Mirza Yawar Baig – Actions are proof of Eman
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of learning Islam and avoiding fear in order to walk. They also touch on the ins and outs of the Afghanipping culture, including small children and their parents speaking Arabic. The guarantee of a successful professional career is based on probability and evidence, but there is no guarantee of being alive. The speaker emphasizes the importance of finding evidence and finding evidence in life, and the need for evidence-based education to convince people of their success.
AI: Summary ©
As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh.
Munir and I have reached kind of halfway
mark or so in this trek around this
beautiful lake.
And we're having a discussion and talking about
certainty.
and I was saying to Munir that, just
walk, just take slowly, walk in slow motion.
Just see Munir's steps, what is he doing?
Right, he's taking a step forward.
Now, when you're taking a step forward, ask
yourself, what am I doing?
What you're doing and what anybody's doing is
you are consciously taking a decision to upset
your equilibrium because the safest position for a
person is to stand squarely on his feet,
the width of his shoulders, his feet apart,
the width of his shoulders and stay there,
don't move.
That is the safest position.
But if you take that safe position, then
you are not going anywhere.
You're going to be standing in one place
until you drop dead.
So that safe position is safe, but it's
not of any use to anybody.
So what do we do?
We consciously lean forward.
Just walk and see, you can practice this
yourself.
When you're walking, what are you doing?
You're consciously leaning forward, knowing that you will
fall, knowing that there is a chance of
you falling, and then automatically, it has become
automatic, when you were a little kid, one
year old, one and a half years old,
it was not automatic, you did it consciously,
but automatically your leg comes forward and stops
you from falling.
That is called the process of walking, to
consciously choose to lose your equilibrium.
Put yourself in danger of falling and then
move the other leg to stop yourself from
falling.
If by some chance your other leg gets
caught in the carpet or somebody trips you
or something, you will fall.
You will actually fall flat on your face,
right?
But you walk because that is the only
way that we can get ahead.
Nobody says be safe, don't walk.
No, you have to walk.
So we were talking about the attitude that
we have to learning Islam.
And I'm talking about people like me and
people like probably most of you who are
listening to this podcast.
People who have been born Muslims.
In my family, I know that my ancestors
have been Muslims practically from day one.
From my mother's side, they came from Medina
and from the time of Prophet Muhammad.
So they've been Muslims for 14 plus centuries.
From my father's side, they came from Central
Asia.
So they were probably Muslims for maybe 1000
years or something like that, 1200 years.
So Muslims for generation after generation after generation.
We never saw anything else.
We never saw anything other than Islam.
We never saw our parents, grandparents, whoever worshipping
anyone other than Allah.
Now that's a good side of it, Alhamdulillah.
But the problem side of it is that
therefore, we don't have enough value for Islam
that Allah gave us.
And by enough value, I mean that we
think it's just like the air you breathe
or the culture or the mother tongue we
speak or something.
It just happens.
And it's okay if I don't know all
the ins and outs of the culture.
It doesn't matter.
And so forth.
So we don't take trouble to learn.
One of the simple things that we were
talking about is that we see in our
mothers are here, children of the Afghan refugees
who are here.
Small children, we're talking about little children who
are 7 years old or something.
Those kids, they read Quran much better than
the children of the Arabs.
Even though the children of the Arabs are
listening to, hearing Arabic all the time.
Their parents, grandparents all speak Arabic.
They have Arabic channels running on the TV
and everything else.
But they have not learned to read Arabic.
Nobody taught them.
They send them to the school.
Alhamdulillah there is a school.
Alhamdulillah there is someone to teach them here.
But if that hadn't been there, they would
just not know.
And I know this for a fact because
I know people and I have met people
who are in their 30s and 40s, 50s
even, who could not read the Quran.
Just nazir.
I'm not even talking about reading it, understanding
the meaning.
Just nazir.
Alhamdulillah I mean they don't know how to
read that.
They don't know the letters.
And it is not surprising, it's not a
question of saying how is it you are
an Arab and you don't know.
Learning doesn't come by osmosis.
Learning doesn't come through the air.
A person who studies knows.
If a person doesn't study, he doesn't know.
So that's why we have people who are
old enough but they have no knowledge.
Now Mudir Alhamdulillah is studying medicine in Lansing
in Michigan.
Family lives here in West Springfield.
Michigan is a couple of thousand miles away.
And I was saying to him that why
are you there?
Why are you studying medicine?
Because I want to become a doctor.
Why do you want to become a doctor?
Because that's a great career.
Inshallah I look forward to having a successful
long career.
And we make du'a for him and
I ask you all to make du'a
for him.
May Allah grant him.
Make him a beautiful doctor with the best
values.
Who is in it not for the money
but for bringing relief to his patients who
ever comes to him.
And may Allah put shifa in his hands
inshallah.
And make him a great diagnostician and help
him to help others.
And make his work a source of sadaqah
jariyya for him.
Now so he goes from here, leaves his
family and studies in Michigan.
Obviously he comes and visits but that visit
is once in several months.
Because there he is studying from morning till
night.
