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*This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. *
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My brothers and sisters, how many of you like to have fun? Everybody ready? What is fun? Can you define what is fun? Good time? Okay, what else? So give me some examples. Example of fun or fun activity. Basketball. Basketball. Horse riding. Horse riding. Swimming. How many of you actually do swimming and horse riding? I don’t think everybody does. What you do, I’m talking about. Swimming you do, okay. Okay. Water. Okay. Soccer. Okay. Anything else? Gym. Gym. Okay. YouTube. Now you’re getting some truthful answers. TikTok, right? I thought we got a few people who never see YouTube, never see TikTok. When you say basketball and soccer, are you professional basketball players? Do you intend to be one? No. Point I’m making is very simple. My point is all of us have a defined number of hours, minutes and seconds on this earth. Everyone, right? We don’t know the exact number. How many I have I don’t know. But I know I have. So many breaths. And when I take my last breath, whether it’s coming in or going out, that’s it. So in this time, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala does not subtract all the time that goes into something which is not really getting me any real benefit. Right? So the things that you described, for example, tell me what is the real benefit of watching basketball for somebody who is not a professional basketball player? Enjoyment. Enjoyment. So what is enjoyment? To be happy. Right? Do you think Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam enjoyed life? Do you think he had fun? Do you think the sahaba had fun? They enjoyed life? So how can they enjoy life when they are standing in sala the whole night? Here we have a situation where the qari in Ramadan, I’m not exaggerating, I am witness to this, you all. When the sheikh, no matter how beautiful the qaraat, if the sala is three minutes more, four minutes more, five minutes more, we complain. Sheikh, please tell him to recite longer. Please tell him to recite faster. That’s why I give up. I go and sit in that corner. I said, don’t talk to me. Yes or no? Am I exaggerating? Am I lying? So how was Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam getting fun out of this thing? Strange, no? Same qaraat. Did the qaraat change? What Sheikh Abdullah is reciting, is it different from what came to us? Same thing. So how come he got fun out of this? How come the sahaba got fun out of this? They would stand behind the wisa sallam. There is a beautiful hadith where Abdullah was called and then the sahib was called. They came and they decided one day to pray behind the wisa sallam. So they came and stood and he, in that sala, in the whole of that sala, he recited only one ayah. Which ayah is that? Anybody remember that hadith? Which ayah did he recite? Only one ayah. He repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated. So the next day, between them they said, we should ask. He said, no, you ask, you ask, you ask. So then the sahib said to him, Abdullah was very much, he loves you more than himself, so you ask him. So he asked him, he said, ya Rasulullah, we came and prayed behind you and you recited only one ayah. Why did you recite that? Rasulullah said, I was making dua for my ummah. This was my dua for my ummah. The ayah itself, as you know, is isali salam. This is what isali salam means to Allah. Jalla jalalu wa thadey ajmaat. If you want to punish them, they are your slaves. But if you want to forgive them, innaka anthal azeez ul hake. You are the all powerful and you are the all knowledgeable and the all wise. And Rasulullah said, I was reciting it as my dua for my ummah. The point I want to make for you and me is that we live in a world where we have made society, we have made life itself so hard and harsh and toxic that we need time out to go and do something else to forget this life, to detoxify ourselves. People say work life balance. I’ve always found these statements to be, these terms to be ridiculous. When people ask me what about work, I say what is work life balance? What is work life balance? Have you heard this term, work life balance? What is that? I love my work. So what is work life balance? The point I want to make is we have a specific number of hours, minutes and days, days, hours, minutes, seconds. Not one second more, not one less. Whatever we use that resource for, it is from the same, there is no extra thing for it. You can’t say, Allah, I am not a basketball player. I will never be a basketball player, but I’m going to spend one hour watching basketball. Don’t add, don’t take it out my life. Give me some from somewhere else. Have you ever heard, have you ever seen a team win because there were people sitting in the stands and screaming? Does a team win because of that reason? Yes or no? I’ll tell you how basketball teams win. I was watching an interview of Kobe Bryant. They asked him what time do you wake up? He said four o’clock. He said why four o’clock? He said because if you wake up at eight o’clock, by the time you get ready to go to the gym, it’s about nine. You go to the gym, work out for two hours, 11 o’clock. You come back home, you take two hours off to recover, eat something and so on. That is one. You go back to the gym at one. By the time you get there and so on, it’s say two to four. Right? And you get maybe, so that you get what two hours of two hour shots or two workouts. And that’s