulating the knowledge for its own sake. This is what the priestly classes did the world over. They took knowledge, they kept it secluded very secluded to themselves and their own ilk; they put a penalty on anyone else trying to acquire that knowledge without their permission. And there are stories about this to illustrate both sides in the mythologies of all religions. And then they also twisted their knowledge, uh, to their own, uh, in their own way, and Allah cursed that unless that you sold the word of Allah for a cheap price. So the question will be asked: What did you do with that knowledge? Did you communicate? Before communicating, did you live by it yourself? There’s no sense in me talking about the power of Salatul Fajr when I have not prayed myself. The power of Salatul Fajr comes, and I have a right to speak about that only if I am praying Fajr myself. So it’s very important for us.
Having said that, conveying something good, even if you have not started practicing yet, is permissible. It is a good idea. For example, to tell people, “don’t smoke.” “Don’t smoke cigarettes.” It’s harmful for you. Even if you are smoking, to tell people, “don’t do what I’m doing.” This is no problem with that, InshaAllah. And the idea I’m saying “no problem” is because the hope always is that if you keep telling people, “don’t do something evil,” then maybe SubhanAllah, Allah will give you the tawfiq also to stop doing that evil if you have been doing it.
And the last question that we will be asked on the Day of Judgement has to do with wealth. And Allah will not again ask you, why were you not so wealthy? Why didn’t you have, you know, why didn’t you earn a trillion dollars? Allah will ask: What did you do with the wealth that We gave you? Where did you earn it from? And where did you spend it? This is the question. Question. Where did you earn it from and where did you spend it? Now that is the question that we have to think about and say that Allah gave me whatever He gave me, Alhamdulillah.
And in Islam there is no prohibition or any discouragement to earn wealth. In my view, the biggest proof that Islam does not prevent us from becoming wealthy is the elaborate laws of succession that Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la gave us in Surah An-Nisa and elsewhere. If it were haram to earn money, if it was not permissible to have wealth, then there would not have been any laws for the distribution of that wealth after you’re gone. So the very fact that we have very elaborate laws of inheritance shows that to earn wealth is good, alhamdulillah. The question is, where did you earn it from? That source of earning—was it halal or haram? Were you indulging in interest-based banking, or were you indulging in borrowing on interest, or were you indulging in usurping the rights of other people? Uh, what were you doing? And then where did you spend it? That’s the other one: which is, did you spend it in halal pursuits or in haram pursuits? Uh, did you take this wealth and uh, you know, spend it in ostentatious parties and ostentatious weddings, or lavish lifestyles, and so on? Or did you spend this wealth? You enjoyed it, Alhamdulillah; nothing wrong with that. Nobody says “live in a hut,” nobody says “you know, don’t buy a car” or anything, but you’re buying that car for transportation—is that what you’re buying? Are you thinking, do you think that this adds value to you, makes you a more significant human being apart from anything else? That is the most demeaning thing that you can do to yourself because you’re equating the creation of Allah with your own creation, and that itself is… those to it. So anyway, this is what will be asked.
So four questions: What did you do with the time (meaning life)? How did you live your youth rightly or wrongly? Uh, what did you do with the knowledge that Allah gave you? Did you live by it and did you propagate it? And the fourth one is: Where did you earn your wealth from and where did you spend it? So I remind myself when you let us continuously and constantly remind ourselves and others about this and try to live a life which is beneficial and which is InshaAllah pleasing to Allah ﷻ.