There is no time to do anything else.
All of this because he hopes to have
a long and healthy life.
He hopes to have a good career.
He hopes that what he is studying will
still remain relevant and valid.
And that AI won't take it over and
something else won't take it over.
And you know he suddenly finds himself with
a bunch of knowledge that is useless.
He doesn't believe all that.
He believes that this will not happen.
He believes that what he is studying will
remain relevant.
And therefore he is making all this effort.
Now question, as I said may Allah grant
him, keep him safe and grant him a
long and healthy and productive life in the
service of Allah swt and his deen.
What is the guarantee that he or I
or anybody will even be alive?
You know 10 minutes from now, forget 10
minutes.
Nabi s.a.w. said don't even believe
that you will make the salam, the two
sides of the salam.
You make one and you are dead before
the other one.
Hamdulillah if that happens it is a good
way to go because you are going in
salam.
But the point is it is showing the
impermanence of this life.
So what is the guarantee if I am
going to medical school, if I am going
to engineering school, if I am going to
anything studying for a career, what is the
guarantee that I will be alive?
To take advantage of that knowledge.
There is no guarantee.
It is all based on a hope.
It is all based on probability.
It is all based on a hope.
And you say what is this hope based
on?
It is based on nothing.
It is just a hope period.
I hope it will happen.
Based on what evidence?
No evidence.
Right?
Yet we do it.
Whereas the fact that I will go into
my qabr.
Is that a hope or is that a
certainty?
The fact that I will be resurrected, I
will be brought out of my grave.
Is that a hope or is it a
certainty?
I am asking Muslims.
I am asking people who said La ilaha
illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah.
The fact that I will be called before
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on the day
of judgment.
Is it a hope or is it a
certainty?
The fact that there is Jannah and there
is Jahannam.
Is it a hope or is it a
certainty?
Right?
And I know the Sunday school answer to
that.
That's no good.
Because obviously I will say yes to all
of these.
It's certainty.
And supposing then you put a, you know,
you take a video of my life.
And you find that my life I am
doing things.
I am disobeying Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
from morning till night.
What Allah made fard, I don't do.
What Allah made halal, I don't eat.
What Allah made haram, I eat.
I earn my living in ways that Allah
has prohibited.
And my excuse is, oh you see this
is America, this is Europe, this is this
country, this is that country.
Here unless I sell haram stuff, I cannot
eat.
I have to feed my family and usual
stuff, you know.
Then where is this, where is the truth?
When I say that I believe with certainty
that I will die, that I will be
resurrected, that I will be called to account
before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Where is the evidence of this?
Because with Allah, Jalla Jalaluhu as we know,
this chattering like monkeys that we do in
this world won't work.
We have to show evidence.
And our body will speak.
And our hands and feet will speak.
And our eyes and ears will speak.
And our tongue will remain silent.
So what are they going to say?
We are writing our own books.
This walk that we are doing, Muneer and
I, may Allah make this part of his
ibadah.
May Allah put this into our scales.
And may Allah bless Muneer because thanks to
him I'm making this walk.
He comes and picks me up and we
come and spend this time.
MashaAllah Allah has given me these sons, Alhamdulillah.
I won't name others because then others will
say I forgot them.
So Alhamdulillah Allah gave me so many of
them, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah.
And I say to them jokingly and sincerely
that the best part of it is that
I didn't pay any of their bills.
So I got all these sons of mine
for free, Alhamdulillah.
And I hope that when I'm dead they'll
make dua for me, Inshallah.
And that I ask Allah to accept their
dua for me.
The point I'm making is that this is
being written.
Muneer is writing it in his book, I'm
writing this in my book.
And this is being written by Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala in our books.
And on the Day of Judgment we will
see this.
We will see the two of us walking
in this place, this beautiful Khudrat of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Walking through snow, everything is white, all the
streams have turned into ice, Alhamdulillah.
And we're remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So I remind myself and you, let us
get real.
Because Allah said, Allah
said, from the people there are those who
say, Allah is not saying they deny.
Allah is saying they say, That we believe
in Allah and we believe in the Day
of Judgment.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is guaranteeing
and saying, But they are not Muslims, they
are not from the believers.
May Allah save us from this and not
make us among those who are mentioned in
this ayah, Inshallah.
We are looking at the stream which flows
into the lake.
And it's frozen, but if you see here,
it's not entirely frozen.
If you look carefully at that hole, the
water in that is, You can see the
water flowing under the ice.
So there is a certain amount of ice,
but under the ice, the water is still
flowing.
Here you can see it like ghostly going
under the ice.
And there you can see it also clearly,
water flowing under the ice.
So there is a layer of ice and
there is water under that.
And this is also, bin Allah ta'ala,
this is also the Khudrat of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, That is for the benefit
of those who live in these waters, The
underwater creatures, the fish and the amphibians, others,
Who still have liquid water to live in.
If the thing froze solid from the top
to the bottom, then they would just freeze
to death.
But they don't because Allah has kept them
alive and gives them their rizq In an
environment which seems completely devoid of anything to
sustain life.
Subhanallah.