you get. He said when I wake up at four, in the whole day I can get six to eight workout periods in the 24 hours for my game. Now my point is that is how you win basketball. Not by watching basketball. By spending eight to ten hours in the gym, practicing and working out, you win basketball. Now if you’re not going to do that, then you are kissing goodbye to that one hour or two hours of your life span to get what? Enjoy. What enjoy? What is enjoyment is seeing somebody throw a ball into a hoop? For God’s sake. Right? What’s so enjoyable about that? Some guy throws a ball into a hoop, where you go? What’s that? This is all mental conditioning. Believe me, we have been conditioned. What is enjoyable about seeing somebody throw a ball into a hoop? For God’s sake. Does this sound enjoyable? Likewise for somebody kicking a ball around in the field. We have been conditioned to do this. Why? Because somebody makes money. Think about that. When you are giving up your life span of two hours, someone is going to the bank with that. You are donating your life to someone else to make money. Why is this broadcast on prime time TV? Because it makes money. You know what prime time TV costs in this country? Go look up the numbers. They have hours of that. Why? Because it makes money. Why does it make money? Because you sit there and donate your life to it. It’s your life. It is your life. So my reason and point I am making is, fun, you must define what is fun. Have fun. But have fun doing something which is beneficial. Have fun running. I have fun walking. Sometimes I do my khateras on those walks. So those of you who watch these things on our channel, you will see nice videos of sceneries and so on and so forth because I am doing the khatara while I am walking. My submission to you is, please, value your time. Value your time. My point is, when opportunities are provided and you don’t take advantage of that, then don’t blame anyone if your life goes down the drain. It will. I guarantee you it will. Because Allah SWT is just. Somebody who is putting effort and energy into his life, who is learning, who is improving his skills and competence and so on and so forth, and you are not doing that. You are watching basketball or soccer or God knows what. Believe me, you are not equal. You are not equal. So you choose. You want to look back on your life and say, I was the greatest basketball watcher in the world. Or you want to say I was a rocket scientist or I was a brain surgeon or something. Those are options. Every single one of them is an option. I tell people develop a skill. Do you know in this country, in this city of West Springfield, a qualified plumber with a license makes more money than one of the physicians invested? Do you know this? That poor doctor spends 12 years learning medicine. He makes less money than a plumber. So why don’t you learn plumbing? Why don’t you learn plumbing? Seriously, my brothers and sisters, take your life seriously. We have as whatever span Allah gave us for every one of us, it is reducing. Somebody my age is almost gone. But we can’t say that about younger people because you don’t know how much age you have. So the Prophet Muhammad said everyone was treated like it is gone. He said, don’t say salaam. Don’t think you will say salaam. Which means what? So treat it your life. I’m not talking about myself. Your life. Treat it with respect. Value the time which Allah has given. And make sure you account for every minute of that and say what did I get out of this? This one question, just ask one question. What did I get out of this time I spent? Whatever it is, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, what did I get out of this? I’m sitting at my Xbox and I’m doing foreign games. What did I get out of that Xbox? What did I get out of whatever I’m doing? If you are satisfied with that answer, I’m good for you. But if you are doing something which is, I’m not talking about haram. Please understand this. I’m talking about halal. It’s not haram to watch basketball, but it’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of your life. It is not haram. You do it. But it is a waste of your life. That same one hour you spend reading a useful book, you are getting knowledge. Say one hour run on the street. In one hour you will do at least, if you are walking you will do 4 miles. If you are running you should be able to do 8 or 10 miles, right? Then see your body after one month. Say one hour, multiple uses. Say one hour stand in sala and say, Allah, I want to get close to you. I want to close with this. Recently somebody sent me a TikTok of this interview with this very senior priest. He had been preaching for 40 plus years. So the interviewer was asking him, what is your advice to young priests? What is your advice to young priests? Guess what he says. He says, tell them, forget seminary. Forget all their seminary degrees. Do only two things. He says what? He says, read the Bible and pray a lot. Read the Bible and pray a lot. He says, the way to get close to anyone is to spend time with them. So pray a lot. If I simply change the word from Bible to Koran, I would be saying that on the member. Say one hour, stand in sala. Everyone must have been you. This time we have is not coming back. It is not coming back. There is nothing extra. You can’t buy it. So use it with respect for yourself. And ensure that you can account for every minute that you spend. And you have an answer to say, what did I get from this?
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